Curse

upier · Dec 24, 2009, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Here is a simple question - in your opinion, what direction should the mesmer class go in?
If we see changes to the class, would you rather see the mesmers damage dealing capabilities improved, making the guy compete with all the other overpowered options, or would you rather see the guy present a special playing experience, with the buffs focusing on what makes the mesmer unique, BUT at the potential expense at not fitting into the whole DAMAGE WINS PvE mantra? Would you rather see more CoP-like buffs or would you prefer to see changes that would allow skill and energy denial and player control (=casting, attack, movement, ... control)?
Would you rather have the mesmer be a nuker or a more unique snowflake?

Hugh Manatee · Dec 24, 2009, 09:14 AM // 09:14

Why not both? If monks get ion cannons why can't mesmers get something like that? I know reactive hexing = bad or whatever, but they already exploit the dumbassery of the AI pretty well.

Gennadios · Dec 24, 2009, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Buffs to what the mesmer was meant to do won't help.

My biggest problem /w the class is that bosses, especially in HM are completely f****** immune to everything mesmers do. E-denial? They have extra pips of energy AND a larger mana pool. Shutdown? Monster skills don't shut down. Punishment? Proph and EotN bosses cut hex times in half.

My main use for my mesmer is as a smiter. It's really the only thing that he seems to excel at, and mostly b/c fast casting is way more useful for smiting than divine favor. RoJ or Signet of Judgement + fast cast is awesome. RoJ or Signet of Judgement + divine favor... meh.

iToasterHD · Dec 24, 2009, 09:25 AM // 09:25

I really liked the concept of prevention. They stop enemies from attacking, similar to wandering eye and clumsiness. So they serve a duel purpose, reduction of damage to allies and damage to enemies.

upier · Dec 24, 2009, 09:55 AM // 09:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

Buffs to what the mesmer was meant to do won't help.

My biggest problem /w the class is that bosses, especially in HM are completely f****** immune to everything mesmers do. E-denial? They have extra pips of energy AND a larger mana pool. Shutdown? Monster skills don't shut down. Punishment? Proph and EotN bosses cut hex times in half.

The point is that the buffs would change the unique snowflake effects to useful levels. Which would mean something like Power Leak wouldn't cause the foe to lose 20 energy, but would be reworked to have the foe lose ALL energy. Or Blackout would be reworked into a ranged skill where the player isn't shutdown, but rather only the target. Or Kitah's Burden would COMPLETELY prevent the foe from moving while having a recharge of 5 sec.
The point would be to bring shutdown on par with the fact that a team is able to kill ANY foe in 2 secs. The ability to kill blew up with every expansion, but shutdown stayed pretty much where it started.

Malician · Dec 24, 2009, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

The point is that the buffs would change the unique snowflake effects to useful levels. Which would mean something like Power Leak wouldn't cause the foe to lose 20 energy, but would be reworked to have the foe lose ALL energy. Or Blackout would be reworked into a ranged skill where the player isn't shutdown, but rather only the target. Or Kitah's Burden would COMPLETELY prevent the foe from moving while having a recharge of 5 sec.
The point would be to bring shutdown on par with the fact that a team is able to kill ANY foe in 2 secs. The ability to kill blew up with every expansion, but shutdown stayed pretty much where it started.

I think part of the problem with this is the sheer power of the damage mitigation teams can already bring to bear. SY! Imbagon. SoS rit or N MM (summons end up taking the brunt of most damage). Even assassins/warriors with GDW can chain knockdown mobs. A mesmer's interrupt/denial abilities would have to be truly extraordinary to compete.

byteme! · Dec 24, 2009, 10:32 AM // 10:32

Unless Mesmers get some more fire power of any sort there is no reason to think they'll be widely accepted just because their supports are buffed. Imbagons, SY among other things make it often unnecessary to overload a team with supportive skills, thereby making a damage dealing class much more efficient and important.

