[Feedback] Axe and Ambush Skills

[Feedback] Axe and Ambush Skills

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Let’s see how well this works. Somebody mentioned that the feedback threads are a mess, so I’ll go ahead and make some more organized ones. Hopefully this can help make the feedback more readable. I’ll try and edit the OP regularly to get a decent compilation of the thoughts posted on the thread.

Please list feedback regarding axe skills and ambush skills in this thread.

Axe Skills

Auto Chain

  • Generally regarded as too weak
  • Possible buff options
    • Buff condition intensity
    • Buff power coefficients
    • Buff action speed
  • Possible issue with sound effects of traited axes

Skill 2

  • Seems to be a bit mechanically clunky due to low activation speed
  • Needs some form of built-in defense
    • .5s-.75s evade frame
  • The clone generation mechanic is highly unreliable
    • Low range and delay makes it easy for enemies to accidentally avoid the mirage
  • Skill is not affected by Illusionist’s Celerity

Skill 3

Ambush Skills

Axe

Sword

Staff

Greatsword

Scepter

(edited by Fay.2357)

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Posted by: Refia Montes.3205

Refia Montes.3205

Axe auto chain is decent, but could use some buffs with numbers.

Axe 2 is a nice but needs a lot of tweaks. First it should need a small evade, even just half a second is good enough. Needs some work with its hit box.

Axe 3 is unusable when there’s terrain or if the enemy is moving. It doesn’t just hit… would be better if the hitbox was AoE to compensate its bad targeting.

All of the ambushes are not worth it. Would need a longer window for using Ambush skills and some tuning of numbers. Should deal more damage and be as close as Thief’s stealth attacks at least.

Mirage DPS HYPE

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Posted by: Infusion.7149

Infusion.7149

Axe auto needs a damage increase. It’s melee range vs scepter (scepter also has much easier clone generation)

Axe 2 needs some sort of damage mitigation , maybe evade/barrier… whatever they feel is fair

Axe 3 is horrendous

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Posted by: Sodeni.6041

Sodeni.6041

Axe 2 hardly summons clones in pvp because of its weird behaviour. You summon a clone after a delay on your starting position. If you enemy just moves a slight bit you won’t summon a clone. It should act like Staff 2 where you automatically summon a clone onto the enemy. Furthermore, it should have an evade or barrier to compete with sword.

Axe 3 is just clunky. You teleport all over the place sometimes which means on top or under your enemy if there is certain terrain.

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

Axe AA chain
The sound from the traited axes is annoying. Should just be sound-less, IMO. You can still clearly see them.

Axe 2
Way too long a wind-up. There shouldn’t be a delay until the spin attack starts. Also, give it 1/4~1/2s evade, right now there’s a good chance to be dead at the end of the animation.

Axe 3
It should fill up all empty clone slots with axe clones after the teleport and attack. Axe has way too little clone generation as it is.

Ambush skills – Scepter
Increase damage by 200%, remove Infinite Horizon interaction.

Ambush skills – all other
Increase damage by 500%-1000%, remove Infinite Horizon interaction.

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Posted by: Curunen.8729

Curunen.8729

Change the imaginary/phantasmal axe sound effect!! less ticking please. Edit, for the record I like the actual mechanic of axe ambush, it is only the sound effect I don’t like. I’d like the mechanic of throwing imaginary axes and the visual effects to stay the same.

Put 3/4s evade on axe 2 and a 1/2s evade on the third chain of axe auto. Raise cooldown of axe 2 if necessary.

Fix axe 3 vertical pathing (needs to work like sword 3 swap).

Staff ambush – wider effect radius on the vortex, or have the effect also proc in a cone in front of the player (and clones).

(edited by Curunen.8729)

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Posted by: Dastion.3106

Dastion.3106

This is probably pretty minor compared to the rest, but I would like to see a Downed Ambush skill added. Just have our #2 skill give us Mirage cloak as well to trigger it(The skill is called deception after all), that also gives us a way to activate ambush on clones while downed.

Axe seemed a bit weak for being a melee weapon, though I do like the fast recharge on the #2 skill.

Axe Ambush isnt great. Change the spectral axes so that they spin around the Mesmer (or clone) and can be built up. Exceeding the max (i.e. 3) causes one to fly off at a nearby target like the current effect.

The GS Ambush is lame. Have each beam split again to 2-3 more targets after the first hit. That would make it a good AoE against small groups.

The Sword ambush is honestly best when you’re not in combat for the mobility.

Scepter Ambush is nice, but the rapid swing thing is annoying and already overdone. Have it just send out a volley of missiles all at once (aka old school D&D magic missile).

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Posted by: Ryouzanpaku.1273

Ryouzanpaku.1273

Ambush should either do much more dmg or/and Infinate Horizon should be baseline.
Out of the ambushes I have tried only Scepter was actually usable. Axe not really and GS exceptionally tragic.

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Posted by: glenndevis.8327

glenndevis.8327

Axe:
As the axe stands right now it doesn’t seem to belong anywhere. The auto attack and #2 skills seem designed with PvE in mind while the #3 skill seems to be mostly made for PvP. I think the following suggestions might help with that.

