Guild Wars 2

Did anybody get any time in?

Mirage was as terrible in Open world as everywhere else. Axe provided pitiful damage and tiny condi ticks. Even in open world the dodge was a massive detriment, especially with how squishy the spec is. Staff ambush couldn’t even hit those sand worms that move as fast as well a worm. It also reminded me how laughably small Jaunts range is.

I know power is better for open world but I’ve played a fair bit of base Condi shatter, Condi Chrono shatter and condi Ranger in open world on live and all 3 provide much better open world experiences and neither of the Mesmer builds are that great to begin with.

And just to get it out of the way ‘lol dude its open world just play whatever thats why I use a dps class with full ascended berserkers mesmers shouldn’t have any qol features or a decent elite spec lol its open world lol’ There I saved you the trouble.

My revenant with mace 2 into mace 3 does more condi damage than my mirage’s 3 illusion setup. It’s so dumb how weak the axe weapon is.

Worse, the traits in the mirage traitline are worthless for PvE. Not a single good adept since riddle of sand requires shattering for a measly 2 confusion on an ambush, and the master trait is just as bad. We only have options in the grandmaster for PvE.

The utilities might as well go in the incinerator. Nobody will ever use them, even in formats other than PvE.

Well i could hit my staff ambushes frequently (while i agree u couldn’t in PvP). I could use axe 3 to climb terrain. I could survive groups of 5+ mobs. Still think AN has to rework some traits and give better QoL.

Axe 2 + Jaunt can will move (almost?) the full distance of both skills, therefore reducing the cast time of axe 2. Adds more burst too.

Seriously some tweaks and we are fine.

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Fair enough, I thought the mobs were all a bit weak.

Regarding aggro though – I was playing aggressively in melee such that it didn’t make much difference – either illusions were shattered or I’d be focused anyway.

I highly doubt mirage is bad in open world.

If the dodge was holding you back, you probably should’ve swapped to sword.

Yeah, you won’t do any where near the damage other classes would in open world running a power build with sword.

But dear god, you can get around fast.

Thief is still my favorite open world class, just because of how much mobility it has. And mirage gets a bit closer to thief.

Except for the fact that mesmer still doesn’t have good swiftness stacking.

I played the entire duration. I only sent myself a full set of ascended and infused sinister gear + weapons, though. AKA- I played condi the whole time.

As someone who plays core Mesmer (a lot), Mirage really doesn’t feel like it adds much… and a good portion of what it does add feels lame.

The heal and all the utilities feel like a waste of a slot across all game modes. Mirage advance has been the only exception, I had a lot of fun with it in WvW.

Mirrors are still useless even in PvE.

The elite utility I LOVE in all game modes, I think its awesome. I wish the damage on it would just be removed and they added some distance instead, but I think its fine as is.

The only thing axe has been good for is condi cleaving trash mobs, everywhere else its felt more like a liability.

The scepter ambush needs the kitten root removed…

The staff ambush is really solid for PvE purposes.

Sword ambush is awesome everywhere, in every build, for every occasion.

So many of the traits feel useless and under tuned. Basically everything but the GMs could be completely removed and it would have almost no impact on play. May as well just be empty slots.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

But dear god, you can get around fast.

Yup, we finally got our first leap skill. But the only profession whose speed we topped is Necro and Revenant. (Reaper and Rev both have long cd dashes.)

Everyone else is still just as fast as, if not faster than, Mirage.

I don’t know how anybody can play thief with the ridiculous auto attacks they have and think Sword ambush is anything but trash.

I mean if they gave it to us as Sword skill 3 I would like finally having a leap but they say the reason we get a worse dodge is because we can carry on attacking through it but then they give us ambush attacks weaker then our already weak auto attacks.

Esplen.3940:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

But dear god, you can get around fast.

Yup, we finally got our first leap skill. But the only profession whose speed we topped is Necro and Revenant. (Reaper and Rev both have long cd dashes.)

Everyone else is still just as fast as, if not faster than, Mirage.

Luckily, the only place that matters is in WvW.

PvE we’ll have mounts. PvP we have rune of the lynx.

The leap is nice, but as an ambush it completely misses the mark, I think. The Daze can be utilized in PvP scenarios (but it’s hard to stagger which kind of defeats the IH synergy). Add onto that the clones not getting traits making the clone dazes ridiculously weak.

Then to compare it to auto attacks, it scales worse (and hits less) than the first auto attack in your auto chain, and takes 1.5x as long to get out (which also equates to the entire duration of your evade frames, assuming you used it immediately).

It’s not an ambush, it’s just a leap.

Plus the daze is worthless in PvE. Even mantra of distraction at 1 daze per charge barely scratches a breakbar, sword ambush will be even worse.

You want ambush, bring the damage up to backstab/vault levels and then we’ll talk.

During the elite spec beta weekend I just figured that axe wasn’t a good pvp weapon. But now having tested it for pve during the stress test, it didn’t seem that great for pve either. Underwhelming for sure.

FAN BOY SAYS IT’S BAD!!!! uh oh…

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Alwayshappy.2549:

I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Mobility: has never been an issue for Mesmer. As long as we’re talking about in-combat mobility. Mirage brings no OOC mobility bar Sword Ambush, which is basically the only use for it. You can argue that you get Superspeed on dodge, but that’s a moot point because you also don’t move on dodge and its sole purpose is to account for that.

AoE (Condi) Damage: with what? Sure, Axe cleaves, but that’s not more mobbing than we’ve had with Sword. Additionally, Axe only cleaves with it’s auto attack, which is less than what we’ve got on Sword. As for the condi portion, a well aimed Scepter3 will add more AoE condi than Axe autos. Crystal Sands gets caught on terrain and it’s probably bad in the Crystal Desert with all the mounds and lumps (I didn’t get a chance to get on and test). Jaunt is pretty small damage, condi or otherwise. If you get rid of the AoE portion and say that it has good condi damage, the damage increase over Condi Mesmer is minimal (and mostly from getting more stats from Mirage traitline than Chaos).

