Guild Wars 2

Mantras

The Devs speak as though they love them. Nobody else does.

My first character in beta was a Mesmer, and my first character at release was a Mesmer. My main interest in this game is WvW, followed by SPvP and distantly by PvE. Because of that, all my opinions come from a PvP perspective.

For my entire Mesmer life, Mantras have always intrigued me. They provide a very unique playstyle, and require a certain kind of “rhythm” to use them effectively. But after a full year of trying to force Mantras to work, I can confidently say they are a mess.

For some further reference, here are all of the traits available to enhance Mantras:

Domination

• Harmonious Mantras — (Grandmaster) Mantras can be activated three times before needing to be channeled again.

Dueling

• Empowering Mantras — (Grandmaster) 4% more damage for each readied mantra.
• Mantra Mastery — (Master) Mantras recharge 20% faster.
• Protected Mantras — (Adept) Gain up to 400 toughness while channeling mantras.

Inspiration

• Restorative Mantras— (Master) Heal allies when you cast a mantra.

The first thing you may notice is because of the location of these traits, it is impossible to incorporate all of them in a single build. Of the 5 traits, 2 are Grandmasters, and 1 is Master from a separate trait line. You would need 80 trait points to take advantage of them fully. I can’t think of any other ability-trait combos like that.

Also, the combination of Restorative Mantras and Harmonious Mantras actually conflict with each other instead of synergizing. By adding an extra charge to each Mantra, it takes longer to cycle them, and recast them. This slows down the usage of Restorative Mantras and the resultant healing.

In practice, Mantras are extremely hard to use in any form of PvP because of the long cast times. For most other abilities in the game with long cast times, they are at least channeled abilities, meaning there is some effect taking place while you cast. With Mantras though, you are basically just an interrupt waiting to happen. I understand what the devs were trying to do and the reasoning (take a risk and charge once without effect, but get 2 instant uses later), but it just doesn’t work that well.

My suggestions for global improvement would be as follows:

• Reduce the cast time of all Mantras down to 1 second
• Increase the cooldown on the instant cast portions to compensate (ex: Power Spike 3s cooldown, Power Cleanse 5s cooldown, Power Lock 6s cooldown, Power Break 10s cooldown)
• Adjust the cooldown of the Mantra to balance the increased instant cooldowns.

This would allow Mantras to be used more effectively in active combat. The long cast time is really the most restrictive part. With the stun/interrupt meta in play now, the problem has been exacerbated.

If you enter a fight with all your mantras charged, you are on even ground with any other opponent using their normal utilities. But once you exhaust all of your Mantras, you might as well leave the fight because you are now a sitting duck. There is effectively no advantage to Mantras when they are in an optimal position (fully charged at the start), but there is a severe disadvantage when all are exhausted. There is no real risk/reward here, it’s all risk. Reducing the cast time would at least give you the opportunity to recharge in a fight.

In addition to those global changes, some of the traits would need work.

• Harmonious Mantras – Stay the same
• Empowering Mantras – This could apply to both the Mantra cast, as well as the instant portion
• Mantra Mastery – Stay the same
• Protected Mantras – Instead of toughness, I would say gain Protection for 1s when you cast a mantra (Just to cover the cast time).
• Restorative Mantras – Change this to heal when you activate the Mantra instead of when casting. Reduce the current healing to 1/2 (since it will activate twice). This way, it would synergize with Harmonious Mantras instead of conflicting.

The Oct. 15th balance patch gives me some hope that the devs are willing to improve mantras, but until they fix the cast time, these abilities will remain shelved and collecting dust.

The most important mantra trait is halting strike.

Mantra build is stronger than most people think. The most likely comparison would be a d/d thief. It’s not nimble, and people usually hate that, but it hits very hard.

It’s a hit or miss build and it requires a lot of skills to pull it off.

If you go all out mantra, your blurred frenzy could hit up to 9k++ and your shatter deals just as much dmg shatter build does. You could also use Mantra of Pain as a substitute of IP when shattering. Your phantasms would also be almost as strong as in phantasm build.

Mantra build is a glass cannon version of a glass cannon.
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That being said, what I hate about it is the fact that your charges are shown to the enemies. It’s so stupid that you don’t know what skills your enemies are using or which one is on CD. Signets are shown but all classes have signets so it’s a fair deal. Mesmer is the only class that has Mantra charges but then they’re shown. It’s one big strategy giveaway. When you’re out of chrages it’s like you’re screaming COME KILL ME NOW I RAN OUT OF SKILLS!!!!!!111!!

I disagree that the charge time should be reduced. That takes away the whole concept of mantra’s. The problem is that right now, the utility that mantra’s bring aren’t worthy of the long cast time. They aren’t really all that better than our non-Mantra counterparts.

So improve THE mantra’s is the way to get more use out of them. Make them truly worthy of the long charge time.

Reduce cooldowns on most of the mantra’s. There’s no reason that after we spend those charges we need to wait so long to recharge. Because of the long charge time, we need to “plan” or prepare when to charge in combat. We shouldn’t have to also “wait” TOO charge. Even if they did nothing else to Mantra’s and kept their utilities as is, by cutting each mantra’s cooldown in half, you probably would see a lot more play. Because now they offer something more than are normal utilities.

Other things.. let us keep our charges whenever we go for a swim. Let us keep our charges when we are downed/rez’d. These again are simple changes that would make Mantra’s less clunky and less of a barrier to entry.

