Guild Wars 2

Looking at the new specialization trees, regardless of what way you build, all of the mesmer’s strength seems to come from shatter.

This is especially true with certain traits like the ability to gain 30% damage on phantasms removed.

I don’t really see much support (even in chrono) for mantra or phantasm builds. Even a full bar of wells seems weak in comparison to what you can do with CShift + shatters.

I feel like the new meta will push us further into glass only high clone generation shatter spike.

Chrono, Illu, Dom with full shatter traits is just plain nuts. I don’t think any other build setup will compete with that.

lordhelmos.7623:

Looking at the new specialization trees, regardless of what way you build, all of the mesmer’s strength seems to come from shatter.

This is especially true with certain traits like the ability to gain 30% damage on phantasms removed.

I don’t really see much support (even in chrono) for mantra or phantasm builds. Even a full bar of wells seems weak in comparison to what you can do with CShift + shatters.

I feel like the new meta will push us further into glass only high clone generation shatter spike.

Chrono, Illu, Dom with full shatter traits is just plain nuts. I don’t think any other build setup will compete with that.

I dont think that Illusionary reversion will give you enough extra clones really to varant going without DE

I’m not too thrilled about the Mantra trait changes either. I’ve tried playing in a trait setup that would mimic the new trait changes, and I can tell there’s a big dps difference without Empowering Mantras. They are wanting to encourage activation of mantras, which I never did passive play anyways, but besides Pain, the other mantras have really long CD for both activation and for recharge. The way mantra traits are heading now encourages spamming CDs. That’s not fun either.

Also, why isn’t there a condition mantra, similar to Pain?

While it is very true that shatters are being strongly encouraged, I recommend you double check things before you go and say them.

The 15% phantasm damage trait in illusions will be made baseline for all phantasms. The existing 15% damage trait in domination will still be there. Additionally, many of the strong phantasm traits are becoming minors in inspiration, allowing for more useful major trait choices.

I was playing with the spec. calculator by that_shaman and came up with what i think to be a phantasm/shatter hybrid.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBmAJsBrQ~
You can get both Empower illusions and Phantasm fury while still getting boon strips and mental torment. Tho all of this really relies to IP and Illusionary elasticity staying baseline
Traits that are now baseline:
Reduced glamour recharge rate
Phantasmal damage boost
Manipulation range.
Illusionary Persona: Shattering illusions creates the shatter effect on you as well.
Illusionary Elasticity: Bouncing attacks have one additional bounce.
Protective Mantras: Gain extra armor when you cast a mantra
(and i really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really hope it does stay baseline)
Not using shatters, your core mechanic, at all is counter productive
But if IP stays baseline you get some interesting options even if you shatter pre-fight

Yes, by encouraging shattering they are trying to bring a little more active play even to Phantasm builds. Obviously Chrono has the GM trait specifically geared towards supporting a shatter/phantasm play-style, but all around we see the possibility to greatly reduce phantasm summon CDs, and thus encouraging a more “throw-away” playstyle with Phantasm. Summon them, shatter them, resummon them.

Mantras too will see a huge boost not only in several traits becoming baseline, but also the simple fact that we’re getting huge access to Quickness in two lines. Especially in Chrono, the on-demand Quickness from shatters will make for some great synergy with Mantras. With the greatly boosted Menders Purity you can now AE cleanse, and AE heal when charging a Mantra, which under Quickness will be MUCH faster then before.

Shattering in general is getting hugely boosted, no doubt, but it is hardly specific to Glass/Power shatters only. In fact you can now pull off a very tanky Power Shatter, or very potent Condie shatter. Survivability improvements even for glassier shatter builds could come from Dueling with AE Blind on shatter, or you can even go full out Phantasm/Boonshare and employ shatters, PU, or interrupts to create buffs to share with your team simply by summoning a Phantasm.

That and of course Interrupt builds are seeing monumental boosts as well.

I think the point is that Phantasms alone, or Interrupts alone are not going to be enough to make an effective play style anymore. You will want to shatter, and thanks to baseline IP and Chronophantasms and/or lower CDs, it will no longer feel like you’re shattering away your only source of damage. Even if you don’t take Mental Torment or the Illusions line, a 3-Illusion MW shatter on any build with decent Power & Ferocity will amount to a significant damage spike thanks to IP.

