Guild Wars 2

BLUna.7928:

The way I interpreted it is Solo Arena isnt being removed. It’s being merged. If the system works as it’s being described there, it will try to match you with solo players before it forces you to play with groups of 2, 3, etc. The same goes for team groups.

In the top 100 SoloQ you are often forced to wait 8+minutes at the prime time, and even then, you get teammates outside of the Top 1000. So with the new system in place, instead of getting low ranked SoloQ players, I’ll be forced to play against full teams… not sure I like the change. We’ll see :/

Why are you actually hyped? I’m disappointed.

The season is useless for everyone except the top 20 players.
A mini llama for the Top 250? I already have one, they have already thrown around with them…

It doesn’t look like the patch will bring any useful features for me…

messiah.1908:

have you tested it or your friends
what was your experience
dont compare it to power shatter rather to other classes and role
would like to hear that

I am testing around with a lot of mesmer build options myself, but so far without any success.

Playing a condition build changes your role, but which role should that be?
There is not “the” condition mesmer, you have multiple options, but with every option I have tried so far, I still feel I’m lacking something. Either offense, defense and/or group support.

You are loosing out on damage compared to a shatter mesmer, but you are not surviving so much longer. To survive longer, you have to get more condition remove, and maybe additional sources of defensive boons. But for every point you spent on pushing your defense, your offensive suffers even more.
I had the most success with a combination of ‘Harmonious Mantras’, ’Mender’s Purity’ and Rune of Balthazar. But then again, you lack group support and again, your damage can be avoided too easy.

And a big problem: Once you manage to down an opponent, he can easily get revived since all condition got removed at the moment he went into the down state.

messiah.1908:

you could observe it like that but lets face it
power shatter mesmer can stand on point, cant contest a point,
s/d went SR cause 1.4k dps for 203 sec lower his hp below 50%
s/d didnt want to attack me again so went to the ele give me free time to shatter.
so i am harder to kill or pressured then the power shatter mesmer.

You are not playing against good players, it really does not matter what happened.
As a shatter mesmer landing your damage on the thief will have the same or even stronger effect, you might actually be able to kill him in under two seconds (Mirror Blade+Shatter).

You are not have much more defense then a shatter mesmer. You are running around with 3310 less health and only 650 more toughness. Means if you get bursted, you can receive about 10% more damage. This is not enough, to let you stay longer on the point compared to a shatter mesmer.

With the current air and fire sigils, with a berserker amulet, you can maintain far more dps with auto attack alone. With your current spec you are just giving up too much.

messiah.1908:

in wvw ppl love it in 1v1 and small scale fights. why not in tpvp ?

Because only with a working rating system and playing on the top you can actually see how viable certain builds are against good players.
WvW is like hotjoin, you will most likely never face any good players, and therefore be successful with an awful build.

if an ele takes 10 torment 10 confusion burning and bleed its around 4k dps so even if they cleanse it i can put it right away again

Against good players you actually can’t. That’s the problem

just showing me ppl dont know what mesmer capable of and stop looking for “meta”

I think most players (including myself) have tested out a lot of stuff, but without any success.

If you have problem finding teammates for TPvP, fight yourself to the top in the SoloQ. Yes, it is not the same experience as TPvP with a team, but far better then hot-join.

messiah.1908:

the last fight with the ele we hel far so both manage to held the point (shatter power cant) and while the ele was focused i res him twice and intrupt the stomp. the guardian and warrior had condi cleanse

Let’s talk about that fight:
11:17 You start a 2v1 with the ele against a warrior. You are trying to use the ice bow, scaling with direct damage, doing no damage at all, and being totally useless.
The warrior first wasting berserker stance, endure pain and then shield block (all overlapping) without getting pressured to need them.
11:42 Warrior fighting in the chaos storm, and getting hit from the icebow from your ele. Not a single condi remove from his side so far.
11:55 gj you won a 2v1.

