Guild Wars 2

My two greatest fears:

1. Throughout future expansions, people will still “only” expect you to be a quickness boonbot. I actually enjoy filling that role today. However, in the future I would like the option of playing a different role on mesmer without offending people. I see this problem as being less likely to happen as my second fear simply because it would be relatively easy to give mesmer a new elite specialization that makes its dps competitive with other classes.

2. In terms of mesmer damage, condition damage will always rain supreme over power . . . . . .always. One of the main examples of this is necro/reaper. Reaper was suppose to fill the niche of power damage for necro. However, that did not happen. Even with the reaper line, condi is still better in terms of damage. I immensely hope this doesn’t happen to mesmer. The reason I can see this happening is because of two specific traits, illusionary retribution and maim the disillusioned. These traits allow you to apply condition damage with every type of shatter, and they are in a base mesmer line. Unless the actual shatters change, power shatter damage will still only be isolated to one skill, mind wrack. This means it will be impossible to have more sustainable power damage in shatters like you can have with condi (even if the sustainable shatter problem still remains fixed with traits like chronophantasma and illusionary reversion). Additionally, what would greatly disappoint me is if the only new elite specialization in the next expansion forces you to play condi to be “high end” competitive in pvp. We all know that that elite specializations are better than playing only base specs. However, this would mean that even if the next elite specs are balanced with the old ones, your choices for competitive pvp after the next expansion would still be condi or . . . . . . .condi.

Amaimon.7823:

I think the best aproach would’ve been a combination of the current exp grind, and an unlocking point that’s character bound. That way it would make some sense.
“don’t glide until you did the story chapter where get the glider”
“don’t eat mushrooms until you’ve actually learned to”
“don’t autoloot around you until you killed a demon who gave you a million long invisible arms”

I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Awhile ago, before this discussion was created, I watched a video on how “levels” in mmos don’t make any sense, at least compared to the real world. The better system would be to learn new skills throughout the game. When I heard this, it immediately made me think of the mastery system in contrast to the level system. The idea behind the mastery system is great. However, they have to really make it feel like you actually learned these skills, just like real life. How is grinding mobs or meta events suppose to teach you how to use updrafts while gliding or how to communicate with the Itzel? Learning them while playing the story or going through side stories/quests would be perfect.

DeanBB.4268:

Don’t the LS maps count as expansion content? After all, you can’t play them without HoT, right? So right now there are 8 HoT maps by my reckoning.

I suppose that view is debatable. You have to log in during the living story release to actually unlock the episodes. So, anyone who is new that buys the HoT expansion now won’t get any of those current new maps besides Lake Doric and anyone who decides to buy the expansion after the living story won’t unlock any of the other maps besides the original 4 HoT maps. By their reasoning, i’m sure they would completely disagree with you. They bought the HoT expansion and got 4 maps. So, would they consider the rest of the maps “part” of the expansion? Of course not. The only way I would say maps come with the expansion is if you pay for the expansion, then you guaranteed to get those maps. However, regardless, this is kind of beyond the point. I greatly enjoyed the HoT expansion. However, I still know that if the next expansion costs $50 and doesn’t come out with at least 6 of the non Dragon stand type HoT maps than gw2 is going to be in big trouble and a lot of people are going to leave the game. This is probably going to happen regardless of how much I enjoyed HoT or how much I will enjoy the next expansion. This is the reason I believe they really better take their time with the next expansion and make sure it can draw people into the game (in contrast with pushing people away).

I agree with most of what wooden potatoes said in his first 3 videos. However, I have to say that I’m against most of what he says on his masteries video. He makes is sound like masteries were one of the worst parts of the expansion, which I believe they were far from it. You know what would have been worse? Just leveling to get levels so that you can play the next story episode. Sounds ridiculous, right?, but that is how most mmos do it and that is how gw2 did it before HoT. In fact, I have to say I almost completely disagree with him. I am one of those who believe it DID take too much experience to lvl masteries before the HoT overhaul. Saying that masteries are account bound makes no logical sense to me as a reason for why they should require more experience. If you play and experience all the HoT dynamic events, story, and meta events and lvl your masteries along the way evenly with your game progression than that is perfect. While you are playing the content, at the same time you are feeling progression from the masteries. However, if you finish all the dynamic events, story, meta events, and are still required to grind meta events again and again to gain enough experience for a mastery than I find that bad whether the masteries are account bound or not. Why? Because I find repeating the same content over and over again boring and feel you shouldn’t feel forced to do this. It doesn’t matter if masteries are account bound or not, “fun” has the same definition for me regardless, and thats the objective of a game for developers, to make the audience have fun (not to make the audience put in more time simply because they feel like “account bound” features should require more time). I believe another major downfall of the masteries were the points locked behind gold on adventures. I believe getting gold in all the adventures in HoT is one of the hardest things to do in the game, and masteries are locked behind them. The adventures themselves weren’t that bad, it was just being forced to play them to a high level. If people want to compete on the leader boards for adventures, thats one thing. However, in certain adventures, there is not much leeway around getting gold and ranking high on the leaderboards. If mastery points are required for leveling than everyone should be able to acquire them. I have a hard time believing everyone at Anet got gold on all the adventures. Finally, yes, some of the masteries were boring and mostly just “gates”. However, I found a lot of them very good. I found all the gliding line amazing. Itzel language should have had more benefits than just a vendor. It should have allowed you to speak to many Itzel that you couldn’t understand before to get lore and other information from them. The same thing could be said for Nuhoch language and Exalted exceptance. However, that is really a small fix. Even today they could add more npcs that require Nuhoch and Itzel language. However, it would have been nice for them to give you useful advice at the beginning of the expansion like explaining that Wyverns are vulnerable to their own eggs. I don’t believe it was the actual mastery that was bad, it was just its implementation. Itzel poison wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing. I believe once again that just having more areas to explore that had itzel poison would have made it fine. Yes, I have to agree that all the boss “challenge” masteries and exalted assistance were bad and felt like feelers. However, these were a small percent of the masteries. I believe ideas behind all the rest of the “map” HoT masteries were good. I didn’t think the raid masteries were that bad either. After all, they should only be in raid areas. I guess the video made it sound like he was complaining an awful lot about many of the actual masteries themselves (and not saying it was mostly implementation). I think its fine if you have this opinion. However, if you have it, you should explain why this is your opinion and give an example of a mastery you would like to see that fits your opinion. I didn’t see wooden potatoes do this. It definitely would have been nice for him to give us multiple examples of masteries that he would have liked in the game.

