Guild Wars 2

In general I would agree that any Clone / Phantasm currently not in explosion-distance should fly there as a ranged bolt, but this causes a few extra issues:

a) How do you handle the AE-effect of MF and CoF? If the bolt impacts, does it centre on the target? In that case it would be functionally very different from the current handling where the illusions explode as soon as their AE’s edge touches the target spot.
b) This would ruin staggered dazing with Diversion. How is this handled? Specifically, does Diversion need to be buffed to 1s + 0,5s per extra clone to compensate?

I actually like that Asuras have unisex armour – lacking sexual dimorphism to the degree the other races feature it, it makes perfect sense they’re not smith 2 different versions of their combat armour.

The one problem I have:
It’s always the male skin which was recycled. This often fits – the male versions look more battle-practical, even for the comparatively fancy Mesmer-styles armours – but not always.

But as said above, having gender-different armour would be… weird.
Same with the Charr btw, their only difference is general height and bulkiness.

It’s 4s cast to remove 4 conditions. 6 if you got the trait for triple-use.

Mantras have problems in that with all traits, they’re very powerful. Hence without them, they’re very weak. The disparity is too large.

Generally speaking though, in PvE specifically, I find the daze and cleansing mantras to be quite good. There’s always elements in bossfights which cause you to not attack for 3-5 seconds, and hey, you can recharge a Mantra!

Drizzzle.5847:

So it would sound like I am definitely doing something wrong. A few follow up questions then. At what percentage of a mobs health are you guys popping Mind Wrack (ie…how close to dead are they before you “finish them off”)? How many illusions are active when you do this?

I have a few situations where I opt for Mind Wrack. In order of priority:
1. Are Diversion or Distortion needed? Then obviously I don’t use MF.
2. Do I have 3 Clones up, and my Phantasm CD(s) are coming up? Then I want to shatter, so I’ll use CoF or MF, depending on which is available.
3. Is the mob at ~10% HP? Then MF it is, against players I opt to MF > CoF at ~25% HP, it causes people to panic if they lose another 10%-20% at that point, and if they make a mistake out of panic…

Sardoni.8361:

Carigan, you should delete that first paragraph and report that as an exploit. I guarantee you that is an intended use of that weapons auto attacks.

True, removed the description, I’ll report it once I get home.

ConterK.3972:

F4 does stack.. to a max of 3s of complete evasion… u could virtually dodge anything..

This, Blurred Frenzy, clones on dodge, dodging, Feedback and Mantra of Distraction allowed me to keep up the fight against the Fire-Golem in Sorrow’s Embrace when my team started tanking. Either the golem was interrupted, or I was unhittable. Crazy what you can do as a Mesmer, really.

Malakree.5912:

This would cripple us in all aspects of the game rendering us a null class.

Ofc, because having 1 stronger Phantasm on top of 3 Clones is clearly inferior to having 3 weak Phantasms and 0 Clones. I see your logic, and raise you a banana.

You misunderstand my reasoning why the Devs can’t have intended perma-3-Phantasms, too. The point was not whether it isn’t the strongest PvE build (it is) or PvP build (it can work well in sPvP random matches, it’s entirely pointless in WvW since you can’t keep your illusions up that long anyhow unless you’ve already won and the enemy is fleeing), the point was about how our abilities are designed.
Very few abilities we have tell you to not shatter. In fact, I can’t think of any. Yes, there are plenty traits which augment Phantasms, but none do so the longer they are up, something which would clearly indicate that you’re supposed to keep them around.
On the other end we have shatter-enhancing effects left and right and centre, we have various ways to speed-produce clones to feed more shatters, and, and this is the really really important part, and I think I wasn’t clear enough on this:

When they re-designed replacement-priority, they could have made it so that Clones don’t overwrite Phantasms.

“Clones will not replace Phantasms.”
Done. Exactly what you want, right there. Trivial change too, count # of Phantasms, if 3, don’t spawn Clone. Much easier than the current one.

Instead they did this:
“Clones will replace a Clone, if possible”.
Notice how the slightly different wording precisely points out the key difference to a simple always-preserve-Phantasms version: No support for 3-Phantasm-setups. And code-wise (I code for a living :P ), this version is more complex since I need to actually identify the index of the illusion to replace, instead of just counting their total number before aborting. In the above version I’d add one check above the older code, illusionCount == 3, then skip the remaining code. In this version I always execute the code, but fiddle with the selection mechanism since I still replace the most recent illusion, just if cloneCount > 0, I only select the most recent one among the clones, ignoring the phantasms.

There is nothing to indicate this was chance or incompetence, really. This seems very deliberate, which makes sense since a lot of things about our class promote the whole “Don’t keep ’em, shatter them!” idea. Except the DPS number, and I bet you that we’ll see nerfs to perma-phantasm setups.

Malakree.5912:

Congratulations on summing up why the greatsword is a weak weapon.

It is somewhat weak-ish, but mostly as a result of it’s very slow #1 animation (the damage would be perfectly fine if the animation wasn’t so slow) and the root during the #3. #3 is fine outside of the self-rooting really.

The biggest issue people seem to have with GS – and OH Sword – is trying to keep the Phantasms alive. Not how we are supposed to use them from the way the skills are set up. Plus if you say you need the PZerker out for the Cripple, get Clone-Kill-Cripple as a trait and just spam away the clones with #2, much better anyhow.

To be honest, I find the general layout of Mesmer weapons to be far more practical than what many other classes have. Having clear “roles” for each weapon means they’re more distinct and easier to balance in the long haul. They’re not balanced yet though, and that is where the problem emanates from.

