The GW2 Mesmer: A critical reflection after BWE1

[Alaris]

Agreed, but imo not important enough to justify spending too much resources on it.

The way they shatter is pretty cool as is, I also don't want to end up with bad-looking or uninteresting shatters. Maybe the difference could be in the way the pieces fly once it breaks?

[Thalanor Thornhale]

Ultimately, it's up to the developers. I made these suggestions on the official forums as well. Let's leave it to the developers to determine how many resources want to spend on this issue. Since the game is in beta, it's all about refinement. There is a chance that these suggestions may make it. Let's wait and see.

[Quintus Antonius]

What needs to be kept in mind is that these changes were quite deliberate. As pointed out earlier, pure interruption roles were significantly weakened because this play style can be quite reactionary. Arenanet wanted to make the game play more active and strategic.

Ultimately, it's up to the developers. I made these suggestions on the official forums as well. Let's leave it to the developers to determine how many resources want to spend on this issue. Since the game is in beta, it's all about refinement. There is a chance that these suggestions may make it. Let's wait and see.

Keep in mind that they have hundreds of Alpha Testers who are just like you and me whose feedback is being used to change the class. There is of course deliberateness to the changes made, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every piece fits perfectly together as presented--thus Alpha Testers and on-going Alpha Testing, thus a Beta Weekend. ANet cares about what we think. We shouldn't just take what they hand us and treat it as scripture, because that's not even what they want us to do.

(Disclaimer: I'm not an alpha tester and know nothing about what they are or aren't doing, but I'm making a safe assumption that part of what they're doing is testing the classes and how they fit into the game world.)

[Thalanor Thornhale]

Keep in mind that they have hundreds of Alpha Testers who are just like you and me whose feedback is being used to change the class. There is of course deliberateness to the changes made, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every piece fits perfectly together as presented--thus Alpha Testers and on-going Alpha Testing, thus a Beta Weekend. ANet cares about what we think. We shouldn't just take what they hand us and treat it as scripture, because that's not even what they want us to do.

(Disclaimer: I'm not an alpha tester and know nothing about what they are or aren't doing, but I'm making a safe assumption that part of what they're doing is testing the classes and how they fit into the game world.)

Alpha testers probably have more time with the profession compared to one BWE testers. But your point is well taken. Beta tests are there for refinement and killing of bugs. And so in this context, constructive feedback is valuable. The art on the dev side is to sift through all this information and incorporate the right idea in the right way. Feedback from those vocal enough to post most of the time is well-meaning, but may not always have positive effects on the game as a whole. This is not to say that your arguments are wrong/right. It's just a general comment/observation.

In general (not picking on you in particular), I actually welcome the well-articulated discussion that has started here in the Mesmer forum. It breathes in life. And discussion can lead to discovery of new ideas. Just remember to keep things civil and non-passive aggressive ('cause that usually leads to aggression :-)). What I have always liked about this community is the ability to civilly discuss divergent viewpoints. That's our strong-point. Let's keep this up!

[Beren Iluthiel]

I'm sorry if this post will turn out to be useless... I played mesmer during BWE, just because it was a class I never thought I'd play in GW2.
Speaking of GW, I never played mesmer for a single second.
Some of you would say
"What's this post about then? You know nothing of "our" class"
It's true, but I wanted to say that I really enjoyed Mesmer class a lot in GW2. A lot means I'm seriously thinking of rolling a mesmer as my main.
I don't know nothing about Mesmer in GW, except those nasty npc who killed me several times during my vanquish. Having this... uhm... naif mind allowed me to enjoy the new mesmer a lot. It's not an easy class, not even a bit, but once you start to get used to it it's reallt enjoyable.
While I'm not debating about any of your previous posts because I lack the knowledge to do it, I simply invite everyone of you "old" mesmer to think about new class as the first time you played the mesmer in GW, with everything yet to be discovered.
What I'd like to ask you is... if I would play mesmer as support in group, do you think the class has enough possibilities to do it?
Thanks and sorry again if I went OT.

[RD]

This is GWO: Most of us couldn't stay on topic if you paid us :)

In any event, I think the crux of our conversation last week was that the GW 2 Mesmer is Mesmer for people who didn't play it in GW 1. You aren't exactly disproving that hehe

What do you mean by "as support"? If you mean contribute to a group, then yeah, of course. But if you're looking to buff / protect your allies, you might want to look at another profession. While the GW 2 Mesmer is capable of doing so, a lot of the skills seem to apply random boons, so it wouldn't be all that reliable. Possible, just not super effective. That said, there's definitely an advantage to having Chaos Storm (which buffs allies and debuffs enemies simultaneously) and someone who can stealth your whole team to break agro or whatever.

[Alaris]

@Beren:

I think there's two sides to support. There's the usual support where you buff allies, heal them, and protect them, and then there's mesmers that make sure foes can't do their job. Negating the effectiveness of foes is, for lack of better category, a control and support role.

When you interrupt a skill, or make a foe miss, or make a foe hit a clone instead of an ally, you have effectively protected your party from a potentially nasty attack.

[Quintus Antonius]

Yes, Alaris, you have. And that is legitimate. But it is also the reason we need to have more control over the current randomness of it. Blinding a spellcaster doesn't do much good.

We also need to remember Beren's point. ANet has to find a balance between the spirit of the complexity of the GW1 Mesmer and accessibility and "newness" in order to encourage new players. I do not think it would be fair to lean more towards either side of that equation.

[Alaris]

Blinding a spellcaster doesn't do much good. (...)

ANet has to find a balance between the spirit of the complexity of the GW1 Mesmer and accessibility and "newness" in order to encourage new players. I do not think it would be fair to lean more towards either side of that equation.

Afaik, blinding a caster will make his next spell attack miss (e.g. fireball etc). So, bad example, but I understand what you mean. A better example would be snaring a ranged (in ranged vs ranged combat) which would not be that useful especially if said ranged is not kiting, or applying blind to a foe who is in blocking stance...

As for Beren's point, I agree. The goal though is to do both, create a profession that is easy to get into, and hard to master. I think that's what they did in GW2 that they failed in GW1. But admittedly, I don't have enough experience with mesmer (either) to be a good judge of that, it's more impression and theorycrafting.

[Shanaeri Rynale]

The main issue I have with the GW2 mesmer, is that the clones are not nearly convincing enough in PvP(they dont have the little butterfly symbol symbol) and in PvE the AI is not fooled and tends to target the mes right away.

Neither is the clone AI good enough to dodge, kite or behave like a real player would. The shatter mechanism is ok, but I found it to be a little ineffectual at the lower levels. I'm not sure if I missed it, but we could do with 'pet controls' for the clones to make them do what we want them to, rather than what the AI says (I'd love to have a skill called 'send in the clones' ;) )

While the GW2 mesmer is a great idea and concept, just like it's GW1 counterpart in the early years I think it needs more work to be truely effective.

In contrast, the thief and ele I tried seemed to be a lot more effective at both support and DPS roles. The mesmer buffs didnt seem to last long enough to be really effectve.

Note I only really played mes until about lvl 15, so how it plays in PvE later on remains to be seen.