Guild Wars 2

blitzkrieg.2451:

It blocks it because it’s a skill you’re using on another player. You’re using an attack TO transfer existing conditions , it is an instant spell cast onto another player.

Let’s remove if blind should be transferred or not because that is something developers have never stated whether the blind working through necro transfers was intended or not, it was just kind of swept under the rug until it was mentioned a month ago in the bugs forum (although it’s been mentioned countless times before) and obviously got devs attention but I think this stealth change shows you that it was never intended to be like that in the first place. Now, if it is indeed intended then they’ll simply change it back to how it worked before.

However, if you’re blinded, whether you’re transferring existing conditions or using any skill on somebody else then obviously if you’re blinded you cant use those very utilities or weapon skills to transfer blind over or else it defeats the entire purpose of the blind condition for counterplay against that very skill.

Actually, they did. It was broken at one point and didn’t transfer the blind. They made a specific patch note to add that it will now transfer blinds. This was a very long time to, but obviously intended.

PlatinumMember.5274:

ronpierce.2760:

PlatinumMember.5274:

People should consider suggesting builds to be tested.

I am seriously considering getting into the beta.

We won’t know which builds to use until we see what has been revised in the past few months on Reaper. I adore the standard signet build but I’m not sure how it will be without curses or soul reaping, the build is just too rigid for much change, but I think I’ll be trying Spite Curse Reaper and Spite Sr Reaper. If neither of those work I might forgo signets and try out curses sr reaper celestial, but I’m not sure what utilities I’d use :/

The new celestial signet build reignited my love for Necro so I’m more concerned with base DS changes now, honestly… (I don’t feel comfortable calling it “Nos’s” build btw, it’s sort of a no brainer build, it’s makes a lot of sense. He just happened to get to test it first with early access weekend he had.)

I digress, I do think if Reaper is REALLY good, I could see Spite Sr Reaper signers working, but it unfortunately loses a significant amount of boon ripping, which is my biggest concern, and the weakness of course… Only time will tell.

Final words: Please Blighter’s boon be there….

You are thinking about it too much. Just suggest a build and if it changes it changes, I don’t see arena net making major changes YET. OR to be more precise they will probably hold changes until player complain about it during beta then Arena net gets the benefit of “listening” to player feedback.

Best to put it is, it’s worth trying S/C/Reaper and S/Sr/Reaper signet builds and C/Sr/Reaper builds with misc utilities.

My point is, there has almost certainly been updates to the Reaper since the last time we saw it. Hell, they even made changes to the BASE class because of the Reaper since the last time we saw it. And they said numbers and things would be adjusted, so we might not really know what will work as we don’t know what we will get. But the above is a good starting point.

Also, Dm/Sr/Reaper minion master!

Kidel.2057:

Knighthonor.4061:

I totally disagree. Unlike initiative on a thief, Revenant weapon and utilities cost energy and they have skills that drain energy unlike Thief initiative points. They nothing alike. Simple as that.

Unlike Thief, Revenant can instantly regenerate 50% of the energy. Plus the energy regeneration is way faster.

I agree they are not alike.
What I said is just that starting at 100 energy could make you burst from the beginning, and it’s not what they want revenant to do, as they said.

Plus yeah, as ron said, you could use elite skill AND spam weaponskills, while elite is something you’re supposed to use later in a fight, or just prior to legendswap.

I still think elites need CDs and be buffed accordingly (typically in cast times),

But if they don’t increase the swap amount, they need to greatly increase energy generation without increasing costs, because like I said. Even now without doing anything at all, it takes the full time for your legend swap to cool down to reach 100 energy. You rarely ever go over 60 energy at this point because you constantly need to be doing something, and you will eventually just swap to be effective. The used energy to gained energy ratio is poor. But personally, I still feel like 100 energy to start is better because then you’re rewarded less for spamming high cost spells as you gain the energy back too slow. And with starting at 100, there is room for higher costs on certain skills they don’t want, such as a 60 cost which effectively prevents it from
Being spammed. I just feel like overall, it’s a better way to handle it.

