Guild Wars 2

I’m a little worried that my positive feedback will get lost among the dozens on dozens of complaints. I’ve given some constructive negative feedback on a few things, but there are also many good things about Mirage. And I’m not trying to discredit anyone’s complaints either. I’m sure most people’s issues with mirage is valid. But I think the issues will be easy to fix and not something to worry about.

So some things I like about mirage.

1) The theme is awesome. I love the idea of being a desert traveling-gypsy-thief-illusionist. I’m excited thinking about what my wardrobe will look like in the expansion.

2) I think axe is an awesome weapon for pve for people like myself who have always wanted to try a condition build but didn’t because we don’t like scepter. I’m already working on my condition set because I can’t wait to be able to tell my guild i can run an awesome condi build that will actually be fun for me with axe.

3) Axe’s animations are beautiful!. I saw a video of the animations with astralaria and it’s spectacular. So now I’m working on making astralaria.

4) Sword’s ambush skill is amazing. I love it! As a dual sword user, getting kited or creating space was always a problem ever since the removal of the clone death traits. But now I have a wonderful gap closer with interrupt. And the animation is pretty cool the way i just lunge over.

5) The trait that breaks stun and removes condition on dodge is amazing. I don’t know if i can even go back to playing without it after having a taste of it all weekend.

6) The cleanse on the elite skill is also wonderful.

7) Mirage Cloak is my new favorite thing about mesmer. It really fits the whole theme very well and the way my character says aloud that she wonders if she is the illusion all along. It’s such a profound thing to say and I plan on turning it into a deep discussion in the future with some of my friends about what it means to them on a philosophical level.

8) I feel like the swordsman I always wanted to be with Mirage. Weaving between foes easily and quickly. Almost like in an anime with a ninja fighting multiple guys at once. I actually had a 1v4 in a match earlier where i was able to kill 3 guys, but the 4th downed and killed me. I was just all over the place and they couldn’t really keep up. They were also probably new players lol. Nonetheless, it was so much fun.

9) I love the idea of having so many shadowsteps skills and I look forward to their improvements for release. I fought the best pvper in my guild in an epic match. He was a deadeye. The duel between us was so epic that it felt like a scene from the anime Fate Stay Night (2014 version). I was able to keep up with him even though he was disappearing and reappearing always opposite of where I was standing.

10) I secretly love that a lot of people prefer Chrono to Mirage. I want to be the only mirage lol. But i’ll settle just for less people loving it as much as I do.

The build and the playstyle is not for everyone. But Anet you’re going in a good direction with this spec and I can’t wait to play it in the expansion. I’m 100% buying the expansion now because of mirage. I can’t imagine myself not playing it.

I encourage other people to use this thread to post about what they do like about this spec. There are tons of other complaint threads, so please don’t pollute this thread with it. I’d like to keep this one purely positive feedback.

I liked playing it and also found that i could keep up with thfs quite easily. But i do have a few suggestions:

Increase jaunt range. At the moment, it frequently almost feels like it would be faster to just not use it. It has been useful for getting out of enemy attacks, but i think it needs longer range so it can be used for mobility better. I suggest 600 range.

I switched from axe and scepter and i found my gameplay got better. The problem with axe is that the ambush skill leaves you open for too long and the gapcloser on axe 3 isn’t good enough to justify taking it over scepter. With scepter i can keep my distance and condi dps, and then switched to sword if i need to defend, but with axe i just felt too vulnerable, but perhaps the purpose of axe is pve and not pvp.

Increase duration of superspeed on dodge. I sometimes tried to dodge to see if i could use it for mobility like daredevil does but the superspeed does not last long enough to risk endurance. Another option is to change superspeed for swiftness and just let the swiftness last like 5s or something.

There is a shadowstop on mirage that blinds foes. It lost to portal and blink since 900 range seems to limiting. I can’t see the balance reason why it’s range is only 900 when the return skill is 1,200.

Yes, nice thread!

Sexy axe animations (on asura) – I love the whirl both on auto chain 3 and skill 2, love the visual effects (sound effect of phantasmal axes is the single worst thing of Mirage though). I know I am going to be using axe so I know I will finish astralaria now.

Beautiful Mirage Mirror and Mirage Cloak visual and sound effects.

I LOVE staff ambush animation. I always wanted the revenant’s staff spin animation on mesmer so very happy to get it!

Nice that axe ambush is “ranged”.

