Upcoming Balance Patch Predictions.

[apharma.3741]

Alright a week to go so let’s have fun.

What’s everyone’s expectations for the patch?

All phantasms have their damage reduced by 50%.10s ICD on chrono phantasma.Phantasm health reduced by 1000.Shatters have a 1s cast time.Mirror blade loses extra bounce....again.Blurred frenzy is no longer split between PvP and PvE and will do PvE damage because we hate you and want to see the world burn.

[Lunateric.3708]

~~ I don't wanna sound pessimistic but what I expect as an engi player is: ~~

• Condition Enginner untouched, still bad.
• ~~ Gyros on Scrapper untouched, still bad.~~

~~I want to be wrong though! ~~

Sorry guys wrong sub-forum

[Curunen.8729]

Jaunt and Blink operate underwater like a very fast (at least twice superspeed)uninterruptable 450 and 1200 range (respectively) feigned surge in the direction the character is facing, and have a flipover skill to stop travel early when activated. The flipover skill activates the reflect on blink from MoM and the damage/confusion on Jaunt. The flipover skill automatically activates at max range.

Wait... I'm dreaming.

In all seriousness I expect to see revenant have the most underwater work, which it deserves.

For mesmer I anticipate mostly nerfs, most for chrono, some for mirage. Hopefully there may be some buffs to truly bad things like iWarden.

[Daishi.6027]

@apharma.3741 said:Alright a week to go so let’s have fun.

What’s everyone’s expectations for the patch?

All phantasms have their damage reduced by 50%.10s ICD on chrono phantasma.Phantasm health reduced by 1000.Shatters have a 1s cast time.Mirror blade loses extra bounce....again.Blurred frenzy is no longer split between PvP and PvE and will do PvE damage because we hate you and want to see the world burn.

With the amount of whining I wouldn't even be surprised if this was true, and people would still cry OP because Portal and Moa was left untouched.

[OriOri.8724]

@apharma.3741 said:Alright a week to go so let’s have fun.

What’s everyone’s expectations for the patch?

All phantasms have their damage reduced by 50%.10s ICD on chrono phantasma.Phantasm health reduced by 1000.Shatters have a 1s cast time.Mirror blade loses extra bounce....again.Blurred frenzy is no longer split between PvP and PvE and will do PvE damage because we hate you and want to see the world burn.

I fully expect blanket nerfs to phantasm damage, no change to CP at all (not even an ICD) and changing imagined burden. It would be in line with their other nerfs wherein they completely ignore the root issues of what is overpowered

[mortrialus.3062]

@apharma.3741 said:Alright a week to go so let’s have fun.

What’s everyone’s expectations for the patch?

All phantasms have their damage reduced by 50%.That would be kind of an insane nerf. We might see a few phantasms get trimmed for PvP. I think Disenchanter, Defender are obvious choices. Phantasmal Mage is low key incredibly lethal and will probably have it's damage slightly shaved.10s ICD on chrono phantasma.I think you'll see a PvP split introducing this sort of thing.Phantasm health reduced by 1000.Unlikely.

Shatters have a 1s cast time.Never going to happen.Mirror blade loses extra bounce....again.I think the bounce will stay but we'll see another 15% shave in PvP.

Hopefully we'll see something done about confusion for all our PvE skills that use the condition.

[Sodeni.6041]

I am most curious about the Chronophantasma change.

I hope it doesn't re-summon phantasms but instead make the summoned ones stronger so there is 50% less AI on the battleground. Easy fix.

[Josif.2015]

My expectations:

1. Reduce the damage of phantasms by 50%, reduce their health and reduce the number of phantasms mesmers can summon to 3. I'm sorry mesmers, but you rely way too much on phantasms to do the damage for you and get easy wins. It's time for you to relive the good old days of playing mesmer, where you used the clones as a way to confuse your foes and not using them to kill, stun and daze your foes.
2. Nerf Scourge and buff core necromancer and Reaper.
3. Nerf Holosmith by increasing the Photon Forge cooldowns and make it so that you can't use healing or utility skills while in that form. It's already a glass cannon specialization, but it already has too much sustain to even be called a glass cannon.
4. Nerf the amount of CC and sustain Spellbreaker has.
5. Please, buff core Engineer and its' kits already. List of proposed changes can be found here.

