Guild Wars 2

Sword 2 has lots of pathing problems to the point it often doesn’t do any damage.

Azure.8670:

GS for PVE though, due to the sheer amount of enemies hit, is fine for generation. sucks for pvp tho

Only open world PvE. Try a single target boss and it’s a different matter.

Muchacho.2390:

Zenith.7301:

Greatsword 5’s pull should actually function like temporal curtain and revenant sword 5, a pull that interrupts with a knockdown state. Right now it pulls the target to you but it doesn’t interrupt their actions; it just slides them to you.

Ehh it does knockdown and interupt. It is just a bit buggy and it doesnt work sometimes…

Yeah, realized later ;(.

I just want it to work like temporal curtain/binding blades, it’s just an inferior version of those.

My revenant does more damage. Of course revenant DPS now is close to ele DPS and unlike Reaper the revenant utilities and heals don’t suck.

Plus if you didn’t organize your bank right before making your first beta toon, you have no access to ascended gear to test the reaper on fractal 50…

You also can’t have access to character makeover kits to tailor your hair and face that are makeover kit exclusive since the beta character customization is the basic one.

Nyth.3492:

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger is 0/2/6% and attacks much faster. Greatsword should be something like 2/6/8 %

Thank god you’re not in charge of class balance then :P

GS needs worse LF generation than dagger, because it has other advantages.
It now deals higher burst damage and quite a lot higher sustained damage below 50%. It cleave 3-5 targets.
Basically it serves a different purpose than the dagger does. So for that reason it doesn’t need the same LF generation.

I think it’s pretty slow too, but I feel it’s a weakness the weapon needs to have. And there are ways to get LF generation through other sources (utilities / shout heal / etc) if you desperately need it; plus there is weapon swap. Swapping to Dagger/Warhorn for some quick LF generation (or maybe another combo like axe / WH for #2 + #5), is an option as well.

EDIT: Note that I’m not saying the weapon doesn’t need adjusting. I just think that it shouldn’t ever be on the level of LF generation that the dagger auto attack chain is.

Why not? Dagger is a crap weapon that should be revamped anyways, just because its only good thing is LF generation doesn’t mean that greatsword should have a complete lack of sustain when a double melee setup may not even be feasible in many scenarios, especially since reaper shroud is also melee range so you are bound to need some form of ranged attack given that the necromancer will never be given enough leaps/teleports to keep up with targets.

I also want to comment on the chill on our third attack of the autoattack chain.

It won’t work. With current mob design, I have to interrupt my autoattack chain pretty constantly to dodge.

You need to divide the chill all across the first and second autoattacks in the chain and account for the fact that most of the really slow necromancer greatsword attacks will need to be interrupted to dodge often.

I’m not really digging this slow, suicidal feel. The necro does not have enough mitigation outside death shroud to have such a slow weapon. Nightfall does help against melee, but with the amount of lethal archer/ranged type mobs you’re really a sitting duck.

Greatsword 5’s pull should actually function like temporal curtain and revenant sword 5, a pull that interrupts with a knockdown state. Right now it pulls the target to you but it doesn’t interrupt their actions; it just slides them to you.

Of course this might be less frustrating if the necromancer could actually healm himself worth a kitten and poison didn’t utterly cripple him.

Anchoku.8142:

i have been running vital persistence and it seems to work right when no one is hitting me. perhaps the attacks in verdant brink are just that much more damaging.

taking a break and may reconfigure to standard necro to compare vital persistence performance.

one other problem for necromancers is the lack of reflects, projectile destruction, and evades. it seriously feels like running through a wvw filled with zerker long-bow rangers. tentacles shooting poison bombs also did not help

The mobs hit much harder.

One attack from a non-veteran archer frog takes off half my health. That’s a 10k hit, only fractal 50 mossman or Archdiviner ever hit me that hard.

I’m really not so impressed with greatsword after playing my revenant.

The reaper damage is now on PS warrior/guardian level, but slower to deliver, and revenant does monstrous damage with the glint heal pretty much healing you to full every 20 seconds whenever you’re being attacked and your utilities are toggles that give perma might and perma 10 stacks of fury all the time, toggles you can detonate for additional effects.

I really feel reaper got screwed big time with the shout utilities.

Revenant auto hits so much harder (without even might the last chain of the attack crits for around 4.3k) and the unrelenting assault on a single target is easily 20k+ damage while under invulnerability frames. It’s like a better Blurred Frenzy in every way, it’s outrageous how much more damage my revenant does than my necro let alone mesmer’s terrible damage.

Reaper abilities are very pretty, but the damage numbers are middling given how slow and vulnerable they are.

Gravedigger spam on a boss below 50% hp is your saving grace on this specialization.

Problem with necro as well is you got no built in condition removal outside consume conditions unless you equip an offhand dagger+mainhand dagger set to cleanse conditions. Reaper is very vulnerable to sustained condi application from mobs.

If a mob gets poison on you, forget it, your already miserable heals got even more abysmal.

Anchoku.8142:

i went through RS pretty quickly. there are two things i have noticed
1. archers in verdent brink burn through hp stupidly fast. they may be doing the same to shroud. archers could sit pretty and burn away my hp while melee mobs fought up close.
2. life force generation on greatsword is ugly slow for a short range weapon. i had to switch to dagger for both heals and life force generation constantly.

Agreed, Greatsword could still stand to gain more life force. It’s such a slow attack chain that for the damage mobs do you really are not generating enough life force.

Just in general I found groups of mobs can constantly interrupt your greatsword autoattack chain because of how many telegraphs you need to dodge at the same time.

Taku.6352:

Herald traitline is the 3rd best line for PvE revenants as it has a dmg modifier in it. And the access to facets is linked to Herald traitline so it’s a no brainer to take it.

It’s the grandmaster you take the line for; the adept, master, and minors are all weak from a PvE perspective and the only reason you take herald over salvation or corruption or retribution is because all of those other three are virtually useless to a berserker revenant. Herald is the least useless traitline a revenant can take after Devastation and Invocation.

Silverkey.2078:

Zenith.7301:

The Heals

This one of the necromancer’s most glaring flaws. The shout heal barely budges my health up, it’s too low in healing.

