What are your Hopes for the Coming Mesmer Changes

[Edu.6984]

I would like to see mesmers having more healing and more access to protection and condi clears.

[Daishi.6027]

Something to make us viable for PvE in a power build would be nice, but I'm skeptical that will happen.

Among other things already mentioned I'd like Split Surge to give a little bit more oomph that is directly debilitating to a target. Stacking vuln and might is okay, but it doesn't translate into much when in PvE if every mob already has tons of vuln stacks anyways, and might on us directly doesn't translate into much output or our allies are supplying it anyways. (and this is just speaking open world since it's even more useless in instances)

In PvP it might pressure a target, but it's more of a giant big tell since there is a disconnect between split surge and worth while damage.

As it stands it's not worth the cost of a doge, and an ambush that is just incidental to a doge is pretty trashy.

[Carighan.6758]

Extending from my opinion in the other "what do you think about mirage now"-thread that both core Mesmer and (because it has no design of its own and is just a sharpened base Mesmer) Mirage are fundamentally broken as a result of stapling too many elements together, I would do this:

• Substantially buff Phantasms by removing virtually all between-attacks delay.
• Substantially buff skills and damage, especially anything to do with mobility, breaking target locks, stealth and illusions.
• Limit 1 phantasm, doesn't count as one of the 3 clones, is separate.
• Rip out Mantras.
• Replace with illusion skills which temporarily increase power by a lot, but you suffer a debuff afterwards.
• Remove shatter skills (flat out, no replacement).
• Place clone/phantasm generation on the F-skills.
• Clones no longer do any anything other than mimicking attacks, they don't cause conditions or secondary effects.
• More or less remove Mirage and re-do it once an actual vision for the spec has been found and hence a design can be done.

Basically, remove elements. Mesmer and Mirage are seriously overburdened with illfitting design pieces. Remove a large amount, and severly buff everything that remains. Clean up the class.

[Windwalker.7421]

As was suggested from the very first moment we all got to experience Mirage:1) Make IH baseline.2) Give Phantasms Ambush attacks. The simplest implementation for that would be to simply reset their attack CD whenever they gain Mirage Cloak via IH! This would be a great way to bring Phantasms back into 2017, because their long attack CD has been outdated since at least HoT. (As with Chrono Phantasm, you could insert an artificial 1.5s delay between MC and their ambush attack to prevent spamming back-to-back Phantasm attacks.)3) Significantly beef up most Ambush attacks, and/or fix their clunky long cast times to give Mirage a much better flow.4) Tie Mirrors to an F5 shatter. Makes sense both thematically and would drastically improve their usability/flow. Require the Mesmer to be within 1200 range of the Mirror, and allow a maximum of 3 Mirrors at one time. Allow a Mirage trait to proc a heal on shattering a Mirror. (Or let MM proc a heal on top of the Protection! Great suggestion someone else made!)

Then finally give core Mesmer and Mirages a reasonable passive speed option! One thing I loathe about my Mirage is that I am absolutely forced into using a Runeset that gives 25% passive speed! Mirage has a fair bit synergy with Sigils already, but after the huge nerf to SoI's boon sharing active, I think it's time to slap 25% passive speed on it! We had to deal with that crap for 2 years before HoT, and then finally it was "fixed" in Chrono, but we all said this should have been baseline for all Mesmers. Especially Mirage is supposed to be a high mobility Elite, and without some viable speed option it is truly handicapped and very difficult to enjoy playing. We are so squishy and forced to use our main defense (Dodges) offensively, and thus we really need to be highly mobile at all times! It really really sucks having only ~3 usable Runesets!

[Zenith.7301]

@musu.9205 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@mbhalo.1547 said:Hope for nerfs to quckness and alacrity uptime, distortion and boon share on Chrono and Condi Mirage dps buff.

That's more of an issue with nerfing gear stats than chrono itself. Just nerf commander concentration and the sigil and voila quickness drops down.

