Mesmers vs Necromancers in PvE - which one needed buff?

Seems like I'm only preaching to the choir since others don't listen, but I'll try again.


Buffing mesmers is not impossible to implement, that's urban legend aimed at keeping mesmers forever down. In one of the previous posts, which I'm sure you saw, I showed that they can be buffed, focusing on their unique skills such as Diversion, Blackout, Shared Burden, Shame, and others. Do you have counter-argument for this, or are you going to continue with 'cant be done' when it has been done?

Ok, step by step. Do you think these buffs would turn the game upside-down:
(all PvE only skills)


Blackout - blackouts foe for 10 seconds
Shame - 15sec recharge
Guilt - 15sec recharge
Diversion - actually works
Shared Burden - 20% speed reduction for each affected foe (90% max)
Energy Tap and Burn - double amount drained than it is now, burn would have lower dmg per point drained ofc, etc
Ignorance - 5e, in the area
Power Spike - deals 50 damage. Deals 100 more damage is spell or chant was interrupted


Now, which one of these would be gamebreaking? Moreover, even with these buffs, some of these skills would probably never see play. But hey, moving in the right direction shows effort and desire.

PS: this took me 5 minutes, not 6 months.

Why would you kick the guy in the head if you're unbiased, why not kick the girl in the head? Or stay neutral?

You show that knowledge and bias go together, which is exactly what I'm claiming. My knowledge of mesmer and other classes can only lead me to state that mesmer needs a buff, needs it right now and right here, and not tomorrow.

Those changes aren't going to fix the problem. Since the efficient way to kill things with a group is to ball them up, you are always going to be better off with a Ranger using Barrage and damage buffs if you want to disrupt things. The Ranger can disrupt single targets as needed and then focus on pumping out AoE damage to clean up the mob once the threat has been dealt with.

Maybe because melee AI sucks?!

Band-aid fixes. You'll get a handful of improved skills and the Mesmer profession still will be left out from any PuG. The Mesmer class need a redesign to be "more competitive" (which reads: more broken and comparable in broken-ness to the Necro), or the players to get a new attitude toward Mesmer and efficiency.

There's still a whole year for band-aid fixes to come. This update is finalized, wait for the next. The last buff the Mesmer got is actually only one update old:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Illusion_of_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wastrel%27s_Demise

Listen, this was already stated millions time, buffing mesmers won't automaticly fix game balance, nor fix pve, heck it won't even make mesmers on the level with other profesions in pve efficiency, it will just make playing primary mesmers more pleasing, fun and meaningful ! This is crazy mentality: if changes aren't going fix all pve or balance mesmers with other profesions it shouldn't be done b/c mesmers should stay in deep hole and any change to that is just unthinkable.

The consistent complaint lodged in these threads is that you can't get your Mesmers into PuGs. The listed fixes won't solve those problems.

Sure, it'll make your PvE Mesmer more effective. But it will still be terrible when compared to the alternatives. So from the perspective of the vast majority of the player base, fixes that don't make a Mesmer viable are a waste of time. It may be true that those changes will make you better off, but that doesn't demonstrate that implementing those changes is the best use of scarce developer programming time.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying that there is no point in buffing Mesmer. I am saying that buffing Mesmer shouldn't be a particularly high priority. It just makes more sense to buff unloved lines in classes that lots of people already play, and there are lots of potential problems with attempting a buff to Mesmer intended to bring the class up to par with other classes. Any lesser buff to Mesmer isn't going to affect a lot of people, and as a result it doesn't deserve a spot at the top of an already crowded agenda.

I'm sure the devs will get to it eventually. But expecting this to shoot to the top of the priority list isn't terribly realistic.

Where does this statments came from ?:
"Vast majority of the player base","fixes that don't make a Mesmer viable are a waste of time","that doesn't demonstrate that implementing those changes is the best use of scarce developer programming time" ? Anything to back this up ?

Well personaly i think changing mesmer to be slightly better off in pve is the right use of programming resources b/c waiting for pve mythical balance is absurd while those changes can applied quite easily and without using rocket science.

Really?

Let's make a test to show that complete redesign is not needed.


Buff for 1 week:
Arcane Languor (PvE): Blackouts foes in the Area for 10 seconds. 5e / 1c / 10r.



