Phantom Rasor no longer dazes

[ascii.1369]

On the one hand I’m not surprised. First thing I said when this ambush was released is that this is gonna get nerfed within days. The surprising thing is that it was allowed to exist this long. Then again neither cele harbinger nor cele catalyst has been touched even though clearly the gear is the issue not the daze. Seems like it’s just Mesmer again getting the nerf hammer…

Edited August 21 by ascii.1369

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Jeyzer.1605 said:

Sneaky Anet realized it was better to wait until a new weapon was out to drown the negative feedback about dagger deletion under the new spear's praise. 🙂

This way, annihilating dagger won't make as much noise. 

If they really think dagger mirage was broken, they could've done something about it during that whole year. Besides, we all know that what's broken is celestial gear itself, and they haven't done anything about that to nerf harbinger / catalyst. 

Might unironically be what happened, albeit with the cause and effect possibly transposed. ArenaNet knows that power mirage struggles a bit, particularly when it comes to which weapon to switch off greatsword to, so they might deliberately chosen to allow dagger ambush to remain overtuned until they had a new weapon for power mirage to use. Now that there is a second weapon that looks like it should work fairly well for power mirage, they probably figured it didn't need the daze on Phantom Razor any more.

[Jeyzer.1605]

11 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

ArenaNet knows that power mirage struggles a bit, particularly when it comes to which weapon to switch off greatsword to, so they might deliberately chosen to allow dagger ambush to remain overtuned until they had a new weapon for power mirage to use.

Power Mirage "struggling a bit" is 100% their choice though. They could've given Mirage traits some strike modifiers, or made Dagger not have 0 power coefficients outside of Phantom Razor if they wanted. Instead, Mirage gets 150 condi damage when in Vigor, lmao. 

Dagger ambush wasn't even busted in power builds, it was mostly used in celestial and condi interrupt builds due to the synergy with Ineptitude + Duelist Discipline (and Power Block for CD increase). Power builds were using GS for ranged damage and Sword/X as secondary set for mobility / survival.

I don't see how Spear is supposed to be a replacement for Dagger, when they don't fill the same niche at all. Spear is a fantastic PvE weapon (we were missing a good melee AoE weapon here) and good for WvW zerg, if Mesmer can even find a place in that. It does nothing for roaming nor dueling. 

[Waffles.5632]

This is absolutely ridiculous.

[Nemhy.5230]

1 hour ago, Waffles.5632 said:

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Agreed! Should have been a PvP/WvW only nerf

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Jeyzer.1605 said:

I don't see how Spear is supposed to be a replacement for Dagger, when they don't fill the same niche at all. Spear is a fantastic PvE weapon (we were missing a good melee AoE weapon here) and good for WvW zerg, if Mesmer can even find a place in that. It does nothing for roaming nor dueling. 

To honest roaming has such build diversity that this change won't impact Mesmer much. From my perspective movement and stealth are the king of roaming having a Dagger Ambush interrupt was nice and it countered a few playstyles but it wasn't a game changer or even OP. 

It is odd they made that change but I can live with it. If let's say they nerfed Jaunt I would say that is unfair. 

[Nemhy.5230]

47 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

To honest roaming has such build diversity that this change won't impact Mesmer much. From my perspective movement and stealth are the king of roaming having a Dagger Ambush interrupt was nice and it countered a few playstyles but it wasn't a game changer or even OP. 

It is odd they made that change but I can live with it. If let's say they nerfed Jaunt I would say that is unfair. 

The fact they gutted this while leaving Celestial Harbinger alone though is insane to me

[Varis.5467]

Whether or not the daze on dagger ambush should be addressed may be subject for debate. 

However, Anet should have atleast offer something actually useful in exchange of the removal of daze. 

The ambush itself never hit hard, the daze was the only thing going on for dagger in pvp/wvw. 

Without it, the dagger is just 3 (4 on mirage) skills with pathetic damage in these game modes. 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

I only JUST now found out about this. I thought I was doing something wrong because I WAS great at breaking defiance bars. Now I struggle with anything that has a defiance bar. Why? Well, I guess it wasn't me, it's because Anet once again broke our toys.

Again, why do they even allow mesmer in the game when all they do is kick us every time we find something that works. Just delete the whole kitten profession, ban the players, and I have to imagine they would be SO much happier with the game. Then they'd have to find someone else, probably thieves, to abuse.

[blitzbirne.2890]

So now what are we supposed to play? virtu ? thats not even a mesmer specialisation, more like an abomination for players with no hands

ty for screwing mesmers again -.-

Edited August 27 by blitzbirne.2890

[Kulvar.1239]

On 8/22/2024 at 2:08 AM, Nemhy.5230 said:

The fact they gutted this while leaving Celestial Harbinger alone though is insane to me

Deathly Haste should pulse 3× Might (8½s) instead of Quickness (3s) in WvW. It would match other support nerfs.