12:14 A thief attacks you, you are playing again with the frost bow, but without hitting anything.
12:28 Warrior is back, now 2v2. Warrior is focusing the ele, and the thief is just dodging around, not attacking. (‘nuterelized’ do you mean ‘neutralized’?)
12:58 thief shadow refuge
13:03 Enemy shout guard joins the fight; aoe shatters on the warrior and guard, still no condi remove from them; ele goes into the down state.
13:09 Stomp attempt from the warrior, mist form from the ele
chaos storm on the down state ele for daze interrupt; both warrior and guard seems to not use any stability.
13:19 F3 to interrupt the next stomp attempt.
13:23 You are starting to rez; in the meantime the warrior dodges two! times through you, then uses his elite signet before starting to do any damage at all.
13:30 Chaos storm to interrupt the next stomp attempts, now you get aid from you mesmer teammate, he is rezzing the ele. Enemy thief tries to come back but he is staying on the ele.
14:02 3v1 finishing off the thief.

14:29 guard is back, and run against the ‘Unsteady Ground’ and immediately using his shouts. So no condi remove for him for the next ~30seconds. Thief joines to even out the fight, but also focusing the ele and not you.
15:23 you stomp the shout guard, your ele gets back up. (Before that you interrupted your own heal, using F4 even tho the guard just kicked you, and the thief is still busy with the ele). Your own and an opponent guard are joining the fight -> 3v2
15:33 Thief gets hit from ‘Eruption’ and has to refuge.
15:42 Ele down again, chaos storm for random daze, your teammate is rezzing the ele.

16:04 3v1 the returning guard, but he manages to retreat without a problem.

So what did you accomplish exactly? You managed to interrupt three stomp attempts with 2x chaosstorm, and 1x F3.
You managed to stand on a point without ever getting pressured. You could have played the glassiest spec ingame, and you would still have survived.
You and your ele are constantly standing together on a point, and waiting to get attack. If the opponents would have chosen to attack somewhere else, you would have been useless.
You are just fighting some sheeps just waiting to get slaughtered, win against some bad wolves, and then let’s talk

messiah.1908:

and if i were in the top 1000 and then take a weekend off boom i am out

It takes way more time to kick you out, and the first game you play will immediately put you back in, since it does not effect your mmr / elo rating.

The average ranger f.e. will for sure take either ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and/or ‘Empathic Bond’, maybe additional even ‘Signet of Renewal’; and a Top 1000 Ranger will for sure know to dodge after hitting your scepter block; other professions will blind you or remove the torment.
Every warrior will run ‘Cleansing Ire’; most eles ‘Cleansing Water’; necros will transfer the condis back to you and so on.

Can a mesmer condition build in a top TPvP team work? Maybe, but this demonstration video does not prove anything except how to beat bearbow rangers …

I’m glad you are having fun with the build, but I suggest to get at least into the top 1000 before arguing about strength / usefulness of a certain build and before making any movies to show how good the build is.

You can play almost every build successfully if you are not playing against good players.

Most of the time you are either fighting people without a single condi remove or you are outnumbering them in which case it doesn’t matter what you are doing anyways.
God, you fighting against bearbow rangers without condi remove -.-

Rocketmist.5436:

Full condi players don’t give a crap about getting might because conditions scales so slowly with condition damage anyways, even a full 25 stacks is like barely 10% dps increase.

25 might stacks = 25 * 35 = +875 Condition damage

Burning @1400 condi damage: 678 dps
Burning with might stacks @2275 condi damage: 897 dps => +32% damage increase

Bleeding @1400 condi damage: 112 dps
Bleeding with 25 might stacks @2275 condi damage: 156 dps => +39% damage increase

Evan Lesh.3295:

There are certainly people who only want to play PvP competitively, and never care about PvE rewards. We are still working on systems that make those players feel rewarded, but right now all of our prestige rewards come from LAN tournaments.

Rewards for the Top 3 is not enough. We need prestige rewards for the Top 10%, Top 5% and Top 1% of the PvP playerbase.

You hit on the main point that we can’t make rewards tracks simply better than PvE farming. They are there as an alternative. Players can go between PvP and PvE and not feel like one section of the game is worth less of their time.

You don’t have to make them better, how about starting to put them on the same level? PvP rewards are less worth compared to PvE rewards.

Reward tracks also give us the ability to put unique rewards into PvP, like we’ve already done. I don’t see a reason why we would stop. It’s an effective way to make people want to play PvP.

The rewards from the tracks are on the same level as the Carapace Armor from the living story. The only resource you have to put in to get them is just time.

