Guild Wars 2

Yeah, something seriously wrong with spirit weapons right now even after the patch a day ago.

Showing of GS ambush skill in a rabid amulet, yep – great demo of one of the ambush attacks we haven’t seen! No matter, we’ll all see how gutted or amazing we are tomorrow.

The sword leap will be nice though – hopefully it’s very quick and that daze can be actually useful.

Refia Montes.3205:

Irony is, the reason Mesmer’s PvE sustained damage is kitten is because of Mesmer’s bursty potential in PvP lol.

Used to be, but this is not the case anymore due to the skill/functionality splits between PvP and PvE/WvW that have been occurring for about 6 months now.

OriOri.8724:

These changes are just so…… underwhelming. The cast time reduction on mantras is welcomed, but overall teh changes seem pointless to me. The count recharge times are fairly long in general. And the rest of the changes were mediocre at best.

Ineptitude and mistrust getting gutted was absurd as well. Yea, ineptitude would have been ridiculously overpowered with mirage cloak, but at the same time I don’t see why core mesmer should be nerfed to account for that. Fairly disappointed honestly, especially considering that in the same patch where mistrust is removed, Warrior’s “Merciless Hammer” trait gets an improved version of mistrust tacked onto additional effects (4 stacks for 8 seconds on interrupt, vs our 4 stacks for 6 seconds. Not to mention that merciless hammer also offers CD reduction on hammer skills AND improved damage from hammer skills against disabled foes).

Where the kitten is the logic in that? Clearly the effects of mistrust were not overpowered……. so why did we lose it when warrior got a better version of it?

To be fair, you get 3 AoE stacks of confusion from blinding dissipation if running illusions trait line, 4 AoE if casting cry of frustration. That’s no joke on a chrono with a fairly low cast time. Then you add the AoE sources of interrupts (such as shield 5), diversion traited with master of fragmentation and mantra of distraction working together, and you continue to compound confusion stacks. Meta worthy, absolutely not – just like the previous iteration of mistrust was – but is absolutely something that should be experimented with, for PvP anyway.

Clearly though, the new ineptitude works optimally if running at least dueling and illusions.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I was ready to cry about how I just got back and how I had to spend so much time getting used to all the changes like two days ago.. and now this.

… But then I tried out this swanky new Mantra of Distraction. All is forgiven, Anet.

dat necro

Perma retal again … a certain immortal build of old got nerfed in large part due to that …
Not complaining though

pinkglow.3429:

You can go chrono and mirage, live a little?

You can’t though. Only one elite specialization allowed in a build.

Nighthawk.4687:

Hey Arenanet could you clarify how these rewards are distributed? Specifically for the Kormir’s Clash tournament, are the rewards per player? Or is the 500g distributed evenly among the team?

Per anet reply on this a few days ago, 500g per player.

Don’t worry, engineers got ignored as well.

Wish this would have been a vote.

While I’m all for balancing core/elite, this would “break” PoM for a chrono using chronophantasma if I’m reading this right. I don’t think it’s a good idea to essentially disable one trait if another trait is chosen.

Fay.2357:

Levetty.1279:

patch

Also in this update, we are implementing initial attacks on several phantasm skills, allowing the mesmer to deliver a primary attack in addition to the summon in order to provide a bit more constant pressure on your targets.

We know have them all and all attacks do less damage then the already abysmal auto attack damage of their respective weapons.

Amazing really

“We wanted more constant pressure on your targets, so we decided to make your greatsword phantasm attack do an extra 200 damage so that you’ll take more retaliation damage than you deal to them when you cast it”
—Anet probably

And happily reveal you from stealth.

Exciton.8942:

Power mesmer gets some buff but well continue being unviable because of the sole existence of thief.

And the likely resurgence of condi rev, new masters of torment.

It’s literally, allow matches with multiple hundreds of rating in discrepancy or not play the game at all because queue times would be that horrific due to low population.

That’s the message being sent by ArenaNet this season.

Please fix it by providing an good incentive to play this game format.

Crinn.7864:

skcamow.3527:

The match maker is teaming up high and low MMR players together because of the extremely low number of people playing this season. So it’s completely random match to match … you’ll have a couple higher players and lower on each team.

