Mesmer Speculation

I don't want damage buffs. If I wanted to do damage i wouldn't play a mesmer. I would like to see improved support so i could do party buffs like paragons or br necros, or play a role like a protection monk but by focusing on the enemy instead of the ally.pve applicable shut down not damage please.

revert back to the original or close to original version of CoP but tie damage or effects to the fastcasting attribute preventing other professions from abusing. they had to do the same thing to the assassin skill critical agility. when it was first released it was abused by warriors til the skill was tied to critical strikes.

Mesmer players generally don't have more than 9-10 fast casting with runes. Some of it because mesmers have to split their attributes 3 ways or more because of inspiration for energy.

Even if it did do good damage and had a better draw back to make it fair without having cry teams, it won't happen because of double standards. Buffing mesmer damage doesn't mean mesmers will be better at damage than disruption if the update is as good as it's suppose to be. Just means...mesmer damage is being improved.

I disagree. Damage conditioned on enemy behavior is fundamentally different from active direct damage even with simplistic monster AI. As stated by drkn, the damage output of even the most basic conditional skills will vary based on monster properties: monsters with faster or multiple attack capability obviously take more damage from Empathy, and monsters with spammable spells obviously take more damage from Backfire. Damage also varies greatly based on monster behavior at that time: monsters retreat from aoe/low health, they can be kited, and they can be disrupted in a number of ways (hexed, blinded, knocked down, skill disabled, etc.), all of which can potentially affect the damage of punishment hexes.

Naturally, the focus of punishment hexes in PvE is fundamentally different from PvP. In PvP they are geared towards preventing the opponent from taking a particular action, or forcing difficult situational decisions by imposing additional cost on that action. In PvE, the conditional punishment sharply narrows the utility of the skill (i.e., Backfire is only useful against casters) while requiring better understanding of the monsters and better situational awareness (i.e., Backfire goes on the spammy monk or the necro that hasn't exhausted his entire skillbar yet).

Thus, as a designer, you don't have to worry too much in PvE about the monsters always "swinging through" your punishment hexes - you just have to tailor the effect to how often or likely a monster with dumb AI is going to trigger the condition. For instance, I gave an earlier example of having Ineptitude deal bonus AoE damage and AoE blind if the attack is an attack skill - more powerful affect coupled to a narrower trigger condition. Given Ineptitude's short duration, while a player can be relatively sure that it will trigger at least the base condition (target foe attacks), getting the bonus condition (target foe uses an attack skill) within that duration is substantially less certain. This justifies the substantially stronger effect.

Switching gears, the problem of interrupt viability is complicated. I had come to the same conclusion that you did (the slowing effect needs to be both preemptive and persistent), but this is an extremely strong effect even without considering interrupts. I don't honestly see a good way to solve it in the current scheme. As you said, the hands-down best way to solve most of these problems is to actually give monsters good AI in Hard Mode instead of stat buffs, but ...

I also don't think the simplicity of damage+mitigation+healing in RPGs is a result of focusing on red bars; the problem is volume. Unlike PvP and competitive games in other genres, PvE-type RPGs require players to kill thousands of monsters, and all anybody really cares about is how quickly and profitably it can be done. It would be easy, I think, for designers to tune monster groups so that each encounter was more similar to a 16-man PvP deathmatch, but getting anything meaningful done would take hours upon hours.

And there lies the problem with PvE mesmers. Mesmers are a pvp designed class trying to do pve, like a fish out of water.

Paragons have their own problems because they have only 1 effective pve build which involves pve skills, so paragons are NOT the best example of where mesmers should be, where pve is concerned.

Having completed all campaigns NM and HM with mesmers, necros, and rits, I have to say mesmers are under powered in pve relative the DPS that rits can dish out. Yes mesmers can be effective enough (how do you think I completed all campaigns with them), but compared to rits and necros, they are PvE underdogs.

Like it or not, PvE is about how much damage you can dish out in the shortest amount of time. With current overpowered meta using minions and spirits for damage mitigation, you dont usually need interrupts.

