How Mesmer Design Was Ruined In Gw2

I 've been reading this article for some time and i must agree with the writer. I believe all mesmers including former Gw1 players will agree with it as well. That the mesmer in Gw1 stayed true to its core while the mesmer in Gw2 completely defied what they were created to be.That the messmer in Gw2 is a made up mesmer profession which completely goes against its original design in every way. Mesmer in Gw1 were not 1 shot wonders, not condi specs, not stealth specs, not teleport specs, not boon share specs, not power specs, no gimmick specs at all. 'Mesmers weren’t tanks or healers or DPS. They weren’t exactly support, either… and all their abilities carried...'

( This is the reason why Mesmer need to be redesigned - to return to their core roots; the way they were created to be, meant to be )

I am proud to present this article to the mesmer community including former Gw1 community, to share their thoughts about this article.(All non former Gw1 players included)

Here goes-copy+paste+edit with link ( i tried my best to edit bad words; if i left any, please let me know :) )

http://www.toptiertactics.com/14669/guild-wars-2-how-arenanet-ruined-the-mesmer/#axzz4zdIHMl8V

'With Guild Wars 2 on the ever-nearing horizon and the beta access weekends over, it only makes sense that the Guild Wars fanbase is in a veritable frenzy. Their much anticipated title is sooo close, and it’s promising to bring back everything that made the original great… only better.'

'The world is more persistent! The characters are more customizable! PvP is more grandiose! There are still lots of kitten minipets! It would seem everything was improved.'

'Everything, that is, except for the Mesmer.'

The Mesmer: Lyssa’s master of trickery and trolling

'Players new to the Guild Wars franchise, of course, have no clue what I’m talking about. Kitten, even players who purchased the original Guild Wars may not have ever played Mesmer. And while that’s a crime in at least twelve Western nations, I’ll overlook it and offer a recap instead.'

Enter the Mesmer

'Mesmers weren’t tanks or healers or DPS. They weren’t exactly support, either… and all their abilities carried this kinky S&M undertone.'

'It all stemmed from the fact that Mesmers worshipped Lyssa, the goddess of trickery, subterfuge, and being two beautiful women at once. As a matter of course, Mesmer spells and abilities were often fast, conditional, and convoluted (as opposed to the Paragon’s fairly simple buff/debuff shouts). You might cast an enchantment that sped you up, only to slow you to a crawl a few seconds later. You could hex a foe with a curse that would damage them for casting a spell. Or hex them with something that would hurt them if they didn’t cast a spell. Or you could just disable all their spells and emote /laugh at them from a distance.'

It was a kitten breath of fresh air.

'The Mesmer was so special, it was only natural this profession would return for Guild Wars 2. And as each class was revealed for the sequel, fans pleaded and prayed and burnt offerings to Lyssa hoping for the Mesmer’s return.'

Be careful what you wish for…

'After months of waiting and whining, Guild Wars aficionados were treated to the huge surprise that the Mesmer had returned in the sequel. Finally, players could rejoice knowing their troll-tastic arts would once again flitter around Tyria, tauning player and NPC enemies alike. But as the reveal trailer slowly demonstrated, the Memser forgot to pack a lot of the tricks she learned in the previous four campaigns. Her interrupts, delay tactics, punishments, and guile were all gone. In their stead were flashy animations and something ArenaNet called Illusions.'

'What were Illusions, exactly? Why, they were clones/phantasms created by the Mesmer that did minor damage or caused debuffs. Players could summon them as distractions or detonate them for damage/effects, but they’d always die when the Mesmer’s original target expired.'

'While this may still sound cool in theory, the Guild Wars 2 beta weekends quickly proved the Mesmer’s gameplay mechanic was more underwhelming than a Gimmick Game unboxing'. 'Yes, it was that bad. Within hours of booting up the beta, hundreds of players shared similar complaints:'

• lists

Taking every page out of the profession’s playbook

'Don’t know what I’m talking about? You see, from Guild Wars 1 to 2, most of the carry-over classes kept the elements that defined them. Rangers still have pets and distance-based damage. Necros can still profit from death. Warriors still bash stuff with steel, and Elementalists still run away when the group needs help. These basic RPG mainstays got to keep all their cool features.'

