I know its highly unlikely that ANET will read this or actually do anything or care but why can’t they buff Chrono’s damage a bit?
I mean its a class that is unique to the game so you would think they would show it some extra love, but no.
It gets lumped into a support/tank role that not a lot of folks are keen to do. Be nice if the dps was bumped a bit to make bringing a Chrono to a raid for damage AND buffs instead of “Oh your Chrono, tank plz”!
But yea, I know I am talking to a wall but still sometimes nice just to vent…never know, someone might give a care?
One can hope….
Because if Chrono had damage AND all the utility it does it’d be even more mandatory than it already feels.
The elite specs aren’t meant to be upgrades ( so says anet) they’re supposed to just be a way to make your character more unique/different from the base class/fit your style more or w/e. Whether or not they actually do that is debatable.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
“The elite specs aren’t meant to be upgrades ( so says anet) they’re supposed to just be a way to make your character more unique/different from the base class/fit your style more or w/e. Whether or not they actually do that is debatable.”
But would anyone give you a nod if you didn’t run Chrono? Only class I have ever seen be “accepted” without Elite is Condi Engi but would be nice to see others as well. Bu then if you didn’t bring Chrono to the table what do you bring?
Because if Chrono had damage AND all the utility it does it’d be even more mandatory than it already feels.
The elite specs aren’t meant to be upgrades ( so says anet) they’re supposed to just be a way to make your character more unique/different from the base class/fit your style more or w/e. Whether or not they actually do that is debatable.
Mesmer needs a base damage buff in terms of its weapon modifiers and weapon damage (and having our stats affect phantasms too, and possibly giving clones some real damage). This would by default also buff chrono without this fake problem you present.
@OP Chronomancer and mesmer definitely need damage buffs. Since alacrity is reduced, it isn’t even the best party buff anymore, and that argument was the primary justification seen as a reason for why our damage is so low. The class needs to be looked at for sure. At the very least its weapon modifiers in PvE need tobe increased
I didn’t say not to buff base Mesmer damage, I was saying not to buff chrono damage, saying “we need to buff chrono damage” implies you want to increase the damage you deal when you take the chrono trait line, which shouldn’t happen.
Buffing baseline Mesmer is the appropriate approach, chrono doesn’t need to bring more than it already does for Mesmer, but Mesmer certainly needs to be CAPABLE of filling damage roles instead of being forced into an alacrity not role like it currently is.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
“The elite specs aren’t meant to be upgrades ( so says anet) they’re supposed to just be a way to make your character more unique/different from the base class/fit your style more or w/e. Whether or not they actually do that is debatable.”
But would anyone give you a nod if you didn’t run Chrono? Only class I have ever seen be “accepted” without Elite is Condi Engi but would be nice to see others as well. Bu then if you didn’t bring Chrono to the table what do you bring?
Ranger is also brought without Druid so long as you don’t need healing, having Druid in your traits literally ruins your damage potential.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
“The elite specs aren’t meant to be upgrades ( so says anet) they’re supposed to just be a way to make your character more unique/different from the base class/fit your style more or w/e. Whether or not they actually do that is debatable.”
But would anyone give you a nod if you didn’t run Chrono? Only class I have ever seen be “accepted” without Elite is Condi Engi but would be nice to see others as well. Bu then if you didn’t bring Chrono to the table what do you bring?
Ranger is also brought without Druid so long as you don’t need healing, having Druid in your traits literally ruins your damage potential.
If by “brought” you mean ‘well, we just spent 15 minutes on LFG trying to find another dps, I guess I can’t really turn down a ranger’ then sure. I would never bring a ranger in a dps role unless none of the better options were available (ele, thief, necro, guardian, engie) or I was explicitly not worried about group composition for whatever reason.
Actually (core) condi ranger can top dps some of those classes you just mentioned. Its recent, but tests shows condi ranger can pump slightly better dps than condi engie (and having easier rotations). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjaVbrtqP3Y
(check video description for sylvari version screenshot for ze lulz)
So its a viable dps option, and i would say optimal in w1 bosses that dont move so much/the need of condi dmg.
This is a core Mesmer problem that’s been done to death on this forum. In absolutely optimal scenarios for Phantasm DPS, we’re on par with other classes, and that’s used as the balancing point for our class’ damage. Balance considerations need to take into account that those optimal scenarios pretty much never occur, but they don’t and probably never will.
Some possible changes that could help mesmer with personal damage.
Staff 3, phantasmal warlock. Increase base damage by 50% (according to the wiki this would make its coefficient 1.75) but decrease the added damage per unique condition on the foe to 5%. This boosts the effectiveness of the warlock in PvE since you won’t have to rely on enemies being loaded with conditions, and because its projectile is stupid and is useless with any change in verticality, it won’t have much effect on PvP.
Staff 1, winds of chaos. Increase attack speed by 15% (would still take 1.122 seconds per cast, still one of the slowest autos in the game to my knowledge). I don’t want to touch this skill too much because I don’t use staff in PvP and I don’t know if increasing the attack speed and damage would be too much. But at least in PvE this would help out a lot, at least it would make me feel like my character is actually doing something.
