Mass Hallucination please

I am inspired by Avarre's terrific post about the current state of the Mesmer to make my first post. Some time ago while experimenting with a Me/N plague spreading build using epidemic I realised that one Mesmer skilll I would really love to see is something I call "mass hallucination" - basically a form of epidemic for hexes. Something along the lines of:

Transfer one Mesmer Hex and its remaining duration from target foe to all adjacent foes.

Just imagine the fun you could have with a mass hallucination of Empathy or Backfire or Spirit Shackles or Spirit of failure or almost any Mesmer Hex. I know this sounds overpowered but I would put up with a lot of restrictions - make it elite, make it high energy, make it long cooldown just to play with this. It would certainly need to be restricted to Mesmer Hexes (Spiteful Spirit followed by Mass Hallucination would be game over).

I like the idea behind this and as you said it would need to be kept on a small leash but i think this is a nice example of how the "mesmers can only address one target at a time" issue could be addressed.

Not too shabby

I was looking for a skill like that but only to find out that one does not exist. The reason i wanted it was to spread fragility around to everyone.

umm it will be overpowered in some situations - like Mass SS farmer build (or duo if they will made it elite).Also long recharge or heavy mana cost spells can overpower that ability - like "prolonged" conjure nightmare area effect is kinda xxxx damage per seconds - Anet wont make such spell.

Oh please don't say that I would so love a skill like this.

I have already said that it should only work for mesmer hexes so no mass spiteful spirit and no mass insidious parasite (wow - imagine that for solo farming).

I agree it should be elite - in fact I would prefer an elite version without onerous conditions to a non-elite version with a huge cooldown or energy cost. You could further limit it by restricting its effect to non-elite mesmer skills if nessecary.

If you compare it to something like spiteful spirit I don't think it really is overpowered. Mass Empathy would probably do no more damage than spiteful spirit but would take two spell slots rather than one. In fact mass empathy would do less damage than the normal echo'ed spiteful spirit. Mass conjure nightmare is certainly not overpowered in comparison to something like searing flames when you consider the energy cost, the two skill slots needed and the relatively low rate of dps.

I understand that Spiritual Pain needed to be nerfed because area of effect unconditional damage is not what mesmers are about. However by resticting mass hallucination to mesmer only skills you are pretty much staying with traditional mesmer like conditional damage. In any case surely any half decent hypnotist/ mesmer can pull off a mass illusion.

1.) When You say "Transfer one Mesmer Hex and its remaining duration from target foe to all adjacent foes. " do you mean adjacent to the foes or to you, cause that'd be a good condition there. It could be A touch skill like [skill=text]Tease[/skill].

2.) If Anet makes this it will be powerful, but it needs to have a somewhat low cost. not 5e but something like

15e, 2s cast,20s recharge

This has been mentioned before.

The problem with it I have is, as awesome as it would be, it would really hurt if used on a Conjure Nightmare + Mantra of Persistance. For a start it would need to be elite...and cost at least 25 energy. Really, something like this would have the wammos crying "Nerf" faster than the skill can be introduced.

On the other hand, it would be nice with Dual Mesmers... One carrying Ineptitude + Arcane Mimicry...the other carrying <New Hex Spreading Elite> + Arcane Mimicry. Mass wammo blinding ftw...

It'll never happen

I don't understand the worry about conjure nightmare. If you think a widespread long lasting -8 degen from the use of two high energy cost spells is imbalanced consider that you can already get that that effect from a combination of virulence and epidemic for only 20 energy and you get weakness thrown in as well.

I had a long look at the list of Mesmer hexes and I really don't see any game breakers in there. There are some elites which would be pretty nasty - ineptitude for example - but that would require two mesmers using their elites in co-ordination. Mass diversion sounds terrible but remember that allowing for after cast and the casting time of mass hallucination you would only get 3 seconds of diversion - making it very unlikely that you could cause widespread shutdowns. The most troublesome skills are the energy management ones - a widespread Ethereal Burden for example could be used to give a mesmer vast amounts of energy.

Thing is though, conditions are far easier to remove than hexes. Granted, there are plenty of hex removals out there, but any good ones are elite and often expensive, or have a long recharge to compensate. Imo the best is Expel Hexes...by a long shot (for straight up hex removal - Divert Hexes is sexy, but expensive). If you get hit with Virulence the monk can remove conditions off everyone with Extinguish or remove all conditions off one person with Restore Condition.

If you manage to give 4 people Conjure Nightmare, say, the cost in removing those hexes is going to be pretty high. Remove Hex is easily interruptable (and lets face it, if you're against a mesmer...they're more often than not going to have an interrupt) due to it's 2 second cast time...and all other monk hex removals either have a recharge penalty per hex removed, or are too expensive to just spam.

This would be a very overpowered skill and would be taken advantage of too much and cause a lot of inbalance in the game. However, if you could make it a more conditional skill, i would love to have something like this as a mesmer resource. Heres an example of what i mean:

Transfer one Mesmer hex from target foe to all adjacent foes. If any foe that would recieve the hex is under the effects of an enchantment, they do not recieve the hex. (Domination? Illusion? Inspiration?)
Energy: 10 Casting Time: 2 seconds Recharge Time: 25 seconds

This would only be remotely balanced if it was Illusion hexes only. I guess maybe inspiration as well, but probably not.