No this problem exists regardless of population. Skill is not equally distributed.

A larger population would just result in people complaining about 2300 players getting matched with 1900 rating players, rather than 1900 with 1500.

Look at Overwatch where even at the hight of it’s popularity it had problems with the high level players getting put in matches with not so high level players.

Agreed, I remember we had this problem in prior seasons with those complaints.

What’s the lesser of two evils though, MMR variances of 200-300 or 500-600? A 200-300 variance seems really nice compared to what we see now.

Shaogin.2679:

You guys on NA or EU and what division? I’ve been playing in Gold 1-2 and I can say, every time I check out the ranks of the other players, it’s just about always been a pretty even matchup. I still get a few games here and there that are just completely hopeless, either for my team or the enemy team, but that doesn’t seem to happen very often for me. Maybe I’m just really lucky?

The MMR variances tend to be much more pronounced as you go higher (1,400+). I’m sure they also exist below that but probably to a lesser degree.

The match maker is teaming up high and low MMR players together because of the extremely low number of people playing this season. So it’s completely random match to match … you’ll have a couple higher players and lower on each team.

I’ve seen variances of up to 600 MMR between some of the players on a team. It’s ridiculous.

In essence, it’s far from what we saw in season 5 where for the most part teams were much closer in MMR (because many more people were playing), creating much better matches.

Keep in mind the OP’s complaint about these loss streaks are in unranked. I find it comical that we’re even remotely trying to find logic in unranked match making. It’s completely impossible due to the myriad of factors at play which can heavily skew the results of matches.

bluri.2653:

LouWolfskin.3492:

bluri.2653:

LouWolfskin.3492:

Maybe work on your wording then.

was quite easy to understand

If I have 2k rating and my duo mate has 1500 rating it will take my 2k rating as our rating, not the 1.5k

And that’s not how it should be? From what i understand my reaction as “Well, yeah, this is how rating a Duo Queue should work as it is a form of handicap on the lower rated player” apparently wasn’t the intended reaction.

It should be like that, otherwise any highrated player can make any duo partner tank down to low rating and then duoQ and have low rating and stomp lowbies and get easy points. So it should always be when you duo to take the highest rating and queue as that

So it still works this way like previous seasons? I had read somewhere that ratings were averaged this season.

For example the match with Sind at 2,000 and the other player at 1,400; and other reports of vast differences in rating where no duos existed …

I’m not sure how a match could otherwise be made with that much discrepancy in rating if some kind of averaging wasn’t going on. Unless the population is truly that low.

I don’t know if it’s been said yet, but I think adding a sigil that provides short duration fury on swap would be great. It’s similar to intelligence, just a different flavor.

That 1/2 second evade after scepter block love, mmmm. I’m a scepter player anyway but now, even better.

Pretty good update overall.

ZombieLeach.5862:

Why would anyone want matchmaking to choose their team comp?

Pretty much. It’s fascinating to me to see how the community is almost 50/50 on this thing. I do understand the reasons why some are voting yes but the consequences of a yes vote far outweigh any kind of gain we’d get from a no vote at this point in time.

But I also understand this decision is based heavily on one’s perspective.

Case in point. I main mesmer but I’m a multi-classer. If a yes vote prevailed, I would likely NEVER queue on my main. Reason being the good chance at least one of my ever so popular hard counter DH or power warrior would be on the other team. If there are two DH on the other side, I’m going to have a rough time and from what I’ve seen from past seasons and the current MM code, season 6 isn’t going to change this.

Why would I want to subject myself to playing the odds like that? Players who are playing to win (which I assume most of us are) are not going to willfully choose to subject themselves to these restrictions.

I’d sooo much rather have the opportunity to switch to something that might help my team in that situation and not risk losing based on the initial profession I chose to queue with.

So I can see how folks that don’t multi-class wouldn’t mind profession locking and can also easily understand folks like myself who would rather maintain some level of control over their team comp.

Now, if class stacking was enforced (bleh “soft limit”), I wouldn’t mind profession locking nearly as much. Sadly, this isn’t going to be the case for season 6, so a no vote makes the most sense for me, and this is why so many others are voting the same.

