Curse

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 02:10 PM // 14:10

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You became mock fodder when you claimed that even as a secondary, Mesmer skills are useless and underused in PvE

But what does it really mean ? Because there maybe few mesmer skills that serve as decent utilty ( and imo there not really that popular ) proves what ? You can't set up decent mesmer build around them, or in fact best you can do on mesmer is to take one or two mesmer skills going Me/x ?

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but there's a problem in the game's mechanism. example: if we want crowd control, we'd make empathy aoe. we could add the clause 'if this hex ends early, target is blinded for 10s'. and we could change the skill totally so it won't deal damage... but... what would it do then?
there's not much a hex like that can do instead of damaging. and lowering damage just because it's gone aoe is still thrashing the skill. as far as it comes to empathy, i think that people forget that it's indirect, conditional damage and it lasts short - and even though mobs tend to damage themselves with it, that's not always true and even multiple empathy rarely kills the target. the above was just an example, anyways.

It seems so at first sight but given nature of pve making empathy aoe with let's say half current damage wouldn't be a thrashing skill but actually a buff, same goes with ESurge, who cares if it has high armour ignoring damage, reacharge makes it garbage in pve, so cuting damage in half but also cuting reacharge to 10s would also be a buff for this skill.

trankle · Feb 24, 2010, 02:48 PM // 14:48

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Originally Posted by The Josip

1. Mesmers are underused (empiric data)
2. Mesmer secondaries (skills, not show) are underused or barely used in comparison to other secondary skills (empiric data)
3. Mesmer needed buff more than necro
4. Mesmer is less wanted in PuGs than necro (empiric data)

Ironic. A guy with no contribution in this thread is complaining how I dared to go to PvE outpost to collect empiric data (as proven above by that guy) and then use it in a debate to prove a point.

While I agree with your conclusions, your methodology is faulty. If you wanted to bring up your survey in an argument, it should have a little more substance:

1. You sampled players once at one mission outpost. Is there anything specific to the mission that would favor one class over another? Are the challenges in this mission representative of all of the challenges in the game? To avoid questions like this, it would be much more meaningful to take samples across multiple outposts with varying challenges.

Before you rebut that this was an informal poll, and not a major study, let me ask: what if I had done my own poll, choosing Gate of Pain as my outpost? Would you have taken my data at face value, or argued that this mission is distinct in that many players bring interrupt skills?

2. I saw no mention of hero builds in your data. I know that in the two threads in which this argument is taking place, some folks have come forward and said that Me skills are used in many of their hero builds. Did you collect this data from players in the outpost, or use player builds only? Why?

3. Your central question is whether Me deserved buffs more than N, but your poll has no mention of how many N primaries/secondaries/heroes were included in your sample. It's one thing to say that your sample included no Me players, but without the number of N players represented, it's hard to interpret that data. If the whole outpost were comprised of W, Mo, and E players, with one N and no Me, that would hardly make your case. Again, the data's just not there.

Again, I agree that Mesmers could stand to see some buffs to make them more popular in PvE. But you're not helping your case by throwing around QED's after really sketchy polling, and then discounting data to the contrary as opinion.

Del · Feb 24, 2010, 03:33 PM // 15:33

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Originally Posted by The Josip

You're trying so hard to be 'right' that you're ready to neglect everything and just blindly go with "you're wrong you're wrong". I at least use arguments and empiric data. You people laugh at empiric data, facts, logic and arguments, but hey, that's not my problem.

My evidence is credible, see reply to this guy above.

you use opinion and little bits of information gathered, call it logic and evidence. but considering how many people i know that actually use mesmer skills in pve, and more than likely the thousands that do. i'd say your argument is pretty much moot. kinda like me asking 3 people if they like wheat bread then claiming no one likes wheat bread just because the three people i asked don't. So yeah, you're wrong, you're wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

Ironic. A guy with no contribution in this thread is complaining how I dared to go to PvE outpost to collect empiric data (as proven above by that guy) and then use it in a debate to prove a point.

