Will you find Mirage useful in GW2?

There seems to be a fair share of mixed opinion on Mirage. Do you think it will be useful?

Useful to me so I will have fun in the game, as a non-pro player that is all I'm aiming for =)

Based on the skills and traits we saw in the demo weekend, has to be a hard no.

Not in its' beta iteration, the lack of mobility is a major concern, you can no longer dodge out of AoEs and AoEs are prevalent in most boss fights; the 3/4 secs of a distortion is not enough to compensate, and Jaunt is inadequate with its' short blink range and long recharge. Mirage might be viable in small grp fights in WvW, and that's it.

Buffs would be cool, but I still have fun playing with it, and after I'm done pressing through the PoF content I plan to settle down with the Mirage for a bit.

Based on what I have seen up to now I wont find it usefull, tho I do think Im gonna be able to have fun with it ☺

So far, the answer is no. I will list the reasons why:

1. The traits, utilities, and weapon only serve two purposes: personal defense and personal damage. There is no control skills, unique group buffs, or meaningful environmental effects.
2. The utilities are based around managing clones, but clones are relatively useless in all forms of play. The spec has not significantly buffed clones to compensate for this.
3. It is a mesmer, and signs point to this spec's damage being less than stellar. For a spec that exists solely to do damage, poor damage is a killer.

It might be fun to mess with for awhile, but it isn't going to be particularly useful.

It'll need drastic buffs and some major mechanic reworks to be more than extremely niche anywhere. This won't be happening for PoF launch. Maybe a year down the road...

I found the mirage cloak was great for getting stomps in WvW and ambush on sword was amazing. If jaunt gets increased to 600 range you won't need insp for condition clears which solves a lot of issues for power mesmer and the extra vigor uptime will be nice. Couple that with double energy and orrian truffle and meat stew and you can be at almost daredevil levels of evade spam. Some of the other damage avoidance major traits are OK I guess, could get decent protection and regen uptime with passive condition damage reduction meaning you only need 1 defensive line and can pick both heavy offence lines of Dom and duelling.

I mean don't get me wrong chrono has a lot of benefits but I don't think mirage is that bad, just that chrono has been one of the strongest elite specs in the game and buffs mesmer in almost every way.

@apharma.3741 said:I found the mirage cloak was great for getting stomps in WvW and ambush on sword was amazing. If jaunt gets increased to 600 range you won't need insp for condition clears which solves a lot of issues for power mesmer and the extra vigor uptime will be nice. Couple that with double energy and orrian truffle and meat stew and you can be at almost daredevil levels of evade spam. Some of the other damage avoidance major traits are OK I guess, could get decent protection and regen uptime with passive condition damage reduction meaning you only need 1 defensive line and can pick both heavy offence lines of Dom and duelling.

I mean don't get me wrong chrono has a lot of benefits but I don't think mirage is that bad, just that chrono has been one of the strongest elite specs in the game and buffs mesmer in almost every way.

Yeah I agree.

And whatever the situation, personally I will be finding Mirage useful enough to enjoy playing in the game modes I enjoy.

The question is way to openended and unspecific. Useful can be defined in way to many ways without narrowing it down.

Based on what we have seen so far and the limited amount of information and testing which was possible:

• will it be useful as far as fun and just another sidegrade? Sure, there is people who enjoyed the elite specialisation. Here the question will be how well this holds up once the immediate fun gives away to longterm clunkiness and problems.
• will it be useful as far as endgame builds and meta for different game modes? Hard to say, there is very little speaking for this in the current state Mirage was in. This also is a question of how well other new (and old) elite specialisations perform. The fact that Mirage competes with chrono and is 2 steps back for every step forward chrono took is also not in the specs favor.
• will it be useful in trying out new ideas for possible future implementation for other classes? Sure, much like other Mesmer mehcanics have been shared with other classes over the years.

The major question though is, will arenanet put in the time to make Mirage useful in all 3 circumstances (which is more than possible) or will they just leave it be a gimmick build with no use endgame wise?

I did vote no since I do think a certain amount of usefulness should come with an elite specialisation as well as fluent design. Mirage in its shown state had way to many hickups in this regard.

While I see a lot of potential and entertainment value from uninterrupted actions and added mobility of new utilities, it doesn't really help it from the question that is asked. As long as Chrono exists and Mirage isn't on par with it, it won't be usefull in my eyes moreover I just hate that he whole spec only points to Condi.

Well, this is assuming chrono doesn't get reduced down to mirage level. I mean it's been a solid pick for PvE since HoT came and has seen use in other areas of the game to a large extent, remember the boonshare meta and how much Chrono destroyed season 1 of PvP?

Right now I think anyone assuming HoT elite specs won't be touched in a rebalance of elite specs is wishful thinking. Many of the HoT elite specs are just so much stronger for almost everything including in roles they're not meant to be strong in that I believe they will be touched on.

With signet of the ether, shield 4 is still pretty nuts.

Shield in PvE still suffers from the double nerf it received due to PvP abuse.

@Abelisk.4527 said:With signet of the ether, shield 4 is still pretty nuts.

How so? Just the quick clone generation?

4 blocks... but WoE is better since Condi Spam exists

Technically you can do six blocks, if you split signet.

Personally I take signet over WoE, since you can reliably block condis completely, while the well only removes 3 extra condis. Signet is a bit more selfish but you can also cast multiple disenchanters which grant significant boonstrip and condi cleanse

From what I've seen so far, Mirage doesn't look very playable. I have enough points saved up on my new PoF toon to let her pass her exams for Chrono and Mirage on opening day. I'll spend some PvE time with the new spec and try to find a working rhythm.

Still, I am unhappy about all the broken or unfinished coding and the generally chaotic setup of the Mirage as it's been presented so far.

Based on what we know from the demo weekends, strictly "no".

The spec doesn't even have a coherent design to it, much less useful skills, traits, mechanics or a good weapon.

Not viable in any mode, can't even use for fun because all the mechanics seem to go out of its way to make Mesmer less fun.

Just because you can kill bads, and clear easy content doesn't make it useful. Mid to high end pve content and comp play and their associated meta is what ultimately matters.

Some of the skills are handy I guess, things like a vertical blink on demand without wasting any major cooldowns is "useful".

But a slightly more mobile core Mesmer with condi melee options, illusion rerargeting, and a bunch of quality of life functionality to already lacking mechanics (like uninterrupted phant summoning), is still about as good as core Mesmer, which is pretty bad.

It's a dysfunctional mess of traits/skills that don't synergize overall and needs some redesign. That said, with zero changes, I think in casual raid groups it'll do better dps than most tempests. For wvw and pvp I think roaming/decap sw/torch gs mirage will have a niche.

Compared to chrono, it'll probably be a straight up not comparable and core, not so special... but I voted useful because I feel I can have some evasion tank fun with it ....

Compared to Chrono it won't compare but as it's own thing I can see a few uses for Mirage, I actually did have fun playing it and with a few minor changes it can be a very good DPS class. At the end of the day you can switch between the two on a whim.