Trying to be realistic, I really don’t expect the next expansion to come out at least until fall 2018. Anet’s team was cut in two with half of them working on the next expansion. Although there are people working on raids, fractals, and legendaries besides the living world episodes, they mentioned that the amount of people working on these parts is quite small compared to the number working on living world. Additionally, we can’t forget that they pulled people from the expansion that one patch to fix many aspects in the HoT expansion. I also think it is a good guess living story 3 is leading to the next expansion beings that is what happened last time. There was 8 episodes in living story 2. I expect living story 3 to have around the same amount of episodes. Yes, they are a little longer. However, they probably planned it out this way so that they had the time they needed to work on the next expansion (At least that is the way I would have done it). After all, they really can’t miss the mark with the next expansion. The expansion team is working on other things too besides maps. For example, I would be severely disappointed if all the maps were like the ones in the living story and didn’t have any meta events. I would also be disappointed if they only had one mastery per map. Additionally, they have the next elite specs to work on and much, much more. All of this is telling me that I don’t expect Anet to finish maps in the next expansion any faster than living story 3. In fact, I expect it to be slower. My guess is that 8 living world episodes would give them close to the time needed to make 6 maps or so for the next expansion (which I’m sure is close to the bottom line of maps expected based on the reactions to the first expansion.) If there is a 3 month gap between living world episodes and an additional 3 month gap between the last episode and the expansion, that would place the expansion at around August 2018. If they added one more episode or if the gaps were slightly longer than 3 months, that would put the expansion at around the same time HoT came out, right in time for Christmas, a very good time to release an expansion. IMO we also have to look at the HoT legendaries. Although they certainly could release HoT legendaries after expansion 2 comes out, it definitely doesn’t look good to release a second expansion before all parts promised in the first expansion were released. It is also not very fair to players who want those legendaries as those weapons require HoT play and those maps would certainly attract less people after a second expansion was released. Anet still has 9 more legendaries to release (they only released 7 so far). If they continued to release one per 3 months of so like they have been doing, it would take a whopping 27 months, or 2 years and 3 months, before they release all the legendaries. Now, do I expect this to happen? Of course not. However, it really wouldn’t surprise me if they had around 8 episodes that allowed time for 4 more legendaries to be released. At this time they would have 5 more left. Perhaps with the gap between the last living world episode and the expansion they could then pull enough people together to finish the last 5. All of these are reasons why I don’t expect the next expansion to come out until next fall, which I am honestly happy with as long as it beats out HoT in content and is polished.

The stats are condition damage and precision for major and healing power and concentration for minors.

The major problems I see with this are
1. no toughness, as you mentioned, if you are tanking
2. Duelist discipline is the main trait for condi mesmer builds in the dueling line. However, to get the most bang for your buck from this trait, you want many phantasmal duelists up. However, unfortunately what your team really needs is alacrity coming from multiple iavengers instead.
3. Many times chrono/mes is just useful for pulling mobs with their focus (which is a power weapon). If you have focus and shield, once again, there is no room for duelists.
4. Domination has the trait blurred inscriptions. This may not only be useful for distorting your team, if need be, but mainly for reducing the cool down of SoI. This brings the cool down more in line with the rest of your rotation so that you can more easily provide quickness for your team.
5. If you are using a scepter, you are giving up blurred frenzy from sword, one of the most useful skills in the game.

Anyway, thats just what I have at the top of my head at the moment for why the stats wouldn’t really be that good for chrono. From what I’m hearing, the only class that may find the stats useful are druids.

Cal Cohen.3527:

This mustache creep is crazy

Thank you sooo much! You made my night. I laughed so hard at this

I am glad that you are trying to improve balancing in the game, or how the gw2 population feels about balancing. However, I personally do not feel that many of your ideas would necessarily be beneficial, and may ultimately just take up more of the dev’s time that could be used to work on something else.

1. Pleeeease no. This might work in a perfect world, but probably not in reality. I do not have the numbers, however, I would say its a fair guess that there are far more players that play PvE than sPvP or WvW. Therefore, if there was vote by numbers, it is quite possible that you would see skills constantly favor PvE or PvE balance rather than the other two game types. Further more, I am sure favoritism between classes in not exactly even as well. For example, if there are far more people that play elementalists, than an ele skill getting a buff or not getting a nerf could be a lot more/less likely than an engi under the exact same situation. Eventually, this may even cause a run away effect where ele is more powerful, therefore a larger percentage of the population invests time into eles (either gold, skill, or experience), therefore, a lot larger percentage of the population is against ele nerfs even though in reality they could be justified. The exact opposite could happen to a class like engi. Engi is not very powerful, therefore, a smaller percentage of the population wants to invest or spend time on the class, therefore, a smaller percentage of the population really could care what happens to engis. Finally, frankly many people who would be allowed to vote simply would not have the in game knowledge of how to balance or what to balance. Now, thats not saying that some or many people in the community don’t have that knowledge, its just saying many people don’t. After all, many of the people who vote could be immature kids who want something completely different than “balance”. Therefore, voting could just lead to an insanely huge runaway power creep.

2. This could be good, . . . . . orrr it could be really bad. The problem is data is just that, data. Data still needs an interpretation, and many people may/could disagree on what that interpretation is. For example, lets just theoretically say (obviously not true), that eles do 10% more damage than the second highest dps class. Anet than posts this as a reason why they are nerfing else’s to reduce their dps by roughly 5%. The problem is, why many people may see that as justified, many others would not see it that way because eles with those types of high dps builds are one of the squishiest classes in the game. There is also the problem with different classes having different strengths and weaknesses and how “strong” those strengths or “weak” those weaknesses should be is not a straight up answer. Ultimately, posting such data could even end up leading to more fighting and disagreeing with each other than just accepting the changes. Cross-Profession data is also not necessarily always the answer because profesions are suppose to, are, and should be different from one another. That is the way it should be.
The problem is also that many people do realize how OP or weak some skills may be, yet they still disagree with the changes, not even necessarily because they didn’t think those changes should have occurred, but because they think Anet took it too far, or didn’t take it far enough. In fact, I think this is really where the majority of complaints come from, that along with HOW the nerf was done or enacted, and how that change affects all game types.

3. I am not sure if you mean Anet posting their own videos or referencing others videos. I don’t think its wise for Anet to reference others videos for reasons not all entirely related to this topic. However, either way, this largely gets grouped up into #2 as videos are data as well.

4. The problem with giving the population a golem or a dungeon to test balance changes on is that neither of them come even remotely close to crossing all 3 game types. For example, how are you suppose to tell how a WvW boon share build, or a 10 man raid build, would do on a dummy or 5 man dungeon? How is a golem or dungeon suppose to tell you if the class is balanced for PvP? Anet obviously has the tools to test these kinds of changes before they are released into the game. I think we should just let them do their “golem” tests or whatever other tests they do on their own. Then after releasing it into the game they can wait about a month to see how things are going and receive player feedback before making the finale tweaks on the balance change, just like how they do now when they release a balance change after a PvP season, wait about a month, and then may make small changes again before the next PvP season starts.

+1 Thank you for taking the time to post. Most people probably don’t understand these issues and just assume it was a nerf to quickness, when in fact, it affects your whole play style (and not in a good way). As mentioned, almost like if an ele reaches a certain dps marker not only can they not do more dps, but clicking additional attack skills is detrimental because it give no benefit and puts them on cool down. This is a Hooorrrible design. Additionally, this balance patch really messed up time warp as an elite skill. In case many of you don’t know, it pulses 1 sec quickness stacks throughout its 11 pulses. I went to the training area with 100% boon duration. If I cast time warp with 100% boon duration, I get around 18.86 sec of quickness (timed from a stop watch). If I cast well of action immediately followed by time warp, I get about the same, 18.80s to 18.90s sec on quickness. If I cast tides, followed by well of action, followed by time warp I get around 25.8 sec of quickness. You guys can go test it for yourself. If there was no quickness stack cap, the duration should be 22 sec, 28 sec, and 34 sec of quickness. So, basically this patch made it so that if you cast one of your utility skill that grants quickness right before your elite skill that grants quickness, you will get about the same amount of quickness than if you just used your elite skill. I don’t see how you can say this is not a broken design.

