Guild Wars 2

“Mimic … will now copy all boons on your target to yourself.”

-September Feature Patch

Well that’s… certainly different.

Not really to sure about how I feel about this one. One one hand, Mimic was rarely used and even when it was it was almost never used for it’s actual stated effect. On the other hand, I can’t really see myself using the new version of Mimic either. In fact, it seems like this isn’t really much of a buff at all but more of a nerf to interesting, creative WvW builds like:

Pyroathiest’s The Zergmower

Ross Biddle’s The Holy Hell Build

These builds use Mimic’s secondary effect (blocks all incoming damage) in combination with Runes of the Guardian (Burn on Block) to do damage in largescale and small scale fights. With Mimic’s change, these builds will unfortunately go extinct.

And what will take their place? Is Mimic going to outshine Decoy, Blink, Null Field, Feedback, Signet of Inspiration/Illusions, or Portal? If it’s cooldown gets raised, I highly doubt it. Right now, Mimic is on a 25s CD which may be it’s only saving grace in the steep competition for utility slots. I can see myself maybe running this dollar-store Arcane Thievery if I can trait it to be on a 20s CD, but in what build? Versus which classes? … Hold on wait a sec

…. OH MY GAWD! SUCK IT THIEVES!

Okay, copying Guardians, Warriors, Thieves, Ranger (Elite), and Necros (Elite) on a 20-25s cooldown may actually be rather interesting. Especially in a boonshare build.. Hell, this skill would give more benefit than Bountiful Disillusionment even if we were to constantly blow all our shatters the moment they’re off CD.

So it does have use, assuming the cooldown isn’t raised, but is this really an improvement? Personally I’d rather it simply block/absorb/store the last attack launched at you rather than only projectiles, some bosses notwithstanding.What do you think?

Mimic is on a 25s cooldown. It’s 20s traited.

Also, unless it has no cast time, it’s probably going to be hard to use effectively, especially versus auto-boon procs, because they don’t tend to have long durations. Although it will be nice to use it vs SoR (maybe that’s why they dropped the duration to 25s? dundundunnn)

I can actually see this being nice in HotW so that I would get 6 stacks of Permamight instead of the normal 3. Heck, if the fight lasts long enough, I can give myself 25 stacks of Permamight (only for the Guard to use Empower and make me flip out).

Woah…
What if Mimic copied their boons… and Echo placed them on you? O.O Stab on command!

Esplen.3940:

Mimic is on a 25s cooldown. It’s 20s traited.

Also, unless it has no cast time, it’s probably going to be hard to use effectively, especially versus auto-boon procs, because they don’t tend to have long durations. Although it will be nice to use it vs SoR (maybe that’s why they dropped the duration to 25s? dundundunnn)

I can actually see this being nice in HotW so that I would get 6 stacks of Permamight instead of the normal 3. Heck, if the fight lasts long enough, I can give myself 25 stacks of Permamight (only for the Guard to use Empower and make me flip out).

Woah…
What if Mimic copied their boons… and Echo placed them on you? O.O Stab on command!

If you can get stab on demand, Mesmer’s no longer need to rely on having multiple stun breaks on their bar.

In the past I’ve always run the golden three, decoy, blink, arcane thievery. Lately I’ve forgone on a condi remove in place of Mantra of Distraction, and had traited torch in a 5, 4, 4. I to am skeptical about a new Mimic who’s function is to steal all boons. It’ll be a great counter to thieves steal, but if the CD is high I won’t be taking it. If all it does is steal all boons, I won’t be taking it. If Arcane Thievery has its CD reduced, I’d probably take that instead. We’ll just have to wait and see what it looks like.

hope its unblovkable and unevadeable

Thanks Esplen, I edited the original post!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

…. OH MY GAWD! SUCK IT THIEVES!

Finally we can steal, i ment copy, back the boons, thieves are “stealing(F1)” from us.

I honestly think, the new mimic is kind of lame. Yes, the old one was rarely used, but at least, it was a “creative” skill. Like Chaos said “dollar store arcance thievery” (btw: who is using arcance thievery a lot?).

