39 replies to this topic

[Paragonx99]

Hey I couldn't find this answered here so I was wondering:

When a clone/phantasm is overwritten due to you creating another a fourth one is it counted as killed, shattered or neither?

If it gets killed that could be amazingly useful with creation of a large number of close combat clones and some of the traits.

Thanks in advance:)

[That Happy Cat]

I think it counts as neither, but I haven't extensively tested Clone death traits so I cannot be certain. Would be interested to know as well.

[Jairyn]

I thought that, so far as things like Crippling Dissipation, Confusing Combatants, and Debilitating Dissipation go, your clones are considered killed when they are literally killed by an attack, when they die because their target did, or when they die because you summon a 4th illusion.

At least it seemed to me like it was going off all the time. Anyone else able to confirm?

If it's under any of those circumstances, it's really nice, especially for the "mobs die too fast in PvE/players die too fast in WvW" issue. If it's only when destroyed by an attack, I think they're a bit less useful.

Edited by J1083, 02 August 2012 - 05:44 PM.

[Siarsi]

I can confirm that these 'when killed/shattered' traits did not trigger from overwriting. I did extensive testing on golems with it. I use these traits in pretty much all builds I try to make.

Edited by Emma_Frost, 02 August 2012 - 10:21 AM.

[That Happy Cat]

Now I remember why I thought they don't go off on overwrite... if you take any "on Clone death" traits, Clones explode in a blast of fire when they die. This doesn't happen when they get overwritten.

[Paragonx99]

Ah fair enough, thanks:) so they do trigger on target death then?

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Emma_Frost, on 02 August 2012 - 10:20 AM, said:

I can confirm that these 'when killed/shattered' traits did not trigger from overwriting. I did extensive testing on golems with it. I use these traits in pretty much all builds I try to make.

I encountered the opposite when I was testing.

I summoned 3 sword clones on a golem, let them run up to melee with it, and then would cast illusionary leap and the Golem would suddenly gain a stack of Crippled, Confusion, and one other random condition.

Edited by Sebrent_Tehroth, 02 August 2012 - 11:33 AM.

[Paragonx99]

Well maybe it changed between weekends? Emma, Sebrent what weekends di you play in?

[Anelyn]

Both variants offer a different gameplay approach I'd say, but I'd personally prefer when they did not apply effects when replaced by another clone / phantasm because that just adds RNG as you will not have a clear view which one will be replaced, where is positioned and if it will affect any target at all, I prefer the more direct way of applying those conditions via shatters or clones being killed by players.

[That Happy Cat]

Sebrent_Tehroth, on 02 August 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

I encountered the opposite when I was testing.

I summoned 3 sword clones on a golem, let them run up to melee with it, and then would cast illusionary leap and the Golem would suddenly gain a stack of Crippled, Confusion, and one other random condition.

Did they do the exploding effect? I'm fairly certain they don't explode if they're replaced.

[Siumai]

Clone on dodge trait + sigils of energy = win?

I doubt they would change this, since they want you to have to keep track of how many clones you have as part of the profession mechanic.  Not having the clones do anything when they are replaced is a "punishment" for not keeping track of your clone numbers.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Paragonx99, on 02 August 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

Well maybe it changed between weekends? Emma, Sebrent what weekends di you play in?

I only tested it in BWE3 in the way described above.

Anelyn, on 02 August 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Both variants offer a different gameplay approach I'd say, but I'd personally prefer when they did not apply effects when replaced by another clone / phantasm because that just adds RNG as you will not have a clear view which one will be replaced, where is positioned and if it will affect any target at all, I prefer the more direct way of applying those conditions via shatters or clones being killed by players.

So you'd prefer to have 0% chance of the overwritten clone inflicting conditions in an AOE? This does not make any sense to me.

Additionally, it is not random. The "oldest" of your current 3 illusions is the one that is replaced. Not random, just harder to keep an eye on depending on the types of illusions you have out ... which, depending on if you have out melee clones or not can be moot since with all of them in melee range of your target you'll have a 100% of a clone near your target getting the conditions.

That Happy Cat, on 02 August 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Did they do the exploding effect? I'm fairly certain they don't explode if they're replaced.

