Guild Wars 2

Zenith.7301:

Phantasms should just be retooled.

Make them a one strike summon, despawning after their strike. Lower the cooldown on them to 8-10 seconds cd and buff the damage of their attacks to compensate.

Guardian spirit weapons are now a better Phantasm then what we are forced to use.

The spe really use the mirage concept well, you think you will have clean fresh water but you end with a lot of hot sand like this spe you have pretty animation and promising concept but you end up with messy mechanic and no synergy with your other trait lines or core skill.
I’m sure people will find some unexpected use to it but it’s a shame that a spe that use clone so much don’t buff them or add more of them.

The number of people thinking that Mirage Cloak has worse mobility than a normal dodge is way too high. Remember you can still move during cloak, and having superspeed allows you to cover more distance than normal.

Phantasms DO ambush attacks! Just equip Illusionary Ambush are watch ALL your phantasms attack your target.

EDIT: I mean the illusions all shadowstep around your target. Apparently that’s not what people are complaining about.

Abelisk.4527:

Phantasms DO ambush attacks! Just equip Illusionary Ambush are watch ALL your phantasms attack your target.

People are spouting too many rumors about this spec, it’s not that bad…

Can you record it ? Tried to do it with duelist (pistol phantasm) and warlock (staff phantasm) and i don’t see my phantasm doing ambush attack like clone does.
Even leaving one clone and 2 phantasm to see if he does the ambush attack, all i see is the clone ambush and nothing from the 2 phantasm.

Refia Montes.3205:

The number of people thinking that Mirage Cloak has worse mobility than a normal dodge is way too high. Remember you can still move during cloak, and having superspeed allows you to cover more distance than normal.

The number of people forgetting that superspeed doesn’t work with backpedalling or strafing is way too high.

Shouldn’t Mirage triggers Ambush on Shatter ? At this point, they are underpowered and leaving them this way but activating on shatter would be alright.

To waste endurance to get access to Ambush is dumb and the whole profession is centered about it, when they should have centered it over Shatter mechanic, which Mesmer has plenty of traits already.

It fits really well with Riddle of Sand and Shards of Glass.

It would make it just viable enough, imo.

but then what about the trait that allows clones to use ambush… when you sacrifice all your clones to get ambush… i think its fine on dodgeing.. but other things like mirror definitely needs changed.

Aluren.1896:

Refia Montes.3205:

The number of people thinking that Mirage Cloak has worse mobility than a normal dodge is way too high. Remember you can still move during cloak, and having superspeed allows you to cover more distance than normal.

The number of people forgetting that superspeed doesn’t work with backpedalling or strafing is way too high.

Being able to dodge while casting, being cc’ed & stomping outclasses the backwards dodge mobility though in my opinion.
Plus it doesn’t take much to just turn around when dodging. You’re not locked into an animation or anything.

Clones should gain Ambush when the player does baseline, Infinite Horizon feels quintessential to Mirage. Can leave the invulnerability part of Mirage Cloak for Clones on that grandmaster, if necessary. (And maybe add to it: Also gain access to Ambush while stealthed?)

Ambush window is much too short, like others have said.

Axe skill 2 & 3 feel too slow/unreliable. (But I do love the animations for Imaginary/Seeking Axes).

Also, please consider allowing to Jaunt hit where you teleported from too? Could limit it to max 1 hit per cast (a la Scourge stuff), but allowing double hits would also keep the offense vs defense trade off (which seems to be Mirage’s theme).

Lastly, Shatters feel too costly to use for Condi Mirage. Perhaps Shards of Glass could change to: “Shatters no longer destroy Clones, but Phantasms count for 2x Illusions”? This would also allow more reliable tuning on Mirage Mirror proc chance and ICD.

I dislike the sword ambush, although appreciate the attempt to give mirages more mobility.

It makes cleaving in a particular location against targets that port/stealth difficult (cf. the original ranger sword auto.)

Please give the leap to the offhand sword phantasm instead to reduce stationary cleave clunkiness.

Thing is, I like the Sword Ambush. With Infinite Horizon (which, again, should be baseline), it turns our dodge into a on-demand daze via our clones. If only it actually triggered our traits when used through clones…

I dislike Scepter and Staff Ambush, really. They’re just so… plain. Normal. Simply upped versions of our normal auto. I’d rather get utility on them, and thus our clones, than just another auto.

At present I’m finding the best thing to do is ignore both the Mirror mechanic AND the Ambush attacks. Now I’m basically just regular condi Mes with an axe and another way to safe stomp.

There’s still hope for the class if Anet improve both the Mirrors and Ambushes.

I would like to see Infinite Horizon deleted and NOT get the effect baseline. No more clones using ambush attacks. Then have them beefed up to actually be impactful. I want LESS reliance on clones, not more…

My impressions so far are:
Mirage cloak: I like this concept for the specialisation mechanic – it’s similar in a sense to berserk/primal burst for warriors and it works well with mantra casts. The implementation is ok, but at the moment I find it very hard to cast ambushes in any sort of precise way because mirage cloak is does not cancel AA the way stealth does. Ideally, there would be some way to control this better. Ideas:

• A sound effect telling you when ambush is ready (similar to mechanic sound effects in raids)
• Move ambush skills to f5 so they are actually optional.

