Guild Wars 2

Demonts.4593:

Mesmers are completely OP when it comes to teamfight damage considering the mobility they have as well. Eles can as well have way mroe AOE damage than thieves and they can sustain more damage as well. Burst theives have very little effect on a teamfight. Mesmer’s should really stop complaining. especially with how easy their class is… 90% of damage comes from AI lol!

Your assessment is very inconsistent with the high-end team compositions at the moment.

So far the poll is indicating players are more in favor of nerfs than more buffs.

Interesting indeed!

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

I love when math is used to deconstruct an argument that has no merit and no basis in fact. Well done, sir. +1 internetz to you

Thank you. To be clear, I think Jon is a very sharp guy, and his argument makes sense for just about every other situation. However, I think that this case is exceptional.

Of course, my assertion is based upon the numbers and calculations I obtained from the GW2 wiki and gw2skills.net. If they are not accurate, then my argument is void.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Another good suggestion. Just make it a Well of Corruption on revival; internal cool down of 60 or 90 seconds, perhaps. Would give necros a form of party support. Some classes are the “go to” profession for stomps; necros could become the “go to” profession for reviving. Makes sense; bringing the dead back to life should be something at which we excel.

The concern-icus I’d have with making it a full-blown Well of Corruption is that it may not actually corrupt stability in time. Think of a Guardian, Engie or Ele that have 3-6 boons on them at a time. If I recall correctly, stability is the last boon that gets stripped. I’d rather the well just corrupt stability. I don’t think it’d be overpowered, but instead provide nice counterplay to classes that pop their stability before stomping. Thieves, mesmers and engineers could still pop their invulnerability skills and stomp right through it.

Heck, all it Unstable Revival. :-)

Mash Hog.5672:

Hey Aelodyn,
I understand the frustration…
Think about it this way though.
Each map requires some bit of hardware on the ANet servers to be running.
I’m not too sure about this, but each custom arena needs a different machine running for it to be going.
That costs money to keep and maintain.
Furthermore, once someone buys a custom arena and they stop playing the game… whats the point in keeping that machine on when it can be used for something else?
This is probably in order to avoid having massive amounts of waste processing over the years and they don’t want to have to deal with having to pick and choose through which servers are active and which ones are inactive because that gets messy.

Nope. Pretty sure each custom arena is just a set of processes running on one of their big blade servers.

This is an interesting discussion.

I agree with Dee Jay (SFII reference ftw): buffing is generally an easier pill to swallow. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

Edit: Also, BACON!

JonPeters.5630:

Scarran.9845:

JonPeters.5630:

“Could you not combine Protection of the Horde with Flesh Of The Master?” -Scarran

We could but I think that would be a wildly OP Master trait…

Currently what is the difference in me spending 20 points in Death Magic and taking Flesh of the Master? Am I not receiving the same benefits? As I get Protection of the Horde as the minor trait at 15 points and I get Flesh of the Master 20 point major.

The difference would be that we would be adding a new 15 point minor as well that you would be getting for free that would have similar power to these. If we took any two major traits that had synergy and merged them they would be overpowered. No difference here.

I’d like to offer a dissenting opinion.

Protection of the Horde (PotH) is so weak that I’d assert it is not worthy of being a 15 point Master minor trait. As such, adding it to a master level trait would only provide a modicum of value. Let’s use an example:

Necro with 30 points in Death tree vs Power Warrior using a main hand sword.

A Necro with 30 in Death with no minions has 2136 armor, based upon the numbers from gw2skills.net Let’s assume the necro has no other toughness, so we can see what the maximum damage reduction from PotH provides.

Let’s say the warrior attacks with “Sever Artery”.

According to the GW wiki, damage is calculated as follows:
WEAPON DAMAGE * POWER * SPELL_Coef / armor

A Warriors MH exotic Berserker’s sword has 905-1000 damage, so let’s just use 1000 for the sake of argument. Also, let’s assume the warrior has 3000AP (that’s a LOT of AP).

1000 * 3000 * 0.6 / 2136 = 842 damage

Now, let’s assume the necro has a full minion payload of 5 (ignoring the 5pt adept trait since it’s terrible). This means his 3 utility slots, elite and healing slot are all filled with minions. That’s an additional 100 toughness.

1000* 3000 * 0.6 / 2236 = 805 damage

That’s a 4 % damage reduction, and that’s the best possible situation.

Now let’s assume the necro loaded up on toughness, and picked up amulets and runes with toughness. Now the necro would be sitting around 2945 armor:

0 Minions: 1000 * 3000 * 0.6 / 2945 = 611 damage
5 minions: 1000 * 3000 * 0.6 / 3045 = 591 damage

That’s 3% damage reduction.

I contend that this in no way sounds overpowered for a Master Level trait:
Flesh of the Master: Increases pet health 50% and reduces damage taken by 0.8% for each minion you control.

For S&G’s, let’s take a look at the Mesmer defensive Master level trait:

Chaotic Dampening: Increased toughness while wielding a staff or trident. Reduces recharge on staff and trident skills.
Toughness: +50
Recharge Reduced: 20%

That’s only different by 50 toughness, which is roughly equivalent to a Necro that runs with 3 minions out.

