Balance Patch Coming at all during December ?

[otto.5684]

> @"incisorr.9502" said:

> hope they do something about the ridiculously high power/ferocity damage on this patch cause it's way out of hand

>

> rev/core guard/thief being the main problems with this game

>

> I hope @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" mesmer gets a buff cause currently there is a single mesmer (if i exclude myself) in the ENTIRE TOP 50 in europe. A SINGLE mesmer

>

> literally the least represented class in this current moment, there are even more elementalists in top 50 *right now* than mesmers. I'm sure by the end of the season that'll change cus mesmer isn;'t the worst class in teh game but its nowhere near the best class in the game with how the patches have evolved and you don;'t have to take my words for it, if the class was good there would be more than ((one)) person in top 50 with it

>

> there are three rangers and three engineers in top 10 alone while there's a single mesmer (other than myself) in top 50 ((FIFTY))

>

>

>

>

 

There is much to unpack here.

 

First, the top 50, 10 or 100 in any leader board is not an indication of much. To take this seriously you probably would have to consider Plat 2 and up on all servers. In addition, you have to factor AT as well. More importantly, you have to consider the re-occurrence of a specific build among the best winning class combinations.

 

Secondly, for burst power damage, your list is strange. Do Soul Beast, Holo and Reaper do not count? Also, did you include core guardian cuz it is top tier (it surely is not) or cuz it counters mirage?

 

As for Mesmer position, I do think Mesmer still has a strong presence, since it is the only class that can play a condi build, beside scourge (which is completely different play style) and offers team wide mobility. I would like to see Mesmer buffs that helps it be more capable in team fights, and more importantly, builds other than mirage become viable.

[incisorr.9502]

there's nothing to unpack here

 

i wrote facts, I don't see how AT's matter where you could make anything work cause you can support 1 person with 4 and essentially babysit a build that has a huge flaw and make it work. On top of that there aren't many mesmer in AT's either and you literally didn't list the absolutely most important factor which is player skill and a good player can make a bad class work and considering mesmer was op in the past it had a lot of players and a percentage of them are skilled (not class carried) so that skill works out for them and if they can achieve success with mesmer atm then there's nothing stopping them from achieving success with another class

 

If portal is too good then why does mesmer get nerfed and not portal? Not every mesmer runs portal, not every mesmer should run portal, there are 20 + skills you can pick from, this game isn't so much about what your class is but about what your role is. A guardian can be a ganker or a duelist or a support and that's a perfect example. The same way a mesmer can be a roamer or a duelist or a team fighter and not all of those incarnations require portal and the class shouldnt' suffer because portal can occasionally be too strong and mesmer in AT is mostly picked for portal, cus it's not the best duelist any more because of numerous nerfs that had huge impact on the class

 

-50% vigor uptime, confusion doesn't do damage to you on cleanse (it did before), less condi duration, axe cd increase, ult nerf, torch nerf, EM nerf ++ paired up with revenant buffs (rev ganks are a hard counter to mesmer), core guard buffs (hard counter to mesmer) , thief buffs (dagger storm) with boonbeast's rise (hard counter to mes cus of retal/resistance/pet)

 

things are hardly even remotely as they were before, a lot has changed but some monkeys just don't want to admit and accept it , mesmer got nerfed a ton of times while all its counters got buffed

 

as for why i listed core guard/thief/rev its because they have no line of sight tp ability which they can chain with a huge burst afterwards which is essentially uncounterable, there is no counterplay and if enemy has a player who can control the class to a bare minimum he will destroy even masters if he ganks at the right time cause the ganks with power dmg are so overtuned and so quick that you can't possibly react/outplay/do anything against them unless you see it happen and go to a no-port spot which exposes you to fire from whoever you were fighting previously so it isn't ideal + you waste time and it isn't really a counterplay, just a delay and hope your teammates make up for it but your teammates are not you and thus core guard- thief - revenant ruin the game with the no - line of sight ports - because they are unfun to play against and uncounterable

 

I'm barely even writing my opinion, most of what i wrote (the nerfs, the mesm representation at the top of the ladder) are just facts which i didn't wish for or come up out of nowhere with

[meri.9187]

If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

[incisorr.9502]

> @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

 

but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

 

i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

 

and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

[Isle of Stars.3049]

Nah, nerf Mesmer please. Remove stun break on dodge. :3

[meri.9187]

> @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

>

> but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

>

> i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

>

> and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

 

I'm on NA. Please continue to make strawman arguments. Yes let's nerf all power classes. :]

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

> >

> > but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

> >

> > i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

> >

> > and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

>

> I'm on NA. Please continue to make strawman arguments. Yes let's nerf all power classes. :]

 

We should really just nerf condition cleanses by 50%+ across the board then trim Mirage's condition spread and condense it into fewer conditions. Right now power damage is absolutely over tuned compared to condition damage.

