Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy various MtD builds ranging from standard to pretty whack, in both unranked arena and WvW solo roaming. Although at times it can be frustrating in group fights, especially on-point group fights, overall it’s an excellent package of damage and survivability. You don’t have to run scared from Thieves or rely on your team to keep you alive.

Especially in WvW solo roaming where you mostly fight Thieves, it can be a really satisfying build as it’s simply more active and less reliant on poor enemy play then say a PU Condie build is.

All that said, it’s still just a smidgen short of totally competitive IMO, but I am confident that Condie/MtD builds will be significantly stronger after the release of HoT.

IP alone is a huge boon to all MtD builds, as are the new MS, AE blind on Shatter, and Confusing Combatants. I can see Dueling/Illusions/Chronomancy being really strong as MtD can actually make use of all the illusions you can produce, and you get to double up on your main burst shatter thanks to the new F5 shatter.

I think this will largely put an end to the easy countering of MtD with passive condition cleanses. You will have the Clones and the shatters to just keep pumping out AE Torment & Confusion, and gain more cover conditions from Dueling as well.

Of course, Power Shatter and Lockdown are also getting huge improvements, so it’s very hard to say whether MtD will still end up playing catch-up.

Sadly derailed a bit….usual suspects! ;-)

Look, for the 1 billionth time, people seem to forget that a build must match the player, or it’s worthless. What good does it do me, personally, that Supcutie can prove that Power Shatter is the best and only viable build, when I get miserably stomped again and again and again playing that same build?

There are factors beyond your control, the least of which are age, reaction-time, ping, latency, and simply the time you have free to invest into the game. All of these things are vital to a standard Power Shatter build, due to the unforgiving nature of it. It’s high risk and high reward, which means if you’re not playing it perfectly you’re not going to have much fun and neither is your team.

As an example, for the last few weeks I’ve been playing Zerker Power PU (Sw/To & GS), and winning easily 75% of my unranked arena matches. I’ve noticeably more impact on my teams & games then when I play Power Shatter or even MtD Shatter.

I do like MtD and find it quite viable and fun…but I feel that currently, overall, the game kinda favors power/spike damage. Largely due to what witcher said; incidental cleansing. (Which quite frankly is very poor design. In order to clear any more then a single Condition, especially AoE, you should at least be actively focused on cleansing, rather then just passively nullifying multiple conditions simply whilst playing normally.)

No contradiction at all. I didn’t even entertain your suggestion to change it, because it is based on the completely false premise that Moa is even close to comparable in effectiveness as Lich. If either of the two needs a nerf, it sure ain’t Moa.

So none of my statements are addressing your suggestions, but rather are a response to the ridiculous notion of nerfing Moa in order to help Lich, which is clearly the far better of the two Elites.

It would be kinda neat if we got the option to tweak the summon AI ourselves. Basically a toggle switch that allows you to summon all Phantasms at short, medium, or long (max) attack distance.

Short – Melee range of target
Medium -About 66-75% of max distance of the Phants attack (less failures due to “out of range” targets)
Long – About 90% of max distance of the Phants attack (Safest to Phant survival, but prone to being “OOR” on moving targets)

I can’t really take this thread seriously, considering the two abilities we’re looking at. The Mesmer Elite in question is actually rather rarely taken due to the huge failure rate it suffers, while the Necro Elite in question is arguably one of the most powerful Elites in the game and is quite popular. As others have said, it has nearly no counter and absolute cheese damage.

Moa not only has all those counters, but it has a built-in getaway function for the transformed player! How stupid is that? In at least 75% of cases where you do manage to land it past it’s easily 33% general failure rate, the “victim” simply presses a button and speeds away laughing. (Or worse, if you’re below 50% health yourself, the Moa loves to turn on you and peck away with quite respectable damage. How embarrassing is it to die to your own 180s CD Elite? Only Mesmers know the answer to that!)

Please! This thread is silly. Moa is overall a very mediocre Elite at best, but it happens to be a nice counter to one of the most OPd and cheesy Elites in the game.

Rather then calling for nerfs against Moa, I’d argue that Necros ought to duck & cover and pray that the Lich doesn’t get a huge DPS nerf now that its Stab is basically not strippable.

adelaide.6213:

With MP + MoP and the reduced signet cd trait, it makes it much more viable now than it was ever before.

In your Dom/Inspiration/Chrono build, I definitely would choose the signet heal + traits over Shattered Concentration/Mantra heal.

No doubt! Also consider that if you go with Insp you’re very likely to take RI over the other options, unless Anet vastly improves the others, and thus you have significant additional healing.

Inspiration and it’s group utility is IMO being underestimated in the current hype meta! ;-)

All of this really hinges on implementation, and thus until we play it it’s very hard to judge. As the Devs themselves pointed out, in the current alpha version the mechanic would be grossly OPd, allowing multiple Phantasms to combine their attacks at the same instance after being shattered.

If they add a random delay to the attack cycle after spawning, or the newly summon Phants simply inherit the attack CD from the shattered ones, then everything is up for grabs really. Most likely this would result in making this GM trait worthless to actual Phantasm builds due to Phantasms being summoned on target where they will die pathetically long before they get to attack again.

The best option would probably be for them to rework it somehow. At the very least, the new Phantasms should be summoned by the Mesmer and work just as they do now, that is ranged Phants summon at range, and melee ones cast on target?

