Guild Wars 2

Whoever thought of this radius must be out of his mind. What do they expect of mesmer in groups? To run with the frontline? Or that the backline is packed up like a melee train?

The stability duration is absolutely horrible. 2seconds is just a waste for the cooldown it got. Blink > mantra in almost any situation.

The idea is good of making them aoe, but actually make it AOE then with a normal radius like most skills that give boons do. (Something around 600 at least.)

Actually, the effects of the mantras are pretty great. 4s aoe stab on a 25 second cooldown is very similar to othe skills such as stand your ground. When you consider that you can trait for 3 uses and heal on charge and cooldown reduction, it’s pretty good.

That being said, the radius is way too small for it to matter. You have to get intimate with anyone before they receive the effects of the mantra.

The problem is that devs only make changes with the spvp perspective. They don’t even care about how those changes affect in zergs and if they mean a buff or not.

Even those changes, mantras mesmers are only good in small scale fights. In +15 people zergs guardians and eles can put stability and clean conditions much better and easier than us.

It’s a PvE thing I think. The mantras are godlike for dungeons and whatnot, they basically obsolete guardians.

I only see the changes being effective for tpvp/spvp.

Pyroatheist.9031:

That being said, the radius is way too small for it to matter. You have to get intimate with anyone before they receive the effects of the mantra.

And that’s why my Mesmer prefers a team of ladies. Preferably norn. “C’mere baby-gurl… Fixed, Focused, Concentration.. Giggity.”

But just to point out.. 30 Dom + 20 Dueling + 50% boon duration = Around 45% Stability uptime.

Hey Guang, would you use Mantras in dungeons without any of the traits or would you find Harmonious a necessity?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Pyroatheist.9031:

That being said, the radius is way too small for it to matter. You have to get intimate with anyone before they receive the effects of the mantra.

And that’s why my Mesmer prefers a team of ladies. Preferably norn. “C’mere baby-gurl… Fixed, Focused, Concentration.. Giggity.”

But just to point out.. 30 Dom + 20 Dueling + 50% boon duration = Around 45% Stability uptime.

Hey Guang, would you use Mantras in dungeons without any of the traits or would you find Harmonious a necessity?

Traits shouldn’t be necessary, and there’s really no room for them. In dungeons, you don’t need super high output stability, just a bit here and there, and rapidfire 4 condition removals is far more than enough to handle pretty much any situation.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s a PvE thing I think. The mantras are godlike for dungeons and whatnot, they basically obsolete guardians.

No way they obsolete guards. They only need to waste 10 points to give all party 5s of stability every 24s, also 5s of retaliation. And that with only one click to cast it.

Mesmers instead, need 50 points to give to the party 6s of stability every 28,75s, needing 4 clicks to mouse to do it.

A completely different thing is the fact that mantras can upgrade your dps thanks to a trait. But guardians can also have damage boosters, they can easily have +50% of damage with a scepter, which is a super fast autoattack weapon and perma burning.

So, in the end it stays that mesmers are good for their utilities and reflects.

But more stun breakers isn’t really what we need these days… Enough ways to fight your way out.

Thing is, all they did this patch is buffing mantra’s. The rest is only fixing. Adding a 240 radius is not really what we can expect to be using anywhere, even on spvp level.
That being said, all other classes got much more attention than mesmer for the past 5 big patches now. It just seems like they’re pretty much done with the concept, while there’s much more to improve seeing all types of meta’s for mesmer.

For example:
Meta roaming WvW: Blackwater build or phantasm hybrid.
Meta raid WvW: Shatter for smaller scale, confusion for large scale
Meta tpvp: Eh… yeah… there is none

None of them includes the use of mantra’s.
I guess maybe for 1v1 you could see it as ‘’meta of 1v1’’, though I would be surprised if it beats phantasm with PU

Edit: Oh right, and pve? You don’t need guards. 4 wars + 1 mesmer and you’re done.

I’ve been using 2/3 mantras in dungeons for a year w/full berserker/scholar runes on my mesmer. Traited to give +4% damage on charge and to heal aswell. Pretty kitten good, as long as you don’t go around being useless and just spamming Mantra of Pain for heals.

I’ve also noticed almost all players on profession-forums are incredibly ignorant.

I can honestly say that, for the most part, that’s not true here. There will always be ignorant people wherever you go but the majority of the Mesmer players here really wanna just level up their gameplay.

testing them in tpvp, I doubt they will be anything special but stability and condition removal on demand is a boost for team fights and not kitten 1v1.

