Guild Wars 2

I offer today, two simple changes to clone AI that could vastly improve their viability as decoys (instead of just cannon fodder as we see them now). I was wondering what the mesmer community thought.

Change #1: Make clones move. Ideally, they would calculate your position and movement relative to their target, and mimic that movement on their current position. Such a calculation could be done by simply rotating your movement/position around the target to line it up with the clone. This would make clones indistinguishable from the mesmer as they’d all move in an identical pattern. Of course this would mean clones wouldn’t be able to attack with melee attacks unless you moved into attack range of the target. But I’m sure the clones could break their mimic of your movement long enough to attack then move back into position or just not attack at all while out of range. I’m also sure no one will miss the added 10 damage per clone hit. Such a change would not be simple though, so an easier alternative would simply be circle kiting AI. Make the clones keep a certain distance from their target and run around in circles, only closing the gap if they need to for a melee strike. Immobile clones easily identify a mesmer, even if all they’re doing is running circles, it would create enough chaos to assist in the distraction.

Change #2: The other thing that easily identifies a mesmer is their dodge rolling. So, if we make the clones able to move, I suggest making all the clones dodge roll at the exact same time as the real mesmer, and make them dodge roll relative to their plane of motion. Yes, you could still identify the real mesmer by looking for the one that spawns clones on its dodge roll, but it’s harder than looking for the mesmer that does dodge rolls in a crowd of statues.

While I cede there are still things that skilled players could do to easily identify a mesmer (look for the one with conditions/boons/missing chunks of hp/chaos armor/etc), making our clones do more than stand there could definitely help our clones distract our enemies . Wasn’t this the point of clones since their inception? Make your enemy swing at air? Our clones shouldn’t just be fodder for shatter.

I do like the idea of clones moving around, and would certainly make for more interesting playstyles than just being pure damage fodder (shattering, conditions or whatever). Simple circle strafing, or even more random movement patterns – they key is they should all stand still when the mesmer stops moving.

Dodging I’m not too sure though, I think that should be unique to the player – for me it wouldn’t be visually appealing to see 3 clones all flipping at the same time as my character does, and add to that the whining that would come from every other class.

I too like the idea of clones moving as I move, if they dodge when we dodge, it should be the animation only, not the invulnerability. As crazy as this sounds, I want good players to be able to tell the difference between me and my clones. It’s no fun if they can fool everyone.

gw2 has the most bs AI there is an you’re asking clones to dodge when you do? Nothing will happen to clones because for them to do anything else than what they’re doing it needs AI and AI is none existent.

Heh, they cry “OP” about Mesmers already. As much as I honestly love those 2 ideas, we’d get nerf’d into frigging Gehenna, if they were to see the light of day. Hell, just adding offhands/duplicating boon-tags would toss enough extra chaos into the mix.

@Crossplay, yes, I meant just the animation. When I’m fighting another mesmer on my mesmer, it’s as easy as waiting for them to dodge roll to establish target, then popping phantasms once I have the real mesmer because phantasms will not get lost in the clones. Then watch the target drop with little to no effort, shatters scattered here or there as needed for burst.

But if all their clones dodge rolled too, then I couldn’t so easily establish a target. And if you’re not a fan of the in-sync dodge rolling…how about just a randomly spaced dodge roll…perhaps every 5~10 seconds (2.5~5 with vigor). As long as the clones are dodge rolling somehow, it will make it more difficult to differentiate them from their master. And yes, random movement would be a neat idea too. Any kind of movement really.

As for being “OP,” it doesn’t really affect our ability to work in PvE (mobs ignore clones) and it doesn’t really work on more skilled players (for reasons stated previously), it certainly doesn’t improve our damage or give our clones more health…it’s just there to make it more difficult to identify the real mesmer instead of immediately going “Welp. There she is. That took all of two seconds.” Also, even with a crappy AI, it would still be an improvement to have them moving. Even if it bugs out and doesn’t move as it should, or stops attacking or something. It’s not like we’re going to miss that extra 10 damage (unless you live off of staff condition clones…then maybe you would be more concerned, but ranged clones are less likely to bug and miss their target than melee clones, so it’s a moot point).

I’ll cosign your idea for Change #1. More realistic movement would be nice.

I’d cast a “nay” vote on the dodge-rolling though. I don’t want to interrupt my Phantasms who are already on long cooldowns. Even if they get the same cooldown we do from interrupted skills, they can be fragile and die before getting attacking again. My combat shouldn’t be tied to them that much.

Nikked.7365:

I’ll cosign your idea for Change #1. More realistic movement would be nice.

I’d cast a “nay” vote on the dodge-rolling though. I don’t want to interrupt my Phantasms who are already on long cooldowns. Even if they get the same cooldown we do from interrupted skills, they can be fragile and die before getting attacking again. My combat shouldn’t be tied to them that much.

phantasm movment shood stay same only clones move and dodge with you and also if I may add clones shood have also ur offhand wepon

baylock.1703:

Nikked.7365:

I’ll cosign your idea for Change #1. More realistic movement would be nice.

I’d cast a “nay” vote on the dodge-rolling though. I don’t want to interrupt my Phantasms who are already on long cooldowns. Even if they get the same cooldown we do from interrupted skills, they can be fragile and die before getting attacking again. My combat shouldn’t be tied to them that much.

phantasm movment shood stay same only clones move and dodge with you and also if I may add clones shood have also ur offhand wepon

Well that makes too much sense. Only hiccup I can forsee now is dodging after sending out the iLeap but before the swap. If we swap to the wrong location, the immobilize could miss.

This all said, I’m pretty sure that devs once commented that clones are only supposed to be a distraction and not a means of plain-sight stealth. After all, we still don’t have those OH weapons on clones, so this would be even further down the list.

Hehehe even when i would love to actually mess with ppls minds like that its probably quite OP. Better moving clones its nice, but then if you dont dodge could work just the same like a stealth in plain sight.

Idk, just give me 1 or 2 more skills like swap to change position with clones and ill be a very happy mesmer Ok, maybe not in staff, its allready an excelent wep. but could work in mirror images and GS clone? Hit mirror blade, swap with clone, ilusionary wave… sounds fun :P

Just like thief stealth though, our stealth-in-plain sight would be wrecked with some simple AoE. In fact worse for us since AoE would essentially OHKO our illusions effectively destealthing us. And yeah, I don’t particularly think phantasms need to change. They’re not around for distractions, they’re around as our 1v1 hammer.