Guild Wars 2

I’m just going to cut into this……

They could easily make it so deceptive evasion still makes clones on dodge, just when max clones are present conditions are not being continously applied… everyone wins >.>

Better than than the few condition mesmers who actually use slot skills such as mirror images, or decoy; to get punished by their little dmg they get off of a clone death. Then have a clone death trait nerf because of the ones who use deceptive evasion see this as the only viable option (not every condition mesmer uses that so nerfing clone death directly just ruins it for the ones who are not CONSTANTLY blow up clones)… Thanks everyone, now I have to use deceptive evasion to use condition death traits.

Yes this post is not @ anyone directly, its just I read alot of post info, and this seem to be the most popular solution to the problem of DE (nerfing clone death traits)….

I understand they chose not to nerf DE, as planned, so my reasoning for posting this is that I hope NERFING clone death traits, is not what we will see later down the road (since it could be considered a loose fix for DE)…

Anyways, please feel free to comment, I look forward to what people feel, I mean DE I think should still be fixed, just not the way A net intended to. I love how the trait works, its just @ max clones/phantasms CONDITIONS should no longer be constantly applied, because you can use scepter or slot skill, for that. Clones will DIE ITS NATURAL, you dont need DE to cause ur cripples/conditions…. I am not saying DE alone is OP, but the fact that you can dodge around causing different conditions (and making practically a clone minefield) is a little much dont you think?

So to clarify all I am saying is when the condition is met of max clones/phantasms being present(3 illusions out), and a clone is replaced only from DE conditions should not be applied.

Your title is a bit misleading since you’re focussing on the on death traits.

Lapreea.4287:

I understand they chose not to nerf DE, as planned, so my reasoning for posting this is that I hope NERFING clone death traits, is not what we will see later down the road (since it could be considered a loose fix for DE)…

I’m afraid that this is not how this is going to work out.

The devs obviously decided that the on death traits should only be triggered when Clones are actually killed. Let’s not judge if this is reasonable or not at this point. However, this causes a big problem. While the most obvious issue is Clone generation from Deceptive Evasion it is not the only one. What about the Scepter AA? What if other weapon skills or utilities which spawn Clones or Phantasms are used and as a result a Clone dissipates? If they stick to their decision the on death traits will ultimatively have to be nerfed regarding the ways they trigger. There is no work around.

Wether people like this design decision or not I personally can understand it. However, I feel that the devs miss something there. They know what the traits are not supposed to do. But it appears that the traits won’t have any purpose after the nerf either. Let’s play ‘What if the traits no longer triggered on Clone replacement…?’ When would you use them? I’m afraid the answer will be ‘Probably never, unless other trait options are worse.’

If on death traits were only to trigger on being killed I don’t think that Crippling Dissipation will be used anymore. The Adept tier of Domination has several appealing traits for many playstyles which it has to compete with (Shatter, Phantasm, Interrupt). Debilitating Dissipation might still be used but only because other Adept Chaos traits are lackluster. Picking a trait because others are worse tells a story of very bad design but I’m afraid that this is where it might end. 10 trait points are a pretty high investment for what you would get. You got to keep in mind that Mesmers are most likely to have 2 Phantasms and 1 Clone up which makes the chances of the traits being triggered pretty small. Shatter Mesmers might have 2 Clones and 1 Phantasm up but they won’t want their Clones to die anyway.

To sum it up, if the trigger gets changed, I don’t see the traits being used anymore because their benefit becomes too small and unpredictable. Actually, I believe that the traits being triggered on Clone replacement is the only thing which made them worthwhile in the first place. The devs might have to consider buffing their effects to compensate for changes to their trigger. Or they might have to find a totally new purpose for them. I personally enjoyed a suggestion about them triggering on shatter which might help finally introducing a viable condition based shatter build.

