Simonoly.4352

I remember when they removed downstate in WvW for a bit and it completely trivialised combat and made it super boring. Experienced players have no issue overcoming downstate and planning accordingly, and new players get a bit more of a chance rather than instantly exploding. It's a good mechanic.

I'm a proponent of such a trade off. Although 1 less clone would be more than enough.

Well the reinstating of IP but removal of distortion from CS is exactly what I suggested in previous threads. I also insisted on A LOT of support buffs for Chrono to make it, well, a support option in ALL game modes - so this will be the next thing that happens. Won't it? Won't it Anet? Don't you dare let me think I'm not influencing your design/balance decisions!

Literally what part of mirage even suggests it should be a sustain build? 90% of everything on it is either mobility, evasion, or condition. There's no healing like Celestial Avatar or druid staff, no barrier like scrapper. No resistance or blocks. I was thinking more along the lines of a dodge tank, something that is already available in this game and many others.

For Mirage, I'd really just reinstate the second dodge bar and just remove one clone slot. I'd like Mesmer to be for optimal damage, Chrono for group support and Mirage for personal sustain. If another elite spec comes in, make it THE damage choice (or some other particular niche) and promote base Mesmer as an unrestricted jack of all trades, master of none choice.

PvP/WvW 1) Mirage: +1 dodge, -1 clone slot2) Chrono: +1 Illusionary Persona, -1 second of distortion (+700,000,000 well buffs)

For PvP and WvW, Mesmer just seems like a mess right now. Both elite specs were gradually chipped away at over the years and so the sudden introduction of "trade-offs" to not just the fundamentals of Mesmer but also core gameplay mechanics (cya double dodge Mirage) meant there was actually nothing left to prop these two specs up. They are redundant specs and core Mesmer itself is just a poor man's Thief so...yeah, not great for this class at present.

So many unique and fun ways to play Mesmer have been annihilated. I still mourn the death of the following: Glamour Mesmer: I used to throw my glamours down at choke points to punish zergs in WvW. Allowed Mesmer to contribute DPS in large fights. Clone death - it was so fun to have a third way to interact with your illusions. Great melee spam punishment and also useful for large fight DPS. Phantasm builds - instead of being a cast and forget source of damage as we have now, we used to be able to choose to maintain our phantasms as a constant source of pressure and shatter at key moments. I thought this was a great alternative to the burst of shatter. Mistrust Mesmer: you could actually play an interrupt build in larger WvW battles and be effective. You could really punish groups of people ressing their friends: one Power Lock on a downed person and everyone had 16-20 stacks of confusion. It was niche, but dangerous. Interrupt Mesmer: the nerf to Chaotic Interruption was the nail in the coffin for me. I had been using this trait in my builds since 2013 and it was the only valuable interrupt trait available. If you played intelligently, you could completely shut someone down...if they didn't have stability of a bit of cleanse. It was very rewarding and close to what GW1 Mesmer was. Shame that the PvP community went mental when more people started using it. Reflect Mesmer: a combination of Master of Manipulation, Evasive Mirror, Mirror itself and Feedback to shut down projectile heavy classes was again a niche but great way to punish certainly classes Mesmer has had so many interesting ways to play. Now it's basically...shatter. You literally just throw all your damage at someone and then press shatter. It's such a shame and it's also really boring.

For sPvP, not being able to contest points is a pretty significant trade-off already. I don't think we need much more. A bit of map awareness - and yes, actually looking at your mini map - works wonders for dealing with stealthy builds.

I remember when they introduced the piercing 'beam' mechanic to Mesmer greatsword auto-attack so instead of being hit by retaliation damage 3 times per auto-attack, you can now take 9 hits of retaliation per auto-attack! Lucky you!

The next patch will surely introduce a new 50% nerf, no? Maybe it's time to nerf Mesmer...shoes! Chrono gets the left foot only and Mirage the right foot. Core Mesmer gets both shoes because Chrono has the powerful 'No Illusionary Persona' trait and Mirage the powerful 'Just the One Dodge' trait. Trade-offs are important.

The existence of retaliation is fine in principle for punishing multi-hit skills, but it's unfortunately just one of those boons that mostly just "happens" and rarely something actively applied in anticipation. Honestly, when someone kills themselves to retaliation I have on myself, it's just a case of serendipity rather than me ever being all "I'll apply this neat boon to punish something I think is about to occur!". It's implementation in the game has always been a bit daft and yeah, Blurred Frenzy should probably be changed to fewer hits to deal with the daftness.

