Guild Wars 2

I’m a new player so maybe there’s a mechanic I don’t understand but, at level 10, wielding a scepter, the clones created by Ether Clone are doing zero damage to all mobs with their melee hits and their Ether Bolt casts.

When fighting, only my own damage and that of the Phantasm summoned by Phantasmal Warden happens.

The clones from Phase Retreat and Phatasmal Warlock also do no damage.

No idea how long this has gone on for, maybe from the start. Why is this happening?

That’s what clones do. Staff clones apply conditions and boons, sword clones apply vulnerability, and all of the rest are shatter fodder.

Clones don’t do much if any damage really (unless you take 20 points in dueling then staff clones give bleeds). Clones are meant for shattering which does do damage.

The Scepter clones are the worst clones that Mesmer’s have. Scepter is also not a very good weapon to use while leveling and is really only viable (barely) at level 80 when using a condition build.

For leveling, use Greatsword + Staff until level 40+. Make sure to trait at least 5 points in Illusions for Illusionary Celerity. Putting 20 points into dueling for Deceptive Evasion after that is great as well as clones will cause bleeds when they crit (but not scepter clones which suck).

When you get to lvl 45+ you can try sword+pistol or sword+focus as well.

Xavi.6591:

Clones don’t do much if any damage really (unless you take 20 points in dueling then staff clones give bleeds). Clones are meant for shattering which does do damage.

The Scepter clones are the worst clones that Mesmer’s have. Scepter is also not a very good weapon to use while leveling and is really only viable (barely) at level 80 when using a condition build.

For leveling, use Greatsword + Staff until level 40+. Make sure to trait at least 5 points in Illusions for Illusionary Celerity. Putting 20 points into dueling for Deceptive Evasion after that is great as well as clones will cause bleeds when they crit (but not scepter clones which suck).

When you get to lvl 45+ you can try sword+pistol or sword+focus as well.

I’ve been leveling using Scepter +Torch and have had 0 issues with it, have also soloed 8 mobs + a veteran, my second weapon is a staff but i stay on my Scepter + Torch most of the time and use the staff more to support the scepter. It’s a good weapon, especially with shatters, blocking/blinding, does it do the most damage? No, not at all. But it is very strong weapon wise, especially with a Carrion build (Condi, Power, Vitality).

@OP Yeah, clones don’t do much of anything, staffs will apply condis, sword will apply vuln and rip boons, trident applies confusion, but other than that they’re meat shields and shatter fodder.

The way i look at it is that our clones are our shield, they take hits for us confuse players, etc. You can of course shield bash someone (shatter) causing various effects, but most of which are defensive (confusion can be used as defensive when stacked high enough). Then you have the phantasms which are our sword, they will tear enemies apart for the most part, and they -can- take hits for you, but it’s often better to NOT let them take hits for you because they’re much more useful alive and pewpewing.

Okay, thanks for explaining it .. I’m now kind of confused, if they don’t do damage why do they bother attacking? If they stood around looking pretty doing nothing then I wouldn’t have been expecting them to do damage.

I use the scepter because I like the range attack and the other couple of main-hand skills, maybe I’d be better of sticking to Staff for ranged and Sword+whatever for close-up stuff.

Cheers all.

Kraggy.4169:

I’m now kind of confused, if they don’t do damage why do they bother attacking?

2 reasons:

1) It’s thematic for illusions that look identical to you (Including your name) to be doing what you’re doing thus giving a slight chance that players get confused and can’t tell which one is real.

2) They attack using your 1 ability, which in the case of Sword and Staff can inflict conditions on the target (In the case of staff, they can inflict effects such as Burning and Bleeding which cause damage) – Also I believe there’s a trait that allows them to cause Bleeding if they do a critical hit.

Taril.8619:

Kraggy.4169:

I’m now kind of confused, if they don’t do damage why do they bother attacking?

2 reasons:

1) It’s thematic for illusions that look identical to you (Including your name) to be doing what you’re doing thus giving a slight chance that players get confused and can’t tell which one is real.

2) They attack using your 1 ability, which in the case of Sword and Staff can inflict conditions on the target (In the case of staff, they can inflict effects such as Burning and Bleeding which cause damage) – Also I believe there’s a trait that allows them to cause Bleeding if they do a critical hit.

Also adding onto this back in Beta scepter clones used to apply confusion, and greatsword clones i believe applied cripple? I knew they applied some condition (the players auto attack didn’t), so they all actually had something they did (and they did damage) but those ones got nerfed down because they were to strong.

@Kraggy, yeah like the ppl said clones usualy need traits to do dmg. But test to get 1 -2 clones up then hit f1 mindwrack dmg. Then try build combos of this, get 3-4 mobs into a chaos storm of the staff, 1-2 clones up and hit f1 and suddenly you start to do some good dmg.

/Osicat

Kraggy.4169:

Okay, thanks for explaining it .. I’m now kind of confused, if they don’t do damage why do they bother attacking? If they stood around looking pretty doing nothing then I wouldn’t have been expecting them to do damage.

I use the scepter because I like the range attack and the other couple of main-hand skills, maybe I’d be better of sticking to Staff for ranged and Sword+whatever for close-up stuff.

Cheers all.

Clones can deal damage trough the staff, by stacking conditions. But the main reason why clones attack is because they are only up when you’re attacking, and the clones are meant to confuse your enemies by looking like you. Just think of clones as an alternative to stealth.

Just play with whatever weapons you like. The only thing you have to keep in mind is the type of damage you’re dealing (direct or condition), that is all.

I think clones do ~2% of your damage on basic attacks, so at low levels when you hit for like nothing, the damage you do gets rounded down to 0-1 range.

They aren’t meant to do much direct damage, and it would be pretty broken if they did.

Broski, I’m level 80 and my clones do about 0-10 damage each hit. Sorry, they CRIT for 0-10.

Now go over to your Phantasms. They should do about 4-8x your damage each hit.