Guild Wars 2

Sup yo, main Mesmer for a long time here, ( basically since Prophecies, mostly GvG/AoH back in the old days )

First of, I’m having a blast since last Tuesday and enjoy the overall higher speed a lot, had some flashbacks to the orignal UT with instagib and want to express my happyness towards A-Net for giving me such a fun time.

The post will basically contain stuff that I think is a bit too powerful right now, my personal opinion about it and my proposed change to the trait. Mind that I’m right now posting from my cellphone and that’s exhausting, thus I will not cover every little thing in this opening post.

So, being a Mesmer main might make me somewhat biased on everything concerning the class, always take that into consideration when reading this stuff and especially my proposed changes with which I’m going to start right now:

1. Confounding Suggestions
That trait is strong, freakish strong to be totally honest and needs to be shaved. Emphasis lies on shaved here, not destroyed. In a perfect world it would happen gradually.
Proposed change: Raise the ICD to 10s to weaken the synergy with the mantra AND let the stun only proc on an interrupt. This way the trait will stay strong because you can still interrupt AAs ( Spamming those is a problem that could be held in check by CS ) but will have counterplay, for example cancelling telegraphed skills either through stowing or dodge, in addition the Mesmer won’t be able to spam the mantra charge off CD because he won’t get the stun.

2. That minor in Duelling that basically gives you a 100% fury uptime
Don’t get me wrong, I love having access to fury without a) Staff clones, b) warriors and c) Thrill of the Crime, but I personally think that 100% uptime is a bit too strong.
Proposed change: Again raising the ICD to 10s, that’ll still net you a 50% uptime ( coming from you alone, that is ) and will reduce the window in which the Mesmer can hope for the magical perfect burst.

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait because it encourages camping in stealth ( insert “U don’t say” ) and that’s, imo, neither healthy nor fun. My biggest problem is that it transforms the Mesmer kinda into one of the celestial bruisers ( minus the ability to contest, I know. Could still be a too potent farpoint aggressor. ) from the last meta with the difference that, with the raised basestats, they still hit like a massive truck of illusionary bricks. I could rant more, but..
Proposed change: Either reduce the extended stealth duration to 75% or even 50% OR extend the revealed debuff from 4s to 5 or even 6s when this trait is taken. Maybe both, not so sure because I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait because it adds a lot of reaction-based counterplay.
Proposed change: Just fix it, the blind shouldn’t proc if a target is evading. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

5. Harmonious Mantras
I actually don’t know that much about the trait, but it seems to be becoming meta ( or at least a viable alternative ) for mesmers instead of DE since you are able to spam the healing mantra.
Proposed change: Don’t really know as I have not been playing with it, and I hate making uneducated suggestions. For the sake of an argument maybe, just maybe, shave 1% off of the extra 4% dmg ( max. 5 stacks equals a hefty 20% increase in dmg ), but I honestly don’t know. Maybe don’t change it at all.

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. But I feel there might be something wrong if you’re able to spec into a relatively strong defensive/selfsustaining traitline and still do nearly as much damage as, for example, a Dom/Duel/Illu Shatter.
Proposed change: This time I’m totally gonna hold back because I don’t know kitten about playing with it.

Welp, that’s it for now. Try to stay reasonable and civilized within your responses because I sure tried while writing. And don’t mistake me for a main .. dunno, Ranger or something in disguise, I really care for the Mesmer and have been having a blast. Things I suggested are for the sake of balance and overall gameplay.

Corax

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

Velimere.7685:

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

HMMMMMM

are you a mesmer enjoying your current buffs?

Velimere.7685:

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

Would you mind to elaborate why?

EremiteAngel.9765:

Velimere.7685:

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

HMMMMMM

are you a mesmer enjoying your current buffs?

For PvP, I’m only good at Celestial D/D and only touch my Mesmer for dailies or PvE.

CoraxRnR.5742:

Velimere.7685:

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

Would you mind to elaborate why?

I wouldn’t, but typing out lengthy responses on my phone is too much of a task. However, I’ll gladly do so after I fix my Windows installation.

honestly can we stop trying to fix the mes already? can we first wait a bit and maybe just divide wvw balance and spvp balance again? cause in wvw mes is finally doing good and feels strong again. in spvp i can see that mes is annoying, but so are other classes atm. granade/ rifle engi is ridiculous, thieves 1 shot u too and cele eles are very very hard to kill. let the builds play out first and then we shall see. i really dont want another nerf the mesmer until only veilbot in wvw again because people dont wanna try to adjust.
im sure there is some tweaking to be done, but not only mesmers, id say pretty much every class has some op/annoying builds atm.

