[Suggestion] Ambush Skill Adjustments

I mentioned this in another thread, but ambush skills are currently incredibly underwhelming. So many mechanics for mirage revolve around these skills that their forgettableness makes all the associated mechanics also feel really worthless. The ambush skills all need a rework to make them actually punchy and feel good to use.

AxeAxe is a cleaving, melee, damage oriented weapon. The current ambush skill is highly susceptible to all sorts of random projectile hate, hits only one target unless things line up perfectly, and is incredibly weak even then.

My version is a quick pbaoe hit at the same radius as shatters, applying solid condie damage with a power coefficient that is weak but still noticable. This fits with the general damage style of the weapon and is usable in a wide variety of content.

"Spin phantasmal axes around you, dealing area damage."

Cast: .5sDamage: x2 (1.0)Conditions: Confusion x3 (4s), Torment x3 (4s)Radius: 240Targets: 5

ScepterScepter is primarily a single target dueling weapon with a decent split between offense and defense. The current ambush skill is an incredibly slow channel that is disturbingly vulnerable to interrupts from any skilled enemy. It's also very weak for such a slow skill with a resource investment.

My version is a quicker channel that also cripples the target, working with the concept of scepter balancing offense and defense. The condition pressure has been amped up to make the target actually pay attention to this.

"Channel to fire 3 orbs at your enemy, inflicting cripple, confusion, and torment."

Cast: 1sDamage: x3 (2.0)Conditions: Cripple x3 (2s), Confusion x3 (5s), Torment x3 (5s)Range: 1200

StaffThe staff is a primarily condition weapon that has a lot of utility mechanics for buffing, defense, and disruption. Honestly, the current ambush skill here is fairly decent, so I'm not going to come up with an entirely new one. Instead, I'll list a couple necessary changes.

• Channel time should be .75s maximum, it's way too slow for what it does.
• The projectile needs to track targets like the autoattack, missing a moving target feels really silly.
• The boons on allies portion of this skill isn't really usable. Make this an AOE pulse around the caster.

SwordThis skill is also fairly decent, but for such a short duration cc, the damage is really awful. This skill could be modified in one of 3 ways:

1. Boost the damage coefficient to 1.5. This makes the attack appropriately noticable.
2. Boost the damage coefficient to 2.5 on a successful interrupt, but lower the base damage to .5. This makes the skill very punchy when used carefully and fits with the mesmer interrupt theme.
3. Leave the damage as-is and boost the daze duration to 1s. This makes it a powerful control skill and produced the option to scale daze duration for additional control.

GreatswordThe greatsword is used to facilitate close range, single target, burst damage and long range harassment. Currently the skill does neither. My version uses reverse range scaling to boost the damage of a close range burst and applies some control to allow it functionality as long range harassment.

"Shoot a wide beam at your foe, dealing additional damage at closer range."

Channel: .5sDamage >900 range: x3 (.5)

Damage 600<range<900: x3 (1.0)

Damage 300<range<600: x3 (1.5)

Damage <300 range: x3 (2.0)

Conditions >900 range: Cripple x3 (1s), Weakness x3 (1s)Range: 1200

I'm not going to touch the underwater weapons because reasons.

So those are my thoughts for ambush skill adjustments. My axe skill makes it a versatile AOE weapon that fits with the AOE pressure that axe lends itself to. My scepter skill makes it a more usable condition attack that is worth casting and provides a measure of defensive control. Adjustments to the staff skill will make it essentially work properly. Adjustments to the sword skill will make it either solidly control-based, damage-based, or interrupt rewarding. Lastly, the greatsword skill will work with the rest of the weapon to facilitate both close range burst and long range harassment without doing both at the same time.

I really like these ideas, especially scepter one, but:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:AxeAxe is a cleaving, melee, damage oriented weapon. The current ambush skill is highly susceptible to all sorts of random projectile hate, hits only one target unless things line up perfectly, and is incredibly weak even then.

