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Why you guys hate CI and MOD? Because you do not try to cancel your skills or cast it one by one!


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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

Headshot is more spammable than MoD, w/o preparing time, w/o wasting an utility slot.

PS: I used to play d/p dd better than s/d core before swipe

If you were to spam Headshot, it has dedicated animation frames. This means that although you were laying down a chain of CCs, you wouldn't be dealing any damage while doing it. IF a Thief could somehow use Headshot as an instant cast like MOD, anytime it wanted to, while going in for offense with high damage skills, we'd have a problem on our hands. The Thief could rely on its boon removal vs stability, and fear no counterstrikes going in with chainable daze effects that happen simultaneously as it is attacking an opponent, because it would just routinely interrupt w/e the opponent was trying to do.

No CC in the game is comparable to MOD, in terms of sheer versatility and what it is enabling Mesmers to do. I would say that all power Mesmer builds need it. Without it, they're too weak. Mes/Chrono are fine with even with condi. But Condi Mirage makes it look busted due to clone ambush spam.

I don't think it needs nerfing or altering. But people need to stop trying to downplay the raw sheer strength behind MOD. The skill is strong as all hell and it's something Arenanet needs to be paying attention to while forming new skill patches and/or new specializations around it.
  1. Steal is a 1200 range instant interrupt (that also strips stab before daze)
  2. "I would say that all power builds need mantra" is just plainly false, the power mes with the by far best tournament results, zeromis, gets by fine with SoM and SoI for example. Power block literally does 800-1000 dmg on marauder, mantra is not at all mandatory.
  3. Like somebody said above, the design purpose of mantra of distraction is disruption, interrupting the enemy action. It harkens back to gw1 mesmer in my mind. That's why an appropriate nerf (if one is needed) might be to lower daze duration to 0.25-1 second. This cannot be compared to skills that are designed with the purpose of setting up followup attacks, like warrior hammer burst etc. That's how game design works, you have a purpose in mind and then balance to achive that purpose.

To OP, I think CI is pretty stupid, has been since the start, but you are however correct that it is possible to play around it. In duels vs mesmers with mantra, you can fake cast a skill and quickly stow weapon to bait it out. To aid counterplay vs mantra, I have two thoughts:

  • Disallow all interrupt traits (on all classes) to trigger on interrupting autoattacks.
  • Add an indication of the mantra charges on the status bar (like we had before). I would personally move the "boons" row to a separate row below the "effects and skill indications" row.
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@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.You trying to make a point by comparing utility skill that only daze and hard hitting-long duration stuns? Just like the other guy I dont get it. That complaint would be valid only if it would be instant 3 seconds stun with 5-10k damage, oh wait, we have binding shadow that does it, silly me.MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.If that would be a projectile or had a travel cast time it would be impossible to interrupt almost every skill in this game, especially boosted by quickness or random reflects. Daredevil has superior "distracting daggers" with inbuild powerblock in them but its projectile, so they never bother to take it, never did. Make it a projectile and you wont see it being played, everThis is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.Block/aegis/stability/ fake cast - less counterplay that a skill that had only one possible counterplay - dodge. Dont be ridiculous mate. (that intended to reveal user but it takes a solid second to render invisible players so I cant even target people who ambush me from stealth or see it coming, i'm not the only one who has such problem, seen it on youtube and few friends who still play the game have the same issue).edt: @Quadox.7834 I agree with everything he said in post above, especially that mantra isnt mandatory for all power mesmers and its not make them super strong and duration could be cut in half as it should be an interrupt tool.

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@Tayga.3192 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:"Wasting" a utility slot, yeah right. Lets of course also ignore that MoD doesnt take up your entire profession-specific resource, meaning you can only use it, and nothing else, while MoD just lets you use the entirety of the rest of your kit for damage. Because otherwise wed have to concede that MoD is in fact faaaar better than Headshot is.

Of course a utility skill is stronger than a weapon skill. It wastes a slot so it better be good or it would be unusable. A weapon skill can be bad/mediocre but it can be carried by other skills in the same weapon (renegade shortbow, warrior gs etc).

By the way I always said that nefing portal will make mesmer stronger because they will actually use 3 utilities now.

Except thats precisely the problem. The way thief works, headshot cannot be carried by other skills in the same weapon, because it locks them out. MoD still is better. Or hell, if we want utility skills, look no further than Distracting Daggers, Daredevils very own equivalent. Why its got shorter range, much lower daze, and still has a travel time? Would you look at that.

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@"Quadox.7834"

  1. Steal happens once and it puts the Thief in melee range upon use, where he becomes very vulnerable. It's natural CD is also much longer and only has 1 cast. You can't compare steal to MOD.
  2. Zeromis with his team is an exception. He's relying on a lot of teamplay to get away with what he does. You could claim MOD is not mandatory on a Power Shatter build, but in solo/duo only when you aren't Zeromis and don't have an S grade tournament team with you, it's virtually mandatory not for bursting reasons, but for active defense survival mechanism. Those 2x charges of interrupt are as good as 2x blocks if you use them wisely, as well as interrupts vs. revives & stomps & teammates being pressured too heavily in general. and of course it can be utilized to enhance bursting or +ing when it's convenient. Hey, if you're approaching Zeromis level play and don't need it for defensive reasons, more power to you. This effect is similar to how extremely good Ranger players could play glass cannon DPS Soulbeasts with no Signet of Stone, and get away with it just fine. 95% of the Soulbeast community however, needed to use it and viewed it as absolutely mandatory on a glass cannon. Even the listed meta was telling everyone to run sig of stone. Only about 5 people in NA were good enough to get away without it.
  3. A design intention does not mean the design intention is functioning as intended. You use the example of Warrior Hammer clearly being designed for flowup CC train styled attack combos vs. MOD being designed for interrupts. Have you tried playing a Hammer Warrior recently? It sucks. The whole design intention is now broken and in no way functional at all. It's too slow, too telegraphed, and doesn't deal enough damage. It isn't realistic at all to attempt to land an Earthshaker or a Hammer #5 knockdown and then swap to an axe to try and land an Eviscerate or something. It's too slow and doesn't work at all. You know what does work? You know what works maybe a little bit too well for landing flowup damage combos? A skill that was intended for interrupts, that has a 2 ammo charge with fast cycling CDs, that due to being an instant cast with no animations, is able to be used simultaneously with ANY & ALL other animations and actions used by that player, including large 1HKO damage bursts. MOD was clearly originally designed with the intention of "landing tiny little rupt pokes here & there" but ends up being used much more often in nuclear powered death spike builds while going balls to the wall offensive, rather than defensively or strategically for GW1 styled rupt play. Considering the intention behind its original design, it seems to have done quite well in our game, being used as a source of offensive powerhouse CC.
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@Quadox.7834 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

Headshot is more spammable than MoD, w/o preparing time, w/o wasting an utility slot.

