Guild Wars 2

I love the Mesmer.. In theory
But in practice I have always felt something was missing.
Phantasms are really boring and offer a inactive play style. I actually complained about this in beta.
There is nothing fun about summoning a creature that sits there a attracts every three seconds
I think they need a rework in making them feel more dynamic and useful

Does anyone like them?

My personal opinion is that they should no longer be tied to an enemy. They should be summons that change the reality of the battlefield

Example: phantasmal nightmare- summon nightmare in a targeted area foes attacking in this field are damage and gain 1s of bleeding for each attack

Phantasmal warden- summon an illusionary warden allies attacking in this field are healed for each attack

Phantasmal beserker- summon a berserker at targeted area that does damage every x seconds and burns foes

All of them can still be attacked to offer counterplay
It would also be neat if they weren’t just clones of yourself. But fun illusions

Ghostly image for nightmare
Butterfly for warden
Beast for berserker

What do you think? Are you currently having fun with phantasms?

I enjoy going in 900 range of an enemy and spend another 1 and a half second casting phantasm which will take another half a second to attack or walk to one of the enemy and attack
-sarcasm
yes, they need a redesign or at least normalize they cast time to 3/4 sec, especially the utility phantasm

I would be all for a phantasm rework, preferably removal and replace with attacks which have a side effect of leaving a clone.

Then give us damage modifiers, up a load of coefficients so we can have proper DPS…ah the dream.

This is not even a question, it should have been done long ago and has been suggested soo many times, but alas.

My personal opinion is that all phantasms should be made ground targetable, with specific abilities depending on which phantasm you summon. For example, when you summon Phantasmal Zerker, you can choose the direction of the spin.

just give them special attacks like necro minions… that’s the lazy way to add something to them and therefore the most likely thing to be implemented.

I want them to have defense stats so they don’t die immediatly to a single necro mark or a dh trap.

Ananeos.4587:

I want them to have defense stats so they don’t die immediatly to a single necro mark or a dh trap.

There are traits and skills that give illusions distortion when summoned so they wont instantly die, also you can increase their health and make their attacks stronger and faster. Its all in the build. Clones are designed to be weaker and phantasms are designed to be stronger in attacks and have higher health.

Both of them are useful in certain situations, it all relies on how you use them and do not think of them as simple AI that stand there and attack something, think of them as barriers. Stand inside the wardens, behind the defenders, keep them between you and your enemy.

A long time ago I suggested making phantasms either pure-utility (as in no damage) and giving all that missing damage back to the Mesmer herself, or, making phantasms untargettable/unattackable and have them not take up an illusion slot (as in only clones would count as proper illusions) and then balancing them in accordance with that: reducing damages, streamlining their effects, giving them a more proper niche in gameplay etc.

2nd option would be pretty fair as long as they remain balanced, considering their cooldowns are rather long. The longer a fight goes on, the more phantasms you could gradually compound, gaining a reliable momentum of damage. They’re already sorta balanced in this way through traits anyway, but at the moment it doesn’t really work because of the nature of Mesmer’s mechanics. It kinda goes back to what OP said, there’s a lot of things about Mesmer that seem really fantastic in theory but just don’t really work in practice. At least not without causing the giant mess of balance issues that we have today..

Novamatrix.2569:

There are traits and skills that give illusions distortion when summoned so they wont instantly die,

For 1 whole second. Such enduring survivability.

Novamatrix.2569:

also you can increase their health and make their attacks stronger and faster.

300% of really low hp is still really low hp.

Novamatrix.2569:

Its all in the build. Clones are designed to be weaker and phantasms are designed to be stronger in attacks and have higher health.

Sort of. There’s plenty of ways to boost phantasms, but even with the most pure phantasm build, they’ll squish instantly to any sort of aoe or cleave pressure.

I think the best thing they can do for Phantasms is to have them proc a 2nd effect on summoning (Boon, Condition, 1/4sec Daze, Boon Removal, Chaos Armour – something along these lines, no damage or anything too ridiculous).

