Guild Wars 2

To reintroduce Clone death traits. Wait, listen a moment.

From the dev comments, ANET seems to find itself in a spot. They would like to nerf Chronophantasma and condi Mesmer generally. Yet, they recognize that to do so would once more put Mesmer pretty much out of PvP.

If history is a guide, they will nerf it and accept Mesmer returning to bottom tier.

Clone death was a strong underpinning that made Phantasm, Shatter and PU builds work. Without that synergy and some compensation for instantly cleaved clones… Well the rarity of PU and Phantasm builds speaks for itself. Shatter is played, but the Mesmer accepts being underpowered as the price going in.

We need those traits back if we don’t wish to be funneled into one build. When that one build is nerfed we’ll have nowhere to go.

Oh absolutely not, clone death brought a passive play style that’s even worse than PU condi mesmer. The reason phantasm builds aren’t working is because of the large amount of AoE that renders them pretty much useless. Since 50% of our dmg (maybe more) is through phantasms, we lose out on 50% of it each time they die. Instead of bringing back a passive trait to a game that needs to get rid of all passives, phantasms should be reworked to be purely support (giving boons, reducing damage to mesmer, placing soft cc on target) or becoming invulnerable and releasing their attack then dissipating into a clone. The clone death traits were horrible and I’m very happy they’re gone.

As much as I would like to have clone death traits, I agree with @myren that they would make PvP even worse. Our illusions + shatter mechanic need to be re-designed from the ground up really

Just like the last 6 times you posted this, no. Just like the last times, you stating that clone death helped shatter and phantasm builds doesn’t make that statement true at all. This would still be an awful idea.

Agree, no clone on death traits.

The other day, I read a post in the PvP section. The poster was observing that when playing against the druid, occasionally he loses the druid as a target. And wonder if it was a bug or something.

Of course, the what he was observing was the “taunt” from the pet. (certain pets anyway.)

Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.

SlimChance.6593:

Agree, no clone on death traits.

The other day, I read a post in the PvP section. The poster was observing that when playing against the druid, occasionally he loses the druid as a target. And wonder if it was a bug or something.

Of course, the what he was observing was the “taunt” from the pet. (certain pets anyway.)

Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.

I hope the next elite spec has such a mechanic for misdirection – illusions casting taunt (as long as it is an active skill) to force loss of target.

But, and bear with me here for a second, not everyone plays 1v1 WvW or sPvP. I would argue the majority doesn’t.

Condition builds are weak enough as it is. It kiiiinda works, but only because you can put up 3 Pistol Phantasms on larger targets and then sit around and dig out some boogers while your Phantasms do the DPS. Read: It’s annoying to play.

Nerf conditions? Didn’t you mean to say make conditions actually usable in PvE, first?

I mean it’s not a big step really, but for some reason ANet is woefully unwanting to do things such as:

• Conditions on-attack proc now deals 10x the normal damage to PvE targets. This bonus is further increased by 50% against elite or boss targets.
• Torments on-movement bonus is increased by 300% (from x2 to x5 damage).

I mean that’d at least make these somewhat useable on PvE targets. And I do agree it could need a look at in smallest scale PvP, but really I would love for them to first recognize that it has systemic issues in PvE because mobs don’t attack or move like players do.

Or they could just boost F2 to be a true condition damage attack, lower it’s CD, and remove MtD altogether. That trait has been an issue always, either too weak or too strong. Without MtD, Chronophantasms is perfectly balanced. It’s only the 2x 3-clone shatter with Confusion + Torment for each clone and the Mesmer is a lot, and can be repeated almost ad nauseum.

Sadly, I’m of the opinion that this isn’t even OPd, but I am a Mesmer and usually have Inspiration as well, so maybe I just don’t feel the entirety of the problem the way that other professions feel it. When I do play meta condie shatter though, I have to say I never feel like I’m a strong damage contributor. (Only against really poor teams.)

The fact simply remains that F2 is and always has been a weaker cousin of F1, and from the very start it should have been made a viable primary condition shatter without the need to trait it first.

Illusions also need to have splash damage reduced by 50-75% in PvP too. I don’t see why it’s good in PvE (what is it there, 90%?) and not in PvP, when the fact is that usually there is far more splash damage in PvP! (Faster, no intervals, no predictability…it’s just always there and strong enough to insta gib illusions.)

