I'm still upset about mantra change

[Woltarion.6829]

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05/11/2021—May 11 Release Notes

Mantras (Mesmer and Firebrand)

We acknowledge that there are significant flaws with the core gameplay innate to mantra skills, and that this problem was exacerbated in Path of Fire™ when we switched mesmer mantras to an ammunition system, creating an incentive to not use the final charge. This is a poor user experience and something we have hoped for a long time to be able to come back and address.

Needing to prepare for combat by using a sequence of skills with a long casting time is not fun, and in most cases, using the final charge of a mantra in combat felt like a mistake. It not only denied your use of the skill for a long time, but it also required you to prepare your mantras again after the cooldown expired. Instead of being rewarding to use, mantras have been a chore; something you need to remember to do every time you change maps or respawn, or deal with after every /gg in a fractal, strike, or raid. Holding your group up while you again prepare each of your mantras never feels great either!

 

During the development of this balance patch, we tried several alternatives, including automatic preparation while out of combat. Ultimately, we found that the best course of action was to simplify the mantra skills and remove the preparation mechanic altogether, as this ensures that we can have consistent behavior between mesmer and firebrand mantras, as well as consistent core functionality between PvE and PvP game modes. As a result, in this balance update, we have decided to rework both mesmer and firebrand mantras into simple ammunition skills.

What this means:

• No more preparing mantras before use. They are always in the "ready" mode, storing up uses.
• Firebrand mantras are no longer stronger on final charge. All uses are the same.
• Mesmer mantras no longer do something on preparing.

Some related tuning and trait changes will happen as a result. While this results in a loss of some of the current flavor inherent to the mantra skill type, we have found that the ability to easily read, understand, and use these skills in normal gameplay is a strong improvement to the play experience.

 

I'm sorry for the broken English, it's not my native language.

 

I still can't get over the mantras changes, I really prefer the old mantra system with high preparation time. I didn't use the mantra for the amunnition but for the preparation. For me, it was like a high risk high reward system. I'm fully a PvP player, so the mantra can be easily interrupted because of its long preparation. But it was what it made it interesting in my opinion. You had to hide/ be invisible or prepare it at the right time to get the reward.

 

Especially, i'm talking about the mantra of recovery. For a long time it had a CD of 10sec, before being 18sec. If you could finish the preparation, with some healing power it could easily heal you more than 60% of your HP at once. But it could be easily interrupted/poisoned before so it was counterable. Now the mantra of recovery is only healing 1640 Hp (with a suplement of healing power x0.25) and 2620 Hp (+x0.4) if you're bellow 50% HP. This healing has a 20sec recharge for one ammo. It's incredibly low. Imagine if you have 0 healing power, that would mean that once you have 0 ammo, you can only get during a teamfight 2620/20 = 131 healing by second of cooldown thanks to it. In comparison, you can have 4299/20 = 214.95 healing by second of cooldown with Mirror, which has exactly the same CD, and has reflect, and has a x0.6 multiplier. Signet of Ether heals 5560/30 = 185 healing by second of cooldown has a x1 multiplier, heals everytime a clone is summoned, and reduce CD of all fantasma. Ether Feast can heal 5560/25 = 222.4 healing by second of CD, and this is without any clones active.

Even if the mantra is traited, mantra of recovery will give you 3640/20 = 181 healing by second of CD. How is it supposed to compete with the other healing spells ? It has even lower multiplier than the other spell. Signet of Ether can be traited to heal even more and gives you distorsion, which can be synergized with reflect and auspicious angish etc. The mantra of healing is in a sad state and I really hate it.

 

Mantra of recovery was the mantra that I used the most, but I can still speak about the other mantras.

 

Mantra of resolve was also a High risk High reward system that I really liked. If you could prepared it entirely, you could cleanse all the condi you had, but it could be easily interrupted as it had a long cast time. Now it dispells instantly 3 condi. It's not bad, but it lost all this flavour. Seriously, can you do a more vanilla spell than "dispell 3 condi" nothing more, nothing less. At least Null Field can dispel and sinergize with a combo field. Mantra of resolve sinergize with litteraly nothing.

 

Mantra of pain could give you a big boost in power. Now it doesn't,  mesmer has even less means to get power.

 

Mantra of Concentration gave you Aegis, quickness and stability when charged. Now it's a 45sec CD breakstun that gives 3sec stab. I mean, for such a long CD we could at least have something else.

 

Mantra of distraction  reduced the CD of diversion when charged. It's not the main reason why it was used but :

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using the final charge of a mantra in combat felt like a mistake. It not only denied your use of the skill for a long time, but it also required you to prepare your mantras again after the cooldown expired. Instead of being rewarding to use, mantras have been a chore;

Well I absolutely don't think so. It was the essence of Mantra : High risk High reward. Sometimes, if you could interrupt a healing spell with your last charge of mantra of distraction, it was rewarding even if the CD is then long.

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Some related tuning and trait changes will happen as a result

 

Well I'm still waiting that Mantra of recovery becomes better. It's an incredibily low healing spells.

[Tayga.3192]

They should buff mantras and give them the active effects (weakened) back.

Recovery should heal more, Pain should give some might, interrupting with Distraction should recharge F3 a bit, Resolve should cleanse more conditions and Concentration should give aoe quickness. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Tayga.3192

[AXLIB.8425]

the entire mantra change is just to give fb some convenience, it just happens to gut most our mantra in the process. fb got their lost of last charge effect compensated with trait, and our charge up effect is just gone forever... and even when they say that they want both mantra to be similar but fb still have 3 mantra count while we have 2... 