There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything. Yes, there is, and just jumping directly into Mirage may very well feel good, but the difference between Mirage and Mesmer is minimal. Mirage feels like a base traitline, not an elite spec. What it adds is clunkiness and weak, with the exception of illusion retargeting (which isn’t even its primary mechanic).

Imagine if I jumped right into Weaver in PvE and said it felt great and it did a ton of damage. I don’t play Elementalist, and I don’t have a baseline comparison. For all I know, it does less damage than another weaponset, but all I know is that there were big numbers and flashy animations. That’s what you’ve done here.

Mirage does very little to improve damage and it lacks cohesion. Instead of solving a problem in the core class by offering something new, it breaks the core class by adding a mechanic that not only goes against itself, but also goes against the core class.

Esplen.3940:

Alwayshappy.2549:

I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Mobility: has never been an issue for Mesmer. As long as we’re talking about in-combat mobility. Mirage brings no OOC mobility bar Sword Ambush, which is basically the only use for it. You can argue that you get Superspeed on dodge, but that’s a moot point because you also don’t move on dodge and its sole purpose is to account for that.

AoE (Condi) Damage: with what? Sure, Axe cleaves, but that’s not more mobbing than we’ve had with Sword. Additionally, Axe only cleaves with it’s auto attack, which is less than what we’ve got on Sword. As for the condi portion, a well aimed Scepter3 will add more AoE condi than Axe autos. Crystal Sands gets caught on terrain and it’s probably bad in the Crystal Desert with all the mounds and lumps (I didn’t get a chance to get on and test). Jaunt is pretty small damage, condi or otherwise. If you get rid of the AoE portion and say that it has good condi damage, the damage increase over Condi Mesmer is minimal (and mostly from getting more stats from Mirage traitline than Chaos).

There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything. Yes, there is, and just jumping directly into Mirage may very well feel good, but the difference between Mirage and Mesmer is minimal. Mirage feels like a base traitline, not an elite spec. What it adds is clunkiness and weak, with the exception of illusion retargeting (which isn’t even its primary mechanic).

Imagine if I jumped right into Weaver in PvE and said it felt great and it did a ton of damage. I don’t play Elementalist, and I don’t have a baseline comparison. For all I know, it does less damage than another weaponset, but all I know is that there were big numbers and flashy animations. That’s what you’ve done here.

Mirage does very little to improve damage and it lacks cohesion. Instead of solving a problem in the core class by offering something new, it breaks the core class by adding a mechanic that not only goes against itself, but also goes against the core class.

With all due respect: that’s not what I’ve done here, but if it helps you to think that, go ahead. My main may not be a mesmer, but that doesn’t mean I’m just now trying it out. Sorry for being positive about the spec. Sorry for actually liking it more than core mesmer (tho I loved Chrono) and sorry for trying something new succesfully. It may not be for everyone, but my opinion is worth just as much.

Anyway..AoE wise..no, there is also AoE on axe 2. Just saying. And yes, sword does AoE, but that’s not the point. Sword doesn’t do AoE condi damage…condi damage was what I was talking about Mobility wise I was talking about in combat.

So… other than having a new weapon, Mirage offers nothing to Mesmer is what I’m getting from your posts.

Axe2 “AoE Condi” 3 stacks of Torment IF you aim-bug it, otherwise it’s 1-2 stacks of Torment on each target. If you trait axe, it adds 1 stack of Torment to a random target near you (whichever target the axe locks onto).

You literally get more AoE condi from Scepter, and Mirage does not offer more in-combat mobility than base (or even Chrono) Mesmer, even counting Axe blinks.

Alwayshappy.2549:

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Normal mobs in the demo areas have around 8-9k health. This is compared to the 15-30k you’d see in everywhere else. They’re much weaker than traditional mobs even in the base game let alone HoT.

I had a decent time killing stuff in the new map while being mirage. It was hard to tell how much damage I was doing though, it surely felt like less damage than a berserker power spec.

I’m more worried about the mechanics that come with it. The ambush windows were too short and I hardly ever was allowed to use it in the ambush window due to not being in the right position to actually use them.

Mirage mirrors felt absolutely useless and pretty much just get ignored because you don’t have the time to run around and it will result into a dps loss. You likely get more dps by just autoattacking instead of having to run to the mirrors to pop them.. to then not be in range of the enemy anymore to actually hit him.

The teleporting from axe 3 and Illusionary Ambush felt horrible. Especially Illusionary Ambush, this skill did activate the ambush buuuut… it would constantly teleport me too far away from an enemy so the ambush from the axe wouldn’t be able to hit. Axe 3 often also teleported me too far away which resulted into me having to run to the enemy to hit him afterwards.

So many traits just feel useless from the mirage, and due to being clones based, no shattering, the illusions trait line even felt useless. Illusionist’s Celerity didn’t even seem to work on Axe 2 ammo recharge. So I ended up with chaos/dueling/mirage as a setup, which just feels odd and you have to take so many traits that don’t do anything for you with whatever spec you go for.

In the end I’m hoping they will still spent quite some time on the mirage with tweaking and changing mechanics because kitten it really needs that.

Shadu.3701:

The teleporting from axe 3 and Illusionary Ambush felt horrible. Especially Illusionary Ambush, this skill did activate the ambush buuuut… it would constantly teleport me too far away from an enemy so the ambush from the axe wouldn’t be able to hit. Axe 3 often also teleported me too far away which resulted into me having to run to the enemy to hit him afterwards.

