Guild Wars 2

As nice as it is to see discussion taking place, a new topic is more suiting for Mesmer Burst/DPS as this thread is a question regarding what role players feel the Mesmer class should be more opened to.

General consensus thus far appears to be Control of some variety.

And to address, the OP contains merely examples to template responses off of. I’m not attempting to say that mesmers do not have good sustain damage or do have good sustained damage.

selan also makes a good point that builds depend on game mode, and effect your “role” to a group.

Advent.6193:

Definitely Control, with side orders of Support and DPS. Hell, the lore “magic-type” is enough of a clue as to Mesmer’s (and Thief’s) “Role;” namely Denial Magic (IIRC).
Unfortunately, our role is impinged by two main issues:

• Control mechanics being mostly neutered in PvE, due to the Defiant bullkitten.
• The fact that class utility gets right in the way of our punishment mechanics being
  properly set up/fixed. We all know the usual “But, but … you have Timewarp and
  Portal! You don’t need bugs fixed!” whinging.

Ty for the honest answer, but For the time being, the topic should steer away from discussing Current bugs/issues with the class and game. Keep the focus to what you would like to see the mesmer as.

It rounds out to every 4 or 5 seconds, provided you do not get interrupted while channeling.

This also locks you out of using any other skill aside from Stun breakers or Shatters/other mantras.

It can be very useful but its very difficult to micro manage your mantra(s) and maintain proximity to your team in a fight (pve excluded). It’s workable but Ele’s and Guards and Engi’s do it better :s

Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes.
-Anet : Basic Description of the Mesmer.

This is a general question to the community.

As of current there are 3 main “Roles” in gw2, being Bunker/CC/DPS respectively. Each has its own subset of types that some classes are better geared to fill than others.

For example, Guardians and Engineers have ample access to Boons and Hard Support (direct healing) Which incline them to fill a Bunker type role much more easily than a Thief, who lacks many options to the same boons/heals/etc.

At the same time, the Engineer has much more access to CC type skills which when used with its Boons give it the ability to bunker, while the Guards access to Condition removals and greater Hard Heals are what make this possible.

So, as a community, What “Role” would you prefer to see Mesmer gain greater footing in? What should it utilize in order to gain said footing (Boons, Conditions, CC, etc..)?

Please Include any Game modes (PvE, WvW, sPvP, etc..) that your preference entails.

Example:

{sPvP} I would like to see the mesmer take on a greater role in Denial/CC in battles, utilizing Boons such as Protection and Conditions like Blind, Weakness, and Confusion. I feel that Mesmers should punish foe’s for mistakes and prevent an easy recovery from said mistakes.

{PvE} I would like to see Mesmers take on a greater role as a sustained DPS class, increasing their access to Condition durations and also granting them more access to AoE / PBAoE types of Skills.

Keep it Civil and Keep it clean.

Also, May the 4th be with you..

^ yup.. Clone does what tool tip says with the exact same damage any clone has..

Spawn some sword MH clones with DE or Mirror and they use Mind Slash chain as well.. and also only do like 2dmg per hit.

Seems like a fairly standard Shatter build set up, gear is very middle of the road and without Food/might your Condition damage doesnt suggest taking Maim is the best option for you Maybe boosting that a bit more imo… Armor should be enough to take a few hits and keep going tho, unless its a pure glass thief, then you’re kinda screwed.

Mantra of Resolve is a solid choice for condition removals, Null Field could also work to your advantage as it rips boons off targets at the same time.

Mental Torment lends itself best to shatter builds, Empowered is more for Phantasm builds where you will be keeping them out to do most of your damage and not shattering.

I used a similar build with the Signet for PvE/Dungeons, however i brought BD.

The extra fury and Retal made certain situations a fair bit easier for the party as did all the reflects. a single guard with a staff was enough to give us 24 stacks of might during a fight or one ele spamming might ended up about the same.

The issue i see with boon share in PvP is you need to find a partner to latch onto and discuss before hand to stay near the phantasms for the Regen and you for any extras off staff. Its very difficult to play soft support with PuGs as often everyone is just running all over the place and out of your reach.

Relying on AI as pulsing boon spots is also a bit problematic the moment anyone with a lot of AoE shows up and your phants fold like cheap lawn chairs under the pressure.

Phants i would suggest that stay alive and have a higher chance to spread the love would be located on Sword or GS, as lovely as Focus is for its pulls and swiftness the warden often doesnt end up where I personally want it to during the fight (ignoring the fact that its still, also buggy)

Staff by itself is handy for pumping up Melee party members just with the auto attack and clone spam, Chaos storm is a bit RNG but can be a life saver itself.

I’m not sure how CI exactly meshes with the play style, I would suggest attempting BD even tho Pyro will be quick to fart and poo all over that. Using your shatters to grant yourself Fury/regen/Retaliation/Might which, if you take the signet, can be spread. Fury greatly increasing potential for low crit chance party members in raw damage. Retaliation to punish AoE users for hitting you and your party.. etc..

It’s not the greatest GM trait but it may be worth a look. As would PU for the agies/protection but PU ties up atleast 1 if not 2 of your skill slots.

as stated above tho, Support styled builds are not the most optimal as there are so many professions and builds that thrive off of being selfish and self-sustaining. You may have to get used to the idea of staying out of the main fray or finding a way to remain hard to catch, staying just out of reach while your friend(s) do the work. still remaining somewhat self sufficient at the same time.

I havent had a lot of time to really get into the meat of things but a few alterations here and there have yeilded interesting results.

I dropped Sword recharge/+prec for Retaliation on Blocks This means a lot more retal uptime and it does help against classes that dont focus on a high speed 1-2 punch burst.

I also added in Retal from F2 but i’m still meh as to what should really belong here.

Various runes ranging from more power to attempting to add conditions on hit havent yielded much yet. I did have some better luck using Prot based rune bonuses as the build lacks that boon outside of Chaos Armor.