For WvW we wait for something else. Nothing here to replace glamours + blink.

Still the same thing as always… they give us a buff and ppl still aren’t happy :P I like to get buffed instead of getting nerfs Wohoo, buffs!

Try to think that way and you’ll be fine with the patches for Mantras

a nice buff to the mantra but they are still horrible, every one know, even Anet know that the recharge casting time for the mantra take too long, way to long, reduce their cast time to 1 and a half second would be a better buff

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s a PvE thing I think. The mantras are godlike for dungeons and whatnot, they basically obsolete guardians.

Guardians are already obsolete though, atleast if you play with just semi decent people.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s a PvE thing I think. The mantras are godlike for dungeons and whatnot, they basically obsolete guardians.

O.o Oh? I can say from experience in dungeons using both a mesmer and a guardian… A support guardian>support mesmer. Even with the healing guardians put out AOE condition cleanse better, AOE heals maybe not so much but they don’t run around shouting “Agony Torment Pain” to get the heals off, AOE boon support of two guardians is godly plus guardians give permanent protection with a shout and an Auto-Attack…

I made a mesmer build specifically designed to do permanent protection and good group healing…. I was infuriated when I saw just how easy guardians pump it out…

Like I said mesmers may have slightly better group healing but they have no fire fields and one crappy blast finisher on a long cooldown (might stacks) Their boon support isn’t as good unless they throw everything into it like a chaos maestro build…. Mesmers will never replace guards in dungeon runs and this mantra change almost makes dungeon runs 4 man because of how long they take to charge and if you are doing it for the heals then you are just running around casting the mantra behind your party doing no actual dps.

Maybe I’m just jaded from how many times Anet screwed mesmers over.

Mantras should be reworked, for me they are too boring to play. Even If anet make them op i wouldn’t use mantras, cast time kills the fun, looking at cast bars almost whole fight is terrible idea and should be changed.

Both the “buffs” we got were pretty puzzling. The radius is far too restricted and everyone’s gripe with them was the long charge time. The sceptor’s auto attack speed remains unchanged which means no one is going to use it anyway.

I think mantras can be a great tool to make Mesmers a real backline threat like in GW1. As it stands, the time investment for the return in-battle is just far too excessive.

Remove the cooldown and charges from mantras. Their effect should occur immediately after the cast time. Maintaining 2-4 mantras in battle already requires almost constant casting, so why not cut out the middle man and allow us to continually cast the same mantra over and over. They should be incredibly powerful, as a 2.75 second cast is incredibly easy to interrupt and robs the mesmer of all ability to do damage unless hybriding with phantasms.

The value is currently no where near equivalent to the time investment, and until then, they will remain a niche and secondary playstyle. I would never take a mesmer into my group for their mantras as it stands, but I would take them in for their reflects, glamours, time warp, and portals. Mantras are INFERIOR to these abilities in every way.

I have been running with a 3 mantra build in 20-30 man guild raids since the patch and its real easy to sum it up:

- The channeling remain a very poor system that require alot of “maintenance” from the player. Hell I even forget to pop my other skills because all focus go into mantras and I’m very used to it, I have played mantra builds long before this patch.

- You still have “too few” skills for everything. Assuming veil (a WvW guild Mesmer always need at least veil), that leave you with just two mantras. You want 3 (plus healing). If you loose MoP, you miss a significant amount of healing. If you loose MoC, you have no stability. If you loose MoR, you have no cleansing. Yeah you can skip MoD, but none of these losses are good. This gets the argument that you might as well trait glamour and have MoC, veil, null field. All the good stuff at the loss of healing, less maintance and less/lower tier traits making a more efficient build.

+ The new AoE is good but as others say, the range is just bad. It should be twice as wide.

= Its pretty much as good or bad as you thought it was before the patch. I love the idea of mantras, I can live with skill handicap and IMO its one of the toughest builds you can make on the Mesmer but the urk channeling blargh…

Some UI improvements for mantra I am hoping Anet would implement:

1. The number of charges for channeled mantras in the buffs area need to be more visible. Right now they are white and very difficult to see. Please make them bold and red or something to that effect.

2. On the skill bar, mantras that are unchanneled or have no more charges should be greyed out, so that it is easier to identify.

I LOVE MANTRAS (PvE)

Well the only reason I haven’t played mantras was that they were good for solo only. Now there are AoE cleanse and stability. So I decided to give it a try and … they are awesome!

