Guild Wars 2

I understand that anet is terrified of player outrage because of more “passive gameplay” on a " no skill required" class ( rofl this is that I get when I evades every single skill my opponent uses…) ,but clone death is not actually passive. I will explain my reasoning. First, clone death has counter play in several ways, do not kill clones, Kill clones from range, or cause mesmer to shatter clones. In Addition, it is not passive on the side of the mesmer and their are several important things that made a good clone death mesmer and were required to make clone death traits effective. First, you must position clones correctly. Clone death traits are cbaoes (clone position based AoEs) triggered on death, this means that enemies killing clones from range are, as previously stated, means you are unaffected. There are many potential and skillful ways to deal with this; for example, you can use a sword to summon the clone inside of enemy auto cleave to ensure they are affected (etc…). It can also be used skillfully to dodge thief shadow shot and create a clone which, when killed, used to have a chance to apply weakness to the thief removing backstab damage (dependent on weakness ring) through a skillful use of dodges and positioning. The mesmer also was required to judge when on shatter affects were worth losing the on death affect, or masterfully use shatters to proc the on death affect… (continue later)

I thought the removal of clone death traits was a positive thing, honestly. It only became an issue when it got packaged with all of the other changes to our condition builds.

-Revamped confusing combatants ninja removed
-Phantasmal mage getting changed to a single stack of burning
-MtD getting nerfed
-Staff AA burn duration/stack amt not adjusted
-Bleed scaling nerf
etc… I’m sure there is more I’m just not remembering right now

All of that has left my mesmer’s condition builds feeling rather weak, especially in PvE.

No, those traits were bad and encouraged mindless clone spam while hiding in stealth.

Iavra.8510:

No, those traits were bad and encouraged mindless clone spam while hiding in stealth.

There were builds that utilized these traits that never even went into stealth. Also, prove that it is actually effective to do that. Any with any sense would eliminate your clones with a ranged auto rendering the traits completely useless.

Blame the elitist meta only mesmers on the forums.

Not all classes/builds have a ranged auto and illusions need counterplay.

Blame the elitist meta only mesmers on the forums.

Actually, from my experience most people on this forum want to play some easy AI build and farm people with it.

Iavra.8510:

Not all classes/builds have a ranged auto and illusions need counterplay.

Blame the elitist meta only mesmers on the forums.

Actually, from my experience most people on this forum want to play some easy AI build and farm people with it.

Actually, every single class in the game has a ranged auto; Try again.

That’s why i wrote “builds”, too. But i know, it must be hard to actually press buttons instead of just dodging to kill someone.

Iavra.8510:

Not all classes/builds have a ranged auto and illusions need counterplay.

Blame the elitist meta only mesmers on the forums.

Actually, from my experience most people on this forum want to play some easy AI build and farm people with it.

You’d be surprised. I run an Interrupt clone death build before. So would you say Interrupt builds (No PU) are easy to play? This is pre patch btw. Interrupting was lackluster before compared to interrupt now (1 interrupt can get you 6+ effects now, assuming you have them all traited, +IE, IP baseline)

I do agree with you some point but I can only see people who advocate easy build AI are the non so regular forum posters and WvW players. I ran mine in PvP before. I loved it.

Iavra.8510:

That’s why i wrote “builds”, too. But i know, it must be hard to actually press buttons instead of just dodging to kill someone.

Lol, I main a full Zerker interrupt build with a gs and 3v1 people in Spvp ranked matches… I know how to hit skills. I just enjoy varieties of playstyles and am pointing out that clone death traits themselves are not toxic.

It’s not so much that people can use it without going into stealth, it’s that while in stealth people can use it just as effectively and make it a pain to kill a Mesmer and it’s not a very good playstyle.

If there was a condition tied, like “Clones killed after the first 5s of creation apply conditions when killed.” then it could be more fair.

Or make it so that the effect does not occur unless a Clone is killed by a damaging attack and not due to over-spawning illusions.

My point and my point only,

I think clone death was a tad too much in PvP but needed in pve.

In PvP clone death plus PU plus DE = op. all you do is make clones stay hidden enemy kill clone clone apply conditions and damage and if they don’t kill clone cause they are looking for the really one you shatter them doing conditions and damage. You can almost stay untouched like this while the enemy kill themself..

In pve where they get killing so fast a.and therefore we lose our DPS I would have been nice to have it.

My suggestion will be to have it in pve and available in PvP. Maybe apply 2 vulnerabilities and 4bleed per clone death or something in the manner

Yeah these were too passive, good thing Anet removed them and loaded a bunch of on hit/crit trits on other classes resulting in their auto attcks doing huge bursts when they randomly all proc at once.

