Guild Wars 2

alanis.6094:

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

Not at all, if they had lower damage and say our standard attacks we’re increased slightly or we had a higher baseline of toughness/vit for survivability to make up for it then at least we’d have some sort of balance, right now we’re a light armor class with no burst dps and the Phant’s don’t stick around long enough to apply and conditions etc.

To put it simply, when it comes to RISK vs REWARD we’re all risk and no reward! Without being a high condition/shatter build we have nothing in the way of diversity. I’m sure a Necro can have some diversity into what builds and wep’s they use regardless of minion damage.
I’d take lower damage with some abilities like knock downs or poison etc than having a phantasm that spawns… stands around.. dies before its helped me in any way at all!

What you see as a minor nerf I see as the majority of my damage going down the toilet without giving me any extra damage elsewhere or survivability in return. I see it as a skill on every weapon I have that is pretty much not worth using.

alanis.6094:

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

I agree necro minions could use a little boost, Phantasms are not that powerful though lol. They drop like flies and have huge cooldowns. If a zerker gets off more than 1 attack on you in PVP you literally have to be afk. They fail to summon if blind dodge evade etc, and then you also have the chance to fire up some defensive or dodge when you see them streaming at you, because that means that are about to actually be worth something. They arent really reliable, i built up in all phantasm traits and went for a phant spec before izerker was nerfed, and its not as dps heavy as my current spec which is clone clone clone shatter wait 12 seconds clone clone clone shatter, so on

tqhx.2190:

alanis.6094:

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

I agree necro minions could use a little boost, Phantasms are not that powerful though lol. They drop like flies and have huge cooldowns. If a zerker gets off more than 1 attack on you in PVP you literally have to be afk

I literally laugh out loud when I see my zerker hit someone multiple times, I just sit there thinking why are you not killing it, its stood there for a good 5+ seconds between attacks!
Minions and Phant’s are not even in the same league though. Minions are there to aid you where as I usually feel like I’m there to aid the phantasms I spawn as they are my main source of damage! Without them I’m all glass and no cannon and to be forced to change all of my gear because of this is what is most wrong with these nerf’s!

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Then what is the build up for on the cast to summon the thing for, Jon? Not only do we have to deal with all the counters on our summons as we cast them, but then targets get more opportunities to counter them again after we do? Did you put much thought into this decision?

tqhx.2190:

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

While you might have been one that ‘has been here since the start’, I call GS a crutch because it is what every random re-roll player chooses after he got killed or watched a video of a glass-cannon Mesmer rolling this weapon.

Frankly, iBerserker was always too powerful, IMHO, especially one a glass-cannon build. It did silly AoE damage on a short cooldown, and used to cast despite LOS and blind issues. The bug fixes to this phantasm were a good start. The current damage output is, however, too much — which is part of the reason you see the FOTM re-rollers whining and re-rolling, once again.

How is the current damage too much? Do you just mean it does too much AOE damage? Because as far as single target goes it is far from the highest hitting ability in the game, and the CD isnt shorter in all cases. But thank you, yes, i have been playing GS since release.

Well ‘currently’ its damage isn’t too much — its obviously broken a bit. The previous damage (i.e. 6 or so weeks ago) was, IMHO, much too high for a direct-damage 1200 range AoE, which also is a combo finisher. The single-target damage was actually still rather high for a 1200 range ability on a short cooldown.

I didnt think single target was that high considering ive seen those numbers and higher from other class abilities. The only thing that does any considerable damage is our shatters, which are a little difficult to pull off in PVP with the recent nerfings, but i dont mind having to up my skill in that aspect.

Btw im from TB, think our guilds may be friendly, we may see each other around in game!

We’ve probably crossed paths in groups if you are in TB!

I do, however, continue to think the single-target was high. The rifle warrior has some high 1200 range burst on low-cooldowns, but aside from that I can’t think of much larger than iZerker at 1200 range.

Maestro.5376:

alanis.6094:

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

Difference being that while Phantasms form the core of Mesmer play (even if they are just used for 1 attack -> shatter fodder), Necros don’t NEED minions to stay viable. In fact I’ve been hearing from several of my necromancer friends at the start that minions were a subpar utility anyways.

