(edited by Six.8051)
If it’s their way to make some more money from the gemstore, that’s one way to do it, but it still sucks.
I mostly just hate that I’m going to be stuck farming specific dungeons for effective stats while completely ignoring the others for this reason. I’d much rather farm effective stated gear from any dungeon I run.
(edited by Six.8051)
I noticed Berserker’s (Power/Precision/CritDmg%) gear wasn’t available on all of the dungeon trophy vendors in Lion’s Arch. Looking at other vendors, I noticed other stats sets aren’t available for some of the other dungeons as well.
Is this intended? If so, it sucks because it gives players wanting those stats no effective reason to run those dungeons. If they want the gear appearance from those dungeons with the stats they use for their builds, they’ll have to run one dungeon for the stats and another for the appearance, then transmute them together… that’s a lot of dungeon grinding.
Why not offer all the different stat sets on each vendor? This way, people can choose which dungeon they want to run without having to considering whether or not the vendor has gear on it that’s worthwhile stat-wise.
I, for one, will not be running Twilight Arbor anymore because of this bullcrap, so it’s back to farming CoF and Arah for now since they actually offer stats I can use.
yeah… finding issues with the new system. I ran all 3 paths of Twilight Arbor today with a friend who hasn’t ran them at all yet. Anyone who runs TA explorable modes knows it takes over 25-45 minutes per run depending on the group.
I got 60, 20, 60
he got 15, 6, 60
After the runs, he said he probably won’t be running more dungeons until this issue is sorted out because it’s not worth it to him if he’s getting “screwed” out of trophies. There is definitely something wrong when a guy who just hit 80, and hasn’t ran an explorable before, is getting less than 20 trophies at the end.
Also, I’ve noticed when the explorable runs are done, everyone in the group starts posting how many trophies they got for that run, and anyone getting less than 20 arekitten that they feel screwed over by whatever DR bug is causing the issue.
The Mesmer problem - Defensive Cooldowns + Heavy Damage. One needs to go.
in Mesmer
Posted by: Six.8051
while i don’t always agree with easymode, what he’s posted in this thread is spot on.
moa op? if you are having trouble dodging/interrupting/LOSing moa, that’s your lack of skill, build choice, or team support.
phantasms op? if you are having trouble focusing phantasms for 1-2 seconds against mesmers with phantasms builds, once again, that’s on you.
there is practically nothing a mesmer can do that you can’t evade with proper timing and/or use of your profession’s abilities, especially with good team support behind you. most of their abilities are decently telegraphed if you’re actually watching the mesmer amongst it’s clones. i still believe the majority of the community is confused about how to counter mesmers, and that’s the main reason why they seem OP to some people, even those of us who are playing them.
also, most things mesmers do is at the expense of something else. if we want to burst, then we sacrifice potential survivability. if we want to survive, we sacrifice potential damage. doing either of these simultaneously isn’t sustainable, so usually it’s one or the other for short periods of time, and both of these usually require proper timing, cd management, and setting up the right situation. it doesn’t just happen because i hit this or that button all willy-nilly… it’s planned and executed with precision (aka skill).
confusing your enemy is only one of few useful aspects of clones, and in pvp, their deceptive effectiveness scales with the skill of your opponent. good players will be able to quickly identify the mesmer amongst it’s clones, and the damage the player takes usually isn’t the indicator… it’s the mesmer’s movement, non-autocasting ability animations, user interface/call targeting, or lack of offhand that will most likely be the identifying factor for most players. the other useful aspects of clones as mentioned in previous posts: condition damage and shatter fodder
(edited by Six.8051)
From what I’ve seen the clones do target what I have targeted, but usually when I’m doing this, I’m in the middle of “trying not to get killed” and aren’t entirely paying attention. If you don’t have anything targeted, that’s when it just targets the nearest enemy, regardless as to what it is.
