Guild Wars 2

Empowered Illusions is totally out of place in the Domination line.

Please consider moving it to Illusions or Inspiration lines.

• Can be merged with Illusionary Inspiration in Inspiration. It’s fine since you either shatter and get shatter buffs, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff. It may even be something like “Illusions deal more damage while Mind Wrack is not on CD” to separate the playstyles.
• Can be merged with Compounding Power – damage modifiers for both sides, mesmer and illsuions. You might say “OP”, but really, how OP are phantasm builds now? =_=
• Can be merged with Persistence of Memory since no one is going to ever take this trait to get that WHOPPING OP -2% DECREASE IN CD on shatter anyway.
• Can be merged with Mind Wrack. Same as Illusionary Inspiration – it’s fine since you either shatter and get the bonus, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff.

That way, PvE mesmers will be able to happily trait into Dueling, Illusions and Inspiration for better phantasm (+reflect) builds. This can also open options for PvP phantasm builds (which can’t be worse than turret engies, right?).

Are you kidding me? As someone who mains a Mesmer in PvE, I’d take Fragility over Empowered Illusions any day of the kitten week. A flat 10% increase in damage is galaxies and universes beyond a 15% increase in Phantasm damage in PvE.

I wonder how one could be bothered by Empowered Illusions being in Domination while Phantasmal Haste is still stuck in Illusions.

The phantasm recharge on shatter trait is something like -5 or -10 seconds, not -2%. Throughout that part of the livestream, it’s pretty clear that ‘2%’ is either some sort of text error or placeholder text.

The accompanying explanation for it was that they don’t want you to be locked out of your whole profession mechanic when you use phantasms, which is perfectly reasonable. It follows that that trait should at least be milkable for a substantial phantasm uptime buff in situations where you’re having trouble keeping phantasms alive, and in theory they could even tune it so that summoning a phantasm only to shatter it after 1-2 attacks is actually the best way to use them.

That said, your suggestions do seem quite cool. Except for “illusions do more damage while mind wrack is not on cooldown”. That’s specifically the sort of thing they’re trying to avoid, and I agree with their reasoning on that.

evilunderling.9265:

The accompanying explanation for it was that they don’t want you to be locked out of your whole profession mechanic when you use phantasms, which is perfectly reasonable.

It is. But why go Illusions to begin with? Right now, it would be fore Illusionists Celerity and Phantasmal Haste. But there is no Phantasm related gm trait in Illusions. I’d rather see some traits rearranged there.

Velimere.7685:

Are you kidding me? As someone who mains a Mesmer in PvE, I’d take Fragility over Empowered Illusions any day of the kitten week. A flat 10% increase in damage is galaxies and universes beyond a 15% increase in Phantasm damage in PvE.

What’s the point of taking +10% to 40% of your damage (you) rather than +15% to 60% of your damage? “Deal more damage” stuff never applied to illusions.

evilunderling.9265:

The phantasm recharge on shatter trait is something like -5 or -10 seconds, not -2%. Throughout that part of the livestream, it’s pretty clear that ‘2%’ is either some sort of text error or placeholder text.

Or it is indeed as useful as +1000 healing power despite the developers being so excited about it.

Xaylin.1860:

But why go Illusions to begin with? Right now, it would be fore Illusionists Celerity and Phantasmal Haste. But there is no Phantasm related gm trait in Illusions. I’d rather see some traits rearranged there.

So here’s a place to put that +15% trait.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Xaylin.1860:

But why go Illusions to begin with? Right now, it would be fore Illusionists Celerity and Phantasmal Haste. But there is no Phantasm related gm trait in Illusions. I’d rather see some traits rearranged there.

So here’s a place to put that +15% trait.

So you basically don’t like the Domination traitline and would prefer to go Inspiration + Illusions plus something else?

Leaving aside that damage modificators are extremly dull, I don’t feel that Empowered Illusions would fit into Illusions when you think about the theme of the traitline. It definitely suits Domination. Since I don’t expect the devs to move Phantasmal Haste into Inspiration I’d rather see an interesting Phantasm GM trait in Illusions which promotes active play and also works with the available Minors.

While it might not be optimal, Persistence of Memory could be a candidate. Imagine the numbers being buffed to 20%-33% recharge per shattered Phantasm. You would have to monitor your cooldowns and your Phantasms. If they drop low you could shatter them. You’d benefit from the Minors and your Phantasms would be back up soon. Much more exciting than +15% damage, don’t you think?

