Guild Wars 2

First of all, I have barely played any other classes than the Mesmer. because of this, it is difficult for me to say whether this is an issue all across the board or exclusive to the Mesmer. I have been doing a great deal of World-boss farming for a Legendary lately, as well as extensive dungeonfarming. So I cannot speak for the class in PvP.

I currently use a GS-crit based burst-damage build, having swapped from a Staff-based Shatter/condition build, and while the Mesmer has some very interesting class mechanics, I keep finding that it is let down by the implementation thereof. It is entirely possible that I am not playing the class “as intended” and I emphazise that I can only speak for myself in this.

Simply put, the combat lacks synergy. When I fight a world boss, my strategy consists of zapping the boss to death while using my other abilities on cooldown. Depending on whether I use a staff or a GS, I then either shatter, or I don’t, since it’s better damage output for me to keep my phantasms up with the GS. It’s simple, and not very engaging.

And I think a big reason for this is that the Mesmer skills do not synergize very well. Each ability ties together with no others, and while you can concievably put down a combo-field and hurl mirror blade through it, the cooldown on the utility combo-fields makes this a gimmick more than anything. To elaborate, on the GS, your abilities are Spatial Surge, Mirror Blade, Mind Stab, Illusionary Berserker and Illusionary Wave.
Already we know that Spatial Surge deals damage depending on your range, so you are intended to stand at range, which is fine. Then you have Mirror Blade, a small nuke that spawns an illusion you can… Well, you can shatter it. Third, Mind stab, which is a bigger nuke, hits multiple targets, and requires you to put your cursor on your target, Probably for the best. Fourth, the Illusionary berserker. Long cooldown, can’t be aimed, hits like a truck, and again, can be shattered though that is not generally recommended due to his damage output. Fifth, Illusionary wave, pushes foes away.

These are all good abilities, however, they do not ie into each other. They all deal damage on their own and do it well, but you cannot combo them up to be more efficient. Except skill one which requires you to maintain distance, there is no skill involved. You press a button and things die. Granted, on Mind Stab you actually need to have your cursor over them. That said, it’s hardly skill-based gameplay.

Again, I can only speak for my own experiences, and I will admit that the Staff is somewhat more skill-based to use. My main issue with the staff is that it’s too unpredictable to be viable. The DpS is consistently low because you aren’t able to reliably stack your conditions onto your target, and while it’s a powerful support tool, it’s difficult to use due to the element of RNG inherent in the weapon.

But ultimately, the above is intended as an example. These weapons are great for what they do, but they do not synergize, and because of this, it quickly grows stale to use them. You cna adjust your positioning and focus on dodging red circles on the ground all you like, but it’s annoying to know that you cannot really “improve” your Damage by playing well, bar not dying.

I do not know how to solve this, however. And I will reiterate that it may simply be me doing something wrong with the class. The Mesmer has some powerful utility skills, and overall it is an interesting class for a number of reasons. But I feel it is let down by implementation of said abilities. It is admittedly difficult to implement an elaborate combo-system with only five buttons to push.

play the thief or the ele for more combo.. if that’s what you’re looking for in your gameplay.

Grounder.7381:

play the thief or the ele for more combo.. if that’s what you’re looking for in your gameplay.

Well, that is very helpful when you feel there are issues with the class you want to play. Instead of looking the issues over and see if something can be changed, let’s just ignore them and go play another class.
This game seem to be all about dynamics. Dynamic gameplay, dynamic fighting and so on and if a class lacks that, then maybe it should be looked into.

To be fair, we have a host of issues.

We’re often cried at for being powerful in PvP, but I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive at all. We are powerful, yes. Because of a handful of powerful mechanics. This handful is also incidentally what’s powerful at all, with a plethora of traits being extremely weak and just kept that way because we’re already too strong in some areas and plenty strong in others.

In short, what we’d need is something like:

• Rethinking Glamour abilities as a whole.
• Rethinking Mantras as a whole.
• Rethinking Shatter as a burst tool vs a combat-flow tool.
• Re-Implementation of our trait lines at a “Which does what?”-level.
• Re-balancing of our traits once that is established, then followed by utility-ability balance and then finally by a re-balancing effort of weapon-skills.

