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Temporal Enchanter Rework

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Windwalker.7421

They added the Resistance to ensure that those cases where SS is less useful/desireable, you will get something that most certainly is! This is our only form of getting Resistance.

I think it’s very much worth it for a GM trait to increase duration of all Glamours, enhance the movement oriented ones with SS, and the rest benefit from Resistance at the very least. As stated, TW and NF are both fight-changing Glamours now. (Obviously TW far more, since it’s finally an Elite worth using!)

With Mimic you could basically have 14s of Condition immunity for your team in a point fight. That basically removes Condition classes from the fight completely, and makes Immob/Cripple/Weakness/Slow/Chill all rather ineffective for this duration.

I also have a strong feeling that no one on your team will mind the SS even if it’s not optimal on some of the fields. Harder for people to catch or keep up with you, easier for you to catch or keep up with them.

Phantasm Builds: Useless GMs in Illusions

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Windwalker.7421

Correcting title to “Phantasm Builds: Useless GMs in Illusions for PvE

Sorry, it’s impossible to balance every trait for every game-mode. This one is clearly one aimed at PvP, where it’s a very powerful GM and far from useless.

Signet of Inspiration: Hello traveler runes

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Windwalker.7421

Perma swiftness is just that, permanent, duration increases don’t make it even more permanent.

It may be fine for you guys but it isn’t for me. Some in the Mes community are very good at expecting little, and happy with getting less in return.

Sheesh! As I said above, the problem is with SHARING that 2m Swiftness with 5 people around you! It kinda defeats the purpose of Swiftness being a boon, when you can just hand everyone a 2m stack of it every 30s. :P

specialization traits still being worked on?

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Windwalker.7421

I think overall they’ve improved over the last interation, but yes there are some odd placements. In the example you gave, however, I feel that they made the right choice. Between HM+MoR allowing MP to clear 6 Conditions AE in rapid succession, I don’t think the Shattered Conditions trait is balanced anymore. It would be too much AE Condie Clearing coming from a single line basically.

Also, the new GM trait that replaced it is simply awesome! I really like pDefender, but there is neither room on the utility bar, nor is the cast-time bearable. This is a neat way to ensure that we get use out of a decent utility that we have, without the drawbacks. Although in bigger battles it’s almost kinda useless, in 1v1 or 2v1 the pDefender can definitely be a fight-changer. (Especially against Thieves it will be really useful to buy reaction time and frustrate the crap out of a Thief who thinks he found an easy meal in the Mesmer.)

With Illusions and shattering 2 Phants on average, you can have the CD down to 16s.

Now what is up with keeping a seriously bad Trait like Rending Shatter, and seemingly rather useless Torch traits, I really don’t know.

I also don’t expect that the Scepter GM trait is warranted in that spot. It’s definitely something the Scepter needs, but GM? This should be how the Scepter works, period. Having to spec a GM to make a weapon half-way decent is a bit silly to say it nicely. (And I’m not so sure it’ll even make much of a difference. The projectile speed is IMO the worst part of is, although as Pyro said the attack speed might make the block a little more usable? )

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Moa isn't manipulation?

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Windwalker.7421

In the “skill/trait” system things are unlocked with hero points. All skills should now have types (except for ones that are unlocked at the start of the game, who might, but don’t have to).

You are going to spend these points to unlock skills in certain tracks. The skill time warp will likely be the last skill you can unlock from glamours. The skill mass invis is the last manipulation you can unlock from the manipulations track. The skill signet of humility (moa) is the last signet you can unlock from the signet track.

The typing is balanced around this.

Remember the 1 skill in the track is the first one you unlock when you put points into it. If you put more skills into a skill track, it takes longer to unlock the last skill in the track. No one wants to have to purchase moa before they can purchase mass invisibility.

How will this affect existing level 80 players? Will we have enough Hero points to unlock our build, or will we need to PvE to gain them? Also if you respec, will you get your Hero Points back? Sorry to ask this, but I haven’t seen a clear explanation of what happens to existing players with already leveled toons.

I also think Moa fits Signet simply because Anet doesn’t want to make it too easy to get a 36s reduction on Moa. It’s a powerful ability that is very hated by enemies, and thus you’ll have to invest in the Signet trait to lower it’s CD.

That said, yes I believe we’ll see some Signet builds. (I just posted a first try at one, although far from finished/optimal I’m sure.)

Theorycrafting a Signet build

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Windwalker.7421

Starting next patch it looks like Signet builds could become viable and fun, as well as possibly quite useful to your team. Most weaker Signets have seen some boosts, and of course the main Signet-oriented traits have been combined into one Master trait.

I think I would use the following in my heal, Elite, and utility slots:
Signet of Ether – traited will be 28s CD, will need good illusion generation to make it work. (Might change this for EF, depends on testing)
Signet of Inspiration – At least 50% Swiftness uptime, extra boons, boon-sharing active with a now 30s CD.
Signet of Midnight – Nice low CD, nice active AE Blind, and a boosted bonus that now provides 20% condie duration. Most importantly, the stun break on a low CD!
Signet of Humility – The new Moa with a lovely passive effect that reduces Daze/Stun/Fear/Taunt durations by 20%. Also of course, Moa on a 20% reduced CD!
Signet of Domination – Although I’d probably keep the last slot for Blink, I might try to see if I can reach that 700 Condition damage. Even Celestial might fit in this build, all depends on how the GS GM works out for stacking Might. With the 180 Condie damage on this Signet, we may pull off some decent bleed & confusion damage from Dueling + pDuelist. And the 3s stun ain’t bad either! ;-)

For weapon sets I think I would go with Sword/Pistol and GS. I want two strong Phantasms in this build even if it’s not only a Phantasm build. Zerker gear with Pack runes for both the Prec + Fury and the Swiftness duration to enhance the passive on SoI. (65% Swiftness uptime OOC)

Domination:
Adept – Empowered Illusions
Maser – Blurred Inscriptions
GM – Imagined Burden or Mental Anguish, just depends on whether we want to try out Celestial w/ Might stacking, or just go straight shatter with MA.

Pretty straight forward, this build will get a lot of it’s damage from Phantasms.

Dueling:
Adept – Toss up between Phantasmal Fury or Duelist Discipline. If we go Celestial then definitely DD, but for a Power build I’d take PF.
Master – Blinding Dissipation (I could possibly see FF if we maybe went with Knight’s Amulet for more Toughness, then we’ll need the Ferocity!)
GM – DE (Could even see HM here if we focused more on Phantasm damage, as we have Inspiration to really make HM work. So we could then use MoR and basically max out that 20% damage bonus by just using our heal 3 times. Which will also remove up to 6 conditions AoE. I realize the 20% won’t affect Phants, but will make us hurt a lot more with GS & Sword attacks.)

