Guild Wars 2

holly lyn.2173:

Curunen.8729:

It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.

The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.

The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.

the change/nerf was that the trait used to have a reduced cool down when in stealth, a 1.5sec. reduction I believe, now its a flat 20%. It makes a huge diffence on my Crono. condi. build in WvW. On the surface the change seems small but it makes a big difference for your survivability in fights, even though the average CD difference is only about 5-9secs. But that is a LONG time in a battle.

If PU (I’m assuming – correct me if I’m wrong) and using several stealths, sure the contextual cooldown reduction is better.

But for torch on its own and in any build that does not spend a significant amount of time in stealth (ie maybe only using one stealth utility and maybe mass invis, without PU) the flat cooldown is much better. In any case high alacrity uptime refreshes traited torch very quickly if maximising shatters and using improved alacrity (given it is better than illusionary reversion now).

Personally in terms of survivability/sustain I’d rather see improvements in other areas rather than incentivising spending long times in stealth which is why I welcome the change to the pledge.

Would be nice if it always cleansed conditions regardless of target, like cleansing fire.

When traiting Axe, the amount of rattling from phantasmal axes flying all over the place on every skill and ambush is unbelievably irritating. It is ruining my experience of Axe, which otherwise I am enjoying a lot in terms of visual effects, animations and so on.

I mean, untraited sure I can cope with the rattling in small doses – but traited it’s non-stop “tick tick tick tick” which is driving me crazy. Worse than Alacrity tbh.

I might post this also on reddit because out of all the issues with Mirage I’m getting to the stage where this is the single most annoying feature of the elite spec and I hope the audio devs redo the sound effect for this.

I would like to see Arcane Thievery get the ammunition treatment – 2 charges, 20s cooldown to refill each.

Would be a nice offensive alternative to Mantra of Resolve and might see more play.

Good idea/bad idea?

Frostball.9108:

By this i do not want to imply that the design of the spec is good. They kittened up with the design of some traits and skills, some of them blow. Thats a fair argument and something that probably should be addressed when some of the traits are just flat out unplayable.

What i want to put forward is that mirage is far from underpowered and something id argue to be at least one of the best specializations for now. Mirage definitely doesnt need an all around buff but rather a new look at some of the skills and traits that are underpowered and flawed.

Im not going to go into how some traits like stunbreak on dodge should not exist. They will always come up anyways but to give some perspective, its like daredevil dodge on steroids.

In terms of pvp I agree with you that the burst output of Mirage is very high and higher than chrono even if pianoing F5 into double shatter spam. I am able to output very high levels (ie 25 stacks) of confusion supplemented by significant direct damage (using viper), when the situation is in my favour.

The mechanics however are inconsistent and nowhere near as reliable as Chrono – which is the problem. With Chrono it always works. With Mirage, when it works it’s very powerful, when it doesn’t it’s kitten poor.

I can see and appreciate your perspective as one of the top pvp mesmers, however Mirage needs serious fixes and buffs to consistency (both traits, skills and core mechanics like the mirage mirrors and ambush) in order to be reliable most if not all of the time.

Yes I also agree that the more I am playing the more I my muscle memory is becoming familiar with mechanics and I am able to approach some of the efficiency and reliability of Chrono. In any case there is still a lot of work to be done on Mirage for it to be competitive (for the mechanics to be consistent/reliable/versatile to adapt to the changing situation).

I like Jaunt a lot and want to keep it. With a small range buff to 600 units I think it’ll be great.

Levetty.1279:

Considering Reddit thinks Mesmer is OP if they can log into the game, this says a lot about Mirage.

Having seen the threads on reddit I’m trying to avoid it so as not to get worked up by some of the complete lack of sense in some comments. It’s a shame. :/

I hope Mirage survives this and becomes a solid spec in the next month.

As I continue to play (build in sig) I am warming to the style more and more, and finding myself preferring the flow over Chrono shatter spam gameplay.

I’m going to be sad once this demo is over because I want to continue playing Mirage, even in its current state.

So actually I’m really looking forward to the buffs and fixes it needs to receive and very much looking forward to how it ends up on release. I feel I am close to something more than workable, but very enjoyable once the necessary reworks/fixes take place.

