@MLGKorno.5419 said:
This thread and everyone crying about conditions mirage or mirage in general after the most recent patch...?
I have some bad news for you... It is entirely a learn to play issue.
If this thread had been made back in april or something then I wouldn't be saying this.
Let's establish first that mirage's offensive AND defensive capabilities largely depend on how much it can evade, because Ambush skills are only available to use after you use a dodge on mirage, condi clear also happens at the end of a mirage dodge, etc. so whenever the ability to dodge on mirage is affected, the entire class gets nerfed instead of just its defense being reduced (if you nerf dodges on another class it doesn't affect how much damage they do for the most part)
The most recent patch nerfed mirage evasion to being worse than necro's evasion. Exhaustion continues for 6 seconds after breaking a stun with Elusive Mind. That's a ridiculously heavy nerf to mirage evasion that piles on top of multiple previous patches this summer/spring to mirage evasion.
Mirage went from pretty overpowered to weak. The only thing you have is target drops and confusion/torment which punishes spam and careless randoms who just piano their skills then go on the forums to cry for even more nerfs.
Besides the most recent patch, mirage evasion capabilities have already been nerfed repeatedly the past 4 patches.
Jaunt CD was increased to 30s from 20s. blurred frenzy, a key skill, was nerfed to only evade for 1 second.
Vigor was cut down by more than half of its old uptime to being basically nonexistent.
Adventure runes were gutted, they were a huge part of mirage's evasion.
Confusion duration was nerfed multiple times to the point that you can now just wait out the confusion while taking very little damage.
Also, don't forget that confusion was changed to not deal any damage anymore unless you actually use a skill while having it, whereas in the past you would take ticking damage regardless of if you used a skill while having confusion.
Different iterations of the current Mirage get hard countered by different holo builds in 1v1s as of right now. If you are losing to mirages on holosmith, it's on you.
Mesmer in general is just worse than things like holo or soulbeast in both duels and obviously team fights (mesmer never was that good at team fights at any point in the games history), it's only really 'viable competitively' because of portal.
I suggest you just stop moving unnecessarily when you get torment, and stop spamming skills and downing yourselves with confusion.
Gonna have to agree with almost everything you said. I've had a a ridiculously easier time dealing with mesmers than I ever have playing this game ever. Yeah sure they still have a lingering amount of confusion that seems to just kinda be there after their burst goes off and either youre alive or they're alive.
If you're alive you probably won the duel an the mesmer is gassed and probably retreating and juking waiting for cooldowns
If you're in the downed state than the mesmer won the duel and that's OK also
@jportell.2197 said:
What's funny is the higher in rankings you get. The less mirage players you see over all. 🤷🤷🤷
Newsflash. ANET doesn't just balance based on what is played at high tiers. If that was the case Trapper DH would never have been nerfed all those seasons ago. It got nerfed because at low tiers it was an absolute noob stomper and really easy to play.....sound familiar?
Oh and Trapper DH was never used by pro players or at least extremely rare. It never got a place in any ESL teams.
If a Condi Mesmer loses to anything else 1v1, that's the real l2p issue lol. Winning 1v1 against anything is completely easymode on condi mes unless you've been seriously outplayed. Even after all the nerfs.
@Kako.1930 said:
If a Condi Mesmer loses to anything else 1v1, that's the real l2p issue lol. Winning 1v1 against anything is completely easymode on condi mes unless you've been seriously outplayed. Even after all the nerfs.
You are one of those who need to learn to play if you think mirage win 1x1 everything
@jportell.2197 said:
What's funny is the higher in rankings you get. The less mirage players you see over all. 🤷🤷🤷
Newsflash. ANET doesn't just balance based on what is played at high tiers. If that was the case Trapper DH would never have been nerfed all those seasons ago. It got nerfed because at low tiers it was an absolute noob stomper and really easy to play.....sound familiar?
Oh and Trapper DH was never used by pro players or at least extremely rare. It never got a place in any ESL teams.
Okay but it’s a matter of precedent.
Low tiers struggled with a .25 cast followed by a very fast unblockable projectile. It was like going back to old warrior pin down which was nerfed long before, difference was the follow up for DH landing this was a very powerful burst that even denied mobility classes and was an easy answer to blocks.
Expecting people to avoid shatters by comparison, is something that players more or less have learned to deal with far before HoT came out, is not an unreasonable expectation for new players to learn to get over. It’s literally kiteable, killable, and blockable damage, where all the burst is loaded into that hit and only needs a doge in the right direction to mitigate all of it, unlike DH that has extended cleaving hurt boxes.
Shatters are more easy to avoid although being based on technical design can throw newbies off, but also comes with pleanty of counter play.
DH demanded a higher level of play to consistently avoid getting hit. On top of that having other options beyond re-ramping (including ignoring walls) if they whiffed.
I am not a very good player, but I am probably correct, so harvest my wisdom peasants.
I speculate that condi mirage is only good at killing average players / noobs. Fighting against a condi mirage correctly is very different than fighting against other classes because of the synergy of mirage cloak, condi & torment bombs.
Fools be killing themselves by running around and trying to blast the mirage player while he's in an almost perma evade mode condi bombing you with confusion/torment. Not only are you wasting your cooldowns, you're also killing yourself.
It is pretty counter-intuitive - where at certain points of the fight, the optimal move is just sit there, stow your weapon and do nothing. Obviously you have to pick the right times to cleanse/dodge/attack back, you must apply some counter-pressure.
@Kako.1930 said:
If a Condi Mesmer loses to anything else 1v1, that's the real l2p issue lol. Winning 1v1 against anything is completely easymode on condi mes unless you've been seriously outplayed. Even after all the nerfs.
You are one of those who need to learn to play if you think mirage win 1x1 everything
For the first time in years, I logged in to get some practice on power/condi Mirage, this was a few days ago. If you look on my pie chart of "classes played" I have so few Mesmer games played that it doesn't even show on the pie chart, not a sliver. <- Keep that in mind.
I loaded up a couple videos from Shorts to learn how to run Mirage bursting. I did exactly what this guy said to do in the video, I sat for about an hour and blew up a bunch of golems while getting used to power bursting. The power bursting took a real focused effort to become adept with. The power burst is fickle in the idea that, not only is it difficult to do properly to begin with, but if your finger fumbles at all during that burst, it's ruined. Once I was comfortable with the rehearsed 1-shot power burst, I swapped to practice condi bursting. I was immediately surprised at how much less effort was required to land enormous damage with condi. Sure there are optimal ways to land its condi burst but in truth, Condi Mirage can randomly push any buttons in any order while landing enormous AoE damage, and since so much of what it is doing is random AoE, 3/4ths of it's attacks don't even require having a target on an enemy.
So I felt comfortable on both variants and went to run some unranked. I used Power Mirage first and must have ran 3 or 4 games with it. I killed some, died some, and then won some, lost some. My initial response was that Power Mirage was high risk/high reward and there was no immediate feeling of "man this class is over powered". Then I swapped the build to Condi Mirage. The first couple matches I ran were solo and the 1st thing I noticed was that I did not have to die unless I wanted to or got too greedy. Seriously though, between Portal Entre, Blink, 3x Jaunts, and 2x on demand stealths, there is questionably a bit too much wiggle room for disengagement. The sheer mobility granted through Mirage made it feel like I was playing a different game than Guild Wars 2. Even Thieves require an enemy target for most of their teleports, whereas a Mirage has 4x ground target teleports and Portal Entre. The 2nd thing I noticed is that I could play sloppy as all hell and still kill everyone that I engaged 1v1, with no real counter builds out there that the Condi Mirage couldn't handle or deal with. I'd just go in directly at them regardless of class and spam buttons as I tested different combos and they'd eventually go down due to the 3rd thing I noticed, my ridiculous level of burst and attrition. Other classes have burst or attrition, but Condi Mirage has burst and attrition. This was assisted by the 4th thing I noticed, its confusing mechanics by design. Most players, even the ones who would be competent to play against me on other classes, would just fumble targeting accuracy and timing, applying little to no offensive pressure, while the 100% uptime of heavy attrition would inevitably eat away at them because no class outside of Spellbreaker can deal with the condition application paired with consistent power damage. I felt that the mechanical value of deception offered from cycling clones, dropping enemy targeting, stealthing and superior disengagement was being highly underacknowledged by the players who defend Mirage. The 5th and most important thing that I noticed was how I could win outmanned fights, 1v2s and even one 1v3 on that particular night, while straight up 100% disengaging and playing defensively. This is something that no other class can do in quite the same way that Mirage can do it. Not only do other classes have less mobility than Mirage and a lot less stun break, but they require dedicated attack frames to land their damage. Mirage on the other, can 100% defensively retreat while spamming shatter skills whenever someone gets close to them, and then keep retreating with no real dedication towards stopping to actually engage an opponent. There was an instance in one match where I had 3 players chasing me around a far node in Skyhammer. Over the course of time, I was able to kill each player through superior mobility and waiting for opportune moments to land an easy no-dedication burst and keep running. I would have died on any other class, even a Holosmith. The 6th and final somewhat notable thing that I noticed is that even as a novice Mirage, it was incredibly easy to land into the middle of a team fight, drop a massive 4 shatter condi bomb and then completely disengage the fight with zero risk involved. Whereas on something like a Scourge or a Condi Ranger or even a Trap DH, ect.. ect.., heading into the middle of a team fight to drop a DPS bomb is a real dedication. You either win that fight or you die trying after the dedication, there are no get out of jail free cards outside of a tactful team retreat or awkwardly peeling and leaving your team behind early. I must have played 9 or 10 games on Condi Mirage that night. I won most of them but not all of them, but I kitten sure only died once on that build, and it only happened when I was meme /emoting the other team and eventually 4x players figured they'd chase me and kill me.
