Guild Wars 2

Cooldown doesn’t matter. The TTK in this game is so fast, it just has to process once. Could be at the beginning of the fight and you have a stunbreaker available or it can come later. You don’t know WHEN it will process!!!!!!!!

You’re up against the new longbow ranger, and you outplay him, your in his face and your about to finish him off when your suddenly feared… as your feared away with your back to ranger….. Rapid Fire and your dead. Simply because you did your job and the Ranger did NOTHING!!!!

Why is this so difficult? I don’t understand some of these responses? What part of “losing control of your character when the wearer does NOTHING” is confusing?

Thanks for the update, didn’t catch the Necromancer Runes.

My point is that the Rune should improve/enhance the traits of a build and should never add a passive control effect.

OMG, just the description is an oxymoron.. “a passive control effect”. I mean really, why do I have to make a silly stupid thread to make a point on this??

@Cam.. one silly rune at a time my friend, one at a time.

Sizer.5632:

Considering that half of the “meta” pvp builds rely heavily on passives I doubt anyone is going to care about your arguments. If the devs wanted to balance the game based on active combat and animations they would have done so by now.

That’s what I’m afraid of. Here’s how I think ANet should handle this.

Option 1
Remove Rune of the Nightmare from PvP

Option 2
Add new Rune of Reality, so the Power Builds can also take advantage of this ridiculous rune.

Option 3
Change the 6th trait of the Rune to simply EXTEND Fear duration. Using Rune of the Mesmer as an example. “Increase Fear Duration by 33%”

The difference between Nightmare and Ogre/Pirate, is that with those runes I sill have control of my character and I can decide to either attack the rock dog/parrot or ignore it. I at least, have the option. With nightmare, I don’t have that option at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I think those runes are cheesy as well. I’ve tried the Pirate Runes, but I just couldn’t justify it my mind. That’s not how I want to play this game.

This thread is not an attack on Necromancers, any condi-build can use this. Its an attack on this Rune. It simply should not exist.

I should not lose control of my character while my enemy does nothing. Its that simple. It doesn’t matter that its on a 90 second cooldown. It doesn’t matter that it’s a 50% chance on hit. Its simple. There simply is no counter to this RUNE. There is no telegraph, there is no indication that the player is even WEARING the rune to see the fear coming.

So if this rune stays in the game, then why should only condition builds take advantage of it.

The fact that everyone thinks I’m joking around, just exemplifies my point with this rune.

Why should condition builds get a rune like this? Let’s make a Power based one that has the EXACT same 6th trait.

Superior Rune of the Nightmare
(1): +25 Condition Damage
(2): +5% Condition Duration
(3): +50 Condition Damage
(4): +10% Condition Duration
(5): +100 Condition Damage
(6): 50% chance when struck to cause fear for 2 seconds. (Cooldown: 90s)

Superior Rune of Reality (Because reality can be pretty frightening too)
(1): +25 Power
(2): +35 Precision
(3): +50 Power
(4): +65 Precision
(5): +100 Power
(6): 50% chance when struck to cause fear for 2 seconds. (Cooldown: 90s)

Shouldn’t be an issue, because there is nothing wrong with Rune of Nightmare. We want a balance in all aspects of the game. Don’t we???

Not drunk, very serious.

Why does this Rune exist? It’s the perfect example of passive play. The wearer does NOTHING, and I lose control of my character.

And if players feel this is OK, then why aren’t there other runes that do the same thing with different stats. I’d LOVE if Rune of the Mesmer 6th trait was “50% chance when struck to inflict a STUN for 2 seconds”. Thats WAY better than a 30% daze increase.

So either change the Rune, or balance it out so that all the control effects are covered.

50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 2 seconds. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)

Yes its on a 90 second cooldown, but I should NOT LOSE CONTROL of my character because of something I did and my enemy did NOTHING.

