Mesmer patch notes?

[Mik.3401]

I find it a bit ironic that additional alac was not added to the time-based spec but whatever.

 

That mirage staff looks super powerful as the group alac. It is easy get almost permanent mirage cloaks with the right cons, so that means A LOT of alac.

 

Considering it is 3 seconds per ambush, I'm not even sure if full set of concenration gear is necessary. Couple pieces and runes probably but apart from that?

 

I could see it being played as a Alac/cDPS build with Axe/torch or pistol in the other weapon set.

[XenesisII.1540]

They don't care about pvp mirage, and partly probably because less whining about mesmers from the general community to hear about I suppose.

 

They could have spent time adjusting numbers for mirage skills/traits for wvw, but they won't, instead they just did one lazy sledge hammer nerf to dodge and called it a day. A year later they insult mirage with a buff to staff ambush cause they suddenly want them to have a place in support for pve? we already had chrono for that so thanks for the wasted effort? At least they had the decency to restore personal shatter on chrono after a year, where the hell is that for mirage?

Edited April 30, 2021 by XenesisII.1540

[Curunen.8729]

On paper I'm partly excited to try hybrid mirage again with cele/grieving, given the celestial buff, Chaos buffs for condition damage from Illusionary Membrane and Chaotic Potency (10% from the first and assuming at least 10% from the second), nevermind the usual 150 condi damage bonus from vigour on Mirage and usual power/condi bonuses from might, and using eg toxic focusing crystals for additional transfer.

 

Looks like it might be possible to have nice juicy Mind Wracks again together with decent condi, regardless of the axe and staff power coefficient nerfs previously. And alacrity to trim the cooldowns and allow for more aggressive use of utilities etc. Will be interesting to test.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Curunen.8729

[Veprovina.4876]

I'm going to make it my mission to build a Staff mirage support for WvW zerg fights!

Let's see how this can be utilized.

[Leonidrex.5649]

4 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

The above is from the patch notes notes.

 

In what content do you see players throwing "more Chrono's at it"....Raiding?  Does Chrono actually have a place at the top of any other Meta?

 

I do not understand where ANet feels Mesmer and Chrono should fit into the different Metas.  These changes do promote moving to Mirage (which is a good thing, more diversity) but Chrono variants haven't felt overpowered when compared to other professions.  Chrono has simply felt more playable than Mirage and nerfing the dmg of Chrono promotes what?

 

 

I am interested in playing around with the builds once it is live and we can see the actual values in play.  I think there might be some good stuff happening and I do not think the dmg nerf to Chrono is that big of a deal, it is really just confusing and perhaps the other changes will bump up some of the lost DPS or Utility?

 

Quick hits: 

• I like the changes to Mantra's
• Congrats to Engineers for taking half our Quickness
• Chaos and Staff changes look like some fun

 

Here is hoping the next eSpec brings something good to the table.

 

 

 

 

they ment raids only for chrono, as its not meta for any other content.
in fact its medicore in everything else, and even borderline dog kitten.
it had the highest dps out of all classes, so it got nerfed. exept they buff mirage/rev to have EVEN MORE then chrono had...
without having to worry about fucking up complex rotation or not having slow. just by crunching numbers, chrono has 42,5k dps RN and rev will have ~45k after the patch.

[Junkpile.7439]

Doesn't affect me at all. I love how anet never change anything that i use. 😅

[Leonidrex.5649]

4 minutes ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Doesn't affect me at all. I love how anet never change anything that i use. 😅

every game I start, devs go out of their way to kitten on every character I decide to pick up.
I went through over 20 characters in league and they all got trashed to C tier lol.
kitten is on repeat here, one by one they keep removing kitten I liked from mesmer so I made ranger.
the one class they NEVER touch and suddenly nerf bonk bat is coming.
Im making a guardian, so that when it gets nerfed at least everyone else will suffer with me 😄

[Gryxis.6950]

1 hour ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

every game I start, devs go out of their way to kitten on every character I decide to pick up.
I went through over 20 characters in league and they all got trashed to C tier lol.
kitten is on repeat here, one by one they keep removing kitten I liked from mesmer so I made ranger.
the one class they NEVER touch and suddenly nerf bonk bat is coming.
Im making a guardian, so that when it gets nerfed at least everyone else will suffer with me 😄

Can you make a thief too while you're at it ?

