Guild Wars 2

My overall point is that balance discussions should revolve around realistic setups rather than ideal damage against an unresponsive target. While it’s certainly fun to show how much damage you could theoretically do in perfect scenarios, much of the "wow" factor from the video (such as showing how low you can get a 3k armor target in a "single" burst) relies on extra damage that you wouldn’t normally be able to get. We’re already seeing comments in other threads about how shatter mes is doing 30k bursts from stealth and how building tanky is useless because even Guardians with sentinel amulet get one-shot from stealth. So, while I enjoyed the video and appreciate Arken and Rylock putting in the effort to make it, I’m wary of perpetuating the idea that shatter bursts hit harder than they do in actual usage. Shatter damage is super high already, we don’t need to exaggerate it :P

In practice, the only part of the burst that is instant and unreactable is Mirrorblade+Mindwrack(+Fire/Air proc). Even the Mindstab is slow enough that a good player will avoid it some of the time. The iZerker is certainly used for baiting dodges, but my point was that it’s unrealistic to add it to the burst damage the way the video does. Any damage after the Mindstab is unrealistic. Again, if you watch the actual duels, Rylock isn’t landing instagib 20k+ stealth bursts. Real bursts do very high damage, but they’re not quite as outrageous as some of the setups being shown in the earlier part of the video.

In my own playing since patch, it seems that a large part of the problem is the ferocity on the zerker amulet. The difference in damage between a burst that fully crits and one that doesn’t is comical (i.e., one-shot vs. half-health). Non-crit Mirrorblade does <1k per hit, for example, which is completely reasonable. Sharply reducing crit damage would bring down the ceiling of achievable damage, while also reducing RNG. Burst damage should be reliable; you don’t want people living or dying based on how many hits crit (Fire/Air RNG procs are also a problem, but we’ve all talked that one to death in the past). I disagree with the suggestion to nerf Fury, because that actually increases RNG, and still leaves the possibility of achieving absurd damage if you get lucky. Directly addressing amulet stats also has the benefit of toning down damage for other outlier builds, because let’s be honest - mesmers aren’t the only ones doing insane damage in this patch.

Rylock, my point in items 6 and 7 is that since a ’tournament’ build takes portal instead of decoy, the stealth opener would burn torch 4 and blink (not to mention weapon swap CD if you were still in combat before engaging). That leaves you in melee range, in GS, with no stunbreak. Sure, you’ve got f4 and blurred frenzy, but on a light armor class with 15k health, I’d classify that as risky :P. Also, +1 situations have always been terrible for the guy getting jumped. Let’s not pretend the target would survive if it was a thief jumping them from stealth with basi+steal+backstab :P.

Hi Arken, thanks for making the video. I think shatter mes and burn guard both have issues, but the beginning of the video is mostly “target golem balancing” involving unrealistic scenarios. I know most people probably won’t watch the entire video, but I’d advise everyone to at least watch the duels starting ~41:20, as they give a better picture of how the classes actually stand.

Most of the shatter setups at the beginning of the video are pretty contrived. Here are my thoughts:
1. You generally wouldn’t open with iZerker, because it telegraphs the burst. You’ll notice in your actual duels, you dodge almost all of them. Therefore, including the zerker in the burst damage demonstration is unrealistic.
2. You’re setting up the burst by having the target use a channeled skill to get the interrupt for Powerblock damage and Chaotic Interruption proc. This is highly unrealistic, especially for a stealth opener. Mirrorblade has non-negligible cast time and the stun from mantra is too short to land the burst if you first interrupt then Mirrorblade. That means that you have to precast Mirrorblade and hope the opponent uses a skill that you can interrupt while you are casting Mirrorblade.
3. The full burst is not instant; it’s odd to assume that a competent player would just sit there and eat the whole burst combo without using any stunbreaks, dodges, or defensive utilities after they get opened on. It gets especially comical once you add in the secondary burst from Blurred Frenzy.
4. Mirrorblade has a telegraphed animation that most players are used to dodging/blinding, since it’s been the primary shatter opener for a long time now; it’s uncommon to just casually land point-blank Mirrorblades (and being able to do so should be highly rewarding), with the exception of stealth openers, which brings us to …
5. Stealth openers are a big problem in GW2 in general, and requires discussion beyond the scope of your video. However, as you obviously know, typical stealth openers can be avoided by either counting+dodge, or positioning. You see this in your own duels at the end of the video. That said, I strongly believe that stealth stacking and increased duration are problematic because they allow more time for burst setup, as well as making the burst timing itself highly ambiguous – but this is not a problem specific to mesmers.
6. A ‘tournament’ build (which you mention in the video) likely wouldn’t run Decoy – utilities are Blink, Portal, Mantra. They still have stealth access from The Prestige (assuming sword-torch) and Mass Invis, but it’s not as though most of the bursts are coming from stealth, especially because Mass Invis is often used as team utility. It’s certainly not on the level of thieves in terms of repeatable, on-demand stealth.
7. The burst being demonstrated uses a lot of cooldowns. Blink bursts are particularly risky for GS/Sword+torch builds because they burn their stunbreaks and disengage. GS/Staff still has Phase Retreat, but they can’t open from stealth without using Mass Invis.
8. I’m not convinced that most mesmers will be running zerker amulet once the meta settles. Thieves and mediguards are lethal when your health is that low, and the new marauder amulet is closer to the old zerker.
9. All of that being said, the video does include what I think most people would consider the ‘realistic’/standard burst of Mirrorblade+Shatter+Mindstab. I think it’s worth discussing whether the damage from that burst is too high when combined with the instant stun from mantra – but that’s different from some of the (I think) unrealistic burst setups in the video.
10. I agree that instant cast skills can be bad for the game, particularly when they CC. That said, we’ve tolerated thief stealth openers for a long time, which are not only instant and CC, but also go through stability (which mantra does not do).

With regard to burn guardians, your demonstration mostly relies on the assumption that the opponent doesn’t remove the burning; in the duels against Inspiration-spec’d mesmer, Rylock ends the fights with basically full health. Guardian doesn’t have easy access to many different types of conditions, so they can’t load a target up with conditions to overwhelm removals the way some condi specs can. However, I definitely agree that burn guardian over-performs against classes without strong condition removal, and I also agree that applications may be too easy/unavoidable – I’m just not sure we needed someone walking back and forth over Purging Flames to demonstrate that :P