Guild Wars 2

If it took less than a day for us to realize this class is terrible as a whole, how could they NOT see that during development… Feelsbadman

I completely agree with you! I was so hyped for the mirage but this elite spec is just a mess.

• The mirage lacks synergy with core mesmer trait-lines. Core trait-lines are heavily focused around shattering illusions and buffing phantasms, which are counterproductive for the mirage.

• The mirage is clearly not meant to shatter illusions because without clones you can’t perform ambush attacks, yet we still have the same F-skills! There should absolutely be different ones that synergise with the mirage’s design.

• Phantasms don’t do ambush attacks and are therefore worse than clones so you dont usually use one of your 5 weapon skills.

• Even clone’s ambush attacks are very lackluster, weak and clunky.

• Mirages are required to keep up clones, yet clones die like flies in pvp and wvw. There is simply not enough clone generation available.

• As already mentioned, mirage cloak is a weaker dodge because of it’s reduced mobility.

• Mirage mirrors are a clunky design. They require you to walk to them (which is very risky in pvp and wvw) to gain mirage cloak (0.75 sec) which is not worth the risk and effort.

These are my main cons I come up with.
Anet still has one month time to fix the mirage. Hopefully we will se some readjustments!

musu.9205:

martin.1653:

you can move with superspeed when using mirage cloak. I’m no expert but I’d say it’s about the same distance travelled as roll. Also, there’s that small tiny itsy bitsy thing that you can cast when using this evade and choose to stand still. But sure, it’s not better than roll. Just… different. Yup.

log in , test it yourself
you are not an expert
but you dont have to be this lazy with empty words like "id say xx is same distance " in your own head .

truth is it is not same . and you can only move forward for benefit from superspeed .

Yeah this is a big problem tbh.

If you’re running forward, fine, superspeed makes up for lacking any movement on dodge. But sideways or backwards are impossible.

Unless people are going to use About Face in order to dodge backwards by turning around and running forwards, which is stupid.

A dodge like this would have been awesome (mass effect 3 MP turian cabal – just one note, not the forward dash which is an ability called poison strike that travels further, watch the side and reverse dashes, beautiful sublte blink sound effect and elegant glide):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87X_7v7l6ow

I know, different game – but imagine 0.75s blur plus instant blink (like scepter’s ambush) 300 units in any direction.

The only thing that’s worse than normal dodge is that u can’t dodge backwards. U can turn around and dodge while moving forward though since superspeed ignores cripple and such.

I think in general Anet was thinking more about the design part of the elite specs rather than their practical application in he game.

They had 2 years to do that but they for some reason didn’t think about doing it properly for Mirage.
I hope they’ll be able to fix a lot of the broken things with Mirage. Maybe change a trait or 2.

I wouldn’t mind keeping our current shatters as long as Mirages aren’t forced to use them. An F5 woulda been nice tho.

zoomborg.9462:

mirage cloak is overall worse than a normal dodge w

I could agree with a lot of what else you said, but I’m confused by this.

The only slight drawback is it doesn’t make you move, but superspeed pretty much makes up for that. So it’s only a slight drawback, but has other far more important upsides.

Mirage cloak allows us to dodge while stomping, dazed, immobilized, while casting abilities ( try CCing my heal! ) etc.

This reminds me of the comm system we got many moons ago while I was on active duty. The designer had a cool name for it, than they had to make it an acronym to describe it.
H.y.d.r.a (cool name for a comm system)-
Hierarchical yet dynamic radio assay

I think the same thing happened as those posts above me said. Desert=mirage…cool name. The coolness ended there.

I also want to put in my 2 cents. Besides the very valid points above here I want to adress the fact that the grand master is a no brainer. Everybody will always pick the supercharged clones. Lets be honest that trait is way better then the rest and should probably be roled into base Mirage.

