Guild Wars 2

Thief with runes of vampirism and new trait update that allows them to take up most of shadow arts without the damage loss that they would have seen right now is just going to be dumb.

Expect the nerf pleas to get a lot louder.

Most people in spvp are playing against thieves who right now can’t afford shadow arts, but they will afford it come the trait revamp, and it helps them far more than the mesmer changes help the mesmer in this particular match up.

You can change to PU or some other tankier, more stealth/interrupt centric build to deal better with thieves, but you become a drag to your team in exchange for a more favorable 1v1 match up.

Mesmer is in the same state necro was when mace/hammer warrior were at their dumbest. Generally well off against everything else, but there was this one class that completely dominated the experience for you in any match if they were present.

Thieves will never be balanced so long as stealth and their countless teleports/resets give them all the perks of the best berzerker class damage without any of the risks since they get so many get out of jail free cards. They’ll have to nerf their stealth and accessibility to defenses — they get way too meany defenses far cheaper than what other classes have to pay for similar defenses with way longer cooldowns.

Look at Shadow Step. A double stun breaker with condi clear, double teleport, all in one for the cheap price of a 50 sec cd. Their heals all clear conditions with no traiting, and give either access to spike (stealth) or disengage/damage avoidance (withdraw).

Thieves are a rather condensed class. They don’t need to spread and trait all over to get functioning builds, and the initiative system is a far superior system that allows them to chain skills that are the most useful and not be subject to the effects of chill or interrupts. They are a class virtually immune from the rules applied to everybody else.

And anet seems fine with that because fact is thieves have been a problem since beta. There’s nothing that hasn’t changed since then that hasn’t made them not counter nearly all other berzerker classes except a good mediguard.

So either get a team that supports your mesmer, play stealth/interrupt builds in pugs, or reroll engineer/guard if you want to dump on thieves.

Tobias Steele.2071:

phokus.8934:

Tobias Steele.2071:

phokus.8934:

Tobias Steele.2071:

Zenith.7301:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vayne.8563:

Since it’s based around support, the odds are it won’t be high DPS. That would make it quite OP.

Yup. There is another weapon set more focused around ‘High" DPS, but can’t talk about that yet.

I hope you realize by saying that you’ve condemened it to disuse in any serious PvE content.

I think we’ve been through this for the past 2.5 years, but you guys don’t seem to understand why nobody stacks healing power in PvE and even with those traits they still won’t.

A damage output loss of that magnitude only increases fight duration that much more, which means more damage output from the boss that far exceeds what little benefit you gained in healing power by sacrificing DPS.

I mean, have you learned nothing from guardian staff and mesmer staff in PvE? Nobody uses them for a reason.

… while it’s true that few use Mesmer staff for anything, that’s because it’s bad for everything, not because it’s full support.

Completely false statement that’s needing correction.

---

The big thing with Revenants is the lack of weapon swap and we’re all speculating on things we don’t full know yet. Just based off of what I’ve seen so far, Revenants are going to play many different roles but Ventari is going to be their healing support with minor CC.

I’m not exactly sure why people want strange weapon combinations to be the DPS setup and it’s safe to say that sword/x will be it.

Please feel free to correct it then.

You haven’t played Mesmer I take it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer will give you all the answers you need about using staff in PvP and how extremely useful it is.

You may be correct about it being moderately useful in one format, but linking the mesmer forums with a condescending attitude doesnt inspire much confidence in your arguments favour.

I play mesmer a lot, and I stand by what I said. Imho Its likely the worst mesmer weapon across all formats, and the worst implementation of a staff weapon so far

Worst mesmer weapon award goes to the scepter, not the staff. But mesmer staff is not that far behind in how terrible it is (and both are terrible for the same reason, awful base autoattack damage and crappy projectile speed).

Mesmer staff however is the worst of all staff implementations in the game, no doubt about that.

You won’t find much in mesmer forums since by now they’re just there for threads on roaming/dueling in WvW.

staff/greatsword see some use in spvp but that’s mostly for the staff blink tricks, not the staff’s offensive or supportive capacity.

And in spvp staff/greatsword is especially weak to s/d thieves so sword/torch+greatsword have taken over it.

I guess roaming is a word empty of meaning too, if we are to take your superficial reading habits as an example. I suspected reading past a small, short first paragraph would be much to ask of someone who spends so much of their time giving undue significance to their preferred format of play over others.

Cylokin.2560:

Zenith.7301:

Cylokin.2560:

Faux.1937:

Cylokin.2560:

Zenith.7301:

Tobias Steele.2071:

Zenith.7301:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vayne.8563:

Since it’s based around support, the odds are it won’t be high DPS. That would make it quite OP.

Yup. There is another weapon set more focused around ‘High" DPS, but can’t talk about that yet.

I hope you realize by saying that you’ve condemened it to disuse in any serious PvE content.

I think we’ve been through this for the past 2.5 years, but you guys don’t seem to understand why nobody stacks healing power in PvE and even with those traits they still won’t.

A damage output loss of that magnitude only increases fight duration that much more, which means more damage output from the boss that far exceeds what little benefit you gained in healing power by sacrificing DPS.

I mean, have you learned nothing from guardian staff and mesmer staff in PvE? Nobody uses them for a reason.

Pve isn’t the only game type. new class needs to be fully balanced within all three formats. Your examples need some work as well. Plenty of players use guardian staff in pve and while it’s true that few use Mesmer staff for anything, that’s because it’s bad for everything, not because it’s full support.

Ok, let me correct. No good guardian that isn’t asking to be kicked from a speed run uses staff in PvE because an elementalist or warrior can already might stack for the group without messing up their damage output. Bad guardians use staff in PvE.

And if your idea for balancing across game formats is making a bunch of weapons which are useless in one of the formats, the design needs reconsideration.

Both Mesmer and Guardian Staff weapons are brilliant in sPvP, WvW etc, so please don’t use corner stacking excuse of a dungeons as an example how weapon is useful.

And like someone already said, they are revamping the PvE, so your corner stacking max dps spamming might not be so viable in upcoming content.

Its funny… B.c I cant remember that last Time we actually needed Corner stacking lol. most “speed” groups no days dont even use corners, it takes to long for the mobs to run to them, its faster to run out in the open and just AoE mob them down, if need to, a Guard or Mesmer will pull them together.

Call it whatever you want, the “stack, dps burst spam” point is the same.

Yeah, because killing weakling NPC camps or dolyaks, or standing around beating at some inanimate door or wall or zerging spamming 1/AOE for bags around is so much more skillful or thoughtful game format.

