~An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.~
Merciful Madness: GM Trait Idea
(edited by Pyroathiest.4168)
I’d rather enjoy that one … it’d give my shaman/apothecary set some serious usage
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“The jealous are troublesome to others, but certainly a torment to themselves.”
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but certainly a torment to themselves.”
I really really like the idea. But instead of a stand-alone trait I would love to see this as the secondary effect of the scepter trait. Remove the condition damage. Rename it to Merciful Sorcery. This could actually be the supportive, defensive and tricky thing the devs have been looking for to add to the scepter. Next step: Rework Restorative Illusions into a Glamour trait. 
I see two issues though which are mainly related to WvW and zerging. Confusing Enchantments could cause unpredictable chain reactions because the trait lacks a target cap. Also Confusing Images could become insanely strong because hitting more than one target is pretty easy in big fights. Both might cause balancing issues since we might be looking at about 100 health healed per stack Confusion per action of the affected person.
(edited by Xaylin.1860)
Thanks for the Feedback everyone.
Although I share some of the cynicism that any of these ideas would ever see the light of day, there is hope. After seeing that a lot of the ideas generated by the community are now to be implemented (free anywhere trait reset, quest driven trait unlocks, backpedal on a misguided Deceptive Evasion nerf etc.) I do think the devs are at least reading and considering ideas put forth on the forums. Really just want this idea to make it somewhere into the pile of ideas at some future morning staff meeting.
@Xaylin: Interesting point about reworking the scepter trait Malicious Sorcery, hadn’t thought of that. I do think though that even with a lot of balancing adjustments to the strength of ‘Merciful Madness’ it would still need to be a Grandmaster trait.
Your idea about reworking Malicious Sorcery got me thinking. I’ve had this idea floating around about how to rework the scepter 1 auto-attack. Maybe this idea, instead of being the default would be tied to Malicious Sorcery. Something like:
Malicious Sorcery – Ether Bolt & Ether Blast are projectile finishers. Reduce recharge on scepter skills.
Here is the full details of how I see this working:
A suggestion for scepter auto-attack:
- Make Ether Bolt a projectile finisher.
- Make Ether Blast a blast finisher.
- The Ether Bolt cast by clones would also be a projectile finisher.
- Scepter is the only mesmer weapon without a finisher. Even our underwater weapons have finishers.
- Creates interesting possibilities with glamors, which synergizes well with the Inspiration trait line.
- Adds potential for both AoE and support capabilities in groups.
- Enhances conditions builds without creating a spammy quality to it.
- Gives an alternative (or compliment) to staff as a defensive weapon in holding points in PvP
- The projectile speed needs to be increased or the pre-cast animation reduced, or both.
I think this suggestion is almost perfect, but if the blast finisher on the second attack proves to be OP (as I think it might) then here is my slight variation and some examples of how simply changing the first two scepter auto-attacks (as well as clone attacks) to 100% projectile finishers would play out.
- Ether Bolt: Shoot a bolt of energy at your target. 100% projectile finisher.
- Ether Blast: Shoot a second bolt of energy at your target. 100% projectile finisher.
- Ether Clone: Shoot out a third bolt of energy that damages your target. Summon a clone that casts Ether Bolt.
- Opens up interesting weapon combinations such as scepter/focus by using the light field of Temporal Curtain as a way to remove 2 conditions with the first 2 auto-attacks of the scepter.
- Using Veil in much the same way as above to remove 2 conditions and then stealth.
- Firing through an ethereal field would apply two stacks of confusion solidifying it’s identity as a confusion weapon.
- More varied interplay with other combo fields such as being able to life-steal through a necromancers dark field at range or applying burning to a target unwilling to cross through a fire field (Burning Speed / Ring of Fire).
- The clones would be creating the same effects but since they are usually grouped around the target would serve mainly to reapply chill/burning/poison/blind etc. for as long as the target stands in the combo field. The most powerful scenario for the clones would be standing within an ethereal field as they will be sustaining around 4 stacks of confusion on the target while the field lasts (with 3 clones). Combos like life-steal, regeneration & condition removal will have little impact on the clones and so balance this.
- In dungeons and group events scepter would have more support utility, even if used by a non-condition build. The clones would at least be adding duration to any combo fields put down while waiting to be shattered and the scepters auto-attacks would help keep the mesmer and the team alive (regeneration, life-steal, chill, weakness, blindness).
- Since players in PvP and WvW hopefully don’t just stand in combo fields this change would indirectly help re-balancing PvE with regards to Confusion. More stacks of confusion for NPCs standing in an ethereal field, punishing the mindless being a mesmer specialty.
- Extremely easy for the Devs to dial in the right strength of this after testing by adjusting percentages if needed.
In short it makes the scepter more tricksy and supportive, more situationally random not just RNG. More like the unpredictably confusing magicians wand it was intended to be.
Good point about the possibility of Merciful Madness being overpowered in large groups (zerg v zerg) but I still believe a balance could be reached by adjusting the amount of healing that is converted from the Confusion damage.
