Curse

Badenstein · May 10, 2007, 04:23 PM // 16:23

After some reflection, I must agree with Avarre and his evaluation. The problem lies in the base design of the Profession. It also appears that when a profession is designed and described that the abilities of that profession need to be kept as sort of sacred to that profession, or that profession needs to be the best at that ability. PvP and PvE differences will never be solved because I don't think you can make a Creature AI to compare with Human AI. Making a variable Creature AI so that it will react differently based upon the skills the player party uses would be ideal, but maybe an unrealistic idea.

The Mesmer is a refreshingly new idea and ANet needs to be proud of the ingenious minds that designed the Profession. I love the Mesmer and have played a Mez since beta days. I do believe that most of this discussion will not change anything in GW1, but I do hope it will help ANet rethink the Mesmer and ensure its presence in GW2.

Age · May 23, 2007, 10:39 PM // 22:39

I recently started a Mesmer as it is as challenging as the Monk class I always wanted to give it a try.I got it all the way to lvl 20 in KC non ascended yet did all the quests bypassed the whole jungle missions but got all those free skills.

I was thinking Mesmers in PvE well there was once the The Battery Necro to support the Monks why not something like that.I would think of skill that would support them best like Expel Hexes along with Aegis as well as a condition remover ad a good res.This would free Monk to concentrate more on what they really have to is to negate damage or heal.Then you can throw in some e management that is still effective even if it mean stealing it from a foe.

baz777 · May 24, 2007, 08:57 AM // 08:57

I’ve only had my Mesmer, (Nightfall character), for 6 weeks so I’m unable to express an opinion with regards to previous skill ‘balances’ over the past 2 years. What I can add though is my own experiences over the last 6 weeks with my Mesmer in PVE.

My PVE objectives are:
1. Complete Nightfall – 100%
2. Travel to Tyria – Complete all missions from Lions Arch to Ember Light Camp – 100%
3. Travel to Cantha – Complete Factions - 80% complete
4. Obtain all non-elite Mesmer skills from all 3 campaigns – 100%
5. Obtain all Elite Mesmer skills from all 3 campaigns – 40%

I take this route as I do enjoy PVE, to obtain all skills for use in PVP and gain experience with the profession.

My only previous experience of Mesmers was being on the wrong end of them with my monk in PVP. So I knew well what they are capable off, and from the prospective of a Monk, I didn’t like what I saw!

From the early days of GW I’ve always wanted to create a Mesmer but was reluctant to do so until the release of Nightfall and the introduction of Heroes. This meant no more PUG’s as far as I was concerned and made, for me, making a Mesmer a viable option at long last.

My previous Nightfall character was an Ele, (completed same tasks 1 to 5 above). What did surprise me was the ease of which I completed Nightfall with the Mesmer. Initially I put this down to having been through the Nightfall ‘learning curve’ with the Ele. This assumption however was wrong as my path through Tyria, and so far though Cantha, has subsequently proved, (having taken many other characters through these areas).

Another thing with the Mesmer that surprised me was the amount of invites I received, particularly in high-end missions, in both Nightfall and Tyria, (far more than with the Ele). This was something I did not expect, with my pre-conceived image of the Mesmer in PVE, and how I thought the community as a whole viewed them.

Not having too much experience with the Mesmer It is difficult for me to fully understand the ongoing issues people have with the profession, as all my experience has been with ‘what we have now’,

In conclusion, I can see my Mesmer fast becoming my favourite profession, (or at least on par with my beloved Ele), and look forward to taking her into PVP.

At 48 I only hope I’m not too old to make a decent Mesmer!

Crom The Pale · May 24, 2007, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Personaly I believe the Elite skill Signet of Illusions has openned up a large opportunity for Mesmers.

Now a mesmer becomes the jack-of-all-casters for any team hes in.

Now a mesmer can run a strong illusion build + steal spells from foes and borrow elites from allies allowing him to be an extra nuker, fleshgolem master, healer and still deliver interupts and degen.