"I also have no clue what skills do what amount of damage, so for what hit do I use my sweet one dodge for?" "Yes that really is a good question!" As adorable as it is a stark reminder of how mental this nerf is. What even do we do...with the one safety thing...in a game...with many danger things??? I hope Anet release a tutorial (hehehe).

@Ansau.7326 I've just watched that video and that's exactly how it is now. Dump your damage on a particular area and then just...run around hoping you're not immediately focused. Waiting for your cooldowns to come back, waiting for your endurance to gradually creep up for that one dodge you have now, waiting for your weapon swap to come off cooldown so you can proc the energy sigil that is utterly essential now. It's all very engaging ?

Mirage is sort of workable with the correct build and you can face tank a bit more due to the damage nerf, but you do spend an awful lot of time simply running around waiting for not just cool downs but also endurance before engaging again - energy sigils a must of course. It doesn't feel very competitive at all and it's actually quite easy to focus down a Mirage that doesn't have a blink spot to exploit. They are delicious Thief food too. The utility of Mirage Cloak itself is a bit redundant now too as you'll need to use that one dodge for evading key big damage attacks anyway, so instances when you can dodge through a stun or actively use an ambush attack are rare. At that point, Mirage itself feels a bit redundant as a concept.

You're going to start seeing far more tanky condi Mesmer builds roaming again as Mirage will possibly not be viable in WvW with just the one dodge and one-shot power Mes just won't really be worth the effort compared to other power builds. But condi Mes isn't really suffering much with the incoming changes and it's already a strong choice for 1v1 roaming. EDIT: I may have accidentally selected Ranger ?

Whilst not entirely true as other specs lose other things (look at that Soulbeast pet swap loss), the things that both Mirage and Chrono lose are...pretty fundamental to the success and playability of the class in general. Chrono is already irrelevant for competitive play, it would be a shame if Mirage goes the same way.

The OP suggests a far more sensible choice for a Mirage trade-off than what is planned for the balance patch. Mirage would have less damage than base Mesmer, but has greater personal survivability. It reminds me of how Thief has greater engage range through steal, but Daredevil simply has more dodges.

The trade-off for Mirage should come from somewhere other than endurance. The whole spec revolves around dodging and the Ambush Skills available when that occurs. It feels like a really bizarre design choice. It would be like making Daredevil's endurance recharge 50% slower all the time even though the whole theme of the spec is dodge modification. I have to wonder what the point of Mirage will be if this change comes in.

Not convinced the -50% endurance change for Mirage is going to be particularly viable. Especially if Ambush Skills are not improved to be more impactful.

I'm assuming that Mirage -50% endurance has been thoroughly tested in the context of all the other nerfs and changes and is actually a functional change. Otherwise it's going to be utterly unplayable. Sacrificing not just half of your endurance but also the movement involved with regular dodging. Oh deary me. I also assume that this means Mirage Cloak itself will be buffed to be far more potent and the Ambush Skills will become super dangerous and impactful now that the resource powering them has been halved. A resource I must add, that's already in competition with its use for simply dodging. Mirage might die yes...

The old Chaotic Interruption was so much fun and was the only interrupt trait on Mesmer that ever felt impactful and worth the commitment to a interrupt playstyle in a game without cast bars and mostly very small cast times (obviously old Mistrust too RIP). I don't think the lower end of the PvP community could really cope with it though when it saw widespread use (even though it had clear and easy to understand counters and limitations) so it had to be expunged. The same thing is occuring with Pistol Whip on Thief currently, with lots of people unable to cope, so it's likely going to be hit hard. The trait that replaced Chaotic Interruption is basically just a placeholder. I honestly couldn't think of a more uninteresting and irrelevant trait to take in this game. It's so boring.

Pistol Whip is quite easy to interrupt, especially on a class like Mesmer. Inexperienced pistol whippers won't know how to react to the disruption to their spam and are easy to blow up after the interrupt. Of course it's annoying to come up against a build that can be so successful by simply using the same skill over and over again, but it's so simplistic that it's quite easy to predict and therefore counter. I hope Anet allow the community time to adapt to the presence of this build rather than bulldozing it like many of the Mesmer builds that have come and very quickly vanished.

Ambush Attacks already have a "trade off" by design.

Just needs a clearer and more distinct animation for now.