Potential Future Balance Changes - PvP

Ghos.1326 · November 2, 2019

@apharma.3741 said:
@Aza.2105 said:
@"ArthurDent.9538" said:Really don't like the rampage changes. Over 99% power scaling reduction on these skills is way overkill. While I can agree with rampage's combination of cc and damage being oppressive, these are skills that feel like they should hit hard and at .01 power scaling they will be pretty much the lowest damage skills in the game. Go for about 30% damage reduction on these skills instead, being hit by a giant flying Boulder should hurt, being kicked or body slammed by a brute in a steroid induced frenzy should hurt, just not so much that rampage is a "win" button.

I disagree, rampage is bad for the game. A elite skill should enhance your fighting or defensive capability not become a near I win button. Rampage hits REALLY hard, it should of never been that strong.

The way I see it is this is putting rampage into a position where it does lots of CC and when someone comes to +1 the fight and get the kill fast you can pop rampage in prep, CC 1 or even 2 foes nicely while the ally gets the kills.

Remember this may not be balanced for the game in it's current state, it may be a look at things to come, where skills do dramatically less than everything all at once.

Finally, someone who's smart enough to understand this. Thumbs up x1000 for you my friend.

Ghos.1326 · November 2, 2019

@rowdy.5107 said:
@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
@rowdy.5107 said:If you are trying to turn the condi from burst to a grindy build. You need to boost HP or stability or something to balance these changes. If not, all you are doing is making thief useless in a fight. If you are gonna nerf something, you gotta find a balance to the thing you are nerfing.

What? It's like u think a rogue class should be bursty u confused person u. Just because every other rogue archetypes are doesn't mean gw2 is or was initially sopose to be as well. I mean it's not like thief is low hp/armor that uses high mobility and evasiveness to survive like the other rogue's in other mmo's right? So why would it share their higher burst lower sustained dos designs as well?Lol can't wait to see things a yr from now if game keeps tricking along.I'm confused as to why u would have even picked thief to play if those were the playstyle's u wanted :)

Thiefs best defense is his offense.. The longer the enemy stays alive. Your odds of surviving the fight drop. Yes you have evades, shadow steps, cloak exc.. But what happens when you cant burst somebody and that stuff starts running out? Perfect example: Ele and Guards shrug off a thiefs condi damage. The Only time they have a chance at beating them is if the thief can burst and HOPE the ele or guard wasn't paying attention. Or catch them in a cooldown. With all the sustain, armor, cleanse, heals exc that all the other classes have, Thief needs something to be able to keep up with them. At the LEAST more HP. Especially if anet is looking for a more "grindy" approach. If they want them to not burst and to actually last in a fight. They need to give the thief a little more sustainability so they can last in a fight.

A thief having burst damage is fine. But a thief having consistent burst damage is not. Burst damage is made to do a large chunk of damage once, and then be die out until later on again. This is why Assassins run mostly burst damage. They come in at opportune times to assassinate a target, and then leave to move on to the next target, or they focus on bringing a high priority target (damage carries who have no defense), or a target who has strayed too far from their support, down to a significantly low amount of HP for the team to finish it off, utilizing its ports (if any) and high mobility to get out before it's killed. Burst damage is not supposed to be designed to be used on a duelist style build or player, that would just be insane. So your scenario of "what happens when you can't burst somebody and that stuff starts running out" answers your question in a way. That burst damage you get should sacrifice your overall survivability, in which if you miss your burst, or have used it and have not successfully killed your opponent, then you abort mission and get out of there before you're taken down.

Now not every thief build should be a burst one and done kind of build, hence why they changed DareDevil to be more focused on dueling and lower damages, with a bit more evades in order to "tank" the incoming damage. And when you run out of evades (currently you kind of don't), you start to kite around until your resources come up, which shouldn't be too long if you've moved around your area of combat properly to make intelligent use of your defensive maneuvers and skills.

mortrialus.3062 · November 2, 2019

I'm still really shocked how lightly Holosmith got away with being nerfed.

