Do Mesmer need more nerfs?

[FtoPScrub.5476]

> @"Ralkuth.1456" said:

 

> "**Sorry, this is getting annoying trying to explain my point to you. Is English not your first language? I'm going to make it simple so you can understand.**"

>

> While we can all get condescending and confrontational in tone, and feeding off that being the main reason we all prowl the forums, I don't think calling someone out on perceived language proficiency issues is as pleasant to read about. Discussing how and why Mesmers should be nerfed is on topic and nothing wrong with heating it up a little. Please don't slip into ad hominem attacks.

 

Heavy handed but language proficiency is a concern when you're attempting to explain your point and they not only fail to comprehend but also twist your words because they incorrectly understood what I was attempting to say. And that is after multiple attempts of me trying to explain my point and still having my words I never said put in my mouth. If you don't understand what I am trying to say why are you trying to debate me? Regardless I apologize and will edit that portion out.

[Ralkuth.1456]

> @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

>

> Heavy handed but language proficiency is a concern when you're attempting to explain your point and they not only fail to comprehend but also twist your words because they incorrectly understood what I was attempting to say. And that is after multiple attempts of me trying to explain my point and still having my words I never said put in my mouth. If you don't understand what I am trying to say why are you trying to debate me? Regardless I apologize and will edit that portion out.

 

Cool.

 

Debates on what to nerf and why can be interesting, because a lot of the time one can learn a lot just from other players' experiences (or a few laughs). I would also like to think that opinions matter to players and ANet alike and the worst thing is to be silent on issues. Hey, pretending that everything matters is better than believing that nothing does.

 

I read the exchanges but I have nothing new to contribute, though they did give me a reminder on things to watch for (not playing the game nearly enough since PoF came out).

[Vague Memory.2817]

I find this hilarious. When people were complaining about Chrono about 2-3 weeks ago, I was saying what are you talking about, Mirage is much more OP than Chrono. People argued with me. I realise now that most people who were complaining can't tell the difference between the two. Chrono can't spam evades back to back and fill those gaps with core mes evade/distortion skills and utilities while condi bombing you. I play chrono and a mirage can sit right on top of me spamming evades for ages while loading me with condis. Coupled this their superior mobility makes them almost impossible fight. The uptime on evades is utterly ridiculous. Basically it is like scourge very low risk very high reward play elite spec. Why Anet's does this is beyond me.

[Jalal.6783]

If you even have to ask, the answer is yes

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Just Elusive mind. Make them mindfully use their detargeting skills if they need to avoid cc. That Get out of Jail free card, even with exhaustion, makes a class that is already difficult to track if they are any good also impossible to lock down.

 

Exhaustion is a token nerf. All you have to do is slot adventure runes and woo, free extra dodge on heal.

 

> @"Vieux P.1238" said:

> WoW, i thought you where talking about thief now.. Both condi and power.

> I wonder why ppl din't make an issue of Mirage before last patch when making an issue of Chrono. I mean lots of ppl was playing the same mirage build before the Chrono nerf. So what happen? Din't see no one crying about it then. What's next after that? GS power shatter nerf?

 

1.) We did complain about it. I am pretty sure you were part of those discussions too.

2.) Chronomancer was just cheesier at the time so more people played it, and it was thus the larger issue.

3.) ~~Sure, Let's do power shatter next.~~ Power mesmer is fine. We just mostly think it's bs that Mesmers can stun someone from 1200 range with no telegraph but are also not susceptible to stun when it is clearly telegraphed, if they spec mirage.

[Daishi.6027]

> @"FtoPScrub.5476" said:

> > including DD which **is viable** and a good enough comparison.

>

> Please don't be like the other guy, I already posted "The only other viable spec that has such high active defense is Thief"(Edit: Unless you're one of those people who refer to core thief as thief). And you can compare them, sure, but Thief isn't nearly as strong of a 1v1er and takes punishment for getting caught in a CC.

 

Thief has other uses, it can hide in stealth much longer making it a better +1 ganker and just as flightly, can ignore line of sight to do instant burst which is infinitely more safe than any doge between the two classes, and with a little bit of reads has ways to deny being punished when CCed, if you even let them land with that amount of doge.