Now comparing with the Luminescent Armor: It has more specific requirements to obtain it, but it still is not a prestige item, since everybody can obtain it.

We also already have some RNG PvE rewards as guaranteed on reward tracks as well: Mystic clovers.

Good Job, they are the most useless item I get out of the reward tracks!

To Sum up:
1.) Bringing the PvP rewards on par with PvE rewards:
Suggestion: Double the silver obtained from winning a match.

2.) Introduce a tier rating system, which you have to first climb up, to obtain some prestige rewards. Each tier you reach unlocks a new rewards track with a prestige item at the end. F.e. Bronze rewards track unlocks the gloves; Diamond unlocks the shoulders.

Not to mention, that you have to first split the weekly-money with the second place, and the monthly-money with the second, third and fourth place. After that split the money with your teammates. After that you ‘should’ pay taxes.

The WTS Invitational Qualifiers are this weekend.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/join-us-in-celebrating-the-world-tournament-series-invitational-qualifier-tournament-this-weekend/

European World Tournament Series Invitational Qualifier: October 25, 9:00 a.m. PDT (12:00 p.m. EDT, 18:00 CEST)
North American World Tournament Series Invitational Qualifier: October 26, 12:00 p.m. PDT (3:00 p.m. EDT, 21:00 CEST)

Also the “Call of the Mists” is again mentioned in the blogpost.
Does anyone have the “Call of the Mists”-Buff? I for sure don’t.

No!

1.) F2P will not have any positive impact:
Yes, some f2p games skyrocked, but take a look around the f2p-offer. There are a lot of games out there, but only a hand full really made a break through. Calling something f2p does not guarantee anything.

We don’t have monthly fees, so the gw2 model is basically f2p. There are many test weekends, where you can just hop in and test gw2 out, before having to buy anything. Not to mention that gw2 is with under 40 € already pretty cheap. To buy the game is not such a big hurdle, that it is the reason for the low pvp population.

2.) Making the game f2p will only have a negative impact.
You hate the 4vs5s? You hate to get new players into your SoloQ match? F2P will only increase this problem!
Flaming, insulting, going afk has already an almost non existing negative impact, but f2p it will have non. Players will just create new accounts more frequently.
You want to try out a new spec or any unfamiliar profession? Why bother with hot-join, just create a new account, and jump into soloQ or even teamQ!
(Yes, some people already have a bunch of accounts, but it is kept in limits.)

3.) There are better ways to increase pvp population.
→ More gold; if tpvp would become the best place for farming gold, more people would join pvp on all skill levels.
→ Seasons with rewards; Currently I’m missing any objective in playing tpvp;
→ more game modes
→ more maps
→ stronger punishment for flamers, leavers and afkers
→ better balancing
→ feel free to continue this list

Dos.7052:

Just read the coming up new ready-up note. Apparently anet isn’t very happy about current rangers situation for "too many rangers are using longbows ",maybe anet is planning longbows nerf in the future, I don’t know…

Uhm no, the Devs are just trolling and having fun. They are often joking around similar to the change to the skyhammerS to feature more then one hammer.

For pve:

Personally I don’t feel the perfect balance is not that important in PvE, since most of the time, it does not matter at all how long it takes you to kill something as long as you get the credit for being a part of it.

Great sword is just a joke, the only use to me is use swoop to catch up boss train and block to deflect attack to stay ooc.

GS fills his role. Not every weapon has to be the perfect dps weapon.

Short bow and main hand axe:

Same as with GS, they perfectly fill their role. Yes, if you just want high range damage, then there is obviously only one choice, but that’s fine (it’s the same for every profession).

gw2 is not friendly to dot build

This f.e. is a good point to discuss further, but this is a ranger-only problem. Feel free to generate a topic purely focused on this.

Daggers, maybe it is only pvp ?

Try using it in an Axe/Dagger Trapper Condi Build.

Maybe we really need a huge increase to the match rewards.

If TPvP with a full group would be the best places to actually farm gold (and/or T6 mats) it could increase the PvP playerbase across all skill-levels.

For a casual player the incentive is still not enough to actually continue playing spvp.
I think, there are a lot of players out there, who just want to farm for their legendary or ascended equipment, and therefore participating where ever they can maximize that.

