Guild Wars 2

… more like… for Easter timewise. Or even sooner.

I was bored and wrote down changes I personally would enjoy. I focused on enhancing characteristics we already got and tried to flesh out the themes of our traitlines. I included weapon changes to make our Phantasm skills more like on Shield and adjusted utilities. I also feel that we need a more general access to Alacrity.

Note, that those changes are based on my personal preferences although I feel that they do make sense. They also include mostly buffs which I’m aware of. However, considering the position we are in – one which thanks to the patch won’t improve – I think those are moderate and acceptable.

Feel free to give feedback or discuss ideas. Enjoy!

Traits

Domination

• Illusion of Vulnerability – Duration increased to 8s.

• Empowered Illusions – No change
• Confounding Suggestions – Increases Daze/Stun duration. Hitting a foe with CC applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability. The Stun procc was gimmicky to begin with and after the rework Dazes aren’t that commonly associated with Domination anymore (GS#5 being a knockback, Mantras being in Duelling and Inspiration and Signet of Domination being a Stun).
• Shattered Strength – Moved here from Illusions. Domination/GS partly is about Might. Moving it here makes Domination the primary power shatter traitline while Illusions becomes the condition centered one.

• Rending Shatters – Moved here from Adept tier. See Confounding Suggestions. Having Vulnerability on shatters suits GS and Signets better than on Daze.

• Empowering Inscriptions – Activating a Signet removes one condition and grants you a 10% damage boost for 10 seconds (Alternative: Power boost like the Precision boost on Warrior Signets). Cooldowns are also decreased. This boost is meant to compensate for the loss of the damage modification through Mantras (see below).
• Shattered Concentration – No change
• Furious Interruption – No change. Regarding interrupts, also see Power Block

• Fragility – No change

• Imagined Burden – No change
• Mental Anguish – No change
• Power Block – The bonus effect now also works when a breakbar is active. Alternative: Your CCs have increased effectiveness on breakbars. Adept tier: 25%, Master tier: 50%, GM tier: 100%. Each interrupt trait across all classes should provide this bonus.

Duelling

• Critical Infusion – No change

• Sharper Images – Moved here from Master
• Blurred Escape – Gain 2s of Blurr when hit below 50%. 40s ICD. Desperate Decoy just isn’t working.
• Fencers Finesse – Moved here from Master

• Confusing Combatant (new Minor) – Your attacks apply confusion for 3s after successfully evading an attack (5s CD, 1 stack for 3s per hit with an 1s ICD per target).

• Duelists Discipline – Moved here from Adept. Recharge reduced to 15-20% to account for the changes to Magic Bullet. Might consider changing it to Confusion instead of Bleeds.
• Blinding Dissipation – No change
• Evasive Mirror – No change

• Master Fencer – The Fury is now also applied to your Illusions. A slight nerf from a Phantasm perspective. But it encourages a more active gameplay and still can end up with 100% uptime. For Illusions, it’s a buff.

• Mistrust – Increased to 3 stacks per interrupt (Guess ANet beat me to it…). Your critical hits have a 50% chance to apply 1 stack of Confusion for 3s to foes who are already confused. Alternative: Your critical hit chance is increased by 10-20% against confused foes.
• Deceptive Evasion – No change
• Harmonious Mantras – No longer grants a damage buff. Instead, gain ‘Harmonious Mantras’ for 10s. Your next Mantra is 50% more effective. This applies to either using a charge or channeling a Mantra (e.g. 50% faster cast time).This change hopefully encourages chaining Mantras in a meaningful way instead of just spamming them to keep a damage buff going. As before, gain an additional Mantra charge.

Chaos

• Metaphysical Rejuvenation – No change

• Illusionary Defense – Gain 3s of Aegis when you summon a Phantasm (15s ICD). Supposed to grant additional sources of block per boon which fits Chaos best.
• Master of Manipulation – Instead of Mirror, gain 1s of Distortion. This solves the issue with MI.
• Descent into Madness – Now also gain Chaos Armor when hit by CC (30s ICD). Fall traits shouldn’t be completely useless in combat.

