Guild Wars 2

Is the post bugged, or just the forum bug?

Don’t we basically have that in Illusions line with “Phantasms attack more often”?

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).

Esplen.3940:

DE + IH actually works. The spawned clone does Ambush from my tests.

I want to see that. From what I remember, the clone didn’t do it upon spawning. Someone else confirm this?

Allarius.5670:

I think “deception” is a misnomer because of all the potential interpretive baggage that comes with it. It would be more clear if the developers ceased using the word, or similarly ambiguous phrases, to describe what they are talking about and instead used specific mechanics and context. “Detarget and reposition alongside illusions to provide localised target saturation” is more meaningful and less open to ambiguity than “deceive your opponent” or “maintain the illusion you are a clone”. It wouldn’t sound as cool , but it would certainly clear up some of the issues the playerbase has with respect to Mesmer and accurate in-game functionality.

If Holosmith is a customizable weapon and Deadeye is a sniper, Mirage is its namesake: something that appears to be there but isn’t. Mirage is the opponent that is there but doesn’t seem to be there because attacks move through them, they were actually a clone, or they are suddenly elsewhere.

Look no further than Mirage’s primary asset, Mirage Cloak. It enables the Mesmer to continue performing its actions while avoiding attacks. Other aspects enable more Mirage Cloak (endurance gain and Mirage Mirrors) and/or provide specialized mobility and trickery to obtain similar functionality.

This is the same sort of thing as using Distortion to avoid damage while casting and attacking or using Phase Retreat to suddenly reposition while performing another action or gain some positional advantage. The idea is to enable more of this. It doesn’t necessarily mean more damage, but rather a playstyle shift to allow for more aggressive and/or more elusive play independent of any specific weapon selection because of increased access to avoidance.

Mesmer is already really good at defending itself while assaulting because of the de-centralised mechanics of illusions and shatters on top of various instant cast skills. Thief through the eyes of Mesmer is even more of this with arguably more flexibility because of greater potential access and not being locked into a singular attack type (Daredevil).

Mirage specializes in avoiding incoming negative effects while continuing to perform its actions unhindered. This isn’t as obvious or in your face as laser swords or high range high pressure assaults. How useful this is and whether or not it enables new or improved roles is going to depend on interpretation, usage, and final numbers adjustments. Thematically, for a profession with the identity of “utility caster” it seems pretty appropriate.

First: if Deception were just re-targetting, they could’ve 1) given us more than one skill that did it, and 2) gave us stealth, which already does it. So that’s an awfully narrow idea of what the Mirage’s deception is meant to be.

Second: If Mirage did this well, maybe that explanation would be acceptable, but it feels like 50% of Mirage doesn’t do this. Mirage Cloak is the singular example you can give, but Mirage Mirrors are counter-intuitive to this. Instead of an enemy coming to the Mirage, the Mirage must go to the Mirror, and thus are not really optimizing their defense/offense in any significant margin due to this lack of control over their positioning.

Clones are also meant to signify Mirage-ness, no? Going somewhere and finding it was just nothing all along? Well, this is more to the point of “no clone support on the Mirage” besides IH.

Simply put, if the Mirage wants to go for “Becoming the illusion”, it needs to up its game and focus its traits on making the Mirage more non-existent or give more ways to fool around with clones. So far, it goes 20% in this direction with Mirage Cloak.

But core mesmer is a shatter spec, we don’t want more shatter!

We want our clones to matter beyond shatter fodder. We like the idea of a clone-based spec. We just really, really, really don’t want it to be this kitten thing called Mirage we’ve been handed.

OriOri.8724:

Dondagora.9645:

OriOri.8724:

Yea, its kind of insulting that he insinuated that mesmer mains weren’t seeing these synergies immediately. The reason we haven’t discussed them though is because they don’t cover up a flawed design.

The synergies he talked about, at least the DE and interruption ones, I tested myself. DE clones don’t get Mirage Cloak on-summon, and interruption traits don’t trigger on a sword clone’s ambush.

So… we’ve discussed them enough.

Yea, I know that. But he hasn’t bothered to even read the mesmer discussions about mirage because he was still asking for people to test these synergies and see if they even work.

Yeah, that probably bothers me the most about it all.

OriOri.8724:

Yea, its kind of insulting that he insinuated that mesmer mains weren’t seeing these synergies immediately. The reason we haven’t discussed them though is because they don’t cover up a flawed design.

