Guild Wars 2

I will ask you something that I thought was an interesting question in the necromancer forum:
Is there any trait or mechanics that you think offers strong limitations for future elite specs? Since all core traits and skills should work for the elite specs, some may create difficult interactions and prevent some good mechanics change.

My personal feeling on this is that it is indeed difficult, and I suspect this is one of the reason why the chronomancer did not affect the F1-F4 shatters. For example, if I take the previous post by Unterkiefer, we see that the traits (mental anguish for example) prevents removing damage from shatters to change them into buffs.
When I tried to imagine a sustained damage elite spec for mesmer, I also tried to change shatters to be passive buffs or others, but the interaction with traits made this near-impossible (or rather, I didn’t find any satisfying solution).

What traits/mechanics limit us and how could we change them to help new interesting elite specs?

I’d like to see a class similar to Kiritsugu Emiya from Fate.
No clones, but instead using shatters to give quickness/swiftness on me and slow/chill/weakness on target.

New weapon could be pistol in main hand, so dual wielding pistols would be possible.
Would keep dual wielding swords in other weapon set.

No clones, so damage coefficients for that spec should be increased to push out damage comparable to a thief.

Silverkey.2078:

I will ask you something that I thought was an interesting question in the necromancer forum:
Is there any trait or mechanics that you think offers strong limitations for future elite specs? Since all core traits and skills should work for the elite specs, some may create difficult interactions and prevent some good mechanics change.

My personal feeling on this is that it is indeed difficult, and I suspect this is one of the reason why the chronomancer did not affect the F1-F4 shatters. For example, if I take the previous post by Unterkiefer, we see that the traits (mental anguish for example) prevents removing damage from shatters to change them into buffs.
When I tried to imagine a sustained damage elite spec for mesmer, I also tried to change shatters to be passive buffs or others, but the interaction with traits made this near-impossible (or rather, I didn’t find any satisfying solution).

What traits/mechanics limit us and how could we change them to help new interesting elite specs?

I get what you’re saying, and to be honest, while this may seem like me being QQ, I feel like it’s the entire class. Everything in the mesmer is like a delicate spiderweb, each mechanic/skill/trait linked with at least two of the others in such a way that any meaningful change would require a rework of the entire class. If you mess with clones, you have to change every 2H and MH weapon, and a ton of traits. If you mess with phantasms, same thing. If you mess with shatters, well you already pointed that out. The easiest thing in the class to change is the F6-F10 skills, and that’s what gets changed almost every time.

Also, someone early said something I will disagree with heartily. Chrono didn’t fix anything with base mesmer. No elite spec has that capability. It might allow you to not use a broken traitline, but it doesn’t FIX anything. Unless you wanted build diversity fixed by removing any diversity at all.

But I mention that to say this: Elite specs won’t fix the class. And it needs fixing. I don’t know what it should be fixed into, but I hope they give some serious thought to it. Smarter people than I can figure that out.

bearshaman.3421:

But I mention that to say this: Elite specs won’t fix the class. And it needs fixing. I don’t know what it should be fixed into, but I hope they give some serious thought to it. Smarter people than I can figure that out.

Elite specs could fix parts of the profession if they involve reworking old mechanics.

Phantasms are a good example. Their current implementation is a spectacular failure due to the simple fact that shatters contradict phantasms. The idea of creating a living hex that provokes the foe is a great idea, but it doesn’t work when destroying your illusions is mandatory to play the profession. Furthermore, the fact that mesmer DPS is held back under the assumption of triple phantasms just handicaps the class.

Phantasms could easily work, however, as a specialization. If they were removed completely from the default mesmer and a future specialization focused on living hexes, both playstyles would improve. A simple mechanic like “shatter your clones to create a phantasm. The more clones you shatter, the higher the phantasm’s maximum health” would allow the F1-4 keys to generate living hexes instead. Shatter mesmers would benefit from streamlined play, and phantasm mesmers would thrive due to an entire trait line built around their style. It would take reworking to balance the spiderweb, unfortunately, but the result would fix at least one aspect of the mesmer ideal.

That being said, it’s the unfortunate truth that redesigning the mesmer from the ground up would likely improve it based upon the new technology they have developed. Most of the problematic mesmer mechanics can be linked to lackluster design decisions before the game was released, and the technological advancement since that time period would solve quite a few of the class’s core conundrums. But the amount of effort it would take ensures it will almost certainly never happen.

I want an elite spec focused on:

• Debuffing
• Soft-CC via debuffs, say effects which cause high damage on slower attacks dealt by the target, damage on ticking DoTs, interrupt on elite usage, and so on. Prevent them from doing much without actually CCing them.

I would call this elite spec… Mesmer.

