Guild Wars 2

I like your style, CA. Build #2 sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve actually just been thinking about builds using Sc+P/Sw. I can see why you’d prefer Sw/Sw as your second set, though, that Blurred Frenzy evade is too good to pass up.

I’m kind of curious to see how Rabid/Rampager stack up vs. Marauder in this kind of a build. Shame that Rampager is so glassy, because otherwise it seems perfectly suited.

This is exactly what I was talking about in the other thread. They hammer Mesmer into the ground, then make a sweeping change once they realise that Mesmers only seemed OP because of a systemic problem elsewhere, and they forget to revert the knee-jerk Mesmer nerfs.

Ithamir.5928:

We already have a condi version of “power block”. Chaotic Interruption.

Disagree. CI does not apply any damaging conditions. Its whole purpose is to lock a target down to set up for a shatter burst. It just happens to be overshadowed in that role by Confounding Suggestions now.

How about this; Mistrust: “Whenever you interrupt a foe, inflict confusion and daze in an area around them”. The duration would obviously be very short, maybe 1/4s, basically just to aoe interrupt. Would’ve made it worth taking over DE in interrupt builds for me.

Great, give us more ways to proc Confounding Suggestions to fuel the PvP QQ and bring down more nerfs on unrelated features. Maybe they’d revert Illusionary Persona this time.

Should save ~1/2 a second off MoP’s channel. So it’s definitely an enhancement to MoP’s DPS. I’m not in a good place to calculate out the difference between MoP and Scepter AAs now, but I suspect that MoP is still stronger.

Haven’t tested it, but I assume it’s not.

Loony.3714:

I think the whole thing is stupid. Damage right now is just too high in PvP, and it isn’t a mesmer issue. Yes mirror blade hit too hard, but so do most classes right now. I think that the mirror blade nerf should be kept, but other classes need to get the same treatment.

They’ll eventually recognise this and adjust PvP amulets or damage formulas. And forget to reverse their stupid-kitten knee-jerk Mesmer nerfs, again.

Gabriell.4856:

Let start by setting something straight. Do not compare old Mirror Blade to the current Mirror Blade without giving consideration to power creep/amulet changes/stats changes/etc.

IF AMULET POWER CREEP IS THE kittenING PROBLEM THEN WHY DIDN’T THEY FIX THE kittenING AMULET POWER CREEP?????

Ugh, no. Those traits are garbage and have no place in the game.

ANet just needs to cut it out with the knee-jerk balancing, put us back to where we were on June 23, then take a kittening across-the-board look at their game’s kittenty balance instead of just hammering down whatever the PvP forum is whining about most that day.

Ah, but does it stack with Quickness?

Menaka.5092:

With that build you can possibly kill people that are so stupid to sit there and wait for you to wear them down with conditions. If they are smarter than a rock they’ll probably just avoid the fight and leave you behind since you have no swiftness, no immobilizes or stuns, no cripple and only random access to chill to slow them down on a huge CD.

I think you’re asking a bit much of this game’s player base.

ASP.8093:

SlimChance.6593:

Re quoting for emphasis.

Reducing MoD just hurts other lockdown builds that don’t use CS.

You want reduce the daze duration, then do it for all control effects: all fears/knockback/knockdowns/push/pulls/etc get a reduction as well.

What other lockdown builds that don’t rely on CS, though?

Yes, precisely. I’d love to hear more about this “lockdown build that doesn’t use Confounding Suggestions”, because I can’t think of a single good reason not to take it in a lockdown build other than deliberately nerfing yourself.

They said they’d be watching it, not doing anything about it.

SlimChance.6593:

A more reasonable solution would be to change CS that it only produces a 1/4 stun. (I believe that is your intent.)

Yeah, the intent was clear. I don’t think that traits should ever decrease the power of something, though, so maybe split the difference and set both MoD and CS to a 1/2s duration.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Yea but you have to realize the issue lies in balancing between game modes on anet’s end, you can’t blame the person in PvP for your justification of PvE stuff because anet fails to balance between both modes.