Concentration should have never been a stat to begin with.

that will just result meta require 2 firebrand + 2 chrono for quickness uptime , or done nothing to current meta and chrono just do burst quickness . or replace chrono with firebrand since it can maintain 100% quickness uptime without 100% boon duration .none of those are better than meta we have now

You could say the same if you nerf the even more OP PS warriors since if you nerf phalanx strength it will mean needing to bring other might stackers to cover the might, which means firebrands or renegades as well...

As long as boons exist and they don't have a cap in duration that doesn't allow you to stack to 100% uptime, people will shoot for capping out the boon at perma duration.

It's a problem with the boon system, not a specific class.

[OriOri.8724]

@Windwalker.7421 said:As was suggested from the very first moment we all got to experience Mirage:1) Make IH baseline.2) Give Phantasms Ambush attacks. The simplest implementation for that would be to simply reset their attack CD whenever they gain Mirage Cloak via IH! This would be a great way to bring Phantasms back into 2017, because their long attack CD has been outdated since at least HoT. (As with Chrono Phantasm, you could insert an artificial 1.5s delay between MC and their ambush attack to prevent spamming back-to-back Phantasm attacks.)3) Significantly beef up most Ambush attacks, and/or fix their clunky long cast times to give Mirage a much better flow.4) Tie Mirrors to an F5 shatter. Makes sense both thematically and would drastically improve their usability/flow. Require the Mesmer to be within 1200 range of the Mirror, and allow a maximum of 3 Mirrors at one time. Allow a Mirage trait to proc a heal on shattering a Mirror. (Or let MM proc a heal on top of the Protection! Great suggestion someone else made!)

Then finally give core Mesmer and Mirages a reasonable passive speed option! One thing I loathe about my Mirage is that I am absolutely forced into using a Runeset that gives 25% passive speed! Mirage has a fair bit synergy with Sigils already, but after the huge nerf to SoI's boon sharing active, I think it's time to slap 25% passive speed on it! We had to deal with that crap for 2 years before HoT, and then finally it was "fixed" in Chrono, but we all said this should have been baseline for all Mesmers. Especially Mirage is supposed to be a high mobility Elite, and without some viable speed option it is truly handicapped and very difficult to enjoy playing. We are so squishy and forced to use our main defense (Dodges) offensively, and thus we really need to be highly mobile at all times! It really really sucks having only ~3 usable Runesets!

IH really needs to be flat out removed in order to balance ambush attacks, but the least they can do is make it baseline. We don't need passive runspeed traits in mirage though. In PvE we now have mounts. In PvP/WvW you sacrifice out of combat mobility for superior in combat mobility. Plus, mirage thrust is pretty damn good mobility as well.

[Artaz.3819]

Crystal ball says...

BUFF SIDEIH does not need to be removed to be balanced. In lieu, the IH effect should originate from the clones regardless but all the real damage (and condition applications) should continue to come from the Mirage itself. All clones gain the animation.

If ambush needs one buff, it should be that all ambushes gain a clone on end of animation (like Sword ambush). If Mirages are really lucky, ambush will be moved to F5 so that autoattacks (and the 1-chain) can continue after a Mirage dodges. Ambush attacks sped up slightly (remove after casts).

In order to make Speed of Sand should be comparable to Chronomancer Time Marches On, SoS now provides swiftness boon after the end of Mirage Cloak for a few seconds.

Self-Deception trait gains a 20% cooldown reduction added to it so ANet doesn't have to touch all the Deception utilities (False Oasis/Jaunt) issues.

Phantasms now give 6s baseline Vigor when shattered (added to Nomad's Endurance).

NERF SIDEElusive Mind given an internal (3s) cooldown.

GS nerfed in some fashion (probably Mirror Blade nerfed) and Spatial Surge autoattack now doesn't have scaling damage based on distance from target.

Evasion uptime is coming into question so adding some sort of Revealed effect could also be added (no evasion/distortion/stealth chain) to Mirror Cloak. PU hate continues after all these years.

