Instant Cast Offensive Skills Are Bad For The Game

Instant Cast Offensive Skills Are Bad For The Game.

Like Mantras.

sure remove mantras charge time and put 1/2s cast time and we have a deal

Only Mantra of Pain, Mantra of Truth, Mantra of Flame, parts of Fresh Air Ele and Guards Meditations are critical in terms of balance and no counterplay abilities. No other Mantra needs a cast time to be balanced, or even would get completely useless like Mantra of Distraction. I also would not like to see a cast time on Thiefs steal. And i even would give Blinding Powder its instant cast back.

I agree that skills that have big impact (mostly dmg) by their own and can be mindlessly spammed (because no interrupt or anyhting like that needed what requires skill) should never be instant but that only fits to the previously listed skills.

Thief needs instant steal to function, the whole class is made around that (same for Mesmer shatters btw) and the interrupt playstyle on Mesmer is the one with the highest skill ceiling as long as not combined with op traits like old CI ofc. Reduce the daze duration on MoD to 1 secs and there is nothing to complain about anymore. It needs to be ranged and instant to even make sense as an interrupt tool. Lot of keyskills have 0,5 to 0,75 casttime without even taking any quickness into account, hf trying to interrupt that on purpose with a skill that has a cast time itself. And hf playing a glassy build like Powermes with the need to be in meleerange all time to interrupt something right on time. Also as interrupt tool (the only way it has any value to be considered taken over other utilities) it has at least 10 counters i listed several times already. MoD for that has more counters than most other Mesmer utilities or utilities from other classes, simply because of the need to get interrupts on keyskills to make it even worth using. Braindead spamming MoD and lucky random hit a big skill here and there or only hit autoattacks will not worth the use and will not make the Mesmer win any fight or have a remarkable value in a match.

But compared to MoP, MoD has a way more defensive nature anyway, considering that daze is not a lock down and not meant to be used to secure the hit of follow up dmg. Daze is (aside from blind) one of the most defensive cc in the game actually (ofc has offensive aspects too but not maily). Main purpose is to avoid to get hit and to interrupt (what even with Powerblock traited still is more defensive than offensive because the dmg from Powerblock is laughable, what is a good thing. One of the few offensive things for daze is to interrupt heal what can be countered quite easy and in a lot of ways). So your request for offensive skills doesn't rly fit for MoD that much and for no other Mantra (except MoP, MoT and MoF) anyway.

For Firebrand Mantra of Truth is too strong by its own but i would just tweak its power instead giving it a cast time. It has a long recharge already. Mantra of Flame is offensive but i haven't recognized it as having too strong dmg by its own until now but because it is only for dmg spam it could have a little cast time comparable to Mantra of Pain if you insist. Other Guard Mantras can stay instant without any problems caused.

Guards Meditations are another thing we can discuss but also here i would more tweak the power of the skill if needed, instead giving it cast time. Cast time would just prevent skillful comboing for Meditation Guards and would make it clunky (and i say that even though i don't like Coreguards at all). Let it be instant as long as Smite Conditions is not strong enough by its own to make it rewarding to be random spammed out of every skillcombo that includes castskills. Judge's Intervention could get the dmg/burn removed. An instant teleport from max range directly to the target without the need of los is strong enough for an instant skill. It doesn't need dmg in addition.Ofc a cast time on shatters is just a no no too. We see when looking at Chrono what it does to Mesmer when shatters are not instant (even when they are only not instant without clones it already kills every shatterbased playstyle). Mesmer was build and balanced around instant shatters and just like for Meditation Guards and Thief cast time would make it clunky and even more kill the class/spec/ build.

A little bit shorter overview:

1. Mantra of Pain: Needs a rework or delay (delay over cast time so classes with the need to combo certains skills can still do that). I would prefer a rework because cast times/delay on Mantras just contradict the whole nature of Mantras. Better just tweak their effects to a balanced lvl when still instant. For Mantra of Pain we worked out a Boonremove Mantra instead a dmg Mantra as idea. Other possibility would be to decrease the dmg and lower might/ vulnstacks (i prefer the first move because the second move always can lead into making it just useless, better rework broken mechanics instead nerf them to death, see EM trait).

