Guild Wars 2

Specifically Mantra of Recovery.

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Having the heal on channel-finish be stronger than the instant heal (especially with Restorative Mantras) encourages you to expend charges quickly so you can get the CD rolling for the stronger heal.

… Except the instant heals got halved in strength if you’re above 50% HP, counterintuitively encouraging you to hoard charges.

What exactly do you want Mantra of Recovery to be Anet? You can’t have “combat channelling” and “half-hearted OH CRAP button” in one skill.

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If you take Restorative Mantras (RIP Mantra traits… remember how many there used to be?) you’re almost better off going into battle with Mantra of Recovery uncharged.

Aren’t Mantras supposed to be pre-prepared spells?

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Also the ammo system works horribly with Mantras. The moment both charges are expended the ammo CD vanishes in a puff of smoke.

This plus ammo CD > channel CD and the new channel-finish effects means for most Mantras it’s almost always better to expend charges and rechannel: i.e. no different from before.

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There’s some good ideas here, but please don’t cram contradictory mechanics into the same skill.

Completely agreed.

Mantra of Recovery is a contradictory mess right now. You get more healing/faster cooldown if you burn through charges quickly to proc restorative mantras on channel than you do by waiting for “ammunition” to refill.

And as you said, the ridiculous contextual healing above/below 50% incentivises waiting to use it below 50% – but the charging mechanics make it more effective to use them as soon as your health drops low enough.

In any case the whole idea of mantra of recovery as compared with say, ether feast, is a relatively “spammable” heal for topping up your health when it drops below each charge’s heal amount, say when you fall below 75% health or so. It does not make sense with MoR to wait until you’re below 50% health before using the charges, because then you’re encouraged to spam both charges or risk dying.

Nevermind the other benefit of mantra heal being for use with mender’s purity (which is also badly nerfed), such that you want to use MoR charges to proc mender’s when you need to clear conditions – because the heal is small and the cooldown is low, it is less punishing than using ether feast or similar for the sake of removing conditions.

I strongly think the above/below 50% contextual mechanics needs to be removed and it reverted to a flat heal per charge, to start with. Fine, have it scaling more with healing power, I’m happy with that, but it should be a fixed amount.

Secondly the ammunition recharge should be reduced – 20s is crazy with the only benefit being you can let it passively fill up at the end of a fight when out of combat. In combat there is absolutely no point in waiting for ammunition refill. It could be 10s to match the cooldown of the skill, so if you happen to use one charge and don’t need one for another few seconds, it might be worth waiting a few more seconds rather than burning both and having the 10s normal cooldown. That might allow for some decision making as to when to use charges.

OK, maybe i am just to disappointed because i was crafting my first ascended gear right now, just to find out after this patch that it is now useless and i lost a ton of gold…so a warning: here are tears / crying, dont read when you think it could be too much and maybe later i find a last good thing on my mesmer but now there is nothing more than tears here you go:

Mantra of recovery now = useless…
Was nerved 2 times: It now can not have 3 charges, that was what i loved about it….and the healing you get is now a joke?

Ok i love the ammunition system but with just 2 charges it is like using 1 charge get just a LITTLE BIT health and then wait for it to recover, since when you use the second heal your skill goes on CD and that is what you dont want to happen…..

We are Mesmers, we need fast heal or we are fast dead…..

Most of the Mesmer-Heals have high CD…..and the only one with is maybe good enough for beeing an option is now mirror (and that just with the staff trait)….

Aslo it seemed that Anet is seeing the End-Gear Mesmers but not the beginners….i mean: wich new player would be playing this game when he is most time death just because he picked the “wrong” class…..and yes: Mesmer is my only and first class that i have this complete….and i loved to play it….but now….i just cant describe (and that is not just because english is not my main language…..it is because i cant find any word that desciribes my frustration enough….)….keep in mind that getting the first fully ascended gears is not cheap for players….the gold comes when you finished your gear but before this you are poor….