PS: I used to play d/p dd better than s/d core before swipe

If you were to spam Headshot, it has dedicated animation frames. This means that although you were laying down a chain of CCs, you wouldn't be dealing any damage while doing it. IF a Thief could somehow use Headshot as an instant cast like MOD, anytime it wanted to, while going in for offense with high damage skills, we'd have a problem on our hands. The Thief could rely on its boon removal vs stability, and fear no counterstrikes going in with chainable daze effects that happen simultaneously as it is attacking an opponent, because it would just routinely interrupt w/e the opponent was trying to do.

No CC in the game is comparable to MOD, in terms of sheer versatility and what it is enabling Mesmers to do. I would say that all power Mesmer builds need it. Without it, they're too weak. Mes/Chrono are fine with even with condi. But Condi Mirage makes it look busted due to clone ambush spam.

I don't think it needs nerfing or altering. But people need to stop trying to downplay the raw sheer strength behind MOD. The skill is strong as all hell and it's something Arenanet needs to be paying attention to while forming new skill patches and/or new specializations around it.
  1. Steal is a 1200 range instant interrupt (that also strips stab before daze)
  2. "I would say that all power builds need mantra" is just plainly false, the power mes with the by far best tournament results, zeromis, gets by fine with SoM and SoI for example. Power block literally does 800-1000 dmg on marauder, mantra is not at all mandatory.
  3. Like somebody said above, the design purpose of mantra of distraction is disruption, interrupting the enemy action. It harkens back to gw1 mesmer in my mind. That's why an appropriate nerf (if one is needed) might be to lower daze duration to 0.25-1 second. This cannot be compared to skills that are designed with the purpose of setting up followup attacks, like warrior hammer burst etc. That's how game design works, you have a purpose in mind and then balance to achive that purpose.

To OP, I think CI is pretty stupid, has been since the start, but you are however correct that it is possible to play around it. In duels vs mesmers with mantra, you can fake cast a skill and quickly stow weapon to bait it out. To aid counterplay vs mantra, I have two thoughts:
  • Disallow all interrupt traits (on all classes) to trigger on interrupting autoattacks.
  • Add an indication of the mantra charges on the status bar (like we had before). I would personally move the "boons" row to a separate row below the "effects and skill indications" row.

Steal is also (rightfully) considered one of the by far best tools the class has, to the point where halving the range of it was enough to send D/P thief to unviability. And even then, the daze is lower, you can only use it once every 20 seconds (2 every 30 if youre on Acrobatics), and you have to port to the enemy so you cant just daze someone from afar while fighting someone else. Oh and no, you cant counterplay it, because its instant. You basically either have to be able to time it so that you stow cancel your skill on the very second the mesmer is pressing MoD (which isnt humanly possible), or the mesmer has to have a bad reaction time to use the mantra when you already cancelled your skill (which a good mesmer simply wont).

I also disagree on making interrupt traits not work on autoattacks. D/P thief is bad enough as it is, you dont need to eviscerate it further just because Mesmer is stupid.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, Thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op (for the current specs).

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don't remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned: high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest reasons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore. For Death Judgement pls read above what i said to the other guy. I switched that skill in my mind with something else, my bad.

There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

Ppl who try to argue about balanced from a narrowed pov of the build they play are not relevant, they are what you can call biased. I am multiclass player and Mesmer is not even near to be the most played class of me (it is Necro, so yes, as Necro i am very annoyed by Mantra of Distraction but me being annoyed doesn't make it unbalanced). I argue from a logical view based on gameknowledge and knowledge of all classes and i tell you the reasons behind the different cast times from lock downs and simple daze-interrupt tools without any class bias. These reasons make sense you know?

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Because you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don't know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point. Also you seems to not rly read focused what i say, i said clearly that CI is op because it gives Mesmer an instant lock down, yes daze+immob is a lock down, that is exactly what i said, holy cow...

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@bravan.3876 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than thief, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:Except thats precisely the problem. The way thief works, headshot cannot be carried by other skills in the same weapon, because it locks them out.That's not what I meant.

MoD still is better.Yes it is, obviously.

Or hell, if we want utility skills, look no further than Distracting Daggers, Daredevils very own equivalent. Why its got shorter range, much lower daze, and still has a travel time? Would you look at that.Should we nerf MoD so it will be unused like Distracting Daggers? I don't get the comparison.

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@Tayga.3192 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:Except thats precisely the problem. The way thief works, headshot cannot be carried by other skills in the same weapon, because it locks them out.That's not what I meant.

MoD still is better.Yes it is, obviously.

Or hell, if we want utility skills, look no further than Distracting Daggers, Daredevils very own equivalent. Why its got shorter range, much lower daze, and still has a travel time? Would you look at that.Should we nerf MoD so it will be unused like Distracting Daggers? I don't get the comparison.

@UNOwen.7132 said:Except thats precisely the problem. The way thief works, headshot cannot be carried by other skills in the same weapon, because it locks them out.That's not what I meant.

MoD still is better.Yes it is, obviously.

Or hell, if we want utility skills, look no further than Distracting Daggers, Daredevils very own equivalent. Why its got shorter range, much lower daze, and still has a travel time? Would you look at that.Should we nerf MoD so it will be unused like Distracting Daggers? I don't get the comparison.

The reason Distracting Daggers isnt used is because the only build that cares for interrupts already has headshot, and you dont need any more interrupts. Its a good skill, just unfortunately completely redundant. Anyway, the point is that since MoD is a long daze you can use multiple times, that can also function as a full lockdown, it badly needs a cast and travel time, even if a short one. So that at the bare minimum, you cant use it while using another skill, and so its at least theoretically possible to avoid.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations, instead dodging you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

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@bravan.3876 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations instead dodging, you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

They removed the cast time from the tooltip (used to say 1/4 seconds), probably because the cast time is shorter than that, but it has a cast time. And if I compare the Cds a Mesmer needs to do more damage than thief, Id notice its less than the time that thief would need to regain his initiative, so not only is Mesmers burst way higher, they can do it way more often. And uh, its not a bad thing since it makes steal an engage tool as well, but for the purposes of interrupt, yeah it is a bad thing.

It has no counters. The daze effect isnt purely defensive (1.5 seconds of the enemy not being able to fight back OR block/use skills to evade isnt defensive), and it does in fact lock the enemy down because you cannot prevent the interrupt. You keep mentioning "stow animations". The problem is, that is literally impossible. Its instant. You cannot react to something instant. A good Mesmer will get 100% interrupts on MoD, and no enemy can do anything. It has no counters, by design. Its instant, after all.

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@bravan.3876 said:

Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense.

