Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Kiza.5630

Kiza.5630

I’m a bit confused about infinite horizon and why everyone finds it so strong.

Is it 1) because of a pvp aspect since it makes it more difficult to seperate the mes from the clones? Only for a second imo.

Or 2) because of the ambush mechanic which got me confused and I forgot to test it in the demo. Wiki entry for base mirage cloak reads: “When Mirage Cloak is applied, you and your clones can use an Ambush skill for your weapon for a short time.”

Which suggests to me that when the player gets the cloak all clones execute an ambush.
But from the comments I read, some make it sound that clones only execute the ambush if they first gain mirage cloak too from infinite horizon which would make it indeed very strong.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Curunen.8729

Curunen.8729

Yes without it only you can use ambush. Infinite Horizon gives cloak to all illusions which gives them an evade, but only clones then cast their ambush attacks. In small fights/1v1/pve this provides more damage and in the case of staff the potential to stack more might/fury (depending on positioning).

However there are problems – particularly in how easy it is to kill clones, how easy it is for some attacks to miss (eg chaos vortex), how weak some ambushes are (GS) and the fact that phantasms don’t ambush.

Two main trains of thought as to this:
1. Make it baseline because Mirage damage output is balanced around it. This would require additional mechanics ro enable clones to better survive as well as making IH do something for phantasms (or changing phantasms altogether for Mirage).
2. Leave it as it is but buff the mesmer’s personal ambush damage significantly – because clones are so fragile and die in any large scale conflict making this trait not so useful (ie large scale wvw).

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

It’s not strong. It’s basically a necessary evil to have on your traits atm.

Also, clone ambushes aren’t what they’re cracked up to be unless you’re trying to condi burst and even then they take too much preparation.

EDIT:

Going off on Curunen’s traints of thoughts to fix it:
If you’re going to buff the personal ambush of Mesmer, that will address the issue of Ambushes being scaled as if the Mesmer runs Infinite Horizon, but the clone Ambushes are still pretty weak, so the trait almost needs a rider.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Kiza.5630

Kiza.5630

Yes without it only you can use ambush. Infinite Horizon gives cloak to all illusions which gives them an evade, but only clones then cast their ambush attacks.

Did you test this?

Because then the description https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage_Cloak_ is a bit vague. “When Mirage Cloak is applied, you and your clones can use an Ambush…”

Which, at least I interpret as: Mes gets cloak, ambush can be executed Mes and all clones. But I forgot to specifically test it in the demo. So either it’s buggy or really intended this way which indeed should probably change. Thanks for the feedback though! :)

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Curunen.8729

Curunen.8729

^Yes, when Infinite Horizon is traited and you gain Mirage Cloak, all of your active clones also get Mirage Cloak which enables them to cast an ambush attack, otherwise clones do not use ambush. Phantasms will not cast ambush in any case. You as the player have a choice whether to cast or not, though as the cast window is so small it’s pretty much use it immediately or lose it (hopefully they increase the cast window).

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Kiza.5630

Kiza.5630

Hm, bummer. Still was hoping it might just be a bug. But then for grandmaster trait to only apply 3/4s evade to illusions is lackluster, too. Thanks for confirming. I’ll probably still go with illusive mind.

Maybe an interesting trait would be that touching the mirrors also enables ambush.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Tbh, Dune Cloak is probably the best GM, but it’s overshadowed by IH (what?).

The animation on Dune Cloak is tiny and not indicative of it’s range, and the basically flat 20% condi duration is huge (300 expertise? sign me up!). Numerically, it’s actually better than IH on sustained fights (for burst, IH is going to be better).

This is because the best case scenario for IH on sustained dps is:

  • Untraited Axe
  • Axe Ambush
  • 3 clones (lol?)
  • +300% condition duration on Ambush ability

If you trait Axe, it drops to +200% condition duration because axe clones do not get the bonus axe on ambush.

If you opt for Scepter, it gets, at most, +150% condition duration because each clone innately gets 50% of your condi duration (lol?).

Keep in mind, even though these numbers are large for condition duration, they’re only good for burst because you can’t constantly dodge.

Assuming you ran ideal runes/sigils for dodging and had 100% Vigor uptime, instant cast time on all your abilities, etc, you’d still get 0.43 dodges/second in PvE/WvW and 0.38 dodges/second in sPvP. This assumes Rune of the Adventurer + proc every 10s (MoR), Sigil of Energy + proc every 9s, Mirage Advance + Return every 25s. This does not account for Sigil of Stamina as that is… not reliable for bursting?

With all of that in mind, you’d get, at best, a theoretical +129% condition duration/sec uptime while running 3 untraited axe clones. This turns your burst into sustained dps but since you’re running clones all the time, you also don’t actually have burst anymore.

The reason why it’s 129 cd/sec is because it doesn’t affect any of your rotation except your ambushes. Without a realistic rotation, I don’t know how much of your condi damage is dedicated to ambushes, which will significantly hurt that number (although if you’re camping axe with all that setup you’re probably not going to be doing much else).

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Exciton.8942

Exciton.8942

Singled out, it is a strong trait.