I think this is an issue with the teleportation. It tries to place you around the target, but it also places you within 600 range of the target, which means you’re not necessarily in range to do what you need to do. Sometimes it’s a clone that gets put that far away, but they instantly move towards the target to do the leap attack, while you as a player sometimes don’t end up leaping (thus missing the 5 Confusion burst).

Additionally, I had one instance where I ended up facing the wrong direction and it completely shut down my auto rotation while I had to figure out where to face. It didn’t take me a long time, but it wasn’t fluid by any means. The problems with the Axe3 skill and IAmbush are the same as they are functionally the same effect just with different riders.

Esplen.3940:

I think this is an issue with the teleportation. It tries to place you around the target, but it also places you within 600 range of the target, which means you’re not necessarily in range to do what you need to do. Sometimes it’s a clone that gets put that far away, but they instantly move towards the target to do the leap attack, while you as a player sometimes don’t end up leaping (thus missing the 5 Confusion burst).

Additionally, I had one instance where I ended up facing the wrong direction and it completely shut down my auto rotation while I had to figure out where to face. It didn’t take me a long time, but it wasn’t fluid by any means. The problems with the Axe3 skill and IAmbush are the same as they are functionally the same effect just with different riders.

The problem with axe 3 isn’t as bad as it is with IAmbush due to the last one giving you the ambush window yet it doesn’t last nearly long enough to then run close enough to the enemy to hit them. Hopefully they increase the ambush time window to fix some of the other stuff. But then you’ll still on occasion be teleported quite a bit away from your enemy which isn’t as bad with weapons besides the axe but due to the axe not really having a gap close it becomes annoying with that weapon.

I’m just getting annoyed by how unfinished and clunky the elite spec feels. I really hope they can solve it in the release as they have already been working on fixes and tweaks.

At that point, one could argue that with any weapon other than Axe, you won’t miss the ambush window.

Axe 3 has the same flaws as IAmbush, regardless of the Ambush mechanic. Why? Missing out on the attack portion of Axe 3 means that the skill is just an illusion retarget, because you apply 5 confusion and your (axe) clones apply 1 confusion. Missing out on the attack portion of IAmbush means that the skill is just an illusion retarget, because you don’t get your ambush off. You can miss out on the attack for both by being misplaced (unless you mash W+1 on both skills).

Yep, Mirage in PvE truly showed just how bad of a disaster this elite spec is.

• No cohesive design.
• No specific element it provides.
• Rubbish “unique mechanic” in the ambushes which make you wish it wouldn’t overwrite your AA button.
• Punishing weaker dodge, which could be balanced if those ambushes were strong but they’re not.
• Gimmicky mirror mechanic which again is so undertuned there’s just no point.
• Weak, weak, weak, weak. That’s the only cohesive thing about this spec. “Weak”.

At the very least, I’d change this:

• Mirrors now last 12 seconds.
• All deception-skills cause a mirror, including Jaunt (leaves it where you left!).
• Jaunt has 600 range.
• All Ambush skills significantly improved, from ~x3 (Scepter) to x10 (Greatsword) the damage they do now.
• Infinite Horizon removed.
• Mirrors which are touched by opponents shatter, creating a clone and weakening foes (but not giving you cloak). They can cause the sand effect from the Grandmaster trait!

I had a ton of fun, and I was running all Mirage utilities too. I loved playing Axe, making a bunch of clones and then just going HAM on the enemies, before using Axe 3 or that utility to swap all my clones to another target. I’m not a great Mesmer player so I’m sure I could have been more efficient in how I used them, but I really enjoyed myself. Favorite new spec so far.

I also used Jaunt fairly often, not so much directly in combat, but just to move around casually. The Ammo system is what makes it worthwhile, not having the pressure to save it for emergencies, you can just spam it out two or even three times to make a casual benefit for you, and know that you’ll have at least one charge of it soon enough.

Also, for those saying that Thief Sneak attacks are stronger than Mesmer Ambushes, well no duh, but Thief Sneak attacks are more resource expensive than Ambushes, an Ambush-specced Mirage could probably pump out 2-3 times as many Ambushes over thirty seconds than a Sneak Attack specced Thief, and WAY more than a Thief who isn’t specialized in going Stealth constantly.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I think the spec is perfect, if they improved it I certainly wouldn’t complain, but I did have a lot of fun as-is. If they do modify it, I would like to see them move in this direction:

• Make clones stronger. People are complaining that the clones don’t do enough damage to be the Mirage’s bread and butter. If so, the solution is not to remove the clone aspects, it’s to make the clones stronger. I definitely want the spec to be the one where clones are the heavy hitters rather than Phantasms.

• Change Mirrors to offer Endurance, rather than activate Cloaks automatically. This would make them more flexible, as they would be providing a resource that you could spend as needed, rather than being something you need to tag to activate.

Most issues I had was with dodge/cloak and axe #3 illusionary ambush. Both skills teleport you around randomly which isn’t so bad in itself (chaos after all) unless the ground is filled with aoe. But they also turn the camera to face your target which sometimes was pretty confusing.

Dodge to the sides which I usually used with strafe+dodge just plain sucks. Superspeed only works when using the cloak while moving forwards. With dodging left/right the distance traveled is way too short. Could be an old-habits-die-hard issue, but the only solution I can see is turning the screen before dodging so you’re moving always forward. Adding to the confusion and micro management. I’m not sure this will work well.

Cloak itself is nice, you can evade a short blow while standing at the enemy while everyone else dodges out of the way and runs back. But tbh, sword #2 did that already. I also felt myself hammering the 1 key constantly to activate the ambushes.

Getting out of aoe though was mostly terrible, always used jaunt for that.

Damage with viper axe/torch felt much less than berserker sword/whatever. Wasn’t an issue in open world though. But no way to tell for sure without the test golem.

Alwayshappy.2549:

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It is getting tiring.