UlvenSkyblade.9830:

I also want to put in my 2 cents. Besides the very valid points above here I want to adress the fact that the grand master is a no brainer. Everybody will always pick the supercharged clones. Lets be honest that trait is way better then the rest and should probably be roled into base Mirage.

It should be our grandmaster minor.
Speed of Sand should be in base Mirage since that’s the trait that initally takes the mobility away as well.

Mikkel.8427:

Mastamaker.2957:

My god every profession subforum has a massive victim complex

Yes, there are a lot of melodramatic responses on every class forum (including this one). The problems experienced by most of the new elite specs stem from bugs or can be addressed with some number adjustments. Its small tweaks and tuning.

The problem with Mirage is at a conceptual level. We’re one month away from release, what we’re seeing is supposed to be what we’re getting… Adjusting some numbers isn’t going to cut it.

“Yes, all professions have problems, but their problems don’t actually matter, just ours.”
Smells like Animal Farm.

bearshaman.3421:

Tried it out a bit… it makes me feel stupid. Like I feel like it has to be awesome, and I just can’t figure out how to make it work. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s Mirage. I dunno….

It’s probably just Maybelline

Ghotistyx.6942:

Mikkel.8427:

Mastamaker.2957:

My god every profession subforum has a massive victim complex

Yes, there are a lot of melodramatic responses on every class forum (including this one). The problems experienced by most of the new elite specs stem from bugs or can be addressed with some number adjustments. Its small tweaks and tuning.

The problem with Mirage is at a conceptual level. We’re one month away from release, what we’re seeing is supposed to be what we’re getting… Adjusting some numbers isn’t going to cut it.

“Yes, all professions have problems, but their problems don’t actually matter, just ours.”
Smells like Animal Farm.

That’s definitely not how that reads.

I play 6/9 of the professions regularly, and 5 out of those 6 have elite specs with solid foundations to work of off.

I do not play ranger or rev. From what I’ve read about them, they seem like they could be in a similar situation. I don’t have enough knowledge of those classes to judge them, though.

If you read what I was responding to, it contextualizes my statement.

And did you actually READ animal farm… ?

zoomborg.9462:

Too many things not working with this class.

1) We dont get an f5, mirage cloak is overall worse than a normal dodge which leaves us with ambush as the only thing we get from this spec. As mentioned mirage mirror doesnt work. It feels suicidal to run at a specific area just to get a 0.75 dodge, too risky and lucklaster.

2)Ambush is the only thing that we get in the end. However THE ONLY weapon that has a good ambush skill is scepter and scepter alone.The rest of the weapons are terribad with ambush.

3) Because of (2) we basically have only one option for weapons which scepter/torch/Staff. That’s it, period.

4) Axe is unreliable at best and for a spec that has zero clone generation we are forced to either get mirror images as utility or deceptive evasion from dueling traits.Clone generation from axe is bad through and through.

5) …Ambush…again. We basically trade dodges (survivability) for burst dmg. AND we have to shatter in order to get our endurance back (vigor on shatter). That mean we need strong clone generation so check (4). Meanwhile the only survivability comes from invisibility so torch is mandatory and we probably will need decoy or mass invi.

6) Lets say i roam wvw, i usually play power shatter with decoy, blink, signet of illusions. Rarely i play condi with the same utilities. There is no point to use any deception utilities over the ones above as they are miles ahead and actually synergize. I could perhaps switch signet for one shadowstep but it just shows how bad the new utilities are.

7) This feels like a condi spec through and through. Core condi mesmer already performs well in a pve scenario and condi chrono is one of the strongest classes in WvW roaming/PvP. Meanwhile power shatter is a pure tryhard build that got nerfed while Anet was trying to nerf condi chrono. Good job on that btw. Why would u give, considering the above, another condi spec that pails in comparison to the 2 i mentioned above? There is simply no point in running mirage over those 2. Instead a power spec would be much more welcome and refreshing.