It wasn’t my suggestion, I was just responding to it.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Must be a bad joke. Have you seen theifs? They go stealth and instakills you, much reaction for us that dont even manage to press 1 skill when you just hear the sound of a stab…

In WvW we cant even throw up the berserker at walls anylonger . So the only thing we can do is stand watching the fight against the walls and pull some ppl down… yey

I don’t care much for pvp, but leveling pve the iberserker is supposed to be your opener. You summon it and it reliably gets one shot. He needs to go instantly or signet of illusions needs to not have a delay in increasing health so he can take a hit. Or he could spawn out of melee range, though I don’t know how that’d affect his accuracy.

I can work around it. I can attack and put hate on myself first. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. I WANT the enemy to attack the iberserker. Just not until after he’s attacked and bought himself time for the signet to give him more health than a critter.

Raze.8467:

I don’t care much for pvp, but leveling pve the iberserker is supposed to be your opener. You summon it and it reliably gets one shot. He needs to go instantly or signet of illusions needs to not have a delay in increasing health so he can take a hit. Or he could spawn out of melee range, though I don’t know how that’d affect his accuracy.

I can work around it. I can attack and put hate on myself first. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. I WANT the enemy to attack the iberserker. Just not until after he’s attacked and bought himself time for the signet to give him more health than a critter.

It took me about 3 mobs when leveling to realize that all I had to do was cast any other ability prior to iZerker.

I’m not sure what makes you believe that iZerker was ‘supposed’ to be our opener…it seems pretty clear this is not the case.

Vendris.4201:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

I’m going to pick on thieves a little – where is my chance to react to a thief backstabbing me out of stealth? It does far more damage than my phantasms, and I have no chance to deny the attack.

This was my first gut reaction as well. Are we taking this approach against all professions? Where is the delay for hundred blades to “give enemies a moment to react” before that damage? Are rangers’ rapid fire going to miss the first couple arrows to serve as warning shots?
Not to mention, the phantasm can easily be killed via AoE. No phantasm, no damage. Every other profession presses a skill and gets damage. Period. If phantasms are so “powerful” that targets must be allowed “reaction time”, it should be hitting for over 10k regularly.

Let’s rethink that mindset.

You’re all a bit late now. The dev already said he is putting the delay to 0.25 since if he put it at 0 it would mess some things.

0.25 seems okay.

The issues stem from the complexity of the abilities. Since they function like compound abilities they are harder to balance. . . unless you ask the right questions. I feel like I’m in iRobot. . . " I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions." – Dr. Alfred Lanning

If you use this approach to why our abilities are hard to balance you get some very interesting answers. For instance:

Why are our Phantasms considered powerful?

I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

huh. . .

Why are do our Phantasms get nerfed?

I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

hmmm. . .

Do other classes abilities feel like our Phantasms?

Absolutely. . . that’s why the utility of their abilities still work when Phantasms utilities are shut down!

Wait. . . I meant. . . I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

This is almost a purely humorous post, the truth of it is this though, we as players as provocative questions that might indeed hit the nail on the head; have we asked enough yet however is the real question. If we ask enough good questions eventually the answer must become apparent. That being said the easiest solution is generally the best one, and while one thing looks like an easy solution it’s often far harder than simply approaching it from a different angle.

So our abilities are compound, they could break apart their nature and make them simpler. This sounds like a ton of coding, a ton of work too since there are so many abilities on a mesmer that are OP. I would ask that the developers ask the right questions.

Kanto.1659:

You’re all a bit late now. The dev already said he is putting the delay to 0.25 since if he put it at 0 it would mess some things.

0.25 seems okay.

I am very much aware of his post in the other thread about lowering the delay. I posted here because he gave a reason for the delay, which I strongly disagree with. There are much stronger skills that have NO delay. Given that the reason for the delay was to allow players time to react to this “powerful” skill, it seems only reasonable that equal and stronger skills be dealt the same delay. No?

Not to mention, first the mesmer must successfully land the attack. Then the phantasm must survive long enough to attack. Finally, the phantasm must land the attacks on a target that is in range and not blocking, dodging, or invulnerable. Other professions must only worry about landing the attack, and many of those skills are even more “powerful”.

The answer is that unlike hundred-blades, our phantasms stick around and there can be multiple of them.

I’d rather there be a limit of only one on the field or better yet have them just de-couple them from our clone mechanics, have them spawn, do their thing, and immediately die — as a tradeoff they are immune to damage and targeting (they essentially turn into a spell effect).

