Guild Wars 2

I’m glad more people are voicing these concerns about Chrono and Mesmers in general. The feeling of a time manipulator is all but completely gone from the profession, as literally everything related to that aspect has been watered down to the point of being almost meaningless.

Slow was once a powerful debuff, now it’s not something anyone will waste a cleanse on. (Besides, it doesn’t last nearly long enough for it’s effect, so just ignore it and save that cleanse for something that will actually kill you.) It’s at best a cover condition.

Alacrity is the same story. Still OPd in PvE, but goes almost entirely unnoticed in PvP and I don’t mean just by your team, but by Mesmers themselves. Again way too short of a duration after a 50% nerf to the effect. Simply poor balancing. Nuff said.

Then you have CS that was one of the staples, but for obvious reasons is little more than an Elite doubling ability, which is again poorly “balanced” out by overly long CDs on mostly meaningless Elites. (As compared to other professions Elites!) Any way you slice it though, popping even relatively poor Elites with overly long CDs back-to-back remains powerful if not overpowered. CS should never have worked on Elites, and should be more about juking, obfuscation, and confusing your enemy, rather than “pop it and use as much crap as you can before it’s over.”

And yes Wells. Wow what to say!? What a waste of resources poured into something, only to then nerf it to the point where at least 2/3rds of it is completely wasted effort. Most Wells are useless, overnerfed, and so is the AWTEW trait. The whole concept of back-loading is flawed outside of maybe PvE, and worst is that even if someone is dumb enough to stick around for the 3rd tick, it’s still completely negligible in most cases anyway! If I telegraph something that well, it should have a very meaningufl impact! (Especially since the AE is rather small!)

It will be almost kinda entertaining to see how the next Elite for Mesmers will handle all the QoL stuff that Anet chose to put into Chrono rather than fixing the core flawed design of the profession. (Lacking a viable passive 25% speed option, slow shattered illusions, lacking illusion generation, lacking personal defenses, overly long CDs on almost everything, etc.)

We’ll be right back to complaining about all the same things we complained about for years before HoT! lol!

^ I like the basic premise and fully agree that this is what Chronomancy should be, and IMO was the original intent. There is not much related to damage in Chrono, but mainly buffs & debuffs related to time/speed. Sadly these were watered down for all the wrong reasons, rather than fixing the actual problems. (CS should never have been allowed to affect Elites for example. Huge balance issue that basically forces nerfs on Elites & CDs, among other nerfs, just to keep something that is obviously going to be OPd.)

If HoT had stayed true to the ideal of not replacing Core but augmenting it with another choice, then Chrono would have been focused in exactly the way you describe. A really annoying, highly impactful buffer/debuffer, but with only mediocre damage & sustain. (And certainly you’d only want to have 1 on your team, but you really really would want that one…especially if the other team has one, to counteract the slowing effects.)

Oh well…water under the bridge…

The very first change had me thinking “oh boy…”

“blurred inscriptions – 1sec to 2sec”

I’ve been playing around with BI builds a bit lately and at first thought that would almost seem reasonable, but then when you do the math it really is anything but. You can easily fit 4 sigils in a build and still have Blink or another utility of your choosing. That would mean 8 seconds of Distortion, not counting F4.

The river of tears that would ensue would be truly monumental. ;-)

What BI does need is to clear 2 Conditions instead of 1. This would provide a viable amount of cleansing without the need for Inspiration, opening up Domination builds that don’t need Inspiration.

I do kinda agree that many of the other suggestions are not really trying to solve a problem or open up more build variety (horizontal balancing), but merely tweak something that probably would end up being just as useless as always…or worse, become instant FotM overnight such as 2s Distortion on BI. ;-)

Yeah Chrono was just watered down at every turn. Look at Slow, which was almost unique to us at first and really had a huge impact. Now? I don’t think anyone seriously cares much at the moment if they’re Slowed or not.

Now considering that Slow was going to be one of the major synergies in the Chrono line. You can choose an Adept, a Master, and a GM trait surrounding Slow and building synergy with it. It was nerfed into oblivion. Literally no build I’ve seen in months uses any of these, much less a combination.

No wonder! The GM is plain terrible! Why this needed nerfing no one will ever understand, and once Slow was toned down multiple times it just became a pathetic choice of a GM trait.

Seize the Moment on the other hand is pretty cool and feels pretty powerful, but sadly lacks synergy for the Mesmer him/herself as we just don’t benefit that much from Quickness IMO. For team play it has some synergy for sure when it’s shared.

Then there is Alacrity! Another sad tale of over-nerfing that has left it basically useless in PvP, and probably still OPd in PvE. A bit ironic, but at least for the Chrono himself there should be a LOT more Alacrity after that ridiculous 50% nerf to it without any compensation whatsoever.

Even with Improved Alacrity you really hardly notice it’s effect in general PvP unless you also spec Wells with AWTEW, which of course brings you to another major major nerf target; Wells. Who uses them now? Seriously!?

How can you not be disappointed in your own work when all your “balancing” only leads to literally no one using many many of the abilities you’ve nerfed? How can you leave it like that for months or years on end? What a waste of effort! It took hard work to create them, and only the stroke of a knee-jerk nerf to demote them into being completely unused.