(8) In order to keep up the pressure or the dps we need to keep clones alive, yet we need to shatter in order to recharge endurance or spam meaningless mirage mirrors. At the same time phantasms, a major mechanic on mesmer, are completely useless with this spec as they dont use ambush. Also why do we still have shattering with this spec….it makes zero sense and has no synergy at all.

9) As mentioned in (1) we dont get an f5, we lose clone generation, we lose defensive power (no shield,cs,alacrity, no lockdown whatsoever) and all the skills apart from scepter ambush are weak, too weak.

All in all, even core mesmer is stronger than mirage at this point, let alone chrono which is miles ahead. As it stands now there is no reason to pick mirage in any single game mode.

Anet u have one month till release, better make use of that time cause this is not looking good…..

I just wanted to add my two cents to this thread and replying to this post is a good way for me to do that.

I actually really like the mirage spec. Yes, it has a lot of issues, but it does not need to be scrapped. It just needs some improvements. The whole concept is amazing and fun. The ambush skills, deception skills, and mirror mechanic can all be improved upon. I would prefer that than to have this spec scrapped because I honestly like it a lot and am still very excited for it despite the issues.

1) Every new specialization doesn’t need a new F5. There may even be a new spec that gives us less F skills to use, and i’m okay with that. The mirage cloak is amazing and imo it is better than dodge in every way.

2) Scepter’s ambush is amazing and probably overtuned. I also thought the other weapon’s ambush were lame in comparison but I was wrong. Sword’s ambush is great and I love it a lot. I’m someone that has been dual swords since the game launched, and this ambush skill is something sword users definitely needed. I fought a really good greatsword user in a few matches who made the gs ambush look just as good in its own way. I don’t know about staff, so I’m just gonna say it’s clearly not as good as scepter’s.

3) You can run every weapon with this spec. I’ve fought amazing mesmers using literally all weapons and they have all surprised me and made their respective weapons look like an awesome choice to use. I run swords and I’ve gotten a lot of whispers from people telling me that they didn’t know a sword build could work so well with a mirage. Even axe, although it could use some improvements.

4) Axe can generate 2 clones. Also there is the deceptive evasion trait so generate another whenever you gain cloak. And then there’s another trait to make your ambush generate a clone. I think clone generation with mainhand axe is better than with any other weapon since it generates 2 clones where as all the others generate 1. But axe does need improvements, but not in clone generation.

5) I don’t run any invisibility skills or traits and I think my survivability is better than it has ever been as a melee mesmer because of mirage. I agree that there is some issues with synergy among the traits and the theme of the spec. For example, imo, shatter traits don’t belong in this spec and those traits should be changed to something else. I think chrono is a good shatter spec and this spec should be less so about shattering. putting vigor on shatter is counter-intuitive for this spec.

6) I did a lot of wvw as a power melee build on mirage and I took both shadow step utilties and jaunt. I had a lot of fun with it and felt like the skills suit my playstyle very well. The skills fail a lot, but I do expect them to be fixed and improved upon, and not scrapped, because i do still like them. And the roll back needs a longer distance for the roll, a mirage cloak, and a much shorter cd.

7) I agree that this does feel like a condi spec. It’s obvious that mirage would be strongest in a condi spec, but I have seen great success using it as a power build. And I like that it is possible to use it as a power build. Some minor traits could be changed to improve it’s viability for power, and another grandmaster that appeals to power builds should be added.

8) A guy on reddit made a post about this spec bringing back life to the power shatter build. He talked about the build and it all makes sense and a lot ofpeople agreed on the post. So shatter is definitely possible with this spec. Personally, I think any shatter build that can kill someone 100 to 0 is broken and should be made unavailable, but that’s a conversation for another topic. I personally would prefer this not to be a shatter build, but it works for some people.

9) Mirage cloak is plenty defensive. And of course, this build will feel far more fragile because we are giving up our shields and continuum shift and gravity well crutch, but I think it’s a fair trade off for the cloak and ambush skills. I do expect the ambush skills to be improved up on for all weapons so I’m honestly not even worried about it.

