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I still don't understand, why would they remove distortion AND illusionary persona? Why 2 tradeoffs?


Daniel Handler.4816

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I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

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@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

All damage you take after continuum split gets reverted back after continuum shift. Therefore, the actual 'distortion' aspect of distortion in continuum split is absolutely worthless. Have distortion in continuum split, take no damage. Don't have distortion in continuum split, still take no damage. The only reason why they added distortion to continuum split is because some of the current baseline mesmer traits like Inspiring Distortion play off of distortion 'activating'. They at least were an important aspect of PvE and such traits would be near completely useless if CS didn't apply distortion, even if the actual 'distortion' aspect doesn't matter.

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@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

The merged distortion is for a flat 1 second vs 1-4 second prior, and comes with CS 105 second cooldown/forcing your back to where you started the shatter. This makes it more of a damage skill, as you surmised, and is one of the major tradeoffs from the patch.

The second is they removed illusionary persona, a trait that has been baseline for several years. It grants the shatter effect on you as well. Without it you can only use your profession abilities when you have illusions already out, something that is impossible in a variety of situations. It would be like if necromancer couldn't store lifeforce out of combat and was being followed by a longbow ranger.

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That's not what he's complaining about... Its the merging of Distortion/CS AND the removal of IP as tradeoffs for the Chrono spec.

There also seems to be a small misunderstanding of how the merge functions now.

Distortion-50sec cooldownscales up to 4 secs invuln with 3 clones

CS/Distort merge-105 sec cooldown1 sec of invuln (does NOT scale with clones)

The one sec of invuln is just tacked on to CS so the devs could justify granting effects from traits that affect Distortion to the new CS.

Despite the many downsides that presents, most will agree the merging of Distortion/CS was a reasonable tradeoff for Chronomancers. Adding the removal of Illusionary persona ON TOP of that (without any kind of compensation) is what kills the spec. Especially considering that losing IP is actually a much bigger nerf than the Distort/CS merge to begin with.

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Guys, your missing the point. The main point is that even if distortion gave you invuln all throughout CS for a full 6 second shatter, it would basically have the same effect as if it gave you .0001 sec of distortion. Your health is going back to what it was before you clicked Continuum split no matter what.For all intents and purposes, distortion is pretty much not on chrono anymore.

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@Xstein.2187 said:Guys, your missing the point. The main point is that even if distortion gave you invuln all throughout CS for a full 6 second shatter, it would basically have the same effect as if it gave you .0001 sec of distortion. Your health is going back to what it was before you clicked Continuum split no matter what.For all intents and purposes, distortion is pretty much not on chrono anymore.

It depends on the context - unlike distortion, you’re not fully invulnerable. This means you can get cc’ed (wasting your precious CS time) and have conditions piled on you, which both can carry through when you phase back. If you ‘die’ in CS, you get phased back too. You’re still worried about ‘not getting hit’.

The 1s distortion does have its advantages over the .0001s distortion.

However, CS used defensively is similar using necro shroud + the 1s invuln they’ve always been asking for - you can very simply get nuked out of it (the 1s distortion prevents this in a way) and by mere coincidence, the health you leave with is the health you entered it with (sounds just like no healing in shroud!).

But it’s somewhat clear that CS is designed more offensively than defensively, so the 1s distort you would probably use to cover a skill with a long cast time, and maybe you’ll want to use again afterwards. Your defense is your offense by forcing the opponent to play less aggressively, as well as any misconception that chrono is ‘invuln’ or ‘not worth blowing cds on’ during CS.

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That's not what he's complaining about... Its the merging of Distortion/CS AND the removal of IP as tradeoffs for the Chrono spec.

There also seems to be a small misunderstanding of how the merge functions now.

Distortion-50sec cooldownscales up to 4 secs invuln with 3 clones

CS/Distort merge-105 sec cooldown1 sec of invuln (does NOT scale with clones)

The one sec of invuln is just tacked on to CS so the devs could justify granting effects from traits that affect Distortion to the new CS.

Despite the many downsides that presents, most will agree the merging of Distortion/CS was a reasonable tradeoff for Chronomancers. Adding the removal of Illusionary persona ON TOP of that (without any kind of compensation) is what kills the spec. Especially considering that losing IP is actually a much bigger nerf than the Distort/CS merge to begin with.

