He should really restrict his discussion into PvE. But he still keeps talking about PvP and WvW even though he knew so little about them.
His PvE discussion isn’t always accurate, either.
I’m not trying to trivialize the buildup, I still think you should work for it. I just want to see the buildup not be wasted because you had to shatter, or your phantasm was killed.
Tbh, I think that’s the point of the trait. If it was on Might gained, you’d hit max stacks nearly instantly between Swordsman 8might and PS Warriors (heck, even Guard mightshare). When PoF hits, Kalla Revs will be dropping Might, too.
It’s actually pretty fair in its current state. Sure, it doesn’t mesh well with Shattering, but I don’t think we should embrace shatters with (all) our traits. If you did Shatter, you’d still lose a lot of DPS, even if PF was on the Mesmer not the Phantasms. There’s still the cast time to bring more back up and honestly there’s usually a choice between Shatter and Non-Shatter in traits. This is the non-shatter with DE being the shatter choice and Inep being in between (paired with Blinding Dissipation, it becomes a shatter trait, otherwise it’s just more condi damage).
In PvE, phantasm management isn’t really a thing as it’s usually do and forget, but that’s why this trait is so good. It completely acknowledges that and allows you to utilize that. If they changed it, your rotation would end up being based on your Phantasm attack timer more than anything else (spawn new Phant as soon as oldest is done attacking). Sure, it opens up the skill ceiling, but it also adds complex work to a trivial setting.
What?
The part he forgot to include was: If you bring a Mesmer into your raid group.
If you have a Mesmer, you’re going to be Chrono 8/10 times. The other 2 times you’re DPS. But, even if you ARE DPS, you still get more damage being a Power Mesmer than a Condi Mes/Mir.
I see everyone complaining about the new dodge, I honestly don’t think that this is the problem with Mirage, you get an awesome elite that makes up for the leap, the problem lies in other places like the lack of movement speed, a fairly mediocore new weapon with messy animations/mechanics (why the kitten is it an Axe to begin with?) and Infinite Horizon being close to useless unless you play condi or use sword for the daze.
Woah run-on sentence.
Main problem (imo) with the dodge: You don’t move. Saying that it’s not a big deal because we get Superspeed is a problem. Why? The Superspeed is a consolation prize. It’s our Minor Grandmaster. It’s not built into the dodge. Also, it doesn’t work when doing anything except running forward (which prevents us from sidestepping while casting, thereby negating the point of being able to cast “while dodging”).
But you get an elite skill that makes up for it! I’m sorry, but it’s not very good game design to “give” players a worse version of something they already have and then ask them to take a skill on their bar (effectively taking away our Elite skill) to compensate. Now I’m not saying that Jaunt is bad, but if your point is that the dodge sucking is made up for by the Elite, then you’re actually building my counterpoint for me. The point isn’t to have a mechanic that forces you to run something to compensate. It’s to give you more options. Being asked to run an elite to make up for lost movement is self-defeating.
The lack of movement speed is not an issue with this spec. It provides plenty of in-combat mobility (which Mesmer already has plenty of access to) and is being released in a spec with Mounts. The only game mode where lack of movement speed ends up being a problem is s/tPvP and can be accounted for with Runes (same deal with normal Mes).
The new weapon is messy, but it’s mostly due to a lack of scaling (power) and low condition output. Fun note: You do more damage with Power based Scepter than Power based Axe. You also do more Condition Damage. It being Axe is meaningless. What you should focus on is that it’s a mainhand weapon. What weapon we get doesn’t change anything, just the skin of what we use. It could be a Pistol and it would still be bad. Sure, I don’t like Axe skins, but that’s an opinion (and has nothing to do with why the Axe has a bad skillset).
Infinite Horizon is bad even if you play condi or use Sword (dazes don’t stack duration, and it’s really hard to stagger a leap off of ai commands). Also, the Sword Ambush is only good because it’s a leap, not because it’s a daze.
Final statement: The only thing that Mirage gives us that’s actually useful is illusion retarget and it’s on a 30/10/8 second cooldown for Utility/Axe/TraitedAxe respectively. A separate complaint (of mine) is that the utility should be slightly better, give it charges (even if they each have 30s cooldowns) because retargeting every 30s is… uh… a bit sloppy, at best.
Not necessary in an expansion with mounts, tbh.
Probably thinking more PvP/WvW but with access to superspeed, don’t count on it.
