Illusions in WvW.

[apharma.3741]

I was fighting in WvW as usual and as usual my clones died to just random AoE from a spellbreaker and ranger using double barrage. When I think about all the times I'm playing now, it's really rare for an illusion and even some phantasms to live, let alone hit anything without 0 range shattering as they spawn. Sure if I spawn them at range or against single target attackers they live, but they still die in 1 hit usually as they run to explode butterflies all over the enemies face. Don't even get me started on "team fights".
Add to this the unbelievable mobility of a lot of classes now (perma superspeed, relic of speed, will bender, mobility skills added to weapons etc) it's also tiring to see phantasms never hit because someone has teleported or just outrun it, even in combat and not away from me. Can you imagine how much other classes would complain if their skills took 1s to cast and also might not hit at all?
Before someone says "mine hit most of the time, skill issue" etc, I'm not saying I don't know how to land them, I do and I make sure to not target enemies in a group (despite berserkers cleaving) I'm just pointing out that these were originally designed in context of a game that was significantly slower and had significantly less sustained damage. They've never really been looked at since the base game and, well, it's changed a lot. The power creep is real. Below is the health values in case people didn't know.

Illusion	PvE	PvP/WvW
Clone	4,171	2,433
Phantasm	5,821	3,396
Phantasmal Defender	12,476	7,278

So the questions are:
Do illusions need more health in WvW at least?
Do illusions need a certain amount of swiftness on spawn?

Any other thoughts are welcome.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Uh.......I'm of two minds here. I mean, for starters I'm an old Dungeons and Dragons vet and Mirror Images has been a staple of D&D and Pathfinder for....ever. And the thing about there is that when you hit an illusion it goes *poof*. They essentially only have 1HP, and it's still an awesome spell. Then we have GW2 and I'll be honest I've never even thought about my Clone HP because #1 mine don't seem to die that fast or that often and #2 my clone generation is high enough that even if they were I'm replacing them regardless. NOw granted, that is exclusively in PvE. My experience in WvW has been a lot different. In WvW in a zerg I find clones to be pointless. Clones serve three purposes: To Distract, to Condition, and to Shatter, and in the middle of a zerg I find that everything they're supposed to do is paltry at best. Roaming is a little different but I'm not a PvP player so every time I've run into someone roaming it's always been a swift death and I generally didn't even have time to get clones out, so I can't really comment there except that there's a lot bigger issues than clone health.

As far as the phantasms go I wish I could comment on that. Firstly I'm visually impaired so keeping up with all the stuff going on on the screen is nigh impossilble for me. I spend a LOT of time just pressing the buttons and assuming that it's working. I pressed the button, I saw numbers go up, SHOULD be good. And that's the other problem. When I'm in the middle of a fight I've got big numbers; those are mine. I've got little numbers; those are my clones. And then I've got red numbers (they're not really read but the icon is); those are my conditions. And then there's phantasms. When they strike and add their numbers to that sea of hostile math I can't tell what's what so I just assume they're working. It's interesting that you even bring up Phantasmal Defender. I carry it because it's a phantasm and I get bonuses from Phantasms, but I'm almost certain that -that- particular one does absolutely nothing at all.

[Bigbizz.9406]

I don't think changes to clone health will help you. Zergs are throwing around so much damage that you yourself might as well be a clone with how fast they can down you if you're not quick. Clones being practically ignorable against zergs isn't so bad when you have other tools to rely on and even then clones still have the potential to bait out skills and soak up target caps. There are builds that fix the problems you've stated, Chrono with superspeed on clones when shattering, and mirage cloak for clones trait.

I would like to see phantasms get summoned in regardless if they were blocked or evaded (I can't remember the specifics on what prevents them from spawning but it's something I immediately notice when it happens). There's already counterplay to the actual phantasm actions itself and you lose out on a clone if it just never spawns.

The nerfing of non-clone tools that can be actually useful against zergs doesn't help either.

[apharma.3741]

Let me address a few points.

1) Traits:
You shouldn't have to trait so that the basic functionality of a weapon works, by that I mean phantasms hitting. You can literally run away from them with swiftness and they will never ever hit. Can you imagine if a ranger had to trait their arrows so they don't have a 50% chance to miss? Or you had to trait for faster projectile speed because otherwise people out run them?

2) In zergs:
The example I was choosing wasn't a zerg fight, there were only 2 players but the AoE damage from both instantly killed all clones and phantasms, in a 5v5 a grenade engineer does 2k damage with just spamming grenade autos, that will instantly kill all clones and most phantasms. There's a lot of damage around and you can very easily in this meta have 1-2 guys pumping a constant 4k damage AoE either PBAoE or at range with 2-3 people supporting them (that is increasingly becoming the roaming meta now) and I'm not even mentioning the condition AoE spam.

3) Class mechanic:
The basic functionality of the class does not work very well, you set up clones then shatter them to do damage, interrupt, apply conditions or be invulnerable. I'll accept the argument that because Illusionary Persona is baseline you do always get the PBAoE effect but you more or less get it at anywhere between just under half and a quarter of it's effectiveness because clones die so fast.

