Guild Wars 2

While at work I was deep thinking about Mesmer problems in PVE and WvW and I think most of you agree that:
1- Shatter + Phantasms = does not work.
2- Phantasms + Foes AOE = does not work.
But why?
The answer is because Phantasms Deal Damage.

But if if we took the damage from Phantasms and give back to the Mesmer (not to be like a Warrior dealing massive damage so ppl don’t tell me go play a Warrior).

Phantasm will now have the Control let me give un example:
the phantasms from gratsword will attak anyone hit by his attak will be crippled after he has finished you will not care if he dies (it will be great to have condition on death for both illisions) or you can shatter him.

For idulest we will take the action and actuly use the pistol and not wait for magic bullit CD and make idulest apply somthing for the foes that can’t be reached ranged control.

this way after the Phantasms did thier part we will use the shatter( the way of the shatter delevring damgewill be improved) and everyone will be happy PvP+PvE+WvW players.

Eh, it’s a weird mechanic in general.

Shatter+Phat in PvP pwn btw, drop phantasms get then to do ONE cycle (one is key there) then drop a shatter for what ever you need (more damage, daze, evasion depnding on situation). The big problem i see coming from a msemer PvP/WvW stand point is people think phantsams should last more than one cycle but it jsut aint happening.

The problem is the core game mechanics changed so much that the way the original mesmer functioned can’t work. In it’s place they came up with the “living hex” idea; good in theory, but I think they just ran out of time to develop. All illusions are is short-term pets now. That’s why shatter and phantasms are contradictory; phantasms were changed from the design intent. Which I guess makes the OP right in a way.

Hum, sorry, but as it is, shatter is Indeed the problem.

Shatter lag is awful. Phantasms atm are the only thing making sense , even id it wasnt intended.

If they fix how shatter delivers its purpose ( be it damage, daze, confusion) then its all good, and im sure people will use it a lot.

The f4 for distortion works amazingly well. I wonder why.

Shatter may have it’s issues, but the core issue is that phantasms are primary damage dealers when they need to be hexes. The class can’t be balanced properly unless that’s fixed, or it will remain a schizophrenic pet class.

I would take the “living hex”-nature of Phantasms to a much greater degree.

1. Remove the direct damage of Phantasms. Yes, remove it. It would be easy enough to merge it elsewhere, so this isn’t really an “I’ll just keep dying” issue, we can easily boost #1 skills in turn, or just power-scaling, or whatever.
2. Return all Phantasms to be pure utility. I can only brainstorm this a bit, but:

• Duelist => Projectile Finishers. Deals 0 damage, but shoots Projectiles at a rapid pace (faster than today), causing a lot of Projectile Finishers.
• Warlock => Burst Finishers. The counterpart to the Duelist, same attack cadence (but 1 attack per cycle, not 8 with 20% chance).
• Mage => checks nearby players. If majority are players, casts a PBAE Retaliation buff, then charges his current enemy. If majority are enemies, casts a single PBAE Confusion stack, then backs off from his target towards the Mesmer. Should probably attack really slow since he can actually do damage – if very indirect.
• Swordsman => Leaps in and out, causing Leap Finishers.
• Berserker => Whirls through enemies, appyling Cripple to targets hit.
• Focus => Rapidly swings the blade, deflecting projectiles.

In turn these utility effects would be ramped up a fair bit (mostly via HP of the Phantasms and a buff to their attack speed).

I agree that it would be far better if phantasms were reimagined as the ‘living hex’ idea rather than temporary DPS pets.

Will just subtracting damage from phantasms really give shatter synergy though?

Isn’t the issue that illusions are useful over time and therefore you don’t want to destroy them, not simply that phantasms deal damage? If phantasms didn’t deal damage but applied control effects that were useful if the phantasm stayed alive, won’t the same problems with competing mechanics/builds/traits arise?

Personally, speaking only for PvE content, I think that the way the shatter mechanics themselves work is most unsatisfying.

