Guild Wars 2

Refia Montes.3205:

On to the matter. Phantasmal Force really augments Mesmer’s DPS cause the bulk of our damage comes from Phantasms.

False. Phantasms make up ~40% of our dps, even on condi builds.

It has low cleave, long dps downtime due to waiting for our Mesmer to get 3 Phantasms up. It does have the utility of being able to slot 2 free utilities for anything.

False, it takes ~10s to get 3 Swordsman up and you’ll have 3 Phantasms up within 3s of starting the fight. The ramp time is mainly getting them buffed, which is a non-issue for Swordsman (+8 Might on Spawn, high attack rate, etc). The slow ramp time on DPS is making up for the initial low burst where you’re casting instead of DPSing (think precasting, but after the fight starts, wasted time).

There’s a Chrono variant of the Mesmer Phantasm build, and it does just a bit less DPS about (-1k) than the Core Mesmer one, it just replaces Domi with Chrono 3-3-3. It fixes the problems of Core Mesmer variant, which is less reliance on Phantasms, more cleave damage and better utility by allowing us to Shatter our Phantasms through ChronoPhantasma.

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).

People have already opted to use this trait for huge damage gains. Power Mesmer is hitting 30k dps with a 2 button rotation (over the course of 10s).
The build is: Due 131, Ill 121, Dom 22x
(x can be 2 or 3, it doesn’t REALLY matter)
However, to answer your question and thoughts…

I’m not 100% sure if Alacrity affects Phants, but Quickness definitely does. It’s more noticeable on long channels (cough Warden cough).

Also, Swordsman will ramp faster than the listed value because he typically spawns with 8 might and gains an additional 8 might most of the time a Swordsman is summoned.

Mirage traits don’t synergize or offer anything (except Super Speed, so good!!! /s) for Phantasms. Chrono can benefit from PF, but since you’re typically summoning Avengers, you’re getting a minimal DPS increase (arguably less than running Dom for a flat 15% because of the slow ramp and phant replacements), but something is less than nothing.

Currently, Power Mesmer gets the most value out of PF because it spawns 3 Swordsman (first Swordsman will be at 20 stacks before the second attack hits), and only cares about direct damage. Condi Mes can get a little bit of value out of it because 99% of attacks in GW2 are tied to direct damage, but it’s fighting for the same slot as reduced cooldown on Scepter skills, so I don’t think people opt for it (and I wouldn’t).

If you’re thinking of the third traitline for Chrono, slot Dom, Chaos, or Dueling depending on your needs.

If you’re thinking of traitlines for Mirage… avoid Phantasms for now. We’ll see what they do with Mirage, though.

Considering the power scaling of Axe, you’d probably want Precision + Condition Damage/Expertise (which doesn’t exist).

If you had to pick a 4 stat combo, you’d want something like Precision/CD + Exp/Pow (also doesn’t exist).

For now, Viper’s is better than Griever’s in almost all situations (except Power Mes with Axe and traited pistol, but you can get more dps out of just doing Sword/Sword with zerk/sins).

Levetty.1279:

The correct solution is to actually give Mesmer an elite spec with new mechanics like every other elite spec they are adding with PoF.

What, you mean they can’t just do a condi version of daredevil with half the stuff missing?

You know that weird interaction where the Phant target disappears and the Phants remain without a target, so they just pick a new target and attack?

But when that new target dies, they don’t disappear because they’re still “latched” to the older target?

I think a better idea would be for them to be “unchained” for 10s. If you use it right before you kill a target, they would remain without a target. When the 10s ends, they will remap to their current target. This lets you have “pets” for a short duration, if micro’ed properly.

I would recommend not running GS unless you’re against a boss where ranged is effective (Jade Maw, bad groups on final Chaos, Trident for Jellyfish, etc). Sword/sword + /focus will be your core, typically, although if you want that extra dps, /torch is better than /focus.

Swap the GM for Power Block since you can AoE interrupt with Sword4, Focus4, or switch it to Mental Anguish for bonus shatter damage if and when you shatter (rarely).

Dueling should be 1/3/1, there’s basically no flexibility here.

As for utility skills, Signet of Illusions isn’t necessary in PvE unless you’re trying to solo something too difficult that ends up one shotting your illusions (note illusions don’t typically get one shot in PvE, because they aren’t the focus target).

I’d recommend: Signet of Domination if you’re comfortable and can hold it for dps boost, otherwise Decoy or Defender are decent. Disenchanter can be useful in certain scenarios, as well, but I wouldn’t slot it because I’d rather do and forget.

Signet of Inspiration is also kind of useless on this build, because you’re not generating any useful boon to share. See the above recommendations, but if you’re 100% confident in your ability to stay alive (note: in T4s, good luck), run Signet of Midnight. If you need a Signet to activate for Distortion, it will be this one and it doubles as a stunbreak. Try not to use Signet of Dom.

The edited build

Also carry a focus. Focus4 paired with Power Block is just free dps on a skill you should be using on trash.

Lastly: If you end up soloing Chaos final boss, Staff is better than GS if survivability is your objective. Don’t ask why I know this.

