Guild Wars 2

Looking at the specs (including the elite specs) for the different classes it seems as though almost all have ample fields and blast finishers, which means they can blast their own fields. Why do we have so few finishers?

Other than loads of aoe chaos armour, I have no idea.

Would be nice to have one or two blast finishers other than the prestige.

This is a question we’ve been asking since the game launched. We’ve yet to get an answer.

Oddly I rarely ever drop any fields when using prestige, i forget. more would be nice though.

Khyber.1284:

Oddly I rarely ever drop any fields when using prestige, i forget. more would be nice though.

I sometimes prestige into chaos storm as an opener.

There are plenty of classes that are nearly as lacking in blast finishes as Mesmers are. Necro has one on a rarely used minion skill (and a skill which is mostly used as an escape and not a finisher), one on a second unreliable minion skill, and a single weapon-based Blast finisher. Ranger only has one outside of unreliable pet AI (and even then only two). Guardian has two on weapon skills and one on a summon which seems difficult to properly use the blast on. Thief only technically has two, though the fact that one is a weapon skill and the whole initiative aspect helps. Heck, in general I’d say any class that isn’t Engi, Ele, or Warrior are all pretty close in their general lack of blast finishers.

Which isn’t to say that Mesmer doesn’t need more blast finishers. But saying that “almost every class” has a ton more is a bit of an overexaggeration.

Ok, you’re so hilariously wrong I’m not entirely sure. Lets take a look…

Electro.4173:

Necro has one on a rarely used minion skill (and a skill which is mostly used as an escape and not a finisher), one on a second unreliable minion skill, and a single weapon-based Blast finisher.

Necro has (realistically) putrid mark and bone minions. The bone minions, while less commonly used, give them 2 blasts on a 20s cooldown, which is quite strong. Putrid mark is another blast on a 20s cooldown.

Electro.4173:

Ranger only has one outside of unreliable pet AI (and even then only two).

Ranger certainly is a bit lacking, but their single 30s cd blast finisher on warhorn is miles better than ours on the prestige.

Electro.4173:

Guardian has two on weapon skills and one on a summon which seems difficult to properly use the blast on.

LOL

Sorry, but the implication that guardian doesn’t have much access to blasts just made me laugh. Mighty blow is a blast finisher ON A 5 SECOND COOLDOWN. That they have other blast finishers too is just icing on the cake.

Electro.4173:

Thief only technically has two, though the fact that one is a weapon skill and the whole initiative aspect helps.

Thief has two. Both are incredibly strong. One is an instant utility, the other is a spammable weapon skill.

Electro.4173:

Heck, in general I’d say any class that isn’t Engi, Ele, or Warrior are all pretty close in their general lack of blast finishers.

And in general I’d say that this is the most inaccurate statement I’ve seen on these forums all week.

… and elementalists have plenty of fields and plenty of finishers… which is part of the reason they are god-mode.

I do agree though this is not our role. We have some leaps to get chaos armor, which is good on its own!

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

It’s funny because there’s so little viability in mesmer builds that provide said fields. Which are all etheral btw. And outside of Chaos storm, or falling off a cliff traited, require util and elite slots -_-u

buy could torch 4 give blast at start of skill not at end it would be much better, similar to guardian focus 5 were blast at beginning makes no sence xD (its really good thath its in beginning tough)

Don’t really need blast finishers anyways. The only person that actually wants chaos armor is the Mesmer himself when using that garbage staff trait.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

It’s funny because there’s so little viability in mesmer builds that provide said fields. Which are all etheral btw. And outside of Chaos storm, or falling off a cliff traited, require util and elite slots -_-u

Hey now, we can also provide a light field with Temporal Curtain! Mesmer is totally about providing fields.

serenke.4806:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

It’s funny because there’s so little viability in mesmer builds that provide said fields. Which are all etheral btw. And outside of Chaos storm, or falling off a cliff traited, require util and elite slots -_-u

Hey now, we can also provide a light field with Temporal Curtain! Mesmer is totally about providing fields.

Uh, sure its a field, but its a line. Nobody can reliably use lines anyway

:p

THIEVES CAN USE LINES RELIABLY!
Don’t forget Veil for that out of place Light field.

So what we’ve got is… (pre Chrono)

5 Ethereal Fields and 2 Light Fields.
The fields are as listed:
Ethereal: Chaos Storm (Staff), Vortex (Spear), Feedback (Utility), Null Field (Utility), Time Warp (Elite)
Light: Temporal Curtain (Focus), Veil (Utility).

