Guild Wars 2

OP why u troll?

here’s my suggestion.

number 4 is pretty good and mind stab should keep the standing still animation as is, but also add a stun mechanic to the target hit to keep them in place for the pulse damage.
The initial hit from mind stab should remove 1 boon but if the target hit still has boon/s they get stunned for a short duration so that they don’t just walk away too easily from the pulse damage.
Of course they can still use stun breakers.

Edit: said #4 but it changed to 1.
Edit2: forgot to mention that with it having a stun mechanic, targets should be reduced to 3 as well as keep the radius as is.

Neurophen.9738:

Mesmers only have 1 blast finisher the prestige and due to the delay that’s hard to use. If not on GS3 where else would you put a blast finisher? (Please don’t say Staff 4)

That is what I personally would prefer for existing weapon choices, yes.

The overall performance if the GS is pretty good. It just doesn’t need a blast finisher.

keenlam.4753:

Xaylin.1860:

• Increased number of boons ripped
• Conditional bonus like Sw#1.3

How about rips 2 boons if targets have condition(s) on them? —> Good synergy with skills Mirror Blade and iZerker.

Something like this. Personally, I’d prefer…

• Rip an additional boon if your target is vulnerable which would create synergies with several other traits/skills available to Mesmers (Sw#1, GS#2, Staff#1, Debilitating Dissipation, Vulnerability on Daze or Interrupt). I don’t like ‘if affected by a condition’ because it is almost guaranteed in every fight outside of 1vs1 and even there it is way too easy to achieve.
• Additional damage if the target is not affected by a boon (see Sw#1.3).

Karl McLain.5604:

1. Look at making it usable on the move. Currently, the animation is ONLY able to be used while standing still.
2. Increase the number of boons removed.
3. Increase the radius.
4. Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground.
5. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!
6. ???
7. Profit!

Hey Karl! Thanks for stopping by. My thoughts on your bullet points:

• (1) As already said by others, the root is important for thoughtful skill usage. If it was usable on the move, people would just spam it on cooldown somewhere within their rotation. If they have to stop for using it they will have to think if removing a boon actually is necessary.
• (2) Might be an option I’d enjoy. However, please keep an eye on class internal skill balance. Two guaranteed boon rips might be too strong. For example, Nullfield lost appeal after Mantra of Resolve was buffed making boon removal its remaining selling point. Arcane Thievery is pretty underused in general. Please consider those two utilities when looking at additional boon removal for Mind Stab.
• (3) Reasonable considering the root and casttime.
• (4) Sounds awesome and emphasizes thoughful gameplay. But don’t make Nullfield useless in the process, please!
• (5) Sounds interesting but increasing the radius (and maybe damage) is way easier and probably results in the same outcome. Multiple ground targets would also be harder to balance due to the chance of overlapping area effects (Grenades say hello!).

Pyroathiest.4168:

Arewn.2368:

The effect of blast finishers are significant because blasts are generally fairly long cd and low accessibility.

Mmmmmno.

Warrior
Earthshaker: 10 seconds.
Arcing arrow: 10 seconds.

Guardian
Mighty Blow: 5 seconds

Elementalist
Dragon’s Tooth: 6 seconds

Thief
Cluster Bomb: No cooldown, 3 initiative

While you’re right that there are several low cooldown blast finishers you should still consider the context. Earthshaker is used for the stun and not the blast. Everything else would be dumb. Mighty Blow is close combat and the Hammer lacks the offensive potential of a Mesmer GS which makes it way more balanced. Dragons Tooth has a cast delay and its cooldown is no way near 6s because of attunment cooldowns. Thieves have to be considerate because they will need their initiative for something else.

The only comparable blast finisher would be Arcing Arrow and it would still not justify a blast finisher on GS#3. The overall well performance of the GS probably should be the main reason to not add a blast finisher. I also think that it would be questionable when looking at the role each Mesmer weapon fulfills. Of course, this might be due to my personal preferences and my perspective on their roles.

Xaylin.1860:

While you’re right that there are several low cooldown blast finishers you should still consider the context. Earthshaker is used for the stun and not the blast. Everything else would be dumb.

Actually, earthshaker is used for both. You use it for both the blast and stun when engaging, and then you use it purely for the blast when blasting waters for regroup.

Xaylin.1860:

Mighty Blow is close combat and the Hammer lacks the offensive potential of a Mesmer GS which makes it way more balanced.

But the hammer has incredible defensive and utility potential. A long ranged aoe snare, aoe protection on the autoattack, a massive launch, and ring of warding. It’s not the same long range dps that GS is, but it’s an incredibly strong weapon.

Xaylin.1860:

Dragons Tooth has a cast delay and its cooldown is no way near 6s because of attunment cooldowns.

That’s fairly accurate, attunements do screw this up a bit.

Xaylin.1860:

Thieves have to be considerate because they will need their initiative for something else.

Not really. If you’re blasting fields, thieves absolutely can burn all their initiative on this. If you’re bringing a thief in a blasting group, then you’re mainly bringing them for that high blast finisher access.

