Guild Wars 2

Yesterday, I played 4 games.

The first game, my team had 3 thieves(thief daily) against 2-engi’s, 1 ele, 1 thief, 1 warrior. We lost.

The remaining 3 all ended up being 4v5 and I was on the 4 player team each time. I logged off after that.

It is a bit disheartening when we’re told that a 60 sec cool down might change because it might be too overpowered and similiar statements.

Then watch another profession and see “4 second cool downs” and “instant 25 stacks of vulnerability”, and “knock back & cripple on 7 sec cd”.

But I play Mesmer because it’s just fun to play. I may not steamroll thru mobs like other classes, but I’m playing with a smile the whole time.

Nope, as of the AMA a week or so ago. Mantra’s will still have 2 charges.

Although I don’t see it in the Dulfy notes, I believe ANet said that Protected Mantra’s would become baseline. So we would get toughness when charging our Mantra’s. Have to re-watch the video again to double check.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/24/gw2-specializations-ama-livestream-notes/

I also think that most of these Elite presentations are going to be initially way OVER THE TOP. Just like it was in beta.

Once they actually start playing them together and against each other, there will be some significant changes.

Should of called it “DragonBLINDER”

Based on the live stream, how about “DragonBLINDER!”

Ross Biddle.2367:

ammayhem.5962:

Snakebyte.2804:

Here is exactly what I run. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaBGx0QOVVSHIxgSX60CA-T1SDwAm2fIoygDHBABmBScIAlgPV6tT9HQ6DW8AAAYCSyJAgMA5bB-w

Still not sure about the blood sigil but I’m keeping it until I can think of something better. Also there are better foods and wrenches but I’m cheap

I have to ask, how do you deal with conditions?

Mantra heal + Menders Purity + Harmonious Mantras. It doesnt get any better than that.

Mantra of Resolve + Harmonious Mantras

;)

Doubt it will be “Ritualist”. For the same reasons that the Guardian will never have a “Paragon” specialist.

If the game ever ends up expanding into Cantha and Elona, chances are those professions will be there waiting for us.

SlimChance.6593:

But other than that, I don’t know if it will really make much difference. I just wished ANet would do more to the Mantra traits themselves, like combining Mantra Mastery and Protected Mantras. And doing SOMETHING more to Harmonious Mantras.

ANet should of hired me years ago..

Its not that its necessarily bad, its just not as good as other options.

First of all the 50% chance on CS is not enough for a GM trait. Notice that the new HoT Domination is giving it a 100% chance with an ICD and making it a Major trait. So that kind of confirms that the current CS is a bit “lacking”.

The other thing is Wastrel’s Punishment is pretty much useless. So maybe we can knockdown or stun an enemy, but these moments of “not using a skill” are brief and distant. So how often do you really take advantage of that “whopping” 5% that Wastrel’s provide? Again, in the HoT changes, Wastrel’s is being removed.

So currently going 6 in Domination isn’t your “best” option. But play the way, YOU want to play. Don’t let anyone stop you from making a build, YOUR build.

Lets hope that ANet takes the same stance to other professions and remove similar “passive gameplay” mechanics.

This is why the “shatter mesmer” is looked upon as the only “viable” build right now.

IP and DE provide the most efficient means to land our shatters.

After the trait re-work & HoT, having IP as a default will help make other builds more efficient. WiIl it be enough? It looks like interrupt/lockdown builds will be stronger for sure. Not sure if phantasm builds will have enough, but the Chronomancer phantasm traits will certainly help.

We just have to wait and see.

Way back in beta, I made a post that Mind Wrack should not be one of our shatters. That the shatters should only be control/support. (More in the style of what the original Mesmer is.) Needless to say, my post was not well received.

I video captured a match where 4 players on the opposing team were all perma-invisible and uploaded it to my youtube channel on the same day. April 30th, so it was not fixed.

@hardloop
go here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-chronomancer-in-action-points-of-interest-episode-20-summary/

also has a link to the POI that showed the Chronomancer in action.

