What if the next Mesmer elite specialization...

[Velimere.7685]

...gave the Mesmer dagger main-hand and dagger off-hand? Maybe its class mechanic could also be called "Noble Phantasm" and "Unlimited Blade Works" could be the name of its elite skill. Thoughts?

[Curunen.8729]

Sounds cool but I probably wouldn't play it.

Would rather have hammer (we don't have a 2H melee) and call it "Mindcrusher" or something. Warrior as seen by mesmer (inverse to spellbreaker). Heavy control/lockdown spec designed to disrupt opponents through brute "mental" force, channeled through a hammer.

If chrono is meant to be support (and the "mesmer/necro"), mirage meant to be damage (and the "mesmer/thief"), then this can be the control spec (a "mesmer/warrior").

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

I just want Main Hand Pistol!

[Zoser.7245]

In the next expansion they'll give you a broom or mop with the nerfed confusion as single condition, following the path of the axe.

[bart.3687]

@Zoser.7245 said:In the next expansion they'll give you a broom or mop with the nerfed confusion as single condition, following the path of the axe.

I actually want a broom or mop, even with the nerfed confusion lmao. I'm into witchy stuff (Skyforge's Witch is prolly one of my fav classes ever).

[Sodeni.6041]

I either want double dagger that have a 600 aoe range and cleave through 5 enemies at a time or a shortbow with the next elite spec <3 And I want to be a Minstrel finally!

[EikoLani.8592]

Interesting topic, I’ve actually dreamed of longbow for Mesmer in which it uses similar skills as Guardian, Ranger, and Thief uses. For example

Skill 1- Similar to Ranger Skill Long Range Shot but instead of increases physical dmg it gives more condition stacks depending on distance.Skill 2- This skill will be more like Dragon Hunter skill True Shot but the dmg is based on how many clones you have.Skill 3- Since every build has to have some form of mobility (my opinion of course) Make this skill similar to Druid Staff Skill Ancestral Grace, in addition it leaves an ethereal field behind, possibly.Skill 4- Similar to Barrage but acts more like Axes of Symmetry in which all clones make a circle around the target area and shoots confounding bolts. Maybe turn this into an ethereal field?Skill 5- Maybe some form of additional mobility skill or a dazing skill which also inflicts condition?

[OriOri.8724]

Shortbow! /15char

[TheSwede.9512]

Some months ago, I dreamt up this following ESpec suggestion for Mesmer: A Power-based CC/Spike/DPS spec with shortbow as a weapon, focused heavily around the old school mesmer stuff of lockdown and punishment. It lacks the utility of a Chronomancer and the sustain of a Mirage, but makes up for it with nothing short of sheer brute force.

@TheSwede.9512 said:

Mesmer - Esper

Theme and Role

The Esper is a Mesmer that has retreated back to the old roots of their magical arts, studying archaic practices about mind locking and mental projection that fell out of favor for Clones and Phantasms. Mixing the faded glory of past magic with the daredevil trailblazing of newfound magical approaches, the Esper turns their mental magic inwards on themselves instead of their opponents, strengthening their minds to the point where they become weapons in their own rights.

The Esper is a Power DPS, spike and lockdown spec that primarily focuses on dealing high damage to enemies that leave themselves open or that cluster together carelessly. It builds further on themes of domination and mind manipulation seen primarily in Mesmer's repertoire of stuns and dazes, working further to enhance their ability to capitalize on openings in the enemy's defense. Its design centers around Shatter skills in order to gain access to powerful Blade Command skills, and then cycling between their uses and Phantasm uptime through traits.

Mechanic: Psionic Blades and Blade Command Skills

The Esper creates powerful Psionic Blades from pure ether using only the powers of their mind, however to create these they first need a mold. These molds are their clones and phantasms, or rather the shattered remains of them once the Esper has initiated a Shatter skill.For each Clone or Phantasm shattered, including themselves, the Esper creates 1 illusionary blade that hovers behind their back. Once 4 of these blades have been created, such as from a Full 3-clone Shatter, Their Shatter skills flip over into Blade Commands which consumes your blades in order to cause a devastating attack.

• Impalement - Replaces Mind Wrack. Send your blades to Impale a single target, dealing massive Damage to and Immobilizing them.
• Rain of Blades - Replaces Cry of Frustration. Multiply your blades and send them raining down from the sky around you, pulsing damage, Cripple and Bleeding to nearby foes.
• Psionic Cascade - Replaces Diversion. Send your blades into the ground and strike enemies in a cone in front of you from below, creating waves of cascading blades that Knocks Back enemies.
• Mental Fortress - Replaces Distortion. Send your blades to spin viciously around yourself, Destroying Projectiles and pulsing heavy damage to nearby enemies over a duration.

