Wastrel's Worry/Demise (PvP: JQ)

Well I just read the Shockwave (PvP) topic. I don't want to create a seperate topic for every skill but I've been considering this for a while. Anyways I haven't seen anything about this before except a lot of people in game who share these thoughts. (Lots of people I have spoken to) Note: this isn't some thread I want to QQ about **** being overpowered. Just want to mention and hear some other voices about it.

I play Jade Quarry quite often. Nearly in every match I play there are those Mesmer/Assassins (Me/A). No problem at all. But nearly all of these mesmers have Wastrel's Worry and Wastrel's Demise. Still no problem at all because you can cast skills to cancel either of those. For some professions this seems a little harder sometimes. But there are some things I want to point out.
Short: Nerf WD/WW or make them atleast less OPed.

But I really think both or either one of those skills need a nerf for Pvp. Well atleast for JQ. But killing a carrier (Turtle/Jug) within a very short time seems a little too easy in my opinion. The only way to stop them killing a carrier is being a full healer. Healers, which I only get in 1 of the 10 matches I play.
Also a few of these mesmers are running around at the gates near the base to kill every carrier which wants to pass trough. Well you could say that one teammate (damage) could kill them easily. But usually those mesmers have counters for those. So as an assassin or caster your f*cked up. Either by Backfire or Empathy. AND: Most guy I had in my team didn't care about it.
I'd say this problem can solved really easy without even touching the Wastrels's. Just give the carriers some skill they cast from time to time. Just a skill which has no effect and is casted every 5-10secs.

Well second part is capturing. Same story like carriers. A dedicated healer can easily heal the Wastrels's out and prevent the shrines from being captures. But compared to other dedicated cappers? A RoJ monk can easily be interrupted and one heal of divine favor will prevent RoJ from capturing. I'd say RoJ is cool. Nothing wrong with it. Easy capturing but also easy countered. Same story for N/A bombers. They can cap really easy but are pretty easy countered and can't do much more than bomb bomb bomb.
The only way to stop those mesmers either KD'ing them or putting another mesmer in front of the. But those counters also work against the other dedicated cappers?

Solution? Turn down Wastrels's a bit. IMO can be different ways. Higher recharge, less damage, more counters?, long casttime? Or make all other skills recharge for a few secs? I'm sure there must a balanced game.

Like I said this isn't a QQ thread. Just wanted to point something out. BTW, I know this game is getting old so don't mention about that. :P

My only problem with wastrels is it's so dumb to run which is why so many bots use it because it takes no brain at all. Same with shockwave

It's not only about the Wastrel build being OP at killing the carriers.
That same build can easily cap posts, without dying (as most necro bombers do) or waiting for their elite to recharge and being nearly useless in the meantime (RoJ).
Being spammable and with really short cast, not to mention the cost, skills used by Wastrel mesmers open other options. You're not only capping, or only killing carriers, or only keeping your posts up, or only rupting opponents, or only ganking the other team. You can do all of it. Even more so - while WW and WD are easy to deal with by a human player, they still put pressure on their target, creating the need to use a skill, wasting resources on the way.

I play the wastrels build with PI, and can indeed cap shrines and kill carriers. But seriously, in every team there is at least one Mo/P. A monk can keep a shrine alive, can keep carriers alive (and speed them up) and can also easily cap a shrine with roj.
Also an assassin usually kills me easily, if they don't get PI'd on an attack skill.
But if they nerf it, I go back to necro bombing or playing mo/p... so lets hope they nerf all those as well then^^

Talking only about JQ now...

Don't get me wrong - while i'm running a RoJ monk myself, i'm not saying it shouldn't be nerfed. It should, or the AI in JQ should be improved. However, the PI/Wastrel mesmer is even more overpowered than RoJ.
Capping? A bit slower than bomber, noticeably faster than RoJ - thus making it less likely to negate via healing.
Killing carriers? RoJ can't do it. Bomber usually can't do it either. Mesmers can do it nearly as fast as sins, and substantially faster than others.
Keeping the posts? Going /Mo for Healing Breeze is an option, as one HB with 0 in Healing Prayers is enough to keep an NPC up against a single RoJ. Even without it, rupting RoJ is usually pretty easy, and given most cappers run RoJ or bomber... Bombers might be nasty, but then just go /N for Gaze of Contempt and benefit from your Fast Casting, and still rupt any incoming RoJ. This leads to bringing mesmers against mesmers...
Ganking others? WD or Palm sin kills casters faster, giving them no chance, but then they can't do anything else (apart of semi-ganking carriers). Well-built rangers can kill other players quite fast. Other than that? Not really - but the mesmers...

