Let’s talk about Mesmer Skin

[Tiltskillet]

29 minutes ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Exactly. Infested will still insta kill Nezha.

Not just infested either.  I haven't died with him yet in Archon Hunts, for instance, but I've come pretty close.  Because of the overflow issue, I find it helpful to build him for some EHP rather than just relying on Halo.  

Some people just use Halo's initial invuln as a shield gate / Rolling Guard supplement for endurance, but I've never pursued that.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

1 hour ago, Qriist said:

Huh?

 

My experience has been entirely opposite. I feel significantly more squishy with Mesmer Skin than I do Warding Halo.

 

That's a known bug:

While this clearly erroneous one-shotting should be fixed by DE, it shouldn't really be considered part of the evaluation of the Mesmer Skin vs Warding Halo argument, mostly because it's too random to predict.

 

 

Same. I also previously outlined many other advantages of Warding Halo as compared to Mesmer Skin.

Moreover, I believe Mesmer Skin to be a noob trap.

Toxin dmg applies directly to health and on sp it's enough to kill Nezha in one hit. And that is at base sp too. It is not a bug and simply how toxin damage works so yes it is considered here.  You cannot die in any situation with Mesmer skin active. Just because you feel squishier with Mesmer skin does not mean warding halo is better. It is simply a worse option then Mesmer skin in every single way. You can recast Mesmer skin while you are receiving invincibility from losing a Mesmer skin and even if you time it wrong shield gate will protect you. There is no competition against Mesmer skin. If you don't like Mesmer skin that's fine and understandable but that doesn't mean you can make completely invalid arguments about it.

[Qriist]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Toxin dmg applies directly to health and on sp it's enough to kill Nezha in one hit. And that is at base sp too. It is not a bug and simply how toxin damage works so yes it is considered here. 

I play almost exclusively on Steel Path. This has never been my experience. 

1 hour ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

It is simply a worse option then Mesmer skin in every single way.

Once again, I disagree for reasons outlined previously. 

1 hour ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

There is no competition against Mesmer skin. If you don't like Mesmer skin that's fine and understandable but that doesn't mean you can make completely invalid arguments about it.

I'm not making invalid points. Memser Skin is the inferior option to several others at reasonably accessible Steel Path levels.

Does it shine in level cap runs? Sure.

Do a majority of players go for level cap? Nope.

Most people don't play a single mission long enough for Mesmer Skin to exceed the other options, so the entire argument about it being OP is moot.

The ability does what it's supposed to do: keep Revenant alive and allow him to recruit thralls. It does not do so in any way that substantially outperforms other options under normal gameplay conditions.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

In all of my examples I never mentioned level cap I am only talking about base steel path. You can disagree but your reasons outlined are just wrong though. You don't make a single, truthful argument why warding halo is better.

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Big Roy 324 said:

I've been reduced to two health and no sheild with mesmer skin in the archon fight.  Sure I didn't immediately die but it's not like I wasn't in peril trying to find a place to recast get health back. A recast animation by the way you are not invulnerable while doing. 

 

I disagree. If the only metric is you are invulnerable while it's up than Rhino with Iron Skin is the only correct option.  But I doubt you would get much agreement on that.

So many things go into the game.  That one option isn't just always a better choice.  For you and others you may feel it's the only choice.  But I don't feel that way at all and others have said the same. 

I agree that the ability is very strong but I just don't see it as so overpowered to be seen as the only correct choice.  

Rhino requires a whole setup to increase iron skins health pool. Revenant just has to press a button.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Toxin dmg applies directly to health and on sp it's enough to kill Nezha in one hit. And that is at base sp too. It is not a bug and simply how toxin damage works so yes it is considered here.  You cannot die in any situation with Mesmer skin active. Just because you feel squishier with Mesmer skin does not mean warding halo is better. It is simply a worse option then Mesmer skin in every single way. You can recast Mesmer skin while you are receiving invincibility from losing a Mesmer skin and even if you time it wrong shield gate will protect you. There is no competition against Mesmer skin. If you don't like Mesmer skin that's fine and understandable but that doesn't mean you can make completely invalid arguments about it.