Simple fix , that really isn’t so simple for anet but still would be ideal: Keep it the way it is in PvP and WvW , revert it back for PvE only (and no, this doesn’t include WvW).

Except that the damage bonus for Harmonious Mantras wasn’t problematic in the first place, in any game mode. If ANet really wanted to shave a damage modifier somewhere, why not Mental Anguish?

Silverkey.2078:

I’m mostly happy… am I alone? I just don’t think harmonious mantra belonged on the list while CS should have been. We ask for good nerfs and we get wrong nerfs so not fully happy.

Nah, you’re not alone. I don’t totally agree with some of these fixes, but none of them are unbearable. (And they’re not as stupidly arbitrary as the ones we got on the 23rd.)

ASP.8093:

• Reduce Mantra of Distraction duration to 1/4 sec, like Headshot. Now it’s not nearly as much of an insta-cast on-demand snare but you can still use CS with Chaos Storm and Diversion.

I think this came up in a previous thread, not who suggested it then, but it seems like a reasonable approach. We care primarily about using MoD for interrupts, we don’t need it to be a long-duration lockdown. (That’s what Chaotic Interruption is for.)

• Change The Pledge to a static 20% reduction.
• Change Chaotic Dampening to a flat 20% instead of the crappy thing it is now.

Agreed. While I like the idea of conditional cooldowns in general, The Pledge encourages an anti-fun playstyle while Chaotic Dampening is too hard to balance properly.

• Raise Mantra of Recovery cooldown gently (start with 12 s or 15 s) if you think it’s too much healing.

Exactly, hit the Mantras that are actually causing problems (if indeed they are) rather than nuking the usability of a whole class of utility skills.

Shrubsy.9720:

Does reducing mirror blade to three bounces really even reduce burst damage in a 1v1 situation? Isn’t bounce number 4 just going to be bouncing back to yourself anyway? Of course, when bouncing between enemies it would reduce damage.

Not really. And the biggest part of the 1v1 burst has always been Mind Wrack anyway.

I’m fully expecting HoT to include new rune types for Wells, Shouts, etc., so I’m kind of reserving judgment on Chronomancer runes until we see what those are.

Maim the Disillusioned.

Not convinced the Mirror Blade nerf was actually needed, sad about the Mantra recharge “bug fix”, but honestly this seems like a net win overall with all the other bug fixes. Apart from Mantras, the other nerf-fixes were sorely needed from a game balance and fairness perspective.

Really disappointed not to see fixes to Duelist’s Discipline or The Pledge, though.

Staff is great for open world PvE. Really survivable, especially with Chaotic Dampening. I spent most of my leveling time with GS/Staff. You can easily kite around most open world mobs with that weapon set, and fighting outnumbered is even possible.

Using Sword/Pistol is probably good practice for endgame, though. You should spend a lot of time working on your Blurred Frenzy timing. Use it to evade telegraph attacks that you otherwise would have dodged.

Esplen.3940:

It’s not much, but why not get more? Although if breaking F5 returns your boons to where they were when you cast it, don’t bother since you won’t get anything out of it.

Eh, the benefit to the group is the important part. The theory is that you’re multiplying the DPS of the four Eles you brought with you enough that they didn’t need to bring a fifth Ele. Which is a dubious theory until somebody actually tries it out.

Ugh. Competitive-level players say stupid kitten all the time. Especially when they’re making their money off streams rather than winning tourneys. It’s in their best interest to mouth off and promote their brand, because that’s what brings in viewers.

“Mesmer is too easy, I’m bored with it” is exactly the kind of stupid thing I’d expect a showboating streamer to say.

Ansau.7326:

Judging a whole profession with only one build. Your argument is solid.

And he’s definitely not exaggerating at all. Not one tiny bit. I gave his build to my chihuahua, and now she’s at the top of the sPvP leaderboards.

“I’m not just the President of the FOTM club… I’m also a member! YOU can achieve the same results I did, with the FOTM System. Find out how, for only 10 easy payments of $29.95. Our operators are standing by.”