That would help things a bit, and then they could add a 1-2 second random attack delay to avoid the simultaneous “barrage attack” issue.

I really do hope that the CD on Protected Phantasms was a tooltip bug, or that they will rethink this. It really needs no CD at all, and should cover all Illusions, not just Phantasms. In fact, they could then add a component to Chronophantasms to add an additional second of invuln for Phantasms. This would allow slow-attacking Phantasms a better chance to actually survive their first attack cycle. (iMage, iWarlock, and iWarden…not to mention iDefender & iDisenchanter, and of course the iShieldPhantDude too)

I don’t think there is much wrong with Inspiration. If you’re going for a bunkerish build, you’d probably go with Chaos & Insp, and gain a ton of Protection (staff/PU) & boons (PU or MD) from Chaos, and a ton of healing (MP & RI) & Condie removal from Insp. (Or Boon sharing of course.)

Couple that with Chrono for decent Clone generation and Quickness on Shatter to re-charge Mantra of Pain for AE Heal & Condie Removal.

Damage? Next to none! :P You’re a support/bunker.

Inspiration gives a ton of group utility, heals, and condie clears (and/or Boon share). The other traits were left in there mostly to keep current builds alive IMO.

Agreed that Glamor GM is totally underwhelming, and so is Compounding Celerity, but that’s really all I’d change about Inspiration.

Knox.8462:

Regarding Confusion and Slow, isn’t Confusion being reworked to have most of its damage tick with additional damage on skill usage?

Yes, it looks like this is what is happening. Actually this makes sense and is still unique, it’s a bit like Torment but instead of “movement” it requires Action to get the bonus damage. Very good idea and long overdo. I hope they balance the numbers out correctly so that the punishment for activating skills remains useful/strong.

Obviously your first build is getting huge boosts to interrupt play, so many possibilities it’s hard to list them all.

The second build will also see huge boosts, but naturally will not stay the same. Personally, if you want sustain on an MtD build, I would go Chrono/Insp/Ill. Either go with Either Feast for MP, or see how MoR will work with only 2 charges, but you won’t really need that if you get Shattered Conditions and Restorative Illusions.

It’s a quite natural fit for a very high sustain MtD shatter build. Get MI to help with more Clone production, and in Chrono I would go for Time Catches Up, Illusionary Reversion for Clones, and Chronophantasms. (Or Quickness on Shatter if you go with Mantra of Recovery + MP, and also helps Scepter & Staff a lot.)

IMO this would be a pretty sick build. Lowest possible CD on shatters, every shatter heals, cures a condition, possibly provides Quickness, and applies up to 8 stacks of Torment (IP) + 4-8 stacks of Confusion. (Plus a 5th shatter, double-F2 spike, perma-speed, etc.)

Staff + Scp/Torch, free choice of armor Runes (yay!), 1200 range Blink, and Decoy. (Moa or Elite Well)

Just really quite sick if you think about it.

I’m guessing that the active on SoI will be changed, just like we lost Illusionary Invig, likely for this very reason.

Hmm I think that’s a bit unfair judgement of something you haven’t played yet. While yes, you do have to make that choice between Clone generation and HM, you’re getting a lot more points overall then before. Also, there is an alternate line for decent Clone generation, among a bunch of other awesome stuff, and of course baseline Mantra Mastery and Protected Mantras.

We’re also getting a whole dump-load of Quickness thrown at us, some of it “on demand” and that alone should make Mantras far more powerful/usable than before. (Not to mention that MP is getting some huge buffs. RM rolled into it, and AoE condie cleanse)

What was your build before, and how are you unable to create a similar build/playstyle in the new system?

Although Scepter definitely still has some issues, it shouldn’t be underestimated either. With the plethora of Quickness options we’re getting, and the improvements to Confusion, I think it’ll be a bit better as a mid-range weapon, even for Power. The #3 and the AA can do OK damage actually, and the Clone generation might make it easier to give up DE if you felt compelled to do so (w/Chronomancy).

The #2 skill does decent direct damage and the 5 stacks of Torment hurt a little too. Considering there isn’t much else to take as an Illusions Master trait, one could even try out Malicious Sorcery and see how that 50% damage bonus on Torment works out for a Power build. (Looks like ~478 damage per second on a moving target with 0 Condie damage. That’s ~3825 damage over 8 seconds.)

Heh wow. Just lurking here, but I am surprised by how many people feel the same way I did when I first heard about Guardians becoming Dragonhunters.

If Anet didn’t want “boring” old names and concepts, then they wouldn’t have made Guardians, Warriors, Thieves, Rangers, Necros, and Elementalists to begin with. (And even Engineer and Mesmer are not all that unique. They would have thought up completely new “class” names, especially since they call them professions, they really could have made them very unique and non-classical in nature.

Why did they choose these “boring” classic names? Clearly, because their potential customers would better be able to associate with the product and the fantasy world they are building. You can clearly see this with any MMO that has tried to be fantasy, but not “Tolkienesque”/DnD or whatever you want to call it. The problem is that the vast majority of customers actually want and like these preconceived ideas from other past ventures into DnD-style fantasy worlds.