You can’t balance a profession around these “pets” and then constantly neglect the fact that these pets can not survive in a realistic PvP environment! (Especially since none of them really have a particularly strong attack outside of maybe iZerker)

Phantasms like the iWarden and iSwordsman should also be MUCH MUCH harder to kill then ranged attacking pets.

SlimChance.6593:

Agree, no clone on death traits.

The other day, I read a post in the PvP section. The poster was observing that when playing against the druid, occasionally he loses the druid as a target. And wonder if it was a bug or something.

Of course, the what he was observing was the “taunt” from the pet. (certain pets anyway.)

Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.

I actually suggested this in a recent design a new Mesmer contest. That would be amazing. We can wish.

Windwalker.7421:

You can’t balance a profession around these “pets” and then constantly neglect the fact that these pets can not survive in a realistic PvP environment! (Especially since none of them really have a particularly strong attack outside of maybe iZerker)

Phantasms like the iWarden and iSwordsman should also be MUCH MUCH harder to kill then ranged attacking pets.

I’d have mixed feelings about tougher Phantasms. They are illusions, after all. And the circle of the conversation turns. Clone death would be and was compensation for the weakness of our illusions.

The build was removed for one reason. That was that you could do damage simply by dodging and killing a clone. Never mind that other classes do damage by the act of dodging.

The fact remains that without clone death, Phantasm, PU and Shatter builds are all excessively weak.

I’d really like my clones to apply chill in an area when they are killed. Would probably make me overpowered though lol. But I do like the idea of that very much.

SlimChance.6593:

Agree, no clone on death traits.

The other day, I read a post in the PvP section. The poster was observing that when playing against the druid, occasionally he loses the druid as a target. And wonder if it was a bug or something.

Of course, the what he was observing was the “taunt” from the pet. (certain pets anyway.)

Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.

I too agree with it.

Regarding taunt. I have been thinking about a new phantasm called confusing phantasm. Not an original name but this is what it does:

When it hits, aside some insignificant damage, the enemy gets his/her weapon skill bar shuffled in a random order. So, skill 5 could be placed on 1, auto on 4 and so on. This should indeed confuse the enemy messing around with his rotation. Effect could last 5 seconds and hit rate (ranged or melee I dont know) could be like iMage, I guess…

SlimChance.6593:

Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.

Actually, there could be an extremly short taunt effect on Clones when summoned by weapon skills and utilities respectively (not IR or DE or whatever might come along in the future). Only on cast. Not when attacking.

It would bring back some trickster playstyle in PvP and it shouldn’t be too strong – but most certainly very annoying. Every unlikely to happen, though.

Regarding the OP: No, thanks.

Some thing else I’ve thought of was giving the Mesmer a 1/2 sec of stealth when ever a clone is created. Just a quick flash to drop target is all.

So there is at least some agreement that clones should have an effect, be it on creation or on death.

ANET should consider the idea. Phantasm, PU and Shatter were all designed with the use of clone death traits. Removing that synergy had far reaching effects.

Ithilwen.1529:

Phantasm, PU and Shatter were all designed with the use of clone death traits. Removing that synergy had far reaching effects.

Ok, look…they really weren’t. Like really, not at all. You need to stop confusing people about this.

Firstly, phantasms didn’t even function with most of the clone-death traits. The confusion on death trait worked with them, but most clone-death builds didn’t take that anyway. The primary cripple and bleed/weakness/vuln traits didn’t function at all with phantasms.

Additionally, shatter builds were mutually exclusive with clone-death traits. Not only did powerful shatter traits conflict with the clone-death traits, a successful shatter did not trigger clone-death traits. This meant that if you were playing shatter properly, your clone death traits would never activate.

Lastly, PU has absolutely nothing to do with clone-death traits and it makes zero sense as to how you’re claiming that it somehow had ‘far reaching effects’ on PU. PU is simply a powerful defensive tool that was used in shatter builds, in phantasm builds, and in clone-death builds. People used (and still use) PU because it’s a fantastic way to get more defense out of our skills. It had nothing to do with clone death traits.

So to recap: You’re wrong AND you’ve been willfully repeating this misinformation every time you make a thread trying to push this idea. I think most of us would appreciate if you stopped.

