Guild Wars 2

Phantasms are a mess, and they’re dragging the entire profession down with them.

Why? Because they’re designed as DPS pets. Without having 3 Phantasms up Mesmer DPS plummets, yet they’re 1. incredibly fragile, especially to AoE and 2. destroyed by our two other profession mechanics, Clones and Shatter skills. The result is a profession full of contradictions and, frankly, not very well-designed.

So here’s my suggestion. Instead of Phantasms being DPS pets, make them better Clones. By this I mean two things:

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• Make Phantasm conjuring be a by-product of another skill.
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• Make Phantasms produce better Shatter effects than Clones.

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The Chronomancer has taken a few steps in the right direction with Echo of Memory and Chronophantasma, but the Mesmer should not require an Elite specialisation (not to mention a GM trait) to not tear itself apart. The core functionality of Phantasms must be changed.

The Shatter effects I’m suggesting will only occur the first time a Phantasm is Shattered with Chronophantasma, to prevent obvious shenaningans.

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[BERSERKER]
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Crippling Anguish – 0.75s CT, 20s CD, 1200 RNG, Whirl.
Send an illusionary greatsword whirling towards your target, damaging and Crippling foes in a line. Conjure a Phantasmal Berserker against your target which uses a whirling attack to damage and Cripple foes.

On Shatter: 240 AoE.
The Berserker Shatters into a storm of illusionary blades that constantly damages and inflicts Vulnerability to foes in the area.

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[WARLOCK]
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Accumulated Pain – 30s CD, 1200 RNG.
Strike your target with a blast of chaotic energy, Tormenting and extending the duration of all conditions on them. Conjure a Phantasmal Warlock that deals extra damage for each unique condition.

On Shatter: 240 AoE, Ethereal.
The Warlock Shatters into a Chaos Storm that grants random boons to allies and inflicts random conditions to enemies.

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[SWORDSMAN]
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Wastrel’s Worry – 0.5s CT, 25s CD, 600 RNG, Leap.
Leap at your target and stab them, dealing significant damage. Conjure a Phantasmal Swordsman that leaps at and stabs your foe. If target is not activating a skill, Wastrel’s Demise becomes temporarily available.

On Shatter:
You gain a stackable buff that makes your next attack Unblockable.

Wastrel’s Demise – 0.5s CT, 130 RNG, Leap.
Stab your foe and leap backwards, dealing significant damage. Conjure a Phantasmal Swordsman that leaps at and stabs your foe. If target is not activating a skill, Wastrel’s Worry’s CD is reduced.

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[WARDEN]
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Mirror of Disenchantment – 3s CT, 25s CD, 120 AoE, Whirl.
Create a shield around you that converts and reflects incoming projectiles into boon stripping bolts. You cannot move while channelling the shield. When the shield ends, conjure a Phantasmal Warden against your target that whirls and absorbs projectiles. Activate this skill again to end the shield early and conjure the Warden. (Warden’s Feedback allows reflected projectiles to retain their original effect as well as stripping boons.)

On Shatter: 240 AoE, Light.
The Warden Shatters into a dome of energy that absorbs projectiles.

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[DUELIST]
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Migraine – 1.5s CT, 20s CD, 1200 RNG, Projectile.
Fire a bullet that deals significant damage and inflicts Bleeding and Slow to the target. Conjure a Phantasmal Duelist that unloads its pistols into your foe.

On Shatter: 600 RNG, 1 BNC, Projectile.
Up to 5 ethereal bullets shoot out of the Shattered Duelist, bouncing between foes and inflicting Confusion. Each foe can initially only be targeted by one bullet.

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[MAGE]
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Backfire – 0.75s CT, 20s CD, 1200 RNG, 4 BNC.
Throw an illusionary torch that bounces between foes, Confusing them. Conjure a Phantasmal Mage against your target that casts an ethereal burst to Confuse enemies in an area.

On Shatter: 240 AoE, Blast.
The Mage Shatters into a blasting fireball, Burning nearby enemies.

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[AVENGER]
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Echo of Memory – 2.25s CT, 30s CD, 900 RNG.
Block incoming attacks. Conjure a Phantasmal Avenger against your target when this skill ends, which throws an illusionary shield to Slow enemies and grant Alacrity to allies in an area. If an attack is Blocked, Déjà Vu becomes temporarily available.