The synergies he talked about, at least the DE and interruption ones, I tested myself. DE clones don’t get Mirage Cloak on-summon, and interruption traits don’t trigger on a sword clone’s ambush.

So… we’ve discussed them enough.

It was really annoying that he wrote off Mesmers complaining as “hyperbolic”. If I were to brag, I’d say we’re one of the more organized and analytic-oriented populations on the forums. And we’re a good bit in a constant state of salt because we’re not strangers, nor amnesiacs, when it comes to ANet pulling a fast one on us.

Follow up video by WP, for any interested.

Levetty.1279:

What are you talking about? The focus of the mirage is a name and an art asset they wanted to use. How is that not a good idea? /s

It hurt me so bad when I heard them say that. So proudly, too.

Simply put, it doesn’t feel like it has a strong focus. Holosmith and Deadeye have a clear idea of what they want to be: Holosmith is the lightsaber (an analogy the devs made with it), where you build it from three distinct parts. Deadeye is the sniper, focused on long-range combat.

Mirage doesn’t feel like a specialist in anything. It doesn’t, as I said, “specialize”. Sure, we can say that it has a clear condi focus, but that isn’t as important as simply knowing what it is meant to be.

The Devs have introduced the idea of being able to deceive enemies and become one with clones, but it feels as if Mirage only fulfils that 20% with the Mirage Cloak and the Axe #3 skill.

The Deception skills don’t contribute to the supposed focus of Mirage to deceive. For one, they don’t even provide any clone generation for a spec that has a lot to do with clones, nor effect clones that much, for that matter.

We’re never even given any incentive to deceive the enemy either. Clone-death traits that people want are part of it: Why would we be more incentivized to attempt to fool people than we were before? Deadeye, for instance, has powerful damage at long range, at the cost of its combat mobility, thus incentivizing it to fight at range.

Mirage is a vague concept, not a solid picture. It isn’t specialized, its still a sprinkle in every direction. It doesn’t go all-in towards its premise.

This, in my mind, is what differentiates a good Elite Spec from a bad one, besides just damage or tuning. In my humble opinion.

FaboBabo.3581:

musu.9205:

FaboBabo.3581:

musu.9205:

Refia Montes.3205:

He explained in the video, it’s not a review. It’s more of an introduction about the Mirage. He knows that the Mirage has its problems and he’s not there to address it or call them out. He’s just there to introduce the Elite Spec and advertise it. And of course to advertise it he needs to show every trait and Utility and what’s good with all of them.

but still some info are just incorrect . like i said , many things he talked about simply do not work that way . like illusionary ambush . and people are going to buy PoF based on his introductions . some comments from youtube even believed that clone has more power dmg with mirage . wp used to overhype lots of things . sometime he did do more harm than good .

and we already have seen the 30 stacks of confusion op burst talk everywhere due to his stream . i think he could have done second video more carefully since he got time to test things ?

Cool , first time i see the video. Is this the video u said i was watching and where i have my thaughts from? Well My thaughts about 30 Stacks Confusion( Which i said would only be 20 in the 2 seconds i mentioned) were from experience.

I played pvp and wvw only on the 2 Days of Beta and i experienced 20-30 Stacks confusion in a “single blow” (this can be 1 second or even 5 seconds, when on adrenaline [im on adrenaline in fighting games] u misinterpretate time).

Now im gonna watch the video ((:

well , im sorry what im going to tell you
there was gm trait called mistrust , it was not reliable but it could achieve crazy high stacks of confusion too . i wiped whole team with it few times in pvp . but it was too gimmick anyway .thats how i feel about current mirage too.

I played with mistrust , it was cool for its gimmicky feature. As u just said; It WAS.
It’s non existent. Mirrage can still cover an insame amount of confusion and other conditions in less time a mesmer would need.(if The mesmer was able to do the same, which he isn’t)

They removed Mistrust and gave us Ineptitude. Now, not to claim anything too highly, but you can get pretty high AoE stacks of Confusion with Ineptitude if you use Blinding Dissipation to get Blind on your Shatters, more reliably than Mistrust.

If Mirage wanted to build more around those traits, I’d say great! However, using clones is just… unreliable, all around, practically speaking. Mirage needs more clone support, or more synergy with other trait lines.

This is a dumb topic. I probably won’t buy PoF until Mirage is better.

Esplen.3940:

Just an fyi: Signet of Inpsiration applies 1 stack of a set duration of each boon on you to you and 4 allies around you.

This means if you have 25 might and use it, you give everyone around you 1 stack of might with 20s duration (more with boon duration).

