Illusionary Ambush, Sand Through Glass and Crystal Sands should totally be f1-f3 skills!

You usually don't shatter as a mirage and therefore f1-f4 are hardly used. I would love to see them changed or at least changed by choosing a specific trait.

I think retargeting should be more available for the mirage. Illusionary Ambush is the only skill that allows you to do that if you don't use axes. That's why I think Illusionary ambush should be a f1 skill (as well).

Sand through glass and Crystal sands basically create a mirage mirror. That's all they really do, it's not that good for having to use an utility slot. Although, as core skills they would totally fit with the mirage.

What do you think? This is what I experienced throughout my 30 hours of playing the mirage in PvE. I hardly use shatter skills (except f4 for the trait) and think they should be replaced with different skills.

Interesting idea, although for the Power build it's pretty useful to be able to cast f1 f3 and f4 (f2 isn't too good)

Yeah I'd rather get rid of all shatters and replace them - F1 with ambush and F2/3 with similar skills to IA, with baseline IH and IH resetting phantasm attack cycle.

I agree with this 100%,

F1: can be Mirage Advance AND Illusionary Ambush together (to reflect an almost Thief like steal skill)

F2 & F3: can be some sort of condition/cc skill.

Then F4 can be the distortion/ a shifting sand’esc skill.

Then they can make room for new utilities, preferably ones that break targeting and/or cause your enemies attacks to target clones instead since we do use “deception”,

@tnhalbertsma.7682 said:Interesting idea, although for the Power build it's pretty useful to be able to cast f1 f3 and f4 (f2 isn't too good)

Yeah that's why there could be a trait you need to take that changes your f skills :)

It's what I said chrono should have been when it was announced. F4 CS should have replaced distortion. F2 applies torment/slow instead of confusion etc. F1-F4 reworks can work with all mesmer core shatter traits. Tried out scourge and loved it. Like reaper and sand shroud are great reworks of core mechanics that function with all the old traits. Even old weapons like dagger are given new life with sand shroud.

@Tseison.4659 said:I agree with this 100%,

F1: can be Mirage Advance AND Illusionary Ambush together (to reflect an almost Thief like steal skill)

F2 & F3: can be some sort of condition/cc skill.

Then F4 can be the distortion/ a shifting sand’esc skill.

Then they can make room for new utilities, preferably ones that break targeting and/or cause your enemies attacks to target clones instead since we do use “deception”,

Yeah F4 could stay as distortion since it offers a lot of utility, especially with the new trait that lets illusions become mirrors.

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:It's what I said chrono should have been when it was announced. F4 CS should have replaced distortion. F2 applies torment/slow instead of confusion etc. F1-F4 reworks can work with all mesmer core shatter traits. Tried out scourge and loved it. Like reaper and sand shroud are great reworks of core mechanics that function with all the old traits. Even old weapons like dagger are given new life with sand shroud.

Yeah I agree with you! I just think that Anet doesn't want to "rework" the tons of shatter traits or add something for a "new" f1-f4 shatter to the existing ones if there were different elite specialisation shatters. It's a pity to be honest.

They really should have made ALL elite specs include a change to base class mechanics from the start... it certainly would have done a lot to curb the power creep... even without the massive overpoweredness of many elite spec traits and skills, the simple fact that most of them gained new mechanics AND retained their old mechanics just made them flat out upgrades from the start, despite ArenaNet repeatedly claiming that Elite specs are not upgrades.

I'd have to disagree. I do think there exists a power variant of the Mirage becasue I think it's utility can support it. I think that the mirage itself plays well with 4 single hand weapons as far as power based builds go. Sword, Focus, Axe and Pisotl/Shield (in some mix and match). The Mirage has a lot of mid range skills which all of these weapons are. So I think a new Berserk burst is possible with mantras like the classic Mesmer Great Sword burst. However the trade off being is that it probably requires playing like a Great Sword Mesmer where all the damage is primarily coming from a single target and being vulnerable to Crowd Control. I would hate to lose shatters to a set of fairly unreliable utility skills.

