Guild Wars 2

Mesmer is basically the sociopath kamikaze class because the entire focus of the class seems to be “I give you life. NOW DIE FOR ME.”

Why did they bother to add in all these trait boosts to the clones and phantasms when they’re barely effective to begin with? Phantasms do good damage but christ, they attack only once in forever; and the clones do nothing. Nothing.

The phantasms really should generate as much aggravation as the player, and clones should generate even more. Save for the Phantasmal Defender which should always generate highest priority. That way the enemy priority focuses on the most fragile proxy of the mesmer, and moves its way up to the mesmer themself: Expendable copies, Utility copies, The Player. Currently only one or two ways of spawning copies will actually divert enemy aggression, and the rest almost never will.

Clones actually should deal damage as well, not very much of course but really they should contribute to the fight somehow. Either with damage or random condition infliction to help pile it on. And phantasms should attack more frequently, or much more frequently but have their damage reduced. Currently there’s little reason to keep most of your copies around unless random chance allows one of them to pull an enemy away from you; because as a group, they are worth less damage then your shatter skills.

Oh and why does the second shatter skill exist. It inflicts slightly more confusion then the first but almost no damage, by design it is literally inferior.

The class touts the idea that it’s all about confusion and ganging up on foes, but really the ganging up part is entirely cosmetic and the confusion only exists in PvP. Forget all the abilities the mesmer has that are dead content, they should work on making the core playstyle less linear and boring. Spawn in clones, blow them up.

Meanwhile the Necromancer is tanking champions using their minions, and downing players in PvP while they themselves are downed because the minions are so powerful.

Yeah, clearly that is worth as much as useless cannon fodder copies. Super fun.

Eh… I don’t think clones should generate more aggro than the player in PvE. That’d take all the fun out of it, and we have more than enough active defences to survive while being aggro’d anyway (just look at Chrono tank in raids). I do have this small hope that ArenaNet will make clones a bit more hard to distinguish from the actual player (like making them copy the same percentage of health that the player has when they get spawned), but otherwise I don’t agree with your qualms with clones.

Might I add: clones still have their uses beyond shattering. Sword clones apply vulnerability and remove a boon each time they do their auto-attack cycle. Staff clones apply random conditions. Scepter clones apply torment. Greatsword clones… don’t really do much, but at least they make it a bit harder for people to tell which purple laser is coming from the real Mesmer in PvP, and there’s also a trait that allows them to give you might. In addition to that, the Dueling trait line has a trait that makes clones apply bleed when they crit. Sure, none of these uses are particularly game-changing, but they’re there.

Cry of Frustration is not useless, by the way. It’s the core shatter for condition builds in PvP.

Quick answer: they add boosts to clones and phantasms because in pve you are not constantly shattering like you would do in pvp. And you would like to keep your phantasms up simply because with the illusion line there is a trait that makes you illusion attack faster….Oh and with the chrono line you would want to shatter to gain some boons and make more damages simply because you gain them back

Ehm.. Yeah clones are useless cannon fodder. That’s exactly what they are and exactly what they are meant to be and exactly what they should be. They distract both NPCs and bad Pvpers (which are a lot like NPCs). They provide you the additional boost for your shatter skills. Just little things though, like increasing the timer on your continuum split so you can summon two berserkers, drop two healing wells, double moa someone, drop two gravity wells etc. Or maybe add a bunch of torment/confusion on someone? Or just little things like chaining interrupts or even becoming completely unkillable.

But I guess that’s not very useful is it… Maybe they should just rework the entire class mechanic and have clones be like ranger pets instead (except you have three of them and they each do the exact same attacks and damage as you do…?) and just drop all this nonsense about confusing enemies and shattering clones at opportune moments. Not like it’s fun to play at all right?

Boop Boop

I agree with you but with some reservations and insights.

Phantasms are “the Mesmer thing” and I think they should be given relevance, As you said “they’re barely effective”.
Though I disagree on the aggravation-part, I don’t think clones should generate more than the player(s) and/or the phantasms because I think the idea is that they’re there for shattering.

If you’re going to look at the traits that can improve Phantasms (and clones), they are very useful BUT the problem is you can only choose so limited of these traits because:
1. There can be a better option.
2. They’re scattered in each trait line which makes it harder to ‘synergize’.

• I may be wrong but there are 7 Traits (in 3 (4) trait lines: Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions, (Chronomancer)) that improve your Illusions (Phantasms/Clones), the others are specific weapon improvement traits and the rest are traits that can improve YOU from Shattering…
  • — The problem is most of these traits (5 of them) are in the Inspiration and Illusions Trait Lines, and these trait lines doesn’t really boost your weapon damage as much as if you would go to Domination and/or Dueling trait lines and with Inspiration and Illusions you’d most likely fall to Support if you want to boost much of your “copies”.

(And we know that the majority is not a fan of “Supports”)

Boop Boop

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-should-not-have-been-given-clones/first#post6109800

I already made a post about it.

Crowley.8761:

Ehm.. Yeah clones are useless cannon fodder. That’s exactly what they are and exactly what they are meant to be and exactly what they should be. They distract both NPCs and bad Pvpers (which are a lot like NPCs). They provide you the additional boost for your shatter skills. Just little things though, like increasing the timer on your continuum split so you can summon two berserkers, drop two healing wells, double moa someone, drop two gravity wells etc. Or maybe add a bunch of torment/confusion on someone? Or just little things like chaining interrupts or even becoming completely unkillable.

But I guess that’s not very useful is it… Maybe they should just rework the entire class mechanic and have clones be like ranger pets instead (except you have three of them and they each do the exact same attacks and damage as you do…?) and just drop all this nonsense about confusing enemies and shattering clones at opportune moments. Not like it’s fun to play at all right?

While the OP surely does not know what he/she is talking about your statement above is way beyond exaggerated. On a basic level, phantasms and shattering work against each other as a mechanic. You need phantasms to deal damage, but also you need to shatter them for alacrity and healing. This maybe fine in PvP, since phantasms die too quickly so shattering them is the most beneficial use as they are just an over gloried clone, that is clearly not the case in majority of the PvE content. Even in PvP, while not impeding, in many situations clones and phantasms get one shotted by enemy players before they even have a chance to do jack.

Add to all of the above shatter and phantasms are accounted against Mesmer’s damage. Since these systems do not mesh together to begin with and Mesmer’s damage is s**t, the ending result is a class that is nothing more than a support bot for alacrity in PvE and portal/moa in PvP. The class is one dimensional support and that’s about it. In a game that is role neutral and all classes should have viable dps builds this is extremely bad.

It’s called sarcasm

In the next elite spec I’d like to see Mesmer’s lack of DPS addressed by giving clones some kind of baseline damage. Shatters could be changed into something akin to Virtues, which would give your illusions buffs at intervals, though as a tradeoff, activating shatters would be modified in some way to reduce the profession’s burst capabilities.

I think I heard someone say “lack of dps”. Well I guess you can’t have the cake and destroy everything that has ever been associated with the cake too.

Gwaihir.1745:

I think I heard someone say “lack of dps”. Well I guess you can’t have the cake and destroy everything that has ever been associated with the cake too.

Like a… fork?