Guild Wars 2

Robert Gee.9246:

Shield Functionality Updates
The single block on Echo of Memory didn’t differentiate it enough from the block on offhand sword and could be difficult to use in some of the more intense areas of the jungle. BWE3 will change the single block to a continuous block, however as a cost to that the phantasm is now summoned at the end of the channel even if you block an attack at the start. This allows you to have more control of which enemy the phantasm is summoned on but don’t cancel the skill or you won’t get the phantasm! The phantasm itself has also been overhauled to be more reliable about spreading its buffs to allies and enemies alike. Finally Tides of Time has some new behavior to bounce if it hits a wall, however given the variable amount of terrain in our game there may still be some instances where it will not return.

• Echo of Memory/Deja Vu: Changed functionality. Now blocks all attacks for a short duration rather than a single attack. If this skill fully channels, summon an Illusionary Avenger. Deja Vu is available if any attack is blocked during the channel time.
• Deja Vu: Fixed a bug which allowed players to constantly cancel cast this skill to get a longer than intended uptime of the block effect. Canceling this skill now removes the Time Echo buff.

Rune of the Defender and me are going to have the time of our life in WvW with this! <3

nearlight.3064:

He also seems really afraid to make things too powerful (ie. one step forward, two steps back mentality with tempest notes), and he doesn’t really justify it well enough. … Dragonhunter is very similar to this.

It’s not a coincidence that the two whiniest professions w.r.t. Elite specs are the two that are already the strongest in the game by a huge margin. Tempest and Dragonhunter are pretty well-balanced and essentially in line with what everybody else can do, which makes them objectively a downgrade from the existing meta builds for Ele and Guardian.

Daredevil I don’t delve too much into, but it seems to be his best work, even if all of the concepts are taken from pre-nerfed acro and the staff animations are copied from revenant.

Daredevil is genuinely really cool. I think Thieves will settle down once the animations are cleaned up and numbers are tweaked a bit.

All of these changes are amazing. I’ve wanted a block like this on mesmer since I started playing

I am jealous now lol. I think they did a good job on this elite class.

Crossplay.2067:

Zenith.7301:

Becomes trash in an instant in PvE for the same reason confusion is trash tier in PvE as well, mob attack intervals are not that great.

While that is true, I see that more as a problem with pve mobs than my idea.

Yeah, let’s make PvE mobs autoattack for 7-10k damage more often, that’s bound to produce great results just to accommodate an unnecessary idea.

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, let’s make PvE mobs autoattack for 7-10k damage more often, that’s bound to produce great results just to accommodate an unnecessary idea.

I’m actually amazed how you can jump to such an extreme conclusion from a simple statement. Surely you know that there are already enemies in the game that attack faster than once per second and are considered balanced, right? For that matter, what mob hits for 10k on an autoattack?

Crossplay.2067:

Surely you know that there are already enemies in the game that attack faster than once per second and are considered balanced, right?

For something to be competitive or viable, there has to be more than “some enemies” it’s effective against, it has to be most.
Some enemies attack fast enough to make confusion effective. Most enemies do not, so it’s not effective. Any similar mechanic will suffer the same downfall without a total rebalance of how NPCs work, which is a vastly bigger project that simply not implementing a new mechanic that would require it.

Crossplay.2067:

For that matter, what mob hits for 10k on an autoattack?

Bosses, champions. You know, the fights that matter the most.

tobascodagama.2961:

nearlight.3064:

He also seems really afraid to make things too powerful (ie. one step forward, two steps back mentality with tempest notes), and he doesn’t really justify it well enough. … Dragonhunter is very similar to this.

It’s not a coincidence that the two whiniest professions w.r.t. Elite specs are the two that are already the strongest in the game by a huge margin. Tempest and Dragonhunter are pretty well-balanced and essentially in line with what everybody else can do, which makes them objectively a downgrade from the existing meta builds for Ele and Guardian.

quietly sips dat truth tea.

Crossplay.2067:

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, let’s make PvE mobs autoattack for 7-10k damage more often, that’s bound to produce great results just to accommodate an unnecessary idea.

I’m actually amazed how you can jump to such an extreme conclusion from a simple statement. Surely you know that there are already enemies in the game that attack faster than once per second and are considered balanced, right? For that matter, what mob hits for 10k on an autoattack?

