Guild Wars 2

berserker:
~0.2-0.5sec delay,1.8-4k dmg (prev Nov 14th)
~1.5-2sec delay,0-2.2k dmg (now+a lot less dmg from not spawning/dieing phantas)
Edit: no “Phantasmal Fury” used

JonPeters.5630:

So studying it here empirically we think berserker is just missing and not less damage, but that duelist was actually impacted by the “bladetrail” bug fix. I will try and up the duelist damage and I will try and track down why berserker is not always hitting.

Just as an addition to this, the “missing attacks” issue happens with Warlock as well. It doesn’t show an “evade” or “miss”, but the projectile travels over the top of the target and does no damage.

The Phantasm are nearly useless with the delay. Most time they die before attacking, even against single enemies

First off, thanks Jon for communicating to us.

I think that one of the major reason that people are freaking out is that right now, any Phantasm skill has 2 cast times. I’ll take iBerserker, for example:

- Cast Phantasmal Berserker (3/4 sec). The character makes a very obvious movement, raising his arm. This can easily be blinded/interrupted/dodged.
- Phantasm is created. Stands still (1/2 sec) before attacking. As it is now, this gives a lot of time to dodge… or just move away. This is particulary bad with iWarden, who doesn’t move at all.

Yes, the 0 sec delay was a bug. But as it is now, we have an attack with a 1¼ sec cast time that can be completely evaded two times.

Now for what happens in WvW (I have completely abandonned the idea of PvE Mesmer for a while, now). Without Phantasms, the Mesmer only has Chaos Storm as an AoE ability. It’s nice to crowd control zergs, but I never really expect it to do any real damage.

Before the patch, you could throw an iBerserker into a zerg and make a good amount of damage. It would die after 2 seconds, but it’s work was done. Now, even with a small delay of 0.5 sec, that means that the iBerserker will die half the time before he actually attacked. I also used him a lot to cripple players trying to leave a fight. Now, if the player has swiftness, my iBerserker is barely a threat.

Same with iWarden. Before, I could summon him into a crowd and he would automatically attack, protecting himself from projectiles. Now… well, he simply dies. Even in sieges, people just back off before he begins to attack, making him totally useless. This is so bad that the Focus has gone from a weapon I liked to something I only use to move around the map.

Thieves have stealth-backstab attacks, Engineers have grenades (and Grenade Barrage!), Elementalists have plenty AoE they can throw in the middle of a zerg, Warriors have 100b… Yes, Phantasms hit hard (most of them, at least), butthey are not unbalanced compared to other professions AND they already have a cast time. They don’t need a delay. A delay simply means they will die before they even can do a single thing. Even 0.25 sec might be to much, I don’t know. Why not put the delay as 0­.01 sec, if 0 sec is impossible?

JonPeters.5630:

So studying it here empirically we think berserker is just missing and not less damage, but that duelist was actually impacted by the “bladetrail” bug fix. I will try and up the duelist damage and I will try and track down why berserker is not always hitting.

It is both. Missing AND less damage. Please have a look into the posted links on page 2. A lot of players described immediately (including BEFORE and AFTER data) what happened after the 15th November patch came and broke the berserker. And not only him, other phantasms are suffering same/ similar/ other problems.

This is fantastic. Finally mesmers are receiving some well deserved attention to bugs plaguing this class. Thank you very much Mr Peters.

While you’re at it, can you please give some sort of official explanation to the changes made in the Nov 15 patch where now phantasm skills have to land twice to perform its function(on cast, then the attack from the phantasm itself) and we have to hope it survives long enough to do it. Phantasm skills are not powerful enough to deserve so many chances to counter it yet is so important for the mesmer casting it to maintain a decent level of effectiveness.

JonPeters.5630:

Ok so its sounds like you could counter the summon delay by having a subset of traits. So we fixed a bug that lets all those triats work together but that also makes them not able to exploit the delay anymore. Since it seems like they were working and mostly balanced without the delay I am going to go ahead and reduce the delay on this stuff to .25 seconds. I just tested it at 0 seconds and that breaks some other things so I think .25 is the best compromise.

Thankyou Mr. Peters.

Does the zerker have its own in-built attack algorithms, or does it share them with other professions?

If it shares them with other professions I highly suggest de-coupling them.