Some good ideas in Deception skills – Jaunt is fun to use, Sand through Glass has beautiful effects (however Mirage Advance should be merged with Illusionary Ambush into a single skill, and then create one more Deception utility – needs more detargeting and stealth tbh).

I agree with lots of your feedback, even if most of it is purely cosmetic and RP oriented. The axe animation kinda sold me, too. Dashing through enemies and casually catching your weapon at the end is pretty awesome!

So yes, I do love the theme myself. Enough that I will just jump into the desert with it no matter what. Still confident that in the end I will find something that feels really good, because overall bits and pieces of it sound amazing. Rough edges or not.

For melee combat I feel the cloak is something you’ll miss after you’ve played with it for a while. Sure there is no dodge jump anymore (I’m looking at you SAB!), but with it my mesmer felt like every 2nd skill triggers another distortion.

Also like the mirrors. While it may be a bit dangerous to get to them and they could persist longer they still trigger the cloak and weakness on 5 targets. Jaunt may be an excellent skill to “collect” them. Overall the play style feels faster.

I initially disliked the sword when I tried out all weapons. Thought it was only meh. Then I found zap, created bolt and sword has become my favorite weapon. Same plan here: get astralaria and go! I always played power mesmer, so condition will be something new and fresh at least for me.

My guess is that mirage will be a love or hate kind of thing. There is not much middle ground. Either you dislike most of it, because other builds might bring more to the table or you love it, because it has a certain flavor.

TBH I like it that it’s not another “mandatory” spec to take. Just something different.

I quite like the high level design choices and can see a lot of uses for the spec. A few tweaks to make it more smooth and balanced and I expect to use it a great deal, both in pve and whenever I venture back to pvp or wvw.

Hot Boy.7138:

2) I think axe is an awesome weapon for pve for people like myself who have always wanted to try a condition build but didn’t because we don’t like scepter. I’m already working on my condition set because I can’t wait to be able to tell my guild i can run an awesome condi build that will actually be fun for me with axe.

Why didn’t you play a condition build with the staff if you didn’t like the scepter? Maybe because the staff is weaker than the scepter? So is the axe.

I agree with you on the effects and animation parts. But very few players are willing to sacrifice efficiency for cool animations and effects.

Hot Boy.7138:

7) Mirage Cloak is my new favorite thing about mesmer.

It would be awesome if you weren’t forced to stand still for some ambush skills. It’s like you have to sacrifice survivability to get the same DPS you get with other specialisations (because you lose DPS if you use the dodge without the ambush skill).

Hot Boy.7138:

10) I secretly love that a lot of people prefer Chrono to Mirage. I want to be the only mirage lol. But i’ll settle just for less people loving it as much as I do.

I love the style. I want to play it. But i just can’t because it is inferior to other builds.
It’s like saying “I want to be the only Mesmer who doesn’t use any traits!”
Of course, you can use an inferior spec just because it has nice animations, effects and style. But wouldn’t it be even better if you don’t have to sacrifice survivability and DPS for the style?

Malchir.4798:

Hot Boy.7138:

2) I think axe is an awesome weapon for pve for people like myself who have always wanted to try a condition build but didn’t because we don’t like scepter. I’m already working on my condition set because I can’t wait to be able to tell my guild i can run an awesome condi build that will actually be fun for me with axe.

Why didn’t you play a condition build with the staff if you didn’t like the scepter? Maybe because the staff is weaker than the scepter? So is the axe.

I agree with you on the effects and animation parts. But very few players are willing to sacrifice efficiency for cool animations and effects.

Hot Boy.7138:

7) Mirage Cloak is my new favorite thing about mesmer.

It would be awesome if you weren’t forced to stand still for some ambush skills. It’s like you have to sacrifice survivability to get the same DPS you get with other specialisations (because you lose DPS if you use the dodge without the ambush skill).

Hot Boy.7138:

10) I secretly love that a lot of people prefer Chrono to Mirage. I want to be the only mirage lol. But i’ll settle just for less people loving it as much as I do.

I love the style. I want to play it. But i just can’t because it is inferior to other builds.
It’s like saying “I want to be the only Mesmer who doesn’t use any traits!”
Of course, you can use an inferior spec just because it has nice animations, effects and style. But wouldn’t it be even better if you don’t have to sacrifice survivability and DPS for the style?

I don’t like the channel on scepter which is odd because I like GS lol. And staff I just find boring personally. I actually really liked the axe abilities.

I disagree with everything you said. The axe is terrible, Mirage Cloak is a worse dodge for no reason, the theme is terrible and it provides nothing new to Mesmer. Elusive duelist is what core Mesmer is. Hell the description for Mesmer on the character creator even refers to Mirages.

