Guild Wars 2

Bubi.7942:

Vikkela.7261:

Fine, here you go, it’s actually pretty easy when you know what to do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOLzRkittenBio

It seems like this guy in his video somehow manages to keep his clones and phantasms alive for 3-4 attacks. From the kill time I’m guessing he’s on zerkerish build.

So what was the problem again OP?

You do realize the video has been recorded by OP, right?

Thanks for linking my video. The point is still valid, these latest episodes have anti clone mechanics. They don’t make the fight unbeatable, they make it frustrating. That’s all, nothing more nothing less. >> I don’t encounter the same problems (gamble against RNG damage) with my warrior for instance.

@Yamiga:
No, I had no idea.

All the better cause then he is basicly contradicting himself. The phantasms/clones clearly attack multiple times in the video, while OP claims in the first post that they “explode on summon”.

@Kaiyanwan:
Switching tactics is a valid thing in video games. Also, I think illusions were not meant to be permanent.

I follow Dulfy’s guides and she plays mesmer. She also mentioned that for one or some of the fights for this latest story caused her clones to instantly be killed on creation.

• Anet has released broken Ranger pet, Mesmer clones and Necro minion AI. This has been broken since release and they have yet to fix this.

Bubi.7942:

@Kaiyanwan:
Switching tactics is a valid thing in video games. Also, I think illusions were not meant to be permanent.

But you think that illusions – a classes mechanic which is affecting at least two of this professions weapon skills at any given time – were meant to be instantly destroyed at the moment they are created is OK. That the player has to get creative on when to trick the encounter so those skills are actually working, or avoiding those skills if possible?
No profession without pets has to fight the encounter and its own mechanics to be successful. And while I can run my necro without pets and be efficient, the mesmer has been designed around using his illusions with any playstyle they decide on. You cannot play a mesmer without illusions and be effective. And therefore those encounters become a chore.

Noone wants illusions to be permanent, people ask to make them actually be of the same usefulness as other weapon skills.

Kitten, run those missions on a warrior and tell me you have to change your playstyle for success.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Bubi.7942:

@Kaiyanwan:
Switching tactics is a valid thing in video games. Also, I think illusions were not meant to be permanent.

But you think that illusions – a classes mechanic which is affecting at least two of this professions weapon skills at any given time – were meant to be instantly destroyed at the moment they are created is OK. That the player has to get creative on when to trick the encounter so those skills are actually working, or avoiding those skills if possible?
No profession without pets has to fight the encounter and its own mechanics to be successful. And while I can run my necro without pets and be efficient, the mesmer has been designed around using his illusions with any playstyle they decide on. You cannot play a mesmer without illusions and be effective. And therefore those encounters become a chore.

Noone wants illusions to be permanent, people ask to make them actually be of the same usefulness as other weapon skills.

Kitten, run those missions on a warrior and tell me you have to change your playstyle for success.

Don’t go into hyperbole-land please. I never said that illusions “instantly destroyed at the moment they are created is OK”. It is OP who said that this is the case. Now OP apperantly has even provided a video in which we can clearly see, his claim is false, untrue, a fib, a fiction. His phantasm/clones attack 3-4 times before dying. His claim is that they die before they can attack. What more is there to say?

Mesmers weakness is that his illusions are vulnarable, and you are strongly relying on them. No where is 60%+ of your damage gone (again, OPs claim). You simply have to deal with your class’ weakness, and rethink your startegy.

This is gold. The guy saying miku should l2P and then linking his own video. Thanks for the fair laugh.

I don’t think that certain encounters being harder for one class than for others means that that means that the mesmer is left out for that specific type of content.

Also that Mesmer is the only one that needs to change builds is fairly obvious as the mesmer is fairly reliant on phantasms and gear. Other professions can only switch a few skills and still be fine with their current gear.

Then again, Mesmers also have things that other professions don’t have, like portal. I don’t see anyone ever complaining that portal is cheesing the content for many players, simply because it makes things ALOT easier. But when it gets harder people complain.

