Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Mesmer

[Shaman.2034]

8 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Sure you have easy Regen and Fury...

But what are you having to do in order to maintain uptime in Quick/Alac or Protection? 

When I was testing the rifle out those felt much more difficult to maintain than Regen and Fury are with the existing weapons.

Those were all easy to keep up. I used Chaos 2 2 3 | Inspiration 2 2 2 | Chronomancer 2 2 2. There's a new Inspiration trait that gives AoE Protection per clone you shatter, and it gives plenty if you stack 100% boon duration.

Heal mantra, stability mantra, condi cleanse mantra, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Time Warp.

Full Minstrel gear with Water runes and Concentration/Transference sigils (may have room for optimization to achieve exactly 100% boon duration without wasting any)

You create a clone when you shatter at 3 illusions. You create a clone when you use the heal mantra. You get so many clones that you can do a full shatter more often than once per 8s, which gives 8s Protection and Quickness each time you shatter with 3 clones up. You also give yourself 8s Alacrity to reduce your cooldowns and make you self-sufficient. This is enough to maintain 100% Protection and Quickness uptime, but you have the phantasms to summon for extra Quickness (and clone generation) just in case.

If you need a Protection buffer in addition to this, the Zephyrite relic works well since Time Warp has a big recharge. But I didn't feel like it was necessary

[Josif.2015]

I can somewhat understand thief using a rifle for the whole sniper theme with Deadeye, but it doesn't fit for mesmer. Here are my thoughts on the weapon:

Friendly Fire (rifle 1): no changes needed.
Journey (rifle 2): remove the cripple.
Abstraction (rifle 3): remove the blindness, the high damage and 6.5 seconds of weakness is more than enough.
Phantasmal Sharpshooter (rifle 4): replace the stun with a daze.
Dimensional Aperture (rifle 5): teleport the mesmer to the targeted area and leave a portal entry for teammates to follow where the mesmer teleported.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

16 hours ago, Shaman.2034 said:

Those were all easy to keep up. I used Chaos 2 2 3 | Inspiration 2 2 2 | Chronomancer 2 2 2. There's a new Inspiration trait that gives AoE Protection per clone you shatter, and it gives plenty if you stack 100% boon duration.

Heal mantra, stability mantra, condi cleanse mantra, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Time Warp.

Full Minstrel gear with Water runes and Concentration/Transference sigils (may have room for optimization to achieve exactly 100% boon duration without wasting any)

You create a clone when you shatter at 3 illusions. You create a clone when you use the heal mantra. You get so many clones that you can do a full shatter more often than once per 8s, which gives 8s Protection and Quickness each time you shatter with 3 clones up. You also give yourself 8s Alacrity to reduce your cooldowns and make you self-sufficient. This is enough to maintain 100% Protection and Quickness uptime, but you have the phantasms to summon for extra Quickness (and clone generation) just in case.

If you need a Protection buffer in addition to this, the Zephyrite relic works well since Time Warp has a big recharge. But I didn't feel like it was necessary

Sure I guess you can play Mantra instead of Mesmer.

But then you really don't need any Regen on the Rifle at all because you're getting 12 seconds of Regen from Metaphysical Rejuvenation every time you're trying to get 8 seconds of Protection.

 

 

I just think rifle really doesn't provide enough as a support outside of heals which will be gutted if/when they simply adjust numbers. It could afford to not provide healing on either 2 or 3 and instead provide other lacking support.

I think the Phantasm should work like the firing line people have been asking for.

Immediately summon 2 Phantasms beside you which join you in a powerful shot at the target. Then they linger for an extra second or two and turn into clones providing something like Resolution to the group.

All with a 12-15 second cooldown like the staff or greatsword.

 

This will help with boon coverage giving clones for shattering and phantasm summoning and a lacking boon for the mesmer.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Josif.2015 said:

I can somewhat understand thief using a rifle for the whole sniper theme with Deadeye, but it doesn't fit for mesmer. Here are my thoughts on the weapon:

Friendly Fire (rifle 1): no changes needed.
Journey (rifle 2): remove the cripple.
Abstraction (rifle 3): remove the blindness, the high damage and 6.5 seconds of weakness is more than enough.
Phantasmal Sharpshooter (rifle 4): replace the stun with a daze.
Dimensional Aperture (rifle 5): teleport the mesmer to the targeted area and leave a portal entry for teammates to follow where the mesmer teleported.

Dude, spellcasters using firearms in this setting was established with mesmer having a pistol on release, and reinforced with harbinger. Your insistence that spellcasters shouldn't be using pistols or rifles was Jossed years ago.

[FlowingWater.6193]

Many things that I feel are relevant for the rifle have already been said both here and in the big reddit feedback thread (lots of good stuff there), especially regarding the clunky feel of the weapon, but I believe I too must underline how much the slow projectile speed of the weapon is hurting the feeling of using it. It adds to the image of this slow and clunky weapon, more than it already is. For a comparison, I replayed the Iron Legion starting mission with the Ghostbore Musket, and my first thought was "kitten, I wish the mesmer rifle felt this good" because it just worked really well. Very fast projectile and snappy animations; it just felt good to use. I wouldn't mind it if a dev copied the code and just went "done!"