Sounds pretty comparable to me.

Edit: forgot bone minions give 2 minions instead of 1. However, those are low-hp pets that you are supposed to blow up, so let’s just assume we blew one up. :-)

JonathanSharp.7094:

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

I like that idea. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Point of inquiry 1:
Necromancers are designed to have very limited mobility and limited access to boons such as stability. This makes sense, which is why a Necromancer has to pop an elite skill (or spec into a grandmaster trait) in order to gain stability. However, necromancers have such limited access to boons that it is very easy to strip Stability from their elite abilities, severely impacting the efficacy of their elites.

Has anyone considered changing Plague form and Lich Form giving 20/30 seconds of stability to pulsing X seconds of stability every X seconds? For example: pulses 10 seconds of stability every 10 seconds. This would strike a balance: boon stripping would still be effective, but a single boon strip wouldn’t doom the elite for the entire duration.

Point of Inquiry 2:
Is the “Revive While in DS” trick a bug, or a valid tactic? I ask because you need very good timing to pull this off. If a bug, will it be fixed?

Suggestion:
Lastly, Mark of Revival is kind of stinky. Many times players who go to stomp have stability, rendering this useless. I’d like to offer a suggestion:
– Change Mark of Revival to Mark of Corruption: When reviving someone gain 1 second of protection and create a well which corrupts stability into fear.

silentnight warrior.2714:

all other classes dont have a nice passive heal signet that tick for 397 hp/sec + high hp pool + heavy armor ….

Other classes have other, inferior ways to sustain themselfs (sic), and those ways typically come at the cost of damage output.

I fixed that for you.

Curious what the consensus currently is among the forum:

Do you think the next patch (after Dec 10th) should be primarily focusing on beefing up professions to balance out the game, or primarily focus on toning down professions to balance out the game?

So, I created a poll:

http://poll.pollcode.com/783922

All opinions are welcome. No flames or trolls, or flaming trolls, please.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Can’t someone just make “PvP Town Clothes” skins?

Hey Evan – on another note: how does ANet determine how much money tPvP is making them from the Gem Store? For example, how do they know players are buying finishers for the sake of PvP and not PvE, or skins for the sake of PvP and not PvE?

“Just”. People keep using that word… :P The answer is no, we can’t just make pvp town clothes. Our goals are not to split the game even more with separate equipment.

But…you’ve already done this. I don’t know the numbers off-hand, but I’d venture to guess there is already in excess of 500 weapons and armor that are PvP-only, yet share the same skin as something in PvE.

The game has approximately 2.3 metric f*tons (scientific term) of PVP weapons and armor that are all named “PVP blahblahblah”, and it’s the same skin as the stuff on the PVE side. If the goal was not to split the game “even more”, then why did the team make an entirely separate set, yet identical-looking, set of PVP weapons and armor to begin with?

Help us understand the logic here: why was it acceptable to make PVP-only versions of the last ~500 items, but not acceptable to make PVP-only versions of town clothes?

NevirSayDie.6235:

If someone feels conditions as a main damage source detracts from the game, feel free to voice that opinion. Please provide specific examples—if you feel that condition specs are too tanky, provide an example of a spec that uses settler’s amulet. If you feel that condition specs are easier to play than direct damage specs, provide an example of a build you feel is easier.

Doesn’t even use a settler’s amulet.

Mladi Bojevnik.2517:

An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game’s designers. It can involve the use of a third-party program and it includes generating currency, experience, or other things of value to players. It also includes actions that allow one player to gain a gameplay advantage over other players.

New account resets your MMR something other players can not do. I think that is an advantage as such. I am not saying these players are not top or something but people trying to defend them ussualy (sic) do the opposite in my opinion.

That statement is patently false: I believe if you think about it for a second, you will see the flaw in your line of argument.

In essence, you are asserting that purchasing a second account is a violation of the terms of service of the first account.

I like it for Hot Join. It’s kind of like training wheels.

For Solo Queue, it’s also pretty decent since you typically aren’t well organized.

For Team Queue however, the training wheels should be off.

Here’s how I’d change it overall:

1. Remove profession icons and replace with circles (friendlies) and squares (enemies).
2. Color-code per profession.
3. Only show enemy Illusions
4. Remove opponents from mini-map in Team Queue
5. Solo Queue Only: Delay appearance of opponents in until ~1 minute into match.
6. Solo Queue Only: Opponents within X meters (3000?) are shown in minimap.

This reduces the clutter and provides a “training wheel gradient” for players when progressing from Hot Join —> Solo —> Team.

Can’t someone just make “PvP Town Clothes” skins?

Hey Evan – on another note: how does ANet determine how much money tPvP is making them from the Gem Store? For example, how do they know players are buying finishers for the sake of PvP and not PvE, or skins for the sake of PvP and not PvE?

It’s not just glory boosters. Illusions typically don’t have all the buffs a mesmer has, so it’s easy to tell them apart.

Cynz.9437:

- mesmers do have high burst and they have way better sustained where thief has to sit in the corner wait for ini to come back

Thieves don’t sit in the corner. They enter stealth because it provides more benefit than mechanism in the game: damage avoidance, loss of targeting, initiative regen, health regen, and condition removal – all at once.

