How to make Mesmers more wanted in PvE

When you quote, and under that write something, that is usually related to the quote, no? You may now assume that with "you" I mean Terra Xin. And you are right. Nor did Avarre deny he/she was talking to me. Why would anyone quote my reply to dgb, if he/she didn't have a point to make to either of us?? Beats me.

Uh, give them good degeneration skills. Oh wait, too late.

Let's see, what will actually make them desirable...

Give them warrior armor. They look like they're all gay. No offense to homosexuals but you guys really are gay. I'm a gay homsexual myself, which I think makes me straight.

Mabye, just give them the warrior body type.

Straight guys, like me, prefer 300lb men in tights to candy-assed 90lb wussies in tights. Just don't ask why. (Yeah, I'm talking about football genius.)

Yeah, I think if mesmers didn't look like they just came back from the Rainbow-Parade-Mardi-Gras the might be a little more desirable. Unless that part can be fixed mesmers are pretty much a lost cause as a primary profession in PvE.

Most people don't play them in PvE partly because they look stupid and partly because they don't really know what to expect from them. And since most people don't play them, most people don't know how they work and just figure they aren't worth bothering with. And then those that do play them get screwed because nobody else knows what the heck to do with a mesmer. Of course, they are sweet for PvP.

My advice, make a quick cast healer. They aren't as good as a real monk but they're better than a healer henchman.

I've had some time to think about my post, and I am still perplexed about "Fast Casting". Seriously, what does Fast Casting have to do with what the Mesmer is all about? I think the Mesmer was an incomplete and flawed class to begin with. What does artsy-fartsy magicians, and Lyssa, the twin goddess of beauty and illusion have to do with speedy spellcasting?

Avarre's posts are nearly as good as Ensign's. I'll never have the patience to write something like that, unless it's an article (which I did write, but I probably won't write anymore).

Mesmers in PvE fill no straightforward role, and PvE is all straightforward, therefore Mesmers fill no role.

That's a simplified way to say it.

It's the illusion of casting spells faster.
Sheesh arcane! You fell for it!
I have undergone extensive 'de-programming' to see when the spell is really cast.

/doh

Of course! It's all so clear to me now!


Although, I did consider the classic "sleight-of-hand" thing. Hand quicker than the eye, and all that. However, I think if that were the case, it should apply to all skills, not just spells, since it is more of a physical thing. Of course, if that was changed, there would be even more Mesmers that aren't Mesmers out there - especially spirit-spamming Mesmers. Ewww.

The solution to make Mesmers more wanted in PVE is to NERF them. Yes, you heard that right. Saw some posts about moving Inspiration to Fast Cast. NO. What should be done is to make those Inspiration spells take an extra second to cast, this makes them less useful to anyone without fast cast (non Mesmer primaries).

Personally, I actually just hench/heroway through most games. The least desirable class for me are actually the Warriors. Back in the time before heroes, there was no good way to get them to tank, so unless I did it myself (but I generally play casters), it was simply easier to just nuke everything down while keeping everyone alive. The most dangerous enemies? Elementalists. I bring Mesmers solely for interrupt ability. Don't really care about your degens because there's a 10 degen cap. So then the question is human Mesmer or AI Mesmer. There are times that a human is better, but 1) PUGs in general suck because of humans, and 2) Is your interrupt reaction time as fast as the AI?

Another reason why I don't want Mesmers buffed. Mesmer mobs are annoying. I don't want to deal with them being even more annoying (a powerful and spammable mass hex? What, you want the monks mad at you or what?)

The only cool thing that I think Mesmers should maybe be able to get is the ability to control their target. i.e., an elite where for 5 seconds, your entire bar is replaced with theirs and clicking on the skill causes them to use it on your selected target. Seems like the kind of stuff that fits what a Mesmer would do.

Problem would be no one would use Inspiration spells anyway. Glyph of Lesser Energy gogogo.

The problem is not with mesmers, the problem is with the mindset of the people.
The holy trinity still applies, tank, nuker, healer. No room other thinking people, this is mostly PvE though. In my experience at least.

No, your quiet correct Deleet.

Playing my Elementalist and (nearly) done with Alistha Freit, my Mesmer, I've noticed a huge difference of people brining me into their groups. I'll be starting my necromancer here shortly, but suspect it will be easier then the Mesmer to go through all of this.

The mesmers need something, we all can agree to this. But, what it is exactly with out destroying the integrity of the mesmer is the problem at hand.

No, that's a big part of the problem, as degeneration damage is limited to 20 health/sec. Avarre already mentioned the trend to more hitpoints with enemies - everybody else will just counter that with higher dps. A necro may be slower, but at least capable of dishing out mass degen... ANet probably can't just pimp the Mesmer with mass degen here, because the roles are different.