I know it isn’t an argument but I’m crying each time I see an evade who have X effects on other professions after they removed on death trait because of “cheesy”.
And if I remember, the main problem wasn’t particulary thoses traits but the combo with PU who allow passive play. (and the dammage came much from staff clone auto and from the mes than from on death traits.)

Past, I was sometimes playing pure clonespammer 20/30/20/0/0 and it wasn’t more passive than other spec.

Anyway I really dislike the “shatter or nothing” orientation that came from the 23 june 2015 update.
I mean what is more cheesy/passiv/etc beetween a Fx who have tons effects like dammage, condiclean, condi, boon (have you just see the number of line to describe a shatter today ?) and a clone who random inflict condi on death on a small radius with small dammage ?
Just to say that passiv/cheesy and other relative stuff are where you want to find them and cant be a serious argument like counters and maths.

That said, I’m all for a total rework of our mecanics.

As someone who took full advantage of the trait, I would not like it to come back. There are other ways to rebalance our class without bringing back a type of trait (passive) that is currently bringing the game down.

Clone death traits were interesting, but ultimately the community couldn’t deal with the existence of these traits so bringing them back would be…unwise. I think they would be rather underwhelming these days anyway compared to the rather large condi shatter burst we have instead.

And hey, if you want to play something akin to ye olde “sitting in stealth applying AoE conditions without being revealed” you can just play Ghost Thief.

Fay.2357:

Ithilwen.1529:

Phantasm, PU and Shatter were all designed with the use of clone death traits. Removing that synergy had far reaching effects.

Ok, look…they really weren’t. Like really, not at all. You need to stop confusing people about this.

Firstly, phantasms didn’t even function with most of the clone-death traits. The confusion on death trait worked with them, but most clone-death builds didn’t take that anyway. The primary cripple and bleed/weakness/vuln traits didn’t function at all with phantasms.

Additionally, shatter builds were mutually exclusive with clone-death traits. Not only did powerful shatter traits conflict with the clone-death traits, a successful shatter did not trigger clone-death traits. This meant that if you were playing shatter properly, your clone death traits would never activate.

Lastly, PU has absolutely nothing to do with clone-death traits and it makes zero sense as to how you’re claiming that it somehow had ‘far reaching effects’ on PU. PU is simply a powerful defensive tool that was used in shatter builds, in phantasm builds, and in clone-death builds. People used (and still use) PU because it’s a fantastic way to get more defense out of our skills. It had nothing to do with clone death traits.

So to recap: You’re wrong AND you’ve been willfully repeating this misinformation every time you make a thread trying to push this idea. I think most of us would appreciate if you stopped.

Fay is right.

This entire thread has no ground once you know how clone death functioned back when we had it.

XD

Mesmer needs many things, the entire game does, but clone death is not it.

Fay is right and I don’t share the main argument of the op, for me it is more about build diversity than to power up other builds.
There was three main gameplay on mes and they totally remove one (on death), the second is dying(fantasm), and the third was overbuffed (shatter everywhere.) => lack of diversity.

This entire thread has no ground once you know that > 75% of this forum is pro-shatter, were against on death, are against and will ever be against, and this discussion will never end.

But the “passive” gameplay everybody use to justify is just meh.
Today I do 1 clic to F1 : dammage, condiclean, condi, alacrity.
Past I do 1 clic to pop a clone : cripple, random condi, 1 stack confusion.
Each 240 aoe around the illusion, F1 will run to the target.

The clone generation was certainly too fast but there is a world between mitigate something and remove it completely.

I don’t understand how the mecanic is much passive than any other we have when we look at the number of active clics to do something.
They can just disable the combo with PU and with deceptive evasion and all were fine.

However I do not have much hope of seeing them back someday…

I would agree that Clone/Illusion Death traits that cause damage, especially AE damage, would be an unwise idea to go back to.

However, I do think that we should have the option to trait for an effect that would discourage our enemy from blindly destroying our precious resource! This just seems logical to me. We depend on illusions, yet they are so easily destroyed, so at least we should gain something from having our enemy blindly destroy them.

- Gain a boon (maybe different boons for each Phantasm and one for Clones)
- Apply a single non-damaging Condition to attacker (For example Blind makes sense as you’re bashing an illusion, but Weakness or Slow would also work.)

So you wouldn’t bring back a passive Mesmer killing using Clone/Illusion on-death effects, but would allow the option to gain Boons/defense from them in a way that would encourage enemies to not mindlessly kill Mesmer illusions.