I for one would be furious if I was a project lead on GW2 and had spent so much time and effort designing and implementing all these cool abilities, only to have them go unused because someone got overzealous with the nerf bat down the road. That it happens is fine, but that it happens so much in GW2 and then stays that way for months on end is not fine. It’s a sure sign of someone at the helm either not caring, or not caring enough!

So in the end, I would feel much more like a manipulator of time if Alacrity had a greater impact at least on myself, if Slow had a significant enough impact in PvP that made our opponents want to blow a cleanse just to remove it.

^ Sadly I totally agree. It’s one of those “be careful what you ask for” situations with Anet. ;-)

Post a video or it didn’t happen. Simple as that.

We all know it’s theoretically only possible from a very rare niche build that uses Mistrust, which relies heavily on unskilled enemies. I could see it being hard to fight as any profession that uses multiple pets…you know like Mesmers too, and of course Necros. Those pets can get you killed. This is working as intended!

If this build was even remotely as strong as you imply, why is almost no one using it? Why is it not used in high level team play?

A meta condie shatter build can not stack 20+ stacks of either Confusion and certainly not Torment, back to back, unless maybe you were AFK and they spend a good 10 seconds or more to combo that much stuff on you. (After which 3 skills with very long CDs will be down…that being CS, and Signet of Illusion used in conjunction with Mimic. However that still leaves the issue of Illusion generation, so I’m not even sure that is possible. Certainly not if you dodged even once, much less used any kind of defensive skills.)

The only thing that sounds half way plausible is a Mistrust build and either a really bad team of players that are feeding you the high Confusion stacks (when they’re interrupted near you), or a bunch of pets/minions…which of course are essentially brain dead team-mates that are easily chain interrupted for massive AE Confusion stacks.

I’ve tried that build a few times, but it’s utterly unreliable and generally quite inferior to the meta condie shatter build.

The idea of making Portal an Elite is kind of a mixed bag.

In principle I like the idea for the reasons that Silverkey stated, but the problem is that it is such a fundamental requirement to PvP that you really kinda screw the other Elites in the process.

This is going to be controversial and broadly disliked, but when you step back and consider what Portal brings to the game, it really should probably just be removed from sPvP entirely.

In WvW and of course PvE I don’t see a big issue keeping it, and I do see a big issue in removing it. In sPvP I only see it being beneficial to both the Mesmer profession and more balanced sPvP in general.

Obviously Mesmers would need to be compensated with another strong utility of some kind, but Portal is basically the equivalent of a tactical nuclear bomb in the hands of a coordinated team in sPvP. You can not really outplay or counter it without a Mesmer of your own, and while it’s nice that this makes Mesmers a requirement in top-level team play, it’s also kinda frustrating that it’s mainly this rather OPd ability (and perhaps Moa) that make it that way.

It’s as much a burden to Mesmers as it is a boon. In unorganized/PuG play Portal is often not that great (dumb team mates make it ineffective), yet you’re required to bring it anyway, and that does limit build diversity as Silverkey pointed out.

I dunno…a tough call. What Portal definitely does not need is more nerfs that end up leaving it as a requirement for Mesmers, but water it down to where it performs even worse (more unreliably) in PuG play then it does even now.

Judging by the lack of counter-actions on your part that is required to get hit with 25 stacks of Confusion, you would have died to a Power Shatter Mesmer in about 2-4 seconds.

As someone said, 10 seconds is an eternity in GW2 combat. Some classes can kill you 2-3 times over in that time.

Confusion is meant to stop you from mindlessly performing actions rapidly…which clearly is what you were doing when you first received 25 stacks of Confusion, and then proceeded to happily perform a series of actions that clearly did not involve cleansing them!

Mesmers can also hit you with 20 stacks of Torment pretty easily if you don’t take any defensive measures, and if you ignore that and run around like a newb, you die like a newb. You either have to cleanse it, or stop moving! With Confusion you either cleanse it, or stop performing actions!

If you get hit with 15+ stacks of Burning (Guard, Eng, War) you only have ONE choice…cleanse or die. So IMO you should be happy the Mesmers primary Conditions both have innate counters built into their mechanics.

I don’t even mind the frequency of updates as much as the fact that when it does finally come it’s about 1/10th the size that it should be and only is focused on preserving the status quo with very minor tweaks.

Totally forgotten are poor/unused/underused traits, skills, entire weapons, and of course utilities and elites. Also no reasonable attempt to balance unused/underused traitlines to improve build diversity either.

Of course I would definitely far prefer frequent small patches that tweak numbers here and there, just as they claimed they can now do since they can now do PvP only adjustments. I think it’s silly to ignore balance issues during the season for some totally misguided principle of some kind. You force people to suffer through the stupidity of what DH and Warriors currently are, while day after day more people flock to these FotM professions/builds because they’re too frustrated to play what they really would like to play. (Can’t beat’em, join’em!)

That right there is a fun killer….kill the fun, kill the game.

I personally can only say that the focus on esports has almost entirely killed my desire to play this game. It’s no longer about fun at all, I’m pressured from all sides to play not what I want to play, but what is very narrowly defined to be optimal at the moment.

