With at least one damage mitigation skill?
A bit OP most likely…
Anyone else like this?
MOAR WEAPONS PLEASE ANET!
FYI, I main engi, any other class just do not have enough damage mitigation for me… And I want to roam with Mesmer but its HARD… How to avoid that spike damages?!?!?
Retriever Iiat – Asura Engineer
Private retriever of runaway NPCs
Mistband[MIST] – PVP Training guild EU
There’s already a phantasm with a shield. It’s called the Phantasmal Defender and it’s a utility skill. As for avoiding spike… I’d say using Distortion is the most common method. There’s also sword #2, but Distortion can be used even when stunned or otherwise CC’ed, so it’s pretty awesome.
With at least one damage mitigation skill?
A bit OP most likely…
Anyone else like this?
MOAR WEAPONS PLEASE ANET!
FYI, I main engi, any other class just do not have enough damage mitigation for me… And I want to roam with Mesmer but its HARD… How to avoid that spike damages?!?!?
So you want to just keep playing engie but with butterflies?
Give me a daze on this shield of yours and I’ll show you why I don’t need moar damage mitigation.
Though I too would take a 4s block/reflect such as old mimic.
There’s already a phantasm with a shield. It’s called the Phantasmal Defender and it’s a utility skill. As for avoiding spike… I’d say using Distortion is the most common method. There’s also sword #2, but Distortion can be used even when stunned or otherwise CC’ed, so it’s pretty awesome.
I can not bring myself to give up another utility for the defender, which is kinda useless and uses 1 of your 3 illusion/phantasm spots, there are just better utilities to use…
50% damages mitigation is poor as well with how little HP that thing has.
I am still very sketchy on when and how to use distortion and the exact mechanic behind it?
When I do use it I just end up failing the timing…
Suggestions? Please?
:)
Retriever Iiat – Asura Engineer
Private retriever of runaway NPCs
Mistband[MIST] – PVP Training guild EU
There’s already a phantasm with a shield. It’s called the Phantasmal Defender and it’s a utility skill. As for avoiding spike… I’d say using Distortion is the most common method. There’s also sword #2, but Distortion can be used even when stunned or otherwise CC’ed, so it’s pretty awesome.
I can not bring myself to give up another utility for the defender, which is kinda useless and uses 1 of your 3 illusion/phantasm spots, there are just better utilities to use…
50% damages mitigation is poor as well with how little HP that thing has.
I am still very sketchy on when and how to use distortion and the exact mechanic behind it?
When I do use it I just end up failing the timing…
Suggestions? Please?
:)
Distortion is basically a “godmode” panic button. Without illusionary persona you need at least one illusion to use it – each illusion shattered will give you an extra 1 second of invuln.
With illusionary persona you count as a fourth illusion, so can get 1 second without any illusions up, or maximum of 4 seconds with 3 extra illusions.
Use it whenever is a key moment to mitigate damage/control effects – but remember, because it has a base 60s cooldown you need to save it for the right time – this can’t really be explained and only comes with practice.
You can use it to secure a stomp/res, to cover other casts (such as a heal or mass invis for escape), to avoid an enemy’s killer burst and so on. Just be aware it will not remove conditions already on you (unless you trait for shattered conditions, but virtually nobody does that).
Well our class mechanic relies on illusions – all the F1 to F4 shatters require at least one illusion up in order to work.
The exception is if you have illusionary persona (GM trait in illusions), which means you can use any of F1 to F4 even if you don’t have any illusions up.
Lyss & Ilya only exist because of the traited and untraited iDuellist.
I’d finally like to see a fan for my mes – like the splash art. Shield would be cool too. MH Pistol, ok.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
Every phantasm carries a purple ghost like weapon so it won’t look messed up like when they wear backpieces. The purple ghost like phantasm effect is only a model for the phantasm itself, not for its weapons. And I strongly beleve that the only reason why there are 2 purple pistols is because of the 2 different iDuellists. If you trait your pistol you can see your phantasm gets swapped out in your skill bar. If you summon a iDuellist and change the trait you can summon another one right away. It changes the phantasm that gets created and yea – that’s pretty much it ^^
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
We can’t be full tank, but we have lots of blocking and distortion-related stuff. I’ve seen videos of impressive players waiting for the right moment to block that gigantic, but obvious, strike.
