Curse

Hyper Cutter · Jan 10, 2008, 12:32 AM // 00:32

Move [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] into Domination, where it should have been all along (it's more or less AOE [skill]Empathy[/skill], after all)...

>_>

the_jos · Jan 10, 2008, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregslot

And dont think that the mesmers are the only ones that suffer from this... Assassins, Paragons, Dervishes, Ritualists also do. Today the end-game is based on Warriors, Eles and Monks... the game just favors them... thats a fact.

Well, have to disagree with you there.
As you said earlier: "ALL Elite Areas at pve FAVOR the Tank, Nuke & Heal strategy." That's true.
However: Rt spike is very possible, Dervish can tank (I have at least one very experienced obsi-dervish DoA tank in the guild).

That would leave Assassin, Paragon and Mesmer.
Now we take a look at the Paragon. As long as A-net does not nerf SY (too much) the paragon can have a role in those areas, in more coordinated teams (or Ursan/Volfen/Raven-way in the current form).
The paragon can also have a good (support) role in a more heavy-armor team instead of a mostly caster team. Also needs more team coordination, but also very doable.

Which leaves the Assassin and the mesmer when looking at the primary profession.
Both have several huge disadvantages.
They can't nuke. They can't tank (well, can, but less efficient than ele or warrior) And they can't provide much party wide support.

Quote:

No, the problems isnt within the classes, the problem is the type of content they offer us

Not entirely, but it leads to the core problem, the most fail-safe way to play those areas is with tank/nuker/healer.
It's not even the fastest way but it's the way even a beginner can play with some help (stand here, wait for all red dots to gather around player Y, wait for signal, press MS, press SF, press .... Foes dead? Move to next spot and repeat. Monks, heal player Y at all cost, all run if he loses aggro).
The next safest way would be Ursan and variants on that.
Slightly more risk since monks have to focus on more players. Decrease risk 2with SY paragon. Some teambuilds include nukers, also Rt ones.
Then we have the organised team.
When playing in a balanced, well organised guild team, it can outperform the Ursan team (one of our alliance guilds runs such a build at Deep, as far as I have heard).
It has somewhat more risk and takes a lot longer to perfect. But the reward is fast finishing of an elite area.

And at the very bottom is the mixed, not so well organised PuG.
This will hardly ever work in any elite area.
Because critical skills could be missing missing (no NC/CC in Urgoz, snares for some quests) or because the roles are not clear enough.

Now, if someone does not play these areas in a guild and is introduced to an elite area, what will he/she encounter?
Either the proven PUG builds (tank/nuker/healer, B/P) that succeed or the 'bad' PUGs that fail miserably.
And since T/N/H works, why try anything else, since for most players the only goal is to finish in reasonable time and get as much reward/gold as possible.
You know a 'random' team build does not work and a certain team build does work. So you take that certain build and work with that.
And variants of that build work everywhere.
There are only a limited number of people/guilds that think out of the box and try something different.
I could not get a certain guild team in ToPK going because "we don't want to go there, not enough profit".

It's not only because of the content.
It's because most players don't want to take a risk when playing.
They don't play for fun or invention anymore.
They want reward. Either gold or titles.
Taking more risk means possible longer time for the reward.
When they fail a 4-DoA run, they don't think they had 2-4 hours of fun + hard work, they think: "*#^@!, have to work an other 2-4 hours to get me gemstones/title/statue/whatever".
They don't look for the error and try to solve that, they take the same 'proven' build and do the same again.

And to be honest, it's a player's mentality problem.
You can get away by being just good enough.
There is no pressure to practice something a lot.
You can be a bad player in a bad team and still 'win' because the team's skillset leaves a lot of room for error.
A-net introduced the PvE skills and consumables for those who are even worse so they can still finish what they want.

It's not fair to blame A-net for this problem.
They failed to change the mechanics for the elite areas, that's sure.
But it's also the average player that is too stubborn to change his way of playing and is crying out loud when he can't get things done.

RavagerOfDreams · Jan 10, 2008, 01:50 AM // 01:50

for those of you who keep wanting to add dmg to psychic instability ur crazy
lightning javelin/warmongers weapon and you have a constant kd AND dmg source kd is powerful enough as is

Gregslot · Jan 10, 2008, 01:57 AM // 01:57

The Jos,
That all sounds really pretty and all... but surely does not match the game's reality.
For example, try DoA with your friends withou having to appeal to the holy trinity? Or try Salver's Exile at hard mode with a balanced group!
It just cant be done... like i said, too many mobs, too many damage on the entire group. Spirits are made of air at HM, you summon them and they die, paragon's shout dont give the bennefit enough to compensate the damage per second... the game forces you to appel.
Some areas like UW, FoW or even The Deep and Urgoz (at normal, of course) can eb done with balanced group... but DoA and Slavers HM (doa specially) just cant, its retarded actually

mystical nessAL · Jan 10, 2008, 05:32 AM // 05:32

From all I have agreed, mesmers are just too diffrent in PvE. Mesmers needs either a change or a buff.

jayce · Jan 10, 2008, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

...Spiteful Spirit (what's it doing in Curses when it's clearly the bigger brother of Empathy?

