Holy Crap Clones Freaking Suck

Holy Crap Clones Freaking Suck

Ever since the mega balance Mirage has finally been pushed off Infinite Horizon. I've almost entirely quit the game at this point due to how philosophically misguided I feel the current direction is but I have played a bit after the megabalance. And with Elusive Mind being "meta", at least as far as mirage is concerned, the lack of quality of life on Clones and Shatters is brutally apparent.

I dunno why I hadn't really noticed it to the degree I did my last few sessions playing and it's old news to most. Perhaps it's because I started playing Mesmer in PvP on Condi Chrono during Heart of Thorns, which was more about having a ton of Phantasms to shatter that had nice meaty health pools alongside Super Speed on shatter. And yeah, Mirage's Infinite Horizon gave clones evade so that kept them alive. And when I played power core, the point was always to just IMMEDIATELY shot gun clones in people's face so it was also less of an issue.

But good lord the whole profession mechanic just suuuuuucks without the quality of life. Shatters will never be able to catch a moving opponent. Literally coded into the foundation of the skill as clones run at movement speed. Imagine actually trying to use your class mechanic against an aware functional human player, you're at 900 range on either greatsword, scepter or staff alongside your clones and you shatter. Which is theoretically an attack that should be feasibly possible and feasible and good as getting a full three clones takes time and skill investment. This attack will literally never land because the clones can simply not reach the target if he just runs away. Like imagine if you could literally just outrun Kill Shot, or Steal, or Spear of Justice, or any of Engineer's offensive toolbelt skills. Not like positioning yourself with line of sight or no port or outranging it. But in the sense that as long as you are pressing W and not running directly into the direction of the attack, it literally can never hit you.

Even ranger pets have skills that allow for significantly higher success rate for landing attacks. I have seen the deer move absurd distances in a fraction of a second just to make sure it knocks me into the air. It's no wonder the only thing power mesmer has been able to use at a viable level is just Mirror Blading at point blank range and Mind Wracking the exact frame a clone is considered spawned.

And that doesn't even cover things like just clones being so easy to cleave. Against things like a grenade holosmith it actually cleaves so hard and so much nonstop that it will kill your clones before they render and actually show themselves as activated on your UI. It doesn't just cleave clones it prevents them from properly spawning at all. Clones need more substantial health bars.

I've actually really come around that clones should be indestructible so long as they don't actually deal damage or conditions on their own, and then rebalance the condition mesmer weapons to no longer be reliant on clone as turrets for proper DPS. It actually seems completely contradictory. Illusionists should WANT people wasting time attacking their illusions as much as possible because it's an illusion. It's a waste of time and effort, the illusionist should want you wasting time attacking illusions instead of them while they freecast on you. Whereas in GW2 like a ton of things it's complete backwards, if you can obliterate the illusionist's illusions with brute force and damage you deny his most powerful abilities. You can't attack Warrior Adrenaline you can only avoid what they try to do with it when they spend it. It should be the same for mesmers.

The offensive shatters in general need a serious revamp, not just Chronomancer but on Core itself. I actually wouldn't be opposed to the offensive shatters getting cast times as long as it turned your clones into projectiles that moved at a reasonably fast pace with good tracking that can't just be nullified with "W". Mind Wrack could turn clones into nasty looking jaded purple crystals that launch at the target, the kind Jade Armors and Bow enemies cast. Cry of Frustration could turn them into Chaos Vortex looking projectiles that do the same.

You could even give the mesmer some stylish casting animations when they do it.

Projectiles is probably not the best choice specifically due to projectile destruction and nullification but I mean really it would be significantly more reliable than the current form of the class mechanic, and honestly it would have a better shot of actually hitting a target inside the mosh pit of a team fight. It's actually incredibly how much of a seriously needed bandaid things like Time Catches Up, Infinite Horizon giving clones the ability to dodge, or Greatsword being able to almost instantly spawn a clone and shatter it at point blank range.

TLDR the class mechanic feels completely backwards both mechanically and thematically. Clones are too fragile. Offensive Shatters are completely worthless without shotgunning them in someone's face at point blank range. All of this should change.

