Guild Wars 2

SlayerSixx.5763:

Have you not been reading this forum at all? You want us to recommend a cheese play style? Seriously…?

Attrition = cheese? Since when?

After the patch, everyone seems to be loaded up on burst damage. And yet, I cannot bring myself to play that kind of game. My playstyle is more of a slow wearing down of the opponent – while staying within the circle for conquest and keeping the point ticking. For this reason, I dislike stealth even though as a mesmer, the PU build would give me lots of advantages.

I used to play the attrition game with my mesmer and celestial amulets/toughness, but I’m finding it somewhat hard to keep that up with the latest patch. I would need to stealth more (losing cap points), and shatter more, thereby losing pressure. Basically play a more high stakes game than suits my taste.

So I was wondering what the forum’s opinion was as to the best build/class for this gameplay in this post-patch world. I’m leaning heavily towards the necro which I’ve played before, but haven’t recently. My biggest problem with the necro is the lack of active defenses – no block, evades, damage mitigations etc.

Any informed opinions on the matter?

ASP.8093:

Doam.8305:

Mesmer shatter isn’t versatile at all

Uh, you’re kidding, right?

He probably means you can’t choose which illusions get shattered and which ones don’t. It’s an “all or nothing” kind of deal. And since some are useful and some aren’t, you can throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Just a thought…how about if GW2 introduced friendly fire? You get hit by all AoEs regardless of whether it’s your own team or the other.

Lol, that would be fun!

Come now, be honest. Let’s imagine the following situation. You’re in the Forest map, and there are 3 of your team and mid and three of the enemy. You’re standing on point – either as a warrior, a necro bunker, an ele (never played one) or a guardian.

It’s chaos. Lights flashing everywhere, people making sounds and you can’t even tell who is your team! And chances are you’ll be under severe pressure yourself merely trying to stay alive.

In all this, do you have time for coherent thought? Do you think cooly and rationally view the chaos around you and can you figure out what’s happening? Do you look at mesmer in all that racket, realize they’re going to cast moa on someone and do you have the time to de-target, retarget, and interrupt?

Or do you do what I do? Just spam your AoE skills and hope for the best? In a 1v1, or 2v2 scenario over somewhat large points like the ones in Foefire…ok I get it. You can see what’s happening and make sense of it.

But in a tight cluster, with everything going to madness, your camera angles all cramped, with an engis bombs falling on you messing up your framerate (I swear my screen actually stutters for several seconds when that hapens), I can’t make out squat.

I’ve been playing for 3 years.

I’ve heard about accounts of wars – there’s this great plan beforehand, everyone has their roles, everyone knows what to do. And then the battle hits and its’ a big clusterkitten. Plans go to hell, you’re not even sure if you’re swinging your bayonet at your own comrades, and you’re just trying to stay alive.

Does that happen to you in GW2 PvP?

Be honest.

Was dusting off my decap engi to see how it performs post patch, and couldn’t find my favorite trait. Did they remove it or replace it with something else?

Hmm…so not a bad choice for solo’ing PvP to hold a point. Guess I might have to dust off my old build after all!

I thought they had fallen out of fashion a while ago. Now I see lots of them running in PvP. What changed?

Any update to this? It’s really making it a nightmare for me to play. To queue up skills, I have to spam the button to make sure it activates immediately after. For example, as a mesmer, I queue up duelist, magic bullet, and confusing images. For each of these, I have to press the skill 2-3 times in succession for it to activate immediately on completion.

The problems is also evident when wanting to use a skill after dodging. Previously I could press a skill mid dodge and it would activate when the dodge was over. Now I need to spam it repeatedly to make sure it starts.

As a mesmer, I can confirm this has nothing to do with traits. It happens often whenever I want to use skills quickly one after the other.

Morwath.9817:

I agree,
premade que = competition
competition = better rewards
better rewards = competition

Sorry but as a solo player, I am every bit as competitive as any member of a premade.

If they separate team q and solo q and give the former higher rewards, I will continue to play in teamed. Solo players cannot be punished with lower rewards.

Scambug.3502:

bhagwad.4281:

Scambug.3502:

Nah unranked is fine. It’s ranked that needs to change. There should be a solo/duo queue and a separate full premade queue with the full premade queue awarding more rewards for added incentive.

Why should the pre-made queue award more rewards?

Because most premades do it for the easy win. If they’re garanteed to be matched up against other full premades, they will be less likely to queue.
Result being that queue times for premade vs premade will be much longer than solo/duo. The longer the queue time is, the lesss people join, it’s a vicious circle, until eventually the queue dies totally.
So you need added incentives for people to join the queue or else you end up in the same situation that led Anet to merge premade and solo in the first place: a dead premade queue because the reward isn’t worth the wait.

So let premades not q if they think the reward is not enough. Who cares? On every single thread on the topic of rewards, I’ve heard people say “We don’t PvP for rewards”. Fine then – don’t!

It is for this reason that I take MoA as a mesmer. Rampage and Lich form. People often say stuff like “lame mesmer”, noob, yadada. But no ally complains when the huge rampaging monster turns into a glorified duck.

I won’t use MoA under a normal 1v1 – it kind of takes the fun out of things. But use your elite transformation and face my wrath via my transformation :P

Because Anet seems to think pre-mades deserve to have fun at the expense of other people.

Oh, they open in PvE? I’ve been destroying them so far!

MailMail.6534:

There’s no argument about what is the defining mechanic of the Mesmer profession. You’re apparently the only one in the dark about this. Illusions and the shattering of such is the defining mechanic of the Mesmer profession. We’re going in circles with the discussion, and I don’t care to repeat myself.

Like I said before, phantasm builds are in a great state right now both in PvE and PvP even. Click on the build in my signature, Hermetic Inscriptions, for a fantastic current example of such. There are plenty of phantasm build options right now. I don’t really know what else you want out of this discussion. lol

What I want is not for the community. The purpose of my post is to inform Anet not to keep pushing us to shatter. Who knows what changes they might make next?

