The well trait seems kinda underperforming.It should be changed to 2 condis and/or some CD reduction, imo. And I agree with Chaos, why no shield trait?
How does the chronolhantasm one work. On any shatter will recharge the phants lost?
They’ve shown that in the PoI stream actually. Summoning a phantasm will give them a “butterfly-particle” effect. When you’re activating a shatter, a new phantasm will be summoned in the same spot you shattered them, without the particle effect. Which means that after you shattered a Chronophantasm, it will turn into a normal Phantasm that won’t respawn after shattering. It seems to work with any shatter skill!
Question: Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill, does this clone participate in the shatter that summoned it? Like I have 1 clone out, activate MW, a second clone appears and also runs at target for a 2 clone MW?
Judging on what we’ve seen in the stream, the clone will be summoned AFTER you shattered, meaning that it wont participate.
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Thanks a ton, Mr. Peters. Please remind all hosts of future streams to include them in the reveal!
Remove third cast. Create a clone when activating a Mantra. There, i said it. A DE alternative that is worth taking
#believeInMantraShatter
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Because it prevents teabagging and therefore promotes a healthy PvP atmosphere.
I’m actually more scared that their AA basically means perma cripple for Mesmers. And illusions. Sounds like a hardcounter for shatter Mes to me.
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Just as a sidenote… do you think alacrity is what anet meant with “making up” for the lack of new weapon skills? It seems that every class gets 1 new weapon, a new set of utilities, and an extension to their class functionality. I haven’t seen the analogy for alacrity on the Dragon Hunter (lol at the name) yet. Guess we have to wait and see.
You are right, viewership will increase when HoT gets released, probably for a few weeks. Plenty of “famous” streamers will play GW2… PvE. Which is what this expansion is mostly about. Probably a lot WvW as well, since it was always quite famous.
One new map is not a PvP expansion, it’s barely a content patch. Everyone here is hoping for a serious ladder system, but that wish is as old as the game. With the pace changes and improvements were implemented in the last couple years, I just can’t see it happen. Low expectations, secretly hoping I’m totally wrong.
As I said, I fully agree with your perspective!
I just lost all the optimism that goes with it.
So salty. I know. Gonna play some CS:GO now.
I don’t want to sound rude and your post is well written and thought out and I fully agree, but threads/feedback like this are being posted since the game was launched… three years ago. You can really feel the results of that feedback by going ingame.
#sarcasm
I dislike the CS:GO comparison, though. That game was crafted to be a competitive esports game as a whole, and it was never in a state like you described. In GW2, PvP always felt like the unwanted stepchild and most GW2 players don’t even care about it. And nobody wants to watch it either (Twitch).
Well, to be fair, anet made some really good attempts and improvements.
It just wasn’t enough, I guess… and it’s probably too late now.
Please, anet, prove me wrong.
I don’t know about glamours and manipulation skills. They have their unique category, but the overall mechanic of those skill is pretty random/unspecific. Traps, wells, signets, stances, gadgets and shouts are way more characteristic.
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Seeing that Mesmers get wells and Guardians are getting traps… what if Druids will get Mantras?
I hope that thieves won’t benefit from alacrity, just like they don’t get the cd disadvantage for chill.
Just a note: I actually believe that Deceptive Evasion (the whole Dueling traitline) could be dropped for the few Chronomancer traits we already know. Create clone on shatter, create a replacement phantasm when shattering… and we can take both. And there’s still another spot for a trait. Combine that with reduced cooldowns on all skills, plus re-winding cooldowns… yup. Gonna be awesome.
The stream wasn’t really worth watching imo. Instead of actually going ingame and showing the new stuff section by section, they just had a bunch of prerecorded videos where they didn’t even show everything. And even that wasn’t very organized -_-"
Was there any particular reason why they couldn’t show it ingame? You couldn’t even read the skill facts properly in those videos. Going ingame from skill to skill, showing and explaining each one of them would have been the better way to do it. There aren’t that many new skills, after all. Plus, the new traits would have been way more interesting than showing Bristleback 203947 times.
I appreciate the time and effort that was put into the stream, but this is a horrible way to do it.
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The thing I’m most excited about is the reflect-on-dodge trait. 1.5 seconds may sound like it’s very short, but I’m pretty sure it can make a difference when fighting Rangers or other classes.
