New Factions Skills...disappointing or exciting?

I haven't really looked at the other core classes yet, but has the mesmer had a slightly bum deal with "new" skills in the Factions add-on? I hope this doesn't come across as a massive whinge against ANet, I love your game...but I don't feel that excited about many of the skills.

IDENTICAL SKILLS

For starters, some "new" skills have been lifted straight from Prophecies and made into Factions skills. The spells stated below are identical in description, dmg / duration scaling, energy cost and recharge. There's probably some I've missed.

Arcane Thievery = Arcane Larceny
Revealed Hex / Enchantment = Inspired Hex / Enhchantment
Ethereal Burden = Kitah's Burden
Sympathetic Visage = Ancestor's Visage

I'm not really sure why they didn't just make all the prophecies skills core instead, rather than having identical skills with different names in the two camps.

POOR SKILLS?

Now for skills that I reckon need a bit of a buff....

Conjure Nightmare immediately springs out. At 25 energy it is 2.5 times that of Phantasm but is by no means 2.5 times as valuable. Duration is the same, and difference of -3 degen is 6 health per second over 12s, 72 damage. All that for an extra 15 energy. I'm sure it's great for early PvE, and I suppose -8 degen does have a certain panic value attached, but for 25 energy I reckon the duration should be doubled.

Overload...do 5-17 damage for 5 energy; if foe is casting do an extra 5-41 dmg. If this had a 1 second recharge you could do about 120 dmg during a longish spell, but you'd be better of Power Spiking it anyway...same energy and you also interrupt said spell. As it stands at 5 sec recharge it seems a bit rubbish.

Signet of Disenchantment...lose ALL energy to remove one enchantment. I'd never ever use this. Surely just pack the core Drain Enchantment, it has 10s longer recharge but gives you energy rather than pillaging all of it.

Ether Signet - gain 10-18 energy if below 5-9 energy. 90s recharge, omg. Halve that recharge and Energy Tap would still be better, at least you're removing it from someone else too.

EXCITING SKILLS

It's not all a whinge...

Unnatural Signet - deal 15-63 dmg. Instant recharge if target was a spirit. Bosh bosh bosh, cycle to next spirit. Read it and weep, ritualists. Nerf, anyone?

Lyssa's Aura - for 5 energy and 15s recharge, you steal 1-6 energy every time a spell is used against you. Max duration 9 seconds. Useful for that mesmer hate in PvP, throw this up, it seems nice. Might be good sole energy management for /Me secondaries.

Feedback - taget foe loses an enchantment and up to 9 energy. Decent cost at 10, recharge 30. Seems reasonably abusive.

Power Leech - lasts 10 seconds...a nice interrupt and after you could suck them dry 1-6 energy per spell with very little further input from yourself. Especially for those RoF spamming boon prots.

Shatter Storm could be a battle turning skill if used at the right time in PvP. Expel Hexes... at 8s recharge is this the end of offensive hexing? Necros and hexing mesmers may as well go home. You now need 2 cover hexes for your Elite.

Post your favourites or any white elephants I've missed!

Are you kidding about Overload? It's crazily good. 58 damage, if they're casting a spell is a significant amount of damage. Why not Overload a Maelstorm, them Spike it right away?

Signet of Disenchantment is good for adrenal Warriors who don't need Energy. Or signet Mesmers. It's also a signet, so it removes Spell Breaker and Obsidian Flesh.

Ether Signet can be used in conjunction with Mantra of Inscriptions, though I personally still don't like it.

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Lyssa's Balance. Worst. Skill. Ever. Unless they've changed it since the Factions preview?

Images of Remorse...enough said.

Well actually I lied, it's so good I have to talk about it some. Combine IoR with Ineptitude and Clumsiness and you have yourself a 250+ armour-ignoring spike, with an additional 80 damage from the degen. Very nice, eh? It's pretty much glued to my skill bar.

Another great new skill not mentioned is Power Return - a cheap and spammable interrupt. Since in PvE, mobs have next to unlimited energy, the energy PR returns doesn't matter much.

