ZDragon.3046

Not at all but i think scrapper in general has struggled to be given a place or identity... maybe not even that its identity is just over shadowed by other professions with too much power. Scrapper should be a tank right but people bring chrono tanks etc.... so whats the point of brining a scrapper when you can just bring a chrono.... or something....

Engi has always been a odd balls profession to start with in my opinion so im not quite sure what scrapper was really suppose to do for it. With holo its clear cut dps with scrapper it seems they want it to be a kiter/tank but its just over shadowed by too many options. Renegade, Chrono, Warrior possibly,

IF anet really culled boons around the board and handed out a few to each profession that they were good at producing and sharing and didnt allow everyone to have everything or one class to give everything or nearly everything professions like scrapper would have a better place and identity in the game.

I dont think the trade offs of taking it make much difference here. You are looking at the picture from the wrong perspective.

> @"Tayga.3192" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > Mirage Advance ????

> > > Nice joke lol

> > I dont understand how this is a joke its an option probably not the best option over say "blink" but it is an option.

> That's why I said "Only used skills". Mirage Advance and Mirage Ambush are very bad skills that doesn't worth taking.

>

> > I think anet called out mirage instead of just saying "mesmer" is because

> > 1 Its the most played mesmer e spec in spvp at the moment

> Because Chrono has been killed and core isn't really worth it. Though I play core sometimes.

>

Killed.. you mean balanced... like i just finished telling some one else. People act very shocked when mesmer gets proper balancing "for the current time what ever that maybe" it usually happens 2 or 3 balance patches after every other profession gets a hard balance they didnt like.

The patch that forced many trade offs on preffsions that didnt currently have them on their elite specs. was what 1 or 2 balance patches ago.... during that time elite specs like druid, daredevil, etc got trade offs forced onto them because they did not have them.

As usual Mesmer slipped through this patch completely untouched. Chrono nor Mirage saw a change that acted as forcing a trade off onto them for taking their elite specs.

Now chrono gets a trade off forced onto it later on down the line after every other profession has already pushed their pain of forced trade offs under the rug and you want to say its "killed" no... its balanced just like everyone else. It just feels more personal because it happened later on a patch where no one else got the same treatement at the same time. Because they got it in a previous patch.

> > 2 the trade offs for taking it are not very intense for whats gained in the process.

> I don't mind damage nerfs to mirage, but they need to revert unnecessary nerfs like portal nerf.

Thats not the trade offs im talking about right now the trade off mirage takes for applying the espec or what some people want to call a trade off is that "You dont roll when you dodge" But ideally the mesmer keeps all of its other of its base functions optionally they still keep the same same shatters, still keeps distortion, gains quite a bit of condi offensive pressure and powerful new tools like jaunt, the power to dodge while channeling skills or while under hard cc, etc etc.

Ideally the only loss is that you dont roll when you dodge which while there is a skill curve to handling that in itself im not quite sure if its officially enough to be warranted as a trade off for the gain benefits.

Ideally mirage keeps everything core mesmer has but gets better offensive pressure and sustain there is no "loss" mechanically

>

> > 3 they have the condi damage pressure, sustain, and ontop of IC was even bonus lockdown pressure.

> I wouldn't mind buffing player damage and nerfing clone damage. Of course competing grandmasters in mirage line should be fixed too. That way IH won't be a must have.

To be frank mirage damage is already quite high. As some one else says it just tends to be inconsistent and IC was a way of forcing that consistently on people but then again what other class has consistent damage. No persons damage is promised to be consistent when you are fighting another player who has options to defend themselves. You cant read minds in real life so you cant be promised consistent damage no matter what you play. When there is a way to force that damage to be consistent in a manner that it removes targets ability to react or potentially defend or even move for that matter its a problem.

>

> > As many people have said shouldn't be surprised if in 3 months or so mirage gets a rework like chrono did that forces a trade off and along with that will come reworks or tweaks to IC and afew other traits in the core mesmers kit.

> If tradeoff means killing, I would just stop playing.

To be frank if thats how you think about it then you should just stop playing because your mindset is the idea that things should not be fair

Your idea is that you shouldn't get the same treatment and getting it means the profession is killed.

Do you think daredevil asked for a shorter unblockable steal not at all.

What about Durids asking for reduced pet stats... not at all....

Reaper wanted more damage but they certainly didnt want more life force drain

To be frank the changes chrono got are no different from what anyone else got over time chrono was just one of the last to get it so it feels more personal and unfair. Because the changes other professions got are now forgotten to you.

Now if you like the changes or not thats totally fair for you to have your personal opinon on clearly you didnt like what happened but i mean most people who play other professions didnt like the changes forced on them either. Trust me Mesmers are not alone on this, you guys are just late to the party.

> @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> > > A full rework on a trait is hardly the solution, as the trait is just another byproduct of the Clone design being broken. The reason CI ends up good is because it allows Mesmer to line up everything and then the damage sources become consistent. Once consistent damage is seen, it will definitely be viewed as too strong, that is the inherent problem with the profession though. Mesmer is not consistent because half the time Shatters will never reach the enemy or will be performed with less than the maximum number of clones.

> > >

> >

> > You make a good point here actually this i can admit is a good way of wording things.

> >

> > > Fully rework the source of the profession’s problem first, then adjust the numbers and traits; doing any of these before changing that is just going to be nerfing a symptom of the real problem. Clones should be viewed as a resource, not sources of deception or vessels to carry damage to the enemy. For more information on tackling the main issue, read basically any of my previous posts where much detail has gone into a number of ways to resolve the issue and maintain some semblance of the same visual design with slightly different coded effects. Due to the design of elites being built on Core design, some amount of recoding to some traits would be necessary. Resolution to the problems of the profession as a whole would be resolved and balance could be maintained as future changes would no longer be adjusting symptoms of an inherent broken design.

> >

> > The deception part does add a bit of sustainability to the mesmer though even more so in a fight that involves multiple foes. That said i think they are counted as both right now. A resource and a source of deception / damage carriers.

> >

> > >

> > > Another point worth noting, the majority may indeed feel CI is an actual problem, but the devs should know from their history that the majority of the player base is often wrong on what the actual problem is. The frustration from the Mesmer community is that we know this is not the issue, we even state what it is often, consistency and reliability. Remove the deficiencies by resolving the core issue first, then adjust the over performing traits and skills.

> >

> > This part i still dont agree with. CI is a problem (with the immobilize attached to it) Even under the idea that mesmer was not based on AI clones and phantoms to deal some of its damage the idea of locking down many other professions via stuns and immobilize at the same time is not healthy. Mesmer at any given time has multiple sources to proc this trait too so while it may not be the main issue as you see it. It is technically still a issue of being too oppressive. As I said reapers chill got the same treatment back when it first released. Players were either forced into taking extra clear specifically for chill or ideally locked down to easily by hearty chill durations. The majority of players did not like this... even though it was just as you say a core issue. As core necromancer is well we dont need to go there you know the state its in. and as you point out the elites are built on top. Yet chill application and duration was still nerfed in several ways regardless without a rework to the core profession.

> >

> > While what you say is likely a possibility that core mesmer is in need of a rework many other professions see the same kind of deal and have been waiting longer / just as long as mesmer. Mesmer has seen 2 reworks now in the past year or two and this issue with CI mirage as they called it out will likely lead to a 3rd.

> >

> > As for what you say about the devs listening to the player base..... when???

> > ITs rare they do listen to the player base so this is kind of out of the ordinary for them.

> >

> > >

> > > In short, CI makes the usually inconsistent Shatters and Clones a lot more consistent by applying an Immobilize to allow everything to be lined up, showing us how strong Mesmer could be if we were not reliant on a resource that could be destroyed and damage that can simply be outrun or disrupted on route to it’s target.

> >

> > What you say is not wrong but the way it goes about doing it is very oppressive to many other professions and play styles. Its not very healthy regardless of how mesmer is reworked something like this cant stay this powerful. It should have never been this way to start with really. It slipped through as other meta options were rolled for a while. Just like scepter 3 hitting hard as a truck for as long as it did before its nerf that should have never stayed that way for that long for the example.

> >

> > Before anet start doing core reworks they should probably at least make the game a bit more fair for everyone rather than leaving things in a unhealthy state till they can get around to solving the underlying issue.

> >

> > This would be my guess as to what they could be going for. As some people have stated its likely that mirage is gonna get the chrono treatment its going to gain some kind of loss or trade off for taking the elite spec like almost all the other professions have now. Mirage and chrono slipped by without these things for a very long time so of course people wont like things being taken away from them because they dont see others losing them at the same time. Fact is Mesmer is just late to the party for the goals anet is forcing on everyone.

> >

>

> A temporary fix will not resolve the issue, only lead to something else taking it’s place. I have already found a few things that have been working out so far, steps to improve the reliability of the skills by usage of other parts of the profession. A number of players are probably onto the same ideas as myself, and will result in the changes made being useless against those new builds. Thus a temporary fix will not actually resolve anything, and the issues of the core will remain, as something else will low or no counterplay takes it’s place. Thus player complaints will remain, and the true source of the issue will remain, and Mesmer builds will still have no counterplay because if -insert wrong reason here-; it will be the same cycle all over again.

Well keep in mind a core rework on the level you are speaking off can take months of planing and then time to actually build it out, test it, and then it has to go through a whole approval process ideally its alot of work for a single profession. Even more so now that alot of people who built the core foundation mechanics of the core professions are not at the company. Messing around inside that core profession mechanics of any profession is the hardest part of making new elite specs or changing things about them in general.

So while i agree a perma fix is better than a temporary one some times its better to roll out the temporary fix until a time when a perma fix can be looked into. Mesmer will not be the only profession to get this treatment either. Other professions have had bandaid fixes that are still holding and waiting for a perma fix thats probably never going to come. Scourge was told that it would gain more support for the constant nerf cuts to its damage to make it be more of a support as it was suppose to be "This never happened"

>

> A good suggestion I have seen for CI was to give it a bolt line shot effect with a fast but not too fast travel time, avoidable by strafing with good situational awareness, harder to avoid at closer range. Such a change requires no other traits or skills being tinkered with, as it is a function of player positional skills and timing. In my opinion, hard crowd control (ones that keep a player from performing actions like movement or actual skills) should always be ones that can be avoided by simply moving out of the way.

