Guild Wars 2

ASP.8093:

MesmeForever.3612:

I’d suggest increasing the radius and applying applying like a .25 second daze to up to 5 targets and ripping a boon, with increased damage on interrupt. Balance the damage/recharge/cast time/mobility as needed.

I’d much, much rather have Mind Stab be a more useful boon ripper with its current casting time than yet another area interrupt with a higher cooldown.

My personal opinion is that the Mesmer has enough boon ripping abilities. We have a clone, a phantasm, a glamour, a manipulation, 2 weapon skills (one of which is spammable), and a trait that allows even all four of our shatters to rip boons. Then there’s sigil of nullification. We’re able to remove boons from multiple foes in an AoE with probably 75% of those listed methods.

I mentioned the casting time/cool downs for people who would point at the AoE daze being OP. I just suggested the core mechanic of the skill. Maybe that would even need to be tweaked to remove the necessity for a longer cooldown. How about weakness on 5 foes and vigor on 5 allies, with some damage? That would fit with the idea they’re going for with sword; empower yourself and your allies while hampering and dealing increasing damage to your foes.

Ultimately what will get the best results for a mind stab rework suggestion is to answer: what skill functionality does the greatsword mesmer lack? Doesn’t have to fit the name even – it’s not like they couldn’t rename the skill if they needed to.

But for that you first have to figure out what the Greatsword defines as a weapon.

Back when the game launched, the GS was our single-target ranged weapon (with the Scepter being 2x-3x as good in melee than range) while the Staff was the multi-target weapon.

This changed with the line-change and buffs to the Phantasm.

If we now accept the Greatsword as the 1200 range damage weapon (versus the staff as the 1200 range support weapon), then Daze feels somewhat misplaced. I’d figure that more on the Staff, especially because it lost the guaranteed AE daze on Chaos Storm.

What the GS however needs is an attack to nuke onto walls in WvW. That’s something it fails to provide compared to the staff. Weak as Chaos Storm is, it allows the Memser to join in “clearing” without LoS.
So maybe Mind Stab just needs to be hold-able (with the ring around the skill). First stab happens as now, if you hold it it has 3 stages, you hold the sword in the ground while a second and third “ring” of swords appear one after the other, hidding a wider radius each time. Like a circular wave moving outwards.

I’d dig it if it transferred the boon.
Also if it was a blast finisher.

Make it also a Blast Finisher as the only other Blast Finisher Mesmers have is on Torch.

I may not like the idea of channeling skill, or stabbing and holding the sword in the ground. It could work in pve world, but probably not in pvp. Experienced players will almost always interrupt if the animation takes too long. Imagin that a warrior is smashing hundred blades on you while the mesmer is holding on to the sword, you’d probably be dead before you finish casting the skill. Holding the sword in the ground while standing stationary will be a guaranteed backstab by a thief, or engi will start throwing grenades or bombs at you.

What mesmer is lacking compared to other profession, I think, is a mobility. warriors and elementalist use greatsword for mobility, like whirling attack or ele’s fiery rush. I prefer to see one mobility skill with the greatsword. It should be easy to implement since the animation is done by other professions, and make mind stab move to … utility skill.

Okay. I’ve got a silly gimmick idea. I don’t expect it to go anywhere. I’m not, like, chomping at the bit for this particular thing to be implemented, either. But just bear with me.

Mesmers are sometimes described as thief food, right? I mean, fighting a thief is not, like, entirely a lost cause, but it tends to get pretty dicey. And Greatsword is the weapon that doesn’t have any blocks, evades, or teleports to help get them off you (though it’s really fun when you Illusionary Wave ’em right out of Shadow Refuge).

So what if…

What if Mind Stab made everyone it hits Revealed for X seconds?

I figure you could use it reactively to knock people out of stealth (guess where they are), or more preemptively as part of a burst (e.g. to make sure shatters have somewhere they can go). There seems to be reasonable room for “counterplay” since you have to place it right and enemies can dodge, &c.