This is one of the biggest reasons thieves are so strong and run in the current meta over mesmers and elementalists.

Cynz.9437:

- i don’t think you understood my point on running and capturing point: the problem is that moblity and stealth(only survival tools thieves have) both basically require you to leave capture point besides there are quite few classes that can easily kitten on thief given the same player skill

I understood your point. Thieves are very good at back-capping, as well as being able to take down certain bunker builds. This makes them excellent at solo-capping points. I don’t know if you fully understand the role of a thief in this game. Thieves are roamers/spike DPs. The role of a roamer/spike dps is to support killing opponents and cap points, not hold them. Holding points is the role of the bunker.

Cynz.9437:

- it is easy to see those changes now even…just don’t choose those traits….yes changes on 10th dec are terrible

I disagree, but time will tell. I will revisit this thread by New Year’s and discuss the impact of the thief changes.

Cynz.9437:

- just because some mesmers decided to play thief doesn’t mean mesmer has same role as thief… i might be not top player but hey i switched to necro, does it make necro to have same role as thief? please

Your statement is not accurate and your example is not relevant. I’m referring to people who played Mesmers on tPvP teams. These are people who were on a team that had a specific composition. They played Mesmers to fill a certain role. These players switched from Mesmer (a profession their were very comfortable with) on their teams, to playing a thief on their teams. They still filled the same role. Why did they switch? They switched because they recognized thieves became the apex predator for that role and they wanted their team to have the greatest chances at winning as possible.

Please keep the tone civil.

Justin ODell.9517:

Legno.6548:

I’ve read all the devs answers on this matter, with decay, leaderboard position, MM, and others stuff. And ultimately I’ve come to agree with which the devs are saying: Actually the decay can’t be permanent and if it is changed to be permanent nothing will change from how the leaderbord work now.
For example a top 10 player or an entire team stop to play and decay to rank 800, when those team or players start to play again they will be matched against ppl with their actual rank, so to them will be too easy to retake their old position.

Imho the only way to fix definitely the leaderboard decay is to split the rating used into the MM and the leaderbord position itself, and made the decay slower but permanent.

Exactly right. We’re going to strike at this problem at its root.

Point of Inquiry: In solo queue, is there any upper bound for the amount of decay applied to a rank? Let’s give an example: Rank #1 stops playing for 6 months and falls into the lowest 10%. Former rank #1 rejoins and finds himself grouped among the bottom 10%, and, because he or she is only 1 player among 5, cannot get out of the area he/she is in. Effectively that player decayed past the MMR event horizon and cannot escape.
Does, or will, the ranking system have mechanisms in place to recognize or prevent that from happening?

I understand that, during off hours, there are fewer players to choose from. As a result the matches tend to me more lop-sided, and less profession diversity.

Are the ratings issued as a result of off-hours matchups handled differently than those during ‘peak’ hours?

If so, how?

You own 1 or more of these: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aXoMW0zG45M/Tf9WSBnSp9I/AAAAAAAAAV4/e5tzaM1oYpQ/s400/betseyjohnsonchild2.jpg

Color code icons based upon profession. Allies are circles, enemies are squares.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Mesmer’s initially just showed on the mini-map as the Mesmer himself. I felt this was unfair to them exclusively because their class mechanics rely on deception. It made it so you basically ALWAYS knew which one was the real Mesmer because you just had to simply look at the map.

If you guys can provide a reasonable and better solution in terms of what we could do for Mesmer’s feel free to lay it on the table and we will consider it. Clutter is definitely an issue in itself; one we haven’t really solved in other areas of the game either.

Don’t show friendly illusions on map.
Don’t show opponents until 1 minute into the match.
Show opponents only within, say, 3000m of player.

This reduces clutter, keeps opening strategies viable, and still leaves room for some map play.

The current minimap will make teams depend on swiftness and mobility even more, as any play for a node can be seen and delayed, if not countered outright.

Justin ODell.9517:

felivear.1536:

I don’t understand their philosophy on decay disappearing after you play a game. It makes no sense.

We’re going to be changing this, but you’ll have to wait for the details. :/

How will solo queue decay work? I assume that a players rank/rating will continue to fall the longer they have not played. However, does it bottom out eventually?

If not, how does one handle the event horizon? That is: you fall down into a rating so low that, no matter your skill level, you cannot escape for you are only 1 player on a team of 5.

So far so very good. The matches last night were competitive, and people for the most part were trying to win the game as opposed to playing a solo hero.

Cynz.9437:

not sure if serious…thieves will be garbage after patch… besides you forget one simple thing..thieves die really fast, many times people kill them with aoe w/o even realizing they killed the thief

Bad thieves die really fast. Good thieves hardly die at all.

I’m guessing you play a thief.

Cynz.9437:

thieves don’t necessary have better burst, in fact i saw mes hit as hard as full glass cannons thieves before

Mesmers do not hit as hard as thieves. Before when shatter Mesmers could might stack they hit much harder, but that hasn’t been the case for perhaps 8+ months now.