It's generally agreed up on that it is one of if not THE best build for ranked right now. You guys are able to admit that Holosmith is a problem in the game right now balance wise.

And I don't think most people really find the damage that offensive. Yeah it's high but it can be survived with active mitigation and kiting. They can be counter pressured.

What I and most other people find really offensive about Holosmith is that it's ability to almost instantly fully resustain after taking extreme levels of damage is way, way, way too high and their ability to safely disengage with Holo Leap and Toss Elixir S is also way too high as well.

So like toning down the quickness and the stability is okay and all but those are really, really just completely missing the source of the problem. You can already reliably survive a photon forge burst if you're careful. You can already find gaps in their defenses and pressure to damage them in return. It's not Holosmith's damage, it's that it has way too much sustain for something as deadly as a holosmith.

Ruufio.1496 · November 2, 2019

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'm still really shocked how lightly Holosmith got away with being nerfed.
It's generally agreed up on that it is one of if not THE best build for ranked right now. You guys are able to admit that Holosmith is a problem in the game right now balance wise.
And I don't think most people really find the damage that offensive. Yeah it's high but it can be survived with active mitigation and kiting. They can be counter pressured.
What I and most other people find really offensive about Holosmith is that it's ability to almost instantly fully resustain after taking extreme levels of damage is way, way, way too high and their ability to safely disengage with Holo Leap and Toss Elixir S is also way too high as well.
So like toning down the quickness and the stability is okay and all but those are really, really just completely missing the source of the problem. You can already reliably survive a photon forge burst if you're careful. You can already find gaps in their defenses and pressure to damage them in return. It's not Holosmith's damage, it's that it has way too much sustain for something as deadly as a holosmith.

The invuln from Elixir S is fine nowadays since the trait was nerfed and it's like mistform where you can't do anything but I can agree to a nerf to the stealth that comes with the invuln. Toss Elixir S should honestly be a 60s cooldown (but with 240 radius instead of 180). Stealth is incredibly strong. Incredibly strong abilities should have a longer cooldown and/or some function that makes the user vulnerable.

Pat Rick.6850 · November 2, 2019

Still missing a competitive condi cleans for the rev.

Crab Fear.1624 · November 2, 2019

No matter what, push the nerfs...I mean balances through.

Kill mine and theirs, everyone is happreeeee

Abelisk.5148 · November 2, 2019

These changes are a fresh, bold start. I'll try Conquest again if more classes see changes like this, and many builds will rise out of obscurity.

Vectra.1968 · November 2, 2019

future 2019 or future 2022?

necromaniac.7629 · November 2, 2019

welp, time to delete my mes i guess

saerni.2584 · November 2, 2019

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Condi ThiefThe main issue we’re looking to address with condi thief is the initial burst potential. Long term there are definitely questions about how this build is applying conditions, but for now we want to push it more toward a grindy build than a bursty one.
Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

Hello Cal, a bit of feedback:

This change doesn’t feel “complete.” You say your goal is pushing away from burst to over time damage. However, the only changes here are a reduction to both burst and sustained damage.

Spider Venom duration reduction ironically is just a reduction to sustained damage. By reducing the duration you still get the front loaded damage and none of the sustained damage.

You’d be better off reducing the stacks to 3 and increasing duration to fit with your stated goal.

Serpent’s Touch poison stack reduction as a nerf isn’t really a huge change but I don’t think it really is necessary because the stacks are long duration. It doesn’t do a lot of damage and lasts a long time. The change doesn’t make sense when you are trying to reduce burst and make it more about sustained damage. if anything, an issue might be the traits/skills that allow steal/swipe/Mark to be reused quickly. The lack of tell is unfortunately a key part of the F1 because it is either an instant teleport or a delayed cast 1500 range instant application ability.

Your best option isn’t reducing the number of stacks but adding an internal cooldown on the poison application of Serpents Touch.

I’d also urge you to consider strongly whether specific weapons like Sword have an outsized role in making condi thief a problem for some players to fight. Other condi builds don’t have similar balance issues.

