What I think might help....

Truthfully nowadays all I really play are my Elementalist and Mesmer. Lately, I've been just playing my Mesmer because its truly a challenge to me whereas the other professions you know what you're going to get. I know that there has been a lot of talk about making Mesmers better for PVE. I think they're fine for PVE except for the boss issue. Here are just a few ideas that I think would be along with two ideas to perhaps add a little boost to Fast Casting.

1.) Since fast casting is so widely known as ineffective(at least to me) as perhaps some of the other classes. I think the interesting twist would be for every point added to the class it raises the chance of your opponent being knocked down after your spell along with the increase in speed. Since most Mesmers skills are already fast casting with the times the knock down would add another bonus with also allowing your teammates to catch the foe. So if you have 10 points in fast casting you cast spells 10% faster have a 10% risk to knock the opponent down per spell used. Could even have limits like the Assassins do 1-6 points - 1 second knocked down 7-10- 2 second 12-^ 3 second...

2.) The other idea was Fast Casting to cause 1 second burning for every point you have in it for each spell you cast at your opponent.

-Both of those would help with the lack of usefullness a Mesmer has with bosses as the knock down would keep the boss down for a tiny bit or the burning would give the degen without a skill needed-

I am not sure how most people use their Memsers, but I do a lot of Alliance battles with mine when I do have time to play. I notice a lot of times that my mesmer skills are all recharging at the same time due to the quickness in execution one must have. Perhaps if Mesmers could play on that, it would be rewarding (at least to this Mesmer it would be).

Those are just my two ideas.....please feel free to place any input you think on it.

I think FC being able to add a condition would be a little OP. The KD thing sounds pretty cool. However, I like FC the way it is now. I don't find it useless. Look at all the SC's in PvE...everyone using cons to buff cast speed along with everything else. People want to be able to cast faster. I love running me/e and running FC fire spells. I don't think it needs a change at all but if they do change it the KD thing would be better imo.

On a side note, I want to see a dervish update before another mesmer update. They got their love let the other classes see some skill updates before we go changing the core of a class that already got a huge skill update dedicated to them.

I completely agree with Songbringer, and for bosses you already have PvE-only skills like Pain Inverter + you don't even fight that many bosses in Guild Wars and they don't differ that much from regular enemies.

Both of the suggested changes to Fast Casting are pretty bad. They would be overpowered (a LOT) and don't really make any sense. Why would casting fast cause burning? Or knock down? There's no sense behind these suggestions.

Additionally, fast casting as it is now is one of the best primary attributes for PvP. The recent mesmer buffs have made mesmers one of the best classes everywhere (they used to be a tad meh in PvE but still great in PvP). If you're having trouble being successful as a mesmer, you're probably doing something wrong. Go back and look at your skills bar compared to other, more successful bars. I'm sure you'll find room for improvement.

Mesmers already had a huge buff a few months back, and they already made FC better in PvE by making it reduce recharge times. A lot of the highest end PvE uses mesmers in abundance.

i dont play spellcasters.... but i have gotten my butt wooped on many times by Me/xxx classes. FC makes it almost impossible for a human ranger to interrupt their attacks, and heroes don't seem to be any faster at interrupting them. Bulldozer above also makes a logical point in that the changes you propose doesn't really seem to match up with the class.

I heard there was an update on Mesmers recently, and with the recent WiK mesmers making it a lil harder than expected, it seems there was quite a tweak. So i say, ummm... yeah need to tweak another class or 2 first.

In my opinion, mesmers are actually pretty OP'd after that last mesmer update, at least in PvE. Reducing both casting time and recharge time of mesmer spells is pretty powerful. Especially with changes to skills like Panic, there is no need to make mesmers any more powerful.

I find it curious that you mostly play the Ele and Mesmer, yet you think the Mesmer is the one that needs the help. At the moment Mesmers are capable dealing as much or more damage than most Ele builds, especially in HM PvE.

The Mesmer is one of the more complicated classes to play. So I can understand if some feel it is still underwhelming. However, it is one of the most powerful classes after the last major skill update, if you use it right. If you want KD, I recommend Psychic Instability. Burning is just a form of degeneration. And Mesmers have plenty of degeneration hexes available to them in the Illusion line and even a few in Domination.

Try a few different builds from PvX and youll see that Mesmers can already do what your suggesting and more.

Mesmers have already been uber buffed by ANet.
-Mesmers can completely shut down bosses, or damage massively via E-Surge or whatnot (if you can't, you're not playing it right).
-The fact that Fast Casting also reduces recharge is EXTREMELY advantageous to mezzes (this Primary Attribute, in comparison to others, is pretty overpowered, and the quicker recharge makes amends to the fact that PvE NPC's can rupt anything.)
-Update the other classes, ANet already spent the first half of this year on upgrading mezzes. Next coming is Dervs/Paras, who need it especially (Monks too) (Dervs are outclassed by every other melee, Paras are just... well, stuck in a hard place, to say the least)

I have to agree with mostly everyone here. The ideas you have are a bit over the top. I believe Mesmers are just fine the way they are and Fast Casting is working perfectly. I run a Keystone on my main and couldn't be happier.

