Mesmer "balance"

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

>

> > Like literally every class falls back and plays defensively if they kitten up their main attacks. Literally all of them. It's not unique to mesmer.

>

> Does a warrior summon a rampager while using Defensive stance?

They can if they want to. Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balance Stance and Balanced Stance can all be used before going into Rampage to overlap their effects.

> Does Glint pop out and start beating you in the face while a Rev is using Crystal hibernation?

> Do Guardians automatically summon free spirit weapons that deal 200% more damage whenever they gain Aegis?

>

>

> Every class has a few god mode skills like Warrior with Endure pain, but the difference is they are focused to _those specific skills_. The way mes is designed, legit 100% of their defensive skills are simultaneous attack and defend because they can always have a phantasm smacking people around while they do it. That's the problem. It isn't any one specific skill that makes Mesmer broken, rather the class itself is broken by design.

>

 

No offense but you really come across as someone who has no idea what mesmer as a class is doing and how it works, especially since you're resorting to such hyperbolic exaggeration of their capabilites.

 

Mesmers, especially after this round of nerfing, will not always have a phantasm out attacking players. Ineffectual clones? Maybe. But not phantasms. Mesmer phantasms have been reworked. Now, the phantasm does one attack before it transforms into a clone, which are only good for as ammo for shatters. This means that phantasms are only going to appear once for a little bit on generally a 20-30 second cooldown before doing one attack and going away. The build that let them double cast all the phantasm skills, and made those phantasms attack twice got smiter's booned. It's dead.

 

Most, not all, but most classes have offensive skills that give defensive coverage. Warriors have Whirlwind on Greatsword and Full Counter. Thieves have Flanking Strike>Larcenous Strike, death blossom, the daredevil condition dodges, vault. Herald Revanants can cover their offensive pushes with full on complete damage reversal and also has evade on Unrelenting Assault and Surge of the Mists. Guardians can cover their attack with the focus skill Shield of Wrath, which is in fact a key part of Core-Guardian's burst combo. If they're Dragon Hunter they have their F3 skill which is a 3 second frontal block that they can freely attack while doing.

 

You can argue about the efficacy of these skills, but abilities that cover your offensive bursts are not new or unique to mesmer.

[Despond.2174]

It isn't fully balanced, one build has been only really affected. It's going to be like scourge where it's the mechanics that are hard to balance around and we will probably see a bunch of more nerfs each patch, until the next expansion then we have new specs. Mesmer is still a premium profession. The problem is that the skill cap for this profession was greatly reduced and the phantasm change is just too easy/powerful and crazy combos are still available after only a few seconds waiting. I feel sorry though for the balancing team when a whole new round of elite specs come, though I can sort of understand why you'd want some powercreep because having every spec balanced to be within reasonably equal potential for pve/pvp would be a nightmare.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

 

> They can if they want to. Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balance Stance and Balanced Stance can all be used before going into Rampage to overlap their effects.

 

 

You seem to have completely misunderstood my post. I already mentioned endure pain and how all those skills work.

 

My point was that Mesmers design is such that they can potentially convert any defensive skill into a S.A.D skill similar to EP by managing their phantasms and clones properly. No other class can do that. Other classes are stuck with the S.A.D skills they have, but cannot convert a normal defensive rotation into a S.A.D one. Those skills are static, unless you are playing mesmer.

 

 

 

 

[mortrialus.3062]

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

>

> > They can if they want to. Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balance Stance and Balanced Stance can all be used before going into Rampage to overlap their effects.

>

>

> You seem to have completely misunderstood my post. I already mentioned endure pain and how all those skills work.

>

> My point was that Mesmers design is such that they can potentially convert any defensive skill into a S.A.D skill similar to EP by managing their phantasms and clones properly. No other class can do that. Other classes are stuck with the S.A.D skills they have, but cannot convert a normal defensive rotation into a S.A.D one. Those skills are static, unless you are playing mesmer.

>

Clearly because by my own admission, I thought your post was gobbly gook because you compared mesmer phantasms to summoning a 2nd Rampaging warrior which is nonsense.

 

S.A.D. skill? I'm not familiar with the terminology.