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

Personally I don’t regret buying pof at all – still happy with having the new open world pve zones to explore, mounts and even in the current broken state Mirage has fun mechanics that are a welcome relief from the monotony that Chrono can be.

It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.

The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.

The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.

I wouldn’t be opposed to this, actually I quite like it.

But certain traits would need looking at so as not to be useless with Mirage – eg Warden’s Feedback and how it would affect the change to focus 5.

Firebrand is a lot of fun.

The only thing I don’t like is lack of fun ranged weapons, but guardian axe skills are beautiful and I love the tomes. It is a beautiful elite spec.

False Oasis feels more reminiscent of Troll Unguent for ranger – and in that way I agree with Daharahj it makes sense if it is intended to be used preemptively, and then sustain you through some time in the fight.

However due to the nature of mesmer, and in particular mirage, this kind of heal doesn’t help us as much as it does for ranger – because ranger has mechanics and gameplay that synergise better with small healing per second over a longer time.

It could work for mesmer, but certainly needs a cooldown reduction for a start.

I support pretty much everything you wrote. Hope the devs see this thread.

Oh hell yes.

If Axe 2 had evade it would be so much better. I’d even trade for a longer cooldown in order to get evade.

In addition axe 3 really needs to have z axis teleport properly sorted so you can blink up/down terrain to chase targets.

Some further theorycrafting based on demo weekend and thought experiment.

Duelling – Desperate Decoy, Evasive Mirror, Deceptive Evasion
Chaos – Master of Manipulation, Chaotic Dampening, Bountiful Disillusionment
Mirage – Renewing Oasis, Mirrored Axes, Infinite Horizon

Mirror (heal), Blink, Mantra of Resolve, Illusionary Ambush, Jaunt (pve/pvp) / Mass Invis (wvw?)

Staff (Energy, Cleansing) + Axe/Torch (Energy/Cleansing)

Traveler Runes

pvp – Viper Amulet
wvw – Cele trinkets/headgear, Viper everything else (all wvw malign infusions)
pve – Viper everything

Toxic Maintenance Oil
Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew
—————————————————

Playstyle:

Engage in staff – 2 and/or 3 into dodge ambush, try to get in front of staff clone(s) before ambush to gain more might, swap to axe or otherwise blink in for followup ambush into shatter. Bear in mind a single dodge -> walk forward and ambush will generate 7 stacks of might (3 from the DE clone, 3 from you and 1 from food), and it should be easy to maintain high uptime of might.

Engage in axe – either axe 3 or utility teleport into range, dodge axe 2 into ambush then shatter in melee.

Axe 3 in Chaos Storm for more Chaos Armour uptime.

Illusionary Ambush is a pseudo-stunbreak (can be used while stunned) repositioning, detargeting and gaining mirage cloak.

Haven’t had a chance to go into wvw yet – might have a go tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for sharing your videos though.

Oh I agree with the title – I do like quite a few things with Mirage.

However the mechanics are not fluid or synergistic yet which makes it less efficient than Chrono in every way.

Edit: eg I LOVE the animation on Chaos Vortex. I love the reflect potential with Evasive Mirror and traited Mirror Heal, I love Jaunt, I also love axe (but not the sound effect of phantasmal axes).
There are some very nice and cool features in there, even if they don’t gel properly.

musu.9205:

martin.1653:

you can move with superspeed when using mirage cloak. I’m no expert but I’d say it’s about the same distance travelled as roll. Also, there’s that small tiny itsy bitsy thing that you can cast when using this evade and choose to stand still. But sure, it’s not better than roll. Just… different. Yup.

log in , test it yourself
you are not an expert
but you dont have to be this lazy with empty words like "id say xx is same distance " in your own head .

truth is it is not same . and you can only move forward for benefit from superspeed .

Yeah this is a big problem tbh.

If you’re running forward, fine, superspeed makes up for lacking any movement on dodge. But sideways or backwards are impossible.

Unless people are going to use About Face in order to dodge backwards by turning around and running forwards, which is stupid.

A dodge like this would have been awesome (mass effect 3 MP turian cabal – just one note, not the forward dash which is an ability called poison strike that travels further, watch the side and reverse dashes, beautiful sublte blink sound effect and elegant glide):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87X_7v7l6ow

I know, different game – but imagine 0.75s blur plus instant blink (like scepter’s ambush) 300 units in any direction.