Sigils, using Battle did help out with overall damage and sustained output from conditions, staff + 1 or 2 basic clones can eat through Hambows running full signets/Healing Power/ etc… Not as quickly as i’d like but i’ll take it over watching their health never move. Able to upkeep atleast 3 to 9 stacks of might 70% of the time unless hit with mass boon removals.

Arcane Thievery lends itself in place of Null Field in smaller fights to ditch some bleeds and grab more might or Protection/regen. Still playing with this slot tho.

Still having issues with Exceptionally devastating CC (mostly the lovely necros) but most thieves are no longer and issue as many cannot keep pressure without burning a lot of their movement skills and initiative. Lack of stability on the entire class lends itself to this almost always being and issue tho.

I’ll update later with basics i’ve been using as far kittenter rotations and such.

Maliken.5630:

Just wondering, when this skill is used on a elementalist and a warrior, do they both have the same stats as a moa, or does the warrior has naturaly more armour and vitality then the elementalist? If its the second, then i dont think its fair.

I believe Toughness is reduced to a Core stat across all Professions / PvE AI

However all other stats remain the same. I dont have 100% proof but thats jut my experiences from using it.

Also, What “2 other good skills” ? Time Warp hasn’t been looked at favorably since the Haste Nerf, it’s mostly a PvE or WvW thing, and Mass Invisibility is only helpful on certain builds in certain cases (PU).

Moa is good all the time in PvP, but pretty awful in PvE.. in fact it can get your entire party wiped by a rampaging Moa that deals 10k with a basic attack.

Title basically says it all, looking for feed back on a different type of build. no clever name yet.

Focus is attempting to make use of BD (the new chaos trait) to swap between sustain and bursts while maintaining some form of attrition via condition wrist slapping.

Currently
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArcWlknpQtNoxVNMrNCuBZ6JEiRiyg0kSGgfB-TZBBwAAeCAJ3fwyJAYzhA4cZAA

Able to sustain and handle fights easily as a 1v1 against most professions (BS thief excluded, stealth will always be the bane of the mesmer)

Handles 2v1 fairly well, typically long enough for backup for arrive.

Sometimes survives a 3v1 for a while but normally i get squished pretty fast.

Strengths: Clones as far as the eye can see, Loads of blocks, easy to keep conditions up, high mobility to avoid/poof out of large damage chains, phants are just as useful kittenter fodder as they are semi-working one-hit-wonders. High pressure on single/multiple targets.

Issues: Reliable Condition removal, having conditions reliably removed, Currently not finding enough burst to bring down more bunker oriented builds. Occasionally still gets mowed down by Glass cannons (mostly thieves or stun-locking warriors).

Why not go PU?

Because as great as PU is, its an OP build that abuses stealth (imo the most broken mechanic in game) and some day i’m sure it’ll find its way into the cross hairs of Anets warrior rifle nerf gun. Also I’d love to pull away from our classes dependance on PU for sustain in pvp.

PS, this build works reasonably well in PvE and can be used as a “boon share” monkey to help keep fury, retaliation, and Regen on your team in dungeons. Haven’t bothered to test it in WvW in a zerg but if someone else would like to, feel free.

Jelzouki.4128:

jportell.2197:

Evilek.5690:

Mesmer want next winning button ? Dont be silly

yes because mesmers are sooo over powered in tournament pvp…..

……

……….oh wait that’s right they aren’t.

Mesmers are awesome in tPvP; what do you mean? You want mesmers to be overpowered? There fine where they are; L2P issues detected.

At what point does a competitive team choose to bring a mesmer over another profession? What at current does a Mesmer offer other than Portal that another class does not provide more proficiency in?

Thiefs are brought for Bursts and Roaming to quickly finish fights.
Guards for bunkers and team support.
Warriors for Sustain and high CC upkeep.
Necros for Conditions and Fear.
Engies for their high sustain and CC’s.

Where does Mesmer fit in, in a world that all about staying inside a tiny circle and surviving.

StickerHappy.8052:

Excuse me? Ci just not as bad? CI is really is good. also where are you getting 1 sec immo, chill and blind?

The tool tip on the trait states 1s If I remember correctly.

Biggest bursts – Ele on any weapon. staff/scepter/Dagger

Viable for sPvP – Ele more so after the patch i would think but both classes struggle to find a place to be. Ele can offer better support at this time.

More important for WvW – Ele for water fields and large scale AoE for sieges and zerg swatting. Mesmer for Veil or Roaming alone and not worrying too much about getting ganked by the invisible thief.

Harder to Play – Mesmer, it takes a lot more effort to learn when to use what and in what situations as a mesmer than it does to memorize 20 skills in the Ele rotations from attunements.

BlackDevil.9268:

I disagree with your way of thinking because no game should have ‘’pick this trait to counter class X’‘. You can compare it a little bit to the 100% condition immunity of engineer which has been nerfed. With that trait you were pretty much auto winning against condition classes.
Neither should this trait have an internal cooldown because then you mostly nerf the use of this trait in large scale PvP (20v20+)
If only this trait would be a little bit less effective against auto attacks (let’s say 5 seconds on interrupt instead of the 10 seconds) then this trait would be totally fair. Especially if you see the 25 domination trait you are forced to get which is 100% kitten.

I would like to point out that the Theif Class is the same thing but a bit more on the side of “Pick this class to counter Chill, Stuns, LoS, Target reliant Attacks, Low health Enemies, Interrupts, Imob, Losing Fights by dieing”

Every other class in some way has a trait that impliess “pick this to win against X” why cant Mesmers have one?

I use BD in PvE as a replacement for CI, which never really fit into my reflect build for dungeons.

Is it nice to have a third option yes, is it really viable in any other game mode? Probably not. Without giving up a utility for the RNG/Long CD signet to share boons its still no good for party support.