It’s just begging for any change in one profession to affect others.

oh.. and this…

This is fantastic. Finally mesmers are receiving some well deserved attention to bugs plaguing this class. Thank you very much Mr Peters.

While you’re at it, can you please give some sort of official explanation to the changes made in the Nov 15 patch where now phantasm skills have to land twice to perform its function(on cast, then the attack from the phantasm itself) and we have to hope it survives long enough to do it. Phantasm skills are not powerful enough to deserve so many chances to counter it yet is so important for the mesmer casting it to maintain a decent level of effectiveness.

ANY attack which does not regularly reach 10k does not deserve “special treatment” in which it can be negated multiple times.

100 blades, backstab, etc don’t get this treatment but mesmers do. It’s shocking.

This might be the most amazing thing I have ever seen. . . Devs on the Mesmer forums. Guys I want to thank everyone for sticking around and complaining to the developers.

Developers, I’d like to thank you deeply for getting back to us and giving me hope about the future of my chosen profession. Also, please keep asking the right questions in regards to both profession balance and overall balance of the game, this more than anything will give the most reliable continued success. By the way, a small plug here “Gem shop seems like the perfect place for changing the color of particle effects (but not the effects themselves) MONEY!”

Here is a quick example of the delay making the iBerserker quite useless. One method of pulling I use is to summon iBerserker on the target(s) and shatter after the initial attack. The mobs kill the phantasm before it can even attack. Now imagine in PvP and WvW what AOEs from players would do. The phantasms never have a chance with a delay.

boroguy.5690:

Here is a quick example of the delay making the iBerserker quite useless. One method of pulling I use is to summon iBerserker on the target(s) and shatter after the initial attack. The mobs kill the phantasm before it can even attack. Now imagine in PvP and WvW what AOEs from players would do. The phantasms never have a chance with a delay.

Oh man that is painful to watch.

JonPeters.5630:

Ok so its sounds like you could counter the summon delay by having a subset of traits. So we fixed a bug that lets all those triats work together but that also makes them not able to exploit the delay anymore. Since it seems like they were working and mostly balanced without the delay I am going to go ahead and reduce the delay on this stuff to .25 seconds. I just tested it at 0 seconds and that breaks some other things so I think .25 is the best compromise.

On testing izerker in wvw and pve, if used first i never once saw it produce attacks, it was killed by the mobs or players (maybe even ae) before it got a chance to attack. If its supposed to be a half second that is way off, i hope you timed the .25, =( maybe you can make it .15 or something?

Maybe it did too much damage and you had to cut it down i dont know, but right now the skill is 100% useless in any real situation. Maybe you should change it to a whirling sword attack that summons a phantasm and the phantasm has some delay, or make the phantasm spawn at range and travel in its whirl further. I duelist starts pretty quick and spawns far enough away to not take ae really either. It seems to work far better

Levetty.1279:

boroguy.5690:

Here is a quick example of the delay making the iBerserker quite useless. One method of pulling I use is to summon iBerserker on the target(s) and shatter after the initial attack. The mobs kill the phantasm before it can even attack. Now imagine in PvP and WvW what AOEs from players would do. The phantasms never have a chance with a delay.

Oh man that is painful to watch.

Wow exactly, i just did that about 50 times and cringed every time. I even went into WvW and they would die before attacking?!? Its actually not worth the cast time to get one out unless you plan on hitting shatter immediately after lol

boroguy.5690:

Here is a quick example of the delay making the iBerserker quite useless. One method of pulling I use is to summon iBerserker on the target(s) and shatter after the initial attack. The mobs kill the phantasm before it can even attack. Now imagine in PvP and WvW what AOEs from players would do. The phantasms never have a chance with a delay.

Really terrible. Feel like watching a bad joke comedy drama.

It’s a right time to rethink about .25s delay.

JonPeters.5630:

Now if only I could figure out the berserker dmg thing… Worst case scenario I will just try and readjust the numbers based on the new functionality but that is harder because I don’t have the old data. For what it is worth it was not the bladetrail change that messed with this because we locally reverted that and this berserker issue still persisted.

