Curse

SkyeFerina · May 25, 2006, 06:49 PM // 18:49

I really think it's time mesmers received a buff in the defense department. Having read an interesting thread recently about the best defensive stance etc for PvP, it got me thinking...if you need to take some defense with you, you pretty much have to look outside the mesmer class...which is a bit poor.

Having played a rare bit of PvE today, there's no solace there either, unlike back in the good old days. First battle and I had 3 W's and an assassin making a beeline for me, not the monk, I spent more time kiting than fighting (OK slight exaggeration!). So whether you're PvE'ing or PvP'ing you need to cope with a load of aggro...more so than any other class except for monks, but sometimes you're an even higher priority. And correct me if I'm wrong, but seeing as this is the case we have the least options for defense and pretty much the worst self heal within our own class of any. I don't have enough A or Ri experience to comment, so I'll restrict myself to the core classes.

Mo's - not really relevant. Heal and protect thyself o holy one. Repeatedly.

W's - Duh. Well they have great armour, and with points in tactics you have a wealth of useful stances and Healing Signet which is OK. Compare HS to Ether Feast...it has half the recharge and costs no energy. I think per point in Tactics it heals more too.

R's - A primary R will usually have a load of points in Expertise anyway, with all the lovely stances that offers. Pick one and be happy. Self heal...OK you need Wilderness Survival, but a measly 6 points in WS nets you a self heal over time worth 120 Health, and with the duration equalling the recharge you can keep it up indefinitely. OK it takes 3 seconds, but Ether Feast would need 12 points in Insp to net the same health gain.

N's - Blood Magic...it damages them and also heals you. Superb if you're a specialist, but also compliments Curse / Death nicely. For Curses Parasitic Bond is just awesome, multi target spammable hex that heals you even if it's ripped off. If you're Death, eat your minions. A well played necro is quite durable.

E's - OK I might be getting onto shaky ground here. I haven't played one in ages, but Earth eles are pretty useful...Wards are nice. Their self heal does suck a bit, but one cast and you have ongoing effect. Someone fill me in here please

And now for us poor old Me's, always with a face full of warrior and annoying rangers firing pointy bits of wood into us from afar. Options...There's always Illusion with the wonderful Distortion, but Illusion has to pumped high to offset the horrible energy losses that result (8 Illusion for 2 Energy per evasion, 13 for 1 Energy per evasion). Also you have to remember to press it...continually. So Illusion is no good to us Dominators.

What does Inspiration have up it's sleeve? A crappy self heal (waiting for a flame on this one!) which I already had my say about, and some conditional Mantras. Which to take...well none of them on their own. Physical Resistance for W's?...I just hope there's not an Igniting / Kindling Ranger out there. Or an ele. Or even worse, a Conjuring W....no it's just too ugly to even think about. Within our class, our defense is diabolical.

I know we can combine classes but I don't really like weakening a build just to incorporate some defense from secondary ( if you're Dom mes you need Dom, Insp and FC really, you'd have to take from one of them) and I know we can rely on the monks but I hate doing it. Besides that's not what this post is about. I reckon at the very least we need a good defensive Domination skill, and a rethink on the others. Does anyone else feel hard done by or is it just me?

Sorry if the rant was a bit long, looking forward to your comments!

Shadow-Hunter · May 25, 2006, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Yes the Mesmer got kinda a crappy defence line if you look strait for the defence.. The mantras are like you say not good in all situations, and the only block stance eat energy when you block with it..
But the mesmer got some kind of offenciv skills to protect themself.. Like this:
Spirit of faliur + Distortion on a warrior is quite nice, if not then Ineptitude + Empathy, and for the casters then some backfire or Power leak, power spike + energy drain.. The mesmer can keep most enemys casters unable to cast their spells, and it can make the Melee ppl dont want to attack with all the melee hate..
As a warrior player i dont want to attack when im hexed with Empathy, Ineptitude and clumsyness on me.. and if im an ele then i dont want to attemp casting if i got backfire on me, or if i know that ill get powerleaked and lose like 20 energy along with getting my spell interupted..

~Shadow

Themis · May 25, 2006, 07:04 PM // 19:04

/signed

Me too, i'm fed up with Me depending intesively on Monks.

In fact, Mesmers can anticipate other classes' actions, so -normally- the don't need defense. But can we anticipate 7 other classes just with 7 skills ? Don't think so...