• Illusionary Membrane – No change

• Mental Defense – Moved here from Inspiration. Chaos is more about defense than Inspiration.
• Mirror of Anguish – No change
• Chaotic Dampening – No change

• Chaotic Persistence – No change

• Chaotic Interruption – s. Power Block. No longer Cripples. Instead Slows. There is no point in having both Cripple and Chill being random effects on the same trait or skill.
• Bountiful Disillusionment – No change. Obviously already too powerful. Because Resistance.
• Prismatic Understanding – No longer increases stealth duration. Individual skills are adjusted accordingly. This is needed to buff the baseline effect of certain utilities but keep the stealth duration in check. No longer grants Might but Vigor for 3s. The duration of incoming control impairing effects is reduced by 25% while stealthed.

Inspiration

• Menders Purity – No change

• Medics Feedback – Your ethereal fields also grant 10% outgoing healing while standing within them. Just some little extra.
• Restorative Mantras – They already increased the healing coefficient. Let’s see if it’s enough.
• Persisting Images – Add the ‘Illusions gain Protection for 2s when shattered’ part from Protected Mantras. It’s a nice to have perk but nobody playing shatter would ever pick Protected Mantras on the Master tier because of Restorative Illusions.

• Inspiring Distortion – No change

• Wardens Feedback – No change
• Restorative Illusions – No change
• Protected Phantasms – Phantasms also gain 3s of Aegis when you use your heal. 10s ICD.

• Healing Prism – I’d love to see it unnerfed. Since it is unlikely to happen, they should at least significantly increase both healing value and coefficient and/or decrease the cooldown to give it a better synergy with, for example, Restorative Illusions.

• Illusionary Inspiration – Now also heals nearby allies for a small amount when summoning a Phantasm (Alternative: Phantasms heal nearby allies for a small amount when using their attack). Regeneration is nice and all but often wasted since it is so accessible and possibly overwritten by other classes. This leaves you with the Signet on summon which is nice but very situational.
• Temporal Enchanter – ANet… just why nerf the Resistance? Grants Vigor for 3s. Superspeed just doesn’t help (althougho I wouldn’t mind keeping it). I’d prefer Endurance regeneration over Vigor but we already got it on a Well. Not sure, if this will help Glamours enough but it makes them more attractive from a support perspective.
• Disenchanting Mender –Summon an Illusionary Disenchanter when hitting a foes with more than 3 boons. Optional: Nearby allies gain 2 stacks of ‘Disenchantment’ for 10s when you use your heal. ‘Disenchantment’ removes one boon on hit.

Illusions

• Illusionary Retribution – No change

• Compounding Power– Your Illusions grant up to 5 nearby allies +50 power and condition damage. Can stack up to 3 times. Adds some unique support to Mesmers. Values could be slightly reduced as long as it becomes a partywide buff.
• Persistence of Memory – No change
• The Pledge – Back to a flat 20% cooldown reduction.

• Illusionists Celerity – No change

• Phantasmal Haste – No change
• Maim the Disillusioned – Needs a buff. If 2 stacks of Torment are too much, add a conditional benefit like seen on Revenants. For example, applies a second stack of Torment if the target is already affected by x conditions or something similar. Or add a unique buff for Cry of Frustration. Or additional Torment duration. Something.
• Invigorating Misdirection – We currently lack a defensive trait on this tier (The Pledge on Adept, Ineptitude on GM). My idea: Gain 5 Endurance whenever you apply Confusion to a foe. Might need an ICD. Alternative: Gain x Endurance when hitting a foe with x stacks of Confusion. Will synergize with Duelling, Scepter and Ineptitude and of course shatters.

• Master of Misdirection – No change

• Ineptitude – No change
• Malicious Sorcery – Well… We just got 5%, right?
• Master of Fragementation – Mind Wrack now Cripples. Cry of Frustrations now causes 2 stacks of Burning for 4s to nearby enemies (not per Illusion).