Shutdowns, interupts and edenial only delay the inevitable. Someone/thing is going to die. The key word here is, "delay". Why waste time? Just kill the bloody thing already.

upier · Dec 24, 2009, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malician

I think part of the problem with this is the sheer power of the damage mitigation teams can already bring to bear. SY! Imbagon. SoS rit or N MM (summons end up taking the brunt of most damage). Even assassins/warriors with GDW can chain knockdown mobs. A mesmer's interrupt/denial abilities would have to be truly extraordinary to compete.

And that's exactly the reason why I feel we'd need to decide on one path. You can't really have a guy that is able to deal obscene damage WHILE providing obscene support. When you have a guy that does it all - you end up with a guy that is average in everything. That's why I am asking would you guys rather have the mesmer be the obscene damage dealer or an obscene support guy?

byteme! · Dec 24, 2009, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

That's why I am asking would you guys rather have the mesmer be the obscene damage dealer or an obscene support guy?

Damage dealer. With Sab/Discordway (basically Necros in general) to contend with and Imbagons, Save Yourself, E/Mo Infuse Prot healers among a whole list of other support classes/builds PvE has been doing just fine.

Making a Mesmer more support focused won't make anyone necessarily more interested when you can abuse the above mentioned. One of the things they all have in common is that they are all self sufficient. Why would I want to use a Mesmer hero for support for example when I can just abuse Soul Reaping from a Necro primary or even an Ether Renewal Ele. Heck even a Orders Derv is good support and self sufficient.

I guess the main problem is fast casting. It really needs some attention. Fast casting in PvE is negligible at best and having very little to offer in terms of the skills available is also a problem. I'd like to dig a little deeper but it's late so I'm going to have to cut this short.

Artisan Archer · Dec 24, 2009, 11:35 AM // 11:35

Uhm?

vs Bosses: wastrel's worry
vs Melee: wandering eye, ineptitude, clumsiness
vs Casters: VoR

insta-win: Cry of pain

upier · Dec 24, 2009, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by byteme!

Damage dealer. With Sab/Discordway (basically Necros in general) to contend with and Imbagons, Save Yourself, E/Mo Infuse Prot healers among a whole list of other support classes/builds PvE has been doing just fine.

Making a Mesmer more support focused won't make anyone necessarily more interested when you can abuse the above mentioned. One of the things they all have in common is that they are all self sufficient. Why would I want to use a Mesmer hero for support for example when I can just abuse Soul Reaping from a Necro primary or even an Ether Renewal Ele. Heck even a Orders Derv is good support and self sufficient.

I guess the main problem is fast casting. It really needs some attention. Fast casting in PvE is negligible at best and having very little to offer in terms of the skills available is also a problem. I'd like to dig a little deeper but it's late so I'm going to have to cut this short.

And as I have said - the point is to overbuff the guy to the extent of being able to compete with the best options - which means if the mesmer's ability to support would be buffed he's be able to compete with ER eles or necros BUT in his own way.

Xsiriss · Dec 24, 2009, 01:06 PM // 13:06

Buff in line not nerf to extinction,that's what should be done. Seeing a buff to and more things like chaos storm,shorter recharges and stuff for e-surge and e-burn. That's enough really.

draxynnic · Dec 24, 2009, 01:11 PM // 13:11

I would probably be inclined to say a little from column A and a little from column B - make them able to contribute in damage dealing while still being less powerful than the real damage-dealers, but with shutdown abilities that make up for it. The Imbagon might be a good example here - an imbagon in a physical team is mainly there for support but can still dish out a decent amount of damage. If the Mesmer was to come out as the caster equivalent of this, it'd probably be a decent spot.

