Suggestion to Make Mantras Feel Better

[Micah.3789]

With the upcoming improvements to support mesmer trait lines, there's been a lot of talk about mantras. While there are varying opinions on how bad they are, the consensus seems to be that mantras don't feel rewarding to use. The most common complaint is the cast time, and while 2.25sec is incredibly long, it's not just the cast time itself that's the issue. Most of the mantras' effects are useful in a reactive and timely way; things like aegis, healing, condition cleanses, and cc often require pretty precise timing to be effective. As they're currently designed, mantras don't begin to recharge until after all charges are spent. This means that if you hold charges to use in an effective way, you extend the overall CD of the mantra and reduce the effectiveness of the cast. In this way, the mantra design is in conflict with itself. Adding Restorative Mantras increases the value of casting mantras verses holding charges, and drives the wedge even deeper. 

My suggestion to address this is to allow the mantra's recharge to begin immediately after completing the cast even though it flips to the charge skills, like thief preparations. I'd suggest a short CD (~2-4sec) before the charges would be available and between each charge use, to keep them from being batched. Then you're free to hold the charges and use them reactively to manage mechanics, but still have the mantra recharging in the background to keep the overall CD consistent. Even with this, a cast time reduction to 1.5sec would be a huge QoL change without being OP. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you'll consider my suggestion 😄

[Micah.3789]

I'd also like to add the Power Return (Mantra of Recovery's charge skill) feels very unrewarding as a personal heal. I'd suggest making it heal allies, but maybe on the condition that you're over 50% health? It currently heals 1640(0.25), but an extra 980(0.15) when you're below 50% health. So, when you're above 50% health, the extra 980(0.15) could instead be shared with allies in keeping with the skill's theme. Or it could just be reworked entirely as a flat 5 target heal lol.

[Levetty.1279]

How about they just revert the nerf they slapped on it last time they touched it. The "cast the skill to actually have access to the skills you want and need to use" mechanic has never worked and will never work. Just let us have normal skills like every other class in the game.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Levetty.1279

[Passerbye.6291]

On 11/11/2023 at 12:35 PM, Micah.3789 said:

As they're currently designed, mantras don't begin to recharge until after all charges are spent.

Charge recovery and cooldown for spending all charges are two separate parts of mantras, with the exception of mantra of pain which has no cooldown after spending all charges. The per charge recovery starts as soon as you spend one charge, this is more noticeable on firebrand as you have 3 charges. The main thing I'd do to mesmer mantras before anything else is give them a 3rd charge, so you aren't punished for holding on to a charge as much (this is mainly a problem for mantra of pain where you are incentivized to use it as soon as you go back up to 2 charges and never the last one, or wait only briefly if you are about to get an extra damage buff).

Edited November 12, 2023 by Passerbye.6291

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

At the very least the first thing they need to do is to unify the Mantras' radius. As of right now their radius are all over the place: Both of Mantra of Concentration (the Stability mantra) effects work from 600 while every other Mantra only works from 240, which is smaller than Restorative Mantras' 360 healing. Mantra of Resolve is even a weirder case: The preparation effect is 240 but the charges are 360.  Please ANET, unify all these radius, ideally all to 360. (Can we also get Restorative Mantras to work on the charges like it used to, please?)

As for reworking, I also have the same idea about Mantra rework as yours, in that the preparation cast should have a separate cooldown from the charges. My idea is that the preparation cast should go on cooldown immediately after the initial cast (instead of the current design where it only goes on cooldown after the last charge), and have the charges as spares to use in the meantime during the preparation's cooldown to react to situations. My only difference to yours is that once the cooldown is over, the Mantra goes back to its preparation stage and any previous unused charges are lost. This way you are still encouraged to spam all the effects like the original design while not having to fear that it'll put them on cooldown when you need them, but you can still choose to hold and use the charges in moderation during the preparation's cooldown to react to situations.

Edited November 12, 2023 by ZephidelGRS.9520

[Teknomancer.4895]

4 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

The main thing I'd do to mesmer mantras before anything else is give them a 3rd charge

I think this would probably be a reasonable boost. Either that or apply the Virt's blade auto-generation functionality to Mantras, so if you have a Mantra equipped it just refills a charge every interval up to the maximum capacity.

An annoying amount of the Mesmer toolkit amounts to wasting time preparing to do a thing instead of just doing it, which seems unnecessary.

[Micah.3789]

13 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

At the very least the first thing they need to do is to unify the Mantras' radius. [...] (Can we also get Restorative Mantras to work on the charges like it used to, please?)

