Return our second dodge and fix mesmers!

[Ellon.4316]

PvP noob here, virtuoso is “special”, either you start strong with the shatter. Or more often then not the enemy is paying attention and you one-shot yourself because of reflects. At least that’s my experience. Even in PvE I’m running 6 different Mesmer builds and virtuoso ain’t one of them.

Now back on topic, I’ve been lurking this topic for a while and see some comments about just a few Mesmer mains responding. It’s not that I don’t support the second dodge or anything, I find it just as strange as the PvP players. It’s more that as previously stated my experience in PvP is just limited at best. So saying Anet should fix this would just be me parroting the arguments from this thread without clear understanding.

My hope is that Mesmer will get a more dedicated balance patch. Looking at previous patches Anet is focusing one or two specs each time for the bigger changes and I hope Mesmer is next, instead of just some small damage tweaks here and there. Those feel like Anet is just balancing around the snowcrows benchmark instead of looking at the bigger issues like:

- Lack of crit-chance for non-virtuoso specs

- Almost no access to regen for the chaos traitline

- Lack of a clear support-oriented spec (this is mostly based on the boons, chrono/mirage can heal but the defensive boons are lacking)

- Second dodge for mirage of course 

- etc. 

[Veprovina.4876]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Virtuoso is amazing in sPvP, I mean Dueling it is a nightmare for any Ranger at the moment. I can fair better on my Untamed but is mostly rely one Condition damage and high vitality. 

Yeah, it's positively dominating sPvP right now i bet! It's not like you're the only one saying that - everyone is!

[Xenesis.6389]

Don't worry, it'll be back, along with a boat load of more nerfs to "compensate" for it.

[Veprovina.4876]

56 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Don't worry, it'll be back, along with a boat load of more nerfs to "compensate" for it.

Well one of the points of this thread is that we have nothing more to give, there is no more "compensation" to do - if they returned the dodge tomorrow with no regard for anything else (just like they took it away), nothing would change - Mesmers still need fixing!

It's a step in the right direction - and it should have never been taken, but there's still a lot of work to do to make mesmers barely on everyone elses level.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Veprovina.4876

[Xenesis.6389]

12 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Well one of the points of this thread is that we have nothing more to give, there is no more "compensation" to do - if they returned the dodge tomorrow with no regard for anything else (just like they took it away), nothing would change - Mesmers still need fixing!

It's a step in the right direction - and it should have never been taken, but there's still a lot of work to do to make mesmers barely on everyone elses level.

Not to mention they had already nerfed other things in regards to that mechanic and never reverted/tweaked any of those changes. I think the dodge nerf was over done, but I guess they didn't, and they did it cause they were too lazy to deal with it anymore and left it to pve devs to fix, but then look who became the lead balance dev after all that....

Seeing as to how they dealt with personal shatter and return of distortion to chrono, expect more nerfs as payment. Personally I think the trait lines are a giant mess with clones, shatters, phantasmals, interrupt, support, all over the place, did we really need two separate traits for staff in the same tier? why do we have two separate well traits?

Oh and my latest pet peeve, illusionary leap, the illusion half the time zips off to some odd direction so you can't swap for proper immobilize, even then also tends to be buggy and not land the immob a lot of times. Mesmer, the only class that requires so much setup to do simple things another class just needs to press one button for....... but it's still one of the most fun class in any mmo... 😔

[Veprovina.4876]

22 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Not to mention they had already nerfed other things in regards to that mechanic and never reverted/tweaked any of those changes. I think the dodge nerf was over done, but I guess they didn't, and they did it cause they were too lazy to deal with it anymore and left it to pve devs to fix, but then look who became the lead balance dev after all that....

Seeing as to how they dealt with personal shatter and return of distortion to chrono, expect more nerfs as payment. Personally I think the trait lines are a giant mess with clones, shatters, phantasmals, interrupt, support, all over the place, did we really need two separate traits for staff in the same tier? why do we have two separate well traits?

