Guild Wars 2

Hm… I actually like those changes. Having to choose between CS and SC/RS (the merged trait) is interesting and indeed can be build defining. Right now every Mesmer and their mothers most likely will chose SC. If changes are implemented the proposed way, lock down Mesmers will have to make a significant choice. Either you go for the boon removal, which in turn gives you control over stability and over all increases your damage or you go for the hardest lockdown possible, but it has more counter play and the damage will be lower (aka protection cannot be removed as easily).

EDIT:
However, this would be a serious boost to shatter builds. For they can either go for the ultimate vulnerability stacking 24/7 or take the increased phantasm damage and still maintain high vuln stacking. Hell, I could even imagine FI being of use to a shatter build.

Well, #5 is a powerful CC skill. It is most effective in pushing foes out of Thief’s Shadow Refuge.

And opening a Mind Wrack with Mirror Blade into Mind Stab in melee range just is super strong burst. Also iZerker is one of our most powerful offensive phantasm.

GummiBear.2756:

talking about IP though, i feel there need to be more clarity about that for new mesmer, wouldn’t be surprised if basically any new mesmer from now on dont even realise you make the shatter effect on yourself as well, it is literally not stated ANYWHERE

GummiBear.2756:

talking about IP though, i feel there need to be more clarity about that for new mesmer, wouldn’t be surprised if basically any new mesmer from now on dont even realise you make the shatter effect on yourself as well, it is literally not stated ANYWHERE

Good point.

Dondagora.9645:

The ICD does two things: it prevents the synergy with MoD where every mantra charge is essentially a stun and then it buffs certain synergy with AoE dazes, meaning we can stun more people while the individual target spends less time stunned. Perfect fix and compensation, in my opinion.

What do you mean by “it buffs certain synergy with AoE dazes”?

I don’t know if you are in the minority. I still see tons and tons of Mesmers with DE… actually come to think of it I can’t remember a single Mesmer in game that didn’t use it.

For me it freed up my play style. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be more competitive, if I still used DE.

ilcane.3081:

^ It is not “extra”, it’s just an alternative way to relay that information, which now comes in the form of Party UI, Health Bars on click, and animation/sound tells.

Cast bars, skill Icons and generally displayed health above each each player is “extra” information.

tetrodoxin.2134:

Mesmop. I like it.

Also:

• Put 10s per-target ICD on Confounding Suggestions
• Make Blinding Dissipation dodgeable
• Change PU to 50-75%

#Mesmop

I disagree on the ICD for Confounding Suggestion. I’d say, instead of putting an increased ICD, make it more skill based. I prefer the solution that stun only is applied, when the daze interrupted the target, similar to Chaoric Interruption, but with actual more requirements for the intended effect (not only interrupt, but daze+interrupt).

Advent.6193:

So, TyPin … you Chronomancer, you. Did you see this happening?

Of course I did. And just wait, there will be more awesome developments.

But I am not allowed to talk about it. The other Chronomancers will have forbidden me^^

Saiyan.1704:

Those classes could run around while their conditions do the work for them, if they’re not cleansed off.

This expression is very misleading. If you apply that syntax, one could also say that power damage does the work for the player or that stuns and dazes do the work for the player. Conditions still need to be applied the same way power damage and hard CC needs to be applied. Only difference are the often delayed or stretched out effects of conditions, which put people under the impression, that the condition is working on them and not the actual opponent. But this is where the big misconception lies.

Robin Skyshroud.1863:

TyPin.9860:

Where in the world does it make sense to be able to remove all conditions? Of course there is a more frequent application than removal. Can you remove all Power damage after it was applied? No you can’t. Why shouldn’t it be the same for condition builds.
…

Power can be removed after it is applied… Warrior and Ranger both have skill that force all physical damage to 0. Invulnerability does the same thing; however conditions still are in effect unlike power.

This is all in the matter of, have you thought of every possibility?

Simply said, conditions are very very unbalanced right now for PvP. Nothing ever bothers PvE.

If you try to apply conditions to an invulnerable target, they will fail as well. Why do people make the same mistake over and over again? It works exactly like power damage application. Only difference is that power is applied instantly and condition damage is delayed. Also, Warrior has a skill that doesn’t allow conditions to be applied. Pretty much like the skills you mentioned for direct damage.