And that’s probably far down the line due to what a mountain of work it is, and the fact that we are quite ok right now. We’re not how we ought to be, but it works, and they have more pressing issues.

Sad, because especially our trait setup really suffers from this.

Being able to choose to shatter only our clones or phantasms would give us more to think about tactically and would be a welcome change.

I would go a slightly different route in that I want Shatter to have a meaning. If it’s supposed to be our burst, then first, remove the other abilities I have granting me burst potential (entirely), and second, make all Shatter abilities about burst in 4 different ways (pure damage, damage + poison + confusion + cripple, damage + knockdown + cripple, damage + immobilize). Damage is high in each case, utility in the latter 3 is kept to short durations or low values.

Or, make it something more of a general tool, in which case it needs to work per-clone/-phantasm, and be less of a straight damage source.

Mesmer has too much power and it should be nerfed.

Or something.

But seriously, the most powerful ability the mesmer has is to drop enemy auto-target.

Try using more teleports like blink and staff skill 2 and the sword’s leap. You will feel like your gameplay is much faster paced. Also, use energy sigils so you can actively dodge more. It will make you feel much more involved than phantasm mesmers. (Note this is a shatter build)

My favorite part of forums is when someone with a couple hundred hours of game time thinks they know the in’s and out’s of a class.

No synergy? LOL, guffaw, muhahahaha I would type out a actual reply to this thread but it obvious my typing would fall on deaf ears.

Wow Malakai, this is exactly how I feel and couldn’t really express it. Thanks so much for posting this. I also feel like the synergy of mesmer kinda… doesn’t exist and it has put me off the class dispite it being what I was most excited to play when Guild Wars 2 was announced and the professions were all revealed.
I have a mesmer and was thinking “once I get to 80 it will all change” but it never really did. I just can’t seem to find a combination of things on the character I like. Other classes are more “tight” in their builds. Necromancers, for example, take all the minions and then use minions as utilities, or focus on condition damage and then focus on those traits and take epidemic, etc.
I have struggled constantly to find a Mesmer build I liked and finally gave up when I realized I couldn’t get what I wanted. I do not want to shatter. The abilities/traits/etc. are all there that would make me LOVE this class. On paper, it looks amazing, but the pieces just don’t come together to make it work.
And I feel like because very specific builds of mesmer are good, they aren’t ever going to look at the things I want to play as a Mesmer.
I eventually gave up.

The synergy is there but you have to think like a mesmer. This class is more about subterfuge, mindtricks and chaos than direct damage. If you’re only using the greatswod for damage, you’re doing it wrong. It’s a “keep away” weapon that’s meant to harass at a distance and all of its powers are geared towards that. Skill one is stronger with range, skill 2 applies conditions at range and can buff illusions. Skill 3 debuffs at range (but it needs a serious buff). Skill 4’s biggest advantage is cripple which helps with kiting. Skill 5 is meant to keep enemies at range. I see a lot of synergy in that.

Mesmer is very synergistic… Especially when you start looking at “what kind of mesmer do I want to be?” There are so many options for us
10/20/0/25/5 Phantasm “melt yo face with my kittenin AI” 20/20/0/0/30 has tons of options for it you can run a shatter hybrid spec a semi useful glam spec, boon strip shatter spec, blinding confusion s/t spec, or a GS long range nuker spec, We also have a 0/0/20/20/30 Can’t touch me face tank Immortal Build. There are some interesting yet not quite viable mantra builds that still need some ANET love. Quite simply mesmer can synergize very well and we are rarely locked into one build or trait set… Do we need some work yes. ANET needs to stop breaking our stuff every patch (I’ll take bets on what they broke this patch even though they did nothing to the mesmer -_-)

I totally disagree regarding synergy. While you may be right about world boss strategies being sort of boring…that probably goes for every class…stay ranged, stay alive. finish.

When you talk about other types of fights, the synergies really shine (though I’d say less so for GS- which is a simple damage weapon). for example:

Sword/focus-

Focus synergizes with traits to reflect projectiles
5 goes with 4 to cure conditions
3 goes with 4 to get lots of retaliation
2 goes with 3 to get immobilized target for blurred frenzy
1 goes with everything to remove buffs (also clones)
all of these synergize with shatters.

