Curse

drkn · Feb 09, 2010, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

AP and it's Disco-calling build needs to die.
Caster induced daze needs to die.

Oh look!
That's everything a mesmer is using in PvE!

twice yes - kill it, please. right away.
...as soon as mesmers get any other pve build available, not making them wand for 3/4 fights.
edit: i've lost the will to argue with you.

Quote:

You have 10 classes.
You have 8 party slots.
Nothing is stopping you from using the same class multiple times.

By default - you will ALWAYS have at least 2 classes that aren't as good as the rest of them.

pretty much failed. you forget and try to convince us that ALL pve is the same. that the same builds - the same classes - will work in uw, fow, doa, rragar's and at joko's domain vq. that's not true.
even though you use eight monks to run DSC, you abuse SR on necro heroes and run pretty much everything on them, even though RoJ is still useful and powerful, even though splinter barrager is awesome in physical teams - they are not working everywhere, with every combination of primairy classes of the players, especially when you set up with guildies of friends for fun, so you don't require them to come with specific classes. but every class is useful for some role, in some places.
mesmers' problem is that they're useful nowhere now and easily surpassed by any other class in every role. it would be fine if groups with mesmers were really superior when running balanced UW run, decent for FoW and general VQ, but mesmers sucked in DoA, as it would be fine if other classes sucked at certain locations/occasions/builds/options/etc where others shine. the problem with 'underpowered/overpowered' is that some classes - monk/rit the most - are darn useful, viable and working eeeverywhere, while others can feel useless in a team or just dance in their halls.

Quote:

Note: nowhere in this dialog is any understanding of game mechanics or the root causes of the problem required.

enlight us, please.

i think that pve wouldn't be only damage-oriented if any other option was really useful in the party. just take a look at imbagons - we can assume that they deal nearly no damage, compared to damagers of the party, but they're useful, their role is vital in several places.
i believe that if shutdown was actually working - back again to aoe interrupt over time, hex disablers, more user-friendly arcane conundrum - mesmers would have their place in groups. i can imagine how a smooth, powerful shutdown/interrupt could be helpful in hard mode underworld.

we don't need to rework the whole pve. we just need to rework some of the options to interrupt mobs, best in groups, as groups is what we face in pve. and while mobs would get buffed and possibly adding a 'mesmer maelstrom' would nerf some of sc/farming builds, the balanced team would handle it with no real problems - after all, it's 'just another maelstrom'.
the only thing to note while buffing mesmers is that they need to be buffed on their primairies - because primairy mesmers have no useful role now and because buffing them in general would allow other classes to exploit new forms of skills, what is not the goal here. moving stuff to FC, linking stuff to FC, requiring 14+ in an attribute etc.

Cuilan · Feb 09, 2010, 09:06 PM // 21:06

I don't see how mesmers can't do damage well while also having a mesmer effect.

Fevered Dreams to me is a very mesmer-ish build. It revolves around a mesmer elite and uses PvE conditions mainly because they're better than many condition skills that aren't PvE only. It's a shutdown build and a pretty good one at that, but of course that means it'll be nerfed. Mesmers aren't allowed to do anything well according to Anet.

Mesmers should be open to playing as mesmer or many other things. I don't see how other professions are encouraged to use secondaries and mesmers aren't.

upier · Feb 09, 2010, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

pretty much failed. you forget and try to convince us that ALL pve is the same. that the same builds - the same classes - will work in uw, fow, doa, rragar's and at joko's domain vq. that's not true.
even though you use eight monks to run DSC, you abuse SR on necro heroes and run pretty much everything on them, even though RoJ is still useful and powerful, even though splinter barrager is awesome in physical teams - they are not working everywhere, with every combination of primairy classes of the players. but every class is useful for some role, in some places.
mesmers' problem is that they're useful nowhere now and easily surpassed by any other class in every role. it would be fine if groups with mesmers were really superior when running balanced UW run, decent for FoW and general VQ, but mesmers sucked in DoA, as it would be fine if other classes sucked at certain locations/occasions/builds/options/etc where others shine. the problem with 'underpowered/overpowered' is that some classes - monk/rit the most - are darn useful, viable and working eeeverywhere, while others can just dance in their halls.

As many others here, you are arguing this on the basis of farming.
Farming never was all-inclusive.

As noted, the mesmer is well above just being sufficient for general play.