If you have 1 might and use it, you give everyone around you 1 stack of might with 20s duration.

Ah. Should have known it was too good to assume ANet hadn’t screwed up all of our stuffs. That’s a shame, and dumb.

Just think about it. With Mimic+Signet of Inspirations+Continuum Shift, along with Bountiful Disillusionment+Persistence of Memory, we can spread 23 stacks of Might and a whole load of whatever other Boons we want across, say, 15 people? If we do it with a squad of Mesmers, we can probably max out Boons on a zerg.

The combo is simple: 3 ranged Phantasms near you in the backline, and then you shatter them, simultaneously sharing the Boons of BD before they shatter. When they shatter, you can Mimic+Continuum Signet of Inspiration to spread the boons thricely.

Is there any reason we don’t do this, especially with the most recent change to PoM giving us the ability to quadruple our Boons?

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

Let’s make sure that our feedback is heard and conveyed concisely.

Mirage is a cool concept with bad execution. To start with, it seems to be very clone-centric while failing to provide significant survivability for these fragile guys. The ambushes aren’t significant enough to feel like they make a real difference. I enjoyed the sword ambush, however it doesn’t trigger daze or interrupt traits when a clone interrupts with it. Ambushed should synergize with each weapon’s playstyle while being something that isn’t just an improved Auto. GS ambush is the worst, synergizing with nothing and being fairly worthless. Mirage traits don’t seem to really synergize with core mesmer nor do they alter the aspects of Mirage. In comparison, Chrono can be traited to make Wells give Alacrity, to change the nature of phantasms to shatter twice, and so forth. On Mirage, we don’t have manu options that fundementally define how you use Mirage. Infinite Horizon is the exception, but it should either be baseline or have GM traits that can compete with it. Mirrors are unreliable and short and inconvenient. If we had more access with, say, an F5 that shatters our illusions into Mirrors, that’d go a long way. Should also double Cloak duration to open the window for Ambushes.

The Traitline lacks focus, with traits that are so weak that builds tend to just end up within the same genre, lacking diversity. Punishment, interrution/control, and reversal are the thematic principles of Mesmer. Mirage lacks these principles completely.

Everybody! OP is not a rational person! Let the thread die until he posts his build! There is no point otherwise.

F5: Illusions shatter and weaken nearby foes, then reform into Mirage Mirrors.

I think that’d make more sense.

zealex.9410:

FJSAMA.2867:

Axe:

Lingering Thoughts (axe #2):
1. Speed up animation.
2. Increase range to spawn the clone (1200), make it prioritize the target and not the nearest enemy.
3. Make it not to spawn a clone if 3 phantasm up.
4. Fix bug with interaction with Illusionist’s Celerity trait (tool-tip only or actual bug?)

Axes of Symmetry:
1. Make the leap happen at the starting location
2. Shadowstep mid/at the end of leap to melee range of target
3. Make it connect better. (it fails to shadowstep near the target very often and always fails on z axis)
4. Make detarget stop enemy ongoing/channeled casts.

Ambushes:
- In general, increase the enable time to cast ambushes skills to 3s. Using ambush skill will make it drop from you bar until new Mirage Cloak applied (this prevents using multiple ambushes within 1 mirage cloak since the window time is increased)

Mirage Thrust (sword ambush):
1- Fix the bug that prevent daze/interrupt interaction with mesmer traits.
2- Make it evade on leap.

Split Surge ( Gs ambush):
1- Speed up animation
2- Increase dmg
3- Give it some utility to function with clones (clones have no dmg so giving it dmg only is poor.) Ideas: boon rip, condi transfer, life steal (life steal on clones would heal mirage), etc..

Chaos Vortex (staff ambush):
1- Make it a channeled block
2- Make it spawn up to 3 Winds of Chaos bolts at the end of cast
(Essentially make it function like revenant staff block -Warding Rift- but instead of firing blinding bolts make it fire mesmer staff auto -Winds of Chaos- bolts

Adding evade on top of fixing the clone i terupt traits could have potential to make thw skill stronger than it needs to be imo.

Evasion makes the Ambush decent, especially regarding melee-range clones. The interrupt thing is just how it should be… why else would we want Dazes if not for the interrupts? I don’t understand how it’d make it OP, since that just brings it to the lowest bar of potential viability.

Oh, right: Split Surge on the GS doesn’t synergize or proc the GS trait in Domination at all. No Might, no Cripple, no nothing.