Clone focus: This fits with the focus on condition damage. I don’t find clones all that hard to access with this spec, and they only seem to be critical with one of the 3 grandmasters.

Individual Ambushes: Greatsword puzzles me, it seems awful based on the numbers. Sword seems great at opening up a new way to play the weapon set. I am ambivalent towards the others – they seem to have a place, but I am not sure if they really work well enough.

Axe: Is in effect a clone focused weapon – i.e. based on the numbers it requires you to upkeep clones or it does not pay off. As above, I think that niche is neat but it is a more severe limitation when applied to a weapon than a trait. Also, axe 3 is unreliable and needs work in that area

Deceptions: I like the concepts, though mirrors are a bit tricky to use. I would not object to QoL improvements, nor would I insist on direct buffs. IMO they rely on having a real payoff for ambushes and so attention should be focused there.

Traits: The traits are generally useful but outside GM level they do seem to be “toned down” already. Not sure if this is a problem.

The only reason a mesmer ever ever ever should wield an axe is when his mom told him to chop some firewood.

After testing most of the Elite Specs with most of my time spent on Mirage i can say, i hate it. It has no synergy with any of our other trait lines except Duelist slightly. If they wanted to make it a clone build there are several things they should have done.

1. Phantasm Attacks should have been modified to be one shot attacks that summon clones.

2. Improve Clone health

3. The Ambush Attacks should have become our F skills.
F1: Your Clones change targets to attack your Target and perform an Ambush attack. (To mimic the standard Shatter, should be low CD, like 5 seconds)
F2: You and your Clones Shadow step around your Target and perform an Ambush Attack, this causes the target to drop targeting on you. (To mimic the Confusion on F2, Same CD as normal F2)

Doing this, our Shatter Traits could have affected our Ambush Attacks, much like the Scourge and how there F skills get affected by the Shroud Skills . we don’t have to worry about using dodges for damage either, allowing us to use them defensively. then they just need to make a new GM as i baked Infinite Horizon into the new F skills. Additionally, The Mirage Mirrors will just be extra defenses, not something you HAVE to get for your damage.

IMHO there are 2 changes needed:

- Some kind of way to get endurance apart from vigor
- More resistant Clones

PS: ok 3: Mirage mantle feels like the most uninteresting and underpowered trait the game has ever had

Mikkel.8427:

Refia Montes.3205:

The only time that clones don’t replace Phantasms the Sceptre Auto.

I wish they’d change ALL clone-producing abilities to work like the scepter auto. That would be a massive QoL change.

Bit late to the party but that would significantly nerf Sword. Being able to drop a sword3 for blinks or boon purge is pretty useful. Not spawning the clone also stops the blink.

I’d like to see clone death traits return. If I have to depend on clones, then give me something back when they are instantly destroyed.

ttyl.6021:

Clones should gain Ambush when the player does baseline, Infinite Horizon feels quintessential to Mirage.

In fact, same for Phantasms.

Mirage:

False Oasis: And i was thinking: Cool a new solo spec….maybe not a heal with 30 sec. CD? oh….not so good…30 sec CD…a Group heal? I thought it is a solo spec….maybe it is good?…oh the ammount of heal is to low to be a 30 sec CD heal…more of a 15 or even just a 12 sec CD heal….ok, only good thing: you must not stand in it….

So. please instead of giving us more heal with this skill: it is a solo spec from the gameplay i saw….dont increase the heal we are getting: lower the CD to 15 (or even 12) seconds so that we (finnaly) have one more heal with low CD…

Mesmer alreday has heal skills with high CD (and the well from Chrono is already a good group heal, with a good heal ammount….and 30 sec. CD)…..

Jaunt: For an elite skill…to short distance…i mean: press the button, target the location…use the button again….that time i also can run this little distance without using this skill…..

Increase the distance you travel with this skill.

Mirage Cloak:

To short time you have the cloak….i mean: in the video you said you can stand in the attacks of enemies without beeing hit…that is not true after all…..the attacks from enemies are way longer than the cloak is there…so you need to run out of the attacks….and dont have the time to use the Ambush attacks…..

So: Slightly increase the time we have the mirage cloak.

