Guild Wars 2

Personally I don’t think a 30 sec c/d and 900 range justifies the new mimic.

It’s a strong change and like it. But it’s still hard to pick it over other things. Presuming majority of mesmers run Blink + Decoy,mirror images, or portal (depends what the player determines to be essential) It’s still competing pretty hard for the last slot and if not one of the aforementioned skills there is still new buffed mantras, and sorely needed condi removers. It’s hard to pick an equally long c/d for something that can be dogged, is incredibly situational, and is a base 900 range.

It’ll be cool to mess with warriors and rangers when you steal their elite skills, counter lyssa runes, or troll a might stacking build. But I still find it hard to justify taking it.

It might be OP but considering how situational it is and competing for viability I think a 25 sec c/d like it’s predecessor at least gives you a lower c/d utility option, and 1200 base range so it can be used more to sap-snipe key targets.

I personally still think it would have trouble living up to it’s competition with these changes but would be a powerful option.

What are your thoughts on it?

I don’t see how its really any better than Arcane Thievery except with a slightly lesser cooldown and doesn’t send conditions back. Most of the time there’s only 3 boons that have any considerable uptime on a foe anyways for stealing “copying all boons” would have to almost be immediate upon an enemy spamming such and would really only be such a case against a Guardian or buff Engie and perhaps an Ele to make the most of it.

It’s not entirely useless, but I won’t be taking it for any of my builds. It’s too situational and specific.

CD is too long. As I said before, it’ll have to be 20-25s base cooldown to be worth taking.

I’d love to copy fury from signet of rage/call of the wild, but arcane thievery kinds of cover that. The old block’n’burn is pretty fun too.

No.

Mesmers have a ton of ways to produce boons. Stealing the randomly generated boons off of someone else is no different. I’ll stay decoy, blink, MoD (or classically Arcane Thievery, but I’m moved past condi cleanse on third slot these days).

No
My bar is “portal , blink ,decory/MOD” mimic isnt good enough to exchange any of them .

Depends, It might get slotted in once in a blue moon if I find myself vsing a 2 guards 2 ele team or something. Wont have a solid place by any means though.

I think Mimic would be funnier as an elite skill that made you look like your enemy.

I don’t see it being that useful. You’re copying Boons. You’re not removing them on the enemy (though we have good Boon removal already, so they could be copied and then we could remove Boons I guess). It also takes the at least slightly similar copying-skill-mechanic we had in Guild Wars and tosses that out the window, so now we have nothing like that at all. At least Mimic as it was, was interesting as a mechanic. Not good, but interesting. If it could block and steal any one skill, then I think people might have been using it. Imagine how fun it would be to use skillfully, anticipating and blocking a specific skill, then using it back on the enemy. E.g., you block a Backstab, but since that can only be used in Stealth, you need to put yourself in Stealth before you can use it back on your target(s), etc.—No such thing here though.. we copy Boons.. “yay”.

I’ll probably try it out in my manipulation shatter variant, alongside blink and arcane thievery. If you trait it, it becomes 24 seconds (assuming the base CD is, in fact, 30s), and the range extends to 1200.

In the past, I’ve run illusion of life to help out people that get downed (usually play in WvW), though it’s obviously not useful in every situation. I think decoy will still be better in most scenarios, but I can gain some fairly serious boonage with mimic and arcane thievery.

Obviously the skill synergizes with signet of inspiration, but I don’t feel like running that.

Maaaybe if I know I am going to be fightign a Guardian or Ele.. but even then I’m not sure, andI certainly wont be using it perminantly.

Maybe try it once, then drop it. The only reason why I used the old Mimic from time to time was the reflect. If I want boons, I’m gonna equip Arcane Thievery.

Anet, why not combine the old and new functionality?
Reflect all projectiles for 4s. Each time you are struck, you are copying the attackers boons and duration (ICD for each attacker).

Absconditus.6804:

I don’t see it being that useful. You’re copying Boons. You’re not removing them on the enemy (though we have good Boon removal already, so they could be copied and then we could remove Boons I guess). It also takes the at least slightly similar copying-skill-mechanic we had in Guild Wars and tosses that out the window, so now we have nothing like that at all. At least Mimic as it was, was interesting as a mechanic. Not good, but interesting. If it could block and steal any one skill, then I think people might have been using it. Imagine how fun it would be to use skillfully, anticipating and blocking a specific skill, then using it back on the enemy. E.g., you block a Backstab, but since that can only be used in Stealth, you need to put yourself in Stealth before you can use it back on your target(s), etc.—No such thing here though.. we copy Boons.. “yay”.