I believe they did their "shatter into butterflies" animation just like when you shatter them, they die, or their target dies.

Edited by Sebrent_Tehroth, 02 August 2012 - 12:45 PM.

[Anelyn]

Ok let's say I am facing a thief or warrior (or another melee profession), I have 3 melee clones out, and they would apply conditions when replaced. If I slot the trait to get spawn a clone on dodge, then by simply dodging sayd melee enemy attacks or just dancing around him would constantly apply conditions to him without any effort from my side, and giving him no option to avoid it because he doesn't have a choice anymore. Normally he would get said conditions from a shatter or attacking and killing the clones himself. Now no matter what he does, I can put those conditions on him by simply spamming clones (be it from skills or just roll-dodge).

Personally I don't find this a fair mechanic, nor adding any skill / thought / setup to the gameplay itself.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Anelyn, on 02 August 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Ok let's say I am facing a thief or warrior (or another melee profession), I have 3 melee clones out, and they would apply conditions when replaced. If I slot the trait to get spawn a clone on dodge, then by simply dodging sayd melee enemy attacks or just dancing around him would constantly apply conditions to him without any effort from my side, and giving him no option to avoid it because he doesn't have a choice anymore. Normally he would get said conditions from a shatter or attacking and killing the clones himself. Now no matter what he does, I can put those conditions on him by simply spamming clones (be it from skills or just roll-dodge).

Personally I don't find this a fair mechanic, nor adding any skill / thought / setup to the gameplay itself.

• Even with Vigor, you can't dodge constantly
  
• Using dodge just for clone generation means you don't have it when your opponent uses a big hit on you ... hence you have traded defense for this offensive gain

[Anelyn]

Well simply considering the conditions you place on your opponent from doing this, let's say you are not in a real danger of being hit since opponent may be crippled, blinded, dazed etc.

[Jairyn]

Isn't that how clones are supposed to work? It's not like these traits come for free (at least not yet). I kind of wish they applied to phantasms, too. At least so long as it remains clones v. Phantasms v. Shatters.

I think that Deceptive Evasion can be a little potentially problematic all around and that it might be looked at. It seems like a good candidate for a grandmaster major trait, to me.

Edited by J1083, 02 August 2012 - 01:10 PM.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Anelyn, on 02 August 2012 - 12:53 PM, said:

Well simply considering the conditions you place on your opponent from doing this, let's say you are not in a real danger of being hit since opponent may be crippled, blinded, dazed etc.

Then your point is moot because I'm leveraging multiple skills (which aren't spammable) to keep my opponent off of me.
Furthermore, my opponent (if they aren't a mouthbreather) will likely have some stunbreaker(s)/condition removal(s) and/or closer(s) to allow them to get to me.

[Siarsi]

That Happy Cat, on 02 August 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Did they do the exploding effect? I'm fairly certain they don't explode if they're replaced.

That's what I was referring to. The explosion is the animation for the traited effects upon death. I didn't ever see those when I replaced illusions, only when they were shattered, killed or if the enemy they were summoned against died.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Emma_Frost, on 02 August 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

That's what I was referring to. The explosion is the animation for the traited effects upon death. I didn't ever see those when I replaced illusions, only when they were shattered, killed or if the enemy they were summoned against died.

The animation means nothing to me ... I was only caring about the effect ... the person asking the question before was asking in regards to that ... my testing shows that overflowing that results in an existing clone "dying" does trigger clone-on-death traits.

[Siarsi]

Sebrent_Tehroth, on 02 August 2012 - 05:41 PM, said:

The animation means nothing to me ... I was only caring about the effect ... the person asking the question before was asking in regards to that ... my testing shows that overflowing that results in an existing clone "dying" does trigger clone-on-death traits.

Well I was referring to the animation, because surely if it does happen the effect tied to that animation should be occurring also. If you spent less time trying to have the last word and actually paid attention, then you would have realised I meant that.

Edited by Emma_Frost, 02 August 2012 - 05:46 PM.