I take it you haven’t done a single fractal 50 boss, or face tanked lupicus’s autoattack projectile for that matter.

Hey guys! I have a question. How is going to work mental defense with the new echo of memory now? If mental defense pop at first block the phantasm have the time to be killed before you finish echo of memory block and so it serve to nothing. Or is mental defense going to activate after echo of memory block time? Coz he could be a really great combo for survivability, block and after that 50% less dammages.

I would like to point out why can’t we reap the benefit of gs #1 hitting multiple times when we feel the agony of it hitting multiple times with retaliation and confusion? Can you put an icd of .25 sec delay on those then?

I like to point out I don’t mind the .25 sec icd, but i’m just annoyed we can only reap the negatives out of a kittenty #1 skill.

Chaoz.7941:

I would like to point out why can’t we reap the benefit of gs #1 hitting multiple times when we feel the agony of it hitting multiple times with retaliation and confusion? Can you put an icd of .25 sec delay on those then?

I like to point out I don’t mind the .25 sec icd, but i’m just annoyed we can only reap the negatives out of a kittenty #1 skill.

It doesn’t hit multiple times with Confusion, Confusion only procs on skill activation.

As for Retaliation, you’re a Mesmer. You have no issues stripping that Retaliation off.

Embolism.8106:

Chaoz.7941:

I would like to point out why can’t we reap the benefit of gs #1 hitting multiple times when we feel the agony of it hitting multiple times with retaliation and confusion? Can you put an icd of .25 sec delay on those then?

I like to point out I don’t mind the .25 sec icd, but i’m just annoyed we can only reap the negatives out of a kittenty #1 skill.

It doesn’t hit multiple times with Confusion, Confusion only procs on skill activation.

As for Retaliation, you’re a Mesmer. You have no issues stripping that Retaliation off.

Tell that to the guardian blob trains farting out retaliation far more often than you can apply null field.

Guardians are such a backbone to WvW large scale fights, and they completely punish greatsword mesmer and especially a ranger who did Barrage (which is hilariously far weaker than meteor shower yet takes of half or more of the ranger’s health away while barely tickling the ele).

gannondorf.7628:

Hey guys! I have a question. How is going to work mental defense with the new echo of memory now? If mental defense pop at first block the phantasm have the time to be killed before you finish echo of memory block and so it serve to nothing. Or is mental defense going to activate after echo of memory block time? Coz he could be a really great combo for survivability, block and after that 50% less dammages.

• With Chronophantasma, you can shatter the defender during the block to get a little more out of him. If you’re running illusions, that’ll actually give you a reduction on the next time you can get a defender back up, which is good. The 1.5s daze can actually work in your favor then, as if you shatter 1.5s before your block ends, you’ll get the iDefender’s buff right as you end the block.
• Allies (and other illusions) still benefit from the iDefender’s buff.
• While you’re blocking, the iDefender doesn’t take any damage via the buff, so enemies have to attack it directly (or be cleaving heavily) to take it down (or attack allies, which is fine).
• Traiting Protected Phantasms can preserve the iDefender for a bit, if you don’t mind losing Restorative Illusions. As I understand it, shattering phantasms gives them another proc of the distortion, so you can get up to 2 seconds of distortion to help you keep an iDefender out when you finish your block.
• Traiting Persistent Illusions improves iDefender’s survivability during block-time, improves its survivability when you shatter it, and does the cool retaliation thing that some builds are built around.
• Unblockable attacks still deal damage to you, and iDefender definitely helps with those.

I think it’ll be just fine in any situation where it would have been fine before (high cleave environments neuter iDefender anyway).

Ya idk why I said confusion. As for stripping it off isn’t really the point.

Thanks Robert, really awesome changes and I can’t wait for BWE3 to come now. Finally and OH that has a reliable defensive component! Finally a channeled block! yay!

That alone is enough to do the happy dance!

The Well stuff also looks really cool.

As others have pointed out, the amount of player feedback you’ve taken into consideration for improving Chrono lately is highly appreciated!

GG!

AlphatheWhite.9351:

gannondorf.7628:

Hey guys! I have a question. How is going to work mental defense with the new echo of memory now? If mental defense pop at first block the phantasm have the time to be killed before you finish echo of memory block and so it serve to nothing. Or is mental defense going to activate after echo of memory block time? Coz he could be a really great combo for survivability, block and after that 50% less dammages.