Cuilan · Feb 09, 2010, 09:14 PM // 21:14

The root problem is the brainless and predictable enemy AI with predictable spawn locations. Anet won't likely change that, so that only leaves profession changes to allow balance.

Lanier · Feb 09, 2010, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

i think that pve wouldn't be only damage-oriented if any other option was really useful in the party. just take a look at imbagons - we can assume that they deal nearly no damage, compared to damagers of the party, but they're useful, their role is vital in several places.
i believe that if shutdown was actually working - back again to aoe interrupt over time, hex disablers, more user-friendly arcane conundrum - mesmers would have their place in groups. i can imagine how a smooth, powerful shutdown/interrupt could be helpful in hard mode underworld.

we don't need to rework the whole pve. we just need to rework some of the options to interrupt mobs, best in groups, as groups is what we face in pve. and while mobs would get buffed and possibly adding a 'mesmer maelstrom' would nerf some of sc/farming builds, the balanced team would handle it with no real problems - after all, it's 'just another maelstrom'.
the only thing to note while buffing mesmers is that they need to be buffed on their primairies - because primairy mesmers have no useful role now and because buffing them in general would allow other classes to exploit new forms of skills, what is not the goal here. moving stuff to FC, linking stuff to FC, requiring 14+ in an attribute etc.

The reason I see as to why PvE is so damage oriented is because of the power creep.

The Power Creep really rocketed skyward after the release of eotn and the PvE only skills from that game. Discord and HB buffs in addition to increased usage of MoP has also contributed to power creep.

What, initially, needs to happen is a massive nerf of all the overpowered skills in the game and a removal of the eotn PvE skills. Reversing at least a portion of power creep would make PvE less damage oriented and therefore more friendly to mesmers. Mesmers would still need some tweaking after these nerfs to the OP skills, but the extend of the tweaking needed would only be apparent after the OP skills are nerfed.

We have to remember, however, that (partly as a result of the power creep) PvE is incredibly easy. I think that most of us would acknowledge that mesmers are the bottom rung class in PvE but they are also easily able to vanquish anywhere, do HM anywhere, really do anything. When the E in PvE is in as sore of a state as it is, no one really needs buffing as anyone can dominate it easily. The first step in making mesmers more often used in PvE needs to be a nerf to the over powered skills and a buff to PvE in general.

Quote:

...as soon as mesmers get any other pve build available, not making them wand for 3/4 fights.

This is definitely an exaggeration. Even when Iv used some of the most useless mesmer skills there are to use in PvE (ex: when I brought the gvg Power Block build in PvE), I have not had to wand for 3/4 of the fights. If this is the case, then practice is definitely needed on the timing of skills and/or energy management.

Cuilan · Feb 09, 2010, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Players won't want that large of a nerf nuke going off at once. If you buff monsters in a way that requires more damage, then you'd have people wanting more damage.

You also have to consider new players or those who rarely play likely don't have much of a friends list or know of GWG and PvX. Many will be running around with bow skills on their mesmer and ele nukes on their assassin.

My domination builds very often have 2-4 seconds of downtime due to the whole entire bar recharging.

ForgottenAccount · Feb 09, 2010, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Players won't want that large of a nerf nuke going off at once. If you buff monsters in a way that requires more damage, then you'd have people wanting more damage.

Absolutely agreed. Nerfing a lot of currently overpowered skills will make things harder and reduce the viability of Mesmers in teams.

It's also highly unlikely because ANet knew PvE skills were overpowered, this was a design decision, and it's a selling point for their campaigns/expansions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

My domination builds very often have 2-4 seconds of downtime due to the whole entire bar recharging.

Yep. If not more. It is very easy to start out a fight and use all your skills and have nothing to do. If you don't get a HSR proc from your equipment then you will probably have to wand for awhile.

Tenebrae · Feb 10, 2010, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

AP enables you to AEcho EVAS.
Caster induced daze is FD.
These would be among the few (if not the only) viable mesmer PvE options.

AP is an Assassin skill , i dont care about that and .....Fevered Dreams is overpowered ? it DESERVES a nerf ? dear god ....

Seriously , shorten recharges and adding/extending some effects of Mesmers skills will make them less underpowered. That is the real problem , not root IA problems bla bla bla that we all know Anet is not gonna solve but shorten for example .... Distraction recharge and reducing its effect ? woah , overpowered ? no , fixed ? yes , logical ? yes.

upier · Feb 10, 2010, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Players won't want that large of a nerf nuke going off at once. If you buff monsters in a way that requires more damage, then you'd have people wanting more damage.

