Buff Clones.

Clickbait title is real, however there is a point I wish to raise.

Everyone doesn't like the clone spam they say. OK.They don't like how phantasms don't count towards the illusions cap. OK.Some even want mirage cloak on clones to not be an evade. OK.

They also don't like how they're replaced really quickly, fair enough.So they want the number of entities out at a time reduced, fair enough.They also don't want them evading damage, fair enough.

Clones have 2.4k health though.In today's excessive power creep most classes can, and do, cleave vast numbers of clones as if they're nothing. Half the time the player doesn't even realise or put thought into this.I know someone will point out this has been the case for a long time but the increase in skill spam has made the problem worse than it's ever been.

So basically if you want to keep the concept of illusions or clones and address the first issues people complain about, the illusion/clone spam, then you're going to have to do something to buff the clones survivability in some way.

So how would that be accomplished?

I suppose it depends which aspect of clones is decided to be emphasised - diluting the targeting or being an additional source of damage/utility.

The reason so many build for rapid clone production is a symptom of how easily they get destroyed. Even with IH. This can be seen when testing any build that doesn't use one of the major clone generating features such as deceptive evasion and rely only on weapon skills to produce clones (not including scepter). The effectiveness falls off so hard. I'd say only glass power can manage with fewer clones, simply because it doesn't need a lot for its primary burst output and method of playing, which can deal massive damage with only one clone. Condi and hybrid fall off a lot though.

To add to that it seems more that mesmer output/utility in general is being assumed with 3 clones out most of the time - hence the need to build for it.

Maybe then it should be such that mesmer in general is intended to easily be able to refresh clones, and that they are easily killable by opponents - I'm happy with this state. Following on from this then perhaps it should be that more damage is shifted onto the mesmer and away from clones so the opponents don't have to avoid multiple sources of non-negligable damage.

As non-mesmer, my biggest problem with the clones is the speed in which they can be remade once I AOE them away in PvP.I don't mind blasting a few clones before the battle after which the real fight may start, but it seems so futile now.

@NorthStar.9603 said:As non-mesmer, my biggest problem with the clones is the speed in which they can be remade once I AOE them away in PvP.I don't mind blasting a few clones before the battle after which the real fight may start, but it seems so futile now.

This is where I think the problem lies.

If you don't like the numbers that are being made and want them toning down then they have to be capable of living longer. Right now clones are killed by most attacks and you can't survive long in a team fight at all.

A suggestion that I have in mind is that clones (but not phantasms) gain x seconds of x% dmg and condi duration reduction upon creation but is instantly lost upon shattering. Considering a cleave skill or AoE that could maybe hit for 4k, 80% reduction only reduces this to 800, which is still 1/4(?) of a clones hp. Another and additional suggestion is to make illusions scale with the amount of players being faced, similar to how PvE player number scaling works.

On another note, I’d personally also like tankier clones and invulnerable phantasms in PvE too.

@apharma.3741 said:Clickbait title is real, however there is a point I wish to raise.

Everyone doesn't like the clone spam they say. OK.They don't like how phantasms don't count towards the illusions cap. OK.Some even want mirage cloak on clones to not be an evade. OK.

They also don't like how they're replaced really quickly, fair enough.So they want the number of entities out at a time reduced, fair enough.They also don't want them evading damage, fair enough.

Clones have 2.4k health though.In today's excessive power creep most classes can, and do, cleave vast numbers of clones as if they're nothing. Half the time the player doesn't even realise or put thought into this.I know someone will point out this has been the case for a long time but the increase in skill spam has made the problem worse than it's ever been.

So basically if you want to keep the concept of illusions or clones and address the first issues people complain about, the illusion/clone spam, then you're going to have to do something to buff the clones survivability in some way.

So how would that be accomplished?

You would have to straight up buff clones and phantasms.Health would need to be increased heavily.

Or shift the scaling damage and defense clones offered onto the mesmer.

I think a good start would be increase clone health to 8k or 9k( since most power builds can crit 6k+ repeatedly)Then take the evasion away from them.Clones will be able to be hit and CC while IH is active but not die in a single AoE either

And then people will complain about clones' hp.It's a neverending qq.

Change Mesmers so they have a max 3 illusions out at any given time. Phantasms would basically create a placeholder spot, appearing as a blue dot on the clone-counter instead of pink until it becomes a clone and can then be shattered. Then disable mirage cloak while CCed.