Given a choice of one or the other, though, I'd be inclined towards buffing the shutdown elements more than damage. Mesmer damage potential is probably actually pretty close to where it should be, but the Mesmer has a lot of skills that are pretty much wasted in PvE. Some are useless against everything, some are just useless against anything worth taking the effort to shut down in the first place. (I can see why ANet gave boss monsters immune to many forms of Mesmer trickery - because otherwise the Mesmers would be able to shut them down far too easily - but perhaps giving them resistance instead would allow the Mesmer to at least do something.) I also don't think the Elementalist and Mesmer should really be ending up swapping places in HM PvE - I'd rather see the Elementalist be effective at nuking while having some shutdown, while the Mesmer is effective at shutdown with some ability to kill.

Now, if I was given free rein over redesigning the GW1 Mesmer (and I wasn't allowed to mug the Necromancers in a brightly lit alley and steal their stuff like I'd dearly like to do) I think I'd be focussing on the pre-emptive interrupt hexes - Mistrust, Clumsiness, and the like. Partially because, as I commented in the other thread, I see these as the closest thing to actual mind-control that is reasonably possible in Guild Wars, partially because these have the advantage of not requiring Lyssa's own reflexes and a 50ms ping to be useful in Hard Mode, and partially because they serve as a combined shutdown/nuke option. First thing I'd do is make Mistrust, Guilt and Shame cause actual interrupts rather than spell failure (so that they cause the spell to recharge), and the second thing I'd do would be to create more spells along those lines, including something that is to Mistrust as Clumsiness is to Wandering Eye.

Oh, and I'd also buff Ineptitude so that it's of similar use for disabling physicals as Blinding Surge (possibly shorten the recharge so you can keep a target permanently blinded, and spread to the rest of the mob with Epidemic.) Another elite or two along these lines would also be on the shopping list.

Another thing that might be worth considering doing [b]in PvE only[/i] is to make Mesmer interrupts act like shouts - zero cast time and can be cast through another spell. First, this means that your reflexes don't need to be quite so good to catch that 0.5s Hard Mode nuke. Second, this means that an interrupt mesmer doesn't have to restrict themselves to wanding while watching for something to interrupt - the number of times I've seen a mob cast something that I would have liked to have interrupted, but I was in mid-spell at the time...makes me rely on YMLaD for interrupting, if the target is vulnerable to knockdowns.

This one will, of course, need testing - it would be likely to make AI mesmers more powerful as well - but I think it'd be a change that would benefit human mesmers more in the end.

PS Going back on the Clumsiness-type skills, I just thought of a metaphor that might give an idea of what I'm thinking in a nutshell: Clumsiness is, basically, the Mesmer's fireball. It does less damage, at least in NM (and probably in HM as well, if EBSoH and Cracked Armour are used and the recharge is taken into account), but it also prevents some damage in the process. It's also a little unreliable, in that if its used on the wrong target at the right time, it may well end up doing nothing, while an Elementalist can fireball at will.

This would be how I'd envision a Mesmer nuker working - doing a little less damage (at least to targets without high ALs) and needing to be more target-selective than the Elementalist, but at the tradeoff at reducing incoming damage in the process. This would also naturally result in reducing the ability of Mesmers playing this role to stack, since you'd then get overlapping interrupts - but we're looking to maintain variety in teams, not just replace the Elementalists in the Holy Trinity with Mesmers. Of course, it should still be possible to build Mesmers specialised more in shutdown, just like Elementalists can choose to go Air and shutdown via conditions rather than nuking, or tread the line between them through Earth.

Smarty · Dec 24, 2009, 01:20 PM // 13:20

The whole point of playing a mesmer in the first place is that it's a unique snowflake type of class, that does things other classes can't do. I'd be very sad to see that taken away.

That said, doing the things that other classes can't do is near-useless in PvE due to the AI, so improving chaos nuking is really the only viable option to put the mesmer on a par with other classes. Xsiriss's suggestions above would do fine IMO, no need to rework the entire class, just buff the key chaos nuke skills so they're equivalent to RoJ. Each class only needs one solid bar to be desirable, after all.

draxynnic · Dec 24, 2009, 01:58 PM // 13:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Smartypants

The whole point of playing a mesmer in the first place is that it's a unique snowflake type of class, that does things other classes can't do. I'd be very sad to see that taken away.

