Guild Wars 2

LonelyReaper.8075:

Amadeus.5687:

You do talk about having acces to more 2-3 different kits in many of your examples, and you also talk about how we can do HGH and have lot’s of boons and amazing damage on the same time

Even then, if you don’t state that, which is fine, we can say that, you still manage to mess it up, because when you compare everything to other classes. you still underrate how big a price it is to give up an entire Utility Slot, to get acces to a second weapon set. What good are you with no CD on the weapon swapping if they just chain CC, because don’t have room for the things I have stated several times? I really doubt that you ever played a Engineer vs any decent players

I stated in the opening about nothing about Hgh and kits but when ppl gave example, i reply thinking their running 1 healing kit and 2 weapon kit on their slot, so that makes 3 kit. Any engineer that pvp at least will take 1 elixir for some defensive utility, so i didn’t stated it(my fault.). Any class except bunkers will die from chained cc, only class i know that can almost survive that is guardian and ranger. Even now ele dies from chained cc. The profession that dies the most in tpvp mesmer, that have no move speed, take 2 utility for the team, 1 stun breaker, 1 condition cleanse traited in heal , also die from chain cc, and ppl been complaining how op they are. Not lying go watch the few scrim and tourney that have been hosted, see how even xeph on Team Paradigm get kill so often compared to teldoo(he is awesome). Teldoo on far node also survive with 2 kits 1 healing turret and 1 elixir vs 2 members of other team and can last up to 30sec which is his skill but partly of how strong no cd on weapon swapping is.

The reason I die a lot more then teldo, is due to the fact that I am the highest damage threat and I also have illusion of life, if they were to kill phanta or teldo before me, then I would illusion them or even port them away; so it makes a lot of sense that I would be the prime target for the enemy team.
It has nothing to do with the fact that teldo is more survivable then I am, because regardless of what class you are concentrated focus fire from 3 different people will take you down.

I also think that giving kits cooldowns would be really dumb and would take away from what makes engineer such a fun class to play, ontop of the fact that engi only has 1 weapon set and normally can only fit 1-2 kits on their bar at best, I really don’t find it game breaking at all; infact placing a cooldown on engi kits would kill the class.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Rassase.7943:

you need more skill for spvp, i think www is pretty good but mostly real skilled pvp players don’t play it because you need to level up in pve in order to play it properly. rarely lose to thiefes in www, they lack experience and are easy to read.
spvp>>>>>>>>www

Hmm. I play mostly WvWvW in euro tier #1. Doing my solo roaming runs I see enemy players with champion xxx titles, mercenary or avenger titles. I have seen also some Mist Walkers etc. That already requires 7473500 pvp match points. Does that imply that they are good in pvp?

I find most of them relatively easy to win in a true 1-vs-1 situation. And I really do NOT consider myself to be a particularly good player. I have slow reflexes, but I know how all the 8 professions work since I play them all. And I am very good at guessing what the enemy does next. Surely anybody can beat anybody in 1-vs-many, but I was talking about a duel situation.

There is no one currently in spvp with the mist walker title. :<

Mesmer is an acquired taste, but I don’t think there is much that can be done about that, hopefully with more practice or experience you will find it a lot less frustrating to deal with. !

well its unfair to judge from blu’s stream just yet, since he is still inexperienced with casting, but once he starts practicing then he will be able to call out the important abilities and filter out the none important things going on.

I would say this is a step in the right direction, but it would be best to give it time right now, instead of trying to judge it on what little we have to go on.

PowerBottom.5796:

That’s why I said Obs-Mode and CA’s are by far the most important things, because they make awesome stuff like this possible!

Good job.

What annoys me a bit is that often Streamers don’t offer low-quality Streams and VoD’s on low quality: My Inet sometimes really sucks and I’d rather watch on a lower Setting without lag than high-def Slide-Shows. ^^’

Only people who partnered with twitch are able to offer several different qualities; but hopefully at the rate blu is going he can get partnered really quickly.

Phaeton.9582:

Xeph.4513:

P.S I spoke with Nero, and he would rather that you not state false information or use his name to try and validate your own post on the forums, because he can hold out longer then 20 seconds.

I’m sure he says that to all the girls…

haha I was thinking of editing the post, but your twisted mind and how epic that comment is made me change my mind. :P

I would have to disagree with a lot of points that you have made there, I don’t know much about your personal experience with back node mesmer or how you play it.

All I can say is that if you die in under 20 seconds to any class then you must be doing something wrong; you should be able to hold out long enough in a 1v1 and keep the point, the only time you should be dead in under 20 seconds is to a thief but then again that depends on cooldowns etc.

I think that the nerf to illusion of life is warranted seeing as that when the target gets up he is invulnerable, and this also gives people a chance to react and interrupt the rez instead of people being able to 100% depend on it; also IoL is on a shorter cooldown then the necro rez.

I do however agree with the GS 3 skill needing a buff, but I would much rather see it strip 2 boons and transfer a single condition, seeing as the 3:3 ration you stated was a little too much.

P.S I spoke with Nero, and he would rather that you not state false information or use his name to try and validate your own post on the forums, because he can hold out longer then 20 seconds.

“Porting back!……close lost” :<

Ostricheggs.3742:

google.3709:

they were unprepared. and they also hinted at things such a MUG/Shatter balance, which did not end up happening while at the same time boosting subjects such as “we just had an engineer’s turret meeting”! , “there are a lot of notes” which at the end turned all this hipe into grief once the real update came out..

yea, but for the love of god. AT LEAST off-handedly mention “yea, we’re also considering a nerf to quickness because we believe it’s too strong in its current form”

That was a pretty huge misstep IMO.

It is quiet possible that they were still on the fence about the change at the time, or that it wasn’t something they were considering at that point; there are a lot of factors that are hard to take into account in that sort of situation.

