Jump to content
  • Sign Up

ANet's favourite Child


Lincolnbeard.1735

Recommended Posts

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

And all you 2 gave were poor excuses (like: "it's not good", "there is better options", "we would lose damage"... etc.) showing that you are unwilling to make some sacrifice. You want a build with perfect offense and perfect defense which is bad for the game as a whole. Come on "heart" even put an argument saying that he lose it's illusions when he use a shatter skill... I wonder if he understand how to play mesmer now. Illusions are designed to be consumable that you destroy for burst/utility, they are not meant to be kept until you kill your foe. It's like a warrior that would be unwilling to spend adrenaline or a necromancer unwilling to spend life force.

Rangers lose as much damage when they take wilderness survival than when mesmer take chaos. Warriors, necromancers and, yes, guardians beat hand down the mesmer when it came to have a shity vigor uptime tied to traits (or not for most of them) since it's what you look at. Mesmer is objectively in the high middle tier when it come to vigor uptime, not even close to be one of the profession with the least vigor uptime.

Dadnir, i am not going to say i am the best mesmer out there but I am telling you this based on experience, you take chaos trait line, you lose too much damage, you take inspiration you lose too much damage, and regarding cry of frustration, I NEVER said to keep the illusions, I said we lose the illusions, simply if you don't have illusions your F4 won't save you and won't even be useful.

Now if you insist and go on and bring those classes that are actually issue for mesmer, remove guardian and necro, but go on and add these following classes:

Warriors, they will have mixed stats and if you go inspiration or chaos, most of the time you won't even deal enough damage to them, not to mention that the warrior can actually walk away from you if he feels like it because you will be burning cds to survive.

Druids or soulbeast, Druid can actually just keep up distance and stealth and you can't do anything to them, specially with chaos/inspiration, you are not really threat to them, worst case for druids they can walk away and you can't do anything, and oh by the way it have gotten worse after the removal of reflects.

If you want to add more classes there is Engineer as well, you choose chaos or inspiration and you will have the exact same issue, and i am not talking about people who doesn't know where their skills are.

Now, back to cry of frustration, the thing i have mentioned is, if you use it, you will destroy your illusions, and if you do that and I honestly tried that before, it is not a matter of how fast you react, I react fast regardless of my ping, but without Deceptive Evasion, trust me you will struggle to have illusions to use a good F4 that saves you, you can actually try that and you will see what i mean better.

I don't know how to convince you about the damage thing regarding the traits, but mesmers have it really bad regarding that part, you can say other classes take defensive traits and so on which I understand and is true, but their damage output is enough to kill us while our damage output when we go on defensive side is not enough to kill them, and as mesmer you don't want to stay in combat too long, specially after the nerfs, you will runout of cooldowns.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 96
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

So true. In all honesty, DE has always felt cheesy to me. I've tried many times going without it, even used to play without Dueling entirely, but after all the nerfs it's just impossible. DH and IH are essential for Mirage and it's sad. Sad for build creativity and diversity. As has been said before, IH is so essential to Mirage's damage output it might as well be baked into the play style and made a minor trait.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Heartpains.7312 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

And all you 2 gave were poor excuses (like: "it's not good", "there is better options", "we would lose damage"... etc.) showing that you are unwilling to make some sacrifice. You want a build with perfect offense and perfect defense which is bad for the game as a whole. Come on "heart" even put an argument saying that he lose it's illusions when he use a shatter skill... I wonder if he understand how to play mesmer now. Illusions are designed to be consumable that you destroy for burst/utility, they are not meant to be kept until you kill your foe. It's like a warrior that would be unwilling to spend adrenaline or a necromancer unwilling to spend life force.

Rangers lose as much damage when they take wilderness survival than when mesmer take chaos. Warriors, necromancers and, yes, guardians beat hand down the mesmer when it came to have a shity vigor uptime tied to traits (or not for most of them) since it's what you look at. Mesmer is objectively in the high middle tier when it come to vigor uptime, not even close to be one of the profession with the least vigor uptime.

Dadnir, i am not going to say i am the best mesmer out there but I am telling you this based on experience, you take chaos trait line, you lose too much damage, you take inspiration you lose too much damage, and regarding cry of frustration, I NEVER said to keep the illusions, I said we lose the illusions, simply if you don't have illusions your F4 won't save you and won't even be useful.

Now if you insist and go on and bring those classes that are actually issue for mesmer, remove guardian and necro, but go on and add these following classes:

Warriors, they will have mixed stats and if you go inspiration or chaos, most of the time you won't even deal enough damage to them, not to mention that the warrior can actually walk away from you if he feels like it because you will be burning cds to survive.

Druids or soulbeast, Druid can actually just keep up distance and stealth and you can't do anything to them, specially with chaos/inspiration, you are not really threat to them, worst case for druids they can walk away and you can't do anything, and oh by the way it have gotten worse after the removal of reflects.

If you want to add more classes there is Engineer as well, you choose chaos or inspiration and you will have the exact same issue, and i am not talking about people who doesn't know where their skills are.

Now, back to cry of frustration, the thing i have mentioned is, if you use it, you will destroy your illusions, and if you do that and I honestly tried that before, it is not a matter of how fast you react, I react fast regardless of my ping, but without Deceptive Evasion, trust me you will struggle to have illusions to use a good F4 that saves you, you can actually try that and you will see what i mean better.

I don't know how to convince you about the damage thing regarding the traits, but mesmers have it really bad regarding that part, you can say other classes take defensive traits and so on which I understand and is true, but their damage output is enough to kill us while our damage output when we go on defensive side is not enough to kill them, and as mesmer you don't want to stay in combat too long, specially after the nerfs, you will runout of cooldowns.