My version is a quick pbaoe hit at the same radius as shatters, applying solid condie damage with a power coefficient that is weak but still noticable. This fits with the general damage style of the weapon and is usable in a wide variety of content.

"Spin phantasmal axes around you, dealing area damage."

Cast: .5sDamage: x2 (1.0)Conditions: Confusion x3 (4s), Torment x3 (4s)Radius: 240Targets: 5

To me, it's just a more bursty version of axe auto's third part. I like the idea of seeking axes more, I think. Imo they just have to fix the issues with actually landing the axes on more than just one target (maybe each axe should seek multiple enemies?) and make them more impactful (more axes/more condis on each axe).Also, I didnt know they can be reflected. This interaction is silly imo and should be removed (it wouldnt break the balance, really).

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:StaffThe staff is a primarily condition weapon that has a lot of utility mechanics for buffing, defense, and disruption. Honestly, the current ambush skill here is fairly decent, so I'm not going to come up with an entirely new one. Instead, I'll list a couple necessary changes.

• Channel time should be .75s maximum, it's way too slow for what it does.
• The projectile needs to track targets like the autoattack, missing a moving target feels really silly.
• The boons on allies portion of this skill isn't really usable. Make this an AOE pulse around the caster.

Hell yes, this is perfect.

I agree with everything, but had to reaffirm this one for Staff because it is an excellent fix.

Sword: Don't spawn clone if you have 3 Phantasms. Kthx. :/

Also, your current proposed Axe Ambush drops 12 conditions lasting 4s and the Scepter drops 18 lasting 5s.

@Esplen.3940 said:Sword: Don't spawn clone if you have 3 Phantasms. Kthx. :/

Also, your current proposed Axe Ambush drops 12 conditions lasting 4s and the Scepter drops 18 lasting 5s.

Not quite, you're reading that wrong. Tooltips list the total conditions applied and total damage dealt, not per-hit. Axe drops 6 conditions lasting 4 seconds, not 12. Likewise, scepter is producing 6 lasting 5s, plus cripple.

Additionally, that's the point. Axe is a 5 target aoe with a reasonably generous range. Scepter is a single target skill and should deal more damage and comes loaded with control as well.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Esplen.3940 said:Sword: Don't spawn clone if you have 3 Phantasms. Kthx. :/

Also, your current proposed Axe Ambush drops 12 conditions lasting 4s and the Scepter drops 18 lasting 5s.

Current Axe Ambush lists 1 condition 2 hits, applies 2 conditions (3 when traited with Mirrored Axes).Current Scepter Ambush lists 2 conditions 5 hits, applies 5 conditions.

I would agree with you, but Ambushes are the exception to the rule.

@Esplen.3940 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Esplen.3940 said:Sword: Don't spawn clone if you have 3 Phantasms. Kthx. :/

Also, your current proposed Axe Ambush drops 12 conditions lasting 4s and the Scepter drops 18 lasting 5s.

The scepter ambush is listed that way because it explicitly notes either confusion or torment per hit. The exception is listed explicitly with the skill. Imaginary axes is just a poor tooltip, but that's no reason to perpetuate poor design.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:SwordThis skill is also fairly decent, but for such a short duration cc, the damage is really awful. This skill could be modified in one of 3 ways:

1. Boost the damage coefficient to 1.5. This makes the attack appropriately noticable.
2. Boost the damage coefficient to 2.5 on a successful interrupt, but lower the base damage to .5. This makes the skill very punchy when used carefully and fits with the mesmer interrupt theme.
3. Leave the damage as-is and boost the daze duration to 1s. This makes it a powerful control skill and produced the option to scale daze duration for additional control.

Mirage thrust isn't decent, it's amazing. It does damage, it makes a clone, it moves you, and it does a daze. In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze. It's worth noting that if you have the Domination trait that replaces dazes with stuns, this gives you a 1 second stun. It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes. It's like a mini diversion. In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage It doesn't need damage to do good. The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

I agree with you that the ambush skills need work, but try to keep your suggestions reasonable.