Lishtenbird.2814:

What’s the point of taking +10% to 40% of your damage (you) rather than +15% to 60% of your damage? “Deal more damage” stuff never applied to illusions.

Because the majority of a Mesmer’s damage in PvE is from his auto-attack.

Lishtenbird.2814:

What’s the point of taking +10% to 40% of your damage (you) rather than +15% to 60% of your damage? “Deal more damage” stuff never applied to illusions.

That’d be true if Phantasms were a reliable or sensible source of damage outside of smallest scale heckling situations in PvP. But they’re not, they die faster than you can summon them, provide no guarantee of damage, virtually no control and except two of them (which are never really taken and also have very low damage) virtually no utility.

Yes, in theory Phantasms can be good. Btw, that trait is being merged baseline in the v2.0 patch before HoT. So no discussions where it belongs, it’s just gone. :P

Velimere.7685:

Lishtenbird.2814:

What’s the point of taking +10% to 40% of your damage (you) rather than +15% to 60% of your damage? “Deal more damage” stuff never applied to illusions.

Because the majority of a Mesmer’s damage in PvE is from his auto-attack.

Pressing auto to maximise DPS is totally the right strategy to play a class. And not making core class mechanics contribute more to DPS.

Carighan.6758:

Yes, in theory Phantasms can be good. Btw, that trait is being merged baseline in the v2.0 patch before HoT. So no discussions where it belongs, it’s just gone. :P

Look in the adept traits.

Xaylin.1860:

Much more exciting than +15% damage, don’t you think?

I would find it “exciting” if dancing on one leg on a rope across a canyon with a bunch of eggs on a plate on my head was like 40-50% more efficient than pressing 2 and going AFK on some other class. Otherwise, it’s a self-imposed, hampering gimmick chosen by masochistic PvE mesmers.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Pressing auto to maximise DPS is totally the right strategy to play a class. And not making core class mechanics contribute more to DPS.

I don’t know if you’re agreeing with the fact that I stated or talking down to me in your own obscure way, but it still stands that the majority of a Mesmer’s sustained DPS in PvE is from his auto-attack just the same as with all of the other classes.

Velimere.7685:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Pressing auto to maximise DPS is totally the right strategy to play a class. And not making core class mechanics contribute more to DPS.

I don’t know if you’re agreeing with the fact that I stated or talking down to me in your own obscure way, but it still stands that the majority of a Mesmer’s sustained DPS in PvE is from his auto-attack just the same as with all of the other classes.

For starters, I would like to see a link to calculations of that “highest sustained DPS” for “all classes”.

Lishtenbird.2814:

For starters, I would like to see a link to calculations of that “highest sustained DPS” for “all classes”.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13987449-dps-estimates-for-each-professions-in-30s-battles

That link is a little outdated but considering the massive undertaking that was needed for it you can’t really expect it to be updated every patch. However it does give a nice indication of how poor mesmer DPS can be. Also don’t forget to look at the link in the post as it opens out to a very good spreadsheet.

Also the mesmer forum mathmagician (or maybe mesmagician) frifox did a nice post on the mesmer section here (last post) which shows a nice breakdown of the way a mesmer does DPS and how it should be compared etc. It’s interesting reading for a few minutes, I take it s/he was using 4 mantras and all the jazz in the absolute max dps available.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/page/5/m/6563292/viewthread/13274266-mesmerino-dpserino-no-copypastarino

As for on topic, domination or illusions doesn’t matter to me too much but I do think it’s fine where it is as it allows for PvE specs to pick up most phantasm damage traits.

I guess moving the damage to inspiration or illusion minors would be a good improvement as you could take wardens feedback without having to drop duelling or illusions.

To be honest though if the damage on mesmers was buffed so they aren’t terrible and can bring feedback with 1 or 2 mantras instead of having to pack 4 mantras just to do average damage then wardens feedback may not be needed and instead a mesmer and guard would cover projectile block/reflect and do decent damage.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Xaylin.1860:

Much more exciting than +15% damage, don’t you think?

I would find it “exciting” if dancing on one leg on a rope across a canyon with a bunch of eggs on a plate on my head was like 40-50% more efficient than pressing 2 and going AFK on some other class. Otherwise, it’s a self-imposed, hampering gimmick chosen by masochistic PvE mesmers.

That’s a pretty harsh post.

I got the sneaking suspicion you’re not interested in anything else than passive damage modifiers. So why even have a discussion if everything active is labelled gimmicky although playing at the core mechanic of the class?