Dardamaniac.1295:

“I will never quit on my team, the only time I can assure you will quit is when my team does; we had an internal chat after the patch and came to the decision that we are not going to quit just yet. nothing else influenced me to stay apart from that.”

I don’t understand at what point that I told you I don’t want to quit so you don’t, but then again these are the forums and I suppose people like to make kitten up, so please don’t put words in my mouth.

Thank you.

It wasnt I and was my team..for that im sorry…But still why should i quit if your team does?Do you think that you have so much influence on ppl?And yes these are forums but no i dont come here to say random stuff,its a waste of time.And sorry again if you misunderstand something,my english are not perfect.I didnt meant you said that you dont quit cause you dont want me to quit.Just the statement “you quit when my team does” is at least disrespectful for me[/quote]

I see where the misunderstanding is, you “I” will quit; I am not as vain as to think people will quit if we do.

Sorry that was a typo from me.

Dardamaniac.1295:

OP is telling things from his own point of view and its quite understandable.I said before that theres a game out there that has big success and has a nice solid soloq option..I strongly believe that the soloq is a must right now in every competitive game.Every game is played by thousand of soloqers-casuals and less “pros”-team players.As much as we need the top teams so the top teams need a big casual-soloqers base.
In patch 26 feb,Xeph made a thread and was outrageous about that patch.I asked him if he considering of quiting and he said yes..A day later he said that he reconsider and when i asked him why he said that I will quit if he quits.Ofc was offensive and i didnt answer that kitten but still proved something.First Xeph is having a narcisism problem.Second the top leaderboard dudes must start thinking differently,you are not alone,dont see things from your own point of view,i paid for this game so are you,both customers must be satisfied..

Uh sir, I am sorry to say that is an out right lie; but anyways here is a quote from you.

Dardamaniac.1295:

I dont know what happened..When the patch went live i read a nice post from Xeph saying that this patch was a joke.I asked him if he gonna quit this game and he said he will consider it.I always wathced closed at Team Paradigm.Today another member of Team Paradigm,(Phantaram)along with some other (Teldo,Gasmask) almost praised this patch.What happened guys,do you know something that WE dont know?3 more changes in ele and this patch become good in a night?
You used to have my respect now im gonna be more carefull to what you have to say

Where I told you that I was considering leaving the game; you reposted that in another thread addressed to me (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Thank-you-Xeph/first#post1583919), and here is my reply to that quote above.

“I will never quit on my team, the only time I can assure you will quit is when my team does; we had an internal chat after the patch and came to the decision that we are not going to quit just yet. nothing else influenced me to stay apart from that.”

I don’t understand at what point that I told you I don’t want to quit so you don’t, but then again these are the forums and I suppose people like to make kitten up, so please don’t put words in my mouth.

Thank you.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hotfix incoming. It’s so hawt and lava-infused. It’s like molten sun magma is dripping into an ocean of flames. And then put it in the microwave on popcorn setting, but then push the “add 30 second” button like 400 times. And there are lit candles around.

It’s that hawt.

If that’s your idea of hot, I am disappointed :<

Apollo.7389:

Xeph I’ve never wanted your body more than THIS moment. I’m sure all other warriors feel the same.

I didn’t read any of the responses and nor do I want to. OP is right on the money.

Do I have the right to refuse ? :<

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

so the quickness nerf was pretty drastic and the reason for it was to help new ppl in the game. but it didnt just help new ppl in the game it helped make thiefs mesmers and warriors worse then they already were at top tier game play and that is not OK.

once before the devs listened to us and changed rez timer from the 20 second mistake rez to the 15 second that the whole community agreed on.

now i know we cant force anet to listen to us but i am asking ver politley to consider it. i didnt make a post for 3 days after the patch because i am still feeling everything out but for now i am asking for both sides. 50 % is to easy and even though i loved 100% because i loved being on my toes all day i am willing to meet ANET half way and we agree on 75% quickness.

YES 75% = 237 players

dont matter = 1 player

no keep 50% = 3 players

please keep posting yes for 75% quickness. (or whatever you feel)

I have a feeling this poll is very rigged; I don’t even think we have over 150 players posting on this forum lmao.
I am glad that you are willing to meet anet half way, god forbid you weren’t so forgiving, I shudder at the thought of you putting your foot down anets throat and forcing them back to 100% quickness!

leave confusion alone!!!!

Zenith.7301:

Xeph.4513:

Frankly I don’t care how the patch changes effected pve, otherwise I would be posting in a different part of the forum, you fail to understand my lack of interest in how these changes are perceived by PvE players just as they do when PvE changes effect PvP.

Some players play both. Not everyone is selfish and dismissive of balance for the game as a whole instead of getting only what they care about at the expense of others.

But isolate yourself in this subforum if it pleases you. Something tells me that by population numbers your kind of approach won’t get much traction.

I posted on the PvP sub forum, because I wished to get a PvP prospective on the changes, had I wanted both theses views I would’ve posted in the general discussion part of the forum; that is why sub forums exist good sir, just because you wish to disregard that, doesn’t make me selfish in the least.

Again to address the edit content that you added in later; I don’t play pve, so I really have no capacity to understand how these changes effect it or the classes, but please refer to me as selfish because I don’t wish to discuss a topic I don’t know much about.

Frankly I don’t care how the patch changes effected pve, otherwise I would be posting in a different part of the forum, you fail to understand my lack of interest in how these changes are perceived by PvE players just as they do when PvE changes effect PvP.

If you are coming here to argue the PvE aspect of these changes, then I wholeheartedly suggest that you seek a different sub forum, one in which your arguments are relevant to the context.