The current mechanic where there can be multiple causes the following problems for both opponents and mesmer:
1 – is too punishing to noobs and is useless against any player with 2 brain cells.
2 – the balancing is done based on the upper bound of all 3 illusions being phantasms dishing out their full damage, but the reality is we’re lucky if one stays alive long enough at any time to get its single attack off.

I’d much prefer the alternative I’ve suggested to the current system in which we can be blocked from summoning, the summon can be dodged, and any sneeze causes the summon to die before it unloads.

Robin Hood.8123:

Krag.6210:

Robin Hood.8123:

Is it fair to run arah in a random group with other classes, knowing to be a millstone around their neck all the time?

I wouldn’t go that far, mesmer is still VERY strong in PvE, may it be survivability, support or damage.

When my phantasm dies, my damage output gets down. I am not playing the mesmer only because of the support. And by the way, there are more powerful supporter on the run as the mesmer is. So, don´t tell me the mesmer is still strong and those things. I am ready to quit this game once and for all. I love the mesmer and don´t wanna play another class only cause A-net is destroying the class with each new patch.

He’s talking about the other builds. Shattercat and support are both very strong.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2…

This simply isn’t true. I recall seeing phantasms immediately start their attacks even before they fully rendered during that particularly nasty “culling” fiasco awhile back. The conjure skill would activate, then white numbers would appear instantly, then a second or two later the phantasm would appear and go through its animation, sometimes extending the animation beyond the attack effects until it could sync up with the second attack.

alanis.6094:

I’m not sure what makes you believe that iZerker was ‘supposed’ to be our opener…it seems pretty clear this is not the case.

Because it’s a cripple. And because it worked so well when he wasn’t getting one shot. He’d get aggro, cripple and spin away so not only is the mob snared, he’s not even chasing me.

I suppose I will concede it’s not really the delay that’s the problem here. It’s the signet of illusions not working until several seconds after the summon or the phantasms just not having enough health in general. Probably health in general since the signet is kind of a bandaid and it’s double bugged(It doesn’t give the health right away..but it gives more than it should).

JonPeters.5630:

I’ll take a look at the delay. Was supposed to be .5 seconds. I can check if somehow it got increased.

Jon

The delay was about half a second pre-patch, not sure where people are getting that it was without delay pre-patch, but now it’s ridiculous. A couple seconds of watching a phantasm stand in place is really class breaking. As everyone has said, the two or three ways of blocking a phantasm are bad enough, Dodge the cast, dodge the attack or kill it.

I’m not gonna claim to be a programming expert but, this kind of breaks one of the funnest most unique classes in the game. I don’t really mind the PvE aspect being as bad as it is, I can always hop on an alt for my PvE’ing. However, Mesmer is a great PvP class and if this problem persists.. well, Mesmers are bad at farming, ok at PvE not great and now in PvP they’re dropped to a support condition/buff class. (Refer to Necromancer thread, read that PvP anger, now imagine Mesmers in that case. Atleast Necros can farm really well..)

Vendris.4201:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

First off: thank you for giving an intended date on the fix for beserker.

Second off: your statement that the delay is there to give enemies a time to react to the summon makes 0 sense. An enemy can react to the summon of a phantasm by interrupting you, blinding you, stealthing, stepping our of range, or dodging you – thus denying the summon from being summoned and putting the skill on cooldown.

Do a comparison between the opening attack of a phantasm, and some of the other spike damage skills in the game. Then please show us some concrete reasons as to why the opening attack of a phantasm is considered so powerful that an enemy should have two chances to completely negate the damage – once by denying the summons at all, and second by being able to kill it or dodge it after it’s summoned and before it does any damage.

I’m going to pick on thieves a little – where is my chance to react to a thief backstabbing me out of stealth? It does far more damage than my phantasms, and I have no chance to deny the attack.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^x9000

LOL! This is EXACTLY what I was going to post until I saw this perfect post. Straight out of my mind.

I’m wondering the developer play a Mesmer class or they don’t? Do they know we are squishy and we can’t counter a thief when they literally got two shots us if we don’t pay attention. Please fix our phantasms and don’t changes our core ability because is just don’t acceptable. You don’t change what a class main core spell/ability when you have them on your class list. you can only tweak it. little adjust inside and outside but not changing what are been there and already there for long time. adding the portal colddown/ fixed the LOS attack by phantasm those are fine but seriously reducing damage/ delaying our casting will kill of what a Mesmer really are is doesn’t make sense and only making more and more Mesmer Upset.

