The current matchmaking handicaps are turning me into a toxic, cynical kitten when I solo queue.
For the sake of mine and my team’s sanity please stop using brand new players as a handicap to counter the presence of high MMR players. My blood pressure is reaching all time highs.
Wow if one of the best players in the game hands down thinks this new matchmaking is garbage, maybe anet will listen? I hope.
Pistol pistol engis running 2/2/0/6/4 bomb kits with a zerker ammy.
Sounds pretty freekill to me xD
Yeah and he was for the other team, every, single, match. I look at my map “oh he’s dead, the fight started 2 seconds ago how the hell are you dead already?!” N
Playing a non-meta spec will only work if you have experience AND your build makes sense, I agree. New players will most likely have to obey the meta and sometimes even competitive players against certain match ups.
You don’t understand how often I get people in solo que who play Warrior and use Signet of Fury, which is like extremely bad no matter what you do.
I disagree. I dont play meta at all in ranked. I do well because I learn how to best use my build along with teammates.
For example, I play support Guardian in ranked. Thats not meta. And I figured I am best when I have a tank to cause distraction, or when I am needed to hold a specific location for a long as possible solo while my team gets a certain location that is harder to get.
Not meta, and cant win 1v1 most of the time, but I know my role and I play that role. and 1v1ing isnt it. Non-Metas can work, you just need to know your role in the group.
Just like Trinity in PvE MMO. you have to know how to play your role in the group.
Support guardians may not be meta. Doesn’t mean it’s a stupid build that is useless it’s actually pretty good. This OP was directed at people that are making their own builds thinking they are gonna be super good, and then they are just the most ridiculous builds ever that don’t work.
There is a difference between trying new things that MIGHT work, over trying something ridiculous that just makes no sense. Like at all.
Sure, but some people’s minds work in mysterious ways. There’s a guy in this thread pretending that p/p zerker is viable. I know there’s no way because I (probably) main engineer, but maybe a pro ele player would laugh at me for ever believing that a Lightning Rod SD build was a good idea.
it’s only slightly better than not equipping weapons, barely.
What’s funny is he asked in Portuguese (i think it’s what he asked) “Can you play something besides mesmer.” Because apparently the shatter mesmer is the reason we weren’t doing well.
Ranked or unranked? If it’s the latter, please let people play the game the way they want.
Why do people think that unranked = hot join?
It shouldn’t matter if it’s ranked or unranked. Players who don’t understand profession/build mechanics should be rated and matched with other people who don’t understand profession/build mechanics. Let players fail; just fix the matchmaking so they don’t bring others down with them.
This particular instance is really the OP’s fault since it was a pre-made group. But his point that “Meta builds exist for a reason” is valid, though harsh. If you’re new to PvP, then looking at what others have done already is a highly recommended starting point.
Nah. If I played that p/p zerker build in hotjoin, I would still face roll everyone. That’s an extreme example, because you can pretty much see why it’s bad, but for example, there is a lot of engineer, ranger and warrior builds that are probably pretty good, but need to be tested somewhere else than hotjoin. In hotjoin, you can easily win 1v2/1v3 with a mass-sw/sw-shield interrupt celestial warrior with three physical skills (just try it: I have). So I bring these sometimes good, sometimes bad builds to unranked. Sometimes they fail (RIP Lightning Rod SD elementalist), but sometimes they are pretty good: a ranger friend of mine showed me a melee cleric ranger build that works so well we’re now playing it in ranked with success! If people never tried new things, how would your precious meta ever be found?
There is a difference between trying new things that MIGHT work, over trying something ridiculous that just makes no sense. Like at all.
Pistol pistol engis running 2/2/0/6/4 bomb kits with a zerker ammy. You aren’t impressing anyone.
I understand that people like coming up with their own builds, but before you theorycraft one, make sure you have a solid basis of understanding for your class please.