From an "identity" perspective, us mesmers magically enhancing a rifle should not make it feel so slow that it competes with a bow. As another person said, give it some oomph, nail home the fantasy that we're adding to what the rifle as a weapon offers, not subtracting from it.

TL:DR: Significantly speed up the autoattack projectile speed to help alleviate some of the "slow" feel of the rifle

[ShadowKatt.6740]

12 hours ago, FlowingWater.6193 said:

Many things that I feel are relevant for the rifle have already been said both here and in the big reddit feedback thread (lots of good stuff there), especially regarding the clunky feel of the weapon, but I believe I too must underline how much the slow projectile speed of the weapon is hurting the feeling of using it. It adds to the image of this slow and clunky weapon, more than it already is. For a comparison, I replayed the Iron Legion starting mission with the Ghostbore Musket, and my first thought was "kitten, I wish the mesmer rifle felt this good" because it just worked really well. Very fast projectile and snappy animations; it just felt good to use. I wouldn't mind it if a dev copied the code and just went "done!"

From an "identity" perspective, us mesmers magically enhancing a rifle should not make it feel so slow that it competes with a bow. As another person said, give it some oomph, nail home the fantasy that we're adding to what the rifle as a weapon offers, not subtracting from it.

TL:DR: Significantly speed up the autoattack projectile speed to help alleviate some of the "slow" feel of the rifle

It's actually funny when you realize that the profession with the primary mechanic of TELEPORTING is so slow.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

On 12/10/2023 at 11:36 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

It's actually funny when you realize that the profession with the primary mechanic of TELEPORTING is so slow.

Well truly that's why I'm not really interested in the teleporting bullets idea many people have for the animations.

 

The speed of rifle bullet animations is so fast that in order to make you be able to actually see a teleporting bullet animation it would take more animation frames than just firing it regularly. 

 

And what does the idea give you? Just eat up a bunch of animation time for zero in game benefit.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

59 minutes ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Well truly that's why I'm not really interested in the teleporting bullets idea many people have for the animations.

 

The speed of rifle bullet animations is so fast that in order to make you be able to actually see a teleporting bullet animation it would take more animation frames than just firing it regularly. 

 

And what does the idea give you? Just eat up a bunch of animation time for zero in game benefit.

But it doesn't have to be a fancy animation. It could be, sure. They could go all Dr. Strange on it with swirling lines and opening apetures.....or they could just blink a portal with the bullet flying into it. No exit portal needed; you'll never see it. But just rifle shooting into a hole is all it needs.

OR, alternately, when we draw the rifle it could open a constant portal in front of it and then the normal bullet animation just needs to stop there. Have the portal animated with shimmering and all that, like normal portals, but just leave it there. NOt a big portal, just big enough for a bullet.

There's ways it could be done, if they cared.

[Aposhi.5027]

I had to reformat this post as I got some inspiration while noting things down. It definitely could use more work, but I wanted to share it in this format rather than not sharing it at all. 

After playing with the mesmer rifle and seeing most other weapons released have a mini-mechanic of their own, this is what I realized I was missing in riffle: the excitement of a mini-mechanic introduced in the mesmer weapon as well. Thinking about it more, a lot of the skills of the rifle feel like a dual type, trying to mix 2 things in 1 skill. This is creating issues as seen in previous comments and testing, both for usability and balancing. I would rather have something dedicated (i.e. trait or skill, more options below) to dynamically swap between the 2 options. 

I think it would be awesome to be able to switch between what I will call from now the "sharpshooter" and "blaster" versions of the rifle, each coming with a different set of skills.

Options on how to do this:
1. Dedicated trait(s): depending on whether the trait is selected the weapon becomes the sharpshooter/blaster version. I think this option would defeat the purpose and would limit build creativity.
2. On use of specific skill (shatter/heal/utility/elite). This would limit build diversity and might make rotations and options tricky to pull off. Out of all skills, I would consider shatters the best to be used for this, so the F1-F2 to trigger the sharpshooter version and F3-F4 to trigger the blaster version. These are always available to be used and can be more easily weaved in rotations. This approach might still conflict a bit with i.e. CS shatter spam, or other rotations, but at least it introduces some tradeoff and encourages mechanics. 
3. Make a dedicated skill (F6) available to swap rifle modes - would create more interface clutter, otherwise not a very bad solution necessarily. 
4. On targeting/hitting depending on type: If i target and autoattack an ally the rest of the skills change to a (supportive) set, while if i target/hit an enemy I get the other set. This might create conflicts with some ideas I mention below (like making the blaster heal a cone/aoe).
5. Make it a dedicated skill on the weapon that swaps between the modes. we lose some playroom with this option, but still get a bigger number of total skills. 
6. ??? Happy to see what others think might be a nice trigger. 🙂

At a glance, I prefer option 2 of the above. It is clearly embedded in our current toolkits and provides a risk/reward mechanic for planning shatters, being reactive/proactive or camping a specific weapon set (to avoid losing illusions to a shatter just to swap).

Now to provide the proper feedback, I will list all skills and comment both on their current beta state and suggestions, as well as how I would approach the skills were they part of a sharpshooter/blaster config as suggested above. Generic approach is blaster = comfortable, constant support, sharpshooter = offensive, versatile combat swiss-army knife.

