Guild Wars 2

Greetings and salutations!

Welcome to the Community Driven CDI thread! This thread is a copy of the original in the Profession Balance Sub-forum, but re-posted here to allow for a more concentrated Mesmer “Main” perspective. Obviously this thread is not currently backed by A-net themselves, but they’re so busy why not make their jobs a little easier, eh?

So, let’s get to it!

The Mesmer CDI

Primary Goal: To Provide the Mesmer with a more unique access to Punishment (Control), whilst remaining within the classes predetermined mechanical flow and play.

Tool Box
*Traits
*Weapon Skills
*Utility Skills
*Class Mechanics

Debriefing:
Why only Punishment? Aren’t there other forms of Control? You might ask, and the answers are “Because” and “Yes, there are and they are not entirely off the table”.

After creating other threads and researching, the reason Punishment has been selected as the Primary focus is due to several reasons. These being that:

Hard CC is already accessible to the class and also falls victim to Stability/Stun breakers/Defiant/Unshakable Depending upon your game mode of choice.

Soft CC is mostly tied to Conditions which requires an in depth look and balance thread all their own.

Denial CC Is already present within the class in many forms and piling on top of it would seem excessive.

What is Punishment
Punishment is a type of CC that is as much Physical as it is Mental. Punishment plays heavily upon the “Risk vs Reward” rule that we can find both in game and in real life. Punishment forces both sides to make a gamble at the open and hope it pays off in the end.

This is something that A-net does seem more Open to for the Mesmer Class

Karl McLain.5604:

Some great ideas here guys! This skill is something we’ve been looking at, as it’s a little underwhelming at times.

Here’s a bunch of potential things we could do (we would do one or maybe two of these, not all:

1. Look at making it usable on the move. Currently, the animation is ONLY able to be used while standing still.
2. Increase the number of boons removed.
3. Increase the radius.
4. Make this a channeled skill that pulses AOE damage and boon removal while you hold the sword in the ground.
5. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!
6. ???
7. Profit!

Tagging this thread for later.

Borrowed from here

Current Examples:
Boon Removal – Risk of reliance upon long duration/long CD boons
Torment – Risk of Reliance on high Mobility and/or Constant Movement

[Rules and Regulations]
1. Be Respectful
2. Be Open to healthy Discussion on Your idea as well as Others.
3. Please be thoughtful to Multiple Game Mode Balances.
4. Do not feed Trolls
5. Attempt to remain “Realistic” with suggestions.

Example Ideas/Posts:

Replace Wastrels Punishment – 5% Dmg vs Inactive Foes.
New GM Minor – x% Damage for each Unique Boon on Foe.

- This, with some tweaks, could balance very well as punishment for Boon heavy “Bunker” builds as well as Boon Heavy “Glass cannon” Builds while still remaining “underwhelming” against foes that do not rely on, or do not have substantial access to Boons.

Chaos Armor
- Convert from “On-Hit” to PBAoE

Change means guaranteed Boons/Conditions are dispersed in a more controlled manner that can also bring the use of CA into a more Friendly atmosphere. Some boons/durations/conditions should likely be changed to compensate.

~Keep it clean~

~Reserved for Updates and Links~

~ Reserved for follow up comment ~

Well there are two discussions I think here. There is the easy discussion of more access to conditions and buffs that ‘punish’. Torment, Chill, Poison and Protection are top of my list personally. Though honestly I think this doesn’t really provide thought provoking play just urges people to bring more condition stripping.

The second is to actually work on more specific punishment skills, stuff like Power Block talent is nice but not really provoking thought-play. Like having a skill that punishes someone that dodges with 3 stacks of torment. I think to make this happen we need a new set of skills that ‘enchant enemies’ (aka not conditions), mainly because the opponent needs to be able to know what they are being punished for instead of just lighting up when the skill is usable because they met the punishment condition. To assist this discussion further here is the start of a list of common things we can possibly punish:

Punishable Offenses:
Healing/Healing Others
Dodging(or just moving greater then base move speed in general for PvE)
Swapping Weapons/Kits/Elements(not easy for PvE version)
Ranged Attack
Melee Attack
AoE Attack
Stealthing
Missing an Attack (blind, having it blocked, or just outright button mashing kitten like out of range)
Using an Elite
Using an Utility
Finishing a Combo (aka Blast Finisher in a Water Field)
Not Cheering (Mad King Says style)

This set of skills might want a reverse power issue that confusion has since AI is gonna use stuff fairly indiscriminately so punishing it should be LESS then a player who CAN know better.