Ambush Attacks:

What should i say? Axe and Scepter are in some way ok….staff is well not good not bad (ok staff is not my weapon the normal 1 is bouncing and pulling enemies that i dont want)…but the rest? Needs to be something else…ok sword more movement…but after seeing how the 4 from the thiefs dagger is working i dont like sword mesmer at all….(but i like the artwork in the wiki with the little sword in the hand)….Greatsword…oh my…..that is an ambush i will never use….and i was after hearing the new elite get new skill 1 skills..: oh my: PLEASE let our Mesmers have learned something from the White Mantle Mesmers on Lake Doric….they use GS 3 as an really hurting AoE attack…and i thought: our Mesmer maybe learned this from fighting the white mantle…but no…. GS 1 Ambush….. can be ignored…

Axe: ok, really well done, nothing more to say, i like the axe, finally a weapon with movement…and also i like the trait where you can get a 20% CD Rduction on axe…

(also i am asking myself: why does the shield dont have the 20% CD Reduction as trait….just why? Alacrity maybe….but that is no real reason so maybe add this to the trait where illusions gain superspeed on chrono after shattering…so the player must decide: 20% CD Reduction + Illusion superspeed after shatter OR more group support with wells that give alacrity after they end.)

Little offtopic: after you reduced the heal from the mantra, and changed harmonius mantras, give us a 3rd mantra recharge by default…also your new ammunition system is some sort of….well…not good on the mantras….i mean, we still need to cast them new after using the last charge, change it so you dont need to cast anymore, when we used the last charge make a 0…so that we need to wait for the next charge to be ready (hey: it is like a CD….)…also after you reduced the heal ammount from the heal mantra: reduce the recharge time a little please.

Ok, after seeing that most weapons now have a default 20% CD reduction (exepct shield), i saw that pistol dont have it…what am i thinking: next elite: pistol with the 20% CD trait, COOL….(ok i also like the idea of shortbow or 2 handed daggers)…also i was thinking: maybe they even make elites that use well…staff, but changing every skill thanks to the used elite so that a new playstyle with an old weapon is created…(like: the mesmers have leared some new skills after the old ones are not working against the new enemies….or something like that…)….

But yeah, mirage needs some changes…..but i like the axe, dont touch the axe.

I had only a small amount of time to test Mirage yet. But from my first impression I see the biggest problem with the trait “Infinite Horizon”. I forgot to skill it and wondered for 10 minutes if that’s all Mirage did, as nothing happend. The damage was so sub par it made me wonder. It seems the Mirage class mechanic has no meaning without this trait. I would like to see it get base line because it feels like any kind of energy management trait we had in the past. You have to slot it or else the mechanic is useless. The other option would be to improve the mesmer base Ambush by 2 or 3 times and decrease the effect of clone Ambush under Infinit Horizon to compensate. Even so, I would favor the first option, having a elite spec favoring clones seems like a good idea. Having more options to create clones or interact with them would be a perfect addition. For example if Infinit Horizon becomes baseline we could get a new trait that boosts clones in some way.
Of course just a first impression, but as I have read through the other posts it seems I am not alone with that.

I’d prefere a big buff to Ambush attacks over Infinite Horizon becoming baseline but I don’t see a problem with both happening compared to what other specs, both PoF and HoT, can do.

I’ve been starting with a Viper build of Dueling – Illusions – Mirage, which proved to be a mess.
Today, I’ve been playing around with

Sage Amulet
Sword/Pistol and Staff
Dueling 3 2 3
Chaos 2 3 1
Mirage 2 2 1

False Oasis
Mirror Images
Illusionary Ambush
Null Field
Moa

I’m by no means a good PvP player, but this actually worked; between the dazes of Sword Ambush (since you strike after your clone), combined with the conditions of Staff Ambush and Magic Bullet + recharge on interrupt, this was decent, even more so in terms of survivability with all the protection and regeneration between Mirage Cloak and Chaos Armor. I went the route without stealth to make space for utilities.

Now if we stealthed as the video for the specialization implies.. like a short stealth with mirage cloak.

We need clone death traits back. We need Axe to have better range, like the necro mainhand axe maybe.

This spec is allegedly for close combat, but it really isn’t going to survive close to anyone.

ANET, I regret having bought PoF. Fortunately I didn’t buy it on my alt account.

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

What can I say? You’re right. Caveat Emptor.

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

TBH mounts and new maps are far better than hot , mob design is big off but bounty bosses are interesting.

many people do not care about raid or high level pvp anyway .

It’s ok they are preordering for things they enjoy . It does suck for mes main . all in all mmo generally value more contents than balance .

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

Personally I don’t regret buying pof at all – still happy with having the new open world pve zones to explore, mounts and even in the current broken state Mirage has fun mechanics that are a welcome relief from the monotony that Chrono can be.

musu.9205:

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

TBH mounts and new maps are far better than hot , mob design is big off but bounty bosses are interesting.

many people do not care about raid or high level pvp anyway .

It’s ok they are preordering for things they enjoy . It does suck for mes main . all in all mmo generally value more contents than balance .

Thats the whole thing though, the content is open world PvE and story, Mesmer is kitten at it, the very mechanics of the class work against this. Mirage does nothing to fix that. How am I meant to enjoy the new content as a Mesmer?