It’s very hard to be optimistic when you main this class for an extended period of time tho, wishing your build idea would work but not knowing because of a trait or skill thats broken and continues to remain that way.

Finding your build that was a little OP suddenly heavily nerfed to becoming a gimmick build that no longer stands up at all. Meanwhile fixes for other builds are still “Being looked at” patch after patch after patch after patch… after patch..

hearing the dev team state that “Yes something about this feels off but we cant pin down what it is either. Let us know if you guys figure it out and we’ll look at it again in the future”

Being promised that this is only a temporary fix until the issue is solved.. and then the issue is never looked at again and the temp fix is kept for years..

Theres really only so much a person can take before they become bitter and much less complacent and hopeful that Anet actually knows what they are doing behind the curtains, and it leads to acidic attitudes towards things like these new traits. Many of which step on the toes of much more powerful traits (of which we have very few) or are completely useless to any current play style or combination of other standing traits. One or Two may even be made pointless and laughable by the very core design of Gw2 Combat itself (looking at you Inspiration and Dueling..)

Mesmer is in a hard spot these days because we seem to be an amalgamation of skill sets that are either:

A. Not fun to play against.
B. Not Fun to Play.

From many other professions.
Lets look at them now.

Clones / Phantasms – Pet grade AI in squishy form. Also available to Rangers and Necros – Not fun to play nor Play against.

Stealth – See any thief complaint about stealth ever just minus the extreme Bursts. Not fun to Play against.

RNG – Not fun to Play or Play against.

Reflects – Also available to Guard – not terribly fun to play.

Group Support – Everyone but thief and maybe necro does it better.

Condition Spam – Short duration bursts with short duration conditions – Not fun to play and not as competent as Necro / Warrior / Thief / Ranger / Guard / Engi / Ele.

LoS / Target dependent / Single Target Proficient – Not fun to play in any game mode that can throw more than 1 to 2 targets at you at once.

Hard Countered with Nothing to Counter in return – We are hard countered by Conditions and Stealth and High evade upkeep and Sustained Health. We are not a hard counter to any play style since the confusion nerfs but still remain semi-effective against super spammy Eles.

What we can’t do in the current sPvP meta – Effectively Hold a Point, Quickly roam a map, Quickly Decap a point.

What we can do – Troll with PU, Add spikes and minor support/cc to a team fight.

Siva Mira.3546:

It doesn’t take a genius to interrupt an AA and please don’t make it sound like something amazing.

For your record, I am not a Shortbow Ranger AA but putting someone’s AA on 10sec CD is like saying using Healing Signet takes skill.

What could have done with this Trait is that it should also increase daze duration by a little.

Thats a great idea-no wait, we already have a GM trait in the SAME TRAIT LINE that does EXACTLY THAT….

please at least look up a classes traits before you attempt to make suggestions on them :\

Regardless, the trait says “add’s 5 seconds to cool down” So instead of a 10s CD on AA’s why not just make it 5s since they have no inherited CD.

Just because your Shortbow AA is locked up for 5 seconds or even 10 seconds, it doesn’t mean your other weapons is locked up as well, learn to swap a weapon more often than just going through a rotation and this might not seem as OP as it looks.

Title says it all really. I would greatly appreciate a Revert on this trait to allow continued interruption and cool down application on auto attacks and most importantly theif inactive skills. This trait had serious potential to upset the meta and now is considerably less desirable to take into combat.

Keep the stability defiant changes and make it stop putting red and stomp on a couple as well but Revert the rest for the sake of balance and build diversity…

It’s the only unique thing mesmers have above other classes is the way we can utilize interrupts to really alter a battle.

It may also be prudent to note Nerfs to skills such as Portal or Chaos Storm in a long collective list dubbed “Intended Nerf”

and then create another list for “Unintended Nerf” whenever Anet bugged or broke a skill, and then either hotfixed it without fully fixing it or just left it completely broken.

Our forum, actually, all forums for professions should have these.

Personally i think it could use a hotfix to the extend of not halting rezzing or stomps for 10 seconds but the rest should stay as is, no ICD. The idea being that if your interrupts are spammed and you lock up half an enemies skills for 10 seconds then that is a game changer

locking 1 skill up every X seconds shouldn’t be forced on the trait, specifically this limitation punishes things such as Pistol 5 and Chaos Storm which can cause multiple interrupts in less than 1s.

In current standing if i Drop a chaos storm on a trigger happy thief or Ele and lock them up, then i dont see it as an issue beyond “Learn that mesmer can punish you for mashing keys now” and “be more careful”.

Also i’m sick to the teeth of not being sustainable if i Dont run PU…

lol.. to put it simply, no, to put it less simply…

don’t bother. the math and exact numbers are awful and its been looked at loads of times on here.

It doesn’t synergize with regen, not with eSig.. Stick with any other GM trait.

Seras.5702:

Take traits for the traits, not the stats in the line. You can make up for that with gear.

^This, this above any other suggestion as it is almost kittenedly important for mesmers above any other class.

Hate to say it but when the devs do see this thread, its getting insta-locked due to “Petitions are not allowed on the forums”.

I would suggest trying this again but in a different format Chaos. I do agree that PB in its current forum could use some toning down (like the rez/stomp or PvE Defiance stuff) but finally being able to shut down keystone skills for 10 seconds on ANY class makes mesmers very viable again.

I was melting D/P thieves on wednesday just by interrupting Heart Seeker once or twice (that means no leap and no invis to BS/ avoid all my damage) and i had a dead thief. Honestly the most fun i’ve had and the most viable Interrupts have been since Launch day in PvP.

It’ll be hard to tell the viability until the 15th arrives but if none of our current traits and healing power scaling getting no fixes, then i dont see many if any mesmer actively building for this trait.