I also feel that by choosing not to shatter you are limiting your damage and utility. I don't think that is a healthy play style for Mesmer's as Robert Gee said during Heart of Thorns, they want Mesmer's to shatter more. I still think that holds true for the Mirage as well. However, a good Shatter cadence is needed. Reactive Shattering will not cut it with mirage. I don't think it was ever intended at any point in time for even the Core Mesmer to hide in stealth and let the full range of it's Condition damage be done through clones. Hence why Mirage lose 20% condition duration under the effects of regeneration.However, gain vigor on shatter which grants more access to Mirage Cloak, Increased Condition damage, and more Dodges, and Endurance and Mirage Mirrors and those Mirrors give more access to Mirage Cloak.

Mirage cloak is what lets you keep your illusions alive when traits are chosen with Infinite Horizon and what allows you to ambush. The point is, you need to shatter and I am pretty sure that, was the intent of the caveats of playing Mirage, culling back that play style of trying to hide in stealth while just letting Condition Damage do the heavy lifting. I admit it is a condition specialization but, I am well aware of how it does not allow by design, the over utilization of condition damage. This is good for Mesmers especially in the PVP scene as Condition Mesmer is universally hated...the short of it.

Respectfully, I don't remotely approve of that kind of play style, at all. It's not healthy for for the class or those that come into the class. Removing shatters so in effect hiding in stealth while clones can always be present and easily generated and do the full range of of the players condition damage while simultaneously never being available to be attacked is not competitive, in short. We know this is the Majority of Mesmers want to do..currently. All this being said, I think this was the attempt at raising the skill required to play Mesmer.

I like this idea. I always like to see Elite Specializations challenge base mechanics, and I think this would be appropriate for Mirage.

I've actually been Shatter-crazy for a long time now, and I feel that's what messed me up trying to play Mirage. It's not really set up for you to be doing it as much as I do, which makes it suddenly way more complicated to be accomplishing the same things (cause you obviously want them out sometimes to get the most of Ambushes and confusing which Illusion is you, but that's already out way more than I use them normally). Also, I agree that Mirage has some really interesting Utility that's hard to squeeze in there. Not to say you shouldn't have to make choices, but those Utilities would make a lot of sense as F replacements.

Apart f> @Jokubas.4265 said:

I like this idea. I always like to see Elite Specializations challenge base mechanics, and I think this would be appropriate for Mirage.

I've actually been Shatter-crazy for a long time now, and I feel that's what messed me up trying to play Mirage. It's not really set up for you to be doing it as much as I do, which makes it suddenly way more complicated to be accomplishing the same things (cause you obviously want them out sometimes to get the most of Ambushes and confusing which Illusion is you, but that's already out way more than I use them normally). Also, I agree that Mirage has some really interesting Utility that's hard to squeeze in there. Not to say you shouldn't have to make choices, but those Utilities would make a lot of sense as F replacements.

Apart from the GM trait and a utility skill. Mirage doesn't really discourage you from shattering. I see lots of people misunderstand this. Did Anet give people the wrong idea about the class design??

@keenlam.4753 said:Apart f> @Jokubas.4265 said:

I like this idea. I always like to see Elite Specializations challenge base mechanics, and I think this would be appropriate for Mirage.

I've actually been Shatter-crazy for a long time now, and I feel that's what messed me up trying to play Mirage. It's not really set up for you to be doing it as much as I do, which makes it suddenly

way

more complicated to be accomplishing the same things (cause you obviously want them out sometimes to get the most of Ambushes and confusing which Illusion is you, but that's already out way more than I use them normally). Also, I agree that Mirage has some really interesting Utility that's hard to squeeze in there. Not to say you shouldn't have to make choices, but those Utilities would make a lot of sense as F replacements.

I don't think that's the issue though - sure you can shatter a lot in mirage (although not as much as chrono), and alternate ambush into shatter into ambush with good cadence.

My problem is I'm bored of shattering and was hoping for totally new mechanics with mirage to make it unique compared with chrono and core mesmer - so focusing entirely on illusion control and manipulation/deception would have been nice.