Xaylin.1860:

The only comparable blast finisher would be Arcing Arrow and it would still not justify a blast finisher on GS#3. The overall well performance of the GS probably should be the main reason to not add a blast finisher.

What overall well performance? It’s almost never used in dungeons/fractals, it’s only used in open world PvE because you need that range for tagging mobs. It’s fairly strong offensively in a shatter build for tPvP…but that’s relative since shatter builds are hardly viable anyway. It’s used in large groups because it’s the best long range dps we have, but that’s not saying much. You can’t hit anything on a wall with it and the autoattack is wimpy compared to most other weapons.

Overall the greatsword is used because there’s nothing better, not because it’s particularly good at what it does.

i’d still like an aoe that leaves a field behind preferable ice or smoke.
Pyroasthiest it is possible to hit people on walls it is just a PITA to do.
and ya we pretty much use it because we don’t have anything better to use.

Hehe. I guess Pyro is pro blast finisher then.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Actually, earthshaker is used for both. You use it for both the blast and stun when engaging, and then you use it purely for the blast when blasting waters for regroup.

Of course, it can be used for both. However, you will rarely gain the benefit of both. The main purpose of Earthshaker will still be the stun. In practice, the access to meaningful blasts on specific fields is limited by another functionality. This won’t be the case for Mind Blast. With other words, the blast finisher would become the main attribute of the skill. Is this bad? Not necessarily. But is it reasonable?

Weapons and skills were designed with a specific purpose in mind. Right now, Mind Blast quite obviously is supposed to provide a form of boon hate which is an offensive capability. Adding defensive and supportive capabilities could cause balance issues in different areas. Even more so because Mesmers currently lack blast finishers in general.

Pyroathiest.4168:

But the hammer has incredible defensive and utility potential. A long ranged aoe snare, aoe protection on the autoattack, a massive launch, and ring of warding. It’s not the same long range dps that GS is, but it’s an incredibly strong weapon.

The hammer indeed is an incredible weapon and I love using it on my Guardian. However, you won’t be able to do much harm offensively without any assistance. You also got to keep in mind that the other capabilities are very situational (Protection only works when stationary, CC is less relevant when stationary and almost useless in PvE). Again, there is a trade off of some sort if you look at the weapon as a whole. The Mesmer GS already has a decent offensive potential (although it might not be the best there is) and it also has good access to CC (Cripple and Knockback). In other words, why would it need any supportive capabilities in form of a blast finisher?

I’m afraid of the GS being turned into a must-have like it has been the case for the MH Sword for a very very long time. It still is dominant. I’d rather see improvements to existing functionalities instead of adding new ones.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Not really. If you’re blasting fields, thieves absolutely can burn all their initiative on this. If you’re bringing a thief in a blasting group, then you’re mainly bringing them for that high blast finisher access.

And outside of blasting fields they would be very limited in providing any additonal benefit because all the resources are commited to one certain task. They won’t be able to deal any significant damage without any initiative nor apply CC. Despite the indeed easy access to a blast finisher there still is a sort of trade off for using it.

Pyroathiest.4168:

What overall well performance? It’s almost never used in dungeons/fractals, it’s only used in open world PvE because you need that range for tagging mobs. It’s fairly strong offensively in a shatter build for tPvP…but that’s relative since shatter builds are hardly viable anyway. It’s used in large groups because it’s the best long range dps we have, but that’s not saying much. You can’t hit anything on a wall with it and the autoattack is wimpy compared to most other weapons.

You said it yourself. The GS might not be perfect but it is the only reasonable weapon for ranged DPS. It doesn’t matter it isn’t the optimal choice for PvE since melee will always be stronger. The viability of certain builds should also not matter because weapons aren’t linked to specific builds. Neither should bugs be compensated by adding additional functionalities.

Regardless of all the ‘What do other classes have?’-talk: When improving or adding aspects of a class the first thing to consider should be the class itself and not what skills or traits are available to others. Those can be used as a benchmark for implementation but usually fall short when making conceptual decisions. That is why I think that the roles and state of other available weapons we have should be a focal point. From this perspective adding a blast finisher to Mesmers does indeed make sense. But I never heard any reasonable argument which supported GS#3 actually being the primary contender for a blast finisher. It certainly would be a convenient solution. Practically, I doubt it would be the most reasonable solution. Conceptually, I’d even argue that it would be a very bad solution.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Overall the greatsword is used because there’s nothing better, not because it’s particularly good at what it does.

This might be true. But how is this a reasonable argument for adding a blast finisher to the GS? As said earlier, if it is not particularly good at what it does, why not expand on those capabilities? A blast finisher wouldn’t expand on those.

I’m sorry to interfer, but can you stay a bit more on the topic of mind stab? I know the blast finisher could come down to some arguments, but comparing every bit of a mesmer to warrior is not gonna help much with that. They’re both totally different professions and have not much to do with eachother. Just because a class can obtain easy-to-get blast finishers doesnt mean mesmer should or shouldnt have them.