Staff
2 goes with 3, to dodge during long cast time
2 goes with 3 to spam conditions, so 3 does more damage
2 goes with 5 to give chaos shield
1 goes with 2+3 to add conditions / damage from 3
4 gives bonus tankiness, which synergizes with kiting via 2, which synergizes with occasional speed bursts/buffs and cripples from 5
clones / illusions synergize with shatters.

these all synergize well with traits that make you better at dodging, and add extra abilities to clones / phantasms – so the same weapon can work very differently depending on the traits selected.

I haven’t even gotten into utilities.

Also, I’m thinking of synergy with my thief character, and it’s very straightforward by comparison. While spammable blast finishers work well with fields dropped by other classes, most of thief play focuses on positioning and spamming a few skills. For example d/d builds will either spam 3 -if they do condition damage, or never touch 3…so it is either useless or central to a build. even when there is a combo like pistol 5 with dagger 2 for stealth…it is like the one combo in the build. Mesmer is much more flexible by comparison. And on my mesmer, there is rarely an unuses skill on my bar.

I think the main problem is that it doesn’t combine well in every build and that’s something that plagues most professions except necromancer (at least in my experience). For example, what’s the deal with the scepter trait giving a bonus to condition when it only has one, rather long cool-down condition damage ability? Why is focus on the same trait line when it doesn’t have any damage conditions at all?
Certain things, I definitely see. Shatter builds are great and you can get all the traits/armor/runes/etc you need. Phantasm builds are pretty good too, with the ability to take almost all the phantasm traits, but even then, you have to choose between getting Phantasmal Haste or the weapon skills that spawn your phantasms.
I feel like playing a Mesmer is like being schizophrenic- the traits/weapon abilities are scattered all across the profession and it’s hard to make something solidly built out of them. Sure, the things you can do are fun, but it never fully stabilizes because something is always missing, just out of reach.
Maybe that’s the design purpose of mesmers- to be flexible but not “solid” in any specific thing. In a sense, whatever goes on, there is at least one ability available to you to make it better. But the price you pay for that flexibility is, by necessity, an unstable build. I understand that’s the Mesmer way, it just wasn’t right for me.

along those lines, I see some positives with the positions of some traits. I agree with you that some don’t make much sense. Still most of the best traits are available at 20 points in a trait line. This lets mesmer builds be more spread out among the trait lines. It also lets you swap out a few traits on the fly to completely change your build without respeccing. I kind of like that.

I swap my traits and weapons more often with my Mesmer than the other classes during fractal runs.

You seem to be basing your entire build around one long range kitting weapon… then complaining that most of what you do is long range kitting… Really?

Get a one handed sword and a pistol. Or a focus. Nothing’s stopping you from casting Berserker, then switching to get right in there. Then maybe switch again to go out, etc. Mesmer is quite a dynamic class to play… In fact, it’s currently ridiculously powerful at just about anything exactly because it’s so dynamic, and good in roughly every situation.

If all you’re going to do is sit back and spam GS skills don’t complain that it’s not exciting. Pro tip: Staff is a defensive weapon as well. That’s like playing a full ranged Ranger then complaining you don’t get enough melee out of it…

I actually was in this same situation a few months back op. All I used what GS and Staff and I was bored with it. I didn’t feel like a mesmer. So I came on here and posted my build saying I was bored and what I should gear towards. Someone gave me a suggestion, I tried it out, and loved it! It was Staff with Sword/focus and that build made me feel more mischievous and maniacal (since every time I do something mesmery I feel that my character cackles). So if your bored or can’t find synergy (I think the two go hand in hand) then try a different build and see how you like it.

I think a great deal of the problem comes from the developers designing themselves into corners. It was particularly amusing to have them take the nerfbat to a subset of Mesmer builds via the confusion nerf, while simultaneously hearing the recent fansite interview where they mentioned “we’re trying to increase build diversity for the Mesmer”.

That’s what happens when you give a profession a complex class mechanic and no direct customization.