Velektrian.5491:

Why do people keep saying Axe is best case for Mirage Ambush? its Ambush the weakest Condi Ambush out of Axe, Scepter or Staff. Axe does 5 stacks for you and 1 stack for clones (total 9), Staff get 2 confusion and 2 Torment for you and each of your clones at full duration too (16 stacks 100% duration) and Scepter gets 5 random stacks of Confusion and Torment, with half duration on Clones (5 full stacks, 15 half duration stacks)

Nice, take the sentence out of context. Tbh clone ambushes (and IH as a whole) are mostly only good for cheese condi bursts that aren’t very reliable (you really shouldn’t have 3 clones out for bursting).

From a purely numerical standpoint, yes, with clones, Staff is better than Axe. However, Axe comes out faster (literally half the time) and homes instead of being a line shot. Heck, in Raids, Staff might not even hit the boss due to 5 target cap.

I don’t particularly like the idea of taking 1s to shoot an attack out of an evade that lasts 0.75s (although that’s a separate issue).

Lastly, your numbers on Axe are way off. Axe spawns 2 axes that apply 1 stack of confusion each, meaning 2 for mesmer, up to 8 with 3 clones. When traited, the mesmer will spawn 1 additional axe meaning 9 confusion stacks.

I’m not saying it’s better, but it is faster and more reliable, plus I’m a fan of Dune Cloak over IH.

Arguably thief has less condi cleave than Mesmer.

It’s the same speed as Sword. It just feels slow because he’s not canceling downtimes with Axe2 or Axe3 (and he’s traited so he should be using axe skills as much as possible).

Max uptime from rolling is 57% assuming you have 100% vigor uptime, use Mantra of Recovery, and Mirage Advance. If you throw in Crystal Sands and Sand Through Glass, you can increase that to ~66%, toss in traited Distortion and you’re at ~75%.

Yes, if you throw in traited Sword2 you’re at 101%, but that’s theoretical uptime. First off, you have cast times, input lag, delays, cooldowns, and you’re also not going to have 100% vigor uptime.

The build in question is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsf8ak0nhysxgiyAmIZA-TpwHgAAPBg99HAA (last line is Mirage, offhands can be anything, most traits can be changed, any Mirage traits can be chosen, including the awkward Shards of Glass for more mirror or mirage mantle which will get a lot of utility here). Rec Mirage: 1×2 where x is 1 or 2.

You have to use Sword2, dodges, Crystal Sands + Mirror, Mirage Advance + Return, Sand Through Glass + Mirror, weapon swap, and heal off cooldown. You’ll have a realistic uptime capping at around 80% because heal skill has a cooldown, casting while evading is overlap, and the uptime on utility skills is over the course of infinite time, not a short fight.

Additionally, if an enemy corrupts or strips your Vigor at a critical moment, it will severely hamper your upcoming evasions.

Lastly: This build is going to do kitten for damage because you’re focusing on using mechanics to not do anything. If this build gets used in PvP we’ll probably see Mirage become useless in PvP as Mirage Cloak will probably get nerfed to prevent point capture. See: perma negate Chrono nerfs.

If they don’t tweak anything between now and PoF, we’ll probably get a buff a month into PoF. I highly doubt that that’ll happen, though.

Although I also doubt the changes between now and PoF are going to make a difference.

Ithilwen.1529:

If anything I expect to see Mirage nerfs. I don’t think the spec needs it.

What I’d like to see is serious nerfs to all the HoT specs.

I don’t think that’s quite the right approach either. Mirage definitely doesn’t need nerfs in its current state and Chronomancer is in a stable position.

Nerfing Chronomancer leads to it being a useless traitline, unless your ideology is to make it equal to Mirage instead of making Mirage equal to Chrono.

And that’s not to say that Mirage needs to be as powerful as Chrono, but there should be a reason to pick Mirage over Chrono in at least one aspect of the game (hopefully more, as options and build variety tend to be signs of a healthy game).

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

I would really love to see what they think about tons of feedback they received about last weekend.
If memory serves me well chronomancer was changed a lot after this weekend pre HoT?

“This weekend” is not a very good comparison. The first Beta Weekend (with Elite specs) only had Chrono, DH, Reaper, and Tempest. It was also over 2 months before the expansion would be released.

“This weekend” is 1 month before release and has all of the elite specs, which means there’s a lot of work to be done on all of them.

The problem is also the next few weeks are going to be providing lots of bugs.

Next weekend is mount week, we’ll be seeing Hopper, Skimmer, and Jackals in addition to the Raptor (here’s hoping still-turning gets improved slightly).

The weekend after that is more of the map and some story instances (lolwat?)

So I doubt we’ll be seeing major changes before the release, but keep in mind that the bulk of the HoT elite changes were done post release, while there were some minor adjustments made before they released (they tended not to address huge issues and just kind of played around with things).

Currently the usage is drop phants → phant attack → shatter into clones → ambush → shatter into phants. or something like that, idk.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Although, I will remind everyone that with PoF it’s my understanding that all of the core trait lines are supposed to be redone a bit in order to generate barrier.

So Mesmers might end up with something fresh to play anyway.