Mikkel.8427:

Mastamaker.2957:

My god every profession subforum has a massive victim complex

Yes, there are a lot of melodramatic responses on every class forum (including this one). The problems experienced by most of the new elite specs stem from bugs or can be addressed with some number adjustments. Its small tweaks and tuning.

The problem with Mirage is at a conceptual level. We’re one month away from release, what we’re seeing is supposed to be what we’re getting… Adjusting some numbers isn’t going to cut it.

Yeah agreed – while there is the usual general moaning for each class, Mirage is not built on a functional foundation so simple number buffs aren’t going to fix it.

Heh that would be quite cool – chase all the shinies! xD

I’d love a radical change in this manner.

Chrono enables the class mechanic of shattering better than any other line (apart from maybe Illusions) which is why it works so well, in addition to other quality of life utilities. Chrono happens to work well with condi because condi shatter traits and gameplay is more flexible, reliable and versatile than power, although Chrono still works pretty kitten well with power anyway.

I don’t think it’s condi or power that is the issue with Mirage, more like Mirage is back to fighting with the class mechanic just like core mesmer does.

Mirage could simply be a damage elite spec that enables both power and condi (and anywhere in between), although in the current state certain mechanics don’t work well together and contradict each other.

I know this kind of ridiculously huge rework isn’t going to happen, but I felt like typing it as a thought exercise of what could potentially be done with mesmer, if not for Mirage then maybe for a future elite specialisation, at least on paper – I am no developer so have absolutely no idea as to the difficulty of implementing these ideas in practice. I’m making that clear so if any of these ideas seem nonsensical/impossible then they can be ignored.

Anyway, for Mirage I think it would have made sense if shatters were changed to illusion control and retargeting mechanics, providing a totally different playstyle to Chrono while encouraging us to make full use of the class mechanic and all function skills. Chrono does normal shatter better, and I don’t think any future elite spec will be able to complete with Chrono when it comes to any kind of normal shatter based play.

So:
- Mirage could have (had) the following – let’s call them “Mirage Shatters”.
- In order for these to work, ambush mechanics would need to be removed from auto attack (they are moved to F1).
- Instead, Mirage Cloak reduces cooldown of Mirage Shatters by 3 seconds every time it is gained (from dodging, utility skills, traits, or Mirage Mirrors).

-Mirage Mirrors now provide aoe blur in addition to Mirage Cloak on self when broken (walked into), for up to 3 allies in the radius (240 radius) – allows making plays of supporting allies.

Important – All F1 to F4 skills retarget all illusions to your current target.

F1 “Ambush” (12s) – You and each of your clones casts the current effect of each mainhand weapon’s ambush skill. Of course each ambush skill would need to be significantly buffed in terms of damage output to match with the damage capabilities of Mind Wrack (power and/or condition). Any active phantasms respawn on your target and restart their attack cycle.

F2 “Demoralise” (25s) – You and each of you illusions emit a pbaoe pulse that damages and debilitates up to 5 enemies, 240 radius around self and each illusion (eg, 500 base damage with 1.2 modifier, 4 seconds of confusion and 4 seconds of torment).

F3 “Disorientate” (38s) – You and each of your illusions fires of a bolt of energy that dazes your target (1s). Instant cast but has travel time (takes time to reach target), and is not a projectile. This is still really clunky/I don’t like it but I don’t want another simple pbaoe, nor have illusions running to the target

F4 “Non-Existence” (50s) – Stealth self and up to 5 allies (600 radius). If revealed, Detarget self instead. Gain 1s stealth and 1s distortion for each active illusion including self.

Regarding synergy with Shatter traits:

- Rending Shatter, Shattered Concentration, Blinding Dissipation, Illusionary Retribution, Maim the Disillusioned all proc on successful hit of each illusion’s attack from F1 to F4. Each can proc multiple times if used on multi hit phantasms or multi hit clone ambush attacks. Of course that would need significant balancing so as not to either be totally overpowered or utterly pathetic.