[TheOneWhoSighs.7513]

These changes are.... strange. To say the least.
The change to chaos armor on staff is nice. The nerfs to chrono dps were pretty expected. Mantra nerf?

And then you get into the torment & retal changes. Gonna be interesting to see what comes out on the other side of this.

[Gryxis.6950]

1 hour ago, TheOneWhoSighs.7513 said:

These changes are.... strange. To say the least.
The change to chaos armor on staff is nice. The nerfs to chrono dps were pretty expected. Mantra nerf?

And then you get into the torment & retal changes. Gonna be interesting to see what comes out on the other side of this.

ur gonna full combo a scrapper as a condi mirage and tick at 500damage/s without him needing to cleanse anything

[SunTzu.4513]

5 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

they ment raids only for chrono, as its not meta for any other content.
in fact its medicore in everything else, and even borderline dog kitten.
it had the highest dps out of all classes, so it got nerfed. exept they buff mirage/rev to have EVEN MORE then chrono had...
without having to worry about fucking up complex rotation or not having slow. just by crunching numbers, chrono has 42,5k dps RN and rev will have ~45k after the patch.

That's the point i don't get. If i remember corectly raids are only be played by a little few percentage of the player base. I can't exactly remember when but even ANet stated this one time too imo. Also the skill gap between the playerbase in this game is ridiculous high. Why does it seems ANet is balancing around raidmetrics and/or Golemmetrics when this is niche content?

[Veprovina.4876]

13 minutes ago, SunTzu.4513 said:

That's the point i don't get. If i remember corectly raids are only be played by a little few percentage of the player base. I can't exactly remember when but even ANet stated this one time too imo. Also the skill gap between the playerbase in this game is ridiculous high. Why does it seems ANet is balancing around raidmetrics and/or Golemmetrics when this is niche content?

Because otherwise they'd have to admit that Mesmers are in fact NOT overpowered and would have to balance us acordingly. 😉

And since Raids use the PvE balance just like the rest of the PvE where you fight trash mobs - all those highly skilled players would make a joke out of raids even more than they already do. So Anet balances everything around Raids because "raids easy chrono OP" and all the other modes suffer because of it.

They need to make separate balancing for Raids if we're ever going to be rid of bad decisions based on the highest skill content. Separate skill effects/duration/balance for Raids, just like they have for PvP and WvW.

[TheOneWhoSighs.7513]

29 minutes ago, SunTzu.4513 said:

That's the point i don't get. If i remember corectly raids are only be played by a little few percentage of the player base. I can't exactly remember when but even ANet stated this one time too imo. Also the skill gap between the playerbase in this game is ridiculous high. Why does it seems ANet is balancing around raidmetrics and/or Golemmetrics when this is niche content?

Because it's the only content their devs actually have hard verified data on thanks to the community. And thus, is something they can much more safely approach.

Compare that to open world, fractals, spvp, wvw, etc.
These are things that they can't have as hard data on.

Especially WvW/SPvP. What do you even judge class balance on in that, when the difference between the top end of the player base and the bottom end of the player base is so huge.

Some players were able to perform on Mesmer at the highest levels when the class balance was at its worst, and there's no question they're able to perform when it's not that bad.

To pull an example from another game, Mesmer has the same balance issue that Ryze or Akali have. High skill ceiling, high rewards. Skill ceiling is pretty much determined by the number of interactions & variations you can have in a given fight. And Mesmer has a lot.

When you have characters like that, what do you balance on? The lower echelons of the game where 99.9% of the player base's experience lies. Or the upper echelon of the game where 0.1% of the player base's experience lies.

Hard to say.

All I know is if you're holding your breath for ANet to find a balance, you can stop. They didn't pull it off years ago when they had more staff, they certainly won't now.

Edited May 1, 2021 by TheOneWhoSighs.7513

[Jables.4659]

Arcane Thievery: This skill now requires a target to activate.

 

Illusionary Membrane: This trait has been reworked. While regenerating, condition damage dealt is increased, and condition damage taken is reduced by 10%.

 

Surprisingly, these are the changes that bothered me more than anything.  I like having the option of dry-firing arcane thievery for a short burst of super-speed with Master of Manipulations.  It may seem like a petty complaint, but there are moments when the time it takes to target an enemy is the difference between living and dying.  I'm sure Anets intention here was to prevent players from accidentally wasting their ability by casting it on nothing, but this change actually took away some of the skills utility. 