On Shatter:
The Avenger Shatters into 2 ethereal shield fragments that grant Quickness to Allies.

Déjà Vu – 2.25s CT, 900 RNG.
Block incoming attacks. Conjure a Phantasmal Avenger against your target when this skill ends, which throws an illusionary shield to Slow enemies and grant Alacrity to allies in an area.

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[DEFENDER]
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Empathy – 1s CT, 30s CD, 900 RNG, 4 BNC, 240 AoE.
Cast an incapacitating bolt that bounces between enemies, inflicting Weakness. You and nearby allies gain Retaliation. Conjure a Phantasmal Defender that redirects half of incoming damage to nearby allies to itself.

On Shatter:
The Defender Shatters into 5 ethereal shield fragments that grant Protection to allies.

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[DISENCHANTER]
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Enchanter’s Conundrum – 1s CT, 30s CD, 900 RNG, 240 AOE.
Cast a hex around your target, inflicting Slow for each unique boon on affected foes. Conjure a Phantasmal Disenchanter against your target that casts a nullifying burst to strip boons and cleanse conditions in an area.

On Shatter: 240 AoE, Ethereal.
The Disenchanter Shatters into a Null Field that strips boons from foes and cleanse conditions from allies.

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[ROGUE]
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Blackout – 1s CT, 20s CD, 900 RNG.
Daze your foe. Conjure a Phantasmal Rogue that deals extra damage from behind.

On Shatter: 240 AoE.
Enemies near the Shattered Rogue are Blinded.

In general I try to make damaging Shatter effects deal their damage over time (AoEs, conditions) to avoid increasing Mesmer Shatter burst.

For Mage, Avenger and Disenchanter, I’m suggesting that they use ranged AoE attacks to deliver their effects.

As for Mariner and Whaler, eh. I don’t really care about them.

I haven’t read your suggestions yet, I don’t have the time for the moment. But I’d like to discuss the general concept:

1. I agree with the general principle. Ever since bhagwhad came in all fired up about being railroaded into to giving up his better dps (phantasms) to get weaker dps (shatters), I’ve been thinking that it may be necessary to abandon the Phantasm concept in favor of something more sustainable and balanceable. In the long run, balancing mesmer would be much easier with your paradigm than the existing one.

2. I like phantasms, it makes me really, really sad to think that our damage pet mechanic might have to go away.

3. Effect-on-Shatter is one of my absolute favorite elements from the different suggestions that have been made. iMage burn on shatter, iWarlock damage per condition on shatter, there’s just so much that can be done, and it wouldn’t be as hard to balance, either, because the outcome is predictable! The problem with phantasm damage is the unknown lifespan of the phantasm. It makes it hard to balance around, as making them tough enough to support mesmer damage in high-damage environments makes them too tough in low-damage pvp environments. Shove some of that power into the front end of the spell, some into the shatter-end, and bring up mesmer auto-attack/skill damage (Blurred Frenzy, anyone?) to where it should be!

4. It’s not gonna happen any time soon. Chronomancer has been balanced around the current paradigm, and Robert et al are working hard to make sure everything is ready for HoT. Rebalancing phantasms means reevaluating everything about mesmers, and that is a LOT of work. It makes the June 23rd rework pale in comparison.

Tbh I really like these.

NB: This type of massive rework has roughly a 0% chance of ever happening.

I do like it though.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

4. It’s not gonna happen any time soon. Chronomancer has been balanced around the current paradigm, and Robert et al are working hard to make sure everything is ready for HoT. Rebalancing phantasms means reevaluating everything about mesmers, and that is a LOT of work. It makes the June 23rd rework pale in comparison.

Fay.2357:

Tbh I really like these.

NB: This type of massive rework has roughly a 0% chance of ever happening.

I do like it though.

I know. I’m just hoping the Devs will see this, think it’s a good idea and take some small steps to making it happen, things like transferring Phant dmg to the Mesmer or making Phantasms Shatter extra stacks of useless Confusion.

Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).

Silverkey.2078:

Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).