Aaaand to top it all off, Viper Ele now pretty much kicks every other condi class in the kitten , at least for non moving targets. This just even more enforces eles to take the last 4 spots, 40% of the raid group.

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Skills Team:
As this update rolls out we will continue to monitor the effectiveness of these changes, along with the remainder of the balance updates, and will make additional adjustments and tweaks as necessary. Thanks very much for your time!
-The Skills Team

I think we need to take this part into consideration.

So, if you add in time warp to the equation, there should be roughly 14 seconds of down time for a 10 man squad. Thats for a about perfect case scenario. However, chances are that that down time will be a lot larger since its hard to perfectly time everything perfectly, especially when trying to use illusionary inspiration (plus can’t use Illusionary inspiration with the first rotation). I suppose there may also be the option to bring a dragon hunter with 100% boon duration instead of a second chrono, using feel my wrath to cut out the down time. If they have permanent alacrity, they would be able to use feel my wrath twice per continuum split time, giving out 20 seconds on quickness to cover up the holes. Soooo, yaaa its really relying on your chrono to be nearly perfect. Of course, then you also wouldn’t get the 100% alacrity on your squad. So, more than likely 2 chronos would still be more reliable and better.

morrolan.9608:

fishball.7204:

morrolan.9608:

That doesn’t apply in this case since boon sharing is a problem in both WvW and PvE raids. In raids it is only an issue for speed running since you can easily finish all raids without the OTT boon sharing.

Boon sharing has never been a PvE/Raid problem, don’t talk about things you have no idea about.

Raids will still finish at the same speed now it just kills diversity since we’ll take 2 chronos instead of 1 and remove all classes that don’t benefit from alacrity (RIP thief, hammer DH, rev etc).

Will you be able to finish them with 1 after the nerf?

You will be able to finish them with 1, just like people have completed raids in greens. However, it will most likely not be optimal to just bring one. Additionally, most people always follow the meta, especially with harder content like raids.

I guess you would also have to make it so its more like blink. Almost like the illusion blinks to your location while at exactly the same time, you blink to the illusions location.

Xyonon.3987:

Fay.2357:

I’ll wait for the actual changes to develop an official position on this. As with most things, this could be implemented in a fashion that is healthy for the game.

And this is all we can and should say about the topic for now. If the shared base Quickness is 10s, it’ll be 20s with boon duration (“now” that it’s a fixed duration it will be affected by it) wich wouldn’t change anything at all.

I’m also curious how they will buff our dps. Traits? Basic mechanics? Or just another flat +5% dmg buff that won’t change nothing at all :|

We don’t know, we’ll have to wait and we will see on Tuesday. But what we now know for sure: ANet truly knows how to introduce a spooky Halloween :’D

I thought signet of inspiration just copied your boons and didn’t benefit directly from boon duration. For example, If you used well of action you would get 6 seconds of quickness instead of 3 with 100% boon duration. You could then use SoI to copy that 6 seconds to allies, not 12. However, if this is the case, and the rumor of a 6 sec quickness cap on SoI is true, then if you had chrono runes, placed well of action, and then used SoI, you would still only copy 6 sec of quickness to allies when you used SoI.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Xstein.2187:

Imbued Shatters: Your shatters now become blast finishers and you gain access to a manipulative skill for 4 seconds after a shatter. Note: Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration may need small, undecided damage nerfs with this spec.

Mind Wrack: Protection (1 sec)
Cry of Frustration: Stealth (2 sec)
Diversion: blink to your target
Distortion: Swap positions with the selected or most recently summoned illusion

Distortion: Swap positions with the selected or most recently summoned illusion

Because if there’s anything I’ve ever wanted to do as a Mesmer, its get into any tower, keep, or SMC and portal my zerg into Lord’s.

It would have a range limit, like illusionary leap/swap. Only this skill would gray out if the illusion is not within range, kind like how illusionary leap/swap should work :/

Major Adept

A. Phosphene: Apply Insanity when you interrupt a foe (4 stacks, 5 sec)
B. Chaotic Confusion: Chaos armor now has a chance of applying insanity to foes who strike you (1 stack, 5 sec)
C. Brain Cramp: Insanity you apply lasts longer (50%)

Minor Master – Faster: Quickness applied to you is 33% more effective.

Major Master

A. Resurrected: Illusions killed through damage are resummoned one additional time.
B. Hear me Now: Shout skills cleanse one condition on use and briefly give you might (1 stacks, 10 sec) and superspeed (3 sec)
C. What was That?: Shatter skills inflict Insanity on hit (5 sec)

Minor Grandmaster – Stronger: Might applied to you is 20% more effective.

Major Grandmaster

A. Back for More: After killing a foe, phantasms are resummoned on the next closest target (Radius: 600)

B. Hallucinations: Foes gain effects when they reach Insanity thresholds (20 sec ICD).

4: Confusion (1 stack, 6 sec)
7: Torment (2 stacks, 6 sec)
10: Fear (1 sec), Taunt (1 sec)
15: Moa Transformation (3 sec)

C. Phantasmal shatters: Summon a phantasm based on the shatter skill used.

Mind Wrack: Phantasmal Swordsman (15 sec ICD)
Cry of Frustration: Phantasmal Warlock
Diversion: Phantasmal Warden
Distortion: Phantasmal Disenchanter

Shouts

Heal

Protected Mind: Shout out to heal yourself (5,560) and your illusions, briefly giving your illusions distortion for 3 seconds (25 sec CD).

Utility

Brain Wash: Shout out, spreading insanity on foes to nearby enemies in the area (radius: 360) (30 sec CD).

Friendly Fire: Shout out, temporarily allowing friendly fire on enemies in the area for 5 seconds (45 sec CD).

They’re Insane: Call out to your allies, allowing them to briefly take advantage of Insanity on foes (5 sec, 20% effectiveness) (120 sec CD).

Elite

Shake it Up: Shout out, summoning the illusion of a giant to aid you in battle (does not take the place of an illusion spot). Periodically swings its axe in a circle and stomps its foot on the ground, knocking down foes (Duration: 30 sec, 180 sec CD)

Axe Skills

1. Standard Auto attack, slightly higher damage as there is no defensive skills like blocks or blurred frenzy with this weapon. 3rd hit applies 2 stacks of Insanity for 4 seconds (1/2 sec Act Time)
Number of Targets: 5
Range: 130
Dmg: 293, 293, 330
2. Swing you axe close to the ground, knocking down foes in front of you (Dmg 460, Might: 1 stack 8 sec, 15 sec CD)
3. Unleash a fury of strikes around you with your axe (Dmg 6X 1,696, 8 sec CD, Combo Finisher: Whirl). When the attack finishes, blink forward to the other side of your foe, leaving a clone at your original location.