Clone health should scale with mesmer's own health.

there is couple classic shatter interactions, like you shatter at long range, enemy charges at you, and they walk past him.or the classic thief fight, where you shatter but thief does monkey teleports nonstop so they just walk back and fourth untill their timer runs out and they die lul.

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Holy kitten Clones Freaking Suck

Ever since the mega balance Mirage has finally been pushed off Infinite Horizon. I've almost entirely quit the game at this point due to how philosophically misguided I feel the current direction is but I have played a bit after the megabalance. And with Elusive Mind being "meta", at least as far as mirage is concerned, the lack of quality of life on Clones and Shatters is brutally apparent.

I dunno why I hadn't really noticed it to the degree I did my last few sessions playing and it's old news to most. Perhaps it's because I started playing Mesmer in PvP on Condi Chrono during Heart of Thorns, which was more about having a ton of Phantasms to shatter that had nice meaty health pools alongside Super Speed on shatter. And yeah, Mirage's Infinite Horizon gave clones evade so that kept them alive. And when I played power core, the point was always to just IMMEDIATELY shot gun clones in people's face so it was also less of an issue.

But good lord the whole profession mechanic just suuuuuucks without the quality of life. Shatters will never be able to catch a moving opponent. Literally coded into the foundation of the skill as clones run at movement speed. Imagine actually trying to use your class mechanic against an aware functional human player, you're at 900 range on either greatsword, scepter or staff alongside your clones and you shatter. Which is theoretically an attack that should be feasibly possible and feasible and good as getting a full three clones takes time and skill investment. This attack will literally never land because the clones can simply not reach the target if he just runs away. Like imagine if you could literally just outrun Kill Shot, or Steal, or Spear of Justice, or any of Engineer's offensive toolbelt skills. Not like positioning yourself with line of sight or no port or outranging it. But in the sense that as long as you are pressing W and not running directly into the direction of the attack, it literally can never hit you.

Even ranger pets have skills that allow for significantly higher success rate for landing attacks. I have seen the deer move absurd distances in a fraction of a second just to make sure it knocks me into the air. It's no wonder the only thing power mesmer has been able to use at a viable level is just Mirror Blading at point blank range and Mind Wracking the exact frame a clone is considered spawned.

And that doesn't even cover things like just clones being so easy to cleave. Against things like a grenade holosmith it actually cleaves so hard and so much nonstop that it will kill your clones before they render and actually show themselves as activated on your UI. It doesn't just cleave clones it prevents them from properly spawning at all. Clones need more substantial health bars.

I've actually really come around that clones should be indestructible so long as they don't actually deal damage or conditions on their own, and then rebalance the condition mesmer weapons to no longer be reliant on clone as turrets for proper DPS. It actually seems completely contradictory. Illusionists should WANT people wasting time attacking their illusions as much as possible because it's an illusion. It's a waste of time and effort, the illusionist should want you wasting time attacking illusions instead of them while they freecast on you. Whereas in GW2 like a ton of things it's complete backwards, if you can obliterate the illusionist's illusions with brute force and damage you deny his most powerful abilities. You can't attack Warrior Adrenaline you can only avoid what they try to do with it when they spend it. It should be the same for mesmers.

The offensive shatters in general need a serious revamp, not just Chronomancer but on Core itself. I actually wouldn't be opposed to the offensive shatters getting cast times as long as it turned your clones into projectiles that moved at a reasonably fast pace with good tracking that can't just be nullified with "W". Mind Wrack could turn clones into nasty looking jaded purple crystals that launch at the target, the kind Jade Armors and Bow enemies cast. Cry of Frustration could turn them into Chaos Vortex looking projectiles that do the same.

You could even give the mesmer some stylish casting animations when they do it.

Projectiles is probably not the best choice specifically due to projectile destruction and nullification but I mean really it would be significantly more reliable than the current form of the class mechanic, and honestly it would have a better shot of actually hitting a target inside the mosh pit of a team fight. It's actually incredibly how much of a seriously needed bandaid things like Time Catches Up, Infinite Horizon giving clones the ability to dodge, or Greatsword being able to almost instantly spawn a clone and shatter it at point blank range.

TLDR the class mechanic feels completely backwards both mechanically and thematically. Clones are too fragile. Offensive Shatters are completely worthless without shotgunning them in someone's face at point blank range. All of this should change.

