Mesmer Speculation

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.