Uh, the pre-PoF balance update hit. Nobody got Barrier. I don’t think they’re going to do another trait overhaul anytime soon (other than elites).

And I don’t buy an expansion for the elites, so I’m not going to refund.

Lanhelin.3480:

Esplen.3940:

Boonshare ranged passive doesn’t exist. You can give boons to your allies, but that’s melee, assuming your allies don’t move. You can ranged dps and that IS super passive (see: Condi Mes ) but it’s a selfish build.

Condi Mes actually does not have to be that selfish like the one in the video you posted, who only uses the iDuelist and even hasn’t slotted SoI. This is just one build but not representative for Condi Mes. There are plenty possibilities to provide boons to allies, not only the signet but one has to build for it and to use the right weapons and utility skills.

I mean, slotting SoI is redundant when you have a boonshare chrono. If you don’t have a boonshare chrono and you’re slotting SoI, you’re going to be providing… might, fury, and regen on top of 100% might, fury and regen uptimes, which is, again, redundant. Top that off with trying to stat up Concentration on top of your Viper’s (Pow,CDam,Pre,Exp) ideal stat setup, and you’re stretching yourself very thing.

The only way to improve your boonshare capabilities would be to run Bountiful Disillusionment (which I think condi mes runs anyways, because there’s not much better unless they run PU for that 1 quick boon) and utilizing it severely cuts into your dps because you have to be shattering off cooldown to apply the boons. You also would still want to run Concentration or your Vigor uptime is going to be low, which is the only unique “sustainable” boon (75% uptime with 100% boon duration and traited CoF) provided (Stab and Res are extremely low uptime, unless you bounce it around with multiple 100% bd SoI).

I mean, sure, you can always go back to the old CJ “Play how you want”, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.

Tbh, Dune Cloak is probably the best GM, but it’s overshadowed by IH (what?).

The animation on Dune Cloak is tiny and not indicative of it’s range, and the basically flat 20% condi duration is huge (300 expertise? sign me up!). Numerically, it’s actually better than IH on sustained fights (for burst, IH is going to be better).

This is because the best case scenario for IH on sustained dps is:

• Untraited Axe
• Axe Ambush
• 3 clones (lol?)
• +300% condition duration on Ambush ability

If you trait Axe, it drops to +200% condition duration because axe clones do not get the bonus axe on ambush.

If you opt for Scepter, it gets, at most, +150% condition duration because each clone innately gets 50% of your condi duration (lol?).

Keep in mind, even though these numbers are large for condition duration, they’re only good for burst because you can’t constantly dodge.

Assuming you ran ideal runes/sigils for dodging and had 100% Vigor uptime, instant cast time on all your abilities, etc, you’d still get 0.43 dodges/second in PvE/WvW and 0.38 dodges/second in sPvP. This assumes Rune of the Adventurer + proc every 10s (MoR), Sigil of Energy + proc every 9s, Mirage Advance + Return every 25s. This does not account for Sigil of Stamina as that is… not reliable for bursting?

With all of that in mind, you’d get, at best, a theoretical +129% condition duration/sec uptime while running 3 untraited axe clones. This turns your burst into sustained dps but since you’re running clones all the time, you also don’t actually have burst anymore.

The reason why it’s 129 cd/sec is because it doesn’t affect any of your rotation except your ambushes. Without a realistic rotation, I don’t know how much of your condi damage is dedicated to ambushes, which will significantly hurt that number (although if you’re camping axe with all that setup you’re probably not going to be doing much else).

It used to be too good before that. You could run 1 Mesmer in a raid group of 10 and maintain 100% quickness (and high uptime) on all targets.

That’s also because it copied all of your boons as a single stack, meaning that invisible counter of how many boons you can have of each type was merged into one single fat stack that everyone got.

The current version is less skill reliant, but it’s also very fair. It’s not a bad skill, and it lets worse Chronos maintain high quickness uptimes, whereas before a bad chrono would have low uptime on their own subgroup, not counting the entire raid. Nowadays it’s kinda hard to have low uptime unless you’re constantly making mistakes (or fighting something like Prison Camp where there’s no real target).

Tiresias.6473:

Chrono’s damage is solidly average but the group utility is incredible.

PvE Response here, but:
Barely. It took them the PoF balance patch to get Chrono there, and even then you’re better off running base Mes for that.

Condi Mes has been the low end of the damage spectrum with Power being the “you don’t want to be this bad”-tier.

Currently, Power Mes is actually competitive but not useful whereas Condi Mes will still be taken for those niche fights (even though Power is better, but not meta).

Artyport.2084:

GalloY.9640:

Levetty.1279:

Artyport.2084:

Like its a mesmer its not suppose to be a direct damage class.

That is a pretty bold claim. Have you got a source for that?

I kind of agree with that idea, although I’m open to having a damage spec.

I’m a GW1 Mesmer main and the builds I played were very much support based through Interrupts/energy denial and that’s how I view the Mesmer. They deal damage but that’s a secondary effect – the crowd control and utility are the primary.

exactly.. ive played gw1 mesmer. and it was so awesome to stop a spell only for it to hurt the enemy. it was about crowd control and mitigating damage while having the enemy hurt itself.

