PvE Mesmer nerfs should end.

That is... a really good way of wording it. The problem is that if you give a mesmer more strait up damage, you are making it into a copy of the elementalist or the assassin. There are some classes that are meant for damage and there are some that are not. With ten different classes in the game, you cant have every class being a damaging class. In my opinion, the only way you can buff mesmers without them losing... well what makes them mesmers, is by buffing the environment. I mean, if you want a high dps class, there isnt any reason why you cant play a sin or a warrior.

Now I dont mind a few mesmer buffs to the underpowered skills, but I do not think they need to be changed from their original functionality. Energy denial skills should stay as energy denial skills, no matter how much energy denial may suck in PvE. Instead of removing e-denial, Anet should reward a mesmer for causing e-denial with more effective mind wrackish skills (causing damage from e-denial) or more skills that allow you to take an opponents energy and make it your own (stealing energy for your own energy management kind of like energy tap). This way, instead of doing direct damage and becoming a carbon copy the damage-oriented classes, mesmers can do damage by manipulating the energy of the opponents.

Anyway, I know that mesmers are about more than e-denial but i thought I would throw this idea out there anyway.

No Mesmers have one of the worst emanagement available.

1)It's a non primary attribute (inspiration)

2)Because of the reason mentioned above Mesmers are often "forced" into a 3 way split with their attributes. Dom/Illusion (the focal point of your offense), Fast Casting (your primary), and Inspiration (e-management). Yes there are exceptions to this as we all know but if you have a look around that's the general template for your average Mesmer.

3)Requires skills slot(s)

Whats the big deal about a 3-way split? Its not like you even need much investment in inspiration in order to get a good energy return from power drain or drain enchantment or auspicious. Usually, after ruining, I end up with 14 in either illusion or domination, 9-10 in fast casting, and 10-11 in inspiration. This is a perfectly reasonable attribute split.

Several of the mesmer e-management spells give significant energy returns (like the ones I mentioned above) and, once one becomes proficient at spotting interuptable opportunities or at finding enchantments to remove or even at simply switching to a high en set in order to cast that high-energy spell after an auspicious incantation, e-management on a mesmer becomes extremely easy. Some mesmer skills may need some buffing, but their e-management skills certainly do not. And if you really dont want to split into inspiration, there is always GoLE available.

Finally, yes mesmer energy management skills do require one or two skill slots but you have to remember that they fulfill other roles as well. Power drain isnt just an energy management skill, it is also an interupt. Therefore, it takes the place of one of your interupts. Likewise, drain enchantment removes enchantments. Therefore, whereas a curses necro would put rip enchantment in their build, a mesmer would just fill a slot with drain enchantment. It isnt using up any additional space in your skill bar as it is taking the place of an enchantment removal that you would have there anyway.

And finally... so what if you have to give a skill slot to an energy management skill? Elementalists have to do the same with their attunements and GoLE. Ritualist use up a skill slot for spirit siphon. Monks use up one for GoLE or selfless spirit. In fact, Necroes are the only casting class that generally do not use a slot on their skill bar for energy management, and many necroes even use Sols, thus taking up a slot on their bar. Im sorry but saying that a class' energy management is bad because it has to require a skill slot for their energy management skill is a stupid arguement.

Without changing one skill != Less developer effort than changing one skill.

All things considered, PvE splits and skill changes probably have the least impact on the total playing population. At this stage in the game is it really realistic to hope for major alterations in the PvE environment?



The point in complaining about the Mesmer's 3 way attribute split I think is that most other classes have self-supportive utility built right into the main attribute lines. If I want to run a Fire Elementalist I can take Fire Attunement and Glowing Gaze and both of those are Fire attribute skills.

With Mesmers, it seems the modus operandi was to take almost any unusual or energy management skill and drop it into Inspiration, which means Inspiration line is, for the most part, a liability to the Mesmer class. You've got [theoretically] fewer builds to choose from and the builds you do have are dependent on more attributes.