• Would it be right to put that effect on Greatsword, of all the weapons?
• What would it do for mesmer-on-mesmer fights?
• Would rangers (who have a monopoly on Revealing enemies right now) feel sad that their toys aren’t as special anymore?
• Would be a Mind Stab like that be acceptable with its current cooldown?

How about having gs3 a channeled teleport?

Functions

• stack might (or protection) on allies every pulse at the target location as you channel the skill
• strip boon on foes every pulse as you channel the skill
• or, break the channel anytime and teleport to the target location applying confusion on exit on your foes

This will give the skill it’s dual nature where it’s good for you and bad for your foes, as well as ability to use the skill in combat both offensively and defensively, and as a utility both in and out of combat. Just like the Focus 4 skill.

THE most elegantly simple fix for Mindstab: Instant recharge on boon rip.
+100% damage if no boons. same recharge.
I fell something like a genius right now.

frifox.5283:

How about having gs3 a channeled teleport?

Functions

• stack might (or protection) on allies every pulse at the target location as you channel the skill
• strip boon on foes every pulse as you channel the skill
• or, break the channel anytime and teleport to the target location applying confusion on exit on your foes

This will give the skill it’s dual nature where it’s good for you and bad for your foes, as well as ability to use the skill in combat both offensively and defensively, and as a utility both in and out of combat. Just like the Focus 4 skill.

+1
My favorite suggestion right here!

On further thought I would like to be honest – I like the immediacy of casting Mind Stab as it is now.

I do not want to have a long channeled cast.
I do not want to have an AoE with more than one illusionary blade coming out of the ground, because for me it is too " messy".

I do want to have a fast thrust into the ground with immediate effect.
I do want a short root and satisfying animation.

In other words, keep everything the same and either increase the radius / increase the boon strip to 2 / increase the damage / proc aegis (2s) on cast / be a blast finisher (does not have to be all of these).

Everything else can stay exactly the same.

Curunen.8729:

On further thought I would like to be honest – I like the immediacy of casting Mind Stab as it is now.

I agree. It’s a really satisfying animation that just needs a bit of a bigger effect to make it feel worthwhile.

I agree with Sailears, as much as new stuff is neat, I am glad they’re taking the easier path on this one and just going with an increase to radius and damage. Let’s hope it’s enough to make it a little more worthwhile, but personally I think those 2 items are the only thing wrong with the current skill.

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.

3 and 4 togheter would make this such an awesome skill and add a lot of worth to the mesmer according to Tpvp and it’s use in big teamfights!

I’ve been playing Mesmer for a long time. It’s my most played profession in PvP, and I never thought that Mind Stab is “meh”. This skills is awesome! When that warrior/ele/w/e starts to get those instants 15 stacks of might, or when you see someone running around with stability, you just time your Mind Stab correctly and “puff”, there it goes that precious boon so fast that the guy doesn’t even notice. And how many times I used this skills as a finisher attack and exploded someone? This skill isn’t bad as it is.

Mesmer has A LOT of boon removal: Sword and clone sword, traits, a BIG AOE utility and an unblockable one, and you want even more? I think that Mind Stab is good as it is, and yeah, it could have a blast but… add more 2 boons removals doesn’t make sense at all for GS that is supposed to do heavy damage, not utility like Sword or Staff/Scepter. It would be a HUGE buff, but for what? This class has a lot of boon removals already.

Well, I sincerely think that we don’t need new things for Mesmers. What we need is ours bugs to be fixed, thats what we need.

Oh, and you can cancel Mind Stab animation when it lands. It’s almost like you’re walking if you cancel it correctly. Idk how I do it, I got used to it somehow… But you have to press 3 really fast and then press A/D or W really fast too to cancel the animation.

Been kinda thinking an AoE immobilize. Extend the range and 3 seconds of immobilize when it lands.

