Guild Wars 2

The State of the Mesmer (as current of this post) is less than.. spectacular.. the class has many interesting mechanics and a feel that is different from other professions but is also, ultimately, extremely lacking in some areas that, I personally feel, it should not. So, after some time mulling it over, I’m going to attempt a semi-proposal to the community here to see how we can bring the mesmer into the game in a different standing.

Mesmers of Old

Mesmers were the masters of Hex’s and Control. Mesmers hit opponents in places and ways that No other class could. A warrior could beat things around, a necro could condition things to death, but the mesmer.. oh the mesmer..

Let’s look at some of these old skills.

“The next time Opponent uses a skill, that skill is interrupted and they take XX Damage”

“Hex: For XX Seconds, each time your opponent uses a spell they take XXX Damage”

“Hex: The next skill used by your opponent gains an additional XX seconds in recharge time”

“Spell: Foe regains full energy, taking XX Damage for each point gained”

Mesmers were capable of making a player hurt for almost any reason, any sign of weakness was quickly exploited and abused.

What mesmers retained as of current seems like a mockery of old. Clones, Phantasms that are meant to replicate hexes.. All of it ultimately boiling down to Direct damage from a direct damage dealing class at its heart. This is something that nearly every class in Gw2 has been reduced to, and while it works for most (Warriors, Thieves, Rangers, etc..) It shouldn’t be the standard for all.

Mechanics for the sake of Mechanics (Different because it has to be)
Shatters, Clones, Phantasms… These are very interesting things to use but ultimately.. they should not be the Keystone of a control based class.

Why? Because they all contain a fatal flaw… They are beyond Player control and reliant upon AI.

Phantasms being a replacement for hexing also doesn’t seem an accurate description, as they do not punish a foe for a specific action beyond “standing still”.

Tl:DR

Mesmers Lack a “stand out” Role of Control or Punishment that they used to fill and must compete in the race of pure DPS with all other classes.

Onto the Proposal tho…

A New Look

This semi-proposal will Touch on:

*Clones
*Phantasms
*Shatters
*Weapons
*Traits
*Utilities
*Roles Inside/Outside of Combat
*Conditions/Boons

Attack of the Star Wars
Clones

Clones, clones, clones, clones, and more clones… Clones as far as the eye can see..
Our class is full of these little delights.

In fact, our class is fully reliant upon Clones to utilize our classes “mechanic”, but what do these moving pictures of you, really offer?

A minor distraction, perhaps some mistaken identity (if you haven’t been targeted yet or can drop someones targeting via other methods), and the sole source of the bleeding condition our class has via critical hits.

Clones at current are, semi-meat shields, short duration condition applicators, shatter fodder.

Suggested changes

Giving clones greater impact and possibility by making them Optional.
As neat as they are, they really shouldn’t be forced upon each and every weapon and player. Clones should be more of a tool that carry their own builds and play styles to utilize inside of the Mesmer class.

Taking such a perspective could allow for Clone users to use them to do things they currently do not provide (drop targeting) and allow them to be a bit more powerful (enhanced AI to mirror player movement, increased attack speeds, etc..).

Removal of Clones as a “forced” class trait could also allow an easier balance to them without effecting every other Mesmer in game.

Conditional love
Phantasms

Phantasms are the beefy versions of clones, carrying with them more health and attacks that can hit very hard. Meant to be replacements for Hexes from Gw1 a few of them carry these old traits from a few of the old spells. Others carry no traits from old Gw1 hexes.

As of current, Phantasms are another forced mechanic to the class and can reasonably be expected to generate 1/3 of potential Damage output in a fight. They are also, like clones, AI controlled.

Suggested Changes

A return to the original intent for these Slightly mobile turrets, and making them much more Hex-like.

