The Mesmer: old speculation & new reveal talk

[funkylovemonkey]

This is a pretty interesting question, because when you think about the basic design philosophy of GW2, where you want to be able to see instantly what spells or skills are being used, you run up into a problem with Mesmer spells from GW1, that Mesmer spells are unspectacular. You don't call down fire from heaven or pull up dead enemies, you stop a spell from finishing or you redirect energy from an attack back on the attacker. Those are hard things to make visual.

I like a lot of the ideas put forward so far. Maybe for interrupts, instead of canceling the spell itself before it emerges, the Mesmer sends the spell back or blocks it with some sort of magical wall. Imagine how much more valued Mesmers would be if you could see an elementalist call down down meteor shower and just before it hits have a shimmering wall of energy deflect it. Or reverse pheonix so it turns back on the caster. Or have illusionary chains wrap around a warrior preventing them from landing an attack. That may be difficult to implement, but could be pretty spectacular.

[Смерть]

Maybe for interrupts, instead of canceling the spell itself before it emerges, the Mesmer sends the spell back [...]

Oh, that would be brilliant. I like this idea a lot.

[...]
the class is in fact an illusionist, no use making a class about it and have not even one skill that even resembles it.

Well put.

If one where to go the illusionist route, there are a lot of fun things to do for, example:

The mesmer casts a hex on a target such as a warrior, that flips around whatever "buff" spell or skill might be used throughout a period of time. So if a Healing Breeze is cast on the warrior, it turns into a -7 degen; or if the warrior uses a sig of defense that gives him +40 armor he actually gets -40 armor.

[Dragina]

Maybe for interrupts, instead of canceling the spell itself before it emerges, the Mesmer sends the spell back or blocks it with some sort of magical wall. Imagine how much more valued Mesmers would be if you could see an elementalist call down meteor shower and just before it hits have a shimmering wall of energy deflect it. Or reverse phoenix so it turns back on the caster. Or have illusionary chains wrap around a warrior preventing them from landing an attack. That may be difficult to implement, but could be pretty spectacular.

That sounds epic!

Yeah I always thought of my mesmer as an aristocrat and I think a rapier/pistol would do wonders for that look. Also I really like the telekinesis idea, it just makes the class that much cooler.

[Malhavoc Adhamar]

I like a lot of the ideas put forward so far. Maybe for interrupts, instead of canceling the spell itself before it emerges, the Mesmer sends the spell back .

If Mesmers get a sword in their weapon choices I will make mine a Sylvari, dye it's armour green, capture a fairy and start humming the boss music in LoZ:OoT when fighting human Ganon, everytime I'm fighting a spellcaster.

[bearsfwd]

If Mesmers get a sword in their weapon choices I will make mine a Sylvari, dye it's armour green, capture a fairy and start humming the boss music in LoZ:OoT when fighting human Ganon, everytime I'm fighting a spellcaster.

Oh darn, I was considering doing that with a ranger

The mesmer has so much potential. I think they may inherit some things from the GW assassin though. Not sure what exactly. But it always felt to me that the assassin and mesmer went relatively hand in hand.

[knightmawk]

if they keep the same image of the Mesmer, the actor with the mask and all that, I would like to see more weapon options then we saw for the ele and will probably see for other scholars.

Main hand: Sword, Dagger, Pistol, Wand.
Off hand: Dagger, Pistol, Focus, Torch
2 handed: Staff

As for their spells I would like to see more control. Not just like, immobilizing and slowing, but I mean straight picking people up and smashing them into walls, mind control of low level monsters, pushing enemies back with your mind, throwing them off of cliffs, more mental abilities too like mass confusion. Make all your enemies go crazy and just kill whatever is closest to them.

[Kalidri]

As for their spells I would like to see more control. Not just like, immobilizing and slowing, but I mean straight picking people up and smashing them into walls, mind control of low level monsters, pushing enemies back with your mind, throwing them off of cliffs, more mental abilities too like mass confusion. Make all your enemies go crazy and just kill whatever is closest to them.

Ah, the jedi mesmer? :D

I do hope they get a little bit of flashiness but not too much, I have always liked that the mesmer was a bit more subtle. We already have elementalists doing all the flashy stuff. What I like about encountering mesmers is that there's that little "wtf?" moment when you get interrupted and have to figure out what just happened, it's part of the fun. The first time I encountered a very good domination mesmer in pvp was quite inspiring and painful

[funkylovemonkey]

The other side of that though is Mesmers tend to be undervalued simply because you don't see the good they do. I mean it's awesome that you locked the elementalist out of casting any fire skills for twelve seconds, but you and the elementalist are the only people on either team that knows that's happened. It's even worse in PVE, where the mesmer can sit back and quietly congratulate himself or herself that she stopped those two skills which could have wiped the party, but the rest of your party is quietly wondering if the Mesmer is doing anything at all.

I think there needs to at least be a better balance. For me the joy of playing Mesmer was taking control of a combat situation and making the opponent completely useless. It was so much easier getting skill hunter on my mesmer simply because some of those pesky monk or elementalist bosses were utterly destroyed by a few good Mesmer skills. I don't think there's any harm in showing some of the more powerful things that a Mesmer does visually.

[Nilix Delnori]

IMO they should be able to cloak him self and his party, use illusions to plague the enemy and in PvE, even take control of enemy's minds.
the class is in fact an illusionist, no use making a class about it and have not even one skill that even resembles it.

In PvE sure, but there is nothing that frustrates me more than invisible opponents. I could deal with the occasional "Oh no! Am Fah dropped from the ceiling!" and "More Life Pods and Devourers surfacing from the ground!" But cloaking as a skill to possibly use in PvP would frustrate me to no end.

[bellissima]

Having mesmers use handguns would actually be pretty cool.

I agree!


We certainly have some things from GW1 to help us imagine flashier effects. Mistrust is the one that springs to mind first. But also... I love the animation for soothing images. A cloud of butterflies would be even cooler than the birds from Nature's Call.