User talk:Raine Valen/Mass Balance/Mesmer/Skills/Domination Magic

Index

Backfire

Raine's Proposal

Lightning Hammer, deals same damage and is non dodgable like this, costs 25 energy vs 5 - Wuhy 17:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It cost 0 before, tbh. Raine - talk 20:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Maintaining hexes is quite fucking passive. Dumb idea. Dark Morphon 11:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

You put a whole lot of reasoning there.

Here's why making passive hexes maintainable is a good idea:

1. It pressures energy. Currently, a mesmer can pretty much solo (or completely shut down, which is almost as bad) three people with VoR, Backfire, and Empathy with a whopping -0- drawback. An upkeep cost, at the very least, prevents them from spamming Wastrel's Worry as hard.
2. It promotes awareness. The fact that the user has the option to drop it under undesirable circumstances makes this skill better in the hands of better players.

Anyway. I changed the upkeep to a hard (scaling) duration. While it may not be "fire and forget", it's still "fire and for 10 seconds you have no control over it", which doesn't promote awareness nearly as much. Raine - talk 00:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes. It pressures your energy. I highly doubt people will want to cast/attack through hexes like this, even if it drains the Mesmer's energy. Furthermore, you will only force people to use energy management skills such as Lyssa's Aura (won't work with VoR, obviously) which is just a build choice. Drawbacks only really affect a build's usage if that drawback is a choice you have to make during the battle.

"Undesirable conditions"? You mean when the damage really starts kicking in? I wouldn't call that undesirable. Being drained is a price I'd happily pay for seeing my opponent die.

Your energy cost changes will of course affect these passive Domination Magic hexes. However, they will still be passive. It's like Protective Bond, really. Totally unused because it's so expensive and beside that still extremely passive. There really is little you can change about that unless you completely turn around the skill's function. Making an overpowered skill a dubious skill will at best kill it, at worst force the player into even more passive play. Also note how maintained hexes aren't an existing mechanic. It's aesthetically unpleasing to make a new mechanic just for a few skills. Dark Morphon 09:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I should probably explain why it will people to be even more passive. A skill that costs you shitloads of energy will obviously limit your ability to use other skills, meaning you will cast less spells in general and less expensive, active ones in particular. Conclusion: you will play more passively if you take the skill which is boring. So while you may make the skill itself somewhat more thoughtful, it will yield a negative effect for the rest of your bar concerning activity and skillful play. Dark Morphon 07:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wastrel's Worry

Raine's Proposal

Disabling SOME random skill on some1's bar is rather passive and fire and forget. Dark Morphon 11:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It's also madly overpowered with that kinda recharge. Wouldn't mind to have the skill though. BlazeRick 07:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

With raine's proposal, you could just time the hex ending with the skills recharging, and just keep someone shutdown forever. With some small energy management, you could easily have permanant blackout on someone. Vald [Citation Needed] 12:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

your proposals

no. just no. backfire is only good against spammers and spells with long casting times so once you get in high end pvp this is useless because they don't spam (most non gimicky build) . and its underpowered. it doesn't even come close to shutdown. diversion is better shutdown.longer to. really. Empathy doesn' do what it was intended to do: shut down attackers. there is nothing more squishy than an mesmer. this is their defense and the other semi-squishies. ow and good warriors only attack with important skills if they have it like it is now. or still join in the spike because good monk is gud. vor is according to you a weaker maintained version of diversion. and i wouldn't mind vor in that version cast upon me because you are still going to get spiked. only usuable against pressure and even then underpowered. the maintained version is cool but underpowered. altough i cannot give any remarks on WW i still like the old version more. I understand that you want to make the mesmer more tool instead of dammage but what's wrong with shutdown and damage as punishment instead of what you are trying to do is shutdown and as punishment more shutdown. ow and youre "fixes" make mesmers in PvE obsolete because e-denial is impossible. intterupts are handy but a ranger would be better then because it still does damage. yes there are some problems with mesmers especially hex stacking but this doesn't even come close to fixing. it's more a "make everyone who plays mesmer bore himself to death" I often play mesmer and no not in high-end PvP but i know the problems are worst there. But what i like about mesmers is the interrupting. it makes me feel like i accomplished something. and killing people because of there own stupidity. Frankly a warrior dying of empathy deserves to die AND be perma-banned. And his monk to btw. Do you know how it feels to play and never see your impact in the form of yellow numbers? just try it, it sucks. A mesmer is really powerfull in the right hands. but now now not-so-good people can enjoy it to. you're just lying the bar higher and thats a bad thing. ps: yes my english sucks correct it if you want to. Rhonin Soren 20:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Most people know I don't care for Backfire, I've always thought it was more of a "learning" or "baby" skill for mesmers that they quickly grow out of when the become better at the game. But I will defend it by asking why would you change Backfire to mimic these skills Guilt and Mistrust? Backfire is fine how it is, so is Empathy...both are easily interupted, energy costs are fine, good players know how to deal with them, bad players get destoyed by them, blah blah. The issue is not these 2 skills...its the combination of them as they go with hex stacking and the lack of strong hex removal in GW. VOR is more the issue because its actual game state does waaay too much, and when covered by Empathy (I see mesmers stick Empathy on casters all the time as a cover hex) or Wastrel's (especially Wastrel's), it becomes insane...especially when your only real defense against Wastrel's is to use a skill, which VOR does not allow. Changing VOR would be a better solution.

Now to the person who posted above me: as for mesmers in pve...they have more value than just yellow numbers...but if yellow numbers are a must these skills work well when used together in pve: Arcane Echo, Chaos Storm, Energy Surge. Shut down is still a great option...I get thanked on the rare occasions that Yassie bothers to soil her armors to pve. Shut down, when done right, makes pew pew easier for my team mates. Just a thought.--*Yasmin Parvaneh* 21:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I personaly think backfire is not a baby skill but a skill who stays usefull even in high-end PvP because of it's shutdown ad PvE because stupid AI is stupid. Chaos storm is useless. max 150 damage and AI is smart enough to move out of it. energy surge is good that's true. but coupled with arcane echo it let's you do good damage only it takes long to recharge and is quite energy-intensive. yes empathy and backfire is to but they do more damage. Two spells onder backfire does more damage dan a full chaos storm or 2 energy surge (without AoE). In PvE you make pew pew easier yes but sometimes i wanna quit being the subtillity incarnated and just pew pew myself. these spell allow me to do that. I Don't think Vor is a problem. it's a really strong skill but then again it's one of the atually powerfull ELITE mesmer skills. The stcking with wastrels worry is a bit solved with the last change to vor where they splitsed the damage (that promoted smart play and nerfed hexstacking)

I do agree the real problem is hexstacking and that needs solving. Why don't they go WoW on those skills? something like in vor you add. when this skill ends this person is immune to vor and backfire for 10 sec. it prevents chaining. ande to stacking: for every hex on you, you take (x-1)*25% less damage. where x is the number of hexes. With vor and empathy and you use cure hex you take 35 damage with domination at 16 (or 75 depends on what activates first damage or removal) and you get healed by 30 with healing at 0. Rhonin Soren 10:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)