Ranked or unranked? If it’s the latter, please let people play the game the way they want. Sure, it’s bad, but he’ll soon come to realize it and improve (hopefully).
edit: it’s sad really. With a celestial amulet it would be okayish, providing he takes HGH. I’d still go for IP though.
Ranked…. One of my guildies vouched for the guy as being amazing at engi. But that isn’t even a high risk high reward build that isn’t meta because its so squishy, its not meta because why the hell would you take pistols with a zerker ammy on engi. It scales about as well with power as scepter does on necro.
Pistol pistol engis running 2/2/0/6/4 bomb kits with a zerker ammy. You aren’t impressing anyone.
I understand that people like coming up with their own builds, but before you theorycraft one, make sure you have a solid basis of understanding for your class please.
I just wanna know where the hell the bad freaking match tracking thread is. I am so god kitten sick of getting kittens that try soloing lord right at the start of the game, or people that think the beasts on forest are the most important kittening thing on the god kitten map.
6 losses in a row and no matter how hard I try to support my team they just blow, and wind up costing the match thinking they are doing something that is useful. Trying to be polite doesn’t freaking work either.
Yeah. One or even 2 turret engies i can work around. But 3 is just a nightmare. Most important tho this game was geared toward casual players etc. With the main focus being fun, turret engi is the least fun spec to fight in this game.
This thread makes it evident that there are problems between the mesmer and thief in the meta. Their roles (roamer, +1 fights, burster) are nearly identical but the thief 1-ups the mesmer in nearly every aspect. Additionally, their roles are very, very narrow leaving almost no room for build diversity. You don’t see any celestial or bunker builds cause other classes can do those builds 100x better. Since all the other role slots are taken, it’s not easy to make changes to either mesmer or thief without reducing their ability to accomplish their role. Just making it clear that both classes are in a pretty bad situation, quite possibly due to their very design (initiative, illusions, stealth, etc.).
In fact let me make it clearer that any significant nerfs to thief (in particular their active defenses) would basically put it right next to mesmer in that “requires massive skill to be barely playable” tier.
This is why the only thing i want to address about thief is the mesmer thief match up.. Ideally consume plasma needs nerfs. And change phantasms not being summoned on blind.
So I met with Xeph the other day, from Team Paradigm. This is a team that was around when the game launched. I’m going to try to be as accurate with what he told me as possible.
Basically he and helsteth were talking, and mesmers biggest weakness, if i remember what he told me correctly, is this.
Mesmer is the least self sufficient DPS class in the game, and has been for quite a long time.
What I am taking from this is that of all the DPS specs in the game (yes even SF ele.) Mesmer is the least capable of supporting itself when the time comes.
Also if you keep referencing 1v1 match ups as a good point for why mesmer is balanced or doesn’t need buffs then you are forgetting this game has not or ever will be balanced around 1v1’s.
The amount of on-proc (usually on-crit) extra damage in this game is getting to ridiculously levels, especially when used by zerker builds. Most of the time there’s no penalty for failing because the cooldown isn’t activated. Also, there’s no way to predict it.
The list includes, but is not limited to:
Sigil of Air, Sigil of Fire, Sigil of Blood
Halting Strike
Glacial Heart
Chill of Death
Incendiary Powder
Losing half your HP in an instant because of stacked procs does not for an enjoyable PvP experience.
How is halting strike bad? It requires the mesmer to actually proc an interrupt. Not random if it’s a good mesmer.
Xeph from Team Paradigm, if you played the game during 2012-13 you would recognize the name.
Phantaram
Tron Jeremy, who all tho runs some trolly builds, is a great thief player, and knows where to be and when to be there.
A warrior who’s name escapes me but once again was on point with everything.
And myself on standard shatter mes.
That game was great, rotations were on it, Xeph and I combined could shut down the enemy thief, Phanta 2v1’d far and knew when to leave the fight. It was great all the way around. The match wasn’t a complete steam roll, but it was fun.
Next match: I get
What I think is a DPS guard, he was running mace focus+GS, can’t be sure but I don’t remember hearing any shouts from him.