I enjoy the idea of the Sword Ambush, like putting an on-demand Daze on dodge. However, clones don’t trigger daze or interruption traits, which makes it all the more not worthwhile.

I’m worried that if we keep this thread bumped, the devs will take the title at face value.

Frostball.9108:

Dondagora.9645:

Frostball.9108:

Fay.2357:

Frostball.9108:

Also id like to mention that my current build is only the strongest build i have yet to see myself. Im not saying it is the strongest build possible or it is what everyone will play in the future. While my build might be strong, we have only had a few days to look at these things and its most likely that its possible to even make a much better mirage build.

My main point is that in the games current state it will be a better option than chronomancer.

It’s not like gw2 is a complex game with complex mechanical interactions. There’s not that many ways to build a character, especially with the obvious restrictions of being a condie build that bursts without relying on clones. You can burst with shatters, you can burst with weapon skills, you can burst with ambush skills. That’s literally it. All of those methods have downsides, and chrono is far better at shatter bursting.

I think you’re just afraid to post the build because then people would see how not impressive the burst actually is. There’s no shame in being wrong you know, it’s ok.

Thats why im surprised people have so much trouble finding mirage any good. Whats the difference between streaming the build and posting the build?

Simple. By withholding the build here and now, for whatever stupid reason you can muster, you’re preventing us from talking intelligently with you about why you think the way you do. You’re essentially the same as a person who goes “this thing is 100% true. I have evidence, but, y’know, I won’t show it to you. Just take my word, it’s very compelling.” So don’t blame us for not trusting you, but we don’t trust you. Give us the build or stop talking about it. Those are your rational options.

Its alright not to trust me but its stupid not to try to see the potential in something and give it more than one go before you say its bad. Ill be streaming the build after pof release.

You’ve abandoned the rational options. I think we’re done here.

/thread

Frostball.9108:

Fay.2357:

Frostball.9108:

Also id like to mention that my current build is only the strongest build i have yet to see myself. Im not saying it is the strongest build possible or it is what everyone will play in the future. While my build might be strong, we have only had a few days to look at these things and its most likely that its possible to even make a much better mirage build.

My main point is that in the games current state it will be a better option than chronomancer.

It’s not like gw2 is a complex game with complex mechanical interactions. There’s not that many ways to build a character, especially with the obvious restrictions of being a condie build that bursts without relying on clones. You can burst with shatters, you can burst with weapon skills, you can burst with ambush skills. That’s literally it. All of those methods have downsides, and chrono is far better at shatter bursting.

I think you’re just afraid to post the build because then people would see how not impressive the burst actually is. There’s no shame in being wrong you know, it’s ok.

Thats why im surprised people have so much trouble finding mirage any good. Whats the difference between streaming the build and posting the build?

Simple. By withholding the build here and now, for whatever stupid reason you can muster, you’re preventing us from talking intelligently with you about why you think the way you do. You’re essentially the same as a person who goes “this thing is 100% true. I have evidence, but, y’know, I won’t show it to you. Just take my word, it’s very compelling.” So don’t blame us for not trusting you, but we don’t trust you. Give us the build or stop talking about it. Those are your rational options.

I feel one of the main annoyances I have is that the Mirage’s Mirrors just seem really… unnecessary and detached from the Mesmer, and really lack any explanation for why they exist in the Mirage’s kit other than “somebody made this effect, so we kinda squeaked it in there”. We don’t even have any traits which really effect Mirrors, which is a whole new mechanic to our profession. I propose this:

Mirrors are a unique type of Illusion to the Mirage. In which case, anytime we pass through them, we can gain Mirage Cloak, but they reform after a set time, 5 seconds or so. Mayhaps they can reflect damage dealt to them, or have an effect upon death. Or they can act as re-useable Illusions that survive after being shattered. I don’t know, how they work is unlimited.

At least then, we can trait them, make Mirage synergize with the rest of Mesmer.

Thoughts on this, or anything else regarding the nature of the Mirage’s Mirrors in general?

SPESHAL.9106:

Most people I’m hearing from are saying it’s pretty good to invincible with the right build and play style. Keep playing around with it. Every profession has its bugs right now. The necro portal is totally disabled because it’s so broke.

