(edited by apharma.3741)
For me one of the problems I see with all the cries for nerfs is that Anet haven’t even managed to get a handle on the things they posted saying “We know about this”.
Until they have made the sweeping changes to bring damage on all sources into line with how they want, complaining and asking for nerfs is just a bad idea. This is without pointing out that I’m pretty sure people have not managed to try out every build possible and every variation on all classes as ways to counter.
I for one see how little condi clear these fotm mesmers have and punish them for it. I can anticipate when they will stealth and make sure to immobilise or CC and burst in their faces. Depending on class I apply other control conditions. Sure I can’t see you but it doesn’t mean you’re safe, especially as the boons from PU got watered down after the initial nerf.
As with all things, patience is a virtue, which isn’t exclusive to guards.
None of the above is in balance with other classes… any of them. Other classes have their own issues, for sure, but clinging to an obviously unbalanced trait buff because other classes might have their own things that need to be adjusted is incredibly short sighted. Rolling back on that trait isn’t a nerf to the core of the mesmer class either, nor does it impede build diversity.
It does impede it. Tell me how many mesmer builds outside that PU clone death build were running PU before the buff? I’ll tell you, almost non. Nerfing the stealth back to where it was pre patch is not the answer as I keep saying.
Make it +2s and MI (the source of a lot of your concerns despite there being bigger game changing elites) has much reduced effect. I’ll tell you what will happen though, people will still complain, people will still ask for it to become 1s, people will still go around saying it’s “broken” OP because at the very core of it all is this one singular fact.
There is and never has been a true counter to stealth
No one used PU before the buff because it was completely unreachable. You HAD to lose either IP or DE, both of which are absolutely necessary for shatter builds. Now, you hardly even need DE! I think this could go back to where it was just fine and people would still take it.
I respectfully disagree. The following is a build someone used to use before the PU nerf that added might and swiftness.
He didn’t run IP as he didn’t feel he needed it for a 3 clone shatter and watching the video, he didn’t. Once PU was nerfed to what it was before the specializations his build was unplayable, he just couldn’t rely on the boons for defence any more and I did ask him. At the same time 1 extra second of stealth is not worth going for a GM, not when it shares the same slot now as chaotic interruption and other lines have many defensive options.
People could pick up and some did pick up PU before it was nerfed as it was a solid defence trait. Almost no-one but “that one condi build” did so after the nerf as it just wasn’t worth it where as for the condi build they wanted the GM minor (toughness to condi I believe) so 1 extra point for PU usually was the only defence available.
PU pre patch is not defensive enough to pick up sticking at +1s since the boons were watered down. I’d rather go inspiration for the extra condi clears and heals as they massively outweigh PU in combat, especially as burn is still so lethal.
I kinda agree with Sunflowers summery.
Today we had a PU full on stealth as much as possible, portal, veil, traveler runes mesmer in our outer bay. Took a long time to hunt them down and murderise them. Was it annoying? Yes. Was it also fun sneaking up on them and turning them into a giant chicken? Oh yes, words don’t describe that feeling.
It was annoying but it was no more so than a thief. I guess the potential to port 20+ people through outer is there but honestly, once I went for interrupts and moa it wasn’t hard even on my slow mesmer. 100% a learn to play issue.
This is why I’m so against nerfing it while everything is in such a raw state. There’s a lot of things that are learn to play and learn to adapt issues and areas where we just haven’t been able to fully see the possibilities.
On other classes’ stealth
Yes, other classes have stealth on demand but not for nearly the duration. A PU mesmer could effectively exit any fight at any point now, instantly. Shadow Refuge and any stealth that requires smoke fields give a tell to identify where the character is and where opponents should apply damage pressure, that they’re still in the area, etc.
Not entirely true. Assuming equal traiting, elixer engy can toss elixer X for 6s stealth on 5 people with 40s CD. A thief gets 4s however has the means to keep applying it depending on situation for minimal real cost as well as having PU equivalent for the class benefits from the GM and that’s without mentioning the minor. I find the need of a smoke field generally doesn’t hamper the “get stealth and run” aspect.
With PU mesmers, this isn’t the case at all. They can completely remove themselves from a fight or gain significant tactical advantage easily and without a tell as to where they are. This makes a big difference from a counterplay point of view. Sure, thieves are slippery and tough to deal with (especially when traited), but the tells on most of their stealths allows an opponent to know where they are and know when to expect an attack (and where) if it’s going to happen. That’s massive.
Again not true, torch has an enter and exit animation, both very obvious with the exit being an AoE damage. MI has a massive tell followed by a big white expanding circle, very easy to interrupt. The only one it is true of is decoy.
Still, MI is more valuable in a fight without question, providing an instant stealth for 10 people no matter where they are.
Not instant, 1.75s cast time with obvious animation.
On mesmer clones and defense
You (and others) have downplayed the value of clones in combat and the overall defensive options mesmers have, and I have no idea why. Mesmers have plenty of great tricks that contribute to the fun of playing the class.
Good players aren’t confused by clones outside of decoy and indeed now actively cleave them out knowing they’re neutering your burst. Incidentally you can call target on the mesmer and unless they stealth they can’t remove it even with clones afaik.
The fact that most mesmers aren’t running PU and are still one of the more dominant classes in wvw outside of zergs atm should make that clear to anyone. To be clear, I don’t think it’s a problem in and of itself that they’re more dominant now, but clearly they aren’t defense-poor without long PU stealths or else they’d be dead in this much deadlier post-patch world.
So why are we discussing nerfing a trait people aren’t running to be effective or are more effective without? Perhaps the problem is burst without investment or possibly the creep of stat points and damage.
If a nerf has to come, we both agree 2s seems about right. Any less and we’re back to old PU which I certainly don’t feel competes with other GMs in the line let alone things like master of fragmentation or inspiration as a whole.
Mesmer lost defence with clone death traits, people haven’t adjusted to the fact they can cleave out clones with no repercussion, when they figure it out, fotm mesmers will have a much harder time bursting and the fotm mesmers will leave.