Harmonious Mantra should at least 4 charges. Make it worthy of a GM trait.

@OP
It’s nice how you think nobody likes mantras just because you don’t like them. I’d rather not like them the way you suggested.
There have been multiple usefull suggestions about mantras before, not counting yours.

Mantras are hard to use in PvP, indeed. The only exception would be mantra burst build. But well, pDisenchanter, Portal and SignetOfInspiration are also. So you wanna redesign them as well ?
There are so many skills/ traits/ abilities useless in PvE, so I’d like to see them changed completely. I don’t care if they become useless in PvP, like you don’t care about PvE.

The short few changes to mantras I’d like to see:

• To increase the support functions of mantras
  All Mantra charge uses retain their current effect and get an AoE effect (like restorative mantras) with 50% effectivity. Daze Mantra needs to be discussed.

• To solve the long charging
  • Mantra casttime gets increased to 3s (for calculation purposes now). Channeling 1.5s fills one charge, regardless if cancelled or interrupted; channeling 3s will fill two charges. (1s / charge with HMantra trait). Cancelling by pressing again (like our weapon block skills) will immediately use one charge; even if you only charged 0.5s.
  • OR Mantra charges refill automatically by cooldowns. There’s no possibility to actively prepare them. Cooldowns neds to be re-adjusted

• To solve the “I have a single charge, what to do now?”-problem
  • The maximum amount of charges to one. Casttime, Effect and recharge need to be readjusted. HMantras would need to be changed to something like “using any mantra charge deals damage to your target at 900~1200 range”.
  • OR add an ability to recharge a mantra with one charge left. F5 ?

• Protected Mantras:
  give protection, distorsion or stability. With decent duration and ICD. 400 toughness is pointless.

• Stability Mantra:
  stunbreak is nice, but 2s stability is useless. It doesn’t even let you cast another mantra. 4s minimum.

Generally:
Do need to reduce their casttime so that anybody can use them. Don’t use them when you can’t handle their casttime.

From what I read, they will buff Condi cleanse and Stability mantra to be AoE.

UnknownFreak.2805:

From what I read, they will buff Condi cleanse and Stability mantra to be AoE.

Which I’m pretty sure is why this is being discussed again.

Nretep.2564:

But well, pDisenchanter, Portal and SignetOfInspiration are also. So you wanna redesign them as well ?

Pets and Signets are not unique to the mesmer whereas mantras are. That one of our defining skill sets is broken is a pretty big deal. What if necros had the same problem with the corruption skill set? Their class wouldn’t be nearly as unique.

I like the underlying idea of mantras, but it’s unplayable in pvp currently and is very much suboptimal in pve. I think the only quick fix for mantras is to make the recharge both automatic and uninterruptable (by opponents or us).

Another approach to boosting Mantras would be to have them trade some effects with Manipulations. Think about it this way…

Mantra of Pain is a single enemy damage spike.
Mantra of Distraction is a single enemy daze.
Mantra of Resolve is now an AoE cleanse.
Mantra of Concentration is an AoE stability buff.

Arcane Thievery is a single enemy boon/condition swap.
Blink is a teleport.
Mimic is a slightly buggy buff that absorbs a projectile and grants brief immunity to further projectiles.
Illusion of Life is a ground targeting AoE temporary revive.

…..That’s a really, really weird setup. Control and Support abilities are thrown into these two practically at random, with no set function for the mechanics themselves. Mantras are supportive abilities, except when they are single target enemy powers. Manipulations are direct control spells, except when they are actually AoE support buffs.

The developers said they are looking for ways for the Mesmer to support allies more. What if Mantras traded away some of their control powers to Manipulations and gained the latter’s support abilities instead? Something like this…

~~~Manipulations~~~
Blink and Arcane Thievery don’t change at all. Lovely skills.
Tease: gain distortion.
Psychic Distraction: daze target foe. Recharge faster on successful interrupt.

Mimic upgrades its immunity thing, which is what people actually lose it for, and dazing moves over to Manipulations to make them the dedicated “Control spell right this moment, thank you” utilities. Meanwhile…

~~~Mantras~~~
Split mantra charges into three parts. Some skills have multiple steps in their charge bar, such as throwing bombs in the Super Adventure Box. Give Mantras three steps, each of which provides a single charge for the power. That way, you can charge them briefly for a quick fix or for a long time to get a stack.

Mantra of Concentration: grant stability to nearby allies.
Mantra of Resolve: cleanse two conditions from yourself and nearby allies.
Mantra of Celerity: you and nearby allies gain swiftness and vigor.
Mantra of Recall: create a blast finisher at your location.
Mantra of Recovery: heal yourself and nearby allies.

Harmonious Mantras: moved to Inspiration, replacing one of its poorly thought out shatter grandmasters. New effect: “The supportive abilities of Mantras apply to allies near yourself or your illusions. The effects do not stack.”

The only thing lost so far is a revival utility. Somewhere in there, I would suggest replacing a lackluster utility (Phantasmal Disenchanter, for example, loses a lot of purpose if Mantras become a better ally/self condition cleanse) with the following power…

Illusion of Weakness: Revive and stealth a downed ally, and create a clone with that ally’s appearance at their location. This clone fakes being downed, and explodes violently if defeated.

That should cover just about everything.