It has been 5 years I’m fed up of slogging through content, I want to be on par with other classes. I want massive stat boosts stuck on random traits, I want 20 stacks of AoE burn, I want short cooldowns, I want passive healing out the kitten I want a mechanic that works in the game, I want multiple fun and strong builds, I want them to treat Mesmer the same way they treat every other class, I want them to start balancing Mesmer around Guild Wars 2 instead of the imaginary game they think its in and I want an elite spec that isn’t based around a name and an art asset they had lying around.

First of all I would like to discuss 2 gameplay problems that I saw on mirage during this beta then i would do some general suggestion.

Problem 1 :

new dodge mecanic is original but present some issues :

Lateral and back mouvements are very slow compared to a forward move, which means that when you gain mirage cloak (by dodging or hit a mirage mirror) if you wants to take a little distance from your opponent, the only effective way is the forward move.

However, in combat, you have to face your opponent in order to be able to attack him, which means that using an ambush’s skill on your opponent equal losing a lots of mobility since you are forced to perform lateral or back movements. We can not take advantage of the super speed during these movements.

We are then almost motionless when we ambush, except that having no mobility facing an opponents is a bit like being a punching ball waiting to be shaken.

Moreover, ambush ‘s animations last too long compared to the time of invulnerability provided by mirage cloak and only begins when the animation of the skill that you launch before it’s finished, which can be problematic in view of the short ambush’s launch window, the gameplay thus loses nervousity and reactivity.

To correct this, in my opinion we should make sure that :

• Ambush can be launched even by turning back on your opponent (360° degrees possible activation) and must have an animation time of ½s maximum.
• the ambush’s activating window must be changed from 1¼s to 1½ s.
• the trait “speed of sand” should give 1½s or 2s of superspeed instead of ¾s in order to exploit its real potential.

Problem 2 :

Mirage spec is very good in hybrid or condi build and could easily be very good also in power build if some change in the traits / functionings of the skills are brought.

The power stat scale very badly on clones so the condi’s ambush have the advantage, we must make sure that ambushs are viable even if you play power either by increasing the power scale on the clones or giving them an interesting effect that could fill their Lack of dps while remaining useful, so that the mirage have a real interest to launch his power ambush with clones.

Some of my suggestions below answer this problem.

General suggestions

• “mirage mirror” currently remains 5 sec, should be 8sec or 10sec.
• Mirage’s elite spec shouldn’t force you to use clones instead of phantams, both need to be useful.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Traits =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

• “Infinite horizon” should be baseline and would be replaced by an effect on clones death which favors both dps and condi build (if we put damage on clone death it will be an easy way to reveal mirage so it’s a bad idea / if we put conditions that tick it will benefits only condi builds).
  So i guess the new trait would be something like, “When a clone die it inflicts weakness (3s) + crippled (3s) to 3-5 targets around it” or “crippled (3s) + 3 stack of vulnerability (6s)” or why not “suppresses a random advantage at 3-5 target” or maybe “confers a buff (random or wanted) to near allies (300 range)”

• “Self deception” is very good as it is, very useful if you don’t play with the “duel” trait line, you can eventually put the 20% faster recharge on deception’s skills or add something like “using a deception skill restore a small amount of endurance (15 points)”.

• “Mirage mantle” is just pure trash, should be rework to be as good as “Shards of glass”, then that will be an hard choice. Maybe something on superspeed or movement speed ?

• “Nomad’s endurance” should give +100 condi and +100 power on vigor.

• “Mirrored axes” should be rework if the axe is rework.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Weapons =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

• Axe Auto Attack is not that good, ambush is weird and not really efficient and you are too much vulnerable when using « lingering thoughts ». + need clone’s power scale buff.

• Scepter’s ambush : should remove the short back teleport and alow us to using it while moving. + need clone’s power scale buff.

• sword’s ambush : really cool actually, need some more damage + clone’s power scale buff.

• Greatsword’s ambush : need damage buff + maybe clone’s power scale buff or put an extra effet on it (apply vulnerabily or suppress advantage or give you advantage, maybe something like that)
  and by the way, am i the only one to think that the animation is just recycled Auto attack ? It’s not that cool

• Staff’s ambush : projectiles need to fly away faster, it’s literraly easy to avoid them just by running on the left/right. Need some damage buff + clone’s power scale buff.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Skills =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

• “False oasis” should heal in one step and not in 5 times, make sure it is an area as large as the heal fountain of ranger, which pulses 5 times (3sec) vigor to 5 allies present on it + Mirage mirror spawn at the end. Why not an area of effect too? Light / fire seems roleplay, water a bit overpowered, ethereal seems not that good since we have got plenty of them.

• “Jaunts” is very cool but should have 500-600 range.

• “Mirage advanced” should be a targeted location and have a shorter or instant animation + the distance from tp back is currently shorter than tp forward, it should be equal.

• “Sand through glass” should have a roll back of 400 and 25 sec cd instead of 30 sec.

• “Crystal sand” need something more.

That’s all for me, wish they will do some adjustement for the 22 september !

I tested mirage both on golems in pvp lobby and on veteran mobs in WvW (spend around 2-3 hours experimenting and learning new rotations). I’m not good in pvp so I won’t include any insight on this game mode. My main focus is playing open world and fractals – so more relaxed play.