2. Mantra of Truth: Imo its effects are too strong for an instant skill but as mentioned Mantras with cast time don't rly make sense, so just tweak its power to fit its instant nature after long recharge.

3. Mantra of Flame: Same as Mantra of Pain but it already is weaker in dmg, i am not even sure we have a balance issue here. But if yes then just lower dmg to an balanced amount for an instant skill, so it needs to be comboed with other not instant skills for a remarkable burst effect and doesn't worth to get random spammed.

4. Fresh Air mechanic: the short cds spammable dmg on scepter and the instant (passive) proc on swap to air trait have no counterplay for that the burst is so high that it can oneshot non bunker builds. I would not give it cast time but a delay (Ele can cast stuff during delay and during the use of the skills and still can use the skills during being cced, because the skills are still instant), so the gameplay doesn't get clunky but the opponent has time to react to what the Ele does. Like i see Ele swaps to air but instead of getting hit by the trait instantly the hit will be delayed for 0,3-0,5 secs gives me time to dodge that dmg. Scepter causes a flash animation but the animation appears together with the hit, so the hit could be delayed after button click for around 0,3-5 secs. Something like that (only ideas, feel free to come up with better solutions).

5. Guards Meditation skills (only Smite Conditions and Judge's Intervention, the others are defensive only anyway): Smite Conditions already got nerfed in dmg, we can discuss if the dmg is still too high or not. But it should not get a cast time to prevent the builds (Core and DH) from getting clunky or even unplayable. Judge's Intervention should get the dmg parts removed but also should stay instant.

6. Thief sword 2: Since immob is a very strong effect i am not sure if it could not get a little/better animation and casttime or a litttle delay on the immob application to make it better dodgeable. But i would not insist on it myself. It has no dmg by its own and has counterplay in terms of avoiding follow up dmg.

7. No other Mantra then the previous listed needs a cast time or delay at all, they have no balance issues (we could consider to lower daze duration on MoD to 1 sec to mark it more as a pure interrupt tool and not something worth spamming to daze chain, but that is already not worth it though). Mantras in general should stay instant after long recharge, only tweak or rework effects when they are not balanced with instant ability. Thief steal need to be instant just like Mesmers shatters. The whole class is build and balanced around that. And changing that just destroys the spec and make it clunky to play.

Agreed, cast time should be directly related to the lethality of a skill.

@Ryan.9387 said:Agreed, cast time should be directly related to the lethality of a skill.

How to say what i did just in short :joy:

+1

Some mantras need a slight delay before they go off but perhaps not a cast time.All mantras when charged need to be shown on the players effect bar so that you know they have mantra loaded. Many of them lack counterplay because you dont know they are loaded and just instantly come out.

Not every instant cast ability needs to be changed games doo need some instant cast skills to functionAlmost every class has some form of instant cast skill

We've already seen a developer statement which said, that ANet does not plan to remove skill combos from the game as this is a big part of the fun. They just try to become better at adjusting instant cast skills and long cast skills in terms of their impact in a fight.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

All mantras when charged need to be shown on the players effect bar so that you know they have mantra loaded. Many of them lack counterplay because you dont know they are loaded and just instantly come out.Not every instant cast ability needs to be changed games doo need some instant cast skills to functionAlmost every class has some form of instant cast skill

Yes agree, in particular to give the Mantra charge in the buff bar of the Mesmer and Guards back, including the number of charges still rdy.

oh here we go again lolinstant cast can be balanced just like everything else

Maybe I’m wrong, but feel like where things went down hill was when we implemented the ammo system. Mantras were strong but there is a nuance when players are FORCED to spend the lengthy cast time; especially when they need to expend them to begin a recharge.

