While this doesn't quite have anything to do with actual mesmer gameplay, I wish mesmers could use shortbows. What would better complement the Mesmer Butterflies of Death than shooting rainbows in people's faces? Yes I would grind my ass off to get the legendary shortbow if mesmers could use it, just to have rainbow pew pew lazors to go with my pink butterflies. Theorizing possible shortbow skills now! gogo XD
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Could have some very creative abilities too. Maybe something like "Splitting arrow"; Shoots an arcane arrow with the precision to split the person in half, leaving an illusion copy of the enemy who then attacks the target with a class-specific ability.
Pretty endless possibilities here.
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I'm still hoping that MH Pistol becomes a thing for Mesmer.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
Yea MH Pistol would be cool too... but I want rainbow pistols if this happens! Anyway, as far as shortbow skills I was thinking something sort of like staff mesmer, a more condition based option, but with less tankiness and better dmg. (I really want to like staff mesmer, but I can't stand it.)
Instead of the chaos armor (or w/e it's called) on 4 you could do a shot that cloaks you in invisibility for just a couple seconds or so, not super OP, and could even work the way Prestige has been changed to keep it balanced. a ground target aoe, the splitting arrow would be cool as well... hm.
So many interesting possibilities!
Edit: I really wish mobs would leave my phantasms alone. I bring out my illusionary duelist and mobs are just like OO LOOK SHINY and smack it right in the face, even if I've already hit them, regardless of my duelist's proximity to them, etc. It's quite annoying...
We dont need another 2h as much as we need another non-clone based main hander, so i'd rather go with MH pistol. Also, as far as im concerned, mesmer and rainbow doesnt really fit... We are all about one color lol. Everything we do is pinkish/purplish, so I figured it would make sens to keep it going.
#1: 3-skill chain consisting of a single shot each. First shot deals dmg, 2nd shot deals dmg and causes weakness, 3rd shot deals higher dmg and causes weakness as well.
#2 : ranged volley (alike to the iDuelist's), channeled. Deals periodic damage, target is crippled for duration. Summons a clone if fully channeled.
#3 : melee attack. deals damage and knocks the target backwards. If reactivated within 5 seconds, mesmer and target switch places
^ My dream-pistol setup. The autoattack is covered while the weakness element keeps in touch with the classe's debuffing capabilites from sword auto-attack and allows for offensive support builds. Meanwhile the #3 is your "oh shit!" button. I dont want another "teleport/jump/run backwards" gap opener cause we already have that on the staff. While GS also has a KB, its AoE and doesnt have a secondary component, which would allow for amazing strategical positioning gameplay imo. As for your #2, I think a channeled slow + dmg would complement the KB very nicely, allowing to open a gap and maintain it.
Altho to be fair my dream is that they open up more conditions. "Take dmg while running" for exemple is something I would love to see on a mesmer.
EDIT: also, it would be amazing if our clones, once "set" to blow up, do actually blow up and deal its effect if killed before arriving at its target.
Last edited by Nikijih; 2012-09-20 at 02:27 AM.
We don't really need another 1h so much as we need some variety through what we do bring already. Eliminating a big chunk of the overlap between Greatsword and Sword would help tremendously, as would cleaning up our Shatter/Phantasm binary useless nature (You don't have builds that ignore attunement swapping or adrenaline, it's not okay).
I'd like for them to balance our toolkit of what we have, rather than trying to gloss over it with "HEY GUYS HERES ANOTHER WEAPON KK", that's a long road that I don't think we're ready to go down yet.
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So I am currently testing on how bad scepters damage really is. I am comparing auto attack damage to the other options and the effects attack 1 have. I am not comparing scepter 3 attacks to anything because that is scepter 3.... its a differnt source of damage and it doesn't make up for scepters 1 damage because then you have to say sword 2 damage is covered blah blah blah. Anyway here are the numbers for 0 power and 0 condition damage:
GS at 900 range (because scepters range is 900): 100 for the first hit, 200 for the second and 300 for the third totaling 600 damage for one auto attack (GS hits 3 times as fast as scepter hits one time).
Staff: 111 for the initial hit. 298 damage over 7 seconds for the bleed and 328 for 1 second for the burning. Making it total 439 if you get burning and 409 over 7 seconds if you get the bleed (stacks in intensity). This attacks faster then the scepter though and bounces.
Sword: 202 for the first 2 hits, 336 for the last hit and removes a boon. Attacks considerably fast requires melee though.