Tbh as much as I dislike not having proper damage with Mirage Thrust I think its a good ambush skill for power shatter builds.It might not have the raw damage as other ambushes but considering all it gives you it seems quite good so far.a CC (stun when traited), clone generating, gapclosing (that doesn't require a target) skill sounds perfect for power shatter builds.

Only problem I found is that it's rather slow and everyone sees it coming from miles away & dodges.Having more damage on it would be great but I think that if it's too much i will be borderline OP.

I generally really like the adjustments.

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Sword

This skill is also fairly decent, but for such a short duration cc, the damage is really awful. This skill could be modified in one of 3 ways:

1. Boost the damage coefficient to 1.5. This makes the attack appropriately noticable.
2. Boost the damage coefficient to 2.5 on a successful interrupt, but lower the base damage to .5. This makes the skill very punchy when used carefully and fits with the mesmer interrupt theme.
3. Leave the damage as-is and boost the daze duration to 1s. This makes it a powerful control skill and produced the option to scale daze duration for additional control.

A - a 3/4 cast on an interrupt that we already have to burn a dodge/utility skill to setup is pretty piss poor for just 1/4 sec daze. Yea, it still interrupts, but immediately they are able to use skills again. And its pretty easy to dodge/block a 3/4 sec cast, especially if you see them going for a mirror.B - The breakbar damage, even with 3 sword clones out, is pretty badC - We already have evidence in game that clones can have weaker ambush attacks. No reason that the same couldn't happen here, with our personal mirage thrust doing 1sec daze, and clones staying at 1/4 sec.

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Sword

This skill is also fairly decent, but for such a short duration cc, the damage is really awful. This skill could be modified in one of 3 ways:

1. Boost the damage coefficient to 1.5. This makes the attack appropriately noticable.
2. Boost the damage coefficient to 2.5 on a successful interrupt, but lower the base damage to .5. This makes the skill very punchy when used carefully and fits with the mesmer interrupt theme.
3. Leave the damage as-is and boost the daze duration to 1s. This makes it a powerful control skill and produced the option to scale daze duration for additional control.

Exactly, Mirage thrust with chance to stun and an increased daze/stun duration is absolutely amazing. Have you tried it yet? I feel like you can actually have people 'locked' down for a certain duration due to your and your clones' Mirage Thrusts being timed differently, hitting at different times, thus disabling them for a lengthier duration. Plus, ofcourse, you have loads of on demand Mirage Thrust if needed

Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It does damage

It has a .75 power coefficient. This is functionally identical to a single sword autoattack. Please don't confuse this for "damage".

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze.

Yes, but it's on a .75s windup that also needs a prior activation to use. At best you're looking at a realistic 1s activation time...and that's not sufficient to actually use as an interrupt for the vast majority of skills.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes.

No you can't. Unless you somehow manage to make your melee sword clones that follow the target around end up more than 600 range away from the target, all the clones will hit at the same time. This isn't possible without ridiculous LoS shenanigans that won't ever happen.

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage.

It's a grand total of 1s daze breakbar damage with 3 clones in PvE. Firstly, this is utter trash. Secondly, if you ever have 3 sword clones up in PvE, something has gone terribly wrong, so you'll never even hit that already trash 1s daze.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It doesn't need damage to do good.

It doesn't, which is why I suggested an option that simply increases the daze duration. Otherwise, it needs damage.

@atlashugged.7642 said:The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

Feel free to explain why a 1s daze would break PvP, but I have a feeling there's going to be no explanation forthcoming.

Well, now that that's cleared up, does anyone else have some valid comments?