After a week's worth of playing and catching up on the knowledge of all of the class metas, my response to Condi Mirage was "It feels like I'm the kitten Terminator when I play this class." In my opinion, it is inherently the most powerful class not due to the mathematical attributes tied around its skills & traits but due to it's mechanical design within the game engine. Hey, I'm not going to sit here and tell you how OP it is or what nerfs/buffs could be done to it, but I would like to compare it to other current builds being used within the S13 end season meta so users in this forum can see a better representation of what is actually going on.
I'll use a class grading system that ranges between (F) and (S). The grades will be applied to 4x basic Conquest attributes: DPS, Self Sustain, Mobility, Team Support/Utility.
Spellbreaker:
* DPS (A-)
* Self Sustain (S+)
* Mobility (B+)
* Team Support/Utility (C) "Its CCs do contribute to utility in team fights"
Herald:
* DPS (S)
* Self Sustain (B)
* Mobility (C+) while rotating, (A+) if chasing
* Team Support/Utility (B+)
Firebrand:
* DPS (D+)
* Self Sustain (A) "He can't 1v2 in the same way that something like a Spellbreaker can do"
* Mobility (C+)
* Team Support/Utility (S+)
Core Guardian:
* DPS (S) on JI bursts, (A-) on sustained DPS
* Self Sustain (A) "I wouldn't grant it an S because once Renewed Focus is on CD, he's a sitting duck"
* Mobility (C) while rotating, (B+) while chasing
* Team Support/Utility (D-)
Holosmith:
* DPS (S) "I ranked it S not out of numerics but rather how easy it is to land and follow up with chain attacks"
* Self Sustain (A+) "Regardless of its sustain 1v1, I give it only A+ because it cannot survive 1v2 focus in the same way as a Spellbreaker or Mirage"
* Mobility (B) when rotating, (B+) when chasing
* Team Support/Utility (S) "I give it an S because of so many CCs, blasting water fields, splashing boons, and team stealth mechanics"
Soulbeast:
* DPS (S++) if glass cannon roamer, (A-) if bruiser
* Self Sustain (C) if glass cannon roamer, (B+) if bruiser
* Mobility (A-) if glass cannon roamer, (B-) if bruiser
* Team Support/Utility (E+) if glass cannon roamer, (B-) if running boonshare
Deadeyes & Daredevils:
* DPS (S++) if DE burst, (S-) Daredevil
* Self Sustain (D) if DE burst, (C+) Daredevil
* Mobility (S)
* Team Support/Utility (E+)
Reapers & Scourges:
* DPS (S+) Reaper, (B+) Scourge
* Self Sustain (B+) Reaper "he can't survive 1v2s", (B-) Scourge
* Mobility (C-) Reaper, (C+) Scourge "Worm/Walk/Portal could debatably raise these grades"
* Team Support/Utility (C-) Reaper "It does have some boon removal", (A-) Scourge
Weaver:
* DPS (A)
* Self Sustain (A+) "The barrier play just isn't as strong as some would want to believe it is. I don't feel it deserves an S"
* Mobility (B)
* Team Support/Utility (C+)
Power & Condi Mirages:
* DPS (S++) with accurate power burst but only (B) with sustained power damage, it gets (S+) with sustained Condi Mirage bursting & attrition
* Self Sustain (C) for Power and (S) for Condi
* Mobility (S+) when on either build while using Portal/Blink/Jaunt
* Team Support/Utility (A) with Portal Entre "The rotational control that Portal Entre grants is worth an A by itself"
Let's sum up this grading into an easier to view list:
Spellbreaker: dps(A-) sus(S+) mob(B+) sup/uti(C)
Herald: dps(S) sus(B) mob(C+ or A+) sup/uti(B+)
Firebrand: dps(D+) sus(A) mob(C+) sup/uti(S+)
Core Guard: dps(S) sus(A) mob(C or B+) sup/uti(D-)
That isn't all, there is one other aspect that greatly effects a build's diversity in Conquest and in my opinion is the aspect that creates most of the argument in this forum as to "if a build is over powered or not" and that is, how easy is it to play? I won't go into another list of grading "You're welcome" but I will point two extreme examples: A Daredevil playing in plat+ divisions cannot afford to make a single error or he dies, whereas something like a Condi Mirage can actually afford to play sloppy, still pose a serious threat to whoever he engages, and escape to ooc on-demand as he wishes. Now we can argue how different play is between lower tiers, medium tiers and high tiers and some of it is true, but a lot of it is just a bunch of gobble kitten from biased players.
But yeah, in my opinion Condi Mirage is still easily the dominant class in Conquest and that is how it would be graded alongside of the others. I figured I'd share the story & analysis with the other forum users. Draw from it what you will.
Better nerf power core mesmer tho :^) it "was overperforming in low tier play"
Since we seem to only care about rail roading players into dev driven metas and builds, some of which present actual degeneration of the game mode through abusive mechanics like target dropping outside of stealth (with low cooldown) on a class that is also simultaneously inherently abusing the trash targeting system (high clone generation rate obscuring mouse accuracy, lets not get into tab target...) and rendering speed (coming out of stealth animations), any one that plays the game mode can see where the real issues exist.
It is actually very irritating, as primarily a mesmer player (10k+ mesmer games), that I have no choice (if i want to remain above plat 1) but to play this cancerous condi mirage build because every single person above plat 1 will dodge a power shatter outside of a stun; ESPECIALLY when the reasoning behind the decision to GUT every single power mesmer build was "Bad players need to be enabled to continue playing poorly." There was a small discussion about it on stream this morning, where power mesmer was compared to "cheese p/p thief where you press 1 button all day" by a dev, completely and utterly failing to understand that 1. Thief relies not on cooldowns (like power mesmer does) but initiative and 2. Mesmer power burst requires set up AND execution to do its damage, with a minimum of 5 cooldowns used for any significant burst (with a plethora of mitigation available).
It was SHOCKING and a huge wake up call for me to hear that power mesmer was a higher priority for the dev team than condi mirage, and that they did not seem to consider chaos sage condi mirage "cheese."
What build did you look at on weaver to get simultaneously DPS (A) and sustain (A+)? Usually to increase damage they have to trait Air instead of water and get extremely vulnerable to conditions (and slightly more to direct damage due to less healing and less evades). Neither Avatar nor Sage on Water/Arcane Weaver do even remotely as much damage as scourge. On the other hand, maybe an S would be deserved - but weaver suffers in the current meta indeed. Didn't try Earth/Arcane this season though.
Yes, I got triggered by this. Apart from this I pretty much agree with most of the list. Some nuances I would've done differently, but overall nice list.
On higher tier games, mirage does not win all 1on1 matchups anymore though. But - and it's a big one - mirage can pretty much never get killed due to stealth, various teleports and stuff, disengaging and kiting is extremely easy. That is lowest risk - as you very correctly pointed out.