Suggestion:
For experimentation:
1.) Change the Call of the Mists to only effect Full Team TPvP;
2.) Change it to only increasing silver reward (not sure if doubling would be enough to be the best farming spot) and at least doubling the reward track progression
3.) Let it last at least a whole week before the tournament. (When should we play on the tournament weekends when we are supposed to watch the matches?)

Is getting the map completion really a problem for you?
I’d have guessed it would be the precursor or the T6 materials for the gifts…

Zeke.4593:

I know what are you trying to say (it’s still the same you said before).

Yes it is, and with your example, I can also make my point again.

Before the 2-0-0-6-6 build got so popular, everyone was saying you have to get the Executioner trait. F.e. a thief successfully run 6-0-2-0-6 in the latest ESL cup.

F.e. just jump into hot-join, and you’ll see, that you can melt faces as a D/D thief. But once you climb up the TPvP ladder, and your opponents get better, you might realize, that you would be more effective using D/P, you still don’t have to adapt.
You might also be able to put together a team composition working with a D/D thief, and changing the meta thief builds all by yourself.

This does not have anything to do with the game modes, only with the opponents you are facing, who now might be able to counter your D/D playstyle.

In TDM with a rating system it would be the same.

Now back to WvW, why are you there successful playing D/D? You are either outnumbering your opponents, and therefore it doesn’t matter, that you play a crippled build, or your opponents are just bad players, or are doing the same, and also playing crippled builds (similar to Hot-Join).

Are there build, that are viable in WvW, that aren’t in SPvP? Yes, Zerg-Builds f.e. shout warrior, but even there you are either relying on outnumbering the opponents, or f.e. in a GvG situation, you will end up with “the best” builds.

TheFamster.7806:

If you looked wvw videos posted by Red Guard or any GvG team, you might have to change your statement.

You are right, I respect good commanders able to successfully coordinate a zerg. But good commanders are minority in WvW, therefore I just excluded them.

GvG is another thing. It has potential, but unless it gets the structure necessary for a more competitive gameplay, it is hard to really determine if someone is a real exceptional talent, or just ok-isch. It is like saying you are the best poker player in your small town.
Yes, some GvG teams like Red Guard excels their opponents, but how does the competition look like? How often are they able to play against each other? Do they have to option to test out different builds / team compositions?

Zeke.4593:

More space to work with, generally more things to do and what is realy important to me: wider builds usage!

Just because most people stick to the most common builds, it does not mean, that they are the only viable builds. And if your build is not viable (meaning your are crippling yourself of using it instead of a more suitable f.e. most pure signet builds), and still want to have some feeling of success, then you just need to change to odds in a different way f.e. outnumbering the opponents in WvW, or just playing against other unskilled players (f.e. Hotjoin or most players in WvW).
Why most players in WvW? Because similar to Hotjoin everyone can participate.

Offair.2563:

I never play Spvp ( yea shoot me but its boring ). And yet i got this buff logging into WvW. Whats its purpose, lure more people into Spvp?

Yes, it is to lure more people into spvp.

and btw: I really don’t understand how someone can call WvW more interesting than SPvP. You probably got your kitten kicked in SPvP, and now you are playing WvW instead to get more uneven match-ups in which have a better chance to win

Evilek.5690:

On paper : Ranger has 1200 with trait 1500 range
In game : Ranger hit target on 1960 range !!
Fix this bug or decrease ranger base range

Question: Is the additional range too strong?
Answer: No
Suggestion: Just fix the tooltip to actually reflect the range.

This thread has one good thing: The formatting!

Clip.6845:

The only fixes I want to see for hotjoin:

• Standard servers have no spectate mode.
• Teamswapping disables after the game starts.
• Autobalance kicks in on 4v5 on 100 points difference.

I agree with the disabled team swapping, and autobalance, but I feel the spectate mode in hotjoin is really important.

From time to time you might meet someone playing an unfamiliar build, and you are loosing to him, then the spectator mode is important to learn more about his play style and how to compete with him. For new players it might even help to understand the basics better.

Sizer.2654:

Guild wars 2 defiantly has the potential to become esports !