The problem is that it never really did this in the first place. Necromancers can throw reactive hexes better, Elementalists can currently shut physicals down better, and Rangers can at least compare reasonably well at interrupting spellcasters, and Necromancers can arguably remove enchantments better (at least when it comes down to stripping enchantments from a single focus target). The stuff that Mesmers are left with - energy denial, skill disabling - is the stuff that generally isn't useful in PvE.

Cuilan · Dec 24, 2009, 03:07 PM // 15:07

I understand the worry about mesmers becoming a chaos nuker, but really both would be nice. Mesmer damage is what people use because mesmer control blows with the exception of condition builds, so maybe they can expand on their condition spreading.

AlexanderMorpheus · Dec 24, 2009, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Lets just assume that everyone realizes that the sutdown skills used by mes are best kept for PvP, i dont think that anyone actually uses diversion, blackout etc. unless in niche circumstances e.g the end boss like creatures in Ooze pit (Prismatic Oooze) use a monster skill ( Gelatinous Absorption or somthing like that) which mitagtes all damage and turns it into healing, this can be a real pain except that it CAN be shut down with diversion making for a much easier fight.

As for damage dealing - the Illusion line is great for PvE, Wandering eye and clumsiness both work great , their conditonal but if you know what your doing and pick the right target it will deal the damage - Condition spreading has been mentioned , FD and EC managor-in-a-can style builds work really well with discord heroes. Domination also deals respectable damage in comparison to eles, anyone whos run DoAsc as mes will know that VoR and Esurge mes are great at damage dealing , and being able to deal 1000+ damage with a single spell is always good fun (Anerysum on Dryders and the ele margos, works the same with other casters in Hm (mainly eles)).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

Buffs to what the mesmer was meant to do won't help.

My biggest problem /w the class is that bosses, especially in HM are completely f****** immune to everything mesmers do. E-denial? They have extra pips of energy AND a larger mana pool. Shutdown? Monster skills don't shut down. Punishment? Proph and EotN bosses cut hex times in half.

Are you even trying?

Anerysum is great, Wasteral's Worry has already been mentioned (hex time cut in half = damage every 1.5 secs). VoR or Backfire and BUH! - again duration is cut in half but cause bosses in HM tend to spam their spells or skills it will do a lot of damage.

As per the original question

Mesmers don't need to be reworked totally as they do nice damage in PvE - a buff wouldnt go a miss to certain skills though - Chaos Storm comes to mind , and maybe a few others could use a PvE buff but it'd be a real shame if the mesmer became a nuke only class as thats not really the point of them.

Smarty · Dec 24, 2009, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

The problem is that it never really did this in the first place. Necromancers can throw reactive hexes better, Elementalists can currently shut physicals down better, and Rangers can at least compare reasonably well at interrupting spellcasters, and Necromancers can arguably remove enchantments better (at least when it comes down to stripping enchantments from a single focus target). The stuff that Mesmers are left with - energy denial, skill disabling - is the stuff that generally isn't useful in PvE.

And in the very next sentence you'll see I said...

Quote:

That said, doing the things that other classes can't do is near-useless in PvE due to the AI

IN OTHER WORDS a mesmery mesmer isn't great in PvE but it's still great in PvP so I don't want the mesmer class as a whole rewriting just for the sake of PvE. Change a few skills to make them more viable in PvE, sure, but leave it at that.

EDIT: Upon rereading the OP I guess I need to clarify that somewhat.

Generally speaking, people who play mesmers in PvE do so because they like the class, regardless of how good or bad it may be compared with other classes. Buffs (or even nerfs) aren't going to make these players stop playing a mesmer in PvE.

