Guild Wars 2

Khenzy.9348:

Chronomancer

Alacrity (prof. effect). It’s now considered a boon. It can now be stripped and corrupted. Corrupting it turns it into Chill.
Alacrity duration needs to go down significantly, it’s a ridiculously powerful effect. Even more so now that I consider it a boon which can have its duration extended by boon duration (Concentration) and other sources. Consider reducing Alacrity duration from All’s Well tha ends well (trait), Flow of time (trait), Improved Alacrity (trait), Well of Recall (utility), etc.
Continuum Split (prof. mechanic). It no longer affects Elite skills. Double Gravity Wells, Moas, Time Warps and Mass invis go bye bye… for obivous fraking balance reasons, that’s why Sherlock. Stop crying, you know I’m right.
Tides of Time(shield). Changed stun into a daze. It may seem random, but CC as a whole from Chronomancers needs to go down significantly. This particular skill is incredibly strong on its own, a 1sec stun is just way over the top.
Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.
Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.
Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

1) Alacrity as a boon would be a bit mental. Better to just adjust one of the other things and leave it as a separate buff.
2) I actually agree that elites shouldn’t be allowed to be double-cast. When I whack a group with a double gravity well or Time Warp I always laugh because I can’t quite believe I’m being allowed to do it.
3) Tides of Time seems fine to me. The wave animation is pretty obvious and it’s also easy to avoid the retuning wave. I’d happily see the stun duration decreased though but with compensatory increase wave speed and/or a 1/4 time so it can be used for clutch group interrupts.
4) Gravity Well casts and Signet of Humility casts are pretty obvious. I don’t think the cast times need to be increased.
5) Restorative Illusions needs seems like a non-issue. Mesmer can burn through shatters to remove a condi burst = those shatter likely weren’t used for offence. Other condi removal traits on Mesmer are very specific and not particularly viable, so I think Restorative Illusions needs to remain in its current form. The healing always felt redundant to me.
6) Bountiful Disillusionment could do with some toning down, although the presence of stability is fine itself. Would be better to reduce the duration to 3 seconds and see how that goes. It is just a single stack after all

I remember when my guild would put together fun zerg busting groups that were actually successful, because the game used to be in a state that rewarded skilled well thought out play. I think it started to go down hill when the Rapid Fire buff came in in conjunction with the change to stability that massively empowered the zergs and just shut down small roaming groups completely, resulting in tiresome pirate ship battles as all the other classes realised it’s better to just stand far away lobbing ranged attacks. Then the specialisation update happened and balance was thrown out the window by allowing most classes access to too many offensive and defensive traits at the same time, rendering the original well designed class strengths and weaknesses, that are a fundamentally important part of “learning” the game, redundant. The nail in the coffin was the expansion which just exacerbated these major balance issues and brought with it Coalescence of Ruin which has ironically ruined the game mode.

Then you’ve got all the tedious gimmicks added to WvW, like Iron Will on guards/lords and -75% damage to siege (just awful) plus those banners that just ruin battles. Then there’s the new map, that’s just full of annoyances – barricades to prevent roamers getting around (does nothing to hinder zergs), loads of dead ends and winding paths that take you out of the action (major pacing issues – poorly designed), a central PvE event that just empowers zergs and causes massive lag issues and auto-upgrades that removed all meaning from a game mode that thrives upon player-player interactivity (where’s the drive for taking an objective, if you know nobody had a part in its upkeep?).

Luckily the auto-uprade thing is being addressed. But issues with WvW are so entrenched now that I’m not sure Anet could convince all the people that left to return.

The banners are pretty ridiculous and, just like Coalescence of Ruin, they often ruin what could have been good battles. Even a single Dragon banner is enough to trivialise an attempt of a push by a smaller havoc group. Very disappointing addition to this game mode.

This is a great idea. I like the idea of the final bolt becoming an “ether bomb” if you already control three illusions, applying confusion in an AoE around your target similarly to mantra of pain.

