Guild Wars 2

I find 1h sword & focus really strong in pve. You have speed and the warden is really, really strong. Sword is strong as well, skill 2 has a rather short cooldown and high damage.
Cast the warden on an ethereal field and you trigger an combo. On higher levels, you can have the warden deflect (all?) ranged attacks. Often several mobs only have 50% health left when the warden dies.

Moa and Time Warp are considered very strong by a lot of people.
Mass Invisibility only average, because you have an utility spell that does (almost) the same.

I am not a big fan of EasyModeX, but this time I think he is right.
Those nerfs are only mild nerfs, could have been worse.

@ Toppins
I agree, it works really well for sPvP for me. I started playing sPvP with staff + sword/pistol, than changed to staff + sword/sword and now I stick to staff + GS. I probably use an unusual and not optimal build, but it works and feels fine for me.

@Vladia
I know what you mean, I was a bit disappointed too. But I still like my gw2 mesmer. They could have done so much more with the clones/phantasm idea imo.

@EasymodeX
“I know: ignorance and arrogance have no limits”
You must know.

@EasymodeX
We can go on forever. You compared oranges to apples. But please go on insulting me.

@ConterK
“You realize blurred frenzy has a 130 range, right?”
And you realize Temporal Curtain has a range of 900, right ?

@ConterK
Instead of shatter + 2x recast you just keep your phantasm and cast blurred frenzy (for example with reflection) and deal 5.000 damage to three other players and take zero damage.
It is pointless to argue here, because its apples vs. oranges.

EasymodeX:

You compare:

• x actions within 15 seconds (if it makes you happy, lets say x=4 and not 5)
  vs
• y actions within 12 seconds
  And its more complicated than only this.

Typing “Lololol” and “Kid” does not make your points more valid. But please go on with it.

“Fortunately, I’m a little smart, so I actually do know. Cool huh?”
Those comments really do make your agruments more valid.

@ConterK
I used this “flawed” comparism because I thought it was more than obvious enough for everyone that only autoattacking is surely not the best thing you can do.

@ EasymodeX

1) “Except the phantasm requires 1 minor unit of time to cast, whereas the GS1 spam requires the full time investment.”
=> Exactly. I hoped you would point that out. You compare the damage of
- 2 minor units of time to cast = 2 actions (2x phantasm)
vs
- 5 actions (cast phantasm 2x, recast, swap, recast – i dont count the shatter).
Sorry, this puts your logic against yourself.

2) “Yes, you can, because I normalized it to 1 second by rating it as damage per second.
This is what we do in 7th grade.
Please, stop trying to use grade-school fabrications in a poor attempt to support your fictitious beliefs.”

=> No, you cant.
6s phantasm damage
2500| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
= 416 dps

7s phantasm damage
2500| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2500
= 714 dps

Now I used your 7th grade logic and it does not work. It is not that simple.

3) I dont say you are wrong, because I dont know. But i know you cant apply 7th grade logic here. You have to consider cooldowns, alternative actions(opportunity costs) and so on. It is more complicated. Best thing you can do is probably test those things in the game and see how it feels.

@EasymodeX
I am not sure your calculation is the “full story”

5000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
10000 damage in 12 seconds (833 dps)

versus:

5000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5000 | 2500 (shatter) | 2500 (first resummon) | 2500 (second resummon) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
17500 in 15 seconds (1167 dps)

I can do the same thing and say: autoattack with a greatsword is better than casting one phantasm:

2500| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
2500 damage in 6 seconds for phantasm

vs autoattack

500|500|500|500|500|500
3000 damage in 6 seconds for autoattack

=> so, its better not to cast phantasm ?

You have to consider more things.

• First you cant compare different timespans → 12 s vs 15 s.
• Then it is a different thing if you
  - cast 2 phantsam
  vs
  - cast 2 phantasm + shatter + recast 1 phantsam + change weapon + recast 1 phantsam

In your example you are doing more things when you shatter and recast. And you also have to consider cooldowns, casting times, the weapon swap has maybe some disadvantages….

tl;dr → Numbers do not prove anything here. It is good to use them, but they dont prove anything.