IMO the abolishment was good in the sense that on-death traits force a bit of a weird gameplay in regards to our class mechanic, Shatter.

Phantasms do, too. And IMO they are a problem for the same reason. Though with Chronomancer, at least there’s some upside to wanting to shatter phantasm, namely that it’s possible. :P

Clone death traits were garbage and never had any business being in the game.

This was not a passive mode at all and was my favorite playstyle. By that logic, Engineer turrets and Ranger pets, ( and Ele elite pets, Norn racial call bird spell, Ogre Runes, Golemancer Runes, Privateer Runes, Necromancer pets on enemy death.. all necromancer pets for that matter… the list goes on ), and should be deleted. All are “fire and forget.”

The argument that Clone Death was “passive” is not valid because it’s only one of many very “passive” modes.

Unfortunately, a clone death mesmer wrecked a dev. The build was then completely removed from the game. It was flatly stated on one of anet’s videos.

As to it being non Mesmer… I think the history of Tyria contradicts that.

Of course.. Empathy was one of the very first skills a new Mesmer learned in GW1. Yet retaliation has also been mostly removed from Mesmser.

So, tradition doesn’t seem to cut much ice.

Clone death traits I always saw were a way to get something out of clones when in a toxic environment, which is pretty much everywhere where there’s more than 2 enemies.

I liked the idea of weakness and cripple, controlling and damage mitigation but didn’t like the bleed and vulnerability as it enabled that infamous PU clone death condition build.

However we have been compensated in some ways for this loss of clone death by getting blinding dissipation and the enhanced stealth durations. If you wanted clone death traits back then you’d probably have to give up some of these nice improvements we’ve had which I wouldn’t want to.

I loved the clone death traits. Was my preferred build prior to getting removed (well, more precisely I used a combination phantasm / clone death build). Made it actually worthwhile to use the many clone abilities Mesmer has at their disposal without having to constantly shatter (thus also removing all my phantasms) or just “waste” them. It was really fun and quite active to utilize so many clone generation traits and skills to create a cascade of conditions. More active than shattering, even, IMO, because you’ve only really got 2 shatters you can “spam” so there’s only so many clones you can clear using shatters, and inevitably you’re going to waste some or have to avoid using certain abilities.

If spamming clones from stealth was the problem, I never really understood why they couldn’t just make the traits break stealth.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

My point and my point only,

I think clone death was a tad too much in PvP but needed in pve.

In PvP clone death plus PU plus DE = op. all you do is make clones stay hidden enemy kill clone clone apply conditions and damage and if they don’t kill clone cause they are looking for the really one you shatter them doing conditions and damage. You can almost stay untouched like this while the enemy kill themself..

In pve where they get killing so fast a.and therefore we lose our DPS I would have been nice to have it.

My suggestion will be to have it in pve and available in PvP. Maybe apply 2 vulnerabilities and 4bleed per clone death or something in the manner

OP? I don’t even see clone death in AGs, or ESLs before. Not unlike burn guard who is played in AGs.

Besides they even nerfed Clone death and it was not unblockable anymore + less condition stacks.

Your suggestion is making it even stronger. Debilitating Dissipation was only 2 stacks of bleed OR weakness. It was even RNG so…

And you guys still say it is OP?

Only one I miss is Crippling Dissipation. I played a pretty fun GS/SwSw build that used the cripple for control.

Well, there’s Imagined Burden for cripple…

Well cheesy PU clone-death got replaced…

…by cheesy PU shatter (condi or power).

I guess that means the cheesy part was really PU all along, so they actually buffed the cheesiness.

I disliked clone death traits alot, but funnily enough, they were not even close to as much Aids as half the game is now.

Silverkey.2078:

Well cheesy PU clone-death got replaced…

…by cheesy PU shatter (condi or power).

I guess that means the cheesy part was really PU all along, so they actually buffed the cheesiness.

OR, people like to call anything they don’t like “cheesy”.

tobascodagama.2961:

Silverkey.2078:

Well cheesy PU clone-death got replaced…

…by cheesy PU shatter (condi or power).

I guess that means the cheesy part was really PU all along, so they actually buffed the cheesiness.

OR, people like to call anything they don’t like “cheesy”.

Well being honest, playing against a PU mesmer is not fun. Especially as a mesmer since we have like 0 AOE and always need a target to create our clones (though they at least follow the target out of stealth).

In PvP, I usually love duels. I just don’t have that against PU mesmer.

Now for the cheesiness, I do think PU makes things cheesier. Mesmers have decent active defenses to sustain a fight without stealth, and it is way more entertaining to do. With PU, you don’t need to think as much, since stealth will almost always save you if you’re a half-decent player.

