I said something about recording things to have proof for other things, and then I said some things that had words in them, so with all the things I made a thing for you to do the thing with.

Mechanics:

Sand through Glass can fail on terrain (?), preventing the evade and Mirror while going on full CD. (0:38)Crystal Sands may not get cast but instead goes on interrupt cd (3s) when attempting to cast. (0:16)Crystal Sands typically has 2-3 reach the destination. That doesn't mean they hit an enemy. (1:10)IAmbush puts you within 600-ish around your target. You maintain same direction facing. (1:24)IAmbush does not guarantee Axe ambush to be in range (only melee ambush). It may miss even if you cast it. (1:35)To cast an Ambush off of IAmbush, you need to spam 1 because you aren't facing your target. (1:41)Deceptive Evasion + Infinite Horizon does synergize (dodging spawns a clone that ambushes). Whether it's useful is something else completely. (2:00)Dodging while transformed causes Dodge, not Mirage Cloak. No Mirage Cloak traits will trigger. (2:05)

Movement Mechanics (2:09)

Superspeed OOC = 400 movespeed.Swiftness OOC = 400 movespeed.Superspeed + Exec Axe = Abstract distance. (2:12)Swiftness + Exec Axe = Same Abstract distance. (2:20)

Sidestep Speed: (2:45)

OOC = 180 movespeed.IC = 180 movespeed.Swiftness = 180 movespeed.Superspeed = 180 movespeed.

Backpedal Speed: (3:03)

OOC = 105 movespeed.IC = 105 movespeed.Swiftness = 105 movespeed.Superspeed = 105 movespeed.

I can't tell if Mirage is trying to be meta (i.e. something that appears real or possible but is not in fact so) or just severely lacking cohesion.

Also, directed at someone who makes community videos, fact checking is very important. Some information is ok to speculate, but information that can be easily tested (see: Exec Axe + movespeed) should probably not be thrown around with such vim and vigor.

Excellent video and display of the broken mirage mechanics.

@Esplen.3940 said:Also, directed at someone who makes community videos, fact checking is very important. Some information is ok to speculate, but information that can be easily tested (see: Exec Axe + movespeed) should probably not be thrown around with such vim and vigor.

I'd comment, but I'd like to go at least a month without getting banned again.

is 2:09-2:44 supposed to work differently?

@Ghotistyx.6942 said:is 2:09-2:44 supposed to work differently?

No, it's just showing proof that certain popular personalities might want to fact check before lying in public.

@Ghotistyx.6942 said:is 2:09-2:44 supposed to work differently?

Nope. That's completely intentional and expected based on the movespeed breakdowns and caps (outside of Mounted movespeed). This information has been fairly common knowledge to players who understand the game mechanics and has been this way since GW1. A more in-depth breakdown can be found on the wiki, although it doesn't list Backpedal/Sidestep preventing movement speed gains from Swiftness/Superspeed.

It was mostly an informative section targeted towards people who were either misinformed or spreading misinformation. I have been stating this information since it had been stated on a prominent figures video, but I didn't get a chance to show video proof documenting the failures.

Looking at the sidestep/backstep speedcaps just makes me think of FFXIV, where there's two different movement options you can select from in the options menu: Standard, where movement can be set up like GW2's, strafing and backstepping and all, which is good for melee based classes, or legacy controls, where movement is more akin to "pressing S makes your character turn and walk full speed towards the camera, pressing W makes your character walk full speed to the left of camera, holding down WAS will trigger backstepping for minor adjustment, etc", (sort of like if it was played with an analog stick) which is more useful for aoe dodging and casters. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but they're both supported at least.

If it was present in GW2 (which will never happen imo), it could screw up auto attacks, but at least mirages could dodge a good distance without 360 noscoping their mouse around.

That's actually how it works in Action Camera. If you press any direction, your character will walk in that direction (facing and all). This works well with Superspeed for escaping, but requires Action Camera (which is a pain and a half to use on keyboard) and doesn't work if you use a skill (you auto-face your target when attacking/channeling skills that require targets).

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Excellent video and display of the broken mirage mechanics.

@Esplen.3940 said:Also, directed at someone who makes community videos, fact checking is very important. Some information is ok to speculate, but information that can be easily tested (see: Exec Axe + movespeed) should probably not be thrown around with such vim and vigor.

The rest of us would also like to have you for atleast a month haha

I feel, as always, that many parts of the Mirage are close to a sensible design, but the overall lack of a cohesive theme, idea or "design spec" for the elite means nothing fits anything.

I do however favor the idea of a highly annoying and mobile combatant who is difficult to pin down. I mean sure, base Mesmer was supposed to be that, but I doubt I'll fine someone interested in doing that rework at ANet...

