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Will Mirage be better than Chrono in any situation?


Dahkeus.8243

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...other than open world?
As a serious foreword, this isn't meant as a salty or troll post. However, I haven't played Mesmer in a while and I didn't try out Chrono during the beta weekends.

That being said, I do like a lot of the style of Mirage and lately I've missed my mesmer a bit, so I'd like to hear honest feedback from other mesmers because my biggest concern is that Chrono will just be a superior option for each gametype. However, I'm hoping that Mirage will find some niche somewhere, such as a condi DPS build for Fractals/Raiding or something.

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For the version we see in beta weekend, probably none.

PvE: Condition mirage is an upgrade over condition mesmer. But the dps upgrade seems to be not so significant. Given that condition mesmer has relatively low dps to begin with. I don't see condition mirage becoming meta outside of some high pressure encounters in raid.

PvP: Mirage might be able to compete with chrono if....you ignore continuum split. Yeah, basically no competition here. Chrono is just so much better.

WvW: Chrono has good support. Mirage has...nothing? Don't see any reason to use mirage here.

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@Refia Montes.3205 said:Being flashy.

Technically Chrono was just as flashy. Had to get toned down (along with everything else) because it made raids an epileptic nightmare of glowing colors and pulsing neon. It's still pretty hard to spot some of the mechanics at times (Cairn red circle, VG blue circle). Although to be fair, that might be because I'm red-green colorblind.

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@Knox.8962 said:PvE Condi DPS mirage should be a sizeable upgrade over condi DPS mesmer. Both of those are better than chrono DPS.

It's not. Standard Condi Mes to Condi Mirage will trade Chaos for Mirage, netting a more reliable Expertise gain at the cost of reliable Condition Damage. The actual numerical gains is relatively low as Crystal Sands provides around the same DPS as Power Spike (neither of which is brought) and Axe is (as of numbers from beta/previews) significantly worse than Scepter in non-PvP setups.

You have roughly the same numbers and the only advantage is you don't move when dodging, which is also a disadvantage.

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@Knox.8962 said:PvE Condi DPS mirage should be a sizeable upgrade over condi DPS mesmer. Both of those are better than chrono DPS.

How so? Ambush skills only work with clones, and a fair amount of the mesmer's dps comes from phantasms, and phantasms are totally neglected in the mirage traitline. Unless Anet massively buffs the axe and ambush skills, I don't see mirage's dps performing any better than core mes.

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FractalsNot here. Mesmer dps is pretty awful, you need the boon support chrono.

RaidsNiche, but maybe. It'll probably provide a minor DPS gain over vanilla mesmer, so the few fights that you reasonably use a mesmer DPS (cairn, Matthias, sorta VG) you could bring Mirage.

WvW RoamingSure, you may see mirages here. The mobility that sword ambush provides is very helpful, and they'll be at least halfway decent as a dueling build. Competitive with chrono at least.

WvW Group CompositionsAbsolutely not. If you drive, chrono is better. If you support, chrono is better. If you dps...rofl play another class.

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@Refia Montes.3205 said:It's gonna increase Condi Mes DPS by a bit. Like 1-2k at most since Dune Shards, Crystal Sands, Jaunt are added to the rotation. Otherwise... it's not much.

Still not worth the effort though, Mirage is a dead weight to any grp composition due to its' lack of mobility. I can already foresee raid + fractal grps giving Mirage the boot treatment.

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@Pyroatheist.9031 said:RaidsNiche, but maybe. It'll probably provide a minor DPS gain over vanilla mesmer, so the few fights that you reasonably use a mesmer DPS (cairn, Matthias, sorta VG) you could bring Mirage.

Nope, the only fight where you want to bring Condi Mes over Power Mes is Matthias. Cairn it's comparable, but Power Mes has more damage unless you get Shared Agony (in which case the DPS ends up roughly the same by the end of the fight). Additionally, the DPS gain on Condi Mirage > Condi Mes is negated on these fights as you don't get Dune Cloak or Jaunt DPS due to the point of you being there is to be ranged. Lastly, Crystal Sand takes up a precious utility slot (Matthias) and barely gives a DPS boost (you're looking at maybe 200 DPS increase if you use it off cooldown due to it's cast time).

In Raids it's Condi Mesmer with a flair (somewhat equivalent to the difference between Mental Anguish and Power Block).

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@Esplen.3940 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:
Raids
Niche, but maybe. It'll probably provide a minor DPS gain over vanilla mesmer, so the few fights that you reasonably use a mesmer DPS (cairn, Matthias, sorta VG) you could bring Mirage.

