Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

how is generating clones passive when it requires actively using/managing endurance/weaponskill cool downs.

arent all attrition tank builds based around doing defensive actions while applying annoying slow dots/dps over time?
why is it cheesy for mesmer but aok for necros, theives, guardians, rangers.

The underlined frames your argument in a really unproductive way tbh. I’d like to refrain from using the word “cheesy”. AI builds are inherently more passive than other builds. This is fact. Some classes are more/less dependent on AI with varying functions. Basically, bringing up the other classes is a moot point imo.

But to take on your opinion on how “active” clone death builds are, the only thing you’re managing is your endurance bar. And I think the main critique is that no matter what your actions are, you get a “win-win” situation by summoning clones. Either they take the dmg or kill the clones and take damage. Looking at it from the outside, there’s nothing to really manage for the person in a win-win situation, right??

Listen, as anyone on these forums can attest to, I’ve been the biggest proponent of clone death builds! That being said, I don’t think this is the biggest grievance ever… We can focus our energies or correcting the bigger underlying issue related to these clone death traits which is… clone survivability.

MailMail.6534:

phys.7689:

how is generating clones passive when it requires actively using/managing endurance/weaponskill cool downs.

arent all attrition tank builds based around doing defensive actions while applying annoying slow dots/dps over time?
why is it cheesy for mesmer but aok for necros, theives, guardians, rangers.

The underlined frames your argument in a really unproductive way tbh. I’d like to refrain from using the word “cheesy”. AI builds are inherently more passive than other builds. This is fact. Some classes are more/less dependent on AI with varying functions. Basically, bringing up the other classes is a moot point imo.

But to take on your opinion on how “active” clone death builds are, the only thing you’re managing is your endurance bar. And I think the main critique is that no matter what your actions are, you get a “win-win” situation by summoning clones. Either they take the dmg or kill the clones and take damage. Looking at it from the outside, there’s nothing to really manage for the person in a win-win situation, right??

Listen, as anyone on these forums can attest to, I’ve been the biggest proponent of clone death builds! That being said, I don’t think this is the biggest grievance ever… We can focus our energies or correcting the bigger underlying issue related to these clone death traits which is… clone survivability.

The whole AI aspect is bull when it comes to mesmers. clones are basically slow homing missles, thats not really AI any more than a channel skill is, or a condition.

being a clone factory is a highly active style of play.
you have to be constantly doing things, swapping weapons at the right times, and burning your dodges.
it is countered by dodges/line of sight for targeted skills
immobilization/boon stripping/weakness for dodge reduction
interupts/stuns/dazes
condis

or just having high defense/hp return and some aoes.

being that it requires constant reapplication to be effective, it not working for a couple seconds is a big deal.

and clone death isnt a win win. Even with all on death traits, you are looking at one stack of confusion a cripple and a completely random condition. you are giving up stronger traits except for confusion, which is extremely light on dmg in pvp where people actually want on death traits.

shatters do more damage and have better effects, and phantasms do more damage. people choosing on death traits are looking to wear people down, or debilitate them. they have weak points and ways to be dealth with like any other enemy.

Didn’t read everything, but on the point of attrition builds using Condies, we already have it and will more so with the improved PU and various improvements to Condition builds in general.

Having your Clones apply both Bleed & Confusion on crits, while you’re off in Stealth gaining boons, is pretty much the definition of attrition. ;-)

Staff Clones will add Burning and Vuln to that mix, Scepter Clones add Torment… Basically you stay in stealth and just keep generating clones and gaining buffs so that whenever you’re not in stealth, you’ll probably have Aegis & Protection up 75% of the time. (Not to mention the improved traited Staff Chaos Armor.)

Windwalker.7421:

Didn’t read everything, but on the point of attrition builds using Condies, we already have it and will more so with the improved PU and various improvements to Condition builds in general.

Having your Clones apply both Bleed & Confusion on crits, while you’re off in Stealth gaining boons, is pretty much the definition of attrition. ;-)

Staff Clones will add Burning and Vuln to that mix, Scepter Clones add Torment… Basically you stay in stealth and just keep generating clones and gaining buffs so that whenever you’re not in stealth, you’ll probably have Aegis & Protection up 75% of the time. (Not to mention the improved traited Staff Chaos Armor.)

interestingly enough, clone death factories would have required way more activity.

fuq this kitten for real though -.-. i’d even take it as a kitten grandmaster trait.

phys.7689:

interestingly enough, clone death factories would have required way more activity.

Ironically enough, you’re kinda right! ;-)

Applying condis on clone death with a condi tank build that dropped clones like thundering vindaloo diarrhea was an utterly disgusting passive play super low-skill cheese build.

Good riddance to that sort of build leaving GW2, and especially leaving Mesmer which has traditionally been a skilled profession.

MailMail.6534:

I can see why they would want to get rid of the clone death traits due to wanting Mesmers to use their main mechanic more often and not rely on passive game play. I get it, and I somewhat agree even though the effectiveness of one of my favorite builds will die out.

The only issue I take with this is the fact that clones must be able to survive in order to do dmg. This includes phantasms and the path a clone must take when commanded to shatter. No class suffers more from AOE pressure than ours. AOE guts our dmg significantly, and this is a problem in pvp modes.