Scepter: 168 for the first 2 hits, 252 for the last hit summons a clone in melee that does 0 damage. Does the clone make up the damage? No not really, it might buy you an extra hit in PvE but that's not the point, were talking about its damage. You can shatter it but it has no other clone generation, tbh its one of our slowest clone generating skills and if the clone dies (since its being spawned in melee) yea it took a hit for you but we lost the damage, it doesn't make up the damage.
So even staff with 0 power and 0 condition damage does more then slow attacking scepter... Now if scepter attacked faster like GS we wouldn't have a problem. We can get more damage out and more potential shatters if our clones do not die and since they don't overwrite phantasms I don't see a problem with it.
I dont understand why you guys are talking about more weapons, the mesmer have everything they need with the weapons they have. I agree that the shatters are horrible and should be changed into something else. Maybe give you boons when you shatter instead so something like 1 - might and retaliation, 2 - quickness, 3 - swiftness and vigor, 4 - distortion. Shattering phantasms should give additional boons, otherwise there is no point in shattering them at all.
I disagree strongly with both of you. The issue is that Sword and Scepter, conceptually speaking, do not match at all. That is why all you see is sword/x+GS or sword/x + Staff. In the end, what this means, is that our offhands are mutualy exclusive, which in facts severely limits our ability to customize. Unlike every other class, we can only use a single off hand at a time, the other slot being pretty much reserved for a 2h weapon.We don't really need another 1h so much as we need some variety through what we do bring already.
I dont understand why you guys are talking about more weapons, the mesmer have everything they need with the weapons they have.
Aka: we need a way to use various mh/oh combinations, which is currently not possible because of our 2 MH weapons being diametrically opposite in trait requirements.
I run sword + sword and scepter + pistol and its working really really well. Its not the mh weapons that makes the build but the offhand weapons. You cant expect all weapons to have perfect synergy as it would be too overpowered. I started playing mesmer because the guardian has no synergy at all between the ranged and melee weapons and I feel like I cant play without atleast 1 ranged weapon.
I kind of agree with Zito on this. Fix the weapons we have, and it becomes less of a problem. Scepter is just piss poor, not even as a condition weapon, but as an anything weapon. If Scepter wasn't garbage, there could very well be room for Sword/X --> Scepter/Y builds, and have them work just fine.Originally Posted by zito
A main-hand pistol will not fix the problems we have on our weapons (Shatter/Phantasm, Greatsword's overlap with Sword, Scepter's uselessness), only hyperinflate the skill pool with the hopes that everything might work itself out. Giving more spells to balance left more traps and bad builds to fall into in GW1, it's why they went with the limited set in GW2.
And I agree with that mindset. Fix what we have, first.
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Scepter first attack skill is abysmal for most class using it (from my experience guardian/elem and mesmer). The damage is just incredibly low/slow they need to improve reactivity/attack speed or/and animation speed, the same way they fixed greatsword.
If Scepter attacked faster then I would want a differences main hand one that wasn't really clone/confusion oriented. But that's just me. However I want them to fix scepter first.
I want to like it and use it but no.... I have no problem using sword and stacking toughness with my build.
Trident Auto attack would like to have a word.
Also I think my want for other weapons has to do with my dissatisfaction with the current weapon choices for mesmer. I don't like either of the MH choices. Scepter is pretty self-explainitory and I don't like being in melee as a mesmer with MH sword. I don't like the condition oriented staff. I do like GS kind of, but it still isn't hitting that 'wow this is awesome!' note.
I like my mesmer a lot. I want to play a mesmer. I love the mystery, the illusionary mind tricks, the phantasms, the confusion (not the debuff, though I like that too) and the overall mind f***ery that is mesmer. I guess I'll have to hold out and hope Anet makes the scepter more usable/attractive to players.
Edit: I think I'd also almost prefer that phantasms not count towards the 3 illusion counter to shatter. There's no point in shattering them, so why do they count towards it. They could put some other limit on them even.
So my Mesmer is at twenty and honestly I am not sure I want to take her any further. Can someone recommend a trait/slot/weapon load out that might make it more fun. Its not a melee versus ranged thing... it just doesn't feel like the character has any ability to survive when things go wrong. I have all other professions and between Mesmer and Elementalist I cannot decide which I like the least. I was set on getting them all to twenty and mes/ele are my last. Trying to find something to make it fun to take forward
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2012-03-05 : The day SWTOR jumped the shark
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