Guild Wars 2

personally i love the Deceptive Evasion nerf, i hope they nerf clone spammers through the ground, i play pvp, i want to fight players not the AI they spam because they’re too useless to fight for themselves…

i write this after rage quitting from my last game against a team with 3 mesmers that did nothing but run away, stealth and spam AI.

AI needs removing from pvp entirely. PVP PLAYER VS PLAYER

Liewec.2896:

personally i love the Deceptive Evasion nerf, i hope they nerf clone spammers through the ground, i play pvp, i want to fight players not the AI they spam because they’re too useless to fight for themselves…

i write this after rage quitting from my last game against a team with 3 mesmers that did nothing but run away, stealth and spam AI.

AI needs removing from pvp entirely. PVP PLAYER VS PLAYER

Please keep the post constructive. If you’re going to have any thoughts regarding what I said then please post them, but try and make it worth reading. Rather than using this thread to vent your rage because you quit a game prematurely to I’m assuming PU mesmers based off your stealth comment.

Countless

Liewec.2896:

personally i love the Deceptive Evasion nerf, i hope they nerf clone spammers through the ground, i play pvp, i want to fight players not the AI they spam because they’re too useless to fight for themselves…

i write this after rage quitting from my last game against a team with 3 mesmers that did nothing but run away, stealth and spam AI.

AI needs removing from pvp entirely. PVP PLAYER VS PLAYER

lol sure if anet nerfes all core mechanics of the mes, then we are ready for a new buff, new defensive traits and finally new stuff in wvw, where we really do need buffs as we are veilbots. at least u can play all 3 game modes and are not forced to be a utilitybot and after veil sitting on the side for the ret of the fight.

I don’t think the developers understand the issues Mesmer’s have in the current meta. I would advise them to go shatter and make sure to find a spvp match with warriors, rangers and thieves.

Then maybe:

• they would understand why the clones are important.

• Maybe they would also understand why shatter Mesmer’s are becoming a rare sight.

• Maybe they would understand, why it is that the Mesmer is not really needed on teams.

• They will get to experience the joy of encountering thieves and understand just how painful that is.

• They will come to realize, that even as full glass, taking a warrior down is a tedious slow task.

• They will get to fight engineers and understand why you need to be able to dodge and create a clone in front of you.

• They will understand that a shatter mesmer has very little defense outside of dodges.

• They will experience how hard it is to disengage from a fight running slower than most.

Yes, I think that is exactly what they should do.

Instead, they sit and giggle about Mesmer nerfs and how they all play warrior (no surprise there).

If they change one of the most important mechanics of Mesmer’s, then at least they should attempt to understand the profession and how it will affect more than one build.

Reesha.7901:

I don’t think the developers understand the issues

That seems to sum up things just nicely.

Mesmers will be completely out of the meta after the 21st.
With the new bugged confounding suggestions mesmers were making a comeback. You can argue that the trait was too strong, but it was still a 30 point investment that made players drop iPersona, and in the end it doesn’t feel that op when compared to other certain things in the game, and if it brings build diversity, I would have seen no problem in updating the trait to include the buff to chaos storm. But whatever, the trait is bugged and i can accept it, no problem.

But then, in one patch, you do a massive hit on shatter mesmer. You shave half of the dodging on a class that even with perma vigor uses less dodges for defense than other classes without it, and also do a pretty big hit on deceptive evasion to help the noobs not destroy their clones. I don’t give a crap about clone on death, the build isn’t even that strong and instead of fixing the problems with it, you guys are just taking the lazy way and straight up removing it. Why does shatter mesmer has to take such a big hit in both offense and defense? I mean, you take a super soft approach on the most broken meta class, the class that is defining the meta (8% healing cut? Really?), and then you take a dump on a class that was making a comeback and will be shelved again. These changes would have been good before all the ramp up in damage that you guys caused. If you had done this 1 year ago, before buffing necros, s/d thieves, warriors and whatnot, these would have been great, but now? Damage for everything else is going UP while mesmer’s is going down.

And to anyone saying deceptive evasion doesn’t hit shatter mesmer, it really does. If you have 3 clones out there, and you tele to a ledge and some s/d thief ports after you, good luck getting more clones out near you to peel him off. Anyway, enjoy that thief/ranger/warrior/guardian meta, anet enjoys it too.