Exactly. Titled edited for clarity.

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@Xstein.2187 said:

@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

All damage you take after continuum split gets reverted back after continuum shift. Therefore, the actual 'distortion' aspect of distortion in continuum split is absolutely worthless. Have distortion in continuum split, take no damage. Don't have distortion in continuum split, still take no damage. The only reason why they added distortion to continuum split is because some of the current baseline mesmer traits like Inspiring Distortion play off of distortion 'activating'. They at least were an important aspect of PvE and such traits would be near completely useless if CS didn't apply distortion, even if the actual 'distortion' aspect doesn't matter.

I thoroughly agree, so much >< The distortion effect on Continuum Split, now, is worthless in my opinion. Before the July 2019 patch, Chronomancer had 2 offensive shatters, 1 CC shatter, and 2 defensive shatters. Now we have 1 defensive shatter that has a very long cooldown :( We could use Continuum Split if we really needed to, to not die to some very damaging attack and we could also use Distortion to evade an attack we knew was coming. Now we just have Continuum Split with distortion effect, and who gives a shit? You're just going to get all your health back, what does it matter if you evade during Continuum Split!?! Ugghh........I freaking hope these changes get reversed...PLEASE ANET

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@broFenix.1632 said:

@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

All damage you take after continuum split gets reverted back after continuum shift. Therefore, the actual 'distortion' aspect of distortion in continuum split is absolutely worthless. Have distortion in continuum split, take no damage. Don't have distortion in continuum split, still take no damage. The only reason why they added distortion to continuum split is because some of the current baseline mesmer traits like Inspiring Distortion play off of distortion 'activating'. They at least were an important aspect of PvE and such traits would be near completely useless if CS didn't apply distortion, even if the actual 'distortion' aspect doesn't matter.

I thoroughly agree, so much >< The distortion effect on Continuum Split, now, is worthless in my opinion. Before the July 2019 patch, Chronomancer had 2 offensive shatters, 1 CC shatter, and 2 defensive shatters. Now we have 1 defensive shatter that has a very long cooldown :( We could use Continuum Split if we really needed to, to not die to some very damaging attack and we could also use Distortion to evade an attack we knew was coming. Now we just have Continuum Split with distortion effect, and who gives a kitten? You're just going to get all your health back, what does it matter if you evade during Continuum Split!?! Ugghh........I freaking hope these changes get reversed...PLEASE ANET

If you die during continuum split you don't get your health back. And if you get condi or cc bombed they don't go away when you revert. The distortion on CS is purely for setting up offensive skill chains not defense.

It is a tradeoff. The real problem is we lost illusionary persona on top of this.

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@Daniel Handler.4816 said:

@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

All damage you take after continuum split gets reverted back after continuum shift. Therefore, the actual 'distortion' aspect of distortion in continuum split is absolutely worthless. Have distortion in continuum split, take no damage. Don't have distortion in continuum split, still take no damage. The only reason why they added distortion to continuum split is because some of the current baseline mesmer traits like Inspiring Distortion play off of distortion 'activating'. They at least were an important aspect of PvE and such traits would be near completely useless if CS didn't apply distortion, even if the actual 'distortion' aspect doesn't matter.

I thoroughly agree, so much >< The distortion effect on Continuum Split, now, is worthless in my opinion. Before the July 2019 patch, Chronomancer had 2 offensive shatters, 1 CC shatter, and 2 defensive shatters. Now we have 1 defensive shatter that has a very long cooldown :( We could use Continuum Split if we really needed to, to not die to some very damaging attack and we could also use Distortion to evade an attack we knew was coming. Now we just have Continuum Split with distortion effect, and who gives a kitten? You're just going to get all your health back, what does it matter if you evade during Continuum Split!?! Ugghh........I freaking hope these changes get reversed...PLEASE ANET

If you die during continuum split you don't get your health back. And if you get condi or cc bombed they don't go away when you revert. The distortion on CS is purely for setting up offensive skill chains not defense.

It is a tradeoff. The real problem is we lost illusionary persona on top of this.