I honestly don’t know, what’s the point of the new mimic.
Versus professions which don’t rely much on boons —> useless
Versus profession which rely much on boons --> ok, you now also have those boons. But this won’t weaken your foe, which will also have better ways to maintain his boos / profit from them.

The new mimic is just another skill which relies too much on your foe to fullfill certain requirements in order to be usefull.

Well, Ross, the problem with stab on demand is that it’s not a reaction, it’s a preaction. You have to activate the stab before you get hit by cc, not as a response. With a stunbreak, you can use it as a response, even if it gives you stability.

I just hope they don’t get rid of Echo. Heck, make Echo an Elite that casts your last-used skill… including auto attacks, Phantasms, and Heal skills.

@EE, I think the problem with AT is that it can be blinded, evaded, LoS’ed, LoS’ed with clear vision, and generally unpredictable. As a condition “removal”, it’s necessary for it to work and not be a Please -InsertRacialBeliefs-, work! skill.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Esplen.3940:

Mimic is on a 25s cooldown. It’s 20s traited.

Also, unless it has no cast time, it’s probably going to be hard to use effectively, especially versus auto-boon procs, because they don’t tend to have long durations. Although it will be nice to use it vs SoR (maybe that’s why they dropped the duration to 25s? dundundunnn)

I can actually see this being nice in HotW so that I would get 6 stacks of Permamight instead of the normal 3. Heck, if the fight lasts long enough, I can give myself 25 stacks of Permamight (only for the Guard to use Empower and make me flip out).

Woah…
What if Mimic copied their boons… and Echo placed them on you? O.O Stab on command!

If you can get stab on demand, Mesmer’s no longer need to rely on having multiple stun breaks on their bar.

In the past I’ve always run the golden three, decoy, blink, arcane thievery. Lately I’ve forgone on a condi remove in place of Mantra of Distraction, and had traited torch in a 5, 4, 4. I to am skeptical about a new Mimic who’s function is to steal all boons. It’ll be a great counter to thieves steal, but if the CD is high I won’t be taking it. If all it does is steal all boons, I won’t be taking it. If Arcane Thievery has its CD reduced, I’d probably take that instead. We’ll just have to wait and see what it looks like.

-> COPY not steal

I need to see all the exact changes theyre doing, but holy crap this looks amazing. After 2 years we finally got some love

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

I need to see all the exact changes theyre doing, but holy crap this looks amazing. After 2 years we finally got some love

How can you be that optimistic after 2 years?

Quote:

“For this update, we’re looking at improving multiple traits, utility skills, weapon skills, and illusions. "

Weren’t they also looking at improving iWarden?

EverythingEnds.4261:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

I need to see all the exact changes theyre doing, but holy crap this looks amazing. After 2 years we finally got some love

How can you be that optimistic after 2 years?

Quote:

“For this update, we’re looking at improving multiple traits, utility skills, weapon skills, and illusions. "

Weren’t they also looking at improving iWarden?

As I said, they look amazing on paper, but we need to see what theyre exactly doing.

My personal opinion?
I think somebody got confused and wrote Mimic instead of Arcane Thievery. Yep, I’m pretty sure this is all a typo.

Not saying it would be bad, but it feels kind of out of nowhere. If this change was done to Arcane Thievery instead, it would make sense.

Now, assuming this isn’t a typo, I think this change can actually be quite good. I might miss having that 4 second block[Though I don’t think I ever really used Mimic]. If we had the block and the boons… I don’t know. Seems like that would be too good to be true.

And, on that note, it would be overlapping Arcane Thievery. They would be both boon copiers with only slightly different application. How, exactly, will Arcane Thievery differentiate itself from the new Mimic? Or, is this meant to be on purpose to create a new facet for boon-sharing mesmers. If so, we would become something of boon parasites which steal and copy boons from the enemy only to multiply them across our whole team, which is a cool idea, but might funnel support builds in PvP(maybe).