What this does is push the class into either boring tanky builds that don't rely on shatter scaling, see current zergling build or high APM instant shatter builds. There's very little in between because clones tend to die when spawned if they're melee to the enemy and if they live because they're ranged they never reach the target on shatter because everyone has swiftness.

[ascii.1369]

Zerg gameplay I‘m not gonna address, since that is an issue we will not solve with clone health adjustments. When it comes to roaming I have to say, I don’t have the same issue. My clones rarely die before I want to shatter them. Also, clone generation is so high that if they don’t die from damage, they despawn from me summoning new clones. I wouldn’t complain about a health buff, but I don’t see a huge need.

[viquing.8254]

Bring back 1/3 of old mesmer gameplay => clone on death effects. Strong against rollface and zerg aoe. Weak against single target skills, ranged attack and timed attack (remembered getting owned by rifle warrior.).

Mean bring back my 20/25/20/15/0 please.

For the context : there was one build overperforming because it can combine trait in a passive build but instead of moving trait to break too much synergy, they removed a mechanic all mesmers used, even shatter builds.

More explicitly : blackwater was the problem, but instead of moving debiliting dissipation to compete with Prismatic understanding and putting crippling dissipation higher in traitline, boom full removal, full shatter orientation with main ressources hard countered by rollface/zerg.

And RIP another 1/3 of old mesmer gameplay : phantasm, because pve whine, passive etc. RIP phantasmal defender and disenchanter.

 

To OP :

- Illusions HP were gut because too much whine about : "too much illusion, too tanky, no counter.". If tomorrow you unerf illusions HP, forums will be flooded by whine. Combined by the fact that anet officialy recognized rollface to counter mesmer.

- That's why https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Time_Catches_Up was widely used combined with no-nerf signet of illusion and no-nerf illusion HP and/or old Persisting Images (+20% phantasm HP trait) during HoT chrono.

- They did try trait like protected phantasm but no enough profitability to be used.

- Mirage give mirror cloak trying to improve illusions survavibility.

- Most meta build, even in PvP thoses last years were on a "maximise clone generation" orientation to override the fact that illusions get one shot. (Which didn't work on Zerg like you wrote.)

 

That aside, I'm really happy that virtuoso come without clone because like you said, it's been ages that we can't use our main mechanic.

Edited May 14 by viquing.8254

[Justine.6351]

I just use the phantasm distortion trait.

For clones, they are not meant to be tanky. They are meant to be "mirror" images that "confuse" enemies and die in a hit to reveal the mesmer. Maybe they could reduce their damage taken from aoe attacks?

[katte nici.9483]

But there is no "confusion" they they just get killed by random AoE constantly. Perhaps if they could only be damaged if they are being targeted.

[Triptaminas.4789]

On 5/12/2024 at 5:07 PM, katte nici.9483 said:

But there is no "confusion" they they just get killed by random AoE constantly. Perhaps if they could only be damaged if they are being targeted.

Death shatter only solution, it's solution for many mesmer issues and way to close disparity between it being least sustainy class when going full dps trait and having avg damage to compensate for that. Like it brings it back to balance and reason.

Obv balance team doesn't want that, mesmer on damage builds must remain as mediocre damage with 0 sustain whatsoever in comparison to everyone else, it's just how they want it now. 

 

To digress, Clone problem in wvw is real yet I can't see the way to fixing it without overpowering mesmer to levels of meta/subparmeta aoe damage dealers, which absolutely can't happen according to nu-anet balance philosophy. 

If u playing boonchrono u can't mitigate clone issues with scepter, makes restorative illusions etc usable no matter u shatter or not, yet u can shatter 2 or so easily with scepter even during high intensity clashes because of how clones spam on you from autocast(inb4 "reflects", reflects isn't felt in this context, scepter is clone dispenser and no measly reflect can change that)

If u not playing boonchrono then gg, most of your skill useless, your phantasms and clones is meme and u don't belong on the field, only thing u do is mitigate some damage from aoe fields by making clone take the place in enemy aoe fields target cap. 

Also, dont even start to cope with escape artist cope, it was good kitten one nerf ago, now phantasm lose it before it can dream about finishing its attack sequence and just goes to lalaland doing no impact asides lowering that aoe fields target cap by 1

[viquing.8254]

On 5/11/2024 at 11:31 AM, Justine.6351 said:

They are meant to be "mirror" images that "confuse" enemies and die in a hit to reveal the mesmer. Maybe they could reduce their damage taken from aoe attacks?

Not accurate, they are our main mechanic ressource.

In the past were shatter was 1/3 of mesmer gameplay, the fact that they get one shot weren't impactfull. It's not the case when shatter has a hudge impact.

Edited May 14 by viquing.8254

[Jobber.6348]

I think reduced cleaving damage from AoE skills which doesn't directly target the Clone would be the solution. In roaming, Clones are still rather durable, and no matter how much you buff clones, a zerg will tear through them via cleave anyway.

[Crowfang.8529]

Illusions are player bound. They should be killable only by the player they are bound to.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

2 minutes ago, Crowfang.8529 said:

Illusions are player bound. They should be killable only by the player they are bound to.

Then also only make them visible to the player they are bound to as well, and shatters are then also single target.