These 2nd effects must be unique to the Phantasm (I really want them to feel more different from each other and have some extra utility since each weapon set is forced to have them). If balance is an issue you can even link to a trait.

Ananeos.4587:

I want them to have defense stats so they don’t die immediatly to a single necro mark or a dh trap.

I need to admit that izerker is great when I need to fight with traps and marks because he can active them so I will not fall in any.

Also izerker and iduelist can give good preasure on oponents.

But they could change some others phantasm like:
- iwarlock could have beam attack,
- iwarden should be ground targeted skill,
- iavenger shoul use guardian shield skill “Sheild of judgment” with the same condis and buff like now
and image need to be deleted (for thi one I have no idea what to do)

And all of dem should have 3/4s activation time.

So to further this discussion and build upon what I said earlier I’ll list my pros and cons to current phantasm mechanics.

Pros.

• Delegation of damage, I lose less DPS from rezing someone or moving than other classes.
• Generally come with some decent secondary effects like projectile block, alacrity, high projectile finishers etc.
• In PvE they don’t often draw aggro unless alone as they don’t often out DPS others.
• Only take 5% damage (in PvE) now so they last pretty well.
• Some phantasms can do damage from afar forcing players to engage multiple targets.

Cons

• Long cast times, 0.75s to 1s and 1.5s for Avenger.
• Easily kited, controlled and negated. LoS them and they will run to you.
• Easily cleaved out without any thought even in PVT.
• Do not scale well with number of enemies without heavy traiting, even then it’s still poor.
• Do not dodge “one shot” mechanics and so can still be instagibbed even taking 5% damage.
• With them making up about half our dps they act as a barrier to shattering often, even with chronophantasma.
• Aggro magnets for adds, looking at you enraged spirits at gorseval.
• Do not benefit from damage mod sigils and runes etc.
• Some suffer from hilariously bad attacks that can’t even hit a walking dolyak target.
• All the problems that rangers have with their pets except ours also despawn when the target dies acting as a barrier to using them in some fights.
• Our auto attacks and other damaging attacks are some of the weakest there are (low coefficients) and we have poor personal damage mods because of phantasms.

To close, mesmer has all the downsides of a pet mechanic with additional problems on top. If it wasn’t for alacrity and the excessive quickness a chrono can put out it would never be a choice in PvE. WvW I only see them in a roaming capacity any more and even then DD (who’s bright enough to use some marauder) and many classes outshine them now. PvP it remains to be seen if it can be competitive at a high level where player skill is more even.

apharma.3741:

…
To close, mesmer has all the downsides of a pet mechanic with additional problems on top. If it wasn’t for alacrity and the excessive quickness a chrono can put out it would never be a choice in PvE.

Yeah it really is a shame, there is no reason Mesmers should have such poor DPS. Many other classes also bring a lot of utility yet have very nice DPS, (e.g. Warriors, Revenants..)

Aesa.4819:

Yeah it really is a shame, there is no reason Mesmers should have such poor DPS.

Actually I wish there were a reason, as in, we’d be actual Mesmers centered around control and debuffs instead of damage parity and self-sustainability.

Carighan.6758:

Aesa.4819:

Yeah it really is a shame, there is no reason Mesmers should have such poor DPS.

Actually I wish there were a reason, as in, we’d be actual Mesmers centered around control and debuffs instead of damage parity and self-sustainability.

Yeah I agree, currently it seems like Mesmer lack in most areas compared to other professions.

Artyport.2084:

I love the Mesmer.. In theory
But in practice I have always felt something was missing.
Phantasms are really boring and offer a inactive play style. I actually complained about this in beta.
There is nothing fun about summoning a creature that sits there a attracts every three seconds
I think they need a rework in making them feel more dynamic and useful

Does anyone like them?

