Please Don't Destroy Infinite Horizon

[DragonSlayer.1087]

Now that Elusive Mind has been burned and its ashes thrown in the ocean, everyone's going to switch to IH and it's only a matter of time until someone QQ about them and have it destroyed.

[Jables.4659]

The Smiter's Boon added and then made worse on Elusive Mind never should've existed in the first place. That being said, Elusive Mind also shouldn't have existed in its original state. There were several options that would've been far better than what we have now.

 

1.) Put a 10 second ICD on the stun break portion of Elusive Mind

2.) Remove the stun break portion of Elusive mind entirely and perhaps replace it with something else

3.) Gut Elusive Mind and replace it with something else

 

As for number 3, I guess they kind of did, they just forgot about the latter part.

 

Speaking as someone who spends 90% of their game time roaming in WvW, this change was ridiculous. The strongest mesmer builds for roaming have been condition builds, and most of those used Infinite Horizon anyway. They essentially left the strongest builds untouched and nerfed the ones that were already less of a problem. I suspect this was mainly an attempt to make Greatsword insta-gib mirages easier to handle, but at least they still have a trait option that works for their build. I mainly play power mirage with Scepter/torch Sword/Sword. My options for a grandmaster trait are now almost entirely useless. Infinite Horizon for my scepter clones does next to nothing, and for my sword clones it just gives a bit of extra cc when 50% of the time I'm going to be cc'ing them myself anyway. Its almost as if Anet wants me to play hybrid or condition mirage, because at least then my grandmaster trait will serve a purpose.

 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

As long as Mesmer is as strong as it is, people will complain. .... What am i saying.... Even if Mesmer would be low tier, people would complain. Mesmer is just not fun to play against.

[DragonSlayer.1087]

> @"Jables.4659" said:

> The Smiter's Boon added and then made worse on Elusive Mind never should've existed in the first place. That being said, Elusive Mind also shouldn't have existed in its original state. There were several options that would've been far better than what we have now.

>

> 1.) **Put a 10 second ICD on the stun break portion of Elusive Mind**

> 2.) Remove the stun break portion of Elusive mind entirely and perhaps replace it with something else

> 3.) Gut Elusive Mind and replace it with something else

 

I mentioned this on the main EM thread. Heck, they could even make that cooldown 30 seconds for the stun break. I don't really care. Eliminating EM literally just give Mirages 1 option, and that's IH cause nobody ever uses Dune Cloak...not even Condi Mirages.

[jportell.2197]

> @"DragonSlayer.1087" said:

> > @"Jables.4659" said:

> > The Smiter's Boon added and then made worse on Elusive Mind never should've existed in the first place. That being said, Elusive Mind also shouldn't have existed in its original state. There were several options that would've been far better than what we have now.

> >

> > 1.) **Put a 10 second ICD on the stun break portion of Elusive Mind**

> > 2.) Remove the stun break portion of Elusive mind entirely and perhaps replace it with something else

> > 3.) Gut Elusive Mind and replace it with something else

>

> I mentioned this on the main EM thread. Heck, they could even make that cooldown 30 seconds for the stun break. I don't really care. Eliminating EM literally just give Mirages 1 option, and that's IH cause nobody ever uses Dune Cloak...not even Condi Mirages.

 

Dune cloak is very much a huge joke. Honestly they could remove that and EM and few people would notice.

 

I imagine them giving infinite horizon an ICD. Because apparently mesmer just spams too much condis with their clones *sarcasm*.

[Jables.4659]

> @"jportell.2197" said:

> > @"DragonSlayer.1087" said:

> > > @"Jables.4659" said:

> > > The Smiter's Boon added and then made worse on Elusive Mind never should've existed in the first place. That being said, Elusive Mind also shouldn't have existed in its original state. There were several options that would've been far better than what we have now.

> > >

> > > 1.) **Put a 10 second ICD on the stun break portion of Elusive Mind**

> > > 2.) Remove the stun break portion of Elusive mind entirely and perhaps replace it with something else

> > > 3.) Gut Elusive Mind and replace it with something else

> >

> > I mentioned this on the main EM thread. Heck, they could even make that cooldown 30 seconds for the stun break. I don't really care. Eliminating EM literally just give Mirages 1 option, and that's IH cause nobody ever uses Dune Cloak...not even Condi Mirages.

>

> Dune cloak is very much a huge joke. Honestly they could remove that and EM and few people would notice.

>

> I imagine them giving infinite horizon an ICD. Because apparently mesmer just spams too much condis with their clones *sarcasm*.