Bombers can only cap - really fast, but that's all. Even a half-wit will escape a bomber. They have no rupting or healing potential, they can't kill carriers before they get healed.
RoJ can primarily cap, and keep the NPCs up, but not so well - it's nearly impossible to keep a quarry against a bomber or a mesmer (as a smiter monk, keep in mind). They can only kill complete retards who stay in RoJ beam and let themselves knocked down with Bane Sig, eating up RoD on the way. Other than that - sure, they have some support, like taking a condition off an ally, but they're nowhere nearly as powerful and versatile as mesmers.
Other builds are either strictly specialised, being able to do only one thing properly (and usually it's ganking either carriers or squishies), or are mediocre at what they're doing, easily countered by even a smiter monk.

Wastrel skills should have their recharge made longer as well as their cost higher. The damage is fine, and so are the duration and conditions to trigger. However, make it 10+s recharge and 10+e cost, so that it's more of a situational skill rather than a spammable pressure to make people trigger Backfire or fuel their interrupts.

Don't see any problem with them, easy to deal with if you use a little brains.

AI at quarries got no brains. And when mesmers blow them up quicker and with more power than RoJ, something's wrong.

Compared to the bomber the mesmer is quite much better in overall. The mesmer can do lots of more things. The only thing bombers are better at is the capping part, but this is countered by the fact that they can't do much else. The mesmers easily kill the jugs/turtles without any resistance, except for the other team. It wouldn't hurt to let the carriers cast a certain spell around every few seconds, without any effects, but just to cancel WD/WW.

Well about Mo/P healing. A carrier can only be saved by a dedicated healer, and maybe with a lot of struggle by a roj monk.

The Wastrels's are easy to counter for a human player though. Gives nice pressure and really fills up the role of a mesmer imo. But like drkn said and probably much other too: the AI at quarries is brainles. And that is where the mesmers shine.
Even without PI the mesmers can capture, though with more effort.

Easy counters are available - the meta just isn't using them. I don't see why the skills need to be nerfed to make up for that.

Yeah, the shrine AI could be made a little smarter (which would be a necessary fix for AI across the whole game, PvE heroes included). Fix the NPCs, don't nerf the skills. (And this is coming from someone who doesn't play mesmer in PvP.)

yet your avatar is a mesmer skill .... sure you don't play a mesmer.


What counters are you talking about lol ?

Not signed.

Wastrel's Mesmers are unable to kill a carrier through a real Monk, it's not easy for them to kill Archer shrines either (without using elites like Panic), are unable to kill other players well, etc. Compared to other builds they are not the best cappers around, not the best player killers around, not the best defensive build around, not the best build to put against a real Monk guarding a turtle, etc.

If Wastrel's is nerfed RoJ Monks will dominate the arena (they are already very strong).

The real question is, how often do you see a 'real monk', not a RoJ smiter, in JQ? At that, properly doing their job?
Also, what's 'wrong' about using an elite skill to cap a post in JQ? Not that RoJ monks do it all the time...

You trollin'?

1. I said I don't play a mesmer in PvP. That doesn't mean I've never played one.

2. Nobody's talking about nerfing Signet of Midnight.

3. Last I checked, there's no rule that says your avatar has to be a 100% accurate representation of oneself.

Any half-decent hex removal and healing. I am a sucky, sucky monk. But that's what I play in JQ because even a bad monk like me can counter bombers, RoJ, and Wastrels mesmers.

I have no problem with WW/WD for capturing spawn points. It is fast and efficient, and because both sides use it, there is a lot of capping. This is very good because it means more faction and a game where no one caps sucks.