Esplen.3940:

So… other than having a new weapon, Mirage offers nothing to Mesmer is what I’m getting from your posts.

Axe2 “AoE Condi” 3 stacks of Torment IF you aim-bug it, otherwise it’s 1-2 stacks of Torment on each target. If you trait axe, it adds 1 stack of Torment to a random target near you (whichever target the axe locks onto).

You literally get more AoE condi from Scepter, and Mirage does not offer more in-combat mobility than base (or even Chrono) Mesmer, even counting Axe blinks.

It offers way more than just that to me(which I named), but to each their own, not going to defend myself any further. I hope that you will learn to enjoy the spec tho, that certain things will get fixed. It may not be my main, but I spent a lot of days on my mesmer anyway and I’m glad to see a spec that I enjoy.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It’s not entirely wrong though. People who are very used to the class operating a certain way might be less flexible in adapting to new options, and might not realize new ways that the class could be used, while novices might just stumble onto the best ways to play the spec. I think that the opinions of both experts and novices should be taken into account when dealing with a new spec. And again, if the numbers aren’t there, the devs can always tweak them.

I think based on the conflicting opinions going around, it seems like making the Mirage does higher DPS than a core/Chrono who is being played sloppily, but not to the level of one that is being played with precision (small “p”). So maybe it’s just easier to get the most out of the spec, even if that most isn’t as high as other classes. That could make it a very powerful spec once they get the tuning better.

Yeah, thiefs are always happy when Memser suffers in PvE. I don’t know why but thats the kind of person who plays them.

Levetty.1279:

Alwayshappy.2549:

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It is getting tiring.

Gee, thanks for making me feel so welcome. All I said was that I enjoy the spec and don’t really agree with all the hate. That’s MY opinion. Don’t like it? That’s not my problem. If you can’t read, and prefer to read what you want to read in order to justify your post, that’s also your problem.

- Never said you guys are wrong about everything, just that I(!) find the spec enjoyable and that I (!) don’t agree with all the hate. If you read that as ‘’You guys don’t know what you’re doing/you are wrong about everything, then I don’t know what you’re doing on a public forum, where everyone should feel welcome/be appreciated.

- Never said I didn’t play mesmer. I said it’s not my main. Doesn’t mean I don’t have countless of hours spent on my mesmer. That’s what you want to read. So that you can cry about someone correcting you again. Grow up dude. Seriously. It’s a forum.

Alwayshappy.2549:

Levetty.1279:

Alwayshappy.2549:

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It is getting tiring.

Gee, thanks for making me feel so welcome. All I said was that I enjoy the spec and don’t really agree with all the hate. That’s MY opinion. Don’t like it? That’s not my problem. If you can’t read, and prefer to read what you want to read in order to justify your post, that’s also your problem.

- Never said you guys are wrong about everything, just that I(!) find the spec enjoyable and that I (!) don’t agree with all the hate. If you read that as ‘’You guys don’t know what you’re doing/you are wrong about everything, then I don’t know what you’re doing on a public forum, where everyone should feel welcome/be appreciated.

- Never said I didn’t play mesmer. I said it’s not my main. Doesn’t mean I don’t have countless of hours spent on my mesmer. That’s what you want to read. So that you can cry about someone correcting you again. Grow up dude. Seriously. It’s a forum.

Yeah its a forum, so I don’t know why you came to a class you don’t play and told everybody that they were wrong about the class just to troll. I also don’t know why you are lying about your first post when we can still see it.

Levetty.1279:

Alwayshappy.2549:

Levetty.1279:

Alwayshappy.2549:

Zenith.7301:

Curunen.8729:

Maybe I’m seeing things weirdly, but personally found Mirage to be a breeze in open world, much easier and faster than condi chrono – unless they’ve deliberately undertuned the pve mobs’ health in Crystal Oasis compared to similar veterans in say LW3 maps.

Yes it’s still clunky, still needs a lot of fixing and buffs, but the core playstyle flow and damage application felt solid.

From the IH thread:
“Ok this stress test has just confirmed how much I LOVE infinite horizon.

Sod all the other traits, this trait is so much fun to use and synergises really well with burst for my build – ie get some clones out, axe 3, or utility blink then ambush into shatter.

The point is not leaving clones up indefinitely casting ambush – it’s having them all cast one (or two) ambush and straight into F1 or F2. In the case of staff if you position yourself right and with deceptive evasion you can stack a good bit of might.
On axe it’s better to ambush in close range after axe 3 then shatter.

Cooldowns are such you can get a good cadence going in terms of ambush into shatter into melee with things like axe 2, back into staff and repeat.

Either way it’s chewing through the large pve mobs like butter, better than chrono because both axe and staff cleave everything and I don’t even have the right stats to make use of things like sharper images or precision for more direct damage crit (I want to go viper for hybrid but the demo gear was carrion).

Also I find it surprising how much the evade sharing keeps illusions alive in order to shatter.

There’s a lot of issues to be fixed, but infinite horizon must be in game – either basline for the class or as it is now, because it is so much fun to use. I think if it didn’t exist I’d rather play chrono."

The mobs are undertuned. They also nerfed the hounds in the story step from the last build.

More importantly, mesmer has never had issues in open world because illusions often take aggro, drawing the burst skills/cc from mobs onto them instead of you.

Where did you read that? I simply read they already made some changes to the elite specs/maps, but that this stress test wouldn’t show those changes yet. It would be 100% like the previous two preview weekends…

Anyway…I’m not a main Mesmer, but I kinda liked mirage in pvp and I never really agreed with all of the hate, even winning several 1vs3’s, current meta builds included. I wanted to check it in PvE aswell, since I spent most of my time there. kitten , I felt strong. So mobile. So much AoE condi damage, it was insane. At times it still felt clunky and I agree some minor tweaks could improve the situation a bit, but it’s no way as kittenome people call it out to be. There’s a learning curve for everything, which goes for nearly everything.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It is getting tiring.

