Guild Wars 2

So on the Chronomancer live stream they talked about a grandmaster trait which enabled newly created Phantasms to resummon themselves (once) after a shatter.

They then said that these new Phantasms would then all attack at the same time (as they were resummoned at the same time), and that this would be horribly OP etc..

But this is not OP at all, a syncronized attack means it becomes much easier to counterplay it, just dodge/block/reflect for a second and the attacks of 3 Phantasms will be neutralized, this would be much harder if the Phantasms took turn and attacked one after another.

What are your thoughts?

Erm. Nah I think 2xI duelists and a zerker instantly unloading at once after already having unloaded in addition to a shatter (like the daze shatter) lining up like 14k bursts on top of a shatter and previous phantasm attacks is just too much. If you’re honest with yourself this isn’t even a question….

OP is correct. It would be more op to have them use their attacks one by one in a row

it would be easier if you didn’t waste your block/dodge on the shattering of 3 phantasms… if you did, say goodbye to this cruel world…

I had the exact same thought as the OP when I heard that. 3 duelists unloading at once would be super easy to dodge. Not to mention that if you have managed to get 3 duelists out in a fight, you are either winning already or have blown Signet of Ether. I honestly don’t think that I have ever lost a 1v1 or 1v2 where I had managed to have 2 duelists and a zerker out at once.

If your opponent has wasted all his dodges and invulns then its pretty much a guaranteed kill, but I still think that in this situation the trait is just expediting the inevitable since if he has no invulns and dodges left and the mesmer has 3 phantasms out he is dead. We also can’t forget that there is other counter play like aoeing yourself when you see the incoming shatter thus destroying the phantasms before they shatter and preventing them from respawning at all. There is also no information available as of yet on whether going into stealth to avoid a shatter and causing the phantasms to destruct with no target will trigger the trait.

Getting 3 phantasms out quickly without one of them dying is a one-trick pony worthy of punishment. If you allow a Mesmer to do this without such punishment, then you deserve to get rekt.

I think the main strength of this would be to use it right after your current phantasms attacked. That way, you get 3 heavy hitters in a row, which means your opponent would need to have something besides the base two dodges to avoid the damage. 3 phantasms would obviously be ideal, but I think just the 2 you get from your two weapon sets would hit pretty hard. Still feels kinda one-trick ponyish, though.

But a basic combo would be something like this: GS4 => GS2 => GS3 => swap to S/P => Pistol4 => S3 + swap after opponent dodges => Blurred Frenzy => Shatter => iBezerker and iDuelist auto-resummoned and attack again.

So in terms of hard-hitting skills, your opponent would need to avoid the first zerker, the mirror blade, the duelist, the i-leap + bf combo, the 3-clone shatter, and then the phantasm resummons.

This is a combo you could pull off at any point in the fight, really, without needing to set up 3 phantasms to begin with. It’s got the same weaknesses that phantasms usually have though, like susceptibility to kiting/LOS. Also, if your opponent pops a block/invuln on the shatter, the invuln will probably last through Round 2 of the phantasm attacks.

I’m pretty sure the implication was that phantasms would use their attack immediately after being resummoned from a shatter. So if you manage a 3 phantasm shatter, then each of those phantasms would use their attacks together right after a big spike of damage, which keeps that burst train rolling.

Squishy thieves generate this effect for themselves now thanks to stealth and the limitations of AI. They come out of stealth with three phantasms up who all begin their attack once the target it revealed. Want to know what a half decent thief does? Dodges.

I think the only argument I can think of for it not being OP would be killing the phants before they shatter. But even then you could just F4 instead and have them pop back up.

As for deserving to die when 3 phants are up, its true in a long fight but I can imagine using signet of the ether opening for a phant build with

iDuelist > Signet > iDuelist > swap to GS > iZerk > F4 > watch all 3 unload again

chances are the first 2nd or 3rd phant will make them use dodges to avoid the initial burst so ur respawn will likely hit someone who isn’t planning to have those 3 phants come back and blast them.

on the other hand, this is a longish CD (F4) for the guaranteed combo, but if you use any stun and to setup a mind wrack instead the potential is pretty insane even with 1/2 phants and our other traits.

3 phants attacking at the same time means one cooldown/evade will negate all 3 attacks …
… as opposed to staggered attacks making it a constant stream of potentially high-damage attacks.