Pre-mirage, clones never really did catch a competent opponent, especially if you shattered from range. Chrono giving superspeed on shatters helped a bit, but in general shatters need to be set up. Infinite horizon is still strong, if they return the extra bar of dodge energy they took, this will be oppressive again, I'm sure they'll revert this change eventually when they start working on the game again.

Seeing a deer "run absurd distances to knock you into the air" is just wrong. They have a charge which more often then not leads to the pet abandoning the player. If it lands it dazes you. The lift into the air is a ranger controlled active (read F2).

Don't mean to sound like the bad guy here, but there is a lot wrong with Mesmer currently and things that can be improved but landing shatters is not one of them. What the shatters do when they do land is a different story, the damage difference between a one illusion mind wrack and a 3 clone mind wrack isn't rewarding enough. Cry of frustrations condi duration base is too low and falls off before someone can cast a skill. Clones I feel could have their base sustain increased (perhaps tweak scaling), and their condition durations as well (that would need to be also adjusted on mirage as it could be too strong there if second dodge was returned).

What I personally want returned is chronomancer being more supportive and their wells functionality improved. The old support Chrono was a lot of fun to play. Also miss the old well of precognition, I used to zerg dive with that and set up bombing locations with my roaming group.

With that said, i'm not a Mesmer main, but it is my second best class I duel/roam on and have played it since near launch in all environments.

@Strider.7849 said:

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Holy kitten Clones Freaking Suck

Ever since the mega balance Mirage has finally been pushed off Infinite Horizon. I've almost entirely quit the game at this point due to how philosophically misguided I feel the current direction is but I have played a bit after the megabalance. And with Elusive Mind being "meta", at least as far as mirage is concerned, the lack of quality of life on Clones and Shatters is brutally apparent.

I dunno why I hadn't really noticed it to the degree I did my last few sessions playing and it's old news to most. Perhaps it's because I started playing Mesmer in PvP on Condi Chrono during Heart of Thorns, which was more about having a ton of Phantasms to shatter that had nice meaty health pools alongside Super Speed on shatter. And yeah, Mirage's Infinite Horizon gave clones evade so that kept them alive. And when I played power core, the point was always to just IMMEDIATELY shot gun clones in people's face so it was also less of an issue.

But good lord the whole profession mechanic just suuuuuucks without the quality of life. Shatters will never be able to catch a moving opponent. Literally coded into the foundation of the skill as clones run at movement speed. Imagine actually trying to use your class mechanic against an aware functional human player, you're at 900 range on either greatsword, scepter or staff alongside your clones and you shatter. Which is theoretically an attack that should be feasibly possible and feasible and good as getting a full three clones takes time and skill investment. This attack will literally never land because the clones can simply not reach the target if he just runs away. Like imagine if you could literally just outrun Kill Shot, or Steal, or Spear of Justice, or any of Engineer's offensive toolbelt skills. Not like positioning yourself with line of sight or no port or outranging it. But in the sense that as long as you are pressing W and not running directly into the direction of the attack, it literally can never hit you.

Even ranger pets have skills that allow for significantly higher success rate for landing attacks. I have seen the deer move absurd distances in a fraction of a second just to make sure it knocks me into the air. It's no wonder the only thing power mesmer has been able to use at a viable level is just Mirror Blading at point blank range and Mind Wracking the exact frame a clone is considered spawned.

And that doesn't even cover things like just clones being so easy to cleave. Against things like a grenade holosmith it actually cleaves so hard and so much nonstop that it will kill your clones before they render and actually show themselves as activated on your UI. It doesn't just cleave clones it prevents them from properly spawning at all. Clones need more substantial health bars.

I've actually really come around that clones should be indestructible so long as they don't actually deal damage or conditions on their own, and then rebalance the condition mesmer weapons to no longer be reliant on clone as turrets for proper DPS. It actually seems completely contradictory. Illusionists should WANT people wasting time attacking their illusions as much as possible because it's an illusion. It's a waste of time and effort, the illusionist should want you wasting time attacking illusions instead of them while they freecast on you. Whereas in GW2 like a ton of things it's complete backwards, if you can obliterate the illusionist's illusions with brute force and damage you deny his most powerful abilities. You can't attack Warrior Adrenaline you can only avoid what they try to do with it when they spend it. It should be the same for mesmers.