If you are arguing on general templates - there are a lot of builds that demand a 3 way split. Heck, even Illusion and Domination provide e-management options.
If on the other hand you are arguing about PvE - then use 3 PvE only skills for damage (which require NO attribute points allocation) and go a simple FC/Inspiration split.

You know what is the problem of mesmers in PvE?
The fact that they aren't as obscenely overpowered as everything else and not that they are weak. Which means that they ABSOLUTELY do not need buffs and could actually stand a few more nerfs, because as it stands now - objectively looking they are still overpowered for PvE.
Which means that this whole thread is just a waste or time.

Or we could actually look at this thread as a signal that something are not working in PvE (rather than a demand for class specific buffs) and work on those things to make the game more enjoyable as a whole.

i do know i'm not objective as i play my mesmer from the very beginning and i have my own point of view. how can you say what's objective and what's not?
don't play the rhetorical god, please.

as pointed in the last post - it's not about the damage. it's about:
1) continuous nerfing without buffing
2) having loads of pve useless skills (copies, shitty effects)
3) not being as useful as any other class

as for 3, it doesn't matter how they should be useful. it's not about the damage, let me repeat it.
they are unique in the way of shutting down and disruption - so let's give them something similar to maelstrom linked to fast casting - an interrupt over time, with no exhaustion, workable (not spammable) recharge and cost to handle. it doesn't need to deal damage, it may drain energy and interrupt for a longer period.
rework some direct interrupts (in pve of course) into hex spells, with the effect similar to 'for 10 seconds, the next skill/spell/whatever target foe uses fails'. if correctly tweaked with recharges and cost, it may even have an additional effect of shutdown or causing dazed condition (to be somewhat comparable to BHA rangers).
buff e-denial for pve - change recharge time and cost of panic as a first step. then add an additional effect to every e-denial skill - it doesn't have to be damage - a few things that come to my mind are: 'heal the caster and adjacent allies for x', 'caster gets +x energy regeneration for x time', 'caster gets x energy', 'other random x attribute skill recharges instantly', 'recharges random signet', 'target and his party members get +x energy'.
third, mesmers need any role in the party. again - it doesn't have to be damage. if they could be the best at supporting the party with energy, they could replace P/N batteries - and that would be completely fine. if their mantras gained party wide effects, they could somewhat protect and help with energy. again - it doesn't matter what role they gain, just make it useful in the party of living people.

you can compare mesmers to paragons - they have loads of shitty skills and they can run only imbagon to be effective in a party. the real - and huge - difference is that an imbagon is a blessing in every hm party. a mesmer is usually a burden if he decides to be mesmery.


you argue all the time that mesmers were not created to deal damage; that they're unique and they were designed for something else. i agree with you, let me quote something with additional comments in [] brackets.

Mesmer players are able to win the game.
If the mesmer was an underpowered class this would be impossible to do.
And considering the ease mesmer players are able to win the game - that just goes to show how much potential there still is.

But yes, not measuring up to the other guys is a problem.
The issue is:
1. current PvE is a simple damage-fest
2. 10 classes and 8 party slots.

So by buffing the mesmers you just shift the issue onto someone else. What you want to do is change PvE in a way that allows the options that are already in the game to actually be viable.
And of course - you nerf the insane options that dominate the current game.



Of course, if we are lucky - this is what GW2 will be like.

Power is relative.

If one class is weaker than all the rest, that means it is, relatively speaking, underpowered.

The assumption that PvE's relative difficulty level is static is false, it changes depending on how skills, monster AI, and bars/distribution varies. Change one thing, and the difficulty of PvE shifts slightly. Change several things, the shift is greater in magnitude. Etc.

Beating this game isn't difficult, and it certainly isn't the bar by which relative power is set. It is far better to look at how easily certain setups defeat certain things, how reliably and how swiftly. If one setup can beat a high level area in half the time of another, suffer less probability of defeat, and do so with less personal skill, it is probably more powerful.

The state of a class, its over/underpowered nature, is determined by its fellow classes, not by PvE alone. Thus, if the mesmer is less useful than any other class, it is underpowered.