Making True Shot reflect-able would be a good start I guess. Adding a half second cast time to Test of Faith would be useful so you can actually see that a trap has been laid which is important for counterplay. Spear of Justice not being invisible half the time would be nice so you can actually prepare for Hunter’s Verdict which is basically Magnet pull without the obvious tell. There’s many questionable passive traits too but I think it’s the active play of Dragonhunter that could do with some clearing up.

He probably just didn’t know how to handle losing to an actual balanced elite specialisation that has well designed strengths and weaknesses.

Also well done for embracing your role as Thief. Hopefully bunkers are brought down to a point where this role has meaning again more widely.

Basilisk is absolutely fine. A one second stun that you can be applied to any attack on a 40s cooldown is pretty powerful. It has massive flexibility and can be used frequently relative to other elite skills in the game. It is my elite of choice for Thief always.

I don’t think a venom that lasted 3 seconds and could not be broken, would be particularly good for the game. Anyway, we already have that silly Jade Wind thing on Revenant.

I do remember that the stability change in combination with the precedent set by the buffs to longbow Ranger set the whole pirate ship meta thing in motion. It was starting to get a little bit better before HoT, but then Coalescence of Ruin happened and now it’s terrible again.

…but then she…turned herself inside out exposing the gruesome mush of human organs within.

Well at least it seems like Anet are planning a “She’s all that” style make-over. The question is: will we ever be able to accept her as our prom queen?

Scrapper and Dragonhunter are just far better, safer and more efficient dps choices. This is okay for Chronomancer because we have unique team support and bunker builds are still effective so a role still exists. But for Daredevil it just really sucks. The best Daredevil can hope for now in PvP is continued nerfs to popular bunkers builds allowing them to reprise the Thief role of roaming de-capper.

Feedback as requested:

1) Removal of automatic upgrades based on time is great. Now camps will be really important objectives to defend and dolyaks escorts are similarly important. This also make the auto upgrading of camps fine because they are so much more important to hold. Very good change.

2) Decreased supply cost for catapults should be fine. I think with the removal of auto upgrades over time will result in less objectives already being fully upgraded and therefore more people will use rams again.

3) I didn’t even realise point per kill had been removed. Is this just for securing a stomp? I feel it important to reward stylish/risky stomping only. Shouldn’t really give points when a zerg just rolls over a single person auto-attacking them to death.

4) 1 rally per defeated player will be an interesting change. How will this single rally be calculated?

5) Not being able to revive defeated players whilst in combat is such a good change. It might actually be possible for smaller groups to zerg bust again now. What will happen if you’re put in combat whilst resurrecting someone? Will the channel immediately stop?

• Other improvements for WvW will predominantly come from class balance. Coalescence of Ruin in particular is in dire need of some nerfing. It can be used every 2 seconds and can hit 5 players for incredible damage (17.2K is the most I’ve seen). This one skill has single handedly ruined large scale WvW. It would certainly be healthy for WvW if this skill is addressed as soon as possible.

Well of Precognition and Echo of Memory/De Ja Vu were changed in such a way that they were nerfed in sPvP, whilst being nicely buffed in PvE.

The Well of Precognition change was also a nice buff for WvW. Once you and your chums are in it, enemy players can’t even CC you now with Static Field, Line of Warding, Unsteady Ground etc. It’s hilarious.

But Diamond Skin with Elemental Shielding and Hardy Conduit is just about the funniest thing to do to a condi build in a 1v1. Even better if they’re in melee

Fear the purple egg for it shall be your undoing!

Auras just look so bad now and it’s so difficult to see them on targets which was a fundamental part of their counterplay. This change made the game look worse whilst also making it less fun to play. Love it!

Dawdler.8521:

Simonoly.4352:

I accidentally went near a Revenant. Won’t be making that mistake again!

But you are a Mesmer, how did he even see you?

The sad part is, the Revenant wasn’t even after me. That’s the last time I go flower picking in WvW!

I accidentally went near a Revenant. Won’t be making that mistake again!

I love that this skill exists in such an unbalanced form – it absolutely epitomises the state of the game.