 

Condition cleanses and conversion into boons are both extremely over tuned at this point. Most classes can quickly throw off 3-7+ conditions repeatedly over the course of a single fight, or have strong resistance uptime. Scourge and Mirage are the only condition classes capable of keeping up not because their condition damage is high (It's not. Scourge and Mirage are actually some of the lowest condition damage available) but because they have a wide range of conditions (Or in Scourge's case a wide range of conditions and boon corruption) that gives their conditions a chance to dodge condition cleanses entirely. And even then reapers have overtaken Scourges on the leaderboard and Mesmers are now the second lowest represented class outside of Ele on NA.

 

Condition damage has completely fallen behind Power Damage in the scheme of things. To put this into perspective; Condition Berserker, Condition Firebrand, Condition Weaver, and Condition Holosmith have the higher condition bursts. Far, far beyond what Condition Mirage and Scourge are capable of. But even putting aside other weaknesses in those builds, the single biggest weakness that prevents them from ever becoming meta is the fact that when every class can effortlessly throw off 5+ conditions multiple times a fight, the bulk of their damage being tied down into one or two conditions means their effective damage output is **zero**.

 

Arenanet really needs to look at both normalizing the spread of conditions, balancing all classes around 2-3 damaging conditions. And also heavily pulling back condition cleanses to compensate for it.

[coro.3176]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > > If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

> > >

> > > but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

> > >

> > > i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

> > >

> > > and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

> >

> > I'm on NA. Please continue to make strawman arguments. Yes let's nerf all power classes. :]

>

> We should really just nerf condition cleanses by 50%+ across the board then trim Mirage's condition spread and condense it into fewer conditions. Right now power damage is absolutely over tuned compared to condition damage.

>

> Condition cleanses and conversion into boons are both extremely over tuned at this point. Most classes can quickly throw off 3-7+ conditions repeatedly over the course of a single fight, or have strong resistance uptime. Scourge and Mirage are the only condition classes capable of keeping up not because their condition damage is high (It's not. Scourge and Mirage are actually some of the lowest condition damage available) but because they have a wide range of conditions (Or in Scourge's case a wide range of conditions and boon corruption) that gives their conditions a chance to dodge condition cleanses entirely. And even then reapers have overtaken Scourges on the leaderboard and Mesmers are now the second lowest represented class outside of Ele on NA.

>

> Condition damage has completely fallen behind Power Damage in the scheme of things. To put this into perspective; Condition Berserker, Condition Firebrand, Condition Weaver, and Condition Holosmith have the higher condition bursts. Far, far beyond what Condition Mirage and Scourge are capable of. But even putting aside other weaknesses in those builds, the single biggest weakness that prevents them from ever becoming meta is the fact that when every class can effortlessly throw off 5+ conditions multiple times a fight, the bulk of their damage being tied down into one or two conditions means their effective damage output is **zero**.

>

> Arenanet really needs to look at both normalizing the spread of conditions, balancing all classes around 2-3 damaging conditions. And also heavily pulling back condition cleanses to compensate for it.

 

You're spot on with this, but the vast majority of the gw2 population will never agree to these changes because they hate condi.

 

Why?

 

* it sucks to watch your character die to damage over time and be helpless to stop it. Even if you got hit by a slow telegraphed skill that you really should have blocked or dodged, even though you actually are better off since you have time to heal, or counterattack the player that put condi on you, it still sucks to see that damage ticking away while you can't cleanse it. It's this visceral feeling of helplessness that is IMO at the heart of a lot of people's complaints about 'condi' in general.

* .. but it's not just that. There is also the way condi is applied. For lack of better terms, the currently viable condi builds DO NOT apply condi with fair, telegraphed skills. Mirage applies it while being evading/invuln/stealthed for most of the time - not to mention the unavoidable clone condis. Scourge applies it in huge aoes which cannot be easily dodged in a chaotic fight.

 

This is a direct result of the condi nerf patch last year. By extending duration and reducing stacks, condis were made to stretch their damage over longer bursts. **BUT CRUCIALLY**, condi cleanse was not nerfed alongside it. It's just simple numbers. Mirage/Scourge condi needs to be dialed back to the same level as other builds, then cleanse needs to be brought in line so that other condi builds can have a place in the meta again: Remember condi ranger? condi engi? condi revenant? etc. You'll never see those again so long as cleanse remains high.