Buff phantasm skills / de-nerf them / heck a whole lot of mesmer nerfs in the past year could be reverted if they did the above changes.

TL;DR Phantasm rework was bad for the game and was put in place only to appease bad mesmers who didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions. Re-do it to be less spam friendly, and a lot of the problems regarding visual clutter and illusionspam with this class will go away.

It's honestly amazing the balance team hasn't figured this out yet. Almost every balance patch since the phantasm rework has brought with it a bucket full of Mesmer nerfs and yet you still see 2-4 mesmers per sPvP game, and they are still considered god tier in WvW small scale. There comes a point where they really just need to swallow their pride and admit they goofed it.

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Change Mesmers so they have a max 3 illusions out at any given time. Phantasms would basically create a placeholder spot, appearing as a blue dot on the clone-counter instead of pink until it becomes a clone and can then be shattered. Then disable mirage cloak while CCed.

Buff phantasm skills / de-nerf them / heck a whole lot of mesmer nerfs in the past year could be reverted if they did the above changes.

TL;DR Phantasm rework was bad for the game and was put in place only to appease bad mesmers who didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions. Re-do it to be less spam friendly, and a lot of the problems regarding visual clutter and illusionspam with this class will go away.

It's honestly amazing the balance team hasn't figured this out yet. Almost every balance patch since the phantasm rework has brought with it a bucket full of Mesmer nerfs and yet you still see 2-4 mesmers per sPvP game, and they are still considered god tier in WvW small scale. There comes a point where they really just need to swallow their pride and admit they goofed it.

Phantasm change was based on pve.In pvp is both good and bad, good because of your mentioned reasons, bad because you shatter way slower - summon phantasm - wait for the long phantasm casting animation and convertion to clone - and then you can shatter, which means that if it was reverted mesmers would have a faster burst and a new source of complains for the forums.

In my view the bad heavily outweights the good but I was always against the phantasm change.

About your suggestion, depends if you can shatter the phantasm, if you can I'm good with it. If you can't, absolutely not, it would be the worst of the two worlds.

About the phantasm rework.

I mentioned a long time ago on the forums that they should have simplified the system down to clone generating skills and then shatters to consume clones. This was long before the rework.

Where phantasm skills currently are the mesmer would do an attack and leave behind a clone (optional swap with clone on some abilities similar to iLeap) but there would be no phantasms anymore. That way you have only clones/illusions.

This gives you much more control over how your damage is applied as well as less chances for the attack to fail because of AI. What I didn't realise at the time is it's also better than this current system as you don't get 6-7 AI entities hanging around all the time.

Sure I don't think it's that bad personally but the GW2 playerbase is not particularly bright so cutting down the illusions to 3 absolutely max would be a step in the right direction.

Maybe it would be better to reduce the number of clones you can summon since clones became a problem with the mirage that make them dodge and attack when a player dodges ?

If you give more health to clones then it would just stack with the ambush mechanic. The obvious answer would be to remove some of the mechanics in the mirage line that summons clones, since we already have a core trait line that summons clones.

Speaking about dueling evasion it would be better as well to update its functionality so that you are not always summoning clones as soon as you dodge while in combat.

@flog.3485 said:Maybe it would be better to reduce the number of clones you can summon since clones became a problem with the mirage that make them dodge and attack when a player dodges ?

If you give more health to clones then it would just stack with the ambush mechanic. The obvious answer would be to remove some of the mechanics in the mirage line that summons clones, since we already have a core trait line that summons clones.

Speaking about dueling evasion it would be better as well to update its functionality so that you are not always summoning clones as soon as you dodge while in combat.

Maybe reduce clone count of mirage to 1 or 2 but buff the clone health by 2-3 times or something?

@apharma.3741 said:

@flog.3485 said:Maybe it would be better to reduce the number of clones you can summon since clones became a problem with the mirage that make them dodge and attack when a player dodges ?

If you give more health to clones then it would just stack with the ambush mechanic. The obvious answer would be to remove some of the mechanics in the mirage line that summons clones, since we already have a core trait line that summons clones.

Speaking about dueling evasion it would be better as well to update its functionality so that you are not always summoning clones as soon as you dodge while in combat.

Not really a good idea I would say. Because here you are essentially nerfing core mechanics. I was more thinking of the overlapping mechanics of sword 1 ambush and dueling evasion. It should be either one of those not both at the same time.