So how did mirage fair for me:

1. Axe
It seems sometimes axe 2 does not spawn clone properly. Axe 3 seems good, but sometimes it puts you away from target. Axe ambush seems weak. I found Staff ambush most powerful and good to use. After some time I played 80% of time with staff.

2. How did I play
(viper gear axe/torch + staff, false oasis, crystal sands, sand through glass, mirror images, jaunt, traits: chaos 133 illusions 332 mirage 311 – seems like good both for shatters and good for illusions – weird, right? read on please).

Main point is I tried to separate my rotation into two different ways.

First one – offensive mirage cloak + ambush:
I spawned clones then used utilities like Crystal Sands or Sand Through glass to spawn mirror -> jaunt into mirror and ambush.

Second one – deffensive mirage cloak + ambush:
Dodge when enemy AOE or cleave attack to keep clones up and cast ambush to continue condi pressure.

As I kept killing vets I figured out that this is more of a “weaving” playstyle (lol) – you generate clones, go offensive or deffensive cloak + ambush, then shatter for all the benefits and condies from traits (+ jaunt into mirror from shatter, you got additional confusion near to target as well) and then spawn new clones -> repeat.

After some practising it felt quite funny. Kida like what they said abouth both scourge and weaver – battlefield management with keeping eye on your illusions and switching between clone-mode and shatter-mode.

Perhaps a lot of people will say this is stupid, but it “clicked” for me and vets died like flies.

Now problems:
1. All this seems like a huge effort for not that great result. Other specs achieve more with quarter the effort.

2. Most of utilities and ambushes are way to slow or have way to long cooldowns to let you flow through rotation without bottlenecks. Also going from staff to axe/torch felt like I’m doing less dmg.

3. Like everyone else said – jaunt needs more distance.

4. I’m very suprised that F1-4 were not touched. There are some great suggestions how new F1-4 would fit Mirage nicely without making it op.

5. As it’s supposed to be condi damage spec – it’s main damage mechanic – Ambush -
seems very weak (on most if not all weapons).

Overal I did like it. But it needs a bit of work to actually feel good to play. But again – keep in mind that I mostly play open world and fractals. This opinion have no value for pvp, wvw or raids.

I test Mirage and i feel that all mechanics are panishing me for using them.

Exemple:
1) axe ambush atack is weeker then normal AA… only scepre and staff Ambush are bether then AA.

2) when we take Mirage we lose old dodge. oki we get Mirage Cloak instead of dodge but we lose mobility.

3) to fix 2) we get Speed of Sand but that traits dont add anythink new, it only make Mirage Cloak to be not that panishing for using Mirage. I feel like we lose minor grandmaster traits only to make core mechankcs playeble

4) axe 3 stop AA.

5) axe 2 clons are work like Deceptive Evasion, when they are make they are atacking closest target, not your target.

6) Illusionary Ambush teleport you OOR of your AA + stop your AA.

7) When you use Deceptive Evasion, Infinite Horizon and you have 3 clons you lose 1 ambush atack from clon when you dodge (new clon from Deceptive Evasion dont get Mirage Cloak).

Did anyone from developers test Mirage before? I doubt it, from what i saw.

Good that i have Necromace, Scourge It looks much better then “alfa Mirage” that we saw this weeken.

Curunen.8729:

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

Personally I don’t regret buying pof at all – still happy with having the new open world pve zones to explore, mounts and even in the current broken state Mirage has fun mechanics that are a welcome relief from the monotony that Chrono can be.

Kinda this. I bought it and don’t regret it. I didn’t pre-order HoT because I was skeptical (and broke af), but GW2 is my game. I’m sad that I didn’t get the title (I hoard titles), although that’s not a big deal. I don’t think I’m going to quit it anytime soon and I am going to be playing PoF regardless of the state of Mesmer or Mirage.

Plus, open world PvE it won’t really matter what you run, worst case scenario I’ll be running Power Mes with Deceptions thrown in. I’ll have to play around with Axe to see if I enjoy it, but for now Sword/Sword + Greatsword clears things fast enough in PvE (and in PoF demo). For harder content I throw in a Focus or Pistol, and it’s not like I don’t have every Mes weapon ready (even have Viper Axe + Scepter ready).

Sure, it won’t be top tier, but I don’t raid that often because it’s hard to find time with work, trying to get a new job, finishing school (done now thankfully), and work on life things. Plus I don’t mind being a kittenty chrono boon/tankbot as long as people aren’t annoying.

Confusion on clone death does seem like a good fit for Mirage, I forgot about those old traits. Or maybe Blind with an ICD? Which could then be paired with Ineptitude.

And perhaps Deceptions should just spawn a Clone baseline? Since we need more clone options and the new utilities feel rather niche.

Disclaimer: I play mostly organized group WvW and some WvW roaming. I don’t play PVE raids nor sPvP. I endured dozens of hours in PVE to craft Astralaria in hope that one day I would get to use it on my mesmer.