The access to superspeed is trivial and shouldn’t actually be considered when thinking of the speed of this spec. That’s like saying that nobody needs swiftness because they can dodge for bonus speed.
Additionally, 25% speed in WvW is useless because everyone can and should stack swiftness. Paired with sword ambush leaps and focus swiftness you can easily move around the map and still end up in the weapon set you want to be in.
For PvP there is Rune of the Lynx (although that’s a bandaid).
Not necessary in an expansion with mounts, tbh.
WHAT? NO WE’RE SUPPOSED TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS.
I don’t know what to do with myself anymore…
Yes, I agree if the change is purely CDR -> flat CDR that would be nice, but in neither cases presented to us (Staff and Torch) was it only a flat CDR change.
The change to Staff was a flat CDR change… The extra toughness was bug, not a nerf.
It wasn’t actually a bug. It being unlisted was the bug, technically. Source
Additionally, the staff one was a straight buff because it’s extremely impractical to maintain 100% Chaos Armor uptime whereas maintaining 100% Stealth was entirely doable (and made so by the torch traits significant cdr).
Its Warlock (with all condis) > Sword > Pistol
If we’re talking about using Pistol for power, you’re going to be taking PF instead of DD so I’m not sure why that’s even relevant to this conversation.
I stated that Pistol was the second best and explained why I didn’t include Warlock or Rogue (Rogue being downed Phant which is technically stronger than Pistol but weaker than Sword).
Additionally, even in a Power build, if you’re utilizing Pistol over Sword, you’d be running DD for the small damage increase.
Yes, I agree if the change is purely CDR → flat CDR that would be nice, but in neither cases presented to us (Staff and Torch) was it only a flat CDR change.
I don’t think you’re applying niche to Pistol Phantasm appropriately. If we were talking about Power Mesmer and using Pistol Phantasm, then it would be entirely applicable (safe ranged DPS: see Risen Abomination vs Swordsman).
Regardless it is the second highest power damage Phantasm[note1], highest Condition Damage Phantasm- single target or otherwise[note2].
note1: Warlock is unreliable to cap damage and may miss due to slow moving projectile. Rogue is unreliable to spawn and may miss due to Illusion leaps getting caught on terrain.
note2: Mage has AoE but significantly less condi DPS than Pistol due to Sharper Images and DD. Additionally, traited Mage adds nothing to the Mage itself. Lastly, it uses some of its hits on allies, making it an unreliable AoE attack, on top of all of this. It is a poor choice for condi DPS unless you’re using it as a buffer Phantasm or shatter fodder.
Just because it’s insane for someone to do something, doesn’t mean it won’t be done. It would be insane to have an elite spec made after a theme word instead of a practical concept/function.
2) Am I the only one who sees ambush skills, a whole new set of abilities only available to Mirage, as well as a whole new dodge mechanic being introduced to Mirage only. ooh and access to an Axe??
We all see it, it’s just absolutely terrible because it offers so little. Yes, we have more, but we don’t have uses for it. Most of the utilities provide us with things we already have, just worse because they have Mirage Mirrors tied to them which justifies (?) them being objectively weaker. The weapon has terrible scaling with both power and condi (you’re better off using Scepter or Sword). The ambushes are all pretty bad, with the good ones being Staff and Scepter. Scepter is pretty weak because it takes too long and the clones have half duration. Staff has a target cap of 5, so.. uh, have fun with that? Also projectiles. Why so many projectiles? Axe, Scepter, and Staff all use projectiles which leave them vulnerable to being avoided (even in PvE!!), destroyed, or even reflected (even in PvE!!).
But hey, we get a dodge that removes our movement so we got that going for us. Oh wait, no sorry they give us our movement back but only if we run forward and it takes up our Minor GM slot.
That reminds me of something. Thief used to gain 50% of a dodge (25% of endurance bar) when dodging. This meant they had 3 dodges if they took Acrobatics (it was a Minor). When the HoT pre-patch hit, they removed that trait because they “gave it back” as Daredevil’s third dodge. Of course, that was built into the Minor Adept that gives the class mechanic. They didn’t lose it, only to regain it as a Minor Grandmaster. Admittedly, having 3 dodges + each dodge giving 50% of a dodge meant you’d have 5.5 dodges from 3. It felt weird losing something only to be given it back as a new class mechanic. Hmmmm… well at least they don’t also lose a Minor GM.