I started with a full damage build 30/30/0/0/10. I used to go 20/20/0/30/0 so I’m really missing the reflection on focus. However it’s just one skill to be honest. I still got my feedback.

While in dungeons I run with 3-4 mantras. Depending on illusions I’m able to get a (up to) 26.44% damage buff. Since I lost 15% damage of illusions due the traits I also gained 100 power, condur, prec, 10% crit dmg.
Added everything up I just deal about 30% more damage and thats kittening noticable in combat. Hitting for 3.5k with Sword1 3rd hit without any boons is sexy.

I’m gonna try mantras in more different dungeons now, they seem really strong, maybe even the new meta.

I tried it. I really really wanted them to be good. But I can stand it. The constant requirement of keeping charges up, the feeling of them is incredibly dull and the way it works is just not for me. It’s a terrible mechanic. I wish they would put more emphasis on the inspiration signet which is cool and unique and do a total rework of mantras.

Well at the dungeons I’ve been it’s easy to recharge them while walking to the next place – but in a longer fight (gonna test soon ^^) i guess it sux.

Mantra Rework:

• Mantras have no CD anymore, nor are they chargeable. They can just be casted.
• You gain one mantra every [today cd/2] up to 2 mantras at the same time.
• The trait for 3 mantras gives you still up to 3 stacks instead of 2
• The trait for +4% per ready mantra gives now 2% per mantra charge (this buff shall grant you “the same power” while actually using mantras).
• The trait for 20% cdr for mantras reduces the chargetime to [today cd/3]

So mantras would recharge themselves and are able to be “bursted” and stacked. This would eliminate the charging system.

I only see people talking about mantra in PvE being actually good… Maybe that alone is already an indicator they need some rework.

Besides, I’m not only complaining about how mantra’s were always crappy, but also about how this patch was ment to be good but totally failed when some dude thought of a 240 radius making it barely any different than what they were.

@Passive mantra recharging
I also thought of this possibility, but it’d just make mantras shouts/ meditations. Instead of “having a charge” other skills are in CD. Basically the same with another name. The current system is fine. If you can’t manage Mantras, don’t ever use them. Probably play another class. I’ve heard Warriors and Guardians are good.

BlackDevil.9268:

I only see people talking about mantra in PvE being actually good… Maybe that alone is already an indicator they need some rework.

Besides, I’m not only complaining about how mantra’s were always crappy, but also about how this patch was ment to be good but totally failed when some dude thought of a 240 radius making it barely any different than what they were.

Yeah, you’re right. This game does not support PvE. Everything should be based on PvP. How could ANet think of something so unreasonable.

I still wonder why they didn’t just half retaliation and confusion in general. Or lowered illusions HP.

Definition of the word mantra I found:

Mantra is a Sanskrit term for a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of “creating transformation”.

So I think Anet really wants to stick to the fact that you have to “focus and talk” (a.k.a press the button) to get it ready and therefore I doubt they will modify the concept of recharding unless they make your character talk those magic words at automatically all the time which may be pretty funny actually.

So "Help help HAAALP!" can be a mantra.

I love Mantra of Distraction. It’s ALWAY’s in my skill bar. Its the one utility skill that reminds me most of a GW1 Mesmer.

I think the Mantra idea is cool. I think the long cast time = instant cast is CAN be a high risk = high reward. The latest changes to MoC and MoResolve are step in the right direction. By adding the AOE affect, they give us some utility that we currently don’t have. However, I also agree that the radius is still too small making them still very situational.

My ideas..
- Increase the radius on MoC and MoResolve.
-Mantra of Pain-Power Spike does X damage plus Y% more damage if the target is using a skill (more like the original Power Spike)

-Empowering Mantras – this GM trait is an oxymoron. Just get rid of it. Makes no sense at all. So I’m rewarded for having more mantra’s as long as I don’t USE said Mantra’s??

Harmonious Mantra’s – Because I love MoD, I trait this. But in reality, its just not worthy of a GM trait. There are different things I can think of for this guy.
A. Keep it as it is, but move it down to master level and move Chaotic Interruption over to Domination. ( CI just fits better in Domination. )
B. Modify it to double the charges to 4. This one is tough. Mantra’s need to be viable at 2 charges, but some mantra’s might be too OP at 4 (MoRecovery, MoP)
C. Keep the charges to 3 but add a XX% reduced cast time.
D. Keep the charges to 3 but each mantra gains an additional effect. MoPain adds 1 stack vulnerability, MoRecovery & MoDistraction gets an extra charge (4total each), MoC adds 2s protection, MoResolve adds 2s regeneration. (or something)

Ansau.7326:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s a PvE thing I think. The mantras are godlike for dungeons and whatnot, they basically obsolete guardians.

