Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet,

Please switch the Phantasmal Mage (Garbage Phantasm) with the Phantasmal Rogue from the downed state. That would fit the Torch much better, and be entirely more useful in general.

Thx

So your solution to an underpowered Phantasmal Mage is to make our Downed-state weaker? O.o

Pass. The last thing we need is another boring power phantasm.

Just improve the iMage.

-Give the iMage 1200 range,

-Make the confusion benefit from the mesmers condition duration bonus

-Possibly up the base duration to 5 seconds for both confusion and retaliation (confusion maxes out at 10 seconds duration anyway).

-Any of the other possible changes that have been suggested by various players.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Pass. The last thing we need is another boring power phantasm.

Just improve the iMage.

-Give the iMage 1200 range,

-Make the confusion benefit from the mesmers condition duration bonus

-Possibly up the base duration to 5 seconds for both confusion and retaliation (confusion maxes out at 10 seconds duration anyway).

-Any of the other possible changes that have been suggested by various players.

If anything, its confusion should stack higher, but there should be no duration increase, long confusions are more redundant than perma-retaliation is and wouldn’t fit the condition’s design (forces you to halt your skills/actions for a short time or you take damage – would be dumb with perma-confusion).

Scepter sword… sword torch… You can pretty much keep perma confusion up… Maybe not stacked through the roof but between the blinds that confuse, the mage, scepter 3, and the shatters you can keep confusion up almost the whole time. Why don’t I do scepter torch you may ask? Well the prestige needs you to be melee to get s**t done and because the iMage has emotional issues and sucks to go to a certain range I feel its best to use the torch in the melee set. This also keeps two sources of confusion in both weapon sets… Dueled a couple guards in WvW last night (fix Confusion in sPvP then I may go there) but they said “You had me locked down the whole fight with confusion” It may have not been doing insane burst damage the whole time but it was whittling away at them… And people really get hung up on the cooldowns for the prestige and iMage… Just go 20 into dom and get the trait for torches. The added condition removal plus the shortened stealth really adds to the surviveability… They say the cooldown on the prestige is still too long… Honestly after you break stealth with the blast its only got 20 sec left on its CD… Not too bad imo… A build like this would be even better if they brough one stack of confusion back to the end of the scepter chain… Just my 2c….

A random iMage idea:

Leave iMage’s actions alone at the current power level. Perhaps reduce the retal duration slightly.

Decrease the base iMage cooldown to ~10-16s. This means 8-12.8s with Illu5. With the Torch trait on top, that’s 6-9.6s.

In other words, adjust the cooldown to make it a Big Clone, which is what it currently is.

Edit:

That or throw on random chill/weakness, lulz.

I have to agree with easymode lower C/D and/or added effect would be nice (prob prefer chill or a cripple as opposed to weakness.)

Only problem is condi remover every 6-9.6 for mes I could see some crying OP and how we shouldn’t remove condi so easy.

I don’t think giving our downed state a useless phant is the best idea, though I don’t hate the idea of phantasmal rouge on a skill. However aside from wining downed fights I think something like that may be a little too strong.

Torch would be a good weapon if the cooldowns weren’t so big. That would solve everything imo.

The torch traited… My phantasm has a cooldown of 17 secs (illusionists celerity&cleansing conlflagration) by the time the prestige blows it has 20 seconds left on its cool down….. Its really not that bad…. The only weapons that I don’t feel need to be traited when used are a 1H sword and a pistol (but if duelist discipline were one tier lower well. So if they decreased the base cooldown for torches where would that put the phantasm at… 12 seconds? less? The prestige 15 seconds? I’m not gonna try doing the math pharmacology is already filling my head… But i think if they decreased it to what everyone here suggests (I am by no means against it!) but realistically thinking…. I don’t think ANet would do it… I would much rather increase the stacks of confusion from the mage and the duration…. 5 and 5?
Engineers with their new buffs can easily match us in stacking confusion… And I just find something wrong with that…

EasymodeX.4062:

A random iMage idea:

Leave iMage’s actions alone at the current power level. Perhaps reduce the retal duration slightly.

Decrease the base iMage cooldown to ~10-16s. This means 8-12.8s with Illu5. With the Torch trait on top, that’s 6-9.6s.

In other words, adjust the cooldown to make it a Big Clone, which is what it currently is.

Edit:

That or throw on random chill/weakness, lulz.