And you won't convince me like that because whether you got illusions or not your F4 will give you at the very least 1 second of invulnerability. The issue is that people tend to overlook that defense is a combination of more than 1 or 2 isolated effects. In the case of the mesmer and it's specializations, there is dodge (with vigor), prot, block, mobility, blind, stealth and, yes, hard CC. A guardian, for example, won't be able to even compare to a mesmer when it come to mobility, hard CC and stealth while it will dominate when it come to prot and block. Even among the same kind of skills some effects are mechanically superior to other, for example, a groud targeted port is superior to a charge due to it's unpredictibility.

The thread regard isolated effects in a vacuum, not taking into account strength and weaknesses of the professions as a whole. It's like an elementalist saying that a necromancer is op because he got twice as much HP. These are poor comparisons nothing more.

NB.: If you struggle to get illusions and survive, use scepter. You'll get illusions spawn on auto attack, a block and an illusion when you block. If you really wanna build for survivability, just with the weapon skills alone of the core mesmer you'll get 2 blocks (scepter and off hand sword), 1 hard CC (sword off hand), 5 second of blind (scepter), 1 second of blur (sword main hand) and up to 4 seconds of distorsion (F4). Few profession can even compare to that amount of defense. (Don't argue about scepter and off hand sword, I know you can't use both block and extra effect at the same time, but what you lose in quantity you gain in flexibility since it's make it harder for your foes to just wait around that your blocks disappear)

It's sad and unfortunate that the grasp of peoples on professions have fallen this low. Mesmer used to deal damage way lower than they do nowaday and that was up to the fantasm rework. Yet guess what mesmer still managed to kill their foes without necessarily having to go down the full damage road. I'll say it, mesmers don't need to be able to 0-100 in 1 second to win a fight. SB unblockable effect is an issue that need to be adressed by ANet and should have been adressed by ANet in the last balance patch, the fact that they didn't just prove that they didn't read the feedback on the balance patch preview thread. Engineer is in a bunker phase, it would be a shame if you could fell a bunker by yourself, GW2 PvP is and should be a cooperative game not a solo hero winner game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Xaylin.1860 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Rangers lose as much damage when they take wilderness survival than when mesmer take chaos. Warriors, necromancers and, yes, guardians beat hand down the mesmer when it came to have a shity vigor uptime tied to traits (or not for most of them) since it's what you look at. Mesmer is objectively in the high middle tier when it come to vigor uptime, not even close to be one of the profession with the least vigor uptime.

While you're right that people tend to not be willing to give up stuff, I can't agree with your assessment on where Mesmers stand when it comes to Vigor and Endurance. Yes, they might have a moderate access (meaning: number of options) to Vigor but the
return on investment
is god aweful since Mirage got everything nerfed. The only class that has worse traits related to Vigor or Endurance is the Necromancer with maybe Revenant coming in second. While Guardians don't have great access, both Vigorous Precision on Tome of Resolve are miles better numberwise than what Mesmers have unless you stack your traits. Warriors don't generate much Vigor but they excel at gaining Endurance directly.

Neglecting that Mesmer is the only class with a balance split on-crit Vigor trait, it is still rather irratating that a class designed to be evasive has such an aweful time at keeping up their Endurance regeneration. Even more so considering there is an elite spec that caters that playstyle. It's pretty bad objectively.

I'm not "neglecting" anything, like I answered a bit above to heartpain, each profession defensive mechanism is infinitely more complex than few isolated effects. And I'll add that with the last patch revenant have pretty good access to vigor if they are willing to go into salvation. Which is why I didn't put revenant in the list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dadnir.5038 said:

And you won't convince me like that because whether you got illusions or not your F4 will give you at the very least 1 second of invulnerability. The issue is that people tend to overlook that defense is a combination of more than 1 or 2 isolated effects. In the case of the mesmer and it's specializations, there is dodge (with vigor), prot, block, mobility, blind, stealth and, yes, hard CC. A guardian, for example, won't be able to even compare to a mesmer when it come to mobility, hard CC and stealth while it will dominate when it come to prot and block. Even among the same kind of skills some effects are mechanically superior to other, for example, a groud targeted port is superior to a charge due to it's unpredictibility.

The thread regard isolated effects in a vacuum, not taking into account strength and weaknesses of the professions as a whole. It's like an elementalist saying that a necromancer is op because he got twice as much HP. These are poor comparisons nothing more.

NB.: If you struggle to get illusions and survive, use scepter. You'll get illusions spawn on auto attack, a block and an illusion when you block. If you really wanna build for survivability, just with the weapon skills alone of the core mesmer you'll get 2 blocks (scepter and off hand sword), 1 hard CC (sword off hand), 5 second of blind (scepter), 1 second of blur (sword main hand) and up to 4 seconds of distorsion (F4). Few profession can even compare to that amount of defense. (Don't argue about scepter and off hand sword, I know you can't use both block and extra effect at the same time, but what you lose in quantity you gain in flexibility since it's make it harder for your foes to just wait around that your blocks disappear)

It's sad and unfortunate that the grasp of peoples on professions have fallen this low. Mesmer used to deal damage way lower than they do nowaday and that was up to the fantasm rework. Yet guess what mesmer still managed to kill their foes without necessarily having to go down the full damage road. I'll say it, mesmers don't need to be able to 0-100 in 1 second to win a fight. SB unblockable effect is an issue that need to be adressed by ANet and should have been adressed by ANet in the last balance patch, the fact that they didn't just prove that they didn't read the feedback on the balance patch preview thread. Engineer is in a bunker phase, it would be a shame if you could fell a bunker by yourself, GW2 PvP is and should be a cooperative game not a solo hero winner game.

