Stop Mesmer Abuse

The mesmer has been my favorite character to play since prophecies was released, but this class has continually been nerfed to the point where its really becoming irritating to use them. Some nerfs were justified, others were not. Im really ticked that today I signed on played and found that shatter enchantment was nerfed mainly because of its use by ele me teams in HA. This is not the first time mesmer skills have been nerfed because of use by some other primary profession using them. Most of the nerfs to inspiration magic were because of by other primary classes which made them "too powerful" according to someone somwhere.

Mesmers skills for the most part do what mesmers are supposed to do. The class is not overpowered and probably by themselves are one of weakest classes in the game. Specific mesmer skills used effectively with a team strategy in mind is what makes mesmers strong, and thats what they were intended to be used for, so its sad to see these skills nerfed because of their use by other professions. So, to fix it...

Why not just tie the effectiveniss of skills that could be used in such a way to the fast casting attribute. Just add a description to these skills that says something like damage or energygain (whatever) is reduced by 25-75% with a fast casting attribute of 4 or less, which would make it impossible for non primary mesmers to get the total range of effect from the use of a mesmer skill.

Since there are several skills that have a 50%failure rate with certain attribute of 4 or less I think that this could be done. The whole reason that mesmers have been nerfed in this way is because the skills that really do what a mesmers are really good for are not tied to their primary attribute in the way that the skills that could be abused in such a way by other secondary professionson are tied to thier primary professions. Spell Breaker and Divine Favor (not to mention the healing bonus of every monk skill is tied to divine favor), or The Forms and Mysticism, etc. What makes mesmers great is in domination, inspiration, and illussion magic which is not really linked to thier primary attribute very effectively the way that other professions primary is. Energy storage is essential to eles, Strength to warriors, divine favor to monks, Soul Reaping to Necros, Critical Strikes to Assassins, etc. Fast Casting needs to have more of an overall effect on mesmer skills, and tied to mesmer skills in some way in general.

/signed and agreed. Not only for mesmers but some of the more abuse-laden skills through out the game. I love the mesmer proff but with all the nerfs I dont play one.

~the rat~

I agree. I've always been a fan of mesmers, because it is the best example of 'skilled' fighting. That is to say that if you're clever enough, you can deal large amounts of damage. It is less so for other classes. Elementalist nuker tries to max fire damage, and warriors try to take hits. The roles are fairly straightforward and hard to screw up. A mesmer build can be incredibly bad or incredibly good depending on the person who built it, which is part of what makes this game so great.

Mesmers are already unpopular picks to add to parties, so why nerf what's already nerfed? I say reward the clever. If you can think of something which works incredibly well, then you are a better player for it and should reap the benefits.

/notsigned

Me/E - fast casting nuker
oh noes! the nasty mesmers are abusing our ele skills :O... /sarcasm

What hapenned to shatter?

I agree. My mesmer is getting pretty dusty.

I used to play her as straight illusionist. Ever wonder why mesmer's get attacked first and why you hate mesmer enemies so bad?

It's to bad really. They are great support in any team.

But no one wants you.

QFT lol dont touch our skills damn it >.>

/signed. No brainer. outright nerfing of skills because of their secondary use is a piss poor call to make. The OP provided a very viable way to nerf secondaries without nerfing the whole profession.

I very rarely manage to get into a group with my mesmer, but the other day I not only grouped for the Frost Gate mission, but out-survived my entire party and then soloed the rest of the mission and bonus! Some of the team members left before I finished out of boredom, but I'd burned my rez ring and I wasn't about to pack it in just cuz they were amateurs. Everyone who stayed put me in their friends list and said I could group with them again any time. They all seemed thoroughly impressed. Mesmers rule!

/notsigned

Just increase the casting time.

That will tie it into Fast Casting without having to fiddle the description.

I'd make fast casting increase the recharge rate of mesmer skills, but that's just me.

To the OP: I wouldn't nerf all the skills to require you to have FC. I'd add some skills in FC to strengthen your other lines. For example, there could be an encantment that causes all your illusion degens to do extra AI damage every second.

try playin a mesmer first before posting so you can contribute to a conversation.

--understand how fast casting works... let me explain... the 50% faster cast mod on caster weapons is better than mesmer fast casting.

/signed
I use only few skills from my Mesmer. I even have 3 elite tomes and no good skills that are useful in PvE. And other thing, without MoR I just wand mobs, even if I have good damaging spells. Why? Monks just heal, warrior's have adrenaline, dervishes have mysticism, Elems have very good e-management, necro's... even after nerf they have a lot of nice skills, paragon's have almost full energy all the time, thanks to leadership. What we have? Faster cast, wow. And what, if it's capped on 50% and we use Halves Cast Time weapons/offhands? We gain almost no advantage over other classes :/

First of all, fast cast nuking has never been great.

