Mesmers vs Necromancers in PvE - which one needed buff?

Buffing Mesmers?

More Shame/Guilt type skills in Domination, fix energy loss (which doesn't do anything in HM), lower recharge.

More AoE in Illusion to give slowdown/weakening/denial more effect against mobs, lower recharge, more skills that break the degen cap.

More synergy from Inspiration, skills that trigger every time you interrupt/hex/use a signet/steal energy/do all those mesmer things, thus providing a bonus for mesmerizing behavior through recharge reduction/energy gain/granting energy to the party/boosting attributes, and base them off of Fast Casting to boost primaries (kind of like Glowing Gaze, etc).

More Fast Casting uberskills. A skill that eliminates aftercast delay. A skill that decreases recharge times of your skills every time you interrupt. An elite skill that spreads all hexes from the target to all adjacent targets like Epidemic (and reduces duration by a percent that decreases with FC).

Give mesmers a reason to play their normal selves by rewarding good mesmer behavior, and give the primary profession a reason that it is better than anyone else at doing its own job.

Build please.


Sorry, just tired of theoretical "a skilled mesmer" "a well set mesmer hero" opinions posing as hard facts. When I asked the other guy in the other thread for his great mesmer build, he gave one with Crippling Anguish etc.


So, now I'd like to see your mesmer hero build, and what team he fits in. I bet once you're done, that NMe will use same skills better.

how to buff mesmers: make all bosses vulnerable to diversion, and remove the fast casting effect from all bosses and all creatures in hard mode, except mesmer creatures. big killer spell that can wipe the party? gone for a minute, or gets interrupted.

mission accomplished.

Taking away enemy fast casting would mean the synergy professions would just use Great Dwarf Weapon more. That skill is able to interrupt (knock down) more than one skill and can fit in a nicely compressed bar. It will also make spells less spammed, which would make PvE even easier.

Mantra of Recovery is already in fast casting can be changed to add an extra pip of energy. Maybe a second pip if set the fast casting is set higher. Not nearly as powerful as Assassin's Promise, but it may work. So there, an idea for the Test Krewe.

To make a mesmer a fully appreciated teammember he/she should do more than just interrupt. My 5 cents: Buff interrupt skills so that they also have extra benefit for the party when they succesfully interrupt. E.g. 'on succesfully interrupt heal party for X' or '- remove hex' or '- gain energy/...' or add blindness, degeneration etc. on succesfully interrupting... That sort of things would boost the Mesmer and make him/her a wanted partymember :-)

Assumption 1 many players think DPS is the only important thing in the entire game
Assumption 2 the only consideration for the other classes is whether or not they can increase the DPS of their main character.
This in my opinion is the reason mesmers are not often used.

In fact neither class really needs much of a buff they are both well able to handle the threats of the pve environment.

If they buff necro I hope its to improve some of the little used skills so I get to try out some entirely new builds.

If they buff mesmer too much it will just make the game a walkover for those who really know how to use them.

I had both primaries, but was always more committed on Necro than on Mes. I'd say Mes has tougher time and I highly despite infinite energy, ridiculous recharge and casting rate of HM mobs. It doesn't add to Mes arsenal either way, like the interrupt/shutdown builds weren't a niche already in NM. Mes certainly needs a buff, but the question is - what is there to be really buffed? Necro isn't half-bad tbh.

mesmers excel at single target shutdown via playing mindgames with that target. this is reflected in their entire skills list. they are also decent hexers, but necros have that part covered.

unfortunately, the AI do not have minds, and therefore cannot be tricked/forced. the mesmer will always be a second-rate necromancer in pve no matter what, because their core design is for screwing around with live human opponents, and there aren't any in pve. buffing skills will just make them more or less carbon copies of necromancers, in which case i'd rather they are not buffed. having this much redundancy is pointless.

Pretty bleak and unrealistic view. Never underestimate creativity. They have their similarities, but they are far from copies and don't have to be with buffs.

...........Why not?

What prevents, say, Panic from sending the enemies running for the hills by switching them over to the flee state sometimes used by low level NPCs? What prevents an Elite Domination spell from turning an enemy into a temporary ally? What prevents an illusion spell like Wandering Eye from making a target hit both enemies and allies with AoE effects?

AI doesn't have a mind, but it DOES obey certain, written code. Why can't mesmers have skills that mess with the code?

I won't even pretend that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to Mesmers, but it seems to me that Fast Casting should be looked at.

Beyond that, any suggestion I would make would be completely uneducated.

EDIT: Other ideas would be too work-intensive, such as changing whole mobs or enemy AI. I'm actually hoping for a viable skill/attribute-line fix.

Fast Casting should, at the very least, be changed to affect recharge times as well. It has the most useless inherent effect of all the primary attributes, by a large margin. Strength isn't all that great either, but that line actually has good skills to make up for it. FC is crap.

I wish this were a new idea, but it is not. People have requested such a change for years... why hasn't it ever been looked at? Make it pve-only; I don't care. As it stands, the only reason to play a primary mesmer is the clothes.

..... because the AI is not actually aware and therefore not intelligent?

mindgames only work on intelligent/sentient opponents, which basically forces them to juggle multiple possible losses. this either puts them into a panic, or force them to make mistakes in the optimization process. this has the greatest impact when in a drawn out fight, which btw, never happens in pve.

the AI is not truly intelligent, so it's impossible to play mindgames with them. yes, you can hard code them to suddenly go haywire when some mesmer spells land on them. however, that's just plain overpowered and will break the game. not to mention, that most certainly doesn't make people take mesmer primaries, since you can easily run all this on a necromancer. fast casting is pretty pointless in pve, since you rarely run into the risk of being interrupted.

neither need buff, do not nerf them unnecessary is all i ask (from a PvE point of view)

Buff Mesmers so people can stop talking about it and let the Eles have their time to whine. ^_^ The problem with PvE Mesmers is that their hex lineup just isn't as good for taking on more than one foe at a time as Necromancer hexes are. People aren't going to play or play with an inferior class just to show how pro they are and so Mesmers(and Mesmer heroes) are generally ignore. And so thats why you see all Necro hero teams rather than all Mesmer hero teams. Oh yeah and Necro heroes have built in energy management so no need to load up a skill to give you energy unless you really need to. I'm sure some guy with a kick ass Mesmer is going to yell at me for naysaying Mesmers but I've had mine for nearly 3 years and its been a mule for 2 1/2 of those years while I've played my Necro all 4 years(almost 4 years anyway) I've been playing GW.

I have mesmer and its one of my best pve chars... ppl who qq about mesmers just cant do builds without pvxwiki

Whisper me your super secret awesome pve builds i swear i wont tell anyone!

Not sure if either one needs a buff (they are great compared to dervs with their obvious issues) I find both classes useful in their own way. If I have to choose, then maybe Mes. Only reason is because it would spark ridicules if necro gets buffed. Majority of meta caster builds have Necro secondaries and a buff would only fuel that fire. In other words, buffing necro would only benefit all the other classes except necro primes.

Mesmers handdown.Because there is no shutdown build for Mesmer that can handle most situation.Mes need more skill to put in a bar to run efficiently.
A change in Fast casting line skill that provide some energy management would be nice so Mes can break away from Dom+Ins or Ill+Ins skill set.

This is the easiest thing they can do to promote mesmer play. Why not let them do what they were designed to do? I dont see any dramatic change in HM difficulty if fast cast (but not fast recharge) was removed, since its only effect was making human interrupts a laughable strategy when its not meant to be.