Guild Wars 2

Currently empowering mantras encourages players to sit on readied mantras. This is bad.

So Anet folded that in with the harmonious mantra trait and changed it to a 4% ferocity increase each time a mantra is used and stacks 5 times for a total of 20% ferocity boost.

In another thread people were discussing how it encourages mantra spamming. I also think it does this as well as trying to push menders purity on mesmers to get that buff.

So the purpose of this thread is to discuss if it should be a stacking bonus, a flat bonus and maybe get some realistic figures on how long and large the boost should be.

Also try to remember certain traits are getting made baseline like phantasmal strength, wastrels is becoming fragility which will in general be a 5% buff to builds that had it before.

P.S. 1 million ferocity while nice would be grossly overpowered, please keep it reasonable.

Stacking ferocity bonus of 4 percent is equivalent to a 1% avg damage bonus for each mantra used assuming your crit chance is 50%. When compared to the old trait where you could gain 12% damage mods ( multiplicative so its even higher ) where as now even if the stacking bonus works above 5 ( which I think might be chosen to be the cap ) it is still lower avg damage ( 5% + ). This is not necessarily bad considering mesmers have had numerous buffs and you are getting your extra charge out of this but It would be nice for a mantra oriented build to be more viable.

Edit: I am making some assumptions due to the wording of the trait and that it does not affect phantasm, as I have been told the current trait doesn’t not.

I take it you mean 1% total dps increase factoring in that phantasms do about 50% of our damage.

However at 100% crit chance the old and new mantra trait are equal to each other (as percentage modifiers don’t affect phantasms) however with the new trait to get the equivalent of a 3 mantra buff you only need 1 mantra and to spam it like a new guild recruitment message. Also the buff kinda runs out and needs to be reapplied with the new one but mantra of pain can cover it easily.

I was thinking a few things.

20% non stacking ferocity for 5s.
Or
12% non stacking ferocity for 10s.
Or
4% stacking ferocity for 15-20s and upto 5 stacks.

Would you prefer it stay a flat damage buff?

apharma.3741:

I take it you mean 1% total dps increase factoring in that phantasms do about 50% of our damage.

However at 100% crit chance the old and new mantra trait are equal to each other (as percentage modifiers don’t affect phantasms) however with the new trait to get the equivalent of a 3 mantra buff you only need 1 mantra and to spam it like a new guild recruitment message. Also the buff kinda runs out and needs to be reapplied with the new one but mantra of pain can cover it easily.

I was thinking a few things.

20% non stacking ferocity for 5s.
Or
12% non stacking ferocity for 10s.
Or
4% stacking ferocity for 15-20s and upto 5 stacks.

Would you prefer it stay a flat damage buff?

I want it to be mathematically a little better than it is because spamming cds for 5% more damage is not going to be helpful, reserving your mantras should still give you some benefit.

Non stacking 6% damage bonus, duration 10s… there you have a completely balanced trait that might actually compete with DE

Also I believe your doing some math wrong but yes phantasms are not affected and I did not need to factor that in, no it will not be equal, sry I don’t feel like explaining the math that causes it right now but there are videos on youtube that talk about how the damage mods from critchance are limited by the fact that flat damage mods effect both crit damage and flat damage. I apologize if my small explanation is confusing, but this is the reason why when in air attunement the arcane lightning is less effective than taking the 10% flat damage mod while in air attunement ( 50% as effective).

This assumes that mantra spamming is a wholly good idea though. In PvE, perhaps it will be since the AI is limited in what it can do. However, if you’re fighting other people and decide to spam all your mantra charges, you might not have them readied up when you actually need them if you’re burst doesn’t kill the opponent right away.

It’s a similar argument to gaining might stacks on healing. Sure, it encourages spamming your heal skill in the sense that it will maximize your might gains. But then you put your heal skill on cooldown and might not have it for when you actually need it a little later.

So, whether or not the math concludes that it’s more or less damage, you’ll still need to use your mantras effectively instead of just spamming them out and not accomplishing much when your enemy dodges around and such.

Yamsandjams.3267:

This assumes that mantra spamming is a wholly good idea though. In PvE, perhaps it will be since the AI is limited in what it can do. However, if you’re fighting other people and decide to spam all your mantra charges, you might not have them readied up when you actually need them if you’re burst doesn’t kill the opponent right away.

It’s a similar argument to gaining might stacks on healing. Sure, it encourages spamming your heal skill in the sense that it will maximize your might gains. But then you put your heal skill on cooldown and might not have it for when you actually need it a little later.

So, whether or not the math concludes that it’s more or less damage, you’ll still need to use your mantras effectively instead of just spamming them out and not accomplishing much when your enemy dodges around and such.

Yes and I mentioned this in my comment too :P

forces the player to spam. if you would put the time away and say while in combat meybe?
shared in the group.
canneling the mantra will give you 3 stacks of it.
more combinations with other traids. than purity.
increase time to 15s
effects your illusions also please!

I’m a bit confused about the wording of this trait.
http://i.imgur.com/fIH0J9L.jpg
Description says “stacking ferocity bonus” but the bottom half says 4% damage. A boost in ferocity would affect phantasm damage but a boost in crit damage would not affect phantasms. Basically, it’s like precision vs fury. 4% boost to ferocity seems oddly worded to me because the % makes it sound like +4% crit damage but that’s not what it’s saying. I can see it as 3 potential scenarios.

PvE Zerker+Scholar # without banner:
1,145 ferocity —> 226.33% crit damage

1) 20% increase to 1,145: 1,145*.2/15 = +15% crit damage or 241.33%
2) 20% added to 226.33% crit dmg = 246.33%
3) 20% increase to 226.33% = 271.6%

With fury and banner of D, 100% crit chance is easy to hit for PvE mesmers so they become 1) 6% bonus to mesmer and phantasms, 2) 8% bonus to just the mesmer or 3) 20% bonus to just the mesmer. However, all of this requires only Mantra of Pain which opens up a lot of options to bring without losing out on DPS. Furthermore, add the heal in there to spike it faster; alternative to using SotE to recharge phantasms.

