(edited by apharma.3741)
Mesmer elite skills redesign
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@Apharma
I don’t see it that way. If “do or suggest the right thing” means a suggestion to unilaterally downgrade Mesmer, then no I don’t wish to do it.
The suggestion being made is to have a major nerf in the “faith” of getting reworks on other skills. Further, the “hope” is that all the other classes would receive similar downgrades and reworks.
Such faith and hope might be appropriate in a religious milieu. In the context of GW2, history suggests that those outcomes won’t happen. If they don’t, Mesmer gets crippled.
Sure, I can sympathize with the desire to help shape Mesmer and to improve the game. I don’t think this is a good path though.
Bolded the last part just so it can sink in what you just wrote, you have effectively written that you do not think it’s good try to improve the class and the game at all. Before you start making excuses, no, you have actually put that plain as day for all to see.
The right thing is owning up to what is too strong and admitting what is weak, to accept nerfs to skills that are too strong in the hopes that buffs come along the way. I said people want elite specs toning down across the board earlier, this doesn’t mean i think CS should be removed in a vacuum, it means I think it should be removed as well as removing and drastically toning down many other things on other classes too.
Not seeing it, Ithilwen wording might have been poor but from the context one can clearly understand that he ment he is fine with reworks for mesmer just that he does not agree to the suggestions in this thread.
Please go to the other class forums and offer your ideas for toning them down. Then once you’ve been laughed out of literally every single forum come back and try to sell this idea of rebalance by having everyone toned down again.
Some of us have been playing mesmer since pre-launch beta. The class has had some very rocky balance moments and currently sits as pure buff bot for raids (a role which that class has had literally since the start of the game). Sceptisism is very warranted in arenanets ability to rebalance and keep the class functional no matter if you see it or not.
@Apharma
I don’t see it that way. If “do or suggest the right thing” means a suggestion to unilaterally downgrade Mesmer, then no I don’t wish to do it.
The suggestion being made is to have a major nerf in the “faith” of getting reworks on other skills. Further, the “hope” is that all the other classes would receive similar downgrades and reworks.
Such faith and hope might be appropriate in a religious milieu. In the context of GW2, history suggests that those outcomes won’t happen. If they don’t, Mesmer gets crippled.
Sure, I can sympathize with the desire to help shape Mesmer and to improve the game. I don’t think this is a good path though.
Bolded the last part just so it can sink in what you just wrote, you have effectively written that you do not think it’s good try to improve the class and the game at all. Before you start making excuses, no, you have actually put that plain as day for all to see.
The right thing is owning up to what is too strong and admitting what is weak, to accept nerfs to skills that are too strong in the hopes that buffs come along the way. I said people want elite specs toning down across the board earlier, this doesn’t mean i think CS should be removed in a vacuum, it means I think it should be removed as well as removing and drastically toning down many other things on other classes too.
Not seeing it, Ithilwen wording might have been poor but from the context one can clearly understand that he ment he is fine with reworks for mesmer just that he does not agree to the suggestions in this thread.
Please go to the other class forums and offer your ideas for toning them down. Then once you’ve been laughed out of literally every single forum come back and try to sell this idea of rebalance by having everyone toned down again.
Some of us have been playing mesmer since pre-launch beta. The class has had some very rocky balance moments and currently sits as pure buff bot for raids (a role which that class has had literally since the start of the game). Sceptisism is very warranted in arenanets ability to rebalance and keep the class functional no matter if you see it or not.
Then that’s my mistake but the general tone to me from most of the thread feels very doom and gloom from Ithilwen and along the lines of don’t change anything because it will get weaker.
Yes, while I may not have played mesmer since beta my very first character was mesmer till I realised in the starting area it sucked and grabbed ele over 3 years ago. I’ve always liked the idea of mesmer and I do know it’s been essentially buff bot or closer to portal bot in reality for most of the game. I know mesmer isn’t in a good state if you removed it’s buff bot nature (something which wouldn’t be affected if you remove CS) but it’s still no excuse for saying my elite spec is fine being insanely broken because everyone elses is.
I don’t go into other profession sub forums as I don’t play them anywhere near as much as ele and mesmer however I have made suggestions on toning down elite specs in WvW and PvP forums, some of it laughed at but a lot of people recognise elite specs are grossly overtuned. I have also been fairly vocal on this forum about how mesmer mechanically doesn’t work in a DPS role with phantasms and if you check the living world section there’s an elite spec speculation which from what I have heard isn’t far from the truth. If that really ends up being the elite spec mesmer will be insanely OP in fights it’s already alright on for a DPS role and hilariously rubbish in everything g else.
Here’s the link.
I don’t see it that way. If “do or suggest the right thing” means a suggestion to unilaterally downgrade Mesmer, then no I don’t wish to do it.
The suggestion being made is to have a major nerf in the “faith” of getting reworks on other skills. Further, the “hope” is that all the other classes would receive similar downgrades and reworks.
When balancing classes in a class-based game, you need to first consider theme and intent. From that, you derive your design. Then, once you have the design, you use that to do the implementation, and then you balance it.
This is strictly in that order. That is to say, if for whatever reason you modify the implementation, you have to re-consider all of the balance because the underlying foundation changed. It can even be you don’t have to do anything, but you have to consider it.
This also has a secondary implication: If you are conflicted between a change to say… design and balance, you have to choose design first. Because doing it the other way around means your change to balance is negated down the line (or well, again, might be, it’s quite likely).
