[[Commander] Mesmer Portal Build Help]

I’d probably start with a Chronomancer Alac Support build, even though they aren’t the most impressive just now, they have the toolkit you probably want.

Alac makes your portal faster, and since you can stack Alac with Wells out of combat, it seems better than Mirage for this. 
 

Alac and Heals will help your smaller groups be more successful as your average OW build is likely not efficiently built, likely not a support build, likely doesn’t have strong defenses or self heals, likely doesn’t even do optimal DPS.  By keeping your squads with heals and Alac you go a long way to improving your squads success rate.  
 

You can then add utility skills and traits as another layer of support.  Things like Illusion of Life, Veil and Feedback could be useful.  You also have access to Mimic and Continuum Split to double up on the skills you need when you really need them. 
 

I’d also consider making two or three builds. One focused on Portals for JP, one focused for leading Events/Meta as a full Support and another for leading Events/Meta as DPS. Unless you are okay with swapping around traits and skills, having quick access to several builds will make leading as a Comm easier. 

[[Suggestion] Let's do something about Guild wars 2’s over-reliance on collections]

On 11/5/2022 at 5:36 AM, baseendje.8452 said:

If everyone chooses to go farm gold instead of playing the content, then that would be a pretty clear indication that no one likes playing that content.

You may be interested in looking up information on 'Player Time and Efficiency of Fun in Gaming Development'.  There have been multiple sources that have studied and presented information that players will always gravitate towards the easiest path to playing a game.  The easiest path is typically the most time efficient, unless the costs are balanced accordingly.

So while you may want an alternate path, the investment from Anet to create this alternate path that has equal player time/energy/cost would either A - require more of their developer time or B - be incredibly costly for the player.

Let's say Skyscale takes about 15 hours to complete over 3 days.  Would 250$ US converted to Gems converted to Gold to buy Mats off the TP be a fair price to pay for the Skyscale?  Thats barely 16 bucks an hour for 15 hours.  Does that valuation seem fair, too high or too low?

I don't even think 250$ for Skyscale is a good starting point, since you also have to include the purchase of all the associated content (PoF, HoT  and Living World) as these collections use all those zones and/or currencies.  So up that another 100$ to 350$ and we are starting to get to a better number.  The number has to be high enough that if I see someone on a Skyscale I want to applaud them for doing the collections or laugh at them for being lazy, not actually playing the game and buying their way into a mount that isn't required.

So OP, would you be happy to pay 250$ to 350$ for the Skyscale as an alternative to doing these collections?

[Alac Mesmer Complexity]

24 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Mirage in PvE already has 2 dodges so I don't know what you are trying to say here. The return of 2 dodges has nothing to do with PvE. If anything the trade-offs would most likely be competitive play exclusive. 

As with all changes in one game mode, they tend to cross over into others, unless it’s exclusively to the numbers on a split skill. My comment you’ve quoted is  acknowledging that in the long run, rebalancing Mirage in one game mode will most likely lead to changes in all. 

[[Suggestion] Let's do something about Guild wars 2’s over-reliance on collections]

25 minutes ago, baseendje.8452 said:

What would you think about the option of having alternative means in game to unlock certain things. Say for simplicity: collecting 3k gold in materials to unlock the skyscale?

This enters into ‘pay to win/pay to play’ territory. When items can be bought in game by converting cash to gems to gold, and that item gives a player an advantage it changes how we treat these items. 
 

Instead of asking for less collections, I would prefer to see more engaging collections.  The eSpec weapon collections are a good example of a diverse collection that allows players to enjoy the game in different ways. 

[Alac Mesmer Complexity]

5 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

I mean based on people's post it’s as clear as night and day for those who main mesmer and those who dabbed in mesmer and try to make comments on it. Again false positivity is worse than direct criticism. 

Hahaha you’re not being serious here right, this is bait for those who feel they have to declare ‘I’m a real Mesmer!!!!’

To the thread topic, Mirage DPS builds should be reviewed and rebalanced post 2 Dodge unnerf, then Core weapons reviewed in relation to Mirage, and then the Alacrity component should be reconsidered.  
 

I have no issue with Mirage taking on a support role but not as it has been handled thus far.  Alac Chrono has been languishing for months which is pretty sad given that Chrono was where Alacrity started.  It almost feels like they don’t want Chrono to be able to viably DPS or provide Alac or Quick.

