Guild Wars 2

Tobias.8632:

Zenith.7301:

Tobias.8632:

I don’t know what the hell you’re doing that you don’t have enough to do. You need to pop locusts, reaper’s touch, well of suffering, blood is power, death shroud, and tainted shackles before you can settle into an autoattack. That seems like enough things to do to me, at that point you probably need to focus on avoiding attacks and timing dodges right. Sure, dagger skills 2 and 3 aren’t useful for PvE but it’s all about the offhand action.

You realize what the cooldown on those is, right?

Practically nothing when traited

Oh, yeah, sure.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Zenith.7301:

This I don’t get at all. Why should autos get hit? Did ranger autoattacks get hit when rapid fire was buffed? Did thieves’ sword autos stop critting fro 3-4k when pistolwhip is hitting for 8k+.

I really don’t understand the argument, necros are not on an equal damage footing to other people so it’s not an argument for shifting around damage, it’s an argument for a buff.

Let’s not sugarcoat that, it’s not like power necros are good anywhere besides well bombing in WvW.

yeah i suppose what i said doesnt make sense lol. i was trying to argue that necros do other things good-great, such as range damage, soft/hard cc, aoe bomb. so a buff to the channel and immob should result in slightly lower aa damage because of this. basically im agreeing with op.
no thief/ranger didnt get their autos nerfed, but then again they are specced to remain at range or melee. no class should have it all i guess is what im trying to say.
also, im worried that any buffs will result in over nerfs, like what happened to our condi friends with scepter2/staff2+dhuumfire (and weakening shroud?).

Nerfs that should have never happened as evidenced by the current performance of necros in spvp and their presence in high level pvp.

But then again the same people who cried for nerfs are the same that got warriors their kittened OP healing signet buff and their ridiculous stance durations. Just like the thieves who whiend and whined about their weakness in pvp, and the patch revamping initiative that was supposed to nerf them alongside the stealth spam fixed nothing and they actually emerged stronger for it.

hackks.3687:

Sagat.3285:

hackks.3687:

Healing behind DS is the same concept as healing while Invulnerable. There’s little to no counter play and that’s why it was removed from other classes ages ago like Ele and Engi healing while in Mist form and Elixir S. It’s not going to happen.

Are you one of those people that believe zerk stance and endure pain shouldn’t let you cap point? Invulnerable negates all damage,DS has a limit of how much juice the meat can give before you break the fragile bones and is a class mechanic/resource it’s different from Distortion or Mist Form. Using those skills doesn’t prevent any already applied healing or healing traits to work, true invulnerabilty doesn’t get it but stuff like stealth,stances,blocks does. Do I also need to mention you can CC DS??

At least try to make sense. If the devs are thinking like you it’s just going to go downhill faster.

No, I’m one of those people who understands that Zerker stance and Endure Pain aren’t invulnerabilities…

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Honestly I hate being locked out of utilities more than anything. I want better UI to track my utility cd’s, especially in wvw.

Either way healing inside DS is not OP, it’s not like we have much access to healing or stability or vigor, and our condi clears on a power spec are on fairly sizable cd’s (one being our heal).

Our healing skills are atrocious to begin with, wtb warrior signet treatment or at least a buff to signet of vampirism so at least you heal better than healing signet when you are getting trained.

Plus focus has boon strip which is useful for dredge/mobs that self buff, and the chill is useful on things like fire shaman fractal. Warhorn is really not that great outside pvp (and even then it barely competes with offhand dagger in pvp for condi transfer and aoe weakness).

People who use dungeons/open world farm to make money are fools. The trading post is where the real money is made, as there is no time gate or diminishing returns to trading.

The people you saw early on with 5+ legendaries a few months into the game? Trading post.

GS is your only other phantasm that aoe’s besides iwarden…why would you call greatsword terribad, are you seriously using duelist/iswordsman on trash pulls? Mindspike is also an aoe that removes boons on urban fractal if nullfield is on cooldown and you don’t need to wait for the third chain in your auto.
Against trash packs simply iberserker>illusionary blade>iwarden>blurred frenzy>shatter (because the mobs will be dead by this point in a zerker group) and you bring respectable burst cleave for the group.

Of course camping GS is bad, or using it on a single target where you can comfortably melee, but it is definitely not a terribad weapon by any means, that’s like calling ranger longbow a terribad weapon when it has its uses.