Just because it is not on your Chronomancer Elite Spec level doesn’t mean it is worse than a core or does not give new things to play with..
You are just so short sighted.. but i guess that is a natural response when being disappointed
If you’re so broad/far-sighted, please explain to me how Mirage is good or an upgrade to Mesmer.
The literal only upgrades I see are: Illusion Retarget via IAmbush and Axe3. 150 Condition Damage + 300 Expertise vs Chaos’ Conditional 100-250 Condition Damage + 0-495 Expertise.
The Ambushes are DPS losses if focused on and only Staff (not a good sustained damage weapon) and Scepter (get rooted on a spec about being able to move while casting whew!) can utilize theirs (albeit very awkwardly).
Dueling:
Minor Adept: Critical Infusion. This skill has been and will still be our main source of Vigor. It used to have 100% uptime, but now requires 100% boon duration to reach that. Still, having 50% Vigor uptime with no investment is a huge power bonus, especially compared to Mirage’s “Gain 3s Vigor when Shattering” oh boy!
Major Adept: Phantasmal Fury means that you don’t have to account for your Phantasms maybe having Fury, which is nice when attempting to maximize damage output. Duelist’s Discipline is one of our largest sources of Condition Damage, outside of weapon skills. The other largest source is…
Minor Master: Sharper Images will always be good. Paired with Phantasms having Fury (or not, if you want DD), this skill is just free damage no matter how you play Mesmer. Even if you’re a power build. The only time this trait was ever bad was when condi caps were at 25 and that’s if you had a condi person in your group, which was rare.
Masters: Reflects after successful evades? That means you only have to use one dodge against ranged attacks instead of blasting both to survive huge harass. Blinding Dissipation helps immensely keeping melee pressure while giving you some relief. This gives you a LOT more relief than Mirage Mantle. Fencer’s Finesse is huge. Reduced Recharge on sword skills means that you get more Sword dodges, Phantasms, Leaps,and Blocks. Additionally, 10% Critical Damage is just icing on the cake if you’re using a power build.
Master Fencer: 100% Fury Uptime vs targets below 75% hp? Um, sign me up. Oh I don’t even need to sign? Well then. I think this is much better than getting movement in our dodge… back…
GM: Superiority Complex oh boy, this guy got swole super fast. Harmonious Mantras went to the Gym and figured out how to use the weights. Now he’s back and better than ever. 15% Critical Damage is roughly equal to 225 Ferocity, except that it’s not Ferocity so it MULTIPLIES your ferocity. That means you get more out of Fencer’s Finesse. Oh and if the enemy is below 50% health, this multiplier goes up to 25%. Considering Mesmer is almost always at a high crit rate, this is just a flat damage increase on non-Illusion damage, and not one to scoff at.
Ineptitude is back and better than ever, but it now has to fight with a Superiority Complex, and that’s a hard battle to win. However, it mixed two traits, and applying blind to someone who has blind still inflicts confusion, so that’s really nice. Toss in a whirl onto a smoke field and you’ve just added a condi burst equal to whirl on chaos field, but you’ve also blinded them.
Deceptive Evasion has and always will be a useful trait. However, this guy is in an awkward spot because his brothers are finally major contenders in the PvP scene.
Inspiration:
Mender’s Purity is huge. Usable in PvE and PvP. Heck, with Mantra of Recovery you get 2 casts (sadly the charge does not proc this). Do be careful, if you finish your cast while in mid-air (jump or falling), the trait does not cast. RIP.
Medic’s Feedback has it’s uses. It increases reflect uptime, particularly when your group is bad. If your group isn’t bad, you can do an F-cancel on NPC’s to drop the Feedback. This is particularly useful in dungeons.
Restorative Mantras is my go-to. It makes my Mantra of Recovery a powerful on-demand heal skill that also condi-cleanses. If I know I’m safe, I’ll hold the charges. If I know I’m going to need heal, I leave it uncharged and then proc all 3 heals back to back. Sure, it’s weaker than Ether Feast and comparable with SotE, but I like the flexibility in the uses and I don’t feel guilty when using it (unlike SotE). Additionally, if you use this trait with all mantras equipped vs Crystalline Entities, you can have ~75k dps while surviving to near 30 stacks of Green Light without any teammate help (Arah shenanigans).
