@ODB, our profession mechanic is shatters and illusions. As such, should we not be intended to use shatters in every fight? Is it their intent to make us use illusions in every fight?
Why, then, do we spawn things that deal a significant portion of our total dps while staying alive while our profession mechanic relies on destroying them?
If you don’t understand that, let me explain it to you: You can only make cakes, but you’re allergic to eggs. If you want to eat a cake, you have to work around the fact that you’re allergic to eggs. Why, then, are you only capable of making cakes?
If you still don’t understand…
Illusions don’t add to our dps. They account for a large portion of our dps.
Burst skills don’t add to Warrior DPS, they’re [supposed to] account for a large portion of their dps. (Bar Eviscerate, since someone will axe me about it.)
However, Warriors get a large damage bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.
Mesmers, on the other hand, don’t get a large bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.
In fact, both Mesmer and Warrior profession mechanics can and do hurt DPS outputs by activating them with builds (not all, but many).
In this feature patch, Warriors not using their profession mechanic was addressed by giving them more incentive to use it and by making persist less after a fight.
Mesmers have never had their profession mechanic persist after a fight and, in many builds, have no incentive to use it (bar Mind Wrack final burst, Distortion survival, keeping in mind each F skill reduces your overall DPS in most cases).
Mesmer profession mechanic acts like a Burst skill (funny because I’m comparing Mesmers to Warriors and therefore comparing Shatters to Burst skills, hahhh) in the fact that to use them at all is to provide burst, not sustained dps. There’s a reason why shatter isn’t usable in PvE and that’s because it’s not sustained dps. It’s high burst and moderate recharge as opposed to phantasm which is able to maintain the dps with a, roughly equal, moderate recharge charge.
In many, many builds, there’s no incentive to use our shatters, our illusions don’t persist from fight to fight, even if we stay in combat and traverse from group to group fighting nonstop, and we’re effectively not doing anything.
Warriors get a trait that improves damage for each bar of adrenalin not spent.
Mesmers get a trait that improves damage for each illusion alive.
Warriors profession mechanic attack is burst.
Mesmers profession mechanic attack is shatter.
Warriors do not need to do anything to maintain full adrenalin if they don’t use burst.
Mesmers need to constantly respawn and maintain illusions even if they don’t use shatter.
And we can go into further injustices such as Healing Signet, where Warriors get roughly the same HP/Sec as Signet of the Ether with absolutely no conditionals attached whereas Signet of the Ether requires 3 illusions up and pulses slowly, making it harder to maintain the heals.
The example was not meant to be using Warriors and Mesmers though Burst and Shatter are very similar, profession mechanic-wise. It was meant to say that we have Shatters that aren’t being used because they actively hurt our damage output. That’s not healthy (unless you’re doing shatter burst, may you succeed in your endeavors) for how Mesmer works. We’re harming our damage output to improve our damage output, and the costs don’t outweigh the gains.
Eventually, my point will boil down to (if we want to keep Shatter in the game, which we do) Shatter skills should be select-able because as they are, they are very pidgeonholed in their uses (bless your lovely soul, Distortion, I will love you even if we get to pick our shatters).