Also ArenaNet has shown the capacity to split PvE and PvP, if they so choose to do so; the reasons for which they are not, are neither known to me nor to yourself; so whatever conspiracy that you wish to make up in order to justify your argument, can be countered with one of my own, as I said previously nor you or I know why they chose not to split these changes.

Just to address the little edit you had on your previous post; I never said that the beam attack was what tipped ele’s over, I only stated that it was an unnecessary buff when the resources could’ve been allocated else where, so I really don’t understand what your trying to get at with that comment.

Zenith.7301:

Xeph.4513:

Zenith.7301:

Xeph.4513:

Zenith.7301:

Staff mesmer is kitten in autoattack as well, part of the reason why it’s not used in PvE. Autos seem irrelevant to you because you’re a PvP player fighting things with a low finite HP of about 27k hp at best.

Autoattacks on the other hand make up the majority of sustained damage in PvE. They are a necessary and important part of the game, and the scepter has terrible autoattacks on every attunement. All I saw on your video was burst derived from the offhand dagger, the 2 air abilities, and arcane utilities. In the same old s/d burst build.

I was under the impression this was the pvp section of the forums; and that we are discussing all of this in a pvp scenario, besides Arena net has shown that they can balance for pve and pvp separately.

When have they balanced PvE and PvP separately? I thought you would have realized that with warriors.

The only noticeable split they’ve done is with confusion. I don’t recall any other substantial skill splitting patch anywhere close to the vicinity of gw1 balancing.

Evasive Arcana: The spell cast while in water attunement has been split between PvE and PvP. This spell’s effectiveness with the healing attribute has been reduced by 50% while in Pv

Save your self from the guardian also has increased buff duration in pve.

Those are some skills that have been split.

Haste nerfed by 50% largely to PvP concerns (and especially time warp). In one fell swoop any semblance of viabily was removed from pve rangers (ranges have the most haste uptime of any class).

The breadth of balance changes has been done without thought on the impact of both formats at the same time. Necros are mediocre and have not received pve buffs due to them being strong in the PvP metagame as boon-strippers and the cc from the staff.

And honestly, have you thought about the mechanic behind the beam multi-targeting, whether they would have the technology or capacity to turn it off in one format or not the other? Because it’s not a numbers tweak when it comes to the new beam mechanic.

So your trying to say that they nerfed quickness without taking into account what it would do to classes in pve, well thats something only arena net can answer for you; but I am pretty sure that they knew it was going to effect every class with quickness, they didn’t suddenly forget.

Your also trying to say that classes are not being buffed in pve because they are strong in pvp, just going to say thats an absurd statement without anything to back it up.

Lastly regarding the mesmer beam; I am not well versed in coding so I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer regarding if arena net can do it or not; but I would lean towards the fact that they can, but as they said they wanted to implement it and have a look at how it works in pvp.

P.S please stop bringing pve into this, this is a pvp discussion forum and you would do well not bring that up in these parts, can be dangerous at times. :<

Zenith.7301:

Xeph.4513:

Zenith.7301:

Staff mesmer is kitten in autoattack as well, part of the reason why it’s not used in PvE. Autos seem irrelevant to you because you’re a PvP player fighting things with a low finite HP of about 27k hp at best.

Autoattacks on the other hand make up the majority of sustained damage in PvE. They are a necessary and important part of the game, and the scepter has terrible autoattacks on every attunement. All I saw on your video was burst derived from the offhand dagger, the 2 air abilities, and arcane utilities. In the same old s/d burst build.

I was under the impression this was the pvp section of the forums; and that we are discussing all of this in a pvp scenario, besides Arena net has shown that they can balance for pve and pvp separately.

When have they balanced PvE and PvP separately? I thought you would have realized that with warriors.

The only noticeable split they’ve done is with confusion. I don’t recall any other substantial skill splitting patch anywhere close to the vicinity of gw1 balancing.

Evasive Arcana: The spell cast while in water attunement has been split between PvE and PvP. This spell’s effectiveness with the healing attribute has been reduced by 50% while in Pv

Save your self from the guardian also has increased buff duration in pve.

Selfless Daring: This trait had an efficiency with healing power that was reserved for healing skills only and has now been reduced to its intended level. Heal scaling has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.

Those are some skills that have been split.

Zenith.7301:

Staff mesmer is kitten in autoattack as well, part of the reason why it’s not used in PvE. Autos seem irrelevant to you because you’re a PvP player fighting things with a low finite HP of about 27k hp at best.

Autoattacks on the other hand make up the majority of sustained damage in PvE. They are a necessary and important part of the game, and the scepter has terrible autoattacks on every attunement. All I saw on your video was burst derived from the offhand dagger, the 2 air abilities, and arcane utilities. In the same old s/d burst build.

I was under the impression this was the pvp section of the forums; and that we are discussing all of this in a pvp scenario, besides Arena net has shown that they can balance for pve and pvp separately.

Hey I have a looking for team thread running wild somewhere on these forums, there are a lot of good players in there so you can scout it out for potentials.

P.S forsaker is looking for a team and he is a good necro, I would give him a shout if I was you.

Zenith.7301:

Torqky.3682:

Zenith.7301:

Xeph.4513:

Chaosky.5276:

Xeph.4513:

Both the mesmer GS auto attack and Ele scepter do significant damage; its the first time I have seen someone claim otherwise, they may not be the best auto attacks in the game but they are far from being weak.

Ele and Mesmer already deal a large amount of aoe damage, I never understood why they should get a buff to their aoe damage if its already border line op.

Also please don’t try and compare a range skill to a melee auto attack.

I can’t speak for Spatial Surge, but you do realize that Arc Lightning only hits for about 1.8k over 3 1/2 seconds with the standard build, right? That’s also only if you even channel it for that long, which you won’t, because you need to switch to other attunements to use other skills and keep fury up. That’s not even considering that the scepter’s fire skills are absurdly easy to dodge, and that the earth attunement lacks offense.

