Guild Wars 2

I haven’t pre-purchased either, waiting to hear about that “challenging group content” but what’s the point anyways since their directions seems to take a dump on a set of classes for PvP’s sake, making the challenging content even worse for the classes that are weak in PvE and get nerfed even more because developers can’t be bothered to split PvE/PvP balancing like they did in their first game.

I don’t know whether their entire GW1 team has been replaced or some directive has been imposed upon them to discard all the good skill splitting that kept GW1 good and go with this GW2 pvp-centric crap balance instead.

This game is a pale shadow of GW1, it’s disgraceful how poorly treated the PvE crowd is. Not that spvp is that much better given the conquest format being foisted on them for 3 years compared to the GvG iun GW1’s multiple formats. But at least pvp people get the game balanced around them.

They don’t care about PvE, last instanced PvE content update was 2 years ago.

Rangers and necromancers have been rotting in garbage land for over 3 years in PvE, while guardian/ele/warrior/thief have been coasting in supremacy for just as long. Nothing done.

They’re set on their e-sport balancing and PvE players be kitten ed.

It’s OK, PvE players can vote with their wallets for FFXIV/Wildstar/WoW where they know they’ll get some meaningful PvE content and balancing.

Berserker Power: Gain 20% damage for 10 seconds when spending 3 bars of adrenaline.

100% uptime.

Harmonious Mantras: 20% damage for 8 seconds starting per 5 charges used, with much larger upkeep effort. Nerfed now to 15%, same difficulty to keep up stacks without gutting DPS.

WELCOME TO PVP BALANCING. TOO LAZY TO SPLIT SKILLS FOR PVE/PVP ANYMORE.

Who gives a kitten about PvP nerfs gutting builds for PvE.

Back to the garbage bin, you mantras go back to.

It’s back to signet builds for PvE again.

At least when HoT comes out we can take dom/chrono/inspiration now that dueling goes down the drain with absolutely terrible grandmasters now for PvE.

P.S. TO GIVE AN IDEA, PRENERF TO KEEP 4-5 STACKS OF HARMONIOUS MANTRAS UP YOU NEEDED TO BE CHAIN CASTING MANTRA OF PAIN WITH BARELY DOING ANYTHING IN BETWEEN. WARRIOR JUST DID HIS NORMAL ROTATIONS TO KEEP A 20% DAMAGE BONUS.

Every skip run or speed clear record involves a thief. To say mesmer replaces thief in skipping is vastly ignorant. Portal cooldown is far longer than blasting stealth fields.

Thief is also brought for black powder trivializing some fights like Arah P4 Priest of Melandru since the gorillas are summoned more often than an ele’s glyph of sandstorm can come off cd.

Most importantly, a thief puts out even greater single target damage than ele on bosses, and with their bundle trait they’re the class that does the most damage with a frostbow barrage.

Moreover, vulnerability is a non-issue. Ele with glyph of lightning storm stacks 25 vulnerability immediately on any boss fight long enough for the boss to die. And then there’s the mandatory PSEA warrior throwing in vulnerability as well as the thief who also applies vulnerability on crit.

Mesmer is virtually brought for portal and time warp, nothing else (guardians are better than them for reflects, thieves for stealth, and every other class is better at damage including necromancer). If you’re bringing mesmer for stealth skips, you’re doing it wrong.

If boons become more important, then mesmer may gain that additional niche as mesmer is better than necro for boon hate with sword auto+iDisenchanter+null field.

The meta setup will still involve Thief/PSEA Warrior/Ele/Ele/Mesmer. If portal is not useful in a particular run, replace the mesmer with a Guardian for better group DPS.

Change it to a water field. Why in hell would a well of liquid be a light field.

Reduce the cooldown as well and make the healing tics remove conditions.

Well of Blood is simply a worse Healing Spring.

More importantly, Consume Conditions will always be a preferred heal because heals that remove conditions mitigate a lot more damage than heals who don’t.

All the necromancer heals suck. They heal for little, have longish cast times, and have hideously long cooldowns.

Like, why was Consume Conditions even nerfed to a cd of 30 seconds? If anything necromancers need more sustain, not less.

Signet of Vampirism is a way worse version of healing signet or signet of restoration. Getting hit by 3-6k attacks just to proc a pitiful 400 heal is just bad, and in fact warrior with adrenal healing and healing signet is getting similar or greater tics more frequently without needing to be hit.