[FtoPScrub.5476]

Nothing changed for Mirage. Still just as busted. Stunbreak on dodge. Insta cast stuns through mantras. Portal + sword ambush granting ridiculous mobility. Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked. Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

 

Anet needs to:

1. Remove stunbreak on dodge

2. Make Portal an elite

3. Make sword ambush require a target

4. Completely remove instant stun through mantra

[EpicTurtle.8571]

> @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

> Nothing changed for Mirage. Still just as busted. Stunbreak on dodge. Insta cast stuns through mantras. Portal + sword ambush granting ridiculous mobility. Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked. Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

>

> Anet needs to:

> 1. Remove stunbreak on dodge

> 2. Make Portal an elite

> 3. Make sword ambush require a target

> 4. Completely remove instant stun through mantra

 

1. Nobody has a differing opinion on this, the horse is dead, Jim.

2. No.

3. Okay but you have to do the same for any leap ability for parity.

4. This can only happen at maximum twice in a short time (around 5 seconds or so between uses) otherwise it's at least 24 seconds between occurrences unless the Mesmer wants to risk charging the mantra mid combat, and if you let them it's all on you.

[rank eleven monk.9502]

> @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

> Nothing changed for Mirage. Still just as busted. Stunbreak on dodge. Insta cast stuns through mantras.

It's pretty hard to find out which builds you are talking about. Who uses mantras? Noone, except power mirages, and that was nerfed to ground.

> Portal + sword ambush granting ridiculous mobility.

I'm in for slightly reducing sw ambush range.

> Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked.

... except all meta thief builds and spellbreaker. If you are talking about condi mirage. For power mirages, there are even more.

> Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

Condi mirage was ridiculously OP 2 seasons ago. Now it's simply top tier along with others.

>

> Anet needs to:

> 1. Remove stunbreak on dodge

> 2. Make Portal an elite

> 3. Make sword ambush require a target

> 4. Completely remove instant stun through mantra

How ridiculous.

1. That would make IH useless. It's already pretty bad with the counterproductive exhaustion. Understand that breaking a stun completely negates energy regeneration for 3 seconds. I think it is pretty balanced right now.

2. lol

3. that's totally pointless and still easily abused. reducing the range to 450 would be better

4. There is no instant stun through mantra unless you take the CS trait for it on power mirage. Which was nerfed to a 15sec (!!!) ICD, making it close to useless.

 

It seems like you don't really have an idea about mirage honestly.

[Gatcha.9027]

Please:

remove insta-kill

remove bunkers

remove premades from SoloQ games

nerf all dmg output in PvPC by 40%

add more ways to obtain skins

 

ps 1-4 point may be bad, so u can go on 5th.

[Dralor.3701]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"BeLZedaR.4790" said:

> > > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > > @"BeLZedaR.4790" said:

> > > > > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > > > Condi mirage, people will not be happy till they don’t have to think to beat a mesmer.

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > I think you quite misunderstand the situation here. I want THE MESMER to need to think to beat ME. Right now they just need to kitten exist. Chrono is now finally where it should be for a braindead build, it’s time for a mirage nerf.

> > > >

> > > > P.S and scourge nerf because it’s also just as braindead and still op.

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > > That’s a 2 way street btw. I think people are vastly overestimating the skill required to be effective in just about all the meta builds. It won’t stop with condi mirage and you know it, I’ve seen people still complaining at power shatter.

> >

> > Naturally power shatter got complained about. It was over performing since it was buffed massively. I believe that now since it got nerfed it’s more skillful and is fine where it’s at with reward for skill.

> >

> > That is/was not the case for condi mirage and chrono, and many other highly performing builds. Will it stop at condi mirage? No. Of course I know it but I think it’s good for the game.

> >

> > We should keep pushing for the highly skilled builds to be the most effective ones when played well. (Such as d/p thief, reaper, power rev, f/a weaver, tempest, power shatter, etc.)

> > and for easy cheese builds to have a lower entry bar but be more nieche and thus less effective at higher level play. (Scourge, bunker chrono, spellbreaker, condi thief, etc.)

> >

> > **Is it too much to ask for to push the game to reward playing builds that aren’t faceroll?**

>

> No it isn’t too much to ask however when making adjustments they do have to be in the right places. The shield has some the highest amount of counterplay to it, you can use unblockable skills, dodge the phantasm and the summon as well as massively reduce the effectiveness of the shield by not attacking it at all. How many skills can you honestly say have that level of counterplay to them? A 50% nerf isn’t toning down, it’s a very high nerf to deal to something.

