If you don't get vocal on Mantra changes, you'll regret it

[Saiyan.1704]

On 2/10/2023 at 9:15 PM, otto.5684 said:

Sage brand relied on mantra of truth. It aint gonna work with 1 sec duration. Having the mantras, as a whole, dependent on last charge, does not work. We already know this. We tried it before. Sure, adding a final charge will be better than charges that barely do anything. However, if “F” is fail, “D” is still fail. These changes are kittening stupid, since we already know they won’t work. This is a waste of devs time and players feedback.

Yeah I agree... and it wasnt just sagebrand build that were effected. I remember Arken maintaining top50 with a glass AH build utilizing Mantra of Truth. But it's nerf was absolutely ridiculous. It's not like we could just suddenly tack 300% worth of Weakness from somewhere to gain back the Weakness duration lost. Anets balancing decisions during this period was really really bad when it came to Guardian.

Edited February 12 by Saiyan.1704

[otto.5684]

2 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Yeah I agree... and it wasnt just sagebrand build that were effected. I remember Arken maintaining top50 with a glass AH build utilizing Mantra of Truth. But it's nerf was absolutely ridiculous. It's not like we could just suddenly tack 300% worth of Weakness from somewhere to gain back the Weakness duration lost. Anets balancing decisions during this period was really really bad when it came to Guardian.

As opposed to now 😛. Outside of guardian, Anet have been doing some major improvements in PvE post EoD. Spvp wise though, for the last 3 years, calling Anet decisions bad, is a severe understatement. 

[Alastor.3054]

Making something unfun just because it is too popular even though it is not OP is how blizzard balances WoW and that cost them millions of players, are we there yet? If they don't revert these changes on mantras I m quitting, the last time I checked I was playing to have fun.

[oOCitadelOo.2381]

Yeah, no. These changes are dumb. Figure something else out. Not articulate enough of an explanation as to why I resent and not support these "reverted" changes? It's about the same as much thought you put in to return to these "preloads." But hey, the animation is nice....right.....RIGHT?!

Allow me clarify. Basically it is a ran that I am not in favor of said changes after utilizing the reimplementation of the preloading/loading mantras. In the past, ANET realized this wasn't a good fit, hence why it was removed for sometime. Their return to this systems is a farce and ridiculous. And making it "not fun" as it was part of their principle adjustments in the first place. 

Also, the comment about animations, it appears to be some peoples' argument as to why they support the mantras in it current state. Pretty Animations > than playability.

Also, it is annoying when switching build templates while roaming in wvw and have to redo them all again.

Edited February 15 by oOCitadelOo.2381

[DarkSoul.2348]

On 2/7/2023 at 3:13 AM, Genie.1785 said:

I am vocally fine with these changes.

Here you go.

+1 same XD, its a good way forward for elite specs 

[urieldhynne.2743]

On 2/6/2023 at 6:10 AM, Ragnar.4257 said:

Disagree. Change is good, opens up more possibilities.

Strategy and opportunity cost > builds that could be played by an excel macro.

 

Strategy:  Don't use the last charge. 

 

- The last charge is not strong enough in any of the mantras to justify the CD plus the precast.

- Or either if the last charge were strong enough just spam the charges and wait the CD.

- Precast is boring because you cast something that do nothing, just put more CD.

- You spam the button before, you here spam it slower.

 

I agree that spamming buttons was boring and needed a change, but this is not just useless and conditioning (you need the avoid the CD+Precast), is also annoying.  There is no a "situational skill" in the last charge to "save it and use when needed". Maybe Aegis (but you have plenty other skills to use for Aegis), and you need to keep the mantra in 1 charge for that. Keep tracking a lot of tiny icons and numbers in a class that has a lot to track already.

 

This is like the Tomes changes, it was awful to play in the first patch, now is great. This is a low effort change without too much sense. They need to tune it.

[Infusion.7149]

I played firebrand last night in fractals and I was not even in full heal spec but acted as sole healer. It is fine if you can remember not to spam everything carelessly. Remember that you have access to tomes at any time now if you have pages to spare for any mechanics which gives you far more flexibility.

Not spamming the last charge without reason is legitimately an expression of the firebrand's experience and player abilities. Multiple firebrands I played with post patch complained but when I asked when they started playing firebrand they stated it was after 2019 so it explains the reason they never had to deal with cooldown management.