Concerning group/support reflects, yeah. There’s a good chance we will get a reflect-trait for shield.
Don’t get your hopes to high though. We still don’t know anything about the other specializations. Maybe the Guardian will become a Mirrormancer :0.
Please correct me if I’m thinking nonsense here.
Considering the first picture here, all utilites will be assigned to a category, which will be most likely Signets, Mantras, Manipulation, Glamour and Illusion (combining Clone + Phantasm utilities).
Soooo…. I’m totally hyped for Timewarp being assigned to Glamour and therefore being affected by traits.
…
This is our class mechanic, and we’re the only ones treated this way.
…
Except you’re not. I never really understood why people compared Death Shroud to adrenaline. Just because it’s a bar sitting on top of your skill bar doesn’t make it the same. Personally, I’d rather compare it to Mesmers. They can only gain their resource in combat, and immediatly lose all of it when that enemy gets killed. Phantasm/Clone/Shatter skills do nothing except going on full CD when you pop them OoC.
They have traits/skills which give similar benefits to the one’s the Warrior has. Increased damage based on the amount of resource, regen based on the amount of resource, cleanse a condition for every third of your resource pool spent, resource divided in 3/3, yada yada. Regaining 3 phantasms is probably a bigger pain in the kitten than regaining full adrenaline, just to get back to your max dmg output, that aside.
Warriors do have tons of tools to regain Adrenaline faster, Mesmers get clones for their quicker refill. The only differences are that Mesmer resources are outsourced and therefore can be killed/removed, but they get 4 “burst skills” at once to compensate that. Their direct damage output isn’t nearly as high as a Warriors, but they get phantasms as compensation.
Just to be clear, I’m not a huge fan of both mechanics when it comes to OoC. In bigger fights when you have to switch enemies more often, it annoys me on my Mesmer just as much as it does on my Warrior. As a main Mesmer, I learned to live with that – even on my Warrior nowadays. Heck, you don’t even need to be OoC as Mesmer to lose all your resources.
It’s a way of balancing, and after almost 3 years I highly doubt they will change or revert any of the changes they’ve made. It’s far from unplayable, maybe annoying sometimes.
Let’s just hope that specializations might mix things up a little bit.
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In my experience, a good timed MtD shatter can melt any Guardian.
Random thought: What about Power Block vs. Revenant? Their utility & elite skills won’t have CD. Given how poorly anet handled this trait vs. thiefs, can we really except anything different?
That would make two classes basically immune to the trait.
15 char
forum bug.
I really hope that the shield will give us something to substitute the loss of Mimic. As you said, the reflect part was huge, thats what I miss the most. Feedback is nice but you can’t drop it on yourself, and not everyone likes running traited focus. Dunno, but I feel the >>reflect<< aspect of Mesmers should be much better.
Anyway, I like Xyonons suggestion. 20 seconds might be too much, but it’s still a cool idea. I’d still miss the old reflect/block part of Mimic, but thats probably gone for good.
Oh anet, why. Why would you take a subpar skill and make it even worse.
The Mesmer has 2 mainhand weapons, Scepter and Sword. However it already has 4 Offhand weapons, namely Torch, Focus, Pistol and Sword.
And what do they get? Another Offhand weapon. Right now everything is in testing, undergoing development and iteration. Now is the time to voice concerns, not after HoT comes out because by then it’s to late.
^
Also my concern. Still hoping that the specialization might change existing weapon skills also (like MH sword). But that seems unlikely. So meh, if it’s just another offhand weapon. One of those 2 new skills is probably a phantasm, that makes me even less excited.
We’ll see. Until then, I’m grumpy :c
Anyone actually using the “improved” version of this skill?
To be totally honest, after reading the dev quote mentioned in the OP, I’m pretty sure the Mesmer specialiszation won’t shake up the sPvP landscape the most.
Dev estimations concerning class balance? Don’t want to be rude here, but there’s a high chance that they might be wrong.
Sorry for grave digging, but I just had to bump this topic.
Since they are obviously taking a look at recent skills/traits for the expansion, I really hope they revamp this skill.
Anet, please.
I am a Zombari.
Human brains, pls.
No, it’s definately a Lowbong.
Good thing I bought that Tormented Shield so long ago =0
All of the above.
And Randy Newman making the soundtrack for it.
The Chronomancer. Because, there’s already cool artwork.
Everbody loves cool cool artwork.