Axe #1: Axe auto attack chain is alright I guess. I’d like it to have a bit more range though. (it’s supposed to be a close & mid ranged spec according to the trailer.) Maybe 200-300 range sounds ok.

Axe #2: Give this skill an evasion frame. Maybe not too long but still… Enemies needing to be near the mirage to spawn clones is pointless. Please just make it so this spawns a clone at the Mirage’s location/starting position at the end of the cast regardles of an enemy being near or not.
Also a bug with this is that this skill isn’t classified as a clone skill. So it doesn’t benifit from Illusionist’s Celerity. This really needs a fix.
If this skills problems get fixed then this could really become a very good clone generating skill. (if the ambush skill would actually be buffed this would be great too.)

Axe #3: To be fair I REALLY love the concept of the detargetting. I want it added to Illusionary Ambush as well.
However for the axe skill it just needs to be faster & more accurate. Enemies can run away from the actual attack way too easily. It misses a lot of the time. It’s way too inconsistent.

Ambush Skills
I absolutely LOVE the idea of making clones more useful. And while the Scepter ambush is pretty good (other than being forced to stand still) the others are very lackluster.

One thing I have to note before I get into the actual attacks: To make clones useful in PvP (and WvW) they NEED to have their healt AT LEAST doubled. Clones die instantly.

Now to get into the actual ambush skills:

Scepter Ambush:
I love this attack. It’s strong, blinks you & clones backwards to avoid getting instantly cleaved down. However it is annoying that you have to stand still for the duration of it. Remove the immobility and this will be great.

Staff Ambush:
This skill does TONS of damage on tightly stacked enemies & enemies that don’t move. However, on anything that moves this skill is useless. it doesn’t track well at all.
I wouldn’t mind losing the “boon” part of it if it means it will hit my target(s) consistently. The boons are nice though but its just a very unpractical & random way to apply them to the point where its not very useful.

Axe Ambush:
This ambush should be stronger than scepter ambush. Even if its just for the fact that it’s a melee skill. This should do 2 stacks of confusion and 2 stacks of torment.
It should also be a lot faster in travel speed.

Sword Ambush:
I have no idea with this one. I feel like this could be pretty good for a power shatter build. However, clones need to trigger interrupt traits & COnfounding Suggestions.
I’d like a bit more power damage from it as well.

Greatsword Ambush:
Just needs a lot more power. Right now it’s useless.

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

Axe Skills

Autoattack: The auto is rather weak. The power coefficients are very low and the conditions it applies are ok but not great. The third skill in the chain is quite good, but it takes a while to get there, especially with all the other skills you need to be using.

Suggestion: The power coefficients here need to be increased. The action speed of the attacks should probably be boosted slightly, and the conditions should be increased either in duration or potency.

Axe 2: This skill feels really clunky. It feels like it should have an evade…but has no evade, so you’ll take a lot of damage from this skill if you’re not careful. The dps it does is reasonable for a fairly spammy skill, but the slow animation combined with locked in movement and no evade just makes it very unsatisfying to use.

Suggestion: This skill requires either an evade frame while using it or a much much faster animation.

Axe 3: This skill is just flat out non-functional. On a featureless flat plain it works great, but any sort of terrain will completely ruin it. The initial leap backwards has a wonderful habit of knocking you off of whatever you’re standing on, and the secondary leap forwards will usually just faceplant you into a wall and miss the target. On top of that, it doesn’t even have any aoe component, so you’re getting a really janky leap that doesn’t work for the possible reward of a single target hit of confusion.

Suggestion: This skill needs to get an aoe component to the attack. Additionally, the leap forwards needs to be a proper blink, otherwise it will never function. Remember old iLeap? Yeah, that’s what’s happening here.

I think you were pretty much spot on from your other thread. The only thing I would add is increase power coefficients on skill 2 and 3 and the phantasm axe from the trait.

Also I don’t understand the requirments for clone generation on skill 2. When I first saw it I presumed its so you can use the skill out of combat for more mobility without summoning a clone that then runs off and attacks an ambient creature slowing you down but the range is way too low for that use.

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

Ambush attacks

I’ll repost what I put in the traitthread.

I don’t know if I want Infinite Horizon baseline anymore. Ambushes are definetly balanced around the idea we pick this and should definetly be buffed whether this becomes baseline or not. Either buff the ambush attacks and make this baseline or vastly buff the ambush attacks and keep this a GM trait.

As for what buffs.

Scepter: Standing still leaves you vulnerable. Allow movement while channeling the orbs and increase the amount of conditions they apply.

Staff: Too slow, small hit box, can be reflected and low amount of conditions. Speed it up make it like Druid Staff or Mesmer greatsword so it can’t be reflected and add burning.

Axe: Up the conditions and damage so its worth using over the auto attacks. Also I agree with Fay, make them unblockable so our melee attack doens’t end up thrown back in our face.

Sword: To make it viable to use this instead of the standard GS power burst it needs much higher damage and bug fixes since it isn’t working with interupt traits. Probably even 3x the current damage. It also needs that damage buff for PvE where Mesmer is hurting for decent damage power attacks.

