Guild Wars 2

Moving Restorative Illusions to Illusions line

One of the issues with shatter Mesmers is the lack of any sustain between heals. Among its competitors it is alone in this: Elementalists have weapon skills and often Soothing Mists from 10+ points in Water, and Thieves have Mug accompanying a very low cooldown heal as well as Shadow Refuge.

One of the reasons that Mirror and MoR aren’t taken over Ether Feast is precisely because the lack of any sustain means a strong burst heal is the only answer. In essence a shatter Mesmer lives and dies on a twenty-second cooldown.

Restorative Illusions is an Inspiration GM that very seldom sees any play, even in phantasm specs. I have heard it described here once as being designed “for an 80 trait points Mesmer”.

What if Restorative Illusions were moved to Major or Adept Illusions? It would be a lovely bump in sustain while still forcing the hand of the Mesmer into making difficult choices. Do you still trait for iElasticity or shatter recharge?

One neat and tidy consequence of this is that Dazzling Glamours could easily take its place and be revamped a bit as an appropriate glamour GM in Inspiration.

Power Block

This trait was nerfed incredibly fast on release, and it is now seldom taken because the amount of spells you can reliably interrupt through all the blocks, instant casts etc. in the game are fairly few, and fewer still have an effect powerful enough to warrant a ten-second cooldown (over CI’s spell-ambiguous movement halting abilities).

This one is a real shame to me. Am I alone on this? I believe the devs were a bit overzealous in stamping it out. The trait is 30 into a glassy line and was something truly unique to the Mesmer (and one of the few real parallels to its predecessor). You could feasibly run it as support (in which case you gave up damage) or as a traditional burst (in which case you are very fragile). The risk-reward is always there.

I am not at all convinced the original incarnation was too strong, and I would love to see it returned to normal. The trait caused so much excitement and the burgeoning of a new variety of smart, punishing Mesmer setups, why would the developers want that killed off so quickly? It doesn’t make sense to me.

shimmerless.4560:

Power Block

This trait was nerfed incredibly fast on release, and it is now seldom taken because the amount of spells you can reliably interrupt through all the blocks, instant casts etc. in the game are fairly few, and fewer still have an effect powerful enough to warrant a ten-second cooldown (over CI’s spell-ambiguous movement halting abilities).

This one is a real shame to me. Am I alone on this? I believe the devs were a bit overzealous in stamping it out. The trait is 30 into a glassy line and was something truly unique to the Mesmer (and one of the few real parallels to its predecessor). You could feasibly run it as support (in which case you gave up damage) or as a traditional burst (in which case you are very fragile). The risk-reward is always there.

I am not at all convinced the original incarnation was too strong, and I would love to see it returned to normal. The trait caused so much excitement and the burgeoning of a new variety of smart, punishing Mesmer setups, why would the developers want that killed off so quickly? It doesn’t make sense to me.

We all know that the original Power Block they gave us was a bugged skill from the get-go, yes? I mean, it went through Defiant, stability(I think), and screwed even AA. Basically, it wasn’t nerfed, it was fixed. And it also isn’t that the trait itself is far worse, only that we can now not see how well it’s working.

Dondagora.9645:

shimmerless.4560:

Power Block

This trait was nerfed incredibly fast on release, and it is now seldom taken because the amount of spells you can reliably interrupt through all the blocks, instant casts etc. in the game are fairly few, and fewer still have an effect powerful enough to warrant a ten-second cooldown (over CI’s spell-ambiguous movement halting abilities).

This one is a real shame to me. Am I alone on this? I believe the devs were a bit overzealous in stamping it out. The trait is 30 into a glassy line and was something truly unique to the Mesmer (and one of the few real parallels to its predecessor). You could feasibly run it as support (in which case you gave up damage) or as a traditional burst (in which case you are very fragile). The risk-reward is always there.

I am not at all convinced the original incarnation was too strong, and I would love to see it returned to normal. The trait caused so much excitement and the burgeoning of a new variety of smart, punishing Mesmer setups, why would the developers want that killed off so quickly? It doesn’t make sense to me.

We all know that the original Power Block they gave us was a bugged skill from the get-go, yes? I mean, it went through Defiant, stability(I think), and screwed even AA. Basically, it wasn’t nerfed, it was fixed. And it also isn’t that the trait itself is far worse, only that we can now not see how well it’s working.

Bug or no, the original incarnation was a trait that genuinely added something to the game. (It was also far closer to the original Guild Wars skill it succeeded, which would not only block any spell but simultaneously all spells of the same type).

I am curious to know what people think about Restorative Illusions, since sustain is one of our biggest issues.

I still like Power Block, but I admit it’s only because I use Illusionary Wave / Counter Blade a lot to AE interrupt 4-5 people in zergs. In that case you kinda can see their frustration as their heal is on a 10s CD.

I think the bigger issue with Power Block is that it relies on interrupting. Now we can interrupt a lot, but our interrupts are quite limited (same goes for Confusion, btw). MoD is single target and the inter-use CD is annoying (if I could interrupt twice~thrice in a row, that’d be fun). F3 is difficult to utilize for multi-interrupts, and even more difficult to then time so that it can utilize Power Block. GS5 and Sword4 work ok, but are mostly useful when interrupting large numbers of targets so you know you’ll hit enough. Staff5… yeah.

What we lack is that Domination’s 5-minor gives you -25% CD on interrupt-centric skills if you fail to interrupt. Or even -33%. Something to make interrupting a more common feature.

Totaly agree with shimmerless , what restorative illsuions doing in phantasm line GRANDMASTER tier ?
this clones dont have brains, exploded in halfway to target, staff and gs clones just stand and pewpew where they were created , interrupt something with F3 extremely kittenly if u casted it before and he began cast when clones came to him, this not outplaying from mesmer,luck and mistake from enemy
most of casts have too low cast time or even dont have it at all(acro/trick thief say hello and laugh).Since anet added pretty high amount of ‘’evade fact abilities’’ without cast animation interrupt something is very very difficult, aegis,blocks, stability, high cd interrupt abilities,chaos storm not provide 100% daze – everything against interrupt builds , i heard new trait doesnt affect thieves, let them spam thier abilities without problems

I’ve said it even before release of power block and they didn’t listen. Now it’s kittened up and they don’t care anymore to fix it. Arenanet in a nutshell.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Power-Lock-Worth-it/first#post3852231

So much time wasted for nothing. Ahwell guess that’s how this game rolls.

I changed my mind, 1400 healing for 3 clones ??? its like a grib in the ocean , grandmaster trait in phantasm line……
this should be somewhere in minor trait of illusions but im pretty sure no1 will take it over 3% damage per clone/precise wrack