Guild Wars 2

I thought about a way to add a decision for or against the shatter skills in different situations. Here is the result:
What about giving clones and phantasms a living time, like about 45 seconds, and changing the shatter skill F3 (or another one) to a new functionality, which changes the clone’s target to a new one (which is aimed by the mesmer at skill activation). This would solve a great problem in PvE: That it takes long to build up the clones, but they’ll die right after the first target. With this new skill, they wouldn’t just die after the first one, if the mesmer is timing his skill and focusing a new target right before the first dies. The living time would ensure, that the mesmer still has to create new clones, and not just setting them up once per fight. This skill would also give a new decision for shattering or changing the target. As it is now, you must shatter the clones, if the target is about to die.

What’s your opinion about that?

I don’t think it’s necessary. The lore of illusions is that they are living, breathing, hexes, similar to what Mesmer had in GW1. Why would a hex outlive the hexed individual? They need to die at the end of the target’s life.

The only thing I might agree with is an illusion living for ~1 second after target death, just enough time to shatter them for some AoE Mind Wrack damage before summoning up more of the buggers.

If you’re having trouble keeping up the numbers in PvE (I admit, it’s difficult for most of us. Not trying to sound condescending), try picking up Mirror Images as a Utility for 2 fast clones, or perhaps Phantasmal Disenchanter, who has a very short cooldown. Sure he doesn’t do much damage, but if you just want him around to shatter or for the regen/protection buffs via traits, he’s great. Or maybe hop up the dueling tree to get deceptive evasion, that spawns a clone on dodge. Oh, and make sure to get 5 points into illusions to decrease illusion-summoning skills’ cooldown by 20%!