Upcoming Balance Patch July 7th, Mesmer section

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/109335/game-update-notes-july-7-2020https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/109025/upcoming-balance-notesChrono's have been rewinded!Cmirage gets a pointless change! cept for raid maybe....

MesmerThe main change for mesmers in this update is the restoration of self-shattering for chronomancers. This change was originally made to emphasize the difference between chronomancer shatter skills and core mesmer shatter skills, but this ended up making them more difficult to use. Instead, we are focusing more on the differences in functionality between chronomancer and core mesmer shatter skills rather than the cost to activate them. Additionally, we are making a few small changes to mirage skills to improve their usability.

• Chronomancer Shatter Skills: Chronomancer shatter skills can now be activated without clones, and the shatter effect also occurs at the mesmer's location. Additionally, the following balance changes have been made:

• Split Second: Damage reduced by 33%. This skill no longer deals bonus damage to slowed foes. Instead, it strikes twice with a 1-second delay between strikes. Note: Shatter traits only affect the first strike.

• Rewinder: The cooldown per clone spent has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. The mesmer now counts as a clone for this reduction. Increased recharge from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

• Time Sink: Reduced daze duration per hit from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.

• Continuum Split: This skill has a 1.5-second duration with no clones. 1.5 seconds is added per clone shattered. This skill no longer grants distortion.

• Master of Fragmentation: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the base duration of Continuum Split by 1 second.

• Inspiring Distortion: This trait will now also trigger when activating Shatter skill 4.

• Flow of Time: This trait has been reworked. It now counts the mesmer as a clone. Reduced alacrity gained per clone from 1.5 seconds to 1 second.

• Seize the Moment: This trait has been reworked. It now counts the mesmer as a clone. Reduced quickness gained per clone in PvE from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Reduced quickness gained per clone in PvP and WvW from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.

• Mind Spike: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to display the incorrect tooltip damage in Competitive game modes.

• Phantasmal Swordsman: The phantasm is now summoned based on the target's location rather than the mesmer's.

• Mirage Retreat: This skill no longer breaks enemy targeting.

• Chaos Vortex: Increased the number of targets from 5 to 10.

• Crystal Sands: Reduced the aftercast by 0.4 seconds. Increased projectile speed such that mirror now forms 0.25 seconds faster.

Phantasmal Swordsman: The phantasm is now summoned based on the target's location rather than the mesmer's

Oh boi I'm gonna have so much fun with this

chrono pve buffs, still bad in pvp.no other pvp changes -> mesmer still the king of being shit.reroll engi/necro/rev and have fun, im fucking off to play other shit.

Finally Anet does a revert.

Phantasmal swordsman - way better but still trash. Either poke phantasm or immobilise for a short amount of time.

Chrono F skills - still useless trash.

Crystal sands - lul.

@Yasai.3549 said:Finally Anet does a revert.

It's not enough to matter competitively. Mesmer is still going to be out-shined in any and every role in pvp.

A small bone to Chrono but overall pretty worthless.

@Yasai.3549 said:Finally Anet does a revert.

If Anet listened to mesmers they wouldn't have made that stupid Chronomancer change in the first place

Mirage Retreat: This skill no longer breaks enemy targeting.Interesting. Are mirages in PVP running this? I pretty much only roam WVW anymore and have never seen this skill used.

@Magolith.9412 said:

Mirage Retreat: This skill no longer breaks enemy targeting.Interesting. Are mirages in PVP running this? I pretty much only roam WVW anymore and have

never

seen this skill used.

No.

Next update they will give mirage back a dodge but reduce it's duration by 50%.

Wow.

On one hand, wow for such a major revert. Good job Anet for being able to change your mind. Gives hope for Mirage's second dodge.

On the other hand wow for this being all there is since February - mostly unkittening the skills/traits affected by Chrono losing self shatter. It's been what, a year since Chrono shatters were first changed? Almost like Elusive Mind taking 2 years to change.

