Please change moa

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

4 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Hello? CHANNELED INVULN INSTEAD OF DISTORTION? So CS can still exist, chrono can still exist but you can't use distortion to cover your super duper wombo combo?

Sure, though bringing up Distortion in this thread was more of a hypothetical to show that it is certainly possible to balance Mesmer despite CS existing. It's a strong skill, but not that strong and the tradeoff with Distortion is not obviously worth it in either direction. Another hypothetical option I've toyed with before would be to make Portal an F5 skill for core Mesmer only, though this is outside of the scope of this thread.

Currently I probably wouldn't touch Distortion on Chrono because it isn't really causing issues (condi chrono can and should be nerfed in different ways). If you just removed/changed Distortion what would happen is that the difference in power level between condi chrono and power chrono would grow even more (condi chrono would get stronger relatively).

Besides, people need to consider that for a Mesmer to really capitalize on Moa he really needs to play one of the most squishy builds possible, full zerk power chrono with 3 offensive traitlines and pistol offhand (also offensive). Virtuoso cannot finish moa. Condi chrono cannot generally finish moa. Even power Chrono with torch instead of pistol cannot finish moa. It's good to have a glass cannon build like that in the game to possibly counter really tanky specs like say defense spellbreaker, sidenode rangers, certain necros with shroud back in the day, and such. Chronos would just all go back to playing defensive offhand + gravity well which isn't even more fun to face than pistol + moa chrono.

Edited May 17, 2023 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

3 minutes ago, semak.7481 said:

When the last time they compensated overnerfing something? On mesmer specially, I remember a lot of nerfs in stupid attempts to nerf chrono/mirage left core fkd up until now.

I said IF they removed it. This is more of a hypothetical to show that it is very possible to balance Chrono despite CS existing. They probably should not remove Distortion right now however, because it isn't really causing problems and as you say, they are astronomically unlikely to compensate it properly.

[semak.7481]

Just now, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

I said IF they removed it. This is more of a hypothetical to show that it is very possible to balance Chrono despite CS existing. They probably should not remove Distortion right now however, because it isn't really causing problems and as you say, they are astronomically unlikely to compensate it properly.

I have no clue what are you discussing here tbh, let them cry about being rekt by moa in 2x2/3x3, a joke replacement of conquest, add global 10s+ to all elites or specially chosen ones to not "insta win" specially for these modes.

If power chrono would have been so insanely broken as these crybabies describe, you would have seen 5 mediocre moa chronomancers effortlessly roflstomping the best teams at mAT

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

7 minutes ago, semak.7481 said:

I have no clue what are you discussing here tbh, let them cry about being rekt by moa in 2x2/3x3, a joke replacement of conquest, add global 10s+ to all elites or specially chosen ones to not "insta win" specially for these modes.

If power chrono would have been so insanely broken as these crybabies describe, you would have seen 5 mediocre moa chronomancers effortlessly roflstomping the best teams at mAT

I am making a counterargument to the claim some people like to push that CS existing makes Chronomancer impossible to balance. We know this isn't true because back when Chrono did not have Distortion, picking Chrono over Core wasn't an obvious choice - I went back and forth a lot and felt that Chrono was still somewhat more powerful but core was still better in certain matches depending on enemy team comp. This can be compared to the current situation, where picking core Mesmer over Chrono is NEVER worth it.

So, from a theoretical balance lens, removing Distortion from Chrono (and buffing core Mesmer to compensate) would be a proper thing to do (in other to make the core-chrono tradeoff more meaningful and even). However from a practical lens, it would most likely be a bad decision currently since chrono with Distortion isn't really causing problems, isn't too op, and because Anet are lazy and would  not compensate the removal properly.

I agree that asking for nerfs because of 2v2/3v3 is pretty dumb. You can just disallow elites or disable things like Moa and Lich if you really wanted to.

Edited May 17, 2023 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Saiyan.1704]

3 hours ago, semak.7481 said:

I have no clue what are you discussing here tbh, let them cry about being rekt by moa in 2x2/3x3, a joke replacement of conquest, add global 10s+ to all elites or specially chosen ones to not "insta win" specially for these modes.

The Devs have never limited an ability, skill or trait in sPvP gamemodes so doing that is highly unlikely.

Me and a Plat1 friend moa'd a war in stealth and downed him in 5 seconds. Kinda hard to use those "just evade!" skills when he's instantly CC'd and bursted down lol. It's kinda meme that mesmer mains are defending this.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

17 minutes ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

It's kinda meme that mesmer mains are defending this.

