What Happened to Mesmer Boonstrip?

[apharma.3741]

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame. Mesmer clones/phantasms in a 1v1 and 2v2 performed far better on release (camera shake days) than they do currently as now many classes do a lot of AoE damage but this wasn’t always the case and not all classes do big AoE damage. It still is the best way to deal with mesmers in 1v1 situations and depriving a chrono of its shield phantasm, other phantasms and clones was exactly the way you beat condi chrono.

Clone death was a very lazy build style which relied on clone spam, can you imagine how horrible condition mirage would be with clone death? It would be possibly the most overbearing 1v1 class in the game even destroying spell breakers by clone spam.

[Miroe.2054]

@Coulter.2315 said:What happened to Mesmer boonstrip?

IT GOT STRIPPED!

No, srsly, you can put it into a power build pretty easily as a subtheme. With boonstrip on shatter and sword autoattack and null field.

[Coulter.2315]

@Miroe.2054 said:

@Coulter.2315 said:What happened to Mesmer boonstrip?

IT GOT STRIPPED!

No, srsly, you can put it into a power build pretty easily as a subtheme. With boonstrip on shatter and sword autoattack and null field.

I know, I mean 'where is the theme of boonstrip through our elite specs?' Stripping boons is a crucial part of being a Mesmer and to see it abandoned for two expansions concerns me that the devs have forgotten what a Mesmer is.

[Coulter.2315]

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

This argument could be made before HoT, after the power creep we've seen over the last two years I don't think it holds any more.

[Miroe.2054]

@Coulter.2315 said:I know, I mean 'where is the theme of boonstrip through our elite specs?' Stripping boons is a crucial part of being a Mesmer and to see it abandoned for two expansions concerns me that the devs have forgotten what a Mesmer is.

You're right, a boonstrip build is still as strong as with base mesmer. Elite specs and power creep have caught up with the mesmers boonstrip.

[Dondagora.9645]

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

I don't think so. Clone death traits punished people for blindly cleaving clones, AKA being deceived or being stupid. Mesmer has always been about punishing our enemies for being braindead. We've been nerfed a lot because... well, ANet had to answer the cries of those braindead players. And while I understand depriving a Mesmer of clones being a way to play against us, I feel we also have a right to complain about AoE of almost any kind depriving us of playability. We used to punish braindeadness, but now that just seems to be our counter.

[Mikkel.8427]

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Also, clone death traits would proc when you replaced your illusions. So, people would run full illusion spamming builds to chain proc the clone death traits instead of shattering.

[Dondagora.9645]

@Mikkel.8427 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Also, clone death traits would proc when you replaced your illusions. So, people would run full illusion spamming builds to chain proc the clone death traits instead of shattering.

This is probably the main problem with Clone Death traits that I think most of us can agree is an unintended and legitimate issue. In this, if they could make it so that the traits only proc on death via damage and not death via replacement, it'd be fine.

[apharma.3741]

@Dondagora.9645 said:

@Mikkel.8427 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Also, clone death traits would proc when you replaced your illusions. So, people would run full illusion spamming builds to chain proc the clone death traits instead of shattering.

This is probably the main problem with Clone Death traits that I think most of us can agree is an unintended and legitimate issue. In this, if they could make it so that the traits only proc on death via damage and not death via replacement, it'd be fine.

I would like to think the devs were smart enough to have thought of that first and realised it was still not great. If mesmer still had these clone death traits now mirage would be the most cried about class in PvP, far more than SB and it would not be unjustified. I forgot about them proccing on illusion resummon to be honest as it’s really has been so long since then. While I do agree there’s a lot of killing clones without care or realising it (most eles, engy, Guard, warrior, Necros) there are many builds and classes which don’t either and when playing these classes/builds you do have to make a conscious effort to kill clones and phantasms.

Before someone doesn’t believe me, sceptre ele builds are hit and miss for cleave, most thief and ranger builds have to focus on killing illusions and mesmer mirror match ups are the common ones you might come across. A tactic for winning is to consciously destroy the clones assuming the enemy isn’t pooping them out like children on a council estate.

[draxynnic.3719]

Y'know, one compromise could be to put it on a future elite spec, thus avoiding the possibility of "it's broken when combined with (elite spec)". Seems to be pretty much the whole idea behind the exclusivity of elite specs.

[Zenith.7301]

Boon stripping is not the only iconic GW1 mesmer thing that GW2 mesmer is way worse at than other classes.

CC is terrible on mesmer given the mesmer has to pay huge opportunity costs to have passable CC. Diversion for some weird reason doesn't stack duration, and you can't even shatter in PvE without gimping your output significantly (which is why shatters in PvE should honestly just be a hex attack that gains power based on illusion count instead of disposing of the illusions).

Signet of humility has a horrendous 180 sec cd in PvE for no reason whatsoever other than the developers not wanting to be bothered with split balancing the skills.

