Guild Wars 2

The current feature “Call Target” is a great feature. It is an extremely handy tool of quick and efficient communication for PvP as well as PvE. It is wonderful that you guys took the time to implement little details such as these for the players and you deserve the utmost adoration for doing such. However, the way that “Call Target” is currently set-up can completely ruin an entire play-style for the mesmer.

In it’s current form, the “Call Target” symbol will remain over a mesmer’s head even whenever illusions are summoned. This makes it very easy for any player to simply use “Call Target” on a mesmer during the very beginning of a team-fight or a 1v1 encounter while paying absolutely no mind to the illusions. Keep in mind that this is done at absolutely no cost, no risk, no cooldown. No, this is a feature that absolutely every player has access to at any time and can be as simple to do as walking in-game or even reading this very line of text in real-life. I could understand if this “Call Target” was a “long-cooldown debuff ability” of a certain profession. If that was the case, then it would be completely reasonable to keep it the way it is. However, it is currently a no-risk, high-reward method of combating a Mesmer.

I do not believe that this is right. This entirely eliminates the sole purpose of what Mesmers are advertised to be, deception. Statements such as “wielding deception” and “distracting foes” made in the very opening page that you arrive at upon searching for a description of the Mesmer profession are inherently thrown out of the window. Even the simple statement “their opponents can’t believe their eyes” is brought to a screaching halt, for the opponent can entirely believe their eyes due to the simple fact that you will constantly have a huge mark over your head while your clones are now left for nothing but cannon fodder for your abilities as opposed to used for the element of trickery.

The only response that I comprehend someone would have to this is “Stealth stops the target. Don’t spec illusions, be tanky or glass cannon”. I do not believe in the slightest that this is a reasonable argument. Not only do I not believe that a class should entirely have to change their spec around a “freebie” feature that everyone has unlimited access to in the game, but, even after doing so, once you are quickly located again you are easily targeted essentially making your illusions tantamount to cannon fodder for your abilities once again. The second part of the rebuttal would also be an ignorant statement. This is essentially admitting that an entire play-style is not in any way viable and telling them to do something entirely different. In some cases this may be reasonable to say to people. An extreme example would be a warrior in WoW trying to wear cloth and be a support healer. Yes, tell them to change…now. Nevertheless, in our mesmer case, this is not alright. Especially when the case is in a game that tries to promote “hybrid” freedom of builds and is even “more especially” whenever the case admitted to not work is entirely what the profession is intended to be designed around as well as is clearly advertised to do. What is said would be synonymous to telling a priest that wants to be a healer “it doesn’t work, go damage”.

Feel free to disagree and leave your opinions below, but in the case of others thinking that this needs changed as well, I can think of two viable options for a “fix”.

1. Make the Target reticle disappear whenever the Mesmer would create a clone in the hopes of distracting.

2. Make the target reticle spread to all of the Mesmer’s illusions upon creation. Hence, if there were two illusions up along with the Mesmer, there would be three marking reticles.

Thank you for reading, I am sorry for the length of the subject for I had originally intended it to be succinct.

In my opinion call target is underdeveloped . It stays marked forever even if the target is dead for ages.

I really miss in PVE additional marking options like in every other mmos you can mark 5 or more mobs with different marking symbols so my team know who to avoid who to root / crowd control ect.

The mark in PVP should stay on the target for lets say 5 – 10 seconds and should vanish when this time expire or the target goes invisible use blink or shadow step or met other conditions.

Creating a clone itself should not remove the mark. It would not be necessary taking into account short duration of initial mark and that some clone creating skills come along with short invisibility that would do the trick.

Thank you for the constructive comment, it is always appreciated. However, I can not say that I agree with the “mark lasting a time-limit.” idea.

Keep in mind that the mark is not a necessity, it is an extra little feature that is there simply for ease-of-use in certain situations similar to that of a bicycle with safety wheels. It is not something that should be treated as a “power weapon” of sorts. The Mesmer burning cooldowns/rolls to create clones all just in order evade the mark is not a problem. If anything, it is a problem that the Mesmer in that case would still have to go even that far out of their way all in order to avoid a freebie accessory that is placed into the game.

Not to mention that this is all only in the meager example of the less-skillful players using it. As said before, this is essentially a “safety rail”, many games go without such a feature as this at all, especially in the competitive scene. Whether there are targets or not, there will still be focusing. Whether it’s players using voice-communication through a program that allows multiple-way calling or even simply typing out who the team should prioritize in the chat pre-game and post-battle.

I’m sorry for the repetition, but I really feel the need to emphasize on the fact that this is a free feature accessible to everybody with no limitations or cooldowns. Placing a “time-limit” on the feature would only lead to moderate-advanced players easily cycling the target back on as soon as it ends. Not only that, but 5-10 seconds in PvP can be a very long time. This “time limit” would also not make much sense in the terms of PvE and how it would function in those scenarios.

The thought-process of “nerfing” a universal luxury on the usage of everybody doesn’t really make much sense to me. With this solution, Mesmer’s will still be just as easy to locate as anybody else. This would essentially change nothing with the subject of Mesmer’s being intended to be deceptive. Intelligent plays should be rewarded, not punished. If a Mesmer wants to take the risk of significantly lowering their damage output through specs/abilities in an attempt to confuse by burning their spells (that would have otherwise been their only defense) at the further risk of their attempts being all-for-naught (because there is always the high-possibility of you not being able to out-smart the other player, putting you at an extreme deficit for the encounter once he reads your easy movements and punishes you), then they should be able to. The word luxury is italicized for importance, for this is a luxury, not something of the highest and utmost importance that needs to be treated as if it is the main gun of a shooting game that would simply need to universally be nerfed. Call Target is intended for the simplicity of initially calling out who you want to focus, not breaking a class.

To me the solution is obvious.
Stealth should always break the mark, thats a given.
But when you create a clone that takes your place the mark should either be removed or better yet, transferred to the clone.

Having a mark over each clone would only be viable if when you pressed the hotkey to target the mark it randomly picked a marked clone or the real mesmer to select.

Also not all the mesmer clone abilitys create just one clone to take his place, the power mirror image (i think it what it is) creates two clones and move the mesmer, this kind of power should probably just break the mark if were keeping the single mark target system.