Kako.1930:

Crinn.7864:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Yes..
If we get the same restrictions as the tournys do regarding 1 of each class per team.

But they have not said or implied anything about doing that.

People are voting yes assuming that Anet is going to do something that Anet hasn’t said a word about doing. This is the exact problem we had with the solo vs team poll where people assumed that solo = separate team queue when it didn’t mean that at all.

If they remove the ability to swap professions but don’t remove class stacking then it will be a nightmare if they don’t bring back the ability to compete with a 5 man premade. Solo/duo queuing will be awful. Hopefully someone from Anet will provide some clarification on this.

Evan has already clarified the question about class stacking earlier in this thread:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Madara.7435:

I think its a very good idea to poll this and not just dump it on people. Thank you for that!
Question is, if we have our classes locked will matchmaking force tournament rules on us, I mean 1 class per team only? I would love to try this. yes qtime will most likely increase, but Id rather wait 2-3 minutes more in q than having 10 minutes of a frustrating match with 5 thieves/guards. unranked could still stay the way it is now.

It’s hard to say what will happen to queue times if we enforce a hard limit on professions. The compromise is to let the profession limit increase over time.

So, voting yes does NOT mean you’re casting a vote to enforce matches with five unique professions.

OriOri.8724:

Mesmer is hard to play well, most mesmer players are mediocre at best. And unfortunately this class cannot carry a mediocre or worse player very well, so if you aren’t very good at PvP in GW2 I would suggest rolling another class instead.

UNLESS you’re really willing to work at it because if you are, mesmer is extremely rewarding.

If we’re talking PvP here (which the build editor shows) the clear choice for power shatter is chrono.

The issue with power shatter on core mesmer is illusion uptime, even if you were to take Illusions. This is especially pronounced when not taking DE. IMO chrono power shatter eclipses core mesmer by a long shot. Reason being:

1. You have a substantially weaker elite with core vs chrono.
2. You have alacrity with chrono which vastly lowers your shatter CD’s which = more damage.
3. CS which honestly seals the deal if it wasn’t already. Used with either moa or gravity well, of course devastating.

If you really wanted to keep the mantra flavor in a chrono build (albeit without harmonious mantras), you go dom/insp/chrono.

Full ham power shatter, the best currently possible is without a doubt dom/duel/chrono. You have so much illusion uptime and very short CD’s on shatters due to alacrity. You will pump out much more damage over time than any core mesmer build. Oh, and sw/sh-GS is a must.

If we’re talking WvW I definitely agree about PU.

Soothsayer.9206:

So, a very experienced player goes through the process of starting out against the most inexperienced players, progresses out of those ranks into middle tiers/levels whereby he is still contributing in aiding a team victories by being more experienced than them but less so now because experience and skill are starting to reciprocate in the effort. Finally, he ends up where he belongs getting now getting even more assistance from equally skilled/experienced players and this proves what? Nothing.

It very clearly proves that if you are skilled, you can get out of the lower tiers playing solo.

Players frustrated about the lack of advancement would have a better chance to carry matches at lower levels and advance if they were more skilled than their opponents.

nothelseth proved that if you are skilled – at the very least more than your opponents – if you work on your craft to improve, you will improve as a player and advance. Improving your craft is not just about spamming matches.

I don’t see how this can be refuted. It seems players just don’t want to put in the work to get better at the game. To improve as a player, spamming duels against better players will go a long way.

The way kittykittymeowmew got so good was by spamming duels over the years, doing that far more than actually playing matches.

In my experience it seems players aren’t really interested in doing that. I get it, the feeling is that “it’s the middle of the season, I’m not going to advance if I don’t play”, etc.

I fall victim to this as well. To truly improve, I believe players need to focus at least 50/50 on honing skills in duels as in playing matches.

Would you consider these fancy? I wouldn’t. Flashy yes but they also look a bit ominous … you can’t tell if they’re gonna slice you or hex you. Good representation of the GW2 mesmer.

EDIT: sorry didn’t read the whole thread, I see you linked the same pics. I don’t understand how you see the GW2 mesmer as “fancy”.