10) I believe core POWER mesmer will produce higher dps than a power mirage dps build and even a power chronomancer dps build. I agree that mesmer already had a decent condition dps build. But it was a condition build I would have never used before. But now that mirage exists, I would totally use mirage in pve as a condition build because the axe would actually be an amazing weapon in pve. I don’t like scepter or any ranged weapon, but I do love melee, so this spec definitely has a niche there for people like me.

I am a power dual sword wielding mirage and I am finding success with it in pvp and wvw. It’s fun and the concepts are awesome. I expect some improvements. I do not want this build scrapped. I like it, it just needs a little bit of work on the deception skills, ambush skills, and the mirror mechanic.

Anet had some good ideas with this build and I’d like to see it come to life in a way that we can all be happy with.

Hlord.5940:

So since 2012 mesmer has been gutted and nothing was done? Is this the reason why mesmer has the lowest dps? The dev still believe mesmer has high dps since 2012?

Well, in a way.

Or in more detail, they designed a spec which intentionally has a lot of elements which frustrate enemies in PvP. Blink, stealth, fake targets, condition pressure with conditionals, lots of defensive elements, projectile reflect, CC.

Then ofc in turn, everyone complains about them, so they balance it by making them weaker. But since the spec was built around being frustrating in PvP, at the point where they are “tolerable”, they’re also underpowered. Which then shows in PvE.

To fix this, they gave us a support spec which has no alternative. Now everyone needs us, all of a sudden.

But when the time comes around to give us another spec, all of these inherent problems resurface. Nothing was ever “solved”.

Sodeni.6041:

I completely agree with you! I was so hyped for the mirage but this elite spec is just a mess.

• The mirage lacks synergy with core mesmer trait-lines. Core trait-lines are heavily focused around shattering illusions and buffing phantasms, which are counterproductive for the mirage.

• The mirage is clearly not meant to shatter illusions because without clones you can’t perform ambush attacks, yet we still have the same F-skills! There should absolutely be different ones that synergise with the mirage’s design.

• Phantasms don’t do ambush attacks and are therefore worse than clones so you dont usually use one of your 5 weapon skills.

• Even clone’s ambush attacks are very lackluster, weak and clunky.

• Mirages are required to keep up clones, yet clones die like flies in pvp and wvw. There is simply not enough clone generation available.

• As already mentioned, mirage cloak is a weaker dodge because of it’s reduced mobility.

• Mirage mirrors are a clunky design. They require you to walk to them (which is very risky in pvp and wvw) to gain mirage cloak (0.75 sec) which is not worth the risk and effort.

These are my main cons I come up with.
Anet still has one month time to fix the mirage. Hopefully we will se some readjustments!

This is pretty much the best summary of current mirage problems.

Just want to quote it to get attention.

Are we gonna talk about how clones don’t change weapon with you?

I think Mirage mirrors would be a good mechanic if you could pull them towards you giving Mirage cloak to you and any ally it passes through while damaging enemies.

Also we already had distortion, now we’ve got another version of it?

The only thing they should rework frm scratch is the Mirage Mirror mechanic. I don’t like it at all. It’s more annoying rather than a useful mechanic to give us more Mirage Cloaks.

Everything else is fine.
I love the Mirage playstyle & I love what it is supposed to be. I really love deception & confusion/torment. I love being able to play with my opponents mind and I love the Mirage Cloak/ambush mechanic.

Sure there are a lot of things that need fixing & balancing/buffing but those are minor things they eventually will do.

glenndevis.8327:

The only thing they should rework frm scratch is the Mirage Mirror mechanic. I don’t like it at all. It’s more annoying rather than a useful mechanic to give us more Mirage Cloaks.

Everything else is fine.
I love the Mirage playstyle & I love what it is supposed to be. I really love deception & confusion/torment. I love being able to play with my opponents mind and I love the Mirage Cloak/ambush mechanic.