Silverkey.2078:

tobascodagama.2961:

Silverkey.2078:

Well cheesy PU clone-death got replaced…

…by cheesy PU shatter (condi or power).

I guess that means the cheesy part was really PU all along, so they actually buffed the cheesiness.

OR, people like to call anything they don’t like “cheesy”.

Well being honest, playing against a PU mesmer is not fun. Especially as a mesmer since we have like 0 AOE and always need a target to create our clones (though they at least follow the target out of stealth).

In PvP, I usually love duels. I just don’t have that against PU mesmer.

Now for the cheesiness, I do think PU makes things cheesier. Mesmers have decent active defenses to sustain a fight without stealth, and it is way more entertaining to do. With PU, you don’t need to think as much, since stealth will almost always save you if you’re a half-decent player.

This post is literally exhibit A of ‘some people label anything they don’t like as cheesy’.

You’ve just said that you don’t like PU builds, therefor they are cheesy. That’s neither logic nor reasoning. That’s you taking your personal preferences and attempting to use them to tarnish other players, which is disgusting.

Fay.2357:

Silverkey.2078:

Well being honest, playing against a PU mesmer is not fun. Especially as a mesmer since we have like 0 AOE and always need a target to create our clones (though they at least follow the target out of stealth).

In PvP, I usually love duels. I just don’t have that against PU mesmer.

Now for the cheesiness, I do think PU makes things cheesier. Mesmers have decent active defenses to sustain a fight without stealth, and it is way more entertaining to do. With PU, you don’t need to think as much, since stealth will almost always save you if you’re a half-decent player.

This post is literally exhibit A of ‘some people label anything they don’t like as cheesy’.

You’ve just said that you don’t like PU builds, therefor they are cheesy. That’s neither logic nor reasoning. That’s you taking your personal preferences and attempting to use them to tarnish other players, which is disgusting.

I’m not a hard-core gamer, so maybe I just missed what cheesy means. I thought cheesy meant: “disgustingly efficient without even needing to be skilled”.

Tobascodagama assumed I was saying that because I don’t like it. So in the beginning I explain that INDEED, I don’t like fighting PU mesmers. I don’t deny it. But then, I say that I think this is ALSO cheesy because you don’t need to be very skilled to hide in stealth between your bursts, and even if things go wrong, just kite in stealth.

So the build cheesiness and my dislike for it were 2 distinct statements, although obviously its cheesiness is part of what I dislike. I main mesmer, and I play many different builds INCLUDING condi PU (in WvW). So having been on both sides, I think I can fairly say it’s not just a l2p issue. I am definitely not the best player and I get wrecked by builds/skills that I should be able to counter if I played better. But not being the best player, I can also see when things are too easy to play.

Clone Death was by no means “too easy to play.” I don’t play a PU Mesmer so can’t speak directly to how easy it is. They are pretty annoying to play against though.

What I liked about clone death was; It dealt with the issue of our soap bubble clones that frequently don’t survive long enough to shatter.

Also, it continued the GW1 concept of a Mesmer being a class that punished certain actions. In this case, players were punished for mindlessly cleaving clones.

Unfortunately a dev lost to the build and it was completely removed.

The problem I believe is that condi (staff) clones are actually valuable: they do some decent conditions. So either you kill them and get punished, or you don’t… and get punished. I don’t think the devs thought it would become the core of a build but rather made it as something to make up for clones dying fast in an otherwise active playstyle. But combined with stealth, it was just a gameplay they didn’t like.

On the other hand, what is sad is that it destroyed yet another way to play which does not involve shatter spam. I find it sad that there are so few viable builds where shatters don’t constitute the main source of damage.

Ithilwen.1529:

Clone Death was by no means “too easy to play.” I don’t play a PU Mesmer so can’t speak directly to how easy it is. They are pretty annoying to play against though.

What I liked about clone death was; It dealt with the issue of our soap bubble clones that frequently don’t survive long enough to shatter.

Also, it continued the GW1 concept of a Mesmer being a class that punished certain actions. In this case, players were punished for mindlessly cleaving clones.

Unfortunately a dev lost to the build and it was completely removed.

I wish devs would lose to some of the other rubbish builds out there and those would be removed too.

LOL at that, thanks for the smile. I second that.

Silverkey.2078:

I’m not a hard-core gamer, so maybe I just missed what cheesy means. I thought cheesy meant: “disgustingly efficient without even needing to be skilled”.

You’re close.

In the context of gaming discussions, “cheese build” means “Killed me in PvP”.
That’s about all there is to it.

Too truthfull, ouch.