Guild Wars 2

One more thing.

JonPeters.5630:

I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing.

Hmm….what if some of these powers were simply rearranged?

1) Ether Bolt: Confuse the foe. No longer a projectile, hits just like the necro scepter.
Ether Blast: Confuse the foe some more.
Ether Prism: Block attacks while tormenting your foe.
2) Soothing Images: Create a burst of calming mirages that cripples and weakens foes and creates a clone.
3) Confusing Images: lower the direct damage and increase the confusion duration.

Scepter clones fake the Ether Bolt animation, including the blocking, and weaken anyone who hits them.

This would create a “tricksy defender” weapon of choice. It piles on enough condition to be extremely problematic and keeps the Mesmer alive in a way that isn’t just a poor gal’s Blurred Frenzy. It combines soft control with hefty punishment to hurt anyone who tries to hurt your friends. Finally, the clones actually do something, but they aren’t raw condition spammers.

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I’m very surprised by this and feel this might just be wishful thinking because Mantras are class specific skills. Some people already listed different archetypes. You might also want to have a look at this here.

I personally feel that the most prominent types of Mesmer are…

• Shatter
• Phantasm
• Condition
• Support
• Lockdown

… while there might be some overlapping. Glamours, Signets and Mantras can complement those types but right now can’t serve as core of a build. All those skills have in common that the traits are very spread out among the lines. But they also suffer very specific problems.

Of course, there also are the Manipulation Skills. They do fulfill their purpose (Duelling) but I personally do not feel that they could become the core of a build due to the lack of traits and distinctiveness.

Glamours
Glamour traits do not consistently affect all skills and are hold back by internal cooldowns or weak, almost unrecognizable effects (1 confusion stack…). Sadly, this makes a boring cooldown reduction trait the most desirable trait.

Why isn’t there a Grandmaster trait for Glamours? E.g. in Inspiration? Grant x (protection, stability, heal, condition duration reduction, whatever) for alles within/when crossing a Glamour? Why isn’t there any trait which actually improves the punishment for enemies for staying inside the Glamour?

Skill-wise Veil is on a very long cooldown considering how gimmicky it is. It would be great if the traits worked with it and should also affect enemies in some way. I also do not see why Portal is no ethereal field and can’t trigger the traits.

Mantras
Mantras suffer from the really long cast time which can only be countered by stealth or – ironically – using the stability Mantra. Mantras need other measures to counter or at least overcome the recast in some way. Toughness doesn’t help. I already suggested that Mantra Mastery could provide a % chance of not using a charge when using a Mantra. Protected Mantras could provide projectile absorbtion or reflection. The long cast time already locks you into channeling. You shouldn’t also be that defenseless.

Empowering Mantras could provide different benefits depending on the readied Mantras instead of a boring damage increase (Mantra of Pain: x% more damage, Mantra of Resolve: x% shorter condition duration, Mantra of Recovery: x% chance to proc a small area heal on hit, Mantra of Concentration: x% chance to absorb CC, Mantra of Distraction: x% chance to daze when hit).

Skill-wise some Mantras need a larger radius if they are supposed to provide group support. Mantra of Pain usually only serves as Restorative Mantra tool and might need some improvement (area effect or add a condition).

Signets
Unfortunately, their effects are so diverse that it becomes hard to actually incorporate signets into a build or even create a build around them. E.g. the Signet of Illusion passive attracts phantasm builds while the active effect favours shatter specs. It just feels like there is a great need to tidy up those skills.

Possible suggestions:

• Signet of Illusion: Passive remains. Active changed to “Recharge all illusion skills”. We already got a shatter recharge trait. This change would benefit shatter and phantasm builds.
• Signet of Inspiration: Since we are obviously not getting any speed signet, the passive could as well be “Improve boon duration” while the active remains the same.
• Signet of Midnight: Passive changed to “Reduce incoming damage” and active changed to breack stun and blind nearby foes.

The traits actually quite nice. They are not worth it though if not using at least two signets which right now is very undesirable.

While it’s true you don’t want a #1 skill so good people just spam it, but right now I’ll often pop Torch #4 and just wait for weapon swap rather than use Scepter #1.

lujate.5432:

While it’s true you don’t want a #1 skill so good people just spam it, but right now I’ll often pop Torch #4 and just wait for weapon swap rather than use Scepter #1.

Yeah, the more I think about it the more perturbed I get at the prospect that they are just brushing autoattacks under the rug and are over-focusing on the other skills for balance passes. If that’s true, it’s a bad, bad idea but it explains a lot about the current state of weapon balance in the game. Autoattacks carry more weight when it comes to how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a weapon feels than any other single skill, so it’s by far best to make sure they are tuned correctly (both independently and relative to other weapons’ autoattacks) and only then move on to the other skills.

The autoattacks aren’t ‘spam’ oriented anyway. They are autoattacks- the whole purpose of them is to provide a passive, steady stream of reasonable DPS (or good support/healing) which grants you the flexibility to use your other skills creatively and strategically. Because of that, it’s horrible for the game when the relative balance of autoattacks is way out of whack, and Mesmer Scepter #1 (along with several others) very much is.

To be frank, this worries me.

JonPeters.5630:

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

I think the single target nature of the scepter isn’t what hampers it, its the clunky and unresponsive nature of the animations that do.

Confusing images, when positioned and timed correctly is amazing in a group fight, but the long charge time, and the attacks tendency to flip out when a target is out of range or a little to far to the side can cause it to outright fail, meaning it takes a significant amount or premeditation to land correctly.

As far as the auto attack goes, compare the auto on the Mesmer scepter to that of the Guardian, it hits faster, harder and has longer range.

The clone created by the scepter is in general, useless to any build, they offer zero utility like sword clones do, and lay no conditions like staff clones, in addition to this, their attack is also slow, short range so they are also the wost clone for procing sharper images.

In general, using the auto attack shouldn’t be the priority of the weapon, that would be silly. The problem is the slow and clunky nature of the attack, coupled with the general uselessness of the clone produced basically makes using the auto at all during a fight detrimental if anything.

JonPeters.5630:

Mimic
Last thought. This skill is for almost all intents and purposes just not working, but is causing some broken behavior with certain bosses. I would like to replace it with a complete redesign and am open to discussion on that as well.

Personally, I love how mimic works, I do realise how it is um “broken” in behaviour with particular bosses it is, having taken advantage of said behaviour myself.