Worst of all, I strongly feel that plain random matchups had more quality to them then this fancy matchmaking system that continually sets up loaded matches that are completely unwinnable for one of the two teams. Now you had this before matchmaking too, but it was IMHO far more rare then it is now. Also, back then you had team Qs, so without any attempt to matchmake and only a 100% random matchmaking system and no teams allowed, I think you would get a better distribution of FUN matches then you get now.

Just my 2 cents…I’m not at all satisfied with where this game has gone, and yes the slow patch cycles and poor balancing philosophy is definitely part of that frustration.

lol good point…

;-)

Kittenit Fay, you always have to ruin the fun with facts and kitten! ;-)

It is pretty fun against bad Thieves, DHs and such…hmm back to the drawing board, maybe no Inspiration after all. ;-)

I’ve been messing around with a Power Shatter GS/Signet build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8ensICNohVoBmpBMrhFVjiMAGhiruZj2q98JWipD-TpQSABtWGAg9HAA

The point is basically to provide Distortion as a form of defense while in GS, and capitalize on the synergies in Inspiration. Inspiration not only gives you the ability to share 1 second of Distortion with your team and illusions (300 radius), but also adds an extra Distortion on a 24 second timer via Illusionary Inspiration when you summon a Phantasm. (Which can also be doubled up on using CS.)

I chose Midnight and Domination Signets for their instant/fast cast times and low CD in the case of Midnight. (Midnight is also a stun break and a decent AoE debuff .) Each Signet use also clears a Condition, which is also pretty nice even with Inspiration, because I use Signet of Ether as my heal (long CD) and no Signet of Illusions. (Too slow cast time and long CD to fit the nature of this build IMO.)

I put a Sigil of Paralyzation on GS to make Dominations Stun effect last 3.9 seconds, which is quite nasty.

While this by no means turns you into a tanking powerhouse, you can often achieve some pretty ridiculous results when you get your rotations right. Your biggest fear of course is being locked down with no Stun break up, but the point is not to turn you into a point-holding machine, but rather enable you to more safely do your “in/out” rotations even when facing DH traps, Warrior bursts, and the other ridiculous AE crap that makes on-point fights for Mesmers such a PITA.

Damage is very solid with strong iZerkers and MWs.

I actually think that if I was a better Power Shatter Mesmer in general, I could actually make this work. There are moments where I just get wrecked and continue to pull my hair out, but others I know I’m causing the same feeling right back to enemies with a constant chain of Distortions, Dodges, Blocks, and BFs. (Plus you have Moa on 144 second CD and that 3.9 second Stun on a 36 second CD as fight-changing abilities to boot.)

Nothing to debate here, DH is undoubtedly the most skill-devoid low risk & high reward profession in the current meta. Sorry, that’s just a fact proven by the droves of FotMers flocking to it.

Yes, it can be countered at higher levels of play, especially in team play, I fully believe this to be true…but that in no way makes up for the fact that DH absolutely dominates low and mid ranks, and makes the game highly unenjoyable when facing stacked DHs without DHs of your own. (Yes, that’s when I swap to DH too. Yeah me! It’s currently complete braindead garbage EZ mode. I have no clue how to play a DH and yet I can succeed more so than with my main that I’ve played since beta.)

And to whomever said DH is weak to Conditions either doesn’t know how to play a DH, or has a very different definition of a “weakness” then any non-DH profession has.

Nice suggestions Duck and I agree that horizontal boosts such as boosting underused lines, by definition excludes current meta builds, and there is no reason not to make significant enhancements to make other lines more attractive.

You don’t have to go so far as to create new FoTM that once again replaces the current meta, but you should never cease to make less used lines more appealing with each patch until you create some remotely competitive alternatives to the meta.

One build will always undoubtedly be deemed “better” than the other (aka. meta), but there is currently a sizeable gap between the meta condie build and basically any other build…especially Power builds. Closing that gap a little would go a long way in improving build variety and with that (IMO) the fun of playing a Mesmer.

As Duck alluded to with the Domination suggestions, a major issue for Power builds is the lack of condie cleanses. This is a big crutch to virtually all non-Inspiration builds, but nerfing Inspiration even more is not the answer!

I have some suggestions as well:

Domination:
- Blurred Inscriptions cleanses 2 condies. IMO this would finally be a solid trait choice to build viable Sigil builds that can afford to drop Inspiration! (Certainly if Sigil of Midnight would be turned into a decent Sigil, while remaining instant and on a short CD.)
- Furious Interruption also gains ~3s of Fury (kinda duh!), but ICD to 5s?
- Imagined Burden just needs a complete rework worthy of a GM trait. The idea of it focusing on GS isn’t bad, but without sustain the building up of Might stacks is a pipe-dream.
- Power Block was once a really excellent trait, I never understood why it’s damage was nerfed. It’s a great (and skillful!) way to boost sustained DPS for Power Mesmers as well. With Interruptions sadly being a lot more rare lately, this should have a much bigger sting to it! Boost damage done by 33 – 50% IMHO! Make it hurt to get interrupted by a Power Mesmer!

