Mell.4873

Thief is so wierd as a class. For PvE it is so one dimensional that you end uo spaming the most effective skill for your resources. At the high level of play I guess you can adapt your skill rotation to anticipate enemy reactions but this is very hard to do. I.E. Staff vualt over attacks. For PVP it get over nerfed simple due to the fact that stealth can be so OP (basicly zero counter play for someone who uses stealth.)

Love the Idea since right now we have a few single pets that cant be swapped with someone from the same Family (like Iboga) Another idea I had was offer more unique "Beast" skills like the Devourers can Tunnel with Devourer Retreat but why not turn that into a portal. That would offer far more utility and have a cool effect that a Soulbeast can utilize. Unique Fields could be another part of this like why not let all the spiders provide a poison field as their beast skill rather than a thief Venom rip off. (swap them around)

I'm repeating myself a bit but.... Most of the balance changes only effects the very high-end builds and gameplay. When I mean high end I truly mean, CM Strikes and Fractal plus Raids. Even within those learning your class is more important than benchmarks not to mention this content is not very rewarding for those who don't play it often enough (like me) The only time I would have waited was before the Spirit and Banner changes went though. Now they have been implemented then i think it is okay to play anything. I would actually say the opposite, the General rule is Melee is better since it benefits the most from stacking and teaches you to avoid mechanics. The best damage type is really both which is what condition damage truly is a hybrid.

I believe most people leave due to new player experience which doesn't quite feel like a good MMO standard. I mean ESO starts you off an isolated island with lots of story interactions. Even if the content does turn into dull boring quests with almost no difficulty it has a much better new player experience. I mean what are players told in GW2 to do(via the content): Get games expansions Level 80 boost a character Get Raptor mount Play content that can net you Exotic gear Dungeons HoT maps Crafting Gold -> Trading post I mean no one explicitly tells you to do this but is the most effective way to play.

Nothing they can do will keep people happy, it is obvious they balance the game off DPS and how often something is played. This is a horrible way to balance since if everyone follows the meta builds and it is always shifting then almost every class at some point will be nerfed. Honestly though the nerfs and buffs are so minor and only effect the very high end builds. Reaper is still the same regardless of the changes, reworks of skills/classes are very rare.

I agree. When I play on my low population server and I was able run around as longbow ranger. I even lead a few small groups to siege keeps having fun with a small community. The new WvW community is very toxic and I get blamed for deaths in my group or kicked for not keeping up with the Zerg ball. Reminds me of when I used to play on some of the more populated WvW servers and having trouble keeping up with the Super Speed Squad (A year ago).

I guess it is one of the reasons why the forum can be so toxic. I do see them moderating a lot better lately so they are trying, for example you cant call people out by name at all or you get your post removed. I feel you, I wont name names but some people just want to counter any point I make and when I respond to them directly I get many confused faces as a response. Honestly the answer is moderation even if it potentially a freedom of speech sort of issue, it is better than alterative which is toxic trolling (Sounds like me and you do a little bit of that 😛). If your are restricted to only talking about the game I believe it creates a more friendly Environment 🙂

All good ideas. Critical Chance Core trait buffs and the ability for Phantasms/Clones to benefit from Quickness would also help counterbalance the Mirage nerfs and potentially offer some more build diversity to the class. Not to mention one of the main barriers to entry for Mirage which is timing the clone ambushes against your own faster ambushes.

I feel your pain, Mesmer traitlines behave vastly differently to most other classes (Ranger has a similar problem). Almost all the traitlines do compete for each other outside Inspiration. Another issues is that some of traits either useless like stealth bonuses for PvE or outright OP like dodges creating clones for Mirage. The best way to craft a build for Mesmer is to Focus 80% of your attention on the Elite Specialization Traitline and the last 20% on what can benefit that. This is exactly why Chaos gets used for Mirage in group PvE content since the focus is on maximizing Condition damage.

Honestly the reason we don't see participation in the forums like other MMO's is due to how toxic this place is. It is getting better but probably because of the low participation rate. When EoD launched it was bad, I think the biggest reason I left the forum is I got labeled as Arena Net suck up. That and any account that stuck up for the new Elites (especially Virtuoso) got labeled as my account. I'm fairly certain some of the prolific users did have multiple accounts just to spam people posts with negative faces. Why? GW2 has a lot of history of changing entire mechanics of Classes. I mean take Chronomancer at launch vs now; They are almost a completely different Class. Taking anything at face value and trying to talk about it opens a whole can of worms about how it used to be.

