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Mirage Specialization Updates for the Path of Fire Launch


Robert Gee.9246

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Hi everyone, we’ve made a bunch of changes to the Mirage specialization since the demo weekend and we wanted to give you a list of all the changes prior to Path of Fire’s release.

Profession Mechanic

  • Mirage Cloak: Increased duration to 1 second.
  • Ambush: Increased window for ambush skill use after gaining mirage cloak to 1.5 seconds. Ambush skills now attempt to interrupt your current action rather than queuing. (Note that certain types of skills, such as healing skills, cannot be interrupted in this way.)

Ambush

  • Ether Barrage: Removed shadowstep. Lowered damage per strike by 35%. You can now move while activating this skill.
  • Split Surge: Increased beam width. Now fires all 3 beams at the same time. Increased clone damage values by 150%.
  • Mirage Thrust: Capped clone generation range to skill range. Clone versions of this skill now proc interrupt traits and Dazzling.
  • Imaginary Axes: Increased damage by 33%.

Axe

  • Axe Auto Attack: Increased damage by 10%.
  • Lingering Thoughts: Increased radius at which a clone will be summoned from 300 to 480.
  • Axes of Symmetry: Increased damage by 16%. Fixed an issue where the player would spawn further away from the target than the clones.

Utility

  • False Oasis: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
  • Mirage Mirrors: Duration increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds. Added duration skill fact. Increased damage when shattered by 100%.
  • Crystal Sands: Increased projectile width. Adjusted projectiles to be more reliable on uneven terrain.
  • Mirage Advance: Removed line of sight requirement.
  • Mirage Retreat: Removed endurance gain. This skill now leaves behind a clone at your previous location. This skill now breaks enemy targeting.
  • Illusionary Ambush: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Sand Through Glass: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
  • Jaunt: Increased range from 400 to 450.

Traits

  • Renewing Oasis: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to give 3 seconds of regeneration instead of 4.
  • Speed of Sand: Increased superspeed duration to 1 second.
  • Self-Deception: Now creates a clone if you have at least 1 illusion.
  • Shards of Glass: This trait has been removed and replaced with Distorted Desert.
  • Distorted Desert: This trait causes all illusions shattered by Distortion to become Mirage Mirrors for 15 seconds. Additionally it allows allows ambush skills to be used whenever you grant yourself Distortion.

Most of the changes are aimed at improving the feel of Mirage Cloak and its associated ambush skills though we’ve also made many small tuning changes to various utility and weapon skills.

EDIT: Missed a trait change.

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Small changes that are nice QoL, but don't really address core issues with mechanics (exception of Scepter ambush and Crystal Sands if it doesn't break anymore).

Somewhat disappointed in Lingering Thoughts changes, although it makes it almost guarantee the clone, take that how you will. Personally, I think it's not good to force a clone out of the strongest attack a weapon offers.Also disappointed that Mirage Advance's ¾s cast time is going to stay. Makes it pretty hard to be sneaky with Mirage Return when you end up casting for 1.5s and they lose target of you.

Well, thanks for showing us the changes. Now we can more appropriately plan for the long road ahead.

EDIT:Sorry, clarification on the Mirage Advance comment: It's hard to be sneaky when you spend so long casting only for your opponent to lose target of you. If your opponent understands what a Mirage brings to the table, they'll know you either Axe of Symmetry, Illusionary Ambush, or Mirage Returned. Since only one of these abilities has a cast time (Axes of Symmetry's cast time is the duration of the evade + leap, so it's hard to count), it's pretty easy to guess what you did.

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Mesmer players, it doesn't matter if you're late for the hype train as long as you're getting on it. I was already excited for Mirage, this is amazing. I don't expect this power boost to last though.

The changes to Mirage cloak, axe ambush, lingering thoughts, false oasis, mirage advance, illusionary ambush and self deception are game changers imo.

The only thing I still wish now for Mirage is to have a unique shatter skill even if it's just having Mirage Mirror applied when using shatter 4 distortion. (EDIT: okay, the replacing trait does exactly this)

EDIT: just figured out, mirage advance is now a clone summoning skill and will have its cd reduced by the illusions trait line.

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@Dethl.2875 said:i like the retarget on mirage retreat and the cd changes, and self deception only needing 1 clone is great

distorted desert looks amazing and i hope that it feels amazing too

Oh snap. I didn't get to see DD because it wasn't there yet, and I must have glossed over the SD change because those are both really nice.

DE + SD means you can pump out a ton of clones really fast, although I still find it weird that we don't get access to endurance regen.

Oh yeah some anomalies still present based on notes:GS Ambush is still pretty bad. Increasing clone damage helps, but that forces use of IH (and clone spam) for GS to perform.Mirrored Axes does not affect axe clones.

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@Spookz.8213 said:I haven't kept up with mirage. Are these changes good enough for the spec to feel good in PvE?