Your smug self importance is adorable.

What really is adorable is the fact that you think you know what you are talking about there.
I only pvp in WvW, not killing doors, zerg or whatever you do.

Yeah, “pvp”. Also known as zerging. Must be so hard to spam aoe and pressing 1 on the melee train.

Really taxing on your brain I bet. Every time you go buy your skillful condi duration/reduction food and killing uplevels explains your superb ability and achievements.

Roaming and ganking clueless people surely is worthy of praise in favor of actually queing against people ranked of similar skills in spvp tourneys. Not that I expect to see you as a tourney champ for all that big talk you bring.

Want more pats on your back pvp guy?

Cylokin.2560:

Faux.1937:

Cylokin.2560:

Zenith.7301:

Tobias Steele.2071:

Zenith.7301:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vayne.8563:

Since it’s based around support, the odds are it won’t be high DPS. That would make it quite OP.

Yup. There is another weapon set more focused around ‘High" DPS, but can’t talk about that yet.

I hope you realize by saying that you’ve condemened it to disuse in any serious PvE content.

I think we’ve been through this for the past 2.5 years, but you guys don’t seem to understand why nobody stacks healing power in PvE and even with those traits they still won’t.

A damage output loss of that magnitude only increases fight duration that much more, which means more damage output from the boss that far exceeds what little benefit you gained in healing power by sacrificing DPS.

I mean, have you learned nothing from guardian staff and mesmer staff in PvE? Nobody uses them for a reason.

Pve isn’t the only game type. new class needs to be fully balanced within all three formats. Your examples need some work as well. Plenty of players use guardian staff in pve and while it’s true that few use Mesmer staff for anything, that’s because it’s bad for everything, not because it’s full support.

Ok, let me correct. No good guardian that isn’t asking to be kicked from a speed run uses staff in PvE because an elementalist or warrior can already might stack for the group without messing up their damage output. Bad guardians use staff in PvE.

And if your idea for balancing across game formats is making a bunch of weapons which are useless in one of the formats, the design needs reconsideration.

Both Mesmer and Guardian Staff weapons are brilliant in sPvP, WvW etc, so please don’t use corner stacking excuse of a dungeons as an example how weapon is useful.

And like someone already said, they are revamping the PvE, so your corner stacking max dps spamming might not be so viable in upcoming content.

Its funny… B.c I cant remember that last Time we actually needed Corner stacking lol. most “speed” groups no days dont even use corners, it takes to long for the mobs to run to them, its faster to run out in the open and just AoE mob them down, if need to, a Guard or Mesmer will pull them together.

Call it whatever you want, the “stack, dps burst spam” point is the same.

Yeah, because killing weakling NPC camps or dolyaks, or standing around beating at some inanimate door or wall or zerging spamming 1/AOE for bags around is so much more skillful or thoughtful game format.

Your smug self importance is adorable.

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-

Who cares about PvE anyways when it comes to discussing AI?
PvE is solely dominated by the zerker meta, and no AI has a spot there since it potentially breaks the stack. This is why people in general rahter not have rangers in their group, since you always have the chance to meet a dumb one that can’t set his pet on passive and therefore kittens up the whole run constantly.
Banners are not AI, as in they don’t decide what to target / where to move to. They don’t break a stack, they don’t pull unintended, they are entirely passive. If banners would do this, they would be gone from the warri PvE meta in no time, but not replaced by spirits or other AI, since AI in general is the last thing you want to have in dungeons.

- So, buff spirits equally to or beyond banners?
Wouldn’t change the fact that no one will like them in PvE, and just make them OP in PvP – again.

- Make them invulnerable?
Since when are permanently invulnerable, player-created objects allowed to damage players? Also Banners have better buffs.

- Do both?
Why? we already have banners. Why not give banners to all classes then?

It doesn’t matter how you twist and turn, you compare apples with bananas.
Spirits are AI – therefore a PvP only thing – and in a reasonable spot as such.
Banners are not AI, but AoE buffs, and in a quite powerful (since monopole) position as such. Btw, have you ever seen any warri that was running any banner beyond war-banner in PvP? or in WvW? There banners are as non-viable as AI in general is in PvE.
And spirits were in the meta not long ago, and still are a resonable, but weak, option to take, despite their passive nature and falsely perceived parallels to the seemingly far more powerful banners.

Again, banners and spirits have nothing in comparison, not even the game-modes they are viable or welcome in.

I care about PvE. You know, why design a bunch of utilities nobody will want to use. Spirit rangers aren’t even a thing in spvp ever since they got gutted.

Spirits are glorified banners that need a trait to be portable and can be attacked. Spirits hurt nobody. You keep saying that, but the only spirit that HARMS is the storm spirit’s activated ability, which nobody outside spvp uses, because swiftness in combat is pretty useless when an elementalist is activating it for the group without sacrificing a utility slot or having to trait heavily for it, as can warriors and guardians.

You are calling my argument contorted? That AI are only for spvp consideration? What is wrong with you? It’s you spvp people who have been whining all year until rangers got nerfed because you hate AI. Ranger pets got nerfed, spirits got nerfed, and rangers were already weak in PvE!

I guess since AI is designed solely for spvp purposes, we might as well banish mesmers and rangers to spvp land because they sure as hell don’t belong to PvE by your standards.

Apples and bananas has got to be the most tired line when someone comes into a thread wanting to defend their pet classes against comparison that points out flaws and weaknesses other classes suffer that limit their represenation and gameplay in many game formats.

And since you’ve admitted caring very little about how mechanisms don’t function in PvE and they shouldn’t be fixed because you don’t care about them and clearly the world revolves around what you judge to be worthy of fixing, I think my conversation with you is done.

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Meanwhile, ranger spirits are still the only supportive totem skill with ample vulnerability to all kinds of attacks and zergs.

I hope that and the pet policy gets revised…..real soon. It’d be nice for them to not be totally kitten in any serious content.

you compare apples with bananas.
The only invulnerable “totems” in this game are banners, and they grant nothing but stat-boosts or dmg (90 sec cd) / rezz (240sec cd) on impact

turrets buff players as well, but attack on the same time – damageable.
minions don’t buff players, but can heal their owner and attack on the same time – damageable.
spirit-weapons can either attack or cc and heal allies on the same time -damageable.
clones and phantasms can attack players, and be shattered to trigger other offensive effects – damageable.
thiefs guild – damageable.
elementals – damagable

and now spirits: grant offensive or defensive, unique boons and can attack players directly via command abilitys – damagable. After the patch they will not be able to move anymore, still they have direct offensive capabilities.
banners do not. They can’t move on their own, they must be picked up.
ventaries tablet also does not. It also can’t move on its own, but must be commanded to follow the player, and will even despawn if people run off.

