Overnerfed Skills and How I'd Buff/Fix them. - Engi/Ele/Mesmer

[Kuma.1503]

Elementalist

Staff

Lava Font - Damage too low and avoidable. Fix: Deals one tick of damage when summmoned. Alt Fix: Inflicts burning per pulse

Meteor Shower - Damage is too low to justify building for power. Fix: Remove damage fall off per target

Engineer

Rifle

Overcharged Shot - Too many trade-offs for so little reward. Self knock-back has anti-synergy with the rest of the weapon. Fix: Self knockback removed.

Pistol

Poison Dart Volley - Low damage for such a long cast time. Projectiles fly slowly and don't lock-on, so they often "miss" even when not blinded.Fix: Fire rate increased. Projectile velocity increased. Projectile finisher added for combo field play.

Kits

Grenade Barrage - Should, at the very least, hit harder than shrapnel grenade on a zerker build. Fix: Slight increase in damage per grenade (0.1 or less will suffice)

Med Blaster - Was indirectly nerfed with game-wide boon nerf, and directly nerfed when heal coeff was cut in half. Fix: Heal coefficent nerf reverted (0.1 >> 0.2)

Mesmer

Staff

Phantasmal Warlock - Literal canon fodder. Fix: Listed Below

Chaotic Dampening - [Rework] - Chaos Aura grants protection >> Phantasmal Warlock summons an additional Warlock and inflicts confusion per pulse.

Chaos Aura - Transmute added. Gain regen, protection, and vigor. Inflict poison, torment, and confusion. Radius: 180

Scepter

Illusionary Counter - Hitting the block should be more rewarding than simply pressing counterspell. Fix: Clones summoned on block 1 >> 2

Sword

Illusionary Leap - [QoL Fix] Will no longer cast when out of range of target

[ Also because amushes tie into weapon skills I will go ahead and say this here. Give mirage it's damned dodge back. Thank you :) ]

[Stand The Wall.6987]

poison dart volley does plenty of damage. if they're gonna decrease damage on skills like grenade barrage, then they should at least lower cd. not sure how such basic math escapes these people.

[Kuma.1503]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:poison dart volley does plenty of damage. if they're gonna decrease damage on skills like grenade barrage, then they should at least lower cd. not sure how such basic math escapes these people.

Idk, the damage is okay in a vaccuum, but when you factor in how painfully slow and clunky the skill is, I feel like it should matter a bit more when you manage to land the full damage. I figured the best fix, instead of simply increasing the numbers, would be to reduce the clunk/unreliability of the skill, as well as add a finisher to it to encourage more combo field play with kits.

[Ghos.1326]

I'd like to also say that poison dart volley is actually not too bad, especially when paired with pistol 3 (bread and butter combo for main hand pistol is pistol 3 -> 2). One thing I'd fix about engi mainhand pistol, which they still have not addressed, is the aftercast of the autos. It's too long, making that .5 cast time actually around .8 or .9. Reduce after cast of the autos to make the pistol autos more smooth and threatening.

I think nade barrage is fine where it's at. 3 extra nades at the same power coeff as nade 2, no change is needed. What I would like to see in general for nades, is how the grenade projectiles themselves doing damage, instead make it do the damage inside of its ring to prevent issues where you're just inside/outside of the ring, and some nades hit, but others don't.

I agree with overcharged shot. One idea I've been playing with is to make overcharged shot make you roll back (like warrior's rifle shot that immobs) to help with rifle's theme of "keeping you mobile". Could be used in interesting ways.

I'm not too keen on mirage getting their 2nd dodge back, but I'd like to see, as a sort of offset to the penalty, more frequent and longer lasting vigor effects for compensation.

Chaotic Dampening is fine where it's at. it's supposed to be a more defensive tool to help with damage mitigation (damage dampener, see what i did there? coughscrappertraitcough)

[Kuma.1503]

@"Ghos.1326" said:I'd like to also say that poison dart volley is actually not too bad, especially when paired with pistol 3 (bread and butter combo for main hand pistol is pistol 3 -> 2). One thing I'd fix about engi mainhand pistol, which they still have not addressed, is the aftercast of the autos. It's too long, making that .5 cast time actually around .8 or .9. Reduce after cast of the autos to make the pistol autos more smooth and threatening.

I think nade barrage is fine where it's at. 3 extra nades at the same power coeff as nade 2, no change is needed. What I would like to see in general for nades, is how the grenade projectiles themselves doing damage, instead make it do the damage inside of its ring to prevent issues where you're just inside/outside of the ring, and some nades hit, but others don't.