I’m not positive, but I would assume the F5 shatter is tied to the Chrono line and not available otherwise.

But would you need HM for a mantra build if you chose Chrono & Shield??

Alacrity will reduce the cooldowns on MoD, while Tides of Time gives you quickness for recharges. You would just miss out on the extra damage potential that HM and Dueling would bring.

So Dom/Chaos/Chrono for lockdown could work. I think it would be a matter of playstyle and what are all the different traits in the Chrono line will bring? It will be interesting to say the least. I have no idea what my EchoRupt build will “evolve” into at the moment. But the “echo” part would still apply to Continuim Shift/Chrono talents.

Also, he mentioned that the Continum Shift is a double edged sword.

If you activate CS and then heal and then CS to shift back. You will go back to your weakened state before the first heal occurred. You will basically “erase” the heal your trying to duplicate.

I’m sorry, but Whisperblade is not the perfect mesmer sword.

We shoot beams out of a longsword for crying out loud. Mesmer’s are about deception! The multiple faces of Lyssa! Your enemy should not know what he’s up against until its too late!

A purple misty sword/shield is SOOOOO NOT a Mesmer weapon.

Wait… how many first impressions do we get with the Chronomancer?

All I’ll say is that we at least know why they haven’t produced a “substantial” balance patch is so long. So I’ll give them that.

But most of my game time has gone elsewhere since the failure that was January’s “balance” patch.

I believe in the AMA, ANet mentioned that every “stolen skill” will be reviewed and adjusted for all the changes. I sure hope Plasma is gone!!

I’ve been telling you Mesmer’s for years..

“TimeWarp is THE BEST elite in sPvP. Why aren’t Mesmer’s playing it?”

Now tomorrow, we’ll see the Chronomancer and everyone’s going to be dropping MI and Moa so fast. Let me just say….

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

Thanks, I didn’t see the stream and the reddit doesn’t mention it. Thats better.

:) Nevermind

Did I just break this thread?

I replied and now I don’t see ANY of the original posts?

I realize that some of this will most likely change, and I sure hope it does.

But I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Confounding Suggestions change. It shows the trigger chance as 100%. So EVERY daze is a stun??

One sentence they want to make the GW2 Mesmer a very high skill based class like in GW1. Then they give us something like that?

Wouldn’t this be better?

“When you interrupt a foe with a daze, the foe is stunned. Increased daze duration.”

And whats up with the 100% duration increase on PU? Apparently, ANet has an itching and it can only be scratched with “MORE STEALTH”.

Its really great that these trait changes on all the classes are basically “profession reviews”. They can fix things, clean up unused traits and really do something good. But I look at some of the things (particularly eng, thief, warrior) and really wonder if they even play this game at all?

Just like our patron Lyssa, Mesmer’s love each other and sometimes not.

Never know which face of “Lyssa” will show itself around here.

To be clear:
Runes of Dwayna specifically state that the 6th trait will trigger “when you use a heal skill”. So it will process on the MoRecovery’s charge AND Power Return.

If it said “when you heal”, then it would ONLY process on Power Return and NOT MoRecovery’s charge. Even if you have RM traited, it would not process on MoRecovery’s charge.

Ok, is this better?

Menders’s Purity – “remove 2 conditions when you heal by ‘activating’ a healing skill”

That will exclude Ether Signets passive heals and any healing from a trait. So only healing that is obtained from the player hitting the 6th skill on the toolbar.

It really comes down the details in the wording.

MoRecovery
-is a mantra skill
-is a healing skill, but does not “heal”

Power Return
-is not a mantra skill
-is a healing skill and does “heal”

Mender’s Purity – “lose 2 conditions when you heal”
-MoRecovery does not heal, so it does not process the trait
-Power Return does heal, so it process the trait

Centaur Runes (example) – “gain swiftness when you use a heal skill”
-both MoRecovery and Power Return are healing skills, so both process the rune

The confusing part is on Mender’s Purity’s wording. If you look at the wiki, it has a note stating it "only works on healing skills’. So Mender’s Purity description should probably be rephrased to say:

Mender’s Purity: “remove 2 conditions when you heal with a healing skill”

I can see it now, the next big balance patch and the only thing listed for Mesmer’s is:
“Update to Mender’s Purity’s tooltip.”