Cynz.9437:

yes thieves have better mobility, but running thief not gonna hold/capture any points

Not true. Thieves do capture points, as well as contest points.

Cynz.9437:

mesmers don’t get revelaed debuff….

not true.

Cynz.9437:

and changes in next patch are huge nerfs to thieves actually…. stop kickng the dead horse already

This is also not true, but you’ll have to wait to see for yourself.

Re: different roles. I do not believe this is the case. They have the same role. In fact , several top mesmer players switched to thief some time ago.

Zeon.8239:

Elementalists have more burst than thieves, more AoE boon sharing (elemental attunement/etc.), less mobility, less survivability. Less team utility in general, though.

Mesmers have more burst than thieves (mind wrack blurred frenzy hits 2x harder than backstab+mug if we’re talking burst thief vs shatter mesmer). Less mobility, less team utility, less survivability.

I think thieves bring more to the table overall via blind fields/AoE stealth/mobility/boon stripping (although mesmers can boon strip). I suppose you could call them the apex predator by that standard, but burst Mesmer and burst Elementalist both have their merits.

Also, no real changes are being done to the common burst Elementalist specs. They may move two of our most important traits in the Arcana line from Adept to Master, which would actually be quite a nerf. If they only move one, however, then you won’t notice much of a difference.

I agree on most of your points, except for burst. Thief burst is better than Mesmer burst, and on par with elementalist burst. The worst I’ve ever been Mind Wrack/BF for is about 7k. I’ve been hit by a single backstab for more than that.

Jonathan Sharp said:

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.
In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in
different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then
players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles.
Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly.

I assert thieves are the current Apex predator for their role.

Mesmers and thieves (and elementalists) all vie for the role of support/burst DPS and roamer. That role requires quick burst damage, high mobility both in and out of combat, and good escape mechanisms. When looking at these roles:
* thieves have the better burst
* thieves have the better mobility both in and out of combat
* thieves have the better escape mechanisms

There are other factors which play into selecting which profession to bring, including: group healing, group buffs, group utility, survivability/tankiness. Neither bring anything substantial to the table in terms of group healing. Mesmers can bring aoe stability, but the range is so limited (240m) it’s hardly useful to the team. Mesmers bring Time Warp which is very useful. The ability for a thief to access stealth so easily gives thieves far better survivability than a mesmer can achieve. In terms of group utility, thieves get Shadow Refuge, which they can use both offensively to zerg strike and defensively to heal. This single thief utility is the functional equivalent of the Mesmer’s Veil, Mass Invisibility, and Illusion of Life, rolled into a single ability, and on a far shorter cooldown…and it’s an AoE heal and a dark combo field.

And, on top of this, thieves are a hard counter for Mesmers.

Many months ago, one could argue that Time Warp and Portal were the big differentiators in bringing mesmers instead of thieves. However, Time Warp lost 50% of its effectiveness and thieves were given their own, personal, invisible Portal, on a much shorter cooldown. Then mesmers were nerfed (Blurred Frenzy, Temporal Curtain, Chaos Armor, etc.).

The upcoming December 10 patches are providing some modest buffs to the Mesmer profession, a huge buff to the thief profession (substantial initiative regen), and a slight nerf to thief vigor. In terms of the ‘viable’ professions listed by the developers (shatter, Mantra and Phantasm), I don’t see any changes substantial enough to differentiate thieves from mesmers.

As of today it appears that the only thing Mesmers uniquely bring is Time Warp.

Perhaps I am missing something. How has ArenaNet not buffed thieves to the point of being the Apex Predator profession that they have been so worried about creating?

Justin ODell.9517:

cymerdown.4103:

Josh Davis.6015:

We have increased the rate at which someone decays on the leaderboard. We were hoping to observe the change for a few days before making any sort of announcement, but you guys are too clever for that.

Justin has also changed the decay to update every hour, rather than one a day, so you should see movement happen a bit more often.

Let us know what you think!

Wait… every hour? So like if I don’t play for an hour, I’ll start decaying? Or you mean like if I don’t play for a week (or whatever the real minimum interval for decay to start is), the exact hour that 1 week since I last played hits, the decay will start?

Yes, after two hours it will start to decay but the decay is so low that you shouldn’t see any changes in such a short amount of time. It also ramps up the longer it’s been since the last time you played.

So it’s some kind of exponential decay?

Game was designed for 5v5, I’m going to say 5v5.

I think custom arenas should be allowed to do whatever they want.

This is sPvP, not a clown car: 10 people is the limit.

The only time overcrowding is permissible is when you’re trying to fit more than 1 girl on your bed.

BobbyStein.2315:

Sondergaard.8469:

Firstly, the audience, or in this case, the player needs a character, or a group of characters they can relate to and develop a personal bond with. This is usually done in novels through a series of introductory events that showcase the main characters and their personalities. This helps the reader to develop a much more intimate understanding of the people involved in this story. The same is true with movies. With games you get the best of both worlds. You have the ability to access the meta information that novels provide, while showing a visual story as movies provide.