The offensive shatters in general need a serious revamp, not just Chronomancer but on Core itself. I actually wouldn't be opposed to the offensive shatters getting cast times as long as it turned your clones into projectiles that moved at a reasonably fast pace with good tracking that can't just be nullified with "W". Mind Wrack could turn clones into nasty looking jaded purple crystals that launch at the target, the kind Jade Armors and Bow enemies cast. Cry of Frustration could turn them into Chaos Vortex looking projectiles that do the same.

You could even give the mesmer some stylish casting animations when they do it.

Projectiles is probably not the best choice specifically due to projectile destruction and nullification but I mean really it would be significantly more reliable than the current form of the class mechanic, and honestly it would have a better shot of actually hitting a target inside the mosh pit of a team fight. It's actually incredibly how much of a seriously needed bandaid things like Time Catches Up, Infinite Horizon giving clones the ability to dodge, or Greatsword being able to almost instantly spawn a clone and shatter it at point blank range.

TLDR the class mechanic feels completely backwards both mechanically and thematically. Clones are too fragile. Offensive Shatters are completely worthless without shotgunning them in someone's face at point blank range. All of this should change.

Before I dig into the meat of your post, I have stealthed while fighting a ranger at waterfall, rotated to Graveyard where I unstealthed and then watched in real time as the deer literally rushed towards me from the node at Waterfall to the ledge overlooking Graveyard in under 0.25 seconds to CC me the moment I unstealthed. Ranger pets can do some absurd shenanigans.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Strider.7849 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:Holy kitten Clones Freaking Suck

Ever since the mega balance Mirage has finally been pushed off Infinite Horizon. I've almost entirely quit the game at this point due to how philosophically misguided I feel the current direction is but I have played a bit after the megabalance. And with Elusive Mind being "meta", at least as far as mirage is concerned, the lack of quality of life on Clones and Shatters is brutally apparent.

I dunno why I hadn't really noticed it to the degree I did my last few sessions playing and it's old news to most. Perhaps it's because I started playing Mesmer in PvP on Condi Chrono during Heart of Thorns, which was more about having a ton of Phantasms to shatter that had nice meaty health pools alongside Super Speed on shatter. And yeah, Mirage's Infinite Horizon gave clones evade so that kept them alive. And when I played power core, the point was always to just IMMEDIATELY shot gun clones in people's face so it was also less of an issue.

But good lord the whole profession mechanic just suuuuuucks without the quality of life. Shatters will never be able to catch a moving opponent. Literally coded into the foundation of the skill as clones run at movement speed. Imagine actually trying to use your class mechanic against an aware functional human player, you're at 900 range on either greatsword, scepter or staff alongside your clones and you shatter. Which is theoretically an attack that should be feasibly possible and feasible and good as getting a full three clones takes time and skill investment. This attack will literally never land because the clones can simply not reach the target if he just runs away. Like imagine if you could literally just outrun Kill Shot, or Steal, or Spear of Justice, or any of Engineer's offensive toolbelt skills. Not like positioning yourself with line of sight or no port or outranging it. But in the sense that as long as you are pressing W and not running directly into the direction of the attack, it literally can never hit you.

Even ranger pets have skills that allow for significantly higher success rate for landing attacks. I have seen the deer move absurd distances in a fraction of a second just to make sure it knocks me into the air. It's no wonder the only thing power mesmer has been able to use at a viable level is just Mirror Blading at point blank range and Mind Wracking the exact frame a clone is considered spawned.

And that doesn't even cover things like just clones being so easy to cleave. Against things like a grenade holosmith it actually cleaves so hard and so much nonstop that it will kill your clones before they render and actually show themselves as activated on your UI. It doesn't just cleave clones it prevents them from properly spawning at all. Clones need more substantial health bars.

I've actually really come around that clones should be indestructible so long as they don't actually deal damage or conditions on their own, and then rebalance the condition mesmer weapons to no longer be reliant on clone as turrets for proper DPS. It actually seems completely contradictory. Illusionists should WANT people wasting time attacking their illusions as much as possible because it's an illusion. It's a waste of time and effort, the illusionist should want you wasting time attacking illusions instead of them while they freecast on you. Whereas in GW2 like a ton of things it's complete backwards, if you can obliterate the illusionist's illusions with brute force and damage you deny his most powerful abilities. You can't attack Warrior Adrenaline you can only avoid what they try to do with it when they spend it. It should be the same for mesmers.