In terms of old data, some of the best pre-November sources of reference for damage on the berserker are these videos:

Berserker discussion at 37:18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eZ0NNd7b60&t=34m16s

Lots of good actual footage of greatsword use. In this vid it is attacking nearly instantly (he’s using phantasmal fury) and connecting with all 4 hits almost 100% of the time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJLJipvBTBE

Is the warrior ability whirlwind having any issues since the patch? According to Mr. Prometheus the abilities almost exactly the same. One thing to consider, that if it functions like the warrior’s whirlwind, which according to the wiki “Whirlwind Attack will hit 1-4 times depending on the distance between the user and the enemy. Starting in melee range usually results in 4 hits, while reaching the target at the end of the attack results in 1.” This functionality makes the delay issue absolutely crucial, because on a moving target, the longer the delay, the further out of melee range the phantasm gets, almost assuring less hits. For this phantasm and the Illusionary Warden, the delay issue is much more critical because movement of the target hugely affects the skill. For these two phantasms sake, the delay should be as short as possible.

A minimal delay also addresses some of the other arguments above regarding the “two chances to miss” phenomenon since making these skill subject to block/blind etc. As the duration of the delay approaches zero, this issue becomes less and less important due to the odds that your opponent is going to re-blind or re-aegis or whatever in that fraction of a second unlikely.

So please squeeze that delay down as much as possible! Many of us have grown used to nearly instantaneous phantasm attacks due to the “exploit” of the phantasm boon traits. If I were to trade, I would much rather have the boon traits broken and my instant attacking phantasms back.

I really hope you guys look into fixing phantasms, they are a major part of mesmer builds and now they are pretty much useless, even if this was how they were orginally attended you guys have to look at all the nerfs they have already had…making them very uneffecting now, as a mesemer in gw2 i really hope this problem gets resolved and doesnt stay broken.

Even then phantasms and clones need an HP pool increase for the PvE side.

They better fix this ASAP. Basically I run Great sword and staff and now with these kitteny bugs and patches and my phantasms; along with having the kitteny damage reduction or swings not hitting or whatever and taking a year to attack and completely missing, basically my only damage is my great sword auto (spatial surge) and mirror blade which don’t even hit for 2k.

Also, someone else mentioned that iWarlock attacks and damage or numbers do not occur even when the enemy is stationary and not even an ‘evade’ or ‘block’ show up.
I have noticed this also. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen occasionally.

Jon,

I wanted to post here again to follow up on my post above given the reasoning you listed in the other thread for the 1 second (apparently 0.5 second intended) delay being in since BWE2 for balance reasons.

There are multiple reasons, elaborated throughout both of these threads, that this delay is not good balance and unnecessarily weakens phantasms.

1. Since the changes in the November patch, enemies already have a chance to “avoid the powerful summon” by dodging/blocking/blinding/interrupting the phantasm cast.

2. Secondary phantasm utility effects such as the Berserker cripple or the Warden projectile absorb need to be responsive in order for them to be functional in the fast-pased, reaction-based combat system. Compare to Warrior’s Hamstring or Throw Axe (1/4 sec cast), Thief Dancing Dagger (1/4 sec cast), Elementalist Unsteady Ground or Frozen Ground (1/4 sec cast). Now Berserker already has a 3/4 sec cast time just to get the phantasm out – a long time for a cripple compared to other classes – but if we have to wait another 1/4, 1/2, or even 1 full second for the cripple to land?? That is certainly not balanced. As long as it has any delay it will not feel responsive and satisfying in PvP or PvE

3. A delay between the spawning of the phantasm and the attack dis-proportionally affects melee phantasms as elaborated in my previous post. This is even more true if the Berserker attack functions as a Warrior’s Whirlwind where the number of hits decreases as the target runs away.

4. The delay in attacking creates absurd situations of PvE mobs turning around and one-shotting the phantasm before it even appears. This is easy to test on Cheiftan in the mists with the Berserker.

So in summary I think your damage issues and delay issues may be linked, and strongly recommend that phantasms initiate their first attack as soon as possible after summoning. If a zero second delay is impossible, then the smallest non-zero delay programmable should be used (0.05 seconds? 0.1 seconds?). I think even the proposed 0.25 seconds is too long given the importance of phantasms secondary utility effects and location based damage. Almost every other class has access to a quick-cast cripple/chill ability for soft CC (we can discuss Illusionary Leap’s flaws another day in another thread…)

I didn’t read the whole thread, it’s too long. ^^" But I know the tech team has addressed the problems and are looking into it. That’s good.

