Guild Wars 2

It is apparent that a large number of people don’t know what Phantasm skills are, so here is a highly patronising video explaining the matter.

clipnotdone.9634:

It is apparent that a large number of people don’t know what Phantasm skills are, so here is a highly patronizing video explaining the matter.

You… Made a video just to declare an opinion that others have already simply stated to me? I guess I should feel honored. I like your Charr, by the way.

I guess I’ll just rephrase my counter to this argument again by stating: Summoning a Phantasm has the effect of creating a thing which then hurts the enemy. It is an attack by my definition of “A thing you do that hurts other things.” I’ve not seen a compelling argument to the contrary. The only Phantasm that doesn’t really do any significant amount of damage is the Warden, which I’ve already expressed an opinion on.

Warkupo.1025:

clipnotdone.9634:

It is apparent that a large number of people don’t know what Phantasm skills are, so here is a highly patronizing video explaining the matter.

You… Made a video just to declare an opinion that others have already simply stated to me? I guess I should feel honored. I like your Charr, by the way.

I guess I’ll just rephrase my counter to this argument again by stating: Summoning a Phantasm has the effect of creating a thing which then hurts the enemy. It is an attack by my definition of “A thing you do that hurts other things.” I’ve not seen a compelling argument to the contrary. The only Phantasm that doesn’t really do any significant amount of damage is the Warden, which I’ve already expressed an opinion on.

Phantasmal disenchanter and defender doesn’t do significant damages either.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Perhaps not a hot spot in their entirety in how they function but they are in that they persist on their own after summoned as a source of fire and forget damage. Of course this only applies to zerker and warden really as the other phantasms are single target attacks through and through. This I think is the biggest hang up about this issue is that specifically zerker is a huge portion of a mesmers aoe dmg for many many peoples builds. As such people like myself think of it as a true aoe attack and like any other attack that is aoe even if the person you have targeted has a block up the aoe still goes off and may hit other players or pve mobs near the target which simply does not happen now if you are unlucky. These changes do not affect me so much because I was already running a shatter build and was not reliant solely on phantasms for the majority of my damage, I feel sorry for those that do however especially after my experiences with it in wvw and the pve content update in lost shores today. Thank you for the discussion and keeping it civil, this is a touchy subject for many mesmers including myself, I think however we will most likely have to agree to disagree on how we view these changes.

Mmm, I think you have a point with Berserker. Aside from “bounce” types of attacks, most AOE attacks can still hit multiple enemies regardless of whether or not one jumps out of the way. I think my arguments are too focused from a PvP perspective where you are traditionally fighting a single opponent. In that type of scenario, dodging an AOE attack has the same effect for me and my opponent as dodging a single target attack; I don’t take damage, you don’t do damage to anyone. Going back to the Hundred Blades example, I would be quite baffled in a PVE or wvwvwvwvwvw setting if my attack failed because one guy out of the dozen I was fighting managed to dodge my attack.

At the same time, I feel like single target attack phantasms should still be dodged in order to keep things “fair” with the other classes. I think I like Plasma’s idea of Phantasms being adjusted mechanically so that they where summoned, did their thing, and then buggered off. That would hurt me as a Shatter build slightly, but it would be much more consistent with the rules placed on other classes. Adjust their damage to be slightly higher, their recharge time slightly lower, and have them disperse after they do the intended thing.

Sabyne.6329:

Phantasmal disenchanter and defender doesn’t do significant damages either.

I disagree on both of these; Damage is definitely not their focus, but they still do hurt things enough to feel warranted. Whether or not they do damage or not isn’t the focus on whether they should be able to be mitigated either. See one of my other posts about this.

If they self shattered after 1 attack then they would have to change the mechanics of our shatter skills and many of our traits. Having them on a timer like thieves guild would be fine with me though… just buff up their dmg and hp to compensate.

Just a quick side note… you can’t stop thieves guild or summons by other classes by hiding behind a tree… or dodge/blind/block… having our summons just not appear in these situations goes against the rules for every other class in the game. It’s unfair and needs to be adjusted.

Warkupo.1025:

Sabyne.6329:

Phantasmal disenchanter and defender doesn’t do significant damages either.

I disagree on both of these; Damage is definitely not their focus, but they still do hurt things enough to feel warranted. Whether or not they do damage or not isn’t the focus on whether they should be able to be mitigated either. See one of my other posts about this.

They do such piddly damage they may as well not deal any. Heck… we would prefer defender did not try to attack things lol.

You can kill phantoms… in all of 1 hit… two if you use a weak attack… that’s how you can mitigate them. Bouncing shots and aoe were the bane of the mesmer. Now it’s a dodge -.- I wish I could kill other peoples skills as easily as phantoms can be killed.

They do significant damage, really? We’re not playing the same game I guess.