1. Current: Healing numbers are nice. Damage is enough to kill white mobs. 😛 Ally targeting is a bit annoying. and kind of a pain to find the correct person to focus on - especially in an emergency. But nice consistent healing. Damage could be increased.
1. Sharpshooter: Increase combo finisher chance. Increase healing to targeted ally (if ally selected) and lower aoe healing to surrounding allies. If enemy selected increase damage and lower healing to allies. So make it more rewarding if single ally is targeted.
1. Blaster: I would prefer this to be an AoE heal around the mesmer, or - less preferably- a frontal cone. Make healing shorter range but more consistent (faster autos, less heal). In WvW especially it would allow the heals to not be negated by reflects and will encourage proper stacking.

2. Current: Generic, bland and slow. Animation should be adjusted to show the portal closer to the enemy, as well as positioning of spawned clone to not be on top of user. Make clone generation separate on whether ally/enemy is hit. So, if both allies and enemies are hit, create 2 clones (1 per each successful hit). Regen feels a bit meh considering alternative sources that provide it for healing builds currently.
2. Sharpshooter: remove healing component. add bleeding. adjust(increase) cooldown and damage. Keep double clone generation suggestion from above.
2. Blaster: make it a blast finisher (removing it from skill below). increase cooldown and lower/remove damage. Keep double clone generation suggestion from above.

3. Current: Annoying that reactivation skill can only blast itself. Reactivation window too short, needs to be increased a bit. Can easily be miss-pressed when spamming rotations but need to keep first part only. 
3. Sharpshooter: adjust current skill inspiring imagery: add superspeed
3. Blaster: adjust current skill abstraction: remove blast finisher

4. Current: Very low damage. Increase damage, add weakness (and maybe some bleeding) conditions. To satisfy the firing squad enjoyers, I could also see this skill working as a charge skill that summons more phantasms the more the skill is channeled OR that is summons 2 phantasms when there are already 3 illusions present. (and with current numbers it will probably still won't do enough damage :P) but depending on each approach damage should be adjusted. 
4. Sharpshooter: see above
4. Blaster: Would be very interesting and fun to have a phantasm that taunts/pulls instead (keeping same amount of CC)

5. Current: Portal is very niche, especially with only 1 usage. Also the fact that it affects singularity shot makes it a bit tricky for rotations. The punishment needed to use it is understandable, but it would not be that effective to be used in most situations anyways. This is where the split works ideally.
5. Sharpshooter: Make Dimensional Aperture a channeling skill (requiring user to stay still) with max duration of 3s and adjust number of persons that can take it depending on gamemode (i.e 5 pve, 2 pvp, 10 wvw). While the mesmer channels non-downed players can interact with portal to be transported to mesmer's location. When portal ends if it was fully charged for 3s all downed allies are teleported to the mesmer (of course only up to max usages if the cap is not already met). Add slow/boonstrip to enemies per channel tick. End of channel becomes a blast finisher.
5. Blaster: Keep singularity shot as is, but make it an ethereal combo field and make 1s resistance pulsing every second after initial cast. Increase cooldown accordingly. 

So the goal is to make the Blaster version a more comfy support weapon that is a bit weaker and less versatile (especially if camped) but consistent. Things like skill 5 into 2 (for ethereal blast finisher) would be an interesting choice to decide between aligning cooldowns for the combo effect, or use skill 2 earlier to heal/summon clones. Sharpshooter is grouping the more niche parts, requiring better management to buff/save allies by introducing downsides (i.e channel skills, or 1 person focused healing vs aoe) to get the maximum effects. To get the most out of the weapon players would have to switch between the two modes, introducing a risk-reward for understanding the available tools and planning ahead. The sharpshooter/blaster split would also allow for some "stronger" effects to be better balanced by lowering their availability (increased cooldowns, camping 1 set) without making the rest of the kit feeling useless/clunky in the meantime. Sprinkling some bleeding here and there might be interesting to see how it works with other specs (i.e. virt - it won't be competitive but might be fun to play around with).

This was maybe a bit hastily written and could really use some more shuffling, but I would love if it enables more of us - DEVs included! - to see how the rifle can be adjusted to be a fun weapon we all enjoy. 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

2 hours ago, Aposhi.5027 said:

I had to reformat this post as I got some inspiration while noting things down. It definitely could use more work, but I wanted to share it in this format rather than not sharing it at all. 

After playing with the mesmer rifle and seeing most other weapons released have a mini-mechanic of their own, this is what I realized I was missing in riffle: the excitement of a mini-mechanic introduced in the mesmer weapon as well. Thinking about it more, a lot of the skills of the rifle feel like a dual type, trying to mix 2 things in 1 skill. This is creating issues as seen in previous comments and testing, both for usability and balancing. I would rather have something dedicated (i.e. trait or skill, more options below) to dynamically swap between the 2 options. 

I think it would be awesome to be able to switch between what I will call from now the "sharpshooter" and "blaster" versions of the rifle, each coming with a different set of skills.