Getting pretty kittening sick of seeing the exact same troll post every single kittening day.

Fay.2357:

Just a note, you can’t share alacrity, so you can go ahead and scrub that from any theorycrafting you do.

Yup. iCap’n and Well of Recall are the only two ways we have of providing Alacrity to our group. It provides a good use case for Mimic, though!

Edit: Expanding this more…

So, the Duel/Ill/Chrono build Fay suggests would probably look something like this: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMCfAWoBmw~

Weapon sets: Sw+Sh & Sw + Sw/Pi/Fo
Utilities: Well of Eternity, Well of Action, Well of Recall, Mimic, Time Warp

Shattering gives us 1s of selfish Alacrity and 1s of selfish Quickness per illusion, so we’ll get 3s of Quickness — every time we shatter. Well of Recall gives 3s of group Alacrity, Well of Action gives 3s of group Quickness on expiration. Time Warp of course gives 10s group Quickness.

Start of fight combo: Weapon Clone + Dodge Clone → F5 → TW → Mimic → Well of Recall → Well of Action → Well of Recall → F5 (reset) → TW → Mimic → Well of Recall → Well of Action → Well of Recall → Phantasms → AA

I count 26s Quickness + 12s Alacrity. Not sure exactly how long it takes to execute the combo, which will affect whether we can summon Phantasms during F5 and therefore how long we delay the start of our DPS. Unaffected by Quickness, I think we can execute all those utilities in ~2.75 seconds, and we should have at least 5s of Chronoshift to do it in. iCap has a super long channel time and we probably won’t proc it, so we’ll want to start off with our non-shield weapon set and summon its Phantasm during Chronoshift instead (and then summon another after the reset).

Drayos.8759:

well yes that is true, but Mesmers are 1200 Range, you arnt going to really be near the actual Damage itself

Hahaha, ok. If you say so.

Re: iMage, I was thinking the same thing. Only 1 stack of Burning seems a bit lacklustre for a phantasm that attacks so infrequently. 2 would feel better. But I wonder if the better way to buff it would be to decrease its skill cooldown instead.

Mirror Blade is indeed part of the FOTM combo, but it’s not really the problematic part. My vote there goes to Mental Anguish. I think it needs to drop 5% off both halves. Combine that with an ICD on Confounding Suggestions, and that should dial back the overtuned parts of FOTM burst without totally killing our PvP viability.

Embolism.8106:

I think the main purpose of Well of Precognition is the unblockable attacks. If it were the other way around observant enemies would just dodge after the well ends. It’s an offensive (and PvP-focused) well, not a defensive one.

^^^

Well of Precognition is a really strong skill, it just happens to be situational. The Evade at the end is hard to use, but making all ally skills unblockable for 3s is crazy good for the situations where you need it.

MP worked on all three casts before, as far as I know, so it really should work that way now. But it hasn’t been specifically confirmed as a bug by ANet, no.

Can’t claim credit, it’s been floating around the forum ever since the reveal.

Yeah, I don’t think Rabid is worth it over Rampager/Sinister in a group build, but the equations obviously change when you talk about solo.

@Silverkey: In terms of trait choices, I don’t think that build is too far off from the dungeon meta, which is nice. Same spec lines, just different choices at a couple of points. Gear obviously differs by a lot. I wonder whether the DPS numbers would diverge if you accounted for reflect damage in the Assassin build, though. Does the extra Condition Damage still make up for the lost Ferocity at that point? (IIRC, reflected attacks will benefit from your own Precision and Ferocity)

I don’t see that much use for the Shield in PvE. I guess you can have two projectile-destroying off-hands, so that’s not nothing, but I don’t see a compelling argument for doing that over bringing off-hand Sword or Pistol instead for more Phantasm damage. I guess you can run Sw+Sh/Pi if there’s a fight that requires you to shred a Breakbar really fast.

