Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.
Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.
The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.
Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.
Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.
You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.
I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.
I think you’re missing my point. There is already a lot of counterplay to prevent the thief from getting into stealth. Once he’s in stealth, you have to survive 3(4) seconds due to your failure to counterplay. You are asking for a nerf.
Here’s a little more talk about your idea though. Adding more damage to it as compensation would make it a more overwhelming skill than most people except those who are used to PvP can handle. BS is already a 6.5-8k hit in sPvP and 8-11k in WvW depending on your (or rather both players’) build(s). They nerfed mug’s damage because people couldn’t handle that output (subjectively). Right now, BS is a 2.4 multiplier from the back, and 1.2 from the front. Upping it to 2.6 or 2.7 would cause more complaints, regardless of the fact that it would cost initiative.
Yes. Failure to prevent stealth should be punishing. That doesn’t mean you should support unskilled, spammy mechanics like backstab. You can always compensate for the change. For example, if each backstab attempt costs 2 initiative:
1) Increased backstab damage (you don’t like this one)
2) Gain some combination of boons when you land backstab
3) Gain 4 initiative when you land backstab
4) Strip boons when you land backstab
All of these things would be a nice buff for the talented thief that lands backstab, while punishing untalented thieves that spam backstab on blinds/aegis/evades. This is a nerf to bad thieves and a buff to good ones. It’s unfortunate that you can’t grasp that.
Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.
Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.
The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.
Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.
Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.
You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.
I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.
Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.
Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.
The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.
Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.
So basically then when a guard’s passive aegis pops during CnD and then he pops it again during stab, the thief should be left with 0 initiative and out of stealth after two tries. So no skill use and no damage left. Do that and I’d demand for all other classes to see their cooldowns to not tick down while auto-attacking or using other skills. That’s basically what you’ve asked to happen.
No, that’s not at all a good idea. Maybe the guard should be less braindead and dodge when the aegis gets popped a second time, or any other class not be stupid and dodge roll to make all of the stab attempts fail to begin with.
That is, unless you want to put skills like CnD on a 4 initiative cost, but then D/P would still be overpowered and Shadow Arts/stealth builds would be even stronger than they currently are.
So no.
Heard that one before. The solution is to move backstab off of the 1 slot (up to f2) and give thieves a stealth auto-attack to clear aegis/blinds. I agree that it’s a peculiar situation, though.
I’m forced to spend a 12s CD and two dodge rolls just to prevent all 4 backstab attempts. It’s really broken that a thief can bait that many high-value CDs without spending a single point of initiative.
Thieves arent OP these days, but backstab is still a braindead skill. You shouldn’t be able spam a high damage skill over and over until it lands.
You should have to spend a little initiative (maybe 2) for each attempt at backstab. That would force the thief to think about using it instead if mashing 1 until it lands.
I like being able to fight / reset as fast as possible. That’s why I don’t stomp people when roaming because they’ll need to run back to me all the way from their spawn. I’d hate to stomp someone near the end of OS JP and have to wait until they can make their way back to me (or vice versa). I let them revive so I can fight them over and over.
¯\O/¯ Had to be there, I guess. King of the hill in OS was great fun. Some of the best times I’ve had in gw2.
Soooo, OP wants Anet to label the JP as a JP and the arena as a dueling/GvG zone and that’s it?
Seeing as how most people I encounter in the JP are PvE players and uplevels, I don’t know any decent duelist that would feel accomplishment killing them. I’ve seen quite a few OS JP videos of killing said PvE players and uplevels and they’re embarrassing and boring to watch.
The time wasted camping in OS looking to fight people not interested or even that great at this game’s combat system would make me stop playing. Luckily, solo roaming in the four maps and dueling/doing GvG’s in the arena area is active enough and challenging enough. Maybe one day I git gud. Any improvement I have in fighting is from tPvP, dueling in WvW/OS or solo roaming and DEF not from playing against PvE players and uplevels.
No need to breathe any life back into OS…it’s quite active in T2 and even T3. Hell, it can be poppin’ on Thursday nights in T4.
It sounds like you didn’t spend much time in OS before the GvG arena was added. The PvE players weren’t the only people being killed. There were roaming guilds dedicated to maintaining control of the top.
If you like solo/small man roaming, that’s exactly what the puzzle used to provide. The only difference was it had a king of the hill twist, less running around, and more fighting.
OS is just an empty space, do whatever you like there- the space isn’t big enough for proper fights, has no real terrain, and was only added as a sop to try and convince people they cared.
