my thoughts to make Mesmer more viable in wvw

[Flow.2947]

 

 

I think core mesmer is missing the uniqueness in group support fury share is a step in the right direction but not unique to the class design. I always saw Mesmer as "hit me if you can" this is reflected in the core mechanics. This is very good represented in the specializations as well. Chrono with slow and quick, mirage more offensive with ambush and de-targeting, Virtuoso is a bit behind here but blocks and higher dmg when you come close. So how to keep the uniqueness and make out of me an us. I am only looking into core here because i think the issue comes from here, which is why Mesmer are stuck as utility bots. 

 

Skills

First things first because i think some core skills outperform the specialization and always have been.This might be sad for some but nerve veil and make it 5 target cap and give super speed or reveal fitting into the theme i give, you get the opposite. Illusion of life: make it more like vengeance on warrior something like 100% chance to revive on kill if not well you dead (no downstate anymore) you might want to give ppl in downstate a button to accept illusion i do not want ppl abusing this and purposely killing allies. 

 

Traits

Domination

Furious interruption renamed to quick intermezzo.: steal 2 boon on interrupt and grant quickness 1s  this can hit a target only once every 5s

Vicious expression changed to: when you remove a boon you and your allies gain might 5s 

to compensate for the pve dmg loss mental anguish could be shatters damage increase: 10% ; dmg vs inactive or boonles increase 15%

 

Dueling 

there is room for improvement in there but would fit more in a general Mesmer balance.

 

Chaos

in chaos i would see a need to share something. Eg.: chaotic transference: executing a combo-finisher grants you chaos aura only. when you gain chaos aura you share it with allies radius 360.

-->Staff in wvw needs a flip over skill for its Nr. 2 ability. Summon the illusion on you and the flip is the leap back. What could also work the ability to ally target and heal with staff. 

 

Inspiration

I think that Inspiring Distortion needs a change. I love that trait but it is too less unless you use signets. i would want to have it similar to guardian. when you block or distort an attack you give aegis to ppl around 15s icd.

Protected Phantasm i like to have Aegis and stability for them. Maybe protection because the name suggests so 

 

Illusions

I think it is save to say that here persistence of memory needs to change to give your illusions your boons instead the other way aground. Or could also be when a phantasm becomes a clone you increase your current boons by 1s

 

[Justine.6351]

Inspiring Distortions changed because no use if you don't take signets? So maybe don't take that trait if not taking signets?

[apharma.3741]

Inspiring Distortion is a minor, a freebie, it works on all mesmer builds, no need for a change and on block would be disgusting. Scepter-sword, sword-shield chrono? If Aegis counts then Virtuoso becomes a blocking machine. No thanks.

 

However let me explain why this entire thread is pointless: Vindicator exists.

 

"huh? why does that make it pointless????" OK I'll explain, it can chain back to back defences to the point you basically cannot kill the thing 1 on 1 without good long CC and burst while it can have it's damage. Meanwhile mirage is there with 1 dodge, hamstrung endurance regen after all the nerfs and almost forced into condi while having it's primary defence of stealth essentially having massive no go AoE in WvW.

 

To put it another way the devs have no will to make mesmer good or be on par as no-body wants it.

[Zaret.1450]

I dont think mesmer is that bad, i think people just dont like it or somerhing? i mean with chrono you can make a build that would work similar to a fb, you have stab mantra, stab well, quickness, and you can also add gravity, condi cleanse focus for cc.

A ritualist chrono with staff, scepter, shield, or scepter focus, could be a good suport right now, at least for me, as for fury power etc, there are several builds that can use it, yes fb still has tomes but dunno i dont think chrono is that bad.

as for virtuoso, well a lot of builds only have ranged dmg so gs and dagger are still good, its shatters can help remove boons it has an inmovilize, 3 invulnerables and right now a dps virtu would be the best stealth i think 6 seconds is enought i think.

If im wrong or something tell me but... i think mesmer could work perfectly well, maybe its just preconceptions?

Also i main rev not mesmer, so while i like mesmer my opinion isnt byased

[phokus.8934]

Dagger is very bad in wvw.  You'll maximize damage with greatsword and sword/torch/pistol.

But Virt in general needs some fundamental changes but considering its targeted audience, I doubt it will happen.