That being said, I’ve always felt the nature of the skill was a very active counter type skill which had a very good risk/reward notion attached to it. If you chose to eat a heavy ranged attack ie, killshot, you could then reflect that attack back at a later stage, promoting very thoughtful decision making in a fight.

I believe an elite version of that same concept, that also allowed the ‘reflection’ of physical attacks could be a very interesting thing to play with, kind of like Echo or the Simple Thievery and Symbols of Inspiration Elites from Guild Wars 1.
ie, a Mesmer could allow themselves to fall victim of an attack, to later allow their usage of it.
It could make for some very interesting plays by skilled Mesmer players.

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.

On the subject of Mantras, I really feel like Harmonious Mantras is rather detrimental to their usage.
3 Charge Mantras are amazing utilities, but the 2 charge ones are just a little subpar.
I understand why Mantras without it aren’t great, for the same reasons they were changed during beta, but having to go 30 deep into Domination means you have very little trait points left to play with, which means you wont really be able to take full advantage of Mantras unless you go 30/30 into Domination and Dueling as a full glassy offence build, which is hardly viable since most of the damage mitigation and avoidance the Mesmer has lies in their utilities, which you wont have access to in a full Mantra build.
I think reworking, or outright removing Harmonious Mantras and raising their baseline effects slightly would give them a push to be much more viable in spvp and other game formats.

I run a 10/30/0/30/0 Mantra/Phantasm build myself, I feel the two playstyles compliment each other and promote much more active play but, I feel their problem lies in the fact that Mantras take a huge investment by the player to be made usage of properly, giving up much of the survivability the Mesmer uses in other utilities, and quite frankly, Mantras are really just slightly poorer versions of shouts with a 2+ second prime up time without a 30 trait point investment that severely limits what builds you can use them in.

And on a somewhat related note, is there any chance of Illusions being able to benefit from sigils and other % effects again? At the very least outside of spvp?
I understand they were initially prevented from making use of them because of sigils of earth allowing insane amounts of bleeds, but the limitation really limits Rune and Sigil choice for Mesmer in PvE and WvW, purely because they barely benefit from them.

JonPeters.5630:

I think the mesmer discussion has been pretty positive overall and productive but I wanted to bring up some points that I am seeing and some new ones as well.

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

I’m glad to finally know what the Developers envision in a weapon like the scepter. For the longest time, I’ve felt that the scepter has had a bizarre identity crisis- being torn between wanting to be a power weapon and a condition weapon while doing neither particularly well. This has led to a rather bland weapon that offers little other than giving the Mesmer another way to kill their enemies- often with less efficacy than other weapon choices.

Now I think we can start thinking about the scepter outside of the box. Understanding the goals set for the scepter, I would like to see the scepter changed to be an “Apothecary” weapon. The Mesmer already has a number of ways to kill foes, but hard group support and punishment is still a departments the Mesmer could use further optimized for.

Scepter Skill 1: Ether Bolt Chain

Ether Bolt- Now confuses the target enemy for 1 second.
Ether Blast- Now causes AoE Damage, striking up to two additional foes near the target. All affected foes are now confused for 1 second.
Ether Clone- Now causes AoE Damage, striking up to two additional foes near the target. Allies around the target are now healed for a small amount. Creates a clone at the target’s location that casts the Ether Bolt Chain (clones use a modified Ether Clone that simply does AoE damage and heals nearby allies).

Discussion: Thematically, the changes to the Etherbolt chain coincide with “ether” as it is found elsewhere in the game as both an element of confusion (Ethereal combo fields) and an element of healing (Chaos armor and Ether feast). Beyond that of course, these changes add much needed utility and damage to scepter clones- who up to this point are simply useful for “on-death traits” and shatter fodder. These roles are not unique to scepter clones and other clones have an additional element of utility.

As a sidenote in response to Jon’s point, I do not think we necessarily need to fear “over-buffing” the scepter auto-attack. Auto-attacks need to be viable and serve a purpose. The few times I have to auto-attack mindlessly is only when I am at a loss for more interesting options- i.e. when I’m playing weapons like Greatsword. If there were more interesting/more effective things to do with my weapons, I wouldn’t spend my time auto attacking. However, more often than not I find spammy, mindless auto-attacking to be a syndrome of a drab or “mindless” weapon- not mindless gameplay per se.

Scepter Skill 2: Illusionary Counter
No suggestions

Scepter Skill 3: Confusion Images

This skill be has been redesigned. Now applies a Confusing Images buff to up to 5 nearby allies for a short duration, shielding them from the next attack made against them. If an attack is blocked, the shield shatters blinding and confusing nearby foes while regenerating nearby allies. Instant activation.

Discussion: In its current form Confusing Images is just another tool to damage enemies. Compared to other damaging abilities of the Mesmer, it is slow and clumsy with the “punishing” aspect of confusion being more like a perk than the goal of the skill.

The changes to Confusing Images follows the spirit of Protector’s Strike and Shield of Wrath. It’s change in functionality further develops the proposed role of team support while it’s buffed, punishing aspects allow it to keep its namesake.

The changes proposed here would also finally validate the trait Malicious Sorcery in the Inspiration line which, up to this point, has had little business being there.

TL;DR The scepter does indeed need to be looked at, but we don’t really need it to simply be another damaging weapon. We can change the scepter to be a weapon focused on the much needed Mesmer roles of team support and punishment by: Adding AoE and healing capabilities to the auto-attack and redesigning Confusing Images to protect/heal allies while discouraging foes from attacking.

Edit Notes: Clarified the Ether Bolt chain use for clones and clarified the effect radius and activation time for Confusing Images.

I have been testing power interrupt build in tourny lately. And I have come to a conclusion that it is indeed very powerful if you manage to pull your chain daze off. I think changing confounding suggestions to normalized +daze duration is a good idea considering mesmer has higher access to daze more than stun. But it might be just me.

Mimic is definitely broken and at the same time very clunky to use. It is one of the most, if not the most, situational skills in the game. At one occasion it is completely useless because of the free-hit first shot. If the enemies send you a CC projectile then you’re done. On the other hand it makes certain bosses completely broken, hello FOTM. The skill concept is to reflect. Since there will always be certain attacks that are very strong and projectile-based, the skill will always be broken. Unless you code it so that mimic doesn’t work on those skills and change the skill’s functionality entirely which means it will be something else. And if it doesn’t work on boss then it is, once again, useless because players usually melee you anyway and there aren’t that many strong projectile attacks from all 8 professions.

1) Shatter has always been powerful, nothing to say

2) Phantasm is also powerful, nothing to say

3) Mantra is till lacking….