When I can fight a boss by summoning three phantasms and then sit there and autoattack because that’s my best option, something might be a bit wrong.

AsteriskCGY.5931:

When I can fight a boss by summoning three phantasms and then sit there and autoattack because that’s my best option, something might be a bit wrong.

o.O what rubbish boss are you fighting that doesn’t sneeze and kill the phantoms with aoe or just about any attack?

Also you should be doing other support skills when you have 3 phantoms up. If you’re just doing auto attack you’re not using your class to its maximum.

Aberrant.6749:

They do such piddly damage they may as well not deal any. Heck… we would prefer defender did not try to attack things lol.

You can kill phantoms… in all of 1 hit… two if you use a weak attack… that’s how you can mitigate them. Bouncing shots and aoe were the bane of the mesmer. Now it’s a dodge -.- I wish I could kill other peoples skills as easily as phantoms can be killed.

Ehhh, kind of. Phantasms are quite notoriously flimsy. I tried a more traditional “phantasm” build, but I never was able to keep them alive long enough that I considered it as effective as the more traditional “shatter” build.

At the same time, even as someone who likes to blow up his creations, there is a benefit to making the enemy run after the two phantasms I am most familiar with; Swordsman and Berserker. Swordsman does a jumpy stab animation and then jumps far back. Berserker summons itself a bit out of range, hurls itself at the enemy, and then winds up out of range again. For a melee opponent to get rid of either of them means he has to stop focusing on me (which is really what I want him to do anyway) and go kill them. If I have both of them out he’s gotta do quite a bit of run around or burn some of his ranged attacks. A lot of the time I’m hoping to irritate him into switching to his ranged weapon.

I guess the point of my ramble is that, yes, phantasms are squishy, especially when faced with another player, but they do a pretty good job of at least being annoying while they do it. They do try to stay out of the way a bit.

Warkupo you’re the one with the failed argument about why summoning an illusion is an attack. That specific act is not damaging you. Later the phantasm will attack you…that’s what should be blocked not the actual summoning. Case and point: A thief has a sword skill where they can port to you, do damage, and then port back. If someone blocks the initial attack he can still port back to his original location. The other 2 aspects of that skill are not shut down because someone blocked just the first part. Why are Mesmers treated differently with their illusions?

Warkupo.1025:

I guess I’ll just rephrase my counter to this argument again by stating: Summoning a Phantasm has the effect of creating a thing which then hurts the enemy. It is an attack by my definition of “A thing you do that hurts other things.” I’ve not seen a compelling argument to the contrary. The only Phantasm that doesn’t really do any significant amount of damage is the Warden, which I’ve already expressed an opinion on.

Hello!
Are you aware there are two utility-phantasms, the Phantasmal Defender (providing an Area of Effect Damage Reduction field!) and the Phantasmal Disenchanter (for handling conditions)?

@ Carighan, look a few post above, I told him and was answered that they do significant damages.

Creating a thing that hurts an enemy is a summon, not an attack. Doing a thing that hurts an enemy, that is an attack. This is already apparent in the fact that the phantasms can die before hurting an enemy. See, for example a necro can summon minions…that hurts the enemy. It is a “thing you do that hurts other things” by your definition. But the summoning is not blocked or dodged is it.

Next thing you know anet will make decoy and mirror images blockable too since the clones spawned will immediately seek to hurt your target.

I’d say if we’re following this logic all Phantasms attack the moment the summon is completed and then count down from there.

Warkupo.1025:

clipnotdone.9634:

It is apparent that a large number of people don’t know what Phantasm skills are, so here is a highly patronizing video explaining the matter.

You… Made a video just to declare an opinion that others have already simply stated to me? I guess I should feel honored. I like your Charr, by the way.

I guess I’ll just rephrase my counter to this argument again by stating: Summoning a Phantasm has the effect of creating a thing which then hurts the enemy. It is an attack by my definition of “A thing you do that hurts other things.” I’ve not seen a compelling argument to the contrary. The only Phantasm that doesn’t really do any significant amount of damage is the Warden, which I’ve already expressed an opinion on.

Not entirely for you, I know there are a large amount of people that have never played the class making ‘lel you got nerfed deal with it’ threads right now.

That being said, watch the video again.
Calling out a phantasm is not an attack, I’m pretty kitten sure Necro’s don’t have their minions fail if they are blinded and Rangers pets don’t despawn if an opponent is blocking.

Also, dont talk bad about iWarden.

iWarden is my waifu.

Mek.2947:

Warkupo you’re the one with the failed argument about why summoning an illusion is an attack. That specific act is not damaging you. Later the phantasm will attack you…that’s what should be blocked not the actual summoning. Case and point: A thief has a sword skill where they can port to you, do damage, and then port back. If someone blocks the initial attack he can still port back to his original location. The other 2 aspects of that skill are not shut down because someone blocked just the first part. Why are Mesmers treated differently with their illusions?