Anyway; Xaylin, your arguments are very strong and as reader probably anyone would agree with you, but the moment you start playing in teams you will notice that there’s not much to do the moment your team is gonna stack might or goes in for a healing regroup. You will feel a bit lackluster as mesmer on that point. Also keep in mind that when you compare warrior to mesmer, you will have to face the cooldown on weapon swap. The moment a mesmer switches off his GS with, if put on, his only blast, then he has to wait 9 seconds to switch again and cast it. Whereas a warrior can easily switch back within 5 seconds and be on time to help with the regroups.

Another thing is that when warriors run with hammer, they often also go with sword/warhorn. This adds another blast finisher. So whenever they switch either to s/w or hammer, they always have a blast finisher ready. Mesmers will not even come close to that unless they stay in greatsword, whereas the mesmer will be very vurnable to enemies or the damage will be a lackluster.

This is of course only talk about large scale WvW. tPVP would be a whole other story, but let’s be honest: how much is this gonna affect such small scale? Sure, mesmer will become a bit stronger in team fights but is this bad for what title the mesmer currently holds? I wouldn’t say mesmer is far from being in the meta as most teams use a mesmer which works, but it sure is far from being as good as thieves, warriors and guardians.

BlackDevil.9268:

Also keep in mind that when you compare warrior to mesmer, you will have to face the cooldown on weapon swap. The moment a mesmer switches off his GS with, if put on, his only blast, then he has to wait 9 seconds to switch again and cast it. Whereas a warrior can easily switch back within 5 seconds and be on time to help with the regroups.

Hehe. I thought we are not going to compare those two?

Counter question. How does adding a blast finisher to GS#3 improve your usefulness when you apparently feel irrelevant to your group for 9s since you refer to weapon swapping? Does this imply that GS#3 is bad? Does this imply that the GS is crappy overall? Or does it maybe imply that Mesmers generally suck butterflies in specific game modes which has absolutely nothing to do with a specific weapon?

Regardless, none of this would specifically supports adding a blast finisher to GS#3.

BlackDevil.9268:

Another thing is that when warriors run with hammer, they often also go with sword/warhorn. This adds another blast finisher. So whenever they switch either to s/w or hammer, they always have a blast finisher ready. Mesmers will not even come close to that unless they stay in greatsword, whereas the mesmer will be very vurnable to enemies or the damage will be a lackluster.

And again, how does that make GS#3 the primary contender for a blast finisher? The only thing this argument shows is the lack of blast finisher on Mesmers. Don’t get me wrong, I really do want one or two more blast finishers on Mesmers. But your argument could be made for any weapon we have. I’m not arguing wether Mesmers should have more blast finishers or not but wether GS#3 is the place to put it.

BlackDevil.9268:

This is of course only talk about large scale WvW. tPVP would be a whole other story, but let’s be honest: how much is this gonna affect such small scale? Sure, mesmer will become a bit stronger in team fights but is this bad for what title the mesmer currently holds? I wouldn’t say mesmer is far from being in the meta as most teams use a mesmer which works, but it sure is far from being as good as thieves, warriors and guardians.

Again, I’m not afraid of Mesmers becoming too strong. But I think that a blast finisher on the GS does not fit its original purpose and could also result in every Mesmer running GS. Not because it is necessarily overpowered (although I feel that Mind Blast would turn into one of the best blast finishers ingame) but because other weapons could become universally inferior. When talking about balance, don’t only look at inter class balance (balance between different classes) but also at intra class balance (balance within one class).

It does seem hard to imagine that by it’s own adding blast finishers to Mesmers would change their position in the meta.

Still given Xaylin’s concern about GS becoming too dominant (within Mesmer builds), how about adding them to gs3 and staff4

Neurophen.9738:

Still given Xaylin’s concern about GS becoming too dominant (within Mesmer builds), how about adding them to gs3 and staff4

What a sneaky way to shop for my vote.

I’d still favour additional boon ripping for GS#3 but would be very happy about Staff.

@Xaylin
Ah right, forgot to say like ‘’but hey, now were already at the subject’’!

Xaylin.1860:

Counter question. How does adding a blast finisher to GS#3 improve your usefulness when you apparently feel irrelevant to your group for 9s since you refer to weapon swapping? Does this imply that GS#3 is bad? Does this imply that the GS is crappy overall? Or does it maybe imply that Mesmers generally suck butterflies in specific game modes which has absolutely nothing to do with a specific weapon?