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

dank.3680:

I just have to say, Warriors pay a similar price. There are several traits tied to how much adrenaline they have and so it is not “free” to just throw it away and get nothing (missing burst skill blow all adren) now have less healing, less crit etc… Same type of trade-off.

They also have to use skill/utility/heal or get damaged to get adrenaline.

Yes, a huge number of warrior traits are tied into adrenaline. There are a lot of things adrenaline can be used for. Condi cleansing, burst damage, and even restoring itself. My point is that even if warriors never trait anything for adrenaline, they will still have those skills available to use when the time comes.

Anet has never said “We want warriors to use adrenaline” – duh, why would they! It’s obvious that adrenaline is a huge benefit to a warrior. Yet Anet has said more than once “We want mesmers to shatter more”. There is a reason for that. A reason why mesmers use their class mechanic less than all other classes.

No disrespect, but effing DUH! That’s the entire point. That’s why our shatters have been so immensely buffed with all of our baseline stuff as well as the ability to trait for multiple shatter traits… It is now VERY lucrative to shatter no matter what build you’re playing in most cases. There is a lot less drawback from shattering than there was before the revamp. That is a fact.

Personally I don’t think Anet should worry about what playstyle people choose to have – all they need to worry about is balance. If as a mesmer I never shatter, that should be none of Anet’s concern. I feel uneasy when they talk about imposing a particular style of play on me.

The class mechanic is to shatter. It’s not about playstyle, but more about basic design. It is inherently bad design in and of itself if for whatever reason, we are discouraged to shatter. For 3 years now, we have been discouraged to shatter. Even our best build (power) was limited because of the design.

What they’re imposing on you 3 years later is what it should have been at the start. Sorry you’re having trouble adjusting.

I feel the mesmer is not defined only by shatter, but also by phantasms, clones and (maybe) mantras. It’s a very weird philosophy of Anet’s if they care about people’s playstyles! How does it matter to anyone?

I don’t think you read my post. It’s not about playstyle. It’s about reinforcing the basic design of the class that was poorly implemented in the beginning and for the last 3 years. The Mesmer is not defined by Mantras (classes are starting to share utilities via specializations; see Wells) but by illusions and shattering. Think Lyssa the dual goddess and the Chaos line. Mesmer has always been a “pull & push” kind of profession.

If that is truly the case – if you truly believe that shatters are the defining aspect of the mesmer, then I think it’s very sad that mesmers are the only ones with a mechanic that actively harms them by destroying phantasms. I mean sure, you get benefits, but you lose something as well. The mesmer is the only class that needs to make these “short term vs long term” decisions.

It’s all very well for those who trait to shatter. But if Anet sticks to its philosophy, then for people like me (a full 3 clone shatter does around 1.5k damage), it’s a complete game breaker, merely because I choose to use other class mechanics. And why? Because my playstyle doesn’t like risk.

You’re essentially saying “Mesmer is the high risk profession”? And why should it be that way? Any class should be able to be risky if it wants…or to be tanky if it wants. No class should be slotted into a given playstyle.

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

dank.3680:

I just have to say, Warriors pay a similar price. There are several traits tied to how much adrenaline they have and so it is not “free” to just throw it away and get nothing (missing burst skill blow all adren) now have less healing, less crit etc… Same type of trade-off.

They also have to use skill/utility/heal or get damaged to get adrenaline.

Yes, a huge number of warrior traits are tied into adrenaline. There are a lot of things adrenaline can be used for. Condi cleansing, burst damage, and even restoring itself. My point is that even if warriors never trait anything for adrenaline, they will still have those skills available to use when the time comes.

Anet has never said “We want warriors to use adrenaline” – duh, why would they! It’s obvious that adrenaline is a huge benefit to a warrior. Yet Anet has said more than once “We want mesmers to shatter more”. There is a reason for that. A reason why mesmers use their class mechanic less than all other classes.

No disrespect, but effing DUH! That’s the entire point. That’s why our shatters have been so immensely buffed with all of our baseline stuff as well as the ability to trait for multiple shatter traits… It is now VERY lucrative to shatter no matter what build you’re playing in most cases. There is a lot less drawback from shattering than there was before the revamp. That is a fact.

Personally I don’t think Anet should worry about what playstyle people choose to have – all they need to worry about is balance. If as a mesmer I never shatter, that should be none of Anet’s concern. I feel uneasy when they talk about imposing a particular style of play on me.

The class mechanic is to shatter. It’s not about playstyle, but more about basic design. It is inherently bad design in and of itself if for whatever reason, we are discouraged to shatter. For 3 years now, we have been discouraged to shatter. Even our best build (power) was limited because of the design.

What they’re imposing on you 3 years later is what it should have been at the start. Sorry you’re having trouble adjusting.

I feel the mesmer is not defined only by shatter, but also by phantasms, clones and (maybe) mantras. It’s a very weird philosophy of Anet’s if they care about people’s playstyles! How does it matter to anyone?

Jeez man, some people are so touchy. It’s not a kittening contest. The guy is presenting a build he’s played with. Whether he thinks it’s “his”, or if it’s someone else’s, who cares? I don’t care if he calls himself the best mesmer in the world and everyone else is lame.

Grow up peeps.

MailMail.6534:

bhagwad.4281:

dank.3680:

I just have to say, Warriors pay a similar price. There are several traits tied to how much adrenaline they have and so it is not “free” to just throw it away and get nothing (missing burst skill blow all adren) now have less healing, less crit etc… Same type of trade-off.

They also have to use skill/utility/heal or get damaged to get adrenaline.

Yes, a huge number of warrior traits are tied into adrenaline. There are a lot of things adrenaline can be used for. Condi cleansing, burst damage, and even restoring itself. My point is that even if warriors never trait anything for adrenaline, they will still have those skills available to use when the time comes.