Post-Chrono, we gain access to (with a traitline) 7 more fields, 5 Ethereal, 1 Light, and 1 Dark.
Tides of Time (Ethereal, Weapon), Well of Eternity (Light, Healing), Well of Action, Calamity, Precognition, Recall (Ethereal, Utility), Gravity Well (Dark, Elite).

This means that pre-Chrono, we can slot 1-3 Weapon Fields, 2 Ethereal, 1 Light (requiring both water and land to gain all 3). Typically a player will not use both land fields. For Utilities, we can slot any combination of 3 Ethereal and 2 Light (with use of Mimic). For Elites, we can slot Ethereal.

This means that if we spec entirely for Fields (because THAT’s what the glamour trait is for… right?), we can have 7 Fields on our bar with very little actual viability (you’re better off running a boonshare build at this point).

Now, running 4 Fields can be pretty standard in Mesmer play (Feedback Mimic TW, slot in NF if necessary or vice versa). But wearing a Staff and Focus is… awkward. Not to mention being near water for that off-land Vortex to combo with.

With Chronomancer, we actually only gain access to one more Field, although we do get more accessibility to Light fields and we gain our first Dark field. The reason why this change is not as significant (in a vacuum where all the skills are simply Fields and nothing more or less), is because you can still only slot 3 Fields in your Utilities, 1 in your Elite, and 2 in your Weapons (or 3 with water). The only “gain” here is via Healing Skills.

Of course, you can argue that you can actually bring in 8-9 more fields with Chrono due to Continuum Shift, but stacking Fields like that defeats the purpose of Field combos.

I don’t really see the whole execution being done very well, although I can personally see the concept. It just seems to me to be one of those things lost in translation (and while we do have lots of access to Ethereal, is it really a sought after Field? Are they truly worthy of us not having access to many finishers?) and not actually relevant (anymore).

Just bind fields into current traits. Traits proc, fields go down all over the bloody place, its not like mesmers will ever proc them ourselves anyway. Then it’d be like current fields. We use our current ones for whatever primary effect they’re meant for, and if they proc a blast or whatever from an allie someone somewhere might get a randomly timed benefit.

This way we dont have to bother slotting useless glamours for their field application :)

i like the idea mesmer is all about fields but i would have been happier if more fields would have been available to us. atm we currently have ethereal fields (light and dark is hardly for the fields)
what we get if our party use them right. chaos armor which gives to the party blind, confusion and cripple if they get hit and protection, regen and swiftness. the blind and cripple is really good
all anet needs to do is to connect between them proc by our fields and our base dmg like if i run condi and ineptitude and my warrior blast my field and he get attacked he proc blind and confusion from my ineptitude which do my condi dmg

this also could work with the trait mistrust as if my team will get chaos armor and i can interrupt we could proc about 5- confusion stacks aoe – probably will work better in wvw but also in pvp like in mid fights. so enemy will try not to hit us if they see chaos armor

i would also like more fields with weapon like torch can be smoke or fire field, shield can be dark field and not ethereal.
well of eternity – water – common a heal skill aoe so if ppl blast it it would be so good as party support. the mesmer alone cant use it unless he take torch
well of action – ethereal – like time warp should be ethereal in concept
well of calamity – fire – well which does dmg so if you leap or blast you get might stacks or fire aura which increase your might stacks
well of precognition – light – with stability and the ability for retaliation and light aura
well of recall – ice – it chill so why not get frost aura or chilled with projectiles

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

Thank you for the clarification on this and for the interaction with the community. It is greatly appreciated all the hard work and effort you’re putting in to make the classes and specialisations as fun as possible.

P.S. The faces you made Rubi pull on the berserker live stream were priceless.

Yes thank you for explaining, that is understandable.

I think the issue is aoe chaos armour from blast finishers on our ethereal fields (which are most of our fields) could be a little more potent when compared with blasting of other more useful fields (ie water).

Leaps, projectiles and whirls are good, but blasts could provide an additional effect – perhaps aoe stability or some other boon/condition?

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

oh, that’s why Berserker got like 20 fire fields?

Robert Gee.9246:

…

Thanks for stopping by and giving us some insides on your thought process.

Curunen.8729:

Yes thank you for explaining, that is understandable.