You could already note the turning point in Prophecies, where early degen was a great way to soften up or even kill targets fast, while later you needed a lot more additional damage events (frag spike...) to still have an impact that way. One of the offered solutions were hexes with additional effects when starting or ending.

Why do I use the primary class? To make use of the intrinsic skill (most usefull for interrupting specific overpowered monk/ boss skills) or to use runes and squeeze some more damage or duration out of the build. Fast Cast is situational, degen hits the ceiling anyway,... So Mesmer is still a good secondary PvE class atm, but you rarely need a primary mesmer for most of it.

heh heh... what if they took the degen cap off? HOORAY FOR -30 DEGEN FROM 3 SPELLS!

If they took off the degen cap, remember that YOU and the rest of your party will be suffering 60 health loss per second when those same mesmer mobs use those skills against you.

that's not the mindset. you simply need no thinker most of the time.

I wouldn't mind seeing "Fast Casting" be changed.

The GuildWars.com website describes Fast Casting thusly: The way Fast Casting actually works isn't as described, nor does it, as others have pointed out, really seem to bear any real relationship to the flavor of the class. Trouble is, redoing Fast Casting in any major way is essentially forcing a rewrite of the Mesmer class. Although additional energy on interrupts (As has been repeatedly suggested) may be nice, it's not a boost that is going to improve the Mesmer in PvE and unnecessarily affect PvP. Either way, major changes to Fast Casting seem unlikely.

I will say, though, that "Fast Casting" as the name of the attribute is the sort of thing that strikes me as rather restrictive. I cannot think of many potential skills that I would put under the category of "Fast Casting" simply because the flavor of the name is so specific. Other attributes (e.g. "Mysticism" or "Strength" or "Soul Reaping") are somewhat more vague and thus leave more room for future development of skills in that Attribute line. A change of name from "Fast Casting" to "Celerity" (or "Poise" or "Attunement" or something otherwise capable of being understood to function the same as Fast Casting does but also capable of being more broadly interpreted) would be a minor change to make now, but it could open up potential avenues for improvement to be explored in future chapters.

On a slightly different note...

One of the things that did appeal to me about the class [before I had created a Mesmer character] is that it was described as "supporting the entire party in battle with powerful, mind-bending magic" and as a "support character." Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed to see that the class really doesn't play what I consider a support role. It's been suggested elsewhere in this thread but I would be pretty pleased if the Mesmer inspiration line were improved in such a way that a Mesmer could be more directly beneficial to teammates. Even a Necromancer, a class that I would expect to be the least concerned with benefiting party members, has ways to directly help out party members with health and energy regeneration and so on. I can't think anything a Mesmer can really do to help teammates other than occasionally remove a Hex using Inspired Hex.

ROFL u think Avarre's a girl. god wait till i get on vent....

My problem with mesmers? In my experience, they can't even shut down one person, much less actually do damage. Sure, they can really slow someone down, but, say, 4 monks versus 3 mesmers and a monk, the team with 4 monks stands a better chance of killing someone than the 3 mesmer team does.

Maybe I haven't been keeping up to date with the latest batches of skills, but mesmers have to spend a decent amount of energy to interrupt a skill, only so that skill can recharge in half of the time or less than what it would take for the mesmer's interrupt skill to recharge.

Skills like blackout would be pretty useless if it wasn't for the fact that it kills adrenaline.

And you want me to consider the rest of your post as being of any value at all?

When you play mesmer, you have to think what your opponent is about, what spells/skills are valuable to interrupt, which are harmless.
You have to know when the next 'must interrupt' skill will come and you should counter that one.

In PvE, this is not that important, with the exeption of a few situations.
But then, those can be 'countered' with massive damage (broken AI ftw).

If you want to feel the power of Blackout, GvG monk against a team with a good Blackout mesmer.
When full pressure turns on a player and the moment you want to heal you get blackout, those 6 seconds are very long.
It's also usefull on any build that benefits from a 'chain'.
And there are plenty of those around these days.

Hmmm... What if they took off the degen cap AND converted all degen spells (and conditions) to be percent of max health based?

How to make mesmers more valuable in PvE:


Reduce the energy regen and total reserves of mobs and bosses so that e-denial is feasible in PvE.

AND

Rig mobs with Shelter and PS, more interrupts, and anti-caster defenses, so that the current strategy of maximizing AOE Direct-Damage (AoE spike) is reduced in effectiveness.