Personal story and dynamic events are a great way to introduce and build on characters so the players can develop a deeper connection to the storyline and the events happening in the world. There’s a very strong disconnect from the characters and the players though. When I log in and I see the next part of this story, my first thought is, “Who is this, and why should I care?” That shouldn’t be the case if proper story telling mechanics are implemented.

Flame & Frost introduced Rox and Braham in March. We’ve reused them throughout the year (April, August, October, etc.). I guess what I’m saying is that we’re doing this, but if you’ve missed some releases then I completely understand why you may not know them well.

I played Flame & Frost, and I completely forgot about those characters.

Perhaps the poster’s first statement should have been written with emphasis:
Firstly, the audience, or in this case, the player needs a character, or a group of characters they can relate to and develop a personal bond with.

The only character I’ve seen in this game I felt a ‘bond’ with was Tybalt Leftpaw. All the others fall quite flat, including Rox and Brahm.

Yes please! Or ones that list 10/20 but are actually capped at 5v5

Narcarsis.5739:

As for other classes such as Elementalists, Mesmers, etc. They put out more damage more often, along with providing more team utility.

That is a patently false statement.

Narcarsis.5739:

You’re asking why a glass cannon can hit you like a truck when you can turn around and do the same thing to them.

no class can hit like that in the game. And all other classes you can see coming.

I’ve been running with Sensotix’s sword/scepter/shatter (the S4) build, and came up with a variant which I find to be more useful for solo queue.

Edit: I didn’t name the build, so.. .let’s just call it the Nameless Build.

It’s a standard 20/20/0/0/30 shatter build, but with 3 notable differences.
Here is a link to the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfRl4zaqXUTmGb9ICqHaH49dkU0asWJF82FC-TsAg0CnImRNjbGzMyZszMEZRwMCA

Here are the notable differences:
1) Greatsword + Sword/Torch
– The torch provides great escaping and allows you to better sneak up on unwary foes.

2) Mantra of Recovery
3) Centaur Runes
– This combination provides you with 12 seconds of swiftness per heal, as well as procs swiftness when you charge Mantra of Recovery.

This provides nearly all the damage output of a standard shatter build, but with VERY high uptime for group swiftness. With Decoy + Torch 4 you have lots of opportunities to recharge your Mantra during a battle.

So this is a high damage, high stealth build with lots of swiftness. It’s decent for solo queue and semi-roaming between two points.

I’ll throw my hat into the ring here.
This is the foundation of an idea, and still needs some fleshing out.
I’ve called it GRIDIRON.

Premise: Tic-Tac-Toe meets Capture Point meets Payload.

Layout: The map is divided into a series of adjacent segments. Each segment can be conquered by either team.
The objective: create a contiguous path from your base to your opponents’ base. Once a contiguous path is created, you must navigate a ‘super siege machine (SSM)’, like a Mega-Golem (legendary level), from your side to the opponents’ side. This siege is operated by 1 team member.
If the Super Siege gets to the other side, the game is over.

Gameplay:

Phase I
1) The map is divided into a series of adjacent segments, maybe like a tic-tac-toe square, but the middle is slightly pinched into 2 squares . A segment is owned by players of one team occupying the spot, much like it is currently with capture point.
a. A segment may be reclaimed by the opponent in the same manner it currently is in capture point.
2) If one team creates a contiguous path from their side to the opponent’s side, that path is ‘locked down’, and Phase 2 begins.
b. The ‘locked down’ path cannot be claimed by the opposing team unless they defeat the SSM.
a. The contiguous path may be straight, diagonal, or any combination (zig-zag, etc)

Phase II
1) If one team succeeds in constructing the path, a Super Siege Machine (SSM) is released. This SSM must be piloted by 1 team member along the locked down path to the other team’s side. If it reaches the other side, the team wins.
a. The SSM is Legendary and has a ginourmous Hit Point Pool (GHPP).
b. The SSM has a set of abilities of its own, but is somewhat limited.
c. The SSM has the unshakeable buff.
d. If the pilot leaves the SSM, the SSM will turn around and begin to head back to base.

2) The SSM can be destroyed by the opposing team. If this happens:
a. The ‘lock down’ path becomes neutral.
b. the pilot is killed
c. The entire advancing team within 2000 meters of the SSM are all sent back to their spawn.
d. You go back to Phase I.

3) If no team wins by the end of the match timer, a winner is determined based upon how many spaces are occupied at the end of the match.

Buffs/Debuffs:
Occupying various patterns on the map provides teams with benefits. Some ideas:
– Owning a 4 segment forming a square: spawns a guardian NPC for the team
– Owning a Tetris “Z” shaped segment: spawns a 1-use bundle that allows a player to put down a massive aoe-rejection field for 20 seconds
– Owning an all the segments along your base: creates a set mini auto-trebuchet that defends your home base

It’s a rough concept, but I think you get the idea. The gameplay can vary depending upon map design (tic-tac-toe, or a circle, or a “Family Feud X”, etc.), and what kind of buffs are put down, etc.

Vargamonth.2047:

Leadfoot.9071:

hackks.3687:

Brando.1374:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Brando.1374:

My suggestion would be to give more importance to the Player Vs Player/s aspect instead of the Player Vs circle on the ground.