LoL no , just no. Stand a few nerfs ? soz but , are you on crack ? . Seriously WHAT does have a PvE mesmer right now that DESERVES a nerf ?. Just say something so we can have some fun.
You should actually look at this thread as a "hey Anet , stop throwing random BS nerfs to PvE mesmers , we dont deserve it , thanks" scream because thats what they are doing.

Like any other class , thanks for pointing the obvious.

False.
Underpowered =\= Being unable to complete the game.
For the rest , dont take the word "buff" as a "i want my pve mesmer to WTFPWN any lvl 26+ mob with 2 skills" because no one is asking that. Some skills need shorter recharges on pve and effects/requirements rework and thats a fact. The thing is that Anet is not even translating Nicholas text in other languages so its rather pointless to ask for logical skill changes but at least we can ask them to stop those nonsense nerfs to Mesmers. Hope its clear for you .

If you think this is a valid metric to determine whether or not "X" is overpowered. Well, that's fine for your opinion but I'll be looking for an ignore button.

Mass-market RPG games like Guild Wars are not designed to be pass/fail. You can fail, yes, but you are intended to win. As has been stated before, looking at other metrics like speed, reliability, player skill required are all more useful than looking at whether completion is possible or not.

Your attitude seems to be "If ANet just changes everything else in the game Mesmers will be fine." Which is possibly true. But ANet is not going to change everything else in the game, so it's pointless to discuss that as a scenario.

PvE monsters are static.
You have 10 classes.
You have 8 party slots.
Nothing is stopping you from using the same class multiple times.

By default - you will ALWAYS have at least 2 classes that aren't as good as the rest of them. But in PvE, due to the stupidity of the foes and the obscenity that are PvE skills, that just means that mesmers are currently slightly less mental than everything else.
Yet they are still mental. And the issue is that this mental state of the game is what is considered to be normal so people are screaming for things to be buffed to this mental level.


The game currently needs massive nerfs.
Starting with players, continuing with monsters.
And then, re-evaluate what needs to be potentially buffed. Probably - not much.

I'm not a huge mesmer player so excuse me if I'm totally talking out of my ass here...

Mesmer monsters are already really annoying so I'd hate to give them much of anything to make them MORE annoying. I think the key here is that Fast Casting just isn't worthwhile enough to make a primary Mesmer THE choice for using mesmer spells. I would treat fast casting like divine factor on monks. Since monks are healers, their primary attribute makes them better healers. If Mesmers are to be interruption specialists, I would buff fast casting to also include an energy bonus for ANY interrupted action (in PvE). I'm not sure how significantly this would effect monsters since it seems there energy pool isn't as significant as the player's. This would give mesmers a significant source of energy that is dependent on them doing what they are designed to do. I also think that Cry of Pain needs to have it's recharge or SOMETHING linked to Fast Casting. Right now ANY profession can use it freely without a problem.

Also false.

Change a skill, and you change every monster that uses that skill. Change a core profession, and you change every monster of that profession. PvE is linked directly to the ten classes, and their relative power and ability translates directly into the game.

Is AI also a factor? Certainly. Is the composition of mobs directly linked to their performance? Definitely. But PvE is far from static, as every adjustment changes everything in the game that utilizes that aspect.

Which is why I probably sound like a broken record advocating the wide-range buffing. If skills are increased in power, but still below the current meta, then a lot of monsters will gain a benefit without overpowering the current builds. Targeted nerfs can fix any problems that result, but the wide range will allow class aspects to actually do the job they were meant to do, ie allow mesmers to buff their team like the lore says they should.

Static in terms of once you figure out what works best, that things works best.
And there is no reason whatsoever to run anything else.

And the problem of the current game which followed the "let's buff everything" idea is that we have reached a level where pure, simple damage is completely sufficient to win the game.
Shutdown on it's own will never win the game. It will always need damage.
Damage is already able to win it on it's own.

AP and it's Disco-calling build needs to die.
Caster induced daze needs to die.

Oh look!
That's everything a mesmer is using in PvE!