Oh and my latest pet peeve, illusionary leap, the illusion half the time zips off to some odd direction so you can't swap for proper immobilize, even then also tends to be buggy and not land the immob a lot of times. Mesmer, the only class that requires so much setup to do simple things another class just needs to press one button for....... but it's still one of the most fun class in any mmo... 😔

I couldn't agree more!

It's a sad state of affairs for Mesmers for far too long.

So much trait mess, so many bugs, and worst of all - not only is our profession mechanic the only one unreliable in WvW - especially group fights  (so we're always fighting with a handicap) - but the dodge removal was overkill, and needs to be returned ASAP!

[Leonidrex.5649]

3 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Well one of the points of this thread is that we have nothing more to give, there is no more "compensation" to do - if they returned the dodge tomorrow with no regard for anything else (just like they took it away), nothing would change - Mesmers still need fixing!

It's a step in the right direction - and it should have never been taken, but there's still a lot of work to do to make mesmers barely on everyone elses level.

dont worry, there is plenty they can take, off the top of my head invuln on signets, superiority complex is broken, stealth, or even power block. I could see them nerf any of these.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

They don't have a dev that plays or understands mesmer in general.

If you look at WvW, all i see are the devs play are either DH, Reaper or Mech.

[Varis.5467]

12 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Virtuoso is amazing in sPvP, I mean Dueling it is a nightmare for any Ranger at the moment. I can fair better on my Untamed but is mostly rely one Condition damage and high vitality. 

So you are literally saying because you struggled with fighting virtuosos 1 on 1 and therefore "virtuoso is amazing in sPvP". 

 

Just wow.

[semak.7481]

1 hour ago, Varis.5467 said:

So you are literally saying because you struggled with fighting virtuosos 1 on 1 and therefore "virtuoso is amazing in sPvP". 

 

Just wow.

You have never heard of him ? 😂

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Varis.5467 said:

So you are literally saying because you struggled with fighting virtuosos 1 on 1 and therefore "virtuoso is amazing in sPvP". 

 

Just wow.

No I don't but plenty of other Rangers do. 

[apharma.3741]

11 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

dont worry, there is plenty they can take, off the top of my head invuln on signets, superiority complex is broken, stealth, or even power block. I could see them nerf any of these.

That is honestly what I'm more worried about, the PvP discord already has a looong history of trying to remove power block from the game and it's pretty much one of the only ways a power mesmer can win sometimes
Virtuoso is dead because it's clunky due to some people's bias when developing it, if the improvements myself and many others suggested to it's offensive power and ability to actually play were changed (plus remove distortion, that shouldn't be the iFixit tool for mesmers) it could be a capable spec. Right now it's "strong" due to high defence stacking while having some of the worst damaging, clunky and often nonsensical skills while the shatters (not including distortion) I believe are a straight downgrade, even vs core unless you use 5 blade shatters. I'd have to run the math on it though.
As usual, the idea of virtuoso is OK but the execution is...more like a guillotine.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

12 hours ago, Varis.5467 said:

So you are literally saying because you struggled with fighting virtuosos 1 on 1 and therefore "virtuoso is amazing in sPvP". 

 

Just wow.

I think Mell is doing Mell things.
Truly, i have never seen anyone else in the forums get as much confuse emotes as he/she does.

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Sleepwalker.1398 said:

I think Mell is doing Mell things.
Truly, i have never seen anyone else in the forums get as much confuse emotes as he/she does.

Ahhaha true, I tend to get the most. King of confusion. 

To some extent, Im right. I called Virtuoso being very good in PvE right back at EoDs Launch, that warrented me alot of confused faces to. 

 

The way I see it the only Mesmers that are worth playing in PvP are Dueling Virtuoso and a bunker style Chronomancer.

Whether they are dominating, I don't know. In the top 250 I know a few who just play Virtuoso, someone called Kyra almost always does. Its a bit like Reaper, I know players who just use that and never change. 

I think even with the return of the second dodge Mirage is far behind its hard to say whether it will be better than Virtuoso. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

5 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Ahhaha true, I tend to get the most. King of confusion. 