[mirage.8046]

While the daze was obnoxious in PvP and WvW, replacing it with crippled doesn't mean anything. I could've taken confusion over it because dagger has no condi application apart from its ambush. I am surprised they kept the daze for a year because that was super annoying from the start.

Dagger was already bland as sand, now it has nothing going for it on mirage.

In PvE, I will again default to scepter and axe. 

[Codename T.2847]

On 8/22/2024 at 5:10 PM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I only JUST now found out about this. I thought I was doing something wrong because I WAS great at breaking defiance bars. Now I struggle with anything that has a defiance bar. Why? Well, I guess it wasn't me, it's because Anet once again broke our toys.

Again, why do they even allow mesmer in the game when all they do is kick us every time we find something that works. Just delete the whole kitten profession, ban the players, and I have to imagine they would be SO much happier with the game. Then they'd have to find someone else, probably thieves, to abuse.

Tbh playslers of 8 out of 9 classes say this exact same rant every other month. xD

Edited August 28 by Codename T.2847

[ShadowKatt.6740]

57 minutes ago, Codename T.2847 said:

Tbh playslers of 8 out of 9 classes say this exact same rant every other month. xD

You know I get that, but I'm sitting here trying to think of the last good thing that happened to Mesmers and....I'm coming up REAL short.

The spear is okay. It's certainly not phoenomenal, but it's a melee weapon on a class that really shouldn't be in melee, so I guess I can let it slide
The rifle we got is trash. It heals and absolutely nothing else so it's good for ONE mesmer build, and whether that's good or not is really up in the air

They just nerfed mirage dagger into irrelevance
Before that they nerfed the Signet of Humility into irrelevance

I could go on but tell me what have they actually done FOR mesmers since....really Heart of Thorns before they gave our kit away to everyone else and made chrono irrelevant as well.

[Gesbo.6420]

7 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

You know I get that, but I'm sitting here trying to think of the last good thing that happened to Mesmers and....I'm coming up REAL short.

The spear is okay. It's certainly not phoenomenal, but it's a melee weapon on a class that really shouldn't be in melee, so I guess I can let it slide
The rifle we got is trash. It heals and absolutely nothing else so it's good for ONE mesmer build, and whether that's good or not is really up in the air

They just nerfed mirage dagger into irrelevance
Before that they nerfed the Signet of Humility into irrelevance

I could go on but tell me what have they actually done FOR mesmers since....really Heart of Thorns before they gave our kit away to everyone else and made chrono irrelevant as well.

We had that chaos aura share for the better half of 5 minutes... they returned the support capabilities... there are some things that are good but I understand your frustration.

[blitzbirne.2890]

And now they gave us spear.....a power weapon....not usable in anything else but power builds....sorry gs does everything better than what this weapon offers. Went from considering building spear with the legendary starterkit to dagger instead xD

Edited August 29 by blitzbirne.2890

[Jeyzer.1605]

6 hours ago, blitzbirne.2890 said:

.sorry gs does everything better than what this weapon offers.

No it doesn't? 

GS #2 is extremely unreliable and does barely any damage if it doesn't bounce multiple time on an enemy, which needs better setup than most acknowledge. It's also a slow projectile. Used at range with no clones around to bounce, you might as well use your AA, it'll do more damage.

GS has no evade / condi cleanse and no mobility. Granted, Spear mobility isn't amazing either but it's here and the #3 skill is amazing for surviving burst.

GS has no strong AoE CC: Spear #5 is a 2s AoE stun when empowered, that's hard to dodge and let you set up for a good MtG edge hit and double Lancers. GS has a meager cone knockback that has more chance to push the enemy out of your bouncing blade range or the whirl of your berserkers than being useful. Spear also has a good immob from double Lancers.

GS is essentially useless in zerg situations, and we were lacking any sort of good AoE melee burst weapon for zerg situations. Now we have one through the Spear.

GS felt really bad in PvE on power build because you'd take it for the berserkers for double phantasmal blades, but then lose on the 15% illusion damage due to trait conflict. Mirror blade, as stated, is super inconsistent and can randomly lose 66% of its damage from bouncing between allies. The AA deals no damage in melee range as well. If you're fully ranged in PvE on Virt, you might as well use Focus instead of GS to keep the better damage on Dagger. I even preferred using Rifle on power builds over GS in PvE. 

I'm actually glad we have a good alternative to GS now because GS is actually terrible outside of Mirage's Split Surge spam in open world / WvW. 

[blitzbirne.2890]

1 hour ago, Jeyzer.1605 said:

No it doesn't? 

GS #2 is extremely unreliable and does barely any damage if it doesn't bounce multiple time on an enemy, which needs better setup than most acknowledge. It's also a slow projectile. Used at range with no clones around to bounce, you might as well use your AA, it'll do more damage.