One small change I would love to see is either changing binding rituals to spells or giving Mesmers skills that operate vs binding rituals.
As it now stands Ritualists seem to have some imunity to mesmers.

Utaku · May 24, 2007, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crom The Pale

As it now stands Ritualists seem to have some imunity to mesmers.

[skill]unnatural signet[/skill][skill]spiritual pain[/skill]
Nothing against weapon spells though.

frojack · May 24, 2007, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Utaku

[skill]unnatural signet[/skill][skill]spiritual pain[/skill]
Nothing against weapon spells though.

...And I really don't think they should be. If it's not stopped before it goes on (not that hard), then it should really be untouchable. None of the Weapon Spells are so powerful that they need a direct counter and they offer the user a somewhat small safety net. It's what makes them unique. To remove this aspect from Weapon Spells would well and truly stick the last nail in the coffin of the ritualist.

Some people think this should be the case but then that's a ridiculous notion. To kill any class with merit is asinine, and theres certainly merit within the class. Certainly more so than the assassin anyways, but that's another story...

Katari · May 24, 2007, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Everything Avarre has said so far is pretty much spot on.

It is so easy to make a new mesmer, see yellow numbers, and assume that a skilled mesmer can contribute as much to a PvE party as a MM, curses nec, fire ele, or BHA ranger, or etc. It is just as easy to play a mesmer for a while, and convince yourself that you're doing plenty, that those yellow numbers you see are actually somehow comparable to a real damage class.

The same applies to shutdown in PvE, with the exception of backfire perhaps, which is only relevant on non-dangerous casters. The dangerous high level ele bosses you still want daze from a BHA ranger on.

Sure mesmers "work" in PvE, but again people are confusing "works" with "is one of the more effective options"

Hopefully A.Net can think of something to make mesmers effective without requiring a PvE overhaul (which isn't going to happen). Honestly I'd be OK with anything at this point, even purple curse necros and purple eles would be better than the current state. (so long as it can be done in a way that dosen't break the game)

Cass · May 25, 2007, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Utaku

[skill]unnatural signet[/skill][skill]spiritual pain[/skill]
Nothing against weapon spells though.

Spells. Many of the more important weapon spells that I encounted in PvP can be interrupted easily.

Paragons have some immunity to mesmers though. Shouts are unstoppable, and the ones that take some time to sing are only vulnerable to skill interrupts. I guess there's always Diversion.

mmorpg man · May 25, 2007, 02:27 PM // 14:27

in PvE, the mesmer is effective in some areas but not in others. also we are not suited to battling large mobs that die easily. we much better at taking down smaller more intelligent mobs. hard mode has helped with this but what we need is another set of skills that have wide-spread hexes that target many enemies not just 1. that way we can shutdown multiple enemies at once making us more useful in PvE

Genova · May 25, 2007, 04:37 PM // 16:37

We already have the strongest interrupt of the game, which is full range, nearly instant and don't require lign of sight, does aoe damage and aoe interruption on any skill (not only spells). This spell can also be echoed or recharged faster without using a secondary. The problem lies more in the inspiration nerf and the lack of e-management from fastcasting, meaning you can do this but nothing else.

The use of signets as a mean of e-management for us, is nearly a failure because honestly most signets are useless. The fact that we have to use other skill slots to make some signets useful is a problem. That's why I think that if Anet wanted us to be artificers, they should passively buff signets from fastcasting. The problem is that with the stances in the inspiration line, I don't see what kind of buff we could use. The enchantements from the fastcasting line are also useless because signets are so underpowered that nobody uses them in the first place.

I think that most spells are fine actually and once our only mean of doing unconditional damage (illusion) is fixed, we will be fine. It is really unfair for us to have to run mantra of persistence (even though it is in a e-management line) and I can not understand why water hexes are better than ours. It is true that our snares can last very long or be recharched faster... but this cost too much energy to be of any real use.

