Guild Wars 2

Hi Mesmers.

This thread is created to lift the discussion about our phantasm iMage. Atm we have the following Phantasms and roles for the set phantasms.

Pistol: iDuelist , burst, pressure, condition and power weapon. Single target only.

High single target base dmg on range split on several hits.
Good on apply condi dmg thru bleed crits.
Good for duels and low number pvp.
Good for Pve
Combo field most useful : boon clearing

Sword: iSwordman, burst, single target only

High single target dmg delivered in single hits
Weak as condi dmg
Good single target dmg in pvp as long it not get kited/rooted/blinded, not good in zeros due to aoe.
Ok for Pve but not versus bosses due to aoe
Combo field most useful : chaos shield.

GS: iBerserker. Burst, cc, power dmg focus, work in condi, AOE

High aoe dmg delivered in several hits
Mediocre condition dmg
Apply cc in pvp, invaluable for chasing opponents.
Superb for medium to big fights due to aoe dmg, ok for single target dmg.
Ok for Pve, have a tendency to die versus aoe bosses.
Combo field most useful : several due to spinning combo.

Staff:iWarlock Burst, single target only, power based

Condition based % dmg! can deliver low hits but potensioaly extremely high crits.
Weak condition dmg
No cc, unreliable as pvp dmg source as some taregets clear conditions.
Superb as Pve dmg source on bosses due to number of conditions.
No real useful combo field.

Focus: iWarden, stationary burst, projectile defense, potential as reflect, good in Pve. Condi and power dmg. Aoe

High Aoe dmg over time if target stay close,
condition dmg and power.
No cc, unreliable as pvp dmg source
Good defensive tool versus projectile attackers.
Good condition clearer in combo fields.
Wery good in Pve versus a number of enemy’s
Best combo field: condition clearing.

OBS bugged atm, unviable

Torch: iMage, low power dmg, low condi dmg, ranged.

Deliver mediocre power dmg, unviable for power spec.
Deliver a 50% nerfed condition hit who never got compensated for confusion nerf.
No cc
Give retaliation ( who is also got nerfed)
Weak as defensive or offensive tool
Useless in Pve
Combo field : not of interest.

So. How do you suggest a change to iMage would look like? If it should be useful in Pve it need solid dmg alternative good utility. For pvp it need to do some kind of cc/control.

We already got several direct dmg phantasms, also passiv condition applying phantasms. As it look iMage area of expertise is condition/control.

My suggestion

-remove confusion and retaliation from iMage,s attack.

-give iMage a control attack/lockdown example 2 sec daze, a knock back, 1 sec fear, for pvp

-give iMage a useful condition for dmg, 3 sec burn, alt 3 stacks retaliation, 5 sec chill

This would both make the Phantasm unice, give it a place in pvp and Pve.

/Osicat

i agree that would be nice especially considering other classes have pets that can stun/knockback.. so why cant we?

id say maybe a combination of daze and burning (it is torch after all) like maybe 1 second daze and 3 second burn like you said which would make it more useful than it currently is.

I think the current attack speed of iMage is to high for daze/stun/fear. Every 6-7 seconds (or less with Phantasmal Haste) is way too fast for this kind of cc.

Personally I would like it if the iMage got a breath attack (like the ele’s dagger fire 2 skill) which deals damage and applies a condition (preferably confusion) on enemies and a boon on allies (no idea what, maybe retaliation).

I think a condition-based Phantasm is good – we need variety. It also fits the Torch as a whole, because it’s other attack also deals its damage via a condition.

The issue here is that the Phantasm is clearly balanced around applying both Confusion to the PvP target, Retaliation to the target’s target, and both getting actively used.

Mind you, in those situations the damage of the iMage is very much ok!

And that’s the problem: It’s dependent onto that situation. Especially after Confusion was defanged in WvW, it happens to rarely to be really powerful. The ability to apply Retaliation to another friendly target is good (or even Confusion to another target) but again, rarely makes any difference.

What I’d do is improve that application:

Phantasmal Mage
Create a Phantasm which periodically causes damage and confusion on it’s target. It’s attack applies Retaliation to friendly targets it passes through and near the impact.

Same CD and everything, small radius (180 maybe?). And ofc, line when the projectile is flying. So while it would only cause Confusion on one target, it could cause Retaliation on a lot of friendly players.

And therein would lie it’s strength. Outfitting a whole melee-stacked party with Retaliation every 6-7 seconds isn’t a bad thing at all, damage-wise. Especially in WvW where you could end up giving 10-15 players Retal.

doesnt it remove a decent amount of conditions when paired with the cd trait?

