Guild Wars 2

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201&Jim Hunter.6821:
While I don’t agree with Tyeme.6589, you both are exactly doing, what I he says you’d do. You pick out some statements, rip them from context and use it to attack his position in a very arrogant manner.

He indeed never ever in this thread said he’d win only 30% of his fights with his necro. If you both can’t see that, than you’re either not able to comprehend such information or simply are ignorant to his post.

Also the assumption of, that 1 out of 30 players he meets are hackers, cannot really be argued. Sure he could mistake some of them with speed specs, or they are hackers indeed. I do not really know what the point of your discredit strategy is. Makes me suspicious of you two…

Hackers are a fact. Imo they are not that often as Tyeme.6589 describes, but I rarely run in other roamers when roaming myself, so I can’t really tell. All I run into are split groups from the near by zerg or whole ganking teams, that I only can run from…

Roe.3679:

TyPin.9860:

There is a difference. Atm, as you say, DS interactions are an exploit. Exploits are forbidden unless you want to get banned. They are, as far as I understand it, not wanted by Anet. Thus, I and several necros I know don’t use that exploit. Implementing it as a feature would drastically change the impact of DS interactions, because then everybody be able to do it just like that. It would change a big part of casual player experiences. Don’t know if necors use it in official torments. But it being an exploit would than get them banned, because it would have been recorded and official…

I agree. Lets make sure the class without notable team utility is prevented from having a strippable boon – that doesn’t last the full duration of the stomp – so that they could contribute to team fights and take advantage of their otherwise flashy but not fully useful grandmaster trait. Definitely.

Your sarcasm aside, I did not call for it not being possible. I just pointed out, that it is not a feature yet but a bug/exploit. Personally I’d find it too strong to be able to interact in death shroud with the surroundings (read — stomp/ress/commune/etc.). But that is just my opinion. Of course your are entitled to your own.

Cool, I just had a run of several hotjoin games, trying out dhuum fire necro (didn’t like it, went back to terrormancer). It was an amazing experience. All players were fair, no one changed sides, ppl were friendly and exchanged tips on how to do stuff. The last game I was in was a super close match with 500 to 480 ot smth like that. It was awesome.

That clearly shows to me that even with this flawed hotjoin system it can still be fun, if not everyone is greedy for glory points… I hope I’ll have more of those kinda games.

Thx to the “always” invissible Mesmer, the S/D thief I never could hurt even remotely, the ranger who always pushed me back in the worst moments, the thief, who avenged his own death by slaughtering me like a pig and all the others. Sry, I forgot your names

Okay, I get it is a totally not a serious mode. But I am confused that hotjoin allows you to progress and get glory points. Progress should be rewarded for skill. But the hotjoin system I have experienced is being abused to gain glory points faster and certainly doesn’t require skill.

As for testing builds… I found that very difficult. Because I am constantly outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1. Or I avoid my opponents completely, but then I can’t test my builds. Often when I am fighting one guy, one or two guys from the other team jump me.

From my point of view the hotjoin system can not accomplish what its supposed to do…

There is a difference. Atm, as you say, DS interactions are an exploit. Exploits are forbidden unless you want to get banned. They are, as far as I understand it, not wanted by Anet. Thus, I and several necros I know don’t use that exploit. Implementing it as a feature would drastically change the impact of DS interactions, because then everybody be able to do it just like that. It would change a big part of casual player experiences. Don’t know if necors use it in official torments. But it being an exploit would than get them banned, because it would have been recorded and official…

I don’t want to troll, don’t want to complain. I seriously wanna understand what the intention of hotjoin is. I am not understanding it.

What an issue to be “concerned” about. There are other problems/bugs that need fixing. This is the last thing I’d complain about…

Thanks for all the tips. I have already incorporated some of them into my play style. I need to practice a bit more, but they seem to get more and more manageable. I got the hang especially against turret engies in the last few games.

I can’t life without plague form any more. I used to run with the golem and in a 1v1 situation the golem, if it doesn’t bug out, helps you more than plague form. But I have held so many times a point for a long time, so that my allies can arrive, with plague form.

When I see the fight going down (either I am about to loose 1v1 or my opponents out man me) I activate plague form with the blind and try to keep as many of them in the circle as possible. When the plague form is over or I am about to die I quickly change into death shroud to gain some more seconds. Sometimes I even manage to down one or two this way, but its not common.

It can be increadibly strong in PvP. Also it allows save ressing and finishing. Only disadvantage is the long cool down. But it’s a very strong skill, so the cool down is okay imho.

