Nightara.1804

Not since they stomped Confusion into the ground. The only condition Chrono can apply in relevant amounts is Confusion, which deals basically no damage now. So nope, no Condi Chrono build, and there will never be one unless they do something about Confusion.

Not quite. Yes, you're (Almost) right, only Sword is affected by Heat, but e.g. Rifle has a much higher base damage anyway, no matter what your Heat level is. Before the last or second-to-last round of big balance changes, Rifle has always been the weapon of choice for Power Holo builds, despite lacking that Heat mechanic altogether. The thing about Holo only having Heat mechanics on Sword didn't change with Weaponmaster Training, nor did the "usefulness" of weapons other than Sword. Also, funny side note: The very build you're mentioning (Pistol / Pistol) is actually the build SnowCrows recommends for Condi Holo. Just because they don't have a Heat mechanic, that doesn't make them "weak" - they're just used for a different purpose, that's it. Someone on the SC Discord even experimented with Hammer Holo (Definitely not a rickroll) and got some decent numbers out of it.

Yet another annoyingly bugged PvE daily we are forced to do. At least this one can be completed, but standing around afk for several minutes (And almost being kicked out for doing so) is no fun. I don't have anything of value I can add, just here to voice my annoyance. We will hopefully get somewhat of a workaround for issues like these in two weeks, but considering something like this happened twice in a single week, I'm not particularly thrilled to wait for another two. Please fix your buggy content, or at least playtest stuff before making it "mandatory" content to play through.

Disappointed, not dead. Sure, Chrono is a ranged build now, but that's about it. Mirage still ded, Virtu still strong (And we're even back to the boring Chaos rotation, apparently), Chrono still only providing Alac or Quickness and barely any secondary boons. At this point, I just hope Rifle will be a decent cDPS weapon that doesn't require an entire elite spec to work. Sure, that would be boring af, bc it would essentially only benefit DPS Mirage (And maybe Virtu, but I doubt that), but still better than the current state.

Especially with the power creep caused by the Rune rework and Relics - can we please get the old Confusion back? Or get it replaced with Torment? Both Staff and Axe Mirage are heavily outclassed by Chrono and Virtuoso now, especially considering Weaponmaster Training. Before SotO, you could at least still argue for Staff Mirage being a fully ranged DPS support build - but now I can just grab a Dagger on my Chrono, run Stretched Time, and I'm better than any Mirage, so it even lost that selling point now. Staff Mirage is heavily outclassed by Alac Chrono (Who deals more damage and can bring way more utility because you don't really need those slots on the right side of your HP bar for anything but a small damage increase), Axe Mirage is outclassed by Condi Virtuoso, which is one of the easiest, sturdiest, and most reliable DPS builds with 1200 range, no random teleports into your death, and access to the exact same utility as Mirage. We can't even use any of the new weapons on Mirage, because Alac is bound to Staff, and the only reasonable cDPS weapon Mirage has access to is Axe. Scepter suffered even more from the Confusion nerf, and Dagger is not a cDPS weapon unless you have Jagged Mind, which is a Virtuoso trait. Mirage does not offer any support for power builds, so even running core Mesmer would probably be a better choice if I wanted to play power. I do understand that the old Confusion can be seen as problematic, and especially before the Staff changes, Alac Mirage (And Condi Mech, if we want to go back even further) was absolutely outperforming most comparable builds. But merely reducing the damage of Confusion to a ridiculously low amount (As I pointed out before, Confusion is weaker than even Bleeding now, unless your target uses a skill at least THREE TIMES PER SECOND, which is simply not a thing in this game) without giving Mirage anything in return is not a good "fix". Yes, the problem is technically "solved", there are no more Mirages outperforming everyone else by a ridiculous margin now, but on the other hand, there are simply no more Mirages now. If you struggle with balancing Confusion, why don't you replace or rework it entirely? It worked for Retaliation, and honestly, the game has been in a much better state ever since then. Simply replace all instances of Confusion with Bleeding or Torment, or maybe come up with a new condition to replace Confusion with. By this point, it's just frustrating to watch Mirage (And Staff / Scepter) being gutted over and over again, while other builds in this game are steadily heading toward 50k DPS (Or 40k, in case of DPS support builds). There are still two more releases we're waiting for, two more opportunities for builds to get an incredibly strong new item they can use to push their performance even further, and unless Rifle somehow magically manages to fix both support and DPS Mirage (Which I doubt very strongly), I don't see anything changing about this issue anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't on purpose, but there are so many completely avoidable mistakes they made with SotO, four daily objectives in the Vault only being one of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a lore junkie, I love the story and all the lore we got with that release, and the new maps are fun to play, but there's SO MUCH falling under "decent idea, absolutely terrible execution, nobody should ever have let that get through QA", it just feels like SotO was released half a year too early.

Just here to bump the thread, maybe we can get enough awareness so Anet notices it?