The circles are there to force conflict, allow for build/role variety, and promote large-scale strategy. Chess is player vs. player even though the object is only to checkmate the opposing king. It would be silly to say that chess is player vs. 64 squares.

I get the 3 points are to Force some sort of a fight there but the actual fight (on and off points) should be more rewarding than taking the point.

That might be true if the game mode weren’t called “Conquest” where map control is the objective, and killing opponents is only a means to that end.

So no, it shouldn’t be more rewarding in Conquest to kill a player than to capture a point.

This whole thing can be solved by introducing TDM and then revamping the scoring system of Conquest to better reward for controlling points and less so for killing off point. Then everybody wins. The two modes simply have to have different scoring priorities.

It’s not that easy.
Classes are balanced around Conquest mode; you can’t just throw TDM in and expect things to work properly.

Billy Idol gets it. Pretty much any kind of game mode that is not based upon regional occupation would require a lot of rework of the professions and mechanics.

Profano.9514:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You should read the first line of my post again. If you find the word “shatter” you are one step further to understand what’s going on im my post.

I prefeer the scepter for clone generation with skill 1 and 2 even in shatter builds, because i can generate more clones. Just different playstyles, imho

fadeaway.2807:

Profano… anything your scepter clones do on a condi build is done better by staff clones. Your scepter clones overwrite the more useful staff ones. That’s the problem.

No sorry. I did a build based on CLONES DEATH (no shatter, they must be killed or replaced). I need quantity, not quality.

P.S. What is the difference between Scepter and Staff clones?

P.P.S. this attachment can be nice for the annoying clone generation?

That is a nice idea. I like the idea of giving mesmers a little aoe on the scepter.

I was sitting here thinking about this some more (waiting for other things to finish), and I’ve convinced myself the biggest problem with scepter #1 is simply the turnaround time to generate clones.

Right now, if you want to be a clone factory it is nearly mandatory to put 20 points into dueling in order to get clone-on-dodge. That is limiting to build diversity.

If scepter auto-attack were quick enough to generate clones, it would potentially become a viable alternative to Dueling X, which would open up greater build diversity for Mesmers.

Currently, if I want to run a shatter build, I have to run x/20/x/x/30, giving only 20 points to work with. Increasing clone generation on scepter 1, that would change to x/x/x/x/30, giving 40 points to work with.

This greatly opens up options for clone-death and shatter builds.

Brando.1374:

redslion.9675:

Brando.1374:

it appears that Spvp is not the location to showcase our pvp skills. for this I am sorry if it has rustled your Jimmies. I will no longer try to fight other players but instead try and decap an empty point for the entire match so we can “win” the pvp match.

Too bad, the game makes you think before engaging, and doesn’t revolve around 1v1. Too bad.

yea it is bad.

This is a team-based game. It is beyond me as to why you are playing a team-based game when you clearly want to just run out and play a 1v1 game. It sounds to me that this is not the game for you. I’d suggest you try something else, like Halo or the like.

Another scepter suggestion:

Scepter #1: Increase Damage by 10%. Remove Ether Blast. Ether Clone is a projectile finisher.

Scepter #2: 2 second block of all damage. Counter damage is increased by 15% for each attack blocked, up to a maximum of 60%.

(disclaimer: All of the above posts are of a raving madman on medication and not intended for small children. Consuming said posts may result in dizziness, nausea and uncontrollable swelling of the nether regions. Consult your doctor before reading. Do not taunt happy fun ball.)

Ideas on Changing Mesmers to Better Fit a Role in High-End
The following is a list of ideas on how Mesmers could be altered to better fit certain roles. These are all independent suggestions; as such, I am not suggesting all these are necessary for Mesmers. Rather, I am offering a set of set of suggestions, any one of which could help a Mesmer become better suited for a given role.

Role: General
Wastrel’s Punishment replaced with: Dodging removes cripple and blind.
Phantasmal Defender: Reduced cast time to 0.75 seconds
Phantasmal Disenchanter: Reduced cast time to 0.75 seconds. Attacks bounce a total of four times. First ally bounce will always be to Mesmer, can hit same target multiple times. Affected by Illusionary Elasticity.
Illusionist’s Celerity (IC) & Phantasmal Strength (PS): Change IC to reduce cool down on Clone Summoning Weapon Skills and Illusion-Summoning Utilities. Change PS to increase phantasm damage 15% and decrease cool down on Phantasm summoning weapon skills by 20%. Move IC to adept Tier. This decouples Mesmer survivability from Mesmer damage.
Mimic: Replace with Translocation: Swap positions with your opponent.

Role: Roamer
Master of Manipulation: Increases range of Manipulation Skills. Using a Manipulation Skill grants 8 seconds of swiftness.
Torch 5 – Phantasmal Mage: Create an illusion that impedes and reveals foes. Damage: 500, Recharge 5 seconds. Every successful attack applies 2 seconds of revealed and 2 seconds of one of: blind, cripple or chill.

Role: Burst DPS
Wastrel’s Punishment replaced with: Dodging removes cripple and blind.