[Exciton.8942]

4 hours ago, zaswer.5246 said:

I dont think mesmer is that bad, i think people just dont like it or somerhing? i mean with chrono you can make a build that would work similar to a fb, you have stab mantra, stab well, quickness, and you can also add gravity, condi cleanse focus for cc.

A ritualist chrono with staff, scepter, shield, or scepter focus, could be a good suport right now, at least for me, as for fury power etc, there are several builds that can use it, yes fb still has tomes but dunno i dont think chrono is that bad.

as for virtuoso, well a lot of builds only have ranged dmg so gs and dagger are still good, its shatters can help remove boons it has an inmovilize, 3 invulnerables and right now a dps virtu would be the best stealth i think 6 seconds is enought i think.

If im wrong or something tell me but... i think mesmer could work perfectly well, maybe its just preconceptions?

Also i main rev not mesmer, so while i like mesmer my opinion isnt byased

 

The fundamental issue is that clones(non-virtuoso mesmer) and projectiles(virtuoso) simply don't work in medium-to-large scale WvW. Chrono has great utility which earns it some niche spots in organized squad. But other that mesmers do not have a place.

[Zaret.1450]

10 hours ago, Exciton.8942 said:

 

The fundamental issue is that clones(non-virtuoso mesmer) and projectiles(virtuoso) simply don't work in medium-to-large scale WvW. Chrono has great utility which earns it some niche spots in organized squad. But other that mesmers do not have a place.

Well clones are a problem sure, maybe making 0 clone shatters in wvw be a bit better and less increase/clone coukd work.

As for virtuoso yes, it relies a lot on proyectiles, but i think it could still be fine, maybe just make gs auto a non proyectile if it is now a proyectile and on dagger maybe make dagger 3 work like dh scepter 2 or something.

[apharma.3741]

Greatsword auto is already (and always was) not a projectile, 2 is unblockable so works, 3 is AoE so works, 4 is phantasms so only works maybe 40% of the time in large scale (not sure if the projectile of this is unblockable) and 5 is short range, you're probably dead if you need to use this in large scale. As an aside it would be really nice if phantasmal berserkers removed a boon per hit and we got rid of that dumb projectile, would actually give some good boon removal to a weapon that kinda needs it.

 

Virtuoso doesn't work because shatters can be projectile blocked, the unblockable trait is not always reliable but also it does like no damage to anything anymore. Support is so stacked with toughness, prot, high health and constant healing that you can be as glass as possible and F1 will still feel like a tickle. Dagger is just plain bad, they need to redesign 2 and 3 and also up the damage numbers, you also need to be able to use bladesong's while not facing a target, not asking for the cast time to go, just that I don't have to do the weird face target, shatter and move thing.

[Flow.2947]

Blocking mashine hmm is a guardian a blocking mashine with communal defense?  icd = Internal cooldown. not every block will share

 

virtuoso projectils have an issues yes but would it be op when blades become unblockable in generell hmm i thik yes. That is why i aimed for core to provide something other meybe unique to have a different value. necros are converting boon into coni sb doing dmg on boon removal. Mesmers could give boons on removal... 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Flow.2947

[apharma.3741]

16 minutes ago, Flow.2947 said:

Blocking mashine hmm is a guardian a blocking mashine with communal defense?  icd = Internal cooldown. not every block will share

 

virtuoso projectils have an issues yes but would it be op when blades become unblockable in generell hmm i thik yes. That is why i aimed for core to provide something other meybe unique to have a different value. necros are converting boon into coni sb doing dmg on boon removal. Mesmers could give boons on removal... 

 

 

Inspiring Distortion has no ICD, if it shared aegis on block you would get a lot of aegis off F4, signet, F4, scepter 2, sword 4 and then the self aegis off Bladeturn Return. It would be very broken.

 

If bladesongs are not unblockable they simply cannot be used in large scale fights, that isn't a debate it's a fact. Psychic reposte helps but it requires evading or blocking an attack which in large scale means putting yourself in danger to trigger which if you're doing damage is a bad idea and if you're not doing damage....why are you not playing chrono or anything else?

 

From a very experienced player, be VERY careful about buffing core, the devs have not fixed many of the issues that made chrono and mirage brain dead easy to play too strong. Both these classes are a couple of ill thought out buffs away from being the next troll spec.