Chronomancy

• Time Splitter – No change

• Delayed Reactions (new) – Shield skills now Slow enemies for 1s (meaning: Slow on Block, Slow on Tides of Time)
• Time Catches Up – No change
• All’s Well that Ends Well – No longer grants Alacrity. Heavily tying Alacrity to one specific utility group just limits build diversity way too much. Instead, the final hit of Wells is improved by 25-50% (50% feels alright on paper but might be too much). Also, the recharge of a respective Well is reduced by x% when you are within the field on the final hit.

• Flow of Time – Instead of on shatter, it now grants Alacrity whenever you create an Illusion. This reduces the need of picking the Illusions traitline to gain more Alacrity uptime and therefore means more build diversity.

• Danger Time – No change
• Illusionary Reversion – No change
• Improved Alacrity – Now also shares your Alacrity with up to 5 nearby allies. So in group situations, you’d go for it. But it isn’t necessarily the best option when being solo.

• Time Marches On – No change

• Lost Time – Now also applies Slow on interrupt (old Delayed Reactions)
• Seize The Moment – No change
• Chronophantasm – No change

Weapons

Sword

• #1 now removes one boon per hit. No longer applies Vulnerability. 1st and 2nd hit get their damage increased slightly.
• #2 no change
• #3.2 Instead of swapping with the Clone, Swap now allows you to blink to the location where the Clone was created.
• #4 Now becomes a channeled 1s block. Daze and significantly damage nearby enemies when you successfully block an attack. Only Daze nearby enemies when not.
• #5 Leap at your foe (Leap finisher), leaving behind an iSwordsman who follows up your attack. If your Leap successfully strikes your target, you can blink back to your original position for 3s. Range reduced to 600. Damage of the iSwordsman is slightly reduced.

Greatsword

• #1 no change
• #2 no change
• #3 Now removes 2 boons.
• #4 Grant yourself and up to 5 nearby allies 3 stacks of Might for 10 seconds and summon an iBerserker.
• #5 No change

Staff

• #1 No change
• #2 No change
• #3 Cast Vulnerability on your target and up to 2 adjacent foes. Randomly also apply Slow or Chill. At the end of the cast you summon an iWarlock who shoots a fireball at your target which explodes and also hits up to 2 adjacent foes. The fireball deals additional damage per condition on the target.
• #4 Cooldown reduced to 30s. Heck, could even be 25s. Looking at you, Fire Shield!
• #5 Cooldown reduced to 30s. Always dazes on the first hit.

Scepter

Let’s see how it plays out. At least #2 could need a rework though.

Pistol

• #4 Summon an iDuelist. Gain Bullet Barrage (same attack as Duelist) as follow up when successful. Damage of the iDuelist is moderately reduced.
• #5 Stuns your target. Dazes up to 3 additional adjacent foes.

Focus

• #4 ICD removed. Height of the Wall increased to match Wall of Reflection
• #5 Now also grants nearby allies a Light Aura when successfully summoning the iWarden.

Torch

• #4 No change.
• #5 Spin for 0.75s, pulsing 1 stack of Burning each 0.25s to nearby foes. The final hit has a larger Radius and is a Blast finisher. Cast an iMage at the end of the channel. The iWarlock now uses a weaker Version of Cleansing Flame, dealing a small amount of physical damage, but applying Confusion to up to 3 enemies and granting Fury to up to 3 allies.

Shield

• #4 No change
• #5 No change

Utilities

Mantras

The Mantra ‘bug’ made it obvious that their cooldowns are considered too high. Shave 5s of each cooldown.

Mantra of Pain – This Mantra is painfully – wink wink – gimmicky. While having some niche uses and being pretty nice for exploiting Restorative Mantras its short cooldown also causes issues with balancing related traits. I’d like to see it reworked to be like Gylph of Empowerement. Grants yourself and nearby allies a 5% damage boost for 5s. 5s ICD. 20s recharge. This puts it at a lower value than the Glyph but provides a higher uptime when traited.

Signets

Signet of Domination – The passive now increases condition duration. Considering Domination is mainly about power damage, improving condition damage doesn’t make much sense. Condition duration on the other hand helps both, power and condition builds by increasing the duration of non-damaging conditions. CD reduced to 40s.