Isn’t it toxin status that deals directly to health? Shouldn’t Nezha be immune to that since Halo has status immunity.

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, Qriist said:

I play almost exclusively on Steel Path. This has never been my experience. 

Once again, I disagree for reasons outlined previously. 

I'm not making invalid points. Memser Skin is the inferior option to several others at reasonably accessible Steel Path levels.

Does it shine in level cap runs? Sure.

Do a majority of players go for level cap? Nope.

Most people don't play a single mission long enough for Mesmer Skin to exceed the other options, so the entire argument about it being OP is moot.

The ability does what it's supposed to do: keep Revenant alive and allow him to recruit thralls. It does not do so in any way that substantially outperforms other options under normal gameplay conditions.

Again dude, all your criticisms of Mesmer Skin would be valid before DE put the 1 second Grace period per charge.

But the way it functions now is effectively a duration ability that grants complete invulnerability.

You’re not going to suddenly lose a bunch of charges to a group of enemies in a second like you used to.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

 

 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Qriist said:

I play almost exclusively on Steel Path. This has never been my experience. 

Are you playing with extra health, armor, or resistances?  That might explain the difference. 

 

37 minutes ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Isn’t it toxin status that deals directly to health? Shouldn’t Nezha be immune to that since Halo has status immunity.

Any kind of toxin damage bypasses shields.  It doesn't need to be the status effect.

[Qriist]

3 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

In all of my examples I never mentioned level cap I am only talking about base steel path.

You didn't mention level cap, that's true. I did. I brought up level cap specifically because moving towards that level would take hours of gameplay in a single mission, during which Warding Halo would be better until some nebulous damage threshold I'm not invested in enough to investigate. Before that point on the graph where the effectiveness flip flops, Mesmer Skin remains the inferior ability, but not enough to to matter in practical gameplay.

Notice that when not discussing level cap I've consistently said "reasonably accessible". For sake of argument, lets set that to two hours in any given mission: survival, interception, whatever. That's as long as I've gone in one mission so that's what I've pulled from. Two hours of slowly strengthening enemies.

I don't do nearly that long most of the time. Usually it's relic cracking or other types of "quick" farming levels.

So, I am speaking about "base" Steel Path in virtually every part of this discussion.

 

 

3 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

You don't make a single, truthful argument why warding halo is better.

On 3/4/2023 at 2:25 PM, Qriist said:

I'm not a Revenant main. I have played Revenant very little. I actually think Revenant is not fun to play with, because his main ability (enthralling) is easily deleted by teammates.

I also think he's squishy. I had major survivability issues with Revenant while I was leveling him. His abilities do not contribute to direct damage, and Mesmer Skin falls off very quickly. My impression is that he's little more than a weapons platform due to the friendly fire issue affecting thralls.

So, consider this an argument against your own, made by someone who doesn't like the frame in the first place.

On 3/5/2023 at 3:20 PM, Qriist said:

No, it is markedly better in actual gameplay. You keep going on and on about 20 seconds of invincibility for Mesmer Skin. It's doable  but that's tedious and obnoxious in practice.

I do not have to babysit Warding Halo. Over the course of a couple hours in a single Steel Path kuva survival I only have to cast Warding Halo a handful of times, maybe a dozen if Violence is particularly happy to see me. This not-babysitting my defensive allows me the freedom to continously spam my other abilities geared towards offense.

Even if we're being generous and saying that each Mesmer Skin cast sees you average about a minute before running out of charges, that same 2 hour timeframe would see me casting Mesmer Skin over a hundred times.

Mesmer Skin is tedious and therefore the less powerful ability.

On 3/4/2023 at 2:36 PM, Qriist said:

It's on a very short timer that you have no control over and requires constant babysitting.

Welp that disproves that claim.

  

  

3 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Again dude, all your criticisms of Mesmer Skin would be valid before DE put the 1 second Grace period per charge.

But the way it functions now is effectively a duration ability that grants complete invulnerability.

You’re not going to suddenly lose a bunch of charges to a group of enemies in a second like you used to.