Katari · May 26, 2007, 02:39 AM // 02:39

@Genova; Mesmer interrupts are either spell-only or have recharges that are significantly longer than ranger interrupts. Of course that does come with the benefit of being faster than most, and not requiring LoS. Regardless, interrupts don't matter much in the majority of PvE areas, sure they're nice, but not really needed. In areas where you do want them (such as when facing high level caster bosses) BHA rangers outclass mesmers by so much. The fact that every PvE mob in HM has some degree of fast casting, mesmer interrupts are even less effective (unless you can reliably hit what would normally be a 1/2s cast).

Mantra of Persistence is pretty irrelevant for PvE. Mobs die so fast that lengthening the duration of some degen doesn't actually matter. The snares don't actually matter either, because snares aren't all that great in PvE anyways--even water snares. Some form of AoE would make illusion more interesting in PvE, but I suspect that would have bad results in PvP, where hexspam is bad enough as it is.

Genova · May 26, 2007, 09:43 PM // 21:43

@Katari. It is not me who argued that having a way to shutdown multiple enemies at once will make us more useful in PvE. Read above my post. It is also not my fault if maelstrom is an elementalist skill and if chaos strom is useless.

I understand your point about PvE, but I mostly PvP. Nothing can be done in this game to balance both if they don't use the same rules. Bring back mobs' power to an acceptable level with real bars and better AI is the only real thing to do, posters above already said that. The increase of the damage dealing potential of the profession isn't welcomed at all, be it aoe or single target dps.

My point is if our energy management should come through the use of signets, the devs should redesign them completely and make them like they did with signet of weariness : a free replacement for energy burn (I know that the functionality isn't the same, it's just to illustrate the point).

Jeremy Winston · May 27, 2007, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Ok, for the record, I've read the original post and the last two or three pages of posts. So, if this has been covered, I apologize.

Certainly, I agree that the AoE control hexes are the natural way to go in buffing the mesmer line for PvE, but I have a thought in a new area of AoE control.

Aggro control. So far, there isn't a single skill involved in aggro control. Naturally, you'd need to make an in-game rationale for the skill, but if ANET improved the aggro of mobs (i.e. making it harder to control their aggro) and provided skills to the Mesmer that would reestablish that control, I think Mesmers would be a bit more in demand.

Of course, you still need to deal with a Mesmer secondary simply using a few key skills.

Anyhow, suggestions for such skills would be something like:

1) Taunt -- Causes foes in the area to reclassify target ally as a higher priority target.
2) Meekness -- Causes foes in the area to reclassify target ally as a lower priority target.
3) Shield of invisibility -- Foes have some attribute-based chance of ignoring any ally that is nearby the caster.
4) Illusion of Death -- Causes foes attacking target ally to assume target is dead and to break/reacquire aggro.
5) I'm sure there are plenty of others.

In my opinion these are all Mesmerish skills and have no effect on PvP. But imagine how much more work a team would have without a mesmer and these skills (or a secondary, whatever) if mobs would reacquire more tasty targets more easily. In hard mode, the Warrior will often be bypassed for a monk or other caster unless the Warrior extends a long way ahead of the rest of the team. The mob then doesn't break aggro when the rest of the team closes, but if it did, all the aggro-management techniques would go down the drain.

Jeremy

noblepaladin · May 27, 2007, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Themis

Avarre, i'm extremely impressed by the length of your analysis.

But, unfortunately, I don't agree with plenty of it.

So you seem to say that PvE groups need Healers, Tanks and massive DD ? And that's all ? So, no need for Asns, neither Rits, nor P, nor Mesmers ? I believe it's a black-and-white vision of the PvE world. It's not my vision anyway. This is the common (pickup) reality. It's not my GW reality and it will never be.
Illusion was dead with Factions ? I certainly missed this news. My Illusion spells have never worked as well since Factions. A third of them are Faction skills. I've gone through NF successfully with them. They're great for Hard Mode !

You seem to say that Eles are doing more damage than illusion skills ? Well, perhaps. I don't consider damage as a simple minus something in enemies' health bar, so ... i won't agree with you. But i understand your point of view. Especially since that change in monsters' AI.

