Mesmer balance changes

Core mesmer:

• All traits that trigger off of "when a phantasm is spawned/created" are changed to trigger when a phantasm skill is used
• Phantasmal Disenchanter - Base damage reduced by 75% (250 damage), deals 20% increased damage per boon removed, still unblockable.
• Phantasmal Defender - Reduce maximum damage increase to 250% in PvP/WvW. Reduce base damage by 25%

Chronomancer:

• Chronophantasma - All phantasms deal 25% (or 33%) less damage. The first time a phantasm would become a clone, it instead resummons itself and attacks again. Reduce daze duration to 1 second

Mirage:

• Elusive Mind - Cleanse a condition whenever you gain mirage cloak. No more stun break.

I think this would go a long way towards addressing the problems that people have with the class without nerfing it too hard, or nerfing the wrong things. Defender and Disenchanter are not offensive skills, and their damage should reflect that. Even with 5 boons stripped, this version of the disenchanter would only deal half as much as the current phantasm deals to enemies without any boons.

The change to CP means that other players don't have to keep track of which phantasms have already been resummoned (and hence are dealing 50% less damage), and which ones were just summoned and are dealing full damage, which should make it less frustrating to fight a chronomancer, while still nerfing total phantasm damage output just as much or more than the current version of the trait.

The change to traits that trigger off of "spawning a phantasm" is a bit of a nerf overall to chronomancers running CP, but otherwise won't affect core mesmer or mirage in any way outside of proccing mental defense

Finally, EM. The stunbreak on dodge is not only incredibly broken, its also highly redundant on mesmer due to our high amounts of stun breaks along with F4, and even more redundant on mirage due to being able to dodge while stunned anyway, and it was also the only broken/OP aspect of the trait. Since 1 condi cleansed per dodge is kind of lackluster for a GM trait (in my opinion), the condi cleanse aspect was slightly buffed, but should still be balanced.

No, this will not address all the problems people have with it.

It will still continue to shit out evasions, distortions, and blocks while dealing tons of damage because the core mesmer itself is broken.

@"Asur.9178" said:No, this will not address all the problems people have with it.

It will still continue to kitten out evasions, distortions, and blocks while dealing tons of damage because the core mesmer itself is broken.

This would severely tone down the "tons of damage" capable from Chronobunker.

All around I think these changes are good and needed. I think condi mirage and greatsword mirage should get their damage trimmed a bit.

I'd also like to see Imagined Burden's and Illusionary Warlock's double phantasms condensed back to one.

Those are pretty solid, especially the defender/disenchanter changes. Those simply aren't supposed to be DPS skills, they're utilities and should reflect as much. That Elusive Mind change is rather appropriate, but a 1 condi cleanse per Cloak is kinda... dull? Like, Warrior has Cleansing Ire and it is far more involved. Maybe make it Detarget as well? That's pretty elusive.

There's also weapon issues, GS being the cheesiest offender. Like, it isn't mirror blade alone, that thing hits for 1.2 power ratio total, but the follow up blink shatter is terrifying since it's very difficult to react to. Usually you'll have 1-2 clones on the opening burst, so your shatter should do about ~2.76 power ratio, which is the same as a T2 Kill Shot with WAY less build up and telegraph. Also the warrior can't stun you on demand at range. So just a mirror blade blink into shatter does 3.96 total ratio, and has virtually negligible tell. Add in just 1 Power Spike and you've got another 1.33 ratio on top. Without ANY % mods we're looking at around 10k to 0 toughness builds, and around 8k for paladin styled builds. That's a lot of damage on a combo with virtually no tell (torch 4 first).

I dunno how to address this issue without destroying GS as a whole or adjusting shatter times (they're all instant cast). Someone else who mains GS would have to suggest something.

Also, I have no idea how to make scepter a decent weapon without overlapping heavily with staff, or just straight up being inferior (mostly on mirage). Mirage staff just outputs so much everything: sustain, utility, damage, conditions, RNG cc, it's silly.

Note this is just in my OPINION.