In fact, the necromancer is merely a damage sponge with little potential for recovery in protracted combat.

If I am kept in combat like in any holdout mission, I’m just slowly wearing away as I can’t seemingly bring up my health relative to the damage new mobs are doing.

By comparison, my revenant pops shiro’s daggers and the glint heal and he’s back to full constantly.

Something needs to be done about our heals. We can’t sustain ourselves with the new damage going out. We’re basically forced to camp reaper shroud, in which we do completely horrendous damage.

Buff well of blood and the shout. Reduce the cast time of well of blood, consume conditions, and the minion heal. Increase the healing value of all these heals or reduce their cooldown.

The shout heal has a low cooldown but miserable healing. I won’t be using it for now.

Well of Blood should be made a water field and remove conditions on pulse. Consume Conditions should basically convert the conditions into boons or grant life force per condition consumed.

Your soul is mine is actually a fairly good heal compared to our others. The healing/cooldown is the highest, only beaten by CC with a few conditions BUT it also gives LF and its CD can be drastically reduced with the shout trait (without blinding yourself!)

But in general yes, necro’s healing are weaker than other classes which have less HP… so in healing percentage of full life this is even worse…
But you know… it’s probably because the shroud is OP…

Completely disagree about shroud. I’d trade shroud for active defenses that don’t gut your damage and HP recovery any day.

Reaper Shroud is useless to me. I’d trade it for death shroud, and better yet I’d trade both shrouds in general for the active defense mechanisms of other classes.

Necromancer has no lasting power in PvE. You absorb damage and that’s about it, it’s an uphill climb after your health is low and you life force is depleted while wiating between heals that barely move you up.

I had a far better time on my Revenant and Guardian.

Because with Death shroud you can kite and do more or less similar damage from range. Reaper Shroud does too little damage for being melee, does less DPS than greatsword, and its upkeep is tied to a a melee 3rd step autoattack.

Reaper Shroud is awful in PvE.

Greatsword damage is buffed, which is nice, but then you play a power revenant and notice how much more autoattack damage the revenant sword does and Unrelenting Assault is monstrous damage on a single target and gives you evade frames whereas every greatsword attack leaves you vulnerable for a long animation time.

I think the duration of the pulsed boons should be longer so you shouldn’t be afraid to use the active more often.

Yes, some people will say to use Facet of Nature, but that and the facet for might or fury alone completely eats up your energy upkeep, and quite frankly it’s just boring.

If you don’t want to increase the pulsed boon duration, you need to increase the potency of the active skills.

I will also say, the Herald traitline has terrible trait choices for PvE. As a PvE power revenant I feel my only good options are Invocation and Devastation, and the third line boils down to “which of the remaining traitlines suck less.”

Greatsword

The buffs were good. Won’t be beating a DPS revenant or elementalist, but it’s a step in the right direction, as Gravedigger is very good now. I’m frankly more concerned with the mob attack patterns and this weapon basically being interrupted constantly by CC.

Greatsword 5 is still clunky as hell and unreliable to land as a pull. Why not make it a targeted reticle and it basically pulls target caught in that reticle to you?

Reaper Shroud

Simply put, its damage is so terrible and below greatsword that I will never use this form except to turtle and maybe stun with executioner’s scythe.

The reaper auto is truly pitiful damage, making reaper’s onslaught kind of a wasted talent.

Soul Spiral similarly does too little damage.

In fact, the only skill I can speak positively about is executioner’s scythe. It’s a pretty good and much needed stun/chill.

Reaper Shroud also depletes too quickly and it’s hard to keep up with its autoattack unless you’re fighting a ton of enemies to land your cleave with.

The Heals

This one of the necromancer’s most glaring flaws. The shout heal barely budges my health up, it’s too low in healing.

In fact, the necromancer is merely a damage sponge with little potential for recovery in protracted combat.

If I am kept in combat like in any holdout mission, I’m just slowly wearing away as I can’t seemingly bring up my health relative to the damage new mobs are doing.

By comparison, my revenant pops shiro’s daggers and the glint heal and he’s back to full constantly.

Something needs to be done about our heals. We can’t sustain ourselves with the new damage going out. We’re basically forced to camp reaper shroud, in which we do completely horrendous damage.

Buff well of blood and the shout. Reduce the cast time of well of blood, consume conditions, and the minion heal. Increase the healing value of all these heals or reduce their cooldown.

The shout heal has a low cooldown but miserable healing. I won’t be using it for now.

Well of Blood should be made a water field and remove conditions on pulse. Consume Conditions should basically convert the conditions into boons or grant life force per condition consumed.

The Shouts

You’re All Weaklings or Suffer are the shouts I may consider using, never more than one. I’ll use well of suffering and well of corruption, and then either of the two I have mentioned. Shouts simply provide no group utility and I see no point in sacrificing my aoe damage potential or group support for some mediocre selfish shout effects.

Chilled to the Bone can be reduced to 45-60 second cooldown and it’ll be good. Jade Winds fromthe revenant will most likely eclipse it in group content as it fulfills more or less the niche CttB does but with a far lesser cooldown time (due to the revenant mechanic).

Rise! suffers for the very reason minions suffer, they’re aoe fodder and immediately cleaved. Until you give pets aoe avoidance, this shout will never be used.

Traits

Nothing much has changed. The traits outside Decimate Defenses are not particularly good for PvE. No damage modifiers or group support traits, purely selfish PvP gimmick traits.

Augury of Death won’t be used because shouts are not used, and it’s of little value against single target bosses. Chilling Nova is quite frankly underwhelming, it does so little of worth in PvE.

Relentless Pursuit is of no interest to PvE players— the cripple/chill/immobilize conditions will be immediately cleansed.

Shivers of Dread is still terrible with how little access reapers have to fear and the cooldown on infusing terror. Slap a 10% damage modifier against chilled targets on this trait.

Cold Shoulder similarly is very weak in a PvE setting. It should make chill decrease enemy damage to you and allies. Give the necromancer the niche of reducing damage to allies by slowing down foes’ damage output with chill.

The grandmaster I’ll use will most likely be Deathly Chill, which is pretty mediocre, but not useless as Reaper’s Onslaught has no benefit whatsoever with the current damage of reaper’s shroud. Reaper Shroud is a DPS loss over greatsword, so I’ll never use it unless I’m on the verge of death waiting for my heal.