Spirits do work as intended. Deal with it.

So full of it lol. The stat bonuses from banners override the bonuses of spirits in PvE (as in, they give a greater damage bonus), and they are portable without traiting. The activated abilities are garbage in PvE, nobody uses them.

Guess how many of your wonderful examples actually are used in PvE with frequency.

Here’s a hint, WvW/SpVp zergling, not the summons with HP bars that serve as aoe 2-shot bait.

Not that spirits, or turrets, or minions, or spirit weapons are used much in most areas of the game. Turrets are a spvp hotjoin fixture, with barely any presence in tournaments and like all other HP summons extinct in both WvW and PvE.

Also, just for record keeping, spirits don’t move unless you go up to a grandmaster slot. Gutting all your offensive capacity and putting them in 1 shot territory more often than not as you don’t want the spirits following you into melee where most of the cleaving/aoe happens.

Tobias Steele.2071:

Zenith.7301:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vayne.8563:

Since it’s based around support, the odds are it won’t be high DPS. That would make it quite OP.

Yup. There is another weapon set more focused around ‘High" DPS, but can’t talk about that yet.

I hope you realize by saying that you’ve condemened it to disuse in any serious PvE content.

I think we’ve been through this for the past 2.5 years, but you guys don’t seem to understand why nobody stacks healing power in PvE and even with those traits they still won’t.

A damage output loss of that magnitude only increases fight duration that much more, which means more damage output from the boss that far exceeds what little benefit you gained in healing power by sacrificing DPS.

I mean, have you learned nothing from guardian staff and mesmer staff in PvE? Nobody uses them for a reason.

Pve isn’t the only game type. new class needs to be fully balanced within all three formats. Your examples need some work as well. Plenty of players use guardian staff in pve and while it’s true that few use Mesmer staff for anything, that’s because it’s bad for everything, not because it’s full support.

Ok, let me correct. No good guardian that isn’t asking to be kicked from a speed run uses staff in PvE because an elementalist or warrior can already might stack for the group without messing up their damage output. Bad guardians use staff in PvE.

And if your idea for balancing across game formats is making a bunch of weapons which are useless in one of the formats, the design needs reconsideration.

Meanwhile, ranger spirits are still the only supportive totem skill with ample vulnerability to all kinds of attacks and zergs.

I hope that and the pet policy gets revised…..real soon. It’d be nice for them to not be totally kitten in any serious content.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vayne.8563:

Since it’s based around support, the odds are it won’t be high DPS. That would make it quite OP.

Yup. There is another weapon set more focused around ‘High" DPS, but can’t talk about that yet.

I hope you realize by saying that you’ve condemened it to disuse in any serious PvE content.

I think we’ve been through this for the past 2.5 years, but you guys don’t seem to understand why nobody stacks healing power in PvE and even with those traits they still won’t.

A damage output loss of that magnitude only increases fight duration that much more, which means more damage output from the boss that far exceeds what little benefit you gained in healing power by sacrificing DPS.

I mean, have you learned nothing from guardian staff and mesmer staff in PvE? Nobody uses them for a reason.

Sorry, OP. Might stacking isn’t a problem on other armor sets that don’t involve crit damage.

Ferocity needs nerfing or removal. Just remove extra crit damage stat, and merge power and condition damage into the single power stat.

Then people can customize around healing power or toughness or boon/condition duration.

So long as you introduce differences in offensive potential, people will always rush offense.

You can never have too much DPS, but you can always have extraneous utility/defense. And it will stay that way so long as we have health bars in our concept of combat mechanics.

roachsrealm.9284:

I hate mai trin, but only because pugs seem to have problems with her. jade maw is so easy. molton duo is so easy. we need new ones, honestly..

dhuum, urgoz, and that demon from the deep?

Yeah, now try doing molten duo with a pug that can’t optimize.

I’ll take mai trin any day over molten duo with a pug. Molten duo gets exponentially harder the longer the fight lags so bad dps will hurt you far more.

Not to mention the stupid invisible aoe circles of death that hit you from nowhere.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

They have yet to do basic stuff like revamp the way boon sharing/stacking is done so you can have encounters that split the group without nerfing them for not being stacked for field blasts.

They have yet to make many fields like ethereal and darkness actually worthwhile. Leap finishers are still fairly crappy, especially fire aura since the last thing you want to do as a berserker is get hit by mob 3-4k autoattacks multiple times just to get 1 stack of might each. Frost aura is still somewhat situational, 10% less damage taken is something made for bunker characters not berserker ones.

Lots of useless weapons still. Autoattacks in this game are not remotely balanced across classes. Things like mesmer scepter, staff, necro staff, ranger mainhand axe. Necro mainhand dagger is trash compared to warrior axe mainhand or thief dagger or ele staff or lightning whip, as is mesmer sword. Ranger greatsword autoattack is also crap, and mainhand sword is not that much to write home about while having silly inconveniences and built in delays to certain dodges like monarch’s leap.

Boon stripping as utility is lessened by the fact that mobs spam it even after the boon is stripped.

Yeah, random dodges is a bad idea. I think a better mechanic to a boss is detecting spikes in damage or CC and reacting defensively, so players have to use tools to ensure those defenses are either diminished or don’t kick in.

Because another issue with the game as it is is that HP on mobs is so high because the damage ceiling from players is already really high.

I don’t know of a boss fight that lasts more than 5 minutes. So how can you create layered, interesting multi stage encounters if players can burst so much damage that they can reliably skip the encounter mechanisms or largely neuter the windows for error by shortening the fight so much.

And this goes to an error in design as well, where they say they are streamlining all these traits because they want to reduce bad choices from players, but the the biggest offenders in bad choices — gear and combo fields, the largest contributors to DPS-- are left alone, creating huge gaps in potential DPS.

Nyx.7342:

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

This thread is so dam interesting to read.

Mossman and archdiviner are so fun! (well the first archdiviner not the second one) But they are w/e in organized groups, altho most content really is. The second archdiviner is definitely bad since it’s hard to reactively dodge his attacks since i’ve been hit many times when dodging after hte animation starts, pretty sure it hits at the start of the animation.