• With Chronophantasma, you can shatter the defender during the block to get a little more out of him. If you’re running illusions, that’ll actually give you a reduction on the next time you can get a defender back up, which is good. The 1.5s daze can actually work in your favor then, as if you shatter 1.5s before your block ends, you’ll get the iDefender’s buff right as you end the block.
• Allies (and other illusions) still benefit from the iDefender’s buff.
• While you’re blocking, the iDefender doesn’t take any damage via the buff, so enemies have to attack it directly (or be cleaving heavily) to take it down (or attack allies, which is fine).
• Traiting Protected Phantasms can preserve the iDefender for a bit, if you don’t mind losing Restorative Illusions. As I understand it, shattering phantasms gives them another proc of the distortion, so you can get up to 2 seconds of distortion to help you keep an iDefender out when you finish your block.
• Traiting Persistent Illusions improves iDefender’s survivability during block-time, improves its survivability when you shatter it, and does the cool retaliation thing that some builds are built around.
• Unblockable attacks still deal damage to you, and iDefender definitely helps with those.

I think it’ll be just fine in any situation where it would have been fine before (high cleave environments neuter iDefender anyway).

Thanks! It sounds cool.

Zenith.7301:

Guardians are such a backbone to WvW large scale fights, and they completely punish greatsword mesmer and especially a ranger who did Barrage (which is hilariously far weaker than meteor shower yet takes of half or more of the ranger’s health away while barely tickling the ele).

It doesn’t tickle the ele, it downs the ele very very quickly (you know if the ele is running zerk, which they should) the only difference is the ele rallies off the people dumb enough to stay in those 9k meteors.

Not run into retaliation problems on my mesmer I have to say as generally I’m going after squishys.

Zenith.7301:

I take it you haven’t done a single fractal 50 boss, or face tanked lupicus’s autoattack projectile for that matter.

Lupi I can’t say anything about as, yes, I’ve never done Arah dungeons yet. I’m doing the dungeon collections in order. Level 50 fractals, on the other hand, are all kinds of broken. In fact, I’d argue that they are the reason that multiple smaller hits would be better than scarce one-shots.

Crossplay.2067:

Zenith.7301:

I take it you haven’t done a single fractal 50 boss, or face tanked lupicus’s autoattack projectile for that matter.

Lupi I can’t say anything about as, yes, I’ve never done Arah dungeons yet. I’m doing the dungeon collections in order. Level 50 fractals, on the other hand, are all kinds of broken. In fact, I’d argue that they are the reason that multiple smaller hits would be better than scarce one-shots.

Maybe so but it teaches you to dodge and use active defence like aegis and blind…oh wait blind is 10% effective. Nevermind just guardian and aegis.

As for lupi, he’s easier than he looks. First time we did it we cautiously ranged him and eventually he went down after 5 mins. Now we melee him and kill him in 1 min or less and that’s even when he decides he needs to shadow step to the NPC -.-

Given another Dev brought this up on the revenant feedback topic, might as well ask you to take a look at it Robert.

Since corruption and mallyx is all about being the master of torment and being pushed more that route, I’m playing around with an idea I wanted to run by all of you. Torment is less valued in stationary fights due to the way torment functions. Since torment is the main damaging condition for Revenant, I’ve been thinking about adding functionality to a trait or maybe changing the minor 2 in corruption to increase the base damage torment does while not moving while not increasing the while moving damage to help it become more of a viable option in all areas of the game. What do you all think?

I think most of us will agree that the scepter itself is lacking…..a lot. Main reason being torment ain’t even close to a potent condition source compared to confusion (which it used to be back in the good days). If you guys consider revs to get this treatment, please even the playingfield and add something similar to the scepter trait to bring it more in line with other main hand, medium range, weapons in potential dps. Torment needs some TLC as do some other mesmer things, but especially if other classes get buffs to stuff like this, we as mesmer shouldn’t be left behind.

Edit: Though I know it won’t happen I got to ask: if you consider swapping scepter 1 back to confusion instead of torment you would make a lot of people happy

Class specific condi effects are dumb. I already told him Torment and Confusion need to be functional and competitive condition in PvE regardless of class, and that some of the burning damage should be shifted to them and bleeding.

Making it so that torment doesn’t completely suck in PvE only for revenant is a really bad idea.