If Arenanet really deems the payoff is not there for the last charge they can always adjust it. For Mantra of Solace the payoff is definitely there, even in competitive modes. In PvE the final charge heals for more and applies aegis although if you are trying to output quickness you would not use it unless you had to avoid downs. Mantra of Potence does not have massive downtime if you just spam it due to a longer quickness duration and more might on the last charge ; mantra of lore has a higher condition removal on the last charge while also converting conditions completely ; mantra of liberation also has more stability (5 stacks).

[CraftyK.9062]

29 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I played firebrand last night in fractals and I was not even in full heal spec but acted as sole healer. It is fine if you can remember not to spam everything carelessly. Remember that you have access to tomes at any time now if you have pages to spare for any mechanics which gives you far more flexibility.

Not spamming the last charge without reason is legitimately an expression of the firebrand's experience and player abilities. Multiple firebrands I played with post patch complained but when I asked when they started playing firebrand they stated it was after 2019 so it explains the reason they never had to deal with cooldown management.

If Arenanet really deems the payoff is not there for the last charge they can always adjust it. For Mantra of Solace the payoff is definitely there, even in competitive modes. In PvE the final charge heals for more and applies aegis although if you are trying to output quickness you would not use it unless you had to avoid downs. Mantra of Potence does not have massive downtime if you just spam it due to a longer quickness duration and more might on the last charge ; mantra of lore has a higher condition removal on the last charge while also converting conditions completely ; mantra of liberation also has more stability (5 stacks).

I agree that having to put more thought into gameplay is a good thing, but my main wonder about Mantra of Solace in specific, is that Firebrand (Guardian in general) already has a bunch of ways to apply Aegis in, which makes me wonder if it's worthwhile to sacriface the potential Quickness uptime for something I could already apply before. Especially as Quickness Support I am already sacrifacing DPS anyway, my personal DPS won't be as high as a full DPS Firebrand, and me throwing Quickness for personal DPS will arguably hurt the group

 

Don't take this as me dismissing the current Mantra system as I have only started playing in the times of insta-cast Mantra. Lore, Flame (3 stacks of burning for 24s btw), and Liberation have decent pay-offs. Though since I probably don't want to drop quickness with the heal trait (Unless I go for some Stalwart Speed build), I would argue that Solace last charge could be more of a DPS Firebrand skill expression (If you're expected to DPS and you can have Aegis without affecting your Personal DPS...)

[oOCitadelOo.2381]

In a pve world, management is key, and less impactive. In a wvw situation, especially roaming. This has pretty much rendered it useless. 

[otto.5684]

7 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I played firebrand last night in fractals and I was not even in full heal spec but acted as sole healer. It is fine if you can remember not to spam everything carelessly. Remember that you have access to tomes at any time now if you have pages to spare for any mechanics which gives you far more flexibility.

Not spamming the last charge without reason is legitimately an expression of the firebrand's experience and player abilities. Multiple firebrands I played with post patch complained but when I asked when they started playing firebrand they stated it was after 2019 so it explains the reason they never had to deal with cooldown management.

If Arenanet really deems the payoff is not there for the last charge they can always adjust it. For Mantra of Solace the payoff is definitely there, even in competitive modes. In PvE the final charge heals for more and applies aegis although if you are trying to output quickness you would not use it unless you had to avoid downs. Mantra of Potence does not have massive downtime if you just spam it due to a longer quickness duration and more might on the last charge ; mantra of lore has a higher condition removal on the last charge while also converting conditions completely ; mantra of liberation also has more stability (5 stacks).

For pve the change is mostly mote. No one uses the final charge anyway, so its existence does not mean much.

 

The change was done primarily for pvp, and this is where the stupidity begins. Mantras had a final charge when FB was OP, balanced and none existent. The change is currently a buff, but that is only cuz the regular charges are so bad. However, this adds no realistic viability to FB. The final charge was typically only used in an emergency, back when the charges are good. Waiting 25 secs on the mantra and having to spend an additional 2.75 secs casting never works in pvp.

 

TL;dr, the final charge is a design that never worked. The players nearly always avoided casting the final charge. here is a question to Anet. Do you know what is definition of insanity?