Problem with mesmer is his competitors do more damage. Guardian brings more reflect uptime (because iwardens die in many circumstances) and better burst/dps+group aegis, and thieves bring better skipping mechanisms, way better dps and of course blind spam. What the mesmer does well is not that special outside port tricks and his dps shortcomings hold him back as a niche class.

spoj.9672:

Mesmer sword auto is about equal dps to blurred frenzy. So ideally you would not cast blurred frenzy until you need to dodge. I should probably correct that to melee 1 handers. Ranged 1 handers dont really follow the rule. I overlooked a load of weapons because i was only thinking of melee. Sorry. ;3

Mesmer’s Blurred Frenzy is actually slightly stronger than autoattack dps, so you should cast it on cd but the gains are marginal. Unless we’re talking about mobs who put boons on themselves or the group is not stacking vulnerability well.

NeXeD.3042:

NeXeD.3042:

timing your skills against what your opponent is doing is far more important.

ye. the autos are boring, but most of the necros skills are a counter to anothers actions. for example in pvp, focus5 vs war gs5, some soft cc dag2 to kite melee autos, bait dodge by cancel casting/stow weapon to land dag5 dag3 or whatever.

usually if you buff certain skills (channel skills in this instance) then autos will get hit. that isnt fair to the pve crowd. honestly certain pvp situations call for nothing else then auto and if that damage was toned down then, idk. im all for a flat cd reduction, dag2 10sec dag3 20sec, but its not that simple.

This I don’t get at all. Why should autos get hit? Did ranger autoattacks get hit when rapid fire was buffed? Did thieves’ sword autos stop critting fro 3-4k when pistolwhip is hitting for 8k+.

I really don’t understand the argument, necros are not on an equal damage footing to other people so it’s not an argument for shifting around damage, it’s an argument for a buff.

Let’s not sugarcoat that, it’s not like power necros are good anywhere besides well bombing in WvW.

64004 is pretty kitten cool and I don’t think it gets better for mesmer, though sometimes I also run 2/3/0/5/6 for warden’s feedback (and since that takes 4 in inspiration might as well pick the 15% extra damage on phantasms). And for what it’s worth illusionary berserker is a fine source of crippling as well and iwarden+iberserker is the most cleave you can get out of your phantasms.

The power coefficients for staff and scepter on mesmer are so low…. ;(. Well, all skill numbers and coefficients on mesmer are measly since they balanced us around phantasms.

This is not a player issue, it’s a rewards issue. It’s entirely on the developer’s that dungeons are skipped, because the trash packs bear no meaningful rewards and the maps and design with stealth/ports allows players to skip these things.

Don’t blame the players for getting the most out of their time investment, blame the developers for creating content that is both skippable and is so unrewarding that people want to get it done ASAP.

Much less condi removal on shatter, what a waste of traits. All it takes is a healing rain or purging flames.

Mesmers who go for support traits lose significantly on their already bad damage output. The only really nice support trait imo is restorative mantras and for pugs maybe medic’s feedback.

Staff is a horrendous weapon there’s no excuse for it, it’s only use is in pvp kiting/bunkering.

I know I’m one hell of a pessimist, but I’m optimistic about if only because the shield and that clock animation translate into more purrrty purple thingy effects and animations.

Remember, the class may be kitten in some ways, but no class can fart purple butterflies like we can.

Brown.8560:

spoj.9672:

Why no mesmer? Mesmers are actually really good for mossman if you need some extra defence.

In order have consistent and relatively fast low man fractal runs, I try to form groups that can provide the following:

- fury
- might
- blind
- weakness
- projectile defense
- good dps

1. Fury – Every class can bring a sufficient amount of fury except for the mesmer. Although the necro can only bring fury for themselves, it has a decent up time. Warriors are nice not only because of for great justice/battle standard, but also because anyone in the party can use the discipline banner to fill in the gaps. An elementalist really shines with persisting flames. Fury is just plain wonky to provide consistently with a mesmer. You either have to use a staff or trait for bountiful disillusionment, both of which reduce the mesmer’s dps significantly.

2. Might – Similarly, mesmers have a hard time bringing might to the party. They can’t provide fire fields, and only have 1 blast finisher. Six points into chaos for bountiful disillusionment or bountiful interruptions lowers their dps, as does five points into illusions to get shattered strength.

Perhaps a traited signet of inspiration can cover fury and might. I haven’t spent any time trying it. Scrap that. SoI doesn’t double the duration on yourself which means you’re still depending on the other team mate to provide all the fury/might. I have a charr mesmer so I could use battle roar, but that seems kind of crude.