EDIT: Suggestion, reduce critical infusion by 8% k?

jimmyimo.2089:

I doubt it has any thing to do with clone death builds. Otherwise they would have just made the clone overcast not count as “kill” but a (non-damaging) shatter.

I personally think they just want to force PU mesmers so the profession is easier to play for the casuals; every thing they ever did was for casuals.

Wrong, they mentioned clone on death specifically in the developer live stream regarding deceptive evasion. Go to 41:50 in the link below. Please try and keep up

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/496005243

Countless

Agreed. We have been begging for build diversity forever, and when mesmers finally find another semi viable spec, They destroy it..

Apparently clone death build is “cheese”. This shows how clueless Aanet devs really are about this game. Clone death mesmers (with illusionary retribution) have probably the highest skillcap out of any mesmer spec, it’s basically a shatter spec that you also have to keep count of your clone spawn order so you know precisely when to explode your first spawned clone in range of your enemy. Otherwise you play it just like a shatter build until your CoF and diversion shatters are on CD, and you can guarantee to land your clone death explosions.

Yes, the build has a low skill floor, as i’m sure there are many players who cheese it without using any shatters and just spamming clones without keeping count or knowing if any specific clone death will be in range of anything. But they will not get very far, until they try reach the skill cap of the build. Isn’t that what a good guild is Aanet? a build with a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling?

But instead of nerfing the spec Aanet will just obliterate the build and any build similar to it. Yet spirit rangers have been the meta since forever. Why are spirit rangers not considered “cheese”? MM necros? What defines cheese Aanet, because i have no idea anymore.

PS. offtopic but the only reason you still see some mesmers in high lvl tpvp is portal (and bugged confouding suggestions), im sure that is not considered good class balance. When a single utility is that strong you can never achieve proper balance.

As I main a mesmer too and understand the mechanics of a mesmer and traits etc…, they are nerfing what they wanted mesmer to be. Its sad that mesmer has to deal with AI to do Dmg, but that’s the way they wanted mesmer to do dmg. Now this deceptive evasion trait nerf, will not only hurt “On Death” builds, its going to hurt every build. Even Phantasmal mesmers bring deceptive evasion. Its just too good to not bring. Shatter mesmers are going to get put back into un-Meta viable category right next to Eles, which is sad. Mesmers were border lining viability, and now they will not be able too.

ANet, please read this thread, listen to Countless, and re-adjust accordingly.

Although, if the past is any indicator, the possibility of averting the Deceptive Evasion nerf is virtually zero

Something had to give. When you have 3 iduelists each standing on 45 degree’s angles from each other, you truly begin to know how Jfk did with triangulate cross fire. Clones and phantasms in general were creating situations of catch 22. Which do you go for?..destroy the clones before they get shattered and thus suffer some small stacking conditions?..leave the clones and go for the source with will blink/portal/gap step/stealth and divert and shatter you anyway and produce new clones every step of the way..only go for phantasms if they’re building up?..I see a izerker and iswordsman..should i disengage and remove them knowing full well they are probably already off cool down and will be replaced?…It was making situations where the mesmer had the divide and conquer card up their sleeve in 1 vs 1 situations..but when divide and conquer becomes making a player reach for brass hops that is when I think the dev’s have accurately called it “Cheesing it up.” However to firmly and accurately label this, it is their cheese they created.

I can understand the mesmer community is upset by this..the same as the necro community is saying goodbye to dhuumfire and minions..the same as warrior is saying goodbye to longbow/hammer and healing signet..the same as engi is going to have to live with turret changes. The simple fact is these stated professions were the strongest overall and each need a serious tone in some way. We asked for this against certain professions and we got what we wanted,..just the same as others asked for us to be hit and they got what they wanted. Something big needed to happen to all of us (apart from guardian who quietly sits in the corner knowing nothing big will ever happen to them) so we could eventually let ele shine again.

any nerf to thier fav. class will suck… but player will lean on other build and i turn it will be the new meta or must have trait line. i just hope they dont start nerfing everything and make it like the ele basicly the cry babies of pvp community won. they cry bout Ai now anet listen to them since the good players doesnt complain. this is what u get.

