Axe auto attack feel a bit weightless animation and flavor wise. Axes are more brutal and inelegant weapons compared to more precise swords. It shouldn’t feel as brutal and heavy as Warrior axe auto attack, but it should feel a bit closer than it currently is.
Axe 2 and 3 are cool and feel fun to use. The lack of defensive skills on the axe leaves it feeling vulnerable. This is most noticeable with the 2 skill which while fun and well animated leaves you wide open. Axe 3 is a godsend. I honestly wish this skill was just the class’s new F5 ability. The ammo on the Axe 2 is greatly appreciated and I wish that other clone generating skills on the sword, staff, and greatsword.
Mirage Cloak and ambush skills are immensely underwhelming. First of all it’s very hard to tell exactly when the invincibility frames for Mirage Cloak are active in the heat of the moment. Mirage cloak should give your character a a move obvious tell for the evade frames, like giving your a purple shroud exactly when it’s happening..
Second, Mirage Cloak prevents you from being able to evade to the side or away from where you are facing without wasting invincibility frames doing an about face, running away, and doing another about face to reface your opponent. Mirage Cloak is supposed to be the defining characteristic of the Mirage. It should be a better evade in every way. Mirage Cloak either needs to allow you to strafe / backpedal at full super speed or the entire thing should be tweaked to have you instantly shadowstep the distance of the evade if you were using a movement speed.
Also, if the class mechanic is going to be a new type of evade it absolutely should have longer evade frames so that you’re actually gaining something potentially powerful and useful. It’s currently .75 seconds, the same time as a standard dodge roll. I think it should be bumped up to 1.25 seconds of invincibility frames to make it compatible to Daredevil’s third dodge roll.
Next up, the window to use Ambush Skills should not only be longer by several seconds but should be spread out with other skills. Any mesmer skill that gives blur, distortion or stealth should open up the ambush attack window as well. Endurance is an extremely important defense resource that cannot be understated for how important it is. It is far too important of a resource to be worth spending on the current Mirage Skills. As it stands now, Mirage Ambush Attacks need to be either immense high damage blow outs if they’re only tied to Mirage Cloak and shattering Mirrors.
Daredevil dodges are a great comparison again. They got a pick of three dodges all of which are important to different unique play styles. One of which turns the dodge into a condition attack and increases condition damage, another is a 4k crit that increases power damage, another breaks all slows and mobilizes, grants swiftness, reduces incoming damage, has increased ranged for the dodge (And Invincibility frames I think? Not 100% certain on this.) and grants them swiftness. And they have three dodge rolls so that using one of these for the bonus isn’t so painful.
Next up are the ambush skills which are all have serious problems, are all really awkward to use, and almost all of them are hot garbage. Compare to a thief’s ambush skills; Thieves gain ambush skills while stealthed. So they’re already less vulnerable trying to execute them. In addition, the attacks themselves are super quick. Bam! Backstabbed. Bam! Knocked down.
Mirage ambush skills are all really weak and leave you way too open to attack while using them, especially considering they cost a dodge roll or a utility skill to use. Mirage ambushes leave you extremely vulnerable the entire time. The scepter and sword having blur evasion is a no brainer. I also still don’t understand why scepter has to root you. The shadow step away from the target is really awkward and often times blinks me out of range. This is probably a “get good” issue, but it also seems really problematic in PvE where you want to stack with the group. It would make more sense if it blinked you away after you performed the attack, not before. Scepter projectiles have terrible tracking and have a difficult time hitting moving opponents.
Sword ambush is boring and uninspired. You just do the same attack your sword phantasms do but for basically no damage and barely any daze. This should be a really big, meaty attack and probably shadow step you to your target in keeping with the Mirage theme, more or less a mesmer equivalent to the guardian’s Symbol of Blades.
Staff has this loooong wind up before shooting a mediocre but impressive looking projectile. With the wind up it seems like its begging for block while you’re spinning the staff. The conditions on this need to be increased quite a bit. Also the projectile tracking is again terrible. If you enemy is circle strafing around you it will never hit them. I do really like the feel and the flavor of this one in particular. If the issues were solved, I would really love this attack.
Axe barely feels like you’ve done something different from your auto attack. I don’t know about the damage numbers for this in particular, that’s not really what I’m concerned with. Just in terms of feel, you should feel like you’ve done something really different and more impact than your standard auto attack.
Greatsword has terrible damage and is interrupted by the fact that the attack lasts longer than the mirage cloak. So you’ll stop doing the attack before the attack has even finished and go back to the standard greatsword auto. It’s also begging for projectile reflection or destruction.
With how Mirage Cloak is a complete downgrade from standard dodge rolling, and how weak Ambush skills are, the big selling point of the Mirage is fundamentally bad. I can’t imagine it having any place in any game mode. Picking Mirage requires giving up so much for so, so little that it’s not worth taking.
I’d like the mechanic of throwing imaginary axes and the visual effects to stay the same.