GS: Same, buff the damage up 3x its current amount, since its weaker then an auto attack with longer cast time, and have it hit 5 targets. Some good aoe then thats worth giving up a dodge for. Throw in some conditions baseline and increase the damage of the direct attack portion of the phantasm and it might even become a decent weapon for large scale WvW.

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Posted by: Tseison.4659

Tseison.4659

Axe:

  • Increase attack speed
  • Increase damage
  • Reduced casting time for Axe 3
  • Axe trait should give us either increased attack speed or 25% movement speed when equipped.

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Posted by: FJSAMA.2867

FJSAMA.2867

Axe:

Lingering Thoughts (axe #2):
1. Speed up animation.
2. Increase range to spawn the clone (1200), make it prioritize the target and not the nearest enemy.
3. Make it not to spawn a clone if 3 phantasm up.
4. Fix bug with interaction with Illusionist’s Celerity trait (tool-tip only or actual bug?)

Axes of Symmetry:
1. Make the leap happen at the starting location
2. Shadowstep mid/at the end of leap to melee range of target
3. Make it connect better. (it fails to shadowstep near the target very often and always fails on z axis)
4. Make detarget stop enemy ongoing/channeled casts.

Ambushes:
- In general, increase the enable time to cast ambushes skills to 3s. Using ambush skill will make it drop from you bar until new Mirage Cloak applied (this prevents using multiple ambushes within 1 mirage cloak since the window time is increased)
- Phantasms are part of mesmer and mirage. each weapon set have 1 phantasm skill. Ambushes must have a effect on phantasms. Or add an ambush skill for each phantasm or make ambushes refresh phantasms attack cd.

Mirage Thrust (sword ambush):
1- Fix the bug that prevent daze/interrupt interaction with mesmer traits.
2- Make it evade on leap.

Split Surge ( Gs ambush):
1- Speed up animation
2- Increase dmg
3- Give it some utility to function with clones (clones have no dmg so giving it dmg only is poor.) Ideas: boon rip, condi transfer, life steal (life steal on clones would heal mirage), etc..

Chaos Vortex (staff ambush):
1- Make it a channeled block
2- Make it spawn up to 3 Winds of Chaos bolts at the end of cast
(Essentially make it function like revenant staff block -Warding Rift- but instead of firing blinding bolts make it fire mesmer staff auto -Winds of Chaos- bolts

(edited by FJSAMA.2867)

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Posted by: Xenon.4537

Xenon.4537

Staff ambush is extraordinarily unreliable in pvp because of poor tracking and slow projectile. The orbs will often fly off in random directions completely missing my target by a mile when they are just walking from left to right.

I suggest fixing the tracking and speeding up the projectile slightly.

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Posted by: Dondagora.9645

Dondagora.9645

I enjoy the idea of the Sword Ambush, like putting an on-demand Daze on dodge. However, clones don’t trigger daze or interruption traits, which makes it all the more not worthwhile.

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Posted by: Menaka.5092

Menaka.5092

Axe

The autoattack felt poor on power, like pretty much every other autoattack for mesmer. On the bright side, this autoattack doesn’t even have useful side effects like the sword AA. /s

Lingering Thoughts: it’s hard not to compare this attack with Daredevil’s Staff 2. The power component sits at only 1.2 multiplier, versus a 2.1 multiplier on the DD Staff, but this one has a condi component so it could somewhat balance out, maybe, on a hybrid build. The real problem comes with the clone generation mechanic, that simply doesn’t work except maybe on the PvP golems used for testing. Also, the movement component is restricted to only melee range, so it can’t really be used as a gap closer. Bad from every possible point of view.

Axes of Symmetry: I think I have some footage where I try to hit a Moa NPC running around and I fail about 50% of the time, because the teleport ports me on the opposide side of the movement direction and the leap fails to connect because the NPC moved out of range in the meantime… Now imagine trying this on an enemy player. Guess what. You miss. I ended up using it just for the evasion component and the retargeting mechanic. Also, it works only on axe clones, that you won’t have (see above) unless maybe you spam Mirror Images before using this.

Ambush skills

Mirage Thrust: the only Ambush I actually liked. It gives us new options for interrupting, although it still has it’s problems, as someone mentioned this ambush creates a clone and can overwrite phantasms for PVE players, and the clones interrupts DON’T proc our interrupt traits.

Ether Barrage: N/A didn’t test it

Split Surge: it’s so underwhelming I initially thought GS didn’t have an ambush attack. Can we have something like the KAMEHAMEHA thing holomancers get?

Chaos Vortex: according to WP, this is “insane”. But when you actually play the game, you realize how poor this attack is. And it’s projectiles-based, again.

Ambush Assault and Wave of Panic: N/A, didn’t test, I thought underwater combat wasn’t a thing anymore ANet?