You are apsolutely 100% right. I think the only thing people disagree on (or should disagree on) is HOW useful it is and why distortion was combined to begin with. I'm not saying this is the same for everyone. However, I have played hundreds of PvP matches as a chrono without distortion on CS and believe I died in continuum split maybe 2 times, with both being 100% my fault and I don't even know if 1 second of distortion at the beginning would have saved me. Additionally, yes, after you enter CS, even though your health goes back, conditions continue to tick when you get back. However, what matters in this discussion isn't continuum split, it's distortion. As far as I know, distortions makes it so conditions don't do damage, but they still tick as well. Let's say I have 6 seconds of bleeding. If I pop CS without distortion for 2 seconds exactly on 5 seconds left of bleeding, I'm going to be at X damage taken with 3 seconds left of bleeding when I get back. If I pop CS with distortion for 2 seconds exactly on 5 seconds left of bleeding, I'm still going to be at X damage taken with 3 seconds left of bleeding. There will be no difference. The only way it absolutely matters at all is if a stack of conditions are applied within the first 1 second of continuum split that at least lasts longer than the duration of continuum split itself. Of course that could potentially be beneficial. However, the exact amount of HOW beneficial and likely both of these are can be quite arbitrary and open to scrutinization. I still highly, highly doubt that the potential of dying in CS was the reason they implemented it in the first place and still maintain the belief that it was due to some mesmer traits becoming completely useless if if wasn't implemented in some shape or form. If you remember, in PvP chrono was responsible for distorting your allies durring attacks, such as greens on Vale Guardian. Even when this was changed to aegis on the trait, it was still extremely useful for the group. Even though this is a lot harder now, if the devs didn't add distortion at all, this would be absolutely impossible and players would additionally blame the devs for having a traits that are 100% useless when playing chrono. However, there is really not much necessity to fight about this too much since we pretty much agree on 99% of everything else :)

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And without self-shatter: you miss out on a quick heal, alacrity, condi clear, distortion (merged with CS now), and quickness if you have that trait instead of chronophantasma. Quickness on shatter was amazing QoL while in AB prior to opening exalted chests.

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What I'll say will probably be infuriating but the underlying reason why the question is asked is mostly because IP isn't removed for mirage. If IP was removed from mirage you wouldn't have a reason to complain about the trade off since you'd have:

  • Core special mechanism: QoL/extended shatter from IP
  • Chrono special mechanism: "time themed" shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)
  • Mirage special mechanism: avoidance and shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)

The reason behind the fact that distorsion took the nerf bat is probably because the shield granted an extra layer of defense and to balance the chrono and core defense ANet chose this trade-off.

The reason why they didn't make a move on mirage is probably because it's the latest e-spec and is mainly revolving around avoidance. Removing IP from mirage would hurt a lot it's ability to avoid, which goes against the thematic. The "best" solution would probably be to reduce the mirage max number of illusion to 2 and retaining IP, keeping the intended tankiness (albeit tuned done) and tuning done the excessive amount of potential burst damage at the same time. Now, they also might not have done it yet because tempering with the profession's UI is a difficult task and they need more time to find a proper solution. A reckless and clueless opinion would be to make the mirage effectively count as an illusion and permanently fill up one of the illusion count dots, but it might break things like traits and skills that boost illusions.

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ANET doesn't realize how bad this is... i just died.. to some level 33 ogres at ogre wars... cause i was constant stunned for ages, crippled, bleeding, immobilized, and I've been trying to go back to using Mirror Images and Decoy to be able to quickly spawn Illusions, but ran out really quick and died like a noob. Level 33 ogres... pathetic.

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@"Dadnir.5038" said:What I'll say will probably be infuriating but the underlying reason why the question is asked is mostly because IP isn't removed for mirage. If IP was removed from mirage you wouldn't have a reason to complain about the trade off since you'd have:

  • Core special mechanism: QoL/extended shatter from IP
  • Chrono special mechanism: "time themed" shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)
  • Mirage special mechanism: avoidance and shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)

The reason behind the fact that distorsion took the nerf bat is probably because the shield granted an extra layer of defense and to balance the chrono and core defense ANet chose this trade-off.

The reason why they didn't make a move on mirage is probably because it's the latest e-spec and is mainly revolving around avoidance. Removing IP from mirage would hurt a lot it's ability to avoid, which goes against the thematic. The "best" solution would probably be to reduce the mirage max number of illusion to 2 and retaining IP, keeping the intended tankiness (albeit tuned done) and tuning done the excessive amount of potential burst damage at the same time. Now, they also might not have done it yet because tempering with the profession's UI is a difficult task and they need more time to find a proper solution. A reckless and clueless opinion would be to make the mirage effectively count as an illusion and permanently fill up one of the illusion count dots, but it might break things like traits and skills that boost illusions.

