Clones and Power Damage

[Kobeathris.3645]

Once, a very long time ago, clones were able to do meaningful power damage. Arenanet decided, for reasons that made sense at the time, that this was overpowered, and their damage was nerfed down to almost nothing. Somewhat confusingly, clones were allowed to keep condition damage, but, again, at the time, this wasn't as big of a deal. Condition damage was hard capped anyway, so maybe that didn't matter. Fast forward to today, and with Mirage, Arenanet has decided that it is ok for clones to do meaningful damage. My question is, why is it only ok for them to do condition damage? Would it really be so bad to give sword and greatsword clones back their damage? Even if phantasms remain as the best option for damage, having clones somewhere in the 50-75% range would really smooth out some of the frustrating things about playing Mesmer.

[OriOri.8724]

No, it wouldn't be bad to give them back power damage. Its not like mesmer's auto attacks deal any significant damage in the first place, not to mention that the clones won't receive any %dmg modifiers or might stacks that we have. It would barely be noticed in competitive environments, and still wouldn't compare to a phantasm. AKA no reason to not let them do the same damage as us

[Levetty.1279]

This is why so many people liked the clone Mirage build (outside of damage) even though Mirage is rather lack luster as an elite spec. It finally felt like a piece that was ripped out of Mesmer during beta was returned.

 

It should definitely be returned fully.

[Curunen.8729]

Yeah agreed - given that clones apply conditions it is reasonable to expect them to be able to deal a small amount of direct damage and also ambushes should deal a good amount of direct damage.

 

Edit - maybe not to beta levels as it could be too much, but certainly a non-negligible amount.

[Wandering Mist.2973]

It probably won't change much in the grand scheme of things but it would still be nice to have.

[Cantatus.4065]

> @Levetty.1279 said:

> This is why so many people liked the clone Mirage build (outside of damage) even though Mirage is rather lack luster as an elite spec. It finally felt like a piece that was ripped out of Mesmer during beta was returned.

>

> It should definitely be returned fully.

 

Yeah, exactly. Mirage did actually give us a viable clone build for once. But if we can't use them to stack conditions and they aren't contributing much to our dps, then phantasms will always be the preferred option since they'll always add far more to our dps. Really, if mirage is meant to be more about using clones, it could even just be that clones doing increased damage is part of mirage's design.

[AliamRationem.5172]

I just posted in another thread about making IH baseline and replacing it with a power-oriented ambush damage booster (essentially a mirror to Dune Cloak for power builds). Perhaps part of the specifics of that change (if it were ever adopted!) could be to add power damage to clones in some fashion?

[Hot Boy.7138]

I support this 150%. I'd love to run a clone power build.

[Hot Boy.7138]

I just want to keep this post at the top of the forums. I believe it needs more attention. The mesmer community seems to have enjoyed a cloned build playstyle for those 2 weeks after the balance patch. I enjoyed it a ton. And it was great to see my legendaries on my clones. Anet, you need to tweak your numbers and come up with a way to make clone build a viable option for both power builds and condition builds. It's more fun and more active than traditional phantasm builds, imo.