Should clones and phantasm be indestructible?

[Armen.1483]

@dandamanno.4136 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:You forget a very important aspect of phantasms too. As they are targetable and are counted as "allies", they CAN have boons. So if you wanna make em "indistructable" and "intargetable" chrono will lose a lot of damage because of phantasms not having boons and clones not having superspeed on shatter and I am against that.

Pretty sure this could be coded around. Phantasm spawning with "invulnerable" buff could be one way.

Yeah and after having the antimesmer community backlash will make Anet to nerf mesmer further. Look, now they gave us back the IP and nerfed shatters. If they give invuln to illusions they will nerf something else.I can 100% tell that aside pvp and wvw if you are having proplem with clones dying you are doing something wrong. Mirage and chrono both have fast shatter playstiles you get 3 clones and immideatly press shatter. If all your shatters are on cd and you have 3 clones up means you have shattered with less than 3 clones up or your fingers aren't used to doing the combos yet and you are too slow. And even there if you don't wanna learn combos and somehow get your clones die:

1. if chrono or core it doesn't matter as clones do no damage anyway, they are for shatters only so you lost nothing,
2. if mirage replentishing clones shouldn't be a problem at all, consider updating your build. I mean your clones even get invulns if traited, what else do you need ?

What about phantasms: they are way tankier than clones. The slowest meta pChrono phantasm is Warden with chronophantasma on it takes whole 12 seconds for it to finish his animation and become a clone. Ironically that is also the phantasm hardest to kill thanks to his blocks/reflects. 2nd slowest is swordsman with 6 seconds. If your phantasm dies within those 6 seconds in PVE, it is your positioning that is the problem, and by saying I mean mean you must have chosen the worst place in the arena to stand on: like a lava or smth, just step somewhere without terrain hazards. Anyway they are changing the swordsman, after patch it will be cast on the enemy directly so you won't have problems with those too even if you like tanking lavas lol. If you still have some problems with the phantasms dying before doing full damage, you need "Protected Phantasms" or quickness on your phantasms. Anyway: for pvp and wvw a big damage reduction would be appreciated, for PVE: just learn to play or play something else.

This should be problematic more for necros or rangers than mesmers, come on, be real.

[Taril.8619]

@Armen.1483 said:Mirage and chrono both have fast shatter playstiles you get 3 clones and immideatly press shatter.

Condition builds actually want to have 3 clones up at all times, meaning they only shatter when they can quickly get back to having 3 clones active.

This is due to the conditions that clones will apply from auto attacks and Sharper Images procs.

Only Power builds will shatter immediately upon reaching 3 clones (They also don't wait around for 3 sources of clones to line up at the same time and will use clone generation skills on cooldown to maximize their usage, meaning they can spend periods of time with just 1-2 clones up waiting for a 3rd clone. Especially Power Chrono that has to wait for Phantasms to attack twice and have that 1.5s of daze between casts before getting the Clone)

[dandamanno.4136]

@Armen.1483 said:

@dandamanno.4136 said:

@Armen.1483 said:You forget a very important aspect of phantasms too. As they are targetable and are counted as "allies", they CAN have boons. So if you wanna make em "indistructable" and "intargetable" chrono will lose a lot of damage because of phantasms not having boons and clones not having superspeed on shatter and I am against that.

Pretty sure this could be coded around. Phantasm spawning with "invulnerable" buff could be one way.

Yeah and after having the antimesmer community backlash will make Anet to nerf mesmer further. Look, now they gave us back the IP and nerfed shatters. If they give invuln to illusions they will nerf something else.I can 100% tell that aside pvp and wvw if you are having proplem with clones dying you are doing something wrong. Mirage and chrono both have fast shatter playstiles you get 3 clones and immideatly press shatter. If all your shatters are on cd and you have 3 clones up means you have shattered with less than 3 clones up or your fingers aren't used to doing the combos yet and you are too slow. And even there if you don't wanna learn combos and somehow get your clones die:

1. if chrono or core it doesn't matter as clones do no damage anyway, they are for shatters only so you lost nothing,
2. if mirage replentishing clones shouldn't be a problem at all, consider updating your build. I mean your clones even get invulns if traited, what else do you need ?

What about phantasms: they are way tankier than clones. The slowest meta pChrono phantasm is Warden with chronophantasma on it takes whole 12 seconds for it to finish his animation and become a clone. Ironically that is also the phantasm hardest to kill thanks to his blocks/reflects. 2nd slowest is swordsman with 6 seconds. If your phantasm dies within those 6 seconds in PVE, it is your positioning that is the problem, and by saying I mean mean you must have chosen the worst place in the arena to stand on: like a lava or smth, just step somewhere without terrain hazards. Anyway they are changing the swordsman, after patch it will be cast on the enemy directly so you won't have problems with those too even if you like tanking lavas lol. If you still have some problems with the phantasms dying before doing full damage, you need "Protected Phantasms" or quickness on your phantasms. Anyway: for pvp and wvw a big damage reduction would be appreciated, for PVE: just learn to play or play something else.