Robert thank you so much for the changes here. There are a couple things that could be useful to make the Chronomancer perfect though.

1. Well of Eternity recharge rate may have been increased a bit too much to be a useful heal skill. It is great that the initial heal has now been increased and that each pulse now removes conditions which makes it a great alternative to the Ether signet, but could the recharge be changed to 25 seconds to make it more useful for groups in PvE?

2. I am kind of up in the air on the Gravity Well being changed again. It was great last beta but if it could be changed to pull, float, knockdown than that might be a bit more reasonable. As long as the initial pull is included in than it is a competent contender to Time Warp for us PvE players.

3. To avoid the iAvenger from getting destroyed immediately in battle would it be possible to change it to a melee that could leap to its enemy target much like the iSwordsman?

Most of these changes had already been mentioned but if these changes could indeed be incorporated into the Chronomancer than it would make the perfect main class to play for us Mesmers looking forward to Chronomancer PvE.

I like how you have taken consideration into all objective criticisms to make the Chronomancer amazing for everyone to play so please hear us out on these three final requests of the community who look forward to the final product.

I really like the direction this is going. My only real complaint is iAvenger becoming melee. I’d rather he threw his shield out and it returned to him (sorta like Path of Scars) slowing enemies hit and granting nearby allies alacrity when caught.

We already have a Shield Phantasm that charges into melee to die instantly. I’d rather not have another – though the ability to summon two on one CD does balance this aspect out a bit.

Thanks for your reply and clearing that up, but surely you understand the very valid concern that in melee range this Phantasm will very likely fail to deliver its attack just the same as the bounce attack did, or quite possibly even worse.

If the point was consistent, which you even bolded, than I’m not sure this is going to be the way to go…at least not until we finally see code that improves all Illusions/pets/summon/etc chances to survive cleave damage for more than a split second.

If this Phantasm has any duration involved in that melee attack, or has to run into range to attack, then it will quite probably fail far more than the bounce-based Avenger before it.

Obviously I haven’t seen it, so it’s hard to judge, but from the information we have this is a very valid concern considering our current melee-range Phantasms performance & life expectancy in combat. (Even the iDefender, with a much higher HP pool, dies instantly in AE cleave; and still dies way too quickly against a single opponent.)

Robert Gee.9246:

… keeps the delivery method consistent.

Can we get this for all Phantasms (i.e. iMage and iDisenchanter) plagued with inconsistent bounce delivery?

How about a ranged AoE attack instead (exploding projectile)? It’s essentially the same thing except the Phantasm doesn’t have to be in cleave range. Same goes for iMage and iDisenchanter.

Of course, what really needs to happen is for Phantasms to not be paper thin, or the Mesmer re-balanced around the assumption that Phantasms only live long enough for one shot. I’m personally a fan of the latter as it meshes better with the idea that Shatters are our most important mechanic.

Really looking forward to BWE3 to test the avenger. I want to test it before complaining any further, but as an elite spec, there should be room for a bit ‘advanced’ phanthasm.

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

Shouldn’t that same logic apply to iMage then? Their delivery method is the same as the old iAvenger.

Is there a reason a Phantasm needs to have a direct attack? What if he channeled a brief block effect on himself (making him a somewhat more sturdy Phantasm) that sends out a wave/ripple of minor damage (to trigger things like Sharper Images) and slow to enemies and Alacrity to allies near him?

Here, I’ll even attempt to sway you with a terrible pun. Call the effect the iAvenger uses “Stitch in Time”, then code it so that it effects 5 enemies, 5 allies but count the Avenger as one of the allies so that 9 players max are effected total. A stitch in time saves 9. It’s a very appropriate name for a deft move just before you release an expac. Soo many levels.

Dastion.3106:

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

Shouldn’t that same logic apply to iMage then? Their delivery method is the same as the old iAvenger.

Is there a reason a Phantasm needs to have a direct attack? What if he channeled a brief block effect on himself (making him a somewhat more study Phantasm) that sends out a wave/ripple of minor damage (to trigger things like Sharper Images) and slow to enemies and Alacrity to allies near him?

Here, I’ll even attempt to sway you with a terrible pun. Call the effect the iAvenger uses “Stitch in Time”, then code it so that it effects 5 enemies, 5 allies but count the Avenger as one of the allies so that 9 players max are effected total. A stitch in time saves 9. It’s a very appropriate name for a deft move just before you release an expac. Soo many levels.