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Posted by: Dondagora.9645

Dondagora.9645

Oh, right: Split Surge on the GS doesn’t synergize or proc the GS trait in Domination at all. No Might, no Cripple, no nothing.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Axe:

Lingering Thoughts (axe #2):
1. Speed up animation.
2. Increase range to spawn the clone (1200), make it prioritize the target and not the nearest enemy.
3. Make it not to spawn a clone if 3 phantasm up.
4. Fix bug with interaction with Illusionist’s Celerity trait (tool-tip only or actual bug?)

Axes of Symmetry:
1. Make the leap happen at the starting location
2. Shadowstep mid/at the end of leap to melee range of target
3. Make it connect better. (it fails to shadowstep near the target very often and always fails on z axis)
4. Make detarget stop enemy ongoing/channeled casts.

Ambushes:
- In general, increase the enable time to cast ambushes skills to 3s. Using ambush skill will make it drop from you bar until new Mirage Cloak applied (this prevents using multiple ambushes within 1 mirage cloak since the window time is increased)

Mirage Thrust (sword ambush):
1- Fix the bug that prevent daze/interrupt interaction with mesmer traits.
2- Make it evade on leap.

Split Surge ( Gs ambush):
1- Speed up animation
2- Increase dmg
3- Give it some utility to function with clones (clones have no dmg so giving it dmg only is poor.) Ideas: boon rip, condi transfer, life steal (life steal on clones would heal mirage), etc..

Chaos Vortex (staff ambush):
1- Make it a channeled block
2- Make it spawn up to 3 Winds of Chaos bolts at the end of cast
(Essentially make it function like revenant staff block -Warding Rift- but instead of firing blinding bolts make it fire mesmer staff auto -Winds of Chaos- bolts

Adding evade on top of fixing the clone i terupt traits could have potential to make thw skill stronger than it needs to be imo.

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Posted by: Dondagora.9645

Dondagora.9645

Axe:

Lingering Thoughts (axe #2):
1. Speed up animation.
2. Increase range to spawn the clone (1200), make it prioritize the target and not the nearest enemy.
3. Make it not to spawn a clone if 3 phantasm up.
4. Fix bug with interaction with Illusionist’s Celerity trait (tool-tip only or actual bug?)

Axes of Symmetry:
1. Make the leap happen at the starting location
2. Shadowstep mid/at the end of leap to melee range of target
3. Make it connect better. (it fails to shadowstep near the target very often and always fails on z axis)
4. Make detarget stop enemy ongoing/channeled casts.

Ambushes:
- In general, increase the enable time to cast ambushes skills to 3s. Using ambush skill will make it drop from you bar until new Mirage Cloak applied (this prevents using multiple ambushes within 1 mirage cloak since the window time is increased)

Mirage Thrust (sword ambush):
1- Fix the bug that prevent daze/interrupt interaction with mesmer traits.
2- Make it evade on leap.

Split Surge ( Gs ambush):
1- Speed up animation
2- Increase dmg
3- Give it some utility to function with clones (clones have no dmg so giving it dmg only is poor.) Ideas: boon rip, condi transfer, life steal (life steal on clones would heal mirage), etc..

Chaos Vortex (staff ambush):
1- Make it a channeled block
2- Make it spawn up to 3 Winds of Chaos bolts at the end of cast
(Essentially make it function like revenant staff block -Warding Rift- but instead of firing blinding bolts make it fire mesmer staff auto -Winds of Chaos- bolts

Adding evade on top of fixing the clone i terupt traits could have potential to make thw skill stronger than it needs to be imo.

Evasion makes the Ambush decent, especially regarding melee-range clones. The interrupt thing is just how it should be… why else would we want Dazes if not for the interrupts? I don’t understand how it’d make it OP, since that just brings it to the lowest bar of potential viability.

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Posted by: Hackuuna.4085

Hackuuna.4085

Sword: Amazing, simply the best one for WvW. Didn’t notice the bug with interrupt but wasn’t playing with it with those traits.

GS: Doesn’t always seem to fire correctly, or visuals are off. Didn’t check combat logs to see if it was bugged or was just visual problems.

Staff: Doesn’t do enough power damage

Axe: Seemed OK but didn’t play with it enough.

Scepter: Both condi and power damage were good

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Posted by: Arshay Duskbrow.1306

Arshay Duskbrow.1306

Axe is slow, uninteresting, and unthematic as a weapon both for Mesmers and for condi specs with unreliable clone generation.

At the moment, NO ambush skills are worth spending your dodges to activate

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Posted by: RBMoose.1439

RBMoose.1439

Apologies ahead of time if someone already made this comparison, i’m at work and don’t have time to read it all:

If axe is going to remain a melee range condi based weapon it needs to have some additional evade mechanics. The primary reason sword works is because of #2 attack. That same rule should apply to axe if not more-so since it’s a condi based attackers. The idea that the #3 is going to mitigate dmg is ludicrous with the amount of cleave and AoE attacks that immediately destroy clones.

  1. should also more consistently create clones, against the golems it works fine, but against other players it seems to fail a lot, unless that’s just because the clones die before they even appears.
    Fixes:
    1. Give it some range so that you don’t have to be on top of your opponent. This would allow for space between clones and the enemy and yourself, potentially reducing avoidable cleave deaths of clones, and actually make #3 work more like it’s supposed to.
    2. Give #2 evade frames
    3. Do both because right now the utilities and other aspects of the spec leave us terribly exposed.

