Having played my Mesmer for four months now, and having leveled some other classes and played all of them in WvWvW, tPVP and sPVP, I find my Mesmer unique and immensely enjoyable. However, after watching the patches over these months, and reading the unceasing griping by vocal members of the other class communities, I believe the Mesmer’s current traits and skills are needlessly complicated. The complications have become a hindrance for the ANet design team to balance and non-Mesmer players to understand. Therefore I think Anet needs to scrub the Mesmer’s existing ideas and simplify the class as a whole, while aiming to preserve its unique elements.
I think this can only occur if ANet abolishes the shatter mechanics entirely. The shatter mechanic is an unnecessary step towards delivering buffs, DOTs or burst damage that are otherwise delivered from perfectly viable mechanisms that already exist within the class. The design space should be rededicated to the truly unique abilities of the Mesmer class.
An example of this reallocated design space could be to assign the four glamour line skills (portal, veil, feedback and null field) to the shatter abilities’ places. A single new transformation, manipulation, signet, and mantra could replace the glamours in the skill table. This would better allow a player to dedicate their character to one of these paths, while giving all Mesmers a common utility baseline that is unique to the class and distinguishes them from the other classes better than the shatter line.
To continue with the theme of simplification, I think Anet should eliminate the distinction between clone and phantasm. All clones and phantasms should be reduced to the common term that already exists -illusions. ANet should address the long standing discussion of “pet class, or not to pet class” by building on the idea of illusions as pseudo-pets.
An example of these pseudo-pet mechanics is as follows. When in a party, illusions should randomly appear as anyone the character is partied with, including the character, who is in an immediate area around the target. An illusion’s attack form should be derived from the copied party member’s class. Illusions should mimic the player’s motions while remaining focused on their target, dodging when the player dodges, and moving in a random direction as the player moves.
Illusions should remain in play after the target’s death so long as the Mesmer is already in combat. The illusions would only disappear when the combat condition goes away (i.e. trigger when automatic fast healing occurs). A Mesmer calling a target would redirect any existing illusions to that target, thus giving the combat and the illusions’ existence some longevity. Illusions summoned outside of combat would persist for a brief period to give the Mesmer an opportunity to send them after a target.
Each of the specialist phantasm abilities (Berserker, Duelist, etc.) should be rewritten to provide unique buffs with specific trade offs to illusions. For example, Berserker could give fury and quicken to all active illusions, but leave them vulnerable. Mage would give all illusions a random condition damage effect to their attacks, but leave them crippled.
The cumulative effect of these changes should enhance the confusion and misdirection aspects of the class for team play, and largely leave Mesmer’s untouched for solo play (the illusions would simply copy the player by default). It would also have the effect of making illusions more similar to pets, but still different enough that Mesmers do not become light armor Rangers.