Guild Wars 2

I just posted this in another thread, but felt like it should be its own topic. Its been mentioned before, but I haven’t seen it discussed during the Geesus Era (AKA The Mesmer/Necro Enlightenment).

Clones should not overwrite Phantasms

This change would have almost no impact in PvP, where illusions are constantly being smashed and shattered, but could have a profound impact on the way we play in PvE.

- Scepter AA would no longer punish Phantasm builds

- More refined control over what occupies the finite space on our illusion bar

- We could use clone producing weapon skills as part of a normal rotation w/o sacrificing phantasm damage

The only drawback I can think of is for sword 3… No Clone = No swap with 3 phantasms up. I don’t see this as a particularly significant problem though.

Edit: Changed the name of the thread.

Ehmm… unless they cahnged that quite recently, clones have not been overwriting phantasm for a VERY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time

GummiBear.2756:

Ehmm… unless they cahnged that quite recently, clones have not been overwriting phantasm for a VERY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time

Happened to me at least once yesterday.
Are you sure you’ve been actually bothering to get 3 phantasms up?

can confirm:
after 3x Illusionary Duelists I cast sword #2 =>
2x Illusionary Duelists and 1 clone.

Your always guaranteed at least 2 phantasms. As clones will ONLY overwrite phantasms, when there are 3 phantasms.

Then the oldest phantasm is replaced by a clone. And any new clone generation, will overwrite the solo clone.

Since all the “on death” traits/gameplay have been removed. This clone overwriting mechanism probably should be relooked at.

Maybe there be more bonus’s add when a Mesmer has 3 illusions out. (like how Ether Feast works)

For example, change Scepter’s AA 3rd attack to speed up/more damage if there is already 3 illusions out. Instead of just generating another clone.

Part of the concept of clone generation was to make the enemy choose between destroying the illusions or attacking the Mesmer. Now that the “on death” stuff is gone. The enemy simply needs to avoid/dodge the extremely telegraphed shatters or just let all the AOE/cleaves take out the illusions.

It’d be nice to put some consequences back into clone generation.

+1 to this yet again (pretty sure theres a new thread on this every week)

Would be a great quality of life changes, mainly for scepter but really for all weapons.

Clone overwriting phantasm is a good thing, and due to the mechanic impossible to change.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Clone overwriting phantasm is a good thing, and due to the mechanic impossible to change.

I don’t suppose you have some reasons to go along with this useless proclamation?

by the time you will learn to play without DE, may be you will come to understand.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Clone overwriting phantasm is a good thing, and due to the mechanic impossible to change.

Clone overwriting is a good thing, not phantasm overwriting. to be clear, phantasm summoned over a phantasm is alright, but a clone summoned over a phantasm is not

Seyiwaji.4082:

by the time you will learn to play without DE, may be you will come to understand.

….yeah, I don’t think that counts as ‘reason’ or ‘explanation’. Care to try again?

first of all
I guess the dev tried what they could and if this didn’t happen until today. It may be really hard or impossible to separe the log for clone production on dodge and on skill.
Since the skill has to function correctly, clone replacing a phantasm; if you have 3; is a must.

2nd
Add that there is even clone prodcution on trait. What do you do about decoy and despeprate decoy?
If you play wihout Deceptive Evasion, you should be fine.

If you play wih it, it was stated already, some time you need a clone near you. to increase the burst.

You would make a lot of things useless: like Mirror Images.

is it enough explain for you?

Seyiwaji.4082:

is it enough explain for you?

Absolutely! It’s all wrong and/or nonsensical, but I appreciate the effort!

Seyiwaji.4082:

first of all
I guess the dev tried what they could and if this didn’t happen until today. It may be really hard or impossible to separe the log for clone production on dodge and on skill.
Since the skill has to function correctly, clone replacing a phantasm; if you have 3; is a must.

What you appear to be trying to say here is that it might be a technical capability issue. This is incorrect. In the past, a change almost went live that was designed to nerf on-clone-death traits, but would have ruined pretty much all shatter builds. This change was going to make it so that you couldn’t produce another clone by overwriting if you already had 3 illusions. Through this almost-change, they’ve demonstrated the technical capability to modify overwrite mechanics.

Seyiwaji.4082:

2nd
Add that there is even clone prodcution on trait. What do you do about decoy and despeprate decoy?
If you play wihout Deceptive Evasion, you should be fine.

The point you’re trying to make here is unclear, so I’ll take a stab at it.