As a shatter mesmer this is definitely going to lower my ability to fight some classes. For example when fighting an engi or spirit ranger, I am having to dodge to make clones to hide behind. Since I already have kitten for condi cleanse just a few hits will screw me. With this change it just serves to limit your movement, and your ability to sustain.

I am already basically hard countered by a good thief if they get a good burst on me, this even further limits my ability to react to such a class if I already have three clones up.

I agree with countless in that if they dislike clone death so much they should just nerf that trait specifically.

I believe DE will be more balanced across mesmers builds now (phantasm/shater and PU). The fact that it will not create clones if the mesmer has 3 ilusions up, it will promote skill play and not the old clone spamming.
It was a step in the right direction.

I believe those two changes were not only done to address “balancing issues”, but to put the game closer to what Anet wants it to be (and what we want it to be, when we look beyond the changes done to our main classes).

Destroying illusions was meant to be a way to counter mesmers, but outside of really high aoe spam, that was never an effective tactic due to how easy and fast it is for a Mesmer to generate them. Against clone-death builds, it’s even worse: you are punished for “punishing” them. Mesmers have been rolling and “spamming” illusions since release, so the best way to deal with them has almost always been the shallower “just detect the real player and hit them hard!” instead of a more complex, although idealized scenario, where giving priority to clones could be a good alternative.

DE (alongside CI) was the effect that was most responsible for this situation, by allowing mesmers to spawn new clones every 5 seconds. DE is, therefore, not being nerfed once, but twice, because of the changes to CI too. An alternative could be to move it up to grandmaster tier, but I would argue that this would create less build diversity (by locking the player out of 10 trait points) without toning down the problem itself.

The changes done to Critical Infusion, specifically, are officially part of a plan (by Anet’s words) to tone down vigor traits across the game. So that dodges can be less spammy and more valuable to GW2’s combat.

This should also tone down how strong and highly durable an offensive mesmer is in 1v1 scenarios, which in turn, can open up new doors to buff the class in other areas, like more or stronger team-combat effects.

But keep in mind that my only experience with mesmer is with an alt character. I’m not a veteran mesmer, so my thoughts in this post might be flawed or my analysis on the mesmer might not be very deep.

I’ve played mesmer since forever in tpvp and soloqueue and i can say that i don’t like this changes…

First of all i completely agree with Countless when it comes to straigth up nerfing the vigor from shatters, they could have just put this trait high above somewhere in master or grandmaster.. instead they just nerfed it forcing you to go into chaos tree.

Second of all, the deceptive evasion change is a trully nerf in the class… any experienced mesmer (except if you’re playing PU which Anet is forcing us to now) knows how much of a pain is to fight thiefs, or anything if you can’t use your clones to block attacks (longbow warriors). And also as Helseth mentioned, how i’m supposed to daze a thief who just popped on me without investing 30 points in the Illusions tree now?

That change will “shave” as Anet likes to put it, any build outside PU. Where is the build diversity ? And you’re forcing mesmers to play one of the most cheese and low skill floor specs from mesmers. Needless to say that one of the main issues with mesmers which outside their teleports, they’re slow as kitten, haven’t been addressed yet.

Arena net, what the kitten ?

So they are sorting the issue of clone spamming (which really needed nerfing badly), but they are doing it in a way that means most mesmer specs will also be nerfed. Hmmm…………

I somehow get the feeling that even though everyone things the warrior is OP, I suspect they will get a buff with the changes as well. Anet has zero clue about what it is doing.

I stand by my statement I made a few months ago. ANet did not make this game, they bought it. It explains how little they seem to understand.

Bumping for the sake of common sense.

I agree with everything that has been said by OP.

Just to put some of my own perspective on how my experience with the changes over the past few patches:

1. Illusionist Celerity nerf = I turn to 20/20/0/0/30 basic shatter build

2. Prismatic Understanding introduced = Borderline OP in spvp, not so great in tpvp so I stick with shatter although I become increasingly more of a burden to the team due to the amount of conditions/damage put out by other classes cough warriors

3. Confounding Suggestions introduced = I start running 30/20/20/0/0 to support mid fights better with my lockdown abilities… only to find out that it is bugged and will soon be nerfed —--back to shatter 20/20/0/0/30 then

4. Deceptive Evasion change announced = Goodbye dodge-dazing, fast shatter burst. Hello slow moving clones stuck to inanimate objects and more predictable burst.