However, that all is not important to my actual point, because you failed to prove that all power damage can be removed. As people are under the impression, that all conditions damage should be removable. So my point still stands. Please try to stay on topic.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Wyrden.4713:

sw/sw , staff for me

You are the one man army with that one!
https://youtu.be/rGmVvvM8wjM

But you were so ineffective against that thief -_-u

But he seems to have fun nonetheless^^

I enjoy it very much, thank you (not sarcastic). The new system is so much better imo. Stuff is unbalanced, I agree, but that will go through several balance iterations I am sure.

I am still logging on

This threads needs to be a sticky^^

What do you guys think of Chronomancer Shield and do you think it will be a viable option? I personally am super excited and can’t wait to use the Shield.

Since I am running LockDown with the mantra trait instead of DE I have experienced a whole new Mesmer world for myself.

For once: I dodge way way way less, leaving me with soooooooooooooooo much endurance to actually dodge the threatening attacks. Okay, blinding on shatters helps too I guess^^. But my point is, that once I got my old habit of clone spawn dodges under control, my whole fighting style changed. At least it feels like that.

I only wanna say, and it cannot be said enough, this patch was a blessing for Mesmers. And I personally have stepped into a brave new wonderful world xD

ilcane.3081:

I’m just arguing that the results are unsatisfactory, whether it’s part of the “GW2 game play philosophy” or not.

These were your words. And I assumed this is the bases of your argument. I am sorry, if I mistook your words, but it very much sounds as if the instance of “unsatisfactory” is your actual point.

@ilcane:
Unsatisfactory to you, highly satisfactory to me. Don’t present your own likes and dislikes as objective "good"s and "bad"s.

@data:
PvP in GW2 isn’t E-Sports worthy, so far I am with you. But it is far from dead. Or am I constantly battling dead people? OML (read: “oh my Lyssa”)… I see dead people
ANet has not delivered on many on it’s promises, but so far they are the closest to what I call ideal from all the MMOs out there atm. There is still potential to become better, much potential. But the design philosophy of GW2 is evidently different to many of the other MMOs out there.

ilcane.3081:

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

Before GW2 was released, ANet emphasized that they didn’t want players to look at bars and skill icons. If you make this option optional^^ then more and more people will likely use this option, because it will likely offer an advantage (especially the skill bar, less so the health bar). This would defeat the purpose of not having bars by default and it would work against the intended feeling of game play.

You can now argue, how much sense it makes, that there are no bars, but I guess it is core to the GW2 game play philosophy and any option breaking this philosophy would ultimately defeat the intended game play feel.

Morwath.9817:

TyPin.9860:

Sagat.3285:

Something tells me mesmer is next…

I don’t think so. Because no1 yet pointed consistently to what actually the “problem” is. And as long as people tell me, I should stop using PU, when I don’t use it anyways, it is mostly an issue of ignorance.

Disable all Mesmer traits, if you don’t know which one makes trouble? ;P

That’s one way of handling it, I guess^^

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

Sagat.3285:

Something tells me mesmer is next…

I don’t think so. Because no1 yet pointed consistently to what actually the “problem” is. And as long as people tell me, I should stop using PU, when I don’t use it anyways, it is mostly an issue of ignorance.

Where in the world does it make sense to be able to remove all conditions? Of course there is a more frequent application than removal. Can you remove all Power damage after it was applied? No you can’t. Why shouldn’t it be the same for condition builds.

I do agree, and ANet does agree too, that condition damage is a bit too strong atm. Be it so, it only plays a bigger role in 1v1 to 2v2 encounters.

But this is the perfect time for all the condition haters to pop up again and come up with the same nonsensical proposals as they always did (like Armor effecting condition damage and such). This simply makes no sense. It goes completely against the concept of conditions.

Also, you don’t need to run a million condition cleanses on all members of your team. If you have one or two guys with AoE cleanses, than conditions are not an issue at all.

That is a good question… let me get my Excel open^^ [info follows below]

EDIT:
Okay, I calculated for this build

I tested in PvP the different runes against the npcs (I circled and kept attacking with a standard shatter rotation [SW #3 -> GS#2 -> GS#3 + F1]) to figure out the average Fury and Might uptime. Basically Fury was all the time up and the Might stacks are more or less an average by feeling. Not really exactly measured and of course, in a real fight, those stacks might have a different uptime.

The results of my “testing” can be seen here. The damage was not calculated off of any skill but only by stat comparison. Skill damage and target armor are take into account via multiplication. So the average comparison would turn out the same (I think^^).

If we assume the number of Might stacks are more or less correct, then Traveler is the weakest in terms of dmg output and Pack, due to it’s higher precision, Strength is actually on 1st place. This whole thing did not take rune procs into account.

