Signet of the Unseen for PvE

Wouldn't it be cool if Mesmers had a skill like this? I mean, with Cry of Pain dead, many are now turned off from mesmers. This is just the skill a mesmer needs to be revived as an armor ignoring nuker, and it sticks to the concept that mesmers are supposed to use signets.

The only problem I see? It could become worse than cryway and ursan combined.
It knocks down people AND deals a heck load of AoE damage.

Perhaps give it a casting time of 3 or 4 to force mesmers to use Fast Casting? Or perhaps reduce its damage to the level of Cry of Pain, making it more of a spammable Earth Shaker for casters, and still labeling Mesmers as the support role?
And increase the recharge to about 12 seconds so there's still a reasonable cool-time even with Mantra of Inscriptions?
Maybe make it have the downfall of losing energy, but being not a spell, nor' attack skill, you can't use things like Glyph of Lesser Energy?
It'd need some downfall of some sort so it wouldn't become a "WTFBOOOOOOOOOOOM" nuke. I'm sure ANET could come up with something.

Anyways, it could be just what Mesmers need to be revived now that VoR and CoP were nerfed. They're supposed to be Signet users, and even their attribute says so. So why not make some useful Signets for PvE?

Crying groups aren't actually dead since Feast of Corruption combined with Cry of Pain does all and more. So if anything needs to be brought to attention about in elite areas, it's that.

However, a Signet of the Unseen rippoff would shine very well in general PvE since its knockdown combined with Cry of Pain's degen could spread some great pressure.

Now, I know this skill is most like Signet of Judgement. But if it were buffed for Monks, wouldn't that mean monks would rule the meta again since they can play the role of a suberb healer and offense (RoJ) at the same time?

Just my random skill wish list for a mesmer.

In case anyone was wondering;
Elite Signet. Target foe and all nearby foes take 80 damage and are knocked down. If any of those foes are summoned creatures, those foes begin Burning for 6 seconds.

Why do you want mesmers to have it? It just seems like a buffed SoJ. If you just wanted it in the game, I would just say make it a PvE-Only version of SoJ.

I just gave my reasoning in an edit of my post ^

Monks would rule the meta again. And mesmers need more signets.

Any monk can equip a mesmer secondary and do what a mesmer can with this and more (Healing), while a mesmer is limited only to this.

Which is why a large cast time of 3 or 4 is needed, or to move to fast casting. A skill like this can be Ursan and Cry of Pain combined when used with teams and needs limitation of being used with Fast Casting.

Cry of Pain was overpowered in the fact you didn't need to invest in anything. But if this is limited to fast casting, an attribute usually not invested in, it limits abuse of what we can do.

Now, if it was Signet of Judgement, tell me players won't copy+paste the old RoJ build with this as the elite and Mantra of Inscriptions?

hello my name is smiters boon why do you think i don't see play?

Oh, and Mesmers don't really need this skill either.

1. Cry of Pain isn't dead, damage was reduced ok but there's a huge list of what else mesmers can do beside cry.

2. Here you're basically asking Anet to give you a gimmick build straight away.

Yes they would, and most probably they'd use Mantra of Signets to spike.

yes, you could do that... OR you could NOT introduce the skill in pve

How many builds do you run on a mesmer and are they straight damage or do they require you to interrupt at the right time or put hexes for anti caster/anti melee on?

I hope you play a mesmer outside of a "cryway" build and actually use a mesmer for what they are best at, Intrrupting, Anti Caster/Melee.

Mesmers aren't NUKERS. And also, the signet part, that was ADDED to fast casting in an update within the past year or two. They aren't straight up "Signet Users"

Seriously if you are trying to get a mesmer to nuke stuff, and you ar dead serious in asking ANET to add a skill to do just that to a mesmer, you lack IQ sir. This is why a lot of good mesmer skills were ruined for people who LOVED mesmers like myself. People like you who want mesmers to nuke like an elementalist, because you are too busy being TL;DR to read skill descriptions to play a mesmer for what it is.

My frustration in this post comes from the fact that you name skills and things on a mesmer that are dead, when they are in fact not dead.

Why did mesmers have to be bashed on so much? If only the GW community had brains.

