Curse

Winterclaw · Mar 02, 2007, 11:58 PM // 23:58

Over in Riverside, there is a thread going on about general changes needed to improve Mesmers for PvE sake, so thought we could try to add some ideas on how to change Mesmer skills in general. The goal is to make them a little more useful in PvE without making them unbalanced in PvP. This shouldn't be considered an absolute list, but a starting point for discussion.

Backfire
Hex Spell. Whenever target foe casts a spell he takes 20...80 damage plus 4 damage per point of energy cost of the spell. If backfire ends without dealing damage, target foe takes 10...40 damage.

Chaos Storm
Spell. Create a Chaos Storm at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in the area suffer 8...16 damage each second. Chaos Storm drains 1...6 Energy and does an additional 2...8 damage whenever it strikes a foe casting a spell.

Empathy
Hex Spell. For 5...13 seconds target foe takes 15...25 damage per attack or casts a spell that deals damage. If target uses an attack skill empathy does double damage.

Hex Breaker
Stance. For 15...30 seconds, whenever you are the target of a "Hex", you lose 7...3 energy, that Hex fails, the caster takes 10...39 damage. Hexbreaker can prevent 1...3 hexes before ending.

Powerflux
Elite Hex Spell. If target foe is casting a spell, that spell is interrupted, loses 5 energy, and for 4...9 seconds, that foe has -2 Energy degeneration.

Psychic Instability
Elite Hex Spell. For 5...17 seconds, any time target foe is interrupted that foe is knocked down for 2 seconds.

Shatter Delusions
Spell. Remove one Hex from target foe, that foe takes 15...63 damage. Mesmer hexes are removed first.

Mantra of Recovery
Elite Stance. For 5...17 seconds, Spells you cast recharge 33%...66% faster.

Conjure Nightmare
Hex Spell. For 2...12 seconds, target foe takes 16 damage a second.

Conjure Phanstam
Hex Spell. For 2...12 seconds, target foe takes 10 damage a second.

Drain Delusions
Spell. Remove one Hex from target foe. If a Hex was removed in this way, that foe loses 1...4 Energy and you gain 2 Energy for each point lost. Mesmer hexes are removed first.

Feedback
Spell. Target foe loses one Enchantment and takes 8...30 damage. If an Enchantment is removed in this way, that foe also loses 4...9 Energy.

Tease
Elite Hex Spell. For 20 seconds, Skills used by all nearby foes take 20...84% longer to activate and recharge. This skill ends if that foe hits you and that foe loses 5 energy and all adereline.

Expel Hexes Insperation
Elite Spell. Remove up to 1..3 Hexes from target ally and gain 1..3 energy for each hex removed.

Xiaxhou of Trinity · Mar 03, 2007, 01:14 AM // 01:14

backfire is overpowered. empathy looks agreeable but might be too much (looks like a pumped up SS). The conjures look too overpowered, and now you're just converting them from being degen skills. Where will the degen mes go? I like the Chaos Storm buff though. I don't like the hexbreaker idea though, with the energy drainage and limit of preventing only 3 hexes makes it near useless.

HawkofStorms · Mar 03, 2007, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Empathy I disagree with. As it stands, its a skill that hurt pysical damage dealers, I should stay that way. And if you are worried about PvE, it doesn't matter. Casters mobs in PvE wand quick a lot so I can still cast and use empathy on them if I want.

You conjures basically break the concept of degen. Plus you changes would ruin illusion of pain. Furthermore, this would allow degen and those spells to stack (Nightmare, Phantasm, and Illusion of Pain would cause a guy to lose 36 heath a second.) That seems a bit much.

Drain delusions breaks the convention of cover hexes...

Morganas · Mar 03, 2007, 04:07 AM // 04:07

The problem with this is most of those skills you listed are useable in pvp in some form, in certain niche builds. Even backfire and conjure phantasm have a place. I'm not sure what you were thinking at all with hex breaker, expel hexes, and mantra of recovery, since those are undeniably awesome skills in their current form.

Now, two of those skills you listed, chaos storm and tease, ARE broken, in the underpowered and useless sense of the term, and are prime candidates for ANet to make pve ready. Your chaos storm buff though is way over the top, same with tease, though in the case of tease you have a good idea, adding a drawback to attacking the teaser. I think that particular change, combined with leaving it alone in all other regards (it shouldn't have an aoe) would be a suitable buff for it, but it still wouldn't be useful for pve.

Really the only good way to buff mesmer in pve is to buff monster skill bars, and make mobs smaller in number, as has been said by countless others before.

Redfeather1975 · Mar 03, 2007, 04:23 AM // 04:23

I think for PVE, mesmers could have inspiration changed to offer group support. It was suggested in another forum that certain Mantras become shouts or chants that affect all within earshot, and be tweaked accordingly.
Also some hexes can affect adjacent targets because, in PVE, mobs are often adjacent to one another, but in PVP players don't often stand right next to one another.

Redwinter · Mar 03, 2007, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Enchanter's Conundrum

What it is: It hexes the foe, makes enchantments take longer to cast, and deals up to 75 damage if the foe isn't enchanted when it ends.

Issue: Trumped by Migraine on just about every level, unless you're combining with shatter delusions (in which case it's mediocre at best.)
The slowdown is near useless because most of the enchantments you really want to slow down are a fraction of a second's cast time.
Would rarely be worth bringing if it was non-elite.

Suggested Fix: Instead of % longer cast time, make it 0...2 seconds longer cast time. That's an elite-worthy skill that would be worth taking to mess up enchantment spammers.

Extend Conditions

What it is: Elite skill, when you cast it on a foe, for every condition on the target, you extend the remaining duration of that condition by up to 81%.

Issue: All well and good, right? I mean, it seems like you would be able to keep conditions on the foe indefinitely...
Except for the 20 second recharge. So basically, you're putting a condition on the target, you use your elite to add a few seconds to the duration... then in 90% of cases, you've got to reapply the conditions to make use of your elite again.
That, and what's the use if you're working to extend the duration of conditions, when said conditions could (will) be removed readily.
Again, it's an elite skill that would be of dubious use as a non-elite.

Suggested Fix: Cut the recharge down to 5 to 8 seconds. This means that bringing the elite turns the mesmer into a threat - if you don't distract or disable the threat, the mesmer can constantly maintain any and all conditions on a target. It's still readily countered by condition removal, but at least it doesn't fail utterly in it's task.

Morganas · Mar 03, 2007, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Extend conditions could have zero second cooldown and prolong conditions to a million billion percent longer, and still nobody in their right mind would bring it. Duration on conditions is completely irrelevant, all that matters is spammability of the conditions and whether they'll be able to have a significant effect on the game in the very short time they'll be on the target.

The Hand Of Death · Mar 04, 2007, 01:06 AM // 01:06

There is nothing wrong with conjure phantasm and conjure nightmare. Conjure phantasm is one of the base skills for any hex spamming mesmer. It is a good skill the way it is and it is normally in the builds I use in AB when playing a mesmer. Conjure nightmare sees use too, if you wanted to change skills you should have changed ones that were used.