Guild Wars 2

(There are a lot of torch threads but lets have a phantasmal mage specific thread!)

Well torch is better than it used to be (not being channeled) we don’t get 2 blast finishers but I don’t think they ever intended us too it sux but we move on.

Lets talk phantasmal mage.

In november we went from 1 stack for 9 seconds every 5 seconds – 3 stacks for 3 seconds every 6 seconds. meaning stronger for moving away from 100% uptime from 1-2stacks.

But it’s still just shatter fodder on a long c/d.

Lets raise some awareness and offer some suggestions to make this more viable.

Better bounce logic (and hopefully working with I-Elasticity). Faster attack speed – Gods
know it’s nigh-impossible for an IMage to get off more than one hit in a fight. The same can be argued for P-Disenchanter, as well.

I’ve had a few ideas.

First change needs to be putting it onto a normal recharge, If it is on a massive recharge, it needs to massive utility to justify that.

Next, you can choose to keep it as a confusion phantasm, or change it to be a more general condition damage phant, or the last option (my favorite) a debuffing phant.

As a debuffer, it would stack chill/weakness/cripple on a target.

As a condition damager, it would apply something like 3 stacks of bleed for 5s, 5s burning, and 5s poison.

As a confusion phantasm, a few changes need to be made. First, take off the ridiculous bounce to allies for 3s of retal, no one cares about that. Make it so that that the confusion duration is 5s. Make it so that it bounces between enemies but if it does not complete the total possible number of bounces, the last hit it does will tack on all the unused potential confusion to that hit.

Yeah, we’ve been over this a few times now. I’ll throw in my input that I can remember in order of preference:

1) Shorter CD. Why this is so long is unbelievable. The mage is only good as a tool to get just a little bit extra out of an already devastating confusion bomb or against event bosses if you can keep 3 alive in condi build. Neither will benefit so grossly with a shorter CD, but it will increase the mage’s usefulness in most other scenarios.

2) More punch and longer duration. Seriously, 3s of confusion/retaliation on an unreliable attack with a 7s attack rate? The confusion really needs to be at least 4 stacks and the duration for both need to be 5s, esp for the retaliation. Boon/condition duration effects should work as well.

3) Better bounce logic. It really should be enemy-ally-enemy(-ally) to help stack confusion.

4) AOE effect. Instead of bounces, make it a blast at the target that gives aoe retaliation.

If Anet feels the new the concussion bomb is balanced (5 stacks of 5s aoe confuse on 18s CD), I’d say 4 stacks confusion/retaliation for 5s on a 20s CD is OK for us considering the mage just might live for repeated bolts and our other sources of confusion.

Advent.6193:

and hopefully working with I-Elasticity

I still don’t think it’d be a good idea – in general – to make this work for our clones. Phantasms…. maaaaaybe. But even then I’d say it’s a stretch.

The problem is that this unbalances certain clones compared to the effect it has on weapons. For example, the effects on Staff and Trident would be astonishing (they are for Trident!), while for GS the clones are unaffected, as are any clones you summon while wielding OH-Torch.

OK I going to be bald here and say drop the confusion part totaly for Image. How would it be if the torch less focused on dmg and more on utility?. Make the phantasm a cc Phantasm. Let it istead of 3 sec confusion apply a 2 sec immobelice on first hit, bonce apply a 2 sec cripple and 3rd bounce a daze.

We already have good dmg dealing phantasms, thos would let a phantasm mesmer have a stable cc without be forced into gs.

Thoughts?

Possible bug report: I noticed this last night. Summoning the iMage with 15 points into inspiration line does not grant regen to allies. Has anyone else seen this happen? To be sure I tested this correctly, iMage was summoned inside wvw and on test dummies, results were the same.