The long channeling time, that.. I can deal with, but the 2 charges make any builds tied to it very weak. For example, a charge of mantra of pain hits about the same dmg as 1 mind wrack, acceptable, but having just 2 charges for a 2 sec self-stun is relatively not worth it. I can do so much more with other utilities. The only time I use mantra at all is when I want to support my team with healing and that’s that. Why? The reason is funny, it’s because the number of charges is too few that I can spam heal like crazy. The +1 charge bonus is also too far(and too small) into Domination, meaning I am dictated to run power build in order to be optimal.

Also, the fact that all your mantra charges are shown to the enemies diminishes the build surrounding it even further. Who would want to continue playing poker when you reveal all your cards to other players? It’s like shouting “All my skills are on CD, kill me now!”

Scepter is strong for power build. Nothing to say. For condition build, however, it doesn’t feel right. Why is it that scepter#3 which inflicts more stacks of confusion is not as effective as engineer’s static shot? I can’t tell either. But every time I’m on my engineer I feel much better at applying confusion with static shot than I do with scepter#3. Possibly because of it’s slow channeling without bouncing attribute. As of scepter#1, maybe you make it apply random condition? like.. Confusion/Vulnerability/Cripple. That way it’s not a guaranteed condition applier. Just throwing a random idea there.

Peacemaker Xeranan.4508:

Snip

Disregard what I said about the scepter. This is better.

Honestly, one thing I’d like to see is either the staff or scepter auto attack moved to an instant hit. The result of the combination of being one of the slowest classes in the game and having two of our 3 ranged weapons also having super slow projectiles is that I feel compelled to run greatsword just to guarantee that I can get tags in wvw or pve zergs before things die. Combine that with the fact that our only on-demand swiftness is from the focus, and I don’t feel like I have a lot of options of what weapon loadouts to run in these situations.

Something I saw addressed in the Guardian section that I would love to see equal attention for mesmers is our focus 4, Temporal Curtain.

Like the guardian Symbol of Switness, TC has “odd” behavior in that if you have no swiftness it gives you a lot, and if you have any swiftness at all (even less than a second left) it gives absolutely nothing.

Like SoS, I for one would LOVE to see Temp Curtain get a smaller upfront swiftness and a better stacking for people who already have the boon.

ON BUILD DIVERSITY
I see more than just “shatter” and “phantasm”

1. Shatter Builds
2. Interrupter
3. single target degen build- torment, bleeding, rabid armor
4. Mass Condition builds- glamor confusion needs some love. we really could use some kind of mass aoe degen. and condition spreading. shattering illusions should be able to spread large condition clouds around. that’d be cool. It would be helpful for clearing trash mobs in dungeons or tormenting large crowds in wvw.
5. Defensive Support- prismatic understanding, boon duration stacking, signet of inspiration builds
6. Offensive Support builds- super rune of altruism-based signet of inspiration with might stacking runes, and mirror blade etc..
7. Solo Roamers- These builds need access to superior mobility. our class doesn’t have this. at all. thank god for Centaur runes

So that’s 7 major different builds we already KIND OF have. I think we need to investigate ways to improve the lesser ones and we’ll be in a much better place.

SPECIFIC BUFFS OF THE PATCH

SCEPTER
-Attack speed has to be normalized
-Clone generation on attack is terribad
-Base weapon dmg needs to be tuned up slightly if its going to stay single target.
-Or leave base weapon dmg alone and the 3rd hit could become a small aoe burst.

-Consider to bring back “Energy Destruction” from GW
What?! True we don’t use energy pools anymore. But we do have endurance!!!

1. ether bolt (same as now)
2. ether charge (same damage but “charges” the enemy)
3. ether blast (destroy the charge to deplete 33% endurance on the enemy
and deal bonus aoe damage for the remaining endurance
similar to energy surge from GW)

-Confusing Images definitely needs to fire faster. And PLEASE consider using the graphic of the ascalonian mesmers cause its soo much prettier.

CONFOUNDING SUGGESTIONS
Just make it a stun already. Or have it instead add +1 second daze to all daze effects.

MIMIC
Exchange it for BLACKOUT!!!!!
Trade all my skills for all your skills for 5 seconds.
I can’t do dmg but you can’t either. We can’t heal either.
We can run off though and we both come out the other side with full endurance.
Blackout would be a PERFECT manipulation skill. PERFECT.
And very cool on boss fights I bet.

SIGNETS
All of the signets need reworking.
Signet of Inspiration has to do with boons so put the boon duration on it, and leave the active the same but speed it up to like every 15 seconds. This would enable both offensive support mesmers and defensive support mesmers alike.

RETALIATION
Mesmers have got to have a reliable source of retaliation. For a class that specializes in reflecting damage.. why did you guys remove our retaliation?

Thanks, Rak

concise: “expressing or covering much in few words; brief in form but comprehensive in scope;” – dictionary.com

guys, let’s keep our points … concise … in order to not waste Jon’s time here. This request is also outlined here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview

JonPeters.5630:

I think we have a pretty good understanding of the mesmer scepter auto attack problem. I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing. That being said, we are trying to avoid just condition spam overload with that weapon because that would be greatly compounded by clones spamming as well.

-So why not a 1 second chill on third attack for both mesmer and clones? That way multiple scepter clones left alone would become a mounting problem. It’s no additional damage from conditions, but it does generate a bit of a shutdown/blocking nitch to the weapon. It may also mitigate some of the chase/fleeing issue you get from other classes when the fight isn’t going their way.

-What about increasing direct damage? Third attack has 100% crit chance, and clones third benefits from mesmers power/crit for the same attack?

-Better yet, take the above power/crit idea and third attack is aoe blast damage, hits up to 5 targets in a 300 or some such.

-Scepter clones attacks bounce to mesmer, granting .5s aegis for rare additional block procs. Creates synergy with on block traits/runes (rune of guardian, retaliatory shield).

-Third attack causes 1s, or .5s stealth (both clones and mesmer). This would create a very confusing, misdirective engagement for people fighting a scepter mesmer and his clones. They’d all be disappearing/reappearing in quick succession.

Be inspired!

I would love to see Mimic like one of the Mesmer’s GW1 skills that copy one of the enemy/friend ability like http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Arcane_Thievery or http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Arcane_Mimicry or http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Inspired_Enchantment and go on.
An Elite skill that do the same, when you’ll expand the Elite skills for all the professions, would be great too.