The minion would be good sustained healing (heals for around 700-800 tics per attack) if it didn’t have two long cast times to both summon and kill (and the sacrifice heal is pitiful) and minions weren’t aoe fodder that die to a sneeze and have terrible AI.

Most of the necromancer heals don’t have any added utility besides the heal, period. Weak heals relative to health pool translate into low sustain/recovery potential, with long cooldowns and easily interruptible cast times on a class with vast vulnerability to CC and being trained to death.

Oooooh~ Another reveal?

xDudisx.5914:

Zenith.7301:

xDudisx.5914:

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

…….

Dragonhunter is basically a better ranger.

A 25 vulnerability stack trap for 10 seconds is far better than any trap out there.

I don’t see any duel, pvp or wvw potential for a dragonhunter. Vul is still only 1 condi and easy to remove.

Neither is there for ranger. WvW top GvG teams use staff ele/necro any day over ranger. In spvp rangers are even more unpopular than necromancers. That leaves you dueling, and mesmer/ele/engineer are by far better dueling classes than ranger.

And to begin with, trap ranger is a dead spec, one of the worst ranger has available, with no survivability or group support.

Point being, dragonhuner guardian brings a trap that stacks 25 vulnerability, a trap that reveals thieves and mesmers for 10 seconds, and their version of a damaging trap is even better than the ranger ones. Oh, and their longbow is better plus their spec is not reliant on a garbage pet that does not scale with ascended gear/sigil/runes, who dies immediately to aoe, who can’t pathe properly so it can’t shoot people on castle walls or below them.

You get the idea. It’s kind of silly to say a guardian is EVER in a worse position than a ranger.

The only bad ele weapon outclassed by other professions is the scepter.

The problem with ele, and warrior, and guardian is that they monopolize boon generation and sharing on top of being top of the line damage dealers.

There’s nothing more important to performance in this game than boons.

25 might stacks is an immense damage boost. So is fury. Protection and aegis and reflection are the best forms of group defense on offer.

And guess which are the classes who are best at applying those? The above.

Then they look at ranger, and necromancer, and mesmer, and tell them “well, boons aren’t your thing, you’ve got these conditions and tricks”.

Conditions are absolutely inferior to boons. Blind does not work on bosses like aegis or protection does. Weakness has marginal duration on bosses, protection has full duration since it’s based on the player.

Cripple is useless, chill is useless.

So, in terms of PvE, if you’re no good at might stacking, fury stacking, protection/aegis, and reflects, you are more or less useless.

There’s an argument to be made, where we could be similar to thieves and engineers. Really high damage classes that are brought for damage on their own (thief has stealth skips, but even without the need for stealth a thief’s single target dps is unmatched).

But not even that is true. Ranger damage coefficients and base numbers are absolutely atrocious. Our aoe is absolutely atrocious (your options being barrage, traps, or mainhand axe’s auto). And the same applies to necromancer and mesmer. Mesmer gets saved due to being a Time Warp/Portal bot, otherwise a guardian would take his place as guardians do reflects with more uptime and reliability.

deSade.9437:

Yes, range at 1500 where almost nothing can hit you and you can’t ress your melee teammates if they down… then get all the might, all the fury, all the buffs.

I don’t understand what kind of argument you’re aiming to make. By the same token some kitten y warrior will be too busy mashing his face on 100b to rez his fallen teammate. It’s a really bad rationale for not revamping the boon and combo field systems.

I mean, you can’t seriously think it’s fine as is.

Ethereal fields are useless. Whirling/projectile finishers are worthless. Ice fields are useless. Fire aura is useless. Frost aura is of limited use. Leap finishers for the most part are useless unless on a water field.

There’s so much that can be done to improve the current features of combat.

It would just be nice to see a pvp match where the first target to go down wasn’t a necro all the kitten time.

I remember when they said necro would be a hard caster to put down, and all I see now is ele laughing at that claim.

Thaddeus.4891:

Genlog.4983:

and that is the problem off this system you need to stay close to help ea other out the buffs and skill don’t have a long range like many other mmorpg have

so you cant not really run free around because your buff skills don’t reach that far sadly

That’s not a problem. That’s just a system that you don’t like. Plenty of people like it. I included. There is a bunch of stuff that the game could improve, that’s not one of them

I don’t think it’s good design, as player who has preferred melee in every MMO to date.

Boon sharing and combos should not exclude ranged playstyles for those who prefer them.

