Staff Mirage still needs a nerfby a significant amount, Dueling Illusions Axe/Torch+Pistol Mirage is supposed to be the dps class right but there's no way it can compete.

[Stavros.8249]

Staff mirage is the best. Easy build for a casual like me who do t4 fractal, after work. 

[Loradona.9146]

Quickness FB is doing good damage also easy to play. Soooooo should we nerf that tho? /s

Edited June 1, 2021 by Loradona.9146

[Daniel Handler.4816]

11 minutes ago, Stavros.8249 said:

Staff mirage is the best. Easy build for a casual like me who do t4 fractal, after work. 

They should probably split damage between raids and fractals.

 

@mordefelix.5826 Like I understand your complaint about staff. But it seems limited to a few bosses in raid content, while you are asking for a sweeping change that would affect all of PvE

Edited June 1, 2021 by Daniel Handler.4816

[lockhart.6048]

well another problem to take into account is that no diviner's equivalent exists for condition damage. I would be fine with reducing alac uptime if a stat combo such as Condi/Expertise/Concentration exists. Heck, even Condi/Precision/Concentration or Condi/Power/Concentration would work too.

[Sobx.1758]

45 minutes ago, Loradona.9146 said:

Quickness FB is doing good damage also easy to play. Soooooo should we nerf that tho? /s

Yes, it probably should be, not sure why you've included the "/s"? If a build has high dps capabilities while providing group-wide support at the same time, especially in an easy ""rotation"" then it sure is a reason to look into it and limit parts of the build to, at the very least, force people to build for dps OR support while giving up more of the secondary attribute they're not building for.

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Loradona.9146 said:

Quickness FB is doing good damage also easy to play. Soooooo should we nerf that tho? /s

Yes.
Mantra of solace is overdue to be nerfed in cooldown ; in competitive modes it still has a 199 base heal so it's also broken there (not in a  good way). Even Teapot said so. With its existence it makes wielding a shield or mace and "Retreat" semi-pointless. Right now CFB is a 40K class while providing support that doesn't require wasting utility slots.

----

1 hour ago, lockhart.6048 said:

well another problem to take into account is that no diviner's equivalent exists for condition damage. I would be fine with reducing alac uptime if a stat combo such as Condi/Expertise/Concentration exists. Heck, even Condi/Precision/Concentration or Condi/Power/Concentration would work too.

Meaningless if the DPS is high enough to stack them with 0% Boon duration. Condi RR also is 0% Boon duration if you run 2.
----

As for the topic, the best way to nerf it (Staff on mirage) while keeping its efficacy in general PVE (including fractals) is probably slashing the confusion output further or relocating most of it to phantasmal warlock because confusion is pretty terrible against trash mobs. Confusion was correctly identified by Arenanet as the true issue already. Even the bleeding could probably be taken away or reduced , but that isn't a high priority.

In the golem log , torment makes up 50% but in the log posted in original post here it is only 20% because confusion is doing so much damage. If all the confusion duration is cut in half or more it would still do reasonable DPS across the board (28K + 20ish confusion benchmark instead of 40+ confusion). I'll have to test this further in its current form with some variations (i.e. not using Infinite Horizon which has been called for nerfs due to PVP) and also with minimal skill usage.

Some ideas:
* Reduce or remove all confusion applied from the ambush that comes from clones when traited with Infinite Horizon , put confusion on phantasmal warlock to make it active gameplay. This also helps core/chrono which can't make use of staff ambush. Shifting the damage to be mainly from the mesmer itself also helps with clones bugging out.
* Halve all confusion duration that comes from staff skills. It would still be pretty strong in TL (i.e. in the log posted in first post it is 20K DPS from confusion alone so halving it would remove ~10K DPS and drop it to ~22K total personal DPS) and SH (it would reduce it by ~14K which would still be strong at around 37K but not as ridiculous).