S/D is perfectly fine.

Other things are not fine. We’ve gotta stop always looking to go up, this game absolutely does not need more power creep. S/D does decently, but it gets way overshadowed by SA d/p. D/P SA is also notably lame. Tone it down (in terms of SA, sorry to those who enjoy being lame) and tone down eles and still a few more traits on Mesmers and reassess.

On my Necro I actually have a harder time with SD than DP if not for DP having a get out of jail free card whenever they wanted. They’re also 10x more enjoyable to fight. Don’t ruin that by trying to outmatch your cheese spec, and other obviously over the top specs, friends.

Kidel.2057:

Knighthonor.4061:

I want to know why we start at 50% energy.

If you already tried Revenant and upkeeps you should know the answer.
Revenant is supposed to start a bit slow or just average, and build for the big damage, as Roy said in the last POI.
The purpose is to make it different from Thief. Thief starts at 100% initiative, does its burst and then runs away with invisibility and such. Revenant energy will have to require a more balanced approach for its management.

Revenant energy is something between initiative and adrenaline, being different from both of them.

The machanic you are looking for is already in the game on a different class.

To me the current energy management is perfect, at least on paper. I’ll have to try it in the next beta event to be sure however.

That’s not why. Starting at 50% I am willing to bet has to do with spamming elites. Unlike initiative, swapping and using a single skill (like an elite or forced engagement) can black out your ENTIRE bar, where initiative will only ever apply to 4 skills at once, and never your heal.

Furthermore, because of how face paced combat is and how ability-reliant revenant is, you get the effect of almost never having more energy than 50. Rarely do you see an instance of being able to safely pool energy beyond even 60, unless of course it’s because you’re chasing someone and pushing buttons wouldn’t help, but typically, sitting on energy leaves you open. And with 5/second (50 energy in 10 seconds) by time you press NO buttons for 10 seconds, your swap is back for free 50 energy. Hence, pooling is just a bad option.

what they need to do is just suck it up and add cooldowns to the elites do they can make decent elites without crazy cast times and do they aren’t spammable so they can open up the energy system to allowing full energy on swap.

AND, if they increase the swap/base amount to 100, they have more leniency with energy costs.

Really though, consider the fact that by time you go from 50→100 energy while using absolutely no skills, you spent 10 seconds auto attacking and your swap is already up… Your true effective energy level is not what it seems at all.

PlatinumMember.5274:

People should consider suggesting builds to be tested.

I am seriously considering getting into the beta.

We won’t know which builds to use until we see what has been revised in the past few months on Reaper. I adore the standard signet build but I’m not sure how it will be without curses or soul reaping, the build is just too rigid for much change, but I think I’ll be trying Spite Curse Reaper and Spite Sr Reaper. If neither of those work I might forgo signets and try out curses sr reaper celestial, but I’m not sure what utilities I’d use :/

The new celestial signet build reignited my love for Necro so I’m more concerned with base DS changes now, honestly… (I don’t feel comfortable calling it “Nos’s” build btw, it’s sort of a no brainer build, it’s makes a lot of sense. He just happened to get to test it first with early access weekend he had.)

I digress, I do think if Reaper is REALLY good, I could see Spite Sr Reaper signers working, but it unfortunately loses a significant amount of boon ripping, which is my biggest concern, and the weakness of course… Only time will tell.

Final words: Please Blighter’s boon be there….

PU and CS still need changed and for non-spvp purposes, condi mesmers are still too easy to play win with in small skirmishes (typical cheese spec that’s ignored because it doesn’t directly affect Conquest). And yes I play them every so often, it’s one of the easier ways to pick up and troll some people successfully lol. But beyond that, I think we’re getting to a good point balance wise with mesmers. They will probably still be top +1ers still but they’re still a bit more manageable.