Not sure you know what irony means, so here you go

Irony
–noun,plural-nies.
1.
the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
2.
Literature.
a.
a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actuallyor ostensibly stated.
b.
(esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementaryimpulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3.
Socratic irony.
4.
dramatic irony.
5.
an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
6.
the incongruity of this.
7.
an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing.
8.
an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

Forgive me father for I have sinned, I used arguments and empiric data and people are mocking them.

going to one outpost and talking to a few people is highly credible. You're being mocked because you use weak evidence, call it empirical to make it sound more credible, then claim you're right even though you only polled people in a single mission outpost on zb day.

oh, and

Quote:

Originally Posted by trankle

While I agree with your conclusions, your methodology is faulty. If you wanted to bring up your survey in an argument, it should have a little more substance:

1. You sampled players once at one mission outpost. Is there anything specific to the mission that would favor one class over another? Are the challenges in this mission representative of all of the challenges in the game? To avoid questions like this, it would be much more meaningful to take samples across multiple outposts with varying challenges.

Before you rebut that this was an informal poll, and not a major study, let me ask: what if I had done my own poll, choosing Gate of Pain as my outpost? Would you have taken my data at face value, or argued that this mission is distinct in that many players bring interrupt skills?

2. I saw no mention of hero builds in your data. I know that in the two threads in which this argument is taking place, some folks have come forward and said that Me skills are used in many of their hero builds. Did you collect this data from players in the outpost, or use player builds only? Why?

3. Your central question is whether Me deserved buffs more than N, but your poll has no mention of how many N primaries/secondaries/heroes were included in your sample. It's one thing to say that your sample included no Me players, but without the number of N players represented, it's hard to interpret that data. If the whole outpost were comprised of W, Mo, and E players, with one N and no Me, that would hardly make your case. Again, the data's just not there.

Again, I agree that Mesmers could stand to see some buffs to make them more popular in PvE. But you're not helping your case by throwing around QED's after really sketchy polling, and then discounting data to the contrary as opinion.

Hit the nail on the head.

Snark Is Dead · Feb 24, 2010, 03:58 PM // 15:58

http://img709.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=yawnw.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

But what does it really mean ? Because there maybe few mesmer skills that serve as decent utilty ( and imo there not really that popular ) proves what ? You can't set up decent mesmer build around them, or in fact best you can do on mesmer is to take one or two mesmer skills going Me/x ?

Don't quote-mine me. Show me how what I've said in this thread differs from what you're saying here? It means to me that mesmers are only good in PvE for the good ulitity that it brings to other classes and not good as a stand-alone profession. Y'know...what I've been saying all along.

Psychic Instability, Feedback, Signet of Disenchantment and a whole load of other skills are garbage in PvE atm. Backfire, needs lower nrg cost, lower recharge, lower damage *or* AoE. VoR should be reverted for PvE. I could go on and on. Bottom line: Mesmer profession should have gotten the buffs not Necromancer Blood Magic.

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 04:00 PM // 16:00

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going to one outpost and talking to a few people is highly credible. You're being mocked because you use weak evidence, call it empirical to make it sound more credible, then claim you're right even though you only polled people in a single mission outpost on zb day.

Omg, read this entire thread and clearly you will see that going to current ZQ mission outpost and talking to players there is most creditable and empircical as anyone did in this thread without tons of arguments like :"vast majority of players", "I know, i am sure , i think etc ", "friend of my friend's guildie told me that... ".

Del · Feb 24, 2010, 04:13 PM // 16:13

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Originally Posted by Lopezus

Omg, read this entire thread and clearly you will see that going to current ZQ mission outpost and talking to players there is most creditable and empircical as anyone did in this thread without tons of arguments like :"vast majority of players", "I know, i am sure , i think etc ", "friend of my friend's guildie told me that... ".

because i absolutely wasn't being sarcastic. twit.

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Originally Posted by Snark Is Dead

http://img709.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=yawnw.jpg

VoR should be reverted for PvE.

Truth.

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Originally Posted by Snark Is Dead

Mesmer profession should have gotten the buffs not Necromancer Blood Magic.

Truth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snark Is Dead

http://img709.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=yawnw.jpg

polling, and throwing out actual evidence contrary to the point you're tying to make makes you seem one sided, extremely biased, and irrational. all in all, your polling was poorly conducted.

Prob a good idea to close this thread.

Martin Alvito · Feb 24, 2010, 04:45 PM // 16:45

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Originally Posted by Lopezus

Omg, read this entire thread and clearly you will see that going to current ZQ mission outpost and talking to players there is most creditable and empircical as anyone did in this thread without tons of arguments like :"vast majority of players", "I know, i am sure , i think etc ", "friend of my friend's guildie told me that... ".

