Nov 29 Mesmer patchnotes

[appelflap.8310]

• Chaos Vortex: Clones using this skill will now grant the same boons in an area of effect around the mesmer instead of around the clones themselves. Reduced alacrity duration from 2.5 seconds to 1 second. Reduced might stacks from 8 to 2.

 

Good job anet, you still found a way to nerf my power mirage build. Atleast make this change to PVE only where they still have 2 dodges, it makes sense there...I guess we are not allowed to have fun on mesmer. 

Just remove mirage cloak on the player , let infinite horizon trigger on a regular dodge and moving through a mirror, give mirage their 2 dodges back, let the ambush window start after a regular dodge and make the window longer than it is atm so we can still make use of the ambush like ~2 secs after a dodge. I rather have this then more nerfs to the viable builds I can make make with 1 dodge mirage. Even nerf clones if you to... (go from 3 clones to 2 clones uptime for mirage) I just need my ambushes, but now you are nerfing that (a buff for pve) while mirage has 1 dodge in spvp/wvw. 

 

You guys wanted every build to work even the non-meta builds (your own words), then do something about it because power mes has a long way to go before getting viable. The problem always was condi builds on mesmer, hard nerf that to the ground and see what you have left over. If you think power chrono is viable/fixed, then you have no clue (you guys just reverted nerfs that didn't had to be nerfed in the first place). Do not focus on mAT's, these teams adjusted pretty quickly and can deal with chrono fairly easy.

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by appelflap.8310

[Fray.3417]

On 11/12/2022 at 10:17 PM, Ellon.4316 said:

Yes, dps wise it will be interesting what rotations people will come up with, in the end i think there will be a small dps loss if you still want to hit 50% alac uptime. Also pre-applying boons will not be possible anymore because you heavily rely on clones.

 

First of all, thank you for testing out the theoretical changes on current patch at the DPS dummy. 

However, I think that your analysis and conclusions are at best flawed and at worst fundamentally misleading for the following reasons:

1. The current "proper" rotation does not simply camp staff without ever swapping back to axe after you get your clones out. When you categorise DPS tests as "Axe with 2 staff and 1 axe clone average" I have a strong impression that your test design is that you summoned your clones and then did autos with ambushes on cooldown. This is simply not how either of the specs are currently played. For example, axe clones also contribute another hit of confusion to Axe 3. Even at the most basic level of the rotation you do Staff 5 -> swap -> Pistol 4 with Shatter F2/F1 -> Axe2+Jaunt -> Axe2+Jaunt. You are swapping between Staff and Axe sets constantly and camping neither. The camping playstyle simply underperforms versus actively rotating your weapon skills and shatters.
2. Phantasmal Duellist is an integral part of the Axe phase rotation, you are often taking taking Signet of the Ether for another pDuellist cast within lesser chaos storm, so you can even end up summoning 3 pDuellists in your axe phase. Stripping down to only auto+ambush and drawing a conclusion from those numbers as "a small dps loss if you still want to hit 50% alac uptime" is incorrect and nobody would be playing the build like that in practice without extreme DPS loss. You can't really "hack" your clones because Pistol 4 (phantasm), and to a lesser degree Axe 2 (Lingering Thoughts) inside ethereal fields, are integral parts of the axe rotation and to keep your staff clones you're not allowed to press those buttons. The current version of the build only keeps axe clones as much as possible because Staff 2 and 3 (Phase Retreat and Phantasmal Warlock) are not useful for DPS / Alacrity purposes.
3. Clones die to random stuff all the time. You can't really model your "small dps loss" on the basis that you can keep clones out forever in a particular configuration of your choosing. The whole design of the class throughout the years has been that you should be actively shattering from time to time. Even Staff/Staff Mirage actively shatters when you have Phantasmal Warlock + Phase Retreat back up to shatter for damage then immediately get 3 clones back up again. Currently you can do that no problem, because if your clones die again before your next pWarlock / Phase Retreat, it doesn't destroy your 100% Alacrity uptime because it's independent from clones. The bulk of the ambush value is on the player, not the clones, with every other weapon. If they release this change, then if your clones die on Staff/Staff before your Warlock comes off cooldown then your Alacrity uptime suffers - you'd basically have to take Self-Deception to have a backup to generate clones with Deception utility skills. This encourages players to have the more passive playstyle of not shattering ever just in case you lose clones. This isn't even talking about multi-phase / adds-phase situations where kitten dies so quickly that you can easily end up doing a 1 alacrity ambush instead of a theoretical 3 clone one. Why would you ever take this risky spec over a safer alacrity renegade for your alacrity uptime? You wouldn't, so mesmer mains just get shafted.