Yeah, I was also accused of hacking some time ago. It was in PvP though. But it was quite funny. I shouldn’t have used my one stealth skill I had on my skill bar at the time

Here it goes:

• Cost 05 — Skill: Fire Coating — your next siege attack causes burning for 1 seconds
• Cost 10 — burning from Fire Coating lasts 2 seconds
• Cost 15 — burning from Fire Coating lasts 3 seconds
• Cost 20 — burning from Fire Coating lasts 4 seconds
• Cost 25 — burning from Fire Coating lasts 5 seconds
• Cost 30 — burning damages gates and siege equipment
• Cost 35 — burning damage to gates and siege equipment doubled

Comment: Burning from Pour Oil would simply last longer if used with Fire Coating.

I fully agree with the UI complaints.

However, to be able to stomp or res in death shroud would allow you, if traited, to go every 7 seconds into death shroud with at least 3 seconds of stability (or more, depending on gear and other traits) and basicly do relatively safe stomps/resses in a super short interval. I think it is reasonable that this shouldn’t be possible.

The whole siphoning being not possible in death shroud seems rather counter intuitive. I did expect that DS would allow you to trigger life siphon traits, so you can heal up then. I have no idea of the balance impact. But given that life siphon builds are rather weak in a PvP setupt that might just give such a build the right push to be competitive and might allow for a whole new kind of bunker build.

The only thing I want to read (and naturally see implemented) is the following:

“We have implemented in this update numerous WvW features, which make the numbers advantage a thing of history. We also added fair and awesome rewards for players who defend and roam. The maps have been overhauled, all glitches and exploits have been removed and we have added new terrain and tactical situations where even the lesser used professions for WvW zerging will be vital for your side to succeed.”

Is that too much to ask?

Bryzy.2719:

The simple fact of the matter is, Rangers have sucked since beta – that’s 2 years of no buffs, no nice additions to the profession and pure neglect.

Mesmers still don’t actually suck like Rangers do, they just have a lot of problems, and these problems have only existed for a limited number of months.

The CDI polling thread a few months ago for “which profession is most in need of help?” – Rangers topped the thread by a huge margin. Mesmers weren’t even in the top 3.

Heretofor, Rangers are worse off. Not sure how Mesmers think they can be put in the same boat as Rangers when these facts are so clear. And yes, this thread has become a “who is worse off than who” thread. Even if Mesmers were to become as sucky as Rangers, we have been in this situation far, far longer.

How does this make anything better? Mesmer started of very good. But soon people (almost everyone was a nub back then) complained how overpowered they were, while I never had problems dealing with mesmers, not more than with other professions. I think this is the case fro many, who mained mesmer since the beginning.

Even if mesmers had a good start. Bugged out skills, bug fixes resulting in nerfes and intended nerfes (one of the biggest still to the confusion glamor build, which is simply not viable any more and almost any related trait results even in combination with each other in a crappy build) had left the profession in a very bad spot.

Why do some of the main rangers try to deny that? We are not here to win a “what is the worst profession in the game” contest. The fact of the matter is that mesmer is in a bad spot atm. And just because the ranger has been in such a spot since the beginning, mesmers are not allowed to complain? That is just cheap and self absorbed. Get a perspective. No one was denying that rangers need buffs and fixes. But so do mesmers too.

Veruah.5302:

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

I use decoy, blink and portal for PvP. I could take a condi removal, but then I’d loose one of the utilities I can’t life without. However, I am not complaining about that. I accept the fact, that I have no condi removal and that I have to kill a condi build, before it can dish out any serious stack of condies.

Fay.2357:

Honestly, if you were able to hold off a PU condie mesmer and a P/D thief for over a minute without condition removals, they must have been extraordinarily bad.

They might have been. I saw those 3 players and knew I am not gonna survive that. I but tried and wanted to keep them busy as long as possible. So I used obstacles, dodged, pushed back, dazed and so one. I knew the PU condi mesmer would only be a problem, if I’d focus him or his illusions. So I stayed at distance. The condie thief and the other mesmer was the real trouble. It was going all so fast, but the thiev didn’t hit me with anything serious for some time and using obstacles helped me avoid some of the damage. I am not sure if it was a full minute. But I used push back 2 times and didn’t use it right away when the fight started. I think I also used 2 times chaos storm. I realize I was incredibly lucky surviving that long. Maybe they were really bad ^^

@topic
Thanks for the tips so far. I will try to focus the AI down then…

Hey my fellow mesmer awesomnists,

I am lately playing more and more shatter mesmer in PvP. While I accept to not have a single condition removal, I learned to deal with it a bit and was today even holding 3 enemies – 1 mesmer (no idea what kinda build), 1 PU condition mesmer and a condi thief – for over a minute before they finally killed my pretty little Si Lly.