Spent some money on some dyes.

Here’s a small tweak that would to make them a little easier to manage.

Make the mantra’s cool down start after the first charge is used instead of the last charge. This would help with the dilemma of having that last charge and wondering if I should waste it now to start the cool down or wait til it’s too late.

I believe Engi’s turrets or Ranger Spirits were like that at one point.

Another reason to hate this map. Just got stuck in the map after doing a Phase Retreat on my Mesmer.

I think the reasoning of having the 50% RNG on CS right now is because of the “possibility” of a staggered 3 clone(3 second stun) Diversion. And the “possibility” of being totally stunned/shutdown inside a Chaos Storm. It would be easy to Diversion into a Chaos Storm and completely shutdown the player.

Hence, if we were to get a 100% CS, then there would need to be an ICD or something similar to prevent those “possibilities”.

Unfortunately, as with everything Mesmer, we are nerfed based on the “possibility” of “all the stars aligning” and all that RNG triggering in our favor.

What if they put in an ICD of 5 seconds(or so)? So the daze=stun part would only happen every 5 seconds. You still have Signet of Dom/Magic Bullet stuns that would not be affected. And your dazes between ICD would be the longer dazes.

I agree the randomness of CS is why i don’t bother. I’ve gone thru a HM traited MoD twice before I got an actual stun from CS.

The power of DE is because it is an “ON_DEMAND”, WHERE and WHEN clone generator. It gives mesmer’s complete control on clone generation. As long as DE is available, everything else will fall short.

And if you remove DE, then you better compensate for it big time!

You really want us to not rely on DE, then remove Mind Wreck from our shatters!!

Our shatters should have never been about damage. They should be about controlling the enemy. Remove Mind Wreck and buff our damage elsewhere.

Um……“shatter” Mesmers are mainly traited in Illusions and Dueling. Illusionary Persona(GM trait in Illusions) which counts the Mesmer in every shatter, and Deceptive Evasion(Duelling) to quickly generate clones TO shatter. Those 2 traits define “shatter mesmer”.

If your successful with it more power to you. But I don’t understand the point of your selections. What are you trying to accomplish?

You go full mantra, but the only Mantra traits your utilizing are Mantra Mastery and Restorative Mantras. Reduced cooldown on MoR/Mender’s Purity works OK(but MoR only has a 10 second cd to begin so the reduced cooldown isn’t getting you much).

Then you have Mantra Of Pain which ONLY has a 1(3/4 traited) second cooldown. So that’s going to be triggering Restorative Mantras. Again, a 1 sec cd on MoP will be plenty for Restorative Mantras.

You could drop Mantra Mastery and use those trait points to enhance something else in your build. “Sword Mastery”, “Phantasmal Fury”, “Far-Reaching Manipulations”, etc. Again, this would probably have minimal affect on your gameplay and probably “up” your damage/kiting abilities. Again improving that In/Out gameplay that you mention.

Why bother with MoC and MoD?

What I’m saying is you could drop those two mantra’s, grab blink/decoy something more effective and your playstyle wouldn’t change much. You wouldn’t be burdened with 2 more mantra’s to charge. You’d be able to do more of that In/Out combat style your shooting for.

You have HS and BI, so that MoD makes some sense. But is this a “lockdown” build? Or is it a “Support Build” with Restorative Mantra’s?

If your going full mantra then go “full mantra” and grab the Empowered Mantra’s or Harmonious Mantras to add get some real benefit of a full mantra build. (Even those GM traits don’t really offer much benefit for a full mantra build.)

