Guild Wars 2: Mesmer Thoughts

Mesmer for Guild Wars 2 was officially released a day ago, to the shock and surprise of everyone following the profession releases in detail*. As the title suggests, these are my thoughts.

Special Mechanics

Illusions and clones as minion bombers are an odd mechanic to wrap my head around. They do seem somewhat weaker, in a sense, since many apparently get dispelled easily, and it is hard to tell how strong they will be in raw damage compared to, say, exploding necromancer minions. On they other hand, it does seem illusions and associated skills will get a range of "soft" advantages that, if balanced well, will make them powerful as a profession specific mechanic.

Another concern I have is the illusion generating skills may not be a natural part of some play styles, and thus might not be as easily used as other profession mechanics are.

Illusions working like hexes is something I'd guessed (among several other people). I do wonder whether the problem with hexes (lots of different effects to memorize.) will come back to a lesser extent with illusions, though perhaps they were weak enough to not be too much of an issue.

Illusions, immersion wise, do fit quite well with how I'd imagine a mesmer would work, and the animations, sounds, and description fits quite well in the small details.


Weapons

Though the mesmer does generally fit my predictions (though I guessed it would have daggers, and would not have pistols or a greatsword), the actual choices feel somewhat like a random weapons grab bag, without a strong theme. Some other classes (necromancer, ranger), feel this way as well, but not quite as much. The pistol, in particular, seems a strange one, it doesn't seem to "fit" well with the illusion based, somewhat subtle, mesmer. This is a pretty minor issue, though, and I'll probably experiment with all weapons if I get the game, as with other classes.

As always, I'll be curious what the specific skills and weapon roles are. I'm somewhat curious to see if some of the direct damage spells are called things like "mind blast", "mind shock", and such, associated with direct psychic attacks.


Graphics and Sound

The graphics shown so far work well, fitting with the Original Guild wars mesmer, and how I'd expect this one to work.

The sound for some of the attack skills is more grating than the loud sounds for other classes, am wondering how this will work out in game.