That’s kind of the idea I’m going for here. Phantasms would be balanced around the skill they are tied to (the first attack if you will) and the Shatter effect, and any attacks in-between would be icing rather than the cake.

With regards to invincible, un-Shatterable Phantasms that attack once, seems like it might be simplier to just make the Mesmer do the attack instead?

Silverkey.2078:

Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).

This would be amazing. It’s exactly what I wish for all the time. Doing dungeons is so frustrating. I’ll be so thrilled I stacked my phantasms up for 3, got my dps going really well. 1 aoe shot and I have to start over. The other classes I play (which I don’t enjoy so it doesn’t happen often) don’t feel like they have to work as hard to maintain DPS. So much could be fixed if phantasms were a quick burst of damage then gone again.

This would open the door for Scepter to bring a lot more to the table, also. No more needing to worry that a phantasm will get overrode.

Please let this happen! ;_;

Embolism.8106:

That’s kind of the idea I’m going for here. Phantasms would be balanced around the skill they are tied to (the first attack if you will) and the Shatter effect, and any attacks in-between would be icing rather than the cake.

With regards to invincible, un-Shatterable Phantasms that attack once, seems like it might be simplier to just make the Mesmer do the attack instead?

Yes it is in principle equivalent. The only difference is the theme, keeping a part of the personality we would lose by removing the phantasm as a standalone creature.

I do think Phantasms are actually a major toxin to this profession and have been since day 1. They were poorly conceived from the start. Something definitely needs to change but IMO the real problem is that the phantasms are acting, from a mechanical standpoint, as pets, and therefor are being thought of and treated as such..

Allow me to explain.

In reality, the Mesmer is not a “pet” profession, and I don’t believe it was ever intended to be. Giving us the responsibility of having to manage or in any way babysit any of the illusions which we decide to conjure is the ACTUAL self-defeating quality to the Mesmer, as it goes against our purpose. If you want a pet class, that’s what Necros and Rangers are for, not even just in this game, but across all MMOs. Necro’s are the summoners, raising minions to do their bidding, and Rangers are the tamers, befriending creatures and forming psychological bonds with them. Mesmers don’t fit anywhere into that dynamic, and again, I don’t think they were ever intended to.

The Mesmer is, by definition, an Illusionist. What does that mean exactly? Well, I’m pretty sure it means that our only goal in creating illusions should be for the sole purpose of either A) diverting the enemy’s attention or/and shattering them for special effects. I think Anet has forgotten this, and I think the real issue lies in the simple truth that the Mesmer as a concept is very demanding from a design perspective. One could even argue that the Mesmer has, in essence, successfully “confounded” the very people who designed it. It’s a result of the profession’s naturally convoluted and extremely confusing way of doing things. Us Mesmers? We’re twisted. Insane. Absolutely bonkers. The profession is meant to reflect this. It’s SUPPOSED to be confusing, and in a way, it’s part of our own advantage. The more confused WE are (the ones playing the Mesmers), then what chance does the enemy stand at predicting our actions, if we can’t even fully predict ourselves?

I got a little sidetracked, but it’s still relative to the point I’m making here. The point is, I think Anet, in all their attempts to create this ideal profession of chaos and confusion, made themselves confused somewhere along the way, and made a few poor base-design choices. So what exactly is the solution..?

In my opinion its something like this:

In order to keep the Mesmer feeling like a Mesmer, and in order to actually bring it even further in line with being the proper illusionist it was always supposed to be, Phantasms need to change from a mechanical standpoint. They need to be taken out of certain trait lines, they need to be taken off of certain weapons, and their role when conjured needs to be re-imagined in a way that is more focused and logical.

In other words, the Mesmer’s damage potential needs to be taken out of Phantasms entirely, and put back into the two places where it properly belongs: The Mesmer his/herself, and the Shatter mechanic.

Now I know that idea probably offends a lot of people, particularly those who think a Mesmer’s power is already too concentrated into Shatters.