@bart.3687 said:I really like these ideas, especially scepter one, but:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Axe

Axe is a cleaving, melee, damage oriented weapon. The current ambush skill is highly susceptible to all sorts of random projectile hate, hits only one target unless things line up perfectly, and is incredibly weak even then.

My version is a quick pbaoe hit at the same radius as shatters, applying solid condie damage with a power coefficient that is weak but still noticable. This fits with the general damage style of the weapon and is usable in a wide variety of content.

"Spin phantasmal axes around you, dealing area damage."

Cast: .5sDamage: x2 (1.0)Conditions: Confusion x3 (4s), Torment x3 (4s)Radius: 240Targets: 5

Yeah, I can see what you mean. I mainly wanted to get something that can do AOE pressure and isn't reflectable. Another solution would be to make the axes unblockable and each have 2 or 3 bounces to add targets. I didn't want to do that because imo unblockable effects should be rare and powerful. The axe ambush should be strong, but you should be able to block it if you catch it.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It does damage

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes.

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It doesn't need damage to do good.

@atlashugged.7642 said:The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

Again, because it synergises with the Domination tratiline increasing Daze duration and Stun duration, while making Dazes potential Stuns. This is pretty good, since you have loads of on-demand dazes. Can lock someone down for a decent amount of time. Only issue is that, to do this correctly for a longer duration, you'll be using your dodges offensively as well.

If your illusions are already on the target, and you dodge out of there while at the last bit of that 1 second window using your Mirage Thrust, you end up on the target later than your illusions right? Possibly stacking duration upon the cc already there. Haven't paid enough attention to see if this works in practice, but I'm fairly certain it works.

@tnhalbertsma.7682 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It does damage

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes.

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It doesn't need damage to do good.

@atlashugged.7642 said:The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

You need to remember that confounding suggestions has a 5s icd. You can't actually stunlock someone with that, you can only use it once for a burst before it's on cd. Additionally, the duration of the daze doesn't actually matter for that trait. No matter what, it ends up as a 1s stun, so buffing it to 1s daze wouldn't change the balance of it.

You're correct that you could hold your own mirage thrust to the very end up of the window and stagger the attacks that your clones produce with your own attack. However, atlashugged compared this to staggering clones with diversion. With diversion, you can set up your clones at varying distances from the target, causing dazes over and over as each clone reaches the target and explodes. You can't do this at all with mirage thrust. All 3 clones will always land at the same time.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@bart.3687 said:I really like these ideas, especially scepter one, but:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Axe

Axe is a cleaving, melee, damage oriented weapon. The current ambush skill is highly susceptible to all sorts of random projectile hate, hits only one target unless things line up perfectly, and is incredibly weak even then.

My version is a quick pbaoe hit at the same radius as shatters, applying solid condie damage with a power coefficient that is weak but still noticable. This fits with the general damage style of the weapon and is usable in a wide variety of content.

"Spin phantasmal axes around you, dealing area damage."

Cast: .5sDamage: x2 (1.0)Conditions: Confusion x3 (4s), Torment x3 (4s)Radius: 240Targets: 5

You don't have to make it unblockable, just make it so that it isn't projectiles. That way it can't be reflected, but also isn't unblockable. As it is, we already have some "projectile" attacks that aren't projectiles, I don't see why axe ambush can't get that treatment as well

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.

Why post lies then?

It has a .75 power coefficient. This is functionally identical to a single sword autoattack. Please don't confuse this for "damage".

That is in fact "damage".

Yes, but it's on a .75s windup that also needs a prior activation to use. At best you're looking at a realistic 1s activation time...and that's not sufficient to actually use as an interrupt for the vast majority of skills.

You can go invis to cover the cast time if you want, but often you can just fish for interrupts with it, due to the nature of infinite horizon. Dodge when you have to, and a good portion of those dodges will turn into interrupts in a crowded fight with your excellent clone production. Additionally, the split nature of infinite horizon ambushes lets you break through enemies you otherwise wouldn't be able to get through. A full 4 unit ambush will remove 4 stacks of stability or aegis. You can position your clones around the enemy and dodge, but not go yourself, saving your ambush for after he's finished his active defense, or just premptively dodge when you suspect he's going to cast something important.