Phantasms that are either,
*Not LoS, Target Specific, Target Required summons
*Single hit Summons that carry greater weight.
*Mark associated skills that are summoned / activate upon circumstance

Phantasms could potentially act as AoE summons that affect/attack foe’s within a given range for a set period of time (Similar to a Warrior banner, but more scary)

Phantasms could also potentially fill a much more Hex-like role where in they are not summoned onto the battle field but applied as a Mark (condition) and appear and apply their desired effect once the requirements are met. (Mark indicates next attack will be interrupted and damage to foe, foe attacks, Phantasms appears and presents a very short window to avoid its attack, phantasm attacks and then vanishes, mark is removed)

Lastly Phantasms could be used as much less beefy Summons that select targets based upon specific requirements. a Reworked Illusionary Warlock may select the foe with the highest condition total to attack in a given area or may not attack until a foe has at least 1 condition.

After thought: A phantasm may simply Pulse its effect across an Area on foes meeting its conditions, iZerker for example would impale its sword in the ground and send blades up at the feet of all foes in range that are not currently crippled every X seconds

Broken Hearts
Shatters

Shattering is our classes Core mechanic. Task your illusions to charge to a foe and explode with various results. it can hit extremely hard when done correctly and it can also fall completely to the way side if not considered for. A mechanic that is completely locked out if you do not or cannot keep any illusion upon the field, is our classes unique standing of all others in Gw2. Rangers are the only other class that can share a similar affliction with us via pet death.

Suggestions

Inverting Shatters: Rather than having our clones use AI to path find, having them shatter where they stand and then the effect applied. This still gives ample warning to a target (All the illusions just blew up, i should probably dodge whats about to hit me)

Removal of Shatters as a Mechanic
Is another possibility, replacing them with mantras which seem to be much more fitting as F1-4 skills. And placing them upon the Utility skill bar. This would go much more hand-in-hand with optional Clones.

Hit them where it hurts
Weapons

Mesmer weapons are our source for damage, a handful of conditions and currently, most importantly, Clones and Phantasms. They are very straight forward and often do not carry any circumstances to maximize their effectiveness or damage. This is a fairly standard theme in Gw2 but, c’mon, we’re mesmers, we’re never straight forward.

Suggestions

Removal of the obligatory “Make a Clone” skill. These attacks often do nothing else or are used for alternative means (Phase retreat for example). Clones could be tied to Traits that apply them to weapon skills, allowing for our weapons to retain more useful tools/attacks.

A reintroduction of CC based play. Giving skills more access to things like Interrupts, dazes, confusion (more on this mess later), and NON RNG punishments for foes.

I’m just Drawn this way
Traits

This deserves a Thread all its own on what is good and what is wrong with out traits so I’ll just skip to some suggestions…

Suggested New traits

Traits that supplement smart or control oriented play. A look back at a few Gw1 elites is plenty of inspiration for GM Traits.

Example: Panic! GM Trait: Upon interrupting a Foe, all nearby foes (range 500?) are Dazed for X seconds. Cool Down (8s?)

Traits like these inflict punishment on a Foe’s allies for their mistake, and generate mistrust in remaining in tight group.

Example: Energy Drain! GM Trait: Attacks from Phantasms drain Endurance from target Foe, you receive XX% of drained Endurance.

Traits like these induce control through other means, by controlling when and how often a foe can dodge, you can have a far greater effect in a battle.

It’s Dangerous out there, Take this
Utilities

Utility skills are meant to be supplementary, things you take to make up what you’re lacking in for a situation. Mesmers have a lot of utility skills that are very… redundant. Most of them tend to make up for things that the class itself is very lacking in, rather than giving options to supplement for build choice.

Some traits, such as Illusion of Life, Seem to be very interesting at a first glance but do not provide results that many other classes can obtain with similar skills.

Suggestions

Utility skills that are more diverse and carry a greater impact into battle. As of current neither phantasm skill is very spectacular (outside of very specific builds) and some (mantras) actually stall combat rather than making it more interesting. Taking out duplicate skills and giving much more variety to our possible roles in a party or solo.

I just work here
Role of the Mesmer

Currently Mesmers are in a tough spot for a defined Role. In combat we tend to hang at the edges and supply short bursts of support or damage with RNG boons and conditions/CC. at other times we are merely reflect bots expected to ease dungeon battles by keeping projectiles at bay. Outside of combat we are prized for Portals or Veil.