We told them.
We told them when they aired the Skill Bar preview, we told them when the actual patch notes were released, we told them before and after the patch.
They took a very situational skill and turned it into a worthless skill. That is in no way an improvement. I remember many suggestions of what this skill could become, many good and many bad ones. We have Arcane Thievery, we don’t need this nonsense.
You know, what scares me the most is that a change like the one on Mimic kinda indicates how disconnected they are from their game when it comes to stuff like this.
I guess most Mesmer players could already see how bad the change was when they announced it. We were arguing back then if the change was IN ADDITION to what the skill already did, or that it would come with a major cooldown decrease. Double nope.
Giving feedback for a change like this is like spinning a wheel of fortune, you can just hope that out of the many threads in these forums, anet would recognize the Mimic concerns. They did not. And I truly believe that they’re done with the skill now, thinking it is “fixed”.
That’s why I am personally looking forward to the “Forum Specialist Program”. It will make it easier to highlight real concerns that most users in a subforum agree with.
This is of course not a game/class breaking concern, but it’s definately an important issue. Especially since it was introduced as an overhaul to make the skill useful.
I apologize in advance for speaking in plural.
If someone does not agree and likes the new Mimic, that is fine.
Fighting thieves as a shatter mes in general, at least for me, is finding the right moment to hit F3 and then burst as fast as possible. Which can be quite frustrating against thieves.
S/D: Slippery as kitten. Pay attention on their infiltrators strike, and push the fight to their return point if possible. This way you’ll negate their (one of their) get-out-of-jail card. What weapon sets are you playing? A well placed immob/stun can end the fight pretty fast in your favour. Don’t let them take the lead, play aggressively. Personally, I prefer GS/S+X builds against this type of thieves (torch saved my butt so many times in WvW), but I can see how a well placed Chaos Storm might also work its magic.
As for P/D thieves;
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Would you look at all those things that’ll never happen.
Just look at them.
Almost no access to stability/aegis, and the main defense options (stealth and distortion) are decapping points.
It’s not impossible to tank as Mesmer (like others said; Mantras are probably the way to go (Restorative/Protected Mantras) probably along with Staff + Sword/Focus (traited), but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Blame the game mode, I guess :0
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The old Mimic wasn’t very good, but this new one is even worse. There is almost no reason to take it over Arcane Thievery.
Can’t really imagine how anet thought this new skill could be any good. It may sound “ok” on paper. In reality, Mesmers usually can’t afford swapping useful utilites for this one-trick-pony skill. Team utility, condi cleanse, survivability, combo fields. Mimic is inferior in all aspects compared to so many other skills. Sure, you may be able to copy all those elementalist boons and even share it with your team (Signet of Inspiration), but that may occur once every match – outside of that, you pretty much wasted two utility slots.
For PvE? Most boss mobs don’t have any interesting boons to copy.
New Mimic is crap, and the overhaul should get… overhauled. Or at least reverted.
Here’s my suggestion:
Reintroduce Echo. New Echo shares boons with all your allies (basically the same functionality as Signet of Inspiration). The combination of copying boons + sharing them is nice, it’s just not worth slotting two utility skills for it in most situations.
Signet of Inspiration should become the speed Signet Mesmers were asking for since forever.
Pretty, please?
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Yes.
I was using the old Mimic in some builds, the new one is fail by design in my eyes. And the sad part is that Anet probably thinks they totally made Mimic awesome now and won’t touch it anytime soon. As I said, I was using Mimic before (especially WvW), now there’s no reason for me to take it. Especially when I can slot Arcane Thievery instead.
Absolutely not happy with the change. It’s a boring skill now.
I won’t say the old one was perfect, but the current one is much worse.
Just fight against the new cheese ranger now. Old Mimic would have kicked kitten (:
All I do is pew pew pew no matter what…
I have lost some of my miniatures too ,as I put them into the new wardrobe window. :/
Sounds like a different issue… my miniature section in the vault/hero panel got wiped completely.
Anet… why me?
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Title says it all. Zero in the hero panel, zero in the account vault.
Dunno what information else to provide. Tried on several characters, restarted the game.
All ma stuff is gone. =/
>_<
edit:
SOLUTION:
check out the material storage not the warderobe storage then u find ur minis^^
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Signet of Ether
Add a small constant life regeneration while keeping the maximum possible amount of regeneration. There is absolutely no point in not having a benefit at all when there are no Illusions around.