On an unrelated note, Blood Magic’s Life From Death could use a buff. Exiting death shroud shoul give 25-50% health back to downed players, not a pitiful 5%. Quickening Thirst should apply to Greatsword and Spear as well.

*The problem with Reaper is I’m already giving up my only utility traitline, Blood Magic, because Soul Reaping and Spite are mandatory to maintain DPS.

Thus, I won’t be getting Last Rites or well cd reduction and protection. And while Vampiric Presence is incredibly weak and should be buffed alongside siphons in general, at least it was the only buff aura I could offer my group.

With reaper I’m sitting in reaper/spite/SR, only because to use a greatsword I need to take reaper, otherwise I’d dump that bad PvE traitline in an instant and pick Blood back up.

If I had a choice, I’d be using the greatsword with Spite/Blood/Soul Reaping and keeping the original death shroud over reaper shroud in PvE. I’d dump reaper shroud and the reaper traitline and wouldn’t miss those for PvE.*

Shiki.7148:

spoj.9672:

Ill give more in depth feedback once the weekend is over. But first impressions of the changes are good. Reaper now compared to last beta is like night and day.

Although right off the bat ive noticed one problem. New gravedigger is much better. I still think its too clunky. But damage wise its now decent. However its become better damage than executioner scythe even when foes are below 25% health. I dont think this is right. Executioner scythe needs to have a big impact. I would make the 25% damage at least equal with gravedigger and maybe buff the chill or icefield duration or stun slightly to make it an impactful skill again.

Or make Exec Scythe instantly finish a downed player (but increase the cd if you used it for that).

That only applies to pvp. It’s a change I think should be done, but the damage of the skill still needs to be upped.

Reaper Shroud damage in general needs an increase.

Ayrilana.1396:

Zenith.7301:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zenith.7301:

This is something they don’t tell you, but it appears they snapshot your bank right before the event starts, which means if you want any of your account ascended items and transmutation charges and makeover kits to be available to your beta characters with limited character creation, DEPOSIT THEM INTO YOUR BANK BEFORE THE BWE.

….Otherwise you’re stuck with no character makeovers to select face/hair for your revenant/beta toons, and lower transmutation charges and no ascended item sets.

It’s from when you create your beta character.

I moved all of my ascended and other items after the last beta event had already started but before creating my first beat character. All of those items got copied over.

Yes, but if you delete that character because you realized the snapshot, and create a new one to update your bank, it won’t update.

Yes. The snapshot is done the first time you create a beta character.

Which sucks when they don’t inform you about it ;(

Ayrilana.1396:

Zenith.7301:

This is something they don’t tell you, but it appears they snapshot your bank right before the event starts, which means if you want any of your account ascended items and transmutation charges and makeover kits to be available to your beta characters with limited character creation, DEPOSIT THEM INTO YOUR BANK BEFORE THE BWE.

….Otherwise you’re stuck with no character makeovers to select face/hair for your revenant/beta toons, and lower transmutation charges and no ascended item sets.

It’s from when you create your beta character.

I moved all of my ascended and other items after the last beta event had already started but before creating my first beat character. All of those items got copied over.

Yes, but if you delete that character because you realized the snapshot, and create a new one to update your bank, it won’t update.

Randulf.7614:

I thought the issue people had was they did this already, but there was no snapshot this weekend because they rolled everything over from last time.

I said upcoming testers assuming new invites for the weekends and people who were unaware how past weekends worked.

Unfortunately when Anet fails to communicate vital things like this, you end up with people who can’t test fractal 50 on a revenant or the new professions at all since we have no access to ascended.

And we can’t even test how our classes would look since you don’t have access to your usual face/hair combo from the makeover kits you used live.

This is something they don’t tell you, but it appears they snapshot your bank right before the event starts, which means if you want any of your account ascended items and transmutation charges and makeover kits to be available to your beta characters with limited character creation, DEPOSIT THEM INTO YOUR BANK BEFORE THE BWE.

….Otherwise you’re stuck with no character makeovers to select face/hair for your revenant/beta toons, and lower transmutation charges and no ascended item sets.

Nothing outheals water field blasts, certainly not revenant.

PlatinumMember.5274:

nearlight.3064:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Zenith.7301:

PlatinumMember.5274:

mulzi.8273:

I wish they would put the reaper shroud on F2 and let it share a cooldown with F1 shroud. That way a necro can decide which shroud to use on the fly. And since they would share the same cooldown, it wouldn’t make it OP…

Which will give the elite spec a significant advantage over the basic necromancer. This invalidates the concept of elite spec just being an alternate way of playing the necromancer. Not that I am against it, but it has to be said.

The idea that elite specs don’t replace core specs is deluded anyways. No mesmer will forego chronomancer since alacrity is good for the group.

No necromancer who actually wants to do DPS will forego reaper, GS power reaper will be by far the best spec.

Same goes for warrior, who get a plain DPS upgrade as does Daredevil. There are virtually no downsides to any specialization except Tempest, and the issue with Tempest is that how do you improve on a class that is already as almighty as the elementalist.

Specializations are meant as class progression. People need to abandon the idea that they’re optional.

I am not going to argue with you since it is ultimately a pointless argument. Arena net is probably going to do it if they feel it will lead to more box sales.

In any case, your argument only works for the chronomancer and not the other classes. And that argument only works because we haven’t had an extended amount of time playing with the elite spec. Two easy counterpoints, few ele is going to give up the basic ele to play tempest, the ones that do it probably are bad players. Very few Guardians will give up guards to play dragonhunter. Admittedly, it could be due to karl being the main designer for both of those classes but still.

I don’t think the Karl hate argument stands anymore because of daredevil. I originally was in the Karl bash camp but he did right with daredevil even if it is rehashed acrobatics/death blossom/leap finisher mechanics at play, you can’t deny that he didn’t make a good elite spec even if it is derivative.

Unless you have played the daredevil you really cannot comment on it YET. Secondly, getting 1/3 correct is not something to be proud of. I am sure all those tempest and DH players are going, at least karl got the daredevil right. Look at Robert, so far he has been 2/2, with the berserker stepping up to the plate today.