New central themeConstant supply of mirrors makes a mirage both difficult to hit and highly dangerous on the offense, but due to the requirement of touching mirrors makes them "shackled" to the area where they spawned mirrors ahead of time. Strong when sticking to a small-ish area, weak when they have to leave it.

Steps to get there

• Make mirrors last 8-10 seconds.
• All Deception skills now spawn mirrors. Jaunt spawns one where you left, but only if you teleport enough distance (>300). Oasis now 6s, ticks thrice (every 2), each time gives the Mesmer Mirage Cloak if they are inside the tiny area. Spawns a mirror at the end if the Mesmer missed all cloak-ticks.
• Ambush skills now have a 2s window of opportunity.
• Trait tiers reworks: Adept is about generating clones, in 3 different ways. Master is about dealing more damage. Grandmaster is about enhanced effects of Mirage Cloak. Each tier offers 1 passive option (for example, axe trait), 1 guaranteed proc option and 1 conditional proc option. They don't necessarily have to be about the same thing (for example, Master should not be 3 traits for Axe), but the decision should be between most-reliable-but-weakest to least-reliable-but-strongest. This structure gives Mirage some much needed reliable mechanics/output.
• Superspeed on Cloak stays, but one GM trait adds a short teleport in the direction you are moving when gaining cloak, effectively adding movement back to MC if needed.
• Shatters having a chance to produce mirrors is now baseline.
• Phantasms if killed directly through incoming damage now become a mirror.
• If the production of mirrors is deemed too strong, make enemies able to touch them to "shatter" them, but this spawns a clone against them if the Mesmer isn't capped on Phantasms.
• Axe is retuned as a highly "sticky" melee weapon, with the 2-skill automatically trading damage ticks for extra movement range on it if the enemy is further than 130 units when you press it.
• No more clones-do-ambush-skills. It's just too difficult to balance. Ambush skills buffed accordingly.

Sorry to come over a bit bluntly but why would you even backpedal and sidestep to begin with? Just press W and use your mouse to change directions (right mouse).This has been the way to move your character around for basically all MMO's that support it.

Yeah, I wasn't aware how big a difference strafing and backpeddling made even while under Superspeed. I think for the Mirage Cloak to function well in this game, they need to offset that somehow so that a Mirage can run in all directions at equal speeds, at least while Cloak is active.

@Skuzz.6580 said:Sorry to come over a bit bluntly but why would you even backpedal and sidestep to begin with? Just press W and use your mouse to change directions (right mouse).This has been the way to move your character around for basically all MMO's that support it.

You're right. Why would we? Oh wait, because we have to. Have you ever dodged backwards or to the side? Yeah, that's something Mirage can't do anymore. Imagine if you could only dodge in place or forward. That's what Mirage gets. Admittedly, you can aim it, but then you aren't attacking anymore.

Mirage's class mechanic is the ability to continue attacking while dodging, because we replace the dodge with "Mirage Cloak".One blatant disadvantage is you no longer gain the panic movespeed boost from dodging (~300 movement in 0.75s, keeping in mind max running movespeed is 400/s). To compensate for losing a pretty significant base mechanic of the game (and considering a lot of PvE encounters require you to move out of segments, not just dodge attacks), you gain Superspeed for 0.75s (which gives you ~300 movement). Of course, that 300 has to be forward and if you're still attacking your enemy, forward is only towards them.

The point of that segment of the video was to show how clunky Mirage Cloak is for mobility and that it only half works (at best).Also, If you are casting (an offensive ability) or attacking, you automatically face your target.

There are a few workarounds, but they're terrible band-aids that require a lot more keystrokes for the end user and don't solve the issue.

• Playing in Action Camera allows the user to always be "moving forward" as long as the user is not also attacking.
• Using the About-Face Keybinding allows for the user to quickly turn around and move.

The catch is that these workarounds require you to not be attacking, thereby defeating the purpose of the class mechanic.

Lastly, and I didn't show this in the video (or get any capture of it at all): most ambushes root you. You only get access to ambushes when you evade (or pick up a diamond Mirror), thus negating your movement even further, if you want to play the spec how it's given.

Well to be fair, having a "weaker dodge" (which we knew Mirage Cloak was going to be , right from the start) is supposed to offset the fact that we get an offensive benefit from dodging, something other classes tend to do not do (there are exceptions, as always).

Of course, they blew it in two places at once:

• Ambush skills are so weak, half of them you wish you could disable so they don't overwrite the autoattack.
• Access to Mirage Cloak is far too limited and too finicky for the above reasoning to make sense.

@Skuzz.6580 said:Sorry to come over a bit bluntly but why would you even backpedal and sidestep to begin with? Just press W and use your mouse to change directions (right mouse).This has been the way to move your character around for basically all MMO's that support it.

Not sure if serious. Have you never dodged sideways or backwards in different game modes? I can think of multiple situations where those types of dodges are useful and even required in raids, spvp and wvw.