Now that you mention it, yeah. It would be a neat QoL buff in most situations.
sig of midnight should give 25% boon duration, more useful and tempting that way, and active effect should convert conditions into boons.
Agreed on the boon duration, but I can’t see the active happening without a significant nerf on the cooldown. Plus, this change would disencourage many players to pick Arcane Thievery, which is already not that popular.
Keep the suggestions coming, interesting stuff so far! Especially those for Signet of Illusions and Signet of Midnight, which seem to be kinda the hot topic concerning Signets.
I’d like to extend the thread topic a bit:
What do you guys think about the Signet-related traits?
- Signet Mastery
- Cleansing Inscriptions
- Blurred Inscriptions (especially in combination with Masterful Reflection)
I feel like the traits are great overall, and they’re spread in a way that makes sense imo, combining them is pretty easy. Especially Blurred Inscriptions + Masterful Reflection was always a combination I’d love to use, but the signets themselves are just too underperforming compared to other utilites (and now even Mantras). The only one I feel that could a small buff is Cleansing Inscriptions, probably because Signet cooldowns are so high. Is there any reasoning taking this without Signet Mastery?
It’s not worth being a Master trait on its own.
- Those two should get merged in my eyes – if the cooldowns stay like they are and only one condition affected.
- Add a new Signet related trait. Can’t think of a good one right now, but pretty sure there could be cool additions for Signet-Mesmer builds.
…
Hey, no reason to be offended. It’s just how I feel about the skill. I’m actually glad someone who likes Signet of Midnight posted here! Seems like this one really splits the community.
I just don’t see it personally. 10% boon duration is quite underwhelming considering our base durations aren’t that good. As Absconditus noted, it may be interesting in combination with a Chaos-6 build. But even then, I’d pick other skills with more (team) utility over additional 10% boon duration.
Plus, one blind (per target) also isn’t that much in this game. It’s one AA swing, or the first hit in a skill like 100b. Using it as a panic button, I’d rather blink 900-1200 away or stealth myself, in any case.
Be it a significant buff or a rework – this Signet needs love.
@Absconditus:
I love how the Mesmer community is always concerned about getting OP, a great thing imo. You mentioned that the 90s CD on Signet of Illusions may prevent a once-in-a-lifetime triple Mindwrack situation – and you may be right, this could be the reasoning behind the CD – but just consider stuff like Fresh Air, I don’t think this argument (as exotic as it sounds) applies to the game anymore. So yeah, I agree. A redesign seems necessary. And I don’t think swiftness on illusions would be the answer. If my shatter does not hit, it would not have hit with swiftness either. Well, in most cases.
As I said in the opening post, I’d love to see two seperated signets, one dedicated to shatter, and the other dedicated to phantasm builds. Make it happen, anet =0
Don’t forget that Signet of Midnight is a instant-cast Stun Break with an Unblockable AoE 5-target Blind. You can pair it well with Blurred Inscriptions, if you wish to try doing something with that.
I did not forget that – however, do we really need another stunbreak utility? We have plenty of options that are way more flexible. The blind is still meh, and the blurred inscriptions point applies to all signets.
Just to point out Might doesn’t do anything for the Phants if its on them – they do however benefit from Might stacks on the Mesmer.
Totally forgot that! Well, the basic idea was to buff the phantasm damage for a short period of time, or the next attack loop. I guess anet would find a way to apply such a buff, one way or another. Changed the opening post, thanks for pointing that out.
Is it… time? After seeing Mantras buffed to a decent state (imo) and Mimic reworked totally, maybe we should take a closer look at our signets, eh?
I don’t feel many of them are in a good shape, but I’d like to hear your opinion.
Well, here are my thoughts on signets. Please add yours.
- Signet of the Ether (35s CD)
- Passive: Gain Health every few seconds, based on the number of active illusions you control.
- Active: Heal yourself and refresh all phantasm skill recharges.
Probably the most polished Signet we have. It already has its place in quite some builds, and the passive heal is reasonable due to the illusion requirement.
- Signet of Inspiration (45s CD)
- Passive: Grants a random boon every ten seconds.
- Active: Copy all of your boons to nearby allies.
