Cpt Crunch.7058

Well the change to Restorative Mantra's is a nerf. Changing the activation of the trait to be the use of charges instead of on preparation of the mantra and reducing the base healing by 50% alone is simply a change to how the trait is activated, but slashing the coefficients by 50% reduces the overall healing output of the trait. Also from a mechanical and counterplay point of view the change is bad. The trait activating on preparation of the mantra allows for opponents to interrupt and deny both the mantra and the heal. Very powerful when it needs to be cast during a crucial moment in the fight and the mesmer has to deal with the long cast time. Changing the activation to the use of charges means there is no way to stop the healing because the mesmer is not obligated as much to deal with such a long cast during a disfavorable situation. Why cast a mantra in the thick of it when it's easier to kite away to cover the cast, run back to the group, blow mantra charges and repeat. It's also bad for the flow of skills for the mesmer as it creates the situation where the choice of healing or mantra charges conflict. It ruins the aspect of cycling through them in a judicious manner and just becomes another thing that is to be spammed and wasted the moment the mantra is charged to get healing value out of them. The reward for a successful mantra cast while having to stay near allies while the enemy attempts to murder you was the heal, now it will just be more passive gameplay garbage.

After years of Guardian being the dominant support in WvW we finally start to see the viability of other professions like Chrono. But now 3 months after the changes we get this knee-jerk reactionary balance update to make sure Chrono can't compete with Guard.... and on top of that lets buff Guard even more!!! Do you not realize that the meta is STALE thanks to this garbage??? This is because a particular blue class is doing everything to high levels of success right now and it hurts all other professions because it constantly feels as if one is wasting their time if not playing Anet's favorite. And so the calls for Guardian nerfs won't stop, so Guardian mains won't be happy, because no one else is happy playing something sub-par. Stop this BS of making sure that Guardian reigns supreme..... it's choking the life out of the game for F's sake. Focus on making sure they do ONE THING super well and everything else just "ok" so you can make room for other actors to join the show

Can we get a fitting room? I know we can preview skins and such, but could there be like a "virtual space" (could be good use of SAB outside of holiday) where all skins, infusions, etc. for the currently played armor class and race be available? Something that would allow a true preview of how things interact with each other before one dedicates the time/gems/gold only to find out it doesn't quite work as expected or how it shows in previews. It should allow a small number of friends to join, think home instance, and anything done in this space is erased upon exit. Maybe even be able to change which scenery is loaded and at what time of day so that special skins and such can be previewed under various circumstances and different lighting. Would do wonders to help strategize and plan the Fashion Wars meta

My general thoughts on the rifle is that it is the wet-noodle of healing/support at the moment. It has some good ideas but the execution of the way certain mesmer mechanics causes the weapon to be all over the place conceptually and feels like something that I have to work against rather than something that has natural flow or just "works." I may repeat what others have already stated but that is good, it shows where work is needed. Skill 1 - Super weak. Does nothing AT ALL. Better to not even cast. Love the idea of targeting allies but not worth the time and effort to use on any build with any stats (power, minstrels, cele, you name it) Really awful. *One additional note: projectiles have no piercing effect and get body blocked by allies against the ally you actually want to heal 😞 Ambush - Great idea again, disappointed in the damage/healing the clones put out. If they clones had as much effect as the mesmer it would be great. At the cost of one endurance bar or mirror this is also not worth casting. Skill 2 - Good skill. Decent healing, decent damage, nice regen and cripple. Does need to be faster in my opinion, takes too long to land. Again, I like that I can target either enemies or allies. One problem however is the clone generation, and what follows is something thats gonna carry with rifle and is one of those mesmer class quirks that needs to be resolved. Rifle clones do not target allies! This one mechanic limits skill 2, along with shatters for heals, and how rifle clones with their auto attacks behave. It is limiting the entire concept of healing to a mechanic that just isnt available unless there is ONE single enemy nearby. And yes, this also ties in to the problem of not having enough clone generation on rifle. The whole concept of mesmer healing needs to have these wrinkles straightened out otherwise everything works against everything else and fails. Skill 3 - Pretty much knew it was going to be bad from preview. The damage is nice, the heal is nice, the boons are great, the combo + blast is fantastic...... having the effects split and having to pick and choose is garbage and ruins the whole skill. Make it one cast. Combine the healing, damage, and boons into one action and make it create a combo field that self blasts but lingers for a few seconds like chaos storm so additional combos can be performed. Skill 4 - Another skill I knew was going to be bad from preview. Just. Doesnt. Fit. With. The. Theme. Please change this into a player-centered knockback, or backwards evade/leap. It needs to do something to help take pressure off when being focused. Currently it has practically zero effect in competitive. It's only purpose is to get a clone. A backwards evade with a phantasm that chains the current target and pulls them away combined would be a good change. Anything other than this. *Additional note: phantasm needs enemy target, for a weapon that gives me the option to target allies, having to detarget and target an enemy and switching back feels terrible Skill 5 - Oh boy. What to say. This skill was promoted as the crowning jewel of rifle. And yet after a few hours in WvW with my regular ganking buddies I have used this a total of ZERO TIMES. Sure I will cast for the measly barrier and resistance but never ever used the portal. Even when trying to coordinate it was impossible. Not visible enough in the middle of a fight, too short duration, casting range too short for being coupled with a 5000 unit portal. Its just the worst. I understand a two-way range castable portal can really break the game so I ain't going to suggest what others are saying about making it a two-way portal. Instead it should work as a one-way portal with the typical entrace/exit markers as long as the duration is increased. Another alternative could be make it into something similar to thief shortbow 5 where the mesmer gets a1200 teleport to location and allows for one single ally to follow where the mesmer went. This could help save allies running to the healer for help, or another support standing next to the mesmer get out of trouble. Or dont change a thing about the skill but increase the range to something cool like 2000 units. Would help make the skill actually useful for what its supposed to do AND help make mesmer feel like a rule-breaker again. Dare to make us feel different.