No you can't. Unless you somehow manage to make your melee sword clones that follow the target around end up more than 600 range away from the target, all the clones will hit at the same time. This isn't possible without ridiculous LoS shenanigans that won't ever happen.

Yes, you can. There are plenty of ways. You have near instant clone generation with Self Deception, and Deceptive Evasion, and you can position your clones so that they are varying distances away outside of 600 range of your target,. The easiest way to stagger your clones position requires Deceptive Evasion. Cast Sword 3, then generate a clone a bit outside of 600 range and either dodge. Wait until the end of the dodge, before using your own sword ambush. That's 3 differently timed sword ambushes, and I'm pretty sure there are more complicated ways to get 4.

It's a grand total of 1s daze breakbar damage with 3 clones in PvE. Firstly, this is utter trash. Secondly, if you ever have 3 sword clones up in PvE, something has gone terribly wrong, so you'll never even hit that already trash 1s daze.

As far as I understand it, it's 3 separate instances of less than 1 second break bar damage, which rounds up to 1 second each. Given how fast you can generate clones as a mirage, you could generate them just for the breakbar and switch back to your axe or whatever becomes the meta weapon for those ambushes. PvE isn't my thing though, so if I'm incorrect on how the break bar applications work, let me know.

It doesn't, which is why I suggested an option that simply increases the daze duration. Otherwise, it needs damage.Feel free to explain why a 1s daze would break PvP, but I have a feeling there's going to be no explanation forthcoming.

Diversion on a 7 second cooldown would be unbalanced. Diversion that also produces a clone and gap closes would definitely be unbalanced at that cooldown.

Well, now that that's cleared up, does anyone else have some valid comments?Do you have one?

Mirage Thrust is fine. Bringing the other ambushes up to its level (and making sure one of them does damage, such as the axe or staff one) would fix most of the issues with mirage, and probably make it play better in PvE, if they made clones a viable PvE damage route. Mirage Thrust itself doesn't need improvements. But buffing MIrage thrusts's damage would necessitate a nerf to its utility, and it certainly shouldn't have its already amazing utility buffed.

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.Yes, but it's on a .75s windup that also needs a prior activation to use. At best you're looking at a realistic 1s activation time...and that's not sufficient to actually use as an interrupt for the vast majority of skills.

You do realize what you are advocating for here, right? Yes, we can go into stealth to cover this cast. But if our clones aren't in stealth as well (which, btw, would be obvious since we would have to use either veil and hope they all ran through it or MI, so they would know this was coming if they saw those skills, if we didn't do that, they would see the clones start the animation, so they would still know to block), then it won't matter since they will still see the 3/4 sec cast time coming. But even disregarding that, you are seriously advocating for us to use either a dodge or a utility skill to spawn a mirror, then also use a second skill for stealth (which, if you hadn't noticed, aren't exactly on short CDs), just to get off a 1/4sec daze?

Can you not see the problem here? That's an inordinate amount of setup for a pathetic daze duration. Other classes can fart out longer dazes than that with significantly less setup, so why are you trying so hard to convince us that this is borderline OP?

The Greatsword Ambush with clones actually hits a good deal as a range multi or single target nuke. The issue is it needs 3 clones to accomplish that and it's high cost to keep up three clones and dodges.

Pure zerk clone crits are around 500. Your crits are 3x that at the least. This is speaking per hit and this is a multi-hit skill. I have nuked player targets with a three clone Greatsword ambush. It also surprises people who are used to laser beams being annoying and persistent rather than sudden and powerful. The nature of it also makes it work well with Greiving stats, due to the bleed procs on clone crits. Maybe add a fourth hit to the chain and people would start liking it. (Also factor in the instant Vuln stacks a three clone ambush does. I think its a bit underrated right now.)

