Guild Wars 2

thrice.9184:

ddoi.9264:

Rangers can kite all day.

LOL

ahahahahahah, ah man your good, you made me laugh – oh god your so funny!
Id like whatever of the stuff your on.

Touche. I was thinking of pve on that one.

JonPeters.5630:

ddoi.9264:

I don’t get it. The new Prismatic Understanding is a great buff that would have given the extra push to use the torch over others in pve…and they decided to exclude it.

Even more buffs to shatter build. Looks like every mesmer will only be shattering now. Who can say no to 30~50 seconds of 3-stack might?
Underwater, signet, mantra buffs, blade training fix, all nice.

Prismatic boon part works with prestige, we just made it so the duration part doesn’t because a trait to increase cast time of that skill would be bad. Sorry unclear notes there. On the IZerker he does hit correctly now but there is an issue with damage floaters not always appearing the we are now trying to track down.

Jon

Ah I see, thank you for the clarification. It’s true the casting duration is already long enough as it is in its current state where most of our skills are disabled while channeling. Any chance a change can be made so you can at least dodge while not breaking the channel?

And it’s great you guys are continuing to pay attention at greatsword problems; a lot of us here appreciate that. Thank you.

I don’t get it. The new Prismatic Understanding is a great buff that would have given the extra push to use the torch over others in pve…and they decided to exclude it.

Even more buffs to shatter build. Looks like every mesmer will only be shattering now. Who can say no to 30~50 seconds of 3-stack might?
Underwater, signet, mantra buffs, blade training fix, all nice.

My fav build is static discharge too. I love how there are such variety in static discharge builds.

My one’s a bit more defensive since I usually run around solo, focusing on toughness and protection upkeep. I just couldn’t get used to throwing grenades so I went with pistol and shield and never looked back once I started this. Absolutely love it. Little bit low on dps so takes a while to kill things, but fun.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pqdnpSyF17IxoHkW0bOUhCD6hezLfB

Wear full knight’s armor, 3 beryl trinkets/2 knight or berserker trinkets and use berserker pistol and shield. Use sigil of fire on pistol and sigil of accuracy on shield. Use either 6 runes of the earth(defensive) or 6 runes of the forge(offensive, dungeon acquired).

I get fairly frequent and long protection upkeep from traits and runes, ample projectile reflection from shield and rune, good toughness, decent vitality and a crapload of aoe damage from static discharge, coated bullets, throw wrench, aoe interrupt/stun with shield throw and sigil of fire.

It lets me handle anything, pretty much. I can solo anything from groups of trash mobs to the champion risen abomination at the end of plinx chain. Bosses are more difficult but not impossible. Just need to juggle Rifled Barrels with Infused Precision and switch out Utility Goggles for whatever I need depending on the situation.

Of course, all classes are subject to this. But when they fail, they have something to fall back to. Warriors who miss hundred blades still have powerful autoattacks, maybe a few mobility skills and high hp/tankiness. Guardians, same. Engineers are as versatile as they can get. Thieves can stealth away to safety and wait for another chance to strike. Rangers can kite all day with good potential dps. Mesmers on the other hand, when shut down, they are shut down. There is no “safety net” of a minimum level of performance when things go wrong. Our autoattacks suck, we are squishy from being a cloth class despite the decent base health, and shatters don’t work without illusions minus one grandmaster trait. Mesmers are heavily dependant on illusions whether for shattering, dps, survival or utility and when they are nullified our performance drops heavily. Unreliable and chaotic. It’s a gamble. Heck, look at our phantasms. We can’t even reliably summon them, let alone hope they do what they’re supposed to do.

This is fine of course in terms of uniqueness, and there may be those who enjoy such experiences. The problem is anet balances purely on when things go best (quote: “…It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon….”); the times when other people scream “OP!!!!”. Instead of crediting such success to the player’s skill that managed to pull that off, Anet listens, and nerfs. Then those times when you can’t make perfect combos or rotations suffer, and makes you feel weak.

It’s not that the class is weak, but it’s very circumstantial.

The way I see it mesmers are a “roulette” class; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Your performance fluctuates wildly based on what your enemies do as much as what you do.

You can summon a phantasmal warden and do fantastic damage…or the enemy can take a few steps away from it.
You can summon a phantasmal berserker to do great damage and cripple…or it’ll die before even attacking from a simple autoattack swipe. There goes half your gs dps.
You can summon 3 phantasmal warlocks in a boss fight to do great damage while freely running around ressing people…or have them wiped out in one go by an aoe field leaving you with a pathetic autoattack until you get your cooldowns back.
You can use a scepter/torch and use Confusing Images + Phantasmal Mage + Cry of Frustration to stack a ridiculous amount of confusion and down an enemy lightning-fast…or they can simply dodge one of those, run off or refrain from using any skills/pop condition removal and all that effort will barely make a scratch.
etc etc etc.
Everything depends on the situation.

When things go as planned, mesmers are op. When it fails, it fails spectacularly. Mesmers are in the Dice God’s domain.
Most mesmers’ dps combos take time to set up and involve multiple steps to take. But having more steps means there’s more opportunity for things to go wrong. The more parts a machine has the more chances one of them will fail. Chuck a stone into an intricate set of gears and the whole machine will fall apart. And fail they do.

Yes, the bugginess of Leap and now phantasm summoning issues does get on my nerves sometimes, so usually I go with the better safe than sorry approach of getting as close as possible before Leaping(waaaay under its range) or luring the mob to even ground before I start the rotation. Opening with my staff weapon switch works in such cases, for the warlock to aggro and some chaos storm to buff the warden.

I’ve never really noticed the difference of Fury on my phantasms really. Maintenance Oils and food give me enough precision to support my armor/trinket setup. Prepatch I was running GS, and iBerserker got enough critical hits to be satisfied though it was fantastic with fury and I traited for it obviously. Warden still does good damage without fury, and with my moderate precision it gets enough critical hits. More importantly I like being tanky and useful even when my rotation fails(a boss chasing some other player around for example…warden’s not gonna hit that one much, if at all), so I prefer the extra 2 seconds cooldown reduction on my blurred frenzy than fury on my warden.

I use sword/focus as well, 0/20/0/20/30 with a mix of knight’s and valkyrie armor/trinkets. Blade Training, Deceptive Evasion, Glamour Mastery, Warden’s Feedback, Precise Wrack, Dazzling Glamours, Illusionary Persona. Slotted Bllink, Null Field, Feedback.

