Guild Wars 2

I play a clone death mesmer. In essense I play as a Condi Shatter Mesmer.

During actual games though, clones are too weak to survive aoe fields. Anyone who plays pvp will realize that AOE is pervasive. Clone death means that other classes can’t just use a passive AOE counter to destroy my damage.

So, Mesmer that I am, I resort to trickery. I obviously shatter into a Guardian. They pull one of their AOEs to destroy the incoming clones. Surprise!

A thief jumps me thinking that I won’t be able to shatter on them, because there Dagger Storm will wipe the clones and phantasms. Surprise!

An elementalist ranges me, knowing that the lava fount and fire fields will destroy any clones I attempt to shatter with. Surprise!

A minion master Necro closes me, thinking that the minions will trash my targeting and eliminate clones. Surprise!

The kind of play that “grouch” complained about, simply dodging to destroy clones could be fixed with one simple change. If there are already 3 clones/phantasms out, dodging doesn’t produce another one.

Well played, Clone Death isn’t a passive mode at all. It enables shatter play in an environment where clones are otherwise only slightly better than worthless.

No way. Nooooo.

Would rather clones being shattered to be indestructible and make the phantasm trait that provides summoning invulnerability extend to clones.

Clone death at all, let alone baseline? Nooooo.

Or just boosting clone health overall rather than invul.

Where its a challenge to destroy the clones but not impossible.

I’d go with that alternative, though the whining would be epic. Think about it, a decoy that I want you to destroy is exactly the personality of a Mesmer.

“Whatever you do, please don’t throw me in that there briar patch.”

misquoting Brer Rabbit

For me Condi shatter is one of, if not the, worst build in game. If any build deserves to be removed from the game, it’s that one.

Your dislike of a particular build is not a reason to remove it from the game. If it were, rangers and engineers would have long ago vanished from the game in my view.

I claim that being able to trait Condi Clone Death makes me able to shatter with some chance of doing damage. AOE is so pervasive that players can PASSIVELY prevent me from shattering.

Not sure what this passive AOE is that you speak of…

I mean that spamming AOE destroys the ability to shatter without requiring any skill or additional action on the part of the defending player.

One of the more egregious examples of this is the turret engi. Without clone death traited, shatter has a very low chance of even damaging the defender. Barrage does the same for ranger. Fields for elementalist. Ground based signs for guardians. Fire fields for warrior. Dagger storm for thief or simply spamming dagger cleave. Wells and marks and minions do the passive defense for necros.

All of these hard counter shatter. This nerfs Mesmer damage unreasonably since clones do practically no damage in non shatter mode.

DeWolfe.2174:

For me, Condi shatter is one of, if not the worst, build in game. If any build deserves to be removed from the game, it’s that one.

Why? You just putted yourself at OP’s level.

Sagat.3285:

DeWolfe.2174:

For me, Condi shatter is one of, if not the worst, build in game. If any build deserves to be removed from the game, it’s that one.

Why? You just putted yourself at OP’s level.

Because I’m not even going to list how poor this game style is. Being mostly a WvW player, I’ve seen far more of this build than in sPvP.

While I sympathize with your points, isn’t the main problem PU Condition builds? I believe that’s what they referred to in the stream, a passive style where the mesmer kites about in stealth as his/her opponent is either hit by clones’ conditions or has to kill them and is thus hit by more conditions, all while the mesmer is safely untouched in a little fortress of stealth?

I also see how DeWolfe, as a WvW player, is annoyed with such Condi PU, which was seen by most of the player base at a point in time as cancerous.

There are ways to prevent Condi PU from existing in the new system while keeping dissipation traits, of course, but the changes are quite abstruse and don’t feel such a strong bond with the dissipation traits to want to let them make such changes which might actually hinder other possible builds in the future for mesmer. So unless the dissipation traits are reworked in a way that Condi PU is not strong enough to win with passive play, I don’t think it’ll be brought back.

That’s my opinion, at least.

