Guild Wars 2

I play a mesmer and think the clone / phantasm mechanic is kind of messed up. Phantasm deal too much persistant damage and it is too easy to maintain 3 illusions all the time. And having three illusions up all the time during a fight is kind of annoying, but the “too much stuff on the screen” thing is a general problem of GW2 (at least in pvp)

Clones:
I suggest that clones only last 3 seconds. Lets say you use your off hand sword block. Then you “swap” position and create a clone. When someone uses a skill on your clone and someone else attacks your clone two times with a ranged weapon– Great ! The clone has done its job and should vanish. It should not stay forever.

Also:

• Maybe buff health of clones
• Buff effect of clones in regard to boons and conditions
• Clones should be 100% identical to the character and others should NOT be able to tell the difference. That also means when you create a clone, the mesmer needs to vanish for a very short time and appear together with the clone(s) at a slightly different position. No targeting possible.

Phantasm:
When you create a phantasm, it should not attack immediately after spawning. The first attack should start maybe five seconds or so after the phantasm was created. Other people now can chose:
- kill the phantasm and avoid damage
- go for the mesmer, but receive damage from phantasm.
Phantasm should vanish after their second attack, maybe doing more damage with the final attack. This means:
• phantasm is created
• attacks after 5 s
• cooldown 8s
• final attack (maybe doing more damage compared to the initial attack)
= stays no longer than 15s

Mesmer:

• Rebalancing of skills and traits needed
• Buff the direct mesmer weapon damage. Right now, most damage comes from phantasm.

Shatter damage:
Damage when doing shatter skill 1 should be buffed and progressing with the number of illusions, something like:
500 for 1 illusion
1200for 2 illusions
2100 for 3 illusions

Now it is much harder to maintain three illusions at the same time and doing so should be rewarded

So… how can you stack 3 illusions if they only last 3 seconds?

You’ll never be able to shatter 3 illusions at the same time because they die within 3 seconds of being summoned and the fastest cooldown to create a clone is 6 seconds.

I’m not sure if you even play a mesmer because your suggestions doesn’t make sense and seem counter-intuitive to it’s shatter mechanic.

How about reading everything before posting ?

illusions = clones and phantasm

clones last for 3 seconds
phantams last for 15 seconds

And I have never seen a mesmer doing shatter builds in pvp….because they suck right now. Phantasm seem to be way better.

EDIT: cooldown 6 seconds for a clone ? You dont have a clue about how mesmers work…

It isn’t hard to maintain three illusions at a time?
First off, it takes awhile to get three phantasms up. We don’t have an initial burst like other classes. Secondly, Phantasms are easily killed. Place them wrongly in a fight and they get shredded by a weak AoE.

I like the idea of shattering, but I don’t want to be punished by doing so. reasonably limiting my damage output. I don’t mind having to shatter a phantasm after it did it’s second attack. I just don’t want to shatter all phantasms that are up.

tl;dr make us able to select which illusions we want to shatter.

Nagaae.7698:

It isn’t hard to maintain three illusions at a time?

it is easy right now:

You start with sword / sword and go with skill 3 – leap = 1 clone
then you have a skill that creates two illusions = 2 clones
= 3 clones within a very short time → shatter

Then you summon your phantasm – skill 5 and change to staff and use skill 3 and 2
= 2 phantasm and 1 clone within a very short time → shatter

Go with scepter and you have a clone every third auto-attack

Three second lifetime for clones is maybe a bit too short, make it four or five…but dont make it unlimited.

Not sure you should be under the illusion that they will change a gameplay mechanic on someone’s input. They’ve spent years on this thing, what we who didn’t think doesn’t really matter.

But hey, as long as we’re wishy-washy, I wish there was an assassin clone outside downed state.

Auflauf.1679:

How about reading everything before posting ?

illusions = clones and phantasm

clones last for 3 seconds
phantams last for 15 seconds

And I have never seen a mesmer doing shatter builds in pvp….because they suck right now. Phantasm seem to be way better.

EDIT: cooldown 6 seconds for a clone ? You dont have a clue about how mesmers work…

The fastest cooldown on a skill to bring out a clone is 6 seconds before bringing out another one. GS has this, scepter has this, staff has this and so on (without trait for 15%)

Your Edit: Please don’t try to sound condescending. Stroking your own ego online isn’t going to impress or intimidate anyone.

If you want clones to die within 3 seconds I need a reason why you propose that. It’s too short to distract mobs, it’s too short to distract players in PvP, and you cannot maintain any of them long enough for maximum effect of Mind Wrack.

Having the shatter mainly apply to phantasms is not a big enough incentive to use shatters over phantasms. Phantasms provide a bigger DPS and a bigger benefits (like reflecting projectiles or applying cripples) to justify throwing them away, especially when you want them to do max damage in their final attack. In general I don’t think the timers on illusions will work well and probably isn’t a good idea.

