Guild Wars 2

This change annoys me because I’ve always felt that Mesmer Illusion CDs were too long anyhow, we rely on being able to conjure Illusions to fuel our mechanic and, as it stands, we already rely too heavily on Deceptive Evasion and Mirror Images to produce clones.

I can only hope that since we’re only seeing the trait changes, that ANet was at least smart enough to reduce some of our more extensive CDs at the base value. It’s pretty sad when we rely on IP and reducing our weapon Illusion CDs by 40% to have even semi reliable access to Shatters.

My read of this is:

“We moved the trait every Mesmer included into every build to 25 points in the tree, but that’s ok because you need 30 points to get IP and make your profession mechanic semi-reliable”.

It would be interesting if they added it to Mantra of Pain. The actual Mantra is “Agony, Torment, Pain!” after all.

I was initially excited by the wings until I saw the animations. The normal wings flap too rapidly and the shattered wings look erratic and weird. Why they didn’t just give a more organic animation is beyond me, I’d rather they were very idle while you we’re active and flapped irregularly or during your character’s idle animation.

If only they gave you a ride the lightning like skill while in Moa Form so you could get away…

Two of the Three viable Mesmer weapons are significantly affected by this ANet. You could at least recognize the bug for us.

Seriously ANet. Mesmers have three viable main hand options (Scepter is pitiful beyond very low levels). This means that virtually every Mesmer MUST wield either a Staff or a Greatsword, both of which rely on the enemy/ally bounce mechanic for effectiveness.

Having my Greatsword give a clone Might stacks when I’m within range hurts. Having Mirror Blade bounce to an Illusion when it could be bouncing between enemies hurts, hitting 2 on the Staff (leaving a Clone closer to the enemy than you) so that both it and your auto-attacks buff IT with Might/Fury hurts.

A bug like this should not lack a response, let alone make it to the next content patch without being fixed.

It’s not that people think “I’m a Mesmer so I must dye my gear purple”. It’s that in order to even PLAY a Mesmer you have to be comfortable with the colors Purple/Pink (never mind butterflies) since all of our spell effects are that theme

Every Mesmer is a player who likes or doesn’t mind purple, so the frequency of purple dyed armor is quite understandable.

Seras.5702:

All the balance fixes are coming at end of month. Be patient.

I could care less for balance. I care that virtually every Mesmer wields either a Greatsword or a Staff and the bouncing bug they introduced causes both weapons to under perform.

There is usually the unmentioned stuff. Can someone check:

-Berserker landing hits (might as well get that out if the way, it prob wasn’t)
-Bouncing attacks on clones.
-Clones aggroing

If we did get a Phantasm elite I’d think that Conjure Nightmare would be a good candidate for naming if we use GW1 as an origin.

You might want to edit the OP to reference the proper bug. There is nothing wrong with illusionary elasticity (except for Clones/Illusions not gaining an extra bounce. But it’s unclear if that’s a bug or an unclarified exception). The issue is with the behavior of all bouncing skills.

If you point a bug tester in the wrong direction they’re all too likely to test based on the false information and not delve any further, then subsequent reports look like they’re referencing the same thing.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We have not forgotten about this. Sometimes as certain features get used by more of the game, it reveals issues that lead to a redesign. For instance, now that you can right click on people in PvP while spectating to switch follow cameras, accidental right-clicks can be far more disorienting than selecting a new target.

Accidentally changing your point of view while spectating is significantly less detrimental to your game play experience than actually playing the game and losing your target because you’re attempting to use right-click to maintain battlefield awareness or turn quickly. Especially considering two of the most important aspects of playing MMO PvP are hot-keys and mouse-turning (thus the stereotypical jokes about ‘clickers’ and ’keyboard turners).

I see why this adds to the issue, but I don’t see why just now it has become apparent that a change will be necessary when a significantly more detrimental side-effect of this ‘feature’ has plagued players since launch.

I was hoping this meant the game was bugged and you couldn’t target enemies with right-click anymore, I was about to beg Evan to ‘forget’ about fixing it.