I think the issue is aoe chaos armour from blast finishers on our ethereal fields (which are most of our fields) could be a little more potent when compared with blasting of other more useful fields (ie water).

Leaps, projectiles and whirls are good, but blasts could provide an additional effect – perhaps aoe stability or some other boon/condition?

I think there is a general issue with blast- and leap finishers. They are too different (not considering that specific effects will always be more beneficial than others). I’d be all for blast finishers always applying a direct effect rather than an aura (ice and ethereal). Ice could provide Protection. Ether could provide Quickness (or Resistance?) or Slow offensively since it’s mainly associated with Mesmers. I’d also like something (more) unique on Darkness to push those fields and Necros a little bit. Blindness feels too situational that you won’t want to waste a blast finisher on it in most scenarios.

Leap finishers are a bit tricky since water and smoke finishers are heavily used across all classes. I wouldn’t like to touch that. However, I don’t see why dark, poison and lightning fields wouldn’t provide an aura as well? We would need new auras for dark (life leech) and poison (Vigor + Weakness?). It would make a lot more sense this way.

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

A shame there is a massive benefit to having multiple of the same finisher (blast), whereas there is no or low benefit to having multiple of the same field (etheral yay).

Clownmug.8357:

Don’t really need blast finishers anyways. The only person that actually wants chaos armor is the Mesmer himself when using that garbage staff trait.

That “garbage” Staff trait, especially because it’s combined with Chaos Armor, allows a Mesmer to stay alive quite easily without hiding in “garbage” stealth. Chaos Armor is vastly underrated, and your statement showcased that just fine.

On topic; While as stated, from a design perspective we shouldn’t necessarily be blasting our own fields, but rather be supplying them—well in stating that, then my impression is that you’ve basically messed up on nearly every other profession with access to some kind of field(s), besides taking into account that we also have two field types that are far less sought after. Guardians can easily blast their own- and others fields, as can the Elementalist, and the Engineer (the amount of healing with Shield, Healing- and Thumper Turret is borderline sickening (F1, F2 + double-tap #4, and/or a combination of Healing Turret, Cleansing Burst, F1 + F2 + double-tap #4)—throw in the Supply Crate elite for even more blasted healing potential), also the Warrior with their limited amount, can at least blast their own field just fine, numerous times, for Might at that, arguably the strongest Boon in the game. Thief can repeatedly blast their own fields.. so at that point, it feels more correct to state that some professions lack Blast Finisher potential, and that they are poorly designed on that front.

Being able to blast fields, makes you all the more viable as a “support” oriented profession. You don’t just blast your own fields after all, that’s not teamwork now, is it? We can’t feasibly do this task, as our single Blast Finisher is not only on a rather long recharge period, but also delayed. We can’t blast that field we spotted someone throw down in the middle of combat, it’ll dissipate before we come out of stealth, shouting “Ta-da!” at the top of our lungs. As a Blast Finisher to help the team out, it’s quite simply horrible. I still wish Mind Stab would have been allowed to become an “alternative” source for a instant Blast Finisher. And/or if Mind Wrack could be one (only the now inherent Illusionary Persona source, not each clone, for obvious reasons).

messiah.1908:

i like the idea mesmer is all about fields but i would
i would also like more fields with weapon like torch can be smoke or fire field, shield can be dark field and not ethereal.
well of eternity – water – common a heal skill aoe so if ppl blast it it would be so good as party support. the mesmer alone cant use it unless he take torch
well of action – ethereal – like time warp should be ethereal in concept
well of calamity – fire – well which does dmg so if you leap or blast you get might stacks or fire aura which increase your might stacks
well of precognition – light – with stability and the ability for retaliation and light aura
well of recall – ice – it chill so why not get frost aura or chilled with projectiles

this

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

or this!

My sugestion is simple: Just make the prestige apply 2 blast finisher. At begining and at end ( like present ). Or/and mind stab on gs, it would fit the animation..
There you go, community happy. But i confess i liked that “time field” idea. Usefull field without being overused already by others professions, cause lets be honest, chaos armor/confusion is hardly good outside condi builds, and even then… It mostly serves for traited protection.

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

I totally get this idea and where it’s coming from. However, there are two problems with this in practice:

• Allies with Blasts will prefer to use them on Fire fields, which we don’t have, for AoE Might stacking
• As others have mentioned, we’re one-trick ponies as far as what fields we provide, so we don’t even have flexibility to drop different fields for different situations.