 

Recent changes like Sigil of Cleansing are only making things worse...

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"coro.3176" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > > @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > > > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > > > If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

> > > >

> > > > but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

> > > >

> > > > i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

> > > >

> > > > and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

> > >

> > > I'm on NA. Please continue to make strawman arguments. Yes let's nerf all power classes. :]

> >

> > We should really just nerf condition cleanses by 50%+ across the board then trim Mirage's condition spread and condense it into fewer conditions. Right now power damage is absolutely over tuned compared to condition damage.

> >

> > Condition cleanses and conversion into boons are both extremely over tuned at this point. Most classes can quickly throw off 3-7+ conditions repeatedly over the course of a single fight, or have strong resistance uptime. Scourge and Mirage are the only condition classes capable of keeping up not because their condition damage is high (It's not. Scourge and Mirage are actually some of the lowest condition damage available) but because they have a wide range of conditions (Or in Scourge's case a wide range of conditions and boon corruption) that gives their conditions a chance to dodge condition cleanses entirely. And even then reapers have overtaken Scourges on the leaderboard and Mesmers are now the second lowest represented class outside of Ele on NA.

> >

> > Condition damage has completely fallen behind Power Damage in the scheme of things. To put this into perspective; Condition Berserker, Condition Firebrand, Condition Weaver, and Condition Holosmith have the higher condition bursts. Far, far beyond what Condition Mirage and Scourge are capable of. But even putting aside other weaknesses in those builds, the single biggest weakness that prevents them from ever becoming meta is the fact that when every class can effortlessly throw off 5+ conditions multiple times a fight, the bulk of their damage being tied down into one or two conditions means their effective damage output is **zero**.

> >

> > Arenanet really needs to look at both normalizing the spread of conditions, balancing all classes around 2-3 damaging conditions. And also heavily pulling back condition cleanses to compensate for it.

>

> You're spot on with this, but the vast majority of the gw2 population will never agree to these changes because they hate condi.

>

> Why?

>

> * it sucks to watch your character die to damage over time and be helpless to stop it. Even if you got hit by a slow telegraphed skill that you really should have blocked or dodged, even though you actually are better off since you have time to heal, or counterattack the player that put condi on you, it still sucks to see that damage ticking away while you can't cleanse it. It's this visceral feeling of helplessness that is IMO at the heart of a lot of people's complaints about 'condi' in general.

> * .. but it's not just that. There is also the way condi is applied. For lack of better terms, the currently viable condi builds DO NOT apply condi with fair, telegraphed skills. Mirage applies it while being evading/invuln/stealthed for most of the time - not to mention the unavoidable clone condis. Scourge applies it in huge aoes which cannot be easily dodged in a chaotic fight.

>

> This is a direct result of the condi nerf patch last year. By extending duration and reducing stacks, condis were made to stretch their damage over longer bursts. **BUT CRUCIALLY**, condi cleanse was not nerfed alongside it. It's just simple numbers. Mirage/Scourge condi needs to be dialed back to the same level as other builds, then cleanse needs to be brought in line so that other condi builds can have a place in the meta again: Remember condi ranger? condi engi? condi revenant? etc. You'll never see those again so long as cleanse remains high.

>

> Recent changes like Sigil of Cleansing are only making things worse...

 

People complain about Mirage for the same reason they complained about condi chrono back in HoT, for the same reason they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core. People hate what they die to. They will never not complain about what they die to > They die to what they don't understand more than they do what they actively do understand > Mesmer and mirage give the lowest feedback towards victims of what was responsible for killing them. That's it. It's literally as simple as that. All mesmer builds could be elementalist tier it would still garner more hate and cries for nerfing than the actual top tier builds in the game.

 

It's also why any PvP game character built around weird or unusual tells and animations or deception like Faust, Zappa, Arakune, Voldo, Leblanc, Shaco, TF2 Spies, any Pokemon that can run special and physical variants on a meta level, all have huuuuuuge levels of hate dedicated for them even beyond loadouts that are beyond them in any given meta.

 

People talk about mirage like it's some unstoppable thing with literally permanent evade frames and stealth, and unlimited burst damage but it's really not. There are rules and fairly hard set limits for how much of anything it can run and exactly how it can do lethal damage to you. But combine people's disdain for anything condition damage related with Mirage/Mesmer giving players low levels of feedback about what actually is killing them and it's a recipe for a hate sink, even when it's pretty average at best now that it's eaten a year of nerfs.

