Mobility

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

11 hours ago, Jobber.6348 said:

And where do you get off picking the two best specs for mobility and demanding your entire class gets buffed to a similar state? Mesmer's class identity is confusion and misdirection, not running laps. The fact you even have Sword Mirage which gives you immense mobility over at least 4 or 5 other classes and their specs is already an excellent option for the class to have. 

And yes, Mirage is your mobile ambush spec, so why exclude it? It's part of Mesmer and the spec focuses your playstyle into hit and run. Blah blah skill buggy has a simple solution: make the skills better or fix the skills. 

So what is your argument here? Mesmer needs to be as good or beat thieves in mobility baseline? Is that what you're really asking for? If this is really what you're asking for, I'm against it. Players need to play classes for their class identity, not look at another class and whinge and beg the devs to make their class similar in performance when you can just play that class instead. I suspect the fact Willbender even exists is because they randomly decided to have Guardian match Thief's mobility and burst damage, which is all sorts of wrong and should have never happened.

 

Wrong.

As I said mesmer used to be one of the most mobile classes before the overbuff mobility on other classes.

You really have reading issues. Where did I said mesmer should be thieves regarding mobility? Mesmer, heck, mirage never beat thieves on mobility not even when vigor was good and jaunt was 3 charges.

Mesmer, chrono and virt mobility are one of the lowest in the entire game, and we're talking on a class that largely depends on mobility to survive.

@agrippastrilemma.8741 It does. You can choose between this plate of larvae or this one of kitten.

Mesmer in total have 3 good elites, read good, not amazing.

Moa is garbage since the nerf, time thingy was last used when glamour traits still existed, virt elite is useless trash.

[Codename T.2847]

2 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Wrong.

As I said mesmer used to be one of the most mobile classes before the overbuff mobility on other classes.

You really have reading issues. Where did I said mesmer should be thieves regarding mobility? Mesmer, heck, mirage never beat thieves on mobility not even when vigor was good and jaunt was 3 charges.

Mesmer, chrono and virt mobility are one of the lowest in the entire game, and we're talking on a class that largely depends on mobility to survive.

@agrippastrilemma.8741 It does. You can choose between this plate of larvae or this one of kitten.

Mesmer in total have 3 good elites, read good, not amazing.

Moa is garbage since the nerf, time thingy was last used when glamour traits still existed, virt elite is useless trash.

I've "only" been playing since PoF release, what was old Mesmer like and how was it a more mobile class than it is today? Is it strictly because certain specs (Soulbeast and Daredev at first, Harbi/Willbender/D/D Cata and sword on Necro later) got certain mobility options that their core classes didn't necessarily have?

Also I'd argue that Mirage is the only mesmer spec that 'largely depends' on mobility to survive, since it's the only spec that has more of it than core mesmer. Virtu survives by aegis and invulns, and Chrono survives by killing everything fast as hell before the enemy can counterpressure (or atleast thats how i play that sheet anyway)

Edited Tuesday at 09:38 AM by Codename T.2847

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

54 minutes ago, Codename T.2847 said:

I've "only" been playing since PoF release, what was old Mesmer like and how was it a more mobile class than it is today? Is it strictly because certain specs (Soulbeast and Daredev at first, Harbi/Willbender/D/D Cata and sword on Necro later) got certain mobility options that their core classes didn't necessarily have?

Also I'd argue that Mirage is the only mesmer spec that 'largely depends' on mobility to survive, since it's the only spec that has more of it than core mesmer. Virtu survives by aegis and invulns, and Chrono survives by killing everything fast as hell before the enemy can counterpressure (or atleast thats how i play that sheet anyway)

Like said above, when the game released mesmer was one of the top mobility classes. Not only because of new specs but also because of mesmer nerfs, blink cd for example, and other classes buffs, new specs just aggravated the problem.

Virt as a ranged spec needed mobility or cc, it makes 0 sense having 1200 range shatters and not having the tools to maintain distance. Mirage has much if not more survivality than virt due to mirrors and target breaking.

Regarding chrono, damage is one thing, sustain is other. Is not because it can kill fast, core can kill just as fast, than its ok to be a snail. I mean thieves, wb have as much burst potential and even more sustain damage than chrono and are the most mobile specs on game.

Core mesmer is not even worth mentioning, either you go all in Dom/duel/illu or replace one of those with chaos and rely on stealth+unseen evasion.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

8 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Like said above, when the game released mesmer was one of the top mobility classes. Not only because of new specs but also because of mesmer nerfs, blink cd for example, and other classes buffs, new specs just aggravated the problem.

Virt as a ranged spec needed mobility or cc, it makes 0 sense having 1200 range shatters and not having the tools to maintain distance. Mirage has much if not more survivality than virt due to mirrors and target breaking.

Regarding chrono, damage is one thing, sustain is other. Is not because it can kill fast, core can kill just as fast, than its ok to be a snail. I mean thieves, wb have as much burst potential and even more sustain damage than chrono and are the most mobile specs on game.