While it might seem odd to some people to just spam MoP, the damage is actually pretty good and it hits 5 targets unlike most mesmer skills that hit 1-3 targets. Since most HoT content looks like it’s going to be groups of enemies that are resilient to being pulled together/stacking rather than single target meat bags, MoP auto attack = new meta! MoD+halting strike/furious interruption (If they fix interrupt traits =/) as a bonus to charge MoP faster.

The problem I have with this how these numbers work in PvP. 193% crit damage with a zerker amulet and 50% crit chance makes this a lot weaker. Spamming mantras isn’t great unless you are maybe running some kind of bunker that has high armor and heals…. but then what’s the point of ferocity bonus? Valkyrie amulet could almost work but then it would require something else to boost crit chance. Maybe some weird valkyrie & sigil of intelligence bunker/dps hybrid + phantasmal fury but then it needs to be option #1 which is a total of 3% boos at max stats… this is going to be a PvE only trait.

Very very confused by comments saying that phantasms are not affected.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Very very confused by comments saying that phantasms are not affected.

I am under the belief that phantarams are not affected by the current system ( might be wrong), a boost in ferocity could however affect phantasm damage. Which is why I said that was not factored In.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether phantasms are affected or not, or whether it’s actually ferocity or if it’s actually damage. Think about it.

In order to reach the full stacks, we need 5 casts every 8 seconds. Making this into a decimal gets us .625 casts per second. MoP can provide 3 casts every 6 seconds on its own, so that gets us .5 casts per second. The next lowest cd mantra is the heal mantra, at 10 seconds. This gets us another 3 casts every 13 seconds, for another .230 casts per second. This brings us up to.755 casts per second in total.

So, in order to maintain full stacks of our buff, we will need to do literally nothing but spam MoP and MoR. Now and then we might be able to get one autoattack off, but that’s about it.

Ultimately, the particulars of how this trait works are completely irrelevant. In order to use the trait itself, you have to basically stop playing mesmer, and start playing some new class Anet has invented called ‘The mantra spammer’. You can do literally nothing but spam mantras if you want to maintain your buff.

Once again, I’d like to call attention to the fact that in order to maintain a 20% damage boost, warriors need to press F1 (which does a lot of damage) once every 10 seconds. In order to maintain a 20% damage boost…thing, mesmers have to completely shut down everything they’re doing except for pure upkeep of that buff.

This trait honestly might take the cake for most insulting and poorly designed trait of all time, even over disruptor’s sustainment. That trait was just amusingly bad, and sorta made you wonder what they were possibly thinking when they made it. This trait very clearly tells you what they were thinking:

“We want to give mesmers something to help them do more damage, but we don’t want it to be strong, because we’re too scared of what they might do to give them anything half-way decent. So, we’ll give them something that in theory can reach the potential of this trait that warrior gets, but instead of just letting them use it, we’re going to lock it behind the clunkiest and least-balanced set of skills in the game: mantras.”

So Pyro, how would you improve it?

apharma.3741:

So Pyro, how would you improve it?

I would scrap it entirely and come up with a new form of damage boost for mesmers. Mantras are clunky enough as is without forcing mesmers to either continually use them or not use them to obtain a damage boost.

We’re certainly not lacking for various mechanics that could be modified with a trait. Pick one.

Glamours have a bad trait atm, go for it.

No. That mantra activation buff is just some small damage buff not something that is gonna change your playstyle.

apharma.3741:

Glamours have a bad trait atm, go for it.

Glamours are a little tricky actually. Their long cooldowns and relatively short durations mean that they’ll necessarily be a temporary stim instead of a more permanent boost. This means that it should be a bit stronger.

I’ll aim for a 30% damage increase when all is said and done.

Another good way to make it stronger and fit with the glamour theme is to make the stim affect party members as well. This has the added benefit of giving mesmers something to do in parties that isn’t portal.

Lastly, I want to give the stim a bit of complexity; making it so that both the Mesmer and the party have to be aware of it to get the maximum benefit out of it, without making it prohibitively difficult to use.

Result
Trait: Dense Light
Glamours apply a unique debuff to enemies in their area, causing them to take 15% more damage from all sources.
Glamours apply a unique buff to allies in their area, causing them to deal 15% more damage.

This implementation would allow the Mesmer to potentially boost their party’s damage by 30%, but requires the party to be on top of the enemy for the duration of it (I’m hoping that this requirement becomes less of a no-brainer in future content). It doesn’t impede the mesmer’s ability to play the class, doesn’t interfere or overshadow boosts from other classes, and isn’t laughably outclassed by stuff that others get.

Obviously, we won’t get this, since the devs aren’t listening to input such as this, but this is a nice demonstration of how truly easy it could be to give mesmers some nice stuff that wouldn’t break the game.

scrap the ferocity garbage and increase the mantra charge to 4 instead of 3. Or perhaps a new " cut the casting time of mantras by 50%. I’d consider taking it over DE on an interrupt build if they did that.

As of now it’s never going to be taken over DE

@ Fay
it does make a different if your illusions are effected!
I totlly agree with the rest you saying and spamming is the a huge problem.

Although i see more and more players with mantras lately they are still not in balance with other skills a mesmer have. Actually the big issue i see is that most of the mantras stand for themself and dont have synergy with traids, team or any other combination. The onely mantra which does is destruction and that is on a 30s cd if you ran out of charges. Supportradius of the other 250^^ healing mantra non.

the onely thing i see is that you go with your illusions, summen them and then you keep them alive with spaming and healing on recast.