Guild wars 2 is the only MMO game in the world which managed to be balanced in PvP at HIGH LEVEL !!!!!!!. No other MMO game has managed to achieve this!!!
The people complaining for balance out there just need to learn how to play better or use more effiecient keybinds

The unique combat system and conquest game mode allows for a higher skill cap , more strategic/tactical decsions and mind games then any other MMO game has yet to offer.

Now to reach esports what we needs is :

1. Better youtube videos!!!!!! All the youtube videos is filled with noob players who dont make any major skillful plays or are involved in high action pact combat. These skilless videos are not entertaining enough

2.We need better camera angles when casting / streaming major tournaments. The people behind the camera angles generally dont have enough knowledge about the game to place the camera angels where it is most needed/entertaining. Having a mini dual monitor during the stream so people can see several fights occuring at the same time would be helpful

3. Most of all We need more skillful and dedicated players !!!! You wvwvw heroes out there come to SPVP its alot better practice!!!

4. “To be released at a further point in time”

5.“To be released at a further point in time”

6.“To be released at a further point in time”

Thank you for the positive vibe! The forum could use more of that.

I’m sick of getting stuck in/under terrain (under the ground/map) after using Blink or Phase Retreat.

hackks.3687:

1 – APs don’t mean anything in PvP.

2 – The Thief was right, you made a very noob mistake.

3 – It’s take a special kind of ignorance and hubris to come here and call someone out for calling you out just because you didn’t like it, even though he was right and you were wrong and even more in the wrong for coming here and making a post about it.

/signed

Steb.2571:

I couldn’t find the appropriate white people problems gif. So I’m just going to leave this here.

whitepeopleproblems.gif

this is racism… you mean first world problems.

You know, there is something called salvage kit, trading post or how about the normal npc merchant?

In my personal experience a burst condi shatter build does not work against any profession with condi cleanse.

Comparing how condi damage works and how the associated amulets are designed, with condi damage you are playing a game of attrition.

Now, how does ‘Maim the Disillusioned’ fits in there?

• It works on all shatter skills, therefore the best shatter skill for condi damage will be the F2 for max Confusion.
• Don’t underestimate the confusion damage from F2.
• the traited F2 supports your damage, but it’s not enough to kill someone, so we have to maintain dps.

In the ideal situation it would look something like that: You have three illusions up, and you can instantly replace them with new ones, and the new ones are not likely to die. Therefore I can shatter my three old illusions with F2, replace them with new ones, and still have clones up to maintain my dps.

A more common option would be to shatter the clones before they get killed (AND I don’t hope for a Weakness proc).

BTW: In my current non-shatter build, I don’t have points to spec into MoD. Have to test around more.

Condi still has the same problems as before. You’ll figure it out

That’s almost exactly the same condi build I had the most success yesterday.
I’m not yet sure about the rune choice (Krait, Adventurer or Nightmare), the scepter sigil (Geomancy or Energy) and the Dueling trait I (Far-Reaching Manipulations).

And there are a lot of other combinations I want to test out

Phantasm Distortion on ‘Triumphant Distorion’ (Duellin #13) is a really really great idea!

After the patch I’d call it a must-have for every zerg mesmer who wants to do some damage (open world pve or wvw). There you kill enough to survive longer (distortion proc), and now your phantasms will deal initial damage more reliable (not die prior even doing that due to having distortion). Therefore a great trait in every zerg.

To ‘Blurred Inscriptions’ (Duelling #8): This trait is totally useless, and needs a COMPLETE rework. With your idea, you would change a great reworked master trait to two ok traits. Therefore you’d have to invest into two traits, to gain the same effect.

My thoughts on this trait:

1.) The trait is ok, but not strong enough. It only effects you, so it’s basically just boosting your auto attack, but that’s only a part of your damage. The other portion comes from either your skill cooldowns (creating clones and shattering them), your phantasms or mostly a mix of those two.
→ best use in pve with mainhand sword in melee range

2.) Cooldown from 15 seconds → one interrupt skill (f.e. offhand sword #4) is enough. With the internal cooldown, this trait is NOT for an interrupt spec where you plan to take advantage of numerous sources of interrupts.
→ maybe with the fixed iLeap in a burst build after the patch, have to test it out, but I doubt it.