With that concern in mind I’d urge the balance team to consider buffing condi application on thief weapons with an eye on sustained rather than burst damage. Condi thief should be viable (not over powered) and adding conditions to weapons helps people understand where the conditions are coming from (got hit, got bleed, etc.) and is harder for the thief to “bust” without being exposed with no initiative.

mortrialus.3062 · November 3, 2019

The Chaos Vortex nerfs are okay if they were just clone only. I knew it was only so long for this skill to be an outlier in terms of Infinite Horizon and having clones do the full condition power of the real mirage's ambush.

But we're looking at a skill that's a costs a dodge roll, has a lengthy cast time that can only be 50% covered with Mirage Cloak, is a projectile and doesn't home and thus you need to either set up your shot so that they're unlikely to be able to maneuver or stun them into it because otherwise you can just circle strafe it. For all of that plus taking 12 seconds for the condition damage to fully role out, 4,000 damage in total Chaos Vortex from the main mesmer is more than fair I think. There are two main problems and neither is Chaos Vortex from the Mirage themselves.

First is that the clones don't have the 50% reduced duration you see on the scepter ambushes. So if the Mirage and all four clones hit you're looking at 14,500 condition damage from one skill that can be fired pretty rapidly. Now if clones had similar reduced damage like with Scepter and Axe clones, the passivity you see people complain about would be a loss less of an issue. Trying to chase down a mirage and getting pot shot from off sceen because a clone lobbed a 3.6k pot shot at you is pretty unpleasant.

The second is that clones from Deceptive Evasion spawn automatically doing their ambush attack, which is the biggest offender in terms of passive gameplay. It just gives too much value onto the dodge roll all in one go whether you're actively trying to attack or not. Infinite Horizon is in theory a damage bonus for maintaining a lot of illusions when you proc Mirage Cloak. So every dodge roll is throwing some kind of damage out at your opponent, rather than ones that meet certain conditions with at least some level of preparation and that's a problem.

mortrialus.3062 · November 3, 2019

@Ruufio.1496 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:I'm still really shocked how lightly Holosmith got away with being nerfed.
It's generally agreed up on that it is one of if not THE best build for ranked right now. You guys are able to admit that Holosmith is a problem in the game right now balance wise.
And I don't think most people really find the damage that offensive. Yeah it's high but it can be survived with active mitigation and kiting. They can be counter pressured.
What I and most other people find really offensive about Holosmith is that it's ability to almost instantly fully resustain after taking extreme levels of damage is way, way, way too high and their ability to safely disengage with Holo Leap and Toss Elixir S is also way too high as well.
So like toning down the quickness and the stability is okay and all but those are really, really just completely missing the source of the problem. You can already reliably survive a photon forge burst if you're careful. You can already find gaps in their defenses and pressure to damage them in return. It's not Holosmith's damage, it's that it has way too much sustain for something as deadly as a holosmith.

The invuln from Elixir S is fine nowadays since the trait was nerfed and it's like mistform where you can't do anything but I can agree to a nerf to the stealth that comes with the invuln. Toss Elixir S should honestly be a 60s cooldown (but with 240 radius instead of 180). Stealth is incredibly strong. Incredibly strong abilities should have a longer cooldown and/or some function that makes the user vulnerable.

Toss Elixir S should be 2 second duration, 2.4 second traited. Max.

Provocative.3561 · November 3, 2019

The changes to condi mirage seem a bit odd. I remember taking a break for a couple years came back and every Mesmer was mirage and used axe torch staff. I was probably the only one using scepter pistol staff and was point blank winning match ups. Now condi mirage is scepter x staff and is basically meta for condi mirage. Mirage clones activating attacks vortex on evades is similar to when clones destroyed were destroyed either by having over the threshold of illusions or when enemies killed a Mesmers clones they generated aoe conditions. A different take on it. I believe the clones creating vortex condis being reduced is a change. But the actual Mesmer casting vortex’s should not be changed.Currently Mesmer is in a state of being weak. With no real direction. As playing power there are no real definitive direction one can go to succeed without being a gimmick spec. The same goes for the awful chrono changes that only a couple tank chronos play.. As it only serves a good purpose in some wvw scenarios and or in pve.