In PvE 1v1 I usually prevent iWarden from dying before pulling off its attack by opening with Illusionary Leap first. If it’s a melee mob, cast Temporal Curtain just outside its aggro range and cast Leap while standing on it, giving both of us retaliation. The clone can take a hit or two while I summon iWarden immediately afterwards, and then either swap with clone to immobilise to keep in range of iWarden or dodge roll in for another clone. At this point the aggro is usually on me, not warden, so place myself slightly away from the Warden so that the mob’s sweeping attack doesn’t hit it and use Blurred Frenzy. Or stand close to it anyway for the regen bonus. Then dodge backwards for another clone and run back in for a shatter, maybe pop Diversion afterwards during its attack motion if it’s still alive so I don’t take hits. Switch to other weapon set to use while skills are on cooldown, whatever I feel like. Currently a staff but thinking of changing it to scepter/sword since mobs that survive that combo are most of the time tough ones like veterans, and scepter/sword is fantastic for duelling tough mobs/buying time for cooldowns.
For ranged mob you can just open with iWarden, and laugh as they hit themselves to death.

For groups of mobs, I open with Temporal Curtain in front of the ranged ones and hope it works this time(it seems to work best when placed right where they are standing), lure the angry melee mobs chasing me to the ranged ones by dodging in and gather them into one area, cast iWarden and pop feedback while casting. Dazzling Glamours blind enemies in the field so iWarden manages to survive a good 5~8 seconds as it gets its attack off, with a nice ethereal combo field to go with it. Dodge roll or cast Leap for clone and a free chaos armor, pop Blurred Frenzy and shatter. Insta-dead group with maybe a few stragglers suffering from confusing bolts and massive bleeding from iWarden’s hits =B. Using Feedback also provides protection from those pesky ranged mobs that you may have not had the time to lure the mobs into.

Of course things don’t always go as planned, such as when I get pulled away from my Warden(noooooooooooooooo) by Risen Putrifiers or knocked down by other hard-hitting mobs, and in these cases you just have to remember to keep the aggro on you, not the warden until it gets its first attack off and always lure the mobs near the warden if they move away chasing you. I usually keep Blink on my skill slot and it works wonderfully well in such cases, and Illusionary Persona is simply fantastic for those ‘oh crap!’ situations.

I should try switching it out for Defender though, never thought about that. That one can take quite a few hits and will provide great defense for your iWarden, and I can see how it’ll fit well into focus builds.

Ah, you’re right. There’s a doorway in the second room just like the one that opens in the cutscene of the first room with the green star right beyond it so I assumed that was the door that was supposed to open. My bad.

Story mission “temple of the forgotten god” is currently not completable.

After taking the essence to the second temple orb, the essence disappears but the doorway that is supposed to open remains closed and there is no way to advance further in the mission. Tried the mission twice, same result.

Edit: Not a bug! My mistake.

This is fantastic. Finally mesmers are receiving some well deserved attention to bugs plaguing this class. Thank you very much Mr Peters.

While you’re at it, can you please give some sort of official explanation to the changes made in the Nov 15 patch where now phantasm skills have to land twice to perform its function(on cast, then the attack from the phantasm itself) and we have to hope it survives long enough to do it. Phantasm skills are not powerful enough to deserve so many chances to counter it yet is so important for the mesmer casting it to maintain a decent level of effectiveness.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the berserker’s swings supposed to hit at least once?

I’m testing on the stationary golems in the mist right now, and every now and then the swings from the berserker completely miss and deal no damage at all. Other swing-by’s are completely random. Sometimes it hits once, sometimes twice or three times. Tried on the drakes south of LA, same result. On the dummies in LA it hits 4 times which is probably due to the phantasms being anchored to the dummy, so I guess three is the maximum hits the berserker can do on a single target.

But no hits at all? Was it like that before nov 15 patch?

edit: The swing-by’s that miss and deal no damage still apply cripple for some reason.

When taking the Warden’s Feedback trait to make focus skills reflect projectiles on a mesmer, the Temporal Curtain (Focus #4 skill) reflects projectiles as per trait description – sometimes.

I’ve seen many, many occurances where enemy projectiles simply fly straight over the curtain and damage their targets instead of being reflected back at the attacker. There seems to be some sort of vertical height limit on the curtain and if any projectile spawns or passes over it, they are unaffected.

Krathalos.3461:

ddoi.9264:

Equality in how classes are treated, not as in what range of skills they have.
See, blind is a condition that encompasses all classes.
Portal is a skill that is built into this specific class.

You honestly can’t tell the difference?

EVERY class has a few unique skills and traits other classes wish they had. It’s what makes them unique and fun to play, and a total headache to balance. Or are you saying because mesmers have utilities like Portals they deserve to be penalised more from a condition that otherwise affects every other class in the same fashion? How in the world are these two connected? Is that your logic you are basing your request for people to “give it up”? (Amusing you added this last line to your post; in this class forum you’ve been jumping from thread to thread making statements with logic like this which people pointed out the faults of repeatedly, which you responded with-surprise, silence and refusal to support your argument.)

A blind on a guardian works the same on a warrior. Or elementalist. Necro. Ranger. Engineer. Thief. Next outgoing (non-ground targeting, I believe)attack misses, and removed straight after.

But nope, not mesmers. Because they have a 5 point CDR minor trait and a few skills that may or may not be currently slotted in the skill slots, their blinds should cancel out a summon and any utilities attached to it altogether, deny the class resource, disable class mechanic skills(F1-4) and should linger even after their outgoing “attack” fails.

Last I’ve seen, the description on blind doesn’t say it is class-specific.

Imbalance in skills classes have has NOTHING to do with imbalance in how a class-wide game mechanic works on them. They should be adjusted separately.

I completely agree that it needs to go off whenever they use an ability. I wouldn’t argue that.

However, although it does hurt a Mesmer using an Illusion far more than another class using a multi hit ability, it doesn’t mean all classes are hurt the same from a blind.

Let me give you a situation: A thief uses Cloak and Dagger, but was hit by a blind beforehand. The skill may not be on cooldown, but 50% of their global cooldowns are now gone. See what I’m getting at here? Classes and skills are affected differently by blind. Depending on what skill is blocked via blind, you are hurt the most. For mesmers, it happens to be illusions. For thieves, it’s really any ability that isn’t low cost initiative or an auto attack. I could list more, but I think this example should suffice. Only as you see it are all classes aside from Mesmer treated the same via blind. In reality, they are not.