The well from the HoT elite i dont use, because 30 seconds is to high for a self heal….group heal ok…but self heal? how do you want to heal yourself when you have a 30 seconds CD? And i heard rumors that the new PoF elite has 30 seconds on his heal skill too….. After this last patch it is the first time, where i wish i could change my class with my char to keep map progression…..(it took me 3 years to get 1 char most maps discovered)….i love, love, love the idea of beeing a illusion throwing mesmer….but since the last patch the death is well…default…for a beeing a mesmer….

( i posted a longer text here..
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Easy-OPEN-world-Power-Build/first#post6688777 )

..i am dissapointed i dont wanna cry but i do…..i dont wanna repel my mesmer but when they dont buff healing (or at least the bonus that the healing stat gives)…..i dont know what to do….3 more years to get a new char that far?….tears falling….

Very well said. I’ve completely dropped mantras after the changes because:

1. Mantra of recovery heals too little for the cast time and risk involved.

2. The condition cleanse aspect is also no longer desirable because of how easy it is for conditions to be applied and covered. It is extremely frustrating to burn through 2 mantra charges and still not cleanse the bleeds that are really what I want gone. Before the odds of removal were much better.

3. Since I’m no longer using the mantra heal, and as a result dropping Inspiration, the 2s cast time of other mantras aren’t as desirable compared to what else I could take.

A little overdramtic Hib lol in any MMO any class will go up and down; just hav to ride that wave of tear and joy You know you can change ascended gear stats… unless it’s wasted because Mesmer is your only light armor class… anyways; I agree on mantras but not that it means Mesmer is crap now because of it; when were mantras a huge part of mes anyways? Disappointing for sure. And lots of balance/stuff before PoF w/ new class and current builds who knows how heal will be at least I HOPE Anet will not wait their usual 6 months it seems before balancing things…………

Overdramatic? I have played Mesmer 3 Years i WAS going up and down with all the changes….but THIS is the first change where i can not find any solution…..and yes it IS my only light armor class..(and 1 of 2 lvl 80 i have…the other one is my thief…that is just lvl 80 cause i used the boost from the HoT pack…no map discoverd, no story played with my thief…so no progression….no travel marks….nothing)…..i am maybe a little bit lazy..but i also have not that much time to play…but when i played i loved my mesmer….in other cases i would not have played her 3 years without changing the class…….in 3 years reached lvl 80 and have got my first 3 ascended armor pieces…ventari for healing…healing was good after that…..and i was happy that i was no longer bound to hit and run, run, run….also i wanted to go to close range after i get my fully ascended gear, to fight close to the enemie and no longer range…now it seems that every weapon i try out is not fast enough killing since every heal from me wents on CD and does not heal enough to keep me alive…and i CAN doging enemies attacks (that i have learned with the mesmer the last 3 years)….also dont forget that i still MISS some ascended pieces…..also it is not THAT cheap to change stats….i am poor at the moment since i crafted my 3rd ascended piece just 1 or 2 weeks before this last patch was released…

Also remember: new players dont start with ascended gear…and this class is with this low heal now good for keeping new players frustrated…..

And yes: i hope they balance fast…buffing or heal skill again OR getting more heal from the heal stat (more heal per stat point…)…..

Overdramatic…maybe for some ppl….but this is the first time EVER i am really, really disappointed about a change…and the first time i think of changing class…but i dont have a class that is that good with lvl, map progression AND story…and i know…that i will need for another class another 3 years…to get this far……i know i am lazy……but i like my gameplay style…so i am thinking of taking a break…the only reason why i dont take a break is…well…i wanna take a look at some new content….but beeing killed by 5 normal mobs at lake doric that i could solo easily before this patch is well…..absolutley intolerable…..so now i wanna have the option to transfer map / Story progression to another char….swapping it with another char….or having the option of changing class (not race…race would be a to great story impact)…. i have tested today every build i played in the years before…and just one is ok….but i dont like the needed playstyle for that….it is like: cast the phantasm and watch….dont do anything….the phantasm kills for you….it is not really the mesmer style i liked…..i loved to shatter, doging around the enemie, healing when i get a hit….now i need my phantasms living….and must be carefull to NOT shatter them….also i need to be carefull to dont beeing hit…

Now i really, really wished i would ever have done some pvp for the armor…..since a stat change would be now nice without any costs…but i never played pvp…

I’ll say first that I have seldomely used mantras in the past, no matter which iteration of design they had. They always felt clunky and undesirable or easily outperformed by our other heals (with some key situations here and there maybe like fear cleanse on Sloth).

