Illusionary Counter

Clone. Block the next attack, and counter by inflicting torment and creating clones that cast Ether Bolt. — In-game description

Illusionary Counter

Profession

Mesmer (skill list)

Weapon

Scepter

Type

Clone

Activ. type

Channeled

Sequence

 → 

Game link

API

API

“

2  

8

12

 

Clone. Block the next attack, and counter by inflicting torment and creating clones that cast Ether Bolt.

  Damage: 550 (1.5)^?

 ₅ Torment (8s): 880 Damage, 1,272 Damage if Foe Is Stationary

  Evade: 0.5½ seconds

  Clones Created: 2

  Clones Created: 1

  Block Duration: 2 seconds

  Range: 900

— In-game description

Related traits

Chaos

• Illusionary Defense — Gain a stacking damage reduction whenever you summon an illusion. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.

Inspiration

• Mental Defense — Cast Lesser Phantasmal Defender on your attacker when you successfully block or evade an attack.
• Illusionary Inspiration — Summoning an illusion heals all allies around you. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.

Illusions

• Compounding Power — Creating an illusion increases your outgoing damage and gives increased condition damage for a short duration. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.
• Malicious Sorcery — Increases attack speed while wielding a scepter. Reduces recharge on scepter skills.

Chronomancer

• Time Catches Up — Activating a Shatter gives your illusions superspeed. Shatters deal increased damage to movement-impaired foes.

Virtuoso

• Duelist's Reversal — Blocking or dodging an attack grants boons.
• Psychic Riposte — Blocking or dodging an attack stocks blades and causes your next Bladesong to be unblockable.

Notes

• This skill will affect the source of the attack that was blocked unless the option Skill Retargeting is enabled in which case it will instead affect your current target if they are hostile.
• The skill can be cast again before the block timer has finished to end the block and cast Counterspell.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
May 11, 2021	This skill no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Increased cooldown from 8 seconds to 12 seconds. WvW will now use the PvP version of the skill, which creates 1 clone.
December 03, 2019	Reduced the number of clones created from 2 to 1 in PvP only.
April 23, 2019	This skill now uses an 8-second cooldown in all game modes.
October 02, 2018	Fixed a bug that prevented the clones summoned by this skill from being equipped with the mesmer's off-hand weapon.
August 28, 2018	This skill now summons two clones instead of one if the mesmer successfully blocks a strike.
March 27, 2018	Reduced the cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
February 22, 2017	This skill now evades attacks during the counterattack animation.
April 19, 2016	The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. The damage from this skill has been increased by 50% when an attack is blocked. The attack activation time has been reduced by 0.2 seconds. The aftercast delay has been reduced by 0.24 seconds.
September 09, 2014	Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from receiving reduced recharge when traited with Malicious Sorcery in certain situations.
October 15, 2013	Reduced the recharge from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
June 25, 2013	This skill damage has been reduced to 50% of what it was. It now applies 5 stacks of torment for 8 seconds.
February 26, 2013	The range of the reactive part of this ability is now consistent with its indicated range.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Illusionary Counter has been added to the game.