3.) Suggestion: Let your clones also gain quickness or reduce the cooldown, depending on which kind of playstyle (clones=condi;cd=interrupt) the trait should work with.

Melanion.4892:

So much disagreement here. If you’re not willing to switch your classes, you’re not going to be much help. Obviously don’t play a class you’re terrible at, but maybe branch out and learn more than 2-3 classes. I’ve gotten to ~rank 25 solo queue by entering on mesmer. You stay on your class if it looks like it’s going to work with your team, but I have a turret engi, hambow, bunker staff ele, condi necro, etc etc waiting just incase the situation calls for it.

You can look me up on EU SoloQ ladder too if you want, not gonna brag about it

Ofc you have to know, what the other professions can do, about how long their cds are, what the possible builds are, so that you can counter react faster after watching them play (f.e. realize if they play condi, power or something tanky that’s not worth to focus first).

But after that… you should focus on one profession and try to master it. All the good players out there have their ‘own’ profession they are known for, and they are good at.

SoloQ you can win a match with 2 thiefs and 3 mesmer against a balanced bunker setup (I have done this).

My tip: stick with one (max two) professions, master it, and kill all those players who want to just jump on the hype train (f.e. last SoloQ their turret engi had no chance).

Even if the phrase “per match” was used here, I think it was about “per team”.
F.e the blue team can only have one warrior, but at the same time the red team can have one too.

Josh Davis.6015:

Lux.7169:

(although if you really want to boost your win rate you’d do your best to counter comp the enemy and bring the class that would most benefit your team).

This!

No! Not this!

Don’t just switch to a profession that seems to be good for the team, but you can’t play it -.- Stick to ONE (max two) profession(-s), and just be good with it.

Yes, some of the matches won’t be perfect that way (f.e. maybe a support guardian missing), but in all the other matches you will shine more, due to getting better with your profession.

nearlight.3064:

Your example is incredibly flawed, because Axe/Axe will proabably never be used on any strong meta build over axe/dagger or axe/torch. Offhand axe, is mostly used with sword for niche moment of clarity gank builds..

You might think so, but wait till the feature patch axe buffs are through

So while your example may reliably counter a torment spam PU mesmer, its not a realistic example. A 0/0/2/6/6 celestial D/F ele is a far more realistic example of somethhing with enough use and projectile hate to stop PU, and you can even swap EA for diamond skin if you want to prove a point, but that goes back into the realm of being unrealistic with the meta.

It was just an example… If the condition scepter mesmer will appear in the TPvP meta, people will learn how to counter it, since their are multiple answers to it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

What’s funny about your engineer example is that, while you could stack bleeds high, cleansing still removes the stack. Sure, you can keep someone perma-bleeding, but the cleanse still bought them relief because your stacks didn’t stay at full power. The reason there isn’t real counterplay to Ether Bolt clones is that it never does stack high, but it’s reapplied virtually immedietly.

You didn’t understand my example. It is not about how high you can stack bleeding, it is about how long the bleeding will last on the target, and how often it will simply get removed within a second.

And even if you have 4 stacks of torment, and due to the target moving it ticks twice prior removing, you are just on the same level as a burning tick.

It has a lot of counter play options, don’t forget, that Ether Bolt is a projectile, and can therefore be reflected and blocked.

How about a ranger with Axe/Axe killing you and all your ranged clones with auto attack, reflecting your attacks with Whirling Defense (5 seconds duration and 20/25 seconds cd) and removing every condition applied to him with Healing Spring (duration 10 seconds and 30 seconds cd). And the remaining stacks are going to get removed by Signet of Renewal, Empathic Bond, maybe even further with sigils.
Yes, there is still time remaining for dealing damage, but not think about the whole damage prevented or removed, and how that would not have happend, if you would have played a direct damage build.

Not saying it won’t be op, just saying I want to test it out for a few days, and check it out myself. There are way too many thing influencing the combat.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

what im worried about is how my ranger is going to deal with this in WvW while kiting clones, even if they are slow generating clones.