No way they obsolete guards. They only need to waste 10 points to give all party 5s of stability every 24s, also 5s of retaliation. And that with only one click to cast it.

Mesmers instead, need 50 points to give to the party 6s of stability every 28,75s, needing 4 clicks to mouse to do it.

A completely different thing is the fact that mantras can upgrade your dps thanks to a trait. But guardians can also have damage boosters, they can easily have +50% of damage with a scepter, which is a super fast autoattack weapon and perma burning.

So, in the end it stays that mesmers are good for their utilities and reflects.

Let’s compare a 0/20/0/25/25 Sw/Sw + Sw/F mesmer with a 10/30/0/10/20 GS + Sw/Sh guardian.

Reflects:
Mesmer has Feedback (6s reflect per 32s), Temporal Curtain (5s reflect per 20s), and Warden (5s reflect every 12s per Warden).
Guardian has Wall of Reflection (12s reflect per 32s), Shield of the Avenger (20s block per 80s) and Shield of Absorption (4s block per 40s).
Mesmer >>> Guardian

Condition Removal:
Mesmer: Mantra of Resolve (4 conditions per 24s), Null Field (7 conditions per 32s), Phantasmal Disenchanter (2 conditions per 4s per Disenchanter)
Guardian: Purging Flames (3 conditions per 32s), Virtue of Resolve (3 conditions per 32s), Save Yourselves (all conditions per 48s)
Mesmer > Guardian

Stability:
Mesmer: Mantra of Concentration (2 × 2s per 29s)
Guardian: Stand Your Ground (5s per 24s)
Tossup between the two

Guardian is still good in these fields, but mesmer is just clearly better. The one time I’d take a guardian for guardian utility versus a mesmer for the same is if we really needed the area protection from hammer or if strong AOE damage is much more important than strong single-target damage.

You are also missing the might stacks that a guardian puts out.
The blast finisher on a five second cooldown
AOE stability from hallowed ground (also gives 20% increase in boon duration), traited virtue of courage, AND Stand your ground.
then you are also missing the amazing healing from mace and symbols in general (however a mantra mes can likely pump out more healing with mantra of pain but then that is all they are doing), and the fact that in general guardians will always have the highest toughness in the group making them “aggro magnets”, as a guildy called my guardian when a boss was doing nothing but focusing me an entire fight and everyone else was DPS-ing him down while taking no damage from him at the same time.

By design mesmers make horrible aggro magnets so even if you are building to tank/support you are not going to be able to attract too much aggro seeing as how usually damage comes from phantasms in dungeons.

I’m not saying mesmers suck at support but noone does it better than a guard.
Perma AOE protection, FIRE FIELDS, Blast finisher on a five second cooldown, These are all things that you have to take into account.

A mesmer is not going to be able to capitalize on the ring of fire an ele just threw down, nor will they do much for a group with that rangers healing spring that lasts 15 seconds a guard can blast that three times before it runs out.
Not too mention the radius on shouts is much larger than on mantras.
I am curious to see what a group with a mantra mes AND a guard could do. But this patch in no way has made mesmers the new monk support gods.

First, all those things you listed are totally pointless and irrelevant besides the perma-protection. Do people actually think the mace heals make any difference? A bit of regen and a tiny heal on the auto-attack? Really?

Second, 10s stability on Hallowed Ground is the most pointless thing ever for PvE. For PvP I’m sure it’s great but I challenge you find any encounter in PvE where you will get CC’d more than three separate times in longer than two-second intervals within 10 seconds.

Third, toughness doesn’t affect aggro. That is a myth. You are welcome to go test it yourself, take a guardian in full knight’s gear, 30 in Valor, a shield, and Honorable Shield and an ele in full zerker, no points in Earth and stand on opposite sides of a champ or legendary and count who gets attacked more. For every mob that possibly prioritizes high toughness, there is another that prioritizes low toughness, or high HP, or high DPS. It’s not consistent by any means.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

First, all those things you listed are totally pointless and irrelevant besides the perma-protection. Do people actually think the mace heals make any difference? A bit of regen and a tiny heal on the auto-attack? Really?

Second, 10s stability on Hallowed Ground is the most pointless thing ever for PvE. For PvP I’m sure it’s great but I challenge you find any encounter in PvE where you will get CC’d more than three separate times in longer than two-second intervals within 10 seconds.

