Yoci.2481

I believe you can interrupt downed skills, but like Yasai said only those with a cast time.

It really is. I was a die hard power mirage player during the two-dodge-mirage era, but I almost exclusively play core hybrid now (2100 power, 1150 condition dmg, 40% crit chance before stacks and fury). Out of everything I've tested since the Feb. Patch, Dueling/Illusions/Chaos Scepter/Torch Sword/Pistol seems to be the most effective for solo roaming. The only things that really hard counter it are Power Dragonhunter and Strength Spellbreaker due to their insane reveal uptime and this builds reliance on stealth. It could be argued that thief should still be a hard counter, but I've only come across two thieves in the past year that were any challenge (which probably says more about the quality of thief players than anything else). Power Mesmer still functions when you have team mates to back you up, but when it gets hard focused it crumbles way too quickly to be a viable solo roamer. In a lot of cases, I think Axe/Torch Sword/Pistol Hybrid Mirage is the best Mesmer build for dueling, but if the build can't 1vX its not really worth solo roaming on imo. Here's a clip of it in action. Obviously my opponents here are not the cream of the crop (you can't realistically win 1vX fights against genuinely skilled players). I'm not saying that Mesmer isn't in a bad place (it definitely is), but this build is capable of holding its own against good players as long as the driver knows what they're doing. Right now the thing that frustrates me the most is how stealth reliant Core Mesmer is. When I was deep into Power Mirage I could practically ignore marked areas because stealth was just a small part of its toolkit. How hard could it be to tone down the marked stuff in WvW? Not only do we need to worry about sentrys, towers, and keeps, but I have come across a few players who incorporate Target Painter Traps into their fight style and it really shuts Core Chaos Mesmer down. If a thief gets hit by a target painter trap he can just teleport out of combat and wait out the timer, but Mesmer is basically kitten. I remember watching and liking some of your videos, but I think you never posted your build. Did I see it right that you use Deceptive Evasion over Ineptitude? Yep, I also use evasive mirror over blinding dissipation. Thank you, could you maybe post your full build? I would like to try it. :)

It really is. I was a die hard power mirage player during the two-dodge-mirage era, but I almost exclusively play core hybrid now (2100 power, 1150 condition dmg, 40% crit chance before stacks and fury). Out of everything I've tested since the Feb. Patch, Dueling/Illusions/Chaos Scepter/Torch Sword/Pistol seems to be the most effective for solo roaming. The only things that really hard counter it are Power Dragonhunter and Strength Spellbreaker due to their insane reveal uptime and this builds reliance on stealth. It could be argued that thief should still be a hard counter, but I've only come across two thieves in the past year that were any challenge (which probably says more about the quality of thief players than anything else). Power Mesmer still functions when you have team mates to back you up, but when it gets hard focused it crumbles way too quickly to be a viable solo roamer. In a lot of cases, I think Axe/Torch Sword/Pistol Hybrid Mirage is the best Mesmer build for dueling, but if the build can't 1vX its not really worth solo roaming on imo. Here's a clip of it in action. Obviously my opponents here are not the cream of the crop (you can't realistically win 1vX fights against genuinely skilled players). I'm not saying that Mesmer isn't in a bad place (it definitely is), but this build is capable of holding its own against good players as long as the driver knows what they're doing. Right now the thing that frustrates me the most is how stealth reliant Core Mesmer is. When I was deep into Power Mirage I could practically ignore marked areas because stealth was just a small part of its toolkit. How hard could it be to tone down the marked stuff in WvW? Not only do we need to worry about sentrys, towers, and keeps, but I have come across a few players who incorporate Target Painter Traps into their fight style and it really shuts Core Chaos Mesmer down. If a thief gets hit by a target painter trap he can just teleport out of combat and wait out the timer, but Mesmer is basically kitten. I remember watching and liking some of your videos, but I think you never posted your build. Did I see it right that you use Deceptive Evasion over Ineptitude?

Lan, Manu etc., the problem with your suggestions is that they don't address the imbalances at a higher level of play. They also seem to focus more on condi builds (power builds don't have clones to "hide" in between because they instantly shatter them), but the main point is that your "advice" only work against bad players. The active Mesmer PvP/WvW community that is left is pretty small and generally pretty good that those game modes, and doesn't need the kind of advice that might be helpful to a new player. Everyone can kill inexperienced opponents, that's not the problem. The problem arises when good players meet other good players. At that point Mesmer loses by default and can only win with some luck or the opponent making mistakes. When I say good players I mean the kind of people who have stow weapon bound to an easily accessible key, who know how to work the camera and who know all the skills, animations and cool downs of pretty much every possible build they might encounter. They don't get fooled by a clone for more than a millisecond. So as thankful as I am for your attempts at contributing to a solution I would appreciate it if you would consider these items in the future.

