Twilight Tempest.7584

Nerf Mesmer threads are cute in 2019. In seriousness, it sounds like a major rework is on the horizon, for better or worse, so "how to 'fix' mesmer" suggestions may not be relevant in the near future.

Just bumping this in agreement. I respect active mirage mains that can use Axe fearlessly, doubly so if they're power oriented. I just hope all the soon-to-be-nerfed staff Mirages don't bandwagon and get my axe nerfed more or make the playerbase wise to it. Right now its main advantage might be the element of surprise.^^

Exactly axe puts out good dps and a player who knows what they are doing can kill you with it much faster than they can with a staff.It also still encourages the user to actually actively use their shatters instead of actively not using them. People just dont do it because there is no reason to so long as staff provides great dps while boosting a defensive plays tyle.IT works against most situations so why use anything else.The damage is good enough and its safer so why use anything else.Staff also provides utility along side the great damage while axe is more just geared to damage so why use anything else. Fighting an Axe mirage does not bother me. Fighting a passive staff mirage pains me greatly. . When is the last time an axe mirage kill you ?What can you say about my why is axe bad ? I don't know what to say about your axe opinion. I thought it is bad too until i tried it and it worked well. When you care for your axe 2 use you don't rly get interrupted during that. Axe 3 is still an insane skill. Don't use Sage amulet with axe and the dmg is good. That was my experience at least. It was already a decent use, when now everyhting else will get nerfed axe will be even better most likely.Confession: I never stopped playing axe, even after it was heavily nerfed and made clunkier (not only did they severely nerf damage, they made it so you have to turn and face your target for the ambush to activate). Still playing axe today, mostly because I find the active, though riskier playstyle 100x more fun than passive staff play which I find extremely boring. Fun > rating for me.

Thanks for the update! It really seems like feedback is being heard and acted upon. The targeted updates between larger updates should really help cut down on those long balance droughts. I'm excited and hopeful for things to come.

^You basically described Holosmith, especially your #3. Yet later you say: The problem with Holosmith isn't so much its damage, or its stability up time, or its quickness up time (though these contribute). It's that it doesn't at all play according to its concept of being a high-risk, high reward glass cannon. Overheating should be the "high-risk" part of the equation but it is entirely missing because it is so easy to avoid. Meanwhile, it has some of the best self-healing (as broken down numerous times by people on this forum) courtesy of Heat Therapy, Healing Turret with water field finisher, and high stealth and quickness up-time to execute and cover it. It really, truly has it all: sustained damage--check, burst damage--check, CC--check, boon spam--check, stealth--check, sustain and resustain--check. It's been said that the only thing Holo lacks is long cooldowns. Right now, there is no reward for outplaying a Holo in duel. They'll just be like, "Time out. Toss Elixir-S for 6 seconds of stealth, Healing Turret/water field for nearly full heal, then CC+burst you out of the still-going stealth"--all without ever having to leave the area of the fight. And they can do this multiple times within the span of a single duel because of those short cooldowns. This is the epitome of unfair. People, including reasonable Holo mains, have been saying for a while, that the proper way to bring Holo in line (because it is most definitely not fine as is; it remains a persistent outlier) is to curb its sustain by nerfing Heat Therapy, upping Forge cooldowns, and perhaps nerfing Elixir S stealth duration, among other things. Unfortunately, going by this balance preview, they are again missing the mark. It isn't difficult. Literally do what Chaith has suggested in other threads here and that would be a huge step in the right direction. Holo mains have been asking for nerfs to other professions as compensation to reductions in sustain...basically nobody wants to be the underdog and yet everybody wants to draw water from the well. Game needs changes...but those changes must be made while keeping in mind the idea of fun....your fun it's not the only element in the equation, there is also your enemy idea of fun @Chaith in his posts was specifically asking for nerfs on everybody else while suggesting what should be nerfed on Holo....he's not different from the rest of us, he still wants to have fun while playing the game aka he doesn't want to play the underdog either , for the vast majority fighting uphill battles is not fun. It's not fun to fight a mesmer for example and yet if you mention this to a mesmer...he will come out with usual L2P arguments, every class does that. Except, most everything else has seen serious nerfs over the last several updates. Everything but Holo. The last time they tried to hit Holo was with disabling Toolbelt skills upon Overheating. That proved to be another toothless nerf that mainly affected PvE, not PvP and WvW where again, Overheating seldom happens. Currently, Holo is hands down the top duelist, and is also useful in other roles. It's hard to point to any real drawbacks. It's a jack of all trades, and is great, if not superb, at all.

