Maybe it's time to redesign phantasms. Let's brainstorm ideas.

[Bod.8261]

> @Zenith.7301 said:

>

> Phantasmal mage was garbage then in PvE and it's still garbage now.

Yep, what a great change. They might as well change it back. At least the old iMage felt "mesmery" and had some synergy with Mesmer traits.

 

> For one, there are no enemy resources to drain.

There's Endurance, obviously only matters in PvP. But E-Drain never really mattered in PvE anyway.

 

> Retaliation is more than worthless in PvE considering the damage it does relative to mob attack frequency, and guardian provides better uptime of retaliation than mesmer ever will.

>

> Same goes for confusion. Engineers are better at confusion spikes than mesmers are, and access to confusion for the mesmer is limited. Confusion is also kept limited and weak in PvE thanks to them not wanting to split balance between PvE and WvW where condition mesmers can be a problem.

That's the big problem. Anet is just too lazy to do the big mechanical split that is needed for the game to really be balanced and open. They only split when things get out of hand.

 

Again, GW1 had the benefit of having this massive amount of skills that you could combine at will. It was impossible to balance, but it was also ok for some skills to have a niche in one game mode or the other.

 

GW2 on the other hand with its severely limited builds and fixed weapons has the perfect tools for balancing the game and allowing as many different options as possible.

They just don't use them, as noone seems to care enough.

[Carighan.6758]

I have another idea, but this one might be a bit too radical:

 

* Remove Clones.

* Phantasms now look like Clones, seeing how clones no longer exist. They always wield the Mesmer's weapons, but this luckily includes the weapon they are meant to use.

* Given the - extremely - limited available of fodder, Shatter skills can be buffed *significantly*, making them genuinely dangerous.

* Actual clones, as in, readily available but no-damage (I'd remove the conditions, too!) clones become the Mirage mechanic.

* Mirage also keeps the Mirage Cloak mechanic with it's weaker dodge, but IH is baked into it to capitalize on its clone mechanic.

* Ambush skills become a base mechanic of Mesmers, triggered by stealth and distortion.

* Rebalance sources of stealth and distortion somewhat (especially in light of the signet trait).