Whether the Shield phantasm is worth a kitten will depend a lot on how good its Alacrity-sharing is, but the awkward method of summoning them kind of sucks, and you’ll almost never get the double-summons out on a boss. Having Quickness up while summoning your iCaptainAmerica will make it marginally less painful, maybe, so at least the Chrono has decent access to Quickness.

The viability of PvE shatter builds with Chronophantasma+Persistence of Memory+Alacrity is something that really needs to be tested, but it’s promising at least.

So Wells are the big remaining thing. I really doubt our damage well will see any PvE use. Pulsing Vigour from Well of Eternity seems handy, though. Well of Action for essentially a mini-Time Warp on a lowish cooldown is pretty good. Unblockable attacks via Well of Precognition could have some niche uses, especially if you’re good enough to time the group Distortion at the end with a boss attack. Well of Recall, like iCap, depends on how good Alacrity is. I don’t see any reason to take Gravity Well over Time Warp in PvE.

To sum up, based on my understanding of the current PvE meta, I think there could be a good justification for taking Chronomancer just to get Well of Eternity, Well of Action, and Continuum Split/Shift. Chronophantasma may provide a way to bring shatter builds into dungeons, but if it doesn’t then Sieze the Moment + Boonshare or Lost Time permaslow both seem they could make us worth the slot even if our personal damage isn’t that great.

I played around with Pistol + DD, and it does very well against Husks as well. Combined with GS + Imagined Burden, you have good tools for dealing with all of the different Mordrem types while keeping high DPS and mobility from MH Sword.

Zenith.7301:

The game as a whole needs a nerf to burst, but mesmer burst is not special next to thief or warrior burst, or even guardian burst.

Agreed. PvP could do with a slightly higher TTK across the board. I’ve mentioned this before, but I personally favour the idea of adding a little more Vitality to all the stat amulets in exchange for a small amount of Power or Ferocity. Basically, I think that all the damage amulets should have stat spreads more like Marauder than Berzerker.

Silverkey.2078:

Actually, for an elite skill, I would argue that rebound is underwhelming…

The Elementalists are certainly arguing that!

I wanted to break this conversation out into its own thread:

tobascodagama.2961:

Silverkey.2078:

I think conditions are underestimated in PvE while they are really effective.

Eh, maybe, but not by much. We can’t really apply that many stacks of anything worth applying to PvE enemies.

Silverkey.2078:

I think parts of the discussion deviate from the original intent, but no, conditions are perfectly viable thanks to bleeds. The theoretical DPS is near-identical to the meta assassin build, and the build-up is decent. And if you manage to get additional burning by iDuelist through fire fields, or put an ethereal field yourself, your DPS is actually higher than assassin.

I’m still skeptical that we can actually stack up Bleeds or any other condition fast enough or high enough to matter, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise. Does anybody have a PvE-oriented condi build they’ve been using with any success?

I played around for a bit and wound up with this: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8flknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGE6Y6+3JDwCWeZGae4A-TZBFABCcFAEvMwCHEgW2fAgHAAA

It sort of goes all-in on Condition Damage and ends up sacrificing a lot of the projectile destruction we’re usually responsible for bringing. Frankly, I’m not sure it’s worth it, but it should be pretty close to the maximum condition DPS we can bring in PvE.

Torch is there so we can open with Prestige -> pMage to lay on some Confusion and Burning at the start of the fight as well as having a personal source of Fury before Master Fencer kicks in. You immediately switch to Pistol and summon a pDuelist, of course, to start Bleed stacking.

I don’t have the gear or dungeon skills to give this build a fair PvE shot, but there it is as a starting point for a discussion on whether condition Mesmers have any viability in PvE.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I don’t think we have to worry about boonsharing from their war horn competing with us because honestly Tempest’s all-around support just blows every other class out the water.

I mean, Eles spread around enough boons just by blasting combo fields that the Warhorn isn’t adding that much. But I do think Fay has kind of a point.

This seems to be why Chronomancer has Alacrity at all. We’re the only ones that can generate and share it, so there’s still a reason to let us hang around after we’ve had all of our other non-interrupt capabilities overshadowed by other classes. XD

Silverkey.2078:

I think conditions are underestimated in PvE while they are really effective.