1: spot on dude!
2: revert disco's cast time to 2 seconds
3: id miss AP <3,and not for disco

Guru Community: Waaah! that other class is a little bit better than my class! Anet do something!

Option 1: Nerf the overpowered class

Option 1 response: Waaah! Anet why do you always NERF everything!?! That is all you ever do is nerf nerf nerf!

Option 2: Buff the underpowered class

Option 2 response: Waaah! why did you buff that class and not mine! Now my class is no good compared to the one you buffed for no reason!

Note: nowhere in this dialog is any understanding of game mechanics or the root causes of the problem required.

Congratulations , those are NON mesmer skills so its relevance in PvE Mesmer nerfs is 0. If you nerf them , you nerf them for all. Some of its users will be hurt , others wont , but thats not the point.

Congratulations again , you are clueless. Once again ,that is a non mesmer build . I didnt think i had to say it with every word but i guess ill have to , what MESMER skill DESERVES a nerf in PvE version ? .... that was what i was asking .

PS: In your opinion Mesmers are not underpowered but you say the ONLY have 1 build ..... anyone can tell you dont give a crap about mesmers so the real question is ..... wth are you doing here ?

I have never had a problem with my mesmer in hardmode but I mostly H/H so I don't receive too much mesmer hate from the masses. I agree that many (most?) mesmer skills are PvP oriented and not that effective in PvE, but the mesmer PvE-only skills are great. So great that other professions take mesmer as secondary just to use them. (A/Me, E/Me, etc.)

Also I'd like to remind everyone that Mesmers can cast any spell as well as anyone else, even if it is in some other profession's primary attribute. This opens up enormous possibilities.

What am I talking about?
Signet of Illusion, Arcane Mimicry, Auspicious Incantation, go. Be a nuker or hex spammer or healer or whatever you feel like doing.

AP enables you to AEcho EVAS.
Caster induced daze is FD.
These would be among the few (if not the only) viable mesmer PvE options.

As I have said, mesmer are relatively (compared to other classes) underpowered in PvE.
The problem is, as previously noted, there will always be classed that are underpowered in PvE. So if you were to "fix" the mesmer issue, all it would do it turn it into the ... let's say ... ranger issue.
We need to treat the issue differently.

Unless, of course, the mesmer only gets buffed up to the level of the ranger, and not beyond.

twice yes - kill it, please. right away.
...as soon as mesmers get any other pve build available, not making them wand for 3/4 fights.
edit: i've lost the will to argue with you.


pretty much failed. you forget and try to convince us that ALL pve is the same. that the same builds - the same classes - will work in uw, fow, doa, rragar's and at joko's domain vq. that's not true.
even though you use eight monks to run DSC, you abuse SR on necro heroes and run pretty much everything on them, even though RoJ is still useful and powerful, even though splinter barrager is awesome in physical teams - they are not working everywhere, with every combination of primairy classes of the players, especially when you set up with guildies of friends for fun, so you don't require them to come with specific classes. but every class is useful for some role, in some places.
mesmers' problem is that they're useful nowhere now and easily surpassed by any other class in every role. it would be fine if groups with mesmers were really superior when running balanced UW run, decent for FoW and general VQ, but mesmers sucked in DoA, as it would be fine if other classes sucked at certain locations/occasions/builds/options/etc where others shine. the problem with 'underpowered/overpowered' is that some classes - monk/rit the most - are darn useful, viable and working eeeverywhere, while others can feel useless in a team or just dance in their halls.


enlight us, please.



i think that pve wouldn't be only damage-oriented if any other option was really useful in the party. just take a look at imbagons - we can assume that they deal nearly no damage, compared to damagers of the party, but they're useful, their role is vital in several places.
i believe that if shutdown was actually working - back again to aoe interrupt over time, hex disablers, more user-friendly arcane conundrum - mesmers would have their place in groups. i can imagine how a smooth, powerful shutdown/interrupt could be helpful in hard mode underworld.

we don't need to rework the whole pve. we just need to rework some of the options to interrupt mobs, best in groups, as groups is what we face in pve. and while mobs would get buffed and possibly adding a 'mesmer maelstrom' would nerf some of sc/farming builds, the balanced team would handle it with no real problems - after all, it's 'just another maelstrom'.
the only thing to note while buffing mesmers is that they need to be buffed on their primairies - because primairy mesmers have no useful role now and because buffing them in general would allow other classes to exploit new forms of skills, what is not the goal here. moving stuff to FC, linking stuff to FC, requiring 14+ in an attribute etc.