this is incorrect. the deceptive evasion clones always… always attack the nearest target. if you’ve noticed them attacking your current target, it’s because at the time of the evasion clone’s creation, you’re current target was nearest. unfortunately, this is the sad and heavily tested truth of the matter. my hopes for future mesmer changes include making DE clones prioritize current target > nearest target
I think it’s much better to mix and match clones and phantasms, and not be afraid to shatter a phantasm when the time is right.
i agree. learning situational timing on when or when not to shatter is key for mesmers.
about to eat burst damage with no immediate escape? low health and about to die with heal on CD? f4 distortion
running a clone factory shatter or condi build with all 3 illusions out and phantasm CD 1-3 seconds away from finishing? illusion’s focus target about to die? f1 or f2 for damage depending on situation.
running a phantasm build? throw ’em out there and shatter when necessary.
need to interrupt an enemy cast? f3 ’em in the face!
also, it’s relatively easy to pump out illusions if you build for it.
- sharper images trait should be removed and just added to illusion’s by default. most mesmers are basically “stuck” with taking this trait for their builds, and it’d quell some of the complaining/questions regarding the lack of clone damage.
- phantasms are strong as it is, so increasing clone damage to 25% would be too much damage output especially when combined with phantasm builds. I’d prefer to see a slight increase in damage output available from the mesmer itself, and less from phantasms by default, but if traited for for phantasms, a tradeoff of the mesmer’s potential damage output to the phantasm instead.
- deceptive evasion should give clones a priority on targeting your target over the nearest, but if nothing is targeted, it picks nearest instead.
- to see the potential power of clones, try one of the clone factory builds that focus on either shatter damage or clone deathing for condition damage.
overall, mesmers are pretty strong if you know what you’re doing. it could use some small tweaks here and there, especially with the multitude of worthless trait “options” available, but i’m still quite happy with my mesmer so far.
(edited by Six.8051)
pro fatty tip: next time you make a blt, add some peanut butter to the inside of the top slice of bread, and if you’re extra adventurous, toast the bottom slice and while it’s still hot, melt a thin layer of butter (dairy) into it.
i’ve actually stopped my world completion and display “no title” simply to avoid giving my enemies 1 more way of finding me among my clones. hopefully they address the UI issues for mesmers in an upcoming patch.
I wish iwarden was either ground targeted, so I could decide where to place it for projectile deflection/traited reflection since it currently tends to spawn behind or to the side of the target itself, so once the enemy moves away from it, iwarden becomes worthless unless I run over to it’s bubble.
It’d also be nice if it ignored obstructions like iberserker does because it’s too inaccurate to use iwarden on walls in WvW since it’s almost always obstructed. I usually end up having to use t-curtain and hope it pulls someone close enough to the edge for the cast not to be obstructed, or I have to cast it on some siege weapons that are hanging off of the edge of a keep.
There is a trait that gives you increased movement speed for each active illusion.
I wouldn’t count this since you cannot summon clones without an enemy target, so while this is a “passive” movement speed increase, it does require putting yourself into combat which slows your character movement anyhow.
It’d be nice to have a signet that provided a passive movement speed increase or a utility skill that gave swiftness.
Currently, whenever i’m running from point A to point B in WvW or around Tyria, I usually have to take off my actual weapon preferences to equip a focus for temporal curtain, and while that’s on CD, I use Blink, and then I swap to staff and pray that running through Chaos Storm gives me a swiftness.
the issue i have with blink is when it occasionally fails to work while moving from one type of terrain to another. example: running over slightly rocky terrain (without needing to jump across it), trying to blink to another terrain texture like grass or onto a bridge, and blinking in place instead of covering the ground.
while i do like the suggestion to reduce the cd, i think it’s fine as it is. taking -5s from it to make it a 25s cd wouldn’t hurt, but also isn’t a necessity.
another instance of gap/z-axis jumping using abilities: watched an engineer with a rifle blast themselves across a gap to a ledge above them in a jumping puzzle, and while i was afking there to finish a phone call , i watched a warrior and guardian come up afterwards, and they did similar abilities to get across the gap… i didn’t mind having to make the extra jump (with the potential to fall) to get across, but it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing is blink also worked in this way. the ability name and description would lead one to believe it could.
