Guild Wars 2

—the clones and phantasms

Alright, sounding like a troll here because those are the essential parts of mesmers in GW2, right? But here’s what I observe: in most unranked games, regardless of skills, fighting any mesmer in situations beyond 1v1 becomes easy so long as there is one person that Ctrl+T the real one and the other(s) T to focus fire. Once you’re pass this really technical barrier, mesmers are just squishy zerkers—and frankly they’re not even reliable at it. Illusions that are about to shatter charge at you with this quite obvious, standard movement animation I am sure most players at my level of skill or above me can dodge easily. And I consider myself a very average player.

So at the same time, newbs claim mesmers to be OP, unkillable, game-breaking yadayadayada because they could be spamming all their bursts on 1 illusion and then getting killed when the real one comes out—and they still have little idea how to break that barrier which is identifying the real ones from clones. I think this is also why every viable mesmer build involves Dueling X (Deceptive Evasion) because dodge-made clones really gives you free reign over noobs which is…admittedly fun.
Meanwhile, in competitive games mesmers become underpowered and have such limited place because almost every player on that level can tell a real mesmer from clones without even paying much attention.

My suggestion: Combine mesmer clones and phantasms—in fact, how about making them all phantasms so they have this purple shape everyone can immediately tell. And then make all phantasms more durable, hit harder when Shatter skills be unblockable without traits so the balance team can focus more on balancing the numbers rather than mechanics. Playing most PvP games as Guardian, Necromancer and Elementalist, I think Mesmer has so many skills that rely on the opponent’s inability to read information to win it is not really possible to make it in line with others if we don’t change its nature

What do you think?

I have seen people stomping the downstate-clone even tho the mesmer has a red arrow over his head. So, how obvious should the mesmer look like, if even a red arrow does not help?

“I think Mesmer has so many skills that rely on the opponent’s inability to read information to win it is not really possible to make it in line with others if we don’t change its nature.”

No, not any more so than other professions: ability to read information has to do more with when to dodge a phantasm attack or negate a shatter, and so has nothing to do with clone production. You said yourself the Ctrl+T mesmer focus fire is a TECHNICAL barrier, having 3 phantasms on the screen so readily available to spawn would just worsen it.

Ferik.3127:

So at the same time, newbs claim mesmers to be OP, unkillable, game-breaking yadayadayada

Newbies by definition have no clue what they’re talking about. They also say everything is OP, unkillable, game-breaking, &c. Pretty sure you could find a thoughtless or inexperienced player who’ll tell you that guardian mace, engie medkits, and necro mobility are all OP.

So, I think really the right move is to mostly ignore them.

That said, updating the Mists NPCs to be more like their supposed classes would help a lot, though. Give the necro NPC death shroud. Make the mesmer spawn clones and shatter. Make the ele switch attunements quickly (using a pretty bad precoded rotation, perhaps, but that’ll still give more of a feel for “okay, here’s what happens when they pop into earth/water”). Give the engie a bit more turret/kit stuff. Make the thief a melee fighter that uses a lot of stealth. Et cetera. Predictable NPCs don’t teach you that much about opponents, but at least they’re a way to try a simple fight over and over and over again until you learn some basics.