 

The one nerf I want to see on Mirage is the removal of stunbreak on elusive mind and the removal of the ability to mirage cloak on CC skills that otherwise inhibit dodging.

 

 

[otto.5684]

@"mortrialus.3062" the condi nerf in Nov of 2017 was the most misguided major class balance change that Anet has done by a huge margin.

 

I think the easiest approach to make condi builds viable is to undo the Nov 2017 changes. Changing the condi cleanse is a much bigger endeavor and Anet are lazy.

 

Buffing condi damage alone is not going to magically solve the problem. Anet must work on each of the builds individually.

[incisorr.9502]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> People complain about Mirage for the same reason they complained about condi chrono back in HoT, for the same reason they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core. People hate what they die to. They will never not complain about what they die to > They die to what they don't understand more than they do what they actively do understand > Mesmer and mirage give the lowest feedback towards victims of what was responsible for killing them. That's it. It's literally as simple as that. All mesmer builds could be elementalist tier it would still garner more hate and cries for nerfing than the actual top tier builds in the game.

>

> It's also why any PvP game character built around weird or unusual tells and animations or deception like Faust, Zappa, Arakune, Voldo, Leblanc, Shaco, TF2 Spies, any Pokemon that can run special and physical variants on a meta level, all have huuuuuuge levels of hate dedicated for them even beyond loadouts that are beyond them in any given meta.

>

> People talk about mirage like it's some unstoppable thing with literally permanent evade frames and stealth, and unlimited burst damage but it's really not. There are rules and fairly hard set limits for how much of anything it can run and exactly how it can do lethal damage to you. But combine people's disdain for anything condition damage related with Mirage/Mesmer giving players low levels of feedback about what actually is killing them and it's a recipe for a hate sink, even when it's pretty average at best now that it's eaten a year of nerfs.

 

 

 

 

i think reading your post increased my iq

 

i mean i already knew that but couldn't really put it in words so that hateful normies on the forums would understand but you're doing a good job at explaining it.

Ironically i also hated mesmer back in the day before i started playing one, now that i play one its one of my favorite classes to fight because i know exactly how many resources thay have left after every move they take (well more or less) and i generally have an idea of their stamina/cooldowns at the moment because i understand the class.

 

All the mesmer hate i see from people is just people who don't understand how mesmer works

 

mirage cloak is not only a defensive skill its also the main offensive skill in some builds and it costs resources so you're essentially trading defense for offense and if people were aware of that they could exploit it and punish it but instead they're just gonna say "i cleanse 30 condi stacks then they throw 30 more while being in perma evade lol" which is not something that can happen

 

 

[Aktium.9506]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

>they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core

pretty sure people complained about and hated the old PU build with clone death condis because it was the most obnoxious thing ever to fight since it just kited you around and you'd get loaded with condis just trying to hit the mesmer because everything cleaves and the cleave would passively kill the clones. anyone with two brain cells knew how it worked and it was still utter cancer to fight. yes 5 years later and im still triggered.

[Erzian.5218]

> @"incisorr.9502" said:

> as for why i listed core guard/thief/rev its because they have no line of sight tp ability which they can chain with a huge burst afterwards which is essentially uncounterable, there is no counterplay

How can you even say core guard and no counterplay in the same sentence? Every single hammer skill has a relevant cast time and is highly telegraphed. Same for the damage of focus skills, focus 4 damage can even be avoided after you have tanked the hit. Even if the guardian uses judges intervention to land his hits, it can easily be avoided by paying attention to the precast of hammer 2 or buff of focus 5. It is also one of the few classes without access to permanent swiftness and a very limited amount of cc, which means it is easy to kite.

Non-dead eye thief is currently in a spot where it is nearly useless vs some comps because of the cleave of holo and necro and how quick and important kills are in many matches (especially in queues where people usually don't disengage and/or play builds that are easy to chase down).

 

Yes, damage is over tuned but not only power damage. Why do you think most builds bring plenty of condition removal? Exactly, because if you don't , you die immediately should you go close to mirage or scourge for a moment. Don't believe it? Just watch Rom get one-shotted by comparatively mediocre mirage players if forgets to completely change his build around to counter mirage (and that's on boon beast which is an incredibly busted build right now).

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > People complain about Mirage for the same reason they complained about condi chrono back in HoT, for the same reason they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core. People hate what they die to. They will never not complain about what they die to > They die to what they don't understand more than they do what they actively do understand > Mesmer and mirage give the lowest feedback towards victims of what was responsible for killing them. That's it. It's literally as simple as that. All mesmer builds could be elementalist tier it would still garner more hate and cries for nerfing than the actual top tier builds in the game.