But, the WW/WD carrier killing is a little over the top as currently, that is one of the only efficient ways to kill the carriers. Personally, of all the things suggested, simply adding a skill they use every 5 seconds makes the most sense. It only affects those specific skills by making it harder to simply spam WW/WD, while not touching the rest of the pvp balance.

I've got no problem with their performance at shrines, but the carrier killing happens pretty darn fast.

Mostly it can be negated with a Restless, which abuses the same "no skill use" factor of the carriers. My Mo/P specs like 3 in Healing and can keep carriers up 90% of the time with Restless, Fall Back, and Divine Favor healing. Usually a Restless is plenty.

I remember a while back people complained about RoJ the same way. "It's a single skill that lets you cap, but then you can bring whatever other utility!"

So perhaps a skill as you suggested on carriers that has minimal removal or even no benefits at all on a 8-10 second recharge.

If you appreciated the power of real Monks, you might see them more often. I know I played one last weekend and won somewhere around ~80% of my games, which was better than I could achieve with Wastrel's. I could almost hold a shrine against three cappers, which says a lot.

@FengShuiDove - you may not noticed it, but I'll say you hit the nail on the head. The Mesmer can kill a carrier through a RoJ Monk. Shatter Enchant takes out Restful Breeze while stuff like Kitah's Burden keeps the carrier in range. However, to do so, the Mesmer needs to give up on other important stuff such as Backfire (important to take down a shrine defended by a real Monk, kill other Wastrel's Mesmers, etc).

Dom Mesmer is the most versatile profession in JQ at the moment and can bring skills to perform any role, but it is not the best at any of those roles except killing undefended carriers. Still almost any build can kill undefended carriers easily, so no argument there. And once the Mesmer specializes, its other capabilities suffer, e.g. unless it's willing to spec into Inspiration and bring Ether Feast, it typically does not have self-heal; unless it brings Shatter Enchant, it has trouble with Restful Breeze, etc etc etc.

Strong template, but overall my verdict is balanced.

I'm going to confirm this as i played monk as well, but i have to say it was more likely because my opponents had no clue what they were doing, not really because 3 of these mesmers cannot do anything ...

Most players just insisted capping the shrine as there was only 1 NPC left at some moment, but let's face it :
- they could just get on an other shrine
- they could split their job ( 1 on archers shrine, 1 on me, 1 on the shrine), i would surely miss something
- they could just get the turtle or something

Like each bomber/roj/mesmer i'm facing is just getting in the teleport, going to x shrine without caring of anything and using his skills( in the exact same order) on NPC's only...

My only problem with Mesmers Wastrels skills for JQ is that they kill carriers way too fast when a monk is not present.

The idea to add an extra low-recharge skill to carriers for the purpose of combating Wastrel-type skills was introduced about a month ago I believe, in this thread. It's a good idea, I think.

Yes, but that's a short fix, it won't really do much.. If you have a monk, you will be able to handle . If you don't, it generally won't matter whether your turtle is dying in 5 or 8 seconds...

If you watch Jade quarry from all points, the problem is the ability to kill NPC's from out of their range. You use RoJ, NPC's will then start casting on you, and will die while casting. Rangers can cap shrines without getting hit. Mesmers use chaos storm, NPC's start using skill, then the mesmer uses psychic instability...I guess you can see the obvious problem here and why there were complaints about melee being ineffective..

I can't really thing of a solution for turtles only( except making carrier's defense like : recharge 10 sec ; one random atacking target is kded for 3 seconds), and the only way to do anything would be to split NPC's on the shrine, so at least these aren't capped in half a sec and it will make it more fair for everyone..

Yup. I'd go for that too.

Something like a skill that has a 2 second recharge and instant activation.
For effect, it could be something like "lose an hex for every 5 hexes on you" or something like that, and be called "Carrier Relief", to counter how stacking hexes indiscriminately on them is much easier than stacking regen and removing those hexes.

Capturing at all isn't a big problem at all then. Though they are quite hard to counter. Interrupting them is nearly impossible. Second could be something like Mistrust, but this wont stop them at all either. Only way would be to cripple them and kill them or keep KD'ing them. But this isn't my problem at all... I wouldn't mind this being toned down a bit though.