Osicat.4139:

My suggestion

-remove confusion and retaliation from iMage,s attack.

-give iMage a control attack/lockdown example 2 sec daze, a knock back, 1 sec fear, for pvp

-give iMage a useful condition for dmg, 3 sec burn, alt 3 stacks retaliation, 5 sec chill

This would both make the Phantasm unice, give it a place in pvp and Pve.

/Osicat

I personally don’t think that CC on Phantasms is reasonable. The lockdown it could cause against one target would be way out of line. Please no Daze or anything. I can already hear people screaming.

I still like the idea I posted in one of the old threads.

iMage

• Casts purple homing orb (e.g. Guard Staff#2)
• Orb explodes on hit (area effect), low damage, applies 3-5 stacks of confusion
• Leaves behind purple flaming combo field for 3s (light, etheral or fire)
• Field inflicts 1s burn per second to enemies
• Field applies 1s retaliation per second to allies

Pros

• Keeps identity (Confusion and Retaliation)
• Stays condition focussed
• Unique because of the combo field and the ranged area effect
• Burn increases the condition damage but is avoidable

Cons

• Does no longer bounce
• Requires more positioning because of the field

RedCobra.7693:

doesnt it remove a decent amount of conditions when paired with the cd trait?

If you trait for Torch then it cleanses on cast and if you are hit by the bounce. This, however, can be quite unreliable the more entities are close to you. Including your own illusions. Might just not be hit.

I personally dislike the bounce since we already got bouncing Staff Clones and the iDisenchanter is almost the same like a traited iMage. The iMage deserves to have his own identity and should be valuable without traiting it.

Dont make it more complicated than it actually is. Just do the following things:

• add once bounce
• one target can be hit 2 times by the same attack (bounce between A, B, A)
• bounce priorizes enemies over allies.
• bounce priorizes allies over enemies when traited and allies have conditions on them!
  this would already make him viable for PvE and PvP, as a close combat (you) damage dealer (torch is anyway melee).

To buff him even more we could add random boons like protection, aegis, regeneration to retaliation but still let confusion stay as main stat.

The damage in PvE is actually GOOD as long as he hits 2 enemies. Swordman does crit for 6k when the mage does 2x 2k + confusion, wich may add another 200-300 x2. It’s not as good as the swordie, yes, but it’s not terrible, especially since it cleanes conditions when traited.

Osicat.4139:

Pistol: iDuelist , burst, pressure, condition and power weapon. Single target only.

High single target base dmg on range split on several hits.
Good on apply condi dmg thru bleed crits.
Good for duels and low number pvp.
Good for Pve
Combo field most useful : boon clearing

Sorry to ask, but since when can you remove boons with a combo field?

Xyonon.3987:

Dont make it more complicated than it actually is. Just do the following things:

• add once bounce
• one target can be hit 2 times by the same attack (bounce between A, B, A)
• bounce priorizes enemies over allies.
• bounce priorizes allies over enemies when traited and allies have conditions on them!

I got the sneaking suspicion that implementing two varying priority lists might be more complicated than just changing the attack in general.

Pollux.3247:

Sorry to ask, but since when can you remove boons with a combo field?

You can let him shoot through light fields. But I personally won’t consider that a reliable way of condition removal since the bug with the 100% projectile finishers when traited was removed.

• Increase the attack rate to 4 seconds
• Replace Retaliation with swiftness (3s)
• Replace confusion with one of: confusion (3x, 3s), bleeding (2x 5s), or torment (2x 5s)
• Allow attacks to bounce back to target
• Increase base attack damage by 33% (from 244-324), improve scaling with AP
• Apply 1.5 seconds of revealed

There is no base attack damage btw :P There is just a scaling ^^

Xaylin.1860:

Pollux.3247:

Sorry to ask, but since when can you remove boons with a combo field?

You can let him shoot through light fields. But I personally won’t consider that a reliable way of condition removal since the bug with the 100% projectile finishers when traited was removed.

What he meant is, that Osicat apparently has made a typo there and wrote “boon removal” instead of “condition removal”. Looks like you didn’t even notice that Pollux was asking for “removing boons” either, and just replied about “removing conditions”. ;P

On topic: I think it would be nice if they would add one or two seconds of burning to iMage, on top of what it already does. And reduce the (spawn)cooldown a bit.

I don’t know about having daze/knockback on a phantasm – I think it could be too powerful. Remember, the other skill is arguably one of the best off hand skills at the moment, so iMage needs to balance it out.