Scepter Focus? Bad.
Scepter Sword? Ok, sword 4 is solid power damage and sword 5 is a neat illusion with bleeding options or just straight power.Scepter Shield? Better than sword (2 blocks and protection, comparable to traited staff)Scepter Torch? The optimal ranges don't mix well.Scepter Pistol? Fairly decent since the ranges match, helps you lockdown targets and get some extra confusion. Doesn't supress enemies as well as Chaos Storm and doesn't grant you boons.

Also note that scepter has no combo finishers, while staff does which can be handy for Chaos Line mesmers thanks to the staff trait granting protection on Chaos Armor.

Compare to mirage staff:Bleeding, Burning, Torment, Might, Fury, 1200 range, piercing. That's a lot!Clone + Leap Finisher and blink back, works while stunned. Great!2 phantasms, decent power damage. Nice!Chaos Armor is meh, it's basically just protection on demand.Chaos Storm, can give you Aegis if you're lucky, and daze enemies if you're lucky. Really useful. Leap through for more chaos armor (thus more protection).

No scepter combination can match this.

It would go a long way to killing the class.

Then again they could remove Mesmer and you people would still complain it is OP.

@"OriOri.8724" said:I think this would go a long way towards addressing the problems that people have with the class without nerfing it too hard, or nerfing the wrong things. Defender and Disenchanter are not offensive skills, and their damage should reflect that. Even with 5 boons stripped, this version of the disenchanter would only deal half as much as the current phantasm deals to enemies without any boons.

The change to CP means that other players don't have to keep track of which phantasms have already been resummoned (and hence are dealing 50% less damage), and which ones were just summoned and are dealing full damage, which should make it less frustrating to fight a chronomancer, while still nerfing total phantasm damage output just as much or more than the current version of the trait.

The change to traits that trigger off of "spawning a phantasm" is a bit of a nerf overall to chronomancers running CP, but otherwise won't affect core mesmer or mirage in any way outside of proccing mental defense

Finally, EM. The stunbreak on dodge is not only incredibly broken, its also highly redundant on mesmer due to our high amounts of stun breaks along with F4, and even more redundant on mirage due to being able to dodge while stunned anyway, and it was also the only broken/OP aspect of the trait. Since 1 condi cleansed per dodge is kind of lackluster for a GM trait (in my opinion), the condi cleanse aspect was slightly buffed, but should still be balanced.

These are nice suggestions. I think that toning down the mesmer in terms of the number of evades, invulnerables and phantasm damage would be a step in the right direction, especially with the defender/disenchanter changes. Also, reduce the number of phantasms on Imagined Burden's and Illusionary Warlock's to its' original state.

I'm not saying that mesmer is broken and overpowered, I'm saying that the profession has too much utility in terms of evading enemy attacks, dealing damage at the same time, as well as having CC, dazes, stuns etc. Currently the profession isn't as broken as it was before the 08.05.2018 patch, but it's got a long way of toning it down in terms of other professions having a chance to 1v1 a mesmer.

@Asur.9178 said:No, this will not address all the problems people have with it.

It will still continue to kitten out evasions, distortions, and blocks while dealing tons of damage because the core mesmer itself is broken.

I never claimed this would address all of the problems with the class. But this does address a lot of the complaints, and is pretty sorely needed

@"OriOri.8724" clickbait title. You mean "Mesmer sPvP balance suggestions". None of your suggestions pertain to other modes and you are referring to a FOTM build for conquest.

I think these changes are good for PvP. I still think that chrono should move away from the phantasm farm build in both PvP and PvE.

@otto.5684 said:I think these changes are good for PvP. I still think that chrono should move away from the phantasm farm build in both PvP and PvE.

Dont see how pve will work without alot of phantasm dmg. Post patch power chrono seem to do alot less dmg now in pve.

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:@"OriOri.8724" clickbait title. You mean "Mesmer sPvP balance suggestions". None of your suggestions pertain to other modes and you are referring to a FOTM build for conquest.

No, I meant mesmer balance changes. These suggestions are made to improve the design of the class as a whole, which has the added benefit of also addressing the most common complaints about the class currently.