To some extent, Im right. I called Virtuoso being very good in PvE right back at EoDs Launch, that warrented me alot of confused faces to. 

 

The way I see it the only Mesmers that are worth playing in PvP are Dueling Virtuoso and a bunker style Chronomancer.

Whether they are dominating, I don't know. In the top 250 I know a few who just play Virtuoso, someone called Kyra almost always does. Its a bit like Reaper, I know players who just use that and never change. 

I think even with the return of the second dodge Mirage is far behind its hard to say whether it will be better than Virtuoso. 

virtuoso was terrible even in pve, they had to buff the bleed trait several times in a row to make it viable 😄

[Leonidrex.5649]

16 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

That is honestly what I'm more worried about, the PvP discord already has a looong history of trying to remove power block from the game and it's pretty much one of the only ways a power mesmer can win sometimes
Virtuoso is dead because it's clunky due to some people's bias when developing it, if the improvements myself and many others suggested to it's offensive power and ability to actually play were changed (plus remove distortion, that shouldn't be the iFixit tool for mesmers) it could be a capable spec. Right now it's "strong" due to high defence stacking while having some of the worst damaging, clunky and often nonsensical skills while the shatters (not including distortion) I believe are a straight downgrade, even vs core unless you use 5 blade shatters. I'd have to run the math on it though.
As usual, the idea of virtuoso is OK but the execution is...more like a guillotine.

I said it somewhere before, but I tried meme condi virtuoso, made 20 confusion stack F2 build, used it on revenant that was running down my teammate with quickness auto-attack spam ( perfect target )
all 5 blades missed by him just walking, I never played the kitten spec again.
this sums up virtuoso exp for me 😄

[Veprovina.4876]

28 minutes ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

all 5 blades missed by him just walking

Same experience for me in WvW.

[semak.7481]

1 hour ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

I said it somewhere before, but I tried meme condi virtuoso, made 20 confusion stack F2 build, used it on revenant that was running down my teammate with quickness auto-attack spam ( perfect target )
all 5 blades missed by him just walking, I never played the kitten spec again.
this sums up virtuoso exp for me 😄

Tracking of F2 was on point since launch (just as hitting obstacles/walls/ceiling and disappear up to this days - clarification for uninformed, it shoots blades above your character instead of firing them in front of you like F1 does), f1/f3 with other hand... 

Edited January 25, 2023 by semak.7481

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

virtuoso was terrible even in pve, they had to buff the bleed trait several times in a row to make it viable 😄

It was only one trait, and it was directly after the launch of EoD. It was already very strong before that. Power in particular has had zero changes, just PvP buffs.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

Hmm you know what I looked I guess Virtuoso has fallen out of favor in sPvP at least.
Tier List - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

Seems Chronomancer is the way to go in PvP, although I see don't see it played nearly as much as Virtuoso.
I guess it's more difficult to play.

 

PS: Lol at Soulbeast being the best Fractal Elite. Probably one of the worst things you can bring into a Fractal, especially a PUG.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Veprovina.4876]

21 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Tier List - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

Mirage A tier in WvW roaming, LOL, i haven't seen a Mirage in probably a year. I sometimes see virtuosos and see them miss every attack, but no one is playing a Mirage.

 

This is the kind of kitten that makes a false impression of our class. There is no chance mirage is "A tier roaming" with one dodge - you're so handicapped that one ambush during that one dodge doesn't even begin to compensate for you needing to use your defense, offensively if you want to do damage, not having range on your cloak, you cloak in place, so you can't reposition - and no, 2 jaunts don't cut it because if you use it to escape, the range is pitiful and you just lost some damage, and if you use it offensively, you're out of luck when you need to get away to reposition. Then you NEED to slot Blink which is another utility that doesn't do damage, and weapons and clones alone do NOT give enough DPS to do literally anything to anyone in full DPS gear - i mean, on what does those tier lists base their "findings" anyway? Cause i doubt someone played every class and perfectly understood every intricacy of it to accurately portray the current state of it.