Third, toughness doesn’t affect aggro. That is a myth. You are welcome to go test it yourself, take a guardian in full knight’s gear, 30 in Valor, a shield, and Honorable Shield and an ele in full zerker, no points in Earth and stand on opposite sides of a champ or legendary and count who gets attacked more. For every mob that possibly prioritizes high toughness, there is another that prioritizes low toughness, or high HP, or high DPS. It’s not consistent by any means.

It’s not just the 11s (traited) of stability. Its a fire field that is the longest lasting firefield in the game that can be blasted by the guard twice and a warrior/ranger/engi/ele a few times as well, mace heals make a huge difference when traiting. The auto attack is eh at best however symbol of faith is godly with traited symbols plus the regen then you also get AH… Like I said for hallowed ground its not so much the stability but the nice bump in boon duration plus the fire field… You think firefields and blasts are pointless? You completely ignored those parts…
That is why people take guardians because even though mesmer may be able to put out slightly better condi cleanse (if everyone is on the mesmers nuts) still not putting out better stability, and not putting out more group boons.

I may be jaded from all the gnarly nerfs mesmers had over the last year that forced me to shelve mine but in group support guards>all. Guards can give on demand 12 stacks of might (MOST IMPORTANT BOON FOR DUNGEON RUNNING).
Permanent AOE protection which is probably the second most important boon because it makes that thief with 2k armor have 2600 armor. And group boon duration plus a 3k aoe group heal that is instant cast meaning i dont have to waste 2.75 s chanting some non-sense to heal someone that is gonna go down in 1.5s… We are also forgetting the biggest key component of group play is blast finishers a mantra mes will likely have none and without them you are a small hindrance to your group this is why you are seeing longbow warriors in groups more often now too is the firefields plus the blasts.

A self damage buff is useless to a group, my fully cleric’s knights guard still runs dungeons with close to 3.7k power total thanks to the might stacks firefields and blasts not to mention virtue of justice activation.

I like the way you’re comparing support of both classes, when you miss the most powerful point of the guardian, healing.

Also, you put 2 builds, but the guardian is not optimized.
Just take the normal phantasm 25/25 and this one, a full shout build:
http://tinyurl.com/ngsovfr

Reflections:
Yes, here mesmer wins, cause obviously mesmers are the kings of reflections. In most cases, I prefer not to use wall of reflection, cause in a very projectile stuff dungeon, I would take my mesmer for that.

Condition removal:

Mesmer:
- Mantra of resolve, 4 conditions every 25s.
- Feedback every 32s.
- And disenchanters.
The problem of mesmers is that if we have feedback, we cannot have our full condi removal set.

Guardians:
- Ray of judgement (4 of focus), 4 conditions every 25s.
- Can clean a lot of conditions with Cleansing flame of torch every 15s.
- All condition from the party every 48s.
- Purging flames.
- 2 conditions with every shout (Soldier runes).
(Virtue of resolve is not worth, since it has a cd of 50s and only cleans 3 conditions).

Healing:
Do I really need to make a list of the tons of ways that a guardian can heal?

Boons:

Mesmers:
Boon share from Inspiration Signet.
4s of stability every nearly 30s, and the fact that you’re nearly need 3s doing nothing.
I count quickness from Time Warp here.

Guardians:
5s of aoe might every critical hit (With that build you can have 100% crit chance, so it’s aoe might every hit).
5s of stability and retaliation every 24s.
Protection and regeneration every 28s.
Fury, might and quickness from tome of wrath.

Damage:

Mesmer:
You can only have 3 illusions, so if you have disenchanters, you’re the one in the party who puts the lowest DPS.
No perma bleeding staks if not using 3 iWardens.

Guardians:
+25% base damage.
A lot of burning damage with autoattack.

So in the end, it let us that mesmers cannot do all the support/damage at the same time. Or you’re focused in reflections, or you give up them to have more condition cleaning, or you’re more focused in boons. There’s also a fourth option, you do a little of everything, which in no way you can be better than a guardian. Also, the 3 last options put mesmers in the worst DPS position of all classes.

Guardians, instead, can grant tons of healing, tons of condition removal, can give a good amount of boons, lots of might stacks, while keeping a very high DPS thanks to a powerful autoattack, a perma upgraded base damage and lots and lots of burnings.

