Guild Wars 2

When I read the part about Menders Purity I spat out my drink and started cackling.

Pyroatheist.9031:

These changes are interesting. Quite honestly, I feel that many are either unnecessary or unimportant.

The boosts chaotic transference and mender’s purity are awesome, but quite honestly not necessary.

The change to IC is great, no arguments there.

The change in dazzling glamours changes nothing. Chaotic revival, mirror of anguish, and illusionary invigoration ditto.

The shattered conditions change is interesting, but it’s still not a viable trait to take. It works pretty well, but the problem is you end up in a build that does pretty much 0 except remove conditions. In some really niche situations that might be ok, but for the most part it’s not.

Confounding suggestions change is interesting. Not entirely sure what to think of it.

The mantra trait changes are disappointing. The problem with mantras is not the traits really, it’s the fact that you can’t afford to be charging them up in combat. That just doesn’t work well (in tpvp at least). The traits also have some issues, but they pale in comparison to the functionality problems of the skills themselves.

The most disappointing thing is that they continue to ignore the glaring problems of the abominable scepter autoattack and the phantasmal Mage.

Now, I obviously won’t turn my nose up at buffs, but I can’t help but think that the devs seem not to really understand where the Mesmer is lacking.

Pretty much this entire post, especially the scepter auto, using it in a fight is a literal waste of time.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Exploit: The use of game mechanics to achieve an unintended and undesired result.

If you really think the devs intended for a costume brawl skill to be used as a movement speed stim in WvW, then you’ve got another thing coming.

I cant imagine them thinking a dash would be used for dashing.

You know, like every other dash in the game.
No, surely they’d never think of that.

Given that you can buy speed boosters to more or less the same effect, in combat, with less effort, I cant imagine the folkes over in balancing would be to upset over this being a thing.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Are you kidding me? You bought it for the sole purpose of disrupting WvW out of combat movement speed balance and you’re trying to claim that it doesn’t disrupt that game mode at all? Ok.

I fail to see how keeping up with other classes is somehow gamebreaking.
Its no faster than the dashes that other classes have access to.

I’d hardly call it an exploit, its just a dash.

Its not like its actively effecting balance in any negative way, especially since it only works ooc.

Moaning Marv.2194:

hmm what is this axe you’re talking about, what does it do?

The Executioners Axe, its part of the executioner costume that you can get from the gem store.

SrebX.6498:

I don’t understand how this lets you keep up with other players

The 2 skill on it is a 600 dash on a 3 second cooldown, basically you throw it on while moving around and spam it as you would any other leap/dash.

I was going to get a set of travellers runes and the axe worked out to be cheaper amusingly enough.

I can’t be the only person who dropped a bunch of gold on it just for the ooc mobility.

Its no nice being able to keep up with other people in WvW.
Second best 50ish g I ever spent.

Inspiration also has Menders Purity and Wardens Feedback in the same line, both of which are amazing.
I run a 10/30/0/30 Mantra/Phantasm supporty hybrid, but can swap over to glamour at the drop of a hat in dungeons if the group reaaaaaally needs the extra reflection.
Going down Illusions is probably better damagewise, but Id sooner take the utility and versatility Inspiration brings.

A Snaff’s corpse mini.

Here is an 11 month old quote.

clipnotdone.9634:

Illusionary Leap: Fixed an exploit that allowed for more clone generation than intended.
Creating a clone was an exploit?
Is there some phantasmal dimension where this skill actually works?
Will it ever work?
Find out next week, same bat time, same bat channel.
Its never going to get fixed.

Hilariously enough, it is still bugged.
Rather horrendously.

Heaven forbid you attempt to use iLeap at 600 range or on any surface that isn’t perfectly flat.

I’m not really sure what else to say, I think it stopped being a joke about 6 months ago.

Your build is irrelevant as a Mesmer in tpvp.
You are a portalbot and little else.

Playing well, a mes is still serviceable in tpvp, but for every other role outside of ports Mesmer gets outdone by other professions.