 

Some of them definitely do, but the build responsible (Scepter/Torch Staff full condition with Infinite Horizon isn't exactly great for anything beyond stationary 1v1's. If a person runs from it, the Mesmer themselves can't really do anything beyond a scepter beam that lacks most of its damage since they're running a full condition build anyway. Still, I imagine a lot of people are upset about it because regardless of Anet's intentions, people care about their 1v1 capacity.

[EpicTurtle.8571]

Patch Notes have arrived from the future:

* Clones using Ambush skills due to Infinite Horizon have had their effectiveness decreased by 50%.

 

If we're lucky they'll tag on 'in WvW and PvP only.' at the end of that.

[Simonoly.4352]

Haven't they already balanced Infinite Horizon by having clones apply less conditions/lower condition durations? I mean, sceptre clones apply just 1 second of torment or confusion x5, so 1-2 of those conditions will be gone before Ether Barrage has even finished channelling. It's probably better for applying bleeds from Sharper Images.

[Aslakh.3072]

Infinite Horizon is already balanced and is not what people actually are worried about, what people have been complaining about is mirage cloak while stunned/knocked down etc. I wouldn't even mind not being able to mirage cloak while stunned but Infinite Horizon needs to be left alone.

[flog.3485]

Mesmers should be summoning a little less clones if anything, rather nerfing infinite horizon.

 

That is what makes it very unfun to play against imo. And just like chrono condi in the past, mirage pressure doesn’t apply its pressure only from clone summoning to apply conditions.

In that regard, I personally don’t understand why it is necessary for mirage thrust to summon clones, if a mesmer can get a clone from sword 3 anyway.

 

Edit: grammar

[Curunen.8729]

I wouldn't hold my breath over this - likely going to see some heavy nerfs here once the qqing starts over the coming weeks as more people play IH.

 

Only nerf I might agree with is if Sword and Trident clones didn't daze/stun on IH ambush, and Mirage Thrust shouldn't spawn a clone.

 

Trident in particular is stupidly powerful underwater and can effectively stunlock anyone to death with IH - in wvw it's a joke unless you're heavily outnumbered. I'm saying this from the perspective of doing the stunlocking as it's rare I get killed underwater - most of the time I aim to pull fights underwater for the advantage. If they ever made a new BL in wvw with more water guaranteed the complaints would rise - it's just that people don't frequently fight underwater so are lucky to be spared from this.

 

But Scepter/Staff/GS/Axe/Spear are fine beyond minor tweaks - some to be made slightly better (Scepter), some maybe to slightly shave the condi duration (Axe).

 

Funnily enough with Staff it's not the damage that's the best part - it's the might stacking. Line up your clones and you can easily spike up to 20+ might (together with dodge food) before going in for shatter burst. In hybrid stats that can be pretty huge burst. I think the damage of staff ambush is fine given it doesn't track and can be avoided at range by moving.

[Carighan.6758]

The only winning move is, as always, not to play.

 

GW2 is 6 years old now. If you expect the dev team to magically do a 180° and reverse their entire approach to balance, then I don't know what to tell you. It won't get any better. Especially not in an aging game such as this one.

[Tiah.3091]

> @"flog.3485" said:

> Mesmers should be summoning a little less clones if anything, rather nerfing infinite horizon.

 

Yeah, want me to tell you a secret: why mesmers spam so much clones?

They chose builds, which designed to do exclusively that.

My point is: mesmers can choose builds with zero clone generation. But **they need them**.

For IH, for distraction, damage soaking and whatever else.

And usually, by doing so, they sacrifice other really good traits.

For example, my power mesmer with IH could really make use of Superiority Complex, but instead it's forced to play that boring clone-on-dodge trait.

 

Now, why do mesmers need **NEW** clones? You could have builded your clones over time like a resource, and increase your damage gradually over the course of the battle?

Shatters, you say.

Yes, shatters is one thing, and using all your clones for shatter is ok - nothing to complain here about.

But the other reason, is that clones get killed like **SUPER-EASILY**.

 

------

So, in the end, I agree. I would gladly trade clone-generation abilities and traits for something more fun. If they reworked clone health and made them harder to kill.

There are several ways to do that.

But the easiest and the most fair way, imo - make them twice (or trice? or x10?) as vulnerable to single target attacks and twice (or x 10?) as durable to aoe attacks.

 

Because right now clones do not live even 3 seconds in massive teamfights.

[Heartpains.7312]

> @"Aslakh.3072" said:

> Infinite Horizon is already balanced and is not what people actually are worried about, what people have been complaining about is mirage cloak while stunned/knocked down etc. I wouldn't even mind not being able to mirage cloak while stunned but Infinite Horizon needs to be left alone.

 

I will be honest and say that people actually were complaining about EM not knowing the difference between mirage cloak and EM "there were several people who said mirage cloak and not EM".

