Guild Wars 2

Rhyse.8179:

This sounds like fun.

You just won this thread.

Lol.

Agree that it is overpowered, talking about the (6) effect of course. I’d like to see a change like this:

(6) When you use an elite skill, lose all conditions. For every condition, gain one random boon for 5 seconds. (60s Cooldown… maybe even 90s)

Still a good panic-button for condi spikes, but not nearly as OP with low-recharge elites, and it would get more situational, just like all the other runes. I know that the last thing this game needs is more random stuff, but the main benefit should really be the cleansing. And that aspect would stay the same.

I actually agree with most of them. Not sure about RTL.

oh and…
Mesmers won’t get anything for Christmas? =/

Are you really running staff trait without using staff? :P
Nice videos, but I had to mute the music.

Good to see some solo roaming videos from AM

Rinzler.8072:

So i wonder if the mesmer trait that clears condition on heal also works….

Getting attacked will switch you into combat mode, and combat mode will remove your costume, so it would be useless

They didn’t talk about nerfs today, so let’s just wait how the whole thing turns out tomorrow.

aka 9 PM CET, if you’re European

Let’s just see what the patch actually does, I’m assuming there will be some improvements to click-targeting as well. But… doesn’t the fact that clones will still be affected by tabbing make it obvious that the Mesmer it is indeed intended to work that way?

My main is Mesmer and yes, targeting them can sometimes be somehow difficult, but is it really that bad that it needs a complete overhaul? It’s a bit harder than targeting other classes, but it’s not nearly as impossible as some people describe it. That “bit harder” is probably intended, considering the upcoming patch. Personally, I don’t have problems with targeting and with the upcoming patch, it will already get easier. Even for Mesmers.

sorrow.2364:

Try to target a mesmer inside 4 spirits, 6 minions and 3 clones on a 240 radius node.

To be fair, any class would be a nightmare to target in that scenario.
I think your “problem” will already be adressed with the upcoming patch. Tab targeting still won’t ignore clones, but in fights like the one you described, it will be alot easier (and faster) to get the Mesmer as your target. I guess it will be something like pressing tab 2-3 times to get the right one.

I am not people. I never complained about scholar runes.

Waddafokk! Leave me alone!
/runs away, obviously faster than you cuz of traveller runes

:P
Nah, just didn’t know that they’re at 40G+.

Or equip runes of the Mes… I mean, Traveller.
If you’re lazy.

Like me.

Stopped roaming with them on my Mesmer with those runes. I am happy about this nerf. And I will probably use them after they are fixed. Confusion duration is the one thing that really sucks as a Mesmer. That was the main reason why I wanted them in the first place.

Gain 500 Toughness while Channeling Mantras. If you are getting interrupted, gain a random boon (Aegis, Regeneration, Protection, Stability) for 2 seconds and give the enemy a random condition for 3 seconds.

Maybe.

A leap/port that is instant + immob and actually works, even on high ground. Plus a return chain.
A “frenzy” skill that does more damage, also evades, and stuns. (P/D)
An auto attack that does more damage + additional functionality when out of stealth.

Seriously, am I the only one that feels like Mesmer MH sword is just a bad copy of thief MH? Especially after the blurred frenzy nerf a while ago. Now I don’t say that Mesmer MH sword should work exactly as the thief version. More damage is fine. Out of stealth attacks are fine, that’s their thing. But overall, I’m still wondering why thief sword got buffed and ours got nerfed. Especially because thiefs don’t have CDs on their weapon skills. Sword/Pistol is very similar on both classes, except for the phantasm/smoke field.

Currently playing my thief again in PvP, that’s why I’m posting here.

Awesome videos, as always.
Good choice of music as well (Savant yay! :P)
I am really impressed by your gameplay/teamplay. Amazing stuff. I just love how you break up and analyze your recordings.