Rather than insisting upon a whole new system of what would ultimately become “Hexes” from Gw1 (What phantasms were meant to take the place of, as well as confusion). Anet has made efforts, that now seem a bit crippling as things have been over simplified, to maintain distance from this type of thing.

So, rather than reintroducing Hexes, is there a feasible way to apply some if not all of these to the current mechanics? Being Traits, Skills, Boons, Conditions, Clones, Phantasms, etc..

If we apply this to Shatters, and then apply Shatter relevant Traits across lines, could it be workable?

Example: Clones Shatter/explode (Mind Wrack) If Foe uses a Healing Skill nearby (being slightly shorter than Mind wracks AoE)

This wouldn’t eat up your readied F1-4 Skills but would give clones a larger edge in small combat scenarios.. People would really want to stay away from them.

I still would prefer Mantras to be removed (as a mechanic, charge-now-instant-later) for Illusions (benefit now, debuff later).

I know we already have Illusion of Life, but what I’d do is make Illusion of Pain an Elite, and have four utility-illusions, which are all group-utility in some way. For example, you and nearby allies gain long-lasting stability, you also gain Protection. But, afterwards you take more damage and CC is 50% more powerful against you for a certain time. And so on.

I like that because it is still frontloaded (like Mantras), less clunky (no endless cast time), more Mesmery (it’s an illusion), and it offers more knobs to turn for group utility balancing.

i also think mantras are not very helpful the way they are atm. the recharging is a pain in the current spm meta, so either completely rework them or remove and replace them.

i would like the mesmer to be less of an ai spam class by maybe adding some of the old gw1 mesmer glory back to our class.
as a light armor class we do need a way to have non ai aoe/ ususally a light armor class is the caster type, mes isnt that atm as we are more like a mix between thief and ranger. if we had some more control aoe options, it would actually turn us into a real light armor class again.

some ideas:
our interrupts should be better accessible
maybe some form of melee dmg reflect like our scepter 2 block
something that can slow melee trains down like an oposite timewarp effect
unerf bb trait
maybe a trait that replaces the current shatters with something else( f1 till f 4 arent woring that well without ip)
confusion was sorta our way of hexes and it used to be strong, maybe a mes trait that can incease the dmg a little bit for mesmers only?(in while u are at it can u please remove perplexity confusion on interrupt)
i would love to be the class that can interrupt, messing with other peoples cooldowns andpunishes mindless spamming. there are many hexes that could be sorta worked with(would need some rework of course):
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Air_of_Disenchantment
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ethereal_Burden
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Confusing_Images
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Clumsiness
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fragility (love this one)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ignorance
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Frustration_
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Migraine_

i mean these are just afew but this is something i would see as the mesmers role. not veilbot, not clonespamming only. i mean yes, of course every class should be able to spec into 1v1 builds for spvp, but in tpvp and wvw the 1v1 ai spam is just not really what i see as a role. if i was to rework the mesmers i would stick closer to the gw1 mes and also help the group mesmers out there, because not everyone wants to roam or be a ganker or veilbot…

Not sure why everyone rants on Mantras so much, if you build for it they work well, but they are kinda all or nothing. If Protective Mantras gave Stability during recharge and less toughness that might be something but this isn’t the discussion for that.

The alternative to doing hexes is just having ‘reactions’ – usable when the circumstance happens utilities that would light up when you can use them after your target has done one of the things I listed. However that just puts more on the Mesmer and little on the thought provoking of your opponent nor would they have much feedback on why you were able to use a strong skill.

Maybe a decent suggestion is a ‘buff’ you can give opponents called Illusionary Pain. Basically when it wears off or is removed the target is healed for a % of the damage done on the initial hit. This basically would let some of our abilities do more spike damage but if we buff remove or take too long they get a portion of it back. Of course if we buff switch or someone corrupts it(I imagine it would turn into poison) it would also be a nice combo. This would require a bit more thoughtful play and actually make Arcane Thievery more usable. I used something like this in City of Heroes and it worked well without being overpowered.

Bumping these to remind those who are complaining Now and throwing out “ideas” now what was already attempted and ultimately ignored.

Want to try and be constructive this time around?

Most things I had in mind I already posted here

Dracatis.1908:

Not sure why everyone rants on Mantras so much, if you build for it they work well, but they are kinda all or nothing. If Protective Mantras gave Stability during recharge and less toughness that might be something but this isn’t the discussion for that.

The problem is that Mantras, as a type of ability, hold no real value.
How often does the unique selling point of Mantras, that they’re instant in return for a longer casting time ahead of use, actually change something about how a fight develops? Or is it just because of their traits like %damage or 3 charges that we value them?