All of this i just want to hit very hard is not very mesmery. Mesmer were the class that would watch you die as you aimlessly attack not knowing whats wrong with you

Ah yes, in GW2 that’s called a condi warrior.

It’s not strong. It’s basically a necessary evil to have on your traits atm.

Also, clone ambushes aren’t what they’re cracked up to be unless you’re trying to condi burst and even then they take too much preparation.

EDIT:

Going off on Curunen’s traints of thoughts to fix it:
If you’re going to buff the personal ambush of Mesmer, that will address the issue of Ambushes being scaled as if the Mesmer runs Infinite Horizon, but the clone Ambushes are still pretty weak, so the trait almost needs a rider.

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.

Hazz.8109:

Since we are on the topic of power Mesmer, what are your builds? (for PvE, PvP etc)

PvE:

Ill 121
Due 131
Dom 222 (or 223)

You can easily tweak this to your playstyle, but this is the general build.

Boonshare ranged passive doesn’t exist. You can give boons to your allies, but that’s melee, assuming your allies don’t move. You can ranged dps and that IS super passive (see: Condi Mes ) but it’s a selfish build.

In that video, he stays melee because melee is where you want to be to gain boons. Alternatively you can run the power mes build but that’s melee with no ranged at all.

If you’re talking wvw or pvp it’s not really passive at all (unless you zerg in wvw in which case greatsword + afk1 + follow dorito).

400 range is greater than a dodge, so that’s basically what you’re talking about, tbh.

So… dodge jaunt?

I mean, I’ll probably play it in PvE but that’s because open world is a honey badger.

Who knows, I might switch back to core Mes because Power Mes is pretty stronk in PvE atm. It just depends on how fresh I want the new content to be.

Blades Of Fatalis.1279:

btw axe 3 DOES retarget phantasms, but it only teleports axe clones to the target. phantasms and other clones however are still retargeted. read the discription, if they arent its a bug.

You’re thinking of Illusionary Ambush, maybe? Axe3 says all axe clones and I haven’t tested with non-axe clones but I know for sure that phantasms do NOT retarget on axe3.

EDIT: Ok weird, I literally just tested this and the mage didn’t retarget and now it did. Hm. :/

Yeah, let’s run an elite spec for one utility skill that prevents us from losing our ramp up… but is on a 30s cooldown and still isn’t usable in Raids because most fights require re-targeting on a cooldown similar to axe3 (which doesn’t retarget phants).

If you’re talking Dungeons or Open World Content, things die too fast for retargeting to be useful except in edge cases like… like… yeah no I can’t see it being used in Dungeons or Open World Content because there’s no boss where you need to kill two big health sponges back to back with no break in between. Even in Fractals, you won’t find a use unless you run that utility and pop it on Molten Twins right before one dies.

Levetty.1279:

Esplen.3940:

a Minstrel Chrono if you want.

Do you play open world in Minstral gear?

I have before they gutted Magnanimous Sharpening Stone. It was a lazy 100% BD build. The only place where I had trouble (aka it took longer than necessary) was in HoT where most events are scaled to burst builds or small groups. I didn’t die (because Minstrels), it just took a long time (Veterans took about as long as a Champ solo, Elites and Champs would just be a staring contest that nobody loses).

Right now I use either my raid setup (mixed zerk/sins/comm +minimal minstrel? for 54% without food/utility, 66.9 with + sigil of conc) or my fractal setup pure zerk/sins + sigil of conc. I wouldn’t switch back unless I’m playing with friends because I don’t want to oneshot things and they don’t play often.

?: Too lazy to switch it to commander ascended offhand weaps + 1 ring

apharma.3741:

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

How many of the last elite specs were complained about being pure trash only to take longer to find the true capabilities of the spec?

None actually, we pretty much knew their power levels quite accurately from about 3 hours past release.

You have to remember, we’re not coming at this from the perspective of fresh players exploring a new game.

This very same thing happened with HoT betas.

Once again patience is the correct action at this time.

Are we also factoring all the things ANet changed and number tweaking that went on between the HoT betas and when HoT came out?

There were a lot of skills that got changed pretty drastically for many classes before HoT came out because they were weak.

*and had a few months to fix things.

I mean, without counting alacrity it drops the cooldown from 30s to as low as 12s. Also, stacking different kinds of stealth Hide in Shadows and Stealth and Camouflage would trigger the cooldowns individually, allowing the user to have even lower cooldowns on Torch Skills (although at that point you’re only using Prestige).

Open world: Nothing matters, do what you want, play how you want. You’ll be able to kill things as a Minstrel Chrono if you want.

Fractals: Even in the condi meta, you’re better off being a Chrono boonbot to increase team dps.

Raids: If you REALLY want to bring a Condi Mes¹, then Mirage will add bonus damage. Don’t try to use Axe in it’s current state as I’m almost certain Scepter will outperform it (particularly with no clone ambushes). Illusionary Ambush is only usable against Matthias but you need Reflect, so this cuts into your Condition Duration. You can’t use IA versus Cairn because of the red circles, which ironically is the only reason you’d want to use it. Sand through Glass can be used against Cairn, although Blink is just better at that point. Crystal Sands can be used as a dps increase but seems to be most useful against large targets like Gorseval (Condi mes not used here).