I would say I enjoy Bosses that move around more fun than stationary ones, and although i agree they shouldn’t be like pvp players since that would end up being more frustrating than satisfying there needs to be something more than orchestrated attacks. I like pvp more than pve because of the fact that not everything can be planned out. The fact that you have to reactively change up your strategy is what makes pvp difficult and it’s something that is missing from pve. No idea how that can be implemented but with a dynamic combat system it seemse necessary to make great content.

With the 2nd archdiviner it’s also sort of a “oh, bugger off you cheating kitten” scenario, since his melee swing looks like a cone but it will actually hit you from behind him depending on the angle, and that’s a 1 shot for light/medium hp professions.

I really think people can agree that the archaic method of increasing difficulty by adding hp and raw damage needs to go. It’s unimaginative and not really good from a gameplay perspective.

There’s also the problem with their stated intent of telegraphed skills and their actual executions. It’s why mesmers as well see their interrupt builds with lesser value in PvE, because most cast times for boss attacks outside lupi are 1/4-1/2 cast times, with tiny humanoid animations amidst a sea of spell effects.

It’s why asuras are such a problem in pvp, people abuse them since it’s actually rather effective to obscure animations, and despite people asking for cast bars, which were in GW1 and didn’t detract from GW1’s potential difficulty on well designed endgame raids, anet has been pigheaded about just biting the bullet.

It’s a common theme with Anet, though. Rangers begged them to not make pets their mechanic, anet disregarded that, and proceeded to give them the crappiest class mechanic existent in the game with a terrible AI that has poor survivability, doesn’t scale from gear (ascended upgrades, pets don’t have the same crit dmg bonus as the owner, devaluing berserker’s impact for the ranger relative to other classes) or food or sigils or runes, has execution delays and trouble hitting moving targets due to autoattack animation locks, and doesn’t cleave outside drakes. Ranged pets pathe terribly, have a 900 range for some reason unlike the ranger’s 1200, and they can’t shoot from fort walls or at people up on them from below.

When Anet has a gimmick, it’s their baby and they don’t care what the playerbase has to say about its practical applications in the game. They will force it on you, it will be shoddy, and they won’t change much about it until the next xpac where you need to dish out another 40-60 bucks to see if they actually got around to fixing it.

Yeah, figures. I’ve also noticed that unlike other projectile mechanics, if you lay down a Feedback but still stay inside the bubble where he whirls, you take damage.

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

archdiviner’s aoe projectile attack is nice because it has a decent cast time but hits hard, so an unsuspecting player will get downed out of nowhere while if you’re experienced you can dodge through him or something.

well, that’s just my opinion anyway. mind you, I have no idea how people even do fractal bosses anymore.

There’s also an element of randomness to archdiviner when he does his whirl. Sometimes the projectiles will shoot before he’s mid-animation.

Sometimes you are far away and a projectile doesn’t visually hit you but you still take damage from some invisible projectile.

Yes, it’s what I meant. The trinity comes in another form, which is still there.

In WvW the importance of the meatshields is not in the aggro system, though it is by the definition of the frontline that they will likely absorb the brunt of the damage as they will be the initial people within attack range.

The real value of the “tanks” in WvW comes from the bodyblocking of projectiles (not seen much in PvE due to projectile reflect because you can sit in reflect walls without being forced to move out of them, unlike WvW) and soaking up the aoe cap limits so the more squishy backline and midline doesn’t eat as much cleave damage. They also trigger things like necro marks and traps before those go off on the back or midline. Because much of the engagements as well hinge on surviving burst and trading CC, those tanks serve to pressure the use of rings of warding and other offensive tools so that they can absorb that CC and spike chain that would otherwise annihilate the backline.

These features are useless in PvE of course because in PvE you can gear and slot utilities/traits for efficiency in damage output and clear times and mobs won’t punish you for it or exploit your defensive weaknesses. Doing GvG in berserker gear for most classes except midline wells necromancer (and in the case of the necromancer the team heavily builds around them to keep them alive) and thief is often suicidal.

Problem is creating good PvE AI or encounters is expensive, while creating PvP content is cheap because the content is generated as much by players as developers. You give them a map, and they will find multiple, constantly changing ways of using that map for months or years. PvE is scripted and grows stale.

And they’ve been rather stingy with additions in this game so let’s hope that when players pay for an xpac box that anet finds some incentive to invest in a dedicated PvE team.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Zenith.7301:

Go out in WvW where the opponents are actually smart

Well…

Yeah, yeah, not smarter than you of course. Smarter than the AI who will happily stand in your lava font till it dies however is another matter. Speaking of zerglings since you prefer to paint with a broad brush, not the dueling roamers I’m sure you beat without effort.

And of course we have mobs in PvE who make plentiful attempts to interrupt your skills via well timed stuns/daze or attempt to foil your burst/CC with aegis/blind of their own, or stunbreak and apply stability to themselves when they predict incoming CC from a skill animation.

Or who slap poison on you when they predict you are going to heal or who cleanse conditions like vulnerability off themselves or place projectile reflection on themselves when they detect you using a projectile.

Elrey.5472:

Now tell me Zenith how my group of 4 players without guardian or thief or elementalist made it to fractals level 50 1 by 1 (no cheating with the instabilities!) and still try to prove your point that a certain proffesion is needed.

The holy trinity is gone, what we have here is active defense, where anyone can protect himself from the hits. No need of a tank to get the hits nor a healer to heal them.

There’s not a single 5 man either in any of the MMO’s I mentioned where you need a tank. Presence of a trinity combat system does not mean you require a tank to complete casual content, which is what fractals are in comparison to other games’ content.

The point is, in GW2 someone is taking care of the damage absorption/avoidance part. Someone, based in proximity, is baiting the aggro.

Saying that GW2 is successful in removing the trinity because it made content where DPS can just bumrush an hp sack and trivialize most of its attacks is a pointless boast.

Don’t think the trinity exists? Go out in WvW or spvp where the opponents are actually smart compared to the terribly designed 2+ year old neglected PvE AI. Chances are your frontline and damage soakers are the warriors and guardians, the elementalists and engineers are laying down the water fields and the other classes stay most of the time in ranged weaponsets.

Is there any way in the beta to obtain anything besides celestial? Do toons come with tradeskills leveled?

Jerus.4350:

Yup, because guardian is required for content… wait, no it isn’t.

I’d go on, but really that statement proves my point just fine.

What part of blind/cc (including elementalist ice bow) did you miss. Be it a thief or elementalist instead of guardian, it’s the same concept.