JonPeters.5630:

Mimic
Last thought. This skill is for almost all intents and purposes just not working, but is causing some broken behavior with certain bosses. I would like to replace it with a complete redesign and am open to discussion on that as well.

Jon

Mimic

The problem with Mimic is the echo, and more importantly proccing the effect (It’s to unreliable, and I stand a better chance of proccing it off my own projectiles than the enemies. That said, I NEED staff+clones to manage it reliably). I really want to take it for a full manipulation set. But decoy (especially with PU), is just so much better. I need mimic to be a more appealing option.

Why not keep it simple. Drop the echo. Mimic is a 4 second channel that grants 4 seconds of retaliation, blocks all melee, and reflects all ranged attacks. It’s pretty much the same as it is now but swapping a retal boon for the echo effect.

To me, I could swap this out for decoy. Instead of 4 seconds of stealth + clone + PU boons (protection, regen, aegis), I’d get 4 seconds of block + passive offense. My enemies don’t get another annoying, dissapearing mesmer skill to play with. Instead they get to maintain their eyes on me the whole time, and are forced to think about their attack spam (whereas stealth promotes spam).

If nothing else, for the time being why not clean mimic up by keeping it more simple. Then later if you come up with something to make echo work, reintroduce it to the game.

(P.s the one thing I DO really love about Mimic is the 24 second cooldown. Whatever you do don’t make it something that’ll inflate that. I enjoy more active utilities over long standing cooldowns).

Edit:
Silly me, retal doesnt proc on block (thus a waste). Instead-

Mimic

30s CD
Breaks stun
Grants 4s Stability
4 second channel, reflects all ranged, blocks all melee. Counts the total number of hits, or blocks, and multiplies that times X (to a maximum of Y) for a single target ranged dps attack Echo effect post channel.

We lack stability options. Manipulations are ripe for having one. Also a zerg friendly option.

Ross Biddle.2367:

(P.s the one thing I DO really love about Mimic is the 24 second cooldown. Whatever you do don’t make it something that’ll inflate that. I enjoy more active utilities over long standing cooldowns).

I agree quickly recharging abilities are part of what makes GW fun. If I wanted a skillbar full of 3 minute cooldowns I’d go back to World of Warcrap.

Besides part of the Mesmer advantage was always our inherent fast casting.

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.
Thanks,
Jon

Mostly i dont understand in which environment is it talking about? Maybe general.. so it includes, PvE modes, PvP modes and should WvW modes?
So.. There is a big complain about mesmers in [Organised large scaled competitive groups] that being (Veil, Portal, Tw) Slot Bot cuz of being uneffective than other classes..
example in Fair, Competitive fights (GvG) mesmer doesnt have seat except being slot bot.. ok Meaned with `Fair`, guess that 2 guilds doing deathmatch with specific rules for both.. (as no resing death, no weapon stacks, no orb advantage, in limited location, no upskilled, no slacker, just guild members, match start time, best of # rounds fights, SAME numbers, etc etc..) and meaned with Competitive there is Rank, or goal of Win..
and those archetypes dead or uneffective rather than other classes..

or we should digest that we are ignorant community as gvg players, cuz of there is no offical GvG.. (which adresses large scaled groups 8,10< players) or i should stop deceive myself that there ll be not ve..

I am happy to see Dev join our Mesmer Forums..
and appreciate Jon..

Xaylin.1860:

I’m not saying that Mesmers deserve to have better endurance regeneration than other classes. But Mesmers certainly are a class which need it more than others. I also feel that ANet made a wrong call on the Elementalist. Moving the trait to Air or Fire might would have been a wiser choice. But I’m so tired of arguments which basically break down to “They took my toy, so others do not deserve to keep theirs!”. And that’s basically what is going on right now. Everyone crying for nerfing Guardians and Mesmers endurance regeneration because theirs got nerfed.

I would say it’s true that other professions are asking for vigor nerfs for mesmers and guardians, I do not think those professions have trouble with survivability, unlike elementalist for instance. Not only its vigor trait was 10 major, instead of 5 minor, you still had to get critical chance for better uptime. And now it’s going to be even worse.

To improve scepter’s autoattack chain can I suggest to integrate some shatter mechanics to it? Like on each end of the chain shatter all your clone causing confusion or on each end of the chain reduce the recharge on your shatters skills by x seconds… Either way I think scepter lack some aoe so maybe giving the scepter’s chain some shattering clones power would be fun (maybe building this shattering in a way it shatters only our clones and leave phantasms alive )

Regarding the Mantra mechanic I just wanted to throw in an idea I recently had. Why not make Mantra’s recharge its stacks as long as you have at least one left?

What I mean is: you ready a Mantra and have (untraited) 2 stacks. You use one stack and a couple of seconds later (up to debate) the charge would go back up to 2. Only if use all of the stacks you’d have to ready the Mantra again.

One of the thing that annoys me the most about mantras, is that after charging them, if I happen to use them a single time before finishing a battle, I’ll then enter the next battle with one charge less. To usually prevent that situation, I waste that charge into the air once the battle is finished, and pre-charge the mantra again. After every single battle. It’s very annoying.

It would be interesting if charges “regenerated” after battle to make them less clumsy.

But to be honest, I would like to see them revamped. The idea of granting party support every channeling pulse is interesting. Think about it: the time-disadvantage is still there. And it’ll still be very easy to interrupt it and to put it into full cooldown. I would then remove the charges.

Mantra of Concentration – Applies 3 seconds of stability in a 600 radius per charging. Assuming a 2- or 3-second charge, that’s 6-9s of stability.
—> Power Break – Break Stun and add 1.5s of evade.
Mantra of Distraction – Perhaps confusion or retaliation to party per pulse?
—> Power Lock – Daze your foe (2s instead of 1).
Mantra of Resolve – Converts conditions into boons per pulse to party.
—> Power Cleanse – Further removes 2 conditions from yourself.
Mantra of Pain – Applies 3 stacks of vulnerability (~10s) to all foes within 600 range, for a total of 6-9 stacks.
—> Power Spike – Damage your foe. (With a buffed base damage)
Mantra of Recovery – 3s or more of regen to party per pulse.
—> Power Return – Heal yourself. (With a buffed base healing)

The main idea is that a Mesmer would channel those mantras at the beginning of each battle, and not at the beginning of each match/ map. For that reason, it’ll no longer be possible to over-ride that disadvantage of dedicating time at the heat of battle, and thus why they are stronger in my suggestion than the actual mantras. Basically, a mantra mesmer would buff its party within battle (think of paragon from GW1 – hey, paragon was a bard, and mesmer has bard-ish flavor. Not everything paragon-wise needs to be transfered to the Guardian profession), at the cost of time and self disruption, so the mesmer would need to kite efficiently and, perhaps, use instant skills in the meantime (including other mantras). After charging them up, the mesmer would gain access to a single one-time only skill that would mostly affect themselves or a single target only, and those “power” skills would work like a “bonus effect” to mantra skills instead of being the core skills of mantras. The mantra skills would be recharging while the Power skills could be active, so that a mesmer wouldn’t feel pressured to spam the power skills to have its party support ready in time.