I do however wish they didn’t start going silly with blinds on Mesmer. I’m sure mesmers enjoy having them but it’s counter-thematic and attributes to the watering down of classes.

blitzkrieg.2451:

How would it defeat the purpose entirely of the skill? Is there a problem with hitting them once before transferring like everybody else has to do with any offensive attack or defensive attack?

So then blind shouldn’t affect condition removal on cleansing ire? Or a majority of classes that fail to manipulate conditions if they have blind on them based on an attack?

No, if you’re blinded, no skill should work whether you’re transferring, removing, or adding conditions to somebody.

Blind is a condition and those skills are intended to pass on any condition including blind, that’s just how it is, and should be. No real reason one condition should be immune to being transferred. The reason generosity doesn’t work is of you miss you sure as hell aren’t crofting regardless. It’s an on-crit ability.

Is it particularly fair to CI warriors? Personally, I always felt that if CI “hit” and was able to remove blind, it should do so to allow it to go through, that would do wonders for getting people to use something other than Longbow. However of the blind would not be removed (ie covered) then miss as usual. That’d be a good functionary, but might be a bit technical. And frankly, I wouldn’t be totally against Cleansing Ire triggering on wiffed hits on general, as long as it made some sort of contact (blocked/evaded/blinded) but that opens a whole other can of worms that I’m not entirely sure I want to see opened.

Jasher.6580:

Exedore.6320:

sinject.4607:

it’s a nerf to power-based builds/professions that never needed to happen. people are quick to applaud this as they see it as a nerf to mesmer but it affects guardian, thief, ranger, and engineer in ways that are completely unnecessary.

if you can honestly say there is any justification in nerfing any of those profession’s damage output you have no idea what you’re talking about.

The justification is that it was unavoidable damage with no counter-play. If the damage of a profession is too weak with these changes, then buff that profession in a way that there’s still counter-play.

The thing is that, all the classes which used it in PvP were not OP with it. Now some of their burst is lacking.

“Hey that has no counterplay nerf it!” nobody who used it was op though…

“Nerf it anyway!”

Other point is, damage across the board is too high and this is the #1 best way to globally nerf glass dps as most glass dps uses it and it is passive/not fun AND it doesn’t affect pve builds. More damage coming from the source is great.

However, yes, there are other fish to fry. Why they didn’t touch PU, confounding suggestions or Ele yet is beyond me, but regardless, this still was something that needed to be done for a long time.

Rym.1469:

meow one twenty.4376:

All credit to ronpierce

Chilling has been nerfed by converting to resistence.
Chilling Darkness was nerfed into oblivion, then they put a little band-aid over it.

Give us Brain Freeze instead.
Brain Freeze – inflict Confusion (or Torment) whenever you apply Chill to an enemy.

It’s brilliant, and it even fits the Curse theme.

I’m against it. Proc off proc off another proc is just dumb concept and ruins the gameplay.
Exactly that would happen if you ever applied any Blind. 4 Conditions out of nowhere.

Instead, give us Chill on Interrupt. We have some good amount of CC effects, but nothing that would reward timing them for interrupts.

As for other, powerful DoT conditions – place them on actual skills if you like. Grasping Dead or FoC.

Have you seen engineers? They can proc like 5-6 condies at once on a single skill. It’s how you actually make condition builds work, by providing meaningful ways of coverage.

I like this idea. +1.

I still want Brain Freeze trait somewhere accessible that makes chilling an enemy inflict confusion or torment :P

Vague Memory.2817:

If this is true, stealth nerf or unintended change?

Or just forgot to be put in the notes. If anyone noticed, they DID make a point to share that they changed Sigil of Doom, so there was some intention to mess with sigils a bit.

Alas, i think we’d all like to know if its intended or not. I hope it is….

blitzkrieg.2451:

Yes, use one auto attack to remove blind then xfer as opposed to just spamming without thinking, such an idiotic way of thinking!!