As I said before:
Mesmers are good for their utilities (Null Flield, feedback, Inspiration signet, portal, arcane thievery and Time Warp), and for the reflections.
So build around these options in pve and let to the masters (guardians and eles) do what they are the best doing, support through healing and condition removal.

PD: And please, the next time you compare two profession, don’t put a list of all the options they have. Instead, put a list of the maximum options you can have in a single build. Cause we’re limited to 2 weapon sets, 3 utilities, 1 elite skill and 70 trait points, and some professions, like mesmers, suffer a lot when you want to put more than one main objective in the same build.

I dont really see how a mantra discussion became a Mesmer vs Guardian rant thread. Because that argument is real easy – Guardian is the better bunker, Mesmer is the better damage dealer, end of story. It doesnt matter what kind of hybrids, variants or extreme builds you do. With the changes a mantra Mesmer is pretty much the best group supporting bunker build we got but the Guardian is still better at it.

Dawdler.8521:

I dont really see how a mantra discussion became a Mesmer vs Guardian rant thread. Because that argument is real easy – Guardian is the better bunker, Mesmer is the better damage dealer, end of story. It doesnt matter what kind of hybrids, variants or extreme builds you do. With the changes a mantra Mesmer is pretty much the best group supporting bunker we got but the Guardian is still better at it.

The discussion came about because someone had made the claim that this mantra buff “made guardians obsolete.”

A soldier-runed guardian with a torch is not a valid base of comparison because no one would seriously run a build like that. Let’s talk about a common general-DPS mesmer build (0/20/0/25/25) versus a common general-DPS guardian build (10/30/0/5/25) instead.

Mesmer: Sw/Sw + Sw/F with Feedback, Mantra of Resolve, Mantra of Concentration, Time Warp
- All the reflect
- 2 conditions cleansed twice, total 4 conditions per 24s
- 2 seconds of stability twice, total 4s stability per 29s
- Phantasms provide perma-regen

Guardian, GS + Sw/Sh, Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames, Stand Your Ground, Renewed Focus
- 16s total projectile block/reflect approximately every 40s.
- 3 conditions removed per 32s from Purging, 3 conditions removed per kitten from Resolve, another 3 per 90s from Renewed > Resolve
- 6s stability per 30s
- One-time burst of aegis, two-time burst of protection
- Spammable blind

I suppose you could make the case that the guardian removes more overall conditions in any relevant period of time since fights are unlikely to take more than a minute, so it could be competitive with Resolve’s removal. And also to argue that one longer-duration stability is more useful than two shorter duration ones, so let’s leave those aside. That leaves us with:

Mesmer:
- Better reflection
- Better single-target DPS
- Time Warp
- Potential to double boons if Signet of Inspiration is taken in lieu of one of the other utilities
- Perma-regen

Guardian:
- Ability to put aegis, protection, and blinds in bursts.
- Better AOE/cleave damage
- Potential to use Tome of Wrath if Renewed is not needed
- Potential to boost own DPS via signet/meditations if certain utilities are not needed

There are certain guardian builds that can be used to take advantage of certain guardian strengths (i.e. hammer builds that stack perma-prot on top of Strength in Numbers) but here I’m referring to the things people usually take guardians for in the first place: condition removal, blocks, and stability. And mesmers handle everything but blocks just fine and have other distinct advantages, while other classes can take on blinds/blocks/etc. with their own unique advantages. Guardian is sort of jack of all trades but master of none while mesmer is master of all trades but jack of none.

example one of guardian footage in wvw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ1F7imRM-E
compare.. gimme example.. while mesmer can better damage dealer while supporting better while better surviving while better tanking.. and put spoon of mantras on it.. lol
really maybe i am missing.. where and why should i use mantra.. ? as this fights.. in wvw.. risk / reward … omg 2.45 sec.. atleast it is not 3.15 sec as before… maybe look for full side of glass.. or just put a horse glasses on us and remind that gw2 is pvp game.. wanna proof? biggest one we dont have offical gvg.. why i say gvg.. it is large scaled groups (guilds) fights in fair.. or send me videos that it can show me to not think as this.. i dont mean to be destructive, this is my truth and havent changed yet since i enough experiance and knowladgable..
maybe we should ask these questions for tpvp for supcutie or helseth
or for wvw in guild raids.. i can trust blackdevil experiance who is topic starter …
or for gvg maybe top gvg guilds core mesmers.. as VII or scnd ?

It’s really amazing how you makes things valid/invalid just based on your opinion, on how their are implemented in the most used build, or your optimal party, I mean, whatever specific situation is optimal for mesmers, and not for others.