Role: Support DPS
Increase range of Mantra of Resolve/Power Cleanse and Mantra of Concentration/Power Break to 400-500m.
Reduce Cool down of Signet of Inspiration from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
Scepter #2 – ability blocks for full 2 second duration. Counter attack damage increases with the number of attacks blocked.
Chaotic Revival: You and your allies receive Chaos Armor when you rally. Range 600m

Role: Bunker
Replace Cleansing Inscriptions with: Gain 2 seconds of Protection when you gain Chaos Armor
Replace Shattered Conditions with: Successfully blocking or reflecting an attack removes a condition.

What Mesmers Need to Be Competitive in High End
Role: General
Fewer Conditions or Passive Condition Removal
In order to be competitive, there needs to be either fewer conditions in the game, or the Mesmer needs access to better passive condition removal. Specifically, Mesmers need better removal of cripples, blinds and immobilizes.

Role: Roamer
Better Movement
Mesmers have limited access to swiftness, and ranged mobility. They have focus, Blink on a 30 second cool down and Portal on a whopping 90 second cool down. This greatly hinders the ability of the Mesmer to move quickly between point, especially when compared to thieves and elementalists.
Thief Counter
Given thieves are superior to Mesmers in nearly every aspect of roaming, giving Mesmers a means to hard counter thieves would go a long way to making Mesmers viable, as well as introducing more team composition variety.

Role: Burst DPS
Fewer Conditions or Passive Condition Removal
In order to be competitive, there needs to be either fewer conditions in the game, or the Mesmer needs access to better passive condition removal. Specifically, Mesmers need better removal of cripples, blinds and immobilizes.

Role: Group Support / DPS
Increased Range of Team Buffs
Mesmers are a in a decent position in terms of group support, primarily achieved through abilities such as Null Field and Portal. However, Portal is very situational. Some of the current Mesmer traits provide a limited range boost; perhaps the range could be augmented.
Decrease Screen Clutter & Increase Character Size
One of the great ways a Mesmer can help out a team is by shutting down an opponent at key times. Removing on-screen clutter by reducing effects, moving/removing damage and increasing character sizes would help Mesmers be better at reading their opponents, thus enabling them to be better at shutting down opponents.

Role: Bunker
Better Access to On-Demand Protection
Mesmers used to have excellent access to Protection. However, Illusionary Membrane was heavily nerfed which made bunker non-viable for Mesmers.
Fewer Conditions or Passive Condition Removal
In order to be competitive, there needs to be either fewer conditions in the game, or the Mesmer needs access to better passive condition removal. Specifically, Mesmers need better removal of cripples, blinds and immobilizes.

Mesmers in the Meta

Condition Meta

With the Necromancer buffs began the age of the “Condi Meta”. This meta relied upon pressuring the opposing team heavily with lots of conditions and spreading those conditions around. Since Mesmers have no access to passive condition cleansing, and the condition cleanses they do have are on a long cool down, they could not compete. An already squishy class, Mesmers simply melt under condition pressure.

Stun/Immobilize (Hambow Meta)

With the dawn of the Hambow meta, we are seeing fewer damaging conditions around and more forms of CC being spread. Specifically Stun, and to a lesser extent, Immobilize. Mesmers still suffer in this meta due to its squishy nature and lack of teleports to get away from the danger. Mesmers are in a better place in this meta game than they were before, but still cannot compete, as thieves simply are superior.

What Will Happen on 10-December (the Santa-meta?)

The current list of prosed changes are:
Domination XII – Confounding Suggestions. Changed to also increase daze duration by 25%.
This is a good change and will help Mesmers compete against other classes.

Dueling VI – Protected Mantras. Moved to Master Tier. Increase Toughness from 400 to 600.
This is a mediocre change. The biggest problem with Mantra channeling is it lasts 2.75 seconds, untraited and is EXTREMELY easy to interrupt.

Dueling VII – Mantra Mastery. Moved to Adept Tier.
This is a mediocre change. However, it now means Mesmers will have to give up Blade Training or Phantasmal Fury in order to get a modest reduction in Mantra channeling. It’s a LOT to sacrifice, and you really don’t get much in return.

Chaos 25 – Chaotic Transference. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
This is a good change.

Chaos I – Chaotic Revival. Reduced cool down from 35s to 10s.
This is a mediocre change to a lousy talent. Taking this talent does absolutely nothing to boost your team support, damage output or survivability. Secondly, 5 seconds of Chaos armor isn’t much. This could have no cool down and I believe most people would skip it.

Chaos VII – Mirror of Anguish. Reduced cool down from 90s to 60s.
A good change, but it doesn’t prevent you from receiving the stun/fear/etc.

Inspiration IV – Mender’s Purity. Now removes 2 conditions.
A good change.

Inspiration XI – Shattered Conditions. Increased radius from 240 to 600.
A good change.

Illusions VI – Illusionary Invigoration. Recharge reduced from 90s to 60s. Moved to Master Tier.
Illusions VIII – Dazzling Galmours. Moved to Adept Tier.
A decent change.

Illusions 15 – Shattered Strength – Moved to Grandmaster tier.
Illusions 25 – Illusionist’s Celerity – Moved to Master tier.
Every Mesmer complained heavily when Illusionist’s Celerity was effectively nerfed by moving it to the grandmaster tier. This is only a partial fix, but better than nothing.