I’m not sure if someone has mentioned or not, but apparently staff clones and phantasms have a tendency to ‘miss’ the target totally when hitting a stationary target. It’s not as bad fighting a real monster but you still occasionally see the iWarlock’s attack flew pass the target without contact. It’s not a miss, obstructed or blocked, just they seems to aim at the air not the target…

@Kavia awesome posts, thanks for helping bring some clarity and information into these forums.

Well Phantasms are still dying most of the time before doing anything, but at least it’s a little better… sort of. I was trying to level a mesmer in PvE but I’ve given up on it for the time being. Also useless in WvW aside from portal… meh.

I applaud the effort made to fix this issue. Frankly I expected to have to walk away from the mesmer class altogether and still may have to at least until we’re fixed.

Once again we’re on the right track here.

XiL.4318:

Phantasms take a second or two before they will perform their skills and there is a panic response.

Necro Minion AI has been broken since beta, several minion skills result in a long delay before casting (often resulting in the minion’s death prior to execution), AND our temporary minions die of massive self bleed stacks before even reaching the target if they somehow manage to aquire it…

And nothing but chirping crickets and player ranting about it on the Necro forums for months. Even signs that Arena Net is internally unaware of any issue whatsoever.

If I was to identify a problem, that needs to be corrected, it would be the one that results in immediate, reassuring, and ‘actionable’ attention to one class while others are completely ignored for long periods of time.

Minions are not weapon skills present on all of of your weapon choices. We are forced to use phantasms, and our weapon dps is balanced around them. Bugged utilities, while significant, are NOT as significant as bugged weapon skills.

To me it seems like an AI problem would be somewhat more difficult than adjusting a delay on the attack rate of a phantasm. Also as bad as the necro pet ai may be you aren’t forced to have it on ever skill bar i don’t think. Mesmer’s have a skill on every weapon set that has a decently high chance of doing nothing after being summoned since its been killed.
I don"t really understand why people would need a short amount of time to try to dodge a phantasms attack anyway. When i fight another mesmer its easy to dodge a berserker attack even if you miss dodging the whole summon.

Hey, we get it that the minions are buggy, too. Really.
And I also have a necro who suffers from that.

But that has nothing to do with the mesmer problems and that we finally got attention to that really massively broken class.

A necro has a lot of possibilities to play without using the bugged minions, but a mesmer is more restricted in that area, because phantasms/ shatter are his core mechanic. It is way more difficult to play without phantasms and stay competitive (or whatever) than play without minions.

Anyway, that thread isn’t the best place to talk about that.

Bad player complain a lot they got owned by a Mesmer , bad player complain/QQ-ing on da forum = Mesmer got nerf and change it. Simply because bad player think Mesmer are overpower they can’t kill a Mesmer.

Effek.4653:

There you go, A necro complaining their class not fixed while they didn’t get it they come into Mesmer channel and making sure Mesmer getting the bugs too. Hilarious people.

I secretly main mesmer. Mostly because 80%+ of the class mechanics are bug free and it is competitively useful in all available content (some cases uniquely useful like jump maps and keep siege and structured PvP…and PvE)

Where as Necro mechanics are based about 30% around minions which don’t work, forcing Necro to focus even further to remain competitively useful in most content, requiring multiple gear sets, multiple bugged skills, and professional attention to detail.

I much rather play my poor broken mesmer and slap my face on the keyboard to win than have to time every ability in the proper order to stay alive while actually doing damage… which seems more like an after thought than a strategy on my poor neglected broken mesmer that is only viable in 100% of content at a highly competitive level (and even massively over powered in some content).

So hopefully Mesmer gets fixed so my I Win Button has a lower Cool Down.