However, I have problems with AI builds. Especially engineers and phantasm mesmers. So I wanted to ask if you guys have some tips and tricks for me, how to deal with them.

I am running the normal 4/4/0/0/6 shatter build with 2x energy sigil and 2x sigil of fire, zerker amulet and decoy, blink & portal. (I love the mobility, makes it easy to outcap the opponent).

Brega.6920:

I want to be sure I understand this thread.

this is what I’m taking away from it:

My profession is worse then your profession, nuh uh my profession is worse then your profession, nuh uh my profession is worse then your profession, nuh uh my profession is worse then your profession.

Did I get that right.

Yep, exactly this is happening in this thread. There are some reasoned complaints and originally it was only about mesmers. But soon rangers hopped on and the battle for the smallest whatever began.

NinjaEd.3946:

@OP, No idea why they are moaning. They want the best of both worlds and even after all their “class breaking nerfs” they can still be played well. The majority of their complaints come from bugs relating to their core skills which I can understand, but when they ask for full out buffs on skills that don’t need them its questionable and often laughable.

Even more so, when you list their strengths almost always someone replies with, “Yeah and that’s all we got” and then go on about how they need more. ><

I’d like to know when someone asked for additional buffs. What the majority is asking for is fixing bugs and repair useless/broken traits. The only time I see mesmers ask for buffs is when they say nerf this and that and give us this instead, so we can have more than one build.

Why are we now comparing who has the smallest kitten? I have fought on my main mesmer many rangers in WvW. There were some who destroyed me, there were other who got destroyed. I fought many rangers with my mesmer in PvP. Same there. And even when I was using my ranger and fought mesmers it could have gone either way. I rarely play PvE, so no idea there. And the 1 or 2 utilities mesmer have made them a bit more viable in a zerg. On the other hand, I always enjoyed destroying enemies and siege from a far with my ranger longbow. It can be a huge advantage when defending a tower/keep. But hey, who defends these days^^

Over all both professions have reason to complain. But to compare who is inna worse spot than the other is just silly. You cannot read this thread from the beginning to the end, without to start laughing out loud about all the “we are so much worse” complaints.

Some comments in this thread (and others) but show that some people simply don’t understand Mesmer. Claiming PU is OP is one example. I have been often accused of running PU in PvP. In every case I didn’t, showing how less mesmer strengths has to do with this trait.

People have no idea how mesmer works, what makes them strong and what makes them weak. Now that we are in such a bad shape after repeated nerfs, trait that simply don’t work or have limited to no effect and the long long bug list makes it easier for others to deal with mesmers.

I foresee that, if mesmer gets fixed/buffed, players will start to moan again, while we are just brought back in line and might be able to actually do something in group fights.

I updated the first post with some explanations and added the stuff I missed.

What some write her about being disrespectful to the guild or it being a bad design is absolute nonsense entirely.

bad game design
Did a part of the game force those players to be rude? Did someone demand it or does it give a reward? No it doesn’t. Those players decided to be rude. They likely believe to be something better, because they play the game in an organized group. They are elitists, who don’t care to calmly explain the issue to the upleveled. Instead they use cheap rudeness, because its easy and they are anonymous. Luckily not all players are like that and I for once ask people nicely and take the 5 minutes to explain rather than pushing potential reinforcements for the future away. It is incredibly effective and I play the same game as those “elite pro gamers”. Don’t blame the game design for every player decision. Even if the design was flawed, the players still chose to be rude themselves instead of civil.

Disrespectful towards the organized group/guild
Sorry, but that is utter bullkitten. If the upleveled was trolling the big group and deliberately playing rally bot it would be different. But that was a new player learning the game. If anything, that guild was disrespectful. They could have explained the situation and the newcomer would have likely understood. That is my experience. Point that person to EotM or to a pug zerg with a public commander, that is going around. But attacking new players like that is pathetic and disrespectful towards the new player, not the other way around.

Nah… they will next patch move Shattered Conditions into illusions trait line at master level and then shatter mesmer will be truly OP.

I just wanted to make this thread so that everyone knows what ways there are for save or relatively safe finishing. I wanted to do this, because I for instance wasn’t aware of the stomp with Phase Retreat and Blink until some days ago .