^You basically described Holosmith, especially your #3. Yet later you say: The problem with Holosmith isn't so much its damage, or its stability up time, or its quickness up time (though these contribute). It's that it doesn't at all play according to its concept of being a high-risk, high reward glass cannon. Overheating should be the "high-risk" part of the equation but it is entirely missing because it is so easy to avoid. Meanwhile, it has some of the best self-healing (as broken down numerous times by people on this forum) courtesy of Heat Therapy, Healing Turret with water field finisher, and high stealth and quickness up-time to execute and cover it. It really, truly has it all: sustained damage--check, burst damage--check, CC--check, boon spam--check, stealth--check, sustain and resustain--check. It's been said that the only thing Holo lacks is long cooldowns. Right now, there is no reward for outplaying a Holo in duel. They'll just be like, "Time out. Toss Elixir-S for 6 seconds of stealth, Healing Turret/water field for nearly full heal, then CC+burst you out of the still-going stealth"--all without ever having to leave the area of the fight. And they can do this multiple times within the span of a single duel because of those short cooldowns. This is the epitome of unfair. People, including reasonable Holo mains, have been saying for a while, that the proper way to bring Holo in line (because it is most definitely not fine as is; it remains a persistent outlier) is to curb its sustain by nerfing Heat Therapy, upping Forge cooldowns, and perhaps nerfing Elixir S stealth duration, among other things. Unfortunately, going by this balance preview, they are again missing the mark. It isn't difficult. Literally do what Chaith has suggested in other threads here and that would be a huge step in the right direction.

In introduction, I'm not at all for a IH change as the output damage is really low and more importantly : predictable (like "hey I'm doing a pretty staff animation, evade in 3, 2 , 1 ,... ") , even atm. But What I can understand is that it mix the different way you have to evade : When you evade actively = burning an evade to ambush, it's fine, it's active and have counterpart etc. Whereas when you evade defensively =you evade a key skill, then poping the ambush by default.The the last way is burning an evade to save the clones from an aoe but is pretty rare in practise it's a side effect of a defensive evade. Now using ambush offensively on condi build isn't worth it that's why we see this passive gameplay so people use it only defensively because it's more efficient to let the clone dps than to shatter them or to make them ambush. Then I totally agree that it will be way better with a mesmer having a "hudge ambush" while clone having minor so that doing an ambush offensively worth it and evading a key skill didn't trigger average ambush. Because let's face it, most ambush are trash without IH.Now this is the sheep effect of forums, one sheep say "nerf IH", all sheep who get killed by a mesmer go on by never playing it with no clue about what it implie. @Cal Cohen.3527, you alluded to more fundamental changes (redesign?) of Condi Mirage in the future. I think the principles in the quoted posts are good and worth considering. They've been stated by others throughout other discussions for a while as well. In short, Infinite Horizon is not the problem. Clone damage is. An elegant solution to encouraging more active, less passive condi mirage play is to transfer clone damage (both autos and ambushes) to the player's own attacks and shatters. That's it. This addresses the issues of the player hanging back defensively while letting clones do much of the damage, of allowing opponents to focus on the player and less on the clones, and reducing clone up-time generally by making shatters worthwhile--all without nerfing traits and skills that unduly impact underperforming core Mesmer and Chrono. I hope these points have registered and are considered in the eventual update. Regardless, the current communication and attention to major balance issues are really appreciated.

Still missing some adjustments to Holo (re)sustain, but yeah, not a full or final list.

I really don't understand how people can defend this build without showing extreme bias towards their class or being disingenuous about its effectiveness and 99% lack of counterplay. Removing the Staff-3 bug is good. Upping the initiative is probably too much, but as CMC stated, this is an emergency fix for what is an incredibly busted build. Staff DrD apologists would do well to remember Chaotic Interruption and be glad their build wasn't completely deleted pending a lackluster rework. Imagine having a trait simply disabled until further notice. This isn't simply forum qq. How many top players need to describe the same problem? How many videos need to document it? It's all there for anyone who's willing to be reasonable and objective. I do hope that Anet reworks this build by fine tuning the various traits that make it too much, without removing it or any other builds from viability. They should also revert the increased initiative cost if appropriate. But until then, something needed to be done about this build. The hotfix may not be ideal, but the prompt attention is a step in the right direction.

Thank you for addressing this.