Why is it that when a skill is nerfed, people start talking like the skill is dead, or the prof is dead? Cry of Pain is fine, just like ROJ is fine. It's just different than it was. Adjust your build and rock on.

I think some people aren't comfortable until they see the new meta emerge on pvx.

I DO play mesmer, and I DO play anti-melee, my good sir.
But a good mesmer doesn't dedicate their bar solely to just interrupts or anti-melee.

In PvE, things blow up in seconds. Unless you're interrupting that HM boss' Meteor, interrupts aren't needed all too much because an efficient and smart team already has things dead.
As for anti-melee, does anyone actually ever use ineptude since it was nerfed hundreds of times?
Outside of clumsiness and wandering eye, you only have the sub-par empathy, which is good, but not good enough.
You also have Fragility, which I admit, I love, but it's still just a single skill.

In domination, you have access to energy surge, but who uses that since it was nerfed? The domination line is in a mess.


@TheodenKing:
Cryway isn't dead. But offensive options for a mesmer is now lacking.
A mesmer can be compared to a Paragon in the fact they play hybrid. You should have a bit of everything on your bar, depending on the attributes used. Some interrupts, some anti-melee hexes, and then an offensive spell or two.
But mesmers are completely overshadowed by a necromancer in those aspects, and are way better at anti melee. Plus, who said a necromancer can't go mesmer secondary and bring an interrupt? Which, cry of pain is an interrupt, and personally, I use it as one. So as a necromancer, you have great anti-melee, support from skills like Enfeebling Blood, great offense from Spiteful Spirit or Feast of Corruption, condition transfer to enemies (Foul Feast+Plague transfer), and more.

Mesmers have................?
In the concepts of the original guild wars, they were designed to both support the team and provide damage. I do NOT see much support for the team besides a crappy 15 energy hex removal spell, and now only sub-par damage outside a certain few illusion magic skills.
If they need to keep the role of support, they need skills that actually help the team. A spammable, ranged Earth Shaker would greatly help out mesmers in the supporting aspects by knocking enemies, while dealing damage. They would have support. And they would have damage. Exactly how a mesmer should be, according to anet themselves.

AoE armor ignoring dmg,aoe unblockable KD,no energy cost and can be recharged in a few seconds sounds A LITTLE BIT OP

You did not read my post. I was suggesting penalties or side-effects to make it less efficient, while still being a good pve-only elite.
And a lot of high-end enemies have resistance to knockdown anyways.

Not all classes are meant to deal damage. Just because all classes CAN deal damage doesn't mean they SHOULD. Mesmer excels at interference. This can be with hexes that slow things down (Imagined Burden), slow casting down (Arcane Conundrum), drain energy (Spirit Shackles), or deal damage (Clumsiness). You can also do things without using hexes, some of that includes party support. So you can remove hexes (Inspired Hex), interrupt spells (Power Spike), drain energy/adrenaline (Sympathetic Visage), self heal (Ether Feast), remove energy (Energy Burn), cause conditions (Accumulated Pain), remove enchantments (Shatter Enchantment), disable skills (Diversion), and even reduce damage (Physical Resistance).

That surely doesn't even cover it all. And you can easily do several of those things in one build if you want. And I didn't list ALL of the options available as I didn't mention things like cause health degen (Conjure Phantasm).

I don't think MORE skills need to be added, and I don't think Mesmer needs a damage oriented skill, even for PvE. You can easily do damage in PvE as a Mesmer if you want, you don't need a new skill to do it, or even a secondary class skill(s).

I think a better option would be to buff psychic instability to an aoe knockdown. At least that couldn't be exploited by other classes. However, interrupts are a bit lackluster in HM...maybe add in some bonus like an unconditional 1 second knockdown, and 3-4 seconds if the foe is using a skill.
Agreed. It really isn't dead. People don't seem to understand that it was actually improved for the solo mesmer. It now does a maximum of 150 damage, while the old version did 100. Cryway may be dead, but cryway wasn't healthy for the mesmer class either.

I think I can speak for (almost) everyone by saying this:
1. The skill does not fit in at all with any mesmer skill, and is much more a monk skill.

2. Mesmers are fine how they are. They do not need yet another gimmick skill to completely win PvE. If you play them the way they're meant to be played, you will find that they can be just as powerful as a nuker. Not to mention interrupts/skill disabling.