Seeing this video of a clearly full berserker (or assassin) mesmer still doing it within 2 min 30, I don’t quite see the problem. What do you want? Do it within 1 minute?
I wonder if it’s even worth having a discussion about whether mesmer needs a buff in this content because the damage is slightly lower than we’re used to. If not that this is a direction I rather see than just go full berserker and nail all content within minutes.

I must say I played through this content with both guardian and mesmer and I found both times to be equally satisfying. Then again I’m not that hyper serious that I’m going to time my encounter and notice that in the most optimal runs there’s a time difference. Let alone to make the point that that means the mesmer is left out because it takes a few minutes longer.

Bubi.7942:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Bubi.7942:

@Kaiyanwan:
Switching tactics is a valid thing in video games. Also, I think illusions were not meant to be permanent.

But you think that illusions – a classes mechanic which is affecting at least two of this professions weapon skills at any given time – were meant to be instantly destroyed at the moment they are created is OK. That the player has to get creative on when to trick the encounter so those skills are actually working, or avoiding those skills if possible?
No profession without pets has to fight the encounter and its own mechanics to be successful. And while I can run my necro without pets and be efficient, the mesmer has been designed around using his illusions with any playstyle they decide on. You cannot play a mesmer without illusions and be effective. And therefore those encounters become a chore.

Noone wants illusions to be permanent, people ask to make them actually be of the same usefulness as other weapon skills.

Kitten, run those missions on a warrior and tell me you have to change your playstyle for success.

Don’t go into hyperbole-land please. I never said that illusions “instantly destroyed at the moment they are created is OK”. It is OP who said that this is the case. Now OP apperantly has even provided a video in which we can clearly see, his claim is false, untrue, a fib, a fiction. His phantasm/clones attack 3-4 times before dying. His claim is that they die before they can attack. What more is there to say?

Mesmers weakness is that his illusions are vulnarable, and you are strongly relying on them. No where is 60%+ of your damage gone (again, OPs claim). You simply have to deal with your class’ weakness, and rethink your startegy.

Why does the mesmer need such a strong weakness in PvE then?

What is the weakness of warriors?
What is the weakness of the guardian?
The thief? And so on.

Can you find anything comparable to the mesmers weakness?
Is there any benefit if you outplay the weakness? Like doing way more damage than the other classes?

This argument is flawed. If other professions do not have such a weakness, why it is ok for the mesmer to have it, even though there is no real benefit if you overcome it, but just being on par?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Why does the mesmer need such a strong weakness in PvE then?

What is the weakness of warriors?
What is the weakness of the guardian?
The thief? And so on.

Can you find anything comparable to the mesmers weakness?
Is there any benefit if you outplay the weakness? Like doing way more damage than the other classes?

This argument is flawed. If other professions do not have such a weakness, why it is ok for the mesmer to have it, even though there is no real benefit if you overcome it, but just being on par?

What you are describing here are balance ‘issues’. There are thousands of threads on it in the Class, PvP and WvW sections on it. Suming that up, is a task beyond me, but I will give it a go:

Without going into calculations I will take the educated guess that a mesmer with 3 Phantasms active is most likely the highest single target damage (3 duelists + mesmer AA > warrior AA). That is the benefit of the mesmer. If you manage to maintain 3 phantasms throught the fight, you will outdamage any enemy (given equal ground meaning – traits, gear, might stacks etc). That is far from “on par”.

All classes have weaknesses, and as I mentioned above, hit up the thousands of threads about this if you want to go in detail, excuse me if I try to be done with it with 2-3 words:

Mesmer → relies on AI
Ele → Low survivability
Necro → Slow
Engie → Does everything, but never does anything as good as other classes
Ranger → is Ranger
Thief → Low survivability
Guardian → Support, low damage
Warrior → Well… altough many posts will claim has no weaknesses, thus it’s the most OP class (which is somewhat true), it is fairly predictable and kiteable, however that only is a weakness in competitive enviroment, no wonder dungeon groups need “FULL ZERK 10k+ AP WARR GEAR OR KICK”

And all this would make sense/have a meaning, if OPs claims would be ture. Which they are not.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I don’t think that certain encounters being harder for one class than for others means that that means that the mesmer is left out for that specific type of content.