So ‘viable’ I guess but not optimal.

It was an interesting experience to say the least.

Every other person was either a regen warrior, condi necro or spirit ranger.
Out of all the people there were only two players actually contesting points, myself included.
The rest were in a cluster at the center of each map brawling and throwing profanities at eachother.

Oh, and its still an unplayable lagfest for oceanic players.

So there you go kids.

Hotjoin.
Not even once.

After the patch the tracker no longer crashes the game, however I’ve received no daily chest, and finishing other tracks doesn’t seem to cause it to stack over again.

It also appears to be ‘complete’ in the tracker, so Ive yet to finish it, but at this point I think doing my pvp daily mightn’t reward the chest either.

Its SUPERDUPER bugged.

Been this way since launch, I’m sure there is abajillion bug report threads about it and it’s yet to really be mentioned by a dev.
So I wouldn’t really get your hopes up about it getting fixed any time soon.

1. Balance
2. More engaging mechanics, less passive play.
3. Game modes
4. Rewards

Getting things for pvping is nice, but the lack of variety in viable builds and playstyles really hampers my general want to bother with spvp. That and I just flat out don’t like conquest style game modes.

When.             

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dawdler.8521:

Kelthien.8593:

Having 2-3 mantras locked and loaded pumping out heals, AoE cleanse, and AoE stability along with the normal plethora of boons, reflections, and dazes will be nice!

If would be really nice if having them all locked and loaded wasnt like juggling 20 shells while trying to load a shotgun when someone is smashing your head against a wall and your baby need a diaper change.

Also, you’re hanging upside down.

This is just to close to reality to be an analogy.

Rifles for Mesmer confirmed.

As a person who runs a Sword/Focus+Scepter/Sword Mantra build, the dev stream made me happy.

In the pants.

Portal.
In all 3 utility slots.

And maybe IoL.

Firstly, they are butterflies.

Secondly, el oh el.

In general, no.

However, it is possible to occasionally get Immobilised mid-air and since you can’t use most skills in the air it can be a bit of a pseudo disable, although this is really more of a bug than an intended effect.

Is the myriad of mostly useless and or misplaced Mesmer traits ever going to be addressed? The pool has been quite the mess since forever.
I’m pretty sure the Mesmer player base is in almost universal agreement that Illusionists Celerity needs to be removed and affected skills need to have their baselines adjusted a tad.
The trait is far to powerful it’s own good. The fact that so many players feel 25 points into illusions is almost mandatory should say alot.

The buffs to Mantras are nice, but they still have a pretty huge problem in Harmonious Mantras.
You cant buff their rather lackluster effects, or they risk being rather overpowered with the trait. I think most players would probably prefer if the trait was removed and Mantras had their baseline brought up to par with other utilities.
EDIT:
Pain and Distraction getting a PBAoE would be pretty neato and fit in with the whole ‘AoE Mantras’ thing.

Arcane Thievery can still be blocked by aegis/doesnt work through blind, is single target and has pretty poo range, all while having a higher CD than Null Field. It really needs some love.

I really feel like Phantasms hitting from stealth shouldn’t be happening.
Stealth spamming zerker phantasm builds have very little counter play.
It’s cheesy and isn’t all that fun for anybody to play against.
On the subject of Phantasms, it’d be great if they could trigger sigils and other % effects again and gain some utility outside of just dealing direct damage.

Illusionary Leap.
Illusionary Leap Illusionary Leap Illusionary Leap Illusionary Leap Illusionary Leap, Illusionary Leap Illusionary Leap.
Ill. Usion. Ary. Leap.

If this skill were able to write a novel, it would be a harrowing best seller about the horrors of parental neglect.

Its preferable to the burst meta. I’d rather put up with cc spam than win or loose a fight in under a 2 seconds.

Mesmer and Elementalists can draw quite a few parralels right now as far as their position in the meta goes, recent changes have rendered them significantly less effective than what they were previously.
But Im pretty sure an Ele can bunker somewhere along the lines of infinity more effectively than a Mesmer can, they rely a bit more on boon spamming that Mesmers do, so this meta is a bit more painful for them but the tools for survivability are there.