[Sodeni.6041]

@"Hoodie.1045" said:My expectations:

1. Reduce the damage of phantasms by 50%, reduce their health and reduce the number of phantasms mesmers can summon to 3. I'm sorry mesmers, but you rely way too much on phantasms to do the damage for you and get easy wins. It's time for you to relive the good old days of playing mesmer, where you used the clones as a way to confuse your foes and not using them to kill, stun and daze your foes.
2. Nerf Scourge and buff core necromancer and Reaper.
3. Nerf Holosmith by increasing the Photon Forge cooldowns and make it so that you can't use healing or utility skills while in that form. It's already a glass cannon specialization, but it already has too much sustain to even be called a glass cannon.
4. Nerf the amount of CC and sustain Spellbreaker has.
5. Please, buff core Engineer and its' kits already. List of proposed changes can be found here.

The entire last big mesmer rework was about removing the cap of phantasms, it added great value to mesmer gameplay. I am very sure they won't go back to that. The problem is chronophantasma phantasm spam, not phantasms per se. Reducing damage by 50% is just insane and I don't think you know what impact that would have, also reduced health... They die like flies anyway so.

Reaper is already extremely strong in PvP. People start playing it more and more, I can already see posts that want nerfs of reaper.Agree with warrior sustain, it's just insane combined with the huge amount of pvp warrior has in general.

[Josif.2015]

The problem is chronophantasma phantasm spam, not phantasms per se. Reducing damage by 50% is just insane and I don't think you know what impact that would have, also reduced health... They die like flies anyway so.

Except for the professions that don't have a reliable way to attack multiple foes at once like fresh air elementalist. Also, if the intention was to remove the phantasm cap and make players just spam phantasms, then maybe it would be better to make them extremely weak where they die like ants instead of flies and not have them carry the player who spams them.

Reaper is already extremely strong in PvP. People start playing it more and more, I can already see posts that want nerfs of reaper.

Oh sure, nerf reaper because you can't kite them or you don't seem to realize that it excels in melee combat. Seriously, I would much rather fight a Reaper than a Scourge because they at least require skill and don't rely on conditions to kill their foes.

Agree with warrior sustain, it's just insane combined with the huge amount of pvp warrior has in general.

It takes at least 2 people to take down a good Spellbreaker warrior. Also, they nerfed Upper Hand which gives the thief a fairly weak regeneration (less than 1k health), but warriors get Adrenal Health that heals them for over 2k health? What sense does that make?

And if you're wondering about my Holosmith expectations, I'm being serious with that. As someone who's been playing core power engineer since 2013, I'm getting sick of the clearly glass cannon specializations that have a lot of sustain.

[apharma.3741]

I was expecting more over blown completely ludicrous changes that might happen not a serious discussion about multi class balance changes. Sad times.

[Curunen.8729]

@"apharma.3741" said:I was expecting more over blown completely ludicrous changes that might happen not a serious discussion about multi class balance changes. Sad times.

Elusive mind Exhaustion doubled to 6sMirage Cloak duration reduced to 0.5sAll teleports (Blink Jaunt Phase Retreat etc) have a 1s cast timeBlink range reduced to 600 and cooldown increased to 60sStealth removed from mesmer - all stealth skills changed to detargetMind Wrack damage reduced by 50%Removed torment from all axe skills because stacking is too powerful - better to only have bleed.Blurred Frenzy increased cooldown to 20sAll shatters have a 2s channeled cast time (because your suggestion of 1s is not enough, it's still too easy to spam and nobody can react to it) and can be interruptedChronophantasma changed to make phantasms rewind and cast their attack animation backwards after the initial cast.

(I suppose I'd better add an /s because I'm sure some other mains who read this will pick one or more of these to be serious suggestions and demand they be implemented because mesmer is "so OP, hate fighting it just because I subjectively hate it11!!!1!".)

[OriOri.8724]

@"Hoodie.1045" said:My expectations:

1. Reduce the damage of phantasms by 50%, reduce their health and reduce the number of phantasms mesmers can summon to 3. I'm sorry mesmers, but you rely way too much on phantasms to do the damage for you and get easy wins. It's time for you to relive the good old days of playing mesmer, where you used the clones as a way to confuse your foes and not using them to kill, stun and daze your foes.
2. Nerf Scourge and buff core necromancer and Reaper.
3. Nerf Holosmith by increasing the Photon Forge cooldowns and make it so that you can't use healing or utility skills while in that form. It's already a glass cannon specialization, but it already has too much sustain to even be called a glass cannon.
4. Nerf the amount of CC and sustain Spellbreaker has.
5. Please, buff core Engineer and its' kits already. List of proposed changes can be found here.