Dueling:
- Duelist’s Discipline needs a significant boost to make OH Pistol more viable IMO. Pistol should really gt a complete rework, but failing that this trait could be used to make at least traited Pistol a more worthwhile alternative for Dueling focused builds. Sadly the lacking defense will never make current Pistol viable in a dueling build. So by traiting Dueling and Pistols, you should be rewarded with something that aids in… (drum roll) dueling! Just off the top of my head… Casting Phantasmal Duelists gives you 6s of Protection, and give a big damage bonus to Magic Bullet? (I mean I’m shooting a guy, seems like that should hurt considering it’s on a 25s timer. I would keep the interrupt CD reduction for a strong synergy. Let’s face it, the Phantasm uses a slow well telegraphed attack that is easily avoided. Making MB somewhat decent damage wise will not OP Pistol or Mesmers.)
- Fencers Finesse is actually pretty decent, but the duration of the buff is way too short. It should be about 10-12 seconds IMO.
- Agree with Duck on a “heal on interrupt” trait, could replace Evasive Mirror?
- Harmonious Mantras should get a bit of an overhaul to make Mantras more viable. I would make the 3x charges baseline for Mantras, and allow HM to instead reduce casting time of the re-charging Mantras by ~25%. The damage buff can stay as is, because it has decent enough duration at 10 seconds.
- I really want to like Mistrust! It was a really great idea for a Mesmer GM, but sadly it just falls a bit short as interrupts are relatively far and few between these days. For condie builds Dueling is just greatly overshadowed by Illusions, because MtD just synergizes extremely well with Chrono & Shields. For a GM trait Mistrust is just too situational, so it should be given something that you can kinda rely on even when you don’t get the interrupts. (Maybe a ~20% damage boost to Confusion damage? Guards have increased Burn damage and Rangers increased Poison damage…why not?)

Love Ducks idea about Chaos’ Chaotic Interruption trait too! Along with a boost to:
- Illusionary Defense (5%)
- Mental Anguish CD reduction to ~30s?
- Chaotic Transference gets a 20% bonus to Boon Duration added (Synergizes with both PU and BD builds.)
- Bountiful Disillusionment is generally pretty decent as t is, but the Regeneration effect on F4 is just a joke for it being on the longest CD. I’d say move Resistance from F5 to F4 and increase it’s duration to 3 seconds, and then give F5 Protection for ~6 seconds.

Remember, this is just to give some ideas! Not saying all or any of them are great ones. ;-)

Also I was playing around with Wells again yesterday and noticed that Well of Action is bugged. It is the only damaging well that skips the 3rd tick, so that you only apply (pathetic) damage on the first 2 ticks, and that as your “grand finale” tick you get 3s of Quickness without any damage. Yawn

I hope that is a bug, not that it makes much of a difference, that well needs a lot more to be Viable then just one more tick of tickle damage.

It’s too bad really that Anet always over nerfs stuff to the point of uselessness and then just leaves it that way instead of at least slowly making micro-adjustments to every underused abilities values with every patch. There should be a laundry list of 10% adjustments for every single class with every single patch. We’re talking flunky-work here that takes minutes to change some values in a database table, it’s not hard work and would go a long long way to helping balance this game incrementally.

Funny thing is, I bet the dev team uses modern iterative agile development methodologies, but doesn’t see that they need apply this concept to game balance as well. Iterate often! Optimal would be short sprints (every ~2 weeks) that only look at underused abilities and bugs and ever so slightly boost the values/CDs behind them! You will not harm your precious E-sports with micro-adjustments to abilities that virtually NO ONE uses right now!

You cycle through 5-10 abilities per class, never touching the same ability two cycles in a row. Let each change sit for at least 2 cycles, and then evaluate how many people use them after the change. The object is not to make any of them the most popular FoTM “meta” abilities, mind you, but just notice when a decent amount of people start to use the ability and then stop adjusting it for a while.

Even if you end up over-adjusting, you could just as easily tone it back down a minor notch at a time on the next cycle. This should be an ongoing process that isn’t even debated with players (as if the big changes ever are! lol!) and should also be used to tone down over performing abilities in small increments with each cycle until you feel it is well balanced.

Seem plain common sense to me….

Calamity is OKish sometimes, mainly because of the Weakness & Cripple. The issue of course —as with all the wells-- is that the damage is heavily back-loaded and so overly well telegraphed that only newbs and AFK/unaware people get hit by it.

Even the CD is nice enough, but even that won’t buy it a spot on the utility bar of any meta build.

The worst part is, again shared by many Wells, that not even that final tick is nearly punishing enough considering the slow well-telegraphed build up.

Heh yeah Rune, the most fun part in such a silly matchup is trying to get a 1v1 kill, but of course they absolutely do not want to die 1v1 to protect that kitten, so they will always go out of their way to turn every 1v1 into a 3v1 or worse even when they’re holding all the points with a 400 point lead. lol!

I always imagine what they’re saying in coms…“OMG! I am in a 1v1, HELP ME ON FAR! NOW!111!!1!”

Points should be much further apart since now everyone is rocking at least 25% passive movement speed and usually some teleports/super-speed/etc. Just one more thing on a long list of power-creep casualties that make this games PvP stale anymore. /cry

Immunity to an entire damage type is simply very poor design, especially when you then hand it out like candy. This is plain common sense and from day one it was obvious that this buff was poorly designed as a knee-jerk bandaid fix to a condi meta.