Melee already has built in cleave and higher base numbers as an advantage over range to reward its risk ratio, it doesn’t need to monopolize might stacking and fury stacking either.

Portal is useful in cliffside for arms, in aetherblade to port people up to the machines to turn off the lasers, it’s useful in harpy but you lose your chance at powerful bloods by skipping them, and it’s also useful in snowblind fractal.

With that said it’s more for speed clear records.

As much as I hate to say it, outside Time Warp a guardian fills a mesmer’s spot much better for the average fractal group.

And rangers are pretty terrible for fractals, moreso than power necros because rangers have absolutely horrendous aoe whereas at least a necromancer with well of suffering is gonna be useful on volcanic fractal or anywhere where AoE is necessary.

Ranger is just bad anywhere where he can’t safely camp 1h autoattack on a boss with his jaguar without danger of getting downed immediately. And anywhere that requires AoE since ranger cleave/aoe is virtually nonexistent.

Did a fractal just now, lv50 with a guardian who came in using a staff. I tell him to switch out of that crap.

Promptly ignored the whole run, spends the whole run autoattacking with his guardian’s staff.

Guess who the game chose to give an ascended chest to while everybody else got nothing/rings?

That’s why I hate their lying devs and the bait and switch they did from dungeons, retiring the token system and putting RNG in its place.

xDudisx.5914:

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

…….

Dragonhunter is basically a better ranger.

A 25 vulnerability stack trap for 10 seconds is far better than any trap out there.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Esplen.3940:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

@Esplen
You can’t really stack TW though, since each pulse only gives 1s quickness and its pulses every second. Unless I misunderstood your suggestion :O.

@Pyro
Well that’s a pity, the quickness part still stands though. So the only way to share alacrity is via well?

Drop 2 TW, they each pulse every 1s for 1s duration, therefore every 1s, you get 2s Quickness and the enemy gets 2s Slow.

Test it in a party with 2 Mesmers, they almost always stack TW nowadays (unintentionally) but it no longer lowers DPS (unless the Slow lowers DPS, but that’s a different matter entirely).

Thanks for the explanation! This makes TW really useful

@Silverkey
Ok once I have a look it says here “Alacrity is a buff right now and not a boon. You can’t increase it via boon duration buffs.”. Sooooooo I guess it works like warrior stances? Robert did specifically say “right now” at 8:03 in the video but he later said this was done intentionally.

Gosh looking back a that PoI makes me cringe at how much that hostess dislike mesmers getting good stuff.

Most of them are pretty casual WvW players. Robert Gee designs with PvP in mind primarily, look at the necro traits as well and his revamp of mesmer traits mostly involving interrupt dependent effects in a format where interrupts are useless.

I think ever since they let go of Robert Hrouda, things went downhill for the dungeon community, especially when they announced a fractal weaponbox with the fractal revamp only to confirm it was put for lv51, a fractal level players could not achieve. And fractal weapon drops plummeted in drop rate because before whereas fractal weapons would not share a loot table with rings/ ascended chests, now happened to do so after the revamp.

It also shows because they’ve done nothing to fix pets/minions/illusions and AoE damage in PvE, or balancing autoattack damage between the classes which has led to such obvious imbalances in DPS output across the classes.

nearlight.3064:

Photoloss.4817:

nearlight.3064:

I want the base heal to be nerfed but the scaling with healing power to be massively improved so glass cannon builds in pvp have less sustain, while builds focused for it, such as celestial or what have are still able to heal over 3K with it. Clestial can’t even heal 3k with it now.

Absolutely ruins it for PvE. Just ignore Healing Power until Anet launches a global rework.

In PvE, damage is king, and nerfing this trait won’t effect your damage. In ideal scenarios the heal isn’t important because no one should be taking any real damage. All this trait does is let mesmers carry bad pug groups that can’t dodge.

So this raises an ethical question. Is it better to balance for the competitive game mode where tournaments and gems and money are often on the line, or is it better to balance for a cooperative game mode where most encounters are ended by picking up an ice bow and pressing 4? You tell me.

You haven’t fought Mai Trin of fractal lv50 if you think restorative mantras is of marginal use in PvE. That trait makes the fight night and day.

Just to give you a history lesson, restorative mantras used to heal for about 1k or less. Nobody used them. Ever.

Then they buffed them to 3k a cast and people started using them.

apocalypso.4895:

Zenith.7301:

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

Remove 5 and 3 from thieves SB and see how many of them will use it in pvp… that’s the buffed aa axe that you’re asking for.