Now, let's see if mesmer will be used in PuGs and be strong, without complete redesign.



My argument wins, your excuses lose. Sayonara.

Spend some time in outposts and do a frequency count of how often you observe different classes. Mesmers are pretty clearly in the minority. There are reasons for that. A weak buff to Mesmer isn't going to address those reasons.

Changing that frequency count would require a drastic overhaul of the class.

If we accept the proposition that we shouldn't care if the buff makes Mesmers ridiculously overpowered, then sure. But your argument is bad because we want Mesmers to be balanced. That's a much more challenging proposition.

What you really need is for ANet to get away from the linear progression of skills based on attributes. If you could give the Mesmer class some skills that would suck if the attribute level were 12 or less, but were good at 13 or above, then you could give the Mesmer competitive skills that could not then simply be exploited by other professions.

Why they have never done this remains a mystery to me, but I suspect that they built linear equations into skill progression in the design process without realizing how limiting that is.

Ok, you want mesmers to be balanced, but as it was already stated: meta pve balance is a fairytale so i just want mesmers to be better in pve b/c now they are totaly subpar in comparison to other profesions. Necro skills have better effects, shorter reacharge and cost less energy.

There will never exist a time when any of the professions will be balanced. So I read your statement as: "Since it's impossible to balance mesmers or any other class, we will leave mesmers to suck as they do now, and will focus on making OP classes more OP".

Ive played this game for years. No skill balance ever aimed at making professions and skills balanced in PvE. When someone tells me that mesmer will get buff when someone thinks of a balanced version of it's skills, that to me is excuse and other way of saying "we want you to suck, so suck it up and stop complaining".


Now, I have other things to do, so you can all remain in fairytalish land of balance and other leprechauns that no one ever sees but some think they exist.

When mesmers find imbalanced niche I will say it's good. It's not like ANet buffed spirits to make them balanced. They buffed them to make them imbalanced so that Rt's have their niche. Same with Imbagon, same with melee-class buffs (SoH, GDW etc). It's not like they intended to make Ele balanced for HM when they buffed Ether Renewal. They just said "we know elemental dmg sucks in HM, here, take blatantly OP ER, so good it even beat monks". Did they buff 100 Assassin skills? No, they said "look, dust off your Assassin because we're giving you SF so you can find your niche".

That's how GW 'balancing' works, OP skills that give you niche.


The rest is fantasy and fairytales for those who want to seek leprechauns.

Sure. Why not "You Mesmerize all enemies in the area and convince them they are dead. You're enemies are convinced and die (50% failure chance with Fast Casting 4 or less)"

Sure that will work and bring Mesmers into groups. And will make the game shit.

Your argument wins. And so does mine: you're advocating changes that will make the Mesmer absurdly OP, because being "just fine" is tedious, isn't it?

No surprise you agree with upier, he kept saying we had no need for a nerf to SF because the game is now broken beyond repair and it's too late. Yay, let's give it the final blow! Bring up the next gimmick, and make sure it's a Mesmer!

Sorry, that's YOUR fairytale, what YOU want to believe.

Anet stance on OP skills is now clearer than ever. Want an OP Mesmer for a month or two, and then a drastic nerf to cry over (pun intended)?

Fine with me... You already got it, and it's now gone.

I actually argued that if A.Net does not decide to trash the amount of grind in this game, SF should stay since it enables players to counter that grind.
Especially since A.net themselves said that "fun" is a priority over "balance" in PvE.

The ideas you proposed for skill changes are decent, and some of them would work quite nicely for PvE. However, you still fail at finding a way to get PUGs to use Mesmers. Big deal if Guilt, Shame, Diversion, Blackout, etc. get changed to be more PvE friendly. PUGs that feel any of those skills are needed will toss them on a Monk, Necro, Ranger, Rit, and some even on a Warrior.

Necro would rather need Nerf then buff, even tho its my main prof still theyre way overpowered.

Soul reaping that is

Mesmers are imo fine, i like using em as heros, and playing as one, i dont see any problem.

Quick and dirty definition of PvE balance:

1) Every class has a niche. There is something that the class can do better than every other profession, or at least as well as every other profession in that niche.