Strange that they would encourage use of our class mechanic, isn’kitten

Windwalker.7421:

Mantras too will see a huge boost not only in several traits becoming baseline, but also the simple fact that we’re getting huge access to Quickness in two lines. Especially in Chrono, the on-demand Quickness from shatters will make for some great synergy with Mantras. With the greatly boosted Menders Purity you can now AE cleanse, and AE heal when charging a Mantra, which under Quickness will be MUCH faster then before.

Can you elaborate more on this? Looks to me that Mantras are becoming more support oriented rather than offensive oriented from what you are saying. Or are you saying this is a good thing?

Seems to me that spending your Quickness for Mantras would be a waste instead of using it for much high CDs like Elites. Also, what if you don’t go into Chronomancy or any of the trait lines with access to Quickness?

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Windwalker.7421:

Mantras too will see a huge boost not only in several traits becoming baseline, but also the simple fact that we’re getting huge access to Quickness in two lines. Especially in Chrono, the on-demand Quickness from shatters will make for some great synergy with Mantras. With the greatly boosted Menders Purity you can now AE cleanse, and AE heal when charging a Mantra, which under Quickness will be MUCH faster then before.

Can you elaborate more on this? Looks to me that Mantras are becoming more support oriented rather than offensive oriented from what you are saying. Or are you saying this is a good thing?

Seems to me that spending your Quickness for Mantras would be a waste instead of using it for much high CDs like Elites. Also, what if you don’t go into Chronomancy or any of the trait lines with access to Quickness?

Alacrity affects recharge, Quickness affects cast speed only. Mantras are among our slowest casting skills. Shattering, giving yourself quickness, and recharging 1-2 Mantras is going to be amazing!

Mantras, for me, were always hampered by their slow cast time. On-demand quickness nullifies that and makes them SUPER competitive.

Kelthien.8593:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Windwalker.7421:

Mantras too will see a huge boost not only in several traits becoming baseline, but also the simple fact that we’re getting huge access to Quickness in two lines. Especially in Chrono, the on-demand Quickness from shatters will make for some great synergy with Mantras. With the greatly boosted Menders Purity you can now AE cleanse, and AE heal when charging a Mantra, which under Quickness will be MUCH faster then before.

Can you elaborate more on this? Looks to me that Mantras are becoming more support oriented rather than offensive oriented from what you are saying. Or are you saying this is a good thing?

Seems to me that spending your Quickness for Mantras would be a waste instead of using it for much high CDs like Elites. Also, what if you don’t go into Chronomancy or any of the trait lines with access to Quickness?

Alacrity affects recharge, Quickness affects cast speed only. Mantras are among our slowest casting skills. Shattering, giving yourself quickness, and recharging 1-2 Mantras is going to be amazing!

Mantras, for me, were always hampered by their slow cast time. On-demand quickness nullifies that and makes them SUPER competitive.

Opps! I thought I was getting the two confused. Still though, wouldn’t you want to use Quickness for faster attacking? I imagine there’s going to be a CD on Quickness via Shattering too. Historically, Quickness has a large CD, unless they are going away from that mentality.

Wouldn’t quickening your mantra casting also be counterproductive to Protected Mantras?

Exactly! Having MP with MoP and on-demand quickness means you can pump out those team AE heals a lot quicker, and it also make MoR more viable due to it’s already low CD (8s with baseline Mantra mastery) and with on demand Quickness you can now also get a reasonable recharge time to cut down on interrupts.

Between that and RI from Inspiration for healing yourself while shattering, you’re going to have a lot of sustain and team support. (AE Cleanse on shatter, AE cleanse from MP, AE heals from MoP recharging)

It will also synergize far better than now IMO. As you charge up MoP to heal, you hit a shatter for the Quickness, which heals yourself and clears conditions for your team. Then MoP is charged, which AE heals the team, and you spam Mind Spikes until you re-charge MoP again to start all over.

I could see something like Insp/Chrono/Illusions with MtD as a pretty tanky support/condie shatter. With baseline IP and Illusionary Reversion, you would thus also be putting out some decent AoE Torment & Confusion pressure with every shatter you use. (Sc+Sh & Staff would go nicely with this. Great support build IMO.)