Robert is responsible for 3, not 2, and while you people like to pretend chronomancer is fine, it is really not. It’s a buffbot spec and mesmer is one of the lowest DPS classes and their main mechanics, shatters, are a DPS loss in addition to a class being balanced around 3 dps phantasms to do mediocre damage yet the phantasms can’t even survive in most PvE circumstances.

So if you’re going to compare, don’t make such lopsided arguments. The core thief and elementalist specs are one of the most powerful in the game, Karl has done no wrong.

Plus, comparing a full DPS build on a necromancer to a PS warrior is embarrassing. A PS warrior stacks 25 might stacks for the group permanently, brings 170 power/precision/ferocity/condi damage with banners+150 power with empower allies.

That’s such an immense amount of party DPS boost that he would not factor into why a PSEA warrior is taken over a necromancer.

It’s like saying a ninja in FFXIV does 70 DPS less than the other melee without factoring that his trick attack adds around 4-6% party wide DPS which you should attribute back to him.

Yeah, line casting is cheesy, but guess what? It’s banned from record submissions. Yes, ice bow and meteor shower need nerfs. Persisting Flames should not increase the duration of lava font.

But that’s beside the point, his claiming necromancer is fine is annoying as hell.

Dragonhunter traps are actually pretty kitten good for PvE…

10 seconds of 25 vulnerability on an aoe trap is like a better glyph of lightning storm. And their DPS trap is actually worthwhile.

They may not use the longbow, but you can bet they WILL be using the rest of the dragonhunter in PvE. Most of the complaints about dragonhunter were traps in WvW as well as the longbow’s slow projectile speed.

PlatinumMember.5274:

mulzi.8273:

I wish they would put the reaper shroud on F2 and let it share a cooldown with F1 shroud. That way a necro can decide which shroud to use on the fly. And since they would share the same cooldown, it wouldn’t make it OP…

Which will give the elite spec a significant advantage over the basic necromancer. This invalidates the concept of elite spec just being an alternate way of playing the necromancer. Not that I am against it, but it has to be said.

The idea that elite specs don’t replace core specs is deluded anyways. No mesmer will forego chronomancer since alacrity is good for the group.

No necromancer who actually wants to do DPS will forego reaper, GS power reaper will be by far the best spec.

Same goes for warrior, who get a plain DPS upgrade as does Daredevil. There are virtually no downsides to any specialization except Tempest, and the issue with Tempest is that how do you improve on a class that is already as almighty as the elementalist.

Specializations are meant as class progression. People need to abandon the idea that they’re optional.

You see, people keep uttering this for some reason, even though WHAT WAS SAID is that traits whose procs rely on effects that bosses are resistant to such as SLOW and INTERRUPTS and CHILL would be worked on so even though the condition doesn’t work, they still trigger the trait effects pertinent to the affected condition.

This was posted in the mesmer forums because with the specialization revamp Robert Gee introduced a lot of “on interrupt, x” traits into most of the mesmer lines, a 30% increased critical hit chance against enemies with slows (danger time), so most of the mesmer traits would in fact not work at all on bosses.

Don’t go extrapolating more than that, people.

Shadelang.3012:

Zenith.7301:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I agree with him here. If ANet had gone along with their original plan and nerfed the ice bow as they said they would all classes would be more “wanted”. In this case Anet listening to the whiners about how it was a bad move was not the right decision to make.

If you have no place in making the ice bow quicker, be it by using time warp for more DPS or stealth to skip, you are a useless gear in the machine according to the “meta”.

I may be one of the few but I was VERY happy they were going to change it, as I was when they nerfed the fiery great sword. No one skill should ever be better than ANY other skill (let alone class) in order to have balance!

Nerfing ice bow changes nothing. Why are you people clueless about the appeal of a staff ele.

Without ice bow ele still achieves DPS competitive with thief single target, yet it’s AoE instead of the abckstab thief’s single target, the ele provides perma fury with Persisting Flames, permanent blast fields with lava font in addition to two water fields and 2 AoE CC for mob control (earth 4 and air 5).

Glyph of storms is a utility that grants 25 vulnerability stacks on top of damage, and that same utility skill is basically a better version of Well of Darkness.

They can nerf ice bow, people will still bring 1 ele for persisting flames perma group fury as no other class can do group perma fury by pressing a single button that’s part of their normal DPS rotation, and the highest AoE and single target DPS ingame.

If HoT brings high toughness mobs, you replace the elementalist with sinister engineers instead.

If you think nerfing ice bow increases the chances of necro/ranger/mesmer being brought in larger numbers or at all, you’re fooling yourself.

Yes, ice bow needs nerfing, but don’t think for a second that this will fix the lopsided class balance because the truth is that utility and damage balance across classes is so ridiculously skewed in favor of classes like ele/warrior/guardian/thief.

Well…As far as perma fury goes. My ranger gives that with one button to 5 people >.<. And without ice bow prebuffing itself loses alot of its impact. Which is a big part of why eles are viewed in the same light as the captain of your high school cheerleading team. And while nerfing icebow might not get other classes in the meta. It shortens the gap by quite a bit. Also. ice bow four in its current form NEEDS to disappear before raids. Or else someone will get the idea to bring 10 eles with icebows. And I have a feeling theyl melt a massive chunk of the bosses health. If they dont kill it outright.

And what button is that? Because you get 15 seconds from clarion call on a 30 second internal cd, and if you use warhorn for an extra 15 seconds you are achieving perma fury, yes, but by trading a suboptimal DPS offhand instead of your offhand axe. If you use s/a+s/w, you lose opener vulnerability and burst from a quickness barrage into rapid fire, or you lose s/a+(empty)/a Path of Scars benefitting from Quick Draw.

Meanwhile persisting flames provides a permanent fire field to blast for might on top of perma fury, and lava font itself does a ton of damage.

Buffing does not lose its importance without ice bow. 25 permanent might stacks is an immense damage increase, with or without ice bow.

I will also say that it is true this community is delusional, because by far this game’ PUG community is the most vile and self-aggrandizing I’ve encountered out of any MMO. It almost feels like this game’s PvE community is made of the usually toxic PvP players you’d find in LoL or some MOBA/RTS.

