Guild Wars 2

Where [X] = the cooldown of the mimic’d skill.

Pushing my mathing to the limits!

So Mimic is in an odd place right now. It’s an interesting utility that could see a lot of play if it weren’t gated by two things:

• 90s Cooldown is longer than most skills.
• Not many utilities are worth mimicing.

Thus my idea of making Mimic match the cooldown of whatever skill you copy. As it stands, Mimic is only actually preferable if you grab Illusion of Life. Not only would it allow you to double-rezz, but Illusion of Life is on a 120 second cooldown, whereas Mimic is on a 90s (72 when traited) cooldown, making it more efficient to just Mimic the skill rather than casting it. Even when traited, its cooldown is lower than or equal to few other abilities…

• Illusion of Life
• Veil
• Portal

Right now, there aren’t many skills you’d actually want to copy on a 90s cooldown. It makes mimicking a skill like Blink feel like a waste, it doesn’t work with portal (or does it?), and… what exactly happens when you Mimic a mantra?

Oh, how I’d love to mimic Well of Recall or Precognition.

But at it’s current cautiously high cooldown, it isn’t really worth the utility slot. I think making the cooldown of Mimic match the cooldown of the mimic’d skill could really help with this, what say you?

Actually a pretty good idea. I like it.

I think it is artificially long because ANet is afraid that certain chained utilities are too strong. So making it an [X] cooldown might be too appealing when paired with already attractive low cooldown utilities. But they could make it [X+25-50%] or [X+Y] where Y equals a set number of seconds.

Xaylin.1860:

I think it is artificially long because ANet is afraid that certain chained utilities are too strong. So making it an [X] cooldown might be too appealing when paired with already attractive low cooldown utilities. But they could make it [X+25-50%] or [X+Y] where Y equals a set number of seconds.

Yeah I was thinking about this so if nothing else Y could equal 5-10 seconds didn’t think about a percentage tho.

I think they should halve the CD and open up mimic to function on all skills (except elite). That would keep low CD skills in check and make mimic a more compelling choice to take when considering longer CD skills.

This would give vanilla mesmer a bit of a chrono feel without having to fully spec chrono, and prob wouldn’t adversely affect a chrono (does have a utility cost after all).

If that doesn’t happen (probably won’t), I think the idea proposed is good.

skcamow.3527:

I think they should halve the CD and open up mimic to function on all skills (except elite). That would keep low CD skills in check and make mimic a more compelling choice to take when considering longer CD skills.

This would give vanilla mesmer a bit of a chrono feel without having to fully spec chrono, and prob wouldn’t adversely affect a chrono (does have a utility cost after all).

If that doesn’t happen (probably won’t), I think the idea proposed is good.

By halving the CD do you mean on the skill you use after mimic or on mimic?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

skcamow.3527:

I think they should halve the CD and open up mimic to function on all skills (except elite). That would keep low CD skills in check and make mimic a more compelling choice to take when considering longer CD skills.

This would give vanilla mesmer a bit of a chrono feel without having to fully spec chrono, and prob wouldn’t adversely affect a chrono (does have a utility cost after all).

If that doesn’t happen (probably won’t), I think the idea proposed is good.

By halving the CD do you mean on the skill you use after mimic or on mimic?

I meant on mimic itself. If not halved (might be too much), at least lower than the 90s default.

skcamow.3527:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

skcamow.3527:

I think they should halve the CD and open up mimic to function on all skills (except elite). That would keep low CD skills in check and make mimic a more compelling choice to take when considering longer CD skills.

This would give vanilla mesmer a bit of a chrono feel without having to fully spec chrono, and prob wouldn’t adversely affect a chrono (does have a utility cost after all).

If that doesn’t happen (probably won’t), I think the idea proposed is good.

By halving the CD do you mean on the skill you use after mimic or on mimic?

I meant on mimic itself. If not halved (might be too much), at least lower than the 90s default.

OK.

Although anyone would love a lower cool down but I function fine with mimic in it’s current state..

Too good to be true. I am afraid this will become another “We heal as one” overnight nerf.

Doug Whisper.2465:

Too good to be true. I am afraid this will become another “We heal as one” overnight nerf.

Which is why Xaylin at least had a good suggestion. Either X + Y ( what I was thinking of originally ) or a percentage which is probably better.

So simple, yet so good. +1

Also fix the problem that mantras kitten up mimic :P

I definitely agree that Mimic needs to have a lower cooldown.

I really, really like this skill! But as you say, I only use it rarely because of the big CD, mostly in combination with Blink, Feedback or Portal (it works when you Mimic the second activation, the Portal Exteunt).

The CD should not be as long as the skill you Mimic. It has to be some sort of disadvantage when you are using the same skill twice in my opinion. Perhaps a change like “Mimic CD = X + 20s” would be a way to make the skill more worthy in combination with every other skill in our kitten nal. And it would balance it self with powerful (future) skills on longer CDs.

Last time I tried, mantra works with Portal (you mimic the exit of the portal, if I remember right, to make it work). I am not sure, if your idea is good or not. If we had only core Mesmer to think about, then I’d say: Yes, do it. But thinking about the upcoming Chronomancer, I am not sure, how that would impact balance. Yes you still have to give up another utility. But being able to speed up the reduced Mimic cool down via Alacrity… seems dangerous to me^^

I suggested this over and over again, so I agree. Mimic should have a dynamic cooldown, probably about 120-130% of the copied skills CD.

+1

I think this is a nice idea but would very much be out of balance for chronomancer more so then stock mesmer. Chronomancer can shave lots of time of the mimic cool down and matching it with already low CD skill will place your Utility up time too high.

And in terms of normal play for mesmer I use mimic a lot in conjunction with feedback as the 30 second CD in very short timed fight in Dungeons and fractals tend to be an issue. my reflect up time is very high with other skills traited.

I do think the CD is a bit high but matching exact CDs would be too short in the overall of balance.

FinalFAB.9872:

I think this is a nice idea but would very much be out of balance for chronomancer more so then stock mesmer. Chronomancer can shave lots of time of the mimic cool down and matching it with already low CD skill will place your Utility up time too high.

This is a silly (and wrong) argument. The cost of Mimic is already occupying a utility slot.
The alacrity you’re using to reduce mimic is already reducing the effective cd of the mimiced skill, and it would have been reducing the effective cd of the skill you didn’t take. Your “utility uptime” is, in fact, no higher than it was before, you simply have the ability to have one of those utilities occupy 2 slots instead of one.

Furthermore, the suggestions to make it 120% of the original cooldown would actually decrease utility uptime, as the mimiced version of the target skill still has a longer cooldown than the unmimiced version, whether you have alacrity or not.

FinalFAB.9872:

And in terms of normal play for mesmer I use mimic a lot in conjunction with feedback as the 30 second CD in very short timed fight in Dungeons and fractals tend to be an issue. my reflect up time is very high with other skills traited.

This isn’t a bad thing. Guardians already have better reflects than mesmer, so there’s no inherent reason to prohibit mesmers from being able to have more reflects than they do now. Taking mimic for double feedback is an expensive choice, and will be more expensive for chronomancer (what well are you going to give up?).

FinalFAB.9872:

I do think the CD is a bit high but matching exact CDs would be too short in the overall of balance.

The 120% suggestion certainly does seem safer.