We want Inspiration to share out all of our Distortions, and it’s a kick but line anyway that provides us with strong ability to clear conditions and keep ourselves healed.

Inspiration:
Adept – Nothing really worthwhile so might as well take the support route with Medic’s Feedback. (Although if we go with HM above, we’d probably take RM here.)
Master – Restorative Illusions to help with Condition clearing and keep us healed
GM – Mental Defense. It’s just pure awesome!

I think the synergies are pretty awesome and it looks like Anet put some thought into making Signet builds more viable. In the making of this I’m starting to lean more and more to the support route with Phantasms for damage and shatters mostly in a pinch to keep myself healed or for a finishing burst.

This would mean Imagined Burden, HM, and RM and using MoR for healing. (and maybe Evasive Mirror or even FF) Between AE Condie Clears, AE Diversions, and AE heals (both small and occasionally larger) I think the group utility would be pretty awesome. Also stacking Might and HM bonuses, maybe even FF, means you can also dole out pretty nasty damage despite being tanky and not built around power-shattering. (GS AA, MB, MS, BF, and even MW should all hit hard if you ramp up a bit.)

I’d lean towards Celestial depending on how heavily it is nerfed, or Knights otherwise (maybe with FF & Air runes to build more Ferocity). The reason being that as support you want to be hard to take down.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve overlooked something, but I’m excited to explore all the new options & synergies. GG!

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

6/23/15 Mesmer Patch Notes

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

At first glance you think, “oh they merged restorative illusions and shattered conditions”. Looking again, it appears the AoE condition removal is gone. That’s unfortunate. Still a great trait in the master tier but sad to lose the functionality.

Yeah, I saw it too but it’s the right thing to do. Between MP now becomming a minor that AoE cleanses 2 conditions, this would have been a bit much. Plus RI is already quite decent on it’s own thanks to IP, and with this will obviously be even better.

I think it’s OK, although it does potentially break current support builds, which they said they were trying to avoid. (Shattered Conditions had a 600 unit AE, and Power Cleanse on MP is only 240 probably but cures 2 Condies instead of 1.)

All in all, I think support builds will be more viable than ever before, so this change makes sense.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

Staff has always been very good against thieves, so no real change there.

I would say the three biggest things that make thieves hard to deal with as a Mes is extreme in-combat mobility, lots of evades, and obviously stealth. Stealth has an additional side effect of making it difficulty putting phants (usually your main damage) up because you need to a target to do so.

These three factors have not been significantly affected by the new changes, and hence I don’t think the general outcome of Mes vs Thief will significantly change either.

Not significantly changed? lol!

1) Mesmer also has pretty extreme combat mobility as well, and now with double blink and a 10s MI under PU also has two very viable escapes.

2) Evades are annoying, but Thieves hate prolonged fights especially if they’re wasting attacks on delivering zero or low damage. Between Blinds, stuns, Invulns, Weakness, and on-demand Protection they have a lot more to chew through, and that makes them more vulnerable to counter bursts. Most importantly, it gives Mesmer more time to react…and more often than not, that is what kills inexperienced Mesmers vs. Thieves.

3) From the looks of it, we’ll have potentially more and longer stealth then Thieves due to PU. So much for not being able to summon Phants due to their stealth. They will come out of stealth before us, and eat and iZerker or iDuelist attack while we’re still happily stealthed.

Lastly, Thieves are also extremely prone to being locked down and burst. We can do this in a variety of ways, not the least of which is the ability to deliver an over 4 second Stun twice in a row thanks to Mimic & SoD active (and the 25% duration on CS coupled with Sigil of Paralyzation). Draw out a stun break with CS, then deliver the real stun with SoD and watch him stand there for 4s doing nothing while getting 1-shot. If he breaks out of that one too, then just do it again. In ~4.5s you don’t even need MW to kill him, just a MB+MS+iZerker, maybe a swap to Sword and BF.

Many new and/or improved options, not the least of which is better kiting options with Cripple as Pyro said. Most of all, more reaction time and less punishment for slow reactions or poor decisions thanks to significantly improved defenses and/or sustain.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

Another thing to factor in, you could go with Bountiful Disallusionment in Chaos, and then have Fury up in the above scenario. Stunned target, Vulnerable=>Fragility, Fury up, Mental Anguish at 30% and a 3x Clone Mind Wrack shatter…ouch that’s gotta hurt!

And yes, you can still choose the Shattered Concentration trait (as usual) and that means you can rip a few of those boons right off him.

Also we have also not mentioned all the Invuln we could potentially have access to now. It makes more sense now too as you can share it with others around you via Insp minor. So any Signet you activate either directly, or via a trait, will grant you and everyone around you Invuln. That plus F4 (twice with SoI) is a lot of Invuln the Thief has to deal with. Again in team fights this means a very frustrated Thief.

Signet of Inspiration: Hello traveler runes

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Windwalker.7421

None of those solutions sound satisfactory to me. I think I’ll stick with Travelers. If the swiftness was every 10sec it would be perm swiftness and non-stacking, as it would run out as new swiftness was applied. There would be no overlap, bar outside sources.

If Swiftness was 10s base, then it would be 13s with 30% Swiftness duration granted from Pack or Air runes, plus whatever other sources of Boon duration you can muster.

That means every time SoI cycles it would cast another 13s Swiftness, and quickly add up to 2m or whatever the cap is. The only way to avoid that would be to break it the way they broke our Focus, making it not play nice with other Swiftness which IMO would be worse than the 5s base thing.

Perma Swiftness is stupid, perma-any-Boon is if you ask me, it defeats the purpose of boons. As Pyro said, 50% uptime is fine. It’s not wow, but it’ll do compared to our current choices. I would much rather run Pack or Air runes then Travelers any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

Thieves will certainly have a bit more of a fight on their hands dealing with the new Mesmer (at least initially) but leaving Consumer Ectoplasm in its current state is really rather questionable. The very presence of a Mesmer in a team fight is a hinderance because of this stolen skill….which can now be used twice.

I agree that is one of the most deadly additions to Mesmers for 1v1 fights. Especially when Chrono goes live you can F3 → MI → F1 for an instant 3 clone shatter before stun wears off with almost no chance to avoid it. (At best you’ll be busy using your stun-break while the MW blows up in your face.) Best of course is that target will be Vulnerable and thus Frag kicks in as well, and of course the new Mental Anguish will hit for a full 30%. This will down a Thief pretty fast.

I also doubt a Thief you’ve been fighting will be able to keep up with a double 1200 range Blink. It’s possible, but you’ll easily get to a safe or advantageous position at the very least. (In team fights, back to your team in no time.)