It will make you start thinking more about the situation. Swap weapons or wait for the regroup to blast? Also, when you regroup as mesmer, theres not much to do. You might be able to pull of a combo with your ileap to gain some healing, but you prefer to keep that skill for a few seconds later when you’re engaging again.
Do mesmers suck at the ‘’game type’’ we’re refering to? No, not really. Are we good at tagging? sure we are not, but will blast finishers improve that? Nope. Kinda what I’m aiming at is that we should not be the ones dealing the damage or tagging everything we can, but still we gotta be usefull some way. 1 of them is the immobilize spam we can do with. Another is the boon removal. But these 2 things usually go together in a split second. #3 GS is not even close to even being usefull at that point as the radius is way too small. Giving this skill a bigger radius would sure make it better, but would it solve the problem of too few blast finishers? Not really. Adding it to #4 staff would require the skill to get a massive cooldown drop. A blast finisher on a 35 seconds cooldown which only applies around yourself would come down to being close to useless, while I’m using a staff in raid spec myself (at least, I used to since I barely raid atm).
I say this because a 35 seconds cd blast finisher would be barely noticeable. As mesmer you’re not supposed to run with the melee. The speed we do healing regroups with TA is so fast it wont even be possible for me to get to that regroup sometimes before everyone is in the fight already. Ranged blast would be awesome, but I do agree it could probably come down to being the best blast finishers in game. Too bad we ourselves don’t really have much to combo it with…. I guess that’s an argument for putting it on mind stab? As there’s not much other skills to discuss besides mind stab and #4 staff due the lack of weapon skills, but also the variety of them.

To throw something out of left field, how about adding a travel component to mind stab?

@Neurophen
I don’t think we need any more in – combat mobility. Also that would take away from GS having risks because it has no mobility.

@Xaylin
I’m not seeing how having a blast finisher would make GS a must have weapon for us. In WvW I’m sure it would be very much welcomed, but blast finishers aren’t a big part of spvp. I’m not sure about pve but there can’t be too many moments when you can group and spam finishers often.

This has been complained about since launch. Since beta, actually. Just a simple radius increase would make the sill better. The fact that a dev actually responded to this saying we’ve been looking at improving this skill is kind of a joke. I appreciate the fact that you guys are responding, but I’m so jaded from the lack of any response from transmutation stones screwing up karma and wvw gear.

Just look at my signature.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Just look at my signature.

I’ll agree that Anet has been slow to change a lot of things but they did say Temporal Curtain is working as intended.

Too much rubbish talk..

Have some confidence, in your wishlist act like GS could be a deadly mesmer weapon and be confident about bringing some power back to the class. A sad state of affairs that the mesmer class has been beaten into submission for so long that the players are defaulting to try and nerf a wishlist thread lol.

Mesmers deserve some awesome too, stop hamstringing awesome.

Raunchy.6891:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Just look at my signature.

I’ll agree that Anet has been slow to change a lot of things but they did say Temporal Curtain is working as intended.

It isn’t working as intended. Here’s what happened.

At launch, people would run back and forth over temporal curtain and gain swiftness multiple times. That was not what they intended. How they couldn’t think people were going to do this, I don’t know. So they disable it and made it so that you could get swiftness only once. Great! However, you can only get swiftness from temporal curtain if it is the first swiftness you get. If you already have swiftness, then you do not get swiftness from temporal curtain. That is why it is broken.

It is a screw up that occurred when they initially “fixed” it and they never properly fixed it. It is a huge source of frustration to a class that needs to rely on a weapon for swiftness, and only 12 seconds at that. Just as an example: if someone lays down a symbol of swiftness just before our temporal curtain, then we only get the 4 seconds from the symbol and nothing from the curtain. Broken.

In thinking about this tread and my jaded nature to the mesmer class, one near and dear to me, it occurs that many of you may not even have been playing this game for a while.

The biggestkittenfrom Anet was confusion. Confusion is built into the mesmer class. We have multiple weapons skills, utility skills, and traits that apply and buff confusion. But all the bad players who just spam abilities complained and complained. Granted, in sPvP, they were pretty powerful, but WvWers were just bad players. My whole gripe was that confusion doesn’t do any damage if you just wait for a cleanse. Kinda harder in sPvP. Anyway….

So what happened? They nerfed confusion damage by 50%. That’s not a nerf bat, that’s a kitten sledgehammer. Just some arbitrary number, but it nearly killed the class for a lot of players. When was the last time you’ve seen a glamor mesmer in WvW or any condi mesmer in sPvP? I never do. Heck, i still have my full Condi gear, Full Ascended condi trinkets that I had to do fractal runs/guild missions/laurels to get. Just sitting in my bank. Never used. It’s still fun to do a bit of roaming with my condi mesmer, but it doesn’t kill nearly as effectively as a power build.

So, are they going to do something with Mind Stab? I doubt it. Not unless a dev just happens to have a secret kitten for the skill.

I honestly think number 4, “Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground” is the worst out of all of them.

Idea 4 just turns us into sitting ducks in all aspects of gw2. No one wants to use great sword for stacked boss fights (I’m not saying I support stacking in pve but hey, that’s how this game pretty much works). In pvp and wvw, being rooted for 3-4 seconds pretty much means you’re dead (Mantras are also similar in this case due to their long cast time). As suggested, the idea will allow us to withdraw prematurely but that would hurt the damage output we have. We have to remember that most mesmers who run great sword are glass cannon in wvw/pvp since it’s our only dps ranged weapon so the 3-4 second root isn’t what we want and on top of that the retaliation on 5x targets with retaliation for 3-4 pulses would eat through our health.