I guess we’ll find out next Tuesday.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

skcamow.3527:

I will also say that, while everyone can play what they want, the most optimal build is with inspiration. The higher the tier of play, this becomes much more magnified regardless of how well one can kite/avoid damage.

Just my 2 cents as usual …

As someone that also plays DD build that brings PI on interrupt instead of condi clear on evade and Bound instead of the unhindered dodge, I can’t inherently agree to the idea that inspiration is required at the highest tier. I"m not saying I played it at the highest tier but I found it much better than the DD that played it safe because the damage was enough to win fights fast. Condi clear was from runes, a sigil and utilities. Inspiration was optimal for a bunker meta. If this new meta is glassier in general, preventing damage and doing more damage is going to be better than repairing the damage.

Although your example is an apples to oranges comparison to mesmer, certainly it could go this way as the meta is still forming, or shall we say, adjusting to the recent changes. I’d give it a low chance of that happening though given the potential condition threats out there.

Also inspiration isn’t all about RI in PvP, though obviously a huge part.

Mental Defense is a good source of damage mitigation and more importantly, illusion generation which ties directly into damage.The utility is also extremely important as well with AoE cleanse and especially shared distortion.

The utility aspects don’t shine as much in uncoordinated soloq, but in cooperative settings that’s part of what has made inspiration meta and what I believe will continue to.

Windwalker.7421:

Skam, I’ve been playing w/o Inspiration for a several weeks now in a glassy 16k HP Zerker Power build. Out of easily 40-50 matches I can count the number of times that I got wrecked by Conditions on one hand.

In 1v1 you simply disengage if it’s a hopeless matchup. You either kill them fast, or get out. In group fights it’s just very rare that Conditions play that big a part anymore, even in Pugs like I play. It’s not that Conditions aren’t doing their job, but with proper positioning and bumming some AE cleanses off your team you usually do quite alright.

Well gonna try out how bad the damage was… ;-)

I don’t doubt it’s possible, I’ve played many builds in the off season w/out inspiration, experimenting and such.

I was more talking to the point of claiming inspiration isn’t worth running anymore because the healing got nerfed so much. I don’t think mesmers should be seriously considering moving away from inspiration because of that nerf, especially when you can at least play sage amulet and get some of that lost healing back.

I find it hard to believe that most mesmers who were taking inspiration before were doing so more for the healing aspect of RI (which seems to be the spirit of much of this thread).

I will also say that, while everyone can play what they want, the most optimal build is with inspiration. The higher the tier of play, this becomes much more magnified regardless of how well one can kite/avoid damage.

Just my 2 cents as usual …

Curunen.8729:

New Deadshot amulet is actually killer with Sharper Images – the bleed stacks are pretty kitten good with 54% crit chance, and in addition to Blinding Dissipation, Ineptitude and Scavenging Runes provides a surprisingly powerful condi build.

Only kicker is having to take a condi cleanse utility like Mantra of Resolve… or take Portal if you have a team to cleanse for you.

Yep I’ve played a wanderer build for awhile in PvP now and this amulet is exactly the same, just trading the toughness for vitality. If you’re running staff, try going old school (when all we wanted was illusionary elasticity fixed) with mirror images + phase retreat for some staff clone condi fun.

Madman.6912:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Everyone got a rating reset, at least wait until you place.

That’s a great idea, so basically it is up to total luck during your placement games, whether rng will be on your side and not the other team’s to determine your placement.
The problem with soul destroying games is that they are … soul destroying… a few like that in a supposedly improved system will quickly make me not caring and just tag along not even trying… because.. you know, what’s the point? I actually wanted to have some games before the new horizon stream but I just finished the 2nd game and it wasnt any better… already in a bad mood….

The system is designed to place you in your proper divsion/tier.

To do that, it needs information and that is gathered from the first 10 matches you play. Worst case, even if you were to lose all 10 placement matches, you would be placed in a division/tier with others with a similar experience. From there, you can work on advancing.