Revealed Hex + Inspired Hex is great for hex-heavy areas. Often you'll nab IoR, and if you're specced in Illusion, that means double the IoR spam (plus some energy management)

I agree that there are some blatently horrible skills, with Conjure Nightmare at the top of my list. If I wanted degen, I'd rather go with Conjure Phantasm + Images of Remorse, that gives -9 pips with an additional 50 damage if the target is attacking, all using 15 energy.

Arcane Langour is pretty horrible too, with its 4 second duration. Your target might pop out one spell in that time if you're lucky. You're better off with Diversion or something similar if you're looking to temporarily shut down a caster.

That's pretty much all I got to use during Head start, I'll be sure to rant some more after I get my CE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dragannia

Quote: Signet of Disenchantment...lose ALL energy to remove one enchantment. I'd never ever use this. Surely just pack the core Drain Enchantment, it has 10s longer recharge but gives you energy rather than pillaging all of it.

I still am not fond of it...as compared to other enchantment removal; sometimes being a spell is a good thing...

fast casting; fast recharge, mantras

*bash*
I see your point though.

Power Return and Image of Remorse are awesome....

I'm waiting on My CE to come so i can get the rest of my skills but yeah, those two skills are awesome as generally i play an illusion mesmer...

Quote: Originally Posted by SkyeFerina

although my necro got a ton of better skills (ya, necro got Uberness, even with MM nerf), mesmer got some good ones undoubtedly, ie: i like using Stolen Speed (elite) ~foes cast 25% slower, you cast 25% faster, ya its nice i love it, disrupt builds, nukers, ect. ect.

No such thing as a poor skill, just need to know how to use it properly.

Quote: Originally Posted by SkyeFerina POOR SKILLS?

Now for skills that I reckon need a bit of a buff....

Conjure Nightmare immediately springs out. At 25 energy it is 2.5 times that of Phantasm but is by no means 2.5 times as valuable. Duration is the same, and difference of -3 degen is 6 health per second over 12s, 72 damage. All that for an extra 15 energy. I'm sure it's great for early PvE, and I suppose -8 degen does have a certain panic value attached, but for 25 energy I reckon the duration should be doubled. Actualy, in comparison with Phantasm, the energy difference is like 9, phantasm still being cheaper. And you're right, it's not 2.5 times as valuable, its 1.6 times as valuable.

In order for phantasm to drain the same amount of HP as nightmare, you would need to cast it 1.6 times. (1.6 x 10 x 12 = 192) overall, 1.6 phantasm costs 16 energy... still 9 energy cheaper than nightmare.

I stuffed up my calculations in another thread, stating the difference was 1... that was when I remembered that phantasm costed 10 energy, not 15... ouch^^

Now I'd definately use this in a signet build... I don't see any other reason to waste 25 energy.

Quote: Originally Posted by SkyeFerina Overload...do 5-17 damage for 5 energy; if foe is casting do an extra 5-41 dmg. If this had a 1 second recharge you could do about 120 dmg during a longish spell, but you'd be better of Power Spiking it anyway...same energy and you also interrupt said spell. As it stands at 5 sec recharge it seems a bit rubbish. This spell is a clever spike when your build relies on them casting spells. Remember there are spells out there that punish you for casting, so as long as you're not using interrupts, this spell punishes them as they are casting, use it with conjunction with the spells i mentioned earlier, and you've got yourself a really annoying mesmer. I can already think of 9 spells you can easily use this with. There are better punishments than interrupts^^

Quote: Originally Posted by SkyeFerina

Some valuable points raised about Signet of Disenchantment. However I'd like to see someone try and daze a mesmer with some points in FC casting Drain Enchantment...it's only a second! I guess Drain Enchantment is almost a staple skill for me in PvP due it's useful energy management side effects, which Signet doesn't have (quite the opposite)

Xin, am I right in thinking you agree with me about Nightmare?

With regards to Overload...

