Guild Wars 2

Laserbolt.6731:

But if venom share is bad, what exactly is weak about it?

The survival-ability as a thief is weak, if he is using multiple venoms.

Skelk Venom: Huge CD, low HPS, cast time.
Utility Venoms: No stun breaker.

Aktium.9506:

Its an old bug and it’s tied to Magnetic Aura and not Mirror Blade. You can even create Lich clones by sharing the aura with a Necro if I recall correctly.

Actually, this was not achieved with ‘Mirror Blade’, but with ‘Ether Clone’ from the Scepter auto attack chain, an attack which is blockable AND therefore reflect.

BTT: I just tested ‘Mirror Blade’ vs ‘Magnetic Aura’ and the ele got the damage from ‘Mirror Blade’ and the clone spawned was under my (Mesmer) control like it should be.
Not sure what bug you encountered, but it seems to work fine for me.

Elegie.3620:

This has been around for ages, I think. I main a warrior, and I sometimes find clones of myself when fighting a mesmer (I have blocks, traited to reflect).

Again: This behavior comes from the Scepter AA chain, where a blockable and therefore reflect-able projectile creates the clones.

You can’t block nor reflect Mirror Blade.

Aktium.9506:

Its an old bug and it’s tied to Magnetic Aura and not Mirror Blade. You can even create Lich clones by sharing the aura with a Necro if I recall correctly.

Actually, this was not achieved with ‘Mirror Blade’, but with ‘Ether Clone’ from the Scepter auto attack chain, an attack which is blockable AND therefore reflect.

BTT: I just tested ‘Mirror Blade’ vs ‘Magnetic Aura’ and the ele got the damage from ‘Mirror Blade’ and the clone spawned was under my (Mesmer) control like it should be.
Not sure what bug you encountered, but it seems to work fine for me.

My guess: Dreadnought

I have seen people stomping the downstate-clone even tho the mesmer has a red arrow over his head. So, how obvious should the mesmer look like, if even a red arrow does not help?

Ithamir.5928:

Thank you so much! Tell Robert we love him.

Agree.

Thank you ArenaNet!

You really listened!

Thank you very very much!

Edit: Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Chronomancer-Traits

I don’t think the specializations, not even the trait rework, will be included in the Beta Test.

But well, IF the trait rework is included, I’d like to know, how the trait “Duelist’s Discipline” is calculated. (If the 50% recharge reduction is calculated from the base cd or from the current cd left.) F.e. if the remaining cd of “Magic Bullet” is 10 seconds, and you are interrupting a target, is the skill fully recharged (-50% from base recharge), or if it only gets reduced by 50%, and therefore leaving “Magic Bullet” with 5 seconds cd.

ASP.8093:

Traveler runes.

That’s a good idea for the well-rune.
Power Focuses.
4th casting a well grant you a random boon.
6th +25% movementspeed!

Not sure, if the playerbase is mature enough for that, or if they wouldn’t just always vote for their buddy.

Has anyone any data from other games, if they implemented such a system successfully? I know f.e. lol had such a system in place, but no idea if it was successful or not.

Quadox.7834:

Why should it be baseline? If you want a mantra build, shouldn’t you have to equip the mantra trait? Isn’t this like if a warrior wanted the shout heal trait baseline (lol)?

No, it would be if the shoutwarrior would also have to skill into arms, because besided the shout heal in tactics, he would need a second trait in arms to be able to use his shouts.

I really hope they’ll remove the additional stack from the ‘Harmonious Mantra’-Trait.

I understand, that there will be two mantra traits:
1.) For defense (Healing on cast)
2.) For Offense (Damagebuff after activation)

BUT the additional stack is for both, offense and defense.
With the daze mantra, 3 stacks baseline would be too strong tho.

So how about one of the following solutions:

• Stay with 2 charges baseline; Neither trait is getting an additional charge; the individual mantras are balanced accordingly.
• Depending on the trait a different mantra is getting an additional charge.
  f.e. Offensive Trait: +Charge for Pain and Distration; Def-Trait: +Charge for Healing, Resolve and Concentration.

Black Box.9312:

Guardians already have great area denial in the form of symbols. The PROBLEM is that we have no means to keep enemies in them. Traps are not going to be of any use because it’s just more of what we already have, but even easier to avoid.

Because we know so much, what traps are doing, therefore the right choice is to better start QQing right away!

