Curse

Skye Marin · Apr 10, 2010, 02:00 PM // 14:00

Here's mine:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...pdate_-_Mesmer

Mantra of Recall
10 1 20
Enchantment Spell. "For 15 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you gain 1 energy for every 3 ranks in Fast Casting (max 1..4). You gain 10..20 energy when Mantra of Recall ends."

Expel Hexes - Moved to Fast Casting
5 1 8
Spell. "Target ally loses up to 2 hexes. For each hex removed, you gain 0..8 energy."

Shatter Storm
5 2
Elite Spell. "Target foe loses all enchantments. For each enchantment removed, this spell is disabled for for +5 seconds (maximum 15 seconds)"

Recurring Insecurity
- Also hexes nearby foes

Stolen Speed
5 ¼ 10
Hex Spell. "Interrupt target foe. If target foe was casting a spell or chant, they casts spells 100% slower, and you cast spells against them 25% faster, for 5..15 seconds."

Aneurysm (PvE only)
5 ¼ 3
Spell. Target foe regains all Energy. For each point of Energy gained in this way, that foe takes 5..20 damage. (maximum 120 damage). No effect if Fast Casting is less than 8.

Mind Wrack (PvE only)
5 1 5
Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, whenever you cause target foe to lose Energy, that foe also loses 2..12 health for every point of energy lost. No effect if Fast Casting is less than 8.

Shayne Hawke · Apr 10, 2010, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Mesmers are a damage profession,

No. They never were, and they never should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trankle

When you interrupt a non-monster skill, that skill has a (0...30...90)% chance to backfire. If a backfire is successful, a skill that was targeted on the Mesmer or Mesmer's ally will instead instantly be cast on the interrupted foe. A skill that was targeted on the foe or foe's party will instead instantly be cast on the Mesmer. A successful backfire also rewards the Mesmer with energy equal to the casting cost of the interrupted skill.

We're trying to balance Mesmers, not lob overpowered and obnoxious junk like this on top of more overpowered and obnoxious junk. Game mechanics that involve around reflecting spell targets or attacks shouldn't exist under any condition.

Daesu · Apr 10, 2010, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

No. They never were, and they never should be.

We're trying to balance Mesmers, not lob overpowered and obnoxious junk like this on top of more overpowered and obnoxious junk. Game mechanics that involve around reflecting spell targets or attacks shouldn't exist under any condition.

And that is why mesmers are a class designed for pvp. PvE is mostly about inflicting huge damage as fast as possible. Investing in fast casting is limited if mesmers do not have the energy to maintain their damage spells, like the necros can.

Cuilan · Apr 10, 2010, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

No. They never were, and they never should be.

We're trying to balance Mesmers, not lob overpowered and obnoxious junk like this on top of more overpowered and obnoxious junk. Game mechanics that involve around reflecting spell targets or attacks shouldn't exist under any condition.

They are and they will alway be. They aren't focused on just damage, but they should be allowed to have certain builds that give them a chance to if "certain conditions are met" as previously said in this thread. By "we're" I'm assuming Test Krewe and this just helps to confirm there are players apart of it that would rather keep mesmers the same or have mesmer players shut up instead of being able to do some role(s) really well like others professions. Again, keeping overpowered stuff for others while only making things okay for mesmers isn't going to make them wanted, balanced, or useful. Mesmers should be allowed to do many things, as in enough with the double standards.

Morphy · Apr 10, 2010, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Anet, keep your buffs out of PvP thank you very much. You're free to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up PvE as much as you like, PvE players love it and I don't care.

trankle · Apr 10, 2010, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

We're trying to balance Mesmers, not lob overpowered and obnoxious junk like this on top of more overpowered and obnoxious junk. Game mechanics that involve around reflecting spell targets or attacks shouldn't exist under any condition.

I can understand not liking the specific suggestion, but out of curiosity, why would a better implemented skill reflection mechanic be unacceptable? Wouldn't it encourage smarter play?

asb · Apr 10, 2010, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

No they're not. They're a disruption profession

That kind of gave me an idea. If Mesmers excel a disrupting, why not devote a few skills to target other ally disruption prevention?
We could revive MoC, make it an enchantment spell with adjacent range or nearby, and change the functionality to protect enchanted other allies from interrupts for x...x...x seconds. Persistence of Memory could be the non-elite version, protecting target ally. Just throwing out there.

