Guild Wars 2

I’ve got about 4K hours on a mesmer and I found the new spec to be a mess. I won’t rehash all the issues, as plenty have already stated them. What I wanted to say is that its such a shame that you guys, Anet, had a great opportunity to make something really different, and we got something that felt like three people competing on making the class. There are just too many mechanics, and none of them work well, or work at all. (ie, mirrors, blur, evade, mirror blur (or whatever) keep clones alive, shatter them, ambush, too much) Stick with one theme and make that work. Just off the top of my head, here’s some ideas to rework this spec. I’m sure there’s no time to implement any of this stuff, but here’s hoping.

I like the idea of having something more clone centric, but you didn’t go far enough with this. If you want something clone centric, then make it that way. Get rid of shatters but one. Instead, make the F skills something new and interesting. For example, buff the auto attack to something really big. Swap places with one of your clones, heal yourself and all your clones. Bounce enemie(s) around your clones. Bring back some damage on clone death, but just for this spec.

Edit: some more stuff: Take the whole mirror mechanic and change that to your clones. IE, if you run into your clone, you get a buff. That consolidates that mechanic and makes it simpler. Another F idea, clones retarget.

Edit: Or, drop some of these shatter trade offs and go full on with mirror mechanics. Make that the center of this spec. Make all but one of the F skills have to do with mirrors. Make them more frequent. For example, have one of the mirrors that generates be long, like a barrier. If an enemy touches it, they’re teleported away. When you run through it, you generate 2 clones. I could imagine trying to box in your enemy with mirrors. Have a mirror fall from the sky and shatter dealing massive damage. Have a mirror be a blink like teleport or give an aoe buff in it’s area. Have an elite mirror with a huge aoe that passively generates clones if you’re standing in the area. I mean, lots of possiblities here, but the point is, you can’t have both. Go one way or the other.

I like these ideas.

Here’s another one: if you were going to make a clone centric build, why not increase the active number of clones to 5? I mean, if the F skills were to change from shatters to something else, why not?

Spurnshadow.3678:

Here’s another one: if you were going to make a clone centric build, why not increase the active number of clones to 5? I mean, if the F skills were to change from shatters to something else, why not?

I dream of being the kind of mesmer who can create dozens of clones. They don’t have to do any damage at all, just run around and shoot their weapons and creating chaos!

But it won’t happen. :/

Here’s another one: have a mirror that makes a clone of not just you, but any allies within range. I mean, it’s a mirror, right? That’d be awesome!

A trait to have clones trigger aoe cripple and weakness on death would be ideal for me in the mirage tree.

Here’s an idea I have for Ambush:

Ambush becomes the new F5 skill for Mirage. However, it is inactive until after a dodge. Then it will remain active for about 8-10 seconds. During that time, a Mirage could hit the F5 to trigger Ambush for themselves and their clones. At which point, it goes on a 10 second cooldown. Traits that affect shatters will also affect Ambush.

While it is a shatter that doesn’t destroy illusions, it is balanced by needing to be activated and having a cooldown. This gives Mirages a little more control over when the Ambush triggers, and allows Mirages to try to surprise (ambush?) their enemies with it. Making it effectively a shatter, allows it to sync better with other Mesmer traits and abilities. This should help make you feel like a more powerful Mesmer (like Chrono does) rather than a kitten Mesmer, like Mirage did during the demo.

I wish they redesigned f1-f4 skills for mirage, but I was thinking that should utilize mirrors that you spawn. For example:
F1 – your mirror quickly moves to you, afflicting enemies on the way with conditions.
F2 – your mirror fire several orbs at your target , which on on hit copy some conditions to nearby targets.
F3 – beam of lights between you and your mirror dazes and blinds your opponents.
F4 – you’re blurred (shorter duration than with standard F4), but you reflect a portion of damage you were supposed to get.

The idea, was that, if mirror are spawned away from you – use it to your advantage. But this needs a lot of thinking to do. Plus we would need more mirrir generation skill.

I just really dislike, that for mirage shatters as they are now are a punishment.
P.S. Sorry for my english.

I’d make the F-skills the way to do ambush attacks. Four skills which spawn Mirage Mirrors (instead of having them spawn from some utilities), in different ways.

The simplest way to improve the mirage would be the following:

Ambush skills replace Mind Wrack and CoF. Each mainhand weapon would have two ambush skills performed by both the mesmer and all clones, which inherit all standard shatter traits. This allows the ambush style to have more synergy with the core mesmer trait lines, and emphasizes the clone onslaught style.

When a clone dies, it spawns a Mirage Mirror. Mirage mirrors explode when an enemy touches them. The Mirage doesn’t have an answer for how to deal with AoE pressure that destroys illusions. To fix this problem, bring back clone death and use the extremely pretty but flawed mirror mechanic to give the Mirage area control and pressure. If the enemy leaves your clones alive, you unleash ambush skills. If they kill your clones, they create a mirage minefield of detonating mirrors. Allow explosive mirrors to also inherit all shatter trait effects, and you’re good to go.

Remove phantasms from the weapon bar. This mechanic has frankly outlived its usefulness, and doesn’t serve a primary purpose on the core mesmer, chronomancer, or mirage. Remove it, and bring back classic Mesmer skills like Energy Surge, Backfire, and Blackout. By reducing the damage of NPC pets, the mesmer can have more powerful shatters/ambushes and stronger weapon skills, which everyone should enjoy.