[flog.3485]

> @"Tiah.3091" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > Mesmers should be summoning a little less clones if anything, rather nerfing infinite horizon.

>

> Yeah, want me to tell you a secret: why mesmers spam so much clones?

> They chose builds, which designed to do exclusively that.

> My point is: mesmers can choose builds with zero clone generation. But **they need them**.

> For IH, for distraction, damage soaking and whatever else.

> And usually, by doing so, they sacrifice other really good traits.

> For example, my power mesmer with IH could really make use of Superiority Complex, but instead it's forced to play that boring clone-on-dodge trait.

>

> Now, why do mesmers need **NEW** clones? You could have builded your clones over time like a resource, and increase your damage gradually over the course of the battle?

> Shatters, you say.

> Yes, shatters is one thing, and using all your clones for shatter is ok - nothing to complain here about.

> But the other reason, is that clones get killed like **SUPER-EASILY**.

>

> ------

> So, in the end, I agree. I would gladly trade clone-generation abilities and traits for something more fun. If they reworked clone health and made them harder to kill.

> There are several ways to do that.

> But the easiest and the most fair way, imo - make them twice (or trice? or x10?) as vulnerable to single target attacks and twice (or x 10?) as durable to aoe attacks.

>

> Because right now clones do not live even 3 seconds in massive teamfights.

 

Well honestly, you really shouldn’t bring your power mesmer in a team fight. Mesmer is best at dueling, like always. And when it comes to WvW, power burst is also best when you are roaming.

 

Complaining about being forced to take deceptive evasion because clones die too easily in team fight sounds rather odd to me. It is obviously a balance choice for mesmer to have less impact in team fights, due to the nature of clones.

 

They updated core mesmer to have clones out of phantasm as well. No need to have them also on mirage thrust. And if they are too afraid of mesmers having too few clones off my suggestion, they could reach a compromise and have sword 3 summon another clone, when you swap with the first clone for example.

 

Having more clones being summoned on a higher cooldown without the ability to spam your skill twice in a row ( and offer some counterplay because sword 3 has to land first) sounds more balanced to me than gaining a clone on mirage thrust.

[Heartpains.7312]

flog, the only issue for me when I am power mirage in group fights is retaliation, the aoe damage of power mirage is reeeaaaally good, but then again retaliation .. xD

 

Still didn't get the chance to test it more since my build actually got nerfed with the relocating and changing the signets traits, but the damage is still there for group fights etc, just less survivalability now.

[Opopanax.1803]

I like that in some ways IH brings back that "camp phantasms" gameplay in a way that I feel brings some build diversity. I like how it is now, not sure what I would think of they needed it; I'd have to see the change.

[Tiah.3091]

> @"flog.3485" said:

> Well honestly, you really shouldn’t bring your power mesmer in a team fight. Mesmer is best at dueling, like always.

Well, I read the manual, which says there are roles in spvp. One of the roles is "Roamer", whose job is to move quickly around the map and provide help where it's needed.

Can mesmer move quickly around the map? Yes, it can. With Mirage Thrust and Jaunt it's one of the fastest professions out there.

Probably I misunderstand it somehow, but my guess is that "provide help" means "participate in various teamfights, which happen around the map".

Well, again, if I understand correctly, one of the most important thing you can have in teamfight is AOE damage.

And if you have IH and 3 clones, and a trait for 15% damage from illusions, your Split Surge ambushes from GS do around 6-7k damage **per dodge** in **huge** AoE in 1200 range. AND apply 25 stacks of vulnerability to every target.

 

_This is, essentially, a long-range AoE burst and debuff ability. Pls, tell me, why do you think it's bad and shouldn't be used by mesmers? And who else in the game does it better or even capable of that?_

 

P.S.

And yes, you can still duel 1v1 with such spec with a decent success. Although, personally, I have the most troubles duelling core guards. Not sure why.

Ofc, mantra shatter or condi-cancer is better suited for that role, but fuck those specs, they are boring as hell.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Tiah.3091" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > Well honestly, you really shouldn’t bring your power mesmer in a team fight. Mesmer is best at dueling, like always.

> Well, I read the manual, which says there are roles in spvp. One of the roles is "Roamer", whose job is to move quickly around the map and provide help where it's needed.

> Can mesmer move quickly around the map? Yes, it can. With Mirage Thrust and Jaunt it's one of the fastest professions out there.

> Probably I misunderstand it somehow, but my guess is that "provide help" means "participate in various teamfights, which happen around the map".

> Well, again, if I understand correctly, one of the most important thing you can have in teamfight is AOE damage.