A RoJ monk with RoD can keep a few guys standing against those mesmers. The problem is like everyone says killing of carriers. It's way too easy and only a full dedicated healer monk can keep this alive. No other profession can cap AND kill carriers so easy.
I mean sometimes you see those N/A with Weaken Knees. Those guys can't capture a shrine. And they can't even kill a carrier as fast as WD/WW. And IMO those are a little easier to counter for an average monk.

So seeing the carriers with some skill would be nice IMO. And some improvement of the AI wouldn't hurt at all either.

Isn't the real problem the AI in JQ? Why would switches be made to WD/WW because the AI was bad? If we are using that logic then we need to buff Paragon skills for RA.

Creating and adding a simple skill to the carriers is way easier and faster than improving the AI.

WD/WW is designed to absolutely slaughter anything that doesn't use skills. Vital NPCs that aren't able to use skills is a basic design problem, all the AI in the world won't let an NPC use skills it doesn't have.

The problem is it's strength compared to other profesions/capping builds. It can easily match up to RoJ, Bombers, and eles.

Say you have Psycic Instability, WWorry, Wdemise, and CoFrustration, you can now cap any quarry, kill carriers with ease, and rupt other cappers (or whatever tickles your fancy).

This is only possible because of WDemise, as WWorry was never an issue. Nerf that, and the problem goes away.

Just try to think of it :
- if you add some kind of hexbreaker, it will just make turtles survive 3 seconds longer
- if you add some kind of health regen, it will need to be like +4-6 if you do not want mesmers to kil it, but other professions won't be able to do much anymore
- if you make a skill kding someone in range, it won't do anything against rangers with longbows

Obviously, if mesmers weren't able to cap shrines so fast, they would just be carriers killers and it would be fine .. And as i stated this, the only way to fix everything in JQ is to split NPC's on shrines

Not really. RoJ Monks can keep carriers alive + run them. You can't as a Mesmer. Two Bombers can teardown a shrine defended by a Monk (depends on build though). Two Mesmers can't. They also cap Archer shrines easier, and can reposition easily since they kill themselves. Eles can kill other players, defending shrines that way, keep turtles snared vs. healing, and apply considerable pressure on any Monks defending shrines. Dom Mesmers cannot.

I don't see why you say Dom Mesmer is "stronger".

Adding a simple skill to a carrier rebalance quite much imo. Just see the difference in capturing regular shrines vs. ranger shrines. Capturing a ranger shrine is slightly harder than capturing the regular. Assuming we are talking about the ranger shrines without any height advantage. With some good interrupting the rangers shrines are easy but imo they are still harder than the others. Just add a non-effect skill which is casted every 2-3 secs? Not sure but it might slow down the process to make it more balanced.

I never once used the word stronger, so I don't know why you have quoted me as doing so, despite that being my implication.

WDemise is OP (when used in conjuction with the skills I said earlier especially) due to it's flexibility. Sure a decent player should be able to counter it, but NPCs cannot. RoJ monks are inferior cappers, at the very least imo, as RoJ has no flexibility at all, and requires 16 attribute points to be effective. There are no other smiting skills worth using really, so you are then splitting into prots, heals, or utility such as "Make Haste!".

Two bombers could indeed tear down a shrine defended by a monk, but they would both die, and therefore not be available for a few seconds unlike a mesmer. Two mesmers could easily cap a quarry defended by a monk, just rupt them. As I said above, you only need 4 skills to efficiently cap, so you have 4 spaces free for whatever you fancy, which could be caster hate, slap blackout on the monk while another caps, it's not difficult.

TLDR: My assertion here is that Mesmers (using at least the 4 skills I have outlined), can multi-task better than other meta builds, such as RoJ, Bomber. Not only due to the strength of the capping ability, but defense via interrupts, and general utility left you with your 4 free skill slots. Without WDemise, mesmers would stack up normally against other cappers.

This is nearly what I think. They can even fill those role more effectively sometimes than the others.