Idk about you guys but way back when, I used to stalk Mesmers on my thief and wait for them to think the coast is clear, so they waste the charge and begin the lengthy casting and they’d have to blow even more cooldowns just to cover the cast.

I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

I think for things such as Mantra of Pain, and the Fresh Air Elementalist damage attacks putting them on a delay is probably the best solution that.

It keeps the flavor, combos, and gameplay intact while actually giving players on the opposing side the opportunity to more easily avoid it and counter play it. It's probably the easiest change that can be coded in.

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

Just because they have a long charge time doesn't justify them having powerful instant cast charges. This is true especially considering that you can channel them all prior to engaging in combat.

Watch any of the 70 games I uploaded on core mantra mesmer. Count how many times I was able to successfully charge my mantras in the middle of a fight and how many times the channels got interrupted.

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.Because in 90% of cases charging is done out of combat so its not a realistic factor of the in-combat experience unless the caster chooses to take that risk and over extend by doing so.

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

So, if they aren't interrupting your mantra charging in the middle of combat why would it matter if the charges we're instant cast lol...

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.Because in 90% of cases charging is done out of combat so its not a realistic factor of the in-combat experience unless the caster chooses to take that risk and over extend by doing so.

And if you read the rest of what I said, have the charges bleed off with decay.

@Monkey See.1498 said:I think for things such as Mantra of Pain, and the Fresh Air Elementalist damage attacks putting them on a delay is probably the best solution that.

It keeps the flavor, combos, and gameplay intact while actually giving players on the opposing side the opportunity to more easily avoid it and counter play it. It's probably the easiest change that can be coded in.

You thinking like a little bomb with a timer?And give it the scourge shade strike expanding red ring?

@Justine.6351 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

It's very easy to fully channel the mantras during combat. It is also possible to fully channel the mantras prior to engaging in combat.

As such, long channel times do not justify the fact that they have strong, instant cast effects.

@Justine.6351 said:

@Monkey See.1498 said:I think for things such as Mantra of Pain, and the Fresh Air Elementalist damage attacks putting them on a delay is probably the best solution that.

It keeps the flavor, combos, and gameplay intact while actually giving players on the opposing side the opportunity to more easily avoid it and counter play it. It's probably the easiest change that can be coded in.

Yeah, a ticking time bomb. Like with mantra of pain you could add something akin to the old alacrity effect for 2-3 seconds that lets you visually see something is about to happen to your character. And with Lightning Discharge on Elementalist you could have electricity pulsing around the victim for 2-3 seconds.

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

I think you didn't understand me,If they are not reacting to your mantra charging in combat even,How is changing instant cast charges going to change anything?

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:As some other posts have mentioned it comes down to how much impact instant skills should have, and it's something we're taking a close look at for the future update. We tend to agree that instant skills shouldn't do big damage or hard cc, or if they need to they should have some delayed trigger. The line gets more blurry as we look at things that aren't damage or cc, but there are definitely numbers that can be acceptable for instant skills.

In general, making sure that adequate counterplay exists is a big thing we want to hammer on moving forward.

On my damage Firebrand, I feel like I have to run 5 Mantras. The mantras are simply too good to pass up. You have the healing mantra with the aegis trait, which heals for ~3,000 each time you pulse it, on a 10s cooldown. Pretty strong, considering you can pulse it twice in a row without blowing the whole thing and allowing your stacks to recharge. Quickness "on demand" is a problem as well. The quickness mantra allows you to blow it exactly when you know you can land cleave, I feel like this mantra in general is very powerful in PvP because it allows you to catch your victim and then increase your damage by 33% against them for a brief moment. After landing an Axe 2/3 combo, you simply quickness and auto attack to kill your target. You can do this every 10 seconds as well. If you manage to pull multiple targets with your axe 3, you can blow all of your quickness to then immobilize them briefly as well, ensuring that your damage (33% increased) will land on all targets in the cleave range.