A specific build is, yes, viable. As a whole, though, Mirage is clunky mechanically and practically bad outside of said build. It has a vision which it seeks to fulfil, and does nothing to support it. Ambush skills are stronger than autoattacks, but that’s a low bar to hold it to. Clones still lack a major amount of survivability for them to be considered viable to use beyond, perhaps, a quick Ambush into a shatter. But if we’re going to push the situation of surrounding an opponent to burst them down with a shatter with, let’s assume, condi, why don’t we just use Chrono, which can do that from a distance, or Core Mesmer, that now has decent ability to do that via Ineptitude.

Mirage just doesn’t give us much that we couldn’t do before. The Traits don’t provide us with anything we wanted, the Ambush skills aren’t significant enough to want, and the mechanics we’re getting are pretty clunky (Mirage Mirrors in particular).

There’s much to be wanted from an Elite Spec, which is meant to change our playstyle, which isn’t there. It just feels like a different sameness to the Mesmer, except more needy.

Yeah, I liked the idea of it too. Until I realized that the clones’ Ambush via Infinite Horizon doesn’t trigger any of our traits.

To be perfectly concise: if a clone interrupts someone with the Ambush skill, and you have Power Block traited, you will NOT inflict interrupt damage.

Thing is, I like the Sword Ambush. With Infinite Horizon (which, again, should be baseline), it turns our dodge into a on-demand daze via our clones. If only it actually triggered our traits when used through clones…

I dislike Scepter and Staff Ambush, really. They’re just so… plain. Normal. Simply upped versions of our normal auto. I’d rather get utility on them, and thus our clones, than just another auto.

It gives us a spec that is centered around clones… and gives us close-to-zero support for clone survivability or damage or functionality. Makes sense to me!

It isn’t really L2P for Mirages, but against Mirages. Playing against a Mirage or Mesmer gives a false impression of its strength, because Mesmer has always been especially strong against new or bad players. Mirage is new, so it’ll be strong for a bit because of the confusing new stuff. The people who play Mirages, however, realize how thin that line is, and how vulnerable they really are as Mirage.

I like the idea of giving us clone-death traits in Mirage. You can simply make it not apply unless the clone is killed instead of replaced if they’re that worried about it. However, the whole reason they didn’t like it was because they didn’t like the way clones were being used. Well, with a clone-centric elite spec, I think it would make sense for enemies to want to think twice before killing the clones. This would increase their survivability or our DPS, either way makes sense.

Hell, if we had On-Death traits in Mirage, I’d be pretty happy. It decentivizes people from killing clones.

Well, anyway, it seems to be the consensus of our Mesmer Collective that Mirage is bad. Let it be known!

Essentially, it’s this: Mirage doesn’t connect with Core Mesmer at all. There are fringe elements, but even those are barely. I can’t see any way to build around a Mirage like I could a Chrono.

InsaneQR.7412:

Dondagora.9645:

Also, another thing: GS Clones don’t trigger Imagined Burden with their Ambush. Was hoping it would trigger 3 times, but it doesn’t even trigger once. Boo!

it only triggers if you have the grandmaster to apply mirage cloak to your illusions.

No, doesn’t trigger on GS Ambush at all.

Yes. I agree. It is so stupid that we need to give up a GM for what we all want Mirage for. Nobody wants Mirage just so they can have Mirage Cloak and Ambush on themselves.

I’d also like to hammer this in whenever I see Mirage feedback:

Sword Clones that interrupt do NOT trigger interruption traits. Which is stupid. Don’t think they even trigger Daze traits.

Oh yeah, there’s also the fact that we still lack 99% of the necessary ability to keep our clones alive, even when they’re oh-so-important to the spec. And even then, we have to spec a GM for it. Infinite Horizon shouldn’t be a GM, it should be automatic so we can have an actual choice.

Also, another thing: GS Clones don’t trigger Imagined Burden with their Ambush. Was hoping it would trigger 3 times, but it doesn’t even trigger once. Boo!

Also another thing to point out:

Sword Clones will not trigger any interrupt traits when they interrupt via Ambush.

This furthers the uselessness of Mirage with non-condi specs.

It also seems dumb that GS Clones won’t trigger Imagined Burden with their Ambush. I was hoping that it’d trigger thrice, but it doesn’t even trigger once. Again, reducing the usefulness of a non-condi weapon.

Okay, some actual information with which I am disappointed and confused about:

Sword Clones don’t trigger your interruption traits when they interrupt something via Ambush.

That’s dumb.

I have multiple things to say, but they can be summed up with the word “disappointed”. I’ll try it out, but we aren’t getting anything too interesting with this Elite Spec that pertains to our core specs.

For instance, we’re getting a bunch of teleports, why not give us a trait that effects or activates when teleporting?