Constructive posts like this are always such a breath of fresh air. =)

Mayb everyone should wait until Anet tones down the over the top damage across the board before we start asking for profession nerfs.

Agree on everything the op said. Only thing i would like to add is maybe give power block the mug treatment and make it unable to crit, since it does so much already, in order to reduce the ridiculous burst (although power block may not be the culprit in the instagib shater burst).

Also i know balance is done around pvp but the condi mesmer in wvw (i am starting a petition to rename the mesmer to ‘cancer-mancer’ if they pick pu) is stupid strong, even on my necromancer i have a really hard time beating one.

OP accurately identifies the issues with Mesmer and his suggested nerfs are fair.

10/10 quality post, haven’t seen one of these in a long time.

selan.8354:

honestly can we stop trying to fix the mes already? can we first wait a bit and maybe just divide wvw balance and spvp balance again? cause in wvw mes is finally doing good and feels strong again. in spvp i can see that mes is annoying, but so are other classes atm. granade/ rifle engi is ridiculous, thieves 1 shot u too and cele eles are very very hard to kill. let the builds play out first and then we shall see. i really dont want another nerf the mesmer until only veilbot in wvw again because people dont wanna try to adjust.
im sure there is some tweaking to be done, but not only mesmers, id say pretty much every class has some op/annoying builds atm.

I actually like someone is trying to be constructive about mesmers without telling everyone l2p or the other side crying for nerfs. I don’t see why people shouldn’t be able to express their opinions. This is the game forums after all, right?

CoraxRnR.5742:

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. But I feel there might be something wrong if you’re able to spec into a relatively strong defensive/selfsustaining traitline and still do nearly as much damage as, for example, a Dom/Duel/Illu Shatter.
Proposed change: This time I’m totally gonna hold back because I don’t know kitten about playing with it.

This game is pretty much defined by stacking damage bonuses while relying on active defense, though. Nearly every “defensive/sustaining” spec outside of bunkers or some WvW frontline is focused on big damage as well.

Taking Inspiration typically means missing out on Chaos (PU and CI are both godly) or Illusions (cooldown reductions, area daze on shatter, condi goodies). You’re not getting all that condition-clearing for free.

~

If the sustain is too much, I think the best fix is to cut the base healing a bit in favor of better Healing Power scaling. HP’s been mostly a trash stat for ages. I don’t mind having to pay for sustain a bit (I won’t, personally, most likely, but I don’t mind it being more of a trade-off stat-wise).

These seem pretty reasonable changes, well thought through. I would be careful not to destroy the Inspiration line though – shaves or mechanical changes on the heal shatter should be enough (I don’t want to go back to the days of no valid condi removal).

Mesmer main here too:

My 5 cents to your points:

1. Confounding Suggestions
   It is a very strong trait. But I agree that the stun effect should only apply, when you actually interrupted a target with a daze ability. This alone, I think, would make a big difference between spamming dazes and actually utilizing them skillfully. An ICD would on the other hand cripple the Mesmer’s ability to seriously punish skill spamming.
2. Master Fencer
   Not sure if that trait really is so much of an issue. But if so, increasing the ICD might be a possible approach.
3. Prismatic Understanding
   Very strong trait. Personally I find it too strong. However, one should be careful with nerfing this trait, because it has offensive and defensive qualities. And taking one quality away, might take the other away too and make the trait in the end useless. I would suggest that as a general principle Phantasm should cause reveal on the Mesmer, if he is in stealth. This way the chance to sit in stealth while you still can do damage is severely reduced.
4. Blinding Dissipation
   Agreed. Nothing should go though evades. Absolutely nothing at all.
5. Harmonious Mantras
   Nerfing this trait is the wrong approach imo. It should be buffed for non-power builds even to make it a more attractive option all over the spectrum. There are still too many Mesmer taking Deceptive Evasion for my taste.
6. The whole Inspiration line
   Don’t see a problem with this trait line yet.

CoraxRnR.5742:

Sup yo, main Mesmer for a long time here, ( basically since Prophecies, mostly GvG/AoH back in the old days )

Sorry, I do hate it when people start off with “mesmer main here” When all of a sudden mesmers become viable.
Then start proposing nerfs.
Like where were you 2 years ago? when mesmer was second best to everyone else.

1. Confounding Suggestions
That trait is strong, freakish strong to be totally honest and needs to be shaved. Emphasis lies on shaved here, not destroyed. In a perfect world it would happen gradually.
Proposed change: Raise the ICD to 10s to weaken the synergy with the mantra AND let the stun only proc on an interrupt. This way the trait will stay strong because you can still interrupt AAs ( Spamming those is a problem that could be held in check by CS ) but will have counterplay, for example cancelling telegraphed skills either through stowing or dodge, in addition the Mesmer won’t be able to spam the mantra charge off CD because he won’t get the stun.