…..

Is this a serious question? Because if so, it’s pretty dumb and ignorant.

Of course they’d still use SB because

1) It’s their only aoe weapon
2) It’s a ranged weapon with very potent aoe in cluster bomb, a spammable blast finisher you can keep blasting on water fields to keep your melee train healed up or to stack might for fire fields.
3) It has a poison field that can be blasted by cluster bomb for weakness
4) it’s kittening awesome for team fights or zerg clashes where thieves can’t go into melee without getting vaporized

By your silly logic, necro staff is worthless because it neither has evades or leaps or really any escape features built in. The obvious answer to that argument, and the same holds for longbow rangers whose sole line of defense against a melee trait, which is unaffected by a single target knockback or stealth….

IS TO POSITION WELL.

Ansau.7326:

The problem is that the comical part is quite dull. You’re laughing to some clearly noobs and newbies, while there’s not any footage of playing with them in a smart way. All the video is just about killing some dudes who don’t know what condi cleansing is.

Is like laughing at autisms because they cry for no reason. But if you’re happy with this kind of humor…

And sorry, but when the video includes repetitively text about self skillfulness, it becomes a pvp hall of fame.

We are laughing because some people in a TS are trash talking some random mesmer without realizing said mesmer trolling them is in that TS.

These are not people with autism or any disadvantaged, marginalized demographic.

It’s comical because the guy who’s trolling them is getting a glimpse into their thought process these people have.

It’s not some hate speech toward newbies. Lighten up.

They still think fire aura is a good thing, which is hilarious.

As if an 11k hp berserker ele would want to get hit by 6-7k autoattacks just to gain 1 might stack, when the Phalanx Strength warrior nearby keeps the party at perma-25 might.

Phalanx Strength is so absurdly OP, it devalues all sources of might in combat, as does persisting flames with fury.

When you reach a point where you can easily cap might and fury, skills and traits that say things such as “grants 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds” becomes hopelessly obsolete.

Ansau.7326:

Wow those people are bad as hell…

And sorry to say this, but the video does more harm to you than help. It shows you’re just an average mesmer, not a skilled one.

Why do people keep making this post?

It’s a comical video not a claim to pvp hall of fame.

Enemy scaling is actually a bad thing for reaper shouts. The most vital part of dungeons is boss encounters, which are single target affairs where the shouts themselves are useless.

nearlight.3064:

Zenith.7301:

Embolism.8106:

Pretty sure it not working on the last cast is a bug. Not sure if they intended for it to not work on finishing the channel.

Either way, I think Mender’s Purity needs an ICD of 10s.

Why? It’s basically a minor trait that turns mantra of recovery into mantra of resolve. What’s wrong with that minor.

Ele and guardian and warrior go around cleansing conditions for days but apparently it’s broken if a mesmer does it with an ability that is a channeled, highly interruptible cast.

Well mantra mesmer is probably the most skill-less build in pvp right now. Mender’s purity with 3 mantra charges makes you have a ridiculous amount of sustain on a glass cannon build. Being able to heal over 8k between the mantra heal trait and using restorative mantras, while curing 6 conditions AoE is just way too much. Yeah you can interrupt the mantra, but staff gives lets you use phase retreat during the channel to keep you safe.

Also mantra of distraction is deeply problematic, because with confounding suggestions, it literally removes all the challenge of having to time and land your shatters properly.

Personally I think that the healing from restorative mantras needs to have a much lower base heal (say 1000 instead of 2500 at 0 healing power) but scale much much better with healing power. With celestial stats in pvp, restorative mantras heals for only 2750ish. Make it scale better with healing power so you don’t have berserker builds able to heal more than half of their HP every 12 seconds while being immune to conditions and dealing tons of burst damage thats unavoidable if you save your shatters for when your mantra stun hits.

Terrible suggestion. For one, restorative mantras is a keystone utility of inspiration for PvE.

A 1k heal on a 2.5 sec cast is GARBAGE in a format where mobs are autoattacking you for 5-6k damage.

Then there’s healing power. It’s a terrible stat, it will never be used at least in PvE. The amount of healing power investment needed to benefit is immense and costs you so much damage in exchange.

And the reason people don’t gear for healing power is because it’s a stat that benefits very few skills, who are all on considerable cooldowns compared to offensive stats which benefit most of your skills, which are pretty frequent, or toughness or vitality which always benefit you at all times.