As is using an earth elemental on mai trin or the golem in fractals.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble but this game is far from revolutionary. It’s a pretty looking game with a great art team and a fun combat engine, but most importantly it’s F2P.

You’ve sat for 2.5+ years with the same old dungeons with the only innovations being how to make it go faster because you’re so over them already.

Which of these took months of attempts and different configurations to figure out the encounter? Oh, right, none of them.

The closest this game ever got to that is Priestess of Dwayna, and that’s stretching it.

Jerus.4350:

What do you mean “Actual MMO’s”?

Other MMOs have their twitch mechanics as well, in fact many are more overbearing.

I think what GW2 did is something great, removing the trinity and creating a system where you have more options. I doubt it’ll be the last we see of it. The trinity is simply an easy way out of good synergetic design. It’s forced diversity and nothing else.

In DCUO we saw the start of this type of system thanks to the action style mechanics of blocks and counters. But, again, in that game reacting .1s too slow can end in disaster (tank dead, raid failing). Though they had trinity there the more action style with it’s more engaging play allowed you to surpass the status quo of trinity games.

But even that, in EQ we had our twitch style with having to react quickly to enemies before they unleashed devastating attacks on groups of comrades. Be it landing a CC or pulling agro, or even landing a heal right at the right time, anticipating the action and casting right at the right time. Really no different than reacting to a Lupi Kick, the difference being that often you had healers who could let you rebound as long as you didn’t flat out die, and even if you did, just res and keep going.

There’s really nothing superior about other MMOs other than the fact that they release far better and far more content to actually play. That’s really the only thing GW2 lacks.

Options my kitten . They removed the trinity only in spirit. It still functions the same. You use a guardian to absorb damage via aegis or use blind spam or CC. You’re still standing in a mob’s face and using avoidance (which traditional tanks use with cooldowns and native parry/dodge rates) to divert the damage.

In other top MMO’s the difference in DPS between classes is also not as vast. Look at FFXIV or Wildstar or WoW. Nowehere near the difference between an elementalist/thief and a necromancer/ranger/mesmer.

I never said other MMO’s didn’t have twitch, merely that the sole appeal of THIS one is the twitchy combat. Because this game sure as hell doesn’t come close to the encounter design or raiding scenes of WoW/Wildstar/FFXIV.

What you have here is the same as Challenge Modes competition in WoW.

Remember the chronomancer Points of Interest? How PvE was showcased with the dev playing on a STAFF mesmer?

Yeah, now you know why your beta consists of celestial gear Revenants.

Game is made with the zerg loving people in mind. You want more complex combat and encounters than just a twitch game, play the other ACTUAL MMO’s.

Or you can spvp. Maybe there you won’t have to contrive some challenge because the vanilla encounter is awfully dull and gimmicky.

And to those who got in, congrats; you deserve it. I don’t know what possessed you to endure such a mindless and soul crushing experience such as farming Silverwastes, but you at the very least deserve some compensation for it.

BTW, for those who played Revenant: disregard the gear. Tell me what you think about the class design and what it could do in berserkers.

I think a staff, monk type specialization for warrior is pretty likely. A martial artist.

Utilities don’t exist in a vacuum, they are relative in strength to each other. A class with fire fields and might and vuln stacking is better than a class with dark fields and vuln stacking.

Utility was not created equal. It’s why ranger is not meta despite having utility.

Problem is ele/warrior/thief/guard not only have expansive utility, their practical dps also blows the other inferior classes out of the water.

Stormbolt.7293:

The trait changes will address a lot of your concerns. Keep in mind that Mesmer is not a raw DPS class. You are not going to deal as much damage as a warrior or thief, and that’s the way the class was designed. The Mesmer’s strength lies in its ability to confuse and mess with people. Your strength lies in your ability to control the flow of the battle.

Shatter is the least interesting build in my opinion because it really doesn’t use the Mesmer’s ability to the fullest. I’d suggest trying a PU condition or interrupt build.

Which is not very useful because damage is the most useful thing to bring in any game with HP pools. You don’t confuse your enemies and stealth is no good for you outside of pvp and pve skipping.

You don’t make damage comparable, you put classes in a ghetto.

Besides he’s saying necros can clear content in the non-speedclear scene but my experience doing pug runs as a necromancer is that you get the boot before you even get a chance to load into the dungeon, at least in arah and fractal 50 it’s very common. The only other class that happens to is ranger.

I have yet to, once in my 2.5+ year stint in this game, ever get vote kicked on my guardian. On my ele it only happened very early when idiots thought only heavies were good for fractals and that conjure ele was bad.

Teutos.8620:

StickerHappy.8052:

Mesmer underwhelming in pvp? Man seriously cant get enough of qqs.

Zenith.7301:

lol only thieves hardcounter mesmers. Mesmer takes a crap on everything else, if thief didn’t exist mesmer would be meta in spvp and for roaming/dueling mesmer is more than fine.

You are both totally right, every top team plays with a mesmer… oh wait… last go4cups there was only 1 mesmer on EU -> Helseth
Even Misha changed to Offguard, because Mesmer is not strong enough.

……because thief pushes them out. Apparently that makes the mesmer a terrible pvp class when the obvious answer is to nerf thieves instead.

Teutos.8620:

Zenith.7301:

Teutos.8620:

Zenith.7301:

is what comes out of a pvp-centric class developer.

haha, 10/10, good one

Totally, all those traits in chronomancy are super useful PvE traits.

As are all the interrupt traits he revamped the mesmer with.

Currently the two most underwhelming profession in PvP are: Mesmer & Necro; so just a coincidence that they both share the same developer?
Compare that to the DH in which livestream they killed Svanir a PvP mob, and didn’t show some PvE-Boss footage

lol only thieves hardcounter mesmers. Mesmer takes a crap on everything else, if thief didn’t exist mesmer would be meta in spvp and for roaming/dueling mesmer is more than fine.

Teutos.8620:

Zenith.7301:

is what comes out of a pvp-centric class developer.

haha, 10/10, good one

Totally, all those traits in chronomancy are super useful PvE traits.

As are all the interrupt traits he revamped the mesmer with.

They could have at least changed the mainhand skills we have when equipped with a shield….or make it like the thioef where the combination of a weapon with a shield gives a combo skill.

But nope, a 90 sec cd convoluted cd reset that shatters your dps source is what comes out of a pvp-centric class developer.

I don’t know, to me it seems like a nerf to survival.

