Feedback talk:User/Tounaku/Mesmer Skill Suggestions

Split them for PvP only. Cuilan 22:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

iirc, people complained that AI-controlled mesmers were too strong in PvE after the buffs. I think this would be a welcome change there, no? — Raine Valen 22:49, 26 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Those complaints were pretty much all before the buffs and these changes wouldn't be welcome at all by human controlled mesmers. Cuilan 02:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I distinctly recall people complaining after the buffs about "Roaring Ethers tearing their parties apart" and about how "playing physical professions had become nigh impossible".

I think that the combined number of physical players is greater than the number of mesmer players, so this change would be a positive by a pretty large margin. — Raine Valen 2:18, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Well, I normally make suggestions here for PvP environments simply because I hardly play PvE. But now when I remember Roaring Ethers and how Domination buff ridiculousness must've broken them beyond repair I wonder how it actually has been going with Mesmers in general for PvE. For now I'll just slot all of these suggestions under PvP and what will be will be--and by that I mean probably nothing will happen based on the current activity of Guild Wars updates lately. Tounaku 02:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Creating imbalance to cater to the most used professions does not create balance. People should be allowed to contribute well to a party no matter what the profession. Cuilan 05:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Creating imbalance? I'm trying to break up some of the overpowered points of Mesmers with these ideas. The problem with Mesmers right now is that anyone can play them and they can essentially beat anything under a lot of different circumstances. Changing some of the properties (mostly the amount of damage) of their most abused skills should help bring them down to size. 198.183.227.139 17:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In PvP, but your silly PvP updates keep spilling into PvE. Cuilan 23:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You think that balance doesn't matter in PvE. It's a personal choice, but, as long as you're of that belief, nothing we say will convince you that you are wrong. — Raine Valen 3:10, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

No, balance matters a lot in PvE. That's why it's bad to have too many PvP nerfs spill into PvE for many of the professions. Cuilan 14:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that nerfing an OP skill is the only way to balance it, right? — Raine Valen 14:42, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely and that's it would be bad for balance to hit too many mesmer skills. Cuilan 15:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You guys realize that split PvP and PvE skills exist, right?? These suggestions are primarily for PvP only. 192.152.29.110 15:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what? Could you explain how nerfing OP mesmer skills is bad for game balance? — Raine Valen 18:30, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

RESET INDENT I think he's saying that if these skill changes were to be implemented then PvE Mesmers would suffer because the majority of them are nerfs. What I'm saying is that these are PvP-only skill change suggestions and PvE Mesmers can stay just as broken as they are right now for all I care. Just split the skills and problem solved. Tounaku 19:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Only suggested that these were to be PvP only because they are not the over powered skills or professions to look at in PvE. I don't see how that's hard to understand, but I'll leave it at that (hopefully). Cuilan 21:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

"they are not the over powered skills or professions to look at in PvE"

Mesmers are overpowered everywhere. In PvE, they are the hands-down best shutdown in the game and do more damage than anything else right now (excluding MAYBE DwG rits and spirit turrets, which are both also ridiculous), especially in Hard Mode, since they ignore all balancing factors.

The fact that they're not the biggest problems is just downright sad. However, instead of making everything as broken as imbagons (which are ridiculous), the already-OP stuff needs to be toned down. A lot. — Raine Valen 21:21, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

They are very far from the best damage dealers in the game and fall bellow many professions. Some of those are strong individual skills, but you've clearly have little idea what's all in PvE or how the builds work together. It's nice that the profession can finally do its job after well and in a useful way after five years of the game being out. Wastrel's Demise isn't even that strong and requires many skills to go with it. Cuilan 21:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Yup, 150 damage spammable AoE spikes are weak. Wastrel's Demise requires many weak skills to be effective. They absolutely cannot deal large amounts of damage while hampering their enemies. Good thing you know what mesmers can do. Koda Kumi 22:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

All while the physicals (one example) are doing more. WD isn't a spike and in general PvE play it very often won't have any AoE from it's narrow range. Cuilan 22:41, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Name a physical build that averages ~180 AoE armor-ignoring DPS. — Raine Valen 22:51, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Wastrel's: you can just use skills to counter it.