Persisting Images sort of helps with Phantasm squishiness. I think this guy is pretty weak compared to his brothers, but worst case scenario he adds a tad bit of DPS. I liked when he gave Phants perma Retal. I don’t know of many people who use this unless they don’t see themselves utilizing the other two.
Inspiring Distortion is an amazing skill. This is useful in PvP and PvE and is actually how many mechanics in Raids are circumnavigated. This skill is a godsend by itself since, without taking other traits into effect, it’s effectively on a 45s cd. That’s still amazing, though.
Warden’s Feedback gives Mesmer’s huge reflect uptime. Not sure what else I can say about this guy.
Restorative Illusions is on-demand condi-cleanse + panic heals. Solid choice and good fallback if you won’t utilize the others. You can always utilize this.
Protected Phantasms, ok I think this one is worse than Persisting Images and should probably be merged, but the synergy on with Persistence of Memory is… interesting.
Healing Prism is great. It used to be really, really powerful and I think the ICD should be removed or lowered and the healing should instead have a small base and scale with the amount healed instead of a static heal amount. Regardless, this guy paired with Restorative Mantras means you get some nice passive heals on allies.
GM: Free Phantasmal Defenders, Regen + Free Signet of Inspiration, and Resistance + Superspeed? All of these are solid choices depending on your usages. The Regen + SoI is amazing for boonshare and absolutely necessary for most support builds. The Glamour one is outshined, but it can still be useful (unlike Protected Phantasms).
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Dang.
Are we playing the same game?
1) Mirage is better than any other SINGLE core trait line, obviously, it is not stronger than 2 or 3 combined.
Oh boy, you just opened a can of worms you shouldn’t have. Here we go
A single core trait line that is better than Mirage:
Illusions. Dueling.
Inspiration.
Each of them is better than Mirage by themselves. How so?
Illusions:
Major Adept: Compounding Power gives you a huge damage boost no matter what style of play you choose. Additionally, you can finagle it to gain the bonus damage on all of shatter hits with well-timed illusion summons.
Minor Master: Reducing the cooldown on Illusion Summoning Skills means you now have Weapon and Utility skills that have lowered cooldowns (on top of traited weapons). This skill alone is a huge, huge, huge damage increase in all game modes (including PvE where you don’t want to be summoning all the time). Why? Lower ramp times, higher burst uptimes, and more tools to use.
Major Masters: Having options on Shatters or Phantasm AFK builds? Hell yes, and unlike Riddle of Sands, this bad boy actually scales per Illusion.
MoM: Reduced recharge of shatters is good unless you don’t use them (which is entirely possible). However, even without using this trait, it’s still good to have if you ever need to panic F4 (or F3).
GM: Phantasmal Force and Malicious Sorcery are both huge damage increases. Additionally, Malicious Sorcery improves your cast speed on all abilities, effectively giving you mini-Quickness (that stacks with Quickness). That means you can get both your damage and utility out faster. Compare that to Infinite Horizon and Dune Cloak and this is significantly better (20% increased speed on all actions is effectively 20% bonus damage, slightly lower, but that’s significantly more damage than being able to shift 300 Expertise into a mixture of Power/Precision/Condition Damage).
So if you’re arguing (agreeing) that DD is already balanced out by it’s placement, why change it and risk weakening it?
Note:
Torch gained a stack of Burning (3s) while losing a condition removal on Torch skills. Additionally, it has generally better cooldown reduction unless you’re stealth stacking.
Staff lost 50 Toughness (relic from the old 30 system), but gained more Cooldown Reduction due to the finicky nature of Chaos Armor.
Admittedly: Pistol would gain higher overall CDR due to the finicky nature of interrupts. But at the chance of losing bleed on strikes, I don’t think it’s a worthy trade.
Keep in mind, the CC recharge is not tied to CCing via Pistol. Paired with a Shield, you can actually get major CDR. Of course, since it’s tied to off-hand only, that means you’re still limited by weaponswap cd.
I don’t think this is a good trait to look at because with almost all of the trait changes, they were buffs but they also nerfed slight aspects of the traits. Duelist’s Discipline is a major portion of Mesmer’s Condi Damage (with Sharper Images, Scepter, and now Axe being the rest).
The bulk of this trait is not the cooldown reduction, but the ability to apply bleeding.
Might does nothing for Phantasms, their health is already increased in PvE and can be further increased in any game mode with Signet of Illusions. I don’t think making it a mixture of offense and defense is the solution. Honestly, PF is fine the way it is, but it does draw attention to the huge can of worms that is our class mechanic (Shatters).