I don’t get how they thought Ferocity bonus on Mantra use would be a great idea. It only favours offensive Mantras and even that not in a useful way. Why should I use my CC mantra or defensive Mantras to get an offensive stat bonus? That leaves me with spamming MoP…cool.
Instead how about giving us boons depending on the Mantra we used?
Might on MoP
Resistance on MoR
Protection on MoC
Fury on MoD?
Regen on MoRec
I don’t know about the duration and stacks but ferocity on Mantra use is just a 180° turn from not using the mantra to spamming the mantra.

IMO the main issue is the way it’s clearly balanced around mantra of pain. As I use mantra of pain, that’s not a huge problem personally.

Anyway – spamming mantra of pain alone gives you an average of 4 stacks over time. (3 charges * 8 seconds / 6 seconds per cycle)
Spamming the next best, Mantra of Recovery, is 2… and the rest are worse.

So they should scale number of stacks or duration based on the mantra in question. Then it’s not nearly as spammy and no longer locked into mantra of pain. It doesn’t need to be perfectly even (MoP can still work better with it than other things) as long as it’s not the only option.
Ideally I would say:

• Spamming 1 mantra gives 60-80% of the trait’s effectiveness
• Using 3 mantras normally does the same.
  I think for those goals, lowering the cap to 3-4 stacks might help (increasing the value of each one)

In terms of balancing out direct damage (no phantasms) vs empowered mantras, it needs to average ~300 ferocity (20% crit damage) if you would otherwise have used 2 mantras. Obviously that’s a fairly rough number depending on stats, but it gives an idea of the ferocity numbers that would be reasonable.

For the phantasm vs not phantasms: I’m basing it off of how precision vs crit chance or power vs % increases work. Ferocity is a base stat that affects phantasms. However, I don’t think something that increase crit damage will affect phantasms. The wording on the trait mentions a % increase to damage so I’m skeptical of it affecting phantasms.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC9AG8BJg~
Something like this with the new mender’s purity would make power return count as 2 mantra buff charges because it’s activating power cleanse as well. I think you guys are looking at this wrong. If you do “nothing” but spam mantra of pain, it’s only 33% of your time dedicated to channeling while you can still activate phantasms/other skills while discharging. That alone maintains 4 stacks. I just need 1 extra mantra discharged every 8 seconds. I don’t need to spam MoD for that. Just 1 interrupt discharge every 8 seconds is reasonable. 3 charges would last me 24 seconds. Regardless of if the heal gives 1 or 2 charges, discharging it once every 8 seconds also lasts 24 seconds. You could easily maintain 5 stacks while charging MoR or MoD once every 24 seconds. If you want to frontload it, hit MoD, MoR and MoP at the same time for 4 instant stacks. 1 second later, it’s 5. You can still spam all the weapon skills while discharging and most fights are done before you even need to recharge MoP.

Turning MoP into an auto attack (ctrl right click) makes it a lot less tedious to use. If you time interrupts properly, this can actually make MoP cycle in 4.8 seconds (1.8 charge3 sec discharge). 3/4.8 = .625 that you need to solo maintain 5 stacks with MoP.

As I mentioned above, MoP and MoD+ Halting strike hits 5 enemies while auto attacks hit 1 or 3. With the HoT beta and the groups of mobs I ran into, that’s a big deal. Could also be used as a WvW backline that basically gives aoe healing that is 20% stronger than healing signet with just MoP.

The biggest issue I have with this trait buff is that it’s so PvE dungeon focused. The ferocity really benefits critical hits on reflect damage and builds that have banner of D+ fury+ assassins/berserker to make use of the buff 100% of the time. Making the buff last 10-12 seconds and give % increase to power instead of ferocity would help a lot and I don’t think it would break PvP. Alternatively, make it so that each mantra discharge refreshes the duration for the entire stack. So 1 mantra discharge every 8 seconds is enough to keep 5 stacks that are built up.

I really can’t play my Mesmer without MoD. And HM and MoD are the cornerstone of my “EchoRupt” build But everyone knows that in its current state, HM is lacking as a GM.

The new HM is better but its still not enough.

With the new Chronomancer line we’ll be having more access to quickness. The combination of “Seize the Moment” and IP-baseline is WAY better for any Mantra Mesmer than the currently proposed HM will be. Plus those benefits EVERY skill/utility not just mantra’s. So why do I need HM again?

Then slot HM against DE and Mistrust…..so why would I take HM again? Oh, I’ll still try it out, but not sure what I’d be gaining vs giving up?

I think the new HM trait is fine, and I like the concept of getting a dmg buff when using a mantra. Good but not great yet, definitely needs some tweaking to make it GM-worthy.

First of all, why ferocity and not just flat dmg? I’m under the impression that decision to go with ferocity because this skill is designed with balance for burst dmg in mind. Like in a short time frame, you use many mantras to reach max stacks and then unleash your dmg or reflect a hostile powerful projectile attack.

But from PvE perspective, this is just not good enough as Pyro made a fair comparison against warriors and how they get their dmg bonus.

Realistically, because mantras are clunky, it takes a lot of effort to reach max 5 stacks and in the case of maintaing this bonus for sustained dps, its totally not worth it.

So my suggestion is to buff the number from 4% to 8%. This would mean:
In PvE encounters
- For sustained dps boost, you only need to maintain 2-3 stacks (16-24% ferocity bonus) to be on par with other dps classes, which is manageable.
- For a huge reflect dps boost, you can strive to get 5 stacks (40% ferocity bonus) and your effort will be more justifiably rewarded.

In PvP encounters, while the numbers look a bit high and too strong, mantras do have strong counters to them so it should be ok.

K comments.

They mention ferocity and a % increased in damage probably because the trait gives you enough ferocity for a 4% increase in crit damage. So each stack gives you 60 ferocity. Which also means it gives your phantasms 60 ferocity. This is a buff over the old trait.

Second lets take a look at what spamming mantra of pain produces.
qs stands for a quickened second.

