Utility skills
—Mantras require that the Mesmer be completely ineffective during the charge, so using them in any way other than leaving 4 of them charged with Empowering Mantras active lowers the player’s effectiveness outside of short battles.
— The two phantasm utilities, Defender and Disenchanter, are meant to support, but fail. Defender attacks its target in melee, making it extremely likely to be killed even without it absorbing allies’ damage. Disenchanter functions like Null Field, but it dies with its target. Additionally, it’s fragile and its attack is slow and can’t be targeted.
— Veil is helpful in a dueling build as a target scrub, but it isn’t useful in a support build and doesn’t syngergize with the play style of the Glamour Mesmer because of its shape. It’s small and its effects are short-lived no matter what, though it has a very long recharge. If it functioned as it did in the Mesmer reveal video (aoe ring like Null Field), it would make much more sense as a glamour. Make it work like Time Warp in that it only grants 1 second of stealth per second while in the field and you won’t have an overpowered skill.
-- Portal is helpful and support-oriented, but not useful in regular battle.
— Illusion of Life is niche but very effective and would be extremely useful to a good player with a reasonable recharge and possibly a larger area of effect.
— Feedback is great, but would be better for support if it were ground-targeted.
— Null Field and Signet of Inspiration are excellent examples of Mesmer support utilities; the rest are solo skills (which are fine, but we need a balance.).
Traits
—Restorative Mantras could be helpful if the heal were channeled over the course of the charge, like a Guardian’s Empower. The same idea could be implemented with Protected Mantras, only affect allies as well so that, during the channel, they receive increased toughness (or any character stat), and make charging mantras more worthwhile, not necessarily through buffing the skill use. Additionally, Protected Mantras feels out of place in Dueling.
—Restorative Illusions should heal allies upon shatter – while I understand that this could be overpowered, it could also be given the attention needed to keep it from being so. For instance, the heal could be in a radius around the Mesmer or around the individual illusions at the time the shatter is activated instead of when it occurs. Since it’s in a line that shatter/burst damage Mesmers don’t max out, it’s unlikely to be a problem.
—Similar to the conditions caused by Confusing Combatants, Debilitating Dissipation and Crippling Dissipation, I’d like to see some traits that grants boons to allies on clone death.
—Prismatic Understanding, which gives a few short-lived boons while stealthed, does not affect allies, though the marginally lengthened stealth duration does.
Weapon Skills
—The focus is obviously more support oriented, blocking projectiles, interrupting foes, granting swiftness – but we can’t tell what area our shields cover, the interrupt is now telegraphed, and the swiftness doesn’t apply onto other swiftness.
—The staff is another weapon with strong support capabilities, but a combo effect it can already achieve through two other skills on the same weapon incorporated as a skill seems really silly. It could easily be replaced by an aoe blind or something of little consequence so as not to throw off the balance of the weapon. But at least a skill with a special effect that isn’t already used for something else, since Mesmers have the fewest skills of all the professions.
—The Mesmer has no main-hand weapon with even a slight favoritism among support-oriented Mesmers. I think that is a problem.
Combos
—Blast and Whirl are the cooperative finishers, and Projectile and Leap are solo finishers. Only 19 of the Mesmer’s skills allow the class to take part in a combo, making it the class with the fewest of them.
—Of those, one is a blast finisher and 3 are whirl finishers, though two of those aren’t reliable because their position on the battlefield is dynamic.
Elites
—The Mass Invisibility/Shadow Refuge threads exist already, but I agree with the complaint that as an elite, it is inferior. Veil didn’t even get turned into that.
—I honestly don’t know why Moa Morph exists. It doesn’t empower me or my allies, and it only affects one foe. In PvE, it often doesn’t even do that. Why not an elite that summons 3 phantasms (which could be random or completely new) or briefly dazes/stuns/blinds enemies in an aoe?
Thanks if you read. I tried not to be too whiny.
(edited by MesmeForever.3612)