Sure, I agree put an ICD on it.
But that is IMO not the one that needs an ICD.
I would actually put a CD on PB instead. But that’s just me.
Right now, it’s too soon to tell.

2. That minor in Duelling that basically gives you a 100% fury uptime
Don’t get me wrong, I love having access to fury without a) Staff clones, b) warriors and c) Thrill of the Crime, but I personally think that 100% uptime is a bit too strong.
Proposed change: Again raising the ICD to 10s, that’ll still net you a 50% uptime ( coming from you alone, that is ) and will reduce the window in which the Mesmer can hope for the magical perfect burst.

I disagree,
This trait puts us in line with the classes that get 100% crit chances on there most powerful skills OR perma fury like thieves who can still 100-0 a glass mes.

But right now, It’s too soon to tell when everyone is able to do absurd damage with or without fury.

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait because it encourages camping in stealth ( insert “U don’t say” ) and that’s, imo, neither healthy nor fun. My biggest problem is that it transforms the Mesmer kinda into one of the celestial bruisers ( minus the ability to contest, I know. Could still be a too potent farpoint aggressor. ) from the last meta with the difference that, with the raised basestats, they still hit like a massive truck of illusionary bricks. I could rant more, but..
Proposed change: Either reduce the extended stealth duration to 75% or even 50% OR extend the revealed debuff from 4s to 5 or even 6s when this trait is taken. Maybe both, not so sure because I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

6 second stealth too strong?
Compared to a class that can stealth at will every 3-4 seconds.

I understand people don’t like stealth as a whole. But if you nerf stealth for one, you should do it for all.
Put the personal dislike away.
A stealthed enemy isn’t doing damage, and if people are too dumb to kill phantasm’s thats on them.

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait because it adds a lot of reaction-based counterplay.
Proposed change: Just fix it, the blind shouldn’t proc if a target is evading. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

I agree, a 5 second ICD would put it in line with other “on X” traits

5. Harmonious Mantras
I actually don’t know that much about the trait, but it seems to be becoming meta ( or at least a viable alternative ) for mesmers instead of DE since you are able to spam the healing mantra.
Proposed change: Don’t really know as I have not been playing with it, and I hate making uneducated suggestions. For the sake of an argument maybe, just maybe, shave 1% off of the extra 4% dmg ( max. 5 stacks equals a hefty 20% increase in dmg ), but I honestly don’t know. Maybe don’t change it at all.

I would suggest you play a mantra build competitively first.
After the nerf to mantra support, I don’t think it would be wise to nerf an already niche build into uselessness again.

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. But I feel there might be something wrong if you’re able to spec into a relatively strong defensive/selfsustaining traitline and still do nearly as much damage as, for example, a Dom/Duel/Illu Shatter.
Proposed change: This time I’m totally gonna hold back because I don’t know kitten about playing with it.

I disagree.
The entire inspiration line is kinda lackluster when compared to the bonuses you get from dom, dueling, illusions, or chaos

Nerfing this line puts it back to prepatch status of uselessness or a very specific niche.
Try playing inspiration
Comparing it’s bonuses and grand master to the others.

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch you must be walking around 1 shotting every one in pvp then…

eye roll…

I play Mesmer as main and do agree some things need to be fixed. HOWEVER we have to careful not to completely push the class out of contention.

1) Yes, it is strong. Your suggestion to only stun if you interrupt sounds perfectly reasonable. As for its ICD, I like the synergies with mantra of distraction. If the proc is changed, the ICD can remain the same since it’s harder to instant stun.

2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.

3) I’ve played around with PU in WvW and it is broken to an extent. 66% increase in stealth time would have been enough. That’ll make all 3s -> 5s hide and mass invis from 5s -> 8s.

4) Don’t think they needs to be an ICD. Bug fixing it not apply through dodge is enough.

5) Disagree entirely on any changes. Harmonious mantra has always been PvE viable. Its placement also competes with Deceptive Evasion so it’s not PvP suitable.

6) Disagree. I believe it is fine the way it is. The inspiration traits opens opportunity for mesmers to provide some support (and survivability). Many of the traits actually existed (in some form) before the patch but simply Mesmers couldn’t afford investing into it.

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

15? Calm down with the exaggeration, I count 7.

Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

Akikaze.1307:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

15? Calm down with the exaggeration, I count 7.

Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

You’re right it’s “only” 7 awesome traits that went passive, but still mesmers had the most buffs on their utilities, weapon skills and elites (the latter besides guardian) out of all the classes too. On top of all the really awesome new traits.

So just nerfing some OP trait won’t bring mesmer down anywhere near to the level before the patch.