0s,1 stack,
1s, 2stacks,
2s, 3stacks,
3s, 3 stacks, cooldown

5.75s, 4stacks, or 4.375qs, 4stacks
6.75s, 5stacks, or 5.375s, 5 stacks
7.75s, 5stacks, or 6.375s, 5 stacks
8.75s, 4 stacks, or 7.375s, 5 stacks, cooldown

11.5s, 3stacks, or 8.75qs, 5 stacks
12.5s, 4 stacks, or 9.75s, 5 stacks
13.5s, 5 stacks, or 10.75s 5 stacks
14.5s 4 stacks, or 11.75s, 5 stacks, cooldown

17.25s, 3stacks, or 13.125qs, 5 stacks
18.25s, 4 stacks, or 14.125s, 5 stacks
19.25, 5 stacks, or 15.125, 5 stacks
20.25, 4stacks, or 16.125, 5 stacks cooldown

You have three second cast windows for whatever stuff you want to do. And with quickness you can easily maintain a perma 20% boost to your crit damage. Which means a 20% boost to your phantasms crit damage as well.

Really don’t want to do the math for what this looks like under alacrity.

Regardless, unless my math is wrong, this looks like a pretty good trait.

Daniel Handler.4816:

K comments.

They mention ferocity and a % increased in damage probably because the trait gives you enough ferocity for a 4% increase in crit damage. So each stack gives you 60 ferocity. Which also means it gives your phantasms 60 ferocity. This is a buff over the old trait.

Second lets take a look at what spamming mantra of pain produces.
qs stands for a quickened second.

0s,1 stack,
1s, 2stacks,
2s, 3stacks,
3s, 3 stacks, cooldown

5.75s, 4stacks, or 4.375qs, 4stacks
6.75s, 5stacks, or 5.375s, 5 stacks
7.75s, 5stacks, or 6.375s, 5 stacks
8.75s, 4 stacks, or 7.375s, 5 stacks, cooldown

11.5s, 3stacks, or 8.75qs, 5 stacks
12.5s, 4 stacks, or 9.75s, 5 stacks
13.5s, 5 stacks, or 10.75s 5 stacks
14.5s 4 stacks, or 11.75s, 5 stacks, cooldown

17.25s, 3stacks, or 13.125qs, 5 stacks
18.25s, 4 stacks, or 14.125s, 5 stacks
19.25, 5 stacks, or 15.125, 5 stacks
20.25, 4stacks, or 16.125, 5 stacks cooldown

You have three second cast windows for whatever stuff you want to do. And with quickness you can easily maintain a perma 20% boost to your crit damage. Which means a 20% boost to your phantasms crit damage as well.

Really don’t want to do the math for what this looks like under alacrity.

Regardless, unless my math is wrong, this looks like a pretty good trait.

The problem is that this trait is not skill and encourages the exact opposite of skill, spamming.

Sadrien.3470:

Daniel Handler.4816:

K comments.

They mention ferocity and a % increased in damage probably because the trait gives you enough ferocity for a 4% increase in crit damage. So each stack gives you 60 ferocity. Which also means it gives your phantasms 60 ferocity. This is a buff over the old trait.

Second lets take a look at what spamming mantra of pain produces.
qs stands for a quickened second.

0s,1 stack,
1s, 2stacks,
2s, 3stacks,
3s, 3 stacks, cooldown

5.75s, 4stacks, or 4.375qs, 4stacks
6.75s, 5stacks, or 5.375s, 5 stacks
7.75s, 5stacks, or 6.375s, 5 stacks
8.75s, 4 stacks, or 7.375s, 5 stacks, cooldown

11.5s, 3stacks, or 8.75qs, 5 stacks
12.5s, 4 stacks, or 9.75s, 5 stacks
13.5s, 5 stacks, or 10.75s 5 stacks
14.5s 4 stacks, or 11.75s, 5 stacks, cooldown

17.25s, 3stacks, or 13.125qs, 5 stacks
18.25s, 4 stacks, or 14.125s, 5 stacks
19.25, 5 stacks, or 15.125, 5 stacks
20.25, 4stacks, or 16.125, 5 stacks cooldown

You have three second cast windows for whatever stuff you want to do. And with quickness you can easily maintain a perma 20% boost to your crit damage. Which means a 20% boost to your phantasms crit damage as well.

Really don’t want to do the math for what this looks like under alacrity.

Regardless, unless my math is wrong, this looks like a pretty good trait.

The problem is that this trait is not skill and encourages the exact opposite of skill, spamming.

You do realise that spamming a mantra still requires skill if you want to do damage.

You have 3 second windows to cast other skills. You also have to have something like chronomancy for the quickness. So in those three seconds you also have to set up illusions to shatter. If at any point you mess up and use a skill while charging it will go on a 5 second cooldown and you will lose your 5 stack advantage. Your opponents/whatever you are fighting will not stand still.

What makes spamming and skill different?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Sadrien.3470:

Daniel Handler.4816:

K comments.

They mention ferocity and a % increased in damage probably because the trait gives you enough ferocity for a 4% increase in crit damage. So each stack gives you 60 ferocity. Which also means it gives your phantasms 60 ferocity. This is a buff over the old trait.

Second lets take a look at what spamming mantra of pain produces.
qs stands for a quickened second.

0s,1 stack,
1s, 2stacks,
2s, 3stacks,
3s, 3 stacks, cooldown

5.75s, 4stacks, or 4.375qs, 4stacks
6.75s, 5stacks, or 5.375s, 5 stacks
7.75s, 5stacks, or 6.375s, 5 stacks
8.75s, 4 stacks, or 7.375s, 5 stacks, cooldown

11.5s, 3stacks, or 8.75qs, 5 stacks
12.5s, 4 stacks, or 9.75s, 5 stacks
13.5s, 5 stacks, or 10.75s 5 stacks
14.5s 4 stacks, or 11.75s, 5 stacks, cooldown

17.25s, 3stacks, or 13.125qs, 5 stacks
18.25s, 4 stacks, or 14.125s, 5 stacks
19.25, 5 stacks, or 15.125, 5 stacks
20.25, 4stacks, or 16.125, 5 stacks cooldown

You have three second cast windows for whatever stuff you want to do. And with quickness you can easily maintain a perma 20% boost to your crit damage. Which means a 20% boost to your phantasms crit damage as well.

