Amethyst Lure.5624

Hesitant to add my thought on this but the mount engage interaction with Invoke Torment is probably clouding some of Condi rev discussions as well, and might be harmful for the specialization if it's not taken note of. If you haven't looked closer at it, it's kinda nutty, and with the Warclaw around now etc.

It's quite likely that this also comes with a rebalancing in WvW or pvp in mind as well. No doubt they attempt to go for better design (and sounds it) but perhaps they find the situation with power rev a bit problematic there.

anyway, I am quite surprised this comes before a Renegade look. Which lends to the above a bit.

No, I like the thief aspects far more than the assassin ones. Too many games thief = assassin, and i do not play it there, as i enjoy the trickery but not the narrow backstab focus you often see. This is one of the takes where it's more trickery than usual, but still a lot of assassin; I still enjoy the mix and it's one of my favourite GW2 classes.

In fact, I feel like many mmos really neglect the trickery niche and I often have trouble selecting a class for it. :)

I actually really like it, but it's obvious when you use it that you work 3x as hard as you would on a power hammer (or most other ranged weps) for damage. If that's cool with you, i think it works fine for open world, as a swap in or just when you feel like sitting in it.

I'm fine with Taimi, now that she's being used a bit less as a pure plot crutch and we learn more of her character. For me it's more alarming how little Kas and Jory there is, for a goodly while overall. I know not all love them, but I always liked what A-net has done with them, even if they fared worse in writing of late through that lack of presence. I get that some hate relationship stuff but for me that is just part of a storyline as much as any other interaction, if handled well.

I have to say though, I really love Braham right now. Finally we norn players get a character that starts to feel like one, after Eir.

2nd run and stuck. :/ Mt. Maelstrom, Snowden drift chests bugged.

I love this thread! This is my favourite thing to do in the game as well, albeit more modestly.

I've got one thought point that may have been raised, and I might have missed it, but how useful are mirage mirrors really for champion+ fights? It's mostly when I look at False Oasis vs Mirror that I wonder, since they do have some perks that is easy to not even take in, such as the weakness CC bar, extra ambush during staff and such. Is it just too little compared to the reflect to consider at all?

I like playing both, but I play Herald a little more.

Also, I must agree with the shortbow. It's kind of beyond me why it has so low utility on it, if it's also not very high damage. Feels like it loses a bit in both fields.

My problem is not just that it looks awkward, but that the AA chain makes no sense in terms of a fighting flow. It would be a really weird fight where you'd use those moves in a row. You don't really see that on the other swords.

Infinitely more fun, reminds me of why I fell in love with this class in the first place and I moved back to main it. It's not that I enjoy swapping mains or so, that made me alt it, but rather I absolutely abhor passive gameplay. I don't mean to say that playing Chrono in HoT and such was passive (it required and still does require a lot of interaction), but the DPS side - such as it was - was just really poorly designed. In general, gameplay that was not producing quickness and alacrity was stale to me and there were very limited choice with builds.

I want to add also that I do not raid, I used to in other games but I just grew tired of the formula that is raid encounters, raid size impact on encounters, and have a bit less time. For the content I do, this change had absolutely no drawbacks to me, and it's a joy to experiment with the class again. So my Yes vote is with that in mind.

Definitely noticing this same thing including the CPU spike. It's a bit concerning :/

I agree with you 100%. When i read the mesmer patch this time, I was so happy with absolutely 99% of what I read. Except that for some reason, confusion was being reverted to its low-performance state of the past instead of having split values through a % modifier depending on game modes. It really just baffled me so much.

It's sad though, is there really a big issue with design to have the condition split in game modes, if you make it standardized? I don't see how that would be any harder to balance around, and i was never ever confused ( :P ) about how this ability works, not when it was like this originally or when it had more damage over time. The values don't matter; all you need to know is it deals damage over time, but deals more if enemy uses abilities. I don't think that perception changes if you go with an easy, standardized modifier for the pve over time damage.

I heavily disagree that the phantasm change reduced builds or variety. To me, phantasm idling gameplay was not a choice, it was a lack of active gameplay - this is my view, mind. You are basically punished for even thinking about using your utility skills with that gameplay. Now you can instead build your phantasm use in a few ways, and you can freely use your tools that make you a phantasm mesmer, not a phantasm spawner only.