The prepatch version was bearable I’d say, yet still most mantras were underused especially the utility ones.

Yes the recharge on MoR is longer than the cooldown and recharge combined, it’s also absolutely free of charge and requires 0 preperation time. For the player this means they get a free condi cleanse and minor heal on a set timer without having to worry about anything.

In a spvp envoriment no opponent worth their salt will let you get a recharge of your mantras through, in pve skilled play rewards you with a free charge every x seconds.

I get that people who enjoyed the old system are anoyed, I do have to say I think the new system has a lot more potential in different game modes and if slightly adjusted can serve as better method to keep mantras valid and useful.

Some of the comparisons in this thread are very onesided too. None of them account for the fact that the recharged mantra heal is free of charge. It costs you nothing and can be used inbetween any rotation.

I will agree to the fact that some of our mantra traits need to get adjusted to the new mechanic, especially Restorative Mantras. I do not think that the reduction of mantra traits is a bad thing, the mechanic in general was vastly underused (due to its clunkyness) and did not warrent so many traits spent on it.

If you want to take advantage of the recharge then you can never use both charges, so all it really is is a weak heal on a 20s CD.

To get the condi cleanse you then have to choose Inspiration, which is not at all “absolutely free” if you’re talking about PvE: it’s a pretty big hit to your DPS.

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Power Return is indeed instant and can be used any time. It was like that pre-patch too, you know? in fact all the patch did was heavily nerf it (halved healing above 50%, halved condi cleansing with Inspiration) in favour of giving buffs to channel-finish.

See why people have problem with this?

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I didn’t say the reduction of Mantra traits is a bad thing. We used to have what, four Mantra traits and honestly that was very crappy. They’ve been consolidated since then (Protected baseline, Empowered and Harmonious combined: although I’ll point out all three of these old Mantra trait effects are now completely removed).

I agree with you about the mantra heal, OP.

But I disagree on the other mantra skills. I think mantras are suddenly fun to use, and good to use. Before this patch, you couldn’t have paid me 500 gold to use mantras, now I love to use them. I like the direction they’re going.

But yeah, the heal mantra is terrible. It needs a buff.

Yes, please. Mantras need a change.

I really like the idea of mantras – to have it set up and used at the right time feels really fun, however:

1. The recharge time makes the ammunition mechanic almost non-existent for the mantras.

2. The nerfs to the the heal mantra (when above 50%) and Mender’s Purity, make me feel that the patch was actually a nerf to mantras than a buff to make it more used.

Changes:

The number of charges should go up (3) for the mantras, with a reduction to the ammunition recovery cooldown so that you can actually get some milage out of it instead of just getting the milage when you fully disengage.

As ANET wants to make it different from Firebrand’s scaling mantras (where the last one is a more powerful version) by having it be a “in-combat casting” type of mantra, a reduction to the cast time is very important.

With mantras still having a 2s1/4 cast time per mantra it is almost impossible to prepare more than one during combat (running 2 mantras means you would be a full 4s1/2 literally doing nothing in a fight other than preparing your mantras for a very negligible benefit in most cases).

So change charges, ammunition recovery time and set up cast time would really help to make the skill be fun / useful.

So I need to point out one thing here, ANet explicitly said that they wanted mesmer mantras to be unique from firebrand (or whatever its called) mantras. And to accomplish that, our mantras were designed to encourage combat casting. Its literally intended for us to “waste” our charges so that we have to rechannel to get the effect we actually want from the mantra. Think of the charges as just being bonuses at this point.

Now, whether you think the new mantras accomplish this goal and have a payout relative to their charge time is a different issue. But we are supposed to be combat casting them.

As for my issues with them, I haven’t spent much time with the new mantras so I will update this later once I play with them more. But a few big issues:

• 2.25 seconds is still a ridiculously long channel time, especially in a PvP environment. Ideally we should have a 1.75 sec cast time. Still long, but no skill that isn’t broken is worth a 2+ second channel that can be interrupted. 2.25 seconds is still too long imo

• The ammunition system was a real chance to cater the amount of charges each mantra received specific to that skill. For example, power lock is powerful and as such is good at just having 2 charges, but power return might be better balanced with 3 charges considering the large cooldown on each charge.