No real terrain? The map has the best terrain in the game:
1) Verticality
2) A dark room
3) Skillful jump sequences
4) A few bottlenecks (that can still be overcome by skilled groups)
5) Just the right amount of PvE (torches, traps, animal cages)
These are all great points. You left out these two things, which had some of the greatest impact on the death of OS:
1) tradable siege. No more siege drives or running the puzzle as a guild
2) handing out badges of honor in pve achievement chests. Before that, OS was the primary source of BoH for legendary weapon crafters who didn’t want to play wvw.
Siege and BoH gave players an incentive to loot that specific chest, which in turn gave the griefers and white knights a reason to be there too.
Are you kidding me? Please try and explain how gaining every boon in the game for 10s doesn’t contribute fantastically to the thief role in a team?
Compared to the other steals which have direct team play benefits (long duration fear, daze, chill, whirl, area control, water field), consume plasma does relatively little for your team and does a lot more for you yourself.
It allows the thief to hit harder, move faster, and have more defense while performing their main role of chasing down and eliminating a target.
It really doesn’t change that much offensively. It grants 1 stack of might, and thieves already maintain fairly good fury and swiftness up-time. Consume plasma is primarily used for the aegis, protection, and stability. Yes, this might let the thief play more aggressively briefly, but it’s still mostly used defensively.
This is getting a bit off track, so I won’t belabor the point.
Remember when every thief ran lyssa runes? Remember why? It wasn’t for the condi clear. It was for the strong offensive power from the boons, combined with the very short CD of bassi. It was so strong that the popularity of the rune among thieves led to it getting nerfed.
Consume Plasma is basically just the lyssa rune bonus with longer duration boons and an even shorter CD. It is crazy to say it isn’t op, especially vs mesmer.
Who cares about “condi output”, whatever that even means? The IE buff increases the overall condi damage of staff more than the scepter buff does scepter/x. By a lot. IE also beats scepter AA in condi cover. It also has higher burst potential from burning.
Really, I don’t think overall condi output is such a tough concept to grasp.
I address it because I think that’s what people are missing when they paint the opposition as inconsistent for opposing scepter AA buff but approving of the IE fix.
My point is that “Condi output” is vague. Do you mean condi application? Condi uptime? Condi variety? Condi damage? Condi burst? All these make sense. “Condi output” does not.
Truth is it doesn’t really matter what you envision as “condi output” because you are wrong anyways. Buffed IE staff beats buffed sc/x on almost all of those, except maybe sc/t, but that greatly depends on enemy movement and skill use.
To address those of you in this thread who think people are inconsistent about disliking scepter AA but liking staff IE:
First, the IE fix buffs a ton of builds, whereas the scepter AA buff benefits almost exclusively condi builds which didn’t need to be buffed.
More to the point, you’re not comparing one skill to another. That is, you’re not comparing scepter AA to staff AA in a vacuum. Rather, you’re comparing the entire condi output of scepter/x to the entire condi output of staff.
Even with IE, the condi output from staff depends (almost exclusively) on AA/clones. Scepter/x, on the other hand, will spit out condi’s on almost every weapon skill. With the scepter AA buff, the overall condi output of scepter/x will just be ridiculous, increasing the problem with mindless PU condi builds.
Lastly, many PU builds take both staff and scepter/x. Before, replacing a staff clone with a scepter clone meant a significant DPS loss. Not so post-patch.
(I feel like a broken record at this point)
Who cares about “condi output”, whatever that even means? The IE buff increases the overall condi damage of staff more than the scepter buff does scepter/x. By a lot. IE also beats scepter AA in condi cover. It also has higher burst potential from burning.
Stop framing everything around PU. PU PU PU PU PU. You are a broken record at this point. We get it. You don’t want PU builds buffed. It is important to understand that the scepter buff can help non PU builds. It might even make the weapon viable on some hybrid or (dare I say) power builds, much like the staff is. Also, a huge condi buff like IE has a good chance of making its way into PU variants.
Always consider how a buff will affect various post-patch builds, not just builds that are currently popular.
Wvw players bring different mentalities and sub-optimal builds to a different game type, just like spvp players do when they try to roam.
The difference is when you lose in spvp, there’s no debating it. You lost. In wvw no one ever loses because a death is always blamed on lagging/getting zerged/being outnumbered/cheese builds, without understanding that a more talented roamer could have overcome the situation.