Even with the meta as it is, Id say Eles are in a better spot than Mesmers, as a Mes you effectively have 1 utility slot and a single build to play with in Tpvp, however good that one build may be, its still one build, its been this way since launch and every balance patch makes the problem worse.

Mimic is interesting, when you are outnumbered, Mimic is AMAZING, especially if you find yourself under a bunch of focus fire.

It also has a very low cooldown, and lets you take a projectile from one fight, into another.

Like using a glass cannon warrior’s Killshot to one hit a thief.

If all you care about is the treasures of the deeps:

30/30/0/0/10 all mantras.

You can poop damage, of course, if something so much as farts in your general direction, expect your Mesmer to keel over right then and there.

Most classes have more access to blinds that Mesmers have reliable condition removal, on lower cooldowns than phantasm summons.

The casts (currently excluding the zerker) are fairly well telegraphed.

Making the most of their damage takes 35 trait points minimum.
That is not a cheap investment.
Especially with the Mesmer, since the baselines for their skills are actually quite poor.
Without one, or both of the illusion damage increase traits, phantasm damage is rather poor.
Even with the both traits, their damage isn’t close to the equivalent skills of other classes.

These are also weapon skills that are the damage dealers, not utilities. They also tend to be the hardest hitting on their sets, traited or no.

And last but not least, they were for a very brief period, made dodgeble (the same patch that made them susceptible to LOS) and it basically made playing a Phantasm build impossible. This was changed after few days.

One very legitimate complaint I rarely see brought up is the fact a Mesmer can be stealthed while phantasms land hits.
It promotes cheesey fighting by spaming phantasms and stealth.
If Phantasm damage were to be considered coming from the Mesmer (and by extension actually benefit from sigils and other such effects again) I’d be all the happier for it.

Oh, and Phantasm builds were never viable in tpvp. Nothing but shatter ever has been since launch and if the trend in patches is anything to go by, never will be.
Hotjoints don't account for tiddle, stop pretending they do.

Any oceanic players manage to get it yet?

Picking up those Orbs makes me rubber-band all over, I cant seem to get past 6, let alone actually finish her off.

The sheer amount of packet loss that happens while in this zone is insane, having a 3+ second delay at times really doesn’t help.

I did it with subject 7 by spamming reflection, once you get the timing down it pretty much kills itself for you.

Issues like these are what playtesting is for, they clearly aren’t doing a very good job of QA if things like this are being pushed into release.

Having a two week turnaround doesn’t help, but then again maybe if anet was listening moaning about meaningless temporary content they might have not gone down this road in the first place.

The fight itself is fine, challenging yes but far from impossible.
The problems are all in the arena.

The translucent floor.
Never-minding the fact that the floor is a a very similar shade of colour to the AoE indicator, its also not solid, so on top of it BARELY being visible, you can only see the rings partially.
I sure would hate to be colour-blind trying this fight.

The zone.
Quite simply, if I can run Crysis 3 on max at a higher framerate than what I do another game, that games optimisation is irrefutably bad.
This game does not run well. Period.
Having the event zerg pass beneath your dome during the fight causes the frame rate to plummet.
Couple that with the sheer amount of sever lag and you can find yourself loosing fights through no fault of your own.
Why not instance the top floor? People can still observe, there would a bunch less to render and hopefully, less server side lag.

The Walls.
Remove the camera’kitten box for the love of all that is sacred already.
Like, have hundreds of complaints about this over the course of the game’s lifetime not hit home yet?
Has it gotten to the point where this issue will only be acknowledged if a bunch of people spam threads in every subforum till it gets fixed?
The games camera is AWFUL, don’t sit there and say “uuuuhhh we cant let people see through walls it looks baaaad”.
That’s not an excuse.
Nobody cares.

All these things together throw a bunch of artificial difficulty the fight that shouldn’t be there.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually rather like the Gauntlet, but this is all detracting from the experience greatly.