[Chesire]

Sebrent_Tehroth, on 02 August 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Even with Vigor, you can't dodge constantly
  
• Using dodge just for clone generation means you don't have it when your opponent uses a big hit on you ... hence you have traded defense for this offensive gain

I wouldn't even call it an offensive gain, more like pure stupidity. The conditions you apply like that aren't going to do enough to justify blindly sacrificing your dodge bar like that, even with perma vigor.

If they do apply conditions when overwritten, that's just icing on the cake, but it isn't game breaking at all.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Emma_Frost, on 02 August 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

Well I was referring to the animation, because surely if it does happen the effect tied to that animation should be occurring also. If you spent less time trying to have the last word and actually paid attention, then you would have realised I meant that.

Well that was an assumption you made which was obviously incorrect since the "lack of animation" did not dictate whether the on-cloth-death traits were triggered ... you could have mentioned that you did not actually test the on-clone-death traits and were just talking about the "animation" ...

The OP was asking about what it counted at because they wanted to know about if/how it would interact with traits ... take a look.

Paragonx99, on 02 August 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

Hey I couldn't find this answered here so I was wondering:

When a clone/phantasm is overwritten due to you creating another a fourth one is it counted as killed, shattered or neither?

If it gets killed that could be amazingly useful with creation of a large number of close combat clones and some of the traits.

Thanks in advance:)

See those last two sentences? It isn't about having the last word, it's about answering the OP correctly.

Chesire, on 02 August 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

I wouldn't even call it an offensive gain, more like pure stupidity. The conditions you apply like that aren't going to do enough to justify blindly sacrificing your dodge bar like that, even with perma vigor.

If they do apply conditions when overwritten, that's just icing on the cake, but it isn't game breaking at all.

I wouldn't call it pure stupidity ... it does depend on the current flow of the fight (you may have them against the ropes, their big stuff may be on cooldown, etc.). However, in many cases I do agree that just dodging to create a clone is a waste of a clutch ability.

I also agree that conditions are just icing on the cake.

[Blowi]

Yep. If you override a clone it's just gone, doesn't trigger a "cripple on death" or something like that.

A thing people should keep in mind though is that if you have 3 clones up, activate Mind Wreck on those you can summon new illusions/phantasms without losing those already set to explode for a shatter effect.

[Jairyn]

I'm just going to take a moment to reaffirm that, as of this stress test, I can trigger clone on death traits via illusion death, target death, or illusion overwriting. I get the little burst of fire and everything, all three ways.

I wish the fire was purple and still had a hint of butterflies, a la The Prestige.

I love these traits so much. These + Illusionary Persona make everything ok.

Edited by J1083, 02 August 2012 - 08:57 PM.

[Blowi]

I wish I could play stress test, damn you family vacation!

[That Happy Cat]

Clones do indeed explode when overwritten. And yeah, they should really change the effect to The Prestige's purple fire.

[LUDAK987654]

Hm at least now that trait +dmg ,def fro each illusion gives more sense , just a bit more
I never did try to keep illusions up for very long ,shatter for heal and dmg as soon as they r up.
Interesting thing to test in future.

[Chesire]

LUDAK987654, on 03 August 2012 - 12:24 AM, said:

Hm at least now that trait +dmg ,def fro each illusion gives more sense , just a bit more
I never did try to keep illusions up for very long ,shatter for heal and dmg as soon as they r up.
Interesting thing to test in future.

As I don't shatter much and know roughly what my damage is like, I'm definitely going to give Compounding Power another try with my current build.

[Paragonx99]

Blowi, on 02 August 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

A thing people should keep in mind though is that if you have 3 clones up, activate Mind Wreck on those you can summon new illusions/phantasms without losing those already set to explode for a shatter effect.

That's very interesting I hadn't thought much about that but also thanks guys I tried it out in the stress test last night and I agree I seem to be getting the "death" effects when over-writing which is really nice as it adds a new possible tactics.

Many thanks:)

[Delolith]

J1083, on 02 August 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

Crippling Dissipation, Confusing Combatants, and Debilitating Dissipation go, your clones are considered killed when they are literally killed by an attack, when they die because their target did, or when they die because you summon a 4th illusion.

I can confirm that this is 100% correct.