Mungo Zen.9364

Try thinking of Clones as a DOT (damage over time) or debuff like Poison or Bleeding. You apply the dot, it stacks a few times and then the target dies and any remaining damage potential from the dot is lost. Mesmer's Profession Mechanic is to interact with this unique DOT, in varying ways. The ability to add stacks of Clones that have different effects, to consume the clones for other effects, is really powerful. Virtuoso is not really a Mesmer the same way Chrono and Mirage are. Sure, it has the toolkit and such but, the tweak to the Prof mechanic where Blades stack and carry with the Mesmer removes a lot of what makes Clones interesting. With Virtuoso, most of what you are doing creates Blades as a by-product of combat. With Chrono and Mirage you are actively making choices about which clones you use (weapon choice, skill choice, utility choice etc) and how they are used. Your suggestion doesn't take away from what Clones bring to Chrono and Mirage, but it also doesn't make it easier for new players or less janky. It may allow for a few more Shatters to go, but a big part of Mirage and Chrono being effective in manipulating your illusions, not popping shatters. Again, it's why I suggest you consider Illusions mechanically as a DOT.

Remove the weapon names and focus on what each profession could benefit from with a new weapon, like this poster. Then figure out what weapon fits the fantasy of those needs. Except for Mesmer, it should be the opposite themed weapon, cause reasons.

1a - I’d be fine with this. A clickable pop up with info on profession mechanics, weapons and especs would provide more for players to connect with when choosing a first character. 1b - asked for a lot by many players, but irrelevant to this post. More cosmetics is always welcome 2a - when a new player gets thru the level one event and into the starter area, they are guided to all the things you mentioned. It just happens to be massive open world rather than mini map. This allows players to focus on what they want right away. Some new players just want to power level thru all that stuff anyways. Some want to spend hours enjoying every inch of every map. also, in the current setup, I can start playing with a friend within 5 minutes of creating a character. I’m not stuck completing a tutorial map to learn the game first. 2b - as far as I know, the wiki is not created or updated by arenanet, but by the players. It would cost a huge amount of time and money to move the wiki into the game, and I’d rather they spent that money elsewhere.

If you are going to spend any time in open world, there is no reason not to get the Jade buffs. You already know how strong they are, and you can make OW Solo builds that abuse them. You wouldn’t consider raiding or fractals without consumables like food. Why open world without the most impactful effect available?

If they had more time and money invested into the developers and QA then they wouldn't be releasing updates with so many bugs or staggering mechanical releases after an Expac. Making bad choices for how to implement a change is one thing, but allowing multiple bugs to come out every patch tells me they do not have the manpower to qa and fix these bugs before a release. I don't disagree that the existing devs have an apparent bias in how they have been updating the game, but more developers would potentially reduce the workload of the few devs they have and allow more time invested into making better design choices for all professions. As an aside, I have found personally that yelling into the void 'they hate me' does not garner any results. Instead, by identifying a very likely issue, 'a lack of time and money invested into developers' and repeating that might cause some Anet staff who read this to consider maybe they really should invest more money and time into the developers. Then all we would be left with is the bad choices the devs make, not the lazy, uncaring, mistake riddled releases we have seen the past year.

Is it surprising that a company would take the profits from this game and not reinvest them into continued development? Just pocket the cash and move on? They had staff enough to build a whole new expansion but not enough to balance the game let alone release new patches with a multitude of bugs and mistakes. Now do you expect the expansion to be worth the money they are charging for it or do you think it will be more of the same? The priorities are clear, it isn’t to make a good game, it is to make a profitable game and investing in cosmetic micro transactions is what has made GW2 financially successful. Not fixing profession issues.

lol didn't even mention how bad it is for Chrono..... If it isn't an EoD spec it probably doesn't get looked at either.

Will there be a patch before tomorrow that addresses some/all of the new bugs introduced to Mesmer with the June 27th patch? Or will the Beta environment 'fix' them? I can't be bothered to log in for a beta event when the base game is basically in a beta state right now.

Anet doesn't hate Mesmers. The company doesn't give enough resources (money or staff) to the teams that make this game, balance it, QA it etc, and the few people they do employ have definitive slants on how they want to build and balance the game. If you don't enjoy playing the game the way it is being made, you have many other choices on how you want to spend your time.

For those wondering, Well of Senility and Well of Action do not give Alac. The other 4 give 1-2 seconds Alac on first pulse To the OP, after a few minutes playing around, it feels like the Quickness build also suffers from similar issues to the Alacrity build. As Well (pun intended), Heal Alac and Heal Quick Chrono won't be a thing if Wells are intended to be the primary source of Healing but not Boons. Currently wondering about Inspiration Chrono Support builds with a load of Concentration gear.

PvE perspective At first, I didn't like this change. The skill as it was required a bit of tactics to use effectively and created some unique gameplay. However, that unique gameplay was simply due to how the skill was designed and didn't actually add anything other than it's limitation of being fired in a line from the player. This new iteration has a lot of upside and I could see it potentially being toned down in the future. The 4 hits on 5 targets within 180 units is good, and the additional 4 hits on 3 targets within ~360 units adds some spice On a single target it will hit 8 times 1200 Unit range means it can be placed further than it would travel previously 12 second CD! It's a better Rain of Swords, if your build uses RoS, you can free up a Utility slot Using Temporal Curtain into Unstable Bladestorm should seem pretty basic, but with the low CD time you can drop this in any hotspot to tag multiple mobs quickly; probably the same as if not more effectively than the old version. Is this an amazing skill? Maybe not, but it's pretty good all things considered. Does this translate to WvW or PvP? I think the ability to place it at range now is a bonus for those modes, not sure about the rest.