With Shaper Images and Phantasmal Fury, the Duellist and the Warden are great at stacking bleeds.

Once upon a time Phantasms could proc sigils so you could stack it with sigils of earth and it was actually pretty fun to run.

Of course that made something that wasn’t shatter somewhat viable in spvp so naturally it was nerfed into oblivion.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

http://youtu.be/5QC4CCDcgRg

10/10, would bang.

And here’s another video, albiet with slightly lazier editing.

I have since gotten the first place achievement, but I got lucky between a slower pack and a kind fellow who waited at the finishing line so others could get the title.

The issue still remains however, overall its a fun event but this is borderline unplayable for allot of people.

I mentioned I do run condition builds, I’m not saying to just remove the condi the scepter has and throw it away.
Torment on one skill doesn’t fix the problems the scepter has, especially on a block since most good players will know that block is a big PRESS DODGE NOW sign.

Hell, confusing images still does more damage in a power build than what it does with condition builds and even with the block damage halved, the scepter is still more effective in a power build in its current state.

Meanwhile, you have the torch, a weapon that barely anybody uses because what it offers in most builds, can be done with other offhands with better utility and lower cooldowns, PU works with it well and all, but even then, the torch still doesn’t offer much that you cant get elsewhere.

My general reasoning was to give the torch something, and AoE confusion and torment sounds pretty scary to me.
As far as mainhands go, Scepter needs a rework or there needs to be an entirely new condition based mainhand, because right now, even with torment its just not up to scratch.

Just had a few rounds of Sanctum Spirit and with the constant rubberbanding I could barely finish the thing, let alone actually place.

Safe to say, unless they get lucky, I doubt many oceanic players are going to get that place first achievement.

Well it is, hence the usage of the word arguably.
Don’t get me wrong, this thread has been filled with some pretty valid and intelligent posts thusfar, and hopefully I’m not coming across as a condescending meow.

I find it good in some situations, but the damage mitigation the prestige can offer can be achieved with both the pistol and the focus on lower cooldown’s with the added utility of being cc.

This is true yes, but the Torch is still arguably the second worst choice of offhand in a condition build. Stealth is useful yes, but that’s all it really has going for it and even then, the animation kinda gives you away.

My mentions to the Scepter as a power weapon were before the patch, at the time it was actually quite commendable as a power weapon, confusing images had pretty good base damage, even now its still serviceable, just rather sub par.

At no point did I say the Torch was a good power weapon, but given that it’s trait is a Master tier Domination trait, that would make it a “power” weapon per say, despite being for all intents and purposes a condition weapon.

The burning is nice, nothing more, with rabid gear and at least 15 into dueling, both the focus and the pistol become better condition offhands because of how well the phantasms can stack bleed. I’m not suggesting removing the burning or blind from the prestige, I’m suggesting buffing the everloving hell out of it by throwing on all the confusion from confusing images and making the Phantasm actually achieve something.

I run Scepter/Focus+Staff on my Mes in Tpvp, while I do like the playstyle you are still better off opening up with a confusion bomb and then just spamming staff clones for the rest of the fight.
If they actually stacked a condition reliably they would genuinely be useful, but as it is having them out drops your condi pressure and even as shredding fodder, the staff is a better option.

Prior to 23/6 patch, the Scepter was actually a pretty good power weapon, despite being an apparent condition weapon.
The change to it in the patch hampared its ability in power builds, now its just kinda floating in the middle, not being great for either.

The Torch, was and still is for the most part, entirely useless in power builds, despite being a power weapon, and for condition builds, well…

The Torch is just mostly useless in general.

So I propose the following:
Make the Scepter a power weapon, revert the changes to Illusionary Counter , put the trait in the Domination line, up the damage on Confusing Images a little and speed up the cast time, remove the confusion and then rename it to something else. poopbutt. Whatever.

That Torment and Confusion? Well that moves on over to the Torch, The Prestige can be an AoE confusion bomb and the Phantasm can stack Torment.