What was that chain-thingy keeping the dragon in place? Probably only a display bug, can’t be that there is something immobilizing people -.- QQ

cranos.5913:

They won’t work out great. It’s quite simple to beat a trapper build, you just don’t walk in it. We have disappointing skills and a disappointing weapon, no need for the “hey it may not be entirely useless” stuff.

You know, that you can (currently) throw the traps on the target to let them proc instantly?
Another great idea is to just stand ontop of them, so if a melee wants to attack you, he will get hit … wow, who would have thought of that?

Edit: Even just using them for stealth and superspeed through the runes makes low CD traps a great survivalability utility.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Teutos.8620:

SPESHAL.9106:

If they ARE choosing to mindlessly farm versus PvP, then that is even more indicative of problems with this game.

Sure, they are choosing mindless farming. There is actually a nice unique reward to get -> a beta portal.

What do you get currently from playing pvp?

Enjoyment. Not everyone enjoys PvE.

I’d have said the same some time ago, but with the current broken match making system, this does not seem to be the case anymore.

SPESHAL.9106:

If they ARE choosing to mindlessly farm versus PvP, then that is even more indicative of problems with this game.

Sure, they are choosing mindless farming. There is actually a nice unique reward to get → a beta portal.

What do you get currently from playing pvp?

Aidenwolf.5964:

we faced a full dragon squad.

Why does this point still show up everywhere when someone complains about bad match making?

The PvP rank has absolutely nothing to do with skill!

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

I capped middle then grabbed both ferocities

The occasions, where you have time to cap ferocity are very very rare.
Most of the time, people capping those buffs are wasting valuable time where they could and should have helped their teammates. → as a general rule → please don’t touch ferocity (sidebuff/killbuff), only go for tranquility and stillness (middle buffs).

GrandHaven.1052:

I have not seen it in ages, but yes, it is known, they also claimed to have fixed it. So I don’t know…

Well, since they “claimed” to fix it, I haven’t encountered this bug anymore.

Two options here:

• Still a bug, but much rarer → go to the official bug forum, and report it there.
• Not a bug, you were just confused and missed the mesmer.

Yes, the games has bugs, but most of the time, people are just missing something…

Can you please explain, why you considers this to be a flame?

From my POV, it just sounds like a curious question “Why do men have women names?”.
What is offensive here? Am I missing something?
Just tell him: “It is a roleplaying game. My ingame character is female, so she has a female name. I am playing a female character because a female character looks better in those armor.” or something like that.

I feel you.

I would also appreciate another method to get into the beta. I don’t have ANY farmluck.

I hate them too. I hope with the upcoming change to tomes they are considering changing something in the reward tracks too. (Either silver value; pvp tomes still useable after 80; number of tomes depending on the reward track).

Then they’d just whisper you.
(in WvW they put you on the block list; get your name from there and then start whispering you.)

Who knows. Could also just have been for demonstration purpose, that he summoned a clone before.

Crafted the Wall of the Mists (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wall_of_the_Mists) the moment it was official announced.

Yes, I have often had to target a pet. There are multiple situations where this is very useful.

Jedge.3619:

I’m still shocked after all the forum feedback, they never did pistol mainhand.

Prior introducing pistol mainhand they should change how the auto-attack with 1-handed-weapons work. IF the offhand is from the same weapon type, it should be included in the auto attack animation.

Currently the only Pistol-Pistol attack animation that looks good is unload because it is a dual weapon skill and designed to use both weapons. Auto-attack on thief and engi just looks really really bad.

(The problem is not limited to pistol, same problem with auto-attack with two 1h-swords and so on.)

+ It sounds fun.

? We don’t know nothing more.

Will it be strong / useful / useless / be played at all? Wait till we get more infos. The cooldowns could be horrendous. The traits could be weak…

Maybe in tomorrows POI-Show we’ll get more infos.

tobascodagama.2961:

I ask because the Mesmer class has zero interactions with Well skills as it is. So it seems really weird to introduce an Elite Spec that has no synergy whatsoever with the existing Core Specs.

The synergy for the elite-spec with the core-specs come f.e. with improved shatter skills or DE.

You get with the elite spec new utilities that belong to a new group (wells for mesmer), so if you don’t select the elite spec, you will not have any access to those utilities. If there would be a trait in the core specs for wells, how useful do you think would it be without the elite spec?^^

But you can expect to get at least 1 well-trait in the elite spec trait line tho.

BTW: Just crafted my Wall of the Mists xD

guardian.6489:

Double Time Warp! Double Moa! Double Mass Invis!