[What weapon(s) would like to see added to the Mesmer next elite(s) ?]

I think a build focused on 0 - 900 range would be interesting. I don’t think the weapon matters much tho. 
 

Shortbow and MH Pistol already fit the bill.  I would prefer to start with one of these I think.  Ranger/Mesmer hybrid  

Rifle could be redesigned as a Shotgun.  Make all the skills cone attacks to upset people who like their AoE round. Engineer/Mesmer Hybrid 

Dual Maces given the GS treatment to be a 900 range weapon instead of exclusively melee would be fun and funny.  Guardian/Mesmer hybrid  

longbow, hammer, warhorn, meh. 

[Proposal: Give a separated cooldown for each [Recharging Teleport to Friend] item]

I’m kinda wondering why you would need to use a teleport to friend multiple times an hour on, I’m assuming multiple days over the course of months and years. 

[Please send more devs to all servers in a match at random times]

Isn’t there metrics gathered that can provide that information?  I’d assume that all manner of player saturation and activity could be accrued without the devs being in game. 
 

Moreso what I think you want OP is the devs to actually provide answers to the horrible imbalance that some servers go through on a daily or weekly basis, sometimes as a direct result of the matchmaking system. 
 

Wouldn’t it be nice if Anet had developers who were working on the game!!

[Guild Wars 2 Balance Philosophy]

On 10/28/2022 at 8:24 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I have a message from Skills and Balance Lead Cal Cohen:

Hi, everyone,

Today we'll be going over our current balance philosophy for Guild Wars 2. Our goal is to give you all insight into some of the things we consider while working on balance.

 his is a living document; our balance philosophy has changed over the years, and it will continue to adapt as needed for the health of the game. When the philosophy needs to be adjusted, we'll communicate what is changing and why.

This document will cover some ideas that are not perfectly represented in the current state of the game. We'll be working to resolve any balance issues that don't align with the philosophy, but this is something that will happen incrementally over time.

Goals

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles.

Combat Depth and Build Complexity

Guild Wars 2 has a deep combat system, and players have a very wide range of mastery of its mechanics. To put things simply, we want to build a game that is both rewarding and accessible for all types of players.

We want to design builds that allow players with a high level of mastery to demonstrate their prowess and be appropriately rewarded in terms of effectiveness. At the same time, we want to ensure that there are builds for every profession that require less mastery to be effective. These builds should allow players to succeed in parties and clear content, while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness.

This is also an important consideration for balance in competitive game modes, as the builds that are effective can vary significantly between different levels of mastery. Our goal is to create a fun and diverse metagame for as many players as possible, and that involves addressing builds that are problematic at any level, even if they aren't problematic at every level. When bringing down a build that only overperforms at a particular level, we'll try to target changes to minimize the impact on other levels or attempt to otherwise compensate in a way that is less problematic at the targeted level.

 

Gameplay Roles

Roles are the general playstyle a player wants to achieve, and they determine which responsibilities a player fulfills in a group scenario. For the purpose of balance, we consider a few main roles for each game mode. While not every build needs to perfectly fit into a role, these are the most common archetypes that we look at when balancing.

Within a role, we want different builds to have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and therefore different considerations when building a composition. There will always be some overlap (damage dealers are all good at dealing damage), but the secondary elements should be different enough that each build feels unique.

Player vs. Environment (PvE)

PvE group compositions are typically built to maximize damage output through high might, fury, quickness, and alacrity uptime, with just enough support and defense to keep everyone alive.

Damage Dealer

The primary source of damage. Built to maximize damage output, they bring minimal group utility, though they may share some offensive boons in limited amounts.

Boon Support

A hybrid role focused on providing high uptime of key offensive boons, though a single build should not provide both quickness and alacrity. They also contribute to damage or healing in lesser amounts than dedicated builds for those roles.

Healer

A support role that focuses on keeping allies alive through defensive boons and raw healing. They may also provide some offensive boons to the party.

World vs. World (WvW)

WvW group compositions have a similar makeup to PvE group compositions, with a focus on damage dealers to deal damage and support characters to defend them. Stability is always in high demand and is essentially a requirement for every group.

Support

Support is a broad term, and there are a variety of distinct tools that can be the focus of a support build in WvW, including healing, condition removal, boons, crowd control, and other general utility tools. Most support builds bring more than one tool to the table, but it's important that a single build can't excel at too many things.