Ways to finish (relatively) safe:

• Distortion
  Make yourself invulnerable to damage and interrupt abilities of the downed players and his allies.
• Signet of Midnight
  Blind the downed player when he is about to use an interrupt ability. Requires precise timing and watching the downed players actions. With the trait Blurred Inscriptions the signet also grants Distortion and makes it more forgiving to unprecise timing (pointed out by Iavra.8510).
• Stealth
  Make yourself invisible, so the downed player can not use any ability requiring a target. Can also be used to throw off a downed thief’s timing when he tries to teleport away (explained by ASP.8093). With the trait Prismatic Understanding you have a chance of even gaining Aegis (pointed out by Iavra.8510).
• Blink
  Follow a downed thief, after he has teleported away. You can also throw the timing of downed foes off with a cancel of the stomp and restarting it, allowing you to blinkfinish elementalists and mesmers quicker (explained by Ross Biddle.2367).
• Phase Retreat & Blink
  Phase retreat away from the downed foe after the finishing animation started to avoid close range interrupt and damaging abilities and then blink back to execute the finish.
• Portal
  Place portal, one part far and one close to the downed foe. Teleport away from the downed foe after the finishing animation started to avoid interrupt and damaging abilities and then teleport back to execute the finish. Depending on portal placement you can protect yourself completely from interrupting and damaging abilities of your foe.
• Power Break
  Use stability to avoid interrupt abilities while finishing.
• Diversion
  Interrupt allies of the downed foe to prevent them from healing up the downed one or from interrupting/damaging you while finishing (explained by Curunen.8729). It is unsure if Diversion can interrupt a downed foe. It seems that is not the case (pointed out by Fay.2357, also tested by Curunen.8729)
• Power Lock
  Same as Diversion above.
• Chaos Storm
  Has a chance of granting Aegis blocking one attack and potentially protecting you from being interrupted (pointed out by Iavra.8510).
• Soft Crowd Control
  Applying movement impairment conditions (Soft Crowd Control) like Cripple Chilled, and Immobilize before a downed elemantalist changes into Vapor Form can prevent them from potentially escaping (explained by ASP.8093).

If you know of other ways, please write them down here. So we can kill stuff with our mesmer awesomeness.

EDIT: Added some trickery and explanation after reading the discussions.

Neptune.2570:

Every couple of matches I get a hambow/condi engie/terrormancer qqing about how cheesy PU is…. I also never run PU….

How true. Shows that even after almost 2 years people don’t get how Mesmer works and now can only compete because of insane nerfs after nerfs^^

As a mesmer I would be rather happy if decoy would grant normal stealth (which is vulnerable to revealed debuff), because then I could chain stealth more easily. As of now I have to time my seconds stealth if I wanna stay cloaked, because decoy stealth and normal stealth don’t stack.

@silentnight warrior.2714:
Hehe, yeah, nice talk. But we must in two or three posts start to insult each other to coincide with the common behavior of this forum

I will address your points separately:

1. No burst heal
   Correct, the common hambow warrior has no burst heal. Well they have, but let’s be honest, the burst of healing signet, unless healing power is high, is very weak. The thing is, that often they don’t need it. I played for some time a Hammer/Axe+Shield warrior in PvP. And I could for instance with Hammer burst by myself some time to heal up. Blinds from Longbow also help the hambow warrior. On paper a hambow warrior is weak to burst damage, in practice I haven’t really seen that.
2. Condition Cleanse
   I still think warrior cleanses are one of the best. Especially for hambow warrior, who sits on point, it is very easy. Hammer burst for instance is very telegraphed, agreed, but the low cool down and quick adrenaline gain makes this skill very repeatable. It may be an issue in a 1v1 no AI fight. However, even then not every burst can be avoided and as soon as any form of AI enters the arena, and may it be the rock dog, your burst will have an easy target to find. Also when it’s more than 1v1 you will have more potential targets. While I would accept the lack of a healing burst, I don’t see any problem at all in the condition cleansing abilities.
3. Mobility
   With the trait for 25% movement speed with melee weapon they have already a speed boost. They are in comparison still rather slow (although Hammer burst can be used as a small forward leap), it is not really a weakness when you are fighting on the cap point.
4. They cannot deal with enemy boons
   Correct. But they have destruction of the empowered, when traited. Warriors also don’t have stealth, no teleports, no AI pets… This is what I mean with “wanting to have everything”-philosophy. If you are a lock down warrior and meet a foe with perma stability, then you have a problem. But hambow does not rely on that. It is not like: Stack boons, and you will counter the hambow. It is a good bonus against them depending on the boon, but it is not really a weakness of the warrior himself, especially with the damage increase from destruction of the empowered.
5. Post nerf Hammer
   The nerfes brought that weapon more in line. You cannot have an AoE CC weapon with huge damage output.
6. Boon rip
   Yes you can rip the warrior’s boons and survive yourself a bit longer. Unless it’s a S/D thief (I will get to those later) then boon stealing/corruption has often a quite long cool down. But there are exceptions of course, like Necro focus #5.
7. timing after Longbow F1
   You can time your stuff after F1, correctly, if you have the room/time for that. Also berserker stance negates conditions for 8 seconds. I don’t know if you play condition builds in PvP. But as a necro for example I get huge problems in this 8 seconds and can do not much about a warrior onslaught. Every time I played any warrior build with berserker stances, all condition builds just got destroyed. You can go completely berserk (hehe, you know what I mean?^^) and just hack away on the condition user without a 2nd thought.
8. + 9 No AI, telegraphing
   Well I addressed that partly already. The frequency in which you can apply the hard hitters and bursts is very high and makes it impossible to ultimately avoid them, even in the early fight. The huge tells aren’t a big help at some point. Also keep in mind that often we tend to discuss ideal/optimal situations. Combat in GW2 but is fast and gets messy very fast. This is something the warrior exploits. All warrior combos are very easy to apply and even in the heat of the battle, they will hit very reliably, despite the telegraphing.

