Guild Wars 2

This:

The only real use for the scepter is for applying confusion in condition builds, and it will almost always be a supporting weapon, not a main weapon.

And this:

Despite my bad-mouthing of the Sceptre on multiple occasions, I still use it with my condition builds. The main reason however is because I stick almost exclusively to the Staff, so what I use in the secondary set is not very important.

And unfortunately … this:

If you compare it directly with our other weapons, I’d consider it sub-par.

I mostly use staff when playing WvW with my condition mesmer. As secondary weapons I use scepter/focus. Focus for obvious reasons, and scepter because it’s the only ranged 1h weapon we have. It’s subpar to sword, but melee doesn’t fit my playstyle.

This is very similar to the build I’m using. I went for 30 points in Chaos-tree and took Prismatic Understanding for better stealth abilities and even more defensive boons. Of course I use stealth utility spells, Decoy and Mass Invisibility.

In your case I’m wondering about your 30 points choice in the Illusions tree. Why on earth do you take the confusion-on-blind trait without having the blind-on-glamour trait? This makes no sense at all. You take them both or none! Otherwise Illusionary Persona is much better, especially since you are using a melee weapon (1h sword).

Zenyatoo.4059:

the second a thief thinks they’re going to lose the fight, they’re stealthed and 1500 range away in the least expected direction.

THIS!

Surviving a thief is possible, but actually killing them after they realize the odds are against them – impossible.

Another problem, related with the above:
Thieves can run away from basically everyone, but other classes cannot run away from a thief. They simply have the highest mobility in the game, combined with the best escape options. Is this balanced? No!

Animando.7956:

May I suggest an easy fix? Make it insta cast. Problem solved.

Here comes the weird thing: It is already insta cast!

You press #4 and you are instantly stealthed, just like using Decoy.

You can’t interrupt The Prestige by doing a dodge roll (unlike e.g. your casted healing spells, which are interrupted when you dodge roll while casting).

BUT you can interrupt The Prestige by casting something else, or switching weapons.

Weird!

Please fix this by making it a REAL insta cast!

It’s an important fix to prevent exploits in WvW.

Swamp fractal is still doable. Just place your first portal at the destination point and move towards your wisp-carrying comrades. You should be outside the first tree wall before it closes/changes, then meet your group members there and place the second portal. Easy! (and btw, swamp fractal is also doable without mesmers/portals, think about it)

loseridoit.2756:

pvp confusion has a 50 percent damage reduction

Actually, the PvP confusion damage is considered the “normal” damage. Confusion damage in PvE and WvW is doubled (otherwise it would be completely useless in PvE, but this makes it pretty powerful in WvW).

Illusionary Counter:
Ahh, now I understand why the block from scepter #2 often didn’t spawn a clone. The range was obviously too small.

Mesmer Portals:
Don’t complain about this one, it’s an important fix to prevent exploits. Read the post from “selan” to see how the exploit worked.

Mind Stab: (1h sword)
An unexpected little buff, dunno why they did it but hey, I don’t complain.

Illusionary Riposte:
Hmm, I guess it was the same range problem like with scepter #2 block.

Mirror:
Cool, I might use Mirror instead of Ether Feast. This makes our healing abilites more equal and allows more ways to play a mesmer. Thanks.

The Prestige:
Oooohhhh this sounds so nice. Hopefully we can do dodge rolls or even cast stuff without breaking the secondary effect. Does it even trigger the secondary effect if we break stealth early, before the 3 seconds are over? That would be great! Unfortunately the torch phantasm is still crap, please have a look at it.

Middle tiers:
I think the middle tiers are where you have the most fun.

Lower tiers:
If you play only during primetime, lower tiers should be fun, too. The only downside is sometimes a lack of players/enemies. When it’s late in the night or in the morning, the WvW zones are often deserted.

Top tiers:
Zerg everywhere, massive culling problems, almost no room for small groups. In top tiers, WvW is about supplys and siege weapons. During primetime there are waiting queues for WvW. Fun? Only if you love zergs.

Instead of your 30/0/0/20/20 build I’d go for 20/0/0/20/30.

Why?

Because with 30 points in Illusions line you get the “confusion when blind” trait, which is so much better than the Torch cooldown trait you took at 30 in the Domination line. You get multiple additional ways to apply confusion, even #4The Prestige from torch will apply confusion with this trait.