Second, fast cast eles in general have been nerfed before. Ele attune was adjusted because of fast cast spikers.

Tying in fast casting to some mesmer skills would be a good way of making some skills do what they are intended without making it overpowered for other classes.

Let's See

Monk= Diverson, Mistrust, Cry of Frustration , Shame, Power Block=GG
Warrior= Ineptitude, Images of Remorse, Soothing Images, Clumsiness=GG
Dervish= See Warrior
Eles= See Monk

Not every Profession is going to be a Mesmer Secondary and Bring Hex Breaker now are they...

Let's look at pve then.
Monk - Hmm... Blocking single monsters makes no sense, bosses are double-hard to interrupt, e-denial doesn't work, and CoF is espensive as hell.
Warrior - Inep + Clumsiness is the only good thing from Illusion. Still, it's only 10 seconds of blind. And there are condition-removers in pve, too.
Dervish - A lot of dervish monsters don't care if they hit - spells and Chilling Victory hits even if you don't.
Eles - See monk.
Mesmer is broken - They are useful in PvP, useless in PvE.
And the point is that mesmer skills are hit by the nerf bat too hard because of other classes. Reveal Hex/Inspired Hex? Monk's fault. Mantra of Recall? Monk's. Signet of Humility? Necro's. Spirit of Failure? Necro again. And don't let me start a discussion about mesmer ELITES, as there is a lot of skills that I wouldn't take even if they were normal skills.

Then you have no idea on how to play the profession! Not flamming, just stating an observation. If you can't interupt a boss, then no need to complain about it.

just wondering, what nerf to shatter enchantment are you talking about.

anyways, i'm having fun playing on my mesmer so while i agree some of the stuff seems a little underpowered, mesmers still do their role well.

There is no such mod that makes u cast 50% faster all times!

You have a maximum of 4% at 25% Cast time, 36% at 50% cast time and the remaining 60% at normal cast time. IMO the mods aint really better (nor much worse), FC lets you CAST all spells near 50% faster if pumped up high enough. The mods make it however more tricky to interrupt you due unpredictable cast times. But fast casting should only be needed if u use a skill like MoR or u dump remaining points in there.

shouldn't this be inside the riverside inn? this isn't exactly the next big idea for an in game event or profession etc .

Mesmers can be good if played correctly , however people generally turn away from them to elementalists etc . mesmer is generally used as a secondrary profession but people shouldn't call the profession rubbish before they've even played it . they may be suprised how good a mesmer can be

Okay, interrupt 1/2 Orison of Healing or, better one, Dismiss Condition with 0,375 cast time ~~ Did you forgot that bosses in F and NF have halved cast time of skills?
And did you noticed one thing? Monks always have same builds in all missions (like I did Ice Caves of Sorrow to Abaddon's Mouth without changing my build with monk), Warrior's dont need to change neither... I think that only Mesmers must make a choice - Be good interrupter or be good damage dealer. I mean, because of all nerfs Mesmer's ARE weaker compared to other proffesions. Why? Because our skills are better on other characters then on a mesmer. And you gave few examples of how mesmer is good - Cool, but you can't bring 10 or 12 skills. A mesmer can be effective only versus one type of enemy - melee or caster. All other characters can be effectve versus ALL enemies.
And I think he was talking about Drain Enchantment, which must have higher Inspiration to be worth it's cost.

Wanna know how you can make a warrior so pissed off that he'll leave AB? I do it all the time. *twiddles thumbs*

Cast empathy on them, and let them kill themselves. When they run at you because they've reached the point of not caring whether or not they kill themselves as long as they kill you, you run away, casting wastel's worry on them first. Once they turn around (seeing how they're now at 30% health and chasing a mesmer who casts empathy on you is not going to turn out well), you cast wastel's worry on them again. At that point, they're screwed. They either can't get back to the battle fast enough to use an attack skill or they do and empathy kills them.

I've had quite a few warriors cuss me out and leave due to this.
Needless to say, the joke never gets old for me.

Main PvE character is a mesmer.
It's a character that's good for playing in organized teams.
I hardly ever take him in PuGs for that reason.

Nerfs have not been bad lately, at least not in my builds.
The only nerfs that hurt were some inspiration nerfs because of usage on other professions.