5. ???? Phantasm? PU?

All is vain indeed

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

I can understand the mesmer community is upset by this..the same as the necro community is saying goodbye to dhuumfire and minions..the same as warrior is saying goodbye to longbow/hammer and healing signet..the same as engi is going to have to live with turret changes. The simple fact is these stated professions were the strongest overall and each need a serious tone in some way. We asked for this against certain professions and we got what we wanted,..just the same as others asked for us to be hit and they got what they wanted. Something big needed to happen to all of us (apart from guardian who quietly sits in the corner knowing nothing big will ever happen to them) so we could eventually let ele shine again.

The difference is that the Warrior “nerfs”, the Necro nerfs and the turret nerfs do not impact on pretty much every build that that class can spec around. However, DE+Vigour changes impact massively on the core mechanic of the Mesmer and thus on every single build that it can spec for.

I get that the developers want to reduce the on-clone-death functionality and re-balance the risk/reward for the PU Condi build. I have no qualms with that.

However, to address an issue you should identify the root-cause and tackle that. The problem with the proposed “solution” is that clone generation through dodges is not the root cause. What needs to be looked at potentially are:

- That clones apply conditions when they get overridden, rather than killed.
- That some on-clone-death traits are perhaps too strong or synergise too well

Now, Mesmers need sufficient clone generation because their Shatters are reliant on it. If you limit this too much, you basically start cutting into one of the key elements of our mechanic (i.e. shatters) and thus disproportionally impact on our effectiveness. Let’s look at the builds that a Mesmer can utilise:

- PU condition: actively tries not to user Shatters, except defensively
- Phantasm: opportunistically but very infrequently uses Shatters
- Mantra: uses most Shatters on a fairly frequent basis
- Lockdown: uses F1, F3 and F4 on a very frequent basis.
- Shatter: is heaviliy reliant on all Shatters, except perhaps F2

By addressing DE (rather than on-clone-death traits or condis on clone-override) you basically negatively impact on all our builds, except the one that you’re trying to target. And it not only impacts our Shatters, it impacts our game-play in general as others have already described (e.g. defensively popping a clone when a thief unstealths, etc).

What is worse, you’ll end up moving us from one “cheese” and passive build (i.e. PU Condi) into another (i.e. Phantasm), whilst the builds that rely heavily on Shatters, timing, disrupts, immobilise and understanding your opponents suffer most.

On the point of vigour… I get that you are trying to reduce the number of dodges in-game, but this needs to be done on a class-by-class basis rather than as a blanket-approach. Lighter classes such as the Mesmer inherently need more mobility and evasion compared to, say, a Warrior.

As such, I’d strongly argue you to reconsider this change.

Exactly as Marsares said, the problem is not trying to nerf the clone on death issue.. but they just choose the wrong approach, completely destroying one of the core mechanics that mesmers use!

“On the point of vigour… I get that you are trying to reduce the number of dodges in-game, but this needs to be done on a class-by-class basis rather than as a blanket-approach. Lighter classes such as the Mesmer inherently need more mobility and evasion compared to, say, a Warrior.”

Well said. Also I would like to add a few things that also need to be considered when it comes to clone on death that some people don’t realize, which is the fact that your choice of weapon sets highly dictate whether or not your clone on death conditions hit at all.

The reason I say this is, is because the only weapon mesmer has that forces your clones to run into melee range of your target is main hand sword. Scepter, staff, and greatsword clones stand in place and auto attack from the point in which you dodge from deceptive evasion. The only time this changes if the target runs out of line of sight, then the clones follow. Torch, pistol, and off hand sword don’t factor in because they are not considered main hand weapons obviously.

So you also have to take into account that even though there are clones on the field, you might not even get that damage, weapon sets, positioning, & simply ranging the clones play a big factor at negating clone on death damage. Also something else to consider with debilitating dissipation is that it’s not guaranteed damage.