Anet tried to balance it by first making it very sparse in availability and duration, almost unique to Revs, but it didn’t last long before it seeped more and more into the game without proper evaluation.

The Warrior is the poster child example of why this buff is poorly designed.

Yes, it should be a % reduction just like Protection. The amount is arguable, but I’d start with 50% (heck even 75% would be OK to try out) and see from there.

Resistance is no different than full immunity to anyone who is built primarily for condition damage, and if we had full immunity being handed out like Resistance is, it wouldn’t last a week before being nerfed. (and for good reason!)

It should be strong, yes, but no one’s primary form of damage output should be so easily completely nullified and for long durations to boot. Boonstrip is only a hypothetical counter that in practice is either ineffective (reapplication) or not available to condition builds.

The ironic part is how in all the tiers prior to that it’s mainly DHs, especially stacked DHs, that are far more of a problem then Scrappers and Druids. (Neither of those I would even place near the top of problem classes.)

Obviously this is an issue of perspective…makes it really hard for Anet to know whom to cater to I imagine. (But since by definition Leg/Plat is likely to be the smaller proportion of the player base, I assume that answer is also pretty evident. For better or for worse.)

Not trolling, I just don’t have an answer for you from down here. ;-)

^ Barely, situationally at best. In PvE definitely, but in PvP not very useful really as again it takes too much coordination and standing in a tiny circle to get the effect. The effect was nerfed by 50% and ever since it’s been relatively underwhelming in PvP as the duration is usually too short to matter much anymore.

Nerfed into uselessness like so many other skills, traits, and utils. /cry

Yes to OP. Power Shatter needs more Condi Clear. Duh. This is a well known issue IMO, no sense in even arguing about it.

That is probably not all it will take to bring back Power builds though…

Enjoyed your similar thread on PvP boards, hope this one turns out as well!

Very nice video! Thanks!

I’d consider using Mimic to double up on Decoy rather than using Veil. It’s got a shorter CD and longer stealth duration, plus of course the Clone. (And Mirror)

Of course you can try to double up on Veil stealth to get more duration out of it, but many professions can counter this easily and of course you’re still missing the clone & reflect. (And the ability to control whether you want to double up on Decoy or Blink!)

Nice thread!

I have truly seen it all now…lol…

It’s threads like this and ppl like OP that ruin this game with never ending cries for nerfs based more on L2P issues than anything else.

There isn’t much to be said that others haven’t already, but nerfing Mesmers any further would obviously and completely take them out of the meta. Luckily Anet realizes this, which was obvious from the recent remarks.

They need a ton of buffs to power shatter builds before you can make any minor adjustments to the one viable build they have left currently.

Also, I’m pretty sure many Mesmers would gladly give up Moa and/or CS in exchange for a competitive power build that is viable without these one-trick-pony gimmicks on a long CD.

Worst thread I’ve seen in awhile, grats OP!

Splitting hairs IMO, but in the end I think you both actually agree that the simple fact of this game having multiple trait lines implies that various reasonable combinations should lead to a fairly even result. Now that last part is certainly highly subjective, but if you’re not trying to split hairs you know full and well what it means.

Build diversity was supposed to be the key reason behind the traitline overhaul, and all we’ve seen since especially HoT has been the exact opposite of build diversity.

In case Anet cares to look, or just to get it off my chest. These are nothing new, just things that continue to irk me.

Chronomancy could use a bit of a facelift:

Lost Time
A GM trait? Really? This is at best a poor Adept trait in it’s current form. I know we are not supposed to compare to other classes, but check out Guardian’s Permeating Wrath, which is fairly similar to Lost Time. However, it makes the Guardian apply 2 seconds of Burning with every 3rd hit, and to add insult to injury, that hit becomes AE Burn! lol! Now that is a GM trait!

Our Lost Time applies lame old Slow for a whopping 2s to a single target on every fifth critical hit! I don’t get why this was ever nerfed to begin with (and multiple times!), almost no one was using it even then. (And since then Slow has been nerfed as well, and no compensation to this now completely dead GM trait was given.)

Delayed Reaction
Similar story here. At least this one is properly positioned as an Adept trait, but it should at least have its duration increased to 5s to be remotely useful. Slow is simply not that useful of a Condition any more.

With those two fixed, Danger Time would also become a much more viable trait option. These 3 traits are meant to synergize, but especially the low durations on Slow make all 3 of these traits just plain lackluster. (And that is a not trivial reason why Chrono as a whole seems lackluster, outside of the QoL stuff and Chrono Phants that you can’t really afford to be without.)

Feel free to add more of your own pet peeves. I could go into more detail on other lines and especially utilities, but I just thought I’d get these off my chest and see if I can spur more discussion on improvements.

I think it’s important to keep these kinda threads coming to periodically high-light what we think would improve the class both horizontally and vertically. You never know when Anet is looking to get input, as clearly there is a delay between implementation and deployment. In most cases we hear about changes when they’re already cemented in stone, and rarely does Anet go back and change things after making a public release about upcoming changes.

So what other things irk you that could use a tweak?

P.S. I would like to focus on tweaks here, because Anet can now much more freely apply these PvP-only tweaks!

Ditto!