I’m pressing only button 1 because I don’t know for what reason I cast iberserker and iwarlock ever since the delay and my enemy running away and they can’t do damage to them at all.

Raze.8467:

alanis.6094:

I’m not sure what makes you believe that iZerker was ‘supposed’ to be our opener…it seems pretty clear this is not the case.

Because it’s a cripple. And because it worked so well when he wasn’t getting one shot. He’d get aggro, cripple and spin away so not only is the mob snared, he’s not even chasing me.

I suppose I will concede it’s not really the delay that’s the problem here. It’s the signet of illusions not working until several seconds after the summon or the phantasms just not having enough health in general. Probably health in general since the signet is kind of a bandaid and it’s double bugged(It doesn’t give the health right away..but it gives more than it should).

Use GS2 to get a clone on top of the enemy, then use GS4. The clone can take a hit (unless it’s an Ettin like creature), your iBerserker gets in a hit (at least), the cripple is applied, and you’re doing damage. Almost never open with a phantasm; open with a clone instead.

Count me among the voices who say you can either have a delay OR they can be canceled out by dodge, block, etc., not both. It’s already between 3/4 second to a full second cast time where the enemy can read the tell that we’re casting a summon, then another half second to two seconds before said summon attacks. One and a half to three seconds between pressing the button and the damage happening is ridiculous. Especially when a warrior can hundred blade me or a thief can do whatever voodoo they do for more than my HP in the time it would take for my duelist to attack once. That’s just not right, and it’s nowhere near balanced. No other class that I’ve played yet(80 ranger/warrior/necro/mesmer) has had so many ways to counter an ability(blind/dodge/block initial summon, kill summon, dodge summons attack) like we do now.

I really didn’t mind the phantasms being given a to-hit check. It didn’t really have any effect on me since I actually watch my enemies while I’m fighting them, but this “fix” completely neutered my Mesmer.

Until something is done to fix them, it looks like my favorite character is going to sit on the shelf with my Ranger gathering dust. But hey, they’re Asura, so at least it’s going to be pretty roomy up there.

I think we can stop with the “do you even play a mesmer?” BS. Do you honestly think a developer could do anything without actually being able to play the class? And probably better than you can because he freakin’ wrote it.

So, please, just stop. It’s insulting and patronizing and it only makes you look dumb when you do it.

Yea Phantasms are totally broken now the only ones that have a small chance at surviving even a single attack are the dualist (which is suffering from a damage nerf) and the warlock which is okay but with the delay there is no way they will get two off. now the only option is to go heavy into a shatter build forcing us into a one build class since condition damage is far inferior to DD,

anyone know when this is going to get patched? will we have to just tough it out or level alts until the 14th?

biggs.4702:

I think we can stop with the “do you even play a mesmer?” BS. Do you honestly think a developer could do anything without actually being able to play the class? And probably better than you can because he freakin’ wrote it.

So, please, just stop. It’s insulting and patronizing and it only makes you look dumb when you do it.

lol nice sarcasm.

JonPeters.5630:

Berserker not doing the correct damage is known issue. We don’t know where this issue is coming from but I intend to solve it by the next build. 12/14/12

I know that seems a long time but it will be set back to viable. If you have good data on the damage it used to do to heavy target dummy vs what it does now that will help me track down the issue.

Thanks,

Jon

Unfortunately, I don’t have any hard data from testing golems prior to 11/14. I’ve only recently become curious enough about individual class DPS mechanics to do a little quick testing. The rumor mill in game tends toward hyperbole (eg. this sucks or that’s awesome). I swap characters a lot, and other than mesmer (my main), I have to more or less build up new reflexes each time I play a different class. So, I wanted to see what’s really good and what’s really not.

It worries me that you don’t have that data on tap. I can make a guess for you about how I think the berserker became bugged, though. I think the AE range of it’s attack has been reduced. ALL of it’s hits used to hit the target, even the very first one from 400~600 out. It would chase to about 600 then start it’s whirl/dash.

Now, I think it starts whirling and then starts moving. Also, the whirls might be asynchronous from the dash. So, it could do all it’s whirls while OOR.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

A comment on the delay duration, which I’ve seen others scream out as “up to 3s” and “at least 2s”. I’ve never seen a delay as long as 1s in any situation. I’ve been watching pretty closely since this patch and it feels like [0.5s,1s). If you tried to set it at 0.5s, I’d just believe you. That feels about like what I’m seeing.