If this is ok, then where’s my “50% chance when struck to inflict STUN for 2 seconds.” or “50% chance when struck to inflict DAZE for 2 seconds” or “50% chance when struck to inflict KNOCKDOWN for 2 seconds” or…etc.

Just wondering????

Its funny how it was a very situational skill before. And in the same patch that buff’d rangers, they changed the skill into something totally different. When now it might have gotten more play? (Wonder if ANet changed Mimic BECAUSE of the changes to Ranger???? hmmm)

So yes, they should of just reduced the cooldown on Arcane Thievery, and “tweaked” Mimic into something that made it easier to work with.

Just like the changes to scepter, its still clunky as it was before. Just hurts a little bit more is all.

I’m seeing it as well. For example, on my mesmer running with focus. I’ll start running target the temporal curtain out in front of me and I’ll run by where I clicked and then the curtain will show up behind me. I’m putting it plenty far out in front of me when I click.

This has happened with Staff’s Chaos Storm as well. I target right in front on an enemy and CS doesn’t appear until he’s run all the way past it. This is messing up the new iLeap Sword as well. Sometimes the clone appears right away and others is seconds and I’m wasting the skill.

Live in Denver, never had this much issue before.

Thats what I did..

It just hit me in a hot join match.

Just my first run in hot joins… Conditions are EVERYWHERE!!!!! I never thought it could get worse…

from the wiki:

Applies a distinct Decoy effect that is different from normal stealth. As such, it can be used while revealed and can be active at the same time as regular stealth, but will not stack in duration. Attacking while under the effects of Decoy will still result in being Revealed.

I would say that it was not “fixing a bug” but a nerf. Targetted more for those PU builds, and yet all builds suffer for it.

Decoy:

Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to stealth the player when they were revealed.

Desperate Decoy:

Fixed a bug that allowed this trait to stealth the player when they were revealed.

I don’t use Decoy much, but isn’t that a nerf that was previously un-mentioned?

Oops, thought I had an original thought there. That’s probably where I got the idea.

Ele’s EA just allows them to do more damage based on their attunement. It doesn’t enhance or improve their attunement.

For Thieves, its just makes them stronger or kite better. It doesn’t give them more initiative.

If Warriors gained adrenaline on dodge, Thieves gain initiative on dodge or Necro’s gain Lifeforce on dodge, then they would be similiar to Mesmer’s.

After thinking this over and over in my head. Since the combat in this game is so quick and fast paced, then the obvious conclusion is:

Our shatters are too weak. They are only truly effective with a Max 3 clones and thus our reliance on DE to quickly generate clones to keep up with the pace of the game.

So with that in mind, What If…..

Mind Wreck damage was scaled differently. 1 clone did 50% damage, 2 clones does 80% damage, 3 clones do 100%,

Cry of Frustration does 6s confusion no matter how many clones.

Diversion stays the same 1sec daze for each clone. (If they all shatter at the same time, only 1sec daze is applied. Daze’s don’t stack.)

Distortion stays the same 1s evade for each clone.

Cooldowns stay the same.

Isn’t that kinda the point though? DE is almost incomparably more mandatory and essential to basically every mesmer build than those other traits are to those classes. Those other class traits are perks, DE is a cornerstone.

That IS my point exactly. If Warrior’s on dodge trait granted them Adrenaline, would every Warrior build have it?

No other Mesmer trait has such a dramatic affect on our performance. And it just makes sense, our shatter’s require clones and DE gives us “on-demand” clone generation. Right now, the Mesmer is at or near the bottom of the meta. Sure we’re still good at 1v1, but largely because of DE. In fact, if it wasn’t for DE, we’d have even a harder time.

Remember back in beta and early on release, DE was a minor adept trait. You could grab it for 5 points. It was there so that it could be easily accessed. But for some reason ANet bumped it up, thinking it was too powerful for adept and bumped it up to Major Master. I think they hoped that it would add more build variety. But we know how that turned out.

That’s kind of the point of the thread? If DE wasn’t around and our shatters were still as they are. Would there truly be different builds? Has DE held us back, because its just TOO good?