But just as a suggestion to throw at a dart board, (sorry if already suggested) what if it was similar chaos storm on a shorter C/D with no boons for when you stand in it, but every tick on a foe is a utility/shutdown based condition (excluding stun and daze) like immobilize, cripple, blind.

Each tick stacking two seconds per hit, lasts for about 3 ticks hits up to 5 targets. “Only initial cast does damage”

But how would this be fair for such a short C/D? 1, Low damage. 2, Easy to avoid. 3, Can easily be cleansed.

And although this is a very meta prospect, I feel Mesmers need to hinder mobility more regularly. If your a survivability build people can walk away from you so easy. However if your glass you escape ability and lock down (since Mesmers require more set up than most classes to do decent damage) could use a little bit more oomph beyond cloak and blink every 30 seconds without specializing.

feight.2704:

THE most elegantly simple fix for Mindstab: Instant recharge on boon rip.
+100% damage if no boons. same recharge.
I fell something like a genius right now.

really guys? cant ya’ll imagine the fun it would be to mind stab guardians multiple times for each boon you manage to rip from them?
stab stab stab.
think it over

I just wish it were a blast finisher All other “improvements” would be secondary

And possible ability to drop Revealed on enemies with the skill.

I would just like to see a more reliable Blast Finisher added to Mesmer than the freaking timed The Prestige. Mind Stab would be nice, but I’ll take any skill at all, reworked for that purpose.. just something we can activate on demand. Leap Finisher’s are nice and all, but they’re not going to help your team.

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 want either #4 or #5. OMG PLZ make one of those happen!!!!!! ~throws mirror blade at screen~

Necroing this thread because the balance patch talk made the think of this…

You know what I’d like to see on Mind Stab? Putting a short-duration Revealed on your target.

The designers are clearly okay with more of this, since Sic ‘Em went up to 6s Revealed. I’m thinking more like 2s here, mostly useful for knocking a target out of stealth when they don’t expect it.

This is more me thinking about what would be good than what would be good, per se. I think it’d be hella fun, though. Players (thieves and mesmers, in particular) get really complacent about stealth as the ultimate tool for controlling the flow of a fight, so it’d be nice to rock their boats a bit.

That sounds pretty good, actually. Even in single-player, it could be fun to give a nasty surprise to some skelk…

If they give mesmer revealed… Oh my !

Revealed would be something, but I’m hoping for channeled AoE with 180 radius, because it’s less situational, more useful in PvE and our AoE choices still aren’t the strongest.

Wonder if this skill will be reworked in the balance patch. I know they said it was going to be awhile.

At this point I don’t have much confidence that ANET has an intention to help Mesmer. Any rework tends to make the class weaker.

My favourite implementation would still be a hold-down skill (we don’t have any!).

If you just tap the button, it’ll stab where your target is. Current radius, current effects. But targeted, huzzah!

But if you hold it down, it has two more stages with ~1s each. Each causes a set of swords to rise around the target, potentially hitting other targets nearby, causing the same effect (or the same target again if they moved). First a triangle of swords, then a hexagon.

Carighan.6758:

My favourite implementation would still be a hold-down skill (we don’t have any!).

If you just tap the button, it’ll stab where your target is. Current radius, current effects. But targeted, huzzah!

But if you hold it down, it has two more stages with ~1s each. Each causes a set of swords to rise around the target, potentially hitting other targets nearby, causing the same effect (or the same target again if they moved). First a triangle of swords, then a hexagon.

no, pls make it ground target

I’d love it if it was like this:
Radius of the cast increased to 240/360.
This skill now creates impacts under 5 foes in the target area.
Radius of impacts: 180
Impact Targets: 3
Boon Removed: 1
Damage: The same like now.

I like the ideas of removing more boons and blast finisher while lowering damage, but i would still want to keep the fast activation and happily keep the root if that was so.

still no blast finisher on mind stab ??

