Guild Wars 2

This is just a what if topic, not something I’m actually suggesting as it might be OP (though I would like it).

In GW1, dealing with a mesmer in PvP involved a lot of choosing whether or not to take punishment (backfire, empathy, etc. ), GW2 mesmers are still like that a bit, but nowhere near as much.

From what I’ve gathered, phantasms are supposed to be like physical manifestations of damage over time hexes right (conjure phantasm/nightmare, for example)? The way I see it, they’re only slightly similar to hexes in their current state. So what if phantasms were changed to where they did their current effects, but had the added effect of if the person/mob the phantasm is focusing on kills it, something else happens.

For example, illusionary warden gets destroyed by the person it was cast on, they receive a debuff of “your next weapon skill fails and you take X damage”, similar to clumsiness in GW1.

I honestly can’t see this being too OP in WvW, seeing how illusions have a tendency to die veeeery quickly inside a zerg, can’t say anything in regards to sPvP as I don’t do that much, but I do think this would help illusion builds in PvE (not saying mesmers are underpowered at all).

Thoughts?

It might be a good addition to weaker traits in our trait lines to spice them up a bit, with flavor based on which line it is in. . . but the main issue is that it because it just adds X damage or X condition(s) it ends up just adding power to an already powerful profession. That is a problem in both PvP and WvW, in order to give an added bonus to phantasms they would need to tone something else down, since they are looking to tone down some burst this would feel like a fine addition to be honest, provided they toned down Mind Wrack damage perhaps or Phantasms actual damage abilities.

It wouldn’t be a simple addition of just an ability, but then again, it’s quite possibly something that Arenanet would do.

We already have Vengeful Images for this. And let’s not forget all the clone death traits. What you ask for can already be be done in just slightly different ways.