SkyeFerina · May 25, 2006, 07:09 PM // 19:09

But those times when you just got to activate your defense, or heal ...it happens, frequently...we just don't have a good choice. What we have is way below what other classes have to offer. Shadow Hunter, I know we can do all of what you said, it's why mesmer is so fun...but sometimes you need to put up your defenses and run. Ours just happen to suck. A lot.

SkyeFerina · May 25, 2006, 07:17 PM // 19:17

OK, how about this?

Deflection (Domination)

For 1...X seconds, the next skill used against you fails (+/- is disabled for additional Y seconds?)

I was thinking maybe energy 5, cast 0.25, recharge 1

OK I jest, but how about the idea? Would break up those increeedibly annoying Axe War spikes a treat.

fatboyslimerr · May 25, 2006, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Personally, if mesmer gets a decent defensive stance/enchantment (even if it was elite) then mesmer would be over powered, simply because mesmers are by far the most 'powerful' class with the most potential to shift the fate of a battle (on about PvP here) so by giving them means to defense themselves within their own class, they can boost attributes right up and just be super good.

No I think Anet have it right. Mesmers sacrifice armor and lack of defense in exchange for basically being the anti ...... of every class (although a given build can't take on everyone - give it a good try though).

Without having a decent defense stance/enchant within our own profession, this means players have to get creative and take up interesting secondaries. This also means they have to sacrifice points in domination (or whatever) in order to affectly use that defense buff. I believe this is what a 'balanced' profession is all about, balancing offense (domination and illusion are definitely offense) with defense (a defense buff from your secondary profession).

I would like to see a defense buff in domination but it should be very situational and extremely difficult to use well (true mesmer stylee) but if it was easy to use/spam, mesmers would have too easy-a-time. Mesmers must learn all about kiting etc in order to stay alive or make the decision to invest in a secondary for a defense buff.

If your still not convinced, I recommend Me/A with not much shadow arts at all and using dark escape -- For xx seconds you move 25% faster and take half damage, this spell ends with you successfully hit with an attack. -- For me this spell was basically designed for mesmers because only an assassin flag runner would get good use of it and since mesmers don't need to attack. Just imagine eviscerate only doing like 30 dmg or less ??, your monk wouldn't even need to heal you + its a speed buff too to help you kite better.

Before you get seriously into this, just try dark escape or perhaps find a better monk or even try being a warrior if you don't like having defenses

Opinionated goodness for you all to enjoy

JR · May 25, 2006, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Distortion, Illusion of Weakness, Hex snares, Hex melee hate...

And even then, not every class is supposed to be able to "tank", that is why it is a team game.

Peace,
-JR

Pick Me · May 25, 2006, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Oh spare me the sob story about the lack of defenses of a mesmer.

I'm guessing you have forgotten the powers of a true mesmer.

Signet of Midnight - 0 energy/15 recharge/lasts 15 seconds
Use this + Fragility + Epidemic = blindness for you enemies and 90% defense for you.

Price of Failure + Spirit Shackles = loss of energy for them, possible energy gain for you and a 25% chance for them to miss you (like an evade, but not beaten by an skill that states "cannot be blocked or evaded")

Mantra stances - resist (not increase armor) damage vs specific types of attack. This means it ignores the "+25% penetration" category. So you resist the full amount of damage after all bonuses are done (only to that type of attack).

Remove hexes - warriors/rangers/necros/elementalists can't do that

Soothing images/sympathetic visage - good bye adrenalin

Illusionary Weakness - enchantment that will give you extra health (after the initial loss and you regaining it over time) once your health drops below 25%

Ethereal Burden/Imagined Burden - slows target foe (if the warrior can't hit you, you can't be damaged by him/her)

Distortion

Clumsiness - attacks are disrupted and target foe is damaged

Ignorance vs Warriors - no healing for them

Hex Breaker - no hex on you (one time shot)

Guilt - stops caster from casting on you (1 time shot)

Empathy - damages anyone attacking you (not casting)

Backfire - damages anyone casting a spell

Cry of Frustration - foe and near by foes are disrupted if target foe is using a skill

Blackout - disables your skills and theirs

You can defend yourself quite well on a 1 on 1 situation - obviously, you must know what you are going against to do so

But I do think the self-healing ability of Ether Feast is the worst of all. 1) you need someone to feed off of (so only enemies can be used). 2) The enemy has little energy, you get little health. 3) recharge time is a bit much.

At least Elementalists can cast windborn speed or someother spell that targets allies or self to heal. Mesmers can die just by poison/disease/bleeding and not be surrounded by anything.