'Meanwhile, the Mesmer lost every single defining aspect of the profession. Here’s a list of stuff the Mesmer did in Guild Wars but conveniently forgot how to do in the sequel:'

• lists

'Sure, the Mesmer in Guild Wars 2 can inflict debuffs (as conditions) and punish players for acting (as a generic, boring “Confusion” condition), but there’s no trickery. No guile. No Lyssa loving. The Mesmer’s entire box of tricks has been scrapped for an Illusion mechanic that is shallow, repetitive, and ineffective'

'And unlike the built-in profession abilities of the Engineer, Elementalist, or even the Thief, the Mesmer’s Illusions don’t give her lots of different options.' 'They really give her just one:'

'Bore the player to tears.'

as a guild wars 1 mesmer main, i disagree

now what?

GW2 mesmers were fine, but only because when the game first came out, people didn't know how to deal with them, and the illusions held aggro

now it feels like it doesn't matter if they have aggro in pve, and in pvp it's a joke because of how quickly you can tell where the real mesmer is

minus the fact that they're the best dueling class, which still does stay true to the original mesmer of being a master of manipulation and domination

Guild Wars 1 was all about specifics, the hexes and skill effects where extremely "this does this"

Guild Wars 2 has a completely different feel to the game; it's more about a global "everyone has access to every or most things but in different ways"

Guild Wars 2 mesmer is a mess, i'll agree there

but.... the "failing to stay true to the original" doesn't work as an argumentit's an entirely different combat system DESIGNED to be different

they've been slowly adding in buffs/debuffs that are "read this or you won't know what it does" like GW1 had, rather than adding new condis/boons and then spreading them out to multiple classes in varying amounts

so maybe we could see something cool in the future for an e-spec or even non-espec if they decide to go that route, but i honestly didn't ever once have a problem with the direction they went with mesmer when the game came out (when this was posted) and i'm definitely still okay with how they would feel, if they just finally fixed most of our core issues

i only see a problem with the way they decided to execute, and continue to fail towards making it work with itself...

I don't get this thread, or the general thinking behind it. Other than some connection to general lore, GW1 is GW1. How mesmer or any other class works there is irrelevant to GW2. They aren't the same game. Any appeal to compare what one does to the other makes little sense. GW2 is a stand alone game. It's the same as comparing the old Star Wars MMO to SWTOR. It doesn't mean anything.

GW1 professions are a combination of other professions with sub-class. Mesmers are not always Mesmers. Sometimes they are Mesmer/Assassin or Mesmer/Necro or Mesmer/Elementalist. The GW2 Mesmer is just the evolution of this Mesmer profession combinations.

With all honesty, the GW2 Mesmer is the one that preserves the Mesmer's identity. In my case, I love Mesmer/Elementalist where I can instant cast less effective Elemental spells -- which basically made my character a lesser Elementalist, no longer a Mesmer. In GW2, my Mesmer has no access to Elemental spells since the power channeled to the weapons they use is based on their profession, thus a Staff Mesmer is still a Mesmer and a Staff Elementalist is still Elementalist.

The linked article is wrong on many levels. The supposed "lost aspects" of the profession still exist in GW2, except probably the Riverdance.

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't get this thread, or the general thinking behind it. Other than some connection to general lore, GW1 is GW1. How mesmer or any other class works there is irrelevant to GW2. They aren't the same game. Any appeal to compare what one does to the other makes little sense. GW2 is a stand alone game. It's the same as comparing the old Star Wars MMO to SWTOR. It doesn't mean anything.

This is about Mesmer identity and core roles being stolen from them. This was the promise former mesmer enthusiasts players were given in the unveiling of mesmer, 'The new mesmer class continues its predecessor’s tradition of punishing your enemies for doing what they do'

Compare to the mesmer we have now; do you see anything wrong with this picture?

This was the promise and assurance that were given to us former mesmer enthusiast players. We soon realized there were no truth to it at all; that's not right!

The article and thread is to expose the truth of how gw2 mesmer design and roles were removed and replaced from them. How they were lead to believe their roles would continue in Gw2.

Gw1 Mesmer was to be preserved; not to be replaced with a non-genuine mesmer

An exposé on something entirely subjective, how amusing.