Elementalist
I have not a clue how their build looks like. I just know that on my mesmer I can overwhelm them with shatter burst very easily and even with an experimental condition damage build on mesmer (with insane condition reaplication, if skill combos work out), I can deal with them quite easily. So I would guess burst and condi damage with high reaplication is their weakness…

Thief
Well… I have my issues with S/D thieves atm. But this is also due to a weakness of condition mesmer builds (I am experimenting the last few days with conditions only) to thieves in general. However, their constant evading makes it almost impossible to apply any significant amount of conditions with my condition spec. I sometimes manage to deal with them, but only if I can trap them into committing to down me, while I appear vulnerable (not healing or stun breaking, of null fielding and stuff, although it is not in cool down). This is highly risky and my blocks and shatters have to be on spot. Other than that it turns often into attrition with the thief hopping in and out with me mostly on the short end. I also have no idea how their build really looks like…

silentnight warrior.2714:

My point about comparing classes is because you cannot expect a glass mesmer holding points against bunkers even if they have good tools for that. And if you build a PU mesmer you can have great surviability and also good damage. What make them useless is the hability for contest points they dont have, not his damage / surviability ratio. But that was ANet decision to do so.

And my point is that warrior has an optimal no weakness build available. No other profession has that for any function. Also skills like Berserker stance, making you immune to conditions for 8-10 seconds, can mean certain death for a condition profession. This are imho complete oversights and create a huge, an immense gap between how hard/easy it is to play certain professions.

Most warrior advantages, even of hambow, can be overcome on very high skill level. But from average to good not top PvP player skill it creates an imbalance. GW2 is a game that wants to appeal to casuals. However, in this case it doesn’t unless casuals always choose warrior…

SlimChance.6593:

I have 2 80 Mesmers.

So when I get bored playing my Mesmer, I switch to my Mesmer.

hehe, same here

@silentnight warrior.2714:
Your build overdoses on condition removal. It just doesn’t make sense to do that. It lacks sufficient damage output and regarding PvP the Hambow warrior simply outperforms your mesmer build by default. I have explained it here

Hambow doesn’t have to make a choice except for the “low” mobility (compared to other warrior builds or highly mobile professions, over all it’s still average mobility). The Mesmer build you posted offers utility, but is still weak against Hambow on cap point. This is the state of the game atm. Warrior has an optimal build for contest game mode in the hambow build, that doesn’t have a singly weakness one could exploit. Your Mesmer build though lacks in damage, significantly. You can try to claim otherwise, but with 1.5k power and no way of consistent might stacking your damage will be still very very weak.

Defeating glass is anyway no issue for mesmer in a normal shatter build (except S/D thief). But shatter can still hurt bunkers. What your build does is getting less effective in that area, while gaining some defenses (and overcommiting on the condition cleanses). I believe also Hambow can hurt bunkers, though I am not completely sure about that, so someone more experienced might wanna answer that one.

And of course comparing of professions makes sense, because they will fight each other. One could say that is the ultimate way of comparing…

In GW1 I remember some PvP mode, forgot its name, where you had to capture points. There you had a bar with arrows. The more friendly players on the cap point, the more the number of arrows switched in your wanted direction and caping/decaping became faster. Each enemy player get an arrow in his direction, neutralizing one of your arrows and thus slowing down or reversing your caping/decaping.

Also I agree that cap points should be bigger, so that AoE can not cover the whole point.