15 chars

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

I’ve suggested that recently as well Ross, although for PvP they could even make it 25-33% and see from there how it goes.

Very nice. Some good stuff in there and brings back the Mesmer as a boon stripper.

Cool stuff.

Actually it would make a lot of sense to add something like this to an Elite spec, in order to avoid stacking the powerful defense that Shield gives, with this additional personal defense. (In the case of Blind/Slow/Weakness on death for example. Or even Aegis/Heals on death as benefits.)

I actually can’t wait for Mirage or whatever it is going to be, I have to say I’m pretty tired of Chrono. It’s this ball-and-chain we are necessarily attached to for reasons that have very little to do with the line actually being great.

^ Thank you Fay! Spot on!

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one with that opinion, based on my experiences in ranked PvP at least.

What we really need is a thread about suggestions to make at least one Power Mesmer build viable again! I’d love to hear your suggestions on that Fay, and other experienced Mesmers’ as well.

Yeah that would not be a bad idea really.

I would agree that Clone/Illusion Death traits that cause damage, especially AE damage, would be an unwise idea to go back to.

However, I do think that we should have the option to trait for an effect that would discourage our enemy from blindly destroying our precious resource! This just seems logical to me. We depend on illusions, yet they are so easily destroyed, so at least we should gain something from having our enemy blindly destroy them.

- Gain a boon (maybe different boons for each Phantasm and one for Clones)
- Apply a single non-damaging Condition to attacker (For example Blind makes sense as you’re bashing an illusion, but Weakness or Slow would also work.)

So you wouldn’t bring back a passive Mesmer killing using Clone/Illusion on-death effects, but would allow the option to gain Boons/defense from them in a way that would encourage enemies to not mindlessly kill Mesmer illusions.

The way it currently is it is always beneficial for our enemies to kill a Mesmer’s Illusions. I don’t think this fits the “Mesmer as a trickster” philosophy. It’s too simple minded a counter. Illusion Death traits that provide boons or defense would go a long way in making people use their heads a little more when fighting Mesmers.

Oh I didn’t mean to imply that the iDisenchanter isn’t good! I realize it casts very fast now and between the cleanses and the boon ripping it’s a very nice utility now. (Too bad we don’t really have a slot for it in most builds, not without giving up either Portal or another great personal survival/mobility utility.)

What I meant was, that it’s not an adequate replacement for personal cleansing when you just got condie dumped. It’s just a long cast time that is easily interrupted in group fights.

Azukas.1426:

Mesmers are fine in PvP. Any difficulties can be directly tied to user error.

I respect your opinion on the matter, but it would be far more helpful if you would contribute more than just a one liner. What build are you talking about? Are you in a duo with someone or playing pugs solo? Are you of average skill or much higher?

You can always say about every profession in this game that difficulties can be directly attributed to user error. Unfortunately, that means very little in terms of that class actually being balanced and viable. If it takes a pro for one profession to be barely viable, and several other professions can be played competitively by a much lower skilled individual, then your argument holds no water.

So please, indulge me with a little more information so I can tell where you’re coming from making that statement.

Cancelling GS AA was made unnecessary in a recent patch by the reduction of the after cast, which in effect did slightly raise the DPS of the AA and should slightly help this trait too.

However, I agree with DR above, it just doesn’t synergize with the way a Mesmer is forced to play.

Or they could just boost F2 to be a true condition damage attack, lower it’s CD, and remove MtD altogether. That trait has been an issue always, either too weak or too strong. Without MtD, Chronophantasms is perfectly balanced. It’s only the 2x 3-clone shatter with Confusion + Torment for each clone and the Mesmer is a lot, and can be repeated almost ad nauseum.

Sadly, I’m of the opinion that this isn’t even OPd, but I am a Mesmer and usually have Inspiration as well, so maybe I just don’t feel the entirety of the problem the way that other professions feel it. When I do play meta condie shatter though, I have to say I never feel like I’m a strong damage contributor. (Only against really poor teams.)

The fact simply remains that F2 is and always has been a weaker cousin of F1, and from the very start it should have been made a viable primary condition shatter without the need to trait it first.

Illusions also need to have splash damage reduced by 50-75% in PvP too. I don’t see why it’s good in PvE (what is it there, 90%?) and not in PvP, when the fact is that usually there is far more splash damage in PvP! (Faster, no intervals, no predictability…it’s just always there and strong enough to insta gib illusions.)

You can’t balance a profession around these “pets” and then constantly neglect the fact that these pets can not survive in a realistic PvP environment! (Especially since none of them really have a particularly strong attack outside of maybe iZerker)

Phantasms like the iWarden and iSwordsman should also be MUCH MUCH harder to kill then ranged attacking pets.

Yeah the simple truth is that —any way you slice it-- we have to choose between (mediocre) sustain OR doing damage, and almost no other profession has to do that; at least not to the extreme that Mesmers do…this goes especially for all power builds.

Myren, I think you’ll find that most of your sustain actually comes from your shield, BF, Decoy and perfect positioning/play, and not from the Marauder. If you get locked down you die just as fast with 21k HPs as with 16k.

I would actually recommend trying out Zerker Amulet, it is a significant spike damage boost for almost no real loss of sustain. Especially since you have Dueling to cover Fury, and you have the 10% extra crit chance on MW.