None of that has anything to do with what I've said.

 

2 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Are you playing with extra health, armor, or resistances?  That might explain the difference. 

Currently? Yes. That's only in the last few months though.

Before I began reading more about the game mechanics I ran things to boost my shields. I figured a larger health pool was dumb on Nez when my shields were big and recharged quickly. Likewise, I didn't use armor buffs because the game said armor doesn't apply to shields - but Warding Halo does.

In this less enlightened state of being I don't recall ever getting one-shot when I had my Halo up, unless I fell prey to the aforementioned bug.

I'm not saying getting one-shot by Toxin through Warding Halo didn't happen, of course - it's been multiple months since I converted to my current stronger build - only that if it DID occur the instances were few and far between. Ergo, it didn't happen often enough to make an impression on me.

 

 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Qriist said:

Currently? Yes. That's only in the last few months though.

Before I began reading more about the game mechanics I ran things to boost my shields. I figured a larger health pool was dumb on Nez when my shields were big and recharged quickly. Likewise, I didn't use armor buffs because the game said armor doesn't apply to shields - but Warding Halo does.

In this less enlightened state of being I don't recall ever getting one-shot when I had my Halo up, unless I fell prey to the aforementioned bug.

I'm not saying getting one-shot by Toxin through Warding Halo didn't happen, of course - it's been multiple months since I converted to my current stronger build - only that if it DID occur the instances were few and far between. Ergo, it didn't happen often enough to make an impression on me.

 

 

Nezha feels incredibly tanky to me, but I've been running at least Adaptation and an umbral set bonus for a long time. 

I'm sort of tempted to do some SP endless with a Nezha build that just has Rolling Guard and Natural Talent, and see when it gets sketchy without dedicated shieldgating. 

[Qriist]

5 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Nezha feels incredibly tanky to me, but I've been running at least Adaptation and an umbral set bonus for a long time. 

I'm sort of tempted to do some SP endless with a Nezha build that just has Rolling Guard and Natural Talent, and see when it gets sketchy without dedicated shieldgating. 

That sounds like a fun test! :)

While I was incidentally running a couple Augur mods before, I didn't intentionally shieldgate with Nezha... mostly because I didn't realize it was a thing. Now that I DO know it's a thing... I don't have a reason to shieldgate. XD

Feel free to DM me if you'd like my build (since it's offtopic here). 

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

13 hours ago, Qriist said:

You didn't mention level cap, that's true. I did. I brought up level cap specifically because moving towards that level would take hours of gameplay in a single mission, during which Warding Halo would be better until some nebulous damage threshold I'm not invested in enough to investigate. Before that point on the graph where the effectiveness flip flops, Mesmer Skin remains the inferior ability, but not enough to to matter in practical gameplay.

Notice that when not discussing level cap I've consistently said "reasonably accessible". For sake of argument, lets set that to two hours in any given mission: survival, interception, whatever. That's as long as I've gone in one mission so that's what I've pulled from. Two hours of slowly strengthening enemies.

I don't do nearly that long most of the time. Usually it's relic cracking or other types of "quick" farming levels.

So, I am speaking about "base" Steel Path in virtually every part of this discussion.

 

 

Welp that disproves that claim.

  

  

None of that has anything to do with what I've said.

 

Currently? Yes. That's only in the last few months though.

Before I began reading more about the game mechanics I ran things to boost my shields. I figured a larger health pool was dumb on Nez when my shields were big and recharged quickly. Likewise, I didn't use armor buffs because the game said armor doesn't apply to shields - but Warding Halo does.

In this less enlightened state of being I don't recall ever getting one-shot when I had my Halo up, unless I fell prey to the aforementioned bug.

I'm not saying getting one-shot by Toxin through Warding Halo didn't happen, of course - it's been multiple months since I converted to my current stronger build - only that if it DID occur the instances were few and far between. Ergo, it didn't happen often enough to make an impression on me.

 

 

You didn't prove anything only threw in more invalid points of how you think warding halo feels.

[Qriist]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

You didn't prove anything only threw in more invalid points of how you think warding halo feels.

