Guild Wars 2

I have played with a phantasm build in PvP for a while as an alternative to shatter build with great success specially against shatter builds. However this seems to no longer be viable as the might stacking with the new patch has made any other build that is not shatter underwhelming. I can still hold my own against shatter builds but Phantasm builds have no advantage over a shatter build anymore.

The way I see it. There should be an effective strategy for each build. For shatter it should be area damage and condition. For Phantasm it should be one on one fighting. That is gone as if enough people weren’t playing enough with shatter builds now everyone will. As there is no advantage in playing without it for most situations.

For me its not about getting nerfs or buffs. Its about making different builds viable for different situations and not having a supreme build. I really don’t get what the point of that buff was.

Anyway Arena Net there was good buffs to make other builds viable like mantras. But what is the point if you are basically saying you should only play shatter. So fix this ASAP!

Mesmers are NOT a pet class… The core of the class centers around shatters… Maybe you should play a ranger, necro, or engineer?

I am not attempting to be a jerk here. Seriously though the F1-F4 skills are your primary abilities of your class, it is the core of the class’s mechanics. All builds should be some kind of shatter build, there are many different shatter builds. It seems silly that you are trying to use the class’s primary skills as passive/secondary skills, that is not how the Mesmer class should work, at least not effectively :/

So to me it makes perfect sense this buff… it is encouraging players to play the class’s core skills.

sinican, that statement is as stupid as saying guardians center around virtues.
Certainly, it’s part of the class and you can focus your traits more towards it, but you don’t HAVE to focus your build around it.
Even a mesmer focusing towards phantasms would occasionaly use shatters (invuln, some final burst etc.) or at least that’s how it was supposed to be until Anet started nerfing phantasms more and more.

sinican.9250:

Mesmers are NOT a pet class… The core of the class centers around shatters… Maybe you should play a ranger, necro, or engineer?

I am not attempting to be a jerk here. Seriously though the F1-F4 skills are your primary abilities of your class, it is the core of the class’s mechanics. All builds should be some kind of shatter build, there are many different shatter builds. It seems silly that you are trying to use the class’s primary skills as passive/secondary skills, that is not how the Mesmer class should work, at least not effectively :/

So to me it makes perfect sense this buff… it is encouraging players to play the class’s core skills.

Sorry but this is stupid, one of the biggest things ArenaNet use before the game came out to try and get people to come was.

Each class have tons of different ways to play them. SO much so that one class with 2 players playing with different builds would seem almost like different class’s.

It was made so any class can play any role, now ArenaNet is making the mez into a almost pure dps class, that cant do much of anything else.

2 wardens/1 defender out you could shut down tons of boss’s and own any mob dgn are not.

Now this patch they nerf tank traits and so now you cant do it.

Ps shatter is like the steal on theif, some builds focus on it and some have it in it.

However it not what the class should be 100% about.

Same with all the other class f1-4 skills.

I wanna say that I can still make a phantasm build very effective even against other shatter mesmers. However I can’t say I have played good shatter mesmer. However I still believe the buff was way too much. Shatter builds are still very effective at killing mobs of players in tight areas and not having to be in danger.

sinican.9250:

Mesmers are NOT a pet class… The core of the class centers around shatters… Maybe you should play a ranger, necro, or engineer?

I am not attempting to be a jerk here. Seriously though the F1-F4 skills are your primary abilities of your class, it is the core of the class’s mechanics. All builds should be some kind of shatter build, there are many different shatter builds. It seems silly that you are trying to use the class’s primary skills as passive/secondary skills, that is not how the Mesmer class should work, at least not effectively :/

So to me it makes perfect sense this buff… it is encouraging players to play the class’s core skills.

I don’t think you understand that every other class has pets except the Warrior. So I don’t get your point.
But anyways there are many different builds in this game for every class. That means that every class can be a tank, support, or damage class. There is no wrong way to play it. If shattered strength needed a buff maybe a small buff would have been ok to test it out. But what Anet has done is just give buffs to everyone regardless of balance issues.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

sinican.9250:

Mesmers are NOT a pet class… The core of the class centers around shatters… Maybe you should play a ranger, necro, or engineer?

I am not attempting to be a jerk here. Seriously though the F1-F4 skills are your primary abilities of your class, it is the core of the class’s mechanics. All builds should be some kind of shatter build, there are many different shatter builds. It seems silly that you are trying to use the class’s primary skills as passive/secondary skills, that is not how the Mesmer class should work, at least not effectively :/

So to me it makes perfect sense this buff… it is encouraging players to play the class’s core skills.