Nope, the only fight where you want to bring Condi Mes over Power Mes is Matthias. Cairn it's comparable, but Power Mes has more damage unless you get Shared Agony (in which case the DPS ends up roughly the same by the end of the fight). Additionally, the DPS gain on Condi Mirage > Condi Mes is negated on these fights as you don't get Dune Cloak or Jaunt DPS due to the point of you being there is to be ranged. Lastly, Crystal Sand takes up a precious utility slot (Matthias) and barely gives a DPS boost (you're looking at maybe 200 DPS increase if you use it off cooldown due to it's cast time).

In Raids it's Condi Mesmer with a flair (somewhat equivalent to the difference between Mental Anguish and Power Block).

Yeah, thats fair. Fwiw my group never needs the condie mes on Matthias to take feedback, so they're fine with Crystal sands there...though I doubt it's worth bothering to cast it. The one thing that's noteworthy is that if you're using mes on something like VG, sabetha, or gorseval, the target switching utility is going to potentially provide significant dps boosts at certain breakpoints. VG will definitely see this boost, gorseval probably not since you can just leave them up anyway, sabetha you potentially will on the boss swaps. Given the slow rampup, that alone might be enough to make it worthwhile.

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It seems like they only care to give actual DPS traits and utilities to thieves, warriors, and guardians only.

It's laughable how Guardian traps are necromancer wells on steroids with almost half the cooldown and they provide boons instead.

Thief staff auto does more DPS than 100 blades or blurred frenzy, and many times more than our sword auto. And to top it off, thief staff auto also has a reflect component.

Warrior gets to sit on a spec that does 30k DPS while also contributing a raid DPS of about 15k per subgroup a PS warrior is in.

But the best mesmer DPS spec (core mesmer power) can't even aoe, has significant ramp up, and doesn't even break 30k DPS.

They seem hellbent on keeping mesmer, power ranger, and power necro in the DPS gutter. They nerfed condi ranger into irrelevance and condi necro is mediocre despite providing little group utility.

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Depending on any changes, I don't even know if mirage will be able to compete with chrono in pvp, at least not initially. The meta build loses out on F5 moa, and a whole lot of sustain from shatter spam with RI and Sword/Shield.

I mean, I prefer sword/torch burst shatter Condi chrono in pvp, using mass invis, playing very aggressive and saving f5 for things like mirror images shatter spam spike, which functions well in uncoordinated situations, +1ing fights, drawing out 1v2, etc, so I'm hoping mirage will be able to provide me with a new way to play this style with a bit more thoughtful play, elegance and deception compared to brainless shatter spam - through coordinated ambush and shatter - which it looks like it will be able to do with a few tweaks.

And yeah wvw roaming/smallscale should be well suited for mirage. I'm only sad about giving up passive condi duration reduction, but the benefits of mobility, evade, reflect synergy and so on should be really good here.

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@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Yeah, thats fair. Fwiw my group never needs the condie mes on Matthias to take feedback, so they're fine with Crystal sands there...though I doubt it's worth bothering to cast it. The one thing that's noteworthy is that if you're using mes on something like VG, sabetha, or gorseval, the target switching utility is going to potentially provide significant dps boosts at certain breakpoints. VG will definitely see this boost, gorseval probably not since you can just leave them up anyway, sabetha you potentially will on the boss swaps. Given the slow rampup, that alone might be enough to make it worthwhile.

Actually, Illusion retarget is only useful on Gorseval due to him not leaving the arena while phasing.

VG and Sabetha both phase allowing Illusions to not only stay on the field, but also naturally retarget. They also switch back to their primary targets when they become available. This allows Power Mesmer to maintain high DPS on fights like VG, Sabetha, and Keep Construct.

For VG source, Power Mesmer has the highest median DPS, but peaks at the third highest DPS peak.For Sabetha source, Power Mesmer has the third highest median DPS, followed by fourth highest DPS peak.Note: I ignore Cleave DPS as it accounts for mobs such as Seekers and Bandits. Damage numbers focused on are Boss DPS.

For DPS Mesmer, Power is almost always better than Condi Mesmer. The actual fights where DPS Mesmer can be useful are:VG - Only ramps once, Phants may help during phase (they stay at center and aggro onto seekers, followed by the split bosses. May end up hitting wrong split for Power Mes.)Sabetha - Only ramps once, Phants will always target a boss unit, focusing Sabetha.Slothasar - Only ramps once, Phants will usually survive most of the fight as well as constantly attacking while you drop Poisons or move the boss as Fixate. As a Mesmer, aim to do first shroom and hope you don't have to do another so Phants don't have to re-ramp. Condi and Power have roughly the same damage output on this boss, as any gains from Condi are negated during CC phase (have to ramp condis again), whereas Power does not have ranged for constant output while fixated (if the boss takes a while to move).Matthias - Only ramps once, Phants will usually survive most of the fight as well as constantly attacking while you drop Poisons/Corruption/Explosions. Condi is stronger than Power due to having ranged damage output during mechanics.Keep Construct - Only ramps once, Phants will always target a boss unit except during Orb Phase, but they do not push the orb. DPS has a ceiling which is lower than Power Ele ceiling. However, the DPS is still relatively high and is easy.Xera - Ramps 2-4 times*, but keeps up decent DPS if things go sour.Cairn - Only ramps once. Power and Condi are interchangeable. Power DPS becomes tied to Mantra of Pain if targeted by Shared Agony (you can attempt to not get SA but sometimes mistakes happen). Condi DPS is lower than Power unless you gain Shared Agony.Mursaat Overseer - Only ramps once. Power is stronger here for some Cleave damage as well as the mechanics not detracting from attacking for extended periods of time.Samarog - Ramps 3 times, but still maintains high damage output as well as being able to participate in Rigom mechanics.