Options on how to do this:
1. Dedicated trait(s): depending on whether the trait is selected the weapon becomes the sharpshooter/blaster version. I think this option would defeat the purpose and would limit build creativity.
2. On use of specific skill (shatter/heal/utility/elite). This would limit build diversity and might make rotations and options tricky to pull off. Out of all skills, I would consider shatters the best to be used for this, so the F1-F2 to trigger the sharpshooter version and F3-F4 to trigger the blaster version. These are always available to be used and can be more easily weaved in rotations. This approach might still conflict a bit with i.e. CS shatter spam, or other rotations, but at least it introduces some tradeoff and encourages mechanics. 
3. Make a dedicated skill (F6) available to swap rifle modes - would create more interface clutter, otherwise not a very bad solution necessarily. 
4. On targeting/hitting depending on type: If i target and autoattack an ally the rest of the skills change to a (supportive) set, while if i target/hit an enemy I get the other set. This might create conflicts with some ideas I mention below (like making the blaster heal a cone/aoe).
5. Make it a dedicated skill on the weapon that swaps between the modes. we lose some playroom with this option, but still get a bigger number of total skills. 
6. ??? Happy to see what others think might be a nice trigger. 🙂

At a glance, I prefer option 2 of the above. It is clearly embedded in our current toolkits and provides a risk/reward mechanic for planning shatters, being reactive/proactive or camping a specific weapon set (to avoid losing illusions to a shatter just to swap).

Now to provide the proper feedback, I will list all skills and comment both on their current beta state and suggestions, as well as how I would approach the skills were they part of a sharpshooter/blaster config as suggested above. Generic approach is blaster = comfortable, constant support, sharpshooter = offensive, versatile combat swiss-army knife.

1. Current: Healing numbers are nice. Damage is enough to kill white mobs. 😛 Ally targeting is a bit annoying. and kind of a pain to find the correct person to focus on - especially in an emergency. But nice consistent healing. Damage could be increased.
1. Sharpshooter: Increase combo finisher chance. Increase healing to targeted ally (if ally selected) and lower aoe healing to surrounding allies. If enemy selected increase damage and lower healing to allies. So make it more rewarding if single ally is targeted.
1. Blaster: I would prefer this to be an AoE heal around the mesmer, or - less preferably- a frontal cone. Make healing shorter range but more consistent (faster autos, less heal). In WvW especially it would allow the heals to not be negated by reflects and will encourage proper stacking.

2. Current: Generic, bland and slow. Animation should be adjusted to show the portal closer to the enemy, as well as positioning of spawned clone to not be on top of user. Make clone generation separate on whether ally/enemy is hit. So, if both allies and enemies are hit, create 2 clones (1 per each successful hit). Regen feels a bit meh considering alternative sources that provide it for healing builds currently.
2. Sharpshooter: remove healing component. add bleeding. adjust(increase) cooldown and damage. Keep double clone generation suggestion from above.
2. Blaster: make it a blast finisher (removing it from skill below). increase cooldown and lower/remove damage. Keep double clone generation suggestion from above.

3. Current: Annoying that reactivation skill can only blast itself. Reactivation window too short, needs to be increased a bit. Can easily be miss-pressed when spamming rotations but need to keep first part only. 
3. Sharpshooter: adjust current skill inspiring imagery: add superspeed
3. Blaster: adjust current skill abstraction: remove blast finisher

4. Current: Very low damage. Increase damage, add weakness (and maybe some bleeding) conditions. To satisfy the firing squad enjoyers, I could also see this skill working as a charge skill that summons more phantasms the more the skill is channeled OR that is summons 2 phantasms when there are already 3 illusions present. (and with current numbers it will probably still won't do enough damage :P) but depending on each approach damage should be adjusted. 
4. Sharpshooter: see above
4. Blaster: Would be very interesting and fun to have a phantasm that taunts/pulls instead (keeping same amount of CC)

5. Current: Portal is very niche, especially with only 1 usage. Also the fact that it affects singularity shot makes it a bit tricky for rotations. The punishment needed to use it is understandable, but it would not be that effective to be used in most situations anyways. This is where the split works ideally.
5. Sharpshooter: Make Dimensional Aperture a channeling skill (requiring user to stay still) with max duration of 3s and adjust number of persons that can take it depending on gamemode (i.e 5 pve, 2 pvp, 10 wvw). While the mesmer channels non-downed players can interact with portal to be transported to mesmer's location. When portal ends if it was fully charged for 3s all downed allies are teleported to the mesmer (of course only up to max usages if the cap is not already met). Add slow/boonstrip to enemies per channel tick. End of channel becomes a blast finisher.
5. Blaster: Keep singularity shot as is, but make it an ethereal combo field and make 1s resistance pulsing every second after initial cast. Increase cooldown accordingly. 

So the goal is to make the Blaster version a more comfy support weapon that is a bit weaker and less versatile (especially if camped) but consistent. Things like skill 5 into 2 (for ethereal blast finisher) would be an interesting choice to decide between aligning cooldowns for the combo effect, or use skill 2 earlier to heal/summon clones. Sharpshooter is grouping the more niche parts, requiring better management to buff/save allies by introducing downsides (i.e channel skills, or 1 person focused healing vs aoe) to get the maximum effects. To get the most out of the weapon players would have to switch between the two modes, introducing a risk-reward for understanding the available tools and planning ahead. The sharpshooter/blaster split would also allow for some "stronger" effects to be better balanced by lowering their availability (increased cooldowns, camping 1 set) without making the rest of the kit feeling useless/clunky in the meantime. Sprinkling some bleeding here and there might be interesting to see how it works with other specs (i.e. virt - it won't be competitive but might be fun to play around with).