¹: Not sure why you would opt for Condi Mes atm. There are two raid bosses Condi Mes is acceptable; matthias and cairn. They’re brought on Matthias for reflects and constant dps while moving (for mechanics). Power Mes and Chrono can reflect and Power Mes will do similar damage while moving (Phant DPS). Arguably, you can attack while moving away as a Condi Mes, but you won’t because then you’re backpedaling instead of doing mechanics.

For Cairn, they have safe DPS, and ranged at that. If you get marked for Shared Agony, you can safely maintain DPS from afar. You also replace Feedback slot with a defensive skill (Blink, Mantra of Concentration). As a Power Mes, if you get marked, your dps is kittened, but it’s not an RNG mark, it’s furthest non-marked target, so you can play around that.

Some things to note about traits and axe skills:
Axe 2 untargeted (no auto target) with camera facing down can hit all 3 hits on a single target on a small hitbox. It also gets caught on the ground more easily (for smaller dash). Getting caught on the ground may be due to uneven/awkward terrain in PvP lobby, YMMV.
Traited Axe causes:

• Phantasmal Seeking Axe will be spawned while casting out of combat.
• Final auto attack to cast Phantasmal Spinning Axe. This also affects your Clones.
• Your ambush to cast an additional Phantasmal Seeking Axe. This does not affect your Clones.
• Your axe3 attack to spawn 1 Phantasmal Seeking Axe. Even though it causes your clones to do the dash+ confusion attack, they do not get the axe.
• Phantasmal Spinning Axe has a Range of 90 this translates to a Radius of 90
• Phantasmal Seeking Axe applies 1 stack of 3s Torment.
• Phantasmal Spinning Axe applies 1 stack of 2s Torment.

Sand Shards (Dune Cloak) has a Radius of 180. This does not line up with the animation, the range is longer than your auto attack and correctly listed. OTOH, this trait will not be ran for the Sand Shards/2 Bleeding. It will be ran for 20% bonus condition duration.

Infinite Horizon + Deceptive Evasion:

• Deceptive Evasion triggers first, causing the spawned clone to ambush. (Thank you Anet for this one.)

Riddle of Sand (on paper) looks to be useless for Raids. Renewing Oasis is probably the trait of choice :/

Lastly: Sand through Glass is much more bearable if you have Swiftness. Tbh, I’d prefer if it was: “Evade backward. If an attack is evaded, SKILL2 is usable for a short time.”
SKILL2: Gain Mirage Cloak.

Levetty.1279:

He wants people to wait because he knows Deadeye is broken as kitten and he doesn’t want to lose it.

He also has an extreme hatred of Mesmers possibly having fun in PvE even though it doesn’t effect him in the slightest.

I think he misses the point about Mirage being designed around a concept (lit: mirages/oasis’) and not a function.

Every elite spec is designed around a function, and some succeed at that function and others fail. The difference is that the ones that fail typically still have some odd value in at least one game mode.
Mirage, however, is in the fail category and currently offers barely anything due to contradictory mechanics.

To be fair (for Azukas) even with the failed specs, it took them (anet) a while to figure out how to make the specs useful in one or more game modes.

I think Azukas is saying that we might have to wait for a month after release to finally get the balance update Mirage needs. But even with that idea (if it does happen) it feels bad to have such a hot (pof) mess so close to the release.

Curunen.8729:

Levetty.1279:

I don’t understand why people have already bought PoF. Even if Mirage didn’t look terrible from the reveal, it did, you shouldn’t really throw your money away at products you don’t know much about. Should have waited for the demo weekends.

Personally I don’t regret buying pof at all – still happy with having the new open world pve zones to explore, mounts and even in the current broken state Mirage has fun mechanics that are a welcome relief from the monotony that Chrono can be.

Kinda this. I bought it and don’t regret it. I didn’t pre-order HoT because I was skeptical (and broke af), but GW2 is my game. I’m sad that I didn’t get the title (I hoard titles), although that’s not a big deal. I don’t think I’m going to quit it anytime soon and I am going to be playing PoF regardless of the state of Mesmer or Mirage.

Plus, open world PvE it won’t really matter what you run, worst case scenario I’ll be running Power Mes with Deceptions thrown in. I’ll have to play around with Axe to see if I enjoy it, but for now Sword/Sword + Greatsword clears things fast enough in PvE (and in PoF demo). For harder content I throw in a Focus or Pistol, and it’s not like I don’t have every Mes weapon ready (even have Viper Axe + Scepter ready).

Sure, it won’t be top tier, but I don’t raid that often because it’s hard to find time with work, trying to get a new job, finishing school (done now thankfully), and work on life things. Plus I don’t mind being a kittenty chrono boon/tankbot as long as people aren’t annoying.

Kadj.6725:

Esplen.3940:

{an explanation}

Oh thank god, an explanation. Now I understand what you’re getting at.