I love the mesmer's defensive capabilities. The Monks have great defenses, but will usually lack the offensive capabilities to fight vs everyone. Every class has a weakness. Mesmers have a severe lack of healing, thats for sure, then the Elementalist.

If you are being swarmed by warriors and assassins and rangers, are you by yourself? What is the rest of your group doing? Are they going for the monk? If you are being swarmed, the monk should be healing you, you should be casting empathy, signet of midnight, epidemic and spirit of failure. They'll leave you alone if they were smart. Else, they kill themselves via your passive offensive abilities. A warriors stance is uselss vs spellcasters. A ranger's stance is useless vs a mesmer. Necros have no defenses period (spiteful spirit? Price of Failure? Minions?) - no stances/resistances/running. Mesmers have a nice running ability (crippling? Hahaha!!! No other class can run and remove crippling - except a mesmer). You can run around and inflict health degen vs all. Elementalists - use cold to slow you down - use counter with a remove hex spell (any type of remove hex). Warriors/rangers/pet - use crippling, counter it with illusionary haste. You give them slow spells - only a mesmer or monk can remove it - what a waste of a remove hex

I admit, I don't play PvP, so I don't truly know the problems you have encountered there, so please forgive me for my early comment about "sob stories", as I was upset about you demanding improvements to the mesmers lack of defenses.

I'm a bit more calm now, so I will forgive you stating that the mesmer has no defenses.

But I find that stances are good only in certain situations, but not for every situation. Does this mean that the large variety of stances that a mesmer has, must all be brought? No. Just like Warriors/Rangers, a Mesmer's stances are optional (usually not used though). The best thing is to cast spells that deter or stop attacks/spells from damaging you. NPCs will cast/attack regardless of what hex you put on them. Blind them and damage them with hexes. Run and slow them down (Ethereal Burden is best).

Personally, I don't bring any stances except for Mantra of Concentration. Instead of Signet of Midnight, people use Mantra of Recovery (an Elite Stance). So depending in what you want, faster recharge time or blinding the choice is yours.

I wish mesmers gained a better healing skill/spell. Warriors have 4 or so healing techniques. Necromancers have 6 or more healing techniques (not including vampiric minions), Assassins at least have 2 or more healing skills, Monks and Ritualists have the most healing techniques. Rangers have 4 or so healing skills. Elementalists have 2 healing spells (not strong though). Only the Mesmer has 1 healing skill.

I think this is the only way GW can balance things. Warriors need to run to you, so you slow them down. Elementalists can hit you from a far, but you can walk around their slow casting AoE. Monks lack true direct damage (they can do some good damage if you attack them though), so you drain them for all they are worth. Necros can hex you, but you can stop that and hex them back with better results. Ritualists can do some nice damage, if they are setup with spirits already in place. They take too long to get enough of them to do much. Besides, you can walk out of the spirit range and still cast to hurt them. Rangers are hard, but empathy on pet and ranger with failure will null them to little damage. The Assassin is something else though. They can teleport to you (slow means nothing) and do serious damage. Empathy, spirit of failure, blindness and fragility. Backfire if they start casting on you.

In general bring Cry of Frustration, Clumsiness, Leech Signet. These affect everyone. Any skill used (spell or skill) interupted - Cry of Frustration; Clumsiness - attack interupted; Leech Signet - any action used is interupted.

Remember, the power of a mesmer is in its passive aggressiveness, not in its ability to take a beating nor its ability to heal massively nor to deliver pure offensive strikes.

Thank you.

Mystic Memory · May 25, 2006, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Profession: W/R

Quote:

Signet of Midnight - 0 energy/15 recharge/lasts 15 seconds
Use this + Fragility + Epidemic = blindness for you enemies and 90% defense for you.

SoM is one of the worst elites in the game. For 5 energy, a monk can make it useless. Epidemic? Since when are the warriors and rangers bunched up together?

Other then that, I agree with you. The passive agressiveness is very good for defense. For example... Diversion = save yourself from damage from a caster for 6 secs. However your SoM argument stinx

Of course if ANET wants to give mesmers more defense, im all for it. Right now, i rarely enter PvP without distortion.

fatboyslimerr · May 25, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

I don't even use distortion, I feel its my job to be the main target for enemies, and I'm used to it. I love running away from warriors backwards so they can't critical hit me

Mystic Memory · May 25, 2006, 10:24 PM // 22:24

yea except they can repeatedly slash at you, which contrary to what some people believe, is quite devastating on our health (and paper thin armor).