Akikaze.1307:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

15? Calm down with the exaggeration, I count 7.

Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

Don’t you think it’s a bit too much when you look at classes that got one trait or none as a baseline?

Laraley.7695:

Akikaze.1307:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

15? Calm down with the exaggeration, I count 7.

Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

Don’t you think it’s a bit too much when you look at classes that got one trait or none as a baseline?

Well, when you consider prepatch mesmer was almost always looked over in the meta for top tier..yea i think it was neccessary.

Besides that.
It brought it inline with what other classes can now do this patch.

People complain about mesmer doing high damage when I can jump on a zerk necro and two shot people from lich, or well bomb 3 people.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Akikaze.1307:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Mogar.9216:

wow some kind of mesmer main… lol you are asking anet to nerf pretty much EVERY buff mesmer got in the patch

Kind of you to forget the like 15 old traits that all mesmers now get as passives. Amongst them Illusory Persona an incredibly good grandmaster trait.

15? Calm down with the exaggeration, I count 7.

Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

So just nerfing some OP trait won’t bring mesmer down anywhere near to the level before the patch.

Nice of you to admit you want your prepatch free kills.

Thief or ranger main?

Solori.6025:

Well, when you consider prepatch mesmer was almost always looked over in the meta for top tier..yea i think it was neccessary.

Besides that.
It brought it inline with what other classes can now do this patch.

People complain about mesmer doing high damage when I can jump on a zerk necro and two shot people from lich, or well bomb 3 people.

I agree mesmers deserved some buffs, but what happened is the fact they got overbuffed. There’s no counterplay to stealth burst, the stun, blind…On the other hand there is a counterplay to lich.

Solori.6025:

Nice of you to admit you want your prepatch free kills.

Thief or ranger main?

I agree with CS changes up until the interrupt point, which I disagree with it only proccing on interrupt with the 10s ICD. Double nerfing is never a good way of finding the “good place” for balance, so take things one at a time please.

I agree with most of the rest except Harmonious Mantras and the Dueling Minor. I haven’t heard any complaints about either of these nor do I see anything wrong with them currently, correct me if I’m wrong.

Laraley.7695:

I agree mesmers deserved some buffs, but what happened is the fact they got overbuffed. There’s no counterplay to stealth burst, the stun, blind…On the other hand there is a counterplay to lich.

I agree that it is not easy to react to stealth shatter, but you still can react to it. Also just killing the clones with AoE or hitting the Mesmer while in stealth with AoE or PAoE is still a viable option. The burst damage is high, but so is any other damage right now in the game. The blind from Blinding Dissipation only works PAoE and I believe the effect through evades is a bug. I agree that the stuns need be toned down a bit. And allowing only dazes to turn into stuns on interrupts seems more than reasonable to me.

CoraxRnR.5742:

So, being a Mesmer main might make me somewhat biased.

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait. I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

5. Harmonious Mantras
I actually don’t know that much about the trait. Don’t really know as I have not been playing with it.

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. I don’t know kitten about playing with it.
Corax

Thanks for the insightful post to start up another nerf Mesmer thread…

Laraley.7695:

Don’t you think it’s a bit too much when you look at classes that got one trait or none as a baseline?

I can give you an analysis for 7 traits that became baseline.

• Manipulation skill range. It should have been defaulted to 1200, weird that we had to even trait for range increase. Most other professions got range increase for their skills.
• Pistol skills. Same as the Manipulation skill range explanation.
• Projectile bouncing. Another one of those arbitrary thing that begs the question why didn’t it exist by default. Many other profession skills have 3 bounce by default. Mirror blade is only exception which got buffed by this change.
• Glamour skills. The cooldown reduction didn’t change many aspect in PvP. It was mostly PvE usage that demanded short cooldown.
• Mantra channeling. 2.75sec to prepare a skill, I believe this is actually a reasonable buff.
• IP. I do admit this is a big change/buff given to mesmers. However the trait itself was also why mesmers were so limited in their setup. They had to invest into IP to function. This change frees up builds to be more versatile.

Very nice post, and trying to be fairly reasonable. But mes has been the bottom of the barrel for a very long time. It still retains it’s hard counters as well as it’s status quo in team fights aside from being much more menacing when free casting, and even then it’s still in the same boat as every other build that carries while freecasting.

Balance isn’t based around 1v1, but we are the closest it has ever been. ANY BUILD because of the abundance of damage can kill a mesmer now, and the fact is true for others who get equally powerful traits. Mes is the most noticeable since players are not used to mesmer actually hurting outside of shatters which are super easy to avoid.

