Why I really like the Mesmer changes (except confusion change / Feb. 6th)

Hey!

I want to tell you why I like the mesmer changes from the current balance patch! I am mainly talking from a PvE perspective.

• I really love the phantasm changes! I mainly play mirage and finally being able to use all of my 5 weapon skill without a dps loss is just awesome! Sure, there has to be some cooldown and damage number tweakings and stuff but I really love those changes, especially the torch and staff phantasms. Also from a visual perspective those phantasm attacks look very cool!

• The auto attack and ambush attack of the staff got buffed and vulnerbility moved to the 3rd weapon skill and is a reliable source of vulnerbility, instead of a RNG based one, which is awesome. A reworked chaos armor (4th staff skill) and 10 seconds cooldown reduction on chaos storm and staff would be perfect!

• A lot of traits now synergise better with the mirage since you can always use phantasm skills now without dps loss and you always have an option to choose a trait that's not revolving around shattering clones.

• Playing mesmer feels a lot nicer to play now, all those quality of life, phantasm, trait, utility and weapon changes really helped the mesmer to get a better identity and improves build diversity.

• Dune cloak seems really useless now since the only build that made this trait good (3 phantasmal duelists) can't exist anymore. This trait should change.

• Thus, "Duelist's Discipline" also got passivly nerfed and should be buffed again to make pistol offhand a better option!

However, I cannot really talk for chronomancer since I don't play this profession that much. But I am really unsure whether mesmer can upkeep 100% alacrity uptime and so on since wells don't apply alacrity anymore and shield 4 neither. But I see it from the positive perspective. In raids I really don't like having to take 2 chronos all the time. Maybe these changes help to allow more class variety but who knows.

• Chrono in pvp seems to be buffed and should really work well with a shatter focused builds. The reduced mirage confusion stacks and uptime should bring this profession in line with other condi classes. Changing confusion to apply damage when using skills again instead of damage over time sounds interesting. I'm not sure if this will be a buff or nerf but we'll see!

In conclusion I am really happy for those changes. They made the mesmer a lot better to play, improve build diversity and so on. Sure there needs to be some cooldown and damage number tweaks maybe but all in all I am satisfied with those changes! :)

i agree ^^ the patch is really great minus one thing : confusion nerf

@KynnVyr.1378 said:i agree ^^ the patch is really great minus one thing : confusion nerf

Thanks for your comment! I guess we will have to see how the PvP/WvW nerf will impact Mirage. Time will tell :)

@Sodeni.6041 said:

@KynnVyr.1378 said:i agree ^^ the patch is really great minus one thing : confusion nerf

The confusion nerf hit PvE as well.

the confusion nerf is in pve as well and that is the thing that hurt, in pvp it's well deserved

@Levetty.1279 said:

@Sodeni.6041 said:

@KynnVyr.1378 said:i agree ^^ the patch is really great minus one thing : confusion nerf

Wait, what? Really? Oh that is pain then. I loved the change they made a while ago that made confusion a good damage over time condition in PvE because enemies don't attack that often in PvE.

Umm yeah i think that this was the end of condition mesmers... It looks like from now on power mesmers will take place.Till now i dont know why it was necesary to do this

@KynnVyr.1378 said:i agree ^^ the patch is really great minus one thing : confusion nerf

You said it.

Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

To chrono you can stack the buff with 100% boon duration and mime but in order to do so you need to have three clons aktiv what take a bit so it´s like 20s nothing in the beginning of the fight.

@KynnVyr.1378 said:the confusion nerf is in pve as well and that is the thing that hurt, in pvp it's well deserved

I disagree. Confusion is only strong because mirage can put on so many stacks in a short time. As a condition itself, I don't see how it needs such a heavy-handed nerf.

They already heavily nerfed mirage confusion source. There is absolutely no need to double that up with a confusion nerf. Now any condition mesmer build is useless because of that.

I really don't see why Anet hasn't kept confusion in PvE as it was. The whole reason they changed it to damage-over-time in PvE was that enemies don't attack as often and block a lot. So I don't know why they reverted this to only-damage-if-attack in PvE again...

power mesmer is beyond amazing fun to play now. Great new visuals and the overall better/increased AoE capabilities are exactly what was needed. The illusion traitline is really great synergy with both mirage and chrono. Lots of choice between utility skills now.

Big fat thank you to ArenaNet for this rework. It still needs some tweaks here and there for phantasm cd/dam a bit, but overall big thumbs up.