The Mesmer suffers because it doesn’t have the freedom to decide what is on its F1-4 keys or what illusions it wants to bring to the table. The developers grapple with build diversity because they want shattering to be the primary class mechanic that all mesmers should find useful, but also want to include phantasm builds and condition-on-death builds and supportive illusion mojo despite the fact that those blatantly contradict the clone burst design.

The Mesmer community prides itself on its complex class and crafty builds to achieve powerful effects, but we also need to recognize that the convoluted class design is also the source of many of our miseries. Somewhere out there, an Arenanet developer is trying to balance the entire profession on the maximum damage dealt out by Mind Wrack. Yet at the same time, he’s trying to create different builds that offer non-burst options via any means he can. Yet while he does so, he has to ensure that these builds never exceed shatter (because that would contradict the class mechanic), never fall too far behind shatter (because then they’re gimmicks), and still make just enough use out of shatter to make it helpful (because otherwise it erodes at the justification for making shatter the main mechanic). But to do so, he has to constantly use class calculus, because every little adjustment made to one part of the Mesmer ripples outward to influence all the interconnected parts.

This is illogical, inane, and ultimately self-defeating.

Things would be infinitely cleaner and clear cut if players could simply customize their class mechanic. If a condition damage Mesmer could simply plug in the Migraine condition damage shatter when they like, the condition-on-clone-death Mesmer could swap in an AI toggle with a special effect (aka “while this skill is in effect, your illusions will circle strafe at range and inflict X condition when killed”, for example), and the phantasm style Mesmer could bring special abilities that directly improve persistent illusions, everyone will have the freedom to decide what kind of Mesmer they want to be.

Sure, customization like that would become complicated, but it would be complex in isolation. An overpowered build can be nerfed with surgical precision by adjusting its individual elements cleanly and carefully, as opposed to the current Balance-By-Chainsaw method that must be used to reign in any of the complex and interwoven builds. Meanwhile, the players get the quality of life improvements they deserve, and everyone gets the freedom to customize their toys according to their needs rather than fighting against the grain to achieve what they want. Everyone goes home happy.

It won’t happen anytime soon, but Mesmers deserve the same amount of class mechanic customization and quality of life improvement lavished on classes like the Ranger and Engineer. We’re a powerful profession and a kitten fun one, but we should be able to decide what kind of magical masterminds we would like to be with our own skill selection on our own terms. The result will be good for everyone, developers and players alike.

Shriketalon.1937:

I think a great deal of the problem comes from the developers designing themselves into corners. It was particularly amusing to have them take the nerfbat to a subset of Mesmer builds via the confusion nerf, while simultaneously hearing the recent fansite interview where they mentioned “we’re trying to increase build diversity for the Mesmer”.

That’s what happens when you give a profession a complex class mechanic and no direct customization.

The Mesmer suffers because it doesn’t have the freedom to decide what is on its F1-4 keys or what illusions it wants to bring to the table. The developers grapple with build diversity because they want shattering to be the primary class mechanic that all mesmers should find useful, but also want to include phantasm builds and condition-on-death builds and supportive illusion mojo despite the fact that those blatantly contradict the clone burst design.

The Mesmer community prides itself on its complex class and crafty builds to achieve powerful effects, but we also need to recognize that the convoluted class design is also the source of many of our miseries. Somewhere out there, an Arenanet developer is trying to balance the entire profession on the maximum damage dealt out by Mind Wrack. Yet at the same time, he’s trying to create different builds that offer non-burst options via any means he can. Yet while he does so, he has to ensure that these builds never exceed shatter (because that would contradict the class mechanic), never fall too far behind shatter (because then they’re gimmicks), and still make just enough use out of shatter to make it helpful (because otherwise it erodes at the justification for making shatter the main mechanic). But to do so, he has to constantly use class calculus, because every little adjustment made to one part of the Mesmer ripples outward to influence all the interconnected parts.

This is illogical, inane, and ultimately self-defeating.

Things would be infinitely cleaner and clear cut if players could simply customize their class mechanic. If a condition damage Mesmer could simply plug in the Migraine condition damage shatter when they like, the condition-on-clone-death Mesmer could swap in an AI toggle with a special effect (aka “while this skill is in effect, your illusions will circle strafe at range and inflict X condition when killed”, for example), and the phantasm style Mesmer could bring special abilities that directly improve persistent illusions, everyone will have the freedom to decide what kind of Mesmer they want to be.