CoraxRnR.5742:

1. Confounding Suggestions
That trait is strong, freakish strong to be totally honest and needs to be shaved. Emphasis lies on shaved here, not destroyed. In a perfect world it would happen gradually.
Proposed change: Raise the ICD to 10s to weaken the synergy with the mantra AND let the stun only proc on an interrupt. This way the trait will stay strong because you can still interrupt AAs ( Spamming those is a problem that could be held in check by CS ) but will have counterplay, for example cancelling telegraphed skills either through stowing or dodge, in addition the Mesmer won’t be able to spam the mantra charge off CD because he won’t get the stun.

The only problem with this trait is that it synergies so well with MoD. I like how it makes offhand sword feel now, 10 sec ICD would be fine but I think it would be better if the ICD was only for using the same skill. (on top of the initial 5 [or add+5 to be 10]) so you can stun every 5 sec but not with the exact same skill.

CoraxRnR.5742:

2. That minor in Duelling that basically gives you a 100% fury uptime
Don’t get me wrong, I love having access to fury without a) Staff clones, b) warriors and c) Thrill of the Crime, but I personally think that 100% uptime is a bit too strong.
Proposed change: Again raising the ICD to 10s, that’ll still net you a 50% uptime ( coming from you alone, that is ) and will reduce the window in which the Mesmer can hope for the magical perfect burst.

Compared to thief/ele/war/engie who can stack either fury, might, have virtually 100% crit anyways, or auto crit,. It makes sense for mes to be able to crit in that line as well. But I wouldn’t mind a revert to confusing combations since it’ll open up build options.

CoraxRnR.5742:

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait because it encourages camping in stealth ( insert “U don’t say” ) and that’s, imo, neither healthy nor fun. My biggest problem is that it transforms the Mesmer kinda into one of the celestial bruisers ( minus the ability to contest, I know. Could still be a too potent farpoint aggressor. ) from the last meta with the difference that, with the raised basestats, they still hit like a massive truck of illusionary bricks. I could rant more, but..
Proposed change: Either reduce the extended stealth duration to 75% or even 50% OR extend the revealed debuff from 4s to 5 or even 6s when this trait is taken. Maybe both, not so sure because I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

PU is strong yes, but because of the damage changes unlike before where PU would live forever now you can just kill it when it appears. There is a reason why PU was never viable high end pvp, and those factors still reamin just slightly faster at dieing when hit. But I fail to see a difference between PU mes and D/P thief outside of sustain and more counter play on the mesmers side. (since Mes can’t ignore LoS or port around as much it makes their moments much easier to predict.)

CoraxRnR.5742:

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait because it adds a lot of reaction-based counterplay.
Proposed change: Just fix it, the blind shouldn’t proc if a target is evading. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

I agree I’m sure it hitting through evade is a bug. But no ICD, currently it’s one of the few utilities given to combat thief and should not be changed.

CoraxRnR.5742:

5. Harmonious Mantras

To make the best use of this Mantra builds give up their cloak, their blink, as a well as heal and even if you leave one spot open on your utility bar the power buff given has enough counter play. [/quote]

MoR alone wont let you survive being hard pressured and charging off c/d when focused.

CoraxRnR.5742:

6. The whole Inspiration line

Inspiration is fine, arguably weakest line, few good GM traits that are not niche. I worry about the rise of things like celestial mes but I’d be really surprised if we got a viable one, and if so it wouldn’t be OP solely because of this line.

I’m starting to agree with the sentiment that threads like these are going to get us nerfed into oblivion…

Double nerfing confounding is overdoing it. Making it proc on-interrupt with the 5s ICD is fine (but also conflicts with Chaotic Interruption.) Increasing the ICD to 10s would also be reasonable, though I feel the ICD should be per-target like Ineptitude.

Nerf Harmonious Mantras because.. it’s becoming meta?

Nerf the dueling line granting near permanent fury despite the fact that.. other classes can do the same?

… You’re suggestion the Inspiration line, a line you admit to not have even tested or know much about, be nerfed.

Actually.. 3 of your points are advocating changes to things you’ve never tried or tested yourself. This is guaranteed to do more harm than good, and will have a much worse effect the potential of new builds and strategies rather than standard shatter. -_-

Laraley.7695:

Solori.6025:

Well, when you consider prepatch mesmer was almost always looked over in the meta for top tier..yea i think it was neccessary.

Besides that.
It brought it inline with what other classes can now do this patch.

People complain about mesmer doing high damage when I can jump on a zerk necro and two shot people from lich, or well bomb 3 people.

I agree mesmers deserved some buffs, but what happened is the fact they got overbuffed. There’s no counterplay to stealth burst, the stun, blind…On the other hand there is a counterplay to lich.

Im honestly curiois..