Sure there are a lot of things that need fixing & balancing/buffing but those are minor things they eventually will do.

Thats what core Mesmer was designed to do and it failed misrably because you can’t base a class around other players being bad. We need an elite spec that actually works in the game.

Carighan.6758:

Hlord.5940:

So since 2012 mesmer has been gutted and nothing was done? Is this the reason why mesmer has the lowest dps? The dev still believe mesmer has high dps since 2012?

Well, in a way.

Or in more detail, they designed a spec which intentionally has a lot of elements which frustrate enemies in PvP. Blink, stealth, fake targets, condition pressure with conditionals, lots of defensive elements, projectile reflect, CC.

Then ofc in turn, everyone complains about them, so they balance it by making them weaker. But since the spec was built around being frustrating in PvP, at the point where they are “tolerable”, they’re also underpowered. Which then shows in PvE.

To fix this, they gave us a support spec which has no alternative. Now everyone needs us, all of a sudden.

But when the time comes around to give us another spec, all of these inherent problems resurface. Nothing was ever “solved”.

I was saying this throughout HoT, chrono was nothing but a bandaid spec for problems with core mesmer design. Yet almost everyone just ignored me when I said that. And here we are when we get a new elite spec, and these problems show their face again and now more people seem to care (which is good, I guess).

Core mesmer needs to be rebalanced, and ideally its mechanic needs to be fundamentally changed (either shatters, illusions, or both), and then the elite specs we have need to be rebalanced around that. But we can’t keep the huge problems with core mesmer design and have workable elite specs that aren’t way overpowered. The problems are just too big.

I will stick to an idea I posted years ago in regards to base Mesmer rebalance: First and foremost, swap illusion generation and shatter!

That is:

• F1 is a short-CD single target clone generator.
• F2 is a medium-CD 3-clone AE generator, 1 clone per target, so you need multiple enemies nearby.
• F3 is a medium~long CD 3-clone single target generator.
• All skills currently generating clones are phantasms are retooled.
• Phantasm-type skills, 1 per weapon + 2 utility, briefly empower a single of your clones: For the duration, that clone ignores shatter commands (they are saved up though!), and executes a strong attack against their current target.
• Skills such as Decoy or Ether Feast become shatter skills: They destroy a single of your clones to produce some effect.

As a further point, I’d make clones entirely invulnerable (they seemingly take damage but should they hit 0 HP their health resets!), but in turn cause absolutely no effect with their attacks, not even conditions. But that’s not the core of the idea tbh.

What this fixes is the tilted illusions vs shatter balance. Which is way off. It’s better to use the clones as a steady resource available to be used up slowly, not as an all-or-nothing deal!

Mikkel.8427:

I play 6/9 of the professions regularly, and 5 out of those 6 have elite specs with solid foundations to work of off.

…

And did you actually READ animal farm… ?

I have 3 each of the 9 professions. There is no elite spec among them that is in need of drastic reworks at the conceptual level.

And yes, fortunately Animal Farm was required reading at one point in time. Everyone wants to complain that their elite spec is trash and needs to be completely reworked, which if taken to be true (it isn’t), at least keeps them at relatively equal dev attention levels. If you want to take the cynical approach to mmo design, if “everyone” is mad on the forums, you’ve probably balanced the game well.

Was really excited for this, and was hoping this would make me want to keep playing my mesmer. Sadly I completely agree with everything you said, and noticed a lot of these huge flaws withing the first 10-15 min of trying it out. If they don’t change it unfortunately I don’t know if I’m going to keep playing mesmer(even though I love the entire magic duelist theme). Might end up switching to elementalist since their new elite spec is really interesting, has really nice animations, and feels like a magic duelist since they’re using a sword.

A good full rework isn’t happening nor do I think it should. The real question needs to be “What are the minimal changes necessary to make multiple different viable playstyles?”