(I use a lot interchangeably really, I've been calling scourges necros and DD thief... I know it's confusing but unless its very visually different like Holo I tend to just say whatever, and context usually points it out. If you're confused feel free to ask.)

 

I think it's a skill level thing, DD can accomplish about the same turn outs of 1v1s unless you go against people who can hard read the burst combos every time. Which many will do since it's the same burst since launch, Where for mirage it's been given more tools to hide its burst as of late, when traditionally mesmer used to have an even easier to play around burst.

(Power anyways. Condi has a bit to much frequency of effective dmg, but what else is new with condis? To me that's a bigger issue with condi than mirage, but I wouldn't be opposed to condi build nerfs **that did not affect power**, and everyone is suggesting things that will kill power to the point where everyone will have to be condi again.)

 

> It is no where near the same as everyone else. No viable specs use adventure runes because they don't synergize well with anything but Mesmer. You're also forgetting about mirrors and sword 2. Not to mention other active defenses AKA blinds, distort, stealth, ports. They all come together to produce a spec that can mitigate a huge amount of damage. Thus, if they fail their mechanics and get CC'd, they should actually be punished instead of get-out-of-jail-free mirage cloak.

 

I'm not forgetting about sword 2. Every build has at least 2 doges, 1 long cooldown, 1 short cooldown, and a bunch of soft CC scattered between, depending on the class maybe some re-positioning tools.. The only thing that is unique to mirage alone is mirrors, which are:

A. a third doge you have to walk to when so few even take the trait, otherwise it's 1 on the heal (and personally I'd prefer Withdraw.)

and B. Visually obvious enough for anyone to play around.

 

Please keep in mind, mirage builds that aren't running carrion still run adventure for the endurance, and the rest of the rune is incidental. It could run crit and healing power and people would still run it. Which is to say anyone who wants an extra doge on their heal can run it too, the only synergy on top of that is from ambushes which are fairly balanced attacks. (other than sword which could lose it's clone generation in all fairness)

I've been running it on thief more vs players who can read me, and have it contribute to just starve their cooldowns.

 

Maybe "ineptitude" is to strong, I would be fine with changes to that as it's again another "condi effective damage frequency" issue.

 

> They're not unviable because something hard counters them. They are unviable because Mirage does what they do, but better. Why would I ever take another 1v1 spec when A. Mirage has the best 1v1 matchups in the game, B. Mirage is faster or just as fast as any 1v1 spec in the game and, C. Mirage has portal? Take any 1v1 spec you can think of, ignore any hard counters, and you end up with a slower Mirage with less utility. My suggestions are aimed at making it less of a potent 1v1er. It'll still be a great one with the same mobility and the same utility. That fact that people think that's unreasonable is a mystery to me. I'm not dropping a nuke on the class.

 

You are dropping a nuke on any build that is not the current condi build. Also this is not the reaction the meta should have, if you have a strong 1v1er you don't keep trying to beat it by throwing 1v1s at it, you force it into a situation where it's less useful by fighting in the areas it's less effective. This is why we let people switch out at the beginning of games.

There was a time Thief was really strong 1v1 against anything that wasn't meditation guard, and medi at the time still only growing in popularity. People played around thief's prowess by either running those guards, or by being team fight and rez heavy to snowball.

Currently with mirage very few switch to anything that wins the point over them (don't even need to win the fight by killing), and have you seen the state of our team fights, they all expect necro, holo, and SB to carry. One of which just dies to being shot at from range which mirage happens to be good at.

 

> > Effectiveness can even vary between 1v1 matchups compared to it's usefulness in a team fight and the team comps surrounding it.

>

> Being the best 1v1er with high mobility and portal will always be enough to take Mirage.

 

Not if it's nerfed to not being good 1v1er anymore, then we're back to pre-specialization patch, and post alacrity nerfs where portal and moa was the only thing keeping it viable. Which just like back then, everyone went condi sustain to make up for it...

Not to say some of those changes at the time were not needed, but Portal is going to be the fate of every non condi burst mirage.

 

> > You going on about "whataboutism" is what creates the problems we have now, to often everyone reacts to the current meta and not what every class can achieve on a whole in relation to another class.

>

> You are never going to be able to accurately predict Metas nor do you have the resources to do wide balance changes to every spec, thus you focus on what is current. This is a perfectly acceptable method as it has resulted in pretty decent balance states in the past. Right before PoF's launch balance was in a good spot with every class having a viable build and no classes having such grossly dominant builds with few counters. The only reason why we have the problems we have now are because Anet is slow at balancing.