[...] My only difference to yours is that once the cooldown is over, the Mantra goes back to its preparation stage and any previous unused charges are lost. This way you are still encouraged to spam all the effects like the original design while not having to fear that it'll put them on cooldown when you need them, but you can still choose to hold and use the charges in moderation during the preparation's cooldown to react to situations.

Great points, great suggestions. I think Restorative Mantras should heal on both the cast and the charges; maybe reduce the current value on cast by ~25-30%, but add half of that to each charge for a slight net gain with more flexible usage.

I especially like your idea to have charges available for a limited duration after preparing. It's a dramatic departure from the current design so some players may not appreciate it, but I think it could be a very healthy change. It would create a new limitation to offset the faster cast times and effectively lower CDs; so while you'd no longer be able to bank charges for long periods of time, the skills themselves would be much more accessible in the heat of combat. Plus, it would offer a unique playstyle that could help to distinguish mesmer from other classes and add some flavor.

[Micah.3789]

Another QoL mantra change I forgot to mention: Power Spike (Mantra of Pain charge skill) should be useable without a target. It could just do the effect around you, or even just wiff and waste the skill. Either way, this is a pretty necessary change for mesmers that have basically no other form of steady healing without an enemy target.

[Panda.1967]

On 11/12/2023 at 8:22 AM, Passerbye.6291 said:

Charge recovery and cooldown for spending all charges are two separate parts of mantras, with the exception of mantra of pain which has no cooldown after spending all charges. The per charge recovery starts as soon as you spend one charge, this is more noticeable on firebrand as you have 3 charges. The main thing I'd do to mesmer mantras before anything else is give them a 3rd charge, so you aren't punished for holding on to a charge as much (this is mainly a problem for mantra of pain where you are incentivized to use it as soon as you go back up to 2 charges and never the last one, or wait only briefly if you are about to get an extra damage buff).

I’d go a step further… give all Mesmer mantras a 3rd charge (Mantra of Pain should have 4)… AND give all of them a Final Charge ability like the firebrand has… it makes no sense that Firebrand has better mantras in every regard…

Edited November 14, 2023 by Panda.1967

[Panda.1967]

On 11/12/2023 at 8:23 AM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

As for reworking, I also have the same idea about Mantra rework as yours, in that the preparation cast should have a separate cooldown from the charges. My idea is that the preparation cast should go on cooldown immediately after the initial cast (instead of the current design where it only goes on cooldown after the last charge), and have the charges as spares to use in the meantime during the preparation's cooldown to react to situations. My only difference to yours is that once the cooldown is over, the Mantra goes back to its preparation stage and any previous unused charges are lost. This way you are still encouraged to spam all the effects like the original design while not having to fear that it'll put them on cooldown when you need them, but you can still choose to hold and use the charges in moderation during the preparation's cooldown to react to situations.

I could see this working… but maybe with a slight alteration… as I said before Mesmer mantras should gain a 3rd charge and a Final Charge skill like firebrand  has… but what if, the preparation recharge were to start when the Final Charge skill becomes available instead?

Edited November 14, 2023 by Panda.1967

[Crowfang.8529]

Mesmers' mantras should have the same mechanics as firebrands' mantras. Period.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Considering that Firebrand players often curse their mom and seven generations before whenever they accidentally press Final Charge, I don't think so. I don't claim to know what's the right way to design mantras, but the whole thing with Final Charges is just a bad idea all around. 

[draxynnic.3719]

The thought has also crossed my mind that ArenaNet might have to bite the bullet and just make mesmer and firebrand mantras work the same. The idea that they both use mantras but in very different ways is interesting, but interesting isn't always the same as practical. Short count recharges, placing the stronger effect on the final charge, and having the longer cooldown as payment for using the final charge might prove more practical in more situations overall (even if there are some advantages to the current system).

2 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Considering that Firebrand players often curse their mom and seven generations before whenever they accidentally press Final Charge, I don't think so. I don't claim to know what's the right way to design mantras, but the whole thing with Final Charges is just a bad idea all around. 

Less so now that they've better calibrated the cost/benefit of using the final charge. If it was genuinely accidental, then yes, but there are times now when using the final charge is worthwhile or even part of the rotation.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

7 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Considering that Firebrand players often curse their mom and seven generations before whenever they accidentally press Final Charge, I don't think so. I don't claim to know what's the right way to design mantras, but the whole thing with Final Charges is just a bad idea all around. 

The Firebrands method of using Mantras is 10 times better than the Mesmers.