Probably because we tried using it against people that know how to use stability and stealth, and when that happens we get slapped.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

1 hour ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

The Devs have never limited an ability, skill or trait in sPvP gamemodes so doing that is highly unlikely.

Me and a Plat1 friend moa'd a war in stealth and downed him in 5 seconds. Kinda hard to use those "just evade!" skills when he's instantly CC'd and bursted down lol. It's kinda meme that mesmer mains are defending this.

Yeah because they don't care about 2v2 / 3v3. They didn't used to split mechanics between PvP and PvE either but have recently started doing so on occassion. I'm not even strongly advocating for them to do this because I don't care about 2v2/3v3, which is why I said "You can just disallow elites or disable things like Moa and Lich if you really wanted to."

Edited May 17, 2023 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[vilesoldier.9826]

1 hour ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

The Devs have never limited an ability, skill or trait in sPvP gamemodes so doing that is highly unlikely.

Me and a Plat1 friend moa'd a war in stealth and downed him in 5 seconds. Kinda hard to use those "just evade!" skills when he's instantly CC'd and bursted down lol. It's kinda meme that mesmer mains are defending this.

 

Nah they have every right to downplay the interaction with Just dodge as long as they remind you its "high risk, high reward". Again, while downplaying the "high reward" part of their own statement.

Edited May 17, 2023 by GeneralBM.5781

[Saiyan.1704]

1 hour ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Yeah because they don't care about 2v2 / 3v3. They didn't used to split mechanics between PvP and PvE either but have recently started doing so on occassion. I'm not even strongly advocating for them to do this because I don't care about 2v2/3v3

During the last 3v3 mini season, Anet nerfed cata during the mini simply because it was overperforming. Anet still uses the mini seasons for balance ideas.. probably because Conquest side nodes are 1v1/2v2/3v3 oriented compared to midfights. It's fine you don't care about mini seasons but the devs still use it as a reference.

I honestly just want better visuals of when a mesmer is about to use their moa. Several people agree that it's difficult to see amongst all the other SFX going on.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

6 hours ago, semak.7481 said:

If power chrono would have been so insanely broken as these crybabies describe, you would have seen 5 mediocre moa chronomancers effortlessly roflstomping the best teams at mAT

You don't need any more than 2, that's the thing.

Just 2 of them can machine gun insta death Moa combos like every 20s on a player.

At that point, clearly it is better to add +1 Support and a +1 Side Node, and then +1 w/e else you want to add.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[semak.7481]

2 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

The Devs have never limited an ability, skill or trait in sPvP gamemodes so doing that is highly unlikely.

Me and a Plat1 friend moa'd a war in stealth and downed him in 5 seconds. Kinda hard to use those "just evade!" skills when he's instantly CC'd and bursted down lol. It's kinda meme that mesmer mains are defending this.

Sure they never "limited" traits, they just disabled them when they wanted.

Not using moa, couldnt care less what happens to it, still would be a "meme" at this point if they would because of some whining about 2x2/3x3 🙈

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Probably because we tried using it against people that know how to use stability and stealth, and when that happens we get slapped.

Except in higher tiers this is not what happens.

In higher tiers they stealth gank in at you and have someone land unblockable boon rips on you so you won't have stability, and when you get hit with Moa they instant CC lock you before you can push any buttons at all, and you die.

Ultimately what happens is Moa is allowing coordinated teams to perpetually benefit 5v4 the entire match, where there actually isn't counterplay for their chosen target. These Moa tactics lately are on par with straight making someone DC for the 5v4.

Whatever/However they want to nerf it, this build archetype just needs to go.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Terrorhuz.4695]

29 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Except in higher tiers this is not what happens.

In higher tiers they stealth gank in at you and have someone land unblockable boon rips on you so you won't have stability, and when you get hit with Moa they instant CC lock you before you can push any buttons at all, and you die.

Ultimately what happens is Moa is allowing coordinated teams to perpetually benefit 5v4 the entire match, where there actually isn't counterplay for their chosen target. These Moa tactics lately are on par with straight making someone DC for the 5v4.

Whatever/However they want to nerf it, this build archetype just needs to go.