3. Blind – Again, mesmers are not as effective at bringing blind to the party. A portal with dazzling glamours is actually pretty good (think chest seal, or the start of volcanic), but you have to sacrifice dps in order to trait for it. The torch and signet of midnight are another option, but those aren’t nearly enough.

4. Weakness – This is typically provide by the guardian shield of the avenger when commanded, as well as the use of the consumable skale venom. The other two party members don’t really have to concern themselves with weakness.

5. Projectile defense – Projectile defense is one of mesmer’s strongest suits. Unfortunately, the guardian already covers that so it’s somewhat wasted to have an overlapping mesmer. Additionally, reflect damage makes up a large part of the mesmer’s damage. Unfortunately, it is frequently blocked in our trios because blinds and shield of the avenger are necessary to sustain the health of the party. For example the mesmer can’t reflect the archers nor the mages because those groups contain cultists and warriors that need to be blinded. Ashym’s FGS phase is one particular fight where the mesmer shines, but it can be done without one. Mesmer reflect is really good on harpies and dredge, but it is even better to just stealth past those mobs.

6. Any class can provide good dps. Unfortunately for the mesmer, a lot of the dps must be sacrificed to provide other utilities for the trio. To put it another way, trio utilities are not inherent in the zerk mesmer meta build. Finally, their reflect damage is often neutralized by the guardian or blinds.

I may have to revisit the mesmer, but the last few times that I tried it, our runs were pretty bad.

Plus mesmer phantasms are often dancing dagger bait. Mesmer damage will continue to be inconsistent so long as their illusions remain so fragile (the entirety of their viability relies on having 3 phantasms up, any less and you are already a dps loss to the group), not to mention illusions also have their aggro quirks that would probably screw with your anchor.

Mesmers have also much less cleave than guardians, and more importantly less burst (shatter is virtually the equivalent of having whirling wrath reduce your subsequent autoattack damage by a large % for 10+ seconds).

Mesmers have some neat tricks no doubt but I think part of the reason why they’re still not that used is because the drawbacks kinda neutralize the gains.

If HoT however brings more mobs like the dredge, and rooms in which you can’t just stealth through everything, mesmer with null field, disenchanter might be pretty great. Medic’s feedback would also be a boon if there were encounters where being downed is unavoidable and part of the encounter strategy is safely coordinating rezzes.

Why scale dagger 1 damage? Have you people played other classes, where you actually think necro damage needs to be balanced around instead of just plain buffed?

Dagger one is virtually a much crappier warrior mainhand axe that hits 1 less target and can’t even burst with a skill like eviscerate. I’m not comparing it to thief dagger because despite them being identical weapons in terms of autoattack mechanism and only hitting 2 targets, thief dagger weaving cnd>backstab pulls ahead in single target by such a ridiculous amount.

I get the impression most people don’t seriously toy around with alts in similar gear, because nothing is more depressing than changing from your necro/mesmer with their pitiful autoattacks and lacking burst/cleave, into a thief who’s chaining pistolwhips for 7-8k damage unbuffed or 8k backstabs and 5k CnD’s without might stacks or much vulnerability stacks on the target.

Just switch over to your nearby mainhand axe warrior or thief. Ele is on a league of its own. Hell, even a sword/focus+GS guardian will wake you up to the disparity in numbers.

Mesmer, necro, and ranger need flat out buffs to their weapon coefficients (ranger longbow is fine, rest of the weapons need help). Not compromises.

Tobias.8632:

I don’t know what the hell you’re doing that you don’t have enough to do. You need to pop locusts, reaper’s touch, well of suffering, blood is power, death shroud, and tainted shackles before you can settle into an autoattack. That seems like enough things to do to me, at that point you probably need to focus on avoiding attacks and timing dodges right. Sure, dagger skills 2 and 3 aren’t useful for PvE but it’s all about the offhand action.

You realize what the cooldown on those is, right?

It’s not just a pulse of damage. It’s a spike tool for pvp, and it is instant damage that can be delivered with burst and no telegraph and allows you to frontload the damage and immediately switch to another attunement. That air scepter 2 is a core feature of s/f ele burst rotations in pvp.

It’s just how they’ve gone with design they’re trying to fit skills into 3 game types and you’ve seen the disaster that’s just come out of it if they had just designed individual versions for each game type.