What counter play does lich have that don’t effect shatters also?

Akikaze.1307:

Laraley.7695:

Don’t you think it’s a bit too much when you look at classes that got one trait or none as a baseline?

I can give you an analysis for 7 traits that became baseline.

• Manipulation skill range. It should have been defaulted to 1200, weird that we had to even trait for range increase. Most other professions got range increase for their skills.
• Pistol skills. Same as the Manipulation skill range explanation.
• Projectile bouncing. Another one of those arbitrary thing that begs the question why didn’t it exist by default. Many other profession skills have 3 bounce by default. Mirror blade is only exception which got buffed by this change.
• Glamour skills. The cooldown reduction didn’t change many aspect in PvP. It was mostly PvE usage that demanded short cooldown.
• Mantra channeling. 2.75sec to prepare a skill, I believe this is actually a reasonable buff.
• IP. I do admit this is a big change/buff given to mesmers. However the trait itself was also why mesmers were so limited in their setup. They had to invest into IP to function. This change frees up builds to be more versatile.

I’m not at all saying some of these changes weren’t reasonable. I’m saying there is an imbalance in what mesmers got and other classes got despite the fact there are traits that could have been made a baseline if we follow the same logic as with mesmers.

I don’t play mes (I have one at 80 that I just fed tomes to), but you finally shed some light and helped me understand what the hell was going on. Personally, I agree with everything you said except for your inspiration point. Being a medi guard main, thanks to the patch, I can take virtues for beautiful boons (the whole reason why guardian was meta for the longest time), honor for the might and vit, AND take all the major DPS traits from valor. Of course, if I took zeal, I’d get a LITTLE more damage (actually, it’d be 22% more) but trying to deal with those god awful symbols realistically makes it 12% and honor actually offers me a more solid choice. I don’t have a problem with a sustain line (thieves get shadow arts, eles have water/arcana, engis can blast the hell out of their own water fields, etc). From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down and the CS trait needs to work on an actual interrupt. The rest of the issues is stealth related, and honestly, I have no idea how that’ll be fixed without either making it useless or having it become OP.

Also, lol@cancer-mancer.

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes………From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down……..

Just going to quote myself:
“2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.”

Why are people who don’t even play mesmer requesting a fix to trait that they didn’t test? ><

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes (I have one at 80 that I just fed tomes to), but you finally shed some light and helped me understand what the hell was going on. Personally, I agree with everything you said except for your inspiration point. Being a medi guard main, thanks to the patch, I can take virtues for beautiful boons (the whole reason why guardian was meta for the longest time), honor for the might and vit, AND take all the major DPS traits from valor. Of course, if I took zeal, I’d get a LITTLE more damage (actually, it’d be 22% more) but trying to deal with those god awful symbols realistically makes it 12% and honor actually offers me a more solid choice. I don’t have a problem with a sustain line (thieves get shadow arts, eles have water/arcana, engis can blast the hell out of their own water fields, etc). From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down and the CS trait needs to work on an actual interrupt. The rest of the issues is stealth related, and honestly, I have no idea how that’ll be fixed without either making it useless or having it become OP.

Also, lol@cancer-mancer.

No offense, sir, but you don’t have an understanding of what you’re talking about. We mesmers do require nerfs for balancing, as does every other profession, but there are the right nerfs and the straight-out wrong ones. The OP has admitted he doesn’t have a good understanding or experience with many of the traits he’s talking about nerfing and is even advocating the always-a-bad-idea of double-nerfing a trait.

If you knew about mesmers, you’d know that CS on interrupt would be redundant as it would, as Chaos Archangel pointed out earlier, intersect with CI which performs a similar effect on interrupt, therefore this nerf would be much more than a nerf, but essentially creating two traits that are almost identical in purpose and function, thus a badly thought out nerf.

Akikaze.1307:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes………From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down……..

Just going to quote myself:
“2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.”

Why are people who don’t even play mesmer requesting a fix to trait that they didn’t test? ><

Probably talking about Master Fencer, a trait that gives 5s of Fury on kitten ICD when striking a foe below 75% health threshold, thus 100% uptime against that particular foe. Variety of ways to balance this, if its proven to be too strong, the least thought out of which is the OP’s ICD increase, which I personally disagree with.

Harmonious Mantra is fine. It competes with DE. Plz don’t touch it.
Inspiration line is more than fine. Plz don’t touch it either.
Other things I agree. But I would like to see CS becoming a GM trait replacing mental anguish. Mental anguish can be reduced to 10% damage and be an adept trait.