Make it mesmer hexes only and it should be more balanced as an elite.

/not signed

soul barbs, recurring insecurity. Besides.. in the end you know anet will make it uselessly "adjacent" and it will be never used. at nearby or area these two hexes would cause massive problems.

people are crying bloody murder for no real reason. Especialy about conjure nightmare. It's degen. Scary. A searing flames ele would outdamage that in a moment. Also, since it's degen, and 8 degen at that, you remove the ability for other party members to effectively use degen in their builds. Furthermore, for a 25e cast on conjure nightmare, plus a (what I would considere balanced) 15e castm would make a 40e combo to spread degen. I'd rather jsut take a paragon using Anthem Of Flame. Seriously.

Worried about it moving empathy? Have you ever heard of spiteful spirit? That would also most likely outdamage this in *one* skill instad of two.

I think a skill like this should, in fact, be elite, cost 15e, and be tied to an attribute (probably illusion). I also thin, on a 1...15 scale, it should be stated as:

Mass Hallucination. 15e, 20s. Transfer one mesmer hex from target foe to 1...5 nearby foes for (50...80)% of its original duration. (Illusion Magic)

i could see so much fun with a skill like this, and TGgold's idea of this skills is great, i would love to see this put in

/signed

Yuck. Are you kidding me? Mirgrain, Phantasm Conjure then this skill = -9 degen in the whole team if cordinate right and cause casting spells 100% slower.....yuck. That I did not count on some of the amazing annoyed hexes from mes such as "Backfire", "Diversion", "Stolen Speed", "Arcane languor", "Conjure nightmare" (OMG -9+(-8) = - 17 in the WHOLE team WoW. Crippling Anguish, Phantom Pain. Gee gee! You can cause instant degen of Conjure nightmare (-8), Phantom Pain (-1), Conjure Phantasm (-5), Mirgraine (-3), Image of Remorese (-3). This make -20 degen instant with 2 mes. If make a N and condition R with Epidemic. You can make up roughly about -30 degen for at least 10sec or longer! on the whole team. That I did not count backfire and diversion WoW. Don't even need a melee! EoE will do the killing after those massive degen T_T. If this skill exist only 1 day, I can make roughly 1000 fame ^_^ or even more!

1 mesmer hex not all memser hexes.

Hmm in that case, this skill could be used! But I still think the combo Mirgraine + This skill can be too powerfull. If make recharge LONGER then this skill will be in no use, just another skill that noone will ever use! If the recharge is 10sec then diversion spamming will be awefully annoying. Increase energy will just make Mesmer use Glyph of lesser energy! Not sure how to make this skill relevant!

It'll work if:

Made elite and copies one mesmer hex to up to 3 other nearby foes for "remaining duration".

Give it a 3 second cast time, 10 energy, 15 second recharge.

I made a similar skill called "Nation of Fools" which works like disease but with some hex. To balance it the effect can only last so long on an individual but it can still be constantly transfered from foe to foe and can even be re-applied.

So you can even have entire teams of morons (aka Nation of Fools) running around next to each other constantly refreshing the hex.

/signed

You seem to share ANET's way of balancing a skill...by making it useless. A 3 second cast makes this skill useless, especally if it's kept at *remaining* time.

Wow, you'd get a whole 6 seconds out of skills like backfire...woohoo.

Also, I'm goign to state this. With the addition of all of the new hex removal spells, it's about time hexes become a higher threat. Wouldn't it be great if taking Elite Hex removal actually became something that could change the tide of a match? I'm sure people don't like the idea of hexes being widespread, but face it, where is the pressure existing in hexes now?

Arcan conundrum on the entire team? Who are you joking? I don't think I know anybody who balls their casters up. This is almost like saying Firestorm shouldn't be allowed because it could be doing 17dmg per second to a bunched up group of casters (which is more than 8 degen, fyi, and it only takes 15 energy and 1 skillslot).

Mass empathy? Oh noes. How many people will this really effect? Maybe the AI will have to incorporate mobs that have hex removal instead of just groups that deal damage and groups that heal.
This one skill could change the approach of this class. It also, taking an elite slot, would limit the ability for many other things this class is good at. There is always the risk that, if enemies don't ball, the elite is rubbish.

I strongly believe my approach to the skill should be taken as a serious consideration. I firmly believe that the duration and cooldown effect are worth it. Of course, phantom pain could potential inflict AoE deepwound after the delay for the skill. Hm, that doesn't seem all that bad considering the cost associated with it. Also, considering "condition removal is so rampant", that shouldn't be a problem, right? ^_~

Of course, perhaps a casttime should be added. At most 2 seconds. Perhaps this should be tied to fastcasting to avoid abuse from other classes.
Note that, udner my wording, this *spread* hexes would not be subject to Mantra of Persistence (since duration is based off of the *original* duration for the skill).

I, personally, can see no reason why this is overpowered. Give me a legitimate response and I'll consider it. Saying that it is strong agains the light-hex-removal metagame, thus it shouldn't exist, is not a good reason in my book.

On Another Note:

I would like to see either monk or mesmer spell with the effects:

Wastrel's Trickery (Dwayna's Justice): Remove one hex from target other ally. All foes adjacent to target other ally receive the remaining duration of the removed hex.