I find this response very interesting psychologically, really. Because you are a Mirage main in the position of trying to apparently defend vs. the debacle concerning MOD, you are looking at everything that everyone is saying from inside of a box. It would be good if you accepted why people are talking about it. This way you could have clear discussion on the topic, rather than fishing for ways to underplay the strengths of this very unique utility.

Everything that you said is exactly what is in question about MOD. The fact that it doesn't deal damage on its own is why it was designed to be instant cast instant strike, with 2 ammo charges and very low CDs. The intention behind this was clearly to be a quant interrupt tool, but it became much more in unintended ways. The reason why this is so powerful compared to CCs that at least have some kind of an animation like Headshot, is because when a Thief is using Headshot, he isn't using damage combos. When he is using damage combos, he isn't using Headshot, and the Thief can't use Headshot when he's on the ground from a CC. The daze on Headshot is also short enough to where when the Thief swaps into an offensive high damage attack, the daze recovers quickly enough to actually counter play vs. the incoming damaging attacks. MOD on the other hand, becomes the Mesmer and the Mesmer becomes MOD. Because it can be used instantly at any time and during any other animations, the entire build becomes MOD. The MOD can happen when the Mesmer is bursting, or when it is autoing, or when it's rotating away from a team fight to turn and quickly assist a kill from 1200 range, or when it's knocked down on the ground and about to receive a burst from another class. Every other weapon skill, utility skill, trait, dodge roll, heal utility, all become MOD. When MOD is used, it is rarely used by itself. This means that MOD is not like other utility skills that must be used by themselves, outputting only the effects of the individual utility skill. No, MOD is an enhancer. What it is, is a utility that potentially adds daze to every other skill/action that the Mesmer has. This means that MOD being OP or UP, is relative to how good the rest of the Mesmer's build is. If MOD was paired with some low point in the Mesmer's patch history, no one would really care to talk about it, but when it is paired with a power crept meta during peak Mesmer performance patching, the enhancement it grants begins to get quite questionable.

I'm stating again, that I don't see a problem with MOD after playing the build myself. It's fine on power builds builds, and even Mesmer/Chrono condi. But on Mirage Condi it's busted. The scaling of Condi Mirage strength through ambush clone spam makes MOD become this tool of lethal death, not just a tool for quaint interrupts. If it were up to me, I'd see clone ambush condi damage lowered, so it only effected Mirage. Mesmer/Chrono Condi output seems fine to me, even clone autos. Ambush is where it gets busted. Ever run the WvW version of this build with adventurer 50% pve gain, double energy sigil 50% gains, and 40% endurance regen foods? Busted bro, absolutely batshit crazy busted. Forever Mirage Cloak & Ambush spam while running Trailblazer, busted AF. Again, the scaling that MOD receives due to the rest of the Mirage build becomes inordinately ridiculous with such PvE options as this, which has no CD vs. players btw: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Absorption

@bravan.3876 said:

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

This is what I'm talking about right here. You're fishing for ways to downplay the strength of MOD by listing every possible defensive move that exists in the game, as if it were some revelation for all of us, to ponder the idea of using these defensive measures against MOD in the same way that we use them against everything else.

Look man, I don't know what else to say other than, if it has so much easy counter play like everything else in the game as you suggest, why are there several discussion threads where players are discussing the counter play vs. MOD? Why is there a complete lack of or even absence of discussion about the counter play vs. anything else?

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations instead dodging, you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

They removed the cast time from the tooltip (used to say 1/4 seconds), probably because the cast time is shorter than that, but it has a cast time. And if I compare the Cds a Mesmer needs to do more damage than thief, Id notice its less than the time that thief would need to regain his initiative, so not only is Mesmers burst way higher, they can do it way more often. And uh, its not a bad thing since it makes steal an engage tool as well, but for the purposes of interrupt, yeah it is a bad thing.

It has no counters. The daze effect isnt purely defensive (1.5 seconds of the enemy not being able to fight back OR block/use skills to evade isnt defensive), and it does in fact lock the enemy down because you cannot prevent the interrupt. You keep mentioning "stow animations". The problem is, that is
literally impossible
. Its instant. You cannot react to something instant. A good Mesmer will get 100% interrupts on MoD, and no enemy can do anything. It has no counters, by design. Its instant, after all.

No clue about the tooltip thing, from playing Thief the daze feels to hit instant gives it more or less the same counters than for MoD but the animation prevents Thief from using other skills during that, in that part the skill clearly is not instant. I think Anet does this because as mentioned Thief would get too strong when you add something like Mantra to one of the current specs. Maybe next elite will be an interrupt based Thief getting something really similar to Mantra but you can be sure that spec will miss other stuff/ strengths current specs have.

As said you can argue about the burst and i don't want to argue about that atm, it is not rly the topic who has more burst. It wasn't my point anyway.

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with their Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothing wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

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@"bravan.3876" said:

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with thier Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothign wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

lolol

  1. "The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it." - Yes because while fighting a clone spam ambush condi Mirage, people can always afford to preserve their dodge rolls for that one moment that the MOD comes in.
  2. "I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra" - That's because they don't do that. Good Mirages won't use it until they know you're going to bite the dust when they do.
  3. "Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with thier Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothign wihtout CI)." I mean, I wonder what divisions you play in if this statement is true.
  4. "You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against." - Dude, that guy has given you several well worded explanations, clearly indicating that he knows the game well enough. Come on now ^^

I'm not even Mesmer bashing here. This is about users such as yourself just plainly attempting to downplay the sheer value & strength that something like MOD possesses, which is silly when you're trying to hold discussion about game balance. And this is being done while trying to discredit other users who are clearly giving knowledgeable feedback.

W/e, this isn't productive anymore and I've said what I needed to say on the topic. Good day good day.

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@bravan.3876 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations instead dodging, you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

They removed the cast time from the tooltip (used to say 1/4 seconds), probably because the cast time is shorter than that, but it has a cast time. And if I compare the Cds a Mesmer needs to do more damage than thief, Id notice its less than the time that thief would need to regain his initiative, so not only is Mesmers burst way higher, they can do it way more often. And uh, its not a bad thing since it makes steal an engage tool as well, but for the purposes of interrupt, yeah it is a bad thing.

It has no counters. The daze effect isnt purely defensive (1.5 seconds of the enemy not being able to fight back OR block/use skills to evade isnt defensive), and it does in fact lock the enemy down because you cannot prevent the interrupt. You keep mentioning "stow animations". The problem is, that is
literally impossible
. Its instant. You cannot react to something instant. A good Mesmer will get 100% interrupts on MoD, and no enemy can do anything. It has no counters, by design. Its instant, after all.

No clue about the tooltip thing, from playing Thief the daze feels to hit instant gives it more or less the same counters than for MoD but the animation prevents Thief from using other skills during that, in that part the skill clearly is not instant. I think Anet does this because as mentioned Thief would get too strong when you add something like Mantra to one of the current specs. Maybe next elite will be an interrupt based Thief getting something really similar to Mantra but you can be sure that spec will miss other stuff/ strengths current specs have.

