A.net - are we playing the classes wrong AND any chance of some info?

This was something that intrigued me.
Here we have insight into what the way A.net thinks. A bit of an insight on the role of the lovely fire ele.
Sure it's not something that most players who played GW for more then 2 minutes don't already know - but it shows that there is some thought behind the design of the class and that thought also expands to the skill balance.
There is a vision of the class, something that makes the class unique and something that A.net feels like building on.
In terms of the fire ele - its damagedamagedamage!

Although this isn't the newsflash - it poses a set of interesting questions:
What is the vision behind other classes?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of said class (in their view and how is it expected to deal with it)?
How would you like to the class to evolve?

Why is this important?
Because if there is a vision, a design behind the class - some kind of a red line - that line has to show in the skill balances.

Let's look at (what I feel is) the class where the gap between the players and the designers is the biggest - the mesmer. The mesmer in PvE.
The problem is that PvE has its specific set of rules - and the mesmer has issues with them.
So players try to make the best out of the given situation - but the results aren't comparable to classes who are more in-touch with the natural rules of PvE.
So we bitch about how some skills should be buffed - and then this doesn't happen - all hell breaks loose.
Why?
And before we point the finger at A.net, calling them selfish little twats who have no idea what is happening in the game - we could ask ourselves - is this something the class was envisioned to be?
The problem here is of course the fact that that vision hadn't been presented - other then a few lines of promotional text like:
"The paragon of illusion, misdirection, and control, the Mesmer subverts the damage-dealing capabilities of others, manipulating their perceptions to achieve personal goals."

The whole thing kinda reminds me of the Druid class in NWN - I loved it because I got a lovely little pet with me and then played it as damage dealing caster. The problem was - while the druid could do that, the damage just couldn't compare to some other damage dealing casters because the druid shined somewhere else - stuff like pre-fight buffs.
And after that became clear - i was able to play the class more efficiently because i was using the class the way it was designed.
(Well - I should have played the class more efficiently after finding that out BUT that playing style so wasn't me so I dumped it.)

And that brings me to my starting question - are we playing the classes wrong?
Is a direct damage dealing mesmer a wrong way?
Is this something that will always be doable BUT it's not something that the mesmer will excel at? And as such - should we stop expecting buffs of that way?

I feel that a clearly presented vision of the class might help with the tensions between A.net and the players since we might gain a better insight into what you - the designers and OWNERS of the game - want to achieve with it!
(I also feel that this might actually be a interesting series of articles that could be posted on your official site - and that is why i am posting here - to see if other players would also be interested in it.)

So once again - what is the vision behind the classes class and what do you want to achieve with them - either through skill balances or future additions to the Guild Wars saga?

(This of course differs from the State of the game articles - since these SHOULD be written by the creators and designers of the class to REALLY help us understand what was and is trying to be achieved here!)

(Ohh and of course the direct damage dealing mesmer can easily be replaced by a motivational paragon or a spell-casting assassin or something - meaning i am not trying to make this about mesmers again - but rather just using them an example since they clearly lack their "reason to be" in pve so they are an easy target!)

(Double ohh - it would be nice if the vision would include BOTH PvP and PvE!)

Thanks!

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10129170

What it comes down to is that damage/tank/heal is what works best in PvE, and the facet of Mesmers that deal direct damage have almost always been the most effective - however this cannot be made the focus of the class without causing imbalance (eg: spiritual pain).

The purpose of the Mesmer, to actively reduce enemy effectiveness, just isn't needed in PvE; the progression of the Mesmer class and the progression of PvE simply are not parallel - and nothing short of a redesign is going to really fix that.

I am aware of that thread and it is one of the best views on the state of the mesmer - from the perspective of a user.
BUT like i said - this isn't JUST about the mesmer - its about A.net's vision of each class and how would they like to evolve them.


(IN the case of the mesmer - it would be nice if we'd finally get a straight answer that the mesmer was meant to be utility and the and the class and the skills will follow that path. Because if "mesmer = utility" and this is the way that A.net wants to develop the class - it might be better to expect a massive hex removal skill RATHER then Meteor Shower 2 as part of the pve-mesmer buffs. That way players have a better idea on what to expect and those that don't like this path - might as well go play an ele. Because if the theme that the class was was designed with in mind isn't followed - the classes just lose themselves. Suddenly they are able to do everything - but nothing really good anymore!)