Some other public logs to look at, some are not self-stat so confusion reporting is not really correct sometimes:

• Twin Largos (fast attack rate , self reported 28K) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210524-214253_twinlargos_kill
• Sabetha (slow attack rate ... note this is not self-reported and by CnD) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210526-203259_sab_kill
• Matthias (slow attack rate, still top DPS despite not self-reported) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210524-205322_matt_kill
• Xera (slow attack rate, self reported, still top DPS by a bit even with the phasing) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210525-002614_xera_kill
• Cairn (fast attack rate, top DPS by a large margin) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210524-234125_cairn_kill
• Mursaat Overseer CM (negligible attack rate, still decent DPS despite not self-reported) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210526-200931_mo_kill
• Samarog (slow attack rate with phasing, still out DPS alac when self-reported) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210527-223128_sam_kill
• Dhuum (very slow attack rate, still outDPS scourges when not self-reported) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210525-201103_dhuum_kill
• Sabir (medium attack rate with "phasing" , self-reported) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210524-212352_sabir_kill
• Qadim (medium attack rate , Self reported , ahead of holo and 3 deadeyes) https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20210524-213301_prlqadim_kill

Edited June 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Jijimuge.4675]

I also wonder about the wisdom of putting the alacrity and might on staff ambush.

 

That restricts it to mirage only, but also makes the amount of alacrity one can apply highly dependent on endurance recovery (e.g. food, sigil of energy, vigor etc.).

 

The risk is that, if they balance the alacrity so it can be put out 100% (say) by someone in full diviner's at base endurance regen, then the requirement for concentration could potentially be mostly bypassed by eating the right food and perhaps using a sigil of energy - this doesn't seem like prudent design IMO.  The way they've done it will make it very hard to balance going forward.

 

I think a better idea might have been to put alacrity onto chaos storm - that would be fairly easy situation to balance as needed in the future, as the only things which would affect the recharge of chaos storm would be alacrity and the trait "chaotic potency" from chaos.

 

Anet seem to be concerned about the power of chronos, but if a chrono were using staff (with the above changes in place) to focus more on alacrity, then their dps would be quite low as they wouldn't have the additional dps of the mirage staff ambush.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Jijimuge.4675
added some spaces between paras and corrected some typos

[mordefelix.5826]

7 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

@AshkyLicious.4729, @Veprovina.4876, @Ardenwolfe.8590 I have a weird feeling you guys are extremely biased here. The question is: do you really not understand what's wrong with this build or are you just pretending for the sake of still having something op that you can play?

Also interesting how -apparently- in your world the only 2 things in existance regarding the pve builds are either absolutely broken or useless with nothing inbetween, so if someone wants the broken stuff toned down, you'll claim that "the ungrateful community wants to kill mesmer". 🙄

PREACH. 

Edited June 1, 2021 by mordefelix.5826

[Zraurum.8493]

The staff already has almost negative effectiveness in pvp and wvw, and it is again suggested to be nerfed. To beat a doll under a fullbuff is one thing, but in pvp and in real conditions it is completely different. Plus it is necessary, on the contrary, to apat the staff, add burning, or for example, make 3 skill to attack with burning - since at the moment the third skill of the staff is trash, even to beat a doll with it is pointless and yes return the second dodge!
UPD
In my opinion, the staff does not need to be nerfed, but on the contrary it is necessary to improve it like the mirage class itself. By the way, it is also necessary to return 3 jaunt to wvw.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Zraurum.8493

[Yoci.2481]

I think the argument is in part between people who play mainly raids on one side and people who play mainly PvP/WvW on the other side. I can understand the different perspectives to a degree.

 

If you are a raid player then the last 4 years or so have been pretty nice for Mesmer. Of course there was some back and forth, but especially Chronomancer and sometimes Mirage always had their place and were doing well. Chronomancer in particular was best in slot in many cases, with top dps. And now Mirage does both a ton of dps and perma alacrity support. So the raid player sips their tea calmly, looks at the current Mirage numbers and  thinks "yeah, this needs a few adjustments." And it's so obvious, why would anyone disagree?

 

If you are a PvP/WvW player on the other hand you may have a different opinion. You have experienced pain. The past (almost) 3 years you have been gutted. Stripped naked, skinned and your flesh carved away by Arenanet. Slowly and methodically. Almost every single ability that you used in your builds has been nerfed. Weapon skills, utility skills, traits, whenever something worked --not overpowered, just worked-- it got destroyed. Now there have been builds that were op. Namely the original Condi-Mirage. But instead of addressing the problems specific to that Arenanet nerfed everything else. Core builds, Chrono builds, Power-Mirage builds. Meanwhile Condi-Mirage remained relatively strong. And often nerfs from PvE got carried over into PvP/WvW. Things got nerfed because they were good against one specific mob in one specific raid wing. And now, after 3 years of pain and struggle, Mesmer has one build that is almost kind of semi-op (can still be beat by Thief, Revenant and Guardian). And people get a tiny little bit defensive.