I read a lot about people who love playing Phantasm Mes because of the “pet class” feel it gives. They like having their Phantasms around who they can rely on to do all their damage. But it needs to happen. It’s the only hope for the future of the Mesmer. The profession needs to be brought home to the place where it truly lives.. not as a pet class or a summoner, but as an ILLUSIONIST, a deceiver, one who’s power is his own and not a “pet”. Illusions are NOT sentient beings, they aren’t even real. They are SUPPOSED to be figments of the enemy’s imagination, not an actual physical entity that the Mesmer should ever have to have a second thought about, unless that second thought is “disperse”. And to the Mesmer’s who will shed tears over the loss of their precious phantasm DPS pets? I would say too bad. If being a pet tamer was your intent going into this game, then I repeat, that’s what Rangers and Necro’s are for. The moment when a “pet build” became an available option to the Mesmer in the form of Phantasms is the moment when the future of the profession as a tried and true illusionist was compromised.

At this point, I’ve given up hope for the core Mesmer’s Phantasms to ever see any significant rework. But I’m somewhat hopeful that there might be a future Elite Spec that radically modifies Phantasms, perhaps something along these lines.

Personally, I’ve always seen Phantasms as something between standard “pets” and Final Fantasy summons skills. Which is cool! It’s unique. But I don’t think ANet is able to really balance that unique position. So, frankly, I’d rather they push more in the direction of FF summons and stop treating Mesmer like a pet class.

I think many classes are still suffering from initial poor design decisions specifically on their class mechanics

• Elementalist, which can do everything with its 4 elements. The problem would be easily fixed if most of the potency of each element was conditional to traits (so instead of having different playstyles based on their skills, they have different playstyles based on their traits) but this is currently not the case
• Thief with all its sustain coming from stealth. May change with DD
• Necromancer with its death shroud preventing them from having any scalable defense.
• Ranger with their pets

I feel that we now have very competent developers, but it is hard to fix something which needs a full revamp (basically start from a blank page).

I’ve read a few but it’s late so I haven’t read all. I like the idea of decoupling damage from mesmer and phantasm with a view to balancing it more onto the Mesmer. It would help in PvE and could be leveraged as a way to balance out Mesmer burst by dropping it a tad and giving a bit more sustained damage.

I like the special effects on shatter however I feel letting phantasms still do damage is just asking for “rebalancing” to put it where it is now. They should do little to no damage like clones but you get the special stuff.

@Silverkey, yeah it seems there’s some classes that do need an engineer style reboot in some ways. I would say elementalist needs it the most followed by Mesmer/necro. Ranger just needs pet/AI improvements, we’ve already seen shifts to treat ranger and pet as one which is the right thing.

In a perfect world, if Arenanet were to muster up their courage and rework the Mesmer into what they always intended for it to be, what it SHOULD be, then things would start to look a little more like this…..

Phantasms would be purple ghost-like illusions of yourself, similar to as they are now BUT they would be untargetable, therefor unkillable, and their entire role/purpose would not be one of damage but instead of utility.

Example:

Phantasmal Warden: Conjures an illusion which creates a bubble that destroys all incoming projectiles.

Boom. That’s it.

From there, all you have to decide is whether it’s going to be ground-targeted or not, although I personally prefer not. In the case of ground-targeting, the illusion will spawn at that designated location and do its thing. In the case of not using ground-targeting for these skills, the phantasm will simply appear right next to wherever the Mesmer was when he conjured it.

The next decision is, will the phantasm follow the Mesmer as he moves around, or should it stay where you conjured it for the duration of its existence? If we’re letting them move, then it should work like this: the phantasm is conjured, the very first thing it wants to do is use its ability. After ability completes, if the Mesmer has moved location, it will move to the Mesmer’s location until it gets within a close-enough radius to the Mesmer, where it will use its ability again.

Each Phantasm will have its own singular skill with a cooldown, similar to how they are now.. Each Phantasm will have the SAME baseline cooldown that is consistent across all Phantasms’ skills! This is for the purpose of logic uniformity, giving the Mesmer and his allies the capability to plan around the Phantasm’s actions, but also giving enemies (in pvp or wvw) to plan around it as well. In this way, each phantasm is in fact much more self-balanced, and requires less management from both the players and Arenanet. E.G. Mesmer conjures a Phantasmal Warden, stands in its skill so as to avoid being struck by projectiles. The enemy has a few options: either 1) attack the Mesmer with melee, or 2) wait for the phantasm to finish its skill and take advantage of the window between. Remember, the Phantasm no longer does damage. The purpose of the phantasm has been focused, refined. If you want to block projectiles, you conjure the Warden. If not, then it has no other purpose.