Undoubtedly, but remember JQ isn't an organized arena. You may not be able to synergize two Wastrel's Mesmers because they may have brought the same skills, e.g. some Mesmers might bring Ethereal Burden for snare, others might bring Mistrust, some might have ESurge, etc. Without Blackout - and point blank skills are hard to use in JQ - you can't take down a Monk easily either, unless you can consistently reflex 3/4s casts (very few people can).

Can you exhibit a Mesmer build that can do multiple things outright better than other professions?

Well, here's a couple examples, they're not perfect by any means, but I'll explain what I belive their good features to be.

OQRDAowjO30QoMIHo87AogGB Me/N Cap, rupt, rupt through anti-rupts, drop Bombers, shutdown. You could replace Backfire with diversion or guilt or backfire, any caster hate is fine. I'd say this can cap better than any other, and has some defensive and offensive capability without loosing the capping strength.

OQNEAowz14cTDhygcgynIgRsbA Me/Mo Cap, rupt, rupt through anti-rupts, take one ench from bombers, which makes them less dangerous (not as good as removing all, but better than none), Heal quarries, Heal carriers, regen carriers. This is more aimed at defense and carrier protection, but still has the capping capability and good defense via interrupts.

It really depends what you want to do. No matter what, you can cap effectively, imo better than any other class. Then the rest of the bar is up to you, escorting, defending, or killing.

First build - no speedboost; unable to cap Archer shrines reliably; unable to kill other players; no snare; unable to defend shrines against any non-spell damage or any kind of damage that gets through interrupts (e.g. Cry of Frustration). All significant drawbacks. You can bring Backfire instead of Blackout or whatever, which removes "unable to kill other players" but adds "unable to cap shrines through Monks".

I don't agree that the build has much offensive capability. Defensive capability, yes, some. But it can't push up red bars the way a Mo/P can.

Second build - no speedboost; unable to cap Archer shrines reliably; unable to kill other players; unreliable defensive ability (you WILL be overpowered by strong capping builds or two cappers that attempt to cap at the same time, or if the capper gets a couple of HCTs - Heal Area does have a 5s cooldown that can be blown through); unable to cap shrines through Monks; no snare. All significant drawbacks, and I'm sure I can come up with some more if necessary.

I'll say N/A bombers tear down shrines more powerfully than Mesmers simply because they output more (reliable) DPS. Rangers can pressure a defended shrine decently because they can hit without getting hit back, meaning the Monk has to continuously heal (expending energy + can't run turtle), etc. Mo/P's escort turtles better and defend shrines better. Fire Eles typically kill other players better, as do some melee builds. Et cetera. Sure, Mesmers have their good features. But they are not overwhelmingly good.

I'm still not convinced.

So Jeydra, how about other meta builds, like:
RoJ - unable to kill other players; unable to kill carriers; no snare; less powerful at capping and easier to interrupt/outheal than mesmers; unable to defend shrines against bombers and most decent mesmers; much more prone to dying when capping than mesmers who keep the NPCs on the ground/rupted; unable to cap shrines through monks; going /Me, they can bring an interrupt to rupt other RoJs and sometimes even bombers (just catch them when casting enchants, or on Putrid Bile, and it helps significantly) as well as Arcane Echo to cap faster, but they sacrifice some heals and speedboost; going /P they get the speedboost, but are essentially gimped in what /Me are better, and they're tied to running and healing carriers rather than capping, thus going full support might be a better option.

Bombers - unable to kill carriers; no speedboost; no snare; unable to kill other players; no rupts or other player annoyances; unable to defend anything against anything; prone to enchant removal and good pre-prot; while it may be an advantage at mobility, they still lose valuable seconds every time they cap anything.

Prot/heal monks - well, the only thing they can do is defend shrines and run carriers, so it's self-explanatory what they can't do.

Mesmers are not 'overwhelmingly good'. Still, they are much more versatile and powerful than any other build currently available and widely used at JQ.

Bingo! Hence JQ is balanced! All the builds do some things better than other builds and do some things worse.

I will agree Mesmers are more versatile. I do not agree they are stronger. It's for you to convince me of that.