Once again, I completely agree that blind should be removed when it blocks a summon. I play a Mesmer, and I honestly have no problem with this. I’m more annoyed by “obstructed” when trying to hit someone on tower walls, honestly.

Valid point, I have overlooked that one. I have generalised too much in that claim.

When it comes down to it, I guess it’s the degree each class is penalised by each condition/action. I’m still concerned that mesmers seem to suffer the most, due to as the OP said, a significant amount of dps being dependant on phantasms/illusions as well as many utilities + shattering. The consequences of illusion skills failing are staggering and nothing like other classes failing their attack skills. Even the Cloak and Dagger example you used which I agree is quite a disaster when it fails, seems to pale in comparison.

Even when not speaking in relative terms to other classes, illusion skills affect the performance of this class far too much to be denied this easily. In best case scenarios they seem borderline overpowered. Worst case scenario the mesmer is stuck with its pathetic auto attack with more than half of its utilities disabled. It’s all just too random. I can see why that could be an aspect of fun, but so far, especially in pve it is nothing but utter annoyance. In a game where in the end the damage you do decide the outcome of battles more than anything else, this mechanic behaving in such a way to deny not only a class’s skills to do meaningful damage, but surviability as well is going far too much. I have to agree with the OP that the factor is severely unbalanced.

Equality in how classes are treated, not as in what range of skills they have.
See, blind is a condition that encompasses all classes.
Portal is a skill that is built into this specific class.

You honestly can’t tell the difference?

EVERY class has a few unique skills and traits other classes wish they had. It’s what makes them unique and fun to play, and a total headache to balance. Or are you saying because mesmers have utilities like Portals they deserve to be penalised more from a condition that otherwise affects every other class in the same fashion? How in the world are these two connected? Is that your logic you are basing your request for people to “give it up”? (Amusing you added this last line to your post; in this class forum you’ve been jumping from thread to thread making statements with logic like this which people pointed out the faults of repeatedly, which you responded with-surprise, silence and refusal to support your argument.)

A blind on a guardian works the same on a warrior. Or elementalist. Necro. Ranger. Engineer. Thief. Next outgoing (non-ground targeting, I believe)attack misses, and removed straight after.

But nope, not mesmers. Because they have a 5 point CDR minor trait and a few skills that may or may not be currently slotted in the skill slots, their blinds should cancel out a summon and any utilities attached to it altogether, deny the class resource, disable class mechanic skills(F1-4) and should linger even after their outgoing “attack” fails.

Last I’ve seen, the description on blind doesn’t say it is class-specific.

Imbalance in skills classes have has NOTHING to do with imbalance in how a class-wide game mechanic works on them. They should be adjusted separately.

Was doing some WvW, stormed a keep. Some guardian up high on the central catwalk with a ballista who was shooting at me before the doors fell missed his chance to waypoint out and was being attacked by my allies.

He was actually pretty good, taking on about 2 or 3 guys and winning. The catwalk made it a bottleneck because a misplaced dodge would make you fall to your death so it was easy for him to take on multiple players at once.

Suddenly he used binding blade on an ally on low health that was falling back to heal and pulled me close too as a result, probably unwillingly. Either that or he obviously forgot how he was able to know exactly where I was and attack me with the ballista from so far away; the big shiny lasers coming out of my greatsword.

A gentle yet satisfying push from GS #5 sent that charr in full health flying straight off the edge.

Mefistofell.8619:

ddoi.9264:

Numot.3965:

So tossing an auto when you have blindness to get rid of it, like a smart person is too much effort?

A solution to a broken mechanic doesn’t mean the mechanic is not broken anymore.

U guys think other classes dont have problem with blind ? we all suffer from it ,considering how long cd some skill of the other classes has ,and we dont have 5 guys who look like us running around on the field and confusing every1 do we? not to mention all the other cool stuff u have. Blind messes up every1 combo not only mesmers

1. Learn to spell. Don’t expect people to take your opinions seriously if you can’t be bothered to express them properly.

2. 3 guys max, and they don’t look or act like the real one. Especially phantasms. If you have trouble finding the real mesmer you simply need more experience. If you actually played a mesmer you would know how ridiculously easy it is to find the real one. Furthermore using a class-defining mechanic to justify discriminations against it is a poor argument.

3. Read. Start with the opening post. Try Aberrant’s post above too. It explains quite well how blind is severely more penalising on mesmers, a point you’ve completely missed.

4. I agree mesmers have cool stuff. =)

Ross Biddle.2367:

Okuza.5210:

A good thief simply keeps up the blind pressure. New blinds will land between removing a blind via an auto and using a phantasm. And, uh, why should a mesmer be the only class that’s in a near-total shutdown due to a condition that is basically only a minor annoyance to other classes?

Why not?

Balance? Fairness? Equality among classes? For the kittens?

Numot.3965:

So tossing an auto when you have blindness to get rid of it, like a smart person is too much effort?

A solution to a broken mechanic doesn’t mean the mechanic is not broken anymore.

^ Just a small reminder for you; Time warp already has a limit of 5 people. 10 second quickness on 210 second cooldown with a limit of 5 people is hardly overpowered. It’s one of the most useful elite skills no doubt, but not blatantly overpowered. It shouldn’t have drawbacks of other quickness skills considernig it’s an elite skill as well.

Edit: oops, missed it. That was for Ralathar.

Krathalos, the anger from the last patch isn’t spawning from no longer being able to summon phantasms when you couldn’t see your opponent. It’s from the fact that the whole multi-step ability phantasm skills are can be completely negated by simple spammable conditions/actions. LoS requirement is fine, people don’t have problem with that. However any means to stop the spawn on cast -especially considering all the skill does at this point is summon; nothing is actually done to the target and the premise of summoning being blocked or dodged is simply bizarre- and thereby cancel all utilities/functions tied to it is stretching it.

Anet added yet another weakness to an already underpowered skill set. There are no weapon abilities that can be negated over and over again as phantasm skills do. First by blindness/block/dodge/invulnerability on cast, then the same again on the phantasm and its ability, then again by the death of said phantasm. No skill should be this unreliable in its performance.

You can’t honestly think there is nothing wrong with phantasms failing to spawn on cast when their function can be negated twice more afterwards even if you do land a hit on cast sucessfully. I don’t understand why you think mesmers ever completely ignored such conditions; the latter two methods of negating phantasm skills were always there.