Our lack of Blasts is not a critical issue (it’s way down the list compared to build diversity issues and dungeon DPS), but at the same time I do sort of feel like there’s a gap where an Ethereal-blasting support Mesmer build could be.

Messiah hit the nail on the head right there with field variety.

1. In general, ethereal fields are not wanted except by mesmers, who are unable to blast it themselves.

2. Blasting is more powerful than laying down fields. Fields tend to last a while, so as long as a class can lay down the field you want, it’s less important how much fields you have and more how much blasting you have. As long as “blast classes” can put down any fields, “field classes” are unnecessary, because you get more mileage out of blowing all your blasts on one field than out of laying down multiple fields but getting less blasts. There’s admittedly a balance in there, but at present it’s not a thing. Elementalists and guardians have blasts and fields, so you bring elementalists and guardians and not mesmers.

3. Elementalists get lots of fields and lots of blasts. What role do they play, Robert?
In fact, they get more fields than we do, and a lot more blasts on top of that. If “field generator” is a class aspect, why isn’t it applied universally? If it’s just a matter of your classes (as the class dev for specific professions) getting this design orientation, wouldn’t it be better to give up that design goal when other profession devs (like the ele dev) don’t want to play ball, and are just content giving their class all the toys?

4. I don’t buy it. Not that I don’t believe the intention, but in practice classes that can blast get more than classes that don’t, and the “blast classes” aren’t being denied field access on the level that the “field classes” are being denied blasts.

5. I argue that The Prestige is the worst blast finisher in the game. “3/6 seconds from now, you get to blast a field”. I’ve gotta be in a specific place 3 or 6 seconds from now, when I don’t even know for sure what the fight is gonna look like at that point, and I’ve gotta predict that there’s gonna be a field that I want there.

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

Thanks for answering. The thing is I’ve watch a few elite spec POIs of other classes, and the impression I got was the elite specs seemed to be adding more options of finishers and fields, in addition to those they already had. This coveys quite an advantage to those classes. If this is the direction of gameplay then all classes should be able to do this to near the same extent.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Messiah hit the nail on the head right there with field variety.

3. Elementalists get lots of fields and lots of blasts. What role do they play, Robert?
In fact, they get more fields than we do, and a lot more blasts on top of that. If “field generator” is a class aspect, why isn’t it applied universally? If it’s just a matter of your classes (as the class dev for specific professions) getting this design orientation, wouldn’t it be better to give up that design goal when other profession devs (like the ele dev) don’t want to play ball, and are just content giving their class all the toys?

.

Using this logic, I would be happy, as a d/d or even staff ele, to give you 2 of my blasts in exchange for a stealth skill. Or make our teleport like blink and be a stun breaker with alot more range. Would make the ele alot more diverse, don’t you think?

I’m fine without having nearly no blast finishers, since we would become pretty op with a trait like “shatter skills are now 1 blast finisher on persona”. Even though it would be funny :P

But no, I’m fine with the diversity in classes. Blast finisher clearly belongs to other professions. But the point, Robert Gee, you mentioned that Mesmer provide fields, I’d really like to see improvement for the chaos armor or etheral fields in general.

mulzi.8273:

Using this logic, I would be happy, as a d/d or even staff ele, to give you 2 of my blasts in exchange for a stealth skill. Or make our teleport like blink and be a stun breaker with alot more range. Would make the ele alot more diverse, don’t you think?

Then please give us Drake’s Breath, Ring of Fire, Meteor Shower, Ice Bow. So mesmer can be more diverse. Right now mesmer lacks reliable Burning and High ground-targeted AoE Dmg. (Btw I believe Lightning Flash did break stun just got nerfed along the way.)

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

The fields mesmers provide are not valuable, at least from a PvE perspective.

Ethereal fields are one of the weakest ingame, with a procced chaos armor on leap that doesn’t benefit non-condition specs most of the time and the RNG affecting the short duration boons gained pales in comparison to a fire or water or smoke field.

More importantly, it’s not about the amount of fields, but the ease of access to them. The fire field from a warrior’s longbow is easily spammable and accessible, which in turns allows the warrior to set up might/fire aura stacking easily. Longbow is a staple warrior weapon.