When it comes to shattering with clone on death it is also very situational, but not unheard of. Which is another common misconception. for example if your target is going to flee it’s wise to shatter because by the time your target gets distance it’s more than likely than he will be out of range before your clones/phantasms can catch up and do damage accordingly. Same thing with down body pressure. Also wise to shatter in between your phantasm recharge because once the target is stomped your illusions are no longer. So it’s best to get in that last bit of physical damage to ensure the stomp, or a daze on another target who is foolish enough to res without stab. Just word for thought.

But as I said before, making the clone on death blockable would solve alout of problems in my humble opinion.

Countless

What I find weird is that:

- at my level of play (65-70%), where PU mesmer dominate (both in numbers and in 1v1) and I don’t expect much change, my clones get annihilated faster than I can generate them because many players still can’t figure out where the mesmer is (hint: these days, it’s the one with the flashy purple glory booster icon).

- at higher level of play, where mesmer are under represented, clones are less targetted and team-oriented mesmer don’t play PU (can’t kill a bunker fast enough, or cap, or keep a cap). There the nerf hits hard the shatter specs where positioning the clones for defense or for shatter was more important than the ‘on death’ condition.

This planned change is totally going in the wrong direction. Is there anybody out there, who really thinks this is a good idea?

Reduce clone spam? With the reduction of vigor and probably sigil of energy change it should already hurt that.
Reduce clone-on-death-spam to overwrite existing clones? Bugfix or just rebalance the on-death traits.

Darnacus.5961:

What I find weird is that:

- at my level of play (65-70%), where PU mesmer dominate (both in numbers and in 1v1) and I don’t expect much change, my clones get annihilated faster than I can generate them because many players still can’t figure out where the mesmer is (hint: these days, it’s the one with the flashy purple glory booster icon).

- at higher level of play, where mesmer are under represented, clones are less targetted and team-oriented mesmer don’t play PU (can’t kill a bunker fast enough, or cap, or keep a cap). There the nerf hits hard the shatter specs where positioning the clones for defense or for shatter was more important than the ‘on death’ condition.

This this and this.
+ what Teutos just said above too!

This is the same problem that elementalists have with renewing stamina and elemental attunement. Overpowered traits that should have been addressed earlier in the game, but as they weren’t, the professions have been entirely balanced around them.

So as long as those traits remain overpowered, players will be forced to pick them, but if those traits are nerfed, the base functionality of the classes will have to get a boost to work.

I do think the nerfs are mostly fine by themselves, but if Anet is not sensible and does not quickly acts on the negative consequences it causes, then mesmers will probably be the next eles for a few months (and they’re already close to that).

Of course, all of this wouldn’t be a problem if the other cheese in the game was toned down too. Especially, the aoe/ cleave spam that demands crazy clone generation to remain competitive.

They have to nerf the vigor. It is one of the most OP traits in the game. SO is clone on dodge too. Every other class should be nerfed too. With significant nerfs to necro and mesmer we are making some progress. Hopefully they do the same to warrior and ranger at some point although not holding my breath.

Lordrosicky.5813:

They have to nerf the vigor. It is one of the most OP traits in the game. SO is clone on dodge too. Every other class should be nerfed too. With significant nerfs to necro and mesmer we are making some progress. Hopefully they do the same to warrior and ranger at some point although not holding my breath.

Shatter mesmers are barely in the meta even with bugged confouding suggestions, and the vigor nerf affects shatter mes more than any other spec.

There’s nothing wrong with having to wait until one of your clones die before dodging. Vigor is the best boon in the game, and only spending 5 points to get perma dodging, especially since Zerker gives around 40% crit chance by itself, is pretty stupid.

I’m actually somewhat encouraged by the most recent cast b/c Peters was talking about wanting skill to be more of an emphasis. It seems like they’re moving away from the “some eles just stay in one attunement” casual babysitting mentality.

jmatb.6307:

I’m actually somewhat encouraged by the most recent cast b/c Peters was talking about wanting skill to be more of an emphasis. It seems like they’re moving away from the “some eles just stay in one attunement” casual babysitting mentality.

So you’re happy that this change will drive most Mesmers into the AI-driven passive game-play Phantasm spec, as it’s the only spec that’ll benefit from these changes, whilst builds that require skill such as mantra, shatter and lockdown get nerfed and most likely become unviable as they are already marginal to play at best.