EDIT2:
Forgot the dmg multiplier from strength rune…

EDIT3:
Fixed the mistake. This makes Strength the strongest… as one would have expected^^

Interrupt/Lock Down works with zerker gear as well. You have free choice for runes. I personally use Travaler for obvious reasons, but Pack runes are just fine too imo.

I personally use a combination of Assassins armor with Zerker and some toughness trinkets and either Zerker or Assassins weapons.

I feel this is very potent and works well in WvW and Dungeons. Having no ascended armor myself, but I think I will go also Assassins stats for my ascended armor. But I will still wait for the upcoming changes to the latest patch.

ResJudicator.7916:

It really depends on your build. The general strategy is to play defensively to bait out the two mantra charges and then go heavy on pressure.

Bruiser-type classes like D/F ele have the upper hand against mesmer if you’re fighting over a point. You can bait out their initial stun-burst (either w/ an invuln, multi-block, or port) and then pressure really hard. The only way the mesmer has a chance of winning is to draw out the fight with a ton of kiting and stealthplay, which will almost certainly give you the point.

The Dom/Duel/Chaos build that most mesmers are running now also have 0 condi cleanse. So any condi cleanse really just has to survive the initial burst and then manage to land a few condis onto the mesmer. One good blowtorch and a poison nade, or a good burnstack from burnguard will result in a dead mesmer unless he can get his teammates to cleanse (but it sounds like you’re talking about 1v1s).

I like you. You know how stuff works. I am one of those Dom/Duel/Chaos LockDown Mesmers and I know how condies can hurt, if I let my opponent burst me with those. However, I myself try to play generally very defensively and patiently. And this is where LockDown actually shines. Because suddenly you are screwed, because your vital skills get interrupted. I have no interest into bursting someone down, but love to wear them down slowly and efficiently. And LockDown allows to do that.

I also consider LockDown an offensive support build (and imo the damage could be tuned down a notch). So I avoid 1v1ing with the build. But in the current state I can 1v1 almost anything to a point where it sometimes gets almost too easy…

SlayerSixx.5763:

Because MOST power builds don’t rely on autos for most of their damage…?

And most Condi builds don’t either. The very suggestion is ridiculous.

Also, Don’t twist my words. Never said Panic Strike Thief relies on AAs. I said #1. It’s the same with P/D, whose biggest damage actually comes from Sneak Attack (also #1).

It remains: Your arguments are very selective. Focusing on cheese builds (like Condi guard, with broken burning atm. or P/D condi Thief – the latter you even misrepresent), which are both not viable in the long run. Condi guard will be nerfed most likely and P/D Thief is a joke in of itself. Other condition builds, such as Terrormancer or Condirupt Mesmer, have to rely on actively using their skills to get their damage across and survive.

There are lazy power builds, there are lazy conid builds, there are less lazy power builds and there are less lazy condi builds. I have yet to see evidence, that in the broad spectrum, condition damage builds are generally the more passive builds.

I myself play Power and Terrormancer Necro as well as Condi Shatter Mesmer and LockDown Power Mesmer (most I play the latter). And in my experience I need to be very active in all of those builds to actually perform consistently. Slacking on any of those builds and relying on passive effects will let me lose in most cases.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Burn guard literally needs to press three buttons and he wins if you don’t cleanse. Condi mesmer just stacks condis and kittens around in stealth while throwing in the occasional teleport. Condi thief literally has a majority of his bleed come from 1, while pressing 3 when anything gets too close to deal, you guessed it, EVEN MORE condition damage. Seriously. How on earth can you compare this to direct, what with the ridiculous disparity in the types of counters to each type of damage?

The strong condition damage needs addressing. ANet themselves have acknowledged that. But we weren’t discussing strength but weather either one (direct vs. condition damage) is more passive than the other.

Condi Guardian bursts currently and Power Guardian bursts all the same. Don’t really see a difference there. But this burning burst will be fixed and then we will need to reexamine those builds.

Have you played condi Mesmer? And I mean viable build? It is more than simply stacking condies and kittening in stealth. Do you know what they do to stack conditions? Do you believe it comes really only from clone and Mesmer AAs?.Should we compare that to PU power shatter now? Which can kitten in stealth and throws the occasional shatter into the mix? How is this more active? Or lets talk PU phantasm build. Where the Mesmer hides in stealth for an extended time and lets his phantasms do considerable damage.