I think the problem with threads like these is that they have less than a month before they’re releasing PoF. This may sound like something “really easy to make” but we don’t know ANet’s backend spaghetti. Even if it were something easy to implement in that system, it would usually take over a month to push through the pipeline.
Yeah, it’s great that you have your own cool idea about how to make Mirage better, but in a realistic sense, the only thing that’s going to happen is tuning and maybe some minor trait movements or updates.
Sorry, I don’t mean to pick on you specifically, but there are a ton of threads like these that have been popping up since the first preview and it’s not actually useful discussion outside of theoretical “what could have been”.
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.
New people, or returning people watch his video’s because he explains a lot about the class/spec, even if not 100% correct all the time, it gives those viewers a general idea of what is going on.
If you want theorycrafting/pro’s talk about elite specs, then go elsewhere. Just leave WP alone
If he was any random person, nobody would really make a fuss. You can see that in all of the videos about Mirage. It’s because he has a following that he should make informed comments instead of stating falsehoods that will get his community to believe him (because the new/returning people haven’t been able to see how things work themselves).
When someone becomes popular, they accept upon themselves a responsibility with their actions. I, personally, don’t care about WP one way or another, but if he makes a misinformed statement, people will believe him. That is a problem, and becomes a much larger issue when you suddenly have people saying that Mirage isn’t bad because WP said so.
Sure, he went out of his way to make a video about the elite specs. That’s great, and I applaud him for that. He definitely didn’t need to and spent effort and time he could have otherwise used to do whatever he does. However, his actual points barely gloss the surface and tend to have no depth. He talks about how good Mirage is while rarely going into why it is good or how. The few times he does delve deep, he’s off the mark.
In his second video, he spent more time defending himself than trying to reason why and how Mirage can be used. Then, when he actually started talking about how they can be used, he references food and traited Guardian F2 to utilize the class mechanic. That, in itself is a problem because we shouldn’t be reliant on food or other classes to play our own spec. The other time he talks about something (without going complete conjecture mode), he ends up being way off the mark and talking about a triviality which he places a significant importance.
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).
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.
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.
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.
For each stack, it would increase the damage and condition duration of each illusion under your control by 1%.
It should also affect clones to synergize with ambush attacks. The extra power damage won’t make a difference, but the condition duration will help a little bit, especially since they already have lower condition duration on the ambush attacks than we do.
I disagree. Only Scepter Ambush has the reduced duration and we shouldn’t embrace that discrepancy.
All other sources of Conditions from Illusions are tied to the Mesmer (AFAIK), which means that Sharper Images, Duelist’s Discipline, and the illusions themselves use the Mesmer’s Condition Duration on EVERYTHING except the Scepter Ambush. Even the Staff Ambush uses the same Condition Duration.
If it gets changed to improve condition duration, not only does that put a burden onto developers to decide which sources of conditions should be tied to illusions, but it also puts a burden onto the Mesmer who now has to deal with clone Staff Ambush having more Condition Duration than the Mesmer themselves.
Sure, “bonus condition duration” is good, but it’s also a wasted stat outside of PvP where it’s harder to reach these caps.
FAN BOY SAYS IT’S BAD!!!! uh oh…
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.
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.
you turn 360 degrees and walk away
:thinking:
But I mean… I don’t doubt the damage, however in the end we got a more accurate claim regarding mirage that was broadcasted to those same masses who hang on his word. Shouldn’t there be at least some leeway to redeem or correct a mistake?
The problem is, not really. All he did was defend himself, try to justify his reasons, and then throw some “hey Mirage at least has these things going for them, maybe” which were all way off course.
He also got a lot more than just mirage wrong, so I think the shade we throw is a bit to indignant, it’s as if he made an intentional slight against only us.
I don’t think how he misrepresents other professions affects or should affect how the Mesmer community reacts to his misrepresentation of them.
I guess you could argue he shouldn’t do coverage if he’s just going to get it wrong? But personally I’d rather some expac content than none at all.
I mean, if you have the opportunity to research and make an informed video about a new topic, you should do so. If there’s a new topic and you don’t know a lot about it, it’s probably better to not go in-depth. I would prefer if you just didn’t make a video, but maybe that’s just me and my general dislike for clickbait (because without depth, that’s what it is).