Gee, thanks for making me feel so welcome. All I said was that I enjoy the spec and don’t really agree with all the hate. That’s MY opinion. Don’t like it? That’s not my problem. If you can’t read, and prefer to read what you want to read in order to justify your post, that’s also your problem.

- Never said you guys are wrong about everything, just that I(!) find the spec enjoyable and that I (!) don’t agree with all the hate. If you read that as ‘’You guys don’t know what you’re doing/you are wrong about everything, then I don’t know what you’re doing on a public forum, where everyone should feel welcome/be appreciated.

- Never said I didn’t play mesmer. I said it’s not my main. Doesn’t mean I don’t have countless of hours spent on my mesmer. That’s what you want to read. So that you can cry about someone correcting you again. Grow up dude. Seriously. It’s a forum.

Yeah its a forum, so I don’t know why you came to a class you don’t play and told everybody that they were wrong about the class just to troll. I also don’t know why you are lying about your first post when we can still see it.

God, I really should have listened to the people who told me not to feed the trolls.

I mean, you haven’t offered any points of discussion other than " I kinda liked mirage " and “I felt strong. So mobile. it was insane.”

I took all of your points/opinions and refuted them with examples. You took that and got extremely defensive with “Sorry for being positive about the spec. Sorry for actually liking it more than core mesmer (tho I loved Chrono) and sorry for trying something new succesfully. It may not be for everyone, but my opinion is worth just as much.”

You also, at the end of that, restated your opinions but as discussion points without acknowledging the refutation. There has been no discussion with you. Your posting here has simply been stating that you have an opinion and that it matters, while refusing to look beyond it and see anyone else’s views or opinions.

I, along with a lot of other people here (I hope) have read your opinions and acknowledged them. Heck, I took each of your points and wrote a long reason as to why they are not a good representation of Mirages strength, because they are not unique to Mirage. If that doesn’t make sense, think about it like this: You can take off Mirage and still have AoE Condi, Massive In-Combat Mobility, and Damage.

I didn’t actually say anything about damage to you, and I’m sorry for not doing that, although I have done that many times in this sub-forum. The reason why Damage is trivial on Mirage (at the moment) is that the Ambushes don’t scale well, the traits add very little, and the only gains in numbers is 150 Condition Damage + 300 Expertise (20% Condition Duration) vs ~100-250 Condition Damage (based on toughness) + 0-495 Expertise (33% Condition Duration based on boons on you) via Chaos (since that is the accepted standard line to be replaced by Mirage).

Now, you can easily replace another line with Mirage, but if you replace Dueling, you lose Sharper Images and Duelist’s Discipline which is a huge damage loss. You also lose access to either Deceptive Evasion or Superiority Complex, both of which are extremely valuable. Lastly, you lose access to Vigor on crit and that’s our most reliable way of gaining Vigor/Endurance. If you replace Illusions, you lose access to Phantasmal Force or Malicious Sorcery, which significantly drops your sustained damage output, meaning that unless you’re killing Veterans or weaker, you’re going to take longer (and it makes a pretty big difference when you do need that damage). You also lose access to Compounding Power and more dps traits which significantly drop your dps. Plus if your idea is to shatter a lot for that extra bursty rotation, you’ll need Illusions for the reduced cooldown on both illusions and shatters.

At this point, I’ve gone over why you should be using Mirage instead of Chaos, and I’ve listed the stat gains over Chaos. Now, if you look at the traits, there is very little offered in terms of damage. You won’t be getting Infinite Horizon because then you don’t get the 300 Expertise (Dune Cloak). The other traits are pretty lackluster in execution, so a standard setup would be: Self-Deception/Renewing Oasis + Mirrored Axes/Mirage Mantle + Dune Cloak. Riddle of Sand is not taken because it’s a counterintuitive trait for minimal gain (1 confusion). Shards of Glass is not taken because it’s a flat 33% chance and, again, you’re shattering, losing all of your damage so you can ambush. Mirage Mantle is not particularly good, but if you’re not running Axe it’s better than the rest. For GM you’re most likely grabbing Dune Cloak for PvE because 20% Condition Damage is a huge gain allowing for more Sinister gear to be worn (over Viper). Elusive Mind and Infinite Horizon offer very little in PvE.

Ok, now that we’ve gone over that, the actual damage gain over current Condi Mes is more reliable stats (average will be higher than Condi Mes). The rotation will be unchanged kittentering is still a damage loss. Ambushes are pretty insignificant and adding them to your rotation is a recipe for disaster, so the way to play it is: Play Condi Mes with Mirage line instead of Chaos. When you dodge an attack, follow up with an Ambush.

I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing or you’re wrong about everything. But you’ve only posted your opinion and adamantly stamped your feet saying that you’re right because you have an opinion. I’m glad that you have an opinion, and it’s definitely good to go against the grain if that’s what you believe, but you should also realize that we’re giving feedback and you’re just coming here with an opinion and not accepting our feedback, both to you or about the spec itself.

Esplen.3940:

Shadu.3701:

The teleporting from axe 3 and Illusionary Ambush felt horrible. Especially Illusionary Ambush, this skill did activate the ambush buuuut… it would constantly teleport me too far away from an enemy so the ambush from the axe wouldn’t be able to hit. Axe 3 often also teleported me too far away which resulted into me having to run to the enemy to hit him afterwards.

I think this is an issue with the teleportation. It tries to place you around the target, but it also places you within 600 range of the target, which means you’re not necessarily in range to do what you need to do. Sometimes it’s a clone that gets put that far away, but they instantly move towards the target to do the leap attack, while you as a player sometimes don’t end up leaping (thus missing the 5 Confusion burst).