But Nemesis doesn’t help himself when he calls people scrubs and he shows videos of him eating several mossman axe throws or using life blast from greater than 600 range on the Molten Duo boss fight.

I do hope this game’s PvE evolves to more diverse combat than “stack 25 might/fury and just stand in the boss’s face while blocking/CC’ing any form of potential damage to turn the boss into a target dummy”.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I agree with him here. If ANet had gone along with their original plan and nerfed the ice bow as they said they would all classes would be more “wanted”. In this case Anet listening to the whiners about how it was a bad move was not the right decision to make.

If you have no place in making the ice bow quicker, be it by using time warp for more DPS or stealth to skip, you are a useless gear in the machine according to the “meta”.

I may be one of the few but I was VERY happy they were going to change it, as I was when they nerfed the fiery great sword. No one skill should ever be better than ANY other skill (let alone class) in order to have balance!

Nerfing ice bow changes nothing. Why are you people clueless about the appeal of a staff ele.

Without ice bow ele still achieves DPS competitive with thief single target, yet it’s AoE instead of the abckstab thief’s single target, the ele provides perma fury with Persisting Flames, permanent blast fields with lava font in addition to two water fields and 2 AoE CC for mob control (earth 4 and air 5).

Glyph of storms is a utility that grants 25 vulnerability stacks on top of damage, and that same utility skill is basically a better version of Well of Darkness.

They can nerf ice bow, people will still bring 1 ele for persisting flames perma group fury as no other class can do group perma fury by pressing a single button that’s part of their normal DPS rotation, and the highest AoE and single target DPS ingame.

If HoT brings high toughness mobs, you replace the elementalist with sinister engineers instead.

If you think nerfing ice bow increases the chances of necro/ranger/mesmer being brought in larger numbers or at all, you’re fooling yourself.

Yes, ice bow needs nerfing, but don’t think for a second that this will fix the lopsided class balance because the truth is that utility and damage balance across classes is so ridiculously skewed in favor of classes like ele/warrior/guardian/thief.

Don’t like this one bit, and don’t understand how you people can be content.

Core game released with 8 dungeons, 3 alternate paths each. With a set story integrated into the world. I know a lot of newer generation MMO players don’t give a kitten about the story, but I played this game as a continuation of the GW1 story and integration to the world.

Then out comes fractals, which are basically a single path of a 3 path dungeon equivalent. Most of them besides Thaumanova or Ascalon don’t even have any coherent story whatsoever or interaction with any NPC’s or characters. Short mini dungeons except for dredge and cliffside.

I feel like we’re getting “less” packaged and branded as “more”. The fractal additions have been buggy, some still exist several years later, and the rewards are terrible RNG instead of the token system they hyped the game with before release.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Bubi.5237:

Fay.2357:

Also, tell me the last time you heard someone say ‘someone drop an ethereal field so we can blast it!’. Ah, that’s right, that’s never happened.

Actually… some years ago, there were a few commanders in wvw who liked to get Bubbles (Big Pink Bubbles!) before clash on their meleetrain.. when someone called Nullfield/TW, sometimes he said to Blast it
‘Cos Big Pink Bubbles on Charrs is OP! (And it’s easy, hammer guard/WH warrior in a party and a fast blast while moving through…)
The problem is that there is no low-CD Ethereal field, you can’t just waste TW/Nullfield for blasting.. while staff eles have their Fire Fields on a much lower CD. Quaggan, even their water fields have lower CD…

Also, I’ve always felt useless at some point during a raid while on Mesmer. While playing zerk staff ele I’ve never once had that problem. This is putting the entire field/blast combo discussion aside :p

Hell, I’ve never felt useless on a zerk rifle/GS war during a raid and they don’t even have fields or blasts. Go figure.

Because warriors and eles have something mesmers don’t have, and that is reliable cleave and sustained DPS.

The mesmer illusions everyone cries about in 1v1’s die upon spawn in any large scale or PvE fight by comparison.

More importantly, in team engagements there is more healing and mitigation of damage. An iberserker seems like a big deal with a 5-7k aoe nuke in 1v1 or spvp, but in WvW and PvE it’s essentially less AoE DPS or burst than 100b or Meteor Shower or Lava Font or Ice Bow or Grenades or necromancer well bombing.

So Robert Gee said we were getting Wells to help with that lack of AoE with chronomancer wells, yet all our wells have delayed big damage delivery, and only like 2 of them do any damage whatsoever and the damage is still far less than a single lava font despite having 30+ second cooldowns.

That’s the core problem with mesmer, pretty nice for duels and small scale 2v2/3v3 fights, pretty mediocre for everything else until they do something about illusion resistance to AoE.

Quite frankly the illusions should only be hit by single targeted attacks toward them, not casual cleaving or AoE spells. Otherwise mesmers will never be more than veil/portal buffbots in WvW raids/GvG and PvE content.

Mesmer sustained damage and group fight capability has been a hostage to 1v1 pvp spike balance for over 3 years.

I mean, Cry of Frustration has been useless garbage since closed beta and shortly before release despite Jon Peters asking for feedback on changing it prior to release. Nothing was ever done and today Cry of Frustration is just a wimpy Mindwrack (1 short confusion stack per clone; come on, that is absolute trash) on double the cooldown.

Diversion’s daze should stack per clone used.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Killyox.3950:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

NapTooN.6283:

Think of the Legends as Utility Categories like with the others Professions.

Shiro is Traps, Jalis is Survival, Ventari is Shouts. if you only spent a few points into Shiro, you only get 1 or 2 Skills in the Legend. If you want the whole legend, you have to spent the points for every skill like with the other Professions.

Basically this explains it pretty well.

So basically all or nothing because you can’t have cross legend skills and the more you put in the more expensive skills are meaning you will unlock less skills than another class.

You will unlock everything besides elite spec by level 80, just like any other profession. The order you choose to unlock them is up to you. You can mix two legends early on to be able to equip two legends and use a few skills of each on each. Such as unlocking the heal and first utility skill on two legends, then switching back and forth between those two legends.