But I’m not saying shields shouldn’t have damage mitigation.
I kinda hope shield ISN’T our new weapon. From what I have heard (mostly rumors) and saw in the video, rangers (and a rumor said warriors) are getting staff, necros are getting GS, Theifs are getting rifles, and Engis are getting hammer. Compared to all those new 2 handers a one hand seems kinda like a gimmick, especially an offhand one. If they reverse it like gs and make it on hand it will still feel short compared to a 2 hand. Hopefully we will get lucky and get a 2 hand shield or something.
Also I have quip and don’t want to give it up without a fight
We can’t be full tank? Please? If the shield gives us some sort of supportive aegis, protection or maybe even a distortion, we can go full healing power tank and spam mop with healing mantras being the 1k HP per second (AOE!) buddy every pvp player wants to have :O
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
Well if on trailer we saw mesmer shiled ability than most likely 2nd shiled skill will be some phantasm (evry ofhand weapon have 1 phantasm and 1 other skill) so probly shiled will be more ofencive. Also i think if ranger and necro get 2 h weapons, we will get 1 mainhand and shiled and i hope this mainhand will be some clouse range- we have only sword for that now.
I don’t think the shield is going to be a gimmick. I think it will be a crucial supportive weapon. It may have a blast finisher that will spread chaos armor from our ethereal fields and many other things from other fields.
We can’t be full tank? Please? If the shield gives us some sort of supportive aegis, protection or maybe even a distortion, we can go full healing power tank and spam mop with healing mantras being the 1k HP per second (AOE!) buddy every pvp player wants to have :O
@"we want blast finishers guy": There should be a trait that gives mantras the ability for blast finishers
btt: I’m not sure about a phantasm on the shield. What we know so far about the specs: Each spec gets the ability to wear another weapon. So maybe the mesmer has a pahntasm on every weapon, but maybe the mesmer cannot use a shield but the “chronomancer” can and those do not use phantasms at all … maybe
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
I think it’s safe to say that ANet will ensure that every professions gains a viable new weapon & build combo with this, otherwise they would shoot themselves in the foot financially.
I think the fact that these new things appear to come at the cost of other existing things, is a clear indicator that they were trying to reduce the impact on the games current balance. This is a good thing for the fact that new weapons/abilities/builds will live in a much smaller balancing ecosystem, which will most likely also mean that each of them will be worthwhile without destroying existing builds in the process.
In short, you can rest assured they will make darn sure that the new stuff will lure you into buying the expansion, so it’s bound to be worthwhile, but ANet is smart to branch off this stuff so that they don’t just add more variables to an already hugely complex balancing equation!
If phantasms are still available for the chronomancer i think a cool one for shield would be a phantasm that spawns above the target, crashing to the ground and knocking down 5 players. This process would repeat every 8-10 seconds until its destroyed. This could combo well with the timebomb skill shown in the trailer.
To mitigate OPness the spawn animation would be obvious like a portal or something, the phantasm’s health would be one of the lowest and the internal cooldown of the skill would be similar to warrior’s backbreaker hammer skill (30 seconds).
I think it’s safe to say that ANet will ensure that every professions gains a viable new weapon & build combo with this, otherwise they would shoot themselves in the foot financially.
I think it’s incredibly optimistic to assume anything approaching competence from the skills and balance team.
I think we should hope for a viable new weapon. I think we should absolutely not expect a viable new weapons.
I think it’s incredibly optimistic to assume anything approaching competence from the skills and balance team.
Current balance is far from bad, so I don’t truly see the point. I’d prefer them to try much more sweeping balance changes at a weekly pace, but I reckon the sPvP crowd would die from a heart attack 5 weeks in, at best. So I can see why they may not want to do that.