SUGGESTION
Keep out the offensive clone death traits. Combine Compounding Celerity & Vigorous Revelation for a new trait:
Vigorous Dissipation - Clones apply Vigor (2s) and Swiftness (3s) to nearby allies when they are killed. # of Targets – 5. Radius – 240.

Before, clone death traits would give you an incentive to actually let your clones die. I think going a bit more supportive instead of offensive would be more in line with their ideals and give players less of an incentive to let them die. At the same time, it does cover a major weakness to the Mesmer class by giving you more dodges and the ability to escape a sticky situation.

Afterwards, they can just add vigor onto all shatters with Bountiful Disillusionment, making it even more on par with the boon monsters it’s stealth/interrupt counterparts, PU & CI. Then, they can have another chance at making a more than decent Inspiration trait. How many more chances is it going to take, idk, but I’m willing to give them as many as they need…

Thoughts?

I like this idea. A trait that applies an defensive boon or a little healing on clone death? That sounds really interesting. Could work as another defensiv mechanic for support mesmer.

as much as i dont care about clone death ppl forget that clones dont stay alive longe and get killed easily by aoe cleave etc.
thus even a pu passive stealth game stlye will require some endurance and stealth rotation and defense ability to be used in the right moment

but the last changes with confusion on crit while being able to use pu, mtd, scepter buff etc … should compensate of clone deat trait which only the bleeding *2 did dmg and weakness negate dmg (more important imo). the old pu build was nerfed in the last patch with reducing the duration and the stacks.

thus i would love to see something when clones get killed (not replaced) like Mailmail state above aoe boon , heal, etc

What do you guys think, which style of gameplay is more passive:
a) Keeping up clones for their auto attack crits to let them apply condi damage
b) Keeping up clones and hoping they’ll get killed to apply some condis?

If you want to deal damage, I think a) would be more fun from the mesmer perspective, but regarding counter-play I think the clone-death variant is far the better choice.

Most of the time a mesmer get’s countered, if you continue to kill the illusions at the same time f.e. as a melee hammer guard just spamming auto attack. I like the idea that you could have a spec punishing people just running after you and spamming auto-attack.

Regarding balance: On-Clone-Death builds do not have to apply damaging condition. How about just applying weakness or slow or chilled?

I have noticed that in the mesmer community, there are a lot of elitists who demand that there are only certain ways that is ‘honorable’ to fight. So they cry for nerfs to every build except their own. There favorite criticism is that the play is ‘passive’, even though they really aren’t.

I use the phantasm clone death build and I work my tail off to win the fights, and not just by dodging. I want my phantasms to cause as much damage as possible, so I want them to survive as long as possible. If I have 3 illusions up, I am using my weapons instead of wasting time on dodging.

I remember the previous times that the elitists. complained about builds they despised. Well, we got the nerfs, but they were ones that even the elitists didn’t like. The nerfs were such that they effected nearly everyone in a negative way. It happened every time, and there is no reason to think it won’t happen again.

And every single time they were designed to supposedly balance pvp.. They have always, always, made things a little more difficult in pve. Maybe not a lot each time, but they have been accumulating over time. Today, the pve experience is noticeably worse than it was at the start. Build diversity is constantly being whittled down by anet, at the urging of mesmer pvp’ers and elitists. I am sick of it.

Replacing clone-death with when-crit has a few nice bonuses:

Affects Ranged Opponents
Applying confusion when your opponent crits you/illusion can work against ranged opponents while the previous clone-death did not as the condition application was based on a 240 range PBAOE centered on the illusion killed.

Affects You and Illusions
Opponents are not only punished for critting on illusions but also for critting the real Mesmer.

Can Be Triggered Multiple Times
Clone-death traits could only trigger when a clone died. A clone could only die once. If an illusion survives the first critical hit it takes, then it can take another, hence you can get more than one proc of this effect per illusion.

Illusions, Not Clones
As it is currently written, the new trait affects both clones and phantasms as it specifies illusions as opposed to two of the previous clone-death traits that specified clones.

I can see this minor trait being quite powerful against opponents that like to spam cleaves/AOEs to wear you down as they will likely do several small crits that will load them up with confusion.

Think what this would do to a Guardian using Staff to clear your Illusions.

Think what this would do to an Engineer using Flamethrower/Grenades/Bombs to clear your illusions.

Think what this would do to another Mesmer if your illusions are getting hit by their Chaos Storm.

… and so on.

phys.7689:

Jedge.3619:

phys.7689:

uhhh, phantasms are just as passive as clone death play.
if not more so.

I have a mesmer, i dont play clone death style because i am an offensive type player. that doesnt mean a defensive attrition based style should not exist within the class.

i have also played against it. It is annoying, it is supposed to be annoying. just like the tanky eles, the tanky guardians, the tanky thieves, necros etc.

just because i dont play it, doesnt mean it should not exist. Just because it is annoying to fight doesnt mean it should not exist.

Do you actually know which illusion will die last to proc DD when you dodge (DE)? Do you have a choice which illusion dies when you use an illusion summoning skill? The answer is: no. The original intention of DE was as you’ve stated, to punish those killing illusions. However, the main issue with DD in its current form is that you have very little control and it is being abused. If you have 3 illusions up – and you use an illusion summoning skill, why should your opponent be punished with DD because you removed a clone, not them. Mesmer’s are getting extra free conditions from that trait which is the main problem.

because any clone that is destroyed is using up a resource. if you are destroying clones by burning clone generators, you are wasting your generators.

