Heyho Guys, I’d like to start a discussion about the Mesmers Illusions.
Phantasms as well as Clones.
The reason I do this, is my opinion, that the mechanics behind those aren’t rly good.
Most of my arguments rely on pvp experiences, however, I think there also might be some pve issues.
(TLDR on the 2nd post)
Illusions in General
One Issue with the Illusions is, that they are AI. Playing with, or fighting AI rarely is fun.
Ever played a Phantasm Mesmer in PvE? As soon as you have 3 Phantasms up, you only basicly can’t use 4 of your weapon skills. Otherwise you will overwrite your Phatasms. Not to mention how much fun and challanging it is to watch your illusions doing damage.
On the other hand, fighting AI also is kind of strange. One issue is, that you can’t “confuse” AI. Mesmers and Thieves might know how annoying it is if you totally confused a Ranger or Mes and he obviously has no idea where you are, but doesn’t matter, as his pet / illusions always will find you.
Clones
One big issue is the"deceptive" aspect of the Mesmer which should usally be provided by clones (and stealth).
In PvE, at least I haven’t found out, which rule NPCs follow when a Mesmer fights them. Sometimes they attack an Illusion, sometimes a clone, sometimes the original. As I already mentioned, you can’t confuse AI, which makes “deception via clones” pretty useless in PvE.
In PvP, new players complain about clones making them unable to find the real Mesmer, while experienced players don’t have issues with this. This bothers me in 2 ways.
First of all, in the more “skilled” endgame, you can’t fool anybody with clones. The second one is, that there aren’t rly a lot of “levels” within the ability of finding the real Mesmers. It’s almost binary: “Players who can and players who don’t”.
In my opinion, that’s not how a mechanic should be designed. It bothers only new players and leaves veterans completly unimpressed. What I want to say is, that the only thing, this mechanic does, is to overburden new players. So what’s the point? Who prefers a “anti noob-mechanic” versus a something reliable in all “skill-levels” of pvp?
Without the confusion aspect, clones usally can only be used kittenter resources, to apply conditions (via clonedeath or autoattacks), and sometimes as meatshields.
However, burst damage and conditions aren’t things, you necessarily need AI for.
E.g, a common way to shatter works with using Mirrorimages when close to the enemy and then immediatly shatter them. In this combo, the clones roughly lived for 1 second.
Not to mention the big downside of clones, that they can easily be destoryed via AoE.
Finding an alternative to clones might also drasticly increase build diversity. Almost evrey Mesmer build runs with Deceptive Evasion, as clones are an important damage ressource. Removing clones might remove the “duty” for Mesmers to put 20 points into Duelling.
One way might be, to replace clones with some kind of buff. Let’s call it “PowerPoints” (not office tool). Every skill which created a clone, instead gives the Mesmer a PowerPoint.
Other skills (especially shatter skills). Use those points for greater effects. This might be somehow similiar to the adrenalin mechanic of warriors.
Phantasms
So what’s the issue with Phantasms? As already in the general part mentioned, playing phantasm builds is some kind of boring. The amount of control you have over your phantasm might only be slightly higher than your control over your Rock Dog when using Ogre Runes.
You can summon phantasms and you can sacrifice them (via shatter) and that’s it.
On the other hand, they are in a lot of situations rly unflexible. They can’t follow you and they are bound to an enemy. For “utility Phantasms”, which often might just be nice to summon like P.Disenchanter, P.Defender and also I.Warden, you also need a target.
You can’t “tell” your Dischanter, to primarily remove your conditions and not the enemies boons. You also can’t just place the I.Warden just next to you in order to gain protection from Projectiles.
On the other hand, fighting phantasm Builds also can be rly annoying. If you can’t dodge the summons, you will have try to kill your enemy while the AI will damage you.
Maybe you could replace phantasms with sth closer to conjured weapons or transforms. Something, you have activly to control. Or at least make some “Phantasm free” Weapons. So you don’t have to use phantasms when you don’t want.
Pls note, that the posted alternatives for Clones and Phantasm are something, I came up with while writing this post, so they are probably not perfect. My Intention was more to show the problems of the illusions.
If you actually managed to read through all of this:
Sry for making such a long post, I didn’t expect it to get that big.
Here, * hands out an imaginary cookie *: for your efforts, thanks for reading.
