Mesmer Feb 3 preview

[Levetty.1279]

"Hey,  just going to leave this fight for a few seconds while a I cast all my skills don't follow me ok"

Or just play a class that isn't having 2 second cast times slapped onto its mediocre skills for no reason.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

ok, I knew the manipulation trait would be bad.

But dear God. I had no kittening idea.

EDIT
It's not just bad. It's even worse than I expected. I'm... woah. I had low expectations for CmC but this was just... woah. Take the only mobility tool on mesmer, raise the cd by 7s and remove the already abysmal amount of superspeed it gets. You thought you were slow? You won't believe just HOW slower you can be.

I'm at a loss of words.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Kulvar.1239]

2 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

ok, I knew the manipulation trait would be bad.

But dear God. I had no kittening idea.

EDIT
It's not just bad. It's even worse than I expected. I'm... woah. I had low expectations for CmC but this was just... woah. Take the only mobility tool on mesmer, raise the cd by 7s and remove the already abysmal amount of superspeed it gets. You thought you were slow? You won't believe just HOW slower you can be.

I'm at a loss of words.

If they made the cooldown shorter baseline it wouldn't be so bad.

Mirror - 16s cooldown
Blink - 28s cooldown
Illusion of Life - 60s cooldown
Mimic - 24s cooldown
Arcane Thievery - 20s cooldown

[snowberry.4891]

I don't get it. Why did they not reduce Time Warp's cooldown in PvE to 75sec as well? 

[Salt Mode.3780]

5 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

ok, I knew the manipulation trait would be bad.

But dear God. I had no kittening idea.

EDIT
It's not just bad. It's even worse than I expected. I'm... woah. I had low expectations for CmC but this was just... woah. Take the only mobility tool on mesmer, raise the cd by 7s and remove the already abysmal amount of superspeed it gets. You thought you were slow? You won't believe just HOW slower you can be.

I'm at a loss of words.

Can you imagine people who shall not be named think this was a buff because it now gives Aegis...The person who shall not be named also posted in many Mesmer threads defending this buff. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Salt Mode.3780

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, snowberry.4891 said:

I don't get it. Why did they not reduce Time Warp's cooldown in PvE to 75sec as well? 

Because 10 DPS chrono stacking was a thing before , similar to DH stacking

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Can you imagine people who shall not be named think this was a buff because it now gives Aegis...The person who shall not be named also posted in many Mesmer threads defending this buff. 

Be careful my dude this is dangerous.

I think we have both had moderator strikes because we went down this road before post EoD. Wether you agree with me or not we all have a right to post here.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Salt Mode.3780]

8 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Be careful my dude this is dangerous.

I think we have both had moderators strikes because we went down this road before post EoD. Wether you agree with me or not we all have a right to post here.

First off I don't know what you are talking about, I am very clear on how moderators work, I have not disclosed names nor was I specifically targeting someone. I simply made a comment that there are some who are ignorant and accepted these changes thinking it was a buff. 

[Mell.4873]

1 minute ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

First off I don't know what you are talking about, I am very clear on how moderators work, I have not disclosed names nor was I specifically targeting someone. I simply made a comment that there are some who are ignorant and accepted these changes thinking it was a buff. 

Okay all good then, but it's obvious who you are talking about.
I mean I'm literally the only here who enjoys the changes.

Aegis + Super Speed on two sets of skills is a buff for most my PvE builds.

[Kulvar.1239]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Because 10 DPS chrono stacking was a thing before , similar to DH stacking

"Feel My Wrath!" gives more quickness / cooldown and noone bats an eye.

[apharma.3741]

Just now, Kulvar.1239 said:

"Feel My Wrath!" gives more quickness / cooldown and noone bats an eye.

They don't want chrono to give quickness and alacrity.
That other class can do this while also giving other boons isn't up for discussion.
Sit back and drink some water.
LA LA LA *fingers in ears* I can't hear you.

[apharma.3741]

Going to try out defender runes and manipulations tonight to see if the trait is as bad as people say. From a little messing around already I don't think the swapping of superspeed for aegis is as bad as people are claiming but 2/3 of the most useful manipulations don't get a cool down reduction is poor form. I might update this later with some info.