[edit]yea, i know about MoR, but it too has its distinct downsides.

drkn · Apr 10, 2010, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by asb

That kind of gave me an idea. If Mesmers excel a disrupting, why not devote a few skills to target other ally disruption prevention?
We could revive MoC, make it an enchantment spell with adjacent range or nearby, and change the functionality to protect enchanted other allies from interrupts for x...x...x seconds. Persistence of Memory could be the non-elite version, protecting target ally. Just throwing out there.

[edit]yea, i know about MoR, but it too has its distinct downsides.

+1 actually. i'd love to see mesmers as the masters of meddling in the battlefield, not dealing damage - keeping teammates from being interrupted for x seconds is something new, as well.

upier · Apr 10, 2010, 05:23 PM // 17:23

FengShuiDove · Apr 10, 2010, 05:59 PM // 17:59

A good e-denial build with Aneurysm would be kinda fun. If properly managed, Aneurysm should be a one hit, ultimate damage kill.

I dunno. I just always thought it was a neat skill and a potential abuse if some other skills get pumped up.

Abedeus · Apr 10, 2010, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiDove

A good e-denial build with Aneurysm would be kinda fun. If properly managed, Aneurysm should be a one hit, ultimate damage kill.

I dunno. I just always thought it was a neat skill and a potential abuse if some other skills get pumped up.

Monsters, while have lots of Energy, don't have infinite Energy. And the regen is so fast, you won't even notice much more damage than if you had attacked a player.

AmbientMelody · Apr 10, 2010, 07:05 PM // 19:05

As much as people tend to whine about Mesmers, they only need few tweaks to be more effective.

Tbh I'd rather see pve skills nerfed and Dervish/Paragon core skills boosted for the pve.

Chthon · Apr 10, 2010, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Let me start by saying that I'm not sure it's even possible to fix mesmers. But I might as well give it the old college try...

1. Damage + Mitigation is the Gold Standard.
Thanks to powercreep and better player understanding, GW has gotten to the point where virtually every good "offensive" build is really a hybrid of damage and damage mitigation.* Melees dish damage while carrying SY!; Earthshaker builds dish damage while keeping things floored with KD's; curse necros all pack EB and/or RH in addition to their damage; minion and spirit builds soak up damage with disposable summons that also do significant damage; etc.

That means, of course, that if mesmers are going to be competitive, they are going to have to be able to offer the same: Some balance of damage + mitigation with the same overall value as the best builds from other classes.

(*Damage+Healing and Mitigation+Healing are also valid (Orders necros and ER eles come to mind, respectively). But, since mesmers have no serious healing at all right now, I don't see that as a good direction to try to go.)

2.Damage.

A. Buff CoP.

For a brief time, mesmers were desirable because of CoP. (Yes, there were a whole lot of E/Me and N/Me going around, but that was only because many people were too dumb to realize how much stronger Me/A was.) Then CoP got nerfed to put an end to degenerate Cryway teams. The nerf was too harsh because there was a way to kill Cryway without killing CoP. This might be a good time to revisit that mistake and do it right:

Quote:

Interrupt target foe and remove 1 mesmer hex. If a mesmer hex is removed in this way, that foe and all foes in the area take 50...100 damage.

B. Buff Reactive Hexes?
Burst suggests buffing reactive hexes. I have to disagree. The game can either be in a state where reactive hexing is as good as active damage dealing, or one where it isn't. If reactive hexing can get you the same results, the incentive to develop skillful active damage dealing ability disappears. We also end up with a dominant playstyle that's very passive. Does anyone remember the days of Prophecies when effective strategy meant casting SS on stuff and just not dying?

C. Then What?
I don't know. It's hard to think of vehicles to deliver caster damage that aren't already taken by necros eles or rits. Perhaps the best direction to go is to buff skills that cause damage when you do something mesmer-y to a foe like Frustration, Mind Wrack, etc.

In any event, remember to keep damage armor-ignoring (because that's what makes it not worthless in HM) and strongly consider making it leveraged (because that's usually what makes it worthwhile in PvE).