If someone posted an ALL GLAMOUR utility bar. There would be similar comments. It used to work, but not anymore. An ALL MANTRA utility bar, has never really worked.

Use mantra’s to improve\enhance your build. Like how some shatter builds will grab MoD with HS in place of portal. It’s another tool in build.

Its in the Game Options screen. Where you tweak your video and audio settings. Its on the very first page.

There’s a toggle “Turn Auto-Attack on” or something like that near the bottom.

Another tip, add a key bind the “Select Closest Target” command. Also, in the Options, under the key binds section. There is no key bind assigned to it by default. I bound to my “C” key, since that’s what it was in GW1.

Another “handy but often not used” command is the “Look behind you”. Its a good way to target someone if your being chased. Just “look behind” and click on them with your mouse.

Oh, and the “Call Target” function. Basically, if you have a target that you want your party to focus on. You target the enemy and hit “Ctrl-T”. This will put a target reticule above the enemy that your party members can see. (You will also here an audio of “Hit my Target” or something like that.) Then your party can tap their “T” key and they will switch to called target. It’s mostly used to point out the real mesmer from his clones.

I got a couple more rounds in yesterday. It’s not a “Power Cleanse” issue. Its a skill lag issue. Hitting keys and not having the skill execute. I’ve noticed it on a blurred frenzy and blinks.

I see there are several posts from other players having similar problems. No wonder ANet only issues balance patches 1-2 year, when their feature patches totally mess things up. I also seen (or not seen) the perma-invisibilty bug,

Same here, at first I thought ANet nerfed Power Cleanse. But after a couple of more rounds, I’m noticing other skills just not executing.

I’ve been running it on my build quite a long time. It always took immobilize first.

That’s why I made the post. Something changed and I’m not sure what. Most likely the weird lag but this patch messed a bunch things up.

Hey guys, I need some testing Power Cleanse. Since the patch yesterday, I’ve been having issues and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. I “think” that Power Cleanse is not removing immobilize properly.

It’s either not prioritizing it and removing other condi’s first. Or its only removing a single stack and not the whole condition. I’m not sure.

I’m also getting weird lag where the game appears to be working and then “updates” and I find myself dead. So it could be something like that.

Anyway If I could get some verification from other players. I’d at least know what to look for next time I’m on.

Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the comments and yeah there probably is a LOT of unnecessary dodging.

Here’s another gameplay montage. I figured out in the video editor how to “blow up” my skillbar, so its easier to see the mantra use.

Start off with an engineer at mid point. Nothing too fancy, Power Cleanse kept the immobilize and condi’s off during combat. I had a well placed blink early on to avoid those grenades.

Next up is a SD thief. I’ve looked over the footage several times and I’m pretty convinced that I did not win this fight. The thief lost it. I had some incredibly lucky dodges and I’m pretty sure that Confusing Combatants and Debilitating Dissipation did most of the work for me. He only stays in Shadow Refuge for a couple of seconds, I get lucky with a dodge and Mind Wreck at the end.

Then another Time Warp stomp. It’s becoming my video signature.

Somehow I surprise a Mesmer on my home pt. He portals away just as an Ele enters the fray. The Mesmer comes back throws up a bezerker then leaves?? So its just the Ele and me. Got him with several PowerLock/HS/CI hits, some Magic Bullet’s and some Blurred Frenzy. All the while, PowerCleanse kept the burning off me.

Another Mesmer, not really sure what his build was? I think it was a CI Lockdown with Nightmare Runes??? Right at the start, I’m feared and immobolized at the same time? He did run TimeWarp, so props to him. I put down Chaos Storm, just as he Time Warped.. I then threw MY TimeWarp down right on top of his and I don’t think he saw the Chaos Storm under the two large purple bubbles.

The reason I show this fight is because I land that elusive iLeap/Blurred Frenzy > Magic Bullet/Stun/HS/CI > Mind Wreck Shatter > Powerlock/interrupt/HS/CI combo. Or what I like to call the: “THE ECHORUPTION!” ( copyright pending)

In the last fight, I had just gotten beat at home against a Mesmer and Ranger. They capped home and were attacking my base as I respawned. While Blurred Frenzy is hitting the Ranger & his pet, I Powerlock/interrupt the Mesmer. (And that’s why I have mantra’s!)