GS has no evade / condi cleanse and no mobility. Granted, Spear mobility isn't amazing either but it's here and the #3 skill is amazing for surviving burst.

GS has no strong AoE CC: Spear #5 is a 2s AoE stun when empowered, that's hard to dodge and let you set up for a good MtG edge hit and double Lancers. GS has a meager cone knockback that has more chance to push the enemy out of your bouncing blade range or the whirl of your berserkers than being useful. Spear also has a good immob from double Lancers.

GS is essentially useless in zerg situations, and we were lacking any sort of good AoE melee burst weapon for zerg situations. Now we have one through the Spear.

GS felt really bad in PvE on power build because you'd take it for the berserkers for double phantasmal blades, but then lose on the 15% illusion damage due to trait conflict. Mirror blade, as stated, is super inconsistent and can randomly lose 66% of its damage from bouncing between allies. The AA deals no damage in melee range as well. If you're fully ranged in PvE on Virt, you might as well use Focus instead of GS to keep the better damage on Dagger. I even preferred using Rifle on power builds over GS in PvE. 

I'm actually glad we have a good alternative to GS now because GS is actually terrible outside of Mirage's Split Surge spam in open world / WvW. 

A matter of tastes. I can agree to disagree 😛

[Nemhy.5230]

Power Mesmer with spear seems good in theory but pretty bad... Been doing Staff/Staff for big solos, outside of that Power Virt is just better sadly

Edited August 30 by Nemhy.5230

[Varis.5467]

9 hours ago, Nemhy.5230 said:

Power Mesmer with spear seems good in theory but pretty bad... Been doing Staff/Staff for big solos, outside of that Power Virt is just better sadly

From a wvw point of view - it's a very pretty weapon but the skill are a little slow and feels sluggish to use. 

Feels OK in PvE

[Nemhy.5230]

4 hours ago, Varis.5467 said:

From a wvw point of view - it's a very pretty weapon but the skill are a little slow and feels sluggish to use. 

Feels OK in PvE

I meant to type power mirage lol. I’ve been liking spear on power virtuoso . Mirage just really lacks anything other than the ambush to facilitate power builds outside of meme status. GS has its niche but that’s about it 

Edited August 30 by Nemhy.5230

[Nepster.4275]

Ah,  another of those "mesmer being the class of broken traits" kind of case

But yeah, to all fairness the daze on ambush was kind of annoying, especially with IH, but again, not like if Druids could not stun-lock you, or even Warriors, or Tempests with the shocking aura, right? Atleast in PvP

I am starting to really believe to the people who say that they are just changing random things on mesmer without knowing any of it's impacts to the class, so the mesmer community can't say that they are ignoring the class

Spear is actually a good example, don't get me wrong, spear is actually a rather decent weapon, but that's all, it has a lot of bugs, like if you cancel sp5 with SoE it goes on full cooldown without resetting sp2, or the outter circle not hitting at all and probably more, the healing and evade and CC on it is all nice, but nothing outstanding, I would call spear a mid weapon compared to something like Staff where you atleast got some boon generation from staff4/5 and that weapon actually interracts with the traits(chaos) and does not require you to do a mini rotation in order to get more use of your phantasm traits like in illusions or chrono, not like spear where it's just a plain power weapon where you are mostly locked behind one goal, what I mean is that if you want to CC on it you need 2+5, if you want to generate phantasm for boons from traits you need 2+4, and that's it, I don't really see the reason why would you use clarity for sp3
Some people could argue that atleast 2 has a low CD and it can even be reset, which is all true, but does not change that fact that it's basically requiring you to be really cautious with your CDs, in PvE spear is again, acceptable, has burst and that's about it, but requires you to be in meele, where people mostly player Virt for the range and it's not even that much more better than GS, tho chrono got a huge bonus from the spear, so yeah, again, not perfect but atleast a decent one

Now, I am just waiting for ANET to say that mesmer is now overperforming and nerf in the in most senseless way

[Teknomancer.4895]

15 minutes ago, Nepster.4275 said:

I am starting to really believe to the people who say that they are just changing random things on mesmer without knowing any of it's impacts to the class, so the mesmer community can't say that they are ignoring the class

Do we know if anyone on the balance team plays Mesmer even semi-regularly (I doubt any of them are Mesmer mains)?

[Nepster.4275]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Do we know if anyone on the balance team plays Mesmer even semi-regularly (I doubt any of them are Mesmer mains)?

As far as I know the riffle was designed by a "Mesmer Master" or however they refered to that person, that's all I know about anyone playing mesmer at ANET, tho I doubt this person would be part of the balance team

[Teknomancer.4895]

So Mesmer Master = whoever drew the short straw. Got it. 😉