I’m not saying that I want more AoE damage – I actually want less so that our ranged single-target capability can be improved – but the elementalist’s scepter is not an effective weapon for ranged damage as-is.

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/1932538

You can see Arc, doing over 3k in the video (with about 1 crit in the channel), I have also had it do over 4k; just because it doesn’t do damage in a bunker spec doesn’t mean that the spell is weak, you can also use lightning strike and a blind without breaking it channel.

You do realize that’s 3-4k in a 3 second span? In a single melee strike an axe warrior can do more than that, and even my mesmer’s melee chain 3rd step does that number and removes a boon.

Comparing melle auto attacks and skills to a range auto attack is apples and oranges…How many times does this need to be said.

It’s not apples and oranges when uptime in melee is so easy to maintain. A longbow berk ranger can also land a 4k auto in one shot, and let’s not even discuss thief shortbow strikes, which bounce.

This game also has this thing most of the playing population plays called PvE, in which most of the content can be spent in melee at little risk.

There is a reason why dagger/dagger and staff are used over the scepter in most of the game. Moaning about scepter autoattack buffs has got to be the most ridiculous complaint I’ve heard.

Firstly I don’t even think we are playing the same game if you think most ele’s run D/D and staff over S/D.
Second Ele’s have access to 2X more amount of skills then over classes do, and just because a longbow Zerker ranger can deal 4k (in probably the best case scenario) in a single shot, he remains unviable; whilst ele’s remain at the top of the food chain.

The fact also that your trying to compare this to melee attacks is baffling, what this whole point comes down to is the fact that it was an unnecessary buff to ele’s they were perfectly fine without it, why use your time and resources (which according to ante are very minimal) in buffing something that wasn’t needed in the first place.

Simply said Ele’s are at the pinnacle of the class hierarchy, they don’t need any buffs infact they need to be toned down a bit, and even if you sir want to argue that its not the best auto attack in the game therefore buffing it is perfectly justified, then that argument can be applicable to everything else, hell let my mesmers staff attacks crit for 4k just like the ranger longbow.

Ostricheggs.3742:

I completely disagree with the comment that HGH engis are brain dead. It’s the best spec in the game yet it has one of the highest skill caps in the game. Any class can kill an HGH engi if they kitten up, but if you don’t kitten up you can kill any class in the game.

Landing nades, proper cleansing, proper application of condis, proper use of kiting and range, all things that most classes don’t have to deal with. Furthermore it’s a reactionary class, you won’t explicitly determine the outcome of a fight like a thief, warrior or ele. You must understand every other spec in the game to win. Finally, it is a relatively squishy build with only 1 48s CD stun break and an exceptional lack of CC. Still the best though

I am inclined to agree, HGH engi’s can either be extremely easy to kill or extremely hard; I guess thats testament to the skill level of the player on that class.

Blackhat.4016:

Is there any guide/video about your DPS ele build? I would love to try it and see if it really works that well.

I never said Arc Lightning should deal a lot of damage if you go bunker. Bunkers should have a low damage output compared to GCs.

You can check out his stream, I’m pretty sure it has the builds and a lot of gameplay footage in it.

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram

Oni.5429:

Why are you talking about irrelevant stuff like ele when you could be mourning the weakness of our poor warrior now?

Start a discussion then, this thread encompasses all changes, so if there is anything you feel like sharing go ahead, otherwise you can wait patiently till someone brings it up.

Blackhat.4016:

“specced correctly” = bunker

I main ele and I can tell you there is no reason to play anything but bunker builds. The fire, air and earth traits are really bad compared to water and arcana (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Rating-Elementalist-traits ).

I wish they implemented boon hate this patch and at the same time buffed the fire, air and earth traits. This would make non bunker builds finally viable and nerf bunkers at the same time.

We’ve been running a dps ele since release, and it has been working fine for us, and when I said “specced correctly” it was in reference to having arc lightning deal damage, you can’t go bunker and expect it to deal more then 2k damage.

kostbabis.8791:

Xeph.4513:

Chaosky.5276:

Xeph.4513:

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/1932538

You can see Arc, doing over 3k in the video (with about 1 crit in the channel), I have also had it do over 4k; just because it doesn’t do damage in a bunker spec doesn’t mean that the spell is weak, you can also use lightning strike and a blind without breaking it channel.

I’m aware that instant skills can be used without breaking activations/channels, I’ve spent a lot of time working with my ele (don’t mean to be rude, just saying).

As for the video, I suppose I did forget that the “standard” ele build is actually a bunker – a problem with traits more than the skill itself, then. The scepter still has more than enough trouble with the unreliability of Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix, the general uselessness of Shatterstone, and the lack of offense in the earth attunement, though, so I can still complain.

(Some good stuff there, BTW.)

let me get this straight, Earth has no offense, Fire is also unreliable and Air arc lightning sucks, its a wonder I die to ele’s.
Regardless I think that this argument can go back and forth, so I suppose we can agree to disagree on the usefulness of Arc lightning.

Well i dont want to take part in an argument about air 1 damage but you ignore that in that video half the dps comes from arcanes + that mesm has like 15 invlun stacks + 20% damage from bolt to the heart+ 10 % from air training + phantarams 10+ stack of might + its on a squishy cloth mesmer.In phantas build it would do normaly about 2k damage.
Again i m not taking sides about that skill here :P

I duel phantaram a lot, and trust me when I say his highest source of damage is always in Air with Arc lightning a single channel does as much as 3k, a lot of people underestimate the amount of damage that it can do when specced correctly; I do however understand that it doesn’t deal that much damage on a bunker ele, but then again it is a bunker.

