[WvW/PvP][Mes]Making Support more consistent

[WvW/PvP][Mes]Making Support more consistent

in Profession Balance

Posted by: KinkyPotato.4219

KinkyPotato.4219

I have always thoroughly enjoyed the support role in almost every game (MMOs/MOBAs) that I played. The idea of helping others and securing kills was always such a rewarding and satisfying experience for me. I typically find myself going beyond the “support meta”, and attempt to make unorthodox support builds to test their validity. In most cases, I succeed and I have that much more fun with a truly unique playstyle. One instance where I haven’t quite been able to reach my maximum “enjoyment” is the support Mesmer, more notably the Inspiration Trait line. There are a few inconsistencies/range limitations that severely hamper the Mesmer’s ability to supports its allies. Here are a few quality of life changes that I feel need to take place to make the Support Mesmer that much more competitive:

1) Vigorous Revelation (Inspiration, Adept, Major): Increase radius from 240 to 600.

-the reasoning behind this change is because this major trait has a similar mechanical functionality to that of “Shattered Conditions” where shattering grants a supportive effect to allies

-why then, do two similar “shatter” traits, have such radical radius differences (ie; Shattered Conditions has a radius of 600 while Vigorous Revelation has a radius of 240)?

-thus, in an attempt to improve the consistency of the supportive shatter traits, I feel that a 600 radius buff would go a long way in improving the traceability of these traits, both individually and jointly

2) Phantasmal Healing (Inspiration, Master, Minor): Increase radius from 240 to 600.

-this is essentially our only form of granting regen to a party and for the inconsistency associated with the randomness of Phantasm Ai, there is simply not enough reward to warrant the usefulness of this trait

-there are often times where I will run up to an individual to cast a Phantasm (Phantasmal Warlock so that it spawns near myself/ally) where I am within a 240 radius of the injured ally, but the phantasm spawns behind me or off to a random location and the ally doesn’t receive the benefits from this trait

-additionally, given the absurd survivability of phantasms…a modest increase in range would at least allow the trait to maybe tick once or twice for an entire party before either being shattered or destroyed by AoE

-thus, an increase in range would compensate for both the abysmal survivability of phantasms and the randomness of phantasm ai/movement

3) Shattered Conditions (Inspiration, Grandmaster, Major): Condition removal takes place when you start the shatter skill, based on the number of illusions active, rather than after the illusions have actually shattered.

-the reasoning behind this change is because, similar to the change made to Vigorous Revelation, Shattered conditions has a similar mechanical functionality to that of “Restorative Illusions”; both which compete for the grandmaster major trait under the Inspiration tree

-why is it then that Restorative Illusions, as copied directly from the wiki, “heals when you start the shatter skill, not when your illusions actually shatter” and Shattered Conditions doesn’t remove conditions when you start the shatter skill?

-also, the benefits of this trait are INSANELY difficult to trace due to a plethora of reasons: 1) Your illusions may be killed as they are reaching the target, essentially neutering the benefits of this trait entirely; 2) Your target may run out of range from your illusions which again, neuters this grandmaster trait

-when I activate a condition removing ability, I want the condition to be instantly cleansed…not anywhere between 2-10 seconds (or never) when the illusions actually decide to finally shatter on the target

-thus, changing this ability so that the condition removal takes place when you actually start the shatter skill, will not only remove frustrations associated with this trait but also allow for clutch condition cleansing from the mesmer

I’ve only been able to thoroughly test and come up with these traits as problems for my particular support spec. However, I welcome others to include problematic traits for their respective support mesmers in this thread as well so that we may compile all of them in one thread.