Mesmer has no clear options to be played let alone unique playstyles that Mesmer mains or lovers can have fun on doing different things. They cannot support with heals/phantasms Or shatter condis no longer healing/removing conditions from allies, shattering for boons no longer gives boons to allies along with inspiration signit. Mesmer’s access to unique skillful interruptions traits have been either removed or made bad in terms of doing damage. Both in chaos and domination. Then shatter mesmer has been nerfed to oblivion, with sword 3 not doing enough damage and not giving extra time on evade and portal duration being nerfed amongst might being removed from Mesmer because condi Mesmer was becoming too strong empowering their condis beyond shatters intentions...

if nerfing condi mirage is the next option, then empower power Mesmer to shine. Give a change to domination line or illusions where might no longer gives increased power to conditions but only empowers actual damage similar to a trait necros have access to. Like removing domination minor where phants do more damage in place of that trait or the trait where shattering illusions gives invuln stacks. And replace it with that might trait, where the trait gives more might per shatter on any shatter ability used. But in doing so stripping the 12 stacks given on pain mantra charge so that doesn’t become a problem either, especially with conjunction to the latter. Mesmers shatters is what gives them strength(might), bring Mesmer back to a wind up growing power through fighting, showcasing interesting yet stronger shatter plays.

Another neat change would be allowing mesmers better access at useful skillful and interactive interruptions, that can either support allies Through giving boons and or cause debilitating attacks vs foes. Or giving Mesmers A different power stroke through shattering boons, shattering boons can either remove two boons per shatter on illusion or outright always remove stability first. Allowing Mesmer better access to daze or stun foes. With so many classes having an abundance of boons power Mesmer sometimes lacks the necessary component to literally stop enemies dead in their tracks when they need to. Which is essentially Mesmer.Adding more interaction weapons could be looked at as well, for instance, GS 5, not just being a knock back but maybe it could give a slow too. Or strip a boon. Or cause blind. Or if it interrupts a foe it gives might or reduces the cool down of great sword skills by x amount. Another thing is focus 4. It currently gives an aoe cc and either give swiftness to allies or causes cripple to foes who walk through it. Giving that ability to interrupt or cause might/blind/ or quickness on interrupt would be an interesting spin on a skill that could be stronger.

Food for thought.

Carnifex.3275 · November 3, 2019

Still waiting for the day when D/P Dash-Daredevil will be meta. These condi builds and staff builds just doesn't feel right for Thief. Look more into bringin that good old D/P back. All it takes is reverting swipe back to 1200 range + buffing dagger damage + reverting lead attacks nerf. Nevermind the Dash dodge endurance nerf.. can live with that i guess. Can also live with backstab cooldown i suppose... In other words Buff power Thief! Nerf condi Thief.

praqtos.9035 · November 3, 2019

@"Arheundel.6451" said:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8031_uhtIM..this is a power variant, at one point winning 1vs2...and these are not practice golemsThe build on its own doesnt win anything (unlike some facerofl builds like holo and so on), the user is vastly better than this "practice golems". (why would u even post that vid in the first place?)

Lucinellia.9247 · November 3, 2019

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Condi ThiefThe main issue we’re looking to address with condi thief is the initial burst potential. Long term there are definitely questions about how this build is applying conditions, but for now we want to push it more toward a grindy build than a bursty one.
Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

Yes, the standard condi thief build needs to be addressed but I am not convinced that hitting traits which other, far less meta, builds rely on is the way to do it. With changes like the one being proposed to Serpent's Touch, off kilter builds like P/D Deadeye are being nerfed only because a totally different build is over performing.