If you chose to slot clone on death traits, you gave up some other traits that were most likely just as strong.

It isnt “free” the mesmer decides how deadly he wants his clone to be, and what the best way the opponent has to deal with them, based on his build.

phantasm build has weak fodder clones
shatter is going to try to blow you up/burst
on death is attrition based

ignore phantasm clones (if they even exist)
dodge shatter clones at the key moments
out sustain on death clones.

you may hate attrition builds, but everyone else has them. and the attrition concept definately fits the mesmer range of playstyles.

The only trait you lose by not going into that tree is either manipulation cooldown or illusionary defense. You’re really not losing anything. You never really answered my original argument – please re-read what I said. I never said killing clones wasn’t bad and shouldn’t be punished, I’m saying the way DD currently functions is not right.

I don’t play the meta not because i’d call myself a rebel but because I personally for my PLAY STYLE have always played clone death. For the last 6-8 months I’ve run a 4/4/6/0/0 with CD & DD and I’ve been more than successful with it. I’m not upset because they removed the traits, I’m upset they removed the play style. If someone want’s to keep clones and or phantasm up that is their choice. Forcing players to shatter removed the choice the player has. Yes technically I can still refuse to do so but now that becomes non viable.

I do agree it was bugged that unintentional kills/death but summoning a new clone was a little uneven but a fix would be a better result than to remove the option and play style.

Jedge.3619:

phys.7689:

Jedge.3619:

Ithilwen.1529:

I play clone death and it’s not passive at all.

Wait what? The point of shatter is to shatter your clones to deal extra damage, not watch them die to do damage. Any spec can put on debilitating dissipation (which is random btw, no guaranteed bleed) and just wait for their clones to die. The point of a Mesmer’s mechanics is to shatter your clones – its a class mechanic. They want you actively deciding whether or not to interrupt, deal damage/condi damage/ or save yourself with distortion. That is an active playstyle. Which is why IP is being made baseline. Dodge-rolling with 3 clones up and spawning more clones just to get “conditions.” Btw, do you actually know which clone dies last to proc DD when you dodge or create a clone at 3, the answer is probably not. I’m extremely glad they’re removing this trait from the game. i’m sure you can come up with other trait lines in the new chaos tree to suit your playstyle.

no, one aspect of your clones is to shatter them.
there is a reason they look exactly like you.
they also supposed to be deceptive.

a tank/distraction mesmer actually wants his clones alive, and taking damage until the moment they die. Shattering all your distractions/meat shields at once, is only a good idea when the benefits outweigh the loss.

Now, i personally never really used the build, but to claim its pointless, or against the class design is foolish. Mesmer is not defined as being a explosion factory.

Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes.

deception as a weapon: nothing deceptive about blowing up every illusion you have
confuse and distract: yup taking damage for attacking the wrong guy is confusing and distracting
cant believe your eyes: yup once again decieving the enemy/making the wrong choices.

clone death is very much one part of the idea behind mesmer.

If you’ve never used the build before, how can you either argue for or against it unless you’ve experienced it – maybe you’ve fought it before? A good player, will rarely pick the wrong mesmer – its pretty easy to tell who the real one is. There’s nothing deceptive about dodge-rolling or creating a new clone and having it explode causing new conditions. Sure, killing a clone is “deceptive” but doing the former is not. That is the main issue is the passivity of that specific playstyle. Phantasm/staff mode builds want their illusions alive possibly. There’s a reason they’re also adding in new traits to promote shattering even when you have phantasms – they want a more active playstyle. I’m not saying playing phantasm is wrong, but the way clone-death was abused needed to be changed.

Those that spam dodging to get the clone death proc are bad. Mesmers are also not just type casted to being “deceptive”….misdirection…punishment for actions?….

The use of “active play” also works against anyone who uses crit sigils, runes that proc an effect not within your active control, AI that auto attack, every class trait that provides a “passive” boost to attributes or a proc effect that is not in your direct control, boons that provide passive effects such as “regen or protection as examples”, healing skills that passively heal you such as “healing signet” and skills that require an active use but are passive straight afterwards such as elementalists “meteor shower” (called fire and forget, which has been applied to a mesmers “shattering”).

Oh wait what are conditions…they are applied actively but passively cause damage over time to said target or targets.

Majority of these are used in supposed “high” tier game play. This game is full of passive effects that no one wants to acknowledge or consistently complain about.

But hey…death to clone death trait points just means something else taken away from the mesmer…again (though you would have to be a noob to have a problem with it, since the traits have already been nerf hammered and anet are simply finishing off what they started).

This of course will not stop there as those nice and shinny traits (e.g. confusing combatants) will be nerf hammered into the ground. That is just an example, because we also know a few others will obviously be nerf hammered as well or not turn out as expected.

Although I am not sad to see clone death builds go, one could make the argument to roll Debilitating Dissipation into Descent Into Madness. That trait is looking pretty under powered compared to the other fall damage traits for some classes (thieves I’m looking at you).

Descent Into Madness, Phase Retreat … enjoy your Chaos Armor … now better with the appropriate Specialization

Man, someone didn’t get any hugs as a child.

People aren’t sheep, shills, etc. for disagreeing with you … especially if they provide facts for why they disagree.