RotteN · May 25, 2006, 10:28 PM // 22:28

mesmers are fine as they are defensive-wise, demanding a class that can do everything superdupergood within their own attributelines is retarded, no offence, but it is ...

(oh yeah, distortion is a bitch, don't say it's crappy cause you lose nrg, it's one of the most used evade stances atm)

SkyeFerina · May 25, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatboyslimerr

Personally, if mesmer gets a decent defensive stance/enchantment (even if it was elite) then mesmer would be over powered, simply because mesmers are by far the most 'powerful' class with the most potential to shift the fate of a battle (on about PvP here) so by giving them means to defense themselves within their own class, they can boost attributes right up and just be super good.

No I think Anet have it right. Mesmers sacrifice armor and lack of defense in exchange for basically being the anti ...... of every class (although a given build can't take on everyone - give it a good try though).

This also means they have to sacrifice points in domination (or whatever) in order to affectly use that defense buff. I believe this is what a 'balanced' profession is all about, balancing offense (domination and illusion are definitely offense) with defense (a defense buff from your secondary profession).

I don't mind that Mesmer is difficult to play. Quite the opposite, it's why I love it, it requires skill, intelligence, patience, good observation, quick reflexes ( I don't have all by any stretch of the imagination! )and so on. It's a challenging class to play, in fact I don't really play the other classes much any more.

Are we really overpowered? Yes one on one with a focussed skillset we can trash anybody. As a mesmer, you have to fill a role and it's pretty specific - a jack-of-all trades is master of none. But we pay a price - when the all ranger team comes through the gates and you're holding your anti-caster skillset, you're not a great deal of help, whereas that Warrior can swing his weapon and cause damage against all classes, and the elementalist's Fireballs do damage regardless. No other class has quite the same issues as the mesmer - depending on what you're trying to achieve we have to play our skills at the right time in the right order, we have to anticipate, we have to interrupt and know all the other classes well to counter well. We have to do all of this with a degree of situational awareness of the entire battlefield, cycling through enemies frequently looking for opportunities to harrass. We have to do all of these with a lot of aggro, and I don't think we're overpowered for this very reason.

You can diversify at the risk of being less effective at your primary job, but as a mesmer you pretty much have to have Inspiration to a degree for energy. You can dilute your points futher and go a mix of Illusion and Domination and Inspiration and maybe slightly annoy a monk AND slightly irritate a warrior. However, to truly shine you need a well thought-out range of complimentary skills. If you dilute your skills too much by investing heavily into a secondary, for instance...hell you'll be blacked out for longer than your opponent, or spend more energy than the enemy loses.

Of course you can't defend against everything, but within our class we have a very poor self heal, very situational stances of which you'd need to take at least 2 for any utility, and let me see our run skill Cripples you for 5 days afterwards. We HAVE to go outside our class for defense, no other class does.I don't want to be a tank or "superdoopergood" as RotteN says, just survive the inevitable aggro a little bit better when it first happens - considering how much we get. And no, I don't just stand there. I run, a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RotteN

mesmers are fine as they are defensive-wise, demanding a class that can do everything superdupergood within their own attributelines is retarded, no offence, but it is ...

(oh yeah, distortion is a bitch, don't say it's crappy cause you lose nrg, it's one of the most used evade stances atm)

I don't see how my calling Distortion "wonderful" warrants a flame for accusing it of being "crappy". For people specialising in Domination it's not a viable skill to take. Read the post properly.

And Pick Me....listing all the skills in the game and explaining how it works wasn't necessary. I play a Domination shutdown build which does virtually no damage so I'm well aware of how mesmers can mitigate damage to themselves by hindering others blah blah blah. Empathy is NOT a defensive skill, go one-on one with a W and he'll outdamage you and be able to heal twice as often, for more. I'm sorry but if you don't play PvP then of course you don't think we need a buff. SoM...have you ever heard of a skill called Mend Ailment? Most good monks get rid of blind in seconds. Thanks for retracting your first comment but I think you missed the point of the post.

wilson · May 26, 2006, 07:27 AM // 07:27

i still do like distortion, even after the nerf some time ago.