A step in the right direction would be to increase the radius a little (180 range would be good as it still requires skill to hit the enemy) and to make it a blast finisher. Great sword 3 is already a good skill if used correctly (great sword 5 knock back makes it easier for us to use skill 3) but could be easier as the small radius and moving foe makes it for a predicting skill shot and on top of that, mesmers are in desperate need of a reliable blast finisher.

Probably an increased cool-down for the skill (probably 15 seconds instead of 12) would be appropriate for this change. Critical damage has already been nerfed so I don’t think we need a damage nerf for this skill as the radius would still be small. A larger radius than 180 should have the damage reduction as it promotes unskilled play (1v1) but adds up when dealing damage to multiple targets.

I would like to see bugs fixed that have been around since launch, not new stuff for them to break.

Well, first thing that comes on my mind when I think about mind stab is small radius. Pair that with the not so good damage and you end up thinking if you should even use that skill, instead of just autoattacking. Radius is small, so it’s not hard to miss your enemy.

I wouldn’t mind 180 radius, target reduced to 3 players, 3 stacks of bleeding on target. I don’t care about boon remove tbh. CD stays the same. I don’t know why some of you feel like you have to compensate for changing this skill… it’s pretty meh skill atm, it needs a buff, not a change that wouldn’t make it any more useful then it is now…

serialkicker.5274:

I wouldn’t mind 180 radius, target reduced to 3 players, 3 stacks of bleeding on target. I don’t care about boon remove tbh. CD stays the same. I don’t know why some of you feel like you have to compensate for changing this skill… it’s pretty meh skill atm, it needs a buff, not a change that wouldn’t make it any more useful then it is now…

More nerf the wishlist nonsense.

Nobody here, not a single player knows the internal balancing formula the devs use to determine if a skill is too powerful. Last time I checked they didn’t include anyone in that conversation or process. Don’t presume you know, which to the point im making is don’t aim low, aim high and let the devs calibrate it back.

The freaking choke hold people are putting on their creativity here is astonishing.

Snap out of it.

Spurnshadow.3678:

It isn’t working as intended.

Ok so I’ll just refer you here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-s-Bugged-Skills-Not-Updated-Anymore/first
Whether you like it or not, it is working as intended. They’re thinking about reworking it since so many of us think they changed it in a terrible way, but until then this is how they wanted it to be.

Spurnshadow.3678:

So what happened? They nerfed confusion damage by 50%. That’s not a nerf bat, that’s a kitten sledgehammer. Just some arbitrary number, but it nearly killed the class for a lot of players.

So, are they going to do something with Mind Stab? I doubt it. Not unless a dev just happens to have a secret kitten for the skill.

It was more than just the confusion nerf. They also changed how Blinding Befuddlement worked, which is a big deal.

What do you mean they aren’t going to do something about Mind Stab? We got a red post for the first time in forever stating that they want to change it, and people are making tons of suggestions. How could they not do something about it now?

Raunchy I can answer the thought process to get to them not doing anything in one word. pessimism

as for the mind stab i’d like a channeled aoe that leaves behind a field preferable smoke or ice, keep the root but maybe add protection while rooted.

Don’t think activation on the move is needed for Mind Stab. It’s very reactive and the activation time is just 1/4s so it hardly breaks your movement. Also I like the animation

Karl McLain.5604:

[…]
4. Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground.
5. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!
[…]

Both sound like interesting changes. +1 to either of them.

Sublimatio.6981:

I suggest Mind Stab to be […] a blink skill […]

That would be really fun haha

Blast finisher on mind stab please

I would really like a blast finisher on the skill, like many others do.

But the multi-stab sounds really cool too.
Definitely keep it as a skill shot though (The manual targetting is great), I’d just like it to feel more important when it gets used.

@ Raunchy

It isn’t working as intended. You don’t know the history of the game. That is just the BS they say to cover up mistakes. Don’t defend them.

Spurnshadow.3678:

@ Raunchy

It isn’t working as intended. You don’t know the history of the game. That is just the BS they say to cover up mistakes. Don’t defend them.

Don’t do most bugs that improve the gameplay such as falling damage bug, insta-kill interrupt bug etc get fixed asap? And with asap I mean within 1-2 months. Same went for temporal curtain. I do agree it’s stupid it can’t work as the symbols of guardian, but I truely think this, as it is now, is how it is working as intended. Just cause you don’t agree on it doesn’t mean it’s not working as intended.
How did you guys came even on this topic? It’s about mind stab, not temporal curtain.

Karl McLain.5604:

Some great ideas here guys! This skill is something we’ve been looking at, as it’s a little underwhelming at times.

Here’s a bunch of potential things we could do (we would do one or maybe two of these, not all:

1. Look at making it usable on the move. Currently, the animation is ONLY able to be used while standing still.
2. Increase the number of boons removed.
3. Increase the radius.
4. Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground.
5. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!
6. ???
7. Profit!

Tagging this thread for later.

I would like an AOE impale for 3 secs with them bleeding tremendously, rather than a multi stab tool but….that’s just my sadistic side typing here.