I think time I die to them is when I get stubborn and try to fight them. They are extremely difficult to hit. So, when i play like a regular thief or daredevil and + all the fights they are not at (all of them), I tend to win games. However, I see people just cant stand it and keep going back doing exactly what the thief wants. The counter that anyone can do is ignore and rotate. Literally takes no resources. Therein lies the problem. Acro-staff DD plays like an unkillable side-noder that can, and will, win 1vX, killing multiple players trying to engage it. Unlike pre-nerf Scrapper, it does have kill potential while being untouchable and still more mobile, yet look what happened to Scrapper. And the odds that many queue-ers know not to "give it what it wants" by god-forbid actually trying to fight it in any random match, aren't great. You know something's wrong with a build when the best advice for dealing with it is: "Run. Runaway." If any other side node class had a build like this that people were abusing there would be an uproar. For now, this build still remains somewhat under the radar. But perhaps not for long: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90959/imagine If I have to use a different strategy for a different comp there is something wrong?Yes, if that strategy is simply for your entire team to avoid the degenerate build at all costs in the vast majority of matches. As I said earlier, I think this would be a good place to start. I certainly never said: This isn't an "us versus them" debate. It is a health of the game issue. Anything that can squat on a node while being effectively unkillable in 1vX in the vast majority of matches is inherently unhealthy in a point-capture game mode. Unhealthy not because there are zero ways to play around it, but because they embody a type of play--degenerate play--that almost nobody truly wants. Scrapper and Chrono were both altered for doing the same thing. There should be no exceptions to this precedent.

I think time I die to them is when I get stubborn and try to fight them. They are extremely difficult to hit. So, when i play like a regular thief or daredevil and + all the fights they are not at (all of them), I tend to win games. However, I see people just cant stand it and keep going back doing exactly what the thief wants. The counter that anyone can do is ignore and rotate. Literally takes no resources. Therein lies the problem. Acro-staff DD plays like an unkillable side-noder that can, and will, win 1vX, killing multiple players trying to engage it. Unlike pre-nerf Scrapper, it does have kill potential while being untouchable and still more mobile, yet look what happened to Scrapper. And the odds that many queue-ers know not to "give it what it wants" by god-forbid actually trying to fight it in any random match, aren't great. You know something's wrong with a build when the best advice for dealing with it is: "Run. Runaway." If any other side node class had a build like this that people were abusing there would be an uproar. For now, this build still remains somewhat under the radar. But perhaps not for long: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90959/imagine

We can quibble about semantics like "good build versus degenerate build", "viable versus meta", etc. But at the end of the day, does anyone want any build that is effectively perma-evades running around in any competitive mode? Think about it.

Bumping this because these things are still around. I had the unfortunate pleasure of being matched against the acro staff Daredevil, staff-3+jump-abusing, perma-evade (not hyperbole) full degenerate build a couple times recently, and it's exactly as Trevor and Shadowpass described months ago. Except in the rare situation your team has the specialized build to counter it and/or the coordination to rotate around it, it will troll 1vX the entire match. It's like the pre-nerf Scrapper when it comes to yanking nodes and ultimately winning 1vX, but instead of being unkillable by being immune to damage, it is simply immune to being hit. I'm not saying there aren't some very niche builds and ways to beat it, but this is 100% "degenerate play" that's the very definition of anti-fun to deal with. At the very least, Anet should do something about the staff-3+jump abuse so there are some punish frames at some point. Can't really say more than has already been said, other than that this is still around and is very unhealthy. ^This, totally this. ^This, so much this. Can't speak for ranked but it's being abused in AT for sure. It's not your typical vault and bound spam. I didn't meet any in neither Ranked nor ATs, I get that people can have different experience, but it seems a suspicious statement anyway. Ive ran up against it three times in late day ATs. Twice with JonesBoy and once from some other named Private somthing. That's in the last week.I'm pretty sure this is one of the players I encountered recently. They're Platinum 3 going by one of their posts and they were in full blown troll mode in our match. Waved at me when they wouldn't even let me leave spawn. Kept it going by doing the post-match whisper.

Thieves, Mirages, and Weavers are squishies. What would you give them to stay alive in exchange for less stealth and evasion?

propose something better, or do we keep holo utterly broken for longer? along with warrior and fb Just lost a blowout match against a team with this comp. An utterly oppressive trio of overpowered cheese. I just dont like how they can reover almost always as long as they survive intial damage, followed by the fact that they have insane sustained damage from holo and rifle 1 due to quickness and perma might, meaning its on YOU to push the fight along since you will lose if you take it slow.when im on power mirage, if I trade m1 and use power spike again holo m1 i STILL lose the trade, on top of the fact that he has superior sustain. Nothing about fighting Holo in its current state feels fair. I know there are things I could do better, but I'm sadly at the point where I just try to avoid them. :( join the dark side of full toughtness condi mirage, you cant kill them. they cant kill you. but you kitten them off nicely !And become part of the cheese epidemic? I just can't. xD

propose something better, or do we keep holo utterly broken for longer? along with warrior and fb Just lost a blowout match against a team with this comp. An utterly oppressive trio of overpowered cheese. I just dont like how they can reover almost always as long as they survive intial damage, followed by the fact that they have insane sustained damage from holo and rifle 1 due to quickness and perma might, meaning its on YOU to push the fight along since you will lose if you take it slow.when im on power mirage, if I trade m1 and use power spike again holo m1 i STILL lose the trade, on top of the fact that he has superior sustain.Nothing about fighting Holo in its current state feels fair. I know there are things I could do better, but I'm sadly at the point where I just try to avoid them. :(

propose something better, or do we keep holo utterly broken for longer? along with warrior and fb Just lost a blowout match against a team with this comp. An utterly oppressive trio of overpowered cheese.