Dawdler.8521:

- Auto-upgrade timer for keeps and towers changed to Progress Per Dolly or PPD (camps can remain on a timer)
- Next upgrade is triggered by a player at no cost by talking to a Lord (again, camps can remain on auto)
- No keep start with a waypoint, after T3 keeps you can start the ultimate T4 waypoint upgrade (acessable by anyone who own the keep).

And done. Auto-upgrades without it being kittened.

Great suggestions, although I think camps upgrades should also require player interaction before starting and require subsequent players to return and begin the next upgrade. Servers should need to have players maintaining upgrades at every objective so their upkeep has meaning for defenders and their conquering has meaning for attackers.

I adore the Daredevil traits. The leap finisher from Bounding Dodger has been transformative for P/P and condi clear on evade and weakness on crit are delicious. Staff is mediocre though, with its functionality pretty much revolving around Vault. Bandit’s Defense is amazing, but the other utilities are pretty useless. Elite physical is fun to use, but Basilisk is still the king.

I’d quite like to see some nerfs to Dragonhunter and Herald soon though so Thief can actually do something in sPvP.

That video is hilarious. Zerg trickles are just stomping gold

Mental Defense, Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma provide all the shatter fodder I could ever need, so I rarely use Deceptive Evasion (or duelling) anymore.

Kraljevo.2801:

Don’t make me reminisce about the metrornado days.

Oh gosh I forgot about that. I kind of love that it existed in a similar way to the night of the falling Mesmers…

I’ve spent a month now playing around in the new map and have some time to spare, so thought I’d try and give some constructive feedback if Anet happen to be monitoring this thread if any.

The good

1) New map looks gorgeous. Really beautiful and interesting to traverse. The varied terrain offers some interesting fights both for zerging and roaming. I’ve had some hilarious battles whilst roaming and have fallen to my death a lot.
2) The designs of each new tower are great. Interesting themes with different lords to mix things up. Nice work. I look forward to seeing what lords will be created for the future WvW maps.
3) Keep buffs are actually very fun to utilise. The stealth buff is probably the best designed of the three by creating a very much localised but very potent effect. It actually creates a very dangerous environment that you would be mad to walk through without first de-capping a shrine. The other two buffs are subtle but a nice addition.
4) Removal of gold sink in WvW was a great move. WvW players don’t have much gold really so this was the next step to making this game mode more approachable.

The not so good…

1) Removing the player interaction with base upgrades kind of removes a lot of the fun. There’s no satisfaction in capping a fully upgraded camp anymore because the enemy hasn’t allocated any time or resources to upgrading it. It’s now just a hollow PvE event that kind of just…happens.
2) Requiring absolutely no supply to eventually upgrade a keep also removes player interaction detrimentally. If you don’t get around to recapping a keep for a while, the players who eventually do are just massively inconvenienced with fully upgraded walls and such, where no enemy players having had any input in its strengthening. Again, just feels like a hollow PvE event now – like your fighting time instead of the enemy.
3) Guild WvW upgrades are buried under a mountain of time consuming PvE content. This just isn’t very fun – needs to be changed for the sanity of WvWers.
4) The big group event in the centre of the map just empowers karma trains/zergs and creates unfair scenarios. Whenever the event is up, enemy zergs just waypoint to the map for an easy, free -50% health to every door structure. It just doesn’t feel right that on the dot every hour or so you can just zerg this event as a preamble to karma training the rest of the map. It’s a disappointing event.

This is very normal in WvW. Coalescence of Ruin can hit for a good 8K+. Unrelenting Assault can also hit for a total of 14K+ against a single target. Then there’s True Shot criting for 10.5K (4 sec CD no energy costs) on Guardian. At least in WvW there’s little need to put yourself in danger trap wise but they still hit for ridiculous numbers.

Leaa.2943:

A-net can i please have my meteorshower hit with 10 k on each meteor.

To be fair, post specialisation update a meteor shower can hit another squishy for up to 7.5K per meteor, Fire auto does around 4K and Lava font similarly does 4K per tick. Ele is hardly struggling on the “cast and win” front.