@Carighan.6758 said:Well to be fair, having a "weaker dodge" (which we knew Mirage Cloak was going to be , right from the start) is supposed to offset the fact that we get an offensive benefit from dodging, something other classes tend to do not do (there are exceptions, as always).

Of course, they blew it in two places at once:

• Ambush skills are so weak, half of them you wish you could disable so they don't overwrite the autoattack.
• Access to Mirage Cloak is far too limited and too finicky for the above reasoning to make sense.

Daredevil had a weaker dodge and arenanet changed that by giving DD 3 dodges and different powerful buffs to their dodge mechanic making it a straight up upgrade in every possible way compared to base dodge. I'd much prefer arenanet weaken our Mirage dodge and make it an always upgrade over base dodge than keeping it the way it is now (considering I don't think the sacrifice worthwhile). Losing side- and backdodge mobility is not an option (in a game which has all content designed around how base dodge works) unless they want Mirage to remain a gimmick spec that is barely useful in all game modes.

Agreed on the ambush situation. When your ambush skills are weaker than the normal autoattack, you might as well not have the mechanic. Since Mirage is all about movement, having rooting ambush skills is even worse design. I got nothing against channeled ambush skills (to make our mirage dodge protection actually useful) but taking away even more mobility does not make sense.

@Skuzz.6580 said:Sorry to come over a bit bluntly but why would you even backpedal and sidestep to begin with? Just press W and use your mouse to change directions (right mouse).This has been the way to move your character around for basically all MMO's that support it.

I think the idea is that with a normal dodge we've always been able to just backwards dodge. Also, if I understand this correctly, there is clunkiness with Ambushes if you're not facing the target. In the end, this means two things: With Mirage Cloak, you're either surrendering defense or you're surrendering offense, not getting the both of them, which was the whole point of it. And, in the end, it means we have something that's... maybe not worse, but definitely more troublesome and clunky than the original.

Honestly, I'd rather just have it blink us around while giving us Mirage Cloak, then give us some traits centered around teleports since we have so many of them.

Nice video, @Esplen.3940. I must have messed up somewhere in my testing of DE+IH, glad that that's cleared up.

@Dondagora.9645 said:Nice video, @Esplen.3940. I must have messed up somewhere in my testing of DE+IH, glad that that's cleared up.

Yep, I knew I should have made a video about it so I recorded my entire stress test.

There is one thing that I had a hard time finding my recording of, and that's that you can use Axe3 while out of range and it will blink you, but it blinks you ~450 in any direction from yourself, so you could end up further than your target (not a good chase tool).

Also, it's weird that Axe2 is so powerful (solid condi output + whirl finisher) yet Mirage gains 0 fields. You could argue that Chrono has fields, but you can't use them together, so that's a bit silly. Also, it spawns a clone. Why is the strong attack the clone one?

@Esplen.3940 said:That's actually how it works in Action Camera. If you press any direction, your character will walk in that direction (facing and all). This works well with Superspeed for escaping, but requires Action Camera (which is a pain and a half to use on keyboard) and doesn't work if you use a skill (you auto-face your target when attacking/channeling skills that require targets).

I guess, yeah. I still wouldn't use it personally since I don't like action cameras targeting mechanics and it's override of left click/right click, but it's made for a different purpose (quazi first person/over shoulder use) so the most I use it for is a quick toggle on my mouse with look behind so I can do seamless forward phase retreats.

Regardless, I'm still going to try to play Mirage and hope they fix some stuff, but I feel I'm not going to last long before I switch to spellbreaker (Ross meme here) if the movement feels subpar. Which would suck for me since I have an Astralaria in the bank for this.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Carighan.6758 said:Well to be fair, having a "weaker dodge" (which we knew Mirage Cloak was going to be , right from the start) is

supposed to

offset the fact that we get an offensive benefit from dodging, something other classes tend to do not do (there are exceptions, as always).

Of course, they blew it in two places at once:

• Ambush skills are so weak, half of them you wish you could disable so they don't overwrite the autoattack.
• Access to Mirage Cloak is far too limited and too finicky for the above reasoning to make sense.

Ironically (or not I guess, I don't really know), its thieves who are some of the loudest proponents I've seen claiming that mirage cloak is not only fine, its ridiculously overpowered. I guess they already forgot DD in its entirety. Seriously, with our dodges being turned into offensive things, we really need way more endurange regen, and ideally an extra 50 endurance as well

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Ghotistyx.6942 said:is 2:09-2:44 supposed to work differently?

We can all make false claims and mistakes.

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Carighan.6758 said:Well to be fair, having a "weaker dodge" (which we knew Mirage Cloak was going to be , right from the start) is

supposed to

offset the fact that we get an offensive benefit from dodging, something other classes tend to do not do (there are exceptions, as always).