Really don’t want to do the math for what this looks like under alacrity.

Regardless, unless my math is wrong, this looks like a pretty good trait.

The problem is that this trait is not skill and encourages the exact opposite of skill, spamming.

You do realise that spamming a mantra still requires skill if you want to do damage.

You have 3 second windows to cast other skills. You also have to have something like chronomancy for the quickness. So in those three seconds you also have to set up illusions to shatter. If at any point you mess up and use a skill while charging it will go on a 5 second cooldown and you will lose your 5 stack advantage. Your opponents/whatever you are fighting will not stand still.

What makes spamming and skill different?

Can I just say that none of that sounds fun, either in PvE or PvP. Isit worth pointing out that other classes don’t have to juggle tigers while jumping through fire hoops for anywhere near decent damage boosts.

Assuming that at 100% crit chance this ferocity increase creates a crit damage increase equivalent to 4% damage.

Assuming that because ferocity is shared with phantasms, they designed the trait so that phantasms also receive a 4% damage increase.

Then this trait is vastly superior to the old. Because 2 stacks of the buff, assuming we have good enough crit rate, is equal to the old buff. With 5 stacks this is a 40% damage buff.

If this trait was made a 20% damage increase like some elementalist traits it would be inferior. It would not apply to phantasms. Yes we have to jump through hoops to get a 20% on ourselves. But if we take phantasms, we can maintain a 24% damage increase without even having to spam the mantras.

Assuming this was all true though I would not fault with anet for making us juggle tiggers to get 40% damage increase out of a single trait.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

For the phantasm vs not phantasms: I’m basing it off of how precision vs crit chance or power vs % increases work. Ferocity is a base stat that affects phantasms. However, I don’t think something that increase crit damage will affect phantasms. The wording on the trait mentions a % increase to damage so I’m skeptical of it affecting phantasms.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC9AG8BJg~
Something like this with the new mender’s purity would make power return count as 2 mantra buff charges because it’s activating power cleanse as well. I think you guys are looking at this wrong. If you do “nothing” but spam mantra of pain, it’s only 33% of your time dedicated to channeling while you can still activate phantasms/other skills while discharging. That alone maintains 4 stacks. I just need 1 extra mantra discharged every 8 seconds. I don’t need to spam MoD for that. Just 1 interrupt discharge every 8 seconds is reasonable. 3 charges would last me 24 seconds. Regardless of if the heal gives 1 or 2 charges, discharging it once every 8 seconds also lasts 24 seconds. You could easily maintain 5 stacks while charging MoR or MoD once every 24 seconds. If you want to frontload it, hit MoD, MoR and MoP at the same time for 4 instant stacks. 1 second later, it’s 5. You can still spam all the weapon skills while discharging and most fights are done before you even need to recharge MoP.

Turning MoP into an auto attack (ctrl right click) makes it a lot less tedious to use. If you time interrupts properly, this can actually make MoP cycle in 4.8 seconds (1.8 charge3 sec discharge). 3/4.8 = .625 that you need to solo maintain 5 stacks with MoP.

As I mentioned above, MoP and MoD+ Halting strike hits 5 enemies while auto attacks hit 1 or 3. With the HoT beta and the groups of mobs I ran into, that’s a big deal. Could also be used as a WvW backline that basically gives aoe healing that is 20% stronger than healing signet with just MoP.

The biggest issue I have with this trait buff is that it’s so PvE dungeon focused. The ferocity really benefits critical hits on reflect damage and builds that have banner of D+ fury+ assassins/berserker to make use of the buff 100% of the time. Making the buff last 10-12 seconds and give % increase to power instead of ferocity would help a lot and I don’t think it would break PvP. Alternatively, make it so that each mantra discharge refreshes the duration for the entire stack. So 1 mantra discharge every 8 seconds is enough to keep 5 stacks that are built up.

This is the truth

Fay.2357:

Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether phantasms are affected or not, or whether it’s actually ferocity or if it’s actually damage. Think about it.

In order to reach the full stacks, we need 5 casts every 8 seconds. Making this into a decimal gets us .625 casts per second. MoP can provide 3 casts every 6 seconds on its own, so that gets us .5 casts per second. The next lowest cd mantra is the heal mantra, at 10 seconds. This gets us another 3 casts every 13 seconds, for another .230 casts per second. This brings us up to.755 casts per second in total.

So, in order to maintain full stacks of our buff, we will need to do literally nothing but spam MoP and MoR. Now and then we might be able to get one autoattack off, but that’s about it.

Ultimately, the particulars of how this trait works are completely irrelevant. In order to use the trait itself, you have to basically stop playing mesmer, and start playing some new class Anet has invented called ‘The mantra spammer’. You can do literally nothing but spam mantras if you want to maintain your buff.

Once again, I’d like to call attention to the fact that in order to maintain a 20% damage boost, warriors need to press F1 (which does a lot of damage) once every 10 seconds. In order to maintain a 20% damage boost…thing, mesmers have to completely shut down everything they’re doing except for pure upkeep of that buff.

This trait honestly might take the cake for most insulting and poorly designed trait of all time, even over disruptor’s sustainment. That trait was just amusingly bad, and sorta made you wonder what they were possibly thinking when they made it. This trait very clearly tells you what they were thinking:

“We want to give mesmers something to help them do more damage, but we don’t want it to be strong, because we’re too scared of what they might do to give them anything half-way decent. So, we’ll give them something that in theory can reach the potential of this trait that warrior gets, but instead of just letting them use it, we’re going to lock it behind the clunkiest and least-balanced set of skills in the game: mantras.”