Anet has never said “We want warriors to use adrenaline” – duh, why would they! It’s obvious that adrenaline is a huge benefit to a warrior. Yet Anet has said more than once “We want mesmers to shatter more”. There is a reason for that. A reason why mesmers use their class mechanic less than all other classes.

No disrespect, but effing DUH! That’s the entire point. That’s why our shatters have been so immensely buffed with all of our baseline stuff as well as the ability to trait for multiple shatter traits… It is now VERY lucrative to shatter no matter what build you’re playing in most cases. There is a lot less drawback from shattering than there was before the revamp. That is a fact.

Personally I don’t think Anet should worry about what playstyle people choose to have – all they need to worry about is balance. If as a mesmer I never shatter, that should be none of Anet’s concern. I feel uneasy when they talk about imposing a particular style of play on me.

Scambug.3502:

Nah unranked is fine. It’s ranked that needs to change. There should be a solo/duo queue and a separate full premade queue with the full premade queue awarding more rewards for added incentive.

Why should the pre-made queue award more rewards?

dank.3680:

I just have to say, Warriors pay a similar price. There are several traits tied to how much adrenaline they have and so it is not “free” to just throw it away and get nothing (missing burst skill blow all adren) now have less healing, less crit etc… Same type of trade-off.

They also have to use skill/utility/heal or get damaged to get adrenaline.

Yes, a huge number of warrior traits are tied into adrenaline. There are a lot of things adrenaline can be used for. Condi cleansing, burst damage, and even restoring itself. My point is that even if warriors never trait anything for adrenaline, they will still have those skills available to use when the time comes.

Anet has never said “We want warriors to use adrenaline” – duh, why would they! It’s obvious that adrenaline is a huge benefit to a warrior. Yet Anet has said more than once “We want mesmers to shatter more”. There is a reason for that. A reason why mesmers use their class mechanic less than all other classes.

Archon.6481:

bhagwad.4281:

In your example of a 300k skill, I don’t understand how you will “certainly lose”. You could just walk away. Your health is the same. Your stats are the same. What have you lost? Your situation before you steal – alive. Your situation immediately after – still alive. Now if steal had an additional effect – “Miss steal and lose 300k life”. THAT would have been a risk. A clear gamble.

That skill is my only skill. If I miss, how am I supposed to walk away? I will certainly die if I miss. If i gave you that skill and you missed, how would you run from someone if that was your only skill? This really isn’t a hard concept. I cannot run away from someone if I have no skills.

bhagwad.4281:

“Miss steal and lose 300k life”. THAT would have been a risk. A clear gamble.

But it already is a gamble. That is my only skill. If I miss then I cannot defend myself. I will surely die. The “lose 300k” life part of you version is irrelevant—I will die to the other player if I miss. Again: I cannot possibly run or defend myself if my only skill misses.

bhagwad.4281:

Similarly when a necro enters death shroud, there is no cost associated with entering it. It is only a net benefit.

This is false in both economic and practical terms. Everything in economics has an opportunity cost. In this situation, the necro loses his weapon skills (opportunity cost+practical cost). He also gains a second healthbar, which maybe he could’ve used later and not now (opportunity cost). And once he ends it, death shroud is on CD. And he may find out afterwards that maybe he shouldn’t have used deathshroud and should’ve used it later (opportunity cost +practical cost) Stop using terms that you don’t really understand.

bhagwad.4281:

This really isn’t a difficult concept to understand. I don’t know why so many peole are getting confused by it.

Funny, because you continue to misuse a basic economic term. Stop acting like you’re some genius and you can understand something when you very clearly do not. You claim that mesmer is the only class who’s profession mechanic has an opportunity cost. This is false—everything has an opportunity cost, mesmer’s is only more direct (loss of phantasms).

You cannot defend yourself anyway! Your insta 300k attack is not a defensive skill. It is offensive. Whether it misses or loses, you have the same defense you did before. Not sure how using it puts you in a worse position. If you’re fighting with me (say 1v1), then you might as well use your 300k steal skill. Not using it means I kill you anyway. Use it and you have a chance of winning.

Sorry, but there is 0 risk here. Only a possible benefit. You’re confusing opportunity cost with gambling.

Next, a necro doesn’t really lose his other skills on entering DS because he can exit death shroud at any time if he needs those skills. You might want to play necro just a little bit to understand how it works. Just create a new necro character and try out DS skills. You’ll see that a necro is not locked into DS at any time.

Your other examples (about DS having a CD) is merely the trade off for any skill that has a CD (or a resource cost like a thief). You’re essentially admitting that DS is an additional skill slot, which only serves to further my point.

In fact, your examples of “opportunity cost” illustrate that you don’t really understand what I’m referring to. I’m saying “the act of using a class mechanic like steal” has no opportunity cost. Sure, you can choose to steal this, or you can choose to steal that. Not the point. When I say “steal itself has no opportunity cost”, what I mean is that by using it you don’t lose health, you don’t lose defence, you don’t lose power, or boons.

In fact, every decent thief has a trait that gives might, fury and swiftness regardless of whether or not steal succeeds. So there is “always” a benefit to using steal.

Let me put it in even simpler terms.

1. Consider thief A and thief B
2. Thief A has access to Steal
3. Thief B has no access to the steal skill at all
4. Thief A uses steal
5. Thief B has nothing

End result: Thief A is at the very least equal to thief B. Most likely he’ll be better off because of the boons, and if he lands it, then all kinds of nice things happen as well.

There is no situation in which Thief B is in a better situation than Thief A. Remember, thief A can also choose to simply not use steal if he doesn’t want.

Ergo: Steal is a free additional utility with no cost.

The same is true of warriors, necros, guardians etc.

Only Mesmers are different.

I’m sorry, but you seem to have a somewhat confused understanding of “zero risk” means. But really, it’s not my concern.