The two most interesting traits at current seem to be Power Block for interrupts and Distortion on kills for bunkering.

IP seems a more valuable trait than torment on shattering to me and the final trait in Chaos seems fairly useless as most shatter builds dont use this line.

again its all speculation until we see the full extent of the changes and what is Fixed and what ends up broken for another feature patch to attempt to fix.. lets just hope we dont hafta wait till the end of LS part 2 for any fixes :P

Seems sound, currently i use a reflect based build for pve/wvw that carries about..

3kish attack
2.7k Armor
50%ish Crit chance
21k health
800 Condition
50%ish Crit Dmg.

Currently attempting to manage a new build but no luck yet.

Btw I never run with food or the like so those are all base stats.

CS does trigger on any daze, even with defiant.

CS triggers first as a daze and then converts to a stun so it does remove 2 stacks on a stun.

ironically, mantras weren’t used too often in Gw1 by anybody but the ones we have now are also pretty far removed from what mesmers 250 years ago had. Mantras were Stance type skills that had instant casts and often long cool downs, and sometimes big energy costs. but all that considering, its probably the most old mesmer thing we have.

I wish it were the case that devs had made an effort to push the class off on its own to misfit land, sadly it seems much more to do with “Not enough time, not enough effort, not enough understanding, not enough money” that put us in this boat at launch and kept us sailing away since then.

I think you’ll find that the right person with enough time/effort can make any class appear better than the average player can make it be. Our class has some strengths, and weaknesses, but the main issue is that we just currently don’t do anything better than anyone else. (Warriors/Thieves = Better CC, Thieves/Warriors = Better Burst Dmg, Guards/Engies/Eles = Better Support, Necros/Engies/Warriors = Better Conditions.)

To make a sensible comment and go back to the OP…

PvE : Ranged classes have the advantage and take much fewer risks. Some of them may do a bit less damage but doing damage and staying on your feet is better than doing some damage and then dieing for the second half of the fight.

WvW: Again goes to ranged, who again, take fewer risks and are also more useful in any large encounter.

PvP: Goes to Melee, who run the current meta due to capture points. a few people touched on this but when all players are forced into tiny areas, this defeats the purpose of being ranged and gives professions which are primarily more melee oriented a massive advantage, specifically those that have a higher CC / Self sustaining nature to them. I could go on for hours about how to change all that but i’ll avoid it.. it needs its own topic.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Since there are no enchants in this game, hexes would not work. Also, since there is no energy bar (as others have stated OR adrenaline skills – except for a finisher). I put up that GW1 Mesmers had a skill called ‘ignorance’ that would disable signets for a period of time. There are many Warriors and Necros running around with 2-4 signets on their bars in WvW and PvP. If we had a skill that could ‘disable’ signets for a short period of time, it would make Mesmers more valuable and reflect the CONTROL portion of the Mesmer.

I was actually, when pondering the write up, looking at skills like ignorance and wondering why they never made it into Gw2. this one skill could effectively shut down a warriors healing for a span of time and be a hard counter to Passive Signet Effects.

and while hex’s wont work with the system, real time AoE’s work very well as place holders.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to simply throw out phantasms and replace them with traps/marks like the other classes have but keeping the effects tied to something that can be targeted and removed seems a bit less OP overall.

I don’t think we need strictly more AoE, just a swap on some mechanics to help us stand out a lot more as a profession..

So I’ve noticed this myself since i use these types of sigils.

Lemme break it down for you.

Clone / Phantasms Attacks = Crits that apply damage/conditions but cannot Activate Sigils. Effectively the damage does not generate directly from the player. This is also why retaliation will only damage the illusion and not the player when they attack.

Shattering = Crits that can cause sigils to activate. Shatter damage is directly linked to the player and is not generated by the illusion. shatters will not cause sharper images to activate. This is why Retaliation can cause you damage when you shatter.

Standard attacks = yet again, crits that can activate the sigils since they are damage generated directly by the player.

the same applies to food or other “on-crit” type items.

Shatter damage / crit % / Crit damage are all based off of your toons current stats (accounting for might/fury/etc..) and also adds any relevant traits.

To answer the basic question posed, People view PU as OP and Cheese because of two major reasons.

1. It relies heavily upon stealth, which has 0 hard counters in game at this time.

2. Mesmers can summon Clones, Phants and have them do damage. This damage and summoning process does not De-stealth the Mesmer.

People tend to frown upon PU for similar reasons to frowning upon MM Necros or Spirit rangers. When in a battle with any of these builds, you are fighting off AI more than you are the actual player.

It’s not fun to fight against, and it’s not very fun to play (IMO) either.

And as stated above, its a poor choice for more hardcore sPvP matches as it is neither a bunker nor a decap centric build. Aka, it doesn’t hold points and it doesn’t cap points half or even 1/4th as well as other builds or other professions.

It’s Dangerous out there, Take this
Utilities

Utility skills are meant to be supplementary, things you take to make up what you’re lacking in for a situation. Mesmers have a lot of utility skills that are very… redundant. Most of them tend to make up for things that the class itself is very lacking in, rather than giving options to supplement for build choice.

Some traits, such as Illusion of Life, Seem to be very interesting at a first glance but do not provide results that many other classes can obtain with similar skills.

Suggestions

Utility skills that are more diverse and carry a greater impact into battle. As of current neither phantasm skill is very spectacular (outside of very specific builds) and some (mantras) actually stall combat rather than making it more interesting. Taking out duplicate skills and giving much more variety to our possible roles in a party or solo.

I just work here
Role of the Mesmer

Currently Mesmers are in a tough spot for a defined Role. In combat we tend to hang at the edges and supply short bursts of support or damage with RNG boons and conditions/CC. at other times we are merely reflect bots expected to ease dungeon battles by keeping projectiles at bay. Outside of combat we are prized for Portals or Veil.