Mesmer’s field comes from staff, which is never used in group content (mesmer condition specs are too weak in PvE, too much ramp up and reliant on clones that die too easily to aoe) or group PvP (condi mesmers lack meaningful cleave unlike engineer or necromancers). And I suspect condi mesmers will stay that was so long as mesmer keeps being balanced on 1v1 pvp complaints since PU/BD condi mesmers are strong in 1v1 but worthless in group content.

You have null field or feedback, but the mesmer himself doesn’t have any fields/finishers on any of his weapons besides the staff. And since no changes have been made that will improve the viability of staff or scepter specs in PvE, mesmers will continue to use mainhand sword and greatsword in most content.

Many thanks for the straight answer on this. We have been asking about this for a logn time, and it’s good to just get an answer.

I don’t mind the design all that much, but I agree that you should spend some time evaluating the effectiveness of the various blast finishers. Very little balancing has been done here, and the balance between them has always been quite terrible.

Clearly Fire+Blast and Water+Blast are much stronger than pretty much any other finisher/field combo. I think it would make sense to better balance these combo effects amongst themselves. Bring up the less desirable ones like Etheral field. I realize they will never all be equally desirable, but currently the gap is so huge that it leaves plenty of room to improve weaker ones without in any way affecting the desirability of stronger ones like Fire and Water.

Lastly, I agree with the principle that Mesmer shouldn’t be a blast-focused class, but I also don’t think that should mean they get literally no reasonably useable blast finishers at all! So I agree with those that ask for TP to at least Blast at the start rather the end of the skill. (This issue was also greatly exacerbated by PU.)

Also I agree that a Blast Finisher fits the GS#3, and even that would still be far from turning Mesmers into a Blast-finisher oriented profession. We would still completely lack the ability to stack Might ourselves as we have no Fire fields, and equally no means to heal ourselves using Water fields.

Of course, alternatively, you could leave the Blast finishers as is, and just make The Prestige drop a short duration Fire field just before the current Blast Finisher goes off! :-)

Zenith.7301:

You have null field or feedback, but the mesmer himself doesn’t have any fields/finishers on any of his weapons besides the staff. And since no changes have been made that will improve the viability of staff or scepter specs in PvE, mesmers will continue to use mainhand sword and greatsword in most content.

Sword has a Leap, Staff has a Leap, Spear has a Leap, Torch has a Blast, Pistol has a Projectile, GS has a Projectile.

If we count Phantasms (which isn’t a very good representation of finishers, bar Pistol and Focus), there’s also another…
1 Projectile, 1 Leap, and 3 Whirls.

Arguably, we can only actually use up to 2 finishers depending on our weapon setups (more with water and phantasm finishers).

The reason I don’t really count Phantasm finishers is that they are unreliable (bar Pistol and Focus) due to Phantasms moving around and/or dying (although Pistol and Focus phants can die, usually a Focus phant will be dropped against an enemy that will not or can not kill it within it’s first attack cycle, which yields a significant amount of whirls. The Pistol is typically in a safe position to attack, although it has a probability based projectile finisher).

Aaaaannnnd all of these finishers mainly affect condition damage builds unless used in conjunction with a party member (projectile or whirl blind finishes are crazy).

Of course, in my opinion, if you want to count Phantasms as finishers, you must also include that a Banner is a multi-finisher (if you pick it up and press 5 you will blast with a 1s cast time and a 10s cooldown. An entire party can blast 5 times every 10 seconds and a group can blast it roughly 8-9 times every 10 seconds (pick up animations and latency)). Since a Phantasm theoretically has a large amount of finishes, so, too, does a Banner. A Banner theoretically has 121 blasts. Hue.

Esplen.3940:

Zenith.7301:

You have null field or feedback, but the mesmer himself doesn’t have any fields/finishers on any of his weapons besides the staff. And since no changes have been made that will improve the viability of staff or scepter specs in PvE, mesmers will continue to use mainhand sword and greatsword in most content.

Sword has a Leap, Staff has a Leap, Spear has a Leap, Torch has a Blast, Pistol has a Projectile, GS has a Projectile.

If we count Phantasms (which isn’t a very good representation of finishers, bar Pistol and Focus), there’s also another…
1 Projectile, 1 Leap, and 3 Whirls.

Arguably, we can only actually use up to 2 finishers depending on our weapon setups (more with water and phantasm finishers).