> >

> > It's also why any PvP game character built around weird or unusual tells and animations or deception like Faust, Zappa, Arakune, Voldo, Leblanc, Shaco, TF2 Spies, any Pokemon that can run special and physical variants on a meta level, all have huuuuuuge levels of hate dedicated for them even beyond loadouts that are beyond them in any given meta.

> >

> > People talk about mirage like it's some unstoppable thing with literally permanent evade frames and stealth, and unlimited burst damage but it's really not. There are rules and fairly hard set limits for how much of anything it can run and exactly how it can do lethal damage to you. But combine people's disdain for anything condition damage related with Mirage/Mesmer giving players low levels of feedback about what actually is killing them and it's a recipe for a hate sink, even when it's pretty average at best now that it's eaten a year of nerfs.

>

>

>

>

> i think reading your post increased my iq

>

> i mean i already knew that but couldn't really put it in words so that hateful normies on the forums would understand but you're doing a good job at explaining it.

> Ironically i also hated mesmer back in the day before i started playing one, now that i play one its one of my favorite classes to fight because i know exactly how many resources thay have left after every move they take (well more or less) and i generally have an idea of their stamina/cooldowns at the moment because i understand the class.

>

> All the mesmer hate i see from people is just people who don't understand how mesmer works

>

> mirage cloak is not only a defensive skill its also the main offensive skill in some builds and it costs resources so you're essentially trading defense for offense and if people were aware of that they could exploit it and punish it but instead they're just gonna say "i cleanse 30 condi stacks then they throw 30 more while being in perma evade lol" which is not something that can happen

>

>

 

Heh, I get that a lot.

 

Yeah. People learn real quick to avoid Holographic Shockwave. They learn real quick to avoid Prime Light Beam. The learn real quick to avoid Dagger Storm. They learn real quick to avoid Whirling Defense. They learn real quick to avoid the coreguard mighty blow combo.

 

But Mesmer and Mirage's attack style is so abstract compared to anything else in the game and to an untrained less experienced player they don't know what they really get hit with and how to avoid it so easily. The 600 range blow out skill might actually be more oppressive powerful and useful in high end tiers of play, but the less skilled player is going to walk away getting hit by that knowing much better what to avoid being hit with. I've barely played Holosmith, but I knew real well what they can do, what their traits do, and what to look out for just from watching them over the past year and few months. With Mirage if you aren't actually playing it and getting a grip on it's capabilities it is kind of hard to know what it's doing.

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"Aktium.9506" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> >they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core

> pretty sure people complained about and hated the old PU build with clone death condis because it was the most obnoxious thing ever to fight since it just kited you around and you'd get loaded with condis just trying to hit the mesmer because everything cleaves and the cleave would passively kill the clones. anyone with two brain cells knew how it worked and it was still utter cancer to fight. yes 5 years later and im still triggered.

 

Having browsed the old forum archive, people on release were immediately complaining about mesmer. Like aside from Moa and Treb this would look indistinguishable from a 2018 Mirage post.

 

> **Mesmer**- Mesmers have the ability to play 4 roles in one build instead of being able to focus on only phantasms, or illusion, but they can do everything, have great survivability, do insane damage, have 3 illusions at once? It’s already hard enough to find the right one!

>

> The “Moa Morph” Elite is far too powerful, It’s basically a 10 second stun. Sure you can move, but very slowly and you do no damage at all.

>

> Downed state on Mesmers is more annoying than thieves, they make a copy of themselves on the ground similar to a thief teleporting around with stealth making you waste much more time trying to down them.

>

> Their ability to play every role (Not to mention the annoyingness of a portal mesmer repairing the trebuchet), do insane amounts of damage (especially with greatsword/pistol sword), Have fantastic survivability, and spam clones of yourself to confuse your enemy’s makes this class too powerful. They can be single handedly the best 1v1 class in the game.

>

> Make it so mesmers have to actually invest points into say phantasms, supporting, power/damage output to focus on 1 single role instead of being able to play 3+ roles in one build.

>

> Also, I believe the downed state teleport for the thief and the clone for the mesmer should only be able to be used ONCE during each downed state.

>

>

[Aktium.9506]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> Having browsed the old forum archive, people on release were immediately complaining about mesmer. Like aside from Moa and Treb this would look indistinguishable from a 2018 Mirage post.

most of it was justified too

 

back at launch phantasms didnt need line of sight to be spawned. i shouldnt need to explain why this was an issue, im sure you can imagine what it meant.