They didn’t really help the PU problem making clones deal more conditions when alive. If anything, they needed more active ways to apply clones and stop clones from applying conditions at all (so you can’t stealth and keep applying conditions all day, and because power+clones does like 4 damage). Condition mesmers in general are just terribly designed IMO and should have their direct conditions buffed and stop with the clone condition junk. That’s just my two cents. I’m not saying “omg its OP” but its literally just as, if not more passive as a turret engi sometimes, granted not as potent because stealth allows for decaps. Still a stupid way to play. Give Scepter 1 a condition, buff the staff 1 condition durations, do some other stuff, but honestly, conditions and power on clones should be streamlined.

Granted, its not likely to happen and I probably just painted a target on my head. Fire away, lol.

Grouch was complaining about a Mesmer dodging and doing damage on clone deaths. That wasn’t a PU issue. That is the only stated reason for destroying the build. A dev was annoyed, so delete the build. That could easily be countered by not having clone death effects triggered by dodge.

I admit, I don’t play PU mesmer. I’m traited to be a condi shatter with on-death damage.

Still, Mesmer stealth is less than that of thief and it doesn’t shield from AOE. Also a thief is far more mobile, with heartseeker and infiltrator’s arrow.

Standing clones do pretty pathetic damage as turrets. A PU Mesmer gives up most of her damage for stealth. She can’t attack without losing stealth. Players could shut down the vast majority of that build’s damage by simply not attacking and waiting for her stealth to timeout.

I think that the paranoia about PU belongs in the same category as the paranoia about thieves. Lack of skills and understanding is the problem.

Ithilwen.1529:

I mean that spamming AOE destroys the ability to shatter without requiring any skill or additional action on the part of the defending player.

One of the more egregious examples of this is the turret engi. Without clone death traited, shatter has a very low chance of even damaging the defender. Barrage does the same for ranger. Fields for elementalist. Ground based signs for guardians. Fire fields for warrior. Dagger storm for thief or simply spamming dagger cleave. Wells and marks and minions do the passive defense for necros.

All of these hard counter shatter. This nerfs Mesmer damage unreasonably since clones do practically no damage in non shatter mode.

Do you mean Daggerstorm the elite skill on 180 sec CD?

I like Clone death and I don’t want them baseline.

They should be build defining.

@Kolly,

OK true enough Thief doesn’t have a strong AOE counter for shatters. They do howver have frequent telelports in the form of [Infiltrator’s Arrow] and [HeartSeeker].

I’d also point out that thieves can dagger cleave clones very rapidly. And in limited circumstances have a [Steal] based spin that is effectively a clone killer aoe.

I see what you are saying, but really power shatter has to suffer with the same issues with AoE and cleave. It seems the design of the traits are meant to compliment builds, expanding on, and even help/buff certain builds…

A lot of the incoming shatter changes will give a lot more punish and pressure regardless of spec, which is a better method of design imo. Yes you do use those traits but it was a design flaw that turned into a cruch, instead your core powers will be stronger and frankly clone death pressure is a pretty good trade off for what mes is getting.

This is a horrible idea. Clone Death and PU are passive as kitten builds that no one likes fighting. Your clones don’t die because people foolishly use AoEs. They die because most of kittening everything has cleave or is AoE by default so clones inevitably get hit when they’re trying to hit the real mesmer which causes passive condi spam with little player input.

nightblood.7910:

Or just boosting clone health overall rather than invul.

Where its a challenge to destroy the clones but not impossible.

Turret mesmer inc.

With PU, confusion application, torment getting buffed + IP baseline for more condis, there’s absolutely no room for this nonsense. I play mesmer only and I’m glad passive clonedeath spam requiring almost no skill is going away.

Clone death spam is not what I play, nor is it what I’m suggesting. I also challenge that notion that that play style has no skill.

PvP has pervasive AOE fields. These largely prevent an effective shatter by killing the clones before they explode.

