Guild Wars 2

Nice to have, the question then is whether sacrificing burst capacity for constant recharges would be worthwhile in PvP. That’s something for the PvP theorycrafters or playtesters to figure out though, especially since it has to be balanced around playing against such a spec.

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

sounds reasonable to me.
maybe adding in-combat recharge only to it, just to maintain the players responsiblity to manage the handling from time to time inbetween combat situations

That’s utter BS though, “managing the handling” only means wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.

I’m leaning towards Photoloss here. I don’t see what is gained by being forced to consume charges for no reason just to get to where you can recast it after waiting for the cooldown. In fact, that is the scenario we’re trying to solve.

I still think the optimum change is to alter when the skill goes onto cooldown, make the first charge to be expended start the cooldown, in this way there becomes no loss really with having extra charges left over and indeed may end up being self balancing by increasing the time we are likely to spend trying to chant in combat.

Zarathustra.1458:

I still think the optimum change is to alter when the skill goes onto cooldown, make the first charge to be expended start the cooldown, in this way there becomes no loss really with having extra charges left over and indeed may end up being self balancing by increasing the time we are likely to spend trying to chant in combat.

That would be “workable”, but I would prefer a more transparent solution and not another hidden timer you have to keep track of. On the positive side, this would also be a buff to PvP without additional work.
The question then is, “is it the right buff?”. The main concern I’ve seen regarding PvP Mantras isn’t the outright strength of their effects, but the need to stand idle and vulnerable for extended periods of time. Spending 10s channeling to regain the use of your “adequately” powerful utilities certainly sounds like a death sentence to me…

Also consider the following, do Mantra’s really need cooldown’s at all? Mantra’s have cooldowns between skill uses, and other than the healing mantra I cannot really think of a reason to add an additional recharge time. Consider also the purpose of a mantra, to prepare for a need in battle, perhaps instead moderately increase the charge time, by +0.5s and instead remove the cooldown entirely. The trait that currently reduces the cooldown could instead reduce the charge time. This would again succeed in making mantra’s feel less clunky, as currently, the dilemma in PVP is the waiting 20-30s after expending the 1 remaining charge, rather than the whole recharging aspect.

The sustain would be hilariously broken in PvE though, cycling Resolve/Pain with Restorative Mantras (and Recovery on cooldown), and with 3 phantasms up you only lose half your dps doing it, unlike, say, an ele wasting all his blast finishers for burst heal.

Also, the cooldown somewhat is part of GW2’s basic combat mechanics, since the downtime between casts gives a window of opportunity to the opponent. While not strictly necessary, cooldown-less skills will take very different, very careful balancing through other aspects (Thief 1shotting you from stealth is no fun, but if they don’t they’re now in melee range at 0 initiative and lacking 1-2 stealth cooldowns, quickly becoming useless)
Mantras have this handle in the charge time, but it greatly limits the kind of skills effective against a Mantra build, since you need gap-covering interrupts and not just any damage/condi/cc to blow someone up after their mantras are on cooldown as is the case with other skillsets. Plus you could cover 2 charges with MoC, every time you manage to get it charged.

In general, cooldown/cast time reductions are a very easy change to implement though, so maybe there could be a middle ground? As long as all other mantras stay above 4s cooldown or so you can’t perma-cycle them with MoP or end up wasting your stability and cleanse for several seconds.

Well, perhaps the trick would be an increase in the charge time, I mean, I always felt that mantras were a throw back to Vancian casting from DnD, the whole, lets prepare a spell and have it stored within our memory so we can use it without complex rituals later. To be honest, I would not totally object to a 5 second chant time for mantra’s if they were capable of being available without a cooldown, in this sense, mantras would be a backwards cooldown skill, where you pay the cooldown in cast time and have the ability to use them instantly and always.

You could even change the charge times to balance them within themselves, with mop staying low, and mod and mor becoming more time intensive to charge. It would also then enable different synergies with the various on charge mantra traits, it might even be viable to use the one that adds toughness while channeling.

Photoloss.4817:

Nice to have, the question then is whether sacrificing burst capacity for constant recharges would be worthwhile in PvP. That’s something for the PvP theorycrafters or playtesters to figure out though, especially since it has to be balanced around playing against such a spec.

