Guild Wars 2

There’s so much nonsense being spoken about the Shatter mechanic. It seems to be coming from people who want to play “lazy” with the Mesmer and keep up Phantasms for DPS.

Now I’m not denying that’s possible to some extent. The Trait options are there to beef up Phantasms.

But you’ve got to figure with the lo-o-o-o-ong 5-6 sec cooldown between Phantasm attacks out of the box. Surely that’s a clue as to how they are meant to be used as a baseline? A clue to the general mechanic of the profession?

Summon-Shatter-Summon-Shatter-Summon-Shatter … that’s the general Mesmer playstyle, all the while interspersed with constant use of the many other tools in the Mesmer’s box of tricks.

The long and the short of it is that the Mesmer is a “busy” class to play. You are supposed to be pressing lots of keys a lot. At the end of the day you’re doing the same job with lots of keypresses that some other professions can do with only a couple of keypresses.

BUT THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. Some of us enjoy being busy at the keyboard and pressing lots of buttons. The Mesmer is a class for us.

If you don’t like being busy at the keyboard and pressing lots of buttons, if you’d rather just press a few buttons at a more leisurely pace, then please do us all a favour and drop the Mesmer profession and pick another, and stop whining on the Mesmer boards and trying to change the profession into something that requires you to be less busy.

While I agree with the general assessments (Use both Phantasms and Shatters as situation dictates. Mesmers are “busy” so don’t expect to just AA everything) I don’t think we need Yet Another Shatter Thread. It’s been (and is being) talked to death already in more than a few threads.

True Seeker.3682:

While I agree with the general assessments (Use both Phantasms and Shatters as situation dictates. Mesmers are “busy” so don’t expect to just AA everything) I don’t think we need Yet Another Shatter Thread. It’s been (and is being) talked to death already in more than a few threads.

Yeah, but the other threads have been started by complainers. I thought it worthwhile starting a thread that takes a stand in the other direction.

Keep fighting the good fight to prevent nerfs to “everything not Phantasm”, but don’t expect people to gravitate away from Phantasm army builds.

It’s popular because it’s easy, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways I don’t give akittenif a player is good or bad as long as they are spamming iBerserker on the kitten Trebuchet, for example.

Of course, they’re probably bad and running iDuelist obstructed obstructed obstructed obstructed reflect reflect out of range out of range, so meh …

F1 95% of time. F2 .0001% of the time (if I see quickness on the enemy)
F3 0% of the time (delayed CC that I can’t rely to make it to my target because clones squishy) F4 5% of the time (cause clutch invulnerable is nice but situational…)

I’d like our shatters to be a bit more reliable and lot less situational. Speed walking to the target is meh.

Many things can be predicted well in advance (for example Diversion on a person who is stomping) and there are other reasons to use Diversion that are not marketed on the forums very much …

If you want brutally reliable Shatters though, Illusory Persona is always an option.

I’ll concede that. But the “general every day flow of combat” isn’t appealing enough for me to trod down the domination tree and the many daze/“increased damage for not doing anything” traits let alone rely on the delayed daze that may or may not make it there (depending on AOE… surrounding mobs/players etc etc).

Very obvious channel animations are welcome, but I will counter your stomp and point out that you first have to make sure to have a weapon that summons a clone right next to your target. If you have a staff or a sceptor (or both) on swap your clone/phantams MIGHT not make it there in time… unless you’re standing right next to the stomp channeler.

Now if I have a great sword or sword… hit 2… then daze. Again it depends on the weapon… and I kinda think that’s not a great design overall. I understand some of the reasons for putting clones on the target or away from the target… but it just feel wonky to me.

I always pictured clones as something to hide within… we may not always use them for that explicit purpose but the option to always do so regardless of your weapon swap would be nice.

It’s very viable to play a non shattering build. In fact I find it more fun, because the shatters in their current state are boring and not very powerful.

I get a lot more out of combo fields and my iDuelists stacking confusion and bleeds. I will shatter defensively if needed, but shattering offensively I find to be counter productive.

But, then again, I would argue that keeping up Duelists and combo fielding keeps me “busy” at the keyboard more so than shattering did.

You could have easily put this in the other shatter thread, it didn’t need a new one.

The mesmer you’re describing is one with little to no varied playstyles, and that is the current mesmer because of this mechanic.

Very obvious channel animations are welcome, but I will counter your stomp and point out that you first have to make sure to have a weapon that summons a clone right next to your target. If you have a staff or a sceptor (or both) on swap your clone/phantams MIGHT not make it there in time… unless you’re standing right next to the stomp channeler.

Agree, but also note that your stomp-ee has an interrupt, so you can afford a delay to interrupt their “second” attempt. All of those assumes they’re not packing Stability or another effect (cough, Distortion, cough, unstoppable stomp of ownage Distortion + Blink). But, there’s only so much you can do.