I tried the build I posted here a bit more. In PvP hotjoin it actually works quite well and I might soon do the unthinkable and carry it over to SoloQ. Hope my rating doesn’t drop further^^

I’ll try to summarize my experiences with a simple pro and cons list:

pro

• good confusion and torment stacking → can render foe helpless
• quick restacking of conditions
• high chaos armor uptime via blast and leap finishing ethereal fields
• if used clever, can withstand pressure from three players for a significant time
• Several ways for (relatively) save finishing: Blinding via signet of midnight, Phase Retreat + Blink, Distortion, The Prestige
• good condition cleanse

cons

• less damage against lesser active targets (read – AI builds, bunkers)
• low armor for a condi build → unexpected burst is very lethal
• high skill cap → minor rotation mistake can mean certain death
• relies on chaos armor for defense and survivability
• low bleed stacking
• few crowd control conditions
• Blinding Befuddlement sucks, but I refuse to change it

vincecontix.1264:

TyPin.9860:

[…]

Other than that in WvW they don’t kill kitten. If you have problems against them, disengage, they won’t be able to follow, cuz they are slow as kitten, and reengage once you healed up.

[…]

So wrong in wvw and duels pu condi or hybrid is almost unbeatable. There are variations of pu builds. The scepter/torch/staff bearly any pro active damage can be kite and igorned, kill them last in group encounter.

Then you have the scepter/pistol/sword/torch version which can do a decent amount of damage. Very strong very easy to play, the weakness of this like many other mesmer build is low mobility. Though if you stay an fight you going to have a very tough time of it.

I have shortened my quote to the important part. PU, even in WvW can be outplayed/survived easily. I was even accused often to have used PU, even when I have 0 point in Chaos. It simply shows that the majority of players don’t understand how weak actually condi mesmer is, especially the PU condi mesmser. They can survive very good, but they don’t real damage, if you know hot to deal with them. There are PU power variations or even hybrid. Still, they sacrifice damage or utility or even both. IDueleist or iZerker can hit hard, but their damage can also be easily avoided. The mesmer himself does kitten damage, so kill the phantasms, best fro range and laugh about the mesmer…

And if you have problems… well then simply go away. He won’t catch up with you.

@silentnight warrior.2714:
I was using a similar build in PvP some time ago. I but had instead of celestrial amulet a zerker amulet. The condition removal on this kind of build is kinda insane, fully agree there (you actually could get rid of some cleansing utility for interrupts for example). I was practically immune to any kind of condition build. However, lacking the cool down reduction for illusion summoning and lack of reliable might stacking severely hurts damage output of the mesmer.

Now when we compare that to Hambow Warrior again, then it still remains that they have the optimal contesting build without weaknesses and to outplay a warrior you still need to be simply better than the warrior player by a significant amount. Your build on the other hand lacks damage output and you also, as a very squishy profession, lack a sufficient healing burst in your build. Mantras can become also very disadvantageous in a longer fight, if your enemy knows what he’s doing. So again, although you have eliminated weaknesses of the normal IP shatter build, you have gained other weaknesses instaed. The Hambow build lacks a real weakness…

EDIT:
I would actually change your build to the following, but I guess that’s up for personal taste and focus:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlknpCtlpxNNcrNCrxc6kK6JSOQAlsirB-TJRHwAp3fQwlAAwTA4YZAA

Now try to play this in a high level tPvP setup. You could exchange some utility for portal… well you must in fact. If not, than the team simply will take another profession that does the same as this build, but simply better…

I am currently trying this in WvW out:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpCtlpxUNcrNitBdyakDUPkfsySGghB-TFiAABJcIACS9HC3fAgTAgM6DCT5XHPBA2UCSKAImGB-w

I played the respective PvP version the last 2 days in hotjoin:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpCtlpxUNcrNitBdyakDUPkfsySGghB-TJRHwAp3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

It requires much practice, because you try to hold chaos armor up as much as possible. Done right you can for each ethereal field (chaos storm and null field) create 2 times chaos armor with the proper weapon swamping and combo finishing.

The results were mixed. Some players didn’t let themselves get fooled, other complained about the constant torment and confusion stacks. The reapplication of conditions in this build is quite high. Just you won’t ever stuck much bleeds.

Also I ran into a bunker guardian and had no chance to defeat him. He couldn’t defeat me either. However, one time I was attacked on point by a S/D thief and this one bunker guardian, and he went down very quickly, because he had a more offensive mindset and attacked me even with confusion stacks on him. I managed to finish him and the thief was running.

I also had epic fails, especially against glass ele and unexpected thief bursts.

And yes I know, you want to tell me that blinding befuddlement should be changed. I am not doing that though. I will keep imagining this trait is worth it and be ignorant to any criticism about that, because I like the idea of it

@silentnight warrior.2714:
Yes, Mesmer have good condition cleanses. You can squeeze in some good cleansing traits/utlities on a phantasm build for example. Just that this kind of build is not of a big use in top PvP. You can as a shatter mesmer also squeeze in some cleanses. But then you loses the ability to portal and/or the ability to stun break and/or the ability to rip boons and/or damage. Shatter mesmers would basically make themselves more and more useless to a team, the more they squeeze in condition cleanses. The Hambow Warrior on the other hand has good sustain DPS, nice defenses and can easily hold points and still has this good cleanses.