- Protected Phantasms still procs on phantasms when using any Mirage Shatter, Persistence of Memory still causes any active phantasms to transfer their boons to you, Master of Misdirection still reduces the recharge on Mirage Shatters.

- Mental Anguish… this is a tough one. I’m thinking reworked to also boost condition damage for 5 seconds for the player following use of any Shatter (applies to core, Chrono and Mirage). If used with Mirage, provides 15% damage bonus to phantasms for 5 seconds on using Ambush.

- Bountiful Disillusionment, Shattered Strength and Restorative Illusions proc directly on the player. The heal of RI and the Might stacks of SS still depends on the number of active illusions.

- Inspiring Distortion can be made to procby illusions as well! This could provide some interesting mass distortion when using Non-Existence, as each active illusion would proc 1s Distortion to up to 5 allies in 300 radius around each illusion.

- Master of Fragmentation still boosts all Ambush (F1) crit chance by 25%, all Demoralise (F2) cripples on hit, all Disorientate (F3) causes the bolt to trigger an aoe daze proc on the target it hits dazing up to 5 other enemies in a radius about the target (240 radius), all distortion gained by you and any illusions from Non-Existence (F4) provides reflect as normal, BUT, in order for this to function properly reflects should be changed to not cause reveal if stealthed otherwise this trait could make F4 worse. Anyway the Detarget function of F4 could remedy that a little.

In addition Mirage could then have two key traits somewhere in the line that would enable some of the above:
- “Refraction” – Using a Mirage Shatter provides 1s Mirage Cloak to yourself (minor trait). The effect of this would automatically provide 3s reduction to every Mirage Shatter skill, which can then be further reduced through repeatedly dodging or gaining Mirage Cloak by other means.
- “Trick of the Light” – All clones have 2 lives (respawn if killed) (Major Trait)
- Infinite Horizon can stay the same because it would provide a lot of utility in enabling illusions to survive – eg every time you use a Mirage Shatter all illusions would gain Mirage Cloak, as well as when you dodge or get Mirage Cloak in any other way, which also synergises with giving them all superspeed (including phantasms) which would significantly buff Ambush (F1) (eg imagine iDuelist shooting in superspeed).

tl;dr – shatter’s changed to illusion “pet” control, shatter traits still synergise, ambush moved on to F1 among other things.

tl:dr2 – yes I already said in the opening paragraph this is not going to happen, but just an exercise in thought to see if future elite specs could work with similar mechanics.

Reklus.2093:

still.. there gonna be so many nerfs/buffs in the next few weeks..

lets see what happens..

Yep, so if we’re going to make any suggestions/criticism on the spec, now is the right time to do it when they’re more likely to make significant changes.

I also agree with those who have said Illusionary Ambush and Mirage Advance should be merged into a single skill. Then make a new Deception to fill the space.

And yes there needs to be some sort of additional endurance gain trait somewhere, or something built into axe’s auto attack. Maybe something like regain a small amount of endurance whenever you gain mirage cloak. Even with Duelling and vigour, the regen is too slow to be practical.

Anyway I don’t want to be a negative nancy about everything – I actually love the theme and concept as well as the realisation of certain skills and mechanics. Mirage has potential to be a lot of fun to play and I certainly prefer the deceptive style of gameplay over mindless shatter spam. But it’s not there yet.

Reklus.2093:

wow, the hate.. you millennials.. like the great Arron Rodgers said, “just relax”,, there’s a nitch,, go find it..

What is this “millenial” you speak of?

;)

Anyway general consensus is mirage is sorely lacking compared to chrono for a number of reasons. It doesn’t take months of waiting for a meta to settle to see that it is not fully realised in functionality yet.

Heh, that made me laugh.

I really want clone management gameplay to be a thing as it is in total contrast to chrono shatter spam.

But they die too easily, which makes the whole spec fall apart given it’s balanced around the damage output from infinite horizon ambushes…

False Oasis would be cool if it detargeted you and up to 5 allies in an aoe and provided around 1 to 2s aoe blur on cast, as well as having its cooldown reduced to 25s max.

But I suppose then they’d just nerf it like they did to well of precognition…

kitten all.

That’s not tongue in cheek, it’s true. :p

If anything, mirage could have a trait that gives clones 2 lives.