I just think there should be secondary things that happen when Mesmers interrupt. If you interrupt a target, it will apply a condition or some degen. I know that some already do this, but more of it is what Mesmers are all about. Make more of the skills AoE based as well. You can take some of the initial damage off of the top of some of the skills to balance this, and spread it out to degen as an area effect. This would also promote NOT having to split the skills and bring back some reason to interrupt on a mesmer more. Doing a split is alright I guess, but I am more a fan of being able to use them for both when an update hits.

The only way to properly make Mesmers attractiv to pugs (why do we want this, actually) is to give them a purpose and a role that is both beneficial to the damage portion and the mitigation portion of the team. Take a look at the current roles being favored:

SoS Rit: Mainly for meat-shields, single/crowd target damage spikes, and access to stronger spirits.

HB (monk): HB/HP for party healing, seed for instant coverage, patient kiss combo, etc.

Tank: ....any build containing SF and shroud.

HB (war): tele, aoe spike damage, tank-like armor, sun-moon for stragglers

MoP necro: reason for above being so effective, support, etc.

imbagon: party-wide armor, and..... well, that goes a long way in HM, so yeah.


The thing is, there are many mesmer skills already that can be revamped for pve purposes without breaking the game. And guess what? All of them are hexes.

Hexes! The one thing that AI refuses to back off from triggering. One of the reasons why necro heroes are so useful.

I mean, really, what else can Mesmers do to make them more appropriate for end-game pve? All of their damage relies on their target doing something or having something, CoP was abused by every profession that had Ether Nightmare, degen doesn't work on stuff with 10k health, interruption is worse than simply killing them in 3 seconds, e-denial is only good for healing monsters and Famine, stances are too area-specific (looking at you, mantras of eles), and FC Nuking isn't favorable anymore because of HM giving every monster 200 armor...

The only real way to make Mesmers potential upstanding members of PvE is to make their hexes either mitigate damage better than necro hexes would (like, increased casting time or decreased attrib points), or easier to dish out damage (decreased armor stacked with CA, hex version of DW's health decreasing effects, damage multiplier)

As a main mesmer, for the most part I honestly don't have any issues with how interrupts are. Most of them, assuming you can manage to get them off usefully, are actually quite balanced (if a little slow recharging sometimes). HM monsters casting twice as fast is not an issue with the way a mesmer functions, its an issue with a game function that happens to deny human players the ability to do something.

The real issue I have with the mesmer class is over-heavy drawbacks on most every skill. For example Blackout: unless you've got 10+ domination you've just disabled yourself longer than the foe you used it on. What's more? You're a sitting duck for the five other enemies not disabled, that you now happen to be right next to as Blackout is a touch skill.

Of course, most skills the drawback isn't as severe, it's just an energy cost that is far too high. Exactly as Chthon said:

My suggestion would be an increase of energy gain from the various energy management skills, even if only by 1-2 energy per use/steal/etc. More energy stealing would be interesting, particularly if energy denial got a kick into viable. Energy Burn and Surge, why can't we steal that energy instead of causing loss? Ether Lord, why do I have to loose all my energy when it's not even AoE? Spirit Shackles, can I steal some of that energy instead of just causing a loss? Waste Not Want Not, can I cause a loss of energy in that laze arse doing nothing?

I would honestly be happy if direct interrupts (ex Power Drain) were not buffed at all, as that would only be a hero buff not a player buff. To be realistic, anet is not going to change long standing factors of hard mode such as spells casting faster, so better effects on interruption will mostly be wasted. More, interruption is not all a mesmer can do. Most of my mesmer bars (read: mine, not heroes) are devoid of direct interrupts, as I have less than AI reflexes, I bring a ranger hero to do my interrupting and hex the crap out of everything. Most mesmer players I meet (that are not SoI fast casting another prof) are similarly ignoring great skills like Power Leech and playing Clumsiness/Wandering Eye/their favorite degen spell(s). Stress on the degen spells, in PvE where killing it faster is the only thing accepted few mesmer bars can afford to go without.
After energy management what really needs attention is hexes. Lower recharges, lengthen durations, lower some energy costs, and if it's not dealing large damage (Images of Remorse, not Backfire or Conjure Nightmare) make it AoE. I don't like to push for more things to be AoE, but when most monsters die in 2-5 seconds after you click on them and not because you were spamming the old CoP? It is a necessity.