I dont know how i feel about this statement because to be honest it kind of dodges around the bush. For example turning IC into a bolt that flys out hit the person which would immobilize them.. ok... but then you say skills that stop a person from doing actions or using skill should always be ones that can be avoided by simply moving out of the way. Then i have to look at something like MoD Power lock and thats practically impossible to simply "move out of the way" but does exactly what you said. It stops a person from performing skills.

I mean honestly ive fought some mirages still using MoD without IC and if they cc you properly they can still get killer condi burst pretty quick in just a few mistakes. In truth IC is not needed period. IC is just extra on top as you said that makes it more consistent if a person cant use skills and cant move of course its consistent they are a free target and there for it applies an extra layer of pressure on top of everything else. Its not something thats handled well by many professions along side the condition pressure. I honestly think it just should not immobilize to start off thats probably one of the best changes that can be made to it without totally doing a full rework.

>

> If they would tackle the source of the problem, then constant cry for Mesmer nerfs would also go away and they could then focus on core reworks for other professions.

You need to also consider something else here

If they actually culled mesmer properly when they cull the other professions back people wouldnt be crying for mesmer nerfs.

Mesmer skips quite a few balance patches where a lot of things are toned down, mesmer will often remain untouched.

For example IC should have gotten changed in this previous balance patch.

It literally was an way issue before the balance patch not after it. Lets not pretend like people just all of a sudden came and started having an uproar about it. I think people were 100% expecting it to get nerfed and when it didn't that caused the uproar to really initiate. Just as mantra sage firebrand IC combos got ignored. So of course people continued to play it because its super dominating and it works very well against the majority of builds on other professions with like 2 maybe 3 exceptions. Everything else can be considered free or at a considerable disadvantage.

Mesmer gets away with skipping true balance and then when it actually gets toned down 2 or 3 balance patches later after other professions already got toned down people want to act surprised and shocked like **"People just bad! People cry too much!!, Your class didnt get nerfed!"** The reality is yes other people professions got nerfed it just happened 2 or 3 balance patches ago while mesmer just slid on through the cracks.

> @"Tayga.3192" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > Blink?????

> > Jaunt?

> I agree, good mobility.

>

> > Axe 3 (Axes of Symmetry)?

> Bugged skill. Axe is sadly inferior to scepter after nerfs.

Understandable that this one might not be the most reliable ill give you that point

>

> > Sword ambush (Mirage Thrust)?

> > Sword skill 3 (swap)?

> Sword has been nerfed to death. Also, since when power mirage is considered good?

might not be meta but ive seen it and still you cant deny that the option is there.

>

> > Mirage Advance ????

> Nice joke lol

I dont understand how this is a joke its an option probably not the best option over say "blink" but it is an option.

>

> > Compared to alot of professions you certainly have good handful of options.

> Reminder that mirages can't use dodges to gap close as reliably as other classes.

Most classes dont use dodges to gap close in the first place, Maybe warrior..... the others not so much they have skills for that. Using a dodge to gap close is almost the worst way to waste a dodge, Unless you are a class like thief or warrior that can gain endurance back quickly its not a thing. so i dont think this is a valid argument to say as other class like every class does this because its most certainly not the case. Note when i say dodge im talking about the base dodge not skills that happen to be evades that can be manipulated to gap close ie withdraw, reposting shadows etc.

>

> Let's only compare used skills. I won't count condi mesmer since it's ranged.

> Warrior: Better (perma move speed as the cherry on the top)

Perma move speed is not a true valid argument imo multiple professions can have this and you would have to list it against all of them equally not to mention every other profession also has to deal with it, some of which you have already pointed out have worse mobility than the mesmer, how ever warrior does have al ot of weapon gap closers as expected they should. Their ranged attacks and effectiveness are very lacking across any build.

> Guardian: Worse

Guarian is worse but they have a few blinks, exceptional damage, but can be very squishy, They also have blocks and other boons to help them sustain ideally guardian outside of firebrand is probably the most balanced profession imo

> Revenant: Better

Shiro has one of the best gap closers i however it does require a target which limits it a bit.

> Ranger: Equalish, a bit better since owl exists

Ranger I would say is better when it comes to gap closing they also have good ranged pressure for when they cant gap close.

> Thief: Obviously way better

Yeah. But this is expected.

> Engineer: Holo is ranged and better in holo mode. Scrapper has only one gap closer

You only point out in holo mode here much like reaper you have to kite it or challenge it with a plan not mindlessly it can be done though. IF i can kite it with necro you can kite it with mesmer for sure.

> Elementalist: Can be a bit sticky but worse

Depends here my knowlage of ele is pretty limited and the most common kind of ele is weaver passive aoe burn. That set up does limit them in mobility a good bit so i would say its probably a bit worse.

> Necro: Worse.

Without a doubt

>

> Only 3 out of 8 is worse than mirage. Lol.

Mirage still has plenty of options for sure. If mirage has gap closers or not is not the biggest factor.

I think anet called out mirage instead of just saying "mesmer" is because

1 Its the most played mesmer e spec in spvp at the moment

2 the trade offs for taking it are not very intense for whats gained in the process.

3 they have the condi damage pressure, sustain, and ontop of IC was even bonus lockdown pressure.

As many people have said shouldn't be surprised if in 3 months or so mirage gets a rework like chrono did that forces a trade off and along with that will come reworks or tweaks to IC and afew other traits in the core mesmers kit.

> @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> A full rework on a trait is hardly the solution, as the trait is just another byproduct of the Clone design being broken. The reason CI ends up good is because it allows Mesmer to line up everything and then the damage sources become consistent. Once consistent damage is seen, it will definitely be viewed as too strong, that is the inherent problem with the profession though. Mesmer is not consistent because half the time Shatters will never reach the enemy or will be performed with less than the maximum number of clones.

>

You make a good point here actually this i can admit is a good way of wording things.

> Fully rework the source of the profession’s problem first, then adjust the numbers and traits; doing any of these before changing that is just going to be nerfing a symptom of the real problem. Clones should be viewed as a resource, not sources of deception or vessels to carry damage to the enemy. For more information on tackling the main issue, read basically any of my previous posts where much detail has gone into a number of ways to resolve the issue and maintain some semblance of the same visual design with slightly different coded effects. Due to the design of elites being built on Core design, some amount of recoding to some traits would be necessary. Resolution to the problems of the profession as a whole would be resolved and balance could be maintained as future changes would no longer be adjusting symptoms of an inherent broken design.

The deception part does add a bit of sustainability to the mesmer though even more so in a fight that involves multiple foes. That said i think they are counted as both right now. A resource and a source of deception / damage carriers.

>

> Another point worth noting, the majority may indeed feel CI is an actual problem, but the devs should know from their history that the majority of the player base is often wrong on what the actual problem is. The frustration from the Mesmer community is that we know this is not the issue, we even state what it is often, consistency and reliability. Remove the deficiencies by resolving the core issue first, then adjust the over performing traits and skills.

This part i still dont agree with. CI is a problem (with the immobilize attached to it) Even under the idea that mesmer was not based on AI clones and phantoms to deal some of its damage the idea of locking down many other professions via stuns and immobilize at the same time is not healthy. Mesmer at any given time has multiple sources to proc this trait too so while it may not be the main issue as you see it. It is technically still a issue of being too oppressive. As I said reapers chill got the same treatment back when it first released. Players were either forced into taking extra clear specifically for chill or ideally locked down to easily by hearty chill durations. The majority of players did not like this... even though it was just as you say a core issue. As core necromancer is well we dont need to go there you know the state its in. and as you point out the elites are built on top. Yet chill application and duration was still nerfed in several ways regardless without a rework to the core profession.

While what you say is likely a possibility that core mesmer is in need of a rework many other professions see the same kind of deal and have been waiting longer / just as long as mesmer. Mesmer has seen 2 reworks now in the past year or two and this issue with CI mirage as they called it out will likely lead to a 3rd.

As for what you say about the devs listening to the player base..... when???

ITs rare they do listen to the player base so this is kind of out of the ordinary for them.

>

> In short, CI makes the usually inconsistent Shatters and Clones a lot more consistent by applying an Immobilize to allow everything to be lined up, showing us how strong Mesmer could be if we were not reliant on a resource that could be destroyed and damage that can simply be outrun or disrupted on route to it’s target.

What you say is not wrong but the way it goes about doing it is very oppressive to many other professions and play styles. Its not very healthy regardless of how mesmer is reworked something like this cant stay this powerful. It should have never been this way to start with really. It slipped through as other meta options were rolled for a while. Just like scepter 3 hitting hard as a truck for as long as it did before its nerf that should have never stayed that way for that long for the example.

Before anet start doing core reworks they should probably at least make the game a bit more fair for everyone rather than leaving things in a unhealthy state till they can get around to solving the underlying issue.

This would be my guess as to what they could be going for. As some people have stated its likely that mirage is gonna get the chrono treatment its going to gain some kind of loss or trade off for taking the elite spec like almost all the other professions have now. Mirage and chrono slipped by without these things for a very long time so of course people wont like things being taken away from them because they dont see others losing them at the same time. Fact is Mesmer is just late to the party for the goals anet is forcing on everyone.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Lincolnbeard.1735" said:

> > > We can dodge instant skills but you can't dodge 1 to 3 sec skills.

> > does a single dodge provide 3 seconds of i frames? No... but you know what does the f4 shatter.

> > > Plasma was buffed 3 times before getting 2 boons nerfed.

> > The point is is that it was previously nerfed and cant you just remove the boons like you do on other classes.

> > > Wish I had a 2nd health bar, wish I could deal 15k with one skill, wish I could use dodge to create and close gaps, and so on and so on.

> > You got me the health bar, 15k... hah Scepter 3 before it was nerf you had a skill that could do 15k in one shot on a condi weapon no less, ummm im pretty sure mesmer has some of the best tools for gap closing actually, should we continue

> > > And lastly as a necro you have some ways to get condis back to mirage, and mirage has awful condi cleanse.

