Jables.4659

As a profession, Mesmer is in the lightest armor tier and a medium health tier, but Mesmer can be tanky or squishy depending on the choices you make with gear(stats), weapons, traits, and skills. If you just want to make yourself less squishy as quickly as possible, consider the following trait-lines and weapons: Chaos, Inspiration, Staff, Shield. I would recommend starting with Chronomancer if you're mostly going to be doing solo open world stuff. The ideal your aiming for at level 80 is as much power and ferocity as possible while hitting 75% critical hit chance. If you feel like you need some passive defenses, you can run some toughness and/or vitality, though you should try to rely more on active avoidance of damage via positioning, movement, dodging, blocking, stealth, etc. Chronomancer allows you to maintain permanent quickness (or alacrity) uptime on yourself (and allies). If you learn how to play Chronomancer, you'll also have a much easier time adapting to other Mesmer specs and will be able to fill more roles if you decide to engage in endgame pve activities like fractals and raids. Dagger/Sword or Sword/Sword Greatsword Domination, Dueling, Chronomancer

The problem I have is the ease at which this fight in particular allows you to combat resurrect fully dead players. This isn't "any other fractal", this is 100CM, so let's be fair by comparing it with the final boss fights of the previous 100CM fractals. Both Sunqua Peak and Shattered Observatory have final boss fights that involve a large number of highly damaging AOE and/or vanishing floors all throughout the arena. These fights have limited windows (water phase and add phases) where it makes sense to revive a completely dead player, and those windows do not continuously reappear throughout the entirety of the fight. Combat reviving is further punished in those fights by the inclusion of mechanics designed to punish groups with poor DPS. Ark will enrage if DPS is low, and the 33% sorrow phase on Sunqua will eventually re-initiate. Silent Surf has no enrage mechanic. There is no punishment for low DPS beyond the additional time that the fight takes to complete, which means that when someone dies, the group can usually halt the fight's progress to revive the dead player before continuing on as if nothing happened. Instead of introducing limited windows where you can resurrect dead players, the fight introduces limited windows where you can't. Most players have not spent the time to adequately familiarize themselves with this boss fight. Anyone who has been clearing it daily since release will quickly notice how detrimental combat reviving is to the experience of this fractal.

Yes. Something changed that made the boss encounter dramatically easier, and I am voicing my opinion on that change. This is how feedback works.

It's really all in the title. The difficulty of 100cm is almost entirely based around highly punishing mechanics that are relatively simple. The ability to revive dead players mid-fight removes the punishment and makes the entire fight feel like a joke. On my very first run after the patch, one of our DPS players died once and our healer died three times. Each time someone died, we kited the boss away and then resurrected them with no issue. My opinion is that combat-reviving should not be possible when players are fully dead, but the addition of cycling floor AOEs (such as those present in Sunqua Peak CM) would also work to alleviate this issue.

The first thing that comes to mind is the deepstone light of deldrimore floor room.

I'm very happy about Mirage being returned from the abyss. IMO not being able to dodge while being immobilized and/or CC'd is very fair. As far as Chrono and Core are concerned, there's a lot I dislike about this patch, but my main concerns (Clone generation, Mobility, Boons) weren't really addressed. My suggestions: Rework Escape Artist so that it generates a clone both when entering and when exiting stealth. The original idea for this trait was solid, it was just very under-tuned. Rework Master of Manipulations so that it grants 2 seconds of Superspeed instead of Aegis. The old idea for this trait was solid, bring it back. Rework Mind Stab (Greatsword 3) so that it acts as a leap akin to Guardian/Ranger Great-sword leaps. Rework Split Second (Chronomancer f1 Shatter) so that it grants fury to self (and possibly allies) in addition to its other effects. Rework Arcane Thievery so that it once again does not require line of sight in order to cast. This is not an attack, and similar skills such as Necromancer's Plague signet do not require LOS. For a skill that is often used to get rid of conditions such as Immobilize, not being able to gain line of sight when immobilized is a huge problem. Rework Tides of Time (Chronomancer Shield 5) so that it is no longer a ground targeted skill. The manner in which this skill was originally cast is vastly superior to the current implementation. I suspect that someone at Anet who plays with the "action camera" was responsible for the rework, as the new version only works properly with that setting enabled. The skill can only be cast forward and will automatically cancel if you attempt to cast it in a different direction while moving. The skill can only be cast in one direction, so I am genuinely baffled at the decision to allow the player to choose a different direction only to cause the skill to misfire. Seriously, bring back the old cast. Rework Nullfield such that the cooldown is 25 seconds in all game modes. I had really hoped that the February 2020 patch would've taught the Anet devs that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" does not apply to GW2 class balance. WvW zergs were never going to stack Mesmers to Spam nullfield. You've made the skill useless for small-scale fights. Stop Nerfing the Chaos traitline. If you want there to be a legitimate choice between Chaos and Inspiration as defensive/utility traitlines, then make Inspiration more enticing as it is by far the worst trait-line available to Core Mesmer.