The offensive shatters in general need a serious revamp, not just Chronomancer but on Core itself. I actually wouldn't be opposed to the offensive shatters getting cast times as long as it turned your clones into projectiles that moved at a reasonably fast pace with good tracking that can't just be nullified with "W". Mind Wrack could turn clones into nasty looking jaded purple crystals that launch at the target, the kind Jade Armors and Bow enemies cast. Cry of Frustration could turn them into Chaos Vortex looking projectiles that do the same.

You could even give the mesmer some stylish casting animations when they do it.

Projectiles is probably not the best choice specifically due to projectile destruction and nullification but I mean really it would be significantly more reliable than the current form of the class mechanic, and honestly it would have a better shot of actually hitting a target inside the mosh pit of a team fight. It's actually incredibly how much of a seriously needed bandaid things like Time Catches Up, Infinite Horizon giving clones the ability to dodge, or Greatsword being able to almost instantly spawn a clone and shatter it at point blank range.

TLDR the class mechanic feels completely backwards both mechanically and thematically. Clones are too fragile. Offensive Shatters are completely worthless without shotgunning them in someone's face at point blank range. All of this should change.

My favourites are when they just walk after you in stealth, and insta charge when its gone, or if they runt through walls to attack you, or TP up ledges to do that :D

Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

@Yoci.2481 said:Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

thats too much, but they could make them gradually gain speed as time goes on when shattered, so they dont end up running circles for 10s untill they comit seppuku

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Yoci.2481 said:Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

I dunno...

I don't think it would be OP for Warrior's Burst skills to have to wait for a Superspeeded NPC to reach a target, or a Thief Steal, or Engie Toolbelt skills etc...

Why would it be such a problem for Mesmers to be able to reliably land their class mechanic (If the target doesn't have Superspeed themselves, or kill the clones, or CC them, or teleport or do one of the 1000000000 things that can bug out AI...)

Especially when Clones are still squishy af.

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Holy kitten Clones Freaking Suck

Yup.

Mesmer's entire class mechanic is a janky mess.

Clones are awful due to being AI (Thus at the mercy of all the issues with AI) as well as squishy af, but yet still a considerable part of the classes overall output.

Similarly, Phantasms are also trash, because while they functionally don't work as a proper AI unit since they're more or less a glorified animation for the skill these days, they're still at the mercy of AI issues, such as wonky pathing, terrible targeting and horrendous positioning (Phantom Berzerker CAN cleave through a bunch of enemies, but will it? You bet your ass it won't)

Meanwhile, you also have absolutely mind boggling interactions, such as Clones being able to apply fully damaging Conditions, while at the same time they're prevented from doing Power damage. So what's the deal? Are they supposed to be doing damage or not?

Then you have the plethora of issues that is, if they're balanced around how long they take to get to the target (I.e. They're glorified projectiles) then melee usage to shotgun them becomes too effective a means to utilize them.

All this, is before you even reach all the other problems that Mesmer faces as a class (Mirage having its damage tied to Clone uptime and using Dodges, but it turns out gaining Offensive capabilities while using a Defensive tool is OP, who'd have thought? Not like Necro's shroud has been getting nerfed for 8 years because of thee exact same problem... Then Chrono... Ughh... The smallest and clunkiest wells in the game, a super clunky massive impact skill that is hampered by ping and can be stopped by killing an object in PvP and a pile of garbage traits and gimmicky effects...)

It sucks, especially when the theme of the class is not only fairly unique in video games, but is also heckin' cool (Like, Rogue x Mage = Mesmer. Which is heckin' cool af. Like, imagine Professor X + Gambit + Psylocke combined into one class) and then we end up with this janky mess (Which instead of feeling like a mashup of cool X-Men, feels more like a mashup of the "Superheroes" Doorman + The Red Bee + Arm-Fall-Off-Boy)

@Taril.8619 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Yoci.2481 said:Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Holy kitten Clones Freaking Suck

Mesmer condition weapon auto attacks are balanced around the clones attacking the target. Before the megabalance I made a thread comparing a lot of different meta builds and their damage per second output.