D/P thief running signet of malice (enough said there.)
A power necro that I don’t think had any wells
And a pew pew ranger.
The first mid fight the whole team wiped while i capped home alone. So I said screw it I’m going far. I went far full capped it and portaled back across near home, this was on foe fire.
The rest of the match was just a mud slinging contest of our guardian yelling at our thief and ranger, and me just shaking my head at the entire teams inability to know when it’s time to leave a fight.
So tell me again how matchmaking is working? I don’t mind if i get placed in group one, i honestly don’t mind being placed in group two. But to go directly from group one to group two after winning a match with group one, something isn’t working right. This was not the system just throwing me in with people because the que was taking so long and it prioritized fast matches over appropriately paired ones, both ques popped almost instantly.
I think it’s people blaming the matchmaking for not putting them where they think they deserve to be on the leaderboard. =P
I really don’t care where the hell I wind up on the leaderboard. For all i give a rip about I could have a 20% win rate. As long as all the matches are close and showing that the players playing have a similar MMR, and either team has a decent shot at winning. I don’t like having constant kittening blow outs in the winning or losing side, it’s not fun for anyone that way.
Yes…because the quality of all matchmaking should be judged by two matches…
This is a regular flipping occurence and it’s really kitten annoying. I’m just highlighting these two matches because they show the severity of the problem more than any other set. You cannot not think there is any good freaking reason to go from playing with god tier players, to suddenly players that were in the second set. The ques popped too fast for it to be the excuse of the system just wanted to make sure the que time wasn’t stupid long.
You’re queuing solo with what I would guess would be hundreds of players. What do you expect?
A little more consistency. I’m not talking about wanting to be paired up with those specific players all the time. But going from players that have a clear knowledge and understanding of the game, rotations, mechanics, focus fire, peeling etc., to group two right after group one, that does not make sense. You are saying hundreds of players okay, well there should be players at both ends of the spectrum and those in the middle. If MMR is working, I should not go straight from being teamed up with players in group one, to being teamed up with players in group 2.
I’m guessing you have the same “between” MMR as me. I have similar stuff occur frequently.
But even the “between” MMR, going straight from group one to group two. Just shouldn’t happen there are enough players where the game can group similar MMR players together more often than not, especially right now which most would say is primetime NA.
You’re queuing solo with what I would guess would be hundreds of players. What do you expect?
A little more consistency. I’m not talking about wanting to be paired up with those specific players all the time. But going from players that have a clear knowledge and understanding of the game, rotations, mechanics, focus fire, peeling etc., to group two right after group one, that does not make sense. You are saying hundreds of players okay, well there should be players at both ends of the spectrum and those in the middle. If MMR is working, I should not go straight from being teamed up with players in group one, to being teamed up with players in group 2.
Xeph from Team Paradigm, if you played the game during 2012-13 you would recognize the name.
Phantaram
Tron Jeremy, who all tho runs some trolly builds, is a great thief player, and knows where to be and when to be there.
A warrior who’s name escapes me but once again was on point with everything.
And myself on standard shatter mes.
That game was great, rotations were on it, Xeph and I combined could shut down the enemy thief, Phanta 2v1’d far and knew when to leave the fight. It was great all the way around. The match wasn’t a complete steam roll, but it was fun.
Next match: I get
What I think is a DPS guard, he was running mace focus+GS, can’t be sure but I don’t remember hearing any shouts from him.
D/P thief running signet of malice (enough said there.)
A power necro that I don’t think had any wells
And a pew pew ranger.
The first mid fight the whole team wiped while i capped home alone. So I said screw it I’m going far. I went far full capped it and portaled back across near home, this was on foe fire.
The rest of the match was just a mud slinging contest of our guardian yelling at our thief and ranger, and me just shaking my head at the entire teams inability to know when it’s time to leave a fight.