Pretty much what others have already said. This weapon is looking like a joke. The phantasm is incredibly slow and the stun seems like an outlier on a weapon where everything is boons, healing, and barrier. I get the idea in trying to provide cc but this is terrible. A knockback AoE wouldve been better. And hey! It could also throw boons around and healing. Win-win. The portal on rifle skill 5 is useless to the caster. It is also useless when mid-air or if outside the range. Why??? I mean I get why... so it cant be gamed. But why couldn't it just work like a regular portal where both the entrance and exits have to be laid down except that this particular one-way portal allows you to throw the entrance rather than walk over. This would keep the original idea, make the location fixed and less janky (and as you say cant be used to troll), and still give the casting mesmer some mobility to... well... you know... keep supporting. Can be used to create distance, exit fights, or juke in competitive. It can help allies in PvE keep up with mechanics if their build just dont have good panic utilities. The possibilities are endless! But this? This is just plain dumb. One additional thing. Props to wanting to give mesmer a support healing weapon. Thank you and it has been asked for a long time. Problem is we have no other weapons that can heal, so whenever theres a swap away from rifle healing would drop substantially. Please rework staff and/or one main hand weapon to provide healing in order to make the dream come true 😄

Please allow us to select PvE/WvW/PvP daily and weekly objectives independent of each other. For example, at the moment I would like to have PvE objectives for dailies and WvW objectives for weeklies. With the current system I have to make sure that Sunday night or Monday morning WvW is selected in the options so that the weekly gets set to WvW, and then change it back to PvE before daily reset. And of course remember to do this every week otherwise it gets set with no way to change them for a whole week. The current system makes it tedious and not great in terms of QoL. At the moment I am stuck with PvE weeklies because I was not able to log in between Sunday and Monday. I am still going to be doing WvW this week but for less reward, and being stuck with PvE weeklies is not going to incentivize me to do content I dislike like bounty missions or strikes. Please remove this jank and allow the selection of daily/weekly objectives to be more streamlined and more of a "set and forget" type of deal. Thanks.

But at what cost..... our focus pull just got nerfed down from 900 units to 600. Did we get an increase to how far we can cast the pull? Maybe get those players on never before reachable ledges? Nope. Did we get a projectile block baked into Temporal Curtain? Nope. Oh I know! They made the phantasm not hit like a wet noodle, or have increased range so it doesn't run off and the projectile block bubble is useful, or just something other than a joke skill that I can't wait to expire to get a clone which is 1000 times more useful? They didn't do that either?! So please @Cal Cohen.2358 what the hell am I supposed to do with this garbage tier weapon now that it's one saving grace, memes, have been f'd? Edit: Okay just noticed that the nerf was only to Temporal Curtain and not the actual pull itself. Even so, focus hasn't been good for a long time other than memes so my knee-jerk reaction on how bad this weapon has become (will become) is still perfectly valid. Please do something about it. Fix the phantasm or make Temporal Curtain better somehow, or both. You can always nerf it later if it's too strong.... maybe in like 2 years time at the rate things go 🙄

Yea I would've liked to suggest that it would be the case but didn't want to make a suggestion without knowing how other professions would be impacted. I think Weapon Skill 1 chains should have a "normal" priority compared to other weapon skills given that chains tend to be shorter casts with the last hit having the longest cast.... and also the largest effect. However if the skill is not chain-able then it should have a lower priority manual cast more in line than when it is set to auto. It should also be a setting somewhere -.-