The Hambow warrior represents an optimal build for holding points with no weaknesses to exploit. That doesn’t break the whole profession, but the lack of “natural enemies” certainly breaks this build. It can only be consistently outplayed by a good to very good player.

@Cygnus.6903:
No, making warriors weaker on lowers skill level would not make them weaker for higher skill level. Not, if you make profession more demanding. The profession should be partly redesigned, that you have to pay more attention to what you do and that mistakes are more punished. So that a good player can compensate for those weaknesses. This way we can see, who really has the skill, or who is carried by the Hambow build in current form.

@Sykper.6583:
Speaking about Hambow warriors they are optimal for the conquest type game mode. The lack of other PvP maps makes this build very very strong. Of course this is not only due to the profession, but also due to the map type. But that is always the case. ILeap of Mesmers for example is considered pretty weak, because it bugs out very often. As a Mesmer, you already know where this will happen and you will adept. It is the same Mesmer in environment issue than is the warrior in environment issue. And currently the warrior is optimal for its environment. Changing either might also change this dynamic. Both would suffice, but ANet isn’t implementing anything about it atm., thus, leaving the warrior in his comfortable Hambow build state.

BurrTheKing.8571:

1. “Warrior has no weaknesses”

This is the most recent bit of propaganda I’ve been seeing in great numbers. It often comes hand in hand with some statement about how they can do everything in one build or at least an implication of such. One would think that if this statement were true then we would only ever see Warriors. I mean, if they have no weaknesses then why wouldn’t you run a 5 Warrior PvP team. If this claim is true then they would probably dominate. In WvW, I would see no reason to run anything other than Warrior as well. A good Warrior player should also never lose to a good player of any other class, right?

That is flawed logic. But I can’t blame you, it comes with the warrior mentality of wanting to have everything. A hambow warrior for instance is very much broken in PvP imho. They can cover the cap point in fire, are very resilient, put out very strong sustain damage, have one of the most amazing condition cleanses on a ridiculously low cool down and can make themselves immune to conditions for 8-10 seconds on top of that every 60 seconds, if I remember right. I fail to see the weaknesses in this particular build. Yes they have not much mobility, but that doesn’t hurt too much when contesting points. Most of the other professions/builds have to deal with more serious disadvantages at the same time. See Shatter Mesmer for instance (considered the most/only viable build for mesmer in top PvP). They can deal serious damage and boon strip and with portal can have/give a very good mobility around the map, they are paper and often don’t have any condition cleanse. They have to be on top of their game often when fighting a Hambow Warrior, while the warrior can make mistakes after mistakes and still has good chances of winning the fight. The Mesmer on the other hand mustn’t make any mistake, or he is dead.

Having no disadvantages doesn’t necessarily mean they are good at doing everything. This are different issues. Also Hambow warriors are very effective in the lower skill levels, but lose some of their advantage on higher skill levels. But you cannot balance everything around the top tier levels of gameplay, especially in a game that wants to appeal to the casual gamers.

I agree though that, if there are weaknesses, they are tied to the warrior build, rather than the profession. While this can be a disadvantage as a lock down warrior if your foe has perma stability, it is only a weakness for this particular build.

Over all the problem is, that warriors have I win buttons against certain other builds/professions. For example: Immunity to conditions against a condition Necromancer can mean certain death for the necro. The warrior can burst him down, while the necromancer losses the majority of ways to hold up his defenses (no cripple, no chill, no fear, no weakness, which a necromancer needs to stay alive). If the necro has some life force, he can hide in deathshroud, only that this is depleted, when the fight starts for him…

PU isn’t overpowered in any situation, unless you think that simply surviving is overpowered. That is what PU can do best, survive. Other than that in PvP they can’t hold points. There are some good PU Mesmers, who are able to distract 2, sometimes even 3 players in PvP on a cap point and thereby creating an advantage for the rest of their team. But I haven’t seen that regularly.

Other than that in WvW they don’t kill kitten. If you have problems against them, disengage, they won’t be able to follow, cuz they are slow as kitten, and reengage once you healed up.

Personally – especially in WvW – I have almost never problems against PU Mesmers. They are very very predictable. And especially if you can stay ranged (generally a good idea against condition builds), they won’t really hurt you much.

I know the feeling. Mastering shatter mesmer is on of the hardest things in this game imho.