This would still leave Mesmers without a mainhand condition weapon, but lets face it, they don’t really have one now.

The Torch trait could more or less still work as is, but the Scepter one would need some changing, to what I don’t currently know.

Thoughts?

Garr.1823:

No, it’s burst still sux. iBerserker is much better, and iDuelist, and even iSwordsman.

Like I said before, you cant just drop a Warden like a zerker or a duelist and expect the same results, it needs to be timed well to see its full effect. Dropping one on downed players shuts down several downed states entirely for perfectly safe stomps. Also Warriors using killshot.

Poor warriors using killshot.

Garr.1823:

Yap, PTV =) And still try to use AoE combo (field from staff + iBerserker + Mirror Blade + 1more clone and shatter), continue to hit – ooops, u lost 1/3 to 2/3 of hp.

You don’t take retal damage from phantasms, if you are wearing PVT gear and hitting the AoE cap with every hit, you are gonna take somewhere about 5K ish tops.

Garr.1823:

Yes, dude. And now go and look some video in this mesmer section, and u will see – people HAVE problem with it. And the smaller player model – the more problem people have.
It’s a simple fact.

Players not knowing what to look for, or flat out being unobservant or dare I even say, bad doesn’t mean its hard to spot a real mes.
Take a clonespam build into tpvp and see how little clones do against good players.
For a new player, yes they are going to have trouble, but its not remotely hard to figure out with experience.

Archer.1658:

I don’t wear zerkers (not that it matters). Please boon removal my guardian which has 90% uptime on retal while you kill yourself. In the end, your personal opinion on the patch doesn’t mean jack.

If you cant deal with retal doesn’t mean other people cant, Mesmers have great boon removal, take advantage of it.

Garr.1823:

Emmm…. lol? iWarden is totally almost useless. It was never effective vs me, and the only thing he is good at – additional dmg on gates. Who care about it’s dps, if it never move?

Warden has the worst dps out of all the phantasms, what it has it the highest burst, reflection, AoE damage and bleeds. You actually need take work to use its full potential.

Garr.1823:

And there lot’s of classes that can keep and refresh boons on them for eternity. Ther are always tons of guardians in zerg, and it is not a problem at all to refresh retal for them.
And i’m in PTW armor.

I’m Assuming you mean PTV, and if that were the case you wouldn’t be doing enough damage to spike yourself down with retal.

Garr.1823:

And that is the most common mistake.
Size of the playing character and behavior – really matters.
My gf play charr necro, and i often look into her PC screen, and she is much more target, then asura necro near her. It’s people psychology, u can do nothing with it – “who is bigger – must be more dangerous”. I can ignore it, u can ignore it, but when it is a mass fight – statistic will prove that i said.
And u can check almost every mesmer video in this topic – enemies sometimes are confused – who is who, and the smaller player model – the more confused they are.
(but yes – this is not this patch mechanic =)

Next thing about players confusion with clones. It’s not a problem for me when i fight 1 vs 1. But when in SPvP we was fighting with two same looking asura mesmers, and lost – i saw that that was mesmer + mesmer + thief (both asura) and it was really hard to understand – who is who, cause all in SPvP are colored in red/blue and asura kitten small =)

Clones dont have offhands, carry players buffs, strafe, roll or move anywhere but towards their target, the real Mes is easy to spot.

Garr.1823:

Into the Void – that is rather strong nerf, cause this skill is really counted like 2 skills – 5th skill on focus is crap. And we took focus only for speed buff and pull.

iWarden, while flawed is amazing when you use it well, time it don’t just spam it out.
Also the cooldown is really like 1/3 of a second, its much smaller than you think.

Garr.1823:

Blurred Frenzy – atm retal is overpowered. I nearly kill myself if i cast AOE from staff on zerg. The same affect if i use GS – 3 targets, 3 hits, bb my HP. Plus skill lags in www, when u simply can’t use heal skills…

You are playing the class with the second best boon removal in the game.
Stop wearing zerkers.