For which game mode do you need help? Different game modes have different requirements and sometimes different rule sets. Some important game modes are:Open World PvEWord vs Word PvPStructured PvPRaidsFractals

From https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/mesmer/ Duelists. We are duelists. =) :s

Playing power Mesmer in WvW (roaming) is so frustrating. Everything kills you. Everyone who is at least half way decent will kill you, while having more mobility and resustain ability. Some professions counter you so hard it's not even funny. The balance is so bad it is emberassing. Don't they have some tools that can keep track of stuff like that?This is not fun. This is not entertaining. This is not challenging. I can not recommend anyone play Mesmer as a roamer in WvW. Not Core, not Chronomancer, not Mirage. Because everyone who is not new or mostly a PvE player will defeat you. Maybe I am just bad. But why am I so much better when I play other professions, even ones I haven't spent much time on?

I think if you want to play power shatter you should try Chrono. But on the other hand I play only WvW not PvP.

You can switch to the chronomancer. They have a speed boost by default. Just make a new build template where you have chronomancer elite selected, traits don't matter for JPs, just the Chrono elite. And you'll have your speed boost. Probably not as much as from runes, but it's still faster than core and Mirage. It's exactly the same speed boost as the one from runes. All the professions passive movement speed enhancements got normalised a loooooong time ago.

Also Chaos line for swiftness while stealthed and the super speed trait.

thats due to sword auto-attacks having MASSIVE aftercasts, thats why when you auto-attack be ready to use normal dodge and not blurred Yes I know that but some abilities can ignore after casts and I think Blurred Frenzy should ignore it too.

What I would like to see changed about Blurred Frenzy is that it should get a higher priority and ignore the after cast of other skills. A lot of times it seems to start a quarter of a second too late.

illusionary persona allows shatters with no clones Ah right, yeah, that's on by default now.But we gave up distortion for it so... Continuum split is able to completely reset your health and cooldowns. Giving up distortion for this powerful effect is how it should have worked from the beginning...It's a strong ability that is difficult to balance, I agree with that. But I don't think that the current iteration of Chronomancer would be too strong by getting distortion back. Continuum split is great as an offensive ability, allowing you to spam strong abilities, but it's defensive usefulness is very limited. For instance it is almost always better to dodge an attack than to try to tank it with CS. You will keep all CC effects and conditions that hit you when you leave CS. And your opponent gets to keep all the perks he got by hitting you. Also there is another downside to CS that is rarely discussed: Every second you spend in CS is a second you lose on regaining cool downs. By that I mean if some skill is on a 10 second cool down and you enter a 3 second CS that will effectively add 3 seconds to the 10 second cool down. And that is true for every skill and ability that is currently on cool down, except for the ones that happen to come off cool down during the CS. Effectively you give yourself 1.66 seconds of Chill for every second of CS. And people can just wait at the CS spot and effectively one-shot you as soon as your CS ends. Not that that has ever happened to me... 0:)

Null field can be blocked, though.

The combat systems are far to different to compare. For example DAoC has a very punishing interrupt system, where everything interrupts a spell caster. Even attacks that don't hit will interrupt. At the same time free casting spell casters can turn dozens of people into ashes within seconds. In GW2 pretty much only hard cc will interrupt.Another difference is that DAoC heavily punishes people for clumping up. The main reason for that is that AoE damage doesn't have a target cap and healing and support skills are typically group based and not area based. This is of course completely different from GW2 where AoE attacks do have target caps and heals and support abilities are typical based on an area around the caster or a specific location, which actually encourages people to clump up.The third big difference I see is that DAoC skills typically have no cooldown (and no global cooldown) and can be spammed at long as there is enough endurance or mana, and at a high level and with support there is an almost infinite amount of both.So DAoC combat revolves more around positioning and interrupts and not so much around cooldown and resource management.

And please don't forget Core and Chronomancer. Just giving Mirage a dodge back will not fix Mesmer.