I am a mesmer main and I never played GW1 so I can only speak for GW2.

I love the mesmer in GW2! First of all, I like the concept of a class that casts clones of itself to deceive enemies. Also manipulations, tricks, time magic and mirage magic really struck to me. I also love the colour purple and butterflies and I think they really fit the mesmer. The mesmer is a very elegant and stylish profession and that's what I really like about it.

However, I know that there are flaws in the design and I don't like everything about the profession. I still feel that phantasms should not count as clones and should be reworked to maybe perform a powerful skill and then vanish to leave a clone back . In pvp and wvw I hate that clones die sooooo fast.

Also I don't really like the shatter mechanics of this class but that's just my opinion and I am sure a lot of players like it. I know it's the main mechanic of this spec but I never felt like I want to shatter my illusions because I always want to trick my enemies so it feels counterproductive to me. That's why I really like the mirage because you don't have to shatter in order to do good damage and stuff.

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't get this thread, or the general thinking behind it. Other than some connection to general lore, GW1 is GW1. How mesmer or any other class works there is irrelevant to GW2. They aren't the same game. Any appeal to compare what one does to the other makes little sense. GW2 is a stand alone game. It's the same as comparing the old Star Wars MMO to SWTOR. It doesn't mean anything.

That makes no sense. Maybe you have baggage from GW1, but GW2 is it's own game. The promise? That's funny. You think there was a promise made to GW1 players to preserve the mesmer whatever from GW1 in GW2? I can't believe that's the case. There is no reason for a completely different game with different devs to preserve anything. This is simply a case of people wanting to believe something that never existed, or if it did exist, was so subjective to any individual, that there was no hope of making any such preservation in the first place.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/413ahe/a_sudden_realisation_of_mesmers_identity_shift/

here are some more discussions about mesmer loss of identity

'A bit dissapointed with the new mesmer'

'Summoning minion and direct damage is not the playstyle i expect for mesmer. Invi field and portal is interesting but i miss the mess-with-your-mind style of combat skill mesmer have in original gw. The satisfaction of turning your enemy skill and attack againts them and making them useless is imo the essence of mesmer in guild war 1. The new incarnation is too direct for my liking'

Sorry while I agree that mesmer in GW2 plays a lot differently than GW1, you absolutely do not take into account the different nature of both games combat.

The original idea to have mesmer in GW2 work with confusion and interupts while using illusions to distract enemys simply did not work and pan out. Hence why the class was redesigned more and more into a pet class.

GW1 had a lot more casted skills were those interupts worked better or were even possible. GW2 core gameplay revolves around active movement and instant cast abilities. Completely different to GW1.

@"Burnfall.9573" said:This is about Mesmer identity and core roles being stolen from them. This was the promise former mesmer enthusiasts players were given in the unveiling of mesmer, 'The new mesmer class continues its predecessor’s tradition of punishing your enemies for doing what they do'

Ok, first of all, [citation needed], of course. Don't make statements referencing source material you're then not citing.

Second, what "core role"? GW2 explicitly abolished the notion of the classic RPG roles (tank/healer/damage/controller/buffer/debuffer), in favor of "be the master of your own fate", giving everyone some healing, some crowd control, some buffs and debuffs. So if anything, GW1's mesmer goes against GW2's whole game design and was hence deemed incompatible and had to be re-built from the ground up to fit.

Now, I do agree that the execution (of said re-design) is terrible. But then, "We had a great idea, but couldn't do it" should frankly be GW2's subtitle. It fits every single piece of development about the game, even including the recent parts such as PoF or LS3 and 4. At every single point the dev team (or more likely their management) bit off way more than they could chew.

But, that being said, I also don't agree with the underlying "Mesmers were such an amazing class in GW1"-tone. And the lamentation of how it is not that in GW2. Yes, the Mesmer implementation in GW2 is meh. So is the Warrior, Guardian, Revenant, Ranger, Engineer, Thief, Elementalist and Necro one. But GW1 was also - in hindsight - a pretty shoddy game with just some neat ideas behind it. So frankly, just like GW2 in many regards, but on a way way smaller scope. There's no need to attempt to elevate it in comparison anyhow: If your point is valid, it'd work just as well without ever mentioned GW1 at all. The games have extremely little in common anyhow, so any comparison is a bit daft.