Mantra of Distraction is also pretty terrible. Cooldown in between uses because of that miserable PvP, and a single 1 second daze which is barely a scratch on any defiance bar.

Meanwhile classes like warrior and engineer laugh at mesmer CC capacity without even sacrificing much for that CC. I'm surprised mesmer doesn't even have some illusions with taunt skills....

Then there's the fact mesmers alongside necromancers used to be the masters of hexes and hindering conditions.

Lo and behold, both necromancer and mesmer are the weakest condition specs in PvE since the specs that thrive are those with burning or like revenant and ranger have traits that boost their bleed/torment by 25%+

[Cantatus.4065]

@Mikkel.8427 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Also, clone death traits would proc when you replaced your illusions. So, people would run full illusion spamming builds to chain proc the clone death traits instead of shattering.

I'll admit that's one of the ways I played it. It was a nice change of gameplay from avoiding using any skills that generated clones because they'd replace phantasms to using them as much as possible to suicide your clones for condis. If too many conditions were being applied this way, I'd think some sort of internal cooldown would help. Or, even something like Riddle of Sand where it only happens a certain amount of times before a shatter is needed to reset it. Having it require someone doing a direct non-AoE attack could be another way too since then it would be more likely that the player is attacking the wrong target and not just having it get caught in an AoE.

[Dondagora.9645]

@apharma.3741 said:I would like to think the devs were smart enough to have thought of that first and realised it was still not great.

I don't think we can assume competence with ANet's balance team. They certainly don't give us too much reason to.

[Ithilwen.1529]

Comment deleted as it might offend devs and I can't delete entirely.

[Levetty.1279]

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

[Curunen.8729]

I really really would love an Arcane Thievery buff.

Whether 2 ammunition charges, reduced cooldown, able to remove condis without a target or whatever.

[apharma.3741]

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

The point was that on release was an entirely different kettle of fish. Right now clone death trait would make Condi Mesmer probably the strongest duellist in PvP bar non especially if they took boon removal for getting rid of resistance. Doomed if you kill clones, doomed if you don’t. It’s not a good basis for balancing and if it was on any other class you bet half the people in this thread would be calling for a nerf.

[Coulter.2315]

I still think Mirage would be a reasonable place to have a clone death trait, very thematic. I also think the argument about "playing properly against a mesmer by killing their clones" doesn't hold when the spec is specifically designed around people being unable to tell between the clones and real mesmer. The argument which remembers the old clone death traits being OP and abused with DE also stops holding the weight it did when they were banned due to the power creep we've had (3 AoE bleed and weakness on dodge is no longer a staggeringly powerful effect).

[Levetty.1279]

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

The point was that on release was an entirely different kettle of fish. Right now clone death trait would make Condi Mesmer probably the strongest duellist in PvP bar non especially if they took boon removal for getting rid of resistance. Doomed if you kill clones, doomed if you don’t. It’s not a good basis for balancing and if it was on any other class you bet half the people in this thread would be calling for a nerf.

But that has nothing to do with the strength of aoes at launch.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@apharma.3741 said:It would be nice if instead of the GS trait we had a deal X damage when removing a boon trait, would set domination up to be a very customisable and synergistic trait line.

I remember discussing this on the old forum multiple times. It's why I like Necro corrupts. Boons get reapplied so easily with power creep that stripping alone isn't good enough. The corrupts actually punish while they strip. Sure mesmer could use more boon strips but they could also be traited to actually punish.

[draxynnic.3719]

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@apharma.3741 said:It would be nice if instead of the GS trait we had a deal X damage when removing a boon trait, would set domination up to be a very customisable and synergistic trait line.

I remember discussing this on the old forum multiple times. It's why I like Necro corrupts. Boons get reapplied so easily with power creep that stripping alone isn't good enough. The corrupts actually punish while they strip. Sure mesmer could use more boon strips but they could also be traited to actually punish.

Possibly a 'shatter enchantment' effect where the strips deal power damage when they happen? That'd make it essentially a power version of the necromancer's condition-based punishment that comes on boon stripping.

[apharma.3741]

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

The point was that on release was an entirely different kettle of fish. Right now clone death trait would make Condi Mesmer probably the strongest duellist in PvP bar non especially if they took boon removal for getting rid of resistance. Doomed if you kill clones, doomed if you don’t. It’s not a good basis for balancing and if it was on any other class you bet half the people in this thread would be calling for a nerf.

But that has nothing to do with the strength of aoes at launch.

Read the whole conversation, most classes had less AoE and cleave at launch making targetting and killing clones and phantasms one of the ways to fight mesmer. Since launch all daggers have gone from 1 target to 2 targets hit, a lot of AoE skills have seen improvements and reworks, we’ve seen more stat points added through gear and with the trait changes it has likewise increased the amount of damage many classes did thus making what small amount of AoE they had hit harder.