[Obtena.7952]

8 hours ago, Zraurum.8493 said:

The staff already has almost negative effectiveness in pvp and wvw, and it is again suggested to be nerfed. To beat a doll under a fullbuff is one thing, but in pvp and in real conditions it is completely different. Plus it is necessary, on the contrary, to apat the staff, add burning, or for example, make 3 skill to attack with burning - since at the moment the third skill of the staff is trash, even to beat a doll with it is pointless and yes return the second dodge!
UPD
In my opinion, the staff does not need to be nerfed, but on the contrary it is necessary to improve it like the mirage class itself. By the way, it is also necessary to return 3 jaunt to wvw.

That MIGHT be a problem if staff was the only weapon Mirage had access to in PvP and WvW. If staff isn't good, just don't use it. 

[HappyHubris.1096]

I'm just vexed that the faceroll spec is beating Axe/Torch while providing buffs.  I want to try out fractal condi but refuse to staff it, as I'll fall asleep.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

41 minutes ago, HappyHubris.1096 said:

I'm just vexed that the faceroll spec is beating Axe/Torch while providing buffs.  I want to try out fractal condi but refuse to staff it, as I'll fall asleep.

At last, someone admitted the real reason for this back-and-forth nonsense. In other words, “I’m mad the update weakened the way I play. I hate it. Staff isn't a challenge and boring to me. You need to be nerfed. And I’ll disguise my case as balance.”

 

And the kicker part? This discussion becomes moot when the expansion comes out. The newest elite specialization will make the current ones near-obsolete. Guaranteed, they’ll be OP out the gate.

 

And then we’ll be arguing that, instead.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Ardenwolfe.8590

[dandamanno.4136]

2 hours ago, Ardenwolfe.8590 said:

At last, someone admitted the real reason for this back-and-forth nonsense. In other words, “I’m mad the update weakened the way I play. I hate it. Staff isn't a challenge and boring to me. You need to be nerfed. And I’ll disguise my case as balance.”

 

And the kicker part? This discussion becomes moot when the expansion comes out. The newest elite specialization will make the current ones near-obsolete. Guaranteed, they’ll be OP out the gate.

 

And then we’ll be arguing that, instead.

I'm pretty sure several people in this thread have explicitly stated that staff needs to be nerfed because it offers too much (best buffing, best damage, best defense) for doing too little (essentially double barring staff and using little else but ambush) while also being versatile allowing for range if needed. 

 

At least that's what I read?

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Yes, under the guise of balance. Not as honest as, "This faceroll spec is beating mine and gives buffs! And I refuse to use staff. Nerf it."

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Ardenwolfe.8590 said:

At last, someone admitted the real reason for this back-and-forth nonsense. In other words, “I’m mad the update weakened the way I play. I hate it. Staff isn't a challenge and boring to me. You need to be nerfed. And I’ll disguise my case as balance.”

 

And the kicker part? This discussion becomes moot when the expansion comes out. The newest elite specialization will make the current ones near-obsolete. Guaranteed, they’ll be OP out the gate.

 

And then we’ll be arguing that, instead.

No, that's not THE reason for this back and forth nonsense. Guarenteed that NOTHING makes a two button I WIN monkey spec obsolete. 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

5 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No, that's not THE reason for this back and forth nonsense. Guarenteed that NOTHING makes a two button I WIN monkey spec obsolete. 

Then let us table this until that newest elite spec comes out. If Mirage Staff outperforms it, I'll be the first to say so. We can return to this topic at that time, and we'll see.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Ardenwolfe.8590

[mordefelix.5826]

On 6/1/2021 at 12:22 PM, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

They should probably split damage between raids and fractals.

 

@mordefelix.5826 Like I understand your complaint about staff. But it seems limited to a few bosses in raid content, while you are asking for a sweeping change that would affect all of PvE

Ok I see why you think this way. But like this is not a sweeping change that would affect all of PvE. Far from it. What would happen if it actually got nerfed? Would all PvE content become mysteriously harder than it already is? The issues I have with this statement about this sweeping change is that I don't see how in the world its existence would really change the landscape of PvE. GW2 has always been a a game where it caters to casual players which means pretty afk content, what other PvE content is going to be made harder with the introduction of a broken class being nerfed to a reasonable boon/dps class? It's not like Staff Mirage NOT existing before meant that content was at all difficult. All other PvE content can essentially get by with pressing 1 and a zerg of people. I don't really understand what you mean by this. Its introduction has just further trivialized already existing incredibly easy content, we never relied on it in the first place and were getting by pressing 1. Also to include in this mention this doesn't just do well in a "few bosses" in raid content. Matthias, Soulless Horror, Cairn, Dhuum, Largos, QtP, Sabir. That's already 7/19 bosses in raids where it does exceptionally well dangerously close to near half of the very limited amount of raid content we have. Then we include bosses where it STILL does decent damage in like Gorseval, Sabetha, hell even MO, Slothasor, Xera. Soooo.... yeah I would genuinely like some elaboration on your part what this means.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by mordefelix.5826