Have been playing mesmer for very long time, I was playing core mesmer back in HoT when chrono came for some long time as well.

Why you don't want me to argue about scepter and sword offhand? they aren't really good weapons for power anymore, it is not just about creating clones/evading, so i am asking why you don't want me to argue about this?

For soulbeast, the issue is, with the lose of reflect, their life became easier, it is not about unblockable, unblockable affect other classes more than us i believe.

For stealth, just forget about that thing, there are enough reveals that are killers to us, I avoid using stealth as much as i can, I only have torch 4, wanted to use sword offhand, but go check the difference between torch and sword offhand, sword is trash nowdays, pistol is okay, but less effective for more than 1vs1 fights, for fights that you are outnumbered in it is better to have torch for me, and yes it is for the stealth,(maybe they should make new ambush for offhand weapons) maybe they become useful to mirage at least xD

And may I ask what hard CC you are talking about?, we always lose something important if we want to have something which is fine for me, but my build hmmmm i am trying to find hard cc, I guess I don't have (please don't tell me signet of domination).

Sorry for not answering points in order, will try to work on that better in the future =)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:[...]Mesmer is one of the professions with the least amount of vigor on game, particularly in mirage which needs dodge to both defend and attack is an insult to the whole mesmer community.

While I wouldn't speak of insults, this here is one of the things, that really annoys me. Not just in this special instance, but also in general: The way Mirage / Mesmer is designed, how its powers and effects work combined with the traits and abilities it has, it just seems it doesn't want to fit together well. Thieves (maybe especially DDs) get for example more Dodge and additional dodge-like abiltiies they can use with initiative. We (Mirages especially) who rely on dodge even more do not get such things.

Or when I look at the (seemingly?) preferred way to Mirage: Condi. If you play condi Mirage, you actually need sustain, as condis ramp up over time. For PVP / WvW you need it doubly so, due to condi cleanse, so you need to start over again and again. However, despite its tricks, Mirage is rather fragile, and some of the (somewhat) stronger things protecting you from damage directly cost you damage in return leading to even more need for sustain.

Now, there are still great players, who play Mirage and are doing awesome on them, but to me it seems hard. I get by, but it's hard. So maybe the skill level for this class is really high - but I don't see the reward even then. Currently it seems to me, that you have to invest a lot and get mediocre results in return and that doesn't feel all that rewarding.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dadnir.5038 said:

And all you 2 gave were poor excuses (like: "it's not good", "there is better options", "we would lose damage"... etc.) showing that you are unwilling to make some sacrifice. You want a build with perfect offense and perfect defense which is bad for the game as a whole. Come on "heart" even put an argument saying that he lose it's illusions when he use a shatter skill... I wonder if he understand how to play mesmer now. Illusions are designed to be consumable that you destroy for burst/utility, they are not meant to be kept until you kill your foe. It's like a warrior that would be unwilling to spend adrenaline or a necromancer unwilling to spend life force.

Rangers lose as much damage when they take wilderness survival than when mesmer take chaos. Warriors, necromancers and, yes, guardians beat hand down the mesmer when it came to have a shity vigor uptime tied to traits (or not for most of them) since it's what you look at. Mesmer is objectively in the high middle tier when it come to vigor uptime, not even close to be one of the profession with the least vigor uptime.

Dadnir, i am not going to say i am the best mesmer out there but I am telling you this based on experience, you take chaos trait line, you lose too much damage, you take inspiration you lose too much damage, and regarding cry of frustration, I NEVER said to keep the illusions, I said we lose the illusions, simply if you don't have illusions your F4 won't save you and won't even be useful.

Now if you insist and go on and bring those classes that are actually issue for mesmer, remove guardian and necro, but go on and add these following classes:

Warriors, they will have mixed stats and if you go inspiration or chaos, most of the time you won't even deal enough damage to them, not to mention that the warrior can actually walk away from you if he feels like it because you will be burning cds to survive.

Druids or soulbeast, Druid can actually just keep up distance and stealth and you can't do anything to them, specially with chaos/inspiration, you are not really threat to them, worst case for druids they can walk away and you can't do anything, and oh by the way it have gotten worse after the removal of reflects.

If you want to add more classes there is Engineer as well, you choose chaos or inspiration and you will have the exact same issue, and i am not talking about people who doesn't know where their skills are.

Now, back to cry of frustration, the thing i have mentioned is, if you use it, you will destroy your illusions, and if you do that and I honestly tried that before, it is not a matter of how fast you react, I react fast regardless of my ping, but without Deceptive Evasion, trust me you will struggle to have illusions to use a good F4 that saves you, you can actually try that and you will see what i mean better.

I don't know how to convince you about the damage thing regarding the traits, but mesmers have it really bad regarding that part, you can say other classes take defensive traits and so on which I understand and is true, but their damage output is enough to kill us while our damage output when we go on defensive side is not enough to kill them, and as mesmer you don't want to stay in combat too long, specially after the nerfs, you will runout of cooldowns.

And you won't convince me like that because whether you got illusions or not your F4 will give you at the very least 1 second of invulnerability. The issue is that people tend to overlook that defense is a combination of more than 1 or 2 isolated effects. In the case of the mesmer and it's specializations, there is dodge (with vigor), prot, block, mobility, blind, stealth and, yes, hard CC. A guardian, for example, won't be able to even compare to a mesmer when it come to mobility, hard CC and stealth while it will dominate when it come to prot and block. Even among the same kind of skills some effects are mechanically superior to other, for example, a groud targeted port is superior to a charge due to it's unpredictibility.