Are you implying that decoy and desperate decoy would simply fail to function if you already had 3 clones? If so, that’s just silly. They’d perform as normal, just as if you had no target selected (they produce no clone in that situation). I’m…not really sure what DE has to do with this though; it’s nothing more than another clone production source.

I also like that you’re trying to imply that people playing with DE are bad, when actually the opposite is true (at least in the vast majority of pre-chrono situations).

Seyiwaji.4082:

If you play wih it, it was stated already, some time you need a clone near you. to increase the burst.

So this goes back to the reason that they didn’t make the change I referenced earlier in my post. However, that logic is completely invalid for a simple reason: you will never ever have 3 phantasms up simultaneously in PvP against a competent opponent. Even phantasm builds won’t have that, they get cleaved down too often. This means that you’ll always be able to produce a clone by you if necessary.

Seyiwaji.4082:

You would make a lot of things useless: like Mirror Images.

Not much to say here other than that you’re just wrong.

So…yeah. In summary, you’re wrong for all the reasons I just said.

Fay.2357:

In the past, a change almost went live that was designed to nerf on-clone-death traits, but would have ruined pretty much all shatter builds. This change was going to make it so that you couldn’t produce another clone by overwriting if you already had 3 illusions. Through this almost-change, they’ve demonstrated the technical capability to modify overwrite mechanics.

Never a Dev said, this might happen. The community made a suggestion. They never said, it is ok.

And you don’t seem to be willing to understand.
so, i’ll just leave this last sentence for you.
If you can not handle DE, just don’t use it. Since it seems you just talk about DE.

but the Thread starter is talking about clone overwriting. and not just DE.

This is more an issue of “learn to play” than a technical/design problem.
Which idiot would use DE, with a phantasm based build?
You arguments were never valid.

About the scepter, it is not less punishing, than a sword or a greatsword.
The weapon is made for clone production. If you can not handle it; let it be (leave it) [AlphatheWhite].

+ you don’t need to use your auto attack like a robot..

Whatever:
your point of view, my point of view.

you want some change? make vaild suggestions.
I am quite happy the way it is now.
If you are not…. yeah… so…. “do your best”

Seyiwaji.4082:

Never a Dev said, this might happen. The community made a suggestion. They never said, it is ok.

And you don’t seem to be willing to understand.
so, i’ll just leave this last sentence for you.
If you can not handle DE, just don’t use it. Since it seems you just talk about DE.

but the Thread starter is talking about clone overwriting. and not just DE.

This is more an issue of “learn to play” than a technical/design problem.
Which idiot would use DE, with a phantasm based build?
You arguments were never valid.

About the scepter, it is not less punishing. than a sword or a greatsword.
The weapon is made for clone production. If you can not handle it; let it.

+ you don’t need to use your auto attack like a robot..

Whatever:
your point of view, my point of view.

you want some change? make vaild suggestions.
I am quite happy the way it is now.
If you are not…. yeah… so…. “do your best”

I kind of feel like I might understand this post better if you wrote it in your native language, and just let me run it through google translate.
“If you can not handle it; let it” doesn’t make any sense in English. Let it what?
Most of the post feels like this, you’re using some words that seem appropriate, but the ideas are half-formed or making grammatical assumptions that aren’t valid. I’m finding it almost impossible to sort out what in what you said is wrong, and what is just communicated wrong.

I think Seyiwaji’s point is about the ability to strategically generate/place clones (into a shatter) that DE/Decoy/Mirror Images provides.

If new clones stopped overwriting phantasms, then there goes that ability.

As I mentioned in my early post, it should be looked at. Adding a new trait that could be selected that would prevent the clone replacement (when 3 illusions are already out) in exchange for some type of buff/effect. For example, Phase Retreat would generate “might” instead of a clone if there are already 3 illusions.

Again make a trait so that “phantasm builds” would benefit from it. Without hurting current mechanics.

Skill like illusionary leap has secondary use so I think its totally fine as it is… it use to be that oldest illusion was overriten always either phantasm or clone and raven it was fine

SlimChance.6593:

I think Seyiwaji’s point is about the ability to strategically generate/place clones (into a shatter) that DE/Decoy/Mirror Images provides.

If new clones stopped overwriting phantasms, then there goes that ability.

As I mentioned in my early post, it should be looked at. Adding a new trait that could be selected that would prevent the clone replacement (when 3 illusions are already out) in exchange for some type of buff/effect. For example, Phase Retreat would generate “might” instead of a clone if there are already 3 illusions.

Again make a trait so that “phantasm builds” would benefit from it. Without hurting current mechanics.