No one said anything about removing the stealth from Signet of Midnight..... but knowing Anet and how they choose to "fix" things I guess it couldn't hurt to be more explicit and state that removing stealth should NOT be the fix. Just to be sure. Can't leave anything to chance 🙄

Here's the issue, having Spatial Surge on Autocast has a tendency to break stealth when a target is selected on activation of Signet of Midnight. However the problem is worse than that. The skill Spatial Surge has the same level of priority as Mirror Blade and Phantasmal Berserker when it is set to manual cast, but has a lower priority (thus interruptable) when set to Autocast. With Autocast enabled one can cast Mirror Blade immediately the moment it would be needed, if on manual cast you would need to wait for the cast of Spatial Surge to finish first messing up the timings or forcing the need to juggle an additional Stow Weapon before wanting to cast Mirror Blade at a precise moment. Can the casting priority of Spatial Surge when set to manual cast be given the same level of priority that it has when set to Autocast? Sure Signet of Midnight could also be fixed but its arguably neater if the change were made to Spatial Surge since it would make manual casting less clunky. And maybe still fix Signet of Midnight..... that immediate attack on activation of stealth and self-revealing is some serious BS and ruins the purpose of the skill.

Selecting the 'Shatter Storm' trait in the Illusions traitline will show the tooltip for Bladesong Harmony for Mind Wrack or Split Second regardless of specialization. Skill still functions as it should however.

Just tested this trait and it works more or less how its understood in the tooltip for all the glamour except Veil. The radius seems to be about 130 units from the center of the Veil which is waaaay too small for it to be of any use. Even more so if you have Fast Casting w/ no indicator enabled. Absolute garbage the way it is now.

OK checked quickness seems it is working. Was better to record video and count there than to operate a timer separately. Sure feels like it isnt though, having 2 sec cast times again feels weird af

I tested in Armistice against golems and used a timer. All mantras took 2.25 seconds to cast regardless of the presence of quickness. I'll check SF golem later to be thorough. And yea thats what I meant with MoP but I didnt want to get too technical with the name changes of the skill 😛

lmaoooo whoops :D So I guess it is working as intended. Still... had to go back in and check to make sure. Everything else still stands though

- Quickness is not affecting the cast times of any of the mantras Edit: Working - Mantra of Pain before the rework would grant 12 stacks of Might on initial cast, not 8 stacks (I thought this was a revert to the 2021 changes, not all the way back to 2017 -.- ) - Mantra of Pain cannot be used without a target so that the Might cannot be refreshed like it used to - Mantra of Distraction is not reducing the cooldown of Distortion after the initial cast regardless of specialization or core mesmer Edit: Misread tooltip, thank you for the correction! I feel there are more but kitten this is sloppy. Only took 10 min of "quality control" to find these issues

I never said it was an issue for me, only that it was one of the things most complained about by others. I also know very well that DE is part of the Dueling traitline and not part of the Mirage traitline, I never said it was. Also just did some testing, I rescind my comment about giving DE an ICD. Apparently can't use Mirage Cloak while under the effects of Mirage Cloak. I was mistaken. Learn something new every day. But the intention was that an ICD of 3/4 of a second would not interfere with the way dodging works for other mesmer builds/specs and it would preserve that as opposed to a 2-5 second ICD as you suggest which would absoutely break the trait and be a straight nerf to all of mesmer.

Once again: Nope. ICD on dodgetraits makes no sense. If you don't get that simple logic search my comments for the explanation i gave several times in very long and detailed form already. Most other stuff is debatable but not needed at all considering that Mirages amount of dodges is not what causes balance problem and was on a balance lvl pre patch already (Mirage got outdodged by most classes already pre patch). There is no need at all to limit Mirages ability to dodge any further (except for the insane 8s vigor uptime in Chaosline). Just rework condi ambushes /nerf condi clone dmg (including normal clone autoattacks)! Problem solved Well considering that one of the most common complaints was how Mirage can dodge while dodging and thus create two clones back-to-back instantly and use it for a quick strong shatter this should satisfy that whining without affecting any other mesmer build. A 3/4 or 5/8 ICD would mean that DE is available to be used for clone generation on dodge for all other mesmer builds and would only have an impact on Mirage. Personally idc, I thought the meta was ok before and just needed some adjusting in a few areas but here we are..... I am just trying to take the current meta into consideration and the direction Anet seems to want to go because I am sure that if I had simply stated "remove condi from from clone ambushes and autoattacks" then there would be 100 posts nit-picking every thing Mesmer's can do without taking into consideration what other professions can do already and demanding more even more tradeoffs :/ And btw, already read your posts earlier on why the change to having only one dodge is contradictory given the nature of the Mirage spec. Saved me the trouble of having to write it myself. Ty for the hard work :D