I think simply applying 2 or 3s of burning to every enemy the bounce hits, in addition to confusion stacks and possibly blind? Then increase the retaliation duration on allies, and maybe increase the bounce by 1.

I also think that having a phantasm disabling your opponent with a daze or a knockback would make the weapon op if they didn’t kill the phantasm right away .

It seems to me that this should be our condition phantasm so I will chose to put more conditions on the phantasm hit instead of increasing it’s power.

I would change retaliation boon for a blind on hit. This would increase the phantasms utility as a defensive phantasm.

If this is to strong maybe instead of blind the phantasm would apply 3 sec of Weakness when hitting.

Any of this conditions synergy well with the confusion that the phantasm puts.

Since you will have to activate more skills to do the same damage that you would normally do. This will indirectly increase the confusion damage

Can’t belive I didn’t see it in your OP – chill is a great idea.

Maybe it could be RNG 2s burning or 2s chill (50/50), plus the usual confusion and retaliation?

I’d enjoy a trait that procs Chilled when Burning a target and vice versa

Saturn.6591:

Xaylin.1860:

Pollux.3247:

Sorry to ask, but since when can you remove boons with a combo field?

You can let him shoot through light fields. But I personally won’t consider that a reliable way of condition removal since the bug with the 100% projectile finishers when traited was removed.

What he meant is, that Osicat apparently has made a typo there and wrote “boon removal” instead of “condition removal”. Looks like you didn’t even notice that Pollux was asking for “removing boons” either, and just replied about “removing conditions”. ;P

That. And checking if there was a new feature I totally missed

And on topic, it would be great if mesmers could have a trait that made our confusion do damage over time, same as necros have one that makes fear do damage. That would be an indirect buff to iMage without making it op and a way to make condition/confusion mesmers relevant again. It’s our signature condition after all!

Pollux.3247:

That. And checking if there was a new feature I totally missed

And on topic, it would be great if mesmers could have a trait that made our confusion do damage over time, same as necros have one that makes fear do damage. That would be an indirect buff to iMage without making it op and a way to make condition/confusion mesmers relevant again. It’s our signature condition after all!

Yeah… My brain appears to be a bit mushy today.

I actualy really really really like your Confusion trait idea. If they do not change the mechanic for Confusion in general this would be an awesome way of giving Mesmers back their Confusion superiority. It basically would be the Mesmers ‘Terror’.

I would remove the friendly bounce entirely and with it the the retaliation and condi removal on bounce. Have it bounce to 3 enemy targets base, 4 with bouncing trait. Add either burn or chill to its confusion attack and lower the base cd of the phantasm by 5 secs. As far as the direct damage of the iMage goes i would have that scale off conditions as per the warlock but at a reduced percentage basis, maybe 5% per condition. With all of the above balanced accordingly.

i would love the torch phantasm do like an aoe fire dmg or so. after all its coming out of torch=flame
the slowness of the image plus the single target thing makes this phantasm very weak.

I’d like to see either an AOE effect for the iMage as previously mentioned or the iMage with a ability to attack multiple targets with in a given range with rapid “fire”. Something more than where it is now as I feel its far too slow in its current guise to be of any use but a small distraction to an enemy.

Xaylin.1860:

I actualy really really really like your Confusion trait idea. If they do not change the mechanic for Confusion in general this would be an awesome way of giving Mesmers back their Confusion superiority. It basically would be the Mesmers ‘Terror’.

Thanks Xaylin! Merge it with Master of Misdirection, make it a Master trait, call it Migraine and I’m completely sold

Regarding the iMage, I also like your idea of making its attack blast into a combo field. That would make it have his own personality, and as you say, stay condition focused.

I also agree on the balance issues of having it doing any type of cc. Remember that we could summon 3 of them, so either the attack rate should be extremely low or the cc (daze, fear, whatever) extremely weak to compensate. Also, though it would be useful in PvP, in PvE it wouldn’t work that well. And I’d rather see its utility boosted for both game modes if they are to improve it.

Pollux.3247:

Xaylin.1860:

I actualy really really really like your Confusion trait idea. If they do not change the mechanic for Confusion in general this would be an awesome way of giving Mesmers back their Confusion superiority. It basically would be the Mesmers ‘Terror’.

Thanks Xaylin! Merge it with Master of Misdirection, make it a Master trait, call it Migraine and I’m completely sold

Regarding the iMage, I also like your idea of making its attack blast into a combo field. That would make it have his own personality, and as you say, stay condition focused.