Suggestions

Bring mesmers into the fold with their higher mobility (Slippery Soap movement) and give them much more to do at the front lines as well as the back lines. Similar to thieves slipping in and out of reach to strike and avoid combat, mesmers with altered Phantasms and more Dominating traits/skills could do much more in bursts to turn a battle.

Outside of combat, How about just a general 100% fix to skills such as temporal Curtain and its swiftness stacking. Passive ally effecting traits similar to Guard (Increased condition duration for nearby allies, reduced CC on allies, etc..)

after thought, Necros could greatly benefit from similar traits as well^

This will only hurt for a second
Conditions/Boons

As stated above, Mesmer conditions and boons have a very speradic RNG feel to them, only applying in short burst durations. Aside from Scepter and Sharper Images, mesmers do not have access to a single condition that lasts longer than 1 second (without boosts from armor/weapons/food). Much the same way with our boons, short durations.

Suggestions

Refocus mesmer conditions to narrow down the pool. Give us conditions that make sense and are more control oriented. Things such as Cripple, Weakness, Confusion fit the class very well in theory.

Boons could benefit from a similar treatment, rather than relying upon allies or foes to leech larger stacks and durations from, give mesmers their own boon pools at which they excel.

New conditions (these wouldn’t be exclusive to the mesmer but could/should be more accessible) Such as a rendition of the “Tower of Nightmars” Toxin, feels very at home (almost as if built for but rejected) on a mesmer. Causing your foes to attack invisible enemies in the midst of battle sounds almost better than clones that everyone can see.

In Closing, I hope the above sparks some conversation or at least ideas for our class, or at the very least, was an entertaining read.

See you all in game~

Broken Hearts
Shatters

Shattering is our classes Core mechanic. Task your illusions to charge to a foe and explode with various results. it can hit extremely hard when done correctly and it can also fall completely to the way side if not considered for. A mechanic that is completely locked out if you do not or cannot keep any illusion upon the field, is our classes unique standing of all others in Gw2. Rangers are the only other class that can share a similar affliction with us via pet death.

Suggestions

Inverting Shatters: Rather than having our clones use AI to path find, having them shatter where they stand and then the effect applied. This still gives ample warning to a target (All the illusions just blew up, i should probably dodge whats about to hit me)

Removal of Shatters as a Mechanic
Is another possibility, replacing them with mantras which seem to be much more fitting as F1-4 skills. And placing them upon the Utility skill bar. This would go much more hand-in-hand with optional Clones.

Hit them where it hurts
Weapons

Mesmer weapons are our source for damage, a handful of conditions and currently, most importantly, Clones and Phantasms. They are very straight forward and often do not carry any circumstances to maximize their effectiveness or damage. This is a fairly standard theme in Gw2 but, c’mon, we’re mesmers, we’re never straight forward.

Suggestions

Removal of the obligatory “Make a Clone” skill. These attacks often do nothing else or are used for alternative means (Phase retreat for example). Clones could be tied to Traits that apply them to weapon skills, allowing for our weapons to retain more useful tools/attacks.

A reintroduction of CC based play. Giving skills more access to things like Interrupts, dazes, confusion (more on this mess later), and NON RNG punishments for foes.

I’m just Drawn this way
Traits

This deserves a Thread all its own on what is good and what is wrong with out traits so I’ll just skip to some suggestions…

Suggested New traits

Traits that supplement smart or control oriented play. A look back at a few Gw1 elites is plenty of inspiration for GM Traits.

Example: Panic! GM Trait: Upon interrupting a Foe, all nearby foes (range 500?) are Dazed for X seconds. Cool Down (8s?)

Traits like these inflict punishment on a Foe’s allies for their mistake, and generate mistrust in remaining in tight group.

Example: Energy Drain! GM Trait: Attacks from Phantasms drain Endurance from target Foe, you receive XX% of drained Endurance.

Traits like these induce control through other means, by controlling when and how often a foe can dodge, you can have a far greater effect in a battle.

Attack of the Star Wars
Clones

Clones, clones, clones, clones, and more clones… Clones as far as the eye can see..
Our class is full of these little delights.

In fact, our class is fully reliant upon Clones to utilize our classes “mechanic”, but what do these moving pictures of you, really offer?

A minor distraction, perhaps some mistaken identity (if you haven’t been targeted yet or can drop someones targeting via other methods), and the sole source of the bleeding condition our class has via critical hits.

Clones at current are, semi-meat shields, short duration condition applicators, shatter fodder.

Suggested changes

Giving clones greater impact and possibility by making them Optional.
As neat as they are, they really shouldn’t be forced upon each and every weapon and player. Clones should be more of a tool that carry their own builds and play styles to utilize inside of the Mesmer class.

Taking such a perspective could allow for Clone users to use them to do things they currently do not provide (drop targeting) and allow them to be a bit more powerful (enhanced AI to mirror player movement, increased attack speeds, etc..).

Removal of Clones as a “forced” class trait could also allow an easier balance to them without effecting every other Mesmer in game.

Conditional love
Phantasms

Phantasms are the beefy versions of clones, carrying with them more health and attacks that can hit very hard. Meant to be replacements for Hexes from Gw1 a few of them carry these old traits from a few of the old spells. Others carry no traits from old Gw1 hexes.

As of current, Phantasms are another forced mechanic to the class and can reasonably be expected to generate 1/3 of potential Damage output in a fight. They are also, like clones, AI controlled.

Suggested Changes

A return to the original intent for these Slightly mobile turrets, and making them much more Hex-like.