Except transferring blinds is actually an incredibly useful defense. It’s also smart play.

runeblade.7514:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

All guardians have to spec into virtues.
All thieves have to spec into trickery.
All elementalists have to spec into water and arcana.
All necros have to spec into soul reaping.

If fast hands if to become baseline, all of these classes would also require extra baseline traits.

All warrior builds have to spec into Defense and Discipline. If Fast Hands becomes baseline, then all warriors would have to spec into Defense.

Defense isn’t mandatory. CI is hair very powerful as a trait, but it’s less mandatory than it used to be. Especially with the new brawlers Recovery, you can get by. CI is only mandatory when you feel the sense of obligation to max out your condition removal.

Fast hands is mandatory because it’s literally one of the most potent traits in the game… Who doesn’t want that baseline for everyone, honestly? Of course anyone would happily take FH baseline of they had the chance, doesn’t mean it should be.

Though, I’m still for making it a global baseline because 5 sec swaps feel more fun in combat than 10, and balance around it, but that’s a lot of work that isn’t likely to happen.

Well… Looking for someone to teach me fractals o.O

blitzkrieg.2451:

ResJudicator.7916:

blitzkrieg.2451:

I like how people complain about air and fire , but dont complain about leeching, geomancy , doom, energy … All of the sigils used are passive bullkitten not just air/fire and provide no active gameplay outside of swapping a weapon or gearing for crit chance. The whole concept is just stupid , the only thing it does it open up a little bit of build diversity, build diversity which should already be core to the game and not have to use OP sigils for anet’s horrible lack of build diversity in the 1st place.

Glad they were stealth nerfed, this passive garbage is just silly and carried way too many classes mainly thief.

Leeching and Doom have plenty of counterplay. You see the buff icon appear when your opponent swaps weapons, and if you dodge his next attack then the effect is wasted.

Energy has counterplay, too. You already count your opponent’s dodges. Just add +1 when he swaps to the weaponset w/ energy and play around that.

Crits have counterplay too, just go ele and run stone heart and swap to earth attunement. Does that change how passive these sigils are? No , it doesn’t.

“cries have counter play too, run 1 trait in the whole game”, no credibility…

On Crit sigils can’t be wasted by evades like swap sigils can, they just lay dormant until triggered which instantly makes them more reliable. Secondly, they can be triggered infinite amount of times per swap, yet another significant benefit.

To be fair, technically, swap sigils shouldn’t lose their charge when they hit someone that blocks/evades/blinds it if they wanted to be true to their Crit counterparts.

choovanski.5462:

blitzkrieg.2451:

ResJudicator.7916:

blitzkrieg.2451:

I like how people complain about air and fire , but dont complain about leeching, geomancy , doom, energy … All of the sigils used are passive bullkitten not just air/fire and provide no active gameplay outside of swapping a weapon or gearing for crit chance. The whole concept is just stupid , the only thing it does it open up a little bit of build diversity, build diversity which should already be core to the game and not have to use OP sigils for anet’s horrible lack of build diversity in the 1st place.

Glad they were stealth nerfed, this passive garbage is just silly and carried way too many classes mainly thief.

Leeching and Doom have plenty of counterplay. You see the buff icon appear when your opponent swaps weapons, and if you dodge his next attack then the effect is wasted.

Energy has counterplay, too. You already count your opponent’s dodges. Just add +1 when he swaps to the weaponset w/ energy and play around that.

Crits have counterplay too, just go ele and run stone heart and swap to earth attunement. Does that change how passive these sigils are? No , it doesn’t.

can’t see how pressing a weapon swap button to proc a skill is more passive than pressing a button to use a skill.

Doom and Leeching require a swap → landed hit.

Crit sigils can proc off auto attacks.

Jelzouki.4128:

Taunt is activated after the pet uses its skill, so if you don’t dodge the attack of the pet you can’t dodge the taunt.
Basically just learn to dodge the pets attack which is super easy to do, as they all have blatantly obvious animations.