Also that Mesmer is the only one that needs to change builds is fairly obvious as the mesmer is fairly reliant on phantasms and gear. Other professions can only switch a few skills and still be fine with their current gear.

Then again, Mesmers also have things that other professions don’t have, like portal. I don’t see anyone ever complaining that portal is cheesing the content for many players, simply because it makes things ALOT easier. But when it gets harder people complain.

Seeing this video of a clearly full berserker (or assassin) mesmer still doing it within 2 min 30, I don’t quite see the problem. What do you want? Do it within 1 minute?
I wonder if it’s even worth having a discussion about whether mesmer needs a buff in this content because the damage is slightly lower than we’re used to. If not that this is a direction I rather see than just go full berserker and nail all content within minutes.

I must say I played through this content with both guardian and mesmer and I found both times to be equally satisfying. Then again I’m not that hyper serious that I’m going to time my encounter and notice that in the most optimal runs there’s a time difference. Let alone to make the point that that means the mesmer is left out because it takes a few minutes longer.

Just saying, but I remember a few posts asking to nerf mesmer portal because it allowed to “bypass the content”.

Yeah it did have a few posts like that. =) Regardless though no one really talks about that anymore.

I was just trying to portray that while the mesmer has some inherent weaknessess there are also some great plus points to a mesmer. Even Bubi points out the sheer amount of DPS a mesmer can do while their phantasms are unhindered. (although personally clone AI isn’t a problem, as they generally follow a very consistent behaviour which you can exploit if you’re positioning well.

I see phantasms a mesmers greatest weapon as well as weakness. It’s a risk you need to outplay as a mesmer and it always has been that way.

And yes it can be frustrating you can’t use the skills you want as a mesmer because you need to adapt to the foe at hand, but that is something I would call a good thing. There are times where mesmer shines and other classes are left behind. But there are also times where certain mesmer skills don’t work at all.

Personally that is part of the mesmer’s flavour, rather than something that needs to be fixed. If you want to have an easy time doing some simple DPS and just stability and ignoring all attacks you’re better off playing warrior. Giving mesmer more of this will just turn the mesmer into some sort of ranged warrior. Or sitting back casting spells all day, which is more something a staff elementalist would do.

Basically any argument made here is because the content isn’t as straight forward anymore, and has become slightly more difficult which shows that the mesmer is harder to play than other professions. This was always the case in my opinion, just alot less visible.

There are some areas where I think, “Yeah that is quite broken.” like in the Hidden Arcana story step where the fields just instantly kill your phantasms as they don’t get the buff you need to withstand that AoE. But that’s one of very few locations.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Basically any argument made here is because the content isn’t as straight forward anymore, and has become slightly more difficult which shows that the mesmer is harder to play than other professions.

“High risk, high return” is fine. “High risk, same return” is not.

oxtred.7658:

This is gold. The guy saying miku should l2P and then linking his own video. Thanks for the fair laugh.

That was supposed to be the whole joke

Vikkela.7261:

oxtred.7658:

This is gold. The guy saying miku should l2P and then linking his own video. Thanks for the fair laugh.

That was supposed to be the whole joke

Just because the problem can be overcome it doesnt mean it isnt there.

It only took me 5 hours trying over and over to get the illusions on a good RNG and be meaningfull while using a particular trait else they would die. Reasons :

• Terragriff has some damaging aura wrecking everything melee range
• His cleave on “stand still and pulse tendrils” kills the phantasms
• Phantasms try to be in range and thus will attack only when they are in melee range, meaning they will hug the boss and suicide.
• Terragriff runs in a random pattern accros the room, this seconds the range issue on melee phantasms (1). Moreover, terragriff will randomly kill your phantasms by rushing over them without any logical reason as aggro or proximity (2).
• Terragriff takes off and lands randomly near his rush end position, the landing deals damage and kills phantasms
• Phantasms have a value expressed in “damage/duration/cooldown”; in this fight their value depends on RNG (randomly generated numbers, positions of the boss).

Now, remember Hidden Arcana? Here you can’t deny that clones and phantasms die on summon.