Windwalker.7421:

(8s with baseline Mantra mastery)

Do you have a source on this? I don’t recall seeing this and it’s not on Dulfy.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Opps! I thought I was getting the two confused. Still though, wouldn’t you want to use Quickness for faster attacking? I imagine there’s going to be a CD on Quickness via Shattering too. Historically, Quickness has a large CD, unless they are going away from that mentality.

Wouldn’t quickening your mantra casting also be counterproductive to Protected Mantras?

I don’t worry about Protected Mantras too much. I consider it an option for smart play, not something I need to take advantage of 100% of the time. “Do I NEED the toughness boost and have a mantra ready to recharge? No quickness. Will I be ok without a toughness boost and can shatter? Shatter and gain quickness, recharge.”

Quickness for attacking will be on a case-by-case basis. Probably a big DPS boost for scepter 3, for example. But in many cases (heal mantra, damage mantra, specs with the AoE heal on mantra charge), the gain of the faster mantra charge is going to be awesome. If quickness is 1s per illusion shattered- you may have plenty of time left over for auto-attacking after.

I sorta agree with the OP in some ways.

Looking at the new traits in design and not just numbers domination is going to be required for PvE. Duelling is going to also be required for the mantra trait, blade training and phantasm all fury.

So then what’s left? You won’t go chaos unless you’re being a special snowflake.

Illusions looks good for illusionists celerity, phantasmal haste, compounding power but then you’re not wanting to shatter phantasms unless your cool downs are up.

Chronomancer gives you wells, danger time and chronophantasma but that’s it and you miss out on some nice phantasm damage increasing from illusions. You also must choose between quickness on shatter and phantasm resummon on shatter.

Inspiration looks ok for support, Menders purity will mean taking the mantra heal can proc the harmonious mantra trait with on charge (but you miss out on the signet heal which imo is better), you get wardens feedback and then whichever support thing you want from the GM. Illusionary inspiration would be good without an ICD, terrible with a long ICD.

Outside of mental torment I can’t see a reason to shatter and even then it’s no more than now unless you pick chronomancer for your third trait set which imo unless they make wells do A LOT of damage will be lacking.

I can see the old builds we used in there but the power has gone up a little but the main weaknesses are still there. That is damage is shifted heavily onto phantasms and they die very easily with Mesmer doing very poor damage without them.

Coupled to that is that the new pistol trait is flat out bad in PvE and is competing with phantasmal fury. The mantra buff feels more bursty and rely on spamming mantras while having a high crit chance. That’s without mentioning the number of “on shatter” traits you’re not picking because you don’t want to shatter. It’s not because those aren’t good traits (although most are very support or PvP centric), it’s that shattering is a bad idea.

If they want us to shatter then make Master of Fragmentation a non stacking damage buff after shattering (say 20%) for mesmer for 10s. However such a trait to be worth making a shatter build for PvE would be grossly OP in PvP.

Also about that mantra trait. A stacking buff means we want to spam it to keep the buff as high as possible but all mantras have high recharge time so we would end up spending most of our time casting unless we burst use mantras and charge between fights.

They said they thought it was wrong not using mantras and I agree but this is arguably just as bad. I don’t want a trait that encourages you to spam it with no care for when you’re using it.

Possible fix: Make it a sizeable NON STACKING buff on mantra use. Being ferocity I’m ok with as it promotes high risk via zerker/sins stats. With it competing with DE I don’t think it will be too much of a problem in PvP so something like the following

+15% ferocity for 8s after using a mantra. Does not stack.

It would also give a nice sustainable and reliable damage boost to interrupt mesmers as they won’t be picking up mental torment and don’t want to be spamming mantras for the boost.

P.S. Mostly talking about PvE unless specifying not to break PvP balance.

Well part of the reason that chronomancy heavily favors shatter builds is that the devs were dismayed by the amount of the playerbase that played builds that rarely or never shattered their clones and phantasms, whether it be a braindead PU condition build or a glassy phantasm build. This is also why anet is removing clonedeath traits to discourage such a lazy playstyle, while opening up things like chronophnatasma to give phantasm builds a reason to shatter.

Still though I expect the new power shatter meta will be dom/duel/chronomancy, and it will get a lot better burst, and defense through blinding shatters, but it will be even harder to play, as you’ll have to manage things like time travel and, and making sure your shatters shatter more clones to keep up with the alacrity, as it’ll be dependent on proper cooldown management.

When I pointed this out when they were first revealed I got dogpilled and harrased so be careful for pointing out the turth OP.