The nerfs should be targeted on the abilities that are exclusive to condi thief and make it too strong - for example utility and immob on Sword, Lotus Training, Choking Gas and the sustain that comes from Escapist's Fortitude. Mainly Lotus Training and Uncatchable. The issue is dodges stacking condis as other condi thief builds have plenty of counterplay.

The proposed solution to Spider Venom given earlier in the thread, with the reduced number of stacks (and also duration perhaps depending on how the numbers turn out), is a nice one.

Staff ThiefAs mentioned the other day, we want to revisit the recent change to Debilitating Arc for the next balance update. There are still concerns about putting it back to 4 initiative, but it doesn’t really make sense for it to coexist with Vault at 6. We’re reducing the cost to 5 while making some minor adjustments to Quick Pockets and Staff Master.
Quick Pockets: Reduced initiative gained on weapon swap from 3 to 2 in PvP only
Staff Master: Reduced endurance gain per initiative spent from 2 to 1 in PvP only
Debilitating Arc: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5 in PvP only

The Staff Master and Debilitating Arc changes are good however, again, relying on nerfing Quick Pockets will make less meta builds even less played. If the goal is to reduce the initiative pool, I'm not too sure other changes can be made but the issue of condi and staff daredevil being a little too oppressive could also be addressed by tuning Escapist's Fortitude. Both builds rely on dodges after all.

A more elegant, though perhaps difficult to implement, Quick Pockets solution would be to limit the initiative gain if swapping to the same weapon setup, e.g. Staff/Staff.

Edit: As an aside, Holosmith really is oppressively too strong. Now, I'm never going to reach the level of play of a lot of people on these forums due to disabilities and having to use Action Camera if I don't want to have nerve pain for hours, but it really is massively unfun currently playing against Holosmiths that just have far too much sustain and damage. While I understand you need to balance around the upper tiers primarily, the bulk of players won't be in those echelons and, for that majority, there are many professions that are just brutally unfun to play against currently.

Arheundel.6451 · November 3, 2019

@mortrialus.3062 said:
@Arheundel.6451 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:Umm...
Sharper Images and Duelist's Disclipline on mesmer need to get looked at too. Pistol 4 can apply 18 stacks of bleeding on a 20 second cooldown and can almost be instantly reset with interrupts from stuff like sword ambush spam.
Please don't forget about these 2 traits. 18 stacks of bleeding on a single button press is CRAZY overpowered.

now that cmirage is nerfed to kitten you wanna nerf core condi mes i see?those "18" bleeds deal same damage as other hard hitting skills of other classes, prove me wrong or go home.

Suuuure... if you insist.

TTK on Light Golem w/ Fury = 7 seconds (not even the full 18 bleeds lel)
TTK on Light Golem w/ Fury = 33 seconds
TTK on Light Golem = 31 seconds
TTK on Light Golem = 18 seconds/26 seconds

Bonus!

TTK on Light Golem = 5 seconds (can be spammed or just passively does stupid amounts of damage every time a mirage dodges)

Not to mention the other 4 skills in the sc/p weaponset also do a ton of damage, 1 ccs you, + multiple ambushes to dodge. Compare the 7-8 skills necessary to avoid on sc/p to the 1 skill on ranger gs that can kill you (maul) and the 3 on warrior gs (maul, whirlwind, arcing slice) etc. etc. and it should be pretty easy to see why mesmers are completely overloaded.

if you gonna post biased stuff I shall too.

https://imgur.com/gallery/6qqQh54

here you go. 6,3k ranger autoattack.how many of them can you throw at 1,5k range with quickness? 10 in that 7s? that would deal 63k dmg. :D

Sure and I can make the Phantasmal Duelist do way more burst damage as well.

Someone is just salty they've gotten proven wrong yet again lmao.

dont have to mate, did it for you ( or rather some random oponent did )

https://imgur.com/gallery/6qqQh54

6350 dmg, long range shot. basic longbow auto with 1500+ range. (usable while moving )2242 dmg, rapid fire ( 1 hit ) it fires 10 over all so thats total of 22420 dmg. again 1500+ range,

usable while moving.

so you die in what, 1,5s? 2s? from 1500 range. and you compare it to 8s bleed + pistol channel, that will do about 10k dmg if not cleansed.