Second fight, phantasms are useless even with the trait. Had to use Consummable summons. What is your take on that?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

It only took me 5 hours trying over and over to get the illusions on a good RNG and be meaningfull while using a particular trait else they would die. Reasons :

• Terragriff has some damaging aura wrecking everything melee range
• His cleave on “stand still and pulse tendrils” kills the phantasms
• Phantasms try to be in range and thus will attack only when they are in melee range, meaning they will hug the boss and suicide.
• Terragriff runs in a random pattern accros the room, this seconds the range issue on melee phantasms (1). Moreover, terragriff will randomly kill your phantasms by rushing over them without any logical reason as aggro or proximity (2).
• Terragriff takes off and lands randomly near his rush end position, the landing deals damage and kills phantasms
• Phantasms have a value expressed in “damage/duration/cooldown”; in this fight their value depends on RNG (randomly generated numbers, positions of the boss).

Now, remember Hidden Arcana? Here you can’t deny that clones and phantasms die on summon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXjJoZytf5s

Second fight, phantasms are useless even with the trait. Had to use Consummable summons. What is your take on that?

A finally we arrived at Hidden Arcana, I was waiting for this.

My take on that: I agree.

The boss (tbh I didn’t take a look at the video but I’m guessing it’s the color facet) had an aura that damaged everything in it, instantly killing illusions. That is very much true, I noticed that as well. I might add, it was probably an oversight, as I used Mistfire wolf in that fight as an elite, and that somehow got the same buff as me (color buff) and so it didn’t die.

Whatever the reason, that sucked.

But as much as it sucked, it took 1 more round going in and cleaving at it, so I didn’t make much of a fuss about it, I handled it with a “meh, who cares”. Probably would have gotten my interest if it would have been a remotely challenging fight.

If you want to rant about that, you have a point, go on, maybe Anet next time won’t be so sloppy and test it better.

But for the fights in the current LS, none of that holds true. Your very own video proves that (which you spent 5 hours making? really? my condolences… I have no idea why anyone would do that). Your clones live, phantasms live, they attack not even once, end of story. Whining about the boss has AoE attacks and that it moves is just silly.

What you call RNG is what I call smart use of skills (for instance not summoning phantasms when huge AoE is up), if you just spam all your skills as soon as they are up whitout second tought, that’s RNG. Or no, that’s not RNG, that’s just bad play.
If it actually made you think about when and how to use your skills, swap weapons or change traits, that’s a welcomed fight in an otherwise very static enviroment.

Yeah miku come on and get better kitten

oxtred.7658:

Yeah miku come on and get better kitten

Yeah Miku, c’mon, Bubi must be right, because he seems so convinced of what he repeats all over again and again.

Sorry Miku, time to L2P now.

UnDeadFun.5824:

I follow Dulfy’s guides and she plays mesmer. She also mentioned that for one or some of the fights for this latest story caused her clones to instantly be killed on creation.

• Anet has released broken Ranger pet, Mesmer clones and Necro minion AI. This has been broken since release and they have yet to fix this.

Not true, minion AI was working for a glorious 3 months or so, when they reworked it about a year ago.

Then it broke, and we still have idle minions to this day.

I must be doing something wrong then, because I run a phantasms/clones GS mainly mesmer and I didn’t have any issues on either tangled paths or echoes of the past. It did involve quite a bid of dodging and use of sylvari “take root”, but I did just fine, and in the facets fight my friend guardian (pretty darn good guardian otherwise) kept dying and I was rezzing them all the time. Didn’t die at all on any of the steps. Except once when I jumped in the wrong direction and went kaboom in the void under the crystalline path.
Btw, I found it an awesome detail that the minis had their own bubble in Glint’s lair and were happily bubbling along the PC.

Anyandrell.6238:

I must be doing something wrong then, because I run a phantasms/clones GS mainly mesmer and I didn’t have any issues on either tangled paths or echoes of the past. It did involve quite a bid of dodging and use of sylvari “take root”, but I did just fine, and in the facets fight my friend guardian (pretty darn good guardian otherwise) kept dying and I was rezzing them all the time. Didn’t die at all on any of the steps. Except once when I jumped in the wrong direction and went kaboom in the void under the crystalline path.
Btw, I found it an awesome detail that the minis had their own bubble in Glint’s lair and were happily bubbling along the PC.