I actually do like the idea, of triggering on shattered…… I just feel there needs to be some way to give DE a better purpose, rather than mindless dodging. Also I dont think the clone replacement needs to be nerfed per say; just when the replacement is from DE. Since clones die naturally throughout battle, and you can still dodge and make more clones that are replacing next to you (without causing conditions from the replaced clone) since that extra bit of continously blow up clones was the whole problem from what I gathered. Clones summoned next to you could still DIE which would cause conditions (just not the 3rd replaced clone), so I figured it would encourage people to dodge @ 2 illusions or less, rather than just dodging as much as possible (if the conditions are their purpose for dodging).

All in all I think conditions on shattered is a much better idea, and less complicated!

Lapreea.4287:

Also I dont think the clone replacement needs to be nerfed per say; just when the replacement is from DE.

I’m not 100% certain but I thought I read some dev stating that they are also looking into the Scepter AA. Therefore, I personally assume that DE is not the only issue but the most pressing one. I expect all Illusion summoning skills to be affected in the future.

Lapreea.4287:

Since clones die naturally throughout battle, and you can still dodge and make more clones that are replacing next to you (without causing conditions from the replaced clone) since that extra bit of continously blow up clones was the whole problem from what I gathered. Clones summoned next to you could still DIE which would cause conditions (just not the 3rd replaced clone), so I figured it would encourage people to dodge @ 2 illusions or less, rather than just dodging as much as possible (if the conditions are their purpose for dodging)

As said above, I don’t think that changing DE would fix the core of the issue. People will then realize that the traits can still be triggered through other ways and the complains will go on.

Besides, I highly doubt that people will refrain from dodging just because they already got 3 Illusions and not 2. Dodging critical attacks will always be the priority for thoughtful players. Therefore, I’m not sure if the change would promote skillful dodging. It also doesn’t change the fact that every dodge at 3 Illusions will be a waste from the on death perspective. Meaning, those traits will lose a quite significant amount of power even though they are not that strong to begin with.

Re-posting this from when a lot of discussion was going on about that potentially disastrous DE nerf.

Before we all start asking for a nerf to any of the Mesmer ‘on-dodge’ traits (DE + clone death) by removing them from DE or whatever we must find out if they are really overpowered in the first place.

You need to find out how much something is before stating it’s too much.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, I’m really more reminding the devs than anyone else.

Test:
So I did a simple side by side comparison test between Mesmer & Thief using only ‘on-dodge’ traits (Deceptive Evasion vs Uncatchable) and only dodging to kill a moving target golem.

All ‘clone death’ traits & DE taken by the Mesmer and all ‘on dodge’ traits taken by the Thief.

Results:
Mesmer: About 3-5 stacks of bleed 100% up-time (90% from auto-attacking clones). Very rarely a few seconds of Cripple, 1 stack of Confusion, Vulnerability or Weakness.

Thief : 4 stacks of bleed 100% up-time. 45+ seconds of cripple (continually stacking).
also 2-4 stacks of might gained as well as swiftness, endurance regeneration & condition removal

Conclusion:
If anyone can seriously look at those two examples and arrive at the conclusion that the Mesmer is in need of having their ‘on-dodge’ traits nerfed in any way for the sake of balance…then I just don’t know what else to say.

This is not a theory. This was an actual test that anyone with a Mesmer and a Thief can do for themselves in 5 minutes. I encourage anyone who is genuinely curious as to if these traits are overpowered to try it out, it’s actually quite funny.

This was unrealistically best case scenario too, since I was chasing a slow moving golem running in circles and would hope that any actual player would take even less damage from these traits, by both classes.

Please make a special note that 90% of the bleeds supplied by the Mesmer in this test are coming from the clones auto-attacking (Sharper Images trait).

The real conditions supplied by all 3 traits to a moving target is closer to 0 than to 1.
So once again, before anyone says they are in need of a nerf please:

• Explain why you feel 0-1 stack of bleed for a 45 point investment is OP or
• Do the test yourself and show how my numbers are wrong.