Auflauf.1679:

Nagaae.7698:

It isn’t hard to maintain three illusions at a time?

it is easy right now:

You start with sword / sword and go with skill 3 – leap = 1 clone
then you have a skill that creates two illusions = 2 clones
= 3 clones within a very short time -> shatter

Then you summon your phantasm – skill 5 and change to staff and use skill 3 and 2
= 2 phantasm and 1 clone within a very short time -> shatter

Mind wrack currently has a 15s cooldown and most clone based weaponry has a 6 second limit cooldown. With clones lasting 3s requiring you to shatter them immediately. This now opens up a good 15s window where you have to summon phantasms out, but because you have to wait 6 seconds to summon out an illusion, you are literally having 6 seconds of being completely vulnerable.
PvP players will kill you right there once they singled you out and monsters will aggro on you as a priority.

Clones (not phantasms) are meant to have a dual purpose to encourage build diversity. These 2 are the main ones, but not restricted to:

Shatter fodder

or

PvE, PvP distractions (where every hit a clone take is one that you don’t have to)

I think what you are suggesting is pushing the Mesmer playstyle into one corner as pure shatter builds. If that’s the case a better fix would be to look at the mesmer shatters and how to improve them, like Mind Wrack.

I like your idea of an increased mind wrack damage, because now the player has to decide between sustained constant damage from phantasms that are squishy by nature, and trading them for a good amount of spike damage. I would also split Mind Wrack into 2 different types; dealing more damage with phantasms, and slightly less with clones.

And I have never seen a mesmer doing shatter builds in pvp….because they suck right now. Phantasm seem to be way better.

They don’t suck.

They are good for burst.

Cyclic burst isn’t the method to kill a bunker build*. Shatter build is strong for roaming sPvP or WvW in skirmish.

Also, Shatter build is not exclusive with most other builds.

Less cursory judgements on things you don’t play and have no experience with.

Edit:

Only relevant notions for Shatter changes are to slightly boost the damage of Mind Wrack, maybe (e.g. remove the downscaling of per-illusion damage for x2/x3 Mind Wracks). Slightly increase the duration of the confuse effects (and/or verify that they are being appropriately increased by +% condition duration and the trait).

Couple other tweaks like Halting Strike needs a significant # buff. Should be like 5x the current damage, although that might be sliiightly overtuned.

Most decent mesmers shatter regardless of build. You don’t see builds based around it because the burst isn’t high enough to base an entire build around it, and if they were that strong it’d be overpowered with phantasms (which actually do pretty well with the current mind wrack). I think the best you can hope for as far as a mechanic change are boosts to certain shatters (frustration and the daze… i dont know the name of it because it’s terrible w/o illusionary persona) and maybe a nerf to phantasms, while at the same time transfering that dps to the mesmer itself.

I’d almost prefer a condition removal shatter over the daze, but i’m sure there’s some mesmers out there using the daze.. I think they’re in the minority though.

Just all round bad ideas, from someone that does not play a mesmer…

Appreciate the time you spent in making the post and suggestions but the time would have been better utilised in playing/researching the class itself in all aspects of the game (your changes look PvP focused but realise the illusions are integral part of the class for PvE also)

Levelord.5746:

The fastest cooldown on a skill to bring out a clone is 6 seconds before bringing out another one. GS has this, scepter has this, staff has this and so on (without trait for 15%)

I dont know what to say about this…this is just so wrong. If you ever played a mesmer, you should know. If you would understand the class, you would understand what is behind my idea. You dont have to agree, but you would see the reasons behind it.

• I am talking about sPvP
• mesmer is said to be maybe the strongest (=OP?) class in an 1on1 situation in PvP. I am an average player and win >90% of my 1on1. This is not right.
• I play a phantasm build and just wait for my phantasm to kill the other guy = the sustained damage feels way to high to me. So I recommended a limited lifespan for phantasm. Sure, you can kill a phantasm, but it always hits 1 time and while the other guys tries to kill my phantasm, he is doing zero damage to me. It is a win-win situation for the mesmer. So I thought: maybe a phantasm should not do damage right when it spawns.
• Clones are meant to deceive. But they dont, they are just annoying and make sPvP a mess because they stay forever. You can kill clones, but they are way too harmless to do that. And shattering does not work very well right now, so almost nobody does that in pvp. I thought about how to make them real deceiving and not so annyoing. If a clone stays in one place for a minute, you know it is a clone and its just annoying. It does almost no damage, its not deceiving, people dont shatter….what is the use ?

Those were my thoughts about the ideas.

And please dont say ever again, that a mesmer can only have an illusion about every 6 seconds. This is just wrong. You even have one utility skill that gives you 2 clones at once.

I’d almost prefer a condition removal shatter over the daze, but i’m sure there’s some mesmers out there using the daze.. I think they’re in the minority though.