I thought about something similar for mimic too(dazing instead of blocking and interrupt granted skill). Anet most likely thought of copying skills and concluded it’d be difficult to implement or overpowered.

I think the CD is based on Thief steal and guardian Save Yourself!

Korusef.3714:

I think the CD is based on Thief steal and guardian Save Yourself!

…because comparing to a skill that pulls all conditions from nearby allies and grants all boons

…or because comparing it to a skill that can be buffed to be 1500 range instant 20s cd daze, stability steal, vigor, poison, damage

is sensible?

I’ll see how it goes. Probably not. Targeting in large battles is hard, the cooldown is long. We don’t seem to be a very boon-oriented class, so I typically ignore more of them. It’s a lot to give up. If it had a priority or always granted fury and stability, I’d pick it sometimes.

I’d love to see it merged with Arcane Thievery and our signet. Steal 2 boons, share them with your teammates, and remove 2 conditions from you and 5 people around you. That’s what it takes for me to care about boon manipulation most of the time.

I think they should rework arcane thievery so that it will not having the similar effect. Also it’s kind of useless in PvE and now I lost the only way to get low cooldown reflect projectile for Karka.(put focus away.)

I’m not gonna use it. I mean it sounds nice, but is very situational. Also I do NEED Decoy and Blink, and running without the condicleanse mantra just seems… suicidal to me. Because of stuff like Immobilize and other condi-spam.

And for PvE… no. Arcane Thievery is better for anything you’d want to use Mimic for in PvE. And even that only gets slotted in very rarely (e.g. jellyfish boss at fractals).

Honestly, if they had to alter Mimic, a really cool idea would have been to let it doppelganger the last attack you were hit with. Imagine the trolly fun of smacking a Rifle Warr with a duped Kill Shot.

It it were something like copy your current condis onto enemy, than it might have been interesting.

I used it before that change, because it was a very nice protection Skill which a Mesmer could need. You just needed one projectile to block all incomming attacks and reflect all incomming projectiles and the best of it you could trigger it by yourself with all bouncing skills on a near enemy and with the long cast time a really nice protection over a longer time.

But now it just … at least for PvE, a total waste in my opinion.
Don’t know why the change.

For me as someone running SoI, it’ll be very useful. 5 people with all buffs.

Probably not. I usually prefer boon stripping to copying. Arcane Thievery does both and more.

Considering all the boon hate in PvE on year 1 where any boon a boss had became a special boon that is unrippable (because of strong effects or long durations), I don’t particularly see why you’d want Mimic.

I mean, sure, it’s useful in Honor of the Waves against Andal where he gives himself 3-6 stacks of Permanent Might (with Mimic you can finally reach 25 self-stacks, before you could only share the stacks with Thievery → SoI spam) buuuuuut, I don’t see the use.

Really, I don’t mind if it’s a 30s cooldown as long as we get Echo to use the boons whenever we want. What this would do is allow us to apply the boons and (if held for long enough) instantly store another persons boons again (and potentially apply them, too). Basically, change Mimic, but keep Echo instead of changing Mimic and removing Echo.

Well, even then it’s still hard to find a use for it, because it would be in the slot of a Condition Remover, which it doesn’t do… at all.

No.
Enough reasons mentioned by others.

Esplen.3940:

Really, I don’t mind if it’s a 30s cooldown as long as we get Echo to use the boons whenever we want. What this would do is allow us to apply the boons and (if held for long enough) instantly store another persons boons again (and potentially apply them, too). Basically, change Mimic, but keep Echo instead of changing Mimic and removing Echo.

Well, even then it’s still hard to find a use for it, because it would be in the slot of a Condition Remover, which it doesn’t do… at all.

This idea has a ton of potential.

I could foresee this:

• Mimic copies the “state of the target”. Boons, conditions, HP, other effects such as food etc.
• Echo then gives this to someone. Effects are capped in duration to the point where Mimic resets in CD (so depends on how long they were held).
• Neither effect is restricted in friend/foe, but Mimic cannot target yourself.

Mimic won’t really be for PvE anyways.

Xavi.6591:

Mimic won’t really be for PvE anyways.

Sure as heck won’t be for PvP, so what’s left? WvW? Mmm dat 1v1 WvW skill.

