What would need to happen for you to consider Mirage?

What's the most obvious problem with mirage right now?

For me it's the loss of the passive 25% movement speed. Without it moving around feels so slow and I immediately went back to chrono.Speed of Sand really doesn't keep up.

I also don't like Mirage Thrust (the sword ambush) for some reason and would like to see it replaced with a non movement alternative.

It would need to be raid viable while having more to it than summoning 3 pistol phantasms and afking.The 25% movement thing isnt a big deal seeing as we have mounts now, but yeah mirage thrust is kinda meh.

I'd simply like Infinite Horizon moved to gm minor trait (speed of sand merged with adept minor) and a new gm major trait created in its place.

Oh and 600 range Jaunt would be nice.

Those two things would make me much happier with mirage.

Frankly, by and large it'd need to be scrapped and done again from the ground up. The core issue with Mirage is how none of the components (Cloak, Mirrors, Ambushes, Deception, Clones) fit one another.

That being said if I were to be asked how to fix it in-place:

• Remove infinite horizon.
• Buff all ambush skills significantly. Talking 200%-700% here, depending on which one we're talking about.
• All deception skills spawn mirrors.
• Mirrors last 15 seconds.
• Remove condi-specific elements of the traits (not the axe, that's a condi weapon).
• Replace with generic damage-buffing components.
• All shatter skills make phantasms shattered become mirrors.

In other words, make a spec which is extremely difficult to hit as long as it can stay near the mirrors which it constantly creates, and virtually all of its damage output comes from the constant barrage of ambush attacks from picking those mirrors up.

On the other hand, force it to move, away from the mirrors, and it becomes very frail.

To OP question: Lobotomy

Nomad's Endurance - Precision or Power and Condi damage instead of Condi Damage only.Deception Skills - Turn Illusionary Ambush into a charge system, Jaunt range into 550/600.Traits - Remove Infinite Horizon or fix it that it works with Phantasms as well.Ambushes - Mirage Thrust - increased damage by 75% when you have max illusions and doesn't make another (just like Sceptre Auto 3)

• Split Surge - ummm since they made it 150% more damage on clones... why not go and make it 500% more! (still is useless lmao) (also 50% more damage on Mesmer's)

"All shatter skills make phantasms shattered become mirrors."Perfect. This should be distorted Dessert.Distortet deserst is a placeholder anyways, while it looks good on paper, its too one dimensional. To make it REALLY good u need to go with domination and traited sigils.Ur change is in my opinion straight up perfect ; Won't produce thousands of mirrors, but permanately gives u the choice. Mantain phantasms for overall dmg, or shatter for burst + utility. ( Lookin at pvp/wvw mostly).

Speed of Sand again should give us Quickness on Mirrage cloaks. Superspeed alone is too weak, and quickness on top of it just fits 100%.Riddle of Sand should trigger on every Ambush, and should even trigger on illusions if Infinite Horizon is traited. Mirage Mantle could also be written as ; do nothing. Worst Trait mesmer has avaible in my opinion. Crystal Sands feels smooth to use, but is not strong enough as it fails to hit a lot. Was thinking about a growing combofield, which after 3 seconds implodes producing the mirror. While growing it would pusle confusion and torment, 1 stack of each every 0,5 seconds. Combo field would synergize with axe a lot, solves the projectile problem and is overall stronger in my opinion.

While that beeing said ; still love mirrage. I was outrunning thiefs in WvW with sword ambush, jaunt, blinks without 25% movespeed runes. Mirrage is really something u have to get used too. For Pve i think it could become one of the hardest rotations in GW2. As i did my first tests i had too much endurance, through false oasis and crystal sands. This leaves me with a lot of ambushes open, while i had my normal skills too. In fact u got more dmg skills then u have time to cast them, so u really have to go through the whole rotation mathematically and think about the best possible way to do ur dmg. Was using energy sigils and endurance food.

I reached 18 k dps on my wvw build ; 1300 condi dmg , 1700 power , 35 % crit chance, 170% crit dmg, 0 % overall condi duration + Krait runes + dune cloak , illusions/dueling/mirrage, with all buffs.

Allready saw a thread here of someone doing 31-33k dps on a Pve Build. In conclusion i think we will see 35k dps + in the next few weeks.

25% should be base line to mesmer tbh. Other than that mirage would beed a few tweaks to some uriles and dmg buffs across the ambush skills axe skills and the dmgimg utilities.

@Carighan.6758 said:Frankly, by and large it'd need to be scrapped and done again from the ground up. The core issue with Mirage is how none of the components (Cloak, Mirrors, Ambushes, Deception, Clones) fit one another.

That being said if I were to be asked how to fix it in-place:

• Remove infinite horizon.
• Buff all ambush skills significantly. Talking 200%-700% here, depending on which one we're talking about.
• All deception skills spawn mirrors.
• Mirrors last 15 seconds.
• Remove condi-specific elements of the traits (not the axe, that's a condi weapon).
• Replace with generic damage-buffing components.
• All shatter skills make phantasms shattered become mirrors.