I started playing gw2 about a year and a half and saw a lot of very helpful post from players but do anet actually read that ? That is the question
Second I see player complain about PvP being stressful well it's a challenging game mode it supposed to be stressful same as raid and CMs but the community and unfair balance make some profession want on my team tier and some just hate to see them in your party and that is just unhelpful at all
power burst : do kitten and push F1
Condi Burst : do kitten and push F2
Now honestly ; I cant play one shot power Mes - while I'm good enough to pull condi Mirage. They dont share a similar playstyle.
For example my condi mirage is pretty tanky and has heavy sustain through the inspi Traitline - therefore i can survive 1v2's even 1v3's sometimes.
On the other hand it's much harder to kill anyone who has condi clear. Key here is interrupting important spells and applying confu bombs after cleanses.
So rare to see people actually play a class to truly see how it works instead of just screaming OP. It's easy to disregard someone who just complains on face value. It's hard to disregard someone who said they can wreck kitten on a class they've barely played.
You've got my respect for that. It was a good read.
You made a big paper, but condi mirage is literaly abused by any decent player to rank up, more than holo and spellbreaker.
If you are not casual and invest some hours in pvp, and you are a decent average player, condi mirage will carry you to legendary without problems.
It's full of carried people by it.
Same when scourge was released, bronze and silver players achieved platinum 3 or legendary for the first time not by skill, but thanks to scourge, just go mid and spam.
Easier if you had a firebrand pally (this is probably true even nowadays).
@MyPuppy.8970 said:
How Can you die 1v1 as a condi mirage? Worst Comes to worst, reset, rince & repeat.
and then you lose the point an the game
or you get ganked and die
or you over-commit cause your enemy is low hp and die instead
how can you kill anyone as condi mirage if they just press W and use condi removals and heals? you can't. unless you don't play with staff cause staff is bad and then you can but you can also die in every other situation without staff cus you have no protection
ITT: low elo non-mesmer players talking about a class they don't understand and blaming their shortcomings on the game instead themselves
i dont die to condi mirages cus i have condi removal, why don't you? Condi mirage has 2ways it can apply a ton of condis
1: ineptitude shatter spam - shatters have cd, if he does that and you remove his condis he wont have it any time soon
2: infinite horizon illusions spam - he has limited stamina, if he uses his stuff and you cleanse it he wont have stamina for awhile
everything else is slow condi application which has much lower dps than power builds do
tl;dr l2p, condi mirage isn't even remotely near the meta
Condi Mirage can randomly push any buttons in any order while landing enormous AoE damage, and since so much of what it is doing is random AoE, 3/4ths of it's attacks don't even require having a target on an enemy.
What's the definition of enormous (cause if it's something like calamity well...).
Can you list the 3/4 of attacks that don't even require having a target ?
About the comparison between condi and power mirage, it's call efficiency. Each time I saw people saying "ho power is way more skilled than condi" sure, it's like if I say "ho bob is way more skilled than kevin because he play the game with his feet"... You didn't play with your feet, you are a noob. That's why you have meta builds, they are just more efficient.
Like your quotation "Seriously though, between Portal Entre, Blink, 3x Jaunts, and 2x on demand stealths, there is questionably a bit too much wiggle room for disengagement."
You have thoses same tools in power and condi why did you noticed that in condi but not in power ?
Mirage has 4x ground target teleports
Jaunt is a 450 teleport, you can't even evade things like holo jump with it or distance attacks.
The 2nd thing I noticed is that I could play sloppy as all hell and still kill everyone that I engaged 1v1, with no real counter builds out there that the Condi Mirage couldn't handle or deal with.
Good, now go to top 50, should be easy because of openess, or maybe you would say it's because of matchmaking .
no class outside of Spellbreaker can deal with the condition application paired with consistent power damage.
Every class who evade the 2 burst : weapon burst and f2, can deal with condi mirage, even me on power mirage with only dispell on jaunt and weapon swap can.
The 5th and most important thing that I noticed was how I could win outmanned fights, 1v2s and even one 1v3 on that particular night, while straight up 100% disengaging and playing defensively.
You are facing backpedal pewpew ranger or somewhat ?
Everyone can 1 v X molds.
I curious to know : WHICH RANKING DID YOU GET AFTER WEEKS OF PLAYING OP SPEC ?
About your class comparaison, please just talking about dps because I don't want to take discuss each enormity, do the test on golems, dps != burst. When I saw something like spellbreaker dps(A-) holo (S) mirage (S++ to S+.), it' kitten.
A Daredevil playing in plat+ divisions cannot afford to make a single error or he dies
And a power mirage have less margin.
And other meta build have more margin to output damage.
But yeah, in my opinion Condi Mirage is still easily the dominant class in Conquest and that is how it would be graded alongside of the others. I figured I'd share the story & analysis with the other forum users. Draw from it what you will.
Congratulations for the time writing this post and testing the class but apart confirming that mirage is a noob eater, as mesmer was since realease, we didn't learn much. As long as there isn't more than 10% mes in leaderboard like it was with chronotank 2.0 we can hardly say that mirage is op.
The 2nd thing I noticed is that I could play sloppy as all hell and still kill everyone that I engaged 1v1, with no real counter builds out there that the Condi Mirage couldn't handle or deal with.
Guards and Holos kill mirages in 1v1 all day long. Also you cant really kill a weaver/tempest support(though he shouldnt be able to kill you either)
I read half of your post and I stopped when the BS levels got too high, GL killing anyone on Mirage with just pressing random buttons...time your evade wrong and youre squashed.
@MyPuppy.8970 said:
How Can you die 1v1 as a condi mirage? Worst Comes to worst, reset, rince & repeat.
and then you lose the point an the game
or you get ganked and die
or you over-commit cause your enemy is low hp and die instead
how can you kill anyone as condi mirage if they just press W and use condi removals and heals? you can't. unless you don't play with staff cause staff is bad and then you can but you can also die in every other situation without staff cus you have no protection
ITT: low elo non-mesmer players talking about a class they don't understand and blaming their shortcomings on the game instead themselves
i dont die to condi mirages cus i have condi removal, why don't you? Condi mirage has 2ways it can apply a ton of condis
1: ineptitude shatter spam - shatters have cd, if he does that and you remove his condis he wont have it any time soon
2: infinite horizon illusions spam - he has limited stamina, if he uses his stuff and you cleanse it he wont have stamina for awhile
everything else is slow condi application which has much lower dps than power builds do
tl;dr l2p, condi mirage isn't even remotely near the meta
Mirage isn't the only spec to die if ganked. It even has more tools to disengage than most meta builds out there. I never complained dying to conditions, but mechanicaly mirage has many tools to survive any 1v1. Losing a cap temporarily is no Big deal if you Can secure a kill then move on After recap. I'm not complaining about condi mirage, all i'm saying is that condi mirages shouldn't be the ones to complain.
I think the funniest part was when you resorted to complaining about clones like the usual garbage tier noob would. This tirade was a real treat with all the anecdotes and exaggeration.
When I start playing pvp - was frustrated about condi mirage. Illusions/escape/damage and stunbreak on dodge -> Created Mirage mesmer and joined Heart of The Mistst -> Que unranked - > 450k damage/top kills just randomly pressing buttons
Ofc I was against not experienced players.. but cmon. 450k damage just randomly pressing buttons? :DD
In my opinion anet should balance classes for average players. And totally agree with author - condi mesmer have too much
@ChartFish.1308 said:
So rare to see people actually play a class to truly see how it works instead of just screaming OP. It's easy to disregard someone who just complains on face value. It's hard to disregard someone who said they can wreck kitten on a class they've barely played.
You've got my respect for that. It was a good read.
It doesn't take a genius to know when something is op when you've played sPVP pretty much since launch, even it you've barely played the class. There are advantages and drawbacks to every meta build as OP detailed with his rating system. Even though I never played mesmer in sPVP pre HoT I still eventually learned how to beat it through there practice and perseverance. When spellbreaker (and most of POF elite specs) first came out I was frustrated at the inability of any non-PoF build to combat them. Now, however, Spellbreakers and the like aren't a problem to fight on even a Berserker (elite spec) for me. Condi Mirage however is still just as frustrating and impossible to fight a year into the xpac. I understand that some match-ups I'm not supposed to be able to win while using a specific build. In those cases I cut my losses and retreat to an area of the map were I can have a better match up. Problems arise though, when you know you're dead even when you've started retreating because the condi mirage sees you from over 1200 range away and decides to engage. At least if a condi thief decides to engage you from that distance, it has to use up it's initiative on SB 6 or its shadow step or a one-off steal with 17 sec cd or so. This leaves the thief much less initiative for choking gas to pressure you.