Vision is extremely important in a class, and it is one of the biggest problems the four new classes suffer from - the rebalancing of the strengths of the class shows a lack of clear design.

As far as the purpose of the class is concerned - it is really up to the players to define that with the structure presented by the devs. Since so much of the purpose of a character or class depends on the context it is played in, the design purpose and the use of the class aren't always the same. That's another interesting factor of the secondary class system, in that just about any class can fulfill any role.

At the start of your first post, you blend the purpose of Fire Magic with Fire Eles - which isn't necessarily the case, although largely it is. Each character class has a purpose, and each skill line has a purpose as well - typically in line with their class'. However, these purposes can be mixed (ie: fc fire).

If you really want purpose, you'd be best off setting out what (in the case of the mesmer) the mesmer is used for, what each of its attribute lines are for, and all of that in relation to the state of the game.

Recent conversation with a fellow guildie:

Me: "I got some decent drops yesterday, couple of greens and stuff. I was going to sell them but they're yours. That is, if you have the space?"

Him: "Of course I have space. I have a Paragon."

Mesmers in PVE are much more useful for one thing then any other in PVE - Boss farming.

However, the problem with shut-down mesmers (either spell casting or melee or E-drain) is that they only affect one foe at a time, while in PVE we have too mny foes where ganking them all with an MS is much more useful then backfiring an afflicted elementalist to death.

On the topic of your quote, I am thouroghly ashamed of Anet at nerfing searing flames, when other fire magic should have been raiesed to its level instead.

And btw - would it really hurt to buff mesmer interupts to affect all skills? I highly doubt a mesmer dealing the same damage they can to a caster to a warrior instead is going to be game breaking.

I am also interested in the out-come of this post, perhaps they could give us some examples and scenarios of how they'd like certain classes to be used?

My guild would argue that mesmers can be highly effective in PvE, but this requires a lot of concentration and effort to pull off, which I think is part of the appeal of the Mesmer to them. For instance, all mesmer teams can do DoA in HM. However, if the same players did the same again, but playing as the holy trinity (and the support necro), they'd have had a much easier time.

Ele's are built for pure damage, whilst mesmers are forced to improvise. They can do it well, but it is still not the same thing.

What about researching premade builds both current ones and (especially) past ones? It is likely that dev-made premades are based on their vision of how class is supposed to be played.

I'm hoping that the devs (or someone at Anet) will give this a bit of thought. What was their vision as they created each class/profession? Not only will it provide insight to the game itself, but it may clear commonly held misconceptions between players and Anet. This can only be a good thing.

(And this applies to all professions, of course, not just the Elementalist or the Mesmer.)

Note: Avarre, hats off again for all the mesmer insight. In fact, your advice and encouragement here at guru has been nearly single-handedly responsible for my sticking with my (second) mesmer for over a year even though few would allow her in PuGs. A few people are beginning to appreciate the mesmer more, it seems, and often she now has to decline invitations.

~Falcon

Vision must sometimes give way to change because of unforseen circumstances.

To me the mesmers can fulfill their roles, shutdown, subjugation and caster or martial class hate. They have the skills. Just....not the targets to work on. Theres just no need for the true prowess of the mesmer in PvE.

The mesmer is about shutdown through interrupts and disabling skills (domination), hexes and degen(illusion) and energy control(inspiration). These are useless in PvE, since monsters can re-charge skills quickly and have huge energy pools. Theres very few direct damage skills on the mesmer, and thats fine with me.

I actually liked Flareway for the mesmer before it got nerfed...that was fun...

Ok...so lets see what i want in future changes to fit the class "vision":

For:

Mesmers - Theres simply very little need for a mesmer in PvE, until Anet redesigns monsters so their skillbars behaved more like player's skillbars, they arent too effective. I mean...why diversion when they seem to have 20 copies of 1 skill? As utility, stronger hex removal and energy control for PARTY members would rock.

Assassins - I think sins should be given Shadow Arts weapons to propogate more variety in Assasin builds.

Ritualist - Rits are at a strange place. They solo well, they have good weapon spells, they are dominating with spike builds, they heal well, they have good synergy with some secondaries. However, their ORIGINAL purpose (imo), the mass spirit spammer, is pretty much at the wayside. Heres an example of a class that changed its function.