Except that’s not true. Even when abusing the ability-cancel bug, it proves that the taunt and blind traits both trigger before the skill even goes off.

They might still be working on Taunt. It has lots of issues, including the perma-taunt when taunted with Resistance. I’m sure they will get to it, hopefully sooner than later.

Serious Thought.5394:

Because Thief is in line to be deleted. If you want something that pumps damage and looks sick doing it, go ranger and build quickness spam. You basically have quickness for 20 seconds without it dropping. Fairly disgusting, managed to murder a thief after getting 9k backstabbed. Waiting for ANet to buff thief because…I won a fight with 6k hp, against a thief who got the drop, by just pressing 1. Le balance mates, le balance. Need to change my signature to “Was a thief, then I took a nerf to the kidneys”.

So you’re saying Rangers are in a good spot and better than thief…?

Burning needs to be doubled in duration and halved in damage, burn to bleed damage should be closer to 2:1, not 4:1. Bleeds also need a bit of their damage back.

The burn change would make it so you could actually cleanse them and not be forced to blow cleansed every time you have burns immediately, as burst conditions honestly defeat the purpose of conditions and removal.

Side note: I know it isn’t viable in tpvp, but one of the most brainless stupid builds in the game is PU condies. I picked it up in about 30 seconds and was destroying people who were long time players. Nothing fun about garbage like that even if it doesn’t work in tpvp due to stealth cap restrictions.

Another idea!
Healing power also increases boon duration, 1% per 40 points. (30% at 1200 hp)

Make Ferocity increase condition duration by 1% per 40 points!

Add Condi/Crit/Ferocity gear!

Ferocity is now a linked stat between Condi builds and Power. Conditions will not have more than 1 stat for performance. Ferocity will no longer be the only stat that is 100% useless without another stat supporting it, as it will have a base benefit. Healing power will be more useful.

Best of all, it gives access to the benefits we used to have via trait lines!

I vote remove it and make 5 second swap baseline across the game! 5 second just has a nicer flow, and everyone has combos between weapons, let’s behonest. Then balance accordingly!

It doesn’t need buffed, quickness is powerful as hell for burst. Heightened focus needs to be toned down and maybe add a secondary effect instead. Too much quickness is not what this game needs, especially right now…

I do think they were messing around here, but I did stop doing tournies myself due to toxic behavior. It’s generally not very welcoming and there is a clear bias from a high-tier inner circle that even extends to casters and the devs which can be very frustrating to deal with. They don’t take loses very well, and take any opportunity to find something wrong with how you won to belittle you (especially in 2v2 tournies) or are otherwise a bit snarky. It’s just not a fun environment. But that’s sort of what you can expect when it’s all high tier friends running the casts, and not being “officially” handled.

Frankly a lot of these tournies feel like a high-tier friend gem-factory.

Anyways, end rant. Wish they’d go back to having game-rand tournies instead of hosted ones.

Rym.1469:

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Maybe berserkers are the original smiths of zerker armor, and they’ve come back to slaughter the multitudes of knuckleheads who misuse their creations.

And suddenly “zerk only” changes the meaning. Now you can be Zerk, but in Nomad’s!

Maybe this how they decided to handle the zerker meta. Trick people into having to say something else which leaves it more open to interpretation. It’s genius.

BardaTheHobo.9752:

Isn’t that the same picture from the Norn intro just recolored? If so, maybe that was just put in to fool us

They’ve been reusing art in several places, likely to cut time. They’re behind schedule, I honestly don’t think they really care to play tricking games.

Nin.9853:

perhaps Focus for the new weapon? used as a tool to literally Focus a Berserker’s rage? or the image is just trolling warriors with an epic Rampage-esque look after their favorite elite just got the nerf stick.

I would give anything for Dual Focus… but unfortunately, looks like they’ve taken the “only 1 weapon ever” route. /writs.

Velimere.7685:

WhiteOil.1836:

they really need to nerf ele this is insane, war cele got worse, engi cele got worse, and ele cele is still way too good…

Celestial Signet Necromancer still beats Celestial D/D Elementalist.