Phantasms that are either,
*Not LoS, Target Specific, Target Required summons
*Single hit Summons that carry greater weight.
*Mark associated skills that are summoned / activate upon circumstance

Phantasms could potentially act as AoE summons that affect/attack foe’s within a given range for a set period of time (Similar to a Warrior banner, but more scary)

Phantasms could also potentially fill a much more Hex-like role where in they are not summoned onto the battle field but applied as a Mark (condition) and appear and apply their desired effect once the requirements are met. (Mark indicates next attack will be interrupted and damage to foe, foe attacks, Phantasms appears and presents a very short window to avoid its attack, phantasm attacks and then vanishes, mark is removed)

Lastly Phantasms could be used as much less beefy Summons that select targets based upon specific requirements. a Reworked Illusionary Warlock may select the foe with the highest condition total to attack in a given area or may not attack until a foe has at least 1 condition.

After thought: A phantasm may simply Pulse its effect across an Area on foes meeting its conditions, iZerker for example would impale its sword in the ground and send blades up at the feet of all foes in range that are not currently crippled every X seconds

The State of the Mesmer (as current of this post) is less than.. spectacular.. the class has many interesting mechanics and a feel that is different from other professions but is also, ultimately, extremely lacking in some areas that, I personally feel, it should not. So, after some time mulling it over, I’m going to attempt a semi-proposal to the community here to see how we can bring the mesmer into the game in a different standing.

Mesmers of Old

Mesmers were the masters of Hex’s and Control. Mesmers hit opponents in places and ways that No other class could. A warrior could beat things around, a necro could condition things to death, but the mesmer.. oh the mesmer..

Let’s look at some of these old skills.

“The next time Opponent uses a skill, that skill is interrupted and they take XX Damage”

“Hex: For XX Seconds, each time your opponent uses a spell they take XXX Damage”

“Hex: The next skill used by your opponent gains an additional XX seconds in recharge time”

“Spell: Foe regains full energy, taking XX Damage for each point gained”

Mesmers were capable of making a player hurt for almost any reason, any sign of weakness was quickly exploited and abused.

What mesmers retained as of current seems like a mockery of old. Clones, Phantasms that are meant to replicate hexes.. All of it ultimately boiling down to Direct damage from a direct damage dealing class at its heart. This is something that nearly every class in Gw2 has been reduced to, and while it works for most (Warriors, Thieves, Rangers, etc..) It shouldn’t be the standard for all.

Mechanics for the sake of Mechanics (Different because it has to be)
Shatters, Clones, Phantasms… These are very interesting things to use but ultimately.. they should not be the Keystone of a control based class.

Why? Because they all contain a fatal flaw… They are beyond Player control and reliant upon AI.

Phantasms being a replacement for hexing also doesn’t seem an accurate description, as they do not punish a foe for a specific action beyond “standing still”.

Tl:DR

Mesmers Lack a “stand out” Role of Control or Punishment that they used to fill and must compete in the race of pure DPS with all other classes.

Onto the Proposal tho…

A New Look

This semi-proposal will Touch on:

*Clones
*Phantasms
*Shatters
*Weapons
*Traits
*Utilities
*Roles Inside/Outside of Combat
*Conditions/Boons

Here’s my thoughts.

Living story is neither living nor was it a lot of story. Season one more generated investment with an intangible carrot on a stick called “temporary” people love limited time things. People also love new things. So let’s look at what ls provided next to an expansion.

Living story

It provided temporary events and event chains. It provided a lot of achievements of which most were limited time to aquire. It provided dungeons of which half were temporary. It gave us back skins some of which were limited in quantity. It Ave us a few gem shop armors and other money spenders. It gave us inconsistent content on multiple levels. And it crippled development on the other 90% of the game.

Expansions

Provide a full campaign and developed story that is not temporary and is consistently repayable. It adds new content via maps, armor, crafting stuff, dungeons, events, secrets, etc.. All of which are not temporary and can be revisited at leisure or by new players. It adds new achievements which can be earned at any time.

The the expansion seems much friendlier.

Ls failed for me because it wasn’t living. Ultimately the world is not changed beyond 2 maps, the rest of the world continues onward and has not evolved. Even tho we have moved past the death of zhaitan the world does not reflect this. The world replays on a loop just like a fractal. If a net what’s a living world then return your focus to making the world evolve. I’m eventually the century would get tired of losing and try something new some day or maybe the farmers would move or make a new Fort.. Idk..

Scarlets happened and the world feels like it was abused in far more ways than one and its not a good thing to me.. And if season 2 is similar in design then April better turn this game on its head or I may just take a break until we get an expansion..

Personally i’ve toyed around with support type builds in sPvP using Restorative Mantras and it can work fairly well in a tight group, the heal is fairly chunky and has ok range on it.

The inherent issue with Mantras is the terrible split between Healing and Prec trait lines. as well as the Power line.

But lets face it, 3 charges means you cant use your support aspect as much, so lets ignore Domination all together.

Lets return to prec where you’ll need, if i recall, 20 points to reduce your recharges.

Theres another trait to increase your toughness while Casting (charging) a Mantra, but i cant atm, recall where that is.

Restorative Mantras will require 20 points into inspiration, and will override any focus bonuses for reflection or reduced CD.

We have now basicly maximized our gains from Resorative Mantras.

Regen from Phants is a bonus.

Now here’s where i dont think such a build will really pull together. Shattered Conditions requires Illusions to shatter to be at its most effective. The range is relatively small and the recharge is manageable. However the effectiveness is dictated by Your ability to generate both clones and phantasms to shatter, and keeping them up and around to be useful at the proper moment.

Traveling the mantra line means you will most likely be sacrificing DE and any weapon cool downs on the way, plus tieing up 30 points into Inspiration, to me, does not feel worth the final pay off.

If i were to make a suggestion, you can keep the mantra focus to the build and insted apply 30 into Chaos for Chaotic Interruption (imob on interrupt) for stronger support and breathing room for charging/spamming mantras. Both the Focus and the Staff are fully capable of using this trait via interrupts (Temporal curtain . Vortex and Chaos Storm respectively). This trait can be helpful at removing a Thief from a nearly dead teammate and locking them up just long enough to crack off live saving heals or boons or clustering an unsuspecting group into one spot for a crack on the head.