Quite sad this thread is getting derailed

So now it’s a war between the two most bugged classes in the game, necros and mesmers, to decide who is the worst?
Are you kidding me?
Do you have an idea of how rare is to actually get a dev reply in the mesmers forum? And you pop here to throw mud on us, simply because you too play an ultra-bugged class?
I simply don’t get it. It has been pointed out CLEARLY that we are ridden with bugs, and I will agree with you, necro too, and is probably in a worse state.
But of all the places to go and complain, like the forum sections of all the still untouched and powerful classes out there like thieves and warriors, you choose to go and write your lamentations in the mesmer forum, the only other class that is in a comparable state to necro (thanks to some great “bug-inflicting” action from Anet)?
What, are you trying to become the SECOND most bugged class at all? Get real. Or wait, please go on, since mesmer is actually playable with success only if you shatter spec. Maybe when they will destroy us completely you people will stop complaining and start thinking about YOU OWN CLASS.

velestra.9415:

amazed how people think its ok and its ok to wait for a hotfix ~1 month

You’re free to not come to the game or forums any more if you dislike the dev behaviour. Other people wanted communication, here it is. Noes, the devs are listening to player feedback? :P

Hi everyone,

First, I would like to kindly ask you all to refrain from off topic posting or trying to derail the thread. This is about mesmers, not necromancers – which, by the way are also having their issues looked into, please have a little patience -. Also, thanks for your great feedback and for your great manners. We understand this can be a pretty annoying issue and we thank how you are interacting with Jon Peters and the great effort you are putting in giving im feedback.

Please keep it this way. Thanks for your understanding

Thank you guys so much for working on the fixes whilst communicating so clearly and promptly. It’s very much appreciated and I look forward to this continuing. <3

I am sorry to say but there was no delay in the phantasm attack, or maybe it has been seen as a no delay because of the phantasm rendering time. Now the phantasm is getting killed instantly and I also think that the Inspiration line traits like phantasmal strength and persisting images are not kicking in anymore.

I have also tested the GS phantasms on the heart of the mists golems and my first reaction was : this must be a joke, since I have been waiting for the phantasm initial hit fix but instead I am now doing even less DPS than before.

Also if we mesmers are such magical creatures could someone responsible for the Lore behind the mesmer profession explain me WHY do we need line of sight when creating an illusion. The mesmer is not creating the illusions with its eyesight but with mental powers which I am sorry to say that are not limited by the terrain or whatever walls we have in front of it.

Something however is telling me that the process of bug fixing is completely wrong.

I could not understand what your QA testers are doing if they are not able to spot such trivial mistakes. Also something is telling me that whatever project manager is overseeing this bug fixing process should be fired, named and ashamed so he cannot work as a PM ever again since these new bugs every bugfix release builds are obvious his failures.

lare.9512:

I am sorry to say but there was no delay in the phantasm attack, or maybe it has been seen as a no delay because of the phantasm rendering time. Now the phantasm is getting killed instantly and I also think that the Inspiration line traits like phantasmal strength and persisting images are not kicking in anymore.

I have also tested the GS phantasms on the heart of the mists golems and my first reaction was : this must be a joke, since I have been waiting for the phantasm initial hit fix but instead I am now doing even less DPS than before.

Also if we mesmers are such magical creatures could someone responsible for the Lore behind the mesmer profession explain me WHY do we need line of sight when creating an illusion. The mesmer is not creating the illusions with its eyesight but with mental powers which I am sorry to say that are not limited by the terrain or whatever walls we have in front of it.

Something however is telling me that the process of bug fixing is completely wrong.

I could not understand what your QA testers are doing if they are not able to spot such trivial mistakes. Also something is telling me that whatever project manager is overseeing this bug fixing process should be fired, named and ashamed so he cannot work as a PM ever again since these new bugs every bugfix release builds are obvious his failures.

Lol, exactly what I thought with the LoS nerf. Mesmer being about deception, trickery, mind kittenery and all that kitten, you don’t need line of sight to create or summon a phantasm to kitten with someones mind.

My experience with other MMOs that had summoned, autonomous pets is that they have to have many small/frequent attacks/behaviors rather than powerful/infrequnt behaviors to be satisfying to the owner – we have no control over them and no way of seeing their internal cooldowns, so the only way to tell they are doing something is when they DO SOMETHING. If another player stood there unmoving for 6 seconds in the middle of a fight the most charitable thing you might think is “huh, maybe he’s DC’d” and the more likely assumptions would almost certainly set off the kitten-filter. Please don’t make us wonder if Phantasms have cute furry kittens between their digital ears.