Can’t wait to see you guys in WvW again. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long, considering rankings (Kodash 10th and AM 11th). Don’t have a guild at the moment, but I know that you’re up for duels :P

Well… the combo finisher may be a bug (or not), but is it really too strong? The duration of those 8 stacks isn’t really long, plus, you’re blowing 2 cooldowns for it (utility plus duelist). Let’s say a Mesmer has a staff (chaos storm) and nullfield equipped.
Those skills have a 35s/40s CD.

Now, compare with concussion bomb (5 stacks AoE confusion, 18s CD) and Pry Bar (5 stacks confusion, 15s CD). Both with longer duration on a shorter cooldown.
To be honest, I don’t really see the point in nerfing confusion Mesmers. It’s already a weak build (only exception would probably duels). If anything, the finisher chance should be reduced to maybe 60%, so that at least ~4 stacks are guaranteed. 20% finisher chance would really be a joke.

The other thing, yeah. They already told us a while ago that this is a bug that won’t be fixed in the near future, because of technical issues. They are already aware of that

They don’t work anymore. Always empty :P

Hotfix, please.

Fay.2735:

The healing power scaling on Restorative mantras isn’t amazing if you go full on healing power you may peak it just over 3k per cast if I remember correctly.

I actually really like your trait layout, I just wish Protected Mantras was more useful than just adding 400 toughness.

Yeah I noticed that, 3kish sounds about right.
Anyways, I just did some SoloQing with the build and it worked surprisingly good, even without the upcoming Mantra buff. The healing/bunkering isn’t as good as a fully dedicated bunker on other classes (still good), but I love the (almost) perma-reflections onpoint. You’re nullifying alot of damage right there.

Getting Mantras ready felt like a 50/50 chance. If I had Chaos Storm or Stability ready, no problem. Or just place your Curtain and then pull enemies away while casting.

So yeah, I agree with Protective Mantras. 400 Toughness sounds nice, but it doesn’t have much impact. I’d prefer protection and stability while casting. That would really make it an outstanding trait. It should then obviously be moved to Master tier.

Advent.6193:

Well …

• MH Pistol (or War Fans)
• Signet of Displacement:
  Passive: Increases Toughness
  Active: Causes the Mesmer to switch places with one of their Illusions
• Manipulation: Illusionary Echo. When used, duplicates the last Illusion cast
• Glamour: Inversion. Temporarily reverses the target’s movement pattern (Who doesn’t want a control-inverter move? It’d be FUNNY)
• Phantasmal Sniper: Fires a targeted shot at the enemy. Applies Bleed/Weakness.
• Elite: Chronal Morass. Slows down time in the surrounding area. (Since we don’t have a logical “Anti-Quickness,” you figure that this ability could be set as … reduce speed of enemy movement/attack for “X” seconds.)

These are all pretty awesome and would fit pretty well in the Mesmer theme.

Plus, we do have all the fancy body colors/patterns, hair colors, and most important: Glow.

Fair trade for the inability to create fat sylvari.

benzegol.5829:

Well thanks that explains all. I dont think in PVP he will be alive for the next cycle lol.

That’s a problem that all phantasms share. Greatsword is still pretty neat with iWave, ranged boon stripping and damage. If you want more defense, go for staff.

I like this thread

Here’s something I made.

Support Mesmer
This build is meant to be played as a mid-point support with AoE healing, boons and reflections. I chose Medic’s Feedback cause it can be pretty awesome in teamfights.
Casting Mantras will make you even tougher, combined with ID you should be able to eat quite some direct damage. Mantra of Concentration can be used to get the other Mantras ready. Chaos Storm is also pretty good to get them ready.
Wardens Feedback could probably be replaced with shattered conditions for even more AoE cleansing. But meh, I like my reflections.
Oh, and remember to place your Chaos Storm or Curtain at your iWarden.

Full Water runes was just a thought, how much does it heal actually? Restorative Mantras (8s CD on Mantra of Recovery) plus Water Runes (6) plus Phantasmal healing sounds quite good, but I never checked how much it heals.