[Puck.3697]

On 6/1/2021 at 5:22 PM, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

 

@mordefelix.5826 Like I understand your complaint about staff. But it seems limited to a few bosses in raid content, while you are asking for a sweeping change that would affect all of PvE

 

apart from it isnt a Select few.. Staff mirage is doing Super damage v all raids lol. Condi as a whole is.

[HappyHubris.1096]

13 hours ago, Ardenwolfe.8590 said:

Yes, under the guise of balance. Not as honest as, "This faceroll spec is beating mine and gives buffs! And I refuse to use staff. Nerf it."

That is balance.

(Damage + Buffs) being better at damage than just (Damage) is bad balance. This is obvious.

Damage + Buffs + Faceroll being better at damage than just Damage is worse balance.

[Obtena.7952]

10 hours ago, Ardenwolfe.8590 said:

Then let us table this until that newest elite spec comes out. If Mirage Staff outperforms it, I'll be the first to say so. We can return to this topic at that time, and we'll see.

Except a new elite spec doesn't change what I'm saying. If the new spec outperforms Mirage Staff, then we will have TWO instances of braindead, I WIN builds that need to be fixed. 

[Daniel Handler.4816]

8 hours ago, mordefelix.5826 said:

Ok I see why you think this way. But like this is not a sweeping change that would affect all of PvE. Far from it. What would happen if it actually got nerfed? Would all PvE content become mysteriously harder than it already is? The issues I have with this statement about this sweeping change is that I don't see how in the world its existence would really change the landscape of PvE. GW2 has always been a a game where it caters to casual players which means pretty afk content, what other PvE content is going to be made harder with the introduction of a broken class being nerfed to a reasonable boon/dps class? It's not like Staff Mirage NOT existing before meant that content was at all difficult. All other PvE content can essentially get by with pressing 1 and a zerg of people. I don't really understand what you mean by this. Its introduction has just further trivialized already existing incredibly easy content, we never relied on it in the first place and were getting by pressing 1. Also to include in this mention this doesn't just do well in a "few bosses" in raid content. Matthias, Soulless Horror, Cairn, Dhuum, Largos, QtP, Sabir. That's already 7/19 bosses in raids where it does exceptionally well dangerously close to near half of the very limited amount of raid content we have. Then we include bosses where it STILL does decent damage in like Gorseval, Sabetha, hell even MO, Slothasor, Xera. Soooo.... yeah I would genuinely like some elaboration on your part what this means.

 

You are thinking of open world PvE. Not fractals where we compete with alacrigade and hfb/quickbrand. Chrono is basically unusable in CMs following PvE changes that targeted raids. 

[Forum Moderator.6104]

Hello @all

 

Please refrain from belittling or insulting other users on this forum. Remain civil and post appropriately. Any further unnecessarily antagonistic posts will leave me to locking this server. Thanks.

 

-Leto

[mordefelix.5826]

1 hour ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

You are thinking of open world PvE. Not fractals where we compete with alacrigade and hfb/quickbrand. Chrono is basically unusable in CMs following PvE changes that targeted raids. 

Ok wait Chrono is perfectly usable in CMs at a casual clear/pug level you’re just not gonna do nearly as well as others classes, and as broken as chrono was even before its nerf to 38k-39k on bench its not like it was used in fractals as a meta build either due to its high ramp up. It was never like the “go to” in fractals in the first place regardless of alac mirage. I’m still a bit confused at the point you’re making here. Could you elaborate what you mean by chrono being unusable and how that makes it a sweeping change? Alac mirage would still do just fine with nerfs compared to condi rr ren, I daresay it still outperforms condi rr ren if done correctly by a wide margin on 100 cm. Additionally, chrono definitely does just fine in 99 and 98. In 100 power chrono was never used and axe mirage was the only useful class there and condi chrono works just fine on 100. Also could you elaborate on your point before that its only good on a few bosses in raids?

Edited June 3, 2021 by mordefelix.5826

[hmmz.4186]

what I don't understand is if mirage is supposed to be so good why no sites like discretize feature it?