3. Mitigation.

A. Straight Mitigation.

In PvP, mesmers have a great deal of "straight mitigation" because reactive hexes often outright stop (smart) opponents from dealing much (or any) damage for their duration. In PvE, this isn't the case, since monsters keep swinging through reactive hexes. About the only straight mitigation mesmers have in PvE is FD/EC builds that spread blind/weaken/dazed around.

One solution is to simply give mesmers a couple straight mitigation spells in the vein of EB or RH. Spirit of Failure and Calculated Risk might be good candidates for being reworked into effective mitigation.

Burst suggests buffing caster-slowing skills like Migraine with better AoE and a stronger slowing effect. While this sounds like a good way to make player mesmers more effective at mitigating damage from caster monsters, it sounds like an even better way to make certain monsters that are already annoying just obnoxiously overpowered. I really can't support this unless extreme care is taken to avoid buffing the monsters with it. But, I think we end up needing it in any event if interruption is ever going to be viable. See below for further discussion.

B. Interruption.

This is probably the biggest mess at the heart of the mesmer class (and rangers too). Power creep and lazy monster design have left us in a situation where (1) monsters generally aren't worth interrupting when you could just kill them a little faster instead, and (2) monsters pretty much can't be reliably interrupted thanks to the HM cast bonus.

As Upier explained (before going on to troll with a silly idea), the "correct" solution to problem #1 is to nerf damage output across the board so that shutdown matters more. Since that's not going to happen, the second-best solution is to give you a big collateral reward for successfully interrupting something.

Some possible rewards include:
* heavy damage bonus
* meaningful energy gain (either as a part of the skill or as part of Fast Casting)
* faster/instant recharge on that skill
* faster/(chance of) instant recharge on all skills (either as a part of the skill or as part of Fast Casting)
* potent collateral hex on the target
* potent collateral e-denial on target (only if e-denial is being reworked overall to become viable)

Right now, my personal favorite idea is a 6% or 7% chance per rank of Fast Casting to recharge on all skills on a successful interrupt.

Problem #2 is more thorny. The "correct" solution is to remove the HM fast cast bonus and do something to make HM legitimately hard that isn't just braindead stat-pumping. Unfortunately, if a-net had a better idea for making HM hard than braindead stat-pumping, they would have used it already, so that's probably not going to happen.

So, we're going to need some way to slow the monsters down enough make it possible to interrupt them reliably in HM. The only thing I can think of is buffing the caster-slowing skills like Migraine. Basically, it would need to be a hex with a quick cast, huge AoE radius, long duration, uptime ratio above 100%, and pretty heavy slowing effect (probably 2.5x or 3x like Burst suggests).

Which brings us back to the problem above: If you give this skill to any monsters, they are going to positively rape the players with it. I can't even conceive of a way to convolute a normal skill to avoid that outcome. So it's going to have to be Ether Nightmare.

Quote:

Ether Nightmare
10e, 1/4c, 15r
Hex spell. For 30...35sec target foe and all foes within earshot cast spells 150...200% slower. (but see below)

A second reason why the skill that makes interrupts work needs to be a PvE skill is Gwen. The heroes' superior reaction times is going to make them preferable to live mesmers unless the live mesmers get some outside advantage. And a PvE skill is exactly that.

(Yes, I know that Interruption is not properly classed as Mitigation. It's properly regarded as the opposite of whatever mechanic it interrupts, so sometimes it's Mitigation and sometimes it's Damage and sometimes it's E-Denial (which I am also miscategorizing for simplicity's sake), and sometimes it's a headache to even try to classify it. But, that distinction isn't relevant here, so I'm just lumping it under Mitigation for now.)

C. E-Denial

E-Denial suffers from the same two basic problems as interruption: (1) monsters generally aren't worth e-denying when you could just kill them a little faster instead, and (2) monsters pretty much can't be e-denied because they have super-deep energy pools and extra pips of regen.

Problem #1 has the same "correct"-but-never-going-to-happen solution: Nerf damage output across the board. As for the second-best solution, it's really hard for me to say. Since e-denial has never worked in PvE, it's hard to imagine exactly how potent it would be if it did work. My guess is that e-denial would be viable if it could (a) quickly and completely drain a priority foe like a monk or OP caster on demand, and/or (b) quickly drain a lot of less-important foes at the start of the fight well enough to prevent them from using one or two skills that they otherwise would during the first 10-15sec of the engagement.