Yeah sure you'd die in 1.5/2s from 1500 range if you have a 12k health pool and no boons or toughness meanwhile I'm over here casting Phantasmal Duelist one shotting everyone while remaining completely stationary!

Keep reaching lmao.

If you eat entire pistol 4 channel you deserve to die, sadly it doesnt happen becouse everyone just cleanses that INSANE 18 BLEEDS OP.you dont get to cleanse 22,4k rapid fire from 1500+ range. even if you eat 3-4 shots thats still 6-8k dmg.toughtness? protection? sure lets add prot and toughtness, oh wait still about 10-14kdmg. thats STILL more then p4.keep whining mate, keep whining.

If you eat the entire rapid fire channel you deserve to die, sadly it doesn't happen (except to you judging by the screenshots) because everyone just walks behind a wall!

I'm sorry to tell you that toughness and protection don't reduce condition damage! Pistol 4 will still kill a light armored class just as fast regardless of whether they're on paladins or marauders.

LMAO you're the one whining. "Mesmer is so weak literally nothing does damage because you can dodge it D: does no damage can't survive you can't nerf anything about this class because you can only nerf mesmer if a team wins MAT for 2 years in a row with 5 mesmer comp" blah blah blah like come on I'll prove you wrong again later but clearly pistol 4 does more damage than all of these other hard hitting skills. You're just in denial constantly about anything mesmer related yet have the audacity to call other people biased. :joy:

Mate, I just posted a screenshot of rangers autoattack dealing almost as much damage as entire pistol 4 channel, cut the kitten.Unlike you I dont go around forums creating post, putting biased, cut out of contecst kitten to fit my agenda.You even go out of your way to outright lie to get mesmer nerfed.GJ they will nerf staff, mirage will still be cancer, people will still whine, YOU will still whine. nothing changes other then the fact that staff becomes unplayable.people will move on to scept/torch + axe/pistol or some sort of bunkercondi mesmer. GJ you did it, 1 less build clap clap.All I do is come here to poke fun at people that go out of their way to bend the truth, so it can fit their agenda.

like what, staff 3 thief abuse baaaad needs to go.gs1 ranger evade abuse goooood bring back.this is you, biased. as always.

Mate, that ranger was on a full glass cannon build. Not to mention a 6k auto attack would only take around half of the Light Golem's health off meanwhile Phantasmal Duelist killed it in a single cast.

Lmfao those videos cut or biased? I literally just hopped on wanderers/demo and used the skills on meta builds and didn't stack any additional modifiers the builds wouldn't normally run.

The difference between daredevil staff 3 and ranger gs autos is that the daredevil can be nearly untouchable for a VERY long time while the ranger autos actually require you to hit your target twice before the evade triggers so there is way more counterplay for the latter.

Don't know what set up you were using but I tried replicating it with the most popular wander/deadshot condition mirage.

Light Golem has 17,193 health so 62% of that in one attack ends up being 10,662 damage over about 7 seconds. With about 1.2k of that being from the power portion of the attack.

You're also definitely running a lot more power. On Deadshot/Wanderer the duelist does 1k-1.5k on the power portion of the attack and you're getting 2-3 three times that from the power portion.

I even ran a goofy variant using Krait runes and an Agony sigil to bump my bleeding duration up to 100% and even with a pretty yolo combo like that while I was getting really close but it still wasn't one shotting.

I tried a few options and I found Grieving amulet, with Krait Runes and Agony Sigil and Signet of Midnight will get occasional one shots while the phantasm does 3k+ in physical damage when you get lucky with crits.

I also gave rapid fire the same test with fury on my sic em soulbeast and this is what I got.