I put that build just to show you that there is no way a support mesmer obsoletes a support guardian, if that one makes a truly support build. Again, I don’t care if people won’t use them, but that proves guards are still than mesmers in support.

I don’t think comparing 2 offensive builds, and take the one who brings more support, means that a the class that “lost” now is obsolete in pve.

Oh, the last sentence made my day. That really explains why all professional guilds in wvw have, at least, one guardian per party. And why many people think that a DPS guardian build is only out-DPS by a warrior or an ele. And why guards are a must in sPvP…

And please, for the last time, don’t put reflections in the comparison to make the mesmer win your dilemma, if you’re not counting the healings from guards.

Now, my vision of the new stuff for the mantras.

It is good that they have in mind that mantras haven’t been that good, but they’re not fixing their principal problem. The fact that they need nearly 3s just to have them ready, makes them inviable in many parts of the game.
In WvW and PvP, interruptions are there even if you don’t want, and they completely mess the mantras.
In PvE, instead, they are good, cause there are very few interruptions, and most of them are very predictable, but I’m still not very keen on them:
- Since we have a lot of awesome utilities, I still prefer not taking them and stay with the traditionals blink, nullfield, feedback, sigil of inspiration, idisenchanter…
- Cause I would need to change my traits quite a lot, and I also play a lot of WvW.
- And cause even this new buffs are not quite good as they seem. The extremely small radius make them only viable in melee bosses, and their effects, Condi cleaning and stability, are still very meh.

Guanglai Kangyi clearly talks about PvE, why are you bringing up WvW in an attempt to debunk his claims?

me? :S i dont mention anybody except anet cuz of its their product.. i am asking those questions.. cuz i interest fair mathces with group oriented large scale

I didn’t started the WvW mesmer-guard comparison. But in WvW, guards are the only class that can mantain a puch of mesmers alive against a panic aoe skill situation. So if in WvW they can do that, they can do the same in PvE, and the sentence “Mesmers basically obsolate guardians” has no sense.

Also, there are some sentences that show his argument is inconsistent.
“There are certain guardian builds that can be used to take advantage of certain guardian strengths” and he uses a generic base build for guardians and a modified generic build for mesmers. He is comparing the 2 classes in a very mesmer-friendly scenario, where is full of projectiles, single boss with no aoe damage, nobody needs heals…

“People usually take guardians for in the first place: condition removal, blocks, and stability.” Well, mesmers are take for utilities and reflections, so why to roll a mesmer to do the guardian job, and build the guardian to do others work? If I want reflection I will take my mesmer. And I prefer a guardian to support me.

More stupid facts: In one post he puts Mesmer Condition removal> Guard. But when you see why, you realize that with the mesmer, he takes all the condition removal possibilities that mesmers have, while with the guardian he takes only 3 of the big amount of sources of guardian condition removal.

And finally, the most glorious sentence one can say: “Guardian is sort of jack of all trades but master of none while mesmer is master of all trades but jack of none.” When the reality shows that is goes more in the other side. There are specific areas in than no class can even do a similar thing than a guardian, while mesmer is the most adaptable class to all kind of situations.

There’s literally two things mesmers do poorly at, at least as far as dungeons are concerned:

1) AOE DPS
2) Extremely AOE-heavy fights where phantasms are difficult to maintain, i.e. Arah P1 Ooze or Arah P2 Abomination

Outside of that, they are pretty much top or close to top in every other category. Damage, utility, survivability, support, etc.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

There’s literally two things mesmers do poorly at, at least as far as dungeons are concerned:

1) AOE DPS
2) Extremely AOE-heavy fights where phantasms are difficult to maintain, i.e. Arah P1 Ooze or Arah P2 Abomination

Outside of that, they are pretty much top or close to top in every other category. Damage, utility, survivability, support, etc.

Damage? Lolol. For AOE damage nothing beats an FGS ele, or warriors (if you are talking relfects you are talking of a much smaller number of boss encounters). Utility YOU MAY have something here with the reflects, thats about it tho. Engis have possibly some of the best utility as long as they aren’t built selfish (ie elixir nades and thats it.) Support? Lol almost every other class has some pretty sweet support. The best a mesmer has is phantasmal defender which is sweet don’t get me wrong, but you don’t have empower (warriors), spotter (rangers), strength in numbers (guards), on top of that you have timewarp which is great but not seen as a necessity in dungeon runs anymore since the nerf. Then warriors have banner buffs which are godly especially if coordinated and you have more than one warrior in the group.

