Mantras should have 3 charges, same as Firebrand

With the introduction of the grand master dueling trait 'Superiority Complex', and the removal of the previous trait 'Harmonious Mantras' which buffed mantras from 2 to 3 charges., mesmers lost the ability to increase mantra charges from 2 to 3. Firebrand was introduced with 3 charges baseline, shouldn't mesmer also have the same?

In fairness, afaict, Firebrand mantras don't have on-cast effects, while about half the mesmer ones do.

I mostly wish they were actually instant, it seems like the healing and dps mantras are the only ones without an annoying CD, which feels like it defeats the point of mantras.

@Cwnannwn.7681 said:In fairness, afaict, Firebrand mantras don't have on-cast effects, while about half the mesmer ones do.

I mostly wish they were actually instant, it seems like the healing and dps mantras are the only ones without an annoying CD, which feels like it defeats the point of mantras.

True but in all fairness, firebrand mantras have a final use effect which is significantly stronger than the charges before that. This mechanic is also way easier to use and work with in combat compared to a 2.75s cast midfight effect.

I agree but the problem is of course MoRecovery and (to a much lesser degree) MoResolve . I would definitely hate to lose the 2 times 3x Conie Cleanse , and have it only clease 2 Condies 3 times. In this huge condie spamming meta it's quite frankly already at a bare minimum to cleanse 3 condies at once for one button press. I've also died plenty of times waiting on that 1 second CD between MoR cleanses. The condie spam is completely out of control and having to actively press a button for nothing else but cleansing, really requires a decent amount of them be cleansed.

MoRecovery is even more complex though. The current mechanic is pretty decent when traited and with a little healing power. You get a sizeable heal on charging, and 2 mediocre instant ones that turn out quite decent if used under 50% health. Going back to 3 charges would mean lowering the heal per charge, and that again has consequences as the trade off for time spent pressing a button, and the return you get is hard to balance. For years the return was pretty sad and MoR was largely unused. Now it's become a much more reasonable trade-off, especially with the added dimension of the bigger heal below 50% health. Clearly with a 3x charge in it's current implementation would make it OPd, but lowering the heal values would also make it useless. (Increasing the CDs would be the only other option, and that again would cut into synergies elsewhere.)

In short, maybe all the underperforming Mantras should get 3 charges, just to see if that makes them more desirable. Although honestly, outside of MoDistraction, the others would be far better off with other improvements making the 2 charges stronger instead! For example, MoConcentration should give us Protection on charging, not a silly single and almost useless Aegis. I need something back for the damage I take for 2.25 seconds of charging time. :P

Yeah, honestly I'd absolutely give up the on-cast mechanic for a third charge.

It would, however, require a rework of restorative mantras, but maybe that's for the best as right now it kind of forces you to not recharge until the right time. I guess "on mantra activation" might be overpowered even if it's a lower amount of health spread out over casts.

@Windwalker.7421 That's not a problem anymore. Mantras use the ammo mechanic now. There's nothing stopping Anet from giving some mantras 3 charges, and leaving others at 2 charges. MoP for instance would be a good one to give a third charge to, but MoD would not. Power break could be given a third charge if it's reduced to 2 stacks of stab, and then also reduce the re-charge time to 25 seconds. It's possible to do this. There's nothing stopping Anet.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Cwnannwn.7681 said:In fairness, afaict, Firebrand mantras don't have on-cast effects, while about half the mesmer ones do.

I mostly wish they were actually instant, it seems like the healing and dps mantras are the only ones without an annoying CD, which feels like it defeats the point of mantras.

On top of firebrand having the final use effects that are significantly stronger, they have a trait to reduce the recharge time of the mantras. I would easily trade off the on-cast effects for an extra cast and reduced recharges.

With the minor trait 'power cleanse' (now lesser power cleanse) having cleanses reduced from 2 to 1 and at the same time removing the 3 charges, effectively reducing the number of cleanses on Mantra of Recovery from 6 to 2. I think we lost a lot more than we gained .. people would argue that the use of mantra of resolve is useless because of the necessity of skills like portal, decoy, and blink.

Superiority complex was added to increase PvE dps (removing harmonious mantras from the game) and I don't think mantras were used by the majority, or hardly at all outside of builds with mantra of distraction used to 1 shot other players. Is it just me or was that just a lack of thought on anets part for players who actually used mantras, or am I alone in this?