Or the fact that our Ambush skills are underwhelming in effect that it just doesn’t feel like it’s anything especially “new”. They’re slightly better versions of our Auto. I guess the idea is that we have more access to it, but that’s another thing.

The idea of Mirrors seems very gimmicky, like we have to go out of our way to make it work very specifically. They’re inconvenient mechanics where we might have to put ourselves in disadvantageous positions to get them off. Nobody else seems to have this tradeoff. The closest I can think of his the Engineer’s Holo, but they at least have skills at their convenience to take advantage of their momentary disadvantage.

I’ll see how it plays out, but just based on what I’ve seen, I’m not very excited.

tobascodagama.2961:

It does defend you. It just does other stuff.

Seriously, Mirage Cloak is Distortion that we can get without shattering plus it enables Ambush attacks. It’s literally all upside when compared to a normal dodge.

If it was just Distortion, I’d be more happy because we’d get synergy with other traits. I just can’t help but feel we aren’t getting something that feels super “mesmer” in this spec.

More so, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting a lot to play with.

With Chronomancer, we could all speculate about how we’d use the Continuum Shift to double output, and that was interesting. I don’t feel something as game-changing as that is in Mirage. I may be wrong, and maybe I just have to play it for myself and see more of the Ambushes (since we’ve only seen condition clones).

So Mirage Cloak forces attacks to pass through you harmlessly… like a normal dodge? I get that it’s different to some extent, but the wording just feels forced and what we’re getting from it doesn’t feel like much. I guess this will be dependant on how much Ambushes affect our playstyle.

Just feels like we’re getting more evasion and a wee bit of flashy damage. Our utilities and Axe skills just don’t feel very unique against each other. 3 of our 9 skills are Shadowsteps with different extra effects. Another 3 create Mirage Mirrors with some extra effects (healing, confusion, evade), and their CD is 30, 20, 30.

The main thing I’m excited about is Jaunt, the 1/2 second CD shadowstep with Confusion, giving us massive mobility and powerful Confusion sustain.

Dastion.3106:

Mantras are never going to be good if charging them is a mechanic their power is based on instead of just an optional way to refill them when empty. Losing the ability to dodge or attack for such a long time just isn’t worth it, especially if you’re bringing several.

Why not just have recharging a Mantra lock down your 6-10 skill usage (or maybe 7-10h) while a recharge animation plays? It gives the feeling that you’re focusing on charging it, allows for some counterplay, but allows you to still attack, dodge, and shatter.

They’re making Mantras strong for the Mirage, who can use skills in their evading Mirage Cloak.

Fay.2357:

skcamow.3527:

Perma retal again … a certain immortal build of old got nerfed in large part due to that …
Not complaining though

We had perma retaliation for ages at the nerf, that’s not what made the build strong. The key was permanent retaliation on phantasms too, and that’s never been achievable in a realistic fashion since then. Plus, retal and confusion both got heavily nerfed, damage output has been drastically buffed, and sustain has been heavily buffed. It’s nice to reminisce about the immortal mesmer, but it wouldn’t hold up very well in today’s environment.

Have you thought about Wanderer stats for Boon Duration + Chronophantasm? It’d mean you’d have to shatter after 10 seconds to reset your phantasms with their retal for another 10 seconds. Rinse and repeat.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

RabbitUp.8294:

Dondagora.9645:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Adding to the List of stuff:

• An interesting trait that recharges on shatter – source
• The grandmaster trait that makes your clones strong – source
• To go PvE Grandmaster – source

I’m an idiot and didn’t see it before, but that just said that when you gain Mirage Cloak, your illusions get it, which means phantasms. Phantasm build support?

Phantasms get it, but they don’t get ambush attacks.

Haven’t seen anything that says phantasms won’t get the ambush too

Ambush is a skill which replaces your Autoattack when you enter Mirage Cloak. Clones just autoattack. When you Mirage Cloak, giving your clones Mirage Cloak, the clones then Ambush. Phantasms have a unique skill, so no Ambush for them, even if they get Mirage Cloak.

If Phantasms have a unique Ambush, that’d be awesome, but I think it should be assumed that they don’t.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Adding to the List of stuff:

• An interesting trait that recharges on shatter – source
• The grandmaster trait that makes your clones strong – source
• To go PvE Grandmaster – source

I’m an idiot and didn’t see it before, but that just said that when you gain Mirage Cloak, your illusions get it, which means phantasms. Phantasm build support?