Garr.1823:

Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW – very bad =( This change make any shatter and any try of confusing an opponent with detecting “real mesmer” much more difficult. And if u play not a small asura – even harder.

Clone generation is easy with the proper traits, clone on dodge and perma vigour, which is easy to obtain as a Mes, if anything they were a little to easy to maintain given how easy it is to produce them.

Also no player worth their salt gets confused by clones. Ever.

Garr.1823:

Malicious Sorcery – nice, but not more. The only condition from scepter is confusion,
and it is overnerfed. And yes, that new torment… Atm looks like a little bit useless, cause of lack of the ways to deliver it to opponent.

The scepter still needs work, its much better in condi builds now though, a step back for power users, but its still usable, just not optimal.

Dadnir.5038:

I have to disagree with you here. Even if scepter auto attack is reeeeaaally lame, this two thing are totally awesome in a scepter condi build. I tried a little for necromancer, thief and mesmer the new thing (torment) and i have to say that this condition synergize better with mesmer. Just confuse, block, swap staff and watch enemy die from a huge condition burst. Love it!
.

Scepter was always okay in Condi builds, confusion bombing is the FUNNEST WAY TO INSTAGIB IN PVP and Torment makes it even funnier, the problem is that is pretty much all the scepter has going for it now, overall its lost a a bit of its versatility, which is something it really really needs.

Archer.1658:

You’re right, go blurred frenzy a guardian for me please.

What is boon removal.
Also stop wearing zerkers.

Okay, annnnnd on we go.

Polymorph Moa:
-snip-
As much as I would like to comment, lets be realistic here, people don’t actually USE these skills, they just throw their hands up in their air and scream about how Moa is bullmeow and die because they didn’t doge.

Polymorph Tuna:
-glub glub glub glub-
Same as above, only they will also scream about how underwater combat is awful as well.

Phantasmal Berserker: Fixed an issue that was causing the damage from this summoned phantasm to not display. Updated the berserker’s attack to make it more reliably hit a static target with all 4 of the attacks.
Only 7 months. Good job guys you did it.
The fact it took this long is appalling.

Chaos
Prismatic Understanding: This trait now pulses once every second while stealthed.
Bountiful Interruption: This trait has been moved to the Master tier. In addition to granting a random boon on interrupt, this trait will also grant 5 stacks of might.
Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been moved to the Grandmaster tier. This ability now immobilizes the player’s target and randomly applies blind, cripple, or chill.
Nice improvements overall, it opens up some interesting play and builds, maybe not viable in Tpvp, buts lets face it, nothing but shatter is.

Domination
Halting Strike: Damage dealt when interrupting enemies has been increased by 500%.
Another nice change, Im gonna have to play around with this one, it could get HILARIOUS with Chaos storm.

Dueling
Protected Mantras: This trait now grants up to 400 toughness while channelling (up from 250).
Id like to see this merged with Mantra Mastery, right now there are way to many Mantra traits spread around the tree. Not only is it impossible to get all of them, you have to give up allot to use the ones you have kitten to. Id like to see either MM or PM get merged with Restorative Mantras. It’d probably be OP as all meow, but it’d be funny to see people complaining Mantras are OP. Just like in beta.

Furious Interruption: This trait now grants 3 seconds of quickness when interrupting a foe. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
This too is interesting, it could be obscene with a 30/30/0/0/10 nuke build. Kinda scary even.

Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.
As much as I don’t like this change I understand it, Perma retal on Phantasms was to much. I feel it would benefit from being a little longer, like 8-10 seconds tops.

Illusions
Imbued Diversion: This trait now allows Diversion to daze 5 targets (up from 3). In addition, the daze radius has been increased to 360 (up from 240).
Another neat change I cant imagine many people would go 30 into Illusions and not take IP, but hopefully this sees some use, it looks like it could be fun to play with.