Writing purely from a pve pov…

I’d like a selfish purely personal dps line with absolutely no group utiliy. Why? Because we already have godlike group buffing with chrono, and we have cool/clever reflects for things like Sorrow’s Embrace, but we hit like a wet noodle in open world and like all MMOs GW2 is mostly played solo.

There is a reason that chronos are a backbone of raid teams (the buffs), and that they are becoming goto tanks (they have no dps to lose by going tanky). I’m sure many of you have read the qT dps charts, where they had to use a smaller golem for mesmer…

So I want traits for might/vuln/fury/quickness, more power/precision/ferocity/condition damage/condition duration, and none of this sharable except with my phantasms. Also I would like generous access to a damaging condition other than confusion, since pve mobs don’t use many skills. And more spammable clones for shatter. Yes this is boring and generic, and I don’t give a juvenilecat.

Non-chrono mes should do almost the dps of dragonhunter, with a bit more utility.

But for something more radical… Equipping this trait line causes illusions to unsummon when you leave combat, not when their target dies, if they haven’t been killed/shattered/overwritten already. That would alleviate one of the great annoyances of mesmer which is fighting multiple risen pirates or whatever at five second intervals with your 25 second cooldowns. Also: a trait that replaces all confusion you deal with some other damaging condition.

If this makes the mes op in pvp/wvw, nerf something that is only used in those modes.

Thank you for your time.

I imagine our new elite spec could go a few ways…

I agree with others that one possible way could be a Bard themed class. Perhaps we’d gain access to a new ranged weapon (longbow, short bow or rifle) and shout utilities. Not only do these 2h ranged weapons resemble instruments but I feel like the mesmer deserves 5 new weapon skills as opposed to just 2 off hand skills. Worse case, the bard would get an off hand warhorn, cause we all know the new weapon would have to be instrument themed and atlas summon a new phantasm. Ideally all these abilities would synergies with mantras and duelling traits. I’d like to think the Dueling trait line would get reworked in order for it to be used more frequently and appealing.

Other ideas of mine include making us more similar to some existing phantasms…

The Warden specialization would include a main-hand axe and synergies well with the off hand focus and inspiration trait lines/ reflects. We’d get a nice mixture of reflects along with melee and long ranged attacks.

Likewise, the Duelist specialization would feature a main-hand pistol and focus on long ranged attacks and synergies with he duelling tramline to inflict conditions.

As someone previously stated, I wouldn’t be surprised if instead we get something like a useless off hand but receive a variety of Conjured Weapons that are based on phantasm weapons.

These have been just some ideas off the top of my head.

I’m playing around with the idea of a ‘Siren’ elite spec. Ranged terrestrial trident, sustained damage and aoe CC, new charm condition, and traps so you can lure foes to their doom. Cuz you know, none of our phantasms use that one trident skin.

Shriketalon.1937:

Phantasms could easily work, however, as a specialization. If they were removed completely from the default mesmer and a future specialization focused on living hexes, both playstyles would improve.

That’s what I mean. In order to fix this, an introduction of an elite spec doesn’t fix the base mesmer. You would still have to do something to the base class. That’s all I’m saying. Even if the rework is part of introducing a new e-spec, it’s still a rework of the base class that’s needed.

MAIN HAND FOCUS!!!!!
Which is a dps weapon like a dagger, punching like animations would be sick :P high damage and fast
Some of the focuses look like melee weapon any ways so there wouldn’t look stupid haha
But can you imagine it looking like a magical wolverine xD

UKADAM.3910:

MAIN HAND FOCUS!!!!!
Which is a dps weapon like a dagger, punching like animations would be sick :P high damage and fast
Some of the focuses look like melee weapon any ways so there wouldn’t look stupid haha
But can you imagine it looking like a magical wolverine xD

I like you.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Been thinking about this for a few months and have a write up on an elite spec idea that wasn’t finished. I might just post what I have tonight even if it isn’t fully done.

Silverkey.2078:

For me, there are a few roles which I would like to improve on. The first example is phantasm-free sustained damage. Sadly, I don’t see how this can be done at the elite spec level, so I feel this should be fixed at the core level (as usual see my suggestions in my signature).

I don’t think they will do a rework at this point. I think the best place for a DPS buff to Mesmer is an elite spec. Since Chrono keeps getting base Mesmer nerfed, I’ve accepted the elite spec power creep. That isn’t going to change. Base mesmer won’t get buffs or chrono will ruin it even more.

Loony.3714:

We have pretty great burst but our sustain is really lacking. While im not sure how to accomplish this, and personally enjoy the support role, I think a damaging role should be next.

Levetty.1279:

Mad deeps.

Doubt they will do a big phantasm rework for an elite spec (or ever) but with a combination of traits, replacing F1-4 and a new weapon something decent could happen.
…
Not sure on utilities but we will need swiftness, condi cleanse and depending on the weapon and what they do to shatters with the spec we will need more aoe.