I see that you got a number of positive reactions to your post, but I think that you are ignoring the details of how either Staxe or Staff/Staff builds are played in reality and dismissing this as a "small dps loss" is unhealthy and misguided. 

[Waffles.5632]

4 hours ago, Fray.3417 said:

 

Why would you ever take this risky spec over a safer alacrity renegade for your alacrity uptime? You wouldn't, so mesmer mains just get shafted.

 

 

That isn't a Mesmer problem that is a class balance problem. These changes only look bad when you compare them to the literal EZ mode specs that only have to press 1 button, i.e renegade.

Here is some news though, everything alac wise looks bad compared to renegade, because that is literally the safest and chillest alac giver. Just press 1 button off CD, and the class is ranged. Only Mecha competes with it in terms of safety/chill play

The comparison is not fair and doesn't give the full picture. Renegade Alac should be nerfed and require more effort, but that is a pipe dream lmfao.

The bigger issue is not the Mirage changes, but rather how some classes get favored by the devs while others don't. So again, not a Mesmer issue, but rather a deeper more systemic one involving all of GW2's class balance, which has been absolutely out of whack since EoD IMO.

No one goes Mirage anymore because EZ mode specs are so saturated right now. And let's be real, having perma 25x might and near perma alac on staff ambush is EZ mode in itself and should have never of been a thing to begin with, because staff/staff is absolutely BORING to play, but here we are.

 

Also let us not forget, the old balance dev literally buffed staff because he "hated playing axe".

And that is a direct quote.

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Waffles.5632

[Arewn.2368]

The problem is they layered Mirage mechanics on top of core Mesmer mechanics even though they contradict each other. It's the same dilema they had with shatter vs phantasm playstyles at launch. So they are going to keep running into issues unless they make a fundamental change to Mirage.

Mirage wants to keep clones out and actively utilize them. That's a cool mechanic and fills the old phantasm niche. Why do Shatters still exist though?

My proposed changes:

-Mirage Shatters are now categorized as Ambush skills (F1 - F4). Clones are not destroyed by using F1 - F4.

-All Ambush skills cause clones to swap to your current target.

-Weapon skill 1 is no longer an Ambush.

-F1 is replaced with the existing Ambush skills based on your current weapon (much like warrior bursts). F1 is only available while in Mirage Cloak.

-F2-F3 remain the same, but now command your clones to attack to impart the effect instead of shattering. Increase F2 power coefficient.

-F4 just gives Distortion per clone. Doesn't cause the clones to attack or be destroyed.

-Mirage Cloak no longer evades.

-Dodging works the same as it always has on Mirage (no "rolling" and gives Mirage Cloak), but additionally provides 0.75s of Distortion. Restore two dodges in competitive modes.

 

Some other miscelaneous ideas that might work well with the above:

Nomad's Endurance - Ambush skills give Vigor. Vigor grants condition damage and ferocity. 

Desert Distortion - When you create a clone, create a Mirage Mirror if you already have three active clones. (#sec ICD)

Illusive Mind - Your Mirage Mirrors grant you Aegis.

 

For QOL/playstyle functionality, they might either need clones to have a a good skill queue system, or add a 1/2 shared CD to F1-F3. Otherwise it would be easy to intrupt cancel your clones' commanded attacks.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Arewn.2368

[Kulvar.1239]

An easy change ANet could do is have clones use the same Ambush skill as the Mirage player regardless of the clone weapon.

[Ellon.4316]

9 hours ago, Fray.3417 said:

However, I think that your analysis and conclusions are at best flawed and at worst fundamentally misleading for the following reasons:

You are absolutely right that my numbers are nothing more then the clone ambush attack damage. I hope no-one takes my post as a rotation guideline because that's not what it is. The point I was trying to make (rotations aside) is that if you want the alac there is not a big DPS difference with this patch in running axe mainhand with two staff clones or staff with 2 axe clones.

But to address your points

1. Correct, camping a single weapon is not a good idea. Especially as you stated clones will die. For players learning the build or wanting to run something LI and still provide some support it might be a good thing to stay in staff longer then the normal rotation but at some point you have to switch weapons, even if just for the endurance bonus when swapping weapons.
2. Again totally agree that for DPS you want to do more then ambush. What will be interesting too see is if the third pDuellist gets delayed. So pDuellist -> rest of axe -> pDuellist -> ether -> pDuellist -> swap. if you swap before the second pDuellist becomes a clone you end up with two staff clones. Ambush for 3s alac. Same also works the other way around with pWarlock and weapon swap to immediately get two axe clones for the bonus confusion on axe 3.
3. "Clones die all the time", correct. But with this patch that only means an alacrity loss, not a DPS loss. It's not that with this patch your clones die faster then before. But for alac you now need to press pWarlock/phase retreat so you have more clones to lose 😉. Multiple adds is totally a valid point, this has been a weak point of mesmer since the first beta weekend and within that context this is a pretty big nerf.