Not only that but there are so many traits, skills and utilities directly related to phantasms and/or the number of illusions you have out. Condition removal, projectile reflection, more damage/speed/defense, shattering…etc. No other classes have skills that are so useful to their class yet so unreliable.

Phantasm skills are much, much more than weapon abilities. They should not be treated in such a way.

Use greatsword and mainhand sword on swap.

Select Mental Torment, Blade Training, Deceptive Evasion, Precise Wrack, Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Persona traits. 10/20/0/0/30 with 10 points left for whatever you like. For skills Mirror Images is a must, the rest is up to you.

1) Run towards crowd with greatsword; if they’re too spread out, open with a few autoattacks while switching targets to grab their attention and clump them together while they scream for your blood.
2) Cast Phantasmal Berserker for great AoE damage…or at least it used to be before anet bugged it. They said they’ll fix it soon. Soon. SOON.
3) Mirror Blade~~~
4) Dodge to make your third illusion.
5) Run to the angry mobs’ melee range, swap to mainhand sword and cast Cry of Frustration for a 4 stack shatter.
6) Use Blurred Frenzy to trigger the confusion damage while invulnerable.
7) Dodge away as soon as Blurred Frenzy finishes, cast Mirror Images.
8) Run back to mob and Mind Wrack!
9) Let loose an evil laugh.
10) Usually dead by now. Cast Diversion or Distortion and a few slashes will take care of what’s left.

Rinse and repeat for tougher mobs. Dodge and kite away, or use your offhand weapon skill to gain a safe distance to use greatsword again. Prestige with torch to drop aggro(or possibly finish them off with the blast), Temporal Curtain -> Into the Void with focus to pull them away from you, Magic Bullet with pistol to stun them. If they quickly gain distance on you again(risen thralls, villagers, nobles…argkhWKERJWEK), knock ’em back with your Illusionary Wave on greatsword.

Torch is actually useful in PvE for once in this setup. Prestige does nice damage to finish them off if they’re still alive,(have an illusion out before you cast or mobs will run back to regenerate. AoE blind from the skill will help it survive until the blast triggers) or to get to a safe distance to heal.
Phantasmal Mage…well the confusion helps a bit. Trait for torch using the 10 points left and you can get some extra condition removal. If that isn’t necessary, you can switch it out for Rending Shatters for more damage with Mind Wrack. Greatsword Training for ranged effectiveness is nice too.

You can take Master of Misdirection out and replace it with Illusionary Elasticity for extra bounce on mirror blade for more aoe/great single target damage. Illusionary Invigoration for more survival and shattering.

For ranged mobs drop a Feedback and lure the melee ones toward them so you can hit them all when shattering.
For mobs with AoE attacks kite a bit or make sure you have the aggro, not your phantasm and let them cast it on you before you begin the rotation so you don’t shatter with no illusions. That will make you sad.

This takes too long for dynamic events like penitent/shelter where mobs will die out stupidly quick, but if there are only a few people around or you are alone such as the Claw Island mission, it’ll give you fantastic AoE.

I was trying to make a necro that would look nice in the headgear you are given at creation. Sylvari looked ridiculous, human and norn was meh, and charr was just weird. Then I made an asuran necro and I…I couldn’t help it.

I’m guessing the skull mask is supposed to make them look scary or dark at least, but on the asura it gives that cartoony smiley skull look that makes them look very cute.

Also like everyone said the animations on asura is superb. You can really see they put a lot of effort into it. The illusion that you seem to be running faster due to the legs moving more often is a nice bonus too. Can’t stand playing charr due to the slow moving running animation. I know it’s the same speed but it feels so sluggish compared to asura.

Tried the mantra builds, it was decent but had a steep learning curve. You really have to know exactly when you should be casting/using them, and it’s not always obvious. Also boss fights were rather difficult where the constant need to dodge aoe’s and hard hitting attacks made it fairly difficult to charge mantras, bringing down the overall effectiveness of the build. Not to mention the overly long cooldowns before being able to charge them again which I found silly considering they already have charging times where the use of most skills are disabled. If you get used to it they’re okay, but i think they’re more of a either you hate them or love them skill set.

I think the real problem is they’re not that useful by themselves and untraited. I cannot think of any reason why I would use any of the mantras over say, feedback/null field/decoy/mirror images/blink. Mantra of Resolve maybe if I know I’ll be having a condition-heavy fight, but everything else if not traited for it…meh.

I’d be interested if they change it to a less trait dependant standalone aoe ability for group support perhaps, something akin to the guardian’s Empower. Remove charges, give them cooldowns like normal skills and make them channeled cast. For example the mantra of pain can be changed to an AoE debuff where enemies in 900 radius take 10% more damage or allies do 10% more damage for the duration of the cast+few extra seconds after. Cast times can be increased to 5 or 6 seconds with immobility to compensate for the buff. For others like mantra of distraction, debuffs such as random chance to daze/confuse enemies per 2 seconds in a smaller area would be great. Mantra of concentration…reduction of skill cooldowns for allies in the area while casting?
It would fit into the controlling aspect of mesmers and give mesmers more (indirect) stuff to do in things like sieges in wvw.

*all shatter skills cooldown increased by 5 seconds
*all shatter skills can now be dodged/blocked/nullified by invulnerability when casting, which will result in all your illusions being destroyed without triggering on-death effects, and once again when the illusions actually shatter on the target
*illusionary persona now has 60 second internal coodown
*deceptive evasion: down to 50% chance to spawn clones from 100%
*all bounce attacks reduced by one and suffer diminishing damage per bounce in compliance to laws of physics; illusionary elasticity is needed to do the current number of bounces it does without before patch
*chaos storm and chaos armor cooldowns increased by 5 seconds each
*feedback now reflects friendly projectiles too
*burning removed from winds of chaos, vulnerability increased to two stacks
*blurred frenzy now has 1 second cast delay before initiating
*illusionary dualist no longer uses unload skill, instead uses normal pistol autoattack

*scepter damage increased by 10%

Oh the possibilities.

I posted a similar thread a fair while ago, but it went a little off topic and the main point didn’t show up until a few replies below. So here’s a nice simple summerised version for the devs.

Phantasm skills can be negated too easily.

After the patch they can now be negated by:

1) blind/dodge/invulnerability/block on casting, which will force a failure in phantasm spawn
2) blind/dodge/invulnerability/block of the phantasm’s attack
3) even if failing to initiate the above two solutions, you can kill the phantasm before it attacks.