What if we had more options for “on dodge”?

What if in Domination there was a “add vulnerability” on dodge trait.
What if in Dueling there was a “apply daze” on dodge trait.
What if in Chaos there was a “apply quickness” on dodge trait. (Remember fast casting?)
What if Inspiration had a “apply confusion or regeneration” on dodge trait.
What if DE were moved to Illusions? or gone altogether?

(If these were all available, there would have to be a restriction that they couldn’t stack. But just dreaming here anyway.)

Would there be more build variety?
I know I’d love the “apply daze” on dodge. It’d feel more like GW1 Mesmer.
Having quickness on dodge would make Mantra’s more attractive.

I don’t think it will be as powerful as you think.

A. MoD radius is 180 very small.
B. Confounding Suggestions is a 50% chance of a stun.

Most likely you still get more stuns by throwing down Chaos Storm on a zerg, and you can do that now. The new change will add to that, but I don’t think it will be all that dramatic.

Looking over the other professions “on dodge” traits. None of them directly affect the class mechanic like the Mesmer’s.

Guardian – Selfless Daring (Heals nearby allies)
Warrior- Reckless Dodge (Damage foes)
Engineer – Evasive Powder Keg (Creates a bomb)
Ranger – Companion’s Defense (Give protection)
Ranger – Evasive Purity (Remove blind and poison)
Thief – Expeditious Dodger (Gain swiftness)
Thief – Feline Grace (Gain endurance)
Thief – Fleet of Foot (Remove cripple and weakness)
Thief – Power of Inertia (Gain might)
Thief – Uncatchable (Leave caltrops behind)
Elementalist – Evasive Arcana (Create an attunement-based spell)
Elementalist – Stop, Drop, and Roll (Remove burning and chilled)
Mesmer – Deceptive Evasion (Create a clone)
Necromancer – Mark of Evasion (Leave a Mark of Blood)

Should DE ever been?

Actually, I was hoping when ANet would have changed Scepter so it would spit out clones that fast. It could be the weapon used in place of DE. They just set it up that it wouldn’t overwrite any existing illusions. (No on death traits being triggered.) Once you hit your Max 3, scepter would just do more damage instead of producing clones.

I think it had to do with an attempt to “consolidate” the mantra traits. With HM in Domination, Mantra Mastery/Protected Mantras in Dueling, Restorative Mantra’s in Inspiration was too scattered.

By putting HM in Dueling, a player could get all the mantra traits in Dueling. ANet’s thinking that it would make mantra’s more attractive/viable. Doesn’t matter that some of those traits are questionable. Protected Mantras is useless, and HM although nice really isn’t enough to be worthy of a GM trait.

Just look at our Mantra options:

Mantra Support would grab Restorative Mantras and Mantra Mastery. You want to cast mantra’s as often as possible. Make sense, MM is adept level. Easy to grab and works well with Mender’s Purity.

Taking Empowered Mantra’s means your full on Mantras. If your full on Mantra’s, your spend a lot of your time recharging mantras and NOT doing the extra damage that EM gives you.

If you grab both EM and HM you have extra charges, so you’ll benefit from the EM more. But you are glassy glass.

Protected Mantra is just useless. You get additional armor during the cast. With all the CC in this game, that extra armor isn’t going to do much for you. Then on top of it, its in the Master Dueling line. So its up against DE and Duelist Discipline and the other Dueling traits that are 10x better. (Blade Training, Far-Reaching Manipulations, Phantasmal Fury…) Why would you grab Protect Mantras?

ANet should ditch Protected Mantras and move HM down to master level.

OR add the reduced recharge of MM onto HM, just have it not stack with MM. Make it worthy of a GM trait.

What trait would replace it? All classes have at least 1 on dodge trait …..

Your correct. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dodging

I think it could be something like Ele’s or necros.. apply 1s daze to nearby foes (180 radius) or apply 2s confusion(vulnerability, etc)

1 sec daze on dodge.. would be fun.