The delay before damage, however, is severely magnified on targets that are already reacting (moving). On the 2nd pass or even the first for a moving target, the phantasm has to pursue before starting damage. That’s always happened, but now they get an extra 0.5s lead. The phantasm was a runner stopping mechanic via cripple — not instant due to animation/etc., but quick enough to be fairly reliable — now it often never catches up to a runner in order to cripple them.

It may have been your intention to have it in game since before release, but in the released game, this is the first time they’ve had a delay. It’s always been “damage on summon” — almost before you could even see the phantasm. From an interclass balance/damage standpoint, this is normal. It’s what all weapon abilities do.

You wouldn’t want a thief to be visible and rooted in place for 0.5s after a shadowstep just to “give folks a chance to react”. It would destroy that ability for the class. Same thing for phantasms. This is just for PvP. In PvE, phantasms rarely lived for a second pass and never on a boss. Bosses one-shot phantasms even via AE. Now they often do no damage at all in pve fights with constant AE or fast-reacting bosses.

I do sincerely agree that a chance to react is important, but I think people already had that with phantasms. It’s not a one-shot kill ability — at best it’s 50% if you’re insanely lucky on crits for a pure berserker thief. The phantasm dies in 1-2 auto attacks. If you get hit for a 2nd time from a phantasm, that’s all on you. You have 4-6s to kill it after it lands on you. The time-to-react that you wanted was already there all along.

In general, I’d probably look at increasing the HP pool on everything in game as a method to “give reaction time” and avoid bursty combat without requiring an intensive rebalancing effort.

Okuza.5210:

A comment on the delay duration, which I’ve seen others scream out as “up to 3s” and “at least 2s”. I’ve never seen a delay as long as 1s in any situation. I’ve been watching pretty closely since this patch and it feels like [0.5s,1s). If you tried to set it at 0.5s, I’d just believe you. That feels about like what I’m seeing.

The delay before damage, however, is severely magnified on targets that are already reacting (moving). On the 2nd pass or even the first for a moving target, the phantasm has to pursue before starting damage. That’s always happened, but now they get an extra 0.5s lead. The phantasm was a runner stopping mechanic via cripple — not instant due to animation/etc., but quick enough to be fairly reliable — now it often never catches up to a runner in order to cripple them.

I also didn’t experience such a high delay yet, hard to tell if it’s exactly 0.5s but it’s not like 2 or 3. I wouldn’t mind a short delay if the phantasm wasn’t instantly destroyed for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to have any defense at all the moment it’s created.
In PvE, a group of Risen Thrall is ultra-annoying now.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

I find this statement somewhat facetious, since it’s impossible to properly react to a quickness-fueled bullrush-100 blades-stomp. do you plan to put a 1s delay on the beginning of hundred blades as well since that is an ability that trumps all others in damage-per-activation across this entire game?

unless that’s all we will be seeing when this game hits the pro circuit – 8v8 gs warriors.

truthfully you had no business monkeying around with mesmer damage in any way, shape or form with the current state of the game. for anyone that the mesmer is their only 80, farming for needed money/gear is a pain. you are requiring them to make classes that can farm effeciently (note i said efficiently, not easily) and ultimately most just end up making that class their new main, for the effort one needs to put into a mesmer is no longer paying off in both pve and pvp.

slowest travelling class. least amount of aoe power, lowered even more after the changes to the berserker. you have a real issue with necros, rangers and now mesmers. stop breaking classes, and start properly testing your patches internally.

This makes zero kittening sense… You people at anet need to try fractals (or the majority of dungeons for that matter but mostly in high level fractals) with zerker delay. I does nothing but die and this is YOUR ONLY DAMAGE AOE, like come the **** on? how does this make sense?

Impreza.5486:

biggs.4702:

I think we can stop with the “do you even play a mesmer?” BS. Do you honestly think a developer could do anything without actually being able to play the class? And probably better than you can because he freakin’ wrote it.

So, please, just stop. It’s insulting and patronizing and it only makes you look dumb when you do it.

lol nice sarcasm.