Personally, I enjoyed on clone death because it did just as you said … made sure that almost no matter what my clones were going to have some impact on the fight.

What this change does is force us to re-evaluate how we make use of our illusions … just like any large revamp should make you re-evaluate lots of things.

Many of us are okay with the removal of clone death because we believe the other things that we are getting are sufficient enough to make up for it … or some people simply didn’t even use clone death so couldn’t care less. It was actually not a very common build.

That make it a bit more clear?

I’d give you a hug, but I think the salt levels would give me a heart-attack or stroke.

Sebrent.3625:

Man, someone didn’t get any hugs as a child.

People aren’t sheep, shills, etc. for disagreeing with you … especially if they provide facts for why they disagree.

Personally, I enjoyed on clone death because it did just as you said … made sure that almost no matter what my clones were going to have some impact on the fight.

What this change does is force us to re-evaluate how we make use of our illusions … just like any large revamp should make you re-evaluate lots of things.

Many of us are okay with the removal of clone death because we believe the other things that we are getting are sufficient enough to make up for it … or some people simply didn’t even use clone death so couldn’t care less. It was actually not a very common build.

That make it a bit more clear?

I’d give you a hug, but I think the salt levels would give me a heart-attack or stroke.

Mmmm… Salt
Killed my build to be sure but what this change does more is kill the use of clones there is no longer a 100% chance that Shatter skill when used will land a result. Minor AoE will kill them before they reach there target and World Bosses will just be more problematic. This will just drive people to use something more constant like phantasms and will narrow down the options people will have not just because they removed the play style completely but because not only can a shatter result in a miss which came through changes they made through the year. Even if the shatter would connect there isn’t a back up in case that clone was destroyed as clones need to run to there target first before they shatter. So why use clones there not gonna live long enough to crit anyway they gave us a phantasm shatter trait which is probably what they intended for Mesmers.

Also my Rampager is ascended and without Debilitating Dissipation I need a new ascended set. So praise the salty goodness

I agree with you 100% that illusions dying on their way to shatter is a big issue. But I think that is a completely separate issue. I wasn’t ever “happy” … not even “content” … when I used a shatter and my illusions were killed before they could shatter … even if I had clone-death traits.

I think the issue of illusions being killed as they run to shatter needs to be tackled on its own.

Who knows, perhaps they were listening over a year ago when we asked that shattering illusions break them where they stood and send those a projectile at illusion(s) target(s). I believe the image used back then was the illusions breaking into something akin to shards of glass that flew at the target(s).

It would be nice if there was a surprise and this happened. I don’t think many, if any, Mesmers would be unhappy with this except possibly in a few very niche situations.

Could also just give them invuln when you shatter.

Why give opponents so many different ways to mitigate our damage … especially when the one that bothers us is the blindly cleave/AOE. That shouldn’t be a counter to anything worthwhile … if anything at all.

Mesmers now completely lack and attrition playstyle or a style capable of spreading conditions quickly to a large amount of people. They also killed Condi glamours for super speed of all things? I never used conditions on my glamours but I’ve seen it in PvP though that build is also dead along with retaliation thanks to these changes though it died a long time ago with the first condi nerfs to appease the golden classes. Anet is just removing Condi builds all together instead of nerfing them this time around.

This is completely untrue. Have you heard of MtD? Have you used Illusionary Elasticity before? Both of these are rhetorical questions, because obviously you haven’t if you think Mesmers won’t have the ability to spread conditions and have an attrition playstyle.

The issue of clones dying too quickly is a completely separate issue altogether. Alternative condition pressure that isn’t reliant on RNG Debilitating Dissipation is better imo, and that is what we’re getting with all the other condition buffs.

Good point. We could kill 2 birds with one stone here:

1) Make Clones unable to be affected by indirect AoE/cleave damage (or even take 50-75% less damage from it, would help a ton!)
2) Give a trait that gives a significant drawback to directly targeting and killing a Clone at melee range. (Even single-target would be fine, doesn’t have to be AE!)

This would solve a ton of issues for shatter builds, while allowing a punishment for poor play that can not possibly be construed as being cheesy or passive.

When you think about it, it makes a whole lot of sense that a player should be punished for deliberately targeting and killing a Clone. It’s our resource! Killing it should not always be an ideal way to play against us, but sadly it really kinda is now, and in many cases will be even more so now.

At least before, Clone Death kept people on their toes and wondering if a Mesmer had DD, knowing that this would mean a bit of trouble if they just played Whack-A-Mole with our Clones. I really never had an issue with Clone Death builds, they seemed sensible in that it discouraged the poor play most people were engaging in because it was so effective against just about all other Mesmer builds.

The problem with CD builds was that cleave damage so easily kills Clones that even if you weren’t trying to kill them, you did. This needs to change and would fix two bad designs in one fell swoop!

The Primary.6371:

Those that spam dodging to get the clone death proc are bad. Mesmers are also not just type casted to being “deceptive”….misdirection…punishment for actions?….

The use of “active play” also works against anyone who uses crit sigils, runes that proc an effect not within your active control, AI that auto attack, every class trait that provides a “passive” boost to attributes or a proc effect that is not in your direct control, boons that provide passive effects such as “regen or protection as examples”, healing skills that passively heal you such as “healing signet” and skills that require an active use but are passive straight afterwards such as elementalists “meteor shower” (called fire and forget, which has been applied to a mesmers “shattering”).