By removing DE, we’re not using our shatters as often. So I wonder if we would have a little bit larger base health pool. Or better healing multiplier/ healing skills would be improved. Clones themselves might have more health. Since they would need to stay around longer.

Would it give us more build variety? Mirror would probably be used more.

Since WE all know better than ANet when it comes to Mesmer changes,() let’s do some real theory crafting.

First, I am not implying that this change should be made, but hoping for a interesting discussion on how Mesmer would play differently? So community, I put it before you.

What if Deceptive Evasions never existed? What would be different?

As a result, would our shatters be more powerful? Or would all the recharges be reduced?

Would our weapon damage be a little higher or just the clone generating skills be on a lower cooldown?

64.25.38.248 Skyhammer map.. always skyhammer

So let me get this straight..

ANet finally gets around to do something with Scepter and the only thing they come up with adding torment to AA. Thats it. The ONLY change.

The community screams in protest because a overused, argumentive OP PU build is untouched and indirectly buffed because of the torment addition.

Now ANet, nerf’s ALL “on death” traits and “Debilitating Dissipation” specifically because the scepter can generate clones so fast triggering those “on death” traits.

Net result: Scepter gets buffed…. ALL Mesmer builds get nerfed.

Is that about right?

Oh and I forgot, PU also gets an “adjustment” (nerf as well).

64.25.38.247 earlier today

I agree that projectile time does slow down the clone creation for scepter. But since that is variable depending upon distance from the target. So for comparison, I stated what is in the wiki.

I have a question for the Lockdown pro’s in this thread. And its not so much about the build itself or the skills.. More the games setting. What I mean is usually when I mess up, I realize my camera was over the place or I just didn’t see my target’s animation or didn’t have the right target. Or I simply lost my mouse off screen somehow? (Could be I’m just too old and these eyes simply can’t keep up.)

So what are your video settings? Does SweetFX allow for better(clearer) visuals? Is a high DPI mouse better at camera control or a lower? Do you use fast cast in game, etc. Is there anything different “settings” wise that you found to help?

I run the same 2-6-6 traite/skill setup and this is my experience.

First, I’d recommend you switch to Focus for offhand. It just brings so much utility.
- Part of holding a point is getting the other guy OFF point.
- Adds mobility to get around map in sPvP.
- Into the Void another way to “interrupt” with BI and CI traits
-Nice dmg spike chain when you get it.. iWarden Cast>PowerLock Interrupt>CI Immobilize>iSwap to Enemy(another immobilize)>Blurred Frenzy

Even with Harmonious Mantras and Mantra of Resolve, conditions are your downfall. I’ve been using Hoelbrak runes instead of Melandru that you specified. And still it doesn’t seem to be enough. So I add in Sigil of Purification or Generosity on at least one of my weaponsets.

Its more a reflection of the current meta and not so much the build.. other professions can build to apply and apply and apply conditions(talking about you Necros, Rangers).. and there really isn’t anything you can do about it. Mesmer has a lot of different ways to handle conditions, but unless you devoted all your utility bar to it, you will find in most cases its just not enough.

I’ll sometimes switch to Barbarian Amulet in place of Berzerker to try to hold off some of those conditions longer.. But its just so scary how quickly conditions fly around in this game. Its really starting to turn me off of sPvP.

Stacks with traits that reduce recharge time of weapon skills for a total 40% reduction of recharge time for weapon skills that generate illusions.

IC and Chaotic Dampening combine only to make Phase Retreat a 6 second recharge. Scepter can spit out clones every 2 seconds (un-traited).

[EDIT] Wanted to rephrase my comment to better emphasize my point.

The reason the Scepter changes are so up in arms is because the Scepter can generate clones on its AA. And then these clones will all be applying torment on their AA.