More Examples:

Phantasmal Mage: Conjures an illusion which enchants the Mesmer with Might and Fury.

Again. That’s it. This Phantasm is for buffing. Conjuring it will give the Mesmer a damage boost. You balance the spell accordingly: if the Universal Phantasm Ability Cooldown (UPAC) is 2 seconds, then you make it so that this phantasm’s ability gives the Mesmer 1/2/3 stacks of might lasting 5 sec and Fury lasting 3-5 sec. Or whatever would be the most balanced option. I won’t pretend to be good with number balance. Since phantasms cannot be targeted (and therefor destroyed) by enemies, the pro to the spell is the buff you will get, and the longer you keep the phantasm in existence, the stronger the buffs will be. The counter? Simple: Boon removal. Plenty of classes have it, and that’s what it’s there for.

I’ll add more examples later.

Silverkey.2078:

Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).

I didnt read this whole forum, so im sorry if someone already said this (i’ll be back later to read it)-

I would love for Phantasms to do their attack then just turn into a normal clone afterward. Have the phantasm not count toward your clone limit until it turns into a clone. So you have just as much fodder for shatters, and you don’t feel punished for using them.

Then maybe we’d be allowed to have nice things.

I agree that phantasms were poorly implemented and like the ideas proposed here but will play devil’s advocate.

1) An enemy player has to take some time currently to decide if he is going to take out your phantasms since they pose large enough of a threat DPS wise. If phantasms pose no threat DPS wise then an enemy player is free to focus on you, and you lose out on a little bit of survivability. While the difference in survivability may be negligible and can easily be made up somewhere else, thematically, I like that the enemy player has to make a choice. (i.e., It adds to the confusion theme of mesmers.)

2) I felt Robert attempted to address the problem with phantasm/shattering in a way that didn’t completely redo the mechanics of our class profession from the ground up which is probably never going to happen. He reduced the importance of keeping phantasms alive by reducing the time it took to respawn them and by making it much more attractive to keep shattering your clones/phantasms vs just keeping phantasms up indefinitely. This seemed evident through traits like Illusionary Reversion, Chronophantasma, Persistance of Memory, Mental Defender, Alacrity, etc.

@Zendella, I must say, I quite enjoyed reading your post.

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tobascodagama.2961:

At this point, I’ve given up hope for the core Mesmer’s Phantasms to ever see any significant rework. But I’m somewhat hopeful that there might be a future Elite Spec that radically modifies Phantasms, perhaps something along these lines.

That’s what I’m afraid of. Given that Elite specs are mutually exclusive and this is a core Mesmer problem, the fix should be in the core Mesmer instead of making every Elite spec reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

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apharma.3741:

I like the special effects on shatter however I feel letting phantasms still do damage is just asking for “rebalancing” to put it where it is now. They should do little to no damage like clones but you get the special stuff.

Well I’m envisioning Phantasm damage be reduced a lot, maybe with current high damage Phantasms down to iAvenger’s level. I still think they should do enough damage to matter, but it should only be a small part of Mesmer DPS.

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Leodon.1564:

I agree that phantasms were poorly implemented and like the ideas proposed here but will play devil’s advocate.

1) An enemy player has to take some time currently to decide if he is going to take out your phantasms since they pose large enough of a threat DPS wise. If phantasms pose no threat DPS wise then an enemy player is free to focus on you, and you lose out on a little bit of survivability. While the difference in survivability may be negligible and can easily be made up somewhere else, thematically, I like that the enemy player has to make a choice. (i.e., It adds to the confusion theme of mesmers.)

2) I felt Robert attempted to address the problem with phantasm/shattering in a way that didn’t completely redo the mechanics of our class profession from the ground up which is probably never going to happen. He reduced the importance of keeping phantasms alive by reducing the time it took to respawn them and by making it much more attractive to keep shattering your clones/phantasms vs just keeping phantasms up indefinitely. This seemed evident through traits like Illusionary Reversion, Chronophantasma, Persistance of Memory, Mental Defender, Alacrity, etc.