This is ridiculous. No other skill in any class gives you three chances to negate a skill, 2 of them after it has landed.

As for specific cases such as phantasmal berserker and warden which do multi-hits over time, no other multi-hit skill becomes cancelled outright just because the first attack was negated.

2) and 3) were there before the patch, and it was fair. With the exception of phantasmal berserker spawning out of LoS, the phantasm skill mechanic wasn’t broken and did not need to be touched. 1) has gone overboard, especially with the buggy LoS system where ‘obstructed’ will pop up even when nothing is blocking your target that all ranged weapon wielders have suffered from (thank you clipnotdone for the vid) or they are on the top of some stairs right in front of you in clear view. The phantasm skills are not and never were so overpowered to warrant this kind of disadvantage. All skills should retain a level of reliability to perform its full function instead of relying this heaviliy on chance.

There are simply too many chances for the phantasm skills to fail, and even when it does suceed in the first check, fail to do anything by subsequent ones. Considering how illusions are tied to the class’s core mechanic and how important phantasms are for many utilities and dps they bring for the mesmer, this change was unnecessary.

The simplest solution would be to revert the changes to remove the 1) check.
Or if phantasm skills absolutely must be treated as an attack, do so by making 1) the only check like all other attacks. It is only fair. Once the casting attack hits, phantasms should spawn, do their thing while being invulnerable and untargetable, ignore 2), and disappear after doing their first full attack so that it cannot be used for shattering. Some changes in the utility phantasms such as the defender is needed for this one though.

Ace, is the skillpoint you are talking about inside temple of lyssa? That’s the only one I can think of that you can’t rush, nor do step by step and you get swarmed by piles and piles of risen. That one you can ninja though. Did it with my engi a few days ago. You can commune that point from below the central elevated platform, and there’s only one veteran mesmer nearby patrolling it regularly which you can avoid if timed right. There’s a path to the lower areas where the catapults are right in front of the skillpoint that you can jump down to which will thankfully cancel all aggro from any risen chasing you so you can try again if you fail. There’s also a structure in the lower area where you can be safe from catapults so you can waypoint out after you’re done.

When I used to do some wvw I tried a condition-on-death build, it was quite fun.

10/25/20/0/10 and 5 points left for whatever you want to use it on. Traits are crippling dissipation, debilitating dissipation, illusionary defense, compounding power, blade training and deceptive evasion. Use mainhand sword. For skills decoy, mirror images and another of your choice, I used feedback. Offhand is entirely up to you, I usually went sword or focus. Scepter on weapon swap. Use bleed on crit sigil and gear for condition damage and precision.

Basically the idea is to produce clones like crazy and shove them in your opponent’s face. If they choose to kill it, they suffer from crippling dissipation, debilitating dissipation and confusing combatants. If they choose to ignore them, you get more defense and power from illusionary defense and compounding illusions, and your sword clones will continue to apply vulnerability and bleeds with their attacks. Either way you win. Even if you have 3 illusions out you should constantly try to produce more so that the old ones explode in your opponents face, providing near permanent confusion, aoe cripple and one random aoe condition once you get your rotation going. Their condition removal means nothing and will quickly run out if they choose to use them. As a bonus you will almost always have 3 illusions out so if you do choose to shatter they will have maximum effect all the time and heal lots with ether feast. Shattering itself is not recommended in this build though since they don’t trigger on-death traits, so don’t use them too much.

Mainhand sword is essential as the clones spawned while wielding it will run to your target and annoy the crap out of them where they will be in range of on-death traits.

The build is weak against ranged opponents as they can safely kill clones away from the area of effect of clone-on-death, but they won’t be able to catch up to the speed you produce clones once you get close enough. If using a focus you can always pull them closer to you or get some swiftness to catch up to them. If using a torch the stealth from prestige will allow you to get close without taking too much damage and help with your general survivability. Use sword #3 to immobilise once in range. You also lack aoe damage and the dps of a condition bunker/gs glass cannon, and no condition removal unless you include null field or mantra for your last skill. I used sigil of purity in my offhand weapon instead for limited condition removal. So it’s more of an offensive support build where you can run around being a real thorn on the side, applying conditions like crazy and whittling away your opponent’s health with bleeds and confusion damage.

In pve it becomes more defensive and you’ll have lots of survivability if choosing to kite with the constant cripple. Lots of clones and if using torch lots of stealth allows you to take on many mobs at once while doing good bleeding damage.
In PvE they don’t usually go for your clones, and I found that a good way to raise the chance they will go for them is to dodge backwards just before they attack. Don’t dodge sideways or forward, only backwards. It seems to work better, at least in my experience. Even if it doesn’t at the least you get a meat shield for homing ranged projectiles that take the hit for you everytime if you dodge backwards. If you dodge too early the clone will run up to your enemy and they’ll ignore it. Do it just before they swing and they’ll hit and kill the clone as soon as it is generated.

djtool.8372:

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

But they’re not treated as such.
Like an attack it can be dodged, blocked or negated by invulnerability.
However it also acts like a pet skill as in:
1) it summons
2) summons attack independantly of caster
3) can die.

Number 3 is an issue. All attacks, when landed, perform their full function of damage and any other secondary ability applied. Phantasm skills when landed, can still be denied the damage and any utilities brought upon by it by death of said phantasm.
It is an “attack” which suffers from a disadvantage of a pet skill, and thereby loses the core benefit of attacks; guranteed success upon hit. No other skills fail after it hits.
Also only phantasm skills go through a double check; one for casting attack and another for phantasm’s attack.

I wish anet would just take a stance and make it clear whether this skill is a summoning skill or an attack.

If it is a summoning skill, failure to summon by block/dodge/invulnerability brought upon by this patch is ridiculous and needs to be reverted.

If it is an attack, phantasms need to be rendered invulnerable and untargetable until they perform their full intended function if the casting attack has hit and then disappear after it is finished. A few tweaks to utilities some phantasms bring needs to be changed for this.

If it is meant to be a special hybrid skill only for mesmers, it’s currently receiving disadvantages of both and missing out on the benefits. Not to mention illusions are the core resource of mesmers. It is not balanced at all. The way it worked before patch the phantasms were guranteed to be summoned but could be negated of their function before it was performed by their death. It was a tradeoff, and it worked. Nobody complained it was a broken mechanic.