There's a super squishy mesmer, 100% oriented of damage, literally more meme than rifle zerker. You can

- Mesmer is visible and you want to survive: focus the glassy mesmer and kill it. Defensives are distortion, sword2 and some short stealth.
- Mesmer is NOT visible and you want to survive: outstealth the mesmer (should be really kittening easy), get stab to make sure you're not stunned in moa or run in the opposite direction since mesmer has really poor movement. Wait until mesmer is visible again, then execute step 1
- You don't really care about surviving: let the glasscannon freecast and then yodel in yodel your rage in voice chat

It's been 5 years now and we still haven't learned how to deal with a freecasting mesmer.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Exciton.8942]

How about just give Moa a defiance bar? If you moa someone hard CC'ed, let it break out of CC and have a defiance bar.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

15 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

- Mesmer is visible and you want to survive: focus the glassy mesmer and kill it

What part about elongated stealth ganks are you not hearing or understanding?

This problem with Moa goes hand in hand with the other thread about how stealth potential is out of control.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

1 hour ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Except in higher tiers this is not what happens.

In higher tiers they stealth gank in at you and have someone land unblockable boon rips on you so you won't have stability, and when you get hit with Moa they instant CC lock you before you can push any buttons at all, and you die.

Ultimately what happens is Moa is allowing coordinated teams to perpetually benefit 5v4 the entire match, where there actually isn't counterplay for their chosen target. These Moa tactics lately are on par with straight making someone DC for the 5v4.

Whatever/However they want to nerf it, this build archetype just needs to go.

 

1 hour ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

You don't need any more than 2, that's the thing.

Just 2 of them can machine gun insta death Moa combos like every 20s on a player.

At that point, clearly it is better to add +1 Support and a +1 Side Node, and then +1 w/e else you want to add.

You must be living in a completely different universe to me, because in my universe, power Chronomancer is not considered meta whatsoever and instead, Condi Chrono is, which uses neither Moa nor Stealth. Even when power Chrono is played, it is more often with shield + gravity well at least on EU.

Are you even talking about anything real or are you just saying words?

"Ultimately what happens is Moa is allowing coordinated teams to perpetually benefit 5v4 the entire match"
Crazy that this insane incredible super-strat wasn't used in the last mAT as far as I can tell.

Edited May 17, 2023 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Terrorhuz.4695]

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

What part about elongated stealth ganks are you not hearing or understanding?

The part where hellz and his duo weren't killed by a gank (it was Shorts alone) nor by elongated stealth (everything happened during the 3s stealth from decoy). They failed to see the mesmer stealthing, then they failed to react to the continuum split (which is visible in stealth) then they failed to react to them turning into a moa, then their teammate failed to peel with weakness, CC or anything of the sorts.

Shorts is investing heavily into oneshot; you eat the oneshot, you die. That's how oneshot builds work; you can do that with soulbeast, you can do that with berserker, you can do that with dragonhunter and it's the same level of viability.

None of the mesmers I've seen reaching any competitive level in EU have ever been using Moa for the past 6 years I've been playing. Shorts has been farming you lot left and right, for years, regardless of the state of mesmer, with and without Moa. And he got away with it because he's just a better player than you.

Someone plays a oneshot build, you get oneshotted twice in a row in less than 5 seconds, it's your kittening fault. Get good.

P.S.: Currently the only 2 mesmers competing at high level in EU are Misha and RIP, both of them are using Gravity Well. There is a reason for that.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Terrorhuz.4695

There is a link posted in your signature to a thread that details why you left the game and stopped playing GW2.

With all due respect, one needs to be actively playing in said given patching/meta to be able to comment on said given patching/meta. Things can change drastically in terms of what works, what doesn't, and what is OP, in even a single balance update. I know this is true, you know this is true, everyone reading this thread who plays the game knows this is true.

So what you're doing is you keep coming to this forum and engaging with stark class defense, even though each season & patching that goes by that you don't actively play, the game changes more & more and you are understanding less & less about current intra-class interactions.

Considering as much, you should turn the aggression & insultation down a couple of notches.

[thc enjoyer.4976]

Count 2 dodges, moa, win. Force dodges with ur infinite invuln and high dps seems balanced 

[apharma.3741]

On 5/16/2023 at 8:53 PM, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

It really, really, really is not. Even Spinal Shivers with its green-black glow and unique hand waveing motion is much more recognizable. Also look at something like Guardian Focus (and no, it isn't about cast time). You can absolutely make good animation for offhands.

Yes. So then why say "CS is why most utilities on mesmer are kinda poo, because chrono can double cast them". This is clearly an incorrect statement.

2v2 is garbage.

This one is true, though this is and was only relevant for PvE.

An elite skill, not a utility.

An elite skill, not a utility.

Of course the Wells should be balanced around CS existing. I do not ignore this whatsoever. However, this is not a problem in any way.