Are you seriously comparing condi mirage to lb soulbeast using zephyr+scholar runes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8031_uhtIM..this

is a power variant, at one point winning 1vs2...and these are not practice golems

We're discussing what level of damage from a single skill is reasonable, so yeah similar DPS skills with similar realistic stat set ups are relevant. Quickening Zephyr doesn't increase the overall damage of the Rapid Fire, it just makes the cast complete faster. I'm not sure why you're mentioning it as though it's boosting the damage beyond what's normal. I used it to give my soulbeast fury since in Shadowpass's test he specifically set it up so that Phantasmal Duelist had fury. This wasn't even using pet stacks or sic em. Just the pure vanilla stats from gear and traits. A core ranger can get the same damage results.

The question is 10.5k damage on a 20 second cooldown that involves a 2 second channel and 7 seconds of bleed after said channel too much damage compared other damage dealer skills?

There's so much counter play to this skill that other skills that do similar damage have noticeably less than. First you can prevent the phantasm from spawning entirely through environmental Line of Sight as well as using invulnerabilities like Elixir S, Obsidian Flesh, Renewed Focus. Second the bleeding doesn't just apply to you instantly. The mesmer has an animation which signifies the Phantasm will be spawning, it's the three bullets that fly in a weird arc. This doesn't do much damage but it signifies the attack is about to happen. Second the Phantasm casts it's unload, this itself is a 2 second channel as far as I can tell. So even if you get hit by the first packet of damage because they got the drop on you you can still react and avoid 87.5% of the entire skill's damage and all it's bleeds. So let's say you eat the entire skill and now you have 9k damage in bleed on you. You can cleanse it and get rid of all of it. And if you can't avoid it, if you can't cleanse it, it's possible to heal through it whereas getting hit with a 10k Crit from a power class isn't going to give you that luxury.

Is it strong? Yeah, Duelist is very strong and impactful can and often is the skill that wins the fight. Is he super over powered? I think in light of the cooldown, the actual clear audio and visual tell on the attack, and the multitude of ways and opportunities to survive the skill both before it lands it's damage and even afterwards makes me feel the overall level of damage is justified.

Your idea of counterplay is what would work basically against anything...like blow out high CD defenses for a second of respite, your answer , your type of answer has been given countless times by others to justify their builds/classes. You are as biased as @shadowpass.4236 , only difference it's the class you play ; nobody wants to be the underdog in this game...nobody wants to be at the receiving end of BS mechanics and that's fine I guess.

The real problem starts when the community does not realize that this game it's based on broken mechanics at core level, they allowed mechanics banished from others MMO:

1) Chainable CC - despites their original claims of hating chainable CC as they did in GW1....they fully allowed it to run unchecked in GW22) Re-stealthing option - in other games once stealthed..you can't re-stealth..it's just broken3) Overhybridization - The powercreep starts when a class can healburst and power/condi burst with the same buld, there should be limits to self-sustain as there should be to instant dmg

These are the basic problems on top of my head, but they're others, I just don't know why all of you still insist with this "skilled gameplay" talk when the very game is designed to get away with it

Clipzy.9483 · November 3, 2019

Hello.I can see some of these changes are a decent way to push the game in the right direction because so much is too strong.My only issue with these are that the nerfs to fix the certain specs actually punish other builds and not just the builds that are over performing.Such as the nerf to elixer U stability.This change for example has a negative impact towards the core and scrapper builds that use this elixer.So what could be done instead?Well we could start by looking at holosmith kit in general. You did well nerfing quickness on kinetic battery although that still effects other builds. But it was a minor nerf so isn’t a large issue.I liked the last patch where they directly changed the skills to holoforge. That was actually a push in the right direction. I would continue this route for changes that way other specs that aren’t viable aren’t taking a hit.

Agility sigil for example. This being removed messes with sooooo many other builds and not just holosmith. It literately nerfs power mesmer which didn’t need nerfed.Speaking of which.You nerfed the condi weapons on mesmer because the damage was high, but all that did was nerf all the other specs that might have used those weapons when the main issue is how those weapons react with the trait Infinite Horizon.People get pigeonholed into that trait because without it they lose a lot of damage.There has been sooo many nerfs to the class because of that one trait that when that trait finally gets nerfed the entire class will need buffed and fixed all over the place.SoInstead of just nerfing this class more, maybe just change how infinite horizon works to maybe make clones that trigger the effect not really deal much damage from their ambush skills in order to bring that trait itself down. Also pls rework the other Grandmaster traits in this area.Elusive mind for example. The nerf to this trait broke it. So maybe revert some of it and make the exhaustion only 2-3s. It still punishes the mesmer but it’s not a make or break punishment.