Mesmers have ONE blast finisher on a crap weapon and no firefields for might stacking… You keep forgetting that blasting firefields to stack might is one of the single most important things when coming to a dungeon run because self might stacking through something like IP or what have you is nothing when you can team stack everyone to 25 stacks in about 5s.

I love mesmers the reflects are great, they have some decent self sustain, but outside of time warp and maybe the defender their team support isn’t as hot as you make it and certainly not better than guards, warriors, eles, etc.

I am actually disappointed with the mantra of concentration actually. Ya 2 secounds of stability is ok and all…but other class’s can do it much better than us. Longer duration,bigger aoe,other boons and such.

What I think they should do is make the skill break allies out of stuns, launches,cc’s. That way it’s not a stability only support. But a anti stun support.
The stability by itself with that low of a duration is pointless. You are not going to get that on a ally in time to stop a cc. But a ability to break allies close enough to you out of the cc. That’s support.

Would be a unique and interesting support that the Mesmer could have.

Chaos.3579:

I am actually disappointed with the mantra of concentration actually. Ya 2 secounds of stability is ok and all…but other class’s can do it much better than us. Longer duration,bigger aoe,other boons and such.

What I think they should do is make the skill break allies out of stuns, launches,cc’s. That way it’s not a stability only support. But a anti stun support.
The stability by itself with that low of a duration is pointless. You are not going to get that on a ally in time to stop a cc. But a ability to break allies close enough to you out of the cc. That’s support.

Would be a unique and interesting support that the Mesmer could have.

This is a change that I could get behind. AOE stunbreaks are extremely extremely rare.

jportell.2197:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

There’s literally two things mesmers do poorly at, at least as far as dungeons are concerned:

1) AOE DPS
2) Extremely AOE-heavy fights where phantasms are difficult to maintain, i.e. Arah P1 Ooze or Arah P2 Abomination

Outside of that, they are pretty much top or close to top in every other category. Damage, utility, survivability, support, etc.

Damage? Lolol. For AOE damage nothing beats an FGS ele, or warriors (if you are talking relfects you are talking of a much smaller number of boss encounters). Utility YOU MAY have something here with the reflects, thats about it tho. Engis have possibly some of the best utility as long as they aren’t built selfish (ie elixir nades and thats it.) Support? Lol almost every other class has some pretty sweet support. The best a mesmer has is phantasmal defender which is sweet don’t get me wrong, but you don’t have empower (warriors), spotter (rangers), strength in numbers (guards), on top of that you have timewarp which is great but not seen as a necessity in dungeon runs anymore since the nerf. Then warriors have banner buffs which are godly especially if coordinated and you have more than one warrior in the group.

Mesmers have ONE blast finisher on a crap weapon and no firefields for might stacking… You keep forgetting that blasting firefields to stack might is one of the single most important things when coming to a dungeon run because self might stacking through something like IP or what have you is nothing when you can team stack everyone to 25 stacks in about 5s.

I love mesmers the reflects are great, they have some decent self sustain, but outside of time warp and maybe the defender their team support isn’t as hot as you make it and certainly not better than guards, warriors, eles, etc.

1) You need to wall the target for FGS.
2) I just said mesmer lacks in AOE DPS.
3) Signet of Inspiration.
4) Mantras.

I literally have no reason to play my guardian anymore. He has two legendaries and I have no reason to use them. If I’m running Arah or some other “hard” dungeon where I don’t trust the pugs to manage on their own, I run mesmer. Otherwise I run ele for DPS or ranger or engineer for offensive support. I cannot think of a single dungeon path where I would go “man I need to get on my guardian for this.”

Why the kitten are you comparing 2 totally different prof with eachother? If you really wanna know whats better I can make you a mesmer vs guardian topic to discuss there.

There we have it again.

Guang is the hero every ignorant player needs, but one that none of them wants.

(this is a compliment, dont go and spam reports on me like a little b*tt bothered baby!)

Hm, I only had a short look on mantras again, but what bothered me the most is their CD being bound to the last usage instead of their charge or first-use.
This, unless I’m missing sth., derives to spam-using-them-up being generally more versatile than using them in dosages, where you’d get screwed-over-time.
Let’s say start-fight, after 5 sec use all heals + (cd + charge time), versus use heal on 5 sec, 15sec + (cd + charge time) -> Next Heal up 10 secs later in comparison.
This effectively counters the concept of charges.

I’m fine if I’m wrong about that, it’s just my perception of mantras ;D