Balance

I attempted to balance the specialization so that 25 stacks of might, quickness, 25 stacks of Insanity, food, and all other ally buffs would give you a dps of roughly 29k to 30k. This is actually based on the sword, so using the axe may give you a slightly higher dps. However, I tried to make it so PvP would be a completely different story. Your shatters have to land for you to imply insanity, or you have to interrupt your foe. Additionally, no one is going to stand still for you to land your 3rd hit over and over again. Your enemy can cleanse your insanity as well. This type of counter play is the reason I made a cleansable debuff rather than a buff. I do not believe Anet would ever allow mesmers to get a straight up buff that makes their power dps comparable to other classes. This would be much too difficult to balance in PvP. Ways to balance this spec would be to change the damage buff value for Insanity, change the duration of Insanity, change the amount of stacks cleansed (For example, perhaps a skill that would typically cleanse one condition stack cleanses 2 stacks of Insanity), change the max amount of stacks, change how fast you can apply stacks, and to change the effective values due to quickness and might. For PvE, there is some ramp up time to get to 25 stacks (<10 sec). However, I believe this is enough time for enemies with larger health pools, while for enemies with smaller health pools, just shattering for some Insanity and damage should be enough to take them down fairly quickly. It is also worth noting that my dream would be for the Dementalist to get both main hand and off hand axe in the same specialization. Lets be honest, it would look pretty kitten. The off hand axe being capable of summoning a phantasm that swings its axe in a large AoE circle. Currently, phantasmal warden is our only phantasm that does AoE damage. However, it is also focused on projectile defense. It would be nice to have a phantasm that is focused only on AoE damage. This would also help the mesmer in another field that it is currently week in.

The Mirage 2.0, AKA: The Dementalist

Description

Demented: Driven to behave irrationally due to anger, distress, or excitement. Bred for battle in the deserts of Elona, Dementalists are bloodthirsty warriors used to drive their foes to the point of insanity, allowing them to land deadly and ferocious strikes. Dementalists are also known to make the most of ally boons, as well as using their shouts to cause even more confusion on the battlefield.

Goals

Increase Mesmer’s sustain damage
Increase Mesmer’s power dps
Maintain survivability through active manipulation instead of passive effects (more fun)
Decrease Mesmer’s reliance on illusions: Currently around 40% ? potentially around 21% with specialization
Help Mesmer problems with illusion deaths
Maintain illusions for shatter skills (Problem formally solved with Chronomancer trait line).
Increase use of some less used traits like Imagined burden and Shattered Strength
At the same time, try to avoid making Mesmer OP in PvP and overall a fun class to play

Traits

Minor Adept – Catch me Now: Your shatters are now imbued with manipulative magic. Gain access to the main hand axe and the new debuff, Insanity.

Imbued Shatters: Your shatters now become blast finishers and you gain access to a manipulative skill for 4 seconds after a shatter. Note: Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration may need small, undecided damage nerfs with this spec.

Mind Wrack: Protection (1 sec)
Cry of Frustration: Stealth (2 sec)
Diversion: blink to your target
Distortion: Swap positions with the selected or most recently summoned illusion

Description: For example, after you use mind wrack, instead of looking like the traditional cool down, it looks like a different icon (with a different, undecided name) for 4 seconds before going on cool down. This is similar to how shattering continuum split gives you access to continuum shift for a short period of time. Although you may shatter in a specific order, this does not necessarily mean you need to use the manipulative skills right away or directly after the shatter. For example, you could shatter for diversion, click it again to teleport to your target, shatter for mind wrack, and then click mind wrack again for 1 sec of protection. However, you could also do something like Diversion—> Mind wrack —> Cry of Frustration --> Protection —> Illusionary Wave --> Blink to your target —> an attack skill like blurred frenzy --> Stealth. You just need to use the skill within 4 sec. To give you an idea on time, this is ½ sec shorter than a 2 illusion continuum split. This type of mechanic should open the door to a wide variety of possible rotations.

Insanity: Insanity is a debuff applied to enemies. It is like vulnerability in the fact that it increases the amount of damage the target takes by the Dementalists. This debuff does not work with phantasms or shatters, only attacks coming from the Dementalist who applied the stacks. Also, on its own, it does not increase the damage that allies apply to the target. It only works with the Dementalists. This debuff may be cleansed by foes. However, it may not be enhanced through condition damage or condition duration effects. Each stack of Insanity increases your damage on the target by 4%. It may be applied up to 25 stacks. I have considered if Insanity would work best if it just affected the Dementalist who applied it, or all Dementalists. I have the specialization set up so that it is fairly hard to stack (or that’s the goal). If it affected all Dementalists, two or more Dementalists may make stacking easier. It would also make it so that if a Necromancer used plague signet on you, an enemy Dementalist may be able to do more damage to you. I believe this is kind of a cool idea and adds for more interesting game play. However, having it this way may also lead to problems in WvW. It would also be much easier to balance if it just affected the person who applied the stacks. Therefore, I have decided to keep it this way.

I heard about this rumor quite a bit before this post. My heart kinda sank when I heard about the condition focused part. I really hope that is a rumor or miss information. Its pretty obvious that mesmers don’t really need a condition focused spec and that forming one might actually cause more harm than good if done wrong. What we need is quick start up sustain damage.

apharma July 21, 2016
“Just so you know, permanent alacrity reducing cool downs by 25% does not translate to a 25% dps boost. It has a lot to do with which classes you’re buffing, the skills they’re using and cast/aftercasts along with original cool down.
A good example is thief, it gains nothing from alacrity as its rotation is pretty much 11111 on staff with dodging mixed in. Quickeness however has a much more profound effect due to how it reduces cast/aftercasts of the auto attack which the chrono brings in buckets.
I think Nike made a raid guide on team comp and what he said was that warrior and Druid buffs were so good it was worth making sure everyone kept them up, Mesmer wasn’t except for the quickness which they can keep on a full raid squad with just 1.
Only takes an ill thought out nerf to say signet of inspiration and I dare say mesmer would be dead for raids most likely.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Are-we-going-to-get-damage-buffs-for-LS3/first#post6252878

Just thought since this post has developed for quite some time, I would stop by and drop down my view points on the matter. Most mesmers know that you can burst down lower health pool foes pretty easily with gravity well, well of calamity, mind wrack, etc. Many mesmers also know they are also capable of of putting up some fairly good dps numbers using the condi build Xyonon mentioned on single targets (with some build up time of course). If you ever seen the Chaos Anomaly level 99 Duo by [KING], it looks pretty impressive. However, that is not to say that there isn’t any problems with the current mesmer class and some of the living story mission achievements they have/may put out in the future. For example, I soloed Rising Flames on my mesmer pretty easily. However, I have to say that the last mission took me FOREVER. Of course, party of this was because I most certainly did not have the most optimized build for the encounter at the time (I wasn’t expecting a very high health pool foe to fight). However, I do wander how possible it is to complete the achievement “Maintain Aurenen’s Shield” solo on mesmer. However, regardless, all this means to me is that it is fairly obvious that mesmer has a hard time working on a single high health foe AND a lot of little mobs at the same time, while most other classes do not have a problem with this at all. Most people should be able to notice this and this is really hard to argue against. Many of the mechanics do work against the mesmer clkittenters destroy all your illusions, most phantasms are single target, etc. I also do not really agree that the chronomancer should necessarily get any dps buffs since they are such a strong support class. However, I do think all these obvious problems mean a future elite specialization definitely needs to focus on addressing these concerns.