I’m hoping that if the iAvenger change goes over well, that type of thing will be implemented elsewhere. There’s no need to jump into it too fast though.

@ Robert Gee:

Thank you so much for your reply!

But what about this idea?

Illusionary Avenger:
Summon a Phantasm that attacks enemies from distance.
The Illusionary Avenger throws a shield at its target (no bounces).
The shield causes an explosion on hit. Radius of the explosion: 240.
Affected enemies are slowed and suffer damage.
Allies within the area of the explosion receive Alacrity.

This is pretty much the same game mechanic – just from distance.

Azathoth.2098:

@ Robert Gee:

Thank you so much for your reply!

But what about this idea?

Illusionary Avenger:
Summon a Phantasm that attacks enemies from distance.
The Illusionary Avenger throws a shield at its target (no bounces).
The shield causes an explosion on hit. Radius of the explosion: 240.
Affected enemies are slowed and suffer damage.
Allies within the area of the explosion receive Alacrity.

This is pretty much the same game mechanic – just from distance.

Yeah I like this.

Of course it would require you to be in 240 range of your target on spawning the phantasm in order to reap the alacrity, but at least it keeps the phantasm out of harm’s way.

Is there a new animation for the AoE pulse from the shield phantasm that shows either the range of the effect or an animation that shows who is hit by the skill, besides allies ferrying the purple flame for alacrity?

It doesn’t matter too much, but new animations are always fun

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

I appreciate the goal of making attacks consistent, which will hopefully also bleed over to iMage.

But that consistency won’t be achieved at all if illusions/phantasms keep getting cleaved/aoe’d down before they even start their animation upon spawn in PvE.

How about at least making Protected Phantasms baseline while we look at the issue of AI and AoE/cleave spam in the game?

Alternatively, phantasms and shatter are such a conflicting issue. You don’t want to shatter phantasms because they provide the same shatter benefit as a clone, and they make up a large part of your sustained damage. On the PvP side, opponents hate being beat on by 3 phantasms.

How about making phantasms one shot attacks. You press the skill, the phantasms summons and does the attack, is invulnerable, and when it finishes the attack it despawns. We can then account for the loss of 3 phantasms by reducing the cooldown of phantasms.

Phantasms can then become like the mesmer version of 100b/pistol whip, they have a cast time of 1 second, they are not fire and forget. So tune down the phantasm cooldowns to 10 sec cd for a one time attack.

To compensate for the loss of illusion count for shatters, make deceptive evasion baseline and maybe touch a bit on the cooldown of clone generating skills.

Voila, no longer dependent on 3 phantasms for DPS, pvp players don’t have to deal with 2-3 phantasm spike, and we can shift the mesmer onto a focus of shattering illusions while buffing his sustained damage by increasing autoattack and blurred frenzy damage and making ONE phantasm attack more often, and reducing the fire and forget spike of phantasms in PvP paired with shatters which has held PvE mesmers back.

Been thinking about the numbers on Wells and the Well trait. Well of Recall giving a really solid 5s of Alacrity at the end is a good change IMO. However, in my opinion at least (yes untested just plain math) AWtEW is very likely going to give too much Alacrity, which is likely to result in adjustments.

So I have a suggestion to make preemptively…

I think AWtEW would be a solid trait choice with a simple & intuitive “+25% Effect on final tick.” For damaging wells it’s 25% increased damage, for Well of Action it would give another 1.5s of Alacrity, and for Eternity it would add 25% to the final heal. (+25% to the 35 Endurance of the Precognition Well, etc.)

It really would fit well with the traits name & intention, no pun intended, and not leave us with builds that go all out Wells + Shield and give ludicrous amounts of Alacrity to our team.

Especially if the Shield Phantasm is actually done correctly, which I really implore Robert to do, where it doesn’t insta-die before at least getting off 1 attack, then we’re looking at a lot more AoE Alacrity in BWE3 then even in BWE2.

I also think 2s Alacrity on AWtEW is kinda boring TBH, and I never liked the Cleansing either. I think Well’s are largely about that 3rd tick, and the name AWtEW implies “a grand finale” so this would really support that design.

25% extra to endurance is junk. You do realize a lot of these bonuses will be wasted, right? And that before AWtEW, we only had personal alacrity and little group alacrity. Same goes for the heal, it’s easy to overcap. You don’t overcap on the alacrity, and well of calamity damage is crappy in PvE anyways (barely does around a single phantasm hit).