Thanks for the link, didn't realize they put up 4 news posts about this today. Rifle Mesmer is kinda weird. I don't see it working with Virtuoso cause, blades, unless the weapon has a lot of bleeds baked in. In which case, is it a Condi weapon ala Staff 2.0? I can't think of a Chrono playstyle that would thematically want a Rifle. Also.....I am guessing no Traits for the new weapons? Given that Dagger and GS are range, perhaps Rifle Mesmer is a Shotgun style of play? 600 units range and lots of aoe attacks? eh its a fun exercise but still 4-5 months away from seeing it happen.

Link to this information about rifle please?

Virtuoso was the devs listening to the Mesmer community. How many threads are in these forums suggesting the EoD eSpec for Mesmer being a Bard or other musician themed profession? How many threads were asking for no illusion gameplay? Those were two of the top requests for EoD and Virtuoso delivered them. I respect that it isn't anywhere close to what anyone had ever asked for but, the players who post on these forums appear to spend more time thinking about Mesmer than the devs who maintain the profession. To the OP, I wasn't specifically moved by your proposition. It is fine and I appreciate the work you put into it. Vituoso is quite playable and I get the feeling that the EoD specs will continue to receive far more tweaks and attention to keep them just ahead of the earlier eSpecs.

Given how regeneration works with the Chaos traitline I don't know that adding Regen to Wells wouldn't end up creating a bunker condi chrono type build. Barrier seems like a preferable option if 'more healing' isn't the answer. That said, I would love it if there was another source of reliable regen for Mesmer to abuse the Chaos traitline more.

Chaos Condi Virt using the Jade Protocols can solo most OW content. Limitations include most Legendary Bounties and Some Champ Bounties or equivalent content. If you aren’t using the Jade Protocols you are nerfing your open world experience by losing as much as half if not more of your potential DPS (profession dependent)

Overall I am generally okay with this patch. Some small changes that help for Chrono and Virt, couple things I don't understand too. The Mirage change is a pretty big deal, although it appears to be undertuned in multiple game modes now, Still, this is a very good moment for the game; to revert a years old change that never should have happened. I want to suggest @Cal Cohen.2358 that hyping up this change with positive energy would have been a lot more awesome. This is a good change, one that should be celebrated. A moment where this community could feel like the developers were connecting with them. I don't know what to take away from the Mesmer portion of the livestream, I didn't understand what message you were trying to get across talking about the Mirage dodge changes. It would have been really sweet to see you both celebrate this change instead of whatever that was.

I really do not get this skill now. What is the use case for F5 without block over the other 4 Bladesongs? When is it the best choice to push F5 after this nerf? Should Anet perhaps remove the F5 skill altogether rather than leaving it to rot for months/years as a useless reminder? Core and Mirage don't use an F5, why does Virtuoso need one now? One of the issues in my mind with F5 is that the block is not tied to the blades. You can pop a 1 blade F5 and get 2 seconds of block, which, to be fair, is very strong. If the channel and block duration was tied to the number of blades (say .25 - .33 seconds per blade) it would provide some decision making for the Virtuoso and reduce the overall effectiveness of the block. Even with that, a bump up in the damage on the skill seems required.

It appears that most/all Quick and Alac providers aren’t tied to wells/banners/spirits anymore. A positive move in general.

The Anvils are really whatever, they don't impact the game in a significant way. But the Jade Tech Protocols are really powerful and I would advocate for not only using these always in Open World but modifying your build to take advantage of these buffs. Stacks of all Offensive and Defensive boons for 30 seconds. If you clear combat with one mob and start with another, the buffs stack duration. You can walk around many Open World places and have near permanent full stacks of all buffs. Consider that a second, you can run a build with no Alacrity or Quickness, no Might or no Fury, and still have access to all these boons via Jade Protocols. Now consider building your character for Open World to take advantage of these buffs rather than trying to self buff. The same goes for all the defensive benefits as well. Yes the Jade Protocols are overpowered. They are there to allow Open World players the same buffs found in organized group content without having to form dedicated groups. That by it's nature makes the buffs overpowered. You do not need these buffs, but for the 2 minutes it takes to get them, it can speed up your Open World gameplay massively and empower some pretty busted builds. As a quick test, I just did some DPS tests with and without the Jade Protocol Buffs. My Open World Virtuoso goes from 11k to 25k DPS with the buffs. Similar jumps in DPS can be seen with other professions. Not getting these boons is just handcuffing your own gameplay in Open World.

What are the odds that the June Prof Update will change the way Alacrity (and other boons) are provided? Is bringing Mirage down a peg part of a longer balance scheme? Or is it really Anet just doing Anet things for no reason?

I appreciate OP taking the time to details how this one system in GW2 is so flawed and poorly implemented and maintained. This is one combat mechanic of many that has inconsistencies which detract from the overall game experience. Free games be free though, and people are happy to spend money on this garbage not knowing how it’s all smoke and mirrors. Until they find out stuff like this of course.

Or less or none. It’s all the same. Change is bad so never change.

A lot of these messages could be moved to the chat window.

Jackal > Raptor for engaging groups of enemies in zergs. Since you buff up to 10 people with barrier while also damaging enemy mobs increasing your contribution to the event which I don’t think any other mount offers.