It’s his first time doing this and having early previews from A-net, so maybe he’ll be able to analyze it more critically next time?
It’s his first time doing what? Making videos about elite specs? Nope, he did that two years ago. Making videos about new content? Nope, he’s been doing that for years.
Also I wouldn’t put to much stock into that toy axe thing, Even if it worked and if it turned out we were the fastest, it’d be nerfed anyways.
It does “work”, but it’s a non-issue whether or not they fix it. Superspeed is as fast as Swiftness OOC. This means that you’re still slower than a Warrior/Engineer/Thief/Ele/Guard that uses the toy axe. Why? Because they can have swiftness and throw in a leap after each use. A Mirage ‘can’ throw in a leap (Sword Ambush) but then they still have to have some Swiftness gen for the axe (since they just wasted their superspeed on a leap).
Maybe don’t assume bad intentions over ignorance and neglect?
Either way he doesn’t explode my “bias against mes” meter.
The problem is that he’s become a “pillar of the community”. His core community believes what he says, so if he says that Mirage is OP and the fastest wildest spec in the eastern deserts, as fast as mounts, then people will believe that.
As to whether or not the devs take his opinion into question is completely conjecture on our part, but misrepresentation by ignorance and neglect is worse than no representation.
I logged in and did a test specifically of that. Every clone I spawned (with both traits) did an Ambush on spawn. I didn’t record it because my computer has no ram until later this week.
You NEED to have both traits on (obviously) otherwise it won’t work. It doesn’t really justify IH or make it good, by any means, but it was nice to know that the synergy was there.
I probably should have recorded my tests, but I wrote it down in my notes and distinctly remember logging in specifically for that test and then logging off after realizing it worked.
Now, that doesn’t mean that WP is saying accurate things. Most of his talks on Mesmer in his video are entirely conjecture like “it would be cool if they synergized, otherwise it would suck” and “it’s great that they have access to so much endurance regen” (what?) with things like food and guardians traited f2 (what?) and that makes weakness powerful (what?).
Also, Mirage is definitely not the fastest by any means. The Superspeed and Executioner’s Axe Toy combo is only the fastest if you’re in combat, which means that you can’t re-activate the toy because you’re in combat. As such, Engineer is technically faster as they have access to on-demand Superspeed (if they get hit mid-axe) and can just Swiftness the rest of the way, with a leap on Hammer and Rocket Boots.
Outside of abusing Superspeed, you also have Warrior who can stagger Sword 2 or GS3/4 in between uses of the Axe Toy (2s downtime) while maintaining high swiftness uptime. If you don’t want to abuse Exec Axe, then Daredevil is faster by far.
(edited by Esplen.3940)
DE + IH actually works. The spawned clone does Ambush from my tests.
This has happened to Mesmer since BWE2 (Beta Weekend Event 2). During that time, it used to be a target skill (not a ground target) that dealt more damage than it currently does. You could also use it while moving without stopping. Apparently that was too strong (probably was), and so it got hit by nerfs in all directions, as per Mesmer standard.
It’s not a bad skill, but you get used to it. Also the stutter is pretty small (it used to be longer, iirc).
The problem, I think, is that an elite specialisation is meant to be a sideways progression; not more powerful, but a different way to play.
This statement hits the ball out of the park.
At present it seems the most effective way to play Mirage is to play core mesmer and press 1 every time you press dodge.
And he makes another home run, wowie.
Oh I definitely get where you’re coming at, in fact I wholeheartedly agree that Revenant’s Energy system is a bit too… draining.
On another note, I feel like they wanted to have the weapon skills not have cd’s but decided against it because it would be a copy of Thief (however I think they should either cost energy or have a cd, not both, even if each individual skill has a different “cost”).
But if Chill affects Energy, then Alacrity should, as well. Same with Init.
Chill should definitely affect initiative and energy regen as well. Its just downright stupid that some classes are able to just ignore some mechanics in this game because of how their class functions.
The inverse of this is that Alacrity should affect Initiative and Energy Regen.
Welcome to the past 5 years of Mesmer.
I would agree, but with ANets record of putting ridiculous ICD on everything Mesmer, it would be hardpressed to be overly powerful (plus even if it was, this community would complain about it being op and then something arbitrary would get nerfed).
Tbh, I think if Mirage wants to be focused around Evades and “Mirage Cloak” there needs to be more “on-evade” or “on-dodge” traits. (Moreso on successful evasion).