Thief condi build is something that is a thing in WvW roaming and that’s about that. In PvP those cheese builds exist, but honestly are more a joke. And again, let’s compare it to Panic Strike Thief, whose biggest damage comes from #1 too and if they get in trouble they go #5 into #2 and “kitten in stealth”, as you put it.

I also don’t understand your complaint, when a class has conditions on their AA? Again, how is spamming AA to do condition damage any different than from spamming AA to do power damage?

Don’t try to divert the discussion from ‘active vs passive play’ to strength, which – again – ANet admitted is too high.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Except you land a condi skill, burst, rotation, proc and then run around while the damage is being dealt. People hear passive and assume I mean that your very presence starts doing damage (does in some cases).

This you call passive? This is more than misleading. The only difference between power and condition damage is that power damage happens instantly while conditions damage happens delayed (which gives you even time to cleanse it). To apply condition damage you need to be as active as with power builds.

What you call passive are delayed effects, nothing more.

Also your wording sounds like you hit only once and this is enough for the fight. This is inaccurate. You need to reapply conditions to keep the damage up (so running around is not enough). This is the same with power builds, who have to reapply their damage too, to keep the pressure up.

Don’t think so. I believe elite elite specializations are one of the biggest selling points of the expansion.

So, I wonder what is everyone’s favorite weapon set for Mesmer in their favorite game mode.

I myself am always torn between Staff and GS in PvP/WvW. This is why I am now trying to play LockDown with those weapons. I personally love the utility and foe threatening defensiveness of Staff and the pure control and power GS offers.

Luckily with Lock Down I do not rely on huge damage burst (I still can burst, if I want to^^), but can wear my opponent(s) slowly down while I deny them their own offense. I love Lock Down, and this is why going anything but zerker is imo just a waste of potential.

You could also see it like that:
While PvElers have to buy the expansion for new contend, PvPlers get most of the stuff they need for free. Isn’t that neat?

Metabattle is stupid. Don’t care what amulet they recommend. I am going zerker all the way. Either it’s me or them – cowboy style^^

@SlayerSixx:
It is not about listing every single thing. You claim condition damage is passive, while you provide no evidence for it.

You are for active play, and I can understand that. But as it stands: Condition damage is as much or less active as power damage.

@SlayerSixx:
Conditions on AA is passive now? Interesting. So power damage on AA is passive too I guess. And all AAs have power damage. So following this argument, power damage is even more passive than condition damage, because not all AAs have conditions.

Mesmer Torch #4 has also a delayed power component and blast finisher along with the burning (a whole stack of burning. Can u believe it?). Which, if well used, (for example in conjunction with glamor fields, especially if you use Chaotic Dampening and Staff) is a highly active skill, which requires timing and positioning. Also shatter burst builds utilize the delayed blast/power effect of Torch #4. There is so much to it, if you’d actually know how those things can be used skilfully.

My point is, that you are highly selective and what you claim to be passive condition damage can be said about power damage all the same. This argument has been addressed so many times in the forums already.

Condition damage play isn’t more passive than power damage play. Especially after this update.

EDIT:
I can also easily bring a counter example for the guardian. Look at focus (usually a power build weapon):

• 4# has passive bounces which do power damage along with other effects such as blind —> activate it and forget (in your syntax)
• 5# works similar. Activate it and it will do all the work on its own. Either blocking or triggering a delayed power/burst effect. According to your logic, it is also an activate-and-forget skill, aka: it’s passive.

SlayerSixx.5763:

People want condition damage nerfed into the ground because it goes against the game’s design, plain and simple. This game is about actively attacking and defending.

So? What has the one point to do with the other one? Are you claiming condition damage happens passively?

I agree with your points on RNG. But so far your argument wasn’t conclusive concerning condition damage.

Chaba.5410:

TyPin.9860:

• Engies
  have good burst. If you avoid it, they are kinda useless.

I’ve been having trouble pulling off a good burst on my engineer. It seems like the skill queuing is all wonky, making my burst slower than I’d like.

Don’t know about that. Some managed to burst me, but more often their burst goes into thin air. I don’t play engie myself, so I can’t say if there is some wonkieness^^

Maybe I am blind, but especially when the engi is behind me and uses the pull, I often than not don’t see the the skill animation.

From Mesmer Lock Down Perspective:

• Ele
  not sure. Met some decent ones, met awful ones.

• Rangers
  well, I believe they need some buffs. They seem not really strong atm to me.

• Mesmers
  depends. Met awful ones but also met godlike players/builds

• Engies
  have good burst. If you avoid it, they are kinda useless.