PistolWhip.2697:

Wrong.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Rage

Warriors tend to gain Adrenaline in fights for two reasons. That signet up there and Cleansing Ire (being the most common trait) gives you adrenaline when struck.

Once again, you’re comparing it unfairly.

Warrior doesn’t have a cool down on GAINING Adrenaline yes, and mesmer doesnt have a cool down on creating Clones. You can keep spawning them like a factory if you like (evidently the oldest one will disappear cause of the 3 limit).

And before you say, “But Mesmers have cool downs on skills which give us clones.” Yes, a Warrior may use a shout with a 25 second cool down for adrenaline provided he has brought the shout trait. Same thing.

Mesmer shatters have a cool down of course, as do Warrior F1 Skills.

Honestly at this point you’re just nitpicking something incorrectly to moan. If you really think Anet is going to make it so Mesmers don’t have a cool down on shatters… Hooooooooo buddy you’re dreamin.

If you read the first few lines of my OP, you’ll see I’m talking about phantasm builds only. I’m not talking about clones. If shatters were to only consume clones and leave phantasms alive, I would be perfectly happy with that. And since phantasm skills require CDs, my point still stands.

I’ve played a warrior for a long time – I know very well how easy it is to gain adrenaline without doing much. Cleansing Ire’s other useful feature is condi clears, and every warrior takes it. Using that is a bad example, because it just highlights my point about how easy it is for a warrior to gain adrenaline.

Not to mention the GM trait that refunds a portion of the adrenaline based on the level! And of course adrenaline on weapon swap (5 CD traited). Oh yes, I know all about how easy it is for a warrior to gain it.

Tell you what – let Anet give us something similar for phantasms (no one cares about clones). Say…getting hit gives a bar of xyz. 10 xyz’s spawns a phantasm of your choice. Let something like that be made, and we’ll be on par.

Till then, phantasms are created exclusively by weapon skills and utilities that do nothing else. At least a warrior’s shout has other primary effects. Fury. Fear. Stun break/condi removal. Vulnerability. Mesmer’s phantasms are not side effects – they are the whole skill.

So you’re drawing a false equivalence here. Mesmer F skills have a cost to using them that is simply unmatched by what other classes have.

And “cooldown on shatters”? Buddy…I would never shatter even if the CD was 0. That’s my whole point in this thread. I…don’t…want..to…shatter…ever!

Archon.6481:

1. You say that shatter has an opportunity cost associated with it: you lose your phantasms.
2. You then say that other classes do not have an associated opportunity cost for using their class abilities.
The first statement is true. The second statement, however, is definitely wrong.

I am an economics major, and you seem to misunderstand what opportunity cost means.
Opportunity cost is what you could have done with given resources instead of what you did do with them. For example, if hot dogs and hamburgers are both $1 each, and I only have one dollar, then my opportunity cost would be whatever I did not buy, e.g., If I buy the hot dog then my opportunity cost is the hamburger.

So yes, every ability has an opporunity cost. Every interrupt you use has an opporunity cost: you could have interrupted something else. My steal ,for example. Let’s say I use it to interrupt a warrior’s shield bash. That has an opportunity cost. I could have used it to interrupt eviscerate, or 100 blades. I could interrupt the shield bash and avoid let’s say 1k damage. But then i cannot avoid the eviscerate which does 8k damage (let’s say I’m out of dodges/blind/whatever). My opportunity cost there was avoiding an additional 7k damage.

I can take that to the extreme as well. Let’s say my thief has only one skill: Assassinate. Let’s say this is my only skill, and it does 300k damage and is on a 3 min CD. Now, under your own logic, my thief would be no better off or worse off if he misses Assassinate. But in this scenario that logic is obviously fallacious. If I miss, I will certainly lose, and if it lands, I will certainly win.

Every ability has this opportunity cost. Shatter has this too. In fact, by refusing to shatter, you are likely incurring higher opportunity costs onto yourself than you otherwise would have by shattering. Sometimes the burst damage right now is more important than the sustained damage. Sometimes immediately downing that one person in a group fight is more important than allowing him to run away/heal while you do more sustained damage.

Assuming ceteris paribus:
1.Let’s say a warrior is using eviscerate and if it lands it will down you and the only way to avoid it is to use distortion. Do you use distortion? If not, then you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
2.Lets say your phantasms will definitely die to my AoE before they cast a second attack, and let’s assume that this is to my normal AoE, and I am not deliberately going out of my way to attack them. By not using shatters, you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
3. Let’s say a ranger is low on health and has no way of avoiding mind wrack, and you do not have enough damage to down him before his heal is back up, but mind wrack does enough damage to down him before then. Do you use mind wrack? If not, you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
4. Let’s say a you and a thief has 1k health left and is using using hide in shadows to heal. If he heals then he will certainly kill you, and diversion is the only way to interrupt, or mind wrack is the only way to down him right now. Do you shatter? If not, then you are willfully limiting yourself and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then that would contradict what you said in your original post. Sometimes, there is little to no risk in shattering.

tl;dr You claim that shatter unfairly has an opportunity cost that other classes do not have. This is false. While shatter has an immediate and obvious opportunity cost (losing phantasms), every ability has an opportunity cost, and you are actually inflicting additional opportunity costs upon yourself by refusing to shatter, because sometimes a shatter is what is most optimal at a given moment.

One other thing – I’ve already said that I use shatters for specific circumstances – notably for distortion. Your other situations however, all carry risk. There is no way to be sure that an opponent can’t avoid my shatter.

Not to mention my shatters do very poor damage cause there are no traits into it.

PistolWhip.2697:

bhagwad.4281:

godz raiden.2631:

bhagwad.4281:

And those are “free” additional class mechanics belonging to necros and warriors. A necro only benefits from using DS. A warrior only benefits from using adrenaline skills.

After DS and Adrenaline skills, the necro and warrior are no worse off than they were before using those skills.

The mesmer on the other hand is worse off for using their shatters. Because their phantasms and clones are gone.