However, it has little synergy with how typically mesmer is played.

The trait essentially increases your clone power level for condition damage builds. However, most of other mesmer traits focus on improving shatter which treat clones kittenter fodder.

So end result is that it is really hard to find traits to go together with it. Picking this trait means you want clones to be alive longer and you shatter less. But then mesmer doesn’t have good access to other abilities to keep clones alive. You also lose a lot on all the benefits shatter give you.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Currently the usage is drop phants → phant attack → shatter into clones → ambush → shatter into phants. or something like that, idk.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: zanny.9380

zanny.9380

im not sure everyone understands the importance of mirrors for this class. with max vigor and mirrors you can dodge constantly. I think there is some tweaks that need to be done, but all in all when played right its hard for most classes to damage a mirage. I found I could mirage cloak most classes the entire engage. between dodge, mirrors, and f4 I could kill most people with little to no damage done. don’t look at an individual trait, but the kit as a whole.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Max uptime from rolling is 57% assuming you have 100% vigor uptime, use Mantra of Recovery, and Mirage Advance. If you throw in Crystal Sands and Sand Through Glass, you can increase that to ~66%, toss in traited Distortion and you’re at ~75%.

Yes, if you throw in traited Sword2 you’re at 101%, but that’s theoretical uptime. First off, you have cast times, input lag, delays, cooldowns, and you’re also not going to have 100% vigor uptime.

The build in question is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsf8ak0nhysxgiyAmIZA-TpwHgAAPBg99HAA (last line is Mirage, offhands can be anything, most traits can be changed, any Mirage traits can be chosen, including the awkward Shards of Glass for more mirror or mirage mantle which will get a lot of utility here). Rec Mirage: 1×2 where x is 1 or 2.

You have to use Sword2, dodges, Crystal Sands + Mirror, Mirage Advance + Return, Sand Through Glass + Mirror, weapon swap, and heal off cooldown. You’ll have a realistic uptime capping at around 80% because heal skill has a cooldown, casting while evading is overlap, and the uptime on utility skills is over the course of infinite time, not a short fight.

Additionally, if an enemy corrupts or strips your Vigor at a critical moment, it will severely hamper your upcoming evasions.

Lastly: This build is going to do kitten for damage because you’re focusing on using mechanics to not do anything. If this build gets used in PvP we’ll probably see Mirage become useless in PvP as Mirage Cloak will probably get nerfed to prevent point capture. See: perma negate Chrono nerfs.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Velektrian.5491

Velektrian.5491

This is because the best case scenario for IH on sustained dps is:

  • Untraited Axe
  • Axe Ambush
  • 3 clones (lol?)
  • +300% condition duration on Ambush ability

Why do people keep saying Axe is best case for Mirage Ambush? its Ambush the weakest Condi Ambush out of Axe, Scepter or Staff. Axe does 5 stacks for you and 1 stack for clones (total 9), Staff get 2 confusion and 2 Torment for you and each of your clones at full duration too (16 stacks 100% duration) and Scepter gets 5 random stacks of Confusion and Torment, with half duration on Clones (5 full stacks, 15 half duration stacks)

Staff is the CLEAR winner on Ambush. However, With Sharper Images and 100% Crit, Scepter can also get 15 stacks of Bleeds (Total 35 Stacks of Conditions with 15 of those half duration. Staff would reach 19 stacks, full duration on all and Axe would reach 12 (as strong as a Condi Shatter)

In a Raid setting you will be getting over 100 stacks of conditions with both Staff and Scepter. Axe cannot come close to the Condition damage of those two.

80 Mesmer, Engineer, Elementalist, Guardian, Ranger.
Coming soon: Warrior.

Infinite horizon confusion (I am)

in Mesmer

Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Why do people keep saying Axe is best case for Mirage Ambush? its Ambush the weakest Condi Ambush out of Axe, Scepter or Staff. Axe does 5 stacks for you and 1 stack for clones (total 9), Staff get 2 confusion and 2 Torment for you and each of your clones at full duration too (16 stacks 100% duration) and Scepter gets 5 random stacks of Confusion and Torment, with half duration on Clones (5 full stacks, 15 half duration stacks)

Nice, take the sentence out of context. Tbh clone ambushes (and IH as a whole) are mostly only good for cheese condi bursts that aren’t very reliable (you really shouldn’t have 3 clones out for bursting).

From a purely numerical standpoint, yes, with clones, Staff is better than Axe. However, Axe comes out faster (literally half the time) and homes instead of being a line shot. Heck, in Raids, Staff might not even hit the boss due to 5 target cap.

I don’t particularly like the idea of taking 1s to shoot an attack out of an evade that lasts 0.75s (although that’s a separate issue).

Lastly, your numbers on Axe are way off. Axe spawns 2 axes that apply 1 stack of confusion each, meaning 2 for mesmer, up to 8 with 3 clones. When traited, the mesmer will spawn 1 additional axe meaning 9 confusion stacks.

I’m not saying it’s better, but it is faster and more reliable, plus I’m a fan of Dune Cloak over IH.