Damage Dealer

These are builds that primarily exist to deal damage, but they also commonly bring additional pressure tools such as boon removal or crowd control. As fights get larger, area-of-effect damage becomes more important and single-target pressure loses some of its value.

Player vs Player (PvP)

Over the years, we've seen metagames dominated by both team fight compositions built around the support role, and more split compositions built around bruisers or mobility. Ideally, we'd like to get to a state where multiple styles of team compositions are viable.

Support

This role empowers and defends allies. They are most valuable in larger fights where their lack of damage is made up for by other teammates. Most supports are good healers and have access to group condition cleansing, but beyond that, they may specialize more in defense (defensive boons, healing, and cleansing), offense (offensive boons, crowd control, and personal damage), or a mix of both.

Team Fight Damage Dealer

These are damage builds that typically sacrifice some defensive options for more offense, with the assumption that they will usually be fighting alongside a support role. Their defensive tools are more often focused on hard mitigation, with minimal self-sustain.

Bruiser

These are bulkier damage dealers who trade some damage for more self-survivability and crowd control. They are generally good team fighters, but they can also flex on to the sidenode in some matchups.

Roamer

This is commonly a bursty damage dealer with high mobility. They look to capitalize on number-based advantages and end fights quickly. They have some defensive capabilities but are usually unable to stay in drawn-out fights.

Sidenode

The duelist. They're most effective in 1v1s and smaller fights but can sometimes flex into team fights.

Skill and Trait Design Guidelines

The following are a few key ideas that we consider when balancing skills and traits. This list isn't intended to be absolute in all cases, but there should be a strong reason when a skill breaks one of these rules.

Purity of Purpose

Purity of purpose is the idea that a skill (or trait, or weapon, etc.) should have a well-defined identity. In other words, skills should not do too many different things at once. Some common skill identities include damage, defense, support, control, and mobility.

Holes in Roles

This is an idea similar to purity of purpose, but applied to builds or professions. As we touched on when discussing identity, we want every profession to have distinct strengths and weaknesses. Professions should have things that they excel at, things that they are less effective at than other professions, and some things that they simply cannot do. If one profession does everything and has no holes, there's no reason for players to play anything else.

Power Budget

For a given skill or trait, there is a "power budget" that can be spent on individual elements. A skill that only deals damage can deal X damage, but if that skill also applies conditions or provides other value, then it needs to deal less damage to stay within budget. In the context of a weapon, the budget is considered across the entire kit, so some skills may be weaker than average in order to allocate more power to a particular skill. Budget can also vary depending on a skill's cooldown; skills with longer cooldowns are generally more powerful.

Trait budgets are to be considered on a per-tier basis; adept traits should have less power than grandmaster traits.

Play and Counterplay

Counterplay is a fundamental piece of competitive gameplay in Guild Wars 2, and it's important to build skills that can be interacted with effectively. This means we generally don't want instant-cast skills that heavily impact an enemy because we want players to be able to see and react to what their opponents are doing. Instant skills are usually best as defensive skills, though we also want to avoid instant healing in significant amounts.

Minimizing Bad Choices

This is just another way of saying that we want as many build components as possible—weapons, slot skills, traits, etc.—to have situations that they are viable in. Some skills may be restricted to more niche applications, but we want to avoid cases where a skill simply has no relevant use case. This can sometimes be difficult when considering the needs of multiple game modes, but that leads to our next topic: skill splits.

Skill Splits

Guild Wars 2 has three primary game modes that are considered for balance: PvE, PvP, and WvW. Each of these modes require different balance considerations, and it's not always possible to design a skill or trait that fills the needs of every game mode without any adjustments.

Skill splits began as a system that allowed adjusting a skill or trait's effectiveness between game modes while maintaining consistent functionality in every game mode. If a skill applied quickness, it was required to apply quickness in every game mode with different durations. Over the years we've seen the limitations of this approach, and we believe that the needs of each mode are different enough that skill splits also need to include some mechanical or functional changes. We've started to make broader splits over the last few months. When we decide a functional split is necessary, we still want the general purpose of a given skill or trait to be consistent across all game modes. Defensive skills should be defensive skills, but the way a skill provides that defense may be different between modes.