Creating a thing that hurts an enemy is a summon, not an attack. Doing a thing that hurts an enemy, that is an attack. This is already apparent in the fact that the phantasms can die before hurting an enemy. See, for example a necro can summon minions…that hurts the enemy. It is a “thing you do that hurts other things” by your definition. But the summoning is not blocked or dodged is it.

Next thing you know anet will make decoy and mirror images blockable too since the clones spawned will immediately seek to hurt your target.

If you play engineer grasping vines also give you a block skill in the toolbelt slot. With a shield and tool kit you can run around with 3 blocks if that’s your thing. Cooldown’s a bit long though and engi’s have more useful skills to put in the skillbar.

In any RPG, the usual PvE experience is you vs lots of mobs. As such, AoE damage is king. Mesmers don’t have lots of it. Simple as that.

That being said I don’t think mesmers are that bad in PvE. We aren’t great, but decent. Mesmers aren’t mega damage dealers and never will be. All mesmer skills are aimed at utility and providing buffs/debuffs and the problem is that the effectiveness of them fluctuates wildly depending on what mob you are fighting.

Feedback and iWarden’s reflective bubble doesn’t help much against trash melee mobs while doing wonders against ranged bosses.(and young karka =D) Similarly vulnerability application skills don’t help much for killing trash mobs but helps with strong mob fights. Diversion means nothing to champs with defiance but effective against mobs that don’t. While clones fail to distract enemies frequently, phantasms do and every hit they take is one less you or the group would have taken. Time warp. Veil. Mass invisibility. Null field. Decoy. Mirror images. Blink. Portal. Mantras. Utility, utility, utility.

Utilities are effective when the conditions are met, making them situational. Damage on the other hand always retains its effectiveness regardless of what you are fighting. Mesmers lack it, relatively. Mesmers can be both essential and near useless depending on the build and what you are fighting.

If you do want to go into direct damage, sword and greatsword are good and should be enough for most encounters. They are not that bad even when compared to other classes in dps output when geared for it. For condition damage staff will melt away small groups of mobs, simultaneously. For DE’s with waves of mobs greatsword is usually the solution with the AoE from iberserker and mirror blade. I think the problems you are facing has more to do with your level. Mesmers become far more effective in PvE when tier 2 traits are unlocked.

It would help a bit, but the area is still too small to be considered a true aoe.
I’d be happy to swap boon stripping for a blast finisher though. Or a launch like somebody suggested in another topic.

Warkupo.1025:

ddoi.9264:

It’s not the difficulty, it’s the penalty. Mesmers are penalised more. No other class loses their “class resource”(illusions) due to their skills not hitting. Mesmers do. Phantasms failing to summon due to a failed attack is like warriors losing a stack of their adrenaline everytime their attacks don’t hit.

Blatantly false, and I’ve been over this argument a few times now; Other classes have plenty of abilities with secondary debuff/buff effects attached to them which do not activate if an enemy is proactively avoiding them. The examples I have listed are going to have to suffice; I’m really not interested in posting every single ability in the game that behaves this way because there are a lot of them.

That you can come up with micro-examples of abilities that do still retain some benefit when they are cast is not proof for why phantasms should get to ignore debuff effects entirely, especially when considering that mesmers have other abilities that behave in this fashion as well, and, again, I’ve listed a few of those as well.

I won’t be addressing this point again.

Phantasms do not ignore debuff effects entirely, and that’s not what we are asking for. Debuffs are already applied by the phantasm’s damage being negated. It is overly penalising to apply it AGAIN by denying the summon of the phantasm.

But I’ll give you the benefit of doubt, and lets say the damage and summoning of the phantasm is one and the same despite all the other skills that do not work this way, and that’s only one penalty the debuff applies.

Or is it.

Really, name other skills that if failed, outright deny the function of numerous skills tied to the class mechanic used thereafter.
If a memser has no illusions out and phantasm summoning fails, all shatter skills do nothing unless you have illusionary persona. There is no chance that they will perform any function.

Look at the example you gave. Warrior’s bola being dodged, so that it can’t use hundred blades thereafter incase the opponent simply avoids it. But nothing will actually stop the warrior from using hundred blades. It may be a bad decision, but it can be done, and the skill will perform its intended function. Bola being dodged or not has no bearing on what hundred blades will do. Hundred blades will not fail just because the bola was dodged. Your thief and ranger example follow the same result.

What you are using to make your point is skill synergies. Skills can work to benefit to each other, but they are essentially independant and perform their full intended function regardless of the sucess of any other skill. Phantasm skills don’t. The sucess of phantasm skills create consequences that do affect skills used thereafter. And not just three or four skills like shatters, but also several traits that bring buffs and utilities. All that from one debuff. Do you truely believe that is not overly penalising? Was the generation of phantasms whether it actually caused damage or not so game-breakingly overpowered that this change simply had to be made? Is that what non-mesmers were complaining so much about?

Illusion generation is so closely tied to the capabilities of mesmers that such a small change in its mechanic snowballs to affect scores of other skills and the overall effectiveness of mesmers as a whole. It is a sensitive issue and should have been given more consideration. It came as a slap in the face for many who rely on phantasms for damage, utilities, etc.

Devs, please disregard my opening post and focus on the above post by Ryuujin. It is exactly the point a lot of people are trying to get across and couldn’t have been made more clear.

Warkupo.1025:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Warkupo.1025:

I don’t agree with the statement that phantasms are the only source of reliable damage for the mesmer, but then, I usually run a shatter build so maybe my perception is painted to begin with. For sword/sword (my primary), I know that my auto-attack does some pretty good damage while simultaneously applying vulnerability to give me better damage and some team utility. Blurred Frenzy is obviously good, and I’d argue that Riptose is not far behind it, although its’ understandably harder to utilize. I even count Illusionary Leap as an attack, but, again, I’m a shatter build.

So that’s at least 3 abilities within my weapon-set alone that do damage, not including the Phantasmal Swordsmen. I don’t consider it unfair that people can dodge my phantasm from appearing. I consider that good planning on my opponent for recognizing one of my more deadly moves and responding to it accordingly. I know I’d consider it unfair if, as an opponent, I couldn’t respond to the phantasm at all.