This name’s problem is that it stands in contrast with the “suspension of disbelief” that has been built up over many years, by many fantasy worlds. It’s like colors that don’t match in an outfit. Almost all people can properly identify colors that do not belong together in an outfit, and thus are an eye-sore. This name is an eye-sore to the concept of the Guardian and the shared culture and story that has evolved around these types of characters in many many worlds before GW2.

I have to agree with Mindblossom, the active effect of Sognet of Midnight isn’t all that either. We will soon have 240 radius AE blind on every shatter, so one more with a slightly bigger radius is hardly ground breaking.

Granted you have a stun break, but we have a lot of better utilities with one of those.

I do agree of course that the passive is just terrible and exacerbates the issues for this underperforming Signet.

I think that giving up DE will be pretty significant to your Clone generation. I’m not convinced that Chrono alone will be enough illusion generation in many cases. In 1v1 I can see that working, although still will be a bit slower to set things up as compared to the more traditional power shatter build with DE.

As you said, on top of that you’re losing vigor and the awesome new Blinding Dissipation trait, which is a huge deal to improve P-Shatter Mesmer sustain IMO. Even the lack of Sharper Images and the improved Confusing Combatants will be noticeable IMO. Obviously not critical to a power build, but that’s missing damage none the less.

On the build you linked I would personally go for Rending Shatter in Domination, in order to ensure I get the Fragility bonus. Secondly, I would take Compounding Power over PoM, again for maximum damage on shatters.

This sort of shatter build incorporating Chrono looks very interesting, especially when using MI to help with Clone production. Then with F5 you can double-up on huge damage spikes, but after that you’ll be a bit slower in setting up additional spikes.

Definitely something I’ve also been considering! (Although I’m hardly a P-Shatter expert.)

Improved Blade Training:
- Recharge Reduced: 20%
- Precision: +50
- Increased range on #3 skill to 900
- Increased Sword damage by 10% (Mesmer only!)

Yeah the idea behind the change is that before you were basically punished for using your Mantras with EM, whereas now the stacking Ferocity buff only lasts 8s, but each time you actually use a Mantra you can get this buff. So if you use Mantras a lot you can get a big boost to Fericity, but of course it will be followed by a huge down-time trying to recharge them all.

Let’s hope that they’re reworking the charging of Mantras as well. Now that another profession will also have to suffer it’s clunky & slow use, we can hope that they will actually improve the mechanics of Mantras a bit. (At least the charging!)

Otherwise, it would be feasible to focus on getting on-demand Quickness so that you can at least charge them a little bit faster. (btw Protected Mantras was made baseline, in case you’re looking for that! )

Suggestion:
At the very least, make charging Mantras out of combat significantly faster then in combat. That would help a little bit with running more then 2 Mantras, which personally I refuse to do because it’s just too much of a hassle keeping them charged.

Not sure I can agree with the statement that Chrono will be a must have, and then saying that in relation to a Chrono, Illusions, and Dueling build. Such a build would have fairly redundant illusion generation that still mostly depend on F1 to do damage. Even with the goodies that Chrono offers, I don’t see such a build outperforming a classic Domination, Dueling, and Illusions build.

You would be lacking boon removal, and the incredible burst potential of the new Mental Torment, and of course Fragility is nothing to scoff at either.

Sure with the above Chrono build you can set up a dual F1 shatter in a combo with F5, but it’ll be harder to pull off and more failure prone, relies on a long CD, and any way you slice it the spike will come in two bursts and not one!

The classic build will innately pull off a single MW that does 35 – 60% more damage then the Chrono build, while also AE stripping boons like Protection to make that spike even worse.

So despite all the really nice “bells and whistles” that Chrono offers, to me it doesn’t seem that likely to unseat the classic Power Shatter Mesmer. A highly competent power shatter Mesmer doesn’t really need super-speed illusions, more illusions to shatter (Dueling provides plenty to feed MWs), or perma speed. They’re all nice things to have, no doubt, but they’re simply not “must have’s” to the most popular and competitive of current Mesmer builds/playstyles.

I think Chronomancy fits MtD shatter far better, because every single shatter including F5, is turned into an offensive weapon with MtD + IP, and synergizes very well with Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasms.

Shriketalon.1937:

Scepter
Ether Bolt: no longer a projectile, acts like Necro scepter. Torments.
Counterspell: channeled block, negates attacks for a brief time and confuses attackers.
Confusing Images: flick your scepter and spawn a clone that casts the beam, then autoattacks.
.
.
.
Sword
Mind Slash: all skills in the chain should have the “more damage against foes with no boons” effect to give it teeth.
Blurred Frenzy: rename this to Flourish. Mesmers do not frenzy, it’s undignified. Frenzying is for peasants and products of inbreeding.
Illusionary Leap: when cast, spawns a clone behind the target who executes a crippling attack with a built-in evade. This will protect the clone for ~1 second, thus allowing the mesmer time to Swap, and ensure that there’s no bad pathing problems to the target. 900 range.

Great ideas! Well thought out, I really like these and agree 100% on BF! lol! ;-)

Although I also like the idea of “slow and hard-hitting”, both are nice alternatives.

I do think all the the Quickness we’re getting access to will make both our MHs a good bit better though. Sword AA is pretty decent DPS with Quickness up, and you only use BF before or after Quickness.