Edit: Forgot to say, I love the ideas posted about linking more spells to FC. My idea to toss out there is instead of straight making hexes AoE to be abused better by other classes, link the number of other targets affected by mesmer hexes to FC. If certain single target hexes (Spirit of Failure, Conjure Phantasm, etc) were placed on say 1 more target per 4 ranks of FC many mesmers would be very very happy.

I hope they double the hex durations of Backfire, Empathy, VoR, Ineptitude, Clumsiness, etc... and reduce their cast times to 2-1s, reduce the e.cost of shatter enchantment/hex to 10e, and so on...

Honestly, I think interrupts should not be a big part of this, simply because of that whole bot problem in PvP. If interrupts become powerful, we'd just start seeing those bots that interrupt stuff for you but let you otherwise play normally spill over into PvE.

I would add energy degen to Mindwrack (not health degen).
Either very high energy degen during a short period and less end damage, or medium energy degen during a longer period and higher end damage.
The high energy degen version would work nicer with Aneurysm.

Linking some (way) better Mesmer skills or better effects to FC i like, but NOT a high FC requirement.
A little in FC is already enough to limit the better skills/effects to primary Mesmers.

some PvE skill buffs would be nice, makeing skills like Backfire and Empathy have less dmg, and makeing them AoE skills, i would like to see Ineptitude as an AoE skill, maybe it would be a useful elite then, and we wouldnt go Me/E for Blind. changing fast casting so that it effects only mesmer spells(pvp/pve). changing some inspiration skills to effect others. make stances Self-Chants instead its called a Mantra for a reason. enbaling dmg to be delt more directly, too many mesmer skills are conditional.
change the skills in Fast casting which do NOTHING helpful. the problem is, mesmer skills are so over-powered, they have to be single-target units, which is good in PvP, but in PvE they need a wider range of skills/roles.