Increase the radius, add a blast finisher. I think a cool idea to add increased damage depending on where you land the skill shot. For example, if you hit someone in the dead middle, they’d take more damage and lose 2 boons. People on the outside circle would only lose 1. Take more damage and vice versa. Just a suggestion

Increasing the number of boons removed would make this a brilliant skill, especially if it prioritised stability.

BlackDevil.9268:

Spurnshadow.3678:

@ Raunchy

It isn’t working as intended. You don’t know the history of the game. That is just the BS they say to cover up mistakes. Don’t defend them.

Don’t do most bugs that improve the gameplay such as falling damage bug, insta-kill interrupt bug etc get fixed asap? And with asap I mean within 1-2 months. Same went for temporal curtain. I do agree it’s stupid it can’t work as the symbols of guardian, but I truely think this, as it is now, is how it is working as intended. Just cause you don’t agree on it doesn’t mean it’s not working as intended.
How did you guys came even on this topic? It’s about mind stab, not temporal curtain.

Because, at launch, they did a hot fix on temporal curtain, because people were stacking swiftness. They “fixed” it right away. But they were never able to fix it right. They also admitted, way back when, that they couldn’t get it to work right, so they were just going to leave it as is.

So, you guys are telling me, that temporal curtain is meant to be the only skill in the game that doesn’t stack a buff of the same kind and doesn’t grant you a buff when applied if you already have that buff? And I’m not talking about when you reach the maximum stack limit. The only one in the whole game. Working as intended? Just stop it. Please, don’t defend Anet on this.

Yes, this topic did get a little off, but that is because I brought up the horrid history of the developers not fixing things that have been broken with this class for almost 2 years now. Bring the enthusiasm of wanting to change mind stab to fixing temporal curtain. I was also being cynical saying that they will probably never change mind stab because they never fixed temporal curtain, something that has been broken since launch. That’s the relevance.

Karl McLain.5604:

Some great ideas here guys! This skill is something we’ve been looking at, as it’s a little underwhelming at times.

Here’s a bunch of potential things we could do (we would do one or maybe two of these, not all:

1. Look at making it usable on the move. Currently, the animation is ONLY able to be used while standing still.
2. Increase the number of boons removed.
3. Increase the radius.
4. Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground.
5. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!
6. ???
7. Profit!

Tagging this thread for later.

I feel like this skill would be a good one to experiment with different effects depending upon movement state. I mostly feel this way because of how epic the current animation looks, but still any reason to try new things is a good one.

While standing still and using the current animation, it could have X potency or effect. While on the move it could have Y effect or X- Y potency.

Rolyate.6753:

Increasing the number of boons removed would make this a brilliant skill, especially if it prioritised stability.

I had not considered this.
I would even settles for “Remove 1 boon, prioritize stability”

It would definitely make it actually have a very solid purpose.

EnRohbi.2187:

Rolyate.6753:

Increasing the number of boons removed would make this a brilliant skill, especially if it prioritised stability.

I had not considered this.
I would even settles for “Remove 1 boon, prioritize stability”

It would definitely make it actually have a very solid purpose.

I’ve never observed stab to not be the first boon removed with boon strips. What effect isn’t removing stab first?

Stability is the last boon removed. Boons are stripped in a specific order.

The only thing it really needs is a larger radius IMO.

I’d say make it 180 with 2 boons removed if you don’t want a large radius on it, or simply make it 240 radius without any other changes.

Getting 5 targets into a 120 radius is silly, so it might as well not be a 5 target AE if you’re not going to give it a radius that can catch more then 2-3 people at once anyway.

I’d be happy as a clam with just a 240 radius, but if it’s any smaller it needs more to make it appealing IMO.

And yes, I agree that Staff needs loving as well, but Scepter is still really bad too!

Staff would probably be “OK” if we got the fix to Ill. Elast. that we were promised, and lower the CD on #4 to 20-25s and give it the old Protection back but only 3s instead of 5s. (See what I’m doing there ANet? BABY STEPS! Not 100% removal, but ~40% nerf. Hardly a baby step really, but you end up not destroying abilities by flat out removing the most powerful aspect!)

Spurnshadow.3678:

So, you guys are telling me, that temporal curtain is meant to be the only skill in the game that doesn’t stack a buff of the same kind and doesn’t grant you a buff when applied if you already have that buff? And I’m not talking about when you reach the maximum stack limit. The only one in the whole game. Working as intended? Just stop it. Please, don’t defend Anet on this.

The fact that we say that TC is working as it is intended doesn’t mean we agree on how it works and we defend anet, but face it, there’s no bug in TC.

They also said “Good topic for debate on changing in the future.” So if you want to put some ideas of how you would like it to work, create a new topic and talk about it.

This is about Mind Stab, don’t know why people take other issues…

Can we change it to ground target to controlled target on the move? That would SIGNIFICANTLY help out zergs who just chain ball move all the time.