And Mirage Retreat losing detarget? What? That's like the only good part of the skill - rest of it is a poor man's Axe 3 animation with no evade...

Nice to see phantasmal swordsman get some improvement. Can you do the same for iMage, iWarlock and iWarden now? Edit - I forgot, probably one phantasm per patch, so another 12 months until all three can be improved?Crystal sands, lol - ok fun to mess about with in pve open world once in a while, but still can't see it being used in anything more.

I dunno, weird mixed feelings right now - can't believe seeing a complete 180 on something, but also this patch and last year's Chrono patch mostly cancel each other out in terms of progress.

So, another 4 months until a few more changes?

Good thing that they didn't nerf Phantasmal Mage. B)

@Junkpile.7439 said:Good thing that they didn't nerf Phantasmal Mage. B)

damage AND cc, good god, it has to be stopped.

So changes are nice i guess keep up the good work can't and improve them till they are good enough for SPVP.

Am i understanding this right that they nerfed chrono again for the exchange of IP?

• Continuum Split: This skill has a 1.5-second duration with no clones. 1.5 seconds is added per clone shattered. This skill no longer grants distortion.

• Inspiring Distortion: This trait will now also trigger when activating Shatter skill 4.

They changed CS so it doesn’t apply distortion anymore but then they had the problem with the inspiration trait that no longer gets triggered, changed that too and called it a balance patch. lmao

• Rewinder: The cooldown per clone spent has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. The mesmer now counts as a clone for this reduction. Increased recharge from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

Okey this is exactly what I said will happen in a troll thread about the upcoming Mesmer nerfs Oo. Condi Chrono was a fun build but now not playable anymore D:

The revert to chrono shatter is a good change. So is the change to seize the moment, if it counts the mesmer (2 x 3 clones = 6 seconds currently , whereas 1.5 seconds x 3 clones with mesmer = 6 seconds and the scaling is better since 3 seconds with one clone up and 4.5 seconds with 2 clones).

I'm not sure why Danger time was not also changed if Split Second already had the damage bonus versus slowed enemies removed. A 33% damage reduction with 2 strikes means actually it has similar damage (0.66*2 = 1.32) to what it is now with the slow bonus. Unless it actually strikes twice for a total of 33% less damage, which would mean it is terrible.

The change to Chaos Vortex is also baffling, as mirage is not ideal for WvW.

Mesmer will remain awful for WvW. Unless you like being invited for 2 utility skills and provide 0 healing and 0 daamge.

• Split Second: Damage reduced by 33%. This skill no longer deals bonus damage to slowed foes. Instead, it strikes twice with a 1-second delay between strikes. Note: Shatter traits only affect the first strike.

This is a huge nerf to power chrono because 1. every clone has now to hit twice to be effective and 2. it has to crit not 4 times, no, it has now to crit 8 times to have the whole dmg output. The chance to crit with 8 F1s 8 times in a row is with a 75% crit chance: 0,75^8 = 0,1 => 10%.

This is the exactly same kind of „buff“ that hit GS and so many other things. They tell you it’s a buff but in reality it s a nerf.

Edit: I was curious

If the Formular is: dmg_multiplicator = number of F1 hit shatter trait bonus 1 shatter trait bonus n * crit chance

and we traited mental anguish, a 75% crit chance and attacking an stunned enemy:

core: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 0,75 = 3,6

chrono: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 0,66 0,75 + 4 0,66 * 0,75 = 4,356

this means that chrono will do (4,356/3,6=1,21) 21% more damage then core

If we now calculate this in addition with Time catches up (+5% dmg) and Master of fragmentation (+25 crit chance) this will look like the following:

core: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 1= 4,8

chrono: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 0,66 1 1,05 + 4 0,66 0,75 = 5,3064

this means that chrono will do (5,3064/4,8= 1,1055) 10,55% more damage then core

The dmg is in theory higher but it is delayed by 1 second and has to hit twice which means the enemy player has twice as much time to do sometime. To be realistic you must be afk to get hit 8 times in a row by obvious moving npcs