> > That is true i wont dienie that how ever its hard to do that while you are stunned in place and cannot turn to face the mirage to use some of those skills. You could point out plauge signet but then the issue of that is that mirage's have this habit of sporadically entering iframes, so while a necro is being loaded up with conditions, dazed, immoblized, they must also look for the real mirage in the event that mirage breaks target, find it, select it, then watch to make sure that mirage is not in iframe then attempt to use a skill which must be instant instant cast (plauge signet is the only active skill you can use to fling condis back while stunned.) so yeah its doable but more challenging than you might think.

> >

>

> plasma is a godmode against cmesmer, even if you somehow manage to remove it, there is another one followed by daggerstorm followed by another steal into 2 more plasmas.

I dont agree here sorry you get 1 of every boon for a few seconds. Thats not that big of a deal to be honest.

Every class has to deal with dagger storm thats not relevant to your argument because its something every profession that fights a thief has to deal with so dont bring that into this.

The topic you lead up to was plasma... i shared my thoughts on plasma so you added dagger storm... no... you dont get to do that we were talking about the plasma..

>

> im pretty sure mesmer has some of the best tools for gap closing actually, should we continue <--- ?????? can you list them for me ?

Blink?????

Juant?

Sword skill 3 (swap)?

Axe 3 (Axes of Symmetry)?

Sword ambush (Mirage Thrust)?

Mirage Advance ????

all of these skills that blink you to a person or can be used to do so??? No Good gap closers at all????

Compared to alot of professions you certainly have good handful of options.

You aint no thief but i mean come on now.... lets be real ;)

>

> i have no issue using arcane thevery against other mesmers, it has 1/4s casttime, so you should have even less isues using plague signet.

If i was invulnerable and could not be dazed for 4s or could doge damage while immobilized and or stunned im sure i wouldn't have a problem doing that either ;)

You sould try using skills that throw back conditions with a different class to get a better understanding for everyone who does not mainly play mesmer.

regardless of where you keep trying to go with this the majority of the community has deemed CI mirage or CI mesmers in general 100% unfun to fight against because no one likes being locked down for 10 seconds straight. The tools to counter this strat are not reliable in other words in most cases if you escape you are immidately locked down again. Simply put it's obnoxious!

you dont balance for the top minority and you dont balance for the new minority you balance for the genera average majority if the majority sees it as a problem then its a problem.

Your frustration is how i felt when anet made chill and cripple no longer effect movement skills and when reapers chill durations got nerfed to the floor. Its done and over with once its done its done.

Be thankful you are getting another mesmer rework again. this will be like the 3rd one in 2 years or something. Some classes have not seen a full rework to some of their traits yet and are still waiting in line.

> @"yusayu.3629" said:

> > @"BadMed.3846" said:

> > > @"yusayu.3629" said:

> > > Again, people cry about Mesmer because they don't know how to play and ANet listens to them.

> > >

> > > If people don't know how to use stability, reflects and condicleanse, ANet shouldn't cater to those people.

> >

> > Again mesmers use a pointless argument to defend broken mechanics. It can't really end here. CI is just the start. We're waiting on Mantras change next. Mirage is far from fixed. It is utterly broken still.

>

> Yeah, I can understand how Mirage is very annoying if you're mediocre or at most slightly above average in PvP. Like, I seriously understand that concern.

>

> But PvP shouldn't be balanced for people who don't know that Stability prevents the Mirage from getting a CI proc and who can't dodge Arcane Thievery.

We have already cover this. Mesmer has plentiful options to rip that away and multiple sources on any given build to proc CI to be frank the easiest way to balance CI remove the immobilize period.. the rest is fine. If you want to be this critical about it while you say pvp shouldn't be balanced around the average majority it also certainly shouldn't be balanced around the top elite either. Thats how you get people to stop playing pvp.

Lets just stop pretending like anet has never culled something that was too strong before it just happens to be mesmers turn for something else that slipped through the cracks.

If all your success depended on CI procs then you certainly are not any better than the average player who fails to dodge Arcane thievery.

> @"Lincolnbeard.1735" said:

> We can dodge instant skills but you can't dodge 1 to 3 sec skills.

does a single dodge provide 3 seconds of i frames? No... but you know what does the f4 shatter.

> Plasma was buffed 3 times before getting 2 boons nerfed.

The point is is that it was previously nerfed and cant you just remove the boons like you do on other classes.

> Wish I had a 2nd health bar, wish I could deal 15k with one skill, wish I could use dodge to create and close gaps, and so on and so on.

You got me the health bar, 15k... hah Scepter 3 before it was nerf you had a skill that could do 15k in one shot on a condi weapon no less, ummm im pretty sure mesmer has some of the best tools for gap closing actually, should we continue

> And lastly as a necro you have some ways to get condis back to mirage, and mirage has awful condi cleanse.

That is true i wont dienie that how ever its hard to do that while you are stunned in place and cannot turn to face the mirage to use some of those skills. You could point out plauge signet but then the issue of that is that mirage's have this habit of sporadically entering iframes, so while a necro is being loaded up with conditions, dazed, immoblized, they must also look for the real mirage in the event that mirage breaks target, find it, select it, then watch to make sure that mirage is not in iframe then attempt to use a skill which must be instant instant cast (plauge signet is the only active skill you can use to fling condis back while stunned.) so yeah its doable but more challenging than you might think.

> @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> >

> > In fact its much easier to dodge MoD then it is to dodge the steal

This is untrue for a few reasons. You can consider it easier to dodge power lock because in some builds people dont use power lock until they choose to combine it with another skill. People dont anticipate the power lock they anticipate the skill thats being combined with it. (one of the most obvious ones being mirror blade for example.)

>

> Are you _seriously_ arguing that an instant cast skill (steal) is harder to dodge than another instant cast skill (power lock)???

Bingo

this is what im thinking exactly how ever the difference is that when a thief hits you with steal you dont instantly become immobilized.

Another difference is that if you manage to dodge a steal the thief loses alot of benefit and on a lot of builds its a 1 time thing before going on a lengthy cooldown provided

Futher more the main topic is the extra pressure that CI provides not particularly power lock. The closest thing you can compare here on thief that provides a similar function is **impacting disruption** which saw several nerfs and cannot critically hit. It was for the lack of better words toned down to a proper level and it still frustrates people if a thief abuses it in 2019.

Most thieves dont keep several sources of stun / daze in their kits most of them have steal itself and thats about it.

Vs a mesmer for example will have torch 5, focus 4, pistol 5, Power lock, f3 shatter, chaos storm (thought a bit unreliable) several sources to proc CI. Now while they wont have all of these i would say at least 2-3 of them regardless of what they prefer is a given. vs a single steal.. this is not really comparable imo.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > > @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> > > > > > @"Vincenzo.3145" said:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > "I don't wanna play smart and learn the game. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh" kitten mate. Don't play PvP then.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > /wiki conditions

> > > > > >

> > > > > > /wiki resistance

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot.

> > > > >

> > > > > "Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything."

> > > > >

> > > > > Stability gets ripped by [Arcane Thievery](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Thievery) or [sigil of Annulment](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Annulment_(PvP)) on weapon swap. These two abilities can be used every 20 and 18 seconds respectively, much lower than the cooldowns for most stability/resistance skills. In other words, every time you pop stab/resistance, the mesmer can strip it.

> > > > >

> > > > > - If you're fighting a smart enemy, they will wait to use their stunbreaks/stab/resistance for when they need to break stun/clear conditions. So, you're guaranteed at least one free cc if your timing isn't garbage. Then, after they pop their stab/resistance, you can strip it with Arcane Thievery OR Sigil of Annulment. If they happen to have a second source of stab/resistance and they use it, you can strip it again with the one you didn't use. You can activate one of them roughly every 10 seconds if you rotate them properly. Thus, completely denying your enemies' the ability to "counterplay" the damage.

> > > > > - If you're fighting a dumb enemy, they will pop their stab/resistance before they need to and you can just wait it out before loading up them up with conditions and CCs.

> > > > >

> > > > > -the sound of multiple mesmer minds being blown at the exact same time-

> > > > >

> > > > > You should also read one of my previous posts where I address all the mesmer whining about how "bad" this class is.

> > > > > https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/988654#Comment_988654

> > > > >

> > > > > "Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot."

> > > >

> > > > You also forgot about the optional boon strip on shatter and because shatters also tee hee... pretending like stability and resistance is a counter to this is silly. The only skills that counter this build are warrior stances and their "shake it off shout" and that only goes so far even so that leaves 1.5 classes that counter this play style of the possible 8. if there were realistically 3-4 classes that counter this crazyness (not counting another mesmer itself) and playstyle people wouldn't have a problem with it.

> > > > Realisticly i count 1: thief and 0.5 being warrior.

> > > >

> > > > The only way for me to even fight a CI using mesmer with a necro is to just run at or away from them and not use any skills until they use a power lock in which i know i have about 3-5 seconds to attack before its not my turn again. This can be several seconds of incoming damage i just have to eat as trying to counter attack or use skills with cast times lead to being double punished by daze and being immobilized making my super limited dodges unusable. Even if i say try to apply stability to myself which is very limited there is no guarantee that arcane thievery, annulment, or boon strip on shatter wont quickly remove it (happens more than you think) So while he tires to call out that stability and resistance are counters (of course they are mechanically speaking) they just are not reliable ones because most or alot of CI builds include tools to easily deal with them. If those defensive boons still pulsed yes they would be counters but only one class has that function now and thats warrior. Everyone else is SoL. I just glad anet is listening for a change this gives me some faith that they are willing to listen to the majority of the community and not ignore something (despite doing it for a few years) CI should have been culled back in the days of chrono if you ask me.

> > >

> > > as a necro, the game is rigged against you from the start my man. against CI its autolose almost as much as mesmer is autolose against thief.

> > > try stowing. you also asume that every mesmer lands every MoD, its unrealistic. if everyone landed everything the person with the biggest stick would always win

> >

> > Incorrect the game should never be an "Auto loose" thats where fair play and skill come in to play. However CI ontop of current meta builds for mesmer is a bit over the top. A class that plays with a lock down style preventing you from using skills or moving while having tons of i frames and has some of the highest if not the highest instant ramp on condition burst in the game.... pifft. Even without CI Mirage's condition pressure is still strong heck even yesterday i got chain cc'ed into 22 torment 27 bleed + some confusion on the side. YOU 100% DO NOT NEED a trait like CI its just doing the extra imo. People proved that yesterday time and time again. Remember its not just CI its everything else as a whole sitting along side it. Personally if the damage and condition ramp was toned way down to the ground people probably wouldnt care about CI. Imagine having very slow ramp instead of instant condition pressure that melts then the lockdown time that combos with CI provide would be fine but thats not the reality. The reality is is that a single phantom skill such as the duelest can proc 10-15 bleeds by itself.