AND

Scale degen (both health and energy degen) so that it becomes stronger vs high level opponents, while remaining at it's current level vs level 20 opponents (PvP)

You seem to be talking about PvP. Mesmers will never completely shut one person down, they will be way too overpowered then. The point is to shut down for brief periods of time when it is important. Against good teams, they will successfully protect and heal the guy being spiked. However, if you manage to slip a Cry of Fustration, Diversion, or Blackout in there, then you may get a kill (DP stacks up, and in the long run leading to victory).

Now back to PvE, it is obvious why those types of skills are useless. Enemies don't heal and protect like human players do. They don't kite either. There is no need to create a window of opportunity in order to get one kill.

Mesmers are actually not that bad in DPS. I don't understand where all these 60 DPS builds for warriors are coming from, I certainly can't get anything near that high against level 28 monsters at near the end of the game. Mesmer's armor ignoring spells actually do signicant damage (degen on multiple targets or empathy on multiple targets will add up to 60 DPS easily, although the problem is that it is much better if you can focus it all on one target and kill it quickly). However, if you really want a DPS caster, an Elementalist or MM will do a much better job.

I remember there was a time where at the end game levels some people would ask for a degen mesmer, mainly because most other forms of damage are a function of armor and the target's level (which is usually 24 or 28 at the end). However, with the introduction of Nightfall, Mesmers are no longer the best degen class. Nightfall introduced many burning skills that cause -7 degen already, so having an additional degen character doesn't do much since degen is capped at 10.

I also notice that the standard PvE mesmer skill bar still consists of skills from prophecies. They haven't really gotten any great skills from Factions or Nightfall. Mesmers are slowly becoming worse and worse (in PvE) relative to the other classes.

My primary mesmer has a 2ndary of ranger----she interupts and barrages! and yes she uses a bow (more interupts available with ranger).....
my 2ndary mesmer is an illusionist/rit....and fast casting helps with her channeling spells a lot.
I have other characters with mesmer 2ndarys but when they try to cast interupts they just arent as fast as my primary mesmers---fast casting ftw!
I have plans to make yet another mesmer----an inspiration mesmer, but have yet to come up with a 2ndary combo that would be complimentary to inspiration....
I have my mesmer hero set up with rezzing abilities ----nogru can rez faster than any monk I know!

I have had only a little problem getting into groups with my mesmers----for the most part I hero/hench missions and quests, and quite easily as well...
My primary mesmer was my first character to finish nf....my 2ndary one is almost done as well -----all of my other characters are still waiting back in the sunspear sanctuary minus my ele who will finish nf in 2 missions.

I love playing my mesmer, I dont know how to get rid of mesmer hate, but with the people who have posted here we can start taking mesmers into our parties...and get the ball rolling!

...

I do think a well-timed Diversion on a spike, or during intense pressure, can be pretty devastating. Blackout on spikes are also pretty useful.

Change name of Fast Casting to something like Arcane Mastery. This could then fit more with the written description of the attribute in that spells can be cast faster and with more potency. Have it so that points in Arcane Mastery buff the numbers on skills slightly along with from the points put into the attribute of that skill. Example, Empathy, with 12 domination it lasts 13 seconds and does 39 damage, with some points in AM it will last 15 seconds and do 42 damage, or something. Of course skills would be adjusted so that points won't make things too overpowered. This would have it so that non-mesmers won't be able to use the skills that greatly and mesmer primaries can have the better benefit.

Diversion is one of the few good skills for Mesmers, and it's been around since the beginning. But if you look at the post just above yours, a Me/R that takes a bow for the Ranger interrupts. Rangers can do the interrupting that Mesmers can but do damage while they're doing it! Plus, any knockdowns also interrupt and usually do damage as well. Most of the Mesmer interrupts need a huge boost to compete with interrupt rangers or any KD centric build, considering that many interrupts cost 10 energy and have a recharge of 15 seconds or more.

You know those warnings when you're about to enter a mission for eight alone?


Put one that says 'if you are entering this mission without a Mesmer, you are a retard and will likely fail. Continue anyways?'

whoever said a single mesmer is unable to keep a single opponent down n out- have you ever bothered to unlock any skills past ether feast and backfire? Not only CAN they, but they can do it with all 3 of the Attribute Lines each on their own... dom, ill, or insp.

The mesmer wasn't designed as a Mob controller, leave the Mesmer alone.
The mesmer is FINE, the people are RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed. (with a strong thought to a certain George Carlin show)

If mesmer was fine, more people would pick him, not only 1%.

My view on some of the issues around Mesmers in PvE.
I got around to 'summarizing' some of it. /selfadvertisement

This is exactly the problem with Mesmers having a shutdown/disruption role - they are less capable than the other classes in this, due to single interrupts that target spells (exception of Cry), with generally worse recharges. Why run a Mesmer interrupter when Meteor Shower interrupts, and rangers can epidemic their own daze across enemies or simply sit on them with interrupts (or even run Choking, in heavy caster areas), and both of them can actually deal damage that's worth noting at the same time?