Core mesmer is not even worth mentioning, either you go all in Dom/duel/illu or replace one of those with chaos and rely on stealth+unseen evasion.

Just buff portal, pretty simple solution to mobility, that helps all mesmer specs at once

 

For the people who spam "confused" on my comments - that will not change these two basic facts:

1. Jaunt is indisputably the best PvP elite skill for Mirage and it's not close

2. You should generally avoid buffing the option that is already the strongest one available. You should instead buff options that are currently underperformting compared to the other options at hand.

Edited Tuesday at 06:59 PM by agrippastrilemma.8741

[bq pd.2148]

4 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Just buff portal, pretty simple solution to mobility, that helps all mesmer specs at once

how would you buff portal for that purpose?

you could make it more like thief one, longer time to open, cd starts on placing the exit, but fewer people can go through in competitive for example. 
that would allow mesmer to also like thief use portal as a safety net to escape undesired situations on a whim (tho mesmer portal also opens very slow), it would still not help with kiting or chasing people, it would not be combat mobility but escape mobility.

another option would be to embrace the short duration to open it, maybe even shorten it to 20s but also reduce the cooldown drastically so the idea would be to frequently have a somewhat close distance portal up that you keep blinking between... that would help with kiting.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

12 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Just buff portal, pretty simple solution to mobility, that helps all mesmer specs at once

 

For the people who spam "confused" on my comments - that will not change these two basic facts:

1. Jaunt is indisputably the best PvP elite skill for Mirage and it's not close

2. You should generally avoid buffing the option that is already the strongest one available. You should instead buff options that are currently underperformting compared to the other options at hand.

Portal buff would help in PvP and to some degree wvw, it's a good solution. A simple nerf revert would suffice to bring it into play.

Regarding Jaunt I maintain my opinion, it's good but there's no reason to not revert the charges nerf now that everyone is Speedy Gonzalez.

Edited Wednesday at 07:51 AM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

12 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

how would you buff portal for that purpose?

you could make it more like thief one, longer time to open, cd starts on placing the exit, but fewer people can go through in competitive for example. 
that would allow mesmer to also like thief use portal as a safety net to escape undesired situations on a whim (tho mesmer portal also opens very slow), it would still not help with kiting or chasing people, it would not be combat mobility but escape mobility.

another option would be to embrace the short duration to open it, maybe even shorten it to 20s but also reduce the cooldown drastically so the idea would be to frequently have a somewhat close distance portal up that you keep blinking between... that would help with kiting.

Simplest would be to just increase duration again, let's start with 45 sec (which is in between the new 30s and the old 60s)

You could also experiment with your "another option", it could work but would likely be more work to develop and balance etc. and I really want to make it as simple for these lazy balance devs as possible

 

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

4 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Portal buff would help in PvP and to some degree wvw, it's a good solution. A simple nerf revert would suffice to bring it into play.

Regarding Jaunt I maintain my opinion, it's good but there's no reason to not revert the charges nerf now that everyone is Speedy Gonzalez.

I do not really think that Mesmer used to be one of the most mobile classes in the past as you say. Mesmer in core had no leaps (unlike almost every class), no superspeed, no swiftness (unlike every other class). Mesmers would spend more time than probably any other class finding and practicing jump spots (reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkkgL1cPJYM)  and we really had to fully utilise portal and finicky about face -> Phase Retreat kiting spots to compensate for this. Outside of portal we really werent that mobile. Compare to DD cele elementalist sidenoder which had Ride the Lightning, Lightning Flash, perma swiftness, Burning speed. If we look at the first WTS tournament finals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xGvbYnmbo the only class that Mesmer is convincingly faster than (portal excepted) is bunker Guardian.

Then in HoT we got perma movement speed and lower CD portal + blink with chronomancer, and then in PoF we got the incredible Mirage mobility. 

Edited Wednesday at 11:56 AM by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 hour ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

I do not really think that Mesmer used to be one of the most mobile classes in the past as you say. Mesmer in core had no leaps (unlike almost every class), no superspeed, no swiftness (unlike every other class). Mesmers would spend more time than probably any other class finding and practicing jump spots (reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkkgL1cPJYM)  and we really had to fully utilise portal and finicky about face -> Phase Retreat kiting spots to compensate for this. Outside of portal we really werent that mobile. Compare to DD cele elementalist sidenoder which had Ride the Lightning, Lightning Flash, perma swiftness, Burning speed. If we look at the first WTS tournament finals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xGvbYnmbo the only class that Mesmer is convincingly faster than (portal excepted) is bunker Guardian.

Then in HoT we got perma movement speed and lower CD portal + blink with chronomancer, and then in PoF we got the incredible Mirage mobility. 

The thing is no one else had many mobility skills as well. It was easy to chase or run away.

Now you can't even chase a crippled drunk dolyak.