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Posted by: Medatius.6092

Medatius.6092

Axe
I like the rather short cooldowns, which gives the weapon generally a good flow, the power damage (and I mean the power scaling coefficient specifically, not necessarily the base damage) should be higher though, so that it has more use at least in pvp/wvw with power builds

  • Could use better scaling with power

Axe #2
Ammunition is really nice on this skill, unfortunately using it in melee is sometimes more dangerous than beneficial, a short evade frame should be a nice addition and considering there’s no defence on this weapon and you can’t use shield in the offhand either. The animation unfortunately feels clunky with the delays at the start and end.

  • Could use an evade frame, some animation tweaking

Axe 3
This skills mechanic itself is awesome and I wouldn’t want to play Mirage without it, but the teleports are somewhat too unreliable which needs some fixing other than that it’s fine

  • Could use some reliability tweaking

Ambush skills
Generally I don’t understand why there is such a relatively long cast-time on all of the ambush skills, just makes the ambush feel really awkward and just for comparison almost all thief ambush skills have a casttime of a quarter of a second (with the exception of staff 1 sec and sword 0 sec), whereas mirage has half a second. Also the time you get to activate the ambush skills seems to short, because a lot of the time you need to reposition yourself before using it because there’s a lot of movement in fights in general and even more so with mirage due to teleporting. Lastly in the current state the ambush skills seem hardly worth using, that is with or without Infinite Horizon, because they’re either awkward to use, won’t hit properly or just won’t do any decent damage so it would be better to just keep auto-attacking.

  • Could use damage buff, less awkward animations, lower castime(down to a quarter of a second), a longer ambush skill activation window

Axe Ambush
Mechanically it seems alright, might be a little slow animation wise, damage needs some adjustment I think

  • Could use faster animation, damage buff

Sword Ambush
The leap and the daze are great, but it feels too rough still, should be a little smoother animation-wise, right now it feels like I’m standing on one of those platforms of the aether blade JP in Gendarran Fields. Also it needs a damage buff for sure and illusions not triggering “on interrupt” traits is a bit sad

  • Could use smoother animation, shorter casttime, damage buff, on interrupt traits should work with this

Greatsword Ambush
I was looking forward to that one, unfortunately it turned out to be more or less useless

  • Could use shorter castime, damage buff

Scepter Ambush
The condition application seems okay, but being locked in place feels really bad, you should be able to move and the cast-time is too long. Also I noticed if you keep using it on a stationary target, your illusions end up teleporting themselves backwards out of range of that target

  • Could use shorter casttime, the possibility of moving around whilst using it

Staff Ambush
I think it’s okay, maybe? I can’t really tell because it just rarely hits, if it did, the damage might be okay, also cast-time again

  • Could use better aiming, shorter casttime, damage buff?

Underwater
It’s funny, the general area no one cares about (besides me and Aquaman I guess) is the one that has some of the more interesting mechanics on the ambush skills, but the cast time is too long (on spear that is, judging from the tooltip) and I can’t say anything about the damage because I couldn’t get anyone to fight me underwater in WvW

  • Could use, well, some testing I guess

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Axe:

Lingering Thoughts (axe #2):
1. Speed up animation.
2. Increase range to spawn the clone (1200), make it prioritize the target and not the nearest enemy.
3. Make it not to spawn a clone if 3 phantasm up.
4. Fix bug with interaction with Illusionist’s Celerity trait (tool-tip only or actual bug?)

Axes of Symmetry:
1. Make the leap happen at the starting location
2. Shadowstep mid/at the end of leap to melee range of target
3. Make it connect better. (it fails to shadowstep near the target very often and always fails on z axis)
4. Make detarget stop enemy ongoing/channeled casts.

Ambushes:
- In general, increase the enable time to cast ambushes skills to 3s. Using ambush skill will make it drop from you bar until new Mirage Cloak applied (this prevents using multiple ambushes within 1 mirage cloak since the window time is increased)

Mirage Thrust (sword ambush):
1- Fix the bug that prevent daze/interrupt interaction with mesmer traits.
2- Make it evade on leap.

Split Surge ( Gs ambush):
1- Speed up animation
2- Increase dmg
3- Give it some utility to function with clones (clones have no dmg so giving it dmg only is poor.) Ideas: boon rip, condi transfer, life steal (life steal on clones would heal mirage), etc..

Chaos Vortex (staff ambush):
1- Make it a channeled block
2- Make it spawn up to 3 Winds of Chaos bolts at the end of cast
(Essentially make it function like revenant staff block -Warding Rift- but instead of firing blinding bolts make it fire mesmer staff auto -Winds of Chaos- bolts

Adding evade on top of fixing the clone i terupt traits could have potential to make thw skill stronger than it needs to be imo.

Evasion makes the Ambush decent, especially regarding melee-range clones. The interrupt thing is just how it should be… why else would we want Dazes if not for the interrupts? I don’t understand how it’d make it OP, since that just brings it to the lowest bar of potential viability.