We can weave up a complex web of mirage and confusion across the battlefield and then… destroy the whole thing just to cause average damage (yawn) or briefly interrupt/evade (which are both far more PvP oriented benefits). To me it’s a lose-lose decision – it always comes down to shattering when the target is almost dead anyway or when minion-bombing zerg events is the best way of tagging a few extra NPCs.

I suspect shatter itself might be part of the problem – as much as I’m sure whoever came up with the idea is brilliant, I really think it needs a second pass.

Yes but I could go one step further from that, add damage to all shatters (in different ways, except maybe distortion), and then rebalance around that.

My alternative idea is to make Shatters entirely utility, including Mind Wrack.

• Mind Wrack would drain you of power, corrupting Might stacks into Weakness, Fury into Confusion and Swiftness into Cripple. The remaining duration of these buffs (now Conditions) is then increased by 10s from what the corrupted stack had.
• Cry of Frustration would apply Blind, and a Cry of Frustration debuff. For 5s + 2,5s per extra illusion, each time you use an ability and it connects to at least one target, you get blinded again. (yeah, I was taking the name literally, this would cause so much haterage on targets, thihi)
• Diversion gets a boost so the Daze duration naturally stacks, 3 Illusions => 3s daze. Maybe alternatively fix it to always be 1s, but extra illusions add/increase an AE radius?
• Distortion can mostly stay.

I actually think shatter is the problem. We tie into it too much which limits the class, no matter how we play we will always shatter.

The other class mechanics add flavour, it’s extra. With the mesmer, it’s too important. Shatter has a pre-requisite – illusions which take up space on our action bar no other class mechanic does that!

They’ve given a ‘mesmery’ feel to different type of abilities by taking it away from us and giving it to another entity. This makes the spells so much less reliable, the spells can be negated so much more easily than other classes.

I think shattering is also really boring and lack luster when compared to the other classes and it works counter intuitively when dealing with phantasms.

I think it would have been more interesting if we’d been more confusion heavy and clones were even more disposable but weren’t so easy to summon e.g. If you have clones up and the real mesmer is hit, a clone will take that damage and die. If a clone is hit instead of the mesmer it will take the damage and die like usual – hey maybe this could have been a fun utility ability (if shattering didn’t exist of course)

Here are some of my brainstorms for the living hex idea-yes they were in the other thread but buried in a huge wall of text so here they are by themselves. These are mostly based on Gw1 mesmer gameplay, and trying to adapt it to Gw2 mechanics. Take them as examples of how the living hex idea could work, they’re not intended to match up to any particular skill on live. Also, I think phantasms would need a duration or some of these would be OP.

1: The phantasm follows in melee range of the target, doing small but noticeable amounts of damage. If the target stops moving, the phantasm does a knockdown and shatters.
1a: Reverse of #1
2: The phantasm follows the target, doing nothing but generating a moving combo field, probably ethereal. Blast-finisher in own field when killed by an enemy.
3: The phantasm follows the target at range, dealing small amounts of damage. If the target applies a boon, cures a condition or heal to an ally, the phantasm hits it with a strong damage burst.
4: Like #3, but burst when the target damages a foe.
4a: Instead of damage, applies vulnerability stacks until triggered, killed or shattered, forcing the target deal with the phantasm quickly.
5. The phantasmal warden is actually pretty good already. Can be dealt with by melee, strong deterrent to ranged. Good balance.
6. The phantasm stays near the Mesmer, dealing damage to any attackers in melee range. Applies Distortion to the mesmer when killed by an enemy.
7. The phantasm stays in the target area, granting boons and removing conditions from allies. Creates an AOE heal and/or light combo field when killed by an enemy.

These are all designed to force the enemy to make a choice- deal with the phantasm, and eat one kind of pain, or ignore it and eat another kind. This is what the mesmer should be about. The amount of team synergy, both for the mesmer and for it’s target defensively (get a ranged to peel and kill the phantasm so you don’t take the heavier hit, for ex) would be impressive.