The basic problem with the sample is that it is almost certainly not representative for a variety of reasons:

- ZQs draw a certain type of player. Good farmers don't do ZQs often. They are time inefficient; the rewards are not sufficient to the time invested.
- There is no certainty that the ZQ that day didn't happen to favor the use of the Mesmer class. I've been through the last several pages of posts and I can't find the claimed post, so I can't evaluate whether or not that day's ZQ was biased towards Mesmer use or not.
- There's an element of randomness to who shows up at any given time. It may be the case that the data provided was simply taken during a time period when there was a higher proportion of Mesmers present for no good reason. This is why a single small sample is insufficient.

I stand behind the assertion that observations of Mesmers in PvE are infrequent. You see a lot more Warriors, Assassins, Necros, Eles, Rits, and Rangers in PvE outposts. You have for years. Proving the point systematically isn't worth the time cost; doing it right would be a big project. And you should already know intuitively that the proposition is true.

There are reasons you see people spend more time on these classes. Mesmer has a bad primary attribute for PvE, and it has no niche. Rangers fill the disruption niche better, Monks and Necros fill the healing niche, other casters fill the damage niche better, and Assassins, Warriors and Eles are all much more effective at keeping the monsters rooted to one spot so the rest of the team can kill them.

Carving out a niche for the Mesmer class in PvE would take a lot of work. The natural niche is the disruption niche, but to make them competitive with Rangers in that niche would require the following:

- Skills that can interrupt important monster skills (Ranger interrupts and Spinal Shivers are generally used for this purpose)
- Skills that bring them up to par with Ranger (but not beyond) in dishing out damage over time
- Skills that fulfill these criteria but cannot be used effectively by other classes with better primary attributes

That's a big project, given that the goal is to bring the Mesmer up to par with the Ranger without crowding out the Ranger. So you shouldn't be surprised when the balance team chooses to take on big projects that affect classes people already play heavily.

I realize that those of you that choose to play Mesmer despite its shortcomings must have a deep love of the class. But that doesn't mean that it's sensible to give you priority. You're going to play Mesmer irrespective of whether or not it's weak. So only those of you that choose to play your Mesmer despite its flaws will be affected by any rebalance that doesn't make Mesmer competitive.

A good update would give players other than the diehard Mesmer fans a reason to give the class a try. If you want it to become easier for you to get your Mesmer into PuGs, that is the sort of update you need. You should exercise some patience and let the devs give you a quality update, rather than rant about how unfair it is that you're not getting what you want right now. In reality, it isn't all that unfair. The devs can only tackle so many projects at once, and it makes sense to solve problems for classes that are already popular first.

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 05:07 PM // 17:07

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Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

The basic problem ...

First paragraphs - qft, next ones -very problemtaic as :

"Carving out a niche for the Mesmer class in PvE would take a lot of work" - no it doesn't or at least it's really hard to say: it was already mentioned that reworking skills like blackout, diversion etc to give mesmers better crowd control and abilty to shut down dangerous mobs would be desired update.

And saying that mesmers are subpar to other profesions, hence undesired, so buffing them is bottom of the devs priority list until that come up with some general pve balance sounds extremally weird to me. ( i don't want to draw anologies as anyone can do it for themselves but such mechanism do really sounds weird).

Martin Alvito · Feb 24, 2010, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Reworking Blackout and Diversion doesn't kill things. PvE is about killing things in the fastest amount of time possible, subject to the constraint of not dying. These updates wouldn't solve the Mesmer's problem. Damage is sufficiently overpowered that the efficient way to kill almost everything in PvE is to power through their heals, not to try to switch their heals off. Protective abilities are sufficiently overpowered that crippling a single target's ability to dish out damage is dominated by party-wide effects that reduce incoming damage.

I can't help you much with the logic on why it doesn't make sense to buff undesired professions. It's pretty straightforward: underpowered + update that leaves the class underpowered => still underpowered => only affects class diehards. If the update isn't going to bring the class up to par, then the update is wasted for most players. You need an extensive update to influence players' willingness to play Mesmer and therefore have the update impact lots of players.

cthulhu reborn · Feb 24, 2010, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Yeah I like my mesmer and would like some changes here and there but I can't blame Anet for doing other things first. Mesmers are good in PvP but not too many people play a lot of PvE with them cause other classes are better suited for that. Too bad perhaps but such is life...

MagmaRed · Feb 24, 2010, 05:27 PM // 17:27

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Originally Posted by MagmaRed

The ideas you proposed for skill changes are decent, and some of them would work quite nicely for PvE. However, you still fail at finding a way to get PUGs to use Mesmers. Big deal if Guilt, Shame, Diversion, Blackout, etc. get changed to be more PvE friendly. PUGs that feel any of those skills are needed will toss them on a Monk, Necro, Ranger, Rit, and some even on a Warrior.