GW2 Mesmer > GW1 Mesmer

In GW1 I've played an Illusory Weapon/Distortion/flurry Me/W. The GW2 Mesmer allows me to do everything that character did and more. GW1 Mesmer relied on casting times, complex enchantments and hexes and energy management. With each of these having been taken out of GW2 as design choices, the mesmer has received an equally unique mechanic among MMO's. Plus the complex traits allow for very individualistic build choices. And yes, my opinion is the absolute truth too.

Having mained Mesmer in both games I have mixed feelings overall. In gw1 I loved the playstyle of the Mesmer, being able to punish other classes in unique and deadly ways. There were so many different options from mass interrupts to energy draining to enchantment stripping, and the list goes on. What I always found strange was the fact that 1 of our secondary attributes was called illusion magic. Now, if you take that word and look it up in the dictionary, you'll probably get something like this: "a deceptive appearance or impression." Now look at the gw1 illusion skills. Most of them are hexes that deal damage to your opponent based on certain requirements. That to me isn't an illusion. So when I heard that in gw2 we would be summoning actual clones of ourselves, real illusions I was very excited. Finally we get to be a proper mesmer (in my mind). The problem now though is in giving us proper illusions they took away all the unique and diverse playstyles that made the Mesmer so amazing in gw1. Not only that but the lack of synergy between our illusions and the rest of our kit makes them very frustrating to use.

The thing is, they could have been so much more creative with the illusion spells than what we have now. How about a spell that changes our appearance to look like an enemy monster, or a different class in pvp? How about a spell that puts the illusion of a debuff on our target but then when they try to cleanse that debuff it deals more damage to them? How about a spell that produces the illusion of a big aoe attack that only deals damage if you move out of it? In short, making clones is just a very small (and rather mundane) iteration of illusion magic, whereas we could be so much more than that.

I think Mesmer was supposed to be like GW2, it is what i thought before i even start playing GW1 mesmer... but the technical limitation back in GW1, we got the GW1 mesmer instead.

What GW2 mesmer is what a mesmer initially should looks like, a class that use clones to confuse your foe and makes them mix up a clone and the caster. This is what GW2 mesmer able to do while GW1 mesmer failed to delivered.

I like how GW2 mesmer is created.

Mesmer is a controller wich basicly same as tank you use trickery and illusions too controll your foes ore wells for direct controll

From my years of gw1 mesmer maining, I can distill 4 distinct styles of play:

1) You don't have mana to do that: Energy drain. Duh.

2) You can't do that: Interrupts. Includes both domination and illusions although domination mostly countered spells while illusions countered physical attacks.

3) You can do that but it will hurt you more than it hurts me: Mostly related to spells. Empathy and Visions of Regret were the exception that countered attacks.

4) Health drain: I actually almost forgot this one since I found it boring/generic. It's basically condition damage. Stack more health draining hexes for additional health drain. This was illusion based.

1) Gw2 doesn't have energy on every class like gw1.

2) Then we get into the auto attack vs skill vs spell mess of gw1 classification. It was absurd and doesn't translate to gw2. Instead we have a less absurd system which boils down to projectile or not projectile. Interrupts can counter all of the above except stability is a thing in gw2 while only 1 elite provided 1 stack of stability in gw1. Overall, I would still say the interrupt style is preserved and can be heavily traited. Balance is the issue not style here. Lack of balance is part of the reason I stopped playing gw2 mesmer when HOT came out but it's not a flavor problem. I do like the new interrupt/break bar changes though.

2/3) Gw2 mesmer is able to counter projectiles in a very similar way that gw1 mesmer countered spells/stole them. Confusions is all of #3 generically lumped together. It's able to proc on all skills/attacks instead of some convoluted system of 1 hex working on spells vs another only on attacks.

4) Conditions... nothing else to be said.

There were of course side things/flavor/niche such as enchantment and hex removal as well which loosely translate to boon/condi removal in gw2 although I feel those kind of fit into #2. Lots of spells overlapped. Like a health drain hex that did lots of damage if you removed it (4/2 combo). They were also able to steal spells and cast them but this was a pseudo interrupt/reflect as it prevented your enemy from using their abilities. Mantras/distortion would increase armor/negate damage which did make mesmers tanky (enough to go Me/D scythe melee or IW) but the core mesmer was really the above 4 areas.