Blind mantra - bread and butter of a DPS guardian. Blind, Weakness, and Cripple. Holo charging a laser at me? blow a blind charge and shut out his elite, instantly, while stunned, from a pretty decent range as well. You can selectively (every 10 seconds) blind hard hitting abilities. The final charge of this will also immobilize, and if its traited, its about 4.5 seconds of immob on every target struck. Combine that with the quickness mantra, and you have multiple targets who can't deal damage (weakness and blind) and cant move (immob and cripple) who have to take the brunt of a firebrand's assault (which is increased by 33% while they have quickness).

Regen mantra: a bunch of condition removal over the course of a game. Keep in mind, the effects of all these mantras are also shared with allies. A firebrand in a team fight is continually healing the team through regen and removing their conditions, with a final burst of 5 conditions - > turned to boons just in case things get dicey.

Stability Mantra - on demand stun break, and a stability stack just in case they have another stun ready for you. 20s cooldown, which is faster than almost any SINGLE stun break in the game, and you can blow it 3 times. The final charge will essentially make you and your allies immune to stun by granting 5 stability to all.

I feel like a lot of what makes the firebrand's mantras significant is the final charge, but in general, all of the mantras I would consider better than the other utility skills they have available. The more notable mantras being the Aegis mantra (always going to be superior as a Firebrand (possible intended)), the blind mantra, and the stability mantra.

I would hope, though, that if these saw a nerf, we could see some changes to some of the other utility skills to make them more desired. I would love to drop the Honor tree as a firebrand, but I feel like I HAVE to take the honor tree + aegis mantra to even be competitive, for example.

Changes I would consider:

Final charge of the blind mantra no longer immobilizes, mantra trait immobilize increased to 2s duration (it has a 10s cooldown as well). This would make it so that you have to take the mantra trait to immob, and with a shorter duration. Perhaps consider removing the Cripple effect from this mantra, so enemies have an easier time removing an immob or the burns.

Quickness Mantra: Duration of quickness reduced by 20% (2.5 seconds to 2.0 seconds on the initial charges)

Regen Mantra: Final pulse reduced from 5 conditions to 3 conditions. Reduce cooldown of charges by 2 seconds. Steadier condition removal, less burst condition removal.

Stability Mantra: stability removed from all but the final charge. Keep the stun break.

@Justine.6351 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Justine.6351 said:I keep seeing people say mantras are instant cast but those people never mention that they have a really long charge time.I don't even know how mesmer mantras are still a target considering lost time damage was gutted after it was added as a damage replacement for power block which now is a non-crit.

If I were forced to find a middle ground I would have mantra charges dissipate 1 per 5-10 seconds?

No you still aren't understanding me.

I'm not channeling my mantras directly in front of someone that I know has a CC ready. I will line of sight, CC, blind, or immobilize and walk behind them, use super speed and run away if they're on a melee weaponset, channel it as soon as they start their dodge animation, etc. etc.

In other words, there are many ways to reliably and frequently gain access to the instant cast, powerful mantra charges. Also, suppose they weren't able to react to me channeling the mantras in front of them. In this scenario, increasing the cast times on the charges so they could react in time would (logically) make sense. Ya know, as opposed to making them not have a cast time to react to at all. However, even though that's not a good idea, that's my answer to your question in bold.

I disagree with removing instant cast skills. If to powerful nerf them (in PVP only!!! very important - a thing anet has failed to do last balance patches), and damage only. Make sure noone of them stun (stunning is often op in pvp, and instant cast one for sure).

Fresh air: The damage is to low to matter. If that damage killed you something else is wrong. Also, I must post here as pve player since (pvp based) nerfs have happened before that destroyed pve build (see greatsword from ranger auto attack got massively gutted, for no good reason, other then VERY maybe pvp - while still being relatively weak there). Fresh air is low damage, only with insane good rotation you can get it to 35k damage in burst phase (long phases you drop down fast compared to weaver). Still i love scepter with passion, it's a nice weapon, fun to play.