Paragon - I like my paragon, and the paragon is Anet's most powerful class thats ever seen the light of day (The beta Dervish not withstanding). Its been the target of many many many many nerfs, and rightfully so, because of its strong synergy and skills. And even after that, its still very powerful. Imo, the paragon is at a good place, but just has bad public image like the Assassin. Anet needs to properly balance leadership to disable paraway, so it can rebuff the paragon's skills. Sound familiar? The assassin received massive nerfs and was later buffed to have its skills back to its original versions, but even those buffs cant change the public image in PvE.

Snide remark:

Do we really need ANet to tell us how we should play a certain class?
Is it not up to you to find out what to do?


Of course ANet's developers need to have an idea what which class should do.

If players then play the class differently or it is not used for what it is "supposed" to do, they might have to look at the class again...

Paragons were a prime example for this, a lot of misconceptions and ANet unfortunately did not expect Paragon only teams with a lot of synergy and power.

WARNING!!!! This is a long post.
This isn't hard if you look at the basic game play mechanics and the skill design of the characters. Ill take the Warrior and Ranger as 2 quick examples.


Warrior

By looking at what all comes with the warrior, you'll have a much better understanding of what the role of a warrior is. A warrior is ment to provide Damage over a period of time or DPS as commonly referred too. The warrior does this by using many high damage attacks and using conditions to apply this pressure. [skill]Eviscerate[/skill] is a great example of this. By having a good damage boost to the attack as well as applying a deep wound which lowers the targets health by 20% The warrior also has sever options as far as weapons to use to provide this. Each weapon has its own benefits and applications to help the warrior provide this high adrenaline offense. The sword warrior is usually considered the condition warrior by many who play it, but is less known for its raw high damage. The sword has the lowest Base weapon Damage but can provide several conditions and high damage attacks that can provide the Warrior with abilities to provide a high pressure output while skills like [skill]Final Thrust[/skill] can provide a quick high damage attack to help finish that last bit of health an enemy could have. The Axe Warrior is known for a more high damage warrior and straight out raw damage, although this damage can vary more due to the weapons base damage, but has a chance for a high damage return. Skills like [skill]Executioners Strike[/skill] can provide a very high damage return for the Axe warrior. Hammer warriors will attack slower than an axe or a swrod warrior, but can provide just as much damage and pressure. From a high damage weapon base, to hammer attacks that cause interrupts, knockdowns, and conditions, to high pressure high damage attacks, the hammer warrior can inflict a high amount of damage in a short amount of time. Each of these lines effectively use an attack based system that uses "Adrenaline" to help a warrior conserve energy, since this class has the lowest base energy pool and regeneration rate of all the professions. By effectively combining increased attack speed skills like [skill]Frenzy[/skill] or [skill]Flail[/skill] and adrenaline attacks, a warrior can attack at a faster rate, thus rebuilding adrenaline to be able to keep up a constant attack rate. The warrior also has several shouts and stances that will help him survive in several situations. [skill]Gladiator's Defense[/skill][skill]Endure Pain[/skill][skill]"Watch Yourself!"[/skill] are excellent examples of defensive single and party skills that a warrior can use to his ability to maintain his position on the frontlines. This character is usually the first into combat and has the position the deepest into the line you're trying to fight through. Thus the higher armor level of the warrior. The warrior is traditionally used as a pressure character, inflicting conditions and providing a high pressure offense, though they can spike or stance tank where needed, these warriors are often not as effective overtime as the DPS warrior. A good Warrior can be a well sought after commodity.