My personal opinion is that they should no longer be tied to an enemy. They should be summons that change the reality of the battlefield

Example: phantasmal nightmare- summon nightmare in a targeted area foes attacking in this field are damage and gain 1s of bleeding for each attack

Phantasmal warden- summon an illusionary warden allies attacking in this field are healed for each attack

Phantasmal beserker- summon a berserker at targeted area that does damage every x seconds and burns foes

All of them can still be attacked to offer counterplay
It would also be neat if they weren’t just clones of yourself. But fun illusions

Ghostly image for nightmare
Butterfly for warden
Beast for berserker

What do you think? Are you currently having fun with phantasms?

I would really like to see “Phantasm builds” be a thing, not really in the sense of running away and letting your clones do the work, but actively using illusions as a way of offense/defense.

The Mesmer in GW1 was the King of Hexes. There were all kinds of different hexes. There were hexes for doing this, there were hexes for doing that. Heck, there were hexes for doing NOTHING.

For GW2, ANet mentioned specifically that they wanted the players to look at the action and not the UI. Hexes became Phantasm’s. “Living hexes” if you will. That is/was their initial design. When you think about it, its actually a very clever way of presenting/doing “hexes” in the game.

Like a hex:
- they require a target to be cast
- they only damage/attack said target
- they die when the target dies.

In most other game, when it comes to “hexes”, the player either:
- must suffer thru the hex(time limited)
- heal/buff to counter the damage
- use some type of hex removal

Since there is no “phantasm removal” skill, phantasm can be hit, burned, bleed, knock back, stunned, like everything else in the game. In this regard, they are NOT “living hexes”, but are summoned “pets”.

So they are designed with all the limitations of hexes (single target, easily removed/damaged, etc.) AND even the limitations of pets. (un-controllable, very weak, can be CC’d, suffer from conditions..etc.)

I’d like for them to be more like the hexes, than pets. What if phantasms were immune to CC and conditions?

What if the only way to deal with phantasm was to:
- suffer thru the hex(time limited- yes make phantasm time based)
- heal/buff to counter the damage (use LOS/dodge/block, etc.)
- use some type of hex removal (actually ATTACK the phantasm)

Currently, there is so much AOE burning/bleeding/chill/cleave in this game, that players don’t even worry about phantasms anymore. They just die in all the crap that’s happening. Phantasms are SUPPOSED to be a threat, the enemy is supposed to decide to attack the phantasm or the Mesmer.

Forcing the enemy to decide between different courses of action is/was the bread & butter of the Mesmer. (At least, in GW1 it was.) It would be nice to get back to that.

Now, there some that will scream that our shatters are counter-intuitive to phantasms. And I disagree. Our shatters are another way of forcing the enemy into making choices, and making them suffer for whichever choice he makes.

If he ignores the phantasm, then he suffers from the phantasm.

If he goes, for the phantasm, then that feeds into our shatters and he suffers anyway. (Shatters are another form of “hex”.)

This is what a Mesmer does! Force the enemy to make a choice. And make him pay for which ever choice he makes. This is the blood and soul of a “Mesmer”!

Not that this will every happen, NOR am I to first come up with similar thinking. Several players over the years have come up with interesting ways to improve our phantasm. This isn’t an original thought.

Sorry, for the rant.

Now, I should add first say that most of my criticisms with Phantasms stem from a basic underlying problem with Mesmers in GW2:
Why am I a pet-bomber, but not designed to be one?

That is to say, the Mesmer description talks about dominating and controlling fights and confusing enemies. Clones don’t do that. Mesmers don’t do that.

DAoC had 2 specialized pet-bomber classes in the Theurgist and the Animist, and contrasting them with Mesmers makes me believe that our current design is merely the end-state of being unable to make a more trickery-based design work.

As a result, talking about a full rework and actually making us Mesmers is, IMO, futile. I doubt ANet wouldn’t have done so already if they had the resources, and sad as it might sound if there’s one thing they don’t have it’s resources, this is evident ever since beta. I ran some numbers in my head given their supposed company size and comparing companies I worked with, and I reckon we got 20-30 actual people in the development team (excluding art/sound) but those still split into designers, developers and backend or tools programmers.