I assume you went for 30 points into Domination for the 30% condition duration increase. Oh well, with 30 points in Illusions you get +300 condition damage instead, which should be just as good.

Another problem I want to mention has to do with the scepter #3 attack. It sounds good in theory, but it’s actually very hard to apply the 5 stacks of confusion successfully. It’s a 3 second channel, does basically nothing in the first 2 seconds and in the last second it applies 5x confusion. A single dodge roll at the end is enough to dodge your entire 3-second channel. Also you have to keep your target in line of sight and in front of you, otherwise the channel will disrupt (and apply no confusion at all). Try this against a thief. Good luck.

Scepter #3 is extremely unreliable, but your build uses it as a fundamental cornerstone. Think about it. Perma-confusion thanks to scepter #3? Not really, because the skill will fail half the time.

loseridoit.2756:

Because warriors are not the best dps class. Theves and ele are better but most people do not know how to play them effectively which leads to warriors being a safer bet. Most mesmer are pretty bad at playing

Indeed, warriors are really easy to play and that’s why they are considered a good dps class. Any idiot can do good damage with a warrior just by pressing autoattack and 100blades.

That said, mesmers are not far behind when it comes to easy playmode in PvE. Use a GreatSword, stand back and randomly mash the buttons #2, #3 and #4.

Tken.1986:

I always port the farthest person. I start by putting down the 1st portal at the destination then run to that person and port him while he grabs the thing. It works about 95% of the time.

You are doing it right

And yeah, I hate portal too, but as a WvW player I hate it for other reasons. In WvW ppl expect you to hide/stay inside of enemy fortresses, and if you manage to stay alive/hidden you’ll have to wait up to an hour before the zerg comes back. Booooring! Another issue are golems. Once the commander on your map decides to build a bunch of golems, the fun stops for you as a mesmer. Port the golems here, port them there, wait with the golems in that tower, … boooooring!

Last but not least, I’m sure portal is the reason why mesmers are the only class without a reliable or passive speed buff. Because running fast and having portal would be too much …

kylia.4813:

Apostate.2459:

I play a rabid condition Mez and in all honesty I’ve never seen it proc for 4500.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMI_MzO52lw

Fight 3. 7k ish proc x4.

Best way to fight a confusion Mesmer is to figure out they are a confusion Mesmer.
Most will lead with confusion. So take an initial hit and read your opponent before opening up on them. As a thief you have a lot of battlefield control. After figuring out they are a confusion build. Wait for their burst

Hehe, nice video.

To all non-mesmers who are shocked by seeing how devastating this is:
Please notice how the mesmer blows all his utility skills (and the F2 shatter) at once as soon the fight starts. This build is a one-trick pony. If you avoid the first (and only) burst, it takes the mesmer about 40 seconds to get the cooldowns ready for another.

My tip:
When you run through one of those pink-coloured mesmer AoE effects and get confusion debuff, instantly turn around, do a dogde roll or two and run away! But only for a few seconds until the confusion wears off. After that, you’ll have about 30 seconds time to kill the mesmer without having to worry about huge stacks of confusion.

In my opinion, glamour confusion builds are very easy to counter, but most ppl are clueless about game mechanics and just kill themselves.

Dess.4391:

Hardest part its actually bringing them down. You have to be really fast on your casts, they wont be visible for long. With some luck youll have time to to cast iBerserker, mirror images and shatter and if you are lucky enough and they are glassy enough this might bring them down.

Yeah, once you’ve learned to survive them, here comes the hardest part: killing them.

With my condition/confusion bunker build I can only hope they blow itself up. I can’t even count the times when their final doom was using a stealth skill to escape at like 10% health, but having stacks of confusion on them. Once the dust settles, there will appear a downed thief out of stealth.

Works best if I play with them for a while, making them think I’m harmless, a bunker and doing almost no damage. And then, after a lot dodge rolling and phase retreating, I suddenly stop moving – in a Chaos Storm, letting them hit me while a F2 confusion shatter explodes on top of their head. From this point on, their lifespan becomes dramatically short …

Oh, there are utility combo finishers? Well …

ANet, pls turn Blink into a leap combo finisher.

I play a condition/confusion bunker mesmer and while I can handle most classes/builds with ease, burst-heavy shatter mesmers are a problem. It’s crucial to see their shatters coming and dodge them, otherwise you are in trouble.