Double Mirror Image Shatter; Double Mantra Unloads; Double Wells.

Last Friday they said “next week”, so they have time till Sunday

Impact.2780:

- When your thief dodges and you see caltrops.

FYI: Sîzer is currently playing around with caltrops.

Well, I have tried to get the portal. 3 times silverwaste from 0% to finished meta → no portal. Don’t think I’ll continue farming.

Not sure if it was already mentioned in this thread:
HoT will include a variety of challenge mode-encounters. (They have shown 1 of them, where you run around with a flame thrower and try to get as many kills with it as possible. This examples wasn’t really interesting, but let’s wait and see once we get more infos.)

I believe HoT will include many interesting challenges and not just zergy spam feasts.

PowerBottom.5796:

Are you really certain about that? So when they we’re talking about Grandmaster-traits, they were only talking about major grandmaster Traits?

I’m 100% sure. Watch the livestream if you an answer from the devs.

And why does this Image then not show selected grandmaster traits for all specializations?
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1aa49HeroPanel_ScreenshotSkillEquip4-590x447.jpg

Maybe they just wanted to show how it looks like prior selecting a gm trait. Who knows. Anyway, a level 80 character will be able to select three grand master traits. (1 per trait-line).

PowerBottom.5796:

Hi@all,

I’ve been reading up on the new Specialization-Stuff and I’ve got a few questions that I couldn’t really find an answer to:

1) Do we get 16 trait-points or 15 in total? So 2 or 1 more than now? I’m pretty sure it’s 15, but just not quite…..

Would be equal to 18. trait-points.

First you select three trait lines (with the patch out of 5; with HoT out of 6).
Then you select three traits per line / you can fully skill those lines.

2) it said sth. about being able to get 3 Grandmaster traits now, but isn’t it possible, even with “only” 15 trait-points, to get 4? like with a 6,6,3 trait-split? Or do we need to go to a certain trait-point number in each tree? (for whatever reason)

Same question as above, but well, I’ll answer again: 18 points.
So f.e. you can say, that you will be an Dominatoin/Delling/Chaos Mesmer (6-6-6-0-0)

… you think there is any viable indicator how the match will end, and therefore you just go afk.

I have seen more spirit rangers. Auto-attack + spirit procs ftw. Maybe that’s the go-to profession for them now.

No

They are buffing the mesmer, but I don’t think they listened to the community at all.

Some points I think the community does not want to see:
- more passive Condi Play with ‘Confusing Combatants’
- more 1-hit potential ‘Mental Torment’
- improved instant damage with Power Block
- improved stealth with the new PU-Trait

Yay, we well be more annoying to fight against -.- Is this really something people wanted?

Quadox.7834:

But the thing is, mesmer doesn’t even benefit from quickness very much.

Agree. I think this should get addressed in ‘Furious Interruption’ to make the trait more useful.
F.e. When you interrupt a foe gain quickness and reduce the Phantasm Attack Skill Recharge by 2 seconds.

CyberMurmeli.3061:

You all people need to understand that the numbers are irrelevant, they may and WILL change. First they implement the functionality, the basic idea. Then they start balancing the numbers.

That still does not mean, we can’t participate in the number-balance-process yet.

The sooner the devs understand, that a stealth improvements is too strong, the better.

What do you guys think, which style of gameplay is more passive:
a) Keeping up clones for their auto attack crits to let them apply condi damage
b) Keeping up clones and hoping they’ll get killed to apply some condis?

If you want to deal damage, I think a) would be more fun from the mesmer perspective, but regarding counter-play I think the clone-death variant is far the better choice.

Most of the time a mesmer get’s countered, if you continue to kill the illusions at the same time f.e. as a melee hammer guard just spamming auto attack. I like the idea that you could have a spec punishing people just running after you and spamming auto-attack.

Regarding balance: On-Clone-Death builds do not have to apply damaging condition. How about just applying weakness or slow or chilled?

Due to minor traits in the Dueling line, making your illusions inflict conditions on crit, you still want to have access to a good clone uptime.

So as a GM trait… two stacks confusion on interrupt OR more access to clones, and therefore more conditions over time? → You still want DE for a rabid gear mesmer.

Yes, the new Duelists Discipline Trait will help you keep up your Phantasmal Duelists, but you will have numerous encounters where you won’t have three illusions up without DE.

They are scaling with your stats.

Toeofdoom.6152:

I suggest assuming the greatsword trait means 2s and see what you think then. More likely to be 1s or so but 2% is probably a display bug.