With Confounding Suggestions for example, you could iLeap→Immob→BF + F1→F3 to stun your target and then AA…and if you interrupt you get Quickness from FI and thus a couple of AAs for free.

Of course you’re unlikely to give up Shattered Concentration for FI, but then you could get your Quickness from Shield, or Chrono GM Quickness-on-shatter trait?

Not sure, but some synergies do exist that will make both Sword and especially Scepter a little less bad. ;-)

I don’t think it’ll be hard to land, really. With CS and Shattered Concentration you can just get a couple clones up and F3, and chances are you will strip or forcibly remove Stab, and then a Daze/Stun will land and possibly interrupt.

Or any shatter plus MoD, or combo MoD with any other CC first to remove the stab. It’s not like we don’t have multiple options there. ;-)

Carighan.6758:

“Lackluster effect” is something I disagree on. Yes, it’s usually too clunky to use but given a 50% damage redirection it will basically add it’s HP to yours for single-target purposes.

If it were more usable, it’d be pretty kitten good IMO.

Yup and with MtD & Chrono line, you could basically hit F4 any time to gain Invuln & Quickness, then summon PD and, as you put it, add the PHs health to your own. You would also have a 20s CD on it, and that would get lowered by Alacrity.

This is what I meant, there may be synergies that we haven’t really explored yet. Our ability to gain Quickness at will from either traited shatters or shield, could potentially make the PD much more interesting…if still niche for small-scale combat. (It’s HPd simply don’t scale at all for group fights. It’s HPs are a mere drop in the bucket in bigger fights.)

They should just change it to pulse a ~3s PBAoE Protection (5 targets) every time it attacks in melee, but then it should also have at least double the current HPs.

Currently PD is definitely hard to justify. You can create builds that are nearly impossible to defeat 1v1 thanks to PD, but they are niche, suffer from lacking damage output, and are absolutely useless in GvG settings.

However, post patch it might have synergies that we are underestimating??

As for MtD with Chrono, the synergies are amazing and hard to pass up IMO! Dueling, Illusions, and Chronomancy will be really strong. Only MtD can benefit greatly from having so many Clones available. Also as compared to current MtD builds you will gain AoE Blindness, Quickness on shatter (or Chronophantasms), built in 25% movement speed and CC-redux (and thus better armor runes!), super-speed illusions, and Clones on shatter.

That enables some seriously crazy amounts of Torment to be stacked pretty much non-stop, along with Confusion, Blindness, and Bleeds, etc. None of that even mentions Alacrity or F5, which presumably will also apply Torment from MtD.

This will allow Chronomancer to put out more AoE Torment more quickly than any other spec combination.

In short:
- Clone on shatter has great synergy with MtD & 5 shatter skills
- Super-speed illusions on shatter is awesome for any shatter build
- Alacrity is great for MtD builds to get the lowest possible CD on shatters
- Quickness on shatter also has great synergies, as does Chronophantasm or even Lost Time. All 3 GMs jive well with MtD in different ways.
- F5 will allow for even more amazing combos, allow us to double up on our best shatter (CoF), provide more redirect and active play combos, etc.
- Passive 25% speed is pure awesome, and allows you to use better armor runes then Travelers (a must in WvW, but also very often used in arena PvP)

The whole Chronomancy line just oozes with awesome as far as MtD shatter is concerned!

That is not to say there won’t be many other competitive MtD builds that do not include Chronomancy!

Well with the Chronophantasm elite, you would get an additional one if you shatter the first before it dies. This could turn out to be pretty neat. Along with F5, you could potentially get 4 iDefenders in a row up to soak up a fairly ludicrous amount of damage.

Of course it’s damage is abysmal, and thus it’s always a bit of a trade-off, but in an MtD shatter build for example it could give you a lot of sustain in smaller-scale fights. The cast-time is the biggest limiting factor, but we have access to a lot of Quickness now that would help alleviate this.

Personally, I really like the way they have “Seize the Moment!” and would rather not see it changed in the way people say. I think it’s very powerful and useful the way it is, providing great synergies for various combinations, and also fits perfectly into Chronomancer being a manipulator of time.

Messing around with Alacrity synergies is also more difficult to balance. They are deliberately trying to keep Alacrity under tight control, as to ensure they can balance it properly without needing to make knee-jerk nerfs later. As with all numbers, the numbers we see for Alacrity are not set in stone yet. If we need more to make it worthwhile, then it’s much easier to tweak the existing forms, then to create synergies all over the place that are difficult to adjust.

I don’t feel that interrupts need any link to alacrity. Not only are interrupts already gaining massive improvements, but this is an effect that simply needs tighter control to be balanced.

It’s pretty clear (on paper! ;-) ), that this will be a toss-up between dropping Dueling or dropping Illusions…or of course neither! Perfect!

I don’t believe that I’m alone in theorizing that Chrono may well have enough illusion production to make a viable shatter DPS build. People like to say DE is “on demand” Clone production, but the fact is you need Endurance to create them, and it takes a little time to get one. You are also potentially wasting the amazing defense of Dodges, and may end up positioning yourself suboptimally for a shatter. (Or have Clones destroyed while generating others with Dodges.)

With Chrono you may not always be able to pump out multiple Clones quite as fast as with DE, but you can actually get single Clones out much faster then with Dodges, and thus execute combos even faster then now.