LOL NO SARCASM BRO.

i have been following this post and others regarding the delay of phantoms. as a mesmer myself its realy annoying since 3/12 . and regarding balance reason i am sorry to say its none sense since we already have a casting time to summon our phantoms so we can get interrupted or what so ever while casting them. and they are actualy the main damage abilities this proffision is based on.
for example can i? react to theif steal or backstab or whatever skill they have cause i see it stand next to me doing nothing for 0.5 sec … or a necromancer fear cause i see it coming travelling time 0.5 sec. or elementalist knockdown or fire or whatever.
so please give other profissions main damage abilities a 0.5 sec daly to balance it.
i dont wanna go over being a glass cannon and mesmer damage is nothing compared to other glass canons burst classes like theives and warriors who can kill u in less than 3 seconds if u r not paying attention. can mesmers do that? to balance them.

i have enjoyed the mesmer so far up untill 3/12 when i saw my serker getting 1 shotted from Svinier or cheiftain before it even hits lol or getting killed from necros damage on ground before it land a hit … so whats the reason to play with phantoms when u cant even do damage with them, cause they have a delay.

so please i ask kindely to either look this matter and i know u will understand. or give us new skills that actualy can do damage without wasting its CD with 0 damage and the enemy wasnt that smart to think to react to it … its because its bugged.

thanx again for your time and efforts.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666. (was able to get 0 damage after testing here, on a stationary heavy golem)
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478 (was some bad luck here in the original testing, was able to break 2800 shortly after posting)

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

Wise.8025:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666.
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

its already been reported and acknowledged that izerker damage is bugged. in general, damage oriented phantasms are indeed very powerful.

Dixa.6017:

do you plan to put a 1s delay on the beginning of hundred blades as well since that is an ability that trumps all others in damage-per-activation across this entire game?

Of course they won’t do that. No warrior nerfs allowed.

If it stays like that, a kitten*** clone on a condition mesmer will deal more damage… how the kitten does that make any sense? Are you peeps trying to completely eliminate this class from gw2? if so, just delete it…

wads.5730:

Wise.8025:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666.
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

its already been reported and acknowledged that izerker damage is bugged. in general, damage oriented phantasms are indeed very powerful.

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful? Because currently the damage is laughable even to glass cannons. My concern is the delay that is currently in place that is supposedly there to prevent this pathetic damage from taking place.

The delay isn’t just on iZerker either it’s on all of the phantasms. They’re dying before they even land anything rendering them useless in PvE/WvW and laughable in PvP vs any player that’s aware they can just swat the Illusions and they’ll die without ever having done damage. Also preventing any reasonable shatter from us.

Wise.8025:

wads.5730:

Wise.8025:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666.
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

its already been reported and acknowledged that izerker damage is bugged. in general, damage oriented phantasms are indeed very powerful.

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful? Because currently the damage is laughable even to glass cannons. My concern is the delay that is currently in place that is supposedly there to prevent this pathetic damage from taking place.

The delay isn’t just on iZerker either it’s on all of the phantasms. They’re dying before they even land anything rendering them useless in PvE/WvW and laughable in PvP vs any player that’s aware they can just swat the Illusions and they’ll die without ever having done damage. Also preventing any reasonable shatter from us.

yes, if the zerker damage wasn’t bugged, it is powerful, you can hit up to 5-6k on other glass targets pre-bug.

yes, the current delay is kitten thats why devs have stated it’s going to be reduced to a reasonable amount.

And your point talking about that in this special thread was…? (Did you want to start a discussion or conversation about it?)

It is offtopic and not contributing to the bug issue.

I’m going to make two comments here, the first against the complaints, then the other supporting the complaints.

Allow me to explain:

First, I think SOME of the complaints here aren’t accurate, RE Mesmers being worthless. The reason being, I hadn’t noticed a problem.

Then I realized why.

See, I don’t even use GS most of the time. I use Scepter main hand, alternating stuff offhand, and Staff on the other weapon set. My entire build is centered around conditions and shattering.

I don’t lead off with a phantasm, except in rare circumstances. I either lead off with a clone, or flat out take the agro myself in PVE. I build up three clones and shatter, build them up again, shatter, while casting the occasional phantom mage to add more stacks of confusion over what i’ve already done, plus the phantom mage and chaos storm for even more condition damage.

So all these complaints are for a particular playstyle, one I have almost never really invested in.

What I’m saying is, this nerf has nerfed a particular playstyle, but not the entire class entirely.

Try different styles, like I am, and see how you do. Maybe you will find it unappealing, but it works for me just fine.

However….