You need to tone down the damage (and of course defence) to slow down the game. Currently the game is to fast for shutdown or even anything remotely precise (Hi Power Attack spam!) to be viable.
If on the other hand you'd know that the monk won't die in 3 seconds, but will rather stay up for a bit longer - diverting one of his skills would actually make sense.

maxxfury · Feb 10, 2010, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

You need to tone down the damage (and of course defence) to slow down the game. Currently the game is to fast for shutdown or even anything remotely precise (Hi Power Attack spam!) to be viable.

Thats the power creep baby! sad state of affairs eh? take the surgery of what gw used to be and changed it into a sledge hammer session.

Sadly i dont see that changing anytime soon...but hey? we can hope that why the pve balance is taking so long :P

Id still like to see while gw is stuck in this cycle of balance the mes (and ranger too tbh) get a little lift to be more comparable to the other classes...

I miss the old days when a mes actually could turn a hard battle

upier · Feb 10, 2010, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

I miss the old days when a mes actually could turn a hard battle

But the guy still does that!
Just that now he achieves that by staying behind in the outpost!

maxxfury · Feb 10, 2010, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

But the guy still does that!
Just that now he achieves that by staying behind in the outpost!

Oh snap! xD

Least i got a bumper sticker that say "mesmer's do it faster"

Tho now im not sure if thats good or bad? :P

ForgottenAccount · Feb 11, 2010, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Even when Prophecies was the only Guild Wars, Mesmers were generally considered the weakest class in PvE.

The reality is, for Mesmers to not be underpowered in PvE [with no changes to the class or skills] you'd need to change the game state even more than that. Essentially what's required is for reactive attacks (which most Mesmer skills tend to be) to be equally or more powerful than proactive attacks. Not only is that never going to happen but I don't think it's even desirable for the game as a whole.

Lanier · Feb 11, 2010, 07:47 PM // 19:47

I think the way that you would have to make it so that mesmers are not underpowered in PvE is by slowing down the game. Make it so that enemies are tougher with two monks/resto rits/whatever heals per mob and ~8 enemies per mob. Of course the biggest change would be nerfing the currently abusable AP, PvE skills, discord, SoS, and MoP. Not that many monsters use these skills but they are very abusable by players. Therefore, massively nerfing all these overpowered skills would help a little in making PvE slower.

Also, people are always going to whine when nerfs come along. Saying that these shouldnt be nerfed because people are going to whine about it is stupid.

Skyy High · Feb 11, 2010, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by ForgottenAccount

Even when Prophecies was the only Guild Wars, Mesmers were generally considered the weakest class in PvE.

The reality is, for Mesmers to not be underpowered in PvE [with no changes to the class or skills] you'd need to change the game state even more than that. Essentially what's required is for reactive attacks (which most Mesmer skills tend to be) to be equally or more powerful than proactive attacks. Not only is that never going to happen but I don't think it's even desirable for the game as a whole.

Why not? Reactive skills require, well, reaction, by which I mean they require timing. Interrupting a skill takes more thought that hitting a foe with a fireball. Your definition of "proactive" seems to be "hit the button whenever and you get a good effect". We really shouldn't be talking about "reactive" and "proactive" skills, we should be talking about "passive" and "active" skills. Passive skills are skills like Orison, Faintheartedness, and pre-nerf Ineptitude. Active skills are skills like RoF, any interrupt, and post-nerf Ineptitude. Notice the difference? Active skills have the potential to fail, or be energy-inefficient, if used at the wrong times. They should correspondingly have great effects.

What I'm trying to get around to is this: mesmers don't need a Maelstrom clone to try to get around the increased cast time of mobs, they need a Cry of Frustration to be a big deal if you land the interrupt. If interrupts in PvE are going to be so difficult, and if you can kill fast enough that it's not even necessary to interrupt most of the time, then if you devote yourself to pulling off key interrupts you should be rewarded for it with more of *effect* - whether effect is shutdown, damage, whatever - than you would get by just lobbing spells as fast as possible. Right now, there is no real reward for interruption; it used to be basically necessary to interrupt a healer or high-level caster, particularly if there were multiples in the group. If the power creep isn't reversed, then interruption needs a new reward, because the old one is not here anymore.