 

like in the historical example you posted. back then treb was a bigger deal because people were much worse at dealing with it and you had mesmers speccing for a 1v1 dueling build and doing almost nothing but sitting treb and instantly repairing it with portal if you managed to chase them away, which was pretty hard to do with you having to wade through phantasms and gs ranged dmg from up on the hill before you could even get to them and destroy the treb. at the time this was a legitimate concern because it was very unfun to deal with.

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"Aktium.9506" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > Having browsed the old forum archive, people on release were immediately complaining about mesmer. Like aside from Moa and Treb this would look indistinguishable from a 2018 Mirage post.

> most of it was justified too

>

> back at launch phantasms didnt need line of sight to be spawned. i shouldnt need to explain why this was an issue, im sure you can imagine what it meant.

>

> like in the historical example you posted. back then treb was a bigger deal because people were much worse at dealing with it and you had mesmers speccing for a 1v1 dueling build and doing almost nothing but sitting treb and instantly repairing it with portal if you managed to chase them away, which was pretty hard to do with you having to wade through phantasms and gs ranged dmg from up on the hill before you could even get to them and destroy the treb. at the time this was a legitimate concern because it was very unfun to deal with.

 

Or this post from 2015 pre-heart of thorns.

 

> I have tried fighting mesmers on multiple classes but no matter how much I try, I do not get anywhere close to killing most. I’ve played mesmer so i understand the fundamentals. Personally I’ve never thought this class very hard to play and When I do PvP with it, usually I destroy most people without a sweat. However I do not know how to counter them.

>

> I am able to find the actual target and stay on them very easily. Locating the actual mesmer isn’t hard for me It just seems that they shut me down on every class I play. Any tips to fighting them, Only thing I’ve noticed works effectivly well is playing necro and going lych form on them. That being said, in pvp I play Ranger, Necro, Engineer, Thief, Guardian, Mesmer, In that order.

[Aktium.9506]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> Or this post from 2015 pre-heart of thorns.

yeah mesmer has always been one of the harder classes to beat for new players as well. that's not news. heck the only time i ever spent any time playing mesmer myself was around launch when 8v8 hotjoins were the main pvp mode of the game and you could fight most of an enemy team to a standstill on your own with mesmer because people would actually run around like headless chickens after clones and whatnot.

 

doesn't really mean the hate it's gotten through the years has been unwarranted. there's been fun periods like when people realized you could exploit a macro to use all shatters at the same time to get all shatter effects to trigger at clones at the same time with full benefits before they added the 0.25s icd on it. a lot of the times people couldnt even tell when a mesmer was doing something like that against them in a fight its hardly surprising that this led to frustration.

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"Aktium.9506" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > Or this post from 2015 pre-heart of thorns.

> yeah mesmer has always been one of the harder classes to beat for new players as well. that's not news. heck the only time i ever spent any time playing mesmer myself was around launch when 8v8 hotjoins were the main pvp mode of the game and you could fight most of an enemy team to a standstill on your own with mesmer because people would actually run around like headless chickens after clones and whatnot.

>

> doesn't really mean the hate it's gotten through the years has been unwarranted. there's been fun periods like when people realized you could exploit a macro to use all shatters at the same time to get all shatter effects to trigger at clones at the same time with full benefits before they added the 0.25s icd on it. a lot of the times people couldnt even tell when a mesmer was doing something like that against them in a fight its hardly surprising that this led to frustration.

 

I was accused of macro shatters a couple months ago. They reported me for it.

[Math.5123]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > People complain about Mirage for the same reason they complained about condi chrono back in HoT, for the same reason they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core. People hate what they die to. They will never not complain about what they die to > They die to what they don't understand more than they do what they actively do understand > Mesmer and mirage give the lowest feedback towards victims of what was responsible for killing them. That's it. It's literally as simple as that. All mesmer builds could be elementalist tier it would still garner more hate and cries for nerfing than the actual top tier builds in the game.

> > >

> > > It's also why any PvP game character built around weird or unusual tells and animations or deception like Faust, Zappa, Arakune, Voldo, Leblanc, Shaco, TF2 Spies, any Pokemon that can run special and physical variants on a meta level, all have huuuuuuge levels of hate dedicated for them even beyond loadouts that are beyond them in any given meta.

> > >

> > > People talk about mirage like it's some unstoppable thing with literally permanent evade frames and stealth, and unlimited burst damage but it's really not. There are rules and fairly hard set limits for how much of anything it can run and exactly how it can do lethal damage to you. But combine people's disdain for anything condition damage related with Mirage/Mesmer giving players low levels of feedback about what actually is killing them and it's a recipe for a hate sink, even when it's pretty average at best now that it's eaten a year of nerfs.