I think there won’t be specific shatterbuilds anymore since every build is going to use them in the future. Right now there are 2 kind of builds. Builds that use shatters and builds that do not use shatters.
With the traitchanges it seems like arenanet wants every mesmer regardless of what they are playing to use the profession mechanic. But does that destroy other build types? No!
There is place for every kind of build. Not only the traitchanges but also the traits that become baseline encourage our build diversity.
With IP becoming baseline they open up every door for us. Now one of the strongest traits is going to be baseline. The trait which made a shatterbuild a shatterbuild. With the changes there will not only be one shatterbuild but many of them.

There will be builds like “support mesmer” who shatters for condition removal and buffs.
There will be “interrupt mesmers” who will also use shatters to increase damageoutput and their interrupts.
There will be “dmg/dps mesmers” who will try to shatter with Mental Torment being triggered most of the time.

Think of it as a thief thinks of steal. I haven’t seen any thief build not using their F1 skill. Think of shatters like that. It’ll be a thing every mesmer is going to use.

Btw OP. 30% phantasm dmg is still a thing! 15% going to be baseline and 15% are still in domination. Before making such a claim pls inform.

Are mesmers complaining about being encouraged to shatter? You realize it’s one of your most important tools even if you run phantasm builds?

Me Games Ma.8426:

I think there won’t be specific shatterbuilds anymore since every build is going to use them in the future. Right now there are 2 kind of builds. Builds that use shatters and builds that do not use shatters.
With the traitchanges it seems like arenanet wants every mesmer regardless of what they are playing to use the profession mechanic. But does that destroy other build types? No!
There is place for every kind of build. Not only the traitchanges but also the traits that become baseline encourage our build diversity.
With IP becoming baseline they open up every door for us. Now one of the strongest traits is going to be baseline. The trait which made a shatterbuild a shatterbuild. With the changes there will not only be one shatterbuild but many of them.

There will be builds like “support mesmer” who shatters for condition removal and buffs.
There will be “interrupt mesmers” who will also use shatters to increase damageoutput and their interrupts.
There will be “dmg/dps mesmers” who will try to shatter with Mental Torment being triggered most of the time.

Think of it as a thief thinks of steal. I haven’t seen any thief build not using their F1 skill. Think of shatters like that. It’ll be a thing every mesmer is going to use.

Btw OP. 30% phantasm dmg is still a thing! 15% going to be baseline and 15% are still in domination. Before making such a claim pls inform.

I agree with this – it’s like calling thief builds ‘steal’ builds or elementalist builds ‘attunement’ builds.

Sure some builds will still shatter more than others, but since pretty much every build should be encouraged to use shatters for some reason (condition clear, quickness, vigour, healing, boon strip, damage, conditions, stability, utility (MoF), alacrity…) I see the term ‘shatter build’ as being an inadequate description in the future.

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

apharma.3741:

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

“the meta will change”

No seriously. From what we know atm you’ll be able to keep up alacrity if you shatter Mindwrack with 3 illusions and cry of frustration with 3 illusions always as soon as it’s off cooldown. That means that you’ll get overall 33% cooldownreduction in our beloved stackmeta. And btw. don’t your illusions die anyways? Shatter them <3

33% cooldownreduction means that you’ll get to shatter mindwrack every ~7s and cry of frustration every ~15s — with mental torment? I think that’s really cool.

apharma.3741:

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

Well it should change.

Otherwise we shouldn’t have got shatters as our class mechanic – but instead Illusion generating skills, because they would be universal – then shatters would be on weapon sets instead.

But seeing as we are stuck with shatters as the class mechanic then all game modes should be modified so that shattering illusions is a good thing in any mode – at least that’s the way I see it going for mesmer seeing as we are now going to be encouraged to shatter much more often in any build.

I don’t do pve but from what I can see perhaps chronophantasma, signet of the ether and quicknes/alacrity/vigour on shatter would be very useful.

Curunen.8729:

apharma.3741:

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

Well it should change.

I’m gonna downgrade this to could change.

The meta could change. It might not, but it could. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

apharma.3741:

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

Well it should change.

I’m gonna downgrade this to could change.

The meta could change. It might not, but it could. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I should clarify – when I said “should”, I meant “ought to”, as in it is the right thing to happen given that we have shatters as our class mechanic instead of illusion generating skills.