9 hours ago, Fray.3417 said:

I see that you got a number of positive reactions to your post, but I think that you are ignoring the details of how either Staxe or Staff/Staff builds are played in reality and dismissing this as a "small dps loss" is unhealthy and misguided. 

Help me understand the big DPS loss, because i really cant see it. For staxe nothing changes DPS wise but you will lose some alac. If you want to fill the alac gap you can as described summon two pDuelist at the end of axe to get staff clones (staff clones do a bit less damage, that's the DPS loss I'm talking about) or press pWarlock/phase retreat during staff phase.

For staff/staff i think i can manage a 1.5 clone average to upkeep alacrity.

[Magolith.9412]

Guess I'll continue playing other games. Had hopes they'd bring back more build diversity on mirage for roaming wvw but no.

[Axl.8924]

Does that man staff mirage will work as power DPS or still busted since nerfs of might gen and alac?

 

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

One of our goals for mesmer is to address the performance of the staff/axe mirage build, which we feel doesn't have to sacrifice quite enough for the boon uptime it provides. 

 

Uhhh....Axe mirage has been nerfed already (damage) to the axe and using axe is more of a liability as its a super short range weapon (that ambush is borked) and you have about 4s worth of bursts and are stuck with it for 6 more seconds, making you more of a sitting duck (I have yet to see a mirage survive a fight using axe...against capable players may I add...condi may stand a chance due to tankier stats).

If anything, the raw damage needs to be increased imo by a bit (maybe like 10-15%) or reduce cooldowns to make Axe viable again in PvP/WvW. Def needs to get the 2nd dodge back. Id like to see statistics on how many mirage players there are in PvP / WvW vs other classes/specs to date.

[Stavros.8249]

Love the changes. Just two more changes in my opinion.

1) Give chronomancer more crit rate. 

2)Give more dps to staff/staff mirage. You can do this with giving the same condition as your staff to your staff clones. This will not affect other build like staxe

 

 

[Ombras.2853]

Staff/Staff Mirage already has a very high dps for being an alac spec.

 

There's no reason to improve the dps specifically.

[Moradorin.6217]

Just gona remind us all that they said Mirage's other dodge was on the table AND that they are removing all the old trade-offs from classes, but then didnt even give a mention for Nov 29th and at this point it seems safe to assume that was a full on lie to silence what is left of the Mesmer community.

You are taking the staff alac Red Herring bait and running away with it. We need out 2nd dodge back and the trade-offs added to Mirage to be removed like every other class got.

 

NOTHING ELSE SHOULD MATTER UNTIL THAT GIANT ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM IS ADDRESSED.

Give us our 2nd dodge back

[AshkyLicious.4729]

50 minutes ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

Just gona remind us all that they said Mirage's other dodge was on the table AND that they are removing all the old trade-offs from classes, but then didnt even give a mention for Nov 29th and at this point it seems safe to assume that was a full on lie to silence what is left of the Mesmer community.

You are taking the staff alac Red Herring bait and running away with it. We need out 2nd dodge back and the trade-offs added to Mirage to be removed like every other class got.

 

NOTHING ELSE SHOULD MATTER UNTIL THAT GIANT ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM IS ADDRESSED.

Give us our 2nd dodge back

This all the way! I fully agree with you! Our 2nd dodge, trade offs and bugged axe shall be the only thing Anet needs too address for 29th nov balance update. Nothing else matters! First they totaly lie to the mesmer community about addressing these, and then they have the nerv to even nerf our semi working build aswell! Outrageous!

[Josiah.2967]

We really need to give Chrono the Crit it lost too...  Virtuosos still has it.

[Mik.3401]

From pvp perspective:

 

Chrono received a chop, core had its chop beforehand, mirage is still struggling, and Virt is intended to shine to sell the game (but it sucks).

so the class is not only killed as it’s been for a while, now there’s little hope for its future too.

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 11/14/2022 at 10:51 PM, Kulvar.1239 said:

An easy change ANet could do is have clones use the same Ambush skill as the Mirage player regardless of the clone weapon.

that would be very bad for pvp, where you can set up sword clone and have it interrupt skills while you do damage.