[OriOri.8724]

"IH does not need to be removed to be balanced. It would be fine if it clones just did the animation but no damage."

You do realize that taking away the damage and condition application from clones means that IH will have been removed, don't you? When people talk about removing it, they mean removing the ability for clones to perform ambush attacks. If they aren't doing damage or applying conditions then they aren't doing ambush attacks.

[Exciton.8942]

Staff ambush tracking target; No need to aim any more.

Jaunt travel distance to 600. Damage reduced. Confusion stack reduced.

Mirage mirror duration normalized to 15 sec across board.

Teleporting closer to target for illusionary ambush and axe 3.

Redesign mirage mantle. Makes it something that greatly increases clone survivability.

[Cantatus.4065]

@Panda.1967 said:

• Illusions to finally get reworked to not be a completely convoluted and confused class mechanic. (I.E. Short duration Phantasms, only shatter clones, illusions persist after target death, phantasms not counted to 3 illusion limit)

Short duration phantasms would've worked really well with mirage, in my opinion. There already was too much of an imbalance in choice between shatters and phantasms with core mesmer and mirage exacerbates it by trying to encourage clone usage. We've already seen that some of the best mirage parses have been ones that summon and sustain phantasms which basically means ignoring most of mirage's mechanics. Mirage should've changed phantasms so they summon, attack, and then either shatter or turn into decoys (though obviously that would've required some tweaking on refresh time or dps). Anet really has to face that they have to do something mechanically with illusions and shatters if they ever want an elite that functions differently, otherwise phantasms are always going to be superior to any other mechanic they try to add to mesmer. Mirage would've been a really good starting point since it could've been our clone spec - which seems like what they were going for, except they just tried to add things on top of the base mechanics instead of actually addressing why the base mechanics encourage things the way they do.

[OriOri.8724]

Let's be real with ourselves here. Anet has shown with Weaver that they have no problem putting in >40 skills for an elite spec. Theoretically they are willing to put in the work to completely redo all of our phantasm skills, along with potentially re-doing our shatters. Its just that we are mesmers, not elementalists. So we don't get that level of love from Anet. I'd be extremely surprised if our phantasm skills are ever reworked, even if its just an elite spec.

[Akihito.4361]

My number 1 change I have been waiting 5 years for;Fix Winds of Chaos.The conditions need to be applied for reliably and less rngingly.

Still hoping, but never expecting.

[Carighan.6758]

@OriOri.8724 said:Let's be real with ourselves here. Anet has shown with Weaver that they have no problem putting in >40 skills for an elite spec. Theoretically they are willing to put in the work to completely redo all of our phantasm skills, along with potentially re-doing our shatters. Its just that we are mesmers, not elementalists. So we don't get that level of love from Anet. I'd be extremely surprised if our phantasm skills are ever reworked, even if its just an elite spec.

There's an important difference though and that is that Elementalist is an important marketing poster child for ANet. Of couse management would greenlight an absurd amount of dev work for an elite spec which doesn't even change gameplay much in the end.

[Dawdler.8521]

Make sword #3 work after 5 year?

375th times the charm I can feel it.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Make sword #3 work after 5 year?

375th times the charm I can feel it.

Better not, which other skill would they have to break IF they should fix sword 3? We got a theme, that is no weapon without issues. ;)

Hope not to many people are dissapointed later today. So many ideas, so much anticipation by everyone, been there, done that.

Me, I just hope I can keep running chrono/chronotank in raids ideally hoping chrono remains untouched. Maybe with some small fixes here and there for mirage at best. I really don't think there will be much more for mesmer this time around.

[musu.9205]

@Carighan.6758 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:Let's be real with ourselves here. Anet has shown with Weaver that they have no problem putting in >40 skills for an elite spec. Theoretically they are willing to put in the work to completely redo all of our phantasm skills, along with potentially re-doing our shatters. Its just that we are mesmers, not elementalists. So we don't get that level of love from Anet. I'd be extremely surprised if our phantasm skills are ever reworked, even if its just an elite spec.