In this case, a fair few people – me included – are lamenting a problem with design. You are then considering a problem with balance. Balance is however invalid in this regard as by saying we want to change the underlying design, we’ve already implied that a change to balance has to happen, it derives indirectly from design via the implementation.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Some of us have been playing mesmer since pre-launch beta. The class has had some very rocky balance moments and currently sits as pure buff bot for raids (a role which that class has had literally since the start of the game). Sceptisism is very warranted in arenanets ability to rebalance and keep the class functional no matter if you see it or not.
Been playing mesmer a long time does not translate to being able to know when a class design is flawed and needs to be reworked.
I’m not saying that you can’t see this, but it is a fallacy to just throw out how long you have been playing mesmer and then expect that to mean you know what’s best in terms of design. Design wise, its just broken that CS can affect elites. Its impossible to balance that unless CS was made baseline to core mesmer and we were guaranteed to always have access to it (and before anyone says something, I am not proposing that this happens. But its the only way to have even a hope of truly balancing CS interacting with elite skills. Otherwise elites will either be balanced around CS cooldown, and be weak as kitten for their CDs when we aren’t running chrono, or they will be balanced around their actual CD and be way too powerful when used inside CS).
Some of us have been playing mesmer since pre-launch beta. The class has had some very rocky balance moments and currently sits as pure buff bot for raids (a role which that class has had literally since the start of the game). Sceptisism is very warranted in arenanets ability to rebalance and keep the class functional no matter if you see it or not.
Been playing mesmer a long time does not translate to being able to know when a class design is flawed and needs to be reworked.
I’m not saying that you can’t see this, but it is a fallacy to just throw out how long you have been playing mesmer and then expect that to mean you know what’s best in terms of design.
True, I never did say that. When having played the class for so long though one thing is guaranteed, all longterm mesmer were there for all the broken skills, patches that took more and more uniqueness from the class and especially those stretches of time when the class was not desired in any pve content.
We were never highly desired, mesmer merely functioned as extra utility which could get replaced by another dps or other supporter. Parties of more than 1 mesmer were unheard of and if it wasn’t for portal and TW we might have been in a worse state than necromancer. I just don’t see a reason to risk going back to that when essentially the only reason right now for mesmer having spots in raids(or wvw or pvp) is their utility.
CS is very strong yes, but I’d rather have arenanet decide on how they want to balance this issue (and there are multiple ways of balancing it other than making it baseline and removing its synergy with our elite) instead of focusing on only this way. For all we know they might introduce an elite specialisation which actually allows us to run a dps build while at the same time giving other classes mesmer utility (which is exactly what I expect them to be doing with the next elite specialisations. they already tried making revenant a replacement mesmer). Until then I’ll not go all haywaire apocaliptic and willingly accept a nerf to my class. Yes, I am selfish in that way.
Alright, after thinking about all of the discussion here, new proposal for Mesmer elite skills
Time Warp – Just reduce it to 90 second CD, 8 second base duration. This is taking some inspiration from apharma. Lower cooldown, but also lower duration to allow for more “targeted” application of the skill. However, at this moment, I couldn’t agree with just a 5-6 second base duration, it felt much too short to be an elite skill to me.
SoH – Keep transformation duration at 6 seconds, reduce the base cooldown to 100 seconds. In fact keep the skill exactly the same as it is now, just reduce the base cooldown
MI – Add a 5 second, 300 radius reveal centered around you when you finish the cast. Keep everything else the same (and again, ideally this would be accompanied by a nerf to PU to where it would only increase stealth duration by 33% instead of 50%, since I think stealth access needs toning down)
Gravity Well – Just increase the radius by 40 units, otherwise the skill is fine in my opinion.
And like before, I would want CS to be changed to not affect our elite skills, and for that change to go into effect at the same time as these changes go into effect.
(edited by OriOri.8724)
Hrm, with Stealth in particular I wish it had more use in PvE.
For Mass Invisiblity, I’d use this version for PvE only:
- Maximum number of targets: 50
- Duration: 15 seconds
- Radius: 900, centered on the Mesmer
- Cast time: 15 seconds, channeled, stealth lasts while targets stay in the radius and the mesmer keeps channeling.
This way it can be viably used to “hide” from enemies.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
That’s too much in my opinion. Its already easy enough to skip content in PvE as a mesmer, giving us access to 15 seconds of stealth on a single skill is kind of ridiculous, even if it is PvE only
Hrm, with Stealth in particular I wish it had more use in PvE.
For Mass Invisiblity, I’d use this version for PvE only:
- Maximum number of targets: 50
- Duration: 15 seconds
- Radius: 900, centered on the Mesmer
- Cast time: 15 seconds, channeled, stealth lasts while targets stay in the radius and the mesmer keeps channeling.
This way it can be viably used to “hide” from enemies.
I agree with Ori to be honest but more importantly I think stealth isn’t a great mechanic atm and mass invis is fine as is because it doesn’t push it too long to render everything meaningless unlike thief which can easily stealth a group for minutes so long as there’s a place to blast stealth.
Hrm, with Stealth in particular I wish it had more use in PvE.
For Mass Invisiblity, I’d use this version for PvE only:
- Maximum number of targets: 50
- Duration: 15 seconds
- Radius: 900, centered on the Mesmer
- Cast time: 15 seconds, channeled, stealth lasts while targets stay in the radius and the mesmer keeps channeling.
This way it can be viably used to “hide” from enemies.
That wouldn’t really make stealth useful in PvE. Access to stealth is fine, it’s not used much because it’s objectively not very valuable. This sort of thing would just confuse players coming from PvE and expecting the skill to mechanically work in a very different way.
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