Sadly, it’s not true. Please ANet, give us an option to turn off right-click targeting. I’d like to be able to swivel my view while PvPing without losing my target. Thanks.

This change could have been quite the boon to Mesmers if proper priority had been programmed into the bounces. Meaning, that a Bounce should not hit an Illusion unless it is the ONLY viable target, in essence it allows Mesmers (who have a decent amount of Bounce skills) to use their Illusions to keep their bounces going even if it means wasting every other bounce on an Illusion.

Think about it, GS has a main attack which is most viable at 900+ range. Yet Mirror Blade is designed such that it is only viable if you have multiple targets to bounce off of within 600 units of the target. So in solo leveling situations you end-up requiring long range for one skill and close range for another. At least if this change had been coded properly we would be able to bounce it off a Berserker if we were out of range for an attack.

Anyhow, dreams aside… the current implementation is horrible and since there were no patch notes to indicate this change then hopefully this is just a bug or unfinished feature that slipped into the patch. Please address it ASAP, making our already semi-unreliable mechanic inhibit certain skill usage is horrible.

Bouncing to Illusions is something I’ve actually always wanted, it seemed silly to have the GS require long range for max damage then require we be at least at half range to ensure Mirror Blade has a full effect. Being able to bounce it off a Zerker seemed to make sense.

However, I also assumed if they ever made such a change that they would put Illusions at the absolute bottom of the priority list, it’s just common sense. In fact id place Phantasms just above Clones, better a Zerker gets Might than a Clone.

We already has months of dealing with Illusions eating group buffs before that was finally fixed. I remember our Guardian would yell out that he was doing his tome’s big heal and I’d immediately shatter my Illusions so he wouldn’t waste it on them :P

If fixed properly this can potentially be quite the boon to us if priority is added. The ability to get bounces on Mirror Blade against a single target at max range, or to bounce your Illusionary Elasticitied Staff attacks off clones and back at enemies is nice. Yes, they need to make that trait affect Phantasms at least, but this IS a step in the right direction – even if they skipped an important prior step. But since this wasn’t in the patch notes then odds are it wasn’t actually intended to be released just yet. We’ll likely see this change reverted for now.

Someone beat me to snozzberries, so I’ll just say:

The Omnomberries taste like Omnomberries!

Honestly tho. I picture them as a berry sort of like Synsepalum dulcificum, it’s a real world berry that after you eat it everything else tastes sweet to you (even lemons). Except maybe Omnomberries make everything taste like your favorite food.

Right-Clicking to swivel my view NOT also making me lose my current target.

The worst part is when he uses a Hash tag, it was bad enough in the original thread that this parodies. Hash tags are for twitter people.

fufu.8345:

So it seems that I was misreading how the tool tip worded mind wrack. I thought each clone got a higher damage, but it was as a whole the damage was greater for each clone that was used. Thanks for clearing that up for me and taking the time to explain it to me. I just think its so strange that i can get with two clones a 3900+ crits but once i add another clone in there the crits go to 2400+

This is called non-linear scaling. Our other Shatters scale linearly, meaning the effect is the exact same per Illusion, so each Illusion adds 1/3rd if the potential max effect.

Mind Wrack scales non-linearly, most of it’s potential effect (approx 50%) comes from the first Illusion whereas additional clones add less. You deal more damage overall, but less per Illusion until eventually at 3 Illusions you’re at the max damage and each clone is dealing 1/3rd if it.

IP works by mimicking the per-clone effect of your shatters. Since normally this doesn’t vary it doesn’t matter, but with IP the damage per clone varies. So since a single illusion shatter does slightly less than 50% of the max effect this means that a single illusion Shatter w/ IP deals nearly as much damage as a 3 Illusion Shatter does without it.

In the end, you’re only adding 33% to the max effect which is comparable for a Grandmaster trait, but the boost IP adds for the low-end of your Shatters is incredible.

If you enjoy scepter then more power to you, it’s a rather neglected weapon amongst us. The crux of the issue is where you claim it outdoes the Greatsword. There is simply no way the Scepter can outdo it in events even when you neglect the AoE Phantasm GS provides.