I agree with overcharged shot. One idea I've been playing with is to make overcharged shot make you roll back (like warrior's rifle shot that immobs) to help with rifle's theme of "keeping you mobile". Could be used in interesting ways.

I'm not too keen on mirage getting their 2nd dodge back, but I'd like to see, as a sort of offset to the penalty, more frequent and longer lasting vigor effects for compensation.

Chaotic Dampening is fine where it's at. it's supposed to be a more defensive tool to help with damage mitigation (damage dampener, see what i did there? coughscrappertraitcough)

Smoother autos would be nice, but the change would be minor in the grand scheme of things. Pistol mainly sees play on core engineer builds, and with your kit swaps, you should always have at least one skill to press to fill in the gaps where you could be autoing. Reducing the sliggishness of Poison dart Volley would play into this playstyle nicely by allowing you to flow through your skills more fluidly. Giving it a finisher would further play into your kit swapping by allowing you to combo it with a fire bomb/ poison gas shell, ect.

In mirage's case, giving them more vigor uptime with one dodge would just encourage them to spam dodge off cd. If you've got high vigor uptime, but only one dodge, any time you spend at full endurance is just wasting all of that endurance regen. I'd rather mirage had two dodges and very low vigor uptime than one dodge and very high vigor uptime.

The former encourages the mirage to leverage their dodges intelligently (When should I use them offensively vs saving them?) the other encourages the mirage to spam them out as much as they can to make the most out of vigor and energy sigils.

I agree that giving them a dodge back should come at a cost elsewhere though. I'm not certain what the best trade-off would be. Some have suggested 2 clones instead of 3. Others have suggested removing clone ambushes (I don't necessarily agree with this one due to the utility granted by clone ambushes. e.g. Positioning all clones onto your target with sword ambush. Loading up the target with 25 vuln with gs ambush. I believe that ambushes should provide utility that encourages you to use dodges offensively)

One idea that I can think of off the top of my head is that the mirage and clones take more damage for a period of time after gaining mirage cloak, which would actually discourage you from spamming them mindlessly. It would also mean that managing to hit the mirage in-between his invulnerability frames will most definately be felt by both players.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Staff on Ele will never be used in PvP, even though it should be "favored by circle gameplay" of PvP...Fireball -> Apply 1 stack of burn for 2s from "splash" damage(Including on main target that was hit by it).Lava Font -> Apply 1s of Slow&Burn every 1s for whole skill duration.Flame Burst - Reworked fully > Inner Burst -> Kaboom at caster location, dealing xyz damage, apply 3 stacks of burn for 6s. Push away enemies from you(the closer they are the furher away they'll pushed), Knockdown after push for 1s.Meteor Shower -> Ignore Protection.Water Blast -> Increase velocity by x%.Ice Spike -> Apply 2s of slow/chilled if it hit target. Create 6 small ice icicles on the ground that damage enemies if they step on them.(radius a tiny bit bigger than the balls created by revs aa on staff).Geyser -> Each tick heals 5% more than previous one.Frozen Ground -> Encase enemies in block of solid ice, after staying within field for longer than 3s.Healing Rain -> Increase healing by 15%. If you or your allies are under effect of Frost Aura, they'll get periodically healed by x flat amount. (Like 500hp every 1 sec).Lightning Surge -> Revealed and apply stun for 1s if enemy was stealthed.Gust -> Change into chargable skill, which if used "instantly without charging" will be normal Gust, if used "charged fully for 1s" will become a wide(180/240 width) wall that knockbacks all enemies in it's path.Windborne Speed -> Additionally removes Slow, gains immunity to impairing conditions for 4s.Static Field -> Removes 2 stacks of stability and dazes enemies within it for 1/4s every 1s.Stoning -> Increase velocity by x%.Eruption - Reworked fully > Landslide: Push away enemies (be it either a cone like thing or straight line like rev hammer 2, but a bit wider) and apply slow/cripple. After initial push field will stay for 3s dealing medium damage and applying bleeding.Unsteady Ground -> Apply Cripple for 3s to those that has passed through it.Shock Wave - Reworked fully > Earthquake: Earth Kaboom at targetted location that deals heavy damage in 240 radius and dazes enemies for 1/2s. - Secondary skill > Shock Wave: from blast location send 3 shock waves to nearest targets and apply immobilize and bleeding.It would be nice to see that, but yea, one can dream.As for your ideas:Overcharged, why not make it "chargable", if you just instant cast it it'll just poke away your enemy by a bit, but if you fully charge it, it'll send him flying long distance, but you'll still get knockedback?Poison Dart increasing fire rate and velocity is ok, but projectile finisher chance should be 20% max.I would rather nerf grenade kit dmg than buff Barrage.No idea about Med kit though, could be passable to buff it a bit here and there, as long as won't make it too bunkerish for no reason.Fixing Illusionary Leap and adding transmute to Chaos Aura sounds good, beside that buff to scepter block is no-no(enough of this visual noise).Phantasm Warlock could become something like: Warlocks Fury: Cast Illusionary spikes on the ground that'll go toward enemy and deal damage, apply blind and slow, at the end of spike, summon Warlock which will pewpew your target, or something, adding more clones/phantasm to skills is really no-no...