i usually play domination mesmer too, so i have to spread my attribute points a little bit, but i think it still is a good defensive skill, and i wouldn't drop it for eather feast or another secondary class defensive skill. this is the attribute point distribution i usually use, for ta of course:

domination magic 11+3 ->77 ap
inspiration magic 9+1+1 ->48 ap
fast casting 8+1 ->37 ap
illusion 7+1 ->28 ap

thats 190 out of 200 ap used, if you find a very useful skill in a secondary, you could replace the illusion line with that attribute and go with an 8 in the attribute of your choice, or go with illusion 9, but it doesnt really make a difference

maybe the new assassin line, but havent tried that out yet

imho you can keep distortion up for quite some time, with some energy managment, which you have to take with a mesmer anyway, things like drain enchant, inspired hex, energy tap, power drain etc. i most certainly dont say that you can just stand their and "tank", but with some kiting, and the help of a monk you can stay alive for quite some time. of course a warrior on your back keeps you from fighting as effective as you could otherwise. but the time that warrior is on you, with you evading 75% of the attacks, your team takes a lot less damage, which in return helps your team to stay alive longer and win the game. even if distortion is disabled by wildblow, it wont do the warrior any good because he will ose all adrenaline and 5 seconds later it is again ready to use

anyway, this is just my idea on that skill. distortion is defenitely not perfect, and its probably not meant to be. for everything you do in gw theres a drawback, and this is just an example for that rule

fatboyslimerr · May 26, 2006, 07:36 AM // 07:36

I LIKE RUNNING AWAY, thus a defensive stance isn't needed !!!
(just good monking)
Although, there are alternatives to needing defensive stances at all, for example, many a fine mesmer uses gale since it only requires 4 points in air magic to be 100% effective and it will cause any warrior chasing you to be knocked down for 3 seconds, long enough for you to get far enough away and for your team to make that warrior regret targeting you. Gale is a great skill also to stop a single enemy retreating with their team, by knocking down and hopefully killing them quickly enough, that their monks can't get back into range to help.

So just by using 1 extra spell (don't spam it because of exhaustion but usually a mesmer with decent energy management ain't too bothered about exhaustion) you can indirectly 'defend' yourself against warriors and provide a great group advantage in GvG by limiting enemy retreats/advances etc.

Try it, that and try running away

run forest run !!!

Hella Good · May 26, 2006, 08:38 AM // 08:38

We did get higher armor. I rly enjoy having 70 armor while in stance- it makes a big difference. Before, when all we could rly use was enchanters (and to some extent rogues) armors, it was pretty damn harsh, but I am pretty happy with the current state of things.

I like the few defense skills we have. They are not as good as certain other classes but that doesn't mean they are not efficient. Plus I- for one- do not mind borrowing from other classes to supplement my defense. But again, now any stance gives you 10 more armor (with the Savant set), so...

Reminds me, survivability with a caster isn't as much a function of skills as it is a function of strategy. This goes for all caster classes. The best defense when damage starts coming your way is always "run."

Eaimirth Etaivella · May 26, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Arrow dodge'in =p
When the arrow appears in their hand...
tap left, tap left, up-right ^_~:;

But I agree the mesmers are in a poor shape of self defence against warriors when they are outside the field of illusion magic. However I guess thats how specialization goes.

Trouveur · May 26, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkyeFerina

OK, how about this?

Deflection (Domination)

For 1...X seconds, the next skill used against you fails (+/- is disabled for additional Y seconds?)

I was thinking maybe energy 5, cast 0.25, recharge 1

OK I jest, but how about the idea? Would break up those increeedibly annoying Axe War spikes a treat.

You mean someting like this ?

Mirror of Ice

For 60 seconds, the next time an enemy spell would deal damage to you, that damage is negated and that spell's caster takes 10-70 damage. This is an elite skill.

Energy Cost: 5
Activation Time: 1/4th of a Second.
Recharge Time: 10 Seconds.
Linked Attribute: Water Magic.
Skill Type: Enchantment Spell.

Too bad that it is the ele that got this spell...
After maelstrom and Spiteful Spirit, another spell which could belong to mesmers but finally goes to an other class. :-(

holden · May 26, 2006, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mystic Memory

SoM is one of the worst elites in the game. For 5 energy, a monk can make it useless.

that's not true. it may be your opinion and i can get with that but to be able to apply a condition every 15 seconds that will last for 15 seconds to a melee foe, causing him to miss you 9 out of 10 times is good with me. it costs nothing.

yes yes blind can be removed. so can hexes and stances.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mystic Memory

Epidemic? Since when are the warriors and rangers bunched up together?

if the warriors are attacking the same target, always. you can't stop damage from everyone. if they all pile on that's that. no matter what you're running.