ForgottenAccount · Feb 11, 2010, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Why not? Reactive skills require, well, reaction, by which I mean they require timing. Interrupting a skill takes more thought that hitting a foe with a fireball. Your definition of "proactive" seems to be "hit the button whenever and you get a good effect". We really shouldn't be talking about "reactive" and "proactive" skills, we should be talking about "passive" and "active" skills. Passive skills are skills like Orison, Faintheartedness, and pre-nerf Ineptitude. Active skills are skills like RoF, any interrupt, and post-nerf Ineptitude. Notice the difference? Active skills have the potential to fail, or be energy-inefficient, if used at the wrong times. They should correspondingly have great effects.

What I'm trying to get around to is this: mesmers don't need a Maelstrom clone to try to get around the increased cast time of mobs, they need a Cry of Frustration to be a big deal if you land the interrupt. If interrupts in PvE are going to be so difficult, and if you can kill fast enough that it's not even necessary to interrupt most of the time, then if you devote yourself to pulling off key interrupts you should be rewarded for it with more of *effect* - whether effect is shutdown, damage, whatever - than you would get by just lobbing spells as fast as possible. Right now, there is no real reward for interruption; it used to be basically necessary to interrupt a healer or high-level caster, particularly if there were multiples in the group. If the power creep isn't reversed, then interruption needs a new reward, because the old one is not here anymore.

Think about it this way: In a fighting game you are going to have an attack, and you are going to have counters/reversals (or whatever you'd like to call it). In the grand scheme of things, counters/reversals have a certain innate value (avoiding damage, possibly other effects) and innate disadvantages (higher execution skill required) but if counters are stronger than other attacks then your game will play very defensively.

Having a slower paced defensive game is not necessarily a bad thing if that's an objective, but to be honest that is not what I want to see in Guild Wars - Monsters are perfectly suited to that style of gameplay because they have innate advantages over human players. I'm not saying that Mesmer reactive options can't be made stronger, they definitely can, and should. But trying to redesign the whole game around making them required in PvE is not necessary or even desirable in my eyes.

In my opinion pretty much every interrupt skill, or at least the majority of Mesmer ones (which are spells) should work like Mistrust/Guilt/Shame. The format of those spells removes the ridiculousness of trying to hit 250-500 ms cast spells when your ping is already going to range from 150-300 on a regular basis. I also think it's fairly ridiculous that many spells have recharge times as short as they do, but the interrupts have recharges that are several times longer - Worse is when you miss the timing and you have to wait for the full recharge again. In general these recharge times need to be toned down, and I think a missed interrupt should give a significantly reduced recharge time (half or maybe a quarter of the recharge time - Possibly further reduced via Fast Casting if we're talking about that).

But, well, this post is getting a bit long and there are plenty of ideas that make Mesmers on par with other classes without totally redesigning the game.

Lanier · Feb 12, 2010, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by ForgottenAccount

In my opinion pretty much every interrupt skill, or at least the majority of Mesmer ones (which are spells) should work like Mistrust/Guilt/Shame. The format of those spells removes the ridiculousness of trying to hit 250-500 ms cast spells when your ping is already going to range from 150-300 on a regular basis. I also think it's fairly ridiculous that many spells have recharge times as short as they do, but the interrupts have recharges that are several times longer - Worse is when you miss the timing and you have to wait for the full recharge again. In general these recharge times need to be toned down, and I think a missed interrupt should give a significantly reduced recharge time (half or maybe a quarter of the recharge time - Possibly further reduced via Fast Casting if we're talking about that).

But, well, this post is getting a bit long and there are plenty of ideas that make Mesmers on par with other classes without totally redesigning the game.

Nah, I feel as though removing reactive interupts from mesmers and replacing them with the proactive interupts would remove part of the mesmer that really needs to stay. Interupting is an art and it takes skill and practice to be good at. If you are missing interupts often, then you either need to practice more with them or you need to play a character that requires less reflexes. Interupting isnt tough at all with a 150 - 300 ping. Finally, if you want to hit 1sec or lower spells in hm, simply bring frustration, arcane conundrum, stolen speed, sum of all fears, etc.