The way it currently is it is always beneficial for our enemies to kill a Mesmer’s Illusions. I don’t think this fits the “Mesmer as a trickster” philosophy. It’s too simple minded a counter. Illusion Death traits that provide boons or defense would go a long way in making people use their heads a little more when fighting Mesmers.

Windwalker.7421:

I would agree that Clone/Illusion Death traits that cause damage, especially AE damage, would be an unwise idea to go back to.

However, I do think that we should have the option to trait for an effect that would discourage our enemy from blindly destroying our precious resource! This just seems logical to me. We depend on illusions, yet they are so easily destroyed, so at least we should gain something from having our enemy blindly destroy them.

- Gain a boon (maybe different boons for each Phantasm and one for Clones)
- Apply a single non-damaging Condition to attacker (For example Blind makes sense as you’re bashing an illusion, but Weakness or Slow would also work.)

So you wouldn’t bring back a passive Mesmer killing using Clone/Illusion on-death effects, but would allow the option to gain Boons/defense from them in a way that would encourage enemies to not mindlessly kill Mesmer illusions.

The way it currently is it is always beneficial for our enemies to kill a Mesmer’s Illusions. I don’t think this fits the “Mesmer as a trickster” philosophy. It’s too simple minded a counter. Illusion Death traits that provide boons or defense would go a long way in making people use their heads a little more when fighting Mesmers.

Yeah I agree with this.

There should be some benefit to us or punishment to enemies for killing illusions because it allows for more mind games and makes players think about senseless AoE spam.

However as you said it should be either non damaging debuffs on enemies or boons/positive effects on us/allies. Maybe even healing us when illusions are killed.

I hope Mirage brings some of this to the table and allows for more thoughtful play rather than senseless shatterspam on our part or senseless AoE spam by enemies.

Actually it would make a lot of sense to add something like this to an Elite spec, in order to avoid stacking the powerful defense that Shield gives, with this additional personal defense. (In the case of Blind/Slow/Weakness on death for example. Or even Aegis/Heals on death as benefits.)

I actually can’t wait for Mirage or whatever it is going to be, I have to say I’m pretty tired of Chrono. It’s this ball-and-chain we are necessarily attached to for reasons that have very little to do with the line actually being great.

Agreed.

I actually don’t like Shield and am only using Chrono as a band aid for core mesmer – movement speed, illusion generation and alacrity.

I am very much looking forward to our next elite spec.

I’d rather Anet make clones/phants like they are vs PvE mobs. Take only 10% cleave damage, and 100% damage when the focus of attacks.

I’ve suggested that recently as well Ross, although for PvP they could even make it 25-33% and see from there how it goes.

Gaining boons upon clone destruction is just as passive as doing damage or any other condition. Instead, the survivability of clones/phantasms in and of themselves should be looked at.

AOE damage to get rid of clones is an inherent weakness of playing the Mesmer class. It should not be gotten rid of imo. Remember, you can spec to give illusions more defenses in Inspiration. How competitive those traits are is obviously up for debate (or not lol). Are AOE and cleaves an issue game-wide? If so, it should be addressed on a game-wide basis.

That all being said, I would say NO to all on-death traits unless they affect illusions/phantasms specifically. I just don’t want the actual Mesmer gaining buffs for enemies doing what they naturally should do to counter a Mesmer.

I’d rather Anet make clones/phants like they are vs PvE mobs. Take only 10% cleave damage, and 100% damage when the focus of attacks.

X And obviously, these numbers could be tweaked appropriately in PvP. This change, alone, would have dramatic effects on build diversity.

Here again, there is agreement with one of my main premises.

Clones die so easily and without any penalty at all. This undermines practically all Mesmer builds.

Hence, killing clones should carry a penalty. I contend that penalty should be damage/conditions just as it was,

I like the idea of killling clones having a penalty of non-damaging conditions. That’s more my style. I ran clone death power in a power build and it was very strong just having so much accesss to cripple and weakness.

Ithilwen.1529:

Here again, there is agreement with one of my main premises.

Clones die so easily and without any penalty at all. This undermines practically all Mesmer builds.

Hence, killing clones should carry a penalty. I contend that penalty should be damage/conditions just as it was,

OR

Clones are immune to all sources of damage (they can still be hit for 0, and still have condi’s applied), and phantasms take 10% cleave/aoe damage, and only 100% focus.