With Chrono you can 4x that Blink. :P

I agree that Ecto will be broken, but at this point we can only hope ANet will see this once it goes live. The main point is as you say, we will be much harder to take down, and that alone means a lot more frustration for Thieves targeting Mesmers in group fights.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

Here are a “few” more…

- Power Block causing Weakness on interrupt
- Confounding Suggestions being a 100% stun on Daze (hello Daze + MW combo!)
- AE Blind on Shatter
- PU providing us with longer & more Stealth than Thieves (and the ability to even specialize into PU while still running a Power Shatter build.)
- Mental Defense, summon pDefender off block or evade
- Restorative Illusions cleansing a condition and healing yourself on shatter
- Cripple on CoF

Virtually every line has some “game changer” in it, as do our Elites (new Moa & Time Warp both are greatly improved!)

Then there is also the 2x 1200 range Blink via Mimic as a perfect getaway. (Or PU + MI for 10s of Stealth will do as well.)

And we haven’t even gotten around to all of the vast Condition damage improvements that will continue to wreck Thieves even more than they already do now.

Signet of Inspiration: Hello traveler runes

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Windwalker.7421

I agree, I was a little bummed about it too, but I don’t think perma-Swiftness was really such a good idea either. (I think Engies just lost their ability to easily get perma-swiftness unless they use Medkit.)

Let’s not forget though that with a little effort you can get a fairly reasonable Swiftness uptime and run a much better rune set such as Air or Pack. Either of these will give you a 65% uptime of Swiftness OOC, more with Air actually since you could use a heal to get another 6.5s.

In fact, really both of them will approach near 100% uptime if you factor in the on-heal of Air, or the off-hit in combat for Pack runes.

Taking a utility slot for this definitely hurts, but you do get that added Boon. (Which now has a slightly higher chance of being something good, since Swiftness is gone as a RNG proc.)

Edit:

Anet probably also feared making it 10s Swiftness because that would stack upon itself and over time produce extreme levels of Swiftness that you could AE boon-share with the active.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

No the 23/06/15 changes to Mes has changed nothing between Mes and Thieves. If a Mes was getting owned before the changes, he/she will still be getting owned after them.

Way too soon to judge this.

I don’t think it is. There is no Mes game changer here.

lol, read it on the internet so it must be true.

Chronomancer with no DE.

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Windwalker.7421

There are many other choices coming that will make DE less desireable as the only viable source for Clone production.

- First off, DE is getting an indirect nerf, due to the pretty hefty nerf to Vigor! This will cut down on Clone production from DE by what 33%?

- Mimic and later F5 shatter from Chronomancy can allow you to double, and quadruple up on Mirror Images respectively. Talk about “on demand” Clone generation! Only MI really comes close to providing that. Dodging takes time and Clones are very prone to AE.

- Obviously Chronomancy traits to generate Clones and Phants are pretty strong too, but you also have the Shield that can potentially produce 2 Phants in rapid succession.

- Mental Defense in Insp. will summon a pDefender off block or evade. Another source of a useful Phantasm that first protects you from damage and then gets shattered along with the Clone you generated off block.

That and a lot of CD reductions we didn’t have before from Alacrity and other sources will also help with Illusion production. I don’t think DE will be even close to “must have” as it was before.

Mesmers > thieves now

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Windwalker.7421

No the 23/06/15 changes to Mes has changed nothing between Mes and Thieves. If a Mes was getting owned before the changes, he/she will still be getting owned after them.

Way too soon to judge this.

Mimic now Useful?

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Oh I think people will make room for Mimic, especially in organized team play!

With traited Glamours you can make your team basically immune to Conditions for 14s, 6s of which they’re literally immune. Let’s not even mention 14s of little-to-no boons for your enemies in point fights.

This also lowers the CD on Time Warp, which is now also pretty awesome and definitely fight-changing!

I see a lot more support Mesmers inc soon between the aforementioned stuff, and the changes to Illusions and Chaos. You can make a very heavy support-oriented Mesmer with all of this; hard to kill, but too powerful to ignore.

Feedback June 23 Specialization Changes

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Windwalker.7421

Bad design is bad design, no need to bring up oranges when we’re talking about apples. Why should this one Phantasm be left out of this change that basically everyone agrees should really be a baseline functionality of Phantasms anyway?

It won’t change a thing about balance anywhere, aside from making Phantasms actually remotely viable in WvW and PvE.

They have every right to point out this discrepancy. That’s what feedback is for. :P

What happened to Illusionary Invig

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Windwalker.7421

I have to agree on the point that Illusions looks to be pretty sub-par as a choice for a Power Shatter build. Certainly not the appeal that it now holds for Condie Shatter or Phantasm builds. (Although the GM choice is a bit lacking for the latter at least.) In fact, aside from Ineptitude, the other choices look rather bad and kinda break the appeal of the whole line.

MoF simply needs more! The Cripple on CoF is certainly neat and so is AE Diversion, but the rest is totally fluff and overall the package looks unappealing to a damage-focused shatter build. I’d rather get sustain via Chaos/Insp now, or Chronomancy post HoT.

The Scepter trait is just plain bad. This is a GM? Really? Take a look at the GS GM, and then let’s talk about a 15% speed increase on a weapon with broken mechanics and a slow single-target projectile. (GS is instant, 1200 range, multi-target and now procs Might on AAs and Cripple on everything else! It also attacks faster.) Add a component that increases the projectile speed by at least 50%, and you might have yourself a half-way useful (but still niche) GM.

As for Invig, the obvious answer is Chronomancy and the F5 thang. Then add the new Mimic + SoI and you have your answer. It’s dead and I doubt it’s coming back.

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

The Pledge (23.06.15) change is awful

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I agree, although you don’t have the diminishing returns as the skill says “of the maximum recharge” so it always takes 0.kitten per second of Stealth.

As you said, pretty terrible IF we’re understanding how this works. I was going to make a thread like this, but I felt that it’s so bad that surely I’m not understanding something about this.

They’re completely incorrectly balancing this on the assumption of a PU build using MI, and ducking in Stealth the entire time just to get TP up or chuckle another still fairly poor sounding pMage. (Util all of these projectile attacks get at least a 50% speed increase, they’re all basically bad. Scepter, Staff, and pMage all suffer from this terribly slow projectile. They fix this for almost everyone else in the game, but leave ours crawling along failing miserably.)

I hope they go back to the 20% flat reduction on The Pledge. It’s just not a good idea with the percent reductions. If you raise it to something reasonable like 5%, then it’s a bit OPd for PU builds, but anything else means you’re completely dependent on remaining Stealthed for prolonged periods just to get back that 20% we’ve always had on traited Torch.

Flat 20% is balanced, and a reasonable return on investment.

6/23/15 Mesmer Patch Notes

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In an ideal scenario, after cast your 3 clones plus 5 seconds of each one AA, you will reach 24 stacks of might, but you are attacking only with clones that do poor physical damage.