Why not for pvp? Mimic then SoI to share with everyone on the point?

Xavi.6591:

Why not for pvp? Mimic then SoI to share with everyone on the point?

So you’re burning two 30+ second utilities just for maybe 15 seconds of boons, and now you’re left with what?

You can choose one (maybe two) of the following:

• A mobility skill
• A stunbreak
• A condition removal

…yeah. Not sure that’s gonna go too well.

As it stands the only slot for it in PvP would be the Portal/Thievery/NullField slot.

Mesmers are most likely still going to be running Decoy + Blink, and Thievery is still better than Mimic because it can remove conditions. Portal is very flexible, and Null Field is rip + remove.

Mimic is… 1v1. Unless, of course, we can activate it at will (see: current Echo implementation), then suddenly we can transition from 1v1 to teamfights with access to boons based on what you copied.

I would like to see it changed to “all your current illusions become your the next phantasm you cast”. 1/2 second cast with obvious tell. Gives people the opportunity to destroy your current illusions to make it have little effect, or if it gets off an incredibly powerful effect. Probably still broken when combined with mass invisibility.

too weak for CD/redundant….arcane thievery does it better.

It’s an okay change, but unimaginative:

• It’s almost exactly like Arcane Thievery, but without the defensive option.
• Most PvE content involves foes that don’t live long enough to have good buffs to steal or ones that have buffs that can’t be stolen. I can’t imagine using it in WvW, so maybe it’s great in PvP.
• I’d prefer something more “mesmery.”

3 changes can be done:
1. Reduce recharge to 20 seconds
2. Steal all boons instead of copy
Or 3. Copy all boons and be able to share them with 10 allies within 5 seconds after the cast.
Mimic like this is just as underpowered and useless as the old one

Would really want to use Mimic with Signet of Inspiration. Problem is that it feels like this should take 1 utility slot at most, else it’s too much slot investment

I will try it at least, but as other said, it’s kind of boring and has limited usage.
Maybe if you got something extra for each boon you copied, like if you had a trait that healed you for each boon you received. Or something where there is some kind of synergy, because by itself it’s unremarkable.

I’ll be sticking with null field.

Since they’ve removed echo anyway a better mimic would be (and feel free to change its name to something more appropriate), Block all melee attacks and reflect all projectiles for 4 seconds. Then utilize its place on the bar with synergy found in blocking and reflecting traits. There’s a couple there already, but more could be added.

But whatever. Useless utility with no place on the util bar. So many better options there’s not even a reason to put energy crying about it. Get some better devs Anet.

Nope, terrible change. At least it was somewhat creative before. Now it’s just a boring effect that will be overshadowed by Arcane Thievery.

FranzM.1298:

I had a different idea of how Mimic could work.

“This skill is replaced with the next skill you use for 10/5 seconds” (2 second channel) (60 second cool down)

Now whether it should copy elite skills or heal skills which might make it OP is still a mystery but would be cool to get double chaos storms or three phantasms if combo’d with Signet of the Ether.

I think it would give the Mesmer an awesome buff. CAN YOU IMAGINE DOUBLE NULL FIELD XD!

edit: Sort of like how Arcane Echo worked in Guild Wars 1

I actually think this is a fun/creative idea! Probably would need to exclude healing/elites but yea. sounds fun and I’d definitely try it out.

It should be a duration skill so it actually feels a bit more distinct to Arcane Thievery. So maybe for 6 seconds you get a copy of any boon that your target had on activation of Mimic and also any boon your target receives for the duration of Mimic. Your target is visibly marked to provide some counterplay to this. If you might stack whilst marked, you might stack for the enemy Mesmer too. If you steal from a Mesmer that marked you and consume plasma whilst marked, you give the Mesmer all those boons too.

The problem is that it competes with far better utilities that do it better. And more importantly, the reliability of an occasional opponent having good boons and then timing/reacting to it correctly is what really impairs the new incarnation of Mimic. It’s not like you are ripping those boons from the opponent at the same time (which would be far more useful (necro corrupt boon does similar but with offensive intentions at a 40s cooldown afterall)). Although this is still way too much like Arcane Thievery.

Another (better) idea is Mimic should be focused on you – say doubling the applied number of boons and/or double the durations (depending on boon) of the boons you already have on you (even adding a stun break to it). Now that would be useful with a 30s cooldown worthy of the last utility slot. … and it fixes a quality of life, perma-Swiftness boon (if built for it) Mesmer issue.