Dont get me wrong, I think proactive hexes are good for the mesmer and in my opinion, there should be another mistrustish spell. I just think that mesmers should have access to both the safer proactive interupts and the less reliable but more powerful reactive interupts

ForgottenAccount · Feb 13, 2010, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Nah, I feel as though removing reactive interupts from mesmers and replacing them with the proactive interupts would remove part of the mesmer that really needs to stay. Interupting is an art and it takes skill and practice to be good at. If you are missing interupts often, then you either need to practice more with them or you need to play a character that requires less reflexes. Interupting isnt tough at all with a 150 - 300 ping. Finally, if you want to hit 1sec or lower spells in hm, simply bring frustration, arcane conundrum, stolen speed, sum of all fears, etc.

Dont get me wrong, I think proactive hexes are good for the mesmer and in my opinion, there should be another mistrustish spell. I just think that mesmers should have access to both the safer proactive interupts and the less reliable but more powerful reactive interupts

Well, it's fine you can have that opinion, but I don't agree. I play primarily first person shooter games (Quake, UT) and have no problem with my reflexes there. I'm not a top tier competitive player by any means (maybe top 10% or top 5%), but I'm certainly capable of hitting #1-8 on the keyboard quickly. 250 and 500ms to react is generous -- When you are playing on servers that give you pings in the 40-80ms range. The problem lies pretty much exclusively in the power creep for interruptable skills (w/r/t activation times) and ANet's failure to provide quality hosting for the game. (Adding all kinds of non-spell skills, when many Mesmer interrupts only target spells doesn't help either.)

At 150ms it's essentially impossible to reactively interrupt any 1/4 or 1/2 activation time skill a monster in HM uses, and even if you do say, Power Spike a spell a monster is using you're going to get what - 126 damage? All things considered (ping time + monitor refresh time + human reaction time) you pretty much have to predictively interrupt these skills, and the reward here is basically trivial for doing so. I can easily do that amount of damage without having to play silly wait-and-guess or wait-and-see games with monsters. For the cost/time benefit to be worthwhile I'd have to do some obscene amount of damage.

Suggesting that I add more skills to my bar to help this isn't really that helpful either. There are only 8 slots, only so much energy, and only so much time to cast spells. This is precisely why I think pretty much all the Mesmer interrupts should work as Mistrust does, since it works just fine without needing support to do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't compete with the other skills on your bar in the way that an active non-0 activation time interrupt does and you don't need to bring along other tools to even begin making it useful. The only bad thing about the Mistrust/Guilt/Shame style skills is they're unnecessarily hindered by a bunch of other restrictions like cooldown, only affecting spells, only affecting certain kinds of spells - This tendency to have on/off functionality is a big part of the problem with the Mesmer class design in general.

Bob Slydell · Feb 13, 2010, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by byteme!

No Mesmers have one of the worst emanagement available.

1)It's a non primary attribute (inspiration)

2)Because of the reason mentioned above Mesmers are often "forced" into a 3 way split with their attributes. Dom/Illusion (the focal point of your offense), Fast Casting (your primary), and Inspiration (e-management). Yes there are exceptions to this as we all know but if you have a look around that's the general template for your average Mesmer.

3)Requires skills slot(s)

Agreed. I love Mesmers, love em, But this is exactly the thing I go through often with my Mesmer. I often give up and ignore e-management, though, and I'm usually fine. I'll take the +15 Energy -1 energy regen items out sometimes. Works ok.

Shriketalon · Feb 13, 2010, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Perhaps another way to make a mesmer more significant is to add synergy to its skills. Have multiple abilities that key off of their prime powers to add an extra layer of effect, kind of like echoes working off of chants or preparations buffing attack skills.

Give skills rider effects for every time you hex, interrupt, steal energy, use a signet, etc. Some positive, some negative, but all contingent upon the mesmer doing its normal job, most of which are based off of Fast Casting.

So Mantra of Recovery might also allow you to increase the recharge times of a foe's skills just slightly every time you interrupt them. Ether Lord might grant you the ability to grant allies a percentage of all energy you steal. Mantra of Flame could either set a foe on fire every time you hex them, or have a bonus ability whenever you use Fire Magic.

Hexes could have similar effects; something like Power Flux might have "Interruption effect; every time you interrupt a skill on this foe, all foes in the area take X...Y damage". Stolen Speed might penalize cast time every time you successfully interrupt, rewarding good reflexes with ever-increasing accuracy.

A single interruption might not currently be useful, but if it were also granting a rider effect, you could use it to deliver damage, supply your team with energy, or grant yourself further advantages.