Right its ok to have a trade off like getting to attack during the dodges evade frame in exchange for being more vulnerable to certain types of attacks like ground AoE and any large radius cleaves. But ohh wait that WAS the trade off before Anet decided to ignore it and say it didnt have one, and removed a dodge, etc, etc. Meanwhile many in the community are willing to suggest it was Ok for people who decided to run condi gear and not ok for people who run power gear which ultumatly muted the classes ability to object and actually helped kill the class. Good job all. Thanks everyone! LOL How is that a trade off when you are able to jaunt, port, or sword leap away from those things? Mirage dodge is clearly a problem that needs to be addressed if Mirage is to have two dodges. @Ronald McDonald.8165 said: Right its ok to have a trade off like getting to attack during the dodges evade frame in exchange for being more vulnerable to certain types of attacks like ground AoE and any large radius cleaves. But ohh wait that WAS the trade off before Anet decided to ignore it and say it didnt have one, and removed a dodge, etc, etc. Meanwhile many in the community are willing to suggest it was Ok for people who decided to run condi gear and not ok for people who run power gear which ultumatly muted the classes ability to object and actually helped kill the class. Good job all. Thanks everyone! LOL How is that a trade off when you are able to jaunt, port, or sword leap away from those things? Mirage dodge is clearly a problem that needs to be addressed if Mirage is to have two dodges. So your apparent counter argument is that Mirage should only have 1 dodge because it has utility skills that can add mobility to a build the same way that pretty much every class and elite spec has including core Mes and chrono along with thief, dd, de, guard, fb, dh, necro, reaper, scourge, rev, herald, renegade, ranger, druid, soulbeast, on and on. your point seems invalid. I literally never said any of those things, but acting like Mirage can't get out of AOEs is kind of silly. Mirage is the weakest class right now, but I don't agree though that adding the 2nd dodge back is what is good and healthy for the game. [...] You literally said that. =) I literally didn't =) I will try to elaborate more so you can understand. After I said that "getting to attack during the dodges evade frame in exchange for being more vulnerable to certain types of attacks like ground AoE and any large radius cleave" was always a valid trade off. In other words, After I suggest, the lack or horizontal mobility from using Mirage Cloak (MC) was always a valid trade-off which you (Ronald) responded saying " How is that a trade off when you are able to jaunt, port, or sword leap away from those things?" So in effect your are asserting a counter argument that disagrees and asserts that since Mirage has mobility utilities like jaunt, port, sword leap ambush (ironic) it doesn't need the second dodge. Additionally, your statement implies that Mirage has as much ability to get out of AoE as other classes due to utility skills like jaunt, portal, etc. However, as I pointed out every class has similar mobility skills on weapons and as utility skills that can also be used in the same way, the difference is those other classes ALL get 2+ dodges that DO provide them horizontal movement when they gain evade frame, Mirage doesn't. Therefore, as I said before, you are apparently asserting that Mirage doesnt need 2 dodges because it has utility and weapon skills that add mobility. I countered by pointing out that every class has that in addition to the 2+ normal dodges which would seem to clearly make one dodge an invalid trade off in that its like a double penalty unlike any other classes trade off. Also dodge as others keep pointing out is a core ability that arguably shouldn't have ever been removed because its a core ability. Also while on the topic I will restate that that MC has a trade-off build in as much as any other elite spec even with 2 dodges. Not sure why you refuse to admit the fact, but its ok.> @Ronald McDonald.8165 said: No, that isn't what I am implying. What I am trying to say is that on the list of reasons Mirage could use another dodge, getting out of AOEs was literally never on my list. The thought "if only I had a second dodge to get out of this AOE" has either never happened or happened so infrequently that I don't remember ever having it. Thats funny I guess you have not played much Mirage in the last year or two. That explains your perspective on its balance, however. I have played Condi Mirage and Condi Chrono near exclusively for the past 8 months or so. I never have played the easy classes in MMOs and never will. I have always enjoyed being the underdog and outplaying my opponents. I don't want or expect to have easy handed to me on a silver platter, but I guess that explains the difference on our perspectives for balance. As I said earlier "I have to agree with both Helseth and Shorts (which I think is pretty easy to say are the two best Mesmer players) that adding the 2nd dodge to Mirage will break the class and is toxic for the game. Unhealthy mechanics are not good for the game. Like most everyone else, I don't enjoy playing against unhealthy mechanics, so I don't find the solution to be to add more. I play Mesmer 99% of the time. Just because other classes have unhealthy mechanics, doesn't mean I want one too." So you see, I am very far from alone on my sentiments regarding Mirage balance. Like Helseth, I think Mirage's resustain is the bigger issue for Mirage than a second dodge. Mirage has one of the worst heals in the game, it's on a long cooldown, and the only real resustain Mirage and Mesmer really has is to exit combat. The only other class that operates like that is thief, but thief can disengage (and reengage) MUCH easier than Mesmer. That is the reason Mesmer is essentially useless on maps like Skyhammer, because disengage is next to impossible. You seem to primarily be looking at things from a rPvP perspective which is fine. However, you arent going to run into the same issues with AoE and cleaves pvp vs wvw, still the issue I pointed out has yet to actually be adressed or refuted by you. All you have done now is quote two well known players making general comments that dont address the specifics that I am talking about that you seem to want to claim are wrong without actually bringing any relevent counter argument. You simply claim its never been an issue for you so it must not be a real thing. Which is a very poor argument especially considering how common it is for mesmers to point to the lack of mobility from MC and how it creates an obvious and unescapable downside when caught in AoE and cleave. The generalized and very old quotes are pretty pointless to me as a counter argument since it is a broad generalization that neither supports or refutes your argument or mine. So we are talking about WvW and not PvP? That is fine. Like I said I have been playing Chronomancer and Mirage almost exclusively. That includes in both a WvW and PvP environment. You dismiss utilities to escape AOEs as being valid. I can prove that wrong very easily. Play Chronomancer in WvW. Find out how much more punishing it is to play as Chronomancer in WvW when you don't have all those utilities that Mirage has to escape cleave and AOE. A second dodge does not come close to removing you from the situations nearly as well as what you have with Mirage. As Chronomancer if you are stuck in cleave and AOE you have one single option and that is to teleport out, if that is on CD you have 0 options. As a Mirage you have many actual options. You can jaunt, you can MC, you can axe 2 for mobility, you can port with axe 3 to avoid it, you can sword ambush, you can distort. You have soooooooo much more leeway as Mirage to find yourself in those kind of situations and survive because of it's kit. Play Chronomancer and see just how wrong you are in assuming that having 2 regular dodges makes up for all of those things.The error in your reasoning is that you compare Mirage with Chronomancer, another spec that is hurting and only really good for meme videos.