Pushing the Mesmer from one cheesy build into the other has nothing to do with skill-based gameplay.

jmatb.6307:

There’s nothing wrong with having to wait until one of your clones die before dodging. Vigor is the best boon in the game, and only spending 5 points to get perma dodging, especially since Zerker gives around 40% crit chance by itself, is pretty stupid.

I’m actually somewhat encouraged by the most recent cast b/c Peters was talking about wanting skill to be more of an emphasis. It seems like they’re moving away from the “some eles just stay in one attunement” casual babysitting mentality.

It is absolutely encouraging that the devs seem to have shifted their mentality towards a more skill based meta. This issue though is that making changes off of philosophy alone does not equal better play. I understand that only investing 5 points to get permanent vigor is an issue (for both guardian and mesmer, with guardian being much less problematic because crits are harder to come by). A nerf is warranted but the way in which it is being done is not optimal for the play style necessary to be successful (for both guardian and mesmer). Why not move the trait to a higher tier? Why not make the trait 3 seconds of vigor every 5 seconds (thus making it useful on its own, but also encouraging boon duration to achieve greater synergy)?

The deceptive evasion nerf on the other hand, doesn’t really make sense to me. As others have stated, this is a nerf to ALL mesmer builds not just clone on death. If clone on death is the issue the devs want to address, then please devise a way to affect it without changing the entire profession. Making clone death blockable is a great suggestion. Hell, why not change the mechanic so that replacing a clone doesn’t count as a clone death?

candlecan.9827:

jmatb.6307:

There’s nothing wrong with having to wait until one of your clones die before dodging. Vigor is the best boon in the game, and only spending 5 points to get perma dodging, especially since Zerker gives around 40% crit chance by itself, is pretty stupid.

I’m actually somewhat encouraged by the most recent cast b/c Peters was talking about wanting skill to be more of an emphasis. It seems like they’re moving away from the “some eles just stay in one attunement” casual babysitting mentality.

It is absolutely encouraging that the devs seem to have shifted their mentality towards a more skill based meta. This issue though is that making changes off of philosophy alone does not equal better play. I understand that only investing 5 points to get permanent vigor is an issue (for both guardian and mesmer, with guardian being much less problematic because crits are harder to come by). A nerf is warranted but the way in which it is being done is not optimal for the play style necessary to be successful (for both guardian and mesmer). Why not move the trait to a higher tier? Why not make the trait 3 seconds of vigor every 5 seconds (thus making it useful on its own, but also encouraging boon duration to achieve greater synergy)?

The deceptive evasion nerf on the other hand, doesn’t really make sense to me. As others have stated, this is a nerf to ALL mesmer builds not just clone on death. If clone on death is the issue the devs want to address, then please devise a way to affect it without changing the entire profession. Making clone death blockable is a great suggestion. Hell, why not change the mechanic so that replacing a clone doesn’t count as a clone death?

Very good post. And the suggestions for the clone on death are very intelligent, they would pretty much clear the whole issue to be honest.

Perma dodging is stupid, and I’m not sold that the Mesmer is being ripped off.

How is it a bad thing to establish a ground rule that if you have all your illusions up that you don’t get anything from DE?

If anything that encourages the Mesmer players to pay attention more, not reward them for wasting clones. Clone on Death should be a defensive mechanism, not an offensive one.

jmatb.6307:

Perma dodging is stupid, and I’m not sold that the Mesmer is being ripped off.

How is it a bad thing to establish a ground rule that if you have all your illusions up that you don’t get anything from DE?

If anything that encourages the Mesmer players to pay attention more, not reward them for wasting clones. Clone on Death should be a defensive mechanism, not an offensive one.

I don’t think anyone here is arguing for perma dodging. Mesmer is so dependent upon dodging that a nerf to this degree could have very dramatic changes to the play-style and viability of the class. Most people are just expressing their concern regarding this as well as trying to suggest better solutions than the one proposed on Ready-Up.