I take no offense at all, kind sirs. I’ve just been a little salty that, being the one class in the game with a crapload of active defenses, that I have next to no idea when to use my defenses because mesmers can just kitten around in stealth and blow me into space. When I survive vs a mesmer, its because I JUST managed to whiff them and quickly counter attack before they lol@me, port off and go back into stealth. The OP’s post seemed very well thought out and laid out which is why I went ahead and agreed with it. Since you boys are so well versed with mesmer, why not squash all of these nerf threads and make one grand thread of your own with all of your suggested tweaks. I’d hate it, too, if my favourite class was nerfed by people who have little grasp of how it works. If you stay silent and let the “naysayers” convince anet to destroy your class, you’ve got no one to blame but yourselves.

Dondagora.9645:

Akikaze.1307:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes………From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down……..

Just going to quote myself:
“2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.”

Why are people who don’t even play mesmer requesting a fix to trait that they didn’t test? ><

Probably talking about Master Fencer, a trait that gives 5s of Fury on kitten ICD when striking a foe below 75% health threshold, thus 100% uptime against that particular foe. Variety of ways to balance this, if its proven to be too strong, the least thought out of which is the OP’s ICD increase, which I personally disagree with.

Umm…if you mean the sword trait, ‘Fencer Finesse’, that only grants ferocity stacks.

Akikaze.1307:

Dondagora.9645:

Akikaze.1307:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes………From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down……..

Just going to quote myself:
“2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.”

Why are people who don’t even play mesmer requesting a fix to trait that they didn’t test? ><

Probably talking about Master Fencer, a trait that gives 5s of Fury on kitten ICD when striking a foe below 75% health threshold, thus 100% uptime against that particular foe. Variety of ways to balance this, if its proven to be too strong, the least thought out of which is the OP’s ICD increase, which I personally disagree with.

Umm…if you mean the sword trait, ‘Fencer Finesse’, that only grants ferocity stacks.

No, I mean the minor trait that replaced Confusing Combatants, Master Fencer. Take another look at the line, it doesn’t stick out much so I don’t blame you for not noticing.

Its really simple. Currently I only have problems with mesmers when I am being focused by them in a mid fight, ie I am getting other random damage from other people as well.

However it is foolish for any class to think that this is how things will stay. They have already made a post saying that slowly they are going to fix things over time, that have to do with condition damage, bugs ect.

When each class was revealed the devs said things like we will watch this one to see if its to strong.

What does this mean. Every class is going to have changes in the next few weeks/months? They will start with changing game critical items. If there are things that are working in an unintended way, due to bugs or things they didn’t intend happening, they will fix them.

This may buff sometimes, this may nerf sometimes.

But this is not the finished product for anyone. All classes including mesmers need to understand that.

SlayerSixx.5763:

I take no offense at all, kind sirs. I’ve just been a little salty that, being the one class in the game with a crapload of active defenses, that I have next to no idea when to use my defenses because mesmers can just kitten around in stealth and blow me into space. When I survive vs a mesmer, its because I JUST managed to whiff them and quickly counter attack before they lol@me, port off and go back into stealth. The OP’s post seemed very well thought out and laid out which is why I went ahead and agreed with it. Since you boys are so well versed with mesmer, why not squash all of these nerf threads and make one grand thread of your own with all of your suggested tweaks. I’d hate it, too, if my favourite class was nerfed by people who have little grasp of how it works. If you stay silent and let the “naysayers” convince anet to destroy your class, you’ve got no one to blame but yourselves.

We haven’t made a PvP thread, I believe, but on the Mesmer Forums we’re trying to give our best balance advice for our class, many of them appropriate nerfs and I don’t think I’ve seen any asking for buffs that aren’t reversions of knee-jerk nerfs that happened within days of the patch.

Dondagora.9645:

Akikaze.1307:

Dondagora.9645:

Akikaze.1307:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I don’t play mes………From what I can tell, as far as mesmer specific issues go, the fury uptime needs to be cut down……..

Just going to quote myself:
“2) The fury uptime only applies to phantasms. The mesmer player themselves don’t get fury. Nothing wrong with this trait, it’s the same as prepatch.”

Why are people who don’t even play mesmer requesting a fix to trait that they didn’t test? ><

Probably talking about Master Fencer, a trait that gives 5s of Fury on kitten ICD when striking a foe below 75% health threshold, thus 100% uptime against that particular foe. Variety of ways to balance this, if its proven to be too strong, the least thought out of which is the OP’s ICD increase, which I personally disagree with.

Umm…if you mean the sword trait, ‘Fencer Finesse’, that only grants ferocity stacks.

No, I mean the minor trait that replaced Confusing Combatants, Master Fencer. Take another look at the line, it doesn’t stick out much so I don’t blame you for not noticing.

Ohh that. I was looking at the selectable trait and missed it entirely. I thought they fixed it when they fixed the thief one too. Guess that does need changing.