Illusionary Retribution: Moved to the Adept Minor trait.
Shattered Strength: Moved to the Master Minor trait.
Illusionists Celerity: Moved to the Grandmaster Minor trait.
This is probably the worst change in the patch, now before you even think anything, I don’t use IC in my build, so this isnt a WAAAAAAAAAHHH thing.
Ill be honest, Phase retreat, and a few other skills needed higher cooldowns, they were WAY to good. This does not solve the problem, it just makes not playing shatter harder than what it used to be for most players, it shows poor foresight and feels like it wasn’t thought out at all.

IC is WAY to powerful for its own good and double cooldown traiting has been bugging out skills for ages, it would be better for everyone if IC was removed and Illusion skills had their baselines altered.

As an example for a replacement, Id like to see something along the lines of “Gain boons of shattered illusions.” Grandmaster tier powerful, and opens up more options for self booning and advanced teamplay.

Inspiration
Malicious Sorcery: This trait grants up to 200 condition damage while wielding a scepter (based on level), up from 50.
ANOTHER NEAT CHANGE, if only the Scepter was in a better place, since 150 more condi damage doesn’t fix its lack of reliable condi damage.

Compounding Celerity: Movement speed per active illusion has been increased to 10%, allowing for 30% movement speed when three illusions are active.
Its nice yes, but useless outside of combat, which is where Mesmer mobility issues happen to be.

Shattered Conditions: This trait now removes one condition from all allies around the mesmer.
Another really neat support option for Mesmers.

Most of this patch was a step in the right direction, with some needed nerfs that aren’t gamebreaking. There’s still a bunch of mostly useless traits, the IC really needs to be removed and Illusionary Leakitten till pretty much the most bugged skill in the game but overall this a small step in the right direction.

Time to upset everybody.
I think it was a good patch overall.
Please feel free to claim I’m a thief player without reading the rest of the post, preferably with capital letters. Its funnier that way.

Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20%. This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.
Its kind of an odd change really, it will make the MH Sword a little less potent against boon spamming, but hey, I guess its an almost pve buff.

Mind Stab: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds.
Neat. The skill is still bland and not great. but neat.

Illusionary Counter: This skill damage has been reduced to 50% of what it was. It now applies 5 stacks of torment for 8 seconds.
The leaked patch notes implied it was going to be 25%, so in comparison this isn’t to bad, but as a whole its not great. Overall the scepter is still in a not great place, from a condition standpoint, better, but worse overall.

Magic Bullet: Reduced the aftercast by .2 seconds.
Neat.

Into the Void: This skill now has a 1-second recharge before it can be used after placing Temporal Curtain.
When I first saw this, I was pretty upset. After testing its a PRETTY SHORT SECOND. So I’m perfectly fine with this change, it gives opponents a moment to react to the pull without detracting from the skills use. All in all, fine.

Signet of Illusions: Clones and phantasms will now gain the passive effect of this signet when they are created, rather than a few moments after creation.
What can I say, other than it should have always been like this.

Siren’s Call
Bleed duration for players: Reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
Bleed duration for clones: Reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
Condition Mesmers are HILLARIOUSLY STRONG underwater, this is a pretty big nerf, so I guess only time will tell if it brings the bleed spam in check, or hurts it too much, either way, a nerf WAS in order.

Feigned Surge: Increased the damage by 33%.
HehehehehheuehuehuehuehuehueuheAAHAAAAAHHAAAAHAAAAAAA- I mean, I like this change.

Ineptitude: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to be cast at infinite range.
As hilarious as it was, its about time this got fixed.

Illusionary Leap: Fixed an exploit that allowed for more clone generation than intended.
Creating a clone was an exploit?
Is there some phantasmal dimension where this skill actually works?
Will it ever work?
Find out next week, same bat time, same bat channel.
Its never going to get fixed.

Signet of Midnight: Increased the blind duration to 5 seconds. Decreased the cooldown to 30 seconds.
I don’t entirely remember this being a stunbreaker, but then again I never really touched signets.

Illusion of Life: Fixed an issue so that Far-Reaching Manipulations no longer reduces the cast time of this skill.
Again, bugfixes that needed to happen.

Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds.
Now this is a good change, being immune to retal with any attack shouldnt be happening, and lets face it, the cooldown was a little short given how good the attack is.

Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.
200% was CUHRAZY, this became a clutch for METAGAAAAEEEM bandwagoners, and I’m glad its gone. Now that it actually applies properly this is still pretty useful, without being insanely powerful.

Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the clone base hit points by 28% in PvE.
Best changes in the patch.
By far.
The baseline for illusions was AWFUL in PVE. Overall, Signet of Illusions needed to be brought down, I knew this was going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting the baseline to be brought up, Phatasm health was a little to high in WvW and PvP, with a single skill slot you could run around with almost 6K spammable summons. It needs to be brought down and it was.
But it was brought down well in a well thought out way that improves them overall without breaking them, this is a fantastic change.

In fact, excuse me for a moment.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGTHEYCANSURVIVETHINGSNOWKFJGDLFGJHATDKLHOSIRTNLDSKFHJSDITONLDSKHGALGHSLDKHERITJSDRTLKDSFJHIOFDSHJFGLKHJNSFGDKLHFGNDH

Carighan.6758:

The only alternative I could see – and which I prefer – is to outright remove the trait.
Then look at Illusion CD accordingly.

But honestly, I’d rather have my illusions with more HP by default (and then maybe reduce the signet). Shouldn’t be that squishy that I need such short CDs. For shatter-fodder I can dodge2clone, anyhow.

200% health on the signet is a little cuhrazy, if anything, Id like to see both the signet and Persisting Images sit at a 100% buff, then have the base hp raised by 25%.
That way you can still get the same HP illusions, you just have to invest a little more in it, plus the baseline becomes less AWFUL.

If that is the case, then it would imply the leaked patch notes are true.

Which is unfortunate, since according to said notes, Illusionary Counter will do 1/4 of its previous damage to give 3 stacks of Torment, which even with a low power condition build is barely going to make up for the damage lost.

If this ends up being true, then the Sceptre is still going to be sub par at best as a condi weapon, and loose its best asset in a power build.

This is shaping up to be a pretty crappy patch for Mesmer players.

Generally, you are gonna have a pretty rough time against a Phantasm Mes if you dont keep the pressure on them.

That 20/20/0/25/5 build that everybody is copypasting is pretty easy to to spot, since most folkes that run it have signet of illusions and full zerkers.
Whilst most folkes will tell you they are OP UKILLABLE GUUGUGEHEGHDFJGDF they are easier to deal with than most phantasm specs since they have more or less zero defence once you get ahold of them.

First thing to do is try and spot the phantasm casts and interrupt them, most Mesmer players will switch weapons sets when their phantasm gets interrupted, if you manage to stop the second cast, congratulations, the fight is yours unless you seriously screw up after this.

If you cant stop the casts, don’t panic.
Focus on outmanoeuvring the Mesmer, try and put the Mesmer between you and its phantasms so they will run into your melee attacks.
Try to kill phantasms, but don’t relent on the Mesmer themselves, if you give them to much room to breathe they will just happily poop out more phantasms and heal up.

Most folkes running this build aren’t all that good at the game, so you just need to outplay them.

EDIT:
If you don’t have interrupts break LOS with the mes during their cast, and it will be obstructed. Alternatively, stand on a rock and spam /laugh.

I’ve been running pretty much the exact same thing for awhile (although I changed to 10/30/0/30/0 Sword/Focus+Scepter/Sword a bit ago for a more small WvW group focus) and its an amazing damaging support spec.
Running zerkers with this build is counter intuitive outside of pve, if you take this into WvW, switch out zerkers for knights.

Also, even with phantasm builds, you should be shattering semi regularly as it situation warrants it, the skills are there so make use of them.

EDIT: I should also mention, Mind Wrack does nice damage with Empowering Mantras, I’ve run a shatter variant of this build (10/30/0/0/30) with hilarious results.

Great badge farm in FA borderlands today.