So idea I had:
F1 and F2 are now pulsing AOE. Burst is lower but the sustain DPS becomes higher. This also means the elite spec can buff phantasm/other mesmer damage more without making them “OP” in PvP with high burst and sustain DPS in infamous 6/6/6/6/6 builds.

Example utility: Illusion of Weakness: 1 sec cast time. Gain self weakness, current phantasms do 30-40% more damage for X time. Would be mostly useless in PvP but gives a nice buff to PvE dps. Other utilities would be selfish in different ways.

Pistol/Pistol: Heavily focused on interrupt and damage with little defense. With DD it would be an interrupt/DPS snowball weapon set.

Pretty much exactly what needs to happen. Simply, to buff DPS to make mesmers be able to fill that role, the innate burst and utility tied to the class mechanic needs to go and be filled with something to enable more damage per unit of time while not just pumping out more numbers on top of the existing burst-heavy kit.

Even things like just summoning illusions themselves would go a long way, which is frankly where I think F2-F4 in terms of design should have gone to begin with, so that the class could allow for numbers tweaks and trait/utility adjustments to balance burst vs DPS vs sustain without the mess of just having a bit of it all tied into the kit innately.

I think overall I genuinely feel that GW2 has “bigger worries” than what a specific elite spec for a specific class should provide.

And yes, I am aware that “elite spec” is a high-level concept. Still, GW2’s balance has much bigger worries.

I would first have the balance dev work on:

• Combat speed vs impact. Combat feels impactful compared to say WildStar, but still very floaty for how fast it can be resolved. Actually dangerous attacks and things which can kill you in 2-3 seconds need to provide adequate combat feel and openings, and vice-versa smaller utility effects can be hidden or underhanded.
• Spec design overall. We have too many options. Pick 3 of 6 trait lines. Pick 3 * 1/3 traits. Pick one of 30 or so stat combinations. Maybe mix them up. Pick 1 of 60 or so runes. Pick 4 of a hundred sigils. Multiple all of those. No wonder balance is rubbish (tbh), because there’s no way to make even a tiny tiny fraction of those decent. Streamlining can be useful if it cuts complexity which wasn’t adding depth anyhow…
• Speaking of which, why are things such as runes or sigils not baked in? They feel functionally no different from a specific trait I pick, just shared. Just bake them into classes which utilize them and cut them elsewhere. Less salvage-junk, too! :O
• What is my class actually supposed to do? Yes I know, no class role, but we moved beyond that in HoT anyways. So at least ride the wave now and use it for class balancing. Make Mesmers pure debuffers or CCers, make Thieves supreme single target gankers, etc. Even independent of their specific spec. That is, even a DPS Mesmer would primarily be a CCer, just a CC+DPS instead of say, CC+Debuffs.
• Effect stacking / boon spam: This has simply gotten out of hand. Reign it back in. I remember reading back in the days that boons were so short because they were supposed to matter. Make that happen. Access should be limited, effect very pronounced, counterplay crucial or avoidance necessary. Might should be a single non-stacking buff providing +20% damage output, for example.
• Same applies to Conditions ofc. Confusion doesn’t need to stack, it just needs to make someone stop and think whether to continue attacking. Done. Same for Torment actually. “Target loses 5% of their maximum health per second while moving.” – or something like that.
• Speaking of spam, what is it with so many so-short CD weapon skills compared to the long CDs on utility skills? If combat is supposed to be based on pronounced and important effects + their counterplay, why are abilities on short CDs to begin with? They need to be reliably shut down for X when countered, plus the counter needs enough downtime to matter. In the same vein, did I mention that there are way too many auto-procs, auto-effects and passive elements to the combat by now?

In short, just cut… I dunno… 50 or 60 percent of “things” out of the current system? The combat system is far from bad, but it very very much feels like it is bursting at the seams.

I really don’t agree with anything you’ve said.

I don’t know what elite spec should appear next, but it better have Illusion-based skills for the Heal and Elite skills, so I can finally die in peace knowing my slot skill bar has its full set of Illusion-based movesets.

Also, more purple butterflies and crystals.

A new elite spec? Hexes!!!! Move a bit away from the shatters by consuming illusions. When you consume illusions hexes are applied to single or multiple targets for condie or raw damages. This new spec should also give a new mechanic that allow mesmers to choose how many illusions they want to shatter and how many they want to consume. Mesmers gain different effects based on the distribution of shatters/consumption and the tratline should support/reflect this distribution while setting a higher number of illusions for consumption increased the power of hexes and a higher number of illusions for shatters increases the power of shatters. Shortbow for weapon: weapon skill number five sets the distribution for consumption/shatter 10s skill recharge. As for utilities: I really don’t know, maybe we could have glyphs