Guild Wars 2

All we can do is let our voice be heard throughout these forums about how game-changing this nerf is

Albundy: You’ve gotta be trolling or just not understand that you’ll be seeing 20% longer CD on all illusion summoning skills, including phantasms(damage nerf) and escapes/stunbreakers like stealth and mirror images (defensive nerf).

This is more than just ‘damage is slightly reduced’

I understand that Jonwar, but this huge nerf is crippling far more than just a phantasm spec. To put into perspective how big of a nerf this is for non-shatter mesmers, there’s going to be a 20% direct nef to the following skills:

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1 – Mirror Blade
2 – iBerzerker
3 – Phase Retreat
4 – iWarlock
5 – Illusionary Counter
6 – Illusionary Leap
7 – Illusionary Riposte
8 – iSwordsman
9 – iDuelist
10 – iWarden
11 – iMage
12 – iDisenchanter
13 – iDefender
14 – Decoy
15 – Mirror Images

One change is nerfing 15 skills by 20%. This is by FAR the worst nerf any class has gotten since the beginning of the game. I’m sorry I usually don’t complaing or cry for nerfs or ask for buffs often, but any mesmer will tell you how game-breaking of a change this really is

300-400 BF damage isn’t anything to sneeze at. I’m not knocking your build, as this might be the closest to a pre-patch phant mesmer, but ultimately the difference is big enough that people aren’t going to be spec’ing phants at all anymore.

Stupid how every other class is getting some sort of build diversity options (besides rangers), but we’re all being pigeonholed to ultimately be nothing except a shatter spec in high end tPVP.

Compounding Power 3% more damage for each of your active illusions

This doesn’t apply to your phantasms damage, only your self and shatter damage. Just like the 6 set effect from ogre runes doesn’t either. Seriously, how are people still not aware of this bug?

Regardless, it’d be stupid to spec ANYTHING other than a shatter spec for tournaments now, all these other builds will only be good for theory crafting/PVE/mediocre sPVP vs baddies

They’re not useless but had no place in high end tournaments, sure using them as a far point assaulter is decent in random tournaments vs random players. But the point is in a patch that was trying to build diversity for so many other classes, ended up completely nerfing mesmers to only be able to use one build in sPVP.

So basically it’s okay to balance a game around 1v1? And in doing so, effectively kill any viable spec besides one?

This isn’t just nerfing phantasms, this is nerfing EVERY non-shatter spec. My point is if you want to nerf a phantasm mesmer, then nerf their damage or whatever else. However this nerf is overkill and basically kills any build diversity within the class

The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.

In a patch aimed to create new builds and promote build diversity, you have successfully pigeonholed every mesmer spec to include 25 points in the Illusions line. Within a week after the patch, 90% of mesmers are going to be all shatter spec with no incentive to spec anything else for tournaments.

I understand that phant mesmers were on the OP side in 1v1, but balance shouldn’t revolve around 1v1 and now they’re going to be nearly worthless since they have absolutely no place in high end tournaments and group fights. For anyone who doesn’t understand the effect of this nerf, basically this is a 20% direct nerf to phantasms and ANY non-shatter spec.

That trait is arguably the MOST important one for ANY mesmer build, and now to make it require 25 points in a line that no build needs except for a shatter mesmer is simply ridiculous. If phant mesmers needed a nerf, maybe tone down their damage or HP or rate of fire, but nerfing this trait is directly nerfing EVERY non-shatter spec in the game. (20% higher CD on ALL illusion summoning skills including sword 3, gs 2, staff 2, decoy, mirror images, idefender, all phantasms, etc).

Possibly the worst and biggest nerf to mesmers since the beginning of the game.

First of all I want to say I love this game, I’ve played from the start and have continually been finding ways to keep myself occupied and attached to continue playing. I genuinely want the game to succeed and the playerbase to grow, and for the game to generate revenue for the company to continue giving us frequent updates and bonus content.

With that said, one important complaint I have is how fun content somehow ends up limited or ends up being removed altogether. One prime example is fractals; the fact that there was no cap (except at 80) previously made progression alot of fun. Sure the content gets a lot tougher and you have to cheese your way through certain maps at high levels, but progression of any kind keeps players interested and wanting to continue through higher and higher levels. Whether it was kitten or just another thing to do, it was something that kept alot of players interested and having fun to progress. Capping it at 50 just leaves a large portion of players doing only 48 or 38 daily (if even that anymore) and not touching fractals outside of that. Take off the cap, let us be able to progress passed Maw and it’ll give alot of players something more to do.

Another example of content that was removed was the orbs in WvW. Now I understand there were incidents of orb flying and whatever, and some people had a problem with a strong server getting even stronger statistically by controlling more orbs, but instead of just altering the the emphasis of the orb (such as changing it so instead of +50 to all stats, maybe the green orb provided +20% karma; blue orb provided +20% MF, red orb provided +20% exp or GF, or have each orb provide 10 or 20 of each), the exact specifics don’t matter but the point is that they could have kept the orbs but made their value much less game-changing by removing the raw stats portion and replacing it with something much less meaningful. That way strong servers weren’t really getting any real advantage besides some bonus karma or MF that isn’t much different from banners. Instead, the whole orb aspect was removed and a fun component that kept WvW activity diverse was lost.

My point is, look for ways to improve and diversify current content as opposed to rushing to cap or pigeonholing players to play a certain way all the time. Yes many of us appreciate the new temporary content we get once a month, but there are so many other things you could add just to keep players invested into your game. One example that I always thought would be fun was adding a world boss with a megachest (similar to shatterer or SB etc) into a WvW. It’d actually be fun fighting with other servers over a world boss for good loot. Yes there are bosses in EB already but they have crappy loot and not a real world boss. And obviously I realize we don’t want to fill EB cap with a bunch of people looking to loot a boss rather than helping their server, which is why it should be placed in something like Obsidian Sanctum. Instead of it being just a place for a JP, it could be a more PVE like area where you have the option to fight with other players over a boss and loot (in this case other servers). I’m not a game developer so I can’t give mechanics on how I think it would work, but many other MMOs have content like this and I’m sure ANET would find a way to make this work as well. And obviously there are a ton of world bosses in regular PVE areas already, so players can always choose not to be go to a PVP area if they prefer not to.

I’m sorry for the long post, but I’m a GW2 supporter and I always have wanted the game to succeed. I just believe there are many changes like this that could be incorporated that will really spark player interest into continuing to play and having diverse content to experience.

I know I’m not alone on some of these sentiments, any other changes that people may like to see or be brought back?

So I ended up finding an interesting spot with some guildies. Any thoughts on what to make of it?