Many ppl think they just have to use equip with toughness and vitality, with some defensive traits, and they have a working bunker build. They just increase the damage mitigation to become a “bunker”, but that’s not how things work in GW2. You need some sort of “active defense”, things that avoid damage and not just reduce it. Dodge roll is the most common way, if possible powered by Vigor to roll more often. Then there are a lot of abilities to block or even reflect damage, and on top of it every class has some sort of immunity skills.

Thus, if someone wears offensive equip but manages to use his “active defense” to the best effort, he can outlast a bad played “bunker build”.

Player skill matters a lot in GW2, especially in a mesmer vs. mesmer duel.

I think it’s because Blink is a utility skill, and utility skills are never combo finishers.

correct me if I’m wrong

Kazhiel.8194:

Part of playing well is managing your skill usage. If everything is on cd you’re probably a random button masher and not thinking about and planning what you’re doing vs the enemy.

That is true, planning ahead is required. It sounds stupid but in GW2 you have to save your best skills for the moment when in other MMOs you’d have won already – the moment when your opponent lies in the dust.

Kazhiel.8194:

I also disagree about time warp… I almost never have tw slotted and rarely have trouble facing or downing multiple opponents without it.

It was just an example. Honestly, I run with Mass Invis and a tank build, yet I manage to down and kill multiple opponents. But that’s not because I’m super-good, that’s because they are super-bad.

The problem with most of the suggestions here is:
In a 1vs2 fight you probably need all the suggested skills to down one of them, but when it’s time to stomp him you have no cooldowns ready.

Time Warp + stomp sounds cool, but if you can down a player in a 1vsX fight without using Time Warp, you’re fighting against noobs. Doesn’t work against smart ones.

Sigil of Rage is really an awful suggestion. Doesn’t matter if the sigil is good or bad, it’s just an awful example for stomp. Sure, you might get lucky once a day and do a quick-stomp, but how are the chances to get the proc in the right second in the middle of a 1vsX fight … ?

Osciat made some good suggestions, good because they are on short cooldowns and there should be multiple of these in every typical mesmer build. In other words: The tools are not perfect, you might have to improvise but at least you gonna have some of them ready when you need them.

On my mesmer I often use F4 shatter for stomps, but it only works against certain classes. Great against guardians, warriors, necromancers, hunters. Doesn’t work against thieves and elementalists, for example. Unfortunately you often need F4 to stay alive in 1vs2 so it wont be ready when the first one is down. How did I solve this problem? Well, my build is tanky enough to handle two (or even more) enemies without using F4. It takes me a while to down the first, but stomping is easy then. On the other hand, my tank build cannot burst the downed player to death, I don’t deal enough damage, I have to stomp them.

btw, F4 shatter is also good for revives in bad places.

GeniusBrain.7436:

There is a lot of ignorance here. Just reroll a thief, learn its strenght and weaknesses, and you will be able to deal with thieves.

I did that.

Now I know thieves have next to zero weaknesses, but many many overpowered advantages.

I’m glad so many thieves are crappy players (that’s another thing I learned by playing one myself) otherwise I’d never manage to beat them. About once a week I meet a really competent thief in WvW who shows me what crappy noobs all the other thief players actually are …

Yesterday I was soloing a champion and it looked easy, but things got interesting when another player joined the fight, because he brought two veteran mobs with him and he died outright …

Dunno if it’s possible to solo a champ + two veterans at once, maybe it is, I didn’t try. I just used Mass Invisibility to reset the fight. Rezzed the other player and told him how crazy insane he is.

Henrik.7560:

Clones should occasionally dodge roll, because if the real Mesmer dodge rolls then you can just go “Right, clones don’t dodge roll, that’s him!”

All your clones should dodge roll whenever the real mesmer dodges.

This would look awesome with 3 clones out. Quadruple dodge rolls.

SilverWF.4789:

Also, this game have nearly 1 long speed boost: mount…

Good point! Where other games have mount, GW2 has swiftness buff or movement speed signets.

33% swiftness is the fastest regular way to move around, just like riding a mount was the fastest way to move in various other games (or speed classes, like bard/minstrel in DAoC).

In other words: swiftness and mount are basically the same, just visually different.

And thus, running around stealthed with 33% swiftness (or 25% speed signet, or even the 50% speed trait) is basically the same as riding a mount while stealthed in other games. Needless to say, mounted stealth never was possible in any game, for a good reason.

Even in WoW with all the new speed increases to stealth, you have no chance to catch up to a mounted enemy while stealthed. Things are different in GW2, I can run away with 33% swiftness, but that invisible thief following me is catching up.