When Anet made the initial change that removed the wind-up cast on Mantras, Mesmer players threw a very justified fit over the loss of functionality. Reverting that change was the right decision. As to the comments about Mantras now being useless when WvW roaming, this is a L2P issue. You have plenty of tools to safely re-cast them should you make the optional decision to use the second charge. The only gripe I have is that Arenanet reverted some of the Mantras without restoring their full functionality.

I enjoyed the story and I really like the atmosphere of Cantha. They did an amazing job with the world creation aspect of the expansion, which is obviously very important for an MMO. Unfortunately the new mastery mechanics have no value to me and I am disappointed with the elite specs, especially the one my main received. Chronomancer and Mirage both have a ton of depth and really made use of Core Mesmer's unique mechanics. Virtuoso feels like the antithesis of Mesmer and took about an hour to solve. It bores the hell out of me.

This.

Prior to the February 14th patch, the golem benchmarks were roughly 38k-39k dps for Power Virtuoso and 39k-40k dps for Chronomancer. I don't recall there being anything in the patch notes apart from the mantra change that would've had impact on these numbers, and I don't know if the mantra change was a net loss or gain in dps as my numbers have been almost identical (I still need to look into that). I use both Chronomancer and Virtuoso in fractal CMs/T4s everyday, so here's my take on it: Although Power Chronomancer has a higher benchmark than Power Virtuoso, it's worse on most if not all T4 fractal bosses in the game. A large portion of Chronomancer's damage comes from phantasms attacking and then being resummoned by the Chronophantasma trait, which means that it takes too much time for you to build up enough phantasms to reach and surpass the damage dealt by power Virtuoso. On bosses with short phases and/or small health bars, your group would need to be doing exceptionally poor damage for Chronomancer to reach the point where its damage surpasses Virtuoso. That said, I still run Chronomancer on 99CM and the majority of T4 Dailies because I personally find it a lot more enjoyable to play than Virtuoso. If you can play it at a high level, you can still easily out-dps the majority of pick-up group players and there are areas where Chronomancer shines over Virtuoso. Chronomancer is generally much better than Virtuoso when fighting trash mobs as their miniscule health bar allows the nature of instant cast AOE shatters and the cleave from main-hand sword to shine. Continuum Split + Mass Invisibility + Mistlock allows Chronomancer to provide the entire party with long duration stealth for skips. Chronomancer has access to a solid Power Quickness DPS build. Chronomancer has more defiance bar damage (CC).

I just don't find them fun in the slightest. There isn't much of any challenge. The mobs are basically just damage sponges. Any challenging boss mechanics are ruined by how long it takes to get to them along with the ability to graveyard rush them to completion. IIRC they were rushed out in that half-baked state to keep players busy while Anet worked on EOD. It's not really a surprise that they've been left to die.

They put it there because Virtuoso was very underwhelming in competitive modes (it still has issues but this is a definite improvement). Distortion is one of the strongest defensive skills in the game and Anet recognized that it was a mistake not to include it. I don't care much for Virtuoso due to the lack of clones, abundance of projectiles, lack of Illusionary Persona, and shatter-blade cast times. Still, credit where credit is due. This was a good change for the spec. Here's hoping that Anet continues to adjust Virtuoso in ways that improve its competitive viability while simultaneously making it feel more like a real Mesmer. As a side note, I haven't seen any mention on the forums about how buggy Virtuoso Distortion is (at least in WvW). There are times where I activate the skill with 5 blades and then receive less than a second of Distortion or no Distortion at all. It usually happens when I use the Distortion shatter-blade shortly after using the Distortion utility skill.

This is exactly what I was thinking as I read through the list.

Core Mesmer still has solid roaming options. I would argue that celestial is still one of the worst kits to roam on due to the atrocious time to kill. Even Core Hybrid Mesmer is better off using a mix of stats like zerker, knights, viper, carrion, rabid, etc. Sure, celestial is over-tuned in 1v1s, but most of the fights you get into while solo roaming are 1v2s or 1v3s and you need to be able to kill quickly to win.

