Guild Wars 2

This utility skill (Mimic) is as far as I have seen is one of the least used utility skills. There are a few reasons and a few quirks to this ability that I just for understand why they punish the user for good timing and situational awareness.

Out of all of the reflect abilities we have, Mimic is the only one that you take the damage from the projectile used on you. Not only that, but to be able to use this utility effectively you have to have great situational awareness and timing. By scanning and looking for the foreshadowing of a projectile attack. It’s definitely not a fire and forget projectile defense (Feedback), or Traited Temporal Curtain, and it’s not paired with a 15 sec cd and a heal (Mirror).

I feel hands down that this utility takes a great amount of skill to use effectively by the player, does not offer any benefits besides being able to reflect projectiles at the time of your choosing, and requires a good deal of situational awareness as well as good timing to use, so why does this ability with all of those requirements force you to eat the damage of the attack that you skillfully absorbed? No wonder no one is using this skill, it’s a single target return unlike Feedback, and it’s not fire and forget like the others. Forcing the player to eat the damage is a determinant in it’s own.

I don’t know any skillful player that plans to eat damage, usually the skill required rewards the player by avoiding damage. Not taking it straight to the face, after working hard to plan and time something.

Anyone have anything to add about this skill?

Sorry for typos, typing this from my phone.

If you could keep the absorbed attack through down/death, it would be… slightly useful.

Well that is one issue, but I feel the bigger issue is the cast time of Echo. A lot of times you’ll absorb a useless skill and just want to get rid of it, thus it feels punishing to the player to absorb weak skills. Making it instant will make it so that no matter the skill absorbed it still is a positive for the player using mimic.

Making it instant will also allow the player to combo it during other skills, making it a better tool to burst or combo with, opening up interesting play possibilities.

Right now it also blocks skills for the duration after it absorbs a projectile, which you can trigger with your own bounce skills. I think this should be removed because I think this makes it OP for bunker builds, making it essentially a 4s block with a 25s CD which can be traited for less.

I say just make it absorb the first projectile and reflect projectiles for the rest of its duration and make echo instant cast. I was possibly thinking making it absorb/reflect projectiles in an area around the mesmer as well, but then you would need to increase the CD.

So you want mimic to be a mini-feedback around yourself until it absorbs one projectile then it disappears?

I suspect they make you take the first hit so you can’t echo one-shot attacks. However, most one-shot projectiles will come from bosses who usually have enough hp to take several of them anyway.

Also, feedback does this so…maybe not.

Esplen.3940:

So you want mimic to be a mini-feedback around yourself until it absorbs one projectile then it disappears?

A mini-feedback around your character would certainly make the skill a lot more interesting for sure. But if they don’t want to go that far simply making echo instant cast will do wonders for the skill IMO.

I use mimic in my current build VERY frequently and I think it’s fine as it is, it’s an amazing interception and suppression skill (I use it to shield my party between feedback bubbles since I can get in between the attacker and my party)

The only thing I think it needs is a buff in the damage of the echo’d attack. Unless you stored a zerk killshot (which is hilarious fun by the way), anything you throw back will hit for less than a GS auto-attack hit in full cleric, which in my opinion renders echo fairly useless in most occaisions.

If anything, either buff Echo’s damage scaling OR have the echo’d attack act as an ethereal combo finisher or something to that effect.

ps: If you’re using a staff or GS, you can mimic your bounced projectiles coming back to you for your intial absorb (1 on staff, 2 on GS), so you can set yourself up for the block and reflection if you can time everything

TheComet.6471:

I use mimic in my current build VERY frequently and I think it’s fine as it is, it’s an amazing interception and suppression skill (I use it to shield my party between feedback bubbles since I can get in between the attacker and my party)

The only thing I think it needs is a buff in the damage of the echo’d attack. Unless you stored a zerk killshot (which is hilarious fun by the way), anything you throw back will hit for less than a GS auto-attack hit in full cleric, which in my opinion renders echo fairly useless in most occaisions.

If anything, either buff Echo’s damage scaling OR have the echo’d attack act as an ethereal combo finisher or something to that effect.

ps: If you’re using a staff or GS, you can mimic your bounced projectiles coming back to you for your intial absorb (1 on staff, 2 on GS), so you can set yourself up for the block and reflection if you can time everything

Wow that’s a great piece of info about the bounce attacks thanks.

Like you said echo’s attack is very weak unless you absorb a full zerker kill shot. Here’s the thing, I think that is an excellent concept that if you can skill a projectile interception aimed at you in the middle of a huge particle effect battle, but to have to eat that attack is a huge turn off to the skill. I dont know many players that can A) survive a full zerker kill shot, or want to eat a full zerker kill shot at the chance they survive and can echo it back for lulz or serious use.

What if Mimic halved the damage that you take from the projectile? Now it might be strong, but think about it, not everyone is going to be able to “catch” zerker kill shots… At least this would make it an actual defensive tool with an actual benefit to use.

Skyro.3108:

Esplen.3940:

So you want mimic to be a mini-feedback around yourself until it absorbs one projectile then it disappears?

A mini-feedback around your character would certainly make the skill a lot more interesting for sure. But if they don’t want to go that far simply making echo instant cast will do wonders for the skill IMO.

What I meant was, instacast and it would absorb one attack (no reflect/block with instacast or it would be 4sec invuln if you get hit by ranged). I just said mini-feedback because it would look kinda nifty (think Distortion trait for reflection particles.3333333

the only reason I don’t use mimic is because I get hit by the first shot which normally is the one i’m trying to avoid. it makes the skill kind of useless compared to feedback.

On the other had it is useful to have 4 seconds of invincibility. (:

I’d totally trade not having the second part of the spell if it could negate not being hit by the first projectile.

AmateurGod.5403:

I’d totally trade not having the second part of the spell if it could negate not being hit by the first projectile.

I wouldn’t. You could use Mimic to absorb your own bouncing projectiles to trigger the effect.

Skyro.3108:

Right now it also blocks skills for the duration after it absorbs a projectile, which you can trigger with your own bounce skills. []… making it essentially a 4s block with a 25s CD which can be traited for less.

AmateurGod.5403:

On the other had it is useful to have 4 seconds of invincibility. (:

I dunno, I quite like Mimic in WvW.

Mister Mustard.7203:

Skyro.3108:

Right now it also blocks skills for the duration after it absorbs a projectile, which you can trigger with your own bounce skills. []… making it essentially a 4s block with a 25s CD which can be traited for less.

AmateurGod.5403:

On the other had it is useful to have 4 seconds of invincibility. (:

I dunno, I quite like Mimic in WvW.

Usually, the shot will kill the mesmer in pvE. Perhaps a damage reduction of the first shot will be nice. 50 percent damage reduction?