[Daniel Handler.4816]

On 2/6/2023 at 5:06 AM, Nightara.1804 said:

 

The only reason why Mantra of Pain is even used in PvE is that Power Mesmer has horrible DPS options for utility slots.

Or you know because it's free damage  that doesn't interrupt the rotation? 

On 2/6/2023 at 5:06 AM, Nightara.1804 said:

Mantra of Resolve is worse than Null Field now (3 Cleanses on 24 CD if you don't use the second charge, vs 5 Cleanses on 25s CD with Null Field).

This is insane. Null field pulses 1 cleanse a second. And in the first 3 seconds you are standing in the aoe you could have either instantly cleared 3 conditions from allies on the move, or charged the mantra and removed all condition from yourself + 3 on allies. 

On 2/6/2023 at 5:06 AM, Nightara.1804 said:

Mantra of Distraction is about as effective as Signet of Domination (1.5s Daze on a 24s CD, vs 3s Stun on a 45s CD).

The signet has a cast time my dude and is single target. 

On 2/6/2023 at 5:06 AM, Nightara.1804 said:

Mantra of Concentration gives less Stability for a shorter duration, and no Resolution while having the same CD as Stand Your Ground. Yes, Stand Your Ground is not a Mesmer skill, but that's still a joke.

It gives you stability. You have no excuse to not be able to charge this one. And cycling through the mantra, especially under alacrity, provides way more stab than SYG ever could. 

On 2/6/2023 at 5:06 AM, Nightara.1804 said:

our Mantras are significantly weaker than any Firebrand Mantra

No. Just no. You did all your calculations assuming everyone is standing still and forgetting Mesmer mantras have significantly shorter cooldowns/stronger effects when actively charged. 

 

[Infusion.7149]

59 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

For pve the change is mostly mote. No one uses the final charge anyway, so its existence does not mean much.

 

The change was done primarily for pvp, and this is where the stupidity begins. Mantras had a final charge when FB was OP, balanced and none existent. The change is currently a buff, but that is only cuz the regular charges are so bad. However, this adds no realistic viability to FB. The final charge was typically only used in an emergency, back when the charges are good. Waiting 25 secs on the mantra and having to spend an additional 2.75 secs casting never works in pvp.

 

TL;dr, the final charge is a design that never worked. The players nearly always avoided casting the final charge. here is a question to Anet. Do you know what is definition of insanity?

The thread starter listed "the QoL loss we will suffer in combat will make them a pain to play with in many scenarios, particularly fractals, WvW and PvP game modes. "

Fractals and WVW it separates the newer firebrands from the ones that actually know what their skills do. The very idea Firebrand is getting replaced in WVW just because of this change is laughable at best. For PVP it actually allows you to heal now for 3.5K on mantra of solace, so it is more of an exploration of what the revised tomes can do. The biggest complaint was the 200 heal on mantra of solace. If you recall also the previous iterations of tomes were a lot more predictable and not instant unlike core guard, we are not in the same state of firebrand as the sagebrand era where the only plays are weapon skills and utilities once tomes are on cooldown.

Since the final charge of the mantras has a more powerful effect Arenanet can always retune the final charge.

The point of the revert is to revisit why they were changed in the first place.

Edited February 16 by Infusion.7149

[Nephalem.8921]

2 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

For pve the change is mostly mote. No one uses the final charge anyway, so its existence does not mean much.

This is a problem with fb mains missing ability to read tooltips. its always worth to use up all charges. The final charge does 60k dmg. Why would you not use it?

Qfb will reach 37k.

 

[Hotride.2187]

10 hours ago, oOCitadelOo.2381 said:

In a pve world, management is key, and less impactive. In a wvw situation, especially roaming. This has pretty much rendered it useless. 

FB was already useless in roaming.

[Ashford.8540]

2 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

This is a problem with fb mains missing ability to read tooltips. its always worth to use up all charges. The final charge does 60k dmg. Why would you not use it?

Qfb will reach 37k.

 

 

Because you will be SoL after that 60k. What are you going to do for those 30+ seconds after you spent all of your mantras? Heal? nope heal is a mantra so can't heal, rege- mantra, damag- mantra. Oh guess your a sitting duck now huh? pikachu face.