Overall it looks like Mesmers will see a slight buff to damage and survivability. However there will be no changes to Mesmer escape, mobility or group support. I believe it is these last 3 facets of gameplay which will be most critical to Mesmers becoming viable.
It’s hard to discern exactly what will happen. However, we do know that Mesmers, Thieves and Elementalists all compete for similar roles a team. Thief mobility and condition removal are not being affected, but the entire profession is getting a flat initiative buff, which likely means thieves will remain the superior option to Mesmers. Elementalists are getting a substantial revamp, and it’s hard to determine what will happen to them. However, it’s quite possible there will be at least one very powerful/borderline OP elementalist build that will come out of these changes. With that in mind, I believe Mesmers will remain at the bottom of the food chain in terms of PvP viability at the high end.

Contributors to Mesmer non-viability

Thief Buffs
Currently thieves have better burst, better escape ability, better group buffs (stealth on a shorter cooldown), better mobility (including a peronal portal), more dodging, immunity to chill effects and better personal condition removal than Mesmers. This is why some of the best Mesmer’s dropped the profession in favor of Thief in recent months. Additionally, most of the thief abilities are either instant cast or have a cast time between 0.25 and 0.5 seconds, making them effectively immune to interrupts and interrupt-based effects. All these things together make the thief a hard counter to Mesmers.

Mesmer Nerfs
ANet heavily nerfed Mesmers over the past year. There were a number of nerfs, however the most significant were:
- Moved Illusionist’s Celerity to the Grandmaster Tier
- Removed Protection from proccing Chaos Armor

These two changes made Mesmers far less tanky, reduced their survivability skills such as Decoy and Phase Retreat, while simultaneously reducing their damage output
Limited/Inferior Team Buffs

Time Warp, Illusion of Life and Portal were the 3 abilities Mesmers were relied upon. While Time Warp still remains powerful, it is not as strong as it used to be. Warriors and Rangers bring better battle revive abilities to the team, and Portal is still somewhat situational. In many cases a thief’s Shadow Trap/Shadow Return is far superior for what is required, and has half the cool down.

Recent changes have given Mantras limited group utility: AoE Condition Cleanse and AoE stability. However, the range on these abilities is incredibly small (240m), rendering them far less useful than they could be.

Quickness Nerf
Nerfing quickness to increase attack speed by 50% impacted the utility of a Mesmer’s Time Warp, which in turn made Mesmer’s less viable.
AoE Damage
There is still a lot of AoE damage in tPvP, which results in Phantasms, a large potential source of Mesmer damage output, is greatly reduced in teamplay.

“The Petting Zoo”
Mesmer damage output is largely single-target. This, in turn, means Mesmers are at a disadvantage when it comes to fighting opponent teams which have large amounts of minions/pets.

Poor Character Animation Visibility
Mesmers have several abilities that allow them to interrupt an opponent and punish them. Tiny opponents, massive on-screen damage numbers and over-the-top damage effects make it extremely difficult for Mesmers to read their opponents and react/interrupt them.

Greetings,
Mesmers have been virtually absent from competitive tournament play for several months now. I believe a variety of factors have contributed to the lack of Mesmer presence. In addition, the Mesmer class has several shortcomings in terms of weapon skills, utilities and traits which, if properly improved, may result in increased Mesmer build diversity and tPvP potential.

Typical Roles in PvP:

Bunker – high resistance to damage, good access to stability

Roamer – very good damage, ability to counter bunkers, very high mobility, good disengage

Burst DPS – ability to deal significant spike damage on command

Support DPS – ability to provide group support via boons, condition cleanse, heals, mobility, etc.

Roles Mesmers can vie for
Bunker – nerfs to the trait “Chaos 15” and impractical access to stability make this non-viable

Roamer – buffs to thieves and lots of condi-damage make this non-viable in high end pvp

Burst DPS – Still viable, but hindered due to squishiness/extensive condi damage in game

Support DPS – Still viable, but other classes provide better buffs/healing/etc more easily while being tankier

Mesmers OP! Nerf!

ronpierce.2760:

I know but its fun to watch. :P

No, not really.

Peow peow.2189:

seriously, i dont know if im the onlky one who finds the spvp capping system a really boring game mode. I find myself wanting to kill others more then cap points… Please put in a mode where we can have 5 v 5 8 v 8 10 v 10 deathmatch, where the aim is to see who is the best P V P player, not the best point capper XD

or if you can find a way to implement killing as a viable way to earn lots of points in spvp thats great.

This will make PVP more exciting and good pvpers can become more well known for their skills in the pvp community, rather then the w v w community.

Oh and if you say go to wvw for better PvP, if you die in a fight in wvw it takes 20 minutes just to run around and find another one. No thanks . . .

Go play some other game.

ronpierce.2760:

Remove useless statistics and add “damage done” “healing done” “killing blows” “stomps” that’d keep me going! Show all player’s statistics so we can compare. Its a competitive game, these things help drive people to be better. :P

Those are not the statistics that matter in this game, and that’s the problem. It’s team-based game, not Call of Duty.