Traits for this mechanic could include:
1. Increase the duration of effects applied while charging mantras slightly. (In a party support traitline)
2. Increase how strong Power skills are. (In a neutral traitline?)
3. Make Power skills radius-wide instead of single-target, for even better party support, and for some aoe damage/ daze. (Grandmaster-worthy in a party support traitline.)

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.

Thanks,

Jon

So where exactly are you categorizing condition Mesmers?

Peacemaker Xeranan.4508:

Scepter Skill 1: Ether Bolt Chain

Ether Bolt- Now confuses the target enemy for 1 second.
Ether Blast- Now causes AoE Damage, striking up to two additional foes near the target. All affected foes are now confused for 1 second.
Ether Clone- Now causes AoE Damage, striking up to two additional foes near the target. Allies around the target are now healed for a small amount. Creates a clone at the target’s location that casts the Ether Bolt Chain .

Discussion: Thematically, the changes to the Etherbolt chain coincide with “ether” as it is found elsewhere in the game as both an element of confusion (Ethereal combo fields) and an element of healing (Chaos armor and Ether feast). Beyond that of course, these changes add much needed utility and damage to scepter clones- who up to this point are simply useful for “on-death traits” and shatter fodder. These roles are not unique to scepter clones and other clones have an additional element of utility.

As a sidenote in response to Jon’s point, I do not think we necessarily need to fear “over-buffing” the scepter auto-attack. Auto-attacks need to be viable and serve a purpose. The few times I have to auto-attack mindlessly is only when I am at a loss for more interesting options- i.e. when I’m playing weapons like Greatsword. If there were more interesting/more effective things to do with my weapons, I wouldn’t spend my time auto attacking. However, more often than not I find spammy, mindless auto-attacking to be a syndrome of a drab or “mindless” weapon- not mindless gameplay per se.

Scepter Skill 2: Illusionary Counter
No suggestions

Scepter Skill 3: Confusion Images

This skill be has been redesigned. Now shields nearby allies with Confusing Images, blocking the next attack made against them. If an attack is blocked, the shield shatters blinding and confusing nearby foes while regenerating allies.

Discussion: In its current form Confusing Images is just another tool to damage enemies. Compared to other damaging abilities of the Mesmer, it is slow and clumsy with the “punishing” aspect of confusion being more like a perk than the goal of the skill.

The changes to Confusing Images follows the spirit of Protector’s Strike and Shield of Wrath. It’s change in functionality further develops the proposed role of team support while it’s buffed, punishing aspects allow it to keep its namesake.

The changes proposed here would also finally validate the trait Malicious Sorcery in the Inspiration line which, up to this point, has had little business being there.

TL;DR The scepter does indeed need to be looked at, but we don’t really need it to simply be another damaging weapon. We can change the scepter to be a weapon focused on the much needed Mesmer roles of team support and punishment by: Adding AoE and healing capabilities to the auto-attack and redesigning Confusing Images to protect/heal allies while discouraging foes from attacking.

I really like your ideas especially that for #3. Could be pink butterflies surrounding the Mesmer. However, I do feel that having two block skills on a one hand mainhand weapon will result in a very clunky and situational gameplay.

I would propose two changes to your suggestion:

• Add a default effect to Confusing Images (e.g. Protection like Protectors Strike). Otherwise this skill might be too situational.
• Illusionary Counter #1: Spawn a swam of butterflies which torment your foe. #2 The swarm stops tormenting your enemy but swoops him off his feet (knock down) and cripples him. This will offer you an additional option of protecting your allies.
• Passive side effect: If you want a clone you will actually use your AA.

AoE condition damage on scepter #1 final hit please.

Staff clones spam conditions, why not scepter.

Hey here’s my version for a better Mimic:
First of all, think about what do the words stand for?

• Mimic: “To copy or imitate closely, especially in speech, expression, and gesture;”
  (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ )

How can we put these idea ingame?
The word mimic would lead to the clones who would exactly act like you. It could be kind of a special buff that lasts for a short periot.
It could also say that you imitate your enemy so this would be another version of a skill:

• Mimic as a debuff/buff:
  Skilldescription:
  You copy the next skill your target is using. The skill lasts for 60s and has it’s original cooldown/dmg-factors/passive buffs/etc. (you can also copy a signet to gain the passives) After the 60s you had the “new” skill the cooldown will set to 25s of the mimic skill.
  debuff/buff -description
  The next skill you use will be copied by an <ally/enemy> mesmer!
  Range:
  900 -1200(with trait)
  Cast time
  0.75s
  Cooldown
  25s
  Additional facts
  Unblockable
  Debuff duration 5s
  Skill lasts for 60s
• Mimic for your Clones
  Skilldescription
  For a short time your clones will imitate all of your weapon skills.
  Cast time
  no cast
  Range
  1200 // i think that doesn’t matter here
  Cooldown
  30-kitten
  Duration
  5-10s
  Additional facts
  The clones will do the same skills but they won’t summon illusions!
  New clones are instantly buffed with Mimic
  The Mesmer is buffed with Mimic
  The skill of the clones will be the same skill as of the mesmer. Just with less power:
  e.g.
  A mesmer’s clones that uses blurred frenzy will hit 8 times but very weak the clone does evade and will trigger sharper images.
  When a mesmer uses a ground-targetskill the clones will choose a random spot.
  When a mesmer uses a skill like illusionary wave/magic bullet the clones will perform the same attack. Stun, Daze, Blind will be applied.

~ Me Games Ma

Mesmers have two “illusions deal +15% damage” traits. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if one of them was changed to “shattered phantasms do X”?

I know that this would be a possible nerf to all phantasm builds (depending on the effect), but I think phantasm builds are way too passive and enjoy not making use of the mesmer’s core profession mechanic. It would be interesting if there was incentive for phantasm mesmers to shatter their illusions every once and then, even if not as often as pure shatter builds.