I think Phantoms need a reason to be killed, at the moment sure they do good damage but its nothing that i find an enemy will specifically go after the phantoms to kill them as they die with the slightly damage so most of the time a quick auto attack while charging towards the mesmer will normally see them die – even with all the health bonuses from traits/skills

For Example -

Phantom Dualist doesnt wait like 5-10seconds between each barrage of bullets, but casts Magic Bullet say every 6seconds or something

Phantom Warlock – I rarely use this so not so sure but just like the dualist i see it standing around doing nothing most of the time. Have it Cast Winds of Chaos giving Booms and Buffs out to those it hits say bounce 3 times on say a 3 second cool down

The whole Shatter idea is STUPID – when you get traits and healing with Clones/Phantoms up you shouldnt be forced to lose them in order to get some mediocre damage (Mind Wreck is awful imo) Cry of Frustration and Diversion are decent BUT thanks to how broken Shatter is they are useless 99% of them time – They have to travel to the target which is stupid, they get stuck in terrain which is stupid

I can at times have 3 Phantom Duelists up at a time WHY would i want to lose all that dps for a rubbish damage ability (Mind Wreck) or 2 abilities that IF they worked would be good but never 100% that they will – why is it Distortion gives you the buff instantly when they die no matter how far away they are while the others they have to run into the target for it…

Shatter (if fixed) should ONLY work on Clones, that or reduce the damage that the Phantoms do and give it back to the Mesmer, maybe even buff the clones up – them doing like single digit damage is just so annoying

Or

Make it so that Phantoms blow up and really buff up the shatter abilities to make it worth while…This could be a problem with how Many illusions and Clones you have out – but seeing how little damage the clones do i think having 3 clones and 3 Phantoms out at the same time would be that bad – counter it by reducing the damage the Phantoms do maybe?

Then only the Phantoms blow up – Mind Wreck could have its damage like doubled, so it hits for like 3,000 damage (1,000 per a Phantom) that would actually make Mind Wreck worth using – so you get the choice, keep the sustained damage or go for burst damage now

Cry of Frustration and Diversion should NOT require Phantoms to run up to the target and they should give more of the condition for each number of Phantoms killed – Cry Of Frustration should be 2seconds per a Phantom killed and do more damage when they sure abilities, Diversion should cause Daze for 1 second per a Phantom – Now these may sound Over powered but you take into consideration all the cool down times – Maybe even increase Mind Wreck to 30seconds (25 traited), Cry Of Frustration to 45seconds (40 traited), Diversion to 55seconds (50traited) and Distortion to stay at 60seconds but 55 traited

That way the Mesmer wont be able to just summon and instantly kill them for Over Powered damage/effects

Also, Change Mirror Images – So that it summons 3 clones and you can press it say every 5 seconds to swap places with one of your clones this would actually make it a challenge for people to know which is the real you – Maybe even give them the same health as the Mesmer but make it so they take alot more damage from abilities after all they shouldnt be tanks or anything but they should confuse people – so if the mesmer has say 24,000 health the clones that are summoned with that but if the Mesmer has been hit and now instead of having 24,000 health they have say 13,000 then the clones are summoned with it but can get back to full health (of 24,000)

Maybe even change Ether Feast – rather then a silly additional health bonus – the Clones (only clones) all run up to the Mesmer (will be close anyway) and explode giving the Mesmer say 4,000healing Per a Clone destroyed – now may seem like alot but i have sen other classes go from near death to near full health in Spvp quite often, our healing ability is kinda meh

Signet of Illusions could then me change – too bump up the damage/condition duration of the new shatter rather then just reset it, this would lead to the Mesmer saying, if i use Signet my illusions (both Clones and Phantoms) will lose alot of health but :

Mind Wreck will have 50% chance to Crit
Cry Of Frustration will increase the damage from Confuse by 25%
Diversion will cause the target(s) to be stunned for 2 seconds after Daze Ends (mind need altering)
Distoration will give a 3econd stealth – this could be before or after the distortion effect