Maybe slow, high-risk spike damage is critical to the mesmer play experience, but I bet many players would be happy to see their phantasms a little more mobile and doing half-to-a-third the damage on each attack if they did those attacks two-to-three times as often! iZerker is so dang slow to act (even before the patch) I’m constantly wondering if the script hung…

Sidebar: if the example exists of necromancers having a trait that makes their marks unblockable, does the tech exist to make a trait where a mesmer’s phantasm summon-clicks are unblockable? Getting the little pink fiends on the field more reliably could be a very desirable addition to many builds…

Please take a look again at Illusionary Leap/Swap (edit: main-hand sword).

I know it was much improved the patch before last (thank you) however it is still very buggy. Quite often when I can Illusionary Leap, the Illusion fails to appear at all. I don’t see it being blocked or dodged or anything like that. It often happens when there is a (small) difference in elevation between me and my target. For example, my target is on the road and I am slighly off the road, maybe a foot higher in elevation.

Also the Swap ability, often when it Illusionary Leap does work and I hit Swap, my target is 5 feet ahead of me and I have no chance to catch up. I think the 1s (50%) Cripple should be changed to a 1s Immobilize. Or at the very least, increase the Cripple to 2 sec.

Nike.2631:

Maybe slow, high-risk spike damage is critical to the mesmer play experience, but I bet many players would be happy to see their phantasms a little more mobile and doing half-to-a-third the damage on each attack if they did those attacks two-to-three times as often! iZerker is so dang slow to act (even before the patch) I’m constantly wondering if the script hung…

Intresting you mention this; in GW1 “phantasms” (hex) dealt constant damage over their entire duration, until shattered, timed out or otherwise stripped.

Xavi.6591:

Please take a look again at Illusionary Leap/Swap (off-hand Pistol).

I trust you mean main-hand sword? Pistol only has the Duelist and Magic Bullet

Nike.2631:

My experience with other MMOs that had summoned, autonomous pets is that they have to have many small/frequent attacks/behaviors rather than powerful/infrequnt behaviors to be satisfying to the owner – we have no control over them and no way of seeing their internal cooldowns, so the only way to tell they are doing something is when they DO SOMETHING. If another player stood there unmoving for 6 seconds in the middle of a fight the most charitable thing you might think is “huh, maybe he’s DC’d” and the more likely assumptions would almost certainly set off the kitten-filter. Please don’t make us wonder if Phantasms have cute furry kittens between their digital ears.

Maybe slow, high-risk spike damage is critical to the mesmer play experience, but I bet many players would be happy to see their phantasms a little more mobile and doing half-to-a-third the damage on each attack if they did those attacks two-to-three times as often! iZerker is so dang slow to act (even before the patch) I’m constantly wondering if the script hung…

Sidebar: if the example exists of necromancers having a trait that makes their marks unblockable, does the tech exist to make a trait where a mesmer’s phantasm summon-clicks are unblockable? Getting the little pink fiends on the field more reliably could be a very desirable addition to many builds…

The phantasm is the only reliable range AOE cripple the mesmer has. The GS phantasm WAS the only way to cripple a piece of zerg hunting you down. Now playing a mesmer is a utter frustration, both pve and wvwvw. Not even talking about sPVP where now GS cannot be even used properly due to the script time out or slow casting.

Aveneo.2068:

Xavi.6591:

Please take a look again at Illusionary Leap/Swap (off-hand Pistol).

I trust you mean main-hand sword? Pistol only has the Duelist and Magic Bullet

Yeah, don’t know what I was thinking. I fixed it, thanks.

Just spent an hour trying to partake in WvW events. While defending from the walls of a fort I felt 100% useless. My phantasms just explode the second they’re spawned. Utterly frustrating feeling so completely useless. I am not a melee class. I do not and cannot withstand any sort of beating as I use deception and evasion to survive.

I posted an additional bug related to clone creation on the bug forums but it quickly disappeared to page 3 within a few minutes.

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

If my clones and phantasms can’t attack the targets I am setting them on because they are incapable of attacking before exploding or refuse to attack the target that I have selected PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD REMOVE THEM. I am sick to death of the baby steps being taken for a class who’s core mechanics are BROKEN. Other classes may function with bugs and broken skills/traits but their CORE MECHANICS are not broken and they are able to enjoy game-play unhindered and but not wholly unplagued by their issues.