@ChartFish.1308 said:
So rare to see people actually play a class to truly see how it works instead of just screaming OP. It's easy to disregard someone who just complains on face value. It's hard to disregard someone who said they can wreck kitten on a class they've barely played.
You've got my respect for that. It was a good read.
It doesn't take a genius to know when something is op when you've played sPVP pretty much since launch, even it you've barely played the class. There are advantages and drawbacks to every meta build as OP detailed with his rating system. Even though I never played mesmer in sPVP pre HoT I still eventually learned how to beat it through there practice and perseverance. When spellbreaker (and most of POF elite specs) first came out I was frustrated at the inability of any non-PoF build to combat them. Now, however, Spellbreakers and the like aren't a problem to fight on even a Berserker (elite spec) for me. Condi Mirage however is still just as frustrating and impossible to fight a year into the xpac. I understand that some match-ups I'm not supposed to be able to win while using a specific build. In those cases I cut my losses and retreat to an area of the map were I can have a better match up. Problems arise though, when you know you're dead even when you've started retreating because the condi mirage sees you from over 1200 range away and decides to engage. At least if a condi thief decides to engage you from that distance, it has to use up it's initiative on SB 6 or its shadow step or a one-off steal with 17 sec cd or so. This leaves the thief much less initiative for choking gas to pressure you.
I will believe that mirage is OP when I see the leaderboards being dominated by mirages. Until then stop crying for nerfs.
I will believe that mirage is OP when I see the leaderboards being dominated by mirages. Until then stop crying for nerfs.
So you're saying you only care about the fun had by players on the leaderboards? If so, that sounds pretty selfish.
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
What I draw from this is you played some unranked games and just your knowledge of the game allowed you to gank noobs in unranked. Mirage is the LEAST represented class on the leaderboard atm. That should definitely say something.
I will believe that mirage is OP when I see the leaderboards being dominated by mirages. Until then stop crying for nerfs.
So you're saying you only care about the fun had by players on the leaderboards? If so, that sounds pretty selfish.
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
You have access to the stats?
Because "Bro, they told me on discord their main, and besides they are in my guild....I know them" ?
I never said anything about Condi Mirage not requiring skill. I pointed out how much easier it was to play than a Power Mirage.
1v1ing has absolutely nothing to with the point of this discussion, which is where Condi Mirage fits into the intra-class balance.
You're right, the ranking system is incredibly flawed. But over the years I have come to the conclusion that it actually isn't the algorithm's fault. it is mainly the fault of win trading and smurfing on convenient to use f2p accounts. Also, the statement about "getting more real matches above 1700" was hilarious considering how widely acknowledged and cliché match manipulation has become.
Saying that you go for 10 games without seeing other Condi Mirages on your team? My good bro, did it ever occur to you that you ARE the Condi Mirage in every one of those ten games.
That stark defense about "How Condi Mirage certainly has class counters." You know, I don't think Mesmer mains realize what an actual class counter feels like. Go get a thief and try to 1v1 a DH, that's a class counter.
You DARE ME TO FIGHT SOMEONE 1V1 FROM PLAT 3 OR HIGHER? I do it multiple times just about every time I run ATs. Funny you bring that up actually. I notice that I very often win 1v1s and matches in general against these 1700+ players while in ATs, but during ranked ques I seem to always be on the losing end of the match, as if all of my players are lagging and DCing or not trying at all. Isn't that kitten weird? I dunno, make sense of it for yourself.
Don't you dare try to turn the table on Power vs. Condi Mirage. Power Mirage requires seriously immersing gameplay attitude to jive & thrive with while playing. Power Mirage can die instantly if anything goes wrong in any way, and to be able to land those bursts against higher tiered opponents requires the player to infinitely pull out of his kitten, a never ending cycle of new creative ways to pull it off. I have to tip my hat to any good Power Mirage players.
You say unranked games during ranked seasons are bad, but I notice that I play against the very same people in unranked that I do in ranked. The only difference is that no one has an incentive to win trade in unranked.
You compare 20k Soulbeast Rapid Fire to Condi Mirage as if Condi Mirage were weak. <- This was a mistake in your rebuttal. First of all, for a Soulbeast to deal 20k damage with a Rapid Fire you'd need to be running Berserker and a full DPS spec, similar to what I main actually. This means that you have little to no condi cleanse outside of Bear Stance and maybe Quick Zephyr paired with Wilderness Knowledge. The truth to your statement "and every Soulbeast main knows this" is that a Condi Mirage can instantly teleport/stay on you and pound out the attrition while avoiding your intial burst, and in no time at all, the Soulbeast goes down. The only way the high DPS Soulbeast has any chance of winning that match up is if it lands a lot of damage on the Mirage's approach, and thereafter gets lucky landing a WI or Maul that criticals before Bear Stances effects wear off, because when Bear Stance ends, he'll be downed in seconds.
You actually tried to not only downplay Portal Entre's worth, but act as if it were currently useless. I'm actually not going to comment on this.
There are these statements you keep making about how useless condi is in this current meta. But we aren't talking about conditions in general, we are talking about Condi Mirage specifically. You also point out how Condi Mirage is actually hybrid of power/condi damage I couldn't agree with you more on that. Considering as much, don't you think the sheer frequency in condi application and intensity of stacks provided is definitely applicable and useful damage? I would say it is considering it can land a damage spike that is just as high as a Power Mirage, while maintaining far more defensive stature.
You keep saying that "Power Mirage is stronger". Maybe in SOME situations it is the better choice, but usually Condi Mirage is the solid contender over Power Mirage.
Yes but the top of the leaderboards doesn't exactly represent any fair play and/or real demonstration of class performance in real matches either. We can all pretend that match manipulation isn't REAL but it is and there is no coincidence that "every time", might I stress "every time" I have had a match against a top 10 player this season, I mysteriously get a DC on my team. "every time"
Why is it happening? Well streaming seems to be linked to all of the obvious win trading I've seen this season. I'm pretty sure what is left of the win trading community is just predominantly about commercial interests via twitch. It's real simple to understand "no one wants to watch a loser." <- It's true, I know it's true, they know it's true, although it's hush to ever discuss these things publicly for obvious reasons. It's whatever in my book at this point, but don't you dare even act like that kitten is real and use it as a sword while discussing class balance. I mean it's no different of an incentive than flooding a twitch chat with a load of bots that randomly talk about random things for 6 hours while someone is streaming, to make it look active. They do what they have to do to remain noticed, I get it. Not saying all of them, but a lot of them do. Just don't bring that fake kitten in as a sword into real discussions. It isn't right and it's embarrassing.
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
"Sick of MY class . . . " so the truth comes out. I'm plat btw.
@jportell.2197 said:
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
You can't balance purely on the top; everyone else will quit, and the game will die.
Case in point: Turret engi from before HoT. Top players didn't mind it and actually liked seeing an opposing one because they knew how to exploit its weaknesses. But 90% of the playerbase was incredibly frustrated by its ultra low risk / high reward gameplay.
You need balance at all levels of play. The top needs finer balance, but you can't let glaring problems for 90% of the players run amok either.
@jportell.2197 said:
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
You can't balance purely on the top; everyone else will quit, and the game will die.
Case in point: Turret engi from before HoT. Top players didn't mind it and actually liked seeing an opposing one because they knew how to exploit its weaknesses. But 90% of the playerbase was incredibly frustrated by its ultra low risk / high reward gameplay.
You need balance at all levels of play. The top needs finer balance, but you can't let glaring problems for 90% of the players run amok either.
Yes and condi mirage is still not nearly as cancerous as turret engi was. Not even close.
Condi mirage has plenty of counters.
Condi mirage can put out reliably 2-3 damaging condis, torment, confusion, bleed, and burn on long CDS. Most classes can cleanse these very easily.
This spec has been nerfed, then nerfed again, had traits completely gutted, duration of conditioins reduced, then reduced again.
If you nerf the sustain that it has through target breaking and stealth, you better give it the uptime on boons and condi cleanse of other classes.