Pretty much this.

When I first saw this I had to double check the date to make sure someone didn't res a year old thread.

Mesmers are fine/OP'd as is, leave them be or mildly nerf them.

Mesmers are no longer useless and neither is fast casting. With the update fast casting is great and makes mesmers the ideal spikers for things like DoA and other SCs. Remember that fast casting now also reduces recharge time, not just casting time .

It's strange that playing an Ele and and a Mes you think the we should buff(again!?) the Mesmer....
Have you ever tried HM?

I honestly just wanted some input, I always thought it'd be nifty to sort of have that extra kick in fast casting. I know I can pump out a ton of damage in 3 seconds, but still wanted to throw my ideas out there. Apparently they were silly.

Well... Fast Casting doesn't need a buff, certainly not after the entire profession was recently buffed. Not to mention your suggested changes make no sense whatsoever. There's not all that much to say.

That's why FC is crappy - you can do the very same thing, and even better, with popping a consumable. Every class can have the basic effect of FC. With no attribute points investment.
It's not in AB. OP never mentioned any other PvP format.
Ever checked casting time of some more useful spells, like Mistrust and Backfire? Even with high FC, they are interruptable, especially in HM. Heck, if you're talking about PvP, i remember getting constantly rupted by one ranger in RA, despite high FC and 1-2s basic cast times. You just need to be good at it.

That said, the buff to FC we got in May made it useful. Still not because it's old bonus to casting time, but the new effect on skills' recharge is damn useful. Adding anything else to FC would make it seriously overpowered, to the level of SR - or even beyond it. What should be done, though, is nerfing cons (or, for the very least, Essence and Pumpkin Pie, as they mimic a professions primairy attribute) and further lowering Mindbender's casting bonus to 10-15%.

/agreed with other insights.

Mesmers are balanced.

/notsigned

Mesmers are not only balanced, they're f*cking overpowered imo, and like said already, you play both ele and mes and mes needs the buff? You're playing this game very wrong man. I'll give a cool PvE hint: Assassin's Promise, Arcane Echo, Chaos Storm and a snare ele hero. GG, you won.

Heh, it wasn't just me who did that then ^_^

I've not been able to play my mezzie as much as I'd like but I can honestly say that neither I nor my guildies have had any issues with our Mesmers or feel they need a buff. Maybe it's your builds you need to look at? Also as has been said, Eles suffer in HM MUCH more due to higher armour of foes. That's the change you should really be looking for.

Mesmers do NOT need a buff right now, at all. I can tear things up with mine and I don't even use active interrupts. Hero mesmers are insanely OP with FC.

Mesmer damage is borderline OP compared to Eles. Mistrust and Wandering Eye AoE, for example, should never have been made nearby (130 or so armor ignoring?). Both are in powerful attribute lines already. This is not even counting spammy things like Clumsiness, Overload, Wastel's Demise,etc. that make Fireball (or any Fire Magic other than Searing Flames) look stupid.

Out of curiosity I treated this as a finite state Markov chain and looked for a stable distribution. With 16 FC, assuming you cast one spell per second for a 16% chance of a 3 second KD, your target spends 40.7% of its time on the ground; i.e. if we assume the process goes on forever, your enemy is only standing about 60% of the time.

This disregards what the spells actually _do_.

Just to point out AGAIN how insanely powerful mesmers are: when we do DoA with our guild (i.e. about 22/24 hours since we have both active euro and american players) we run a caller bar that uses Visions of Regret. Ok, I do +40% damage cause of LB title, but the ele would do so too, so it's fair. When I run this bar, I also use Intensity and BuH (duh) and my intensity "only" does +22% damage cause I'm a lazy f.ck who refuses to max his SS (should be able to transfer from LB to SS, got like 700k LB by now) So, anyway, my VoR does 264 damage EVERY time it's triggered. That's f.cking nuts, and that doesn't count the Esurges wanking their 348 damage each and the Troller going medieval with Wandering eye...

So, back to the VoR: let's crank it down to it's basic damage it would do without the buffs: 264*0.78*0.6*0.75 = ~93damage. That's not bad, and assuming you're not a retard, you'll run BuH or intensity OR BOTH on your bar nonetheless, and it's pretty easy to keep up with AP, so pick your favorite combo, i.e. Overload + Shatter Delusions + BuH + Intensity and BOOM you're awesome! (for the record, only removing LB title would make VoR 158 damage).
EDIT: Yes, I know AP is an elite, so if you go with the AP, of course VoR doesn't apply.

Eles on the other hand have to deal with: non-armor ignoring damage (i.e. most of their damage is cut to about 30% in HM) scatter, and no FC, if you run red rocks, ok, but it still doesn't beat the mesmers, who can pop red rocks as well...

Conclusion: mesmers are awesome, eles are backline bitches doomed to bond until anet finally decides to fix them.