And I don’t see people using only the gw and their clones in their rotations… Or maybe you already know that there are people for everyone : )

True you don’t see that now, but even with the “nerf” to the Dueling “Confusion-on-crit” trait the GS could potentially become a condition weapon. ;-) Those Clones could apply Bleeds and a little Confusion while stacking Might. Mirror Blade and other traits in Dom can supply Vulnerability and of course the rest of GS can dole out cripples like candy-canes at X-mas. How awesome is Cripple on iWave!? Or I guess AE Cripple on MS?

Especially for a Hybrid build I could see GS doing nasty things. Depending on what happens to Celestial, this could be our Celestial build?? (Dom/Duel/Chaos)

A Celestial PU hybrid with GS & Staff, Mimic, Decoy, Null Field, and traited Mass Invis with Mirror as the heal? Could be pretty neat. (Yeah not meta changing, but still interesting. )

6/23/15 Mesmer Patch Notes

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Windwalker.7421

does the 50% torment dmg buff triat gone?
instead we got scpeter trait?

i see anet wants more condi shatter mesmer with all the buff for condi and burning with phantasm etc….

Heh we never actually had the 50% Torment damage trait, so I’d call it them finding their marbles and keeping things reasonable. ;-) We already gain another 2 stacks of Torment per shatter from IP, and a 5th shatter from Chrono…among many other goodies for Condi builds. Biggest of course being the Vulnerability change, which I guess is what killed that former draft Malicious Sorcery.

We have a lot of means to apply Vulnerability, so that could turn out to be a rather significant boost to Condie damage on top of all the other improvements.

I’m surprised people are dissing the Glamour GM trait still!? Did you notice the 3s of Resistance part? Just think Null Field would make you immune to Condie damage while ripping the Condies off you with each tick, and Mimic will let you do it all over again. That’s a pretty heavy counter to Conditions for your team on point fights. (Not to mention Menders Purity, which you get for free while traiting the Glamour GM.)

I love the Insp. line and especially the new Phantasm aspects of it! Pick up Persisting Images and Metal Defense and you will summon pDefenders on block or evade, which will summon with 20% more health and 6s of Retaliation, both of which play real nicely with the pDefender. Then when he gets low you shatter him and remove a Condition on yourself and get healed from RI. Lovely! Then do it again a few seconds later. Talk about a potentially quite tanky melee build! (Factor in the also beautiful Fencer’s Finesse, and it just sounds like a whole lot of fun…especially in PvE.)

Still absorbing all of this…

PU Shatter anyone? Mass Invis=10s?

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Windwalker.7421

What do you guys think about the new iMage?

I’m kinda split. Part of me says “Yay! More Burn!” and another is kinda peeved about the loss of condie-removal and the fact that 1 stack of Burn for 6s under the new system seems possibly weaker then 4 stacks of Confusion for 4s under the current system. More reliable yes, but possibly quite a bit weaker too.

Maybe if they at least fixed the projectile bounce to work like Mirror Blade, so that if there is only one target it’ll bounce between enemy, you, and back to enemy to inflict another stack of Burn. :P (Of course I must admit that Fury is a huge improvement over Retal.)

In the end, they need to boost the projectile speed on that guy and also on Stadd and Scepter. (Speaking of, the Scepter GM looks plain bad for a GM. That 15% on a weapon with a flawed mechanic just doesn’t really help, I think I’d rather have the 180 Condition Damage TYVM. Not to even mention the 50% increased Torment damage! lol! Was that an April Fools joke! )

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

PU Shatter anyone? Mass Invis=10s?

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Windwalker.7421

Speaking of Mimic, what do you guys think of that? It seems kinda like a “we ran outta ideas, so we’ll let you take up 2 utility slots to use one of them twice” basically.

I am not really a fan of things like this that clearly are OPd when used with the strong utilities, and well won’t do a thing for the already unused utilities cuz no one will take them either.

I do see this being an interesting option for Blink, Decoy, Mirror Images, or of course now that Glamours are back in a big way you can just basically double-up on your favorite Glamour. (3s of Resitance for Glamours is niiiice!)

I am baffled by the amount of changes from the previous round, and they seem to huge that it’s hard to believe any of this will be even close to balanced. All these weeks of discussions about “new” changes, and now they pull the rug out and change everything yet again. Former GMs become minors, minors become Masters, it’s really too much information to absorb!

I love it though. As someone else said above, at least this will really shake things up and that I’m all for as well. I do see a number of neat and potentially OPd items, like summoning a PD on block! lol! Wow… I could see a melee build emerging with several of the interesting changes to Sword, Signets, etc.

Edit:
Mimic in Chronomancy Shatter build. (Power or MtD, just swap shatters around)
F5 → Mimic+MI+F2 → MI+F1 → F5 → Mimic+MI+F2 → MI+F1

Without anything else that’s a 2 Clone CoF followed almost instantly by a 3 Clone MW, and “deja vu” all over again.

4x MI in a matter of seconds, who needs DE again? ;-)

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Chronomancer with no DE.

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Windwalker.7421

I think you definitely will see some power shatter builds with Chrono and no DE. I think people will figure out that they can set up a MW much faster with Illusionary Reversion coupled with Mirror Images, and thanks to the F5 mechanic can do this rapidly twice in a row. (Not to mention a combo with Confounding Suggestions and an F3->MI->F1 combo to “stun & gun” people down should be very deadly.)

Although this is a bit niche because you then suffer a longer cool down period between bursts, I think the lure of this huge and fast spike damage will be very tempting.

I guess it really depends on the Illusions line and specifically MoF. If this line becomes more optional, which it currently looks to be, then I guess most P-Shatter builds will continue to go with Dueling & DE for Clone production. (Or of course give up Chronomancy, but that means giving up on a lot of QoL stuff like superspeed illusions on shatter, perma-speed, on-demand Quickness as well as the new F5 mechanic, the Elite Well, etc. that seem to be pretty powerful to say the least.)

Beta Illusions Specialization Needs Help

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

It all depends on the numbers in the end. Yes, the Master trait choices are a bit weak for power, but if MoF is done right this will not greatly impact Illusions competitiveness to other choices. Not to say this means the Master traits shouldn’t get tweaked to better cater to Power builds, but I think we’re probably underestimating Illusions a bit in this thread.