In other words, not going to happen. The manpower simply does not exist.

So, faster reworks!

Simple one in regards to Phantasms:

• Removed
• Phantasm skills temporarily empower a single clone closest to the target or target area to do task X, and become invulnerable while doing so. The clone will also temporarily ignore shatter commands while executing its function.
• This new type of skill lasts for one use of a skill only. That is to say, a clone doesn’t get “upgraded” to a berserker, it whirls and then is just a clone again.
• Cooldowns decreased respectively skill power increased to compensate.

A more elaborate follow-up rework:

• Move Shatter skills off the F1-F4 bar, and replace current clone-generation skills with them. Each of these skills has a relatively short cooldown and consumes 1-3 clones (depending on skill) to produce effect X.
• Move clone-generation onto the F1-F4 bar. This functionality is context-free, and hence works better than shatters.
• F1 would be a low-CD single target single clone generator.
• F2 would be a medium-CD single target fill-up clone generator.
• F3 would be a high-CD multi-target clone generator which produces one clone per target in an area, these can go over your normal limit, but remember clones no longer get used up all-at-once.
• F4 produces 3 clones which can go over the limit, temporarily. Medium CD, these clones expire after 6 seconds but are invulnerable despite seemingly taking damage. They also dodge and seem to use other skills. As a more defensive CD they also don’t have targets and if receiving shatter commands will target their nearest enemy at the time.

Novamatrix.2569:

Ananeos.4587:

I want them to have defense stats so they don’t die immediatly to a single necro mark or a dh trap.

There are traits and skills that give illusions distortion when summoned so they wont instantly die, also you can increase their health and make their attacks stronger and faster. Its all in the build. Clones are designed to be weaker and phantasms are designed to be stronger in attacks and have higher health.

Both of them are useful in certain situations, it all relies on how you use them and do not think of them as simple AI that stand there and attack something, think of them as barriers. Stand inside the wardens, behind the defenders, keep them between you and your enemy.

You misunderstand. I want BASE stats raised. The price to pay for taking those traits are too high., and they don’t even do much to begin with.

“Mesmer was a mistake”
- Eric Flannum

What mesmers need is more than a phantasm redesign…they need professional and passionate designers.

We need the 2nd coming of Geesus :/

But really in terms of balance between other professions, phantasms should either come out swinging like every other attack in the game forcing people to react to their summon, and being hideable spike (anticipatory counter play required with stealth like theif or medi guard through a wall) from stealth. Which is fair when you consider every phantasm summon is obvious.

Or

Be all back loaded and take a moment upon spawning, while the summon is instant.

This half ased nature is not only unwieldy but it’s part of the reason it takes so long to pressure sometimes, not to mention it’s ultimately to long for a two step process. Only issue is noobs will die faster but they already die easy to mes anyways, and we cannot be balanced around them.

Also just saying all “clones” (not illusions) should be immune to soft CC and imobilize.

GW2 Mesmer Phantasms have always bothered me.

One core mechanic is summoning temporary pets that do a significant portion of your damage and have powerful effects.

Another core mechanic is blowing up your pets to deal damage and gain benefits.

This means that I’m sacrificing my special pets constantly, trading off pet help for shatter help.

It would be much better if shatter worked on your clones/illusions only, allowing phantasms to do their thing.

Ok I haven’t done much pvp or wvw since HoT came out, so I’m playing catchup now, but didn’t they make illusions have 90% damage reduction if not specifically targeted? Or was that just for pve?

Morfedel.4165:

Ok I haven’t done much pvp or wvw since HoT came out, so I’m playing catchup now, but didn’t they make illusions have 90% damage reduction if not specifically targeted? Or was that just for pve?

95%, but PvE only.

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Ok I haven’t done much pvp or wvw since HoT came out, so I’m playing catchup now, but didn’t they make illusions have 90% damage reduction if not specifically targeted? Or was that just for pve?

95%, but PvE only.