 

Illusionary Membrane has had good synergy with Metaphysical Rejuvenation for as long as I can remember, and I like the way it interacts with PU.  Its fairly common for players to use attacks like "Rapid Fire" that trace you through stealth.  With PU, we currently have a 60% chance of immediately gaining a boon that will nullify some of this damage.  Regeneration is often the best boon to get because it procs Illusionary Membrane and gives you protection so that tracing damage is reduced and your health is regained.  As with Arcane Thievery, its a fairly minimal complaint.  The bonus condition damage/reduced incoming condition damage is probably a worthy trade, but I'd feel better about it if it was -10% damage rather than condition damage.  

 

I also have concerns about the changes to both Torment and Retaliation/Resistance. 

 

Torment works well in spvp/wvw because of the amazing mobile/action combat system.  Unless you're playing a scourge or some such nonsense, you generally need to keep moving while fighting in order to avoid death.  This gave Torment an interesting balance where the player had to decide if standing still to take less damage per tick outweighed the risk of eating even more attacks.  Having it deal the bonus damage when the enemy is standing still feels like a very lazy way to improve the viability of certain condition classes in Raids and 100cm, despite the negative effects it will almost certainly have on those classes in pvp modes.  Hybrid and Condition Mesmer in particular will be heavily affected by this.  Since players in pvp are already encouraged to keep moving and avoid cc/immobilize, they will be able to ignore the unique mechanics of Torment.  I'll reserve total judgement until I can test it in actual combat, but my immediate assumption is that they will need to heavily increase the bonus damage taken when standing still for torment to keep its value.  The condition would essentially become a valuable means of bursting your target with immobilize and hard CC.

 

As far as the retaliation/resistance changes go, I'm worried about it because I'm having a very hard time picturing how this is going to play out.  My concern is that certain classes will become far too resistant to conditions, but I can't really judge the change until I experience it.

 

Overall, this is a very PvE oriented patch so I'm not paying it too much mind.  Still, I can't help but feel that Mesmer is once again being shafted here. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Jables.4659

[Nephalem.8921]

Power chrono needed a nerf in pve. it is just too strong currently. So strong that 7 chrono comps were optimal in most raid fights. It also has one of the strongest solo builds. Definitely the best power solo build.

The nerfs were a bit too big in my opinion. Especially timewarp will feel like a joke solo. 6sec quickness on a 120sec cd.

 

It still requires slow. that requirement should have been removed first. The chrono nerfs shouldnt affect pvp at all though. If you dont believe me on how op chrono is just look up some dungeon solos or raid records. most of the raid records are chrono stacks. Its not like open world only players will feel the 14% nerf anyways and ive never seen one even using tw or cs properly.

[madrono.9468]

12 hours ago, Senqu.8054 said:

if Mantra of pain had a 2s cd and now has a 10s cd on recharge it is more then a 50% nerf…it just got deleted 

 

THIS!

The justification given by the devs for changing the mantras is pitiful. I do not know what will happen with the firebrand but  in the case of the mesmer removing the effects at the end of the cast is a very important nerf and in an skill like the Mantra of Pain whose only advantage is that it practically had no cd the fact that go to have 10s of cd without any other change makes it completely useless.

[Stavros.8249]

I first post it at professions, but it belong here better

 

I like the mirage changes. The 3 sec alac can go to 4s in fractals with agony and chaos passive concentration, so we can go full cdps. I don't think it will compete with alacrene, cause now in fractal usually the last spot we wait for alac. The build I think will be used will be 3 clones out, no shatters and staff/staff with energy sigil. 

[Senqu.8054]

With a simple change they buffed Mesmer and in special mirage in PvE and at the same time deleted core and chrono condi from PvP. What a king move from ANet, now the PvE player base is satisfied while PvP player base is vomiting.

 

 

The split between staff CD reduction and protection nerfed also power staff mesmer it is not really a buff only for condi mirage…

[Armen.1483]

18 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Confusion is still going to be the main source of DPS for condi chrono and I don't see why you would run it over mirage unless you play StM trait for quickness.

Without confusion the current benchmark is below 16K  , which is lower than CQB or condi RR.

Yes I know, but we still need somebody to tank and support, I was thinking maybe this will at least help players no longer play the lame minstrel and diviner chronos. I mean it is more difficult to tank with revs and mirages. Golem benchmark will be a little higher though after the patch as torment will do more damage while bosses don't move, which can bring tank chrono on some power oriented raid bosses that stand still, but probably tank healers will still be the way to go. Whatever happens anyway we will still be stacking maximum dps with minimal supports and healers. In the end my PC will be happy, no more chrono stacking will lower my fps lol, and I am also tired of being "forced" to play pchrono over and over again. Now gotta force me somehting else.