2) Every niche filled by a class is useful, and is therefore desirable to take in some form of broad teamplay.

The problem with the Mesmer class is that it doesn't fulfill the midline caster role efficiently (not enough damage), and it doesn't fulfill the disruption niche efficiently (Rangers are better at it because they are far better at the secondary role of damage output).

It is entirely possible for all ten classes to be balanced. But the above conditions would have to obtain for this to be the case. In practice, five of the six classes were balanced in Prophecies. The problem with SF is that it crowded out both the tank and midline caster roles by enabling a single player to fulfill both...and did it so well that healers were also unnecessary.

You don't need OP skills to have balance. In fact, they are sharply detrimental to balance because they crowd out other niches. Ursan was bad because it put out damage more efficiently than midline casters and had greater survivability due to huge disruption and high armor. SF was bad for the reasons already stated.

As someone mentioned earlier that got shot down for some reason, I like the idea of adding energy benefits to Fast Casting. He proposed making Fast Casting have an Expertise like quality where it reduces the energy cost of Mesmer spells. That seems to be my main problem playing my Mesmer in HM. In NM, I get a lot of interrupts off, so by even spec'ing minimal points in inspiration, I manage to keep my energy reasonably rolling. In HM, I can't seem to interrupt anything and run out of energy.

Even if we didn't change the Fast Casting dynamic at all, we could modify a single useless Fast Casting spell to add an energy benefit and it wouldn't even effect monsters since they don't have the skill equipped.

Something similar to elementalist attunement:

Power Return: For 30 seconds, You gain 1 Energy plus 5...40% of the base Energy cost of the skill each time you use Mesmer magic.

My main is a necro, i dont think they need any more help, they already got enough strong PvE builds. Mesmers need it

We already know that energy management primary attributes are a bad idea that make balance harder. Adding another one is far more likely to screw things up than fix things.

Again, what you need is skills that are bad unless you are a Mesmer primary with runes. Even if ANet can't fix the linear progression problem, they could just use the Gale mechanic (50% failure chance if skill level < 13) to give Mesmers exclusive tools unavailable to classes with superior primary attributes.

OK they are two types of arguments against mesmer buff:

1. Mesmers are fine, they don't need the buff - plz look at mesmers skills - except very little useful skills that are nice, the rest is garbage in pve or have weak effect, high energy cost, long reacharge - some skills that even weren't that good in fisrt place in pve were hit by nerfbat so they are now increadibly bad: ig Inpetitude- nerf to reacharge 20 s, it's so much better to bring blinding surge or blurred vision.

2. Ok mesmers are bad but since we are talking meta pve balance until that happens one profesion has to suck and mesmers fill that role just prefectly- well imo meta pve balance is a fairytale and a myth and the rest of that argument is just bias.

3. Mesmers are good in PvP (not in FA or RA, but GvG) so they can suck in PvE. Mmm okay, except that mesmer isnt overpowered in PvP, it's just ok. Like many other professions. None of these professions is expected to suck in PvE because they are okay in GvG.

There's no "argument against the buff". I think ANYONE will agree about Mesmers needing a buff.

We're arguing about the point of all this complaints.

"Mum, I didn't get my buff, I'm a sad panda now and want all the Guru community to know it". That's what this thread is all about: sterile and single-minded polemic of a disappointed Mesmer not getting any zomfgimba skill in the next balance. Hard for me to see anything beyond that.

Rangers didn't get any buff, HaO being a minor plus. Paragons were nerfed further. Dervish aren't even mentioned in these notes. Do we have to open a thread for each profession so that people can complain? Do complaints bring anywhere?

You know the answer, don't you?

The Dervish thread is in Sardelac. The Para discussion dropped off the first page. It's been awhile since the last Ranger complaint. Point is, yes, yes they exist.

It is called feedback.

We can't change the game, we can't adjust skills, but we can communicate exactly how we feel about Ye Olde State Of The Guild Wars. That means telling Anet how we react to certain events (like the thread thanking them for Wintersday Redux, indicating that it was a good move) or complaints about certain issues (like the hacking threads prompting security concerns). Are all complaints worthwhile? Certainly not. But they can provide information about how the community is feeling about certain things. If the mesmer is repeatedly mentioned as useless, underpowered, or underperforming, then it might be worth giving them another look and evaluating their current state.