Play mesmer without any stealth and you will see how hard it is to escape and why clones are not very defensive.
I guess I’ve been using reveal wrong. I’ve been using the lock on trait and Utility Goggles(the perfect mesmer stopper with reveal, vuln, fury, and immunity to blinds) to focus mesmers casting MI, thieves dropping SF, or even just mesmers I know are running decoy right before I CC them. But I guess reveal doesn’t count as a counter to stealth and I must be misunderstanding how reveal interacts with stealth. Heck, if you lost sight of a thief or mesmer, since their best burst requires them to be right on top of you, just keep dropping grenade auto attacks at your feet. Odds are if they try to burst you they’ll become revealed for 6 seconds.
Which is for engineer only, there isn’t much for other classes. Lock on trait still requires that you hit thin (or in the case of charr, fat) air. I know, sick em for rangers and stealth traps in WvW. Stealth traps in WvW need a much lower cost though and sick em is not that great outside of its reveal. We need skills and traits that are generally useful with and without the reveal effect.
None of the above is in balance with other classes… any of them. Other classes have their own issues, for sure, but clinging to an obviously unbalanced trait buff because other classes might have their own things that need to be adjusted is incredibly short sighted. Rolling back on that trait isn’t a nerf to the core of the mesmer class either, nor does it impede build diversity.
It does impede it. Tell me how many mesmer builds outside that PU clone death build were running PU before the buff? I’ll tell you, almost non. Nerfing the stealth back to where it was pre patch is not the answer as I keep saying.
Make it +2s and MI (the source of a lot of your concerns despite there being bigger game changing elites) has much reduced effect. I’ll tell you what will happen though, people will still complain, people will still ask for it to become 1s, people will still go around saying it’s “broken” OP because at the very core of it all is this one singular fact.
There is and never has been a true counter to stealth
As a point of clarification, I’m talking about reverting a trait back to where it was two weeks ago, with no complaints then of being underpowered by anybody, or possibly increasing the stealth from where it was then but less than where it is now.
No complaints have happened because they happened months ago when PU was initially nerfed so that one condi clone death build wasn’t as strong. Since then clone death condi has been removed and condi nerfed a fair bit for mesmer, this includes the nerf to all condis to allow stacking over 25 etc.
- the amount of stealth a mesmer can generate by simply activating skills (i.e. no hit has to be landed; almost no counterplay) outclasses every other stealth class by a country mile
A thief, engineer, ranger (trapper) and soon to be guardian can do this, no hits needed for 3s of stealth which feeds directly into…
- this stealth is stackable
So is the above mentioned classes. Additionally because engineers and thieves can produce smoke fields they can even grant stealth to others who have some clue of the combo system. Additionally smoke fields can give 15s of stealth if everyone blasts it and happens within 1s.
- the aoe party stealth (MI) has a 1200 radius, affects 10 people, and provides the effective stealth duration of a full Shadow Refuge without the need to stack in an identifiable small area (no counterplay)
SR base stealth is about 12s iirc, with trait you end up with 16s as it pulses. SR is also on a much lower cooldown AND heals people for healing signet levels of health while inside. Additionally MI has counter play or are you saying thrusting a giant sword into the sky with a big glowey aura for 1.75s is not obvious enough?
- put 5 mesmers in a havoc, and they can provide almost a full minute worth of stealth to their entire party plus another havoc, creating an insane advantage in combat
2 thieves, 1 in each team accomplished the same before and after patch and guess what? You don’t need to dedicate half the mini zerg to one class. Put 5 of anything up and you can find one aspect where you completely dominate.
- that same havoc could, in principle remain permanently stealthed without giving any indication whatsoever of their presence on the battlefield or in a structure
Again with this? I have done this with 1 thief and 2 guards pre patch, can do it after patch. Additionally 1 mesmer cannot hide multiple people long, you would have to dedicate as you say 5 people (and at least an adept and GM major trait on all 5) to that. You would have been better off with a thief.
- even one 10s MI is an incredible advantage on the battlefield matched by no other elite (or any other skill) in the game
SR and blinding powder for thieves. Rampage and that adept major physical trait. Necro lich form or DPS with lifeblast. Warrior warbanner (HUGE game changer matched by nothing else) Guard quickness shout, Timewarp, Supply crate (dependant on group size though)
All the above are as big a game changer if not more so than MI, some have longer CDs but most are about the same or less. Other classes are game changers by there mere presence, like celementalists.
- terrible mesmers (like me) can survive total party wipes of actually capable people because the stealth combined with escape is so good
Ever thought they wiped because you were playing the stealth game on a class you weren’t good at instead of your function? Maybe if you had been using portal and timewarp instead of stealth tricks it would have gone the other way?
Needless to say I do the same on my thief (though I am an ok thief, not great but not pants) and can get out of situations that wipe entire zergs not just party. Same for my zerk ele.
- the combination of this enhanced stealth plus the regular mesmer defensive advantages (clones, cc, defensive buffs, evades, etc) makes running full zerk shatter insanely easy, whereas other classes actually have to put themselves at risk to go glass
Clones don’t fool anyone and the penalties to killing them got removed. Evades are the same as most other classes with the exception of blurred frenzy but you ain’t moving when doing that and is a risk in and of itself. People running the mantra of distraction usually have little to no condi cleanse, without that they don’t have a whole lot of dazes or stuns outside of non torch builds which would make the PU problem less. Make em burn, this is a learn to play issue.
(edited by apharma.3741)
I play PU condi mesmer is pvp/wvw.
and it is extemely op and more strong stealth than thief.
difrerent between thief and mesmer stealth = mesmer can instant stealth and stealth duration also stacks whicb means i can stay stealth whenever i want faster and stay almost forever. But as a thief we need to either land that cnd or hs bp combo to get in stealth. (ofc we can instant stealth too but which means we have to sacrifice our long cd UTILITY SKILL which is used for escape/life saver utility.) And basically do not forget mesmer gets clones+stealth with lot of boons and lot more hp+defensive skills and btw stealth is basically thief’s mechanic not mesmer’s. Mesmer’s more like clone phantasm type of mechanic. Giving mesmer better stealth than thief is just not right.