Chaosky.5276:

Xeph.4513:

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/1932538

You can see Arc, doing over 3k in the video (with about 1 crit in the channel), I have also had it do over 4k; just because it doesn’t do damage in a bunker spec doesn’t mean that the spell is weak, you can also use lightning strike and a blind without breaking it channel.

I’m aware that instant skills can be used without breaking activations/channels, I’ve spent a lot of time working with my ele (don’t mean to be rude, just saying).

As for the video, I suppose I did forget that the “standard” ele build is actually a bunker – a problem with traits more than the skill itself, then. The scepter still has more than enough trouble with the unreliability of Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix, the general uselessness of Shatterstone, and the lack of offense in the earth attunement, though, so I can still complain.

(Some good stuff there, BTW.)

let me get this straight, Earth has no offense, Fire is also unreliable and Air arc lightning sucks, its a wonder I die to ele’s.
Regardless I think that this argument can go back and forth, so I suppose we can agree to disagree on the usefulness of Arc lightning.

Chaosky.5276:

Xeph.4513:

Both the mesmer GS auto attack and Ele scepter do significant damage; its the first time I have seen someone claim otherwise, they may not be the best auto attacks in the game but they are far from being weak.

Ele and Mesmer already deal a large amount of aoe damage, I never understood why they should get a buff to their aoe damage if its already border line op.

Also please don’t try and compare a range skill to a melee auto attack.

I can’t speak for Spatial Surge, but you do realize that Arc Lightning only hits for about 1.8k over 3 1/2 seconds with the standard build, right? That’s also only if you even channel it for that long, which you won’t, because you need to switch to other attunements to use other skills and keep fury up. That’s not even considering that the scepter’s fire skills are absurdly easy to dodge, and that the earth attunement lacks offense.

I’m not saying that I want more AoE damage – I actually want less so that our ranged single-target capability can be improved – but the elementalist’s scepter is not an effective weapon for ranged damage as-is.

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/1932538

You can see Arc, doing over 3k in the video (with about 1 crit in the channel), I have also had it do over 4k; just because it doesn’t do damage in a bunker spec doesn’t mean that the spell is weak, you can also use lightning strike and a blind without breaking it channel.

Erwin.5603:

Phantaram.1265:

Mesmer – Greatsword got buffed a little bit and time warp got rightfully nerfed.
1 viable build: Shatter with staff or greatsword, whichever you want. There’s a few variations but I don’t like em that much.

I disagree. There is a completely different build in terms of playstyle. Many refer to it as “Phantasms”. Just because Xeph doesn’t play it, doesn’t mean it isn’t viable. Although I would like a buff to Mantras, so that a 3. build can emerge.

I don’t run shatter :<

Zenith.7301:

So scepter elementalists never needed a buff? You do realize spatial surge and especially arc lightning are paltry damage in most circumstances, and that many mesmers don’t even run greatsword?

The change to arc lightning in particular changed nothing. It does terrible damage like all of the scepter’s autoattacks. It does in a 3 second channel what an instant melee strike does while cleaving.

But since apparently it’s a slight buff to weak weapons of dominant classes, it’s an unnecessary buff?

Both the mesmer GS auto attack and Ele scepter do significant damage; its the first time I have seen someone claim otherwise, they may not be the best auto attacks in the game but they are far from being weak.

Ele and Mesmer already deal a large amount of aoe damage, I never understood why they should get a buff to their aoe damage if its already border line op.

Also please don’t try and compare a range skill to a melee auto attack.

Med.6150:

Xeph, I am curious as to what changes you think could ever impact the meta in GW2. Usually metas change because players adapt and find counters to the current one rather than as a result of buffs/nerfs.

When a meta changes due to buffs/nerfs, we players usually are the first to scream “fotm reroll” at the top of our lungs at anybody playing the new top dog.

Metas don’t easily change, especially not in a game like GW2, where it’s much less important how well you do in a fight and much more important how and when you engage or stall a battle.

So, I suppose what I am trying to say:

1. People should forget or at least not abuse the word meta, when we are pretty much talking about specific class changes, that will most certainly not lead to major changes in the way people play GW2s conquest mode

2. If we truly seek a game that changes meta, it has to be one that allows players to change the meta by coming up with counters, which means we need to overhaul those mechanics (like quickness, down state, the current conquest mode etc.), which pigeonhole us all, because there is no room for creativity, if we don’t focus heavily on combat as a priority.

As long as stalling, zerging and down state managament are the key factors to winning games, no amount of individual class changes will have the desired impact. I am all for nerfing elementalists, but it’d be foolish to believe that there won’t be a ranger (or whatever class) invading far, if he suddenly becomes more suitable for that role.

In a lot of games dev’s can instigate a meta shift, by nerfing the most dominant pvp specs/builds, thus forcing people to try different builds or in other cases making previously unviable builds viable.
The problem with Guildwars 2 at the moment is people have a firm grasp on what are the most dominant classes/builds; and that has been the case for several months now, and this is apparent because you are facing the same builds/classes continuously through out the day without much variation.

It’s important to try and instigate a meta shift at the moment, it not only gives people a fresh set of builds to practice learn, but it also gives room to new builds to come up and even new teams that are not as versed in the current meta and gives them a somewhat level playing field.

My main quell with it, is that it failed to shake the meta up, and we’ve been in the same consistent meta for the past 2-3 months without any significant changes.

DevilsGlare.7658:

Um, who is this Xeph guy?
Do you even ele, bro?

Vain, the ele is weak in me, intact I have been reduced to a bunching bag for any elementalist to relieve that frustration mid game!

Phantaram.1265:

Da heck xeph I literally just made one of these posts, noob.