Quote: Originally Posted by Terra Xin This spell is a clever spike when your build relies on them casting spells. Remember there are spells out there that punish you for casting, so as long as you're not using interrupts, this spell punishes them as they are casting, use it with conjunction with the spells i mentioned earlier, and you've got yourself a really annoying mesmer. I can already think of 9 spells you can easily use this with. There are better punishments than interrupts^^ I'm mainly thinking about PvP applications by the way, I think all skills can be great in PvE as mobs just cast through whatever hex you've applied to them.
Share your thoughts on good combos...As far as spells that punish you for casting, BF, Diversion...the rest are interrupts unless I'm being stupid which is quite likely . I'm talking purely mesmer skills here, but Domination interrupts have some punishment in there be it damage or energy loss, so I guess I can't really see why Overload is stronger. If you're going to wait till they cast and cause a bit of damage, why not stop the spell going off at the same time?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Xin energy tap takes 1 second too long, and this gives you waaay more energy than E-tap. I class this spell third to the two elites, E-drain and Mantra of E Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Even with the recharge on the signet at 45s as I was suggesting it should be, not 90 (!) I was roughly comparing 2 E-Taps to one Ether Signet, as you'd be able to get off 2 in roughly the same time. Also E-Tap is unconditional, you don't have to wait till your Energy is at a certain level before using it; plus as mentioned it causes minor annoyance to the enemy too. I don't use E-Tap, but just mooting that it seems a better choice than the Signet.

SIGNET OF DISENCHANTMENT IS AWESOME.

Good recharge and casting time, and it's a signet. Not only that but you can remove Spell breaker and Obsidian flesh with it.

1 instance in where I found nightmare was useful, and that was against a Melandru's Resilience Ranger... but what are the chances of coming across that...

oh you were talking about the recharge time...

Keystone signet

You can only... really use ether sig in signet builds (which im still working on. I've got a sig-build that works well, but I can't live long enough to beat more than 1 person^^)

I haven't really used the new skills much. I know I love some (IoR, Sig of Disruption) but haven't rlly had the chance to test a whole new build. I find it a bit hard to fit the new elites into anything I am currently running, altho I did try Stolen Speed instead of Migraine in an interrupt build and it works alright.

Quote: No such thing as a poor skill, just need to know how to use it properly. No, there are a bunch of garbage skills. Balance is a real thing.


I like a lot of the new mes skills, and I like the additions more than any other prof's new skills I think.

I have to agree that overload's garbage. A spammable 5 energy quick cast that does 79 damage sounds good in theory, but it's what you could be doing instead that makes it a crap skill.

Conjure nightmare has the same duration and recharge as phantasm, so it has potential in some builds. Something like an energizing wind makes this a superior skill compared to conjure.

Signet of Disenchantment is fine, and a good skill depending on the build. When you consider the other skills that are capable of stripping off SB.. they're all very expensive and hard to use (like chilblains, disenchant spirit, profane, etc).

My favorite new elite is definitely psychic distraction. While not ultimately as powerful as power block, it's more versatile and forgiving.

mantra of persistence + conjure+remorse+illusion of pain, if i am the monk at the oposite team and i have to fight the deg that this mesmer can add to my team party menbers i give up`.
Psychic Distraction and complicate are just fav skill under domination
power return, expel hexes, even stolen speed are also a great new skills fo a mesmer

overall i really like very much some of the new skills

what... balance garbage skills with good skills... ok...

nah im jk.

Conjure nightmare does have same rec and cast as phantasm, using it with energizing wind... i suppose that could work.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dragannia

This may have already been said already, but...

Overload in conjunction with Backfire is great. Both are good in their own right, but Backfire doesn't have great synergy with interrupts which is why I usually leave it at home in PVE in favor of empathy and four interrupts.

Complicate, imho, is the best new skill for domination mesmers. Finally a way to disable Healing Signet! Cry of Frustration was great but the recharge on it is sooo long.

Also Unnatural Signet is very nice, the damage is decent with high domination even if you don't target a spirit.

Quote: Originally Posted by azuresun