(edited by Six.8051)
i tried those targets at first because everyone was hitting on the heavies, but when i first attempted a few tests the light armor dummies, they were dying in about 4-5 seconds. overall, the results didn’t feel all that great since they died almost too quickly, so once i found a server with an empty mists, i preferred to do my tests on the heavies. if it wasn’t such a pain to record all the info to begin with, i’d consider trying it again on the light targets, but i’m not even sure if i could stomach a second round of it; rather boring work.
Now that I’ve been farming CoF/TA/Arah, I’ve been wondering what gear to buy with the trophies, so I decided to do some recorded testing of my own.
The test setup took place in the Mists on the heavy dummies using the most common power & condi builds for GS in 5 attempts with each setup using only #1 GS skill and #4 for summoning iBerserker for the phantasms attempts.
While reviewing the videos of each setup, I made a spreadsheet with the lowest/average/highest hit & crit, condi damage per tick, and time-to-kill with the following: just me, just clones, just clones & phantasms, just me & clones, and finally, all 3 at once.
Since that’s a lot to type & format in a post, I’ll just list the highest & lowest TTK for me + clones, and all 3.
Condi Build/Nightmare(x5)Afflicted(x1)/Earth/Rampagers:
M+C: 8.9s -10.4s
A3: 9.1 – 10.6s
Power+Crit Build/Eagle(x5)Divinity(x1)/Air/Berserkers:
M+C: 8.4s -10.2s
A3: 7.9 – 10.1s
Power + Crit Build/Divinity(x6)/Air/Berserkers:
M+C: 8.4s -9.8s
A3: 8.2 – 10.2s
Power + Crit + Condi Build/Adventurer(x6)/Earth/Rampagers+Berserkers Jewel:
M+C: 7.8s -10.8s
A3: 8.2 – 10.4s
Power + Crit + Condi Build/Adventurer(x6)/Earth/Berserkers:
M+C: 9.0s -10.3s
A3: 9.1 – 10.8s
That’s all I’ve tested so far, but from those results, it looks as though there isn’t a huge difference between each setup. However, it would seem that stacking one stat over another provides a closer average TTS for some builds.
Personally, I prefer the GS condi build for PvE, but for PvP, I’m still undecided. I’m leaning towards stacking Precision somewhere between 50-60% Crit, then going with Power + Crit Dmg %, and whatever Condi damage comes with whatever rune/gear choice I go with. Air Signet for sPvP, and Fire Signet for WvW.
For PvE/WvW, I wish High Precision/Moderate Power/ Moderate Crit Dmg % were a gear stat choice, and not only H Power, M Precision, M Crit Dmg %.
(edited by Six.8051)
After tonight’s patch, Mind Stab’s animation is now ~1s instead of ~3s which makes it worth using since it’s near instant in it’s activation with a very brief player root duration.
Indeed. I basically just ported over ideas from a thread I made over at gw2guru prior to release after playing Mesmer throughout all of the BWE’s and Stressers. I try to think of it like voting for “fix” priority… the more people bringing up the same issue, including varying ideas regarding how to improve it, might show the dev’s the importance of it to Mesmer community. If enough people express their concern for a specific issue, perhaps it’ll be addressed more quickly, or at least, whatever changes are implemented might be influenced by ideas provided by those who play and hopefully understand the profession.
(edited by Six.8051)
Major Trait: Deceptive Evasion
Currently, this trait creates Mesmer clones when evading (dodge rolling) that attack the nearest enemy instead of your selected target. This is incredibly irritating in both PvE & PvP. The clones should work like every other illusion by focusing your selected target at time of creation as priority. However, if there isn’t a target selected, then it should attack the nearest hostile enemy.
