Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, this would be literally the best thing to happen to Mesmers. As far as anything else is concerned, I think it is fine. Mantra’s are really annoying to recast in combat and take away from the combat value of the game. I would prefer if they just had, say, a 10s cooldown after you use them and you would automatically get 2 charges back.

First, no.

Second, wouldn’t mind, OOC only, but reject if nerfs included.

I think phantasms could use a buff for pve in terms of their persistence, but not for pvp. They could simply implement a change that reduced their damage taken by non humanoids by 50% and they would be fine.

As far as Mantras go, they do need some kind of adjustment. Perhaps they should consider changing “Domination XI” to also automatically reset mantras when a player’s health drops below, say, 30%" That would give them as much-needed oompf.

How about a compromise?

Clones are persistent and can last X amount of time out of combat, and can switch targets after their first dies. (They are more for confusion, then dmg in their current incarnation anyways.)
Phantasms are as is, dying as their target dies.

Or at least, let us summon clones OOC or in town while letting them dance/emote when we dance/emote! I’ll pay Gems for that last bit!

I wouldn’t mind if clones and phantasms lasted an extra second or two after the target died, just long enough to get a shatter off against a second target. I wouldn’t really like it if the clones/phantasms were persistent though.

I think making them persist through enemy deaths would be dumbing the class down to a pet class, but the idea of clones and phantasms lasting an extra 1-2 seconds and able to be shattered in their current location, despite their target being dead, would be good.

Too many times has my target died with me spamming Shatter, hoping that it would Mind Wrack the multiple enemies still present, but I was sadly treated to my clone or phantasm simply disappearing.

MLieBennett.9031:

How about a compromise?

Clones are persistent and can last X amount of time out of combat, and can switch targets after their first dies. (They are more for confusion, then dmg in their current incarnation anyways.)
Phantasms are as is, dying as their target dies.

I also thought of this. Instead of an additional shatter, I’d like to re-target them with a ~2s delay.

As for the trivia:
- Cannot re-target if illusion already has a target
- If an illusion has no target for 2s, it’ll disappear
- Re-targetting can only be done within a range of 900 ?

I don’t like the system which makes you a forced ramp type damager and then zerg you with 10 mobs. Others do the same damage as you with 3 illusions without ramp and even more survivability. Especially when you’re in a group, summon your illusions and the mob is dead before they can attack once.
But I don’t see any problem with bigger mobs (veteran and bigger).

I’m with Nretep; I think they shouldn’t necessarily persist when you are out of combat but I think they should acquire new targets if they are still alive when their target dies and you are still in combat. We can’t summon three illusions per mob because we are limited to three max. even if we have say four targets – at least let those three illusions help with the other targets once done with the one they are on. You can’t just summon three more illusions because they are then on cooldown, possibly for another ten seconds or so depending on how fast the first target went down.

We also have little aoe abilities so we are very reliant on having those illusions out. Fairly irritating to have the mob die, they all just disappear and you are hightailing it out of there because the remaining mobs all turn on you.

It would he handy for them to have a minimum lifespan of 5-10sec.

Many times I’ll spawn one or two right as the mob dies, and it’d be great to put them on something else.

I don’t think there needs to be a change to mantras at all. You charge em and use em, and there are traits that make them a lot more powerful then they are initially.

I support changes to the mantra system. Ideally, I would love to see it being possible to recharge all mantras at once (as a trait) or perhaps reducing the recharge time in proportion with the number of mantras equipped.

There is nothing worse in spvp to have 3 mantras equipped and standing around 15 seconds to be viable again.

I agree with a lot said. I especially lament the noticeable lack of aoe in DEs unless you are rolling with a sword or laying down the one and only chaos storm. Shattering is one of our main aoes but good luck trying to get up illusions in any DE with more than three people.

Maybe if they reworked the f1-f4 and decoupled clones & phantasms so that f1 shattered clones, f2 shattered phantasms, and f3 both (they can keep the dmg, confusion, daze) and have one or both types hang around until you dropped combat. Or even if they had a “utility” illusion slot so when you use your main aoe/shatter mechanic you don’t lose a valuable illusion like the Defender along with the disposable clones.

Another thing is most every other class I have played have some nice type of movement buff (signet, warhorn, etc.). The best I’ve seen for mesmers is random swiftness from chaos or signet of inspiration. It would be awesome if they reworked the ‘Compounding Celerity’ trait to do a movement speed or swiftness buff on clone creation or something unique.

I honestly think mesmer will get a little love once the team has dealt with the issues that need real, immediate attention. The mesmer is certainly interesting and unique but a tad underwhelming in pve in my experience.

