Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if this is the right forum but if it isn’t feel free to move or re-post it.

At the moment, the dots only indicate how many illusions are summoned but not which are summoned. It is difficult for a Mesmer to track it’s summoned illusions in particular for new players and in large crowds (for example WvW Zergs).

Could the dots on the HUD be replaced with unique icons (or even perhaps the skill icon) indicating which clones or phantasm are currently summoned ? (Similar to how the generic condition damage indicator was replaced by specific ones)

This would make it so much easier to track illusions as player will no longer have to find nor guess which illusion is summoned.

Thank you so much

I would love this change so much. +1, heck, +100 to this suggestion.

Particularly during large-scale boss encounters, I can’t remember half the time if I already have 3 Phantasms summoned (in which case I should stop using summon skills altogether) or if I only have 2 Phantasms and a Clone, in which case I can continue to summon more clones for on-death effects until I do finally get my 3 phants out. It would also be handy to tell which one is going to die if I summon a new clone.

It would be nice if this could be done with all the extra ‘creatures’.

Like necro minions, ranger pets and mini pets. I’m forever mixing up my actual pet and my mini, which means I waste time (and potentially mess up attacks) using the wrong commands because I think my pet is in a different place.

yeah +1 to this. more profession improvements. more more more.

Seems like a simple thing. Don’t see why it couldn’t be changed. Add this to necromancer and ranger pets too.

I don’t think this is as necessary for necro or ranger. Rangers only have one pet at a time, and if you can’t keep track of her, then you’re a bad pet parent. :p But really, when I play my ranger, I usually have a good idea where my pet is, and look before I activate his specific attack skill. Also, when you swap your pets, the older one just vanishes and the new pet appears pretty close to the ranger.

On necromancers, the minions you can summon are all on the right side of the skill bar. Sure, you might not know who is where, but you know which ones are summoned at a glance, and except for the bone minions, they don’t die after you summon them. Once you start attacking a target, it should be easier to tell where they are and when it’s appropriate to use the skills. The limit of minions is also only restricted by how many you are willing to put on the skill bar.

Mesmers, though, it’s different. The clones or phantasms just have a regular cooldown, and only an indication as to how many you have summoned. If you summon another clone or phantasm, the oldest one just explodes, with no more fanfare than an explosion of butterflies. In the heat of battle, it can be hard to remember which clones you summoned and in which order, which is why I can see having unique icons for each would be helpful.

Some indication of the health of the clone and phantasm would be nice too so you don’t lose and opportunity to shatter if the health is really low.

Cherokeewill.7504:

Some indication of the health of the clone and phantasm would be nice too so you don’t lose and opportunity to shatter if the health is really low.

I don’t know if this is as relevant for mesmers as having your one of your clones at low health does not necessarily indicate the proper moment to use a shatter skill, but it’s definitely something that would be quite useful to necros or rangers (technically even engineers with their turrets).

For instance, if a necro’s blood fiend is low health, you might as well eat the thing instead of letting it die. Same thing with popping the bone minions. Rangers might as well try and use the active skills of spirits if it looks like they’re going to get killed, and engineers might want to pick up a damaged turret.

Although it could still be quite useful for mesmer, especially with certain kinds of illusions such as the defender. That is, it might be worth knowing when that thing is going down so you don’t over-commit to something thinking you have it’s protection.

I suppose changing the dots to represent the individual illusion types could be useful too, so you don’t accidentally do something silly like double summon a defender. Maybe keep the plain dots to indicate clones, whereas special icon dots could be used for phantasms.

Fair enough, and valid points, Rognik.

I remember in Guild Wars 1 when I played a Spirt Lord Ritualist, I could call up a panel by hitting the Y key, that had the names of the spirits I had out and their health.

I used that all the time. Keeping an eye on it, I knew when each one died and which were low on health

This picture shows what the panel looked like. (That may be a party panel, but it looked the same. A panel with red bars that had names on the bar for each spirit up. The health was how far across the panel the red bar was).

I can’t really tell from the image, as it’s pretty small even after clicking on it, but I do think that’s the Party panel, and the summons are all listed as “Allies”. When they die, they disappear from the list. At least, that’s how I remember how it worked.

Rognik.2579:

I can’t really tell from the image, as it’s pretty small even after clicking on it, but I do think that’s the Party panel, and the summons are all listed as “Allies”. When they die, they disappear from the list. At least, that’s how I remember how it worked.

Yah, pretty sure that’s a party panel. However the minion panel is almost identical in appearance (the main difference is the minion’s bars appear and disappear while in combat). The Sprit’s name and health bar appear in the panel when summoned. If they die, they disappear from the panel.

Danikat.8537:

It would be nice if this could be done with all the extra ‘creatures’.

Like necro minions, ranger pets and mini pets. I’m forever mixing up my actual pet and my mini, which means I waste time (and potentially mess up attacks) using the wrong commands because I think my pet is in a different place.

The dot for the mini should just be removed …

I feel like either I’m missing the point of this thread, or other people are.

When I read the OP, I took “dots” to mean the 3 little circles that appear above the Mesmer shatter skills to indicate when you have clones or phantasms summoned. Empty with no clones, and then they fill in purple when you have a clone or phantasm active. And that the suggestion is to change those generic dots to actual icons representing which clones or phantasms are active.

Other classes don’t even have those types of displays for summons, so I’m not sure where people are coming from saying other classes should have it too.

And then some people are talking about dots on the mini map, which is an entirely different thing altogether.

Electro.4173:

When I read the OP, I took “dots” to mean the 3 little circles that appear above the Mesmer shatter skills to indicate when you have clones or phantasms summoned. Empty with no clones, and then they fill in purple when you have a clone or phantasm active. And that the suggestion is to change those generic dots to actual icons representing which clones or phantasms are active.

That’s how I interpreted it, too. How other people took it to mean the dots on the mini-map or big map, I’m not sure, which is why I was confused by people talking about ranger pets and necro minions. I just pressed my dodge key and rolled with it.

Great idea.

You some sorta genius or something?

I think it is a pretty good idea. Sometimes I lose track of my clones and phantasms that I summoned in large scale fights. Even if it was as simple as a small “C” for clone and a “P” for phantasm it would be helpful.

@ Electro
You are correct when I wrote dots I meant the ones that are above the Mesmer weapon skills.

@ YamsAndHams
Regarding the blood minion, it would indeed help to know how much health has blood minion left or another solution would be when this minion dies it would replenish your health. Bone minions suffer the same problem. It would help to know how many and how much health is left on each one or at least to have them explode when they die. Unfortunately I do not have any ideas regarding a possible solutions for the HUD.

@ Everyone
I began this thread to suggest a possible solution to ANET to help Mesmers with their illusions but if you have suggestions, ideas or solutions feel free to post them. I do not see the harm talking about these issues especially if some improvement can come out of this.

Thank you very much

I hate to spam the forum but I do believe that is a really good idea hence I am adding a reply to refresh this thread as it may have no longer be at the front of people attention with all the other post regarding Heart of Thorn.

I would also like to encourage as many people to like this thread to attract ArenaNet’s attention. Even if they choose not to implement this idea I would appreciate to know that they at least had a look at it.

Thank you very much

At the very least, there should be a simple icon difference between a phantasm and a clone. That should be very easy to implement

Having an additional way to track the health for all illusions/minions is probably more trouble than its worth from a coding perspective, you already have feedback from the field