+1

Also, I think Harmonious Mantras and DE should be off the same trait line. DE is extremely hard to not have if you have a full bar of Mantras. I still don’t understand why DE is not becoming baseline anyways and hope the devs change their mind before this comes live.

As for me, I think they should keep the Empowering Mantras trait, nerf the increase in damage a bit, and buff the power of Mantra actives to the point that you’d want to use it and not just sit on the charges. This way, you’d reserve your Mantras for when you really need it rather than just blantantly spamming it. For example, MoP for when you’re bursting.

Just change it to passive buff for each mantra equipped. If you are taking a mantra and taking a trait for mantra, you are already gimping yourself enough and should be rewarded just for having it on your bar in place of another utility, not to mention taking an actual trait to boot.

I think Pyro’s math is wrong. The trait is worded so that it is a ferocity increase equal to 4% damage. Meaning that because you are using phantasms you would double the perceived damage increase.

So 3 stacks is 24% damage increase. Meaning no, we aren’t spamming the mantra at all.
But it we did spam the mantra we have a dps increase between 24% and 40%.

What this encourages is active use of mantras. Our previous trait was worse. It gave us at most 8% increased damage because it didn’t affect phantasms.

Fay.2357:

Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether phantasms are affected or not, or whether it’s actually ferocity or if it’s actually damage. Think about it.

In order to reach the full stacks, we need 5 casts every 8 seconds. Making this into a decimal gets us .625 casts per second. MoP can provide 3 casts every 6 seconds on its own, so that gets us .5 casts per second. The next lowest cd mantra is the heal mantra, at 10 seconds. This gets us another 3 casts every 13 seconds, for another .230 casts per second. This brings us up to.755 casts per second in total.

So, in order to maintain full stacks of our buff, we will need to do literally nothing but spam MoP and MoR. Now and then we might be able to get one autoattack off, but that’s about it.

Ultimately, the particulars of how this trait works are completely irrelevant. In order to use the trait itself, you have to basically stop playing mesmer, and start playing some new class Anet has invented called ‘The mantra spammer’. You can do literally nothing but spam mantras if you want to maintain your buff.

Once again, I’d like to call attention to the fact that in order to maintain a 20% damage boost, warriors need to press F1 (which does a lot of damage) once every 10 seconds. In order to maintain a 20% damage boost…thing, mesmers have to completely shut down everything they’re doing except for pure upkeep of that buff.

This trait honestly might take the cake for most insulting and poorly designed trait of all time, even over disruptor’s sustainment. That trait was just amusingly bad, and sorta made you wonder what they were possibly thinking when they made it. This trait very clearly tells you what they were thinking:

“We want to give mesmers something to help them do more damage, but we don’t want it to be strong, because we’re too scared of what they might do to give them anything half-way decent. So, we’ll give them something that in theory can reach the potential of this trait that warrior gets, but instead of just letting them use it, we’re going to lock it behind the clunkiest and least-balanced set of skills in the game: mantras.”

10/10

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think Pyro’s math is wrong. The trait is worded so that it is a ferocity increase equal to 4% damage. Meaning that because you are using phantasms you would double the perceived damage increase.

The only math I did was with respect to upkeep of the buff itself, not what the buff actually does.

That being said, I’m curious as to why you’re saying that phantasms would double the perceive damage increase. Just using a bit of gut logic here:

Phantasms are part of our total dps.

If phantasms are not affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be lower than stated.

If phantasms are affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be as stated.

I could be wrong here, as I haven’t thought too thoroughly through it, but I’m not seeing how you get a double damage increase from this.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think Pyro’s math is wrong. The trait is worded so that it is a ferocity increase equal to 4% damage. Meaning that because you are using phantasms you would double the perceived damage increase.

The only math I did was with respect to upkeep of the buff itself, not what the buff actually does.

That being said, I’m curious as to why you’re saying that phantasms would double the perceive damage increase. Just using a bit of gut logic here:

Phantasms are part of our total dps.

If phantasms are not affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be lower than stated.

If phantasms are affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be as stated.

I could be wrong here, as I haven’t thought too thoroughly through it, but I’m not seeing how you get a double damage increase from this.

I became confused through my own design. I kept thinking of the number in the old trait as percentage of full dps.

In reality you should divide the perceived damage increase of the old trait by two. So this is in fact a double damage increase but only over the old trait not in reality.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think Pyro’s math is wrong. The trait is worded so that it is a ferocity increase equal to 4% damage. Meaning that because you are using phantasms you would double the perceived damage increase.

The only math I did was with respect to upkeep of the buff itself, not what the buff actually does.

That being said, I’m curious as to why you’re saying that phantasms would double the perceive damage increase. Just using a bit of gut logic here:

Phantasms are part of our total dps.

If phantasms are not affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be lower than stated.

If phantasms are affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be as stated.

I could be wrong here, as I haven’t thought too thoroughly through it, but I’m not seeing how you get a double damage increase from this.

I became confused through my own design. I kept thinking of the number in the old trait as percentage of full dps.

In reality you should divide the perceived damage increase of the old trait by two. So this is in fact a double damage increase but only over the old trait not in reality.

Ah ok, that makes more sense.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think Pyro’s math is wrong. The trait is worded so that it is a ferocity increase equal to 4% damage. Meaning that because you are using phantasms you would double the perceived damage increase.

The only math I did was with respect to upkeep of the buff itself, not what the buff actually does.

That being said, I’m curious as to why you’re saying that phantasms would double the perceive damage increase. Just using a bit of gut logic here:

Phantasms are part of our total dps.

If phantasms are not affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be lower than stated.

If phantasms are affected by the buff, the actual dps increase will be as stated.