What I dislike the most is that lorewise, the clones and phantasms are supposed to represent illusional things that are sent in our enemy’s mind, thus being normal for them to shatter upon our enemy’s death, but why could they be attacked by other enemies? I think the most logical compromise would be to make clones and phantasms invincible to other enemies than the one targeted, but still making them die with our enemy.

Jeffonna, this. I love you.

You can’t just alter the entire premise of the Mesmer (which interprets Illusions as a form of living, breathing hex, similar to how Mesmer performed in GW1) because of something you want.

I get that it kind of sucks that all your illusions disappear on target death, but there’s a significant reason why we cannot re-target our illusions. There is a significant reason why shatters affect the illusion’s target and not ours. There is a significant reason why illusions are so integral to Mesmer. Illusions are like hexes to us. If you don’t like the idea of the single target lockdown (it’s what Mesmer rocks at) then maybe you’re trying to force the square block in the circle hole.

I do think that perhaps illusions could delay their implosion for ~1 second after target death, just so we could shatter them. I think that would be acceptable, lore-wise.

miya.5160:

I think making them persist through enemy deaths would be dumbing the class down to a pet class, but the idea of clones and phantasms lasting an extra 1-2 seconds and able to be shattered in their current location, despite their target being dead, would be good.

Too many times has my target died with me spamming Shatter, hoping that it would Mind Wrack the multiple enemies still present, but I was sadly treated to my clone or phantasm simply disappearing.

Totally agree. Although I’d love a permanent illusion this isn’t a pet class. They simply just don’t last long enough. Mantras need to be reworked too, annoying to recast them and feels like it isn’t worth a slot half the time.

I’ve thought about that too (the whole “why can other things see the illusions?”). My best answer is mass hysteria, or shared hysteria. As such, I don’t see why they -should- disappear on one target’s death – the other targets are still sharing the illusion.

If you want another lore reason just consider them as contagious illusions – target dies, his ailments pass on to another target.

On the other hand, I don’t see why such a long cooldown is in place for them. In most situations they can be killed instantly by aoe, by cleaves, by random projectiles hitting them, etc. On other occasions they are fine because they don’t get targeted. It seems difficult to balance to me like that. If they were on a much shorter cooldown then their uptime is far more likely to less varied, meaning their damage is more reliable, and thus easier to balance. It would also help with the problem of having to wait a good while after a target has died to then start being able to fight again, as well as help in multi-target fights.

Aimeryan.1247:

I’ve thought about that too (the whole “why can other things see the illusions?”). My best answer is mass hysteria, or shared hysteria. As such, I don’t see why they -should- disappear on one target’s death – the other targets are still sharing the illusion.

If you want another lore reason just consider them as contagious illusions – target dies, his ailments pass on to another target.

On the other hand, I don’t see why such a long cooldown is in place for them. In most situations they can be killed instantly by aoe, by cleaves, by random projectiles hitting them, etc. On other occasions they are fine because they don’t get targeted. It seems difficult to balance to me like that. If they were on a much shorter cooldown then their uptime is far more likely to less varied, meaning their damage is more reliable, and thus easier to balance. It would also help with the problem of having to wait a good while after a target has died to then start being able to fight again, as well as help in multi-target fights.

If they had shorter CDs it’d be overpowered in too many situations. If I could spawn a high-damage dealing Phantasmal Warden every 8~10 seconds… it would be too much.

Also, they aren’t necessarily meant to be around forever. You’re meant to shatter them when someone starts attacking them, IMHO.

If you want to help in multi-target fights.. you may either be in the wrong class, or have the wrong mindset. Mesmer is amazing for locking down one target, via phantasms, confusions, chaos storms, etc. In a multi-target fight, you can really make an impact by shutting down one of the big damage dealers on the other side, for example. Mesmer isn’t designed for Massive AoE damage and tons of phantasms everywhere attacking everyone. You have to be intuitive and select your target wisely and make as big an impact you can with what you’ve got.

Phantasms need to persist….having to bring them back up over and over plain sucks. They already get destroyed easily anyways. It just would get rid of a lot of the micromanaging that serves no purpose.

Cromx.3941:

Phantasms need to persist….having to bring them back up over and over plain sucks. They already get destroyed easily anyways. It just would get rid of a lot of the micromanaging that serves no purpose.

This is your opinion. I enjoy the momentum that we can build up. I think it’s a big part of how Mesmer is balanced, because if we had 3 little phantasms constantly following us, our damage would flatline at a high point, instead of requiring effort to build up, and that might truly be imbalanced.

Having to bring them back over and over is a part of being a Mesmer. That’s why we have shatters. They want to encourage us to think of the clones, and even phantasms as disposable, because they are. We don’t lose anything by summoning them. There is no energy. There is no spell component. We lose at the most ~1 second for the summoning animation. It’s not hard to re-summon our illusions at all.