The Faction Mesmer Elite Skills Stink

Before you disagree, here me out!

Psychic Distraction
Description: All of your other skills are disabled for 8 seconds. If target foe is using a skill, that skill is interrupted and disabled for 5-11 seconds. This is an elite skill.

Why it stinks: Ok.. let me get this straight. Disable 7 of your skills... disable one of the enemies. Hmmm i like this deal....not. Oh 2 sec recharge you say? Ok ill disable 7 of their skills... for 70 energy. Omg so good....not. Basically, bring this skill, and your the rest of your bar has to be useless most of the time in order to make this elite half effective. Oh and btw, more than likely, you can only disable 2 or 3 skills at a time, because the first skill that you "distracted" is probably ready again once you interrupt a third skill.

Arcane Languor
Description: For 1-4 second(s), all spells cast by target foe cause exhaustion. This is an elite skill.

Why it stinks: Ok no need to comment. Im pretty sure everyone knows this move is almost not even worth a regular skill slot, much less an elite slot.

Stolen Speed
Description: For 5-17 seconds, target foe's spells take 25% longer to cast and your spells take 25% less time to cast.. This is an elite skill.

Why it stinks: This elite is just... meh. I can think of many skills way better than this one.

Recurring Insecurity
Description: For 10 seconds, target foe suffers from -1-3 health degeneration. If that foe is hexed again, Recurring Insecurity is renewed for another 10 seconds. This is an elite skill.

Why it stinks: At first glance... people are like yay degen! Besides the fact that there are enough degen skills in the illusion line to put someone at -million degen (but only effectively -10 degen), this skill is equivalent to its non elite counterpart Life Siphon. Except... it doesnt give you regen, AND it lasts less, NOT TO MENTION its an elite. Sucks? Im sorry to say but this skill stinkzors.

Shared Burden
Description: For 3-14 seconds, target foe and all nearby foes move 50% slower. This is an elite skill.

Why it stinks: I dont see why the enemy would be nice and clumped, but even if they were, water magic would be so much better. Oh so much better.


Im sorry to say it, but these elites just plain suck. I absolutely love the mesmer class (i mean... i spent a million buying fissure armor for her ), but sometimes i just think mesmers get the short end of the stick.

If you disagree feel free to explain.

First off, i beleive that you are flaming the Anet team for creating a few bad skills. So it's the mes's turn, they have enough good skills. Second, with stolen speed you can reduce casting time of 5-6 second skills to 1-1.5 seconds (with high enough fast cast attribute) un-echo'd. In fact i have done exactly that with "Flesh of My Flesh" and reduced the casting time to 1 second with 13 fast casting+2 stolen speeds. Also you are forgetting "Expel Hexes," and "Phsycic Instability," which are wonderful skills. I don't see you flaming "Practiced Stance," "Greater Conflageration," and "Escape" for their less practical uses in the Original campaign, so if you beleive they are not good skills just don't use them. Mesmer's get the short end of THIS stick, only because they got the long end of the FIRST stick.

Shared Buren is nice because the enemey doesn't need to be clumped. It has a huge AoE, the biggest there is. Why do you think Deep Freeze is such a good skill?
The reason it's elite, and just a bit worse if not on par with water, is because with Mantra of Pesistance you can have them snared for near 28 seconds. The rest of the skills I agree with, except maybe Psycic Distraction, which isn't all that bad with the right skillset.

OK, I think the best thing I can do is to show you how to effectively use these skills, rather than tell you why they don't stink:

Quote: Ok.. let me get this straight. Disable 7 of your skills... disable one of the enemies. Hmmm i like this deal....not. Oh 2 sec recharge you say? Ok ill disable 7 of their skills... for 70 energy. Omg so good....not. Basically, bring this skill, and your the rest of your bar has to be useless most of the time in order to make this elite half effective. Oh and btw, more than likely, you can only disable 2 or 3 skills at a time, because the first skill that you "distracted" is probably ready again once you interrupt a third skill. OK, so the whole point of this is to use up most of your other skills to prepare you for phychic distraction (WW). This is also a supplementary to an interrupt build and by the time 8 seconds have passed, you would have gained enough energy to recast it again anyway. This is probrably the only skill here that would require me to go into further detail, so you'll have to experience it from another mesmer to find out.