Sword 2, blurred frenzy. Right now this skill has more use as a blur effect than a damage skill due to its low damage. Increase the damage of the skill by 10%. Sword is the damage oriented melee range weapon that mesmers have, I don’t see why 1 of its 3 mainhand skills should have more use as an evade than a way to deal damage.
Sword 1. Increase the damage coefficient of the first 2 skills in the chain by 10% (this makes it a coefficient of .726). Double the damage that Mind Spike does when the foe has no boons on them, increase its damage by 15% if the foe has a boon that is removed. The rationale behind this is that most non boss enemies in PvE have no boons, so this is a significant buff to our auto attack damage (even though its still much worse than other classes can put out) while not having much effect in PvP since most players are running around with at least 1 boon on. Overall it won’t make too much of a difference in PvP fights.
Scepter 1 chain. Increase damage by 10% but remove application of torment on the first skill.
Scepter 3, confusing images. Apply 4 stacks of confusion and 2 stacks of torment instead of 6 stacks of confusion.
Focus 4. Apply 2 seconds of quickness the first time allies run through the curtain. Decrease time before you can use Into the Void to .8 seconds.
Pistol 4, phantasmal duelist. Make damage scale with weapon strength.
Pistol 5, magic bullet. I don’t use pistol on mesmer and don’t really know how well this skill works. But I believe it would work better by only hitting 2 enemies: applying stun and confusion to the first, daze and blind to the second enemy. Also increase its damage, but not sure by how much.
Torch 5, phantasmal mage. Reduce cast time by 10%. The phantasm already has a long cooldown on its attack.
GS 1, spatial surge. Make damage consistent at all ranges. Reduce cast time by 1/10th of a second.
GS 3, mind stab. Increase damage by 70% if the enemy has no boons in PvE only.
Overall I tried to make as small of changes as possible while still buffing our damage overall. This is just a rough draft, and some of these may be a little too powerful, but I did my best to make changes whose effects would be primarily felt in PvE. Aside from that, the goal of these is to make all weapons that a mesmer can use better and more fun to wield. Because torch’s main use is stealth and light condi application, I tried to leave it alone considering that the stealth it can provide is already more powerful assuming all of these proposed changes are introduced. I also tried to avoid outright buffing GS since a mesmer that has a good burst rotation can already deal a huge burst using GS, but it did have some things that I think needed fixing for PvE. Of course this only addresses low weapon damage, it doesn’t address the problem of phantasms not using our stats and clones doing zero damage and being used only for shatter spam.
I posted in this thread because I think its relevant, and also because I don’t think these ideas are fully hatched out, in which case they do not deserve their own thread.
Wow, that’s some great info there! Didn’t think I had hit a nerve but it seems this has been an issue for some time.
And yea, I meant overall Mesmer damage, not just with Chrono. But ok, with these issues what does “everyone” run, in PVE? In spite of the dps sucking I do see a lot of Mesmers out running around, even in Bloodstone and such. Is it soley because the class is fun or are there ways to bump up the damage and not be a wet noodle?
I ask because yes, the class is fun, and unique, and that’s what I am looking for outside of a raiding toon.
And Ori….great, great info and thoughts there mate, hope someone gives them a look along with other stuff you all have posted.
Thanks guys!
I think it could be safe to change Harmonious mantra as well :
Drop the charge increase but decrease the channelling time by 20%. Increase the Mantra strength duration to 20-30 sec.
That way the 15% bonus is more easily maintained and renewed but still need to bring and activate 3 mantras minimum to be full power. the channel time reduction may also be beneficial for the restorative mantras trait.
If not enough, the mantra strength charge could be increased to 4 %.
Another change would be to make phantasm benefit from mantra strength.
Yea that sounds like a good change as well. When I wrote that up I was just focused on weapon skills as I didn’t have enough time to go through traits and modify them to not only mesh with the new changes I propose but also make more traits useful without making them too overpowered. In a bit I’ll come back with a full list of proposed weapon, utility/elite skill, and trait changes
Disagree. Harmonious Mantra keeps the extra charge, but adds 1 second of quickness after you charge a Mantra. Making more than one Mantra on your skills bar more bearable.
Until they remove DPS being tied to phantasms it’s useless to talk buffing traits or adding more multipliers. Even in an ideal world where mesmer does output competitive DPS in it’s current state I would still laugh if someone wanted to play it. It’s not because I hate mesmers, it’s simple because they have terrible cleave and longer ramp up. Why would I want someone to bring that when I can get someone to roll guard, bringing nearly the same utility with better cleave and no wonkiness in ramp up time?
My top picks would be:
Phantasm damage reduced to same as illusions, remain only utility usage.
Adjust damage coefficients of weapons to compensate using other current in game weapon skills that do similar things as templates.
Add damage modifiers into traits and take some direct damage off mind wrack but add it onto Cry of frustration.
Also please, for the love of all things smooth and fun, don’t ask to have most of our damage mods come from harmonious mantras, I don’t want to be spending nearly 10s of every 30s fight casting the ruddy things.
@apharma I agree with you that our DPS needs to be broken away from phantasms, but I believe that we have a much better chance of getting traits and skills and modifiers adjusted than to get the complete class rework that we need. And in that light I want to make mesmer less sucky in PvE, which means changing traits and skills and increasing damage modifiers on our weapons.