I could be wrong here, as I haven’t thought too thoroughly through it, but I’m not seeing how you get a double damage increase from this.

I became confused through my own design. I kept thinking of the number in the old trait as percentage of full dps.

In reality you should divide the perceived damage increase of the old trait by two. So this is in fact a double damage increase but only over the old trait not in reality.

Ah ok, that makes more sense.

So even without spamming the mantra you can reach higher levels than the old trait. The additional is punishment for trying to get even more benefit, which I can understand, after all this trait is twice as good. No class has 20% buffs with no strings, people are just annoyed mesmer has very few stacking damage buffs in the traditional sense.

Daniel Handler.4816:

No class has 20% buffs with no strings, people are just annoyed mesmer has very few stacking damage buffs in the traditional sense.

Uh. Lets go back to my warrior example for a moment, shall we?

The warrior has to press f1 every 10 seconds for a 20% permanent boost. In addition to receiving a 20% damage boost, that press of f1 will generally do a ton of damage.

If that’s not a 20% buff with no strings attached, I’m not sure what it is. That’s also only one of multiple damage modifiers that warriors get. The maybe 20% from mesmer spamming mantras is the only consequential one we get for PvE.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

No class has 20% buffs with no strings, people are just annoyed mesmer has very few stacking damage buffs in the traditional sense.

Uh. Lets go back to my warrior example for a moment, shall we?

The warrior has to press f1 every 10 seconds for a 20% permanent boost. In addition to receiving a 20% damage boost, that press of f1 will generally do a ton of damage.

If that’s not a 20% buff with no strings attached, I’m not sure what it is. That’s also only one of multiple damage modifiers that warriors get. The maybe 20% from mesmer spamming mantras is the only consequential one we get for PvE.

What trait are you referring to on warrior?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

No class has 20% buffs with no strings, people are just annoyed mesmer has very few stacking damage buffs in the traditional sense.

Uh. Lets go back to my warrior example for a moment, shall we?

The warrior has to press f1 every 10 seconds for a 20% permanent boost. In addition to receiving a 20% damage boost, that press of f1 will generally do a ton of damage.

If that’s not a 20% buff with no strings attached, I’m not sure what it is. That’s also only one of multiple damage modifiers that warriors get. The maybe 20% from mesmer spamming mantras is the only consequential one we get for PvE.

What trait are you referring to on warrior?

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-berserkers-power.jpg

As far as I can tell off what was shown warriors get that trait but there’s only 2 other sensible damage traits if grabbing phalanx strength. 10% more damage to bleeding foes and 10% more damage when endurance is not full.

Course they also have empowered (1% per boon) and empower allies in tactics line so that’s an increase too and probably more so than picking up destruction of the empowered in PvE.

My warrior is screaming “yes, yes, yes” to this as no longer will it suffer all the drawbacks going PS. My ele is also happy as I no longer have to deal with light fields and people stealing my lightening hammer….seriously, I will look for you, I will find you and I will keel you if you steal my lightening hammer >:(

apharma.3741:

As far as I can tell off what was shown warriors get that trait but there’s only 2 other sensible damage traits if grabbing phalanx strength. 10% more damage to bleeding foes and 10% more damage when endurance is not full.

Course they also have empowered (1% per boon) and empower allies in tactics line so that’s an increase too and probably more so than picking up destruction of the empowered in PvE.

My warrior is screaming “yes, yes, yes” to this as no longer will it suffer all the drawbacks going PS. My ele is also happy as I no longer have to deal with light fields and people stealing my lightening hammer….seriously, I will look for you, I will find you and I will keel you if you steal my lightening hammer >:(

Yeah, realistically I’ve been selling warriors short.

Warriors actually get a permanent 20% damage boost by pressing f1, a permanent 10% boost by dodging now and then, a permanent 10% boost if anyone in the party applies bleeding….and permanent 25 stacks of might to the entire party by doing (/gasp)…nothing other than normal attack rotations.

Fay.2357:

apharma.3741:

As far as I can tell off what was shown warriors get that trait but there’s only 2 other sensible damage traits if grabbing phalanx strength. 10% more damage to bleeding foes and 10% more damage when endurance is not full.

Course they also have empowered (1% per boon) and empower allies in tactics line so that’s an increase too and probably more so than picking up destruction of the empowered in PvE.

My warrior is screaming “yes, yes, yes” to this as no longer will it suffer all the drawbacks going PS. My ele is also happy as I no longer have to deal with light fields and people stealing my lightening hammer….seriously, I will look for you, I will find you and I will keel you if you steal my lightening hammer >:(

Yeah, realistically I’ve been selling warriors short.

Warriors actually get a permanent 20% damage boost by pressing f1, a permanent 10% boost by dodging now and then, a permanent 10% boost if anyone in the party applies bleeding….and permanent 25 stacks of might to the entire party by doing (/gasp)…nothing other than normal attack rotations.

You forgot the “camp great sword for the rest of eternity” part too.

But then what damage boosts do mesmers get? 10% to vulnerable foes instead of wastrels. 15% phantasm damage and another 15% added baseline, hard to say what that is equal to. I consider the baseline adjustment to make us competitive and the 15% can be considered about a 7.5% increase. Compounding power being a 9% under the right conditions too.

There’s also other things like phantasmal haste and phantasmal fury which are both damage increases just not immediately obvious.

There’s definitely scope for a 20% ferocity boost if it applies to phantasms and the mesmer especially as a % damage would likely only affect the Mesmer. It would also help to minimise PvP overpowered accusations being ferocity and I really don’t think mesmer needs that much more burst especially given the new mental torment trait.

I can see a trait of +20% ferocity for 5s when using a mantra that doesn’t stack being useful in many areas. Not just PvE but it would certainly help there the most. Also means you’re not likely to spend half the time casting mantras. Could also be a contender for DE in some builds.