Its a finisher it does decent dmg it dazes. Its already a really solid skill. Im just saying on top of making all the cl9nes proc the traits that makimg it an evade could be too much.

The evade wouldnt make it decent because its already past that point.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Sword: Amazing, simply the best one for WvW. Didn’t notice the bug with interrupt but wasn’t playing with it with those traits.

GS: Doesn’t always seem to fire correctly, or visuals are off. Didn’t check combat logs to see if it was bugged or was just visual problems.

Staff: Doesn’t do enough power damage

Axe: Seemed OK but didn’t play with it enough.

Scepter: Both condi and power damage were good

From what little time i had sword and staff ambush attacls have around the same power dmg ranging around 1.7k

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Posted by: Allarius.5670

Allarius.5670

Thank you for this Fay.

Axe

  • General – Increase range of auto attack chain, Imaginary Axes, and Lingering Thoughts to make axe a near-melee weapon. Increases fluidity and functionality of use, slight increase to defensive positioning for self and clones to help mitigate melee vulnerability.
  • Imaginary Axes – Consider increasing number of axes, amount of confusion applied by each, or adding torment or bleed.
  • Lingering Thoughts – Consider increasing distance traveled. Feels like it needs an evade, but that may be too much. Increased range and/or increased activation speed may be a sufficient middle ground.
  • Axes of Symmetry – Decrease distance between mesmer and clones to the target after shadow stepping to help with verticality and chase potential. Increase potential leap distance after shadow stepping to increase chase potential.

Ambush

  • Concept – Mirage Cloak is a solid idea to build the Mirage around. Most ambush attacks feel great with functionality and utility, but feel as though they lack sufficient impact. Improved access to Mirage Cloak via additional endurance regeneration mechanics or improved Mirage Mirror mechanics may be sufficient to help alleviate this.
  • Activation Window – Increase window of activation for the ambush to improve fluidity and functionality of use.
  • Greatsword – Feels lackluster by comparison. Added utility would help.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

I really like the idea of the axe skills, they feel fun to use. I’m no expert on Mesmers though and wasn’t actually able to play the class under PvE conditions, so I have no idea whether they are strong enough, and trust the experts when they say “no.” I would not have fun with the class if I kept dying a lot. So I’d like to see the skills left alone in core function, but if they need more damage to be balanced, definitely give it to them. Ideally there would be a Power spec option in there too.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Ansau.7326

Ansau.7326

A thing I don’t understand about Ambush skills is why they call them Ambush. Non of them give you the sense you’re ambushing the enemy.
These skills should have very short cast times, at most 0.5s, and the animations should be fast enough enemies have a hard time to react.

The best so far are scepter and sword, but again, they should be much faster. Sword jump is quite obvious and easy to avoid, it shouldn’t be. Staff and axe should also be much faster, and have different effects than their normal AA. GS is nothing more than an insult. How can you make such fail anet??

And axe skills, while interesting, they dont feel effective enough to substitute sword, scepter or one 2h weapon and choosing one of the so boring and underperforming offhand weapons we have.

Ansau – Sylvari Mesmer – Exiled Warriors [wE] – Gandara

i7 5775c @ 4.1GHz – 12GB RAM @ 2400MHz – RX 480 @ 1390/2140MHz

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

Axe auto chain – The first 2 skills (lacerating chop and ethereal chop) need to be 1/4 sec cast times. This would result in completing the entire chain 33% quicker, increasing the condition application and increasing power damage by ~33% naturally. Range on entire chain could be increased a bit as well.

  • Lingering Thoughts – Its buggy. Clone could stand to be summoned as long as you are in combat when you use it (ie no longer tying it to your enemy being too close to the mirage), and a short evade frame would be nice for sure

*Axes of Symmetry – Again, its buggy with the teleporting. Fix that first. A guaranteed 5 stacks of confusion, up to 8, on your target on a 10 seconds CD is fairly decent for a weapon skill. So I think it would be good as long as its bugs were fixed.

  • Imaginary Axes – Remove the delay on the axes. Increase power damage
  • Mirage Thrust – Reduce to 1/2 sec cast, as it is now its pretty clunky to use. Increase power damage.
  • Ether Barrage – Reduce cast to 1 second and remove root, or reduce cast to 3/4 sec (so that at least your cloak will cover the entire root). Don’t halve the duration for clones.
  • Split Surge – Reduce cast to 1/2 second. Triple power damage for yourself. Increase to 5 targets.
  • Chaos Vortex – Reduce cast to 1/2 second. Increase target limit to 10 ideally.
  • Ambush Assault – …………………….. Just remove it, you clearly didn’t want this skill to be used in the first place.
  • Wave of Panic – UW combat, I didn’t test it.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Axe auto chain – The first 2 skills (lacerating chop and ethereal chop) need to be 1/4 sec cast times. This would result in completing the entire chain 33% quicker, increasing the condition application and increasing power damage by ~33% naturally. Range on entire chain could be increased a bit as well.