Axe does also decent power dmg. Nowhere near great tmg but with better scaling it could be a neat weapon.
The scaling is really low and the base isn’t that high. If by decent power damage, you mean it does power damage, then you’re correct. But it’s nowhere near enough to justify running it on a power build atm. You can check the damage on your power builds by using the chat links then compare it to other weapons.
Just a note: It has less damage output than Scepter on power builds, so… uhh… yeah…
Its a combination of its power dmg ist condi output and the mobolity this weapon has. Do i think its power scaling needs buffs? Yes. Do i thing its useless? Not quite.
Dealing power damage doesn’t make it decent. Nobody says Staff is a power weapon. Yet it does power damage that rivals Axe.
I dont understand how ppl say bonus dmg after a dodge , forces us to dodge offensively. Its just ; play the game , dodge , deal bonus dmg after dodging.
If the skills were faster and less clunky, then maybe. The problem is that some of these skills lock you in place, they are easily predictable, they are a part of your burst (this is notable in PvP and WvW), they are not always stronger than just auto attacking (LOL WHY?).
Almost the entirety of the Mirage traitline works to “improve” these or do something when you dodge, but they give barely noticeable buffs. If we compare this (not to Daredevil) but to Acrobatics (the other dodge traitline), the “only good thing” we get is Renewing Oasis which is an Adept that rivals their GM. Additionally Dune Cloak has hidden power with it’s 20% condi duration (at all times in PvE).
Mirage doesn’t do anything for your clones. It doesn’t do anything for your phantasms. You can argue that it does Infinite Horizon for both of them, but Superspeed on Phants is rarely useful, and clone ambushes are for you, not clones.
You can’t play Mirage by just “dodging when you need to and counterattacking”. That’s like running Daredevil and only dodging when you need to, and getting the attack for free. That would work except you severely hamper your damage output (this example works for both Mirage and Daredevil). As soon as your elite mechanic revolves around dodging, your rotation revolves around dodging. As a Daredevil it’s not too bad because they get Endurance regen up the wazoo (and not just from Daredevil, it’s a thing that was a part of Thief for quite a while). Mesmer gets… Vigor. Mirage gives… a tiny bit of Vigor. Um… what?
I mean, not counting the awkwardness of GS cleave, it does less damage than just auto attacking with high Power. It has undertuned scaling and doesn’t really offer an “ambush”.
You know that problem with Scrappers? The one about, uhh…
Jack of all trades, master of none
That was Mesmer before HoT hit. That is base Mesmer. We can do everything anyone can do, but not better (although we used to be the master of Quickness, wayyyyy back when). Our class mechanics are all over the place, supposedly to allow variety in playstyle, but in application they tend to mash over each other (Phantasms = Sustained Damage, Clones = Shatter, Shatter = Burst). As a class about misdirection, it’s felt like the only people being misdirected are the devs, but there are other issues, more core with the game.
Clones and Phantasms pull from your stats, but not all of them. Runes and Sigils don’t affect them, for the most part, damage multipliers don’t affect them, for the most part, they’re flimsy (even with the focus target health buff). They require a lot of investment to do anything, and any investment you put into them isn’t put on yourself, whereas any investment you put onto yourself isn’t put on them.
U could have hybrid mirages (since we know hybrid stats are comming) Being the midle ground. Its just that axe is so fun but i cant enjoy condi mesmer for my life.
If by hybrid stats you mean Griever, you’re better off using Viper.
I think the only hybrid stat combo that Mesmer would want would be:
Precision/X + Y/Expertise
Where X and Y are either Power or Condition Damage. One of those stat combos would lean more towards Scepter the other would lean more towards Sword. They would both be able to utilize Axe, to some degree, and would both use Pistol.
Axe does also decent power dmg. Nowhere near great tmg but with better scaling it could be a neat weapon.
The scaling is really low and the base isn’t that high. If by decent power damage, you mean it does power damage, then you’re correct. But it’s nowhere near enough to justify running it on a power build atm. You can check the damage on your power builds by using the chat links then compare it to other weapons.
Just a note: It has less damage output than Scepter on power builds, so… uhh… yeah…
You say that as if trash fights last long enough for you to even ramp dps. Your ToT and WoC are going to be on cd between trash fight encounters in dungeons and sword autos + warden pull/warden is actually enough “cleave” to finish the encounter.