[Ragnar.4257]

TBH, Lava Font is fine. Has the same function as a guardian symbol, and does more damage, on a lower CD, castable at 1200 range. Traited its nearly 100% uptime.

Fire and Earth attunements for Staff are both pretty decent, it's Air and Water that are letting it down in PvP. That, and the fact that nearly all it's skills have minimum 3/4s cast time as well as slow projectile travel time.

[Khalisto.5780]

Ele being bad has notjing to do with staff, tempest supp/healing modifiers and weaver mainly offensive modifiers are responsible for core ele modifiers being overnerfed

There is no way to buff core ele without almost killing tempest and weaver before, and that goes for all classes

[Kuma.1503]

@"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:Staff on Ele will never be used in PvP, even though it should be "favored by circle gameplay" of PvP...Fireball -> Apply 1 stack of burn for 2s from "splash" damage(Including on main target that was hit by it).Lava Font -> Apply 1s of Slow&Burn every 1s for whole skill duration.Flame Burst - Reworked fully > Inner Burst -> Kaboom at caster location, dealing xyz damage, apply 3 stacks of burn for 6s. Push away enemies from you(the closer they are the furher away they'll pushed), Knockdown after push for 1s.Meteor Shower -> Ignore Protection.Water Blast -> Increase velocity by x%.Ice Spike -> Apply 2s of slow/chilled if it hit target. Create 6 small ice icicles on the ground that damage enemies if they step on them.(radius a tiny bit bigger than the balls created by revs aa on staff).Geyser -> Each tick heals 5% more than previous one.Frozen Ground -> Encase enemies in block of solid ice, after staying within field for longer than 3s.Healing Rain -> Increase healing by 15%. If you or your allies are under effect of Frost Aura, they'll get periodically healed by x flat amount. (Like 500hp every 1 sec).Lightning Surge -> Revealed and apply stun for 1s if enemy was stealthed.Gust -> Change into chargable skill, which if used "instantly without charging" will be normal Gust, if used "charged fully for 1s" will become a wide(180/240 width) wall that knockbacks all enemies in it's path.Windborne Speed -> Additionally removes Slow, gains immunity to impairing conditions for 4s.Static Field -> Removes 2 stacks of stability and dazes enemies within it for 1/4s every 1s.Stoning -> Increase velocity by x%.Eruption - Reworked fully > Landslide: Push away enemies (be it either a cone like thing or straight line like rev hammer 2, but a bit wider) and apply slow/cripple. After initial push field will stay for 3s dealing medium damage and applying bleeding.Unsteady Ground -> Apply Cripple for 3s to those that has passed through it.Shock Wave - Reworked fully > Earthquake: Earth Kaboom at targetted location that deals heavy damage in 240 radius and dazes enemies for 1/2s. - Secondary skill > Shock Wave: from blast location send 3 shock waves to nearest targets and apply immobilize and bleeding.It would be nice to see that, but yea, one can dream.As for your ideas:Overcharged, why not make it "chargable", if you just instant cast it it'll just poke away your enemy by a bit, but if you fully charge it, it'll send him flying long distance, but you'll still get knockedback?Poison Dart increasing fire rate and velocity is ok, but projectile finisher chance should be 20% max.I would rather nerf grenade kit dmg than buff Barrage.No idea about Med kit though, could be passable to buff it a bit here and there, as long as won't make it too bunkerish for no reason.Fixing Illusionary Leap and adding transmute to Chaos Aura sounds good, beside that buff to scepter block is no-no(enough of this visual noise).Phantasm Warlock could become something like: Warlocks Fury: Cast Illusionary spikes on the ground that'll go toward enemy and deal damage, apply blind and slow, at the end of spike, summon Warlock which will pewpew your target, or something, adding more clones/phantasm to skills is really no-no...