It’s a high risk high reward build any way you slice it. Against less skilled/inexperienced opponents you can do really well in these kind of builds, or of course if you have a good team to cover your weaknesses and allow you to be the force-multiplier that you are as a GC Power Mesmer.

However, these builds are very frustrating to play in poor pug teams vs. the current DH/Ele/Warrior meta. Any halfway competent player of these classes will not die to your bursts and then you will learn the truth…they get damage AND sustain, we do not.

Not to even mention condition classes are the bane of your existence. That iDisenchanter takes too long to cast and isn’t nearly enough cleanse to deal with any condition dump.

GL though, can be a fun build for sure!

I think for Mantras to become viable:
1) Baseline 3 charges, none extra from HM
2) HM instead reduces charge time of Mantras by 33%
3) increase duration of damage buff from HM to better match that of similar abilities in other classes. IIRC Thief is like 15s on a similar buff? Why are ours all horrendously short like 6s on FF, and 10s on HM? Should be 15s at least.

That would leave HM a very powerful and desirable GM trait for Mantra-oriented builds, and also make Mantras and Mantra-focused builds far more viable than now. (The recharge time is simply out of date. It’s always been terrible in fact, but with the pace of the current game it’s simply feels like an eternity to charge them in combat!)

That 33% shaves a tad more than .5 seconds off the charge time, still leaving it well above 1 second.

Although I think the OPs idea has some merit, I don’t really think it would change the fact that Mantras will remain niche at best.

On another note regarding alternate sources of Condition cleansing, I think the Blurred Inscriptions trait in Domination should clear 2 Conditions, which could potentially open up some power builds that don’t need Inspiration. (and would make this trait more competitive with the other 2 options it competes with)

Not sure about AA, but I never understood why #2 got a huge damage buff in PvE and nothing for PvP. I can’t recall anyone ever thinking BF did too much damage for the fact that it roots you in place to do it, and it takes quite a while and 8 hits to apply. We all know that Retaliation has a bad habit of out damaging (or close) BFs own damage.

It doesn’t have to be 100 Blades with a 2.5s Blur, that’s not what I mean, but it sure could use a solid boost in damage IMO. It should also hit 5 targets, what is up with the 3 target limit? Seems outdated and unnecessary to me. This would help Power builds a tiny bit.

However, I agree that I’d much rather see boosts to more underused weapons, which MH Sword simply is not. (And mainly for it’s pretty significant defense.)

Lalainnia, I fixed a few things for ya! toodles!

This must be some kind of joke reply because chronomancers are totally not fine in spvp, condie or power. If people really still believe silly stuff like Mesmers/Chronos are taken for anything else besides portal/moa they should probably actually try playing one in spvp instead of using a really worn out theme. (Or suggesting they are fine after a series of crippling nerfs to every single build that was viable in the past year.)

As for the nerf, it further hurt —quite badly-- the already completely non-existent power builds, and did nothing but appease the whiners (cough cough) about the only semi-potent build this class has left. Nevermind that Mesmers are not stackable, don’t have nearly the sustain and DPS output of various other professions, and also don’t have the spike damage (and sustain) of many other professions. Lastly even the meta condie shatter build that bads like to cry about once in awhile (FAR FAR less than they do about DH, Warrior, pre-nerf Rev, or Ele I might add!), isn’t even anywhere near the top of condition damaging professions in the game.

So what exactly are they good at if not sustained damage, spike damage, sustain, or condie damage? Portal and Moa in combination with an semi-OPd F5 to double up on Moa. Period.

^ Well said. I agree 100%.

Bah I’m going to have to correct myself. I am not enjoying my Mesmer much ATM. Not sure if it’s the matchmaking once again, probably is to some degree, but I’m seeing a huge influx of FoTM classes that are making life as a Mesmer very hard IMO.

Even with Insp the Condie cleanse just never seems enough with the plethora of high Burn stacks applied continuously, this is from both Burn Guards and Warriors…lolz if you’re facing both.

Seems like 75% of the classes played are Guardians (the most by far), Ele, Warrior, and Rangers.

DH especially are playing in a league of their own ATM with at least 2 strong builds.

Meta Condie Shatter is still OK overall, but you have to work twice as hard for half the result.

I’m not enjoying Mesmer in this season so far.

Well that was pretty fun!

It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Sages actually has a solid impact on RI now and also does pretty well on Mirror. With 660 HP I was getting ~1500 health back on a 3x shatter, and about 900 on a no illusion shatter. That’s a lot better than what people were saying, that you’d need 900 HP to equal the old RI. (4800+ on Mirror)

So Sages is actually working out pretty well, and I imagine the standard meta build is still doing fine as well.

Skam, I’ve been playing w/o Inspiration for a several weeks now in a glassy 16k HP Zerker Power build. Out of easily 40-50 matches I can count the number of times that I got wrecked by Conditions on one hand.

In 1v1 you simply disengage if it’s a hopeless matchup. You either kill them fast, or get out. In group fights it’s just very rare that Conditions play that big a part anymore, even in Pugs like I play. It’s not that Conditions aren’t doing their job, but with proper positioning and bumming some AE cleanses off your team you usually do quite alright.