Firebrand is one of my top 3 specs I've played, and I have 3 Mantras on my bar with that character. I refuse to have any Mantras on my bar as a Mesmer.

I occasionally think that I can handle putting one on and after 2 fights I promptly remove it again because I remember how utterly horrible the Mesmer mantra design is.

Firebrands can use 3 charges without having to Charge it during combat because it recharges automatically.

They can use 2 charges without having to use the final charge. 

They can choose whether to use the final charge depending on if they actually need it.

[Teknomancer.4895]

1 minute ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

The Firebrands method of using Mantras is 10 times better than the Mesmers.

Which seems to fit right in with the ANet balance philosophy: always nerf Mesmer, always buff Guard. 😆

[draxynnic.3719]

57 minutes ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

The Firebrands method of using Mantras is 10 times better than the Mesmers.

Firebrand is one of my top 3 specs I've played, and I have 3 Mantras on my bar with that character. I refuse to have any Mantras on my bar as a Mesmer.

I occasionally think that I can handle putting one on and after 2 fights I promptly remove it again because I remember how utterly horrible the Mesmer mantra design is.

Firebrands can use 3 charges without having to Charge it during combat because it recharges automatically.

They can use 2 charges without having to use the final charge. 

They can choose whether to use the final charge depending on if they actually need it.

There are uses for the mesmer approach. The stability mantra is good for situations where you might need stability a couple of times in relatively quick succession, but then you can engineer some space in order to recharge. While the interrupt mantra can be good for situations where you might need a lot of breakbar in short order, but where, again, you can afford to recharge the mantra later.

Mantra of Pain is usually the third DPS utility skill on a power build. You're probably better off not using the second charge unless you're trying to end or phase the fight there and then, though. 

[Roadkizzle.2157]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There are uses for the mesmer approach. The stability mantra is good for situations where you might need stability a couple of times in relatively quick succession, but then you can engineer some space in order to recharge. While the interrupt mantra can be good for situations where you might need a lot of breakbar in short order, but where, again, you can afford to recharge the mantra later.

Mantra of Pain is usually the third DPS utility skill on a power build. You're probably better off not using the second charge unless you're trying to end or phase the fight there and then, though. 

Of course there are uses for interrupts and stability. I'm not arguing that.

 

I'm just saying that I REALLY don't want to suffer through the horrible mechanics of the mantra skill type to get those when every other class gets the exact same conditions and boons without the horrible mechanics.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Of course there are uses for interrupts and stability. I'm not arguing that.

 

I'm just saying that I REALLY don't want to suffer through the horrible mechanics of the mantra skill type to get those when every other class gets the exact same conditions and boons without the horrible mechanics.

Point being, it is an area where, at the very least, the current mechanics are better than they were when channeling was removed. Instead of waiting for the long count recharge to get just one charge back, you could wait less than half the time, perform a short channel, and have both charges back. There are benefits to this system. Of course, 'there are benefits' does not necessarily mean that it's ideal.

[Panda.1967]

On 11/18/2023 at 8:35 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

There are uses for the mesmer approach. The stability mantra is good for situations where you might need stability a couple of times in relatively quick succession, but then you can engineer some space in order to recharge. While the interrupt mantra can be good for situations where you might need a lot of breakbar in short order, but where, again, you can afford to recharge the mantra later.

Mantra of Pain is usually the third DPS utility skill on a power build. You're probably better off not using the second charge unless you're trying to end or phase the fight there and then, though. 

These are all bad examples to be honest… Mantra of Concentration is the only reliable source of stability for mesmers outside of Chronomancer… mesmers only have 3 sources of stability… Mantra of concentration, signet of inspiration, and well of precognition… well of precognition requires you to be a Chronomancer, and signet of inspiration is completely random… so… this is less “the current design of mantras benefits this” and more “this is the only option for mesmers”…

interrupts and breakbars are the mesmers specialty… Mantra of distraction is nice… but even without it any mesmer can decimate a breakbar in seconds without even slotting a dedicated CC utility… we always have a daze through our shatters, and nearly every weapon has 1 or 2 CC skills… mantra of distractions is only actually valuable in PvP where you may need to interrupt people back to back.

mantra of pain is a staple in Power builds… but only because mesmer lacks other good power utilities… and out of all mesmer mantras, this is by far the least punishing to use. It has a short CD making it so you can channel it again fairly quickly and keep using it… but its an outlier.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