A shortbow thief, d/d ele with all that condi clear or a mesmer will take a dump on reaper necro. You have a single pull on your weapon with a fairly short range and obvious animation on a 25 sec cd and a leap on DS, that’s it. You’re gonna get kited all day.

It’s also pretty crappy they nerfed the necro interrupt potential with a short range aoe fear replacing doom that also requires you to sacrifice your stability source.

I still think that fear in PvE should make the mobs tremble in place like a stun instead of spreading them all out.

Another problem thematically with the class is that it’s very chill centric but chill is kind of a mediocre condition in PvE.

Unless people are forced to kite mobs or die because a guardian and ele cannot aegis+protect spam the group through the damage, the condition will be at reduced effectiveness and even the cooldown increase is of marginal effect on PvE mobs.

And if we DO get mobs which we are forced to kite or get downed because they are unavoidably lethal in melee, then chill isn’t even that useful to begin it because they replaced life blast as our ranged option and all we are left with is the garbage axe and its terrible autoattack damage.

I’m also surprised he kept bragging about spectral grasp synergy, because the very reason it isn’t even used is its projectile is pitifully slow and it’s a fairly mediocre effect (a single target pull projectile) costing a precious utility slot on a class that needs to slot more important things like stunbreaks, wells, and boon corruption or blood is power.

Spectral grasp could see nice pve use if it were made an aoe pull ala guardian greatsword.

Large scale combat? What, 20+ sec cd wells with a 3 duration tick? Meanwhile a staff ele, staff+well necro, or hell even engineers and all the melee frontline take a dump on mesmer in terms of cleave and group support.

We needed better aoe mechanisms on the weapon, and better sustained damage not just more burst pvp duelists are gonna cry about all day until that too gets nerfed.

Debuti.6017:

I cannot understand why everybody is making their statements about the new traits and skills, thinking in 1 vs 1 possibilities.

In pve, which i mostly play, we got almost nothing with new specialization. Shield is useless, traits are all made for pvp encounters, and new wells, except calamity well, none of them is worthy.

Welcome to the mesmer forums. They made mesmer such an insufferable class to play in PvE and large scale WvW.

So basically the majority of mesmers in this forum are duelists/roamers/spvp people.

I don’t get their obsession with making necro shouts garbage against single target or fewer enemies.

It’s not like they make warrior/guardian shouts less effective by ally hit.

Looking at the published shouts, they’re barely a step above ranger shouts (absolutely worthless). And the cast times, once again PvP garbage taking a dump all ove PvE viability.

Let’s be honest, the last thing you need is skills that are good for trash clearing but bad at bosses. Bosses are what matter.

I’m also highly unimpressed with most of the traits, they seem really niche and PvP centric, same thing that happened to mesmers.

Oh, guess what, the dev working for mesmer and necro is the same guy that apparently only cares for WvW/sPvP and thinks of PvE as an afterthought.

I’m just gonna hope they did better with the Druid, I’m sick of playing ele/guardian/thief/warrior. I’ll just stick to a class with a different dev because Robert Gee really isn’t doing it for me as a PvE player.

It’s no coincidence that the classes with access to AI outside guardians ended up with the most issues. Mesmer is a gimmick class with crap practical DPS (the clones die to a sneeze in a game full of cleave/aoe, and phantasm ramp up is rendered useless with phantasms despawning on mob death), ranger has a decent potential but in practice due to mainhand sword’s animation lock you are limited in various ways including max meleeing and ranger cleave/aoe is pure garbage (the second chain of their auto does not cleave, and all pets but drakes do not cleave and what cleave rangers have is max 3 targets) not to mention part of their DPS doesn’t even scale with ascended upgrades (the pet).

And necromancer is all of that taken to the extreme. Unlike mesmer’s garbage ethereal fields and leap finishers, necromancer doesn’t even have finishers and the fields are just as bad as the ethereal fields. And he doesn’t have the group buffing aspect of the ranger and his AI options are even worse than ranger and mesmer AI, which is a pretty bad thing to say because ALL AI in this game is terrible and weak due to lack of aoe protection and for some reason anet thinks it’s good design to put pets on the aggro table so a boss or some trash can randomly turn around and kill them immediately, putting them in 20-50 sec cd’s.

It’s like they looked at ele, guardian, and thief and decided to give them EVEN MORE OF WHAT THEY ALREADY HAD PLENTY OF. More support/group protect for guardians, MORE damage for thieves who already leave other classes other than ele trailing, ele is probably gonna get even more AoE and group utility.

And then the other classes get gimmicks. They can be powerful gimmicks, mind you, but it’s pretty crappy being the class that’s brought only for a couple of utility slots on a long cooldown rather than because your classes’ weaponskills are pretty kitten good and you excel at damage.

But they’ve never cared. Guardian, ele and warrior have been meta in all three formats for a while, and as a dominant force that every team MUST have, they’ve let the situation fester for years.

Why? Because balancing classes doesn’t get them gem store purchases, and neither do dungeons for that matter so for their time and assets spent it’s far more efficient to pour effort into pvp since a new pvp map is less work and lasts longer (a key feature of pvp, it’s player created entertainment), or their gem store gimmicks.

Lindbur.2537:

It looks to me that all the supportive abilities went to mesmers instead.

In exchange for only 2 new skills on a shield vs. 5 and an entire chronomancer traitline filled with PvP centric traits.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

I know this is a little late, but I checked the point of interest and the trait “Flow of time” (Alacrity on shatter) is 1 second from IP and then an additional 1 second from whenever a clone hits the target. This does stack in duration, so the trait can give up to 4 seconds, which makes the alacrity increase trait fairly strong.

The trait nets you 1.32 extra seconds of increased recharge time, it’s marginal. It only affects you as well, not your outgoing alacrity. The alternatives are superior.

Don’t need condi removal on wells. That’s what null field or arcane thievery or illusionary disenchanter is for. Don’t overlap utilities, you’ll only make most of them obsolete as people pick the optimal condi removal one.

Do something else with it. And more PvE traits please, mesmer is not solely a PvP class what’s with the obsession on interrupts and shatter those don’t work in PvE.

Juba.8406:

Sebrent.3625:

@Juba:
Remember how your trait gives you regeneration any time someone applies one of those conditions to you?

Or how the current numbers have yours reducing the condition duration by 8% more.

Or how Mesmer and Warrior play so very different that this is rather ridiculous.

Yes i do, Dogged March give 3s regeneration on 10s cd once hit by impeding conditions and get those on reduced duration by 33%.