I don't see how mesmers can't do damage well while also having a mesmer effect.

Fevered Dreams to me is a very mesmer-ish build. It revolves around a mesmer elite and uses PvE conditions mainly because they're better than many condition skills that aren't PvE only. It's a shutdown build and a pretty good one at that, but of course that means it'll be nerfed. Mesmers aren't allowed to do anything well according to Anet.

Mesmers should be open to playing as mesmer or many other things. I don't see how other professions are encouraged to use secondaries and mesmers aren't.

As many others here, you are arguing this on the basis of farming.
Farming never was all-inclusive.

As noted, the mesmer is well above just being sufficient for general play.

The root problem is the brainless and predictable enemy AI with predictable spawn locations. Anet won't likely change that, so that only leaves profession changes to allow balance.

The reason I see as to why PvE is so damage oriented is because of the power creep.

The Power Creep really rocketed skyward after the release of eotn and the PvE only skills from that game. Discord and HB buffs in addition to increased usage of MoP has also contributed to power creep.

What, initially, needs to happen is a massive nerf of all the overpowered skills in the game and a removal of the eotn PvE skills. Reversing at least a portion of power creep would make PvE less damage oriented and therefore more friendly to mesmers. Mesmers would still need some tweaking after these nerfs to the OP skills, but the extend of the tweaking needed would only be apparent after the OP skills are nerfed.

We have to remember, however, that (partly as a result of the power creep) PvE is incredibly easy. I think that most of us would acknowledge that mesmers are the bottom rung class in PvE but they are also easily able to vanquish anywhere, do HM anywhere, really do anything. When the E in PvE is in as sore of a state as it is, no one really needs buffing as anyone can dominate it easily. The first step in making mesmers more often used in PvE needs to be a nerf to the over powered skills and a buff to PvE in general.

This is definitely an exaggeration. Even when Iv used some of the most useless mesmer skills there are to use in PvE (ex: when I brought the gvg Power Block build in PvE), I have not had to wand for 3/4 of the fights. If this is the case, then practice is definitely needed on the timing of skills and/or energy management.

Players won't want that large of a nerf nuke going off at once. If you buff monsters in a way that requires more damage, then you'd have people wanting more damage.

You also have to consider new players or those who rarely play likely don't have much of a friends list or know of GWG and PvX. Many will be running around with bow skills on their mesmer and ele nukes on their assassin.

My domination builds very often have 2-4 seconds of downtime due to the whole entire bar recharging.

Absolutely agreed. Nerfing a lot of currently overpowered skills will make things harder and reduce the viability of Mesmers in teams.

It's also highly unlikely because ANet knew PvE skills were overpowered, this was a design decision, and it's a selling point for their campaigns/expansions.

Yep. If not more. It is very easy to start out a fight and use all your skills and have nothing to do. If you don't get a HSR proc from your equipment then you will probably have to wand for awhile.

AP is an Assassin skill , i dont care about that and .....Fevered Dreams is overpowered ? it DESERVES a nerf ? dear god ....

Seriously , shorten recharges and adding/extending some effects of Mesmers skills will make them less underpowered. That is the real problem , not root IA problems bla bla bla that we all know Anet is not gonna solve but shorten for example .... Distraction recharge and reducing its effect ? woah , overpowered ? no , fixed ? yes , logical ? yes.

You need to tone down the damage (and of course defence) to slow down the game. Currently the game is to fast for shutdown or even anything remotely precise (Hi Power Attack spam!) to be viable.
If on the other hand you'd know that the monk won't die in 3 seconds, but will rather stay up for a bit longer - diverting one of his skills would actually make sense.