Well, even with 2% it could be a really great dps enhancer. (And maybe a fun one too.)

Per Hit 2%, Spatial Surge hits three times per Cast, so every 1.4 seconds -6% CD. (triple that amount if you have two clone up).
Current ‘Greatsword Training’ will leave your Phantasm with 16 seconds CD.
With yourself and two clones (maybe trough Deceptive Evasion) up, ‘Phantasmal Berserker’ is ready after 6 seconds. (-18% or -3.6 seconds every 1.4 seconds)

Edit: There are still open questions: F.e. in a situation where you hit multiple foes with spatial surge, does the -2% CD proc multiple times?

Windwalker.7421:

wouldn’t make it sense to make it proc on KB or at least Launch? Would that make this trait OPd?

Would you use the trait for PvP Combat if it would proc Chaos Storm on knock back or launch (with an internal cool down)? I would not. The trait is still too specific, and only useful vs specific opponents, mostly engineer and hammer warrior.

And from a design perspective it would be too similar to Mirror of Anguish. Giving me an idea how to improve the fall damage trait… How about combining ‘Decent into Madness’ with ‘Mirror of Anguish’, that the trait would create a chaos storm not only when you are hit with falling damage, but also if ANY CC hits you? (internal cooldown remaining at 60 seconds)
→ More useful trait
→ more fun anti-cc trait?

Nothing wrong with that trait. Not every trait has to be useful in PvP and since you can change your traits pretty fast (outside of PvP) even highly situational traits might be useful.

F.e. last time I used the -fall damage trait, was when I run through the Silverwaste JP for the first time. Didn’t know back then, that it would not matter if I die since the skritts will come and rez you. Otherwise it would have been useful.

We don’t know what will await us in HoT. Maybe even the WvW Map is designed in a way, that the trait might be useful.

The choice between the additional mantra charge and Deceptive Evasion is destroying my mantra-shatter build (4-6-0-4-0 with Mantra of Recovery and Mantra of Distraction).

Regarding Deceptive Evasion:
Deceptive Evasion is part of the game play decision: How do you want to play your mesmer? Similar to the choice between ‘Mental Torment’ (Shatter) or ‘Power Block’ (more interrupt focused).
The thing is: the play styles are overlapping. The trait setup currently known as ‘shatter’ is using ‘Halting strike’ and not ‘Mental Torment’, because that way he does not rely on a single ability to hit his foe, but gets an additional damage source.

Now back to Deceptive Evasion: Clones provide conditions on the target, keep you alive, and are an important part of your damage.
You want deceptive evasion in every situation where your illusions die. Since DE is not overwriting phantasms, you even want clones when a big boss just killed your phantasms to keep up at least some condis on the target.
Ofc DE is most important on a) a spec using the shatter skills or b) you want a high clone uptime for condi procs

Since Deceptive Evasion is so important (I’d argue even more important than Illusionary Persona), which traits can really compete with such a must-have-trait?
a) a phantasm focused trait like ‘Phantasmal Fury’ or ‘Phantasmal Haste’
b) a mantra dps focused trait. But not in the way like the trait currently looks like

When do you use mantras?
a) You want to support your group with healing, condi remove and/or stability
b) You want an additional source of interrupt with ‘Mantra of Distraction’
c) You want to increase your dps with ‘Empowering Mantras’ and ‘Power Spike’.

Only the choice c) is changing your playstyle to a heavy mantra focused play style.
The other two are just support your existing play style, but those also need Deceptive Evasion.

Suggestion:
Change the new ‘Harmonious Mantras’ Trait that you only want to take it, if you are playing with a heavy mantra focused playstyle BUT still leaving it viable to pick mantras without the trait.
Suggestion: Make the additional mantra charge baseline.
And include some ‘Mantra of Pain’ / ‘Power Spike’ damage modifier.

TL.DR.
The new ‘Harmonious Mantra’ trait should look this:
Activating a mantra gives a stacking ferocity bonus of 4% (up to 20%).
Power Spike has an increased critical hit chance of 20%.

My personal take:

• Stealth duration increase are going in the wrong direction. We will be better at annoying people with stealth!
• possible+50% mind wrack damage: Just able to one shot squishy thieves? Fear no more, we can not one-shot everything!
• Build diversity? Might increase, but due to deceptive evasion fighting his position with a mantra trait, mantras are definitely out of the game. Suggestion: Deceptive Evasion should become a minor trait.