Another important disclaimer: although I played with the default Carrion set for a while, most of my testing has been on full zerker (as full as I could with the demo exotics).

I didn’t like Mirage.

If Spellbreaker is “a mesmer through the eyes of a warrior”, Mirage feels like a thief through the eyes of a mesmer, and I dislike thief.

Mirage is another “duelist” gimmick that doesn’t bring a new role for mesmers in large scale fights. It doesn’t solve THE problem: shatters reliance on illusions that die instantly in large scale. It doesn’t provide us any decent ground casted or point blank AoE nor any other “unique” utility like Portal or Veil.

On top of this, the idea that the blur-effect dodge would fool any decent PvP player is insulting: the mesmer is still easily spotted.

I should probably go over every trait and spell, but I’m so disappointed I don’t feel like doing it.

I’ll try to summarize my thoughts. The BAD things that come to mind:

• No dodge jump. One realizes how important it is for his positioning only when he’s forced to play without it. AWFUL.
• RNG, RNG, RNG, RNG, RNG. Even if it confuses the opponent, most of the time I was as confused as them by my position after using Axes of Symmetry or Illusionary Ambush.
• The gap closers on Mirage Thrust and Axes of Symmetry are so slow and obvious that they very rarely land.
• Jaunt is clunky as hell and ridicolously short range
• Sand Through Glass 300 units and 30s cooldown… :°)
• Mirage Advance is shorter range than thief’s Shadowstep (and in range for Headshot, sigh) and has a (huge) cast time… are we supposed to use every single spell from stealth or just dodge-cast it? Because if we don’t, these skill WILL be interrupted.
• Shards of Glass: in all the hours I played I took advantage of this maybe one time, and actually saw the mirror maybe 3. Sure, L2P issue, but feels extremely underwhelming.
• No movement speed bonus, no decent access to swiftness. Gonna have to retrieve that old Traveler Runes set.

It’s not all bad. There are some good things too:

• Mirage Thrust, even if it’s too obvious, when it lands it’s good and you can use it to chase or run away
• Dodge stomp/ress
• Double Jaunt stomp
• Can actually chase runners with a combo of Blink, Mirage Thrust and Illusionary Ambush
• Jaunt for very short blink spots (saves Blink cooldown)

Nobody can predict how the meta will change, but the trend I see is heavy condition and boon strip/corrupt, and that means the “melee ball” will have a hard time once again (when resistance is stripped or corrupted, everyone gets melted by the insane amount of conditions). So… condi pirateship? We’ll see. But if that is the case, there’s no place for Mesmer, Chronomancer or Mirage in a similar scenario.

I wish a moderator, developer, or frequent mesmer forum community member would create a series of narrowly focused threads about the different aspects of the Mirage to help focus feedback and discussion. This thread, and the forums in general, are a total mess; I’m not sure anyone can really get anything useful out of the current chaos.

Since this seems to be the place to dump feedback in totality, here is my exhaustive feedback in as brief and as organized a fashion as I can muster. For transparency, this is coming from someone who adored the Mirage and focuses on PvP and would play it as is despite lower functionality because of how much I enjoyed it.

I can not express how disappointed I was with this spec. When I heard it was suppose to be a damage spec I was really excited since I love the mesmer theme, and wanted to play a magic duelist that wasn’t just there to provide buffs. After trying it out all I have to say is the elite spec really needs to be taken back to the drawing board. Some problems I had with it were:
1) The mirror thing just needs to go or be changed somehow it feels super clunky trying to run around and pick them up which means sometimes you may end up having to stop dps or just ignore them.
2) Ambush on clones just doesn’t seem to do much damage, and why doesn’t it do something for phantasms? It basically feels like you’re being punished for using one of your weapon skills.
3)The new dodge thing I don’t like. I feel like it needs to have some sort of movement with it because you can use it to dodge however you might end up getting caught in an aoe still since it doesn’t move you.

Some more thoughts

I’ve started to get used to playing mirage more, and I’m seeing a lot more potential now. Figuring out a lot of combos.

The toss up between self-deception and renewing oasis is a little too hard. Would like to see them moved from different levels. Self-Deception feels to core to half the combos but you really need oasis for the condi clear with how many are getting tossed around now. Self-Deception is also essential if you want to go anything other than deceptive evasion.

Jaunt has been most useful as a way to jump to mirrors you’ve created. If the range was more, that would be more possible. If it was made to 900 it would create good synergy with crystal sands.

Reformed mirrors feels a little lackluster. If changed to mirror created only if a 3 clone shatter it would feel much more deliberate, and give greater consideration to traits like self-deception or deceptive evasion.

Mirage Advance is curious because it’s the only deception skill that doesn’t give mirage at some point. Having one spawn at your original location makes sense, gives other reasons to jump back other than just panic button.
As well, it’s cast time and range makes Illusionary Ambush the better option every time.
(I love Illusionary Ambush, don’t change it.)