Not sure which effect should be, though, but probably not “more damage”, or else it would be very boring.

Maybe something cool like,
“Upon shattering, phantasms will activate their attack skills one more time before disappearing.”

Should it be too strong, we could tone down the normal effects of shattering for this specific efect, effectively transforming the shattering mechanic into something else for this specific build.
“Whenever you shatter phantasms, the base shatter effects will be 50% weaker, but phantasms will activate their attack skills one more time before disappearing.”

I like the change to Mender’s Purity. But mesmers condition cleanse/manipulation should be looked at overall. Arcane thievery for example could use a cooldown reduction to 40s, and the cast time reduced completely.
Another cool trait for mesmers would be: “When you create a clone of yourself, you transfer one condition to that clone” with like 10 second cooldown. Mesmers like manipulating, so this would go well with our nature.

Also, I got kinda mixed feelings about Illusionists Celerity. It was obviously too pwerful as adept minor trait, and it was no biggie to take for any build.
Now that it requires 25 points into Illusions, many builds skip it because they can’t afford to go that deep.
However, as 15 point trait it’s gonna be very hard to pass and I fear many builds will start with 0/20/0/0/15 as base, to get 2 very significant traits.

In my opinion Illusionists Celerity should be removed completely, and the base cooldowns on some of our skills be lowered a bit to compensate.

For scepter clones there is two problems with them, they are the worse clone for applying conditions (with Dueling 15 Sharper Images, they don’t attack often enough or with a chain of skills) and they don’t do anything special unlike other clones that copy skill 1 on their respective weapons.

The clones should cast the exact same sequence as the mesmer, when they cast the 3rd skill of the chain they destroy themselves and appear beside the target, skill activated every 8-10 secs.

That would really combine the three traits that cause conditions on clone death into a unique build for mesmers i.e. a build that is especially punishing to stationary targets and really make the scepter into something special.

Even without the traits, clones that automatically recreate at the target every 10 secs would have a benefit for a shatter heavy build, with timing shatters when most or all your clones recreate at the target, something for an opponent to watch out for.

…

For Mimic, I think the most fun skill that would fit the name is to receive an illusionary weapon (i.e. bundle) that has the same skills as what the target has equipped when the skill is cast on them. The mesmer can then use 1 skill from the bundle before it disappears (maybe two when traited with Chaos III). The skills the mesmer gets when used on NPCs could be predetermined by the devs, rather than leaving the mesmer to be able to cast any saved skill back at a vulnerable target, but most of humanoid NPCs could be given the same weapons that the player professions equip.

I would like to pitch in that one of our “trademarks” confusion condi is really hard to inflict/sustain. Only weapons that can inflict is the scepter and torch, which I believe are underused. We can generate it if we heavily trait to glamour but I think doing so will leave us underpowered? If come December 9 we have 3 strong archetype: Shatter, Phantasm, and Mantra, where would confusion fit in it? I just thought that one of our “signitures” is kinda missing

Maybe they consider condition builds to be in with shatter?

Have you guys ever looked at the state of mesmer in WvW? (Looking at organized “blob” vs “blob” perspective )

1) We lack AoE

2) our utility skills just aren’t as impactful (1 condition/boon removed every second from 5 targets in a 40 man blob? please…)

3)there aren’t enough projectiles for feedback to be of any threat to the enemy

4) confusion when people enter/leave glamours just isn’t very impactful either because of condi cleansing or the low amount of stacks it applies

5) Most of our phantasms are single target, and just die easily

6) Mantra radius is so small, we’re not melee, If I’m suppose to run PVT gear just to be in range to do stability or condi cleansing I’d be better off rolling a guardian

7) Other ranged get they’re usefulness from they’re weapons (staff ele, staff necro) and can then use they’re utility slots on self-preserving skills (mist form, armor of earth,etc), whilst we are asked to run veil, null field, feedback etc, leaving staff the only defense weapon

8) We are veil bots / ethereal field applying bots (for chaos armor) and don’t offer much else

Eremoo.2785:

…
8) We are veil bots / ethereal field applying bots (for chaos armor) and don’t offer much else

IMO, you can scratch Chaos Armor off that list. The only fields I see people wanting are Fire or Water.

JonPeters.5630:

Mimic
Last thought. This skill is for almost all intents and purposes just not working, but is causing some broken behavior with certain bosses. I would like to replace it with a complete redesign and am open to discussion on that as well.

Here’s my idea:

Mimic
No inherent CD, 1s cast
Tether yourself to the target. The next time they use a utility skill, Mimic becomes that ability. When you use the ability, Mimic will have a CD equal to the ability’s CD plus 20 seconds.
Range: 1200. If you move out of tether range, Mimic resets.

This would go hand in hand with adding this ability:

Arcane Mimicry – Elite, bought for 25 WvW ability points
No inherent CD, 2s cast
Copy the currently equipped Elite ability of the target. Arcane Mimicry will have a cooldown 50% greater than the copied ability, but never more than 90 seconds extra. If not used within 10 seconds. Arcane Mimicry resets. Elite abilities with persistent effects will expire when the cooldown of Arcane Mimicry runs out.

JonPeters.5630:

I think the mesmer discussion has been pretty positive overall and productive but I wanted to bring up some points that I am seeing and some new ones as well.

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.
…

Thanks,

Jon

How about making our Scepter 1 to be something like Guardian’s Staff 1? I mean hitting more than 1 target. Or maybe change the speed or add conditions, as necro scepter 1 skill?

Signet of Illusions: Adding stability (since Mesmers lack a great deal of this) for several seconds to the player only on activation along with lowering the cool down to ~60sec?

Signet of Domination:
Geared toward stunning and disrupting (lowering cool down on Diversion as new passive effect)
or
Geared toward condition damage (activating it now takes three conditions from the Mesmer and transfers (or copies) them to the enemy).

Signet of Inspiration: Increase the duration of the boons it copies by 10-20% when it copies them. Keep the cool down at 45 seconds, and prohibit copied boons from being replaced/refreshed by another Signet of Inspiration cast to prevent super spam.

Signet of Midnight: Very good skill, maybe allow the blind to be AoE.

Harmonious Mantras:
Now baseline for all Mantras (all get 3 charges).
OR
Change it to the Grandmaster 15 trait, move Dazzling to 25, and add Wastrel’s Punishment to a skill (Signet of Domination, anyone?) so that HM is easier to obtain

New “proc system” where if a certain criteria is met, when you cast your next Mantra, its effect is twice as powerful (2 conditions removed, 2x damage, 2x length of stability, 4 second daze). This is probably overpowered but I thought it was interesting!