"feel good"?probably

"feel useful"?probably not

still being bound to a creature mechanic is terribly disheartening, the mirage was never "bad", it was just never "good" at anything over chrono or base

i'm sure it's fun to play with new toys that feel less clunky with these "fixes" that all the other classes are getting, but it's still disappointing that it still offers nothing "different" like the e-specs where supposed to do

but i suppose time will tell if mirage can somehow muster up enough damage to be relevant to bring somewhere....

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Looks like a Mirage will have a better feel to its mechanics, glad mirrors got increased duration and ambushes had their priority increased. Will ambushes automatically face target too? An irritating issue I found was Illusionary Ambush teleporting me facing away from the target and losing access to the Ambush before I figured which direction they were in (though I suppose the increased ambush window may solve that).

Looking forward to Friday :D

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@Coulter.2315 said:Looks like a Mirage will have a better feel to its mechanics, glad mirrors got increased duration and ambushes had their priority increased. Will ambushes automatically face target too? An irritating issue I found was Illusionary Ambush teleporting me facing away from the target and losing access to the Ambush before I figured which direction they were in (though I suppose the increased ambush window may solve that).

Looking forward to Friday :D

If they're auto-casted (or manually) they will automatically cast in the direction of your target. The Axe ambush, however, may not be in range when using Illusionary Ambush.

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Profession Mechanic

  • Mirage Cloak: Increased duration to 1 second.
  • Ambush: Increased window for ambush skill use after gaining mirage cloak to 1.5 seconds. Ambush skills now attempt to interrupt your current action rather than queuing. (Note that certain types of skills, such as healing skills, cannot be interrupted in this way.)

This is good, hopefully it'll make using ambush skills feel more natural as opposed to needing to hammer on 1 in the hopes of activating them.

Ambush

  • Ether Barrage: Removed shadowstep. Lowered damage per strike by 35%. You can now move while activating this skill.

Well, allowing movement is a drastic improvement. However, this now ends up as a fairly weak and extremely vulnerable skill due to the very long cast time. We'll see how it plays out.

  • Split Surge: Increased beam width. Now fires all 3 beams at the same time. Increased clone damage values by 150%.

Honestly, this still sounds really bad.

  • Mirage Thrust: Capped clone generation range to skill range. Clone versions of this skill now proc interrupt traits and Dazzling.

Good fix.

  • Imaginary Axes: Increased damage by 33%.

Not sure how much this will matter. The skill is fairly mechanically limited, especially due to the projectiles.

Axe

  • Axe Auto Attack: Increased damage by 10%.
  • Lingering Thoughts: Increased radius at which a clone will be summoned from 300 to 480.

These are good. Hopefully the damage change will make the axe feel more punchy.

  • Axes of Symmetry: Increased damage by 16%. Fixed an issue where the player would spawn further away from the target than the clones.

This is good, but it doesn't sound like the issue of this skill mashing your face into terrain was fixed.

Utility

  • False Oasis: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

This is good, it might be competitive with ether feast now.

  • Mirage Mirrors: Duration increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds. Added duration skill fact. Increased damage when shattered by 100%.

This is generally good, but I don't think it's going to matter much. The mirror mechanic just needs a full rework.

  • Crystal Sands: Increased projectile width. Adjusted projectiles to be more reliable on uneven terrain.

This is good, but the skill is still terrible. Projectiles means it's easily countered, and that's on top of even the best case doing terrible damage for careful setup.

  • Mirage Advance: Removed line of sight requirement.
  • Mirage Retreat: Removed endurance gain. This skill now leaves behind a clone at your previous location. This skill now breaks enemy targeting.

This is a good change, but the long cast time still makes it clunky. Still, now it's usable at least. It might compete with blink in some cases.

  • Illusionary Ambush: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

This is good and definitely helps with mobility, hopefully the skill actually works now though.

  • Sand Through Glass: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

This is better, but the skill still is extremely weak to even bother putting on the bar.

  • Jaunt: Increased range from 400 to 450.

Progress. Not enough progress, but baby steps I suppose.

Traits

  • Speed of Sand: Increased superspeed duration to 1 second.

Good, but mobility is still really janky with mirage: see tons of discussion about this.

  • Self-Deception: Now creates a clone if you have at least 1 illusion.

This is a drastic improvement and actually is usable now.

  • Shards of Glass: This trait has been removed and replaced with Distorted Desert.
  • Distorted Desert: This trait causes all illusions shattered by Distortion to become Mirage Mirrors for 15 seconds. Additionally it allows allows ambush skills to be used whenever you grant yourself Distortion.

This is actually quite interesting and interacts nicely with some other mechanics like traited signets. It also provides the opportunity for distortion to be a significant burst when used in conjunction with rapid ambush attacks. This is a good trait.