In what circumstances are you imagining having 3 phantasms out, and needing to eliminate one of them to place a clone, rather than shattering and generating new clones/phantasms?

For when I want to place a clone “RIGHT ON TOP” of my enemy and shatter. Thus GUARANTEEING said shatter.

I’m not saying I’ll always have 3 phantasm out when that circumstance arrives, but I don’t want to be in that situation and NOT have the clone generated.

@Slimchance: They don’t have a point, they’re just wrong. The scenario you refer to will literally never happen. Clones still overwrite clones, and you will never have 3 phantasms up in pvp, so you will never be unable to create a clone where you want it.

Anyway, no need to respond to that gobbledekitten any more. It’s not incomprehensible because of a language barrier, but because of an experience, logic, reason, and skill barrier.

Edit: gobbledekitten xD

I don’t play enough pvp to know if it’s realistic, but I can see a case where you have shield and mental defense and you get two Avengers and a Defender up.

I’m not sure how hard it would be to code, but would be ideal for me is if you take a phantasm trait (like Chronophantasma) then clones never replace phantasms. Maybe to make this simpler, make this only apply to the Chronophantasma trait.

eldenbri.1059:

I don’t play enough pvp to know if it’s realistic, but I can see a case where you have shield and mental defense and you get two Avengers and a Defender up.

I’m not sure how hard it would be to code, but would be ideal for me is if you take a phantasm trait (like Chronophantasma) then clones never replace phantasms. Maybe to make this simpler, make this only apply to the Chronophantasma trait.

In a 1v1? Sure. In anything else? Maybe for a fraction of a second, no longer than that.

eldenbri.1059:

I don’t play enough pvp to know if it’s realistic, but I can see a case where you have shield and mental defense and you get two Avengers and a Defender up.

I’m not sure how hard it would be to code, but would be ideal for me is if you take a phantasm trait (like Chronophantasma) then clones never replace phantasms. Maybe to make this simpler, make this only apply to the Chronophantasma trait.

Why would you need or want to overwrite any of them with a clone in that situation? All three of them would be buht-hoomping your target. . . shatter away!

Yes, it makes sense to shatter at that moment. Then Chronophantasma kicks in and you have 3 new phantasms. Now you ideally want to give at least the two Avengers a second to attack again. But someone comes running at you, and you instinctively hit your scepter block.

In that case, it would be nice to keep the three phantasms and not create the scepter clone.

That’s why I suggested one option was to have the overwrite behavior governed by having phantasm traits equipped since my current build has both Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory. It’s clear that phantasms are more valuable to me than clones.

eldenbri.1059:

Yes, it makes sense to shatter at that moment. Then Chronophantasma kicks in and you have 3 new phantasms. Now you ideally want to give at least the two Avengers a second to attack again. But someone comes running at you, and you instinctively hit your scepter block.

In that case, it would be nice to keep the three phantasms and not create the scepter clone.

That’s why I suggested one option was to have the overwrite behavior governed by having phantasm traits equipped since my current build has both Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory. It’s clear that phantasms are more valuable to me than clones.

I would argue that even not having a phantasm trait, any build that gets 3 illusions up will value keeping that 3rd phantasm more than spawning a clone in its places 99.9% of the time.
And even if those edge cases occur, they are so marginal and so rare that it’s not worth the far more common loss of having to avoid clone skills/traits when you have 3 phantasms up.

tl;dr: Without illusion-death effects, the advantages of clones being able to overwrite phantasms are dwarfed by the disadvantages.

For sure for me, I would always prefer to keep the third phantasm and not get the clone.

I was just trying to think of something simple that might allow some other playstyle. But I would be thrilled to never have a phantasm overwritten

eldenbri.1059:

For sure for me, I would always prefer to keep the third phantasm and not get the clone.

I was just trying to think of something simple that might allow some other playstyle. But I would be thrilled to never have a phantasm overwritten

If this change is made, I’ll be sending flowers and a heartfelt card to Anet’s office.

The current overwrite priorities do nothing but cause unnecessary irritation and skill/weapon limitations in PvE. We have four (or 5 with chrono) shatter skills on mesmer, we can empty and adjust our illusion queue whenever we want. Replacing a phantasm with a clone hasnt had any benefits (from my perspective) since the removal of clone death traits, and even back then I would have preferred to keep my phantasms.

If you run nothing but the meta Sword/X+X build on your mesmer in PvE you’ll probably never run into this problem. Its one of many facets to that weapon combo that makes it meta. For the rest of mesmerkind that likes to use a variety of weapons and builds, we run into this dilemma frequently.