- You will get an additional 15% CD reduction plus Might from Shattered Strength
- Illusionists Celerity is also a very powerful trait that lowers many CDs for Mesmers and shouldn’t be overlooked.
- The Adept trait choices are solid for power builds as many still take Torch, and the damage bonus from Compounding Power is never a bad thing. ;-)
- MoF may feature another damage bonus based on the screen shots, possibly a +20% crit chance (another damage bonus really), and some nice utility for F3 & F4 shatters. (Speaking of, shouldn’t F5 also get an effect for MoF? :-) )

I think that Sum of All Fears should simply be tweaked to be useful to both Power and Condie builds. Since it is based on Confusion application, it should simply be a “take X damage when 5 or more stacks of Confusion are applied.” Then you can keep the new “once per target every 5s” limitation as well. You could make X a flat damage value regardless of Power/Condie, or you could make it Power based with ability to Crit (similar to Halting Strike) and then keep the Torment. (It’s too weak on it’s own anyway being just 1 stack per target!)

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Chronomancer Playstyle

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Hmm although I see what you’re saying, I think you’re selling Chronomancers a little short. It’s not “just” alacrity, which is pretty major in and of itself, but the playstyle is centered around the manipulation of time. Lots of Quickness, Slow, and of course Alacrity and Continuum Split.

The F5 skill will be a significant change in how Mesmers are played IMO, and overall Anet has solidified Shatters as a core profession mechanic for Mesmers that most builds will make at least some use of.

All of that leaves out Wells and the Shield, both of which bring major game-changing abilities to the Mesmer and their role in a team or zerg as well.

Alacrity can also not be underestimated. I mean it’s basically a significant new Boon that no one else has access. That’s pretty major, and could potentially provide a whole new role for Mesmers in organized PvP. Being able to lower CDs for your team has the potential to change battles. (If you can manage enough Alacrity uptime to achieve a 20% CD reduction for most of your teammates, this would be a pretty big deal.)

I agree with MailMail that aside from the Well trait, there isn’t much of anything I’d want to touch in the Chronomancy line as presented.

What Class Do You Struggle With The Most?

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

[quote=5142164;
@ky: I know, its like our offhands have gone extinct besides torch. How often do you see offhand sword, focus, or pistol in pvp?
[/quote]

I don’t even think it’s because they’re that bad in some cases at least (Pistol & Sword), but that they’re a bit more niche and basically overshadowed by Torch TP. I mean it sure as heck ain’t the Torch Phantasm, right? ;-)

Having Decoy and T4 is a staple of a solid defense in many builds, certainly for PU builds, which is the only somewhat tanky build we really have left. (Post Staff #4 nerf! GRRR! Can’t wait to get that back on traited Staff!) Naturally, T4 is also really good when used offensively, but the relatively low CD means that between heals and Decoy, you’ve probably got T4 up again when it’s needed for defense. Then when that’s over, you probably have your heal and/or Decoy up again soon after.

Since both our blocking skills are basically broken from a defense PoV, it’s no surprise they get overshadowed by Torch even with a terrible Phantasm.

As Ross likes to show in his CS build, having 2 strong offensive Phantasms really is a force to be reckoned with, and can in many cases put a real hurting on exactly those classes that we hate the most to face. (Nothing like a Thief getting stabbed for 4+k from iSwordsdude and 4 more from iZerker then shattering both for 4-5k more.) The problem is, without defense you can’t live long enough to make that happen.

The Blind nerf vs. summoning really put a dampener on using Phants vs. Thieves as well. GRRR!

From the looks of it, a lot of things will be getting a bit better soon. /pray

Staff Condi mesmer

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

If anything will make people QQ, it’ll be the new MtD with the improved Malicious Sorcery! Ouch! Any 3-illusion shatter will stack 8 stacks of Torment, which will tick for 2500 per second on a moving target with roughly 1900 Condition Damage.

In a Dueling/Chrono/Illusions build you have 5 shatters, plenty of Illusions, Alacrity, super-speed illusions on shatters, passive 25% speed on yourself, and of course the F5 Mechanic to reset everything. (Mirror Images)

It will not be trivial to cleanse all of that Torment, Confusion, Bleed and Blind.

Dev discusses future change to Confusion.

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Yes, and Confusion was kind of balanced around that fact that it’s fairly rare and very short duration. I realize that on paper they will likely keep the potential damage output of Confusion on par with what it is now, at least that’s about what it looks like they’re attempted to do.

However, in actual PvP play this could easily result in a significant nerf due to the prevalence of especially passive & AoE condie clears. If an Ele or Engy have a big stack of Confusion now, they often don’t notice it before activating it at least 2-3 times due to how they spam keys. In the current system that’s pretty significant burst damage coming from a condi build, but under the new system they will notice it just as soon, if not sooner due to the ticks, and remove it sooner….possibly taking much much less damage then now.

This is all I’m saying. I hope this was adequately factored into the numbers, because quite frankly I don’t see any reason why the on-activation damage needs any toning down considering how weak and underused Confusion is.

Also, with a “normalizing” of Confusion damage, they need to take a look at durations. Confusion was definitely kept to short durations on Mesmers, due to the potential damage of a newb spamming skills for 10s straight and QQing about dying to Confusion. ;-)

Our 3s Cry of Frustration and Illusionary Retribution should definitely be doubled in duration, if the burst potential of Confusion has been lowered. (And the new BB GM should have it’s CD removed and duration increased as there is no longer the possibility of the old OPd Glamour builds.)

Of course all of this depends on the actual damage values when it goes live. I just hope they make Confusion both viable and unique.

[Theorycrafting] My Bad Mantra of Pain build.

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Windwalker.7421

I run a bit of a variant of this in WvW: 0/2/6/6/0

Basically a Celestial PU-Power build with pretty nice sustain using GS & Sw/To and Pack Runes. Uses only MoP for damage & heals, and Ether Feast as burst heal.

In Dueling you take Phant Fury of course. Chaos is also pretty standard DD & PU, and whatever floats your boat in the middle. ;-)

Inpsiration is also pretty set with MP, RM, and personally I chose the AoE Condie Clear on shatter GM. This is a nice instant way to clear Poison before using EF, or clear an Immob.

Naturally you rely mostly on Stealth to recharge your MoP for more heals, so be sure to unload it before you stealth. ;-)

I’ve been running this with a mostly Celestial setup, using food to further augment Precision and Power. The damage is not half bad for the huge gains in sustain. It’s my current answer to deal with all the Thieves and Pew Pew Rangers in WvW. Higher sustain opponents tend to end in a draw, you just can’t put enough pressure on them to outdo their healing. Maybe a pair of Doom Sigs would help.

You’re very capable of fighting Condition using enemies like Thieves, Engies, and even Necros. You have a lot of condie-clears & stealth, and decent enough damage output to whittle them down.

Overall though, I was mostly trying this out in anticipation of the upcoming changes. At that point I would add RI into the mix for even more healing (on shatter), and perhaps focus less on Phantasm damage and more on either shatter or condie damage.