Thats the power creep baby! sad state of affairs eh? take the surgery of what gw used to be and changed it into a sledge hammer session.

Sadly i dont see that changing anytime soon...but hey? we can hope that why the pve balance is taking so long :P

Id still like to see while gw is stuck in this cycle of balance the mes (and ranger too tbh) get a little lift to be more comparable to the other classes...

I miss the old days when a mes actually could turn a hard battle

But the guy still does that!
Just that now he achieves that by staying behind in the outpost!

Oh snap! xD


Least i got a bumper sticker that say "mesmer's do it faster"

Tho now im not sure if thats good or bad? :P

Even when Prophecies was the only Guild Wars, Mesmers were generally considered the weakest class in PvE.

The reality is, for Mesmers to not be underpowered in PvE [with no changes to the class or skills] you'd need to change the game state even more than that. Essentially what's required is for reactive attacks (which most Mesmer skills tend to be) to be equally or more powerful than proactive attacks. Not only is that never going to happen but I don't think it's even desirable for the game as a whole.

I think the way that you would have to make it so that mesmers are not underpowered in PvE is by slowing down the game. Make it so that enemies are tougher with two monks/resto rits/whatever heals per mob and ~8 enemies per mob. Of course the biggest change would be nerfing the currently abusable AP, PvE skills, discord, SoS, and MoP. Not that many monsters use these skills but they are very abusable by players. Therefore, massively nerfing all these overpowered skills would help a little in making PvE slower.

Also, people are always going to whine when nerfs come along. Saying that these shouldnt be nerfed because people are going to whine about it is stupid.

Why not? Reactive skills require, well, reaction, by which I mean they require timing. Interrupting a skill takes more thought that hitting a foe with a fireball. Your definition of "proactive" seems to be "hit the button whenever and you get a good effect". We really shouldn't be talking about "reactive" and "proactive" skills, we should be talking about "passive" and "active" skills. Passive skills are skills like Orison, Faintheartedness, and pre-nerf Ineptitude. Active skills are skills like RoF, any interrupt, and post-nerf Ineptitude. Notice the difference? Active skills have the potential to fail, or be energy-inefficient, if used at the wrong times. They should correspondingly have great effects.

What I'm trying to get around to is this: mesmers don't need a Maelstrom clone to try to get around the increased cast time of mobs, they need a Cry of Frustration to be a big deal if you land the interrupt. If interrupts in PvE are going to be so difficult, and if you can kill fast enough that it's not even necessary to interrupt most of the time, then if you devote yourself to pulling off key interrupts you should be rewarded for it with more of *effect* - whether effect is shutdown, damage, whatever - than you would get by just lobbing spells as fast as possible. Right now, there is no real reward for interruption; it used to be basically necessary to interrupt a healer or high-level caster, particularly if there were multiples in the group. If the power creep isn't reversed, then interruption needs a new reward, because the old one is not here anymore.

Think about it this way: In a fighting game you are going to have an attack, and you are going to have counters/reversals (or whatever you'd like to call it). In the grand scheme of things, counters/reversals have a certain innate value (avoiding damage, possibly other effects) and innate disadvantages (higher execution skill required) but if counters are stronger than other attacks then your game will play very defensively.

Having a slower paced defensive game is not necessarily a bad thing if that's an objective, but to be honest that is not what I want to see in Guild Wars - Monsters are perfectly suited to that style of gameplay because they have innate advantages over human players. I'm not saying that Mesmer reactive options can't be made stronger, they definitely can, and should. But trying to redesign the whole game around making them required in PvE is not necessary or even desirable in my eyes.

In my opinion pretty much every interrupt skill, or at least the majority of Mesmer ones (which are spells) should work like Mistrust/Guilt/Shame. The format of those spells removes the ridiculousness of trying to hit 250-500 ms cast spells when your ping is already going to range from 150-300 on a regular basis. I also think it's fairly ridiculous that many spells have recharge times as short as they do, but the interrupts have recharges that are several times longer - Worse is when you miss the timing and you have to wait for the full recharge again. In general these recharge times need to be toned down, and I think a missed interrupt should give a significantly reduced recharge time (half or maybe a quarter of the recharge time - Possibly further reduced via Fast Casting if we're talking about that).

