For more Mesmer archetypes to become viable and for current archetypes to expand outward to allow more build and stat combinations, one must consider giving Mesmers the ability to control and customize their class mechanic skills.
This is a really interesting post and it’s a discussion I wish more Mesmers would try to engage in. My take is that you’re coming at it from the wrong angle.
Shatters are a phenomenally well-executed game mechanic. There isn’t a day that doesn’t pass where I don’t marvel at whoever came up with them and their relationship to our class. The more illusions a Mes has out, the higher his defense (if only from simple body-blocking but also from traits and offensive pressure). When he chooses to shatter these, he risks both a cooldown and his first line of defense; the more illusions the higher the damage and the stronger the effect, but also the greater the risk if it fails. This is perfect competitive game design.
Other Mesmer specs find conflict with our profession mechanic not so much because of the effects themselves but because they destroy illusions, which otherwise facilitate an extremely passive play. I believe you can fault the unforgiving shatter trait/gear setup and the poor interplay between shatters and some of our other gifts, but it isn’t shatters themselves to blame. People don’t shatter phantasms because phantasms are highly rewarding by themselves, and because of their problematic strength they’re far closer to burst than to a DoT spec — they need either active management, finite attack cycles or longer cast times for this to ever not be the case. There’s also in fairness some truth to a point you made, that our shatters are underwhelming without being traited for (Mind Wrack in particular). Perhaps this could be solved by more shatter skills: I would love to see skills from GW1 carried over here, too.
I also agree with much of what Carighan has posted. Personally I’d like to see clones lose all damage (beyond S. Images), to become indestructible (other than through shatters, OOC/range destruction or replacement by the Mesmer), to inherit the Mesmer’s active buffs — perhaps at the time of creation, to allow for some mild counterplay — and for them to use a much wider variety of skills. Another change would be that instead of on-death effects proccing when illusions are destroyed by foes, they instead now proc on shatters. This both gives an incentive to shatter for players who otherwise wouldn’t and also creates some interesting choices at the trait window: do you want extra control through a strong cripple or Weakness, or just pure offense through Mental Torment, etc. If we were to keep condition damage as a viable option (which I believe has its own host of issues) it would of course be seen how this would intertwine with such a change.