[Jaykay.9641]

I mainly play PvP/WvW, so from this perspective, I'm just confused/disappointed in these changes. Some thoughts:

 

Mantras

I get the reasoning why they are doing the no cast time build up change, but overall, I think this is negative effect. Unless Mantra of Pain has like a 5 sec CD for each charge, this is probably a nerf. For PvP, the cast time was a key part of counterplay, especially for Mantra of Distraction. Now enemies won't be able to interrupt the Mesmer cast time for these Mantras and overall, dumbs down the game in the name of simplicity.

 

Staff

Nice change to Chaos Armor for consistency and lower CD. Alacrity on Staff Ambush for Mirage is so weird. This seems like they intended this to be PvE oriented but will actually be quite powerful in PvP imo; especially in WvW when one dodge isn't really that much of a problem because of food and concentration (for Vigor uptime) which can be stacked through the roof in WvW. Mirages will be spitting out Clones with Phase Retreat with Alacrity.

 

Chaos

On paper this looks OK, but if I'm reading this right, it looks like they put 2 staff talents on the same tier.

• Chaotic Dampening: This trait has been reworked and renamed Chaotic Potency.
  • Chaotic Potency: Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a staff. Recharge of staff skills is reduced.
• Chaotic Transference: This trait has been reworked. Chaos Armor grants 3 seconds of protection. Gain regeneration for 5 seconds with a 15-second cooldown when gaining protection.

Has this ever happened before? So if you go Chaos, on the major trait lines you have a choice between 2 staff talents. IMO, this is terrible design. I'm wondering if there is a typo on one of them and maybe they meant Chaotic Interruption to be changed instead. I'll miss the current Chaotic Transference has it really brought value to Rune of Undead.

 

Also, I would love if the Chaos Armor talent for protection was changed to Chaos Aura for protection. This would be so awesome. Leap and Blast finishers in Ethereal fields give Chaos Aura and this could reward good players for using them for themselves or the team at critical moments.

 

Overall, I'm disappointed in a PvP context. Hopefully they'll make some changes before launch to poor performing talents and skills/utility skills. Anyway, you'll find me rolling Celestial gear in WvW roaming now that it's broken.

 

[Curunen.8729]

38 minutes ago, Jaykay.9641 said:

Chaos

 

On paper this looks OK, but if I'm reading this right, it looks like they put 2 staff talents on the same tier.

• Chaotic Dampening: This trait has been reworked and renamed Chaotic Potency.
  • Chaotic Potency: Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a staff. Recharge of staff skills is reduced.
• Chaotic Transference: This trait has been reworked. Chaos Armor grants 3 seconds of protection. Gain regeneration for 5 seconds with a 15-second cooldown when gaining protection.

Has this ever happened before? So if you go Chaos, on the major trait lines you have a choice between 2 staff talents. IMO, this is terrible design. I'm wondering if there is a typo on one of them and maybe they meant Chaotic Interruption to be changed instead. I'll miss the current Chaotic Transference has it really brought value to Rune of Undead.

 

Also, I would love if the Chaos Armor talent for protection was changed to Chaos Aura for protection. This would be so awesome. Leap and Blast finishers in Ethereal fields give Chaos Aura and this could reward good players for using them for themselves or the team at critical moments.

 

This is a strange one, and yeah it would make sense if it was protection on all Chaos Aura instead.

 

The only thing I can think of, given also the change to Illusionary Membrane is that the access to protection is reduced aside from random procs on chaos aura - so I assume they want to force a choice between more damage and faster cooldowns, vs more defence.

 

The odd thing being that faster cooldowns on staff implies more defence anyway so it still is puzzling.

[lockhart.6048]

A strange direction of changes in my opinion...

 

Mesmer trait lines REALLY need to be fixed and repositioned. What is chaos?? Condi or Boons?? Meanwhile Dueling also focuses on Condi and Crit??  Illusions also seems to have a condi focus ??

 

Inspiration line really cannot complete with other classes support/healing lines e.g. Water/Inventions/Tactics/etc....

 

The only line that seems to be consistent is Domination, which focuses on pure power.

 

The same problem is found in Mirage and Chronomancer.

 

First Chronos were tanky boon support. Then they became damage dealers.