I honestly think that mechanic could be perfectly added to Mirror Images:
Mirror Images:
Your illusions change focus to the targeted foe. If no illusions are active, summon two clones.I don’t know if they will actually add more skills for core mesmer. This is simple, yet effective.
Would be great with charges.
The large golem tests have higher dps because ToT hits more. It won’t have more CC, utility or cleave. I explained why.
And I’m not sure how one build can be clunky when it’s the dumbed down version of another build.
False. Phantasms make up ~40% of our dps, even on condi builds.
40% of our DPS is still a bulk of it.
Sure. But that depends on how you personally define bulk. When used to say “the bulk of something” it typically means majority, not large in quantity. However, that’s an issue with language not properly delivering intent, not you or me.
Umm, yeah 10 seconds. With a different class they just deal dps upfront, not needing to build up Phantasms unlike us. Other classes don’t need to start up.
At this point you’re getting defensive. A 10s wind-up is pretty small compared to our previous windup lengths of 30+s. Even Condi Mes has a 10s wind-up which is considered negligible. The only time it comes into play is when you need to re-target or fight new enemies (see: Keep Construct).
False. Chrono brings it’s own issues. ChronoPhantasma is a terrible trait to pair with Phantasmal Force as it resets the stacks. You also lose a 15% damage multiplier on Phantasms for dropping Dom. Additionally, you run Chrono 313 because the extra crit rate from Danger Time is a huge stat boost for the Mes (note: this does not affect Phantasms).
The point of bringing Chrono is literally to start the fight with 3 Swordsman instead of waiting for the cooldown to summon the third. Additionally, you get to bring Well of Action for more DPS (lol). You don’t use any shatter after the start of fight cast phase and you get useful utilities (because base mes doesn’t have dps utilities).
Bringing Chronophantasma is worth it for that emergencies when you need to shatter.
You shouldn’t have to panic f4, that’s the point of the braindead rotation. If you know an attack is coming, hold your BF for a second. Otherwise, run a utility to act as your defense.
CCing the boss for his breakbar,
See: Moa, Sword4, Pistol5, Focus4, Signet of Dom. Moa alone is more than enough breakbar to carry your own breakbar weight.
Distorting to get out of a sticky situation.
Again, you shouldn’t be shattering.
In this cases you shatter them and lose a bit of DPS but with Chronophantasma your Phantasms are still up (or some of them) although their PF stacks have reset. Better than nothing ’yknow.
You lose a lot more than a bit of DPS. One shatter will remove 1-2 Phants depending on how you did your setup, meaning you now need to use your Heal skill (if it’s off cooldown) and spend a few seconds casting to make up for shattering. Still not sure what shatter you’d use to justify this when your rotation is literally 5 buttons every 20 seconds.
Bringing Chrono also brings a lot of AoE
Well of Calamity is not a lot of AoE.
and personal damage to Mesmer
It offers no damage boost in comparison to Power Mes, just utility. It has lower DPS because of this.
and with a perfect and more difficult rotation it can reach as much DPS as Core Mesmer.
No, it can’t. In similar tests, it will always have less DPS. You’re dropping 15% Phantasm damage for 30% self-crit chance (does not affect Phantasms, which means your Phants are doing less and having a higher chance of not critting), and a shorter setup phase.
I got can get 29k DPS on Power Chrono without providing any other buffs like a regular Chrono, but at least compared to Core Mesmer, I bring more CC and more Cleave through Tides of Time, Mimic, Well of Calamity and Gravity Well. Also you’re more useful than Core Mesmer against trash mobs.
Core Mesmer can just slap on Focus or Greatsword for trash mobs, then switch to /Sword to cleave them through. Sword hits 3 targets, which is slightly less than wells but a lot more reliable (100% uptime baby).
Shield offers a 9% CC if the Mesmer is running off Focus. It’s actually equal if the Mesmer is running off Pistol (but Pistol will guaranteed hit for 200 unlike ToT, which may not return properly). Additionally if you’re using ToT for DPS, it’s not guaranteed to be up for breakbars, unlike Sword4/Pistol5/Focus4/etc. Mimic + Well of Calamity is not a lot of cleave, since it’s highly unreliable due to long cooldowns, as well as being static in place.
Lastly, Gravity Well is a very poor choice for elite. Moa offers 1000 breakbar damage while Gravity Well does 550. It does add damage, but it does a weaker break over a longer period of time.