And there I was, rubbing my hands after I heard that Rangers projectile- and attack speeds would get a huge buff. Finally a great spot for good ol’ Mimic, I thought. :P

Well, as I already stated in the other thread, I think the new Mimic is too similar to Archane Thievery (at least from what we know). Not only that, it’s inferior imo. Sure, AT is limited to three boons, but it’s ripping them PLUS it’s an offensive condition removal. Hopefully there’s a cool secondary mechanic (like Echo). They won’t reduce the cooldown of the skill by much (if at all), since it’s already at 25s (traited 20s). I can’t see why I would take that over a 36s Arcane Thievery?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the new Mimic is bad (again, from what we know at the moment). It’s just that AT outshines it due to similar (and in most cases, superior) functionality. Also, olde Mimic had awesome FX with a cool animation, I can’t see how they gonna keep that with the new change.

In the end, I wanna see two Mesmers fighting each other, both having Arcane Thievery AND the new Mimic equipped, copying and stealing boons like there’s no tomorrow.
Add further Mesmers with Signet of Inspiration to both teams for maximum lulz.

Luckily that’s just one change. I ain’t grumpy, let’s see what else they got.

Why would the CD stay the same after a complete redesign?

A good bunker (or just general player) isn’t going to spam all boon skills (except for an ecto eater) so while steal ALL the boons sounds enticing, it’s not really going to happen. And for the few cases you get a huge list of boons, most of those are going to fall off within 2-5 seconds. The big steal would be long duration might/fury that mostly come from blast finishers or signet of rage. This puts the mesmer on a gamble of whether to build around this utility or not because it won’t function that well vs most builds unless it has a really short CD like 10 seconds and an instant cast. Signet of inspiration also exacerbates the problem by taking up 1 more slot that may also become useless and also just having too long of a CD. If mimic does have a cast time and you also use inspiration, most boons will be gone by the time you can actually share them.

And if you do copy a huge list of amazing boons and duration, that just means your enemy is in beastly mode with all skills on CD and that hasn’t changed. It would have been better to remove/steal the boons to benefit your whole team. If you are running boon shatter and mimic, then those two skills are also at odds with each other unless again, the CD for mimic becomes really short/instant cast to compete with your burst of boon removal.

How would stuff like retal stack? Does it count the boons stolen as a single stack or would the game actually keep track of the fact that you stole several stacks of retal? Cause if it counted as a single stack then maybe mimic+ thievery could get some use by effectively doubling the boon duration and at least with blink, you could trait 3 manipulations and also have a bit of condi removal. That’s the only way I see this working in niche builds that wouldn’t hold up in tPvP.

On a side note, I look forward to mimicing some weird boons in PvE. It’s what let mesmers turn into elementalist drakes in gw1. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the mesmer was able to mimic an enemy that was just turned into a moa >.< and get some bird on bird action.

Considering how few skills each profession has, why change Mimic to do something so similar to Arcane Thievery?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Why would the CD stay the same after a complete redesign?

A good bunker (or just general player) isn’t going to spam all boon skills (except for an ecto eater) so while steal ALL the boons sounds enticing, it’s not really going to happen. And for the few cases you get a huge list of boons, most of those are going to fall off within 2-5 seconds. The big steal would be long duration might/fury that mostly come from blast finishers or signet of rage. This puts the mesmer on a gamble of whether to build around this utility or not because it won’t function that well vs most builds unless it has a really short CD like 10 seconds and an instant cast. Signet of inspiration also exacerbates the problem by taking up 1 more slot that may also become useless and also just having too long of a CD. If mimic does have a cast time and you also use inspiration, most boons will be gone by the time you can actually share them.

And if you do copy a huge list of amazing boons and duration, that just means your enemy is in beastly mode with all skills on CD and that hasn’t changed. It would have been better to remove/steal the boons to benefit your whole team. If you are running boon shatter and mimic, then those two skills are also at odds with each other unless again, the CD for mimic becomes really short/instant cast to compete with your burst of boon removal.

How would stuff like retal stack? Does it count the boons stolen as a single stack or would the game actually keep track of the fact that you stole several stacks of retal? Cause if it counted as a single stack then maybe mimic+ thievery could get some use by effectively doubling the boon duration and at least with blink, you could trait 3 manipulations and also have a bit of condi removal. That’s the only way I see this working in niche builds that wouldn’t hold up in tPvP.