I know this is going on a tangent bc the main topic was PvP, but SC is not exclusively "pretty high-end". They have a whole section dedicated to beginner builds, their builds range from fairly simple to exceedingly complex. Yes, they are optimizing everything the best they can, but that does not mean that their verdict on the current state of PvE only applies to high-end players. I agree with your point of "not recommended = not super great", but SC has more than just the "recommended" category for their builds. Staff Mirage was outright retired on their website, as it is probably the worst Alac build in the game right now. Hell, even Power Alac Renegade is probably stronger atm, and that stuff hasn't been touched for years. And sorry to break it to you, but Axe Mirage is in fact below average. I absolutely believe you when you say you still outdps most pugs, but I outdps most pugs on my (Post-nerf) Quickness Deadeye. It's not about outdpsing pugs, it's about "Would you have significantly more DPS if you put a comparable amount of effort into a different class / build?". And for that question, the answer for Axe Mirage is definitely "Yes". And that's the problem. A pure DPS spec (Bc let's face it, Staff Mirage is absolutely useless atm) with a relatively hard rotation should not be outperformed that much by every other DPS build (And even some support builds) in the game.

Anet already proved that they don't care about difficulty vs payoff when they repeatedly bonked Elementalist whenever it overperformed. Which is a design decision, I'm not gonna try to argue against it (Even if I personally disagree), but I doubt Staff Mirage was the reason why Axe Mirage was nerfed. And please don't claim Axe Mirage wasn't super busted at bosses like Cairn, SH, or Largos, that's just not true. Even if you're a mediocre Axe Mirage, you were easily able to top the DPS chart as long as you don't suicide yourself.

I know why they nerfed it, and I doubt they're just going to revert that change, just like you. But that's why I suggested removing and replacing it with Torment or Bleeding instead, that would make Confusion-based builds playable without having to buff Confusion again. They already replaced a Boon a while back, so I don't think replacing a Condition is that far-fetched.

The clones SHARE Alacrity with every Ambush. So you (Edit for clarification: And all allies) get 2.5s of Alac from the Mesmer PLUS 0.5 per staff clone, which is 4s per Ambush (Actually, it's almost 4.7 bc of Chaos, but details) if you run double staff.

Technically not a Mesmer issue, but realistically speaking, it is: Please, for God's sake, fix Confusion. The passive tick is the weakest tick in the game, and the activation damage is way to low to make up for that. Targets would have to attack three times per second (Which is actually impossible for an extended period of time, bc the shortest skills I know take at least half a second to cast) to bring Confusion to the same level as Bleeding. Bleeding is supposed to be the "base line condition", the most easily accessible, most reliable, but in return weakest condition. Torment is harder to access, has the same base damage as Bleeding, but when you activate its special condition, it's twice as strong as Bleeding. Burning is straight up stronger than Bleeding. Why is Confusion worse than Bleeding, even when you factor in its special condition? If you hate Confusion that much, why don't you just remove it and replace it with Torment or Bleeding instead? Then Mirage and Condi Chrono would at least be playable. Please give Staff Mirage some of its damage back, or increase the Alacrity duration of Chaos Vortex so we can at least play Staxe. Most DPS support builds are at or above 30k DPS right now, while Staff Mirage is stuck at ~26k - and those 26k contain 30% Torment, which is significantly weaker in any real raid scenario.

You don't get it. Do you have the 5% bonus from Scholar when you log in before the patch? Yes. Do you have the 5% bonus from Scholar when you log in after the patch? No. Did you do anything that deserves to lose that bonus? No. So why should it be fair to lose it? And you can replace that with anything. Take the protection from Sanctuary, or the condi conversion from Leadership, I don't care, the same principle still applies. It's not about lowering the effectivity of legendary runes, it's not about the power creep, it's not about people forgetting how much more flexibility we have. It's about having to invest time and money into regaining something we lost.

Quote from the official announcement: "With the first release on August 22, the sixth tier of each rune set will instead complete the stat bonuses associated with that rune set, and the additional special effects or conditional bonuses will be removed entirely." Nobody is questioning the improved versatility and slight power creep in some niche cases (Especially Condi builds and Power builds who aren't crit capped without Thief will profit), but people take issue with having to invest money to get back to where they were before the release. Adding an easier-to-get legendary armor? Not an issue, nobody with a legendary armor will lose anything over it. Adding a new way to earn the Skyscale? Doesn't matter, people who already have it will still keep it. Adding new legendary weapons? Also fine, this isn't taking anything away from people. All these cases might have an opportunity cost for people (As in, they could have spent the money differently if they had known ahead of time), but the relics as presented incur an actual cost for everyone. You had a full set of Scholar runes? Well, better get grinding, or you'll be weaker than you were before.

When the patch hits, I will straight up lose 5% damage on most of my power builds. Before the patch, I'll have 5% extra from Scholar's. After the patch, without changing anything, I will not have that 5% anymore. I do not own any runes besides my legendary ones. I built them assuming I would never have to worry about builds anymore (Bc they were the last item I got). We are all aware that the patch will give everyone more flexibility, more options. We are happy about that. Not having to use Rune of the Thief on my Chrono where I waste tons of stats into Condition Damage just to get that 10% modifier and the Precision is great. But I still don't like the thought of straight up losing a 5% damage modifier even though I went the extra mile of making sure I will never have to worry about not having it. And this isn't even restricted to legendary runes. What about people who invested into a significantly more expensive rune solely for the 6th special effect? Traveler vs Leadership, for example. Same stats except for the 6th special effect, and while one of them can be bought for a couple of gold, the other one has to be farmed in a 1-2h meta. Is that fair?