Additionally, I had one instance where I ended up facing the wrong direction and it completely shut down my auto rotation while I had to figure out where to face. It didn’t take me a long time, but it wasn’t fluid by any means. The problems with the Axe3 skill and IAmbush are the same as they are functionally the same effect just with different riders.

Yeah Illusionary Ambush certainly needs fixing because every time I used it it faced me away from the target making it impossible to ambush.

Axe 3 was better (although still needs improvement) in that it at least faced towards the target.

Esplen.3940:

I mean, you haven’t offered any points of discussion other than " I kinda liked mirage " and “I felt strong. So mobile. it was insane.”

I took all of your points/opinions and refuted them with examples. You took that and got extremely defensive with “Sorry for being positive about the spec. Sorry for actually liking it more than core mesmer (tho I loved Chrono) and sorry for trying something new succesfully. It may not be for everyone, but my opinion is worth just as much.”

You also, at the end of that, restated your opinions but as discussion points without acknowledging the refutation. There has been no discussion with you. Your posting here has simply been stating that you have an opinion and that it matters, while refusing to look beyond it and see anyone else’s views or opinions.

I, along with a lot of other people here (I hope) have read your opinions and acknowledged them. Heck, I took each of your points and wrote a long reason as to why they are not a good representation of Mirages strength, because they are not unique to Mirage. If that doesn’t make sense, think about it like this: You can take off Mirage and still have AoE Condi, Massive In-Combat Mobility, and Damage.

I didn’t actually say anything about damage to you, and I’m sorry for not doing that, although I have done that many times in this sub-forum. The reason why Damage is trivial on Mirage (at the moment) is that the Ambushes don’t scale well, the traits add very little, and the only gains in numbers is 150 Condition Damage + 300 Expertise (20% Condition Duration) vs ~100-250 Condition Damage (based on toughness) + 0-495 Expertise (33% Condition Duration based on boons on you) via Chaos (since that is the accepted standard line to be replaced by Mirage).

I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing or you’re wrong about everything. But you’ve only posted your opinion and adamantly stamped your feet saying that you’re right because you have an opinion. I’m glad that you have an opinion, and it’s definitely good to go against the grain if that’s what you believe, but you should also realize that we’re giving feedback and you’re just coming here with an opinion and not accepting our feedback, both to you or about the spec itself.

Look, I realise I could have written a bigger post explaining why I felt certain things, but in the end I’m not the best with words and I didn’t had the time to spent a lot of time on my post. I went in with the thought of just giving my opinion. It may not have been detailed enough for some of you and I can understand that, but that doesn’t mean I deserved getting attacked like that.

And yes, then I react in a defensive way. What would you do if several people told you your opinion couldn’t be taken seriously, because you’re not maining mesmer/just trolling? I’m sorry, but all the need to explain myself dissapeared with those comments. Not necessarily made by you, but they were made by others anyway. I shouldn’t have to defend my opinion, even if it’s not detailed enough for some. You (and with ’’you’’ I mean the people who actually said those things) don’t have to agree, or to even like an opinion, but attacking (with the lack of a better word) me for it? That’s taking it a bit far.

I’m truly sorry if you felt like I was attacking other people with my original post. It wasn’t my intention. There’s just so much hate in general about the new elite specs, that I felt like a nice review would be a nice change of pace. I’m a positive person and try to motivate people to look at things from sunny glasses, so to speak. If that came across like ‘’look at me being awesome and look at you all being noobish’‘, I’m truly sorry. Again, I wasn’t thinking that at all.

I do agree (like I stated in my original post) that the spec could use some minor tweaks/fixes. Ambushes seemed weird (low dps, small window), among others. What I meant with my original post was that the playstyle was great for me. Love the idea of mirrors, ambushes, etc. I do in fact respect your opinion. My post wasn’t meant to discredit others, it was meant as something more positive. I could have just stayed silent, but I believe I also had the right to say what I said, despite lacking some detail. I do/did appreciate your large posts though. You can see you main(ed) Mesmer and yes, that you know more about Mesmers than I do.

That said, like I said, I’m a positive person, so this is my last post in this thread. Don’t want to offend any more people and I sure as hell don’t want to be attacked either. I truly hope we can all enjoy the spec when it arrives! Have fun!

It was terrible. Clunky, weak, and unfun, and only cemented my impression that it will never replace Chrono in this or ANY content.

Carighan.6758:

Yep, Mirage in PvE truly showed just how bad of a disaster this elite spec is.

• No cohesive design.
• No specific element it provides.
• Rubbish “unique mechanic” in the ambushes which make you wish it wouldn’t overwrite your AA button.
• Punishing weaker dodge, which could be balanced if those ambushes were strong but they’re not.
• Gimmicky mirror mechanic which again is so undertuned there’s just no point.
• Weak, weak, weak, weak. That’s the only cohesive thing about this spec. “Weak”.

Pretty good summary of the design of the spec.

Carighan.6758:

At the very least, I’d change this:

• Mirrors now last 12 seconds.
• All deception-skills cause a mirror, including Jaunt (leaves it where you left!).
• Jaunt has 600 range.
• All Ambush skills significantly improved, from ~x3 (Scepter) to x10 (Greatsword) the damage they do now.
• Infinite Horizon removed.
• Mirrors which are touched by opponents shatter, creating a clone and weakening foes (but not giving you cloak). They can cause the sand effect from the Grandmaster trait!

Completely agree on the mirrors lasting 12 seconds and giving jaunt 600 range.
All deception skills leaving a mirror, may be overtuned IF mirrors get all of the improvements that some of us have proposed. If they don’t then this would be balanced. Either way if its deemed too powerful to be baseline it could become a GM trait. Also completely agree with significantly buffing our personal ambush attacks. They need to be on the same level as thief stealth attacks at least, maybe more powerful even since we not only have to use a dodge (or a gimmicky mirror) to get access, but the tells are huge and we don’t innately have the advantage of stealth like a thief does.