Renewing Oasis. I know this just means more work, but it would be nice for the healing to be like one of the warrior trait regens rather than just a boon, especially if stack able.

I can see the logic behind the use and placement of a lot of the new traits. I just think some of the traits position and ideas should be re looked at.

Thought I’d just add my two cents…
Like many I was excited to test the Mirage specialization. At the start of the weekend I felt a little disappointed and had mixed feelings about this specialization.

For some reason, I presumed this specialization would be comparable to the Daredevil specialization, seeing as they both add a new dimension to each profession’s dodge mechanic. I think Mirage Cloak could be improved by granting Mirages access to a third endurance bar, just like the Daredevil, so they can utilize their dodge more regularly and to greater effects.

I disliked the lack of stealth on the Mirage. Thematically, turning invisible to ambush your enemy makes sense. It would’ve been nice if we gained access to the new Ambush attacks whilst we were invisible, which daredevils are able to do similarly.

Furthermore, I feel the Mirage Mirrors could do with a bit of polishing. I would like to see them lasting indefinitely, like a Dragon Hunter’s or Ranger’s traps, so I could strategically use them.

On a more positive note…
By the end of the weekend my faith in the Mirage was restored a little.

I enjoyed being able to play as a condition-based damage dealer. I haven’t played condition-mesmer since pre HoT.

I liked how some of the Ambush skills add a new depth to existing weapons, especially the sword’s Ambush attack.

I appreciated some of the thought that went into the designing of the skills and animations. Thematically, when you think of a mirage in the desert, you immediately think of an oasis and the new healing skill actually creates an oasis, which briefly made me laugh.

Finally, this new spec made me look into not only weapons but also trait lines I haven’t touched since pre-Hot days. I found myself selecting torches, staves and sceptres, instead of swords, and also delving into the Dueling and Chaos lines, rather than the Domination, Inspiration or Illusion lines I’ve regularly selected over the years. This felt very refreshing.

On a final random note…
Granting oneself Vigor seems imperative to playing the Mirage.
This would allow you to constantly refuel your endurance and maintain Mirage Cloak and Ambush skills.
I didn’t realize till today that Vigor now grants a condition damage buff as well as the endurance restoration.
I don’t know if anyone noticed but Dueling, Chaos and Mirage might be the three trait lines to take as a build.
Amongst these tramlines are Critical Infusion and Bountiful Disillusionment for generating vigorous as well as a variety of other traits for increasing condition damage, causing conditions or generating more clones. Just FYI.

Ambushes are trash. Even the Sceptre one is just a bit stronger. Sword Ambush is fine but in PvE it replaces one of your Phantasm with a weak clone. Also needs a longer window for us to cast the Ambush skill and more damage on them.

No functionality to help Phantasms. No Ambush for them. Would be nice if Infinite Horizon, would make them reset the cooldowns of their skills so that they can attack again and it wouldn’t need much work.

Utilities are okay, but core Mesmer already has nice skills for mobility, with blink and portal. Not one of them is worth more.

Traits are fine, maybe some fixes on it. From the looks of it, the first line focuses on clones, second line with defenses and the last one focuses on condis. Should have something to help with Power in PvE too, since they have to give sword and GS ambush as well.

Self Deception is a bad trait and will never be picked over the two. Change it so that it creates a clone for every Deception Skill you cast. Incentivizes usage of Deception skills over Blink and Portal. Or maybe a damage modifier of 10% whenever you cast a deception skills that lasts 5 seconds, which can be useful for both PvE and PvP power shatter builds.

The other two in the same tier are fine. One providing utility and one providing more condi damge.

Nomad’s Endurance really ticks me off. It says, THIS SPEC IS CONDI, when in reality you can also use Sword and GS with it. Should be made into 150 Power and Condi or if that’s too strong (lol it’s not) 100 power and condi.

Shards of Glass is decent, but currently our ambushes are not worth anything so better not pick up the mirrors. This skill will find more value as ambushes get better.

The other two are fine, specially the axe trait.

For the last line, all of them are fine and I would argue they’re really strong but some minor fixes.
Infinite Horizon, makes your clones more durable and deal more damage with Ambush, but even with this clones are still weaker than Phantasms which devalues the skills power significantly. Would be better if triggering it would reset Phantasm skill cooldowns as I said earlier.

I think at the very least we’d need something like this:

• All your illusions will now do the ambush, no matter their weapon / type.
• Ambush skills made substantially stronger.

That way it’s a burst high-DPS spec which has a very fragile damage vector because the illusions can trivially be killed. But once they’re up, Mirages could quickly kill a target.

