Returning after a year - Power or Condi Mirage for WvW

Hi all,Returning after a year off and wondering about the Mirage class - I have decent sets for both conditions and power, and am wondering what people are running for small group/solo play in WvW. For zerg play I usually use my scourge or backline elementalist. I've tried both, and power seems to let me down enemies faster but seems to have more risk if I don't get my combo/burst correct, while conditions seems to be a bit slower to kill, but safer. Power I'm using swd/swd and GS -- condi I'm using axe/torch - GS. Any suggestions on builds would be appreciated, but mostly wondering on the viability of condi vs. power ^_^v Thanks!

Hybrid! :) Sure pure condi is very strong as you can go full trailblazer, but I also find pure attrition a bit boring same with pure direct damage.

This is what I have been using for solo wvw play and it's been very effective so far: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhQQNAnfWnsnBlphFoBGMDMMjlZDzcEsCaJlBgbTywv+1/CgA-jFyHQBLR5XiUPom6b+pKOK7UKAgnUwcUCuj9HCAgAMzysMnZycmzcmn5Mn5Mn5M77ycmzcmzcmzcmzcmlBoaMA-w

Yes I prefer to sacrifice a utility slot for Signet of Inspiration movement speed, because Adventurer runes are that good. But if you're running with a friend who can give swiftness then by all means take Signet of Midnight for better combat potential. (though Signet of Inspiration does have a nice feature of proccing 4s resistance fairly often, which I assume is a bug as the tooltip states 2s).

Hybrid maximises the potential of mirage through boons and conditions as it is easy to stack a bit of might and vuln - especially if you also take orrian truffle and meat stew, then take into account staff ambush and clone auto attacks (or mirror blade if you play GS) and things like BD if you take Chaos, pretty much perma vigour for +150 condi damage, perma fury through Duelling etc. Check your stats during combat and you can see the effect on power, condi damage and crit chance - you can have your cake and eat it! You crit hard on squishies and have the sustained damage through condis to keep the pressure. The major sacrifice in my build is not having condi application on shatters - but F1 crits hard anyway so I use it for direct burst following things like axe 3 (which also crits hard).

For the record do note this is not a tank and while it has a bit of toughness/vitality/protection to shrug off some damage, it does rely on active defence through evades to survive. More of a bursty bruiser.

Looking back the most difficulty I have come across are one or two super sustain builds - but this is very rare and anything like that either ends in stalemate or with the right timing and skill combos you can bring them down - just requires more precise burst application.

Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

How do you value between Chaos and inspiration if I run GS/SwT?

You can't go wrong with either power or condi mirage. Your biggest problems are classes that are capable of either power or condi burst but you can still deal with those.

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Inspiration has the godlike RI and nice additions like Mender's Purity as well as Restorative Mantras if you want to run mantra heal. The only problem I have with Inpsiration is the Grandmaster major traits are all ****, especially for mirage. Mental Defence sucks without Chronophantasma, Illusionary Inspiration is totally underwhelming even useless if you happen to trait Renewing Oasis, and Temporal Enchanter... well I don't know about you but I can't justify any glamours over better utilities in wvw - unless you want to take both Feedback and Medic's Feedback to double up on some instant resistance proc, and maybe portal...

Chaos equally is a mediocre line for pure power builds, however it has one benefit/amazing synergy which is traiting Mirror heal and running with Adventurer runes - that's a free dodge every 12s if you need it, and if you have Deceptive Evasion you can still benefit from a clone spawn even if you use a dodge to cover cast the heal. Together with Energy sigils it's a nice amount of endurance gain from healing and weapon swap.

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Just wanted to say that you forgot one major flaw of Inspiration traitline: Focus trait competing with RI. :wink:But I do agree that GMs are quite bad, with exception of Illusionary Inspiration on boonshare builds. RI is master tier yet it is way better than Inspi GMs, maybe it should swap places with either Mental Defense or Temporal Enchanter, dunno

@bart.3687 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Don't remind me about this! :cry:

Worst trait placement ever since the old specialisation patch. Focus is dead to me. :(

@Curunen.8729 said:

@bart.3687 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

focus can be raelly good if you use axe ( i love pull and block) . Domination dueling mirage is really strong but i invite you to try also with inspiration. Obviously you lose a little of burst but the sustaing given by mobility of mirage and heals on shatter, if well used, is really really strong . At the end , for roaming in any case, i found better to go back to staff / sword torch condi. It is imho the strongest setup but you have to play it hibryd, with pure dire you have too low damage. I am trying to play with a mix of dire and power prec condi damage trinkets and it is really rewarding in 1 vs 1 . Power is more fun for sure but mobility and clone generation of staff are really strong, in my opinion stronger than gs .

@Curunen.8729 said:

@bart.3687 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Same. I'd really like to use Focus (it's my fav offhand type in this game) but it is so underwhelming. The pull is not enough when everything else (including trait placement) is shit. :anguished:

@PierPiero.9142 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@bart.3687 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

Trouble is iWarden isn't great untraited, and also given how all pvp oriented mesmer is encouraged to shatter ever since the specialisation patch it doesn't survive long enough to be worthwhile (either killed or shattered), nevermind enemies easily able to escape being damaged by it.

And then curtain is even worse untraited as it does nothing to projectiles, and there's so much anti cc flying around - either stability, stunbreaks or whatever that the pull is pretty useless for setting up any kind of burst, let alone throwing people off cliffs (although doing this to the k train in eotm is always fun xD).

In any case with Mirage cloak and high evade uptime together with things like Evasive Mirror or traited manipulations, the reflect on focus is kind of redundant.

Oh damn, I should stop right there as I tend to rant on about focus a lot! :/

@Curunen.8729 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@bart.3687 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Demon.6743 said:

@PierPiero.9142 said:Power mirage, i suggest you inspiration , dueling mirage. I tried both , with inspiration dueling and with domination dueling . Domination is better from spvp but for wvw, when you are often outnumbered the heals on shatter coupled with fast clone given by dueling boost your survivability a lot ( obviously you pay a price in dps )

wvw is different from spvp ... i find it more suitable in wvw than in spvp . I think that it depends on your setup. If you go condi full dire with sword i feel too low damage so i go with axe focus. Instead if you go with an hybrid setup ( with power and condi damage , the strongest setup for me for roaming ) , then the spvp meta is the best build . I really love sword but if you have 0 power it is quite weak .... for using sword you have to have power too. So if you go sword torch you have to go power ( harder to play ) with gs or hibryd, with staff ... for spvp i play both , power and condi but condi is stronger