Guild Wars 2

Keep in mind that these suggestions are aimed for PvE, not PvP. I love this profession, but I think there is room for improvement on their primary class mechanic.

I’m still very low level (15), but I’ve already seen a few problems regarding phantasms and clones which could be resolved with pretty simple changes.

1) Clones and phantasms disappear too quickly in groups of weak mobs, making them pretty useless unless you destroy them as they get created. Sometimes, the mob will die as quickly without a phantasm and since it will disappear right after, I don’t even bother summoning it.
This problem is also true on groups of 2 or 3 mobs. If I go all out on one mob, I’ll find myself stuck with everything on cooldown for the other ones.
Suggestion) Make them stay a couple seconds after your target is killed. If you start attacking a new target, they stay “alive” and switch to your new target. This could be as low as 2 or 3 seconds.

2) Clones can overwrite phantasms. This problem usually appears against a boss or an elite (because of the problem stated in 1). If the battle goes on for a certain time, I’ll usually get comfortable with 1 to 3 phantasms. At that point, I’ll need to refrain myself from using attacks that create clones, even if they do good damage or CC. This can get pretty frustrating.
Suggestion) Phantasms can overwrite clones, but clones can’t overwrite phantasms.

3) The F1 to F4 skills destroy everything. Pretty much the same problem as #2. Those skills are good enough to sacrifice clones, but not phantasms! Even if I only have one active phantasm and 2 clones, I’ll feel bad about using those skills.
Suggestion) Have to skills sacrifice clones only.

Mega-suggestion regarding problems 2 and 3) Nothing overwrites. This would make you have to plan your skills (to have the good combination of clones/phantasms out at the same time) AND would create an incentive to use the F1 to F4 skills.

4) Hard to know what is currently summoned (especially in zerg rushs)
Suggestion) Have the circles (on the UI) be a different color for clones and for phantasms.

5) Not really a problem, but it would be nice to see the clones move, dodge and use other skills, instead of staying at the same spot and spamming Skill 1! I think this could be good for PvP to create that “mindblown” state the Mesmer is supposed to be all about.
I haven’t been there myself, but I think the training Mesmers in the Mists are pretty good a mimicking the moves of a real player? Couldn’t their code be transferred to the clones?

Oh and I forgot to say…

Another suggestion to #1 would be to keep it the way it is right now, but add some AoE damage or a random boon/condition whenever the illusions shatter because you just killed the target.

And for my mega-suggestion to #2 and #3, I forgot to mention that the phantasms would have a maximum number of attacks (something around 3) before they automatically shatter.