Having an offhand adds a nice bit of flexibility, but for PvE the Torch is certainly not an ideal weapon either. Stealth and a delayed burning won’t do much for you in an event and a slow casting Confusion won’t do much either. Any other offhand would serve you better, and pair better with a Sword than a Scepter.

Play as you like, as long as you enjoy it. But I would advise you to try diversifying your options. I neglected Focus for a long time before I came to appreciate it.

I believe the World XP System (WXP) is this concept. You gain special levels in WvW that allow you to spend points to make yourself better at various aspects. Carry more supply, deal more/take less damage from Guards/Mercenaries, use certain siege better, etc.

Just make a green Sylvari, Pink goes well with green.

Maybe your Guild just has an interesting sense of humor?

Melee roles are meant to have some method of actually surviving while in Melee. Some professions have it built in with Heavy Armor and/or things like Guardian virtues.

Mesmers wear light armor and our Illusions only work as a defense if we can keep them between ourselves and our enemies. Thus, our Melee weapon has built in defenses to make that role viable. It’s easy to avoid and roots us in place while we channel it, but it also makes us invulnerable.

You’ll notice a similar trend with many Ranger/Thief Melee weapons. In general, Melee weapons need two things. A way to close the gap and maintain Melee range, and the ability to survive once you get there. Some weapons do this as a hit and run method and some via a maneuverability method.

The reason clones sometimes go Invuln is because just as when you go to an area an enemy cannot hit you at and they go Invuln, clones do the same thing – they’ll even switch targets temporarily in some cases. The best examples I can remember are the dragon shaman in fractals and one event in Iron marches where there is a Necro you fight who keeps disappearing, your Illusions will pick up new targets while she’s gone.

The sad fact is that most of the time, supposed ‘trolls’ are really just means or idiots. The OP falls into the former category (no offense, we’re all new once).

Labeling every newb/idiot a troll just gives them a scapegoat excuse. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people play poorly in a game and try to claim “I’m just trolling” as an excuse.

Stop being enablers :P

Phantasms used to show up in the combat log during beta, so I can only assume it was an intentional change.

Hey guys, how about we don’t accuse the developer of lying? It’s aweful rude and not exactly encouraging to them when they post like this for us.

I do agree that something should be done to make the Berzerker do multiple hits more reliably though. The only Phantasm changes I can really think of are the line of sight changes for summoning them though, but I’m not sure how that would affect it.

JonPeters.5630:

This skill is in fact doing full damage in our testing. The bug seems to be damage floater related where not all floaters appear on this skill.

Jon

This might be easier for players to see if Phantasms would appear in our damage logs.

Durzlla.6295:

Why don’t they just do the easiest thing possible? Make the Signet a 1s pulse and a 1s duration, problem solved, it’s still temporary buff and it’s more useful as a passive, I mean c’mon it can’t be -that- hard to fix it.

It has something to do with server load from what I recall being said about a similar issue.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Dastion and Carighan: The problem with that implementation is that the signet is by nature a temporary buff. If you activate the signet, all your illusions need to be able to drop back down to normal hp, and if the actual summoned illusion was different, then that would be nearly impossible to do. The traits can do this because you can’t change them during combat, so what gets summoned will never go ‘out of date’ as it were.

That’s the problem. The current implementation tries to make it as if the Illusions are using the signet so that it can stop granting the bonus if it goes on CD. However, since the nature of the active effect is to facilitate Shattering it’s rather a moot point, logically you’re about to Shatter them anyhow, so they won’t be around to miss the refresh anyhow.

Just make it, “Illusions you summon have 200% more HP”, if it’s on CD then Illusions you summon during that period don’t get the bonus HP. Allowing illusions you’re about to Shatter to maintain their increased HP after the signet is used isn’t so overpowered that it necessitates the current unreliable method.

Carighan.6758:

The part I don’t quite get is this:
Yes, if it has to be an invisible buff I can see how applying it as the Illusion goes up could be difficult to solve.

But, why not have a “second version” of each Illusion?