On a side note, I look forward to mimicing some weird boons in PvE. It’s what let mesmers turn into elementalist drakes in gw1. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the mesmer was able to mimic an enemy that was just turned into a moa >.< and get some bird on bird action.

It’d probably treat the boons the same as if you gained them from any other source. And as for matching with Signet of Inspiration.. I don’t even think I’d do that unless the CD was 20s or less. It’d replace Null Field (or other condi removal) and I’d have to find another less-effective way to cleanse conditions.

All and all the change just feels … kinda lazy.

We are currently in a meta where people build tanky and stack might, which means that this skill could be extremely useful, since mesmers have issues stacking might outside of sigil/runes and can utilize the might in a shatter build. I think its viability will come from two things: whether or not it is a stunbreaker and how long the recharge for the skill is.

In PvP it’s hard to imagine a build without portal or blink because of how strong the skills are, which means that Mimic will be fighting for a place in the third utility slot, against skills like Decoy or Arcane Thievery.

I do think that this skill is much better in design compared to the current version of mimic. Hopefully it will be implemented well.

The only way I can see Mimic working is if it stores the copied boons in Echo for use at any time.

Otherwise, looks like Anet rerolled their Warriors to be Rangers and don’t want to get cheesed by Mimic.

All im gonna say is mimicing d/d eles and bunker guards will be delicious. Those 2 builds have so many boons its crazy and being able to copy those 25 stacks of might plus other juicy boons (for a d/d ele, almost every boon besides aegis) so I mean im completely fine with this change. Other alternatives would be copying rampage as one for 20 seconds of stab, fury, and might, just thought about that.

I hope the boons will be stored and can be used by Echo, though that won’t make much more people take it, as it would be very situational. Arcane Thiefery does this job better, but oh well let’s wait for further information.
Maybe we will be even able to steal buffs like stances or transforms(only 1 ofc) and cast it on demand? I doubt it, but won’t give up my hopes.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

All im gonna say is mimicing d/d eles and bunker guards will be delicious. Those 2 builds have so many boons its crazy and being able to copy those 25 stacks of might plus other juicy boons (for a d/d ele, almost every boon besides aegis) so I mean im completely fine with this change. Other alternatives would be copying rampage as one for 20 seconds of stab, fury, and might, just thought about that.

it really depends on the cd. If base cd too high. This change might be another nerf

I would take this skill at 30s cd or less over arcane thievery, provided small or no cast time. Why?

1. I don’t take AT for cleanse, ever.
2. AT is overwhelmingly greedy and unreliable on 40s cooldown.
3. Synergizes with Signet of Inspiration, which I really feel like is the most unique active signet in the game – I would like to see SoI become our trademark, really.
4. Mimic → Shattered Concentration. I don’t care if most of my new boons are 2s or less, I was aiming for your 15s Fury/Might/Stability anyway for the kill.

If Mimic is higher cooldown, or Arcane Thievery becomes significantly lower/unblindable/is buffed in general, I’m less certain. It is absolutely true that we cannot really make a judgement before seeing the rest of our changes – but if we got the new Mimic today(with current cooldown), I would absolutely take it.

Well I think this kills it for me… yet another stab to my reflect build. And how will you get retribution on block(Retaliatory Shield) now since I’m guessing 2 sources of block will be removed with the scepter change?

This just isn’t my Mesmer anymore. We are losing our uniqueness and being dumbed down into obscurity. Soon there won’t be anything mesmerizing about our class at all just another only 1 viable build kitten fest. I was looking at ArcheAge last week and said to myself, nope I still love my Mesmer despite the crippling bugs, I have faith, I was even thinking of going crazy and buying enough gems to get Zap.

You’ve nuked my Glamor build, your hampered and hamstringed my Mantra build and now your starting to drop more bomba on my alternate Reflect build. I just don’t know if I have the heart to care anymore. I’ll keep an eye on what actually happens but I’m pretty sure this will be a great excuse for a clean break from GW2 for me.