So, imo, turning Mesmers into DamageDealers (as some seem to propose) by increasing the efficiency of their damage spells is not an improvement. It's an alienation.

To be short, my PvE experience doesn't reflect the reality you're describing. We're still playing the same game, i know. Simply not the same way.

That's what i like about Mesmers, Paragons and other "secondary" classes : they allow me to play in a non-conventionnal way. That's what i like about GW : the ability to be different. And i hope that Mesmers will never become a "normal" class.

There are two ways of looking at it, are Mesmers, Assassins, Ritualists, Paragons completely useless and incapable of completing the game? No. People have completed the game with very strange teams and builds (only 4 players in 8 player missions, or strange teams like 8 warriors, etc), because the game itself is quite easy. The reason why heal, tank, and nuke is the pick-up-group motto is because it is incredibly effective, far more effective than one of the uncommon teams.

The illusion line is not "dead", it has improved with skills from Factions and NF, but it has become horribly inefficient relative to other classes. What is the point of illusion based degen when an elementalist can keep all enemies burning with -7 indefinitely? The anti physical aspects of illusion has always been inferior to a curse necro who can do AoE shutdown of physical mobs (and use Spiteful Spirit when he wants to do large AoE damage).

I sometimes play non-standard just for fun. My favorite character is my mesmer and sometimes I mess around as an earth, ice, or lightning ele. It's fun, but if I want to complete the game fast, I'll switch to the more common Searing Flames ele.

Genova · May 28, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Winston

Ok, for the record, I've read the original post and the last two or three pages of posts. So, if this has been covered, I apologize.

Certainly, I agree that the AoE control hexes are the natural way to go in buffing the mesmer line for PvE, but I have a thought in a new area of AoE control.

Aggro control. So far, there isn't a single skill involved in aggro control. Naturally, you'd need to make an in-game rationale for the skill, but if ANET improved the aggro of mobs (i.e. making it harder to control their aggro) and provided skills to the Mesmer that would reestablish that control, I think Mesmers would be a bit more in demand.

Of course, you still need to deal with a Mesmer secondary simply using a few key skills.

Anyhow, suggestions for such skills would be something like:

1) Taunt -- Causes foes in the area to reclassify target ally as a higher priority target.
2) Meekness -- Causes foes in the area to reclassify target ally as a lower priority target.
3) Shield of invisibility -- Foes have some attribute-based chance of ignoring any ally that is nearby the caster.
4) Illusion of Death -- Causes foes attacking target ally to assume target is dead and to break/reacquire aggro.
5) I'm sure there are plenty of others.

In my opinion these are all Mesmerish skills and have no effect on PvP. But imagine how much more work a team would have without a mesmer and these skills (or a secondary, whatever) if mobs would reacquire more tasty targets more easily. In hard mode, the Warrior will often be bypassed for a monk or other caster unless the Warrior extends a long way ahead of the rest of the team. The mob then doesn't break aggro when the rest of the team closes, but if it did, all the aggro-management techniques would go down the drain.

Jeremy

You want me to ragequit or sumthin' ? Please I don't want to play WoW again. And I think that there are players that play Guild Wars for this reason too, as far as PVE is concerned : "mobs are less dumbass in this mmo" (co-rpg, I know), even if we agree that the game could be orders of magnitude better than what it is now. At least there is hard mode now.

If I were to ask something to be add in the game for the illusion line, it would be a simple illusion spell. Call it mirror image and use it to tank some damage in pve, it could be like a mesmer's pet and be useful in pvp too. Make the illusion line about illusions like it was in the prophecies' days, other chapters destroyed the class imo, with inconsistent design choices.

Jeremy Winston · May 29, 2007, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genova

You want me to ragequit or sumthin' ? Please I don't want to play WoW again. And I think that there are players that play Guild Wars for this reason too, as far as PVE is concerned : "mobs are less dumbass in this mmo" (co-rpg, I know), even if we agree that the game could be orders of magnitude better than what it is now. At least there is hard mode now.