Yeah, it’s not like one of the mesmers stealth skills does an AoE blast which will reveal you…oh wait it does, silly me. Oh and they need to use a precious utility slot as well for that other instant 3-6s stealth, shucks, seems that isn’t so great. Hey, they got 5-10s of stealth for up to 10 people in a large range, yeah it’s OP, we’ll forget about the extremely telegraphed 1.75s cast which is so easy to interrupt.
Anyone saying mesmer has better stealth than thief is just plain wrong. Thieves get it as part of their weapons, unless you’re running S/P but that’s the only exception. You can stealth whenever for 3s base, 4s traited and stack duration by repeating to get 5-7s or even up to 12s. Your burst has no cool down as its a normal attack from stealth. You have as many low cool down gap openers if not more as mesmer, one of which is your class ability. SR is also a heal, sure you have to sit in it when you enter but by now that isn’t much of a problem for most competent thieves.
PU condi builds got nuked from orbit. Only people your killing are bad people. No more clone death, maim the disillusioned nerfed, quite frankly as long as they have a decent condition cleanse for what I’ll assume is your perplexity runes they can mow down your clones and laugh. No decent player gets confused by clones for more than 1s. People love to say it’s a defence of Mesmer but it’s not.
However I will say this, thief got some very unnecessary nerfs or slight nerfs this time, shadows embrace for one.
Catch my warrior? Probably not.
Catch a waarior that isn’t running the spediest comp possible? Sure, no problem.
Escape from my speedy warrior build? Yup, can do that too.More counters to stealth? Yeah, that’d be great. It’s a much bigger ask in terms of work though, and it hardly seems reasonable to use that as a reason to keep the excessive stealth buff on PU. Even with out PU, mesmers have the second most access to stealth in the game. Is the argument seriously, “Stealth is broken and needs more counterplay now! In the meantime, meaner stealth should be greater even though nobody ever asked for that.”?
I already said 1-2 secs would probably be fine, it would just require testing. 1s because it was working before, 2s because I don’t think it would be a huge problem but don’t know. I also said I’d support a buff to Veil unttaited.
Most warriors I come across have either a sword main hand or GS, put simply as a Mesmer there’s no way in hell I can catch them (without traveler) if they decide to run and use those leaps/gap openers. They aren’t even built for speed, I know, I’ve run it with strength runes, just whirl and rush outta there, only thieves would be able to chase. I couldn’t even catch most other classes as they have better swiftness.
Actually now is the perfect time to be asking for counters to stealth. Trapper runes will allow guards to stealth, Rangers and engineers can already stack it nicely for some surprises, we’re in no shortage of QQ over thief stealth and now mesmers. However we should have had this from day flippin 1 not day 1000+ and maybe thief might have been balanced instead of what it is today.
Stealth needed counterplay when the game launched. Which is why I say, there’s no issue with PU, the issue is with something that should have been here from the beginning but never was. This isn’t new, it’s just made more relevant now not just thieves can easily stealth for longer than 5s.
As for the 2s argument, Anet metrics or something said people weren’t using PU in a way they wanted. Someone at Anet obviously felt it was a poor trait before the patch and I agree, however reverting the boons would make PU grossly overpowered. Seriously, we’ve been there, it was incredibly defensive in its first iteration. So they buffed the other aspect, stealth duration. Putting it back to 1s puts us back to bad trait land, we shouldn’t go back to that and it certainly doesn’t make it a build defining trait. It would have to be at least +2s otherwise it would never be used.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Man, you guys sure like to squirrel a lot. Nowhere did I say mesmers should have to run Travellers runes, I said I could barely escape one as a warrior with a full run comp. With regular stealth and that same mobility, I expect those same mesmers could escape me. Besides, aren’t mesmers getting a speed buff trait as a minor when HoT drops?
My mesmer also doesn’t have travellers, and as a noob I survived every party wipe and thief gank without breaking a sweat, while still contributing solid damage pressure throughout fights. That seems right to you?
They get it as part of the elite specialisation, which means you have to give up a trait line for it, you’d have to run chaos, chrono and something else. In my opinion it would be quite a bit trade off as other traits and lines would synergies better with chrono than PU.
Squirrelling, you’ve done plenty of that, so answer my questions.
Would any Mesmer without traveler runes have a hope of catching your warrior? What about thief, ele (DD, FGS), ranger, necro, engy and all their large amounts of swiftness?
Would you like to see more actual counters to stealth in the form of 30-40s CD aoe reveal skills so we can have meaningful stealth play?
Does +2 duration sound like an ok compromise? As it would significantly shave off MI, keep veil function and reduce decoy and torch by 1s as well as reduce the effectiveness of the torch trait.
Stealth needs a viable counter, a way to reveal someone who is in stealth
Is that clear enough for you? The problem isn’t stealth, the problem is the lack of a real counter which any decent game puts in. Seriously, think of all the good games with stealth in, they always have a way to unstealth people.
Nerfing PU back to pre patch will only nerf Mesmer escapes to the point they will no longer be able to escape without using MI in WvW. In PvP it’ll just make people run inspiration or illusions line for power shatters as the boons are terrible, removing yet more build diversity.
Mesmers already have more escape/disengage than many other classes without PU, possibly including warrior at this point (I’ve been running gs/s+sh, bulls, full cd reduction, and warriors sprint and I can barely escape from mesmers running Blink and Traveller’s runes, and that’s the fastest comp a warrior has).
Despite that, I’m not calling for thief stealth nerfs. Sure, they have some deadly burst from stealth, but it seems to be less of a problem.