It’s working nicely in WvW though as it’s a pretty flexible build. While roaming I’ve had lots of 2v1s where I was not only frustrating the kittens out of the attackers, but also managed to down one of them many times. (Occasionally even able to get the stomp off with via F4. ) It’s also nice in group fights because I can at least contribute a little with GS, and AE condie clears & heals. (While still maintaining the ability to solo roam in a Power build.)

Dev discusses future change to Confusion.

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

for now it sound like they split the confusion into bleeding which does constant dmg and confusion which proc dmg when using attack skill. while lowering both dmg.
thus ending in nerfing more confusion dmg

This is also my only concern with the change. I agree it was weak in PvE and mostly weak in PvP, but why then is it (from the looks of it anyway) getting a change that results in overall parity at best!? They should simply tack the DoT onto the current Confusion without nerfing the on-action part, because that part was already too weak and durations on Confusion are generally too short to be compared to the other DoT Conditions.

Look everyone now already complains that Condie builds are useless due to all the passive & AoE cleanses out there, and adding yet another DoT is not exactly helping things. Confusion now gets cleared incidentally, and will just the same after the patch, however at least now it’ll tick 1-2 decent spike damage ticks while very likely under the new system you may also only get 1-2 DoT ticks and drastically reduced on-action tick(s).

I just hope the net result was carefully calculated there, and not just balanced via “shooting from the hip.” Confusion is barely viable at the moment, mostly unviable in fact, so the net result should be a significant boost. I don’t see another DoT that gets cleared LONG before it ever ticks out as a boost. Confusion is the only real burst Condition that can compete with DD burst, and after the patch from the looks of Dragon Hunters (chuckle) it’ll be stacked Burns that will provide the biggest burst.

Too bad for us since our ability to stack Burn is very limited.

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Possible Shatterrupt Celestial Build?

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Was thinking of dueling/chaos/inspiration personally myself. Still feel dueling will be needed in every build.

Well with Dueling in the mix you end up giving up most damage, although going hybrid could be worth it I guess. With traited pistol the iDuelist will be even deadlier then now, applying lots of bleeds and some confusion, as well as doing decent direct damage. Maybe add GS to the mix for the Might stacks, but also the GS Clones & AA to stack more bleeds and Confusion. (Although I guess you need staff with Chaos. :P )

It’s more of a single target/dueling build, but could be really nasty considering that it’s near impossible to bring you down 1v1 or probably even 2v1.

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Possible Shatterrupt Celestial Build?

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Yeah I’ve been day-dreaming that build since they released the new info, although I would definitely take the Malicious Sorcery over SoAF, unless of course it requires a Scepter. (Which the current description does not state.)

I believe Chaos + Insp will clearly allow Bunker-style play for Mesmers. Although, for a true Bunker I would probably go with BD for the Stability on Shatter. It ain’t much, but every bit helps. ;-)

Unless ANet guts Restorative Illusions, I think it’s one of the most underrated Mesmer changes in this update. Between on-demand Protection from Chaos, and being able to heal for 2k+ per shatter while clearing Condies, you can definitely make a formidable tank. (Maybe not Bunker, but at least a very solid tank!) Granted, you’ll give up most DPS to do that, just as it should be! (And clearly without lots of Stability, we will never be as good at Bunkering as the current Bunker classes. Also a good thing IMO.)

Taking BD would of course kill the Celestial idea behind your build, but ANet has already alluded to changes in the Celestial gear that IMHO will clearly result in a net nerf. (Good riddance too!)

What are you leaving for Mesmer, ANET?

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Windwalker.7421

Fay already alluded to this, but it was clearly said it’s unlikely that the morph of Elixir X will stay a Moa. This was basically a place-holder, possibly a side effect of cutting & pasting the code from the Mesmers Elite, and tweaking to to be AoE and short duration.

And no, Necro’s with any reasonable amounts of Slow on top of Chill would be a bit much and also in some way redundant. (Yes, I realize they’re completely different, but somewhat related none-the-less.)

It makes far more sense to have Slow on a Mesmer as a manipulation of time.

I find it really hard to play my Mesmer at the moment, because I’m so excited about the changes. We’re forced into making so many really bad trade-off build decisions at the moment, many of which will get far better under the new system.

Dev discusses future change to Confusion.

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Windwalker.7421

I like the change, but obviously it depends on the implementation. I hope that they leave the the damage-on-action to be significant enough to matter, which kinda worries me from the sound of that article. I think players who spam attacks should absolutely get ripped apart by Confusion. That’s what makes it different from Bleed or Torment, and due to the nature of counter-play that this “on-action-damage” has, it should be significantly more impactful to the overall damage of Confusion then Torment.

So while Torment doubles it’s tick damage on movement, I think Confusion should at least tripple it’s tick damage on activation. So taking Bleed damage as a baseline once more, it should be at least 3x of a Bleed tick per action.

Also, I think that ANet needs to add some base duration to several of our sources of Confusion. Since spike damage will inevitably be lower, which is IMO the key reason why our “Confusion on Shatter” durations are so pathetically low, we will need at least 1-2 seconds added to those. (And probably in a few other places as well.)

Or they could boost the new Blinding Befuddlement duration bonus to 100% and still remove the CD, or at least make the CD mechanic the same mechanics as “Sum of All Fears”, where you can AoE Confusion on blinds, but only once per target every 5s. In fact that would make for some nice possible synergy between BB & SoAF.

Thinking about Dueling AoE Blind with an F2 shatter putting 10x Confusion and 1x long Torment on people. With +100% Confusion duration, you might make BB competitive to MtD…maybe. Hard to say…I’d probably still take MtD! So BB definitely needs something! Really it needs at least a niche in order to compete with MtD or MoF.

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Mesmers and Daze Duration

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Not sure if it’s still valid, but I know a while back those two simply didn’t stack. So you’re getting either 25% or 33%, not both. I think the 33% overwrites the 25% IIRC.

Thief hard counter

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

The wall was better. The wall took the time to turn me on and get me all hot and steamy. The wall contained so much great foreplay.

Eww now you’re getting creepy Ross!

[vid] Hybrid shatter :>

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Windwalker.7421

I liked it too! Very enjoyable and I agree it’s likely only going to get better.

Thief hard counter

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

I think everyone here needs to understand that team builds with VoIP and support are not necessarily to be used in soloq.

I want to build so that I am never dependent on anyone. I will accept help gladly of course, and give it when I can. But I will always assume that no one is going to help me. This means I have to be able to take care of myself.

I am not going to cripple myself with a build that can’t fight a certain class at all (and one which has excellent mobility I may add). Period.

For this reason, I will not play a pure glass cannon build that can’t counter a thief.

God I hate it when someone sums up my wall of text so eloquently and most of all short!

Very well said, if you had posted that before me, I would have spared everyone the wall!