Your point might have merit if clones and phantasms were also linked to the F1-F5 skills. But since they are caused by normal weapon and utility skills, the class mechanic for mesmers leaves us in a worse position than we were before.

What about when a warrior misses with his burst skill and his entire adrenaline bar is reset and he gains none of the advantage of having used his adrenaline? Is that not comparable to you losing your phantasm(s) when you use your shatter skill? After all, the warrior did invest weapon skill cooldowns on generating the adrenaline, much as you wasted weapon skill cooldowns generating the clones and phantasms to gain the ability to use shatter skills.

I’m sorry, it just seems like you’re trying to make other classes look significantly stronger than mesmers or something to me, as though other classes have some sort of ridiculously unfair advantage.

In your original post you even mention thief steal being “free,” yet steal is able to be evaded and blocked, negating the benefit of using it.

It seems to me like you don’t completely understand how or when to use your shatter skills, and that is the heart of your issue with them, rather than that they’re leaving you vulnerable. The point is to use your shatters on an enemy when they’re vulnerable, not whenever you please (this is how all class mechanics work to varying degrees by the way).

When the warrior misses an adrenaline skill, they are no worse off than before they used it! Same with steal. If steal misses, the thief is in no worse position than before they used steal.

Mesmers on the other hand are in a worse position because their phantasms and clones are gone. Why is this so difficult to understand.

You aren’t comparing it properly here.

A fair comparison would be, before a fight, Necro has no life force, Warrior has no adrenaline and Mesmer has no clones/phantasms.

When a fight begins they all have ‘charges’ of their respective mechanic. When they use it, they end up at the beginning.

As you can see it is the exact same.

Mesmers DONT start a fight with Clones/Phants up, and therefore are no worse off than default without them.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

This has already been explained. Both necros and warriors gain life force in the normal course of play. Warrior does not have a skill solely dedicated to adrenaline that says “Gain 5 adrenalin”. Same with necro. The mesmer’s phantasms are weapon skills. They are not given to us automatically. They do not come out of nowhere.

The mesmer class mechanic requires us to essentially sacrifice weapon skills that have nice long cooldowns. Does a necro have a CD on the gain of life force? Does a warrior have a CD on the gain of adrenalin?

Archon.6481:

1. You say that shatter has an opportunity cost associated with it: you lose your phantasms.
2. You then say that other classes do not have an associated opportunity cost for using their class abilities.
The first statement is true. The second statement, however, is definitely wrong.

I am an economics major, and you seem to misunderstand what opportunity cost means.
Opportunity cost is what you could have done with given resources instead of what you did do with them. For example, if hot dogs and hamburgers are both $1 each, and I only have one dollar, then my opportunity cost would be whatever I did not buy, e.g., If I buy the hot dog then my opportunity cost is the hamburger.

So yes, every ability has an opporunity cost. Every interrupt you use has an opporunity cost: you could have interrupted something else. My steal ,for example. Let’s say I use it to interrupt a warrior’s shield bash. That has an opportunity cost. I could have used it to interrupt eviscerate, or 100 blades. I could interrupt the shield bash and avoid let’s say 1k damage. But then i cannot avoid the eviscerate which does 8k damage (let’s say I’m out of dodges/blind/whatever). My opportunity cost there was avoiding an additional 7k damage.

I can take that to the extreme as well. Let’s say my thief has only one skill: Assassinate. Let’s say this is my only skill, and it does 300k damage and is on a 3 min CD. Now, under your own logic, my thief would be no better off or worse off if he misses Assassinate. But in this scenario that logic is obviously fallacious. If I miss, I will certainly lose, and if it lands, I will certainly win.

Every ability has this opportunity cost. Shatter has this too. In fact, by refusing to shatter, you are likely incurring higher opportunity costs onto yourself than you otherwise would have by shattering. Sometimes the burst damage right now is more important than the sustained damage. Sometimes immediately downing that one person in a group fight is more important than allowing him to run away/heal while you do more sustained damage.

Assuming ceteris paribus:
1.Let’s say a warrior is using eviscerate and if it lands it will down you and the only way to avoid it is to use distortion. Do you use distortion? If not, then you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
2.Lets say your phantasms will definitely die to my AoE before they cast a second attack, and let’s assume that this is to my normal AoE, and I am not deliberately going out of my way to attack them. By not using shatters, you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
3. Let’s say a ranger is low on health and has no way of avoiding mind wrack, and you do not have enough damage to down him before his heal is back up, but mind wrack does enough damage to down him before then. Do you use mind wrack? If not, you are willfully limiting yourself, and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
4. Let’s say a you and a thief has 1k health left and is using using hide in shadows to heal. If he heals then he will certainly kill you, and diversion is the only way to interrupt, or mind wrack is the only way to down him right now. Do you shatter? If not, then you are willfully limiting yourself and inflicting opportunity costs upon yourself.
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then that would contradict what you said in your original post. Sometimes, there is little to no risk in shattering.

tl;dr You claim that shatter unfairly has an opportunity cost that other classes do not have. This is false. While shatter has an immediate and obvious opportunity cost (losing phantasms), every ability has an opportunity cost, and you are actually inflicting additional opportunity costs upon yourself by refusing to shatter, because sometimes a shatter is what is most optimal at a given moment.

In your example of a 300k skill, I don’t understand how you will “certainly lose”. You could just walk away. Your health is the same. Your stats are the same. What have you lost? Your situation before you steal – alive. Your situation immediately after – still alive. Now if steal had an additional effect – “Miss steal and lose 300k life”. THAT would have been a risk. A clear gamble.

Similarly when a necro enters death shroud, there is no cost associated with entering it. It is only a net benefit. The necro loses neither life, nor damage, nor sustain…it’s an additional skill. That’s it.

This really isn’t a difficult concept to understand. I don’t know why so many peole are getting confused by it.