It has a fairly particular niche against boon huggers.

Gmtsai.6349:

online.1278:

Shoutbow can still be visible. use this, but don’t expect that much damage but full support & bunker with some damage from condition (but it does much more dmg than guardian bunker). Well you can kill people though, but it takes long time to kill.

Since we lost reckless dodge, so no celestial amulet. power is not in need but we need more tanky bunky settler amulet :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tOoHWBPY6kmYj4dlW6x0PwGfExKpBc1vAI4ZyT4LEic/edit

Video play available at (Search for Shout King) :
http://www.twitch.tv/the_korean_gamer/profile

Many people says that shout heal nerf and warhorn doesn’t convert condition into boons made people quit shoutbow. but in fact,

Shout heal amout is actually increased because of frequency of shout has been buffed (from 3 shouts to 5 shouts). And also, instead of converting, but it removes more conditions from allies since buffed shout frequency (I wouldn’t say this could be rational compensate for warhorn nerf though)

Not sure of decent hambow build in these days. but I guess currently incoming random blindness is like hell so I guess this shoutbow build will work better than any hambow build right now unless anet fixes that.

Warrior is kinda at lowest position, and i also found that rampage got nerfed today haha…

Dude you need to stop trying… We know shoutbow and hambow was invented by Tarcis. Stop advertising yourself and your friends.

Lol no need to play fanboy games. I ran Shoutbow and Shout-lock all before it was buffed and viable. Its not an “unusual” spec, the traits were pretty much laid out for you, not a lot of real wiggle room, lol. Just be more civil, if he wants to be proud of himself, who’s it hurting? lol…

Ice.5162:

CTFT.2740:

“Well what is it?”

pls make /whellwhatisit happen XD

It’s every bit as beautiful as I would have imagined. T_T

So… What… Is it?

They do most of their ranting on Streams. Better audience. :P

Jekkt.6045:

ele’s sustain is lower than pre patch with fire water arcane… earth water arcane is higher but deals no damage and is rarely played.

One of each is used on one of the competitive teams (Abjured might have even been who ran it). Class gets stacked, and is favored in high tier teams, I don’t know what more you want for obvious proof.

Jekkt.6045:

it’s burn nerfs, not ele nerfs. ele by itself is fine.
and burn nerfs are also needed for everything else, especially the stupid instant 3 stack burns.

Ele’s sustain is still too high, too. Burns alone aren’t why they’re stacked on teams. It helps to have a bruisder/semi-bunk that can deal damage with ease, but it’s not the only thing that makes Eles so valuable.

Rym.1469:

Knowing Arena Net, it will be dagger.

I wouldn’t mind they honestly because we have several off hands, and will gain another with Glint. We just really need any type of ranged condition 900-1200 range weapon. If it’s a 1h, so be it.

MarkPhilips.5169:

They nerfed Mesmer damage, Anet removed one bounce from Mirror Blade.

The meta is changing at an alarming rate!

Sandrox.9524:

zapv.8051:

Sandrox.9524:

zapv.8051:

Jayce.5632:

They really do need to fix the unlockable bug. I’m not so sure about a cast time reduction. This skill, along with chill of death trait, can down almost anyone when it doesn’t get blocked. I actually count the seconds of the trait just to use this skill.

What your talking about is the strength of the trait chill of death, not the skill spinal shivers. Your talking about combining the two, but you would probably be better off auto attacking on dagger or hitting a life blast. Spinal shivers is bad, and anyone decent will dodge it. Honestly, chill of death is super cheap and they should remove it. Replace it with actual burst skills on necro actual weapons (dagger 2, axe 2, focus 4/5).

For instance, they could remove chill of death, make spinal shivers instant, and replace chill of death with a trait that made wells pulse 20 seconds of might to everyone in them.

Chill of death is AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING trait.You really really really really dont know what you talking about.