CP change just evens out the damage split over both phantasms, no different from what IB does currently. This is a better trait design than having the re-summoned phantasm deal 50% less damage

iDefender and Disenchanter are fundamentally utility phantasms, not damage phantasms. They shouldn't be dealing high damage, period. If you read any of my comments regarding balance, its very easy to see that I want to see the powercreep in this game dialed back by leaps and bounds. One of the quickest ways to do that is to target skills that are meant for their utility, and reducing their damage. Unblockable, bouncing, mass boon strip is very clearly a utility skill. Having a phantasm taunt enemies in order to lessen the pressure on you is very clearly a utility skill. These skills should not be dealing huge damage, anywhere, as they are designed as utility skills.

Stun break on dodge is fundamentally broken, even outside of PvP. As a class we definitely didn't need that many stunbreaks, and all it does is teach lazy and poor behaviors to players. Why learn how to not facetank attacks that stun you, if a simple dodge offers a stunbreak for you? I was against this mechanic since before PoF dropped, and this is in no way a response to the PvP complaints about the trait. Plus, exhaustion is tacky, doesn't fit, and feels like shit.

The only change that is remotely PvP targetted is changing traits that trigger on phantasm spawn to only trigger on phantasm skill use, but even then it won't affect core mesmer or mirage at all outside of proccing mental defense, which btw is a 40s CD in PvE anyway........

@Asur.9178 said:No, this will not address all the problems people have with it.

It will still continue to kitten out evasions, distortions, and blocks while dealing tons of damage because the core mesmer itself is broken.

Play a core mesmer and see how many evades you have, how many ports etc. Core mesmer has some very cheesy builds (ok 1 the old PU condi roamer and stealth 1 shot build) it can run but on the whole this last patch destroyed any kind of sustain it has without investing in healing power. Core mesmer isn’t particularly good, you can do some gimmicks but it doesn’t hold up toe to toe against a lot of core classes anymore because instead of adjusting the elite specs over the years ANet has constantly nerfed core aspects to balance out a singular elite spec trait, skill etc.

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:@OriOri.8724 clickbait title. You mean "Mesmer sPvP balance suggestions". None of your suggestions pertain to other modes and you are referring to a FOTM build for conquest.

That has nothing to do with WvW and PvE.

iDefender and Disenchanter are fundamentally utility phantasms, not damage phantasms. They shouldn't be dealing high damage, period. If you read any of my comments regarding balance, its very easy to see that I want to see the powercreep in this game dialed back by leaps and bounds. One of the quickest ways to do that is to target skills that are meant for their utility, and reducing their damage. Unblockable, bouncing, mass boon strip is very clearly a utility skill. Having a phantasm taunt enemies in order to lessen the pressure on you is very clearly a utility skill. These skills should not be dealing huge damage, anywhere, as they are designed as utility skills.

You mean utility, versus weapon skill? This has nothing to do with the rest of the class and sounds like a rule you made up. Its not like we should remove the projectile denial and combo finish from iWarden.

The new utility phantasms do damage, as so many utilities do, and for good reason. They wanted to buff power builds in PvE without buffing the remaining wells on support Chronos bar.

And these phantasms used in WvW zerging anyway.

Stun break on dodge is fundamentally broken, even outside of PvP. As a class we definitely didn't need that many stunbreaks, and all it does is teach lazy and poor behaviors to players. Why learn how to not facetank attacks that stun you, if a simple dodge offers a stunbreak for you? I was against this mechanic since before PoF dropped, and this is in no way a response to the PvP complaints about the trait. Plus, exhaustion is tacky, doesn't fit, and feels like kitten.

Right, because dodging in place is exactly what you need in WvW zerging, But its alright because non-support Mesmer was already so OP. Nah.

The only change that is remotely PvP targetted is changing traits that trigger on phantasm spawn to only trigger on phantasm skill use, but even then it won't affect core mesmer or mirage at all outside of proccing mental defense, which btw is a 40s CD in PvE anyway........

Core has a weapon, and a trait that procs two phantasm at once. In all the uproar did you forget the changes they made to staff and gs?

We/e It's all PvP targeted. You sound like just another Mesmer who wants everyone to all play full zerker gear.

Why don't you go educate them on how to beat mesmer? Anet has more than enough suggestions on this topic.