So tell me again how matchmaking is working? I don’t mind if i get placed in group one, i honestly don’t mind being placed in group two. But to go directly from group one to group two after winning a match with group one, something isn’t working right. This was not the system just throwing me in with people because the que was taking so long and it prioritized fast matches over appropriately paired ones, both ques popped almost instantly.
Are we getting any info on how this new leaderboard works at all?
It’s in the link. They said they’re going to focus on wins more. It’s cool and stuff but with current matchmaking it won’t really be any better, I’m afraid.
So, turret engis remain happy.
Seriously they need to fix the kitten flipping matchmaking. Sick of getting the teams I’m getting. How do you climb out of MMR hell when the people you are grouped with sit there and try to 1v1 a bunker on a point you don’t own. Or even better send three people to chase a flipping warrior off point.
Honestly I could give two kittens about the kitten leaderboard. I want an MMR that works. I’m sick of going from facing/playing with:
OE, Acandis, Happy Kid, Mime, Eurantien etc. and having pretty fun games win or lose, to having the very next match someone that double caps home and right after goes to the mob on forest then rages at the team for losing mid in a 3v4.
Give me decent MMR, a proper tutorial for new players, or at least some consistency.
Edit: Seriously fix this kittening MMR. I’m either in a god kitten 4v5 or kittening stuck with double capping geniuses that don’t know how to stand in a circle where they are kittening needed.
1) No one is arguing with the fact that necromancers and mesmers need viable builds (at high-end organized pvp) other than terrorcondi and shatter.
2) EVEN if you give mesmers and necromancers a “d/d ele like bruiser build”, you only solve half the problem. Why? Because everyone can agree that we want more build diversity in the game. A game where every team runs 3 cele + thief + another cele/medi guard is boring as heck. You want viable team compositions that incorporate DPS builds as well.
3) It is a FACT that necromancers, mesmers and rangers are grossly under-represented and out-competed by thieves for the dps role in organized high-end pvp. This is despite the apparent “great damage” of shatter mesmers and condition necromancers that you so laud. Ask yourself: If these builds are so great, why do more teams not run them?
4) The answer to 3 is simple: There are grave problems with these specs that turn teams off from running them, despite the damage output of these specs. Necromancers have huge survivability issues. Shatter mesmers are inferior to the thief in filling the roamer role, and become almost a liability to the team if the other side has a good thief. To put it more clearly: for ANY spec to be viable, it has to cross a minimum threshold of survivability. Necromancers as a class do not cross that threshold. Mesmers do not cross that threshold if the other team has a thief.
5) So, what mesmer and necromancer players are asking for is not to give shatter mesmers and terrormancers D/D ele like survivability. It is to solve the inherent problems that these specs (and classes) face, allowing them to cross that minimum threshold of survivability that would make them viable.
Your proposal of NOT solving the issues that shatter mesmers/terrormancers/rangers face would effectively crystallize the status quo where only thieves and (recently) medi guards can fill the DPS role. Everyone else must go cele or get wrecked. Is this the kind of meta that you enjoy? Giving mesmers and necromancer basic survivability does not make them “overpowered” if you do it right – it merely makes these classes competitive for a role on organized team, which they are currently ostracized from.
The hoped- for end result of these changes is to broaden the meta, allowing DPS builds other than thieves and medi guards to be viable at high-end organized play. The meta can be broadened even further by giving necromancer, rangers and mesmers, thieves etc. new builds that allow them to fulfill a role other than their current ones, which you seem to support.
Supreme is a d/d ele player that doesnt want his faceroll to end. all the players asking for buffs to these classed want two things
1. Necro wants more survive and sustain
2. Mesmers want something to where a team doesn’t feel like they are instantly gimping themselves by taking a mesmer. Thieves and mesmers compete for the same role and right now two players on those two classes of the same mechanical skill level means the thief will be doing that job miles ahead of the mesmer. All mesmers want is something to make them as appealing to teams as thieves. Now this could be done addressing the thief mesmer match up, or just giving mesmers better sustain as well. i think the problem with mesmers in the end is the true lack of build diversity it is the only class that since Launch has only had one viable build option at the highest levels of play. No other class in this game has only had ONE build choice since launch to be competitive, and if you think thats okay youre delusional.