The reason I don’t really count Phantasm finishers is that they are unreliable (bar Pistol and Focus) due to Phantasms moving around and/or dying (although Pistol and Focus phants can die, usually a Focus phant will be dropped against an enemy that will not or can not kill it within it’s first attack cycle, which yields a significant amount of whirls. The Pistol is typically in a safe position to attack, although it has a probability based projectile finisher).

Aaaaannnnd all of these finishers mainly affect condition damage builds unless used in conjunction with a party member (projectile or whirl blind finishes are crazy).

Of course, in my opinion, if you want to count Phantasms as finishers, you must also include that a Banner is a multi-finisher (if you pick it up and press 5 you will blast with a 1s cast time and a 10s cooldown. An entire party can blast 5 times every 10 seconds and a group can blast it roughly 8-9 times every 10 seconds (pick up animations and latency)). Since a Phantasm theoretically has a large amount of finishes, so, too, does a Banner. A Banner theoretically has 121 blasts. Hue.

Unfortunately leap finishers might as well not exist in PvE, they’re not useful at all. Go blast finishers or go home.

I still dont know why shatters dont provide blast finisher… for Lyssa… they EXPLODE.. they screams fo this, even via traits… or at last Mind Wrack should support 1 blast per illusion.

Esplen.3940:

Zenith.7301:

You have null field or feedback, but the mesmer himself doesn’t have any fields/finishers on any of his weapons besides the staff. And since no changes have been made that will improve the viability of staff or scepter specs in PvE, mesmers will continue to use mainhand sword and greatsword in most content.

Sword has a Leap, Staff has a Leap, Spear has a Leap, Torch has a Blast, Pistol has a Projectile, GS has a Projectile.

If we count Phantasms (which isn’t a very good representation of finishers, bar Pistol and Focus), there’s also another…
1 Projectile, 1 Leap, and 3 Whirls.

Arguably, we can only actually use up to 2 finishers depending on our weapon setups (more with water and phantasm finishers).

The reason I don’t really count Phantasm finishers is that they are unreliable (bar Pistol and Focus) due to Phantasms moving around and/or dying (although Pistol and Focus phants can die, usually a Focus phant will be dropped against an enemy that will not or can not kill it within it’s first attack cycle, which yields a significant amount of whirls. The Pistol is typically in a safe position to attack, although it has a probability based projectile finisher).

Aaaaannnnd all of these finishers mainly affect condition damage builds unless used in conjunction with a party member (projectile or whirl blind finishes are crazy).

Of course, in my opinion, if you want to count Phantasms as finishers, you must also include that a Banner is a multi-finisher (if you pick it up and press 5 you will blast with a 1s cast time and a 10s cooldown. An entire party can blast 5 times every 10 seconds and a group can blast it roughly 8-9 times every 10 seconds (pick up animations and latency)). Since a Phantasm theoretically has a large amount of finishes, so, too, does a Banner. A Banner theoretically has 121 blasts. Hue.

Except the finisher on a banner does not happen independently of the person wielding it.

Eles have their own fields and blast finishers on its own, even the dodge (traited) is a blast finisher. Everyones on equal footing.

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

That would probably be enough to make me actually trait chrono…having time fields instead of ethereal fields. As it is…I was really hyped about chrono…until I looked at it again after the rounds of nerfs…now I can’t see a reason to want to trait it in pve…inspiration is so much better as far as group support/synergy goes. If I could get reliable and decent alacrity up time without having to use that garbage shield off hand…chrono would look a lot more appealing.

ODB.6891:

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

That would probably be enough to make me actually trait chrono…having time fields instead of ethereal fields. As it is…I was really hyped about chrono…until I looked at it again after the rounds of nerfs…now I can’t see a reason to want to trait it in pve…inspiration is so much better as far as group support/synergy goes. If I could get reliable and decent alacrity up time without having to use that garbage shield off hand…chrono would look a lot more appealing.

100% personal, 74% team alacrity good enough for you?
Or 100% personal, 69% team alacrity with 44% team quickness?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p6Byh_rZrfQtG0dsI1Y2JL_yYw_mvzt8EqrBXN2hLps/edit?usp=sharing

AlphatheWhite.9351:

ODB.6891:

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

That would probably be enough to make me actually trait chrono…having time fields instead of ethereal fields. As it is…I was really hyped about chrono…until I looked at it again after the rounds of nerfs…now I can’t see a reason to want to trait it in pve…inspiration is so much better as far as group support/synergy goes. If I could get reliable and decent alacrity up time without having to use that garbage shield off hand…chrono would look a lot more appealing.