In conclusion,There have been many good changes in past few balance patches, but there also have been changes made that negatively impact other builds as a unintentional aspect of the patch.I believe all of us in the playerbase agree that if a build is over performing we very much would prefer a aspect of that build to be nerfed that doesn’t effect a lot of other builds. I.E. the elixer U nerf.

Arheundel.6451 · November 3, 2019

@"eyesrutherford.1357" said:Hello.I can see some of these changes are a decent way to push the game in the right direction because so much is too strong.My only issue with these are that the nerfs to fix the certain specs actually punish other builds and not just the builds that are over performing.Such as the nerf to elixer U stability.This change for example has a negative impact towards the core and scrapper builds that use this elixer.So what could be done instead?Well we could start by looking at holosmith kit in general. You did well nerfing quickness on kinetic battery although that still effects other builds. But it was a minor nerf so isn’t a large issue.I liked the last patch where they directly changed the skills to holoforge. That was actually a push in the right direction. I would continue this route for changes that way other specs that aren’t viable aren’t taking a hit.
Agility sigil for example. This being removed messes with sooooo many other builds and not just holosmith. It literately nerfs power mesmer which didn’t need nerfed.Speaking of which.You nerfed the condi weapons on mesmer because the damage was high, but all that did was nerf all the other specs that might have used those weapons when the main issue is how those weapons react with the trait Infinite Horizon.People get pigeonholed into that trait because without it they lose a lot of damage.There has been sooo many nerfs to the class because of that one trait that when that trait finally gets nerfed the entire class will need buffed and fixed all over the place.SoInstead of just nerfing this class more, maybe just change how infinite horizon works to maybe make clones that trigger the effect not really deal much damage from their ambush skills in order to bring that trait itself down. Also pls rework the other Grandmaster traits in this area.Elusive mind for example. The nerf to this trait broke it. So maybe revert some of it and make the exhaustion only 2-3s. It still punishes the mesmer but it’s not a make or break punishment.
In conclusion,There have been many good changes in past few balance patches, but there also have been changes made that negatively impact other builds as a unintentional aspect of the patch.I believe all of us in the playerbase agree that if a build is over performing we very much would prefer a aspect of that build to be nerfed that doesn’t effect a lot of other builds. I.E. the elixer U nerf.

Other professions have seen nerfs to core traits to fix elites..other professions have adapted despite the nerfs....why should it be different for mesmers and engis? And yeah in the past they removed amulet/runes to nerf specific specs so..

mortrialus.3062 · November 3, 2019

@Arheundel.6451 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:
@Arheundel.6451 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@shadowpass.4236 said:Umm...
Sharper Images and Duelist's Disclipline on mesmer need to get looked at too. Pistol 4 can apply 18 stacks of bleeding on a 20 second cooldown and can almost be instantly reset with interrupts from stuff like sword ambush spam.
Please don't forget about these 2 traits. 18 stacks of bleeding on a single button press is CRAZY overpowered.

now that cmirage is nerfed to kitten you wanna nerf core condi mes i see?those "18" bleeds deal same damage as other hard hitting skills of other classes, prove me wrong or go home.

Suuuure... if you insist.

TTK on Light Golem w/ Fury = 7 seconds (not even the full 18 bleeds lel)
TTK on Light Golem w/ Fury = 33 seconds
TTK on Light Golem = 31 seconds
TTK on Light Golem = 18 seconds/26 seconds

Bonus!

TTK on Light Golem = 5 seconds (can be spammed or just passively does stupid amounts of damage every time a mirage dodges)