@Nepster.4275 said:Umm yeah i think that this was the end of condition mesmers... It looks like from now on power mesmers will take place.Till now i dont know why it was necesary to do this

They HAVE to revert this for PvE. There is absolutely NO reason why it should be that way in PvE. I love playing condi mirage in PvE and I want to be efficient at it as well!

@HyperLooser.2698 said:power mesmer is beyond amazing fun to play now. Great new visuals and the overall better/increased AoE capabilities are exactly what was needed. The illusion traitline is really great synergy with both mirage and chrono. Lots of choice between utility skills now.

Big fat thank you to ArenaNet for this rework. It still needs some tweaks here and there for phantasm cd/dam a bit, but overall big thumbs up.

I really love to play chrono with chronophantasma, continuum split and heal signet - phantasms everywhere!

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

Is 32,3k damage on a testing build not enough to make power mês viable on pve?

@KeoLegend.5132 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

Holosmith does more than that and better cleave on a simpler rotation with more frequent breakbar damage, and dragonhunter is dragonhunter (massive aoe burst, strong low cd cc and of course a conal invulnerability for your group) and provides utility.

This power build provides little if no utility and does less DPS than condi mirage used to do.

It also cannot redirect illusions for target swaps.

It's definitely more fun to play than condi mirage, but condi mirage would have seen changes with cry of frustration becoming better if they hadn't gutted confusion in PVE.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@KeoLegend.5132 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

i didn't say its the best. I asked about viability.With phantasms and clones dying and respawning in less than 5 seconds do we need to retarget them?Youre right about Holo and DH. Im a main DH, but this mês is looking so fun to play that i think i wish to invest on it, if it can maintain its 32k dps on a relatively simple rotation (you just spamm autos, Sword 2, Phantasms and Heal) it could be my new main

Something I like that I'm not sure has any practical purpose:

Veil+Escape Artist lets you repeatedly create clones by reapplying the stealth. Could be nice.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@KeoLegend.5132 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

Focus 4 pull and CS moa signet.... and you are saying that build has little/no utility? Swap the signet that is basically worth nothing for feedback and there is more utility there. Or just cast SoD for more CC. The build doesn't need to redirect illusions the way other mesmer builds in the past have had to. It's a clone shatter build which is aoe. It also doesn't lose DPS like the old mesmer builds for not having 3 phantasms up on new targets.

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@KeoLegend.5132 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

Don't forget the cd on shatters, plus Phantasmal Wardern is now a single or pseudo single target phantasm, not an AoE one, plus Swordsman is single objective too... Do you know? All in all, we are talking about a single objective build far begind AoE builds like Weaver, Dragonhuner, etc. The trade offs are there anyways, not a chronomancer utility too.

The new staff makes me so happy. Like, seriously. I enjoy it so much running around in open world now.

@Zoser.7245 said:

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@KeoLegend.5132 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:Even on power mesmer i don´t think it will be enought dps to compete with the other classes. The confusion mirage was the only thing competing but now since anet switched the dps over time to on use it´s not a dps anymore less than 20k on cairn which has one of the highes attack raites in raids. In the patchnotes it sounded like it will only be in pvp/wvw but it´s actuall in PvE too. Maybe it´s a bug and it should only be in pvp/wvw like this but right now it´s a trash class for raids.

Yes I know 2 of the 3 phantasms are single target. Everything else is aoe. I never said the cleave was amazing and I'm well aware that other classes cleave better. That doesn't change the fact that build doesn't fall apart like the old power mesmer that couldn't swap 3 phantasms to a new target. Those builds used to take 30 seconds to fully ramp up while being unable to swap targets. This build bursts way better and can swap to a new target just fine. That video also doesn't use CS at all in the rotation and it's not fully optimized so the burst can be improved.

Yes shatters have CD... just like everything that isn't an auto attack.

My points still stand, you can't say holo and DH have good utility while saying power chrono has none. Even talking about DH F3 on a 60 second CD. Oh wait, well of precog effectively accomplishes the same thing in most raid scenarios on a 30 to 15 second CD (improved alacrity change). The signet utility slot can also be changed to any mantra for condi clear or stab.

I hate the phantasm changes. I wanted them to be more permanent not less. You have clones to do quick damage then explode, and phantasms to keep around for sustained, unique skills. This pretty much ruins the class for me.

@atlashugged.7642 said:Something I like that I'm not sure has any practical purpose:

Veil+Escape Artist lets you repeatedly create clones by reapplying the stealth. Could be nice.

ok, I just tried using escape artist in wvw, and neither veil nor decoy created the expected clone (aside from decoy's original clone that is). Is there a bug, or am I doing something wrong?