No, I know exactly what I’m talking about. Chill of death is an amazing trait only if you like auto-proc bs damage that requires no timing, or even awareness to land. It’s broken and dumb. Meanwhile, focus, the actual weapon that inspired that trait is broken and useless in pvp. I just think that should be fixed.

There is no other auto proc trait that can deal as much damage instantly as chill of death and it’s really dumb and broken.

Well,it dosnt matter when the auto-proc work,when it do,you dont want to be on the reciever end.I one shot thieves(well by one shot mean using lifeblast+the auto-proc of the trait) and bursting ppl when they low that they dosnt even have the time to pop up heal.I agree on the focus skills that are so dumb with the long cast times but I like to pull of a good burst with it.

You’re missing his point. He never said it was bad. He said it was cheap. As in lots of reward for an easy proc, and it kind of is. It’s not alone in that department, but he isn’t wrong. Yes it’s ‘good’, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a little cheap.

kdaddy.5431:

you could just run a non zerker build. Even though you list your stats, you didnt mention if there defensive skills or offensive. Like full bunker builds are incredible hard to kill.

I’ve proven actually that Toughness has a significant diminishing returns. I’ve had shatter mesmers 1 shot my 19k hp 3500 armor (more like combo, but close enough l, the time was <2 seconds). Of course I was in a small 2v2 and didn’t see him as he came in with stealth but that’s sort of the point. There’s often close to no reaction time available. It’s just not action combat pvp anymore, plays a bit like glorified chess.

And as I said before, because of DR on armor effectiveness, and already not being good enough for damage mitigation, it puts huge value on hard defense such as evades blinds and blocks/invulns. They become significantly stronger when fights come down to best lucky punch.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

its actually rather okay once you kinda get used to it though.

High damage isn’t really okay though. It has more impact than people think, it’s not just “faster kill times”. Faster kill rates throw off stat balance, toughness is near useless right now because of the diminishing returns that it sees, the faster you kill the less impact toughness and healing can have. HP pools also weren’t corrected for increased damage.

Furthermore, the higher the damage, you also buff hard-defenses such as blocks/evades/blinds/mobility, since they become the only sure way to survive.

It’s fun for people who love 2-10 second fights, but for people who cared about general game balance and strategy, it’s not a good thing at all. The faster fights are, the more luck an instant skills have an impact on the game’s outcome, which is not at all what the game was built around which is reactionary action-based combat. At this point, you’d be better off playing a FPS, the effect is fairly similar.

Artaz.3819:

My guess is that most Rev builds will be picking the only 1200 range weapon option (Hammer) unless Staff utility of an extra heal/condition removal ability is important for you. The Hammer 6s ranged forward arc block and 2 blast finishers (one being stun) is likely to outweigh that utility though.

This is not a unique problem for just condition-primary-based builds.

Numbers and abilities can be tweaked. However, there are at least options for both melee and ranted power / utility builds. Currently there isn’t really a condition option for ranged, let alone a very realistic alternative to mace/axe at all.

glehmann.9586:

Kry.1697:

Plot twist nr 2:

We get a rifle, but they forgot the bullets, so we use it as a club / staff.

We’ll get a rifle that shoots staves instead of bullets.

That’s pretty much a spear gun. We’ve come full circle.

Scott.7163:

If you get taunted while you have the resistance boon, you can’t swap targets until the the source of the taunt is out of range (in this case the ranger probably swapped pets, breaking the bugged taunt effect).

No wonder this affected me so much more frequently on my Revenant… >_>

HarbingerAzrael.5691:

Watch the PoIs they had mentioned numorus times about the rework of condi caps and such

That happened a month ago. x.X

Lets be honest, if you have to ask, generally speaking… The answer is yes… No one got significantly better due to the patch, but Mesmers as a whole are sure doing tricks off peoples’ faces.

Mesmer wasn’t bad pre-patch, it was just checked by Thief. Now that that issue has been handled, people are just realizing more what Mesmer is capable of (and more, as they were actually buffed).

