Guild Wars 2

A video game is supposed to be dynamic and fun. Moving awkwardly to collect objects on the ground is neither. It is hated across all professions.

Rangers hate forage. Dragonhunters hate trap fragments. Ventari hate staff fragments.

Pickup skills only work when players don’t need to change how the move.

Ventari fragments and conjure weapons don’t make players work to use them. The former can be spammed to blanket the area, the later can be cast next to an ally/oneself without delay. They aren’t awkward.

If it’s unbalanced for mirage shards to blanket the area then change the mechanic. Rework the concept.

Waiting for things to appear, running (even with super speed) in predictable paths is torture to the fast pace of mesmer.

It’s not so much the mechanic itself but the duration, 4 seconds is way too short.

Daharahj.1325:

It’s not so much the mechanic itself but the duration, 4 seconds is way too short.

This. You can move while casting and attacking. You can dodge while casting and attacking.

You can actually pick exactly where all of your Mirrors go. Most of them are where you were when you cast it with the exception of the Crystal Sands, which lets you place it where you want it.

With the exception of Sand through Glass (dodge backwards → have to run forward almost immediately), you have extreme control over where you put them.

The problem lies in that you don’t have any control over when you activate them because they have very little duration.

Side note: Lingering Thoughts is a pain if enemies are moving since you’ll almost always be behind them thus your clone won’t trigger (or it will on the wrong target).

it also just feels EXTREMELY counter-intuitive
“hey, don’t use your big heavy hitter until i get near my mirror, okay? thanks!”
like, no, hello, that’s not how games work
maybe pve you can better tell when a hit is coming but in pvp, i-frames are supposed to be reactionary, this game is supposed to be big on visual and audio ques and wind-ups, not “lemme go run over here really quick while you do that”

I think the idea of having an F5 is really good, actually. You can charge it by tapping a Mirror and then you can activate your cloak when you want it. Dodging still grants a cloak immediately.

Have the mirrors generate a clone when you shatter it! Its a mirror breaking by the Mesmer! Have the clone appear next to the Mesmer. Kind of like how mirror images works.

I honestly am also not a fan of the mirror mechanic. I don’t think it’s particularly fun, but i also haven’t really given it a chance yet. In pve it could be cool and fun, but I haven’t had a chance to experience the spec in pve yet. If you were to ask me if I would prefer another mechanic now, I would say yes because I agree with OP. having to go out one’s way to grab power up items in a game like this is lame. But I don’t have any suggestions for how to improve this system or even what kind of system should take its place.

the mirrors themselves are beautiful, they’re just not… practical

not practical at all, unless said above it scatters all over and there are alot of them. that or they’re permanent so we can strategically place them and plan in advance. that might be very interesting as well for the concept of the mesmer class of deception, trickery, outsmarting enemies

I don’t see the point of the Mirage Mirror mechanic at all.
Just give us the free Mirage Cloak after using said abilities.

I don’t get how Anet can kitten up such a wonderful idea of an elite spec with the most random kitten.

They don’t last long enough and they give an effect that’s really time-critical. It does very little when it doesn’t pop at the right time; making the current iteration only good for popping Ambushes (and not even well-timed Ambushes at that).

It would be a lot better if picking them up gives you Endurance instead. Even if it’s not a full dodge’s worth it would be better.