[Flow.2947]

50 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

Inspiring Distortion has no ICD, if it shared aegis on block you would get a lot of aegis off F4, signet, F4, scepter 2, sword 4 and then the self aegis off Bladeturn Return. It would be very broken.

 

If bladesongs are not unblockable they simply cannot be used in large scale fights, that isn't a debate it's a fact. Psychic reposte helps but it requires evading or blocking an attack which in large scale means putting yourself in danger to trigger which if you're doing damage is a bad idea and if you're not doing damage....why are you not playing chrono or anything else?

 

From a very experienced player, be VERY careful about buffing core, the devs have not fixed many of the issues that made chrono and mirage brain dead easy to play too strong. Both these classes are a couple of ill thought out buffs away from being the next troll spec.

i know it doesnt have a icd but thats why i would put one 🙂 15s or even 20s. Making it a bit balanced. 

 

I know the issues (maybe not all) been there xD. 

yes without psyonic repost your shatters are useless in Lagescale. which is a pitty and feels off to me. Shatters should be unblockable. also the bleed duration should be at least a bit longer to be able to store some blades.

 

Degger would need unblockable as well but uff that would be too strong. When degger 2 would be unblockable and degger 3 groundtarget, this could be an option imo. 

 

 

[katte nici.9483]

New trait: Clones and Phantasms don't do damage (or very low damage) and apply no conditions, but become invincible (or at least super duper tanky). Shatters excluded, they work as always.

Edited October 18, 2022 by katte nici.9483

[apharma.3741]

On 10/17/2022 at 4:03 PM, Flow.2947 said:

i know it doesnt have a icd but thats why i would put one 🙂 15s or even 20s. Making it a bit balanced. 

 

I know the issues (maybe not all) been there xD. 

yes without psyonic repost your shatters are useless in Lagescale. which is a pitty and feels off to me. Shatters should be unblockable. also the bleed duration should be at least a bit longer to be able to store some blades.

 

Degger would need unblockable as well but uff that would be too strong. When degger 2 would be unblockable and degger 3 groundtarget, this could be an option imo. 

 

 

Dagger doesn't need to be unblockable, it just needs to be useful and be on par with greatsword for damage, probably slightly better. Right now it's a ranged weapon where #2 requires close range and #3 is a PvE skill that's kinda meh while the auto (last I checked) was bad damage for the commitment to the auto chain. Rework the 2 abilities.

[Alsandar.7420]

You can change anything you want, but don’t change support chrono. It’s perfect. 
 

A few minor buffs would be lovely, but not necessary. Just don’t nerf it.

 

Support chrono has a vast toolkit and features active gameplay in every wvw activity. 
 

If you haven’t tried it, please do, it’s so so fun 🖤

[Flow.2947]

On 10/25/2022 at 2:39 AM, Alsandar.7420 said:

You can change anything you want, but don’t change support chrono. It’s perfect. 
 

A few minor buffs would be lovely, but not necessary. Just don’t nerf it.

 

Support chrono has a vast toolkit and features active gameplay in every wvw activity. 
 

If you haven’t tried it, please do, it’s so so fun 🖤

believe me i have. yes it is fun i agree but when you play the same thing over 5 years now and only have one build viable and get half the lootbags other supports have because you normally are not contributing to rage dmg. You slowly start to feel left out and want a chance to do more ore at least a bit different. Mesmers are niche already and are most of the time taken only because of there core skills.  

[Kulvar.1239]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:10 PM, zaswer.5246 said:

 just make gs auto a non proyectile if it is now a proyectile

You just proved you don't know Mesmer.

[Mell.4873]

On 10/25/2022 at 1:39 PM, Alsandar.7420 said:

You can change anything you want, but don’t change support chrono. It’s perfect. 
 

A few minor buffs would be lovely, but not necessary. Just don’t nerf it.

 

Support chrono has a vast toolkit and features active gameplay in every wvw activity. 
 

If you haven’t tried it, please do, it’s so so fun 🖤

Meh Mesmer in General is Meta in WvW.
They have answer to any group size:

• Chronomancer is one of the best Zerg picks
• Mirage is one of the best Raiders, can solo almost any camp
• Virtuoso is one of the best Duelists

Mesmer only really suffers in sPvP due to limited stats but in WvW that is not a problem.