Signet of Midnight – The passive now increases boon duration. Alternative: Reduced incoming condition duration. Reflects its defensive nature more than increased condition duration.

Manipulations

Getting Distortion instead of Mirror should help but the utilities also have to be improved.

Arcane Thievery – Reduce cooldown to at least 25s, maybe even 20s. Otherwise it is useless as condition removal even in solo situations and will never be picked.

Illusion of Life – It might have extreme niche uses but I’d rather leave the rezzing to classes who are already better at it. What about: Up to 3 enemies in the target area can’t use their Heal for 10s (because they believe, they are having the time of their life hum). Up to 3 allies can’t be stomped for 10s and don’t degenerate health while in downstate (can still be damaged). 60s cooldown.

Mimic – Because of its current cooldown it is useless in most scenarios. The cooldown has to be adjusted according to the skill which is copied. Regardless, with the introduction of Illusionary Inspiration we no longer need Signet of Inspiration as utility to share boons. Which leaves me with actually preferring the ‘Copy boons’-Mimic over this current version. I also still like this suggestion I made a while back which included Blur/Distoration and a Blast finisher. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/New-Mimic-Will-you-run-it/first#post4350140

Mass Invisibility – Baseline duration increased to 10s to compensate for the PU change.

Illusions

Mirror Images – Reduce cooldown to 40s.

Illusionary Defender – Now grants yourself 3s of Protection when summoned. Cast time reduced to 0.75s.

Illusionary Disenchanter – Now grants yourself 3s of Resistance when summoned. Cast time reduced to 0.75s.

Glamours

Feedback – Cooldown reduced to 30s. Also pulses 1s of Retaliation to allies within the dome.

Nullfield – Cooldown reduced to 30s.

Portal – While it might be quite powerful in certain situations it is pretty useless in others. I’d like to see the cooldown to be reduced slightly. Also: Consider putting a stunbreak on the exit of the Portal. This would make Portal more attractive in combat plus adds a stunbreak to Glamours.

Veil – Veil being a line really messes up things with Glamours. I’d like to see Veil becoming a circle again so we can do something exciting with Temporal Enchanter but I guess this will never happen since they gave the original idea of Veil to Thieves. But it really needs a shorter cooldown and some offensive use. My idea: Enemies crossing the Veil are revealed. Alternative: Blind enemies who cross the Veil. Either way: Stealth duration increased to 4s because PU was changed. 60s cooldown.

Time Warp– Consider reducing the cooldown.

Wells

Well of Precognition – Reverse the nerf. Increase the cooldown. Or reduce the cooldown to 20s. Or just remove it. You really didn’t do yourself any justice here, dear ANet.

Space. Just in case.

This is quarterly balance patch material

You see that anet? If you’re going to only do 4 balance a year it doesn’t mean you got to laze out and spout the same kitten you did when you banned every two weeks.

4 patch a year means we need movement and THIS ^ would have been very welcome, if only to throw mesmer out of kilter and forcing major changes

Pointless… Ive posted 2 topics about it.. One especifically for mantra functionality and other with proposed changes to core mesmer (both on signature) long before “balance patch” and with even more slight but spot on changes not to freak out the devs/balance team.
Not even sure they are taken into consideration.
Last dev post on mesmer sub-forum was a reply to me saying to worry not about the preview balance patch being posted on PvP subforum because it was just to take feedback about amulet changes, yet balance was/is made with all gamemodes in mind.
Aaaand it was kinda right. It indeed “balanced” mesmer in all game modes (balance = nuke)

About OP sugestion. I like the phantasm skill “reworks”. Not sure if phantasms it self need to be further adjusted. Not like mesmer dps will sky rocket with 1 more dps skill while summoning a phantasm..
About the rest not rly sure yet, its hard to see the big picture when its all on text.

FJSAMA.2867:

About OP sugestion. I like the phantasm skill “reworks”. Not sure if phantasms it self need to be further adjusted. Not like mesmer dps will sky rocket with 1 more dps skill while summoning a phantasm..
About the rest not rly sure yet, its hard to see the big picture when its all on text.