> >

> > Moving on to the necro statement.... of course most match ups are not in its favor, however that does not mean you shouldn't feel like you dont have a chance to make a play. If i feel like I have a chance and "fail or make too many mistakes or go about something the wrong way." its whatever gg well played. The difference between having a chance to make a play and just being silenced for eternity is night and day I have to say. Even if I lose a bad match up. If i feel i had a chance to do something im ok with that. CI adds enough pressure that it kind of prevents that and not just for necros.

> >

> > Just like you shouldnt say mesmer = auto lose to thief... thats 100% not the case. Ive never seen a mesmer build instantly go down too a thief even more so if the mesmer is experienced in any shape or form they almost always have a chance to make plays and a chance to win the outcome of that matchup. Is it harder yes because thief just happens to have some good tools to counter mesmer a bit.

> >

> > If you think something is a "auto lose" right out the gate is just as bad as starting a pvp match and then sitting afk in base because you "think you cant win" because your first few skirmishes didnt go your way.

> >

> > TLDR

> > No class should just be auto lose to any other class even if the odds are against your favor. Thinking this way is not a healthy for the balance of the game. Yes not every matchup will be on equal footing that does not mean one profession will auto lose to another. If in the event any particular profession is approaching this level against any other profession it should be dealt with. Every other profession got nipped in the butt when it had something similar in their own way. CI should have been looked at long before now. Just be happy that mesmer is going to get yet again another rework because of it.

>

> the reality is that single skill like dualist needs you to stand still for 5s to eat entire channel, then not cleans it at all for another 8s to deliver 10k dmg, meanwhile you get charged by warrior, fail to dodge and lose that 10k. as for mirage vs thief, you have no chance at all. you dont instantly die but you are preety much a corpse that is still twitching.

what??? Dualist's channel is not that long lol. Even so its reward its heavily rewarded for landing it. You most certainly dont need a person to be standing still for 5 seconds to land it more like 2s at best which magic bullet alone can accomplish provided said target is not quick on the break stun or cannot break stun. Now if we were talking about core necro i cant think of a single skill that will load a person up with 10-15 bleeds in the time that duelist does it. A profession with very limited mobility, no hard defenses, very slow casting skills and slow ramp time for condition damage.... Yes you need something to keep your foe still for 5 seconds so you can not get ran over and actually have time to apply your damage to a target (but necro's dont even have this)

Even if we look back to when reaper first came out and its chill was rather hearty (back when it could actually keep people slowed down) people saw it as too oppressive for not being able to move and recover their skills due to the -66% move and skill recharge. Are you aware that it was nerfed so hard that a reapers chill is almost non existent in 2019 unless you invest runes and traits into it. A scourge's cripple is more effective at holding a player down more than a reapers chill the base durations are just that short.

Ideally any class that has had something too oppressive got it fixed and mesmer just got overlooked patch after patch to be frank. So while it might seem "normal" to have this kind of power its really not a healthy thing in general.

Yes a warrior can rush and slap you for 10k how ever this skill in itself is a double edged sword as a warrior cannot dodge once the skill is started and has to cancel it via weapon swap. Further more a max ranged rush is damage you see coming and there is no reason really why you cant dodge it. IF the warrior had a instant immoblize they could use during the Rush skill preventing you from being able to move then the comparison here would be the same but once again... thats not the case. Your comparison here is inaccurate to the reason why CI in general is up for discussion. You are talking about dodging a skill that does hard damage with an obvious tell vs a proc trait like CI with something that can virtually have no tell, For example (power lock) / Focus pull (no tell when the pull is about to go off) and be activated/proc'ed mid way through skills that have cast times.

As for mirage vs thief it must be painful to have 1 class that legitimately counters instead of having the average 3 or more so like every other profession. Like honestly i don't understand you reasoning here.

>

> most dmg from cmirage comes froms staff ambush ( 1s channel, long travel time, can be sidestepped )

I dont even feel like this is correct (in a sense) i feel like most of the damage comes from scepter block into a shatter or staff autos which is winds of chaos (hard tracking projectile that can bounce like crazy from clone to target. Now immobilize that target make it so they cant move while the projectiles are free to bounce back and forth between clone and that target between the burst of staff ambush.

Most people will dodge a staff ambush if possible so while its a big damage dealer i dont think its a skill that just lands for free. How ever its much easier to get 5 torment from hitting a sudden block on scepter or getting immobilized into a full phantasmal duelist unload.

> duelist ( channel into channel )

This is standard for every mesmer phantom why would you only point this out about the duelist this is a part of how mesmer is atm im not sure this is a valid argument... you technically dont even need to be looking/facing at your target when you use the skill either (how ever the only gripe is that a target is required) which is true for all phantom skills really.

> staff 3 ( depends on rng crits channel and blees )

rng crits on bleeds this is not a valid argument as it is standard for every condi build that has a bleed on crit trait this happens to be across multiple professions.

Lets not forget mesmer is one of the biggest offenders of a profession that has a generous number of instant cast abilities that can be stacked on top of abilities with cast / channel time. Shatters, Mantras + IC, Jaunt etc. Wile some other professions are also capable of this not many of them have as big of an impact when they do it i would say the two that come close are guardian and thief with things like steal, judges intervention etc.

> all of those are slow skills, easy to dodge and counter, without CI there is only pistol 5 to make them stick, so right now to land any of them you have to spam this kitten so kitten much that enemies run out of defensive options, and thats why when I fight warrior, its a 60s war of attrition where in any moment he can just decide to walk away, i cant stop him at all from leaving.

No slow channeled ability is easy to dodge unless is super fast which is why anet speeds alot of them up so that they can be dodged in a single dodge rather than 2 dodges. (see rev sword when it first came out).

Pistol 5 works just fine for a good chunk of professions its just that now without the current CI you dont get double rewarded and the foe does not get double punished. You need to deal with enemy defenses just like every other profession deals with them. Even so you still have plenty of stun options and insane condition pressure and great defensive tools at your disposal to use to kite out enemy defenses. Literally if you played well with CI you should be able to play just as fine without CI ive already ran into plenty of mirages still using Power lock without CI and their condition pressure is still insane and they can still easily still lock you down and kill you for making mistakes. Its just slightly more fair now sense you can still move and dodge during a daze.

>

> as for unwinnable 1v1s, developers gave thief plasma, they didn't take it away, so they WANT thief to autowin 1v1 with cmirage, thats it.

**Cough**

- You can dodge the steal to prevent them from getting plasma.

- Plasma has been nerfed thanks to abusive boon beast

- You have plenty of evades to evade a steal.

- You have boon strip options available.

As a necro player how do you think i feel when a thief steals fear from me and applies stronger and longer lasting fears than what I have in my base kit.... i get hit with steal then i know at some point a fear is going to come. Or you try and dodge the steal preventing them from getting the benefit all together.

Lastly there is one more thing i want to say that i think is the most unfair thing ive seen in this game.

I wish i could dodge while under CC effects like stun, fear, immobilize, knock down, like Mirage can.

Least you still have that.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> > > > @"Vincenzo.3145" said:

> > > >

> > > > "I don't wanna play smart and learn the game. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh" kitten mate. Don't play PvP then.

> > > >

> > > > /wiki conditions

> > > >

> > > > /wiki resistance

> > > >

> > > > Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything.

> > > >

> > > > Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot.

> > >

> > > "Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything."

> > >

> > > Stability gets ripped by [Arcane Thievery](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Thievery) or [sigil of Annulment](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Annulment_(PvP)) on weapon swap. These two abilities can be used every 20 and 18 seconds respectively, much lower than the cooldowns for most stability/resistance skills. In other words, every time you pop stab/resistance, the mesmer can strip it.

> > >

> > > - If you're fighting a smart enemy, they will wait to use their stunbreaks/stab/resistance for when they need to break stun/clear conditions. So, you're guaranteed at least one free cc if your timing isn't garbage. Then, after they pop their stab/resistance, you can strip it with Arcane Thievery OR Sigil of Annulment. If they happen to have a second source of stab/resistance and they use it, you can strip it again with the one you didn't use. You can activate one of them roughly every 10 seconds if you rotate them properly. Thus, completely denying your enemies' the ability to "counterplay" the damage.

> > > - If you're fighting a dumb enemy, they will pop their stab/resistance before they need to and you can just wait it out before loading up them up with conditions and CCs.

> > >

> > > -the sound of multiple mesmer minds being blown at the exact same time-

> > >

> > > You should also read one of my previous posts where I address all the mesmer whining about how "bad" this class is.

> > > https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/988654#Comment_988654

> > >

> > > "Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot."

> >

> > You also forgot about the optional boon strip on shatter and because shatters also tee hee... pretending like stability and resistance is a counter to this is silly. The only skills that counter this build are warrior stances and their "shake it off shout" and that only goes so far even so that leaves 1.5 classes that counter this play style of the possible 8. if there were realistically 3-4 classes that counter this crazyness (not counting another mesmer itself) and playstyle people wouldn't have a problem with it.

> > Realisticly i count 1: thief and 0.5 being warrior.

> >

> > The only way for me to even fight a CI using mesmer with a necro is to just run at or away from them and not use any skills until they use a power lock in which i know i have about 3-5 seconds to attack before its not my turn again. This can be several seconds of incoming damage i just have to eat as trying to counter attack or use skills with cast times lead to being double punished by daze and being immobilized making my super limited dodges unusable. Even if i say try to apply stability to myself which is very limited there is no guarantee that arcane thievery, annulment, or boon strip on shatter wont quickly remove it (happens more than you think) So while he tires to call out that stability and resistance are counters (of course they are mechanically speaking) they just are not reliable ones because most or alot of CI builds include tools to easily deal with them. If those defensive boons still pulsed yes they would be counters but only one class has that function now and thats warrior. Everyone else is SoL. I just glad anet is listening for a change this gives me some faith that they are willing to listen to the majority of the community and not ignore something (despite doing it for a few years) CI should have been culled back in the days of chrono if you ask me.