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

sounds reasonable to me.
maybe adding in-combat recharge only to it, just to maintain the players responsiblity to manage the handling from time to time inbetween combat situations

That’s utter BS though, “managing the handling” only means wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.

you mean clicking on a button once in while, out of combat (and not once a day and then forget about it), is complelety overstraining your brain?

let me post your stuff from a view posts here:
“The big appeal I see in PvE Mantras is that they just work. They’re quick, they’re efficient, and most of the time you have to actually try in order to get interrupted during the chant. "

here is my answer:
“That’s utter BS though, because its wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.”

in short terms: u like a mechanic, which already IS clickintensive in combat and calling it bullkitten, when a semi to full automatic handling forces u to click not even half of the time out of combat?

…

I agree with the hidden timer … hidden timer’s are not fun.

Additionally, that would mean that if I used one charge and then 30+ seconds later, when I use the last charge the Mantra is immediately off cooldown because its cooldown counted down after the first charge. That seems like it could potentially create some balancing issues.

It also doesn’t address the issue that we want to start our next fight at full charges without having to waste current charges. You’re still having to waste your 1-2 remaining charges to get back to your max 2-3 charges. The cooldown is just potentially less.

So, since it doesn’t appear to really solve the issue and I could see some balancing issues with it, I’m not a big fan of the idea of just changing when the cooldown starts counting down.

I think no cooldown would be a bit overpowered.

Mantra of Concentration could almost completely protect its own recharge with the stability it gives.

You could cycle MoResolve and MoRecovery to completely ignore a condition build … especially if traited for heals to remove conditions.

Mantra of Distraction would become a monster. I wouldn’t care that I have to spend 2.75s casting it when my opponent is constantly dazed.

MoD would not become a monster, you are forgetting the internal cooldown’s between charges. As it is, you can almost do what MoD would allow by using Blade Mastery and going 3 points in shatter tree using sword daze.

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

you mean clicking on a button once in while, out of combat (and not once a day and then forget about it), is complelety overstraining your brain?

let me post your stuff from a view posts here:
“The big appeal I see in PvE Mantras is that they just work. They’re quick, they’re efficient, and most of the time you have to actually try in order to get interrupted during the chant. "

here is my answer:
“That’s utter BS though, because its wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.”

in short terms: u like a mechanic, which already IS clickintensive in combat and calling it bullkitten, when a semi to full automatic handling forces u to click not even half of the time out of combat?

…

Uh, what?
PvE Mantra isn’t much more click-intensive than using other skills to achieve the same goals, and the clicks you do perform actually mean something. The charge is an opportunity for AoE heal if traited, at the cost of a lengthy channel (but could be eliminated, as I said I’m mainly worried about PvP regarding charge-less mantras), and the active effects are a reactive choice you make, same as all other skills with similar effects.

There is nothing to “manage”, and it’s not my brain that gets strained. You finish combat, you mash all mantra buttons not indicating full charge, you recast as the cooldown comes up. No thinking involved. Or if timing is an issue, you click several times more to switch out the skills (which can’t be done easily via hotkeys btw) and blindly recharge, again.
If you like that type of gameplay, 4-kit engi won’t run out of it any time soon (plus you get to do it in combat too, so much fun!)

And I’m having trouble understanding that last paragraph, I like something and call it BS? I’m all for more QoL “automation”, but in the current state there’s no reason to not make it work OOC except “clicking for the sake of clicks”.

Sebrent.3625:

I think no cooldown would be a bit overpowered.

Mantra of Concentration could almost completely protect its own recharge with the stability it gives.

You could cycle MoResolve and MoRecovery to completely ignore a condition build … especially if traited for heals to remove conditions.

Mantra of Distraction would become a monster. I wouldn’t care that I have to spend 2.75s casting it when my opponent is constantly dazed.

Yeah, straight-up “throw out the cooldown” would be pretty OP, but increased charge times would then mean less time to dps in PvE.
Then again, with so many suggestions we could just combine a few, how about starting the cooldown upon charging/spending of first charge, and adding a (potentially PvE-only?) OOC rapid recharge on the scale of health regen? Then make small adjustments to the cooldowns and charge times if necessary for balance. (emphasis on SMALL!)

Zarathustra.1458:

MoD would not become a monster, you are forgetting the internal cooldown’s between charges. As it is, you can almost do what MoD would allow by using Blade Mastery and going 3 points in shatter tree using sword daze.