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmr819

A skill such as [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] really belongs in the mesmer branch of skills, in my opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

Move [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] into Domination, where it should have been all along (it's more or less AOE [skill]Empathy[/skill], after all)...

i have yet to see any necromancer get jealous over any mesmer skill, talking about how: "it should have been me..." but i see things like what you guys stated above popping up, not all the time, but quite frequent enough. the mesmer should consider themselves fortunate as being viable in a certain area of the game. a game that is supposedly designed around one main focus, competitive play, PvP. for once, who's to say that empathy should have been in the necro's line. not that i would want it but still, just for the sake of discussion.

"Anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you."

"No you can't."

"Yes I can."

"No you can't."

"Yes I can..."

Jayce Of Underworld

Numa Pompilius · Jan 10, 2008, 08:46 AM // 08:46

@ jayce: Spiteful Spirit is Empathy with AoE. Mesmers would need a decent AoE spell, and Spiteful Spirit or something much like it would be completely at home in the Mesmer line.

@ tmr819: Yeah, mesmers are a priority target in PvE and in PvP, and have poor tankability and no decent self-heal compared to other squishies. Mesmer survivability is the lowest of any profession I've tried.

@ everyone who said that bringing a mesmer to RA is pointless: yeah, so what? It's still an excellent way to find out that mesmers have severe energy management issues, that all enemies have hex removal that is cheaper and recharges faster than the mesmers best hexes, that mesmers can be good against casters OR good against melee, never both, and that they're targeted first by the entire enemy team.
Basically that people complaining about being warriors and getting raped by mesmers need to take a mesmer to RA to get some raping-perspective.

Mesmer is a good secondary profession, but there's very little reason to be a primary mesmer. Maybe that's where the buffing needs to go - into beefing up the useless Fast Casting primary attribute?

Syntonic · Jan 10, 2008, 09:34 AM // 09:34

What? No the real problem with being a mesmer in RA is because it's pointless. Your team might be filled with stupid wammos who can't capitalize on the disruptions. After all, mesmers are seen in TA. Not a big mystery.

No, mesmers can't be anti-everything in one go or they'd be too powerful. And no, SS, SV, insidious parasite, empathy etc. does not stop a person and merely punishes them for doing a certain action. SS on a warrior may not stop him from killing you or a team mate with an eviscerate spike especially if the opposing monk is on the ball. Blackout will ensure he just lost his adrenaline build up and can't proceed with the spike. Have you stopped to think about why mesmers are high priority targets by the enemy team?

Another no - in most cases hex removal can't keep up with mesmer hexes unless they keep a copy of convert hexes on an off monk or are running elite hex removal. Even then, they probably can't keep everyone clean but they will at least get rid of the important hexes that are causing them problems. There are some steps you can take to make sure they are expending more energy though to do so:
1. Strip veil with shatter or drain enchant.
2. Cast hexes.
3. Interrupt veil and other spells or drain it as soon as they complete it.
4. ?????
5. Profit.

Is fast casting weak? Probably. Adding signet support helped a bit only to find a few signet times were increased in response in the same release if I remember correctly. Some of the interrupt spells can be used without FC or at least not very many points. Others benefit from it though such as clumsiness but unless you are running mantra of recovery (though most likely even with it), FC probably won't where you first stick your points.

System_Crush · Jan 10, 2008, 09:49 AM // 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayce

i have yet to see any necromancer get jealous over any mesmer skill,

In that case I am a necro, but I'd like to cause good shutdown too.
So I'm yealous of [skill=text]Psychic Instability[/skill] opposed to [skill=text]Soul Bind[/skill], it is obviously able to knockdown more often.
And [wiki]Sum of All Fears[/wiki] and [skill=text]Arcane Conundrum[/skill] are much more effective at slowing damage output than [skill=text]Shadow of Fear[/skill] or [skill=text]FaintHeartedness[/skill].

Put simply, Curses and mesmers have similarities, perhaps that is a mistake on Anets part.
However, curses is mostly damage, it lacks good shutdown.
Mesmers can make a foe harmless and kill them at the same time, that is where their power lies.