That avoids the complaints about old “on-death” traits we used to have and also provides some reliability for clones. If they die they immediately respawn.

I have found one possibility of being functional, also bearing in mind cele amulet is returning to pvp and cele is already available in wvw.

Might stacking via Chaos Vortex, Infinite Horizon and Bountiful Disillusionment and utilising Deceptive Evasion is pretty legit – I can easily get up to 25 stacks although positioning is required and of course clones need to be alive.

I dropped Illusions trait line to take Chaos and Duelling for this – because shattering is less frequent.

I’m still going to play mesmer. Whether that ends up being chrono or mirage by release, we’ll have to wait and see.

As for alts I’m going to make a Firebrand because I dunno – for some weird reason I like it. The visual effects are really cool.

Chaoz.7941:

I kind of wish they did something to Mesmer like they did to Necro. Remove shatter skills and replace it with a new mechanic. Or more like what they did with guardian last specialization. Change the effect to add 4 different skills that each clone attacks with instead of shattering. As for traits that affect shatters, just make them be replaced if mirage specialization is selected (if they have the tech for that).

This so much.

Mirage could have really worked if they had gone all out with replacing shatter skills with illusion control skills, making illusions persistent and more powerful to follow the theme and carefully making each of the shatter traits across all the core lines work with a new mechanic.

Chrono has already got the monopoly on shatter because the entire traitline synergises with shattering and makes shattering better. Mirage should have gone the other way and focused on illusion control and manipulation as well as deception.

Right now Mirage feels like it’s neither here nor there (pun not intended) – nowhere near as good for any kind of shatter play as chrono, and equally useless at making illusions useful given they’re still as fragile as toilet paper and ambush mechanics are in general pathetically weak.

Levetty.1279:

Firebrand is good, I threw together a Power build with some concentration and was keeping up perma quickness on myself without even trying, the damage without the quickness was more then anything Mirage or Chrono can do.

Spirit Weapons are vastly superior Phantasms.

I also really like Firebrand for some reason. Wasn’t expecting that at all but I prefer it over most elite specs.

Mirage is… well it feels like it’s not finished. :/

Agreed, given the state of Mirage this surely hasa to happen.

So far I also tried Firebrand (holy kitten the burning – I thought this was a support spec?), Holosmith (ludicrous damage output), and Weaver (meh actually not really my cup of tea).

Firebrand’s axe is actually pretty cool – I like the pull and the visual effects on the whole thing.

Law.1704:

dchsknight.3042:

yes cause raids are the end all be all of dps. /sarcasmoff…

No you are right they are not but nobody if going to take a Mirage over a chrono for anything PvE related except open world where people can play whatever they want. The spec looks great for the PvP players, you only have to look at the utility skills to see which area of the game this was designed for.

The downside to only creating an elite spec for PvP players is its a dead spec for the rest of the playerbase.

It might not even be that good for pvp. So far I’m feeling Chrono is better – more sustain, more reliability and still good enough damage.

Zarathustra.1458:

I will be honest, I do kinda like the sword ambush skill, but it feels like it should have been part of the base sword kit from the beginning… The other thing that gets me, it feels like we are not getting enough endurance. We ultimately seem to now have a second resource to manage for our damage, and like our clones it is again tied to our defenses. This is kinda insane… Would probably feel much better with a third dodge…

I agree, even with vigour the endurance regen is too slow to be practical for either offence or defence.

Short feedback:

Feels much weaker than chrono, much less survivability. Loss of other chrono mechanics and synergies (ie with things like restorative illusions) again impacts this and also reliability – chrono is less punishing if you make a mistake but with mirage it feels like one has to play very carefully.

On the other hand potential burst can be good (pvp perspective) if chaining infinite horizon scepter ambush into shatter, or axe2 x2 dodge ax3 into shatter with DE, but it’s far less reliable.

Some things are nowhere near as good as expected – elusive mind is much worse than infinite horizon, heal is pathetic tbh and deception utilities not good enough to replace things like Blink, condi cleanse mantra (which is necessary now) and other utilities like Decoy or Portal.

