Alright everyone keep calm. I would like to offer a little insight and perspective that I have gained.
I’ve been playing mesmer since the first beta, but have had decent exposure playing all of the classes in tpvp. I’m currently r40 but consistently play with r50s+ easy (As we know rank is only a statistical indication of the skill a player might have, but I do admit I learn more every time I play, and experience is crucial!). I have 57 qps and started doing paids late (hard to find a good team, plus school >.<)
The post will be in multiple parts since it’s so big.
I would like to say that I don’t have all of the answers, as balance is more complex that people generally realize.
I also don’t think nerfing mind wrack straight up is the answer, but read on
I would also like to say that there is much to discuss, and this is just a small glimpse into some of the most common things I hear regarding the mesmer class. I hope if you are having problems with mesmers you can find some insight here!
Let’s begin!
Balance is a strange, ever-evolving beast, and it’s hard to tame. Anet has taken a cautious approach to not overbuff/overnerf. (Which you could even argue is contrived with wow for example, over-buffing and over-nerfing repeatedly to keep people coming back at patch day)
Balancing around high-tier play and low-tier play is one of the many complications that comes with balance. It is important to balance the higher tier play for potential esportiness, as well as player skill advancement and satisfaction. It is important to balance lower tier play because some players don’t have the time to invest in getting really good, but they still want to enjoy their competitive spirit in a quick pvp game. There is nothing bad about low tier play!
That said, Anet has been making improvements – and more are on the way. I agree that tab targeting through many clones/pets/turrets for example is kind of a quality of life issue. But I would argue that it is more of a quality of life issue for non-high tier players. As a side note, you could disable pet tab targeting in wow, but there was no class with clones that was a part of their core playstyle. This is also why the assist target button is so useful in guild wars 2. Between five players, one is bound to call the intended target, and then everyone assists (I understand this is harder in hot joins because everyone calls their own target). Overall though, I think that players can, with a little effort, overcome “targeting through too many things” which opens up for a higher skill cap (more choices on what to tab/click, making the player have to have skill to properly target what they want)
This considered, like I said a core aspect of the mesmer class is deception, and I think one could argue that having a bunch of clones is part of the balance taken into account.
Another issue I hear discussed a lot is mesmer damage. Much of the damage shatter mesmers put out (shatter being basically the only viable tpvp spec) is condensed into mind wrack. This is volatile because if someone doesn’t avoid/mitigate one mind wrack, they are then at quite a bit of a disadvantage. It’s like taking a class in school and there’s only one test with a few questions that are quite hard. If you can’t get just one question you lose a disproportionate amount of points relative to your knowledge.
Again, this said, in higher tier play shatters are avoided, predicted, and mitigated all the time. Of course it’s always a battle of thinking ahead. Like I prefaced with, I’m not sure how to approach this, but I think that in terms of balancing around low-tier play, this might just be a case of the players needing to practice and get better (i.e. it’s how the game is, hard to cater to everyone)
Now in games you have skill/success curves and I would say that the mesmer class does indeed have a curve in low tier play that is skewed towards low skill high success. This is simply due to the fact that clones are core to the mesmer class, and it’s confusing for people who don’t know what to look for. -More on this later. The skill/success curve for high tier play is a little more evened out, but of course because mind wrack is so strong, the curve would be still more skewed towards less skill more success relative to an engineer or ele.