In terms of player input to get success from the build Easiest to hardest:
Engi (turret)
Shoutbow Warr
Pew pew ranger
Medi Guard (very risky tho)
D/d Ele celestial (yes really)
Thief (I do believe thief is much harder to play than people give it credit for.)
Necromancer- If your team can’t peel for you you are very CC susceptible however your condi clear will always be nice
Mesmer-yes there are easy mesmer builds like PU etc. They do jack for your team however. Standard shatter is one of the most unforgiving builds ever.
If the guy understood enough to actually stay close to his teammates, taking the buffs that warriors and guardians are giving out, the thief chasing him would be the one getting wrecked all over the place.
Mesmer work in pvp – roam and make + 1 fast fights. Same for thief. Thief wouldn’t jump on mesmer in 1vs2+ . He would jump when mesmer roams or in fight vs other enemies. Mesmer can jump on thief in same way too, just thief does that work better.
A good mesmer pays attention to where the enemy thief is, and tries to actively avoid him. I’m talking about guys who actively seek to fight the thief, and lose every single time, then complain about being hard-countered.
In a team fight, of more than 1 person, the thief will generally always jump on the mesmer. It’s up to the mesmer to make the right call and attempt to 2v1 the thief with the person he is fighting with, instead of running about thinking he can kite the guy magically and getting ganked in a 1on1 situation since he is too far away from his teammates.
Mesmer can easily trash the thief if he receives some protection from his team.
Mesmers can trash thieves in general. It just takes a really really good mesmer. S/D is only hard because landing a burst is super hard since they evade 50% of the time and landing a well timed burst on a good player in general is usually tricky. d/p can get really trashed by a mesmer if you break their stealth. If it were pure dueling, mesmer would win most of the time if they were using CI
sure, if everyone plays like Supcutie, we would need thread like this… But the fact is not many Mesmers players can play up to that level, and at even skill level, advantage goes to Thieves. With the current meta being Cele-focused build that can absorb decent damage and dish out decent damage, Mesmers is below the curve. When one of the most played class is your hard counter, your life in sPvP is pretty tough.
Honestly even if you take Supcutie vs. Caed, Toker, or Sizer, it’s a no question on who will win more often than not. The thief, and you could argue that all of them are better than supcutie til you are blue in the face, that is a matter of opinion. What is very sad to see is that in every tournament where there is a mesmer anytime a thief engages a mesmer on a point the first thing the caster says is “the thief has a huge advantage in this fight”, or “the mesmer is prolly gonna want to disengage.” Seeing that and saying the thief v mesmer match up is fine is asinine. Yes I know they are competing for the same role in PvP. But mesmer needs a shot of at least somewhat being an option over a thief.
There are lots of really good mesmers onthe same level or better than supcutie when it comes to pure dueling capability. I don’t think the fights would be as one-sided as you’d think. Shatter can absolutely trash thief just depending on the way you play it. An important point people are trying to make though, is that to really do good against thieves, especially good ones, you have to be extremely good at mesmer. Whilst the opposite isn’t true against thief if you want to beat a mesmer.
Its funny you mention caed though because Ive seen him get trashed pretty badly in the OS dueling people lol.
Mesmer Dueling builds have not nor will ever work in conquest.
If the guy understood enough to actually stay close to his teammates, taking the buffs that warriors and guardians are giving out, the thief chasing him would be the one getting wrecked all over the place.
Mesmer work in pvp – roam and make + 1 fast fights. Same for thief. Thief wouldn’t jump on mesmer in 1vs2+ . He would jump when mesmer roams or in fight vs other enemies. Mesmer can jump on thief in same way too, just thief does that work better.