The thread regard isolated effects in a vacuum, not taking into account strength and weaknesses of the professions as a whole. It's like an elementalist saying that a necromancer is op because he got twice as much HP. These are poor comparisons nothing more.

NB.: If you struggle to get illusions and survive, use scepter. You'll get illusions spawn on auto attack, a block and an illusion when you block. If you really wanna build for survivability, just with the weapon skills alone of the core mesmer you'll get 2 blocks (scepter and off hand sword), 1 hard CC (sword off hand), 5 second of blind (scepter), 1 second of blur (sword main hand) and up to 4 seconds of distorsion (F4). Few profession can even compare to that amount of defense. (Don't argue about scepter and off hand sword, I know you can't use both block and extra effect at the same time, but what you lose in quantity you gain in flexibility since it's make it harder for your foes to just wait around that your blocks disappear)

It's sad and unfortunate that the grasp of peoples on professions have fallen this low. Mesmer used to deal damage way lower than they do nowaday and that was up to the fantasm rework. Yet guess what mesmer still managed to kill their foes without necessarily having to go down the full damage road. I'll say it, mesmers don't need to be able to 0-100 in 1 second to win a fight. SB unblockable effect is an issue that need to be adressed by ANet and should have been adressed by ANet in the last balance patch, the fact that they didn't just prove that they didn't read the feedback on the balance patch preview thread. Engineer is in a bunker phase, it would be a shame if you could fell a bunker by yourself, GW2 PvP is and should be a cooperative game not a solo hero winner game.

Can you show me a single build that works for core mesmer in the current meta and does not rely on power shatter burst? No. You can't. Because this isn't core GW2 and dealing that level of damage simply does not work with the current levels of sustain available even to burst builds that are capable of downing players in just a few hits.

The issue is that mirage is designed to burn the candle from both ends. This only works if you can apply sufficient pressure. Mirage currently isn't able to do this. That's why it's struggling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@AliamRationem.5172 said:The issue is that mirage is designed to burn the candle from both ends. This only works if you can apply sufficient pressure. Mirage currently isn't able to do this. That's why it's struggling.

This is so true - and I think it is also one of the reasons Anet struggles to balance it properly (the other main reason being that there are mirage powers, which are hard to measure in terms of direct mechanical effect). Mirage indeed is demanding in terms of features it needs to pull stuff off, often burnign through a lot of its powers INCLUDIING DODGE quickly. The result a really burst-y playstyle - and these bursts can feel either overpowering - or leave you short of coming to real effect, because the enemy is still alive afterward, yet you have burned through your powers already.

Since Mirage actually IS burning the candle from both ends, it actually needs these impactful moments, nerfing these leaves the elite spec lacking. If this keeps being hard to balance, a second look should be given at the overall design (and don't say it cannot be done. It has been done in the past, with how Phantasms work or some trait affecting glamour), taking a step back and coming up with a redesign, that would be easier to handle.

Yes, that will likely upset players, but many of us are already used to adapting our playstyles. I sure don't mind re-learning my strats for different and better results or more versatile approaches to the profession. Currently the whole design just screams BURST BURST BURST at me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@nthmetal.9652 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:The issue is that mirage is designed to burn the candle from both ends. This only works if you can apply sufficient pressure. Mirage currently isn't able to do this. That's why it's struggling.

This is so true - and I think it is also one of the reasons Anet struggles to balance it properly (the other main reason being that there are mirage powers, which are hard to measure in terms of direct mechanical effect). Mirage indeed is demanding in terms of features it needs to pull stuff off, often burnign through a lot of its powers INCLUDIING DODGE quickly. The result a really burst-y playstyle - and these bursts can feel either overpowering - or leave you short of coming to real effect, because the enemy is still alive afterward, yet you have burned through your powers already.

Since Mirage actually IS burning the candle from both ends, it actually needs these impactful moments, nerfing these leaves the elite spec lacking. If this keeps being hard to balance, a second look should be given at the overall design (and don't say it cannot be done. It has been done in the past, with how Phantasms work or some trait affecting glamour), taking a step back and coming up with a redesign, that would be easier to handle.

Yes, that will likely upset players, but many of us are already used to adapting our playstyles. I sure don't mind re-learning my strats for different and better results or more versatile approaches to the profession. Currently the whole design just screams BURST BURST BURST at me.

I'm not sure anything that drastic is necessary. It feels to me like defensively, mirage is where it should be. It is very dependent upon active defense and what separates good play from bad comes down to managing that. It just feels a little lacking in damage at this point.

I think giving a little back to axe, adding a little vigor uptime, improving cry of frustration could bring the class to a great place without making Condi mirage oppressive like it used to be. I'm talking small increases here. Nothing drastic.

Staff speed (and random obstructions) and the entire design of sceptre could use a look, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

The sad part is that Deceptive Evasion was mandatory before HoT and the devs designed chronomancer to finally add some illusion upkeep traits that could finally replace Deceptive Evasion, so that the Dueling trait line would no longer be mandetory. However, they just over did it through the synergies of chronophantasma and illusionary reversion. Additionally, the condition traits on core mesmer back then were not designed around high illusion upkeep. So, what happened? Core mesmer condition traits were nerfed to no longer work as well with high illusion upkeep AND illusion upkeep on chrono was gutted. Future: What a surprise, non of the nerfs were reverted even though they were all no longer necessary. They were then still far too scared to add sufficient illusion upkeep to mirage that could replace DE while at the same time making illusion upkeep more necessary then ever to be viable. The net result being going back in time to where the Dueling trait line is once again only mandatory because of Deceptive Evasion.

RESULTSBuild Variety: TRASHEDTrait Variety: TRASHEDMesmer: TRASHEDGW2: TRASHED

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:The issue is that mirage is designed to burn the candle from both ends. This only works if you can apply sufficient pressure. Mirage currently isn't able to do this. That's why it's struggling.