Okay, so Chaos is not trash tier except for the part where it literally needs to be the rarest encounter type in the game, a reflect-abuse boss. … Where it is used as a base stat crutch, and only because Anet’s encounter design sucks so badly that Mesmer – as usual – is carrying everyone through it. Which in my book makes it Chaos trash tier.

Goooood stuff.

I mean, I typed that multiple times in different ways. You just glanced instead of reading. And that’s not the only place where Chaos is usable, that’s just where it shines.

Yeah, that’s definitely fair. I’m not saying that shatters are good, in fact I was hoping that Chrono would remove them before HoT came out because shatters, along with illusions are kind of holding back Mesmer.

Inb4 someone jumps on me for saying shatters and illusions are Mesmer so they can’t be holding Mes back.

musu.9205:

Druid : its good enough without Gotl . but pve people asked a dmg buff that just ruined everyone healing build .also Druid is brokenly op from start . It got so many nerf and still remain meta for past 2 years that does tell you something .

That’s a different issue.

Grace of the Land: 10% Condition + Damage, 10 targets (Nerfed from 15%, target cap increased to 10 from 5)
Spotter: 7% Critical Chance, 5 targets
Frost Spirit: 75% chance to deal 10% increased power damage, 5 targets (effective 7.5% damage boost)
Sun Spirit: 75% chance on hit to apply 2 stacks of 3s burning, 5 targets (affected by condi duration/damage of user, 8s ICD)
Glyph of Empowerment: 10% Damage, 5 targets (50% uptime max with perma alacrity)

The only other profession to give nearly this many buffs (but not actually) is Warrior.

Druid healing is one of the only professions whose party heal skills got Healing Power scaling addressed (and subsequently overtuned) in addition to having too many unique stacking buffs.

Carighan.6758:

Lepre.2519:

4.) The shatter traits confuse me. If I want a shatter build, I should play Chronomancer. So why not do something different? Let F1-F4 focus on buffing our clones and phantasms. Keeping our illusions up will help us blend in, reinforcing Mirage deception.

That mess is a mess because our main class mechanic – shatter – is still nothing but a delivery vehicle for trait effects. It’s so bad on its own that it might as well not exist.

But it is nice having panic buttons.

Mikkel.8427:

Refia Montes.3205:

The only time that clones don’t replace Phantasms the Sceptre Auto.

I wish they’d change ALL clone-producing abilities to work like the scepter auto. That would be a massive QoL change.

Bit late to the party but that would significantly nerf Sword. Being able to drop a sword3 for blinks or boon purge is pretty useful. Not spawning the clone also stops the blink.

Toeofdoom.6152:

• Drop feedback, take well of recall
• Now I need reflects, so equip + trait focus.
• That’s great, but because of sigil of concentration I often need to swap to shield and then find I can’t reflect for 10 seconds. Switch to a different sigil and use chaos to make up the difference – now I can stay in shield, then switch to focus whenever reflects are needed.

Right?
Step 3 is not immediately obvious

Uh, sort of?

Step 2 and 3 are merged, so it’s more:

• Condi Mes is brought for safe (low) DPS and Reflects

Chrono boonbot can reliably reflect without ruining rotation by reaching 100% boon duration without Sigil of Conc.

This lets Chrono:

• Have weaponswap up.
• Trait Focus
• Reliably Curtain
• Still run Well of Recall (or Feedback if they want overkill/redundancy options)

This requires:

• Chaotic Persistance (Chaos Grand Minor)

What you lose:

• Domination Line aka:
• Empowered Illusions (minimal dps gain)
  OR
• Confounding Suggestions (because your group doesn’t know how to cc)
• Blurred Inscriptions (distortion sharing is not necessary, main usage is for cooldown)
• Condi Mes

What you gain:

• Illusionary Defense (helps since Matthias is an attrition battle)
• Additional DPS slot[s]

I mean, you take one sentence and pull it out of context. So… have fun, I guess?

Kadj.6725:

Esplen.3940:

Against Matthias where reflects are necessary and needed on demand, being able to run a traited focus

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at first so I left it alone but I think you’re mistaken? Focus trait is in Inspiration. Manipulations gain reflect under Chaos, which is to say… it will start to affect their rotation, yes.

Oh yeah, my bad. As a chrono support, inspiration isn’t mandatory. That’s right, I totally forgot. /s

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at first so I left it alone but I think you’re mistaken?

I don’t know what part of traited focus involves running manipulations, but have fun with that. Chaos Insp Chrono works fine against Matthias (in fact, it works against any raid encounter that doesn’t utilize Distortion Sharing).

I’m not sure where your numbers are coming from. You don’t lose 3s of quickness by swapping to a Focus to reflect (you don’t lose any because the Chrono rotation at 100% BD isn’t ever pressing for more Quickness), and Focus reflect lasts a lot longer than 2s (it lasts 5s, which is more than enough time to reflect Matthias’ bubble).