Some great ideas here man. A full rework for staff ele along the lines of what you've listed would be very welcome.

[Lucentfir.7430]

@Kuma.1503 You know very well, this is not how we do things here anymore, those abilities are actually too strong right now and need to be toned down in reality, I mean think of the new players that'll stand in the lava font and nearly die to burning if it burns per pulse, burning per pulse is REALLY OP. :'(

[Emberheart.8426]

@Ragnar.4257 said:TBH, Lava Font is fine. Has the same function as a guardian symbol, and does more damage, on a lower CD, castable at 1200 range. Traited its nearly 100% uptime.

Fire and Earth attunements for Staff are both pretty decent, it's Air and Water that are letting it down in PvP. That, and the fact that nearly all it's skills have minimum 3/4s cast time as well as slow projectile travel time.

Symbols actually have a larger radius and are bloated skills that can potentially do 5 different things.

[Disney.7826]

Yes pls buff nades, ty

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"Kuma.1503" said:

Elementalist

Staff

Lava Font - Damage too low and avoidable. Fix: Deals one tick of damage when summmoned. Alt Fix: Inflicts burning per pulse

Meteor Shower - Damage is too low to justify building for power. Fix: Remove damage fall off per target

Engineer

Rifle

Overcharged Shot - Too many trade-offs for so little reward. Self knock-back has anti-synergy with the rest of the weapon. Fix: Self knockback removed.

Pistol

Poison Dart Volley - Low damage for such a long cast time. Projectiles fly slowly and don't lock-on, so they often "miss" even when not blinded.Fix: Fire rate increased. Projectile velocity increased. Projectile finisher added for combo field play.

Kits

Grenade Barrage - Should, at the very least, hit harder than shrapnel grenade on a zerker build. Fix: Slight increase in damage per grenade (0.1 or less will suffice)

Med Blaster - Was indirectly nerfed with game-wide boon nerf, and directly nerfed when heal coeff was cut in half. Fix: Heal coefficent nerf reverted (0.1 >> 0.2)

Mesmer

Staff

Phantasmal Warlock - Literal canon fodder. Fix: Listed Below

Chaotic Dampening - [Rework] - Chaos Aura grants protection >> Phantasmal Warlock summons an additional Warlock and inflicts confusion per pulse.

Chaos Aura - Transmute added. Gain regen, protection, and vigor. Inflict poison, torment, and confusion. Radius: 180

Scepter

Illusionary Counter - Hitting the block should be more rewarding than simply pressing counterspell. Fix: Clones summoned on block 1 >> 2

Sword

Illusionary Leap - [QoL Fix] Will no longer cast when out of range of target

[ Also because amushes tie into weapon skills I will go ahead and say this here. Give mirage it's damned dodge back. Thank you :) ]

1 Barrage could get away with 5% dmg increase from 0,3 to 0,315. Maybe even 10% to push it into 0,33Huge part why it hits so hard is holo gets lasers edge for extra ~20% dmg modifier for the barrage, that you cant really make use off for shrapnel nades. And as always core suffers :)2 I never used poison dart volley but if a skill cant hit maybe instead of buffing its damage we.... make it hit? and see how it goes from there.If you just buff its damage and cast speed it ends up being oppresive in melee, A channeled 1shot skill. Just make it land first.3 Mesmer scepter is mostly fine, but it needs something more going for it. Scepter block is a really strong skill, and it deals big D damage, it doesnt need extra.If any part of scepter needs buffs it would be scepter 3 and auto attacks. Landing slow 300-400 noodle damage hits is just pathetic.4 Staff 3 needs something, and not shoved into a trait but just given, the skill is pathetic, similar to chaos aura. Transmute for chaos aura, or maybe chaos aura detonate that applies boons/condi depending on boons/condi on enemy could be a cool concept.As for staff 3 applying confusion and spawning an extra... this is fucking 14 stacks of confusion dude. Entire scepter channel applies 7 and you wanna give this skill 14...It would have to end up lasting like 1s and be useless, and people would complain anyways. It needs something else. But I agree that protection from staff can be removed, to lower how passive-safe the weapon can be. And be more about kiting and keeping a distance.