Yet another to add to the list.

I think i’ll go experiment with a d/d elemental build while I wait for the devs to wake from their coma and restore us to a functional class.

Oh yeah, my 120 damage from my Defender or Disenchanter! I forgot about the fields of dead bodies they leave in their wake! 20k 100b Warrior is nothing against those 120 damage every 6 seconds! Totally worth being blockable as a whole.

Let’s face it, no one ever summons the Defender or Disenchanter for their AE Absorb Field or their Condition removal! Why would they, if they can use them for their 120 damage every 6s, a crazy 20 DPS!!!!one!!!eleven!!1!!1!!!

Roll back this ridiculous change.

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

djtool.8372:

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

Issue is: before these changes summoning a clone/phantasma was a check aganist both’s caster and target location.
Mesmer are in fact mental exploiter and duo this nature and substance, the physical condition per se would have no impact on the caster.
Conjuring is a pre-requirement for an attack done by the summon. You can’t deny the summon to appear, or, if you do, you’ll apply this mechanic to all core skill of the other profession.

djtool.8372:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Oh I don’t disagree there.
But defensive abilities and AEs also aren’t attacks, even if they – for programmatic reasons – need to be implemented as them.

Phantasmal Defender should not be blockable. I’d gladly give up any and all damage it can cause (which might actually help to see the important damage numbers more clearly) in return for spawning it on blocking targets.

And yes, we’re not a pet class, and we should not be.

Illusions aren’t pets, obviously but they are our ressource and our core gameplay mechanic. I play a guardian too and I wouldn’t imagine the uproar if they couldn’t pop their shouts/virtue/symbols because of obstructed messages poping on their screen or because of being blind/dodged. I’d rather have a mana bar back instead of illusions at the current time.

If illusions were simple attacks working like the swing of a sword, I’d be fine with that but being denied most of our traits/shatters because of buggy LOS or blind/dodge is ridiculous.
Our illusions are already hard countered by any aoe and sometimes don’t even have time to do anything before being wiped out and lets be honest, almost every class/dungeon got aoe, now buggy LOS or blind/dodge can even prevent them from spawning at all.

Our illusions aren’t pets or ground targeted skills but they aren’t simple attack skills either and shouldn’t be treated as such.
Before, people could deny illusions the damages by dodging their attack at the right time or just walking out of their attack (izerker/warden) but we’d still have ressource for shatters or our traits. Now a simple dodge/blind/buggy LOS can just shut us down offensively and defensively. No other class is treated this way.

clipnotdone.9634:

Not entirely for you, I know there are a large amount of people that have never played the class making ‘lel you got nerfed deal with it’ threads right now.

That does get annoying, I’ll admit. I tend to play all the classes, and as such have no silly notion of “loyalty” to any of them. My general opinion about a video game, especially an MMO with a PVP environment like this one, is that it should be a relatively fair environment so that it remains challenging. If I just wanted to steamroll everything I’d go play a console game.

Carighan.6758:

Oh yeah, my 120 damage from my Defender or Disenchanter! I forgot about the fields of dead bodies they leave in their wake! 20k 100b Warrior is nothing against those 120 damage every 6 seconds! Totally worth being blockable as a whole.

Let’s face it, no one ever summons the Defender or Disenchanter for their AE Absorb Field or their Condition removal! Why would they, if they can use them for their 120 damage every 6s, a crazy 20 DPS!!!!one!!!eleven!!1!!1!!!

You’re just lovely, aren’t you?

I did not mean to imply that Defender and Disenchanter where the harbingers of destruction, but that their damage was not so low as to be insignificant. I am more hesitant to change them in a way that they do no damage without expecting some sort of compensation. How much damage they do doesn’t really address whether or not they should be able to be mitigated anyway.

Let’s try not to take this so personally.

djtool.8372:

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

But they’re not treated as such.
Like an attack it can be dodged, blocked or negated by invulnerability.
However it also acts like a pet skill as in:
1) it summons
2) summons attack independantly of caster
3) can die.

Number 3 is an issue. All attacks, when landed, perform their full function of damage and any other secondary ability applied. Phantasm skills when landed, can still be denied the damage and any utilities brought upon by it by death of said phantasm.
It is an “attack” which suffers from a disadvantage of a pet skill, and thereby loses the core benefit of attacks; guranteed success upon hit. No other skills fail after it hits.
Also only phantasm skills go through a double check; one for casting attack and another for phantasm’s attack.

I wish anet would just take a stance and make it clear whether this skill is a summoning skill or an attack.

If it is a summoning skill, failure to summon by block/dodge/invulnerability brought upon by this patch is ridiculous and needs to be reverted.

If it is an attack, phantasms need to be rendered invulnerable and untargetable until they perform their full intended function if the casting attack has hit and then disappear after it is finished. A few tweaks to utilities some phantasms bring needs to be changed for this.