Each Blade Command has its own unique Cooldown, however there is no internal cooldown on gaining Psionic Blades through shattering. The Esper can still summon Illusions while they have their Blade Command skills flipped over, however until they activate a Blade Command skill they won't regain access to their Shatter skills.

Weapon: Shortbow

The Esper's shortbow is a trickster's weapon, playing as many mind games with your opponent's expectations as the Esper's power themselves. The Shortbow is a melee-focused weapon in their hands, having only supplementary ranged attacks primarily used to poke enemies or scale the distance between the Esper and the enemy.

• Illusionary Shot - Fire an illusionary arrow at the enemy that stops upon impact, remaining suspended in the air for a short time or until the enemy bumps into it again, upon which it shatters and causes additional Damage. This skill activates if the Esper's target is more than 130 units away, or they have no target.
• Mind Slicer - If the enemy is within 130 units when Weapon Skill 1 is used, the Esper conjures forth an Illusionary blade to cleave nearby enemies with. These blades deal more damage to enemies not using a skill.
  • Mind Cutter - Cuts the enemies once again with the illusionary blade, dealing increased damage if the enemy isn't using a skill.
  • Thought Sever - Nocks the illusionary blade like an Arrow and fires it at the enemy. Upon hit, the blade Shatters and forms into several tiny spikes that home in on the primary target, striking them a second time after a short delay and removing a Boon.
• Double Entandré - Clone. Fire a quick arrow at your target, Teleporting yourself to their position and leaving behind a Clone that uses Illusionary Shot.
• Temporal Shot - Fire a slow-moving arrow surrounded by a psionic field that freezes in place in front of you, Pulsing damage and Slow to nearby enemies. If the arrow hits all 5 hits on enemies, it explodes and greatly damages nearby enemies while leaving them Vulnerable. Acts as a Blast Finisher.
• Phantasmal Knight - Phantasm. Fire a Piercing arrow that Interrupts enemies it strikes, summoning a Phantasmal Knight at your target's position that attacks them with a Flurry of Sword strikes, rapidly stacking Vulnerability. If this skill interrupts an enemy, gain access to Mirror Shot.
  • Mirror Shot - Phantasm. Conjure an Unblockable, Piercing arrows to strike your target from behind as it flies back to you, summoning a Phantasmal Knight at your target's position.
• Illusionary Web - Fire a spread of 5 arrows connected by ethereal Webbing, Immobilizing all enemies struck.
  • Trickster's Bounty - Pull enemies caught in your Illusionary Web towards yourself, stealing 1 Boon from each enemy struck.

Utility Skills: Cantrips

While the Elementalist's Cantrips were primarily designed as a last line of defense, the Esper's Cantrips are designed to be supplementary offensive skills used to set up combos, lock down enemies with sudden Disabling effects or punish careless enemies with quick counterspells. Thematically, Esper cantrips are designed around psionic abilities, such as telekinesis.

• Mental Leech - Healing Skill. Heal yourself and leech mental energy from nearby enemies, Stealing 1 Boon from each enemy and healing yourself additionally for each Boon Stolen.
• Telekinetic Wave - Send a surge of telekinetic energy forwards, Reflecting Projectiles back at enemies and Launching all targets caught in the cascading wave.
• Mind Break - Let loose a massive surge of mental energy around you, Stunning all nearby enemies while Breaking Stun for yourself and nearby Allies. Acts as a Blast Finisher.
• Shadow of Doubt - Fire out projectiles around you that latch onto enemies, causing them to pulse Slow and Weakness constantly until they successfully strike an enemy with an attack.
• Psionic Maelstrom - Create a massive, telekinetic force at your Position that Pulls nearby enemies into it, before collapsing and Dazing them.
• Mental Storm - Elite Skill. Create a storm of psionic energies around yourself, constantly pulsing a short-duration Daze enemies around you while becoming a mobile Ethereal Field. Enemies that are Interrupted by your Mental Storm take Damage and lose a Boon per instance.