You guys realize there’s no proof Mimic is actually losing current functionality, right? I’m not saying be optimistic, but don’t start writing your obituaries yet.

For all we know, Mimic will actually only copy boons on projectile block(which would make me change my tune on it), and then work exactly the same from there.

Just… relax. We know nothing right now beyond a one sentence blurb that leaves a LOT to the imagination.

For what little information we’ve gotten on it. I’m not to thrilled. AT is one of few “mesmery” skills we have. Based on ANet’s track history and the Mesmer.. They’ll change Mimic to a boon copier with a 30 second cooldown and leave AT in its current too long cooldown, unreliable state.

All they need to do was improve Arcane Thievery and change Mimic to a similiar skill as it is now. There have been tons of ideas on these forums.

Keep it a channeled spell UNTIL we receive that first projectile. Then end the channel, but keep a blocking dome up for the remainder of the 4 seconds. SO there’s a some “timing” involved. If you time correctly, you absorb the project at the beginning of your cast and then for the remaining 4 sec duration, your in your bubble blocking all attacks. Or any of the other dozens of ideas that have been thrown around.

Now we’ll end up wit skill that’s “kind of like Arcane Theivery” but not. And AT go even further into that good night.

Idk, how about we actually absorb the first projectile instead of tanking it to the face?

Want that kill shot? You have to have enough health to survive it! Can’t use Invulnerability because now you break projectiles when they hit you, so you don’t store it! Same with Aegis!

I’m i’m correct, and it works like corrupt boon, you will only copy the boons, and not the duration, wich will make the skill MASSIVELY weak. 20 sec stability, copy? no thanks, you get 4 sec. 50 sec might on enemy? no thanks, you get 20 sec. 10 sec protection? you get 4. etc.

Wvw lately (sfr at least), is turning into a retaliation fest. Go as tanky as possible, and just retaliate the enemies to dead. I could use guardian to do it, but guardian is boring for me. I’ve been thinking about making a retaliation build. Since thiefs, ranger, warrior, ele, have almost no retal, they fall off. Guardian boring, necro not my thing (not good enough mobility, even though they are nasty in full vitality/thoughness gear with a full DS bar), so that leaves mesmer. They have some source of retaliation, but not that great. Perhaps mimic, will be our best source in zerg vs zerg, cause lot of enemies will have tons of duration on it, wich is exactly what you need to tag a lot of enemies. Get hit 4x by every enemy, and you will tag the whole zerg, how easy is that? just make a tanky build to support it.

I’ve been running a boon share Mesmer for the last week. It’s pretty effective in combination with shout guardians.

This would probably be its best use, but I can’t see myself getting rid of Nullfield (condi removal & boon rip), Signet of Midnight (stun-break + boon upkeep) or Signet of Inspiration (duh).

The CD is going to be really important here, because in most other scenarios, it’s simply a poor man’s Arcane Thievery. Still, i’m VERY excited for changes to a utility skill that is essentially never used.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I’m i’m correct, and it works like corrupt boon, you will only copy the boons, and not the duration, wich will make the skill MASSIVELY weak. 20 sec stability, copy? no thanks, you get 4 sec. 50 sec might on enemy? no thanks, you get 20 sec. 10 sec protection? you get 4. etc.

Wvw lately (sfr at least), is turning into a retaliation fest. Go as tanky as possible, and just retaliate the enemies to dead. I could use guardian to do it, but guardian is boring for me. I’ve been thinking about making a retaliation build. Since thiefs, ranger, warrior, ele, have almost no retal, they fall off. Guardian boring, necro not my thing (not good enough mobility, even though they are nasty in full vitality/thoughness gear with a full DS bar), so that leaves mesmer. They have some source of retaliation, but not that great. Perhaps mimic, will be our best source in zerg vs zerg, cause lot of enemies will have tons of duration on it, wich is exactly what you need to tag a lot of enemies. Get hit 4x by every enemy, and you will tag the whole zerg, how easy is that? just make a tanky build to support it.