I'm very happy with the direction they're taking and i think it's fine if you agree or disagree with that, just consider what phantasm mesmer was before. When a playstyle is actively harmed by you using most other class abilities, something with the design is just not right. It's fine to have a more passive playstyle if there is design around it, so let's say instead of pressing a lot of buttons your choices matter more. But that just wasn't the reality.

This change is probably the only one i have anything against this patch. I think if enemies regularly used abilities it would be fine, but it's highly uneven whether they do.

The new staff makes me so happy. Like, seriously. I enjoy it so much running around in open world now.

In open world, I personally play viper Mirage with Axe/Torch + Staff. I use sigils of Energy and for fun I have a set with runes of the Adventurer, both for survival and because of the ambush trait which goes very well with mitigating going into staff, as I tend to mostly do that for evasion refresh. It's actually hilarious how much evasion I can put up, and the staff has its obvious survival perks. It's simply the most fun I have had in this game since I fell in love with mesmer on day one of playing. And, this is of course strictly open world, which is the game mode I enjoy the most because I get to be the most creative with my class, even in group content in it to an extent.

So, the caveats for my style is... not a raid build but personal, while still trying to make the best of those choices. :)

I really like duelling/chaos/mirage, but domination in place of chaos is also cool. Speaking as viper-style stat modifier that is, if power I'd go domination for sure - GS is actualy really good in it as bart said. If you funnel enemies towards you the tri-beam just melts stuff, and you mop up with the shatter.

I run around with axe/torch and sword on offhand for the rare block or while waiting for torch CD and to proc swap, slot chaos storm on heals/fall damage to blast with Jaunt and leap in, as well as sigils of energy and deceptive evasion (if i am not killing a world boss and feeling ambitious, then superiority complex). I run infinite horizon for ambushes and the extra axe, and shatter gives me boons like vigor for even more uptime of it. But that's just my condi style, so with power I wouldn't use axe.

I think generally Fresh air isn't quite as strong with sword since there's so many good buttons to press outside air. However, I can't really substantiate that, more a feeling and observation. I do like bolt over it, or lightning rod if playing around solo.

I really liked this patch for Rev. However, if I may be so bold, I think they should consider having charged mists be a baseline functionality, or a minor trait for Invocation. I realize that makes that playstyle assumed, but I think it's quite healthy for Rev gameplay in general and it's hard to look to the others after trying it.

I'm so happy for the stance buffs. They were already pretty good (Well... most) with leader of the pack before, even if they had a bad reputation. Bear stance is great anytime there's pulsing condi fields and the like, since it pulses them right off alongside, and just in general so I tend to use that over healing spring, but I guess that's also smaller scale thinking. I've been playing this kind of build for non-raid group things and I quite enjoy it.

I was going to mention the ventari Renegade but I see Carighan did already. :) Imo, that is the most unique new thing that Renegade can offer; Herald is good in itself but Kalla is better than Glint is as a legend to channel, accompanying Ventari. Now you can actually swap without sacrificing (nearly) all group healing for 10 sec. You do lose some boons but you can trait to get many back, such as protection, and in general you provide a lot of stuff with Kalla.

Meanwhile, power Herald is still quite fun and provides that general slew of boons all over the groups, so I don't think Rev is hurting as such, however I completely agree that it's a strange hodgepodge of designs in places.

So yes, I think there's fun to be had, but it is a bit more niche or per game mode for sure. I'm anxious to see what they are changing with the classes.

I think, if they don't want to redesign staff completely, they should make the Auto have some kind of extra-special projectile interaction, or maybe its own "magic projectile" that had some unique effects. Standalone, it's just so bland and frankly, bad. But given how accessible fields are for Necro, and how underused projectile combo can be, I think it would be a cool theme.

I play this style in open world, almost exactly the same traits. It is mesmer to me, it's so fun.

Really enjoy it for a change of pace in open world. If you want to play a playstyle where knowing where enemies are, using the right tools at the right time, it's really enjoyable. DD can be really fun too but really all you do is bounce around, which again is fun to me as well but the fact I have more options now is awesome. :)