Specialization Line

• Minor Adept: Psionic Architect - Gain access to Psionic Blades, Blade Commands and Cantrips.
  • Mind's Eye - Disabling an enemy Reveals them (2s).
  • Mindful Reinforcement - You take 3% less Damage for each Psionic Blade you've created.
  • Trickster's Treat - While wielding a Shortbow, you deal 10% more damage to enemies within the threshold. Shortbow skills recharge 20% faster. Threshold: 240.
• Minor Master: Mind over Matter - Might additionally grants you Ferocity as well. Ferocity per Might: 10
  • Migraine - Enemies you Stun or Daze constant Damage while Disabled. Damage intervall: 1s.
  • Psychopomp - Blade Command skills gain a 15% bonus to Critical Hit Chance. This bonus is doubled against enemies not using a skill.
  • Mental Riposte - Cast Lesser Mind Break when you're affected by a Disabling effect. Cantrips recharge 20% faster.
• Minor Grandmaster: Psionic Strength - You deal 5% more Damage for a short time whenever you create a Psionic Blade, for each Blade created. Stacks to 4. Duration: 8s.
  • Splitting Headache - When you Stun a target, enemies around them are Dazed. When you Interrupt an enemy with a Stun or Daze, the duration is increased. Duration Increase: 100%. Radius: 360.
  • Phantasmal Shadows - Your first Phantasm skill in combat summons 1 additional Phantasm. This resets whenever you activate a Blade Command Skill.
  • Mind Drain - Whenever you remove Stability with a Disabling effect, gain Stability (1 stack, 5s).

[RabbitUp.8294]

Anything but dagger. I don't know why, but I just don't like dagger as a weapon in this game, its animations, its skins. There's no version of dagger that I enjoy among the existing classes/specs, maybe Ele's, but that's because Ele don't use it like a dagger at all. And a personal peeve, my mesmer is asura and daggers are practically invisible when wielded by an asura.

However, if dagger was the next weapon, I would like it as a ranged weapon. Now with the phantasm changes, we could get some spammable phantasms. So for example, the auto could be similar to scepter, you create a phantasmal copy of your weapon to throw at your opponent, throw a second dagger for a low-duration cripple and finish by summoning a phantasm to backstab your target.

I also love the idea of a shortbow used as a musical instrument, like Bards from FF. Especially if the elite spec weapon looked even remotely like this one.

A more malicious take on mesmer, something like mesmer meets necro, would be also pretty interesting, too. The pretty butterflies become creepy crows and mesmer now uses their psychic powers to manifest nightmarish visions, terrify their enemies and drive them to insanity. Playstyle would be about control/disruption, heavily borrowing from gw1's mesmer.

Finally, I know this might not be a popular opinion among mesmer players, but for me, a "doppelganger" mesmer could be a great theme, where instead of temporary clones and phantasms, you have a permanent copy of yourself that inherits your stats, sort of a mesmer's take on ranger pet.

[bart.3687]

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:(...)A more malicious take on mesmer, something like mesmer meets necro, would be also pretty interesting, too. The pretty butterflies become creepy crows and mesmer now uses their psychic powers to manifest nightmarish visions, terrify their enemies and drive them to insanity. Playstyle would be about control/disruption, heavily borrowing from gw1's mesmer.

Finally, I know this might not be a popular opinion among mesmer players, but for me, a "doppelganger" mesmer could be a great theme, where instead of temporary clones and phantasms, you have a permanent copy of yourself that inherits your stats, sort of a mesmer's take on ranger pet.

Honestly, I hope for either of these. Or maybe a mix of both? Dark themed mesmer with perma doppelganger. Yes, please. Gimme this.

[Curunen.8729]

I wouldn't mind a "nightmare" theme, but I thought Chrono was kind of meant to be mesmer/necro with CSplit mimicking Shroud as a kind of second life bar with additional skill function, as well as all the Wells.

[Alpha.1308]

i've still just always wanted a Siren E-Spec

main hand Warhorn, that wisps projectiles through enemies like their trident skill or something, but.... you know, reliably, unlike how staff functions, or just something to do with AoE's in generalchanging F skills to more AoE effects like what Scourge ended up gettingit's what mesmer lacks; reliable cleave

all the years of playing mesmer and only having target-based AoE skills from shatter, that can miss other targets from them moving before they reach the target, and then at the same time, being locked into an NPC mechanic that can die or be CC'd on its way to the target while already probably moving away from other targets, has been excruciating, especially to the point that they end up reworking it into what it is now, for better or for worse, not arguing if it's a bad or good change, but it changed period, and i'm just hoping illusions (as a destructible, target-locked mechanic) go away with the next E-Spec, as it's just disheartening at this point, hoping for something better, then getting this rework instead of a different mechanic entirely, like what most of the other classes got this expansion

Daggers seems more single target focused, so i'm not so sure i'd really want more of that, as that's all we've seen in the past 2 e-specs given to mesmer(exception being how broken support chrono was, but it still shined as a dueling pvp spec, what core mesmer was already, and then what mirage brought a third time)

[Jace al Thor.6745]

The only reason I’d want Shortbow is so I could make the Dreamer which would be the quintessential Mesmer weapon. Why they didn’t give us access to something that shoots unicorns to begin with I’m not sure.

I’d like to see the next spec give us hammer for AoE melee two handed or focus for AoE but be 600 range(?) so that we could be the only duel focus wielders in the game. Of course, to do focus main they’d have to buff focus off hand because it still sucks.