Note that Mirage offers Illusion retarget for: Gorseval, Samarog, and Deimos, but the cooldowns are still too long to reliably use against any of them except Samarog.

*: Phantasms may die due to being targeted by an auto attack from boss or adds, as well as mechanics forcing the Mesmer to despawn the Illusions.

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@Zenith.7301 said:It seems like they only care to give actual DPS traits and utilities to thieves, warriors, and guardians only.

It's laughable how Guardian traps are necromancer wells on steroids with almost half the cooldown and they provide boons instead.

Thief staff auto does more DPS than 100 blades or blurred frenzy, and many times more than our sword auto. And to top it off, thief staff auto also has a reflect component.

Warrior gets to sit on a spec that does 30k DPS while also contributing a raid DPS of about 15k per subgroup a PS warrior is in.

But the best mesmer DPS spec (core mesmer power) can't even aoe, has significant ramp up, and doesn't even break 30k DPS.

They seem hellbent on keeping mesmer, power ranger, and power necro in the DPS gutter. They nerfed condi ranger into irrelevance and condi necro is mediocre despite providing little group utility.

This stems, at least partly, from our contradictory class mechanic. They can't buff our personal DPS too much, otherwise it could be OP when we can have 3 phantasms up for prolonged periods of time (made even worse now with PF). Likewise, they can't solely rely on phantasms (even though they seem hell bent on trying) due to significant ramp up time and the single target mechanic.

Until they go back and fix core mesmer mechanic problems, I doubt we will ever see a cohesive DPS spec that is both flexible in different situations and also not completely broken in some way.

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@Esplen.3940 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Yeah, thats fair. Fwiw my group never needs the condie mes on Matthias to take feedback, so they're fine with Crystal sands there...though I doubt it's worth bothering to cast it. The one thing that's noteworthy is that if you're using mes on something like VG, sabetha, or gorseval, the target switching utility is going to potentially provide significant dps boosts at certain breakpoints. VG will definitely see this boost, gorseval probably not since you can just leave them up anyway, sabetha you potentially will on the boss swaps. Given the slow rampup, that alone might be enough to make it worthwhile.

Actually, Illusion retarget is only useful on Gorseval due to him not leaving the arena while phasing.

VG and Sabetha both phase allowing Illusions to not only stay on the field, but also naturally retarget. They also switch back to their primary targets when they become available. This allows Power Mesmer to maintain high DPS on fights like VG, Sabetha, and Keep Construct.

For VG
, Power Mesmer has the highest median DPS, but peaks at the third highest DPS peak.For Sabetha
, Power Mesmer has the third highest median DPS, followed by fourth highest DPS peak.Note: I ignore Cleave DPS as it accounts for mobs such as Seekers and Bandits. Damage numbers focused on are Boss DPS.

For DPS Mesmer, Power is almost always better than Condi Mesmer. The actual fights where DPS Mesmer can be useful are:VG - Only ramps once, Phants may help during phase (they stay at center and aggro onto seekers, followed by the split bosses. May end up hitting wrong split for Power Mes.)Sabetha - Only ramps once, Phants will always target a boss unit, focusing Sabetha.Slothasar - Only ramps once
, Phants will usually survive most of the fight as well as constantly attacking while you drop Poisons or move the boss as Fixate. As a Mesmer, aim to do first shroom and hope you don't have to do another so Phants don't have to re-ramp. Condi and Power have roughly the same damage output on this boss, as any gains from Condi are negated during CC phase (have to ramp condis again), whereas Power does not have ranged for constant output while fixated (if the boss takes a while to move).Matthias - Only ramps once
, Phants will usually survive most of the fight as well as constantly attacking while you drop Poisons/Corruption/Explosions. Condi is stronger than Power due to having ranged damage output during mechanics.Keep Construct - Only ramps once, Phants will always target a boss unit except during Orb Phase, but they do not push the orb. DPS has a ceiling which is lower than Power Ele ceiling. However, the DPS is still relatively high and is easy.Xera - Ramps 2-4 times*, but keeps up decent DPS if things go sour.Cairn - Only ramps once. Power and Condi are interchangeable. Power DPS becomes tied to Mantra of Pain if targeted by Shared Agony (you can attempt to not get SA but sometimes mistakes happen). Condi DPS is lower than Power unless you gain Shared Agony.Mursaat Overseer - Only ramps once. Power is stronger here for some Cleave damage as well as the mechanics not detracting from attacking for extended periods of time.Samarog - Ramps 3 times, but still maintains high damage output as well as being able to participate in Rigom mechanics.