• Illusionary Berserker
• Illusionary Berserker MkII, now with 3x the HP

If the player has the Signet-buff on him the moment he spawns anything, the other type spawns, problem solved, it simply has a lot more base HP.

That makes sense, it’s how they do traits that alter skills. They aren’t modular, altering the original skills, they just replace the skill with a new version that includes the new effect. This is why when they buff a skill, it isn’t a rare occurrence for some or all of the traited versions of that skill to be forgotten, resulting in a loss in effectiveness when traited.

Considering Mantra builds tend to rely on either A) Abusing Restorative Mantras to be a heal-bot or B ) Not using Mantras so as to maintain bonus dmg from Empowering Mantras. I think the logic that Mantras are lackluster skills is valid.

A band-aid trait is not a valid substitute for a solidly designed skill.

Could it use some tweaks? Sure, but lots of skills could.

The only thing it really ‘needs’ is a bigger reticle. It’s extremely small, making it difficult to quickly aim from long distances.

Two months? Closer to five months.

JonPeters.5630:

Berserker not doing the correct damage is known issue. We don’t know where this issue is coming from but I intend to solve it by the next build. 12/14/12

I know that seems a long time but it will be set back to viable. If you have good data on the damage it used to do to heavy target dummy vs what it does now that will help me track down the issue.

Thanks,

Jon

JonPeters.5630:

Now if only I could figure out the berserker dmg thing… Worst case scenario I will just try and readjust the numbers based on the new functionality but that is harder because I don’t have the old data. For what it is worth it was not the bladetrail change that messed with this because we locally reverted that and this berserker issue still persisted.

JonPeters.5630:

So studying it here empirically we think berserker is just missing and not less damage, but that duelist was actually impacted by the “bladetrail” bug fix. I will try and up the duelist damage and I will try and track down why berserker is not always hitting.

iZerker has actually been bugged for going on 5 months now. I think they may have fixed it briefly but JonP was here posting about it as far back as December.

JonPeters.5630:

Berserker not doing the correct damage is known issue. We don’t know where this issue is coming from but I intend to solve it by the next build. 12/14/12

I know that seems a long time but it will be set back to viable. If you have good data on the damage it used to do to heavy target dummy vs what it does now that will help me track down the issue.

Thanks,

Jon

JonPeters.5630:

Now if only I could figure out the berserker dmg thing… Worst case scenario I will just try and readjust the numbers based on the new functionality but that is harder because I don’t have the old data. For what it is worth it was not the bladetrail change that messed with this because we locally reverted that and this berserker issue still persisted.

JonPeters.5630:

So studying it here empirically we think berserker is just missing and not less damage, but that duelist was actually impacted by the “bladetrail” bug fix. I will try and up the duelist damage and I will try and track down why berserker is not always hitting.

I do not play a Ranger really, I have an alt but he’s like level 7, in fact I play a Mesmer – the profession I specifically excluded as maybe not needing this, though I have an alt of everything but a Warrior. As a Mesmer I know first hand how awesome a pet can be in easier content and unreliable in more difficult content. This is something that needs to be addressed in order to help professions like Rangers and open up build options for other professions.

Even as you said, in Dungeons a Flesh Golem isn’t worthwhile but he’s awesome for general PvE. That’s the point I’m making, Ranger pets are amazing in normal PvE but of limited use in long fights, the same goes for every pet class. How do you make a Flesh Golem or Elemental viable for helping you fight a boss without making it OP in easier content?

That’s why I think Endurance and AI based damage avoidance based on a scalable factor (% of current health taken) to be a good option. Your Flesh golem would come out and be able to take at least two hits that would normally have one shot it, yet in easier content it wouldn’t gain much overall benefit from this since the AI wouldn’t trigger an evasion until much lower HP, thereby giving him less ‘effective’ HP and less time to generate more endurance.

Currently, all pets in the game scale very poorly with content. As the game moves away from basic PvE and starts requiring effective positioning and dodging of telegraphed attacks pets, who lack the ability to avoid damage, become increasingly less viable.
This limits build options for professions with temporary optional pets (Necros, Guardians, Engineers, Eles, etc) and significantly effects professions with built in pet mechanics. Namely Rangers, but Mesmers* too a bit.