When did you run your mesmer? Because just right after the Tangled Paths patch I use my mesmer, and during one boss fight (I didn’t remember the name, but it had a mechanism where the boss was surrounded by a lethal circle for you and you need to kill his lesser to be save inside the circle), my Illusions would instantly destroyed when I summoned it inside the circle. But I think they have fixed this problem, right?

No, they would still die. I just didn’t count on them much (well just on the extra sword hit haha). I’d dodge before going in the bubble so a clone would be left behind so my ranger runes would still be at max, spawn warlock before that (that one doesn’t go in melee range so he wouldn’t be instantly destroyed)and then switch to GS and just rely on my GS damage. I do not remember if “take root” worked there or not. But what I did worked pretty good.

I honestly did not have insurmontable issues from the bosses. With the big terragriff, in case you didn’t notice, when he zooms across that arena like area, it’s always in some straight line, so if you move to the side of the area right when you see him getting ready to pounce you’re relatively safe (at least until jungle tendrils spawn). I know that in that instance dodge clone saved my behind quite a good number of times.
My poor death shroud necro tho got her pretty behind handed to her several times in that instance. I was thinking of trying it with a minion necro to see how that works.

Weird… I found this so much easier on mesmer than my ele and I’m a pretty average player. GS / Sword-Pistol. Dodge his attacks, then chain phantasms (pistol then GS since pistol is slower cast) between his attacks. All they need to do is hit their initial attack, don’t really plan on them surviving longer.

Summed up, dodge attacks, avoid red circles, use phantasms between it’s attacks, win. I did die once cos I missed a dodge otherwise it’s pretty straightforward.

@ErickDntn: That would be the final boss in Glint’s Lair who is pretty harsh to mesmers, luckily it’s easy to re-trait to so just takes a little longer than planned

Let me see if I get this right.
The OP makes several claims in absolute terms that the new story bosses are deliberately designed to prevent mesmers from finishing.
Several people point out that yes it is very doable on mesmers and offer suggestions.
OP and others jump on them saying they are noobs with no clue because OP is the worlds best dungeon speed runner.
Video by OP completely contradicting the absolute statements made by OP is not relevant because it took him 5 hours to do what others had previous suggested.
Did I miss something?

You miss the subtle difference between lenght and difficulty. The fights are doable by my dog playing a naked mesmer with scepter mainhand only. You’re all assuming miku is talking about difficulty, because you probably all thought you were da best ending that ls. However, he’s speaking about the nullification of more than half a profession from a mechanic oversight.

oxtred.7658:

You miss the subtle difference between lenght and difficulty. The fights are doable by my dog playing a naked mesmer with scepter mainhand only. You’re all assuming miku is talking about difficulty, because you probably all thought you were da best ending that ls. However, he’s speaking about the nullification of more than half a profession from a mechanic oversight.

He also showed via the video that this was not the case.

Yeah, because rng has nothing to do with that.

Yargesh.4965:

oxtred.7658:

You miss the subtle difference between lenght and difficulty. The fights are doable by my dog playing a naked mesmer with scepter mainhand only. You’re all assuming miku is talking about difficulty, because you probably all thought you were da best ending that ls. However, he’s speaking about the nullification of more than half a profession from a mechanic oversight.

He also showed via the video that this was not the case.

The way speedruns work is that you first work out exactly what conditions will produce the fastest time, then you reset hundreds of times until those conditions actually occur. A speedrun video has almost nothing in common with normal gameplay.

I’m certain that if some of the folks here would spend more time thinking about Miku’s post instead of trying to posit theories or tell him how to play, they might find that he has a very valid point about Mesmer mechanics.

He’s not asking for input on how to play the Mesmer but rather for a discussion regarding the LS and Mesmer mechanics. Perhaps the funniest thing has been the fool who linked his own video back to him as if to say L2P.