This is so true - and I think it is also one of the reasons Anet struggles to balance it properly (the other main reason being that there are mirage powers, which are hard to measure in terms of direct mechanical effect). Mirage indeed is demanding in terms of features it needs to pull stuff off, often burnign through a lot of its powers INCLUDIING DODGE quickly. The result a really burst-y playstyle - and these bursts can feel either overpowering - or leave you short of coming to real effect, because the enemy is still alive afterward, yet you have burned through your powers already.

Since Mirage actually IS burning the candle from both ends, it actually needs these impactful moments, nerfing these leaves the elite spec lacking. If this keeps being hard to balance, a second look should be given at the overall design (and don't say it cannot be done. It has been done in the past, with how Phantasms work or some trait affecting glamour), taking a step back and coming up with a redesign, that would be easier to handle.

Yes, that will likely upset players, but many of us are already used to adapting our playstyles. I sure don't mind re-learning my strats for different and better results or more versatile approaches to the profession. Currently the whole design just screams BURST BURST BURST at me.

I'm not sure anything that drastic is necessary. It feels to me like defensively, mirage is where it should be. It is very dependent upon active defense and what separates good play from bad comes down to managing that. It just feels a little lacking in damage at this point.

I think giving a little back to axe, adding a little vigor uptime, improving cry of frustration could bring the class to a great place without making Condi mirage oppressive like it used to be. I'm talking small increases here. Nothing drastic.

Staff speed (and random obstructions) and the entire design of sceptre could use a look, too.

As Mes players, these compensations and reworks certainly sound good. Indeed they aren't drastic, but to the average non-Mes player still reeling from months of Mes-oppression, they'd probably come off as too much, too soon. Just look at the naysayers crawling out of the woodwork to oppose so much as an ammo count or cool down reversion on Jaunt: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/75763/give-jaunt-3-charges-again/p1.

Assuming we've even reached the bottom of Anet's nerf pit (seriously, what else do we have left for them to take while remaining playable?), I'd start with partial reversions on some heavy-handed cool down nerfs: e.g. Jaunt, Illusionary Ambush, Evasive Mirror. That's how conservative I think any "buffs" (really givebacks) should be initially. Even then, I guarantee you there will be whining from the community. After all, there are people who think Mes is still too strong and needs more nerfs.

Baby steps. Last thing I think we need is a laundry list of "buffs" under Mesmer in an upcoming balance update that results in renewed animosity and also FOTM band wagoners. Especially if, as I truly hope, they finally tone down the current overperforming specs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Xstein.2187 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

The sad part is that Deceptive Evasion was mandatory before HoT and the devs designed chronomancer to finally add some illusion upkeep traits that could finally replace Deceptive Evasion, so that the Dueling trait line would no longer be mandetory. However, they just over did it through the synergies of chronophantasma and illusionary reversion. Additionally, the condition traits on core mesmer back then were not designed around high illusion upkeep. So, what happened? Core mesmer condition traits were nerfed to no longer work as well with high illusion upkeep
AND
illusion upkeep on chrono was gutted. Future: What a surprise, non of the nerfs were reverted even though they were all no longer necessary. They were then still far too scared to add sufficient illusion upkeep to mirage that could replace DE while at the same time making illusion upkeep more necessary then ever to be viable. The net result being going back in time to where the Dueling trait line is once again only mandatory
because
of Deceptive Evasion.

RESULTS
Build Variety:
TRASHED
Trait Variety:
TRASHED
Mesmer:
TRASHED
GW2:
TRASHED

You nailed it.

The chrono bandaids were nerfed out of existence (eg Illusionary Reversion, and then the phantasm rework), and mirage never had any good clone generation to begin with (self deception is kitten useless, especially with cooldown nerfs to deception skills, and axe REQUIRES deceptive evasion to be good for combos).

Duelling traitline is largely kitten since the nerfs apart from this almost mandatory GM trait that carries the entirety of mirage.

Nevermind IH - I'll hold of ranting about that design failure which should be a minor trait ever since pof launched (which I recall harping on about then too...). The joke is both these together make mirage good - there's no other foundation for mirage without both of these.

I'll stop there! :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

The sad part is that Deceptive Evasion was mandatory before HoT and the devs designed chronomancer to finally add some illusion upkeep traits that could finally replace Deceptive Evasion, so that the Dueling trait line would no longer be mandetory. However, they just over did it through the synergies of chronophantasma and illusionary reversion. Additionally, the condition traits on core mesmer back then were not designed around high illusion upkeep. So, what happened? Core mesmer condition traits were nerfed to no longer work as well with high illusion upkeep
AND
illusion upkeep on chrono was gutted. Future: What a surprise, non of the nerfs were reverted even though they were all no longer necessary. They were then still far too scared to add sufficient illusion upkeep to mirage that could replace DE while at the same time making illusion upkeep more necessary then ever to be viable. The net result being going back in time to where the Dueling trait line is once again only mandatory
because
of Deceptive Evasion.

RESULTS
Build Variety:
TRASHED
Trait Variety:
TRASHED
Mesmer:
TRASHED
GW2:
TRASHED

You nailed it.

The chrono bandaids were nerfed out of existence (eg Illusionary Reversion, and then the phantasm rework), and mirage never had any good clone generation to begin with (self deception is kitten useless, especially with cooldown nerfs to deception skills, and axe REQUIRES deceptive evasion to be good for combos).

Duelling traitline is largely kitten since the nerfs apart from this almost mandatory GM trait that carries the entirety of mirage.