Typically MMOs resolve this issue by giving pets extreme AoE damage reduction. However, in a game where every swing is potentially an AoE that makes them very potent, and pets already do well in lower-end (smaller hits) PvE.

Therefore, you need a solution that gives pets the ability to take some big hits in Dungeons/Fractals without making them considerably stronger in easier content. The solution? Give them Endurance.

First off, pets currently don’t have Endurance and so gain no benefit while under the effect of Vigor, this changes that and opens up several avenues for traits (I.e. Grant your minions vigor when you crit, etc).

Of course, pets still can’t anticipate and dodge an attack, and adding a special button to make them dodge adds an extra degree if complexity. The idea is to make pets more viable, not force you to dodge for two.

By giving pets Endurance and using it as an extra pool of health in some manner to avoid damage you could make pet classes and pet builds once again viable in harder content.

For example, here’s one way to scale it:
-Give pets Endurance, a varying amount based on the type. For example, a Necro Minion may only get one segment (ie a half bar or one ‘dodge’) while a Ranger Pet or Elite Pet would get more.
-Any time a pet with endurance would take more than 90% of their current health from an attack they consume a segment of their endurance bar and Evade the damage (or maybe a turret absorbs it and visually appears more battered as if its armor is being broken down). Possibly extend the ‘evasion’ for 0.5s to account for barrages that a dodge when normally avoid.
-This still wouldn’t do much for Agony, since it’s not upfront damage. But that is addressable by telling the AI to attempt to avoid any attack with Agony attached.
-For pets like Necro minions you’re essentially giving them the ability to always withstand 1 attack, the same goes for Phantasms – though I’m honestly not sure if Mesmers would need this. It sucks to have your Illusions die to AoEs as soon as you cast them, but that could probably be more easily addressed by giving them a 0.5s Distortion when summoned instead of the free hit, I’m mainly focused on Rangers with this concept though.

The important fact here is that because this triggers based on current health it causes the mechanic to scale with content. In normal PvE where a Ranger pet is taking less damage the evade condition will not trigger until their pet is low on health (ie with 2000 max health and 200 damage taken per hit, the pet wouldn’t evade until down to 180 health). Whereas in a dungeon the pet will be able to avoid large hits and Vigor would allow Ranger pets to evade more often.

Just an idea, something really does need to be done to make these builds/professions less prohibitive in higher tier content.

I’ve always been a fan of knife throwing characters, so I think it would be interesting to have dual daggers but have the auto-attack be a throw. Maybe then we can get the old Illusionary Rogue back. He used to spawn and throw blinding daggers at enemies.

We’ll get new weapons eventually, and we have lots of options.

Mesmer melee is more of a duelist nature, so we get swords and an OH Pistol. Ele’s and Necros do not get either of those or the Greatsword. In fact, we get more weapon options than either if them do.

We can’t get everything, and I’m sure a large part of the initial decision not to give us daggers was to differentiate us from the other stealthy/tricky profession, Thieves.

That’s not to say we won’t get Daggers later though.

It amounts to a 20% CDR on 40-50% of your weapon skills and some of your utilities as well.

Berserker Mesmers are absolutely viable. I did FoTM 20 without any Agony resistance and (party wipes due to pugs excluded) only died to the Jade Maw. The guild member with me (the only reason I got into the group) found it amusing that even on the few wipes I always died last.

If you’re smart on a Mesmer you don’t need defensive stats. Hide behind your clones so projectiles hit them, using Mixed Berry Pies combined with Spatial Surge/Blurred Frenzy is amazing healing for those minor hits you do take.

The thing about dungeons is that eventually they get hard enough that you’ll die in two hits no matter what. Whether you have 16k or 24k health, getting hit for 12k twice kills you. Eventually it’s all a matter of not making mistakes and killing the enemy ASAP.

Mesmers are prized for that very reason. We can bring decent damage while remaining survivable and having a lot of good utility.