>

> as a necro, the game is rigged against you from the start my man. against CI its autolose almost as much as mesmer is autolose against thief.

> try stowing. you also asume that every mesmer lands every MoD, its unrealistic. if everyone landed everything the person with the biggest stick would always win

Incorrect the game should never be an "Auto loose" thats where fair play and skill come in to play. However CI ontop of current meta builds for mesmer is a bit over the top. A class that plays with a lock down style preventing you from using skills or moving while having tons of i frames and has some of the highest if not the highest instant ramp on condition burst in the game.... pifft. Even without CI Mirage's condition pressure is still strong heck even yesterday i got chain cc'ed into 22 torment 27 bleed + some confusion on the side. YOU 100% DO NOT NEED a trait like CI its just doing the extra imo. People proved that yesterday time and time again. Remember its not just CI its everything else as a whole sitting along side it. Personally if the damage and condition ramp was toned way down to the ground people probably wouldnt care about CI. Imagine having very slow ramp instead of instant condition pressure that melts then the lockdown time that combos with CI provide would be fine but thats not the reality. The reality is is that a single phantom skill such as the duelest can proc 10-15 bleeds by itself.

Moving on to the necro statement.... of course most match ups are not in its favor, however that does not mean you shouldn't feel like you dont have a chance to make a play. If i feel like I have a chance and "fail or make too many mistakes or go about something the wrong way." its whatever gg well played. The difference between having a chance to make a play and just being silenced for eternity is night and day I have to say. Even if I lose a bad match up. If i feel i had a chance to do something im ok with that. CI adds enough pressure that it kind of prevents that and not just for necros.

Just like you shouldnt say mesmer = auto lose to thief... thats 100% not the case. Ive never seen a mesmer build instantly go down too a thief even more so if the mesmer is experienced in any shape or form they almost always have a chance to make plays and a chance to win the outcome of that matchup. Is it harder yes because thief just happens to have some good tools to counter mesmer a bit.

If you think something is a "auto lose" right out the gate is just as bad as starting a pvp match and then sitting afk in base because you "think you cant win" because your first few skirmishes didnt go your way.

TLDR

No class should just be auto lose to any other class even if the odds are against your favor. Thinking this way is not a healthy for the balance of the game. Yes not every matchup will be on equal footing that does not mean one profession will auto lose to another. If in the event any particular profession is approaching this level against any other profession it should be dealt with. Every other profession got nipped in the butt when it had something similar in their own way. CI should have been looked at long before now. Just be happy that mesmer is going to get yet again another rework because of it.

> @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> > @"Vincenzo.3145" said:

> >

> > "I don't wanna play smart and learn the game. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh" kitten mate. Don't play PvP then.

> >

> > /wiki conditions

> >

> > /wiki resistance

> >

> > Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything.

> >

> > Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot.

>

> "Counterplay is a staple of this game. Stop using brainless tactics and treating this like it's CoD and stop talking about mechanics until you realize that you have everything you need to deal with this and that you're the problem with game balance and why Anet nerfs everything."

>

> Stability gets ripped by [Arcane Thievery](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Thievery) or [sigil of Annulment](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Annulment_(PvP)) on weapon swap. These two abilities can be used every 20 and 18 seconds respectively, much lower than the cooldowns for most stability/resistance skills. In other words, every time you pop stab/resistance, the mesmer can strip it.

>

> - If you're fighting a smart enemy, they will wait to use their stunbreaks/stab/resistance for when they need to break stun/clear conditions. So, you're guaranteed at least one free cc if your timing isn't garbage. Then, after they pop their stab/resistance, you can strip it with Arcane Thievery OR Sigil of Annulment. If they happen to have a second source of stab/resistance and they use it, you can strip it again with the one you didn't use. You can activate one of them roughly every 10 seconds if you rotate them properly. Thus, completely denying your enemies' the ability to "counterplay" the damage.

> - If you're fighting a dumb enemy, they will pop their stab/resistance before they need to and you can just wait it out before loading up them up with conditions and CCs.

>

> -the sound of multiple mesmer minds being blown at the exact same time-

>

> You should also read one of my previous posts where I address all the mesmer whining about how "bad" this class is.

> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/988654#Comment_988654

>

> "Crybabies. If anyone's causing grief, it's you lot."

You also forgot about the optional boon strip on shatter and because shatters also tee hee... pretending like stability and resistance is a counter to this is silly. The only skills that counter this build are warrior stances and their "shake it off shout" and that only goes so far even so that leaves 1.5 classes that counter this play style of the possible 8. if there were realistically 3-4 classes that counter this crazyness (not counting another mesmer itself) and playstyle people wouldn't have a problem with it.

Realisticly i count 1: thief and 0.5 being warrior.

The only way for me to even fight a CI using mesmer with a necro is to just run at or away from them and not use any skills until they use a power lock in which i know i have about 3-5 seconds to attack before its not my turn again. This can be several seconds of incoming damage i just have to eat as trying to counter attack or use skills with cast times lead to being double punished by daze and being immobilized making my super limited dodges unusable. Even if i say try to apply stability to myself which is very limited there is no guarantee that arcane thievery, annulment, or boon strip on shatter wont quickly remove it (happens more than you think) So while he tires to call out that stability and resistance are counters (of course they are mechanically speaking) they just are not reliable ones because most or alot of CI builds include tools to easily deal with them. If those defensive boons still pulsed yes they would be counters but only one class has that function now and thats warrior. Everyone else is SoL. I just glad anet is listening for a change this gives me some faith that they are willing to listen to the majority of the community and not ignore something (despite doing it for a few years) CI should have been culled back in the days of chrono if you ask me.

> @"Curunen.8729" said:

> Interestingly in the announcement he mentioned one of the reasons for not being able to get this changed until the next balance update is because it would involve changes to multiple traits.

>

> I can't work out what that could be referring to aside from CI, unless the change they have in mind also requires supplementary changes to take into account knock on effects. Can't be anything on mirage line specifically as nothing interacts with CI, it's kind of standalone in application, same as mantra.

Truth be told i think its not specifically mirage that the CI issue. The only thing mirage has that interacts with CI is the sword ambush i think mirage mostly comes into the picture with its insane condition pressure combined with the pressure CI provides on top. Overall it leads to a lot of "Not your turn yet." situations in way too many matchup. In the event it becomes the other persons turn the mesmer can choose to use a 4 second invuln, break target, blink, or stealth.... Mirage just has the most of these tools so its probably why it was called out directly. Most people dont play base mesmer in pvp and chrono is not as insane as it was with the rework. They practically lost a sustain tool if they choose to use C-Split offensively they can also no longer use it from a non combat situation like before granted their ability to one shot is still possible. Its more balanced.

Generally CI + on demand mantra stun needed to be looked into long before now. Mirage just made it more obnoxious and impossible for a lot (the majority) of builds/professions to deal with. While a few still can handle it (Thief) a lot of things cannot. realistically before the chrono rework Chronomancer held just as much pressure with CI possibly still does.

Over all the only way to deal with CI properly was to endure the CC's and not use skills. Or hope you had enough evades to cover dodging attacks until the mesmer used their cc's. Stability can certainly not be seen as a stable counter here as most builds in pvp include some way of stripping boons.. Yet the catch 22 is mesmer has optional traits that make things do more damage for not activating skills. So either you always allow the mesmer to make the first move and dont use your skills hoping to not get essentially double punished on button press command while rewarding the mesmer from up to 1200 range. ITs because mesmer has alot of traits that synergies that are considerably more potent than a good majority of other professions traits.

Anet is left with a choice to take a good long look at all these traits or just cull the one trait causing the problem which likely wont stop the problem. In a nutshell there are a lot of things that perhaps anet is finally listening about that should have been handled long ago and slipped through the cracks repeatedly.

As far as how it negatively effects pvp fighting the build for im guessing the majority of peoples is very demoralizing even more so if some "Butt" is playing it with from a god complexity perspective and ruining another persons pvp experience. Its a hard truth to face but some people are indeed toxic like that and bent on having a good time by ruining another persons experience. Having a busted build or play style that can enable such habits does not help.

To be frank.. Sage Mantra Firebrand should be on their radar too. Its not far off from the insanity that CI is in terms of "not your turn" the only way to counter a or its on trait effect mantra is to simply endure it. Provided you have the power to endure it the caster then has multiple ways to reset a fight and force you to endure it again. These play styles are not healthy.

> @"Shadowmoon.7986" said:

> Am I the only person who don't understand these threads? It like all the threads saying not to go for the skyscale because the griffin was better. I kinda sense a sour grapes issue. I think people understand legendary rune/sigils are not for everyone, but it doesn't mean you need to testify how not for you these items are.

> Minus some UI issues, because anet doesn't test anything before releasing it, they function exactly as they are meant to be. There are no drop 100g tax like legendary weapons, all the cost is dictated by players. If there was no demand for them the cost will reduce in the charms and symbols. Provisions tokens can be free if you want to wait can get 4-5 for free everyday with chak eggs, auric ingot, obi shard, reclaimed plate, and mystic forge stones.

I think you are misunderstanding the situation here its not quite the same as the skyscale situation while some parts are certainly similar there are a lot of big factors that break the two apart.

I think this case is a bit different there is a even smaller number of players who will go for the runes and sigils then there were initially for skyscale while it is the same kind of ordeal the situation is much more niche due to the requirements and so many factors.

Some factors here include

- having legendary armor vs not having it

- the gold cost per rune or sigil

- the usefulness for just swapping rune sets while the runes dont provide any visual eye candy unlike other legendary gold sinks

- alternative methods that are considerably cheaper that many players could or already have invested to (alt sets of gear and runes / big bag slot/ Extractors /Alt characters)

Ideally these things are cater (possibly unpurposly) at such a small niche of players who just will go "Why not" or "Yeah that will be nice for me because i can right away."

Skyscale was mainly an argument about the time gate form what i recall not the work required to obtain it. There was some comparison to Griff which i wont go into detail with but i mean one lets just say the biggest difference between the two mounts is one has instance use the other does not and requires you to climb first.