Bump. So they mentioned this as a thing, and asked for our opinion. And rather than go with Chaos’ suggestion of simple answer little explanation we gave answers the devs found "’crazy’[sic]‘’. My favourite of these was the suggestion that mind stab produce a smoke field. Given that the possible combo fields per class hasn’t changed much at all since the beginning of gw2, I can understand the “crazy.” But look where that got us, we got the easy answer. And the easy fix to mindstab. How many people are happy. I feel like we need to work on how we talk to the devs.

Hit’s hard. Still removes a boon. Easy to catch targets in the radius. Nothing not to be happy about.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Hit’s hard. Still removes a boon. Easy to catch targets in the radius. Nothing not to be happy about.

Pretty much. If people are looking for creative thinking to help our class from the devs, I think mind stab is the last place I’d tell them to work. It’s a simple ability that got a simple buff. I call it good.

Now what they did to mimic on the other hand…

The point is that it could have been a blast finisher. But we got muddled in the feedback. And mimic is the prime example, we want them to do the opposite of this occasion. we want a mundane skill to be fancy (again).

Nah, I think the real point is they fixed it. It was almost not worth using before, and now I can’t wait for the timer to be up on it. It hits hard, removes a boon, and has a very good AoE radius now.

It was the most obvious path to fixing it, and I applaud them for not going off the deep end with it and giving us something crazy that either is useless (bugged) to begin with, or gets nerfed into useless 1 hour after the patch. ;-)

Windwalker.7421:

Nah, I think the real point is they fixed it. It was almost not worth using before, and now I can’t wait for the timer to be up on it. It hits hard, removes a boon, and has a very good AoE radius now.

It was the most obvious path to fixing it, and I applaud them for not going off the deep end with it and giving us something crazy that either is useless (bugged) to begin with, or gets nerfed into useless 1 hour after the patch. ;-)

Could not agree more with this. The AoE from Mind Stab is sooo good for us. It gives us a solid edge in group fights (coupled with the fact that GS phant hits multiple opponents) and gives us a reason to actually use GS in dungeons and fractals!

main problem with this thread is how quickly it went for semi reasonable/wish it could happen between players to omfgplzmakethisopandbrokensoitcandoallthethings when a dev posted.

this happens in almost any thread a dev posts in and its mostly because people arent putting critical thought behind what they think they want. If anet mega buffed and reworked MS to be an AoE/channeled/pulsing/Daze/boonstrip/high dmg/ imob inflicting/Blast finisher tomorrow, You’d think it was kittening amazing and perfect until another mesmer used it on you instead of you using it on everyone else. At that point you’d probably realize just how broken and unfair what you got/wanted was and would probably come back here to QQ and ask for a nerf.

Most people don’t think about fighting what they ask anet to make/change before they hit “post reply” and thats why these threads often fail to get a cohesive point across when there has been no set limitations for people to consider or create inside of.

@Swish

To be fair, people don’t want balance. Everyone talks about how they want it but at the end of the day they want to smash faces (respectively for their spec/role of choice). In other words, overpoweredness would be amazing if it didn’t come with the disadvantage of also being on the received end of overpoweredness just as often.

true enough but that’s an argument for another thread. Games that prosper the most are often actually imabalnced but in a purposeful and balanced way. One class is on level with others but counters 1 or two while 1 or two others counter it in turn.. leading to a self perpetuated meta where in build 1 is popular so build 2 becomes popular to counter build 1 so build 1 dies off then build 2 is the most popular so build 3 is made to counter so build 2 dies off.. etc.. eventually a stale meta can occur if left along too long even in that environment tho.

People want imbalance but they also feel less cheated when its “fair”. where in someone decided to dedicate to countering me, i need to either change or wait till the meta moves forward and i can retake a similar place with the same build. Asking for massive OP imbalance doesn’t lead to a “fair” op. People would do better to remember that.