100% personal, 74% team alacrity good enough for you?
Or 100% personal, 69% team alacrity with 44% team quickness?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p6Byh_rZrfQtG0dsI1Y2JL_yYw_mvzt8EqrBXN2hLps/edit?usp=sharing

Granted that comes with shattering, which in turn guts your sustained damage.

They really just need to vastly increase the damage of shatters in PvE only (no WvW or spvp). That simple. Then mesmers would be happy to shatter.

Zenith.7301:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

ODB.6891:

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

That would probably be enough to make me actually trait chrono…having time fields instead of ethereal fields. As it is…I was really hyped about chrono…until I looked at it again after the rounds of nerfs…now I can’t see a reason to want to trait it in pve…inspiration is so much better as far as group support/synergy goes. If I could get reliable and decent alacrity up time without having to use that garbage shield off hand…chrono would look a lot more appealing.

100% personal, 74% team alacrity good enough for you?
Or 100% personal, 69% team alacrity with 44% team quickness?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p6Byh_rZrfQtG0dsI1Y2JL_yYw_mvzt8EqrBXN2hLps/edit?usp=sharing

Granted that comes with shattering, which in turn guts your sustained damage.

They really just need to vastly increase the damage of shatters in PvE only (no WvW or spvp). That simple. Then mesmers would be happy to shatter.

Improved alacrity is enough, you don’t need to shatter.
34*1.5=51, which is longer than the 46.5s of our cooldown cycle.

Guess it’s time to give up danger time then!

Has anyone confirmed what’s the target cap? If we get 10/20 man raids, if the target cap is 5 people, that means 2/4 chronomancer buff bots.

I simply want one reliable blast finisher. That’s all. Either a blast on the start of Prestige or a blast on GS3. Just something… reliable.

I’m fine with our fields being mostly ethereal. There could be a bit of diversity I guess. I like some of the ideas being brought up in this thread.

Zenith.7301:

Guess it’s time to give up danger time then!

I never saw the use of Danger Time for PvE purposes. Most min/maxing for PvE involves getting to 100% crit which is easy enough without the use of that trait. Probably ‘cause I’m still running around in Assassins with Accuracy Sigils, though.

I just don’t see why wells aren’t made in to glamour fields (preferably not just ethereal ones). This would add more utility to them, considering most people didn’t seem that happy with the way they functioned. A lot of good suggestions for wells were made after the first BWE but no notable changes were made.

Mesmer, Providing almost completely worthless combo fields since April 28, 2012.

I’ve yet to see a group that asks for an Ethereal Field, Chaos Armor without Chaotic Dampening is worthless. Confusion is worthless in PvE, and the effects do not last long enough to matter in PvP from projectile/whirl finishers.

Light Field is decent, Only when there is heavy conditions, and a whirl starts removing things, Light Aura is worse than simply getting ‘7 seconds’ (Forgot the actual duration) of retalition from leaping through it, that the effect had before ‘Light Aura’ was a thing.

Yet both are detrimental in comparison to Fire, Water, Smoke, Dark, and covering those up with a crappy Ethereal Field and to a lesser degree, light field in ANY aspect of the game is a sure way to kitten people off.

thetarot.8246:

Yet both are detrimental in comparison to Fire, Water, Smoke, Dark, and covering those up with a crappy Ethereal Field and to a lesser degree, light field in ANY aspect of the game is a sure way to kitten people off.

Bingo! That’s what I’m saying. That really needs to change. There is no reason why the other fields can’t be made at least a little more competitive.

Same goes for balance between Blast and the other finishers, most of which are terrible as well in comparison to Blast.

Things might look different in HoT; in PvP, chaos armor is quite valuable. I guess we may have a better idea in a bit more than 1h

Windwalker.7421:

thetarot.8246:

Yet both are detrimental in comparison to Fire, Water, Smoke, Dark, and covering those up with a crappy Ethereal Field and to a lesser degree, light field in ANY aspect of the game is a sure way to kitten people off.

Bingo! That’s what I’m saying. That really needs to change. There is no reason why the other fields can’t be made at least a little more competitive.

Same goes for balance between Blast and the other finishers, most of which are terrible as well in comparison to Blast.

The number and type of fields are part of class design. If you want to get more competitive fields be prepared to give up stuff from mesmer.