To your second point, the DE change might seem like nothing big but there are many situations in which this could entirely change fights. To steal from another thread just to give you some examples (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Alashya-on-Mesmer-Changes/first#post3522467)

-Currently against some professions you are going to dodge backwards to create a clone between you and your opponent, so that the clone can soak the damage. Not that you can do the whole dodging back, against certain profession you have to use this, otherwise you’ll just die. Now that will no longer be possible.

-Another example is the terrain unevenness. F.e. I get attacked outside of the clocktower, dodge, then go into the clocktower, and now can not use one of my clones, because he is outside (or stuck on a different position). Now even if I dodge multiple times inside the clocktower, my first shatter will only contain a very very low number of useful clones. It could be possible, that the whole shatter is wastes, because the clones are stuck somewhere.

-Imagine your three clones are standing at a certain range, but you want to create a clone next to you, to get a good daze off. This will also no longer be possible.

hate me all you want, but i welcome less AI

Cynz.9437:

hate me all you want, but i welcome less AI

If anything these changes will actually push the mesmer meta further in the direction of stealth and AI dependency. So we are on the same page then?

Am i completely missing something here? Yea clone death/suicide builds are fun…. but im pretty sure they’re not so good that they are even close to meta at higher level gameplay. Reason being is that it really doesn’t provide any specific function to the team. Its pretty solid in 1v1 fights but the fights typically take too long and support will arrive at their home to push you away, not to mention that condi mesmer is absolutely terrible vs anything with condi immunities (engi’s ele’s warriors). The build isn’t all that great in group fights, and its still pretty slow to be a roamer. Kind of plays out like an off-tank support build. I play this style in hotjoins for kittens and giggles. If im tpvping its shatter cat all the way. This is seriously going to hurt the condi mesmer, as well as all other DE based builds. The only build i forsee this helping is phantasm builds, which don’t really need DE anyway….

On that note, it will be somewhat nice to be able to have 3 phantasms up with DE… i just don’t think its worth the trade off..

It’s like…
My Grandma on General Patton’s Manouvers.
She saw the world war, so she probably knows best which tactic would be better. Better than Patton.

Does she?

Do you?

it is like they gave us clone mechanics, but they want us to struggle while using it… da hell

well, i think people just got upset the way it was presented to us. until that last livestream i had my ups and downs with believeing in the balance team, but this last stream i was soo dissappointed and felt disrespected due to the way the devs talked about the nerfs. i was sooo hoping we would finally get something that would help us in wvw. everything that worked was nerfed to the ground and now all we can do in orgnized raids is veil… and there is no end to this terrible problem as it seems. we need new skills or we will be stuck in wvw as utilitybots forever.

hey at least you didn’t get thief threatment

“we have great things comming for thieves”
" choke bomb poison will last 2 sec now instead of 3"
……okay

yup…veil bot and portal bot.. that’s our sole purposes in WvW now….

Liewec.2896:

personally i love the Deceptive Evasion nerf, i hope they nerf clone spammers through the ground, i play pvp, i want to fight players not the AI they spam because they’re too useless to fight for themselves…

i write this after rage quitting from my last game against a team with 3 mesmers that did nothing but run away, stealth and spam AI.

AI needs removing from pvp entirely. PVP PLAYER VS PLAYER

You clearly don’t understand how Mesmer works. The primary source of Mesmer damage is from the illusions, whether they are phantasms, being shattered, or giving conditions upon death.

DirtyBird.6093:

Am i completely missing something here? Yea clone death/suicide builds are fun…. but im pretty sure they’re not so good that they are even close to meta at higher level gameplay. Reason being is that it really doesn’t provide any specific function to the team. Its pretty solid in 1v1 fights but the fights typically take too long and support will arrive at their home to push you away, not to mention that condi mesmer is absolutely terrible vs anything with condi immunities (engi’s ele’s warriors). The build isn’t all that great in group fights, and its still pretty slow to be a roamer. Kind of plays out like an off-tank support build. I play this style in hotjoins for kittens and giggles. If im tpvping its shatter cat all the way. This is seriously going to hurt the condi mesmer, as well as all other DE based builds. The only build i forsee this helping is phantasm builds, which don’t really need DE anyway….

On that note, it will be somewhat nice to be able to have 3 phantasms up with DE… i just don’t think its worth the trade off..

This is going to hurt shatter builds, too.