This should be problematic more for necros or rangers than mesmers, come on, be real.

If Phantasms and clones survive just fine in PvE in your opinion, then what do you care if they are invulnerable? (other than dumb AI infinitely attacking a clone, which could simply be made far less likely to happen through code)

I don't get it. In PvE you are arguing that you shatter them so fast and they survive great and I should just L2P, and yet if they were invulnerable to damage it wouldn't change in any way how they play since they were already essentially not affected by damage anyway (in your opinion).

In PvP and WvW you essentially agree it is an issue when you say "aside pvp and wvw if you are having proplem (sic) with clones dying you are doing something wrong". So we have a problem with 2/3 of the game modes, and in the third game mode it wouldn't even make a difference?

As for the aniti-Mesmer community crying if clones or phantasms are made unbreakable until shatter, well who cares? Those babies cry all day even with the current Mesmer state. They will continue to cry until the servers are shut down, and if we are scared of what might happen if Mesmer gets a buff or even a QoL improvement with their main resource then we might as well give up now and switch classes. Actually, I guess that's what a lot of people have done, given the state of this sub-forum.

[dandamanno.4136]

@Taril.8619 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:Mirage and chrono both have fast shatter playstiles you get 3 clones and immideatly press shatter.

Condition builds actually want to have 3 clones up at all times, meaning they only shatter when they can quickly get back to having 3 clones active.

This is due to the conditions that clones will apply from auto attacks and Sharper Images procs.

Only Power builds will shatter immediately upon reaching 3 clones (They also don't wait around for 3 sources of clones to line up at the same time and will use clone generation skills on cooldown to maximize their usage, meaning they can spend periods of time with just 1-2 clones up waiting for a 3rd clone. Especially Power Chrono that has to wait for Phantasms to attack twice and have that 1.5s of daze between casts before getting the Clone)

Yah this is true. Since condi builds actually have clones that do damage (unlike power builds that do like 50 damage per hit or something) the "Shatter so fast it's not a problem" ideal doesn't really work.

This would require a rework of traitlines I think to make shatters more usable for condi builds.

Your example is exactly the situation I face all the time. Trying to get resource up to 3 clones for maximum effectiveness and while sitting at 1 or 2 clones up and waiting for the third, 1 or both go pop and I just end up shattering 1 or 2 since getting the third up is a pain.

I haven't even gone into how clones can't be re-targeted if a target dies in multi target fights such as world events. You entire resource just instantly vanishes and you have to start from scratch.

[Armen.1483]

@Taril.8619 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:Mirage and chrono both have fast shatter playstiles you get 3 clones and immideatly press shatter.

Condition builds actually want to have 3 clones up at all times, meaning they only shatter when they can quickly get back to having 3 clones active.Yes that is why all mirage builds need fast clone generation. If some stupid situation kills your clones, you can just slow down on shattering so your replentishing catches up. I have never been in a situation like that however.This is due to the conditions that clones will apply from auto attacks and Sharper Images procs.Ofc they do. But condition builds gives you the opportunity to replentish those clones very easily (condi chrono excluded... but if you had enough experience to know why we play condi chrono in the 1st place asking for clones to be invuln wouldn't be your n.1 priority). For example the standart mirage raid build wouldn't require you to do double shatter if "dying clones" were a problem. BTW there is a noob rota for mirage that actually requires you to use only f2 on cd, whcih means you can have 3 clones up easier, use that if ever. With the signet jaunt and axe 2 having clone generation problems is ridiculous. If any mesmer build can have trouble having clones active all the time it is definitely not mirage.Only Power builds will shatter immediately upon reaching 3 clones (They also don't wait around for 3 sources of clones to line up at the same time and will use clone generation skills on cooldown to maximize their usage, meaning they can spend periods of time with just 1-2 clones up waiting for a 3rd clone. Especially Power Chrono that has to wait for Phantasms to attack twice and have that 1.5s of daze between casts before getting the Clone)This has nothing to do with OP. But I agree that chrno needs something like mirage axe 3.

