Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. Today I’d like to discuss changes long desired by community for torch skills.

Long story short:

Torch #4 – Swap between burn and blind is needed.
It just makes way more sense to burn first and deal damage and then reappear near them and have them blinded. The way it is set up now minizes the potential of this skill, which I personally don’t see any reason for – unless it’s intended to underperform it’s full potential

Torch #5 – Phantasmal Mage buff is needed badly.
Let’s be honest the Mage is just inferior compared to ALL other phantasms summoned by weapon skills. The best way to use it right now is to shatter right when it’s summoned – it’ll do way, way more damage then if it lived average mesmer phantasm lifespan. This is wrong when we talk about phantasms. Phantasms supposed to be more attractive to keep them alive then to shatter – and it fully applies to Phantasmal Warlock, Phantasmal Berserker, Phantasmal Duelist and Phantasmal Swordsman. Phantasmal mage is a one very very sad exception from this rule making Torch #5 just another ‘Mirror Image’ kind of skill used just for shatter and nothing else.

fully agreed! love the torch but it’s useless compared to the other offhands.

I wouldn’t swap the Blind and Burn, because – sorry if this seems a stupid reasoning – that’d no longer fit the name of the skill. It’s The Prestige. You trick (Blind), you vanish (Stealth), and then you reappear in a flash (Burn).

What I’d do is make The Prestige have the Burn trigger completely independent of how the Stealth ends. Via debuffing, weapon swap, other skills, whatever. In theory you could trigger Blind and Burn simultaneously if you wanted to. Or, remove the channeled aspect, but I can sort-of understand why that got changed in beta.

As for Phantasmal Mage, I’d give his Confusion substantially more power (3 stacks?), and also make his Retaliation be an AE pulse around the target, not a chaining attack. Further I’d then integrate him with the traits, +ConfusionDuration, Boon/Condition durations, such stuff. Does he already remove conditions when applying Retaliation? If not, that needs fixing, too.

I think The Prestige works that way to force a choice: A) Offense, you stay in the same area, Defense you run away and the burn is incidental. Sort of like a short-range version of the Engineer’s rifle jump (which does some damage at the take-off point and more damage at the landing point, which could of course be the same point).

Another point is that AoE will still hit you even if you’re stealthed, so the blind before you stealth minimizes the damage you’ll take while stealthed. (Assuming Blind affects AoE’s in the same way as targeted attacks, which I haven’t tested.)

Swap between burn and blind is needed.

It will become unusable in pve.

Ok, may be not a swap on Prestige.

Good to know everyone agrees on Phantasmal Mage

My biggest issue with The Prestige burn effect is that it, seemingly, does not occur if I am damaged during the stealth duration.

As for the Mage, you have to accept that its damage is indirect through its buff. It will be best utilized when in close combat, particularly in PvP situations.

>>As for the Mage, you have to accept that its damage is indirect through its buff. It will >>be best utilized when in close combat, particularly in PvP situations.

What do you mean I have to accept? I know how confusion works, no worries. Even if they spam their skills like crazy the damage will be much lower then other phantasms would do in the same amount of time.

Retaliation is way too OP, wtf
reflect a thief 18k backstab and he’s dead, lol!

Retaliation does a set amount of damage per hit; it’s not like reflection (which only works for projectiles). It’s far more useful on Unload than Backstab.

That brings up a question for you testers out there. If I have personal reflection and retaliation, does the enemy get hit by both, or does the reflect get it before it actually hits me? I am not talking about reflect field, like Feedback.

The Prestige just needs to persist through dodges, that’s not too much to ask for is it? Breaking on other spellcasts is fine.

The mage would be alright if it just fired a lot faster. As is it’s almost unnoticeable compared to other phantasms, I want it to be like those pink nightmares in the Lovers fight.

Was thinking about this earlier.

I would prefer The Prestige to no longer be channeled, just a regular stealth like Decoy, but have the burn trigger when the stealth falls off. So either wait the stealth out and burn, or pop Prestige and attack to immediately burn. Or keep the channel and atleast have the burn happen once interrupted.

As for Mage I think it would be nice if they made his attack an aoe explosion, basically like throwing a fireball, but then apply confusion/retaliation in the area and making it a blast finisher. Maybe give it a little more direct dmg, idk.

Would help alot for tagging and stuff for sure, and would finally have a phantasm doing a blast finisher.