But, well, this post is getting a bit long and there are plenty of ideas that make Mesmers on par with other classes without totally redesigning the game.

Nah, I feel as though removing reactive interupts from mesmers and replacing them with the proactive interupts would remove part of the mesmer that really needs to stay. Interupting is an art and it takes skill and practice to be good at. If you are missing interupts often, then you either need to practice more with them or you need to play a character that requires less reflexes. Interupting isnt tough at all with a 150 - 300 ping. Finally, if you want to hit 1sec or lower spells in hm, simply bring frustration, arcane conundrum, stolen speed, sum of all fears, etc.

Dont get me wrong, I think proactive hexes are good for the mesmer and in my opinion, there should be another mistrustish spell. I just think that mesmers should have access to both the safer proactive interupts and the less reliable but more powerful reactive interupts

Well, it's fine you can have that opinion, but I don't agree. I play primarily first person shooter games (Quake, UT) and have no problem with my reflexes there. I'm not a top tier competitive player by any means (maybe top 10% or top 5%), but I'm certainly capable of hitting #1-8 on the keyboard quickly. 250 and 500ms to react is generous -- When you are playing on servers that give you pings in the 40-80ms range. The problem lies pretty much exclusively in the power creep for interruptable skills (w/r/t activation times) and ANet's failure to provide quality hosting for the game. (Adding all kinds of non-spell skills, when many Mesmer interrupts only target spells doesn't help either.)

At 150ms it's essentially impossible to reactively interrupt any 1/4 or 1/2 activation time skill a monster in HM uses, and even if you do say, Power Spike a spell a monster is using you're going to get what - 126 damage? All things considered (ping time + monitor refresh time + human reaction time) you pretty much have to predictively interrupt these skills, and the reward here is basically trivial for doing so. I can easily do that amount of damage without having to play silly wait-and-guess or wait-and-see games with monsters. For the cost/time benefit to be worthwhile I'd have to do some obscene amount of damage.

Suggesting that I add more skills to my bar to help this isn't really that helpful either. There are only 8 slots, only so much energy, and only so much time to cast spells. This is precisely why I think pretty much all the Mesmer interrupts should work as Mistrust does, since it works just fine without needing support to do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't compete with the other skills on your bar in the way that an active non-0 activation time interrupt does and you don't need to bring along other tools to even begin making it useful. The only bad thing about the Mistrust/Guilt/Shame style skills is they're unnecessarily hindered by a bunch of other restrictions like cooldown, only affecting spells, only affecting certain kinds of spells - This tendency to have on/off functionality is a big part of the problem with the Mesmer class design in general.

Agreed. I love Mesmers, love em, But this is exactly the thing I go through often with my Mesmer. I often give up and ignore e-management, though, and I'm usually fine. I'll take the +15 Energy -1 energy regen items out sometimes. Works ok.

Perhaps another way to make a mesmer more significant is to add synergy to its skills. Have multiple abilities that key off of their prime powers to add an extra layer of effect, kind of like echoes working off of chants or preparations buffing attack skills.

Give skills rider effects for every time you hex, interrupt, steal energy, use a signet, etc. Some positive, some negative, but all contingent upon the mesmer doing its normal job, most of which are based off of Fast Casting.

So Mantra of Recovery might also allow you to increase the recharge times of a foe's skills just slightly every time you interrupt them. Ether Lord might grant you the ability to grant allies a percentage of all energy you steal. Mantra of Flame could either set a foe on fire every time you hex them, or have a bonus ability whenever you use Fire Magic.

Hexes could have similar effects; something like Power Flux might have "Interruption effect; every time you interrupt a skill on this foe, all foes in the area take X...Y damage". Stolen Speed might penalize cast time every time you successfully interrupt, rewarding good reflexes with ever-increasing accuracy.

A single interruption might not currently be useful, but if it were also granting a rider effect, you could use it to deliver damage, supply your team with energy, or grant yourself further advantages.