Greatsword: Mind Stab
This has been mentioned often elsewhere, but the ground targeting on Mind Stab feels rather clunky and lackluster for the greatsword. Even though it’s always had a cast/root during the animation, it still felt more fluid and effective as a player targeted skill compared to the way it’s working now. While the ground targeting is extremely effective in PvE and in choice situations in WvW, in most sPvP, it’s hardly worth using over other abilities to the extent that I’ve rarely seen it used effectively if used at all.
Also, the Greatsword for Mesmer lacks a Blast Finisher, so changing Mind Stab into one might be helpful as well. Either that, or having Mind Stab leave a 120 radius Light combo field for 2-5 seconds would be nice addition to the Greatsword including it’s overall group utility.
Sword: Illusionary Leap
Since reducing the range of this ability, it’s become rather unreliable and ineffective as a gap closer; it’s main purpose besides creating a clone and sometimes tricking your target. I’ve found with dual sword melee builds, I spend more time chasing my target with another weapon out instead of using the swords, or I end up relying heavily on Blink instead. Also, I’ve had too many experiences where my target was within the 600 range and wasn’t dodge rolling, but because I button-spammed the ability too quickly, it didn’t work.
Regardless of whether that last part is a bug or working as intended, the range should be increased to 900 or 1200 to make it once again effective for it’s main purpose as a gap closer.
Illusions: Phantasms
Phantasms are great… perhaps too great though. I feel Phantasm damage should be more supplemental to the Mesmer’s own damage instead of such a major source to the point that it does more damage than the player themselves.
I’d prefer to see Phantasm builds provide more utility to the player instead of mostly increasing the Illusion’s damage output and survivability to the extent that the player relies so heavily on them as their main damage source. Traits like Warden’s Feedback and Duelist’s Discipline come to mind when thinking about the utility changes I’d like to see for other Phantasms.
Examples: traits that improve the condition/boon duration of illusions, increase the effectiveness of their specific abilities, or perhaps, some existing traits could effect both the Mesmer and it’s Illusions, like Compounding Celerity increasing the movement speed of both depending on how many Illusions are created.
Also, the utility that some of the various Phantasms currently provide need some tweaks. For instance, iWarden spawns behind or to the side of the target instead of in front of it. If it spawned between you and your target, or if it was ground targeted to allow the player to decide it’s placement, the projectile deflection & traited reflection iWarden provides would actually be effective.
Interface: Illusion Counter
Change the color of the bubbles to indicate whether it’s a Clone or Phantasm. Example: Pink for Clones & Purple for Phantasms.
Bug: Utility Skill: Blink
After blinking to the target location, the character model will occasionally stop it’s movement animation, and it appears to “slide” across the ground without a running animation until the player jumps, activates an ability, or dodge rolls.
(edited by Six.8051)
i remember seeing a video where a guardian and mesmer were rolling together in spvp, and the guardian + phantasm regens were procing the protection on the mesmer like crazy, so he was getting the 2s protection boon every 5-10s or so… mesmer beastmode engaged!
Most of the suggestions I’ve thought of have already been mentioned somewhere in this thread. Something I haven’t seen have been relating to the class I’ve played most.
Mesmer: Major Trait: Deceptive Evasion
Currently, this trait creates Mesmer clones when evading (dodge rolling) that attack the nearest enemy instead of your selected target. This is incredibly irritating in both PvE & PvP. The clones should work like every other illusion by focusing your selected target as priority. However, if there isn’t a target selected, then it should attack the nearest hostile enemy.
Mesmer: Greatsword: Mind Stab
This has been mentioned often elsewhere, but the ground targeting on Mind Stab feels rather clunky and lackluster for the greatsword. Even though it’s always had a cast/root during the animation, it still felt more fluid and effective as a player targeted skill compared to the way it’s working now. While the ground targeting is extremely effective in PvE and in choice situations in WvW, in most sPvP, it’s hardly worth using over other abilities to the extent that I’ve rarely seen it used effectively if used at all.
(edited by Six.8051)