We also have elite specs which added a lot more AoE damage to some classes, staff daredevil, shout reaper, scourge, wells on chrono (don’t do a lot of damage though) making these 3 classes that didn’t have amazing cleave in PvP environments have much better cleave. Then we have seen increased AoE damage added to eles through shouts and overloads, berserkers, spellbreakers, scrappers, holosmiths, heralds, DH, firebrand and technically weaver though it’s less subtle.

The game now and the game at launch are completely different however there are still legacy issues where some base classes have poor AoE damage. It doesn’t change that clone death is a terrible thing to add back into the game.

[Levetty.1279]

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

The point was that on release was an entirely different kettle of fish. Right now clone death trait would make Condi Mesmer probably the strongest duellist in PvP bar non especially if they took boon removal for getting rid of resistance. Doomed if you kill clones, doomed if you don’t. It’s not a good basis for balancing and if it was on any other class you bet half the people in this thread would be calling for a nerf.

But that has nothing to do with the strength of aoes at launch.

Read the whole conversation, most classes had less AoE and cleave at launch making targetting and killing clones and phantasms one of the ways to fight mesmer.

No they did what they do now and attack the Mesmer and kill the clones with cleave and aoe, even if it was weaker.

[apharma.3741]

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@apharma.3741 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@apharma.3741 said:The issue with the clone death trait was not that it punished you for killing the wrong mesmer but that it punished you for properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones. That and the clone death traits would stack up a decent amount of bleed and weakness doing considerable damage and preventing counter attacks in some ways.

Eh, I don't think "just throw around AoE and attack blindly so the clones auto-die" was actually intended to be "properly playing vs a mesmer by depriving them of their clones" on release. Clones were marketed as a genuine tool of deception, and the incentive should be to identify the mesmer and bring them down rather than just swinging at everything.

Seriously, the general tactic against mesmers is just to drop lots of AoE so that illusions die before they can do anything. The clone death traits meant that mesmers actually had an answer to that strategy: the enemy has a disincentive to do that because they'll get hurt by the clone death traits (and clones that died with one of those traits had a different death animation, so you could quickly identify when a mesmer had at least one of those traits). Now, mesmers don't really have a good answer to that tactic.

On release? On release people were doing a fraction of the AoE damage they are now so your point is entirely moot by your choice of time frame.

And they were still negating clones with their weaker aoe. What is your point?

The point was that on release was an entirely different kettle of fish. Right now clone death trait would make Condi Mesmer probably the strongest duellist in PvP bar non especially if they took boon removal for getting rid of resistance. Doomed if you kill clones, doomed if you don’t. It’s not a good basis for balancing and if it was on any other class you bet half the people in this thread would be calling for a nerf.

But that has nothing to do with the strength of aoes at launch.

Read the whole conversation, most classes had less AoE and cleave at launch making targetting and killing clones and phantasms one of the ways to fight mesmer.

No they did what they do now and attack the Mesmer and kill the clones with cleave and aoe, even if it was weaker.

No they didn’t...as I say dagger for thief and necro for 2 years didn’t even cleave so you’re completely wrong there. Most rangers ran longbow GS way back before the trait rework, while GS has melee cleave it’s also got fairly low damage and the longbow has 1 skill to AoE with that’s it, hardly cleaving everything with AoE. Necro had wells with a beefy CD and DS 4 and 5, that was it really, staff marks on a zerker build might cleave a clone but not a phantasm.

AoE was a problem on some classes but not all of them, ele, war, guard and engi would cleave clones and phantasms without a care, the other classes had to make a conscious effort to kill clones. You’re looking at this from what you remember which was that you mostly fought eles, guards, wars and engineers as they’ve been some of the strongest classes before HoT with entire metas revolving around them at some point.

Before someone brings up the thief, yes the thief didn’t need to cleave clones because they could instgib the mesmer, however that doesn’t change that they had poor cleave and thus would find it difficult cleaving clones should the meta have needed them to.

[draxynnic.3719]

@apharma.3741 said:

Before someone brings up the thief, yes the thief didn’t need to cleave clones because they could instgib the mesmer, however that doesn’t change that they had poor cleave and thus would find it difficult cleaving clones should the meta have needed them to.

In my experience, a large part of the reason thieves countered mesmers was that you can't summon an illusion on a stealthed target. Thieves didn't need to cleave illusions because their mechanics could prevent the illusions from being generated in the first place.

I don't recall instagibbing being the issue when I was a mesmer being harassed by a thief, the bigger problem was being denied the ability to generate illusions... and not even having many options to try to blindly hit a stealthed thief with. So even if I was winning, they could stealth and reset and there was basically no hope of getting the "I downed you despite your stealth!" kills that other professions could get.

TL;DR Thieves never needed to cleave clones/phantasms because they were the best profession at not allowing illusions to be created in the first place.