But here we are, op here asks for nerfs (wich i think are not necessary, more on that later), the new dev will probably listen (he shouldn't, balance is also an act of not listening to the loudest shouters, i haven't posted much on forums, doenst mean my opinion doenst matter (and the op's here matter), or the opinion of people that never post here.

Ok: mantra's: the deal is simple Cast time (to charge) alone offsets the insta cast later. Effect to strong? rebalance (like less effect per charge, more charges) if necessary, or something like it. But remove instant cast? please no.

Fresh air? Very hard to play build, overload air was nerved big time because of this (way to much if you see the damage weaver puts out). Scepter auto attack is amonst the weakest in game. THAT is the balance. It makes the build more fast paced, harder to play (and imo: THE BIG THING: more fun to play). But is it more effective? No. People not expecting a fresh air burst just play bad, you can see it from miles coming. Also when ultra zerker ele killed me with it, he usually got killed instant after, cause the build doenst allow double person bursting, it's an all or nothing build.

A big call against making all skills the same boring and slow thing arenanet. For instance: guardian hammer. you improved it, but remember the old one? Or lets say warrior hammer? Apart from launch day pvp 'stun combo' play it has no meaning. Zero. Reason? Simple not fast paced and boring as a result. Why is thief so popular? Fast pace. Remove that and you kill gameplay. Sindrener (a person you should listen to) still doenst like the steal nerf on Daredevil. It's to low to get used to. It's to low to be usefull (the range). Fun factor gone, sure balance. Thief has had a lot of nerfs elsewhere (they are generally not that good for instance in stun chaining), and burst damage is often hard to land (backstab cast time against seasoned player will not land). Do i hate them to play against: certainly. Doens't mean they need nerfs.

Two calls from me: no to nerfing everything to slow, boring low damage (that doenst mean op stuff gets a while card, damage is always allowed to be tuned down - pvp only).

Those last words are the second call: Please for the love of god this time: keep normalization shit, pvp nerfs, to PVP only. Raids are a thing, fractals are a thing. They were balanced on 10k low dps, 20k mid dps, and 30-37k high dps to be completed (the raids). Often pvp nerfs make either pve rotation much harder (and in a complex way not fun, see chrono), or simple worse: lower damage.

Example: reaper. Anet has told they are happy with prescence of it in pve, but are henceforth carefull in any boosts, to not make it overpowered. Good call! But say the op or any pvp poster calls for a nerf. Reaper is among the lower performing power classes in pve. It's not bad but certainly not amazing either. Any pvp (damage) nerf that is not countered somehow in pve (mostly by not copying it to pve at all), will make the class completely bad at pve (raiding). Before the boost to the specific trait, holosmith was in same boat. Btw you guys still gutted rifle on engie, because sword only is a thing that matters now, and the way you gotta achieve 147 heat non stop is for me not a fun way to play (even skilled players who love it and tell me to stop complaining, overheated often, dying by it.)

I know it might not have any use: but some of us player like a lot of stuff in the game, and it seems this blind obsession for balance (wich never willl be there), causes potential full removal of fun to use triats and skills (hello falling damage traits, why the hell i hear they will be removed!!!!). All respect of world for new devs who seem to control balance, but please respect the old fun things of gw2 before you 'make Gw2 'dev name' version (and overwrite Gw2 'original dev' version in skill world).

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:As some other posts have mentioned it comes down to how much impact instant skills should have, and it's something we're taking a close look at for the future update. We tend to agree that instant skills shouldn't do big damage or hard cc, or if they need to they should have some delayed trigger. The line gets more blurry as we look at things that aren't damage or cc, but there are definitely numbers that can be acceptable for instant skills.

In general, making sure that adequate counterplay exists is a big thing we want to hammer on moving forward.

This also gets into things like mantra. The reason why the initial cast is so long is there are no casts afterwards. So, if we add a cast time, logically, you will need to remove the initial long cast. And if you do that, mantras no longer become mantras.

Delayed effect could be a possibility. As long as it is not something like guardian spirit weapons which makes them impossible to use in PvP.