I don' think the loss of superspeed really affects mesmer that much, you were slow before, you're slow now. Every other roamer is still faster. Not much has changed, in WvW at least.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

9 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

If they made the cooldown shorter baseline it wouldn't be so bad.

Mirror - 16s cooldown
Blink - 28s cooldown
Illusion of Life - 60s cooldown
Mimic - 24s cooldown
Arcane Thievery - 20s cooldown

Believe it or not, that would be even worse for pvp. Killing chronobunkers is already tedious enough as it is without giving them yet another survival tool for free. Traiting blink competed with Methods of Madness, creating a nice opportunity cost decision; either you get the tools to defend THIS place or you get the tolls to move to some OTHER place, just not both.

[apharma.3741]

2 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Believe it or not, that would be even worse for pvp. Killing chronobunkers is already tedious enough as it is without giving them yet another survival tool for free. Traiting blink competed with Methods of Madness, creating a nice opportunity cost decision; either you get the tools to defend THIS place or you get the tolls to move to some OTHER place, just not both.

The take away from this for the devs is to nerf Methods of Madness so chrono has no good options!

[Veprovina.4876]

5 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Because 10 DPS chrono stacking was a thing before , similar to DH stacking

As opposed to Mechanist stacking or Ele stacking now?

That's ok, that doesn't need a nerf, but we did apparently...

[Kulvar.1239]

19 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Believe it or not, that would be even worse for pvp. Killing chronobunkers is already tedious enough as it is without giving them yet another survival tool for free. Traiting blink competed with Methods of Madness, creating a nice opportunity cost decision; either you get the tools to defend THIS place or you get the tolls to move to some OTHER place, just not both.

Then they could split the cooldowns like they always do when they can't get balance with the same one across all game modes.

And for Time Warp, they could do the same they did to Vindicator trait Angsiyan's Trust.
Other mesmers would only get 50% of the Quickness duration.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Kulvar.1239

[Waffles.5632]

4 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

As opposed to Mechanist stacking or Ele stacking now?

That's ok, that doesn't need a nerf, but we did apparently...

Well, you see, Ele and Mecha aren't Mesmers, so Anet allows them to be good. Mesmers however can never be good. The logic checks out.

If Mesmer?

Nerf.

If not Mesmer?

Buff.

 

😂😂😂

 

[Pie.2167]

Master of Manipulation trait is very disappointing.  Reducing the cool downs on all the manipulation skills, not just some of them, is needed.  It does not need to be the previous 20% for all manipulation skills.

My suggestions:
Blink should be reduced from 35 to 30 in WvW/PvP (previous was 28 when traited) and from 20 to 18 in PvE (previously was 16 when traited)

Arcane Thievery should be the flat 20% reduction from 25 to 20 in all game modes.

Illusion of Life should be reduced from 75 to 60 in PvE and remain 75 in WvW/PvP.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

6 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

As opposed to Mechanist stacking or Ele stacking now?

That's ok, that doesn't need a nerf, but we did apparently...

If I recall correctly, it was within a few months of 10 Chrono nerf that Anet stated they would ‘stop balancing based upon niche play patterns’.   The reality of a lot of niche play is it required either very specific setups or highly skilled players and Anet realized that they did more damage trying to fix what a small number of players were doing. 
 

But as is all things Anet and Mesmer, they really never walked back the Chrono changes (although they did just rebuff Chronophantasma again). 
 

Back at that Chrono nerf, I remember the devs saying raiding was becoming ‘throw more Chronos at it’  as if that was the way raid groups were being built by the general squads.  If it wasn’t for the leaks I would have believed Anet was trying to do the right thing back then.  Now we know that was another sign of their prejudice towards the profession. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Mungo Zen.9364

[apharma.3741]

1 hour ago, Pie.2167 said:

Master of Manipulation trait is very disappointing.  Reducing the cool downs on all the manipulation skills, not just some of them, is needed.  It does not need to be the previous 20% for all manipulation skills.

My suggestions:
Blink should be reduced from 35 to 30 in WvW/PvP (previous was 28 when traited) and from 20 to 18 in PvE (previously was 16 when traited)

Arcane Thievery should be the flat 20% reduction from 25 to 20 in all game modes.

Illusion of Life should be reduced from 75 to 60 in PvE and remain 75 in WvW/PvP.