 

Tier lists are a meme, someone's personal opinion, and more often than not - if they're vote based - voted on based on someone losing to a class, then thinking "i lost to it, therefore it must be good" false logic.

 

What a joke.

[Mell.4873]

2 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Mirage A tier in WvW roaming, LOL, i haven't seen a Mirage in probably a year. I sometimes see virtuosos and see them miss every attack, but no one is playing a Mirage.

 

This is the kind of kitten that makes a false impression of our class. There is no chance mirage is "A tier roaming" with one dodge - you're so handicapped that one ambush during that one dodge doesn't even begin to compensate for you needing to use your defense, offensively if you want to do damage, not having range on your cloak, you cloak in place, so you can't reposition - and no, 2 jaunts don't cut it because if you use it to escape, the range is pitiful and you just lost some damage, and if you use it offensively, you're out of luck when you need to get away to reposition. Then you NEED to slot Blink which is another utility that doesn't do damage, and weapons and clones alone do NOT give enough DPS to do literally anything to anyone in full DPS gear - i mean, on what does those tier lists base their "findings" anyway? Cause i doubt someone played every class and perfectly understood every intricacy of it to accurately portray the current state of it.

 

Tier lists are a meme, someone's personal opinion, and more often than not - if they're vote based - voted on based on someone losing to a class, then thinking "i lost to it, therefore it must be good" false logic.

 

What a joke.

True but what else do we have outside our personal bias. I don't think anyone posts PvP statistics.

[Veprovina.4876]

 

Quote

 

WvW Roaming

Roaming builds are created mostly for solo WvW players who enjoy smaller fights like 1v1, 1vX or flipping camps on their own.

 

 

This is the criteria? Those are NOT the same thing - you need a different build and utility skills for each use case, and in none of it is Mirage A tier, not even in flipping camps because the one dodge also interferes with the ability to take on guards as well because you're suddenly in a PvE situation without the 2 PvE dodges! But you're also succeptible to player attacks in the meantime, making that one dodge even more of a handicap when you get attacked during your fights with the guards.

 

6 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

True but what else do we have outside our personal bias.

Yeah, but who decides "whose bias" is then "correct"? There is some degree of evidence and proof to be had when dealing with those things, not just chucking up 3 different use cases into the same category and doing clickbait meme content that ultimately ends up damaging Mirage players in the short and long term.

[Veprovina.4876]

Like for instance - look at the description of this category.

 

 

Quote

 

WvW GvG

List is for 15v15. Anything in A tier has ~100% usage, anything D tier or below is basically never played

 

 

Yes, Chrono has 100% usage. That doesn't mean it's good. Everyone has a Chrono or two for Gravity well, and focus pull, not much else. This completely disregards our non existent and unusable profession mechanic in WvW and a lot of other problems that i'm not going to go into right now.

 

Then someone sees this and what, Chrono is A tier because every GvG squad has a Chrono?

Then what do you do with it. Pull, and cast Grav well. You can veil if your commander tells you to, and the rest is just nothing pretty much - they even nerfed the boonstrip, and Null Filed is still blockable and blocks every tick if you hit a block skill or aegis.

 

And Firebrand - that's in the same tier - can clense, heal, provide infinite stability, pull, and provide might, resolution, UNIQUE BUFF to toughness, not to mention also have utility use cases and fields you can use to do additional minor things.

 

Those are NOT the same tier - and once again illustrates how just because they're both used 100%, doesn't mean they're equally as good.

[Mell.4873]

@Veprovina.4876Okay......
All I mean is we don't have any good PvP stats. The best is probably MetaBattle ratings.

I imagine the reason why Mirage is so high is because of Clones/Phantasm rather than Ambushing/Dodging. Stacking clones on a player, shuffle them, stealth and leave if things go bad.

 

You underestimate a strong Zerg push, right now Druid has one of the best Ultimate's only because it can be placed on a small group to keep them alive even when you go down. Same principle behind Gravity, it can take people out of a fight long enough to wipe an entire Zerg and you can cast it twice.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Mell.4873