Of course, they blew it in two places at once:

• Ambush skills are so weak, half of them you wish you could disable so they don't overwrite the autoattack.
• Access to Mirage Cloak is far too limited and too finicky for the above reasoning to make sense.

Id love a third dodge bar but anet might be hesitant considering how dd turned out to be.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Ghotistyx.6942 said:is 2:09-2:44 supposed to work differently?

Sure, but when you have a certain amount of following and influence you also have a ceratin amount of responsibility (both towards your audience as well as to yourself to not lose audience due to loss of trust).

While I personally am not holding it against said youtube since he had to bring out a lot of content in a very short amount of time, something this basic and easily checked especially when made a big deal of (it's his main argument as to why mirage is amazing) should be checked first.

@zealex.9410 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Carighan.6758 said:Well to be fair, having a "weaker dodge" (which we knew Mirage Cloak was going to be , right from the start) is

supposed to

offset the fact that we get an offensive benefit from dodging, something other classes tend to do not do (there are exceptions, as always).

Of course, they blew it in two places at once:

• Ambush skills are so weak, half of them you wish you could disable so they don't overwrite the autoattack.
• Access to Mirage Cloak is far too limited and too finicky for the above reasoning to make sense.

Meaning? DD is the go to +1 class in spvp making it almost required, the number 1 class for running around and farming materials, one of the top dps for raids and one of the best roamers for wvw. Why do thiefs get to have such a dps class yet mesmer do not?

The third dodge bar won't add a lot, to be honest. We still have very little Endurance gain with:

1. Vigor on False Oasis (5s dur, 30s CD)
2. Vigor on Shatter (Nomad's Endurance, 3s per Shatter) NOT PER ILLUSION
3. Vigor on Critical hit (Critical Infusion, 5s Dur, 10s ICD)
4. Endurance regen on Mirage Return (?? name??) (25 Endurance, 2 3/4s cast times)
5. Vigor on Shatter (Bountiful Disillusionment, 8s on Cry of Frustration) NOT PER ILLUSION

Don't compare it to Daredevil's third dodge, since that's technically their class mechanic (as well as "improved dodges"). Their healing skill grants Endurance regen. They can grant all of their Physical Skills (including the heal) to provide Endurance Regen. They can trait their staff to give Endurance Regen on skill usage. They get Endurance when they use Steal on an enemy.

Additionally, base Thief has access to Vigor (Vigor on evade, Vigor on heal, Vigor on steal) and still more Endurance regen ( Signet of Agility, Dagger Auto2, CC-Trait).

Note that the endurance regen is pure endurance, not timegated endurance regen like Vigor, which can also be stripped or corrupted.

Ironically, iirc, DD is considered bad because of the Staff Master: Deal bonus damage when your endurance is not full while wielding a staff. You are now forced to include dodges as part of your rotation to maintain optimal DPS. This means that you're down a dodge, putting you effectively back at 2 dodges like with other professions. This is mainly from a PvE perspective.

However, you already have dodges as part of your rotation due to BD and LT damage boosts to their respective damage types since the bonus lasts for 4s and dodges recharge every 10s (up to 5s at max recharge rate). The awkward part is that they end up with TOO much endurance because Staff Master also gives Endurance for initiative spent.

So yes, Daredevil does have some conflicting mechanics (mainly one trait that conflicts with itself and forces excessive dodging), but it still has 3 dodges and heavy access to Endurance, compared to Mirage which only lets you move forward on dodges, roots you if you want to use their "power attacks" (which, in most cases, are weaker than auto attacks), and offers next to no Endurance regen (including Vigor).

One can argue that DD's class mechanic is really its improved dodge, and not the third bar of endurance. Otherwise you would have a GM that didn't give you an improved dodge.

Also of course we can't compare it to DD's dodges. Thief gets an offensive dodge and then gets the resources to back that up. Mirage gets an offensive dodge that is, in every way, worse than what DD got, yet gets nothing to back it up. The comparison is mainly, that we have this other elite spec whose mechanic was built on dodging, and they were given the necessary endurange regen to support that. While mirage's mechanic is built on dodging and is given almost no vigor, no enhanced vigor, and no endurance regen/extra endurance.

It shows either gross incompetence in the high level design of Mirage (which I completely believe based on their elite spec video), and/or also a refusal to give mesmer a cohesive mechanic (which I also believe).

@Skuzz.6580 said:Sorry to come over a bit bluntly but why would you even backpedal and sidestep to begin with? Just press W and use your mouse to change directions (right mouse).This has been the way to move your character around for basically all MMO's that support it.

You'd never backpedal, but you are constantly dodge rolling away from your target or to the sides, especially since pvp mesmer is usually kiting.

Even using the about face command to turn directions as quickly as possible results in wasted invincibility frames. Mirage cloak hurts you mobility and options far more than it helps you and that should absolutely not be the case for our elite dodging spec.

Stop being dense and playing devil's advocate.