The staff however takes a little longer to generate clones. Staff generates a clone on the #2 skill – Phase Retreat and it has a 10 second cooldown. So you won’t see the clone generation with staff that you can with Scepter. So although IE does buff the staff clones.. you won’t see the “application” that you will with the scepter clones.

Fay.2357:

Aluren.1896:

-snippity snip-

Here’s the main issues with this change.

I don’t think anyone has ever said ‘gosh, I think spammable conditions on autoattacks is creative and solid game design’. The problem is that there’s very little middle ground with this type of mechanic. It’ll either be mostly inconsequential (this change), or massively overpowered (underwater trident pre-nerf). This comes from the basic mechanics. If the conditions are strong enough to be impactful, then the only counter is non-stop condition removal spam. If they aren’t strong enough to be impactful, then it’s completely useless.

Basically, this change falls squarely into the ‘completely useless’ category. Will it make some builds stronger? Yeah, it will. PU condition builds will gain a modest amount of pressure, but staff clones already hit harder with long duration bleeds + burning, so it’s not like conditions on clone attacks is a new principle. Will this change make condition shatter (torment shatter) builds viable? Nope, not even close. So there’s basically no positive impact for this change, the only thing it does is slightly buff some already strong builds.

Additionally, it absolutely reeks of lazy design. What this change says to me is this:

.snip.

This change does not make any previously un-viable builds viable. This change slightly buffs already strong builds. This change does not make the scepter autoattack any less brutally slow and clunky. The changed scepter autoattack is still woefully deficient in many ways, but has been bumped off of the development queue due to this change. For all of these reasons, this change is unequivocally horrid.

This^

The same goes with the new Mimic.. Gee, how original.. Don’t we already have a skill like that. Oh yeah, Arcane Thievery.. why not just tweek this underused skill and give us something more original in Mimic?

Basically, after seeing these changes. Just forget about new weapons or new professions anytime soon. Because its obvious that ANet is out of ideas.

No..

Simply because I don’t think we need yet another AA applying conditions in the game.

Secondly, I was holding out the scepter would be the weapon that could replace DE. Let scepter just spit out clones like crazy. Speed up the cast time of the AA, BUT with caveat that it would not overwrite any existing illusions. Once you hit 3 illusions, the third attack would just do more damage. The reason for this is to keep the “on kill” traits in check. (Remember what was going to happen to DE.) Maybe that would open up some different builds and ease our reliance on DE?

Oh, and speed up #3 PLEASE!!!

I like that they made MoD an AOE daze. But the radius is very very small.(180) Thinking about it, the chances of getting 2 or more interrupts in a single Power Lock are pretty slim. Its good for WvW, because of the zerg that always happens… and it will be REALLY SWEET when their are multiple rez’ers on a player in sPvP.

But other than that, I don’t know if it will really make much difference. I just wished ANet would do more to the Mantra traits themselves, like combining Mantra Mastery and Protected Mantras. And doing SOMETHING more to Harmonious Mantras.

Great news on the ILeap and making Power Lock an AOE is super sweet. But I just don’t understand some of these changes…

Like changes to the scepter.. yes, that’s all this game needs is more condition’s on AA. But no change to Confusing Images incredibly long wind up.

or the change to Triumphant Distortion – Also applies 1 second distortion on Phantasms

Hello!!! Triumphant Distortion triggers on the death of your enemy. What happens to your phantasm’s when your enemy dies???? How is this an improvement? Why would I take it now if I didn’t take it before?

And did you notice that the new Mimic had a 30 second CD.. meanwhile no mention to change to Arcane Thievery’s 45 sec cooldown and unreliability. Why not just improve AT???

For what little information we’ve gotten on it. I’m not to thrilled. AT is one of few “mesmery” skills we have. Based on ANet’s track history and the Mesmer.. They’ll change Mimic to a boon copier with a 30 second cooldown and leave AT in its current too long cooldown, unreliable state.

All they need to do was improve Arcane Thievery and change Mimic to a similiar skill as it is now. There have been tons of ideas on these forums.