It would help alot if Retaliation showed dmg for whoever applied it, so atleast you can see just how much your iMage is actually doing, it’s hard to tell it’s actual effectiveness.

torch needs rework, i only use it cause it is the only aoe finisher for mesmers, and applying chaos armor to all members is really good, other then that, meh weapon.

Prestige is fine, at the very limit, the channeling can be annoying. I also heard it doesn’t untarget you when someone has you selected, true or false?

iMage on the other hand.. Its usefulness is low compared to other phantasms. Very low damage, not even 200 non crit at 80(on a Longhorn Sheep in Frostgorge Sound), bounce only twice, as well as attacking slow like any other phantasms. The confusion is fine, if anything maybe increase it to 2. The retaliation is meh, you have to get hit for a few extra damages, which isn’t worth the risk. Why is the CD this high again?
(Also, they can’t hit the targets in LA, so I’m going to assume they may have an issue hitting some targets)

Is there even a reason to take a Torch over any other OHs(other than the look)? iDuelist, iSwordsman and iWarden have a nice utility and damage, while iMage have low utility and damage. Other OHs also have a nice 2nd skill with them. Magic Bullet, iRipost and Temporal Curtain are all nice, while Prestige is kinda lonely with iMage.

I take Torch solely for The Prestige, so it’s definitely worth taking. iMage however is rarely worth conjuring except for Shatter fodder.

iMage (and torch in general) is great for fast attacking foes like thieves, especially ranged opponents. Retaliation+confusion+reflection from traited Distortion just rips up Unload thieves. The Prestige helps us mitigate thieves stealth, too, as an added bonus. Unfortunately, this makes it rather suck for most other encounters (and most of PVE in general since mobs attack slow).

Now if iMage bounces were a small AOE that could tag groups, like bunches of risen and skritt, the benefit might be worthwhile.

The 2 handers are our best weapons. You only swap to a one hander because you can’t live without the run speed buff. Having an off hand without runspeed is pointless.

I like the idea of the torch. The gun looks really strong. But they’d have to be simply AMAZING to give up run speed. And I just dont see that ever being that case. The focus boosts your run speed (and your allies) while crippling your opponent and providing a pull. The torch has good misdirection but I’d need either swiftness, a passive speed boost, or a blink to make it viable.

Yes, it’s really sad that shattering the iMage gives you more damage AND more confusion than keeping it up does. The swap on prestige would be greatly appreciated but everyone seems to be ignoring the part of the skill that I use it for more than anything in team fights. It’s our ONE and ONLY blast finisher.

Torch just needs to burn on early release. This is because while you’re running around invis your still hitable. As long as the refresh timer is independent from these effects its no big deal

Mage is wonky because retaliation is a power stat and everything else about torch is condition damage related. I say keep it one stack of confusion and increase the frequency, or make it aoe confusion to compliment ‘the prestige’s’ aoe focus.

The stealth from prestige is still good, but man I wish the Mage was actually worth casting it. Just did few games today with torch to see if may be it’s not that bad but meh – pistol damage is and utility is SO much better.

ANET, please buff phantasmal mage, please.

The problem with the Mage might be that his theoretical damage is actually very high.

His attack chains. Have a fast-attacking target get hit, adding Confusion, then have the projectile jump onto the 3 friendly targets in front of him, adding retaliation. Now have that target cleave onto the three with their melee attacks.
That’s a lot more damage than other phantasms can add (since the damage isn’t limited by the Mage’s cadence at all).

The problem is: This situation is extremely rare.

EvGenius.6208:

Torch #4 – Swap between burn and blind is needed.
It just makes way more sense to burn first and deal damage and then reappear near them and have them blinded. The way it is set up now minizes the potential of this skill, which I personally don’t see any reason for – unless it’s intended to underperform it’s full potential

blind=cant hit ur clones, invisible cant hit you, burn, i like it like that, also good allie support on melee, u can avoid, foe cant “hit”, then u can burn

skill 5, yeah i agree.

Torch is very viable in PvP, I don’t think it needs a rework. Prestige is one of the best defensive skills we get, and its burn does good damage (~2k burn and a blast finisher). iMage is fine, it’s just harder to notice it than other phantasms (And requires a condition/power stat distribution to be effective which not that many people use). Slightly lower cooldown is all it really needs.

I posted some WvW with it in the video thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Videos-Post-your-Video

iMage is fine, it’s just harder to notice it than other phantasms (And requires a condition/power stat distribution to be effective which not that many people use).

Would you post a build and then tell us how much exactly damage iMage can do? Or you’re just telling about what you feel, not what actual statistics show?