Can you run away from a thief? No!
Can a thief run away from you? Yes!
Do you think this is fair?

A little story about leveling my mesmer on a low-populated server:

Just as the OP here, at some point I figured out my mesmer can solo champs. Because the server was mostly empty, there often weren’t other players to help with group events, thus I usually started doing them solo. Takes a while, up to 10 boring minutes, to solo a group event champion. Once in a while, another player would come across and joined the fight. I was happy and thought: “Great, this will speed things up.” But wait, the other dude goes down within seconds, I have to rezz him (while tanking/kiting the champ). He goes down again, I rezz him again, he runs strait away for safety, leaving only a cloud of dust behind. Again it’s just me and the champ. What the f…

This little story happened more than once to me

oZii.2864:

Otaur.9268:

Piteous.4165:

How do you know he left if he is using stealth?

Because we had about 10 people spread out in the 1 area… And he literally just dropped out of combat and vanished. I explain most of this in previous posts.

Maybe he disconnected and somebody forgot to pick the bag up or didn’t see it

No, I’ve seen thieves doing things like that. They stealth, move away, and re-stealth on some mob, move further away and re-stealth again. You can’t catch them if they know how to fully exploit the stealth/culling mechanic.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Wait, what is wrong with having extra mobility? I’ve found many other thieves are squishy and my build especially uses mobility to survive

Ohh, the “thieves are squishy” argument once again. If you are running around in glasscannon equip you are supposed to be squishy, just like every other class running around in glasscannon equip.

But as a thief you still have the option to escape from a fight, thanks to invisibility and mobility.

Ask a glasscannon warrior what happens when a fight goes wrong. Guess what, he’s dead within seconds.

The only class with comparable escape abilites (to thieves) are D/D Eles but they have to run around in bunker equip and their damage output is really low.

SilverWF.4789:

Snoxx.7943:

And btw, in any other game, stealth has a movement speed penalty

Wow, really? What game?

The list is long, let’s say DAoC, WAR, and yes WoW of course.

Also stealth isn’t perfect “invisibility” there, you still have a chance to spot a stealthed char, there are tools to reveal a stealthed enemy, damage breaks stealth, and usually you cannot go back to stealth once in combat (there are exceptions but few and with long cooldowns).

And then comes GW2, which was even advertised as a game without perma-stealth classes, and yet introduces the best “stealth” (aka “invisibility”) I’ve ever seen since playing MMOs for 15 years.

On top of that, we get a graphic engine with bad culling mechanics, allowing them to even attack while still being invisible. OMG!

Question: There is a trait to increase stealthed speed by 50%, does this really make invisible thieves move faster than a visible char with 33% haste?

Am I the only one who thinks stealth is broken in GW2?

DarkElvenChic.2618:

Stealth doesn’t break combat, they’re stealthing then running far enough away to WP out. Also they might be chain stealthing and just running away.

This.

A single class shouldn’t have both invisibility and extreme mobility.

And btw, in any other game, stealth has a movement speed penalty. In GW2 stealth is just a “free out of jail” card.

“Master of Misdirection” works. I don’t know if it’s properly shown in the tooltips, but I can tell the difference in combat.

A mesmer can solo many champions by just doing autoattack and dodge rolls (with Deceptive Evasion trait) while circling around it.

In other words: I press #1 key to start the combat and after that all I need are my movement keys.

Healing? Only needed if I mess up my movement or dodge timing.

Nuka Cola.8520:

5. This one is something i never heard anyone mentioning on this forum. Why don’t clones attack when running into a target for being shattered? lets say im at 900 range and run to my target to rupt with illusionary Wave. Will i be spamming skills while doing so? Yes. this is what clones (notice, i say clones and not all illusions) should be doing when their target is at range and the mesmer uses F1-F3 shatter, they walk to your target while at the same time attacking until they reach melee ranger and explode from shatter.

Related to this, clones also stop moving when attacking.

Example:
My opponent is running away, and I’m running after him, spamming my staff autoattack on the move. You’d assume the staff clones do the same, but no. They run after the target and once in range, they stop moving to fire one autoattack shot. After that they continue to run. Given how slow clones move, usually they end up doing nothing but running, never actually attacking.

Hmm, dunno if the clones do more damage at close range, but your bouncing attacks (make sure you have the Illusionary Elasticity trait) only have half the range (about 600 instead of 1200) so if you stand at max distance you don’t benefit from bounces. Moving closer increases your damage output because of bouncing attacks.

