Guild Wars 2

PMage is already very sub par and I a very dedicated torch mesmer this is gonna be a really poinltess ability by the sounds of it.

Which I mus admit is giving me some concerns, hopefully we will see some changes to compensate for this.

Don’t count on it, anet don’t usually provide much in compensation for nerfs. scepter and torch will be almost useless now.

I am really hopeful as well I love the torch But yeah not counting on it.. I doubt they looked at all our weapons when they decided to change it.. Oh this one is retaliation and confusion and nothing else.. both those are getting there damage halved oh well

The mage was worthless before, its still worthless now. Overall, not much of a change if you ask me.

Well maybe this will be more reason for them to look at our torch skils

iMage is nothing more than a clone on a long cool down. Actually I’d rather get fury from my staff clone. Which is too bad because I really like The Prestige torch skill.

Raiz.2478:

iMage is nothing more than a clone on a long cool down. Actually I’d rather get fury from my staff clone. Which is too bad because I really like The Prestige torch skill.

Pass.

I’d rather have the iMage with confusion and retaliation. With the right build, and usage, he’s going to get more damage out than an alternative phantasm with the same sort of build.

He could do with a shorter CD though, and higher attack rate would just be nice.

Everyone loves The Prestige. Most hate iMage. It’s been like this since “The Time Before”. It has only gotten worse. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to address it … but we also don’t have several other things from “The Time Before” addressed either.

Sebrent.3625:

Everyone loves The Prestige. Most hate iMage. It’s been like this since “The Time Before”. It has only gotten worse. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to address it … but we also don’t have several other things from “The Time Before” addressed either.

yeah i agree with this, tbh the prestige is another lock breaker and this is crucial when fighting large numbers of opponents

Exactly, RedCobra.

I think Torch and Focus (preferably traited) are our best two weapons when it comes to fighting large numbers of opponents as stealth, temporal curtain, and projectile block/reflection scale to work against “infinitely many” opponents.

On top of trying to come up with some Mantra build, I’ve been trying to theorycraft a build that makes sense with Focus and Torch in it … bit more difficult given the current nerf to confusion though :-/

If anyone is having any success with this, please do hit me up. I love “talking Mesmer”

There really is no such thing as a dedicated Torch Mesmer, because the Torch is exclusively a support weapon; mainly because of the quality of its Phantasm (as we all know).

IMO it only has a place in condition builds, because the only viable weapon for condition builds is the Staff so what you use other than the Staff is not as important DPS-wise. For Power builds you’re almost always better off using an OH with a much stronger Phantasm.

Yes for power builds don’t take the torch… Not worth it… but if you want a condition build take dat torch. lol.

The REALLY need to buff iMage. He’s absolutely useless. Or they could de away with him entirely and add a new Phantasm. I purpose Illusionary Conjurer who deals the same damage as a clone, but conjures more clones on hit.

The main problem IMO is its bounce logic: it only ever bounces to allies. If it alternates between bouncing to allies and enemies like WoC, Mirror Blade and Siren’s Call then it should be fine. And reduce its CD to something more reasonable, like say 25s.

Typically I cast iMage while stealthed(as long as I don’t need to recharge a Mantra) and then just shatter it like a clone after it takes it’s shot, which isn’t that bad. I understand the logic of why it should be powerful but the ret/confusion is so short and Mesmer is supposed to be the one class that can spec into a confusion build(but Eng and maybe even Warrior does it better?). Maybe if it gave Ret again each time it shoots(basically like a pain inverter) and both it and confusion were extended to 5 seconds (cooldown on attack would be 10 seconds instead of 6, maybe up the raw damage a bit too) and fixed the bounce to hit enemy only that would be something. It dies very easily so this way at least if it only gets one shot off it would be still potentially worth it. People use so much condition stripping and a good amount of buff stripping this shouldn’t be that big of a game changer.

And if they could fix the blast finisher on The Prestige(maybe put it at the start and/or the end[without the field check at the start]), that would make Torch a lot more usable.

I thought I saw someone somewhere say they fixed condition duration so it affects Mesmer illusions.

If this is the case, I may have to play around with torch a bit (will hopefully have time to test the duration stuff tonight).

Looking at Phantasmal Haste, we see the base attack speed is 6.3. If you had enough condition duration, you could get it to almost 100% up-time on those 3 stacks of confusion.