However, if those hurt a lot, you are probably not playing your mesmer right.
I got comment on one of my e-management skills for long loading time.
Well, it's enough for me, since I am not the nuker pumping skills like mad on a target.

/signed

i cant stand all the noob's who say mesmers are useless all cus they ran into a few crap players and follow the other sheep while there at it.

Fact is i seen more useless players either Monking or Tanking, but i dont sit in a town or outpost bitching how crap they are, Either learn to play Mesmers or shut ur mouth, i think paragons are absoloutely useless, but thats my experience(Not really uselss tho), and in other experiences Necro's are useless(all tho they are not)....but then u gotta sit down pull ur finger out ur A$$ and realise hmm, is it the character's proffession or is it the player/build??

HMMMM, if u guessed proffession, do us a favor and dont bother playing Guild Wars, cus i could make a tank look like the worst class, and hell every time i take a mesmer in PvE with me it out does the elementalist and necros and dervish and paragons, but like most people u have ur Brick Walls coated in 3 inch gold, no matter what u do there not gonna crack and keep doing the same old crap.


so to u mesmer fans/myself our best objective is to ignore the mesmer abuse, and hope A-net cleans up its stupid nerfs, in the past 3 months the game has really gone down hill due to nerfs!!!!!!

/signed, if this was applied to all the other classes as well it would completely shut down the ability for characters to abuse secondary classes.

Removing versatility by a change of this sort is a terrible idea. Guild Wars was designed with utilizing a secondary class in mind.

/not signed

Anet nerd the shit out of necro/any,, my favorite necro/mes,, nerd the shit out of it, i dont even play it much anymore.

heh - just cus some ppl found a use for your precious skills you call it abuse...
eliminate the secondary proff. option is the solution XD

A lot of people don't take their time to analyze the mesmer.
Empathy on a monster costs 10 energy. That monster, in the duration of empathy ought to attack at least 5 or 6 times.

6*47 (at domination 16) = 282 unadulterated x-rated armor-piercing damage

That's right, folks. Now you can nuke a single target for 282 damage at a mere 10 energy. Empathy even recharges by the time the effects wear off so you can recast it.

Take another... Backfire deals 147 damage at level 16. Most monster casters cast 2 in the time of 10 seconds, which is an easy 294 damage for 15 energy. Some classes such as the necromancer and fellow mesmers tend to equip fast-casting spell, which means 3 or 4 spells are cast by the time they realize they have backfire on them, which means a quick 588 damage.

"But a player won't attack if they have empathy on them!" OR "But a player won't cast spells if they have backfire on them!"

All the better! It implies you've disabled an enemy player for the 18 seconds that empathy lasts while you place backfire on an enemy caster in the meantime and deal even more destruction, or at least 10 seconds towards an enemy caster while you look for a warrior to place empathy on. Even if you suck at pvp and stand there while warrior pounds you, you're guaranteed to almost kill him if you place empathy on him.

At that point, hex removal is a mesmer's enemy, and cover hexes are rather easily to find.

No other profession can do all of this. Any veteran player will adopt a mesmer in their AB group, because they know enemies fall like flies when they are around. Don't underestimate a mesmer. It's easy to do, which is another reason I love mesmers so much. 90% of warriors which think I'm such an easy target wind up dead, 5% retreat and manage to get away. It's only the 5% that get the better of me because I didn't spot them in time or because an assasin shadow jumped towards me.

The only reason Mesmer monsters are disliked is because the AI automatically identifies the best and most opportune moment to apply the skill. They automatically interupt all traps, deny energy/adrenal at the right moment, strip ench. at the most critical moment, ect.

The only benefit to the nerf bat in the mesmer line is weakening the AI's perfect use of them. But as far as mesmers go in general I never take the Henchies because they are useless agains the monsters we fight. The monster mes are effective largely because they are in large groups. If they can offer 4 to 16 perfectly timed interupts on all traps, attunements, AoE initiated by a party at the beginning of a fight then they have a massive advantage. Real human players, who might have 1 or 2 party members that can do this could never manage to equal the perfect read/interupt of the AI.

Most mesmer skills rely upon very specific conditions to exist before they become advantagious. Yet, those Mesmer skills are not the one's you find on monsters. Monsters are almost always fully equiped with degen, damage prevention, and direct damage. The mesmer class is unrivaled in its ownership of conditional magic that requires the foe to have just had a 4th child born in the thrid phase of the vanished moon made by Alben and not Ulven in the 7th year of the great flood of ..., then you can do XXX amount damage.