[Nephalem.8921]

33 minutes ago, Ashford.8540 said:

 

Because you will be SoL after that 60k. What are you going to do for those 30+ seconds after you spent all of your mantras? Heal? nope heal is a mantra so can't heal, rege- mantra, damag- mantra. Oh guess your a sitting duck now huh? pikachu face.

Math is not with you.

Lets compare opportunity costs:

Using all charges:

5*22k every 24sec with alac, casttime and a massive error for not using it on cd

->110k dmg

Not using all charges:

22k dmg every 9,6sec instant cast -> 2,29k dps

normalized to 24sec it does 54,96k damage but its instant so so 1,75sec casttime for mantra with aa dps of 20k which fb does not have. its closer to 13k but i am generous here.

54,96k +1,75 (which is also shorter but whatever)*20k = 89,96k

This is still inferior to using all charges for flame mantra with using vastly inflated numbers in favor of not spending all charges. With exact numbers the difference is even bigger.

It is actually so big that qfb can provide perma quick with legendary lore and viper gear if using all quick charges apparently.

What do you mean with sitting duck? Fb has more than mantras. Press those after or better while using charges, they are instant.

[Nightara.1804]

5 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

 

Quote

Or you know because it's free damage  that doesn't interrupt the rotation? 

Yes, but if I have to charge it, it doesn't not interrupt the rotation anymore. And since we only have a single charge that we can use now (Because we definitely don't want to charge it), and we can't align that one charge with burst windows anymore (Fencer's Finesse / Bladesong Buff on Virtu, CS on Chrono) without wasting cooldown, it is effectively worse now, for absolutely no good reason.

Quote

This is insane. Null field pulses 1 cleanse a second. And in the first 3 seconds you are standing in the aoe you could have either instantly cleared 3 conditions from allies on the move, or charged the mantra and removed all condition from yourself + 3 on allies. 

As I stated in the beginning of my Mesmer block, I am merely interested in PvE, especially Raids. In Raids, we hardly get any situation where an instant Cleanse of 3+ conditions would be crucial (Compared to cleansing them over 3s). There is one scenario I can think of, and that's Sloth. But on Sloth, you would have to use both charges of your Mantra if you want to cleanse on your own, meaning your forced to use both charges. And I highly doubt that you'll be able to channel for two seconds if you actually have more than five conditions on you (In PvE), so the on cast effect is mostly useless.

Yes, the Mantra has some niche uses where it's better than Null Field (In PvE), but I strongly disagree that standing in a field for 3s is the same as having to channel a skill for 2s. You're loosing insane amounts of damage by interrupting your rotation like this.

Quote

The signet has a cast time my dude and is single target. 

First of all, let's talk about the more obvious part: Where in PvE do I care about AoE Daze? AoE Push / Pull yes, but in PvE, I only ever want to stun / daze when there's a blue breakbar. MAYBE you could argue for HT CM (Destroyers) or XJJ CM (Eye + Spider on the left side in phase 3), but those are extremely niche. If I want to CC something in PvE, I usually want to break a big bar (And sometimes, I can't even DPS), so the Signet with its cast time and the Mantra with its CD between two charges are essentially the same. If I only need one of the Mantra charges, then Mantra is probably better (Bc it recharges faster, deals damage, and doesn't have a cast time), but if that's the case, then you probably could have done without either of those skills.

Quote

It gives you stability. You have no excuse to not be able to charge this one. And cycling through the mantra, especially under alacrity, provides way more stab than SYG ever could. 

Yep. It gives Stability AFTER the cast. But as I said, spending two seconds in a channel is a massive DPS loss in PvE, so unless you have actual downtime during phase transitions, there's no way you can spend more than one charge without sacrificing way too much.

I do agree that the theoretical uptime is pretty high (60% or sth like that, with 0 BD) if you spam it, but that requires me to spend ~10% of my time in Mantra preparation (1.7s cast time or sth with Quickness on a 18s CD).

Quote

No. Just no. You did all your calculations assuming everyone is standing still and forgetting Mesmer mantras have significantly shorter cooldowns/stronger effects when actively charged. 

I was operating under the premise that you will never want to spend the insane preparation time of Mantras on preparing Mantras in combat, because you lose a shitload of everything doing so. If that's "doing my calculations wrong", then yes.