Edited May 22 by Remus Darkblight.1673

[Zenith.7301]

Just make it so only single targeted attacks damage the clone. Give them cleave/aoe immunity.

[apharma.3741]

I'd love for phantasms to spawn with swiftness (if only for 5s) and when you shatter clones get swiftness for 5s. It won't solve everything but it at least gives them a chance to hit. Oh and ofc they won't get affected by relic of speed because that'll just have to be ignored by the dev team forever. You know how it is.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Clones and phantasms were nerfed to the ground because ANET decided that they didn't want AI based gameplay yet they decided to release stuff like Mechs. That aside a QoL change that would be good is to allow you to shatter phantasms without needing to wait for it to turn to clones. 

[Terrorhuz.4695]

Give clones 0.5s evade on summon, at least I can mirror images into shatter

[ShadowKatt.6740]

On 5/26/2024 at 11:19 AM, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Clones and phantasms were nerfed to the ground because ANET decided that they didn't want AI based gameplay yet they decided to release stuff like Mechs. That aside a QoL change that would be good is to allow you to shatter phantasms without needing to wait for it to turn to clones. 

There's a very specific reason to not shatter phantasm. Maximising the number of illusions you can have out you can have three clones out and maybe two phantasms if you can cast them fast enough. Particularly for a Chrono this is optimal since it lets you do the most work with Continuum Split. If phantasms shattered as well that wouldn't work. It was also a compromise because phantasms used to take up a clone slot, so summoning a phantasm would poof your oldest clone. It worked out to be better for us in a lot of ways.

[Salt Mode.3780]

On 5/29/2024 at 10:01 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

There's a very specific reason to not shatter phantasm. Maximising the number of illusions you can have out you can have three clones out and maybe two phantasms if you can cast them fast enough. Particularly for a Chrono this is optimal since it lets you do the most work with Continuum Split. If phantasms shattered as well that wouldn't work. It was also a compromise because phantasms used to take up a clone slot, so summoning a phantasm would poof your oldest clone. It worked out to be better for us in a lot of ways.

Not really back in the days before they had this change mesmers was at a better spot because their resource was not capsized as they had both phantasms and clones for shattering. This was especially more relevant towards competitive play than in PvE as a 1 second delay for phantasms to turn into clones means your enemy had a 1 second more time to react. In competitive play, 1 second is a lot more time than you think. 

[Every day pon.5386]

Illusions within WvW are broadly fine with exception of i-frames bizzardly denying spawn of our main resource, probably 1 of the worst updates that i ever have born witnessed to, blatantly executed by devs whom don't play/understand/care of original Mesmer 💧

[keyokku.5412]

on death shatter effects , maybe a percentage only so it isn't as punishing 

[apharma.3741]

I wouldn't want the return of clone death traits though, it punishes people for rightly making a conscious decision to kill clones. What I'd prefer is if they didn't instantly die to a willbender pretending to be a ballerina which is on a 15s cool down, or the other 10 AoE damage skills they rotate round with 100% crit chance and doing more damage in a single hit than phantasms have health.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

While I understand people dislike for clone death traits, I think they were the most mesmerish thing mesmer got in gw2.
Clone death was similar to Backfire/Visions of Regret + Wastrel's Worry, if you don't kill them you'll get a shatter in your face, if you killed them you avoid shatter but still take damage.

[viquing.8254]

20 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

it punishes people for rightly making a conscious decision to kill clones.

It punished people who rollfaced in the middle of clones.

And more importantly, it made uses of our main mecanics. Imagine if you could destroy necro shroud bar before they use it, war adre, thief combo points, and so on.

In which world something you randomly counter by just spamming skills uncarely is a conscious decision ?

It was countered by any one target weapon, channelled skills, range attacks, brain the clones. (It's not like clone death was 600 aoe.), cleanse like every condi builds.

Moreover back in time we already did the math, it wasn't the damage from clone death, who was laughtable, but from mesmers skills who killed people.

Mean gutting a third of base mesmer, leaving bleeding mecanics for years while all they had to do were putting debiliting dissipation to compete with PU to solve everything...

 

The funniest thing in this story is that ANET listened to old mesmers forum/top pvpers (who didn't play anymore by the way) who spammed everywhere : "shatter is skill, shatter is the only way to play mesmer.". Then anet gave shatter monogameplay to everyone. Thanks community.

(I hate that old elitist community for destroying diversity.)

Edited July 3 by viquing.8254

[Salt Mode.3780]

My idea of clone death traits should not be like how it was back then with the whole PU build that thing was toxic af as a person who abused the crap out of the build. However, I do agree that there has to be some reinforcements to our clones, if our clones are currently this weak that they get one shot by anything before it does something there are 2 possible fixes. 

1. Increase the durability of clones

2. When they die they remove boons

Compared to all the other classes that use resources, Mesmer is the most vulnerable as our resources can be killed before it does anything. It is a targetable external resource. It is bad enough that our clones are a big indicator of when damage output is going to be forcing Mesmer players to have to go all in with blink to shatter because we don't want the clones to die before reaching the target. 

Edited July 16 by Salt Mode.3780