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > i think reading your post increased my iq

> >

> > i mean i already knew that but couldn't really put it in words so that hateful normies on the forums would understand but you're doing a good job at explaining it.

> > Ironically i also hated mesmer back in the day before i started playing one, now that i play one its one of my favorite classes to fight because i know exactly how many resources thay have left after every move they take (well more or less) and i generally have an idea of their stamina/cooldowns at the moment because i understand the class.

> >

> > All the mesmer hate i see from people is just people who don't understand how mesmer works

> >

> > mirage cloak is not only a defensive skill its also the main offensive skill in some builds and it costs resources so you're essentially trading defense for offense and if people were aware of that they could exploit it and punish it but instead they're just gonna say "i cleanse 30 condi stacks then they throw 30 more while being in perma evade lol" which is not something that can happen

> >

> >

>

> Heh, I get that a lot.

>

> Yeah. People learn real quick to avoid Holographic Shockwave. They learn real quick to avoid Prime Light Beam. The learn real quick to avoid Dagger Storm. They learn real quick to avoid Whirling Defense. They learn real quick to avoid the coreguard mighty blow combo.

>

> But Mesmer and Mirage's attack style is so abstract compared to anything else in the game and to an untrained less experienced player they don't know what they really get hit with and how to avoid it so easily. The 600 range blow out skill might actually be more oppressive powerful and useful in high end tiers of play, but the less skilled player is going to walk away getting hit by that knowing much better what to avoid being hit with. I've barely played Holosmith, but I knew real well what they can do, what their traits do, and what to look out for just from watching them over the past year and few months. With Mirage if you aren't actually playing it and getting a grip on it's capabilities it is kind of hard to know what it's doing.

 

My biggest gripe with mirage if how everything they do gives them iFrames. All deception skills gives them one second of evade. This coupled with the base mesmer kit which is an already elusive class pushes it over the top.

Most of the time, cleaving down the clones aren't even possible due to IH and being able to chain mirrors. In EU the most ran Mirage build utilizes chaos, staff and sage amulet. This means, a defensive trait-line weapon and amulet. It still has more than enough pressure to push even the tankiest duelists of node. The rng nature of chaos storm makes it incredibly oppressive for on-node fights for any class that doesn't have permanent stability.

 

If you actually take a step back and look at where the mesmers damage comes from, you'll see that it's almost entirely from traits and iFrames. The rest being from un-telegraphed abilities. (Shatters in meele range) everything from blinding dissipation to ineptitude, maim the disillusioned if you're taking that path. Axe 3 and mirrors / ambushes. I have around 2000 matches played on mesmer (not mirage) so I know the ins and outs of the base kit, but mirage literally takes the base mesmer and piles on. Much like Firebrand did to core support guard. It has no downside over core. (See dragonhunter vs core guard)

 

All in all, I'd like to see some of the functionality or utility removed from mirage. Having near permanent reflect uptime, having target breaks and evades on such a short cooldown is just obnoxious to play against. Keep it on the utilities, but remove them from axe 3. Tone down the clone spam, revert scepter 2 to only spawn one. Remove clone generation from sword 1.

 

 

[phokus.8934]

Mirage only has one utility that has a half second evade frame that no one uses.

 

The only thing I'd agree with with toning down mirage is doing something with axe 3.

[coro.3176]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > @"coro.3176" said:

> > > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > > > @"incisorr.9502" said:

> > > > > > @"ventusthunder.5067" said:

> > > > > > If only Misha played last season this incisorr person's weak argument would be null. Good christ will he ever stop crying?

> > > > >

> > > > > but he played a bunch already, you wouldn't know on your elo i guess

> > > > >

> > > > > i don't see how misha playing or not playing does anything about the barrage of nerfs that i mentioned that _happened_

> > > > >

> > > > > and misha doesn't win cus of his class but cus he manipulates the map

> > > >

> > > > I'm on NA. Please continue to make strawman arguments. Yes let's nerf all power classes. :]

> > >

> > > We should really just nerf condition cleanses by 50%+ across the board then trim Mirage's condition spread and condense it into fewer conditions. Right now power damage is absolutely over tuned compared to condition damage.

> > >

> > > Condition cleanses and conversion into boons are both extremely over tuned at this point. Most classes can quickly throw off 3-7+ conditions repeatedly over the course of a single fight, or have strong resistance uptime. Scourge and Mirage are the only condition classes capable of keeping up not because their condition damage is high (It's not. Scourge and Mirage are actually some of the lowest condition damage available) but because they have a wide range of conditions (Or in Scourge's case a wide range of conditions and boon corruption) that gives their conditions a chance to dodge condition cleanses entirely. And even then reapers have overtaken Scourges on the leaderboard and Mesmers are now the second lowest represented class outside of Ele on NA.