But overall balance is really good, so dunno. But there’s a differentiation, the balance team seems to be doing ok, while whoever is responsible for skills is just sitting around doing nothing because there’s so many undertuned / overtuned skills and traits which aren’t getting any touches in 2+ years (which is weird).
So I guess in total it will probably be disappointing as far as mechanics go, and yet balanced overall.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
With at least one damage mitigation skill?
A bit OP most likely…
Anyone else like this?
MOAR WEAPONS PLEASE ANET!
FYI, I main engi, any other class just do not have enough damage mitigation for me… And I want to roam with Mesmer but its HARD… How to avoid that spike damages?!?!?
So you want to just keep playing engie but with butterflies?
Give me a daze on this shield of yours and I’ll show you why I don’t need moar damage mitigation.
Though I too would take a 4s block/reflect such as old mimic.
Every phantasm carries a purple ghost like weapon so it won’t look messed up like when they wear backpieces. The purple ghost like phantasm effect is only a model for the phantasm itself, not for its weapons. And I strongly beleve that the only reason why there are 2 purple pistols is because of the 2 different iDuellists. If you trait your pistol you can see your phantasm gets swapped out in your skill bar. If you summon a iDuellist and change the trait you can summon another one right away. It changes the phantasm that gets created and yea – that’s pretty much it ^^
Lol wut..
There are Two ghostly Pistols because they share the names of the Goddess’s Lyss and Ilya. These two combined are Lyssa (the twin goddess of chaos and illusion) That is why there are Two pistols…
If your logic were to be followed then there should also be two Purple and ghostly weapons for each phantasm. The effect you described was an Old bug that allowed you to untrait or Trait for a CD or Range increase/decrease and it would instantly recharge the skill. If anet had to Create a New weapon for each traited and untraited Phantasm then there should also be Two Great Swords, Two Shields, Two Swords, Two Tridents, Two Spear Guns, Two Spears, 4 Scepters, 4 Axes etc.. etc..
Current balance is far from bad, so I don’t truly see the point. I’d prefer them to try much more sweeping balance changes at a weekly pace, but I reckon the sPvP crowd would die from a heart attack 5 weeks in, at best. So I can see why they may not want to do that.
Current balance is also far from good. I mean, there’s only 1-2 viable builds per class in a game that has incredibly extensive options for character customization. Despite the small might nerf, celestial builds are still somewhat out of line, although better than before.
But overall balance is really good, so dunno. But there’s a differentiation, the balance team seems to be doing ok, while whoever is responsible for skills is just sitting around doing nothing because there’s so many undertuned / overtuned skills and traits which aren’t getting any touches in 2+ years (which is weird).
Skills and balance. 1 team. Remember that this is the team responsible for the wonderful new grandmaster traits that are literally worse than what would happen if you picked 3 completely random effects and triggers and slapped them together on a trait.
Although the most recent balance patch did some sensible things like toning down might, I’m not yet willing to assume it’s a result of the balance team actually having a clue. That benefit of the doubt was lost long ago. Until this sort of sensible balancing becomes the norm, I’m going to attribute it to the ‘A broken clock is still right twice a day’ effect.
Recall that in this same patch that toned down might, they also made kill shot cast faster than our utility phantasms, and buffed completely random aspects of our skills in the blind hopes that it would somehow get us to stop complaining about how bad they are.
I’m perhaps less pessimistic than Fay but I’m right in line with what was said.
That is I’m not really expecting much until I see it in action.
As it stands:
The majority of people don’t use a shield in WvW.
The majority of people don’t use a shield in PvE.
Even in PvP I wouldn’t say it’s used is extensively, just bunker builds and a select few others.
It’ll be interesting to see how they use the shield for Mesmer. As it stands now, it’s completely useless for Guardians (but less so on Engineers) so I’m holding my reservations that it’ll be anything worthwhile for Mesmers.
I post from a phone so please excuse any references to ducks or any other auto corrections.