Actually no energy sigil over caps the endurance bar so no it doesn't cover it, dodge recharge bar is still 8 seconds even with vigor and energy food.Torment runes are neglectable in terms of heal because now you only have one dodge you either dodge for dmg or you dodge to avoid dmg there is no doing both.The only thing that is correct is yes trailblazer covers the defensive part of it. Other then that condi mirage in WvW is ignorable and avoidable.Fact that our dodge bar requires 8 seconds to recharge while weapon swap is 10 seconds and sigil of cleansing is 3 condi remove (torment, burn, confusion) condi mirage does no damage.That is unless you decide to 1 v 1 a condi mirage then yea maybe it could beat you after 20+ min of fighting. It is true that most builds can ignore a condi mirage as condi Mirage has little chase potential and low burst. A solo roamer that fights for an objective like a camp doesn't have that option, though. Many builds have a hard time against such a condi Mirage, especially in competent hands. It can be pretty oppressive in those cases. And that are the moments most people think about when they hear calls for giving Mirage the second dodge back.

Condi Mirage can be very annoying in WvW but that is mostly because of dire and trailblazer stats that give extreme survivability while having almost maximum condition damage. The condition damage itself isn't the issue, but the strong defense combined with stealth and detargets make it unfun to play against.

GS 3 teleport.

When comparing these we have to keep in mind the difference between PvP and WvW. PvP is a bit more balanced. In WvW Mesmer has to deal with a lot of OP cute little kittens that just don't exist in PvP, while WvW Mesmer itself is pretty close to PvP Mesmer.

Well okay but they are not going to nerf 8 classes down to the level of Mesmer. So either we get a big boost or we stay bottom of the barrel forever.

Wow cool, I will watch it when I have the time. You are doing a lot for the community! :)

The I Dont Want To Die GS Power Chrono:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pi0AEx/lVwuYYsEGKeOT7NXA-zRIYRU/XKhVAZGCdGBtmAqdACYH8O0nB-e Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono Surprisingly effective against some builds. Lots of quickness and superspeeding clones. Wear down your enemies. Can still almost one shot certain glass builds. Get out of dangerous situations easy peasy. Now you can troll the thief! At least until they get used to your build. Arcane Thievery is optional, use whatever you want. Mirror Images, Decoy or Mimic are good alternatives.

Thank you for working hard on this. I cry a lot about Mesmer needing help but other than that you are doing a good job on a great game. :)