[Xaylin.1860]

Yeah... this one was bad for Mesmers. I miss several of the on charge effects.

[Flow.2947]

Uhh I can sing a song about that. Fun fact is that I have been using mantras since the beginning of the game.  It was hard to use but the rewords were better.

Mantras are so hard to balance in my opinion. Having 2 mantras didn't feel good at the time, if you had 3 you were basically op. along with the stun or immob it was soo strong.... And the insta dmg as well as interrupts just too good not to use.

Healing during stund. Interrupting while ressing...

 

now mantras are easy to use and the value flattens out, the high dmg potential has been changed to more of a support playstyle. 

I'm not complaining about the new  system, it's great, but for channeling I had high hopes for more. 

I'm thinking of a reversal, for example if you run out of ammo you get the option to channel it for 3s, but not to reset the ammo (the ammo continues to count in the meantime) Like a new skill meanwhile your w8ing to get your ammo back.

 

When you have successfully channeled:

Mantra of Pain: it removes 1 boon per target hit.

Mantra of distraction: on interrupted, 50% of an ammo is recharged.

Determination: remove conditions and heal per condition removed

Concentration would be you brake nearby alliesout of stun or increasing the duration of stability by 2 seconds or 2 seconds of aegis 

Recovery increases healing by 20%ish (side note: please please please make it aoe like the rest of the mantra kid give it some consistancy)

The Passive: whenever a skill takes more than 1.5s to cast, you and nearby allies get healed and you lose 1 condition.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Flow.2947

[Tseison.4659]

I wouldn't say I'm upset about the Mantra changes since I never really used them. However, I will say that it's upsetting Mantras never got a "Final Charge" like the Firebrand and also since Mantras don't get a charge up, they might as well be turned into something more useful or have a complete rework.

[Simonoly.4352]

Recently returning WvW player here and I'm just getting upset about the mantra changes now 😆

Without the charging period, they're basically just cantrips and we've lost a mechanic where we'd get something cool and potent when risking that charge. Also it was fun when my Mesmer started chanting all those 'power' words, like he'd recently been to a self-help retreat and was extra empowered now. "Pain! Friendship! Bacon!"

However, it's the need to be facing your target when casting the offensive mantras that really kills it for me. It removes all that cool tricksy gameplay that Mantra of Distraction facilitated in particular and is what I thought this class was all about. I used to love interrupting people whilst running away from a zerg or tab targeting to a group of enemy ressers for a clutch interrupt whilst facing off against an attack from someone else. In particular, it was great when you had, say, a sword/dagger Thief on top of you spamming flanking strike and you nail that interrupt to save your tender Mesmer booty! Now it just doesn't allow for anything exciting and makes it a one dimensional GS burst setup utility. Exceedingly meh!

Think I'm going to retire both Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Distraction from my skill bar now. They're devoid of flavour and getting constant "No line of sight" messages whenever I try to do anything interesting creates a very poor player experience.

Oh well, still like all the butterflies!

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Simonoly.4352

[Xaylin.1860]

On 9/24/2021 at 1:19 AM, Simonoly.4352 said:

"Pain! Friendship! Bacon!"

 

Mhhh 🤤

 

LoS probably had to happen. But I really liked the F3 recharge and the full condition cleanse. Especially since we have very few skills that directly interact with Shatters.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 9/24/2021 at 5:25 AM, Tseison.4659 said:

I wouldn't say I'm upset about the Mantra changes since I never really used them. However, I will say that it's upsetting Mantras never got a "Final Charge" like the Firebrand and also since Mantras don't get a charge up, they might as well be turned into something more useful or have a complete rework.

That's because mesmers essentially got the bonus effect when they charged the mantra in the first place.

 

Back when mantras weren't just instant cast ammo skills, that was the distinction between firebrand and mesmer mantras. Firebrands weren't really supposed to recharge during a combat - if the threw the final charge, that was it for that slot for half a minute or so until they even had the option to recharge. Mesmers, however, were expected to blow their charges, at which point refreshing the mantra would actually have a shorter recharge than the count recharge, they just needed to be able to pull off the channel. Since mesmers, unlike firebrands, were expected to channel during combat, they were rewarded for doing so. Now that functionality has been removed and, with it, the ability to recharge faster than the base count recharge rate.

 

TL;DR Mesmers had their third charge and the channel rolled into the same action.

[Nyel.1843]

Such a shame there's no real Mantra build anymore. Why do we have Mantras, but only one trait affecting them? Such a wasted opportunity. 

[Hirosama Nadasaki.6792]

I never liked mantras, even the old ones, but the update only made them even less interesting, which I didn't think was possible. They are now by far the most boring utility type in the game imo, even more boring than elixirs.

 

I wish they'd have doubled down on the preparation aspect of it and just reworked it into channeled skills (e.g. mantra of recovery would continuously heal for as long as you channeled it). At least that way it'd actually make sense to call them mantras.

[KinkyPotato.4219]

On 9/26/2021 at 8:46 PM, Hirosama Nadasaki.6792 said:

I wish they'd have doubled down on the preparation aspect of it and just reworked it into channeled skills (e.g. mantra of recovery would continuously heal for as long as you channeled it). At least that way it'd actually make sense to call them mantras.

This is such a simple yet effective solution to making mantras thematically more interesting again. They can even bring back some of the old charging effects back like Mantra of Pain grants you might for every second channeled, Mantra of Resolve cleansing conditions for as long as you channeled...etc.