This was maybe a bit hastily written and could really use some more shuffling, but I would love if it enables more of us - DEVs included! - to see how the rifle can be adjusted to be a fun weapon we all enjoy. 

You're not the first to suggest that the rifle be a dual weapon akin to the Deadeye's rifle and given that most of the skills on it are dual activation or dual phase it's not hard to understand why. That being said, after reading through your suggestions I'm confused because while you would make the rifle a togglable dual-phase weapon, you've decided to alternate between a support weapon and.....a support weapon.

It looks like you've opted to make the rifle not a dual function rifle, but a dual range rifle. Long range and shorter range, when I would argue that's a bad way to go. When dealing with range you are encompassing everything within that range, so the only real (as I see it, and my opinions on this are NOT universal) distinction that needs to be made is ranged vs melee. Guild Wars 1 made that distinction with bows having a disadvantage at melee range, but GW2 doesn't do that and I know plenty of people that face-shot people, so on a certain level even though it drives me up a wall we don't even need to bother with that distinction. So I'm not entirely sure what your goal was here, or at least it escapes me.

One of the things that does come to mind though is that what you're talking about is replacing all of our skills with a button. That puts it in the same camp as either Engineer Weapon Skills(Or Dragon Trigger) or shroud skills, specifically Death Shroud, Celestial Avatar, and Holoforge. Not sure the latter apply since all of those come with a time limit and I doubt the rifle will, though that could make for an interesting mechanic (perhaps a limited magazine of shots built up over time and some very powerful skills until it runs out) but more likely I think it sounds more like a weapon kit. But the weapon kits Engies use are to offer them versitility especially given their limited pool of weapons, and I don't see the versatility here. But I do like some of the ideas, like boosts to clone or phantasm summoning if we're already full. Our shatters already function better if we have 3 clones, it would be nice to see more skills capitalize on that. The use of channeled abilities as a drawback in exchange for better power I also thing is a benefit since mesmers don't have a lot of channeled abilities and it generally a good tradeoff as long as it's balanced properly. So there is a lot of good in this, but I think the direction might need to be tweaked a bit.

[draxynnic.3719]

I'd put a healthy 'be careful what you wish for' when it comes to other weapons. A lot of them feel like complexity for the sake of complexity without really making the weapon more functional or enjoyable to use.

[Zenith.7301]

Gonna be honest, the mesmer's expanded weapon proficiency needs to come with a serious re-evaluation of Signet of Ether and chronomancer mechanics as well as a look at mainhand sword and shield.

Signet of the Ether is basically a mandatory healing skill because the entirety of our DPS is dependent on it, and that is wrong. Remove the phantasm reset off it and natively lower the cd of phantasms to no more than 8-10 seconds like other classes' big ticket skills like 100b and whirling wrath, etc. It's wrong we basically want to waste our heal on cd just to keep a DPS rotation going, it goes against the design of what healing skills are for.

Then comes mainhand sword and shield. Mainhand sword is irrelevant in PvE because its clone generation is terrible. Compared to greatsword and dagger, illusionary leap has about twice the cooldown because the skill is being balanced like a  mobility skill with a subsequent cooldown. You need to lower its cooldown in PvE only to somewhere around 6 seconds. Power builds need to continually shatter to keep their rotation going, and on top of having lower clone generation, mainhand sword doesn't even pack the DPS of mainhand dagger despite being restricted to melee range, that's really bad. So much of its damage is sunk behind the 3rd part of the autoattack chain, and even it's inadequate compared to its ranged alternative weapons.

Shield is a whole other problem. Humongous cooldowns vestigial because they were balanced around chronomancer being a cd refund alacrity bot in earlier times, but now that you've removed the alacrity and quickness generation off shield, it's become a dead weapon in PvE. This is bad, the signature weapon of the chronomancer elite spec isn't even used. The other problem is that DejaVu, the phantasm generation skill, is on a whopping 30 sec cd with a conditional on top. Not only do you need to trigger 2 blocks, but you get 2 low damage phantasms of about 1 phantasm per 15 seconds average that provides a redundant protection boon. Ever since you removed alacrity and quickness from the shield, you've massively devalued the weapon.

The same can be said for chronomancer wells. They don't provide enough relevant boons or conditions, the CC outside the elite well is unremarkable, and our healing utility chronomancer well is a humongous 30 sec cd compared to mantra of recovery, which heals so much more, really any healing skill outheals the well. Why are our stationary wells with long cd so mediocre?

Then there's continuun split. Why does it have a shard that can be damaged by stray aoe in PvE? And why does it still cost clones? This creates significant ramp up for chronomancers to start putting out performance and use their elite spec defining ability. It's even deadly to use in some raids as the continuum split can be broken early by stray boss aoe and rewind you to a bad spot. Remove this pvp mechanic off the chronomancer in PvE.

Chronomancer is so much effort for far worse performance and rewards than the alternatives, and the way continuum split as well as our wells are are a big reason for it. Our melee power weapon is weak, and the elite spec signature weapon is bad.