And yes, Chaos Storm is best used when both you and your opponent stand inside it. Simply check out the effects of Chaos Storm (and Chaos Armor while we are at it) and you’ll find out why.

To the poster above me, I mainly roam and fight glamour builds almost every day. I just counter them by running away until they have blown all their glamour cooldowns for nothing, then I turn around to blow them up.

misterdevious.6482:

Prismatic Understanding does not seem to increase the cloaking duration of The Prestige.

This is intended. Not a bug. There was a developer posting about this.

In most situations it would be a disadvantage to have the cloaking duration of The Prestige increased.

(actually, I think The Prestige should be a double-activation skill, where you could press the key a second time to trigger the unstealth effect at will)

No.

Just like bleeds never crit, confusion neither does.

I think downed #2 should work like Phase Retreat (staff #2). It teleports you away from the selected target, but doesn’t teleport you over a ledge or into lava.

(but sometimes it teleports you into a wall or into the ground, where you get stuck, can’t get out, can’t attack and can’t be attacked, which would be actually funny when downed ^^ )

Dhampyr.2104:

ExZee.8109:

Yeah that Cry of Frustration is totally unreliable since you can nullify it by simply running away. rolls eyes

I wonder how confusion nuke builds work so well, considering how “completely unreliable” confusion is.

Not sure if I’m fully understanding the tone of this post – seems sarcastic, though, so I’m going to go with that. :-)

Against a savvy opponent, all confusion does is control their actions for a period of time (not a bad thing, but definitely NOT killing them). A confusion nuke build works really well when you have a button-masher – against someone who understands confusion, all it does is lengthen the fight.

Yeah, against competent players, confusion makes them stop attacking for a few seconds, that’s all. The effect is somewhat similar to Moa Morph. They’ll run away and do a dodge roll or two, until the effect wears off, then back to business.

And no, confusion nuke builds don’t work well. Anyone who think different should go out there and try it. Works only if you’re fighting idiots, and even with the incredible amount of idiots running around in WvW, I wouldn’t call this “reliable”.

PS: I even saw some confusion mesmers (mostly with traited glamour fields) blow itself up after I send them a Cry of Frustration F2 shatter. They should’ve known better, but nooo …

@juno:

The trident clones are at least equally strong as staff clones. They create a bleed every second with a chance of another one if you have the Sharper Images trait. Staff clones are considered as being very strong. In a condition build they are even stronger than the staff phantasm.

And the direct damage from trident attack (especially autoattack) was so low, even with 2000 power it must have been lousy. Sure it’s the only ranged autoattack, but it was worthless since it barely scratched the enemy. It did 80 damage per hit in my build, no kidding.

As for reliability, confusion is completely unreliable since you can nullify it by simply swimming away. Believe me, there are a lot players who just swim away once getting attacked under water. They react like: “omgosh, someone attacks me and I have no clue how my aquatic skills work, I need to get outta water quick”. Ironically it was impossible to kill them, whereas they should have been the easiest kills because they are absolutely clueless about how to play their char. Now after the changes they die – just as they deserve.

MarzAttakz.9608:

As for us “losing tier 1” – well that’s just how the point system works, we placed #2 in the last tier 1 matchup but due to Elona fighting only Kodash mostly and gaining massive points their rating allowed them to replace us. Kinda like the points Desolation is amassing now even though we’re fighting two servers instead of one.

This is true, Elona had an easy time last week and gained massive points, since they outnumber Kodash by a huge margin and Arborstone became almost extinct.

Overall, I think Desolation is stronger than Elona.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Only a mesmer can find a hard time to be revived . ( When his mates find out which one to revive )

Better:

Only a mesmer can revive himself.

(I did that once and felt pretty stupid, getting fooled by my own dead clone :P )

Drawing Guy.3701:

For a non-condition build, it’s a big nerf.

Before or after patch, why would a non-condition build ever use Trident, except maybe to produce a clone + phantasm as pure shatter fodder.

In a power build, Spear was and still is much better.

In my pure-condition build (with no power at all) the Spear is worthless, deals lousy damage. I use it only as an escape tool (#2, #4 and #5 are good for that) but never for damage (except when fighting non-bleed objects under water, which takes forever in my build).

I did some tests with the new Trident and so far I love the changes. I was afraid ANet would just remove the confusion from clones and leave the rest as it is, turning the Trident into a total crap weapon. But fortunately they did it right.