Ranger

This guy is a little more tricky. The Ranger can have several uses that he can use effectively. Marksmanship Rangers such as the Barrage/Pet ranger can be highly effective in groups and can use devistating bow attacks such as [skill]Barrage[/skill] to maintain devistating ranged damage to an enemy, all the while keeping at a relatively safe distance, unlike the warrior. Some bow skills such as [skill]Savage Shot[/skill] and [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill] can be used effectively to disrupt an enemy spellcaster or interrupt key targets, however these are more commonly used in key Wilderness builds such as the BA ranger or the BHA ranger. The wilderness survival attribute relies on the rangers abilitys and training from his natural surroundings to help him survive. Skills like [skill]Troll Unguent[/skill],[skill]Escape[/skill], and [skill]Natural Stride[/skill] all provide the ability to give the Ranger a survivability aspect to help keep the Ranger out of danger. Skills such as [skill]Apply Poison[/skill] or [skill]Barbed Arrows[/skill] can help the Ranger be able to effectively apply conditions from a distance and provide an area of pressure as well. These can allow the Ranger to stack conditions very effectively. A very common build using this is the BA ranger. When combining [skill]Burning Arrow[/skill] and [skill]Apply Poison[/skill] a Ranger can spread conditions and pressure around a party very quickly and when combined with interrupts like ones mentioned above can be a deadly force to have to deal with. Trap Rangers are also another variant of the Wilderness line. Traps like [skill]Dust Trap[/skill] and [skill]Spike Trap[/skill] help to provide a more defensive role for the party. By trapping in a strategic location, the Trap Ranger can effectively hinder groups rushing to attack, or can help to stall groups retreating. Skills like [skill]Healing Spring[/skill] can help to also provide party wide support to go along with the defensive capabilities of traps. But traps are not always defensive, you can offensive trap as well. [skill]Flame Trap[/skill] is a good example of a trap that is ment to provide an offensive capability as well as applying conditions. Spirit Rangers are also another variant of the Wilderness attribute. These Rangers use many spirits such as [skill]Favorable Winds[/skill] or [skill]Energizing Wind[/skill] to provide an effect bonus. While these rangers can help your team with certian spirits, the spirits are not limited to your party alone. They can also effect enemy parties as the spirit provides the effect to all parties involved. Thus builds with spirits such as [skill]Nature's Renewal[/skill] and [skill]Tranquility[/skill] can be devistating against opponent teams, but can also hinder your own party as well. Beast Rangers are not as well known as marksmanship or wilderness rangers, but can be just as effective. By using the Ranger's Companion, he can effectively command the pet to use a series of attacks to accompany his own for devistating effects. Pet Attacks such as [skill]Predator's Pounce[/skill] and [skill]Poisonous Bite[/skill] help the pet to attack effectively while applying conditions and the pet can effectively be another teammate or just a furry friend to bring along for fun. A knowledgeable Ranger can be well worth its weight in gold.

So you see there is an "intent" to a characters design and a purpose that it was effectively designed and created for, but there is no "one" way for you to play your character. Both warriors and rangers (as listed above) have several skills, builds, and play styles that can suit a variety of players needs or wants out of a character. It isn't up to anyone else to determine how you play your character or even what that characters purpose is. The purpose of a character is what you make of it.
The Paragon class was built for the purpose it fulfills, which is party wide support with a high pressure offense. The class in its intent and conception provides this very effectively. The problem with paragons is that alone they are underpowered, and in packs they are overpowered. The paragon by itself can barely have enough party support to effectively benefit the party more than 50% of the time. But paragons in a pack can be brutal. With having a high defense based armor and shouts and chants that can increase armor as well as provide damage reduction and mitigation, these guys can be virtual concrete pillars on the battlefield. Combine this with a high powered offense using things like [skill]Cruel Spear[/skill] and [skill]Harrier's Toss[/skill] and you can provide a very high rate of DPS while providing a HUGE boost to the party's survivability. There is not a hugely effective way to be able to nerf these guys from running around in packs other than whats been done so far with the skill adjustments and the armor stacking nerf. However due to them being so popular to being run in packs for the reasons stated above, it has effectively killed the single paragon's effectiveness to the point where the paragon is almost unwanted in PVE.

Mesmers need a redesign.

FC needs to affect Cost and Recharge of spells - the signet update was pointless in reguard to PvE.

Mesmers Need AoE, especially if they are going to rely on Degen for PvE. Monster's health is to high to load Illusion hexes on a single monster at a time while the rest pummel your team. Necs already have powerful AoE degen, why shouldn't Mesmers?

Mesmer's "damage" skills need to calculate based on enemy health. For instance, Power Spike should deal 15-30% damage to its target, not just 30-102 raw damage.

Mesmers are fine in PvE, except in a few elite areas.
This is because A-net's way of making the game more difficult seems to be adding more enemies (which is not that strange, since AI is a lot more difficult to work on) or adding environment effects.
The mesmer being more powerfull to a single target makes it harder to add in a team without swapping out an other more (AoE) damaging role, which is better against large groups.

