Guild Wars 2

My idea is to change mechanism of mantras to make them more viable in pve. Now You have to sacrifice 3 seconds of dps or whatever You’re doing (+ often interrupted via dodging, cc) to cast it. It is uncomfortable. And here’s my idea.

Now You have to finish casting and You have new ability which You can cast 2/3 times. Instead of this, we could have skill which charges in the background and You can use it later. You skip the 3sec casting part. It is known mechanic from Wildstar (Concentrated Blade), which inspired me to share it with You. Example:

Mantra of pain – Recharge time: 7sec. Max stacks 2 (3 traited). Recharge starts whenever Your mantra isn’t charged to maximum.
Recharge could be affected by alacrity, chill. recharge time is just example. In case of other mantras, which have internal cooldown on “discharge” such ICD could be added on top of base mechanic.

What does it give to You? You don’t have to sacrifice Your actions to charge mantra, the process is automated. Additionally, the trait from dueling (forgot the name) could work better. Now You gain +3% damage on mantra use, but You lose half the time of bonus because of repetitive casting.
If i remember good there are only 2 traits connected to mantras, so it wouldn’t be that hard to adjust them.

The problem is that mantras are balanced around this. Basically, you want mantras to be skills without cast time at all (cause if you have charged them, the follow skills have no cast time), which you are able to use multiple times.

Or in other words, you want a skill without cast time and just 7 seconds cooldown, because if you used one charge the cooldown will kick in.

They aren’t meant to be like that. You get the advantage of a instacast skill, which you can cast multiple times. The long cast time is the trade off for this. And it gives counterplay to the enemy too. If you have used all your charges, you have to charge it up again, giving the enemy the opportunity to interrupt you and give him a time window you aren’t able to use this skill.

But your suggestion: there is no pause, cause effectively there is just a cd of 7 seconds for this skill.

As Kodama mentions, they are balanced around insta cast discharges but having a channeled build up. I kind of prefer the flavor they have now. Mantras just need to synergize better. Having 4 on your bar is way too clunky and the traits should make it the opposite. I would much rather have something like:

Harmonious Mantra:
For each mantra you have on your bar, gain 1 more charge when you charge a mantra. So a single mantra = 3 (same as now). 2 mantras = 4 charges. 3 mantras= 5 charges. 4 mantra = 6 charges.
OR
For each mantra you have on your bar, mantra charge time is reduced by .5 seconds. 4 mantras = .75 charge time. One mantra 2.25 seconds.

CDs can be adjusted a bit between discharges but from a PvP side, no portal/blink means these builds would be held in check while creating an alternative build that could actually go full mantra or just one.

Restorative mantras just needs to be on discharge, not charge. Healing reduced of course.

Personally, I’d prefer they increase the recharge of all the mantras by 50-100%, but give us the background recharge ‘bug’ back. As a bonus, they’d actually benefit from alacrity that way also.

Mikkel.8427:

Personally, I’d prefer they increase the recharge of all the mantras by 50-100%, but give us the background recharge ‘bug’ back. As a bonus, they’d actually benefit from alacrity that way also.

To this day, I still don’t think that the “background bug” was a real bug and instead of nerf only mantra of distraction, they “fix” the whole “background bug”, just like instead of only nerfing well of precognition they nerf the whole alacrity

Bug or not it was still overpowered and it needed to be updated….As for this thread what they could actually do is create a specialization tratline that focuses on the use of mantras. They could also tie it to the use phantasms and clones for which using a mantra empowers in some way the abilities of illusions that you summon and that are already on the field. Would be awesome, don’t you think?

flog.3485:

Bug or not it was still overpowered and it needed to be updated….As for this thread what they could actually do is create a specialization tratline that focuses on the use of mantras. They could also tie it to the use phantasms and clones for which using a mantra empowers in some way the abilities of illusions that you summon and that are already on the field. Would be awesome, don’t you think?

I like this one. You still would have 5 base mantras +6 from specialization :v None class have 11 skills of same type xD

well the problem is that mantras can be quick overpowered.
2 stacks are week I know. 3 stacks are strong. adding more stacks would be insane!
and that’s the main issue with mantras they are extremely hard to balance.
first thing you will have to separate them wvw pvp pve.
well i think the main problem is synergism with other stuff. mantras only work with them self accept distraction.