Maybe they could also make sword 1 ambush not spawn a clone unless you have evaded something.

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Change Mesmers so they have a max 3 illusions out at any given time. Phantasms would basically create a placeholder spot, appearing as a blue dot on the clone-counter instead of pink until it becomes a clone and can then be shattered. Then disable mirage cloak while CCed.

Buff phantasm skills / de-nerf them / heck a whole lot of mesmer nerfs in the past year could be reverted if they did the above changes.

TL;DR Phantasm rework was bad for the game and was put in place only to appease bad mesmers who didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions. Re-do it to be less spam friendly, and a lot of the problems regarding visual clutter and illusionspam with this class will go away.

It's honestly amazing the balance team hasn't figured this out yet. Almost every balance patch since the phantasm rework has brought with it a bucket full of Mesmer nerfs and yet you still see 2-4 mesmers per sPvP game, and they are still considered god tier in WvW small scale. There comes a point where they really just need to swallow their pride and admit they goofed it.

The phantasm rework was to solve the fact that Mesmers own mechanics were fighting each other. You basically ignored one mechanic in order to do sub par DPS from having 3 phantasms out with weaponskills that also did sub par damage due to phantasms being able to attack multiple times. Shatters were ignored in PvE and phantasms were little more than shatter fodder in PvP. It is not because Mesmers 'didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions' it was because there was any management to be done. It was fire and forget or spawn and shatter. There was absolutely no nuance to it and to frame it that way as if the rework was a crutch is little more than self serving propaganda.

@EpicTurtle.8571 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Change Mesmers so they have a max 3 illusions out at any given time. Phantasms would basically create a placeholder spot, appearing as a blue dot on the clone-counter instead of pink until it becomes a clone and can then be shattered. Then disable mirage cloak while CCed.

Buff phantasm skills / de-nerf them / heck a whole lot of mesmer nerfs in the past year could be reverted if they did the above changes.

TL;DR Phantasm rework was bad for the game and was put in place only to appease bad mesmers who didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions. Re-do it to be less spam friendly, and a lot of the problems regarding visual clutter and illusionspam with this class will go away.

It's honestly amazing the balance team hasn't figured this out yet. Almost every balance patch since the phantasm rework has brought with it a bucket full of Mesmer nerfs and yet you still see 2-4 mesmers per sPvP game, and they are still considered god tier in WvW small scale. There comes a point where they really just need to swallow their pride and admit they goofed it.

I know that and highlighted it multiple times in multiple threads over the last 4 years.

What I'm saying is removing phantasms altogether is what was needed because they had multiple downsides. Phantasms give more control over your damage to your enemy, they add to AI spam and object clutter and as you mentioned before the rework caused you to either get 3 phantasms and AFK or use for shatter fodder.

The rework solved the issue of being torn between using in a shatter or fire them off and AFK but created new problems in entity spam. If phantasms were removed entirely and we had a single 3 illusion limit there would be no complaints over 6-7 clones + mesmer from scrubs while also solving the problem between being shatter fodder or use and AFK. Well there would complaints but it would be unfounded.

@apharma.3741 said:

@EpicTurtle.8571 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Change Mesmers so they have a max 3 illusions out at any given time. Phantasms would basically create a placeholder spot, appearing as a blue dot on the clone-counter instead of pink until it becomes a clone and can then be shattered. Then disable mirage cloak while CCed.

Buff phantasm skills / de-nerf them / heck a whole lot of mesmer nerfs in the past year could be reverted if they did the above changes.

TL;DR Phantasm rework was bad for the game and was put in place only to appease bad mesmers who didn't know how to effectively manage their illusions. Re-do it to be less spam friendly, and a lot of the problems regarding visual clutter and illusionspam with this class will go away.

It's honestly amazing the balance team hasn't figured this out yet. Almost every balance patch since the phantasm rework has brought with it a bucket full of Mesmer nerfs and yet you still see 2-4 mesmers per sPvP game, and they are still considered god tier in WvW small scale. There comes a point where they really just need to swallow their pride and admit they goofed it.

Well I was responding to Ketsus paranoid gaslighting. I think I remember agreeing with the Mesmer sourced cooldown skills idea you suggested for the same reasons. Significantly less complicated and much less issues.

I wonder if streamlining phantasms into the player's attack also open the door for a new elite spec mechanic based on absorbing clones to power yourself up?