Mesmers are no good for retaliation. That said, individuals don’t need to build for retaliation. A raid force or zerg simply stacks, drops light fields, and blasts. Everybody has retal and in anticipation for the enemy force to push or burst, they melt themselves while your force swaps to blasting water fields.

Thus no need to “build for it”, in an organized force it’s an available strategy.

Mesmers can be really good for retaliation if you trait for it. There’s lots of sources, actually. Multiple ways through shatters, through blocks, phantasms. etc.

When the new pvp map came out, I made a retal Mesmer that worked gloriously. I don’t wvw, but I always imagined that’s what it’s like but on a smaller scale.

I wonder if you could use the new mimic on allies aswell (doubtful, but…)

This idea sounds terrible. Give us a blast finish at least that is semi useful. Even if you copy tons of boons for a short period of time, then having your utility go on cool down. I would rather stripe boons off the enemy instead of matching their boons.

As the most hated light armor class by Anet. Not like we can out heal eles and necros.

The community lead must be reading the wrong forums. Mesmer community wants something useful? blast finish on greatsword? let’s nerf ileap instead.

I think they must feed off our broken dreams…

this skill could work awesome if a proper cd, and usable on allys, so u can control it more instead randomly hoping to fight against smth boonfull..

We don’t know what other reworks are going into effect, so let’s not be too negative, Captain! I’m hoping they give us a blast finisher on GS somehow.

MailMail.6534:

Mesmers can be really good for retaliation if you trait for it. There’s lots of sources, actually. Multiple ways through shatters, through blocks, phantasms. etc.

When the new pvp map came out, I made a retal Mesmer that worked gloriously. I don’t wvw, but I always imagined that’s what it’s like but on a smaller scale.

I agree, but then I never said there’s little way for a Mesmer to gain retal. The problem for mesmers is absorbing hits to proc it while you have it up.

In small scale, or 1v1 it has its place. But you’re talking zerg combat, and in zerg combat in the thick of the melee is where Mesmers suck most.

I think this change to Mimic should be coupled with tweaks in Arcane Thievery somehow. These two skills can become redundant when using together and it simply doesn’t help if someone want to trait for Manipulation skills.

keenlam.4753:

I think this change to Mimic should be coupled with tweaks in Arcane Thievery somehow. These two skills can become redundant when using together and it simply doesn’t help if someone want to trait for Manipulation skills.

This is my concern too. I think the proposed changes aren’t a bad idea, but as you stated the redundancy with arcane thievery could make it pointless, or even worse. Stealing boons is definitely more potent that copying boons, especially since you transfer conditions with arcane thievery as well. We’ll obviously still need more information though as we literally have only one sentence from a blog post.

I’m more interested in what will happen to the follow up skill, Echo. Will it just be removed from the game? I was thinking it could exist as a follow up that copies boons from yourself to allies, although that functionality is already on signet of inspiration. I’d be kind of sad if it was simply removed from the game since it has nostalgia factor, but I guess it would be better to have a functional mimic than having echo that has no real use.

Mimic is easily the most underrated skill for the mesmer at the moment. Yes, the first shot you store is basically useless, but everything that hits you after you store that initial shot is also reflected immediately. This ability is invaluable to mesmers if you ask me.

That being said, this new change is completely (and I stress COMPLETELY) pointless.
This change to mimic will make it even less used than it already is. For starters Arcane Thievery already does this exact thing, but with the added bonus of purging the enchantments off of your target. Second, you can use Null Zone to remove enchantments as well, but it also doubles as a condition remover, and ethereal field for allies. This change will not make Mimic more popular it will flat out make it useless.

Ross Biddle.2367:

MailMail.6534:

Mesmers can be really good for retaliation if you trait for it. There’s lots of sources, actually. Multiple ways through shatters, through blocks, phantasms. etc.

When the new pvp map came out, I made a retal Mesmer that worked gloriously. I don’t wvw, but I always imagined that’s what it’s like but on a smaller scale.

I agree, but then I never said there’s little way for a Mesmer to gain retal. The problem for mesmers is absorbing hits to proc it while you have it up.