The class has really lagged behind. Unlike the clone reassignment of mirage or the carryover nature of stocked blades for virtuoso, chronomancer has all the old mesmer core clone mechanic problems and bad tuning to boot.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Zenith.7301

[SeTect.5918]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:18 PM, Geronmy.3298 said:

Right now the weapon seems more of a Chrono weapon rather than a mesmer one.

Well to be honest lots of weapon have that. 

Staff also feels kinda like a mirage only weapon, same for scepter and every other mainhand or 2H condi weapon thats not dagger, because chrono is no condi spec and condi virtuoso only works with dagger because of blades. 

But i also dont rly like rifle. But i m not a fan of being support. 

Edit:

Oh right this was some months old, ha, sorry.

Edited January 9 by SeTect.5918

[ShadowKatt.6740]

19 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Staff also feels kinda like a mirage only weapon, same for scepter and every other mainhand or 2H condi weapon thats not dagger, because chrono is no condi spec and condi virtuoso only works with dagger because of blades.

I hate this. The only reason the staff, and I do mean the ONLY REASON, the staff is treated as a "Mirage Weapon" is alacrity. No one actually cares about the staff, or what it does. No one says to take it for the Phase Retreat, which is an awesome movement ability, or Chaos Armor/Storm which are great boon and condition application. If you took Alacrity off of the ambush which I am all in favor of, you would see almost every Mirage drop the staff faster Andy dropping Woody once Buzz showed up. THey don't care about the staff, all they care about is alacrity and whatever is going to give it to them which is why I have been very vocal about Mirages not even having access to Alacrity, not to even touch the subject of all the other professions.

BUT that actually dovetails right back into the current conversation. WHy does the Mirage give alacrity? Well EVERY profession and Espec should give everything. Every profession should be able to DPS, Condi, Boon, and Heal Support. Every profession and Espec should have access to all boons, Alacrity, Quickness, Might, Fury, etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum. And this is where you have that small subset of people that keep complaining that the game is becoming overly homogenized and they've got some merit to their fears. For myself, I came from Guild Wars 1 where every profession did a job. Did that sometimes make finding a group hard? Occasionally, but it was rare. Instead everyone got the chance to feel useful because every profession was unique. Mesmers DIDN'T Heal. Monks didn't Interupt. Elementalists didn't trap. Rangers didn't curse. Warriors didn't minion. You could take a secondary profession to do that but if you tried to be a minion master as a W/N and complained that you couldn't upkeep as many minions everyone would laugh at you for expecting it to. Now however everyone has to be able to do everything AND you have to all be able to do so equally well. So now Mesmers need to be healers apparently. Why? I don't know. I still don't know why you would call a mesmer anyway if you needed a healer instead of a Firebrand or Scourge. I'd call a scourge first every day, especially one running blood magic and wells. I think this entire direction they're trying to take mesmers is wrong, but not just us. They did the same thing with Warriors. WARRIORS got a staff that heals things around them. How useful for them, kitten.

[Zenith.7301]

11 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I hate this. The only reason the staff, and I do mean the ONLY REASON, the staff is treated as a "Mirage Weapon" is alacrity. No one actually cares about the staff, or what it does. No one says to take it for the Phase Retreat, which is an awesome movement ability, or Chaos Armor/Storm which are great boon and condition application. If you took Alacrity off of the ambush which I am all in favor of, you would see almost every Mirage drop the staff faster Andy dropping Woody once Buzz showed up. THey don't care about the staff, all they care about is alacrity and whatever is going to give it to them which is why I have been very vocal about Mirages not even having access to Alacrity, not to even touch the subject of all the other professions.

BUT that actually dovetails right back into the current conversation. WHy does the Mirage give alacrity? Well EVERY profession and Espec should give everything. Every profession should be able to DPS, Condi, Boon, and Heal Support. Every profession and Espec should have access to all boons, Alacrity, Quickness, Might, Fury, etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum. And this is where you have that small subset of people that keep complaining that the game is becoming overly homogenized and they've got some merit to their fears. For myself, I came from Guild Wars 1 where every profession did a job. Did that sometimes make finding a group hard? Occasionally, but it was rare. Instead everyone got the chance to feel useful because every profession was unique. Mesmers DIDN'T Heal. Monks didn't Interupt. Elementalists didn't trap. Rangers didn't curse. Warriors didn't minion. You could take a secondary profession to do that but if you tried to be a minion master as a W/N and complained that you couldn't upkeep as many minions everyone would laugh at you for expecting it to. Now however everyone has to be able to do everything AND you have to all be able to do so equally well. So now Mesmers need to be healers apparently. Why? I don't know. I still don't know why you would call a mesmer anyway if you needed a healer instead of a Firebrand or Scourge. I'd call a scourge first every day, especially one running blood magic and wells. I think this entire direction they're trying to take mesmers is wrong, but not just us. They did the same thing with Warriors. WARRIORS got a staff that heals things around them. How useful for them, kitten.

? Mirage gives alacrity because it gives no quickness. And nobody uses staff outside alacrity because they nerfed the hell out of its condition damage, so it's at best a mediocre support weapon that gives boons easily stacked by every other class (might/fury).

 

Nobody cares that it has a dash back or some defensive boons on chaos storm. The real support healers already got all the boons stacked.

Edited January 11 by Zenith.7301

[ShadowKatt.6740]

8 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

? Mirage gives alacrity because it gives no quickness. And nobody uses staff outside alacrity because they nerfed the hell out of its condition damage, so it's at best a mediocre support weapon that gives boons easily stacked by every other class (might/fury).