I don’t think you understand that every other class has pets except the Warrior. So I don’t get your point.
But anyways there are many different builds in this game for every class. That means that every class can be a tank, support, or damage class. There is no wrong way to play it. If shattered strength needed a buff maybe a small buff would have been ok to test it out. But what Anet has done is just give buffs to everyone regardless of balance issues.

2 of our elite skills are 60 second summons, 1 is a 40 second, and there is another if I am not mistaken (depending on race), these are actual pets because they are duration/health based. Illusions are NOT pets, use the mechanic that the class is built around… builds can still be diverse but for kitten sakes the class’s PRIMARY SKILLS are SHATTERS. Is it really that hard to understand? You can’t roll a warrior like a ranger the same as you can expect a Mesmer to function like some other class that has actual pets for example.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

…
For me its not about getting nerfs or buffs. Its about making different builds viable for different situations and not having a supreme build. I really don’t get what the point of that buff was.
…

I played GW1 for a few years and starting to see similar patterns in GW2 from ANet. from what I recall, most of the organised PvP was an endless chase for the next FOTW build for every class, everyone switches to it and plays only that because it’s the most effective, then everything that makes that build effective gets nerfed, while the things that struggle with that build (usually other classes) gets some kind of buff. This process repeated many many times in GW1.

I assume they decided to make it easier on themselves this time by avoiding the struggle of trying to balance mixed classes, which is a nightmare to balance.

Osirt.1326:

sinican, that statement is as stupid as saying guardians center around virtues.
Certainly, it’s part of the class and you can focus your traits more towards it, but you don’t HAVE to focus your build around it.
Even a mesmer focusing towards phantasms would occasionaly use shatters (invuln, some final burst etc.) or at least that’s how it was supposed to be until Anet started nerfing phantasms more and more.

^This exactly.
I must be doing it wrong on my guardian, I have not 30 points into virtues and not all the traits upgrading them.
Same on my engineer, I don’t have 30 points in tools, I guess I’m not playing these classes properly.
Oh and btw, still wondering why we have traits making our phantasm get more hp if we’re supposed to always shatter them after their first attack. Wondering why we also have a trait lowering the cd between their attacks. Really strange indeed.

Sabyne.6329:

Osirt.1326:

sinican, that statement is as stupid as saying guardians center around virtues.
Certainly, it’s part of the class and you can focus your traits more towards it, but you don’t HAVE to focus your build around it.
Even a mesmer focusing towards phantasms would occasionaly use shatters (invuln, some final burst etc.) or at least that’s how it was supposed to be until Anet started nerfing phantasms more and more.

^This exactly.
I must be doing it wrong on my guardian, I have not 30 points into virtues and not all the traits upgrading them.
Same on my engineer, I don’t have 30 points in tools, I guess I’m not playing these classes properly.
Oh and btw, still wondering why we have traits making our phantasm get more hp if we’re supposed to always shatter them after their first attack. Wondering why we also have a trait lowering the cd between their attacks. Really strange indeed.

I said nothing about having to trait specifically to purely benefit from only shattering. What I said is that the class’s core mechanic is shatters, which a lot of you keep forgetting. As far as traits (secondary/alternative mechanics) that improve the illusions damage/attack speed/health, depending on how you spec’d otherwise, there isn’t always a shatter available because they are on cool down. Those traits make your illusion heartier, that doesn’t mean they are pets (they are “illusions”).

So you think having to go 25 into illusions to be competitive for a mesmer focusing on dps is normal? If you want to run a phantasm build, you can’t necessarily go 25 into illusions. That’s what the op is about. Not even talking about considering illusions as pet or not, it’s hardly the point here, the point is that this minor trait seems almost mandatory for dps as the 5 pt in illusion one, but this one is 25 points, not 5. So you have a trait that’s almost only benefiting shatter spec and make other dps spec seems lackluster. Where is the build diversity in that?
Having a phantasm build doesn’t mean no use of shatters, just a different one but with this change, this dps spec is not competitive anymore.
I don’t ask for a nerf to this trait btw, I ask for a buff to the phantasm spec. Heck, even for a defense spec, phantasm aren’t really worth it anymore with the nerf to illusionary membrane.
How is this balanced?
You now have traits built around having better phantasm but they are not worth taking anymore be it for defense or offense, shatter-spec do it better anyway.

The day they will fix Signet of Illusion is the day Phantasm build will be more viable. Even with Persisting Image, Phantasms are getting one shotted.