You can run Panic, dual wastrel's, and channeling – those four skills will out-damage AND out-shutdown any ele build until there are only a couple of mobs left (at which point it doesn't matter). Tabbing wastrel's does amounts of damage that can only be described as "insane", and you'll never run out of energy because Channeling is also ridiculous. On top of that, you can take *any other four skills you want*. Cry is just amazing with Panic, since it syncs up mobs' skill timing for triggers. Mistrust does even more smammable damage while also letting Wastrel's trigger more. That leaves you two more skill slots for a res and broken PvE skill of your choice. I don't even bother with a PvE skill; I just take Ether Signet so I can spam Wastrel's on solo mobs.

If you can't outdamage every other profession as a mesmer, you're doing something wrong. — Raine Valen 22:51, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

If you're using Channeling, you're in DoA with a niche clear tactic which isn't nearly as fast as others and in normal mode. If you think mesmers are some epic damage dealer, you have very low expectations. Spamming Wastrel spells on a solo foe proves that, as someone of another profession can just kill it on the spot. Cuilan 23:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Channeling works everywhere! If you've got 4 foes in the area, you won't run out of energy spamming 5e spells on recharge.

If you think ~180 AoE armor-ignoring DPS (between 3 skills) and mass shutdown is anything short of "absurd", well. — Raine Valen 23:18, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

That's really poor number crunching there. Cuilan 00:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Wastrel's Worry on recharge is 100 DPS after the first 3 seconds, ideally (damage each second, starting at 0: 0, 0, 0, 100, 100, etc.). Wastrel's Demise on recharge averages 150 damage per second (at maxed fast casting) after the first 5 seconds (damage each second, starting at 0: 0, 10, 30, 60, 100, 150, 150, etc). I cut about a third off of the max possible damage (250/second) out of conservatism: if panic isn't interrupting properly, you'll get proportionally less damage. On the other hand, I didn't account for things like Mistrust thrown into mobs on recharge, so 180 is really a low number. — Raine Valen 1:01, 1 Oct 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) @ Cuilan: I like the bit about how mesmers can finally do their job. Do you know what a mesmer's job is? It's not big domages and huge spammable aoe shutdown, I promise. -- Tha Reckoning 02:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

They would either go back to being considered worthless or have people struggle if shutdown and the like were made stronger from damage nerfs. Neither of the two Wastrel spells are broken in PvE. Cuilan 07:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

They would be considered worthless by people who are bad at this game, which is most of the playerbase. Koda Kumi 10:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Then feel free to suggest ways to make mesmer skills much stronger instead of damage, even though such stuff isn't efficient or useful in normal mode when you can just slam everything with synergy, big damages, and the like. PvE isn't designed and was never designed well to make things worth disrupting and especially so with large mobs and spam. It's about damage and damage mitigation. The profession has been a damage profession for a very long time (although really really poor). A lot of it is because they were never adapted for PvE from the start or had many options given to them. Cuilan 12:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Cuilan is right, and you're all wrong. When it comes to PvE, you don't need to rupt, you need to kill. Last time I checked, you needed Obsidian Flesh and Shadowform for WD/WW to be of any use to you in PvE; monsters will cast through VoR and whatever other Reactive Shit you place on them. So no, they shouldn't be changed for PvE. VoR is a reactive hex, which slowly pressures the AI into killing itself; again, ever so slowly. Panic is a fun gimmick, but not useful in many areas without large mobs. PI is a skill you missed, which is better than everything you've mentioned for shutdown. Rethink it a bit, think about how often skills are used and how they're AI not humans kk?95.122.20.56 12:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) In PvE, you need to kill. That's why you spam Wastrel's and Mistrust. In order to get high returns out of Wastrel's, you need mass shutdown. That's why you use Panic. In order to get the best returns out of Panic, you need an AoE rupt. That's why you use Cry (which, incidentally, also does stupid damage). Rupting -> best shutdown -> best damage. With OUR POWERS COMBINED, we get stupid damage and stupid shutdown at 0 opportunity cost. If you're just running a build that does stupid damage, you're missing out on the stupid shut down that you could have also had (unless you're running Manly Spike or something, in which case it doesn't matter because everything dies in two hits, anyway).