Mesmer looked like this.

MesmerCondition Mirage Axe: 1492Condition Mirage Staff No Clones with bounces: 846 (For bounced to occur and for the mesmer to get the 2x hit bonus assume 400 range or less. Safe to assume ~425 without bounces)Condition Mirage Staff 3 Clones no mesmer with bounces: 1202Condition Mirage Staff 3 Clones with bounces: 1814 (I'm not sure how, but despite the mesmer doing about 800 dps and the clones doing about 1200 dps, which logically assumes the total should be 2000 dps, 200 dps goes missing some how)Condition Mirage Staff 3 Clones Ambush Spam: 2465Condition Mirage Scepter no clones : 675Condition Mirage Scepter 3 clones: 984Condition Mirage Scepter 3 clones with ambush spam: 1164Condition Mirage Scepter 3 clones ambush spam on a moving target: 1439Condition Mirage Scepter Clones Only: 498Condition Mirage Pistol 4 into Staff Ambush spam: 2452Power Mesmer Max Range Greatsword Berserker's Amulet: 2170Power Mesmer Sword Berserker's Amulet: 2190Power Mesmer Berserker's Blurred Frenzy into Sword Autos: 3513Power Mesmer GS burst combo (LOL): 16,400

Whereas other classes tended to look like this;

RangerRock Gazelle: 1270Smokescale: 670Siamoth: 721Owl: 769Ranger Greatsword: 1774Ranger Greatsword with Rock Gazelle: 2857Ranger Quickening Zephyr into Maul into greatsword autos with Rock Gazelle: 4452Axe Autos No Bounce: 1626Axe Autos no bounce with Rock Gazelle: 2283Ranger Longbow max range autos: 1464Ranger Longbow max range Rapid Fire into autos: 1885Ranger Longbow Max Range Rapid Fire into autos with Smokescale: 2615Sic Em Soulbeast Merged Quickening Zephyr Rapid Fire into autos: 5232

Post mega balance mesmer looks like this;

Some quick and dirty damage per second numbers post mega balance.

Some quick and dirty damage per second numbers post mega balance.

Wizard's Amulet Condition MirageAxe: 900Scepter with three clones: 850Staff with three clones: 1,500

Berserker's Amulet Power GreatswordGreatsword Autos Max Range: 1,600

Compared to something like

Core Ranger with Owl on Demolisher's AmuletGreatsword autoattack chain: 2,400Axe Autoattack: 2,000

Berserker's Amulet Grenades Holosmith:Grenade Auto: 2,200Photon Forge Auto: 1,900

Berserker's Amulet Power HeraldSword 2,000

Sage Amulet Condi HeraldMace Auto: 1,500

Clones shouldn't do condition damage for game health reasons as mesmer shouldn't be able to whittle down opponents with clones with way Pre Megabalance Staff Mirage could but the damage should 100% be rolled back into the mesmer themself. Because the actual output of mesmer weapons is actually very low including clones and without the boost from the clones they would be outrageously undertuned.

I like how the sec word of the name of this post is changed into " KITTEN " but not if you are looking at the post through proffesion, even forums are bugged lul

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:I like how the sec word of the name of this post is changed into " KITTEN " but not if you are looking at the post through proffesion, even forums are bugged lul

Ha. It's amazing they censor that.

I don’t think they know how to balance Mesmer in any capacity.

Imagining that the carousel of anet interns have any real command over the spaghetti nightmare that must be, by this point, GW2's stygian depths of bloated code, clones have no business functioning the way that they do. If Mesmer wanted real misdirection with clones, they would need to not only potentially serve as extra bodies for the players (i.e. "Break targeting and swap locations with nearest clone" or something along those lines), but they would also need to mimic the Mesmer player's real stats without actually being so oppressive that any fight against a Mesmer would feel like a legitimate 4v1. Unfortunately, introducing the Mesmer with the Shatter skills stapled to their skill bar is a good way to damage any sort of playerbase mentality for legitimate change toward true clone utility in the form of rapid re-positioning, misdirection, and combat integration.