>

> >Maybe people should start running things that are a better match up vs mirage

>

> Like what besides Thief(which is NOT a 1v1 spec)?

>

> >and give up a matchup somewhere else if mirage is such a problem, this is how meta is supposed to evolve. If the builds that have stronger matchups against mirage aren't viable, then maybe that is where the balance needs to be fixed.

>

> Far easier and safer to nerf Mirage that buff specs to Mirage level.

 

If everyone started running condi specs and we became a condi meta again, all mirages would begin to suffer as all they mostly have is jaunt, and a sigil. Mesmers don't typically swap the core needed utilities to be "viable" in a team setting. If it was prevalent enough you could even force them into the inspiration line which will quite significantly cut their damage.

 

However instead of doing this, which would lose to other current powerful meta specs they stay what they are and lose to mirage. This again is why our meta never develops in a healthy way.

 

So what is going to happen now, is people are going to cry endlessly until it is nerfed, and unless A-net balances intelligently (which is why it takes so long) then when the meta does eventually shift again, Condi mirage will suffer, and any other mirage build will be trash tier as it melts. (Not to say you can't get anywhere with it with superior skill) Then it just creates another round of cries, and likely it's buffed again amidst them, then when there is a shift again we get more cries.

 

This game's players are way to active to complain instead of accept strengths and weaknesses because "strengths are to strong." Which is kinda dumb to me since with a good understanding of how mesmer plays you don't even need condi, or have the meta shift to beat it or push it off point... But I guess as you said you could say that about anything.

 

Sure you cannot accurately predict every meta, but the patterns have been pretty obvious since 2012, and I look forward to quoting this topic in half a year.

 

>

> > There is also a skill factor despite what people claim is "unviable", adept players who can read their opponents and rotate well can get to at p2 - p3 with gimmick builds presuming their teams don't throw and they do their gimmick well enough to support the game type in one way, or another. (This was even more so true with HoT at the time.)

>

> I'm sure there are players who can get to plat 3 without armor. Relative to what they can accomplish with a real build and same skill level, it's unviable.

>

 

Fair.

 

 

PS. One thing I want to point out that I'm not 100% sure on is an observation of a lot of the strong 1v1 matchups comes from the passive defenses being nerfed, and a lot of live forever builds being axed. A ton of mesmer players having spent years fighting those builds up till PoF, even without the phantasm rework, and would have started to beat those matchups. I see a lot of players fail to keep up their defenses, and actively avoid easy to doge hits when I KNOW they have the abillity doge because I count cooldowns. I'm fairly certain this is due to so many relying on passives for so long, but admit this is speculation.

[Sampson.2403]

Er, if they take away elusive mind then me and other mesmer players are going to have to pay more attention to enemy cc cool downs...

 

Not a fan of this idea...not really a fan of the exhaustion either...makes me feel less elusive when im exhausted..

 

/ nerf spell breaker, nerf thief, buff mesmer

[FtoPScrub.5476]

> @"Daishi.6027" said:

> I think it's a skill level thing, DD can accomplish about the same turn outs of 1v1s unless you go against people who can hard read the burst combos every time. Which many will do since it's the same burst since launch, Where for mirage it's been given more tools to hide its burst as of late, when traditionally mesmer used to have an even easier to play around burst.

 

We are in complete disagreement here. I have never met a Thief(core/DD/DE) that has ever been as potent of a 1v1er as some of the better Mirages on NA simply because you can force them to disengage far easier than Mirage.

 

> I'm not forgetting about sword 2. Every build has at least 2 doges, 1 long cooldown, 1 short cooldown, and a bunch of soft CC scattered between, depending on the class maybe some re-positioning tools.. The only thing that is unique to mirage alone is mirrors, which are:

> A. a third doge you have to walk to when so few even take the trait, otherwise it's 1 on the heal (and personally I'd prefer Withdraw.)

> and B. Visually obvious enough for anyone to play around.