Couldn’t agree more. The randomness sounds more like what warlock should be (random cc/debuffs with some dmg) but at this point anything is better than the current iMage.

The projectile is way too slow, that’s the major problem for me.

Also Burn should be before blind.

To me, the simplest solutions for appropriately adjusting the Torch are:

1. Reduce the cooldowns on both Prestige and Mage, so that when Traited the cooldowns are on par with the cooldowns of both skills respectively on the offhand Sword and Pistol skills;

2. Keep the Blind, but remove the aoe fire blast on the Prestige. Instead, make it aoe apply 3 stacks of Confusion; and,

3. Remove the ability to cleanse conditions from the Traited Mage. Instead, have the Trait increase the number of stacks of Confusion that the Mage puts on from 3 to 5. And set the duration of those stacks to last just as long as the time it takes for the Mage to refresh-establish them once again (but only when the Mage also is Traited with Phantasmal Haste).

^This I like…. But in all reality what other changes do you think ANet will make to the torch? Also what bugs will come with those changes (if they even touch the torch again)

I don’t mind the flame blast, but why does it have to give the stealth cooldown (the hit occurs before stealth ends).

Xavi.6591:

Also Burn should be before blind.

Then it also needs a rename :P

Should remain how it is. With the trait the torch is a very good support weapon able to remove conditions from allies.

Savant.5276:

Keep the Blind, but remove the aoe fire blast on the Prestige.

It’s a torch, it burns. And more unique conditions are better in case of a cleanse that removes one stack and it also works fine in conjunction with Phantasmal Warlock. So by all means, no.

Na, a power based phantasm doesnt fit torch, its a condition weapon. I like mage for confusion, just needs some tweaks.

Xavi.6591:

Also Burn should be before blind.

I will have to respectfully dis agree. At first I thought this but the more I play with torch the more I enjoy its current process.

Here is why.

Stealth is an amazing target drop, we all know that, but you can still get hit while in stealth. The blind at the beginning gives you the time you need to break away from opponents who are swinging blindly and reposition for the fire blast and whatever combo you have cooked to follow.

The blind is in my opinion what turns the awesome stealth move into a get out of jail free card. Now that its not channeled it gives us even more options for making distance healing, combo setting etc.

The blind is what turns the prestige into an extra dodge roll against melee. Placing the blind at the beginning gives me more control of when it pops. The flame damage is just icing on the cake.

I like some of these ideas, but for the most part they involve complex coding of skill changes. So, I don’t see Anet changing it. What if the idea was simple? How about just changing the effect the iMage, or should I say how about the way the effect is cast.

How about changing the “ball” the iMage throws, to something similar. iMage gives confusion 3s and retaliation 3s. So does Pain Inverter, but it is a point blank AoE. I think the iMage should keep the damage component (maybe a sligth dmg increase, to be more balanced with pow builds) and cast just like Pain Inverter. In a group situtation the retaliation would benifit everyone, and fighting multiple mobs/players the confusion would hit more than one enemy.

It should be fairly easy to code, just transplace the code from pain inveter add the damage component and make the retaliation affect more than 1 person. Everything else would stay the same, such as health, spawn position, casting speed, and casting delay.

What does everyone think of that?

P.s. On a side note, pain inverter is 5sec confusion/retaliation. It could stay the same or be lowered to 3 seconds. Either way the pbAoE would be the most important/best change.

Bouncing attacks seems to be a sort-of Mesmer specialty, so I don’t think they would change that about the iMage. Fixing the bugs and inconsistencies: making +CondDuration/BoonDuration affect Illusions, make Illusionary Elasticity affect iMage/iDisenchanter, and maybe changing iMage’s bounce logic to enemy-ally-enemy instead of whatever weird logic it has now…

Couple that with changes like making the bolt more accurate and reducing iMage’s ridiculous CD and it should be fine. It doesn’t need an overhaul.

Embolism.8106:

Bouncing attacks seems to be a sort-of Mesmer specialty, so I don’t think they would change that about the iMage. Fixing the bugs and inconsistencies: making +CondDuration/BoonDuration affect Illusions, make Illusionary Elasticity affect iMage/iDisenchanter, and maybe changing iMage’s bounce logic to enemy-ally-enemy instead of whatever weird logic it has now…

Couple that with changes like making the bolt more accurate and reducing iMage’s ridiculous CD and it should be fine. It doesn’t need an overhaul.

Yep I think these changes would be enough.

FYI the current “bounce logic” it has now is enemy-ally-ally.