I’d rather they removed the damage altogether from phantasms. Then we might have a viable dps spec which doesn’t have flaws like dps plummeting when the target dies, huge ramp up times, trash dying before your phatasms are even summoned and generally being poo.

We would also be able to shatter relatively freely in all game modes as there would be less reasons to keep them around.

I wouldn’t say it is pointless. Better than cursing and threatening to leave the game etc.

Personally, I just enjoy theory crafting. I believe this is a good way for giving feedback on what I expect from balancing patches. The most recent patch was just depressing. Therefore, I’d rather share it to at least have a chance of it being read.

Yeah, you are right. Hard to judge those ideas by just having it on paper. The Mantra idea might not work. The Confusion adjustments might be too much. But we will never know if we don’t try it.

I don’t think that ANet is incapable of big balance patches. We have seen it when they reworked the whole trait system. However, I feel that they have other priorities right now (and use their resources accordingly) and they’d rather not add too many variables to their plans for eSports. I do believe that this is the wrong way to go especially after introducing such a big trait rework and new traits in the expansion. But that’s not our choice to make. We can give our opinion on it, though.

[Edit] Regarding sustained damage for PvE: They just should buff our Sword damage, really. Phantasms won’t change. If they then added some ways to improve our damage while maintaining our group utility, we might be fine.

I like this.We need changes like these.

One day these may be real patch notes…

…wait, who am I kidding.

I did once a thread of this type…

Anyway here are my comments:

• signets don’t belong in domination. I think signets belong in dueling or illusions since they fit better with condi builds (2 signets improve condis) or with illusions (signet of illusion and healing signet)
• Mantras do. Mantras are burst effects, which I think fits domination very well, not to mention that the best mantra (except for heal maybe) is distraction, which is very much suited to domination
• furious interruption may work better if merged with slow on interrupts and put in chronomancy (quickness is very chronomancish)
• In my own suggestion (and I still like it) I tried to separate the mess of illusions and dueling by focusing dueling on condis and illusion on… illusions. So DE goes to illusions, but MtD and other confusion moves to dueling
• I did merge the fall trait with chaotic dampening (since as you said, fall traits should not be useless)
• Mental Defense is actually a support trait (the phantasm takes damage from all allies) so it belongs in inspiration
• Disenchanting Mender is odd in inspiration…

Other than that, these are interesting changes. I like to read those suggestions.

Pretty good suggestions, sadly they’re gonna be ignored as usual.

I’d like to see scepter auto attack changed; Make the third hit transfer one condition to the enemy if 3 illusions are out instead of the 2 stacks of torment. That would actually be a change that’d make me consider taking it.

I really like the way you made that. I read your post in the feedback thread and have to totally agree – THIS is what patch notes need to look like. At least if they are advertising it as “4 big patches a year”. I havent read all your proposed changes but I just like your general idea – keep it up

apharma.3741:

I’d rather they removed the damage altogether from phantasms. Then we might have a viable dps spec which doesn’t have flaws like dps plummeting when the target dies, huge ramp up times, trash dying before your phatasms are even summoned and generally being poo. .

This. Someone frame this and put it on the wall. Mail it to the dev team. Put it on a stick and beat them up with it. Make love to it. Mesmers should not be contracted to a completely failed game mechanic and I hate how stubborn Anet is about it. If mesmer dps was calculated outside of phantasms, then maybe they would be able to pull their weight in PvE and also the 33% alacrity wouldn’t look so pointless.

On my previous note- Get rid of all phantasm DPS and make them do the following. Decrease their cast times. Improve mesmer DPS skills by 20-25%.

Phantasmal berserker: removes stability, inflicts vulnerability and damages breakbar

Phantasmal Mage: No change

Phantasmal Warlock: Extends duration of all conditions on foe. Decreases duration of boons on foes. Decreases condition duration on allies and increases their boon duration. Bounces.

Phantasmal Swordsman: Inflicts blind and chill. removes protection and might.

On my previous note- Get rid of all phantasm DPS and make them do the following. Decrease their cast times. Improve mesmer DPS skills by 20-25%.