Well gonna try out how bad the damage was… ;-)

This turned into surprisingly decent thread! ;-)

Thanks to everyone for their really level-headed responses.

I personally like the fact that with these splits the PvP team has a little more freedom to balance the way they see fit, without having to go through the process of including more people from different teams with totally different interests. This should have been done from day 1 IMO, but it’s nice to see they finally are embracing this. I also think it’s great that they’re limited to numeric tweaks more than anything else, I think that can go a long way to achieve better balance. (Especially if they use this flexibility to act quickly and do a lot of long overdue minor tweaks to underpowered and overpowered abilities. Lord knows there’s enough of’em, especially of the former category.)

Although I agree that Inspiration will continue to be a strong line for Condie clears, I also personally think that with sustain from RI hugely nerfed it will not be enough to keep it in the meta:
- the GM majors are all 3 pretty shoddy
- with RI significantly weakened, the Master majors aren’t looking any better really
- the Adept majors are also fairly meaningless outside of MF for fast ressing
- the Master minor is niche at best (Fay’s WvW build ;-) ), the GM minor is basically worthless (nerfed into worthlessness, and again has nearly zero synergy with HP), which mainly leaves the trait-line defining Adept Minor MP, which in combination with RI does amount to strong condition clearing.

I think it’s less that Inspiration will “inspire” people the way it has since it was overhauled and made really strong, but rather that all our other Condition clearing abilities are so poor that many will feel that they are forced to spec Inspiration to avoid being easy fodder for a pretty Condie-heavy meta. (Which might be getting a bit worse even.)

In fact with much of the original glitter and glitz of this line nerfed into the back-seat again, where btw it was for a long time post release, I think many people will try a lot harder to live with our other Condition cleansing options and go with a more well-rounded line like Dueling or Chaos.

Dunno. Might be a bit unrealistic due to the heavy condi pressure out there, but I just can not find anything sexy about the Inspiration line anymore.

^ Which admittedly is a reason to tone down Inspiration, as it also has become a nearly “must have” trait-line. Chrono definitely is, and for more than just F5 and Shield. Passive 25% speed for “free” and Chrono Phants are also invaluable for most builds, and IR plus speed 5 illusions are also pretty useful. (And last ofc is Alacrity, which is largely meh now, but still something you have to factor into any comparison to other lines.)

I’m really mainly peeved that they couldn’t even boost the Healing Power aspect for the nerfed RI enough to make it a viable alternative to run Sage’s/Mender’s variants that provide significant sustain in exchange for losses elsewhere.

Surely that was their intention by boosting the HP aspect at all, but the math simply doesn’t add up! I believe it will be far more efficient to simply go with a better Amulet and Chaos or -probably more likely- Dueling.

It really should give us the full current RI values at the 560 HP provided by Mender’s/Sage’s Amulets. Anything less will IMO leave both RI gutted and with that Insp. significantly weakened as a “sustain” oriented line (kinda have to lol there with RI trashed), and will leave Sage/Menders unused.

The intention of balancing changes should always be to not destroy builds and traits, but to tweak them slightly up/down to achieve more balance in an incremental fashion, rather than a sledge-hammer approach.

I’ve been playing zerker Power Shatter with nearly no Condie cleanses for the last couple of weeks, have faced dozens of enemy Mesmers, most of which were meta condie shatter, and I don’t see this “so deadly in PvP” at all. (Nor was that the feeling I got playing that build for months. Good yes, but OPd or overly strong “sustainage” was hardly my experience with the build. )

I should be running scared and pulling my hair out fighting condie shatter Mesmers, but I’m not. Why? They’re squishy as heck! I don’t know why people think that even the meta condie shatter build has a level of sustain that needs to be nerfed. For every time that one has managed to wreck me, I’ve managed to wreck one right back with my huge damage spikes and long CC.

Even in Pugs, which is all I play, I’m often getting plenty of cleanses off my teammates to where I’ve only rarely had an issue with any condition classes dominating me. (And in 1v1 I just tend to overwhelm them with spike damage and CC.)

So I’m not buying the “so deadly in PvP” line…I think if that were the case, Anet would have nerfed MtD even more.

It won’t tone down the meta condie shatter build at all. As usual, wrong target. It will at best change the build slightly.

Although Inspiration is still highly desirable for the only really good condie removal option we have, with IR literally gutted, I don’t think people will turn to Sage Amulet just to somewhat alleviate this ludicrous nerf. (And get the other drawbacks in the process.)

I think it’s more likely they will simply switch to Chaos, gain a ton of Protection and Stab, and bring MoR or some kind of other Condie Cleanse.

Even Dueling for AE Blinds on Shatter, Mistrust, or maybe 3x on Cleanse Mantra. (Or DE simply for more illusions to shatter) A bit more offensive option, especially with Mistrust. (Multiple AE interrupts are available after all.)

I actually wouldn’t mind the nerf if they made the healing contribution worthwhile to consider options like Sages Amulet, but they were clearly just out to gut IR, not balance it. Typical Anet knee jerk once again…sad, especially since now they can’t blame it on the PvE team. They are now able to balance much more fine-grained, but nooo, they just wield the old nerf-machete again chopping off 50% here, 50% there.