Showing Posts For Erch.8502:
On the subject of easy fixes:
-Better trait synergy
Right now, our “essential” traits for each build are all scattered around the trees. Generally, all of the builds pick up their traits to support their main mechanic, and any utility they get along the way is a bonus. I’d like to see Mesmers capable of traiting into two playstyles (Phantasm/healing, shatter/tank, etc). Right now, our weapon choices are somewhat limited by traits: we’re forced to use two weapons with trait synergy over complementary weapons from a utility or play-style standpoint.
I’d like to see the removal of “illusions do 15% more damage” and “phantasms do 15% more damage”. For one, they’re not interesting choices, they’re mandatory ones. It becomes less about gaining a boon, and more about doing 70% of your potential without those traits. Let traiting for damage come from the point investment in the tree and leave the slots open for utility and fun.
-Another (mid)ranged main hand weapon
This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if traits didn’t shoe-horn our weapon selection. I just feel that we lack a ranged main hand power/pres weapon to compliment the pistol or torch. If we had one, it would open up a lot of space for options for power builds doing ranged/ranged for WvW; or ranged/melee with a sword/sword or sword/torch/focus on the swap. OH sword, torch and focus all seem to compliment the MH sword well, but aren’t seeing much use just because the OH pistol is so good right now. Giving the OH pistol a main hand match would give Mesmers the option of changing up their melee off-hand.
And now for the wishlist stuff if the devs suddenly decided to completely start from scratch.
I would change the illusions as such
Phantasms
-Off the cap/shatters
-One of two things: Either keep them as burst (they attack once for high damage on spawn, and them immediately automatically shred themselves), or make them pseudo-turrets (Stay active until dismissal or re-summon, redirect to players target, and attack consistently instead of in bursts)
-Cap them at 1, or per catagory, or offensive/defensive. The current Phantasm build is pretty lame if only because it feels like I spend the first 10 seconds of combat just spamming out pets and then the rest of combat watching them do stuff for me. I shouldn’t feel compelled to dump every one I can summon at the start of combat, and I shouldn’t feel underpowered without them, and overpowered with them.
Clones
-Better animations for clone generating abilities and more reliable spawns. When I push Illusionary Leap on my sword, I want to see a clone leap out from me and stab my target. I don’t want to see 1/2 a second of “wobble” around my character, 2 second of a name tag floating above an invisible model as it slides toward my target, and then a model maybe appearing before it’s killed.
-I’d like to see more “clone attacks”. Where the animation for the attack includes an image lunging forward to attack while the Mesmer stands still or commands it with a hand wave. These wouldn’t spawn actual clones (unless it’s a clone generating ability like mirror blade), but would just be nice flavor for the profession. Maybe color them like phantasms to avoid confusion.
-More clone generation all around. 3 is a good cap, but I feel like I should almost always have three active unless I’ve just shredded them. Almost every Mesmer weapon should generate clones as fast as the scepter does. I would almost think of them as “Mesmer initiative” or “combo points”. Granted, you’d have to trait it or them to keep it in line, but give us the option of “clone army” builds with any weapon.
Quality of Life stuff
-Give us a couple different shades to pick from for our shatter effects. I get that Mesmers need to be recognizable by abilities, but even a selection of three colors would help alleviate the color clash most of us have between our gear and our purple spell effects.
Yeah there was an enormous amount of of people rallying for a mainhand pistol for mesmer – I think it’s justified. But Anet had said at the time they are not really working on making new weapons for classes just yet.
Well, the reason I’m personally against the pistol is because I think it lacks imagination and the fun they could have with mesmers. Like, why not give us a main hand torch that shoots purple fireballs? Or a main hand dagger that we use as a “pistol” version of the Greatsword?
I’d be more okay with the main hand pistol idea if it wasn’t a typical “pew pew” main hand gun. I think A-net doesn’t want to give glass-cannon Mesmers an excuse to always sit at max range, so giving it only a medium range attack or the inverse mechanic to the Greatsword’s range damage thing would be ideal. If they do give us something, I just hope they put it on duelist discipline (range + cooldown for pistol) as well and make that a REALLY good trait.
I’d personally like to see another 1-handed ranged weapon for the mesmer. Scepter has its place, but it’s in a tank/condition/shatter build. Currently, I don’t think there’s really a proper main hand for power/precision phantasm builds. Sure, most people are running with sword, but we’re mostly using it for blurred frenzy as a defense and otherwise it’s really just a placeholder to the pistol OH.
I can’t help but feel that it’s odd pairing a MH sword that requires melee, with our ranged-phantasm OH and a swap to a weapon that has a mechanic that makes you want to stay at maximum range. I get that mesmers don’t really have “weapon roles” and we’re meant to constantly swap our weapons, but the combination of sword/GS really forces us to play a weird short-mid game that seems counter-intuitive to the GS.
I know going back to even the first BWE, Mesmers were asking for a main hand pistol. I don’t exactly agree with that one, because I think we’d need to define the role that needs to be filled before we talk about the weapon that should do it. Which is to say:
TL;DR: I think Mesmers could use a ranged (mid-short) Main Hand that compliments Power/Precision, the pistol OH, and the GS.
I’m just not understanding how one can complain about the “balance,” when the ability to completely avoid damage on such a short cd is just that.
Mesmers using swords put themselves in the unique position of being a squishy in melee range and generally use builds that are very skimpy on mitigation and lack toughness as a stat. If we want to use that sword, it’s pretty much a given that we’re spending two skill slots on stun breaks and the phantasmal defender just to make sure we don’t get beefed by aoe and a knockdown or two. 3 every 8 may seem very powerful (it is), but if you actually catch that mesmer on cooldown with no energy or blink, then all it takes is one hundred blades, rapid fire, or a couple heartseekers to ruin his day.
And how do you mean they become weaker as more people enter the fight? If anything, they get stronger since you’ll be lost in the crowd more and even skilled players will probably go after targets they can see before anyone else.
On the offensive side, we have poor aoe, our damage doesn’t scale to large engagements, our illusions are extremely fragile to aoe in group situations and our illusions can’t change targets. The last one two are really the most important: it’s nice for your clones to soak a ranged shot or two for you simply because they’re in los; but it’s not nice when your class mechanics rely on having active illusions that you can’t keep up just because ranged cross-fire and melee cleavy aoe constantly one-shots them before you get any use out of them.
On the defensive side, same issue with the clones. It’s actually very hard to hide in a field of clones when they all poof to aoe before the model even appears. Again, a great deal of our class mechanics simply rely on them being active (movement speed, damage mitigation, healing, shattering for distortion). It can be very frustrating to need that clone to survive (say, for the distortion shatter) only to have it pop a split second before you try to shred it. If I can find an appropriate allusion, it would be like if a warrior were trying to switch to his shield only to find out that somebody replaced his shield with a pie.
Mesmer defense is also based heavily on pacing. The 3 seconds every 8 on blurred frenzy is a good example: 5 seconds isn’t much of a window for one person to damage you. 5 seconds is plenty of time for 3 people to stomp you into the ground though.