You need to let the system do it’s work … the real question of whether MMR is really working will be found once you’re placed in your proper division/tier.

baylock.1703:

RiP inspiration no reason to go there eny way quess il play dom/illusion/cronomancer or dom/duel/cronomancer from now on

But probably il get on bandwagon enyway and play burn dragonhunter this season it will be crasy OP with new amulet and runes

Burn DH is very strong already, been playing it most of the off season. To that very point, if we see more of that build being played, not having active access to condition cleanse is going to make a mesmer’s life very difficult. Necros also aren’t going anywhere and condi mes will still very much be a thing.

Make no mistake, the reason to spec inspiration is for the cleanse. If you’re magnifying the healing aspect of RI over the cleanse you’re looking at it wrong, IMO.

Just normal game design, completely normal, move along.

Yep was just about to post this – it coincides with what apharma posted:

A 285% increase in healing contribution takes the current .2 healing modifier on the trait up to .57. From there, 560 healing power from sage will get you an extra 319 to tack onto the new per illusion heal values. As for those …

current:
0 illusion heal = 872 with 62% decrease becomes 332
1 illusion heal = 1,064 with 50% decrease becomes 532
2 illusion heal = 1,256 with 42% decrease becomes 729
3 illusion heal = 1,448 with 36% decrease becomes 927

In essence, with sage amulet you get values still far lower than the current trait provides without any healing power. With mender amulet you will get slightly more than the current.

It will indeed be a heavy nerf to the trait.

Ithilwen.1529:

Based on what I’ve read, there seems to be a strong intent to talk the community into reversing on solo/duo after this season. I hope that’s not the case.

I’d still like to know about preventing class stacking.

Evan did comment on this item

Evan Lesh.3295:

1) There will be the expected periodic balance updates, but I cannot speak to the extend of them.
2) Class stacking has not been a priority because of the leagues rework, and negative feedback regarding character locking when queuing. This might be something worth polling.
3) The vendor will always be around, but the new currency is only obtainable from the league pip system. You won’t be getting all the skins in a single season.
4) We’ve added the double currency requirement for ascended items to sink out shards of glory and will use the league tickets for more rare, longer term rewards as we make them.

kdaddy.5431:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Dixie Cougar.2415:

Any way we can get a toggle to hide the ranked badge on our nameplate? It seems unnecessary in PvE.

You can hide your badge on a per-character basis from the League UI.

I just wanted to give a thanks for the info,

You have been on top of alot of posts since the S5 news came out. So thanks

^^^^

Evan, is class stacking in matches not a concern of yours?

apharma.3741:

Left click – activate skill
W – forward
S – backward
A – turn left
D – turn right

You stop that. =P

Jcsk.8195:

+ info about this

http://www.mmorpg.com/guild-wars-2/interviews/a-big-shakeup-is-coming-to-pvp-leagues-with-season-5-1000011376

Looks like the wait might have been worth it. We’ll see on 12/13 …

Grouch, so sad to see you go. You were the primary cornerstone for any hope in GW2 PvP. I wish you the best, and hope someone can fill the mighty, empty shoes you’ve left.

Peace out …

Ross Biddle.2367:

Power Mesmers strength (or the return thereof) lies in the games overall mechanics. Adding more damage to Power Mesmer is a stupid way of bringing it “up”. Rather a reduction in stability access, aoe spam, condi spam, and other power creep problems related to the HoT debaucle are what’s needed.

This problem will never be resolved and instead will become exasperated with the release of subsequent expansions and Elite specs down the line.

This game suicided. Have a great day! (playing better games XD )

This sums it up well … FWIW, Anet has publicly acknowledged (on a twitch stream) the power creep HoT introduced and said there is “a lot to work through”. They know about it, hopefully the semi-infrequent balance updates coming will continue to address it.