The "correct" solution to problem #2 would be to improve the AI so that it doesn't need the super-deep energy pools and extra pips of regen, and then get rid of them. Obviously, that won't happen. So the second-best solution is to make e-denial really, really, really strong. Burst suggests "loses all energy" or -10pips as the sort of potency that would be needed, and I agree that's about what it would take.

Unfortunately, that creates problem #3: You can't give monsters skills with things like "loses all energy" or -10pips because, again, they would absolutely rape the players, who don't have super-deep energy pools and extra pips of regen.

Again, the only solution I can think of is to locate the forbidden power in a PvE skill. I wish I had a third mesmer-specific PvE skill to use here, but, since I don't, it's going to be tacked on to Ether Nightmare, since it (even in the form proposed above) is the less overpowered of the two:

Quote:

Ether Nightmare
15e, 1/4c, 15r
Hex spell. For 30...35sec target foe and all foes within earshot cast spells 150...200% slower and suffer -3 {maybe -4} energy degeneration for each mesmer hex on that foe.

[edit: The more I think about that, the more I worry about secondary abuse. The e-denial effect is too strong a reward for the low, low price of just being E/Me or N/Me. Maybe...

Quote:

Ether Nightmare
15e, 1/4c, 15r
Hex spell. For 30...35sec target foe and all foes within earshot cast spells 150...200% slower and suffer -1 energy degeneration for every 3 ranks of Fast Casting you have for each mesmer hex on that foe.

...would solve that problem.
(And this is why I really wanted a third PvE skill to mess with....
Perhaps the caster-slowing effect should be moved to a general PvE skill (which would make it available to rangers too) and Ether Nightmare should just be for e-denial. So, perhaps something like:

Quote:

Tryptophan Signet
For 14...19 seconds, target foe and all foes within earshot move and attack 23...37% slower and cast spells 150...200% slower.

and

Ether Nightmare
10e, 3c, 20r
Hex spell. For 15...20sec target foe and all foes in the area suffer -1 energy degeneration for every 3 ranks of Fast Casting you have for each mesmer hex on that foe.

hmmm?
end of edit]

4. Energy Management.

Mesmers have the most e-management skills of any caster class, but the worst e-management.

One part of the problem is that a lot of mesmer skills are overpriced because they were designed around Inspiration being there (much like a lot of necro and ranger skills are overpriced). These e-costs were never reduced even though Inspiration took nerf after nerf, leaving mesmers unable to pay for their own skillset.

A second part of the problem is the long recharges on many of the e-management skills. One fix is to lower the recharges. Another would be adding a change to recharge all skills to Fast Casting, as described above.

A third part of the problem is the large number of skills that give you a little energy, plus a crappy secondary function. The original intent was clearly that players were supposed to string together several of these skills to get decent energy while doing something else too. Maybe people would consider doing that if the secondary functions were buffed so that they didn't suck terribly.

Another good idea would be to make a plain Jane skill that gives a straight-up energy bonus or cost discount at about the same level as GoLE.

5. Make Monster Skills More Vulnerable

Burst also suggests:

Quote:

Link monster skills to attributes and allow them to be disabled by skills like Power Block or stolen/copied by skills like Arcane Thievery or Inspired Hex.

I see that as a good idea, but a pretty incremental one also. Few monster skills are really so nasty and spammable that I really feel a stong need to disable them. (Also, I'm pretty sure that allowing some monster skills to be stolen would cause crashes.)

Well... That's all I've got for the moment.

drkn · Apr 10, 2010, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Chthon pretty much summed up all the most important things. bravo, sir, bravo.

Skyy High · Apr 10, 2010, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by mage767

(c) Psychic Instability: Elite Spell. Interrupt target foe's AND ALL ADJACENT FOES NEXT action. If that action was a spell, ATTRIBUTES OF THE SAME TYPE ARE DISABLED FOR 10 seconds, and AFFECTED FOES KNOCKED DOWN. (50% failure chance with Fast Casting 4 or less.)

Seriously? How about we just make a spell that flat out disables all foes' skills in earshot while we're at it?

Chthon has the best summary that I see.