Don’t agree on letting opponents shatter mirrors. That feels like too much counterplay to them.

Alwayshappy.2549:

Levetty.1279:

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It is getting tiring.

Gee, thanks for making me feel so welcome. All I said was that I enjoy the spec and don’t really agree with all the hate. That’s MY opinion. Don’t like it? That’s not my problem. If you can’t read, and prefer to read what you want to read in order to justify your post, that’s also your problem.

- Never said you guys are wrong about everything, just that I(!) find the spec enjoyable and that I (!) don’t agree with all the hate. If you read that as ‘’You guys don’t know what you’re doing/you are wrong about everything, then I don’t know what you’re doing on a public forum, where everyone should feel welcome/be appreciated.

- Never said I didn’t play mesmer. I said it’s not my main. Doesn’t mean I don’t have countless of hours spent on my mesmer. That’s what you want to read. So that you can cry about someone correcting you again. Grow up dude. Seriously. It’s a forum.

Levetty is pretty kitten salty over mirage, and he can be abrasive sometimes just in general. Don’t take it personally.

We don’t like mirage because it further highlights huge, glaring problems in core mesmer design, and then it builds on those flaws, making them more pronounced than ever without even trying to address them (at least chrono addressed the flaws, albeit in a very OP way at first). We have every reason not to like the spec, because it means, regardless of whether the devs fix the spec itself, that the devs have no interest in fixing those design flaws at the core mesmer level. None.

Can mirage be made to work? Yes. Can mirage be fun to play? Yes, I quite enjoy the playstyle of it even though I don’t like the spec itself. Can mirage be tuned by Anet to be significantly better than it was at the demo weekend? Hell yes, ANet can do it. But that won’t change that mesmer’s class mechanic is self defeating, and mirage highlights this and takes it to a whole nother level. Since this spec focuses so much on clones it should have an effect where all of our clones are buffed significantly, but it doesn’t. it doesn’t even make them hardier unless we take a GM trait for it, and then either use a dodge or put ourselves in danger to pick up a mirror. And even then all it does is give them a pathetic attack and a 3/4 sec blur. They’re still paper. They still suck kitten

Alwayshappy.2549:

Esplen.3940:

I mean, you haven’t offered any points of discussion other than " I kinda liked mirage " and “I felt strong. So mobile. it was insane.”

I took all of your points/opinions and refuted them with examples. You took that and got extremely defensive with “Sorry for being positive about the spec. Sorry for actually liking it more than core mesmer (tho I loved Chrono) and sorry for trying something new succesfully. It may not be for everyone, but my opinion is worth just as much.”

You also, at the end of that, restated your opinions but as discussion points without acknowledging the refutation. There has been no discussion with you. Your posting here has simply been stating that you have an opinion and that it matters, while refusing to look beyond it and see anyone else’s views or opinions.

I, along with a lot of other people here (I hope) have read your opinions and acknowledged them. Heck, I took each of your points and wrote a long reason as to why they are not a good representation of Mirages strength, because they are not unique to Mirage. If that doesn’t make sense, think about it like this: You can take off Mirage and still have AoE Condi, Massive In-Combat Mobility, and Damage.

I didn’t actually say anything about damage to you, and I’m sorry for not doing that, although I have done that many times in this sub-forum. The reason why Damage is trivial on Mirage (at the moment) is that the Ambushes don’t scale well, the traits add very little, and the only gains in numbers is 150 Condition Damage + 300 Expertise (20% Condition Duration) vs ~100-250 Condition Damage (based on toughness) + 0-495 Expertise (33% Condition Duration based on boons on you) via Chaos (since that is the accepted standard line to be replaced by Mirage).

I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing or you’re wrong about everything. But you’ve only posted your opinion and adamantly stamped your feet saying that you’re right because you have an opinion. I’m glad that you have an opinion, and it’s definitely good to go against the grain if that’s what you believe, but you should also realize that we’re giving feedback and you’re just coming here with an opinion and not accepting our feedback, both to you or about the spec itself.

Look, I realise I could have written a bigger post explaining why I felt certain things, but in the end I’m not the best with words and I didn’t had the time to spent a lot of time on my post. I went in with the thought of just giving my opinion. It may not have been detailed enough for some of you and I can understand that, but that doesn’t mean I deserved getting attacked like that.

And yes, then I react in a defensive way. What would you do if several people told you your opinion couldn’t be taken seriously, because you’re not maining mesmer/just trolling? I’m sorry, but all the need to explain myself dissapeared with those comments. Not necessarily made by you, but they were made by others anyway. I shouldn’t have to defend my opinion, even if it’s not detailed enough for some. You (and with ’’you’’ I mean the people who actually said those things) don’t have to agree, or to even like an opinion, but attacking (with the lack of a better word) me for it? That’s taking it a bit far.

I’m truly sorry if you felt like I was attacking other people with my original post. It wasn’t my intention. There’s just so much hate in general about the new elite specs, that I felt like a nice review would be a nice change of pace. I’m a positive person and try to motivate people to look at things from sunny glasses, so to speak. If that came across like ‘’look at me being awesome and look at you all being noobish’‘, I’m truly sorry. Again, I wasn’t thinking that at all.

I do agree (like I stated in my original post) that the spec could use some minor tweaks/fixes. Ambushes seemed weird (low dps, small window), among others. What I meant with my original post was that the playstyle was great for me. Love the idea of mirrors, ambushes, etc. I do in fact respect your opinion. My post wasn’t meant to discredit others, it was meant as something more positive. I could have just stayed silent, but I believe I also had the right to say what I said, despite lacking some detail. I do/did appreciate your large posts though. You can see you main(ed) Mesmer and yes, that you know more about Mesmers than I do.

