Guild Wars 2

This spell has got my favorite animation but what it does is somewhat… dull.

I mean, it does average damage and the only effect it has is “removing a boon”.

For the ones who have fought the Eye of Zaithan, you will surely remember that mass attack that looks exactly like a mesmer’s Mind Stab and that knocks you down. If a knockdown effect was added to Mind Stab, that would make it a really kitten skill.

Still, in order to apply it, we would need a revamp Illusionary Wave, or we’d end up having two knockdowns: my suggestion would be:
- Mind Stab: deal less base damage, add knockdown (25s cooldown => 20s if traited)
- Illusionary Wave: deal more AoE damage, remove knockback, (17s cooldown => 14s if traited)

Basically, what I’ve done is simply switching the two spells, adding knockdown to the first and removing knockback from the second. Now, talking about numbers:

(It’s the first time I attempt doing math with gw2; I used to do it for wow tho)
Let’s assume a base power of 3000 and a weapon damage of 1000, the (empirical) formulas for MS(coeff = 0,5) and IW(coeff = 0,15) are:

Dmg = (Power*WeapDmg*coeff)/916

MS = (3000*1000*0,5)/916 =1637,55
IW = (3000*1000*0,15)/916 = 491,27

Now, simply switching the coefficients wouldn’t really be balanced, because we would get:
A knockdown spell with a smaller area of effect and low damage
A damage spell with a larger area of effect and “big” damage

My suggestion would be to either reduce the coefficient on the new IW from 0,5 to 0,4 and increase the coefficient on the new MS from 0,15 to 0,25, or something along those lines.

For this last part, however, I would like to hear the opinions of the ones who have spent more time ingame and know what would be better and what not. I tried to give approximate numbers about cooldowns and numbers but I’d really like to hear you here.

If this sounds too complicated, or you wouldn’t like changing IW or you wouldn’t like having an increased cooldown on MS or you wouldn’t like something else, then I’d have a two more options:
1) Leave things as they are, remove the “remove boon” effect on MS and add a knockdown combo finisher (preferably with ethereal fields)
2) Leave things as they are, remove the “remove boon” effect on MS and add a cripple effect.

Thank you for your attention and I apologize if I wrote some bestiality somewhere.

GS already has a knockdown on 5. There’s a cripple with the phantasm on 4.

The boon strip is rather valuable in some situations.

My complaint would be more of the lock-in-place to use it, or the horrible small aoe-circle. Fix those and it enters the realm of awesome.

during beta events, the skill was a single targeted daze with splash damage.

Anet nerfed it and I dont think they will add a knock down

juno.1840:

GS already has a knockdown on 5. There’s a cripple with the phantasm on 4.

The boon strip is rather valuable in some situations.

My complaint would be more of the lock-in-place to use it, or the horrible small aoe-circle. Fix those and it enters the realm of awesome.

Come on, did you even read the whole topic ? Illusionary wave is discussed after the first lines….

Actually I drifted off in the wave of text… but now that I’ve reread it, why do you want to do this again?

You have the knockback on 5 which is a nice skill, why kitten it and make it a simple aoe attack?

You essentially made 5 worse, made 4 the same as the old 5, and lost all boon stripping (meager as it was).

Yeah you can argue that 5 does more damage overall now, but I already do a lot of damage with other skills. I would prefer we have the utility the skills bring, rather than just aoe damage.

Mind Stab is awesome, but underrated. It does more then a full GS auto attack in most cases, is instant, 1200 range, has aoe (not much, but it’s something) also removes a boon (really useful in a few places) and has a decent cooldown. I combine it with mindwrack for even more burst. (F1 then mindstab on the group, screen shakes and damage everywhere.)

Definitely keep the knockback on iWave – that’s the best part of the skill.
If anything, iWave should either have a slightly lower base cooldown (25seconds?) or deal more damage on impact.

I would prefer Mind Stab be made into a defensive ability for the GS, giving it some versatility.
What I would suggest is:
- Increase the cast time to 2s
- Rooted for final part of the cast when thrusting the sword into the ground (first half, sword is lifted into the air with blade pointing downward and you can move, blocking an attack).
- Blocks one attack while casting.
- As soon as an attack is blocked, mind stab triggers at the target who attacked you, like Counter Spell or iRiposte, stripping a boon as usual.
- If no block, then it remains ground targeted at your cursor location.

The only buff Mind Stab needs is a larger AoE. I believe it’s currently 150. Buffing it to 180 would probably be a good. It’s a situational skill, not a spam on recharge skill.

Illusionary Wave is perfectly fine the way it is and shouldn’t be touched. In fact, it’s one of my favorite skills to make thieves cry.

I’ve been a staff guy since 80, and literally just picked up a greatsword last night. Mindstab is awkward, but it’s not really a bad skill.

I would much prefer to keep the boon stripping, based on running Shattered Concentration with an iZerk→Mirror Blade→Mind Stab→Mind Wrack combo. Stripping 3 boons right off the bat at 1200 range is brutal (Signet of what? Fail?). If you get this off up close with an extra dodge clone, 5 boons (Illusionary Persona). Stripping fury off of any opponent with moderate crit damage is ~10-15% damage mitigation, depending. And of course, no protection = dead opponent in many cases.

The biggest issue is missing or accidentally canceling it. It’s a small area, and it’s awkward to use. This is an l2p issue for me still (or anyone getting used to it really) but really doesn’t need to be, I think. Kill the self root (preferred), or increase the area (possibly OP), imo.

TL;DR – Keep the skill functions intact, IMO. If anything, remove the self root (best option) or increase the area of effect for Mind Stab.

Mind Stab used to be a single target Daze, but Anet removed it because it made the GS the go-to choice for Interrupt builds.

Of course, after Beta Interrupt builds died completely when people realised the GW2 Mesmer is nothing like the GW1 Mesmer.

Anet should just make it a blast finisher. Like Rangers and Thieves, Mesmers only have access to one blast finisher, so it would be nice to have more options in that regard.

I think I was understimating the boon stripping effect; I didn’t think it was so useful.

You surely have more experience than me with the mesmer class so I’m not going to argue about it.

Also, I always wanted to see a combo finisher added to Mind Stab and I had also suggested it in the first post but I thought that boon stripping + blast finisher would have been maybe too much (As stated before, I’m not so much experienced). It doesn’t look like it and so I support that idea.

It must have been fun to have daze on Mind Stab tho… No chance of getting it back, right?

Ignore this skill and ONLY use if you will remove stability/protection and retaliation but this is mostly for pve. Mind Stab sucks bad, just like current scepter/torch but nothing is done even 10 months later lol

Why would I want Knockdown instead of Knockback on my GS? Half the reason to use it is to knock people off edges in PvP.

I’m fine with it rooting because it is an awesome animation. I just want it to have a bigger aoe and a blast finisher. That would make it a lot more useful.