Moreover, all these builds around well and even Fay’s build seem great, because they’re done in dungeons. All these well centric builds require that your group be sitting stacked on a mob for the entire continuum split sequence and in your wells to benefit from the alacrity and the pass of Tides of Time.

Any time your group is forced to spread or move out of aoe, they move and lose all the benefits of the wells, cutting drastically into the alacrity/quickness uptime.

You’re seeing the build at the same potential we see an ele being able to channel meteor shower, ice bow, and glyph of lightning storm because the current content doesn’t make much of an effort in interrupting your group’s turreting and stacking.

Throw in mobs that CC and interrupt, that place deadly AoE’s that need to be moved out of, and suddenly things change.

Imagine necromancer type mobs with unblockable wells that damage through aegis/distortion. Your guardian can’t just spam aegis with communal defenses to let your group faceroll burst anymore.

So let’s calm down.

On another topic:

What will happen to Power Block in PvE?

With the advent of the Defiant bar, this trait loses its appeal entirely. The 15 sec cd addition won’t work on many mobs, including champions and bosses, and the added weakness that was there for consolation to PvE players won’t even work anymore since it’s a soft CC and it’s only effect is to degen the break bar.

Seems like PvE mesmers will only have a choice of Mental Anguish in PvE.

Zenith.7301:

How about making phantasms one shot attacks. You press the skill, the phantasms summons and does the attack, is invulnerable, and when it finishes the attack it despawns. We can then account for the loss of 3 phantasms by reducing the cooldown of phantasms.

While it is a complete overhaul of the illusion mechanics, I must say that would make a lot of sense. I would somewhat be against having DE baseline though or maybe shatter damage should be reduced a bit. I think a better think would be that without “theoretically persisting” phantasms, the other weapon skills could be boosted by a decent amount, and this would not blow out of proportion because of the nerf to shatters.

Also it would allow amazing things like ground targeted phantasms (which would be huge for iWarden for example) etc… On the other hand, it would make skills like iDisenchanter redundant (basically a weird version of null field), not that the phantasm is currently used much…

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Now I doubt the devs would go for such a massive change, but I like it.

Silverkey.2078:

Zenith.7301:

How about making phantasms one shot attacks. You press the skill, the phantasms summons and does the attack, is invulnerable, and when it finishes the attack it despawns. We can then account for the loss of 3 phantasms by reducing the cooldown of phantasms.

While it is a complete overhaul of the illusion mechanics, I must say that would make a lot of sense. I would somewhat be against having DE baseline though or maybe shatter damage should be reduced a bit. I think a better think would be that without “theoretically persisting” phantasms, the other weapon skills could be boosted by a decent amount, and this would not blow out of proportion because of the nerf to shatters.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Now I doubt the devs would go for such a massive change, but I like it.

The only reason I made that suggestion coupled with my change to phantasms is so that PvP people go “Without phantasms counting for illusions, it will make me shatter less!” complaints.

Which is a fair complaint, because if you remove phantasms from the illusion count, you need to replace them with more clones, which deceptive evasion would do.

I know a knee jerk of making deceptive evasion baseline would make people think there are more shatters, but it’s not. You’re losing phantasms since you summon one to do its attack and vanish on a 8-10 sec cd, so with deceptive evasion baseline you end up replacing just those phantasms, not shattering more.

And by making phantasms a one time summon attack, the entirety of the damage in PvE can be dodged or interrupted once without worrying about constantly dodging 1-3 phantasms constantly attacking you.

And more importantly it reduces our potential spike but significantly increases our very bad sustained DPS we have in PvE, along with removing some of the survivability issues with illusions and our DPS in PvE.
———

I also forgot to mention:

Can the Continuum Split rift receive aoe/cleave immunity in PvE, please?

With the amount of aoe/cleave I often found myself in situations where I couldn’t even benefit from it on a single skill as it immediately died as I activated my shatter to all the aoe/cleave mobs in dynamic events and bosses were doing.

Zenith.7301:

The only reason I made that suggestion coupled with my change to phantasms is so that PvP people go “Without phantasms counting for illusions, it will make me shatter less!” complaints.

Which is a fair complaint, because if you remove phantasms from the illusion count, you need to replace them with more clones, which deceptive evasion would do.