This line up of excuses is why so many spvp players convince themselves they’re as talented as anyone else at roaming, but far superior at spvp. That leads to the condescension you’ve observed.
The devs had complete tunnel vision on the clone death nerfs. Grouch said in RU that the clone death nerfs are meant to tone down PU builds. Then he mentioned all the time they spent dueling on PU to figure it out (I guess now anet decided to start balancing around duels?). I doubt they spent much time dueling on CI mesmers, or other builds that take the clone death traits.
Clone death block able/blind able nerf is a good change. It makes thieves even more dominant over mesmers, but overall it is balance in the right direction.
The double nerf to DD was heavy handed and out of the blue. A lot of CI builds took the trait, and will be hurting.
PU…meh…Perhaps just swiftness and not might. At the very least the might should be 2 stacks instead of just rng dilution.
At least they FINALLY nerfed the source (PU) instead of the usual backdoor nerfs that cripple other potential builds….except with dd….they messed that up.
Now if only the mesmer community could start qqing about Shadow Arts as much as the thief community did about PU….then we could really make some progress.
solution isnt nerfing or not fixing IE but nerfing the specific build (example PU) who would take too much advantage from it
Are you in favor of the scepter buff? It seems like you’d agree that the solution isnt nerfing scepter but nerfing the specific build (example PU) that would take too much advantage from it. The scepter buff also promotes build diversity, as it would make condi shatter and condi lockdown more viable, which is the best goal.
The Illusionary Elasticity buff’s effect on staff clone AA is wayyyy stronger than the scepter AA buff. It’s weird that you’re for one but not the other.
Please, please, please stop arguing against this change on the basis that it will lead to future nerfs. That is circular reasoning:
Buff → playerbase screams OP → nerf → playerbase screams UP → Buff.
Would you ever be for a nerf because it is so harsh it will lead to a buff in the future? No. If you think this buff will give an unfair advantage to mesmers, just say it.
Also, everyone that is against this buff should take a look at the Illusionary Elasticity change. Most are chalking up to a “fix” but it is really going to make passive play on the staff absurd.
ileap was not buffed. it was simply fixed. now its reliable (need to test before we really know). however even with the change to ileap it still is completelly uselss because iswap has been nerfed to hell(cant swap when clone is dead). our assurety that iswap would work 100% (assuming enemy does not get out of range/dodges) is gone while that nerf remains.
and our “juke” mobility needing skill, set up, and having tons of restrictions that no other mobility skill on any other class has is also totally useless in the process.
anet should revert their nerf to iswap. or follow through with their logic and nerf every other leap in the game so they match their tool tip “leap at your FOE”
no more leaping at empty space.
Did you really just claim Ileap wasn’t buffed (“it was fixed”) and then say it was nerfed with the “no swap if clone is dead” change? Lol. You either accept it as a nerf and a buff, or two fixes.
Funny that everyone is so upset by the scepter buff when it is the staff buff that will cause the most qq once the patch drops. From a numbers standpoint it is really insane and far more deadly than the scepter aa buff. Weird that the top mesmers haven’t complained about it…oh wait, they run staff.
If iLeap spawns on target, does that mean its effect by LoS now? Also, do we still get the leap on swap?
The leap finisher, yes. The skill bar video had a clip of Karl swapping over a Chaos Storm and it proc’d Chaos Armor.
The more interesting question is, will we be able to swap to people on a different z-axis? I’m hoping it works like blinks, where if the person is in a “blinkable” spot, you’ll be able to swap.
I agree and always thought vulnerability application made the most sense for scepter AA.
That said, remember that these pre-patch “ermahgerd the class is destroyed” videos are nothing new from Helseth. He posted a nearly identical rant when Signet of the Ether was announced…
A 30s base cooldown on the new mimic is too long for sure. It’ll need to be at 25 or 20 for me to ever put it on my bar again.
Torment on scepter autoattack is bad. This will make several condition builds crazy strong, and this means we’ll get hit with heavy nerfs in the future.
The change to mantra of pain, however, means that mesmers now have a potentially effective way to contribute to aoe damage in a large group fight. Aoe daze mantra could potentially contribute to this as well. I look forward to seeing how they play out.
Classic Pyro. Complains about nerfs. When buffed, complains that the buff is too strong.
He’s not complaining about the buff per se. He’s complaining that the buff is gonna lead to overnerfs, once people start flooding the forums crying about PU Mesmer being OP again.