TundraQualle.8204:

/Edit: Got ninja’d

By a Mesmer. Eat that, thieves

Eodwen.2613:

….

Duration stacking buffs only stacking 5 times probably works different. Aegis will still only block one attack (since it is duration stacking). The only difference is that you can’t stack the duration to infinity anymore (same for all other duration buffs).
Let’s say you’re applying 5x aegis with a duration of 2 seconds. That will give you a total duration of 10 seconds. It will still only block one attack.
With this patch you can’t stack another aegis on top of that until the first “stack” of aegis ran out of time.

We could test it with a buddy and the consistent damage weapons in the mists. I’m currently not home, but I’ll maybe test that when I’m back.

Now these are leaked/unconfirmed, so be aware of that. They sound like typical arenanet patchnotes.

Mesmer:

• Descent into madness: Fixed the Chaos Storm created by this skill to match the actual Chaos Storm skill functionality.
• Illusionary Defense: Fixed this trait to properly decrease damage taken by 3% per illusion.
• Feedback: Added a radius skill fact. Updated the skill facts to display changes from traits.
• Medic’s Feedback: Increase the duration of the feedback bubble created by this trait to match the actual duration of the feedback skill.
• Winds of Chaos: Fixed the bleeding skill fact to display the proper duration when the Chaotic Dampening trait is equipped.
• Mender’s Purity: This trait now functions with racial skills Healing Seed and Prayer to Dwayna.
• Power Cleanse: This skill now removes 2 conditions from up to 5 allies in a 240 radius.

Source: http://pastebin.com/sXHq6fZt

If true, Mantra of Resolve will become 100% awesome for teamfights.. Also, I didn’t know that Illusionary defense was bugged, can anyone confirm that?

/edit

Official Mesmer Preview:

Mes
To stay in line with the support theme, we wanted to find ways the Mesmer could support allies. We looked at Mantras, and just didn’t feel they were quite strong enough to do this, so we made some improvements.
Power Cleanse: We wanted to add some condition support, and made it so that this skill can remove 2 conditions from 5 allies.
Power Break also saw an improvement, as it now grants stability to nearby allies.

Source:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/

First of all: Numbers are just random examples and you shouldn’t base your decision on them. That stuff needs testing.

Second: It is not intended to be purely a buff, or a nerf. It’s just a thought to balance them in all aspects of the game. Why are phantasm builds bad in PvE and WvW? Mostly because they die instantly. This way, they could atleast deliver their first burst at 100%. How long does a phantasm live anyway? They either get shattered or killed most of the time. The only realistic scenario where they stay alive is dueling, and that’s the place where they are considered OP.
Talking shatters: You should still be able to shatter them during their invul time.

Just some thoughts of making them more versatile and reliable, but at the same time keeping them balanced. Now, these are really just ideas, nothing more. Because of that, they probably seem radical to you, because, they are.

What if:

• Phantasms “fade” after they are casted, resulting in decreasing damage with each attack. Example: First attack 100%, Second attack 80% damage, and so on. Maximum decrease stops by, lets say, 50%.
• Therefore, Phantasms have a slightly lower cooldown.
• Phantasms are invulnerable during their first attack. Still dodgeable.

Consequences?

• Phantasms are more reliable in Zergfights because of their invul.
• Phantasms are more balanced in smaller fights and 1v1s. Nobody really kills them immediatly after they spawn, so the invul shouldn’t be a problem.

Possibilites?

• New traits. Examples: Fading power gives them more HP at the same time – or increases their attack speed slightly, making them more useful for stacking bleeds while at the same time, keeping their direct damage output down. I could imagine that this trait could replace the old “15% more damage for Illusions” trait.

Your thoughts?

Oh and maybe rebuff Blurred Frenzy. Right now it’s just a bad copy of pistol whip, doing lesser damage, no stun, on a longer cooldown. Kthxbye.

So we’re having a Make a Wish session now? Alright, here’s mine:

Buff Confusion duration. Even a 1s buff would make me happy.