Any amount of positivity around Mesmer is hampered by a previous versions of the class. The second dodge probably won't come back in any meaningful way to Mirage, boon support will forever be split for Chronomancer. DPS for any high preforming build much like Elementalist will forever be nerfed. My point is talking about Mesmer anywhere outside reddit is a waste of time. We can't really control the way they balance the class at all.

The only thing I can find in an Immobilization build, why does Ranger not have any brawler builds for group play in WvW, (On a side note Rangers are liable to be kicked from groups because of this). Most other classes that do have Zerg focus WvW build normally have multiple roles they can fill, like healing, ranged DPS and engagement Melee DPS. Ranger just has Immobilization and that is about it, even the druid doesn't see much play since all it can do is heal people, the Alacrity isn't very useful for a moving Zerg.

Mesmer is great and is vastly different to most classes. My only recommendation is to not post on the Mesmer forums for advise since they are a dreary bunch. The main strength of Mesmer is almost all its damage comes from shattering, so it is all about clone generation manager. Your rotation are highley dependent on predicting the future and targeting the high health mobs (Elites or Champion) so your clones don't dissappear to maximise damage.

Its like 2-4k difference since it was the best build for Soulbeast untill they buffed a few weapons. I guess if we went back to pre buff then Soulbeast would be better?

You could not be more wrong, Soulbeast has at least 3 end-game PvE specs; Power, Hybrid and Condition. Not to mention the new Longbow variations on the power specs. If anything Untamed has less since you more or less focused on Stuns or high power damage for sustain, it has more for PvP. I see plenty of people play it, in both PvE and PvP they are used since the Elite requires less investment in the rotation to achieve high DPS . Soulbeast is very strict in terms of timing the burst for the exposure window.

Whatever it was just a comment, I was able to pull higher numbers when I played Mirage so I wasn't going off snowcrow. A thing to note is if you use a line of sight features on Virtuoso you can achieve above 40k DPS and similarly if you run Chaos on shatters for Mirage the same thing can be done in a burst situation with AoE.

We will have to wait and see on the damage numbers, I guess it will be comparable to Virtuoso now.

I personally use 2 Longbows and the lower cooldown from Quick Draw to either spam Point-Blank Shot for dueling or Barrage for Zergs. The damage is far more consistent than Soulbeast, not to mention the many accesses to super speed. Generally speaking Fervent Force is pretty useless in PvP due to it being 2 seconds and not 4 seconds. This is a misconception (i got tricked by this too). The pet generally doesn't take any damage unless they are being targeted or are siting in an AoE combo field. Cleave and other effects normally don't work on them. Its kind of funny how op it is, I mean with the Festival of the Four Winds one of the bosses teleports you but not your pet for some reason.

True so that does deserve a buff of some kind.

Saying that I did see some people use Iboga in PvP but they where from silver pushed up into gold so I guess it's more an afk pet in PvP. While electric wyvern takes alot more skill to use.

Outside of the high-level end game PvE and PvP (which I know is hard to research for). Really anything goes, I would say pick a class based on the core traitlines rather than anything else. Most core features of a class are outlined in their 5 traitlines. I mean you can tell a lot from something like Ranger's Skirmishing I.E. Bleed damage, weapon swapping and Fury; All cornerstones of builds later on in the game.

I'm willing to bet the did this because of the DPS numbers. On Snowcrow alone Mesmer holds some of the top positions but that is fare since it is one of the harder DPS playstyles. Its far more spamming and situational rather than a strict rotation, like the new Untamed is.

Who the heck was using Iboga in competitive, I play Untamed in both WvW and Gold rank and I never saw anyone run Iboga. In competitive what makes a pet good is CC or utilities. I mean in WvW with all the hate pets get something like the Electric Wyvern was amazing when you needed to quickly CC part of Zerg (You stick them on follow incase i get that comment)

There are plenty of reasons to take Untamed over Soulbeast even if they have the same DPS. I for one almost never die on Untamed due the lower cooldowns with Fervent Force. I can also output more controlling Conditions to lockdown and CC players.

Yes