Mesmer Synergy concept

How we can address this issue where sustained DPS is always best leaving clones or phantasms in play and doing basically nothing for fear of reducing your DPS?

Concept:

Clones spawn with 100% integrity, but degrade over time/on attack (values/details TBD), reducing damage dealt accordingly. Shatter places a temporary buff on the mesmer that increases maximum clone integrity, thereby also increasing their damage output.

This concept needs to be fleshed out, but I thought it would be one possible way to make it so that shattering clones produces better clone damage than leaving them in play. Help me evolve this idea, guys! Mesmers need a rework badly!

This has been talked about a lot in the past.

1. Clones can apply conditions well with IH, but they do insignificant power damage. There is really nothing to decrease. Do you mean phantasms as well?

2. So in order to increase the damage of your clones your gonna shatter/get rid of your clones?

@Xstein.2187 said:This has been talked about a lot in the past.

1. Clones can apply conditions well with IH, but they do insignificant power damage. There is really nothing to decrease. Do you mean phantasms as well?

2. So in order to increase the damage of your clones your gonna shatter/get rid of your clones?

Good questions!

1. I'm basically envisioning a trait that is to power builds as Dune Cloak would be to condi builds and resolves the issue of power damage on clone auto attack. This would involve removing IH, making it baseline, and placing this new power-based trait in its place.

2. Yes. In order to increase the damage of your clones you will shatter your clones. This makes a bit more sense when you consider how the proposal would likely work as described (I know I was light on the details - it was just to get the ball rolling!).

Your clones will degrade from the moment they spawn, reducing the damage they deal fairly quickly (because the cooldowns on shatters and clone-spawning abilities are likewise fairly short). However, this new shatter effect would be applied to the caster, so it doesn't go away when the clones are destroyed. So, for example, if your clones spawn at 100% integrity, but shattering them increases maximum integrity by 50% (just a placeholder, this would have to be balanced!), any clones you spawn at that point would deal 150% damage.

The key is the integrity mechanic. If you simply leave your clones in play or replace them with new clones, your clones will always be baseline or weaker. You have to shatter them to improve your damage.

That's about where I left off with this concept before work this morning. But that leaves some questions, not least of all what to do with phantasms? I did have an idea of removing them from the illusion count, placing a finite duration on them, and basically converting them into short-burst and/or strong utility skills for you and your clones. For example, what if summoning phantasms temporarily slowed clone integrity degradation along with dealing damage or other effects? Or what if raising a clone's integrity past a certain threshold converted it into a phantasm that then buffs you and your clones or otherwise increases DPS?

The problem is that I am new to mesmer and have only really played mirage. I feel the addition of the integrity mechanic could coexist with what we currently have without turning the world completely on its head, but I'm sort of in the dark when it comes to how altering phantasms would impact builds that rely on them as a primary damage source. Further, the ideas I've come up with to handle phantasms so far all involve basically getting rid of them as we currently know them. This would require a huge rework of every trait and skill relating to phantasms and I just don't know where to begin with that.

If i recall correctly shattering for confuse when the boss is stunned procs an action confuse proc every second, phantasms you don't shatter unless you have to an phantasms has traits to make it beneficial for them to stay out.

Shattering is needed in fights for break bars and for dps phases like the first boss of 100cm.People are just refusing to shatter or learn how to use it, also to add benchmarks don't shatter or use there axe skills because 1 there's no combo field for whirl and 2 the training dummy performs no action to give confuse its real damage.

I do feel that we need number tweaks but i feel mirage synergy is great in power and condition in all game modes which is quite something for a single spec.I'm for no changes at all to mirage outside of number tweaks any further changes i believe the entire trait would have to be rebalanced.

@Genesis.5169 said:If i recall correctly shattering for confuse when the boss is stunned procs an action confuse proc every second, phantasms you don't shatter unless you have to an phantasms has traits to make it beneficial for them to stay out.

Shattering is needed in fights for break bars and for dps phases like the first boss of 100cm.People are just refusing to shatter or learn how to use it, also to add benchmarks don't shatter or use there axe skills because 1 there's no combo field for whirl and 2 the training dummy performs no action to give confuse its real damage.

I do feel that we need number tweaks but i feel mirage synergy is great in power and condition in all game modes which is quite something for a single spec.I'm for no changes at all to mirage outside of number tweaks any further changes i believe the entire trait would have to be rebalanced.

It's not much of a choice: Only shatter if you need the non-damaging effects of a shatter. I think the resource management paradigm of mirage is much better suited to a choice between utility and damage. Just look at how ambush works. We increase DPS at a cost to endurance. Go too DPS-happy and you can't evade when you need to! I see shatters working the same way. With the integrity plan, shatters will boost your DPS, but burning them simply for this effect may leave you in trouble.