Cheers!
-Juxt

redux.1502:

Signet of Midnight: Very good skill, maybe allow the blind to be AoE.

Harmonious Mantras:
Now baseline for all Mantras (all get 3 charges).

Both signet of midnight and harmonious mantras currently work this way.

Cross posting my suggested signet changes from main thread.

JonPeters.5630:

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.

Thanks,

Jon

I’ll make the suggestions then make any comments after them.
My suggested Signet changes:

Trait:
-Signet trait Cleansing Inscription: remove 2 conditions instead of just 1.

Skill:
-Signet of Inspiration, Signet Active: Gain all boons for 5 seconds for you and allies.
-Signet of Midnight, Signet Passive: add …and gain 25% run speed.
-Signet of Illusions, Signet Active: add ..and gain two seconds of distortion.

First signet change removes the randomness and makes it a set effect. The boon choices (currently 8 ) could be changed to where it only gives certain boons instead of all if it has balance issues.

Second signet change is more a quality of life change which Mesmers have asked for since Beta (not necessarily on this signet but for one of them). It also makes it just that much more useful for people to want to consider.

Final signet change is because it is often seen where you get downed/interrupted/stunned before you can even use the effects active ability. And this happens in both PvE and PvP. This is more of a shoring up to this skill to help the user at least be able to use the second skill they were trying for. Basically this skill is currently a two hit combo, but the second hit can miss quite often due to many variables. The change makes it to where there is at least a good chance to actually get the second part of the skills use to work by allowing you that little extra time to shatter in one form or another.

Hi Jon!

JonPeters.5630:

I think the mesmer discussion has been pretty positive overall and productive but I wanted to bring up some points that I am seeing and some new ones as well.

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

Scepter really only has 1 defense, and that is Scepter #2, and that only works against 1 attack. Players tend to prefer MH sword because Sword #2 is better defensively, and sword #3 is a good immobilize.

I had some thoughts on what would make scepter better, and I think they may be in line with what you are hinting at.

If scepter #2 blocked all attacks for the entire 2 second duration it would greatly help its viability. To this end, I’ve thought of some variants:

a) Scepter #2 blocks all attacks for the entire 2 second duration. The counter attack becomes an unblockable attack at the end of the block. The damage of the counter increases with the number of attacks blocked. 5 stacks of torment applied.

b) Scepter #2 blocks all attacks for the entire 2 second duration. The counter attack strikes your opponent and an additional adjacent opponent for each attack blocked. Affects up to 5 opponents. 5 stacks of torment applied to each target.

JonPeters.5630:

Confounding Suggestions
We were hoping this change would improve this. I’m mostly seeing people saying they liked the old one. That will certainly be a topic of discussion early next week so I would love to hear some opinions either way in case there is a split.

I originally said I preferred the old way better. I’ve looked at it some more in the context of group fight support and I can see the new approach has far better group support. I think your change is good for mesmer viability in tPvP.

JonPeters.5630:

Mimic
Last thought. This skill is for almost all intents and purposes just not working, but is causing some broken behavior with certain bosses. I would like to replace it with a complete redesign and am open to discussion on that as well.

It was a cool idea! Too bad it really didn’t pan out. There’s all kinds of wild things you could do that fall in the category of a manipulation-style utility.
– targeted boon conversion (i.e. stability strips to help with down-state support)
– positional transferrence – swap positions with your opponent
– positional distortion – reverse your opponents cardinal directions for a period of time (up=down, left=right, back=forward)
– manipulation of range – your next 3 melee attacks can be performed from range
– redirection – The next damaging attack/condition/stun you receive is redirected to your closest opponent
– misapplication – Boons shared between your opponents are shared with you as well

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.

Thanks,

Jon

I think interrupt shutdown mesmer is one of the more challenging types to play and could really pan out in tPvP. It’s basically “big clutch” type of build. I’ve been playing it in solo queue (not really well yet), and it’s exciting. Pulling off the key stop/stun/interrupt at the right moment pays huge dividends and can turn the tide of a fight.

One last comment of mine
Torch 5, the illusionary Mage (iMage), is in a bad place. His rate of attack is very low, and, with the nerfs a while back to confusion and retaliation, he doesn’t really do anything special.
I have a suggestion for Torch 5: increase his attack rate, remove confusion and retaliation. Instead have him apply revealed to the target and a randomly chosen condition (e.g. 5 second attack rate which applies 3 seconds of revealed, and 2 seconds of either burning, weakness or blind).

Reasoning: Adding revealed to Torch 5 would give a Mesmer roamer the potential to be a counter to a team with a thief roamer.
Additionally, condition Mesmers only have confusion as their ‘BFG’ condition. The other conditions they apply last very briefly (a second or 2). This change would help give condition Mesmers some condition protection for confusion.

IMO Mantras could better be removed for “Illusions”. Taking an inspiration from Illusion of Life, make Mantra of Distraction into a manipulation ability, and add Illusion as a new ability type:

Illusion of Life
As current, but I’d ~double the radius. It has enough downsides as it is.

Illusion of Resolve
30s CD, 1,25s cast, 10s duration
Gain Stability and Swiftness. When the effect expires, gain 15 stacks of Vulnerability and Crippled for 10 seconds. Neither effect can be modified except by Illusion-specific traits.

Illusion of Pain
20s CD, 10s duration, instant cast without any cast animation. No debuff icon.
Target loses 5% health every second. If the target is reduced to 0 health during this time, all health lost via Illusion of Pain is immediately recovered. If not, damage becomes permanent. Effect reduced to 10% of the Mesmer’s unbuffed HP every second in PvE

Illusion of Teamwork
25s CD, 1,25s cast, 8s duration, 1200 radius
Link yourself and up to 4 friendly nearby players. Any boon gained is also applied to linked members. When the effect expires, all boons gained via this Illusion are removed, and the affected players are linked for 7 seconds, copying each other’s conditions. When that link expires, all conditions from the link are removed.

@JonPeters

First, thanks for your continued focus on improving the game. Someone will always complain, but it’s clear that there have been improvements and you are always trying.