There's an important difference though and that is that Elementalist is an important marketing poster child for ANet. Of couse management would greenlight an absurd amount of dev work for an elite spec which doesn't even change gameplay much in the end.

which is a shame coz mesmer is considered gw unique class by many (tho it's not so unique in gw2 anymore) . it's more about ele and war have largest player base .look at engi and mes lol we have bugs that lasted for 5 years

[Miroe.2054]

@Artaz.3819 said:Phantasms now give 6s baseline Vigor when shattered (added to Nomad's Endurance).

Omagawd. This is genious. Generally phantasms giving a reward for being shattered. Depending on the strength of the boons phantasm mesmers might actually get more decisions

[musu.9205]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Make sword #3 work after 5 year?

375th times the charm I can feel it.

well i just stop caring sword 3 . last time they tried to buff something on mesmer , it resulted as a nerf like mantra and phant attack (a flat casting time nerf lol)

[Deifact.3095]

I really wish mirage felt more different than base mesmer. Some new elite specs changed the core gameplay a lot (like Scourge) whereas mirage and chrono to a certain extent feel kinda samey because they don't change the mesmer shatters. I would have liked mirage to change shatters from doing damage to enemies, to giving the mirage buffs. Say F1 shatters all illusions and gives the mirage defensive boons, longer duration for each illusion shattered. F2 offensive boons. etc.etc.I like the idea of mirage being "selfish" in this way.The mirrors are a total flop, just get rid of them completely. either that of make them SO abundant that the mirage doesn't have to go out of its way to run into one. Or have them so enemies can run into them to explode them for AoE daze or something.Ambushes are meh. Add more to them, maybe extra debuffs or self buffs to make them more worth using, especially as they require a sacrificial dodge.

[Velran.1052]

Jesus christ people. Mirage is already incredibly strong, how can you fucking ask for it to be buffed?

[Levetty.1279]

@Velran.1052 said:Jesus christ people. Mirage is already incredibly strong, how can you kitten ask for it to be buffed?

Because it isn't an elite spec.

[Carighan.6758]

@Velran.1052 said:Jesus christ people. Mirage is already incredibly strong, how can you kitten ask for it to be buffed?

Because of any combination of the following reasons:

• It's actually rather weak in many areas, just not in the one you and a loud minority happen to play.
• It's just not an elite spec, as Levetty said. It's a sharpened version of the core mesmer.
• It has no cohesive design theme. It has a theme, but even that is extremely thin. But that's only for art/fx/sound, there's no "Mirage" in design.
• Its implementation shows that it had no design, Deception skills don't even share a common element to make them a skill type.
• Core Mesmer plays exactly the same, so it is flat out boring.
• Its one big advertised element, confusing other players, again doesn't happen. We expected this of course, but it still bears mention.

[OriOri.8724]

@Velran.1052 said:Jesus christ people. Mirage is already incredibly strong, how can you kitten ask for it to be buffed?

You'll notice that there are a lot of people that simply want a cohesive elite spec instead of flat out buffs. Most people here are rational, and admit that mirage is an exceptionally strong dueling class if played well.

[bart.3687]

@Velran.1052 said:Jesus christ people. Mirage is already incredibly strong, how can you kitten ask for it to be buffed?

Think that @Levetty.1279 and @"Carighan.6758" explained the reason very well. Mirage does NOT feel like an elite spec.It plays exactly the same as base mesmer while having even more duelling potential.

I assume you are talking about 1v1 situations because they are the only time when you could call mirage "incredibly strong". Doesn't change the fact that mirage as a whole is quite a disappointment, it gives no new ways of playing the profsession, no fresh air.

Shame. Mesmer is such a flexible profession, there are so many things that could be done to it with an elite spec, so many ideas are being proposed every now and then by the community, yet Anet still manages to give us "elite" spec that does nothing but give us more duelling potential (like mesmers don't have enough of it anyway) and some pretty effects.