1 would be a valid point except currently your enemies don’t even need to single out your Phantasms, all they have to do is throw cleaves and AoEs your way and your Phantasms melt without them even trying.

2 goes back to my lament about a core Mesmer problem being fixed in an Elite spec, with future Elite specs constantly reinventing the wheel to fix the same problem…

The OP has a good idea (even though his new abilities seem way too OP). But really, the problem in doing something like this (besides how much time itd take) is pve <→ pvp balance. There is no way you could do something like this in pvp without messing up class balance for at least 1-2 years. I guess you could split balance between game modes, but something this major would practically create a whole new class, so doesnt seem like that would work.

But hey, when burst damage and control and so on become useful in pve so shatter specs become useful then we wont have to worry about it!

The developers have trapped the class. The reason why alacrity was an okay buff was because it couldn’t enhance the sustain dps of the mesmer by that much. It made us closer to baseline, not stronger than baseline. Compare that to what alacrity does to an elementalist.

Now we are stuck. Any time they adjust the sustain dps of the mesmer without his illusions, they will have to look at alacrity.

And now they will never allow greatsword on mesmer to be anything similar in damage modifiers to greatsword on warrior. Because when we do the damage of baseline warrior, we exceed them with alacrity.

It is mired in nonsense. The phantasms that mimic weapon skills on other classes also mimic their damage to be roughly equivalent. It would be as if for the potential to use “whirling wrath” 3 times every 10 seconds the warrior gave up hundreds blades.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The developers have trapped the class. The reason why alacrity was an okay buff was because it couldn’t enhance the sustain dps of the mesmer by that much. It made us closer to baseline, not stronger than baseline. Compare that to what alacrity does to an elementalist.

Now we are stuck. Any time they adjust the sustain dps of the mesmer without his illusions, they will have to look at alacrity.

And now they will never allow greatsword on mesmer to be anything similar in damage modifiers to greatsword on warrior. Because when we do the damage of baseline warrior, we exceed them with alacrity.

Do remember that taking Chronomancer means passing up a trait line that has solid dps traits, where Chronomancer has none. There’s already balance built into the specialization, they can quite easily manage this.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Daniel Handler.4816:

The developers have trapped the class. The reason why alacrity was an okay buff was because it couldn’t enhance the sustain dps of the mesmer by that much. It made us closer to baseline, not stronger than baseline. Compare that to what alacrity does to an elementalist.

Now we are stuck. Any time they adjust the sustain dps of the mesmer without his illusions, they will have to look at alacrity.

And now they will never allow greatsword on mesmer to be anything similar in damage modifiers to greatsword on warrior. Because when we do the damage of baseline warrior, we exceed them with alacrity.

Do remember that taking Chronomancer means passing up a trait line that has solid dps traits, where Chronomancer has none. There’s already balance built into the specialization, they can quite easily manage this.

Which trait line do you refer to? Our sustain dps increases come from domination, dueling, and illusions.

If we lose illusions all we lose is 9% damage. Phantasmal haste is inferior to shared alacrity, and phantasms attack faster anyway due to chronophantasma. Plus we gain wells that come with damage modifiers higher than the 0 affecting 90% of our utilities .

Silverkey.2078:

I think many classes are still suffering from initial poor design decisions specifically on their class mechanics

• Elementalist, which can do everything with its 4 elements. The problem would be easily fixed if most of the potency of each element was conditional to traits (so instead of having different playstyles based on their skills, they have different playstyles based on their traits) but this is currently not the case
• Thief with all its sustain coming from stealth. May change with DD
• Necromancer with its death shroud preventing them from having any scalable defense.
• Ranger with their pets

I feel that we now have very competent developers, but it is hard to fix something which needs a full revamp (basically start from a blank page).

I definitely agree with you there. Every profession in this game has some very serious core-design mechanics flaw with it that is holding it back from living up to its true potential.