If you're not running a coordinated team build, there's nothing that an individual member of the party can do that competes both offensively and defensively. — Raine Valen 19:21, 1 Oct 2010 (UTC)

Also, "Rethink it a bit, think about how often skills are used and how they're AI not humans kk?"

"think about how often skills are used"

"often skills"

Houston, we have made contact. — Raine Valen 2:00, 2 Oct 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you read this before saying more shit like "you dont need to interrupt svanaheat just let monks waste all their energy lol". Also, If you interrupt or prevent a skill from being casted, the skill has not been used at all, and Wastrel's will continue to do damage. Koda Kumi 14:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Or the foe would simply cast another spell or recast right after along with skills other foes are using. The other players will be attacking (auto-attacking even) or casting for big damage constantly. Cuilan 14:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

"Or the foe would simply cast another spell or recast right after along with skills other foes are using."

Sup. — Raine Valen 19:24, 1 Oct 2010 (UTC)

That skill is much more limited than you think and is one skill. Either way, it does not support your argument. Cuilan 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

"Or the foe would simply cast another spell or recast right after along with skills other foes are using."

"cast another spell right along with skills are other foes are using"

"cast [...] with [...] other foes"

"Interrupts all other foes"

I hope you can see why your argument is invalid? — Raine Valen 5:01, 2 Oct 2010 (UTC)

I actually use the skill and you're pretending as if everything is or can be Perma balled. Cuilan 05:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming a proper pull and some basic skills like kiting, you can kill a mob's entire frontline with WW without even touching Panic. Fortunately, since mobs all run together due to terrible AI, you can usually hit a team's entire front/mid/backline before the melee separates from the casters and ranged damage. After WWing out frontline, you can reapply panic on the still-balled mid/backline (unless you're running AoE DoTs, which just cause scatter) and tab-WW them out in the same fashion. Or, if you're doing serious PvE, you can just tanknspank it like a baws. Mesmers nuke harder than eles, so it works.

I steamrolled Nightfall using panic/WW/overload (this was before Wastrel's Demise, which is even better than Overload because it synergises with Panic), and the only places I had to modify my strategy were those in which the objective did not primarily consist of "kill everything" (in fact, I only had problems with Dzwhatever bastion, and I pugged that with hero monks).

Point is, there's like 1 situation where panic/wastrel's doesn't roll everything. — Raine Valen 5:43, 2 Oct 2010 (UTC)

Um, welcome to PvE? I don't see what difference it makes to you. It just makes your PvE builds better. People will appreciate your pro mesmer skills even more than before. If wanding is fun...wand. If using a PvP build creates a sense of superiority...nice. And even before the update everyone and their mom damaged better than your average elementalist player. Cuilan 18:04, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't give two shits in a hankie about making mesmers more useful, but mesmers weren't made for damage and have only very recently taken over that role, due to Anet's heads being so far up their asses that I can't tell if they're eating or taking a dump. This was engineered as a pvp game, and in pvp, mesmers were for shutdown, particularly 1:1 shutdown (what's balance?). Most people don't appreciate what mesmers can do because they have no idea how to use them. They're not useful in pve because it's so easy to abuse a.i. with tanknspank. It's nothing to do with mesmers and everything to do with being able to abuse computers. Mesmers were fine before they got that initial makeover however long ago it was, and they need to go back to being that way. -- Tha Reckoning 13:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

PvP=/=PvE. It is a completely_different_game. 4v4/8v8 human battles with objectives opposed to 4-8 v Anything from one foe to a hundred? Thanks for linking me to the QQ thread; I lol'd. Diversion is useless in PvE, the foe shouldn't be staying alive for more than 5 seconds, the skill is therefore wasted. If you want to prevent damage, you use prots. Protective Spirit is all you need in these situations while your team nuke the hell out of the mob. Domination causes damage, Illusion deals with the better hexes. And lol, you don't need to rupt Savannah Heat; you need to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE AOE SPELL RANGE c? You use mesmers' shutdown skills if you're a bad player. You nuke things down if you're still alive. QED.81.32.178.243 14:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

"It is a completely_different_game."