A strong 1vX build and definitely worth a submission to the WvW section of meta battle – at least as a draft for further testing. It’s a WvW build and therefore not a balance concern, so don’t worry about that. Either way, I imagine it will be submitted by someone eventually – there is a close variant of this already in the PvP section.

Nice fight with the condi Mes at the end. All you really need to counter it these days is Inspiration and then you can pretty much treat it like every other Mesmer build…dodge shatters, anticipate stealth burst etc etc.

I was so glad to see Necro wells updated to work underwater……to find that Chronomancer wells simply don’t

With all that Mirror Blade can do, I found the nerf to be fair. I would rather see buffs to non-torch/shield off-hands to make them competitive.

I crash anywhere from 2-3 times an hour, especially when trying to do some of the chaotic meta events. I shall just keep on sending my error reports when it happens in the hope that stability will be returned in the not too distant future.

Doing event in Tangled Depths and get instant disconnect, try logging in to the same character and the Auric Basin loading screen comes up and I eventually get a code=1083:5:7:1595:101.

I can’t imagine Anet are actually basing these nerfs over forum cries. They likely have access to metrics that show them that a lot of people were struggling to get past certain events/challenges etc within a given time frame and therefore Anet has “adjusted” content to keep the community pace up. I guess that’s just how it goes.

On a personal note, it’s disappointing for sure as it eventually just undermines and devalues the experience as it becomes more and more trivialised over time by community sharing and general playerbase understanding anyway. A bit like the poor fate of dungeons/Orr

I’m fine with enemy numbers and damage being reduced but I don’t like how Anet are trivialising Hero challenges. I was looking forward to doing a rather tough hero challenge again this evening only to find out it had been down graded from a Champion to a Veteran. I then went to another Hero challenge expecting a fun fight only to find that the Champion mob had been removed entirely! I was really disappointed. Devalued the whole experience by requiring minimal to no reason for me to implement any acquired skill or previous learning. Also meant one less thing to need to do with other players…in an MMO.

With the 95% damage reduction from AoE/cleave when not focused, phantasm builds are so very good in PvE now. Quite transformative.

However, I’d say that alacrity and quickness on shatter does indeed encourage me to shatter more in PvE now. Knocking the last chunk of health off a mob when your phantasm attacks are still refreshing (especially when that mob is surrounded by other mobs) is certainly worth the effort of pressing Mind Wrack at the end of a fight now.

Crashed in story instances.

Seems that everyone crashed during Battle of Tarir a moment ago.

I also crash whenever I try to post a bug report in-game.

I quite like that the bounce logic requires entering melee range for optimal Mirror Blade burst – makes it a bit more interesting to use. By design, if there’s nothing to bounce off in the first place, then Mirror Blade’s potential damage will be lower. The upside being that it’s a 1200 range unblockable projectile on a 4.75-8 second cooldown that you can lob into a teamfight and see immediate results with. If you want Mirror Blade to do its full damage in a 1v1 scenario whilst sitting at 1200 range just summon a Beserker first and Mirror Blade bounce should be target>berserker>target>Mirror Blade clone.

I’m still a little unsure on the bounce logic regarding phantasms though. It appears that in most cases Mirror Blade prioritises clones/allies and additional enemy targets over phantasms. I only seem to be able to get Mirror Blade to bounce off a phantasm in a 1v1 scenario where there is no allies/targets/clones.

Is there any particular reason for the CC order? I personally would have had it as a pull>float>knockdown.

Power Lock only stuns with Confounding Suggestions. Mantra of Distraction is really quite mechanically different to Infiltrator’s Arrow too so giving them the “same treatment” would be confusing at best. All mantras are designed to be instant-cast at the expense of a long pre-channel. Mesmer can’t use any other channeled abilities whilst charging a mantra mid-fight. The icon displaying remaining charges is visible to opponents so, just like signets, you have information on their slotted utility and you can therefore often deduce what other utilities they are probably carrying (especially with Mesmer). That’s rather well balanced if you ask me.

Eugh CS is such a headache of a balancing issue. It’s ridiculous when paired with MoD and possibly Diversion (although it’s OTT nature is also highly amusing) but it’s a non-issue with other daze sources on Mesmer.