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:@OriOri.8724 clickbait title. You mean "Mesmer sPvP balance suggestions". None of your suggestions pertain to other modes and you are referring to a FOTM build for conquest.

iDefender and Disenchanter are fundamentally utility phantasms, not damage phantasms. They shouldn't be dealing high damage, period. If you read any of my comments regarding balance, its very easy to see that I want to see the powercreep in this game dialed back by leaps and bounds. One of the quickest ways to do that is to target skills that are meant for their utility, and reducing their damage. Unblockable, bouncing, mass boon strip is very clearly a utility skill. Having a phantasm taunt enemies in order to lessen the pressure on you is very clearly a utility skill. These skills should not be dealing huge damage, anywhere, as they are designed as utility skills.

Stun break on dodge is fundamentally broken, even outside of PvP. As a class we definitely didn't need that many stunbreaks, and all it does is teach lazy and poor behaviors to players. Why learn how to not facetank attacks that stun you, if a simple dodge offers a stunbreak for you? I was against this mechanic since before PoF dropped, and this is in no way a response to the PvP complaints about the trait. Plus, exhaustion is tacky, doesn't fit, and feels like kitten.

The only change that is remotely PvP targetted is changing traits that trigger on phantasm spawn to only trigger on phantasm skill use, but even then it won't affect core mesmer or mirage at all outside of proccing mental defense, which btw is a 40s CD in PvE anyway........

Nobody will be happy until mesmer is a free kill to anything that can beat a wet paper bag in a chess competition. Not that I agree with you but teaching people how to play against it won’t matter, we’ve been there in PvP forum already. Nobody cares if you can factually prove a mesmer has less endurance regen than other classes, nobody cares if you can factually prove it has the lowest block uptime or invuln uptime, they won’t listen if you show that stacking to 25 might is something many classes already do. They don’t want to hear how phantasm have twice as many opportunities to do something about their attacks or that a skill has counterplay.

Remove evade frame from sword 2, add boon stripping for each hit.Remove evade frame from scepter 2 like it was originally.Successful shield block no longer refreshes cooldown.Detonate clones in route after shatter when new clones are created.

There, that should reduce Mesmer's total offensive and defensive capabilities by about 10% and allow for at least 2 classes to counter it.

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:@OriOri.8724 clickbait title. You mean "Mesmer sPvP balance suggestions". None of your suggestions pertain to other modes and you are referring to a FOTM build for conquest.

More consistent damage is relevant to all game modes. Nerfing all phantasms damage is more consistent than nerfing the damage of half of our phantasms.

iDefender and Disenchanter are fundamentally utility phantasms, not damage phantasms. They shouldn't be dealing high damage, period. If you read any of my comments regarding balance, its very easy to see that I want to see the powercreep in this game dialed back by leaps and bounds. One of the quickest ways to do that is to target skills that are meant for their utility, and reducing their damage. Unblockable, bouncing, mass boon strip is very clearly a utility skill. Having a phantasm taunt enemies in order to lessen the pressure on you is very clearly a utility skill. These skills should not be dealing huge damage, anywhere, as they are designed as utility skills.

Stun break on dodge is fundamentally broken, even outside of PvP. As a class we definitely didn't need that many stunbreaks, and all it does is teach lazy and poor behaviors to players. Why learn how to not facetank attacks that stun you, if a simple dodge offers a stunbreak for you? I was against this mechanic since before PoF dropped, and this is in no way a response to the PvP complaints about the trait. Plus, exhaustion is tacky, doesn't fit, and feels like kitten.

The only change that is remotely PvP targetted is changing traits that trigger on phantasm spawn to only trigger on phantasm skill use, but even then it won't affect core mesmer or mirage at all outside of proccing mental defense, which btw is a 40s CD in PvE anyway........

Utility as in skills used for their fucking utility and not skills whose sole purpose is to pump out large damage. Phase retreat is a utility skill. Chaos armor is a utility skill. Echo of memory is a utility skill. They are all used for their utility. A skill used for mass, unblockable, bouncing boon strips is a fucking utility skill, not a damage dealing skill. Try to use context next time, it really helps with understanding a comment. I have no clue why you are acting as if you didn't know what I meant, but its not helping your argument.

