New to Mesmer.

So I wanted an Asura alt and since my options were Mesmer or Guardian so I went with Mesmer (dat T3 light cultural) and I’m kinda confused over clones and stuff. I never realized that they last forever!

Like, why would I ever want to get rid of them with an Fx ability? I was running a World Boss train yesterday and just threw out three Duelists and went /sleep as they pewpew’d the boss to death! Seems like shattering these things is just a Deeeps loss?

Clones and Phantasms last indefinitely as long as their target lives. If their target dies, they despawn, meaning that in Open-world PvE you generally use a shatter when your target is about to die anyways.

But that aside, it's the different approaches to damage. Keeping Phantasms (And clones in the case of a Mirage) alive and around is primarily for DPS or Utility, while Shattering (Mind Wrack/Cry of Frustration) is for on-demand Spike Damage/Condi Spike which is generally more useful in PvP rather than PvE.

Some Shatter skills are mostly utility however. Diversion will wreak havoc on Defiance bars and is good when you need to burst down an enemy's break bar. Distortion is basically 1-4s of total invulnerability so it's a complete "get-out-of-jail" card.

And if you're playing Chronomancer, well... that's half an essay on its own just going over the uses of Continuum Split/Shift.

@"TheSwede.9512" said:Clones and Phantasms last indefinitely as long as their target lives. If their target dies, they despawn, meaning that in Open-world PvE you generally use a shatter when your target is about to die anyways.

But that aside, it's the different approaches to damage. Keeping Phantasms (And clones in the case of a Mirage) alive and around is primarily for DPS or Utility, while Shattering (Mind Wrack/Cry of Frustration) is for on-demand Spike Damage/Condi Spike which is generally more useful in PvP rather than PvE.

Some Shatter skills are mostly utility however. Diversion will wreak havoc on Defiance bars and is good when you need to burst down an enemy's break bar. Distortion is basically 1-4s of total invulnerability so it's a complete "get-out-of-jail" card.

And if you're playing Chronomancer, well... that's half an essay on its own just going over the uses of Continuum Split/Shift.

Thanks for the answer. Seems like it is all about to be turned in its head in a few days though, heh.