After the patch, I was telling to myself to go back to phantasm build. Tried 30-30-0-0-10 and 20-20-0-25-5. First one is more reliable, since it’s your damage + the phantasm damage, but very glass canon. Second one is more phantasm focused, gives you more HP and Heal.

I’m waiting for Signet of Illusion. Right now, shattercat with 25 Might and 25 Vulnerability is just insane to play Phantasm.

For some reason i just hate shatters, never used them and I do quite well on PvE, i’m using a pretty weird build though phantasm/bleeds -centric

Shatters should have been utilities instead of signets…

I dislike shatters. I used to use pretty much just phantasms and it worked fine (pve/wvw) but, even before this patch, I haven’t really used anything other than shatter spams which is a shame. I would like it if phantasms weren’t tied to shatters or if shatters destroyed clones the first time and then phantasms if no clones were availible. That would mean shatter builds using phantasms less though as it would stop them doing 3x shatter if they have a phantasm out).

Shatters and phantasms just go against each other now.

sinican.9250:

Alex Behemoth.4952:

sinican.9250:

Mesmers are NOT a pet class… The core of the class centers around shatters… Maybe you should play a ranger, necro, or engineer?

I am not attempting to be a jerk here. Seriously though the F1-F4 skills are your primary abilities of your class, it is the core of the class’s mechanics. All builds should be some kind of shatter build, there are many different shatter builds. It seems silly that you are trying to use the class’s primary skills as passive/secondary skills, that is not how the Mesmer class should work, at least not effectively :/

So to me it makes perfect sense this buff… it is encouraging players to play the class’s core skills.

I don’t think you understand that every other class has pets except the Warrior. So I don’t get your point.
But anyways there are many different builds in this game for every class. That means that every class can be a tank, support, or damage class. There is no wrong way to play it. If shattered strength needed a buff maybe a small buff would have been ok to test it out. But what Anet has done is just give buffs to everyone regardless of balance issues.

2 of our elite skills are 60 second summons, 1 is a 40 second, and there is another if I am not mistaken (depending on race), these are actual pets because they are duration/health based. Illusions are NOT pets, use the mechanic that the class is built around… builds can still be diverse but for kitten sakes the class’s PRIMARY SKILLS are SHATTERS. Is it really that hard to understand? You can’t roll a warrior like a ranger the same as you can expect a Mesmer to function like some other class that has actual pets for example.

You really don’t seem to understand this game, actually. This game is all about playing the way you want, not some way that is actually the best. We were encouraged to create our own way of playing and using our character mechanics. So for Example, playing on conditions, using your illusionary warlock is really great. It deals easily up to 2500-3000 damage with many conditions on the component. This is especially good for dungeons.

There is no “Main-Mechanic” for the mesmer. Every character class has more than one core mechanic. Symbols, Shouts, Ghost-Weapons, Clones, Phantasms, Minions, etc.

With the use of weapon-, slotskills and traits, you can specify your way of playing and maybe your way concentrates on of those core mechanics. But maybe, its a mixture.

I guess, you are a gw1 player – this way of thinking is very common for some gw1, players, because due to the thousands of skills you could get with your character, only a few made real sense. And because of that, groups of players forced each other to use certrain skill-combinations – forced them not to play there own style.

those times are over. I also tried a scatter-build – 24 stacks of might are no problem at all, even without creating clones on dodging. I am not sure, wether I think this will lead to unify the mesmers playstyle of everyone. But, Id like to remember this one trait, that said “reduces the cooldown of your phantasms skills.”

Now, phantasms need about 5 seconds, until they attack again. With this one trait, the phantasms attacked every two seconds. I honestly think, that we need this trait back, especially for lowlevel.

SemmlerTh.2685:

Now, phantasms need about 5 seconds, until they attack again. With this one trait, the phantasms attacked every two seconds.

This is something many of us made mention of during beta, how we felt that the damage of the phantasms would be better served being lower and having them attack more often instead. Getting the same overall result but having more frequent processes of their utility effects, such as crippling, vulnerability, confusion, retaliation, projectile deflection, and cleansing. 2 to 3 seconds was far too short, 5 to 6 seconds felt a little too long, 3.5 to 4 seconds feels about right, so instead of a 20% reduction to the phantasm attack speeds something like 30 to 40% probably would be perfect. They don’t read this stuff though, and don’t like tipping the boat much. . . maybe this is where they are headed though by continually nerfing phantasms, so they can buff something like Haste. I would be alright with that, just wish they’d let us have some idea where they are going with it all.