Even still, your argument to leave PU as it is would only hold up if most mesmers were traiting it. If they don’t trait it, they aren’t getting the benefit, and evidently they aren’t finding the thief threat sufficient to meet that threat.
If you want stealth completely overhauled, fine, but you aren’t making much of an argument in support of the PU stealth buff. The issue of “build diversity” isn’t solved by keeping a stealth buff on a trait that apparently most mesmers aren’t taking now, and a buff they apparently don’t need anyway.
With traveler runes, not all mesmers run traveler and I’m sorry but forcing a class to use a specific rune set is the epitome of reducing build diversity. Can a Mesmer catch your warrior without traveler runes? No chance, not one chance at all, I mean absolute 0 unless you literally are asleep at the wheel.
It’s obvious why PU was buffed initially, because no-one was using it outside one build in one game mode. There is only one build I frequently came across that did and that was the clone death condition build which was useless outside of WvW. Now clone deaths are gone, guess how useful the old PU would be right now? Yep not at all, hence the buff.
As a Mesmer that doesn’t run traveler runes, I could never hope to escape in WvW before PU was buffed without using MI or blink+decoy+prayer, now I can with decoy which means I no longer feel I have to run MI to survive, I can afford time warp if I pick up torch and decoy with PU.
If people feel MI is too long, I already made a suggestion of making PU +2 seconds but evidently it seems everyone is on an agenda to make PU as useless now as it was before.
@warlord of chaos, what is cancerous to this game are comments like yours that just want to see traits, skills and classes nerfed to the point they aren’t worth using. That is what got mesmer (and other classes) into the poor state they were in.
@apharma
If the extra stealth duration isn’t particularly helpful except in a couple of places (e.g. 1v1), to the point that many mesmers choose not to run it, what is the basis for your argument to leave PU as it is?@Carighan
Why in the hell would anyone run PU in pvp? As, I think, you pointed out, running such long stealth effectively pulls you out of the match. Why would a mesmer need any more stealth than they have out of the box, especially when it comes at the cost of extra damage or sustain?Other people, myself included, don’t agree with either of your assessments so we’re calling for a rollback to where it was a couple of weeks ago, or at least less than it is now because they are finding it disruptive. Nothing of what either of you have said here make a case for not rolling back the stealth buff.
That isn’t what I said, what I said is that it didn’t help in the team fights. All it did was help the guy escape from a bad situation, as in people going down and a near team wipe.
My argument for the last 4 pages, in the last PU thread and in every blooming thief nerf thread is this.
Stealth needs a viable counter, a way to reveal someone who is in stealth
Is that clear enough for you? The problem isn’t stealth, the problem is the lack of a real counter which any decent game puts in. Seriously, think of all the good games with stealth in, they always have a way to unstealth people.
Nerfing PU back to pre patch will only nerf Mesmer escapes to the point they will no longer be able to escape without using MI in WvW. In PvP it’ll just make people run inspiration or illusions line for power shatters as the boons are terrible, removing yet more build diversity.
Edit: Another reason you don’t need PU in PvP is that there’s so much stuff in the landscape, look at any PvP map and there’s an unnatural amount of stuff to LoS behind or blink up etc. Not so much in WvW.
(edited by apharma.3741)
I don’t mind conditional recharges but you generally need to keep a tight leash on them.
The pistol one is good for PvP and WvW, not so hot for PvE but then I’d choose phantasmal fury usually and I can get illusionists celerity to make up for what I lost before the patch.
The staff one doesn’t play well with others. By that I mean if someone keeps putting down lava fonts or light fields then it’s capacity is much reduced. You are in effect punished for playing with others which Anet has said shouldn’t happen. I think the condition needs changing, perhaps a 2% recharge per clone or 1% per boon on you.
Torch encourages the use of PU which is not helping the current Mesmer hate. Perhaps make it a flat recharge or 4% per enemies hit by torch skills. Carighans idea is nice too.
It’s because bad players pre patch are being carried by traits post patch.
Isn’t that the case with all classes except maybe necro? Though I hear medic necro is very forgiving but haven’t played with it myself.
So rather than take anecdotal evidence from someone who quiet possibly could be playing against complete er lets just say people who get confused by clones. Let’s look at high level play, where we can be sure that both the Mesmer and the other person know how to dodge and time skills.
Check out the last 2 weeks of ESL go4. 1 mesmer in a lot of teams, sometimes none. Azanii from MiM I believe ran PU and was against either TCG or oRNG who had inspiration. Neither was completely domination the other players.
They played smart but PU didn’t give Azanii the edge, just meant escaping from a 1v1 was easier while the other could last longer in the fight and spent less time out of it. PU also didn’t allow for any real game changing burst or anything. When I look at competent players using them I don’t see a problem.
Mesmer is in a better place because they spend less time running away but PU isn’t used a lot because guess what’s? It doesn’t help you stay on the point and if you’re bursting someone down, the thief Mesmer combo is superior in which case, thief, stealth, go figure.
If you complain about WvW, well that things got massive balance issues all over the shop. I wouldn’t call for a nerf because of that as there are much bigger things that need balancing.
Tweaking of all damage downwards. They pretty much buffed it by anything upto 30% on some classes by giving a real zerk amulet.
Balance the stats, then let the meta play out for a few weeks. Then start tweaking skills. You may see some of these “OP” builds fall into line.
My favourite part about all this hate is that people haven’t discovered 1 mesmer can mimic portal and single handedly portal a zerg of 39 into SM.
You know, so long as their 6,6,6,6,6 PU power-condi clone death build keeps up its infinite stealth or a friendly thief does all the “hard” work of permanent stealth.
As for the OP, see ranger hate about longbow rapid fire.
This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.
Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.
Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.
Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.
If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.
Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?
Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.
Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.
Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.