I made some minor clarifications to the above (Caltrops should have been Uncatchable). I’ve been trying to make these tests as clear to understand as possible but in reality it’s far simpler to just run the test yourself. It’s really the first and most crucial step before making any assertions about relative balance.

Should be noted I’m not finding there to be anything OP with any thief traits. I’m also concluding it’s hard to logically defend the argument that the clone death traits, when taken with DE are overly powerful and require a nerf based on these results.

EDIT: I realize facts are usually less interesting than speculation but if anyone wants to see the results of my other two tests I’ve been compiling them here.

PvX MESMER Are clone death traits OP?

Wasbunny.6531:

Re-posting this from when a lot of discussion was going on about that potentially disastrous DE nerf.

Before we all start asking for a nerf to any of the Mesmer ‘on-dodge’ traits (DE + clone death) by removing them from DE or whatever we must find out if they are really overpowered in the first place.

You need to find out how much something is before stating it’s too much.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, I’m really more reminding the devs than anyone else.

Test:
So I did a simple side by side comparison test between Mesmer & Thief using only ‘on-dodge’ traits (Deceptive Evasion vs Uncatchable) and only dodging to kill a moving target golem.

All ‘clone death’ traits & DE taken by the Mesmer and all ‘on dodge’ traits taken by the Thief.

Results:
Mesmer: About 3-5 stacks of bleed 100% up-time (90% from auto-attacking clones). Very rarely a few seconds of Cripple, 1 stack of Confusion, Vulnerability or Weakness.

Thief : 4 stacks of bleed 100% up-time. 45+ seconds of cripple (continually stacking).
also 2-4 stacks of might gained as well as swiftness, endurance regeneration & condition removal

Conclusion:
If anyone can seriously look at those two examples and arrive at the conclusion that the Mesmer is in need of having their ‘on-dodge’ traits nerfed in any way for the sake of balance…then I just don’t know what else to say.

This is not a theory. This was an actual test that anyone with a Mesmer and a Thief can do for themselves in 5 minutes. I encourage anyone who is genuinely curious as to if these traits are overpowered to try it out, it’s actually quite funny.

This was unrealistically best case scenario too, since I was chasing a slow moving golem running in circles and would hope that any actual player would take even less damage from these traits, by both classes.

Please make a special note that 90% of the bleeds supplied by the Mesmer in this test are coming from the clones auto-attacking (Sharper Images trait).

The real conditions supplied by all 3 traits to a moving target is closer to 0 than to 1.
So once again, before anyone says they are in need of a nerf please:

• Explain why you feel 0-1 stack of bleed for a 45 point investment is OP or
• Do the test yourself and show how my numbers are wrong.

I made some minor clarifications to the above (Caltrops should have been Uncatchable). I’ve been trying to make these tests as clear to understand as possible but in reality it’s far simpler to just run the test yourself. It’s really the first and most crucial step before making any assertions about relative balance.

Should be noted I’m not finding there to be anything OP with any thief traits. I’m also concluding it’s hard to logically defend the argument that the clone death traits, when taken with DE are overly powerful and require a nerf based on these results.

EDIT: I realize facts are usually less interesting than speculation but if anyone wants to see the results of my other two tests I’ve been compiling them here.

PvX MESMER Are clone death traits OP?

Problem is not really the trait, and that its OP more of the fact that it doesn’t take any effort to make it happen. I know mesmer, and I know what fighting them was like before everyone combined DE with clone death traits, and then with bleed on crit. When you break it down YES its not enough to kill someone; thats like saying, winds of chaos is not enough to kill someone, if winds of chaos was killing people we would have a BIG problem and vise versa w DE. The fact is that its combined with other skills and traits usually (bleeds on crit), and the fact that you are DOING other things and those bleeds happen so automatically create a deadly ""support"" during battle.

I also wanted to state the fact that, I heard a BRILLIANT idea to fix it all, and keep things basic, easy to understand, and on a easy to scale level… COOLDOWN ON CLONE DEATH TRAITS. If the devs want to go this route with mesmer, theres your fix. IF CLONE DEATH TRAITS are not op as you say, you should have NO problem with this, since you CLEARLY dont rely on it.

Lapreea.4287:

Problem is not really the trait, and that its OP more of the fact that it doesn’t take any effort to make it happen. I know mesmer, and I know what fighting them was like before everyone combined DE with clone death traits, and then with bleed on crit. When you break it down YES its not enough to kill someone; thats like saying, winds of chaos is not enough to kill someone, if winds of chaos was killing people we would have a BIG problem and vise versa w DE. The fact is that its combined with other skills and traits usually (bleeds on crit), and the fact that you are DOING other things and those bleeds happen so automatically create a deadly ""support"" during battle.

I also wanted to state the fact that, I heard a BRILLIANT idea to fix it all, and keep things basic, easy to understand, and on a easy to scale level… COOLDOWN ON CLONE DEATH TRAITS. If the devs want to go this route with mesmer, theres your fix. IF CLONE DEATH TRAITS are not op as you say, you should have NO problem with this, since you CLEARLY dont rely on it.

i dont use clonedeath traits atm as im not a condi builds, but to be honest, the condis applied from it is nowhere near as many condis as a an engi can apply with very little effort, a necro can spread and even a condi war and condi thief can aply bleeds and other condis better thn that. why does everything on mes get icd? we got almost nothing left. most of our builds got destroyed there is only ai left nothing else.

u wanna nerf? ok, but then give us buffs in other areas where we lack. like non ai aoe, non ai builds, non ai weapon skills, fix our 20 bugs, fix or replace phantasms. give us more weapon streangth, give us out of combat speed, replace mantras with aoe, remove and replace useless stuff like mimic and illusion of life, rework signet, rework scepter aa, rework our traits, give us more multi target skills, make f1-f4 work in wvw a smost shatters barely work there. move ip away from grandmaster so we get aoe, fix los bugs….

so yeah u can have your nerfs, but all mesmers have seen is nerf after nerf and some of them mad entire builds and traits completely useless. we havent recieved any big buffs beside pu and that was the only one. so time to rework our class.
icd are super annoying and we already got too many of them. so unless cc in this game doesnt get an icd or diminish return then stop whining about clonedeaths or go play amesmer in a wvw raid so u know how it feels.

selan.8354:

Lapreea.4287:

Problem is not really the trait, and that its OP more of the fact that it doesn’t take any effort to make it happen. I know mesmer, and I know what fighting them was like before everyone combined DE with clone death traits, and then with bleed on crit. When you break it down YES its not enough to kill someone; thats like saying, winds of chaos is not enough to kill someone, if winds of chaos was killing people we would have a BIG problem and vise versa w DE. The fact is that its combined with other skills and traits usually (bleeds on crit), and the fact that you are DOING other things and those bleeds happen so automatically create a deadly ""support"" during battle.

I also wanted to state the fact that, I heard a BRILLIANT idea to fix it all, and keep things basic, easy to understand, and on a easy to scale level… COOLDOWN ON CLONE DEATH TRAITS. If the devs want to go this route with mesmer, theres your fix. IF CLONE DEATH TRAITS are not op as you say, you should have NO problem with this, since you CLEARLY dont rely on it.

i dont use clonedeath traits atm as im not a condi builds, but to be honest, the condis applied from it is nowhere near as many condis as a an engi can apply with very little effort, a necro can spread and even a condi war and condi thief can aply bleeds and other condis better thn that. why does everything on mes get icd? we got almost nothing left. most of our builds got destroyed there is only ai left nothing else.

u wanna nerf? ok, but then give us buffs in other areas where we lack. like non ai aoe, non ai builds, non ai weapon skills, fix our 20 bugs, fix or replace phantasms. give us more weapon streangth, give us out of combat speed, replace mantras with aoe, remove and replace useless stuff like mimic and illusion of life, rework signet, rework scepter aa, rework our traits, give us more multi target skills, make f1-f4 work in wvw a smost shatters barely work there. move ip away from grandmaster so we get aoe, fix los bugs….

so yeah u can have your nerfs, but all mesmers have seen is nerf after nerf and some of them mad entire builds and traits completely useless. we havent recieved any big buffs beside pu and that was the only one. so time to rework our class.
icd are super annoying and we already got too many of them. so unless cc in this game doesnt get an icd or diminish return then stop whining about clonedeaths or go play amesmer in a wvw raid so u know how it feels.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gy8ts/crystal_desert_commander_kate_austinmers_wvw/

enough said, ive ran this build alot longer than most people in this post have been familar with clone death traits. I have known about these builds alot longer, than you have more than likely. I am very aware of other classes having alot more issues than mesmers. That does not mean that we cannot talk about things that we know, should not be in the game. Please say something nice, or dont say anything nice @ all. Fact is these clone death builds did not gain popularity until August. Fact is I have been using these builds before they even got their BUFFS not nerfs, that make them what they are today!

P.s. incase your lost that is MY POST back before torment… I LOVE MY MESMER, AND I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MESMER, I dont agree with conditions applying like a mad woman out of hell, because you can dodge. They are not from dodges alone, but it all adds up.

This is a mesmer topic, lets keep it that way!

I think that the core of the issue here is that for some reason clone replacement (i.e. creating a clone while 3 illusions are present) is counting as a clone death. Has it been stated that this is working as intended or is it a case of the programming being not being separated between a death from damage, being replaced and a being remove at target’s death.

The argument that “If it’s not OP then you won’t mind it being nerfed with an icd.” is obviously absurd. Equally absurd is the idea that triggering clone-death traits by overwriting the first clone produced that is positioned close to a moving target by dodging is “too easy” as compared to other profession’s on-dodge traits.

Again it seems I need to re-post from a previous discussion related to why I even fight against such a short sighted nerf in the first place if the effects are so negligible.

Forgot to point out the reason why I’m even fighting to have these ‘on clone death’ traits spared from the nerf bat at all. If they are so weak, why even bother taking them or making a fuss about a proposed nerf at all?

It’s been shown that in PvP all three traits when taken with DE amount to an average of 0-1 stacks of bleed and a very rare occurrence of a short Cripple, Confusion, Vulnerability or Weakness, and only if the player happens to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. So the combination of these traits and DE have almost no effect in PvP against an even marginally good player.

The strength of these traits only comes into play when there is a large group of slow moving targets grouped closely together, something that only consistently happens in PvE. So the 3 clone death traits when taken with DE add at least a marginal amount of condition damage in PvE for Condition Mesmers.

This is due mainly to their AoE effects and the fact that most mobs stay close together and are slow moving, allowing for more chances to be near the oldest clone being overwritten. Any stationary target (boss) is also more likely to receive the full amount of the possible conditions, still not very much but it helps. So ‘on clone death’ traits when taken with DE as it is right now is only effective in PvE, and only slightly at that.

I happen to be one of the rare Condition Mesmers who enjoy this play-style in PvE, even though I know it’s not ‘optimal’ by any stretch of the imagination. I actually like how ‘non-viable’ Condition Mesmers and Confusion are in PvE since it makes me work extra hard to take advantage of each and every condition I can apply in order to even maintain a ‘sub-optimal’ amount of DPS.

This proposed change would effectively change my ‘sub-optimal’ build to ‘sub-possible’.

Bran.7425:

I think that the core of the issue here is that for some reason clone replacement (i.e. creating a clone while 3 illusions are present) is counting as a clone death. Has it been stated that this is working as intended or is it a case of the programming being not being separated between a death from damage, being replaced and a being remove at target’s death.

The problem is that the dev’s were going to nerf DE, because they saw it as a problem, but people complained to such a high degree, so they decided not to change DE; these are the facts. So I am making a post to give alternatives to what could be changed about DE without dramatically affecting other mesmer builds, that do not rely on DE, but rely on clone death as the same, or vise versa.
The build I run at the moment gets superior condition removal, to any DE build, but lacks the extra damage. I would rather have that, because it makes a build that can last alot longer in battle, even if sacrificing some damage. The fact that I have been aware of these traits SINCE APRIL, probably puts me at a better knowledge of these traits than everyone commenting. People talk about how its so not a big deal, when the facts are it can shut down any power build, if the attacker is not careful. I know this because, everyone used to not use DE with clone death traits, and this was never a issue until AUGUST, which is when everyone became aware of them, that and prismatic understanding. Which works and all just with clone death traits that use DE, you got a little much with boons, dodging/hiding, and damage. Only because everything happens so automatically, that you are usually inflicting various amounts of other damage, people on here like to say that DE with clone death is not op, because its not enough. I can agree with them, just they are leaving out the fact that its all automatic, and they are inflicting their normal combat damage while all these boons, and conditions are just flying out of nowhere, for no to little effort. Facts are something has to give, and I only see DE when three illusions are out, and when people are just throwing more around as the problem.

Anyways now to address everyone else, these proposed nerfs are very minor to any mesmer build, but people are complaining left and right. The only people is it affecting are the users who want to sit around and dodge all day, blowing up conditions, while their clones die and BLOW UP MORE! Besides that, the changes I am suggesting, would keep every other build alive, yet you see how much people rely on just dodging around like a mad woman. Even a two second cooldown on clone death traits, would be so minor, that it would only effect the player who wants to dodge like someone who has lost their mind. Yet you see the comments, of people defending these very very minor changes I am proposing. Currently it seems, A net will slow down the vigor for mesmers this is a fact, these people fail, in so many ways to see that A net will do what they want. We can provide better nerfs for the dev’s to think about, or let them nerf other things, that will just make us more upset. If we cannot come together and agree with some of these nerf’s i’m sure like I said A net will do what they want, they made it very obvious the fact that mesmers complained they were not doing to do a change. So if we could agree with something other, before they made their next nerf, perhaps they could see another options which mesmers are ok with. I can tell that by the new patch notes, vigor is their direction they will go, which works and all, but some people rely on vigor for DE who dont use clone death (not me), but I can feel bad for those individuals. Facts are that is cute and all pretending everything is fine, but it wont fly. If anyone is in doubt about what I am saying with vigor, I linked a post about the next patch after living story, one of many small changes I am sure. Also if you want to sit on here and talk about how well everything is and fine and dandy, do realize, you are not getting anywhere overall. A net is nerfing vigor VIA class base, this is a fact.

So any ideas anyone has that can be made, to make things more balanced without attacking traits that every DE user relys on (clone death or not) such as vigor?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/first#post3568078

All and all I think most vigor is on the chopping block right now as the previous patch touched on engineer, ranger, and thief. So we see the remaining profession not yet effected by this change in overall philosophy (not necromancer’s as there vigor uptime is basically a non-issue, nor warrior as they are either feeling untouchable, or too focused on trying to stay over-tuned) trying to be kept out of the change.

I am not saying that the decision not to change change in Deceptive Evasion is or is not a good idea it just starts additional issues, one it does presents the perception that ‘the mesmers whined enough and Anet caved’ and perception has become very important in the overall design of the game (as Anet will weaken one option to make another be perceived as better). Another issue (related to the above mentioned) is it can create further problems as there have been changes not well received that the players have had to learn to deal with, without being able to put any input into the implementation (i.e reveal duration in pvp, most of ranger’s changes, but not limited to those just some of the recent ones).

That all being said the best of luck to the mesmer players (while I do have one I do not play it much).