If I had to somehow cram the latter into the current system it might be best to force both Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration into the F2 slot (such that they would work like a Utility Skill slot; forcing a player to take one over the other), and then replacing the F1 outright with a new skill related to manually positioning clones or possibly just a reskinned, non-Mirage Cloak version of Illusionary Ambush to give base Mesmer a little more "movement tech." The next step would be to make clones spawn with stats and current HP identical to the Mesmer player at the moment of cast completion (except for Power/Condition Damage which would have to remain at bottomed-out levels). This could probably be done using the same mechanic responsible for "re-winding time" on Chronomancer. However, despite being a more or less exact copy of the player, the clones would still need to die rapidly; so they would need something like a "hidden health bar" which would be the true amount of damage that they could take before dying. This would give the impression, if someone were convinced that a clone was the real player, of attacking the mesmer, but then the mesmer exploding into butterflies after taking only 1-3k damage despite the HP bar still looking half-full or something of that sort.

There's a pretty decent way of merging this with a phantasm re-work so that Mesmer wasn't so cripplingly dependent on having a selected target in order to do anything at all, but honestly, I don't think anybody really wants cool changes and sick tech for Mesmer (or any class). Most players in GW2 just want the same old re-hashed memes with bigger numbers so that way nobody has to actually think or commit to new muscle memory.

Clones are good. I just don't understand why some mesmers leave them hanging around. I mean you make clone, it's explode and enemy lose hp.

@Junkpile.7439 said:Clones are good. I just don't understand why some mesmers leave them hanging around. I mean you make clone, it's explode and enemy lose hp.

If clones are just fodder for shatters, why shouldn't they just be a non-entity builder mechanic then (like Astral Force)?

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Yoci.2481" said:Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

Today there was some revenant going back and forth on the node with the hundred thousand moving ability revs have.

And a clone was chasing him, determined to shatter.

As hard as it was, the clone REACHED the guy.But apparently clones update their decision tree -is it time to explode? If not, where should I head now?- once every second or so, which means the rev got face to face with the clone, he quickly got away before the next tick. The clone kept on chasing, oblivous to the fact that he just screwed up the only thing it was even supposed to do.

So yeah, probably this "tick once per second" is still not nearly enough against fast moving targets. Even a slightly better AI would improve the situation so much. It's not like it would require any new code, I've seen the phantasmal swordsman fucking up it's -already weak- slash in ways a pet would never do.

@Terrorhuz.4695 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Yoci.2481" said:Super speed on shatter should just be the default behaviour of clones, it shouldn't be a Chronomancer trait.

I have seen phantasmal mage spawn far away from afk enemy, walk past him, go back to wards him and use his aoe away from him. ngl I kinda died on the inside from that one, most times phantasms arent so stupid but phantasmal warden and mage srsl actively try to tilt their user, you legit have to throw the skill away and close your eyes, and not pay attention to them because you WILL get tilted if you count the amount of times they fail you

Each espec should probably have its own unique interaction with its illusions & shatters (the profession mechanic). E.g:

• Core retains current mechanics.
• Espec1 has a unique set of shatter skills, and shatters occur through projectiles as described by OP. Shatters could be weaker because spec retains profession resource even when illusions are killed (‘missing clones’ could be shot out from mesmer).
• Espec2 has a unique shatter interaction where it is locked to lv1 core shatters (no higher), maybe with some range increase because it is unable to create any illusions. Profession resource contributes to charging some unique f5 shatter skill.
• Espec3 has a unique set of shatter skills because clones are completely untargetable, support allies instead of attacking, and leave lingering AoE when shattered.
• Espec4 has a unique set of shatter skills, where ‘shatters’ are cast by and do not expend clones, because they hold a more substantial portion of the spec’s offensive power.
• Non-shatter-related illusion mechanics (e.g. chronophantasma, IH clone dodge) are added later to appropriate especs for further balance and/or theme.

Current illusion-shatter mechanics are flawed, which was shown by recycling the same mechanic across the entire profession. The same could be said for any rework. A possible solution would be to enforce unique reworks to individual especs instead.

@mortrialus.3062 You forgot to mention the awful Z axis pathing and how you can juke the clones to just go around a ledge trying to shatter until you have a dodge up to let them, thus completely negating the shatter effect. Or when they randomly explode 600 units away from target for no apparent reason.