Also I tend to agree I don't think mantra of distraction should have 3 charges with the ammo mechanic, but outside of PvE it's almost always best to expend all of your charges as quickly as possible (mantra of recovery as needed, mantra of pain for bursting) and then renew them to gain the healing from the trait 'restorative mantras' and for this 2 charges simply isn't enough, and you end up wasting a huge amount of time recharging them mid-fight with little payback. (Restorative mantras even had the healing reduced considerably, by 36%)

Vanilla mesmer took a huge nerf after they changed power cleanse to lesser power cleanse, in this condi meta we are in it was very useful and on top of the ammo change giving mesmer mantras only two charges it makes it even harder for mesmers to survive against condi without having to spam every shatter when using restorative illusions. Using mantra of resolve is honestly not even a good choice to be taking as a utility, in my opinion it is just a huge waste of a slot if you are trying to solo roam in WvW. If the goal is to make mesmer have more dps in pve then they shouldn't take a very commonly used trait from players that use mantras for pvp/wvw. At the least, mesmer mantras should have a 3 count ammo charge just like firebrand, with the exception of mantra of distraction.

Make it 3 chargesRemove the ammo mechanicKeep the 2 1/4 sec cast.

That would be a nerf in prolonged fights

@OriOri.8724 said:That would be a nerf in prolonged fights

Not really, it's almost always worth expending every charge and renewing it to synergise with restorative mantras, the only thing it really affects is QoL for recharging them outside of combat.

@Andy.9137 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:That would be a nerf in prolonged fights

In a long duel with another player, a 2.25 sec cast is absolutely deadly to attempt to get off mid duel. Only safe way to do it would be to burn a skill for stab and hope it isn't stripped, or go into stealth, which would require weapon and/or skill investments that you may otherwise have skipped out on.

In PvE, a 2.25 sec cast will just throw off your DPS, and I don't think that any of the on-recharge effects are nearly strong enough to justify that.

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Andy.9137 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:That would be a nerf in prolonged fights

This.

We are long past the time where in-combat channels are in any way valuable enough to justify use. This might have been different during vanilla when most classes were unable to self apply all boons and burst you down or exploit a short break in offense (and even back then mantras were never overpowered or super good, they sort of worked during different iterations of balance patches or were totally useless). Now the payout for channeling mid-fight would have to be huge to even risk this. Clearly visible in the revamped Firebrand mantras and their power level compared to Mesmer mantras (and redesigned system where you are encouraged to not use the last charge until the very end of a fight or as big finisher or last resort).

For pve, well mantras were always at best gimmicky for pve and even then only the support mantras due to both better utility skills and weak performance.

I think too that firebrand mantras are better. I love the third more powerful activation skill more than the cast effect they made on mesmer (after all mantras aren"t really designed to be cast in the middle on the fight with 2 seconds of activation). But i do think they would to make the same skill types diferents, or better to elite specs. For instance look at chronomancer wells, they are far better than necromancer wells (both cooldown and damage/utlity) with firebrand's mantra they have gived the elite spec better mantras mechanics and skills than mesmer that's all. It seems that they want to have elite spec using more powerfull skills type than the regular ones (necromancer wells still wait to be buffed to be on line with chronomancer'ones).

1,5 sec Cast time , maximum is 1,75

Another idea is to stop the Cast but instead give a time window u need to concentrate.

Example cleanse Mantra ; Channel Cast = instant activation triggering the "channel effect" = 2 sec ResistanceAfter 5 seconds, cleanse get avaible. -> u dont need to channel the mantra, but it needs time to get active. U can use both cleanses, and ur Mantra is on Cooldown.After cooldown reactivating gives resistance again and prepares Cleanses..period.

For the inspiration trait ; Heal allies arround u, when using a Mantra charge. Double(WvW,sPvP)[Tripple(PvE)] the Heal when finishing the preperation for a Mantra.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Andy.9137 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:That would be a nerf in prolonged fights

But isn’t this a symptom of the problem though and that is combat pace got faster and faster till the trait rework where mantras were clunky but worth considering. Then HoT came and you’re 100% one second and 3s later you died to condition damage with this trend continuing for power and condition damage, where if you happen to have a split second of losing focus you’re already down.

I think Arena Net need to slow the combat down a little where skills have cast times, time to react and cool downs which mean something. Before someone else says it, no it doesn’t mean it becomes bunker wars, we had bunker meta at HoT launch precisely because of the low cool downs on all the new defences.

Edit: Before someone leaps down my throat, no that doesn’t mean I think mantras are fine as is or anything else. Just saying they’re from a time when combat was slower and that a return to a slower pace may actually be just the fix they need rather than powering them up as the current suggestions are.

@apharma.3741 I would love it if combat slowed down. I think that a lot skills in the game could easily have 1/4 sec cast times added, if only in PvP/WvW, to slow combat down pretty significantly. It would have to be carefully balanced though. Instant cast skills should remain more or less the same, and a lot of interrupts shouldn't have their cast times increased. Then at the other end of the scale you have already slow but strong attacks that definitely don't need longer cast times.

Also, reducing access to quickness would go some way in slowing down combat for some builds, but it would not affect everyone.