Thing is, I bet the idea is to induce shatter. Considering it’s our classbar, it’s inherently badly designed that some specs don’t want to utilize it. So the point is to promote shatter independent of spec.

But, there’s a problem in that I feel it’d be smarter to just move clone/phantasm onto the bar, and shatter off it. That way we’d have a context-free class bar.

Funny thing.

I’ve had a bit of a play around with frifoxy’s damage calculator, the light one, and factoring phantasmal strength being made baseline, picking up phantasmal haste, compounding power and all it puts a 2 swordsman, 1 duelist build at about 13k dps.

If you factor it down to only 2 phantasms staying up we still do in the 10k range for dps. That’s also not factoring in wastrels being changed to fragility for an extra 5% and assuming we get 3 stacks of the harmonious mantra buff by spamming mantra of pain. Which is about what we currently get with empowering mantras while sitting on 3 and not using them.

You also get swordsman on a 12s cool down with duelist on a 16s cool down due to illusionists celerity. So…why do you want me to shatter again?

Also I will now say that while I don’t like the stacking nature of the new harmonious mantra trait it will make it a net gain for most PvE builds and give back some utility if you only want 3 stacks. So yes, I was wrong in saying it was worse.

By the way alacrity as described by the Dev in the PoI show was for every 3s of alacrity you increase the recharge by 1s. So you’re not getting a 7s cool down on mind wrack, it’s more like 8.5s and shattering cry of frustration outside of MtD condition build would probably be a large DPS loss even with chronophantasma.

Picking up chronomancy means not getting compounding power, illusionists celerity and phantasmal haste which is about 1.5k dps loss. The question then becomes is the ability to shatter and get the phantasms back going to equal that? I don’t think so if the respawn on the enemy and given mental torment will likely not be as good as it is currently shown.

ArenaNet has stated that they are aware that it doesn’t make sense for Mesmer to be incentivized to not use their class mechanic (shatter).

What they do about it … we’ll have to wait and see. I think the one Phantasm trait in Chronomancy is really the only thing that even remotely comes close to a Phantasm build (which is current PvE meta) even wanting to use shatters … and I’m concerned about it since they are trying to make sure it isn’t “too powerful” which, depending on how they go about it, could make it “useless” for Phantasm builds again.

That being said, perhaps with the new changes Mesmer will continue to be desired for its utility in groups. Providing larges amounts of Quickness and Alacrity could be quite wonderful. If it’s “good enough”, it could compete with the current Phantasm meta for PvE. What “good enough” is though is beyond me to define at this point; too many things in flux (particularly the final numbers for related traits).

Windwalker.7421:

and you spam Mind Spikes until you re-charge MoP again to start all over.

Having to spam is just as unskillful as sitting on the charges and passive play. There is no strategy or skillful play in that and you become just a 1,1,1,1,1,1 player then.

apharma.3741:

Also about that mantra trait. A stacking buff means we want to spam it to keep the buff as high as possible but all mantras have high recharge time so we would end up spending most of our time casting unless we burst use mantras and charge between fights.

They said they thought it was wrong not using mantras and I agree but this is arguably just as bad. I don’t want a trait that encourages you to spam it with no care for when you’re using it.

Possible fix: Make it a sizeable NON STACKING buff on mantra use. Being ferocity I’m ok with as it promotes high risk via zerker/sins stats. With it competing with DE I don’t think it will be too much of a problem in PvP so something like the following

+15% ferocity for 8s after using a mantra. Does not stack.

It would also give a nice sustainable and reliable damage boost to interrupt mesmers as they won’t be picking up mental torment and don’t want to be spamming mantras for the boost.

P.S. Mostly talking about PvE unless specifying not to break PvP balance.

I completely agree with this! And I think this would also apply to WvW as well. I can’t speak for PvP, but would think it would too.

I think they need to do more to mantras than what’s being shown so far.

I’m against just about anything that caters to “spamming” as I think “spamming” and “intelligent decision-making” are counter.

The other thing I’m displeased about with the mantra spam for damage trait they’ve given us is just how ridiculously difficult they always make it for mesmers to do any damage.

In order to obtain a 20% ferocity bonus (which is not even flat damage, but requires us to crit), mesmes has to absolutely nonstop spam multiple mantras. It applies an 8s buff that we need 5 stacks of to reach that 20%, which means we need to spam 5 mantras every 8 seconds. This has obvious implications to doing anything other than spamming mantras nonstop.