It seems like the perspective is that if a phantasm only does some utility ability, it shouldn’t be able to be dodged. That makes the impression that utility skills to help you survive or debilitate the enemy aren’t as valuable as damage, and so they should get a free pass. I consider this false. A well placed stun, blind, or dodge is how you get a leg up in combat. It’s the primary response for “glass-cannon” builds. It’s not an insignificant thing, and other classes aren’t given a free pass to just use their buff/debuff/utility powers regardless of what the enemy is doing either. If someone dodges my Dancing Dagger, he is not crippled and can continue to kite me effectively. If someone ducks behind cover while I’m using Rapid Fire, my arrows do not pierce the geometry and hit him anyway. If they dodge my bolas I don’t get to immobolize them, and I can’t follow up with Hundred Blades as they’ll likely be able to move out of the way of that as well. I could name examples all day.

Phantasms are good (at least, when they’re working. Looking at you berserker), but they are not the entirety of our skillset, nor should they be immune to things that could stop them. That they got a special pass to ignore all control effects is special treatment. It is not a double-standard.

No other class is prevented from actually using their skill if the target is under one of those status effects such as blocking, or invuln frame the dmg is negated for the player that actually blocked or dodged or used in invuln but everyone else who did not fall into that category that was in the area would still take a hit, as it stands now one player has the potential to completely shut down what little aoe capability the mesmer already has by denying the ability to even use the skill. No other class has this limitation

Out of hand I mentioned 3 abilities of other classes that are under that limitation. All classes have difficulty using their abilities when someone dodges them, or blind them, or stuns them, or what have you. I really don’t get where you’re coming up with the idea that mesmers are the only class that has to worry about status effects.

It’s not the difficulty, it’s the penalty. Mesmers are penalised more. No other class loses their “class resource”(illusions) due to their skills not hitting. Mesmers do. Phantasms failing to summon due to a failed attack is like warriors losing a stack of their adrenaline everytime their attacks don’t hit.

If you want to stick to GS, which is currently bugged unfortunately but dev said will get fixed, go Domination 20 Duelling 20 Illusion 20, select mental torment, greatsword training, deceptive evasion, precise wrack and illusionary elasticity. Equip power precision crit damage or mix of knight’s/valkyrie gear if you want more survivability. Summon phantasm from range, run in and cast mirror blade at about 600 distance where it can bounce to you. Then dodge and mind wrack. Enjoy your big single target and decent aoe damage. If you don’t like shattering, select compounding illusions, crippling dissipation, debilitating dissipation(chaos line) and keep a fair range from mobs except when you use mirror blade. Have staff on swap for defensive/support situations and your warlock will do good damage in boss fights, though by this setup your gs will still do more damage in the time it takes for those warlocks to attack. Remember to stay in mid range whichever weapon you use so you can get those bounces going, they will allow you to kill mobs significantly faster. And don’t cast phantasms when you know those mobs are going to run behind a tree or a rock or are on top of some stairs or behind a slight bump in the terrain even if you can see them.

This should be posted in the suggestions forums too. The more devs hear about this issue the better.

clipnotdone.9634:

alanis.6094:

Mesmer phantasms work like regular attacks.

They sure do.

I laughed.
Then I cried.
It sums up everything wrong with this patch.

I just bought a greatsword on my lvl 80 warrior, used hundred blades and pushed the movement keys and the skill stopped instantly long before the full animation finished. What exactly is the problem…? Are people really so dense they didn’t try pressing some keys, or does the skill work differently in pvp?

And I don’t understand why you’re bringing up dps potential of mesmers; that’s not the problem I’m addressing. It’s phantasms failing to summon due to the damage failing to connect. Other skills execute their full function whether target has been hit or not.

Runiir, you are missing the point. If they are ATTACKS, then why don’t they ACT LIKE IT. Phantasms can connect yet still do 0 damage because it can be killed before it does. No other attack in the game gives you a chance to avoid damage after the attack connects. If the skill hits, you get damaged. Simple as that.

Besides, calling phantasm skills mere attacks is a severe understatement considering how many utilities, traits and skills are tied to the number of illusions mesmers has put up. It is so much more. Shatters, clone on death, bonuses depending on number of illusions…it is the identity of a mesmer, and this is simply a completely unwarranted nerf.

Attacks failing to connect on other classes results in loss of dps and that’s it. Maybe some loss of a few boons/cc’s that could’ve been applied. Failure to summon an illusion for mesmers on the other hand means:

*less heal – ether feast
*less damage – mind wrack, cry of frustration, compounding power
*less cc – diversion, debilitating dissipation, crippling dissipation
*less defense – diversion, illusionary defense
*less utility – iWarden projectile reflection, cripple on phantasmal berserker
*etc

The list goes on. The new penalties imposed on mesmers for phantasm skills not connecting is far too great with this patch. The attack connecting and phantasm being summoned should’ve been kept separate. For example if you summoned a phantasmal swordsman while being blinded, the phantasm’s attack would miss. But the phantasm would still actually be summoned.

Can you imagine a warrior using hundred blades stop swinging as soon as the skill begins just because the first swing was blocked? Or an elementalist failing to cast meteor shower for its duration and going on full cooldown just because the first fireball was dodged? Does a necomancer’s well disappear instantly if you happened to be invulnerable as it was applied? Doesn’t make much sense does it?

tl;dr, Damage from phantasm skills were able to be avoided through dodge/block/invulnerability/death of said phantasm before patch, and it should’ve stayed that way. It was perfectly fine. Illusions not being summoned at all on top of that by said methods, no.

Yes, you may still be doing well in PvP. More power to you. But what about PvE? There’s so much more to this game than 1 on 1 and mesmers should not have to be pigeon holed into a ‘build up’ build…which by the way was nerfed, with the increase in iwarlock cooldown and attack intervals.

koopatroopa.5360:

Seraph.8293:

mongolianmisfit.8350:

Ding ding!

I also find it unfair that we are being pigeon holed into what ANet wanted the mesmer to be. Actually, with all these ridiculous changes (mostly nerfs) back to back, they didn’t even know what they wanted. Seems like we have more than worked wonders for this class, and because of some spvp and wvw issues, everyone has to suffer. Anymore negative changes, and you might as well call us useless.

Time Warp. Feedback. Nul Field. Illusion of Life. Portal still shines when you do it right. Stuff like that.

But seriously, beyond that one elite and a few utility skills I’m hard pressed to think of a reason I’d want a Mesmer in my group over a Guardian, Ele, or Ranger.

Weren’t Mesmer already the lowest population class?

If by lowest you mean one of the highest, then yes.