The past showed pretty clearly that it doesn’t really matter what people are posting on the forums. They gonna balance with the feedback of their testers, and most of the time, it really is better than listening to a raging crowd (see PvP forums).

The only sad thing is that many great suggestions posted here (or the other class forums) won’t ever be seen by a devs’ eye. Don’t know what happened. They used to post in the class forums at least from time to time and encourage people to give constructive feedback. Can’t remember the last red post in these forums :/

Concerning State of the Mesmer: Shatter build is stronk as ever, phantasm builds useful in PvE and 1v1s, blabla, some exciting (exotic) builds that could use some buffs.
Most of the time you hear “Mesmer is fine and will come back when other classes are toned down” (talking tPvP here). I agree, but that doesn’t solve some build diversity issues we have. At least in my opinion. But then again, almost every class has those issues.

These runes wouldn’t be much of a problem if you couldn’t also spam all other condis as well (like on engineer).

Bump, because, good post imo.

Good thoughts, too bad noone is reading class forums. Maybe repost it in the suggestions sub?

Fight fire with fire!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-Condition-WvW

As I said, it’s not that hard to get ~15 might stacks with the build I described. I mean sure, you can get even more stacks with BI and have 30% longer buff duration, but at the same time your shatter skills have 30% longer cooldown. That’s 4 seconds for Mind Wrack and even more than 10 seconds for Diversion. You may have the might stacks, but not the tools to deliver the damage sometimes, that’s what I’m saying. In addition to that, the damage coming from IP is also missing.

I don’t think this build is bad at all, I really enjoyed playing it. Group support with BI + Signet of Inspiration is fantastic. This build has its strength in midfights when 2v2 or even 3v3 people are fighting each other, you said that and it’s absolutely true.
Still, for bursting and damage dealing, I think “traditional” shatter is more effective at the moment. I’m hoping for some buffs to Chaotic Interruption, I really like that trait but it should be more effective somehow (duration, maybe?). Or Imbued Diversion moved down to master tier, so we could try 0/20/30/0/20 for massive crowd control (Imbued Diversion + Chaotic Interruption + Bountiful Interruption + Chaos Storm + Into the Void would be insanely funny)

There are many builds that are viable for roaming as a Mesmer, if you wanna have REALLY good survivability, go with condi+stealth (also known as the 20/20/30/0/0 condition build).

Try this build, it’s really fun to play and after some practice, facing 2-4 enemies at one time shouldn’t be a problem.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-Condition-WvW/first

oZii was probably also talking about this build. Concerning speed: Swapping to focus when out of combat, blinking and 180° phase retreating will speed you up if necessary.
I’m using far reaching manipulations (Dueling trait 1 instead of 3) and Arcane thievery instead of veil, to be even faster and have some tools against other condi classes.

Just tested it all day with several weaponsets and some minor changes.
S/S + GS, S/S + Staff, S/P + Staff, even Staff + GS.

After a while you get the “flow” and stacking might is easy. It’s a really nice build, the only problem I see (or should I say don’t see?) is that there are no real advantages compared to 20/20/0/0/30 (with halting strike). Overall damage is about the same, only difference is that with 30 in Illusions and Illusionary Persona you can burst much more often. Using sigills of battle, runes of hoelbrak and shattered strength combined with Illusionary Elasticity and greatsword, you’ll also get many mightstacks without relying on interrupts and having “slower” shatter bursts.

I won’t say it isn’t viable, because it definately is at some point. It’s just that standard shatter (+halting strike) is so much faster with 30% reduced shatter CDs. Plus, with some mightstacks and IP + HS, the damage is probably still slightly better. Somebody should do the maths here.

Try your Mesmer, it’s fun for solo roaming (shatter, torch-condi, phantasm, whatever). Check out Mesmer Forums for some guides if you’re not sure what to do exactly.

jportell.2197:

I think I would be perfectly happy to have iDefender/Idisenchanter not die on shatters…. Only phantasms that can die in shatters are your weapon phantasms. Just my 2c.