I actually enjoy fighting condi mirage because usually the ones who try rolling it are people like those here, that think its SOOOOOO easy and brain dead. With the nerfs to ineptitude, and confusion as a whole this class is still not the best even when it comes to condis.
"* Self Sustain (C) for Power and (S) for Condi"
You are aware the difference between the two defensively is, staff 2 and chaos armor? (gs 5 vs chaos storm is a pretty even debate imo, but I guess you could include that if you liked) everything else is the exact same assuming you take the two most competitive builds.
I agree mirage stomps bad players. Its similar to a degree to HoT DH.
There are other classes that require less game knowledge to be effective, let me quote myself from a previous thread of yours:
"As a high rated player (Monthly winner etc) Id rather get a pug reaper, holo, core guard, dps firebrand, axe soulbeast - Than some random mirage that I have no clue who they are. The skill floor for all those builds is significantly lower than mirage, they will be more effective in fights assuming the skill level is similar.
Even playing near the skill cap of the class other mid tier players (on other classes, IE: holo) will still find successful situations more frequently and with less amount of outplay required when compared to a top tier mirage player in ranked. Holo can move anywhere on the map and find value, team fights, 1v1s, in roads, outnumbering, and while outnumbered. Mirage can outnumber well (has decent burst), can 1v1 kinda for short duration assuming similar skill level. If it did not have portal it would not be taken in competitive play as is."
Fighting Mirage is entirely on you to learn to play if you're playing any of the common meta builds. High tier mirage has few winning matchups, the best ones are probably ele or warrior and they still takes too long to kill in a competitive game .
There are some things that could be nerfed on mirage but they'd only be regarding axe and pistol + the related traits. Personally Id love for the stunbreak to be removed from EM while also removing the exhaustion, let it just be a condi cleanse on dodge. The trait was questionable design from the beginning and now its a disaster proving annoying for both enemy and the mirage (proc'ing exhaustion off daze, or when not desired)
Nerfing mirage in other ways might knock it out of viability, which is not good for the game, mirage makes it fun high tier, there are rotational outplays that are not possible without portal. Already as is, last monthly the EU winning team, won w/o a mesmer.
@Vicariuz.1605 said:
There was a small discussion about it on stream this morning, where power mesmer was compared to "cheese p/p thief where you press 1 button all day" by a dev
What stream? Can you PM me a VOD of that if I ask nicely?
Going to nitpick on daredevil support should be atleast a B+ with having the best access to group stealth for engages with blackpowder + clusterbomb spam + blinding powder. Additionally trickery steal is the best way to reliably interrupt key skills like firebrand signet res and signet of agility is a decent group condi cleanse. Absolutely not an E+ rating.
A couple of things I picked from this Thread and wanted to comment on;
Portal and it's usefulness. I have never seen proper use of portal in solo que, by picking it up myself I always find it to be utterly useless except in very few cases where it helped me make some good plays - solo plays.
And about balancing around high divisions. What it means is..
''To use the knowledge of high ranking players to improve class balance''.
What exactly do you find wrong in that sentence?
@MikeL.8260 said:
A couple of things I picked from this Thread and wanted to comment on;
Portal and it's usefulness. I have never seen proper use of portal in solo que, by picking it up myself I always find it to be utterly useless except in very few cases where it helped me make some good plays - solo plays.
And about balancing around high divisions. What it means is..
''To use the knowledge of high ranking players to improve class balance''.
What exactly do you find wrong in that sentence?
I personally find mirage advance to be much better in soloque. The blind plus teleport and break Target on return are just too good. It's helped me manage a couple of 2v1s.
To the second point I absolutely agree. Most higher level players I go against seem to have no problem when dealing with my condis. It seems to be a forum warrior issue.
@Luna.6203 The sustain factor was incorporating ability to stay engaged in a fight. Stealthing and disengages were including in mobility.
@ArthurDent.9538 The support/utility factor was incorporating direct supports & utilities like AoE healing & booning or something like Portal Entre essentially allowing 1 player to be in 2 places at the same time, not so much team combat tactics.
@MikeL.8260 Portal Entre useless? Man, in the 10 matches I ran as Condi Mirage I quickly figured out how powerful Portal Entre was and it didn't even require any expertise to use it. IE: I cap home and then lay a portal and then I go to mid. Now I am in 2 places at the same time rotationally. This forces opponents to see that I am in two places at the same time, as if I had 5 players on my team rotationally. They either go to home knowing they will engage a Condi Mirage and likely lose the 1v1 or avoid the home node knowing that they will lose a 1v1 at the home node. That's an enormous amount of rotational power and that's not even getting into explanation of more advanced use of Portal Entre. You guys need to stop this argument that Portal Entre is useless because a skill that essentially allows the positioning of a 5th person on your team in the map, is ridiculously powerful in a Conquest match designed around holding and defending 3 nodes. About your comment on "high ranking players." just stop comparing the world of win trading to actual performance. I'm so kitten tired of hearing that kitten, just stop. After they implemented ATs and we were really able to see the true performance of these "top players" in actual 5v5 teams in a situation where they can't plant a DC or a throw on our teams, it only strengthened the identification of how much win trading was going on in ranked play.
Comments
Mirage need a bit of DAMAGE removed
Gonna have to agree with almost everything you said. I've had a a ridiculously easier time dealing with mesmers than I ever have playing this game ever. Yeah sure they still have a lingering amount of confusion that seems to just kinda be there after their burst goes off and either youre alive or they're alive.
If you're alive you probably won the duel an the mesmer is gassed and probably retreating and juking waiting for cooldowns
If you're in the downed state than the mesmer won the duel and that's OK also
Newsflash. ANET doesn't just balance based on what is played at high tiers. If that was the case Trapper DH would never have been nerfed all those seasons ago. It got nerfed because at low tiers it was an absolute noob stomper and really easy to play.....sound familiar?
Oh and Trapper DH was never used by pro players or at least extremely rare. It never got a place in any ESL teams.
If a Condi Mesmer loses to anything else 1v1, that's the real l2p issue lol. Winning 1v1 against anything is completely easymode on condi mes unless you've been seriously outplayed. Even after all the nerfs.
You are one of those who need to learn to play if you think mirage win 1x1 everything
Okay but it’s a matter of precedent.
Low tiers struggled with a .25 cast followed by a very fast unblockable projectile. It was like going back to old warrior pin down which was nerfed long before, difference was the follow up for DH landing this was a very powerful burst that even denied mobility classes and was an easy answer to blocks.
Expecting people to avoid shatters by comparison, is something that players more or less have learned to deal with far before HoT came out, is not an unreasonable expectation for new players to learn to get over. It’s literally kiteable, killable, and blockable damage, where all the burst is loaded into that hit and only needs a doge in the right direction to mitigate all of it, unlike DH that has extended cleaving hurt boxes.
Shatters are more easy to avoid although being based on technical design can throw newbies off, but also comes with pleanty of counter play.
DH demanded a higher level of play to consistently avoid getting hit. On top of that having other options beyond re-ramping (including ignoring walls) if they whiffed.
I am not a very good player, but I am probably correct, so harvest my wisdom peasants.
I speculate that condi mirage is only good at killing average players / noobs. Fighting against a condi mirage correctly is very different than fighting against other classes because of the synergy of mirage cloak, condi & torment bombs.
Fools be killing themselves by running around and trying to blast the mirage player while he's in an almost perma evade mode condi bombing you with confusion/torment. Not only are you wasting your cooldowns, you're also killing yourself.
It is pretty counter-intuitive - where at certain points of the fight, the optimal move is just sit there, stow your weapon and do nothing. Obviously you have to pick the right times to cleanse/dodge/attack back, you must apply some counter-pressure.
Well, I mean, on my mirage I don't struggle much.
True story:
For the first time in years, I logged in to get some practice on power/condi Mirage, this was a few days ago. If you look on my pie chart of "classes played" I have so few Mesmer games played that it doesn't even show on the pie chart, not a sliver. <- Keep that in mind.