Phantasmal berserker: removes stability, inflicts vulnerability and damages breakbar

Phantasmal Mage: No change

Phantasmal Warlock: Extends duration of all conditions on foe. Decreases duration of boons on foes. Decreases condition duration on allies and increases their boon duration. Bounces.

Phantasmal Swordsman: Inflicts blind and chill. removes protection and might.

Thanks for the nice feedback!

Silverkey.2078:

I did once a thread of this type…

Many did. I always enjoy the read.

Silverkey.2078:

• signets don’t belong in domination.

That’s highly debatable. The condition stuff on Signets is very likely a left over from past traits. Back then, Signet traits we’re scattered across Domination, Duelling and Chaos.

That being said, the mechanic Signets provides is perfectly fine for Domination. Domination is as much as about raw power (passives) as it is about burst and debuffing foes. The actives actually suit several traitlines. Domination and Moa especially fit Domination. Signet of Ether and Illusions on the other hand certainly isn’t traitline specific, both aim at our overall class mechanic. Changing the passives as I suggested would make Signets all right for Domination.

Silverkey.2078:

• Mantras […] very much suited to domination

Again, debatable or down to personal preference. Same as Signets, traits were – and still are – scattered across several traitlines (whereas the majority was in Duelling). MoD works perfectly fine for both Duelling and Chaos, not just Domination. 3 of 5 Mantras are actually more supportbased which would put them into Inspiration – which however is already covered by Glamours.

I think they are fine in Duelling. However, Harmonious Mantras needs a rework.

Ultimatively, I’m deliberately going for ‘low hanging’ (but tasty! ) fruits. Completely moving utilities associated with certain traitlines is a lot of probably unnecessary work if there is a solution to make them work where they currently are.

Silverkey.2078:

• furious interruption may work better if merged with slow on interrupts and put in chronomancy (quickness is very chronomancish)

I don’t see how Slow would really help besides making that trait more powerful in general. Plus, I believe that vanilla Mesmer needs more Quickness and Slow. Of course, those are associated with Chronomancer. But Quickness has always been part of Mesmers. In GW1 – which I admittedly never played – they even had Fast-Casting.

Silverkey.2078:

• In my own suggestion (and I still like it) I tried to separate the mess of illusions and dueling by focusing dueling on condis and illusion on… illusions. So DE goes to illusions, but MtD and other confusion moves to dueling

Personally, I’d be perfectly fine with Ineptitude being in Duelling. However, that’s about it. We have to differentiate here. Duelling has become the non-shatter condition damage line (plus Evasion and Crit). Illusions is about shatter condition damage.

I’m also against moving DE to Illusions. It would make Illusions way too important for Illusion generation and yet again become mandatory for shatter gameplay. It would make power shatter builds highly unfeasable since they would be forced into Illusions at any time.

Silverkey.2078:

• I did merge the fall trait with chaotic dampening (since as you said, fall traits should not be useless)

Fair enough. It would work. Only con would be, that not everyone picking it for the fall damage, would like to wear a Staff. Now the more interesting question would be: With what would you replace the open spot?

Silverkey.2078:

• Mental Defense is actually a support trait (the phantasm takes damage from all allies) so it belongs in inspiration

Just because it is support doesn’t make it innately suit Inspiration. Inspiration is more about healing, condition removal and damage avoidance. Chaos on the other hand is about damage mitigation (and boons and CC conditions). Inspiration also has no business with block. My personal preference is having it in Chaos.

Silverkey.2078:

• Disenchanting Mender is odd in inspiration…

Yeah, the trigger suits Domination or Duelling better. However, the iDisenchanter also cures conditions which fits Inspiration perfectly. I added it because I wanted to have a different source of generating Illusions since I moved Mental Defense. The trigger could easily be changed to ‘Cast when affected by x conditions.’. The issue with this is that you Disenchanter might auto-target an almost dead foe and then evaporate. Therefore, I prefer a more active trigger.

Alex Shatter.7956:

apharma.3741:

I’d rather they removed the damage altogether from phantasms. Then we might have a viable dps spec which doesn’t have flaws like dps plummeting when the target dies, huge ramp up times, trash dying before your phatasms are even summoned and generally being poo. .