>

> Likewise staff, the warlock nerf now means they do less damage than a mesmers greatsword at 0 range.

>

> 1/3rd of the nerfs were OK, 1/3rd were bad and should have been better and 1/3rd of them were completely unwarranted. The balance team continues to show that instead of proper adjustments over proper time periods we get heavy nerfs far too late.

 

This has always been a problem and terrifies me about the game, I can’t tell if they are clueless when balancing; or if people who don’t play the class complain about the wrong things and devs nerf accordingly.

 

 

[Derm.4932]

Delete dis

[FtoPScrub.5476]

> @"rank eleven monk.9502" said:

 

> I'm in for slightly reducing sw ambush range.

 

Fine by me.

> > Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked.

> ... except all meta thief builds and spellbreaker. If you are talking about condi mirage. For power mirages, there are even more.

 

Mirage v Spellbreaker is a worst case stall. How is that a bad matchup? If you're dying to SB as Mirage then I don't know what to say. SB on the other hand can die to Mirage if resistance is stripped. You'd have to outplay the Mirage to hope for a stall result. And no thief is going to 1v1 a Mirage w/ full cooldowns. It's a massive waste of time for thief and doesn't happen unless they are tunnel visioning.

 

> > Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

> Condi mirage was ridiculously OP 2 seasons ago. Now it's simply top tier along with others.

 

Only thing that comes close is spellbreaker which is far slower and doesn't have portal. And SB needs to be nerfed as well.

 

> 1. That would make IH useless. It's already pretty bad with the counterproductive exhaustion. Understand that breaking a stun completely negates energy regeneration for 3 seconds. I think it is pretty balanced right now.

 

You mean EM? Exhaustion has little effect when adventure runes, double energy sigils, mirage mirrors, sword 2, and distort are a thing. Mirage isn't exactly running out of active defense these days. Losing 15 endurance for breaking a stun is basically nothing.

 

> 2. lol

 

Meaningless comment that doesn't explain anything. Sorry but Portal has kept Mesmer in the meta since forever. No skill should be that broken.

 

> 4. There is no instant stun through mantra unless you take the CS trait for it on power mirage. Which was nerfed to a 15sec (!!!) ICD, making it close to useless.

 

Instant cast ranged stun on a 15s cooldown on a build that can burst for 10K is far from useless.

 

 

> @"EpicTurtle.8571" said:

> 1. Nobody has a differing opinion on this, the horse is dead, Jim.

 

Except there are people in this thread who think it's fine including the guy above. Horse isn't dead until it's nerfed.

 

> 2. No.

 

See above.

 

> 3. Okay but you have to do the same for any leap ability for parity.

 

No? The whole point is to specifically nerf Mirage mobility. Parity means nothing in this game. There are already teleports that require a target, and others that don't. No class should be that strong of a 1v1er and have that strong of rotational ability.

 

> 4. This can only happen at maximum twice in a short time (around 5 seconds or so between uses) otherwise it's at least 24 seconds between occurrences unless the Mesmer wants to risk charging the mantra mid combat, and if you let them it's all on you.

 

 

Instant cast stuns with no tells should not be a thing period. And Mantra recharges easily covered by Mirage Cloak, Distort, or Torch 4.

[Ithilwen.1529]

> @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

> Nothing changed for Mirage. Still just as busted. Stunbreak on dodge. Insta cast stuns through mantras. Portal + sword ambush granting ridiculous mobility. Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked. Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

>

> Anet needs to:

> 1. Remove stunbreak on dodge

> 2. Make Portal an elite

> 3. Make sword ambush require a target

> 4. Completely remove instant stun through mantra

 

In other words, you're asking ANET to make changes that would permanently cripple most Mesmer builds.

[Vagrant.7206]

> @"Dralor.3701" said:

> > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > @"BeLZedaR.4790" said:

> > > > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > > > @"BeLZedaR.4790" said:

> > > > > > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > > > > Condi mirage, people will not be happy till they don’t have to think to beat a mesmer.

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > I think you quite misunderstand the situation here. I want THE MESMER to need to think to beat ME. Right now they just need to kitten exist. Chrono is now finally where it should be for a braindead build, it’s time for a mirage nerf.

> > > > >

> > > > > P.S and scourge nerf because it’s also just as braindead and still op.

> > > > >

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > That’s a 2 way street btw. I think people are vastly overestimating the skill required to be effective in just about all the meta builds. It won’t stop with condi mirage and you know it, I’ve seen people still complaining at power shatter.