Everyone here is just salty they cant go back in time when Mesmer was broken and dominated most end-game content with cheese builds.

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Everyone here is just salty they cant go back in time when Mesmer was broken and dominated most end-game content with cheese builds.

I don't think mesmer ever "dominated most end game content with cheese builds."

Core mesmer would benefit in WvW from:

- a 25% movement buff on either a trait or a signet passive. This is one of the major hurdle of the mesmer in WvW.

- A glamour trait or at least reduced CD on glamour skills as those skills are amongst core mesmer's most useful tools in this gamemode. Feedback is pathetic compared to guardian's wall of reflection and null field have way to long a CD for a boon removing skill in WvW where such skills are direly needed and infinitely more balanced than the flood of boon corruption that outdo it. Veil could also afford a 50% CD reduction for what little it does currently.

- getting rid of Mimic as this skill is a liability that justify the prohibitive CD that plague core mesmer's utility skills. Honestly it was better balance wise when this skill was merely absorbing an incoming attack like spellbreaker's full counter.

- Reduce Time warp's CD by 50%. It's beyond me that this skill still have a 120s for 5s uptime of what some professions can lavishly offer at close to no cost at all. (guess it's part of the "glamours need reduced base CD" line...)

[Dr Meta.3158]

Mirage has a perma-dodge build in pve that relies on trailblazers and endurance of kill runes to spam mirage cloak to be nigh untouchable. 

Mirage used to be nigh untouchable in pvp after POF (worse that virtuoso even now if that's hard to believe) along with having great mobility with sword ambush and blink, a short cooldown illusionary ambush, being able to break stuns and cleanse conditions with elusive mind, blinding on every shatter, higher Vigor uptime, 25% damage reduction from chaos, higher protection uptime, and high confusion and torment damage back when torment punished you for moving. Old torment plus confusion punished you for playing the game against a class that could spam mirage cloak and escape any consequences of missplay by dodging CCs and attacking while invulnerable. Its power was multiplied even further in wvw roaming due to endurance food and stronger sigils of energy.

Chronomancer also used to have a high damage, High defense phantasm spam build back after the chronomancer rework when duplicated phantams from chronophantasma did full damage, along with shorter phantasm cooldowns allowing builds with signet of the ether and continuum split to create over active phantasms in one go all dealing massive amounts of damage and putting tons of bodies, visual effects, and audio effects on the screen leading to sensory overload for people and stuttered performance for some people with low end computers. 

Bunker Chronomancer after HOT is also the poster child of why esports died for this game.

 

And today we have Virtuoso, which while not nearly as game breaking as the examples I've given before, is simply just a case of poor game design in giving a terribly boring experience for both the virtuoso player (unless sado-masochistic) and anyone fighting the virtuoso.

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't think mesmer ever "dominated most end game content with cheese builds."

Core mesmer would benefit in WvW from:

- a 25% movement buff on either a trait or a signet passive. This is one of the major hurdle of the mesmer in WvW.

- A glamour trait or at least reduced CD on glamour skills as those skills are amongst core mesmer's most useful tools in this gamemode. Feedback is pathetic compared to guardian's wall of reflection and null field have way to long a CD for a boon removing skill in WvW where such skills are direly needed and infinitely more balanced than the flood of boon corruption that outdo it. Veil could also afford a 50% CD reduction for what little it does currently.

- getting rid of Mimic as this skill is a liability that justify the prohibitive CD that plague core mesmer's utility skills. Honestly it was better balance wise when this skill was merely absorbing an incoming attack like spellbreaker's full counter.

- Reduce Time warp's CD by 50%. It's beyond me that this skill still have a 120s for 5s uptime of what some professions can lavishly offer at close to no cost at all. (guess it's part of the "glamours need reduced base CD" line...)

I mean Chronomancer is one of the best WvW supports currently so what's to complain about. If you stack Well's you can permanently give someone low cooldowns of siege equipment, that is huge for a Zerg.

I think the point of WvW Mesmer is to have long cooldown skills that can be reset with Mimic or Chronomancer F5. While on the flip side Mirage takes advantage of a lot of the movement Utilities and Virtuoso tend to use Signets for a supper tanky Inspiration build.

The real nerf to Mesmer was related to the Cheese builds, for example with Mirage it was the double burst while going immune to CC/damage which was the problem. I have always said if they put a 10 second cooldown on the Ambush then the second dodge could be returned.

