Making Power Mirage Summoner great with one change.

Power Mirage almost seems disenfranchised and it's something that I just generally prefer to play for Mesmer. I loved the balance patch before PoF and was really excited to play Power Mirage in PoF. However, with the new damage ramp for phantasm's you would think this would be a brilliant idea for power mesmer and it is! But sadly the main weapon for power mesmer is sword and because of sword being the ONLY ambush that creates a clone whenever you dodge it completely ruins the fluidity of a ramping power mesmer. You have to pretty much choose between dodging an attack and keeping a phantasm. Is there any way we could ever change the sword ambush to not generate a clone? its the only one that has clone generation on it and it ruins the potential for a brilliant power mirage from taking off.

Thoughts anyone?

What is the problem exactly? Clone generation never overrides phantasms...When i have 3 pistol phantasms up, i can just autoattack with my scepter and the clone it generates shatters as soon as it's generated while the pistol phantasms stay up.

I'm a little confused but, a clone will never replace a phantasm unless there are 3 phantasms up, otherwise it replaces the clone always... so unless you're trying for some perma 3 phantasm build, it shouldn't be affecting you. If you ARE trying to keep 3 phantasms out permanently, that's just the price you pay: no sword ambush and no shatters for u haha.

Regardless you can still dodge tho...just..don't use sword ambush. . .?

I'm also confused a little more here. Does this happen with sword ambush? Because it doesn't with the scepter autoattack. At least it didn't the last time i checked, i could keep 3 phantasms, but the scepter clone generation autoattack never replaced the phantasm.

It's in the description of scepter auto: use torment instead of clone if u have max illusions. Isn't the case for sword ambush.

Scepter AA is the only skill that won't spawn a clone when you already have 3 illusions out. Every other clone summoning skill still does.

@Madisonlee.9641 said:It's in the description of scepter auto: use torment instead of clone if u have max illusions. Isn't the case for sword ambush.

Ah, that explains it. Must have missed that.

Also, if you take mirage traitline in a power build, you'll be giving up domination. So you will lose 15% phantasm damage, and a bonus 12.5% damage from the increased damage to vulnerable targets.

I just simply don't see why the one weapon a power mirage would use would be the one with an ambush skill that creates a normal clone, rather than any of the other weapons like scepter or staff for example who benefit far more from condi shatters. All it does is make condi mesmer the only option and i really felt they were going for something great with the balance patch before PoF only to not have anything they added for power mesmer synergize at all with the Mirage. A sword/sword power ramp mesmer does a lot of damage with the right traits but a third of that phantasm damage is gone if you want to interact with combat mechanics which just doesn't seem very like good gameplay.

But if it was by intentional design by the devs thats fine. I just think that for this to be the only one that gets the clone generation it sucks to not have this be a thing mirage can utilize the best it could've considering the timing of the ramp trait being added.

Turn off auto cast for auto attack, and when you dodge, turn away from target for an instant and dont do anything , then resume attacking ?

Power mesmer in pve may benefit from using phantasm ramp ups but in PvP and wvw, you want those shatters and you're aiming for burst. So I think it's again an issue of game mode design too

Still they can easily set it so that if max illusions are up , the sword ambush applies stacks of vulnerability instead or something

Exactly why i brought up the issue. I can really get on board with what you're going for Takatsu :)

Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

shatter build is pretty bad in pve . since all it does is burst dmg by destroying all your dmg source .

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

A power shatter build maybe, but a condi shatter build is awesome in PvE since it leaves conditions after the initial burst. I use a confusion shatterer mirage and i'ts great in PvE. It's not raid meta, but it clears fractals just fine.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

well op was asking for power mirage changes . and power shatter is bad in pve . so i don't know why you brought up shatter build and told me condition shatter is good/okish ?

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

Because OP wants to make a power build work. I suggested a power shatter build. You said it sucks. I said maybe and compared it to a condi build in that context.

Also, why would a power shatter be bad in PvE, Op can get creative about it or something. It won't be meta but it could work. It could be fun. It doesn't need to be a top performing build to clear most PvE content.

This wasn't meant to be about shatter builds at all is the point of the post. This is meant to be a Summoning ramp focused discussion. I know its not very 'in' but it's the kind of mesmer ive wanted since launch and its a shame that the one clone generator on sword ambush stops it was the point of me enjoying using Mirage. I don't have any desire to change to a condi build, i have a condi mesmer for that too. Appreciate it though.

For context on build -Illusion: top, mid,top.Dueling: top, bot, top.Mirage: mid, top,mid.(Sword/Sword. Sword/Focus)if that helps

Obviously i could just not attack every time i dodge and do nothing, the whole point was saying how it ruins the flow of combat for no reason. and i asked why would they put the only clone generating ambush on sword which power uses when it would be better suited for say scepter which is a clone generation weapon.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

i a> @Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

l already said , power shatter has burst dmg by destroying your dmg source with 10 s cd . in pve mobs generally have more hp than player , you need sustain dmg .even in open world , considering that hot and pof maps have so many vet and elite power shatter isn't good at all .i mean , yes everything can work in pve , but you don't really want to pick one of the worst builds for pve among all classes.

back to topic , anet needs to give something to power mesmer in general .and thing like clone overwrites phant should be fixed long time ago they already have tech to do that with scepter AA .

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Maybe try to use it as a shatter build? I mean, if you're taking mirage, you might as well, if there's anything mirage can do good, it's dish out clones. Lots of them. So might as well get some use out of those shatters. Phantasms are more Chronomancer and core Mesmer thing, they have the specializations for them. Mirage doesn't. Chrono can resummon them, and core mesmer can fine tune them.

Yes, that conversation went way off topic. :tongue: > @Praxos.6129 said:

Obviously i could just not attack every time i dodge and do nothing, the whole point was saying how it ruins the flow of combat for no reason. and i asked why would they put the only clone generating ambush on sword which power uses when it would be better suited for say scepter which is a clone generation weapon.

I was curious how this works so i tested it with my pistol phantasms and my axe 2 that generates clones. Yes, it does replace your phantasm, but only one. The next clones replace the existing clone, the 2 phantasms will always be alive.

So maybe, start with sword ambushes when attacking, that way you'll first generate clones, then pull your phantasm up, and another one if you're using that healing signet, then you can use the sword ambush as much as you like until the cooldown, or, if you want to summon a third, then only use the sword ambush before shattering for a shrot burst before you start to resummon again.

It won't help with the fact that the sword ambush replaces one of your phantasms, but at least you'll always have 2 no matter how often you use the ambush. But yeah, the tech is there, scepter doesn't override phantasms or even clones, anet could tweak it to apply to the sword ambush too.

I wonder if they read the professions forums.

I'm not really sure what the intention behind a "power mirage" in PvE would be atm.Core power mesmer is already a spec that summons 3 phantasms for boss fights and then let's them ramp up.

You do not intend to use axe.Mirage Thrust is barely a damage gain over autoattacking.The Mirage utilities are barely relevant for power PvE, maybe Crystal Sands could be a gain.The traits do barely anything for power.In essence you gain nothing from mirage and are better off with domination.

@Bod.8261 while i do agree with you and its sad, it still would be nice to hopefully get a look in at what they could do to tweak the phantasmal overrides in terms of other weapons and not just scepter AA one day.