My take is that in an attempt to make their LS content “cheez” proof, Anet went over the top with AI nullification. If I were to put myself in their shoes and task myself to prevent content from being “cheezed” my first targets would be afk ranging and afk AI. My experience in the game to date has shown that a lot of general players will try to get through content in this manner if they’re unable to beat it through skilled play.

It’s probably some overcorrection for the AI in the Mesmer that’s the problem. Enough people have discussed it to warrant a forum topic. Don’t think the OP is off the mark.

@Saint: Not discounting mechanics since mechanics are against any AI based class in most games I’ve played (mesmer, ranger, necro with MM build?), but from the viewpoint of the OP, don’t see what the big deal is.

—
Not sure I see the issue being since no matter how much you try, the level of RNG is impossible to control, so the five hours was kind of a waste. Could’ve tried to use that time to try and minimise how much RNG impacts you to beat it in decent time rather than fighting an uphill battle you know is unbeatable. Not like they’ll survive more than one attack anyway which was my thinking for it and not the first time this has happened in the game, difference with these LS chapters is it’s concentrated and non stop like the Tergriff boss or Glint’s lair final boss with annoying AOE condi thing, unlike say.. the MF Transformers fight. At least there you can limit the RNG of attacks for awhile. Also speedrunning a semi RNG based class against a heavy RNG boss is asking for trouble.

Minor issue I have where things need to change with S2 living story if anything. Mesmer utilities need to be more useful so hoping future chapters will allow them to shine if illusions aren’t as effective against Mordrem overall compared to previous mobs. Only ranged Mordrem mob I think have been the Slingers which reflect doesn’t work on, or at least the only theoretical mob which it should work on (someone correct me if I’m wrong). Maybe Moredremoth just hates mesmers in general cos it gets confused with all the illusions and/or upset it will never get into the mesmer society Kasmeer is part of

Anyone mind posting a video where the thing that OP is talking about actually happens (and you know, not one that contradicts it)?

I wager even if you set it up it would not happen.

Let me actually look at this problem from a different perspective.
I’ve seen plenty of players in this game, they varied by skill, preparation, knowledge and other stuff. NPC AI in this game is not terrible, but it could undoubtedly use some tweaking. I have noticed, however, that there are (actually lots of) players, who behave really similarly to these NPCs. No idea what to do, randomly running around and getting downed as soon as the first AoE lands.
Do we really need to do something about illusions, pets and minions? I say that in this game there are players, who are often outsmarted by these NPCs. The real issue is with players like Miku, who get weighed down by this AI.
Maybe the strength of AI should scale with player’s skill level so that we get companions who are about as skilled and smart as we are. Otherwise there would be always a group of people getting unfair (dis-)advantage. Impossible to implement, I know, but still nice to think of.

The problem is not with all AI. Its with AI which dies in 1 hit. Basically mesmer clones. :P

It doesnt help that the aoe radius of the teragriffs charge is much larger than indicated and invisble.

Wait are we still talking about Hidden Arcana boss in eps 5 right?

I remember that it was Distorted Facet of Light, and it’s not the last boss, like the first one or the second. I tried the episode with 4 characters, Mesmer was the last. I would say that I realised then it was “less” fun to play with mesmer. Unlike other professions I play with (S/WH power ranger, P/P thief, staff elementalist, I used the build without any specification for the instance fyi), I was kind of forced how to do the boss with mesmer, not to use my illusions, either clones and phantasm, since they will instantly destroyed.

I know that illusion is not the only mesmer mechanics (they have mantra and everything else), but I think it would be so much better if you can play the way you want (Because the idea of if you play a certain build then you are a noob is just so stupid). Just put some drawbacks or penalties for every style the player plays, so people still can play every style they want to the fullest but still challenging.

Because, if I have to highlight my experience fighting against Distorted Facet of Light with mesmer, I only use mantra of pain and distraction and that trait to do damage when interrupt (although I wasn’t sure if I interrupted the boss :p) and only rely sword skill 1 and 2. I like the mechanism of the boss, feel challenged at first, but the fight was really long until I realise its repetitiveness and nothing challenging anymore, felt so restrained and not really fun.

