Guild Wars 2

Dear Robert Gee, you have done a great job with blood magic for necromancer, making it feel like a unique support line for a class that has never been particularly known for its support. I would really love if you could apply the same magic on inspiration…

With the expansion and the availability of the chronomancer, there will probably be many more mesmer bunker/support builds, and this is of course great news for build diversity. Chronomancer on its own brings a lot of survivability thanks to the shield and wells, as well as good support thanks to the wells. But it is very natural to try to complement it with the 2 existing trait lines focusing on survivability and support: chaos and inspiration.

I have been playing myself bunker mesmer for some time now, and I am very familiar with those 2 lines. However, while I do love inspiration, I cannot prevent myself from feeling it is rather underwhelming, despite the great improvements you already brought with the specialization patch.

There are many reasons I see for that:

• the problem of survivability of phantasms. Inspiration has very many phantasm-related traits (Persisting Images, Protected Phantasms, Illusionary Inspiration, Mental Defense and to some extent Warden’s Feedback), aiming at making illusions more survivable. But this is really an uphill battle, considering how fragile phantasms are in most situations. Investing in phantasm has a very high cost and yet very moderate outcome at best, making those traits not so attractive.
• Inspiration synergies very well with mantras: Restorative Mantras is basically our only source of outgoing healing and Mender’s Purity works best when used with the mantra heal. However, this is counterintuitive seeing as mantras are very clumsy in a team fight as you often need to LoS if you want to safely recharge them. Also, our only outgoing heal linked to a skill which takes 2.75s to cast is really not ideal (our allies are probably dead by now).
• Many inspiration traits are actually not focused on support but on self (or illusion) survivability (Persisting Images, Protected Phantasms, Restorative Illusions). In particular, I find it very sad that restorative illusion does not apply its effect in an AOE.

I do not have a solution to all these problems (in particular the question of phantasm survivability, which is I believe a general problem of pets/minions in gw2). But I do have a few ideas (many of those were already mentioned in a precedent post )

• what about adding “whenever you dodge, your phantasms evade attacks for 1s” to one of the phantasm survivability trait? It won’t solve the problem of illusions standing in AOE, but at least you would have some control over their survivability and in particular, if you dodge big bursts, they will too.
• what about an “aura/presence” trait like most classes (except engineer) have. For example “chaotic presence: nearby allies gain a random boon every 5s”. It may be a bit underwhelming, but it’s just an idea.
• Restorative Illusions should be AOE (even if it means being moved to GM)
• Healing Prism would be better as “allies are healed for % of your own healing”. I think 20% is a good start, but more may be good.
• In general (but true for all classes), I think the scaling with healing power should be improved to justify using it.
• Temporal Enchanter does not work well on most glamours: you need to stand on them at cast for it to work which is counterintuitive for veil or portal for example. For those 2, the effect should apply when crossing.

As I said, I already love inspiration, and I really don’t think it needs much changes to reach its full potential, but it needs some.

Some pretty interesting ideas you got there for improving the inspiration line
Therefore I would also like to propose some other solutions, off the top of my head, in order to improve the reliability of our phantasm in general: let’s make it a trait
The idea would be to make protected phantasm baseline, move mental defense in master to replace PP and create a new grandmaster, that will make phantasms unaffected by effects of fields, whether the fields are casted by allies or foes. The downside of this trait would be to have these phantasms take more damages when they are targeted with an overall decreased health

Apart from that I really like this traitline as I almost use it everytime

Just wanted to point out that while Engi’s Medical Dispersion Field has been reworked (from the patch notes: “Reworked this trait. The internal cooldown has been removed. This trait is now only triggered by your own healing, and the percentage has been increased from 12% to 20%”), we’re stuck with the current version of Healing Prism.

Menaka.5092:

Just wanted to point out that while Engi’s Medical Dispersion Field has been reworked (from the patch notes: “Reworked this trait. The internal cooldown has been removed. This trait is now only triggered by your own healing, and the percentage has been increased from 12% to 20%”), we’re stuck with the current version of Healing Prism.

Why? Because they would not give two identical traits to different professions?
like “bolt to the heart”, “Executioner”, “Close to Death” or “Swift Termination”?

Silverkey.2078:

Menaka.5092:

Just wanted to point out that while Engi’s Medical Dispersion Field has been reworked (from the patch notes: “Reworked this trait. The internal cooldown has been removed. This trait is now only triggered by your own healing, and the percentage has been increased from 12% to 20%”), we’re stuck with the current version of Healing Prism.

Why? Because they would not give two identical traits to different professions?
like “bolt to the heart”, “Executioner”, “Close to Death” or “Swift Termination”?