Any ability that has several “moving parts,” ways to throw a clog into the gears and disrupt its use, has to be made more powerful to compensate. Or, alternatively, reduce those number of moving parts.

Otherwise, when you compare those abilities to those of other classes, they compare quite unfavorably.

The phantasms are a perfect example. If you can dodge the very creation of a phantasm, that’s one neutralization; neutralizing its attack through various means, another; flat out destroying it before you can act, yet another, etc etc.

Compare that to comparable abilities of other classes. Are theirs as easily neutralized? If not, are the phantasms at least powerful enough, combined with class mechanics like shatter, to make them worthwhile?

If not, then these “balance adjustments” are treating the mesmer quite poorly.

I for one don’t see a LOT of trouble if you adjust how you manage them in pve, as I stated above… but I do see it a lot worse in WVW (I haven’t played enough sPVP to adequately comment). Even using illusions in WVW was often problematic due to the massive amounts of AOE damage flung around in zergs, they often never have a chance to survive anyway.

As such, I think I disagree that this is a powerful summons. Some moving part need to be removed, or something needs to be done to make the illusions a bit buffer.

For instance, perhaps grant them a single stack of aegis so one attack doesn’t destroy them before they attempt their first attack, or invulnerability until they make their first pass (meaning with the delay, you can still dodge them, etc, but not actually keep from them making their first attack), or stealth until they attack, or up their hitpoints….

The problem is, they need to have a chance to be able to unload at least one attack, especially with all the moving parts, whether by making them more survivable or faster on the draw… or just remove some moving parts.

or whatever. Fact is, I don’t think the issue with phantasms is as bad as most of the people here seem to think, as there are other play styles that work just fine without that dependence, but I DO think there are issues, and they should be addressed, and quickly please.

That being said, I’m very pleased to see a dev actually in here reading this. Thanks. I know how hard it is (I used to be a developer a long time ago, before switching into the medical field – was a junior programmer on the original XBOX’s NFL Fever, and that was just a junior position heh), so I know how much hard work it is.

I think that in so many games, no one ever knows if they are really being listened to, taken seriously, so seeing you in here was quite encouraging.

Now hurry up!!!! LOL!

As a side note, I should add that clones are a problem in various pvp arenas as well. There are so many ways to identify a clone from the real thing (checking to see who has buffs and not, watching damage output, watching how the player moves vs the others, or as a friend put it, just do an AOE and the real player is the one who doesn’t pop), where clones are supposed to be adding confusion and making it harder to spot the player…. it doesn’t seem to really do it’s job.

Hm, but this is about phantasms, not clones. Perhaps I should make a different thread about that….

mavet.3047:

I have a Masters in IT – Security. One of the first things we learn when programming is to FULLY DOCUMENT and COMMENT OUT EVERYTHING. But ppl are lazy and have a tendency to cut corners and not place comments or write sloppy code. So it’s no wonder there are so many bugs. I won’t even go in to the whole concept of PM (Project Management) and the testing phase before bringing a system live. This is something that ANet is lacking on. Granted they may have a beta testing phase but without a PTS or a proper protocol for addressing all of the bugs and other problems, they might as well be dead in the water and who suffers? We do…

A classroom doesn’t teach you how to tackle the massive scale of MMORPG development. Further, if you have any historical perspective on MMO launches, I’m sure you would find that GW2 has been excellent in this respect thus far.

The best thing we can do to support development of this great title is to encourage the kind of open communication that Jon has put on display. We do this by giving them valuable feedback – not by temperamentally reacting.

Navi.7142:

And your point talking about that in this special thread was…? (Did you want to start a discussion or conversation about it?)

It is offtopic and not contributing to the bug issue.

It is as offtopic as any further discussions and repeated complains are – right now at this point.

Seriously if you don’t get the meaning behind words of consolidation that means you aren’t looking at the other side even a tiny bit. The developer told us exactly what he’s going to try and exactly no one of us is qualified to go against it withouth at least practicaly testing that solution, which isnt possible because the patch isnt ready yet.

To contribute means to share something positive – and that means anything that helps which includes emotions.

Edit:

Exactly Dollskin.

Cheers

Carkara.1846:

Mesmer don’t need to be fixed, they have portal, MOA and butterflies.

Phantasms are too powerful and need to be destroyed (or not summoned) before any amazing damaged is dished out, we call it balance.