Astralaria looks nice though, I just wish Mirage gave me a reason to use it (or nevermore).

Levetty.1279:

I disagree with everything you said. The axe is terrible, Mirage Cloak is a worse dodge for no reason, the theme is terrible and it provides nothing new to Mesmer. Elusive duelist is what core Mesmer is. Hell the description for Mesmer on the character creator even refers to Mirages.

Astralaria looks nice though, I just wish Mirage gave me a reason to use it (or nevermore).

Aww Lev why do you have to burst their bubble? They were just trying to find what little good there is in this waste of an elite spec.

Complaints are a good thing. The devs can’t fix the flaws with the class if you don’t point them out. It’s nice to make the devs feel warm and fuzzy with happy positive vibes, but happy vibes don’t address the flaws.

I think one “take-away” message for Anet should be to realize that all the complaints about Mirage show that there was/is a great interest in the Elite!

Even if people’s (probably unrealistic) expectations weren’t met during their BETA weekend experience, and they’re voicing that concern in often overwhelmingly negative posts on a fairly anonymous forum, the fact is there is a ton of interest in Mirage and we’re all very excited!

We want to see this Elite succeed, and we see it’s potential, but we are all a bit mortified by the gaping deficiencies we encountered over the weekend. Truth be told, I think Anet purposely tuned many aspects of Mirage way down —possibly even knee jerk after that silly video proclaimed Mirage to be grossly over-tuned based on Golem testing-- to build it up post Beta.

Let’s be honest, this Elite has a loy of potential to be OPd, and many of the suggestions for “improvements” I’ve seen on this board the past couple of days are clearly OPd! Many many more, however, are spot on and I still have enough trust in Anet as a “for profit” company that wants to sell copies of the expansion, to believe there will be MUCH tuning coming up.

Remember DH in the last beta weekend before HoT? OMG! People were lighting up the Guardian boards proclaiming it’s uselessness, the theme not fitting Guardians, and that it was the worst of the Elite’s etc! Sounds familiar? It took ONE single patch to change that to screams and cries about OP! OP! OP! WAH! (25x Vulnerability trap? lol!) Trap DH went on to rule low-to-mid scale PvP for a large part of the past 2 years…so yeah I’m optimistic that Mirage will turn out to be a great Elite for an alternate play-style.

That is not to say it will be an Elite for everyone! I believe it’s pretty clearly a Thief-like spec and will simply not grant the utility we’re accustomed to from a Mesmer/Chrono.

I fully expect that a Mirage will turn out to be a high mobility, high survivability (from a combination of deception and stealth), and a strong sustained single-target condie burst class. (yeah that’s a bit of an oxy-moron…I mean a strong condie burst that can be repeated often enough to overwhelm single targets very quickly.)

Also I have to say, I feel that Power Mirage is in a lot better shape than people are making it out to be. You can do some pretty crazy CC->Bursts with Dom/Duel/Mirage and MH Sword. Lastly, as much as GS Ambush sucks, the ability to Mirage Cloak->Mirror Blade someone in the face without taking damage is not exactly bad either. (Generating 2 clones with DE, and shatter in the face.)

I’m also not downplaying the MANY deficiencies of Mirage, but I do believe there is time and will for Anet to tune this thing to be a pretty awesome elite!

Windwalker.7421:

I think one “take-away” message for Anet should be to realize that all the complaints about Mirage show that there was/is a great interest in the Elite!

Even if people’s (probably unrealistic) expectations weren’t met during their the BETA weekend experience, and they’re voicing that concern in often overwhelmingly negative posting on a large anonymous forum, the fact is there is a ton of interest and basically we’re all excited!

We want to see this Elite succeed, and we see it’s potential, but we are all a bit mortified by the gaping deficiencies we encountered. Truth be told, I think Anet purposely tuned many aspects of Mirage way down —possibly even knee jerk after that silly video proclaimed Mirage to be grossly over-tuned based on Golem testing-- to build it up slowly.

Let’s be honest, this Elite has a load of potential to be OPd, and many of the suggestions for “improvements” I’ve seen on this board the past couple of days are clearly OPd! Many many more, however, are spot on and I still have enough trust in Anet to want to sell copies of the expansion to believe there will be MUCH tuning coming up.