I don’t get the argument that it’s bad to be using multiple sources of damage on cd. It’s easily what makes ele and engineer such fun classes to play.

Take the thief dagger for example, it’s the enarest thing to ours since it’s the same autoattack, but in between revealed debuffs they cnd>backstab instead of spamming 111111111111 in between focus vulnerability.

Saying mesmers are fine because using the entirety of their cooldowns they can barely beat thieves in a duel is dumb.

In a 5v5 match your cooldowns will be forced long before you can save them all to prevent being 3-shot by a thief.

Thief damage and mobility is just too high.

It should break stuns on DS entry, it’s a grandmaster trait. Besides, why is it OP for a class with no vigor, no real teleports, no mobility to be durable against CC trains?

If you’re not gonna give the necro escapes, then they need to be able to stand their ground.

runeblade.7514:

Zenith.7301:

runeblade.7514:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Step 1: face toward the Ranger. Congrats, you just cut his bleed application by ~60%

I could go with more steps, but honestly, simplicity is best. Dodge Entangle and you’re pretty much set as he is relying on his bleed on crit trait to do any damage if you keep facing him. Which, with the build you linked, is a mere 20% chance to actually proc if he has Fury at that moment. Otherwise, only ~13% chance.

You do know that splitblade applies 5 stacks of bleeding in melee range?

You do know the OP was talking about a shortbow?

You do know that shortbow isn’t the only weapon set that applies bleed?

But it competes with axe, since nobody uses axe+shortbow. And the OP is about shortbow bleeds.

It’s always been absurd to me that a thief can get a free Cloak and Dagger off Ranger and mesmer (and minion necro) because pets don’t dodge.

CnD should not trigger stealth on pets/clones unless your pets/clones dodge alongside your dodge.

runeblade.7514:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Step 1: face toward the Ranger. Congrats, you just cut his bleed application by ~60%

I could go with more steps, but honestly, simplicity is best. Dodge Entangle and you’re pretty much set as he is relying on his bleed on crit trait to do any damage if you keep facing him. Which, with the build you linked, is a mere 20% chance to actually proc if he has Fury at that moment. Otherwise, only ~13% chance.

You do know that splitblade applies 5 stacks of bleeding in melee range?

You do know the OP was talking about a shortbow?

Plus pet bleeds don’t scale with the ranger’s gear so they virtually do damage the same as a character with 0 condition damage.

If he puts on a torch, throw torch is one of the easiest telegraphs to notice so I don’t see how that changes anything unless you feel the need to come hug his small radious bonfire.

Condi ranger is one of the weakest specs, it’s only a decent 1v1 class hardcountered by warriors, and it has no real aoe pressure whatsoever and is slow to kill and a slow roamer as well.

As if it wasn’t enough spirits were nerfed to hell and out of the meta and there are very few rangers in tournaments and none were included in the finals.

If he takes axe instead of shortbow all you gotta do is not be in melee range when he has an axe out so he can’t shotgun the bleeds, splitblade is pitifully slow in animation and easy to dodge as well and apply next to no bleeds at 400+ range.

I’m tired of this game being balanced around random hotjoin whines because somebody beat you 1v1 or killed you. Get used to it this is a PvP game and you’re not entitled to not dying ever in a match.

What other thing can a condi ranger do, hit you with his 200 damage axe autoattack or a 340 damage mainhand sword autoattack? Wait for his pet to not stop in place while trying to attack you and miss all its autoattacks against you because pets animate an autoattack locked in place so it will miss moving targets?

I mean, just come out with it and say you want a bunch of classes to be useless and free kills.

Ele is a condi cleansing machine tbh, a well played ele has to be burst down I think that’s why thieves are the best class to counter them and maybe a good necro who can boonstrip and immediately condition spike while they’re locked in cc.

More ele D/F too, please! D/F is best ;3

IllegalChocolate.6938:

haku.4698:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

haku.4698:

Dave.2536:

Welp for starters the OP swapped out both warrior banners for balanced stance and endure pain in the screenshot originally posted. The team is in combat with endure pain on recharge and wall of reflection from the guardian active, so it seems somewhat unlikely the skills were swapped solely for running between seals.

Although this behavior appears to be hypocritical, that is honestly all it is. Players can ask for any requirements without needing to actually meet those requirements themselves. It is up to the people joining the party to verify, and upon seeing hypocrisy they may either ignore it. leave the group, or convince the others in the group to kick the hypocrite.