Agree. It’s like wasting a utility slot when you’re shattering. It also limits the build diversity out there. A shatter Mesmer would never take one of the utility phantasms. Kinda funny that the class mechanic “destroys” utility skills. Imagine shattering would remove all Mantra charges.

First of all, I really like what Jon said in the SOTG about the improvements that are likely to be made concerning targeting. For everyone who didn’t watch it:
Tab through enemys will only show human players. No AI will be selected. Only exception are probably Mesmer clones, because that’s their defense mechanic. You can of course still click on AI and attack them.

In addition to that, here are some further improvements/ideas:

• Different shades of color for AI and players. Player enemys should have a dark shade of red, AI a light red (again, Mesmer clones excluded). Same for allies: Dark green/blue for players, lighter tone for AI.
• Introduce hotkey that hides all AI nametags (kinda reverse to what we already have… I think it’s Ctrl?). There’s an option for that in the settings, but you can’t really change that in combat.
• Multi tagging. Tagging an enemy is nice, tagging two enemies would even be better. “tag-button” will place red mark over enemy, Alt+"tag-button" will place blue mark over enemy. This will allow teams to coordinate even better! Tag important enemies while at the same time, warn them by marking incoming bursts.
• Introduce tiny red arrow on the bottom of the screen that indicates if your target is behind you. Especially helpful when fighting against thieves/mesmers.
• Improve cursor visibility. I don’t know if it’s just me, but sometimes when the screen is spammed with AoE/particle effects I seriously can’t find my cursor. Customize cursor size/color maybe?

Feel free to add your ideas/opinions!

Barret.4095:

i love how no one even cared about warriors until a couple weeks ago when nothing has changed about them. no one qq’d 2-3 months till after the changes.. it’s like one baddie decides to cry and the rest just come flocking in and the qq’s just snowball. perhaps after conditions get toned down you’ll see more decent mesmers and eles teach you guys how to deal with a warrior and all you guys can jump on that bandwagon.

To be fair, builds need time to come up and spread across the majority of our playerbase. It’s not like there’s a patch and BOOM everyone plays a completely different game. And of course no one QQed 3 months ago since the significant patch hit about 1 monrh ago.
Also, not everyone here is crying, there’s a lot of constructive feedback in toning down the Warrior just slightly at some aspects, which is at least in my opinion the right approach.

Love ’em. My new PvE and WvW (zerker) runes.

<3

Try offhand sword and swap the pistol trait with the sword trait. Even more AoE interrupts on a lower CD, and the phantasm isn’t too bad either

Anyways, cool guide. Hope to see more.
Btw, on what server are you playing?

Had a blast tonight. Buddy engineer and me (Mesmer) on Gandara BL on south middle isle, and about 8 Deso guys queuing up for 1v1s.
Too bad that there are always… “kittens” with their shiny legendary that can’t manage to kill you in a 2v1 or 3v1. At some point I had a DC and my buddy said they were /laughing because they finally got me.

Best moment: Stunlock warrior refused to fight me because of perplexity runes. Offered to fight him without armor, and killed him. Gnuhauha :0
To all those peeps yesterday: Thanks for fair fights and participating.
Except those legendary guys. You are just bad. :P

Always funny to see your burst getting eaten up by passive regen in seconds =)

The GS is the only weapon that can put some damage and pressure on disengaging enemies. All the other weapons don’t have the range or very slow moving projectiles. Only exception would be traited OH pistol, and besides the stun shot, landing iDuelist over a 1200 distance more than often fails.

Defenisve in-combat mobility is great (kiting), but chasing someone with a Mesmer is just horrible. I guess that is one of the reasons why iZerker also cripples the enemy.

Every class needs buffs outside their “viable” builds.

I don’t claim that it’s up to date, I’m just saying that there’s already a popular thread about that.

;)

This is what you’re looking for:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/sPvP-Class-Tier-List-Updated-6-30/page/17#post2572278