In small scale, or 1v1 it has its place. But you’re talking zerg combat, and in zerg combat in the thick of the melee is where Mesmers suck most.

Ahh gotcha! That makes sense.

please leave this skill alone, it’s one of the best ways to kill a condi theif.. cheers

I actually like Mimic as it is. Great for soloing dungeons.

I can kind of see a danger to this new mimic skill with AT. You can really do some major damage to some class.

I can almost see a cry for nerf to this. I just hope not. My reasons is,

Copy boon with Mimic then trip boon with AT, leaving the player very open to some major damage.

Mimic can also lead to parm boon or full stacks of boons on a mez, add it with SOI in a team support build and you are really talking big problem for the other player/team.

If you are going with a team game, Mez/Gard or Mez/War will always roll together.

Simple scenario
Mez – copies boon with mimic,
Mez – Strip boon with null field,
Mez – copies all boon to allies,

Gard or War,
Boon about to finish, recast their boon. either getting stacks or refresh boon.

Add boon duration …

you get me thinking.

To think about it, this can easy go wrong if not balance or implemented correctly .

I hope am wrong here, I just don’t want this to be like Power Block all over again.

I am going to wait till it is out, give it a week or so and see it they nerf it or not.

I’m not surprised. It’s known they do the exact opposite of what any forum-active player asks. Eles wanted more in-built survivability options … they got a Water GM that makes outgoing heals better. Mesmers wanted bug fixes, and a bit less AI-fest … they get a busted Warden, mangled ILeap, and altered Mimic. Honestly, I’m glad I finally got TERA working again. Not a perfectly balanced game, but the combat system is pretty darn fun. Not to mention, some of the next gen MMOs (Bless, Black Desert, ArcheAge, and arguably EQN) don’t look half-bad.
If nothing else, I’ve got other options to wait out ANet’s abysmally slow balancing. /shrug

This is amazing. My guild has been giving me crap about reading the forums and giving any weight at all to the negativity, but only now am I seeing the negativity as both unjustified and being based on incomplete information.

First of all, to people crying over the skill change: With a show of hands, how many of you were using the skill for the reasons stated in the tooltip? I’m going to guess none of you, because most of the point behind the skill was in the completely unstated channelled block. After iLeap happened, were you guys really still using this skill and thinking “yeah, this is totally going to work exactly like this forever”?

Second: Again, we don’t know if the skill is going to lose functionality at all. I’m certainly not optimistic in that regard, but until at LEAST the stream preview, we only know what the skill gains in the coming patch.

Third: And how would this skill even be overpowered in the supposed new form? It’s weak to itself, and the Mimic+Signet combo costs 2/3rds of our meaningful utility slots. It’s a definite contender for taking one of those slots, but using two slot skills on one trick that is nearly perfectly countered by Null Field/Shattered Concentration? I think it’ll definitely counter the boon submeta in bunker and celestial builds, but it’s not exactly a skill/combo with no answer.

We need more information, not just about this one skill, but the entire patch. Anyone making judgements this early beyond mere theory is placing a lot of weight on a fairly ambiguous one sentence blurb. Aye, it lists the new effect, and it uses a word as scary as “rework”. Until we see a tooltip that says “Mimic” with a description of “copy all target’s boons” (full stop), we know neither what the full extent of the skill is, nor how it will be used. It could be a projectile. It could be a Scepter 3-like channelled skill, copying in peices at a time. It could have a range of 10 inches, or 10 miles. We don’t even necessarily know if it will still be a Manipulation skill; for all we know, it might be moved to Glamour, or even be a weird Phantasm(less expectant of that one personally, just making a point).

Take a grain of salt with a bag of salt for now.

Well, Kadj. My issues in this situation are the same as they are in general. Namely that it really does seem that these folks take a dog’s age to modify things that -if modification were needed- should’ve honestly been handled quite some time ago. Sometimes GW2 does feel like the past couple of years were an extended beta. As for your listed points?