> And if you have IH and 3 clones, and a trait for 15% damage from illusions, your Split Surge ambushes from GS do around 6-7k damage **per dodge** in **huge** AoE in 1200 range. AND apply 25 stacks of vulnerability to every target.

>

> _This is, essentially, a long-range AoE burst and debuff ability. Pls, tell me, why do you think it's bad and shouldn't be used by mesmers? And who else in the game does it better or even capable of that?_

>

> P.S.

> And yes, you can still duel 1v1 with such spec with a decent success. Although, personally, I have the most troubles duelling core guards. Not sure why.

> Ofc, mantra shatter or condi-cancer is better suited for that role, but kitten those specs, they are boring as hell.

 

Also power mesmer is the only thing you should bring to a skirmish in WvW, because condi mesmer hits like a wet noodle against any group that brings proper condi cleanse and a power mesmer can begin to pressure them hard even at 1200 range, long before the condi mesmer even start to engage them.

[flog.3485]

> @"Tiah.3091" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > Well honestly, you really shouldn’t bring your power mesmer in a team fight. Mesmer is best at dueling, like always.

> Well, I read the manual, which says there are roles in spvp. One of the roles is "Roamer", whose job is to move quickly around the map and provide help where it's needed.

> Can mesmer move quickly around the map? Yes, it can. With Mirage Thrust and Jaunt it's one of the fastest professions out there.

> Probably I misunderstand it somehow, but my guess is that "provide help" means "participate in various teamfights, which happen around the map".

> Well, again, if I understand correctly, one of the most important thing you can have in teamfight is AOE damage.

> And if you have IH and 3 clones, and a trait for 15% damage from illusions, your Split Surge ambushes from GS do around 6-7k damage **per dodge** in **huge** AoE in 1200 range. AND apply 25 stacks of vulnerability to every target.

>

> _This is, essentially, a long-range AoE burst and debuff ability. Pls, tell me, why do you think it's bad and shouldn't be used by mesmers? And who else in the game does it better or even capable of that?_

>

> P.S.

> And yes, you can still duel 1v1 with such spec with a decent success. Although, personally, I have the most troubles duelling core guards. Not sure why.

> Ofc, mantra shatter or condi-cancer is better suited for that role, but kitten those specs, they are boring as hell.

 

Well I just think that in team fights there are way better option than power mirage (revenant, holos, reapers, guardians, e.g. classes that don’t rely on A.I).

 

I am also skeptical on your claim that you can inflict 25 stacks of vulnerability on every target. I tend rather to think, please correct me with some proof, that these 25 stacks only happen if each beam are all directed to one target.

 

Also, I don’t really understand why you seem make a distinction between what you consider to be power mirage and power shatter because as far as I know mesmer has always been operating under burst shatter builds, whether you play condi or not (unless you want to include that (in)famous season 1 HoT chrono build).

 

Really, in team fights, you should act more as a thief. You become invisible, pop your clone and poof the target goes into downstate. The benefits of IH is just there to make your clones survive longer and counting on your beam lights as your main viable source of damages sounds odd to me in SPvP.

 

When it comes to balance though, maybe it would be better for condi builds to not rely on clones. That way you could still get the high amount of clones that are necessary for power build to exist and make condi builds less obnoxious with the high amount of clones that you keep summoning and shattering.

[Tiah.3091]

> @"flog.3485" said:

> counting on your beam lights as your main viable source of damages sounds odd to me in SPvP.

 

short demo

I don't get why it's odd. It's a huge chunk of AOE damage from 1200 range. With 5-7 seconds cd, basically.

Add here the rest of the GS kit, which is all AOE as well, and you can manage a teamfight just as good as a ranger, or a deadeye. If not better at some aspects.

 

Vulnerability stacks, as you see from the video, depend on how much beams hit the target. Since there are quite a lot of targets, not all of them are hit with 3 beams, therefore, not all of them have 24 stacks of vuln.

(Although, beams hit targets between yourself and the primary target).

 

 

[flog.3485]

> @"Tiah.3091" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > counting on your beam lights as your main viable source of damages sounds odd to me in SPvP.

>

>

> short demo

> I don't get why it's odd. It's a huge chunk of AOE damage from 1200 range. With 5-7 seconds cd, basically.

> Add here the rest of the GS kit, which is all AOE as well, and you can manage a teamfight just as good as a ranger, or a deadeye. If not better at some aspects.

>

> Vulnerability stacks, as you see from the video, depend on how much beams hit the target. Since there are quite a lot of targets, not all of them are hit with 3 beams, therefore, not all of them have 24 stacks of vuln.

> (Although, beams hit targets between yourself and the primary target).

>

>

Thanks for confirming what I was saying “findind it odd that 25 vulnerability stacks would be applied to all targets hit by the beam”.