The situation before the patch:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-Trident-and-The-Clones/first#post1219065

The situation after the patch:

1. autoattack: 2 seconds bleed
2. blind: unchanged
3. clone: now causes bleed just like the #1 autoattack
4. phantasm: now 4x confusion (instead of 4x bleed), but now with full (doubled in PvE & WvW) damage, so 4x confusion from Phantasm now are as good as 8x confusion from clones before. Confusions are active about half the time (duration 4 sec, Phantasm attacks every 7 sec)
5. sink: didn’t test it yet, probably unchanged

Now here comes the kicker: After the changes I’m able to stack 25 bleedings on a target (no Timewarp included, just three clones, Sharper Images trait and autoattack). My bleeds tick with 120 damage, so this is a HUGE load of damage. Mobs die much faster now than with the old confusion stacking.

In WvW I had trouble killing players who just swim away instead of attacking me, rendering the 10+ confusions completely useless. Now with 20+ bleeds ticking instead, swimming away is no longer a valid option.

Conclusion:
Trident is still strong but much more reliable now.

Thanks ANet, you did it right!

Thrashbarg.9820:

Snoxx.7943:

I think both downstate-haters and downstate-lovers might agree the following two suggestions/changes:

1. reduce the amount of hitpoints in downstate
(it was done in sPvP already, needs to be done in WvW as well)

2. don’t allow rally on trashmobs in WvW
(when a player downed you, it should require a player to rally on, not some cheap trash mob you barely scratched before he died to some AoE nearby)

pls discuss

1) Disagree, because it would require a reduction in aoe damage (perhaps damage in general) to balance. The speed of revival in combat should be halved, and the ability to revive defeated players while in combat mode should be eliminated altogether . That would solve the problem of players simply facetanking ballistas and arrow carts while reviving.

2) Partially agree. It would be better (imo) if rallying off mobs were only possible if significant damage had been done to them AFTER being downed. Damage done to trash mobs from casual aoe before going down should NOT count toward rallying. That way, builds focused on downed state survival/damage would have a place and use, but the problem of rallying off unintended random damage would be solved. Rabbit rallying should be removed altogether. If that’s not possible or too hard to code to be worth it, just remove rallying off trash mobs completely.

Thanks for the constructive feedback.

1) Halving the speed of revival in combat sounds like a possible alternative solution to me.

2) Too complicated, wont happen. But it’s good you mention there are builds focused on downed state survival/damage, and they’d become utterly useless without the possibility of rallying on mobs. On the other hand, if these builds exist in real WvW, then probably just to exploit the hell out of this crappy game design.

Maybe there is another solution: Increase the hitpoints of trash mobs in WvW. Give them a health pool equal to what average player chars have. This way there is no quick-killing a mob with a few hits when you got downed, no more dragging the mob into some AoE and hoping it will die. It wont die, but will simply outlast you. Rally on that mob? Good luck!

Just like no one tries to rally on a veteran guard NPC with full health, and you all know why …

If they design mobs with health equal to players, the mobs will have around 40k life. Way too much? Players only got around 20k life? No, just think about the downed state, and how you get a second life bar from it. Mobs don’t have a downed state, so that’s why the caculation has to be 20k + 20k = 40k. Otherwise we’d have to give mobs a downstate, now that’s gonna be funny …

Terrahero.9358:

The only thing that sucks about rezzing in WvW is rallying on kills. Killing guards, players, wandering NPCs it all rallies you.

And it just sucks that both sides have a few down, one of yours dies (or a random mob) and bam you see 5 ppl on the otherside get back up on their feet. I
’d suggest meeting either a certain harsher criteria before you can rally on a kill (not this 1 hit = rally crap). You rally on enemies whom you have damage for 20% of their health.

Yes, the “1 hit is enough to rally” crap needs to go.

How about we replace it by the same criteria which decides whether you get a loot bag or not. You only rally on a kill if you did enough damage to get a loot bag from it.

… nah, this would be too harsh.

hharry.1967:

Correct me if im wrong, but downed health was actually increased in sPvP to encourage using the downed finisher instead of just dpsing.

They decreased it first by a huge amount and on the next patch they increased it by a little. The first change was too much, it seemed nobody bothered to use stomp anymore in sPvP, so they had to fine tune it a bit. Downed health is still lower than it was before they started changing it.