+1

You must have ninja posted it while I was writing this one, sorry phantaram. :<

You can clearly tell that the icon used for the custom arena token is a place holder; so I am pretty sure they are going to update the price and make some fixes once the patch goes live, so don’t panic!
Regardless if CA’s make it into this patch or not, its at least good to see that they are working on them.

Mssg.7804:

This is kittening joke. Xeph are you kitten or are they paying to you for being so patient?
I will take WoW for example, there is new season every few months… when new season starts all the data is reseted and players start from 0, Blizzard is not hiding ratings for ferst week because they want more data, noo. Whats the point of this? On the SOTG they already told us that they are testing the system already… now we have to still wait. Not many people will play before they show up the ratings anyway…

I was promised cookies!
Don’t worry though, if those cookies are not delivered to me in the time frame given, I will start a forum revolution and we will force the changes out of them!!!!

Davinci.8027:

I honestly don’t give a baby cat… It’s 7 months into release of a game that took 6 years to develop, and they don’t have the core features that most Free To Play mini games have in beta.

:< you could just take a break and comeback when all everything is in, I think it would be better for your nerves and soul.

“leaderboards will feature WvW rankings, PvP player rankings, and total achievement points.”
English is pretty clear, no mention of glory and it was also cleared up in SOTG by the dev’s, not once but twice.

Davinci.8027:

@Xeph..

It was well known that the leaderboards were already being implemented. All they’re telling us here is that they won’t be ready by March 26th, and that they need another week ( + no final date was given).

Hey; at least they are talking to us and telling us about what’s happening, we have waited this long, I don’t think another week is going to kill me.

Davinci.8027:

This is the logic that ANET is so good at.
The leaderboards will be “activated” on the 26th, but will not be visible.
What is the kittening point of announcing that they will be ‘activated’ if they aren’t visible. Haven’t they been active this whole time?

You best infract this one, CC Jamalanga Eva.

So people ask for transparency, and when they tell every you step they are taking, then you get upset and ask what is the point ?
All they are trying to say that its there, but they will need a week to bring it up for you to view.

jportell.2197:

Xeph.4513:

Grandmaster Coated Bullets Pistol shots pierce. (Engineer Trait), they don’t get it for free sadly.
Anyways the fact that people need to keep a constant presence of mind in which direction the mesmer will be cleaving with his beam, in essence makes that too strong, it gives mesmers a huge dps increase when it was never needed in the first place.
There is infact no real reason to buff the GS auto attack, its simply a rather stupid buff, that in conjunction with shatters is simply too strong.
Also the request was never to nerf shatter damage, it was the fact that shatter has too much tied into it for a simple F1 click (Rips 3 boons, 3 confusion stacks, Vulnerability (if treated) and massive aoe damage) and thats just looking at one shatter.

Mind you a lot of people, are trying to say that mesmer is dead if shatters are nerfed, and I can assure you that is not the case, I think that most mesmers playing at high end have stopped using shatter; well at least I haven’t run shatter in competitive play for the last 2 months.
There are better alternatives.

Anyways simply said, mesmers don’t need this buff at all, the class just needs nerfs in the utility department, other than that its perfectly fine.

What do you run outside of a shatter spec? What’s funny is Nero said “Right now its 20/20/0/0/30 or….” Just curious what other good builds there are for tPvP. I tried runing pyro’s tank build but the defender goes down way to fast in a 1v>2 so that kills the mesmers ability to tank right there… And yes if specced it can rip boons and add vulnerability with a button push… But in this case the mesmer is taking 2 dom traits and ignoring mental torment which (WHY?) especially when the major trait to inflict vulnerability isn’t really needed when we have dazzling… So really it comes down to we can strip boons (3per shatter isn’t TOO much) but it does encourage a shatter heavy spec… And stack 3stacks of confusion with a shatter is very weak in PvP because confusion is weak in PvP…. But in all honesty i still feel that when compared to engi’s mesmers can’t really stack confusion as high for as long as an engi can… Which I just find very weird considering that in more than one place confusion was kinda advertised as a condition that was made with mesmers in mind… The last patch engi’s got more and better access to it made me just feel like confusion isn’t mesmers “special” condition any more… I mean we need to heavily invest into different trait trees to start accessing it to the level that engineers get with 3 different skills… Kinda lame.

Edit: And I think dastion is referring to rifle auto attack on engi’s… http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hip_Shot

I will make a video explaining several different mesmer builds, including mantra builds; hopefully if I can get nero to make this a joint project we will have it out soon.

+1 to that whole post, love you vain; even though abandoned me and left me to venture a lone in Terra; which btw was a huge waste of time!
Anyways I whole heartedly agree to everything you said in that post.
Come on ts once in a while we need to talk!

Dastion.3106:

Gonna break this one up.

Xeph.4513:

I have mentioned it several times, and it has been on the pvp forums before;

I don’t follow your every post man. You only compared us to Thief’s in this discussion, so I was reasonably confused why I was being treated as if you had to repeat yourself to someone particularly dense.

regardless its not about side stepping it, its when a target is downed that cleave damage really shines and its very simple to target the downed enemy and move in any direction for the desired effect.

Again, you’re using broad generalizations of “it’s easy/op/etc” without any logical support. We learned this in elementary school, things at the center of a circle (the circle being your 900-1000 or so preferred radius) can more easily move a degree than things on the outter portion of a circle. If any enemy goes from standing directly in front of your target to 45 degrees from there (to the left or right of your target) they move only a few units while you would need to move over 1,000 units to compensate the new angle to hit both, possibly also requiring you to change targets. I don’t know about you, but my enemies are rarely stupid enough to stack or charge single file for me.

Also the problem isn’t with aiming the beam attack, since anyone running in the direction of the beam will be cleaved since its a constant attack.
Its far superior to projectile cleave, also we get the pierce for free whilst rangers and engineers need to trait for it.

