In any discussion of mantras, it’s extremely important to remember that not all mantras are unused junk heaps. Therefor, blanket changes like adding stability to the channel are uncalled for. A more productive conversation involves looking specifically at the differences between used and unused mantras.
The most commonly used mantra is probably the daze mantra. This mantra has an appropriately powerful effect to balance the drawbacks: instant, on target, aoe daze. Additionally, this effect synergizes perfectly with other Mesmer mechanics for bursting and interrupts, making it a powerful and useful tool in the appropriate builds.
The next most used mantra is the condition removal mantra. It cleanses 2 conditions in aoe around the Mesmer. This, however, is mainly used because we don’t have any other good condition removals. It doesn’t synergize well with any other Mesmer mechanics, and the fact that it’s an aoe cleanse is almost entirely disregarded.
In order to bring this up to an appropriate level, I’d add something that makes you pay attention to the aoe nature of the mantra. Perhaps ‘gain increased damage for each condition removed by this mantra (1% damage per stack, 5s duration)’. This gives you direct benefits if you use the mantra to cleanse your allies, and boosts the mesmer’s sustained dps capabilities in a fight.
The last 3 mantras are stinkers. I’ll start with mantra of pain.
MoP does okish damage. However, it’s just ultimately hard to use effectively. Increase the radius and make this into a GtAoE to add usability. This allows us to unload aoe damage without having to wrestle with the abysmal targeting system in this game. This would make it a capable damage dealing tool in WvW groups, PvE events, and would maintain the (extremely niche) use of it as a burst tool for PvP.
The heal mantra is ultimately just underwhelming. Ether feast heals just as much but without the nasty channel. Mirror does the mirror thing. The signet is obviously useful for the phantasm recharges, and the heal well is an aoe heal that cleanses as provides alacrity too (when traited). The heal mantra is simply outclassed in every way. It doesn’t have additional utility, it doesn’t heal more, and it has the massive mantra drawbacks.
To fix this, it needs to have something that it’s best at. I think the most appropriate thing would be raw healing. Since powerful base heals are a bit unbalanced, provide this by massively boosting the scaling coefficient for this skill. If specced for healing power, this mantra should provide massive bursts of healing.
Lastly, the stability mantra. This one is also extremely rarely used. The stunbreak is handy, but we have other stunbreaks. The stability is mostly an afterthought. Fixing this is easy: make the stunbreak aoe, probably alongside increasing the cooldown back up to 20 seconds or whatever it was.
Mantras are mechanically cool concepts, and the fact that some of them work well proves that a balance between risk and reward is possible to find without massive conceptual changes. I feel that these suggestions would mostly provide that balance.