A power that is useful in PvP but in PvE it needs a buff;
I vouch for AoE shutdown, instead of all the damage boosts that just make mesmers more like curses necro's, make mesmers like mesmers, boost them so their PvE skills can protect their team, instead of just hinder a insignificant 1 out of 20 foes.
Make [wiki]Sum of All Fears[/wiki] AoE
Make an elite 5 energy quicker recharging version of [skill=text]Cry of Frustration[/skill](Foes go "Shazbot!"

)
Bring [skill=text]Power Block[/skill] on par with [skill=text]Xinrae's Weapon[/skill] as the same profs of 1 mob always have the same skills, but can have 3 or 4 attributes at 18 or sumsuch.
And change [skill=text]Spirit of Failure[/skill] so it is spammable again, just make the miss chance 9...21...25 or sum such, so it will require reasonable investment, miss chance is a much better defense than blocking, but this skill can't be used defensively anymore as the person you want to protect will definitely be dead by the time you finish casting it.

Pyro maniac · Jan 10, 2008, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayce

i have yet to see any necromancer get jealous over any mesmer skill, talking about how:

I like the fact alot of people think, they ARE a mesmer, ARE a necro, ARE a warrior.

Faer · Jan 10, 2008, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

Mesmer survivability is the lowest of any profession I've tried.

Don't blame the profession, blame the terrible Monks.

Your understanding of the Mesmer profession is pretty limited, judging by your statements on the subject thus far.

the_jos · Jan 10, 2008, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by System_Crush

And [wiki]Sum of All Fears[/wiki] and [skill=text]Arcane Conundrum[/skill] are much more effective at slowing damage output than [skill=text]Shadow of Fear[/skill] or [skill=text]FaintHeartedness[/skill].
.... Mesmers can make a foe harmless and kill them at the same time, that is where their power lies.

Agree on Faint, not on Shadow.
In a lot of parts Shadow is better since it's AoE and PvE seems to be about groups of foes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregslot

Or try ( DoA + ) Salver's Exile at hard mode with a balanced group!

Let's first take a look at the most used T/N/H build.
We have a tank (most probably some form of terra tank).
Why? To make sure all damage is focussed on one heavy protected target.
A minion master has the same kind of role. Minions prevent that players are hit. The damage the minions do is bonus.
Then we have a nuker. The most common nukers I am familair with are the SF/SH ele and the SS necro.
Their role is not pure damage dealing, but also shutdown.
MS is great AoE shutdown on a balled group. And a lot of necro's use Reckless Haste, which also counts as shutdown.
The last role is the healer. The main task is to prevent too much damage on the tank and at keeping the red bars up bu preventing them going down or healing them up.

Now we take a more balanced group to the same areas.
What we would need there is:
Damage migration, AoE shutdown and AoE damage.
That can be done by other means than the T/N/H setup but you would still need a strong frontline to prevent the backline.
So probably 2 warriors or maybe specific Dervish build.
What we would need next is more protection of the backline.
The whole defense of the T/N/H team is the tank. The rest of the team, excluding the healers, can focus on pure offense with MS as shutdown skill.
Changing the team would mean taking out a lot of offensive skills and put more defensive ones in. SY para can be part of that
You'd also take some of those mob-shattering skills. A foe in Maelstrom can't get a spell off but will try to run out of it. Melee standing in Eruption is no threat, but will run away. Bad when you tank, not so bad when you want to protect yourself. Afraid of interrupts? There are counters for that.

The main difference would be actually killing the foes.
When the foes make a nice ball around the tank, the team's nuking DPS is huge. You can't easily achieve the same DPS by playing any other way.
So you will probably be slower killing the foes which means more threat for the team.
You can't PUG anymore, can't H&H. You need good human players and a lot of coordination. Learn to play the whole level again.
Learn the weakness of each mob (there are, but they don't matter when tanking them) and adjust the team to the most optimal build.
Then you learn to play that team build better and speed up.

But even in these kind of teams the mesmer and assassin would have a marginal role.
The necro benefits from larger groups (more energy gain), the elemetalist has better AoE damage prevention, the Rt could place defensive spirits out of range of the foes. Ranger could migrate damage with traps.
The main role for the assassin could be taking out a single critical caster and the main for the mesmer could be shutdown of a single critical foe.
The moment there are 2 or 3 of those in a group they would have a hard time and they could better be replaced with raw damage or AoE damage prevention.