Nevermind IH - I'll hold of ranting about that design failure which should be a minor trait ever since pof launched (which I recall harping on about then too...). The joke is both these together make mirage good - there's no other foundation for mirage without both of these.

I'll stop there! :p

With Power becoming the only viable option for Mesmer, Deceptive Evasion is even more vital to keep clones up for the shatter damage. Dueling is so vitial for just that ONE trait that it's a large part of why I am back to playing only Core Mesmer.

You MUST have Dueling for DE.

You MUST have Inspiration for Condi Cleanse and what little support we have left to give.

And in most cases, you MUST have Chaos for self defense. So, we really can't even slot an Elite Trait Line.

I would like a partial refund on HoT and PoF for the Elite specs I paid for on my main that I can't really use anymore because people whine all the time all over these boards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

With Power becoming the only viable option for Mesmer, Deceptive Evasion is even more vital to keep clones up for the shatter damage. Dueling is so vitial for just that ONE trait that it's a large part of why I am back to playing only Core Mesmer.

You MUST have Dueling for DE.

You MUST have Inspiration for Condi Cleanse and what little support we have left to give.

And in most cases, you MUST have Chaos for self defense. So, we really can't even slot an Elite Trait Line.

I would like a partial refund on HoT and PoF for the Elite specs I paid for on my main that I can't really use anymore because people whine all the time all over these boards.

My condi clear as mesmer for wvw, arcane thievery and mimic depending on the situation (which we still have the risk of missing), jaunt which i wouldn't even call a condi clear, and torch 4, and something that is not class related which is the sigils, sigils are the greatest condi clear at the moment.

For me it is not possible to play with inspiration, ever since PoF came, that thing doesn't belong there, not worth losing much damage for it, because we will end up not being able to kill anything.

They need to rework everything that is useless in the game, many traits that are useless, many skills that are useless, they gotta start working on that, and not only for mesmers, for every other profession as well.

In the other hand, i wish Mirage Advance would replace gs 5 xD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Heartpains.7312 said:

With Power becoming the only viable option for Mesmer, Deceptive Evasion is even more vital to keep clones up for the shatter damage. Dueling is so vitial for just that ONE trait that it's a large part of why I am back to playing only Core Mesmer.

You MUST have Dueling for DE.

You MUST have Inspiration for Condi Cleanse and what little support we have left to give.

And in most cases, you MUST have Chaos for self defense. So, we really can't even slot an Elite Trait Line.

I would like a partial refund on HoT and PoF for the Elite specs I paid for on my main that I can't really use anymore because people whine
all the time all over these boards.

My condi clear as mesmer for wvw, arcane thievery and mimic depending on the situation (which we still have the risk of missing), jaunt which i wouldn't even call a condi clear, and torch 4, and something that is not class related which is the sigils, sigils are the greatest condi clear at the moment.

For me it is not possible to play with inspiration, ever since PoF came, that thing doesn't belong there, not worth losing much damage for it, because we will end up not being able to kill anything.

They need to rework everything that is useless in the game, many traits that are useless, many skills that are useless, they gotta start working on that, and not only for mesmers, for every other profession as well.

In the other hand, i wish Mirage Advance would replace gs 5 xD

Mirage advance needs a buff, either instant or providing quickness and needs to work out of range to shorten distance.As it stands it works with condi but with power is awful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

The sad part is that Deceptive Evasion was mandatory before HoT and the devs designed chronomancer to finally add some illusion upkeep traits that could finally replace Deceptive Evasion, so that the Dueling trait line would no longer be mandetory. However, they just over did it through the synergies of chronophantasma and illusionary reversion. Additionally, the condition traits on core mesmer back then were not designed around high illusion upkeep. So, what happened? Core mesmer condition traits were nerfed to no longer work as well with high illusion upkeep
AND
illusion upkeep on chrono was gutted. Future: What a surprise, non of the nerfs were reverted even though they were all no longer necessary. They were then still far too scared to add sufficient illusion upkeep to mirage that could replace DE while at the same time making illusion upkeep more necessary then ever to be viable. The net result being going back in time to where the Dueling trait line is once again only mandatory
because
of Deceptive Evasion.

RESULTS
Build Variety:
TRASHED
Trait Variety:
TRASHED
Mesmer:
TRASHED
GW2:
TRASHED

You nailed it.

The chrono bandaids were nerfed out of existence (eg Illusionary Reversion, and then the phantasm rework), and mirage never had any good clone generation to begin with (self deception is kitten useless, especially with cooldown nerfs to deception skills, and axe REQUIRES deceptive evasion to be good for combos).

Duelling traitline is largely kitten since the nerfs apart from this almost mandatory GM trait that carries the entirety of mirage.

Nevermind IH - I'll hold of ranting about that design failure which should be a minor trait ever since pof launched (which I recall harping on about then too...). The joke is both these together make mirage good - there's no other foundation for mirage without both of these.

I'll stop there! :p

With Power becoming the only viable option for Mesmer, Deceptive Evasion is even more vital to keep clones up for the shatter damage. Dueling is so vitial for just that ONE trait that it's a large part of why I am back to playing only Core Mesmer.

You MUST have Dueling for DE.

You MUST have Inspiration for Condi Cleanse and what little support we have left to give.

And in most cases, you MUST have Chaos for self defense. So, we really can't even slot an Elite Trait Line.

I would like a partial refund on HoT and PoF for the Elite specs I paid for on my main that I can't really use anymore because people whine
all the time all over these boards.

Blinding Dissipation+Ineptitude was my favorite trait combo and synergy back when it and illusions could actually accomplish things. Imagine that, a traitline where everything is giving you good value and Deceptive Evasion wasn't mandatory or even primarily run. I still adore the flavor and idea of it. Mesmer just doesn't feel like mesmer to me if it isn't getting most of it's damage and kills through confusion and torment. And Portal, what made me want to play mesmer in the first place back in Heart of Thorns, got smiter's booned as well.