Thief hard counter

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Windwalker.7421

I think we’re all splitting hairs a bit, but I can’t help siding with Pyro on this one. Every thing he’s said were the exact thoughts running through my head.

I love when people are trying to tell me what advice to give another player given a situation we’ve probably all been in. Spurting off that you’re “useless” to your team in another build is just ridiculous and unhelpful. Do you know when I’m truly useless to my team? When I’m spending 75% of the match in downed/dead state or running back to the action.

Every other claim of being “useless” to you team, including PU/Condie I might add, are HUGE exaggerations; based entirely on hyperbole. False! Horse poop! Rubbish! Being dead and waiting on the release timer, that’s when you’re truly useless to your team.

The reason I advise the OP to try a new build is because:

1) I’ve been there and done that, and through experience have found that playing a different build is the only way I can enjoy pug matches. (Usually inundated with Thieves.)

2) Due to #1, I feel the OPs frustration, and feel I must share my experiences and give him the advice needed to have more fun in those non-peeling pug matches.

3) I also want to educate the OP that Thieves are not actually a true hard counter to Mesmers as a whole, but rather only to Zerker/GC Mesmers and most specifically Power Shatter.

4) I do not share the sentiment that all other builds make you useless to your team. My experiences do not match that hyperbole.

I could go on with more reasons why I am allowed to give the advice that has worked for me, and will defend that advice as being sound. When asked for help that didn’t specifically say “how can I play p-shatter better vs. thieves in pugs” then he’s going to get the “change your build” advice from me every time.

It worked for me and it’s worked for many others. I do not play MSL or top-tier organized PvP, nor do I care to.

The realization to play another build didn’t come to me based on “forum elitists” pushing their leftist propaganda against P-Shatter builds, but rather by the absolute fact that in my games, I was feeling very useless to my team as a p-shatter Mesmer being dead all the time. Not just to Thieves, but being a glass cannon with little/no Condie removal makes you susceptible to many other situations as well. (Especially since you’re forced to shatter at melee range in paper-tissue armor.)

There is no other profession/build that has an easier time killing me 1v1 in any of these alternative builds. There are simply a couple more “stand-off” cases where I can’t kill them, maybe, but they also can’t kill me! The Thief is literally the only one that has a good chance to keep me from disengaging a fight. All others I can either win 1v1 or disengage at will…mostly win I might add.

  • In a team which’s composition & skill-level I can not know ahead of time, this is absolutely the safest way to ensure a fun time for me.

It’s a matter of flexibility over specificity. Always being able to do the best with whatever kind of a team I get, over praying that I’m able to perform the one function I’m great at. Medium risk with medium reward over high risk and high reward.

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Thief hard counter

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

In unranked arena and practice mode you can pretty much count on the fact that your team is very unlikely to be organized enough to peel, cleanse, or otherwise protect you as a p-shatter Mesmer. You can sometimes find one or two people on your team whom you can synergize well with, and then you’ll have a huge blast as a power shatter Mesmer, no doubt. Unfortunately, those times are far and few between, and you’ll mostly pull your hair out.

As for being useless in the other specs, that rubbish. Plain rubbish. In unorganized play the very last thing that determines your teams success will be your build. In the extremely rare event that both teams are well balanced, playing perfectly, making no tactical mistakes and playing as a perfectly organized unit, only then could this rather small factor even remotely come into play.

Most unranked arena wins are by a fairly large margin, and only very rarely is it even a close match. Even in those cases, more often than not I have been a top ranked player on my team as MtD, PU, or lockdown. It doesn’t matter which build, it matters if you know the map, don’t do obviously stupid things, and exploit the mistakes your opponents make (which vary from build to build!). This rarely has anything to do with build in unranked arena.

For example as a PU Mesmer you can often tie up 2-3 enemy players, have them keep chasing you, or just fight you on/near a point for a minute or more. Perfect! If your team doesn’t exploit this huge advantage, then it wasn’t your build, it was your team!

As stated above, as a lockdown/interrupt Mesmer is highly competitive even in organized group PvP, so you’ll certainly be as much of an asset to your team as any Mesmer build in unranked arena or the like. Due to the fairly unorganized slugging fest that most of unranked arena games are, your ability to interrupt the high-damage combos of your enemies can greatly turn the tide of battle. (Not to mention interrupting resses, locking down runners, and being a general nuisance that no one likes to fight with. :-) )

Power Shatter is an awesome build!

Clearly the most competitive build we have at top tier play.

…but below that, we have many other choices that might fit you more and certainly will perform just as well in less organized play modes.

Thief hard counter

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Agree with Pyro. Obviously to each his own, and if you’re able to handle Thieves in a GC Power Shatter build despite playing only in PUGs, then more power to you!

However, when someone comes here asking for help with Thieves in a PUG, where peels simply can not realistically relied upon, you’re not really helping this person much (IMHO) by having them beat their head against a brick wall. The simple fact is it is not simply a L2P issue, it’s a well-known hard counter, and one of the hardest counters in the game. (Possibly less so after the upcoming patches.)

I have simply never felt that I was a key member of a PUG as a P-Shatter anyway. Quite oppositely, if there is a competent Thief on the enemy team, or a heavy Condie-using profession/build then I felt mostly like dead weight. Power Shatter only works when you can get the (rather infrequent and failure-prone) bursts off, and it has to be coordinated with your team to be most effective. Then it can be among the deadliest bursts in the game, and hence the reason why it is the most effective Mesmer build in organized team play.

In PUGs, however, playing PU Power or Condie, or MtD Shatter, or of course lockdown builds can make you easily as useful, but most often more useful than playing P-Shatter. With lockdown you’re also practicing a highly competitive build, but IMO it’s also the hardest of the above mentioned 3 to successfully counter Thieves with.

Also note, it shouldn’t always be your aim to actually kill a Thief. Simply drawing the fight out, and being able to fight back effectively while doing so, can greatly reduce the level of frustration. Especially in group fights when Thieves see a Mesmer that is always their first target, because they hope you’re GC Shatter and dead or running far away within 2-4 seconds. What they hate the most is being exposed for too long, which inevitably results in them being made the primary target for your team, and a very quick death for the Thief. So between lockdowns, stealth, enough armor/healing/counters to take a few hits and live you can make the Thieves life very hard.

You will also notice that good Thieves will quickly stop making you the #1 priority target, because they realize that a not-so-squishy Mesmer is actually very slippery and pretty hard to kill without getting yourself ganked by his team in the process. (That and they hate Torment or being locked down in group fights. ;-) )

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

Master of Fragmentation

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Well apparently it combines several existing shatter-related traits, although I heard someone say (or maybe conjecture?) that the crit bonus is 20%. I also doubt the Retaliation on CoF will be in there, because they clearly said they want us to have less Retal as it doesn’t fit the Mesmer well.