And here we have the ever present example of someone who wants mesmer nerfed but has absolutely no idea about why the class is overperforming.

[Josif.2015]

And here we have the ever present example of someone who wants mesmer nerfed but has absolutely no idea about why the class is overperforming.

I'll admit it, I may have gone a bit too far on suggesting that phantasms should have their damage reduced by 50%. It's just that it sucks fighting them as a fresh air elementalist since the scepters' best auto attack is a single target skill.

[apharma.3741]

@Hoodie.1045 said:

And here we have the ever present example of someone who wants mesmer nerfed but has absolutely no idea about why the class is overperforming.

I'll admit it, I may have gone a bit too far on suggesting that phantasms should have their damage reduced by 50%. It's just that it sucks fighting them as a fresh air elementalist since the scepters' best auto attack is a single target skill.

Know what else sucks? Playing a class that has twice as many opportunities to counter a skill yet players don’t bother trying either of them.

Phantasm summon: can be blinded, LoS, invulned and interrupted.Phantasm attack: can be blinded, LoS, dodged, blocked, invulned, interrupted, CC’d, killed before they attack and outrun by swiftness so it never hits.

Anyway back to having fun.

[EpicTurtle.8571]

@Hoodie.1045 said:

And here we have the ever present example of someone who wants mesmer nerfed but has absolutely no idea about why the class is overperforming.

I'll admit it, I may have gone a bit too far on suggesting that phantasms should have their damage reduced by 50%. It's just that it sucks fighting them as a fresh air elementalist since the scepters' best auto attack is a single target skill.

At least you can admit it. That alone makes you 10x better than the usual people who complain about it.

[OriOri.8724]

@Hoodie.1045 said:

And here we have the ever present example of someone who wants mesmer nerfed but has absolutely no idea about why the class is overperforming.

I'll admit it, I may have gone a bit too far on suggesting that phantasms should have their damage reduced by 50%. It's just that it sucks fighting them as a fresh air elementalist since the scepters' best auto attack is a single target skill.

That's not the problem with your first comment though. Some of our phantasms are absolutely dealing way too much damage, and it needs to be toned down significantly. And to be quite honest, for at least disenchanter, I don't think a 50% nerf is enough for various reasons.

Its your following suggestion to cap our phantasms at 3 which is the problem. It shows a lack of understanding as to why we received the phantasm rework in the first place, but more importantly, it also shows that while you can see something is overpowered, you don't really know why.

Capping the number of concurrent phantasms to 3 won't solve anything, because it doesn't address any of the problems with the current design of mesmer and chrono. It won't stop us from summoning 6 defenders back to back. It won't stop us from summoning 4 disenchanters back to back, or 8 berserkers back to back (double all of those numbers if the mesmer uses CS, as a phantasm cap won't affect clever play to abuse CDs inside CS). All it does is put a needless hamstring on the class, without actually addressing the problem. What needs to change is the active effect of Signer of the Ether needs to be flat out changed (right now it refunds 50% of the CD on all phantasm skills when used), and CP needs to change (it resummons phantasms for a second attack after they attack the first time). Its that trait and skill together that are the reason we are getting so many phantasms out so quickly, and they can easily be used around a cap on the number of active phantasms.

CP could even just be changed to simply not resummon a phantasm, but have them just perform a second attack, and it would immediately lose all synergy with traits that activate on illusion summoning. I don't think that's enough, but it would still be better than just capping the number of phantasms that we can summon.

[Josif.2015]

That's not the problem with your first comment though. Some of our phantasms are absolutely dealing way too much damage, and it needs to be toned down significantly. And to be quite honest, for at least disenchanter, I don't think a 50% nerf is enough for various reasons.

I believe that would be a well deserved nerf to a build that is capable of dealing a lot of damage with those phantasms and being able to tank 2 or even more players.

Its your following suggestion to cap our phantasms at 3 which is the problem. It shows a lack of understanding as to why we received the phantasm rework in the first place, but more importantly, it also shows that while you can see something is overpowered, you don't really know why.

I'll admit it, when I first heard of the phantasm rework not too long ago and saw that it removed the phantasm cap, I thought that this would make the profession broken and mesmers would spam phantasms at will. But I dug in deeper into the change and the reason why it was made as well as reading your own reasons for the change which I appreciate a lot and now I understand why this was done for the mesmer.

