Salt of a casual, dedicated Chaos Mirage

The title tells you all you need to know, really. My mesmer is 7 years old but I've only been actively playing for a couple of years in total, returning for the end of PoF when I saw that a build had arrived which let clones do damage, reminding me of the days where clones exploded on death and caused a random condition, drawing me back into the game. I played Mirage for all of HoT, all of PoF, through all living world episodes, in PvP and everywhere else. It's my main and I'm invested in it and its identity. I started working on Astralaria, hah! What a joke. Now whenever I go into PvP and WvW, which was my favorite game modes and certainly the ones with the most longevity, I'm not so sure anymore.The time I spent in PvE seems to be utterly wasted, as having 1 dodge means you gotta play completely differently than you do in PvE. By that I mean, to a much larger extent than other professions do. I've tried to make it work, I really have, but I'll never get fully used to the switch from PvE into PvP, especially not when I take breaks from PvP or the game as a whole. Your experience in PvE will actually harm you greatly when you enter PvP, that's just not good design. I use Wizard amulet with Divinity runes, and yet I have to carefully use my 1 dodge defensively instead of offensively, use my mirage mirror perfectly, and always keep my finger on Distortion and never use it to finish someone off because otherwise I'll die when someone comes along and presses his Big Damage Button. God forbid that 2 enemies come along and press their Big Damage Buttons in succession. Meanwhile, dealing damage to players as a condi Mirage is a delicate dance that takes 1 specific build with Ineptitude which turns Mirage into another shatter build which uses your whole toolkit just to do damage, and can be completely negated by cleanse, leaving you with nothing for your efforts. Sigil of Energy has even gotten worse because you'll overcap your energy every time you switch for that extra emergency dodge, unless you have exactly 25 energy. If you have less then you still won't be able to dodge and you'll die, there's no buffer anymore. The struggle is real. Then you get yelled at by other players (as is tradition) for not having distortion up 24/7 or for not being at far when you're mid team fight, or for not being at mid team fight when you're at far, or generally just for not being all over the map and winning every 1v1 as well as every team fight because that's roughly what's expected of mesmers by people who just press Big Damage Buttons.

I have never seen a game with PvP that's in such a sorry state, and I hear it happens often. The balance seems almost random and disconnected and overly hypothetical, and we're just supposed to make the best of it. It's so absurd that I'm still considering whether to craft Astralaria because there's just no way that this parody of PvP balance is going to stay for long, right? At some point they gotta realize how ugly it is, fix it and thereby give me a reason to go for Astralaria again. Right... ?

@Argonil.6970 said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

@paShadoWn.5723 said:

@"Argonil.6970" said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

First of all, you're missing the point completely, I wasn't complaining that clones don't do damage. Second, if by "doing damage" you mean a third of the damage that axe does, then yeah, it does damage. It also has worse utility.

No it is you missing the point. I advise a core/chrono build that allows the clones to do sizeable condition damage with no downsides of Mirage.

@paShadoWn.5723 said:No it is you missing the point. I advise a core/chrono build that allows the clones to do sizeable condition damage with no downsides of Mirage.

Your advice for mirage players is to not play mirage. Really solved the problem there didn't you? /clapIf I wanted to play core/chrono then I would probably be playing that, mate.

Me sowwy, Me dumb-dumb.Keep the mirage just slot in Dueling for clone bleeds on crit, Scepter for Torment-casting clones and loads of crit and condition damage.Is my bad Inglish better and more understandable now?

If I keep mirage then why on Tyria would I still be using scepter over axe? This solves nothing, you just made me ranged. I'll reserve my attention for people who actually make comments that are relevant to my discussion.

@paShadoWn.5723 said:

@Argonil.6970 said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

the only damage scepter clones do,is mental damage to people that pretend they know how mesmer works.

https://imgur.com/a/wbNHkX7You are ranged, you got block to use in place of a second dodge, and a huge nuke. This solves your survivability problems.

Axe AA is around 200 damage now so.Illusionary Counter on the other hand deals 2400 torment over 8 seconds, 4800 if moving, which is VERY likely. Is it better than the axe?