I loaded up a couple videos from Shorts to learn how to run Mirage bursting. I did exactly what this guy said to do in the video, I sat for about an hour and blew up a bunch of golems while getting used to power bursting. The power bursting took a real focused effort to become adept with. The power burst is fickle in the idea that, not only is it difficult to do properly to begin with, but if your finger fumbles at all during that burst, it's ruined. Once I was comfortable with the rehearsed 1-shot power burst, I swapped to practice condi bursting. I was immediately surprised at how much less effort was required to land enormous damage with condi. Sure there are optimal ways to land its condi burst but in truth, Condi Mirage can randomly push any buttons in any order while landing enormous AoE damage, and since so much of what it is doing is random AoE, 3/4ths of it's attacks don't even require having a target on an enemy.
So I felt comfortable on both variants and went to run some unranked. I used Power Mirage first and must have ran 3 or 4 games with it. I killed some, died some, and then won some, lost some. My initial response was that Power Mirage was high risk/high reward and there was no immediate feeling of "man this class is over powered". Then I swapped the build to Condi Mirage. The first couple matches I ran were solo and the 1st thing I noticed was that I did not have to die unless I wanted to or got too greedy. Seriously though, between Portal Entre, Blink, 3x Jaunts, and 2x on demand stealths, there is questionably a bit too much wiggle room for disengagement. The sheer mobility granted through Mirage made it feel like I was playing a different game than Guild Wars 2. Even Thieves require an enemy target for most of their teleports, whereas a Mirage has 4x ground target teleports and Portal Entre. The 2nd thing I noticed is that I could play sloppy as all hell and still kill everyone that I engaged 1v1, with no real counter builds out there that the Condi Mirage couldn't handle or deal with. I'd just go in directly at them regardless of class and spam buttons as I tested different combos and they'd eventually go down due to the 3rd thing I noticed, my ridiculous level of burst and attrition. Other classes have burst or attrition, but Condi Mirage has burst and attrition. This was assisted by the 4th thing I noticed, its confusing mechanics by design. Most players, even the ones who would be competent to play against me on other classes, would just fumble targeting accuracy and timing, applying little to no offensive pressure, while the 100% uptime of heavy attrition would inevitably eat away at them because no class outside of Spellbreaker can deal with the condition application paired with consistent power damage. I felt that the mechanical value of deception offered from cycling clones, dropping enemy targeting, stealthing and superior disengagement was being highly underacknowledged by the players who defend Mirage. The 5th and most important thing that I noticed was how I could win outmanned fights, 1v2s and even one 1v3 on that particular night, while straight up 100% disengaging and playing defensively. This is something that no other class can do in quite the same way that Mirage can do it. Not only do other classes have less mobility than Mirage and a lot less stun break, but they require dedicated attack frames to land their damage. Mirage on the other, can 100% defensively retreat while spamming shatter skills whenever someone gets close to them, and then keep retreating with no real dedication towards stopping to actually engage an opponent. There was an instance in one match where I had 3 players chasing me around a far node in Skyhammer. Over the course of time, I was able to kill each player through superior mobility and waiting for opportune moments to land an easy no-dedication burst and keep running. I would have died on any other class, even a Holosmith. The 6th and final somewhat notable thing that I noticed is that even as a novice Mirage, it was incredibly easy to land into the middle of a team fight, drop a massive 4 shatter condi bomb and then completely disengage the fight with zero risk involved. Whereas on something like a Scourge or a Condi Ranger or even a Trap DH, ect.. ect.., heading into the middle of a team fight to drop a DPS bomb is a real dedication. You either win that fight or you die trying after the dedication, there are no get out of jail free cards outside of a tactful team retreat or awkwardly peeling and leaving your team behind early. I must have played 9 or 10 games on Condi Mirage that night. I won most of them but not all of them, but I kitten sure only died once on that build, and it only happened when I was meme /emoting the other team and eventually 4x players figured they'd chase me and kill me.
After a week's worth of playing and catching up on the knowledge of all of the class metas, my response to Condi Mirage was "It feels like I'm the kitten Terminator when I play this class." In my opinion, it is inherently the most powerful class not due to the mathematical attributes tied around its skills & traits but due to it's mechanical design within the game engine. Hey, I'm not going to sit here and tell you how OP it is or what nerfs/buffs could be done to it, but I would like to compare it to other current builds being used within the S13 end season meta so users in this forum can see a better representation of what is actually going on.
I'll use a class grading system that ranges between (F) and (S). The grades will be applied to 4x basic Conquest attributes: DPS, Self Sustain, Mobility, Team Support/Utility.
Spellbreaker:
* DPS (A-)
* Self Sustain (S+)
* Mobility (B+)
* Team Support/Utility (C) "Its CCs do contribute to utility in team fights"
Herald:
* DPS (S)
* Self Sustain (B)
* Mobility (C+) while rotating, (A+) if chasing
* Team Support/Utility (B+)
Firebrand:
* DPS (D+)
* Self Sustain (A) "He can't 1v2 in the same way that something like a Spellbreaker can do"
* Mobility (C+)
* Team Support/Utility (S+)
Core Guardian:
* DPS (S) on JI bursts, (A-) on sustained DPS
* Self Sustain (A) "I wouldn't grant it an S because once Renewed Focus is on CD, he's a sitting duck"
* Mobility (C) while rotating, (B+) while chasing
* Team Support/Utility (D-)
Holosmith:
* DPS (S) "I ranked it S not out of numerics but rather how easy it is to land and follow up with chain attacks"
* Self Sustain (A+) "Regardless of its sustain 1v1, I give it only A+ because it cannot survive 1v2 focus in the same way as a Spellbreaker or Mirage"
* Mobility (B) when rotating, (B+) when chasing
* Team Support/Utility (S) "I give it an S because of so many CCs, blasting water fields, splashing boons, and team stealth mechanics"
Soulbeast:
* DPS (S++) if glass cannon roamer, (A-) if bruiser
* Self Sustain (C) if glass cannon roamer, (B+) if bruiser
* Mobility (A-) if glass cannon roamer, (B-) if bruiser
* Team Support/Utility (E+) if glass cannon roamer, (B-) if running boonshare
Deadeyes & Daredevils:
* DPS (S++) if DE burst, (S-) Daredevil
* Self Sustain (D) if DE burst, (C+) Daredevil
* Mobility (S)
* Team Support/Utility (E+)
Reapers & Scourges:
* DPS (S+) Reaper, (B+) Scourge
* Self Sustain (B+) Reaper "he can't survive 1v2s", (B-) Scourge
* Mobility (C-) Reaper, (C+) Scourge "Worm/Walk/Portal could debatably raise these grades"
* Team Support/Utility (C-) Reaper "It does have some boon removal", (A-) Scourge
Weaver:
* DPS (A)
* Self Sustain (A+) "The barrier play just isn't as strong as some would want to believe it is. I don't feel it deserves an S"
* Mobility (B)
* Team Support/Utility (C+)
Power & Condi Mirages:
* DPS (S++) with accurate power burst but only (B) with sustained power damage, it gets (S+) with sustained Condi Mirage bursting & attrition
* Self Sustain (C) for Power and (S) for Condi
* Mobility (S+) when on either build while using Portal/Blink/Jaunt
* Team Support/Utility (A) with Portal Entre "The rotational control that Portal Entre grants is worth an A by itself"
Let's sum up this grading into an easier to view list:
That isn't all, there is one other aspect that greatly effects a build's diversity in Conquest and in my opinion is the aspect that creates most of the argument in this forum as to "if a build is over powered or not" and that is, how easy is it to play? I won't go into another list of grading "You're welcome" but I will point two extreme examples: A Daredevil playing in plat+ divisions cannot afford to make a single error or he dies, whereas something like a Condi Mirage can actually afford to play sloppy, still pose a serious threat to whoever he engages, and escape to ooc on-demand as he wishes. Now we can argue how different play is between lower tiers, medium tiers and high tiers and some of it is true, but a lot of it is just a bunch of gobble kitten from biased players.
But yeah, in my opinion Condi Mirage is still easily the dominant class in Conquest and that is how it would be graded alongside of the others. I figured I'd share the story & analysis with the other forum users. Draw from it what you will.
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Better nerf power core mesmer tho :^) it "was overperforming in low tier play"
Since we seem to only care about rail roading players into dev driven metas and builds, some of which present actual degeneration of the game mode through abusive mechanics like target dropping outside of stealth (with low cooldown) on a class that is also simultaneously inherently abusing the trash targeting system (high clone generation rate obscuring mouse accuracy, lets not get into tab target...) and rendering speed (coming out of stealth animations), any one that plays the game mode can see where the real issues exist.