Now why does no-one ever play these kinds of builds?
Well, some do. But you will never see them outside guild/friends or alliance.
And even most guild teams follow the T/N/H team setup. Or Ursan.
Because that team works, requires no more effort than learning to play it which is not that hard and it gets things done.
Why spend weeks to make a team that is 1 hour faster in (full) Slavers?
The only reasons I can think of is that you want to be the ultimate Slaver's guild. Or like a challenge. As long as people play for profit, loot and titles they will stick to the T/N/H team.

makosi · Jan 10, 2008, 12:50 PM // 12:50

Mesmers shine at psychological warfare between themselves and their opponent which is why their use of skills can turn around a PvP match. Some of their skills are simply golden.

The problems with mesmers in PvE is that there is no psychological interaction between the player's Mesmer and an AI controlled monster. PvE demands more of the well-known 'tanking' 'nuking' and healing to succeed rather than degen pressure, interrupts and shutdown. Neither of those 3 tactics are useless, per se, but there are more straightforward pug-friendly alternatives in PvE.

Rather than buffing Mesmers, I'd prefer it if they made the AI smarter with better skill bars and it might create a need for Mesmer techniques.

Makaveli The Don · Jan 10, 2008, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by mystical nessAL

Stolen Speed - Target foe casts 50% slower EDIT: Would be too overpowered on spamming. Increase recharge time to 10 secs.

Stolen Speed - Hex Spell. target foe's next 1...2 spells takes 50% longer to cast and your next spell targeting that foe takes 50% less time to cast.

Increase recharge to 5-8 seconds?

Just a thought.

System_Crush · Jan 10, 2008, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

Let's first take a look at the most used T/N/H build.

T/N/H is actually the most planned team build, not the most used team build.
When people just get some guildies together for some help, they often end up with:

Puller(Any physical, at times an acceptable tank, but usually not)
Nuker/Breaker(Breaker because they protect by making foes spread out)
Shutdown(The lack of a good tank makes warders, barrage/preparation interrupts, SY war/para, non-channeling spirit spam necessary)
Healer(/duh)

Which is also often what you end up with when you play a non-tank in H&H, so there is no need to practice for any1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by System_Crush

Shutdown(The lack of a good tank makes warders, SY war/para, non-channeling spirit spam necessary)

Note that there is no mesmer in there!
I think that it is disturbing that a elementalist is preferred over a mesmer for the job of shutdown.

While I agree mesmers lack a place in the T/N/H too and that boosting their AoE damage should let them in with the nukers, but will mess up the balance they need for PvP, leading to mesmers their shutdown being nerfed instead of buffed. Then all mesmers would do in PvP is just fastcast Arragodon's Gaze.

Turtle222 · Jan 10, 2008, 01:10 PM // 13:10

there is only one problem with the mesmer. Its more useful as a secondary than a primary. thus it can be exploited

Wildi · Jan 10, 2008, 01:50 PM // 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

@ jayce: Spiteful Spirit is Empathy with AoE. Mesmers would need a decent AoE spell, and Spiteful Spirit or something much like it would be completely at home in the Mesmer line.

Necros are anti melee and mesmer are more shutdown & have anti cast abilities. I never understood why mesmer never got an ss like skill against spells (Backfire deals dmg to a singe target only & Mistrust only works on the next spell and has 20 recharge.)
[skill]Panic[/skill] deals aoe dmg but it's a counter against stupid signets, wtf. Imo it should have been a counter to spells since day one: Panic: For 5-17 seconds, target foe and all nearby take xx damage whenever they cast a Spell or use a Signet.

Kanyatta · Jan 10, 2008, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faer

Don't blame the profession, blame the terrible Monks.

You, sir, should learn to play instead of blaming Monks like someone who just opened their Prophecies box a week ago.

mystical nessAL · Jan 10, 2008, 02:06 PM // 14:06

Anet should have a think about it. From proph to factions there werent a problem with mesmers since it was more or less single foes areas, not a bunch of 20000 summits or 2000 destroyers caused mesmers to be liked. This problem really needs a solution after all the new dungeons, elite missions, doa...

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 10, 2008, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

Move [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] into Domination, where it should have been all along (it's more or less AOE [skill]Empathy[/skill], after all)...

>_>

Empathy is whenever that foe attacks, SS is attacks or uses a skill. They are very different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

Mesmer survivability is the lowest of any profession I've tried.

I know Distortion was incredibly powerful the way it was, but I really feel it allowed mesmers to function as a stronger split character. I think it deserves a revert or slight buff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle222

there is only one problem with the mesmer. Its more useful as a secondary than a primary. thus it can be exploited

I don't see how it is?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kanyatta

You, sir, should learn to play instead of blaming Monks like someone who just opened their Prophecies box a week ago.

If you have a healer in the skirmish, and a mesmer whose bar has no survivability skills, why wouldn't you heal them???