Mell.4873

The problem you will find is they are not Afk so nothing will happen. I normally just talk to them and see what YouTube video they are watching.

Since I already have a thread going I want to predict some potential nerfs. For one the 25% extra damage on Force of Nature will probably go since it is creating another "Sic Em" situation even if it is hard to trigger and cram everything in. Next I really like the cooldown reset when triggering Force of Nature and would like something similar for Hammer especially over a bunch of coefficient buffs. Honestly though they will probably nerf it in some way on Mace but they might leave it for a purity purpose. Again make Hammer have the instant cooldown reduction not Mace.

Yeah I have playing around with Mace/Mace Soulbeast with Staff to escape. I'm trying a more stance heavy set up with the ability to deal alot of damage inside a Zerg Clash.

@Zyreva.1078 @MumbJumbo.1975 @Gotejjeken.1267 You are both right. Druid is both over performing just in gold and is a bunker/condition build. Druid is just an odd class it has extremely strong healing in Celestial Avatar and has alot of pressure with root/alacrity combo. This is why it is being nerfed. When I fight a Bunker Druid I know it's weakness, stuns. I play Mace Untamed and can switch from my CC providing Stability or Quickness so I just spam CC with Quickness. Druids real problem is it's unreliable Stability and slow attack animations that root it and others in place. This is why it makes a good bunker and team fighter but can easily be countered especially with mobility.

They do exist don't get me wrong but compared to other classes we have nothing. Most of our projectile denials are hard to use and the invulnerabilities are even worse. We don't have any Renewed Focus. What we do have is passive traits like Rugged Growth and Beast/Pet swap utility like skills. (Natural Healing for Soulbeast)

Depends the game mode but balance was way worse before EoD. Does anyone remember stacking Scourge in Fractal CMs? What about Scrapper in WvW or Reaper in sPvP.

I swapped from Sword on one of my builds and use unnatural travel instead. Most of the time I was running duel something to so I can double ambush the same weapon now i just throw mace in there instead.

Crit increases your damage a lot when you don't use Axe.

Without that 100% critical chance you are better of using Celestial Axe (for more Torment) or Celestial Virtuosos since that can reach 100% critical chance and condition duration. The other big downside is the Dagger ambush has no AoE on impact. While something like Virtuoso relies on many AoE skills for its damage.

I have been swapping a few of my PvP/WvW builds over to Mace and found something very cool about the weapons, nothing is wasted. Almost every attempt at dueling someone can be outplayed, Maul can be dodged, Longbow barrage can be avoided etc. This is not true with Mace, both 2 and 4 provide some support to yourself/Allies so you always gain some value by attempting to land a skill. While 3 and 5 are AoE CCs so for a clash of more than one player you are bound to hit someone. This synergizes really with Untamed to gain Stability and the upcoming Trait changes.

Most of Rangers survivability is baked into their Traits. Very little of it is on skill, with Mace and Staff being the only ones (little on Greatsword to)

There are some potential options and even some amazing relics like Relic of Peitha but is not all comming together yet. The torment stacks don't reach the threshold required to out DPS main-hand axe which is the main issue. Maybe there is a hybrid 100% critical chance build out there that makes use of dagger better but not right now. The only reason Virtuoso can pull of this hybrid DPS build is becouse of its built in passive critical chance and even Condition duration (even if the benchmark doesn't use it) Maybe someone can experiment and prove me wrong but I don't see it yet.

You got it, Greatsword most of the time with Signet of Either and then just swapping to Rifle for healing. Normally I just try and get the two Phantasms out of Rifle 4 then change back. Before Rifle this build was extremely squishy and not really worth it in the open world when Condition Virtuoso exists with its passive healing. Now we have a good second option.

Why come back and play if there is nothing new to master or learn. If you had the same old weapon and it doesn't fit your role then what is point. At least now you have some gimmick as you call it to master. You never know maybe Mesmer rifle is exactly what you need on your Power DPS Mesmer to pull off some cool Raid or Strike trick.

No you got in conquest PvP is what I mean. I am also only really talking about the new Mace Druid. If you use something different then this doesn't realy apply. I mostly Main Mace Untamed in sPvP but I do use Mace alot in WvW on Druid. Like I said Mace skills are pretty easy to avoid.

Ohhh..... Well I tried maybe if people learned how to counter Mace Druid we would not have to be nerfed.

@Micah.3789I do still have all the Celestial gear (I only have legendary medium armor) so maybe I will try a Healing Celestial Mirage again. I do want a condition version of a boon support and Chronomancer/Rifle isn't really doing that. Some people have suggested putting a Quickness Ambush on the Rifle which would be nice. I don't think it would spawn a duel boon support build since I am fairly certain you cannot maintain Alacrity with just one staff.

Celestials is how I tried it but honestly, I'm so out of practice with Mirage I can barely do it. I would rather spend my time on Chronomancer which is not only more forgiving but can really do a lot of damage on Boon Support.

I guess you made my point for me. Nobody realy uses Mirage for healing especially if you want to run Staff/Staff for Alacrity. I have have attempt a few Celestial Mirage builds over the years for Strikes and Raids but honestly it never really worked. Most players go Boon Support DPS normally due to share amount of stuff you have to manage. You needs full clones to provide Alacrity but you need to shatter to heal. This contradiction is why no one plays it. You are a Rare person to be able heal and DPS with this build.

I didn't want to bloat my reply but one use of the new Rifle is an open world Berserker or Marauder/Dragon builds (I use the later). Full DPS gear with most likely some Healing runes and maybe a relic would be a pretty nice combo. High bust damage with suppment healing and high damage phantasms from Rifle 4.

Most Mesmer Healers are very low damage normally due to the cheese of the rotation. To maintain enough clone generation for healing and boons you pretty much have to spam either the new Rifle 2 or Scepter auto attack both have no damage. If you use Staff unless you run some condition damage that too will do no damage. Your best bet it probably Wells or Mantra of pain for damage but that doesn't sound great.

Pretty good breakdown and exactly what I have found to. The closest we ever came to a healing build without direct healing was the Choas and Inspiration rework. Rifle added the final piece to the puzzle. Now between phases we can heal or adjust our traits. For example you could trait signets for a boon extension on Signet of Inspiration.

I'm in agreement with idea that it is an outdated mechanic. Whenever I play engineer it is like going back in time.

Let downed players interact with it. It would require a bit of skill on the Mesmer's part but would be a great addition.

Isn't that staff Mirage, I think I did mention that was the closest to healer we had before Rifle. Also, I am not really saying you could not heal before Rifle, but it requires an incredibly hard build and rotation that there wasn't much point. Unless you main Mesmer like I do.