 

Mirages were all about being another damage spec (condi again lol...) for Mesmers and now it will be possible for them to boon support... Through alacrity which was an EXCLUSIVE chrono boon at its release. 

 

I really wish they would just make Chronos the Mesmer's more supportive E-Spec (like how Firebrands are for Guardians, Scrappers for Engis, Druids for Rangers). Then make Mirages the damage spec (DH for Guards, Holo for Engis, Soulbeasts for Rangers). That way we can have more defined trait lines and roles

 

Makes me wonder if our EoD E-Spec might actually focus on support though ...? Might be later down in the future they'll make Chronos the bruiser-tank spec like how Scrappers were meant to be

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

As others said, this is clearly a PvE-oriented update with some probably unintended consequences in competitive modes.

 

Buffing an ambush (alacrity on staff ambush) signals Mirage isn’t getting its second dodge back.

 

The improvements to Staff reinvite the safe, passive play style that led to nerfs in the first place. Meanwhile, the change to Torment makes already high-risk, moderate-reward Axe even less effective in competitive modes (though probably significantly better in a lot of PvE scenarios). Together, these changes seem to push Mirage the opposite direction of where they were trying to go with a lot of the nerfs.

 

The random QoL changes to Arcane Thievery, Sword and Scepter 2, Staff projectiles, and downstate 2 are nice, but not the game changers the profession desperately needs. Such as the standard two dodges, traitlines that aren’t a hot mess, and more than just a few viable builds across all modes.

 

Sadly, I still have no desire to use my Mes in competitive modes. 😔

Edited May 1, 2021 by Twilight Tempest.7584

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

I'll hold my judgment, but as a staff mirage I'm eager to test these changes.

[Quadox.7834]

6 hours ago, Jaykay.9641 said:

I mainly play PvP/WvW, so from this perspective, I'm just confused/disappointed in these changes. Some thoughts:

 

Mantras

I get the reasoning why they are doing the no cast time build up change, but overall, I think this is negative effect. Unless Mantra of Pain has like a 5 sec CD for each charge, this is probably a nerf. For PvP, the cast time was a key part of counterplay, especially for Mantra of Distraction. Now enemies won't be able to interrupt the Mesmer cast time for these Mantras and overall, dumbs down the game in the name of simplicity.

 

Staff

Nice change to Chaos Armor for consistency and lower CD. Alacrity on Staff Ambush for Mirage is so weird. This seems like they intended this to be PvE oriented but will actually be quite powerful in PvP imo; especially in WvW when one dodge isn't really that much of a problem because of food and concentration (for Vigor uptime) which can be stacked through the roof in WvW. Mirages will be spitting out Clones with Phase Retreat with Alacrity.

 

Chaos

On paper this looks OK, but if I'm reading this right, it looks like they put 2 staff talents on the same tier.

• Chaotic Dampening: This trait has been reworked and renamed Chaotic Potency.
  • Chaotic Potency: Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a staff. Recharge of staff skills is reduced.
• Chaotic Transference: This trait has been reworked. Chaos Armor grants 3 seconds of protection. Gain regeneration for 5 seconds with a 15-second cooldown when gaining protection.

Has this ever happened before? So if you go Chaos, on the major trait lines you have a choice between 2 staff talents. IMO, this is terrible design. I'm wondering if there is a typo on one of them and maybe they meant Chaotic Interruption to be changed instead. I'll miss the current Chaotic Transference has it really brought value to Rune of Undead.

 

Also, I would love if the Chaos Armor talent for protection was changed to Chaos Aura for protection. This would be so awesome. Leap and Blast finishers in Ethereal fields give Chaos Aura and this could reward good players for using them for themselves or the team at critical moments.

 

Overall, I'm disappointed in a PvP context. Hopefully they'll make some changes before launch to poor performing talents and skills/utility skills. Anyway, you'll find me rolling Celestial gear in WvW roaming now that it's broken.

 

 

6 hours ago, Curunen.8729 said:

This is a strange one, and yeah it would make sense if it was protection on all Chaos Aura instead.

 

The only thing I can think of, given also the change to Illusionary Membrane is that the access to protection is reduced aside from random procs on chaos aura - so I assume they want to force a choice between more damage and faster cooldowns, vs more defence.

 

The odd thing being that faster cooldowns on staff implies more defence anyway so it still is puzzling.

It will be protection on Chaos Aura (not just staff 4).