Is it better than Guild Wars? Because I'm looking for a new game. But, seriously. PvE and PvP share the same basic mechanics. An interrupt in PvE and an interrupt in PvP do the same thing: they stop a skill from happening. In PvE, I recommend it because it makes Wastrel's explode everything. It's not the same reason that you do it in PvP (because PvE is terribly designed), but it is the same procedure.

"Diversion is useless in PvE, the foe shouldn't be staying alive for more than 5 seconds, the skill is therefore wasted."

Again, a showcase of PvE's bad design. Diversion is the best skill in the game at one of the most important functions in the game: shutting down key skills. The thing is, in PvE, there aren't key skills (save for a very rare few, like what's-his-face's storm of judgment or whatever, which people use Diversion against) because of bad design. This isn't solved by giving mesmers big yellow numbers so that they can compete in other professions' niche; this is solved by fixing PvE. It's a lot more work, yeah, but breaking the game in an attempt to fix the game sure as hell isn't the way to go.

"If you want to prevent damage, you use prots. Protective Spirit is all you need in these situations while your team nuke the hell out of the mob."

That is a lie.

"Domination causes damage"

This is true. It's against mesmers' basic design, sadly, but it's true.

"Illusion deals with the better hexes"

This is a subjective claim with no reasoning. I personally think Panic is the best mesmer hex in PvE because it's a retarded amount of shutdown.

"And lol, you don't need to rupt Savannah Heat; you need to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE AOE SPELL RANGE c?"

c. Do people do it, though? d. Epic d. Hell, a good portion of players aren't that smart (I am not exaggerating; I have monked for pugs). On top of that, though, you're also discounting the validity of, say, Aegis: why do you need block if you can kite or dodge physical damage? Obviously, this is a flawed mentality because some damage will always go through. Shutdown decreases that damage, just as prot does.

tl;dr mesmers shouldn't be purple eles, they should be able to do their actual job and be effective. — Raine Valen 4:12, 2 Oct 2010 (UTC)

As a friendly reminder, GWW:NPA. No one's broken it yet, and it'd be cool if it stayed that way. — Raine Valen 19:21, 1 Oct 2010 (UTC)

No response? 81.32.178.243 19:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

[1]. — Raine Valen 20:11, 1 Oct 2010 (UTC)

tl;dr version: B'AAWWW, PvE is imbalanced and I want to be a purple Elementalist because I don't understand the alternative concept of preventing damage and disabling enemies. Tounaku 01:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Nerfing everything about mesmers won't improve balance. You may want mesmers to be non-damage, but in PvE they have always been and mostly everyone on this page seems to ignore that. They're the risk and high reward profession (why they have reactive damage, which isn't the same as just slamming a foe dead to make it stop casting). Also, just because you're doing damage does not mean you're not playing as a mesmer, as nearly all the skills from the update kept their mesmer qualities. They do have a couple good non-damage builds that use conditions, but they aren't your typical PvP builds. Cuilan 05:26, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Shatter Storm

I'd give it an initial ench removal (and some moderate 70-ish damage on successful removal) on top of the hex application, increase the damage (40? 45?), and make it conditional on successful enchantment removal (no ench removed, no damage). This way, Shatter can be dropped (otherwise, balanced spikes suffer) and it can't just be thrown onto an altar for damage (pls no more heats). — Raine Valen 14:49, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

That's actually what I wanted initially--well, except for the initial enchant strip but I think that would be a worthwhile addition. I guess the wording was a bit vague. Thanks, I'll change it. Tounaku 19:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds useful to me, but maybe overpowered in PvP and very similar to "Air of Disenchantment"... I also like "simple thievery", on Fast Cast Attribute for using the Spell on your own. --Kali Shin Shivara 17:13, 3 October 2010 (UTC)