What needs to be done: Give Mirage it's 2 dodges backDrastically lower Condi dmg from clone ambushes/autoattacks and adjust the Mesmer's own ambush attack, leave the condi's from clones there though to punish players that just simply count "stacks" (after all it's part of the "trickster" motif of mesmer)Remove Superspeed from Mirage Cloak, make Mirage Cloak slow the mesmer to walking speed while it is in effect. A powerful dodge for the inability to go anywhere or move out of things (THIS should be Mirage's tradeback)Make IH into the new grandmaster minor traitMake a new Grandmaster trait to replace the shift of IH from Grandmaster to minor trait, so there is actually a choiceGive Deceptive Evasion a 3/4 or 5/8 of a second ICD so that dodge spamming -> clone generation -> Shatter is stopped without destroying other mesmer builds in the process Edited: Was mistaken on one of the mechanics in the way Mirage Cloak works. Disregard this suggestion.Remove vigor from Nomad's Endurance minor trait and replace it with something else, something that would preferably be of benefit to both power and condi ....not just condiLower cooldown on Jaunt charges, or add back the 3rd charge to the PvP/WvW skill split, but not both. (this should be the Mirage's main way of compensating for loss of mobility from dodge as it forces the quick decision of using a valuable dodge versus using a valuable teleport skill)Adjust baseline endurance regen if needed after the listed changes Band-Aid fixes that would have been a billion times better than the BS you did Anet: Reduce baseline endurance regenReduce number of active clones from 3 to 2The one dodge in PvP/WvW, but two dodges in PvE, is the WORST skill split you have ever done Anet! In one fell swoop you butchered defense, offense, and mobility while causing the Mirage specialization to behave completely different in PvP/WvW than it does in PvE. This on top of all the other changes you made across Mesmer traits and weapon skills. Might as well delete Mirage from Mesmer at this point and make it into an entirely new stand-alone profession. It is THAT bad!!! WTH were you thinking?! It's preferable to play core or chrono at this point. At least they are more consistent. And don't get me started on how you broke Chrono.... if you want to actually know how the changes to IP and the new shatters are being received then take a look over at the mesmer sub-forum :(

Please double check your changes then. Include also ammo charges and what other profession mechanics a skill is supposed to produce. Some skill splits do exactly this. For example, Staff 3 on Mesmer will produce 1 phantasm in PvP/WvW but 2 phantasms in PvE. This change causes those that get used to a rotation in PvE to be one clone short for a 3-clone shatter in PvP/WvW, while those that get used to a rotation for PvP/WvW will overproduce a clone in PvE thus effectively wasting it. Definitely a huge change in functionality. The elite skill Jaunt has 2 ammo charges in PvP/WvW but 3 charges in PvE. As someone who mainly plays in WvW I can tell you that I hardly ever use that 3rd charge in PvE due to the muscle memory that has been built up. In PvE the result ends up being "oh! there's another charge available!" as its a split has made it easier to accept that its a 2-charge skill. Also, the -50 endurance in PvP/WvW for Mirage change does all of this.... but at various levels! Dodging for the Mirage is both an offensive and a defensive mechanic. The change is so drastic that Mirage in PvP/WvW would handle completely different from how it handles in PvE. A massive change to "the stuff that changes the way the skill plays." Either find a way to make more of these changes global and balanced across the game modes so muscle memory isn't being messed with, or revert changes until a better solution is found. Make professions actually feel the same across game modes, not play differently. When they feel too different it stops being fun and more of a chore to mentally wrap one's head around what is possible in one game mode versus the others. Look into how much of a "resource" a skill is consuming as well, such as the Riposting Shadows and Phase Traversal changes for Revenant, initiative cost for various thief skills, etc. Please adjust cooldowns, damage/healing done, boon durations and stacks as you see fit, but try to preserver skill rotations across game modes.

True, but having a mechanic as strong as it is would be enough considering all the other changes happening. Good opportunity to make Infinite Horizon into that minor grandmaster trait I've seen suggested many times. Create a new grandmaster trait to replace the shift of Infinite Horizon into the minor slot. Could make balancing Mirage easier since now there's a common baseline to work with and make choosing a grandmaster something worthwhile rather than being forced to feel like there's only one viable trait.

Currently the drawback to having such a powerful dodge mechanic is the lack of mobility. Why doesn't Anet just double down on it and remove the super-speed entirely with movement speed only coming from other skills/boons? This would reward good timing, smart positioning, and strategy on whether to use a dodge or use another utility like Blink, Jaunt, Sand Through Glass, Illusionary Ambush, etc. Hell, even give mirage a base -25% endurance regeneration while at it, but the two dodges should be preserved considering that for Mirage it's not just a defensive mechanic but an offensive one too. Maybe give back that 3rd charge for Jaunt to enforce mobility > dodge spam.