[Dev Update] Soul Reaping and Mesmer Issues

passive defense is retarded

In the state that they are atm these skills are retarded.
Also lol @ paragons and how you just summed up why theyre broken.

This skill would still suck in PvP because of the variety of choices of damage. This skill would be nice in PvE because Mesmers would be able to work out whats up coming and deal with it appropratily.

Also changing the skill for energy management would make it much better. Less defence against elements.

Dang, hard to say... I seem to be in both camps w/o the retarded element thrown in.

I'm not against mesmer buffs... it just has to be done with extreme caution, else the class will suffer greatly. For example, if they added a Fast Casting skill that allows you to give someone else half your Fast Casting attribute for 'n' period of time... well, no mesmer will get into a group without taking that skill.

The mesmer-ego in me believes this the case, regardless of what reality may say...

Wow, that opens the door for some abuse... I can just feel it... Me/x using mesmer solely for the Fast Casting effect on skills...

I wouldn't mind seeing mesmer spells tied a little more tightly to fast casting... for example any mesmer spell cast with an FC of four or less is only 50% effective (half the energy gained, half damage, etc.) Of course... this doesn't inspire people to take mesmers, just reduces the x/Me out there. Which, of course, leads directly to your next point...
I wouldn't call people that won't accept mesmers "retarded", just "Intellectually challenged within the confines of the game".

The real challenge it seems is to find a way to "buff" mesmers while still having them be mesmers.

I am not aiming at gaining credibility with you, and I never said that RM was a bad skill - try to read what I write. I personally run several different RM builds in pvp, and to be honest I think I know more about them than you do. Stating that it is the most powerful spell in the necromancer line, though, is completely off-base, especially since it is almost never used in anything but PvP. I personally believe that the true power in a RM build lies in Signet of Humility. RM can be substituted for Sig/Suff for greater spike damage potential, and the hexes can be thrown around a little - at least, the Suffering Spiker build variants tend to keep me alive much better in most RA/TA, while one could make a case that family of builds is not so strong in AB.

One solution to improving mesmers in pve is stop nerfing mesmers to pieces. Everytime Anet comes out with thier list of changes, mesmers take the biggest hit almost every time. I am starting to think some Anet people don't like mesmers lol. I can imagine the conversations they have when it comes to mesmer changes...

Hey is that list of changes done for this quarter ? Yes here it is ! Oh wait a minute we forgot to tweak mesmers ! Yeah those crazy energy stealing mesmers, who do they think they are stealing my monks and eles energy ?
Hey I got an idea ! Why don't we stay late tonight ,order some chinese and hack away at the class ! You know that sound like a great idea ! Egg roll anyone ?

I really hope Anet does a good job in making them better, they sure are a fun class to play !

Not sure if this has been said, but. Considering that Anet is capable of placing conditions on you in any envoronment (See consulate docks for explaination - lvl 20 health etc.etc.), the following can be done.

1.) PvE - Normal mode - Gain only 2 energy for every 3 points in soul reaping.
2.) PvE - Hard Mode - SR works as normal.
3.) PvP - (Enviroment effect -Grenths PvP balance) Gain 2 energy for every 3 points in soul reaping, and Minions/Spirits do not give energy.

Note that I called it 'PvP' balance.. Because they are the only ones bitching.

Thanks.. have a nice day.

A little to late for the Mesmers as for introducing more classes they get shut out.

Nuclearfiz - they want the game to be all linked together, not 2 seperate rules for 2 parts of the game.

One thing that should be mentioned first of all is that the ability to play through areas of the game isn't usually proof of a good strategy. It means it works, but little more than that. When people talk about PvE my impression is they are generally talking about efficiency. That is a different thing entirely than the pass/fail of completion or noncompletion of an area/mission.

Regarding Mesmers in PvE: Although I don't think there's going to be any magic bullet other than a general increase in effectiveness (IMO, through adding more AoE effects or possibly lower cooldowns), one thing that can be done to mitigate the amount of raw overpoweredness that adding [theoretical] Mesmer PvE skills is to cater those skills to monster and AI weaknesses.

Example:

Empathy
Hex Spell. For 5...13 seconds, whenever target foe attacks, that foe takes 15...39 damage.

Theoretical PvE Empathy-Style Skill.
Hex Spell. For 3...6 seconds, whenever target foe attacks, that foe takes 30...78 damage.

Halving the duration and doubling the damage doesn't affect the overall damage output of the spell, but it does produce a much more noticeable damage spike that takes advantage of the enemy's AI in relentlessly attacking until death.

No no, please don't change skills, rather, change skill bars. Looking at this example above, you should see that monsters will also have this sorta of power, now picture that in hard mode, it would be too strong. I do believe there's a need to review some skills, but they are very specific, but if you don't want to discard the mesmer concept, work around the nuke-tank-heal structure the pve has.

One thing that I hate about elite areas is that, DoA for example, excludes a lot of other classes. Mesmers overall don't shine in pve, since you could consider them as a "finesse" addition, or something like that. You could probably overcome everything with 1 tank, a lot of aoe dmg and healers. Mesmers do not do any of these (and really, it's fine, they don't need to), but when there are places that dmg won't get you through, mesmers will be welcome. Pve-only skills are ... nice, I guess, but it's like addressing to a problem in a wrong way.

I'll also point to the pve boards here, mesmer subforum; there's a really really constructive thread discussed there.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the problems with mesmers in PvE is that boss logic has such a fast cast that they really arn't interruptable... also, interrupting a 1s skill in HM is also impossible. Yet, this is how those skills were balanced.
One solution is to just keep the regular cast time for bosses/HM mobs, but remove the "aftercast". There is another solution...