Oh wait what are conditions…they are applied actively but passively cause damage over time to said target or targets.

Majority of these are used in supposed “high” tier game play. This game is full of passive effects that no one wants to acknowledge or consistently complain about.

But hey…death to clone death trait points just means something else taken away from the mesmer…again (though you would have to be a noob to have a problem with it, since the traits have already been nerf hammered and anet are simply finishing off what they started).

This of course will not stop there as those nice and shinny traits (e.g. confusing combatants) will be nerf hammered into the ground. That is just an example, because we also know a few others will obviously be nerf hammered as well or not turn out as expected.

The passivity of GuildWars2 is unreal. Conditions are essentially fire and forget, buffs such as retaliation exist. Perplexity runes, I could go on for days. I also agree that a large portion of the new traits will have to be toned down (nerfed into oblivion) in the final release. I understand that something was taken away from mesmer, but I strongly believe that the amount of other buffs we got to condi and other builds more than makes up for this change. It hurts dire more than anything.

@Windwalker:
I actually have no problem with someone explicitly targeting an illusion to kill it. That is them not explicitly targeted me (or an allied player).

Additionally, perhaps I have LOS’d my opponent(s) to get some pressure off of me and my illusions are still DPSing them. In this case it makes perfect sense for them to explicitly target my illusions to alleviate that DPS pressure they are exerting and to force me to come out at least long enough to resummon new ones … else not exert any more pressure.

What I have an issue with is “oops, I happened to kill your illusion while doing something else … yay for me! sucks for you!”

Intentionally making good decisions should be rewarding. Accidentally doing something should not be rewarding.

@Jedge:
There is a difference between my applying conditions to you and things like Engineer turrets that sit and wait for someone to shoot at.

To get those conditions on you, I have to do something. An attack, skill, etc. to apply them. This is no different than doing direct damage to you. The only difference is that that damage I apply per hit is spread out over a period of time instead of being applied upfront.

Applying conditions is not passive.

Summoning a couple AI that just sit and wait for someone to shoot at … that is passive.

Jedge.3619:

The Primary.6371:

Those that spam dodging to get the clone death proc are bad. Mesmers are also not just type casted to being “deceptive”….misdirection…punishment for actions?….

The use of “active play” also works against anyone who uses crit sigils, runes that proc an effect not within your active control, AI that auto attack, every class trait that provides a “passive” boost to attributes or a proc effect that is not in your direct control, boons that provide passive effects such as “regen or protection as examples”, healing skills that passively heal you such as “healing signet” and skills that require an active use but are passive straight afterwards such as elementalists “meteor shower” (called fire and forget, which has been applied to a mesmers “shattering”).

Oh wait what are conditions…they are applied actively but passively cause damage over time to said target or targets.

Majority of these are used in supposed “high” tier game play. This game is full of passive effects that no one wants to acknowledge or consistently complain about.

But hey…death to clone death trait points just means something else taken away from the mesmer…again (though you would have to be a noob to have a problem with it, since the traits have already been nerf hammered and anet are simply finishing off what they started).

This of course will not stop there as those nice and shinny traits (e.g. confusing combatants) will be nerf hammered into the ground. That is just an example, because we also know a few others will obviously be nerf hammered as well or not turn out as expected.

The passivity of GuildWars2 is unreal. Conditions are essentially fire and forget, buffs such as retaliation exist. Perplexity runes, I could go on for days. I also agree that a large portion of the new traits will have to be toned down (nerfed into oblivion) in the final release. I understand that something was taken away from mesmer, but I strongly believe that the amount of other buffs we got to condi and other builds more than makes up for this change. It hurts dire more than anything.

The over all 3 trait line “deadlocked” choice or nothing at all underlines it all for every class.

This expansion will never be worthy with it around….

Clone build’s simply aren’t a viable option

The shatter can already be dodged and the sheer fragility of clones coupled with the fact that they have to run to there shatter target means that there is a chance that the build up and shattering of clones which takes time mind you won’t always result in a hit or any sort of damage. This clone critical hit deal there trying is a clone engine all it’s own with great flaws than the current for the they may only get a few strikes if any before they are destroyed. Way to much RNG and uncertainty introduced compared to other Mesmer builds like Mantra and Phant.

Clone death traits were built into a line so matter what happened at the very least clone death resulted in confusion for Zerkers and those traited into dueling.

This talk of increasing the survivability of clones, making them immune to AoE, or even making them shatter in place just complicates the issue even more. Simple solution was clone death which we already had with we grant immunities and survivability then that might make them superior to Phantasm unless they too get a scaled buff. Shattering in place for a ranged clone wouldn’t hit the same number of targets as the current shatter is an AOE. If they Shattered in place then they fragments would head to a single target the one they were locked onto. It would be single target and while they could make it AoE burst on that target they couldn’t make it an invisible projectile. It would need animation and keeping the same clone running animation wouldn’t make sense because giving the projectile animation the current clone running animation would be that same as granting them super armor at the press of a shatter.