The issue I have with Entangle is that it works out of LOS.

On Kyhlo, I’ve been under mid point and have gotten entangled when no ranger was in visible sight. So I either sit there & wait it out or waste a cooldown.

I see what your saying, and to be thorough I’ll give the pack runes a try.

I just can’t get around the “25% chance when struck” part. (I don’t want to “BE struck.”) The wiki also calls out a 20sec ICD on it. (Ether feast has a 20 sec cooldown) So without focus, I still won’t obtain swiftness any quicker over the Centaur runes.

The +125 precision is nice, but that only pumps my crit chance from 49% to 55%. Not a noticeable change.

Since I don’t have any stealth, that quickness on heal from Centaur’s comes in handy when I need to get out of dodge. But I’ll give a try and see how it feels.

I’ve gone back to Halting Strike and those HS crit’s are just too fun not to have around.

Here’s one of my recent matches in Solo Queue. I think it was a Warrior daily, so that might be why I had so much fun with these 2 warriors. I pretty much spent 60% of the match kiting these two at mid. I think they were getting a little upset. And of course, Time Warp seals the deal AGAIN!!

I’m posting this one because there were a lot of Mantra charging/recharging during combat. I want to show that Mantra’s can be viable.(IMHO) And once you get used to them, the recharge becomes pretty automatic.

Also, keep an eye on Mantra of Resolve use(3rd utility). There’s a whole lot of “immoblized” being cleansed from those warriors. If I get better at video editing, I’ll try and “highlight” my mantra uses better.

I don’t use it because it just doesn’t fit with my build. I’m surprised that some people feel that it’s a “requirement” for a Mesmer.

I could say the same about TimeWarp. For the life of me, I have no idea why more Mesmer’s don’t use it. It’s a game changer in sPvP!!

I need to put a video together of nothing but TimeWarp saves/wins and such.

That would be sweet. We could use the new taunt to get a target to attack his teammate. !!!!

There’s an old saying… “No use crying over spilled milk.”

Well, everyone here is crying before the milk is even spilled. Heck, you don’t even know if there’s milk IN the glass TO spill. Your not even sure there IS a glass to knock over.

Everyone is crying about what was seen in ~5 seconds of video. I think some of you need to get outside more.

What we know is that each profession gets a new specialization that would replace their core mechanic. And a new weapon for that specialization. So we see a video of what looks like a Mesmer with a shield casting a spell.

We also know that the new Revenant class has a new interesting mechanic and that by changing his elite, all his utility skills change.

So lets say that Mesmer’s does only get a shield as a new weapon with our specialization. Who’s to say that when we equip the shield, that the skills on our MH weapons don’t change with it. Maybe in addition to the 2 new shield skills, the currrent “illusion-based” skills on the sword & scepter will be replaced for new skills that support our new mechanic?

Maybe instead of everyone crying "we’re only getting 2 new skills ", we should be saying “SWEET, we get 8 new skills!!!”

The point is we simply don’t have enough information on what’s going to happen. And to scream bloody murder at ANet based on conjecture is just wasted energy.

Thanks for reading. And I hope everyone has a nice day.

Working as intended.

Masterful Reflection

Distortion grants reflection.

Notes

This trait doesn’t affect the Distortion granted from Triumphant Distortion, but does grant Reflection when Blurred Inscriptions activates.
The reflection lasts as long as the distortion, including the extra second granted by Illusionary Persona.
This trait changes distortion’s visual and sound effects: A transparent crystal grows and envelops the mesmer, releasing a rainbow aura burst and wind-blown white light particles, then shrinks and disappears. A metallic twinkling noise plays, as well. Both the visual and audio effects will loop if necessary for the reflection’s duration.