Make interrupts work like corpse-exploitation skills. If there isn't a corpse, those skills beep at you, but don't active. The same thing could be true for mesmer interrupts (this would also give mesmers an interrupting advantage over Rangers). Basically, if the skill wouldn't trigger an interrupt, then have it beep at you - no energy loss, no skill cast, no lost time. If you think this will cause finger-smashing, add a .25s delay or something (and add that delay for *any* class that tries to activate a skill when they can't due to a rule).

Note, I'm not suggesting that interrupts that _would_ have succeeded, but T are broken by spell breaker should be subject to this treatment. They should fail like any other skill, /w energy loss etc. That's what SB does.

I agree with most of what you are saying. All classes are capable of contributing to the mission. I remember reading a thread that someone solo'ed (no hench) everything up to Thunderhead Keep and was trying to see if there is a way to beat the game with only player. However, the classes are vastly different in how useful they are on a team. The Mesmer and the Assassin are probably the two least efficient PvE classes in the entire game (both are very good in PvP).

Mesmers basically have two lines of spells to use: illusion or domination (inspiration is almost all for e-management, fast casting doesn't really have many skills). Illusion focuses primarily on degen and anti-melee. The illusion degen is completely overshadowed by other forms of degen, such as Elementalist's Searing Flames (easy to keep AoE -7 burning degen on all the enemies all the time). Also, mobs have much more HP in Nightfall, decreasing the effectiveness of degen in general. The anti-melee skills in the illusion line allows you to do a decent spike on one foe or to maybe shut down two melee foes. This is completely overshadowed by necromancers who use AoE curses (Enfeebling blood to put AoE weakness, then one of many -50% attack speed curses) who can easily do AoE shutdown of melee units. Also, getting a protection monk that does Aegis and Guardian probably works better against melee. A Mesmer needs an entire skill bar just to accomplish what another class can do with one or two spells.

Looking at the domination line, it is primarily interrupts, e-denial, and spells like empathy. E-denial is nearly useless in PvE since you can kill them before you can drain all their energy. Mesmer interrupts are particularly nasty in PvE as they have nasty side effects, but they are completely overshadowed by the flaws of the AI. Skills that cause dazed, from something like Broadhead Arrow, is easily the best anti-caster skills in the game. The AI stupidly attacks through anything. Or stuff like Meteor Shower or even Earthquake serve as great interrupts. The enemies just bunch up and you are bound to interrupt two or three skills when you knock them all down (whereas with a Mesmer, you must stare closely at one enemies skill bar looking to interrupt). Also, with the introduction of henchmen who have godly interrupt speeds, most people are loading all their henchmen with Leech Signet and Power Drain to serve as interrupt and E-Management. Mesmer interrupts are inefficient in PvE. The only Mesmer skills that exploit the AI in PvE are skills like empathy, backfire, and mistrust. Mistrust makes for a decent AoE attack and interrupt. The AI caster always casts right through it. However, the long cooldown makes it only useful a little bonus (making cooldown shorter would make it overpowered in PvP). Empathy, Backfire, and Energy Surge can do reasonable damage, but a Mesmer that focuses on dealing damage is vastly inferior than an Elementalist, MM or SS Necro, or Barrage ranger.

People say that Mesmer's are very useful in some parts of the game where there are very tough bosses. However, any experienced player will know how to deal with those bosses with another class (ex: A Broadhead Arrow ranger will completely shut down any caster boss in the game). The only time I've seen a Mesmer outperform other classes is against special bosses like The Lich and Abbadon. Wastrel's Worry spamming (which wears off instantly) simply does more armor ignoring damage than any other class can (combine with Soul Barbs and Recurring Insecurity, and you can top 100 armor ignoring DPS). Other than that I don't see anywhere in the game where the Mesmer cannot be replaced by a more efficient character.

People used to say that Mesmers are not taken into groups because their skills are now "showy" and people don't notice their contributions. However, that was back in the early days of prophecies. All the other classes have gotten skills that effectively exploit the AI and the "bunching" effect of mobs in PvE. People have discovered and popularized very efficient builds (nobody wanted Necros until people found very efficient MM builds). The Mesmers are not lacking "showy" skills, they lack useful skills in PvE.

Does anyone still play a mesmer in PvE anymore? lol.

I recently spent a couple of days making a necro in prophecies from scratch and i had no energy problems from lvl1 to the second attribute quest. Seems fine to me, unless of course people are pushing their character too hard.

I do, and I always have, mostly with henchman, later with heroes. It's a general conclusion, mesmers are not a must have, but worse, because they are not even needed at all in most situations. I wanted to go for guardian titles and even get in doa, but I pushed my ele until the end since I wouldn't get in any group. At times I wish there was a weekend fun event, where all mesmers skills were area effect (area empathy, backfire, stances affecting party members), for revenge's sake, but then you understand why they are like this, because otherwise, nothing would beat them, they would be gods.

1st... allow monsters to kill themselves when hexed with backfire the same as they do with empathy. Afterall, foes kill themselves casting when hexed with SS & SV

2nd... create a PvE skill tied to FC called Illusion Of Normalcy - (25E, 2Sec cast, 45 sec recharge) when in hard mode, for 5 - x seconds (1.5 sec for each lvl of FC) all foes in area have Normal Mode chracteristics (except their skill bar)

3rd... Epidemic for hexes tied to FC (10E, 2Sec, 10 sec recharge) - 1 foe for every 2 levels of FC can be affected

btw: That 2nd skill noted might actually get a mes onto a DoA PUG 8*O
btw: the 3rd has been duscussed many times, just make it one of the sunspear profession specific skills