@paShadoWn.5723 said:Axe AA is around 200 damage now so.Illusionary Counter on the other hand deals 2400 torment over 8 seconds, 4800 if moving, which is VERY likely. Is it better than the axe?

I actually measured it in DPS when I said scepter only does a third of the damage. Me and my clones get 2k ticks of bleed and torment on a stationary target just from auto-attacking, and our AA also does a fair chunk of damage on its many impacts. I think its auto-attack alone does higher DPS than all your skills do in tandem, nevermind our ambush attack or our axe 3 which are both stronger than the scepter's. Now stop making this a thread about that please.

@paShadoWn.5723 said:Well good luck melee auto-attacking with mesmer in the current meta, esteemed boss-masher.Also have you noticed that I am the only vet sPvP mesmer giving advice right now? Forum troll doesn't counts.Good luck getting better advice! Dumb-dumb out.

Imagine having 700 games on a class and considering oneself a veteran, OOF.Nice build btw, condi build with 16k hp and light armor, what could possibly go wrong.Im sure these 180 bleeds combined with 240 tormet procs are gonna pressure people away from you. kekW

EDIT@"Argonil.6970" ignore the guy, he only plays unranked. hes the type of a guy that will play his shitty build in unranked, not feed his ass off and consider it a win.you can make mirage work, but I doubt you can make chaos mirage a thing, chaos is not worth taking anymore, you used to have RELIABLE sustained condi pressure -> no more. Chaos offers nothing, offensive traits from domi/dueling/illusions will keep you alive more due to pressuring enemies into submission more then chaos can ever hope to.There are couple build I can give you to try.Inspiration/illusion/mirage -> sword/pistol + axe/torch -> you can switch torch with pistol.Idea of the build is to have signet trait and disortion trait from mirage to gain ambushes from signets, build is mobile and survivable but kinda lacks power, and is not good at anything really, you cant 1v1 nodes since you disort decap yourself, thief still fucks you over, you can run well but you can never even try to fight back for real, and other broken classes are equally tanky with more dmg/bullshit.Then you have what people consider " meta " mirage. Same weapons ( btw you can switch pistol with torch if you want between sword/axe ) here you take domi instead of inspiration and you take axe trait. Its a burst build that cant really burst, I consider it utility, it removes boons, has insta interupts in MoD and F3, has power block and alright damage. Lacks any sustain and gets shit on by thief, dies to random aoe bullshit and doesnt have a staying power, extended fights = you are fucked.Last one is power axe meme burst build. Domi,illusion,mirage. Berk amulet, lynx rune. MoD,blink,SoI -> you can wreck some people, the dumber they are the harder you wreck their asses. If they aint dumb you get 1shot and ragequit for weeks since you died to a holo using fucking healing skill to hit you for 80% of your life. ( yes im still salty ). If you are interested ill post the build themselves but im sleepy off to bed cya

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@paShadoWn.5723 said:

@Argonil.6970 said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

Infinite horizon clones ambush does dmg dear mesmer main

no respect to any chaos mesmer. unless berserker

@wevh.2903 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@paShadoWn.5723 said:

@Argonil.6970 said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

3 clone ambush on sinister amulet with every hit connecting did 2,5k-3k dmg.in reality you wont get to run around with 3 clones you wont get to use sinister but wizard at best so the crit chance is lowered, and half the hit will miss since they can be sidestep, add in clones hitting while being out of range or attacking targets that are behind cover add in the fact that those are condis that get removed and you end upwith 500-1000 dmg that you ended up going through several trait synergies for.

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@wevh.2903 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@paShadoWn.5723 said:

@Argonil.6970 said:let clones do damageLolwut? Condi/crit Dueling Scepter clones were doing damage, are doing damage, and in no perceivable danger of stopping doing damage. Try it!

