Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Mesmer

[Mevelios.4809]

8 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

It's absolutely a gimmick. Problem is, they really want the portal to be a thing.

I'm hoping that they monitor just how often the skill actually gets used for that purpose.

Pretty sure only that will make them realize just how far off the mark they were on that one.

It's just marketing shenanigans, because portals are (were?) an iconical tool in our arsenal. Don't mind the pointless advertising, it'll only mislead you; take the product for what it really is - here, a healing weapon. From my point of view, that useless flipover skill is just a hindrance worth deleting should you mistakenly use it, sending into a lengthier CD a good skill.

I mean, there could actually be niche uses with good communication in a raid, but it's otherwise utterly pointless. Rather than bothering with that nonsense, I'd like them to look at what they could do to pair it better with alac mirage, since it feels like it was primarily designed to be used by chronoheal only. Those like me who dislike playing chrono for whatever reason (mine was the chronojail of the HoT/PoF years, still can't get over it today) are largely stuck with nothing new, aside some uses ordinary PUGs wouldn't bother with.

Edited March 3 by Mevelios.4809

[Teknomancer.4895]

8 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

It's just marketing shenanigans, because portals are (were?) an iconical tool in our arsenal. Don't mind the pointless advertising, it'll only mislead you; take the product for what it really is - here, a healing weapon. From my point of view, that useless flipover skill is just a hindrance worth deleting should you mistakenly use it, sending into a lengthier CD a good skill.

Oh I get that, they're trying to push their own "design vision" (such as it is) and focusing promo material by the "rule of cool" and so on. But it does reveal their thinking to some extent.

The problem is that regardless, the skill really just isn't useful even for the Chrono spec. Yes, boons are generally worth more in combat than the next-to-useless portal, but IMO one or two hits' worth of barrier and 4 seconds of resistance is not worth dedicating an entire weapon slot to. Especially not when the skill is supposed to have additional utility that (given its impractical application and additional 10sec cooldown if you actually use it) we've largely concluded is nothing more than a super-situational meme at best.

The fact that they apparently didn't even consider any of the many excellent community suggestions for it, and just decided that more visual noise was the only thing it really needed, is really just a way of saying "screw what the players want, this is what we want it to be so the end."

 

PS: Personally I'd completely replace the portal part of the skill and just copy Transfusion instead. Wherever you drop the marker, you heal and partially revive nearby allies. On flip, up to five nearby downed allies are teleported to you. That would be much more useful imo.

Edited March 3 by Teknomancer.4895
PS

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/3/2024 at 11:49 PM, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Oh I get that, they're trying to push their own "design vision" (such as it is) and focusing promo material by the "rule of cool" and so on. But it does reveal their thinking to some extent.

The problem is that regardless, the skill really just isn't useful even for the Chrono spec. Yes, boons are generally worth more in combat than the next-to-useless portal, but IMO one or two hits' worth of barrier and 4 seconds of resistance is not worth dedicating an entire weapon slot to. Especially not when the skill is supposed to have additional utility that (given its impractical application and additional 10sec cooldown if you actually use it) we've largely concluded is nothing more than a super-situational meme at best.

The fact that they apparently didn't even consider any of the many excellent community suggestions for it, and just decided that more visual noise was the only thing it really needed, is really just a way of saying "screw what the players want, this is what we want it to be so the end."

 

PS: Personally I'd completely replace the portal part of the skill and just copy Transfusion instead. Wherever you drop the marker, you heal and partially revive nearby allies. On flip, up to five nearby downed allies are teleported to you. That would be much more useful imo.

I think you're missing the point Mevelios made. The marketing doesn't "reveal their thinking" in this case - the thinking was 'support weapon'. Wouldn't surprise me if the flipover only exists because someone said 'hey, wouldn't it be cool if it acted as a portal gun as well'. It probably came up in marketing probably because they wanted to throw in something snazzier than 'here's a skill that heals and gives boons, and here's a skill that heals and gives different boons', not because anyone expects it to be a major part of rifle gameplay.

Some people will find uses for it, but it's perfectly functional if you don't use it. Although it might be good if the gave the portal its own cooldown rather than extending the cooldown of the preceding skill to reduce the punishment from doing it accidentally. Similar to how dragonhunters can generally only pull once per two spear throws.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

21 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think you're missing the point Mevelios made. The marketing doesn't "reveal their thinking" in this case - the thinking was 'support weapon'. Wouldn't surprise me if the flipover only exists because someone said 'hey, wouldn't it be cool if it acted as a portal gun as well'. It probably came up in marketing probably because they wanted to throw in something snazzier than 'here's a skill that heals and gives boons, and here's a skill that heals and gives different boons', not because anyone expects it to be a major part of rifle gameplay.

There's a super big problem with that too though. Not that I really believe them when the balance team says "We HaVe A pOwEr BuDgeT" but any good game developer knows they have to balance things. This is a big problem I have with the Rifle 1. It does damage AND it heals, and because of that it does kitten poor damage and only decent healing making it only mediocre at both. Rifle 5 gives an Aegis-amount of Barrier and Resistance that, while it's not the worst thing in the world, I think resistance is probably one of the weakest boons in the game in terms of impact. I could be wrong on that one though, that's my subjective experience. But then we have that useless portal. Now what SHOULD have happened in the room where they were discussing this is

"We have a shot that gives resistence and barrier for allies"
"Okay, but I really wanted that portal shot"
"Well, we could do the portal shot on a second activation, but we'll have to nerf the barrier and resistance down if we want to include it"

Because that's how balancing works. To add somewhere, you have to take away from somewhere else. So now....and I cannot believe I am defending this piece of kitten rifle....maximum effort Captain Deadpool....NOW we have this useless portal on Rifle 5, taking up space and resources that could have otherwise been diverted to giving more barrier and resistence or maybe even an additional boon like maybe actual Aegis for an additional layer of protection. THis kind of thinking is just bad on their part, and it makes it look like they never really think through the consequences of their actions opting instead for FLASH! SPECTACLE! SHINY! SPARKLES! and absolutely no substance.

[draxynnic.3719]

I'm pretty sure that the portal didn't actually take up power budget beyond an increased recharge if you DO use it. They know how niche the portal is, and people who've used rifle as intended rather than complaining because it's not what they imagined have been saying it's pretty good at its job.

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 3/2/2024 at 6:47 PM, Teknomancer.4895 said:

It's absolutely a gimmick. Problem is, they really want the portal to be a thing.

I'm hoping that they monitor just how often the skill actually gets used for that purpose.

Pretty sure only that will make them realize just how far off the mark they were on that one.

probably but it'll be unfortunate if it takes years

[Zenith.7301]

All they need to make the portal skill good is make it teleport downed people to you and partial revive.