I also agree on the balance issues of having it doing any type of cc. Remember that we could summon 3 of them, so either the attack rate should be extremely low or the cc (daze, fear, whatever) extremely weak to compensate. Also, though it would be useful in PvP, in PvE it wouldn’t work that well. And I’d rather see its utility boosted for both game modes if they are to improve it.

This is a wonderful suggestion, adding a trait that makes confusion do damage. Let me make a slight twist which I think could do wonders for mesmer & confusion and be easy to implement: Have X percentage of power added to confusion damage. This would give confusion some bite, make scepter & torch viable in power builds, mitigate the glamour nerf, give f2 shatter a purpose, and overall make confusion a bit more meaningful for mesmers, while not really buffing condition builds, which are already in an ok place.

Pollux.3247:

Thanks Xaylin! Merge it with Master of Misdirection, make it a Master trait, call it Migraine and I’m completely sold

Haha. Was browsing through GW1 skills, too, since I never played it and also found Migraine to be fitting. Not sure if it should be merged with Master of Misdirection though since Migraine itself would be very powerful. I’d also rather have it placed in the Grandmaster tier. Imbued Diversion could be moved to Domination. Harmonious Mantras would replace Empowering Mantras in Duelling which is an extremly boring trait anyway. This could make for interesing Shatter or Glamour based Confusion builds.

Pollux.3247:

I also agree on the balance issues of having it doing any type of cc. Remember that we could summon 3 of them, so either the attack rate should be extremely low or the cc (daze, fear, whatever) extremely weak to compensate. Also, though it would be useful in PvP, in PvE it wouldn’t work that well. And I’d rather see its utility boosted for both game modes if they are to improve it.

Yeah. As nice as it sounds, CC on Phantasms is a no no for me. It is way to difficult to balance due to the fact that it has to be good with 1 Phantasm but not overpowered with 3. Won’t work as long as there are no immunities or diminishing returns for CC. At best, I could see CC on an Elite Phantasm instead of Moa. But yet again, I’d prefer something Illusion unrelated as Elite.

Bunda.2691:

This is a wonderful suggestion, adding a trait that makes confusion do damage. Let me make a slight twist which I think could do wonders for mesmer & confusion and be easy to implement: Have X percentage of power added to confusion damage. This would give confusion some bite, make scepter & torch viable in power builds, mitigate the glamour nerf, give f2 shatter a purpose, and overall make confusion a bit more meaningful for mesmers, while not really buffing condition builds, which are already in an ok place.

Adding Power damage is an interesting idea and would aid hybrid builds. However, I personally would prefer it being made for condition builds because that’s something Mesmers lack right now. I don’t think that condition builds are in an okay place. PU Blackwater is. And that is mainly because of stealth and PU.

Again, I have to agree with Xaylin.

I think all phantoms but the Mage have a theme to them, Warlock confuses me as to why it holds a scepter but whatever. It should have it’s own form of winds of Chaos, condi based Phantom which attacks slightly faster and applies one of four conditions:

Bleed x2
Poison
Burning
Confusion

Can bounce between targets like chaos winds does and gives a random boon when it crits to nearby allies:

Retaliation
Aegis
Small heal
condi Clear

Give iMage a slow to charge, slow to fire AOE nuclear hit that does a set AOE nuke, a combo field and a 6 second “radiation” or fallout field. Balance it so that the iMage casts it just (in)frenquently enough to keep in tuned with the other phants.

That or just make it an iBard to follow me around singing songs of my greatness… make him like a ‘warrior banner’ that follows me around till my target dies. Anythings about better than the current iMage.

iMoa. Problem solved.

Bunda.2691:

iMoa. Problem solved.

Scepter 5 casts a Phantasmal Moa which pecks annoyingly at the target?

Isnt that what we’ve got now minus the correct animation?

No no, iMage casts Moa Morph! On a 10s CD.

Carighan.6758:

No no, iMage casts Moa Morph! On a 10s CD.

Lawl. Seeing that some people already are crying about Moa Morph being OP despite almost nobody using it, this would be hilarious.

But yeah, probably really OP then. xD

Carighan.6758:

No no, iMage casts Moa Morph! On a 10s CD.

The tears will be wonderful! >:D

Carighan.6758:

No no, iMage casts Moa Morph! On a 10s CD.

Downside… it could be reflected…

Xaylin.1860:

Carighan.6758:

No no, iMage casts Moa Morph! On a 10s CD.

Downside… it could be reflected…

Upside… back to the phantasm. And we all know how deadly phantasm moas are … xD I love this bug <3