Meanwhile let's have 25k spammable 450 radius arc dividers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dadnir.5038 said:And you won't convince me like that because whether you got illusions or not your F4 will give you at the very least 1 second of invulnerability. The issue is that >people tend to overlook that defense is a combination of more than 1 or 2 isolated effects. In the case of the mesmer and it's specializations, there is dodge (with >vigor), prot, block, mobility, blind, stealth and, yes, hard CC. A guardian, for example, won't be able to even compare to a mesmer when it come to mobility, hard CC >and stealth while it will dominate when it come to prot and block. Even among the same kind of skills some effects are mechanically superior to other, for example, a >groud targeted port is superior to a charge due to it's unpredictibility.

The thread regard isolated effects in a vacuum, not taking into account strength and weaknesses of the professions as a whole. It's like an elementalist saying that a >necromancer is op because he got twice as much HP. These are poor comparisons nothing more.

NB.: If you struggle to get illusions and survive, use scepter. You'll get illusions spawn on auto attack, a block and an illusion when you block. If you really wanna build >for survivability, just with the weapon skills alone of the core mesmer you'll get 2 blocks (scepter and off hand sword), 1 hard CC (sword off hand), 5 second of blind >(scepter), 1 second of blur (sword main hand) and up to 4 seconds of distorsion (F4). Few profession can even compare to that amount of defense. (Don't argue >about scepter and off hand sword, I know you can't use both block and extra effect at the same time, but what you lose in quantity you gain in flexibility since it's >make it harder for your foes to just wait around that your blocks disappear)

It's sad and unfortunate that the grasp of peoples on professions have fallen this low. Mesmer used to deal damage way lower than they do nowaday and that was up >to the fantasm rework. Yet guess what mesmer still managed to kill their foes without necessarily having to go down the full damage road. I'll say it, mesmers don't >need to be able to 0-100 in 1 second to win a fight. SB unblockable effect is an issue that need to be adressed by ANet and should have been adressed by ANet in the >last balance patch, the fact that they didn't just prove that they didn't read the feedback on the balance patch preview thread. Engineer is in a bunker phase, it would >be a shame if you could fell a bunker by yourself, GW2 PvP is and should be a cooperative game not a solo hero winner game.

I do not know what you mean that some of the classes are not even close to being as "good" (even if good is subjective) as mesmer. Just by looking at the metabattle and the PvP builds on it, most of the builds there has a ton of sustain, mobility, block, even invulns or sort of invulns. For example,revenant has block on staff/ high burst damage / boons/evade/shadowstep and a skill that converts all incoming damage into healing for 3 sec on 30 sec CDholo has hard CC on rifle and pforge 5/leaps/block from utility/access to quickness and other boons/invulnnecro has basically 2 life bars/ access to quickness/ranged attacks/even a teleport with wurm tho it isnt that good/hard CCwarr has evades/blocks on shield/ sustain/insane damage on berserker/hard CC/RAMPAGEscrapper - will not even talk about thisguard has invuln/CC on DH/lot of aegis/quickness if its needed/ insane damage/leapsPlus soooo many other build variants on these classes, while mesmer on has like what? 3 if we take into account that every little trait mod/rune or amulet change counts as one buildAnd maybe I am the only one who sees that these things what other classes have can race with mesmer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Mirage advance needs a buff, either instant or providing quickness and needs to work out of range to shorten distance.As it stands it works with condi but with power is awful.

I honestly never saw anyone with condi use it, in fact i have only seen it being used twice or something, and i was hoping that it could replace gs5, at least it is better than gs5 or more fun to use.

@Nepster.4275 said:

And maybe I am the only one who sees that these things what other classes have can race with mesmer

Don't worry, anyone who can't see that is probably blind =p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:Deceptive Evasion is such a massive crutch right now as it used to be before HoT and Insp/Illu/Chrono shatter spam...

Mirage is almost entirely carried by this and IH - take either away and the whole thing falls apart.

Regarding mirage, the joke is it's actually not bad - the single build/playstyle that works (regardless of damage type, power or condi)... There's just no foundation for variety or any kind of choice - you either play IH/DE with whatever weapons/stat set and do well, or you don't and... don't.

The sad part is that Deceptive Evasion was mandatory before HoT and the devs designed chronomancer to finally add some illusion upkeep traits that could finally replace Deceptive Evasion, so that the Dueling trait line would no longer be mandetory. However, they just over did it through the synergies of chronophantasma and illusionary reversion. Additionally, the condition traits on core mesmer back then were not designed around high illusion upkeep. So, what happened? Core mesmer condition traits were nerfed to no longer work as well with high illusion upkeep
AND
illusion upkeep on chrono was gutted. Future: What a surprise, non of the nerfs were reverted even though they were all no longer necessary. They were then still far too scared to add sufficient illusion upkeep to mirage that could replace DE while at the same time making illusion upkeep more necessary then ever to be viable. The net result being going back in time to where the Dueling trait line is once again only mandatory
because
of Deceptive Evasion.

RESULTS
Build Variety:
TRASHED
Trait Variety:
TRASHED
Mesmer:
TRASHED
GW2:
TRASHED

You nailed it.

The chrono bandaids were nerfed out of existence (eg Illusionary Reversion, and then the phantasm rework), and mirage never had any good clone generation to begin with (self deception is kitten useless, especially with cooldown nerfs to deception skills, and axe REQUIRES deceptive evasion to be good for combos).