But for real, mesmer could be viable just by fixing several bugs,1 sword ambush hit reg2 Sword 3 teleport bugs, and make it apply vulnerability as it says it does3 P5 make it no longer rando miss4 axe 3 proper teleport that can actually reliably hitThis would be a gr8 start, I prefer positive bug fixes over raw buffs, since it can do wonders for both fun and reliability when keeping the game clean.Mesmer is not a class to brute force things with raw numbers anyways.

[Ragnar.4257]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@Ragnar.4257 said:TBH, Lava Font is fine. Has the same function as a guardian symbol, and does more damage, on a lower CD, castable at 1200 range. Traited its nearly 100% uptime.

Fire and Earth attunements for Staff are both pretty decent, it's Air and Water that are letting it down in PvP. That, and the fact that nearly all it's skills have minimum 3/4s cast time as well as slow projectile travel time.

Symbols actually have a larger radius and are bloated skills that can potentially do 5 different things.

No, they don't. They're both 180 radius.

I'm obviously not arguing that staff-ele > guardian, just that lava font is not the weakness here. It's everything else about staff.

[Shao.7236]

Utility on Core Elementalist has cooldowns that are way too high. Armor of Earth and Mist Form CD's should be the same as PvE, this'll make them considerably competitive to Twist of Fate or Signet of Air.

There's almost no ways to reliably keep people in the AoE's which is why Immobilize duration on Arcane skills should be increased to 2 seconds. Also have Arcane Blast get it's 3rd charge back since the nerf has balanced out how it could be pretty good in the past.

Dagger off-hand Water skills could really use a buff, Frost Aura and Cleansing Wave to be both 25 CDs while the conditions removed be 3 like Magnetic Wave, Focus is just too good otherwise.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Kuma.1503" said:

Elementalist

Staff

Lava Font - Damage too low and avoidable. Fix: Deals one tick of damage when summmoned.

If it's not already the case I do agree.

Meteor Shower - Damage is too low to justify building for power. Fix: Remove damage fall off per target

MS is, objectively, strong enough.

Ragnar is right, more than fire, ele staff need love in air and water attunment.

• Air AA is seriously lacking, the bounce hardly justify the long cast time, slow projectile speed and relatively low damage. At least reduce cast time to 1/4.
• Lightning surge is and have always been a joke due to it's cast time. Reduce this cast time (1/4 or 1/2 at the very least) even if it's at the cost of some damage and it might be worth using.
• Gust... This skill just don't feel good to use.
• Water attunment main offender is Ice spike's cast time/animation.
• Water AA could afford an increase in damage for it's horrendous 3/4 cast time.

Engineer

Rifle

Overcharged Shot - Too many trade-offs for so little reward. Self knock-back has anti-synergy with the rest of the weapon. Fix: Self knockback removed.

Agree.

Pistol

Poison Dart Volley - Low damage for such a long cast time. Projectiles fly slowly and don't lock-on, so they often "miss" even when not blinded.Fix: Fire rate increased. Projectile velocity increased. Projectile finisher added for combo field play.

The skill have always been "weak", especially at range. Main issue is probably the animation. I'd prefer homing missile personally as a fix.

Kits

Grenade Barrage - Should, at the very least, hit harder than shrapnel grenade on a zerker build. Fix: Slight increase in damage per grenade (0.1 or less will suffice)

With how you put it, ANet's devs would probably just reduce further shrapnel grenade damage... Grenade barrage have problematic exploits which work well in sPvP and justify it's current self.

Med Blaster - Was indirectly nerfed with game-wide boon nerf, and directly nerfed when heal coeff was cut in half. Fix: Heal coefficent nerf reverted (0.1 >> 0.2)

Well... I doubt it would be game breaking so...

Mesmer

Staff

Phantasmal Warlock - Literal canon fodder. Fix: Listed Below

Chaotic Dampening - [Rework] - Chaos Aura grants protection >> Phantasmal Warlock summons an additional Warlock and inflicts confusion per pulse.

I'd rather it not be confusion. Bleed might be fine thought. Keep it at 1 summon in sPvP/WvW.

Chaos Aura - Transmute added. Gain regen, protection, and vigor. Inflict poison, torment, and confusion. Radius: 180

Yeah, No, Just no.

Scepter

Illusionary Counter - Hitting the block should be more rewarding than simply pressing counterspell. Fix: Clones summoned on block 1 >> 2

Pretty strong as it is already.

Sword

Illusionary Leap - [QoL Fix] Will no longer cast when out of range of target

Agree.