As said you can argue about the burst and i don't want to argue about that atm, it is not rly the topic who has more burst. It wasn't my point anyway.

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with their Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothing wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

It does depend on range though, sure at melee range its pretty close to instant but at 600+ then there is a delay (not to mention a piece of grass can obstruct it lol but that's a different argument)

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"bravan.3876" said:

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with thier Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothign wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

lolol
  1. "The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it."
    - Yes because while fighting a clone spam ambush condi Mirage, people can always afford to preserve their dodge rolls for that one moment that the MOD comes in.
  2. "I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra"
    - That's because they don't do that. Good Mirages won't use it until they know you're going to bite the dust when they do.
  3. "Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with thier Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothign wihtout CI)."
    I mean, I wonder what divisions you play in if this statement is true.
  4. "You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against."
    - Dude, that guy has given you several well worded explanations, clearly indicating that he knows the game well enough. Come on now ^^

I'm not even Mesmer bashing here. This is about users such as yourself just plainly attempting to downplay the sheer value & strength that something like MOD possesses, which is silly when you're trying to hold discussion about game balance. And this is being done while trying to discredit other users who are clearly giving knowledgeable feedback.

W/e, this isn't productive anymore and I've said what I needed to say on the topic. Good day good day.

As said i will not talk to you anymore, for previously called reasons. Add to these that you also blame me for being a Mesmer main when i clearly said i am not, i am mutliclasser also i never defended Condimes (not even without CI), quite the opposite, i said how i would nerf Condimes and CI but nerfing mantra was never part of my suggestions because it is not one of the problems make Condimes op. So why you even start to argue about Condimes again? Don't answer it is not a real question, it is just to show you why it doesn't make sense to talk to you anymore.

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@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations instead dodging, you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

They removed the cast time from the tooltip (used to say 1/4 seconds), probably because the cast time is shorter than that, but it has a cast time. And if I compare the Cds a Mesmer needs to do more damage than thief, Id notice its less than the time that thief would need to regain his initiative, so not only is Mesmers burst way higher, they can do it way more often. And uh, its not a bad thing since it makes steal an engage tool as well, but for the purposes of interrupt, yeah it is a bad thing.

It has no counters. The daze effect isnt purely defensive (1.5 seconds of the enemy not being able to fight back OR block/use skills to evade isnt defensive), and it does in fact lock the enemy down because you cannot prevent the interrupt. You keep mentioning "stow animations". The problem is, that is
literally impossible
. Its instant. You cannot react to something instant. A good Mesmer will get 100% interrupts on MoD, and no enemy can do anything. It has no counters, by design. Its instant, after all.

No clue about the tooltip thing, from playing Thief the daze feels to hit instant gives it more or less the same counters than for MoD but the animation prevents Thief from using other skills during that, in that part the skill clearly is not instant. I think Anet does this because as mentioned Thief would get too strong when you add something like Mantra to one of the current specs. Maybe next elite will be an interrupt based Thief getting something really similar to Mantra but you can be sure that spec will miss other stuff/ strengths current specs have.

As said you can argue about the burst and i don't want to argue about that atm, it is not rly the topic who has more burst. It wasn't my point anyway.

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with their Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothing wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

It does depend on range though, sure at melee range its pretty close to instant but at 600+ then there is a delay (not to mention a piece of grass can obstruct it lol but that's a different argument)

I just tested on golem you are mostly right, obviously i never was nearly on max range to my target when using it or i forgot since dp wasn't meta for a very long time already. But you rly have to be near max range of the skill to have a remarkable (still very short) delay. So yeah right, still i can summarize that under the same reason Anet added an animation for Headshot because Thief has different strengths, amoung others a very powerful instant no los needing class mechanic already, would make Thief way to strong when it would get a completely instant aoe interrupt skill like Mesmer in addition.

Yes sadly a lot of skills, mostly projectiles, get obstructed in very weird ways for no reason (i have the same with Necro staff autoattack for example), i assume that is a bug.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Why are you calling @"bravan.3876" mirage main if he is not?Why you talking about wvw in pvp section?Didnt you "quit" ?You said yourself power mesmer need it and without its weak but condi...(in fact it was easier to kill cmirage who ran mantra for me and way harder if they didnt) but still complaining ... I'm confused.If you want to nerf cmirage, you should understand what makes cmirage so strong ( I'm a bit lazy to make thread about it and most likely wont be heard xD) but a small hint is -> bleed on crit trait + IH + Scepter ambush = a lot of hits = a lot of bleeds. Tldr reduce number of hits from scepter ambush to reduce amount of bleeds produced. Or second solution would be give mesmer a real AMBUSH with the damage and make clone ambush condi duration lasts 0.5s so they do close to zero damage, this way you have to avoid only mesmer ambush and render clone ambush pretty useless.In short: its not condi mirage thread nerf, you are overestimating MoD as without interrupt traits its a waste of utility slot that could be filled with something way more useful, who are you trying to fool? You admit yourself that you just hate mirage and want to see the class nerfed.

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@praqtos.9035 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Why are you calling @"bravan.3876" mirage main if he is not?Why you talking about wvw in pvp section?Didnt you "quit" ?You said yourself power mesmer need it and without its weak but condi...(in fact it was easier to kill cmirage who ran mantra for me and way harder if they didnt) but still complaining ... I'm confused.If you want to nerf cmirage, you should understand what makes cmirage so strong ( I'm a bit lazy to make thread about it and most likely wont be heard xD) but a small hint is -> bleed on crit trait + IH + Scepter ambush = a lot of hits = a lot of bleeds. Tldr reduce number of hits from scepter ambush to reduce amount of bleeds produced. Or second solution would be give mesmer a real AMBUSH with the damage and make clone ambush condi duration lasts 0.5s so they do close to zero damage, this way you have to avoid only mesmer ambush and render clone ambush pretty useless.In short: its not condi mirage thread nerf, you are overestimating MoD as without interrupt traits its a waste of utility slot that could be filled with something way more useful, who are you trying to fool? You admit yourself that you just hate mirage and want to see the class nerfed.