There's nothing wrong with mesmers. My mesmer is my favourite character. Mesmers are just the hardest class to understand as they work indirectly and most of their abilities have conditions attached. Mesmers need player brainpower and split second timing to be able to play effectively - and in my experience, most players don't want to have to use that much brainpower.


And as a side note, my mesmer has never had any problems getting into PUGs. I'm usually swamped by invites when I enter mission locations. Mesmers ARE wanted in PvE - as we have to plan ahead for each mission we're the ones with the (usually) foolproof action plan.

One of the problems Mesmers have in PvE is that they have very few useable Elites. I have seen no NF Mesmer Elite used EVER in PvE or PvP, except when I just capped them. NF Mesmer Elites need help, badly. If you look at the skills other classes got, at least some of them got (frequent) use.
I've got a Mesmer myself and I can say they need some help. Since I don't really like Illusion myself, I tend to play Dom Mesmer mostly, and the builds that are actually useable in PvE (and effective) are limited at best. Shutdown isn't needed, and interruption spam can be done better by a Ranger. FC is also in need of help, but if they were to change that, they'd have to redo the whole Mesmer class, which they probably won't do.

concur with the analysis.
At the start of Prophecies, other classes' skills were limited too - remember warrior swords with bleeding and gush, which didn't work well against undead or elementals? Stretches of elementals leaving no bodies, so a MM was ineffectual?

In the first chapter we had 2 fighters and 4 casters, a Mesmer's specialisation made some sense. Now we have another caster (but also with non spell rituals), 2 Hybrids and a fighter. Gl with your specialised interrupts and recharging bar... Better go skill interrupt or KD with another class.

As Avarre said, huge mob crowds with ever increasing health make a bad task for mesmers. How to fix this for existing campaigns? Other mob setup would help, but other classes could still do each job.

Interrupting needs less specialized skills, maybe with additional effects if the condition (spell..) is met. Illusion would need a boost with more upfront damage or ugly effects when removing some hexes, as degen can't be increased.
Maybe even improve hex removal, as a monk is usually superior here with +heal. Maybe use it to improve Mesmer e-management.

It would probably wreak havoc on the current PvP metagame, but possibly fast cast could also speed up recharge of mesmer skills to a degree. That way, if e-management allows, a primary mesmer could just spam out his attacks faster and isn't stuck with a bar of reloading attacks. That would perhaps make the class more valid to the point that more than one mesmer makes sense in a group...

very good post. i like your suggestions braggi.

AoE, AoE, AoE, AoE.

I'm not talking Chaos Storm, but AoE hexes like Panic. Only something a little more potent than Panic (most monsters seem to have near-infinite energy anyway).

Shared Burden was a good start, but the skill needs more punch. Added -3 degen, for example. Basically it would become AoE Crippling Anguish.

As for the non-AoE Crip Ang itself, raise the degen to -7 and the duration to 40 seconds.

Wouldn't imbalance PvP (don't bunch up to avoid getting hexed in the first place) and would give Mesmers some real stopping power, especially since Dazed AoE (Broadhead Arrow and Epidemic) is being used often instead of hard interrupts nowadays.

Yeah, those changes would unbalance pvp alot.

Shared burden's AOE is too significant to avoid having many people getting hit by it, with -3 degen it would be an insane pressure spell combined with melee.

Crippling anguish is already very good in pvp. -7 degen and gimped move rate for 40 seconds is just absurd. Every single guild that's not populated by retards would be running it. Unlike conditions, hex durations mean something, especially in skirmishes.

It's all good. If the Inquirer article is true (which we'll find out in a few days), and they introduce a good chunk of PvE-only skills, I can guarantee the Mesmer will get some nice, much-needed skills. Preferrably skills that can charm/control monsters, create clones that distract monsters, and skills that can make you and your allies invisible to a group of monsters, etc.

How about illusion spells that cast an illusion.... Like a spirit that acts like a minion. =P

PvE only skills. Finally... Since LB gaze is pve only. I was wondering when they would implement this further...

According to this Gayle said:
Yes, we DO consider the effects of a change on both PvP and PvE, but keep in mind, we cannot, abosolute cannot...
...divide or make "this for PvE and that for PvP." We have to find the proper middle ground to suit both.
(it is lower half of the third picture)

@Lagg: the question would still be why you need a mesmer primary for this.

No offense to Gaile, but not everything she says is set in stone.
In that very conversation she mentioned minipets cannot be made to appear in town.
That may have been what she was told at the time by the dev staff, but we know it's not how it all turned out in the end.