Guild Wars 2

Not extensive, but I fought a few veteran stoneheads and TRIED to fight an elite wyvern, as well as a few other non-vet mobs.

The non-vet mobs died too quickly to really notice, but they have extremely low health in wvw anyway with basically no abilities.

The wyvern was pretty much impossible as I wasn’t traited for any survivability, and mirage has basically none without it.

Fighting the stoneheads went alright, but it took awhile. I was just running carrion that came with the gear.

Not very many condition stacks, but that could also be due to lack of expertise. I did get decent confusion stacks with axe fighting a veteran wyvern but it still didn’t seem to do that much damage due to confusion just not doing as much damage as bleeds in pve.

When fighting the stoneheads I didn’t have a difficult time staying alive but that’s due to their abilities not being complex or overly punishing. The stonehead ALWAYS went for me, not my clones. (So obviously the theme of mirage won’t do anything to help you in pve.)

I didn’t try axe against the stoneheads so I can’t speak much for those, but I did try sword which had a nice leap but dismal damage. I tried staff which had decent condi damage but relatively slow due to staff being a weaker pve weapon for Mesmer anyway.

I also tried Greatsword, and that was a complete joke. The ambush is absolute trash for greatsword most of all. But pretty much everything except scepter.

All in all, this spec seems like it’s going to rely on pistol bleeds just like core Mesmer. So nothing really adds to the condi pve perspective from this elite spec except perhaps if you trait for the bleeds on mirage cloak trait. Yippie.

It might be decent for mobility for a power burst shatter build. But nothing a chrono can’t do better, outside of jaunt for mobility or MAYBE being able to attack while dodging but that’s so situational it’s not worth giving up Continum, shield, precog well or well of eternity, or honestly gravity well.

I was really hoping there was something I was missing with this spec, but no matter what build I try, it just isn’t cutting it. It might be cool if you want a flashier core mes spec while still pretty much running everything you would be running with core mes, including most of the utilities.

So instead of a thief backstab, mirage gets a projectile that applies like 2 confusion, 1 torment, and does like 400 damage for pretty much every weapon. Wow, so awesome. Also, did my clones even do the ambush when traited? Because I really couldn’t notice a difference.