I don't even think Powermes needs it, there are other utilities way easier and stronger to use than that utility, way less reactive.That is also where my dedication comes from. It happend often enough already that the most skillbased playstyle a class has get nerfed into uselessness by addressing/ nerfing the wrong things. In particular for Mesmer this happend often already. And i simply get annoyed when i read bronze propaganda, completely biased not based on gameknowledge and logic just angry "i can't deal with it so i want it to be nerfed" behavior. Ppl hate stuff that needs skill to play against so much, no matter how much skill it actually needs to be played in an effective way. Mantra has a lot of counterplay, it just needs more skill and different ways to play against than just dodge an obvious animation. They forget how much more powerful a Bullcharge is when it hits than a simple daze only gets additional effects on interrupts. The interrupt is what you need to counter mostly and that is rly not hard to do (as long as Mantra doesn't get used with op traits like CI making interrupting autoattacks rewarding enough already). And that is just sad, that is why we are where we are with the balance, all meta builds incl Mesmers are so braindead and spammy to play, every noob can hop on one and gets good reward even when playing it bad. And most ppl just want it like that and complain about every thing that is hard to play (because can't carry them) and is hard to play against (because will rekt them). I just see a great game getting dumbed down and power creeped more and more and ppl suggest and hate on the wrong things for exaggerating reasons and often because they are just not rly skilled and i get angry and feel the need to act, even tho it most likely will not change Anets way of balancing.

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@bravan.3876 said:I didnt ask questions from you, they all were adressed to Trevor, he seems to ignore all my posts.Probably he knows that anet wouldnt want to listen to biased people to begin with ?His main complaint that its all cmirage fault but POWER mesmer need it... so nerf CONDI MIRAGE and leave alrdy dead power mesmer alone, chrono just got deleted but hey thats not enough

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@praqtos.9035 said:

@bravan.3876 said:I didnt ask questions from you, they all were adressed to Trevor, he seems to ignore all my posts.Probably he knows that anet wouldnt want to listen to biased people to begin with ?His main complaint that its all cmirage fault but POWER mesmer need it... so nerf CONDI MIRAGE and leave alrdy dead power mesmer alone, chrono just got deleted but hey thats not enough

I know you didn't ask me and talked to Treor only, but i still wanted to react to your post :)

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I'm inclined to agree with @bravan.3876 on this.

MoD on its own is not a problem. if you're on your last legs and the mesmer hasnt burned MoD to try to stop you from eating their HP, then you already lost the fight.The synergy with that and CI is too much, because immob on daze can lead to immob locks just like the bugged entangle, that ALSO breaks your attempt to clear the immob if your clear of choice has a cast time.

on its own, MoD is fine. You can generally tell when the mesmer is going to use it. Itll either be burned trying to stop you from bursting them, or to stop you from healing. You can stow to bait it if you're 1200R away or less, move further, to heal for free, or pressure the mes into a cast to heal. While I think its obnoxious that they can just daze whatever they want, I'm not sure nerfing specifically it is going to help. It may be instant cast, but keep in mind that mesmers are generally slower than thieves and a long range cast may be necessary to interrupt people wanting to leave a fight theyre losing. I bet any nerf that causes them to, say, lose every encounter with warrior because rush/whirl (or swoop) outspeeds Power lock is going to feel really kitten bad.

You balance CI, and put a projectile tell on Arcane thievery, and I think you can call it a day until the next busted synergy.

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@Simonoly.4352 said:I think they hate CI/MoD because the majority of people just want to play mark/shade spewer Scourge and guess what build/class is particularly good at disrupting that?

I mean... CI in its current state not only erases scourges, but Necros and Reapers too.You shouldnt be allowed to just auto win vs a class because you dazed them, especially when you can daze whenever you want..

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@bravan.3876 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

So, the thief skill that you can just dodge, that is also nice enough to give you two seperate
very
obvious and impossible to ignore signs that you need to dodge right now is harder to deal with than an instant cast interrupt. You also failed to mention a single counter to Mantra. Mainly because there well, isnt one. Stability doesnt work, Mesmer can just boonrip, you cant dodge it, its instant, you cant block it, the mesmer will just not use it/its instant, so on and so forth.

Oh and let me just make it clear that it doesnt have to be instant. Are you familiar with D/P thief? Its a nifty little thief build that, due to the swipe change currently isnt really playable, but used to be
the
thief build of choice. Its a build that relies entirely on interrupting key skill, and getting damage from Impacting Distractions by doing so. Guess what its interrupt of choice is? Headshot. A skill that
isnt
instant. Which makes it fairer and easier to deal with. Thats what MoD should be, at the bare minimum.

First of all Headshot is instant it just has a little animation doesn't rly make it easier to avoid it is just there so the thief cannot combine other skills with it, Mesmer and Eles have way more instant skills because both classes are designed way more than thief to combo skills for bigger effects, thief has other strengths, that is why i say comparing skills over different classes is not always fitting and you have to put a completely different class mechanic and completely different class strengths in account. Headshot is also not aoe like Mesmers interupt tool, that is because Thief is for several reasons (at least on dp) way more orientated on single dmg burst. As said some basic balance from Anet still makes sense and that Thief never got an aoe interupt build comparable with Mesmer has class specific reasons because combined with other strengths Thief has it would be totally op.

For Death Judgement you are right i switched it with something else in my mind but i can't check and don#t remember with what atm. Still this is a pure dmg skill it hits very high and yes for that ofc should have a cast time and should be able to dodge because as i already mentioned high instant dmg skills like Mantra of Pain or the Fresh Air ele mechanic should not exist either. Mantra of Distraction doesn't do dmg on its own and even with Powerblock the dmg is laughable what is good. Also the most important Part of Powerblock doesn't work on simple autoattacks what is one of the biggest resons it is a trait/ skill combination with high skill ceiling, compared with Mantra+Lost Time what has no skillneed at all. But in the end and most of all: Comparing a pure dmg skill with an interrupt tool doesn't make sense. The only problem with Death Judgement would be that the Thief can just restealth more often than you can dodge until he hits you out of defense.

I quoted myself several times with the 10 counters to mantra i listed, i just got tired of doing it again but here you go:You have counterplay like disengage/ kiting out of range (having blink cd in mind), los, stabi, aegis, blinds, invuln, blocks during you can cast other stuff (Ele, Engi, Guard...), stealth and so on to cover skills you don't want to get interrupted. You also know when Mesmer just used one charge you have 4 seconds Mantra free time, or 12 secs after 2 uses, you also can bait Mantra uses by stowing bigger animations. A mesmer who needs to recharge the Mantra for 2,25 seconds is an easy target btw, just wait for that moment and dmg him or interrupt the recharge, for an interrupt of an 2,15 secs recharge you don't even need an instant cc skill. The difference is vs Mantra you most of all need to avoid the interrupt, the daze itself is only defensive and will not kill you becasue you can still move and dodge you only can not attack, means vs mantra you don't need to avoid the hit but vs dmg skills you need to avoid the skill itself hits.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Before I say this, know that I am one of the people who said on several occasions: "That I didn't think CI Mantra Condis was as OP as people claimed." but if you're talking about people complaining about MOD specifically, you should consider this:

Consider playing other classes, where CCing someone and interrupting a skill, requires chasing them with a melee weapon and actually connecting with it. Consider it requires significant effort to hit with a Skull Grinder or an Earth Shaker or a Reaper #5. All of these types of CCs have obvious tells, the animations are long, and they are obviously inc when a melee character is riding you in melee, so people know when to "be ready" to engage and counter play other such CCs.

