Feedback talk:User/Guild Wars 3 perhaps/Mesmer's Phantasm Reboot

To GW3P - you just made a suggestion in a feedback discussion page, when you should have made a suggestion page of your own with respects (re:link) to this suggestion page. With that said, WOW. You're suggestion is mind-freaky awesome, pun intended. I tried playing a mesmer in BWE2 and I just didn't get it; never mind I'm not that good at a GW1 mesmer. Your idea sounds like a programming nightmare, but awesome nonetheless. In Guild Wars 3, perhaps. Ravencroft0 11:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Ravencroft. However, I have to give credit to Mcscamper for getting the ball rolling with both this suggestion and another they wrote on rethinking the Mesmer's profession-specific mechanic. Mesmer is a profession that is difficult to get right, IMHO, and Mcscamper has done a good job of identifying some of the current iteration's shortcomings. This has served as inspiration for my own ideas, but it wouldn't have happened without Mcscamper being the first to break the ice.

As to implementing the Phantasm suggestions I made above, it may not be too difficult to pull off. All of the programming and mechanics already exist, more or less. For example, making a Phantasm appear only to the target and the casting Mesmer while being invisible to everyone else would only require placing a permanent stealth effect on the Phantasm. I'm sure there are programming switches that already exist for testing purposes which allow the devs to see a stealthed Thief, for example. Simply apply the same thing to the Phantasm where the target and Mesmer are concerned. This would also solve the issue of how to make the invisible Phantasm take damage; stealth doesn't protect from damage (that I'm aware of, anyway). It also solves the problem of how to prevent anyone other than the target foe from targeting the Phantasm; if stealthed, a player - and now, the Phantasm, too - can't be targeted.

The Blink already exists; just remove the recharge where the Phantasm is concerned to permit it to always keep up with its target.

With regards to making a Phantasm take damage inflicted upon its target (if that limiter were implemented), that may require some new programming. But I imagine not too much since there's already a semi-precedent with confusion. Confusion causes players affected by this condition to take damage when attacking. So there already exists a mechanic that causes reflective damage. Now all the devs have to do is tweak that a bit to make any damage the target takes be reflected to the Phantasm as well.

It shouldn't be too hard to implement a limiter on how many Phantasms can be cast total and how many can be cast on a single target. That already exists with the current iteration of the Mesmer's illusion mechanic.

Also, I've thought of a new limiter with regards to controlling the number of Phantasms in existence at any one time (which has already been added to the original feedback post - OP). Guild Wars 3 perhaps 17:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

As I have already said on the discussion page for my own suggestion from which spawned this one, I kind of like your idea for Phantasms more than my own. My idea turns Phantasms into pseudo-pet-attack-commands that possess Clones in order to jump opponents as opposed to becoming their own entity on the battlefield. In all honesty, it's a rather lazy solution to fix the singular problem of, "Ack! I shattered my Phantasm again!" Your idea--while much more complicated--wraps up what I was trying to do in a nice little bow without really sacrificing the Phantasm's identity. I still wish that players had more control over when Phantasms activated their abilities (which is another reason why I suggested making Phantasms into simply attack commands with a recharge), but I don't think we're all going to get what we want here. To conclude, it's a great idea and solves the problem of accidental shattering while not really being too overpowered and also brings the whole "personal demon" aspect to the table.

Also, I'm quite flattered to serve as your source of inspiration for some of these suggestions, haha. Mcscamper 00:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback, Mcscamper. Really, though, your suggestions do serve as great inspiration. I'll probably never play a Mesmer; it's just not my style. Consequently, I would not have come up with these ideas if not for your lead. I just want to see all aspects of the game reach their full potential as that benefits everyone. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 02:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Other mesmer ideas

great idea OP. Other ideas I had was for my warlock class idea. Was to be able to cast illusions on enemies to make them believe their health was something it really wasnt. this causes them to change their behavior.

Amazing idea!

This is a little delayed, but wow, I have to echo the comments above - this is a phenomenal suggestion and sounds like it would be a lot of fun to play with! I must admit in the current build I'm not really enjoying the focus on phantasms because in many ways they are a new skin on a very old concept, the temporary pet, but were this suggestion implemented I think it would really make them unique and amazingly interesting.

Your proposal is extremely well thought out, eloquently justified and seems balanced to me. I do wish there was a slightly altered profession mechanic that supported both phantasm, deception and shatter builds so that you didn't have to separate the profession mechanic from this very nifty new mechanic, but that's probably beyond the scope of this suggestion. Very well done! -- Avaera 00:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much; I appreciate the feedback. Mesmer is a tough class to get right, given that it's a class built around psychological deception and misdirection acting in a visual medium. McScamper has made some excellent suggestions regarding the class mechanics which have served as inspiration for my own suggestions. If you're interested, you can read McScamper's wiki contributions here and mine here (my only additional Mesmer-related post being "Rethinking the Mesmer Mechanic V 2.0").