Change a few skills all you want. It will not help Mesmer at all. It will only help the x/Me players. Either there needs to be a Fast Casting change, or the skills you want changed need to be tied to Fast Casting.

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

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Reworking Blackout and Diversion doesn't kill things. PvE is about killing things in the fastest amount of time possible, subject to the constraint of not dying.

What about Imbagon ? TftF+SY is pretty useful as it mitgiate upcoming damage, so memers could be shuting down mobs to prevent damage being deliverd in the first place, of course it won't make mesmers as a avantagarde of pve steamrolls but that's not the point, the point is to make mesmer role more fun and meaningful in pve. Denaying them that role based on the fact it's so hard task to do this or mesmers niche must be so extremlly speciffic and unique and allowing mesmers even partially excell at niche currently being occupied by other class is no-no, do sound wierd. (more like bias in fact).

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Too bad perhaps but such is life...

Is this principle that you generally use for yourself or for others ? If for yourself, well that's your choice, but other people may not be so eager to follow that kind of weirdness.

Martin Alvito · Feb 24, 2010, 05:43 PM // 17:43

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Originally Posted by Lopezus

What about Imbagon ? TftF+SY is pretty useful as it mitgiate upcoming damage, so memers could be shuting down mobs to prevent damage being deliverd in the first place...

Please read the entire post before responding. In particular, the "Protective abilities are sufficiently overpowered..." bit addresses this. There is no reason to take a class that cannot dish out decent damage and can only shut down a single target when I can instead take a class that can dish out decent damage and can protect the entire party from every monster in the opposing horde.

To make the Mesmer work in the protective niche, it would need to be able to be as effective as SY at protecting the party and able to dish out comparable damage. Alternately, it would need to provide enough damage/protection to make the tradeoff in the other dimension worthwhile, but not confer so much of an advantage that it crowds the Paragon out.

Irrespective, it would also have to be the case that these skills only work on a Mesmer primary. Otherwise, people will just take their Ele or Necro and the Mesmer will still be the last kid picked for softball.

MasterSasori · Feb 24, 2010, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Until they obliterate Soul Reaping, Necros don't need any kind of buff.

Mesmers need help. Bad.

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Please read the entire post before responding.

and what did you do about my post ? here it comes again for you :

of course it won't make mesmers as an avantagarde of pve steamrolls but that's not the point, the point is to make mesmer role more fun and meaningful in pve. Denaying them that role based on the fact it's so hard task to do this, or mesmers niche must be so extremally speciffic and unique, or allowing mesmers even partially excell at niche currently being occupied by other class is no-no, do sound wierd. (more like bias in fact).

Martin Alvito · Feb 24, 2010, 06:14 PM // 18:14

I'm sorry, but you're just not listening.

The point is simple: if you update Mesmers but don't make them competitive, that update affects very few players. If proposed updates will open up options but will not affect the overall balance of classes in any way, then it makes sense to start by updating classes many people already play. This follows because the developers' time is finite and they want their updates to positively affect as many players as possible.

Malice Black · Feb 24, 2010, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Storage chars don't need buffs. Mesmers' have no real place in PvE afterall... Blood Magic needed an serious overhaul.

Good choice.

Martin Alvito · Feb 24, 2010, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Which is more or less the point, although I concede that an update that turns Mesmers into something other than storage characters would be desirable.

Malice Black · Feb 24, 2010, 06:24 PM // 18:24

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Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Which is more or less the point, although I concede that an update that turns Mesmers into something other than storage characters would be desirable.

Agreed, but also highly unlikely. It's much too late.

Lopezus · Feb 24, 2010, 06:35 PM // 18:35

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The point is simple: if you update Mesmers but don't make them competitive, that update affects very few players. If proposed updates will open up options but will not affect the overall balance of classes in any way, then it makes sense to start by updating classes many people already play. This follows because the developers' time is finite and they want their updates to positively affect as many players as possible.

Ok i make it short ( and subjective ) since this discussion is getting nowhere : None of these statments make any sense to me ( ok, devlopers time is of course finite but conclusin you draw from it is just as follows ) , nor make them valid in my eyes ,and definietly not relevant to what i was pointing out.
If you think that's what it's all about, have it yor way. Personally i think it was enough valid arguments that mesmer need a buff and plethora of invalid arguments why it shouln't be a priority, that anyone can form their own opinion .
Peace.