You describe a very different experience than mine, but then again I mainly play a zerker staff ele (pretty bad match for me whether shatter or PU). I almost never die when I’m on my mesmer (also zerk) unless I’m being too arrogant. What you describe with mesmer stealth and them not being able to escape absolutely doesn’t jibe with what I’ve experienced on both side of the fence. If I wanted to reset a fight there was barely nothing my opponent could do to prevent it and I got thousands more hours on my ele than on my mesmer so…
Before the patch it was very hard I found to escape, people generally would give chase even if you popped out of stealth 3s distance away. Generally I needed blink and decoy or blink and torch to get away. That or MI. Even then some classes could chase me down.
After patch I can get far enough away that they stop chasing or don’t bother. Still a CD wasted and I wait before engaging again. MI is very strong right now, veil seems about right and torch and decoy are strong but wouldn’t call them as overpowered as others would lead everyone to believe.
Here’s hoping if it does get nerfed they stick it to +2s. We’ll see tomorrow.
This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.
Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.
Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.
Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.
If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.
Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?
Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.
Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.
Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.
This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.
Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.
Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.
Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.
If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.
Jashugan, if we go by that definition of “broken” then Anet have created a very “broken” game. Quickness, resistance, stealth, aegis, invulns, stuns, teleports, elementalists, guards, warrs, thieves, engineers, mesmers, ranger longbow, vigor, energy symbols, stealth stomps, portal and half the stuff under the sun of Tyria are “broken”.
So let’s just stick to broken meaning things that are legitimately not working properly so we don’t all have to become mind readers.
Also, thief blackpowder →blinding powder is 6-8s of AoE stealth on an almost instant cast (1/2s), gl interrupting that. While the Mesmer has used an elite and their highest cool down and most defensive skill possible to get that 10s stealth. Seems a fair trade imo.
That’s without mentioning you made no response on what the PvP forum specialist asked for which is how would you change it.
I have made mine repeatedly, nerfing stealth duration won’t stop the QQ, only put it back onto thieves till trapper rune guards start melting people. What stealth needs is real counters.
Why not add AoE reveal onto ranger pet F2 onto wilting strike or invigorating bond?
Why not add reveal to fear me for warriors?
Why not make dhuumfire reveal hit foes or allow necro to inflict reveal upon entering DS?
In other words give people tools to be able to bring someone out of stealth every now and then.
Yeah I noticed and I must say it feels much nicer, some mantras like resolve and concentration are much more useful now because of it.
Having said that mantra of recovery is extremely strong with harmonious mantras and restorative mantras.
It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?
- Nerf PU to be less duration.
- Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
- Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
- Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)
5. Arena Net actually offer a real counter to stealth outside of blindly hitting thin air.
Let’s be honest here, the real problem with stealth for the last 3 years nearly has been that once someone stealths there’s no way to bring them out of it. No way to turn round to a thief or Mesmer that is about to run and say “Not today Modremoth…I mean Mr Thief”.
The dragon hunter trap, reveal for engineers are a step in the right direction but with more classes getting access to stealth it is not enough. We need real ways to do something to reveal someone, not all the time but when we need/want to.
However if a tweak was to come change as follows:
Stealth +2 stealth duration (previously 100%)
Might becomes vigor for 3s.
This trims down MI a lot, veil remains usable, decoy and torch take a hit but level out at 5s. Someone obviously buffed the stealth duration for a reason initially. However even reverting PU to 1s more stealth will cause the same complaints till a real counter to stealth is put in.
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I was taking 4-4.5k shatter hits, something gonna get nerfed hard I suspect. Maybe that’s normal? I don’t know I havnt mesmered for like 2years.
Mesmer shatter damage as far as I can tell hasn’t changed one bit, though phantasms got a 15% buff, it’s not that big a deal. The only thing that has changed is they got a bit more survivability, they’re still choosing the same things in duelling mostly with the extra blind on shatter or mirror on on dodge.
Domination is largely the same but they can take confounding suggestions as well now (but then everyone gets to pick extra) or some other combo.
A lot go illusions which while, illusionary persona and elasticity were made baseline, they now have to choose might on shatter as its a master major not a minor. A lot will pick the torch trait for a cleanse or compounding power, not much different here and certainly no more damage modifiers than before. Master of fragmentation is all the old shatter adjustments rolled into one, most are kinda meh but reflect on distortion and AoE daze are the most useful.
What did change is now inspiration if you drop actually gives you as a shatter Mesmer a realistic way to survive better which works with shatters.
Chaos now offers some decent buffs to manipulation so we get lower cool down blink as well as PU which now actually is worth taking for power builds.
TLDR: The only thing that’s really changed is mesmers aren’t spending 90% of the fight running away and devoting all their utilities to simply not get swatted like a bug.
I do wish you and everyone else that says this would clue themselves up a little.
Arena net has said grandmaster traits are supposed to be build defining. This is why generally there are very different grandmasters in all lines that, while they may follow a theme (defence, healing, damage, control etc) they work differently and will affect your playing as such.
I believe they mentioned it in the 3 hour AMA on initial specialisations or maybe before hand. I do know they said in regard to the engineers burn GM trait “There’s that build defining trait” as a throw back to this idea.
Ido realise they may not be entirely successful in implementation but it is the intention. GM traits are supposed to be about more than just a trait pick in a line.
We say it because it’s true. Whatever Anets intent, a quick survey of the traits across the classes will show a pretty mixed bag in terms of where “build defining” traits live. There are even a few lines that have the best, or most build defining, sitting in Adept.
And, frankly, even if they followed through with that intent, it would have exactly zero relevance to the question of whether PU needs to be dialed back. “Build defining” isn’t a free pass on the OP Express.
No, but it does mean that the GM traits are supposed to be strong which is what the whole discussion is about.
Condi Mesmer is absolutely awful in sPvP right now so you won’t be seeing any nerfs there.
But! But! I heard someone died to a Mesmer! NERF THEM ALL! TO THE GROUND!
It’s pretty obvious mesmer is a bit too strong now. There will probably be nerfs across the board on Tuesday anyways.
It’s more obvious that stat inflation, especially in a tightly controlled stat area such as PvP, has had some undesirable effects in how much higher damage seems to be compared to survivability.