In cases where the core mechanic of a skill or trait is problematic in a particular game mode, we'll investigate if there's a way to rework the mechanic that feels good for every mode. In extreme cases, we may decide to significantly adjust how a skill behaves in a single mode, but this would only happen if the skill causes a major balance issue, there isn't a viable rework, and the skill cannot be balanced effectively while respecting the usual considerations of skill splits. Ideally, we want to avoid splits of this nature as they significantly increase the learning curve for players who play multiple game modes, but we will still utilize them when necessary.

Incorporating Player Feedback

The final topic we want to touch on is how we utilize player feedback throughout the design process for a balance update. Every update starts by determining what changes we want to make. We do this by reviewing recent live data for each game mode to identify overperforming and underperforming builds, but also by reading through player feedback to check for common pain points. After we have a plan, we design, prototype, playtest, and iterate until we've taken our initial goals and turned them into a finished set of changes, ready for wider community feedback.

Once we get to the preview stage, we collect player feedback from a wide variety of channels. At this point, feedback is even more important, as it gives us insight into what potential problems exist in the upcoming update, and what things we need to resolve between the preview and the live release. Every change that makes it to the preview is there for a reason, and it's important for us to provide that reasoning to make sure that everyone is aware of our goals. When community sentiment is negative around a particular change it's important for us to understand why that is, so that we can consider those reasons against the initial reason for the change and determine whether there's a viable solution.

One last note about previews and feedback: mechanical changes are the things we focus on most in the feedback phase. We do still look at feedback around numerical changes, but a lot of the time these can be more difficult to evaluate on paper and we usually want to get some actual data on how they play out. Numerical changes are also much easier to tune in later updates, even outside of the regular balance cycle. This isn't to say that numerical changes will never get adjusted because of preview feedback; they're just a lower priority for us compared to any larger mechanical updates.

Player feedback is an extremely valuable tool in the game design process. Thanks to everyone who regularly contributes to the discussion.

Conclusion

As we mentioned back at the start, going forward we'll be working to identify areas where the philosophy can be improved and resolve any outstanding issues where the live game doesn't align with the philosophy.

One final note: we've found the opportunity to gather initial feedback from either preview streams or forum posts to be incredibly valuable over the last few months, and we'd like to try to find more ways to get the community involved early. Finding the proper timing is the hard part, as we want to make sure we have enough time to put together an impactful update, but we'll be thinking about ways that we can improve the current process.

Thanks, everyone, for reading. We're looking forward to following the discussion.

Cal "cmc" Cohen

Skills and Balance Lead

I’ve read this a few times since it was posted and really, this doesn’t say much of anything.  Even with fairly nebulous goals as presented with the Balance Philosophy, we don’t see that being realized within the professions currently or over the past few profession updates. 
 

I’m still waiting to see ‘balance’ in a way where builds that fulfill the same role in the same game mode should be similar in APM and output. I respect that there should be some variety in how builds deal DPS or provide Support, but we have a long history of relying on one or two primary ‘meta’ builds because the secondary builds are just not good enough.

One part of the Balance Philosophy article that I didn’t see reference to are any bars that represent minimum or maximum power/skill/ability or the like. For example, should all Quick builds in PvE have similar output of Quick uptime and DPS?  What about Alacrity, Stability and Healing across the various game modes?

As it stands today, Chronomancer Quick and Alac builds are so far below the other providers that they don’t even register in PvE meta builds for the most part.  Is that the way it is meant to be?  Or should they be competitive with other Supports?  We don’t know because the Balance Philosophy doesn’t state anything about actual balance.   Should I be holding out hope that these Chrono builds will eventually be brought in line or is what we see what we get and that’s it?

I have said this several times but, I am still waiting for Anet to prove they can balance the professions in this game. It’s been almost a year since they started reshaping the professions for EoD and since then the players have been taken for a rollercoaster of a ride. Watching haphazard nerfs and buffs trash various builds and styles of play to bring us to a place where we are no closer to balanced than we were before they started this process. 

[What is your secret for stable and higher framerate in EoD meta events on high end system?]

GW2 is single threaded as I understand it. As such, consider the speed of the single thread the game is using, and if there are other processes being used on it as well.

 

In broader terms, minimize the background apps and programs that are running concurrently, consider debloating your OS, and generally optimizing the environment for GW2 such as installing GW2 and OS on different SSDs.

[Can we get a playable open world mesmer spec that doesn't rely on single-target damage, or gimmicks (pull, lining up)?]