1. I’d argue that it is a matter of timing. Hell, when you’ve been stuck working around an ostensibly “broken” skill for this much time, and there’s a sudden “incoming fix” or alteration, it does make a body start to wonder. Especially when other things have been underperforming for the same amount of time (hello, Curtain Swiftness), yet have not been addressed.
2. Trusting these gents and ladies, RE: functionality being added -instead of being removed- comes down to the known track record of how many Mesmer bugs and abilities are addressed. The paranoia comes from what many of our side of the fence have seen, up until this point in time.
3. Here, you and I completely agree. I’ve said for quite some time that there’s a certain amount of Stockholm Syndrome going around in Mesmer-land. It’s almost as if, gods forbid the profession sees any potential boost … some of our guys will almost instinctively expect a nerf, or something. Although, with the knowledge of issues #1 and 2, there’s only so far I can really blame anyone.

Not to mention, that as far as leaked information, there’s always a chance that what we read is completely, or partially wrong. However, there’s also a shot of full-on mistruth, as well. I know I’m not the only Mes player who remembers a certain GM that wasn’t supposed to get put in with an ICD, and did. YMMV.

I’m not thrilled about it and i’m going to speculate in my more realistic and blunt nature as usual.

consider Anet keeps the animation and channel and CD

you now have a channeled skill that takes 4s to copy boons with a minimum of 20s to reuse.

the average boon application lasts for about 5s

you just stole x boons for their remaining duration

yay 3 or 2s of all the boons, but you cant spam apply them like your target does.

Anet removes the channel keeps the CD

4s/5s of all the boons.. you still cant spam apply these

Anet keeps the secondary (echo) to extend boons copied.

they wont make it very long, maybe X 1/2 Remaining Duration, to keep it balanced.

this would be a bit better but why would you bring Mimic to a fight when Passive/Non boon related builds are what are the most effective? Mimic probably doesnt copy that Signet of healing.

Anet shortens the CD

Rest of the community kittenes about how Mesmers have too much access to boons/ Mimic is later nerfed.

Anet removes the Block

Mimic is now AC without Condition removal, or punishment.

…..

Copying Boons is a neat idea on paper, in practice i’m fairly sure it’ll quickly lead to
“woo i got all his boons! oh wait that doesn’t help, he still has all his boons too… and my build cant strip them now..”

Mimic doesn’t fit into Power builds far as i can fathom, Shatter doesn’t leave room for it in the utility bar.

PU doesnt leave much room for it either.

Phantasm builds maybe? but that’s mostly for PvE where enemies dont have much in the way of Boons to copy…

TLDR

Its a underused skill due to functionality that’s being changed to a new underused skill due to functionality…

Mimic might be an underused skill, but that is simply due to it’s complexity, not its usability or its power. The tooltip could be updated to show it’s full functionality like many of skills have been but it doesn’t need a change at all. Losing such a fun and opponent frustrating skill like this makes me sad. I will feel less a Mesmer and more a clown or mime trying to pretend their as good as you.

In a bizarro world, I’d imagine Mimic being able to literally enable you to use targeted enemy’s 5 skill. Now that would be cray.

Back on topic though, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this won’t fit into many builds. It really just seems like a watered down version of Arcane Thievery. Can’t wait to see how it turns out though. It’ll be interesting.

Ssenkra Bloodroot.1028:

Mimic is easily the most underrated skill for the mesmer at the moment. Yes, the first shot you store is basically useless, but everything that hits you after you store that initial shot is also reflected immediately. This ability is invaluable to mesmers if you ask me.

That being said, this new change is completely (and I stress COMPLETELY) pointless.
This change to mimic will make it even less used than it already is. For starters Arcane Thievery already does this exact thing, but with the added bonus of purging the enchantments off of your target. Second, you can use Null Zone to remove enchantments as well, but it also doubles as a condition remover, and ethereal field for allies. This change will not make Mimic more popular it will flat out make it useless.

If you use staff and store a bouncing autoattack you can reflect the skill you want to reflect:P Needs some timing but a mesmer that cant time is a dead mesmer anyways

I was expecting to see plenty of glass LB rangers post patch. Mimic was one of the skills I was most looking forward too without any changes.
Now hoping that the boon copy is just an added effect to the reflect.