/done

Fast Casting is now twice as effective and now affects recharge time. When you cast a spell, you gain 2 energy for every 3 ranks of Fast Casting.


~~~> Mesmers are now mandatory nukers.

12 fast casting = 8 energy per spell, thats free spells for anything under 8, with no draw back, your thinking a bit too much buff, and its fast Casting, not fast Recharge

The focus here is good damage output, however with diminishing returns if more than one player uses the same skills. The concept is to have one or two Mesmers as viable team members. Damage and Mitigation are present.

Persistence of Memory - (PvE only)
10 Energy. 20 Recharge.
Stance. For 5..30 seconds, whenever you interrupt a spell using one of your Mesmer skills, all your other skills are recharged instantly.

Mantra of Persistance - (PvE only)
10 Energy. 15 recharge.
Stance. For 30 seconds, Illusion hexes you cast last 20..50% longer, and whenever you interrupt a foe's spell with a Mesmer skill, that foe is dazed for 2..10 seconds.

Cry of Pain
Hex Spell. Interrupt target foe's action and remove one Mesmer Hex from target foe. If a Hex is removed, that foe and all foes in the area take 60..100 damage. If a spell is interrupted, that foe and all foes in the area suffer -3..5 Health degeneration (10 seconds)

Ether Nightmare
Skill. Causes 5...7...8 Energy loss. For 10 seconds, target and foes in the area have -1 Health degeneration for each point of Energy lost and casts spells 15% second longer for every rank of Fast Casting.

Aneurysm (PvE only)
5 ¼ 3
Spell. Target foe regains all Energy. For each point of Energy gained in this way, that foe takes 5..20 damage. (maximum 120 damage). No effect if Fast Casting is less than 8.

Mind Wrack (PvE only)
5 1 5
Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, whenever you cause target foe to lose Energy, that foe also loses 2..12 health for every point of energy lost. No effect if Fast Casting is less than 8.

Spirit of Failure (PvE only)
-Increased chance of miss to 50%, also hexes adjacent foes

Calculated Risk (PvE only)
-Also hexes nearby foes

Really? RED ENGINE GO

To be honest, I just hope they buff some Mesmer elites so they can be PvE viable w/o affecting PvP (or just make them PvE only).

Skills like Panic, Simple Thievery, Crippling Anguish, Migraine, Keystone Signet, Mantra of Recall (seriously, has anyone used this since the nerf to boon-prots?, and Shatterstorm.

Tbh, I'd be fine with a revert on Hex Eater's Vortex too. But, whatever. At least they're looking at it.

Well if you played a Mesmer before Eye of North , just prior to its release a statement by Anet.
We are looking at the mesmer and he needs a rebuild....

So think that out they were thinking then to no avail..dont get me wrong here I love palying a Mesmer......

And if they do then no use saying this or that to changeas the posts are mixed here combining PVP and PVE

So just ensure the split is Pve.... as they can handel themselves ok in PVP

I'm sure Chthon was talking about passive reactive hexes like Empaty, not active reactive hexes like Diverson. Simply put, passive hexes take nearly no skill to use, and should therefor be worse than playstyle that take more skill to use.
Your suggestion for Ineptitude would make the skill even more active because you have to time it very smart to gain the maximum effect instead of just spamming it.


Because many players complain that mesmer skills have to long recharge times to be useful in PvE maybe this skill change can satisfy them:

Mantra of Recovery - (PvE only)
5 Energy. 20 Recharge.
Stance. For 10...22...25 seconds, spells you cast recharge 33% faster. Your mesmer spells recharge additional 33% (or 27%) faster.

Increase the duration to keep it up (nearly) constantly, and increase the recharge reduction for mesmer skillls; since the reducement comes from a single skill it can surpass the cap of 50% skill recharge time.

following that trail, and simply put, spamming damage skills or setting spirits require actually no skill to use, and should therefore be worse than passive reactive hexes, as they require some condition in order to be triggered.
if we start talking about 'skill to play', spamming fire nukes requires less awareness than spamming empathy and backfire.

Ah, but that wouldn't stop cryway. People would just use Me primaries. If CoP is going to do big damage, it needs to do so in a way that feeds back on itself and prevents your team from using more than 1 or 2 copies on the same target in rapid succession.

That's a valid point. I suppose that you're right. The DPS on reactive hexes (as measured by reference to an average target's trigger rate) should be about equal, maybe slightly higher, than that of mindless direct damage spells. (And both should be inferior to something like Barbs that takes team coordination.)

The difference between skills like Empathy and skills like Diversion is a matter of degree, rather than some bright-line distinction between "passive" and "active". Empathy has a weak effect and an easily satisfiable condition. Diversion has a powerful effect and a very narrow condition; specifically, effective usage of Diversion requires you to meet the condition "target uses the skill you wish to be disabled, within the duration of the hex and prior to using any other skill". Both are fundamentally similar in character: while the player controls the application of the hex, the opponent controls the application of the actual effect.

The idea that punishment hexes "take less skill to use" is both false and tangential. Conditional effects are more difficult to use than unconditional effects, essentially by definition, and conditional effects which depend on the opponent to trigger them are even more difficult to use. But more importantly, even if punishment hexes took no skill to use, stronger effects are justified by reduced applicability - Power Attack works against many more enemies than Backfire does.