In other words, make a spec which is extremely difficult to hit as long as it can stay near the mirrors which it constantly creates, and virtually all of its damage output comes from the constant barrage of ambush attacks from picking those mirrors up.

On the other hand, force it to move, away from the mirrors, and it becomes very frail.

Ye ye ok while we are at it rework the entire game as well because i dont like the boon system.

Well i'm already playing Mirage but for me to really enjoy it it would have to be a rework for the Mirage Mirrors.Despite the buff they got it's just not a fun mechanic to play with at all.Other than that maybe buff the ambushes.

I am already pretty happy with current mirage. It is so much better than the one we played in beta.

There does need some adjustments.

1. Staff ambush need to track target. It should work exactly like say mesmer GS mirror blade or DH LB true shot. You shouldn't need to worry about aiming for something that only has 1.5 sec cast window and 1 sec cast time.

2. Jaunt needs to be 600 range. This will make mirage much more competitive option in PvP. Current Jaunt is too underwhelming for an elite skill. Most elite skills in this game have much higher impact than this.

3. Mirage mantle is such a boring and uninspiring trait. Please try to change it into something that improves illusion survivability. Give the protection to the illusions so that they might survive over 1 autoattack.

@zealex.9410 said:25% should be base line to mesmer tbh. Other than that mirage would beed a few tweaks to some uriles and dmg buffs across the ambush skills axe skills and the dmgimg utilities.

Now with PoF more than ever, swiftness and perma runspeed access should be strictly reduced and be rather rare. We got mounts for general movement.

@Carighan.6758 said:

@zealex.9410 said:25% should be base line to mesmer tbh. Other than that mirage would beed a few tweaks to some uriles and dmg buffs across the ambush skills axe skills and the dmgimg utilities.

Not in PvP, not in WvW , the gamemodes in which speed matters.

@Bod.8261 said:I also don't like Mirage Thrust (the sword ambush) for some reason and would like to see it replaced with a non movement alternative.

Seems odd to in one post complain about the speed of the class, and then argue that the tool giving the class more open world and burst mobility than the alternatives should be removed.

I'm loving mirage just the way it is, and already I think I'll play it more than chrono if it remains that way. That being said, I don't believe it's perfect. A few things need to happen. All the ambush skills besides Mirage Thrust need to change, to get on Mirage Thrust's level. I'd like to see the other ambush skills offer the mirage some mobility, more unique conditions (like an immobilize one), clone or phantasm generation, or better damaging condition application.

I would like to see more of the mirage skills disable enemy targeting too. That's just a minor flavor thing.

Regen stacking intensity (up to 5 stacks) would instantly make me enjoy mirage a lot more.

Sure it would remain require some rebalancing of skills and traits on all classes (ie ele, ranger, etc), but it would be amazing for mirage's regen on dodge trait when used in conjunction with Chaos and maintaining high uptime of chaos armour, and provide some of the sustain mirage needs to be able to compete with chrono.

In addition I'd really like to see even a 1/2s evade on axe 2.

Oh and Sand Through Glass ought to be a 10s cooldown that also breaks targeting (likening it to bandit's defence, just with evades and other features).

False Oasis could have an additional healing tick (so 6 pulses), but that might be asking for too much.

Mirage is fun, sure, but I really wish they reworked shatters for it :anguished: . I mean, they totally reworked class mechanics for scourge and firebrand, I really hoped they would change something with shatters or phantasms (or both), but they left them untouched, meh.

Just do what core mesmers always did; run focus offhand. It's pretty much a superior offhand anyway, because of the CC and switfness.

I'll preface my post by admitting that I simply just may not be the Mirage's target audience. Chronomancer sounded like my kinda thing when we got the details, but I didn't get Heart of Thorns until Path of Fire was available, so I saved my skill points just in case so I could do Mirage instead (by that point, I was itching for a different style that was more melee and direct damage). I didn't play Mirage very long before I switched over to Chronomancer and haven't regretted it.

The obstacles I ran into with Mirage:

• In a chaotic enough fight, the Ambush skills take me by surprise. While I'm not absolutely positive about this, I certainly felt like I was interrupting my own Ambush skills and cancelling them in the heat of the moment. Also, even though there was a spread of things that could activate them, it felt like I had to go out of my way to get them to happen without enough benefit. For instance, the Scepter one fires a huge volley, but my favorite part of Scepter is it summoning clones on its auto-attack, and the Ambush skill doesn't do that at all. It comes instead of that ability for a short while.

• I can't tell I'm dodging. Not only do I usually rely on the extra movement burst of the roll to escape certain things, but the shimmery effect alone was easily lost in a chaotic fight. There were times I swear it didn't even display and I couldn't tell if I had actually activated a dodge. This was the main thing that got me to switch away. In my experience, I seem to be better about avoiding mechanics that the average person in the open world, but I'm still way behind the sort of people who act like they've never seen the Downed state, so the last thing I need is my dodges to confuse me.