It’s even more obvious that they need to sort out what’s going on with that first before swinging the nerf bat.
Names like Grandmaster and Master Traits don’t really mean anything now that we get everything in a trait line.
I do wish you and everyone else that says this would clue themselves up a little.
Arena net has said grandmaster traits are supposed to be build defining. This is why generally there are very different grandmasters in all lines that, while they may follow a theme (defence, healing, damage, control etc) they work differently and will affect your playing as such.
I believe they mentioned it in the 3 hour AMA on initial specialisations or maybe before hand. I do know they said in regard to the engineers burn GM trait “There’s that build defining trait” as a throw back to this idea.
Ido realise they may not be entirely successful in implementation but it is the intention. GM traits are supposed to be about more than just a trait pick in a line.
Changing PU back to 1 second (from 3 seconds) is a 66% reduction, or even an 80% nerf in the case of MI. That would be an even larger change. Hopefully this puts it into perspective.
Except people (including some Mesmers) were already complaining about PU before the patch, calling it cheese, etc. There really wasn’t a justification to buff it in the first place. Hopefully this puts it into perspective.
Not entirely true. They complained mainly about that one clone death condition PU build mostly. Reason being it was so low risk and high reward and generally a complete pita to fight when roaming in WvW. To the point the general advise was “just walk away, they’ll never catch you”.
The original PU used to be +1 second but also gave aegis, regen and protection only. This was way too defensive and so was nerfed by adding swiftness and might into the mix. This watered it down to the point most power players looked for defence elsewhere but the clone death build didn’t need to as it was sufficient still.
Fast forward to now and there are no more clone death conditions, in fact you can just cleave away at mesmers so long as you don’t have torment and confusion on you with little to no downside.
Remember when Chaotic Dampening was nerfed by 60%, and everyone agreed that that was a knee-jerk reaction to a trait that was strong but didn’t warrant that big of a nerf?
Changing PU back to 1 second (from 3 seconds) is a 66% reduction, or even an 80% nerf in the case of MI. That would be an even larger change. Hopefully this puts it into perspective.
Also to put it into perspective, the devs obviously thought that as a GM trait it was lacking, hence the buff to stealth duration in the update.
The only way I would accept a nerf to it would be making it +2s. This keeps the current veil stealth time, shaves torch and decoy stealth down by 33% and MI by 60%, MI at 7s is plenty of time imo. Course changing might to at least vigor or stab would also go a long way to help.
It also has the nice side effect of making most Mesmer stealth in the four to five second bracket which means it’s easier to gauge unless they use the elite which is exceptionally obvious when it’s being cast.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Most likely.
Things I think will get nerfed include PU, CS and possibly phantasm damage with shatter damage. Doesn’t mean I think any of them should be as damage seems higher than what people expected all over the shop.
What I hope happens is this big patch we can expect soon will tone down burn application across the board. They rebalance a few things in regards to damage giving back our lost 4% crit chance, lowering either the damage of everything by 10% or reducing the amount of power people have.
I also hope they do a more sweeping change to tone down the damage to a place they think is more acceptable then start looking at things over performing. I also hope they fix the skills and traits that are broken first like symbolic avenger so they can balance them in a fair and working environment.
My point if you bothered to read and think was that people are calling our traits, skills and half our stuff broken when they are factually working not only as intended but a large amount the same as before patch.
If you bothered to put in any amount of effort into reading you’d have realised this was directed not at you but the guy above my post on what is broken and what is too strong.
Mesmer stealth doesn’t need a nerf it just seems OP to ignorant players.
Before you bring up that PU got changed and so did the torch trait, yes they did however the skills mirror blade, mind wrack and mind stab all used in combo haven’t. This is where a lot of the QQ is coming from and only the PvP amulets have changed which would make it a stat issue.
Broken or OP I don’t care it needs to be fixed either way
Or it’s gona turn into Mesmer Wars 2
In case the massive patch and all the changes failed to register with you. This last update was absolutely huge. It broke (you know as in they don’t work as they should) some skills and traits. It also inflated a lot of people’s stats in all areas of the game as they no longer wasted it in trait lines.
Why does it matter? Well because if something gets a damage nerf, then they decide everyone is actually doing too much damage and tweak damage in the way of stats, we can end up in situations where skills are just plain old rubbish due to hasty and short sighted people calling for nerfs. How would you like it if guards conditions got gutted then condition damage was tweaked leaving guards unable to even keep burn up 50% of the time?
In addition if something is broken and ends up being nerfed but then gets fixed and ends up worse than ever (see ileap history) it ends up causing a lot of problems and creates animosity within the user base of that class.
For open world, running around with the greatsword with all the traits to make it a nice weapon to use for shattering in an environment where it really doesn’t matter most of the time.
I really like sunrise…
PvE or WvW or just open world stuff?
Personally I think necro is still master of conditions, sure they don’t get confusion and torment in large numbers but they can send them back in many many ways. They also have epidemic for PvE which is just amazing.
Anyway you pretty much want all rabid if you’re going condition Mesmer, clones benefit from the precision to proc sharper images (bleed on crit), I believe frifox has a guide or something about it on one of the first few pages.
Can we please stop calling things broken when they aren’t.
Engineer grenade trait is broken (it is not working anywhere near intended), guardian symbol trait symbolic avenger is broken.
What is not broken is PU, Mesmer burst or any of the other stuff that is actually working as blooming intended.
It is strong, very strong, too powerful however it is not broken. Broken is something that is not working properly, strong is something that is working properly but over performing.
Right it’s not unnintendedly strong it’s just abusively strong.
Thanks for that.I seem to remember a similar thing was said by many about ranger rapid fire and many would certainly say that the skill is “unintendedly strong”. What are your thoughts on that given you spend so much time in those forums?
My point stands though, the skills are not “broken” as many are saying. They are working as intended unlike the grenades and grenadier trait, guardian symbols and symbolic avenger. You know, things that are actually broken not just unintentionally strong.