true but its still possible to scale based on fast casting. with 0 in fast casting it interupts 1 foe and gives -3 degen to target, 4 fast casting interupts 2 foes and -4 degen to targets and 8 fast casting interupts 3 foes and applies -5 degen and at 12 fastcasting, interupts 4 foes and applies -6 degen to interupted targets + scale the current damage level to match. yes you would have to be mesmer primary but people will get over it or make mesmers and learn to play them as primaries instead of abusing them as secondaries. being a PvE only skill a mesmer primary should get the most benefit being a mesmer skill

Scaling on FC is pointless. Anet did the same thing to Eles, and all that did was make FC water messes bring other emanagement (talking about the glowing skills).

What you would have to do first is eliminate all of the things that doesn't make PvE easier. This includes Hex Degen (Rotting Flesh is really all you need for pressure), Skill Disabling (unless they make it so you can Pblock enemies to death or Diversion spam), Interruption, weak single target hexes, short-duration hexes, emanagement.

From then on, focus on what DOES make PvE easier. Big damage, near invincibility, and making the enemies useless to the point that they can't touch you.

To ensure that other profs don't abuse the new skills, just slap huge cast times on them. Time=money, folks...

The attribute change can be PvE only, as I've never seen a mesmer use water...in PvE. Having fast casting and skills that take long to cast defeats fast casting.

Oh, that's nice news, if the buffs are nice I might even reinstall this game.

AoE empathy would be so hot.
The ability to be able to hex groups, even with only a few skills would be a very nice buff to mesmer.

btw, let us do something to the bosses. i mean - not necessarily power block them or divert monster-only skill, but let us do something mesmery and useful. at the moment of writing, i have no idea what could it be without being overpowered or just useless, so maybe other posters will come up with something.

That way i would avoid those skills with any profession, including the Primary.

I have two changes that I think would be a good start to helping Mesmers. Not sure if anyone would agree, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

First, fast casting need a buff. The most logical would be that it also affects recharge time. And this makes the most sense. It is "Fast Casting", so why cast spell real fast only to sit and waiting for a recharge to do it again. Mesmers are masters of interruption and disruption, so we should be firing off spells like gaitlin guns. Our limitation is Energy. We have to manage our own energy levels and thats why FC should not have any e-management built into it. Maybe make FC only affect the recharge time on "Mesmers-Only" skills. So you don't end up with a bunch of Me\Ele nukers.

Next, Mesmers e-management comes in the form of our Inspiration line. That was/is the intent. We use skills to steal/extract energy. The problem I see is that if I want to interrupt, I put points into Domination. The rest of my points HAVE to between FC and Inspiration. If I don't put points in FC, I can't get my skills out in time. If I don't put points in Insp, I'm standing around waiting for my energy to recover. Any other way, and I'm a in-effective Mesmer. And forget about trying to utilize any secondary profession skills.

I say we git rid of the Inspiration Line all to gether! What I mean is that we take the Inspiration Skills and distribute them to FC, Dom and Illusion where they make sense. (Only 3 lines) This will give Mesmers their e-management within their main attributes line. My e-management just got better because I've max'd out my Domination line and all the associated emanagment within it.

Energy is still my limitation and I still have to have skills to getting that energy, but I'm more efficient at it then when I have spread points across 3 lines. Then adding recharge time to FC, and my Mesmer is spell-casting machine! And I still have points left over that I can utilize the third Mesmer line or something from my secondary profession.

If these two things happen, then I think the Mesmer can become a gaitlin gun interrupter/disruptor. Some skill balancing needs to take place and even some re-arranging. Frustration goes to domination, empathy goes to illusions. The Mantra's go to FC, so on. The damage & emanagment spells need to be tweaked/lowered, because Mesmers are now casting spells faster AND sooner upping the damage/energy-recovery across the board.

Again my $.02

To be honest they need to make a change to a fast casting skill to ensure it is used is on a Mesmer and Mesmer only. No need for more Necro/whatever hero builds or ele builds. Example of what would be nice is a nice enchantment that would cause damage to foes that lose energy. Inspiration is a great line often neglected do to no damage. As I said in an early post e-denial in PVE needs to be painful otherwise it is a waste of your time. Foes have too fast regeneration and too large of energy pools to make it effective. Tweak the inspiration line if you wish, but please keep the big changes in fast cast so it actually applies to a Mesmer.

P.S. I have a boat load of cool inspiration staffs I would like to use sometime

This is a quote from another thread. This is why mesmers should at least have an option of doing high DPS in some form. There's too much build up of power and the entire profession has been neglected for years. Anet has truely dug themselves in a lot of work if they want to fix them.

They have usefulness, damage, energy, recharge, and primary attribute problems.

This update must be pretty large if they're serious about this. Other players and I will expect nothing less.