6 hours ago, rune.9572 said:

I decided to play the krait instances of the latest LS1 reboot today and it. Was. A. Slogfest.

• Power virtuoso? Single target line-them-up.
• Condi mirage? Single-target, slow DoT. Yawn.
• Condi virtuoso? Just a sum of pvirt and cmirage flaws.
• Power chrono? Pull-based gimmick with long cds, still single-target because... clones... yeah

Then I swapped to my firebrand and just stood there spamming tome 1 skills while everything died.

Hello? Can we get something playable here that doesn't make every 3+ trash mob fight a slogfest? Please?

 

You complain about the single target only skills, and the fact that you can group up mobs. Why would grouping up mobs matter if these specs were only single target…. Oh right grouping them up for AoE and Cleaving with the not single target skills !?!!!?!??

You might not recognize that Mesmer has more ramp time given the clones/blades mechanics. This is one of the trade offs for choosing Mesmer. I’ve been playing Powerbomb Revenant for a few weeks and it is absolutely faster and easier than Mesmer, but I’d expect that since it is one of several professions that do not have to ramp up its DPS via profession mechanics. Same as most specs from Ranger, Guardian, Elementalist, Thief and a selection of Engineer builds.
 

Necro, Warrior and Mesmer all have to build their profession mechanics in combat which can slow them down when killing smaller groups of mobs.  You generally can’t shatter, use adrenaline skills or use Shroud until the profession resources are charged up.   It was one of the advantages of Virtuoso, that you could stock blades out of combat, and when you have your blades stocked going into combat, that next encounter is way faster. 

[Eod maps are Atrociously Optimized.]

I’ve been running around the game and can’t get it to use more than 3GB System Memory. Whenever I swap maps it resets to about 2.3-2.6GB usage. Ran with zerg on a few world bosses, mad king lab, sat in a couple EoD maps for a while. Nothing seems to create the issues reported here.

The only offender for graphic issues is the lag for textures loading in Arborstone, typically mount skins but sometimes armor and weapons. 
 

Is it possible that the issue is with graphics memory?  I’m using an AMD 6700XT with 12GB onboard for video and it constantly shows 65-75% usage.  Proc AMD 5800x and 16gig RAM. 

[Eod maps are Atrociously Optimized.]

Is there a place in an EoD map where you can reliably cause this issue to happen?  I’d be interested to try it out as I have yet to experience any significant issues with EoD since it’s launch and since DX11 updated left Beta. 

[Skill clicking is not the key(board)]

30 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats actually a miss conception. It is actually very easy and fast to get used to binds.

You bind everything and never ever click again anything. Ever. You intend to click? NO! Find that button.

The first hour you might feel dumb because youll be just standing there looking silly while you try to figure out what to click. But the progress is fast.  Time to adapt will probably depend on how adept you are in the first place but it becomes natural very fast.

Gw2 has decent amount of button but not that many.

How many professions do you have Keybinds setup for?  One of the issues I have run into is optimized keyboard layout for one build doesn’t always translate well to another profession build. Is there a way to have per character/per build keyboard layouts?  

[Unable to gift some gem store items?]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

It doesn't matter if you can 'gamble' in your country.  Dye Kits are considered a 'gamble' and thus, aren't able to be gifted to other players that may reside in a country that does not allow gambling. 

In game at this moment, I can gift any of the dye kits that are available, and not the Maid and Butler package.  

[How long till broken EoD Elite Specs go back to normal?]

I have zero expectation that Anet will ever find a sense of balance between the professions and game modes. I have little to no expectation that they actually care about the state of balance in this game. As long as ‘some’ professions and especs are viable, then it appears they are happy to continue durdeling along with no vision or direction.  
 

Now I believe that having that expectation is easy when there are 27 eSpecs plus Core housing maybe 100 or more viable builds. I don’t see Anet caring about many of those builds even if they wanted to, and historically they have left the profession balance in unhealthy states for long periods of time over the past 5 years, so really this is nothing new, just standard operating procedure for them. 

[Should shatters deal damage?]

40 minutes ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

Right agreed, but I think what Kulvar is suggesting is that Mirage is due to get the dodge back since Chrono got Distortion back and Anet claims to be rolling back the trade-offs they did previously.

 

I would also agree with Lincolinbeard, however, in that prior to the dodge being removed Mirage had super speed or a similar speed component on MC that was also removed as part of balance, prior to the trade-off changes that removed a dodge from Mirage in pvp/wvw.