If I were to ask something to be add in the game for the illusion line, it would be a simple illusion spell. Call it mirror image and use it to tank some damage in pve, it could be like a mesmer's pet and be useful in pvp too. Make the illusion line about illusions like it was in the prophecies' days, other chapters destroyed the class imo, with inconsistent design choices.

Whoa, there! I don't play WoW, and never have, so I don't understand what you're alluding to. I'm suggesting they make mobs MUCH smarter. Too smart to aggro to a single warrior and get pounded on. Then, provide mesmer skills to 'dumb it down' via mesmer-like skills that convince the mobs, via illusion, that reality is not as they thought. Isn't this the essence of what most of us consider the illusion line to be?

Illusion was pretty much tanked from the get-go when they maintained the Necro curses line. You could easily have taken almost any random mesmer illusion skill and placed it in curses. And, you could take many of the necro curse skills and happily put them in illusion.

The concept, or ability, that illusion should have conferred upon mesmers was never something unique.

Sha Noran · May 30, 2007, 11:44 AM // 11:44

Avarre, marvelous thesis. Your experience and intelligence show themselves.

To many of the replies: Yes, you can make yourself half as good as an ele by playing an ele that casts faster, but it's simply a fact that a class is broken when it must generally rely on other class' skills to be supremely effective in half of the game environment. Most unfortunately, Spiritual Pain was an unpleasant display of what would happen to the PvP portion of that game environment should such skills be introduced.

Oh, and [email protected] said that weapon spells aren't devastatingly overpowered. Vital Weapon? Weapon of Warding? Splinter Weapon? Yes, your comments tell me you must be an avid PvPer.

glountz · May 30, 2007, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Hi,
I returned to my mesmer after having let it down for a long time. She is vainquishing tyria by now. HM increases directly some damage spells like empathy effectiveness, as mobs cast faster and attack faster. She is creating havoc and massive damage to these creatures, and in HM mobs are not twice the number. In fact, if I agree with you on the number point (the more mobs there are, the more useless is the mesmer), I disagree with the overpowered part (IMHO the more powerful a monster is, the more precious and useful the shutdown/punishment is).
Yes a ranger is more useful at interrupts, but ranger are more easily shutdown-able (blind, prot spells, block stances). What's making rangers truly superior is not only their interrupts but also their allmighty expertise, that allows them to actually spam them (while a mesmer, if he misses his interrupt, can sit down and wait 15 sec).

I think the true issue in the mesmer lies in its very badly designed attributes.
First, fast casting. It is just plain ridiculous. It should not have been their primary attribute. Even the 3% are actually not worth using. 4% would have been better.
Their first attribute should have been INSPIRATION. Inspiration line was overnerfed because of the abuse of the other professions (formerly the monks), but it not harmed that much these secondary mesmers, it hurted very severely the primary ones. Inspiration is e-management, why didn’t they make it primary?
Secondly, the domination line. This line is, simply said, too powerful. It is the equivalent of the monk's prot line, the only one that's really worth using, at least in PvP. Why ? Because domination fills every role. Disruption, interrupt, damage, debuff, hex removal, and even some E-management with hexes like guilt and shame. A domination skillbar will be a lot less specific than, say, an illusion or insp one.
THirdly, the Illusion line. This line is weak. The degen from Illu hexes is simply too ridiculous compared from the degen from conditions (like poison/disease/burning), when compared to the cost of their spreading. Just look at conjure Nightmare. And finally, Illusion is completely anti-melee. That's okay, excepted that the best anti-melee down here are not the illu mesmers, but the curses necros. Because they are AoE. Because they have better E-management. And because their curses combine so well to shutdown a melee character in the long time. (Ineptitude and clumisness are only one-shot disruption, really not worth the cost of them).
So what’s the solution?
I have some suggestions:
First it would be to move every e-management spells from Insp to Fast casting. Or to put a inherent fast casting e-management. Or, give Fast casting a 3% casting increase and a 3% recharge increase, and then increase recharge on Insp e-management spells, so they would be really worth taking for the mesmers.
Secondly it would be to keep domination for disrupting and interrupts only. Mesmer interrupts HAVE to have better recharge and decreased energy costs. Disruption, if not followed by damage, should be extremely cheap and fast-recharging.
Illu should be deserved for damage. Degen is not enough. Many degen skills should have powerful effects. Conjure phantasm should be cheaper, an apply poison ranger do a lot better than a conjure phantasm spammer. Conjure Nightmare should deal severe damage if removed. Damage from degen spells like Image of remorse or accumulated pain.
Empathy and Spiritual Pain should be moved to Illusion
I don’t know exactly what’s the best solution to bring back mesmers to PvE while letting PvP unharmed.