Blast finisher for all the chaos armor. More damage for the small target(it should stay small, too much ridiculous AOE already in-game) or greater boon ripping.

almost everything we have is single target. so yeah chaos storm is good but id like to have more aoe, so making ms a strong multitarget aoe would be great. if it was a stronger aoe i wouldnt mind it not being able to be cast on the move, but right now ms being stale and weak at the same time is not ideal. i do like the rest of our gs though. its one of my favorite weapons.
also chaos armor.. unnerf please. the nerf is ridiculous and made chaos armor kinda useless. but i agree a blastfinisher would be nice too.

selan.8354:

almost everything we have is single target. so yeah chaos storm is good but id like to have more aoe, so making ms a strong multitarget aoe would be great. if it was a stronger aoe i wouldnt mind it not being able to be cast on the move, but right now ms being stale and weak at the same time is not ideal. i do like the rest of our gs though. its one of my favorite weapons.
also chaos armor.. unnerf please. the nerf is ridiculous and made chaos armor kinda useless. but i agree a blastfinisher would be nice too.

I actually don’t like the idea of mesmer having much “controllable aoe”.
I love the fact that we are very single target with a little aoe that is somewhat hard to control (phantasms,shatters)

The issue however is that our very single target skills…..are meh. And this in combination with bugs that takes anet months to fix even though they broke it in the first place (warden). is unacceptable and hurts.

I love how mind stab works and feels. but it lacks power. It lacks a use that is a wow factor.
Now a damage buff would be great. Although I don’t feel that is what it needs.
And if it does get a damage buff I should hope it gets a dynamic damage buff. Aka how many boons the target has/ does not have gives increased damage< something like that.

Ok let’s get down what this skill absolutely needs.

1) a blast finisher……. DUH anet come on!
2) a better effect then just 1 measly boon in a crappy boon rip priority order

And let’s look at some options or combinations of options that anet can do to improve this skill including the above 2 requirements.

• improved boon rip priority order

• increased number of boons ripped

• make it steal the boon ripped

• make it currupt the boon removed (fear on stability rip….so many other possible use’s http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupt_Boon )

• dynamic increased damage based on a factor such as number of boons on you or foe or both ect. (Tons of options to make this skill go from meh to WOW based on the situation.)
  (In my personal opinion the damage should increase by 10% per boon on the target. When fighting with gs we have a lot of trouble fighting tanky targets with tons of boons.
  Ele’s, guardians, thiefs with consume ecto, and specific boon bountiful builds on all of the other class’s comes to mind)
  Base damage with full zerker is like 500-1k. 1k-2k on crit. So I cant help but wonder what would happen if we got a 100%-150% damage ish increase resulting in something around 4k against a target with 10 or so boons. Would really change the feeling of weekness we have against those boon spammers.

And if my idea of corrupting the boon removed were to come through?
Watch as those that charge at us with stability run away in fear!!!!

Chaos.3579:

selan.8354:

almost everything we have is single target. so yeah chaos storm is good but id like to have more aoe, so making ms a strong multitarget aoe would be great. if it was a stronger aoe i wouldnt mind it not being able to be cast on the move, but right now ms being stale and weak at the same time is not ideal. i do like the rest of our gs though. its one of my favorite weapons.
also chaos armor.. unnerf please. the nerf is ridiculous and made chaos armor kinda useless. but i agree a blastfinisher would be nice too.

I actually don’t like the idea of mesmer having much “controllable aoe”.
I love the fact that we are very single target with a little aoe that is somewhat hard to control (phantasms,shatters)

The issue however is that our very single target skills…..are meh. And this in combination with bugs that takes anet months to fix even though they broke it in the first place (warden). is unacceptable and hurts.

I love how mind stab works and feels. but it lacks power. It lacks a use that is a wow factor.
Now a damage buff would be great. Although I don’t feel that is what it needs.
And if it does get a damage buff I should hope it gets a dynamic damage buff. Aka how many boons the target has/ does not have gives increased damage< something like that.

Ok let’s get down what this skill absolutely needs.

1) a blast finisher……. DUH anet come on!
2) a better effect then just 1 measly boon in a crappy boon rip priority order

And let’s look at some options or combinations of options that anet can do to improve this skill including the above 2 requirements.

• improved boon rip priority order

• increased number of boons ripped

• make it steal the boon ripped

• make it currupt the boon removed (fear on stability rip….so many other possible use’s http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupt_Boon )

• dynamic increased damage based on a factor such as number of boons on you or foe or both ect. (Tons of options to make this skill go from meh to WOW based on the situation.)
  (In my personal opinion the damage should increase by 10% per boon on the target. When fighting with gs we have a lot of trouble fighting tanky targets with tons of boons.
  Ele’s, guardians, thiefs with consume ecto, and specific boon bountiful builds on all of the other class’s comes to mind)
  Base damage with full zerker is like 500-1k. 1k-2k on crit. So I cant help but wonder what would happen if we got a 100%-150% damage ish increase resulting in something around 4k against a target with 10 or so boons. Would really change the feeling of weekness we have against those boon spammers.