Artaz.3819:

Another (better) idea is Mimic should be focused on you – say doubling the applied number of boons and/or double the durations (depending on boon) of the boons you already have on you (even adding a stun break to it). Now that would be useful with a 30s cooldown worthy of the last utility slot. … and it fixes a quality of life, perma-Swiftness boon (if built for it) Mesmer issue.

Make the extended boon duration tied to the number of illusions you have (just so that its not a fixed % all the time) and it would really be a fun skill to use.

I won’t run it, since I really HATE this change. We have AT for boon steal, not this junk! I really loved mimic, it was kinda unique. It was too weak yes, it needed a buff, but not a rework into an already existing skill 2.0 … It’s sad they show so tiny creativity

I dunno why they couldn’t just give you a full reflect/block and let you throw the first hit of damage your shield absorbed back.

or if your gonna let me copy my opponent at lest let me use it once per turn like Mew :p (10-20 sec c/d)

to answer the question, No, probably not, maybe once just to try it and be assured that it is, indeed, as underwhelming and disappointing as i expect it to be..

i give it another year before anet mentions potentially reworking Mimic yet again.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Since they’ve removed echo anyway a better mimic would be (and feel free to change its name to something more appropriate), Block all melee attacks and reflect all projectiles for 4 seconds. Then utilize its place on the bar with synergy found in blocking and reflecting traits. There’s a couple there already, but more could be added.

But whatever. Useless utility with no place on the util bar. So many better options there’s not even a reason to put energy crying about it. Get some better devs Anet.

I think it would be nice if Mimic granted Distortion for 3-4 seconds. It would turn into Echo for 5 seconds afterwards if hit while Distorted. Activating Echo deals point blanket area damage and is a Blast Finisher. The damage portion could be split into phyiscal and condition damage (e.g. Confusion) to make the skill desirable for different builds. Far-Reaching Manipulations could increase the blast radius.

• Mimic would stay a defensive skill
• Distortion won’t synergize with Retaliatory Shield but with Masterful Reflection
• Distortion is a great mechanic where our other defensive mechanics don’t work
• Distortion enables us to actually fight while using the skill
• The Blast Finisher would add utility to Mesmers in different situations

^ yes plz /15char

hmm doubt they’d give us such easy access to a long duration invlun that also deals damage and is a blast finisher… I’d rock that all day though.

Here’s my ideas on a useful but not too OP Mimic that maybe sticks with the original’s flavor a bit (using your enemies’ attack against them).

1) While active, conditions applied to you are applied to one of your clones instead. If the clones are killed (not shattered) they spread those conditions to nearby enemies.

2) Block attacks for 4 seconds, if you successfully block an attack, summon a phantasm based on your attacker’s profession:
-Guardian = Defender
-Warrior = Berserker
-Engineer = Disenchanter
-Ranger = Warden
-Thief = Rogue
-Elementalist = Mage
-Necromancer = Warlock
-Mesmer = Duelist

kodesh.2851:

hmm doubt they’d give us such easy access to a long duration invlun that also deals damage and is a blast finisher… I’d rock that all day though.

I guess the duration of Distortion would be up for discussion. But it would be pointless if it was shorter than 3s. I don’t see the damage component as a problem, though. It doesn’t have to be an insane damage spike but should be meaningful. It also can be balanced through a reasonable cooldown quite easily.

Actually, my suggestion is pretty close to the original design. Right now, it is a block (although it does require a projectile to activate) and has a damage component as secondary effect as well. Granted, it doesn’t work it is supposed to. But why not keep its current spirit? It would not compete with Blink because it is no stunbreaker. It would not compete with AT because it is not boon related and can’t remove conditions.

kodesh.2851:

1) While active, conditions applied to you are applied to one of your clones instead. If the clones are killed (not shattered) they spread those conditions to nearby enemies.

Interesting but too conditional for my taste. Spreading condition is a Necro-thing and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it. It would also indirectly compete with Arcane Thievery since both counter conditions.

kodesh.2851:

2) Summon a phantasm based on your target’s profession:
-Guardian = Defender
-Warrior = Berserker
-Engineer = Disenchanter
-Ranger = Warden
-Thief = Rogue
-Elementalist = Mage
-Necromancer = Warlock
-Mesmer = Duelist

Even when not taking into account that we already got Illusion based utilities I highly doubt that ANet will assign a class to every mob type there is. Because that is what would have to happen if such a skill was introduced.