3. If anything, mesmers need a nerf, not another buffed up skill.

Imaged Burden is bad for PvE. Especially when you have Tryptophan Signet, which anyone can use.

Arcane Conundrum is a good skill though. I can't doubt that.

Spirit Shackles isn't needed outside of farming though

And Clumsiness is also a good skill, but the problem is it's one of the ONLY good mesmer skills

Inspired Hex really isn't a widely used skill outside of removing monster hexes, in which, secondary mesmers use it just as well

Power Spike, again, is merely just one of many interrupts. Good skill. But it's just an extra skill for a mesmer to bring in the role of playing a hybrid of utilities

Sympathetic Visage is a poor argument though. It only affects foes attacking you, who're next to you, and it's never used outside of farming. E-denial in pve also sucks

Ether Feast is a self heal, a decent one, true, but it doesn't make a class good just because it has a self heal

Energy Burn was good, but it was nerfed a bit. And its recharge kind of holds back its potential. And it sucks for e-denial in pve

Accumulated Pain might have use for pvp in a spike, but it's useless in PvE and my warrior, paragon, and all my other characters, get deep wound conditions for almost free. Again, not worth it.

Diversion is not good for PvE but might have uses against even Arachni. Still, it fails for general PvE, and it isn't much utility on things that die in a few seconds. But outside of bosses that use normal skills, who're easy anyways, this is a pretty poor skill for general pve.

Physical Resistance is a stance and it also has the downfall of leaving you weak to elemental damage, which is just as common as physical. It's best not to waste your skill slot on it, sometimes.

Explain

/notsigned

It can be spammed easily with Mantra of Inscriptions and soon can easily become the next Cryway.

Plus it has 7 recharge. If they were going to make it for PvE, make it a 30-40 second recharge.

You /notsign for that, but would you /sign for a balance adjustment making it suitable for a mesmer, like the thread intends?

You clearly doesn't understand how to play a mesmer in PvE.If you wanna go nuking you don't need an elite version of an already elite skill (SoJ),maybe if you go /E FC nuker thats another thing.And 1 skill wont change the mesmer style to "nuking" anyway,their skill set doesnt revolve around that.

CoP is still good,you just cant AE / AP CoP spam.The pve skills alone are already enough if you wanna make a high-dmg mesmer to the nature of FC.

Introducing a pve-only skill(why they would do that anyway?) for mesmer to abuse it obviously isnt the way to go.Maybe reworking other skills for more PvE usage since mesmers don't really have alot of choices for elites on PvE.

So a ranged earthshaker signet? No. It would either be bad, or the next stupidly overpowered team build. Some skills just can't be properly balanced, this is one of them.

That's exactly what I'd see as a problem in all this.
They brought over call to the spirit realm as Signet of Spirits (And it works wonders!), so I figured if balanced properly, it would be nice if mesmers had a knockdown still of some sort.

But I guess maybe you're right. Without changing functionality completely, it would become the next shadowform team build...... That is, unless Shadowform was nerfed.
Cry of Pain and such were only a problem because players could mindlessly nuke everything while they're locked onto one target: A permasin


I guess maybe once SF is nerfed, this skill would be able to be balanced if brought to PvE?

LOL - I mentioned ONE skill as an example for each of the things I mentioned available to a Mesmer. Sadly, you don't even comprehend the potential for many of those skills. Learn how to play a Mesmer before trying to change skills for them to use.

Your idea has HUGE potential for abuse as an overpowered skill. Ranged AoE knockdown is a serious issue. Even the closest to what you suggest only knocks down 1 target (Signet of Judgement). All other AoE knockdows have significant drawbacks. Earthquake has a long recharge and casting time as well as exhaustion. Earth Shaker costs a lot of adrenaline and yet does no damage. None Shall Pass has a long recharge and requires targets to be moving. Spike Trap and Tripwire are easily interrupted and require the targets to be in a small, specific area. There are a few others, but they all have similar issues that prevent them from being overpowered.

AoE knockdown has SERIOUS balance issues and should not be an easy thing to do. New skills are hardly needed at this point in the game, and making overpowered skills is an even worse idea.

You answered my question. Thanks. I'm smiling inside.