It’s an extremely strong trait, only beating out IP due to it’s ease of obtainment.

Personally I’d rather they ditched it, reduced all Illusion CDs by 20% and made it something like “Illusionist’s Charge: Illusions gain Swiftness and Aegis when Shattered”, seems a more fitting trait to what is essentially our ‘Shatter’ tree.

The profession specific mechanics are the stuff above the weapon bar, most if it is just F-Keys, but sometimes it’s resources too. Such as the Mesmer Illusion Counter, the Warrior Fury Bar, Necro Life Force, etc. those are resources that compliment the F-Keys.

Arguably Initiative is more the Thief mechanic than Stealing, which is really just a stand-alone freebie utility. But the two do synergize. Stealing is random and unpredictably useful, Initiative allows the Thief to make use of Steal and whatever special skill it gives without ‘losing out’ on if they had just used a weapon skill instead. Every other profession knows what they are getting when they use their mechanics, Thieves at best can make an educated guess. As a Mesmer it is unlikely you’d want to Steal when you have two weapons worth of skills to use, most of them likely off CD. So Thieves don’t have weapon CDs.

I’m not sure how better to explain it, initiative removes much of the opportunity cost involved with using a randomized skill. And since Thief skills all share the same CD they have to be balanced differently. It’s okay to have a skill like Heartseeker on your bar (which, ideally you should save for when the target is low health) because there is no opportunity cost involved with leaving it unused as there would be on a normal separate CD weapon set.

Each Thief skill has to be stand-alone useful compared to the other skills, you cant have a ‘medium damage, medium CD’ and ‘high damage, high CD’ skill on their weapons like you do on other professions because the least efficient one would never be use. So, if you understand how and why Thief weapon skills are set-up, then it makes sense that dual wield skills are there to tie the set together, to give it something unique that it needs.

Dagger/Dagger gets a Melee AoE+maneuver within Melee, Dagger/Pistol gets a ranged close skill, and Pistol/Dagger gets an escape to range skill. Each uniquely fits that weapon combination to give it something unique to spend initiative on.

I’m not saying that others shouldn’t get dual wield skills, but they don’t tie into our mechanic the way they do for Thieves. And we certainly do not need varied animations, telegraphing attacks in PvP is huge. Yes, they may reuse the same animation for different skills, but it still allows for a greater degree if recognizability than if every thing was an ‘If then’ animation (which is more complex than you think).

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

I agree that OHs seem dead, I wish we all got dual wield skills as our #3 at least, but I can see their logic.

Forgive me, but I do not see this logic. All classes except one follow the ‘no dual wield’ mechanic. Yet I don’t see why the Thief would be the only one allowed a changing #3 and why ANet is so to reluctant to allow another class to have one on a single weapon (even if it was just for animation purposes only).

I just don’t understand why they felt the need to make the Thief such a ‘special snowflake’ with changing #3 abilities and active initiative-based combat while the rest of the classes are stuck with static cooldown-based combat.

As such I believe that allowing more classes access to more dynamic changing abilities on their #3 depending on the offhand would benefit the entire game and make offhands feel less static as a whole.

And the first weapon to use for testing could be Mainhand Pistol for Mesmers!

You misunderstand. I was saying that I wish other professions had the #3 dual wield skills too. The ‘logic’ which I understand is that they don’t make the same ability have different attack animations depending on the offhand weapon because it hurts telegraphing of attacks, even thieves don’t get that. You weren’t referring to a special skill based on your offhand, you were referring to a special animation for the same skills.

As to why Thieves are have initiative and dual wield skills – it’s their mechanic, the two go hand in hand. First off, Thieves have initiative because If they had CDs like everyone else, then taking the time to use a random item that may or may not be effective would be inefficient when you could be using real skills, since a weapon skill sitting there unused is wasted potential.

To make Stealing more viable without making every stolen item ridiculously powerful they gave thieves initiative. In this way, so long as you aren’t sitting at full initiative no potential is lost by using the weaker and random steal skills. Even so, they still had to make Steal Shadowstep you and not replace your weapon skills before they considered if viable.