But maybe that’s actually a good thing then, because we’ll be over-nerfed, and that will lead to more buffs! But wait, maybe then we’ll be over buffed which will lead to more nerfs!
A 30s base cooldown on the new mimic is too long for sure. It’ll need to be at 25 or 20 for me to ever put it on my bar again.
Torment on scepter autoattack is bad. This will make several condition builds crazy strong, and this means we’ll get hit with heavy nerfs in the future.
The change to mantra of pain, however, means that mesmers now have a potentially effective way to contribute to aoe damage in a large group fight. Aoe daze mantra could potentially contribute to this as well. I look forward to seeing how they play out.
Classic Pyro. Complains about nerfs. When buffed, complains that the buff is too strong.
The video is all footage from before the feature patch. The armor stats definitely need updating, but that should give you a general idea of how glassy I ran.
This show used to be about previewing upcoming content and hyping people, but it’s not anymore.
Anet is clearly not working on anything PvP related. The last 4 ready ups have all been the same: talk about the same tournaments without adding anything new at all.
Just check the announcements of the last ready ups:
Episode 19: “…Josh will be joined by German shoutcaster ChroNick to talk about the International All-Stars Tournament taking place at gamescom next week, as well as the ongoing Tournament of Legends Qualifiers…”
Episode 18: “…Josh will cover the ongoing Tournament of Legends qualifiers and the upcoming Guild Wars 2 International All-Stars Tournament at gamescom next month…”
Episode 17: “Josh is joined by authorized shoutcaster Jebro to discuss the Tournament of Legends 2 qualifier, the International All-Stars Tournament taking place at gamescom…”
Episode 16: “I’ll be joined by TCG captain Helseth […] learn how to secure that Llama Mini in ToL2!”
They don’t know how to fill the streams anymore. They even split the balance updates in many shows because they don’t know what to talk about.
I’d rather they be honest about timetables than take us on another four month hype train like the last feature patch. Still remember the balance stream in January for “upcoming” changes that weren’t added until April.
Put another way, PU builds are the mesmer equivalent of shadow arts thief builds. Good in wvw, not as good in tpvp, loaded with defense, and generally a pain to fight against. Both shadow arts and PU get associated with “bad” players, but it is hard to deny the effectiveness when used in the right situation.
Of course thieves will tell you shadow arts builds are “more honorable” than PU builds, but they’re wrong. It’s nearly the same thing.
The ICD was added for server performance reasons. The trait was used as a wvw zerg buster, so adding an ICD was a big savings. It was nerfed around the same time that anet was working to improve the wvw culling/lag situation.
There was also a witch hunt going on for confusion in wvw (it used to be twice as strong), so the nerf was a win-win for the devs.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been counter buffed, but that was the situation that led to the nerf.
Eventually the devs will buff the class, as well, and leave the players who suffered through the nerf days in a better place.
With balance patches slowed to every six months it makes zero sense to suffer that long based on the assumption that the class will be fixed. Based on the previous balancing timetables, the mesmer might be in a good spot by next summer. No thanks.
The Initiative system is a really cool mechanic. Unfortunately it is difficult to balance around, particularly when a. no other class has it, and b. the class that has it can reset.
It’s always fun to play against the EU guys, but let’s face it, EU is a more competitive scene at the moment. I’d love to win, but I’d fully admit that we’d be playing at a disadvantage. I’m certainly hoping that this patch and the tournament will be a step forward towards fostering more competition in NA. Also, it’s hard to play on a level playing ground with how the lag is going across the Atlantic, sadly.
I hate to be that guy, but isn’t this just Blackwater with the Condi removal on the heal? Plenty of Blackwater variants use Balthazar runes…Osicat isn’t exactly breaking the mold here. Even the video is nothing more than a bunch of 1v1s chained together to give some semblance of an outnumbered fight.
I love osicats contributions to the mesmer community, but this one seems kind of weak.
Just because some obsidian sanctum Shadow Arts hero abusing bloated wvw stats and 3s revealed can beat Caed on his trickery build, doesn’t mean they’re the better thief. Just sayin.
Backstab should cost initiative. Move it to f2 and give thieves an auto attack in stealth so the intelligent ones can clear blinds/aegis at no cost.
Imo, revealing them for a missed backstab would be way too harsh. Allowing one attempt doesn’t really fit with the class mechanic. Making backstab cost 3 initiative is the perfect middle ground.