Flow.2947:

go with healinpower and test your gratsword you heal for 1.5k each aa you do

How does using the GS heal you?

In case you were wondering. Sure Anet, take all the time you want. I’ll just salivate about what I can do with it in my head :P

Koviko.3248:

Yes, it can be interrupted. The animation has the Ele drop their head a bit and then like.. snowflakes (?) come out of their face? It has a distinct noise that sounds frosty.

The most telling part of the animation is that the Ele will stop killing you.

Make an Ele, go into the heart of the mists, equip the skill, and try it out.

Ok, I’ll look out for that. Thanks!

Ok. After water it is! Can ether renewal be interrupted? If so, can you tell me what the animation is?

I notice eles have some amazing condi removal skill/traits. Since I’m completely unfamiliar with how the class works, could you help me understand the best time to unleash my condis?

What should I look for? Is there a skill that takes out condis quickly? Is it a trait? If a skill, is it channeled? Is there a distinct animation to look out for? A sound? Is there something I can interrupt?

Any information would be much appreciated!

Thanks to the engis for compiling this list. The skill queing bug affects all classes, and hopefully Anet will fix it for the rest of us too!

Entenkommando.5208:

Do you know the term “exploit” ?
Since you are using this bug to get an unfair advantage over other players it would definitly be a reason to be punished for, if you are using it excessively.

Nope. it might be unfair, but that is what Anet gave us. How do we know this is not intended behavior? Engineers have every right to assume that this is what was intended.

This issue has nothing to do with slow condition. Anet changed something in the background, and they need to revert it!

Vague Memory.2817:

Well in PvP your phantasms don’t last very long to dps. Since clone death traits have been removed, it is better to shatter them than let them go to waste to aoe etc.

Positioning and the type of phantasm is important. I summon my duelists a bit away from the action – the point based nature of PvP works in my favor. And if it’s the warden, I want him to spawn right inside the circle along with me. Don’t forget he also gas 6 seconds of retaliation which comes in handy often.

That, and the projectile reflect and fast attacks make him quite useful.

Necrotize.2974:

bhagwad.4281:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Necrotize.2974:

They also outright said that a mesmer’s main defense should be not getting hit in the first place.

THIS. Avoidance and subterfuge IS our defense. Stealth ties directly into that. We should’ve had this amount of stealth all along, it makes total sense for Mesmers, both thematically and mechanically.

Hmmph, I don’t know. Stealth is just such a cheesy mechanic. Do you really be want to be so closely associated with it?

Stealth is cheesy to people who don’t like dealing with it, even though there are several ways. Saying stealth is cheese is basically like admitting this mechanic is annoying so I’d rather it be nerfed into the ground than be viable. I don’t personally play much PU but I rarely have much trouble fighting other stealth heavy players. In Spvp, long duration stealth is a big no-no, and the game isn’t really balanced around 1v1 roaming in WvW anyway. So nerfing stealth because its annoying in something that isn’t even really a supported game mode seems a little stupid.

I’ve gotten used to dealing with stealth with thieves. However, just because we do that, doesn’t mean that stealth isn’t cheese. Counterplay should not be based on guesswork. As a mesmer, I can handle thieves – but do I want to become like one? No…

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Necrotize.2974:

They also outright said that a mesmer’s main defense should be not getting hit in the first place.

THIS. Avoidance and subterfuge IS our defense. Stealth ties directly into that. We should’ve had this amount of stealth all along, it makes total sense for Mesmers, both thematically and mechanically.

Hmmph, I don’t know. Stealth is just such a cheesy mechanic. Do you really be want to be so closely associated with it?

Titus.2085:

bhagwad.4281:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’d like to input my thoughts but would you mind linking your build bhagwad?

I’m curious to see what exactly you’re running that wouldn’t benefit from shattering.

Well, I’m still figuring out the best build with the new specializations. But used to be celestial with sc/pistol + sword/focus. I use reflects, bleeds, and focus CC to make opponents stand still. Plus my phantasms used to give me regen/protection and I used rune of the Undead for condi damage.

Now with the specializations I’m still wondering on what tradeoffs fit my playstyle best.

Your next post which I quoted below shows that you don’t want to shatter and that’s fine. However, it’s going to be VERY HARD to make a Celestial phantasm build without using shatters once in a while. You’re not incorporating the condition part of the build, which (I think) is where phantasm builds fall off.

I GOT IT!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VRFR3d;0VPV11Q7BWV71;9;4STU;0158257146;4TF37K;15NV05NV00s

What’d you think?

bhagwad.4281:

It’s the classic risk/reward situation. Sure, I may be able to get off my final burst (presuming you’ve traited your shatters to do high damage, which I haven’t)…but if I miss, I lose a much nicer DPS later.

I personally don’t like to take risks. If we were chess players, I as a phantam mesmer would be Petrosian, whereas classic shatter mesmers would probably be Tal or some other guy who liked to take risks.

Actually I use phantasm builds to pressure my opponent. They’re forced into either killing my phantasms, which I can easily recharge, or deal with me and get blasted away by my duelists. I’m very offensive when it comes to a naturally defensive gameplay lol

That’s actually close to what I’m running now actually . Pity the duelist trait is bugged and doesn’t stack bleeds like it should. Also, I would use decoy and mantra of recovery instead of the signet and daze.

Titus.2085:

bhagwad.4281:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’d like to input my thoughts but would you mind linking your build bhagwad?

I’m curious to see what exactly you’re running that wouldn’t benefit from shattering.

Well, I’m still figuring out the best build with the new specializations. But used to be celestial with sc/pistol + sword/focus. I use reflects, bleeds, and focus CC to make opponents stand still. Plus my phantasms used to give me regen/protection and I used rune of the Undead for condi damage.

Now with the specializations I’m still wondering on what tradeoffs fit my playstyle best.