While Skyscale was a tedious collection most people who really wanted it powered through it even before the time gate reduction (myself included) By the first and second earliest day anyone could have had a skyscale there were plenty of them around to prove to me people were not turned off because of an idea that the griffon is better or that the work was too much. **If the skyscale** had a factor for example lets say, it cost say 2.5k gold at the end of the collection, do you think as many people would have it or have gone for it.. for the lack of the better words "Capital F No!" (excuse me) Then it would be a similar case to this situation. It would have been a main feature locked behind a insanely high price point and intense collection that made it a legendary mount that provides small key advantages over griff such as hovering and instnat use. Is that worth 2.5k gold? An argument like this would make this whole debate over legendary runes and sigils the same as the skyscale but thats not what happened so lets not say its the same because its really not.

Legendary Runes and Sigils just currently cater to such a small percentile that people are arguing that a change because the alternatives (which they may have already invested in) don't warrant the cost of the quality of life that the legendary runes and sigil can provide. Im sure anet will wait for a while before choosing to do anything though. Like they sky scale the will want to see how things adjust if people are not really going for them then im sure they will change the recipes.

Myself for example owns no legendary armor and i don't change my build very often there is no reason for me I'm too casual to bother with even the idea of being tempted to go for them. I would sooner make a 2nd set of ascended gear, carry extra runes, or use alt characters for changing builds on the fly.

While i will likely never go for these runes and sigils I do understand the argument people are making over them. They are "Nice to haves" Meaning you dont need them and everyone knows that, but the price point for the majority of even serious and hard core players is currently **"too high."** Because they know they don't need them and there is no other incentive to go for them (No eye candy) most people wont bite on the bait to get em.

I think anet wants to generally avoid getting players to play mainly "X" race because its race skills are good. Its just one of those things they probably thought that may or could cause segregation in some parts of the game. If "x" race makes "y" profession stronger over any other race using that profession/build "WHY ARE YOU A CHARR PLAYING A CONDI REAPER? GO HUMAN ITS BETTER." kinda deal

Granted while I would love to see a better use for the racial skills they would need to be tweaked in a way that made them unique to not only the character race but also the profession they picked while not being super advantageous over the standard profession utility

That said OP

You do give a good idea. Being able to use a skill or two on the mount would be kinda cool but i can see so many racial skills being hard to use properly not to mention you would just jump off the mount after you used the skill anyways im not sure it would be more worth it.

Considering most of my characters are charr I cant think of how the charr utility skills would work very well while mounting or on engage. I just really dont know how that would work or look visually.

At this point i dont think there is much they can do to racial skills that wont make once race super advantages when combined with a certain profession over the others which is why they choose to leave them as kind of pointless skills.

What they could do is give you all those skills at lvl 1 so that what you have some utility to use while leveling up custom slots and getting hero points to unlock your professions utilities. I really loath the idea of having a total empty bar of skills and utilties for the first few levels when i start a new character which leads me to just **#skipto80**, but thats about as far as i see them going with them as far as usefullness goes.

Like I tried leveling my Free to play EU account to play with some friends there and the process is just so painful even more so when you dont have a mount. Takes for ever to get to A to B "ok understandable." But having 0 utility for those first few levels is just god aweful. Why not give me those racal skills for free till I unlock the slots for my own professions skills.

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > But by comparison if you look at something like "Mystic Coins" They are much more rare as you can only get them via log in rewards once a week or so. They are used in a great deal of high end equipment such as legendaries making them a high demand item. So their price is naturally high. What do you think would happen if anet made mystic coins drop from casual mobs. The prices would drop faster than rain in a hurricane. Not because anet said "We want to change the price" But more so because the community no longer sees it as a valuable item.

>

> That is actually leaving out a bunch of other options ... especially right now where the festival daily completion gives a coin as well.

The key words you used was "A Coin" this does not decrease the its rarity by much as its a "A" coin for a few weeks over an even that happens once a year. This is still quite rare which is why i did not touch up on things like events like Festival of the 4 winds.

If it was "A coin" with no time restriction i could udnerstand what you mean but thats simply no the case here. Coin prices will still remain quite high even with the event running.

>

> An individual player can also get the equivalent of nearly twice as many coins per day(not counting the additional RNG sources) now compared to back when they were dirt cheap. Some of that is in the form of mystic clovers but that is also the biggest repeatable consumer of coins as opposed to stuff like making a mystic weapon which is a one time thing

To address this comment directly

The reason they are not dirt cheap even though you can get twice as many now possibly is because the demand increased more than the obtainability even though obtainability increased from where it was in the past. More legendaries exists now and more ways of crafting some of those legendaries exist as well. Then there is legendary armor and now runes and sigils. Anet could probably increase it to be 3x the mystic coin gain from the point in the past you are referencing and the prices would still remain high ish.

I based my comment on an example that is accurate and easy to measure. Not everyone who plays does bonus festival events for coins or RNG's for coins. But every player who plays does take their login rewards (more than likely) this includes pvp and wvw mains. What you can measure accurately is coins given out for login rewards. This remains constant and is something that every casual and serious player can obtain but is still time restricted. Simply its one of the most easiest rare items that will have a constant rarity so long as people take daily rewards regardless of how much they play the game after that.

Thats easy enough to consider more very consistent than any other form of obtaining that item in this example.

for anet to really want to dictate the price of something like a "Mystic coin" They would have to dramatically increase or decrease its obtainability or demand which is not something i think they purposely do.

Very few people have the gold to shift the market but i feel like there is a much higher chance of a single or small group players shifting the cost of an item purposely than there is of a anet purposely doing it.

The devs dont particularly dictate the price of an item. While they do hold the cards to be able to change some factors im about to list its still largely on the community (the players) to choose what an item is and is not worth.

The community of players as a whole do this based on a few things.

- How rare is the item in question

- How difficult is it to obtain

- How much demand is there for that item

- Is the item acquirement time gated in anyway (this makes it much more rare)

- Is the item used for few or singular purpose or for many different purposes.

- What is the items main purpose

- Is the items stock count holding steady, being consumed faster than its gained or gained faster than its consumed.

All of these things add to the price of an item you would buy on the TP regardless of what that item is.

Ideally in the case of a lot of items lets say "silk scraps" for example. There is always a over flooding amount of these things on the tp at any time and its rare that the demand for them rises higher than the incoming stock supply of them. They are not hard to obtain or limited in any way either. So the price for them will always remain low. Unless something sets them in high demand by changing one of the above factors.

But by comparison if you look at something like "Mystic Coins" They are much more rare as you can only get them via log in rewards once a week or so. They are used in a great deal of high end equipment such as legendaries making them a high demand item. So their price is naturally high. What do you think would happen if anet made mystic coins drop from casual mobs. The prices would drop faster than rain in a hurricane. Not because anet said "We want to change the price" But more so because the community no longer sees it as a valuable item.

Ideally the small minority of people who have the amount of gold to make shifts in the TP stocks control what the price of an item is the rest of the general population may or may not bump prices slightly up or down from there. Anet kind of just does what they are always doing which is normal for them. The only time anet does something to try and cause a price compression or inflation is when they run an event that calls for donating a certain item.

Dont count legendaries a way of trying to clean up the market. IF anet wanted to knock something off the market they would find a much more tempting way to do it than legendary runes and sigils as these only appeal to a small niche portion of people atm based on the twitter, reddit, and forums response to their release ive seen so far.

> @"Akari Storm.6809" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Akari Storm.6809" said:

> > > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > > @"Akari Storm.6809" said:

> > > > > -In addition to the stat swapping they could have added something. Anything. Example: 1 legendary rune activates a 7th bonus slot on legendary runes, an enrichment %, each additional legendary rune increases %. Don't have to make a selectable enrichment, make it all of them like an in armor hero banner that does amulet infusion type enrichments.

> > > > > -As far as sigils, could do the same thing minus having to have a set to activate, just a stand alone.

> > > > > -Legendary Armor and Items could have been that way also, but does make more sense with how runes are. example though, like aurora and vision, 6 pieces of legendary armor activate an additional box drop from mobs or give selected materiel drops like cores or lodestones or gems or something.

> > > > >

> > > > > Could have done something more with bonuses, keeping with no stat increases all while providing incentive or carrot. They aren't even doing anything with account bonuses. Account bonuses should be low hanging fruit for a horizontally progressed game.

> > > >

> > > > How to cause problems in your mmo

> > > > Lock stat upgrades behind stupidly expensive gear

> > > >

> > > > I dont think you understand how much your proposal goes against anets core vision for the game.

> > > >

> > > > Their goal was to bring people together not rip them apart.

> > > > Making an or several expensive exclusive stat increases behind items like these encourages end game segregation.

> > > >

> > > > Imagine going to raid or fractal t4 and being told no because you dont have legendary armor/ weapons / and runes....... or are missing one of the three.

> > > >

> > > > No thanks... i dont support your ideas.

> > > >

> > > >

> > > >

> > > Reading Rainbow, just take a look, it's in a book....yada yada yada. Look closer at what I said. I'm not suggesting stat increases to power/condi/vit/prec/ or anything like that. I'm suggesting increases to stuff like what enrichments do. You know, reward track increases, wvw xp increases, magic find, karma find, gold find, xp find or something new that drops a bag or materials. Do people segregate now with the way amulets work? No.

> > >

> >

> > Thats not the purpose of runes and sigils so i still dont agree. No

> > There are plenty of other sources for the things you listed that everyone can obtain in one method or another with some moderate work.

>

> Guess you don't remember magic find gear and luck sigils, sure they removed them and placed magic find mainly onto the account sans the amulet enrichment infusions.

Possibly because it was not the purpose of them? Where are you trying to go with this by pointing out that they were removed just allows me to counter argue with the exact same statement.

> The purpose of runes and sigils is anything they want them to be.

this also means they wont be anything they dont want them to be.

> It doesn't or didn't have to be anything I listed. Could have been something new. Not my job to come up with the fun stuff. They are altering classes for their new found flavor philosophy, could have delved into something fun here with runes and sigils instead of offering almost nothing really. Possibly won't even add convenience or a dent in the pockets worth losing.

