Guild Wars 2

I’ve always been bothered by how mesmer always feels like a purple version of thief with some wacky mechanic but it’s never enough to make it stand out on its own. When chronomancer came, it increased the ‘wackiness’ quite a bit but the base class overall still feels rather meh.

In my opinion, mesmer needs way more unconventional skills. If there’s going to be another elite I spec, I’d rather it has something like

1. A skill that temporarily steals enemy’s stat
2. A skill that makes enemy suffers % of damage done to them in the past 5 seconds again
3. A skill that makes enemy hostile to all targets
4. A skill that makes enemy friendly to all targets
5. A skill that makes enemy take direct dmg to their health based on the damage done to you
etc etc

Something along that line, something that’s not numeric like dps meter or boons machine

I fully agree with you. Mesmer should be about weird unconventional control mechanics rather than simple dps or at the most a few pathetic interrupts.

Doesn’t confusion provide for #5.. and possibly a little of #2?

But yes, more unconventionality (is that a word?) would be cool. How about a variation of the stealth mechanic where you can take on the appearance of a target (e.g. mordrem sniper) so you can run by them unmolested?

Or, create a holographic projection at a target location that copies what you do, albeit without causing any actual damage? Imagine there’s a group of enemies you want to get past. You create an illusion of yourself off to the side and their follow it, then you sneak past.

Or, the ability to case a mirror at a target location and use it to reflect projectiles or beams around a corner?

Or, a portal that only transports npc enemies – you can cast it at a target location and if an enemy runs across it, they get teleported a short distance away. For example, you see an ally downed and about to be charged by something. You drop a portal between him and the enemy and it gets teleported past him, wasting its charge and giving him a chance to revive.

Or, the power to briefly disguise an ally (perhaps downed) as a tree, so enemies don’t charge them.

Just my 2 coppers

Well, if confusion weren’t total kitten and scaled both power and condition damage, it might actually be a core mesmer mechanic.

Of course, engineers do confusion even better without a metric ton of traitline investment, so they’d need to buff Cry of Frustration.

Distortion’s daze needs to stack per clone shattered and the daze needs to happen immediately upon activation, not clone travel time.

It’s also kittenty that Thief’s Pulmonary Impact is just a significantly better version of what we have.

But then again thief and engineer and warrior have long since eclipsed mesmer as a CC class.

confusion makes it happend the problem it tide to condition dmg so power dmg cant benefit from it
also retaliation tide to direct dmg so if memser had more access to it and buff to the dmg retaliation does (like 33% more dmg – like guards have with burning , thief with poison, ranger with bleeding etc..) and give more ability to proc it than mesmer could control both areas

we have a trait which shut down for 15 sec

you want more cc ability so it can be insane as mesmer are to king of cc abilities. but the problem other classes have more stability proc these days.