It may also have a bonus to shatter damage, as a screenshot seemed to suggest that the damage numbers on MW were higher then usual. (Looks like maybe about 10%?)

- Diversion becomes AoE
- Mind Wrack gets a +10 to 20% Crit chance
- Distortion gains Reflect
- and possibly 10% increased damage?

Kinda leaves out Cry of Frustration though, so we’ll see if it gets it’s own boost in there or not.

Chronomancer Traits

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

I think Chrono definitely can be a viable alternative to DE, but only if you’re looking for that alternative because you value something else in Chrono. (Speed, Alacrity, Quickness/Slows, F5, Shield, etc.)

This line synergizes very well with a trait like Mirror Images, that currently is fairly useless to P-shatter builds, but due to the F5 & Alacrity Mechanics would be available much more often then we’re used to now. I could see a setup like Dom/Ill/Chrono, or more tanky variations w/o Ill.

Consider Confounding Suggestions combos with IR; hit target with F3 to stun & gain a Clone in the process, hit MI and F1 to instantly hit the stunned target with a 3-clone shatter. Pull off the F5 thing first, and you can basically do it twice in a row.

This will be harder to pull off in a traditional shatter build with DE, because you can’t get 3 clones up fast enough to get the MW off before the stun wears off. Even with MI in that build you’d have a hard time getting the 3rd clone up fast enough to MW during the stun. (And you’d have to suffer the long CD on MI.)

Also the built-in Chrono speed-boost will allow you to either get a superior armor rune set, or leave you with an extra utility slot…which you’d use for MI. ;-)

I believe that between MI and Chrono, especially if you factor in Chronophants and/or Shield #4 ability (can produce up to 2 Phants???), you definitely can have enough illusions for a viable shatter build; either Power or Condie.

We’ll see soon enough I suppose…

Chronomancer Traits

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Sorry, no offense, but I like Anets better.

Why Do YOU Run Condi on Mesmer?

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Had some fun during the Stronghold beta with MtD Shatter. It does wonders on the Archer & Bomber NPCs of course, but I also found it very valuable in the bigger battles with Lords, over resources, etc.

Stronghold is just a nice combination between WvW roaming and the usual point-control fights, and this makes MtD shatter much more viable IMO. People are more spread out, moving around much more, and this favors a highly mobile MtD shatter build. Stealth in with T4, and just as T4 blows up you pop MI & PR and F2, then drop CS on’em and watch the white spam.

It seems that many people like to opt for slightly different builds for Stronghold, and that possibly this may also be contributing to slightly less Condie removal then usual PvP.

I also hope that Confusion retains some of it’s “on skill use” bite, because I was eating some Eles & Engies alive with big Confusion ticks. (And Torment of course.)

(edited by Windwalker.7421)

New skill trees heavily favor shatter

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Windwalker.7421

Exactly! Having MP with MoP and on-demand quickness means you can pump out those team AE heals a lot quicker, and it also make MoR more viable due to it’s already low CD (8s with baseline Mantra mastery) and with on demand Quickness you can now also get a reasonable recharge time to cut down on interrupts.

Between that and RI from Inspiration for healing yourself while shattering, you’re going to have a lot of sustain and team support. (AE Cleanse on shatter, AE cleanse from MP, AE heals from MoP recharging)

It will also synergize far better than now IMO. As you charge up MoP to heal, you hit a shatter for the Quickness, which heals yourself and clears conditions for your team. Then MoP is charged, which AE heals the team, and you spam Mind Spikes until you re-charge MoP again to start all over.

I could see something like Insp/Chrono/Illusions with MtD as a pretty tanky support/condie shatter. With baseline IP and Illusionary Reversion, you would thus also be putting out some decent AoE Torment & Confusion pressure with every shatter you use. (Sc+Sh & Staff would go nicely with this. Great support build IMO.)

New skill trees heavily favor shatter

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Windwalker.7421

Yes, by encouraging shattering they are trying to bring a little more active play even to Phantasm builds. Obviously Chrono has the GM trait specifically geared towards supporting a shatter/phantasm play-style, but all around we see the possibility to greatly reduce phantasm summon CDs, and thus encouraging a more “throw-away” playstyle with Phantasm. Summon them, shatter them, resummon them.

Mantras too will see a huge boost not only in several traits becoming baseline, but also the simple fact that we’re getting huge access to Quickness in two lines. Especially in Chrono, the on-demand Quickness from shatters will make for some great synergy with Mantras. With the greatly boosted Menders Purity you can now AE cleanse, and AE heal when charging a Mantra, which under Quickness will be MUCH faster then before.

Shattering in general is getting hugely boosted, no doubt, but it is hardly specific to Glass/Power shatters only. In fact you can now pull off a very tanky Power Shatter, or very potent Condie shatter. Survivability improvements even for glassier shatter builds could come from Dueling with AE Blind on shatter, or you can even go full out Phantasm/Boonshare and employ shatters, PU, or interrupts to create buffs to share with your team simply by summoning a Phantasm.

That and of course Interrupt builds are seeing monumental boosts as well.

I think the point is that Phantasms alone, or Interrupts alone are not going to be enough to make an effective play style anymore. You will want to shatter, and thanks to baseline IP and Chronophantasms and/or lower CDs, it will no longer feel like you’re shattering away your only source of damage. Even if you don’t take Mental Torment or the Illusions line, a 3-Illusion MW shatter on any build with decent Power & Ferocity will amount to a significant damage spike thanks to IP.

"If You're Not Playing Shatter You're Bad"

in Mesmer

Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

Maybe I was a bit mad, sorry for that, but it’s frustrating that I wanted get a legit arguement going and you all just jump at my throat because I’m not part of your.. whatever you call it. Most of you won’t read what I comment yet will keep responding, but whatever.

Wow, it’s like text-book trolling!

Woe me, the troll is now the villain being assaulted by all the forum cultists who were defending their build and playstyle from the droves of angry power-shatter pros who continually call every other build bad, ineffective, “trash”, useless, etc.

I can’t recall one MtD Mesmer ever saying Power-Shatter is bad, trash, low-skill, useless, etc.!

It would only make you look ignorant if you did that anyway, but to come here and play the victim is truly just as ignorant. People are defending their choice, and they have every right to do so, as the only valid argument against MtD is that it’s not top-tier. It has been used effectively at all levels and all PvP modes aside from the very very top levels of play. That is hardly a reason to call a build and play style trash, ineffective, low-skill, etc. It’s insulting people, and that’s what you get for insulting people…they fight back. duh!

And you owe that dude 100g and you know it. Your “I’m taking my toys and going home” post proves that even you see it, but are trying -and failing miserably- to justify why you don’t have to pay it.

Don’t let your mouth (fingers) write a check that your tail can’t cash!