Sure, customization like that would become complicated, but it would be complex in isolation. An overpowered build can be nerfed with surgical precision by adjusting its individual elements cleanly and carefully, as opposed to the current Balance-By-Chainsaw method that must be used to reign in any of the complex and interwoven builds. Meanwhile, the players get the quality of life improvements they deserve, and everyone gets the freedom to customize their toys according to their needs rather than fighting against the grain to achieve what they want. Everyone goes home happy.

It won’t happen anytime soon, but Mesmers deserve the same amount of class mechanic customization and quality of life improvement lavished on classes like the Ranger and Engineer. We’re a powerful profession and a kitten fun one, but we should be able to decide what kind of magical masterminds we would like to be with our own skill selection on our own terms. The result will be good for everyone, developers and players alike.

TLDNR

With over (let me check real fast) 1,301 hours on the mesmer I can say that mesmer is fine and if anything is on the strong side of the table.

The Mesmer, Guardian, Ele are all in great spots in the current meta. My only conclusion to take from whiners is that they simply don’t have the time put into the game to really understand the class. There’s really no other logical explanation.

I’m with Godmoney…once you get the flexible, creative and practical mindset, you can be very useful and dangerous. If you take a brute force, single combo spamming approach, you’ll probably be dissappointed, as other classes do that better.

I was playing Caudecus Manor earlier with my meser, for the first time. While people were explaining how important it was to dodge into all the rooms etc. I just swapped out a trait, and used my focus skills to face-tank the guys that everyone else was hiding from. Everyone was so surprised at how easy everything was. That’s the sort of thing mesmers bring to the table…base stats and damage bubbles are nice too, but it’s that sort of simple, on-the-fly problem solving that really makes mesmers shine.

Re-roll from Phantasm mesmer… Try a stun build out, try shatter out. Play with things, and you’ll see that Mesmers are far from lacking synergy.

hm i think his intention of saying " no synergies" is based on some of the mesmers truly exisiting problems, but all in all mesmers have pretty much synergies tied together via trait or weapon switchting and the fact that it takes a kittenload of time for mesmers to pull out his maximum.

for me it seems to be depending on
- some really strange long animations before the skill is working
- weapon mechanics are inconsistent
scepter has awful mechanics, sword/sword doesnt feel like dualwielding )blocking with a sword? are u kidding. he is more blocking with his elbow than with sword. give mesmer some energy shield or whatever, like engineer has during block, THATS immersive blocking mechanic.
some of the 3step mechaics are plain ridiculous
like : step1 makes this,
step2 makes more of this,
step 3 sounds diffrent but makes basically the same and HEY cos U ::R:: MESMAAAH u get a illusion on top of it or u rip a boon or set a condition or whatever and because of this the base damage is plain bad and animation feels awkward…what the hell???)

- all that random generated boon bullkitten is plain horrible
- 30 point traits are pretty lame
- of course some annoying bugs here and there
- list some more clunky stuff here

it feels pretty inconsistent in many fights to use the pretty good longrange stuff (of course made then strangely inconsistent with its different ranges, on gs for example)
and then switch to closecombat weapon sets which then have a ton of rangelimits
or, just in case of 2h + sword/sword or sword/focus, you are forced to run constantly from max range to close combat and back while just loosing dps or whatever.

not mentioned the pretty stationary stuff like warden which dont move with the targets or yourself is hitting nothing but nylon while having a nice flurrry animation…asf

I do see a point in here. Not that much because of weapons themselves, but because our 2 core mechanics: Shatters and illusions.

Both of them are a source of damage. If you shatter your illusions (specially phantasms) you’ll lose their potential. If you don’t you lose the damage/confusion/daze/invulnerability from shatters. Yet you have Phantasmal Haste or Compounding Power in Illusions trait line, which also happens to increase your condition damage while fostering you to burst.

I must admit that I haven’t tried all of the other classes with the ‘depth’ (I’m not an expert by far) of a mesmer, but I see no clashes like that in their special abilities.