Sorry, I didn’t mean you sounded depressed, I just meant the whole problematic mesmer thing sounded depressing, not you. There is just not an easy solution. Another idea that I had that I forgot about was that the elite spec would give you a damage modifier based on the number of phantasms you have. Basically, you (phantasms not included) would do substantially more damage if you had no phantasms and your personal damage would decrease for each additional phantasm you summon. This would also allow you to do quicker, high damage against mobs initially to help with the wind up time. I have also heard about ideas to change the shatter skills, like DuckDuckBoom mentioned. However, I just don’t understand how it would work with the traits. Would shatter concentration always remove the same amount of boons as it did before, even though the illusions aren’t really shattered/are destroyed? What about maim the disillusioned and all the other shatter traits? How would Bountifully Disillusionment and Master of Fragmentation work? I’m actually guessing those last two would work the same, just under different mechanic names?

p.s. ya I think a skill that increased phantasm damage would probably be better than more phantasms for many reasons. Split pve and pvp one of em.

Well that is . . . . somewhat depressing. However, I of course agree with you. The problem is most of our core traits deal with illusions or shatters. The other problem is that because of phantasms, our main hand weapon can only be buffed so much. On the other hand, you don’t think this would be viable at all in pvp over shatters? phantasmal swordsman, phantasmal axeman, signet of the ether—> axeman (or perhaps the new axe breaks away from tradition and has two different phantasm summoning skills instead on a clone and phantasms one), elite spec mechanic, then boom, you have six high damage phantasms up. Even though they are AI, that has to be pretty hard to avoid if they are attacking at different times. Of course, based on your remarks in mesmer rework, I could see why Anet would avoid doing this. I could only imagine PU problems

Imo, cause our dps would still suck. I also believe that is a problem now that could be helped by changing the trait Protected Phantasms to Protected Illusions. Your Illusions gain protection. Your Illusions periodically gain distortion when you summon them.

I have been trying to come up with a way to drastically increase the sustained power dps of the mesmer to a potentially raid competitive level in a future elite spec while at the same time maintaining trait synergy (or at least keeping all traits useful) and decreasing dps build up time. Inspiration for this spec has come from many of the powerful mesmers in gw history, such as Kitah who made her squad appear to double in size and Queen Jennah who created a clone of a large elder dragon.

New Mechanic: A new shatter skill (thats not really a shatter). When you click it, your phantasms and clones duplicate themselves (priority first on phantasms and then based on the order the phantasm was created.) You also get additional illusion spots (either up to 5 or 6). These “additional” illusions do not count towards your vanilla shattering skills. However, they do work with your traits.

Balance: Phantasms are said to make up roughly 40% of a mesmers dps. The Power (not condi) damage of a mesmer can get up to around 15K. By doubling the number of phantasms, your dps should go up by roughly 40% to about 21K. However, this is not taking traits into consideration. To balance this spec, the cool downs of mind wrack and cry of frustration may also need to be increased as soon as you trait in the elite spec, just like how the dragon hunters mechanics changed.

Trait Synergy
Domination and Dueling: All phantasm traits like Empowered illusions and Sharper Images
Chaos: Illusionary Defense: Damage reduction up to 18% with 6 illusions
Illusions: Compounding Power: Damage increased by up to 18% with 6 illusions
Inspiration: Healing Prism: Increased #illusions you control means increased healing power.

skills: Extra illusion slots allow room for typically unused phantasm traits like Phantasmal Defender and Phantasmal Disenchanter.

Elite Skill Summon a giant that periodically stomps the ground, knocking down enemies. Just cause it sounds cool and could go with “large illusion” summoning lore.

The Bad: Screen Clutter, perhaps too much

side notes: Don’t really care about the weapon, although axe or hammer would be pretty cool. However, I would like the weapon to create a phantasm that specializes in a lot of AoE damage. Phantasmal warden does some AoE. However, its more specialized in projectile defense. You could also obviously balance the spec by increasing the damage of the main hand weapons. Therefore it would be nice to see either a two handed weapon or two identical weapons, such as both mainhand and off hand axes together.

Todays just not my day to try pvp first mac disconnect bug and now this

Thanks for the super fast fix!

I got the same thing, also crashes at the end of a match when the scoreboard comes up. Nice to know others are having the same problem.

runeblade.7514:

Xstein.2187:

I think some may be missing the point. Why not just add Aggression and Denial stats without removing toughness and vitality from the game? I also made a suggestion earlier to add a control stat that increases the “damage” characters do to broker bars. I believe this would help give some classes more dedicated, specific roles in raids. I also wanted to add Precaution: decreases the damage done by conditions. Conditions would need to be slightly rebalanced. However, if done right, this should help so your not totally reliant on a form of condition removal in your skill bar or trait line-opening up more build variety in the game. Also, Destroyer stats would be Amazing to have in PvE as well.

Toughness and vitality makes a boring gameplay. Especially in PvP, you can find youtube duels that last forever with no one winning. I don’t want to just add Aggression and Denial because there is just too much CC in the game. If Aggression and Denial have to be in the game, the game would have to be built around CC + Aggression and Denial.

Hmm, I don’t exactly know how removing Toughness and Vitality would help with too much CC if a stat that increases CC would be added to the game, but oh well. One of the easiest ways to solve this issue would be to just add the stats to pve only. Keep pvp out of it. You could also potentially make it so that the stat only works against braker bars. Finally, there is always the option to slightly balance some of the cc skills after the stat is introduced. Same with precaution, there is always the option to rebalance some skill after new stats are introduced. However, right now there is just not very much build variety. Almost everyone in pve is wearing Zerk, Vipers, or Commanders. If a stat that increased braker bar damage was added to the game, it would just add another option to the kitten nal. I’m not looking at the short term future, I’m looking at the long term future. Just looking for a way to add more “useful” stat and build variety to a game that has always been a little low in that department.

I think some may be missing the point. Why not just add Aggression and Denial stats without removing toughness and vitality from the game? I also made a suggestion earlier to add a control stat that increases the “damage” characters do to broker bars. I believe this would help give some classes more dedicated, specific roles in raids. I also wanted to add Precaution: decreases the damage done by conditions. Conditions would need to be slightly rebalanced. However, if done right, this should help so your not totally reliant on a form of condition removal in your skill bar or trait line-opening up more build variety in the game. Also, Destroyer stats would be Amazing to have in PvE as well.

Zietlogik.6208:

I can still see A LOT of people who think this way about the current pricing model, and feel that their in-game gem purchases, or veteran status, are pretty much “thrown away” due to them believing in a notion that they are supporting the game more by purchasing gems and the original game, then they would be if they bought expansion, and they feel “cheated” so to speak.