In order to reach a permanent 20% (flat damage, no messing with ferocity) damage bonus, warriors have to press F1 every 10 seconds.

Aye, Pyro … and it isn’t like Warriors need more motivation to use their Burst Skills. They are darn good abilities.

• Mantras are not nearly as good (I’m fine with this … Burst Skills are their class mechanic after all).
• Mantras have longer cooldowns (except Pain)
• Mantras have to be [re-]charged before you can use them
• Mantras take up a heal/utility slot

So the Mantras are weaker, can be used left often, are harder to use, and take up a 6-9 slot … but the trait is made weaker … more work for less reward … meh.

What’s sad is that I think most of us would be happy with “more work for the same reward” … it’s been the Mesmer way of life since launch.

Levetty.1279:

When I pointed this out when they were first revealed I got dogpilled and harrased so be careful for pointing out the turth OP.

this post so edgy i cut myself on it

Read some of this. Ip is nice. But it doesn’t make shatter Mesmer. Having clones does. The uproar over pve has caused de not to be baseline. The shifting of damage from phantasms to the Mesmer would have helped and allowed us to maybe get de baseline. We are now stuck taking dueling to make illusions to use our class mechanic.

I’m not following your logic, denis. It seems largely incomplete to me.

That being said, I would have liked if we had more of our damage shifted to us and away from the optimal scenario where we have 3 phantasms up … but hey, numbers are still being tweaked … we’ll see what happens.

Overall I want to not have to continue to “work harder for the same result”. Tired of that.

The Mesmer is in a tough position. Pve side we do not want de baseline to over ride phantasms. Hence shifting the damage to Mesmer. On ip it is a good skill for shatter Mesmer. But what good is it with no ammo. We are forced into dueling yet again. I just want de baseline so we can choose any trait line and use our class mechanic. What I meant.

In my opinion shatter is a part of the Mesmer and with the new Baselines you can traid finally for combinations. I think of a combination of mantras and shatter. So that you can get about 70…80% more dmg with good timing. Beforer shatter was onely good with illusionarz persona and the need to traid in the illusion line.

The huge buff for shatter is true. i hope that the other skills can compare with that.
We will see.

DE baseline would be far less of a problem if it simply didn’t summon a clone if you had 3 phantasms out. Heck, I could see cases where some didn’t want it summoning a clone if you already had 3 of any kind of illusion out.

I think with Chronomancer’s Phantasm shatter trait, Alacrity, and the Phantasm Shatter trait in Illusions (though it likely needs a buff), we might have something we can work with even if Deceptive Evasions stays the way it currently is.

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

Quadox.7834:

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

As usual, you’re confusing skill floor and skill ceiling. Since you’re obviously unaware of the difference between those two terms, allow me to explain them for you in a simple way.

A skill floor is the minimum amount of skill it takes to do something. You can be more skillful than the skill floor of an activity and do it better, but the skill floor defines the lowest amount of skill you can have and still actually do that activity.

A skill ceiling is the highest amount of skill that an activity will benefit from. Having more skill than the skill ceiling will produce no further gains for that activity.

A phantasm build has a lower skill floor than a shatter build. This means that it takes more skill to make a shatter build work at all than it does to make a phantasm build work. However, both builds have an effectively unobtainable skill ceiling. This means that no matter how good you are, it’s still possible to improve and play that build better.

In the future, when you’re trying to insult people and builds by calling them ‘no-skill’ and ‘low-skill’ builds or players, please remember your vocabulary and apply a little bit of brainpower before speaking.

A) Yes, ANet wants us to use Shatters more, even in Phantasm builds.

B) It has nothing to do with “skill”.

The updated traits encourage shattering because it’s less passive, plain and simple. A traditional Phantasm build can never use clone-generating skills, and there’s no point in using Phantasm skills once it has three out. So you’re basically removing half the weapon skills from your bar once you’ve ramped up.

So, ANet’s goal is clearly to make shattering something all Mesmers do — including Phantasm Mesmers — to reduce the amount of passivity behind some of our optimal builds.

You know, every time I read this thread title I just want to respond with the renaming of it

“New skill trees heavily favor shatter”

to

“New skill trees actually incorporate class mechanic”

Doesn’t it just seem so darn sensible?