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

hm i think his intention of saying " no synergies" is based on some of the mesmers truly exisiting problems, but all in all mesmers have pretty much synergies tied together via trait or weapon switchting and the fact that it takes a kittenload of time for mesmers to pull out his maximum.

for me it seems to be depending on
- some really strange long animations before the skill is working
- weapon mechanics are inconsistent
scepter has awful mechanics, sword/sword doesnt feel like dualwielding )blocking with a sword? are u kidding. he is more blocking with his elbow than with sword. give mesmer some energy shield or whatever, like engineer has during block, THATS immersive blocking mechanic.
some of the 3step mechaics are plain ridiculous
like : step1 makes this,
step2 makes more of this,
step 3 sounds diffrent but makes basically the same and HEY cos U ::R:: MESMAAAH u get a illusion on top of it or u rip a boon or set a condition or whatever and because of this the base damage is plain bad and animation feels awkward…what the hell???)

- all that random generated boon bullkitten is plain horrible
- 30 point traits are pretty lame
- of course some annoying bugs here and there
- list some more clunky stuff here

it feels pretty inconsistent in many fights to use the pretty good longrange stuff (of course made then strangely inconsistent with its different ranges, on gs for example)
and then switch to closecombat weapon sets which then have a ton of rangelimits
or, just in case of 2h + sword/sword or sword/focus, you are forced to run constantly from max range to close combat and back while just loosing dps or whatever.

not mentioned the pretty stationary stuff like warden which dont move with the targets or yourself is hitting nothing but nylon while having a nice flurrry animation…asf

It’s not that they’re aren’t valid points to be made here but I can say all of this about any class. Almost every class has broken weapons, traits etc.

Coming in here and acting like Mesmer is somehow broken by pragraph 2 will just get a TLDNR from me because I know that mesmer is balanced against good players and OP against new/bad players.

Godmoney.2048:

With over (let me check real fast) 1,301 hours on the mesmer I can say that mesmer is fine and if anything is on the strong side of the table.

My only conclusion to take from whiners is that they simply don’t have the time put into the game to really understand the class. There’s really no other logical explanation.

And there’s the attitude I mentioned. Good times.

One moment, need to compare it with your following statement…

It’s not that they’re aren’t valid points to be made here but I can say all of this about any class. Almost every class has broken weapons, traits etc.

Coming in here and acting like Mesmer is somehow broken by pragraph 2 will just get a TLDNR from me because I know that mesmer is balanced against good players and OP against new/bad players.

See, here’s the problem.

The Mesmer is very strong, but also very rough around certain edges that never received any polish. It’s not the only class with this situation; the Guardian is strong but its ranged weaponry is rather poor, the Elementalist is mighty but its trait lines are extremely onesided, etc. In the distant future and expansions to weapons and utilities, it’s possible a lot of these problems will be solved.

Unfortunately, the Mesmer forum has some difficulty discussing potential improvements because it gets caught between two polarized points of view. On the one hand, newer players encountering the lower level of the class think it’s fundamentally broken (because without traits, the mesmer has serious issues). On the other hand, people who have found a niche tend to be dismissive and use the exact implication you just made, “L2P newb”. Neither is helping.

I understand you are content with the current meta, but may I request you ponder the future for a moment with me? Two years from now, would you be content to have the Mesmer’s class mechanic exactly as it is now, with no improvement or expansion, or would you prefer to see it embellished with greater customization?

Because that is the TL:DR of my ramble: parts of the class are excellent, but improving some of it would be better for all.

Shriketalon.1937:

Godmoney.2048:

With over (let me check real fast) 1,301 hours on the mesmer I can say that mesmer is fine and if anything is on the strong side of the table.

My only conclusion to take from whiners is that they simply don’t have the time put into the game to really understand the class. There’s really no other logical explanation.

And there’s the attitude I mentioned. Good times.

One moment, need to compare it with your following statement…

It’s not that they’re aren’t valid points to be made here but I can say all of this about any class. Almost every class has broken weapons, traits etc.

Coming in here and acting like Mesmer is somehow broken by pragraph 2 will just get a TLDNR from me because I know that mesmer is balanced against good players and OP against new/bad players.

See, here’s the problem.