P.S. Phase Retreat does not protect you against head shot or fear/reaper’s mark or another mesmer’s mantra of distraction. And if they’re taking staff, they’re not using greatsword or sword/torch, in which case they’re missing out on offensive potential in exchange for defensive capacity, which is a fair trade off.

Fact is, mesmer was nonexistent in meta prior to the patch’s changes, and now we’re seeing each team having one mesmer often.

Meanwhile teams still carry two cele d/d elementalists and nobody complains.

Yeah, and also useless in PvE. Switching the effects would be far more useful. You’d still get the unblockable within 3 seconds, as most blocks outside Guardian’s Shelter have longer durations than 3 seconds.

The problem with Chronomancer as well is that it has no PvE traits.

In the first tier the only viable PvE trait is All’s Well that Ends Well, and that’s a bad trait because condition removal is amply available by other means in PvE, including our heals.

Slow on interrupt is worthless in PvE, where mobs with defiance don’t count an interrupt so the effect doesn’t trigger.

Superspeed on illusions when shattered is beyind worthless in PvE.

Then on the master tier you only have danger time. You don’t need to generate a clone when you shatter because that would destroy your phantasms.

33% extra duration on alacrity when most alacrit doesn’t last beyond 3 seconds is pretty much worthless as a trait.

And the minors for chronomancer are pvp centric as well, since you want to shatter as little as possible in pve.

Time Marches On’s value on dungeons is greatly diminished, because you’ll always have swiftness from either guardians or warriors or eles which is greater than 25% movement speed, and 25% decreased duration on movement impairing conditions is inconsequential in PvE.

Their cooldowns are a bit too long to see good use over other utilities for the most part.

For PvE at least you’ll still have one slot reserved for feedback, one slot reserved for portal, and one slot for either mimic or a well.

Also well of precognition is pretty bad. The effect should be backwards, distortion on activation and unblockable at detonation. Pre-empting any attack by 3 seconds in PvE is pretty much impossible, as most attacks happen way faster than that.

Embolism.8106:

Zenith.7301:

Embolism.8106:

Zenith.7301:

Embolism.8106:

Pretty sure it not working on the last cast is a bug. Not sure if they intended for it to not work on finishing the channel.

Either way, I think Mender’s Purity needs an ICD of 10s.

Why? It’s basically a minor trait that turns mantra of recovery into mantra of resolve. What’s wrong with that minor.

Ele and guardian and warrior go around cleansing conditions for days but apparently it’s broken if a mesmer does it with an ability that is a channeled, highly interruptible cast.

Because it’s significantly stronger for MoR than for any other Mesmer heal, which is already a lot stronger HPS-wise thanks to the Mantra CD update.

Yeah, and it comes with the drawback of having to recharge the mantra every single time, opening you to interruption/CC.

There’s also the little drawback of doing 0 DPS or utility while casting for 2.5 seconds.

They all have their uses. You take Ether Feast for burst healing, MoR for highest HPS but modest but lesser burst healing. Phantasm specs take signet of the ether and it has a very large burst heal+ offensive perk at the cost of a longer cooldown (but with domination you get 1 sec of distortion out of it, which no other heal gets).

Before the update everybody would just use ether feast. Now people have options.

I’ll just say that with Mender’s Purity and Restorative Illusions, enemy condition builds can barely touch me. MoR is already comparable to other heals, it doesn’t need Mender’s Purity to be competitive: you seem to be implying that nerfing Mender’s Purity would make MoR “not an option”.

@Alpha: Inspiration is a lot more than “just the cleanse”. It’s also great healing and even more cleansing in Restorative Mantras and Illusions, and Mental Defense is a solid survivability boost. There’s also Inspiring Distortion, which IMO has the potential to be potent group support.

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. In PvE, it is one of the main reasons I’ll take it over Signet of the Ether.

And you want to nerf this heal for your stupid dueling sessions.

I don’t buy for one second that in any teamfight with engineers or eles around you’re untouchable considering the amount of condition output far exceeds 9 condi clears you’re getting from the mantra use.

Ele is virtually removing conditions everytime he applies regen, everytime he dodges in water attunement, then with water dagger 5 or earth focus 4, and then some more with cleansing fire.

Or conversely an ele can be completely immune to condi specs by taking diamond skin.

Warrior with cleansing ire and berk stance isn’t far behind in terms of being untouchable to conditions, and guardians are clearing condi right and left on top of farting strong boons for their allies while doing so.