> > >

> > > Condition damage has completely fallen behind Power Damage in the scheme of things. To put this into perspective; Condition Berserker, Condition Firebrand, Condition Weaver, and Condition Holosmith have the higher condition bursts. Far, far beyond what Condition Mirage and Scourge are capable of. But even putting aside other weaknesses in those builds, the single biggest weakness that prevents them from ever becoming meta is the fact that when every class can effortlessly throw off 5+ conditions multiple times a fight, the bulk of their damage being tied down into one or two conditions means their effective damage output is **zero**.

> > >

> > > Arenanet really needs to look at both normalizing the spread of conditions, balancing all classes around 2-3 damaging conditions. And also heavily pulling back condition cleanses to compensate for it.

> >

> > You're spot on with this, but the vast majority of the gw2 population will never agree to these changes because they hate condi.

> >

> > Why?

> >

> > * it sucks to watch your character die to damage over time and be helpless to stop it. Even if you got hit by a slow telegraphed skill that you really should have blocked or dodged, even though you actually are better off since you have time to heal, or counterattack the player that put condi on you, it still sucks to see that damage ticking away while you can't cleanse it. It's this visceral feeling of helplessness that is IMO at the heart of a lot of people's complaints about 'condi' in general.

> > * .. but it's not just that. There is also the way condi is applied. For lack of better terms, the currently viable condi builds DO NOT apply condi with fair, telegraphed skills. Mirage applies it while being evading/invuln/stealthed for most of the time - not to mention the unavoidable clone condis. Scourge applies it in huge aoes which cannot be easily dodged in a chaotic fight.

> >

> > This is a direct result of the condi nerf patch last year. By extending duration and reducing stacks, condis were made to stretch their damage over longer bursts. **BUT CRUCIALLY**, condi cleanse was not nerfed alongside it. It's just simple numbers. Mirage/Scourge condi needs to be dialed back to the same level as other builds, then cleanse needs to be brought in line so that other condi builds can have a place in the meta again: Remember condi ranger? condi engi? condi revenant? etc. You'll never see those again so long as cleanse remains high.

> >

> > Recent changes like Sigil of Cleansing are only making things worse...

>

> People complain about Mirage for the same reason they complained about condi chrono back in HoT, for the same reason they complain about core mesmer back on release all the way through core. People hate what they die to. They will never not complain about what they die to > They die to what they don't understand more than they do what they actively do understand > Mesmer and mirage give the lowest feedback towards victims of what was responsible for killing them. That's it. It's literally as simple as that. All mesmer builds could be elementalist tier it would still garner more hate and cries for nerfing than the actual top tier builds in the game.

>

> It's also why any PvP game character built around weird or unusual tells and animations or deception like Faust, Zappa, Arakune, Voldo, Leblanc, Shaco, TF2 Spies, any Pokemon that can run special and physical variants on a meta level, all have huuuuuuge levels of hate dedicated for them even beyond loadouts that are beyond them in any given meta.

>

> People talk about mirage like it's some unstoppable thing with literally permanent evade frames and stealth, and unlimited burst damage but it's really not. There are rules and fairly hard set limits for how much of anything it can run and exactly how it can do lethal damage to you. But combine people's disdain for anything condition damage related with Mirage/Mesmer giving players low levels of feedback about what actually is killing them and it's a recipe for a hate sink, even when it's pretty average at best now that it's eaten a year of nerfs.

>

> The one nerf I want to see on Mirage is the removal of stunbreak on elusive mind and the removal of the ability to mirage cloak on CC skills that otherwise inhibit dodging.

>

>

 

You're not wrong about Mirage, and I didn't mean to come off as complaining about it (although, it gets pretty ridiculous in WvW roaming once you factor in all the endurance food, sigils, runes, etc.).. My main issue with it is that it cancels CC after the fact with mirage cloak and elusive mind, like you said. CC skills tend to be on much longer cooldowns than Mirage's dodges, so it feels bad to successfully land one on a Mirage only for it to be canceled every time.

 

But anyway, that's sort of beside the point. The point is that right now, Mirage is nearly the only viable condi build. Either other condi builds ought to be brough up to Mirage's level (which players will hate) or Mirage needs to be toned down and cleanse needs to be greatly reduced across all classes to match (which players will also hate).

 

In either case, the player base won't be happy.