~An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.~
What I find most interesting about the mechanic of enemy Confusion healing allies is the potential for zerg busting by Mesmers. In a zerg v zerg fight the default tactic of ‘spam 1’ would have to be more flexible, since if a lot of Confusion is flying around even if the Confusion damage is getting out healed by the zerg they run the risk of continually healing the enemy team.
This would give the potential for Mesmers to tip the scale of zerg v zerg fights. Of course the same counters to Confusion would apply (stop using skills or cleanse the Confusion) but it would add another level of team-wide punishment if these counter measures are ignored.
A number of unskilled players in a zerg just spamming skills and trying to out heal Confusion damage would now be healing the enemy team. Once realized this would make for a third counter to Confusion, scatter or isolate away from enemies. If you are out of condition removal but can out heal the Confusion damage the smart move would be to go at range away from groups of enemies so as not to heal them while fighting. Sort of the flip side to the Necromancer’s Epidemic (instead of being pressured to run from allies you will be ‘motivated’ to gain distance from enemies). Thus large groups could be strategically manipulated to disperse by a focused group of zerg busting Mesmers. And what a beautiful sight that would be.
This mechanic would be punishing to players that stay attacking in melee range with various forms of invulnerability and high health regeneration. Even if they are semi-invulnerable and out healing the constant Confusion damage ticks they are healing the enemies around them with each attack and need to rethink their strategy.
Also interesting is that no one would really know beforehand if a particular Mesmer has taken this trait. Much like Diamond Skin you would only realize this as the fight progresses. Once you see that you’ve just eaten 5k worth of Confusion damage and your opponent’s health has just jumped up simultaneously you’ll (hopefully) quickly adjust your tactics.
This would also make Confusion useful to non-Condition Mesmers to add sustain to otherwise glassy power builds without the need for healing power. Phantasm builds would have their illusions healed by the Confusion ticks, shatter and lockdown builds getting a little clutch healing when in melee. The scepter and torch’s Confusion adding skills would be useful as potential healing tools even for a purely power based build.
Granted the numbers would need to be adjusted to keep everything in balance but I do see a lot of interesting potential in the concept.
Wish I could mod GW2 like I do Skyrim just so I could try it out.
~An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.~
@Xaylin: Interesting point about reworking the scepter trait Malicious Sorcery, hadn’t thought of that. I do think though that even with a lot of balancing adjustments to the strength of ‘Merciful Madness’ it would still need to be a Grandmaster trait.
…
Good point about the possibility of Merciful Madness being overpowered in large groups (zerg v zerg) but I still believe a balance could be reached by adjusting the amount of healing that is converted from the Confusion damage.
If you think it can be balanced as a stand-alone trait this will also be the case if it was added to the scepter trait . It’s not like the reduced weapon cooldown on the trait is too strong to add anything else. It is mediocre at best because the cooldowns are low anyway.
As said earlier, ANet actually said that they were looking for something to change the scepter into a ‘tricky defender’ for your allies. Your idea would be a perfect fit. Changing the AA to be a projectile finisher doesn’t fullfil the briefing. I guess it comes down to personal preference wether it should be a stand-alone trait or attached to the scepter. I personally would prefer the latter.
Another thing which came to my mind. As long as the heal is linked to the damage of the applied Confusion perplexity runes will be mandatory. It might actually be reasonable to make it heal a fixed amount regardless of the damage the Confusion deals to take the stack size out of the equation. The heal could still slightly scale with condition damage (e.g. like healing power works for heals). Of course, this would be less sophisticated than your idea and it would require less skillful play (no need to stack Confusion) but it would be way easier to balance.
I feel like people come up with some pretty great stuff in the Mesmer forum, and it makes me sad that none of this will ever see the light of day.
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I feel like people come up with some pretty great stuff in the Mesmer forum, and it makes me sad that none of this will ever see the light of day.
That’s hardly true.
I mean this isn’t about the Mesmer forum, but the idea that Scarlet should destroy LA if she wanted to actually antagonize the players was something I posted – and the thread got fairly fairly long :P – back when the very first living story patch went live, wasn’t even about Scarlet, was about antagonists in MMOs in general.
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I feel like people come up with some pretty great stuff in the Mesmer forum, and it makes me sad that none of this will ever see the light of day.
That’s hardly true.
I mean this isn’t about the Mesmer forum, but the idea that Scarlet should destroy LA if she wanted to actually antagonize the players was something I posted – and the thread got fairly fairly long :P – back when the very first living story patch went live, wasn’t even about Scarlet, was about antagonists in MMOs in general.
While I see what you’re saying, that has nothing to do with the community influencing how our professions should be played. Although I don’t think we should have much influence in the matter, people share other great ideas on these forums and from what I’ve seen from the updates A.net puts out, most of them are rarely heard. The only way things get fixed or changed is if you have 100 threads complaining about it, which isn’t good.