Granted, this will be far more useful for a MtD Shatter then a Power Shatter, but even for Power Shatter with the incorporation of MI (and F5 to double up on it), I can really see not only a huge front-loaded double-MW spike being possible, but also Clone production in general being quite fine for what else you will get out of another line.

Not to say you’re not giving up some other great stuff in Dueling, which is what makes all of this so cool! Real options and lots of possibilities to create diverse/unique builds that may not all be equally effective, but likely much more so then ever before!

Usually this sort of description means a targeted AoE Confusion (in this case) that is centered on the target, and also applies to that target. At least that’s how I think these sort of “spells” usually work?

Wouldn’t make much sense if the guy you interrupted didn’t get hit, but everyone around him did. (IMO anyway) The point of this trait is to spread mistrust in tightly grouped enemies, as you’re using the interrupted person as an anchor to damage others. ;-)

No idea, but that’s how I assumed it would work.

Vague Memory.2817:

Has this been confirmed? If so it means we won’t be going to being locked into runes to being locked to a trait line, which would be good news.

Which is why it’s even more likely that this “rumor” about SoI is probably legit. It would make Chrono too much of a must-have line, just to get perma-speed without relying on runes.

It’s long overdo and a great call on Anets part to finally end this very build-limiting burden Mesmers were dealing with for so long.

Why would you take Compounding Celerity when you have 25% perma-speed from Chrono? I think I would much rather have Warden’s Feedback or most likely Restorative Illusions for a heal-on-shatter.

Dirame.8521:

You won’t need Chrono for a condi rupt build. People probably just want it for shininess sake.

Absolutely agree. Obviously Chrono will be the line everyone runs the first few weeks after the patch, but once they learn the mechanics of it and then start to fairly compare Chrono to other lines, I think we’ll see a lot of builds opting out of Chrono. (Not to mention there will likely be some nerfs along the way too.)

Chrono has some really neat stuff, and so will all Elite specs I’m sure since they do want us all to buy the expansion, but a lot of people are counting their chickens before they hatch. For example: if that F5 rift is easily destroyed, that would leave it a 1v1 ability at best. I fully expect that a competent team will dispatch that rift so fast that it will be difficult to use effectively in group battles.

That alone doesn’t kill the Chrono line, thank goodness, but it does change the balance in relation to other lines. Every line now has some very desireable traits, and if you want to take Chrono, it will clearly force you to make some tough trade-off decisions between damage and/or survivability.

JonPeters.5630:

*Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. *
Jon

Yeah we tend to get bogged down in debates of numbers for content we haven’t even seen, but as someone said that’s part of the fun & anticipation of this amazing patch!

There were some refreshing replies that are starting to grasp all of the amazing synergies between lines that HoT brings. We have far less options than before, but far far more viable builds will come out of it. Excellent!

We only have to look at the DH whine thread to see the usual emotional tirades that people go through due to (IMO) pure anticipation. There were literally, rivers of tears cried about how Chronomancer couldn’t compete with DH, and today? lol! All has changed, now Chrono is clearly superior and OPd…blah…blah

Some of the more level-headed folks have started to see the synergies emerging for the Mesmer with the latest info on Chronomancer line. We saw a lot of this with Thief and Ranger trait overhauls to (IMO) a larger degree than Mesmer, and personally it had me worried and a little jealous just how much thought went into synergies between lines.

I now feel this is emerging quite nicely with Mesmers as well. The synergies between specializations for Interrupt & Shatter builds are pretty awesome, each with both Power & Condie variant. Furthermore much stronger Phantasms and support builds also seem plausible and probably viable, and even bunkerish style builds.

For all the theorycrafting going on, I think we will all be surprised by some of the builds and synergies we will encounter. Sure, there will be always be one or two, maybe three builds emerging as “meta” but I think this patch will go a long long way to making other builds viable enough that the “meta” won’t be quite as meta as it is now. Basically, I believe other builds will not lag nearly as far behind the meta as they do now, and thus we will more often run into interesting build combinations more often that force us to think outside of the meta.

Not to rain of everyone’s parade of tears, but there are a lot of people exaggerating so much it’s just ridiculous. Let’s just put aside that Anet said all the balancing is still totally open, that they made it very clear that we’re looking more at mechanics and basic ideas, rather than final values and finished abilities.

People are speculating about how Chrono abilities “obviously” are inferior and DH abilities are clearly superior, without having actually tested either of them. Take the whole 25 Vulnerability thing. I bet people would actually whine about this if it were put on a Well, because “Wah we already put out so much Vuln, and so does everyone else, this is so useless! Engie stack 20+ in an instant, then this ability will do nothing!”

Alacrity is also obviously bad or supposedly not as good as many may think, although we all know how strong Chill’s slowing effect is!?

The other CD reducing effects are probably a hidden nerf, although math clearly shows that they can be stronger (if used well aka SKILL) then the current flat reductions.

Thieves will still be a hard counter despite a huge amount of survivability, spike damage, condie damage, etc. being added.