Well yes, but I’m all for that. If the weapon skill damage is increased because of the reduced “theoretical damage” of 3 previously “permanently” living phantasms, then the need for shatter will be reduced.

Currently mesmers is the only class who gets almost all of its damage from their class mechanics in PvP! Even necro has about half and half. It is unbalanceable because:

• shatters do very high burst damage, so any boost of anything will break PvP. Phantasms cannot do more than 1 skill.
• PvE does not use shatter at all, so they rely on phantasms for a low (because PvP) sustained damage which can even die easily. But since phantasms can live forever and offer damage, weapon skills have to do low damage.

Make phantasm a 1-attack skill, increase the damage on all weapon skills (maybe also phantasms), reduce a bit the burst of shatter and you solve all problems above + the illusion count won’t be as important since not all the damage will come from shatters now.

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

No one wants another melee ranged illusionary suicide bomber (or maybe we do….). Just make the iAvenger pulse AoE alacrity passively with a large radius like an aura and revert the actual phantasm attack into a ranged shield throw.

The phantasms are defenseless. No sense in making them run around getting kited as well.

Zenith.7301:

Can the Continuum Split rift receive aoe/cleave immunity in PvE, please?

With the amount of aoe/cleave I often found myself in situations where I couldn’t even benefit from it on a single skill as it immediately died as I activated my shatter to all the aoe/cleave mobs in dynamic events and bosses were doing.

IMO, just remove the Continuum Split rift altogether. Great idea, clunky mechanic. The balance of using Chrono is that it lasts so short and duration being based off of the shatter #.

Zenith.7301:

Can the Continuum Split rift receive aoe/cleave immunity in PvE, please?

With the amount of aoe/cleave I often found myself in situations where I couldn’t even benefit from it on a single skill as it immediately died as I activated my shatter to all the aoe/cleave mobs in dynamic events and bosses were doing.

For PvP, people convinced me that it needs to be targetable so you can make counterplay and so you have to choose whisely when and where to activate this skill. Mainly – counterplay is the reason here.

But for PvE I see no reason why the rift should be attackable. It’s making a good skill pretty clumsy. It’s a unnecessary handicap if you ask me.

If this game wants to go ANYWHERE in ESports, meaning PvP, AND if it wants to stay as good – or even become BETTER than the current game expirience, ANet MUST finally split PvE and PvP completly. There don’t have to be huge differences, but some changes just hurt both game modes if they wanna keep it together… wich is sad – it caps the potential of the game.

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

Thank you RG! I was actually planning on not using the shield until I read this change in the iAvenger’s attack and delivery method of benefits. I’m eagerly anticipating the PBAoE version of this. I do hope it leaps in and out of melee combat like the iSwordsman though…or it will be very short lived in melee combat.

Robert Gee.9246:

• Illusionary Reversion: No changes.
  • There is a pretty clear division of people that would rather have an ICD on this skill and those that prefer the illusion requirement. After some thought we’ve decided we prefer the current version (illusion requirement) as it is an easier to understand limitation when compared to internal cooldowns. I know that some have asked that this requirement be toned down to 1 illusion required but this wouldn’t solve the original problem of being able to get large bonuses from your shatters without an investment.

illusion requirement seems more easy to understand limitation but harder to accomplish in a team fight where illusion get to be killed so easily so if you are not fast enough IR is not good.
compare it to stealth. if you see a thief going stealth you count 3-4 sec as you guess when he gonna attack you and dodge. same can be as easy with IR and ICD as ppl can count 1-2 sec and dodge. and also will turn to more tactic game play like i can bait the dodge and not shatter etc.. and with illusion requirement is more passive or probably force ppl to kill more faster the illusions (but again 1v1 and i talk team fight pvp)
2 illusion requirement wont solve the burst dmg from power spec as izerk and 1 clone are easy to achieve and soon ppl will still be qq. but icd will solve it as its open small window to act thus every spec with power/condi/bunker wont get hurt much as for now.
i agree 1 illusion wont solve the problem power spec giving to ppl.
i think ppl at start will go with DE so those build wont solve the problem while ppl with condi spec or bunker spec will suffer the most. 3% dmg reduction from 3 illusion up will be harder to achieve without DE for bunker build while with icd it will as they wont shatter for offense rather defense. etc…
pls consider and test it more