EDIT: as for solution, I always think that if summons should also have immunity buff too, but for a shorter duration. idk probably for illusions (clones and phantasms) would last for 3 seconds? That would be a good time limit for a shatter mesmer to shatter the illusions and phantasm mesmer to do damage. That would be more fun and challenging I suppose.

But for the fights in the current LS, none of that holds true. Your very own video proves that (which you spent 5 hours making? really? my condolences… I have no idea why anyone would do that). Your clones live, phantasms live, they attack not even once, end of story. Whining about the boss has AoE attacks and that it moves is just silly.

What you call RNG is what I call smart use of skills (for instance not summoning phantasms when huge AoE is up), if you just spam all your skills as soon as they are up whitout second tought, that’s RNG. Or no, that’s not RNG, that’s just bad play.
If it actually made you think about when and how to use your skills, swap weapons or change traits, that’s a welcomed fight in an otherwise very static enviroment.

What’s hilarious and infuriating about this post: You say “your clones and phantasms live, why did you spend so many hours at this boss, its skill.” The REASON those phants are alive is because that video is a set of really, really good RNG he spent hours rolling for.

You don’t see all the many many many many times when the teragriff instantly blew up the three phantasms when he first starts charging. You can try and summon them sort of behind and to the side but 70-80% of the time he manages to smash two or three. There are times when you summon duelists and they walk right into his charge trail to die before attacking. After his first scream aoe, sometimes he will sometimes charge right into the phant you just summoned, sometimes he leaves them alone.

When the way the terragriff moves is random and thus, you have no way to predict where his charge trail or landing damage will be, there is no skillful placement – there is only rng. His attack pattern punishes mindlessly chasing which I assume what a design decision to challenge the player, but unfortunately that’s exactly what phantasms do, and the mesmer has no control over this.

It’s not as blatantly anti mesmer as the facet of light, but it’s still frustrating. It’s why this took me 5 minutes and could be easily re-executed everytime, and this (in which i shamlessly steal miku’s tactics) took me an entire morning of trying and retrying to get a reasonable time.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

The fights can be fun, but they are essencially frustrating for this one class that relies on low HP, slow hitting AI – Mesmer.

We had the issues with Hidden Arcana where the illusions wouldn’t hit the bosses in Glint lair because they blew up on summoning.
This exact same issue happens with this chapter. The fights are challenging BUT there is no fun in killing the boss with autoattacks.

Issues

• Mesmer looses potential 60%+ of his damage
• No other class suffers from this
• There’s so much AoE that phantasms barely live (Predator fight) or the boss hits so frequently and randomly that their survival is tied to RNG (Trasher).

This is frustrating and unfair. My solutions? Give phantasms possible immunity (not that Duelist trait line crap doing nonthing anyways) to aoe, or even damage reduction? Start to design fights FOR EVERY CLASS WITHOUT LEAVING ONE OUT (its the case for necros on trasher too afaik, DS specs at least).

Earlier in LS 1 rangers suffered from this due to crappy pet AI and Anet tying a good 40% of their damage up in their pets. The pets still suffer from this (lack of dodging out of red circles, etc..) Mesmers are just getting hit harder due to the instant clone/phantasm death thing. Just wanted to point that out. ArenaNet needs to stop making pet unfriendly encounters that cripple the pet classes by either fixing the pets in these encounters or stop putting in punitive pet encounters.

As a mesmer player I too found this very annoying / frustrating.

This thread is bad

Mesmers sure as hell have been making a lot of gold by selling ports to hard to reach puzzle and coin locations, for a class that’s benn left out. Anet decided to throw the class a bone, and the whining abruptly ceased. I wonder how long it will take before some mediocre player starts to complain about how disadvantaged their class is.

Since this thread got necro’d and I haven’t seen it before I’d like to drop my whine in this as well. As someone who mains a phantasm mesmer, the conditions were absolutely obnoxious especially the blinds and the aoe was getting out of hand for many of the episodes.

Unless you have played through all the episodes on mesmer then people shouldn’t pretend like they have insight on this, because they don’t. It was 10 times easier on my thief and that is saying something.