MOD on the other hand, is an instant cast CC and an instant strike nonetheless. It requires no cast time and no projectile travel time, such as a Headshot or a Ranger LB #4. A Mesmer can stand 1200 range outside of a team fight, and freely CC assist vs. any target that he chooses, leaving absolutely no room for visual counter play on the part of the player's he is focusing.

This is why people complain about MOD. It has less counter play than even the old unblockable Death's Judgement man. That's just obnoxious.

None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet. The Warrior skill deals dmg, gives you 4 conditions (2 dmg conditions) and dazes in addition as a pure defensive nature not rly to interrupt. It can crit in its dmg, All that without the need of intrrupting anything and without the need to use an additional trait. This is not an interrupt skill this is a dmg skill with additional bonus effects. A Warrior will hit it for the dmg and will not use it to interrupt primarely. Not even the daze has an interrupt nature here, here its just a defensive boni just like cripple is an offensive boni so the melee Warrior can stay close to the target easier. You want to compare that with an utility skill that only dazes and nothing else?

All other skills you mentioned are hard cc lock down skills that include dmg on hit means without the need of interrupting and without the need of an additional trait , they are not meant for interrupting at all. Also daze is not a lock down. Ofc hard cc lock down is not allowed to be instant and they are not meant to intrrupt they are meant to lock down so the player can hit follow up dmg skills during the player cannot dodge. That is a basic difference between lock down and interrupt skills ppl don't seem to understand even tho i explained the difference several times. Ofc it would be op if Warrior hammer skills or Warrior Bullscharge would be instant. These skills are not even interrupt skills, they are not meant for that purpose. The cc is either a lock down or when it is a daze only, then just as a defensive boni on a skill that is primarely a dmg skill. These are no interrupt skills!!! And that is why stun from old CS trait or immob from CI was op, because then Mesmer had an instant lock down together with Mantra of Distraction. Mantra itself only dazes and with balanced traits like Powerblock it doesn't become an lock down, it is still only a daze and ppl can dodge everyhting that is coming after/ with it. It is not meant to make any dmg easy to hit because the target can dodge (is NOT locked down).

How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay? It doens't need to interrupt it doesn't even need an interrupt or a lock down to hit. It dmg on hit and the time inbetween the reveal of the thief and the hit of that skill is so short that a hit is almost guaranteed. Unblockable means it cannot even be blocked, if you try to los it the thief stays in stealth and change position to hit you just a bit later. Stabi doesn't work vs a dmg skill, every movement and aegis or invuln skill a thief can just wait out in stealth. I meantioned at least 10 counters to Mantra and i barely can find 3 for this thief skill.

Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too.

Pls oces again for a useful balance suggestion don't compare apples with oranges (like trevor sometimes like to do), don't exaggerate (like lot of ppl like to do, countless trying to make mantra look op by claiming 4 attibutes during 3 of them are the same and result form it being instant, no need to split them all up to exaggerate, just like Jawgeous did) and know exactly what you are talking about and name the correct things (like the one guy complaining about mantra but then was totally happy with only CI got disabled already).

@op: high ping is rly not a balance argument at all but what you say is still true, even with normal ping the casttimes of most skills in this game are less than 1 sec, means an interrupt tool needs to be instant to not be totally unviable and useless.

Just gonna say it one more time:
I really believe the core underlying problem here, after actually running this build for awhile, is not CI or MOD. The core issue is that ambush damage off of clones with IH is just too high while running Mirage Condi.
Chaith had made a comment awhile back, something like: "At some point with Mirage, Mesmers had become like a Turret Engi." I agree, that's exactly what it feels like. With Condi Mirage variants, it doesn't even really reward proper Shattering anymore, but rather it rewards setting up a kitten load of clones and letting them machine gun down anyone who stays in the area while the Mirage plays 100% defensively. This kind of gameplay is not healthy, regardless of if someone believes it is OP or not.

You starting to get closer. Continue with logic: When IH is not a problem on power but only on condi than is IH really the problem? Or would nerfing IH not only unnecessary nerf power again? IH is only op and totally passive for Condimes because as i mentioned often already the condi clone autoattacks and condi clone ambushes make like 100 times more (condi-) dmg than power clones autoattack and ambushes. On Power weapons IH has a way bigger active gameplay part, more combos with providing utility (short daze for interrupts, vuln+might stacks before a burst) instead just op and passive dmg application. Nerfs on IH would kill the active gameplay part and high skillceilling of IH more than the passive ones because the passivity is based in the ambush skills of scepter, staff and axe itself and not based in IH. Direct your clones to do a special action (press dodge to tell your clones to leap and daze for example) is per se active gameplay. It only becomes passive when the effects you get from dodging are so high that you can still dodge purely defensive and let clones do all the work during you are afk on a safe spot or out of los. Even 3 GS clones would never kill any class/ build without the mesmer doing anyhting else than dodging during standing out of los. To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case.