@Yo Beezy
Can you tell me your build/playstyle or do you have a link to guide ? I keep reading that shatter builds suck and i tried out for myself but could not make it work. In sPvP (no tournaments) I almost never see people using shatters.

@Levelord.
I said I am an average skilled player. I dont know how you make up all those things you mention.
But you are right, I didnt play any tournaments yet. I feel I am not good enough for it. And I think a group of 5 skilled people with a good strategy and a good combination of classes and builds will just stomp over a team of random people.

Gordunk.7289:

Clones don’t deceive? Are we playing the same game?

To your first question:
When I started to sPvP: yes
Now: no.

You can target the mesmer…and then always see the real mesmer.

Ainianu.5693:

Just all round bad ideas, from someone that does not play a mesmer…

Appreciate the time you spent in making the post and suggestions but the time would have been better utilised in playing/researching the class itself in all aspects of the game (your changes look PvP focused but realise the illusions are integral part of the class for PvE also)

1) I played my mesmer for more than 200 h. 50% pvp / 50% pve. Though i dont care much about class balance in PvE, that is correct. I tested shatter builds, boon builds, condition builds, phantasm builds, combinations of it with every weapon and so on,…but yes, i dont play mesmer.
2) I am an average player. I win > 90% of my 1on1 in sPvP. This just does not seem right. Often I have 80% health left and the other guy is dead. And my build is far from being perfect (my Elite: Mass Invisibility…I refuse to use the other two, they seem over the top to me).

Levelord.5746:

The fastest cooldown on a skill to bring out a clone is 6 seconds before bringing out another one. GS has this, scepter has this, staff has this and so on (without trait for 15%)

I dont know what to say about this…this is just so wrong. If you ever played a mesmer, you should know. If you would understand the class, you would understand what is behind my idea. You dont have to agree, but you would see the reasons behind it.

• I am talking about sPvP
• mesmer is said to be maybe the strongest (=OP?) class in an 1on1 situation in PvP. I am an average player and win >90% of my 1on1. This is not right.
• I play a phantasm build and just wait for my phantasm to kill the other guy = the sustained damage feels way to high to me. So I recommended a limited lifespan for phantasm. Sure, you can kill a phantasm, but it always hits 1 time and while the other guys tries to kill my phantasm, he is doing zero damage to me. It is a win-win situation for the mesmer. So I thought: maybe a phantasm should not do damage right when it spawns.
• Clones are meant to deceive. But they dont, they are just annoying and make sPvP a mess because they stay forever. You can kill clones, but they are way too harmless to do that. And shattering does not work very well right now, so almost nobody does that in pvp. I thought about how to make them real deceiving and not so annyoing. If a clone stays in one place for a minute, you know it is a clone and its just annoying. It does almost no damage, its not deceiving, people dont shatter….what is the use ?

Those were my thoughts about the ideas.

And please dont say ever again, that a mesmer can only have an illusion about every 6 seconds. This is just wrong. You even have one utility skill that gives you 2 clones at once.

Nagaae.7698:

It isn’t hard to maintain three illusions at a time?

it is easy right now:

You start with sword / sword and go with skill 3 – leap = 1 clone
then you have a skill that creates two illusions = 2 clones
= 3 clones within a very short time → shatter

Then you summon your phantasm – skill 5 and change to staff and use skill 3 and 2
= 2 phantasm and 1 clone within a very short time → shatter

Go with scepter and you have a clone every third auto-attack

Three second lifetime for clones is maybe a bit too short, make it four or five…but dont make it unlimited.

How about reading everything before posting ?

illusions = clones and phantasm

clones last for 3 seconds
phantams last for 15 seconds

And I have never seen a mesmer doing shatter builds in pvp….because they suck right now. Phantasm seem to be way better.