As for fear of “X does it Better” remember that mantras in themselves offer support in limited quantities, Mantra of Resolve can cleanse your whole group of 4 conditions very quickly and isn’t on too bad of a CD. Mesmers can also bring dazes, small spikes, or group stability (for finishers) as well. this is something a guard cant do on demand.

my last thought would be, play with it a lot and learn to micro manage and read situations. blowing a mantra just to try and get a heal in on the charge can be the saving grace or doom of a fight.

I see a lot of build suggestions but no real pin point at what the counter is.

The best counter to the Thief, which is one of the games highest dps and mobility classes, Is first and for-most, Aggressive and PROactive play. Thieves rely on this play style to keep YOU on the defensive, flipping the tables can easily negate their entire set up and what they are used to. (Mesmers work in much the same way but have a much easier time at switching gears from Pro to Reactive)

At full health a thief has work to do (specifically D/D spammers) to get you into a danger zone of low health where they can more easily down you. This give you at the opening an advantage. Thieves are typically very glassy and will rely on : Evades, LoS denial (AkA Stealth) : to avoid damage.

A Stun, a Daze, an Imob or Knock Down, even a Knock Back is often enough to throw them for a loop and give you the crucial time to unload.

digressing.. Being Proactive with defenses at the opening or with a quick set up once a thief is spotted are easy ways to increase the length of the fight.

Being Aggressive means punishing the thief at every opportunity, unload CC’s and damage when they miss an attack or a cheesy c/d to lock them up and make them panic. a player in a panic state will even more likely to make mistakes. Yes, thieves have many “easy outs” to reset a fight, but often they will not attempt a “second angle” at bringing you down and will attempt the exact same combos a and attack chains again and again and again.. etkittenil either you win, they win or they give up and look for an easier target.

In a 1v2, where the thief is a “cleaner” its a lot harder to deal with. the best defense here is pretty much the same but make sure not to hyper focus on your first target and keep watch for help from either side. If you do have a thief jump you, it may be prudent to refocus on chasing it out or bringing it down (hope you kept some of your big guns at the ready).

While I feel that the mesmerizing does need a rework I’m not entirely sure phantasm changes alone would be a stopping point.

What if some were entirely replaced with skills similar to shatters?
For instance warlock replaced with a skill that generates the attack from all clones you have active. Damage and effects split but increasing slightly…

Personally tho I would like to see the return to a more gw1 style where the mesmerizing is the master of cc and doesn’t rely on a as a primary source for boons defense conditions or damage.

Clones should feel optional and carry more weight. Causing confusion by mirroring the mesmer… Also can we please remove the heavy reliance on Los and target distance.. No one else has to wait to use a pet ai.

My suggestion, once again, Is a Subclass system. What would this system contain to aid in balance?

Focused Paths With unique traits for each.

Inherent Bonuses/Losses to specific stats.

New avenues to introduce Skills/horizontal Progression.

Ease of access to Pin Pointing Balance issues.

A sense of mystery/caution when encountering classes.

The last one is just a bonus..

Con’s

Potential for broken/OP sub classes upon introduction.

Requires a new system to be integrated into the game.

Lengthy Implementation time table.

How does it all work:

Lets take a Warrior now. Warriors currently have a multitude of traits that are scattered across their trait lines which force them into being either, tanky, bursty, supporty, etc.. if they want to bring something specific to the table AND have it be effective. While warriors maintain a shimmering star at being Reasonably good at Everything, this trait tree set up is the same for everyone. Limited options, Viability brought on by picking and choosing and then compensating or min/maxing via Armor/weapons.

This current system also lacks any real punishment beyond what the majority finds to be ‘viable" or the build you want just doesn’t stand up well against the current Meta. A player maintains a base healing stat regardless if he went conditions or pure damage, a support maintains a base level of damage and conditions even if they carry no stats to aid these.

This means, that while you arent stellar, you can still use these to some effect and remain “kind of good” at everything while focusing at being Amazing at One thing.

What the subclasses would provide:

Retake Warrior, now apply sub classes.

Warrior Subclass 1 focuses on Pure Damage, it boosts Crit Damage by a small ammount, as well as precision, but Reduces healing and health pools base stats.

Its traits consist of alterations to weapon skills, allowing some to increase range, dmg, application of AoE.. and potential, Alters the F1-4 skills as well to fit with this mold. This trait system does NOT offer benefits to healing or group support or toughness.

Subclass 2 retains a focus on being more supportive and or Tanky. It boosts healing power and toughness while reducing Damage and Crit damage. Traits supply soft CC, boons, healing etc.. to attacks and utilites. this trait tree does not offer much in the way of conditions or damage buffs.

Subclass 3 could focus on CC and Conditions..

You get the idea.

This allows players to still comfortably choose a play style that they see fit, remain effective at it, and enjoy it. while simultaneously giving Dev’s an easier time of nerfing/buffing specific styles or traits without Devastating and entire Class and builds not accounted for.

Note that this would require some rework on the way that various things work and would require that Anet bring much more focus to the trait system over Armor and Weapons as the means to create builds.

no TL:DR version available.

Why Gw2 Combat works:

It is Dynamic.

A player can maintain movement and the right skill at the right time can easily turn the tides of battle and pull out a victory or extend a fight just long enough for help to arrive. Skill of the player is important and shows.

Why Gw2 Combat doesn’t work.

Disparity.

While it is unrealistic to request that each and every class have the same access to all boons, conditions, CC related skills, etc… Gw 2 is chalk full of glaring abundances and barren wastelands between classes. Some classes have much easier access to sustain type builds while others struggle to match or even approach similar build types.