Note that Mirage offers Illusion retarget for: Gorseval, Samarog, and Deimos, but the cooldowns are still too long to reliably use against any of them except Samarog.

*: Phantasms may die due to being targeted by an auto attack from boss or adds, as well as mechanics forcing the Mesmer to despawn the Illusions.

On sabetha at least, will the illusions not potentially retarget to an add and then die if it does? I can't remember the specifics behind how they behave with retargeting.

I did know that they retarget naturally on cairn, but mirage is obviously not even remotely an option there so I didn't mention it. On VG I don't think you can force them to necessarily target to the correct guardian, so you'll potentially lose out on DPS there. Same deal with sabetha there too, will they not die once their retarget does?

On all the others it's pretty pointless. Sloth doesn't have multiple real targets to switch to, but the party suffers from not having cleave damage. On MO just bring a necro to epi the adds and you're fine, though again it's nice to have good cleave if/when one activates. Samarog is sorta whatever, but the retarget could be useful to avoid any ramp when coming out of phases.

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@Exciton.8942 said:For the version we see in beta weekend, probably none.

PvE: Condition mirage is an upgrade over condition mesmer. But the dps upgrade seems to be not so significant. Given that condition mesmer has relatively low dps to begin with. I don't see condition mirage becoming meta outside of some high pressure encounters in raid.

PvP: Mirage might be able to compete with chrono if....you ignore continuum split. Yeah, basically no competition here. Chrono is just so much better.

WvW: Chrono has good support. Mirage has...nothing? Don't see any reason to use mirage here.

Actually, Chrono is not that far ahead... I managed to down a warrior with Mirage but not Chrono. Meh.

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@Esplen.3940 said:

@Abelisk.4527 said:Actually, Chrono is not that far ahead... I managed to down a warrior with Mirage but not Chrono. Meh.

Well, there we have it. He downed a Warrior. Mirage is op compared to Chrono. Guess we're all wrong.

That's my opinion. Didn't say Chrono was just better, just left behind anecdotal information. :)

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@Esplen.3940 said:

@Knox.8962 said:PvE Condi DPS mirage should be a sizeable upgrade over condi DPS mesmer. Both of those are better than chrono DPS.

It's not. Standard Condi Mes to Condi Mirage will trade Chaos for Mirage, netting a more reliable Expertise gain at the cost of reliable Condition Damage. The actual numerical gains is relatively low as Crystal Sands provides around the same DPS as Power Spike (neither of which is brought) and Axe is (as of numbers from beta/previews) significantly worse than Scepter in non-PvP setups.

You have roughly the same numbers and the only advantage is you don't move when dodging, which is also a disadvantage.

I'm confused, what builds are you considering? Are you thinking dueling will be better than chaos for mirage? Also, when you say scepter is significantly better than axe, are you presuming triggering illusionary counter off CD?

You say the only advantage of mirage is not moving while dodging, but, presuming your version of a mirage build (not taking chaos, taking scepter, dune cloak, ), these are the real trade offs:

Condi Mesmer:

Chaotic Transference - Gain condition damage based on your toughness (10%) = 100 condition damageChaotic Persistence - Outgoing boon and condition duration for every boon on you = 15% in an average situation?

Condi Mirage:

Mirage Cloak/Ether Barrage: Unknown DPS increase ( no downtime of skills while dodging + nice condi spell )Crystal Sands: Unknown DPS increaseRiddle of Sand: Unknown DPS increaseNomad's Endurance - Shatter skills give vigor, which grants condition damage: Unknown uptimeDune Cloak - Use Sand Shards when you gain Mirage Cloak. Conditions applied to bleeding foes have increased duration (20%): 20% permanent condition duration + extra bleeds

That's 5 different things, so while your version of a Mirage build wouldn't change too much from base mesmer, it's certainly more than you made it out to be. It will definitely be interesting to see how axe fairs vs scepter when we get access to raid golems.

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For PvP mirage, the only possible role it can be viable is to become a top-tier duelist.

Just like mesmer, mirage needs clone to do damage no matter you go for shatter or clone ambush. However, clones die like flies in teamfight. So mirage is just gonna suck in teamfight without utility like F5 moa or gravity that chrono can do.

Currently chrono is a decent duelist but loses to scrapper, some warrior builds, SD thief, many guardian builds. Only if mirage build is so strong to compete against those, it can have some potential viability.

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