3 illusions are too many, dev team is working on reducing to none… after all if traited mesmer can shatter themselves

Lol’d hard at these 3, especially the last one.

Think alot of you will enjoy these :

1) first one is bladetrail ……yes all he did was press number 4, i repeat…the #4 skill:) 30,908 damage. Might note i panned my camera around to see if i got hit with 3 balista, nope just the warrior carrying them around in his back pocket.

2) pic #2 Kill shot hitting back to back for 26,007 damage. still not sure how he got 2 kill shots off that fast..hmmm? maybe he was Charr and used warband support and his clones didnt have a delay? iono..

3) 3rd pic is theif came out of hide. I swear i didnt get a delay before this guy used Cloak. RIP poor little loot bags next to my little body…

come on i know you all have some of these!

yuckfou.1254:

Think alot of you will enjoy these :

1) first one is bladetrail ……yes all he did was press number 4, i repeat…the #4 skill:) 30,908 damage. Might note i panned my camera around to see if i got hit with 3 balista, nope just the warrior carrying them around in his back pocket.

2) pic #2 Kill shot hitting back to back for 26,007 damage. still not sure how he got 2 kill shots off that fast..hmmm? maybe he was Charr and used warband support and his clones didnt have a delay? iono..

3) 3rd pic is theif came out of hide. I swear i didnt get a delay before this guy used Cloak. RIP poor little loot bags next to my little body…

come on i know you all have some of these!

Yeah, seriously.

ANet, enough is enough. You have absolutely no reason to be nerfing our core damage skills when they’re weak as hell already when other classes are insta-OHKOing us from 1200 range or behind our backs in stealth.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Theorically it would make sense, however you have forgotten 1 thing, all mesmer phantasms can now be blinded, blocked, invulnerable-ed and obstructed.

Adding a double chance to block and evade, is just unreasonable as the damage is far from beying even close to the highest attack, you either choose the former or the latter, you dont just choose both its senseless.

TheWarKeeper.5374:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Theorically it would make sense, however you have forgotten 1 thing, all mesmer phantasms can now be blinded, blocked, invulnerable-ed and obstructed.

Adding a double chance to block and evade, is just unreasonable as the damage is far from beying even close to the highest attack, you either choose the former or the latter, you dont just choose both its senseless.

And even if that made sense in PvP, it doesn’t make any sense in PvE.

Wise.8025:

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful?

Something you forgot nicely: The iZerker hits 5 targets, it’s not a single target Phantasm.

To compare single target Phantasm damage, use Duelist or Swordsman, although for both you also have to reflect that they are much better at staying out of AEs than the other Phantasms.

Mariner, hits for 7000-8000 single target, spawns melee range and do this while evading everything. That’s powerful.
Has no delay.

Carighan.6758:

Wise.8025:

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful?

Something you forgot nicely: The iZerker hits 5 targets, it’s not a single target Phantasm.

To compare single target Phantasm damage, use Duelist or Swordsman, although for both you also have to reflect that they are much better at staying out of AEs than the other Phantasms.

When and if iZerker hits all 5 enemy players in pvp then something has gone horribly sideways. 1st off it seems very unlikely that any sound strategy would involve your entire team stacked close enough for each member to be hit and even less likely every member would be hit for full damage.

Put this into PvE and WvW context: In PvE it makes mesmers viable farmers for DE’s and gives them a stronger dps role in groups (of course they’re not likely to be 100% glass cannon thus reducing damage output sharply). In WvW context: Who cares if this hits the enemy zerg? Maybe the phantasm gets one pass before blowing up on somebody’s retaliation/random targeting/aoe/pissed off pet etc.

You’re trying to suggest that the potential for iZerker is game breaking when it’s far from it. You say it hits 5 targets? I say it hits 5 targets in a very limited line on a very long CD. How wide is area of the elementist meteor shower? How many targets does it hit? Can it be stopped by doing 500 damage?

Here let me copy and paste the info gw2wiki has.

Elementalist Meteor Shower
Damage: 481
Storm radius: 360
Damage radius: 90
Range: 1,200

Mesmer iZerker
Crippled: 2 s
Damage: 259
Range: 1,200

Still threatened by iZerker? There is nothing wrong with Mesmer’s having some sort of AoE in their repertoire, that is actually decent.

wtf are you arguing for, its been stated that the damage is a bug, and the attack delay is also going to be fixed.

just wait for the fix.