 

Nobody cares that it has a dash back or some defensive boons on chaos storm. The real support healers already got all the boons stacked.

Great! We agree. Now let's build on that. No one would use the staff if it wasn't for alacrity, and this is so tasty because I have argued exhaustively that Mirage absolutely should never have gotten alacrity to begin with. So if we took alacrity off the staff, no one would even use the staff. Let's take that further: If alacrity was taken off the mirage, would anyone even play the MIRAGE? See I find this hilariously hypocritical. -I- get chastised and insulted because I would have kept alacrity exclusive to the chronomancer, but everyone dogpiles me saying that we had that and Oh No, those were the dark times. But where is the Mirage now? Mirage is only really expected to do one thing, with one weapon, with one temporary ability on that one weapon and the rest of it could be thrown in the trash. The mirage is only good for ONE (1) thing and that's being the NEW alacrity monkey since the Chronomancer just isn't good enough anymore. You all complained about the Chrono being pigeonholed into an alacrity engine, you have become that which you hated. 

If the staff is useless outside of alacrity then the staff needs to be fixed. If the mirage is pointless outside of being an alacrity monkey then the MIRAGE needs to be fixed. But instead of demanding that you all get pissed off because the one thing that you've been relegated to doing isn't on the brand new weapon, which ironicly puts you on the same page as myself: You don't want to use the staff for alacrity. Obviously you hate the staff and only use it for alacrity, and you would take literally ANYTHING ELSE so long as it offered alacrity so you could desperately cling to to your position in the group and they don't kick you out. Looks to me like we both want the same thing, the only difference is you want a different prison and I want to be free from it entirely.

[Mevelios.4809]

As a reminder, staff still is part of what's being called the "meta" Cdps mirage. Staff is the main source of chaos armor, to which so much is tied currently, from offensive stats to defensive boons. Staff is the main provider of boons (shield being the only second one worth mentioning, no mainhand existing to compliment it and offer an alternative) even when you take away from it alacrity. Staff trait from chaos spec is the provider of pure condi damage stats, a trait you want even when you don't use the staff - which incindentally also reduces the CD on the Lesser chaos storm for more boons, more condis and more combos. Chaotic potency as a pure stats bonus is inevitably reinforced by Illusionary membrane & serves the purpose of extra expertise from Chaotic persistence, making chaos effectively the must-have as a spec when going Cdps - bringing back to the topic of the staff as the main source of chaos armor & boons.

When you look at it as a purely offensive weapon, I'd have a different analysis: it's not an abysmal weapon. What's wrong about the staff merely is its sustain relying almost entirely on its auto-attack, the same way the scepter is a poor choice when you use its auto-attack to generate clones since it denies the application of torment. Both of these weapons still make decent choices as a side set to switch to; you simply don't want to be using them the most out of both sets, because the axe is that much more efficient thanks to Mirrored axes. The only counterbalance to this lack of effectiveness from the staff is the aberrating amount of benefits you get out of it: utilities, combos & boons - no other weapon can do that much.

[Riv.7456]

It seems like others have already covered the most noticeable issues with the rifle. Some of the skills need tweaking in terms of damage/speed, skill 5 needs to have to portal skill reworked to make it more useful, and further boon balancing needs to be considered, beyond the focus on alac/quick, regarding how it seems to be a bit lacking in some areas compared to other healers. 

Also, even though we are far past the point of no return, I do sorta wish the devs had instead gone the healing mace route instead, which could then be paired with a completely reworked support shield. As I feel that setup would just have paired better with existing builds, and it would be nice for the mesmer to have more melee weapons in its builds. 

In any case, that is my late take on the roll out of this new weapon. 

[HotDelirium.7984]

Buff and optimize the rifle all you want, love that for us but healalacchrono is the ONLY spec going to be played with itin groups. Is that what you were hoping for?

Do you wana maybe add quickness to mirage for a possable second healing build?

All those changes to mesmer mantras and for what? You could have given them all quickness to add to the mirage quickness theory?

We really need you to think more in-depth here....

Edited February 17 by HotDelirium.7984

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 2/6/2024 at 8:54 AM, Riv.7456 said:

It seems like others have already covered the most noticeable issues with the rifle. Some of the skills need tweaking in terms of damage/speed, skill 5 needs to have to portal skill reworked to make it more useful, and further boon balancing needs to be considered, beyond the focus on alac/quick, regarding how it seems to be a bit lacking in some areas compared to other healers. 

Also, even though we are far past the point of no return, I do sorta wish the devs had instead gone the healing mace route instead, which could then be paired with a completely reworked support shield. As I feel that setup would just have paired better with existing builds, and it would be nice for the mesmer to have more melee weapons in its builds. 

In any case, that is my late take on the roll out of this new weapon. 

Similiar to Sand Swell for scourge I think it should have an initial effect then anyone who teleports through it gains an additional effect.

I think it'd be even more useful if the "portal" rezes someone instantly upon detonating it.