It's called "rant". Feedback pages on the Wiki.

So in other words arguing for the sake of arguing

I do see a problem with that though. The only thing I am aware of that requires 13 in an attribute to be effective is the Sentinals insignia for Warriors. If you make a skill require 13 attibute points to work (even 50% of the time) you force attribute splits. 12-12-3, 12-10-8, 12-11-6, etc. all would be fine since your minor rune can still get that 13 spot. But people who want to run 11-10-10, or 10-10-8-8, etc. are all losing out. Using 11 with a minor rune and a head piece work, but it starts to make various options much harder, even for the Mesmer you are trying to help.

Me/N virulence gank mesmers are OP in FA/RA

Pblock is strong everywhere.

VoR is pretty decent.

and a mesmer that can time diversion and shame is just downright amazing anywhere(but pve).

at this point, i doubt your understanding of mesmers.

I really wonder about this claim. My mesmer has no problems getting into groups. Kanaxai was the zb a couple of days ago and I was lfg for all of two minutes before I was fighting my way out of room 3, which is typical of my recent experience(last two years) pugging on my mesmer. The mesmer shines in a pug environment even if he is not directly dealing massive damage. Who can deny that a mob that can't get any heals are hexed with VoR, empathy and whatever else is on the bar doesn't die faster. Not to even mention the mesmer still has three maxed out overpowered pve skills on his bar like everyone else in the pug. I think many players realize this and don't discriminate against the mesmers like they did in the past.

Yes, sort of. That's it. This stopped being a discussion about "Mesmers" on Page 2 and it's getting a matter of principle about fairness and underpowered gay men and net-hosed tarts not getting their fair share of broken stuff...

Guess we're warming up for the QQ-fest after the next update

I'm hoping this is more of an exaggerant of analogies and not an expression of hate

You sir, are extremely funny. You have earned a banana sticker.

Sure is. Didn't mean to offend.

EDIT: (the gay men and net-hosed tarts being Male and Female Mesmer respectively)

First I want to say I agree with some of you that mesmer has the most useful spells as a secondary out of the entire game imo.

If they are afraid to make mesmers more efficient as a primary, I think they should consider buffing the smite signets, so a mesmer can excell at signets and do some damage with them as atm you can't kill a fly with those signets in HM (except vs undead).

Oh wait, several people already wet their pants from the moment I said buff smite, but except from ray and holy wrath/retribution in the 600/smite build (which will be nerfed), the line is still mostly unwanted. Like for example 'Word of Censure', not a soul uses it except to have a laugh I guess.

Kinda hit two birds with one stone, but even if that's not possible, they should come up with something else as mesmers need some love in pve. I agree the blood line needed some work too, but necro is still way overpowered when it comes to energy management and needs to be looked at. Sabway keeps people 'dumb'.

There have been many comments about Mesmers

Mainly they come down to that they are an underpowered class for pve and not popular in parties.

However

Mesmer skills are universally popular as a secondary skill line so the skills must be pretty good.
Mesmer enemies are a real pain at times preventing party casters getting off skills.

We seem to like the skills and gripe constantly about being interrupted and having skills knocked out or recharge times increased.
However we don't seem to value the mesmer when they are busy shutting down enemy spellcasters.

Perhaps because we don't see what they are doing since the result of all their hard work is the Meteor storm that didn't happen the resurrection of an enemy that didn't occur.
Denying the enemy casters access to their best skills is what we do.

Its a team game and they work well in most parties

I don't think that this is under dispute. PvE is easy and any class will do well in the hands of a skilled player. The complaint is that Mesmers are so dramatically underpowered that players would rather take an equally skilled player on a different class. The result is that Mesmer players have difficulty getting accepted into skilled PuGs.

First of all, you've got a hat. Second of all, there are always major and superior runes. I won't deny that there would be costs. But this represents one way to make Mesmers viable without the undesirable consequence of just creating more skills for other classes to use without having to spec Mesmer primary, or reworking Fast Casting and risking unintended imbalance consequences.

Moving some unloved skills to Fast Casting and making them good would be another way of addressing the issue if you hate the 13 attribute rule.

wholeheartedly agreed.

sorry for a meaningless post this time, but i just had to sign down at it.