Phantasms not using ambush skills intensifies the problem core mesmer had: Mirage suffers from an identity crisis with shatters, new clone mechanics and phantasms being an even worst contradiction in playstyle than before. Making infinite horizon baseline won’t fix any of that. It’ll just push the clone side harder. This also backfires even more for sword/GS users as clones do zero power damage.

Dune Cloak: Casts Sand Shards on completion of an ambush attack. Buff Sand Shards to 1.5 Coefficient, 3 bleeds 240 radius. Keep the 20% condi duration. Dune Cloak/Sand Shards is held back is because of the “instant damage” autocasts on gaining Mirage Cloak. Making it on ambush completion, negates that problem as enemies can now fairly dodge it. This would buff the sword and GS ambush attack on the power side. Clone ambushes were doing zero power damage anyways so it’s ok that it competes with infinite horizon. It helps WvW zerg/PvE tagging by giving illusionless AOE. In PvP, a Mirage can pick this trait summon illusions, shatter freely and focus on personal ambush attacks instead of clone ambushes. Could possibly reword it so that the 3 GS ambush beams could cause 3 separate sand shard procs.

Shards of Glass: Gain 15 endurance for each illusion shattered. The RNG is BAD. That being said, it’s supposed to roughly give you 1 Mirage cloak per 3 illusions shattered if the RNG is consistent and 1 mirage cloak is equivalent to 1 dodge. So IP proc = 15 endurance. 3 illusions shattered+IP = 60 endurance or slightly more than 1 dodge. It keeps the overall balance but has better usability of not chasing a mirror around and dodging when you want to dodge instead of RNG evade frames.

With the exception of the current Shards of Glass, the only source of Mirage Mirrors are deception skills. General consensus is that they disappear too fast and no one likes chasing them around. When it comes to fighting the Mirage, this also makes the noob “perma evade frames” complaints more prevalent. Would anyone be upset if the functionality of Mirage Mirrors changed? Example: After 2 seconds, Mirage Mirrors shatter (cast Sand Shards around it). So basically delayed PBAOE. I think it would make the class less aggravating to both play and play against. Wonderful Dev animation stuff that went into it stays.

Jaunt: Change it to 600 range. Make it 2 charges if 3 charges at 600 is too OP. Preserves the 1200 distance.

Without a doubt, there are some clunky skills and a few numbers could be adjusted with the spec as a whole. Like ambush window could be increased by 0.5 seconds. However, I think those changes would actually immensely help in making Mirage less annoying to play and also emphasize other play styles such as a shatters/selfish ambushes instead of just tunnel visioning on Infinite horizon and clones.

Exciton.8942:

Sodeni.6041:

I completely agree with you! I was so hyped for the mirage but this elite spec is just a mess.

• The mirage lacks synergy with core mesmer trait-lines. Core trait-lines are heavily focused around shattering illusions and buffing phantasms, which are counterproductive for the mirage.

• The mirage is clearly not meant to shatter illusions because without clones you can’t perform ambush attacks, yet we still have the same F-skills! There should absolutely be different ones that synergise with the mirage’s design.

• Phantasms don’t do ambush attacks and are therefore worse than clones so you dont usually use one of your 5 weapon skills.

• Even clone’s ambush attacks are very lackluster, weak and clunky.

• Mirages are required to keep up clones, yet clones die like flies in pvp and wvw. There is simply not enough clone generation available.

• As already mentioned, mirage cloak is a weaker dodge because of it’s reduced mobility.

• Mirage mirrors are a clunky design. They require you to walk to them (which is very risky in pvp and wvw) to gain mirage cloak (0.75 sec) which is not worth the risk and effort.

These are my main cons I come up with.
Anet still has one month time to fix the mirage. Hopefully we will se some readjustments!

This is pretty much the best summary of current mirage problems.

Just want to quote it to get attention.

aww thank you I am just trying my best to give the devs feedback on how to improve the mirage and point out the bad of this elite spec.

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