Dude 3k per dodge xddd and is not even ur own auto attack

There is no way to justify Inzinite horizon trait to exist

@"wevh.2903"that " auto attack " requires a dodge, 3 clones, 2 traitlines, clown 16k hp no toughness build and still does less damage then EE.if you try to make something working from it, it will realistically hit you will end up with 1k damage most of the time and dipping for 1,5k dmg on a good day.Keep in mind that 3k was on SINISTER amulet with 3 clones in point blank range. Even bound from thief hits harder. On top of being a 10% dmg buff with a blast field.IH WAS good when it was averaging ~6-7k dmg on scepter back when you had 2 dodges, and vigor. now you deal 20% of the damage with half the dodges while having to give up chaos for ilu.

@wevh.2903 said:Dude 3k per dodge xddd and is not even ur own auto attack

Is that why every mesmer plays IH now?

Wait a minute...

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@"wevh.2903"that " auto attack " requires a dodge, 3 clones, 2 traitlines, clown 16k hp no toughness build and still does less damage then EE.if you try to make something working from it, it will realistically hit you will end up with 1k damage most of the time and dipping for 1,5k dmg on a good day.Keep in mind that 3k was on SINISTER amulet with 3 clones in point blank range. Even bound from thief hits harder. On top of being a 10% dmg buff with a blast field.IH WAS good when it was averaging ~6-7k dmg on scepter back when you had 2 dodges, and vigor. now you deal 20% of the damage with half the dodges while having to give up chaos for ilu.

All traits wich does dmg on dodge are bad design

I was warrior main before february patch and i remember killing ppl from dodge rolling on them .

Chaos infinite horizon build was played with sage and the gameplay of that builf was about spamming dodges for shared ambush attack (top mesmer winner of a 1v1 tournament literally said me that , not to shatter clones often)

How could u made a trait makes a mesmer build played around not shaterring clones wich is the main profession mechanic of the class?

Clones shouldnt do dmg apart from phantasm SINGLE attack .

Some other dodge based builds was vault spammer or holo nade dodge trait.

Ofc after february and mirage single dodge nerf infinite horizon isnt as strong anymore like wart dodge dmg

But like i remember u saying bad desing stuff should be rework regardless of being or not playable at the moment

@Tayga.3192 said:

@wevh.2903 said:Dude 3k per dodge xddd and is not even ur own auto attack

Bad> @Tayga.3192 said:

@wevh.2903 said:Dude 3k per dodge xddd and is not even ur own auto attack

Did i say it is good trait at the moment or something?

Leonidrex said clones doenst do dmg and thats wrong , they do with infinitr horizom

Also it is a bad design trait , not being playable at the moment doenst mean it is not a bad design , the degeneration of sage chaos build was the maximous exponent

OP, what rank are you?

@wevh.2903 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@wevh.2903that " auto attack " requires a dodge, 3 clones, 2 traitlines, clown 16k hp no toughness build and still does less damage then EE.if you try to make something working from it, it will realistically hit you will end up with 1k damage most of the time and dipping for 1,5k dmg on a good day.Keep in mind that 3k was on SINISTER amulet with 3 clones in point blank range. Even bound from thief hits harder. On top of being a 10% dmg buff with a blast field.IH WAS good when it was averaging ~6-7k dmg on scepter back when you had 2 dodges, and vigor. now you deal 20% of the damage with half the dodges while having to give up chaos for ilu.

never said its good design, all I said its unplayable trash since it deals no damage and eats your entire build for it.mesmer didnt use sage but deadshot, for the crit chance to get bleed procs from sharper img on scepter ambush.To top it off the guy that said it was meaning core/chrono build, so no IH and no ambushes. he ment 200 dmg torment that lands once every 5s at best. Hes a unranked player pretending to be an expert in the field.