That way there’s no flaw in the system for Mesmers, and no silly “penalty” for anyone else.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow btw.

There is nothing wrong with the idea that killing illusions is a counterplay to mesmer. And if it is, you should not put counterplay on the counterplay.

The problem is that you should at least focus on the phantasms to kill them. They should not die at a random sneeze. As Ross says, we should import the idea that was used in PvE: phantasms take heavy damage only when explicitly focused.

On top of that, we cannot have the current situation where most of our DPS come from illusion with stupid ramp-up time and easy death. Illusions should bring utilities and not be central to our damage. That can still make them very useful (like boon strip/vuln on sword phantasm, chaos storm on staff phantasm, fire field on torch, a few finishers etc… see my signature). Once this is done, I think a-net may be less scared of making our illusion more resilient in PvP.

And doing that will also make us less reliant on shatters, and thus on clones.

Ithilwen.1529:

Here again, there is agreement with one of my main premises.

Clones die so easily and without any penalty at all. This undermines practically all Mesmer builds.

Hence, killing clones should carry a penalty. I contend that penalty should be damage/conditions just as it was,

Killing clones shouldn’t carry a penalty, rather, not killing them should carry a penalty.

I’m all for what others have suggested (which is to make illusions in PvP function like they do in PvE, where they only take a small portion of damage unless they are explicitly targeted. This way, other players are still punished by not playing against our mechanic and relying on AoEs to kill our weak illusions, yet they are still weak enough to die in a few hits if specifically focused.

That is the penalty that our illusions should carry. As well as make phantasms more utility based (I fully support changing the staff phantasm to applying chaos storm and improving the overall personal damage/utility of staff itself (perhaps changing Staff 3 into an attack roughly similar to what the phantasm has now, where it deals mroe damage the more conditions are on the foe, that only activates when you have 3 illusions out, otherwise it spawns a phantasm that uses chaos storm)

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ithilwen.1529:

Here again, there is agreement with one of my main premises.

Clones die so easily and without any penalty at all. This undermines practically all Mesmer builds.

Hence, killing clones should carry a penalty. I contend that penalty should be damage/conditions just as it was,

OR

Clones are immune to all sources of damage (they can still be hit for 0, and still have condi’s applied), and phantasms take 10% cleave/aoe damage, and only 100% focus.

That way there’s no flaw in the system for Mesmers, and no silly “penalty” for anyone else.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow btw.

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

MailMail.6534:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ithilwen.1529:

Here again, there is agreement with one of my main premises.

Clones die so easily and without any penalty at all. This undermines practically all Mesmer builds.

Hence, killing clones should carry a penalty. I contend that penalty should be damage/conditions just as it was,

OR

Clones are immune to all sources of damage (they can still be hit for 0, and still have condi’s applied), and phantasms take 10% cleave/aoe damage, and only 100% focus.

That way there’s no flaw in the system for Mesmers, and no silly “penalty” for anyone else.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow btw.

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

As an additional note: If clones couldnt be killed at all, we could actually do away with the necessity for excessive clone generating traits. The chrono line did nothing more than introduce a “surgical” fix to a core mesmer problem. But it’s ugly and only resulted in another monstrosity. We can liken this surgical monstrosity to depictions of Leatherface.

Before THAT we relied on DE, perma endurance regen, and dodge roll for the same clone generation. A more complicated, messier version of our shatter spam auto regeneration now -_-

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

Windwalker.7421:

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

The problem is that there is no skill involved. It’s all just mindless spam. Enemies mindlessly spam their aoe/cleave. Clones die at random, spewing random condi’s in their own AoE fields. You then mindlessly spawn more clones without an iota of skill to repeat the process ad-nausea. Then the other guy mindlessly spams condi cleanses, starts his mindless invuln/evade/block chain, and mindlessly spams some more pressure skills etc etc etc.

The game is oodles and oodles of mindlessness at this point. Adding more spamming mindless options is just adding more mindless spam to an already mindlessly spamming spam fest XD

Spam.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Windwalker.7421:

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

The problem is that there is no skill involved. It’s all just mindless spam. Enemies mindlessly spam their aoe/cleave. Clones die at random, spewing random condi’s in their own AoE fields. You then mindlessly spawn more clones without an iota of skill to repeat the process ad-nausea. Then the other guy mindlessly spams condi cleanses, starts his mindless invuln/evade/block chain, and mindlessly spams some more pressure skills etc etc etc.