I could see them being intentionally restrained with ambushes with the idea of possibly increasing their effectiveness later depending on how players use them. The thing about ambushes is they don't have much of a cooldown. What limits their use is endurance and availability of Mirage Mirrors with clone generation determining their strength. I've found with the axe and Self-Deception it's very easy to generate clones. Set it up just right and you could chain _many _ambushes in a row. I haven't really tested it myself, but even just using Desert Desertion means you can have three Mirage Mirrors available.

Wait, you do realize that Sword clones bullrush their target, so unless you instantly spawn 3 clones at varying distances (using Self Deception and Deceptive Evasion) and follow-up with an ambush (mind you that's a HUGE investment and a lot of positioning while not doing damage) you're not going to stagger.

Way to miss the forest for some twigs.

@OriOri.8724 said:You do realize what you are advocating for here, right? Yes, we can go into stealth to cover this cast. But if our clones aren't in stealth as well (which, btw, would be obvious since we would have to use either veil and hope they all ran through it or MI, so they would know this was coming if they saw those skills, if we didn't do that, they would see the clones start the animation, so they would still know to block), then it won't matter since they will still see the 3/4 sec cast time coming. But even disregarding that, you are seriously advocating for us to use either a dodge or a utility skill to spawn a mirror, then also use a second skill for stealth (which, if you hadn't noticed, aren't exactly on short CDs), just to get off a 1/4sec daze?

I mentioned invisibility as a way of covering the cast. I didn't mention that you would try this while speccing for Infinite Horizon. If you don't have infinite horizon specced in your invisibility build (there's a rough draft on metabattle of one that works quite well), then your clones won't give any hints. And thus torch 4, decoy, sigil of midnight all become viable ways of covering a cast. It's not like you have to commit anything for this either. if you're pressured, dodge and turn invisible, just like you normally would, then you'll probably get an interrupt. You're thinking of mirage thrust like you have to commit things to make it work. You don't. All the things that make it work are things you would be doing anyways.

@Esplen.3940 said:Wait, you do realize that Sword clones bullrush their target, so unless you instantly spawn 3 clones at varying distances (using Self Deception and Deceptive Evasion) and follow-up with an ambush (mind you that's a HUGE investment and a lot of positioning while not doing damage) you're not going to stagger.

I do realize this. Unless you have the manual dexterity of a one handed one fingered man, you should be able to press the buttons in that sequence. I can, and I am by no means talented. And again, you're treating these skills like something you have to do and commit all these resources for, when really all you have to do is keep it in mind and then use it when you would dodge anyways, or approaching the enemy, in the sequence I laid out.

Good suggestions.

The point about the scepter channel time is important not just because skilled players can interrupt you. It ends up being really non-intuitive to the player that you've done this evade skill which triggers an ambush and yet you're interruptable. I was testing on sentries in WvW and found myself twice getting interrupted by their charge while my character was flailing about doing his ambush.

It feels like it would be ideal in terms of players being able to pick up this elite more easily if ambushes basically always completed within the time period of the Mirage Cloak. I'm sure there are some really clever possibilities available with the current "ambush window" mechanic, but it feels unnecessarily complicated for whatever benefit it creates.

Mirage Thrust is not fine, it suffers from pathing issues, it fails to hit a moving target half of the time and its animation is horrible long winded from when you leap til when the strike hits...Been rageing most of yesterday when I tried dueling with my Mirage cause thst damn thrust is so freaking unreliable!Im also all up for a 1 sec daze! But honestly I would prefer they made it AoE daze around where you land! and lets be honest, a "interrupt" skill with such a long animation is kinda useless vs people that dont spam skills...

Staff Ambush IMO is worse than Staff's AA because conf/torment aren't cover condis. It would be better if the ambush casted bleed/burn/vulnerability all at once rather than the two common ones.