I don’t know why
The engi trait is a grand master major, so I can’t really ask for the mesmer trait to be on the same level, yet I would rather have that mechanic with a lower contribution (7%?) than the current one.

The inspiration trait line already got a huge boost with the rework. While some traits might not be as powerful as we would wish, there is actually not a single trait I would not pick (I might only use it in a very specific situation so).

So please let’s not completely throw it out, but only let’s address some specific problems.

The biggest (and maybe only) problem I see in context of the inspiration trait line is the mantra design. After the ‘bug-fix’ they are not fun to use anymore. We saw what was possible, but now, they just feel terrible. The best idea I read so far (not sure from whom it came) was to let the cooldown start once you use the first mantra charge (and if it’s for balance purposes needed, then increase the normal cooldown instead).

E.g.: ‘Mantra of Recovery’: With the change, the cooldown would already start after the first use, so to keep the same hps, increase the base cooldown to 12 seconds.

I hardly call for a complete throw out, but clearly for minor improvements. The only thing which may require a large rework is the whole illusion mechanics, but that is not specific to this line.

For mantras, I agree it is currently clunky to use. The ideal thing (but not so straightforward) would be that you recharge the mantras in the background but only a max amount depending on how many charges you used (you can basically recharge 1/3 of the total CD after each charge). I don’t see it happening though…

great ideas.
however i like how inspiration synergies with other trait lines. signets with domination.
mantras with dueling. and many others.

the issue however is inspiraiton is suposed to be mesmers SUPPORT! traitline. and i think we all can agree…..it sucks at that…

i would very much like it if it was slightly buffed and tweaked so we actually CAN support our teammates with it.

changes i think this trait line needs going down the list

menders purity -perfect
medics feedback-perfect
persisting images-NEEDS A REVAMP (right now you only take this when your not rezzing teamates or using mantras….its just leftover)
restorative mantas: – i think this could be changed and buffed so that it activates a aoe mantra heal active known as “power return” which would synergies more with mantra traits

inspiring distortion-this trait is great however i wish the cd was a little less. 5 seconds is a little much. i personally think it should have no cd and apply all distortion the mesmer aplies to itself in its current very small aoe thus allowing traited signet mesmers to support their allies by sacrificing their cd’s to stack a few seconds of distortion in a very small aoe.

protected phantasms – a solid trait
restorative illusions-this trait right now simple NEEEDS to be 600 radius AOE. at least in the condition removal.
wardens feedback-solid trait however. non-traited-focus temporal curtain (skill 4) should block projectiles baseline and then reflect when taking this trait.

in addition for all reflects in general the functionality HAS TO BE CHANGED so that the dmg inflicted from a reflected projectile counts as a third party dmg source(such as phantasms). as it is absolutly rediculose that the stealthed owner of a reflection effect will be reveled for reflecting a attack that originated from a opponent. its their projectile not ours so why are we revealed???

healing prism – kill this trait with fire from hell. its absolutely uselesssssss!

imo it should be replaced with illusinary inspiration from grandmaster but changed so it activates after using a healing skill (and also fixed so it does not Chanel getting in our way)
this way any mesmer that takes inspiration will be able to use the inspiration siget basline…making us actually “inspire” our allies. also makes it easier to time around its 20 sec internal cd if its on a heal longer than 20 sec

mental defense-solid trait. no change needed

temportal enchanter- this one is a little tricky. its ok on some skills but for the most part its very hard to use for some skills. overall i think it should be on entering a glamour field.

in addition i think that time warp should be changed to manipulation and mass invis changed to be a glamour. right now reflect on a stealth skill is just game breaking.

would be nice to have reflect on time warp cast (perhaps pulse?) in addition to reduced cd.
and for mass invis increased stealth duration and super speed and resistance for all 10 allies effected on cast. far better

as for the last grandmaster trait. perhaps a trait like "heal allies when you apply a boon to them. 100 healing. allowing amazing signet of inspiration trait combos.

all this = support mesmer

Good suggestions here.

One thing I’m dissatisfied with is our healing capabilities when taking inspiration. Besides restorative mantras I would love the option to trait more direct healing of self/allies. Healing prism was initially brilliant; I love how it scales healing power off illusions and the heal was great until they nerfed it.

The initial nerf was justified though due to unrestrained large heal output possible by receiving healing from other professions.

The nerf wisely changed it to apply to only healing sourced from the mesmer. So, keep the current ICD but increase the base healing to ~1,000. This provides a nice burst AoE heal akin to the #6 heal of rune of the water from all our #6 heal skills and those wishing to spec into restorative mantras and/or restorative illusions.

Finally, please allow the mesmer to receive this healing as it doesn’t currently.