  1. "None of the skills you mentioned have the interrupt as goal, they are clearly not designed as an interrupt tool from Anet"
    - Yeah yeah yeah, that's why every CC in the game interrupts skills right? Because they weren't designed to interrupt skills. Very logical assessment you have there. When you get down to what CCs are in Guild Wars 2, they are all the same thing, in slightly different forms. These are effects that stop an opponent's actions. Some of them are slower than others or create a knockdown for 2s as opposed to a 1s daze. But one thing is kitten certain, they all interrupt skills & actions. Ultimately you could rate every CC in the game from 1 to 10 where 1 was an underpowered CC that wasn't convenient to use that also had small results, vs. 10 being a very convenient to use CC that had strong results. Clearly MOD would be amongst the two or three 10 rated CCs in the game. What I had pointed out about MOD is that it is the only instant cast CC in the game and an ammo skill at that, which can be used simultaneously during other big burst skills and chained into whatever other animations the Mesmer chooses. It can even be used defensively while knocked down on the %^&*ing ground. I don't know where you're trying to go with your defense? I think it is, but it's horsepucky. I interrupt key targeted skills just fine with Hilt Bash, Point Blank Shot, Path of Scars, Gazelle F2 Charge, and Taunts from Protect Me. I'm sure other experienced players of other classes would tell you the same thing. We all use our CCs to interrupt key skills. That's what CCs do. MOD is clearly the most versatile & often most powerful CC skill in the game. It is actually so good that is makes skills like Signet of Humility, Basilisk Venom, Dragon's Maw, Headbutt, Tornado, Chilled To The Bone, Entangle, look bad. And those are supposed to be elite CC skills. What MOD is, is a skill that allows the Mesmer to essentially upgrade any of its other attacks or actions, into a CC effect. The tactful wealth in this, is outstanding. Could you imagine if Berserker Rifle Warriors had some kind of 2 ammo instant cast instant strike no animation daze to use with Killshot or Eviscerate? Everyone would throw a kitten fit over it. And don't tell me that's any different than shattering on someone for a 1HKO because it isn't. I would just like to point out that I didn't claim MOD was OP, but I did want to stress how powerful that skill is, and that Mesmer mains need to stop acting like this skill is completely innocent within the formulae that often creates completely busted Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage builds, because it isn't. I didn't say MOD needs any nerfing! In fact I strictly pointed out that I believe it is ok on all power builds and that it is specifically IH and clone spam damage being too high, that makes MOD feel busted.
  2. You seem to have a misunderstanding between "your idea of what a lock-down is" and what other people mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down." I notice that you have formed your own definition of quite exactly what a lock-down is and what skills are or aren't lock-downs. I notice that your definition of what lock-downs are, conveniently suits your Mirage defense, because apparently Condi Mirage CI was somehow not locking anyone down by your definitions, lol. So what other mean when they say "I'm getting locked-down" is simply that there is so much hard & soft CC effects being thrown at them, that it transcends the counter play offered by their build structure's amount of cleanse/stunbreak and CD times provided. When they say they are being "locked-down" it means exactly what it sounds like, they are locked down and there is no way out of the situation. Real simple, easy to understand.
  3. "How does old unblockable Death Judgement have more counterplay?"
    - Even unblockable Death's Judgement has a big red line that goes to you, a big loud noise that happens, and it is a single animation, so no other surprises are happening simultaneously during the strike. There is no possibility that the DE is going to chain a lock-down at the same time or possibly dodge while attacking you at the same time. Even the time in between reveals and DJ was telegraphed as all hell and easy to perceive. The DE also had to play it safe and stay away from the target or risk immediate death. This means the DE couldn't be aggressive and chase a target into heavy anti-LOS areas because (A) DJ is a projectile so this is no good, and (B) all it takes is 1 counter CC followed up with a good single strike and the DE is down. Mirage on the other hand, can get aggressive and stay on a target. In fact, targets are more vulnerable to the CI Mirage's gimmick when they are retreating like that instead of being aggressive. That's what made CI Condi Mirage so strong, is that it forced people into this time limit so to say, to have to be very aggressive with it for any kill potential, because trying to play defensively and roll around vs. 100% uptime of heavy clone attrition damage, just results in death or node lose each and every time. Point being: even old unblockable DJ DEs saw little to no representation 1600+ in NA outside of Acani and Clown. Why? Because at higher tiers, it was too easy to counter play DJ and DEs in general. <- That is actually true. And even the ONE gimmick they had that sort of replicated MOD+CI, wasn't quite strong enough. A single Withdraw or Lightning Reflex or a Judge's Intervention, ect ect, would get you out of the short KD and Immob and the DE wouldn't have any other CC effects to follow up. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to use the lower damage effects. They had to lay on that damage output hard or opponents would get all over them and in that case they died immediately.
  4. "Tools meant to interrupt as prime nature need to be instant and for that are ofc not allowed to have anything else than a short daze and some not too op effects you only get when interrupting and these effects are not allowed to be that strong that braindead spamming dazes to accidently interrupt an autoattack is rewarding enough already. These btw is the reason why Ci was a problem without Mantra and also on power already, the reward was so strong, that randomly interrupting autoattacks here and there was more then enough to flip the fight into Mesmers favor or even completely win it. You don't need an instant interrupt tool for that ofc. Your other casttime and animation dazes/stun will do that job too."
    - I see what you mean here, but you've got to understand that this is a matter of opinion. In every conversation you show up to about MOD, you seem to immediately assume that every player outside of yourself, is completely ignorant and doesn't understand the difference between MOD and CI and how they work together. The thing is, is that some people are voicing their opinions on that they don't care about CI effects, they find the instant casting Dazing to be wat annoys them the most, and these people are completely aware of how it all works. Maybe this is because they run a Guardian and have plenty of cleanse but not as much stability or stunbreaks. Then you have others who claim CI is the problem and they don't care so much about the daze as much as they do the Immob. Maybe this is because they run a build with plenty of stab/stunbreaks, that lacks a bit of cleanse which often results in their deaths happening due to a 3s Immob. It's all just opinions. None of them are necessary right or wrong, but some of them may be more informed than others. This doesn't mean that everyone posting is a completely ignorant fool. My own opinion is that the problem is neither. MOD is fine on all power based builds. MOD+CI is fine even on Mesmer/Chrono Condi. MOD+CI on Mirage Condi however, is busted AF. What's the difference? Mirage Cloak mechanics and Infinite Horizon allowing high ambush damage clone spam 100% of the time. But MOD is the strongest and most convenient & easy to use CC in the game, which is fine in my opinion, Mesmers need it. But Mesmers should Acknowledge how powerful MOD is, and stop acting like it somehow exists outside of the formulae that keeps providing us Saiyan like Mirage builds. I don't believe that MOD needs any nerfing or alteration. But Mesmer mains need to understand why other players are creating debates about MOD.
  5. "To make Condimes more skillbased again without unnecessary kill a skillbased spec like Power Anet needs to nerf the hell out of condi clone normal autoattacks and condi ambush attacks (scepter, staff, axe) and give Mesmer some active ways of condiapplication back (through shatters). During the immob on CI clearly still needs to go in any case."
    - I can agree with that.

But you should try relaxing man. You don't have to go for the throat each and every time you create a response.

Sry when you feel offended from me just arguing, without disrespect without flame or insult, but when you get offended by me just using gameknowledge and logic and telling you why it is wrong what you say, then i don't know how to talk to you.

Already your first point is completely unlogic and i didn't even read the others anymore.There are clearly different kind of cc in this game with clearly different goals/ purposes. And that is also the reason why their cast times are differently designed. Ofc every cc can interrupt skills but most cc skills are not designed for that purpose. A lock down is 95% offensive with the main goal to give the player time to hit follow up dmg skills, they have a cast time because they have very strong cc effects completely locking down the target and their main purpose is not to interrupt a 0,75 sec cast because they have the same or even higher casttime themself, so its very logic that you only can precast on assuptions or just lucky interrupt somethign with a casttime around 1 sec and less but sure not skillful interrupt a short cast skill on purpose. They can interrupt very long cast skills on purpose like a Mantra charge or an ele dagger earth skill 5. Yes that is intended but that doesn't turn it into an interrupt tool. Its a lock down and not an interrupt tool. Then there is cc with barely any effect, the effect itself is purely defensive, only to avoid someone to make dmg on you by avoiding skilluse for a short time or by interrupting skills. That is daze and that can be instant because it is not a killer by itself as long as not combined with op interrupt traits like CI.