Over all i believe that a lesser limit in Health pools could do a lot to bring many classes up to snuff, specifically ele’s which i often, as a mesmer, watch go down first in every team fight.

However we could have a lengthy discussion just on Boons vs Conditions vs CC vs Support vs Dmg.. but thats a monster in its own right.

Others have, since my last post, touched on a similar sentament, where Punishment is lacking.

Punishment seems like a naughty no no type of thing to include in a game geared to induct casual gamers into the market but I cannot think of a Successful game in the past which did not contain some measure of punishment for doing various things. Mario punished you for bringing a fire flower instead of a raccoon costume in some levels for instance. The punishment was simple, you died, and lost your stuff, but it was effective. But I digress.

Disparity in base stats (both class specific and Armor attained) is something anet should address. Simply nerfing/tweaking Critical Damage does not suddenly make going full support just as viable. And this is because there is no punishment for still maintaining a glass cannon while there is currently and will continue to be punishment for attempting a full support build. This applies to all aspects of the game, not just PvP.

I have actually been thinking about this type of thing a lot. I’ll throw a more lengthy post in here after work today but while I feel that I must agree that there is a great desperate in the numbers we have to look at the game mechanics as well.

Gw2 carries boons and conditions and non condition controls and direct damage and direct healing. Currently some of these scale much better than others and there is a massive difference between classes as to what you can have access to at a given time. Trait trees are also a variable mess.

While I agree balance should not be sacrificed for customization there must be a way to add variety while maintaining stability. I’ve posted about this before but a modification to the class system seems fitting.

Something along the lines of a sub class system. A net creates 3 for example, sub tiers inside of your class. Each one specializes at a few thing while sacrificing in others. Traits and inherent Stat bonuses can focus down to keep some type of build diversity inside of what is effectively a smaller box than the current. And if you have a few smaller boxes you can have a wider variety of choices that can be more easily managed in theory.

Just a quick example for those that may not understand. Warriors could have a berserker, a bunker, or a cc support choice for sub their. Berserker would gain damage and maybe increased Speed but lose healing and toughness. These losses would be inherited by going this path which could be recouped by armor but this would come at the price that they would lose potential maxing. Trait lines would then refocus and further making up these losses difficult, providing few to none in traits to provide extra healing or toughness. The end result is a player making a conscious choice to select a path that fits their focus and wants rather than a player attempting to force their wants out of a mix and match Lego box filled with broken or useless or “OP” parts.
This setup should allow a net to look at the game and note that this particular build on this particular sub tier of this particular class needs a tweak up or down. Meaning a net can apply a change without damaging every other build option that class maintains. Provided a focus can be pulled to traits over basic skills.. More later tho.

Tldr
Agree limit disparity
Disagree that diversity must vanish to allow balance, instead bring focus via sub tiers to classes there gently forcing players into more easily balanced groups.

Leeto.1570:

Nice timing, i just created topic about how we dont need new game modes.

I did notice your topic.. Which oddly appeared shortly after mine and used examples from mine.. Glad I could inspire you to start your own inflammatory thread I guess.

Regardless I feel that a return of Ha styled pvp would spice up the meta and bring several professions back into the fold. I can’t see decay engines being highly effective when you can choose to keep your distance from them for example. Hammer bow warriors would have a hard time adjusting to mat h types where they can’t focus on pinning opponents in a small area of a map. People may still run them for potential conquest matches in a line up but they could also fall out of favor to a different warrior build or class altogether.

I feel that while it would be lovely to just have different match types in different lobbies it doesn’t support the evolution of a mega so much as it does different me as which then have to balance off one another. It seems more crucial to install all match types under a single umbrella for the time being.

Vamp Rook.7835:

I’m sure that with new gamemodes builds will change, for example, with gw1 gvg we’ll see more healing power builds and less bunkers.

I agree but imagine if these game types were just a part of the rotations. Would healing builds be the go to if you had to cover all your bases as a team?

So I see a lot of threads stating various things that a net needs to do to change the meta and while many of them are true, they tend to consistently miss the mark.

Currently we have a pvp that contains only one style of game type. This means players can develop one best type of build to play the one match type.

Let’s look at conquest and what it requires to win.. Holding places on the map to earn points faster than the other team. This match type promotes tanks builds to sit on a point. Runners to move quickly from point to point and high cc survival builds to push tanks off points.

Are all classes capable of performing one of the above roles at this Time? the short answer is no.

With limited balance patches taking place what is the best way to ensure a much larger meta?

It’s actually very simple.. More game modes. Let’s take battle of kyle and remove the points and have the match winner become the death of the opposing guild Lord like gvg from gw1. How much would this alter your build decisions if you knew there was a chance this match would show up in a rotation? What if the ctf game type from winters day was added as well?

Different builds preform much better in different game types.

So what game types do you guys. And gals. Feel would benefit a change to the meta the most.

Ps perhaps of we keep it in a more professional cdi styled proposal a net might take note.

Mostly this is because mesmers, as opposed to other classes somewhat.. are extremely trait reliant to make our weapons viable.

Sword – T1 trait to lower Cool downs and increase precision
Torch – T2 trait to lower Cool Downs and remove conditions
GS – T2 trait shared with Torch to lower Cool Downs and increase damage
Staff – T2 trait to Lower Cool Downs and increase toughness
Focus – T2 trait to lower cool downs and add reflects
Scepter – T2 trait shared with Focus to Lower cool downs and increase Condition damage.

See the pattern? Our weapons are plagued from level 1 by longer cool downs on all skills, the traits to reduce these and make them far more effective are scattered across our trait lines or even shared in single trait lines.

Often times mesmers must select what they want to do (condition, dmg, support) and then trait for the most important traits. after that’s done the most viable weapons for that build generally are the ones in the lines you’re already heavily invested in. Squashing the other options even if they would preform better, given that you had the traits to invest to give them the boost they needed…