• The Elite skill is just boring. I'm sure other people will get some great use out of it, but it really seems underwhelming. Meanwhile, the Chronomancer one is great all around. Good damage, good CC that hates break bars, and its cooldown isn't too bad either.

• I said I was looking for something different with Mirage, but Chronomancer directly buffs the way I already played Mesmer. It's hard to choose Mirage over that when I'm not even really sure what Mirage does.

So, considering those points, this is what would need to happen for me to consider playing Mirage:

• Have a plan laid out and more time spent on it to get used to it.
• Ambush skills that are more rare and used more precisely, but have more impact.
• Dodging still moving you like the roll even if it's a different animation (or even just making you super fast for a short time, so you don't have to move but you'll notice it if you do).
• An Elite skill that had a more direct impact that fits my playstyle.
• I wish I could use the Axe and a Shield. Not because of any broken combos I have in mind, but I just feel there aren't enough off-hand choices and I wish the weapons weren't specialization-locked.

The thing is with chrono is how well it works for ALL modes. Alacrity is just too useful and Gravity Well elite is too good to get rid of. Not to mention when you shatter a clone it make a replica of a clone in its place in the traits.

I just don't see Mirage viable outside PvP, specially since even with "chornotanking" in PoF, you can drop like a rock. if they made it more group friendly instead of just a "super clone machine" I would give it a go.

I have a huge list but I won’t bother wasting my breathe on unrealistic fantasies of what I’d like Mirage to have. So i’ll just stick with making Jaunt 600 range.

I have a few main things:

1. Make Clones punishing to kill. If Mirage is supposed to focus on us fooling our opponent into killing Clones, we should gain some greater and more distinct advantage when using Mirage over main Mesmer for deceiving the opponent. Clone-Death Traits would be amazing for this, especially if they could punish AoE spam in particular. And to be clear, I don't want "Mirage Mirrors on Clone Death" as a trait. More so, it will help make opponents think twice before killing a clone, not wanting to kill the fake Mirage the wrong way.
2. Give Mirage Mirrors some different purpose. Maybe make them strong illusions that can be shattered only when moved through by an enemy. Or, perhaps, "Mirage Mirrors pulse stealth around itself every second, can be shattered when moved through by enemy" such that they really do make it impossible to tell where the Mirage is. I don't exactly know, but the current iteration of it is simply the worst to play with. The damage on it makes no difference since moving to a location that doesn't give you positional advantage (because RNG) does not get made up for by the second of evasion, the ambush, and the weakness/damage on it. To be clear, in a real fight, Mirage Mirrors give you no notable advantage while being difficult and sometimes detrimental to navigate through.
3. Ambush skills should provide distinct advantage, but difficult to land normally. Something that incentivizes us to think of them as "powerful counter attacks" instead of alternative, and sometimes better and sometimes worse, autoattacks. Otherwise, they should just be distinctly powerful skills. I enjoy the Sword Ambush because it synergizes quite a bit with the rest of the Mesmer interrupt traits and gives us a potential daze to utilize for whatever. It can be quite powerful, if built into.
4. Synergy. Mirage needs to build in more connection with the core Mesmer. We have a little daze on the sword, which is nice, but otherwise our traits are a good bit all-over and we need a more focused "Mesmer" Elite Spec and not a stand-alone spec that just does its own thing without concern for how it works with the rest of the parts. Chrono did this by simply empowering clone generation and phantasm longevity. Again, maybe Clone-Death traits can go a long way toward decentivizing the AoE spam destroing clones. Or something else. I don't care, but it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I mained it since PoF hit and had a blast. Lots of fun to play, and I also feel really strong damage wise (using full ascended Viper's set). The ambush skills could be a bit stronger though, but building up 20-30 stacks of confusion and other stuff is fun. Enemies go down really fast.

I like the mirrors, and I also like the buffs we get with dodges. But there are a few problems:

• when I dodge backwards or sideways I do not profit from superspeed resulting in downs if I don't get outside the danger zone. I know they gave us a lot of displacement stuff like Jaunt and Illusionary Ambush, but that's not enough to counterfeit it.
• Mirrors are fun to run through for the superspeed buff and invincibility window, but it kinda feels off and it's just somewhere on the field since you do a lot of displacement, bosses and enemies move around etc. Maybe we just should get that by using the deception skills.

Good looking dodge.

Good AoE's.

Good looking, acrobatic melee attacks.

Unique looking elements of UI. (energy bar? F5 skill? New F skills?).

the traits seem rather clunky

Infinite Horizon moved to GM minor and Speed of Sand made baseline. New GM trait: "When you shatter with MW, CoF or Diversion, clones Ambush before shattering"Nomad's Endurance giving 5s of vigor on Mirage Cloak instead of shatter.Something for Axe 2. Make it faster or add evade or something. Up the range on AA to 400.