Some small things I would like to see changed in the new elite Mirage specialization.
Of course I did not learn the elite in 2 days, so probably some suggestions are made based on my not so expert experience, but whatever.
The Mirage mirror should last longer in the field. Adding a second? (Or 2, I need them and time is essential to reach them, a problem explained later)
We can not move away while evading. It’s the new mechanics, but you’ve added 3/4 seconds of superspeed to compensate. This does not work when you evade on side or back where every movement improvement does not work, but you moves even slower. So you can not avoid the Aoe except on the forehead, in other directions is how to stand and doing nothing to survive.
So, please add more superspeed, a whole second would help a lot, and maybe make sure that it also works when you walk backwords. Another problem regarding to movement and speed in the battlefield is to reach the mirage mirror spread in the area created with the trait Shard of Glass character, or the Crystal Sands or Sand Through Glass utilities. Obviously you can use the Elite Jaunt, but the range of 400 is embarrassing, or add the Sigil of Inspiration to your build, but i feel like it’s a wasted space. Some swiftness added to different skills or minor traits are wellcome (I really miss the bonus movement from the Chrono trait line, but we can not have everything, I know).
Add a evading window to Axis # 2? It would be nice and will add some survival to this set of weapon.
Crystalline sand rarely can hit something. More stackof confusion will compensate for all these missed missiles.
I must say that i find really well made everything else, the animation are great and also the particle effects are very ipnotizing.

Things I liked:
- The graphics were nice
- The name of the spec is fun

Things I disliked:
- Having to touch the mirrors on the ground. Make them so you can shatter them by pressing the button again like guard staff 2, etc and gain the buff if you are in 900 range or so
- Autoattack stops regularly. One example of this is axe 3.
- Pathing for the elite utility fails on steps and rocks often
- Having to press dodge as part of my rotation if I want to do damage
- Axe 2 leap often has me facing the wrong direction afterwards
- Scepter ambush cancels if you move while touching a mirror or dodging. Since you are dodging or running to touch a mirror (that’s likely in a dangerous place), it’s pretty common that you will want to be moving. But, you easily lose the Ambush if you are moving when the animation kicks in which nullifies the whole point of dodging or running somewhere to touch a mirror
- The range on the elite jump utility is a bit short
- The window for Ambush seems awfully short

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Path-of-Fire-Elite-Specialization-Preview-August-18-20/page/5

Jaunt needs to be 600, retain its 3 charges.

Axe 2 needs to have an evade frame tied to it.

Overall I felt like you spent way more time setting up your combos to do damage unlike base Mesmer/chrono.

Ok, I’m not a mesmer main, but I think that a more “casual” approach of the mirage’s problems. Therefore, I’ll go more about the general feel more than the numbers.

The spec felt fun, yet clunky to me.

Axe
My main concern is the Lingering Thoughts attack. Not only it needs an evade, but the clone generation is subpar compared to other weapons (sword, staff, scepter…).

Mirage Cloak
A good idea, but not done well. There’s two posibilities to improve it:
-Like the daredevil, Mirage need access to a third dodge bar. It help a lot being aggressive with the dodge mechanic.
-The dodge duration needs to be longer, as it’s stationary. Many ambushes are longer than a dodge, and it makes them dangerous to use.

Ambushes
As said, their cast time is too long. They also should not lock you in place, like the scepter one.

Mirage Mirrors
It’s just bad. In pvp, it tells the opponent where you go, and it’s unreliable to touch it for an evade. Instead of giving mirage cloak, they should grant endurance and/or spawn clones.

Utilities
-False Oasis felt lacking in utility. Considering it’s name, and being a deception, a nice idea would be for it to work like the decoy, (without the break stun).
-Crystal sands works probably well in PvE against big targets, but against smaller targets, it’s not really reliable. The “projectiles” seemed slow.
-Illusionary Ambush is basically Axe’s 3 combined with a dodge. Felt redundant and not interesting.
-Mirage Advance was fun to use.
-Sand through glass felt lacking, because of the mirage mirror.
-Jaunt is too short.

Traits
-Self-Deception isn’t great, but it’s an adept. Deceptions should grant endurance on this trait.
-Renewing Oasis seems fine
-Riddle of Sands should just give confusion of ambushes. Shatters really are against the mirage spec.
-Nomad’s Endurance: it “locks” the spec into conditions, despite having ambushes for the sword and the great sword. The condi boost should be elsewhere, like on mirrored axe. The vigor is once more counter intuitive with the mirage. It should grant vigor on succesful dodges, like Ranger’s Primal reflexe.
-Shards of Glass: a counter intuitive mechanic that sometimes spawn a dangerous one. Really felt ininteresting at the moment.
-Mirage Mantle is fine.
-Mirrored Axes should grant the condition damage boost, as said.
-Speed of sands: it’s too short.
-Infinite Horizon should be baseline. One thing really lacking so far was the fact that clones don’t do ambushes without this trait.
-Elusive minds is fine.
-Dune Cloak is fine, but works on the mirror mechanic that isn’t good at the moment.

TL;DR
The dodge needs a rework either in duration or the number of dodges possibles. The mirror mechanic is really bad at the moment. The shatter mechanic is already a contradiction in the mesmer functionality, but it’s even worse for the mirage. F1-F4 skills should change, or at least the mirage should get an F5 helping him with clones.
Infinite horizon really needs to be baseline.