I’d be happy if they just removed the stun and made the trait a +50% daze duration.
I want me an extra half a second on my dazes!

I imagine Confounding Suggestions might be on the radar still for Anet. Wouldn’t be surprised if Blinding Dissipation gets a CD per target like Inepitude at some point.

I think it’s more likely that Mesmer will just see buffs to non-torch off-hands and possibly staff to ‘gently nudge’ players away from the s/t + GS PU.

I’d prefer to just get a UI rearrangement when taking Chronomancer. The 3 icons for illusions should just condense when choosing Chronomancer and F5 can then be shoved into its rightful place.

Mantra of Distraction. But it’s good with MoF too.

Trying it out today, it feels about as good as the old PU, so it’s still a fantastic trait for both power and condi builds.

Power shatter Mesmer is still incredibly powerful. You can still use Confounding Suggestions to inflict an untelegraphed instant stun with MoD which synergises with Mental Anguish to destroy other squishes in but half a burst rotation. Blinding Dissipation provides you with amazing active sustain in melee range. MR, IM and PU still synergise wonderfully well to generate a reliable upkeep of protection which gets even better with Chaotic Dampening. Master of Manipulation is still amazing even with just Blink. We found out that the cooldown reductions from The Pledge are intended to be as strong as they are. If you fancy it Inspiration provides you with everything you need to deal with conditions. Sword auto-attack got a well needed buff. Temporal Curtain was finally addressed. Portal got another ui change to aid us.

The only questionable thing from the patch was the ‘not quite there yet’ was the Chaotic Dampening percentage reduction and Duellist’s Discipline which still remains a really odd trait that will only really get use from, I’m not sure….full dire Mesmers with low crit chance? Seems weird to create a trait that does something that the Duellist was doing anyway with of similar traits.

Reducing the added stealth duration to 50% was the right way to go and I think the game will be healthier because of it. I think it would be fine if the Might was removed from the random boon list now. Chaotic Interruption can provide you with all the Might you could possibly want- let PU be a purely defensive trait to aid new players.

This was inevitable. I think it’s a positive change. Hopefully The Pledge gets a bug fix too.

I’d quite like for it to just be returned to +1 second of stealth, but remove the might and replace it with 1 second of resistance or something. I’d actually find that far more useful in sPvP, whilst also happening to solve a big problem in WvW.

WvW group reflect/shatter/interrupt: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8dlknhy0YpawVNQtGLqG0ZQGyRIDQB2ZZHO+2A-TFCEAB2t/ABPBgEV/ZLlgMp8rNdDIcQAA4CAQGg8FA-w

I’ve tried roaming with this, but it’s pretty tough especially as every other roamer is a s/t + GS PU Mesmer and can just out stealth me the entire time. But it has some great group functionality whilst still offering some great back-line gank potential. Should probably try using more Assassin’s for reflects, but I’m just so lazy now. Zerk with a bit of Knight’s/Cavalier’s/Soldier’s and I’m done

The counterplay to CS is what makes the skill so much more interesting. It would be far too forgiving if the rift couldn’t be destroyed.

There needs to be a certain amount of preparedness to CS usage otherwise it will just be boring to use and incredibly frustrating to come up against.

Roaming was always a ‘fringe’ activity that wasn’t really a part of what Anet envisaged with WvW so it has always struggled to remain a relevant activity along with GvGs. Then the specialisation update came along and killed much of the small group roaming scene that existed through the cataclysmic power creep. WvW has never had any form of bespoke class balance, so it was kind of inevitable that this would happen eventually.

Alex Shatter.7956:

Sometimes i feel like warrior ADHD types have crept over into the mesmer zone and taken over the mesmer meta with flashy, spammy DPS.

But I totally just 360 no-scoped that Thief with a difficult to land Prestige/Mirror Blade/Mind Wrack/blink combo bro!

Dungeons are so trivial in this game that it really doesn’t matter as long as you’re with a mostly competent group that are like-minded.

However, if you’re with a group that expects efficiency and meta template use, then it would be kind of rude to not play along.