I can see quite clearly in most of your threads, you’re a guy looking for nerfs to mesmer on the sake of pvp duels/1v1 without a care for how that affects other game formats.

Yeah, mirror blade is useless in PvE as is the greatsword in general so let’s nerf it some more while skills like lava font and meteor shower remain untouched.

Have we even seen solid tooltip numbers for shield phantasms? It’s also worth mentioning that shield phantasm is the only phantasm besides iwarden and izerker that cleaves.

And the advantage of shield phantasm is that unlike iwarden its attack is neither stationary nor is it a long channel that fails to complete because the phantasm immediately dies to cleaves.

Doesn’t the shield also slow? Slow is rather powerful against bosses.

Embolism.8106:

Zenith.7301:

Embolism.8106:

Pretty sure it not working on the last cast is a bug. Not sure if they intended for it to not work on finishing the channel.

Either way, I think Mender’s Purity needs an ICD of 10s.

Why? It’s basically a minor trait that turns mantra of recovery into mantra of resolve. What’s wrong with that minor.

Ele and guardian and warrior go around cleansing conditions for days but apparently it’s broken if a mesmer does it with an ability that is a channeled, highly interruptible cast.

Because it’s significantly stronger for MoR than for any other Mesmer heal, which is already a lot stronger HPS-wise thanks to the Mantra CD update.

Yeah, and it comes with the drawback of having to recharge the mantra every single time, opening you to interruption/CC.

There’s also the little drawback of doing 0 DPS or utility while casting for 2.5 seconds.

They all have their uses. You take Ether Feast for burst healing, MoR for highest HPS but modest and lesser burst healing. Phantasm specs take signet of the ether and it has a very large burst heal+ offensive perk at the cost of a longer cooldown (but with domination you get 1 sec of distortion out of it, which no other heal gets).

Before the update everybody would just use ether feast. Now people have options.

Drayos.8759:

Zenith.7301:

Drayos.8759:

tbh, Mesmers are currently very strong, and some traits need nerfing, PU for example which is currently making mistakes sooo forgiving, but i wouldnt deem the proffession as “overpowered” really, PU Carries alot of Bad mesmers but thats all.

I don’t understand these kinds of posts. PU is useless in any competitive pvp, it’s useless in PvE, it’s useless in large scale WvW.

And because it annoys some dumb WvW duelists/roamers, it should be nerfed? This game’s pvp should be balanced around spvp and teamfights, not this constant torrent of tears from duelists.

It isnt “useless” lol, Stealth is a Escape from any situation.. u can walk in kitten everything up and then stealth for free for quite a lengthy time, Also the boon stacking means When u initate back into them from Stealth ur Damage is going to extensively buffed for Virtually doing nothing.

It rewards passive playstyles relying on a Mechanic which increases the duration to something which a Enemey player cannot react too due to the mechanics of stealth.

Having stealth is forgiving to begin with, the Instant escape from any situation will always give the proffession the ability to escape when he messes up, PU just aids that cause.

You still haven’t said anything of value. It is useless. So what if you can escape, if you do nothing for your team that matters.

People who die to PU mesmer are IDIOTS. IDIOTS. PU mesmer has virtually no chasing potential, no true spike, it’s a ramp up class and if you killed someone it means they stayed around long enough to eat all the condi ramp up from you and your illusions.

Anyone who isn’t a half wit can simply outrun a PU mesmer or constantly reset/call for allies, and if for some reason people can’t outnumber a troll spec to death, they deserve to lose.

Show me any PU mesmer in PvE, or in any spvp tournaments, or in any top GvG rankings in WvW team fights. I’ll probably die of old age waiting, because condi mesmers are worthless in teamfights, especially PU.

P.S. Metabattle is a croc of kitten. The majority of mesmers are dom/dueling/inspiration with mantra of distraction build and zerker stats.

Inspiration is a far superior line to chaos, chaos having no synergy whatsoever in traits with power builds, and inspiration grants far better group support and defense against condition pressure. Then you have your pick of grandmaster with temporal enchanter for more powerful TW, which actually helps your team, or phantasmal defender access for group mitigation.

Embolism.8106:

Pretty sure it not working on the last cast is a bug. Not sure if they intended for it to not work on finishing the channel.

Either way, I think Mender’s Purity needs an ICD of 10s.

Why? It’s basically a minor trait that turns mantra of recovery into mantra of resolve. What’s wrong with that minor.