So, clone death should be available. Otherwise Mesmer is often locked out of team fights for any form of shatter. This is perhaps one of the reasons Mesmer have difficulty finding a niche in PvP.

I’m aware that it’s fashionable at the moment to parrot the idea that clone death play is “unhelathy.” I’m not suggesting it as a main play style, I’m saying that I run a shatter mesmer with clone death traited and I count on the clone death traits to guarantee some damage.

Since we’re talking about “passive” and “no skill” gameplay. Let’s consider the fact that AOE fields auto nerf shatter with no input on the part of the defending player. It’s ignorant to point the finger at clone death as “no skill” when in fact it’s simply a counter to all those “no skill” aoe’s. I’m looking at you, Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist, Ranger and Necromancer.

Ithilwen.1529:

Clone death spam is not what I play, nor is it what I’m suggesting. I also challenge that notion that that play style has no skill.

PvP has pervasive AOE fields. These largely prevent an effective shatter by killing the clones before they explode.

So, clone death should be available. Otherwise Mesmer is often locked out of team fights for any form of shatter. This is perhaps one of the reasons Mesmer have difficulty finding a niche in PvP.

I’m aware that it’s fashionable at the moment to parrot the idea that clone death play is “unhelathy.” I’m not suggesting it as a main play style, I’m saying that I run a shatter mesmer with clone death traited and I count on the clone death traits to guarantee some damage.

Since we’re talking about “passive” and “no skill” gameplay. Let’s consider the fact that AOE fields auto nerf shatter with no input on the part of the defending player. It’s ignorant to point the finger at clone death as “no skill” when in fact it’s simply a counter to all those “no skill” aoe’s. I’m looking at you, Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist, Ranger and Necromancer.

Yet ppl do manage to pull shatter off without the clone death traits, more or less “the best” mesmer pvp build is a shatter build without clone death.

Yes AoE kills clones sometimes too easily but the discussion should be about making the clones more resilient (to AoE especially), not punishing players for AoE killing the clones. Sometimes they have no choice but to hit the clones with their skills, even if they know which one is the real mesmer and even if they try to avoid the clones. Sometimes ppl actually use AoE for defense intentionally, and they should be rewarded for doing so.

This is just my opinion but to me clone death traits have always felt like rewarding mesmers for not knowing how to use their class mechanic (shatter): proper setup and fast execution. Personally I dislike these kind of game design choices and I’m happy to see the traits gone.

You do realize that there isn’t a single PASSIVE aoe damage skill/trait in the game, right? At some point in time the player needed to cast something to provide that aoe. I don’t think you know what “passive” means…

By “passive” I mean that it requires no active play from the user to destroy clones.

It is incorrect to say that players can’t help killing clones. They do it because, with most Mesmers, there’s no penalty for it and it totally nerfs the Mesmer’s damage.

The Mesmer class is about deception and punishment. Clone death conditions fit that exactly. They FORCE the enemy to think when fighting a Mesmer, not just mindlessly cleave.

All Six Gods forbid that a warrior or guardian actually finds me a threat.. that would be awful.

I think that most of the issue with the on death traits is the that someone coded replacement as a death. Then clone death traits are just as mindless (using scepter) as your issue with cleave.

I agree that the basic problem is that the clone death items proc on clone replacement.

Using scepter, autoattacking hoping for deaths is mindless. Just as much as hammering the 1 or (for rangers ) 2 buttons. There are much more effective ways to play clone death though.

It really comes down to are they going to take the time to fix the coding of replacement find room for the clone death traits or are they going to use that time on other aspects of the profession. So how much of a priority would it be?

I would guess there are other problems in the game that would take just as much effort for aspects that are just as essential (if not more so) that they are avoided due to time/manpower constraints so this might be a pick your battles situation as the changes aren’t going to please everyone.

I’m annoyed that an entire build is being removed because one dev didn’t like and ( apparently ) lost to it.

Clone Death enables shatter in a team fight and I don’t want to see it go.