Quote: Ok no need to comment. Im pretty sure everyone knows this move is almost not even worth a regular skill slot, much less an elite slot. Monks under pressure go crazy with their healing spells. This will teach them^^

Quote:

At first glance... people are like yay degen! Besides the fact that there are enough degen skills in the illusion line to put someone at -million degen (but only effectively -10 degen), this skill is equivalent to its non elite counterpart Life Siphon. Except... it doesnt give you regen, AND it lasts less, NOT TO MENTION its an elite. Sucks? Im sorry to say but this skill stinkzors. EG: Soul Barbs + Recurring Insecurity + Hexes = Ouchiewawa. Quote: I dont see why the enemy would be nice and clumped, but even if they were, water magic would be so much better. Oh so much better. Yep, and when there are enough water ele's in the game.... whisper me^^. Fast Casting + Burden makes a big difference. What's the point in casting a slow ele spell if your target is halfway there by the time you finish it?

Agrees with everything; except shared burden for solo mesmer farming.
~signed.

Ok... there is a fine line between making reasonable arguments and ranting about how things "suck." So keep that in mind,

Psychic Distraction: is a 2 sec recharge interrupt. I would put bold, italics, and underline but I do not want to give the impression I'm smacking you with a pan on the head. It interrupts ANYTHING, and disables it for about 15s. This skill replaces a whole skill bar dedicated to interrupts... which clearly justifies the skill bar being shut down and the elite status.

Arcane Languor is horrible, I cannot argue with that. It does absolutely nothing. In fact, it is the worst Mesmer elite.

Stolen Speed is awesome... I do not want to repeat myself so I will direct you to my post here: (#5)
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3034755

Recurring Insecurity need a degen buff that's all. You can achieve higher degen and at a lower nrg cost by simply spamming IoR. IoR isn't even an elite. RI needs to drain min 4, maybe 5.

Shared Burden. This skill is strange- it is very effective but question is does it deserve to be an elite? Answer is yes. It is an AoE Imagined Burden with cost and recharge that justify it being an elite. Thing is... if it was 25 nrg and longer recharge it would've been a perfectly fine normal skill.

I like how you left out expel hexes. I agree that many of them are pretty bad, and most won't see high-level gvg play, but few elites really do see high-level gvg play. As others have noted, there are some uses for some of the other skills (psychic distraction is especially nice against things like Glint, where you just want to be sure that you're going to interrupt things).

Psychic Distraction and Shared Burden are awesome. You can stop every single spike with PD because the recharge is just leet. Even if it didn't disable anything, it would still be good, now it's just ownage.
Burden is the best snare in the game. With some FC it's less than 1.5 seconds to casts, lasts for a long time and have a big AoE. Perfect anti-split.

Let's see.

You forgot Power Leech, Shatterstorm, Expel Hexes, Lyssa's Aura, and probably a few others.

As for your complaints...

Psychic Distraction, IMO, is a great skill to use with a large energy pool, ie an Elementalists. Even if you don't, disabling Word of Healing, then 2 seconds later disabling Mend Ailment, and with pre-cog you could probably tell when they're going to use Reversal; distracting all of these skills cuts a Monk's ability considerably. Same with a Ritualist.

I won't argue with Arcane Languor and Recurring Insecurity, but Shared Burden, as the largest AoE area, and a huge duration with Mantra of Persistence, dominates GvG. Using something like Suffering makes a great cover enchantment.

Stolen Speed, with a 6 second recharge, is almost spammable. And the fact that, with fast casting, it gets Backfire and Diversion to, oh, around 1 second cast time, makes it an excellent skill. And slowing down the cast times multiple people (for example, it would reduce Word of Healing to a 1 second cast time.

Recurring Insecurity is meant mainly to be used with Images of Remorse. At least, that's how i interpret this skill.

Hmm ok I didnt not forget the other elite skills, but if i was talking about stinky skills why bring up the good ones?

Also, for Psychic Distraction... sure it has 2 second cooldown. But you are disabling your whole bar for it. So in effect, to achieve a 1:1 ratio of your skills blackout and their skills blacked out, you would have to use it 7 times. 70 energy. 14 seconds.

Recurring insecurity + soul barbs is good, but i still dont think that justifies the pitiful degen. I think the problem really is with the illusion line. We already have enough hexes to degen someone into oblivion, but anymore wont help with the -10 cap.

And stolen speed is not too great either BECAUSE it applies AFTER fast cast, meaning it basically REDUCES its effectiveness. you need to invest in fast cast to make use of this skill, and the benefit it gives just isnt enough. (someone on another forum tested this out... so in the Flesh of my flesh example, you would have a 2 second cast at 16 fastcast, then take away 25% of 2 seconds, making Stolen Speed reduce your cast by a measly .5 seconds. Of course if the person on the other forum is wrong my argument is invalid).