The fact remains that the standard for kicking someone you don’t know is very likely lower than the standard for kicking someone you do know.

BTW stance is needed for this stage cuz of mobs kill you during you use hammer 4 without any protection and I am the only one could run hammer, one guard doesnt hv AR and dead every battle, the others one hv to stay with group or light armors die. Mesmer could do it actually, but I dont remember if he ever picked hammer up

Anyone can run hammer and you shouldn’t be getting hit while running the hammer anyways, if you are, your team isn’t doing a good job, doesn’t matter if your going yolo, portal entre strat, or corner humping.

I assume you are saying arm, team could lure mobs for runner, but we are doing waist, and cuz of they couldnt keep alive by mid stack, we hv to do far side. Its kinda hard to explain with every details due to m not a native english speaker, so pls check the new screenshot I posted if you are questioning my skills or my experience.<3

It begs the question as what the capabilities of your teammates are.

Dude, it’s basically in his FIRST post, he described in length that people in his team were DYING left and right, that he was constantly the last one standing.

The point is that they used him to carry their sorry kitten for 2 fractals and then had the nerve to waste all the time and grief he invested in that crappy fractal run by kicking him.

kitten that 1st person PoV is such a trip.

T raw.4658:

Zenith.7301:

T raw.4658:

Zenith.7301:

Cynz.9437:

the real nerf is elites actually reapplying stab so steal is kind of useless vs elite stab now

I know, you might actually have to take Dagger Storm to crap all over a necro instead of just crapping on him outright.

And then you realized what happens after 1 successful CC to a thief in DS.

We can play this game all day if you’d like but you’d lose miserably. So just take it from us who actually “teef” mmkay

Except….lich form is the entire reason power necro is even a thing……and thief is not a class carried by an elite. Now remind me, what’s the stunbreak cooldowns for a necromancer again? And do they teleport him twice, break stun twice, and clear conditions on a single utility skill? Oh that’s right, death shroud, that seems so helpful it must be why one team got trained to the ground in a recent tournament.

Remind me, how many power necros were in the recent tournaments? Oh right. Certainly many more than thieves.

So we’re talking about both classes stun breaks of 50 and 60 seconds now? Or are we talking about the only utility skills that thieves use? SS is on a 50 second CD and is one of the ONLY condi clears thieves run.

We can talk all day about power necros and the injustice you have received, but you shouldn’t be losing to thieves 1v1 on a necro in PvP.

Who cares about 1v1 this is not a 1v1 game.

Shadowstep is the only utility the thief runs because it does the job of 3 of other classes utilities and more. Tell me what other stunbreak in the game breaks stuns twice, clears conditions, and teleports you twice all in one. Tell me what other class in the game has all his heals remove some conditions.

I mean they nerfed ranger endurance regen, yet something like feline grace, which was way better even than a 50% endurance regen minor trait that a ranger had, has remained ingame paired with vigor on withdraw and evade spam.

I still see LFG with “Badleaf’s hijacked runs, come get a path free boss 1%” every other day, so I would say you’re unlikely to even get actioned. Banned people don’t buy gems.

T raw.4658:

Zenith.7301:

Cynz.9437:

the real nerf is elites actually reapplying stab so steal is kind of useless vs elite stab now

I know, you might actually have to take Dagger Storm to crap all over a necro instead of just crapping on him outright.

And then you realized what happens after 1 successful CC to a thief in DS.

We can play this game all day if you’d like but you’d lose miserably. So just take it from us who actually “teef” mmkay

Except….lich form is the entire reason power necro is even a thing……and thief is not a class carried by an elite. Now remind me, what’s the stunbreak cooldowns for a necromancer again? And do they teleport him twice, break stun twice, and clear conditions on a single utility skill? Oh that’s right, death shroud, that seems so helpful it must be why one team got trained to the ground in a recent tournament.

Remind me, how many power necros were in the recent tournaments? Oh right. Certainly many more than thieves.

Ravenmoon.5318:

I like how everybody just assumes every thief runs Panic Strike D/P … like seriously <o>

In order for me to break a cast I have to stealth first, go behind the target and stab. Or have steal ready. But a fight between never lasts long enough for 2 steal procs. Its win or lose for either profession.

IMO mesmer’s main issue is that it can’t spawn its junk like turret engi and camp. And is also limited whereas engi can drop tons of stuff. And clones are nowhere near as HP enriched as the turrets are.