Lets talk more about this “notion” that they are supporting the game more by purchasing gems and the original game, then they would if they bought expansion. What makes you think that a LOT of people believe this? Personally, this makes 0% sense to me. You support Anet by giving them money for their products. This includes both buying expansions and gem store purchases. What makes one better than the other? When people buy from the gem store, they know the product they are buying. Why would you feel cheated by this? Why do you personally feel that your in-game gem purchases are “thrown-away”? After all, you got the product you payed for. If you don’t like the gem store purchase you made, don’t buy it again. However, as of right now, I believe its wrong to think of it as a donation that entitles you to a discount. The gem store is in no way advertised as a donation sink. Its advertised as a place to purchase additional products/features for the game. Additionally, this new expansion didn’t appear to devaluate any of my gem store purchases that I made in the past. I am still just as happy with what I bought before the expansion as I am when the expansion came out. I am also not sure if I agree with this notion of Veteran entitlement. You buy the game and enjoy it. I have bought many counsel games that I have probably played for no more than 50 hours for around $60. I bought the core game much later than its release date when it was on sale, I believe around $25, and bought the Ultimate HoT Edition for $99.99. I have played gw2 for over 2,000 hours. At a cost of $120, this gives me a cost of .0625 cents per hour for gw2 vs $1.2 per hour for the counsel game. I am paying 1820% more per hour for the counsel game. Yet, I have never wrote a letter or posted on a forum demanding a discount for a counsel DLC because I bought the game when it came out for $60 and it only gave me 50 hours of content. I know I am getting a bit off topic now, but you at least see what I think. Buying gems gives you the advertised product you payed for, gems for the gem store. Buying the expansion gives you the advertised product you payed for, the expansion. These products are not related. Additionally, even with my additional gem store purchases not mentioned in this article, I still payed waaaaaay less for this game for the amount of entertainment it gave me than almost any other entertainment source. Of course, I understand this may not be the same experience with everyone. However, based on my experience and data I have absolutely no reason to complain about any purchases I make from Anet. In fact, I almost feel like I owe them more money for all the time and great fun I got out of this game.

First of all, try to enjoy the game for the games sake. Don’t make it a job. Just do what you want to do and masteries will slowly come to you over time. I guarantee that if you think about only masteries too much and that is your ONLY main focus then you will feel overwhelmed and maybe get burnt out. Need to understand that a very small handful of masteries are very useful. However, most are not needed in the game. They are split into HoT and Central tyria masteries. This means only experience in central tyria (including fractals and dungeons) can go towards central tyria masteries. Only experienced gained in HoT areas (including Raids) can go towards HoT masteries. You don’t need to finish a whole mastery track in order. In fact, I would highly recomend you don’t. I would go for masteries in close to this order.

HoT
1. Gliding
2. Bouncing Mushrooms
3. Updraft Gliding
4. Up to you

After number 3, you can spread out a little to other mastery lines based on my suggestions below and what the masteries offer. One thing to consider is that as you work down a mastery line, the masteries will require more and more experience to complete the mastery. They will also require/give more mastery points. This is why mastery lvl actually may seem a little skewed. Someone who is mastery lvl 1 is several masteries away from lvl 20. However, someone lvl 150 may be only 2 masteries from 170 because the last masteries they need require a lot of mastery points. As you start of finish your masteries, you may run into problems with running out of mastery points. A lot of these mastery points are locked behind adventures. However, at first don’t worry too much about getting gold in these adventures. Some of these are actually really, really difficult to get gold in, while some of them are easier. This link will give you an idea of their difficulty levels in order.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/42gd63/if_you_could_rank_the_adventures_in_terms_of/

The masteries stated above are the only ones that I would say are really necessary. Eventually, you may want to complete the whole gliding track since it makes it easier to complete some adventures and get around.

In the Itzel lore track, you want to work your way up to Itzel poison since it is needed for some mastery points (don’t worry about the last two in this track unless you are just looking for some place to put experience).

In the Exalted lore track you want to do Exalted Markings and then only get exalted acceptance when you are ready or want to buy something from the exalted. The last 3 of the masteries in this track you don’t have to worry about unless A. You Want a Place to put experience or B. You may need it if you are working on your profession achievement for the weapon skin.

In the Nuhock lore mastery line you want to get up to the 2nd mastery (Nuhock Wallows). This makes it easier to get around. After this, you can get Nuhock language only when your ready or want to buy something. Nuhock stealth detection is really only needed if you want to get one of the profession achievements (although I managed to complete it without this mastery). Don’t worry about the last two unless you are just looking for a place to put experience.

The Forsaken thicket mastery line is useful only in raids and you can only unlock it by defeating a raid boss. So, don’t worry about it right away. Only worry about it if you get involved in Raiding.

The ancient magic mastery is only useful in Bloodstone fen (available after the new living story 3 part 1) So, you can work on it when you get there. However, that will be a little down the road.

Central Tyria

Advanced logistics for auto looting is pretty useful so you don’t have to take the time looting bodies. However, it will take you awhile since its at the top of this mastery line. So, its not necessary, just nice. Don’t worry about it too much.

The legendary crafting line is only useful if you want to craft a precursor or one of the new HoT legendary weapons. However, be warned, you may need to check around with the prices. Some precursors are actually cheaper to buy straight from the trading post than to craft yourself. They generally require A LOT of ascended crafting materials.

Based on your post, you are probably interested in the Fractal Mastery line. If so, this is were I would put all your central tyria experience until you finish the whole track. You will need to get the first two masteries to get your Agony resistance up higher. It is a lot easier to get your AR up higher with these masteries since they let you “attune” ascended rings, or add another infusion slot to them. Recursive Resourcing is also useful as you get more from chest of the Mists (I personally just saved my chests until I got this mastery and then opened them all at once). The last in the line isn’t really needed. However, it could come in handy depending on the fractal, tier level, and raid group. Basically, its like a one free life. However, you need to collect it in the fractal to use it. You will get to know the location of the mistlock singularities later.

I kinda felt like a chronomancer when HoTfirst came out. The real problem for me is that I just get too involved in completing the same rotations over and over again or just defeating the boss that I don’t really take the time to think how the class (or any class) feels at all. If I was role playing, I . . . . think I might feel like a chronomancer. Part of the problem for me as well is there is not enough content where you can really “see” the effects of quickness/alacrity and slow/chill. When quickness and slow worked on stomping, it was so cool watching people go in slow motion and you definitely felt like a chronomancer. I want slow and quick stomps back If there was more content in the game with long drawn out animations that were affected by slow and quickness than I think you would notice it more. However, everything in the game is actually relatively quick to begin with to really notice that much.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Keksmuffin.1450:

i will never understand why people keep talking about condi metas or condis breaking the game when there was never a point where more than 2 or 3 classes at once actually ran condi builds that werent gimmicks in pvp <_<

People get really, really offended at the idea of conditions actually being viable, and I’ve never understood why.

I just explained why in my paragraph above, or at least one of the major issues people have with it.

Yseron.8613:

- I went in all the little houses trying to open all the chests, doors and all the furnitures like in morrowind and thought i could not open them because i hadnt unlocked something yet

I did this as well

- Spent a decade trying to decide what class I should create

- Spent a decade trying to figure out how to dive under water like everyone else. Why could I only swim on top?

- I first started the game when the battle of lions arch was going on and all my friends were lvl 80. So I decided to go on a little journey with my lvl 5 sylvari thief to lions arch (because I felt lonely) to tag some enemies from a distance with my short bow. When all was said and done, I was completely nude since I died so many times. However, I did get credit for some events

- Collected every single minor rune I came across to store because I was scared it might be useful when I was a higher lvl. Seriously, my bank was full of runes.