Ok, so above we went over one core Mesmer utility that we could say got hard nerfed because of CS (Signet of Inspiration), yet you said "CS is why most utilities on mesmer are kinda poo"

If you had said elite skills instead, that would have been a better argument. On that note, I actually advocated for Continuum Split not working for elite skills back in the day (similar to how it doesn't work for Mimic). You could also easily make elite skills have a, say, 50% or 100% longer cooldown for Chrono if you wanted to. Though I don't think this is worth caring about right now, it isn't really an issue (even in PvE I'm pretty sure Virtuoso is much better than Chrono these days, could be wrong). Let's say that Distortion hypothetically was removed from Chrono again. That would be a pretty significant and fair tradeoff for being able to double your skills once every 90 seconds.

Spinal Shivers has a 1s cast time, plenty of time for a good animation, my point was that magic bullet can't have a good, smooth and readable animation at 1/2s. Ray of Judgement 3/4s too. 
Double shatter burst isn't only happening in 2v2's and isn't recent and you know this, most people know mesmer has always had one of the highest burst combos and still does.

If you're going to be pedantic about elite skills and utility (I meant anything reset by CS that gives you an advantage outside of CS) then I will too. You said in another reply about removing distortion from chrono as a trade off.
They removed distortion from chrono (technically it was still on CS) and it made the class almost unplayable in competitive. You might say "Ah but it lost IP during that time" it did, IP was then added and it was still not competitive so you have demonstrated that your ideas and opinion is awful because it was done and it was awful. You might have meant remove distortion and do something else but you didn't say that.

Most mesmer utilities were poo and they can't be better because of CS. Demonstrated by whenever something was reworked to make it good on core it was nerfed when chrono abused it. Phantasms were nerfed despite chronophantasma having 50% reduced damage and daze them for 1s. Signet of inspiration was nerfed multiple times. Signet of Ether due to CS shenanigans. Moa was nerfed to be useless without using it with CS.
When using cooldowns as a balance method you have to be VERY careful with other mechanics that reduce or circumvent it's cooldown. In the Quora question answered by real devs is a great example of how LoL did a URF mode which made people realise how bad this kind of thing can be.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-cool-down-important-to-implement-into-a-video-game-during-development
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CooldownManipulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJRwE6SXw_w

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by apharma.3741

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

Spinal Shivers has a 1s cast time, plenty of time for a good animation, my point was that magic bullet can't have a good, smooth and readable animation at 1/2s. Ray of Judgement 3/4s too. 

I already preempted this response by saying "(and no, it isn't about cast time)". Even with quickness (i.e. 0.5s cast time), ray of judgement has a good and clear animation.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

Double shatter burst isn't only happening in 2v2's and isn't recent and you know this, most people know mesmer has always had one of the highest burst combos and still does.

Yes. Which isn't a problem.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

If you're going to be pedantic about elite skills and utility (I meant anything reset by CS that gives you an advantage outside of CS) then I will too.

That's fine, but then we have one utility+elite skill that you could argue was nerfed because of CS and was relevant for PvP (Moa), or three if we take PvE into PvE (Time Warp, Moa, SoI). Meanwhile you said "CS is why most utilities on mesmer are kinda poo". So even if we assume that you meant to include elites within "utilities", the statement is still wildly incorrect.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

You said in another reply about removing distortion from chrono as a trade off.
They removed distortion from chrono (technically it was still on CS) and it made the class almost unplayable in competitive. You might say "Ah but it lost IP during that time" it did, IP was then added and it was still not competitive so you have demonstrated that your ideas and opinion is awful because it was done and it was awful. You might have meant remove distortion and do something else but you didn't say that.

What I said was that Chrono was fairly well balanced with regards to core Mesmer while distortion was gone. For 2+ years (2020-07-07 to 2022-10-04), chronomancer had self-shatter but no distortion. In other words, the problem was that core Mesmer was too weak to compete, not any intrinsic problem with chronomancer.  What do you mean "you might have meant remove distortion and do something else but you didn't say that", I literally said "if they removed it again now they would obviously have to massively buff core Mesmer" from the start.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

Most mesmer utilities were poo and they can't be better because of CS. Demonstrated by whenever something was reworked to make it good on core it was nerfed when chrono abused it. Phantasms were nerfed despite chronophantasma having 50% reduced damage and daze them for 1s.

Chronophantasma should be (and should have been) removed/reworked, yes.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

Signet of inspiration was nerfed multiple times. Signet of Ether due to CS shenanigans. Moa was nerfed to be useless without using it with CS.

I'll grant you SoI, but that was only relevant in PvE. SoE is and was inextricably connected to chronophantasma. I'll grant you Moa as well as I have said previously.