Burst Cancel · Apr 10, 2010, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Several posts have raised the objection that if mesmer skills are buffed in particular ways, monsters would become overpowered. This is in fact part of the point, and actually plays right into a mesmer's hands. As Chthon states, PvE is currently in a stagnated damage+mitigation meta, and interrupts are often unnecessary (though sometimes insufficient). You can solve this problem by making winning essentially impossible unless you can shut down the enemy team. In short, we need to create a credible answer to the question, "Why should I bother to interrupt or shutdown a monster when I could just kill it?"

I actually don't see the issue with buffing reactive punishment hexes. Chthon attempts to divide the question into two scenarios: where reactive hexes are "better" than active ("skillful") damage, or where they aren't. The problem, of course, is defining "better". Reactive hexes are conditional by definition, and the condition is based on enemy behavior rather than player or ally behavior; as such, I see no problem with making their effects significantly stronger than "active skillful damage". It's certainly possible to make further buffs even more conditional (e.g., Ineptitude does bonus AoE damage and AoE blind if the attack is an attack skill). This also addresses the issue above regarding overpowered monsters - if the strongest mes effects are highly conditional, it becomes the player's responsibility to avoid triggering the condition.

Chthon's Ether Nightmare suggestion is quite attractive, although "earshot" radius might be overdoing it.

Chthon · Apr 10, 2010, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

As Chthon states, PvE is currently in a stagnated damage+mitigation meta

Actually, we've always been stuck in a damage+mitigation+healing meta since day one, we just didn't see it at the time. Pretty much every RPG/RPGish game that focuses on little red bars is going to come down to damage+mitigation+healing.

Quote:

I actually don't see the issue with buffing reactive punishment hexes. Chthon attempts to divide the question into two scenarios: where reactive hexes are "better" than active ("skillful") damage, or where they aren't. The problem, of course, is defining "better". Reactive hexes are conditional by definition, and the condition is based on enemy behavior rather than player or ally behavior; as such, I see no problem with making their effects significantly stronger than "active skillful damage".

Because the AI are always going to swing through (except for a few skills when they'll stop one hit short of dead), reactive hexes are equivalent to straight DPS in PvE. If that DPS is comparable to the DPS on other options that you have to actively work for, it creates a perverse incentive to be lazy.

Quote:

if the strongest mes effects are highly conditional, it becomes the player's responsibility to avoid triggering the condition.

That's a clever way to avoid overpowering the monsters. The only thing that worries me are large mono-mobs like Mindblades that spam so many copies of a skill that you can't avoid it.

Quote:

Chthon's Ether Nightmare suggestion is quite attractive, although "earshot" radius might be overdoing it.

As for the e-denial, it's bigger than I'd like.
As for the caster slowing, there needs to be a pretty solid guarantee that it's going to already be in place on anything you need to interrupt, before you need to interrupt it. That requires such a huge radius and long duration that you can fire-and-forget and the start of the engagement and not have to worry about your target not being slowed because it was out of range when you cast or the hex expired.
The alternative to sticking both hexes together, is to move the caster slowing effect to a general PvE skill that's usable by both mesmers and rangers. (See the edit to my previous post for one possibility.)

drkn · Apr 10, 2010, 10:58 PM // 22:58

reactive hexes being much more powerful than any direct form of damage were already suggested back in december-january, i think. it's quite obvious that they should be more destructive - not necessarily only in means of damage - than just spamming direct damage skills.

Quote:

Because the AI are always going to swing through (except for a few skills when they'll stop one hit short of dead), reactive hexes are equivalent to straight DPS in PvE. If that DPS is comparable to the DPS on other options that you have to actively work for, it creates a perverse incentive to be lazy.

it's still conditional. empathy is still limited to mob's attack speed. backfire is still limited to mob's skilltab and it's casting possibilities. it's still mechanically inferior to direct damage and should be rewarded more.

Pandora's box · Apr 10, 2010, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

So the beans have been spilt. Mesmers are finally going to get some attention in PvE.

Maybe making fast casting somewhat useful? More premptive interrupts maybe? Reworking on recharges and casting costs? Who knows..I for one am very excited!

I'm sorry to say but... When women are smiling that much they are about to bring some ***very*** bad news...

JDRyder · Apr 10, 2010, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora's box

I'm sorry to say but... When women are smiling that much they are about to bring some ***very*** bad news...

Thats a good point actually