Guild Wars 2

The mesmer as a profession has evolved over the last two years. Many things have changed, some of them so drastically that, at least for me, the profession feels like it needs to be adjusted to our current state of the game.

The question to ask is: What makes a mesmer special, how is this implemented and how can it be improved.

The answer for me at least is: Mesmer have illusions, target bound pets with a very short life expectation. They can be used in different ways, as damaging pets, distractions or as a ressource.

Our current class mechanic (shattering illusions) only covers one of the possible ways to use our pets. Which is very disappointing as many mesmers have four skills they hardly ever use.

So how to fix this? I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class. The idea is to implement (relative) simple changes for maximum profit. And as I like “three steps solutions” for profit, here we go:

Solution:

Step 1: Make the current F1 to F4 skills utility skills. If someone wants to play shatter, he/she will equip the skills accordingly. Of course the new skills will need some buffs, you are sacrificing an utility slot after all.
The idea: Supporting shatter playstyle without touching the balance of other playstyles.

But wait, what will we get as class mechanic?

Step 2: The class skills will be as following: F1 and F2: Summon phantasm (20sec cooldown each) F3 and F4: Summon clone (10 sec cooldown each).
The illusions are our special ressource. The change reflects the amount of illusions we can cast with a weapon swap. The difference would be, that you can now cast more of them at once at the start, giving the mesmer the option for some burst. The clones and illusions spawned would be related to the current weapon set.
Idea: Normalizing the illusion generation, easy access and better overview. Cooldown of illusions would go down by 30% while fully Illusions traited, with another 20% from IC for a max cooldown reduction of 50%. Overall spawn rate stays the same as before changes, with the option for more burst at short fights.

But hey, we spawn illusions with weapon skills.

Step 3: Remove illusion mechanics from (most) mesmer skills.
Idea: Tired of destroying a phantasm because you spawed a clone with your other weapon skill (I look at you GS2)? Illusionary Leap drives you crazy? Always asked yourself why we have to sacrifice one of our weapon skills for a phantasm?
Ever asked yourself how it will be with new weapons for the mesmer? Two out of five skills will always be blocked for the core mechanic of the game. This problem would be solved with a combination of step 2 and 3. Clone generations on block skills may stay the way they are.

Conclusion:

Three easy fixes and you would adjust all playstyles of the mesmer profession in one go and preparing it for the future. There will be the need for balancing, numbers want to be crunched, traits reworked and skills redesigned/added (as replacement for the phantasm generator), but overall I think this would work.

Feel free to comment/agree/disagree.

This sounds like it would be tough for the way I play. I use phantasms as my primary form of damage.

I can summon three right at the start of any fight if I want to begin with a high burst. For example, summon a duelist, flip weapon sets (before he shoots), summon berserker, use ether signet, and summon another berserker.

Generally I don’t do that, but it’s an option currently. Perhaps you would mean for the F1 and F2 skills to be available to be reset by ether signet.

I don’t have a lot of trouble with overwriting phantasms because I don’t usually put up three at once.

I use three of the shatters even when I play a phantasm build:
- Mind wrack when the target is near death
- Diversion when I value the interrupt more than the damage
- Distortion for stomps (or if I get into a lot of trouble)

Using the shatters feels like an interesting but manageable decision in the way I play. It would be really tough to give up the utilities to get any of these shatters. I would probably just lose the shatters entirely from my set of tools which would be a sad loss of variety.

I do think it would be very interesting to have a couple choices that were specific to the F1-F4 skills. For example, if I could choose to replace Cry of Frustration with a skill that healed all phantasms (even if it just healed them for something like 800 health), I would use that for sure. That could make phantasms a bit more viable in a zerg situation.

This would be a massive nerf for all mesmer playstyles. Shatter wouldn’t be able to pump out the illusions it needs in order to burst quick enough, Phantasm wouldn’t be able to generate their damage source, even clone death builds would lose their source of damage from clone spawning.

It sounds to me that you want to turn the mesmer into a ‘summoner’. You’re essentially just replacing our shatters and tossing our illusions up there. As the person above me said, everyone uses shatters in some way. Ignoring your shatters completely (as it seems you do OP) is ignoring a lot of your potential as a mesmer. Sure, some playstyles use shatter more than others, but it’s a source that shouldn’t be ignored just because you happen to play phantasm (which is also the sense I’m getting from OP).

WhiteRose.6934:

This would be a massive nerf for all mesmer playstyles. Shatter wouldn’t be able to pump out the illusions it needs in order to burst quick enough, Phantasm wouldn’t be able to generate their damage source, even clone death builds would lose their source of damage from clone spawning.