- When I first started pvp, I played as a mesmer, summoned illusions, and auto attacked with gs from a distance, thinking I was “sneaky” for blending in with my illusions. Oh ya, also went after beast first. However, oddly enough this is what the group seemed to always do first when I first started pvp a long time ago.

Well, you could call me crazy, but I’m actually going to respond to the OPs suggestions rather than the fact he called the game dying (which may be the only reason this thread is maintaining attraction in the first place) or didn’t split split his writing into paragraphs.

1. I don’t play a lot of WvW, so you may have to take some of this with a grain of salt. However, I do know that how others responded has some truth to it in regard to why they combined servers. Although some of the larger servers may have still been populated, for some of the smallest ones, it may have been a different story. Perhaps they may start splitting servers again if WvW becomes more popular or attracts more people. However, I do know that since HoT launch, they definitely realized some of their problems and have made very, very large attempts to fix them. For example, they have had WvW votes and added new armor and tracks to WvW. I know this has helped attract more people to WvW and is perhaps the most the WvW team at Anet can do. If they split the servers again, I also believe they also need something in place to make the servers more even without making a large portion of the community upset.

2. I have to at least partially agree with you here. However, this issue has also become much, much better. You see, the problem isn’t necessary just that X% of classes were or are playing condi builds as some people have mentioned. The problem was also that at the time this type of meta forced every one to take condi removal, mostly in the form of traits. As a result, this greatly decreased the amount of viable builds in the game (which I believe is really, really, really bad, doesn’t make pvp as fun, and drastically cuts down on creativity and variety). One way they have appeared to fix this, besides simply nerfing, is by decreasing condi duration and putting some of that damage into condi damage instead. This made it so condi was slightly more “bursty” than it was before, so that condi removal wasn’t quite as vital as it was before, while at the same time condi classes could still remain viable/do damage. However, I think they really should still/should add another stat type for amulets that decreases the amount of damage condis do to you (like toughness). This would still open up build variety further so that you could take X amulet so that you don’t necessarily have to take X trait line because it has condi removal. This is a bit off topic, however I also believe that in the future they should add a stat that lets you do more breaker bar damage in pve as well. Some small balance changes may need to take place after with both some classes and bosses. However, I believe this may help give engis and thieves more distinct rolls in pve over eles and necros.

3. Balance is much, much better now than it was at the start of HoT. Although some small changes may need to be made with both buffing and nerfing, the only class that really stands out now from the rest is dragon hunters. This class may need what others would consider a little bit larger changes. Weather you call it due to perfect imbalance or not, the so called deviation from the balance range was waay to large at HoT release and I believe still is slightly with dragon hunter. Remember, at the end of the video, they stated that if new rolls are found to counter so that no nerfs are necessary than it is do to perfect imbalance while if the class is nerfed, the class was more than likely too powerful. I don’t necessarily like this way of describing it since this puts the definition of perfect imbalance directly in the hands of the devs. However, we do know that many of the classes that were considered too powerful by many in the community at the start of HoT did receive significant nerfs. Therefore, I don’t really believe that it was necessarily just planned perfect imbalance and think DH could stand to be tuned down a little in the damage department. What I would really like to see is DH damage tuned down and defense and defense given to allies slightly buffed to bring them slightly back into more of that bunker style again. If raid bosses are appropriately created, this would also help give them a more dedicated role in raids as well (protecting others, which kinda already is their roll). @ By the way, thanks for the video and I probably will try to watch the rest of the episodes now

p.s. gw2 is not dying or dead. Populations have probably been improving since the big HoT overhaul and living story.
p.s. p.s. Whoops just got your new messages about gw2 not dying

Thank you Anet! This world that you brought us has touched so many people and brought so many good memories. There is no other game like it. I appreciate all the hard work that everyone has put into it. Now, with that said . . . . . . time to get back to some gw2!

How would you increase build and team comp diversity in gw2?

My suggestions
1. New stats
2. New amulets/armor
3. New sigils
4. More elite specializations

New Stats
Control (pve only): Do more cc Damage to breaker bars
Precaution: decreases the effects of condition damage.

Precaution helps free up more leeway to choose other traits or trait lines as another option to help protect you from conditions. This should help free up more room for build diversity overall. Some condis might need to be rebalanced.

Control is mainly for classes that I feel are lagging behind in the raiding scene, particularly Engineers. Before slick shoes was nerfed, engis kinda had a role with breaker bars and gors. Perhaps adding control as a stat and increasing the breaker bar cc damage needed to deplete it will help give some classes more specialized roles. I was mainly considering this before eles got hit so hard and thieves also desperately needed a role. The plan was to have engis specialized as a condi class that are good at breaker bars while thieves are a good power class that are good at breaker bars. A more specialized role for guardians is perhaps a little harder to fix right now. Providing protection and aegis seems to be the main go too. Perhaps the guardians next specialization could focus on a tanking role that also provides protection to teammates. Raids would also be created that require this type of function.

New amulets/armor I would like to see

Condition damage, Power, Expertise, Control
Power, Precision, Ferocity, Control

Power, Precision, ferocity, precaution
Condition damage, Power, Expertise, Precaution
Condition damage, Power, precision, Precaution
Condition damage, Power, Toughness, Precaution
Power, Precision, Toughness, Precaution

Power, Precision, Ferocity, Concentration-For support builds that don’t need to tank
Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage-Already in pvp, but still want it in pve

New Sigils Examples

On weapon swap. For 3 seconds all conditions cast on opponents are unable to be cleansed.
On weapon swap. Reflect Conditions back to the source for 3 seconds

Any you would like to see?

Oh, I see it. Thanks for the help

Thanks for the reply. However, I tried searching and still can’t get it to work

Why doesn’t the gem store ever load for me? I submitted the same topic before, it worked about 1 time, and then it went back. The gem store never loads for me. I have a mac if that is relevant. Is there a way of avoiding this problem? Is there a way to buy gems or make gem store exchanges without clicking the black lion head in the game? I really, really don’t want to have to ever deal with this problem ever again.

Thanks

Still looking for more.

The one thing I would like to see changed is how your shield always completely covers up your back item. I know this has been mentioned on the forums before. However, I’ve never seen it mentioned here, so thought I would through it in.

Our guild is currently looking for individuals to fill up a couple of open positions in a raid group for Sunday and Monday nights at 10:30 pm CT. No guild rep is required. However, we do expect you to show up on time for raids. Some raid experience is preferred (at least with the first raid wing). Multi classing is also preferred. We also have plans to start training another raid group from scratch if you are interested in starting to learn Raids.

Expectations

- Show up to Raids
- Know your class/classes
- Full Ascended
- Access to Teamspeak
- A good Attitude (willing to learn/improve, take and give advise/critiques, and have fun. However, absolutely no raging or direct/personal attacks on fellow group members.

If you are interested, feel free to send a message, mail, or contact in game.

You are correct, it would start at 14 seconds and start ticking away. During that ticking, it would not change if your food ran out during those 14 second or for whatever other reason. Likewise, it would not increase if you gave yourself boon duration food after you gave yourself might.