  • Lingering Thoughts – Its buggy. Clone could stand to be summoned as long as you are in combat when you use it (ie no longer tying it to your enemy being too close to the mirage), and a short evade frame would be nice for sure

*Axes of Symmetry – Again, its buggy with the teleporting. Fix that first. A guaranteed 5 stacks of confusion, up to 8, on your target on a 10 seconds CD is fairly decent for a weapon skill. So I think it would be good as long as its bugs were fixed.

  • Imaginary Axes – Remove the delay on the axes. Increase power damage
  • Mirage Thrust – Reduce to 1/2 sec cast, as it is now its pretty clunky to use. Increase power damage.
  • Ether Barrage – Reduce cast to 1 second and remove root, or reduce cast to 3/4 sec (so that at least your cloak will cover the entire root). Don’t halve the duration for clones.
  • Split Surge – Reduce cast to 1/2 second. Triple power damage for yourself. Increase to 5 targets.
  • Chaos Vortex – Reduce cast to 1/2 second. Increase target limit to 10 ideally.
  • Ambush Assault – …………………….. Just remove it, you clearly didn’t want this skill to be used in the first place.
  • Wave of Panic – UW combat, I didn’t test it.

Is the sword ambush slower than a warrior’s thrust?

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

It has a 3/4 sec cast time.

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

I feel like a good way to improve Axe ambush and its trait is if the phantasmal axe bounced 2 times help give a bit of AoE to the weapon. Obviously improve its power scaling as well.

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Posted by: Ithilwen.1529

Ithilwen.1529

Axe 1 needs some range and some damage. Scepter is a much better choice.

Axe 2 needs a punishing block like that of scepter.

Axe 3 is even worse than swap on sword at this point. The nerfs , special line of sight rules and etc make it useless. Since it fails to hit moving targets or targets with any terrain difference between them and us, it’s confusion aspect is meaningless.

Mesmerising Girl

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

It has a 3/4 sec cast time.

Same with the warrior’s cast time. I dont think it needs soeeding up at mist it would need a dmg buff. And as with all ambush skills to be available from stealthing as well.

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Posted by: Daishi.6027

Daishi.6027

Ambush Skills

Sword – I really like how you can use the ambush without a target, that in itself offers utility regardless of the low damage. The cast time is to counterproductive, meaning that you can’t make a safe leap, which is important when:
1. you are not running infinite horizon as it singles you out, which directly breaks the design of what mirage intends. And
2. it fails to serve as a reactive interrupt.
You can score incidental ones, or super hard read something but most of the time it can in no way be used truly reactively, which is something we should get for the cost.

It’s functional with confounding suggestions, but the internal c/d really limits it. Also pretty sure it’s bugged for a lot of daze traits especially for clones.

Greatsword – Damage is awful, there is no utility, it applies no pressure in pvp or wvw, half the time it bugs and cancels, no one wanted to cleave on a GS once we got out of Orr back in 2012, and even if we did we did no one wanted to trade a doge for a single auto attack cleave that our clones contribute nothing to.
It needs:
a solid damage of at least a 2.2 – 2.3 coefficent plus one of the following soft cc: 3 sec slow, 5 sec blind, or 5 sec weakness, or 1 sec immobilize. (actually wouldn’t even mind if this was random for every pulse/hit even with lower durations.)
Or
Keep current damage, 6-8 stacks of vulnerability, 1 sec daze.
Or
Keep current damage inflict “Launch”.

Staff – Power wise I think is fine, could use some CC. The cast time is awful and the projectile speed is worse.

Axe – I have no real opinion I honestly didn’t use it much,

Scepter – This this is great, and should be a standard other weapons should follow. Illusions can pressure with it, it has a good coefficient for power sitting at 2.0.
Some people don’t like the root, but I think it’s fine with the blink.

“I control time and space; you can’t break free.~”
“Maybe I was the illusion all along!”

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Posted by: Elessaria.9142

Elessaria.9142

GS Ambush should have built in Imagined Burden or similar functionality. Say 3 stacks of Might 5s for your Ambush, 1 Stack 3s for each clone with Infinite Horizon, and the same for Vuln on the main target. Then its a solid skill.

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

GS Ambush should have built in Imagined Burden or similar functionality. Say 3 stacks of Might 5s for your Ambush, 1 Stack 3s for each clone with Infinite Horizon, and the same for Vuln on the main target. Then its a solid skill.

Eh it would still need something else. In organised content you should already have 25 stacks or close to it, so we would be back at an extremely low power skill. In unorganized content, mesmer’s damage is so low that a maximum of 6 stacks of might from this ambush after rather significant setup for a 3 clone attack is rather underwhelming.

GS is a power ranged weapon, just make this a pure power attack, no boons, no condis, just increase the damage and num targets, and cast time so its a decent cleave.

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

GS Ambush just needs a lot of extra damage.

Why is it that other than Scepter, our ambush attacks are generally not much noteworthy compared to the AA they replace, in any case? I mean, ambush! Shouldn’t this slice enemies open? Blow their mind? (literally) Cut them to pieces? Tear them asunder?

Instead it’s this pansy “oh I got hit again” move.