The other classes have builds that don’t take advantage of there core mechanic as well but I don’t see those play styles getting removed. If you want a constant and reliable form of DPS then clones are no longer an option as your better off shattering your Phantasms as they have the survivability to get a few hits in and make it to there targets safely in order to shatter at a much higher rate of success they even added a trait. For those who might try this clone crit build there adding then think on what you would do if you had to fight such a build? Simply AoE kill all the clones your not gonna get crippled, conditioned, or punished at all and the Mesmer is open for attack while waiting for clone skills to CD. If they shatter you roll and your safe or since the clones are coming to you then just destroy them before they can shatter.

People like consistency so I figure less shatter builds/Mesmers overall unless they make some hearty changes to the clone mechanic to replace something as simple and easily implemented as clone death.

redcomyn.4651:

I have noticed that in the mesmer community, there are a lot of elitists who demand that there are only certain ways that is ‘honorable’ to fight. So they cry for nerfs to every build except their own. There favorite criticism is that the play is ‘passive’, even though they really aren’t.

Has little to do with elitism.
But if you have to axe off 1 extremity to get 4 functioning ones instead of 5 broken ones, why not? And clone death is the least-involved playstyle, meaning it has the least change in gameplay compared to no-spec-at-all.

As such, as little “playstyle” as possible is lost.

@Doam:
That invulnerability would be for only when illusions (not just clones, both both types) were running to the target to shatter. They would not be invulnerable any other time.

At least that’s what my thought was for that potential solution to illusions being popped before they could actually shatter on a target.

So you’d have:

• Mesmer hits shatter skill
• Illusions gain invuln
• Illusions run to target(s) to shatter.
• Illusions shatter … unless their target take advantage of terrain … because AI :-p

Carighan said:
“Has little to do with elitism.
But if you have to axe off 1 extremity to get 4 functioning ones instead of 5 broken ones, why not? And clone death is the least-involved playstyle, meaning it has the least change in gameplay compared to no-spec-at-all.

As such, as little “playstyle” as possible is lost."

I have been using clone death in my builds. I have never used dodging to create a clone to make a current one explode. To my mind, that is dumb and wastes a dodge that could be used to dodge a strike. However, whenever my weapon creates a clone or phantasm, I consider clone death as just part of the damage dealt by my weapon. I don’t see the problem with that.

Doam.8305:

Clone build’s simply aren’t a viable option

however if it fits your play style it can be more viable than other options depending on how the person utilizes it.

many will agree if it works for you then its the most viable play option.

Dragon.7682:

Clone death matters. Why?
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/mesmer/

Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes.

That is the quote from the Guild wars 2 website.

Clone death traits allows for punishment for players or mobs making the wrong choice. Is distraction not the purpose of clones other than shattering?
Why should we not be able to punish other classes for making the wrong choice. Even reducing the duration of the effects would be better than taking all the dissipation traits out.

“We didn’t want to reward players for letting clones die or for replacing clones, which are both not optimal play” is what you mentioned on stream yesterday. I believe that this is not correct. It is inefficient yes but it allows us mesmers to make the other team think twice about just randomly swinging at us. Why should our resource, that we create, have no benefit when others try to destroy it.

Mesmers are about giving the enemy a choice: deal with us on our terms or face the consequences. And that is why clone death matters.

Yea I don’t agree about what that dev said either, made a thread about my thoughts in the crippling dissipation thread.

Sebrent.3625:

-snip-

@Jedge:
There is a difference between my applying conditions to you and things like Engineer turrets that sit and wait for someone to shoot at.

To get those conditions on you, I have to do something. An attack, skill, etc. to apply them. This is no different than doing direct damage to you. The only difference is that that damage I apply per hit is spread out over a period of time instead of being applied upfront.

Applying conditions is not passive.

Summoning a couple AI that just sit and wait for someone to shoot at … that is passive.

Applying conditions is passive. You forgot to mention one thing about the damage being spread out over a period of time. Sure, there is the active component of being applied upfront. However, once I apply a condition on someone or phantasm or clone, I can just walk away and it’ll still do damage – that is the passive component. For direct damage, I have to actually be actively hitting the person continuously. I’d rather not get into a debate about the passivity of GuildWars2. This discussion is about the removal of on-clone death traits.

@Jedge:
That is not passive gameplay. That is the effect of active gameplay.

Passive gameplay requires no action from the player (example: turrets attacking). Active gameplay requires action from the player (example: applying conditions with an attack.)

By your definition of “passive gameplay”, crippling someone for longer than my attack lasts is “passive gameplay” as my attack is finished and they are still crippled beyond the time my attack took place.

Whether an ability does 1,000 damage instantly when you land it or does 1,000 damage over 5s when you land it … does not make that different as far as active vs passive.

This ties into clone death because they were a more passive application in some scenarios such as when an opponent “whoopses” your clone and it dies. More active was intentionally overflowing your number of clones by summoning a new one (I too thought wasting a dodge on this wasn’t too bright … but using a scepter AA or other weapons’ skills was fine).

The difference?

The “whoopse” applied the condition despite you not doing anything yourself other than previously summoning the clone … perhaps summoning it for a completely different reason.

The other scenario you intentionally caused it to explode.

Sebrent.3625:

@Jedge:
That is not passive gameplay. That is the effect of active gameplay.

Whether an ability does 1,000 damage instantly when you land it or does 1,000 damage over 5s when you land it … does not make that different as far as active vs passive.

Passive gameplay requires no action from the player (example: turrets attacking). Active gameplay requires action from the player (example: applying conditions with an attack.)