Simple. Play double axe. Kill everything with your auto attack, since you are at range, the clone-death will not hit you (240 radius from the place the clone died).
Use Whirling Defense to reflect the scepter projectiles from the mesmer and his clones, and maybe even reflect “Ether Clone” and get your own clone (YES, you’ll get a ranger clone).
If you have conditions on you, stand in your Healing Spring and get them removed.

how many stacks would you get with Runes of Torment , 40-70% longer torment (if you have 4 or 6 in your condi duration tree)

The condition duration tree is ONLY useful if you are going to shatter your clones for boon remove.

the Anti toxin heal might be useful, if you are already running a passive heal or regen, would’t that be a Hard counter to the new torment on AA,

NEVER ever use the Antitoxin Spray. Stay with Healing Spring.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Look at how many condition clears in the game clear only one condition. It’s really not many at all and most of those will clear a single condition AoE.

Now, look at how many condition clears have a cooldown of 2 seconds. Having a tough time?

Clones being generated in melee range is not a drawback. Either your opponent kills them and procs clone-death traits or he ignores them because you’re sitting out of melee range and you are still his primary target. Very few skills let you kill the clones in melee range and still hurt the mesmer sitting at 500+ range away.

Is this your twink account you are posting? With that account it seems you have never been in the Top 1000 even once.

Clone-death traits require points, you could have elsewhere. Compared to a standard shatter build f.e. you’ll loose out on ‘Shattered Concentration’. Don’t underestimate this trait.
For a melee it must be very hard to spam 1 while running towards you.

Try to play f.e. a grenade engi with the Grenadier and Shrapnel and Sharpshooter trait, sigil of earth and max crit chance, maybe rifle with Blunderbuss and see how long the bleeding will stay on the target, and now compare it to the full chain of conditions (burning proc from Incendiary Powder, Confusion from Static Shot, Poison, Freeze and Blind from the grenades)… test it out, and you’ll see, that a high range of conditions is way more effective.

And yes, I can name you a lot of condi remove options, which will crew up your single torment → f.e. a ranger standing in Healing Spring.
How about absorbing or even reflecting the incoming projectiles? To reduce the damage further.
What about using Hoelbrak or Melandru Runes? Should the mesmer now get +20/25% Condition Duration to keep the 2 seconds torment and not end up with 1 second due to how condition damage duration is calculated?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here’s the key difference: there is meangingful counterplay to staff clones. Because they aren’t generated as quickly as Scepter clones, you can kill them to either stop or reduce the condition stacking and buy yourself significant time. You can also cleanse their conditions once they stack, preventing much more damage. Against Scepter clones, that’s not an option.
Killing them is a waste because they are replaced rapidly. Cleansing the torment is a waste because the torment is short-duration, rapid application. You cleanse and literally within 2 seconds, you’re back under the full torment stacks from the clones. You just can’t get relief. that is the biggest problem with Torment on Ether Bolt. There is just nothing meaningful you can do about it.

Wait… you are saying, that cleaning multiple different conditions from the staff is easier than cleaning torment from scepter?

There is much more influencing the whole combat.
F.e.

• The scepter clones are generated at the melee range of the target, therefore going to die quickly. So a clone would be worth the same as he is now -> max the proc from traits like “Debilitating Dissipation”
• Then you have to have the time to cast the full scepter chain at the target.
• Phase retreat is instant, so you are not loosing out on your own damage, while during casting “Ether Clone” you do.
• Scepter block can be counter played. It is well telegraphed.

In the end, it is no staff vs scepter, but more of a condition mesmer with staff+scepter/? vs a gs/staff shatter mesmer.
Maybe the scepter and ‘Maim the Disillusioned’ buff will lead even to a condition shatter mesmer.

If it is too strong, ofc I don’t want it in the game, but first I’d prefer to test it out.

I want to test it out first prior calling it OP, but I’m afraid, that if it really is OP, that it will not get fixed anytime soon :/

Liewec.2896:

it is a colossal buff, and should not be underestimated,
getting the 5 stacks of torment from Scepter #2 MELTS your enemy.
and now you’ll be able to keep that up constantly with spikes of 10+ torment stacks.
the damage is gonna be ridiculous!

If you have problems with scepter #2 torment, then that’s a l2p issue. It is one of the best telegraphed and lowest abilities in game. Very easy to avoid, much easier than f.e. impale or even Eviscerate at close range.