Suggestions

Bring mesmers into the fold with their higher mobility (Slippery Soap movement) and give them much more to do at the front lines as well as the back lines. Similar to thieves slipping in and out of reach to strike and avoid combat, mesmers with altered Phantasms and more Dominating traits/skills could do much more in bursts to turn a battle.

Outside of combat, How about just a general 100% fix to skills such as temporal Curtain and its swiftness stacking. Passive ally effecting traits similar to Guard (Increased condition duration for nearby allies, reduced CC on allies, etc..)

after thought, Necros could greatly benefit from similar traits as well^

This will only hurt for a second
Conditions/Boons

As stated above, Mesmer conditions and boons have a very speradic RNG feel to them, only applying in short burst durations. Aside from Scepter and Sharper Images, mesmers do not have access to a single condition that lasts longer than 1 second (without boosts from armor/weapons/food). Much the same way with our boons, short durations.

Suggestions

Refocus mesmer conditions to narrow down the pool. Give us conditions that make sense and are more control oriented. Things such as Cripple, Weakness, Confusion fit the class very well in theory.

Boons could benefit from a similar treatment, rather than relying upon allies or foes to leech larger stacks and durations from, give mesmers their own boon pools at which they excel.

New conditions (these wouldn’t be exclusive to the mesmer but could/should be more accessible) Such as a rendition of the “Tower of Nightmars” Toxin, feels very at home (almost as if built for but rejected) on a mesmer. Causing your foes to attack invisible enemies in the midst of battle sounds almost better than clones that everyone can see.

In Closing, I hope the above sparks some conversation or at least ideas for our class, or at the very least, was an entertaining read.

See you all in game~

wow i agree with u. thats my issue with the class.we are supposed to be the masters of mind control and control in general. anet took everything the gw1 mes was able to do and packed it into 1 condition called confusion. now yes confusion was strong and u needed condi cleanse if u faced a group of mesmers.
back then glamour was only strong because people would keep facerolling their keyboard with 20 stack confusion on them…
now anet nerfed it…too much and took this unique ability away from the mesmer and left us with the ai only. we do lack aoe now, we are no real control class because master of cc is warrior and also thieves. we are forced into ai ai and even more ai which is not good in raids. clones are weak, we got no control over them and our shatters only work if we trait for ip which is terrible as it limits build diversity.

we lack a clear role as everything we got, including confusion now with perplexity runes is done better by other classes.
dont get me wrong, phantasms arent too bad but they should be optional like necro minions are.
as a light armor class we do need way more aoe spells, not ai.
we need a clear role and no its not ganking the backline!(thats the thieves job)
if u want us to be a control class, then we need a ton more control based non ai traits.
we need aoe we need something unique.
i dont think mes needs to be in the frontline but belongs to the caster, but we lack casting as all we got is clones and has not enough range.
i just wish anet would actually pay some attention to this class and try to understand it…this patch looks again rushed for mesmer class: terrible gm traits and only bug fixes…im really about to give up mesmer!

I don’t think we need strictly more AoE, just a swap on some mechanics to help us stand out a lot more as a profession..

Never played gw1 and it’s become painfully obvious that A.net wants gw2 to be nothing like gw1 so I would give up trying to make that happen. As far as our class goes I’m pretty sure they wanted us to be a tricky misdirection class that you don’t know what we’re trying to do until it’s too late and you’re bursted. Along with providing, mostly offensive, utility. I personally think that they thought up mesmer without considering what all the other classes can do. Guardians are the best support, thieves are the best at bursting, and rangers have much more useful pets. Which just makes us the odd man out. Don’t get me wrong I like our mechanics for the most part but we’re really just samples of the other classes rolled into one. I think you’re onto something with making clones/shatters optional. I think having mantras as our class mechanic would have been very interesting, and it could open up a lot of builds.

I don’t think the mesmer was dumbed down because ANet didn’t want GW2 to be like GW1 as much as the removal of the Energy bar.