Keep it a channeled spell UNTIL we receive that first projectile. Then end the channel, but keep a blocking dome up for the remainder of the 4 seconds. SO there’s a some “timing” involved. If you time correctly, you absorb the project at the beginning of your cast and then for the remaining 4 sec duration, your in your bubble blocking all attacks. Or any of the other dozens of ideas that have been thrown around.

Now we’ll end up wit skill that’s “kind of like Arcane Theivery” but not. And AT go even further into that good night.

Why would it? Chaotic Interruptions still triggers on Champions.

I run with harmonious mantras right now, and it is not in any way OP, in fact I’m probably gimping myself taking it, but I love MoD and the extra charge is cool. Having it baseline would just mean more mesmer’s might actually consider using it. Even then many will not because they hate the charge up time, and so would still need to take a GM to make it worthwhile to them, or they just can’t give up anything on their utility bar.

I’m the same way. Can’t run with out MoD, so I have to get Harmonious Mantra’s for more Power Lock. And I feel like I’m gimping myself too because of it.

Anyway, If the change the default to 3 charges, then chances are they will nerf the individual charges accordingly. And they are already borderline useless/useful. Take a look at Mantra of Recovery. If you look at the numbers it supposed to be our best heal, but the thing is that you end up using up ALL your charges at once just to out do Ether Feast. So whats the point of a Mantra if you have to use all your charges at once to make it worthwhile. Change that to 3 charges by default and each charge would probably end up being less.

They just need to buff some of the traits and maybe add some new ones.

Here’s my ideas:
“Harmonious Mantras – Mantras can be activated 3 times and charge time is reduced to 2 seconds”

new GM Domination trait:
“Waste Not Want Not – gain a Mantra charge when you interrupt a foe.”
EDIT: Probably have a ICD of 5/10 seconds to not make it too crazy.

Thinking about it, Waste Not Want Not, might make Harmonious Mantra’s useless.

They’re one of the few that can actually negate condi burst.

Only with Mantra of Resolve and Harmonious Mantra’s can we remove a condi burst and then its only the initial one.. then we have a 20 second cooldown before we even get to cast the 2-1/2 second mantra recharge in order to do it again.

Null Field has a 40 sec CD and only removes one condition every second (5 seconds total) as long as we stay standing in it.

Phantasmal Disenchanter has a1-1/2 second cast time and a 20 sec CD. And while its alive only removes a single condition every 5 seconds..IF it bounces off the Mesmer and not his allies.. meanwhile the enemy can simply “breath” on it and there’s goes our condition removal.

Mender’s Purity is an adept trait that removes 2 conditions every time we cast a heal spell.. But now your waiting on the healing cooldown to remove conditions a whopping 2 at a time.

EDIT: Forgot about Arcane Theievery.. 45 second cooldown.. send 3 conditions/steal 3 boons. Again very long cooldown and for some reason a very very buggy skill. 1/3 of the time it simply doesn’t work. It must have a very narrow cone line of sight or something. Originally, this transfered ALL condition/boons and the 45 second cooldown was justified. But then it was nerfed to 3 and the CD remains.

So for condi burst.. Mantra of Resolve/Harmonious Mantra’s is the best option.. but that only gets us over that first bursts. Any condi-heavy build from necro’s, rangers, PU mesmer’s, engineer’s, etc. can simply can overpower(condition wise) a mesmer easily.

A mesmer’s best defense against conditions is simply to avoid them. And frankly many professions “condition-heavy” builds (Including the PU Memser) can simply keep applying conditions almost non-stop.

I especially like the Necro build I’ve been running into lately.. the one that casts 5-6 conditions at once and then again about 15 seconds later and keeps you feared as your health just drains away. Not even giving you a chance to remove them. Those guys are tough.

Please refer to here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-Bugs-40-Updated-August-10th

For a current list of Mesmer bugs.. and add to it if you can contribute..

Just to be thorough, add iWarden to the list. Spawn him on a down player and its pretty much a guaranteed kill.