Your next post which I quoted below shows that you don’t want to shatter and that’s fine. However, it’s going to be VERY HARD to make a Celestial phantasm build without using shatters once in a while. You’re not incorporating the condition part of the build, which (I think) is where phantasm builds fall off.

bhagwad.4281:

It’s the classic risk/reward situation. Sure, I may be able to get off my final burst (presuming you’ve traited your shatters to do high damage, which I haven’t)…but if I miss, I lose a much nicer DPS later.

I personally don’t like to take risks. If we were chess players, I as a phantam mesmer would be Petrosian, whereas classic shatter mesmers would probably be Tal or some other guy who liked to take risks.

Actually I use phantasm builds to pressure my opponent. They’re forced into either killing my phantasms, which I can easily recharge, or deal with me and get blasted away by my duelists. I’m very offensive when it comes to a naturally defensive gameplay lol

50% of my damage actually came from bleeds inflicted by the duelist and the warden (both fast attack rates). I relied on condi damage pretty heavily – 8 stacks of bleeds and confusion used to hit hard against thieves and rangers as well.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Which traits have ya been runnin?

Lemme think..important ones – fury on phants, duelist (no DE), warden reflects, 15% inc phant damage (domination line), inc 15% damage phant (insp line), 20% increase phant health, regen when close to phantasms/ 3 secs of protection from chaos traits (minor).

Sometimes I would play with the trait converting 10% toughness into condi – coupled with a rune of the undead, I would get pretty good condi damage + power.

Playstyle revolves around CC with focus and spawning warden right on top of player with iLeap/immob, then sitting inside the warden either healing or benefiting off reflects.

And not stealthing unless I have no other choice. I would stand in the middle of the point with the warden (nice radius). I would have pretty decent sustain, and good defense against thieves (learned over years of play :P )

Huygens.4075:

castlemanic.3198:

Phantasms are a completely different story. each of our phantasm skills are dedicated solely to creating a phantasm. there’s no extra gimmick with them. there’s no extra personal benefit. we’ve simply created a form of damage output that can be destroyed by another opponent. we’ve ultimately created something that can be destroyed before it can even deal damage. Phantasms also have the same downfall as ANY other skill in that they can be blocked by blind, blocking skills and avoided by dodging or evasion mechanics. Phantasms ultimately have a higher risk than any other weapon skill in the game simply because they can be destroyed before they provide any use for the mesmer. phantasms are also our biggest method of sustained damage. and then our shatter mechanic destroys our weapon skills. no other class mechanic actively hampers the weapon skills of their classes. thieves do not lose initiative by using steal, warrior weapon damage is not lowered by the use of their burst skill. but mesmer weapon damage IS hampered and ruined by our shatter skills, or by the occasional breeze as well.

Phantasms attack as soon as you summon them. You hit the button and they pop up and do damage like a weapon skill. At that point they sit there and wait for their cooldowns. You’ve already gotten the “weapon damage” out of them. Now they’re just waiting like you would wait for a weapon cooldown.

At this point you can either wait it out, giving you more sustained DPS but risking them dying and doing nothing else, or you can shatter them for an immediate effect, but have to wait for a potentially longer cooldown (the actual summon).

In PVE you wait because sustained DPS is all that matters. In PVP what matters is killing your opponent. Why would you sit there waiting 10 seconds for Phantasms, potentially giving your opponent time to recover, when Mind Wrack could kill them right now? If you can do suffient burst to someone and control the fight effectively, you actually don’t need much sustained pressure to finish them off.

There may be a downside to shattering, but what’s more important is that it’s a net benefit if you do it properly. If you don’t then that’s on you.

It’s the classic risk/reward situation. Sure, I may be able to get off my final burst (presuming you’ve traited your shatters to do high damage, which I haven’t)…but if I miss, I lose a much nicer DPS later.

I personally don’t like to take risks. If we were chess players, I as a phantam mesmer would be Petrosian, whereas classic shatter mesmers would probably be Tal or some other guy who liked to take risks.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’d like to input my thoughts but would you mind linking your build bhagwad?

I’m curious to see what exactly you’re running that wouldn’t benefit from shattering.

Well, I’m still figuring out the best build with the new specializations. But used to be celestial with sc/pistol + sword/focus. I use reflects, bleeds, and focus CC to make opponents stand still. Plus my phantasms used to give me regen/protection and I used rune of the Undead for condi damage.

Now with the specializations I’m still wondering on what tradeoffs fit my playstyle best.

Dastion.3106:

The logic in these arguments against Shattering isn’t sound. Yes, you trade your built up sustained DPS for burst and in PvE you’d normally rather keep sustained DPS. Most bosses have an AoE of some sort that can wipe your illusions though, so shattering before that occurs can boost your DPS. If you’re fighting multiple enemies and the one you’re targeting is going to die then Shattering allows you to convert some of their potential into damaging other enemies in the area. When Teq goes down I summon a Berserker on him, then a Warden, SoEther, and a second warden. I summon a third (replacing zerker) when it’s ready. But once he stands up i shatter them.

For sPvP burst is king. Following up a Phantasm’s attack with an immediate shatter and resummons is not a loss – it’s a gain. Yes, you have to resummons but having 3 Phantasms safely attacking a single target for an extended period of time is rare and the protection clones provide is short lived once the enemy catches on to your movements.

It’s no different than Signets or Guardian’s Virtues. You give up a sustained effect for an immediate effect. Signet of Ether is even built around this concept of being an offensive heal.

That memser burst in PvP is something you need to land, or else you’ve sacrificed everything for no purpose. If other classes miss with their special mechanic, (adrenaline or steal for example) well…they’re no worse off than they were before. The mesmer loses an existing position to gamble it on a burst.

Second, I disagree that burst is all that matters in PvP. I deliberately play a “non-bursty” style focusing around attrition and sustained damage with condis. Of course, no one is stopping a mesmer from playing “bursty” if they want, but PvP has other means to play as well.

