ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Mesmer/Distortion

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Protip: Niche skills = totally fucking worthless. --66.97.128.58 19:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Niche skills do tend to be useless, but how is a skill that blocks and prevents/confuses shadow steps any more niche than this skill is already? (Wait, did I make sure to actually say to keep the blocking part? I don't think I did. >.> Sorry; I'll clarify that now.) -- Kite 21:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Keep the current set up as now but add whenever you block an attack while affected by this stance, shadow-step to a nearby random location. LoL--74.61.209.219 21:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd love both ideas... kinda works with the name too but shadowstepping each time ur hit would interrupt u over and over again so it's better of making the attacker shadowstep further away :D --Cursed Angel 21:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah shadowstep the attacker away would definitely own.--74.61.209.219 21:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but it won't make a big difference. Will still be an okay skill. File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 22:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

make attackers shadowstep random! would be so friggin annoying :P and worth that 2 energy loss each block--Blood Anthem 23:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

that's a little... crazy. ı like it. But you will need to up teh cost to 10. File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 23:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

if you did that EVERY monk in the game will run distortion and NO melee will be able to spike ANYTHING anymore 76.26.189.65 15:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

10 enegy cost would balance it out. It lasts 5 seconds.... now that I had a brain fart, if that happened, duration should be like.. 3 seconds... File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 19:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Shadow stepping people away wouldn't be that cheap, for the 5 energy and 2 energy loss per block and shadow step. And a monk can only use this at 4 seconds, and that requires 61 attribute points, total . Your everyday monk wouldn't be able to handle all that energy loss and still do a decent healing job. Plus, if it only did the shadow step trick when you blocked, a melee could fairly easily bring a Wild skill, or an anti-block skill. All in all, though, it would depend how far they were shadow stepped away.-- Kite 23:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

a 10 energy cost would be fine. File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 00:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

7 energy for shadowstepping away a foe is enough while 12 is too much for even a mesmer, monks can't even use it at it's current state. --Cursed Angel 14:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

(Resets indent) The thing is, it wouldn't necessarily be 7/12 energy for one foe stepped away. It could easily be 9/14 for two foes or 11/16 for three foes. -- Kite 18:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Rethink that, cursed. 10 energy to completely screw up a frontline is not expensive. File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 22:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Once upon a time, this skill did Evade, which had few countering skills. When they removed the Evade mechanic and made all evasion skills Block, it effectively made this much less useful - now skills like Expose Defenses bypass both Block and Evade skills, and it is easy to justify carrying at least one skill that can bypass Block (and/or remove enchantment). Personally, I'd make it 50% miss (similar to Blurred Vision but a self enchantment), which is useful when stacked with skills like Price of Failure. --Falseprophet 22:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Psst, guys, more then one class "attacks" on spikes. If assuming your getting hit by a warrior, a paragon, and a ranger, the total cost of the skill would be 11 energy assuming all were blocked, and 2/3 of the SSs would by worthless, since paragon and ranger aren't really annoyed by that. --Angelic Loki 18:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

ohh.. yes, yes they would be. You suddenly have your entire team frazzled around - really disorienting mate. Plus, it kills melee, and thus kills the spike. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I imagine that suggestion would really help Tease's popularity rating, too. (Cursed Angel's suggestion, not mine) =) --Kite 00:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather have this skill reverted to what it was before the nightfall update and add a restriction, 50% failure with fast casting 4 or under. --Shadetz X 00:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Distortion allowed mesmers to OE far beyond their natural means. Pushing was easier, and monks worried less about the midline. Is this necessarily a good thing? I would say no. --Readem 15:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's a bad thing. It certainly made midline a lot more active to play, rather than just spamming water hexes and signets. ;) I think making distortion a viable self survival skill places more importance on the ability to get in, mess someone up and get out. At the moment, because spike is so powerful, you are not really encouraged to do that on a dom mesmer all that often. Even in recent games, you've seen teams run with almost 0 shutdown. -- Jacobbs 15:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The shadow-step idea seems like quite a good one, like you're "distorting" space too (though I'm not sure that's the idea behind the skill, but still). If you made it melee-only (ranged seems weird as well as perhaps too good) and short-range, it would be useful but not OP when you consider the energy loss and short duration. Also, the forced shadow-step wouldn't interrupt your attacker because to hit you they either aren't using skills or have just used one (i.e. an attack skill) so all it would do is mean they have to run back in to hit you. This would basically just relieve the pressure - unless your foe was snared as well it wouldn't hurt them too much (until they hit you again). Also, monks wouldn't run this, at least not often, because they would need a high spec into domination magic (probably 10 pts for the 4 seconds) or they'd only be able to have it up for 3 seconds, plus it doesn't synergise with Channelling - I mean 6 illusion and however much inspiration would leave you with little left for divine favour and healing or prot, all for the sake of 3 secs anti-melee every 5? Not to mention it would massively eat up your energy, and monks just can't afford that.

I'm also for the miss idea instead of blocking (but you might have to put the chance down to 25% or 50%). That would fit the theme and make it a lot more powerful since missing can't be bypassed (but not really OP because it's for about 5 secs and a massive energy loss).

I think what it really needs is a longer duration and recharge so you don't have to keep recasting (though obviously it's not meant to be kept up all the time). This wouldn't be that much of a buff though as foes would then have chance to wand you to drain your energy. Maybe just 2...6...7 and 7 ?

I don't think this skill should be anti-pressure. Instead it should be anti-spike, which is why the duration should be low. I would wager to say make Distortion at a high spec even with low spec warrior defensive stances. The reason people used to run it was that it was really effective for the energy when used correctly. To the point about it being easy to push with Distortion, it gave good teams an advantage that they could put to use almost all the time. Jacobbs 21:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, going back to the shadow-step idea, how about "For 1...4...5 seconds, the next melee attack used against you is blocked, and all adjacent foes Shadow Step to random [[nearby[[ locations. When this happens you lose 3...2...2 Energy or Distortion is disabled foe 10 seconds." or something. Compared to something like Shield of Force, this would be more expensive (since you lose the extra 3...2...2 Energy) but would be useable more often, meaning it would always be ready on demand to save you from spikes. Since it's a stance, it could even be used instantly while your knocked down, so any KD-lock spikes would fail too (by the time your attacker gets back to you you will have got up, so bye bye BB sins and Hammer warriors). It could even be used on Monks since most go /Me anyway, but then they would have to spec into it or pay 3 energy instead of 2 whenever they use it, and they would have to time it better.