Once I use a skill, the condition is applied and therefore remains on a person/field such as a turret until removed. When I use a damaging skill without conditions, the ability to have another reoccurring effect is immediately gone. I agree, “Fire and Forget” – conditions, phantasms, turrets etc. are passive.

Jedge.3619:

Sebrent.3625:

-snip-

@Jedge:
There is a difference between my applying conditions to you and things like Engineer turrets that sit and wait for someone to shoot at.

To get those conditions on you, I have to do something. An attack, skill, etc. to apply them. This is no different than doing direct damage to you. The only difference is that that damage I apply per hit is spread out over a period of time instead of being applied upfront.

Applying conditions is not passive.

Summoning a couple AI that just sit and wait for someone to shoot at … that is passive.

Applying conditions *is passive.* You forgot to mention one thing about the damage being spread out over a period of time. Sure, there is the active component of being applied upfront. However, once I apply a condition on someone or phantasm or clone, I can just walk away and it’ll still do damage – that is the passive component. For direct damage, I have to actually be actively hitting the person continuously. I’d rather not get into a debate about the passivity of GuildWars2. This discussion is about the removal of on-clone death traits.

Applying conditions yourself is not passive – because you need to actively use a skill that hits the target. Only AI applying conditions (clones, pets, minions, summons, turrets…) is passive because you don’t need to do anything.

The damage AFTER applying is passive, however the cumulative damage from certain conditions ticking passively over a period of time is similar to the instant damage from direct damage attacks – where everything is actively unloaded in one moment.

If the conditions are cleansed, then they are doing inferior damage to that instant direct damage spike – so passive damage or not, the direct damage is superior because you take the whole lot in one go.

The main advantage condition builds have over direct damage is the luxury of speccing huge toughness/vitality because of not needing three stats (power/prec/fer) to do damage, and then consequently direct damage builds are usually glassy with minimal condition removal and so are vulnerable to conditions. Swings and roundabouts.

Sebrent.3625:

@Doam:
That invulnerability would be for only when illusions (not just clones, both both types) were running to the target to shatter. They would not be invulnerable any other time.

At least that’s what my thought was for that potential solution to illusions being popped before they could actually shatter on a target.

So you’d have:

• Mesmer hits shatter skill
• Illusions gain invuln
• Illusions run to target(s) to shatter.
• Illusions shatter … unless their target take advantage of terrain … because AI :-p

Just wouldn’t make sense that something so fragile would all of sudden gain super armor. Besides if they did they’d have to make them Un-targetable as well as that would also add a wall effect as they’d absorb damage as they ran in for the shatter. All of which is more complicated than leaving in a simple death mechanic

We can give them super armor when they shatter skill is used and make them un-targetable or we can just make them cripple people around them when they die. For a class that has more glitches than other class and the fact we’ve had problems since the launch of this game I don’t have high hopes for them adjusting the survivability of clones in the slightest. They gave us a longer stealth duration traited most likely in an attempt to mitigate the clones as a distraction tool but that will just lead to more problems than it actually attempts to fix as well. We were already a broken class there just adding more cracks in the glass.

CobraPolo.1723:

Doam.8305:

Clone build’s simply aren’t a viable option

however if it fits your play style it can be more viable than other options depending on how the person utilizes it.

many will agree if it works for you then its the most viable play option.

Meant not viable anymore

My play style was clone deaths and my secondary was glamours of all things primarily because it was fun. But oddly enough both were killed and thus I post as often as I do against these changes. Feedback/Null Field no longer blinds and confuses targets as well as the reflection/strip but now just boosts speed along with there primary???
Blinding foes and Dps does more for group support than increasing there speed in such a tiny area during combat of all things.

My play styles are dead and the clones that remain are less consistent they can be dodged, killed, or even missed and unlike other skills for other classes clones are a resource that needs to be set up in advance before you can shatter and the fact that all that can lead to a complete failure leads to added risks and less consistency.

Your level of faith carries little weight … same as every other play here’s level of faith.

It doesn’t hurt/help whether or not something will happen.

The mesmer is a much more complicated class. Any developer would tell you that it’s natural for a more complicated object to have more bugs. That’s the nature of the beast.

You make a good point about invulnerable illusions possibly acting as a wall, but perhaps they could also be coded to no longer intercept projectiles when in that “mode” as well as have the lowest priority for attacks/effects so they wouldn’t be consuming the max hits of AOEs, etc. unless there was nothing else …. or just simply not be affected by them. How that is currently coded would likely dictate which of those was the more optimal way to implement it.

I’m with you about the nerf to the old confusion glamour build. All a player had to do was either (1) Stop attacking for a few seconds or (2) Cleanse. Apparently that was too high of a skill-level requirement … so it got nerfed into the ground.

What aggravated me more about that was that since I wasn’t always zerg-busting, I ran other builds as well which got hit quite hard by the same nerf. Those same builds ate another nerf later thanks to PU … meh.

Still doesn’t mean I have to go arguing against every change when there are valid reasons for it though. Let’s see what direction this goes, get our hands on it, test the crud out of it, and then come back to it. I think that’s fair.