My playstyle is lower risk fights, and slow grinding down. For that, shatters are completely useless to me. Not to mention, I don’t run zerker so my burst damage will again will not be as much as even a single duelist can put out with power + bleeds.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

bhagwad.4281:

I feel that just because stealth + burst is broken on thieves, doesn’t mean mesmers should have to stoop to such low levels. I know we can stealth a lot now. I just haven’t used it yet – I feel it’s cheating.

Over the years, I have learned to play against thieves with lots of stealth. I know how unfair and annoying it is. I do not want to inflict that cheese on other people. I have standards.

In other words, you’re a scrub.

Call me whatever you want. I’m not complaining, so what’s the problem?

I feel that just because stealth + burst is broken on thieves, doesn’t mean mesmers should have to stoop to such low levels. I know we can stealth a lot now. I just haven’t used it yet – I feel it’s cheating.

Over the years, I have learned to play against thieves with lots of stealth. I know how unfair and annoying it is. I do not want to inflict that cheese on other people. I have standards.

Silverkey.2078:

They only removed the clone-on-death because it was cheesy. They didn’t nerf phantasms, quite the opposite.

Well, my personal complaint is that the trait that gives fury to phantasms now competes with my piston recharge skills! Not to mention that the latter isn’t even working with the bleeds.

However, I think it’s important to let Anet know for future updates that some people don’t like to shatter (because of the opportunity cost). I’m saying this because the developers have expressed the sentiment many times that mesmers are not using their shatter skills enough.

My post tries to explain why that is the case, and for me, it’s because I don’t like risk/reward playstyles.

Silverkey.2078:

Btw, I don’t know how efficient it is, but I had fun with some interrupts build in PvP where I didn’t shatter much. I just lockdown the enemy while my phantasms destroy him (+ the interrupts hit fairly hard also). Fun, active and not particularly shatter-based. And it does not seem ANet is preventing you from playing that. As a matter of fact, many lockdown traits compete with shatter traits (especially in domination).

Yes, that is what I’m experimenting with as well (amongst others).

My worry is more with philosophy and attitude. When Anet says “We want mesmers to shatter more”, what I hear is “We are going to nerf your other viable builds and options and push you into shatter”.

Silverkey.2078:

I think it’s not so different to guardian: if you keep your virtues, you gain benefits over time, if you use them, you get a “burst” of benefits but then no passive before recharge.

I don’t think the discussion makes much sense in PvP. Your phantasms have a big chance to die before they can land a second skill. I actually think YOU are taking the risk by not shattering them.
When you play PvE (for example while leveling), it feels like shattering is a bad idea. Your phantasms give more damage over time than shatter + most mobs are aggro-ed by illusions, so as soon as you shatter, they run straight to you. In PvP, I first thought like you, let’s avoid shatters. But then you see your phantasms dying, and you soon after and you start shattering and you realize it’s way more fun and active

Chronophantasm may change the situation and allow shatters and phantasms to partly coexist.

Yeah, I’d like that chrono trait where phantasms can survive one shatter. As for PvP, like I said I trait my phantasms to be tanky and reflect projectiles. I rely on them for bleeds and power as a hybrid. Shattering them is almost never good for me, and I’ve been doing this for a long time.

As for a guardian, yes of course you lose the passive benefits of virtues when you activate them, but either way you get a benefit. In short – if a guardian’s F1-F5 icons were to suddenly disappear, they would be significantly worse off with no compensation. Hence, the F1-F5 keys directly benefit a guardian – either passively or actively.

A mesmer like me using phantasms on the other hand…it’s as if they F1-F4 keys don’t exist. They neither provide me with a passive benefit, or an active benefit. I play without them impacting my life in any way – save for the sole purpose of invul on stomp.

godz raiden.2631:

bhagwad.4281:

Oh god, please understand what I’m trying to say. Steal increases your damage. If you could do 10 damage before, stealing allows you to do 50 damage.

Missing steal, does not reduce your damage to 5 or 2. Hence, there is no opportunity cost to using steal.

When you say steal has risk, you are saying “Missing steal will put me in a worse position than I currently am”.

Do thieves have a mechanic that says “Missing steal inflicts 20 seconds of weakness”? Is there a rule that says “Missing steal damages you by 5k”? Do you lose power or condition damage when you use steal?

No? Then steal has no risk.

In fact even if you miss, you get boons on steal. I think you need to understand what I’m trying to say before getting all defensive.

I understand what you’re saying, but you need to also understand that you shouldn’t be bringing other classes up in this discussion to begin with. The comparisons to make aren’t really valid. Yet here I am trying to compare with you, so there goes my logic being sucked into your world I suppose.

Look, a thief is absolutely, without a doubt, in a worse position if his steal misses. Ask any player who mains a thief. If your steal misses, you do less damage than you are designed to do if your thief lands. If your steal misses, you just threw yourself into melee range of an enemy, but gained none of the advantage that you require as a thief to fight your target in that range. There are so many things that can go wrong for a thief if his steal doesn’t land, that simply saying he won’t do the damage he is designed to do doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

I would say you have a point to make that a thief could technically not trait for modifying steal in anyway and still perform, but then my counter argument would be that the strongest thief builds always modify steal in some way, so your point wouldn’t hold water (just saying that before you try that one if you were going to). If anything thieves and mesmers share some common ground there. Both classes are pushed towards using their class mechanic skills to gain advantage in a fight. And that’s probably how it should be.

I had to bring up other classes only to make the point that Anet never wonders about the thief “Oh, we need to make the thief use steal more!”. Anet has never once looked at the necro and thought “You know what…necros aren’t using death shroud!”

The problem was unique with the mesmer (as far as Anet was concerned). As far as I’m concerned, I was perfectly happy not using my shatter skills and I wasn’t complaining.

I am complaining now ,only because Anet is starting to tweak mesmer’s skills etc so that we are forced to go into shatter. Other mesmers are feeling this too as you can see in the thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Patch-Seems-to-have-Halved-Build-Variety/first