I think what new Revenants will hate is as they ding 80, while everybody else is doing HoT content, they will have to stay in the old world and farm 174 hero points according to the datamined costs for the specializations just so they can do Herald.

174 hero points is a lot of skill challenges they need to tread through just to start working on HoT and be behind in the mastery progression grind.

Basically, Revenants start handicapped in the race since no revenants can complete the hero challenges before HoT release.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the game didn’t punish alts and made the hero points account bound.

Doing 214 hero challenges to unlock everything on 8 toons is ridiculous. That’s 1712 hero challenges repeated just to experience each profession’s specialization.

PHIW people also keep saying the content can be done on any format, yet ignore the social aspect of a MMO. It being group content means you will be held to the expectations of the community, not just your own. And the community by and large, if LFG and the majority of its “read: zerker ELE/WARRIOR/GUARD/THIEF ONLY” is an indicator, expects efficiency.

I know for a fact bringing 2 PVT or a cleric staff guardian into my fractal 50 run will make the run harder, not easier. Gutting your damage output for some tiny heal increase or 4k extra HP will not overcome the 4-5k autoattacks from trash mobs let alone the 10k+ autoattacks from a boss, and you’re significantly lengthening the encounter with your crappy DPS which means you will be absorbing more of those attacks for a longer period of time the boss lasts.

That’s why support/tank specs are bad and unused, because they sacrifice too much DPS for a marginal increase in survival — mobs in PvE simply are not meant to be facetanked or healed through — they hit too hard to sustain their hits and no class outside blasting waterfields has enough heals to mitigate the damage. The damage must be avoided, and the whole appeal of offensive specs is that you eliminate the boss before the lack of active defenses becomes an issue.

Either way, I’m tired of this class being balanced solely on a PvP factor. It’s received mostly nerfs for the sake of 1v1 PvP (the harmonious mantras nerf was obscene from a PvE perspective, where it’s already a mediocre grandmaster with a clunky 8 second effect duration that requires you chain Mantra of Pain and do nothing else just to maintain 3-4 stacks of the buff) and no buffs whatsoever to help it with PvE DPS, and group engagements where illusions die immediately to cleave/aoe.

I just hope that they don’t go making unblockable projectiles a thing.

Mai Trin is such cheesy design, with no real indicator of which projectiles do and do not work with reflecta, not to mention human sized bosses are terrible with the amount of particle effects in this game you have a hard time reading their movement under all the elementalist/guardian fire.

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

I plan to use the shield a lot thank you very much. And yes, in PVE.

Feel free, but the fact that you plan to use it doesn’t change the fact that its current form is really awful for PvE, and using it will be a mistake.

I disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

The numbers are outdated anyways.

Last I checked, Sinister engineers were able to hit 17k and condi ranger 16k in good scenarios. Ele towered above, but the bigger issue still is that it’s WRONG for a class with no utility of worth to a group barely come close or do damage on par with a class who has so much utility by comparison.

They can nerf ele, and ele will just be replaced by sinister engineers. In fact, I suspect that rather than opening spots for the non-DPS classes of necro/mesmer/ranger, nerfing ele would merely reduce the number of eles to bring persisting flame perma fury and then stack sinister engineer or thieves.

It goes particularly for engineer since it’s such a flexible class as well. If any bosses punish melee heavily, that disproportionately affects the Reaper and Ranger as their only DPS builds are purely melee range (condi ranger is axe+torch, sitting on boss with bonfire and axe’s shotgun melee range bleeds).

Mikkel.8427:

I think it might actually be time to start a new forum topic…

This thread is just identifying a symptom of a disease. The real problem is our reliance on phantasms to provide meaningful DPS. Swapping to a ‘utility’ offhand or phantasm shouldn’t completely gut our ability to do damage if that is what we’re geared to do.

I propose a reduction in phantasm dmg across the board…. something like 50%. Then they could move that DPS potential back on to the mesmer in the form of improved AAs and better skill coefficiants on our other skills (not including shatters, we dont need more burst). I believe that would promote better balance for the class across several game modes and builds.

1) More reliable DPS in high AoE situations (PvE boss fights… WvW ZvZ)
2) Lowers our passive phantasm pressure while in stealth… a component of what makes PU so strong.
3) Shatters are more rewarding to use.
4) Chronophantasma isnt as ‘scary’ to balance

etc… I’ll finish this post later, making dinner! I’m sure you guys can think of more, also.

I like the idea, with the caveat that once iduelist and iswordsman lose the damage, they must gain utility to compensate.

I always thought the damage should not be on the phantasms. Phantasms should be about utility. Move the damage from phantasms to the autoattacks and blurred frenzy/confusing images.

That way we can sustain damage, shatter without gimping our DPS, and not be completely neutered in fights with AoE such as large scale WvW and PvE in general.

Plus he’s propping up shield 5 by tying it to a 90 second cooldown shatter, as if the shield 5 skill will always have that benefit.

I don’t think I want to talk with someone who says “stop whining about DPS” as if the real issue with mesmer is not utility but its terrible DPS and our utter reliance on illusions, particularly phantasms, to do still less damage than the classes not reliant on paper thin AI that gets murdered by most bosses autoattack cleaves.

He may be happy with a buffbot class but I am not.

I don’t want the shield to be OP. I want a reason TO USE IT IN PVE. And 3.5 secs of quickness and a minimal stun are not going to override losing either offhand sword or pistol.

You say you don’t want people to feel forced into chronomancy, but chronomancy will already be forced through alacrity and chronophantasma alone (because chronophantasma is the only trait that allows mesmers to shatter in PvE without massive DPS loss, go figure needing a trait so that your class mechanic doesn’t screw you in PvE).

And in any situation where we might be forced to go ranged in the new raids, shield will never be used as it can neither compete with iwarden for utility let alone damage or iduelist/iswordsman for DPS.

Guardian brings better projectile protection that is not reliant on a terribly squishy warden for reflect uptime. Wall of Reflection has nearly the same uptime as two back to back Feedback bubbles from mimic and is GROUND TARGETED, meaning it can be placed on top of your allies to protect yourself from spread ranged mobs whereas feedback is target reliant and would only protect you from whoever gets trapped inside the bubble.