I thought I could live with the delay. I was wrong. It’s not even manageable in pvp now because players just swat at my illusions and poof they’re gone. My only recourse is to use entirely ranged phantasms if I want to use mesmer now and hope that some random aoe or projectile doesn’t kill them before having been some use.

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Yeah I find it totally irritating that when I summon an illusion, that it can attack the nearest enemy, usually an NPC (like a sheep) rather than attacking my target.

The delay is frustrating, but I can not believe some of you have the nerve to say Mesmer is broken. I played Hot join for an hour today over 3 different server both teams had at least 2 Mesmers at all times, sometimes more. All playing duelist phantasm, and general illusion spam, all downing many players. I know one person that is rank 40, and he always plays a Mesmer. Sheesh, I will only agree that iZerker is now pretty useless.

Well iduelist is probably the only decent Phantasm at the moment.

Xavi.6591:

Well iduelist is probably the only decent Phantasm at the moment.

The only that actully can deal his dmg befor it dies. The iWarlock is also still Ok. If you have him vs a boss that does not spamm AoE. He almost has a iWarden delay between his attacks.

Kysin.6349:

The delay is frustrating, but I can not believe some of you have the nerve to say Mesmer is broken. I played Hot join for an hour today over 3 different server both teams had at least 2 Mesmers at all times, sometimes more. All playing duelist phantasm, and general illusion spam, all downing many players. I know one person that is rank 40, and he always plays a Mesmer. Sheesh, I will only agree that iZerker is now pretty useless.

Ranged phantasms have at least a chance to get off an attack, because they’re not spawned on top of your target.

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Wait wait…. you’re trying to tell me that Deceptive Evasion has always created a clone that attacks neutral targets that are not in combat with you and that is something we’ve been content to live with that I have never noticed until now?

Clones generated that attack the closest target regardless of whether it’s neutral or in combat or a rat with 1 hp, is not working as intended I am sure of it. Why would they give us a skill that generates clones that are incapable of attacking our targets? Oooooh wait a second I see what’s going on here. Our phantasms are also incapable of attacking our targets due to instantly dying upon summon. Ok ok you’re quite right this really is working as intended my bad time to close this thread, nothing to see here we’re all wrong about these issues.

Wise.8025:

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Wait wait…. you’re trying to tell me that Deceptive Evasion has always created a clone that attacks neutral targets that are not in combat with you and that is something we’ve been content to live with that I have never noticed until now?

Clones generated that attack the closest target regardless of whether it’s neutral or in combat or a rat with 1 hp, is not working as intended I am sure of it. Why would they give us a skill that generates clones that are incapable of attacking our targets? Oooooh wait a second I see what’s going on here. Our phantasms are also incapable of attacking our targets due to instantly dying upon summon. Ok ok you’re quite right this really is working as intended my bad time to close this thread, nothing to see here we’re all wrong about these issues.

I made no comment on whether or not this is the way things should work, but for the purposes of a developer reading this information and looking to troubleshoot something, nothing has changed with how Deceptive Evasion works in the 12/3 patch. It killed critters and pulled yellow mobs into combat before, and it still does now.

I give up, you win Anet… I’ll role some warrior or thief until I get fed up with the bugs in this game. Which at this rate, will be soon. :\

Class breaking. Bump.

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Wait wait…. you’re trying to tell me that Deceptive Evasion has always created a clone that attacks neutral targets that are not in combat with you and that is something we’ve been content to live with that I have never noticed until now?

Clones generated that attack the closest target regardless of whether it’s neutral or in combat or a rat with 1 hp, is not working as intended I am sure of it. Why would they give us a skill that generates clones that are incapable of attacking our targets? Oooooh wait a second I see what’s going on here. Our phantasms are also incapable of attacking our targets due to instantly dying upon summon. Ok ok you’re quite right this really is working as intended my bad time to close this thread, nothing to see here we’re all wrong about these issues.

I made no comment on whether or not this is the way things should work, but for the purposes of a developer reading this information and looking to troubleshoot something, nothing has changed with how Deceptive Evasion works in the 12/3 patch. It killed critters and pulled yellow mobs into combat before, and it still does now.

Well then I’ll drop the issue with clones for the purposes of this thread despite it being new to me.