And then there are the usual skills that fail while run, a good example is Sword #3 even if you get within range at the end of the cast it still fails. There are certainly quirks to the class to work around, but its definitely not underpowered.

Or you can queue up backstab and shadowshot from stealth to land the backstab as well, you don’t need steal. Our you can heal and backstab, or you can shadow refuge and backstab. Really, if you’re not landing backstabs with the access to stealth you have, it’s a player problem.

zaw.6741:

Windsagio.1340:

Due to mostly cultural reasons dungeons appear inaccessible to a large number of players

by cultural you mean: i dont know what to do, so ill join zerker speedrun lfg in my greens / clerics whatever. then go cry on forums that so bad and ‘unfriednly players kicked me from dungeon omg toxic community’

we dont have problems with your open world zerging, so you should gtfo from dungeons. zome ppl njoy zerging and spamming one, some njoy speed running dungeons. and anet should give some content to both groups. i dont think 1 or 2 dungeons (story +3/4 paths) would prevent them from updateing open world zergfests

some ppl run dungeons for shinies, some just njoy them more than ‘follow commander and press 1 to kill / f to open chest in SW’

Um, dungeon ranger is 1 spam. Most of sustained damage comes from 1 spam, like warrior mainhand axe. Thief does cnd>backstab every other while and in the revealed debuff spams 1. Necromancer is 1 spam, from dagger to deathshroud to Lich elite. Once ele has his might stacks and has used meteor shower, he just spams fire ball in between lava fonts.

More importantly in a pve environment cleave is of great value and why you want a greatsword+offhand focus phantasm because those are the only phantasms that cleave. Scepter auto doesn’t cleave, scepter auto does not give might or put vulnerability, and scepter does not have a useful boon strip like mind stab, which is really neat in Urban fractal to take those 25 stacks of might off mobs or to soften up dredge when null field is on cd.

Scepter and torch are just terrible pve weapons, and so is the staff for that matter (staff is easily the weakest condition weapon for all condi specs ingame, since it has a huge ramp up to condition application whereas an engineer or necromancer or ranger can frontload a variety of conditions right off the bat).

Mesmer really got screwed, a lot of his weapon are like the ranger mainhand axe and shortbow, which are weapons with hybrid functions (staff gets a huge penalty of not only random condi application and useless vulnerability which doesn’t affect condition damage, but because it applies pitiful duration boons randomly it is also heavily penalized damagewise) so they get terrible coefficients for power on most of their skills.

The only class with functional hybrid weapons is warrior because his mainhand sword and longbow have really high baseline damage numbers on the power skills so even on a condi spec, your sword skill #3 is hitting for respectable amounts of damage. Same for longbow, your #3 still hits kitten a condi spec.

Well that’s the initiative system. You spam the best skill peppered with the occasional, less used one.

The problem is they made a skill that evades, steals boons, and hits for 4k+ damage, instead of spreading that utility across the s/d set so they would actually have to choose what to spend initiative on.

Similar concept with d/p and d/d. You only press your 4/5, gain stealth, and use a big burst skill that costs no initiative.

It’s almost like thieves are rarely starved out of initiative because there’s so little to spend it on and even if the one skill they use is costly, the regen makes the cost trivial. They really are not forced to forego mobility for burst or burst for mobility/survival, it’s all neatly packaged in a few skills.

And their utilities are vastly overbudget. Shadowstep is the only skill in game with a 50 sec cd that’s a double teleport, a double stun breaker, and clears conditions to boot. Compare any stunbreak to that. All thief heals cure some condition as well and have side benefits besides just healing, whereas most classes just….get a heal.

Shadow Refuge should not grant stacking stealth at all. Stealth should be capped at 3-4 seconds. If you exit shadow refuge you get revealed. Use it for target drop or rezzing or stealth stomp but this whole "make people invisible and guarantee their opener for 8 seconds is just dumb.

And it’s not like they are starved for sustained damage either if they run out of initiative. Right after warrior mainhand axe, thieves have the highest autoattack damage in the game, the 3rd skill in the auto chain crits between 3-3.5k and applies weakness/cripple. Dagger auto hits less hard than sword auto but applies high poison uptime.

Cynz.9437:

the real nerf is elites actually reapplying stab so steal is kind of useless vs elite stab now

I know, you might actually have to take Dagger Storm to crap all over a necro instead of just crapping on him outright.