Mostly a lot of stuff being said here is simply “grass is greener” spam, that sadly always happens when another class’ goodies are revealed. While strong, I saw nothing of the Guardian that makes me think I’m going to give up my Mesmer and play a Guardian. I have a strong feeling that to get the DH goodies, you end up having to kitten a lot of what makes Guardians strong right now. (aka TRADE OFFS)

The point was that we too are looking at massive spike damage increases with the upcoming patches. For a power shatter Mesmer MW is obviously the main source of damage, and having that boosted by up to 60% (most don’t actually take MT right now AFAIK) will be pretty significant. Especially when talking about Guardians who will surely also have to give up some important aspects in order to increase their spike damage.

Fat lot of good all that crazy new DPS will do them when they get 1-shot by a 15+k MW. ;-) (They being generally quite susceptible to big damage-spikes themselves.)

We also get a trait that enhances Torment damage by 50% when moving, and we’re clearly being turned into the masters of Confusion again, along with big improvements to Confusion itself. All that and we gain a significant amount of survivability even for the classic GC shatter build with AE Blindness on shatter, baseline 1200 Blink range, etc.

So the grass isn’t necessarily all that much greener on the other side.

In all this discussion about damage modifiers, let’s not forget our own updated Mental Torment GM that adds +50% damage to MW on inactive targets, and that’s also in the same line that gives +10% vs. Vulnerable targets from a minor.

Also I thought I heard Master of Fragmentation may also have an additional damage mod? Not sure on that of course, but if not it may not be as desirable of a GM. (Although 20% increased chance to crit is not exactly bad either! )

Yeah considering what the Dragonhunter video just showed in a hybrid build, huge burn & bleed damage, but still very strong direct damage…we’ll see, we might be able to do the same thing with an MtD shatter and that crazy +50% damage Torment trait. drool!

That could put up some big numbers along with improved Confusion, stacking burns…we can do some of that! (Staff Clones + AA should get some Burn stacks going now as well.)

GS + Scepter/Torch in an MtD hybrid build, probably with Dueling & Dom. Big MWs that also stack a buncha AoE Torment & Confusion…could be very nasty, and with AoE blind on shatter you still have a ton more survivability then Shatter has now.

Sebrent.3625:

Too strong? Because the list of ways to counter a phantasm attack isn’t long enough?

• Blind the Mesmer … phantasm not even summoned
• Interrupt the Mesmer … phantasm not even summoned
• LOS the Mesmer … phantasm not even summoned
• [Accidentally] kill the phantasm … no phantasm attack
• Blind the Phantasm … phantasm attack misses
• Aegis … phantasm attack blocked
• Block … phantasm attack blocked
• Dodge … phantasm attack dodged

… on and on …

^ Quit depressing me in my hypetrain mood! ;-)

For what it’s worth, it appears you could consider this to be a 2 block clunky style block skill, with the chance to summon 2 Phants. It’s kinda more of the same, but twice the “fun”…hence Deja Vu I suppose. ;-)

Enemy: “Hey wait! Didn’t he just summon that same Phantams on my last attack and didn’t I just 1-shot that one! Rats another one, it’s like having Deja Vu all over again! Oh well, lemme AA 1-shot this one too I guess!”

Mesmer: “Woohoo! 2s of Alacrity! Almost 1 full second off my CDs! These new Phants rock! Wait 4k burning, 2.5k bleeding, and 5k physical damage!? Oh it’s a Dragonhunter.”

Sorry, couldn’t resist. ;-)

Agreed, it seemed to say you can get 2 Phants up. This changes my opinion on it quite a bit, due to the mentioned synergy between having 2 of these up, bouncing Alacrity between them (and you) and thus could be pretty buff. Of course they’ll have to live long enough to do that. Also neat of course would be Chronophants allowing you to re-summon them after shatter, and getting another attack cycle in quickly.

Still not in love with Shield #4, but I may be underestimating it. The ToT Wave does indeed look fairly slow and thus easily avoidable…not liking that considering the CD.

I take some comfort in the fact that we can reflect a lot of that crap right back into their faces. ;-) We’ve gotten a lot of reflects…maybe there was a reason for that!

Not too worried. Some balance will still be done…certainly looks better then I thought, but still fairly gimicky.

MailMail.6534:

#NoobRemarks It’s less powerful than I thought then. I still think it will be better than it was before with a 12 second CD.

Not to mention Alacrity. We’ll see how the Mirror thing works out, until we see it we can’t really know how it’ll work. Maybe the traits Mirror activates after the Manip has been used, which would add maybe another 1s or so to the Reflect. We’ll see soon enough I guess.

Either way, I think Mirror will be used more then before, as you said -if nothing else- because with the Reflect and MP, the lower CD becomes a bigger advantage which each second you shave off it’s CD.

The Chrono trait to summon a Clone whenever you shatter will also go beautifully with RI. If you shatter 1 clone with RI, you get 2 heals; one from IP for 900ish, and another one from the Clone (but counting you as well) for 1100ish. With that trait, provided you have one clone up to start with, you can cast your 4 shatters in quick succession and heal yourself for 2000*4…do it before a Continuum Split, and you double that.

Sustain out the yin-yang!

I’m not knocking Guardians in general, I’m knocking the Dragonhunter idea for a virtuous/justice based Paladinish type class.

And as I said, I’ll probably eat all my words when they reveal actual details. ;-)

I just personally didn’t like the video at all. The guy looked completely out of place in the jungle, and wielding a longbow. It just looked odd, and as someone else said, even with all the obvious editing of the video they still really didn’t make it look good. (IMO!)