The point is what ever it is regardless of what it is locking behind the requirement of legendary armor + runes and sigils is just not a good idea in general. Regardless of how much gold is required be a a little or a lot you simply dont do things like that. Legendary weapons and armor already provide unique looks and the power to stat swap at any time. While we dont need more bloat glitter added to the game via legendary runes the QoL of being able to swap runes at any time will appeal to a small niche number of people and its possibly being added now for something anet has planned in the future that will hit everyone regardless if they have legendary gear / runes or not. I cant think of any other reason why this would have been added now with such a niche minority who will actually commit to grinding out a full set.

> @"Akari Storm.6809" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Akari Storm.6809" said:

> > > -In addition to the stat swapping they could have added something. Anything. Example: 1 legendary rune activates a 7th bonus slot on legendary runes, an enrichment %, each additional legendary rune increases %. Don't have to make a selectable enrichment, make it all of them like an in armor hero banner that does amulet infusion type enrichments.

> > > -As far as sigils, could do the same thing minus having to have a set to activate, just a stand alone.

> > > -Legendary Armor and Items could have been that way also, but does make more sense with how runes are. example though, like aurora and vision, 6 pieces of legendary armor activate an additional box drop from mobs or give selected materiel drops like cores or lodestones or gems or something.

> > >

> > > Could have done something more with bonuses, keeping with no stat increases all while providing incentive or carrot. They aren't even doing anything with account bonuses. Account bonuses should be low hanging fruit for a horizontally progressed game.

> >

> > How to cause problems in your mmo

> > Lock stat upgrades behind stupidly expensive gear

> >

> > I dont think you understand how much your proposal goes against anets core vision for the game.

> >

> > Their goal was to bring people together not rip them apart.

> > Making an or several expensive exclusive stat increases behind items like these encourages end game segregation.

> >

> > Imagine going to raid or fractal t4 and being told no because you dont have legendary armor/ weapons / and runes....... or are missing one of the three.

> >

> > No thanks... i dont support your ideas.

> >

> >

> >

> Reading Rainbow, just take a look, it's in a book....yada yada yada. Look closer at what I said. I'm not suggesting stat increases to power/condi/vit/prec/ or anything like that. I'm suggesting increases to stuff like what enrichments do. You know, reward track increases, wvw xp increases, magic find, karma find, gold find, xp find or something new that drops a bag or materials. Do people segregate now with the way amulets work? No.

>

Thats not the purpose of runes and sigils so i still dont agree. No

There are plenty of other sources for the things you listed that everyone can obtain in one method or another with some moderate work.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> It is not that _blighter boon_ is bad in PvE, it's just that it doesn't fill a need. It could be needed if the reaper were to tank the encounter, however what a group ask from a GW2 tank isn't something that the core necromancer is good at providing so it's better to use a profession that fit the need.

i mean i suppose. Regardless of if its pvp or pve the healing in shroud argument is still a hot topic for necomancer Right now people even still take RO in pvp because its boost to shroud attack speed acts as a better form of a sustain via offensive pressure over BB.

So while you are some what correct from a pve only perspective from pvp my comment still stands. Even in pve people use to take BB when more sustain (in unorganized content) was required over the old RO granted alot of things have changed since then.

I'm not going to agree with the idea that core necromancer is "good" at providing a tank role despite its higher durability than reaper. Still a far cry from being competitive with the standard options for tanks atm

> @"Kuulpb.5412" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Kuulpb.5412" said:

> > > > @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > > > Next balance patch:

> > > > -no healing for necro at all, other than his healing skill and lifesteal, because necro is still too durable.

> > > > -Nerfed necro dmg by 15% because being durable and doing dmg isn't allowed

> > > > -buffed all other classes dmg by 20% because they couldn't kill the durable necro

> > >

> > > Regarding Necromancer healing, I found based on tests the Sylvari heal heals more over time than any necromancer heal, closest is well of blood but that is still 2k short, and then I did some more testing and found that Two of thieves' heals were over 7k with no healing power investment, compared to the approx. 6k from necro heal and 10k of warrior heal.

> > >

> > > From my tests I've concluded that Necromancer as it stands now has too many contradictory effects, lifesteal that requires healing power, which you can't use if you want to do damage, Conditions do not benefit soul eater at all so you can't use conditions to circumvent the power stat of lifesteal. And Death Shroud With it's, what I can only say are Inconsistent, healing mechanics, Some traits do, some traits don't as I've mentioned in the past - I don't want to repeat what I keep saying but I really feel that a full necromancer overhaul would probably be the best way to make necromancer Unique and not have any comparing, If it was so drastically different from everything, you couldn't compare as much as we can right now saying X heals more or Y is more tanky, Z does more damage.

> >

> > There is a trait for healing from conditions its called Parasitic Contagion Oh wait right this does not work in shroud either... nvm....

> > Oh but wait we have a trait that heals us in shroud... oh right its weaker than regeneration even when you crank up your healing power its still trash and you cant do damage if you use that...

> > Oh right the rest of that traitline is also broken and does not account for true defenses or the lack of them...

> > But you get tons of Might like every other class, some swiftness, and subpar protection up time.... minimal fury occasionally if you take curses... no boon sustain like firebrand or mesmer and ele either... hmmmmmmmmm

> >

> > Well kitten We got boon corruption... i guess that +1 = lack of every thing else. Because being able to corrupt boons is a big deal.. oh whats that it became a big deal because anet let boons get out of control on every other class except necromancer. The 1 tool that necro has that is special to them that no other class can use is considered to be more valuable than it really is because every other profession's boons got way out of control... oh also this tool has very minimal worth in the majority of pve even at end game level.

> >

> > ok but at least corrupting boons is super punishing though... some times.. boons applied constantly means its not easy to hit the boons you really want to hit in a critical moment to your survival in pvp or wvw. well fudge.....

> >

> > The circle of life around necro in a nutshell.

>

> Believe me, I did testing, Regeneration heals more than the might on shroud 2 blighter’s boon does, not just the death magic trait, funny how both heal in shroud traits are grandmasters.

Considering blighters boon can heal in packages its not as bad as you may get anywhere from 1 to 5+ might stacks on a given hit depending on your set up with spite/ runes/ sigils etc per auto attack even which results in a lot of hp and is good healing. The issue is that for end game pve no one is going to take blighters boon anymore. For several reasons. and not because its bad because in truth blighters boon is a solid trait its one of the few traits we have that maintains a in and out of shroud function (as more of them should)

- 1: Shroud attacks without the stable speed increase that RO provides feels clunky and super outdated.

- 2: The loss of 300 ferocity on a dps build is unacceptable.

- 3: Shroud skills getting their cds cut for completing confirmed hits on auto chains is kinda nice it helps a lot but is likely not a massive killer to loose functionally That said we don't want to loose it for nothing.

The only way people will run blighters again is if anet does 2 or possibly 3 things

- 1: Remove the quickness from RO and make the base reaper shroud attacks faster perhaps 33% faster down from the 50% that quickness gives. This removes base shrouds clunky feeling, and opens up build diversity again

- 2: Move the 300 ferocity bonus to one of the minor traits possibly even split it so that it gives 150 out of shroud and doubles to 300 in shroud. This makes it a base part of reaper opening build diversity again

- 3: Turn RO into a new trait altogether that does something else. Maybe it modifies one of the reaper shroud skills to an upgraded skill (I personally say skill 2 or 5). Mechanic wise perhaps it does something to cut a portion of the cds on other reaper shroud skills slightly making it a ok trait to have but not a trait thats 100% required making it impossible to use the other traits and be acceptably viable in the communities eyes for said dps role that reaper is now tucked into.

Yes giving reaper 150/300 feriocty baseline sounds insane but to be honest if they want reaper to do damage and have limited sustain fine then give us the damage properly. Otherwise give us the sustain properly in other core areas of necormancer that make sense. None of this stuff that scales on healing power when power builds dont take the healing power stat.

> @"Kuulpb.5412" said:

> > @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > Next balance patch:

> > -no healing for necro at all, other than his healing skill and lifesteal, because necro is still too durable.

> > -Nerfed necro dmg by 15% because being durable and doing dmg isn't allowed

> > -buffed all other classes dmg by 20% because they couldn't kill the durable necro

>

> Regarding Necromancer healing, I found based on tests the Sylvari heal heals more over time than any necromancer heal, closest is well of blood but that is still 2k short, and then I did some more testing and found that Two of thieves' heals were over 7k with no healing power investment, compared to the approx. 6k from necro heal and 10k of warrior heal.

>

> From my tests I've concluded that Necromancer as it stands now has too many contradictory effects, lifesteal that requires healing power, which you can't use if you want to do damage, Conditions do not benefit soul eater at all so you can't use conditions to circumvent the power stat of lifesteal. And Death Shroud With it's, what I can only say are Inconsistent, healing mechanics, Some traits do, some traits don't as I've mentioned in the past - I don't want to repeat what I keep saying but I really feel that a full necromancer overhaul would probably be the best way to make necromancer Unique and not have any comparing, If it was so drastically different from everything, you couldn't compare as much as we can right now saying X heals more or Y is more tanky, Z does more damage.

There is a trait for healing from conditions its called Parasitic Contagion Oh wait right this does not work in shroud either... nvm....

Oh but wait we have a trait that heals us in shroud... oh right its weaker than regeneration even when you crank up your healing power its still trash and you cant do damage if you use that...

Oh right the rest of that traitline is also broken and does not account for true defenses or the lack of them...

But you get tons of Might like every other class, some swiftness, and subpar protection up time.... minimal fury occasionally if you take curses... no boon sustain like firebrand or mesmer and ele either... hmmmmmmmmm

Well fuck We got boon corruption... i guess that +1 = lack of every thing else. Because being able to corrupt boons is a big deal.. oh whats that it became a big deal because anet let boons get out of control on every other class except necromancer. The 1 tool that necro has that is special to them that no other class can use is considered to be more valuable than it really is because every other profession's boons got way out of control... oh also this tool has very minimal worth in the majority of pve even at end game level.

ok but at least corrupting boons is super punishing though... some times.. boons applied constantly means its not easy to hit the boons you really want to hit in a critical moment to your survival in pvp or wvw. well fudge.....

The circle of life around necro in a nutshell.