• healing: is awesome with 3. too low with 2. —> forces you into get 3… no effect on allies
  pain: normal dmg quick recharge… yes that’s all
  distraction: awesome for interrupting and preventing dmg, stun combo, combo with shatter, vulnerability…
  concentration: its nice to have not more. put that together with the effect of resolve
  resolve: good strong condiclense but is already covered with healing and the passive so no need to use

• so not onely the combo possibilities also the overall isn’t covered with mantras. mantras forces you to go with power builds 3% for 10s dmg isn’t condi dmg!
  it onely effects you and not your phantasm which means you can cut out staff, scepter, torch, focus, pistol, boon dmg….. the onely thing which is effected is gs and sword skills and your f1.

so power it is? where do i get more power to support this trait and i have to do dmg quick because 10s are fast over!.

my thoughts for mantras are :

• put concentration and resolve together. a new —> applies condi burn confusion whatever
• HM needs also condi dmg involved
• HM also effects your phantasm
• maybe a bit odd but what if mantras are also casted around your illusions? or recasting the mantra gives the the mantra effect around your illusions or clones only.

Mantra of Pain needs some looking at. Right now it’s just too weak.

Dondagora.9645:

Mantra of Pain needs some looking at. Right now it’s just too weak.

This is true since it has about the damage of an autoattack. Even if the damage doubled , the skill is incredibly narrow in use so it’d likely not go on my skill bar. Maybe if guaranteed crit / 2.5x to 3x current damage… it’d be like shattering for lazy mesmers which is broken since there’s no cast time and you can chain it 3 times in 3 seconds

Infusion.7149:

Dondagora.9645:

Mantra of Pain needs some looking at. Right now it’s just too weak.

This is true since it has about the damage of an autoattack. Even if the damage doubled , the skill is incredibly narrow in use so it’d likely not go on my skill bar. Maybe if guaranteed crit / 2.5x to 3x current damage… it’d be like shattering for lazy mesmers which is broken since there’s no cast time and you can chain it 3 times in 3 seconds

Malicious Sorcery makes the mantra cast faster. But yeah… It eats an utility slot. It does more or less the same damage as Well of Calamity (same radius), longer range, but no fields and cripple/weakness.

It’s just annoying to keep recasting it.

Krispera.5087:

It’s just annoying to keep recasting it.

Agony, torment, pain! Agony, torment, pain! Agony, torment, pain! Opposite, disorient, confuse!

Heya,

Mantra of Pain too weak, pardon me? I agree that Mantra of Pain has no place in support oriented builds at all, but that wouldn’t change with doubling it’s damage either.

However MoP is actually kitten strong. It’s a dps increase in every situation (traited ofc) aslong as you don’t interrupt sword aa for 3rd attack. It’s a great aoe ranged option that basicly gives every weapon we carry a sword like aa, just with 5 targets. Don’t forget that this baby has no CD and boosts your damage with a long lasting modifier easily aswell. It’s also the spine of the Heal-O-Mancer.

Saying MoP is weak is pretty much the inexpirience talking.

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

Krispera.5087:

Infusion.7149:

Dondagora.9645:

Mantra of Pain needs some looking at. Right now it’s just too weak.

This is true since it has about the damage of an autoattack. Even if the damage doubled , the skill is incredibly narrow in use so it’d likely not go on my skill bar. Maybe if guaranteed crit / 2.5x to 3x current damage… it’d be like shattering for lazy mesmers which is broken since there’s no cast time and you can chain it 3 times in 3 seconds

Malicious Sorcery makes the mantra cast faster. But yeah… It eats an utility slot. It does more or less the same damage as Well of Calamity (same radius), longer range, but no fields and cripple/weakness.

It’s just annoying to keep recasting it.

From a PvP damage perspective Mantra of Pain is a stronger skill because the Well of Calamity damage is backloaded and has a delay.

Mesmer really isn’t fitted to DPSing outside of PvE (using sword), it’s more spikey / Utility IMO. Skills like Veil (to get to backliners in WvW for example) / Gravity Well / Null Field give you openings for teammates’ damage to go through. You know, like the 7K+ true shots , 10K+ Coalescence of Ruin… not 2-4K crit from Mantra of Pain

I felt Mantras conceptually worked much better when they were 1 charge.

Just a reversed spell. Lots of frontloaded power, in return the cast time (which comes after) is much slower.

Is it perfect? Probably not. But it can be balanced, whereas the current 2-charge version generally feels too restricting because the individual charge has to be kept weak enough.

And the HM-trait? I’d remove it. Too much of a balance nightmare.

I actually wouldn’t mind seeing mantras going back to 1 charge, but getting 0 cooldown. Let a mantra’s restriction be in getting the time to channel it. Make it a 3-4 second channel, and then make Harmonious Mantra’s reduce the channel, or even better, do something like for each mantra you charge the next mantra will take 25% less time to charge.

That last one is a great idea because it plays off the name, too:

Harmonious Mantras
Whenever you successfully charge a Mantra, the next Mantra you charge within 4 seconds takes 50% less time to charge. This benefit is reduced to 20% if the Mantra is the same one again.

The way I see it, Mantras should be like the old DnD spell memorization, powerful effects, which you need to have time to prepare again. They need to be balanced around being prepared not around cooldowns imho.