But the most times power chrono will not have the room for the illusion trait line so now a calculation core with Master of fragmentation (+25 crit chance) and chrono without:

core: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 1= 4,8

chrono: dmg_multiplicator = 4 1,2 0,66 0,75 1,05 + 4 0,66 0,75 = 4,4748

this means that chrono will do (4,4746/4,8= 0,9322) 6,78% LESS damage then core

Here comes the huge disadvantage of all this. Not only the skill has to hit twice, even if you hit everything you do less damage then a core shatter Mesmer.

-

Beside IP this patch is nothing. The changes to flow of time and Seize the moment are so minimal they don’t help in anything at all. Everything else that is impactful is a nerf

while i'm glad we're going to see power chronos again a bit (even tho it will most likely be one shot chrono so not my favorite kind) i'm really confused about the other changes. What is increasing the number of target to wind of chaos doing ? in pvp it's not going to have any effect, same in roaming, in bus it will be cleansed or reflected, in most open world scenario it does not even hit 5 people usually, and in fractal and raids it will not be useful that often because it is rare that more than 5 mobs are in line in front of you in a situation where you need to kill them quickly. If this is the kind of buff they're planning to do to mirage it's going to be a long time till we're relevant again and even if we get there, if we start overperforming again it will be very hard to know what to address

@Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Phantasmal Swordsman: The phantasm is now summoned based on the target's location rather than the mesmer's

Uh, little confused does that mean the phantasm will just spawn right at your target now instead of running towards it if you're far away?

Good to see a revert. Interested how exactly Split Second works. Hopefully it isn't strikes twice for a total of 33% less damage then it does now.

@Gryxis.6950 said:while i'm glad we're going to see power chronos again a bit (even tho it will most likely be one shot chrono so not my favorite kind) i'm really confused about the other changes. What is increasing the number of target to wind of chaos doing ? in pvp it's not going to have any effect, same in roaming, in bus it will be cleansed or reflected, in most open world scenario it does not even hit 5 people usually, and in fractal and raids it will not be useful that often because it is rare that more than 5 mobs are in line in front of you in a situation where you need to kill them quickly. If this is the kind of buff they're planning to do to mirage it's going to be a long time till we're relevant again and even if we get there, if we start overperforming again it will be very hard to know what to address

They just need to revert confusion to how it was at PoF launch, that is what caused all this mess.

So some things that stood out for me is that there will now be a maximum of 7 seconds to CS which is pretty pog, condi chrono kinda getting f***ed lol and chaos vortex now 10 targets poggers!! (staff mirage is like my most played build on mesmer ).So those were major for me, the little stuff i see is that mind rack has even a weirder way of doing its damage (cause if you noticed mind wrack's dmg is not instant when you're not close to the target) the notes said it strikes twice idk if that means yourself is the first strike then your clones is? "Inspiring Distortion: This trait will now also trigger when activating Shatter skill 4" ok so that means mesmer definitely is getting back f4 distortion although they didnt blatantly say it right? cause this is what Inspiring Distortion is:Grant aegis to other nearby allies whenever you give yourself distortion. Anyways, the sword 5 fix is nice, mirage retreat...literally had to wiki it cause i forgot what it was but oh! just remembered, its still trash! lol and crystal sands fix is good..it felt so clunky.

"Chaos Vortex: Increased the number of targets from 5 to 10."Mightbot Mirage meta here we come! Mirage's already able to keep up pretty much full might for 10 with 60% might duration and after patch, mirage can do that for 10 in full dps build (though using staff which is 60% as good as axe).

@Leonidrex.5649 said:chrono pve buffs, still bad in pvp.no other pvp changes -> mesmer still the king of being kitten.reroll engi/necro/rev and have fun, im kitten off to play other kitten.

you could have had a little more positive attitude though since as though the MAIN drama was not being able to shatter with clones but boom, me no get what me want me dont care