As for the exact reason WHY Anet is doing this? Allowing these corruptions and flaws to continue existing? It’s entirely beyond me. You don’t design a game in such a way that prevents you from being able to go back and make core changes, you just don’t do it. It’s incredibly poor planning, and an almost self-destructive production strategy. Things change; the game needs to be able to change with it.

I might also add that simply taking the easiest route to being able to put out a product is never the best option, especially if it means that that product is going to be sub-par. The devs probably think we haven’t noticed all the hidden potential this game really has, but we have. I’ve met plenty of players like myself who love this game to death and love it enough to realize all the massive potential that lies deep within it, all the amazing things it could be, and yet are faced with constant disappointment because they are too hesitant to go back to the drawing boards and change core mechanics. I just don’t get it.

TL;DR you don’t fix a game by piling crap hotfix after crap hotfix on top of the product you’ve already made, especially when the thing that needs fixing is a core mechanic.

Daniel Handler.4816:

If we lose illusions all we lose is 9% damage. Phantasmal haste is inferior to shared alacrity, and phantasms attack faster anyway due to chronophantasma. Plus we gain wells that come with damage modifiers higher than the 0 affecting 90% of our utilities .

• Yes, 9% damage is part of it
• Yes, shared alacrity can provide more than Phantasmal Haste, but Phantasmal Haste is part of the tradeoff, nonetheless. Also, you’d have to be dropping wells specifically to get your phantasms to attack faster, and further choosing to give it to phants instead of teammates. Does that really seem likely to you? Did you ever do that during the last Beta? And then there’s the phantasms that don’t stay in one place (like iBerserker). I’m not sure why you thought this made much sense, tbh :P
• I’m sorry, are you really planning to use Chronophantasma to increase phantasm damage without Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory? Because I dare you to try it this beta weekend and see how it comes out. Phantasm cooldowns are just too long without them to make this work.
• 10% crit chance on Mind Wrack is more than 10% expected damage increase for a power shatter build. Or you could take Ineptitude instead, but if Ineptitude is better than +10% damage on shatter, then that’s what you’re giving up by not taking Illusion :p
• Shatter recharge matters, both for f5 and for other shatters anyway. That’s a subtle dps increase, an increase in defenses, and an increase in the value of the Chronomancer’s signature “OP” skill.

You’re giving up a LOT by going chronomancer without Illusions, don’t pretend otherwise.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Daniel Handler.4816:

If we lose illusions all we lose is 9% damage. Phantasmal haste is inferior to shared alacrity, and phantasms attack faster anyway due to chronophantasma. Plus we gain wells that come with damage modifiers higher than the 0 affecting 90% of our utilities .

• Yes, 9% damage is part of it
• Yes, shared alacrity can provide more than Phantasmal Haste, but Phantasmal Haste is part of the tradeoff, nonetheless. Also, you’d have to be dropping wells specifically to get your phantasms to attack faster, and further choosing to give it to phants instead of teammates. Does that really seem likely to you? Did you ever do that during the last Beta? And then there’s the phantasms that don’t stay in one place (like iBerserker). I’m not sure why you thought this made much sense, tbh :P
• I’m sorry, are you really planning to use Chronophantasma to increase phantasm damage without Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory? Because I dare you to try it this beta weekend and see how it comes out. Phantasm cooldowns are just too long without them to make this work.
• 10% crit chance on Mind Wrack is more than 10% expected damage increase for a power shatter build. Or you could take Ineptitude instead, but if Ineptitude is better than +10% damage on shatter, then that’s what you’re giving up by not taking Illusion :p
• Shatter recharge matters, both for f5 and for other shatters anyway. That’s a subtle dps increase, an increase in defenses, and an increase in the value of the Chronomancer’s signature “OP” skill.

You’re giving up a LOT by going chronomancer without Illusions, don’t pretend otherwise.

The melee phants would stay in wells quite easily. And when the look towards modifying parts of our dps they rarely look to any team aspect.

Chronophantasma just means that phantasms when summoned will perform their action twice. The modern meta build can produce 3 phantasms at least every 30 seconds. Now not only that but the first damage rotation is doubled.

Also the ability to use wells makes up for the loss of many of these modifiers.

The loss of the modifiers is a balancing factor yes. But this still constitutes an increase.