[Zenith.7301]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:06 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Great! We agree. Now let's build on that. No one would use the staff if it wasn't for alacrity, and this is so tasty because I have argued exhaustively that Mirage absolutely should never have gotten alacrity to begin with. So if we took alacrity off the staff, no one would even use the staff. Let's take that further: If alacrity was taken off the mirage, would anyone even play the MIRAGE? See I find this hilariously hypocritical. -I- get chastised and insulted because I would have kept alacrity exclusive to the chronomancer, but everyone dogpiles me saying that we had that and Oh No, those were the dark times. But where is the Mirage now? Mirage is only really expected to do one thing, with one weapon, with one temporary ability on that one weapon and the rest of it could be thrown in the trash. The mirage is only good for ONE (1) thing and that's being the NEW alacrity monkey since the Chronomancer just isn't good enough anymore. You all complained about the Chrono being pigeonholed into an alacrity engine, you have become that which you hated. 

If the staff is useless outside of alacrity then the staff needs to be fixed. If the mirage is pointless outside of being an alacrity monkey then the MIRAGE needs to be fixed. But instead of demanding that you all get pissed off because the one thing that you've been relegated to doing isn't on the brand new weapon, which ironicly puts you on the same page as myself: You don't want to use the staff for alacrity. Obviously you hate the staff and only use it for alacrity, and you would take literally ANYTHING ELSE so long as it offered alacrity so you could desperately cling to to your position in the group and they don't kick you out. Looks to me like we both want the same thing, the only difference is you want a different prison and I want to be free from it entirely.

I never complained about Chrono having both quickness and alacrity, don't project crap onto me.

I'm actually bitter they made chrono shield totally irrelevant and now all PvE chrono meta builds don't even run shield unless you are tanking a few raid bosses.

Chrono was a high skill floor and high skill ceiling support, and then they went and broke its ankles and introduced braindead, more effective alternatives in firebrand and renegade, and then even more.

[Zenith.7301]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:06 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Great! We agree. Now let's build on that. No one would use the staff if it wasn't for alacrity, and this is so tasty because I have argued exhaustively that Mirage absolutely should never have gotten alacrity to begin with. So if we took alacrity off the staff, no one would even use the staff. Let's take that further: If alacrity was taken off the mirage, would anyone even play the MIRAGE? See I find this hilariously hypocritical. -I- get chastised and insulted because I would have kept alacrity exclusive to the chronomancer, but everyone dogpiles me saying that we had that and Oh No, those were the dark times. But where is the Mirage now? Mirage is only really expected to do one thing, with one weapon, with one temporary ability on that one weapon and the rest of it could be thrown in the trash. The mirage is only good for ONE (1) thing and that's being the NEW alacrity monkey since the Chronomancer just isn't good enough anymore. You all complained about the Chrono being pigeonholed into an alacrity engine, you have become that which you hated. 

If the staff is useless outside of alacrity then the staff needs to be fixed. If the mirage is pointless outside of being an alacrity monkey then the MIRAGE needs to be fixed. But instead of demanding that you all get pissed off because the one thing that you've been relegated to doing isn't on the brand new weapon, which ironicly puts you on the same page as myself: You don't want to use the staff for alacrity. Obviously you hate the staff and only use it for alacrity, and you would take literally ANYTHING ELSE so long as it offered alacrity so you could desperately cling to to your position in the group and they don't kick you out. Looks to me like we both want the same thing, the only difference is you want a different prison and I want to be free from it entirely.

I never complained about Chrono having both quickness and alacrity, don't project crap onto me.

I'm actually bitter they made chrono shield totally irrelevant and now all PvE chrono meta builds don't even run shield unless you are tanking a few raid bosses.

Chrono was a high skill floor and high skill ceiling support, and then they went and broke its ankles and introduced braindead, more effective alternatives in firebrand and renegade, and then even more.

[HotDelirium.7984]

From what I'm seeing if you want people to do Healing Rifle Mirage I would really commit to the healing and lessen the dmg to add even more to healing. If Chrono can heal via weapon skills, boons and certain traits + Continuum split. Mirage might be able to compete if you just take the damage number and reinvest into the healing. It's a support weapon right? Not DPS so why not add even more healing from the damage and buff the ambush. Otherwise the only great build is going to probably be Chrono. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Alacmirage isn't even a Snowcrows-recommended build any more. But they do have condidps mirage... at least until March 17, anyway.

Hardstuck does have alacmirage still up, but I think they've fallen a bit behind the meta with their mesmer raid builds - it looks like they haven't been updated since the middle of last year.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Honestly, is it that surprising? First they tried to nerf Staff damage (halving Clone condis), but it didn't work out so next they cut the Alac duration to enforce the 2x Staff build (a single staff Ambush used to give 10s Alac, now barely 5s), but people still found a way to use Staff/Axe. Then Anet got fed up and nuked the entire build with Mirage Mantle rework. Now Alac Mirage could barely upkeep Alac with 2x Staff while still having to deal with these random Staff Clone damage nerfs with no compensations in return lol. 

And I find it hilarious that the reason why the original Alac Mirage was gutted in the first place was because it was "doing too much damage for a support role with 0 boon duration investment". Then they went on and made quick Herald a thing, with the exact same "doing too much damage for a support role with 0 boon duration investment" while passively farting every boon in existence in a more braindead way than Alac Mirage. It begs the question was the original version of Alac Mirage ever even a problem?

 

Edited February 22 by ZephidelGRS.9520