This sounds like a topic on Motivation being removed from Paragons and merged with Command and Leadership. I didn't like that idea, and I don't like this one. First, it makes a MAJOR balance problem. Now that the attribute has been removed, the skills need to be adjusted to fit into having more attribute points available to whatever attribute they got moved to. Second, this may make other classes using Inspiration as an energy management attribute lose out on LOTS of build options, specifically if the skills are moved to Fast Casting. Last, you mention using Domination, and not having enegry management options, but Domination already has Guilt and Shame. Those may not be the best options, but they do serve the purpose if used correctly.

I fully agree Mesmer needs some help, but I dont' believe they need a MASSIVE overhaul. Fast Casting is the main problem, as the benefit for PvE is not significant, especially in Hard Mode. A few good skill balances, and possibly a change to what/how Fast Casting works should be enough. That may include moving a few skills to Fast Casting, but certainly not removing an attribute completely.

Mesmers need a buff sure, but what about The Paragon Attribute, Motivation? Has anything EVER been done to Motivation? That Attribute line is the most useless in the entire game for sure. I haven't seen one build that utilizes it at all. Why? Because so many other things from other professions do it so much better.

I, personally, am reading this thread daily, and trying to be assertive on changes that are going to be made. Mesmer is my main as far as DPS is concerned, and I want, like the rest of you, to see them viable not just as a giant nuke factor using chaos damage, but to make interrupting a viable solution instead of "KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT"

I just want to let you know that someone is listening to your suggestions and weighing them out, and it isn't just me. A lot of you have great ideas, some of you have very creative minds, but the ideas can't really be made to work, etc. Mesmers are a very unique class, and they require a very unique approach to balance. I can tell you that this balance will be VERY involved, very heavily tested, and one of the best balances I think the game has ever seen to date.

There is nothing dart board about this, and we (the Test Krewe) are going to make absolutely sure that this update makes Mesmers a very viable option for teammates without turning them into some overpowered freak show that dominates every aspect with some gimmick build. I know many other TK members will tell you the same thing; we are going to see this update through, and it may take time, but your patience will be appreciated and reciprocated with an amazing update. Please, just give us the time, and we will give you a stellar update, I promise.

And please, continue to fill this thread with your ideas and conjecture, as it only serves to increase the depth at which ideas are considered and expands the chances that the changes will be amazing.

Actually, I play 9 professions (except para. No beef against it, I just don't want to buy another slot) all fairly regularly. secondaries and heroes, I agree, should be able to use them. I just think the justification of that statement is a little more personal than you realize. Rather, I would like secondaries to be able to use more Me skills because it would make more options (besides inspiration) viable.

First off, physicals were addressed, and will continue to be addressed as needed. Monster updates are something that hasn't been seen for a long time. It isn't something that can be fixed overnight, and people need to remember that. This game has had balance issues for nearly 5 years, and that isn't going to go away, period. With 1,200 skills and as you said, 10 classes with 8 spots on a team, it's impossible to get everyone into any given party.

However, I've spoken with a lot of non forum going players on Live servers, and I've asked them what they think about the balance updates. I want to see not how people on a forum (which is typically a place for people that have only negative feedback come) react, but how everyday players react; farmers, dungeon runners, elite area speed clearers, and even runners feel about changes. Nothing we do is going to completely fix the issues in Guild Wars, I don't feel that is possible. However, what is possible is to improve what we can, where we can, and in a manner that is as responsible and practical as possible without asking ANET to further stifle the production of Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars was ANET's first game together, and for what it was and is, it turned out to be absolutely amazing in many ways. It has flaws, that's obvious. I honestly believe as a company, Arena Net has grown, recognized a large majority of those flaws, and is working vigilantly to improve upon them. What some people ask of them is quite frankly bullshit, and completely illogical and irrational. Too many people have pie in the sky ideas, and frankly, myself and MANY others work our asses off in the Test Krewe testing changes and doing write ups, attempting to fix the game for no pay, and an occassional pat on the back. Some of us aren't in it for some vague idea that we get to test GW2 before others, some of us really care about making the game we started playing, in many cases over 5 years ago, as good as it can be at this point. Whether or not you wish to give us any shred of respect for that is your choice, but that won't change our goals; we are here to fix Guild Wars is the best way we know how, and that's what we have and will continue to do.

Yes, and then they made Nightfall.

Then again, that is around the time they decided to quit making standalones, so maybe they do learn.

That said I'm not expecting miracles this late in the game's lifecycle, we will probably see just what they have planned after tomorrow anyway.