Skill Activation Cap & Mindbender

So I haven't heard any discussion on this in the other thread on the update.

The changes seem to be going reasonably well for mesmers in pve, I certainly notice mesmer mobs more and bringing a mesmer hero seems more attractive now. However it's hard to say for pvp this early on.

One thing I don't understand though was the addition of the skill activation cap and the nerf to Mindbender. According to A-Net:
More valuable? So wait. They made everyone else cast slower in an effort to entice us to make mesmers if we want to cast more quickly? Doesn't that sound a little odd to anyone else? It's like, "Oh hey! I bought you a new toy, but lets break your old one first so you can play with the new one instead!"

Mindbender was a skill common to all professions. Mesmers could use it too. It wasn't an overpowered skill either. But it was nerfed either because mesmers casted too quickly with it or Anet did it to make fast casting "more valuable", whatever that is supposed to mean. To me it seems completely unnecessary. Mindbender found a place on many ele and necro builds due to their slow casting speed on some spells so I assume it's because Anet felt this use was overpowered. Overpowered against whom? The AI mobs? Did they have difficulty interrupting us when we used Mindbender? At 20% now, I really see little reason why this skill should take up a skill slot.

And what about the new cap in general? There aren't a lot of skills that reduce casting speed but the two that draw my attention are: Healer's Boon and Holy Haste. These two skills no longer stack to give 75% activation reduction. There weren't a lot of builds that utilized the two but they did exist. I feel this was a harsh change where healing with speed was essential.

It seems to me that with the recent update Anet feels that casting quickly should be the sole province of the mesmer. I obviously don't think that was a good decision. What does everyone else think?

it's because a bunch of mesmer lovers whined that mindbender, cons and candies allowed non-mesmers to cast super fast, making fast cast trivial.

Wait, so we should nerf cons that give energy too because that makes Energy Storage trivial?

It's not like mesmers can't use the same cons/skills/candies/whatever.

Mindbender takes a Second and saves me 20% aka 1 Second if I use Metoer shower.

So basically Mindbender is just a waste of a Slot in many Elementalists builds.

I agree with anet. mesmers should cast quickly. If another prof wanted to do it, there should be a bigger drawback. Aka healer's boon being an elite (and applying only to healing spells) and holy haste restricting the use of enchantments are examples. One simple PvE slot with no other drawbacks is not enough of a drawback in my opinion.

Wrong.

Mindbender applies to more than 1 skill. So it would save more seconds than its casting time.

Apart from that, I still don't find it a useful skill. (not worthy of a slot in a skillbar)

The problem is that Mesmers were supposed to be the fast casters. The existence of all those cast speed and recharge boosters essentially made mesmers be nothing special in PvE. That's what the update addressed.

lol, think about it. 75% reduction? that's a little broken. the update broght fastcasting back into being more in line with mostly mesmers, the way it should be.

This.

After that, nerf cons that give damage reduction / armor boost, because that makes playing a high armored class trivial.

Good job Anet i say, eles are powerful BUT as a consequnce of that have much slower casting times so can be interrupted easier by pve mobs. Mesmers were used less as theit primary gain could be achieved by the use of sweets by other professions, effectivly rendering the profession useless compared to the others.

Well done anet, you've taken in the views of many players and acted effectively on them in a fair update. This so called "nerf", has not effected sc's whatsoever, its just simply balanced the professions out to make mesmers seen attractive again

I dont mind the skill activation cap, and overall I liked the update. But I was really disappointed Mindbender was nerfed. You wouldnt think it, but I could tell a big difference between 33% and 20% activation times.

That's because it was 50%, not 33%.

if there's enough whiners, cons will no longer give energy bonus (energy storage) or armor bonus (warrior/paragon) too.

Well if cons gave +50 energy and +30 armor, you might have a point.

A lot of these changes will be nerfed/buffed soon.

I'd wait a few weeks before getting overly concerned.Anet does this all the time.

I think it is a great idea. Anet made a good move doing this.

Think about it. Every profession has their own specific thing for their class. Mesmers are the fast casters. Before the update, any class could be a fast caster making Mesmers' fast casting useless. Anet put it back to the way it should be.

If you feel that Mesmers shouldn't be the only ones allowed to fast cast, then do that with every profession then. That means every profession should be allowed to have high energy with energy storage and that we should all gain energy when something dies, also lets reduce the cost of all our spells cause Rangers can and all those other classes shouldn't be allowed to have those abilities for themselves cause it is unfair to the other professions.

Mesmers being the fast casters is exactly how it should be. Every profession has their "niche", this is theirs'.

Like someone else said earlier, other casters have more powerful spells than Mesmers, so as a consequence, they cast slower. Mesmer spells aren't as powerful as others, so they rely on fast casting to dish out spells faster to do equal damage.

I can't wait to see what they do to scythe/spear to compensate.

On Topic: I was one of the people who pointed out in the big QQ thread that Mindbender was equivalent to 15FC. That being said in my opinion the skill was basically a non-issue. Unlike Rock Candy it was not the cornerstone of SC builds and was strippable. I would have liked to see a nerf to Mindbender along the lines of...

For 10...15(16) seconds, you move 20...30(33)% faster and your spells take 10...30(33)% less time to cast.

I always wondered why it was movement speed and not casting time that was scaled anyways, now even more so.

In PvP half of mesmers were basically playing other classes with fast casting. You could say this is a nod in that direction, although with the <1s stuff being removed, hard to say.

You really don't see why Mindbender was nerfed? It gave every profession the equivalent of 15 ranks in Fast Casting. If there was a skill that gave anyone 15 ranks in Critical Strikes, Expertise, or Soul Reaping, I guarantee you'd be crying for a nerf.

As I've stated a few times in the "fix Eles" thread; if you're so concerned about getting your spells off faster, use a 40/40 set. They're free from collectors, and very easy to come by. If that's still not good enough, use the new Mindbender or Rock Candies in combination with the 40/40 set. The revamped Mindbender is still the equivalent of 5 ranks in Fast Casting. If that isn't good enough...I don't know what to tell you. Bring Glyph of Sacrifice.

Definately agree with mindbender nerf....like others have said above....what if there was a "soulbender skill", a "criticalbender skill", a "divinebender skill"...etc etc....that gave you the equivalent of 15 in any profession's primary. It needed to be nerfed.