@Argonil.6970 said:The title tells you all you need to know, really. My mesmer is 7 years old but I've only been actively playing for a couple of years in total, returning for the end of PoF when I saw that a build had arrived which let clones do damage, reminding me of the days where clones exploded on death and caused a random condition, drawing me back into the game. I played Mirage for all of HoT, all of PoF, through all living world episodes, in PvP and everywhere else. It's my main and I'm invested in it and its identity. I started working on Astralaria, hah! What a joke. Now whenever I go into PvP and WvW, which was my favorite game modes and certainly the ones with the most longevity, I'm not so sure anymore.The time I spent in PvE seems to be utterly wasted, as having 1 dodge means you gotta play completely differently than you do in PvE. By that I mean, to a much larger extent than other professions do. I've tried to make it work, I really have, but I'll never get fully used to the switch from PvE into PvP, especially not when I take breaks from PvP or the game as a whole. Your experience in PvE will actually harm you greatly when you enter PvP, that's just not good design. I use Wizard amulet with Divinity runes, and yet I have to carefully use my 1 dodge defensively instead of offensively, use my mirage mirror perfectly, and always keep my finger on Distortion and never use it to finish someone off because otherwise I'll die when someone comes along and presses his Big Damage Button. God forbid that 2 enemies come along and press their Big Damage Buttons in succession. Meanwhile, dealing damage to players as a condi Mirage is a delicate dance that takes 1 specific build with Ineptitude which turns Mirage into another shatter build which uses your whole toolkit just to do damage, and can be completely negated by cleanse, leaving you with nothing for your efforts. Sigil of Energy has even gotten worse because you'll overcap your energy every time you switch for that extra emergency dodge, unless you have exactly 25 energy. If you have less then you still won't be able to dodge and you'll die, there's no buffer anymore. The struggle is real. Then you get yelled at by other players (as is tradition) for not having distortion up 24/7 or for not being at far when you're mid team fight, or for not being at mid team fight when you're at far, or generally just for not being all over the map and winning every 1v1 as well as every team fight because that's roughly what's expected of mesmers by people who just press Big Damage Buttons.

I have never seen a game with PvP that's in such a sorry state, and I hear it happens often. The balance seems almost random and disconnected and overly hypothetical, and we're just supposed to make the best of it. It's so absurd that I'm still considering whether to craft Astralaria because there's just no way that this parody of PvP balance is going to stay for long, right? At some point they gotta realize how ugly it is, fix it and thereby give me a reason to go for Astralaria again. Right... ?

Tl;dr: I'm to bad to adapt

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:you can make mirage work, but I doubt you can make chaos mirage a thing, chaos is not worth taking anymore, you used to have RELIABLE sustained condi pressure -> no more. Chaos offers nothing, offensive traits from domi/dueling/illusions will keep you alive more due to pressuring enemies into submission more then chaos can ever hope to.There are couple build I can give you to try.Inspiration/illusion/mirage -> sword/pistol + axe/torch -> you can switch torch with pistol.Idea of the build is to have signet trait and disortion trait from mirage to gain ambushes from signets, build is mobile and survivable but kinda lacks power, and is not good at anything really, you cant 1v1 nodes since you disort decap yourself, thief still kitten you over, you can run well but you can never even try to fight back for real, and other broken classes are equally tanky with more dmg/kitten.Then you have what people consider " meta " mirage. Same weapons ( btw you can switch pistol with torch if you want between sword/axe ) here you take domi instead of inspiration and you take axe trait. Its a burst build that cant really burst, I consider it utility, it removes boons, has insta interupts in MoD and F3, has power block and alright damage. Lacks any sustain and gets kitten on by thief, dies to random aoe kitten and doesnt have a staying power, extended fights = you are kitten.Last one is power axe meme burst build. Domi,illusion,mirage. Berk amulet, lynx rune. MoD,blink,SoI -> you can wreck some people, the dumber they are the harder you wreck their kitten. If they aint dumb you get 1shot and ragequit for weeks since you died to a holo using kitten healing skill to hit you for 80% of your life. ( yes im still salty ). If you are interested ill post the build themselves but im sleepy off to bed cya

Thanks, I think I'll give the meta mirage a go while dreaming of greener pastures. I don't have any boon removal in my current spec, would be welcome. I was using axe/torch with the overly nerfed staff, for its utility and protection on demand. The staff trait in Chaos actually proved to be the best one just because you get protection every time you pop Chaos Armor from your healing skill's chaos aura if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, it's still not that great.

Bring back 2nd dodge and mirage is fine