EDIT: Some months ago I ran a phantasm build and it was quite successful in SoloQ. Though expect them to do not much good when fighting 5on5 for mid^^

The problem with disenchanter is that it dies too quickly. It’s very unreliable. With shatter you can remove for instance might on those pesky Hambow warriors more reliably.

I know, but I really want it to work…

With PU you might be able to survive the onslaught of several players, but it won’t help you to contest a cap point, you can’t CC someone and you can support your team with boon strips. PU is a very egoistic build and won’t really help to support your team in SoloQ imho.

I thank you for your suggestions. But let’s be hones, the major damage from your build comes from the phantasms. I won’t deny that hitting Confusing Images adds some nice damage. But for your build it seems to be only a nice bonus. Your foes have already a hard time avoiding the AI damage you pressure them with.

I am currently working on a PvP confusion build, and I can be almost sure that the confusion from this skill won’t hit and the potential main confusion damage won’t be applied unless I outplay my opponent. Compare that to essential skill of other builds across all the other professions. They aren’t that hard to hit or they have more skills available allowing their build to work.

My current PvP build looks like that: Experimental PvP Confusion build. I can apply some confusion with this build by playing around with signets, blinds and chaos armor through combo finishers. But the biggest possible source of confusion won’t really hit anyone playing on my skill level (a bit above average) or higher. That is at least my experience up until now.

Well, I would have not attacked any more. He ignored the confusion stacks completely. Either he didn’t care and hoped he could outdamage a perplexity mesmer in a few seconds (non optimal assessment on his part) or he was not aware of them. Either way, this death could have been avoided, by simply disengaging.

Allarius.5670:

I understand confusing images can be difficult to land during the best of times, but just how bad does that make the skill? First, if it does get altered, what are the chances it won’t be worse (bugged Mesmer abilities and all that …)? Second, consider ways of improving (though not guaranteeing) your chance to land it (Chaotic Interruption, Chaos Storm, etc.). Third, if it almost always baits out a dodge can you find a way to take advantage of that? Sometimes abilities are better because of their unintended results rather than the initially intended ones …

I know what you are saying. And I used to run a pistol in off hand, so I can stun my target before using the skill and it would actually hit something. But it’s weird to be forced to stun your target to get such an essential skill to hit. There is nothing on Scepter to make it worth baiting out a dodge. Of course, if you use Pistol, with a strong hitting iDuelist, it might be worth to force your opponent to dodge so that your phantasms hit… but I have grown a bit out of my phantasm build phase and find, that scepter’s hard hitters are too easily avoidable.

@cyyrix.6105:
Not saying that it wasn’t a good idea to improve server performance, but they nerfed the trait for technical reasons, so why not compensate with more confusion stacks? Or would that hurt performance the same?

It wasn’t thought through well enough and it became a balance nerf along with nerfing confusion. They have destroyed this way a big part of the mesmer beauty.

Let’s face it: Confusing Images won’t hit anyone with a little knowledge of a function, called dodging. Sometimes you get a lucky hit, sometimes the target has no block, invulnerability, evade or endurance left, but more often the skill is a wasted slot when fighting anyone playing above beginner level. The attack channel can be avoided by one good doge and the cast animation + the sound is very characteristic and makes it impossible to hit this skill.

So what would be a sensible way to rework the skill, so that it basically works like now, but has actually a chance to hit something?

They are the coolest, because they punish the player not paying attention to them. It is to a big amount the fault of the receiving player, if he suffers too much from those conditions. Burning always burns just like burning burns. But confusion and torment require the target to manage those. And in the right circumstances the one suffering from confusion might not even suffer from one confusion hit, or he dies in seconds when he ignores it… sadly mesmer can’t really force that decision atm.

I really want the mesmer to be a good profession for applying confusion without relying on perplexity runes (one of the lesser thought through features of the game). And reading the description of the Mesmer, we should be the trademark profession for confusion:

“Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to CONFUSE and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes.”

The Master Trait Blinding Befuddlement has an internal cool down of 5 seconds. Now I am wondering why that is. The base duration of confusion it applies has 4 seconds. The duration can be made longer. Given that there are ways to repeatedly cause blinding for a certain duration, this trait would still only allow you to hold one stack of confusion up.

It makes it not really worth to take it, given the alternatives are way better. The trait design just doesn’t make much sense. On stack of confusion every 5 seconds in the most ideal case? Who thought that is a good idea?

I would either remove the internal cool down or increase the number of confusion to 3 to 5 maybe to make it worth it. I mean the most consistent way to cause repeated blinding is Chaos Armor. This skill is already ultra obvious and has a short duration so people should be punished for ignoring it…