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

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Posted by: Mikkel.8427

Mikkel.8427

GS Ambush just needs a lot of extra damage.

Why is it that other than Scepter, our ambush attacks are generally not much noteworthy compared to the AA they replace, in any case? I mean, ambush! Shouldn’t this slice enemies open? Blow their mind? (literally) Cut them to pieces? Tear them asunder?

Instead it’s this pansy “oh I got hit again” move.

I ditched Infinite Horizon after the first day, so most of the demo weekend I wished I could just keep my normal AA over using the Ambush.

1) w/o IH it basically screams “HERE I AM”
2) Even with IH, a lot of the time you need to MOVE over using an ambush, which again screams “HERE I AM” because now your the only one NOT using the ambush.
3) Most of them were worse than just AAing…

The only ambush I was really happy to have was the sword. Even when playing condi, all the other ones were ‘meh’. I HATED the scepter’s root.

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Posted by: Mikkel.8427

Mikkel.8427

I really don’t understand why people think the scepter ambush is even good… I thought it was one of the worst.

1) Root
2) Half duration condi from clones
3) Applies confusion OR torment per hit… I think a lot of people are misreading the tooltip.
4) Outside of the ambush attack, scepter clones apply the least condi pressure out of all our clones. Every other weapon’s clone stacks more bleeds traited with sharper images and the small amt of torment Scepter cones apply does not make up for this.
5) Long channel time
6) Root (worth mentioning twice)

(edited by Mikkel.8427)

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Posted by: Curunen.8729

Curunen.8729

I really don’t understand why people think the scepter ambush is even good… I thought it was one of the worst.

1) Root
2) Half duration condi from clones
3) Applies confusion OR torment per hit… I think a lot of people are misreading the tooltip.
4) Outside of the ambush attack, scepter clones apply the least condi pressure out of all our clones. Every other weapon’s clone stacks more bleeds traited with sharper images and the small amt of torment Scepter cones apply does not make up for this.
5) Long channel time
6) Root (worth mentioning twice)

Don’t forget single target as well.

Yeah I actually prefer axe ambush when traited (a lot of phantasmal axes flying around) and staff ambush.

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Posted by: Mikkel.8427

Mikkel.8427

I really don’t understand why people think the scepter ambush is even good… I thought it was one of the worst.

1) Root
2) Half duration condi from clones
3) Applies confusion OR torment per hit… I think a lot of people are misreading the tooltip.
4) Outside of the ambush attack, scepter clones apply the least condi pressure out of all our clones. Every other weapon’s clone stacks more bleeds traited with sharper images and the small amt of torment Scepter cones apply does not make up for this.
5) Long channel time
6) Root (worth mentioning twice)

Don’t forget single target as well.

Yeah I actually prefer axe ambush when traited (a lot of phantasmal axes flying around) and staff ambush.

That’s right!

I also forgot its reflect-able AND I don’t know if anyone noticed this… but you can also just wiggle side to side and the whole thing misses you.

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

I really don’t understand why people think the scepter ambush is even good… I thought it was one of the worst.

1) Root
2) Half duration condi from clones
3) Applies confusion OR torment per hit… I think a lot of people are misreading the tooltip.
4) Outside of the ambush attack, scepter clones apply the least condi pressure out of all our clones. Every other weapon’s clone stacks more bleeds traited with sharper images and the small amt of torment Scepter cones apply does not make up for this.
5) Long channel time
6) Root (worth mentioning twice)

Don’t forget single target as well.

Yeah I actually prefer axe ambush when traited (a lot of phantasmal axes flying around) and staff ambush.

That’s right!

I also forgot its reflect-able AND I don’t know if anyone noticed this… but you can also just wiggle side to side and the whole thing misses you.

Axe, staff, and scepter all have reflectable ambush attacks. It’s a bit of a problem.

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

It wouldn’t be as big of a problem if they didn’t take so long to cast. But an attack that takes 1sec+ to cast shouldn’t be reflectable.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Feint suggested that the cd they have as well makes the really clunky esp when you dodge multiple times. If by any chance that could be removed then that would be cool.

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

A good point somebody brought up in another thread is what exactly is the role of the axe?

It seems like an in your face damage weapon but the damage is too low and nothing in the Mirage trait line supports this play style and Mirage doesn’t synergise with the core traits that might help this play style.

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

Couldn’t you tell? Its role is to give us the DPS role we’ve been wanting forever /s

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

A good point somebody brought up in another thread is what exactly is the role of the axe?

It seems like an in your face damage weapon but the damage is too low and nothing in the Mirage trait line supports this play style and Mirage doesn’t synergise with the core traits that might help this play style.

What is the role of scepter?

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Posted by: mortrialus.3062

mortrialus.3062

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.

(edited by mortrialus.3062)

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

A good point somebody brought up in another thread is what exactly is the role of the axe?

It seems like an in your face damage weapon but the damage is too low and nothing in the Mirage trait line supports this play style and Mirage doesn’t synergise with the core traits that might help this play style.

What is the role of scepter?

Mid range hybrid weapon/clone generator.