Saweth You Him.9047:

Hit points in downstate are fine. Imagine a group trying to sustain an operation far from their waypoint against a tower or keep if downed = dead.

You are exaggerating. I didn’t want downed = dead. I just wanted to reduce the hit points by a bit, because right now rezzing a downed mate is far too easy.

Saweth You Him.9047:

If you are fighting a trash mob and some theif does his instagib spike on you out of nowhere you should be able to rally on the trash mob you were working on if it is still attacking you. Not being able to rally on trash mobs means all trash mobs would have to be made neutral in any PvP combat. Once they are a combatant they are fair game like any other.

Insta-gibbing thieves are a bad example. Thieves in general are bad examples when we discuss the downed state, because they have the best downstate (most evasive options of all) and at the same time have the best tools to counter other classes downstate (stealth stomping).

Now let’s assume there is a non-thief attacking you while you were fighting that mob.

I can tell you what happens: That mob will die before you go down.

Why?

Many attacks in GW2 deal their damage to multiple targets. It’s not just the big AoE attacks like Meteor Shower. There is bouncing attacks, attacks that hit 2 or 3 targets and stuff like that. For a greatsword warrior it would be simply impossible to down you without killing that poor mob first. How much hitpoints do you have? Probably around 20k. How much hitpoints does a trash mob have? I assume less than 10k, and it’s already wounded because you were fighting it, so make that 5k. The greatsword attacks deal same damage to both, to the mob and you. Go figure who dies first.

To further elaborate this story, what happens when you are down, the first mob is dead already, but there is another, so far uninvolved mob nearby. Pull it! Then make the warriors first stomp attempt fail (every class can disturb the first stomp) and hope he will just use 100blades instead to finish you. Voila, there you go: You RALLY!

As I explained above, your hitpoints by far exceed those of that trash mob. Thus the warrior will be unable to kill you (with damage instead of stomp) before killing that mob. By killing that mob he has revived you. Did you deserve being so lucky? No! Does it work anyway? Yes! Do I use this little trick in real WvW? Yes, all the time! Does it really work? Yes, more often than you’d believe …

Finally, let’s discuss what may happen when it’s the other way around, the warrior is down and you try to stomp him. Warrior hits Revenge, gets up, kills some mob with a single use of 100blades, and then he is FULLY REVIVED (with a 100% success rate if he specs a certain trait).

Stupid, eh?

You might try the Phantasmal Disenchanter instead of Mirror Images.

Ok ok I know it sounds stupid in the first moment but think about …

Pro:
- it provides even more Phantasmal Healing
- it removes conditions on you and boons on them
- very short cooldown

Contra:
- no stun breaking included (yeah Mirror Images breaks stun, but you can use staff Phase Retreat every 5 sec. anyway, so you don’t really need another stun breaker)
- only one instead of two illusions (but cooldown is only half!)
- longer cast time (doesn’t really matter for a slow-killing tank build like this)

I think both downstate-haters and downstate-lovers might agree the following two suggestions/changes:

1. reduce the amount of hitpoints in downstate
(it was done in sPvP already, needs to be done in WvW as well)

2. don’t allow rally on trashmobs in WvW
(when a player downed you, it should require a player to rally on, not some cheap trash mob you barely scratched before he died to some AoE nearby)

pls discuss

Hmm, Elona is really too strong right now, this is going to be a boring week.

It seems Elona will get to T1, Kodash will stay in T2 and Arbor will drop … how deep? Hopefully not as deep as Blacktide right now.

With the upcoming end of free transfers, this is going to cause a lot of server switchings. As a Kodash player I hope all the bandwagoners and winning team joiners go to Elona. We on Kodash already got too many of them in the last few weeks. Yes, it allowed us to climb up into T2 but honestly, fighting in T3 was more fun, zergs are smaller, culling is less of a problem, and there were no waiting queues.

My suggestion how it should be:

Make Scepter autoattack and clone work similar to Staff autoattack and clone.

Let’s say three different conditions, applied randomly: bleed, burn, confusion.

I know it looks more powerful than Staff because there is confusion instead of (useless) vulnerability, but the Staff skills itself are much better. Compare Phase Retreat with the #3 Trident skill, way better and much shorter cooldown. And think about how powerful Chaos Storm is.

With trident #5 you can “sink” ppl outside of the water.^^

Dunno what exactly happens with them but I assume they get interrupted or maybe stunned, at least it stops them from moving for a moment.