Duelling traitline is largely kitten since the nerfs apart from this almost mandatory GM trait that carries the entirety of mirage.

Nevermind IH - I'll hold of ranting about that design failure which should be a minor trait ever since pof launched (which I recall harping on about then too...). The joke is both these together make mirage good - there's no other foundation for mirage without both of these.

I'll stop there! :p

With Power becoming the only viable option for Mesmer, Deceptive Evasion is even more vital to keep clones up for the shatter damage. Dueling is so vitial for just that ONE trait that it's a large part of why I am back to playing only Core Mesmer.

You MUST have Dueling for DE.

You MUST have Inspiration for Condi Cleanse and what little support we have left to give.

And in most cases, you MUST have Chaos for self defense. So, we really can't even slot an Elite Trait Line.

I would like a partial refund on HoT and PoF for the Elite specs I paid for on my main that I can't really use anymore because people whine
all the time all over these boards.

Blinding Dissipation+Ineptitude was my favorite trait combo and synergy back when it and illusions could actually accomplish things. Imagine that, a traitline where everything is giving you good value and Deceptive Evasion wasn't mandatory or even primarily run. I still adore the flavor and idea of it. Mesmer just doesn't feel like mesmer to me if it isn't getting most of it's damage and kills through confusion and torment. And Portal, what made me want to play mesmer in the first place back in Heart of Thorns, got smiter's booned as well.

Meanwhile let's have 25k spammable 450 radius arc dividers.

To be honest though, BD + Ineptitude was never healthy since Anet decided confusion should be a more limited burst condition and removed it from most other spammable sources (eg staff ambush, axe ambush, illusionary retribution). That combo remained a spammable instant (due to shatters being instant) source of confusion which is good to be changed in some way, though not necessarily in the way it was done - eg F2 is too long a cooldown for its effect and ought to be on par with F1.

For the record DE + IH is unhealthy due to passive damage application from clones - I've had situations where ressing an ally and using dodge for evade frames, where clones have almost downed the guy trying to cleave and interrupt... This is stupid because requires no effort from myself.

However in this situation regarding IH I believe two things should happen to fix it:

  1. Make it GM minor.
  2. Allow clones to evade and ambush, but shift MAJORITY of damage on to player ambush only, so clones deal minimal damage on their own.

Being a minor trait it wouldn't be necessary to have clone ambushes deal much damage because it would be enough for a player ambush enhancement and evade frames for illusions (keep them alive for shatter etc), together with thematic flavour and deception of clones casting ambushes.

I know you're going to say the previous point of making it so DE spawned clone didn't ambush, however I believe that would only be a band aid fix rather than sorting out the root of the problem being passive damage application via dodging - which is kind of a new version of how clone death used to work with dodging, just with new visual effects.

Edit - one other thing, IF Anet decide to do a big overhaul and rework shatters for both Chrono and Mirage (highly unlikely, but who knows...) such that for mirage things like F1 and F2 became clone "orders" - eg order your clones to ambush on a target - then sure clones can keep the damage component, because it would require some separate interaction to cast. But I can't see this realistically happening, so feel it's best that clones lose damage on ambush and have it be mostly visual flavour and utility (eg boons, effects, movement - like on spear and sword for shatter combos, etc). On the other hand player ambush should be in turn hugely boosted to be properly impactful and dangerous - so the challenge for enemies would be to know which ambush to dodge, to identify the player's attack amongst the clones doing the same attack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Heartpains.7312 said:

Mirage advance needs a buff, either instant or providing quickness and needs to work out of range to shorten distance.As it stands it works with condi but with power is awful.

I honestly never saw anyone with condi use it, in fact i have only seen it being used twice or something, and i was hoping that it could replace gs5, at least it is better than gs5 or more fun to use.

Curunen tried it sometime with condi and osicat used to run it too.It synergizes (or used to) well with ineptitude for the extra confusion.On power it can work if you slap a sigil of quickness on weapon swap on gs but it's just too clunky to bother.Shortish range+long cast time makes this skill bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Curunen.8729 said:Yeah my issue with Mirage Advance was lack of evade frame - not going to waste dodge to cover that animation when you've got StG or even IA with nerfed cooldown that provide evade frame and stunbreak/pseudo-stunbreak.

The advance portion definitely feels clunky due to its cast time and inexplicably short range. However, don't forget that you also get the retreat, which is instant, 1200 range, and a target break. It's not a bad skill, but it would become a GREAT skill if the advance portion were instant and 1200 range as well!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"Curunen.8729" said:Yeah my issue with Mirage Advance was lack of evade frame - not going to waste dodge to cover that animation when you've got StG or even IA with nerfed cooldown that provide evade frame and stunbreak/pseudo-stunbreak.

The advance portion definitely feels clunky due to its cast time and inexplicably short range. However, don't forget that you also get the retreat, which is instant, 1200 range, and a target break. It's not a bad skill, but it would become a GREAT skill if the advance portion were instant and 1200 range as well!

I can already hear thieves crying foul about Infiltrator's Strike if we got this. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Heartpains.7312 said:My condi clear as mesmer for wvw, arcane thievery and mimic depending on the situation (which we still have the risk of missing), jaunt which i wouldn't even call a condi clear, and torch 4, and something that is not class related which is the sigils, sigils are the greatest condi clear at the moment.

For me it is not possible to play with inspiration, ever since PoF came, that thing doesn't belong there, not worth losing much damage for it, because we will end up not being able to kill anything.

You might be right there, if I could stand using Mirage. The lack of moving on dodge with the AoEmeta of WvW right now makes me stick with core or Chronomancer. But I might need to swap out Inspiration and go something like Chaos/Dueling/Chrono and get some of those sigils.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...