Anet nerfs Chrono and you people immediately come demanding Mirage nerfs. Its so tiring.

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Personally I am all up for no IP on chrono....however, if we go down this route, they need to make additional changes imo:-Illusionary reversion should get one clone back out ouf of 2 (only when you have 2 clones up)-for mesmer as a whole, clones that has been shattered shouldn’t be vulnerable or buffed to damage effect or boon effect that do not target them (for the purpose of WvW and PvP)-for mirage, if clones act like in PvE in WVW and PvP, the big trade-off would be to have the elite spec not gain additional clones out of phantasm.

Or, who knows, maybe it would be simpler to make the clones gain health when you shatter them (only for chrono) so that they don’t t get insta destroyed by effects that do not target them (realistically they could get rid of illusionary reversion now that a mesmer can gain a clone out of a phantasm and create a new trait in the lines of “your clones gain health when shattered based on a x percentage of your health”).All I would like to point out is two things:-it would be much more fun (talking purely about PvP and WvW here) to play against a class that is not constantly summoning phantasm and clones just to counter the fact that clones have low health-having phantasm turn into clones is not a good enough mechanic in chrono spec to cover the loss of IP imo.

Other than that, it might just simpler to gain IP back on chrono, although I don’t like the idea that a chrono can double up on his elite without needing any clone investment.

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@Levetty.1279 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:What I'll say will probably be infuriating but the underlying reason why the question is asked is mostly because IP isn't removed for mirage. If IP was removed from mirage you wouldn't have a reason to complain about the trade off since you'd have:
  • Core special mechanism: QoL/extended shatter from IP
  • Chrono special mechanism: "time themed" shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)
  • Mirage special mechanism: avoidance and shatter (QoL loss from the loss of IP)

The reason behind the fact that
distorsion
took the nerf bat is probably because the shield granted an extra layer of defense and to balance the chrono and core defense ANet chose this trade-off.

The reason why they didn't make a move on mirage is probably because it's the latest e-spec and is mainly revolving around avoidance. Removing IP from mirage would hurt a lot it's ability to avoid, which goes against the thematic. The "best" solution would probably be to reduce the mirage max number of illusion to 2 and retaining IP, keeping the intended tankiness (albeit tuned done) and tuning done the excessive amount of potential burst damage at the same time. Now, they also might not have done it yet because tempering with the profession's UI is a difficult task and they need more time to find a proper solution. A reckless and clueless opinion would be to make the mirage effectively count as an illusion and permanently fill up one of the illusion count dots, but it might break things like traits and skills that boost illusions.

Anet nerfs Chrono and you people immediately come demanding Mirage nerfs. Its so tiring.

It's not mirage nerf, it's balance.

Had you read me right, you'd understand that what I suggest is that the tradeoff for the chrono "new shatter" skills and the mirage ambushs become standardized to merely 1 less max clone. Solution which would be fair, bring back IP QoL to chrono and tune down the ratio damage/survivability of the mirage (something which, ultimately, is necessary to bring back balance to the profession as a whole).

As long as you got additionnal feat to the core profession, you need something to tune down the powercreep. Removing inbuild QoL like IP is ultimately the wrong move, reducing the potential of the core profession's mechanism is a better way to do it. What do you expect ANet will remove from the mirage when it will be time to give him a tradeoff for the damage powercreep from it's ambush feat? Do you really expect that they won't touch anything? Granted that mirage gain quite a few evade from it's specialization, do you want ANet to weaken the shatter and remove IP from the specialization like they did to chrono? That would be the worst.

We all know the "tradeoff" is coming and I'd rather have a well made tradeoff than the butcher job they did to chrono.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:It's not mirage nerf, it's balance.

Had you read me right, you'd understand that what I suggest is that the tradeoffIts a nerf. The tradeoff for Mirage is that its dodge doesn't move. They have already nerfed duration and removed superspeed on top of that.Stop pretending you care about balance, you just want mirage nerfed.