I use Diversion all the time in my burst rotation, but I have Illusory Persona, so.

I find it useful for two events:

1. Leap-Blurred Frenzy. The immobilize cuts dodge of course. Diversion cuts ability-based escapes for a moment. I use it after blow up my illusions with Mind Wrack.

2. Interrupting an anti-stomp skill. Usually I use Distortion to go invulnerable during a stomp to evade all that cheesy kitten, but when that is down, a timed Diversion can interrupt their cheese.

That said, an untraited Diversion is pretty meh. On the flip side, it can get pretty interesting with the right traits …

Clones don’t deceive? Are we playing the same game? Staff #2, Decoy, dodging creating clones, etc. All these abilities and more make it VERY hard to be targeted in an sPvP match. Constant clone generation allows mesmers to survive MUCH longer in fights.

Not to mention the downed clone ability, which I’ve used to distract and pick myself up in nearly half my PvP fights.

Clones and phantasms are working as intended. Phantasms die incredibly quickly but do high damage, and clones do barely any damage but have more health and distract your opponent.

I’ve never had an issue with my phantasms “Staying out too long doing prolonged damage”, and I sure as hell don’t want them to go back to the old beta way where they only fired off one attack and then sat there.

Ainianu.5693:

Just all round bad ideas, from someone that does not play a mesmer…

Appreciate the time you spent in making the post and suggestions but the time would have been better utilised in playing/researching the class itself in all aspects of the game (your changes look PvP focused but realise the illusions are integral part of the class for PvE also)

1) I played my mesmer for more than 200 h. 50% pvp / 50% pve. Though i dont care much about class balance in PvE, that is correct. I tested shatter builds, boon builds, condition builds, phantasm builds, combinations of it with every weapon and so on,…but yes, i dont play mesmer.
2) I am an average player. I win > 90% of my 1on1 in sPvP. This just does not seem right. Often I have 80% health left and the other guy is dead. And my build is far from being perfect (my Elite: Mass Invisibility…I refuse to use the other two, they seem over the top to me).

Gordunk.7289:

Clones don’t deceive? Are we playing the same game?

To your first question:
When I started to sPvP: yes
Now: no.

You can target the mesmer…and then always see the real mesmer.

Auflauf.1679:

Levelord.5746:

The fastest cooldown on a skill to bring out a clone is 6 seconds before bringing out another one. GS has this, scepter has this, staff has this and so on (without trait for 15%)

I dont know what to say about this…this is just so wrong. If you ever played a mesmer, you should know. If you would understand the class, you would understand what is behind my idea. You dont have to agree, but you would see the reasons behind it.

• I am talking about sPvP
• mesmer is said to be maybe the strongest (=OP?) class in an 1on1 situation in PvP. I am an average player and win >90% of my 1on1. This is not right.
• I play a phantasm build and just wait for my phantasm to kill the other guy = the sustained damage feels way to high to me. So I recommended a limited lifespan for phantasm. Sure, you can kill a phantasm, but it always hits 1 time and while the other guys tries to kill my phantasm, he is doing zero damage to me. It is a win-win situation for the mesmer. So I thought: maybe a phantasm should not do damage right when it spawns.
• Clones are meant to deceive. But they dont, they are just annoying and make sPvP a mess because they stay forever. You can kill clones, but they are way too harmless to do that. And shattering does not work very well right now, so almost nobody does that in pvp. I thought about how to make them real deceiving and not so annyoing. If a clone stays in one place for a minute, you know it is a clone and its just annoying. It does almost no damage, its not deceiving, people dont shatter….what is the use ?

Those were my thoughts about the ideas.

And please dont say ever again, that a mesmer can only have an illusion about every 6 seconds. This is just wrong. You even have one utility skill that gives you 2 clones at once.

Yes, but what happens after you summon them all out? They all go on cooldown, what you do between those cooldowns is the point I’m trying to make.

So far people are bringing suggestions into the thread, but you’re not interested in hearing any of them. All we’re seeing is this:

• I play mesmers better than everyone else
• Everyone else doesn’t know how to play mesmers
• I’m so OP because I can down noobs and obviously never tried tournaments.
• I’m making a thinly veiled thread about mesmer fixes but it’s actually about changes I want for mesmers to fit my playstyle, while telling everyone else that they are crap if they play differently, while ignoring critique of my ideas.
• I can never be wrong because I am an obvious expert on mesmers and I will continue berating everyone who doesn’t agree with me, and telling them that they’ve never played mesmers before.

You’re not interested in hearing a discussion at all even though I’ve tried. This is all just some glorified form of self vanity.

Check your attitude, then people might give your thread some credibility.

Auflauf.1679:

How about reading everything before posting ?

illusions = clones and phantasm

clones last for 3 seconds
phantams last for 15 seconds

And I have never seen a mesmer doing shatter builds in pvp….because they suck right now. Phantasm seem to be way better.

