Guild Wars 2

So now we have nearly DOUBLED cooldown on pretty much every phantasm (necro minions are on shorter CD’s), can we get enough HP and AOE resistance on them so that:

A – they provide adequate utility in PVE, stop dying in a single auto-attack to npcs, and stop dying to a single aoe from bosses which spam aoe to high heaven?

B – in pvp people have to actually pay them more than cursory attention to kill them?

Is it not a LITTLE unfair that the weakest of necro minions is upwards of 20-fold more durable and helpful to them?

Agreed. The nerf stamp was far too harsh, especially on the Staff as it’s not even used much in SPvP.

The PvP nerf buggered up the PvE for Mesmer.

No, I understand why it was done. It was to prevent mindless phantasm & run spam, and to make shattering more frequent, but now that necros can summon several of their minions faster than mesmers can summon phantasms, it’s important that those phantasms remain viable and active on the field long enough to be useful.

Its what has caused mesmers to have such lack-luster PVE and WvWvW performance while being overpowered in spvp.

The phantasms need enough HP and aoe resistance to survive a considerable period against the direct attacks and aoe of normal pve mobs, and in aoe in WvWvW situations, after which phantasm damage vs shatter damage can be balanced in a way which will not produce such a massive disconnect between various levels of player participation.

Clones are another story, as they can be produced at ridiculous speeds, but now we’re seeing phantasm cooldowns hit 20 seconds. It’s unacceptable that they can be breathed on by someone’s non-combat-mini-pet and die (in pve, phantasms literally die before they get in ONE full attack), leaving you without a major component of your damage for 20 full seconds. With their current level of hp, and complete lack of aoe resistance, this nerf (for pvp’s sake) has utterly demolished what little viability phantasm-based mesmers had in pve.

Until phantasms are fixed to be durable enough, I see staff in particular being hung up on the walls and left to collect dust. 50% of posts on mesmer forums are essentially saying “it was good while it lasted, this toon is now my alt”.