@"dandamanno.4136" said:If Phantasms and clones survive just fine in PvE in your opinion, then what do you care if they are invulnerable? (other than dumb AI infinitely attacking a clone, which could simply be made far less likely to happen through code)Because 1st: playing mesmer is already boring after so many patches for handicaped players that can't push buttons right. 2nd: it is absolutely not needed. 3rd. It can create some dumb interactions like the ones that exist already on prestacking clones on Sloth, MO etc...I don't get it. In PvE you are arguing that you shatter them so fast and they survive great and I should just L2P, and yet if they were invulnerable to damage it wouldn't change in any way how they play since they were already essentially not affected by damage anyway (in your opinion).Because that will create places where the invuln clones mechanic can be abused. As I said that already exists on some raid bosses, I imagine how many more places there will be possible sending invuln clones and wait around till they kill a boss for you while you watch netflix. Or spawning a clone on some random mob you don't wanna kill in open world will indefinitely keep you in combat making you never use mounts until that aggroed mob is slowly killed by your undead minion.In PvP and WvW you essentially agree it is an issue when you say "aside pvp and wvw if you are having proplem (sic) with clones dying you are doing something wrong". So we have a problem with 2/3 of the game modes, and in the third game mode it wouldn't even make a difference?It is an issue, but making clones invuln will just break the game. I am not from a balance team and I don't know how mesmer can be balanced there but definitely not by changing the core mechanic of mesmer lol. If you wanna play warrior with full bar, go play warrior. Mesmer is about clones and phantasms that are the unique mechanic of mesmer. If you make those mechanics just skills with "beautiful" animations it will be just another warrior with portal... Oh wait you can have portal on warrior too now... It is not about animations it is about mechanics.As for the aniti-Mesmer community crying if clones or phantasms are made unbreakable until shatter, well who cares? Those babies cry all day even with the current Mesmer state. They will continue to cry until the servers are shut down, and if we are scared of what might happen if Mesmer gets a buff or even a QoL improvement with their main resource then we might as well give up now and switch classes. Actually, I guess that's what a lot of people have done, given the state of this sub-forum.I am sorry, but you are doing exactly the same right now.

[dandamanno.4136]

@Armen.1483 said:I am sorry, but you are doing exactly the same right now.

I am crying for nerfs in some other mains forum? What?

I (and others in this thread) are suggesting improvements to the usability of Mesmers main resource. You clearly like it how it is, have no suggestions of your own, or don't like other peoples suggestions. That's fine. But please don't equate me to those who would see all but there own favourite class nerfed to death.

Edit July 14: Looking through the Guardian forums I stumble across this from you:

@Armen.1483 said:Guardian definitely needs some nerfs. It is the most played class, wherever you go there are overpowered guardians. I'd say it deserves more nerfs so people can start considering playing other classes too. Enough is enough.

Unreal.

[Mithos.9023]

Mesmer has two Problems, first is how clones simply die when you kill your target. I certainly never understood why you were punished for winning a fight, by loosing your resources for your class mechanic. No other class has this problem. Warrior does not lose its adrenaline either when they kill a target, or does thief loos all its initiative when an enemy is defeated? NO. That is one of the reasons why Mesmer is so horrible to play in pve. No cleave and by fighting any group of mobs you have to constantly kite as killing one leaves you in a hard disadvantage without power for your shatters and most of your skills on cd.

Second problem is of course wvw, you will not even get in the position for your clones to vanish as they are cleaved before you can kill anything anyway. I think the best would be if clones had a similar mechanic like the 95% dmg reduction in pve. I mean it was introduced for a reason. In wvw I think to have a balance of clone survivability and not being op would be if clones would only take full dmg form the target they are summoned with and by every player that actively targets them or the Mesmer.

So, if you summon a clone and have player A as target, all abilities of player A will have full dmg effect on clones. So, if player A lays a lava font it will hit a clone normally if it touches it. If player B sets a lava font as well the clones will be unaffected, except if player B targets the clones/Mesmer.

It would make sense as clones are illusions that are only in the head of the affected target. But then again that is the reason why clones disappear when the target dies, as the mind that is “tricked” is gone. So, we have to consider any change in this direction will affect pve as well and will make a solution to problem number one harder. I currently have no idea how to tackle problem one, but it needs a solution as it really feels awful that defeating an enemy puts you at so much disadvantage.

[dandamanno.4136]

@Mithos.9023 said:Mesmer has two Problems, first is how clones simply die when you kill your target. I certainly never understood why you were punished for winning a fight, by loosing your resources for your class mechanic. No other class has this problem. Warrior does not lose its adrenaline either when they kill a target, or does thief loos all its initiative when an enemy is defeated? NO. That is one of the reasons why Mesmer is so horrible to play in pve. No cleave and by fighting any group of mobs you have to constantly kite as killing one leaves you in a hard disadvantage without power for your shatters and most of your skills on cd.

Agreed.

[ZipTaw.9841]

I see a split between PvE and PvP trying to justify whether they should be targetable/killable or not, Mesmer minions are manifistations of things, they aren't undead Necro pets that are raised, and they aren't Ranger pets. So, no they shouldn't be killable unless it is with the Mesmers demise and they should be targetable. The only one that should be taking damage is the Mesmer, takes the mystery as to which one is the real one doesn't it? It's like taking the shield from your tank in a raid and expecting them to absorb the same amount damage as if they did have one. You could do a timer for how long a minion lasts in and out of combat and put a short cooldown for the loss of concentration from maintaining them, the higher your level/Mastery the longer they can stay active before the cooldown starts.