> > >

> > > Naturally power shatter got complained about. It was over performing since it was buffed massively. I believe that now since it got nerfed it’s more skillful and is fine where it’s at with reward for skill.

> > >

> > > That is/was not the case for condi mirage and chrono, and many other highly performing builds. Will it stop at condi mirage? No. Of course I know it but I think it’s good for the game.

> > >

> > > We should keep pushing for the highly skilled builds to be the most effective ones when played well. (Such as d/p thief, reaper, power rev, f/a weaver, tempest, power shatter, etc.)

> > > and for easy cheese builds to have a lower entry bar but be more nieche and thus less effective at higher level play. (Scourge, bunker chrono, spellbreaker, condi thief, etc.)

> > >

> > > **Is it too much to ask for to push the game to reward playing builds that aren’t faceroll?**

> >

> > No it isn’t too much to ask however when making adjustments they do have to be in the right places. The shield has some the highest amount of counterplay to it, you can use unblockable skills, dodge the phantasm and the summon as well as massively reduce the effectiveness of the shield by not attacking it at all. How many skills can you honestly say have that level of counterplay to them? A 50% nerf isn’t toning down, it’s a very high nerf to deal to something.

> >

> > Likewise staff, the warlock nerf now means they do less damage than a mesmers greatsword at 0 range.

> >

> > 1/3rd of the nerfs were OK, 1/3rd were bad and should have been better and 1/3rd of them were completely unwarranted. The balance team continues to show that instead of proper adjustments over proper time periods we get heavy nerfs far too late.

>

> This has always been a problem and terrifies me about the game, I can’t tell if they are clueless when balancing; or if people who don’t play the class complain about the wrong things and devs nerf accordingly.

>

>

 

I'm honestly starting to suspect they're working about 6 months behind the rest of us. It always seems like their balance changes should've occurred about 6 months ago.

[skeletonman.5348]

Mesmer still best class for pvp (by far)

[Wichidi.9281]

> @"EpicTurtle.8571" said:

> > @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

> > Nothing changed for Mirage. Still just as busted. Stunbreak on dodge. Insta cast stuns through mantras. Portal + sword ambush granting ridiculous mobility. Still has no bad matchups against any of the commonly used specs in ranked. Not as braindead as Chrono but the fact that Mesmer was allowed to be this strong in the first place is ridiculous.

> >

> > Anet needs to:

> > 1. Remove stunbreak on dodge

> > 2. Make Portal an elite

> > 3. Make sword ambush require a target

> > 4. Completely remove instant stun through mantra

>

> 1. Nobody has a differing opinion on this, the horse is dead, Jim.

> 2. No.

> 3. Okay but you have to do the same for any leap ability for parity.

> 4. This can only happen at maximum twice in a short time (around 5 seconds or so between uses) otherwise it's at least 24 seconds between occurrences unless the Mesmer wants to risk charging the mantra mid combat, and if you let them it's all on you.

 

This!

Theres so many suggestions on the forums yet nobody is taking actions.

[Crinn.7864]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"schloumou.3982" said:

> > > @"apharma.3741" said:

> >

> > > If AI is overpowered against other humans I think it’s a problem with the humans, we are not at the point where computer game AI can out think a monkey.

> >

> > I recommend to do some research on that.

> >

> >

>

> If you're meaning this: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16143392/dota-ai-openai-bot-win-elon-musk

>

> There's a lot of caveats and it is most likely out of ANet's ability to use, especially when it's developed and trialled by a man who could buy ANet several times over with his personal wealth alone. I appreciate yes we are getting there but certainly not in most video games. Most AI are limited to 1 specific character, 1 specific map, 1 specific set of rules. We are not there yet within normal gameplay with multiple human players and certainly not with Arena Net.

>

> Was a good read though so thanks.

 

Machine Learning isn't really relevant. A NPC doesn't have to be intelligent in order to challenge a player.

 

All a NPC needs to beat a player is any one of three things:

1.) Mechanics that cannot be realistically reacted to (aka Nintendo Hard)

2.) Mechanics that cause extreme [cognitive load.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load)

3.) Deliver attacks at a rate that beyond the tools available to the player to cope with.

 

Mesmer after the Phantasm rework is definitely guilty of 2 with a pretty good dose of 3.