Arcane thievery should be even lower given it swings and misses half the time.
It's not quite at og mimics level of doesn't work but there's a reason they added quickness and slow to it.

I'll elaborate before someone asks. Arcane thievery afaik is actually 2 things now. First it applies quickness to you and slow to the enemy, then it uses the old arcane thievery that they tried to fix but could never really get to work properly. If you watch(ed) any mesmer streamer using this you could see and slow down their skill use and see it activating in 2 parts when it did and didn't do the swap.

[Infusion.7149]

7 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

As opposed to Mechanist stacking or Ele stacking now?

That's ok, that doesn't need a nerf, but we did apparently...

It was nerfed a while ago, before mechanist existed. Especially before mechanist obtained personal quickness which I think nobody asked for. Moreover in order to alac on mechanist it requires giving up DPS traits which is why you would not stack 10 mechanists in DPS gear, plus right now pDPS mechanist is not amazing (it is something akin to 31K DPS benchmark with grenade kit?) unless you are terrible at every other DPS spec.
Chrono was able to use 10 target Time Warp stacking (with continuum split I believe) to completely eliminate the need for boon duration and every chrono had personal alacrity. At the time well of recall still existed for alac instead of well of senility also. At EoD launch it lost the 10 target status.

I am not saying it is the correct nerf applied, I am just explaining the Arenanet logic at the time they nerfed it.

It is a similar reasoning to why quickness sharing on specter was reduced significantly despite specter stacking not existing, simply because they could output both boons. Core revenant lost alacrity so that herald could output quickness. Warriors do not have alacrity. Rangers on the other hand have personal quickness and access to alacrity (generally at the cost of DPS due to spirits and nature magic). Willbender if it ever takes off could potentially end up with a similar result so long as "Feel my Wrath" exists (although that is 5 targets), the caveat there being you need to trait for alacrity. You cannot stack catalyst or tempest in the same fashion because they do not generate the both the quick and alac boons at the same time, not even for themselves. People did stack catalysts with alac sources for a brief time but thankfully Arenanet decided to move quickness onto a non-DPS trait. Most recently 8 tactics DPS bladesworn stacking was hit by a reduction in quickness duration from 3s to 2s.

So long as there is quickness/alac sharing that does not require giving up DPS people will "abuse it".

[phokus.8934]

The two second charge is kind of clunky in today's game.  It was mostly fine a few years back but two seconds for what they do is regression.

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

16 hours ago, phokus.8934 said:

The two second charge is kind of clunky in today's game.  It was mostly fine a few years back but two seconds for what they do is regression.

its especially bad in fractals. you already had a slow precast for 5 blades+mimic and swapping out these skills fast (every death removes all your blades). now its just an extra annoyance on every kittening mistlock

 

woo another comfy fractal class ruined nice studio

[Strider.7849]

I've been testing the well of senility and time warp changes in WvW (among other things), on my commander mesmer. I really like the new time warp a lot and I see potential for senility to be used within the current meta.

 

Something I would really like to suggest is they make the daze activate on placing the well and the boon rip at the end (this is if they want to continue back-loading wells). Further, shortening the time it takes before the important effects of each well need to go off. It currently takes too much time and if enemies do stay long enough within them to get hit, it's generally because they were locked down long enough to die anyways. For everyone else, they just walk out of the wells.

 

I also used mantra of concentration when commanding as well. Adding the extra two stacks of stability doesn't make up for the long cast time if a fight lasts beyond a single push. In fact, I don't actually notice any beneficial difference from when it was 3 stacks, since it all applies at once. You either needed to get CC'd 3 times or it would just be ripped off in one removal anyways. Not sure how to suggest fixing the mantra dilemma without either them adding something beneficial to the final cast, like firebrands mantras - or a complete reversal of the changes. With the lowered cooldown on mirror images, I've been having to take that over the mantra.. which just feels bad if you're commanding.

[Gesbo.6420]

In recent changes they mentioned how each skill has a potential allowence for its power. I am stull struggling to understand how Decoy has a longer cooldown than Signet of Midnight.

Are they suggesting that a single clone and one extra second of stealth is stronger than the expertise bump and blind hence its 5 seconds longer of cooldown?