Additionally, the point of running Chaos to not run Feedback is… wait for it… to not run Feedback (or need a meme kittenty condi mes build to bring Feedback for you). And yes, in many raids where they bring Condi Mes, they do so for the Condi Mes to take Feedback instead of the Chrono (because they have an open slot, not competing for more Alacrity). And while Alacrity is in abundance from Chrono, in a fight like Matthias, you’ll want every extra bit of Alacrity you can get because of the mechanics pushing people around (literally and figuratively, see tornadoes and poisons).

I’m not sure of your experience in raids as a Chrono (or Condi Mes), but Chaos is an acceptable line.

Going back to the initial statement in question (I’m still not sure why you’re fighting me on this):

Esplen.3940:

Oxlade.6931:

I’m traveling with work at the moment and havent had the pleasure of trying out the new specs. I’m with you, Esplen, I’m more of a PvE player than WvW/PvP.
Can you see the new spec with axe being a PvE spec for fractals, dungeons, raids etc?

Raids I can’t see Mirage being useful. Although, to be fair, I also think Condi Mesmer is a meme build that shouldn’t exist. The only “argument” I really hear about running it is it’s safe dps and it brings reflects. However, a Chrono can easily bring reflects without hampering their rotation, and if the Chrono is set up with 100% Boon Duration via Chaos, they can run a traited focus without even touching their utilities. For Cairn… I guess? But honestly Condi Mes is only “safe” because the dps comes from Phants.

Kadj.6725:

Chaos is a trash trait line with exactly one minor trait worth something and one major trait worth debating in specific comps.

It has exactly 1 minor, which is why it is ran. The Major is nice, but not necessary. Although if you want to talk about that, Inspiration is almost mandatory and ran specifically for 1 Major, everything else is icing on the cake.

Kadj.6725:

Esplen.3940:

However, a Chrono can easily bring reflects without hampering their rotation, and if the Chrono is set up with 100% Boon Duration via Chaos, they can run a traited focus without even touching their utilities.

Chaos is a trash trait line with exactly one minor trait worth something and one major trait worth debating in specific comps.

If you’re a boon bot, it doesn’t matter if you drop Dom for Chaos if you don’t utilize distort sharing (which isn’t necessary on most bosses). Chaos allows you to reach 100% boon duration without Sigil of Conc. Yes it IS a waste of 495 Concentration, but it gives you a lot more time to focus on mechanics. Against Matthias where reflects are necessary and needed on demand, being able to run a traited focus is a godsend as it has a lower cooldown than Feedback, can be popped if Matthias decides he wants to jump in the middle of his reflect phase, and allows the Chrono to flub rotation on Matthias (which will happen due to all the mobility mechanics).

“If Anet can’t fix Mirage, then please let Mesmers gain 1 Gem whenever you grab a Mirage Mirror in combat in PvP. That’s the only way people will play Mirage.”

Or something.

Daishi.6027:

Esplen.3940:

Daishi.6027:

But in regards to sword ambush would it not be good vs break bars? I could almost imgine a sw/sw + sw/focus set which was pretty common and with energy runes you could spam those dazes pretty quickly without relying on mirrors. (not to say that is an efficient thing to do, but wouldn’t at least one 3 clone sword ambush do a number on the bar?)

With 3 sword clones (lolwat?) you’ll be doing 400 breakbar damage. If you trait stun, you’ll do 400 breakbar damage.

Moa does 1000 breakbar damage, Graviy Well does 550 breakbar damage, Magic Bullet does 200 breakbar damage to 2 targets, Sword4/Scepter2 do 100 breakbar damage.

The only use I see for it is a quick 800 breakbar off of Sword ambush -> Diversion but that’s… never going to happen because the setup and execution mean you’ve done nothing for quite a while.

I haven’t raided so I don’t know how in depth the numbers get and the nuances of what is viable and what isn’t. So forgive my ignorance as a player murdering pleb.

But 400 on something relatively spammable doesn’t sound awful? Even a 2 clone ambush at 300 + diversion for a quick 700 seems alright by comparision when Gravity well is 550, and Moa is 1000. Plus I’m still under the impression that with mirrors you can do this multiple times, so like a two clone 300 ambush x 2 gives you 600 with little investment.

I don’t know how high Raid bosses get but isn’t the average boss monster out side of raids (including fractals) about 600? So even without doing it twice that is half the bar for at worst the cost of a doge?

What am I missing?

I mean, 800 breakbar damage is really good even though many Raid breakbars sit around 2-5k-ish. The problem, however, is that’s pure theoretical mumbo jumbo. You’re not going to have 3 sword clones out. You will, AT MOST, have 1 out and it will have a specific purpose (extra duration on CS aka no Mirage or boon strip aka no Ambush). Also, breakbars aren’t up constantly, so you’ll effectively be unable to dodge most of the time in addition to having to have your clones up for break phases. It’s great on paper, but when you take the moment to think about application it falls apart really, really fast. If it’s a 6th weapon skill, sure, why not. But if it interrupts your auto attack chain, pops up when you dodge, and is effectively everything your entire trait line is about, you’re going to run into a lot of problems.

Oxlade.6931:

I’m traveling with work at the moment and havent had the pleasure of trying out the new specs. I’m with you, Esplen, I’m more of a PvE player than WvW/PvP.
Can you see the new spec with axe being a PvE spec for fractals, dungeons, raids etc?