It is actually very irritating, as primarily a mesmer player (10k+ mesmer games), that I have no choice (if i want to remain above plat 1) but to play this cancerous condi mirage build because every single person above plat 1 will dodge a power shatter outside of a stun; ESPECIALLY when the reasoning behind the decision to GUT every single power mesmer build was "Bad players need to be enabled to continue playing poorly." There was a small discussion about it on stream this morning, where power mesmer was compared to "cheese p/p thief where you press 1 button all day" by a dev, completely and utterly failing to understand that 1. Thief relies not on cooldowns (like power mesmer does) but initiative and 2. Mesmer power burst requires set up AND execution to do its damage, with a minimum of 5 cooldowns used for any significant burst (with a plethora of mitigation available).
It was SHOCKING and a huge wake up call for me to hear that power mesmer was a higher priority for the dev team than condi mirage, and that they did not seem to consider chaos sage condi mirage "cheese."
All of the two above! ^
How Can you die 1v1 as a condi mirage? Worst Comes to worst, reset, rince & repeat.
What build did you look at on weaver to get simultaneously DPS (A) and sustain (A+)? Usually to increase damage they have to trait Air instead of water and get extremely vulnerable to conditions (and slightly more to direct damage due to less healing and less evades). Neither Avatar nor Sage on Water/Arcane Weaver do even remotely as much damage as scourge. On the other hand, maybe an S would be deserved - but weaver suffers in the current meta indeed. Didn't try Earth/Arcane this season though.
Yes, I got triggered by this.
Apart from this I pretty much agree with most of the list. Some nuances I would've done differently, but overall nice list. 
On higher tier games, mirage does not win all 1on1 matchups anymore though. But - and it's a big one - mirage can pretty much never get killed due to stealth, various teleports and stuff, disengaging and kiting is extremely easy. That is lowest risk - as you very correctly pointed out.
€: Also totally agree with @Vicariuz.1605...
I started playing gw2 about a year and a half and saw a lot of very helpful post from players but do anet actually read that ? That is the question
Second I see player complain about PvP being stressful well it's a challenging game mode it supposed to be stressful same as raid and CMs but the community and unfair balance make some profession want on my team tier and some just hate to see them in your party and that is just unhelpful at all
power burst : do kitten and push F1
Condi Burst : do kitten and push F2
Now honestly ; I cant play one shot power Mes - while I'm good enough to pull condi Mirage. They dont share a similar playstyle.
For example my condi mirage is pretty tanky and has heavy sustain through the inspi Traitline - therefore i can survive 1v2's even 1v3's sometimes.
On the other hand it's much harder to kill anyone who has condi clear. Key here is interrupting important spells and applying confu bombs after cleanses.
Mirage since Day 1 - It got better!
So rare to see people actually play a class to truly see how it works instead of just screaming OP. It's easy to disregard someone who just complains on face value. It's hard to disregard someone who said they can wreck kitten on a class they've barely played.
You've got my respect for that. It was a good read.
You made a big paper, but condi mirage is literaly abused by any decent player to rank up, more than holo and spellbreaker.
If you are not casual and invest some hours in pvp, and you are a decent average player, condi mirage will carry you to legendary without problems.
It's full of carried people by it.
Same when scourge was released, bronze and silver players achieved platinum 3 or legendary for the first time not by skill, but thanks to scourge, just go mid and spam.
Easier if you had a firebrand pally (this is probably true even nowadays).
So at least be honest with yourself tho.
and then you lose the point an the game
or you get ganked and die
or you over-commit cause your enemy is low hp and die instead
how can you kill anyone as condi mirage if they just press W and use condi removals and heals? you can't. unless you don't play with staff cause staff is bad and then you can but you can also die in every other situation without staff cus you have no protection
ITT: low elo non-mesmer players talking about a class they don't understand and blaming their shortcomings on the game instead themselves
i dont die to condi mirages cus i have condi removal, why don't you? Condi mirage has 2ways it can apply a ton of condis
1: ineptitude shatter spam - shatters have cd, if he does that and you remove his condis he wont have it any time soon
2: infinite horizon illusions spam - he has limited stamina, if he uses his stuff and you cleanse it he wont have stamina for awhile
everything else is slow condi application which has much lower dps than power builds do
tl;dr l2p, condi mirage isn't even remotely near the meta
More like 'my BIASED opinion based on my feelings'
@Trevor Boyer.6524 :
About the comparison between condi and power mirage, it's call efficiency. Each time I saw people saying "ho power is way more skilled than condi" sure, it's like if I say "ho bob is way more skilled than kevin because he play the game with his feet"... You didn't play with your feet, you are a noob. That's why you have meta builds, they are just more efficient.
Like your quotation "Seriously though, between Portal Entre, Blink, 3x Jaunts, and 2x on demand stealths, there is questionably a bit too much wiggle room for disengagement."
You have thoses same tools in power and condi why did you noticed that in condi but not in power ?
Jaunt is a 450 teleport, you can't even evade things like holo jump with it or distance attacks.
Good, now go to top 50, should be easy because of openess, or maybe you would say it's because of matchmaking
.
Every class who evade the 2 burst : weapon burst and f2, can deal with condi mirage, even me on power mirage with only dispell on jaunt and weapon swap can.
You are facing backpedal pewpew ranger or somewhat ?
Everyone can 1 v X molds.
I curious to know : WHICH RANKING DID YOU GET AFTER WEEKS OF PLAYING OP SPEC ?
About your class comparaison, please just talking about dps because I don't want to take discuss each enormity, do the test on golems, dps != burst. When I saw something like spellbreaker dps(A-) holo (S) mirage (S++ to S+.), it' kitten.
And a power mirage have less margin.
And other meta build have more margin to output damage.
Congratulations for the time writing this post and testing the class but apart confirming that mirage is a noob eater, as mesmer was since realease, we didn't learn much. As long as there isn't more than 10% mes in leaderboard like it was with chronotank 2.0 we can hardly say that mirage is op.
The 2nd thing I noticed is that I could play sloppy as all hell and still kill everyone that I engaged 1v1, with no real counter builds out there that the Condi Mirage couldn't handle or deal with.
Guards and Holos kill mirages in 1v1 all day long. Also you cant really kill a weaver/tempest support(though he shouldnt be able to kill you either)
I read half of your post and I stopped when the BS levels got too high, GL killing anyone on Mirage with just pressing random buttons...time your evade wrong and youre squashed.
Mirage isn't the only spec to die if ganked. It even has more tools to disengage than most meta builds out there. I never complained dying to conditions, but mechanicaly mirage has many tools to survive any 1v1. Losing a cap temporarily is no Big deal if you Can secure a kill then move on After recap. I'm not complaining about condi mirage, all i'm saying is that condi mirages shouldn't be the ones to complain.
I think the funniest part was when you resorted to complaining about clones like the usual garbage tier noob would. This tirade was a real treat with all the anecdotes and exaggeration.
Just example from my personal experience
When I start playing pvp - was frustrated about condi mirage. Illusions/escape/damage and stunbreak on dodge -> Created Mirage mesmer and joined Heart of The Mistst -> Que unranked - > 450k damage/top kills just randomly pressing buttons
Ofc I was against not experienced players.. but cmon. 450k damage just randomly pressing buttons? :DD
In my opinion anet should balance classes for average players. And totally agree with author - condi mesmer have too much
lol... tldr?
It doesn't take a genius to know when something is op when you've played sPVP pretty much since launch, even it you've barely played the class. There are advantages and drawbacks to every meta build as OP detailed with his rating system. Even though I never played mesmer in sPVP pre HoT I still eventually learned how to beat it through there practice and perseverance. When spellbreaker (and most of POF elite specs) first came out I was frustrated at the inability of any non-PoF build to combat them. Now, however, Spellbreakers and the like aren't a problem to fight on even a Berserker (elite spec) for me. Condi Mirage however is still just as frustrating and impossible to fight a year into the xpac. I understand that some match-ups I'm not supposed to be able to win while using a specific build. In those cases I cut my losses and retreat to an area of the map were I can have a better match up. Problems arise though, when you know you're dead even when you've started retreating because the condi mirage sees you from over 1200 range away and decides to engage. At least if a condi thief decides to engage you from that distance, it has to use up it's initiative on SB 6 or its shadow step or a one-off steal with 17 sec cd or so. This leaves the thief much less initiative for choking gas to pressure you.