That said, like I said, I’m a positive person, so this is my last post in this thread. Don’t want to offend any more people and I sure as hell don’t want to be attacked either. I truly hope we can all enjoy the spec when it arrives! Have fun!

Sorry about the negativity you’re facing. The Mesmer Forums are a stickler for logic, though, so if you don’t present a sound argument for your reasoning and conclusion, you’ll get ripped apart. We also have a chip on our shoulder with ANet, since we’ve always had… differing opinions with the devs over the healthy way to balance Mesmer, so we tend not to hold back at all with our critique and have a focus on the negative. Please don’t take it personally, just how bad it’s gotten since all the nerfs to our interesting & fun builds.

Positivity isn’t something we hate, though it’s something we’re lacking, but rather if you’re going to be positive about something widely seen as negative, it only makes sense to give a reason for it. None of us just say it’s bad and leave it at that, we give reasons to why we believe it’s bad. Those reasons have stacked up, and so has our salt.

So it isn’t so much that anybody wants to hate on your positivity, only your lack of convincing reason. If you can provide that, perhaps we’d be better able to understand your point of view. If you can’t… well, forgive our lack of faith, but we’ll likely stick to our opinions and the opinions of those we know to be knowledgeable about mesmers (such as Helseth and Fay).

I’m still feeling pretty positive that mirage will be an amazing spec. Maybe not on release, but definitely by the end of the year with some more tweaks if necessary.

For my playstyle, it’s amazing for Pvp.

But, mirage doesn’t seem like it will be a good dps spec for pve. I really thought that this spec, whatever it was going to be, was going to be a high dps spec for mesmer. But I just don’t think that was the design idea for it. Like spellbreaker, mirage may just be really good in pvp and pvp alone. But who knows. They’re working on it. Have faith!

Levetty.1279:

I mean if they gave it to us as Sword skill 3 I would like finally having a leap…

Oh one can only dream…

…but they say the reason we get a worse dodge is because we can carry on attacking through it…

I really want to test the raw dps benefit of attacking while dodging. Like how much of a dps increase is this really? Being able to attack during a 3/4 sec window? People throw this around like it’s the bees knees, but how good is it really? Probably negligible I’d reckon.

Xenon.4537:

Levetty.1279:

I mean if they gave it to us as Sword skill 3 I would like finally having a leap…

Oh one can only dream…

…but they say the reason we get a worse dodge is because we can carry on attacking through it…

I really want to test the raw dps benefit of attacking while dodging. Like how much of a dps increase is this really? Being able to attack during a 3/4 sec window? People throw this around like it’s the bees knees, but how good is it really? Probably negligible I’d reckon.

Mesmers were given this mechanic specifically because their personal DPS (sans Illusions) is extremely weak. Being able to dodge while attacking on most other professions would be ridiculously OP. Which, I believe, is where most of the confusion from non-mesmers is coming from. It seems extremely strong if you’re not familiar with Mesmer’s mechanics.

Its like alacrity, low impact (DPS wise) for the Mesmer. Being able to share alacrity is what broke that feature. Its much stronger on non-Mesmers (and thieves and revs).

It funny that you cite the two classes that don’t gain the full benefit of alacrity when saying that its much stronger on non chrono classes…….

But yes, being able to attack while dodging sounds OP as kitten if you were a class that could output real DPS like other classes. But mesmers’ damage is pathetic even with 4 illusion ambush attacks.

I just don’t think a 1 sec dodge animation really lowers your DPS that much. Therefor being able to continue attacking during that 1 sec isn’t going to make a huge difference.

Really, the best use of this ability is when channeling a long cast like Confusing Images. That way you don’t interrupt yourself. However, CI is the only channel cast mesmer has besides Blurred Frenzy, and Blurred Frenzy is already an evade… Good job.

Xenon.4537:

I just don’t think a 1 sec dodge animation really lowers your DPS that much. Therefor being able to continue attacking during that 1 sec isn’t going to make a huge difference.

Really, the best use of this ability is when channeling a long cast like Confusing Images. That way you don’t interrupt yourself. However, CI is the only channel cast mesmer has besides Blurred Frenzy, and Blurred Frenzy is already an evade… Good job.

And guess what, now you aren’t ambushing!

Esplen.3940:

Xenon.4537:

I just don’t think a 1 sec dodge animation really lowers your DPS that much. Therefor being able to continue attacking during that 1 sec isn’t going to make a huge difference.

Really, the best use of this ability is when channeling a long cast like Confusing Images. That way you don’t interrupt yourself. However, CI is the only channel cast mesmer has besides Blurred Frenzy, and Blurred Frenzy is already an evade… Good job.

And guess what, now you aren’t ambushing!

Nah you can normally dodge about halfway through CI (when most people start trying to stop you) and then be able to ambush immediately afterward.

I’m more a fan of being able to dodge while stunned, immobilized, airborne, and rezzing tbh, and what makes it better is most stuns are short enough that you can evade their burst and then retaliate with an ambush.

I kinda think the design process for anything mesmer suffers from how easily it snowballs into OP territory. Therefore I think numbers are just something to ignore for now and comment on how the mechanic itself would work if the number was appropriate.

For instance, how would Ambushes be if they were tuned up? I think they would be fine personally. Mirrors… not as big a fan there, I don’t think just numbers make them more attractive as such.

I’ve been reserving judgment until I could get some actual hands on time with Mirage. Granted I didn’t get a ton of time with it, but my initial impressions are not good. I can’t really explain it, but it just didn’t feel right. Maybe with more time I can get used to it, but currently it doesn’t appear this spec is something I will enjoy.

Contrasted with chrono, I immediately found myself enjoying that spec. This has me worried.