Leave it to a warrior to whine their class is not OP enough. That’s how we got healing signet buffed into godhood and given some of the best condi clear in the game even though the class design published by devs said they were meant to be vulnerable to conditions.

raptor.1064:

sorry but a bad player getting kicked for being bad isn’t abuse

sometimes the problem really is you

If it is true their guild was carrying a guy with no sufficient AR, that rationale goes out the window. And I’d like to see some proof to back the assumption that he was being bad when the story actually paints it otherwise.

I was in a guild group with GOAT, 3 of them in a fractal 50. Went nice and smooth, no kicking.

I’m so glad that when I get kicked out of 50 is as soon as I join on a ranger or necro and never at the end. I’ve been blessed with that luck. My condolences ;(

Please don’t erase that picture. Keep it for your ticket report, and while this forum bans it, you can post that picture on the GW2 reddit which will garner them bad rep.

haku.4698:

roachsrealm.9284:

I was really excited when I got my first fractal weapon drop.

SPEARGUN.

there were tears. I haven’t really been to Fracs since…

you remind me the only percusor I got during 2 years GW2 life.
underwater weapon.

At least you have seen a precursor. The most expensive exotic I have ever had drop was Entropy for 12 gold.

I remember an EU guildmate, got Dusk first from Temple of Grenth, and then The Legend off another temple event a week after. It entirely funded his own Twilight.

He quit a month later. The joys of a system with RNG gated skins.

Exciton.8942:

Take staff instead of sword and mantra of resolve instead of portal will make dueling against dd ele and cele engi much more manageable.

Staff applies constant damage pressure from auto attack and a decent phantasm while you kite away. Mantra of resolve helps you deal with the nasty burn/poison before you heal.

Staff does horrendous damage unless you stack condi damage and even then it has a large ramp up to condition stacks. Playing power amulet/stats with a staff weapon is just using the staff for kiting purposes, not damage ones.

Staff autoattacks are as kittencepter autoattacks in terms of tooltip damage and coefficients. It’s really just used for its defensive properties.

EDIT: This forum has the most absurd censoring system I’ve ever seen in any game forum. “bad az scepter” (replaces s for z) apparently can be construed as profanity.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Can you elaborate more on how to address thief problem or how to make mesmer more favorable in those matchups? Sure there are condi builds here and there but most thief builds are funneled into zerker builds like mesmers, so you should consider making a balanced judgement that doesn’t involve in nerfing a class into the ground.

The class does not just hardcounter mesmer, it hardcounters most other power specs that don’t involve a guardian.

It needs nerfs to damage and mobility (particularly stealth access), give it more self heals and group support in return.

Stealth and initiative were just done badly, stealth is too accessible and has few counters, and initiative has turned it into a class that can just spam spike skills way too easily while a class like an elementalist of similar HP has fire grab sitting on a 32 second cd traited. How can you possibly balance a class with so much mobility and spike yet it’s no squishier than other glass specs and outperforms them in virtually all aspects of a glass roamer role.

People like to say thief is squishy, but it’s just not true with their current access to evades/stealth, prots, and blinds. It has far more tools for evading damage, and damage evasion has always been better than damage mitigation — damage evasion gets you out of being trained to the ground, while another class can even have 20k hp, a second life bar, and still be easier to train and shut down than a class with half that health.

Yeah that’s fair, though I also suspect most people don’t want to spam clones because outside distracting people in pvp, clones are useless for anything else.

In beta at some point clones did 25% of the mesmer’s damage with their attack chains. So they were actually a damage source you wanted to keep. People would also appreciate clones if crippling dissipation and on clone death traits were baseline.

A lot of mesmers skills are wasted skills because they are just low damage attacks that spawn a clone that does nothing besides being shatter fodder, and shatter itself is a niche mechanic only useful in small scale pvp and still ripe with its own issues there.

Here’s to hoping Heart of Thorns takes a good revamp of the clone/phantasms and shatter mechanics and replaces the horrendous minor and major traits the class has.

So long as thieves exist as they are, no other berserker power build except for one that directly counters thieves like mediguard will be able to exist.

The obvious fix is to address the thief problem. Mesmer copes just fine against other cele classes.

It’s just a problem with a class like the thief, which has absurd map mobility, on top of easy resets, stealth stomps, easy access to blind and stealth, and having the burst they have usable so frequently because their burst consists of a skill you only need stealth for, and which enemies can’t see so at best they can guess as to how to counter it, and that doesn’t even address steal+backstab or shadowshot+backstab.