OP here folks,

First of all I want to thank everyone for the provided feedback, especially the negative. I’m still on my phone so don’t expect a detailed answer to every point criticized, but thank you anyway.

First of all I do admit that my suggested doublenerf to CS might have been over the top, mainly because I was myself argueing for shaves. My point for only proccing the stun on an actual daze-interrupt still stands with the option to raise the ICD later on if it still is too powerful.

The second and probably more important point are my expressed concerns regarding Harmonious Mantras and the Inspiration traitline, and that might be a rather long one.
Many people attacked my point of these as possible candidates for a nerf because I admitted that I haven’t played them yet. And you know what? That’s not only fair but perfectly fine because I wrote it out of that reason alone. I’m not perfect and I actually wanted people to argue for/against a nerf with more experience on the matter than I have. Ad rem, that is. Some people actually did it and I’m gonna reply to everyone in detail when I’m at home, but some, and this kinda saddens me, just went straight for the ad hominem line of reasoning. I mean, you’re not obliged not to do that and it might win you a) the argument and b) the appreciation of some folks, but the possibility to actually make progress will actually be decreasing. Still regarding the ad hominem: As I mentioned, nobody is obliged to follow some kind of structure when argueing, but to some of you I’ll just give a fair hint. If you’re hellbent on taking some of the stuff I wrote out of context to try to undermine my credibility, go ahead. But you should take into consideration that people usually have a sound mind and nobody’s going to take this bait, leading only to undermining your own point.

To the last!
I’m not allowed to force you into doing something, but I would be very happy if you might consider using kind of a template, especially if you’re going to voice critique, for further posts. Let me give you an example that’ll help keeping the discussion ad rem:
“Regarding OPs 4th point:
I disagree with your proposed nerf, adding an ICD to Blinding Dissipation. The reasons for this are the following: The trait gives us more much needed survivability in melee range and is quite potent, though you might want to take into consideration that you have to actively blow your shatter CDs to get the protection through blinds, etc. Etc”

Easiest thing in the world: Say what you’re disaggreeing with and elucidate why. That’s the only thing I’m asking for, be precise and be on topic, not on my person.

Thanks in advance
Corax

Confusing Suggestions
I have always said Confusing suggestions was too strong. Mesmers shouldn’t be running mantra of distraction in pvp. This was not the way it was before the patch (Addition: as much as it is now). It just goes a little too far. However, Anet should be very careful how they change it.

PU
As for PU, mesmers have been trying to burst from stealth since before the patch. When they came out with the new trait lines for mesmer, they made it a priority to make you make a difficult decision between trait lines, as it should be. As of right now, PU helps make that the case. Meta is already taking the trait lines domination, illusions, and dueling over domination, illusions, and chaos. PU just makes the mesmer way, way more nube friendly. Which was not the case at all before the patch. Additionally, when you add PU to confusing suggestions, it makes it even more unfair in the wise players hands. PU probably needs treaked a little. However, before we go along doing that, lets change confusing suggest first, and then see what happens. If everyone starts taking dueling over chaos, you know they went too far.

Others
I don’t know much about blinding dissipation. However, all the other trait changes you mention seem a bit out of line. Before the patch, mesmers had a skill similar to the current harmonious mantras and they still had one of the lowest sustained damages in the game. The minor and dueling added to mesmers is also nothing compared to the other classes. A group of guardians can plow through pve content right now with perma fury AND perma quickness. Add this to the fact that, as others have mentioned, others can have 100% or near 100% fury all the time. How is the mesmer suppose to get out of the whole being one of the worst damaging classes for stacking in pve? As others have mentioned, the inspiration trait line also doesn’t need to be changed right now.

Inspiration
“But I feel there might be something wrong if you’re able to spec into a relatively strong defensive/selfsustaining traitline and still do nearly as much damage as, for example, a Dom/Duel/Illu Shatter.” – This is not the case at all. Do you really think you can do as much damage with Dom/Duel/Inspiration as Dom/Duel/Illu? Your argument is invalid right there. Lets wait to see how stacked sustained damage in pve is for the mesmer in most dungeons, compared to the other classes, before we make these decisions.

Xstein.2187:

I have always said Confusing suggestions was too strong. Mesmers shouldn’t be running mantra of distraction in pvp. This was not the way it was before the patch. It just goes a little too far. However, Anet should be very careful how they change it.

.. Mesmers shouldn’t… be running.. Mantra of Distraction… Because it wasn’t that way before the patch?

For one, yes Mantra was used before the patch.

For another.. Confounding isn’t that bad. Slide it up to Master tier to make it compete with Shattered Condition/Furious Interruption and problem mostly solved.