It sounds to me that you want to turn the mesmer into a ‘summoner’. You’re essentially just replacing our shatters and tossing our illusions up there. As the person above me said, everyone uses shatters in some way. Ignoring your shatters completely (as it seems you do OP) is ignoring a lot of your potential as a mesmer. Sure, some playstyles use shatter more than others, but it’s a source that shouldn’t be ignored just because you happen to play phantasm (which is also the sense I’m getting from OP).

but our phantasm and clones skill get replaced with other skills, maybe some aoe, less AL based, thats what everyone here wants no?

but it would change the whole mesmer mechanics, would need a lot of trait redo etc, it would be a pain for devs so it wont happen

Kaiyanwan.8521:

… I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class …

• proceeds to change all class mechanics and requires changes to all weaponsets *

I would rather see an option to change the effects of F1-F4 skills based on your playstyle (trait selection/utility selection/gear or whatever anet can think of).

I guess I don’t fully understand what’s being recommended in step 1. Could you elaborate?

I don’t agree with step 3. Many builds/styles utilize combos off weapon generated illusions and removing that would have a signficant impact.

Menaka.5092:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

… I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class …

• proceeds to change all class mechanics and requires changes to all weaponsets *

I would rather see an option to change the effects of F1-F4 skills based on your playstyle (trait selection/utility selection/gear or whatever anet can think of).

Traits can mostly stay the same. Just that a shatter utilizing mesmer would be more like a mantra utilizing mesmer, or a signet one.
Weapon skills? Just leave the clone generators the way they are, without generating a clone and make Illusionary Leap a direct teleport to the target).
The only skills that would have to be replaced by something new would be the phantasm generators.

Class mechanics: still all part of the mesmer
Weapons: Seven new skills overall (including unterwater weapons)

Clones and phantasms will be easier to manage, all skills would be freed from limiting constrains in regards to gameplay.

skcamow.3527:

I guess I don’t fully understand what’s being recommended in step 1. Could you elaborate?

I don’t agree with step 3. Many builds/styles utilize combos off weapon generated illusions and removing that would have a signficant impact.

You will still have all phantasms and clones, the illusions spawned by F1 to F4 would be directly related to the weapon setup you actively use at the moment.
The F1 to F4 shatter skills we have right now, would become regular skills to put into your utility bar (like Signet of Midnight or Mantra of Pain).

This would make me quit the game.
Your proposal is buffing phantasm playstyle and nerfing all other Mesmer play.
Having the f1-f4 as utilities means a shatter mes has no stunbreak or escape as well as loosing a lot of clone production. Strongly against. The mesmer is fine as it is.

Edit: Apoligies if that came off harsh or blunt; no negativity intended.

I actually am a shatter mesmer. Always have been and always will be.

The point is, as long as the shatter skills are always available to every mesmer, ANet has a hard time to buff the shatter playstyle.

If there was a sacrifice involved, like shatter skills taking up a utility slot, it would be reasonable to buff those skills and create synergies (like with mantras), as they are not on everyones list and not usable for every playstyle.

Shatter right now is so far below phantasm builds (at least in PvE) that there actually needs something to be done to keep this playstyle alive.

So here is my opinion: You need so sacrifice the shatters for all, to make shatter competitive for those who want to play this way.

I doubt we’ll see such a massive rework (unless they do a NGE, and we all know where that went), but if they do, this idea would be pretty cool in a way.

I mean, in the end it just swaps things around. Shatter is now a skill, clones/phantasms are now the class mechanic. But, that fits how we play right now much better, we all use clones/phantasms. But we use them differently, some of us shatter them.

Could even incorporate it into some weapon skills: If available, a clone will also perform this attack, destroying itself in the process.

With this kind of rework, i think that traits would definetly need changing with it which could be good or bad (depending on how anet goes). But yeah other than that this rework doesn’t really affect much else other than playstyle, it would sure be a challenge learning a new system of combat but fun at the same time.

I am sorry to say but I realy disagree with this post. I am a WvW’er and like most people know Illusions/Phantasms are a really bad source for damage considering the fact that if not placed well they die in 2.5 seconds.
After the Glamor nerf…there just wouldn’t be any place in WvW for Mesmer’s anymore…
Not to mention besides the fact that we have only 4 Shatter skills while we have more Illusion/ Phantasm Summoning skills. This could break the whole Mesmer theme and change the class entirely.

agreed. i only play wvw and ai is terrible. glamour nerf really destroyed the wvw mes. ever since alll we did get was bugs, tooltip fixes, more 1v1 stuff and ai related stuff. we dont need more clones, we dont need more ai. we need way less ai and more other skills that have nothing to do with ai.
in wvw rangers are not wanted for the same reason, too much ai dependancy and 1v1 stuff. necro can choose to not use minions and so should mes have at least 1 build that isnt ai heavy and glamour was exactly that!

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The mesmer as a profession has evolved over the last two years. Many things have changed, some of them so drastically that, at least for me, the profession feels like it needs to be adjusted to our current state of the game.

The question to ask is: What makes a mesmer special, how is this implemented and how can it be improved.