These are all bad examples to be honest… Mantra of Concentration is the only reliable source of stability for mesmers outside of Chronomancer… mesmers only have 3 sources of stability… Mantra of concentration, signet of inspiration, and well of precognition… well of precognition requires you to be a Chronomancer, and signet of inspiration is completely random… so… this is less “the current design of mantras benefits this” and more “this is the only option for mesmers”…

interrupts and breakbars are the mesmers specialty… Mantra of distraction is nice… but even without it any mesmer can decimate a breakbar in seconds without even slotting a dedicated CC utility… we always have a daze through our shatters, and nearly every weapon has 1 or 2 CC skills… mantra of distractions is only actually valuable in PvP where you may need to interrupt people back to back.

mantra of pain is a staple in Power builds… but only because mesmer lacks other good power utilities… and out of all mesmer mantras, this is by far the least punishing to use. It has a short CD making it so you can channel it again fairly quickly and keep using it… but its an outlier.

 

You've completely missed the point, which was that the first two benefit from the mantra mechanic under certain circumstances because being able to refresh them with a channel means that you can use them more often than you would likely be able to otherwise. MoP is the exception because, even though you can rechannel it immediately, you take it for damage and the benefit of channeling it is probably not worth slashing your DPS during the channel time.

And as I said in a followup post, just because there are circumstances where it can shine, doesn't mean that it might not be better off overall with some other mechanic.

[Mell.4873]

Mantras in my opinion are fine but it does feed into the fact that playing Mesmer support is very hard since you have to predict so much about the encounter. 

[Mevelios.4809]

On 11/12/2023 at 3:23 PM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Please ANET, unify all these radius, ideally all to 360. (Can we also get Restorative Mantras to work on the charges like it used to, please?)

Definitely agree with this - as much as I don't mind for Power spike & Power lock to have their own smaller radius since they're offensive tools, and while Mantra of concentration/Power break are safer to use with their now increased radius to 600, it's a pain to play the guessing game at whether Resolve/Power cleanse or Pain are in the right range of your allies (that last one I wouldn't think of on a support build, but why not, might be uses I failed to imagine).

I'd rather see them work as the firebrand's too mainly for the sake of possibly instantly resorting to them, should an emergency arise. I'm thinking especially of concentration/power break here, since we've got no aegis on any mantra - I'd definitely trade Recovery/Return for extra aegis sources, knowing our healing will be based on other sources than the healing skill.

If the intent is to stick with the current effect of Restorative mantras instead of providing us a smaller heal on charges' uses, at least casting again the preparation would keep some meaning through the extra heal (not reliable enough on paper to make me interested in using them as healing sources, but practice may tell otherwise).

Bringing mesmer mantras in line with firebrands' could also open up new ideas and considerations later on to make them work with the Firebrand relic, even if healers definitely have more interesting options available so far. Not necessarily "better possibilities", but there'd be potential for creativity such as providing extra protection, resolution or whatever on a final charge - must admit I'm thinking here of a potential boon (especially resolution, actually) to replace the several traits that'll be relying on chaos armor to provide support, when that chaos armor already is largely restricted to the staff or leap finishers on sword/axe coupled to an ethereal field. This is almost invasive by imposing an utility coupled to weapons that aren't exactly the support type. A sword could fit on a tank so there's at least that possibility, yet for all other support forms (as healer or boondps) it's staff, staff or staff; hopefully the rifle will perform better for healers. Chaos armor mechanics remain too restrictive, but that's another topic! The idea here is simply to have such mechanics work through the resolution boon instead of chaos armor (even then, the staff has an edge with Chaos storm, but at least there's the lesser version available to all in the chaos spec) when mantras could offer either on preparation, either on final cast that same boon, thus making the traits working for all profiles instead of largely revolving around staff, staff or staff.

I can't help thinking the chrono wells should still be tied to the topic, with providing a smaller heal per tick instead of waiting the full three seconds to happen. It's the exact same issue with restorative mantras: the delayed effect may completely miss the emergency window. Worse, unlike the mantra preparations they can't be hastened up through quickness. Well, let's give a shot for now to the current illusion summoning/shattering spam and see how it plays; 24 hours before it goes live!

Edited November 27, 2023 by Mevelios.4809

[zeyeti.8347]

Mesmer mantras are absurb , they work completely the opposite of firebrand one , and while firebrand mantras are super effective , mesmer mantras feel really weird , i mean the cd of 1 unique charge is larger than unloading the full ammo ... and you gain the powered effect after the 2.25 cats time , for a skill who is supposed to be a reactiv skill it make no sense at all , they should work like the firebrand mantras.