Guild Wars 2

Hi all

I have decided like many to play the game of “how would you redesign mesmer”. My focus was mostly a full rework of the phantasm concept, but this naturally lead to a lot of changes in the skills and traits.

So below is a list of all weapons and traits reworked with this concept in mind. I have tried to modify (i.e. increase) the damage coefficients to reflect the loss of phantasm. I started to do some maths to see what would be balanced, but it took too much time so I gave up. So I have put damage that seemed reasonable with very very minimal maths, but a proper balance would require some more maths and of course a lot of testing.

One important note is that we probably need to reduce a bit the damage of mind wrack to ensure we can increase our sustained damage without creating too much trouble. I suggest 0.75 coef/illusion. I like that it scales linearly (favors full shatters instead of shatter spam) and for most cases is a small nerf (but a slight buff for a full 3 illusion+self shatter).

I haven’t touched much the utilities and therefore will only say a few general words about them.

Weapons
The skills tooltips are shown in the images. All skill which cast phantasms have now also a main effect. The skill performed by the phantasm is shown below and the cooldown displayed corresponds to the attack frequency of the phantasm.

Traits

Builds
A small note to mention something about possible builds. It is interesting to note that in PvP the usual shatter build is still possible

• Dom 1 × 3
• Chaos 3 1 2
• Illusion 2 2 1

and as usual, you can remove chaos to get insp, dueling or chrono and still get something useful out of it.

Condi shatter can play dueling-chaos-illusion
power interrupt dom, chaos, ill/chrono
condi interrupt duel/chaos/ill

I have barely moved support traits, so all support builds are pretty much the same. But this time, we can actually make a decent healing support. The main point for me is that I believe this is a good basis for a higher build diversity, especially since we now have a decent sustained damage, so bruiser-y roles become available.

PvE build now have much higher sustained damage, and can benefit from the damage multipliers in domination and illusion (especially since now they can shatter). Reflects are still possible with the focus, but you do loose the DPS of shatters (but it makes sense, utilities should be at the price of damage). You can also play might/fury sharing more efficiently thanks to the might from domination, the fury from dueling + boon share, etc…

In GvG/WvW, we now have ways to get some damage and support in a big fight despite our phantasm dying instantly.

Overall, I think this is an improvement over current mesmer, but not OP, simply diversity and QoL.

So what do you think?

kitten there is a hard work here. The idea is really insteresting. Actually mesmer suffer a lot by this aoe spam so fantasm does nothing.
The proposal changes are really smart, all lines have a real indentity and role. I m not a fan of the chrono lines, it doesnt seem like an elite spe. Mayne the chrono line have to add some smart talent (with the time tematic).
Devs have to listen this thread!

epouvante.7392:

kitten there is a hard work here. The idea is really insteresting. Actually mesmer suffer a lot by this aoe spam so fantasm does nothing.
The proposal changes are really smart, all lines have a real indentity and role. I m not a fan of the chrono lines, it doesnt seem like an elite spe. Mayne the chrono line have to add some smart talent (with the time tematic).
Devs have to listen this thread!

Thanks for reading through this
It has indeed taken me some time, so I appreciate your patience. Yes, being able to do damage despite the AOE spam is a big part of the rework. You would now loose some utility, but at least your damage would be untouched.
For the chrono line, what turns you off? Why doesn’t it feel like an elite spec (and maybe more importantly, what should an elite spec feel like?)?

I’m not sure I understand how this new rollover skills work for phantasms. Example: Focus #5. 25 second CD on the storm and this storm summons the phantasms. The roll over skill has a 14 second CD. Does this mean once the phantasm is summoned, I must reactivate #5 every 14 seconds to get the phantasm effect? What if I weapon swap, does the phantasm do nothing? What if I use SotE to recharge the skill and try to summon 2; do both phantasms activate at the same time?

A+ effort and some really cool ideas but sadly, as much as I want a rework to base mesmer, I don’t think it’s going to happen. With that in mind, I would much prefer and think it’s more feasible for new elite specs that change the phantasm mechanic/shatters. Would also mean buffs to base mesmer skills could happen without affecting elite specs.

I think a lot of your ideas could work for an elite spec. Thinking marionette / revenant style of elite spec. Invocation/Phantasms skills have an active effect. Could be the same active effects you have listed. However, instead of roll over for phantasm effects, the mesmer now gains modifiers based off of which phantasms are being “invoked.” Example: Invoke the torch phantasm and all your attacks now have burning added to them.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I’m not sure I understand how this new rollover skills work for phantasms. Example: Focus #5. 25 second CD on the storm and this storm summons the phantasms. The roll over skill has a 14 second CD. Does this mean once the phantasm is summoned, I must reactivate #5 every 14 seconds to get the phantasm effect? What if I weapon swap, does the phantasm do nothing? What if I use SotE to recharge the skill and try to summon 2; do both phantasms activate at the same time?