For example, most teams play Deep the Steel Wall build.
This is because it's one of the more easier team builds to play.
In the default build, bringing a mesmer would mean swapping out an ele or a monk.
You want the 3 warriors, the BiP and the SS.
A mesmer can take the SS role, but that's not the point here.

The question is if a mesmer can be swapped for an ele or a monk.
I think both swaps are possible, but only in experienced teams.

In DoA (DoA balanced team build) , it could be possible to swap an ele for a mesmer, agian with an experienced team.
It's not possible to swap the SS, since he needs to be /R for the spirits.

There are other team builds possible, but those are just not as easily played as the DoA balanced or Steel Wall build.

The Jos-
In one breath you say Mesmers are fine in PvE, then in the next breath you contradict yourself. High level PvE is PvE. Mesmers play no significant role there. PvE IS AoE. That's the fact of the matter. If Mesmers have no AoE, they remain by the wayside.

I have played a PvE Mesmer - beat all three campaigns with her too. Compaired to my Ele and Nec, she is way underpowered, and interrupts are sketchy at best (because interrupting is based on ping, not skill). Missions are slower, killing is slower. The only time when being a Mesmer was useful is when you have one of those "impassable" monk bosses. Even then, a ranger with barrage and distracting shot or BHA/epidemic is MORE useful in that situation and in the mission as a whole.

Sorry, Mesmers just arent better than any other class at anything.

O_O u think?

Since vanquishing takes place on about 100% of the visible map in Cantha and Elona and huge parts of Tyria, this must be considered as the 'ultimate PvE experience' (tm).
Elite areas don't even show up on the map, so they are not really the 'ultimate PvE experience'.

There is one simple way to get the 'ulitmate PvE experience':

- Have a good tank.
- Let him gather all enemies in the area in a small ball around him/her
- Nuke the enemies to death
- Repeat above till you have cleared the area.

Required professions:
Ele (tank and nukers) and monk when Ele takes too much damage to survive (if you have a good tank, swap monk for ele for more damage).
You don't need Necro's, Warriors, Mesmers, Rangers, Assassins, Ritualists, Paragons and Dervishes at all.
If only BiP and EoE were Ele skills and not linked to Necro and Ranger, this would make life even easier.

In PvE, all professions are less efficient compared to the holy duality of Ele and Monk.

Oh, this reminds me:
A-net, could you please nerf those annoying non-spell enchantment removers, they are ruining my 'ultimate PvE experience', I cannot run my holy duality because of those in some areas.

Since all professions are underpowered compared to the holy duality in the 'ultimate PvE experience', it's safe to state that those are not better at anything.
Why put BHA on a monk when you can ball him in a group and nuke him to death?
Why use conditions besides fire, since you can ball enemies and nuke them to death?
.......

Mesmers being sucky because they don't have AoE damage is just as true as the things I wrote above.
Very true, except it's not how people want to play the game.
They want to play the game the way they want to (though I doubt that many people realise it's possible to vanquish a lot of the game with just eles helped by monks).

I think all professions can add value to a team, but you need skilled players working closely together to get full advantage.
And since most PvE is just a bunch of people that are not even used to play in an organised team, many professions seem to be underpowered.
That has more to do with the mindset and skills of those players than the profession.

Agree with the whole post, but this point in particular.

Where would you sub a mesmer into the DoA? All 3 monk archetypes (HB/SB/Bonder) use high marks in DF not to mention skills tied to it. The eles use high marks in ES to drop lots of rocks and SF to hell and back. The BiPper is really a necro only job and the SS (which is relatively infrequently used) is also better suited to a necro due to the energy requirements of echoing. The benefits these classes have at their positions outweigh the benefits of fast casting. You might be able to get by as the bonder, but without Blessed Signet there will be even more bitching for BiPping than there already is because of overextension. The only thing I could see coming from bringing a mesmer into the group as a pseudo-something would be headaches for the BiP.

I've only beat 2 campaigns on my mesmer, but I agree with you. There is one AOE spell they have that causes damage and energy drain.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Chaos_Storm

The downside is this spell causes the mobs to scatter which makes this skill not such a good idea. I think some sort of degen aoe would be better. But that's just my opinion.