Also, IB and staff3 only proc those traits once currently, because both summons happen at the same time. So, yet fucking again, this change would literally only affect core mesmer and mirage when they proc mental defense, which is a 40 sec CD. In other words, it barely impacts them at all.

@SneakyTouchy.6043 said:Remove evade frame from sword 2, add boon stripping for each hit.Remove evade frame from scepter 2 like it was originally.Successful shield block no longer refreshes cooldown.Detonate clones in route after shatter when new clones are created.

There, that should reduce Mesmer's total offensive and defensive capabilities by about 10% and allow for at least 2 classes to counter it.

1.) So do we get some sort of bonus if they have no boons at least because now Blurred Frenzy is meh tier?2.) It was changed because the counterattack was significantly harder to land without the evade thus invalidating the reward from actually blocking with it. Then again Scepter is not even remotely the problem weapon on Mesmer and generally needs some sort of redesign.3.) Okay but the cooldown gets reduced by at least 33%4.) No, that's stupid. What if Meteor Storm got canceled because Elementalists switched Attunements? Or all of a Guardian's Virtues went on cooldown when you activated one? Or Necromancers Health Pool was shared with their Life Force pool? How many more ridiculous examples do you want me to come up with?

Hrrrm, still torn about the general approach.

On the one hand, quick number changes alleviate an issue until the core problem can be fixed.

OTOH, GW2 has issues so deep in the class- and combat-design, anything below sweeping reworks to specs / classes / systems feels like wasted dev time.

@Carighan.6758 said:Hrrrm, still torn about the general approach.

On the one hand, quick number changes alleviate an issue until the core problem can be fixed.

OTOH, GW2 has issues so deep in the class- and combat-design, anything below sweeping reworks to specs / classes / systems feels like wasted dev time.

The biggest concern for me is they have just done a rework which means this is it, this is what mesmer will be for 4 years at least if not the rest of the game mechanically.

At risk of sounding like a broken record I will just state for the record again that I prefer the ICD with UI visual indicator solution for EM stunbreak because I don't believe there is anything wrong with having stunbreak on the same button as dodge aside from the frequency of stunbreak access due to low "pseudo-cooldown" of endurance regain. For example Sand through Glass is essentially a "dodge" with evade and stunbreak - but on a 25s cooldown (sure it doesn't allow immediate free casting due to the animation, but I'm just referring to the principle of an evade and stunbreak limited by a longer cooldown).

Having said that, I would also add that hypothetically if we went with your suggestion in the OP and simply removed the stunbreak, doing nothing else with the trait aside from making condi cleanse happen on all mirage cloak is to me quite dull/flavourless and certainly not worthy of a GM build defining trait. If, hypothetically the stunbreak was removed, I would hope for something more unique and flavourful in the way that IH is a game changing trait. And if going down this route it would make sense to reshuffle the entire mirage GM section to design around baseline IH as a minor trait rather than each of the three GM major traits being dodge modifications. If this route was taken then perhaps Elusive Mind could have an effect similar to Axe 3 or Illusionary Ambush where it shuffles your position with all of your clones, detargeting self and teleports them within a certain radius so the opponent has to reacquire the right target.

Regardless of all that I'm kind of at the point where I'm happy to sit back and /chill because in reality I'm not that fussed about any of it - hence the delay in making a response here. :) Edit - to summarise/clarify, I don't mind if the stunbreak is removed or not, but I would hope for some unique replacement mechanic aside from condi cleanse which on its own doesn't warrant the use of the word Elusive.

@"Curunen.8729" said:At risk of sounding like a broken record I will just state for the record again that I prefer the ICD with UI visual indicator solution for EM stunbreak because I don't believe there is anything wrong with having stunbreak on the same button as dodge

Gonna just stop you right there, and ask you to imagine if every class had access to a stun break on dodge like Mirage does. It would be ridiculous. One of the main reasons why "stuns" are a thing is so that you can force the use of a stunbreak, or have your opponent eat your axe or condi bomb or whatever. If you can simply /dodge and break that stun, then you have effectively given that class not only a free utility slot (don't need to bring a stunbreak), but you've upset the actual balance of the game in regards to stunning and stun breaking. I main mesmer. It's an absurdly powerful skill that allows for one to easily cover their mistakes instead of being punished for them.