I have little faith that the removal of trade offs and reverting of some skills and utilities will happen as we expect. It certainly won’t be rolling the clock back to prior iterations of Mesmer and its eSpecs. More likely they will remove the perceived ‘trade offs’ and then update the skills and traits with newer functionality, potentially changing the way these builds are built and played. 
 

 

[Mail carrier satchel is soulbound?]

47 minutes ago, neighto.7386 said:

 

You can hope all you want.. but I'm pretty sure that all bags greater then 20 slots are soulbound on use except for the 32 slot ones.    This is how they have always been, dont see them changing that just for this "freebie"

The Boreal bags are not soul bound while everything prior is.  Given that they made the change to not soul bound for the Boreal bags, it is unexpected that they would go back to soul bound for the next released bag.  
 

 

[Reactive, Proactive, and Innate: An Exploration of Actions, Skills, and Traits]

4 hours ago, Noko Anon.9154 said:

I appreciate the replies. It's difficult for me to add anything since most of it's agreeing with what I've already said, so I have to ask, what is the "baseline" we're talking about for innate to be functional? Killing champions in the open world, or something a little more realistic?

In PvE a viable build of any type should be able to complete the story solo with any challenges presented.  I’d suggest innate builds shouldn’t be too much more powerful than this.    
 

While PvE can support builds that can solo Champ Bounties or even some Legendaries, those should be the upper echelon of build and skill combined. The average player using an ‘innate’ build should be fine in most open world content and able to tackle metas and such with some friendly players around them.  I think the dividing line on ‘innate’ builds should be 5 and 10 player content, and I don’t think passive play styles should be strong enough for group content.  But I do see reason to allow ‘low intensity’ builds to be viable in group content. 
 

In PvP a build that relies on innate skills should never beat another player.  WvW and PvP should have a focus on skill and re/pro active plays either solo or grouped. 

[Why is using griffon during springer race allowed?]

It’s been this way forever and since the races are typically for a personal challenge not anything competitive, what does it matter?  Unless I’m mistaken there are no races that require you to place in a specific rank.

[(Concept) Mesmer Traits Revamped]

38 minutes ago, Tseison.4659 said:

 

Hey everyone. Decided to spend a good amount of time just going through our traits and doing a bit of cleaning up, condensing, swapping, rearranging and coming up with something new. These ideas are all just for fun and don’t expect to be taken seriously but if a dev pops by and gets inspired by something out of this, even better. I have this on a PDF with pictures which visually looks more organized 😪but oh well.

 

(Note: stuff along the lines of “increased damage, interval, gain additional XXX, increase XXX etc…” no numbers or percentages are provided as that would be based off of what anet deems fair/balanced. So have an open mind.) ☺️

 

DOMINATION

  Hide contents

Minor Adept

Illusion of Vulnerability

Inflict vulnerability when you interrupt, daze or stun a foe. Shatter skills inflict vulnerability on hit.

Condensed the Rending Shatter and Dazzling traits into one.

 

Major Adept

Rending Shatter

Shatter skills inflict vulnerability on hit. Shatters deal increased damage against foes with conditions.

 

Minor Master

Dazzling

Dazing or stunning a foe also applies vulnerability. Interrupts apply blind to your target and nearby foes.

 

Major Master

Furious Interruption

Gain quickness and steal a boon when you interrupt a foe.

 

Major Grandmaster

Chaotic Interruptions

Interrupts deal damage and inflict weakness. Enemies you interrupt have an increase cooldown. reduce the cooldown of all your equipped skills. (recharge time reduced: 2s)

Combined Chaotic Interruptions into this trait.

DUELING

  Reveal hidden contents

Major Adept

Phantasmal Fury

Your phantasms have fury. critically strike an enemy when summoned.

 

Major Adept

Duelist’s Discipline

Pistol attacks from you and your illusions inflict bleeding, Interrupting a foe recharges pistol skills. You can now wield the pistol in your main hand as well.

 

Major Master

Blinding Dissipation

Shatter Skill 2 inflicts blindness, and blinding a foe inflicts confusion.

Combined a part of the Ineptitude trait into this one.

 

Major Master

Fencer’s Finesse

Gain stacking ferocity effect when you or one of your illusions strikes with a one-handed sword or a spear. Reduced recharge on sword and spear skills. Gain additional ferocity when wielding a sword or spear.