A good mesmer pays attention to where the enemy thief is, and tries to actively avoid him. I’m talking about guys who actively seek to fight the thief, and lose every single time, then complain about being hard-countered.
In a team fight, of more than 1 person, the thief will generally always jump on the mesmer. It’s up to the mesmer to make the right call and attempt to 2v1 the thief with the person he is fighting with, instead of running about thinking he can kite the guy magically and getting ganked in a 1on1 situation since he is too far away from his teammates.
Mesmer can easily trash the thief if he receives some protection from his team.
Mesmers can trash thieves in general. It just takes a really really good mesmer. S/D is only hard because landing a burst is super hard since they evade 50% of the time and landing a well timed burst on a good player in general is usually tricky. d/p can get really trashed by a mesmer if you break their stealth. If it were pure dueling, mesmer would win most of the time if they were using CI
sure, if everyone plays like Supcutie, we would need thread like this… But the fact is not many Mesmers players can play up to that level, and at even skill level, advantage goes to Thieves. With the current meta being Cele-focused build that can absorb decent damage and dish out decent damage, Mesmers is below the curve. When one of the most played class is your hard counter, your life in sPvP is pretty tough.
Honestly even if you take Supcutie vs. Caed, Toker, or Sizer, it’s a no question on who will win more often than not. The thief, and you could argue that all of them are better than supcutie til you are blue in the face, that is a matter of opinion. What is very sad to see is that in every tournament where there is a mesmer anytime a thief engages a mesmer on a point the first thing the caster says is “the thief has a huge advantage in this fight”, or “the mesmer is prolly gonna want to disengage.” Seeing that and saying the thief v mesmer match up is fine is asinine. Yes I know they are competing for the same role in PvP. But mesmer needs a shot of at least somewhat being an option over a thief.
Mesmer doesn’t work unless the Mesmer is good at what he does, then it works brilliantly. Otherwise, it’s better to roll another class because you’ll just be a burden to the team.
Every day in PvP I meet some hero mesmer who thinks he can take a thief 1on1 and ends up getting ganked all over the place the whole match while accomplishing nothing, whining and crying about how great he is and how his team is just full of PvE noobs. It’s impossible to support this kind of a guy because he’s usually teleporting himself to all kinds of fail spots where the thief can effortlessly follow him and stomp him out in silence.
If the guy understood enough to actually stay close to his teammates, taking the buffs that warriors and guardians are giving out, the thief chasing him would be the one getting wrecked all over the place. 1on1, the thief gains all boons against the mesmer while the mesmer loses all of his boons, so he’s obviously at a disadvantage.
I hardly ever engage thieves in 1v1’s. It’s not also that kinda mentality that bjorks mesmers. But mesmers running the absolute dumbest of builds. I’m sorry there are some good ones that arent’ standard shatter, but some of the builds I see ran, just make me go O.o
Edit: Case in point had a mesmer running scepter/torch+staff with krait runes gripe at me for running a “skilless” shatter build. I should mention he said he was using condi traits and runes, with a zerker amulet.
So the three on blue team you see in the screenshot were in a party. We were doing fine, then suddenly bam, it’s a 3v5. Match wasn’t going bad or anything. The two players not partied with us just magically disappeared. So yeah.
So it’s pretty safe to say thread=derailed. Is it possible to get the forum specialist to kinda summarize what the constructive posts have stated? >.<
What I basically got from all of this is that:
Some players feel that power builds are requiring way to perfect of play to actually be viable in a real setting. Shatter mesmer is a perfect example.
Supcutie: “Should playing power be rewarding? Yes. Should playing power be so disproportionately more difficult? Probably not.”
Low tiers, mesmer isn’t great (because players aren’t great at mesmer)
Top tiers, mesmer isn’t great (because players ARE great and know how to hunt them).
Mid and high tiers, mesmer is great (scary even).
Some players think simply adding a small amount of condition removal to standard shatter mesmer would help it as right now mesmers often need smart teammates to clear condis for them.