They went ahead and took a hammer to shatter condi rangers, nerfing the 50% endurance regen down to 25% from 50%, yet a thief is still able to chain larcenous strikes, has a low cd heal that cures conditions (as all thief heals do, unlike most classes), and if he wanted to has feline grace for even more stupid dodge spam.

I just don’t get how they have nerfed so many other classes for ease of access to certain skills (ride the lightning for ele mobility up to 40 ridiculous seconds), yet the most spam-friendly class remains intact.

Conditions will never be a thing in PvE until they’re allowed to crit and can scale with ferocity, or ferocity is removed and a baseline crit damage bonus goes for all abilities.

It’s not about condition caps, get it in your thick heads. Caps are just a quality of life issue, the real problem is the damage scaling.

Kasteros.9847:

Zenith.7301:

Good, guardians and warriors have ruled melee trains for far too long.

YEAH now there will be no meele train and all will go with papers for open raids to not get into clash

Or maybe warriors and guardians will have to play like every other melee such as thief, ranger, and mesmer have ever played.

Good, guardians and warriors have ruled melee trains for far too long.

Mak.2657:

Zenith.7301:

Mak.2657:

I think on some dungeon mobs encounters pretty easy to keep 3 phantasms up.

I don’t count CoF p1 as high end PvE.

Arah, fractal 50 are better examples. In Arah every boss has an aoe that instantly destroys them. In fractal 50 you got archdiviner on first floor IF his spinning projectiles are not hitting the phantasms. Svanir shaman maybe higher uptime, but he still kills your phantasms with autoattack swings. That’s about it.

Even at some Arah encounters possible to keep 3 phantasms up most time and soloing it. Final p1 boss e.g. For Lupi DE more pref cause reflect OP damage and his mechanics.
Or for example Lvl 50 Thaumanova Fractal Mesmer Solo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYfyggu8QRY&t=419

Lupi’s kick will destroy your phantasms. That Thaumanova solo is one of the betetr examples, but you also have to realize it was a solo, for example the ooze won’t hit anything that’s not melee range, and the endboss people stack melee while someone runs the bombs out.

But do Urban instead, different story. Same for Dredge or Volcanic fractal. Arah p2 endboss aoe will destroy phantasms, as will the 2nd boss in that path using the explosive barrel. In arah p2 even the phantasms don’t benefit from in phase status on final boss so they do 0 damage to the boss, making deceptive evasion betetr since you’re the only source of damage.

Rome.7124:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Ravenmoon.5318:

You know, I know how to dodge properly, but the hambow need to stunchain you once. And it has happened to me before, and it is not pleasent. 1 stunchain is all it takes to kill a thief

Wow, such OP. Nerf … thieves should go down after a single normal attack!!!!!!!11eleveone

Your argument is poorly supported. Before you cry about thieves status you should acknowledge the strength of S/D. S/D acrobatic thieves have the most accessibility to evades/dodges than any other builds in game, and many warrior hammer skills have the most obvious animations in game. So you really are just making yourself look bad by saying you get caught in stun chain and was unable to break out of it.

Back to mesmer, I want to re-emphasize mesmer’s role in boon stripping as Selya suggested. We all know that mesmer’s have the highest accessibility to boon strip, so why isn’t mesmer dominating celestial meta? Mesmers should be the nemesis for builds that heavily relied on boons, yet mesmers are rarely seen in teams. Maybe its because mesmer’s boon strip can’t match the speed of boon reapplication, or maybe the need to defensive peel far outweighs ways to make opponent vulnerable. Either way the state of celestial meta plus lack of mesmers shows that mesmer has become lackluster in fulfilling its role in boon stripping.

There are still a lot of underused mesmer traits, perhaps future updates can try to give them more purpose. A good example will be changing furious interruption to corrupt boons on interrupt; bountiful disillusion allows illusions to steal boon for mesmer when destroyed (with CD) etc.

great post

Now let’s try to stay on topic, this thread is about Mesmers, not warriors vs thieves.

Celestial meta ain’t pushing mesmers out, berzerker thieves are.

ProtoGunner.4953:

With a DS build you usually hit around 7-9k with every single blast. So it’s not that bad.

That’s not unbuffed damage, and Life Blast has a cast time. It’s also not an autoattack you have all the time, you want to stay above the life force threshold for the 5% bonus damage and that’s not a scenario you get everywhere in the game, much less wvw/pvp.

Funny thing is it seems blinks buffed in spvp.

While loading into the zone the game just loses connection and restarts.