Really? I run around openworld PvE a lot and hardly see any mesmers. Even in highly populated DE’s like Modnir Overlord event, Tequatl or Orr I was lucky to see more than one more mesmer compared to a crapload of warriors/guardians/elementalists/rangers.
I can see why there would be a lot for PvP, but for PvE…definately the lowest population.

“…These skills must now be cast in line-of-sight of the target. These skills now behave as normal attacks that the mesmer must connect in order to summon the phantasm, and they will fail if the mesmer is blind or the ability is cast on an invulnerable target.”

Anet, you’ve gone too far with this severe nerf. The greatsword phantasm was attacking targets which were out of sight. It was a bug, and the fix is justified. However, everything else wasn’t. The only fix you had to make was to make sure iberserker fails to summon if not in line of sight.

Instead, you’ve given phantasm summoning skills all the disadvantages of behaving like a normal attack with none of the benefits.

Not only can phantasm skills be cancelled outright with no illusions summoned and full cooldown by dodge/block/invulnerability, but the extra disadvantage of phantasms being able to be killed before its attack is launched always made it a chance-based skill at best; no other classes’ skills suffer from this discrimination.

If a ranger shoots an arrow or a warrior swings the sword and it is not dodged/blocked/target has no invulnerability boons, then the attack connects and target takes damage. It will hit. Period. They don’t fail to cause damage when the attacker is attacked, the target has moved or goes out of range. If it hits, IT HITS.

Why should phantasm skills be any different now that it “behaves like a normal attack”? If the phantasm skill has sucessfully connected, then the phantasm should be rendered temporarily invulnerable so that it stays alive long enough for its first attack to hit and cause damage, just like a normal attack, period.

Oh, and this is all assuming line of sight works properly…and any class using ranged weapons can tell you how unreliable it is with “obstructed” popping up even when there’s a clear view of your target. Not only that, but the slightest elevation differences, objects and bumps in terrain are already sucessfully causing phantasm skills to fail.

Honestly, please, just send one dev to look at the mesmer forum for half an hour. Read through some of the new posts. It is obvious you guys have not given much thought about the latest changes for this class at all. Patch after patch there’s been nerf piled upon nerf to this class completely at the expense of PvE players with no consideration given at all outside PvP. It deserves a break.

TheRamosOnline.2670:

I’m just gonna say this.
I still destroy anything that dares come near me in PvP. So either I’m doing something right or you’re doing something very, very wrong.
Even the other glass cannon mesmers in the guild can destroy enemies in seconds, with these apparent nerfs in place.

The discussion ends there, as I am able to pump out endless streams of videos demonstrating this rendering any attempt at calling us nerfed husks of our former selves useless and ironic.

Please show a vid of you farming with scepter/torch/staff you love so much. Or don’t have to farm, just do a few events around orr. Maybe a dungeon or two as well.

No, this is not sarcasm, I’m genuinely interested. I’ve been running a knight’s/valkyrie mixed gear greatsword mesmer for damage and survivability, and I’m already feeling the nerfs heavily. My izerker gets obstructed by every little rock/shrub/tree/smallest elevations that hide the feet of my target(that seems to be the line of sight requirement; doesn’t matter if you can see their head, arms, torso, legs…you must see the feet).
You’ve shown so much confidence and conviction in your condition bunker build that I want to see if it is more efficient than what I was doing, especially since I have another lvl80 mes built completely on condition damage and it was nowhere near efficient in just normal PvE stuff, let alone farming.

AsteriskCGY.5931:

And like any other attack they should obey the same rules as other player’s attacks.

Then all phantasms should be given invulnerability until it makes at least one attack. Just like other players’ attacks, if the target does not dodge, block or use invulnerability skill, phantasms should always hit. You don’t see other classes’ attacks fail to connect if the target has not avoided it, so why should ours?

This is the problem with the latest patch. Not only can our phantasm “attack spell” be dodged/blocked/neutralised by invulnerability,(like all skills) but it also has an extra weakness of being cancelled completely if the phantasm dies before it attacks. The tradeoff is of course we get an illusion spawned which is a huge part of the mesmer identity of shattering and cloning. Now this patch has made it even harder to keep the already overly fragile illusions summoned so that mesmers can actually use them.

vox.5019:

Something tells me the phantasm nerf is going to start making Mesmers see “obstructed” when trying to cast them like other ranged attacks do on occasion.

Yep, tried running around in open pve and already started noticing this. I have to make sure there is absolutely nothing between me and my target for phantasm to be summoned. The slightest bump between me and my target gives me a big fat OBSTRUCTED, LOL message. Sad. Think you need to see the red circle on the ground when you select your enemy to be considered in LoS.

Pistol

Was hoping it would have more glassy parts. Just a few crystals at the top and one big one hidden inside the pistol butt that you’ll never see.

Mesmers have absolutely no problem getting full credit for any event. It’s getting loot that’s the problem. Tagging multiple mobs is too difficult to do when mobs die under 4 seconds in the most lucrative farming area in the endgame – orr.

It’s a waste of time to get a mesmer purely for farming orr. Even if you can find a way to get some loot, it will never be as efficient as other classes. My engineer for example can get four times the loot in half the time my mesmer does. I honestly can’t think of any possible build or playstyle that would enable my mesmer to outperform that, ever. Mesmers just aren’t efficient enough at AoE tagging and there are far too many players to compete with in orr.

Farming karma, no problem. Farming gold, try something else.
Also like everyone said for anything else we’re good.

Looking at previous patch notes, in anet’s vocabulary ‘mesmer’ & ‘balance’ is synonymous with ‘nerf’. Everytime anet tried to ‘balance’ mesmers they nerfed us. It would be no surprise if the ‘balancing’ they’re going to do is yet another nerf.

But we can hope. =)

If you want to stick to scepter, pair it with offhand sword. The phantasm does good damage and you get two blocks/counter so works nicely for defensive play. Both have quite short cooldowns so you won’t have too much trouble fighting veterans and champs if those are what kills you. Also, always have decoy and feedback for pesky ranged mobs.

Wholeheartedly agree. =( It’s not like the maps are all different anyway. 3 identical maps and out of 4, WvW balance issues and most significant of all, map exploration people taking slots that could have been used by WvW players…I really don’t understand why this is not being changed. That reason by itself should be more than enough to force a change.

They probably changed some stuff around events lots of people gather around to do.
For example, the Modnir event chain in Hirathi Hinterlands was changed so that the chest spawns only after you kill the champion boss in the end. Before you could run in and the chest would be there before the boss or his minions spawned.