If it is meant to be a special hybrid skill only for mesmers, it’s currently receiving disadvantages of both and missing out on the benefits. Not to mention illusions are the core resource of mesmers. It is not balanced at all. The way it worked before patch the phantasms were guranteed to be summoned but could be negated of their function before it was performed by their death. It was a tradeoff, and it worked. Nobody complained it was a broken mechanic.

I agree we need some clarification and unification of what type of ability phantasm constitute. If they are an attack, in addition to the issues raised above, our condition damage should apply. All bleeds, burning, etc should increase in damage based upon my stats. Currently this is not the case, so it would suggest that it is bugged or that phantasm aren’t an attack, but a summon.

Warkupo.1025:

That does get annoying, I’ll admit. I tend to play all the classes, and as such have no silly notion of “loyalty” to any of them.

Right now Id say the Mesmer forums are the worst for this happening, closely followed by the Thief forums.

djtool.8372:

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

clipnotdone.9634:

It is apparent that a large number of people don’t know what Phantasm skills are, so here is a highly patronising video explaining the matter.

Birdrock.1697:

I agree we need some clarification and unification of what type of ability phantasm constitute. If they are an attack, in addition to the issues raised above, our condition damage should apply. All bleeds, burning, etc should increase in damage based upon my stats. Currently this is not the case, so it would suggest that it is bugged or that phantasm aren’t an attack, but a summon.

Not only that but our multi hitting/aoe “attacks” (dualist/izerker/warden) shouldn’t be fully countered by a single blind/block. The first hit from it should only miss just like with every other attack from every other class. No matter how you look at it (summons OR attack) the way mesmers operate right now is just wrong.

djtool.8372:

This thread is a function of a group-think mentality that Anet still hasn’t beaten down yet, so I’ll repeat it:

Illusions are not proper pets. They aren’t meant to be. Mesmer is not a “pet” class. This will not change. Thus these in fact are attacks (a representation of attacking someone(s) mind) and therefore they are treated as such.

Good day.

Then why are half our support and utility skills tied to the summoning/presence of the phantasm independent of whether or not it hits something or even bothers to attack at all?

It’s very simple:
A – If they want to treat phantasms as attacks, then our support and utility skills (including defensive cooldowns!) should not be tied to them, and the phantasm itself should not be targetable or subject to damage in any way, and should vanish after it does ONE round of damage.

or.

B – They should not not subject our SUMMONS to dodges, blocks, and blinds, but should apply that to the resulting phantasm. If this was a problem before, then simply make the dodge window more “lenient” to catch the delayed action from the phantasm’s attack (the same way they did with LT. Kohler). BUT THE PHANTASM SHOULD STILL EXIST, SO MUCH OF OUR GROUP UTILITY AND SURVIVAL DEPENDS UPON IT BEING THERE!

ddoi.9264:

But they’re not treated as such.
Like an attack it can be dodged, blocked or negated by invulnerability.
However it also acts like a pet skill as in:
1) it summons
2) summons attack independantly of caster
3) can die.

Number 3 is an issue. All attacks, when landed, perform their full function of damage and any other secondary ability applied. Phantasm skills when landed, can still be denied the damage and any utilities brought upon by it by death of said phantasm.
It is an “attack” which suffers from a disadvantage of a pet skill, and thereby loses the core benefit of attacks; guranteed success upon hit. No other skills fail after it hits.
Also only phantasm skills go through a double check; one for casting attack and another for phantasm’s attack.

I wish anet would just take a stance and make it clear whether this skill is a summoning skill or an attack.

If it is a summoning skill, failure to summon by block/dodge/invulnerability brought upon by this patch is ridiculous and needs to be reverted.

If it is an attack, phantasms need to be rendered invulnerable and untargetable until they perform their full intended function if the casting attack has hit and then disappear after it is finished. A few tweaks to utilities some phantasms bring needs to be changed for this.

If it is meant to be a special hybrid skill only for mesmers, it’s currently receiving disadvantages of both and missing out on the benefits. Not to mention illusions are the core resource of mesmers. It is not balanced at all. The way it worked before patch the phantasms were guranteed to be summoned but could be negated of their function before it was performed by their death. It was a tradeoff, and it worked. Nobody complained it was a broken mechanic.

I support this post. As was said, currently we are dealing with all the draw backs of pets and attacks, and not really getting any advantage. To add currently out phantasms also do not benefit from things like improved condition duration, we don’t get any benefit to multi hit phantasms since every hit is negated (unlike every multi hit for every other class), we can be denied our entire aoe attack with a blind unlike most other aoe skills, people are given two chances to dodge the phantasm (one at summoning and one for its attack).

This change just made no sense but I have lost so much faith that anet will actually address these issues.