Remember DH in the last beta weekend before HoT? OMG! People were lighting up the boards proclaiming it’s uselessness, not fitting Guardians, and that it was the worst of the Elite’s etc? It took ONE single patch to change that to screams and cries about OP! OP! OP! WAH! (25x Vulnerability trap? lol!) DH went on to rule low-to-mid scale PvP for a large part of the past 2 years…so yeah I’m optimistic that Mirage will turn out to be a great spec.

That is not to say it will be for everyone! I believe it’s pretty clearly a Thief-like spec and will simply NOT give the utility we’re accustomed to from a Mesmer/Chrono.

I fully expect that a Mirage will turn out to be a high mobility, high survivability (from a combination of deception and stealth), and a strong sustained single-target condie burst class. (yeah that’s a bit of an oxy-moron, but I mean a strong condie burst that can be repeated often enough to overwhelm single targets very quickly.)

Also I have to say, I feel that Power Mirage is in a lot better shape than people are making it out to be. You can do some pretty crazy CC->Bursts with Dom/Duel/Mirage and MH Sword. Lastly, as much as GS Ambush sucks, the ability to Mirage Cloak->Mirror Blade someone in the face without taking damage is not exactly bad either. (Generating 2 clones with DE, and shatter in the face.)

I’m also not downplaying the MANY deficiencies of Mirage, but I do believe there is time and will for Anet to tune this thing to be a pretty awesome elite!

I agree completely. Very well said.

Windwalker.7421:

I think one “take-away” message for Anet should be to realize that all the complaints about Mirage show that there was/is a great interest in the Elite!

Even if people’s (probably unrealistic) expectations weren’t met during their BETA weekend experience, and they’re voicing that concern in often overwhelmingly negative posts on a fairly anonymous forum, the fact is there is a ton of interest in Mirage and we’re all very excited!

We want to see this Elite succeed, and we see it’s potential, but we are all a bit mortified by the gaping deficiencies we encountered over the weekend. Truth be told, I think Anet purposely tuned many aspects of Mirage way down —possibly even knee jerk after that silly video proclaimed Mirage to be grossly over-tuned based on Golem testing-- to build it up post Beta.

Let’s be honest, this Elite has a loy of potential to be OPd, and many of the suggestions for “improvements” I’ve seen on this board the past couple of days are clearly OPd! Many many more, however, are spot on and I still have enough trust in Anet as a “for profit” company that wants to sell copies of the expansion, to believe there will be MUCH tuning coming up.

Remember DH in the last beta weekend before HoT? OMG! People were lighting up the Guardian boards proclaiming it’s uselessness, the theme not fitting Guardians, and that it was the worst of the Elite’s etc! Sounds familiar? It took ONE single patch to change that to screams and cries about OP! OP! OP! WAH! (25x Vulnerability trap? lol!) Trap DH went on to rule low-to-mid scale PvP for a large part of the past 2 years…so yeah I’m optimistic that Mirage will turn out to be a great Elite for an alternate play-style.

That is not to say it will be an Elite for everyone! I believe it’s pretty clearly a Thief-like spec and will simply not grant the utility we’re accustomed to from a Mesmer/Chrono.

I fully expect that a Mirage will turn out to be a high mobility, high survivability (from a combination of deception and stealth), and a strong sustained single-target condie burst class. (yeah that’s a bit of an oxy-moron…I mean a strong condie burst that can be repeated often enough to overwhelm single targets very quickly.)

Also I have to say, I feel that Power Mirage is in a lot better shape than people are making it out to be. You can do some pretty crazy CC->Bursts with Dom/Duel/Mirage and MH Sword. Lastly, as much as GS Ambush sucks, the ability to Mirage Cloak->Mirror Blade someone in the face without taking damage is not exactly bad either. (Generating 2 clones with DE, and shatter in the face.)

I’m also not downplaying the MANY deficiencies of Mirage, but I do believe there is time and will for Anet to tune this thing to be a pretty awesome elite!

I think the big thing to remember is that this wasn’t a beta weekend were they wanted input. It was a Demo to let us get hyped over what is going to be released. With only a month till release I highly doubt we will see any big changes due to how very little time is left.
One of the main complaints I’m seeing is the fact the spec, other than changing the dodge mechanic, bring nothing that would make someone choose it over core condi or the couple Chrono builds. Essentially Mirage is just a different way to play core condi that isn’t any better. Until they fix the root of the problem then… Mirage will suck

I share a lot of the same sentiments, especially with 5, 9, and 10.

I am a bit worried it will go complacently unchanged in all honesty, but that’s not too much of a deterrent for me.