> Please keep in mind, mirage builds that aren't running carrion still run adventure for the endurance, and the rest of the rune is incidental. It could run crit and healing power and people would still run it. Which is to say anyone who wants an extra doge on their heal can run it too, the only synergy on top of that is from ambushes which are fairly balanced attacks. (other than sword which could lose it's clone generation in all fairness)

 

Anyone can run it, yes, but only Mirages do and for good reason. The class benefits from stacking active defense because it does not need to invest much in other areas since so much is already given by the base functionality of the spec. The the loss from running it is the reason why practically no other spec uses it in practice. It's a fair statement to contribute adventure runes/double energy to the effectiveness of Mirage as a whole. And yes, we can speculate about how other classes can gain the same amount of active defense if they spec for it, but once again, that's simply theory and not the reality of the situation. Note that I am not saying we should nerf the amount of evades, this is simply setting up my point that having large amounts of active defense should necessitate punishment upon failure to use them.

 

 

> You are dropping a nuke on any build that is not the current condi build.

The only other Mirage spec that I see people running is Power Shatter which will still be a viable if not widely used due to the burst and utility alone. The fact of the matter is that dodge while stunned is purely bad design from a competitive standpoint. You want the game to be unforgiving if you want it to be competitive. If power shatter mirage suddenly becomes unviable because of this, it is far better to buff it in other ways rather than keep dodge while CC'd.

 

> Also this is not the reaction the meta should have, if you have a strong 1v1er you don't keep trying to beat it by throwing 1v1s at it, you force it into a situation where it's less useful by fighting in the areas it's less effective. This is why we let people switch out at the beginning of games.

The reaction the meta should have is not the reaction the meta does have. It's been months upon months of thousands of posts centered around Mirage being overtuned. The meta remains the same and people are not happy hence the onslaught of Mesmer OP posts. Not to mention Mirage is not purely a 1v1er. Portal alone allows it to have some of the best rotational ability in the game. And forcing it into a situation where it is less effective is only a method of mitigation, it does not address the fact that it's purely better than any other spec that fulfills the same role.

 

 

> There was a time Thief was really strong 1v1 against anything that wasn't meditation guard, and medi at the time still only growing in popularity. People played around thief's prowess by either running those guards, or by being team fight and rez heavy to snowball.

Wouldn't you agree that it is unhealthy for a game to have several 1v1 specs across a bunch of classes be inferior to Thief? That's really the point I've been trying to get at here. You can make strats to play around a class all you want, but it does not change the fact that the class in particular is better than the vast majority of other specs that are meant to fulfill the same role. And balance should be about making specs that fulfill the same role equal, wouldn't you agree?

 

 

> Currently with mirage very few switch to anything that wins the point over them (don't even need to win the fight by killing), and have you seen the state of our team fights, they all expect necro, holo, and SB to carry. One of which just dies to being shot at from range which mirage happens to be good at.

The meta has remained the same for a very long time minus the exit of double Mesmer. What is your solution here? Tell the players they need to adapt and do nothing? It hasn't changed by now, it won't. Arenanet has the power to make it change, and they will most definitely use that power, its just a matter of when.

 

> Not if it's nerfed to not being good 1v1er anymore, then we're back to pre-specialization patch, and post alacrity nerfs where portal and moa was the only thing keeping it viable. Which just like back then, everyone went condi sustain to make up for it...

 

Its currently the **best** 1v1er and none of my suggestions are enough to make it no longer good. It just won't be the best.

 

> If everyone started running condi specs and we became a condi meta again, all mirages would begin to suffer as all they mostly have is jaunt, and a sigil. Mesmers don't typically swap the core needed utilities to be "viable" in a team setting. If it was prevalent enough you could even force them into the inspiration line which will quite significantly cut their damage.

 

So everyone should be forced into condi because a single elite spec? How is that healthy? You're killing build diversity for every single class in the game to for Mirage.

 

 

 

 

 

I just want to reiterate once again that **class balance** should be about making builds that fulfill the same role equal in strength. Means of mitigating Mirage are not substitutes for balance. As it stands there is no other spec in the game that can do what Mirage does to the level that it does it, but not for a lack of trying..

 

 

[Wichidi.9281]

God mesmer still overtuned af.

Its been 2-3 balance patchs since pof and mirage is still incredibly op.

 

All the mesmer nerfs r kitten.

[Daishi.6027]

It does not kill build diversity, it promotes it.

 

People should have to spec more into AoE and Condi to counter it, if not then it should thrive.