 

Minor Grandmaster

Master Fencer

Grant fury to yourself and nearby allies when you critically strike an enemy.

 

Major Grandmaster

Phantasmal  Haste

Phantasms spawn with Quickness. Gain quickness when you create a phantasm. Gain precision when affected by quickness.

 

Major Grandmaster

Deceptive Evasion

Create a clone at your current position when you dodge and break enemy targeting.

CHAOS

  Reveal hidden contents

Minor Master

Illusionary Membrane

While you have regeneration, condition damage you deal is increased, and condition damage you take is reduced.

 

Major Master

Chaotic Transference

Chaos Armor grants protection when cast. When you gain protection, also gain regeneration. Gain Transmute Chaos.

 

Major Master

Persistence of Memory

When a phantasm becomes a clone, it transfers its boons to you. or when your illusions are destroyed, it transfers its boons to you.

Persistence of Memory and Chaotic Potency swapped.

 

Minor Grandmaster

Chaotic Persistence

Gain concentration and expertise, gain additional concentration while affected by regeneration.

 

Major Grandmaster

Chaotic Interruption Discipline

Gain an aura that pulses each interval to grant a random boon to nearby allies.

INSPIRATION

  Reveal hidden contents

Major Adept

Sympathetic Visage Protective Phantasms

Phantasms spawn with aegis and take your conditions when they are first summoned.

Combined Protected Phantasms into this trait.

 

Major Master

Warden’s Feedback

Focus weapon skills reflect projectiles. Reduces recharge on focus weapon skills. Temporal Curtain becomes a protective barrier at the target location.

 

Major Master

Protected Phantasms Sympathetic Visage

Your active illusions increase the healing they receive.

 

Major Grandmaster

Mental Defense

Cast Lesser Phantasmal Defender on your attacker when you successfully block or evade an attack. Shatter skills grant protection to you and nearby allies.

 

Major Grandmaster

Illusionary Inspiration

Increase healing to others. Summoning an illusion heals all allies around you.

ILLUSIONS

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Major Adept

Escape Artist

Create a clone when you gain stealth and gain endurance.

 

Major Master

Chaotic Potency

Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a staff. Staff and trident skills gain reduced recharge.

 

Major Master

Ineptitude

Confusion you inflict deals increased damage. Decrease strike damage dealt to you by confused foes.

 

Major Master

Maim the Disillusioned

Shatter skills inflict torment on hit and steal health.

 

Minor Grandmaster

Master of Misdirection

Copy conditions on yourself onto nearby foes every interval.

 

Major Grandmaster

Master of Fragmentation

Your Shatter skills are improved. Shatter skills gain recharge reduction.

Condensed Master of Misdirection trait into this one.

 

Major Grandmaster

Malicious Sorcery

Increases attack speed while wielding a scepter. Your expertise is increased. Scepter skills inflict an additional random condition on hit. Reduced recharge on scepter skills.

Attack speed for scepter should be base.

CHRONOMANCER

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Minor Adept

Time Splitter

Gain access to chronomancer shatter skills and Wells. Tides of Time applies Quickness and Alacrity in an area when cast.

 

Major Adept

Delayed Reactions

Disabling a foe slows them and nearby enemies.

 

Major Master

Illusionary Reversion Master of Time

Shatter skills generate a clone if you have enough clones present. Shatter skills reduce the recharge of your Wells. Wells have an increased area of effect.

 

Major Grandmaster

Stretched Time

The first pulse of a well also applies alacrity to allies near the well. Tides of Time now also applies alacrity in an area when cast. Gain increased attributes while affected by alacrity. (Healing)

 

Major Grandmaster

Seize the Moment

You and nearby allies gain quickness for each clone you shatter. Tides of Time now also applies quickness in an area when cast. Gain increased attributes while affected by quickness. (Power)

MIRAGE

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Major Adept

Riddle of Sand

When entering combat, your first Ambush attack applies confusion. This ability refreshes when you use a Shatter skill.

 

Major Master

Mirrored Axes

Reduce recharge of axe skills. Axe skills generate an additional phantom axe. Phantasmal Warden casts Imaginary Axes and releases phantasmal axes that seek out the nearest target.

 

Major Grandmaster

Dune Cloak

Use Sand Shards when Mirage Cloak ends. Deal damage and gain barrier when Mirage cloak ends.