The idea of burst classes with lots of stealth, blind, invulnerablities etc just makes other burst oriented builds pointless. Mesmers burst just as good (if not better in some cases), it’s instant, and can be done from stealth, which generally makes it a safer choice for your burst team mate.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that it’s good. TTK is too low right now (people die too fast), so blinds, evades and stealth are significantly increased in general value, that’s just how it works. As fights get faster “burst protection” becomes more valuable, and mesmers are swimming in it, without even sacrificing DPS because burst protection mechanics don’t require stats to work.

Also, Mesmers ARE used competitively, just more in EU than NA. Probably because people are still adjusting to them, but many top-tier thieves have already started learning Mesmer. That should tell you something.

Rym.1469:

I’d first like to hear something from Roy on topic of longer Resistance or more condition cleansing.

Then we can speak of a PvP build with no Jalis or Ventari components.

But yeah, personally I’m looking foward to some Celestial builds (as I had best success with these during beta) or Carrion/Crusader ones.

M/S+S/A looks like legit combo.

He said things are well open to change. He did great giving us some build flexibility and some Damage that was greatly needed, but I think he’s well aware that we’re also a tad on the squishy side and very weak in condition removal. Our DPS builds have close to no condition removal, and defense wise, we’ll be crutching super kitten Shiro/Sword offhand.

I just hope, still, he adds cooldowns to elites so that they can just be all around better and so we can swap with 100 energy and the class doesn’t have to be balanced around elites being spammable. I really feel like elites are what’s holding the class back, both in bad elite design (Jalis) and energy consumption (swapping and using any 50 energy skill like forced engagement instantly locks you out of your entire bar…).

Plus with 100 energy, they have more energy cost flexibility which could be useful.

Anyways. I plan on playing Mallyx Shiro Crusader’s but with S/S Hammer. Mallyx is still decent for utility. But I’d willing to bet Mallyx will be shelved for Glint once it is released.

I like Roy, personally. He’s working on the Revenant. Thing is, he REALLY listens to feedback, takes it to heart and reacts pretty quickly. Plus, judging by many of the skills and traits, he’s relatively modest. That’s what the game needs. If more traits in the game were on the level of Revenant, rather than the Revenant needing to be buffed to high heaven to work, they game would be in a much better state, imo.

Robert Gee does alright in the ideas department and he did okay in some aspects of balance, but he let Mesmer get out of hand.

And, of course in my opinion, kind of lost some class definition in the process. Mesmers shouldn’t be about a million blinds. Why be illusionists and use magical deception when you can just blind people forever… Just doesn’t make a lot of thematic sense to me. Of course, I feel like a lot of classes are being watered down and being given a lot of things they shouldn’t have access to. It’s a shame.

I need help…

Should I be Human or Asura? A little background, basically ALL of my characters are human male. Generally speaking, I just feel like armor looks good on them. However, I’ve always kinda wanted an Asura, but they’re less armor-friendly. But I came up with this concept look that I think is pretty cute, looks like a little hero, and I love their animations. Only problem is I’m a bit concerned with longevity of interest. Help.

Which of these do you guys actually like more?

http://imgur.com/a/ZucC0

Viking Jorun.5413:

Just something to note – just 2 months ago Sword skills were datamined for the Tempest. If the thief elite specialization is further out than anticipated, it may or may not still get staff.

The ascended ninja staff and the matching thief specialization back drop was added to the game fields the same day as the Ascended Warhorn and staff, which is what caused us to realize tempest would get Warhorn. This was only 1 month ago.

Tyr.6097:

Staff thief would kill my motivation. In every game i play, the least possible character for me is a staff wielding melee…

I don’t get it why people want this so bad…

Could be that its actually, you know… A thing? More than spell casting (obviously) rofl… There are entire fighting styles in real life based on using a bo-staff… I’d imagine more than axes and giant hammers…

Needs Overload Stability.