Quadox.7834:

serenke.4806:

We’ve gotten shield and a lame name (granted “dragon hunter” is even lamer).
On paper our spec. looks at least more fun than the guard’s.
We’re not much better off than them though.

How is chronomancer a lame name?

Yeah! No kidding!

It’s certainly leaps and bounds better then Dragon Hunter on a virtue/justice based Paladin-like class. Check Google Images for “Dragon Hunter” and you get the answer to what most-people think of when they hear that term. I don’t see a lot of that looking like your fairy-winged do-gooder in that video! ;-)

Not to mention that a bow doesn’t really fit that theme either. A big-kitten crossbow maybe, but not a plain Longbow. Ever hear of a LB taking down a dragon? I mean Bard tried it, and saw where that got him! Didn’t do squat until he broke the bow in half, turned it into a ballista MacGyver style, and shot a big heavy dwarven arrow in just the one weak spot the dragon had! Sounds to me like Guardians should have gotten 2h lances. :P

Chronomancer not only sounds good, but fits the Mesmer perfectly. (And GI agrees! )

I agree with you on many points actually, but basing this on a few days of play is not going to give you an accurate picture, even if you’re a good/experienced gamer and GW2 player. This class requires a bigger commitment, especially for the build you’re choosing to play!

The Zerker Power Shatter Mesmer is just plain hard to learn. You need impeccable personal skill, as well as absolute lack of lag. Most of all, to really make it work, you need a good team to baby-sit you. You need heals and condie clears from others to really survive long enough in team fights to get your bursts out. When you land those bursts, they can be among the most devastating AE damage bursts in the game.

In pug unranked arena I absolutely hate playing Zerker power shatter. It doesn’t suit me well cuz I’m too old (slow), my PC is not optimal for gaming (iMac), my latency is “OK” but not great, and most of all I don’t have a team to cover my blatant weaknesses! So currently I’m greatly enjoying a Power PU build. It’s also Zerker, but thanks to PU and Chaos in general, I have a LOT more survivability then a P-Shatter build.

With GS I can put out very strong damage bursts still, and the Sw/Torch provide me with good offensive and defensive options. I have had very little trouble beating the average Thief riff-raff 1v1 in unranked, although occasionally one of the better ones reminds me just how much the odds are stacked against me in that fight. ;-)

However, it is for these instances that I now trait Moa Elite. Screw the whiners! Everyone else is using their cheese, why shouldn’t I use mine in fights that I can not win otherwise? The other GMs are simply bad for unorganized play. Took me 2 years to realize this, and now I finally am enjoying MoA as an Ellite that occasionally does what I expect of an Elite. The CD is too long for the various ways in which it can fail, but at least when it lands, it can be a fight changer. It still ain’t an EZ-mode game-changer like Engie or Necro Elites, but it certainly has it’s moments against especially Thieves, and to counter the Necro Elite!

Oh and as a final point, I really have fairly strong faith that HoT will improve the lives of Mesmers significantly. Although the other classes will get stronger too, naturally, it’s many of the little QoL things that will greatly improve the Mesmer experience across the board. (IP, AE Blind on Shatter, 100% stun on Confounding Suggestions will be huge against Thieves, greatly improved Condition options, more MW damage potential, far more viable boon-sharing, support and even bunker builds etc.)

^ In principle I agree, but it would require re-balancing that would likely result in nerfing the burst damage potential of MW.

With Chrono you’ll be able to get that CD down a good bit more, but of course with trade-offs involved.

I think you make a great point though. Now that we can not punish players for destroying our illusions en-masse with AE attacks that 1 shot them, I think your idea wouldn’t be bad at all. Of course with DE and Chronomancy traits, on top of the improved MW GM trait, it would be a bit much…machine-gunning MWs. ;-)

Sad, but that probably should have been the design all along, with some other mechanics changes for sure, then there would never have been a need for crutches like DE to even make the shatter play-mechanic work!

The problem, as with all hybrid shatter builds for Mesmers, will be in seeing whether it’s worth the increase in Condie damage to go for hybrid stats, rather then just stick to the traditional Zerker gear and taking any incidental Condie damage as a bonus but maintaining higher Direct Damage.

In short, you will need to make sacrifices to Power and/or Ferocity in order to get more Condition damage, and this trade-off has been shown to be a poor one unfortunately.

All classic P-Shatter builds will benefit from these new Condie traits equally, and there isn’t much choice for the Illusions Major anyway, so I think you will find that classic Zerker P-Shatter will outperform a Hybrid Shatter.

As for Celestial, it’s no different then now either. The problem with Celestial is that you need a ramp-up time to get Might stacks, and that for a Mesmer the issue is that we can’t stack Might up fast enough nor survive long enough to wait for a ramp-up effect. (We need Fire Fields and Blast finishers, basically.) Also I think Anet already hinted that Celestial is getting a work-over, so I expect that means NURF INC! ;-)

Sorry but I disagree on BD and RI. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but to call them useless or garbage is not correct.

1) BD not only got the Stab, you may have noticed that the Boons are now AoE! This can synergize well with Boon-sharing builds based on Shattering. Your F2 Shatter when shared would give 6 stacks of Might to anyone within a 240 radius. Although I agree from a personal standpoint Retal is a little underwhelming on MW, in a group scenario this boon is not joke as Engineers & Rangers will gladly tell you. ;-) Same goes for Fury on F3. Really the only one I really dislike is the Boon on F4. For such a long CD to give such a lame Boon is very underwhelming. This should be ~3s of Protection or ~5s of Aegis.