Well, I told myself I would drop Chronomancer as soon as PoF hits so I’m going to be running Mirage regardless. The reason for that is because I hate how Shields take up the same slot as backpacks and wings. It bothers me so much that I’m done with Chrono. When it comes to raids, though, I’ll run what I need to run and it’s most definitely not going to be Mirage in its current state. For Fractals, I can’t see it being ran, because it’s too vulnerable. Dungeons don’t really matter, you can run what you want although you’ll be tweaking traits/utilities/weapons per boss/dungeon as per normal Mesmer routine.

Raids I can’t see Mirage being useful. Although, to be fair, I also think Condi Mesmer is a meme build that shouldn’t exist. The only “argument” I really hear about running it is it’s safe dps and it brings reflects. However, a Chrono can easily bring reflects without hampering their rotation, and if the Chrono is set up with 100% Boon Duration via Chaos, they can run a traited focus without even touching their utilities. For Cairn… I guess? But honestly Condi Mes is only “safe” because the dps comes from Phants.

In current raid setups, Condi Mirage would be in place of Condi Mes so Matthias and Cairn, both of which would suck for Mirage. You can’t use Axe3 against either Cairn or Matthias as random positioning in raid fights can be death. Axe2 could be used, but won’t be able to be spammed as is necessary for such a skill. Unless you were to use a rotation of Phant auto → shatter → clones → ambush → shatter which requires a lot of precision, you’re probably better off being pure Condi Mes as the notable gains for going Mirage would be Condi Damage on Vigor and Condi Duration. Also, that kind of precision defeats the purpose for being a Mesmer on Cairn or Matthias as now you have a rotation that requires positioning and constant focus.

So… I don’t see Mirage in a very good place. It was made to fight against Players and, from what it looks like, it doesn’t do that job well enough to solidify its place in any game mode meta.

Daishi.6027:

But in regards to sword ambush would it not be good vs break bars? I could almost imgine a sw/sw + sw/focus set which was pretty common and with energy runes you could spam those dazes pretty quickly without relying on mirrors. (not to say that is an efficient thing to do, but wouldn’t at least one 3 clone sword ambush do a number on the bar?)

With 3 sword clones (lolwat?) you’ll be doing 400 breakbar damage. If you trait stun, you’ll do 400 breakbar damage.

Moa does 1000 breakbar damage, Graviy Well does 550 breakbar damage, Magic Bullet does 200 breakbar damage to 2 targets, Sword4/Scepter2 do 100 breakbar damage.

The only use I see for it is a quick 800 breakbar off of Sword ambush → Diversion but that’s… never going to happen because the setup and execution mean you’ve done nothing for quite a while.

I’m a PvE player, I do raids, fractals, dungeons (those still exist?) and honestly I can’t see myself using Sword on Mirage because you’re losing out on so much for a daze and a clone. If you want clone gen, you can use Deceptions and Deceptive Evasion. if you want dazes.. F3, Moa, MoD, SoD, Pistol5, Scepter2, Sword4, Focus4 all do the same job but better.

It doesn’t have to be godly damage, but if your class mechanic is weaker than an auto attack, there’s something wrong. (Also GS ambush is weaker than a GS auto attack, and Spear ambush is weaker than a spear auto attack.)

I’m not going to quit saying it: All the ambushes are scaled as if we have 3 clones with Infinite Horizon. That’s the only way any of the ambushes do anything significant. Even Scepter Ambush is basically a mini Scepter3 merged with Phase Retreat (without any clones).

As for False Oasis I think people are just knee jerk reacting. The only dilemma I see with it is the Mirror being placed where you cast it. I would like to see it become a ground target so you can predict or even set up something.

One issue I have with Sword Ambush is the scaling. In PvE with 3300+ power, this is the damage of the Sword Ambush vs Sword Autos.

It’s a Power weapon with a Power Ambush. It does daze and spawn a clone, but does that justify making it weaker than a sword auto while taking longer?

I like the mechanics. But the entire class seems unpolished and balanced around a traitline very different than what we’re given. Perhaps the same traits, but they’ve already been nerfed and shuffled.

The unpolished is a lot of mechanics feel off and don’t work well (IAmbush/Axe3 putting you with wrong facing/out of range, MAdvance cast time/range req, Jaunt almost requires quick-cast due to low range, False Oasis small drawn out heal). The list of problems is really long and incorporates almost everything given.

One thing to note is that I’m almost entirely sure that the ambushes are balanced around Infinite Horizon, which is kind of counter-intuitive to how major traits and class mechanics should be built. The reason I say that is that all of the ambushes are pretty lackluster and weak when done with just you. You can trait them to be decent, but the only way they’re “out of control” is if you chain them with multiple clones. They aren’t ever actually powerful by themselves.

Mirage feels like a non-elite line as it is now. I’m not saying that the weapon, utilities, or mechanics are bad in concept, they just aren’t tuned to Mesmer… or the game, really. The spec doesn’t need to be scrapped, but it’s not polished. Things need to get smoothed out, moved around, and upgraded, to be completely honest. In the current state I don’t see it having many viable options.