Thief tends to cover the bases that mesmer can do (Burst, mobility, teleports, interrupts) and do them better, leaving mesmer with only a few assets to the team that thief doesn’t (Portal, more boon removal, stealth reses/moa).
I’ve actually been playing shatter mesmer a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone attempts to run (0/4/0/4/6) instead? You get feedback on pretty much every res, eliminating nade, shortbow thief and warrior longbow pressure from the meta builds (not to mention power rangers!). You also remove two conditions on heal, which was identified as a major concern for the build. As for damage, I can still wipe out about 50-75% of the light golem health with a standard Mirror Blade Shatter + Mind Stab combo. That’s pretty on par with regular shatter mesmer. The only thing you really lose is vuln on daze, boon removal and halting strike. I think that’s pretty solid, and you can survive a LOT longer with that single condition removal.
Sure, no boon removal, but you get a lot of support and the ability to survive if an ele, god forbid, taps you with their burning. Also, you still have portal and lots of reflects available.
As a suggestion, what do you think about:
Ether Feast – Remove two conditions if you have two or more clones.
Edit: Also I have run 0/4/0/4/6 before long time ago when it was still 0/20/0/20/30. The problem with it is. You lose all of your boon removing capability, and ur shatters don’t exactly hit hard enough to make anyone worry except someone that can still insta kill you before you get the chance to touch them.
So it’s pretty safe to say thread=derailed. Is it possible to get the forum specialist to kinda summarize what the constructive posts have stated? >.<
What I basically got from all of this is that:
Some players feel that power builds are requiring way to perfect of play to actually be viable in a real setting. Shatter mesmer is a perfect example.
Supcutie: “Should playing power be rewarding? Yes. Should playing power be so disproportionately more difficult? Probably not.”
Low tiers, mesmer isn’t great (because players aren’t great at mesmer)
Top tiers, mesmer isn’t great (because players ARE great and know how to hunt them).
Mid and high tiers, mesmer is great (scary even).
Some players think simply adding a small amount of condition removal to standard shatter mesmer would help it as right now mesmers often need smart teammates to clear condis for them.
Thief tends to cover the bases that mesmer can do (Burst, mobility, teleports, interrupts) and do them better, leaving mesmer with only a few assets to the team that thief doesn’t (Portal, more boon removal, stealth reses/moa).
I’ve actually been playing shatter mesmer a lot lately and I was wondering if anyone attempts to run (0/4/0/4/6) instead? You get feedback on pretty much every res, eliminating nade, shortbow thief and warrior longbow pressure from the meta builds (not to mention power rangers!). You also remove two conditions on heal, which was identified as a major concern for the build. As for damage, I can still wipe out about 50-75% of the light golem health with a standard Mirror Blade Shatter + Mind Stab combo. That’s pretty on par with regular shatter mesmer. The only thing you really lose is vuln on daze, boon removal and halting strike. I think that’s pretty solid, and you can survive a LOT longer with that single condition removal.
Sure, no boon removal, but you get a lot of support and the ability to survive if an ele, god forbid, taps you with their burning. Also, you still have portal and lots of reflects available.
As a suggestion, what do you think about:
Ether Feast – Remove two conditions if you have two or more clones.
I think we would all love that. Honestly, it’s kinda odd that thief is supposed to be the squishiest class “according to thieves”, wet they have conditional condition removal skills in their heals. In reality mesmer is the only class that has no condi clear in any heal.
From patchnotes:
Plague: This ability now grants 3 stacks of stability every 3 seconds, with a 3-second duration.
Lich Form: This ability now grants 1 stack of stability every 3 seconds, with a 3-second duration.
So yes, boon removal/steal is not really effective.
Actually I’ve seen it to be quite effective.
How it’s working one CC=One stack of Stab removed
However Shattered concentration=all stacks removed. It also seems to be higher on the priority list now.
Necro lich form melts just as fast to a shatter CC combo.
The port changes added so much mobility, However you need use staff >.<