The game is oodles and oodles of mindlessness at this point. Adding more spamming mindless options is just adding more mindless spam to an already mindlessly spamming spam fest XD

Spam.

While I disagree with Ross’ exaggerated statement, I do agree that utilities and traits should be improved that actually increase phantasm and clone survivability. I mean there’s a lot of changes that could improve QoL like boons on mesmer affect phantasms. Another helpful change would be changing phantasm abilities to something similar to Echo of Memory. An effect then a phantasm that both damages and supports.

myren.5490:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Windwalker.7421:

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

The problem is that there is no skill involved. It’s all just mindless spam. Enemies mindlessly spam their aoe/cleave. Clones die at random, spewing random condi’s in their own AoE fields. You then mindlessly spawn more clones without an iota of skill to repeat the process ad-nausea. Then the other guy mindlessly spams condi cleanses, starts his mindless invuln/evade/block chain, and mindlessly spams some more pressure skills etc etc etc.

The game is oodles and oodles of mindlessness at this point. Adding more spamming mindless options is just adding more mindless spam to an already mindlessly spamming spam fest XD

Spam.

While I disagree with Ross’ exaggerated statement, I do agree that utilities and traits should be improved that actually increase phantasm and clone survivability. I mean there’s a lot of changes that could improve QoL like boons on mesmer affect phantasms. Another helpful change would be changing phantasm abilities to something similar to Echo of Memory. An effect then a phantasm that both damages and supports.

You flatter me, thankyou for the compliment :D

While I think clone on death builds were pretty much skill less cheese builds, I also think that clone on death builds really fits the mesmers theme as a trickster kind of class.
Causing confusion for your enemies while hiding & sneaking around.
Slowly killing your opponent while being passive & letting them kill themselves trying to kill you.

If the enemy focuses your clones: clone one death condis
If the enemy focuses you: stealth & clones will do condis anyway.

Counterplay: avoid fighting them.

In PvP Clone on death builds wouldn’t even be a problem since the mesmer would rely a lot on stealth to stay alive. While stealthed they can’t keep points.
This build also kills too slow & has low teamfight damage.

Clone on death builds would only be viable while roaming in WvW and even then the enemy can just ignore you and run away.

And since people complain about the build being mindless… don’t forget that there are still dragonhunters for the real mindless people.

In the end I would love to have clone on death builds back & have a good spot in the meta in at least 1 game mode while still keeping it balanced.

Either that or give mesmer an option to play as a real trickster in one way or another.
Tricking your enemy & making them attack your clones. Maybe through a more skillful system.

I love the whole clone & phantasm mechanic (both dealing damage through other sources & being tricky) But I never really liked the mindless SPAM CLONES & SHATTER aspect of mesmer (yes i just said that.) Makes mesmer feel like just other offensive type class.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Windwalker.7421:

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

The problem is that there is no skill involved. It’s all just mindless spam. Enemies mindlessly spam their aoe/cleave. Clones die at random, spewing random condi’s in their own AoE fields. You then mindlessly spawn more clones without an iota of skill to repeat the process ad-nausea. Then the other guy mindlessly spams condi cleanses, starts his mindless invuln/evade/block chain, and mindlessly spams some more pressure skills etc etc etc.

The game is oodles and oodles of mindlessness at this point. Adding more spamming mindless options is just adding more mindless spam to an already mindlessly spamming spam fest XD

Spam.

One of my central ideas is that if mindless cleaving of clones were punished, as it once was, there would be less mindless spam.

it seem as per now our illusion mostly work as ranger pet combine with guard spirit weapon

the pet is hard to kill while spirit weapon and illusion are easier

the problem is not that illusion die fast rather they are our main dmg source

so anet had a bit of problem
if the illusion become harder to kill mesmer will have usually 3 illusions out which could lead to a passive phantasm build (and we dont want passive)
if the illusions have on death trait whether its boons or soft condition again passive game style
if they buff the mesmer core skills that who needs illusions
also any solutions wont solve the spamm/aoe problem at all cause ppl will continue to spamm (not in 1v1 situation)

you can take lots of idea from the game itself. like guard trap daze/slow now on activation. so illusions when spawn will slow or daze around them (an active not passive)
trait which regen hp to illusions like pets do.
leach life when attack like minions have
buff illusion dmg while destroyed after the attack
maybe even clones (not phantasm) are unkillable but will destroyed after 10 second so more mind tricks.
and many more

I didn’t partake in WvW when this was a problem, but I don’t recall it ever being that big an issue in PvP to the point of significant dominance (Even if there was something popular, like usual it was over shadowed by the meta). That being said I do prefer a system that doesn’t directly harm your opponent based on clone death.