>claims no arguements were given
>previously given points are then directly quoted and sourced
>continues to imply no arguments were given while doing a quoteception of the provided points.

Okie dokie then.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

11 minutes ago, Qriist said:

>claims no arguements were given
>previously given points are then directly quoted and sourced
>continues to imply no arguments were given while doing a quoteception of the provided points.

Okie dokie then.

Your quoted points are wrong. Revenant isn't squishy, Mesmer skin is easy to keep up and active, and you don't have to babysit it like warding halo. Your points are invalid as already said.

 

[Qriist]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Your quoted points are wrong. Revenant isn't squishy, Mesmer skin is easy to keep up and active, and you don't have to babysit it like warding halo. Your points are invalid as already said.

 

You're allowed to be wrong. Good on you for embracing that right.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

This whole thread has proven you wrong yet you keep trying.

[Qriist]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

This whole thread has proven you wrong yet you keep trying.

Nein.

[Tiltskillet]

7 hours ago, Qriist said:

That sounds like a fun test! :)

While I was incidentally running a couple Augur mods before, I didn't intentionally shieldgate with Nezha... mostly because I didn't realize it was a thing. Now that I DO know it's a thing... I don't have a reason to shieldgate. XD

Feel free to DM me if you'd like my build (since it's offtopic here). 

I don't think it's offtopic since the Mesmer / Halo comparison keeps getting brought up and is so interesting.  The point being, how good is Halo when it has the minimum ehp behind it?  i.e., treating it as much as possible like Mesmer.

Not that I'm likely to do such a test anyway.  My patience for endless is low and  I'd need several tests to arrive at any half-solid conclusions. 

 

edit: oops, realized you probably meant the part about sharing your build being offtopic...

[Qriist]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

I don't think it's offtopic since the Mesmer / Halo comparison keeps getting brought up and is so interesting.  The point being, how good is Halo when it has the minimum ehp behind it?  i.e., treating it as much as possible like Mesmer.

Not that I'm likely to do such a test anyway.  My patience for endless is low and  I'd need several tests to arrive at any half-solid conclusions. 

My current Nezha build isn't minimum EHP, nor is it designed to shieldgate. I've opted to be a support tank. Regardless, here it is.

Spoiler

Notes:

• Pillage is subsumed over the first ability. The mod config you see allows for a 37 meter effect radius in all directions over 1.45 seconds per cast.
• Corrosive Projection drops the single-cast full armor strip of Pillage to 328 required Ability Strength. Shields drop from full to 18% on the same cast.
• Archon Vitality is there to power up Reaping Chakram.
• Companion equips Synth Fiber to always enable Equilibrium.
• Energy costs are: 77.5 per Pillage, 38.75 per Blazing Chakram, 116.25 per Warding Halo, 155 per Divine Spears
• R5 Molt Reconstruct heals the following to all Warframes in Affinity range: 465 per Pillage, 232.5 per Blazing Chakram, 697.5 per Warding Halo, 930 per Divine Spears
• R5 Arcane Blessing is there to allow me to fully absorb multiple Molt Reconstructs if I need it (such as after being caught in a Nullfier bubble)
• First few enemies are defeated after Blazing Chakram but without casting Warding Halo (to gain more energy). Afterwards, almost every encounter is Pillage>Blazing Chakram>delete with weapons.
• If I'm surrounded I may instead opt for Divine Spears>Pillage>Blazing Chakram. Reaping Chakram + Archon Vitality makes this particularly devestating. 
• The above rotations keep me topped up on overshields (max: 1350) and health (max: 2237) while destroying enemy defenses.
• Longterm, once there are 4 Tauforged red shards in Nezha I'll swap Intensify for Hunter's Adrenaline (puts Ability Strength at 329). This will better serve the energy demands against bosses or other non-swarm encounters while incidentally strengthing the role of Molt Reconstruct in those fights.

If I've plugged in the numbers correctly, the above build puts my EHP at 54511 after Arcane Blessing is fully online, but before Adaptation is applied.

For reference, base Nezha's numbers look like this: