Guild Wars 2

I really love the Mesmer, i think the class mechanic is by far the coolest in the game.

There is a problem with it though when playing PvE content.

As it stands i can only summon clones and phantasms when i am locked on to a target. The clones/phantasms will actively seek out and attack the target and when shattered run up to it and explode.

The problem arises once the selected target dies. All clones/phantasms dispell the moment the original target is defeated. This is not really a problem in PvP where you fight a very small number of enemies, mostly in 1v1.

In PvE, however, you frequently fight large numbers of relatively weak enemies. The logical strategy is to take out the target with the smallest health pool first to decrease the number of threats, especially as a mesmer who lacks reliable AoE.
The problem is that every time i kill an enemy, i lose all my clones and phantasms that i need to distract the enemies, to damage my enemies or to shatter.
I cannot count how many times i tried to shatter my clones for some nice AoE damage just for the to die beforehand because i killed my target too fast.

So here is my solution:

Give clones/phantasm some kind of radius. When the primary target dies the clone/phantasm seeks out the nearest hostile npc within its radius. When no hostile npcs are in the clones/phantasms radius, it dispels.

I think this change would make Mesmers a lot more fun to play in PvE (at least for me) and and also improve their viability against large groups of enemies without making the too powerful.

This is my #1 issue playing Mesmers in PvE. +1

It’d be nice if they unlinked Death Nova from Bone Minion, and had them work in the same fashion instead, as well.

Personally I’ve never seen this as an issue on my Mesmer – I personally use my clone generation time to gather mobs up, get them into a cluster, shatter combo then Sword #2. Anything that survives a double shatter is finished off with my sword, plus it allows me to blur right by my target as I have self shatter for my second shatter hit. Anything that can survive that is something that has times for me to individually use clones/phantasms on, so I can group or target spread as I choose.

Having them continue to survive without specific targets turns the clones from utility/dps to pets… and that would be brokenly over powered – especially once you start turning into WvW zergs.

I personally hope they make them better copies. Currently titles break them as titles are not over clones. Clones don’t copy secondaries. Clones lose tags with an option tick. Targeting stays on the real target rather than picking randomly on clone generation (though decoy is a counter from stealth target drop). Pretty much clones are useless in any serious PvP for illusionary. Having that improved is what I want. :p

Drawing Guy.3701:

Having them continue to survive without specific targets turns the clones from utility/dps to pets… and that would be brokenly over powered – especially once you start turning into WvW zergs.

Reread the OP. He doesn’t want them to persist. He wants them to do something like a less potent Mind Wrack against the nearest target.

Since we can’t consume our clones for a buff, like a Rogue might Slice n’ Dice if its more effective than Sinister Strike at that point in time, there’s usually an opportunity cost associated with not shattering the moment you get to 3. Solutions like the OP’s might help.

Drawing Guy is actually right, i want clones/phantasms to persist after the initial enemy dies.

I do however not think that my proposed change would turn the mesmers illusions into pets.
They would retain their squishiness, meaning they would die just as fast as they do now once the enemy starts attacking them. Thus they would retain their roles as constantly recycled decoys (clones) and as part of the mesmers burst (phantasms).
Also, unlike pets, they would still dispel the moment no hostile npc is close by.

All, that would change is that clones/phantasms would no longer dispel after every killed enemy but rather after every finished encounter, making combat a lot more fluent and opening the doors for some new strategies since the mesmers would now have a little more control over the number of their clones and thus could decide when it is the most appropriate time to shatter rather than shattering every single time three clones/phantasms are out.

As it is now mesmers are actually hurting their own overall dps by killing a single target too fast. My proposed change would remove that problem without notably increasing the mesmers overal dps. It would allow the mesmer to deal better with groups of trash-mobs but it would not change anything when fighting harder opponents (Veterans/champs/other players).

That said, i also like RebelYells idea of giving every unused clone/phantasm a weaker, single target mind wrack. This would also give the incentive to keep the clones/phantasms alive and not shattering them every opportunity.