Now, since Thieves have Initiative their playstyle has changed. It’s no longer viable to make a weapon set like others have because the Thief can use the same skill multiple times in a row. Instead if having a set if skills that works well together, Thieves are intended to have a variety of skills that are situational. For example, Heartseeker is only at it’s best when the target is low HP, because of how Thieves work it’s okay to have a skill designed to only be used in specific situations. Dual Wield skills are meant to tie this system together by giving the Thief something that fits the weapon set, such as the ability to go quickly from Melee to range with P/D or vice versa with D/P. Yet P/P doesn’t need to be in Melee range for anything so has neither.

I’m not sure, the daze from Chaos storm has to actually interrupt an action, since Chaos Storm is so random it would be difficult to guarantee that when the daze occurs they are actually doing an action.

I’ve tried out a lot of different builds, but I’ve stuck with 20/20/0/0/30 as my faithful shatter build since beta, before it had a name :P. IP is just too potent of a trait, so while I occasionally drop it for a Glamour build, my other two main builds use it. One being more bunker-ish (similar to the Immortal build) and the other the cookie cutter “Shattercat”, with variation depending on what I’m doing.

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

I know what he meant. I was just covering both aspects of the ‘using both weapons to attack’ concept. The first is actually using both weapons, which is the domain of the Thief. The second is just appearing to use the offhand for thematic purposes. For example, animatig both swords if you dual wield them.

As to the latter, as I said, they’ve stated in the past that it isn’t something they are considering. They want each attack to have a recognizable animation and not vary depending on the offhand.

That’s a pretty odd stance from ANet then as currently each attack doesn’t even have its own recognizable animation. If I summon my iZerker I do a ‘He-Man’ with my sword, and when I heal I do the same ‘He-Man’ with my sword. And my Guardian has the exact same ‘He-Man’ for his heal.

Besides, shooting a barrage of purple bullets from one pistol or shooting purple bullets from two seems pretty recognizable that it’s a Mesmer using a Pistol MH. Even moreso, it would even show the opponent that the Mesmer is either using a single pistol or if he’s using two. So that would make pistol attacks even more recognizable.

This isn’t meant as an atttack towards you or anything, just that ANet devs don’t even seem understand what they’re talking about half the time in my opinion.

Regardless, I still want a Pistol as a mainhand weapon for my Mesmer.

Obviously they can’t have a unique animation for every skill. I think what they meant is that when you use the skill it looks the same every time, thereby making the attack predictable. You know if a Mesmer raises his sword he may be summoning a Phantasm. You know how his sword swing animation looks and so can time it for avoidance. If the animation changed depending on the weapon it would be much more difficult to correctly telegraph the attack.

I agree that OHs seem dead, I wish we all got dual wield skills as our #3 at least, but I can see their logic.

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

We aren’t going to get mh weapon skills that trigger the offhand weapon, dual wield skills are the Thief’s domain and they’ve states in the past they aren’t going to utilize the offhand weapon in mh skills, despite complaints from people that the offhand felt ‘dead’.

I believe what he meant was that it would use a different animation only; not separate skills like the Thief where the #3 would change depending on the OH. Best comparison would be that the main attack would have similar animations as ‘Repeater’. Combining it with a second Pistol would change the animation to ‘Unload’.

So, for example, let’s say that ‘Chaotic Barrage’ would fire 5 times if only the MH Pistol was equipped. When equipping a Pistol for both MH and OH, it would use both in its animation and give the impression that it shoots 8 times, but you’d still only see damage numbers 5 times. So it would be mainly for aesthetic purposes so the weapons appear to function as one when using both of them at the same time.

I know what he meant. I was just covering both aspects of the ‘using both weapons to attack’ concept. The first is actually using both weapons, which is the domain of the Thief. The second is just appearing to use the offhand for thematic purposes. For example, animatig both swords if you dual wield them.

As to the latter, as I said, they’ve stated in the past that it isn’t something they are considering. They want each attack to have a recognizable animation and not vary depending on the offhand.