I’m mentioning SoI second because in my eyes, it’s the second best signet we have. The active is amazing, the passive could need some love though. In the end, most people use it to gamble for swiftness out of combat. Many people suggested to actually turn it into a passive speed buff signet like many other classes have and I can’t really disagree with them. However, I am open for other, more creative ideas on this.
- Signet of Domination (45s CD)
- Passive: Improved condition damage.
- Active: Stun your foe (3s).
Solid. I’d like to see the cooldown reduced a bit to promote actually using it more.
- Signet of Illusions (90s CD)
- Passive: Grants more health to your illusions.
- Active: Recharge your shatter skills.
This is where it gets messy. The passive seems right for this Signet, but it completely contradicts the active. In addition, the cooldown for the active is way too high to actually consider using it, even for shatter builds which don’t have much interest in the passive. I always thought the active should be more like the one we have on Signet of the Ether – however, with the release of our newest Signet, this change seems very unlikely and wouldn’t make very much sense now. Instead, the active could buff all illusions damage for a short period or the next attack loop.. This way, the passive would provide defense for illusions, while the active would promote for setting up phantasm burst.
- Signet of Midnight (30s CD)
- Passive: Improves boon duration (10%).
- Active: Blind nearby foes (5s).
Complete garbage in my eyes. The passive as well as the active aren’t worth taking in any build I’ve ever played, and I have played a lot Mesmer builds.
Instead and in addition to the Signet of Illusions change, this Signet should be reshaped to a Shatter-Signet (rename it accordingly):
- Signet of the Wastrel (45s CD)
- Passive: While in combat, create a clone every 10s.
- Active: Recharge your shatter skills.
Shatter builds wouldn’t be pidgeonholed into Deceptive Evasion as much as before, and the active (on a lower CD than before) as well as the passive would be a good reason to pick this signet. Well, in my eyes.
That’s it! My thoughts. As I said, please add yours!
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Good stuff. The first blog entry I am actually excited about! Big QoL improvements for the Trading Post.
Yesterday, Mimic saved my butt several times in WvW. Getting chased by two thieves, a warrior and a ranger? Pop Mimic and run into tower!
I’m already getting nostalgic.
To be honest, I was actually hoping there would be more… discussion on the skill, since the new Mimic seems (at least for me) like yet another skill that’s not worth taking, ever – well, except for some rare PvE situations maybe. Not enough people seem to be upset about this, it seems?
The “awesome combinations” Karl mentioned in the Skill Bar are pathetic – copy boons with Mimic and then rip them with Nullfield? Great! Or, you know, I could just equip a single utility that does basically the same. Mesmers survival is bound heavily on utility skills (decoy, blink). No way I’ll sacrifice a utility slot for an “awesome combo” that already exists as a single skill.
Ungh, the more I think about Mimic, the more upset I get.
Going by the balance team’s track record, the way they’d fix this would be to make Power Block only work on utility skills for everyone.
I lol’d until the moment I realized you might be right. <_<"
It seems that every new trait/skill in this game has to be buffed several times before being actually desirable. The new Mimic is just so boring, uninspired and unnecessary since there’s Arcane Thievery.
I seriously hope that Karl takes a good look at this, but no way they will change it again before the patch hits. Meh.
Wasn’t there a suggestion thread (or several) concerning Mimic a while ago?
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Maybe try it once, then drop it. The only reason why I used the old Mimic from time to time was the reflect. If I want boons, I’m gonna equip Arcane Thievery.
Anet, why not combine the old and new functionality?
Reflect all projectiles for 4s. Each time you are struck, you are copying the attackers boons and duration (ICD for each attacker).
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Absorb their tears and convert them into butterfly energy.
@BlackBeard
Except that the first part of the skill has a 3/4s casttime (aftercast). The clone pops up at the beginning of the skill, but the casttime still has to finish. That’s how it is atm.
Even with the change, there’ll be at least a ~3/4s window to react. If there’s any AoE going on in your area, you don’t have to react at all, the clone will die instantly. Maybe enhancing the casttime a bit sounds fair, but I highly disagree on additional CD between the clone and the swap. Cause that will just add up with the casttime, even 1 more second will add up to almost 2 seconds (or more). That’s plenty, if not too much time to dodge or press auto attack and would make it nearly as useless as it is currently.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I wouldn’t be so serious about this skill/fix if it wasn’t the only gap closer for Mesmers – but it is (if you don’t take blink into account).
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