What needs to change is the active effect of Signer of the Ether needs to be flat out changed (right now it refunds 50% of the CD on all phantasm skills when used), and CP needs to change (it resummons phantasms for a second attack after they attack the first time). Its that trait and skill together that are the reason we are getting so many phantasms out so quickly, and they can easily be used around a cap on the number of active phantasms.

Signet of Ether would be better off if it reduces the cooldowns on phantasms skills from 50% to 25%. Before that if was 100% which is why so many viewed that as overpowered.

When I saw the change of the Chronophantasma trait, I was so confused I couldn't tell what it even meant. It resummons a phantasm for a second attack after they attack the first time? Why not have the phantasm attack twice instead of being resummoned and dazed for 1.5 seconds? Plus this is why Signet of Ether is used with this trait due to resummoning phantasms, hence why Disenchanter has too much sustain.

[otto.5684]

Most definitely Mesmer will be nerfed. In all likelyhood phantasms damage in PvP is going to get a shave. anet may also reduce warlock and berserker from 2 to 1 to reduce illusion creation capacity. Chrosomania trait is also a likely target for a nerf.

I think chrono dps would lose 2-3k dps in PvE, but hopefully not more.

Mirage will also be hit. Not sure how and where.

Maybe scepter will see a buff.

[Nepster.4275]

Im not a big fan of these forum posts but i need to say this to someone. Mirage now in PvE is a crap, half of the class is still working with the old confusion logic they need to fix that ASAP. The thing that they have done with the axe was just to save the new PoF spec from becoming completly useless, but playing with is just feels like im playing with a half ready thing, as for the changes to PvP im not a big PvP guy but as i see it yeah it needs some nerf but leave the PvE things alone. Still dont know whey ANet needed to make a crap of mirage with that confusion change... Well, nevermind the thing is that they need to do something with this spec or class because from day to day im thinking about making a normally treated class like spellbreaker or weaver or something like this. Because spellbreaker had bad damage okey lets buff it and now it sits at the top of benchmarks because its rotation is not hard to do and playing with the raid build in open world or any fractal is just a real relaxation, while on the other hand playing mirage in fractals gets me annoyed that even a power reaper can do more viable damage because it doesnt need 40 sec to achieve its top number nothing to say about that the whole DPS of the class(with this i mean the 36k) is only achievable because of various bugs of the whole spec. In real raids i never seen a mirage go higher than 31-32k while other classes pull out their benchmarks on bosses too or some close number to them

[Carighan.6758]

@"Nepster.4275" :Mirage was never "good" in PvE though. Yes the damage is (and was) alright, but that's not what truly makes a spec good or bad. Design-wise it was horrible from the get-go, it doesn't even have a theme. :disappointed:

[Vague Memory.2817]

Anet has a tendency to totally over react when it comes to Mes nerfs. I mean 50% nerf to SoE, which effectively stops Phant refreshes was pretty big and affects core mes as well as all specs (especially PvP).

I predict this, because Anet are predictable. They gave mes a power boost to make Mes competitive after PoF, but the nerfs will leave mes in a much worse place than before. This will persist for about 1-2 years before the next expansion when everyone will be given new god elite specs to increase expansion sells.

[storm.3120]

@apharma.3741 said:Alright a week to go so let’s have fun.

What’s everyone’s expectations for the patch?

All phantasms have their damage reduced by 70%. (shadowhiner edition)30s ICD on chrono phantasma.Phantasm health reduced by 3000.Shatters have a 1s cast time .Mirror blade no longer bounce. Damage reduced by 15% (morty whine worked out)Blurred frenzy is no longer split between PvP and PvE and will do PvE damage because we hate you and want to see the world burn.Shield block never summon a phantasm.That would perfectly balanced mesmer imo

[Arlette.9684]

I saw the thread earlier today, but I didn’t have time to post.My predictions, as they correlate to overall performance of mesmer builds, rather than specific changes to X and Y.

1. Complete and utter wipe of Chrono on the competitive map for anything other than PvE.
2. Minor nerfs to Power shatter Mesmer(+elite specs) across the board.
3. Minor tweaks to Axe condi stacks (to appease the PvE crowd)
4. P.S. In regards to 3, if executed poorly, it could result in massive buff to condi mirage in WvW/PvP environment. AKA Consider it the new reality, given past track records and all.

[viquing.8254]

Chronophantasm mecaninc change to somethings like imagined burden.