Eddbopkins.2630:

dodging is great when you have 3 clones coming at you from different distances, so you dodge 2 and still have the 3rd clone to deal with. cant double dodge not enough frames to get it done, clone speed is so fast not enough time to target and destroy so the 3rd one is a hit. and not only does one clone apply confusion it also applys 3-5 other condis. if i clear with my most usefull condi cleans cleansing fire i get hit for enormous damage, if i just keep the little 5 stacks of confusion and torment along with 2-3 other condis i bleed out faster then you think with only 13k hp and the inability to counter attack do to back lash damage. just not enough counter play to the relentless condi that is mes to make it a fair fun fight.
If you were to have resistance to that particular condi after clearing for at most 2 seconds just so it cant be re-applied and spammed right after some one uses there one and only 32 second condi cleans skill things wouldnt be so one sided. i use water and clear on regen as well so cleansing fire would clear 4 condis for me. then i have water 1 more, (1 cleans about every 10 secs attunment recharge and switchign time) then i have scepter 3 to cleas as well for 18 sec cd. while the condi mes can just re-apply the same set of and amount of condi that was originally put on me. and now i have no counter play to zed build.

There are ways to counter the meta condi mesmer. First is dodge the illusion shatters, admittedly sure, that can be difficult due to super speed clones. But still, shatters only inflict confusion and torment so your claim of 3-5 condis is absolutely false.

The biggest thing you need to l2p on is, counter the shield phantasm. If you can’t do that, you will lose almost 100% of your duels with the meta condi mesmer. The way to do this is to dodge it by waiting until the shield block has channeled fully and dodge or blind, depending on your build. You can even spend a distortion on it or blurred frenzy. That alone will greatly decrease the chronomancer’s ability to keep up illusions and thus, lessen the effectiveness of their shatters.

So yes, this is 100% a l2p issue, you need to duel condi mesmers a lot in order to effectively survive against or counter them.

I’m a huge fan of the radiance rune, I ran it in most of season 3 in a modified meta condition build.

The way I look at it, you’re after more of a bunker type build, allowing the damage to not come from you as much as the phantasms. Of course, retaliation alone isn’t going to kill anything but the focus here should be keeping yourself alive as you said.

To that end, I think a throwback to the season 1 bunker build might be best (chaos/insp/chrono) run with Knight amulet and radiance rune mentioned. Since illusions (phantasms and clones) gain your armor, it will keep them alive longer to hopefully proc more retaliation.

Chaos is chosen for the extra defense from illusionary defense (or blink CD if desired), chaotic dampening which has great synergy with radiance rune in chaos armor duration. Boutiful disillusionment for the stability on shatters. Understanding you won’t be doing much shattering but you need to gauge the health of your illusions and try to at least get something out of them by shattering them before they die.

In Inspiration, the only reason to take illusionary inspiration is for the passive retal share for your clones (persisting images is only for phantasms). IMO it’s not really worth it but since you’d run BI in chaos, you could maybe get a small boon share thing going. Honestly though I think mental defense is better.

At the end of the day, all I’m really suggesting is playing the original bunker build with radiance rune and knight amulet. I think that’ll be your best bet for what you’re trying to achieve.

Here you go, best guide currently available for chrono/mesmer in PvE:

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/21/gw2-mesmer-pve-class-guide-by-sanderinoa/

Yes, it’s an unfortunate change only in the fact that once again it nerfs core mesmer, but nonetheless a fair change in and of itself.

Though not always the problem, I think profession dailies contribute to the class stacking issue a fair amount. At the very least, if profession dailies were removed (and replaced with something else) I think that would help.

Exciton.8942:

Confusion on blind is also a nice offensive power buff. It has good synergy with Blinding Dissipation.

This is a very important aspect of the trait which makes it really good and which most people don’t typically mention.

There is no CD on the confusion on blind, you literally add another stack with of confusion with every shatter if running blinding dissipation. Sure most people probably know about this excellent trait synergy but I feel the need to make it clear in this case.

Sure you have to trait dueling to get this, as our other blind sources are spread randomly throughout our weapons and utilities and that I see as a weakness. If we had more focused access to blind like reaper does to chill (chill > bleed via deathly chill), could make for a solid all around trait.

But for sure, the trait is not garbage as-is.

Basically if it wasn’t for focus #4 and 5 in earth, I think WH could get a solid look for a condition build. I too am having a lot of fun with an earth/water/tempest sage build. Really wanted WH to work but focus is just too strong not to take.

Also, even if WH was on par with Focus, just the mere fact that sage provides about half the healing power of mender would make it less viable than the mender meta build.