2) RI works surprisingly well if you have IP, which we all will! This is not a bad trait at all if you’re looking to bunker yourself up. The only reason this trait hasn’t seen any play, IMHO, is because it requires IP and is GM itself, so you have to give up DE to get it. That of course is silly. Now that you get IP for free, and can get RI while also getting a reasonably strong GM trait like Shattered Conditions or Ill. Insp. for boon sharing, this trait will actually kinda rock. This trait will be almost primarily responsible for creating a true bunker Mesmer! A Chaos/Insp./XXX Mesmer will be almost unkillable 1v1 and maybe even 2v1 or worse odds, every shatter insta-heals and removes a Condition.

Also to OP, I think Anet probably thought Rending Shatter would be useful in combination with Fragility, but that is really not sound reasoning considering it has to compete with the excellent (former GM!) Confounding Suggestions or Empowered Illusions. If a P-Shatter Mesmer wants to use Fragility, it would most likely be for his MW. So in order to get AE Vuln up, he would have to fist F2 or F3 shatter with Rending Shatter, and then MW. The problem is, most P-Shatter builds will probably also pick up Master of Fragmentation, making the F3 shatter AoE, and thus providing AoE Vulnerability anyway! Naturally Phantasm Mesmers would choose EI over RS.

So on second thought I agree, Rending Shatter will not see much play over the other 2 choices. It needs something more to compete with the other 2 choices.

Chaotic Transference is not a bad trait really. It’s a “pick this if you don’t use Staff and hate MoA” option. For Rabbid Condition builds, PU Condi mainly, this trait was always very popular GM minor, as it adds a pretty nice amount of Condition damage. I’m not a fan of MoA at all due to the overly lengthy CD for a very short effect, and I’d take CT over that any day. (As long as I’m Condie of course.)

Persistance of Memory is a question mark. We’ll have to see how it works out, but most people are thinking the 2% is probably wrong.

Greatsword Training is definitely not bad. It has 2 very strong GMs to compete with, but the CD reduction it offers can become extreme when 3 GS Clones are attacking along with you, and/or you’re attacking into a zergball hitting multiple people. The +100 Power is a bit weak. Seems I’ve seen other GMs give +150 stat points, and I think this would be more appropriate. (Or +200 even to better compete with the other 2 GMs.) It won’t be popular, but it’ll be used & liked by some for sure.

Many of these new CD reduction effects are going to need balancing with Chrono’s Alacrity I think. The combination could be extreme in some cases. (Staff, Torch, and GS traits.)

Sebrent.3625:

We’ll have to see how long the Chill/Alacrity applied by the Phantasm is … as well as the damage the Phantasm applies.

If I can upkeep 100% chill up-time on a target with 2 of these phantasms, that’s going to be pretty darn nice … especially since that means 1 is 50+%. Chill is a rather powerful condition … less so against Thieves though … because they’re Thieves (see initiative).

Chill? You mean Slow, right? This will actually be pretty nice against Thieves, because it slows down that HS spam. (Which is actually one of the somewhat slower attacks of the Thief already, so instead of .75s per HS, it will take 1.125s per HS which not only lowers the DPS a bit, but gives you a much better chance to react to it and/or interrupt it.

I think Thieves will hate Slow a lot, because they don’t have innate counters to it (so far). Of course they may end up getting Resistance and laugh at any Condi we throw at them…that would be “par for the course” as far as Anet’s vision of Thief vs. Mesmer balance goes.

The problem, as usual, will be in actually getting that KITTENY bouncing attack to actually hit a Thief who has a clue.

Yeah the Regen Phantasm minor with the +100 healing really needs to be made +200 per illusion. Having 300 Healing or not is moot on a Mesmer, it won’t even be noticed.

I have to say I agree. I kinda feel for them. The name is just terrible, doesn’t thematically fit the class at all. I’m really surprised this was ever suggested, and then actually picked by the Anet team.

Whenever I think about what a Guardian is, and has been in this game up to this point, there certainly never came to mind a picture of a “big game hunter.” Even in the video, the Guardian looks woefully out of place. (Engineer or Warrior might have fit that role a little better.)

I’ve never thought of a big game hunter as virtuous…quite the opposite. :P I guess “Dragonslayer” would have made a little more sense thematically, but “Dragonhunter” and a Guardians with bows? It simply just doesn’t fit my image of a Guardian.

And to add insult to injury, it looks kinda weak as well…but I’ll probably eat those words come tomorrow! ;-) (I guess the AoE immob + light-beam-volley looked like it might be fun!)

MailMail.6534:

I think the chronomancer line will work wonderfully with Inspiration and Chaos!! Support Shatter Mesmers will be a real thing. Boons on boons and ton of alacrity & condition clears!

I’ll definitely be trying it out as one of my first builds!

Yep. As usual people have their eyes on the shiny big damage numbers that some of the traits will provide them with, and overlook what might turn out to be a lot more overpowering in the end.

Handing your team the games most powerful boons like it’s candy-corn on Halloween, might just start to get peoples attention after they face it a couple of times.