phantasmal defender suggestions

[eldenbri.1059]

A skill with a 50-second cooldown (either as a spot on the utility bar or the output of a grandmaster trait) seems like it should have a good payoff. Assuming the basic mechanism won't change, I'd love to hear what would make it worthwhile for folks to use in a wvw or pvp context.

 

Here are a few thoughts:

- shorter cooldown

- increase probability taunt lands (maybe it summons next to target? I think it has to run to target now)

- some certain positive effect (always removes 1 condi - 2 if you have Sympathetic Visage, always grants aegis or regen, small heal or barrier)

- some other negative effect on the target (maybe a couple seconds of weakness)

 

I appreciate all the work that went into phantasm redesign - it just feels like this one needs just a little more.

 

Thx!

[OriOri.8724]

I actually quite like the concept behind the skill as it currently is, but I don't think it works that well for various reasons. Namely, in PvP/WvW resistance and cleanses mean that taunt, even a short lived one, isn't likely to do anything. Even if it is not cleansed and they don't have resistance, 1 second taunt is not that much really.

 

That said, I think its quite a flavorful skill. Really the only changes I want to see is have a new "Taunt" effect be placed into the game that is only useable by the phantasmal defender. It functions identical to taunt, but is not a condition, rather an effect. This way, resistance and cleanses wouldn't completely negate the phantasm. Alongside that, maybe a 10second CD in PvP/WvW, and even then its a pretty long CD for a 1 second long taunt.

[eldenbri.1059]

I agree the concept is neat and it does have a clear "defender" flavor.

 

Testing it in pve, it really does seem to give the desired effect. The regular monsters do attack it.

 

But the times I was able to try it versus players, it didn't really seem to affect the fight at all

[Jace al Thor.6745]

The problem I have with it against players are 1) the 1 second taunt isn’t very long, I think 1.5 maybe two would be better and 2) with the amount of stun breaks even at 2 seconds I feel I wouldn’t get good use out of a 50 second cd skill. But on the other hand I’m not sure how it could be made better and not be too strong.

[Alpha.1308]

i don't even have a problem with the duration of the taunt

or it's cooldown, for that matter

 

unfortunately for Mesmers, they can be Chronomancers, so, the balance team being bad isn't even the first step, it's naturally hard to balance something like this because of how Chrono interacts

 

this thing can have incredible uptime with alacrity, Chronophantasma, Continuum Split, Signet of the Ether, and then it can be traited for yet another use, and if you REALLY wanted to (even though Mimic is bad on its own, thanks again devs) you COULD theoretically use Mimic on it....... inside of Continuum Split....

 

technically, a 1 second full loss of control of your character is a very powerful tool, (ontop of direction manipulation), plus the fact that, if it were even possible anymore to get 100% condition duration, that makes it 2 seconds, make it base 2 and that spikes to 4, that's exceptionally long for a hard CC

 

the biggest issues with this skill in realistic scenarios are the fact that it's so bad with how the game interacts with not only taunt as a condition, being reduced by % modifiers, removed by cleanses, resistance, and stunbreaks, but then it can also be interrupted by an unblockable, or just tossed around entirely because it's a Phantasm, which are still borked due to being creatures

 

i also have a problem with the radius

this thing could act as a super charged bomb, but it falls short in so many aspects, that combined, it's just garbage

 

also, side note, this thing has to **RUN TO ITS TARGET AND THEN ACTIVATE THE BLOCK**

it's already bad enough that Phantasms are creatures, but to have this delay, on top of being CC'd and just interrupted/killed?

this is way too counter-productive to ever be useful as it is now

 

AAAAAAND also another side note

**Phantasmal Disenchanter is ranged, Defender is melee, yet Disenchanter is the one to spawn near its target....**

like????? ok dev team, time to stop playing around with spvp golems in your internal test team and let real people try out and give feedback to your game

 

/timetopetitionPTR

[eldenbri.1059]

Thx. When I first started playing mesmer in GW2 five years ago, I thought phantasms were really cool. And I think there are cool phantasm-centric builds possible now which is great.

 

I'm just hoping to find a suggestion that makes this one worthwhile. Thx for the ideas.

 

Separately, I think the issue of bursting a ton of any phantasms (not just this one) needs consideration. One thing I can imagine is changing Ether Signet so that it does something like 10 second cooldown refund on all phantasms (but not full reset). That prevents using it inside continuum split. And the base cooldown of the signet could be reduced to compensate (or something like that)

[zealex.9410]

One qol change id like to see woukd be to have it as a ground target aoe :/

[eldenbri.1059]

But it also spawns based on block or evade from the Mental Defense grandmaster trait in Inspiration. So that needs a different mechanism than ground targeting

[Carighan.6758]

> @"OriOri.8724" said:

> It functions identical to taunt, but is not a condition, rather an effect. This way, resistance and cleanses wouldn't completely negate the phantasm.

 

Hrm, I can understand the sentiment, but IMO that further cements a crucial underlying issue with how the "normalized buff/debuff system" that is boons and conditions is currently handled. Namely, not well at all.

 

I'd rather have cleanses, but also the sheer spammability of boons and conditions, be **seriously** curbed, and some of them touched up to be individually stronger.

That is to say, if someone has 25 stacks of might, they should be a mower of raw damage, shredding enemies left and right and center. However, getting those 25 stacks should be a feat onto itself, and if I were to purge it, then I know it cannot happen again at least for a little while. On the other hand, I just blew my purge on that, and I probably have only one, and it's not going to be back all that quickly either.

 

Given that background, a slightly longer Taunt would be useful: It is seriously disruptive, it even results in feedback damage because Defender, but while I can break out of it I cannot break out of something else for a while then.

 

 

[spiritualabyss.7016]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> One qol change id like to see woukd be to have it as a ground target aoe :/

 

absolutely +1 for this one,

also i would like to have its CD reduced in PVE, down to like 20s

[OriOri.8724]

> @"Carighan.6758" said:

> > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > It functions identical to taunt, but is not a condition, rather an effect. This way, resistance and cleanses wouldn't completely negate the phantasm.

>

> Hrm, I can understand the sentiment, but IMO that further cements a crucial underlying issue with how the "normalized buff/debuff system" that is boons and conditions is currently handled. Namely, not well at all.

>

> I'd rather have cleanses, but also the sheer spammability of boons and conditions, be **seriously** curbed, and some of them touched up to be individually stronger.

> That is to say, if someone has 25 stacks of might, they should be a mower of raw damage, shredding enemies left and right and center. However, getting those 25 stacks should be a feat onto itself, and if I were to purge it, then I know it cannot happen again at least for a little while. On the other hand, I just blew my purge on that, and I probably have only one, and it's not going to be back all that quickly either.

>

> Given that background, a slightly longer Taunt would be useful: It is seriously disruptive, it even results in feedback damage because Defender, but while I can break out of it I cannot break out of something else for a while then.

>

>

 

I agree on reducing the amount of boons and conditions thrown around by a large amount, if done properly we could actually remove resistance entirely as well, or at least 90% of the access to it. But at this point I really don't see Anet doing that.