Ele and guardian and warrior go around cleansing conditions for days but apparently it’s broken if a mesmer does it with an ability that is a channeled, highly interruptible cast.

Drayos.8759:

tbh, Mesmers are currently very strong, and some traits need nerfing, PU for example which is currently making mistakes sooo forgiving, but i wouldnt deem the proffession as “overpowered” really, PU Carries alot of Bad mesmers but thats all.

I don’t understand these kinds of posts. PU is useless in any competitive pvp, it’s useless in PvE, it’s useless in large scale WvW.

And because it annoys some dumb WvW duelists/roamers, it should be nerfed? This game’s pvp should be balanced around spvp and teamfights, not this constant torrent of tears from duelists.

The ele was kittened because it was an obvious 1v1 in his favor and the necro got help from somebody else and it was perceived as weak.

Either way an ele whining about not being able to bully a necro 24/7 is priceless.

Quarktastic.1027:

Zenith.7301:

It’s still mind boggling how their balance team works where something like warhorn #4 is a channeled skill with a cooldown that does less effective DPS than the autoattack chain. Same goes for necro dagger #2.

It’s not a channeled skill though. You cast it, and it just does its thing. Using it is a net gain in DPS, but it gets overshadowed by path of scars, which deals more damage, is a CC, and hits multiple targets.

It has a 1 sec cast time. It is a DPS loss compared to the autoattack chain unless you use it while closing into the boss from afar.

Ele doesn’t need more damage modifiers. As if staff ele needed even more damage.

Just make traits with more offensive party support, like a trait that gives 10% attack speed to the party.

The Texan guy’s accent was the best.

The game as a whole needs a nerf to burst, but mesmer burst is not special next to thief or warrior burst, or even guardian burst.

GS wouldn’t 1-shot anything.

I’m talking about buffing mesmer autoattacks to the level of a fire ball or long range shot for ranged weapons, and to the level of thief sword or guardian sword.

Basically about a 25ish % damage difference in autoattacks, you’re not doubling autoattack damage.

wiredrawn.7298:

Iunno, I’m not a fan of warping to the enemy cause most the time they’re re-positioning themselves to gain an advantage or get closer to buddies which I don’t wanna warp into I wanna pull them back to where I am. I have little ways of getting out if I warp into a bad situation, unless if a skill like flesh wurm were on a weapon or another similar util.

Also it would be cool if dark path were a pull instead, half the time i dont use it cause if I do the situation will get worse real fast.

On that note, making it a pull is good as well. Just more tools to keep the foe with you, running away from a necro is a joke.

They don’t need to be mobile. They just ened to be invulnerable like banners and allow the ranger to reposition them just like banners and turrets can be grabbed and carried around to the next spot.

It would also help if the stupid spirits were ground targeted on summon and were off the aggro table.

apocalypso.4895:

Zenith.7301:

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

No… with higher dmg for a power build on aa you would still have 0 mobility, 0 team support, 0 evades, 1 situational soft cc and a useless skill (splitblade). = bad.

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

And the 0 team support and situational soft cc applies just as much to 1h sword, nobody gives a kitten about crippling talon.

In fact, pretty much all ranger weapons are lacking on damage, team support, aoe, and aoe CC, it’s why ranger is an inferior class in pretty much any format.

It’s still mind boggling how their balance team works where something like warhorn #4 is a channeled skill with a cooldown that does less effective DPS than the autoattack chain. Same goes for necro dagger #2.

Necro’s grasp should be the same speed as thief’s scorpion wire, as should dark path.

Better yet, make dark path a blink with not only poison but chill as well.

I also don’t understand why dagger doesn’t have a teleport to target on dark pact when the Orrian mobs in PvE have necromancers teleporting in a swarm to people.

Chronomancer got 2 new skills with long cd, with a low damage phantasm. A 1.5 min cd ability reset for 4 seconds if you sacrifice 3 illusions (that is, if you sacrifice your damage).

Meanwhile reaper got 5 new skills, 5 new death shroud skills.

Guardian got updated virtues, so 3 new virtues, 5 new skills from longbow.

Elementalist got 8 new warhorn skills and 4 attunement overloads.

I don’t understand how anyone can say Chronomancer is the coolest when they effectively got the least new toys.

Confusion wouldn’t work, because it wouldn’t scale at all with a berserker gearset, making it an inferior skill in scaling compared to warrior/thief/guard/ele. Hybrid skills and weapons as a rule of thumb suck in PvE because they’re not receiving 100% stat benefit, and often for hybrid skills and weapons both the power and condi side coefficients are BAD.