The way I see it:
Staff -> AE
GS -> Long Range (it has AE capabilities, but unless people are for whatever reason ignoring your PZerkers, it isn’t all that awesome)
Scepter -> Medium Range
Sword -> Melee Range, it gives you swiping attacks in turn, a feature most melee weapons in GW2 do, and a very nice way to balance Melee against Ranged inherently.

Then the offhands add flavour to the closer weapons:
Focus -> Support
Torch -> Stealth / Debuffing
Sword -> Defence
Pistol -> Offence

None of these are perfect in their roles yet, but the distinction is there, and is a good basic setup. It’s comparable to the Elementalist Long / Medium / Melee range weapon distinction, just with a lot more complexity since we swap weapons instead of having stances.

Kelesti.2458:

So you either give up Might duration, or you give up being able to use a third Phantasm. Lose-lose

And I say again: If we all end up using 3 Phantasms, the devs will just make it so that only 1 Phantasm can be up a time (something they should do anyhow, and remove their inter-attack delay entirely, and make them have 3x the normal Shatter effect).

You’re not supposed to run perma-Phantasm. The design of shatter or details like how Clones replace the third Phantasm make that very clear. They redesigned Clones vs Phantasms, and deliberately made it so that you can’t have 3 Phantasms up for long without overwriting one.

Strill.2591:

Yes clones can be remade quickly, but it’s still not worth shattering them because a SINGLE PHANTASM, say a Phantasmal Berseker, does more DPS on its own than constant 3-clone mind wracks every cooldown. That is simply WRONG, and leads to predictable and repetitive gameplay.

Yeah he does more damage. Especially once the AEs killed him.

Oh sorry, not what you wanted to hear, I know. :P

Taldren.7523:

2. “Phantasmal Healing” still does not proc until 6 second after summons instead of at Phantasm spawn.

Do the regeneration ticks also still not cover 100% of the time even if you’re standing next to the phantasm? I haven’t checked since beta, I’ll admit.

Kelesti.2458:

*Remove Clone generation from Mirror Blades, Remove Vulnerability. Replace it with Blind, increase cooldown (and range).

Blind on a 4,8-10s CD. Chaining. Right.
Also, no Clone generation? It’s the fastest non-autoattack move of the GS, it needs that Clone. Not like you shouldn’t use it. As always, if Clones overwriting your Phantasms is a problem, you’re not shattering enough to begin with.

Best skills:
1. Feedback
2. Blurred Frenzy
3. Portal

Least Favorite:
1. Any Mantra, lacking the traits, although the worst offender is MoP.
2. Phantasmal Mage
3. Ether Clone

A lot of people have mentioned Feedback so far. I would say for PvE and WvW it’s the skill holding us up near the top, entirely by itself. This skill is absurdly devastating against any group of PvE-mobs (due to their per-shot damage) or against a zerg in WvW.
Blurred Frenzy is one of the strongest defensive moves I have. Attention span is tiny in WvW, there’s 50-100 other people to attack around. If I go invisible and slash around for 2 seconds, people just click on someone else and try to kill them. And hence I can Decoy out or something like that.
I haven’t seen Portal mentioned much, so far. It’s a very versatile spell which is amazing for any kind of group situation. Jumping Puzzles become noticeably easier with a Mesmer around as a result of this spell. In WvW it’s a recovery tool for an otherwise suicidal flanking maneuver.

As for my least favorite:
The Mantras have too great a power-disparity between traited and untraited. They simply have too many traits with too great an effect. MoP as an example goes from anywhere near “2 autoattacks” to “3 spike hits to finish someone off”. The difference is night and day, and really makes the Mantras problematic to use if you don’t have the traits.
PMage is just… odd. If he would apply a short-lasting 5-stack of Confusion, I would understand it. But the way it is, his damage is the same as another Phantasms in perfectly ideal situations only. And those are rare as hell.
Lastly, Ether Clone. Oh Ether Clone… I don’t mind the ability so much, as the clone it produces. A clone which stands there, using a slow auto attack with no secondary effect (like Sword / Staff), and also lacking the attack speed to synergise well with Sharper Illusions (like the GS clone). I simply don’t understand why this clone was singled out to being so… weak. The other ones all have their use, stacking Weakness (+ removing boons), stacking Conditions, stacking Bleeds faster than the others.

Using Sword / Sword / Greatsword for PvE and WvW, and Scepter / Torch / Staff for sPvP.

The Golem Suite is so problematic due to how unreactive it is.

I would rather argue that both Moa and MI are underpowered compared to Time Warp. Whether this means TW needs a nerf and MI a buff or TW is fine and Moa and MI need buffs, no clue.

While I think the locking is a bug, the system also is problematic because AFAIK we’re the only class which has no separate drowning (vs downed) skillset.

What I’d propose is:

Diversion (kept, but changed)
Causes a clone to appear which swims upwards at a slight angle. When reaching the surface the clone dissipates, giving you Stealth for 2 seconds.

Phantasmal Diver
Creates a Phantasmal Diver, which ropes your current target, then begins to drag it down. Target is free to act and can struggle against the pull. Pull should be ~50% player speed, so it acts as a pseudo-cripple if the enemy wants to hold out against it.

I wouldn’t call a Core i3 decent for a truly modern game. For the 90% Xbox/PS3 ports, yes, it’s more than plenty. But the game seems somewhat badly optimized and hence runs largely off the CPU.

I can confirm this bug, including the jump in health soon after the summon.

This is problematic because most of us would take the signet to make our illusions last through spammed AEs more. If they spawn with normal health, then the illusions are nearly always dead by the time the signet kicks in.