The answer for me at least is: Mesmer have illusions, target bound pets with a very short life expectation. They can be used in different ways, as damaging pets, distractions or as a ressource.

Our current class mechanic (shattering illusions) only covers one of the possible ways to use our pets. Which is very disappointing as many mesmers have four skills they hardly ever use.

So how to fix this? I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class. The idea is to implement (relative) simple changes for maximum profit. And as I like “three steps solutions” for profit, here we go:

Solution:

Step 1: Make the current F1 to F4 skills utility skills. If someone wants to play shatter, he/she will equip the skills accordingly. Of course the new skills will need some buffs, you are sacrificing an utility slot after all.
The idea: Supporting shatter playstyle without touching the balance of other playstyles.

But wait, what will we get as class mechanic?

Step 2: The class skills will be as following: F1 and F2: Summon phantasm (20sec cooldown each) F3 and F4: Summon clone (10 sec cooldown each).
The illusions are our special ressource. The change reflects the amount of illusions we can cast with a weapon swap. The difference would be, that you can now cast more of them at once at the start, giving the mesmer the option for some burst. The clones and illusions spawned would be related to the current weapon set.
Idea: Normalizing the illusion generation, easy access and better overview. Cooldown of illusions would go down by 30% while fully Illusions traited, with another 20% from IC for a max cooldown reduction of 50%. Overall spawn rate stays the same as before changes, with the option for more burst at short fights.

But hey, we spawn illusions with weapon skills.

Step 3: Remove illusion mechanics from (most) mesmer skills.
Idea: Tired of destroying a phantasm because you spawed a clone with your other weapon skill (I look at you GS2)? Illusionary Leap drives you crazy? Always asked yourself why we have to sacrifice one of our weapon skills for a phantasm?
Ever asked yourself how it will be with new weapons for the mesmer? Two out of five skills will always be blocked for the core mechanic of the game. This problem would be solved with a combination of step 2 and 3. Clone generations on block skills may stay the way they are.

Conclusion:

Three easy fixes and you would adjust all playstyles of the mesmer profession in one go and preparing it for the future. There will be the need for balancing, numbers want to be crunched, traits reworked and skills redesigned/added (as replacement for the phantasm generator), but overall I think this would work.

Feel free to comment/agree/disagree.

You idea is the best way to kill shatter mesmer in tpvp and buff out again our lowest skill based build (phantasm) that rely on IA (summon phantasm, take more stealth as you can, hides).

On other wolds this is exactly what mesmer dont need, what gw2 dont need or how to not a game should be balanced.

We need less ia and less proc not putting pets on f1\f4

Once again, my outlines point is not to destroy shatter speccs but to unbind them from all mesmers to allow shatter to be buffed accordingly for those who want to play that way.

All weapon skills will be unrelated to illusions, which means that you could probably build a mesmer without focusing on AI, using your clones and phantasms more like a defense mechanism (PU) or shatter fodder.
You could also build for an AI phantasm build by using different traits, but you will probably not use shatter utility in this case.

In the current meta, shatter as a main specc in its current incarnation is weak (especially in PvE, but also in PvP and WvW). Shatter skills are used mostly as utility anyways.

I want shatter to be a strong specialisation, not a weak utility for most mesmers and a mediocre mechanism for those who try hard.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Once again, my outlines point is not to destroy shatter speccs but to unbind them from all mesmers to allow shatter to be buffed accordingly for those who want to play that way.

All weapon skills will be unrelated to illusions, which means that you could probably build a mesmer without focusing on AI, using your clones and phantasms more like a defense mechanism (PU) or shatter fodder.
You could also build for an AI phantasm build by using different traits, but you will probably not use shatter utility in this case.

In the current meta, shatter as a main specc in its current incarnation is weak (especially in PvE, but also in PvP and WvW). Shatter skills are used mostly as utility anyways.

I want shatter to be a strong specialisation, not a weak utility for most mesmers and a mediocre mechanism for those who try hard.

Shatter is the only viable mesmer build in tpvp, check last tournament of legend and you will see that mesmer is the less played class and every mesmer is shatter.

The reason of being shatter in tpvp is that shatter spec doest take any utility slot so you can take blink\decoy(or nullfield) for survability and portal for team.

Portal is the only reason for a team to take a mesmer in tpvp, so if you move shatter from f1\f4 to utility you are removing shatter spec and mesmer for tpvp. Great idea.

On wvw side while roaming shatter is strong on solid i dont know how can you say it’s weak. You could be weak, shatter isnt.

On zerg shatter isnt reliable like every other mesmer build because on zerk mesmer is nothing more than an utility bot. Take veil feedback nullfield and stay alive to use them. Thats all. Right after you do this stuff you can use everybuild.

Do you want to buff shatter? move ip from trait to base class mechanics like it should be

aelfwe.4239:

Do you want to buff shatter? move ip from trait to base class mechanics like it should be

Nah, this way you would buff all mesmers again. So this won’t happen.