Plus, why he’s attacking he’s blocking the downed players attack. And if the downed player is off the node, you can cap while he does his thing.

I’ve also been trapped into the scenery from a knockback. I think they are related.

I have 2 80 Mesmers.

So when I get bored playing my Mesmer, I switch to my Mesmer.

@silentnight

I’m sorry, but that spec does not have “Good damage” as you say. It has maxed out conditions clears, but thats it. Which is kind of the point of why people complain about Warriors. They don’t have to give up anything to do everything. Other classes do. That build is a prime example. The only thing that build does is clears conditions and even then it only does it for so long. Cause as soon as those mantra charges are up, you got nothing.

Here’s some other ideas…

Merge:
Mantra Mastery (Dueling 1) with Harmonious Mantra’s (Dueling 3)
or
Mantra Master(Dueling 1 ) with Protected Mantra’s (Dueling 2)
or
Protected Mantra’s (Dueling 2) with Harmonious Mantra’s (Dueling 3)
or even
Merge Mantra Mastery, Protected Mantra’s and Harmonious Mantra’s into a single GM trait.

Basically, Harmonious Mantra’s is not strong enough to be a GM, so any combination would be an improvement.

Unfortunately, merging traits is very unlikely to happen. The only way this would occur if ANet decided to do massive “Profession Review”, basically review/rebuild every profession traits. Which is a good idea, but doubtful in the near future.

The change to Into the Void was for counterplay reasons. I know there were lots of threads from players saying that there was no way to know when the Pull/Push was coming. It just happened, as soon as the curtain was there you were pulled. It could be that quick. So the delay was added.

But we’re getting off topic here. But its an example of how when theorycrafting a change to a skill, you need to consider the reason other skills were changed.

Still like my throwing sword idea. It eliminates the pathing issue, and makes the skill behave like it should.

Its been awhile, but I remember in beta that iLeap worked differently. I believe the Mesmer would teleport to the target first, leaving a clone behind and then could swap back. It was changed to the clone “leaping” to the target to provide counterplay.

Mesmer’s used to be able to instantly cast “Into the Void” after laying down Temporal Curtain, but people complained(about no counterplay) and now there’s a 1 sec delay.

Scepter’s block used to be quicker, but now there’s a small delay after the block before the clone spawns.

Other professions have also had similar changes. Warrior’s hammer/rifle skills have changed with longer cast times/animations to allow more counterplay, for example.

[rant]Why the KITTEN theives get a free ride when it come to “no counterplay”, I have no freaking idea. I don’t like it and I don’t understand why ANet continues to allow it.

But for some reason even in beta, ANet was really worried that Mesmer’s could totally “shutdown” another player. Even though other classes CAN and DO knock us/fear us fwd, backwd, and every other direction all while doing nasty condition damage until we’re dust. “But heaven forbid if a Mesmer can actually cause a single skill to go on cooldown for more than 5 seconds.” [/rant]

Anyway, still have to consider “counterplay” in our design, even though it’s not a consideration in others.

So this is what its come to? Don’t touch a skill that “kinda” works, for fear ANet will just make it worse.

There’s no “counter” if the clone just spawns at the target. Right now, Sword #3’s clone moves in a very distinctive motion that the enemy can see and take action. Doubtful this would fly.

I also think that something needs to be done to ensure the clone stays alive long enough to reach the target. Its really not fair that a weapon skill can be negated so easily.

Lanfear’s post gave me an idea. Why not make it work like Mirror Blade? You throw your sword and IF you hit the enemy a clone is spawned. And now you can then “Swap” with the clone. Where Mirror Blade animation is a GS rolling end over end, the Sword’s animation can be horizontal like a Frisbee.

Now you have the sword animation that gives the enemy a warning to counter it, and hopefully removes the pathing issues. EDIT: This also might help with the clone survival, since the sword won’t take any damage “on the way” to the target. And the clone will be full health lasting longer to allow the swap.