The Mesmer is very strong, but also very rough around certain edges that never received any polish. It’s not the only class with this situation; the Guardian is strong but its ranged weaponry is rather poor, the Elementalist is mighty but its trait lines are extremely onesided, etc. In the distant future and expansions to weapons and utilities, it’s possible a lot of these problems will be solved.

Unfortunately, the Mesmer forum has some difficulty discussing potential improvements because it gets caught between two polarized points of view. On the one hand, newer players encountering the lower level of the class think it’s fundamentally broken (because without traits, the mesmer has serious issues). On the other hand, people who have found a niche tend to be dismissive and use the exact implication you just made, “L2P newb”. Neither is helping.

I understand you are content with the current meta, but may I request you ponder the future for a moment with me? Two years from now, would you be content to have the Mesmer’s class mechanic exactly as it is now, with no improvement or expansion, or would you prefer to see it embellished with greater customization?

Because that is the TL:DR of my ramble: parts of the class are excellent, but improving some of it would be better for all.

Well then maybe don’t make hyperbolic arguments that somehow the class is horribly designed?

When I see a thread where the first or 2nd paragraph are “OMG, mesmer so badly designed” I undervalue anything else you say because I know that this is simply, factually, not true.

On the other hand if a thread had a more suggestive tone about it then yes, we can have a discussion.

And of course we would all like to see more synergy etc. That goes without saying.

Please suggest on.

Godmoney.2048:

When I see a thread where the first or 2nd paragraph are “OMG, mesmer so badly designed” I undervalue anything else you say because I know that this is simply, factually, not true.

Fair enough, fair enough. The “Everything is bad and it should feel bad” point of view doesn’t help discussion either, since the Mesmer has presented some really interesting ways to play the game.

As for suggestions, that gets tricky. In the very distant future, I would like to see experiments to find a good way to customize the F1-4 keys. It might take the form of a pool of Metamagic skills to be slotted in as the mesmer wishes, a series of Masks that each define a different playstyle, weapon specific abilities with their own animations, or any other form. But that’s getting into rather vague territory.

For now, I’d be rather interested in an attempt to make all clones do something special by default. As it is now, certain clones are useful out of the box (staff’s DoT/boon bounce, sword vulnerability/boon removal, trident bleed) and some become useful with traits (GS+Sharper Images). Way back in beta, other clones dealt direct damage, but it was removed to make shatters more appealing. It would be interesting to see it return with GS clones doing direct damage and scepter clones inflicting confusion. This could be an interesting way to provide different ways to pressure the opponent and form a good foundation for future weapons adding different effects. There are plenty more bits of polish, but I’ll spare you the ramble.

Just one thing off the top of my head is making Feedback GTAOE. I’m really curious as to why Feedback is targeted in consideration that it “feels” like a GTAOE skill. I would love to hear their reasoning for this.

I play a mesmer myself and have spent 600 hours on it, I know lots about it.

UPS
- Only class capable of clones that are identical
- Only class who can Stealth an entire zerg
- Have a good health base
- Capable of a lot of damage
- Only class that can haste multiple people
- Has many sources of Invulnerability
- Best class for laying out Etheral Combo Fields (Can be useful for additional Confusion or Chaos armor)

DOWNS
- Lack of Speed
- Lack of applying conditions other than bleeding/vulnerability/confusion
- Lack of Stability
- Lack of Clones’ effects; doesn’t show off hand weapons, doesn’t dodge roll, doesn’t show food buffs or boosters.
- SO MANY BUGS!!!

Much shorter list:

Ups:
-tons of fun to play, deep gameplay and class
-has it’s niches and builds in every game mode

Downs:
-qq magnet, which means
-unnecesary nerf magnet, especially when pvp ones affect pve and wvw too

@ Henrik.7560 the lack of speed isn’t really true… you just have to trait/rune for it. If you do you become very fast with perma swiftness + blink + phase retreat. It’s also got a large bonus with reflections on focus skills.

+1 about bugs/nerfs.

Aberrant.6749:

@ Henrik.7560 the lack of speed isn’t really true… you just have to trait/rune for it.

This has been done to death. What he means is “compared to the other classes, who don’t have to trait/rune for it, Engineers excepted”.