What a buff would do for the class is improve other people's perception of the usefulness of a mesmer in PvE.

Giving mesmers a solid chaos nuker bar would be the best way of doing so, as it's a simple watch-the-yellow-numbers-fly bar that anyone can run and understand the usefulness of. Improving skills to give mesmers a shutdown bar that is actually useful in PvE won't be one that's understood by everyone and so mesmers will still suffer from being seen as less useful than other caster classes.

Warsman Smile · Dec 24, 2009, 08:51 PM // 20:51

First of all, yes, GW is a big, complicated mess of skills and it's easier to start over and chalk this one up to experience, but surely some charitable Anet souls can give the predecessor some new life and gain some insights in the process that may help them with GW2 and beyond.

And Your Point Is..?
I think the biggest problem is the primary attribute. An adjustment to Fast Casting might help draw more interest in the class without making things too complicated for Anet to waste their time on.

I also think the nature of the Mesmer's primary has made it difficult to find a functional niche in PvE. With Soul Reaping, Divine Favor and other primary attributes we have conditional energy gain. With Strength we have armor penetration, while Energy Storage gives us a bigger blue bar. Even Spawning Power adds functionality unique to the Ritualist class. The Mesmer's primary attribute focuses on a very common value (casting speed) with a less visible benefit unless you spend a lot of points.

OP-Related Comment
While calls for a nuker bar are understandable, that route ignores what makes the mesmer unique. If the mesmer becomes yet another yellow number machine, I think it would be detrimental to the class in the long term, and we would lose what little character the class had originally.

So I'll take this in two directions.. 1) We stick with Fast Casting and buff it.. 2) We throw the rules out and start with what makes the mesmer unique.. and expand on that.

1) So first up, what can be done with Fast Casting without rewriting the primary?

What about buffing the speed increments of each point in Fast Casting? It would tempt players with the prospect of more floating yellow numbers, but would also bring up e-management needs which in turn would result in builds (hero and otherwise) that would counteract energy loss and probably become giant rolling deathtrain PvE builds that have folks crying almost as hard as they did with Ursan.

Discuss?

2) So what if we ignore the fact that the Mesmer primary is called 'Fast Casting' and instead look at what can be done to make the class more viable as a primary?

Perhaps a small energy gain every time the mesmer interrupts or hexes a foe? Again, it's not relevant to fast-casting, so it may not be a popular change, but it would encourage players to use mesmers in a way that represents the skills that set them aside from other classes that use hex/degen.

Again, discuss?

Finally
If adjustments are made that are not related to 'fast casting' then many folks may cry foul, and perhaps rightly so.. but with a game falling under the shadow of its sequel, perhaps a drastic alteration is a more viable option than leaving a bloated, overcomplicated, and cumbersome legacy, so burdened with imperfections that we will still be arguing about it in years to come.

Speaking of arguing, I feel this whole post will be lost amidst a wealth of misdirected bickering, but some small part of me hopes there's a chance we can actually effect some change by talking about it in here. I'll just tell myself that so I don't feel like I wasted a half hour reading, thinking, and typing.

maxxfury · Dec 24, 2009, 09:40 PM // 21:40

We have Fd bars and AP/pve spam bars at the top of the mes tier.
We have some Vor, clums+wandering and some cop+necro spam next.
Then we have whats left over been mostly naff/for giggles.

What do we need to push them up the global tier list?
Reactive hex? blah...Low ceiling on the max outputs of them.

Interupts? too low on the priority level for pve to push them up the tier. Add in technobabble already..

Healing/prot? lol ER infoozers/monks/rits/paras.

Party Support? necros have blue bar support covered with br/bip and other already have phys buffing sewn up with splinter/soh/orders

Direct damage? Looks like with the pve game as it stands, thats were the smart money is, weather its a "mesmery" way to go or not...you cant ignore the fact that dropping yellow numbers on monsters heads wins pve, and always has a slot in a party blowing shit up!