Hi
It’s probably unclear from the way I presented it. It’s not a rollover skill. The phantasm is cast when you use the skill (the storm for focus) and the CD on the phantasm is actually meant to be the iCD of HIS attack. So the phantasm will attack every 14s. So everything works like it currently does.

A lot of hard work and some very good ideas!

A few notes:

GS: I really like the idea of “forcing players to play against their own interest”, I think it’s very “mesmery”. They can either put themselves at risk or put the whole group at risk.

Staff: what kind of field is it on Staff 5? Ethereal?

Sword: 900 seems way too much for a mesmer dash, 600 seems more in line with our playstyle.

Healing Prism: instead of healing power, gain outgoing healing % for each illusion (5%?).

Temporal Enchanter: I love how you changed it, but it should have a 2s ICD per target, else people would abuse it to stack Resistance

Compounding Power: the condi damage gain should scale in % as the power does.

I really don’t like having to pick between Shattered Concentration and Persistence of Memory in Illusions Master tier

Menaka.5092:

A lot of hard work and some very good ideas!

Thanks

Staff: what kind of field is it on Staff 5? Ethereal?

I didn’t put any, since we already have one on staff 3. But this is of course a possibility.

Sword: 900 seems way too much for a mesmer dash, 600 seems more in line with our playstyle.

Fair enough

Healing Prism: instead of healing power, gain outgoing healing % for each illusion (5%?).

Compounding Power: the condi damage gain should scale in % as the power does.

I’m perfectly fine with this suggestion. These traits are the ones mesmer currently has, I did not change them (except for their positioning).

Temporal Enchanter: I love how you changed it, but it should have a 2s ICD per target, else people would abuse it to stack Resistance

Yes, it was the plan. You should not be able to stack it. My change was mostly meant to ensure that the trait works also with portal or veil which are typically crossed and not “stand on it while cast” type.

I really don’t like having to pick between Shattered Concentration and Persistence of Memory in Illusions Master tier

To be fair, anything competing with Shattered Concentration will have hard time…

Greetings!

It really takes A LOT to impress me. But you did it. I read everything carefully, not just overflew it with one eye on the TV screen or something! :’D

I once tought about a similiar idea – shifting more support to the phants and less damage. But you – you did it even better!

I’m really impressed! But I’m a realist and I gotta tell you those changes will never make it live… BUT (!) the whole thing is a great concept for another elite spec. Some sort of “reality bender” or something. A new Elite spec that changes phants to pure support and deals good damage himself.

About those traits, I have to agree with a lot of them, would probably change a few things but I hope some stuff will make it into a balance patch one day.

All in all – good work!

Greez!
- Xyonon

This is quite interesting and well thought out – I’m just not really sold on the premise. Every class mechanic has drawbacks, but there are already good examples of how to address them through traits etc. Without toning down what makes classes unique – for example, persistence of memory and chronophantasma allow phantasams to be shattered frequently. Similarly the pet survivability in pve was massively improved.

I won’t go on forever as this isn’t really the right thread for that argument anyway, and the skill changes look cool regardless

I can’t say that I like it, but I will give you that the work is solid and impressive on how through you were in making sure there wasn’t a damage loss. one thing i would suggest is that the cooldowns on the skills could come down some if phantasms deal no damage. probably to around 5/12 of the current cooldown
i’ll use the pistol as an example. i’m making the assumption that the phantasm didn’t die for what ever reason.
assuming 1k power your pistol would deal 2.4k damage every 20 seconds, but a phantasm build using current pistol assuming 3 phantasm will deal 2.7k every 5 seconds and 11k in the same 20 second period.
assuming 3k power your pistol does 7.2k damage every 20s, phantasm build would do 8.1k every 5 and 32.4k over 20s.
if you take the time to build up those 3 phantasms into account(semi worst case still assuming traits), 32s+20s for the bit we did above, total time 52s
your pistol’s total damage at 1k power is 7.2k+2.1k from the second skill
current pistol’s total damage at 1k power is 18.9k
your pistol’s total damage at 3k power is 21.6k+6.3k from the second skill
current pistol’s total damage at 3k power is 56.7k

my personal opinion for how to fix phantasm is a trait that does something like this:
illusions take 50% reduced damage from all sources, illusions gain protection (6s) on creation.
this would more or less guarantee your phantasm attacks twice

P.S. of course this takes me so long to reply that more than a few new post show up

jarthur.3649:

I can’t say that I like it, but I will give you that the work is solid and impressive on how through you were in making sure there wasn’t a damage loss. one thing i would suggest is that the cooldowns on the skills could come down some if phantasms deal no damage. probably to around 5/12 of the current cooldown
i’ll use the pistol as an example. i’m making the assumption that the phantasm didn’t die for what ever reason.
assuming 1k power your pistol would deal 2.4k damage every 20 seconds, but a phantasm build using current pistol assuming 3 phantasm will deal 2.7k every 5 seconds and 11k in the same 20 second period.
assuming 3k power your pistol does 7.2k damage every 20s, phantasm build would do 8.1k every 5 and 32.4k over 20s.
if you take the time to build up those 3 phantasms into account(semi worst case still assuming traits), 32s+20s for the bit we did above, total time 52s
your pistol’s total damage at 1k power is 7.2k+2.1k from the second skill
current pistol’s total damage at 1k power is 18.9k
your pistol’s total damage at 3k power is 21.6k+6.3k from the second skill
current pistol’s total damage at 3k power is 56.7k

my personal opinion for how to fix phantasm is a trait that does something like this:
illusions take 50% reduced damage from all sources, illusions gain protection (6s) on creation.
this would more or less guarantee your phantasm attacks twice

P.S. of course this takes me so long to reply that more than a few new post show up

As I stated, I did not go full maths to balance things out, and maybe the pistol coef should be upped a bit.

But I’d still like to mention that your reasoning is still a bit flawed here. You consider the pistol damage, and say that my new version has a lower damage than the old one. And this is true. But the reason is because currently mesmer is relying on their phantasms for the bulk of their damage, and therefore, an off-hand pistol does a lot of damage since that’s where the phantasms are. In my suggestion, most of the damage is on the main-hand sword. The pistol skill is a DPS increase over the sword, and therefore would be included in a damage rotation, but it cannot on its own do the same amount of damage that pistol phantasms use to do since most of this damage has been put on the sword AA.

Xyonon.3987:

…

Thanks, it means a lot coming from you
And yes, I have little hope of it being implemented, but this may still give ideas… I’m an eternal optimist.

your right my reasoning was flawed. although it looks like you missed that I thought that the cooldowns could come down quite a bit on off-hand weapons, ~60% was my original suggestion, taking main hand weapon into account the 20% that illusion summoning skill gave those skill seems more appropriate on some of them.

you may not have missed what my suggestion was, and i could be missing that because you mention damage coe-efficient going up, instead of cooldown going down

jarthur.3649:

your right my reasoning was flawed. although it looks like you missed that I thought that the cooldowns could come down quite a bit on off-hand weapons, ~60% was my original suggestion, taking main hand weapon into account the 20% that illusion summoning skill gave those skill seems more appropriate on some of them.

you may not have missed what my suggestion was, and i could be missing that because you mention damage coe-efficient going up, instead of cooldown going down

As I said, I’m not saying I disagree. The changes I suggest are obviously big, so it is hard to say how they would fare. I tried to use some maths for PvE since there, it is quite easy to just compute the DPS. It is more difficult in PvP, but one can more or less assume that phantasms hit only once, so that was my comparison point.

Currently iDuelist is 20s CD, 2.2 coef. I upped this to 2.4 with the same CD, while increasing the sword AA by quite a bit. So this is stronger, but the drawback is that unload now takes 1.5s, instead of 1s to cast the phantasm; we cannot CC while the phantasm attack to ensure all hits land, and we have no hope of an additional phantasm hit. I felt that this was reasonable. At the end, the only way to see is to put it in the game and see how it works in all game modes.

Note that the way I designed it, unload will not be affected by illusionist celerity because the phantasm is now on the #5 skill…

This thread reminds me of that guy that some months (years?) ago completely remade the UI. Guess what happened? Yeah, exactly.
You’re wasting your efforts and good will here.

First of all thanks for the hard work! You showed that the idea of moving damage from the phantasm to the mesmer is legit. Have you thought about the following:

- make the phantasms invulnerable (to set it more apart from the clone) and have it dissappear after 6,7,8 seconds? Units can’t attack the phantasm anymore. My main concern is that in pve you can have too much utility by keeping 3 phantasm up (perma fire field etc). In raids for example phantasms don’t die that easily anymore since the update to remove 90% of damage on cleave for summoned units (the invulnerability part is only a minor step away from that update).
- add a reflect to the GS phantasm spin, while spinning around the target? The cripple effect seems a bit minor to me.

Great stuff

edit: I think the way chronomancer works now is fine. Maybe you are nerfing the chrono a bit too much with this trait change

Guys don’t poke out details – this is a concept. Ofc he wasn’t able to balance everything right away. It’s about the idea, and the idea is awesome!

Please let this become a thing! I’m sitting on a set of Zealot’s gear just WAITING for Mesmer’s to be viable healers. IMO they would be right at home as something similar to a Discipline Priest from WoW with boonshares and distortion: I can’t exactly give you much health or reverse what happened, but I can make you feel invincible and let you forget about damage for a bit.

To me it seems like the Mesmer could be so good at manipulating, they could make their own allies forget they just took a giant claw to the face. But maybe that’s just me. Either way, A+ for effort!