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > Was Testing this yesterday for a short time for roaming:

> > https://tinyurl.com/y2tfley7

> >

> > Switched out wurm for poison cloud to counter the sheer amount of rangers I met, after one of them still oneshot me with one pewpew.

> >

> > The no healing at all is noticeable!

>

> Even if you had SE shorud heals, that ranger would have still one shotted you. There is a MASSIVE difference between sustain and tanking.

The issue with your statement here is that almost every other class has at least one tool in some cases 2 or 3 tools to prevent this kind of thing form happening via blocks, evades, or invuln.

Necro does not have that.

Necro on core and reaper has a better version of barrier. Which does not matter as you can still be one shotted through it even if you use it well in attempts to protect yourself.

Not to mention using this tactic depletes your source for most of your offensive pressure leaving you wide open.

Other professions have inulns, stealth, blocks, evades, which when used well can prevent them from being one shotted. Damage avoidance will always be better than damage soaking and reduction FACTS.

So you want a class that depends on its defense to be damage reduction via things like weakness and blind and damage soaking via things like shroud. hmmm..

Ideally what does necro have to defend against one shot builds... you have 2 dodges and a shroud bar. Depending on your foe where critical cc skills may be chained together back to back its impossible to avoid certain key skills (this is infamous with dagger spell breakers as they will often use every cc they have back to back knowing you cant doge all of them, block any of them etc.

It would be nice if anet just dropped this idea that necro cant have other things every other profession has unless they plan to really increase punishment on boon corruption and a few other things that it does specialize in which they have not done.

Getting one shotted by a boon dripping ranger might not be an issue if that ranger had to first consider "Do i want to risk having my boons insta kill me" Boon corruption is a strong unique tool to the necro but imo its not as good as it should be. Some boons should always be focused over others and the conversions should be much more punishing than they are now imo.

Because necromancers do not possesses tools out right avoid damage while also not having tools to instantly 1 shot some one as many other professions do or good combat escapes why are the special tools we have still living in 2013.

Many of us are tired of the 1 step forward 2 steps back a balance patch later.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Objectively, to be balanced a trait should either give survivability or damage. When a trait give both it's not balanced. For the trait to heal in shroud the reaper's community would have to be ready to lose the 10% increase of damage on foe in the radius. And If ANet had removed the damages people would be complaining about the damages being removed just as much as they do for this bit of sustain.

Should it really though? I think you are right in some ways here and also wrong at the same time.

From a pve perspective where no one takes sustain from the start perhaps it should not provide healing but then only a 10% damage bonus? Gonna need that 20% recharge on gs skills to return if thats the case or a bigger damage bonus while in shroud.

From a pvp perspective while the traits healing did not provide much, A class which has no real blinks, invulns, limited stab, and evades.... should a trait like this really not provide both. Because i think it should.

But from a pvp perspective, that frustration form that side comes from not having a proper defensive line to run which would grant the same thing.

Warriors have Defense for example Necromancers ideally should have Death magic but at any given time over half the traitline is not active making it far too useless to run. Even when you start to look at the traits they just dont properly do the job take Soul Comprehension and Unholy Sanctuary as two prime examples.

One is completely null the other is considerably underpowered from a numbers and mechanical standpoint.

>

> Originally, _Soul eater_ was a sustain trait with very low damage added. It's under the pressure of the community that ANet gave it damage and that the trait ended up overperforming both other traits of the same tier. So in short the trait got powercreeped and ANet choice was either to powercreep both other master trait or nerf _soul eater_. They nerfed it in the way that suit the community wishes, I really feel that all those rants about this change are hypocritical when in fact ANet just do what they have to do while trying to satisfy the wishes of their customers.

Soul eater was a sustain trait that did not work very well as a sustain trait. (had the old version worked in shroud there would have been no reason to change it) Most people realistically took it for the gs recharge reduction not for the hp restoration. Reapers damage was also far below the average for a lot of other classes at end game if you want to consider that too. People pressured for more damage because the damage was not where it should have been from the start.

I even if we assume all of what you say here is correct. Customers still have the right to argue and disagree that this was not the best way to achieve their goal. Simply reducing the effectiveness of the trait without culling half its mechanic would have been ok in most peoples eyes. Heck most people would have been ok with it healing in shroud only and not out of shroud which is ideally achieving the same result. I think its more so not that the trait was nerfed its how they went about nerffing it that that has people frustrated.

>

> Remember, customers wanted reaper to be a competitive power damage based profession when it was almost competitive as a condition damage based profession. After nerfs and buffs reapers have reached a state where it dish power damage at an almost competitive level and the condition damage build have been left in the dust. However, in the process, a trait _soul eater_ gained enough raw power to supress other traits at the same level bringing down their value.

>

I dont think thats the right way to look at it at all. Your history here is a bit incorrect from what i remember condition reaper hinged on a long string of exploits.

The idea of gw2 before PoF was that any class could do anything. Reaper was likely one of the first designed elite specs as it was one of the first to be revealed meaning its design likely still followed the core aspects of the game which is why it had both power and condition traits in its builds. People didn't want it to have both but rather anet gave it both. Teased us with the unique idea of chill doing damage and thus people flocked to the condition aspect of it. When that got "hot fixed" and the unique flavor was removed tons of people quickly fell off the condition bandwagon and took to the power side of it thought the majority stuck with the condition side.

From this point you need to understand why condition was left in the dust. Or rather why it was a failure.

From this point condition reaper was just one exploit after another, this is what kept the condition side of reaper afloat for a long span of time.

When exploits are making a class keep up with the others it means that the class is not up to par. As each one of these exploits was removed between a few other nerfs condition reaper fell back to its true self which was very lacking.

Remember when I said in another post the word "HotFix" usually implies a temporary solution. This is what happens when you don't fix that temporary solution. Bleed on chill was a quick temporary fix which needed to be exploited in itself through specific items or runes or along side something else to be competitive. It alone was never a competitive condition build and when there were no more exploits to abuse it or along side it people complained that reaper was not good enough because it truth it was not. Anet made the choice to boost the power side of reaper for increased life force cost. This was the big changed that started to flip people over from condition reaper to power reaper.

> What would you do if you intended a trait to give extra damage to a profession but in the end this trait compete with another that grant just as much damage and give survivability on top of that?

Give the base kit/skills/traits the proper damage and cooldown numbers so that the new trait could be made into a sustain/survivability only style trait.

OR

Make sure that a sustain style trait works with proper values inside the shroud mechanic and not only outside of it. This is the biggest down fall of most of the sustain based traits.

Make sure that if you are going to make a trait like this it cannot compete with a trait thats going to be required for end game dps roles on a dps spec.

I say this because blighters boon is still a good trait but it competes with The critical bonus damage and skill recharge gained from RO. You cannot run Blighters Boon be accepted for endgame dps in 2019 its just not going to happen as the dps loss is too great and there is not a way to make up for it. Anet must knows this. The community knows this. ITs why blighters boon is not used. You become unviable for taking it despite how good of a trait it still is for increased sustain and hp recovery in shroud.

Honestly anet should just allow others to heal you in shroud, even if its slightly reduce healing.... **shrug** that would flat out be the easiest solution to solve the majority of the frustration that people have over this whole freaking topic. We wouldnt need healing from traits like soul eater, parasitic contagion etc to work in shroud if that was the case.

> What would you do if you intended a trait to have a good synergy with another trait for improved survivability but in the end this trait compete with another trait that grant enough survivability to make this synergy worthless and gave damage on top of that?

Make sure that the synergy is worth taking, but you cant currently name any traits on necromancer with a good enough synergy effect to be classified as competing with the soul-eater trait an doing what it does. Not a single synergy is good enough or balanced properly enough, or fits in place at end game to be "Competitive" with it. Spite is required, Soul reaping is required, reaper is required. Even if you go condition reaper Curses is required there is no room for blood magic and the under powered death magic here for such a thing.

Let me ask you this..

Where do you plan to fit such a possible synergy in the main three lines that wont result in a considerable damage loss? Which would by the way make reaper unviable as its already riding a fine line as is. Condition atm is the preferred choice for the majority of end game content. because on most other builds it strong and ramps very fast but deals more damage than power damage over a long fight which most end game fights usually are long-ish.

Sorry for being a bit long winded here but i feel like you were leaving out quite a bit of info that should be addressed when you start digging that far into the past about why something is or should or should not be a certain way.

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Gamble.4580" said:

> > > Why do we want the healing back? It was useless in pvp and not noticed. If u want a big update we want worm instant cast or a a update the reapers elite

> >

> > The healing in pve was nice the reason its garbo in pvp is because necromancers dont run full glass and the targets you hit also dont run full glass resulting in much lower dps number meaning the healing is also greatly reduced becaue 5% of much lower damage = much lower health gain. In pve the skill was ideally perfect for increased sustain in shroud when you wanted to keep your roatation and boost back up to that 90%hp + threshhold.

> >

> > The trait only became op when in pvp you hit a cluster of mobs resulting in all that damage being converted into raw hp.

> >

> > That said they should have probably flipped it to heal in shroud only and removed the healing from the portion from when you are not in shroud. At least that way it would be been a form of boost for shroud. Which makes shroud stand out an impressive tool rather than taking from it.

> >

> > Now that some time has passed I can honestly say the healing out of shroud helps me greatly like every once in a while but not often.... i would really like to see this trait reworked now "again...." it has no flavor to it if not for the sake of "its a damage mod" i wouldn't run it. I would have gone back to DD the moment they posted the idea of the change.

>

> New idea: Instead of the healing, it now grants life stealing to attacks whilst in shroud. The crux of this being that the life steal damage is super low, but the healing is at a reasonable starting level but with low scaling. That way it can't be abused by going super tanky, but also isn't a super sustain when going full glassy.

They should have just left it as % of damage done period no changes needed

At most they could have cut the % value down to a lower number while in shroud to reduce its effects a bit while keeping the mechanic intact and flavorful to necromancer players.

life stealing if its scaling off healing power is bad design to be quite honest with you. People do not run healing power in power builds. This trait was perfect sustain for a power build.

The blood magic traits work off healing power which can be ran with condition damage and are more ideal for condition damage builds (despite then numbers still being trash) at least you can bolster them just a bit in your build. You cannot do that with a power build.