Guild Wars 2

Pretty much what the title says does anyone use mimic and if so what stats improves its damage, how many projectiles will it absorb and how much damage does it do?

Mimic is totally killer, I love the skill. First of all, it’s WAY less obvious than the big shiny reflect dome and most people will happily continue firing on you, which brings us to the next great thing about Mimic: after absorbing the first projectile it will reflect projectiles for the remainder of its duration, and there is more. Not only will you reflect projectiles, you will also block all melee attacks that hit you, which has saved me countless times in WvW. These blocks will then even proc the retaliation trait if you have it!

It absorbs one projectile and then u r able to shoot it back, thats all. I dont think anybody uses it since the current builds have better utilities to choose from, personally i would use it with a reflection build if it worked -.- sadly its not gonna happen since creating useless content is more important than fixing old ones…

It’s a pretty good ability. It’s just suffers from the fact that we have better ones. But I think it’s probably one of my favorite abilities for coolness even though I don’t really use it. I’m sure it could find its way into a specific build type, however, like a bunker build or some such.

It does a lot more than what the tooltip states, btw.

It channels for 4 seconds. While you’re channeling it, you will absorb the next projectile attack. That attack does full damage on you, and changes your skill to Echo. However, the remaining duration of Mimic is still active and after absorbing one projectile you will block everything for the entire duration(whatever is left of the initial 4 seconds), including all melee and ranged attacks. So, it is a great blocking skill to buy time on a short cooldown, provided you can actually block a projectile with it. Once you have absorbed a projectile and Mimic has been replaced with Echo, Mimic immediately starts cooling down behind Echo even if you haven’t used it yet. I haven’t timed how long you can hold onto a skill, but I do know Echo lasts for at least over a minute which is a long time. It’s certainly possible to hold onto the stolen skill long enough for mimic to come back so that when you use your stolen skill, Mimic is ready to be used again.

Mimic + Mirror + Focus Reflection + Feedback + Distortion Reflection = best ranged people troll in the game.

In the case of for example Unload, only one will get absorbed and you’ll eat the rest 7-9.

The Block + Reflection of Mimic is awesome, just one problem: it must first be activated by an absolutely horrible effect, i.e. you must be hit by a projectile attack first that will do full damage to you, which you must then manually (as opposed to passively) “reflect” it back. Of course you can choose who to send the projectile against, but really; does that much much of a difference?

The joke with Mimic is, it has potential to be great against melee/non-projectile attacks (Block for 4s), but unless you take full damage from a projectile attack first that aspect is dangled out of your reach.

Mimic absorbs 1 projectile. If it’s a salvo attack like the rangers #2 longbow, you absorb ONE arrow. It might be useful if it soaked the whole attack, or did decent damage. At this point in time there is almost no reason to ever take this ability over the insanely better support options the mesmer can take (eg Feedback).

it actually reflects after absorbing, not block.

afaik it reflects after absorbing AND reflected projectiles cause also confusion, like the feedback combo field.
Very usefull skill under water or in 1on1 battles. feedback is to easy to dodge.

The way mimic works is, as people have stated, it absorbs the first projectile attack received. This attack will do full damage do you, and apply any conditions that were attached to it. Taking melee hits before this attack is absorbed will have no effect on mimic. After the first attack is absorbed, all subsequent ranged attacks will be reflected, and all non-ranged attacks will be completely blocked for the duration of the channel. It is an immensely powerful skill if used properly, especially when combined with a lower cooldown on manipulation skills trait.

Thanks for all the wonderful information, I was actually looking into this because I know it absorbed attacks but, didn’t really know much more about the ability. Can anyone tell me what increases its damage?

Nothing, it reflects the attack back as is. Same attack power and its crit status.

Also be aware that you take all the effects of the first attack, which means you can use it to absorb anything that would interrupt you, unless you throw stability on yourself.

PROTIP: Use it to eat Champion mob projectiles and fire them at lowbies in WvW.

Good times.

It gets fluffy if you combine it with the Mirror of Anguish. Ranger shoots knockback shot, you both bounce back to ~maxrange. You then knock him back again. Heh.

Before it got nerfed, I used it all the time. But then they made it so that it didn’t actually absorb the first ranged attack, but that that first ranged attack has full effect on you. I never seriously used that skill since, since most times I don’t want to take that first attack anyways.

Now I only use it against Karka.

Also, there seems to be many different versions of Mimic being advertised in this thread. Obviously only one is the correct version, and therefore some in this thread are incorrect on their accounts of the skill.

Taking damage from first attack severely diminishes usefulness of the skill in pve, because a lot of mobs attack with slow powerful attacks. For instance in orr it’s pretty useless against phantom bows (or whatever they are called) with their daze attack, it’s useless against the guardian mob with it’s one ranged pull projectile. It’s useless against risen villager with it’s one ranged attack (thrown torch), it’s useless against the mob which throws green blades, it’s useless against risen pirate with it’s one crippling dagger etc…. most mobs just don’t fire rapidly enough that you’d be able to reflect more than 1 attack (and you take the first one).

It’s rather cute on how many people are so wrong about how the skill actually works ^^

It’s a blast using Mimic for farming on Karka Island, for sure. You’ll eat the first projectile but you’ll reflect the rest of the spit attack and reflect means they hit the Karka(s). In addition to that – once the Karka stops spitting you STILL have one attack stored in Mimic which you need to fire at the Karka (3/4 dead by now) to start the cooldown.

Given the short cooldown time this makes farming Karka island a blast and if you should get an insta-respawn there’s always the dome to use should Mimic be down.

HtFde.3856:

[Mimic is only useful for farming Karka]

I already said that in this thread. And having a single utility only really useful for farming one kind of enemy, that only spawns in one certain area, is not how the skill should be balanced.

Besides, the old version of Mimic would have done the exact same for Karka farming, only you wouldn’t be hit by the first hit…. therefore making it a much better skill PvP-wise. I would actually prefer the beta version of the skill that only absorbed the first attack (no reflection, after the first attack you get hit by all subsequent attacks).. at least then it could be used for avoid one particular attack you didn’t want to get hit by (like a Kill Shot, or other big attack). Now it is just a leaky Feedback on a short cool down that only protects yourself.

Yeah, it seems to be a skill searching for a reason for existence right now. “A worse version of feedback with a lower cooldown and not so obvious animation” doesn’t seem like a great reason to have yet another reflecion utility on a clkittened with reflect.

Oh, in WvW when you run through enemies shooting arrows at you (and the keep’s portal is oh so far away and blink is on cooldown) it does come in handy too. It’s just not a mainbar thing, I’d say that you cannot live without.