EDIT: cooldown 6 seconds for a clone ? You dont have a clue about how mesmers work…

I play a mesmer and think the clone / phantasm mechanic is kind of messed up. Phantasm deal too much persistant damage and it is too easy to maintain 3 illusions all the time. And having three illusions up all the time during a fight is kind of annoying, but the “too much stuff on the screen” thing is a general problem of GW2 (at least in pvp)

Clones:
I suggest that clones only last 3 seconds. Lets say you use your off hand sword block. Then you “swap” position and create a clone. When someone uses a skill on your clone and someone else attacks your clone two times with a ranged weapon– Great ! The clone has done its job and should vanish. It should not stay forever.

Also:

• Maybe buff health of clones
• Buff effect of clones in regard to boons and conditions
• Clones should be 100% identical to the character and others should NOT be able to tell the difference. That also means when you create a clone, the mesmer needs to vanish for a very short time and appear together with the clone(s) at a slightly different position. No targeting possible.

Phantasm:
When you create a phantasm, it should not attack immediately after spawning. The first attack should start maybe five seconds or so after the phantasm was created. Other people now can chose:
- kill the phantasm and avoid damage
- go for the mesmer, but receive damage from phantasm.
Phantasm should vanish after their second attack, maybe doing more damage with the final attack. This means:
• phantasm is created
• attacks after 5 s
• cooldown 8s
• final attack (maybe doing more damage compared to the initial attack)
= stays no longer than 15s

Mesmer:

• Rebalancing of skills and traits needed
• Buff the direct mesmer weapon damage. Right now, most damage comes from phantasm.

Shatter damage:
Damage when doing shatter skill 1 should be buffed and progressing with the number of illusions, something like:
500 for 1 illusion
1200for 2 illusions
2100 for 3 illusions

Now it is much harder to maintain three illusions at the same time and doing so should be rewarded

This is just an idea I tested for 2 hours and liked it.
I am not an expert player, so maybe this wont work against better pvp players. And there are surely things to improve:

I used staff and sword/sword

- Sword/Sword: Sigil of Superior Strength (30% chance for might on a crit) or maybe Sigil of Superior Battle (might on weapon swap)
- Staff: Sigil of Superior Strength or maybe Sigil of Superior Battle (might on weapon swap)

Runes for Armor:
- Rune of Monk 2x (-> 15% boon duration)
- Rune of Water 2x (-> 15% boon duration)
- Rune of Divinity (+10 all stats and +2 crit damage)

Amulet:
Knights Amulet
- 569 Power
- 569 Precision
- 798 Vitality

Berserkers Juwel
- 125 Power
- 75 Precision
- 45 Vitality
- 5% Critical damage

Traits:

• 10 / III (15% Illusion damage)
• 20 / II + IV (Fury for phantasm + Blade Specialisation)
• 30 / IV + X + XI (3% reduced damager per Illusion + Staff Specialisation + Cloaking Skill last 1 second longer)
  30 Points in Chaos give additional 30% boon duration
• 10 / IV (Masterful reflection)
  => There are probably some better options for the traits

Skills:
- Ether Feast
- Arcane Thievery (steal boons and get conditions)
- Null Field (a field that rips boons from foes and cures conditions)
- Decoy (invisibility)
- (E) Mass Invisibility
=> There are probably some better options for the skills

Stats:
Power: 1730
Precision: 1780 (45% crit)
Toughness 1286 (2206 Armor)
Vitality: 1779 (23712 Health)
=> rather balanced stats with an alright crit chance. The damage reduction (3% per illusion) helps to compensate the low toughness

The idea is to gain lots of boons, which last 60% longer because of the Runes and the 30 points put in the chaos trait line.

I start with staff and cast Chaos Storm ⁵ at my position. After that I cast Phase Retreat ² within the Chaos Storm (-> gives Chaos Armor) and the Phantom ³. That way you apply lots of boons while standing in Chaos Storm and when you get hit, you gain an additional boon because of the Chaos Armor. When Chaos Armor wears of, I cast it again with the regular skill ⁴ and swap to Sword / Sword and go on