Scepter could use a baseline attack speed buff of 20% so that it's usable without Malicious Sorcery. The trait could then have the attack speed bonus replaced with +90 power and +90 condition damage. Bare in mind that this wouldn't be a direct buff since the trait currently increases attack speed across the board while wielding a scepter. It applies to your heal, utilities, elite, and Virtuoso shatters. I would also buff the power damage on Scepter auto and Confusing Images a bit.

I prefer them the way they are now. Mesmer's block-vades are solid.

I do agree that this isn't the best way to repair the exposed problem, but it doesn't make break bars meaningless. They're used as party-wipe mechanics (Ark, Sorrows, etc.) and allow players to make use of Impact and other effects that increase damage against cc'd enemies.

Tbf, Mirage gave us 8 new weapon skills (counting axe auto-attack as one skill). 5 ambush skills and 3 axe skills. I respect the spirit of your comment though. Edit: It also gave us 2 aquatic weapon skills!

I knew Vindicator was going to be flawed when I read that it would only have one dodge. The rest of it literally doesn't matter. You can't create a spec with a single dodge in Guild Wars 2. It was never going to work with Mirage (which still needs deep design changes to function without being oppressive), and it will never work with Vindicator.

Its really not farfetched. Staff Sword/Sword was dominating the spvp meta. The patch that nerfed offhand sword was directly targeting the things that were used in that build.

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Fencer's Finesse, Superiority Complex Inspiration: Sympathetic Visage, Restorative Illusions, Blurred Inscriptions Virtuoso: Bladeturn Refrain, Duelist's Reversal, Psychic Riposte Signet of Ether (or Ether Feast), Blink, Optional, Signet of Midnight, Thousand Cuts (or Mass Invisibility). I made some changes to the stat spread to increase the armor. 2552 Power, 51.33% Crit Chance, 207.8% Crit Damage, 2450 Armor, 18,092 Health. Berserker: Head, Staff, 2x Sword, 2x Accessory, 1x ring. Marauder: Shoulders, Chest, Gloves, Legs, Boots. Valkyrie: Back Knights: Amulet, 1x Ring. 6x Superior Rune of Fireworks. 2x Superior Sigil of Energy. 1x Superior Sigil of Cleansing. 1x Superior Sigil of Bloodlust. 8x +5 Power Infusion. 12x +5 Toughness Infusion (effectively 10x since they're in my weapons). Potion of Karka Toughness (+150 Toughness). Peppercorn Crusted Sous-Vide Steak (-10% incoming damage, +100 Power, +70 Ferocity).

I'll shamefully admit that I abused the hell out of Staff Sword/Sword power phantasm Mesmer back in 2012. I played the Staff Sword/Sword Mirage build a lot less. It was brokenly powerful beyond reason and I felt like a complete scumbag anytime I used it. That build was responsible for the nerf to offhand sword's might generation.

Virtuoso offers a lot of damage on its own. +5% dmg after using a bladesong, optional +7% damage while within range of enemy, enhanced fury, bonus ferocity, high damage sword 3, and power damage spread throughout all of your shatters. You really don't need to run two offensive core traitlines with Virtuoso. When using the unblockable GM trait, you will pretty much always have at least 3 blades every-time you shatter, so you're always receiving the maximum heal from Restorative Illusions. The sheer quantity of blades that Virtuoso generates makes the passive on Signet of Ether more powerful (the 5 blade cap makes Ether Feast more valuable as well). Inspiration also offers a lot of condition cleanse which frees up a utility slot for whatever you desire to fill in the very obvious gaps in Virtuoso's kit. The signet trait further enhances Virtuoso's healing and cleanse while offering a source of distortion. Inspiration also gives you a passive source of healing power which works nicely with Virtuoso's enhanced healing capabilities and solid regeneration uptime. It is obviously far from perfect, but at the very least it is a playable build.

I hate down-state so much. Its an unpopular opinion, but I wish Anet would just do away with downstate in competitive modes. I'd be fine with "Downstate weekends" once a year.

Right now I'm leaning towards Dueling Inspiration Virtuoso Staff Sword/Sword with the following stat spread: 2600 power, 55% crit chance before fury, 2350ish armor, 18.5k health, 205% crit damage (before superiority complex). My main issue so far is that Virtuoso plays so very different from Core Mesmer and I need time to get a better understanding of how it should behave in various matchups. Also, securing stomps is a pain in the kitten without Distortion. The majority of my 1v2s and 1v3s end up like this: Looking back, I really shouldn't have wasted Thousand Cuts. If I had saved it for cleaving the downed rev, I probably would've secured the kill.