With everyone crying about scepter, everyone seems to forget about the Illusionary Elasticity change.
In an ideal situation, you having 3 clones out, and being able to just spam AA the staff will have the higher dps.

Edit: Spikes for 10 torment stacks with the target moving will be ticking for (~1687 spike dps), which is equal to a tick from

• Burning (678) + 9 stacks bleeding (each for 112) OR
• Burning (678) + poison (194) + 7 stacks of bleeding

So basically a fire field (or Fan of Fire) with Pin Down and Sigil of Doom. OR Impale with some fire damage OR …

Evan Lesh.3295:

I have played Smite, but I was not a fan of how complex their comm menus were. Sure you can develop the muscle memory, but its hard for new players and all that work goes out the window when you have a new map with a different lane structure.

Please stop using new players as an argument. Everyone can learn driving a car or using a smartphone… what is a game compared to that?

My first few matches in smite I didn’t used it at all, because I was learning the rest of the game → I’m not forced as a new player to use it.
After getting used to the other game mechanics I started small with 2-3 messages (f.e. enemy missing, enemy returned, careful) → I’m not forced as a new player to use every single option. Buy why limit other players?

The big plus for the smite system is, that the system does not have to recognize where I’m. I can ping from the right lane, that someone in the left lane is missing (f.e. I used that option when playing with a friend, and he was not yet able to use the comm system). => therefore also easier to implement.

I think there are only two points worth discussing:
→ Which messages should the system include?
→ How could the mechanic look to prevent players from just spamming the kitten out of the comm system and annoy people?

Another option would be to change their affiliation, so that they are not neutral anymore, but belong to one side. So a defend / kill mob similar to the lord in foefire, but respawning, and maybe giving 33 points.

Personally I like the neutral mobs more, but just wanted to post a different option

Personal suggestion: Remove special underwater weapons, and make those available on the ground (ofc with balance adjustments).

Due to that, there would already be those weapons in game, and therefore neither the loot nor the crafting has to be changed.
Not to mention, it is already weird to be forced to use special weapons underwater, with a lot of balance problems coming with them, if we could just adjust the weapon skills similar to the grenade kit from the engi.

It got me thinking too.

There are different aspects to this whole discussion.

Mrbig.8019:

Now some professions are so broken you don’t even need that support.

Let’s break that down:
1.) There should never be a must-have profession in the tpvp roster.
2.) Every profession should be a viable choice.

I think so far can everyone agree. The problem is, that most of the time, there will be a best choice (or people are thinking, that there is only one choice, and therefore they will generate the must-have choice themselves), and therefore forcing other options out of the meta game.
I can understand the support guardians, that are afraid, that this will happen to them, we have already seen that f.e. happen to spirit ranger.

Now let’s get to the real question of the thread:

3.) Should the team roster consist of specific roles (support, dps), or are fully ‘tanky’ professions (as seen in the tol) ok too?

This means, should the shout/support guardian be only replaceable with other support builds that also have to an amulet with +heal as a primary stat, OR is it ok, that some professions can play such a self sustaining build, that they don’t need a support on their side any more?

musu.9205:

With MOD buff (hope anet wont change cd plz) ,It might be closer to standard shatter .(i really hope anet could add a trait "remove 1 boon from enemy when you interrupt ")

Do you think so? I was more thinking, that due to the Illusionary Elasticity buff the CI build is loosing more ground to the standard shatter.

This bug fix was needed since introduction, and I’m really happy that it will be addressed in the upcoming feature patch.

Ele in WvW is perfectly fine, still even too useful/strong compared to other professions. Water fields, Huge range with meteor shower to clear siege equipment, CC hat actually hits everyone passing by, and is not limited to 5 persons…

musu.9205:

CI is just fine to play ,not powerful as gs/staff shatter but it’s far better than most condi mesmer builds in tpvp.

On top level tpvp CI is fine, not as a condition spec, but as a a gs/staff shatter berserker build (4-4-6-0-0 instead of the normal 4-4-0-0-6 shatter), but it requires the mantra of distraction, which will lead to loosing out on another useful utility skill. Therefore only “fine” and not on par with the standard shatter, but still fun as hell.

Scepter Buff might! be too strong, but first I want to test it out.
I’d love to get another option to play mesmer successful, and don’t be forced to play berserker shatter since release.