4 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

When using cooldowns as a balance method you have to be VERY careful with other mechanics that reduce or circumvent it's cooldown. 

True, Alacrity is the bigger reason why chrono is and was strong than CS itself.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

15 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Terrorhuz.4695

There is a link posted in your signature to a thread that details why you left the game and stopped playing GW2.

With all due respect, one needs to be actively playing in said given patching/meta to be able to comment on said given patching/meta. Things can change drastically in terms of what works, what doesn't, and what is OP, in even a single balance update. I know this is true, you know this is true, everyone reading this thread who plays the game knows this is true.

So what you're doing is you keep coming to this forum and engaging with stark class defense, even though each season & patching that goes by that you don't actively play, the game changes more & more and you are understanding less & less about current intra-class interactions.

Considering as much, you should turn the aggression & insultation down a couple of notches.

All I'm saying is, when there's some ranger talk to do, you'll do the talking. When there's some power mesmer talk to do, I do that. All those strategies you're claiming to be unstoppable, I've been playing them for the past 6 years. I know how "uncounterable" they actually are.

EDIT

About the """uncounterable""" moa. THIS is what you're supposed to do when a mesmer runs moa against you.

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Forum Moderator.3419]

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder to keep it civil. I've removed some posts.

Regards.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

2 minutes ago, Forum Moderator.3419 said:

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder to keep it civil. I've removed some posts.

Regards.

Thank you!

[apharma.3741]

16 minutes ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

I already preempted this response by saying "(and no, it isn't about cast time)". Even with quickness (i.e. 0.5s cast time), ray of judgement has a good and clear animation.

Yes. Which isn't a problem.

That's fine, but then we have one utility+elite skill that you could argue was nerfed because of CS and was relevant for PvP (Moa), or three if we take PvE into PvE (Time Warp, Moa, SoI). Meanwhile you said "CS is why most utilities on mesmer are kinda poo". So even if we assume that you meant to include elites within "utilities", the statement is still wildly incorrect.

What I said was that Chrono was fairly well balanced with regards to core Mesmer while distortion was gone. For 2+ years (2020-07-07 to 2022-10-04), chronomancer had self-shatter but no distortion. In other words, the problem was that core Mesmer was too weak to compete, not any intrinsic problem with chronomancer.  What do you mean "you might have meant remove distortion and do something else but you didn't say that", I literally said "if they removed it again now they would obviously have to massively buff core Mesmer" from the start.

Chronophantasma should be (and should have been) removed/reworked, yes.

I'll grant you SoI, but that was only relevant in PvE. SoE is and was inextricably connected to chronophantasma. I'll grant you Moa as well as I have said previously.

True, Alacrity is the bigger reason why chrono is and was strong than CS itself.

Ignoring Spinal Shivers again, the BASE animation of ray of judgement is readable but that is more to do with the freedom of animation a focus gives you. There aren't many weapon skills with 1/2s cast time skills with a good highly telegraphed and differentiated animations especially on pistol which is kind of limited in what you can do with it. Check out the pistol skills and you'll see most use cast time to differentiate or elongate animations/skills. That's what I'm saying they should do here as there's not a huge amount you can really do with pistols and some offhands in general.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol

Shatter "one shot" has always been a problem, CS shatter is part of the topic being discussed right now, only difference is Shorts didn't need it in the video for 2 rounds.
Most elite specs are well balanced compared to their core as core is often nerfed to accommodate the multiple elite specs for every class and is usually weaker. It's been a major gripe since elite specs came out and reinforces the argument against CS and keeping distortion, not for it. The state of game is that elite specs should be stronger, going off historical treatment of elite specs.
Chronophantasma, yes we're in agreement because double cast mechanics are a problem and generally should be removed or toned down/have a drawback. Just not sure how you see it with chrono phantasma but not CS. 
SoI was a problem in WvW, so was SoE and you could see people using the aftercast trick with CS in PvP. Even removing chronophantasma it was still a problem as you could triple cast phantasms very easily. The nerf was justified not just because of CS but CS made the problem far worse than it needed to be. Some problems do have multiple constituents.

Alacrity is less of an issue as it can be controlled reasonably easily (boon duration, tied to otherwise not good skills) and the benefit is seen over time, not front loaded like CS is. Generally cool down reduction and partial refunding is less of an issue and can be used as a reward compared to full resets as full resets have the potential for game breaking abuse of back to back skill use. 100% alacrity uptime and making it a 33% CDR is probably a bit much, but best not to start on that.