It is so insanely annoying to talk to you because you are so far away from gameknowledge and logic with your arguments that i am more or less shocked. It makes no sense to write and read wall of text with you, it rly doesn't. It almost feels like you just don't want to admit, no matter what and i just remember why i already was at the point to not talk to you anymore. Becasue you even deny the basic mechanics of the game and basic logic you can't rly disagree to. I don#t know where to start with you so i once again stop trying.

Its like i say rain is wet and you say no rain cannot be wet when i stay dry when i have an umbrella... i get brain lags from your "logic", i rly do sry :( That is not a flame i will just explain why i stop talking to you at this point.

Headshot isnt instant. It has a cast time, it has a travel time. Is it easy to avoid? Not exactly, no. But unlike MoD, its totally possible. Human reaction is about .2 seconds on average, Headshot gives you .3 seconds before you get hit. MoD gives you 0. Oh and no, Mesmer and Ele dont have more instant skills because theyre supposed to be more about combos than
thief
, who has an instant skill as their bloody profession mechanic. No, they dont even have more. The thing is, MoD was made instant because all mantras are instant. Its kind of the mantra gimmick. The problem is that in the case of MoD, it shouldnt be. It should have a cast and travel time like nearly every relatively spammable interrupt. Doubly so given that it dazes for a second longer than those other skills.

Also, thief isnt "more oriented on single damage burst", Mesmer outbursts thief by a mile. Thief is oriented around standing on points and +1ing. Its bad at fighting, so it doesnt get good fighting tools like Mesmer. But I digress

Yeah, no. If anything, Deaths Judgement shows that you shouldnt make a weaponset have all of its damage in one highly telegraphed skill. Rifle Deadeye is currently useless because unless youre afk or lagging hard, or youre fighting outnumbered, you wont ever get hit by Deaths Judgment. Its just bad. Comically bad even.

Those ... arent counters. Those are conditions in which the Mesmer cant use MoD in the first place, but theyre also situations
where the Mesmer has no reason to use it in the first place
. They also all apply to Deaths Judgment, and every single skill in the game, so it still has less counterplay than everything else. Your point was ... not there, I guess? And sure, you need to avoid the interrupt. Which you cant. So it will immobilize you. So it will in fact kill you because you cant move.

I never complained about DE or did i? So that is not my point, my point is that i switched the skill in mind with something else and took back what i said about counters, yes you can dodge it and it is well animated i have nothing to complain here. The only problem this skill might have is because the DE can restealth way more than ppl can dodge. That is all i said to that. The main point is, that it doesn't make sense to compare a dmg skill to an interrupt tool and i explained why above, i don't need to do it again i think.

Headshot has no cast time written in the tooltip and from playing Thief it feels instant, the moment i press the button the target is dazed. And yes exactly my point, Thief has already a very strong instant class mechnanic, giving it an aoe interupt tool in addition like MOD would be totally op. I never said Thief has higher single target burst i just said it is for several reasons (at least on dp) more designed as a single target burst, it has insanely high mobility and other strengths would make it totally op to give it an interrupt build equally to Mesmers in addition. Also when you compare the cds a Powermes has to use to make more dmg than a Thief you could argue about who has more burst.... That a Thief get ported to the target with steal is also not necessary a bad thing for a melee class. That is where Thief needs to be to do dmg, in particular since Thief has more than enough disengage mobility. Again: i am not complaining about Thief, also not about DE even tho i am not a fan of that spec, i just say that it has reasons why Thief with all his individual strengths don't get an aoe interrupt build like Mesmer in addition. Distracting dagger yes has some stuff less than Mantra like not being aoe but for that it has the Powerblock trait already included into the skill and a Thief can use it just as frequently as Mesmer can use Mantra.

Ofc these are counters, or is dodge the only thing counts as counter for you? Dodge is the only counter Mantra doesn't have true but the daze effect is pure defensive and will not kill you, you only need to counter the interrupt and the interrupt has more counterplay than every dmg skill, instead dodging you can stow animations instead dodging, you can use stabi to avoid a cc. None of these work vs a dmg skill. And stowing has even shorter cd than dodging.

They removed the cast time from the tooltip (used to say 1/4 seconds), probably because the cast time is shorter than that, but it has a cast time. And if I compare the Cds a Mesmer needs to do more damage than thief, Id notice its less than the time that thief would need to regain his initiative, so not only is Mesmers burst way higher, they can do it way more often. And uh, its not a bad thing since it makes steal an engage tool as well, but for the purposes of interrupt, yeah it is a bad thing.

It has no counters. The daze effect isnt purely defensive (1.5 seconds of the enemy not being able to fight back OR block/use skills to evade isnt defensive), and it does in fact lock the enemy down because you cannot prevent the interrupt. You keep mentioning "stow animations". The problem is, that is
literally impossible
. Its instant. You cannot react to something instant. A good Mesmer will get 100% interrupts on MoD, and no enemy can do anything. It has no counters, by design. Its instant, after all.

No clue about the tooltip thing, from playing Thief the daze feels to hit instant gives it more or less the same counters than for MoD but the animation prevents Thief from using other skills during that, in that part the skill clearly is not instant. I think Anet does this because as mentioned Thief would get too strong when you add something like Mantra to one of the current specs. Maybe next elite will be an interrupt based Thief getting something really similar to Mantra but you can be sure that spec will miss other stuff/ strengths current specs have.

As said you can argue about the burst and i don't want to argue about that atm, it is not rly the topic who has more burst. It wasn't my point anyway.

The daze will not kill you because you still can dodge all dmg skills will be used together or after it. I never got killed by Mesmer only spamming Mantra and hit autoattacks or even luckily hit a big skill accidently with it. Only well timed interrupts (like getting my heal when i am low already, a Mesmer surviving by interrupting my Chilled to the bones) can make a Powermes using Mantra and only Powerblock win a fight. Most Mesmer i met barely get interrupt vs me with their Mantra (mostly on autoattacks what does nothing wihtout CI). You sound like you never played a Powerblock Powermes with Mantra yourself and that vs ppl are not bronze lvl freekills anyway tbh. You sounds like a totally predictable player complaining about something he has no clue how to play against. What you say about stowing is inefficient and nothing i listed is a counter is just ridiculous.

It will, because you wont be able to. Youre immobilized, remember? Its basically a DIY stun. Except better since you need a stunbreak that also cleanses condis or removes immobilizing effects. And yes, were talking about Mesmers who time it to interrupt. Theyre the ones that are a problem after all. And no, I have. I know how broken it is from first-hand experience. Its as if I was playing D/P with higher damage, far lower execution barrier and skill required, and far more resilient. And no, it has nothing to do with predictabiltiy. See, being predictable only matters when there is a way to stop the interrupts. Like say, with Headshot. There is no way to stop the interrupts vs Mesmer. Either you use no skills, in which case they kill you for free, or you do, they instantly interrupt it with no counterplay, DIY stun you, and kill you.

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