[Crowfang.8529]

At launch other classes had a lot less mobility and had much trouble to deal with our clones. Now they're used to clones and they got more mobility than we did. So our survavibility dropped by a lot.

We have sword with leap and that's all. (Now we also have spear). Other classes got a lot more mobility with their spec mechanics, traits and weapons.

We could have phase retreat upgraded like so: if noone is targeted, leap forward and gain 2s superspeed instead of back leap and clone.

We could also have skill2 axe be a lot more faster.

Since already 2 power weapons have mobility skills and no condi weapons have it would be meaningful.

And since they want us to use off hand sword again we could have skill5 being a real jump (450 range)

Edited Wednesday at 02:39 PM by Crowfang.8529

[Deth.4109]

Im very pro the idea of of buffing portal. Giving mes an incentive to pre cast an escape tool similar to necro flesh wurm. If portal acted as a self stun break and allowed a retreat to safety it could give mesmer an interesting yet impractical alternative to blink that would come with a decent size trade off for the distance it travels. Mes has good potential to be balanced and strong because we have more built in trade offs than lots of other profs. I think you could make such changes and it would be very fair for everyone involved. 

edit: To be clear I dont mean the act of portaling should stun break because it has a duration I mean the act of dropping the exit portal should be a stun break. the portal should open instantly and the mesmer can then escape way. if you return to the exit and are stunned again you are stunned. portaling it self can only be a stun break if the duration is removed or greatly shortened and the cooldown would need to be much shorter like 35 seconds.

Edited Wednesday at 08:19 PM by Deth.4109
clarity

[Kulvar.1239]

6 hours ago, Deth.4109 said:

Im very pro the idea of of buffing portal. Giving mes an incentive to pre cast an escape tool similar to necro flesh wurm. If portal acted as a self stun break and allowed a retreat to safety it could give mesmer an interesting yet impractical alternative to blink that would come with a decent size trade off for the distance it travels. Mes has good potential to be balanced and strong because we have more built in trade offs than lots of other profs. I think you could make such changes and it would be very fair for everyone involved. 

edit: To be clear I dont mean the act of portaling should stun break because it has a duration I mean the act of dropping the exit portal should be a stun break. the portal should open instantly and the mesmer can then escape way. if you return to the exit and are stunned again you are stunned. portaling it self can only be a stun break if the duration is removed or greatly shortened and the cooldown would need to be much shorter like 35 seconds.

How do you deal with the portal animation during which you can get stunned again? Or do you get a stack of ¾s stability to give you time to use the portal?

[Deth.4109]

3 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

How do you deal with the portal animation during which you can get stunned again? Or do you get a stack of ¾s stability to give you time to use the portal?

No Idea. I'm not a game designer. However I think its a little wasteful that we have a interesting class skill like portal and it doesn't see any personal use in most ordinary situations. Iterative design means that we don't have figure it out all at once. starting to move portal in this direction could lead to some good solutions to the problems.

[bq pd.2148]

13 hours ago, Deth.4109 said:

edit: To be clear I dont mean the act of portaling should stun break because it has a duration I mean the act of dropping the exit portal should be a stun break. the portal should open instantly and the mesmer can then escape way. if you return to the exit and are stunned again you are stunned. portaling it self can only be a stun break if the duration is removed or greatly shortened and the cooldown would need to be much shorter like 35 seconds.

if the portal is supposed to get you out of the fight, it does not matter where or if there is a stunbreak. it only matters if you are still in the fight after you take the portal. 
opening thief portal used to be a stunbreak and now is no longer - in actual play it made 0 difference for me. 

the reason for that is that opening mesmer portal like thief portal is instant. the mesmer portal itself opens after a delay, but the action to open it is instant and thus can be used while CC'ed. the action to go through a portal is also instant and thus also works while CC'ed.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Portal was used at the game released even in wvw roaming.

Still remember the dude from Judge, can't recall his name (the dude that popularized a bunch of builds such as shattercat) doing really cool jukes with portal.

Would love to see that being played again.

 

Edited Thursday at 10:30 AM by Lincolnbeard.1735
Osicat

[Kulvar.1239]

6 hours ago, Deth.4109 said:

No Idea. I'm not a game designer. However I think its a little wasteful that we have a interesting class skill like portal and it doesn't see any personal use in most ordinary situations. Iterative design means that we don't have figure it out all at once. starting to move portal in this direction could lead to some good solutions to the problems.

It's used in WvW to do a deepstrike

[Deth.4109]

9 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Portal was used at the game released even in wvw roaming.

Still remember the dude from Judge, can't recall his name (the dude that popularized a bunch of builds such as shattercat) doing really cool jukes with portal.

Would love to see that being played again.

 

this is kind of where my head is at with this idea. I think its simply easier for ANET to expand the core kit mobility than add new stuff so since we have a few skills already for this portal sounds like a reasonable contender for buffs and changes.