TLDR:First off, it's a NEW GAME. It has very different mechanics. Given that, I would say 3 of 4 main styles are preserved while one of them could NOT function in gw2. Other side flavor is there in the new game. Balance is the issue. My personal want is a main-hand interrupt weapon and a trait that does damage when you remove a boon/condition... I try not to care/hope and just enjoy playing my ranger now while checking mesmer every once in a while.

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:My personal want is a main-hand interrupt weapon

....mirage sword?

i mean, to be fair, you DO need some sort of way to prevent it from being TOO spammy, and Mirage worked out pretty well with this(minus how we have to use our endurance just to do things, along with ground-pick-up items that are trash especially when you actually want something to be interrupted, great mechanic, btw...... ahahhaa //////////sssssss -gross sobbing-)

and a trait that does damage when you remove a boon/condition

i'd also like to point this out more, because i've wanted this since the game came out

Fragility would be incredible in this game, especially if you make it power damage;you'd have a lot of access to short lived condis (i personally was looking at Chaotic Interruption and Staff) where as condi builds would increase their durationsand in a power build you'd most likely want to run domination and sword in the first place, so you'd get access to auto attacks and shatters that strip boons

but, that's just my personal pvp wishlist that i've wanted since forever, who knows, they could split damage in pve/pvp and it could even be useful in pve, could you imagine us with scepter/staff power in pve? actual range damage option for mesmer? that doesn't deal less damage if you have to get a little closer? whuaaaaaat? but you know, they don't want to do that so people don't get the wrong idea about builds, because, you know, that's also been working out so well for them so far.......

I love gw2 Mesmer. I adore gw2 mirage.

I don't care whether anyone else does or not.

I find it pure therapy to log in and play mirage - it's a beautiful, aural and visual feast and privilege to enjoy in gw2.

@Burnfall.9573 said:I 've been reading this article for some timeSome time, yes. That article is from 2012! Even before the game's release. We're hitting levels of necro, even the necros would be proud.Mesmer in Gw1 were not (...) gimmick specs at all.Mesmer in GW1 was the definition of gimmick.Depending on the enemy you could end up being completely useless as there was nothing to interupt or noone was attacking or there was just a single enemy.A melee build where the weapon was not used but you instead dealt flat damage each strike? Pretty gimmicky.

Well.I like Mesmers as they are i played very little of GW1 due to it not actually being an MMO but instead a COrpg, which is why there has to be differences from gw2 and gw1.

They maybe the same franchise but they are not the same game and balance will be alot more different.

@Bod.8261 said:

@"Burnfall.9573" said:I 've been reading this article for some timeSome time, yes. That article is from 2012! Even before the game's release. We're hitting levels of necro, even the necros would be proud.Mesmer in Gw1 were not (...) gimmick specs at all.Mesmer in GW1 was the definition of gimmick.Depending on the enemy you could end up being completely useless as there was nothing to interupt or noone was attacking or there was just a single enemy.A melee build where the weapon was not used but you instead dealt flat damage each strike? Pretty gimmicky.

Yeah, despite my love of the GW1 Mesmer I do have to agree with it being very gimmicky. Given the amount of very specific conditions on a lot of hexes and only 8 skill slots to use, it was almost impossible to plan ahead for what you needed. For example, "Soothing Images" was a hex that stopped the target and adjacent targets from gaining adrenaline, which was a specific resource used only by Warriors, Paragons and Dervishes. Warriors especially needed adrenaline to activate most of their skills so denying them that resource was very powerful. But of course in PvP you never knew what you were facing until after your skills were locked in, meaning you could take this skill only to find that you weren't facing any adrenaline users. So now you have a completely useless skill on your bar. Or hell, how about the skill "Ignorance" which stopped your target from using Signets. That's all well and good but what if your target didn't have any signets on their skill bar? Or how about "Complicate" that interrupted and disabled that skill for all foes in the area. Fantastic if you are facing a spike comp where everyone on the team uses the same skill at the same time to instantly kill a target, but if you weren't facing a spike comp this skill was pathetically weak. There are many more examples of this kind of thing but it gives you an idea of what could happen.