I will believe that mirage is OP when I see the leaderboards being dominated by mirages. Until then stop crying for nerfs.
So you're saying you only care about the fun had by players on the leaderboards? If so, that sounds pretty selfish.
No what I'm saying is a class shouldn't be gutted based on forum posts. When looking at what is actually overperforming ANET needs to look at metrics. As in what is overrepresented in the highest levels of ranked. Sick of my class getting nerfed because bronze/silver players cant figure out how to deal.
What I draw from this is you played some unranked games and just your knowledge of the game allowed you to gank noobs in unranked. Mirage is the LEAST represented class on the leaderboard atm. That should definitely say something.
Thanks for putting this at the start. It saved me from reading the massive wall of content probably containing the same
How to redesign thief ... EZ
You have access to the stats?
Because "Bro, they told me on discord their main, and besides they are in my guild....I know them" ?
How to redesign thief ... EZ
@incisorr.9502
@jportell.2197
Yes but the top of the leaderboards doesn't exactly represent any fair play and/or real demonstration of class performance in real matches either. We can all pretend that match manipulation isn't REAL but it is and there is no coincidence that "every time", might I stress "every time" I have had a match against a top 10 player this season, I mysteriously get a DC on my team. "every time"
Why is it happening? Well streaming seems to be linked to all of the obvious win trading I've seen this season. I'm pretty sure what is left of the win trading community is just predominantly about commercial interests via twitch. It's real simple to understand "no one wants to watch a loser." <- It's true, I know it's true, they know it's true, although it's hush to ever discuss these things publicly for obvious reasons. It's whatever in my book at this point, but don't you dare even act like that kitten is real and use it as a sword while discussing class balance. I mean it's no different of an incentive than flooding a twitch chat with a load of bots that randomly talk about random things for 6 hours while someone is streaming, to make it look active. They do what they have to do to remain noticed, I get it. Not saying all of them, but a lot of them do. Just don't bring that fake kitten in as a sword into real discussions. It isn't right and it's embarrassing.
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"Sick of MY class . . . " so the truth comes out. I'm plat btw.
You can't balance purely on the top; everyone else will quit, and the game will die.
Case in point: Turret engi from before HoT. Top players didn't mind it and actually liked seeing an opposing one because they knew how to exploit its weaknesses. But 90% of the playerbase was incredibly frustrated by its ultra low risk / high reward gameplay.
You need balance at all levels of play. The top needs finer balance, but you can't let glaring problems for 90% of the players run amok either.
Trevor Boyer.6524
Nice write up.
mhm, ok, sure, whatever you say, no after you, I insist, no really, please, be my guest,
Yes and condi mirage is still not nearly as cancerous as turret engi was. Not even close.
Condi mirage has plenty of counters.
Condi mirage can put out reliably 2-3 damaging condis, torment, confusion, bleed, and burn on long CDS. Most classes can cleanse these very easily.
This spec has been nerfed, then nerfed again, had traits completely gutted, duration of conditioins reduced, then reduced again.
If you nerf the sustain that it has through target breaking and stealth, you better give it the uptime on boons and condi cleanse of other classes.
I actually enjoy fighting condi mirage because usually the ones who try rolling it are people like those here, that think its SOOOOOO easy and brain dead. With the nerfs to ineptitude, and confusion as a whole this class is still not the best even when it comes to condis.
hi
"* Self Sustain (C) for Power and (S) for Condi"
You are aware the difference between the two defensively is, staff 2 and chaos armor? (gs 5 vs chaos storm is a pretty even debate imo, but I guess you could include that if you liked) everything else is the exact same assuming you take the two most competitive builds.
I agree mirage stomps bad players. Its similar to a degree to HoT DH.
There are other classes that require less game knowledge to be effective, let me quote myself from a previous thread of yours:
"As a high rated player (Monthly winner etc) Id rather get a pug reaper, holo, core guard, dps firebrand, axe soulbeast - Than some random mirage that I have no clue who they are. The skill floor for all those builds is significantly lower than mirage, they will be more effective in fights assuming the skill level is similar.
Even playing near the skill cap of the class other mid tier players (on other classes, IE: holo) will still find successful situations more frequently and with less amount of outplay required when compared to a top tier mirage player in ranked. Holo can move anywhere on the map and find value, team fights, 1v1s, in roads, outnumbering, and while outnumbered. Mirage can outnumber well (has decent burst), can 1v1 kinda for short duration assuming similar skill level. If it did not have portal it would not be taken in competitive play as is."
Fighting Mirage is entirely on you to learn to play if you're playing any of the common meta builds. High tier mirage has few winning matchups, the best ones are probably ele or warrior and they still takes too long to kill in a competitive game .
There are some things that could be nerfed on mirage but they'd only be regarding axe and pistol + the related traits. Personally Id love for the stunbreak to be removed from EM while also removing the exhaustion, let it just be a condi cleanse on dodge. The trait was questionable design from the beginning and now its a disaster proving annoying for both enemy and the mirage (proc'ing exhaustion off daze, or when not desired)
Nerfing mirage in other ways might knock it out of viability, which is not good for the game, mirage makes it fun high tier, there are rotational outplays that are not possible without portal. Already as is, last monthly the EU winning team, won w/o a mesmer.
Reckless
I'm not sure about this.. you can't kill what you can't see...
What stream? Can you PM me a VOD of that if I ask nicely?
Going to nitpick on daredevil support should be atleast a B+ with having the best access to group stealth for engages with blackpowder + clusterbomb spam + blinding powder. Additionally trickery steal is the best way to reliably interrupt key skills like firebrand signet res and signet of agility is a decent group condi cleanse. Absolutely not an E+ rating.
A couple of things I picked from this Thread and wanted to comment on;
Portal and it's usefulness. I have never seen proper use of portal in solo que, by picking it up myself I always find it to be utterly useless except in very few cases where it helped me make some good plays - solo plays.
And about balancing around high divisions. What it means is..
''To use the knowledge of high ranking players to improve class balance''.
What exactly do you find wrong in that sentence?
I personally find mirage advance to be much better in soloque. The blind plus teleport and break Target on return are just too good. It's helped me manage a couple of 2v1s.
To the second point I absolutely agree. Most higher level players I go against seem to have no problem when dealing with my condis. It seems to be a forum warrior issue.
@NationalNacho.5972 That quote that you quoted from me, was not from me.
@Luna.6203 The sustain factor was incorporating ability to stay engaged in a fight. Stealthing and disengages were including in mobility.
@ArthurDent.9538 The support/utility factor was incorporating direct supports & utilities like AoE healing & booning or something like Portal Entre essentially allowing 1 player to be in 2 places at the same time, not so much team combat tactics.
@MikeL.8260 Portal Entre useless? Man, in the 10 matches I ran as Condi Mirage I quickly figured out how powerful Portal Entre was and it didn't even require any expertise to use it. IE: I cap home and then lay a portal and then I go to mid. Now I am in 2 places at the same time rotationally. This forces opponents to see that I am in two places at the same time, as if I had 5 players on my team rotationally. They either go to home knowing they will engage a Condi Mirage and likely lose the 1v1 or avoid the home node knowing that they will lose a 1v1 at the home node. That's an enormous amount of rotational power and that's not even getting into explanation of more advanced use of Portal Entre. You guys need to stop this argument that Portal Entre is useless because a skill that essentially allows the positioning of a 5th person on your team in the map, is ridiculously powerful in a Conquest match designed around holding and defending 3 nodes. About your comment on "high ranking players." just stop comparing the world of win trading to actual performance. I'm so kitten tired of hearing that kitten, just stop. After they implemented ATs and we were really able to see the true performance of these "top players" in actual 5v5 teams in a situation where they can't plant a DC or a throw on our teams, it only strengthened the identification of how much win trading was going on in ranked play.
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remov mesmer
@Trevor Boyer.6524
"let me quote myself from a previous thread of yours" - I was quoting myself, in one of the other threads you started.
"* Self Sustain (C) for Power and (S) for Condi" - This was from your own original post.
Ah gotcha, misread that.
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In Trevor's world, Weaver does more damage than Spellbreaker.
Best comment in this thread
The reality is that Mesmer has already been hit more than hard enough.
Players need to learn to counter, rather than calling for nerfs.
Mesmerizing Girl