This. […]

I’m not against reallocating damage from Phantasms to the Mesmer. I actually do believe it is necessary to some extent. However, I don’t think that removing the damage completely will either happen nor be reasonable. Just think about what would happen if Phantasms didn’t provide any damage anymore.

• Enemies would now ignore Phantasms even in situations where they currently pose a threat or at least an annoyance which takes away from Mesmer gameplay.
• More importantly, Phantasms are very likely to become close to useless shatter fodder because they won’t ever get powerful support skills (since they are AI…) plus they are harder to use than other skills (timing, reliability).

It’s the reliance on illusions themselves making this class suffer from day 1. Mesmer needs a complete upheaval from it’s very foundations.
It’s been way past the point of no return for mesmer…
Really, mesmers should have been built around cc and interruptions which give like a fast casting boost once you reach a certain stack. It may be better to say quickness and alacrity should have been the base of mesmer instead of illusions. This would have kept it very close to the gw1 mesmer but instead gave mesmer a permanent crippling gimmick…

Always thought that clones should be as they are now (for shattering) and phantasms should be utility illusions that didn’t count for the illusion counter. Like the shield phantasm could create a bubble on cast location for “x” seconds and disappear. theres lots of creative stuff they can come up with that would improve the quality of life for mesmers AND would make it easier to balance. But hey, at least when we beat someone in 1v1 they can’t really call it luck because we have to practically foresee the future to win a match.

This overhaul should be ready for Easter 2016, I can’t wait until Christmas that’s way too far away!

We got a very nice overhaul with the traits rework. Remember that thread dedicated to praising Robert Gee?

The MtD buff lasted, what, three hours? Because “we tested it on golems.” Then, bit by bit, they chipped away at everything until people felt that they had gutted Mesmer. Yet, at the time, people said “don’t worry, Chrono is coming”. And come it did. Then, bit by bit…

So really, it’s nice to want things. But anything they give you they will promptly nerf back into uselessness.

msalakka.4653:

We got a very nice overhaul with the traits rework. Remember that thread dedicated to praising Robert Gee?

The MtD buff lasted, what, three hours? Because “we tested it on golems.” Then, bit by bit, they chipped away at everything until people felt that they had gutted Mesmer. Yet, at the time, people said “don’t worry, Chrono is coming”. And come it did. Then, bit by bit…

So really, it’s nice to want things. But anything they give you they will promptly nerf back into uselessness.

Yep, this is the mesmer way.

Which is why there’s no point in hoping for it to ever get better. Always going to be hammered back to below average after anything good.

Same thing will happen for future elite specs and revamps.

Xaylin.1860:

I’m not against reallocating damage from Phantasms to the Mesmer. I actually do believe it is necessary to some extent. However, I don’t think that removing the damage completely will either happen nor be reasonable. Just think about what would happen if Phantasms didn’t provide any damage anymore.

• Enemies would now ignore Phantasms even in situations where they currently pose a threat or at least an annoyance which takes away from Mesmer gameplay.
• More importantly, Phantasms are very likely to become close to useless shatter fodder because they won’t ever get powerful support skills (since they are AI…) plus they are harder to use than other skills (timing, reliability).

Thing is, which phantasms do you really think it would be a problem for them sticking around doing little to no damge? Currently only avenger, warden and maybe bleed applying duellists.

I would like to see phantasms gone completely. All those skills that summon phantasms would get a new attack that we do with some utility and generates a clone at the end for shattering. I don’t want or trust AI with cleanses let alone my damage and having a semi competitive dps spec with an auto that doesn’t suck harder than a red light district would be amazing.

Imagine if you just offloaded your pistol with 10 shot unload with a 20s CD or you instead actually did that leap with a sword offhand or created a ground targeted swirling vortex that reflects projectiles and damages enemies with focus?

The temporary pets idea was a nice idea but the reality is it just doesn’t work in any game mode except maybe against bosses….some bosses. I certainly know phantasms have been known to accidentally hit adds and then get killed in one hit because they are then the target.