Yeah on paper with that descriptions it sounds better

But Dogged March conflicts with 2 other traits, the same with Warrior’s Sprint and btw Warrior’s Sprint only works with melee weapons, chrono can have +25% speed on all of his weapons.

This still get overshadowed upon the fact that you can get all these effects with 1 minor trait

Yes Mesmer and Warrior play so different, so why give Mesmer a Warrior trait ??!

btw Arena Net when describing Warrior says “Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle.”
^
Speed is the 1st thing Warrior get to rely on, i wonder if that description would hold on or might need a change ?

This is adorable. What you failed to mention is that the warrior meta weapons have far better mobility built into them. I’ll trade you ileap for rush or whirlwind anyday.

Your warhorn is plain overpowered, a group cure for movement impairments+ vigor on a stupidly low cooldown.

The longbow is a far better ranged weapon than greatsword, it dwarfs its aoe potential and god knows what to make of pindown or combustive arrow.

Cry less about your warrior. You’re gonna be the class with phalanx strength who can singlehandedly slap 25 stacks of might at permanent uptime with a group, has the best group rez elite ever since they annihilated ranger spirits. Besides ele you are the class with the highest uptime of fury, the only class besides ele or engineer who can stack vulnerability reliably.

You are arguably in every single meta in the game in far larger numbers than mesmers can hope to be. Guardians and warriors have virtually dominated the landscape of this game while mesmers, necromancers, and rangers have been little more than gimmick classes people bring for a couple of skills on a longish cooldown, not because they buff their allies well or do great damage.

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

I think wells are gonna end up being the new Churning Earth. People are gonna be excited until they realize that like Dragon Tooth from ele scepter it will never land on someone with a clue.

Uhmm we have immobs, stuns, slows, to do it?

Are you saying Chaos Storm is useless too, because you wont land it on people? :O

Chaos storm can pulse its daze from the getgo. The well’s powerful effect is lumped at the 3 second mark. You don’t have a 3 second stun. When you lay a well you already telegraphed your Swap.

It’s really not hard to dodge, it’s like saying dragon tooth is actually easy to land because an ele has access to 2 stuns via air and earth offhand dagger and an immobilize from earth signet if they choose to bring that.

And yet dragon tooth is not hitting anyone most of the time outside a zerg.

The difference is Dragon Tooth has a trivial cooldown. Wells have lengthy cooldown and come at the cost of a utility skill.

Signet of domination says hi, also whats cs daze have to do with landing it?

Ah, ok. So which one are you giving up for that signet virtually no one runs. Blink? Decoy?One of the wells in that final slot?

We’re not talking a 1v1 tournament here.

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

I think wells are gonna end up being the new Churning Earth. People are gonna be excited until they realize that like Dragon Tooth from ele scepter it will never land on someone with a clue.

Uhmm we have immobs, stuns, slows, to do it?

Are you saying Chaos Storm is useless too, because you wont land it on people? :O

Chaos storm can pulse its daze from the getgo. The well’s powerful effect is lumped at the 3 second mark. You don’t have a 3 second stun. When you lay a well you already telegraphed your Swap.

It’s really not hard to dodge, it’s like saying dragon tooth is actually easy to land because an ele has access to 2 stuns via air and earth offhand dagger and an immobilize from earth signet if they choose to bring that.

And yet dragon tooth is not hitting anyone most of the time outside a zerg.

The difference is Dragon Tooth has a trivial cooldown. Wells have lengthy cooldown and come at the cost of a utility skill.

Guardian traps have virtually the same effect. You have an arming time, but they actually go off on the opponent guaranteed when he triggers them (getting close to where you planted it). And those guardian traps have stronger effects like 25 stacks of vulnerability (25% increased damage), 10 seconds of revealed, and high damage pulses to boot.

I mean, Well of Precognition is all wrong. The effects should be flipped around. Enemy attacks in PvE are such that this will never be a useful well for mitigating damage. Most lethal attacks from bosses have 1/2 or less seconds of cast time. They don’t give a group 3 seconds of telegraph to set down a well to avoid damage.

I will wait till we see the professions in action. It will take sometime for people to realize classes don’t exist in a vacuum and that it doesn’t matter if we saw improvement when classes that were better off than us already saw similar or greater power gains so we are still in the same crappy place relative to them.

I think wells are gonna end up being the new Churning Earth. People are gonna be excited until they realize that like Dragon Tooth from ele scepter it will never land on someone with a clue.

Menaka.5092:

Zenith.7301:

Compounding power is 9% extra damage, the trait makes it easier to stay at that threshold since you shatter, spawn 2 phantasms and the clone you got back.

The clone you get back is 3% of that damage, you can resummon the phantasms regardless.

Zenith.7301:

Besides 30% crit to slowed targets, for which you need high slowed uptime. Current crit rate on full berk gear is around 57-60%. Food bumps it higher, and with fury you got around 80% crit so taht 30% extra crit from the trait actually has a lot of its bonus wasted.

even if you “waste” 10% crit chance, you would gain power by switching to zerk – assuming the group can provide slow on the reflects.

Zenith.7301:

As far as the speed trait, the condi reduction part is worthless in PvE and it’s a speed bonus that could have been put in signet of midnight considering 10% boon duration on a class that has no access to boons whatsoever outside the Chaos line pretty worthless

so you would rather have PvP/WvW mesmers waste a utility slot instead of PvE mesmers having to “waste” a minor trait… to each his own I guess

Zenith.7301:

And the Chaos line is plain garbage outside dueling/roaming as it isn’t even used for PvE or large scale WvW.

How can you tell it won’t be used in WvW after the changes? Chaos look pretty good from a survival/group support point of view.

- Already zerk even zerk sits at 57-60% crit. Those wasted stats were not with assassins, which is even worse, and the slow uptimes also figure into that power boost being a wash. Even if they break even or are a slight upgrade, it’s hardly a good tier for PvE mesmers.

- Chaos will always be garbage in WvW so long as it’s tied to conditions and staff.

For one, staff is a terrible weapon for aoe as are any weapons that are not greatsword/sword. It will never be used in teamfights.

You’ll also always be locked into the chronomancy line which leaves Dueling/Domination/Illusion, only 2 of which you can already pick. Chaos will never compete with any of those on a power mesmer.

Menaka.5092:

Zenith.7301:

A trait to make shatters land before they die to a zerg.

nah the clones will die to aoe anyway.

Zenith.7301:

A minor to gain 25% movement speed that any other class gets high to permanent swiftness uptime via weaponskills while we’re stuck with a temporal curtain that doesn’t even renew swiftness and has an uptime of 12 seconds per 25 seconds.