Mantras used to have a unique identity. Back when they were really slow and really strong with a single charge. But instead of removing HM, and substantially buffing the effects of each Mantra (and making them AE, we’re good enough at 1-2vs1-2 as is, while lacking in any serious format of play), they went the opposite direction.

And now… well… now we have something which might as well not be called Mantra. Just “ability” would do.

Sorry, i cant agree with you on your summation of mantras. I also fail to remember mantras being “really strong with a single charge”. Indeed, as I recall it, mantras were borderline useless before they buffed the number of charges and HM. I also believe those buffs were warmly received by the community at the time.

Both MoRc , MoP (auto attack) and HM are permanent fixtures on my phantasm build
and I have no issues with them at all. Whilst a buff to mantras would be further appreciated, I would rather not have wholesale changes made and potentially end up
worse off.

They actually nerfed HM.

What they did was half the power of each charge and make it 2 charges. They also quickened the charge-up (which they did twice in total).

The issue with punishment is that it works differently in PvE and PvP. This was true to a degree in GW1, but GW2’s simplistic mobs that don’t use player skills make it more apparent. For example, a skill that punishes dodges would be nearly useless in the majority of PvE, because very few mobs dodge.

Returning player to mesmer. After playing across five other alts these are things that stand out for me as issues to mesmer.
1) Remove greatsword distance damage multipliers. Mesmer faces the same issue as longbow ranger. In order to achieve the greatest DPS of the power weapon it requires you be well outside the range of boon swapping. This is only compounded when there is signets that share all boons that can only be used at half the range you ideally want to be at to maximise DPS potential. It also makes mesmer game play awkward and truncated when their swap weapons only operate at 900 or 600 range. It becomes a task or coming a little closer, a little further away, a little closer, a little..

2) The trait lines seem confused at times. To maximise confusion damage I need to invest heavily in power damage line traits. Some traits would benefit greatly from being re-positioned in more appropriate lines and would streamline dedicated build types. EG confusing enchantment causes clamour skills to apply confusion. It is master trait found in power/condi duration line. Which ideally would benefit from glamour skills reduced CD/ longer duration which is found in inspiration, after which I need to invest in another tree to have respectable condition damage. All in all it is a lot of investment in things outside of what I am trying to achieve just to be viable at what it is I am trying to do.

3) A large amount of grand master traits focus heavily on interrupting. In the Pve sense of things interrupts are not overly hard to achieve, but more often than not they are a side effect of using a skill as opposed purposeful. In PvP interrupting the skills you want to target is a mixed bag. Some channels are clearly identifiable, some much more difficult. Targeting the key ones with shatter clones that will often only perform the task after they have been cued and then have travel time again puts interrupting into the fire and pray category. To have so much invested in what seems like 4 out 5 trait lines and then have it affected by skill cue times and pathing issues diminishes the whole aspect of interrupting.

4) Although mesmer has respectable spike damage, it is not ideal. Much like thief where botched Pvp play will most likely result in you taking large damage and the focus is to set up your target and deliver your damage quickly, mesmer would benefit from damage increases in this area. For a light armour wearing profession to remian ‘dangerous’ they need something dangerous about certain builds. Currently mesmer relies more on frustrating the target with clones and phantasms and teleports and grinds the target down. As a former warrior player, I never feared mesmers. I knew it was only a matter of time of lining them up for a eviserate and after that they are on the back foot. The big drop in health forces them to play defensively, because at no time can they threaten my toughness and healing signet abilities. Things would be different if I knew a well executed shatter could take a very chunk out of me. However currently, there is nothing to entirely fear about them. All one has to do is keep an eye on which one is the player and let them exhaust their skills.

5) Confusion damage was in my opinion a tad over nerfed. What confusion does and how long it lasts are in general underwhelming. Achieving high stacks of confusion on a ele that is using their healing glyph just doesn’t work as a punishment. The ele needs to keep casting skills some what rapidly in order to maintain a safe red bar. The mesmer confusion is there to ensure if they do that they will lose their red bar entirely. Currently mesmer has strong difficultly achieving the needed stacks and maintaining so that spam play is strongly hard countered. Particularly with bunker builds either needing to swap kits, attunements, cycle virtues quite regularly, this is a situation where mesmer should excel, yet it currently doesn’t in this capacity because confusion was over nerfed so that it lacks the teeth needed to short stop spam play. (Not insinuating spam play is bad, just that some builds require it and these builds have no natural predator to keep them in check;hence bunker meta styles are the norm currently.) Much like in days past, a string of mesmers in WvW could cripple zergs that stood at gates and just spammed blindly. This sort of teeth needs to be some what restored to confusion.