I was kinda hoping people would be able to come up with numbers, saying about whether they would prefere stacking, not stacking and duration of buff. While also giving reasons for it.

Fay.2357:

apharma.3741:

As far as I can tell off what was shown warriors get that trait but there’s only 2 other sensible damage traits if grabbing phalanx strength. 10% more damage to bleeding foes and 10% more damage when endurance is not full.

Course they also have empowered (1% per boon) and empower allies in tactics line so that’s an increase too and probably more so than picking up destruction of the empowered in PvE.

My warrior is screaming “yes, yes, yes” to this as no longer will it suffer all the drawbacks going PS. My ele is also happy as I no longer have to deal with light fields and people stealing my lightening hammer….seriously, I will look for you, I will find you and I will keel you if you steal my lightening hammer >:(

Yeah, realistically I’ve been selling warriors short.

Warriors actually get a permanent 20% damage boost by pressing f1, a permanent 10% boost by dodging now and then, a permanent 10% boost if anyone in the party applies bleeding….and permanent 25 stacks of might to the entire party by doing (/gasp)…nothing other than normal attack rotations.

Yeah because normal attack rotations produce 30 hits every 10 seconds. The DPS builds don’t use cleansing ire or signet of rage for adrenaline gain.

Just like a mesmer can use their heals offensively, so too can eles, engineers (blasts) or warriors (max adrenaline) from healing surge. Signet of fury is also insta max adrenaline (20% dps boost is better than 180 precision). Weapon swap is 5 adrenaline and the meta build goes GS/axe+mace for vulnerability stacks. With the new trait setup, they are also easily getting burst mastery added in to make that rotation easier.

Healing Surge, Axe F1, Axe/mace 2/4, swap 100b, ww—> already at max adrenaline in 6 seconds. Proceed to basically do the standard gs+axe/mace dps rotation.

It really is that easy for a warrior to maintain that bonus.

Actually given the traits presented most warriors will run arms for the vuln and 10% modifier. The adepts are pretty bad so you pick berserkers power, more fury, also gain adrenaline in combat. Can I get a woop? No? Ok next one.

Grandmasters in arms, you can take 100% crit chance on burst skills, however you might already be at 90-100% crit chance….so why not pick up furious which gives you more adrenaline.

Warriors will be swimming in adrenaline if the trait changes go ahead as is. Sure might take them a few seconds to build up that buff but once it’s going, it’s just the icing on a delicious cake.

Edit: oh, oh, oh don’t forget they can fit all this in WITH phalanx strength which they previously had to give up. Also 150 power to all allies…and 1% more damage per boon.

Meanwhile the Mesmer is tripping up on fire ring 3 and lost an arm to the chainsaws s/he was juggling, which the undead shark moat promptly hovered above the water and ate.

For solo GS camping builds, sure. But 3 points in discipline has been a staple for warrior builds for a long time. 33% chance on crit for vulnerability vs 14 stack spike… and just the utility of having a short CD on weapon swap. I’m sure warriors will run both depending on group comps or enemies that require more dodging/blocks. Either way, adrenaline is still stupid easy for them to maintain.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Just like a mesmer can use their heals offensively, so too can eles, engineers (blasts) or warriors (max adrenaline) from healing surge. Signet of fury is also insta max adrenaline (20% dps boost is better than 180 precision). Weapon swap is 5 adrenaline and the meta build goes GS/axe+mace for vulnerability stacks. With the new trait setup, they are also easily getting burst mastery added in to make that rotation easier.

Healing Surge, Axe F1, Axe/mace 2/4, swap 100b, ww—> already at max adrenaline in 6 seconds. Proceed to basically do the standard gs+axe/mace dps rotation.

It really is that easy for a warrior to maintain that bonus.

I want you do the math. Because from what I am looking at with the normal rotation for gs+axe/mace it is not possible to gain 30 adrenaline every 10 seconds when hitting a single target.

Daniel Handler.4816:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Just like a mesmer can use their heals offensively, so too can eles, engineers (blasts) or warriors (max adrenaline) from healing surge. Signet of fury is also insta max adrenaline (20% dps boost is better than 180 precision). Weapon swap is 5 adrenaline and the meta build goes GS/axe+mace for vulnerability stacks. With the new trait setup, they are also easily getting burst mastery added in to make that rotation easier.

Healing Surge, Axe F1, Axe/mace 2/4, swap 100b, ww—> already at max adrenaline in 6 seconds. Proceed to basically do the standard gs+axe/mace dps rotation.

It really is that easy for a warrior to maintain that bonus.

I want you do the math. Because from what I am looking at with the normal rotation for gs+axe/mace it is not possible to gain 30 adrenaline every 10 seconds when hitting a single target.

So, warrior is traited Strength, Tactics, Discipline.

Burst mastery means that their burst skills hit 7% harder and only cost 20 adrenaline for a stage 3. Due to minors, they weapon swap every 5 seconds, and gain 5 adrenaline per weapon swap. Over 10 seconds, thats 10 adrenaline.

Now they just need to attack 1 time per second over those 10 seconds. This is hardly a tall order, considering the amount of multi-hit skills that they have. If they’re cleaving even 2 mobs, they wouldn’t even have to weapon swap to achieve this.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

For solo GS camping builds, sure. But 3 points in discipline has been a staple for warrior builds for a long time. 33% chance on crit for vulnerability vs 14 stack spike… and just the utility of having a short CD on weapon swap. I’m sure warriors will run both depending on group comps or enemies that require more dodging/blocks. Either way, adrenaline is still stupid easy for them to maintain.

No, that was for a might stacking PS build for teams. For a solo selfish build you can drop phalanx strength and go into discipline and oh look a few more damage modifiers and adrenaline builders as Pyro said above.

It’s also worth reminding, before people were limited by how many traits they could pick up, soon it’s 3 entire lines which now allows for some support builds to do more damage.