You can doubt whatever you want. Naming few skills won't make mesmer better.

Pblock is strong? Right. In FA, if you're Luxon MeMo with Ray will be better than any disruption you can come up with. On Kurzick side of FA, Ranger will be more useful (turtle staller, or trapper) than your Pblock mesmer and I played Pblock mesmer.

VoR is decent, but isn't interruption disruption right?

Shame and Diversion are outright amazing? Did you even play FA? Where in FA would you use these, and I did try both. It's just inferior. In RA, sure, Diversion and Shame are amazing.. oh wait I played domination mesmer more in RA than any other class, and I can tell you it is nothing special now, and you don't always have monk on your team which aids ranger a lot.



My understanding of mesmers doesn't come from romantic views of them and their skills. FYI, as a mesmer in Prophecies I could solo 3-4 people in RA in fair conditions, and I could make 4-mesmer team (no healer) for TA which plower and had flawless streaks. That's what skilled players could do with a mesmer back then. None of this is possible now after so many nerfs. Stop living in the past, mesmers are not PvP powerhouses they used to be, and still suck in PvE. No amount of skill will you better, as far as mesmer skills are concerned. Wake up.


Another fairytale refugee.

Look, monsters have perfect interrupts. No good mesmer in HM takes interrupt skills except very very rarely for very very specific purpose. If you ever played mesmer you would know why.

Also, mesmer monsters are weak in general. Usually people are afraid of ele monsters or some Rt ones because of a lot of dmg. You have to be kidding me, what mesmer monster is dangerous? Perhaps some in UW? Or perhaps some in the jungle jumping on unaware traveler? In 99% of game areas mesmer monsters are annoyance at best. That doesn't make them good. SB monk monsters and SForm as monsters are also annoying, it doesnt make them good overall (monsters). You can make a poll on what monsters cause party wipe the most, and mesmer monsters will be at the end of the list, really.


Mesmer secondaries are not that popular. Where do people get this from? Where are you playing? What skills are you using from mesmer line on your ele etc? AE? I really cant think of anything other than that.
No hero builds use mesmer secondary, none good that is. Necro heroes use paragon secondaries, Rt secondaries, Mo secondaries. Melee classes and Para use W secondary for SY. I'd really like to know where is this Me secondary so popular?

Weren't we talking about PvE?

Aren't you just beating a dead horse now? We can name any skill in the game, YOU've used sometimes it and failed to instakill everything, so the Mesmer obviously sucks. You already explained your (absurd IMO) idea of "balance" - everyone must have at least one instawin skill, so that the game is finally fair - and yes, Mesmers don't have any insanely overpowered option available. Thank God I say, but well, that's just me...

Ever tought you should try other professions then? What's the point in YOU playing a Mesmer, when anything we can name isn't suitable to your game and you don't seem to like it?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Yammiron,_Ether_Lord
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Roaring_Ether
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Jotun_Mindbreaker

The first three that came into my mind

PS - Mesmer secondary is used a lot by Monks for e-management, Eles/Necros for echoing, Rangers for more interrupts and condition spreading...

You lack comprehension skills, looking at these two sentences. First one was talk about something and you obviously didn't understand the context.

The second is also false; it's not my idea of balance, im just playing along with ANets idea of balance to make it fair for all professions. Obviously, you fail to comprehend that too and are only interested in one-liners.

This is a great example. I assume you were trying to say that mesmer monsters are only dangerous in your opinion when they use ele-like skills such as Energy Surge and Energy Burn? Yea, mesmers indeed suck.

Who the hell ever died to Jotun Mindbreaker? Ever seen AVALANCHE? Now that's a monster that uses interruption and disruption to kill you and does it great. And it's not even mesmer.

Where do I go to meet these people? Monks usually use GoLE, Rangers use barrage (a, what condition spreading?), which leaves occasional AE skill used by eles and necros. AE skill. Super popular secondary? In Snowwhite and Seven Dwarves perhaps.

Seriously? You have never heard of BHA+epidemic, auspicious incandation, echo (and archane echo), inspired/revealed hex, channeling, wnwn, or pdrain before? Do you live under a rock?