Avarre · May 30, 2007, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Oh, and [email protected] said that weapon spells aren't devastatingly overpowered. Vital Weapon? Weapon of Warding? Splinter Weapon? Yes, your comments tell me you must be an avid PvPer.

To be honest I don't really mind vital/splinter in PvP in terms of unremovability - the constant reapplication of them makes them very viable targets to divert, and while in the case of Vital the high duration makes this only moderately effective, vitals will go down in that period of time.

Warding is a bitch though - but can be pressured by other means; hit the (usually E/Rt) caster with repeated power leaks, etc. Still somewhat annoying, but I'm not going to try to say whether and why they are or are not balanced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Conjure phantasm should be cheaper, an apply poison ranger do a lot better than a conjure phantasm spammer. Conjure Nightmare should deal severe damage if removed. Damage from degen spells like Image of remorse or accumulated pain.
Empathy and Spiritual Pain should be moved to Illusion
I don’t know exactly what’s the best solution to bring back mesmers to PvE while letting PvP unharmed.

The next person who talks about buffing hexes gets punched in the face. Seriously, I still have nightmares about the hex meta. Yes, the illusion line does need some improvements but the method for this has to be in recreating PvE - the issue I explored in my OP. Drop monster health to levels similar to the players and create difficulty through synergy rather than statistics, and not only degen and illusion, but mesmers in general, will benefit.

I wouldn't agree with moving empathy and spiritual pain, because they don't have a power issue in their current state and moving them would result in a great deal more trouble for mesmers to balance attributes (all it would do is make illusion and dom half-decent and neither very good in PvE in general). It is better to have a specific role (and the dom/x combos are fairly open and varied, even so) than to simply be weak at everything - and note that this is already the case. In order to improve things with that change, there would have to be a lot of rebalancing of skills which seems like a lot more work than making tweaks to the current lines (taking into account the people who balance skills are not many).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Winston

Aggro control. So far, there isn't a single skill involved in aggro control. Naturally, you'd need to make an in-game rationale for the skill, but if ANET improved the aggro of mobs (i.e. making it harder to control their aggro) and provided skills to the Mesmer that would reestablish that control, I think Mesmers would be a bit more in demand.

I find this somewhat against the ethos of Guild Wars even further - using skills to govern aggro rather than positioning, kiting, and 'player skill'. Specific skills to hold aggro would just further one-dimensionalize PvE, and let's be honest - there was a reason the desert missions were structured like HoH objectives - to teach basic concepts for PvP. PvE should promote the same concepts as PvP, such as character positioning and kiting. You can split the two games and their mechanics entirely, but that only shows an absolute breakdown of balance. Keeping the same mechanics allows players to easier cross over between the two and maintain the influx of players to PvP - the restriction of which is a major issue.

There was aggro control before, in the form of carried items - which were not only unneccesary, but promoted poor positioning and to be honest, could be quite boring (I fell asleep in FoW several times, while just following the tank around blindly, back in the book days). I guess that's an issue to discuss.

lightblade · May 30, 2007, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

Spells. Many of the more important weapon spells that I encounted in PvP can be interrupted easily.

Paragons have some immunity to mesmers though. Shouts are unstoppable, and the ones that take some time to sing are only vulnerable to skill interrupts. I guess there's always Diversion.

Yup, weapon spells can be interrupted easily, especially when they're holding ashes and can't take advantage of HCT on their weapon.