What is the motivation for these changes?  Are you trying to fortify or weaken specific builds or open up new builds?

 

[Mystic Forge "Upgrade" - "Bank Access" [Merged]]

This is problem solving without understanding the problem. Glad they invested time into making this mess rather than fixing something relevant. 

[Proposed idea for despamifying alac and quickness supports rotation]

32 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I don't recall they gut personal quick and ala and replace it with only party buffs. They gutted unique buffs for party buffs such as AP, Druid spirit etc, unless you are talking about something else. 

It is very hard to show how much it changed as the Patch Notes don't always say they removed something.  There are a lot of 'this skill/trait has been removed now does this instead' or 'this was reworked, now it does this'.  Yet when you go to the page for Alacrity there were previously a lot more skills and traits listed GW2 Wiki Alacrity same thing applies for Quickness.

46 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

But I can at least assure you that people who lost quickness and alacrity in their build WILL be unhappy about it.

I know, I am unhappy about it, it already happened.  Perhaps having roots in Chrono and watching them take everything from that eSpec and give it to other professions left me jaded, but there were other professions using self-buffed Alac and Quick builds that are also gone after the June 28th 2022 patch.

 

[Proposed idea for despamifying alac and quickness supports rotation]

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I think the issue here is that you cannot just do that, you have to now consider cd of the classes, the cast time of skills in addition to damage as well as to preserve the gameplay of the current builds

The same consideration they gave the professions when they decided to gut personal Quick and Alac and replace it with only party buffs?  Chrono still wants a word with someone about this....

In most settings players now have access to 24/7 Quick and Alac, even if their build does not provide it natively.  As such, everyone is playing faster in most situations than before.   You don't need Alacrity to do this.  You could reduce all the CD's in the game by an arbitrary percentage to net the same result.  Same for Quickness, just reduce the cast times of skills by an arbitrary percentage.

When all players can expect 100% uptime of a specific boon, even Fury, Might, then what is it actually doing for the game?

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I feel the players are going to feel they lost something instead of gaining something instead and that it is getting to the problem that are we trying to make things different for the sake of being different?

This isn't about making something different for the sake of being different.  It's identifying that the way Anet has handled boons has removed some unique builds and devalued Alacrity and Quickness as a result.  I feel like we already lost something over the past year, over Anet trying to make something uniform (Alac and Quick sources) for the sake of being uniform.

 

[Proposed idea for despamifying alac and quickness supports rotation]

14 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I am going to discuss just on this statement.

 

This is incorrect. Some builds depend heavily on quickness and alacrity to make their rotation work. It is not just a number increase like banners or unique boons are, your entire gameplay changes because your cd now does not line up. There has to be way more work involve in this. Ele is a prime example of this. Quickness also directly impact your character's feel, your rotation always feels nicer with quickness vs without quickness as it start to feel sluggish. Is like moving out of combat and suddenly you are in combat, you feel like you are crawling. Neither of these are pure number buffs but much more deeply intertwined than you think.

The context is potentially being lost over several posts.

21 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Quick and Alac should appear in this game in 2 methods only:

1 - Self buffed only.  In this case we would want to create builds that can self-buff 24/7 Quick or Alac to create unique playstyles.

2 - 5 Player Short Duration Long CD Buff.  Used to pump up your team for burn phases such as after CC is broken.

I am aware that Alac and Quick focused builds exist but, as of today, they are focused on also providing Alac or Quick to other people.  Are there any selfish Alac or Quick builds that only spam the player with these buffs?  I really am not aware of any as the majority of those skills and traits were gutted to make way for the new design.

I would double down that, by having 24/7 Alac and Quick in this game it makes everyone play faster, and that is not a good thing.  It removes the uniqueness of using these boons.  Like, in Open World, knowing I can get 30 seconds of Alac and Quick whenever I enter combat on any build using Jade Bot Offensive and Defensive stations.

For the majority of players, who are playing professions or builds that do not buff Alac or Quick, they are all playing the game faster today than before.  For those players, those builds, I would suggest that the 'bonus' Alac and Quick could be replaced with some other DPS increase, if it was in fact needed.

This would then free up Anet to create builds that do self buff Quick and Alac to create unique and different play patterns. the thing you are commenting on here.  I would far prefer to see Anet have a handful selfish Alac and Quick builds than the current method.