Eh, maybe, but not by much. We can’t really apply that many stacks of anything worth applying to PvE enemies.

Fay.2357:

If persistence of memory procced whenever a phantasm died

Anet plz.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Yes. Flavor of the Month 2-week Mesmers are strong, but not OP. Mostly because they don’t really know what they’re doing outside of their FoTM Bursts.

… Where is that dead horse .gif? I think I’ll need it for the future.

Edit: Yes! <3 Expiatus!

/thread

Tealots.6095:

It’s not undermining. It’s really just another way to ensure that a person is locked down. That is: not all stunbreaks are condition clears. Sure, someone can break the stun, but they are still held in place and at the mercy of your phantasms.

I think what he might be getting at is that it doesn’t really make sense to have two traits with slightly different ways of obtaining the same result.

But, daze/stun aren’t technically the only way to interrupt. The most common ones, certainly, but knockbacks can do it as well. So, while CS and CI have an overlapping effect when Power Lock or Magic Bullet interrupts a skill, they behave very differently when you interrupt a skill using Into the Void or Illusionary Wave instead. (Namely, CS has no effect whatsoever in the latter cases.)

I dunno, all I can think about whenever CS comes up is that converting a Daze to a Stun is always going to be controversial and therefore the trait is almost impossible to balance at a point where it’s good enough for Mesmers to actually take it without annoying everybody else too much.

Huh. 100% Chaos Armour uptime sounds pretty awesome, but I’m not sure where this really fits in the current PvE meta. Seems like the build would actually be more useful for WvW support. Could have a place as a defender in Stronghold PvP, too.

Kusa.6438:

I’m hoping I can just use the Chronomancer trait line, without having to use the shield.

Nope, sorry, the shield gets welded to your arm the second you slot Chronomancer. You also get locked out from ever changing away from Chronomancer. Because apparently ANet totally threw everything about their game’s design out of the window just for this one elite spec, right?

Necrotize.2974:

Null Field and Time Warp can be taken as well as taking Medic’s Feedback. One share the second you drop a Glamour means allies get around 6 seconds of resistance. Pretty substantial IMO.

What’s your Stun Break, then? Seems like you could get bursted down pretty easily by any build with even a little hard CC.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

making the next (utility?) skill used only have 1 second cooldown like the Mesmer Mimic utility (!) skill currently does.

Just keep in mind that Mimic only works on the Mesmer herself and only on other Utility skills. It has no effect on Heals, Elites, or Shatters.

The Tempest Elite will apply to (probably) 5 allies within range and affect Heals, Elites, and (probably) class mechanics. If I had to guess, “Rebound!” will probably have a lower cooldown than Mimic’s 90 seconds, too. Most other Shouts (apart from a couple on Rangers) are 60s or less.

Actually, to be honest, the Tempest Elite seems to complement the Chronomancer very well. 25% CD reduction on a Phantasm summon means we get three damaging Phantasms up faster. Combine that with Alacrity, Chronophantasma, and Persistence of Memory… We could potentially do a lot of shattering without much Phantasm DPS downtime.

Fay.2357:

Yes, but in a perfectly balanced game, you have different rewards. Low risk correlates to low reward, and high risk correlates to high reward. This then gives the strategic decision of high or low risk, the big bet or the safe bet, or a mix of both. When builds exist that are low risk and high reward, it destroys that decision because you’re able to simply get the maximum outcome with the minimum risk.

Exactly. I’m not disputing anything you said, I’m mainly reiterating your points by confirming that this isn’t some weird artifact of GW2s metagame. All metagames will converge on low risk/high reward, so the folks in charge of game balance really need to keep a closer eye on the performance of their low risk designs than their high risk ones. Unfortunately, the high risk designs are, by definition, flashier and therefore get more attention from both devs and players when they’re actually good.

Cause confusion when you blind a foe. Blocking or evading an attack inflicts blind on your opponent.
The same foe cannot be blinded more than once within the interval.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ineptitude