A guardian rotating wall of reflection and shield of the avenger can achieve permanent projectile defense. A mesmer relies on melee range iwardens that have a delay in cast time and can be killed the very moment they spawn on the mob from casual cleave.

The shield has better AI than the terrible wardens, and it does not despawn upon mob death unlike all mesmer phantasms (except for Kasmeer, because Kasmeer has phantasms that function how they should in PvE, instead of crippling the mesmer with huge ramp up and losing key DPS/utility on mob death).

You talk about quickness with shield+ 2x Time Warp. What you fail to mention is the opportunity cost. The guardian does not gut his damage output to bring quickness, and his quickness can be used more frequently and is RADIAL as a shout, compared to the linear mesmer wall.

Guardian quickness is 5 seconds every 24 seconds, for 21% uptime of quickness.

Mesmer with Continuum is 24 (traited, since you’d be crazy not to take Inspiration but also will lose damage from either dueling or domination when you take chronomancer) seconds every 180 seconds.

24/180 seconds is 13.3% uptime. Shield #5 adds 11.6% (granting a generous cd of 30 seconds since alacrity is not up 100%) uptime of quickness at a large DPS cost.

So the mesmer brings 24.9% quickness uptime with 2 skills at a large DPS and the utility cost of losing the other offhand utilities. A guardian only brings one skill for only 3% less. That’s a totally disproportionate amount of quickness uptime per utility skill.

What’s more, Time Warp is stationary, the guardian shout is mobile should the boss cover the area and the group needs to move, and there’s always the practical value in Feel My Wrath because it can be used more frequently in between fights within the raid.

And this is on top of all the utility guardians bring passively with their weapons. They don’t pay a DPS fee to use their pull — binding blades is on their highest DPS weapon unlike Temporal Curtain which is on the focus with the inferior DPS phantasm. Their aegis is a class mechanic, and their blinds and protection come from weapons as well as one shout.

By comparison shatters are an entirely selfish class mechanic, they completely kitten you in PvE DPS if you don’t take chronophantasm trait, and you’ll only be using Continuum Shift or Mind Wrack with clones as Cry of Frustration is garbage through and through (has been since release), Diversion doesn’t stack daze per clones so you’re killing 3 phantasms for a non-stacking delayed by travel time daze, and Distortion can be used without clones with Illusionary Persona for whenever you need to avoid a big hit. That we need to take an elite specialization trait to allow us to shatter only once without gimping ourselves is a problem

Anchoku.8142:

Bhawb.7408:

Because fear is the weakest hard CC in the game

Fear is a strong soft CC and condition. It is so strong it requires periodic nerfing. I wish Necromancer had more access to it.

I admit war horn’s stun is one of Necromancer’s only hard CC control effects. Horn’s stun, Golem’s knock-down, and Lich’s chilling knock-back are all that come to mind.

Edit: oops, we have a pull from Spectral Grasp and sink, too. Reviewing each of the control effects, I am reminded how easy stun-locking Necromancer was before FitG included stab.

Fear got nerfed due to TERROR, not the fear itself. It’s classic Anet balancing, instead of fixing terror’s damage in fear chains, they nerfed not only terror but fear and neutered Dhuumfire and now necromancer condition specs are one of the weakest ingame.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Zenith.7301:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

Why do people keep saying 40 sec CD? It can be cast twice with F5 and catching it reduces the CD by 10 seconds. So sometimes a 20 second CD before alacrity kicks in to reduce it further.

Weak auto attack crit for other classes but better than any other auto attack for mesmer by quite a bit. Then add the base shield 5 damage. Then factor in that it can hit twice and interrupt twice. It can be roughly 5-6 times stronger than an auto attack for mesmer. That was a minor point though.

While it’s always nice to optimize for personal damage, mesmers are about group utility in organized groups. Read about the new raids and general breakbar changes. Someone is going to have the spike the break bar hard. If it’s only a 1-2 second window, what do you think is better? All the DPS eles swap to air and use air 3 for a major DPS loss? or 1 low DPS utility slot can go ham on that breakbar while buffing their allies for the burst phase that follows?

The only problem I have is the inconsistency of alacrity because it’s tied to a phantasm

Or the thief, with no cooldowns of his own uses basilisk venom with venomshare aura which conveniently lies in their Shadow Arts tree for his coveted stealth utility in groups, in addition to his easy access to headshot and now his physical daredevil utility which is a DPS increase instead of a loss and stuns as well on top of Distracting Daggers.

The mesmer has always been about utility since it’s all he can do. The PvE damage is garbage.

Guess which other classes are about utility. Elementalists with perma fury from persisting flames, ice bow freeze, earth elemental, glyph of storms blinds and fire/water fields.

PSEA Warrior, permanent 25 might stacks for the group with 170 of all stats in banners for the group+ 150 power from Empower Alliers and the best group rez in the game (War Banner elite).

Guardian with stability, greater and more practical reflects/projectile absorptions, more frequent access to group quickness on a 24 second cooldown, aegis, and protection.

You’re acting as if the mesmer is the only utility class when the other classes bring just as powerful utility but can actually pull far more DPS. Only the mesmer is told " well, we bring you for the portal/veil/alacrity, but since your burst is a problem in PvP we’re going to leave your miserable sustained damage capabilities as is in PvE".

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

It would suck if they turned it into fear for PvE.

Personally fear would become a lot more attractive if the target just trembled in place.

The very tiny stun and quickness duration on a 40 sec base cd just isn’t going to cut it as worthy utility in PvE.

Take confounding suggestions and mantra of distraction, for example. Nobody takes that, a 1 sec stun is not worth losing 15% extra illusion damage.

Mantra of distraction is not used for the daze or interrupts, it’s used to strip defiance for the ice bow.

We really need to start considering how much of the conceptual gimmicks that work in PvP just plain don’t work in PvE.

Either we fix the pvp burst issue with the mesmer so that we can finally start seeing needed PvE fixes for the class, or we simply stop delaying splitting PvP/PvE skill balance.

Now that raids have been announced and we’re presuming PvE will start being taken seriously, the mesmer cannot continue to be a hostage of pvp balancing with the recent nerfs to Harmonious Mantras as an example, which was already a weaker trait than berserker’s power on a class that does much less sustained DPS than a warrior.