Anyways, I’m not sure why you’re talking about a “daze build” which implies a more serious investment into interrupt traits, Mantra of Distraction and probably other things like Signet of Dom. That’s obviously a very specific build more as a “counter of a counter” type of build, rather than anything you’d use in general. Although I guarantee you there are some very nice builds that can abuse Diversion for certain teamplay events.

Not gonna lie though, Diversion takes the most prediction of any of the Shatters unless you have IP. But, that’s the rub.

It was admittedly a slight tangent but my brain jumped over there and I followed. I getcha overall though =P

gurugeorge.9857:

There’s so much nonsense being spoken about the Shatter mechanic. It seems to be coming from people who want to play “lazy” with the Mesmer and keep up Phantasms for DPS.

Wouldn’t people who are lazy want to keep things the way they are? They would be able to do plenty of damage and have plenty of utility using their phantasms.

I’m afraid you’re making a straw man argument which doesn’t make much sense. Most people want to decrease the phantasm DPS and make it more compatible with other mechanics. If you disagree that is fine, but posting how good you are and how bad everyone else is does not add anything to this forum meant for feedback.

Phantasms do not need a DPS decrease to make other mechanics viable, effective, or better for various gameplay goals.

And you are incorrect: “most” people want to buff phantasms so they stop getting their 3rd phantasm overwritten by clones, to have their phantasms persist, and to have their phantasms supply more AOE damage.

Eh? I personally hardly even touch shatter, I’m built around phantasms and melee.

This has never been a question about “busy” vs “non-busy”. People are interested in playing EFFECTIVELY. Phantasms are stronger and more consistent DPS by far. Shatter is a very inconsistent and, quite frankly, weak playstyle.

Instead of bashing others for playing with builds that work, maybe you should offer constructive suggestions to enhance the viability of a Clone/Shatter build.

Phantasm army is stronger for afk play with poor timing. It’s very effective for lazy / non-busy players. I don’t mind being lazy in solo PvE tbh, so I lean pretty hard on phantasms too.

You are demanding constructive suggestions to fix something that isn’t broken.

Suzut.4905:

This has never been a question about “busy” vs “non-busy”. People are interested in playing EFFECTIVELY. Phantasms are stronger and more consistent DPS by far. Shatter is a very inconsistent and, quite frankly, weak playstyle.

Instead of bashing others for playing with builds that work, maybe you should offer constructive suggestions to enhance the viability of a Clone/Shatter build.

- Get the traits that boost Mind Wrack damage and Mind Wrack crit rate
- Get on-clone-death traits (so that when your clones get AoE’d, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much
- Get Illusionary Persona which increases the effects of shatters, makes Diversion 100% hit chance, always have 1 second Distortion available, and be able to do some damage if your clones are having issues getting through.
- Use Scepter/Staff/GS, pick 1-2 of these as they have the best clone generation tools. I prefer Staff + Scepter/Something as it sort of flows into the next thing…
- Go with condition damage on the side. It helps with AoE bosses (can’t Shatter at ‘em? Staff clones will wreck him)
- Even in this spec you don’t ignore your Phantasms. You summon iWarlock for a quick burst on on tougher mobs. Focus, Pistol or OH Sword all have Phantasms for different purposes as well.
- Take utility skills that help your build: the illusion signet, anything that helps with AoE are good, Decoy for Clone + escape, Mirror Images for surprise burst, etc.

These are my suggestions anyway.

RaCio.6891:

Wouldn’t people who are lazy want to keep things the way they are? They would be able to do plenty of damage and have plenty of utility using their phantasms.

Eh? What I’m seeing is requests to change the profession to be even more Phantasm-oriented than it is, or could be, even Traited. IOW, what I see is people trying to skew the prof away from its core summon/shatter mechanic, and wanting semi-permanent Phantasm pets.

As to the question of “efficiency”, there is no such thing as efficiency in the abstract. It’s always efficiency-relative-to-a-person’s-preferred-playstyle. If the playstyle of the Mesmer doesn’t suit, then leave it alone and try something else. (But anyway, in another thread, we’ve seen EasymodeX question the DPS counts that people were claiming for their Phantasms.)

I suppose basically I’m sick to the back teeth of the whining people do on class forums in MMOs trying to change developers’ visions, instead of trying to see if what the developers have given them makes sense as something different from what they might expect or be used to. It’s like some sort of tic, people just instantly whine in automatic mode and the forums are cluttered with whiney groupthink.

Normally, in subscription MMOs this has meant a continual rebalancing by developers in an attempt to accommodate the whining, till eventually you get a bunch of bland hybrid classes that all basically all do the same things.

I’d say that I wouldn’t wish this to happen to GW2 – but of course, since the game is non-subscription, it’s extremely unlikely to happen, since the developers don’t actually have to heed the whining at all. Which is both hilarious and glorious.

So I guess what I’m saying is: whiners, just give up, give up this silly dance. Play what Anet has given you the way it was intended (and it’s already intended to have quite a bit of versatility, including more Phantasm orientation if you want it), or try another prof, or just go.