But if you consider my suggestion for "fixing" Mantras (Giving them a goddamn third charge), nobody would ever have to prepare them in combat, and everything would be great. Imo the issue is NOT that the Mantra effects are weak, my issue is that we can only ever use a single charge if we don't want to rechannel (Which you're gonna have to give me a lot more for than just "Well, okay, here's some Might for five seconds, thank you for spending two hours doing nothing".

Edited February 16 by Nightara.1804

[oOCitadelOo.2381]

4 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

FB was already useless in roaming.

I roamed pretty well as FB and can win or be formidable in most encounters.  My streams demonstrated it when I did for a while before I took a break from it. There are plenty of others who can as well from various servers. So, I wouldn't exactly say "useless."

But these changes doesn't do FB's in wvw any justice at all.

 

 

[Solstice.5790]

5 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

It is actually so big that qfb can provide perma quick with legendary lore and viper gear if using all quick charges apparently.

 

 

You'll also need the additional damage stats if you want to wiggle your hands around doing no weapon damage for even longer because you've spent all q-providing mantras...

[Argothian.3715]

Having played around with the changes for what I consider enough time, I definitely have to say I hate everything about them. Accidentally blowing your last charge and having to cast during combat feels terrible, having to dodge during the preparation cast time and then having to wait a couple of seconds before starting the cast again feels - you guessed it - terrible! I seriously do not understand how they tested this and thought it was an improvement in any capacity. Please revert.

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, Solstice.5790 said:

 

You'll also need the additional damage stats if you want to wiggle your hands around doing no weapon damage for even longer because you've spent all q-providing mantras...

...

Time spend charging mantras is already taken into account. You can play exactly like before the changes. its just inferior.

[hash.8462]

10 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Math is not with you.

Lets compare opportunity costs:

Using all charges:

5*22k every 24sec with alac, casttime and a massive error for not using it on cd

->110k dmg

Not using all charges:

22k dmg every 9,6sec instant cast -> 2,29k dps

[...]

Something is not right here, why are you considering alacrity when using all charges but you don't when just using 1 charge? Mantra recharging is also affected by alacrity, so isn't 9.6s but 7.68s. (12s base -20% from the trait = 9.6s with alacrity = 7.68s)

 

[CraftyK.9062]

.

Edited February 16 by CraftyK.9062
Removed

[Nephalem.8921]

10 minutes ago, hash.8462 said:

Something is not right here, why are you considering alacrity when using all charges but you don't when just using 1 charge? Mantra recharging is also affected by alacrity, so isn't 9.6s but 7.68s. (12s base -20% from the trait = 9.6s with alacrity = 7.68s)

 

I am considering alacrity. Mantra charge cd is 12sec base since you do not run weighty terms anymore. Never did on cfb to begin with. Only qfb used it before. There is a bit more math involved for qfb but it still applies there and qfb takes LL now.

On qfb you would have to calculate the dps gain from LL which is kinda big and consider all casttimes of quick mantra etc.

Spreadsheets were made for this. Somebody on sc discord did it. You can ask him for his spreadsheet.

Edited February 16 by Nephalem.8921

[Daniel Handler.4816]

12 hours ago, Nightara.1804 said:

As I stated in the beginning of my Mesmer block, I am merely interested in PvE, especially Raids. [snip]....

 

Then why do you even care? Only use one charge. Raids long enough that being unable to burst 2 is statistically irrelevant.

And this goes for Guardians as well. No one is holding a gun to people's head and making them use all of the charges.

Quote

But if you consider my suggestion for "fixing" Mantras (Giving them a goddamn third charge), nobody would ever have to prepare them in combat, and everything would be great. Imo the issue is NOT that the Mantra effects are weak, my issue is that we can only ever use a single charge if we don't want to rechannel (Which you're gonna have to give me a lot more for than just "Well, okay, here's some Might for five seconds, thank you for spending two hours doing nothing".

Burst 1, burst 2, burst 3. It isn't going to matter that much in PvE. And in WvW/PvP the charges will be terrible because there is no counterplay.

The Mesmer on charge/Guardian final charge is the best part of these skills. And if you don't like that, just play it the old way, with a slightly inferior start to the fight.

Edited February 16 by Daniel Handler.4816