These changes wouldn't kill holo. You can try to prove me wrong if you'd like. It would kill Holo, and core, Hammer Scrapper would be the scuffed best engi spec in PvP lol. Think you're underestimating how screwed you are when you have a transformation with a 6s exit prevention, that also prevents your heal, stunbreaks, defensive skills. Entering photon forge would be instant death without the stability trait and landing corona burst. All you'd have to do is immediately pop stability & target the Holo when he transforms - very often it wouldn't be at full health too. Combine that with all the other substantial nerfs, Holosmith would be worse than Spellbreaker on duels, teamfights, 1vX. It'd join Core add Scrapper in the obsolete but cool tier. Scrapper would be all around better. all those nerfs would screw over holo for sure.but seriously I always thought photon forge had a large cooldown, and then I saw guy just pop in and out like its nothing.giving it something like 20s CD after exiting forge as a cooldown would be a good start.could make the cooldown lower/higher depending on heat or make you unable to holo untill you have 0 heat.some slight nerfs here and there and we could see how it goes. PS bruiser like holo should never have access to stealth. EVER. You can bake self reveals into Holo skills & photon forge because you can't take away Toss Elixir S / smoke fields from Engi, which are core to the class. It's vent exhaust that allows PF to be online more often. Without that trait the Photon Forge really is on around a 20s cooldown heat cycle, which is still really fun, (try using Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit GM major trait.) in general, stealth is give to light classes as devensive/offensive tool. defensively to disengaging and offensively to setting up combo/bursts.more often then not light classes have fast cast, low impact abilites that when combined provide decent outcome, while heavy classes have long casttime, big effect attacks.hiding 1/4s casttime in stealth is not a big deal, hiding over 1s casttime ability with stealth, on a class that can sustain in a fight ( thus dont need stealth for defence ) means that they can use it more towards offence/utility. I want you to play mesmer with mass invis and holo with elixir stealth.and just count how often you can freely use one of those stealths for offence/utility ( rez/stop ) and how ofte you HAVE TO use it to disengage. adding self reveal to the spec would have to be placed in sooo many places. holo->stealth is not fine. steath->plb is not fine.stealth-> healing turret combos is questionable.I dont wanna make over the top suggestions for holo beccouse i dont play/know much abbout the class to make assumptions.but I do know as someone who pays attention to what my allies/opponents do, that stealth is part of the holo problem.I think extensive stealth is absolutely a big part of the problem with Holo's over the top sustain/re-sustain and damage. The 6 seconds of stealth every 30 seconds afforded by traited Toss Elixir S enables those nearly full heals anytime the Holo actually gets in trouble. On top of that, the re-sustain gets followed up by a CC plus burst from stealth. Literally top-tier defense plus offense in one virtually uninterruptible mechanic. I had the joy of dueling just such a Holo the day this discussion opened. Within the course of our perhaps 40 second duel he tossed Elixir S twice, effectively getting two near full resets without ever having to leave. Both times he followed with a CC plus burst from stealth. Nothing about that experience felt fair or fun.

I think you hit almost all the "big picture" issues while capturing the sentiments of many. Excellent post. Approaching a year since I discovered this forum, I've slowly lost hope that the many sensible suggestions and ideas will ever become reality in a timely manner, if at all.

This is kind of hilarious coming from someone with a scourge avatar. And this is why conclusions should not be made based on avatars. Solori isn't a Scourge "main". He was meming.

I'm not. From the title alone, I would have been very surprised if Mesmer didn't win this poll, like so many polls before it. This poll isn't about what's most OP (definitely Holo), but basically what generates the most salt. Mesmer, and to some extent, thief, will always wear that crown due to their mechanics, regardless of whether or not they're OP.

delete teef!

Tbh, anyone who complains about any type of Mesmer being too strong in 2019 sounds incredibly out of touch.

Just wanted to say... ^This is like saying "boats are probably the second most used means of overseas travel after planes." Something being a distant second in a situation with only two options really isn't saying much about the second's efficacy.