Perhaps the potentially higher churn rate for illusions will offset the lack of on-clone-death.

common ppl stop this useless debate passive active

condi build (mainly pu) give you more time to be on defense and to choose which action to take while power build make you be more faster on decisions as when to burst and if you start the burst you must finish in fast and put yourself at safe spot

both are active and passive (even power shatter go stealth blink away and w8 for icd skills – so yes 5-10 sec with no action)

anet want more actions in the fight and making decisions so they push us to more shattering and less clone time

lets look at this from the class mechanic viewpoint:

mesmer’s class mechanic is to shatter illusions for extra effects, like interrupts and applying confusion.

warrior’s class mechanic is to build up adrenaline to buff the burst skill, and then use the burst skill.

warrior’s took traits that encouraged them to NOT use their burst skill, and those traits were changed to encourage them to USE their burst skill.

this is the same thing ANET is doing with mesmers. clone death builds (of which i used, by the way, and will no longer be able to use) encouraged mesmers to NOT use their class mechanic skills. so, just like they changed warrior traits to encourage class mechanic usage, Anet is changing traits to encourage mesmers to USE their class mechanic skills.

yes, i will sorely miss clone death build in PvE, but i feel it’s justified. i feel like ANet is being consistent here, and i feel that if Anet were to revert the changes to allow clone death without shattering, then they’d also have to revert all the warrior adrenaline changes that finally brought warrior into balance.

Give Phantasms or Illusions (leaning on the former) Xs of Resistence and Aegis every Xs when you go into Inspiration instead of retaliation. This solves the problem of clones dying too quickly and gets rid of our need to have clone death traits ever.

Attacking a clone instead of the mesmer is punishment in and of itself since you’re wasting a CD and time/energy on the wrong target. Anything more is just sprinkles on top.

I want to be able to spam 1 on my staff guard against mesmers and not have any consequences, thankyou!

MailMail.6534:

Give Phantasms or Illusions (leaning on the former) Xs of Resistence and Aegis every Xs when you go into Inspiration instead of retaliation. This solves the problem of clones dying too quickly and gets rid of our need to have clone death traits ever.

Attacking a clone instead of the mesmer is punishment in and of itself since you’re wasting a CD and time/energy on the wrong target. Anything more is just sprinkles on top.

The problem is we punish ourselves no shadder fodder. I suppose since we have ip baseline we will have 1 clone constantly the bright side.

That problem is bigger than clone death traits to be fair though.

redcomyn.4651:

I have been using clone death in my builds. I have never used dodging to create a clone to make a current one explode. To my mind, that is dumb and wastes a dodge that could be used to dodge a strike. However, whenever my weapon creates a clone or phantasm, I consider clone death as just part of the damage dealt by my weapon. I don’t see the problem with that.

Yes but that’s my point, you don’t have any special gameplay as a result of a clone death build (outside of the intentional overwriting of clones via dodges, and maybe equipping Mirror Images :P ).
You do as normal, only clones being killed happens to do some stuff. That was my point about as little gameplay being lost as possible, clone death builds, if you were to blindfold them (that is, if they couldn’t see what effects their clones produced and what damage and conditions they caused) could probably not even tell whether they’re playing clone death right now or not.

It’s a nifty little boon to have, but it doesn’t really add any gameplay to a Mesmer. As such, if something is to be axed, I favor axing this.

I just do not understand why people want (condition based) mesmers to be -single target- …

Only sword has cleave… ALL other options are single target except offhand pistol and staff auto…

I think mesmers should lose their (great)swords for a month and then come back and reevaluate.

And yes I’m aware GS attacks are piercing till last target, you have I zerk and staff clones, chaos storm…., but still… how are you goping to chaos storm someone to death?

It’s a build that people used and the entire mechanic was removed from the game completely. They didn’t even give and alternative and what’s the point of clone now anyway? They’ll die before they can get off any of the so called Critical Hits anyway. You summon a clone in pvp it gets nuked or destroyed almost instantly but with the current dissipation line it wouldn’t have died in vain. With this new line there is no point to them at all. We can’t even spread conditions anymore Debilitating Dissipation is completely gone and adding none damaging conditions like Blindness completely destroys any Mesmer who has any sort of condition damage on their ascended gear as relying heavily on confusion is just as bad as the Condi Burn Guardians whose have to rely on second burns since their Condi can be cleansed so easily.

Mesmers now lack an attrition playstyle or a style capable of spreading conditions quickly to a large amount of people. They also killed Condi glamours for super speed of all things? I never used conditions on my glamours but I’ve seen it in PvP though that build is also dead along with retaliation thanks to these changes though it died a long time ago with the first condi nerfs to appease the other classes. Anet is just removing Condi builds all together instead of nerfing them this time around.

(Edited from a previously deleted post and at least we know there reading posts but without an actually response what’s the point of any of this there not gonna bring back clone deaths and without it the class has lost a chunk of consistency because you need to make the clones before you can shatter them and those clones are a resource with a CD. So even though they can be dodged or even a miss the option to simply destroy that resource making sure you never get that shatter. They need to run to the target through whatever is happening at the time including an enemy target before they can even shatter. I person picks a class because of they like the playstyle not only have they killed some playstyles but they added a fair good deal of inconsistancy with the classes core mechanic. When another class hits a spell or creates resources for use the effect will go off but with the Mesmer that was never the case but if it failed the clone death effect would kick in which we no longer have in the game after HoT and even the Chronomancer a heavy shatter class is effected by the lack of clone death effect.)