Except Counter Blade can be dodged, blocked, reflected, interrupted or, fearing interrupt traits, even reacted to by canceling your skill execution, none of which works against Mantras.

mmm you have a point. I would agree though Photoloss, if nothing else, something has to give, we need some form of solution to the issue of charges and combat end. On anther point, someone mentioned the idea of hidden cooldowns being problematic, but I wonder, how is the cooldown being hidden an issue? Yes if you want perfect efficiency/maximum spam it might be annoying, but that kinda goes against what mantras seemingly intend to be, powerful situation reversing skills that require precombat preparation. It strikes me that it would be better to shift the cooldown initiator from the last charge to the first rather than introduce a recharge to mantras. They hardly seem like something that should be spontaneously generated, except perhaps as a consequence of a rng trait, something like each mantra cast has a 50% chance to randomly regenerate a charge of the just used mantra. That however could be both frustrating and absurdly broken…

On removing the cooldown entirely, if you extended the cooldown between charge uses by 50% would that make mantra’s less spamable while also changing the focus towards more efficient play, with mantras having 0 cooldown between charges if used on no target or out of combat?

Hmmm.
What about OOC, Mantras have no cooldown.
In-combat, Mantas have a cooldown.

The only issue I see with this is Mesmer intentionally resetting combat to get off a quick mantra-reset … but Thieves already do this sort of things thanks to how Initiative works versus the rest of us mere mortals with our cooldowns :-p

Sebrent.3625:

Hmmm.
What about OOC, Mantras have no cooldown.
In-combat, Mantas have a cooldown.

The only issue I see with this is Mesmer intentionally resetting combat to get off a quick mantra-reset … but Thieves already do this sort of things thanks to how Initiative works versus the rest of us mere mortals with our cooldowns :-p

Doesn’t eliminate the button presses though, if you straight-up hand out the ability, might as well make it automatic since there’s no reason not to use it. And let’s be honest, if a mesmer manages to fully disengage and gain OOC status in an ongoing PvP battle, they deserve that full reset on any Mantras that still fit on the bar.

Zarathustra.1458:

mmm you have a point. I would agree though Photoloss, if nothing else, something has to give, we need some form of solution to the issue of charges and combat end. On anther point, someone mentioned the idea of hidden cooldowns being problematic, but I wonder, how is the cooldown being hidden an issue? Yes if you want perfect efficiency/maximum spam it might be annoying, but that kinda goes against what mantras seemingly intend to be, powerful situation reversing skills that require precombat preparation. It strikes me that it would be better to shift the cooldown initiator from the last charge to the first rather than introduce a recharge to mantras. They hardly seem like something that should be spontaneously generated, except perhaps as a consequence of a rng trait, something like each mantra cast has a 50% chance to randomly regenerate a charge of the just used mantra. That however could be both frustrating and absurdly broken…

On removing the cooldown entirely, if you extended the cooldown between charge uses by 50% would that make mantra’s less spamable while also changing the focus towards more efficient play, with mantras having 0 cooldown between charges if used on no target or out of combat?

I’m not sold on your view on how Mantras should be “powerful”, though this will come down to opinion. Since all their effects are rather simple, cookie-cutter “press button, do X” I interpret them more as a form of burst/combo aid. You pay for the instant, simultaneous availability of elementary combat actions through limited “ammo” and a lengthy recuperation time.
This is only from the current implementation though, I am not voicing any original design intentions or personal opinions on how they should function. In that regard, I adhere to “don’t change a working system”, patch up shortcomings in the current design and make do with that.
In terms of the full set, Signets and Manipulations require much more attention than Mantras, the illusion utilities are heavily situational, and Glamours have too many side effects that simply aren’t useful in practice. Mimic and Arcane Thievery aren’t even “fun” to use, and Illusion of Life only helps in trolling allies.

Glamours require the unnerfing of the related trait set, and the illusion utilities could probably do with a blanket reduction in cooldown. Manipulations likewise could probably work with some cooldown adjustments as well. If I am honest, mesmer cooldowns feel like they are some of the most prohibitive in the game.

Zarathustra.1458:

Glamours require the unnerfing of the related trait set, and the illusion utilities could probably do with a blanket reduction in cooldown. Manipulations likewise could probably work with some cooldown adjustments as well. If I am honest, mesmer cooldowns feel like they are some of the most prohibitive in the game.

I feel Manipulations in particular are too niche to make do with just lower cooldowns. Of course we would all like a 0s cd Blink, but the others remain either completely useless, or completely shutting down specific foes and otherwise useless. Mantras are worthwhile because a) their effects are more focused/generic and b) they have proper trait synergy.

For what they can do mesmer utility cooldowns are actually pretty darn low, look at Lightning Flash for instance. The problem is that all our unique gimmicks are piled into them with little to no synergy regarding our weapon loadout, with some very specific exceptions. (iLeap MI shatter, mantra+phantasm, 6 in Inspiration for max reflection)
Wouldn’t it be cool if MoP actually applied Torment and Agony? XD