Any subsequent increase in dps will require a change to alacrity.

Very interesting post, but I’m in the “this will never, and probably should never happen” camp.

Even if ANet liked this, they’re kinda busy.

A faster and more direct change would just be to calculate Mesmer weapon damage independent of illusions so we can avoid the “ranger damage is partially via pet” gimpage.

Mesmer weapon damage isn’t strong in PvP at and a decent boost would not make it so. Mesmer PvP damage is 90% shatters or condi.

Any Mesmer who can keep 3 phantasms up in PvE deserves the benefit of that damage as a bonus and not as an assumption when Mesmer DPS is calculated. This would be on top of my proposed weapon skill increase.

I’m mainly implying Sword when I say weapon because melee should always have the best risk/benefit ratio to reward skillful play — even moreso when that melee is a light armor class without necro tankability. Speed up the sword auto attack so Mesmer boon ripping is more viable or put that attack speed into the Sword trait.

This is how Mesmer DPS will be cured. Oh and wells have potential.

Gav.1425:

Very interesting post, but I’m in the “this will never, and probably should never happen” camp.

Even if ANet liked this, they’re kinda busy.

A faster and more direct change would just be to calculate Mesmer weapon damage independent of illusions so we can avoid the “ranger damage is partially via pet” gimpage.

Mesmer weapon damage isn’t strong in PvP at and a decent boost would not make it so. Mesmer PvP damage is 90% shatters or condi.

Any Mesmer who can keep 3 phantasms up in PvE deserves the benefit of that damage as a bonus and not as an assumption when Mesmer DPS is calculated. This would be on top of my proposed weapon skill increase.

I’m mainly implying Sword when I say weapon because melee should always have the best risk/benefit ratio to reward skillful play — even moreso when that melee is a light armor class without necro tankability. Speed up the sword auto attack so Mesmer boon ripping is more viable or put that attack speed into the Sword trait.

This is how Mesmer DPS will be cured. Oh and wells have potential.

^
“Any Mesmer who can keep 3 phantasms up in PvE deserves the benefit of that damage as a bonus and not as an assumption when Mesmer DPS is calculated. This would be on top of my proposed weapon skill increase.”

Extremely accurate and almost the crux of any problem with mesmer today. Mesmer dps value rely too much on golem balancing.

Sizer.3987:

The OP has a good idea (even though his new abilities seem way too OP).

Ouch. I specifically refrained from including damage and stack numbers so people can discuss the idea rather than saying “this is OP/UP”.

.

Gav.1425:

A faster and more direct change would just be to calculate Mesmer weapon damage independent of illusions so we can avoid the “ranger damage is partially via pet” gimpage.

Any Mesmer who can keep 3 phantasms up in PvE deserves the benefit of that damage as a bonus and not as an assumption when Mesmer DPS is calculated. This would be on top of my proposed weapon skill increase.

Agreed, although I don’t think Phantasms should be completely out of the equation: you can generally rely on them getting at least one shot off (except not really in any AoE situation, even with Protected Phantasms…), so they should be balanced with the assumption that they only survive long enough for one shot (even though they frequently don’t…).

The reliability of Phantasm first strike is why I’m suggesting it be moved to the Mesmer, by the way.

I have to agree!
I really would love to play the Mesmer, without the Phantasms.

Zendella.9573:

they need to be taken off of certain weapons, and their role when conjured needs to be re-imagined in a way that is more focused and logical.

Of course, the damage of the Mesmer should be increased, to compensate this:
From 50% overall-damage to 100% overall-damage.

Already existing Phantasms (summoned via Weapon-Skill) could be added as Utility-Skills.
Phantasms then should be similar to the pets of the Elementalist or Necromancer.
They also could be “merged” into just one Utility-Skill.

For example:

• Signet of Illusions:
  Signet Passive:
  Increases the movement-speed of the Mesmer and his Illusions by 25%.
  Increases the attack-speed of the Mesmer and his Illusions by 25%.
  Signet Aktive:
  Summon a Phantasm based on your selected weapon.
  Lasts 60 seconds.

The summoned Phantasm will last for 60 seconds or, until it dies.
The Phantasm can attack more than just one enemy.