Sure, things can be tweaked and a few things changed here and there, but this is never going to be a class where the Phantasms are like pets, or even pseudo-pets. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE DISPOSABLE AND EASILY DISPOSED OF. They are not pets, they are “illusions”, that’s the concept.

For God’s sake give the concept room to breathe and be distinct.

Using phantasms doesn’t make you lazy, I find shatter impractical and ineffective compared to phantasms.

RaCio.6891:

gurugeorge.9857:

There’s so much nonsense being spoken about the Shatter mechanic. It seems to be coming from people who want to play “lazy” with the Mesmer and keep up Phantasms for DPS.

Wouldn’t people who are lazy want to keep things the way they are? They would be able to do plenty of damage and have plenty of utility using their phantasms.

I’m afraid you’re making a straw man argument which doesn’t make much sense. Most people want to decrease the phantasm DPS and make it more compatible with other mechanics. If you disagree that is fine, but posting how good you are and how bad everyone else is does not add anything to this forum meant for feedback.

The feeling I got from people who don’t like the current shatter system is that they think phantasm’s are too good to bother using shatter as it reduces your overall effectiveness. Whether this means making phantasm’s weaker (something that should not be done imo) or making the shatter mechanic attractive in some way (effectiveness increased by shattering phantasm’s instead of clones or some other change), I think it is a good indicator of people either being lazy or not flexible in their chosen play style.

If you want to get 3 phantasm’s up, the game will certainly let you do that, but if it causes you to underutilized other aspects of the class you can really only blame yourself.

If the prospect of pure damage is more attractive to you than some of the more utility oriented spells and abilities mesmer’s have, then again, nothing stops you from going that route as far as you possibly can. To complain afterwards that you’d like abilities other people traited for in a playstyle completely counter to the one picked isn’t really fair.

Not to mention the fact that even with a heavy phantasm build there is plenty of opportunity for shatters if you are smart about it implies to me that people aren’t really trying. They just want whatever it is they want without bothering to work for it.

And I’m not talking about genuine improvements and bug fixes, I pretty much mean all the stuff going around about overhauling the system or how it’s flawed, etc. If your play style doesn’t work well with the shatter system, or rather, the shatter system doesn’t work well with how you want to play the class…then maybe instead of the class being inherently broken and in dire need of a rework, a different class should be considered.

Seeing as how most of what is being bandied around is purely subjective with little to no “hard evidence”, it’s very easy to accuse people of making straw man arguments. Even what I just said could be construed as an attack on people who think the shatter mechanic needs to be reworked.

Maybe as more time passes and more data accumulates ANet will be able to tell us if the shatter system is being used as they envisioned it as well as the phantasm’s. In the end, it’s their vision we’re playing around with and while our input is appreciated to a certain extent and we can conjecture whatever it is they had intended, they have the final say.

I hate to bring this up, but the last thing I want to see is the Mesmer to go the path of the Warlock in WoW. I loved that class to death, but as time went by it basically became a mage that shot fire and shadow. DoTs were slowly nerfed to the ground bit by bit the utility spells we were given became inconsequential.

I don’t want to see the Mesmer turn into a weaker version of an elementalist with purple magic or a carbon copy of a necro with an army of purple minions. I wish people would take the time to try and work with the class instead of try to fundamentally change it so it plays the way they want it to play.

gurugeorge.9857:

The long and the short of it is that the Mesmer is a “busy” class to play. You are supposed to be pressing lots of keys a lot. At the end of the day you’re doing the same job with lots of keypresses that some other professions can do with only a couple of keypresses.

(emphasis mine)

If that statement were true (and I don’t agree with it myself), then regardless of personal preference it would seem to be a classic example of very poor design, wouldn’t it?

Complexity is fine, unnecessary complexity for identical results, not so much.

Either way, I don’t think that statement is true of most Mesmer gameplay – at least not to any significant degree. I appreciate your obvious enthusiasm for the profession though, I can certainly agree with you on that!

Roven Leafsong.8917:

gurugeorge.9857:

The long and the short of it is that the Mesmer is a “busy” class to play. You are supposed to be pressing lots of keys a lot. At the end of the day you’re doing the same job with lots of keypresses that some other professions can do with only a couple of keypresses.

(emphasis mine)

If that statement were true (and I don’t agree with it myself), then regardless of personal preference it would seem to be a classic example of very poor design, wouldn’t it?

Complexity is fine, unnecessary complexity for identical results, not so much.

It’s not poor design if it satisfies a certain portion of the playerbase. Some of us just like to be busy and to master patterns of keypresses, it’s part of the fun for us. Other players (or even us busybodies, at other times, for an alt change) like to spam a few buttons over and over. No big deal, just different preferences, which developers try to satisfy.

The end result is always the same: dead mobs.

But every MMO has less fiddly and more fiddly classes. The Loremaster in LOTRO is another absolutely classic example of a fiddly class. Lots of buttons to do what a Hunter can do with 2.