I feel we could use a little more doge, or at least safer and more impactful ambushes depending on the weapon. Along with traits that could offer a bit more (self-deception, and Shards of glass in particular. Also if it wasn’t for Scepter, I’d be in the camp saying Ambushes should be baseline to mirage.)

Daishi.6027:

I share a lot of the same sentiments, especially with 5, 9, and 10.

I am a bit worried it will go complacently unchanged in all honesty, but that’s not too much of a deterrent for me.

I feel we could use a little more doge, or at least safer and more impactful ambushes depending on the weapon. Along with traits that could offer a bit more (self-deception, and Shards of glass in particular. Also if it wasn’t for Scepter, I’d be in the camp saying Ambushes should be baseline to mirage.)

But Ambush should be baseline. Even scepter isn’t great. It’s better o doubt but it’s easily interrupted. For a spec that’s supposed to deceive the opponent wouldn’t it make sense to have your clones do the same thing you do? I shouldn’t have to trait for it. But there in lies the problem with Mirage. Mesmer at its core is meant to deceive, Mirage doesn’t truly build on that at all. In fact, in on par with core condi but doesn’t feel like an elite spec. Chrono does, weaver although kind of clunky with the cd on attunement swapping, Spellbreaker, Scourge, and Soulbeast all change the way the class operates. Mirage… doesn’t do anything other than give you an inferior main hand, another way to safe stomp, and some wacky mirrors that takes to long to get to. And before you say blink or jaunt, no. I shouldn’t have to burn an elite just to use what’s supposed to be part of the class mechanic. I don’t care what you say it’s poor design and shows lack of dev interest. The elite could have something cool like it creates multiple illusions to break target deal damage with a big CD. Anything other than an underpowered, short range teleport.

Windwalker.7421:

I think one “take-away” message for Anet should be to realize that all the complaints about Mirage show that there was/is a great interest in the Elite!

Even if people’s (probably unrealistic) expectations weren’t met during their BETA weekend experience, and they’re voicing that concern in often overwhelmingly negative posts on a fairly anonymous forum, the fact is there is a ton of interest in Mirage and we’re all very excited!

We want to see this Elite succeed, and we see it’s potential, but we are all a bit mortified by the gaping deficiencies we encountered over the weekend. Truth be told, I think Anet purposely tuned many aspects of Mirage way down —possibly even knee jerk after that silly video proclaimed Mirage to be grossly over-tuned based on Golem testing-- to build it up post Beta.

Let’s be honest, this Elite has a loy of potential to be OPd, and many of the suggestions for “improvements” I’ve seen on this board the past couple of days are clearly OPd! Many many more, however, are spot on and I still have enough trust in Anet as a “for profit” company that wants to sell copies of the expansion, to believe there will be MUCH tuning coming up.

Remember DH in the last beta weekend before HoT? OMG! People were lighting up the Guardian boards proclaiming it’s uselessness, the theme not fitting Guardians, and that it was the worst of the Elite’s etc! Sounds familiar? It took ONE single patch to change that to screams and cries about OP! OP! OP! WAH! (25x Vulnerability trap? lol!) Trap DH went on to rule low-to-mid scale PvP for a large part of the past 2 years…so yeah I’m optimistic that Mirage will turn out to be a great Elite for an alternate play-style.

That is not to say it will be an Elite for everyone! I believe it’s pretty clearly a Thief-like spec and will simply not grant the utility we’re accustomed to from a Mesmer/Chrono.

I fully expect that a Mirage will turn out to be a high mobility, high survivability (from a combination of deception and stealth), and a strong sustained single-target condie burst class. (yeah that’s a bit of an oxy-moron…I mean a strong condie burst that can be repeated often enough to overwhelm single targets very quickly.)

Also I have to say, I feel that Power Mirage is in a lot better shape than people are making it out to be. You can do some pretty crazy CC->Bursts with Dom/Duel/Mirage and MH Sword. Lastly, as much as GS Ambush sucks, the ability to Mirage Cloak->Mirror Blade someone in the face without taking damage is not exactly bad either. (Generating 2 clones with DE, and shatter in the face.)

I’m also not downplaying the MANY deficiencies of Mirage, but I do believe there is time and will for Anet to tune this thing to be a pretty awesome elite!

Well said, I agree.

Also even when Mirage is fixed up, many people are still going to prefer Chrono – which is as it should be.

Even after we get 3, 4, maybe 5 elite specs per class, everyone is going to have their preference/niche and for some people it may be that the first elite spec (Chrono) is their favourite so nothing in any future expansion will give them as much fun – which is good as it promotes variety.