• As others have pointed out, the recharge time on the charges is a bit ridiculous for some of the mantras. Power break is particularly bad for a variety of reasons. A 30 second CD on a stunbreak is not that bad really, but the focus was supposed to be on combat casting, so why is the charge effect better than the effect we get once we fully channel mantra of concentration? Power break breaks stun and grants 3 stacks of stab, fully channeling mantra of concentration (which, btw, is no small task to do without stab already on you in a competiive environment) gives you a single stack of stab and aegis. This active effect is not strong enough to warrant combat casting of this mantra imo

• Power return in particular is a really weak heal. Revert the nerf to healing if we are above 50% health. Consider that this is a 2.25 second channel just to get access to our heal skill. it takes a considerable amount of investment to guarantee that channel, and our reward is a 20 second heal that is significantly less powerful than mirror (a full second faster cast time, extra ~1,500 base healing from the “under 50% health” healing value from power return, extra ~2,700 base healing from the “above 50% health” healing power from power return, along with a much higher HP modifier, along with a base CD of only 15 seconds, which is 5 seconds faster than the recharge time on power return). I get the purpose of the skill and everything, but it doesn’t make sense to nerf the healing so hard when we are above 50% health. Just remove that stupid change. Even if we blow through both charges immediately, it takes a total of 3.25 seconds to get a grand total of 7,860 health back, and that’s assuming that you were so low that both the heal on channel and the first charge we’re not enough to get you back above 50% health. That is beyond weak for the amount of investment we have to put for that, and conditions we have to meet.

These are the biggest issues that I see with mantras right now

Mantras had a way? When?

I mean, sure, back at release there was an interesting conceptual idea there, pay the casting-time “beforehand”, and then get an instant cast skill out of it. But of course if combat is long, you end up having to recast it, and then it becomes a weak point.

The idea was really cool. Of course, the implementation was problematic as with so many things done by ANet (good idea, bad execution), and they never realized that idea ingame.

Then, instead of going back and iterating on the concept, they promptly scrapped it by embracing the “weak per use, multiple charges”-design first shoved onto them by Harmonious Mantras. So instead of working to counteract the problematic element of the skill type, they embraces it and tried to re-tool them around this, leading to all kinds of weird indirect problems. Just look how often they had to decrease charge-up cast time over the years, because the new concept just isn’t a viable one for GW2 skills.

Now, I’m not saying the original design was good. Not as implemented. But it had potential, the underlying idea of making you able to cast ahead of use, but pay with a longer cast time, that’s cool. Neat concept.

But it was never meant to be.

And the new ammo version? It’s no better and no worse than the precious multi-charge one IMO. Both are really, really, really bad and uninspired. Meh. At least I can finally see my charges on the toolbar, so that’s a plus.

I disagree on the ammo system not being any better. I think its a vast improvement over the previous iteration. The implementation leaves a lot to be desired, but it gives Anet more control over mantras, so they now have the ability to customize each mantra more than they used to.

The idea is nice. The implementation is a lot worse than “leaves a lot to be desired”, it’s non-existent.

The ammo system for Mantras is very different from the ammo system on every other skill. Why?

Because the moment you use your second charge, the Mantra will stop recharging and completely lose all progress.

So all the ammo system does for Mantras is give you the “choice” of using a single charge on a disproportionately long CD.

If you use that second charge, the ammo system isn’t just figuratively non-existent, it’s literally non-existent.

As far as I can tell none of the mantras were nerfed. They simply had numbers reshuffled to account for the on charge effects. Yes the recharge is excessive, but waiting for reloads is unnecessary.

It seems count recharges are affected by alacrity. As a result the first charge can restored if its spent during a continuum split. Probably part of the reason why harmonious no longer exists.

I personally like the on charge effects and I don’t miss Harmonious Mantras. But I wished we’d still have a meaningful Mantra trait. Restorative Mantras harldy counts as that. Additionally, Duelling now is the only traitline without a trait associated to a utility group. Not that this is bad per se. But it feels off.