That said, Swish makes a lot of good points on how to make Mesmer more tricksy. Mesmer spells in GW1 worked like a double-edged sword in that you punished the enemy heavily, but also paid the price yourself – but the satisfaction of interrupting an elite boss’ skill was so delicious. Swish’s ideas bring back a bit of the Mesmer role as a trolling harrying class.

This was brought up over and over again at release and Anet has done nothing. For example, the devs said that Cry of Frustration was made a core mesmer ability because they loved Backfire and so wanted all mesmers to have access to confusion. Obviously they didn’t care enough to make it any more than superficially similar to backfire.

Strill.2591:

This was brought up over and over again at release and Anet has done nothing. For example, the devs said that Cry of Frustration was made a core mesmer ability because they loved Backfire and so wanted all mesmers to have access to confusion. Obviously they didn’t care enough to make it any more than superficially similar to backfire.

I’ve never seen that quote and I doubt they said that . Maybe “confusion is a core condition of the mesmer and all of them should have it.”

Backfire still let the enemy caster damage the mesmer. FeedBACK > BACKfire.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

I don’t think the mesmer was dumbed down because ANet didn’t want GW2 to be like GW1 as much as the removal of the Energy bar.

Loss of energy bar but also loss of hexes/hex removal in general. Dodging is in some way an interrupt as well so mesmers aren’t required as much to interrupt a devastating enemy skill. More unique phantasms could cover the hexes. Only thing I want is a melee weapon with an actual leap or 2. Would help with the tricky/move around the battlefield a lot.

The one proposed idea that I really liked is the idea of a weapon not tied to clones (or maybe even illusions in general). Like if we just had a melee weapon that wasn’t kitten compared to other classes, I would be so happy.

Since there are no enchants in this game, hexes would not work. Also, since there is no energy bar (as others have stated OR adrenaline skills – except for a finisher). I put up that GW1 Mesmers had a skill called ‘ignorance’ that would disable signets for a period of time. There are many Warriors and Necros running around with 2-4 signets on their bars in WvW and PvP. If we had a skill that could ‘disable’ signets for a short period of time, it would make Mesmers more valuable and reflect the CONTROL portion of the Mesmer.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Since there are no enchants in this game, hexes would not work. Also, since there is no energy bar (as others have stated OR adrenaline skills – except for a finisher). I put up that GW1 Mesmers had a skill called ‘ignorance’ that would disable signets for a period of time. There are many Warriors and Necros running around with 2-4 signets on their bars in WvW and PvP. If we had a skill that could ‘disable’ signets for a short period of time, it would make Mesmers more valuable and reflect the CONTROL portion of the Mesmer.

I was actually, when pondering the write up, looking at skills like ignorance and wondering why they never made it into Gw2. this one skill could effectively shut down a warriors healing for a span of time and be a hard counter to Passive Signet Effects.

and while hex’s wont work with the system, real time AoE’s work very well as place holders.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to simply throw out phantasms and replace them with traps/marks like the other classes have but keeping the effects tied to something that can be targeted and removed seems a bit less OP overall.

Swish.2463:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Since there are no enchants in this game, hexes would not work. Also, since there is no energy bar (as others have stated OR adrenaline skills – except for a finisher). I put up that GW1 Mesmers had a skill called ‘ignorance’ that would disable signets for a period of time. There are many Warriors and Necros running around with 2-4 signets on their bars in WvW and PvP. If we had a skill that could ‘disable’ signets for a short period of time, it would make Mesmers more valuable and reflect the CONTROL portion of the Mesmer.

I was actually, when pondering the write up, looking at skills like ignorance and wondering why they never made it into Gw2. this one skill could effectively shut down a warriors healing for a span of time and be a hard counter to Passive Signet Effects.

and while hex’s wont work with the system, real time AoE’s work very well as place holders.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to simply throw out phantasms and replace them with traps/marks like the other classes have but keeping the effects tied to something that can be targeted and removed seems a bit less OP overall.

In WvW and PvP I thought A.Net could add Ignorance-type of skill to Null Field.