Your “point”? You mean when you said “broken” unequal “overpowered” ? Fabulous point captain obvious thanks for the illumination
The difference between LB ranger and Torch-Mantra mesmer is that the first seem OP to ignorant players and the 2nd actually is.Back to the topic Anet nerf mesmer plz.
I’m ok with the clone cloud nuisance not the perma stealth on top of tat
My point if you bothered to read and think was that people are calling our traits, skills and half our stuff broken when they are factually working not only as intended but a large amount the same as before patch.
If you bothered to put in any amount of effort into reading you’d have realised this was directed not at you but the guy above my post on what is broken and what is too strong.
Mesmer stealth doesn’t need a nerf it just seems OP to ignorant players.
Before you bring up that PU got changed and so did the torch trait, yes they did however the skills mirror blade, mind wrack and mind stab all used in combo haven’t. This is where a lot of the QQ is coming from and only the PvP amulets have changed which would make it a stat issue.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Can we please stop calling things broken when they aren’t.
Engineer grenade trait is broken (it is not working anywhere near intended), guardian symbol trait symbolic avenger is broken.
What is not broken is PU, Mesmer burst or any of the other stuff that is actually working as blooming intended.
It is strong, very strong, too powerful however it is not broken. Broken is something that is not working properly, strong is something that is working properly but over performing.
Right it’s not unnintendedly strong it’s just abusively strong.
Thanks for that.
I seem to remember a similar thing was said by many about ranger rapid fire and many would certainly say that the skill is “unintendedly strong”. What are your thoughts on that given you spend so much time in those forums?
My point stands though, the skills are not “broken” as many are saying. They are working as intended unlike the grenades and grenadier trait, guardian symbols and symbolic avenger. You know, things that are actually broken not just unintentionally strong.
Can we please stop calling things broken when they aren’t.
Engineer grenade trait is broken (it is not working anywhere near intended), guardian symbol trait symbolic avenger is broken.
What is not broken is PU, Mesmer burst or any of the other stuff that is actually working as blooming intended.
It is strong, very strong, too powerful however it is not broken. Broken is something that is not working properly, strong is something that is working properly but over performing.
I think the problem is earth isn’t measuring up to the job quite as much as arcana. With the arcana line you gain boons on switching elements, most of them pretty decent and your dodge roll becomes a blast finisher in earth, a cleanse+heal in water, blind in air and something kinda lame in fire.
Compare that to something like earth, sure the adepts are nice, the GM minor is alright for the -10% damage but generally the rest of it I feel is kind of lame. Stone heart is good for tanking damage but you will find it hard to survive like that if forced into earth. As our heals are elsewhere usually. Written in stone…our signets need to be more useful I feel for that one and diamond skin needs reworking.
Don’t get me started on the masters, I’d rather take the masters in arcana over the ones in earth 9 times out of 10. Nothing measures up to the healing, cleansing and protection you get from arcana and water combo.
Mesmer nerf inc…
Gl and hope you guys have fun, looking forward to seeing a full mesmer comp in ESL, it may even make me put up with those 2 terribly boring shoutcasters on the NA stream.
Having faced a few more Power Mesmers using PU lately, I must say it is extremely frustrating.
The difference between Mesmer and Thief is that thief has to be on top of you in melee in order to burst. Mesmer doesn’t (you don’t need a 4 clone shatter to knock someone down several pegs) AND Mesmer’s burst is AOE. I see issues here with PU.
But that isn’t the fault of PU. PU being a longer duration stealth would allow for a melee range and stronger shatter with better escape, which is in contrast to a ranged shatter. If the Mesmer wasn’t using mental anguish too then it rolls back to what I said earlier. Perhaps mesmer burst needs looking at and that is the real problem.
Before the patch I had concerns about how a lot of the Mesmer traits seemed bursty and to make bursts faster and hit harder. Even if they revert PU to +1 second it won’t change people getting busted from stealth, it will still happen, people will still go 100-0. Only difference is survivability will be hit for running away, oh and veil becomes terrible again.
Pink being a girly colour is a 20th century thing. Used to be a male colour before that at times.
As for the unicorn, I’ve been chased by cows and horses, things that big are to be run from. If they had a big horn to skewer me on as well I’d be terrified.
What people suggesting stuff like “ele boons need nerfing” always seem to forget is that ele’s don’t have anything else besides boon as defensive options. Thief/Mesmer has stealth, Guard/Warrior/Mesmer have block, necros have shroud, etc.
Eles only have boons really, that’s why our boons are strong, especially the defensive ones.
I know this, the problem is the boons are applied so quickly and frequently especially since our attunement recharge got reduced that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of these strips. Protection is applied in buckets for the ele with little investment. I’d like to see boons increased in duration by a second or two but the application or re application reduced by a second or two.
Just a small shave. Then I’d like to see some cool down reductions on some survival utilities and something other than cantrips and arcane shield for surviving. Glyphs would be a great place to start as they’re very hit and miss in terms of usefulness, with long cool downs.
There’s a lot of auto proc things but generally they have specific circumstances associated with them. I don’t mind them too much as once you know someone is using it, you can work around it.
Diamond skin should just be resistance but perhaps extended to 1-2s on attunement swap.
Stone heart I think is fine, no-one ever won anything camping in earth outside that weird sceptre condi build.
I think eles boons need nerfing but not in a way that they just become useless. I think they need to be less easy to apply but last a bit longer so a strip or conversion actually sticks for longer than 1-2s. Ultimately they should still keep the same sort of position they had but just really get hurt by strips and conversion and allow that to be a counter.
You could say that ele build was catching fire =D
I got no more puns for the rest so don’t burn me.
Yes and the common thing about veil in GvG and WvW is that they have to use multiple veils to stay stealthed. The terrible part is the enemy can see the veils though so they aren’t surprising anyone. All because it doesn’t last long enough.