@Blue.1207 said:

@"Curunen.8729" said:At risk of sounding like a broken record I will just state for the record again that I prefer the ICD with UI visual indicator solution for EM stunbreak because I don't believe there is anything wrong with having stunbreak on the same button as dodge

I'd rather not get into a lengthy discussion because I feel I've said all that needs to be said in multiple previous threads regarding this trait. In any case if you read further in my post you see I'm saying the frequency of stunbreak access is the problem - ie being able to do it on every dodge.

To try and summarise a few points:

• Dodge is a "skill" (moreso for mirage) with a cooldown, no different to utility slot skills or weapon skills - you press a button and have an effect. No difference from having a stunbreak here or on a shatter, on an elite skill, on a utility skill or on a weapon skill. There is no rule that for mesmer stunbreaks must be utility skills only. As long as the access to both quantity and frequency of stunbreaks is limited, it really doesn't matter where they are, whether on dodge or any other skill. If anything it frees up the option to use our vast majority of non-stunbreak utility skills which otherwise never get a look in.
• The relatively fast pseudo-cooldown of dodge (endurance refills very fast and can be directly regained through sigils/runes) allows for far too high a frequency of stunbreak access.
• One solution mentioned in the past is decoupled stunbreak ICD from endurance - using white line ammunition style cooldown indicator around the dodge bar to display ICD of stunbreak. The ICD can be set to whatever suitable value - 10s, 15s, 20s, etc, and can be adjusted for balance.
• There are of course multiple other solutions that have been discussed in the many previous threads, some of which I even prefer above this.

But like I said, I'm just stating this as a counter-argument because I believe it's important that any devs that happen to read this see as many perspectives surrounding the issue as possible rather than assuming all the community is united in one point of view. Bottom line is simply removing the stunbreak and making a small change to have condi cleanse on all mirage cloak is bland - if any further change were made I would hope for something more interesting than this that provides some unique mechanic of being "Elusive".

@Carighan.6758 said:Hrrrm, still torn about the general approach.

On the one hand, quick number changes alleviate an issue until the core problem can be fixed.

OTOH, GW2 has issues so deep in the class- and combat-design, anything below sweeping reworks to specs / classes / systems feels like wasted dev time.

I see where you are coming from, but I happen to believe that mesmer and chronomancer are quite well designed now, and won't need any large redesigns again. Mirage is a different story, but I am happy with the core design concept of mesmer and chronomancer now.

@Curunen.8729 I agree that condi cleanse on dodge/gaining mirage cloak is kind of boring for a GM. However it would be balanced, and if the condi spam is ever truly addressed by ANet, then it could be build defining in the sense that we could gamble with taking no other condi cleanses period. Not quite as flashy of build defining as some other GM traits, but opening up other trait slots/skill slots from condi cleanses is pretty big to me. Of course its not possible with the current state of the game, but for me that would be one of the long term, game wide balance goal.

Yeah I can see what you're getting at regarding condi cleanse from a GM trait freeing up skill slots in the same way stunbreak on a GM trait frees up skill slots. As a side note I think this is already currently a thing because I don't run much in the way of dedicated condi cleanse - only Jaunt, Prestige and cleansing sigils, and most of the time have no problems recovering vs condi.

Either way as long as they don't do something really bad like simply increase the Exhaustion duration... (part of me worries that they might just do this - I sincerely hope not!) then I'm open to other possibilities.

Ideally I would love to see mirage designed around baseline IH, for thematic and flavour reasons, but that kind of rework is unlikely in the near future until they've given all the other classes a look in first. Maybe by the time the next expansion comes along, like they did with Chrono following PoF.

I really don't see stunbreak on dodge as a problem. Dodge is already using the same mechanics as an ammo skill. And the whole "thing" of Mirage seems to be that the devs crammed a bunch of mechanics into dodge: damage avoidance, burst damage, ability to keep doing things since you don't move (which to be fair is intended as a downside, but eh), and then either clones for more burst, PBAE condi or stunbreak/condicleanse.

I mean, it's not good design. Mirage that is. I'd scrap the spec and start from the very beginning, with a theme.