need some profession advice

[CrunkJuice]

ok so,i like the whole deception thing that mesmers have.but i dont really like the shatter mechanic they have

do they have a class that would be just like a mesmer only without the clone shattering.it seems like from askin around theres really no viable way to play a mesmer without shattering

[harniq]

ok so,i like the whole deception thing that mesmers have.but i dont really like the shatter mechanic they have

do they have a class that would be just like a mesmer only without the clone shattering.it seems like from askin around theres really no viable way to play a mesmer without shattering

There's no viable way to play an engineer without blowing up your turrets after every fight. At least clones follow you around.

[Mehtis]

Mesmer clones do not follow you around. They disappear after their target dies (or they get killed). Thief can be seen as a bit like mesmer, messing with people by stealthing, but they still are working on balancing classes so maybe during BWE3 mesmer shatters have been made better.

[Alaris]

Thief would be the closest to the gameplay, a bit more armor, a bit more close-range, and definitely quite a bit of deception and shutdown afaik.

You don't need to shatter clones to be viable, you could instead keep them in play and build that way. You'd probably want to shatter them as a finisher anyway (use them or lose them) but you don't have to shatter them all the time.

This is really the only two alternatives that use deception in a major way.

[CrunkJuice]

hmm,how would i build a mesmer to keep them in play.like,normally when i make mesmer builds i just dont put any trait points into illusions but is that pretty much how or is there another way

and thief was another class i was lookin at playin i was just wonderin in case i end up makin a thief and not liking it.mesmer would of probably been my other choice of professions to try

[kokabel]

Give them all a try and see what you like? It doesn't take much to delete and re-roll, and it should be fairly obvious in the first 10 levels or so if the class is to your liking or not, and then it's not too much time invested into it if you don't like it.

[Alaris]

Please consider that mesmers and shatters in particular might change (somewhat) before release... but I assume it'll be more in the details than in the actual general play.

It seems that there are many traits that make illusions stronger (or make you stronger when you have illusions up), or that they give off some effect when they are killed (but not necessarily shattered).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_mesmer_traits

In theory, you could build a mesmer that would not get much trait buffs in terms of shattering, and rather would get mainly trait buffs for maintaining 3 illusions up at all times. This I think would be closer to the GW1 mesmer gameplay where you overload your foe with hexes, but instead of overloading them you keep 3 up at all times.

I assume that it would work fairly well, but of course, we don't have good data on what the optimal builds are... I found though in the press beta that keeping the illusions up and hitting the shatters only when my target was about to die worked well as a strategy. Shattering every time I had 3 illusions up by comparison didn't seem to get kills much faster, because the illusions (especially phantasms) do damage over time that was roughly balanced with the spike of the shatter.

Agreed with Kokabel, though I wouldn't delete and re-roll, I would just make two characters one thief one mesmer and spend more time on the one I enjoy best. In fact, I'll be juggling 6 of them so...

[kokabel]

Well, if it was one thing I learned from GW1, is that I can't judge a profession by its cover, as it were. I never thought I would see myself playing melee in GW1, having always played some sort of caster in every fantasy-themed game I ever tried - then I tried it, and found out that actually, I rather liked it. Some stuff has taken me by surprise, even with GW2 - I never expected to enjoy Guardian, for example, and I'm glad I tried it out now.

In other words, surprise yourself, you never know what you might find really cool.