Stealth needs real counter play. Skills that apply reveal if used at the right time. Give revue ant one that pulses reveal and has an upkeep cost. Make ranger pets like the dog track stealth targets and reveal on attack. Allow a traited shout bow warrior to reveal stealthed targets on shouts in their active range.
You know, real counter play where you can bring them out of stealth every now and then.
Wait we’re making special circumstances for an ill conceived and silly plan now? So we end up at the exact opposite scenario to what Anet wants which is all skills working as close as if not identically between PvP and PvE. Your idea is bad, you’re on a vendetta against all stealth, you should stop this.
Veil with 2s of stealth is (I’m going all out on this one) absolutely terrible. Look at all the WvW videos, go into WvW and you will see base veil needs to be chained in order to be worth using. That’s not skill, that’s poor design making multiple mesmers required for use.
In fact anyone willing to show me a place where veil is used seriously outside of WvW? I think I’ve only ever seen it in Arah when Mesmer elite was on CD and they had no thief in a record run, hardly in the scope of most players.
In Conquest, the main issue w/ PvP is it makes your stealth skills last long enough that you can stealth from outside the enemy’s LOS, and then walk up to him for a nearly-instant mirrorblade-mod-gs3-mind wrack burst, which is enough to instagib zerker builds and do heavy damage to other builds.
this is why instagib from stealth should be deleted even for thieves. yes it should do huge dmg but get you 100-0 in 1 sec … NO NO NO .
for now its the main burst for mesmer.but cause every class has huge burst lets w8 and see
Your proposals however would just delete thieves from the game. You don’t like being bursted from stealth and feel the need to destroy it completely. I don’t much like being burst from stealth but then I WvW a lot and you can see it coming miles away because it’s more open.
What stealth needs is a true counter. Guards are getting a trap that reveals players that trigger it, that’s a step in the right direction but there needs to be more things like that. Not passive proc traits like engineer where you get lucky while hitting thin air.
A reminder to all. Shadow refuge is 5 pulses of stealth for 4s which gives about 11s of stealth and barely any cast time on 60s CD. Trained can give you16s of stealth on 48s CD. Granted you have to stay in the circle but it does give a lot more for surprising people.
A thief also has an almost monopoly on smoke fields which when they leap or blast give 3s of stealth (4 traited) and they generally do this 2-3 times to get more stealth.
Anyone saying mesmers have more stealth than thieves is being silly. A thief when they put in as much trait investment as memsers (technically less as they only need 2 traits, one major one minor) can perma stealth not just themselves but up to 4 other players too. No Mesmer can do that.
Thanks miku,i havent tryed berzerker power,was using axe trait,as i used to use those,for nice dmg.And i hope i get at least closer to ele dps,or at least to the funn feeling from it.
I doubt you’ll touch the lofty heights of ele but when you can give 25 might to yourself so easily you’re certainly going to have a more straight forward time.
Warrior is also now the defacto might stacker too so if your friends join in you can make a small change and boom 25 might for all…without gutting your damage hard.
Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance.
Many Engi wants their OP bugged grenade barrage gone.
Many Ele wants their insane burning stack gone.
Many Guardians want their insane burning stack gone.
For thief idk, maybe not.This video pretty much sums up what’s wrong with Mesmer and Guardian.
You can keep making excuses. You can keep acting blind. You can keep giving silly arguments. You can keep pretending that the spec is weak. You can keep bringing up unrelated stuffs to justify this.
You can keep defending this BS, but you’d quickly see a dying GW2 pvp community. (Not like it’s not dying already.)
My favourite quote of that video: “Oh I messed up” followed by “Oh I messed up” and the repeated “I messed up” on an ideal long channel guard sitting there doing nothing but the most obvious channel in the game.
I also like how he used all his utilities, made sure he had all his damage procs going, used scholar runes everything to get absolute make burst.
Go watch JebroUnity channel on twitch, got a game or two with helseth and frostball, check their burst on competent players and use something like that as a comparison.
At the end of the day the only thing in that whole combo that is different from pre patch is the mantra of distraction for confounding suggestions and power block. Could it be what’s actually “broken” is the stat inflation and that marauder has about 10% more crit chance, more ferocity and power than the old zerker?
@mailmail yeah there’s a lot of things that if the ICD was per target they would work better and be either stronger and balanced or less powerful and balanced. I hope those kinds of things get implemented.
Jeez I am sorry I am not perfect and that I fat finger my burst sometimes. Keep in mind that the damage I was doing was to a guardian with 3.2k armor and 21k hp and about half the video was done i swapped back to strength. That video was to show how much damage there is atm, and if you watched towards the end Arken and I started to duel. After the recording, he swapped to mara power guard and i was basically one shotting him. It didnt matter if i had power block on (Mental anguish does similar dps without an interrupt).
You have a reputation for being certainly above average if not one of the top Mesmer players. If you were having trouble executing the burst combo ferpectly every time even when the opponent gave you the perfect circumstances for all the damage then I would say it’s out of the reach of most fotm players who don’t invest time.
I watched half the video as it was a bit boring watching the same thing being repeated over and over for 10 mins and having to turn up the volume to hear what you were saying before the guardian screaming to high heaven, which was annoying due to the volume differences. I’ll look towards the end at the duels though.
Also, I know the feeling of having less dexterous fingers, makes doing things like that very hard =(
Just a thought off what mailmail said about shatters not needing to go into illusions and stuff.
At the moment just about the only line a power shatter needs to go into is duelling for DE. A lot of power shatters aren’t even picking up the trait for more damage on shatter.
Could it be that mind wrack is too strong without any form of investment other than berserker gear? Not saying it needs nerfing into the floor but if you can 100-0 someone without having to pick distinctive “do more damage with X” or “do more damage when X” then it says to me it’s too strong.
This is why I’m against nerfing PU atm as we haven’t had enough time to really figure out if it’s the cause of a problem or a side effect of it and the real culprit is elsewhere.