Note: It actually works based on when you cast the spell. For example, lets say you swap weapons to get the 33% boon duration buff from sigil of concentration for 7 seconds. You then cast well of action. Well of action doesn’t grant the 3 seconds of quickness until the last pulse. Lets say when 6 seconds pass on sigil of concentration you cast well of action. Therefore, you cast the well when you had 33% boon duration. However, the resulting skill didn’t actually provide quickness until after the 7 seconds. In this case you would still get 4 seconds of quickness instead of 3. Same thing with time warp. If you would cast time warp while you had 33% boon duration then all pulses of time warp would get that 33% duration, even if your boon duration wore off before time warp ended. So, really, your boon duration only matters at the time you cast the skill.

I am not sure what % damage 25 stacks of might adds when tested. However, in theory, using ascended zerk armor and trinkets, sigil of force, scholar runes, seaweed salad, toxic sharpening stones, and 100% crit chance, your dps should go up by roughly 28.17%. Permanent alacrity and quickness increases your dps by 25% to 50% (depending on the class and skills used). I am also not sure what kind of dps a phalanx strength warrior brings exactly. However, I have seen videos of warriors with dps at 28k. This is over twice the dps of a mes. When a chrono has to concentrate so much on rotations just supplying quickness and alacrity, giving up the 10% boost of scholar runes, giving up dps food for boon duration, and giving up phantasm damage to support allies with alacrity from iavenger, the dps is much, much lower. Especially, when initiating fights they have a period where they need to bring up 3 phantasms to bring their dps up anyway.

What all this actually means, idk. However, I do hope that now that they are doing a little pve/pvp splitting that chrono gets a little more sustained dps because as of right now its laughable. It takes forever to bring some mobs down compared to other classes. Besides, as of right now, doubling the sustained dps of a chrono would have no effect on the meta (other classes would still be brought for their higher dps, might, healing, etc.) and it would have little effect on the outcome of a raid fight because chronos are 1/10th of the group and have minimal dps to begin with.

Boon duration only increases the duration of boons applied by the character. Chaotic Persistence and superior sigil of concentration just increases your boon duration. For arcane thievery since you did not apply the boons yourself, it would not benefit from boon duration. Signet of inspiration does not directly benefit from boon duration either. For example, if you had 10 seconds of might given to you by another character, you had 100% boon duration, and you cast signet of inspiration at the exact same time you got might, then you would give 10 sec of might to your allies, not 20 sec. However, if you would have given 10 sec of might to yourself with 0% boon duration. With 100% boon duration you would give yourself 20 sec of might instead. Then when you cast signet of inspiration you would give 20 sec of might to allies.

Sorry, must of been a bit dazed when I wrote it, but thanks for the feedback

Nope, Nope, too far? . . . sorry

1. The bloodstone was created by the Seers to store magic that was not corrupted by the Elder dragons. It was later split into 5 pieces by the human gods because the wide spread magic was abused and caused many wars. Four of this pieces represent the four schools of magic: aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial. The fifth piece is the keystone required to piece together the bloodstone again. I am not sure if this is lore or just speculation. However, it is generally agreed that the magic used by the Mesmer is associated with the denial school of magic.

2. Lyssa is the patron goddess of mesmers. She is the goddess of beauty, water, and illusion. Men who have glanced at her statues have been known to be entranced by her beauty and die of thirst days later. She is actually the twins, Illya and Lyss, who are depicted intertwined. Anet made the purple colored Mesmer like pistols Ilya and Lyss after her. Lyssa is also related to chaos energy. This is why the runes of lyssa give random boons. The human racial skill Prayer to Lyssa also grants you a random boon. Like her, mesmers are also associated with beauty, illusions, and chaos. You can see the similarities in the chaos trait line. Lyssa also has the abilty to transform, for example in one story she transformed herself into an old lady. This is the reason I bought Lyssa’s outfit from the gem store right when it came out.

3. Chaos magic/energy is associated with transforming beings into different forms and teleporting individuals. Chaos magic may be very closely linked to dragon energy. In the Thaumanova Reactor disaster, the inquest mistakenly studied dragon energy, believing it to be chaos energy. This resulted in a tear in the fabric of reality, also associated with chaos magic, that created a chaos rift, teleporting creatures from all across Tyria.

4. Some of the most well known mesmers include

A. Countess Anise: The Master Exemplar of the shining blade, the queen’s royal guard, and her advisor. She is known to be quite beautiful. She is also known to be able to predict the actions of others. Based on a message from Canach during the Rayal Summit, it is theorized that she may also use her mesmer powers to hide her true age and form. I also remember reading in another forum post about a theory that she may have used chronomancer skills during the living story.

B. Kasmeer Meade: enough said. She may have partially inherited her “mesmer” powers from her mother. She has also been known the have exceptional abilities. For example, I remember in the living story her being able to create multiple portals without the typical cool down that you have. Now I predict that she may have secretly used a chronomancer continuum split/mimic to cast multiple portals.

C. Lord Odran: The first mortal to enter the mists by creating a portal to the rift. He then used the rift to travel to different worlds. He is known for his power of temporal distortions. Chronomancer?

D. Gwen: Commanding Officer of the Ebon Vanguard in gw1.

5. The Mesmer Collective is a semi-secretive organization of mesmers. Two known members are Countess Anise and Kasmeer. Certain extremely powerful mesmer spells are known only to the most elder members of the mesmer community, and are kept a secret from outsiders. The collective sends members to investigate unknown occurrences where mesmer magic may be involved, such as the Veil that was concealing the Tower of Nightmares.

6. Many of the skills and traits from gw2 are named after mesmer skills from gw1 and are similar (and sometimes not): Arcane Thievery, Chaos Storm, Confusing Images, Cry of Frustration, Distortion, Diversion, Ether Feast, Feedback, Imagined Burden, Ineptitude, Mantra of Concentration, Mantra of Resolve, Mind Wrack, Persistence of Memory, Power Block, Signet of Humility, Signet of Illusions, Signet of Midnight, etc.

7. Someone might need to help me out on this one. This is related to number 4. There was also an extremely powerful mesmer who I believe created an army of illusions (may have been to protect against the charr?). However, as a result, they went blind. There may have also been another mesmer who went blind from casting an extremely powerful spell. I can’t remember. I also can’t remember the name, can’t find it on the Internet, and would greatly appreciate it if someone would remind me. Anyway, due to this fact, I now where a blind fold over my Norn mesmer. She went blind when she went bad kitten crazy in a fight after a certain event, that I won’t mention due to spoilers, in the HoT story. But Man I was kittened.

8. It may not be that surprising we got the Chronomancer elite specialization beings that mesmers were already know to warp reality or space-time with spells like glamours. Such skills include blink, portal, and time-warp.

9. The Butterfly logo for the mesmer, and the butterflies depicted after shatters, may be tied to mesmers due to the butterfly effect (small causes in the past can have amplified, larger effects in the future. Example, If you go back in time and step on a fly then the human race may not form in the future). This effect is associated with both time and chaos. The butterfly is also associated with transformation and rebirth, going from a larvae to a butterfly. Kinda like Lyssa transforming from an old lady into a beautiful goddess.

10. Mesmers are also associated with acting troupes, the minstrel, and circuses.

That’s all I got for now, feel free to help me out with number 7 ?

Loved the Video! The extra stuff you added to spice it up really made it Amazing.