And I hope, that despite not making any announcements, some changes are being made to cleave/aoe and mesmer illusions/ranger pets/necromancer minions/guardian spirit weapons. Because with more lethal aoe around, these classes will continue to be kitten.

I mean, they already have some form of pet protection in place with Subject Alpha in Crucible of Eternity. Why not expand it to all AoE in PvE? Protected Phantasms is a really bad band-aid fix and quite frankly a mesmer shouldn’t have to trait so that their phantasm doesn’t die immediately the moment it spawns on Archdiviner or Tequatl or Mossman melee swings that happen to cleave everything down. Illusions and ranger pets are class mechanics, classes should not be penalized by the content relative to others just because they got stuck with companion AI designs.

Make it apply a blast finisher and a 3-4 second chill. Voila.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

A sword+shield guardian does relatively the same DPS as a sword+torch or sword+focus guardian, because his sustained damage comes from a potent autoattack and his sword skill #3.

Similarly, an axe+shield warrior does roughly the same DPS as an axe+mace warrior. The competitive DPS is packaged in the autoattack.

A mesmer has miserable autoattack damage, and blurred frenzy is barely a DPS gain over that already low DPS autoattack, so the proportion of his damage that comes from a phantasm is much greater, making him dependent on certain phantasm types to do any DPS at all.

Sustained DPS (which the mesmer needs in PvE), not burst, which is something the mesmer does not need more of.

If you’re not looking to buff the shield phantasm, then you need to reconsider how reliant you’re going to make mesmer on phantasms to deal damage.

Because a phantasm with negligible damage and 1-2 seconds of alacrity bounce does in no way overcome a 7k+ iswordsman or iDuelist.

It doesn’t matter that the shield skill 5 does more damage than other shield skills. It’s a 40 second cooldown, this is hardly a boost to our DPS to make up for the loss of iswordsman/iduelist, let alone iwarden.

I hope we don’t come to realize this when nobody is using the shield in PvE much like nobody uses the torch because defensive offhands with low damage output are NOT desirable in PvE. The benefits do not outweigh the costs.

In fact the guardian shield is a perfect analogue to why this mesmer shield won’t be used. Relatively long cooldowns for effects that have limited impact in PvE and low damage output.

Stealth mesmers are all about slowly wearing you out.

You aren’t going to be beating stealth mesmers because necromancer has good burst absorption but kitten poor RECOVERY options, meaning you won’t be sustaining yourself for long and the mesmer will keep resetting the fight via stealth.

This applies to pistol/dagger thieves or thieves patient enough such as sword/dagger or even good dagger+pistol thieves who slowly wear you down and run you out of cooldowns instead of being greedy and trying to go for the three shot burst and dying instead.

Contrary to the design idea for the class, an attrition based class, the necromancer actually wants to avoid attrition and wants to end fights as soon as possible.

Stealth mesmer and good thieves are the epitome of an attrition class.

The problem is most suggestions here would not only nerf d/d cele ele, but all weak ele specs as well.

Scepter ele doesn’t need survival nerfs, it’s squishy enough already.

And zerker eles without cantrips/water line are plain squishy.

So a solution must be found that tones down the strength of cele d/d ele without gutting the other weak specs.

My problem with focusing us on utility is that we are already a heavy utility class. Portals, time warp, feedback, wells, mimic stealth.

Mesmers are heavy on utility, not on damage.

And the problem with that and basic raid design is that in any encounter that involves HP depletion, ultimately the most valuable utility is damage. Damage pushes phases, shortens encounter times so less time windows to commit errors on, and it also means less likelyhood of running out of defensive utilities as a boss retains his offensive power throughout the fight while our defensive capabilities diminish as the fight drags on and utilities/aegis go on cooldown.

What’s more, utility classes are essentially buffbots. A core concept with buff bots, if you watch WoW vanilla or FFXIV, is that you only bring as few as you need for the utility, and then stack the high damage classes. You are creating a ghetto for the mesmer if he cannot compete in damage output — a raid will bring maybe 2-3 chronomancers, and then stack the highest DPS classes.

I’m a firm believer that all classes should be able to put out similar DPS, as in within a 10% margin of each other. Otherwise you create niche classes while DPS classes always remain the most used.

And the fact will be, utility classes will be competing against each other for their spot. We know we need 2 PSEA warriors, 2 guardians (long group stability and protection/aegis uptime) , 1 thief, and several eles. Probably 2 revenants for the ferocity group buff and revenants deal close to ele dps right now.

We’re looking at around 6-8 spots filled, how much does that leave between ranger/mesmer/necro?

It’s not a good place to be in.

Knighthonor.4061:

We the AoE Trash Tanks in GW2 Raids.

We gather up trash mobs and face tank them with Shroud and Blinds.
Till allies can burst them all down.

Problem being you have neither binding blades or temporal curtain so I don’t know how you’re gonna gather anything seeing as how GW2 does not have a clear and realiable aggro manipulation system.

In fact, if anything it would be ranger pets with beastly warden aoe taunt that would be gathering trash packs if the guardian or mesmer are not doing it.

Since nobody is likely going to be using this shield in PvE thus far because of its terrible damage and delayed phantasm cast:

1- Buff the damage to compete with iduelist/iswordsman. Make iswordsman cleave 3 targets on its attack (it’s been a long time coming, mesmer needs more cleaving phantasms than just iwarden or iberserker for PvE)

2- Make the phantasm spawn after 1 second of channeling the block. This would put it in line with the other 1 sec cast phantasm summons instead of laying around useless channeling a block hoping some mob hits you in PvE while you do no damage.

Voila, PvE mesmers will now use their shield instead of the usual sw/sw+sw/pistol that they will use if you don’t implement these changes.

You need to realize that the damage of mesmer autoattacks and blurred frenzy is so pitifully low, that we depend on 3x phantasms to sustain “competitive” DPS. Until you buff autoattacks/blurred frenzy damage coefficients, we cannot afford to use low damage phantasms.

I know you’re worried about chronomancer spike, but at some point you’re going to need to do something about the way mesmers do spike so that their terrible sustained damage can be buffed for PvE.

Being a buff/portal/veil bot with terrible damage in PvE just isn’t fun.