Jesus that explains things. I was wondering if I’d lost my mind doing pvp the last couple days; I hadnt pvped much since HoT came out and I’m just getting back into things, and I was like “wtf why are my phantasms dying so fast!”

PVE only. Thats insane.

That’s probably because they couldn’t get the “specifically targeted” vs incidental damage done well as most abilities in GW2 can hit without a marked target and also cleave or chain in some way.

I stand by my idea: get rid of Phantasms. The concept was tried, didn’t work and is difficult to work with. Try something else.

Carighan.6758:

So, faster reworks!

Simple one in regards to Phantasms:

• Removed
• Phantasm skills temporarily empower a single clone closest to the target or target area to do task X, and become invulnerable while doing so. The clone will also temporarily ignore shatter commands while executing its function.
• This new type of skill lasts for one use of a skill only. That is to say, a clone doesn’t get “upgraded” to a berserker, it whirls and then is just a clone again.
• Cooldowns decreased respectively skill power increased to compensate.

I really like this. Or we could simply limit shattering to illusions/clones and allow phantasms to run out their duration as standalone effects. It should be easier to balance them when they stand on their own instead of being both a minion and a shatter…

semi dead thread revival sorry didn’t feel like making a new one for the subject.
there are two things at the very least that need to be done to fix illusions/phantasms
first set the pvp health to match the pve health or give them something like a 50% damage reduction
second the skill protected phantasms, this shouldn’t need to be traited for it should be something that we get for free, the trait should be reworked to give all illusions quickness for 10s on creation along with the protection on shatter.

something I’d like to see done but probably isn’t the best way to buff phantasms is to give the phantasm extra effects maybe on the reworked protected phantasm trait, obviously it would need to be switch with one of the more lack luster grandmaster, traits maybe the scepter one. here is my example for most the phantasms

Illusionary Avenger, pulses chill in an area around the phantasm (5 targets)
Illusionary Berserker, set of short chain knockbacks
Illusionary Mage set to auto rate of fire, chills for 3s and dazes for .5s
Illusionary Warden immobilizes for 1s on each hit
Illusionary Defender pulses a 1s tuant in large area around the phantasm (5 targets)
Illusionary Disenchanter corrupts and steals boons on enemies instead of striping them
Illusionary Rogue stun for 3s
Illusionary Swordsman pulls enemy with it when it jumps back.

something i’d love to see that will never happen is phantasms given there own 3 bubbles, effectively meaning a max of 7 illusion in on shatter this would obviously come with a nerf to shatter damage hopefully not more than 10-20% given how hard a shatter with 6 illusions hitting would be.

Just having Bubbles as an elite might help out.

don’t know why but i have a bit of a fixation on having the shatter as an elite illusion, bubbles would definitely be a nice depending on how much anet nerfed him when we got him

id say leave there hp as is, give them high % DR unless they are the direct target of the attack where they would take full dmg, keeping them easy to deal with if people decide to while solving the problem of them just dropping to random blowing wind and harsh language. reduce utility phanto cast times in line with the rest to keep things uniform.

i feel for the most part out phantasms aren’t too bad if they are alive to do there thing.

on a personal note, i think would make sense if clones had the same hp/toughness as the creator in both total max hp and current hp and also the same boons/conditions as it is a clone,but have them without the non targeted DR

while phantasms i feel should have there own individual stats as per with the non targeted DR spawn with full hp ect

just something i think would be good for class flavor

edit: was grammar kitten on myself

i too think phantasm need a redisign, i wish them to be more similar to necromancer minions, although on the other end that would become a problem since you can’t control them and in most instanced fight it could be a big problem (so you wouldn’t use them like necromencer don’t use them and ranger has is problem with the pet).
on the other end i wish they were just skill with short cooldown and a more powerful one skill one use effect. still leave us the clones for the shatters.
but i think this will never happen. mesmer will never be balanced or reworked or anything.
it’s been 4 years now and all we have seen is nerf and illusionary (isn’t it ironic?) buffs!