Just look at ranger weapons for an example of hybrid crap gone wrong. Useless shortbow, terrible mainhand axe (power based, weak auto on a weapon with mostly condi skills). Greatsword had Maul with bleed and they had to change that finally to vulnerability.

And the problem is you can’t tie damage to cooldown skills. You need to buff the autoattacks, because the amount you’d need to buff a 20 sec cd skill to make up for the sustained DPS difference between a mesmer’s autoattack and a thief or warrior or ele’s autoattacks would make that 20 sec cd skill really, really spiky or borderline OP DoT.

The damage source mesmer needs buffing from needs to be a frequent enough damage source.

I like the cry of frustration idea for aoe, but I think they won’t even bother with such a change at this point given how they’re putting all the aoe eggs in the wells basket.

Hell, diversion should be aoe baseline and the daze duration based on the amount of illusions sacrificed.

Photoloss.4817:

I’m all for reshuffling damage, but your suggestions on where to put it are bad. Giving it to clones would be absolutely terrible for anything besides those AoE-spammy bosses.
Shatters are problematic due to PvP burst, CoF also has a long cooldown. Plus our illusion generation isn’t that much better in PvE, especially against those bosses where phantasms actually die.

Blurred Frenzy and Confusing Images can also be used for PvP burst, as can Chaos Storm and GS.

So, I repeat, where do you want to put that damage without incurring PvP-motivated nerfs (again…) or gutting our theoretical maximum when phantasms don’t instantly go splat?

You make mindwrack burst take a hit by making 50% of its damage a DoT portion called “despair”, and that way you can give it higher damage potential. The DoT portion cannot be cleansed, it’s a status effect.

Make mesmer less about a star aligned mindwrack burst that leaves the mesmer limp if it doesn’t connect and give him some sustained pressure in return.

Blurred Frenzy already barely breaks even in DPS with the autoattack, and the mesmer autoattacks are TERRIBLE.

Meanwhile some thief gets a version of blurred frenzy that also stuns, does about 50% more damage, and can be used 3 times in a row.

Mesmer needs to be something more than a portal/time warp bot in any group scenario.

I doubt that will happen though as this class appears to be swarmed by 1v1 heroes, and they don’t want any changes that might alter that focus, much like thieves have been touchy about their precious 1v1 builds.

Photoloss.4817:

Loxsus.3841:

But what if you take the phantasms damage and cut it by, let’s say, half. Now, put that missing damage into your normal clones. Make them actually HIT for a little something. So having 2 clones and a phantasm up would be like having 1 and a half phantasms. Phantasms come with the benefit of some great utility skill so their still good but basically make phantasms AND clones do the same damage.

You realise getting 3 phantasms up in PvE takes about 5s, meaning such a change would be a huge, unnecessary nerf?

It also takes less than that for a boss to cleave them down with 1 autoattack.

I wonder if you’ve actually done a boss like Molten Duo or Mossman or Archdiviner on fractal 50.

Tying mesmer damage to phantasms is bad. They should be utility skills. Take the damage from phantasms and bake it into the wimpy Blurred Frenzy and autoattacks/Cry of Frustration.

In beta there was a point where clones were doing 25% of the damage the mesmer could do with his autoattack chain, so they were good for something ebsides shatter fodder.

Either way the current design with shatters is bad. Mindwrack is always going to be held back by people crying about it doing too much damage. Expect a nerf soon to it for pvp reasons while mesmers get nothing in PvE in return.

Rym.1469:

I would like them to start airing some beta test weekends when we actually can test stuff out for ourselves.

We all know how it went with Revenant, which would be grossly underperforming even with 23rd update, vs. other professions. They saw that I responded with fixes.

Other thing is, they’ve been watching Necromancers underperforming for 3 years and haven’t done much about that, but hey!

Keep calm and
master Death Shroud

This is how it actually works. Beta is when the most class balancing happens, and when the thing comes off beta you can expect to not get meaningful changes until next xpac.

I remember when they announced necro and they said he would be the hardest caster to bring down.

And then you look at these videos and almost certainly the necro is the first target to go down, while thieves and eles and mesmers just port around happily and heal up even better.

What also sucks is that tying a weapon to a specialization also onvolves wasting a perfectly good minor trait slot just to allow you to wear the weapon. That’s just lame.