I do agree that phantasms would be best if the mesmer player, after the usual cast animation, became the phantasm and performed its attack. Anet have made the good change of phantasms performing one attack then turning into a clone - instead this could be shifted so the player performs the attack then spawns a clone.Some long casts will have to be shortened (cough, iWarden...) and various damage modified to make it worthwile (will highlight just how weak some phantasms are when the player does the cast - eg staff phantasm...).

For traits like chronophantasma - it could simply be instant recharge of the first attack so the player has the choice to cast it again (like how Mimic refreshes skills in 1 second).

For things like staff the player could literally split in two to cast then reform themselves at the end of the animation. Visually this could look very cool with the mesmer becoming a "nightmare" for each phantasm skill.

And then a future elite spec could possibly focus on say absorbing clones into themselves to power up into super terrifying phantasms (just throwing out completely random unrefined idea).

^ While I like the idea it would have to be handled with extreme care, if you do the phantasm attack it means you don't do anything while you're doing it meaning a huge dps loss, on a profession that already struggles on sustain damage (power).

@"Lincolnbeard.1735" said:^ While I like the idea it would have to be handled with extreme care, if you do the phantasm attack it means you don't do anything while you're doing it meaning a huge dps loss, on a profession that already struggles on sustain damage (power).

Well tbh I remember apharma's thread with all the suggestions for integrating phantasms into a player attack, though that was before Anet's rework I think. Given the current situation it makes most sense for Anet to streamline further towards this now.

Yes certainly the damage will need to be improved on phantasms if they were glorified player attacks, to match other professions, but it does take care of the two issues of screen clutter and allowing the mesmer to other stuff while more minions do damage.

I can picture visually how it could look (though unable to make a nice drawing of it) with the mesmer glowing transparent and becoming ethereal like a phantasm while casting say iMage's aoe cone attack - would look and feel visceral and awesome.

Regarding an elite spec - there are many ways a spec could become focused on phantasms but if they were player attacks I really love the idea that we get a mesmer/warrior (inverse spellbreaker) that powers itself up (ie "Rampage") into super phantasms by absorbing/merging with its clones - option of playing pseudo "cloneless" spec like ranger has with Soulbeast and merging with pet.

It's kind of tricky to pull off. The example you gave of image, on power you sync up the daze with gs2 to shatter. With you doing the attack that would not be possible anymore, so the skill needs to be buffed by a lot to compensate but not so much that it becomes op.

Yeah certainly it would ruin the potential for a lot of skill combos which are currently possible - eg with iMage even syncing with axe 3 burst combo.

But I guess on the flipside as they would have to make the skills much stronger overall it should balance out - and remove the whining about mesmer being able to do so much at once. xD

The complete alternative to this is making phantasms uninteractable and simply glorified visual effects - so the emphasis then would be on the mesmer's cast animation, eg for opponents to interrupt, but at least this would remove them from target selection. Given the amount of aoe/cleave out there I don't think in the current state of the game it's necessary to target phantasms as by the time you want to do anything to them they despawn anyway and otherwise could be ignored (eg staff phantasm) while continuing to focus the player. It's not like ranger pet situation where if possible you can quickly target and burst kill the pet to mess up their combos.

I mean, would it be such a bad thing that you can't stack combo's to burst 20k+ in one hit?

Would tackle the LOLWTF complaints at being "one shot" from stealth when in reality the potato stood there while a zerker spawned, whirled into them as they facetanked a shatter.

True I think it would be an elegant solution to solve visual clutter and combo burst damage output in one swoop.

@"apharma.3741" said:I mean, would it be such a bad thing that you can't stack combo's to burst 20k+ in one hit?

Would tackle the LOLWTF complaints at being "one shot" from stealth when in reality the potato stood there while a zerker spawned, whirled into them as they facetanked a shatter.

Well, when everything a build can do is burst damage, I would say yes.

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

@"apharma.3741" said:I mean, would it be such a bad thing that you can't stack combo's to burst 20k+ in one hit?

Would tackle the LOLWTF complaints at being "one shot" from stealth when in reality the potato stood there while a zerker spawned, whirled into them as they facetanked a shatter.

Well choose your nerf because it will happen. I'd rather they cut down on the multi skill hard hitting combos like landing zerker, mirror blade and double mind wrack with jaunt than to gut who knows what else.

You know what ANet is like, pick your poison.