[Dadnir.5038]

17 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I mean Chronomancer is one of the best WvW supports currently so what's to complain about. If you stack Well's you can permanently give someone low cooldowns of siege equipment, that is huge for a Zerg.

I think the point of WvW Mesmer is to have long cooldown skills that can be reset with Mimic or Chronomancer F5. While on the flip side Mirage takes advantage of a lot of the movement Utilities and Virtuoso tend to use Signets for a supper tanky Inspiration build.

The real nerf to Mesmer was related to the Cheese builds, for example with Mirage it was the double burst while going immune to CC/damage which was the problem. I have always said if they put a 10 second cooldown on the Ambush then the second dodge could be returned.

I'm pretty sur the topic is about core mesmer "lacking". And that's totally the direction in which I focus my answer.

Also, core utility skills shouldn't be pre-nerfed on the hypothetic use of a not-so-great skill. I mean, should ranger have all it's utility skills' CD doubled because Untamed have a trait that allow their CD to be reduced on a CC? Should ranger's weapon skills have a higher CD because there is a trait in skirmish that reduced the CD of the next weapon skill you use after a weapon swap? Should every profession or spec that share alacrity have all base CD increased by 20% because they have access to the boon and can benefit from it? ... etc. That's simply unthinkable.

I'm sorry to say that sPvP and WvW hardly qualify as "end game" content.

[katte nici.9483]

You had me until the last sentence. PvE is the WvW lobby.

[Mell.4873]

On 10/30/2022 at 3:49 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm pretty sur the topic is about core mesmer "lacking". And that's totally the direction in which I focus my answer.

Also, core utility skills shouldn't be pre-nerfed on the hypothetic use of a not-so-great skill. I mean, should ranger have all it's utility skills' CD doubled because Untamed have a trait that allow their CD to be reduced on a CC? Should ranger's weapon skills have a higher CD because there is a trait in skirmish that reduced the CD of the next weapon skill you use after a weapon swap? Should every profession or spec that share alacrity have all base CD increased by 20% because they have access to the boon and can benefit from it? ... etc. That's simply unthinkable.

I'm sorry to say that sPvP and WvW hardly qualify as "end game" content.

I think you are comparing skills to much, just take Mesmer as a whole. I mean it is a hodgepodge of different random things stuck together but being able to Mimic then Illusion of Life, Continuum Split then Illusion of Life, means you can Resurrect 9 people from a downed state. This is crazy strong in a Zerg and keep them alive while they farm inside enemy keeps.

I believe Mesmer outside of the second dodge is fine in its current state, I mean there recent philosophy almost perfectly maps on to Mesmer. Chronomancer being the harder Elite, Mirage in-between and Virtuoso being the intro Elite.

[Dadnir.5038]

12 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think you are comparing skills to much, just take Mesmer as a whole. I mean it is a hodgepodge of different random things stuck together but being able to Mimic then Illusion of Life, Continuum Split then Illusion of Life, means you can Resurrect 9 people from a downed state. This is crazy strong in a Zerg and keep them alive while they farm inside enemy keeps.

I believe Mesmer outside of the second dodge is fine in its current state, I mean there recent philosophy almost perfectly maps on to Mesmer. Chronomancer being the harder Elite, Mirage in-between and Virtuoso being the intro Elite.

Isn't this the kettle that call the pot black? A whole profession shouldn't be nerfed on it's baseline for the sake of keeping gimmicky gameplay into the game. Fact is that the rate at which other professions can launch their skills make those high CD of the mesmer utilities laughable.

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Isn't this the kettle that call the pot black? A whole profession shouldn't be nerfed on it's baseline for the sake of keeping gimmicky gameplay into the game. Fact is that the rate at which other professions can launch their skills make those high CD of the mesmer utilities laughable.

I never have a problem with it in PvE or WvW. I guess the only time it really maters is sPvP but honestly you don't really run any of the long cooldown utilities outside Moa Signet.

Going back to WvW, I don't know any environment where you need low cooldowns, most Roaming and Zerg clashes wont last more than 20 seconds so almost no one will get there skills back and in this case Mesmer has the advantage in short exchanges since they can reset their cooldowns so reliably over a short period of time.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Mell.4873