Reduced cripple/chill/immob duration, which is useless in PvE since everything gets cleansed immediately in group content.

did you really complain about that trait? you mention WvW and a second later you forget about it? this trait is huge for PVP mesmers and a nice addiction for every mesmer in general.

Zenith.7301:

All’s Well that Ends well is the only real PvE option of that trait tier. Delayed Reactions is underwhelming for PvE given the attack intervals of mobs and the weakness of interrupts in PvE (all of them high cooldown except for offhand sword). And a well with large cooldowns removing a single condition is just a bad trait.

I agree that removing one condition, on a delay (after 3 seconds) and with a positional requirement (stand inside the well) isn’t very appealing. But I think the interrupt trait might be useful in HoT PVE.

Zenith.7301:

1 second of alacrity per shatter. And some alacrity from a long cd well. 33% duration increase is a marginal effect given the uptime of alacrity on the mesmer.

Yep, if it’s only 1 second per shatter and not per illusion shattered, this trait could use a buff.

Zenith.7301:

It’s gonna basically be All’s Well that ends Well, Illusionary Reversion (to keep compounding power uptime), and Chronophantasm.

isn’t 30% crit chance on slowed targets better than 3% damage? you could give up assassin’s and go full zerk if you can make sure you have slow on the target during the reflects

Compounding power is 9% extra damage, the trait makes it easier to stay at that threshold since you shatter, spawn 2 phantasms and the clone you got back.

Besides 30% crit to slowed targets, for which you need high slowed uptime. Current crit rate on full berk gear is around 57-60%. Food bumps it higher, and with fury you got around 80% crit so taht 30% extra crit from the trait actually has a lot of its bonus wasted.

As far as the speed trait, the condi reduction part is worthless in PvE and it’s a speed bonus that could have been put in signet of midnight considering 10% boon duration on a class that has no access to boons whatsoever outside the Chaos line pretty worthless. And the Chaos line is plain garbage outside dueling/roaming as it isn’t even used for PvE or large scale WvW.

Yeah, but weapon traits are more than cd reduction. They add something extra to what the weapon already has.

You can’t blame the meta. There’s nothing wrong with people finding the most efficient way to deal with mechanics (or lack thereof).

When the game has mechanics that check for toughness/vitality thresholds and ignore aegis, then you’ll see zerker meta change for those encounters.

When the encounter demands multiple tasks split from the same location, then you’ll see an end to stacking.

There is nothing wrong with stacking if it makes the encounter significantly easier. That’s the whole point of strategy. The problem is that this game’s PvE is so uncreative and obviously not the focus of development that one strategy has fit for pretty much every encounter.

They also dug themselves into kitten with ascended garbage because now if they implement mechanisms that call for different gearsets, people are going to flip tables and wail in rage and despair that they flushed 500 gold down the toilet into ascended armor crafting only to be required to do the same for several other armor sets and weapons.

This may not be the case in normal dungeons where exotics may suffice, but in fractals with AR requirements as high as 70 you either have to have every ascended weapon and its stats variation+ matching accessories with +10 AR on each, or have less AR on accessories but be forced to craft multiple ascended armor pieces, which is a far more expensive ordeal.

So stuff mesmers should have had baseline for better functioning mechanics are made traits.

A trait to make shatters land before they die to a zerg. A minor to gain 25% movement speed that any other class gets high to permanent swiftness uptime via weaponskills while we’re stuck with a temporal curtain that doesn’t even renew swiftness and has an uptime of 12 seconds per 25 seconds.

Reduced cripple/chill/immob duration, which is useless in PvE since everything gets cleansed immediately in group content.

All’s Well that Ends well is the only real PvE option of that trait tier. Delayed Reactions is underwhelming for PvE given the attack intervals of mobs and the weakness of interrupts in PvE (all of them high cooldown except for offhand sword). And a well with large cooldowns removing a single condition is just a bad trait.

1 second of alacrity per shatter. And some alacrity from a long cd well. 33% duration increase is a marginal effect given the uptime of alacrity on the mesmer.

I see few valuable PvE related traits.

It’s gonna basically be All’s Well that ends Well, Illusionary Reversion (to keep compounding power uptime), and Chronophantasm.

Very crappy/bland outlook for PvE mesmers relative to the massive utility and power Guardians got plus they got a full set of 5 new, strong skills on their weapon while we got 2 skills, one with a phantasm summon that has a delay (not good for PvE dps) and another that with a 30 sec cd.

This is a raw deal for PvE mesmers.

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

Carighan.6758:

Caelus.7139:

Please just take out the cleavable f5 mechanic…This mechanic makes us cornered as roaming/dueling classes since it’ll obviously be useless in WvW AoE spams…

In the list of weird language abominations MMOs create, “cleavable f5 mechanic” is a new high. What do you even mean by it? I can apply the rewind to 3 friendly targets in front of me?

In this game, melee “cleave” by default. So those zerg traits/20 man guilds? The moment you shatter all those aoe death zones+ autoattack cleaves will kill it immediately.

Look at what happens to clones/phantasms, and HP makes no difference ranger drakes have 40k+ HP and they still get chewed up in a couple of seconds.

That crystal is a spvp/dueling mechanic that will screw over mesmer in large scale WvW and PvE.

Again the main point is until now we are speculating because of the lack of info, who knows how many hp will the crystal have? will it be immune to condis? crits? Which imo should’ve been addressed early on that presentation.

Makes no difference. The amount of hp needed for the crystal to survive a 10+ man zerg or PvE death zones would be so high that it would make the crystal unkillable as a strategy in a 1v1/small scale scenario.

Turrets from engineers have condi crit immunity and they’re still trash in WvW and PvE because they still die immediately.

Carighan.6758:

Caelus.7139:

Please just take out the cleavable f5 mechanic…This mechanic makes us cornered as roaming/dueling classes since it’ll obviously be useless in WvW AoE spams…

In the list of weird language abominations MMOs create, “cleavable f5 mechanic” is a new high. What do you even mean by it? I can apply the rewind to 3 friendly targets in front of me?

In this game, melee “cleave” by default. So those zerg traits/20 man guilds? The moment you shatter all those aoe death zones+ autoattack cleaves will kill it immediately.

Look at what happens to clones/phantasms, and HP makes no difference ranger drakes have 40k+ HP and they still get chewed up in a couple of seconds.

That crystal is a spvp/dueling mechanic that will screw over mesmer in large scale WvW and PvE.