It would be interesting to see something that benefited Mesmer’s personal sustain, perhaps through healing, stability, or aegis? Or perhaps more interesting effects like reflect or quickness.

The only condi I think could be justified is slow, and replace or add it to the chrono GM trait. 2-3s per illusion killed would be a fair trade off from renewing phantasms. I think this could even work if it was the ONLY clone death trait so there would be consistency.

we dont want passive

It would be nice to first agree on the definition of passive before continue.

For me, an active gameplay can be the number of differents clics to do something.
And the power of the effects the clic have.

I do not consider a fantasm harder to kill who do X dammage per attack more passive than a non mesmer class who do 3*X dammage in 1 attack.

Anyway actually I play my mesmer by tradition but I’m not happy with the gameplay proposed this past year.

And on death were probably passive if we consider the spam who come by deceiptive evasion but dev can put thoses traits in competition and it wouldn’t have been more passive than what we have today with shatter who do the coffee.

TC is right and it’s pretty much agreed that Mesmer was broke with its removal.

Reading some of these posts even those against clone death are offering alternatives and mechanic tweaks that would fill the same gap as clone death. However if clone death exists in the game already or rather it did. It’s much easier and makes more sense to simply return clone death and tweak it accordingly.

I highly doubt Anet is going to take the time to overhaul anything as they remove and constrict things rather than balance and fix things.

Ithilwen.1529:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Windwalker.7421:

MailMail.6534:

Clones dying from cleave and AOE is called counter play. Penalizing people for getting rid of our clones would get rid of this counter play. Listen to the Boss Ross.

And why would an option to trait in a way to counter this counter play, especially on a trickster class, be a bad thing? Sounds like a good option if it leads to more build diversity and more skillful counter-play required by those facing Mesmers, because they can’t just mindlessly AoE illusions like now. I fail to see how more horizontal options in traiting are ever a bad idea.

There are lots of counter-play to counter-play scenarios, this is usually considered a good thing for both build and play diversity. It’s just too simplistic to have a single easily accomplished method of completely shutting down a fundamental profession mechanic such as our Shatters is. Giving an option to keep our opponents on their toes when they mindlessly spam AE is IMO an enrichment to skillful PvP play.

Making Illusions or especially Phantasms more survivable is another route, but these are mutually exclusive and completely different play-styles. We already have traits and a Signet to accomplish that, but clearly even if you specialize in all of the current options, not even our Phantasms turn out to be really any more survivable than without these options. So yes, those options should also be significant improved to have a much more noticeable impact, in order to provide another option.

That does not exclude making other useful traits to discourage the killing of especially Phantasms. Those two trait options would in fact be mutually exclusive by their very nature.

The problem is that there is no skill involved. It’s all just mindless spam. Enemies mindlessly spam their aoe/cleave. Clones die at random, spewing random condi’s in their own AoE fields. You then mindlessly spawn more clones without an iota of skill to repeat the process ad-nausea. Then the other guy mindlessly spams condi cleanses, starts his mindless invuln/evade/block chain, and mindlessly spams some more pressure skills etc etc etc.

The game is oodles and oodles of mindlessness at this point. Adding more spamming mindless options is just adding more mindless spam to an already mindlessly spamming spam fest XD

Spam.

One of my central ideas is that if mindless cleaving of clones were punished, as it once was, there would be less mindless spam.

The vast majority of skills in the game are aoe. It’s not inherently mindless just because you use aoe. If I can’t turn off the aoe, then there is little decision to make if I fight a clone death build. I keep using my aoe and grit my teeth/ use utilities to deal with the passive clone death as infinite clones keep spawning.