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@Xstein.2187 said:

@Kuulpb.5412 said:I may be wrong as i play necromancer and we’re all arguing amongst ourselves about the changes - but didn’t F5 and F4 get merged? So yes there’s no “distortion” but at the same time it effectively changes how continuum split works from a “second health bar for x seconds or until depleted” to “cannot be damaged and cool downs get reset”. I am aware that distortion on continuum is not as beneficial as separate as you don't need to distort AND shift together, i do feel the change is... strange, however as an outsider I see the change as a way to make continuum used as a damage effect instead of a cooldown effect, while focusing more on cooldowns (not sure how to word it), like now you have to time when to shift timelines to get the biggest benefit from both invulnerability and cooldown reduction. Chronomancer was (and most likely still is) extremely strong in PvE, such as raids, I cannot speak for pvp or wvw however. If i am missing any information please tell me.

All damage you take after continuum split gets reverted back after continuum shift. Therefore, the actual 'distortion' aspect of distortion in continuum split is absolutely worthless. Have distortion in continuum split, take no damage. Don't have distortion in continuum split, still take no damage. The only reason why they added distortion to continuum split is because some of the current baseline mesmer traits like Inspiring Distortion play off of distortion 'activating'. They at least were an important aspect of PvE and such traits would be near completely useless if CS didn't apply distortion, even if the actual 'distortion' aspect doesn't matter.

You still can be cced

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@"Dadnir.5038" said:

It's not mirage nerf, it's balance.

Had you read me right, you'd understand that what I suggest is that the tradeoff for the chrono "new shatter" skills and the mirage ambushs become standardized to merely 1 less max clone. Solution which would be fair, bring back IP QoL to chrono and tune down the ratio damage/survivability of the mirage (something which, ultimately, is necessary to bring back balance to the profession as a whole).

As long as you got additionnal feat to the core profession, you need something to tune down the powercreep. Removing inbuild QoL like IP is ultimately the wrong move, reducing the potential of the core profession's mechanism is a better way to do it. What do you expect ANet will remove from the mirage when it will be time to give him a tradeoff for the damage powercreep from it's ambush feat? Do you really expect that they won't touch anything? Granted that mirage gain quite a few evade from it's specialization, do you want ANet to weaken the shatter and remove IP from the specialization like they did to chrono? That would be the worst.

We all know the "tradeoff" is coming and I'd rather have a well made tradeoff than the butcher job they did to chrono.

Ambush replace a normal attack, so it's only slightly stronger than a regular attack. Mirage Cloak allows it during a time where others might have actually had a dodge animation, but sacrifices being able to dodge as far or for as long. Your idea of a tradeoff is more of a nerf in most game modes, where as a major part of the issue with current design is that Core is simply too weak to compare numbers wise. For increasing damage for Core across the board, it would be better to give it a static aura buff for not specializing in Chrono or Mirage, rather than weaken the other two down to Core levels.

Mirage is not overperforming in any game mode, but the complaints remain in PvP environments because of a lack of counterplay opportunities, damage source being outside the player and thus not easily responded to, animations being masked a number of skills or having no animation at all. Ultimately, the profession relies on a damage source that is unreliable, and perhaps a bit too strong when it can all be lined up very well, but very inconsistent. This variance leads to inherently broken design issues, game modes in which a Mesmer is weaker always (WvW), or in builds that massively underperform (Mirage in PvE raids and group situations), or massively overperform (in 1v1 and duel situations, where long duration invulnerability and no animation damage sources and CC end up very strong, sPvP). To attempt to balance this weakness and power the devs have tried keeping the profession very squishy, and results in a very binary position, where a small tweak could end up making the profession too strong or far too weak.

What is sneaky about this is that almost all of these issues root back to the very design of clones, they assumed implementing IP baseline for Mesmer would make everything work, since the profession would no longer be as reliant on clones, but what it actually does is just make them as reliant as ever and need to be balanced around having one clone at all times. This in turn makes their abilities almost too strong when at 3 clones, and all of this because the clones have to travel to their target to do damage (irrelevant at melee range, and thus the uses of stealths and teleports to get around that weakness). Thus we end up in a situation where Mesmer remains unbalanced, too weak when clones are not up (a great deal of WvW, some PvE, and even in group situations in PvP), and maybe slightly too strong when they are up and able to remain so until they manage to hit the target.

My proposed solution has been posted in many threads and should be viewed as it goes straight to the heart of the Mesmer issues (regardless of elite specialization).

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