For that reason I only play a mesmer for appearances and mild enjoyment. I would never take my mesmer anyplace serious. When I had my first Mes make it all the way to Fire Islands, back when Factions was still being set up, no one wanted a mes til they needed a certain final boss interupted a lot. Nor did they rely on the Mes alone to acomplish this. No one wanted to take a mes in RoF or Abaddon's. And certainly no one wanted a Dom mes.

I agree with the OP. And I also think linking the skill effectiveness of some specific skills to FC might help. But there are skills which are legitimate cross over skills, like the Mantras, which ought not to be touched. However, if Degen was increased by say +1 (rank 1) to +3 (Rank 16), or a damage buff similar to Divine Favor's healing buff were in effect then I think PC Mes would be improved. However, I am not sure I want these on monsters, as they are difficult enough.

/signed.

Actually, I was thinking it might be good to tie in fast cast to E-recharge time. Rangers have Experience, and Ele's have Energy Storage, so it would make sense. Let's face it. Even counting elites, most skills worth carrying are in the 10-15E range or take 20-30 seconds to recharge without MoR. If they raised the recharge rate with points in fast cast, it would give a nice buff without having to nerf skills every time someone gets owned in TA by someone using the skill in their secondary. At least make fast-cast more than a dump stat for every build other than MoR.

I don't know what you mesmers.. do other then echoing meteor shower.. and enchanting there weapon and hitting people while being blind. and being gwen. and some fat guy from elona.

Rangers have Expertise... not Experience.

Coincidently fast casting is linked to recharge times... its called MANTRA OF RECOVERY. Just because faster casting isn't as useful in PvE doesn't mean its not useful. Its not like Strength and Spawning Power aren't mostly useless.

/signed definatly, before they nerf the skill, they should try changing it like you suggested

/singed

Put all their cost/effects back to normal give them massive cast times (interupts ect aside) and buff FC to componsate. So you sort of need to be a mesmer to use them. It might lead to FC being abused on other classes but i doubt a mesmer could afford the energy to be a necro or ele. FC monk is just lol. The fc assassin thingy might get a bit better but it deals with near instant cast times anyway. A rit? mabay but they might not be to good without spawning power and rit spike isnt really vaible now.

Evilsod: yeah, my bad on expertise. It was a long night.

Mantra of Recovery has NOTHING TO DO WITH ENERGY. I said link fast casting to ENERGY RECHARGE. We know if affects cast times. That isn't a big help with the style of PvE Anet has today, with mobs of lvl 24-26 and bosses at lvl 30. It wouldn't even have to be a large buff to make it useful.

As has been said before, compared to other classes, Mesmer's primary has little to offer compared to other classes. Necros can draw E off opponents easier(Signet of Lost Souls). Elees....what's the worry when you have 85-100+ energy and Dual Attunement builds? Sins make their own energy through Crits, which with crit agility and critical eye is easy to get. A ranger gets E recharge through EXPERTISE, has better armor with elemental damage resistance, and can stay back with the casters.

I'm not saying buff it ungodly. Just make it enough to compare to other professions' utility. Otherwise, Anet is making it so mesmers will always be a PvP-only profession, relegated in pve to enemies with AI reaction times that make life hell.

As far as abuse of other class secondaries, other classes are doing that now. How many times has a skill in the line been nerfed because of someone from another class abusing it?

Then again, it's not like anyone in ANET is going to read the mesmer thread, anyway. They obviously haven't for a while.

Considering energy management often depends on total pips added as determined by the net energy/recharge given by energy skills, I'd say doubling the net output of the skills by making them recharge twice as fast constantly has everything to do with energy.

I should have said nothing to do with energy gain. The skill itself does not affect the energy gain or loss, just the time between the use of the skills. Abuse of the skill will cause you to drain energy faster, however, which, in the scenario I mentioned, could happen very easily.

Ummm, mesmers dont have the energy pool to abuse ele skills the way that eles do, not to mention we cant get 15 or 16 in fire magic which seems to be where the skills get really powerful for eles. Se yes fast casting helps, but with a mesmers energy pool and the attribute limitation you cant really call the use of ele skills by a mesmer primary abusive.

Just wasnt sure if you realized that or not

You are obviously clueless when it comes to the mesmer class.

I don't know how many other professions/lines do this; but - especially in Death Magic - there are quite a few skills that have "50% chance to fail with <attribute> at 4 or less". Now this has always been same-linked skills - a Death Magic skill needs Death Magic 5+ - but you could cross-link it, we know the code supports it (see stuff like Lion's Comfort).

Most stupid thing u could say...


Those primary atributes arent great such as fast casting..


the diference is that those atributes have great skills!