Guild Wars 2

Hello,
I am new to the mesmer class(just reached 10 last night). While I am generally enjoying the class, I began to realize that clones/phantasms die within seconds of appearing most times. Does this get any better later on? Im sure there are traits to reduce incoming damage to these guys, but they are getting destroyed it seams. They appear, and then 3 or 4 seconds later they are dead and I have no illusions up.

Any input on this would be appreciated…

They have a terribly low hp, there is a spec I don’t use to increase their hp, but I still think they’d die in three/four hits max.

So whats the point then? Im not expecting them to tank a mob for 10 seconds, but it really seems like they are one shotted. If they spawn and go bye bye in seconds, its basically a light armor melee…might as well stack vit and toughness and dish out poor dps.

as i see it:

clones are either for blowing up or taking single hits for u. U can make them take more hits if u tank the mobs along with ur clones inside chaos storm – then they get aegis/protection and live longer.

clones and phantasms die right away to any mob aoe dmg. if u position them bad they die. yes u need to babysit them alot

hoping to build up 2-3clones to shatter on a mob usually does not work for me, clones got killed before. sigh…

i like staff condition stacking with clones – thats the only good thing they are at. again – u need to babysit them

essentialy – clones are doing zero dmg, they can sometimes take a hit instead of u… is it worth it? not really imho

phantasms die almost as easily, but u do more dmg. so the idea is that u kite the mob, phantasms do dmg mean time. again painfull

im hoping for better experience in pvp – but again – clones after spawning do not move. its dead easy to spot a player. if those 2-3 stupid clones did a dodge roll every now and then it would be awesome.

all in all – i dont see the point of spliiting the pets into two subclasses – both horribly ill-designed and misimplemented.

and the bugs. yay!

and the misleading tooltips.

but, dont get me wrong – im super happy about the game, after lots of years in different mmo, gw2 managed to chain me to the pc once again. It just needs some patches. Like alot… Mesmer-wise at least.

chyzwar.1398:

as i see it:

all in all – i dont see the point of spliiting the pets into two subclasses – both horribly ill-designed and misimplemented.

Many of us would disagree with you here.
If you don’t understand the functionality of them being split, then it’s on you.

No one is going to say there aren’t bugs with the system, but just a broad negative generalization wont accomplish much either.

I have to admit, I kinda wish they’d reimpliment the 300% hp buff from signet of illusions in dungeons as it made your clones resistant to random aoe kitten, also made them really good for soloing. Was OP as sin in PvP though.

Malakree.5912:

I have to admit, I kinda wish they’d reimpliment the 300% hp buff from signet of illusions in dungeons as it made your clones resistant to random aoe kitten, also made them really good for soloing. Was OP as sin in PvP though.

It was still giving 300% health as of last night. It never got fixed. If your illusions can stay up long enough to get the signet buff, they are quite tough.

capric.1896:

It was still giving 300% health as of last night. It never got fixed. If your illusions can stay up long enough to get the signet buff, they are quite tough.

I’m sure they said they fixed that. I definitely don’t feel like it’s still active.

Malakree.5912:

capric.1896:

It was still giving 300% health as of last night. It never got fixed. If your illusions can stay up long enough to get the signet buff, they are quite tough.

I’m sure they said they fixed that. I definitely don’t feel like it’s still active.

They did indeed say that. You should test it yourself.

capric.1896:

They did indeed say that. You should test it yourself.

Personally feeling from how tanky my illusions are now considering how tanky they were in the first few days makes me feel like they nerfed their total hp. Whether it’s the signet or some other area they hit I honestly couldn’t say.

cesmode.4257:

So whats the point then? Im not expecting them to tank a mob for 10 seconds, but it really seems like they are one shotted. If they spawn and go bye bye in seconds, its basically a light armor melee…might as well stack vit and toughness and dish out poor dps.

Later on your illusions make more (significantly more) damage and you can make benefit of dying clones. And you can generate much more illusions, so than even if every one of them is oneshotted by the mob, the mob will never get to you – because there are still one-two clones still standing around.

But you need traits for all this – so the time up to lvl40 can be quite hard, so be prepared.

Unless they are magically seeing through every clone…. which I have had happen. Especially with Dredge.

thehunt.9315:

Unless they are magically seeing through every clone…. which I have had happen. Especially with Dredge.

Yeah, but then the illusions can live and hurt, hurt, hurt the bad guy during you are kiting – so you win either way.

@Xovian.8572

Many of us would disagree with you here.
If you don’t understand the functionality of them being split, then it’s on you.
No one is going to say there aren’t bugs with the system, but just a broad negative generalization wont accomplish much either.

please explain what sense it makes to divide them, each weapon set has one skill to generate one clone and one skill for phantasms.

Pve wise monsters go randomly either at u or clones and they one shot clone/phantasm.

Pvp wise players always go after u and u alone, clones are not fooling anyone besides a total idiot., also the phantasm is easily spotted due to color. So u loose even that shred of hope to mislead ur oponent and the phantasm dies just as easy.

why not implement one kind of clone, that looks like u, moves in escape’ish manner, and have some hp and dmg?

also – i generalized about ill design and misimplement – if u need 40 lvls for the “class” mechanic to start working – then dont tell me its good design. Please.

Properly – it should work from lvl 1 and scale with no problems up to 80.

You are blindly following the rules without thinking – why the rules were created? or do they make sense? You just accept them as they are.

Game designers are wrong quite often – they redesign alot of stuff when the game launches. For instance – diablo3 and the paragon levels / inferno difficulty

You don’t have to wait until 40 for the class mechanic to start working… it just starts getting more powerful then. Up until 40, my clones still distracted mobs, they still took hits for me, my Phantasms still did their damage / effects before being killed. And they also worked as shatter fuel when they were close to death. None of that was ineffective at level 10.

The only thing that starts changing at level 40 is that you get access to some nice traits that make an already effective playstyle even more effective. Now your clones can take hits for you, but when they die they can leave status effects on their destroyer. You can have Sharper Images to make clones provide some DPS if they ARENT targetted. You can have Deceptive Evasion to up your clone production substantially.

However their role still doesn’t change. They still are expendable and still soak up hits that would be directed at you if they weren’t there. They just do all that better. You know, the same way EVERY class gets better when it opens up it’s T2 traits.

I can’t speak for PvP… but anyone that ever thought clones would be a worthwhile distraction clearly thinks poorly of their fellow gamers. No AI is ever going to match a human… so clones will always be pretty obvious. They still bring value if they are ignored however, as shatter fuel or bleed applicators.

There are some bugs and issues that need to be ironed out for the class, just like for any class in the game right now. But the mesmer is in a good spot still. If you want to see a class that is really hurting, you should look over at the Necro camp