Better to introduce active defense to clones. Example: every time you use a manipulation skill, clones also gain reflect. Our mechanic should be to keep them alive before we shatter, not let them die.

messiah.1908:

it seem as per now our illusion mostly work as ranger pet combine with guard spirit weapon

the pet is hard to kill while spirit weapon and illusion are easier

the problem is not that illusion die fast rather they are our main dmg source

so anet had a bit of problem
if the illusion become harder to kill mesmer will have usually 3 illusions out which could lead to a passive phantasm build (and we dont want passive)
if the illusions have on death trait whether its boons or soft condition again passive game style
if they buff the mesmer core skills that who needs illusions
also any solutions wont solve the spamm/aoe problem at all cause ppl will continue to spamm (not in 1v1 situation)

you can take lots of idea from the game itself. like guard trap daze/slow now on activation. so illusions when spawn will slow or daze around them (an active not passive)
trait which regen hp to illusions like pets do.
leach life when attack like minions have
buff illusion dmg while destroyed after the attack
maybe even clones (not phantasm) are unkillable but will destroyed after 10 second so more mind tricks.
and many more

Really we should be having 3 phantasms out in fights nearly all the time though. The best thing Anet could do now is to make phantasms utility based “pets”, exactly like what iAvenger, iDisenchanter, and iDefender are. They might do minimal damage even, but people use them for their utility, then make the skills that summon the phantasm be where we gain our effects/damage. This way, most of the damage is shifted back to the mesmer, phantasms become potentially even more dangerous (a Staff phantasm that uses Chaos Storm would be so kittening awesome, and have so much synergy with our skills in the Chaos line without ever doing direct damage against an opponent), and balance could be easier, since shattering would remove a great deal of utility but it wouldn’t kill our damage output.

@for thoses who talk about counter play for on death, even more if the combo with pu is nerfed, you just have to pewpew from range.

The vast majority of skills in the game are aoe. It’s not inherently mindless just because you use aoe. If I can’t turn off the aoe, then there is little decision to make if I fight a clone death build. I keep using my aoe and grit my teeth/ use utilities to deal with the passive clone death as infinite clones keep spawning.

it requires aoe and melee.
And about aoe, you suffer far more from retaliation on every class who put this boon, than any on death did or would do (if we talk about the 1 stack of confusion and 1 chance on 3 to 2 stack of blood and even with vulnerability proc it won’t reach the 350 to 425+ retaliation does).
And about the clone spam, they just have to put on death traits on the same branch as clone generation traits.

I don’t trust that reflect on clone when using manipulation will change anything because there isn’t much aoe reflectable.

Really we should be having 3 phantasms out in fights nearly all the time though.

Why not, it can bring back a different gameplay but it is incompatible with the current orientation.

Currently you can’t do anything if you don’t shatter minimum every 10 seconds (to dispell, to dammage, to control, to give boon, to heal, to invul, to cc) (note : I don"t know in pve.) whereas before even when playing on death or phantasm, I was using shatters occasionally when I needed it.
And I doubt that having pure utilitary phantasm can change anything about the current orientation.

I like thoses ideas :

you can take lots of idea from the game itself. like guard trap daze/slow now on activation. so illusions when spawn will slow or daze around them (an active not passive)
trait which regen hp to illusions like pets do.
leach life when attack like minions have
buff illusion dmg while destroyed after the attack
maybe even clones (not phantasm) are unkillable but will destroyed after 10 second so more mind tricks.
and many more

But a well configured on death can join this list.

@viquing – I agree that quite a lot is tied into our shatters, but that should be fixed if our phantasms are shifted to being purely utility based. By shifting all of our damage from phantasms to the mesmer itself, we are much less reliant on MW for that damage burst. I doubt that utility phantasms could ever replace F3 and F4 without being extremely OP, but regardless, those shatters have 30 and 40 sec CD when traited, so its not like we use them that often.

I personally like the idea of fighting using our clones & phantasms (both for damage & utility) more than I like generating clones & phantasms just to shatter them.

Would be nice if anet could make the playstyle a bit more active while still feeling like a sneaky trickster. I think something like this should come from a complete new elite spec though. (Integrating it in any current base specs would be a bad idea and probably very hard to balance)

Imagine an elite spec based entirely on clones or phantasms. (but with more active gameplay. Having the mesmer control the clones & phantasms better. creating a good balance of an offensive/defensive or active/passive playstyle)