Again, why are people charging straight down an obvious beam attack? It’s far from subtle, less so than an arrow or a bullet. In addition, while those attacks have the added bonus of piercing behind your intended target (allowing you to focus whomever you choose and still get the line of damage effect) this only effects those between you and your target. So unless you’re selecting targets for maximum AoE benefit (and thus not focus firing) it isn’t near as useful, and even then requires baby sitting. Oh, and Engineers get it for free as well.

Let me reiterate: I know Shatter can be potent, but you’re allowing your opinion of shatter to be influenced by a build. The build does need to be tuned down, but that is true now, never mind changes to a specific weapon. A knee-jerk “it must be nerfed before you buff GS!” response is extremely premature. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expect some Shatter nerfs, but discussion of such should be done in a logical manner which takes various factors into account. Done properly, any nerf will affect only the top-end, as the low-end is rather pitiful.

Also, I’ll point out again that Karl obviously had something about Mesmers that he wanted to discuss but was told No by Jon. There are too many unknowns about what is in development to make knee jerk decisions.

Grandmaster Coated Bullets Pistol shots pierce. (Engineer Trait), they don’t get it for free sadly.
Anyways the fact that people need to keep a constant presence of mind in which direction the mesmer will be cleaving with his beam, in essence makes that too strong, it gives mesmers a huge dps increase when it was never needed in the first place.
There is infact no real reason to buff the GS auto attack, its simply a rather stupid buff, that in conjunction with shatters is simply too strong.
Also the request was never to nerf shatter damage, it was the fact that shatter has too much tied into it for a simple F1 click (Rips 3 boons, 3 confusion stacks, Vulnerability (if traited) and massive aoe damage) and thats just looking at one shatter.

Mind you a lot of people, are trying to say that mesmer is dead if shatters are nerfed, and I can assure you that is not the case, I think that most mesmers playing at high end have stopped using shatter; well at least I haven’t run shatter in competitive play for the last 2 months.
There are better alternatives.

Anyways simply said, mesmers don’t need this buff at all, the class just needs nerfs in the utility department, other than that its perfectly fine.

Dastion.3106:

Xeph.4513:

Yet again; Ranger and Engi use projectiles and that’s why their aoe cleaves can be countered easily, mesmers are using a beam attack which goes through any anti projectile abilities etc.

Yet again? You never made any mention of Ranger/Engi projectiles. What are you reiterating?

Being a beam attack also means it doesn’t pierce past your target, making it a more difficult AoE to utilize while still being just as easy to avoid by virtue of taking a single step to the side. When attempting to use a line attack from range every step they take is several you have to make to realign the attack.

There is also the whole not a projectile finisher aspect too. There are many factors that go into it, and yet none of those change that it’s easily the most limited and hardest to control AoE in the game, requiring not only a straight line but specific targeting to utilize. That’s a far cry from the one man army death ray you are making it out to be, to such an extent that you would declare the need for a nerf to an underwhelming base mechanic without giving due consideration to the fact that its the build that makes the mechanic worthwhile.

P.S. While I do think you overreacted before considering all of the aspects and ANet’s “it’s something to watch” approach is better, I do want to thank you for hopping in to defend your opinions.

I have mentioned it several times, and it has been on the pvp forums before; regardless its not about side stepping it, its when a target is downed that cleave damage really shines and its very simple to target the downed enemy and move in any direction for the desired effect. Also the problem isn’t with aiming the beam attack, since anyone running in the direction of the beam will be cleaved since its a constant attack.
Its far superior to projectile cleave, also we get the pierce for free whilst rangers and engineers need to trait for it.

I love the suggestion about bringing HM down, and moving shatter removes boons up.

Dastion.3106:

Xeph.4513:

Dastion.3106:

Xeph, I understand you felt rushed, I noticed you try to get a word in many times and get spoken over. You said how Mesmer shatter can remove boons, apply vuln, stack confusion, and deal ‘massive’ AoE “for little [cost?]”. Though you may not have meant it, that comes across as a typical nerf herder comment of over generalizing. Though I appreciate your willingness to readily admit when you think a change may be overpowered, especially when it’s to your own profession, there are costs/choices involved due to limited trait options and illusion resources.

In a typical 20/20/0/0/30 Build in order to make your Mind Wrack remove boons and apply Vuln you’d have to use both of your Major Dom traits, giving up 20% MW damage and GS cool down reduction. So there is already balancing measures in place that reduce our “massive damage” and GS effectiveness if we take that route. You can stack Vuln better with Diversion though, but if you decide to go that route you’ll get to pick up Mental Torment, but are reliant on spending clones on non-damaging Diversion to stack Vuln.

Furthermore, Shatter’s effects at range aren’t devastating – if anything they are underwhelming and unreliable. It’s when you combine it with IP that it gets nasty, since a single Illusion Mind Wrack with IP deals nearly as much as a 3 Illusion shatter without it – the Melee requirement of IP meaning that your Illusions are less likely to die before they shatter.

So, if you’re trying to get the most out of a Shatter then you aren’t getting the most out of GS due to it’s range requirements. If you think about it, giving Spatial Surge – which requires range – AoE was the best place for them to make this change since we can’t simultaneously benefit from that change and get the most out of our potent IP Shatter build.

I am sorry, then in this case we have to disagree, shatter damage in conjunction with your GS skills on range are very devastating, mesmers are only second to thieves at dealing damage from range, and even then they provide more utility then a thief does with their GS kit. 3 shatters on range each deal 1.8k , saying that it is best case scenario and each shatter crits then that would be 5.4k (Tested on a light dummy) at the safety of 1,200 range, that is not counting in other GS skills that can be used to achieve in higher numbers.
If the GS changes goes through then you can be sure that damage would reach ridiculous levels.