However the worst thing funnily enough is the sound effect for Phantasmal axe – I don’t know about anyone else but I find it even worse than Alacrity and really offputting to use Axe. It’s like an egg shaker or similar rattle instrument gone mad, and the fact that using traited axe spits these things out all the time leaves that constant rattling/ticking sound in your head. I really hate this sound and sadly might not use axe if the sound effect remains as it is.

The single BEST thing about this is Jaunt. Jaunt is by far the most amazing skill I’ve seen.
The fact you can teleport stomp with it is a bonus, and the low cooldown on charges is great. I agree it ought to have the range increased to 600, but otherwise I love this skill.

Yeah.

Also is it me or is axe 3 (and Illusionary Ambush)‘s targeting broken? I mean it doesn’t seem to do what it says it should do and blinks you to random places, often not near your target.

I’m so torn between sword scepter and axe right now.

Axe has really good condi damage and low cooldowns, but the fact that sword ambush can be used untargeted is a free 600 range leap every time you dodge which is INSANE mobility.

I mean between two sword ambushes, jaunt, blink and phase retreat you can cover a huge amount of ground very quickly.

And of course scepter ambush is as good as it looks, with nice animation on asura.

Intersting – you can teleport stomp with Jaunt. Wasn’t expecting that but phase retreat into Jaunt works.

Also Elusive Mind is actually worse than I was expecting – the condi clear isn’t so great as dodges run out too fast and the stunbreak looks unnecessary. Infinite Horizon seems the superior trait, especially on things like Staff ambush if you position yourself between your staff clones and your target.

Ok you can sword leap without a target – that’s AMAZING! :o some incredible mobility right there.

Axe 2’s cooldown is 4s traited! :o

You can literally spam it back to back and it recharges stupidly fast. Loving it!

Curunen.8729:

Tseison.4659:

Curunen.8729:

One thing that struck me during the stream was the intensity of the visual effects – especially for something like Jaunt (it’s far to large and bright). I don’t want to go blind with all the crazy visual effects of using some of these skills! xD

I loved Jaunts effects! But I understand how you feel. The effects did seem a bit big so I’m sure they’ll reduce it a bit but here’s hoping they don’t go overkill like they did to auras. I miss my circiular chaos armour

Oh yeah I agree the purple egg isn’t my cup of tea either!

The flash of Jaunt looked a bit too much for me to feel comfortable with – especially as a spammable skill with low cooldown. The other one was axe 3 and illusionary ambush – very cool but a bit… large?

Maybe I’m just so used to asura it’s weird to see what the visual effects look like on a human character. I’ll look forward to release and seeing how it applies to my asura.

ok i take this back – Jaunt on asura is AMAZING.

kitten I am loving this so far, every skill is so sexy. :o Aaah, it’s beautiful!

This isn’t so bad – you get to try them today.

What’s bad is then the month between the end of this weekend and release.

RabbitUp.8294:

Curunen.8729:

That would have been really cool, flexible and functional – kind of like building Jaunt into the dodge itself unlike now where we have to blur and use a separate movement skill to move.

Or move with WASD

Yeah but it’s not the same as for example the blink effect of scepter’s ambush. A blur and short instant teleport would have been cool.

Also moving backwards even in superspeed is slow, so if you want to reverse dodge you kind of have to about face and run forwards, which is a bit stupid. Why else would they have overloaded all our utility and elite skills with insane amounts of movement.

glenndevis.8327:

I think it would be nice if there was a way of consistently getting our clones back up really fast after a shatter so we still have a lot of use for the Mirage mechanics while integrating shatters in our gameplay.

Just thinking about deceptive evasion & sword ambush.
Dodge with sword -> spawns sword clone -> ambush with sword -> both you & the clone leap & daze & spawn clones -> 3 clones.

Too bad that Sand through Glass doesn’t trigger Mirage Cloak, probably won’t trigger deceptive evasion either.

I do like the look of the synergy between DE, dodge and sword ambush.

Though yeah I don’t think anything other than dodge will trigger DE – which is good because otherwise you know what they’ll do – they’ll nerf DE to only trigger on evade! And I really don’t want to see that happen! :o

It’s a bit sad if not because given some of the kitten poor cast effects (eg iWarlock) what is the point of using certain phantasm skills aside from extra shatter fodder, especially if using DE and having no trouble generating enough clones?