PS: Bombers will typically have speedboost, and they kill players more effectively than Mesmers (they at least force the other player to move).
PPS: Against solo bombers and Mesmers a RoJ can keep the shrine alive.

I did say they were by no means perfect, it is a result of what i could throw together in a couple of seconds.

You seem to want a build which can do EVERYTHING at once, and have yet to provide one, despite critiquing the examples I have posted. If you want a speed boost, you sacrifce something else.

If you can't kill another player with WD/WW and a couple rupts, you probably ought not to be playing mesmer. Especially a build such as bomber which has no flexibility at all, and only one skill which can counter (Dash).

As to RoJ monks, interrupt them, it's not hard. And if you use Power Lock (which isn't even an elite) you can interrupt through Mo/E or Mo/Me anti-interrupts. RoJ is a weaker cap than WD, PI, WW, CoF, as it can be countered by a small heal, you need something significantly stronger to stop the mesmer chain.

How about you give some example builds which cap and X better than a WD mesmer.

The only place where WW/WD is an issue is JQ, so give the carriers some instacast abilities to actually use, or 1 spammable ability.

There is no build that can do everything at once and do it better than every other build - hence JQ is balanced.

You cannot kill another player with WD / WW and a couple of rupts. You're making it sound like you can interrupt Dash, other WD/WWs, Aura of Resto, Barrage under Lightning Reflexes, WoH, etc on demand. Not possible. Sorry. You CAN interrupt a bomber, so you can defend a shrine solo against a bomber to some extent as well (they can die and pop Death Nova whether you like it or not, and a 50% health bomber is just as dangerous as a 100% health bomber). But you can't kill every template on demand. In fact I doubt you can kill a Fire Ele with just WD/WW + a couple of rupts.

RoJ obviously caps weaker than bombers and Mesmers. In return they defend shrines + carriers better and can run turtles. That is trivially a significant addition to a team, is it not?

Builds that cap + does X better than Mesmers: bombers, with X being "take down defended shrines". Fir Eles cap + kill other players better than Mesmers. RoJ Monks cap + defend shrines / carriers better than Mesmers. And so on. They may not cap as well as Mesmers, but it's a trade-off, isn't it?

That by no means is the definition of balance.

Obviously, you have not been to JQ recently, or you would realise how ridicoulouly easy it is to kill a player, especially an ele, or other offensive caster with WD/WW and rupting. In fact I do it often. If you can rupt, then you're doing 275 armor ignoring damage every 5 seconds with the combinaiton of WD/WW.

In no way do I suggest you can interrupt dash or LR, as they are stances the thought of interrupting them is ludicrous. Sure, you may not hit every 1 sec skill, but for the most part, if you're spamming WD/WW, you ought only need interrupt 2 skills to kill someone.

Quite correct, it is nice to have some split heals from a monk who can also cap, however, as I have indicated, you could drop 11 points in healing and take 4 skills to prop up carriers or quarries and still have the ability to cap, rupt and kill as a Me/Mo. And as to boosting carriers, that limits your second profession to Ele, Para or (at a push) War.

I disagree completely with this apart from the point on bombers being the most powerful cap, as elementalists and monks are so easily interruptable. However, a prot monk can easily hold a quarry vs a bomber. Additionally a bomber uses 7 (8 if you bring dash) skills to cap with, and it kills the player, taking them out of the game for ~30s depending on how they do with RCs.

If a mesmer takes WD and WW with 16 in Dom, then you need only 2 cycles of WD and WW to kill a carrier. This takes ~11 seconds, and it's a cheap energy cost and recharge. You could do it with WW or WD alone, but it would obvioulsy take longer.

WD (not WW, which does not need changing unless WD remains the same), is in need of balancing due to it's spamability, high armor ignoring damage output, and the fact that it outshines Weaken Knees [E], in the only real area which ought to be a strong point for that skill. Without WD, a mesmer will not be able to cap as reliably or quickly, will take longer to kill carriers, and be able to pressure skill useage less.

Side note: when capping with a mesmer, I never take more than 1 hit from a foe on a quarry, and when I do it's from the ranger using sundering attack. A monk or ele would take more dmg unless using MS or some other crowd control, which they rarely do.