In Spvp, the amount of times cleave is required is actually quit often, and this change would simply break mesmer, it’s either no aoe spatial surge or a nerf to shatter.

There is a difference between cleave, pierce, and especially bouncing attacks. Thief gets to hit multiple enemies regardless of their position, comparing Trick Shot to a piercing attack is ridiculous. By that logic Rifle Engineers and Bow Rangers should be up there too. But they’re not because it’s the most easily avoided AoE type in the game.

If someone moves 90 degrees from an ally (beside them instead of in front of them) it takes only a second to do so. To counter that movement you would have to move 1,350-1,800 units to realign them both and maintain your range and damage. In fact, by all accounts this change is actually worse than normal piercing akin to what rangers and engineers can do since it only affects enemies between you and your target rather than automatically piercing out behind them (that bit remains to be seen).

The Shatter build is far from weak, but adding a rather limited AoE option to a weapon that may or may not be used along with the build (Osi uses staff) does not necessitate a nerf, it may – but brashly declaring within a minute of hearing that ‘shatter needs to be nerfed’ is illogical – as the devs tried to tactfully point out to you.

I am in full agreement that the shatter build could do with some toning down, but I think the base mechanic could use a boost. The whole reason the build works is that it’s a giant band-aid on our mechanic issues. We give up traits, dodges, and utilities to make up for clone production and even then still need IP so we can further increase the effect by a massive 33% boost (at least, it benefits you more the less illusions you have).

If Shattering was more worthwhile at it’s base and got less from traits it would encourage more diverse builds.

Yet again; Ranger and Engi use projectiles and that’s why their aoe cleaves can be countered easily, mesmers are using a beam attack which goes through any anti projectile abilities etc.

Schroedingercat.7065:

they can reduce shatter damage if they give it a blast combo finisher. :p

i dont think buffing 2 weapons and then reducing the global mechanic’s damage is a good solution to whatever the pvp crybabies are crying about this week (said because mesmers seem to be disproportionately targeted for pvp QQing, maybe because we are more annoying to deal with but not necessarily more powerful than other professions)

I agree, but there is no reason to buff mesmers atm; especially the aoe because as it is we do have very devastating aoe in pvp without it being buffed; anymore and we will be tipped over the edge of being OP (in the regard of aoe).

Dastion.3106:

Xeph, I understand you felt rushed, I noticed you try to get a word in many times and get spoken over. You said how Mesmer shatter can remove boons, apply vuln, stack confusion, and deal ‘massive’ AoE “for little [cost?]”. Though you may not have meant it, that comes across as a typical nerf herder comment of over generalizing. Though I appreciate your willingness to readily admit when you think a change may be overpowered, especially when it’s to your own profession, there are costs/choices involved due to limited trait options and illusion resources.

In a typical 20/20/0/0/30 Build in order to make your Mind Wrack remove boons and apply Vuln you’d have to use both of your Major Dom traits, giving up 20% MW damage and GS cool down reduction. So there is already balancing measures in place that reduce our “massive damage” and GS effectiveness if we take that route. You can stack Vuln better with Diversion though, but if you decide to go that route you’ll get to pick up Mental Torment, but are reliant on spending clones on non-damaging Diversion to stack Vuln.

Furthermore, Shatter’s effects at range aren’t devastating – if anything they are underwhelming and unreliable. It’s when you combine it with IP that it gets nasty, since a single Illusion Mind Wrack with IP deals nearly as much as a 3 Illusion shatter without it – the Melee requirement of IP meaning that your Illusions are less likely to die before they shatter.

So, if you’re trying to get the most out of a Shatter then you aren’t getting the most out of GS due to it’s range requirements. If you think about it, giving Spatial Surge – which requires range – AoE was the best place for them to make this change since we can’t simultaneously benefit from that change and get the most out of our potent IP Shatter build.

I am sorry, then in this case we have to disagree, shatter damage in conjunction with your GS skills on range are very devastating, mesmers are only second to thieves at dealing damage from range, and even then they provide more utility then a thief does with their GS kit. 3 shatters on range each deal 1.8k , saying that it is best case scenario and each shatter crits then that would be 5.4k (Tested on a light dummy) at the safety of 1,200 range, that is not counting in other GS skills that can be used to achieve in higher numbers.
If the GS changes goes through then you can be sure that damage would reach ridiculous levels.

In Spvp, the amount of times cleave is required is actually quit often, and this change would simply break mesmer, it’s either no aoe spatial surge or a nerf to shatter.

Hello;
Firstly I would like to make one thing clear, I never said that shatter damage was over the top, I merely stated that I think that as it is right now shatter does too much, and in conjuction with the new saptial surge buffs it could very well push things over the edge.

I also want to clarify that I understand a lot about the mesmer 20 20 0 0 30 build; I have played the build since beta weekends.

The thing is if the saptial surge changes go in, as karl explained it to be, then it would be very “OP”, firstly the beam would be cleaving all 3 targets for the same amount of damage, in addition to the greatswords ability to spawn illusions ontop of the target, this could create immense cleaving potential. (Mind you I am only talking about Spvp here and nothing to do with wvw or pve)
These changes would force every Spvp team to focus the mesmer first, because rezzing with a gs mesmer standing around would not be an option anymore. Simply spamming GS 1, Mirror blade, berserker and Mindwrack means that people will be taking immense damage, having their boons ripped off and taking confusion damage, including the constant damage they would be taking from the mesmer who will be standing at 1000-900 range.

This is why I believe in order for those changes to go through then shatter should be looked at, at least moving the shatter removes boons into the grandmaster tree. Otherwise things will get stupid very very fast.

Also I am sorry if people are upset about how we articulate our questions, but we are also under heavy time constraints during the show, and don’t have the time to express ourselves aswell as we would like.

Thank you.