It depends on how chronomancy and wells play out. It could provide enough of a buff to mesmers in PvE that you can shatter phantasms and it won’t be a loss not picking up PH, compounding power and Illusionists Celerity.

The difference between warriors not using their class mechanic was that they had a trait that rewarded them for not using it, berserkers power. Now it’s changed to a buff on burst use which is good.

However mesmers don’t want to shatter in phantasm builds because they make up large portions of our damage which we lose if we shatter. Again chronophantasm addresses this slightly. We still don’t know if phantasms are summoned where they shatter, if so it makes them easy kills.

Also alacrity is in no way as good as any other trait if you want to keep phantasms up. It just doesn’t compare to illusionists celerity at all and it is nowhere near as strong as everyone is saying without prolonged stacking. I just don’t get why everyone is making a big deal of alacrity, it will generally make very little difference in most cases than picking up a different cool down reducing trait.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You know, every time I read this thread title I just want to respond with the renaming of it

“New skill trees heavily favor shatter”

to

“New skill trees actually incorporate class mechanic”

Doesn’t it just seem so darn sensible?

And the trait for shatters summon your phantasmal is just ridiculous. Swordsman phantasm duelist shatter and the duelist and swordsman hit again…. that some pretty heavy phantasm build damage.

Hmmm

I just had a thought, would “reset your phantasm cool downs on kill” be too OP? Grandmaster trait? Possibly illusions? Duelling or domination?

apharma.3741:

Hmmm

I just had a thought, would “reset your phantasm cool downs on kill” be too OP? Grandmaster trait? Possibly illusions? Duelling or domination?

I doubt it, the only game mode where you can kill people fast enough to make this really matter is zerg vs zerg and there phantasms are useless. In the event you are in pvp a kill means your 90% likely to win that fight because you now +1 the enemies for 20s

I don’t think so. I could see that being useful in dungeons and any fight where you have more than one opponent.

That being said, I don’t think we need it. As I said before, we’ll need to see how the combination of Alacrity and Persistence of Memory (Illusions trait) work together when we see the final numbers and get to actually playtest it.

Incorporating phantasms and shatters is all about not interrupting the sustained damage of the phantasms just living. Given that Phantasms attack when resummoned, it is about figuring out how to benefit from this via shattering and resummoning instead of them simply attacking every X second(s).

Fay.2357:

Quadox.7834:

They just want you to play builds that require more skill than phant builds do. Which is a good thing.

As usual, you’re confusing skill floor and skill ceiling. Since you’re obviously unaware of the difference between those two terms, allow me to explain them for you in a simple way.

A skill floor is the minimum amount of skill it takes to do something. You can be more skillful than the skill floor of an activity and do it better, but the skill floor defines the lowest amount of skill you can have and still actually do that activity.

A skill ceiling is the highest amount of skill that an activity will benefit from. Having more skill than the skill ceiling will produce no further gains for that activity.

A phantasm build has a lower skill floor than a shatter build. This means that it takes more skill to make a shatter build work at all than it does to make a phantasm build work. However, both builds have an effectively unobtainable skill ceiling. This means that no matter how good you are, it’s still possible to improve and play that build better.

In the future, when you’re trying to insult people and builds by calling them ‘no-skill’ and ‘low-skill’ builds or players, please remember your vocabulary and apply a little bit of brainpower before speaking.

Wowowow. That made no sense. You agree that shatter has a higher skill floor, but you don’t agree that shatter requires more skill? It REQUIRES more skill, ie it needs more skill to work, ie higher skill floor. I am fully aware of the definitions of skill floor and cap, and i know you are too.

With “they want you to” i actually meant “you” as in people in general rather than a specific person. For example “You should never put a fork in a microwave”. If that wasn’t clear in my sentence i am sorry for that. By the way, if i am ever “agressive” or anything similar towards you it is because you always seem so quick to yell people from the posts i’ve seen by you.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You know, every time I read this thread title I just want to respond with the renaming of it

“New skill trees heavily favor shatter”

to

“New skill trees actually incorporate class mechanic”

Doesn’t it just seem so darn sensible?

It does, and it is awesome!

What’s amusing to me is that when the game was still in beta we had these discussions about whether or not a phantasm build should ever shatter. We’ve sort of come full circle.