EDIT: cooldown 6 seconds for a clone ? You dont have a clue about how mesmers work…

Shatter build is Amazing iv been using it for the last few days and 100% destroy
You say shatter builds are crap and no one uses them?

Xee uses a shatter build and id go as far to say as of right now could easily be the best Mesmer playing GW2 his 5’s tournament team consist of a list of Multy time MGL championship winner like Pookz and Spoh.

If you think shatter builds suck because phant builds are easier to learn, you wrong…

phant build are good but also newb friendly id take a skilled shatter mesmer over a newb or skilled phant masmer

@Yo Beezy
Can you tell me your build/playstyle or do you have a link to guide ? I keep reading that shatter builds suck and i tried out for myself but could not make it work. In sPvP (no tournaments) I almost never see people using shatters.

@Levelord.
I said I am an average skilled player. I dont know how you make up all those things you mention.
But you are right, I didnt play any tournaments yet. I feel I am not good enough for it. And I think a group of 5 skilled people with a good strategy and a good combination of classes and builds will just stomp over a team of random people.

The suggestions from the original post are some of the worst ideas I have seen in a while. More than just changing a system of the class, they would dramatically alter the entire dynamic of the Mesmer as a highly elusive force multiplier by neutering the primary system upon which the foundation of the class is built.

I cannot help but feel that this post is a thinly-veiled “nerf Mesmers!” thread. Three second duration on clones? Fifteen second duration on phantasms that don’t start attacking until they have been on the playing field for 5 seconds and doesn’t attack again for 8 seconds? Those suggestions are simply a call to gut the entire illusion system.

The Mesmer class is one of the better-designed classes in the game, even if they are complex to learn and somewhat frenetic to operate. Wrecking the illusion system because a handful of players don’t like a “cluttered” playing field is neither required nor desired.

Overall this thread contributes nothing of value to the discussion on Mesmers.

Auflauf.1679:

@Yo Beezy
Can you tell me your build/playstyle or do you have a link to guide ? I keep reading that shatter builds suck and i tried out for myself but could not make it work. In sPvP (no tournaments) I almost never see people using shatters.

I would be happy to link you a page because this will also help Xee and iv seen a few of his live streams is he a very cool guy and worth supporting. if he can get 400+ views on average when he streams he can stream full time. and his angle in getting people to watch is close connection his the chat in stream and quick to answer any one questions
chat may have.

http://www.twitch.tv/jhaxe/b/332461612
if you catch his live stream you can directly ask him anything you want regarding Mesmer

3 Builds in link.

Levelord.5746:

So… how can you stack 3 illusions if they only last 3 seconds?

Really? You can summon like 6 illusions in that time if you chose to do so.

Scepter 1 → Scepter 3 → Pistol 4 → Staff 2 → Staff 4 → Roll → Roll

But wait, there’s more!

iDisenchanter, iDefender and Mirror Images.

Ok so that’s 11.

Please delete your mesmer and start a warrior and be like all those other noobs out there who cannot grab ahold of this class. Thank you and good night

I’m going to be blunt, but suggesting an overhaul to the mesmer mechanic is a waste of everyone’s time. They’re not going to change it. If you want to be constructive, suggest quality of life improvements the profession should receive.

Also, phantasms used to not attack immediately after being spawned, and just about everyone hated it. It was not fun and made for clunky gameplay.

Auflauf.1679:

…having three illusions up all the time during a fight is kind of annoying, but the “too much stuff on the screen” thing is a general problem of GW2 (at least in pvp).

This is something that truely bugs me… I don’t think you should be playing Mesmer at all. They are meant to have a lot of “stuff on the screen”. If it is annoying why would you chose mesmer?

AWFUL ideas. The whole stealth when generating a clone is OP. If we could be detargetted after every clone generation in PvP is stupid OP.

It’s fine the way it is. FIX the awful torch and scepter pwease!

Rhyno.7084:

Levelord.5746:

So… how can you stack 3 illusions if they only last 3 seconds?

Really? You can summon like 6 illusions in that time if you chose to do so.

Scepter 1 -> Scepter 3 -> Pistol 4 -> Staff 2 -> Staff 4 -> Roll -> Roll

But wait, there’s more!

iDisenchanter, iDefender and Mirror Images.

Ok so that’s 11.

Uhm… you have to cast scepter 1 three times before generating a clone, which is about 3 seconds to cast. Scepter 3 doesn’t generate one period, 2 does after a block…. The block sucks compared to sword #2 imo. You also have CD on swapping weapons. Yeah maybe you can spawn 4 or 5 clones with the right utility and weapon swap. But you can only do it at the start. You have to wait on CDs afterwards. It’s not as easy as you say. Blah, I don’t waste my utility spots for the phantasms. I think there are better spells…