As someone who uses scepter a lot, here are a couple suggestions that fit your goal:

On a successful block (skill 2), grant one of these (doesn’t matter to me if it’s fixed behavior or the skill picks one randomly – there’s not a lot of chaos in the scepter…)
1 sec stealth
1 sec AoE blindness around the Mesmer
2 sec protection
automatically blinks the Mesmer (like down skill 2 – maybe this is the only time a clone is created).
You could balance this by shortening the block duration (maybe 1 sec or 1.5 sec)

On skill 3, I’m not sure how hard it would be to code checking for all 5 pulses to hit (on up to 5 targets), but you could add an effect if someone manages to hit all 5 like:
- 1 sec cripple
- 2 sec weakness
- 3 extra stacks of confusion

Thanks again for all your hard work. GW2 is my favorite game ever, and a lot of it has to do with the Mesmer class.

[Manipulation] mimic -> Echo
Cooldown 30
Cast time: instant
Duration: 4 seconds (you (don’t have to channel it. It’s a buff + effect for 4 seconds)
Breaks stun
Mimic: “For 4 seconds, gain protection every second, and gain retaliation and stability on activation. When stun breaking or being hit by a control effect, absorb and store it for later use”
Protection: 1 second
Retaliation: 4 seconds
Stability: 4 seconds
(boons behave like normal boons, and thus are strippable and affected by boon duration)

Cast time: instant
Unblockable
Increases cooldown by 50%
Echo: “Echo your stored control effect at your target.” (it instantly reaches your target like power lock and power spike)

Something like this. Originally, I wanted it to pulse aegis instead of protection, but it would cause problems with the control-absorbing thing :P.

It would be usefull in offensive as well as defensive builds, while staying true to it’s original purpose and without being overpowered, I think :o

If you ask me, the scepter should be a hybrid damage weapon connected to confusion, at least fluff-wise. The problem is: confusion sucks (in PvE). One solution would be anet changing the mechanic to something %-based, increase the attackspeed of mobs, etc. Another way to make the scepter attractive (as a confusion-type weapon) could be something like this:

1.) Confusing Images
Cast an arc of energy to your foe. This attack will hits 9 times for a total of x damage, multiplied by y % per stack of confusion on your foe. At the end of the duration, Confusing Images will add one stack of confusion. You can cast other spells while casting this spell.

2.) Illusionary Counter
Block the next attack. Counter by applying torment and creating a clone that casts Confusing Images. If you did not block until the end of duration, you will create a clone casting Confusing Images.
2.a) Counterspell
Shoot out a blot that blinds and damages foes in a line, dealing more damage for each unique condition on targeted foe.

3.) Shattered Images
Cast an explosion of energy at your targets position with a radius of 300. Foes inside this radius will get 3 stack of bleeding and take x damage, multiplied by y % per stack of confusion on your foe. Allies inside the radius will get Aegis for 4 seconds. Shattered Images will remove all stacks of confusion on target foe.

One other thing about the scepter.

The weapon seems designed to fight from 900 range. But the autoattack is so slow, the effective dps drops way below most other weapons when you’re at 900. Speeding up the projectile by as little as 25% would make it a lot more comparable.

Nagamo.6194:

If you ask me, the scepter should be a hybrid damage weapon connected to confusion, at least fluff-wise. The problem is: confusion sucks (in PvE). One solution would be anet changing the mechanic to something %-based, increase the attackspeed of mobs, etc. Another way to make the scepter attractive (as a confusion-type weapon) could be something like this:

Not sure where I read it but someone suggested making Confusion work like Torment. Confusion would deal damage constantly but deals double (or tripple?) the damage when the afflicted foe uses a skills. This would actually make Confusion a lot more useful in PvE. However, it might also lose some of its burst potential in PvP.

Alissah.9281:

omg I’m really excited for this

I just hope they don’t nerf our perma vigor, as Jon said they didn’t like people having it perma :/

Perma-vigor and clones on dodge. Yeah…nothing to see here. Move along…

Valderro.6389:

For scepter clones there is two problems with them, they are the worse clone for applying conditions (with Dueling 15 Sharper Images, they don’t attack often enough or with a chain of skills) and they don’t do anything special unlike other clones that copy skill 1 on their respective weapons.

The clones should cast the exact same sequence as the mesmer, when they cast the 3rd skill of the chain they destroy themselves and appear beside the target, skill activated every 8-10 secs.

That would really combine the three traits that cause conditions on clone death into a unique build for mesmers i.e. a build that is especially punishing to stationary targets and really make the scepter into something special.

Even without the traits, clones that automatically recreate at the target every 10 secs would have a benefit for a shatter heavy build, with timing shatters when most or all your clones recreate at the target, something for an opponent to watch out for.

My one concern about everything being based on the scepter clones #3 auto attack is that you’ll never see it take effect. Why? Because I don’t know about you, but between scepter clone spawn, clone on block, clone on dodge, phantasm spawns, mirror images, decoy, and any other weapon skills that spawn clones, my scepter clones are dieing every few seconds. Not to mention my enemies aoe and melee swings are actively destroying my scepter clones constantly. The mythical third strike effect will never see the light of day.

Think about it. Two phantasms in play + one clone? That clone barely gets his first attack off before replacement.

eldenbri.1059:

One other thing about the scepter.

The weapon seems designed to fight from 900 range. But the autoattack is so slow, the effective dps drops way below most other weapons when you’re at 900. Speeding up the projectile by as little as 25% would make it a lot more comparable.

While a buff to the projectile speed certainly wouldn’t hurt, it’s not really the problem and increasing it wouldn’t really increase DPS that much on most targets.

The problem, instead is the attack rate. The aftercast after each attack in the chain is too long, making the rate of fire awkwardly slow. This is a problem on several ranged weapons that single-handedly makes those weapons feel very gimpy and I have no idea why it’s been addressed on a few (Ranger Longbow, Mesmer Greatsword) but not most (Thief Pistol, Mesmer Scepter). It’s almost like the devs are blind to how important it is to have solid, functional, consistent autoattacks on all weapons.

Xaylin.1860:

Not sure where I read it but someone suggested making Confusion work like Torment. Confusion would deal damage constantly but deals double (or tripple?) the damage when the afflicted foe uses a skills. This would actually make Confusion a lot more useful in PvE. However, it might also lose some of its burst potential in PvP.

Was me. :p
Was a suggestion for how confusion would work in PvE, it would remain the same as it is now for PvP.

Basically it would do periodic damage per second depending on how many stacks of confusion there is as the target’s mind is slowly being driven to insanity, then when using a skill the target would take the total damage and a number of stacks would be removed. This would be useful for enemy NPC’s that don’t use attacks often so confusion would actually do damage.
But if Anet are adding new NPC’s that are using skills more frequently then there’s no need to change confusion to make it more viable in PvE.