Quote: Recurring insecurity + soul barbs is good, but i still dont think that justifies the pitiful degen. I think the problem really is with the illusion line. We already have enough hexes to degen someone into oblivion, but anymore wont help with the -10 cap. It's not about the degen (though it doesn't hurt).

Shadow Shroud + Barbs + Recurring + cover hex in a spike, then a barrage of hexes and FoCs. Reccuring and barbs are meant to be used in tandem for damage. With the concurrent hex barrage used, 10 degen is reached anyways.

Distraction isn't about shutting down an entire enemy either... you use it to knock out focal skills of multiple people quickly, as it recharges in a measly 2 seconds, overall reducing the effectiveness of the opposing team dramatically.

Anyways, you listed 5 new elites. That's great. There are more. Having new 'uber elites' would create imbalace... many of the new elites are already being used, and if you expect all the new faction elites to outshine the prophecy elites for use, too bad.

Sorry didn't see stolen speed in there~
no longer signed.

But...psychic distraction? What the hell...powerblock owns this skill indefinatly.
-Disables often their entire bar
-Allows you to mess with another target
-Is more energy efficient
-Doesn't kill your other skills

-Only targets spells, ritualists ahoy!
-Has a terrible recharge
-Alot of classes use more than one attribute effectively, but most lean on specific skills.

I haven't used either of these skills but I would imagine a mesmer with Acrane Langour teamed up with an Equinox (spirit that doubles exhaustion for spells that cause exhaustion) ranger would be quite devistating. I can imagine a simple RoF or Orison causing -20 max energy... or -40 if they didn't notice the first time... (Isn't RoF + Contemplation of Purity a common combo? )

Of course, I haven't tried this yet so I'm not even sure if Equinox applies to an Arcane Langour'ed caster...

Okay lets take a look at your list:

Psychic Distraction is an amazing skill, seriously it is amazing. When you read its description it may sound bad but when you use it, it is a killer move. Destroys nukers , MM's, Ritualists to name a few. This skill brings a new dimension for interupt mesmers.

Arcane Languor is an awful skill I agree with you there, seriously needs a buff.

Stolen Speed is great and is a very useful skill. It is incredibly useful for 3second casting spells like backfire and diversion and with enough points in FC u can get it to 1sec (you only need say 9 or 10 FC).

Recurring Insecurity is also another weak skill like arcane languor. This skill also needs a buff.

Shared Burden is actually an awesome skill. Mesmers have always needed more AOE spells and it is always good to see a new one added for the class

All in all though I think the mesmer got good elites and only two of them lack.

Quote: Distraction isn't about shutting down an entire enemy either... you use it to knock out focal skills of multiple people quickly, as it recharges in a measly 2 seconds, overall reducing the effectiveness of the opposing team dramatically. It reduces the effectiveness of the opposing team "quite dramatically," but i would think that totally shutting yourself down is just as dramatic. Also, to reduce their effectiveness dramatically, you would have to hit at least 3-4 skills, which is 30-40 energy. And the dramatic reduction of effectiveness lasts a pitiful 11 seconds.

PDistraction, Stolen Speed, and Shared Burden are easily apar with Prophecies elites. I'd take PD over Power Block, SSpeed over Migraine, and Shared Burden over Fevered Dreams. But then that's just me...

OK, heres what I disagree with most in your appraisal of the new mesmer skills.

Psychic Distraction
You are only looking at the negative. Sure, a skill this powerful comes with a huge drawback that it disables your other skills which can sometimes lock you into a cycle where you only have PD available as your only interupt and at 10 energy its costly to spam. Now the positive; it interupts any skill and it has a very short recharge. What clinches the deal though is the fact that it disables the target's skill. The time that the skill is disabled isn't really that important. If I gave you a clue I would say think about rits, eles and trappers using mantra of resolve and such like. Can't interupt?

Recurring Insecurity
The degen is a bonus. The big thing with this is the fact that its reapplied each time the foe is hexed. Think soul barbs.

Shared Burden
A long lasting AoE snare. Sure it only has 'nearby' and not 'in the area' range but it does have its uses. The length of time that the snare lasts in combination with the fact that you can snare multiple foes with it make it nice skill. Probably not the greatest mesmer elite but a decent elite in its own right.

The DPS of Recurring is insane with the right skills, just spamming a hex(es) with Soul Bards will deal 60 DPS, this is not counting the degen you have thrown on their head. Combine it with Parasitic Bond and WW, and as Avarre said FoC, you can... kill someone easily...

The only skill that is currently "unusable" is Languor but who knows, maybe there is some broken build we have yet to think up :P