Given this, I can definitely see why Anet wanted to generalise a lot of effects and conditions to make them more manageable but now I feel like they have gone too far in that path and no class is given a chance to really shine.

@"Burnfall.9573" said:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/413ahe/a_sudden_realisation_of_mesmers_identity_shift/

here are some more discussions about mesmer loss of identity

'A bit dissapointed with the new mesmer'

'Summoning minion and direct damage is not the playstyle i expect for mesmer. Invi field and portal is interesting but i miss the mess-with-your-mind style of combat skill mesmer have in original gw. The satisfaction of turning your enemy skill and attack againts them and making them useless is imo the essence of mesmer in guild war 1. The new incarnation is too direct for my liking'

The thing is, there is only a loss identity if there was an expectation to maintain it between the games in the first place, which makes no sense because the games are so completely different in mechanics and even the style of game. I have a really hard time thinking that Anet was making a new game, but for some reason, decided that there was something about mesmer as a class in GW1 that they were going to port over or maintain in GW2, even though AFAIK, most of the other professions are similar as well. I don't even think it matters if there was some expectation. We are years into this game. It seems to me that it's simply a matter of perspective how the concept of mesmer, over the two games has changed. Lamenting the evolution is just sour grapes.

Anet did go far, in fact so far, giving mesmer access to stealth, teleport and turning them into a dps killing machine; which has absolutely nothing to do with their lore.

Mesmer in Gw1 were given skills and abilities that were only given to them; that's what made them unique. In fact; i found something quite interesting; there are more, don't need to drag this too much.

Here is a shocking News

The skill Epidemic- Did you know that Epidemic is a Mesmer skill?

No? Not sure?

-there- https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Epidemic

You say Mesmer in Gw2 is a better version of Mesmer in Gw1; yet this skill was intentionally stolen and given solely to Necromancer in Gw2...does your statement still stand?

How about Confusion; yes confusion. As much i hate to admit it, confusion also belongs to Mesmer. Confusion was not specifically a skill perse' but an ability they possessed to distract their enemies.

Again; if Mesmer is a better version of Mesmer in Gw1 and remain a unique profession, than why other professions including runes, traits are given access to it?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confusion

Shouldn't this alarm you?

Mesmer identity being stripped down and abused openly in the name of 'this is entirely a new game? Mesmer is an upgraded version?' Are you seriously ok with this?

Am i the only one here making a case against the injustice of Member identity? Where is the outcry? Doesn't your identity mean anything to you? Who you're meant to be? What are you meant to do? To be taken apart and being given away, doesn't mean anything at all??

' If You Forget YourRoots, You've LostSight Of Everything '

Are you serious? This isn't some class warfare nonsense. This is an entirely different game from GW1, Mesmer is still by far the largest applier of confusion in the game, and is given the most tools to capitalize off of interrupts compared to any other class.

@Burnfall.9573 said:Anet did go far, in fact so far, giving mesmer access to stealth, teleport and turning them into a dps killing machine; which has absolutely nothing to do with their lore.

Mesmer in Gw1 were given skills and abilities that were only given to them; that's what made them unique. In fact; i found something quite interesting; there are more, don't need to drag this too much.

Here is a shocking News

The skill Epidemic- Did you know that Epidemic is a Mesmer skill?

In GW1, it is ... it's not in GW2. So what?

Shouldn't this alarm you?

Mesmer identity being stripped down and abused openly in the name of 'this is entirely a new game? Mesmer is an upgraded version?' Are you seriously ok with this?

No, frankly, it doesn't, because I don't carry the baggage of GW1 to skew my sense of what the devs are trying to do in GW2 ... and neither should you.

Am i the only one here making a case against the injustice of Member identity? Where is the outcry? Doesn't your identity mean anything to you? Who you're meant to be? What are you meant to do? To be taken apart and being given away, doesn't mean anything at all??

' If You Forget YourRoots, You've LostSight Of Everything '

This doesn't make sense. GW1 isn't the 'roots' of GW2. GW2 is a stand alone game; it doesn't need GW1 to make sense. There is no outcry because you are the only one making this strong correlation between what Mesmer was in GW1 and what it is in GW2.