Overall these are good changes and will help mirage feel better, but it's still going to be generally a weak and somewhat clunky elite specialization. This is a step in the right direction, but there's still a ways to go.

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@Robert Gee.9246 said:

  • Split Surge: Increased beam width. Now fires all 3 beams at the same time. Increased clone damage values by 150%.

Aren't clones unable to deal any power damage to begin with? Reading this patch note makes me wonder: 0 damage * 1.5 = still 0 damage. Or am I missing something here?

@Robert Gee.9246 said:Most of the changes are aimed at improving the feel of Mirage Cloak and its associated ambush skills though we’ve also made many small tuning changes to various utility and weapon skills.

The biggest fear I have as a minmax Raider is that Dune Cloak is simply gonna be better than Infinite Horizon due to the 20% condi duration. The problem here is that without Infinite Horizon, the whole point of having any clones is irrelevant and therefore leads to the same old boring "set up 3 iDuelists and wait" gameplay instead of the "ambush, shatter, reproduce" gameplay the Mirage would be capable of.

Imo, Infinite Horizon and Dune Cloak should not be in the same tier, frankly Infinite Horizon is the only selling point of the Mirage and should be considered to become baseline.

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@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Overall these are good changes and will help mirage feel better, but it's still going to be generally a weak and somewhat clunky elite specialization. This is a step in the right direction, but there's still a ways to go.

I think they're going to stick with weak ambushes for now and (hopefully) tune them up in the future.

It feels weird to have a spec solely built around PvP, though. Like, usually there's at least something offered to PvE players...

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@Esplen.3940 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Overall these are good changes and will help mirage feel better, but it's still going to be generally a weak and somewhat clunky elite specialization. This is a step in the right direction, but there's still a ways to go.

I think they're going to stick with weak ambushes for now and (hopefully) tune them up in the future.

It feels weird to have a spec solely built around PvP, though. Like, usually there's at least something offered to PvE players...

Weak ambushes would be ok, if Infinite Horizon would be baseline. Imo this trait is the whole selling point of the otheriwise decieving Mirage.

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@Xyonon.3987 said:

@Esplen.3940 said:I think they're going to stick with weak ambushes for now and (hopefully) tune them up in the future.

It feels weird to have a spec solely built around PvP, though. Like, usually there's at least something offered to PvE players...

Weak ambushes would be ok, if
would be baseline. Imo this trait is the whole selling point of the otheriwise decieving Mirage.

I disagree. Weak ambushes would be justified if Infinite Horizon was baseline, but that introduces other problems, which is reliance on clones. The current iteration of Mirage is a shatter line, which is what it was intended to be. I think the whole reliance on Clones and concept of deception is flawed, as seen by Mesmer as a whole in PvP. Sure, detargeting yourself is really nice, but it's not really a mindgame, it's just a way to relieve pressure, if only momentarily. Infinite Horizon embraces the flawed concept of "pretending to be a clone" and I think that's counter to what Mirage (and even Mesmer) ends up playing as.

Sure, on paper Mirage is meant to allow players to confuse their opponents by pretending to be a clone and mixing themselves among the clones. But that's also how core Mesmer was introduced and balanced around. I might not play PvP much, but I know that Mesmers in PvP are easy to spot and Mirage does little to stray from that.

Yes, Axes of Symmetry (with axe clones) and Illusionary Ambush (with clones) will put you in a place where you can pretend to be a clone, but it doesn't actually work as intended. There are tons of things that fight against the concept of you pretending to be an AI. You will auto attack at different speeds. Clones will react faster than you at moving to follow opponents. You will not be able to make any extraneous movements, including sidesteps. You will not be able to cast any ability. Admittedly, Mirage allows you to dodge (with IH), but even that signals which is the real one as you're not going to dodge for your clone (and if you do, you blow an evade to save 1 second and the clone dies in the following second).

So no, I don't think Infinite Horizon should be baseline, and I also don't think balancing Ambushes around Infinite Horizon is healthy for Mesmer.

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@Levetty.1279 said:kitten they have removed the one source of non vigor endurance regen it gave in a spec that revolves around throwing your dodges away to attack.Don't worry, we still have 50 Endurance Regen on Well of Precognition! Oh wait, we can't run that on Mirage. (Also RIP Well of Precog)

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@Robert Gee,

I was so excited initially by the thought of actually being able to fool another player. The idea of being able to untarget was also very exciting. ( I and others suggested this in the old forum threads.) Still, the severe terrain restrictions, and generally problematic skills... One example was when I'd use Axes of Symmetry on a moving target, and land where they were at the time of the cast. This destroyed the purpose and put me at a disadvantage as often as not.

Thank you for your work on Mesmer. I will cling to hope and try it out. I have a 'toon ready to fully unlock Mirage and Chronomancer on opening day.

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