• Necros
  got nicely buffed and they don’t just die to Lock Down any more.

• Guards
  burning is ultra strong and Guards can survive for a long time.

• Warrs
  still very very beefy, even on zerker builds. If they hit, it hurts a lot. I still think of them as the ultra easy mode profession to play on. Can do many mistakes and stil prevail.

• Thief
  hehe… enjoying fighting Thieves so much. They more than often just die.

Some of the statements in this thread are simply wrong. I do not know why ppl do that? Just lost against a condition build and had to come here and complain about it?

I personally am rarely running condition builds when roaming and I still win most encounters (and I have 0 condition cleanses). Are condition builds strong now? Yes, hell they are. They are an actual threat for a change. But instead of saying ‘I can’t cleanse all those conditions’ ppl should start thinking about not getting hit by the condition burst in the first place and start out playing the opponent.

Are condition builds easier to play? Yes, I believe so. So what?

And before you say: ‘How do you avoid guardian teleport + burning?’, ANet has already acknowledged that certain conditions are too strong and that they will make changes accordingly. Nothing is ruined so far, as long as you are willing to adapt and be patient. The balance will sort itself out eventually.

I agree that burning is kinda out of control. But many suggestions in this thread are the same as always. Brought up by people who simply wanna nerf condition damage into oblivion.

The point of conditions is, that they bypass armor and work over time (and to survive that long against power burst builds, they need some toughness). Yes atm they do insane burst damage. But ANet already acknowledged this and will work on tuning condies (and I hope especially burning) down.

Every other suggestion I’ve read hear can be traced back to the 1st week of GW2, where people were unable and unwilling to adapt and still are.

I’ll make it short:

I think the Magnet skill (in the Tool Kit) should be more visible. It is between all the explosions and shiny effects in a fight often barely visible.

@Jayne:
That is correct. This is also assuming the Mesmer goes into Chaos and Illusions and is blowing a lot of cool downs.

Rikit Runk.5170:

Jayne.9251:

Yes but the decoy and prestige are self-only and do have a shorter timer cooldown, but do not affect any other players — so even if they paired up, they could only invis a group for 14 seconds total (each) — and mass invis has a 90 second cooldown. Veil is 90 seconds as well. (And decoy is 40 seconds, prestige is the only fast one really at 30 seconds).

So I can’t see how they could permastealth. Something else is up there.

Prestige comes off cd a lot faster, with torch trait each second in stealth reduced the cd of torch skill by 1 1/2 sec, so after 12 seconds of stealth prestige is up again.

f(x)= 30secCD – (x * 1,5) – x=y
30 – (x * 1,5) – x = 0 |-30
=> -x * 1,5 – x = -30 | t
=> x (-1,5 – 1) = -30 | /-2,5
=> x= 12secCD

on reddit someone said it’s possible for a singel mesmer, to get 47 sec of stealth. after this he will be visible for a few seconds.

Only 47? That is not the optimum. With MI, Torch (traited), Mimic and Decoy a PU Mesmer alone can get 57s of stealth.

Uh, that is actually a valid complaint imo. Not using feedback much. But yeah, not knowing if the feedback bubble is friendly or hostile might make the difference between surviving and suicide.

Yeah, I hate when that happens and on Sunday I think I had like 5 games in a row, where I was on a 4man team against a 5man team.

To all the early quitters:
Neither is a certain profession nor a certain point disadvantage really a reason to abandon your team. I had yesterday a game, where we were like 200 to 400 point behind… but the opposing team got too overly confident (and pushed far from their PoV) and we stood up to the bullies^^. It ended 501 to 490 or smth like that in our favor (thanks to the thief capping the map for us, while we fought them ).

Sometimes there are disconnects, and I get that. But more than often (following the team chat) people seem to leave games out of frustration. Some tell me, they wanna have a casual experience after work. If that is the case, and you can’t stand to lose a game or have a challenge, then don’t play a hectic and competitive game mode.

People who leave games should receive huge penalties and on the other hand, people who stay in game, even if they are far behind, should receive rewards for this.

Also, if there is a 4v5, why not implement a volunteer idle function? This might also allow you to receive some extra fairness rewards.

Yeah, I don’t see any reason either to do anything to CI. It is, may I say, the perfect trait.

I do play without DE myself and believe to be quite successful without it. But the reason is, I take the amazing mantra trait instead. I haven’t tried without the dueling line. Already Blinding Dissipation is just too strong imo to leave it out