And if my idea of corrupting the boon removed were to come through?
Watch as those that charge at us with stability run away in fear!!!!

i see your points chaos, but i dont think a lightarmor class should be a duelist only. i think we should have the option to spec for aoe at least so we can also be viable in other gamemodes like wvwv raids! thats my only problem and frustration i have with my mes. i would love it otherwise, but the utilitybot role is sooo frustrating!
but yeah i mean mind stab is a joke the way it is right now. we cant cast it while moving and it deals like no dmg….seriously? i would like more interrupts on my mes, so it would be nice if ms could interrupt, but i still want it to be aoe. we got wayyy to many single target skills. i know many people love roaming and duels, well i like wvw and wvw raids so when i see a suggestion, i always try to think of a zergfight and ms as a real aoe could be really helpful.

selan.8354:

i see your points chaos, but i dont think a lightarmor class should be a duelist only. i think we should have the option to spec for aoe at least so we can also be viable in other gamemodes like wvwv raids! thats my only problem and frustration i have with my mes. i would love it otherwise, but the utilitybot role is sooo frustrating!
but yeah i mean mind stab is a joke the way it is right now. we cant cast it while moving and it deals like no dmg….seriously? i would like more interrupts on my mes, so it would be nice if ms could interrupt, but i still want it to be aoe. we got wayyy to many single target skills. i know many people love roaming and duels, well i like wvw and wvw raids so when i see a suggestion, i always try to think of a zergfight and ms as a real aoe could be really helpful.

One of my characters is a mesmer, over 2000 hours, on Blackgate. I primarily WvW. It is great in WvW. I am usually within 600 range of the commander. I hit like a truck, very tough, and offer great team support. Just don’t play a utility kitten role or try to compromise with the commander and use only one skill for utility, like veil, or just get used to swapping it out when you know your commander is going to want it.

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Just to nip this falsehood in the bud. The iZerker does 4 hits of damage, each being a 5 target aoe. The potential maximum number of targets it can hit is 20, but this will be incredibly rare as usually there’s a lot of overlap.

selan.8354:

 

i see your points chaos, but i dont think a lightarmor class should be a duelist only. I think we should have the option to spec for aoe at least so we can also be viable in other gamemodes like wvwv raids! thats my only problem and frustration i have with my mes. i would love it otherwise, but the utilitybot role is sooo frustrating!
but yeah i mean mind stab is a joke the way it is right now. we cant cast it while moving and it deals like no dmg….seriously? i would like more interrupts on my mes, so it would be nice if ms could interrupt, but i still want it to be aoe. we got wayyy to many single target skills. i know many people love roaming and duels, well i like wvw and wvw raids so when i see a suggestion, i always try to think of a zergfight and ms as a real aoe could be really helpful.

I just had a long and huge post explaining my points that I was about to bring up. Buuuut then a hit a backspace by accident refreshing the page and all my work is gone so **** it. I’ll make this short.

I feel that mesmer is at a good place in every part of the game until you come down to zerging. And the real big reason we are useless is because our shatters and phantasms don’t hit unless we are point blank/ taking down a straggler… And the reason for this is simple: “stacking”. Stacking in my opinion is the most ridiculous mechanic a game like this can have. Especially in wvw.
I understand this is far fetched but if one day player characters were suddenly given barriers that stopped friendly players(not enemy players mind you) from running through or stacking on you wvw would be drastically changed as well as the simple idiotic strategy of “stack” would be destroyed allowing battles to consist of many small to medium skirmishes on a large battle field allowing us as Mesmers to actually attack and land our skills instead of our skills being nullified by a team of 50 enemy players stacking in to 1 place like a team of obito uchiha’s…..destroying our phantasms and shatter fodder instantly before they get a chance to hit. Additionally it would un-simplify wvw so people would have to think about many different things to win such a large scale battle instead of just the default “stcking” stratagy.

Just food for thought. But back to mind stab.

1) I don’t feel like aoe fits our class as we are duelists. Masters of single target domination and extermination and not the other way around. However interesting stuff like a grandmaster trait perhaps in inspiration that says "phantasms are invulnerable for the first attack when they are summoned Would be perfectly fine.

2) it don’t feel like a change like that would be good for gs. It just does not fit the weapon or that skill. Really it would just be like chaos storm or a weak Chanel’s aoe skill that a ele does instead of mind stab were you thrust your great-sword in to the ground for it to erupt from below destroying your foe. Really I feel like this skill has weight(in the animation…the effect and damage is face palm).
Also in case you don’t know who obito Ichiha is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5_sR-Wguy8. …I love anime :P

Pyroathiest.4168:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Just to nip this falsehood in the bud. The iZerker does 4 hits of damage, each being a 5 target aoe. The potential maximum number of targets it can hit is 20, but this will be incredibly rare as usually there’s a lot of overlap.

Actually I believe its 3 target Cleve aoe for each of the 4 hits

Chaos.3579:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Just to nip this falsehood in the bud. The iZerker does 4 hits of damage, each being a 5 target aoe. The potential maximum number of targets it can hit is 20, but this will be incredibly rare as usually there’s a lot of overlap.

Actually I believe its 3 target Cleve aoe for each of the 4 hits

That could definitely be the case.

Fixing the thread.