Guild Wars 2

Note: I originally posted this in another thread (which ended up being about what a pet is for what ever reason), so this post might not make entirely sense without this fore-note.

Mesmers can be a pet class, although they don’t play as one by default. Think about all the phantasm traits (and utilities) designed around keep them alive – the health ones, the recharges ones, and arguably the damage increasing ones (it at leasts makes you want to keep them alive).

The only issue I see with this in particular is the disparity in different fights – it causes a problem of balance. If for example you go as a phantasm build (which are quite popular)-

Fight A you are against a walking wastelands of a boss, spewing aoe and cleaves – this type of boss is fairly common. How long do you think your phantasms are going to last? With only being able to get one attack off per phantasm, and with 60-80% of your damage coming from phantasms, you would expect phantasm damage to be balanced around only getting one attack off per phantasm cooldown – so you would expect quite high damage from one attack.

Fight B you are against a boss that can be controlled and does little or moderate aoe damage/cleave – this type of boss is fairly common. How long do you think your phantasms are going to last? I would say that it is fairly easy to get three phantasms up and replace them on cooldowns for extra attacks (replaced phantasms attack immediately). I can expect each cooldown to get off many attacks and I would expect phantasm damage to be balanced around this – so I would expect medium-low damage from one attack.

Do you see the problem?

A way of simplifying the problem is to describe the problem as an uptime problem. In fight A the uptime of the phantasms is very low. In fight B the uptime of the phantasms is very high.

One way to solve this is make the uptimes more reliably equal. You could for example make phantasms resistant to aoe so that uptime is likely to be high, and then balance around this. Since we do have traits that seem to suggest that phantasms are meant to be around for a little while it seems this might be a good idea. Perhaps make it a trait so only certain builds can get it, specialising them for high uptime, like the phantasm build.

Another way to solve it is to make the cooldown much lower – again, maybe trait it (more than it does currently, but deeper in). With a low cooldown you can make it so that you can get phantasms up as much as they would be able to attack anyway, meaning you can once again balance around a high uptime. You are limited by only 3 phantasms so being able to get them out any faster doesn’t increase damage by much in longer fights, but still allows a more consistent form of damage. Would also help with burst for phantasm builds in solo pve.

We should also look at pvp. At first this seems much harder because of the sheer range of different “personalities” of your opponents. Some might kill your phantasms the moment they even glimpse those transparent glowing figures. Others may make a beeline for you and go for broke. In actual fact in really just comes down to uptime again and the sheer range difference that make it harder to balance.

The real difficult with the pvp is that you almost have to assume low uptime, because our opponents are intelligent enough to kill anything that is a threat very quickly if they can (and they can kill phantasms just by blinking, so that’s a certainty).
That said, most of the time they do this by offchance or large aoe, relying on the stupidity and low health of our phantasms to make it impossible to keep phantasms alive for anything more than one attack. So perhaps the same aoe resistance as stated in the above paragraphs would help here too. Also, the fast cooldown phantasms would solve the problem again by allowing for a high uptime even though you assume only one attack per cooldown.

So in fact, both of those solutions would, as I see it, work to make balancing phantasm damage. This can then mean we are not underpowered or overpowered in different situations, which is the real issue.

Note, that I am entirely happy to have phantasm only get one attack off or many, to either play it more like a disposable attack or more like a pet – as long as it is balanced. The traits could allow such choice and thus I see it as a good platform for choosing low or high uptime phantasms.

While I agree with your analysis insofar that the question is one of uptime, I believe you’re ignoring a crucial part of the equation, by which I mean shatters. The fact that your build focuses on phantasms does not remove the shatter skills from your bar, and I think it’s fair to expect that in your low-uptime scenario, any good Mesmer is going to be shattering his phantasms rather than letting them die. So while he may not get perfect results on his shatters, his phantasms aren’t a total loss.

I’ll gladly concede that there are issues with post-shatter, pre-arrival illusion death, and I feel that’s an area that could use looking at. However, the fact that a smart player can turn sustained phantasm damage into regular burst damage (and utility, as appropriate) has to be considered in determining effective dps of phantasms in a long engagement. The comparison should be one between phantasm damage in a high uptime environment (plus final shatter) and phantasm damage and regular shatter damage (with clones, as necessary) in a low uptime environment. I suspect these numbers are closer than you might think, even assuming one-sided traits.

Xhieron.2168:

While I agree with your analysis insofar that the question is one of uptime, I believe you’re ignoring a crucial part of the equation, by which I mean shatters. The fact that your build focuses on phantasms does not remove the shatter skills from your bar, and I think it’s fair to expect that in your low-uptime scenario, any good Mesmer is going to be shattering his phantasms rather than letting them die. So while he may not get perfect results on his shatters, his phantasms aren’t a total loss.

I’ll gladly concede that there are issues with post-shatter, pre-arrival illusion death, and I feel that’s an area that could use looking at. However, the fact that a smart player can turn sustained phantasm damage into regular burst damage (and utility, as appropriate) has to be considered in determining effective dps of phantasms in a long engagement. The comparison should be one between phantasm damage in a high uptime environment (plus final shatter) and phantasm damage and regular shatter damage (with clones, as necessary) in a low uptime environment. I suspect these numbers are closer than you might think, even assuming one-sided traits.

This is the most appropraite answer i’ve seen. I’m currently uploading a short video of sustained Phantasm damage, which I believe to be stronger than all other DPS on the condition that they remain up (Posting it later, and it’s from before I got 6x rune of the scholar). The post above is an excellent explenation on how to handle encounters that don’t allow for that.

Also a few tips for keeping phantasms up during fights.
-Place them all in different spots, duelists expecially, if you still have problems there is a perk in the Duelist branch for longer range (although, I don’t recommend building that way)
-You have a signet for more illusion health (50%) Also a perk that I do recommend.
-Berserker (AoE) There have been complaints about him not being sustainable damage in AoE fights due to vanishing after his target is dead, simple, perfect tab targeting and place him on a unit with more health who is not being focus’d
-Warlock, place him as far away from the fight as possible BEHIND the target, if he’s infront i’ve found he get’s the enemies attention faster (This in theory is also true for duelists.)
-Warden, +other melee’s. Placing feedback over these units does wonders for your damage. Also, time warden with a stun or slow to maximise his damage, chaos storming before will also reduce the chance he is killed.

Vyl, I think that is why the build is quite popular indeed. Nice to see some tips for other players too!

Xhieron, you’re right, I’ve forgotten to examine how shatter may affect the issue. My initial feelings are however that in the heavy aoe style fights (both pve and pvp) that result in the low uptime it will be quite difficult to get shatters off anyway (it is a common problem that people report). Also, building up 3 illusions for a good shatter will similarly be difficult in such high aoe conditions, although mirror image and shatter straight away might work.

Another issue is that in a phantasm build shatters are usually quite weak. Coupled with the long cooldown I don’t see it bridging the gap all that much between low uptime phantasm damage and high uptime phantasm damage.

So there is the question of how likely the shatter is actually to go off and the question of how much of a difference it would actually make if it did.

A lower cooldown on the shatters would definitely help, and possibly some extra damage. As would some form of protection for the shattering illusions (again the aoe resistance comes to mind). Otherwise, it might indeed help bridge the gap, especially since high uptime phantasm fights would still suffer from using shatters.