Mirage Tradeoff

Azure The Heartless.3261 · February 2, 2020

@mortrialus.3062 said:TLDR:
One Bar for Dodge Roll fundamentally alters how endurance is played with in a way that means endurance regeneration is only ever in a state where it is being wasted.Maybe? more on that below.
With dodge rolls in a state where endurance regeneration is inherently wasted in some way, enemies fighting a mirage can both maintain a dodge for important skills and dodge minor skills while regenerating more dodge rolls.Understood, but more on that below.
Trade offs are dumb, well designed elite specs never necessarily needed direct drawbacks.Not on board with this. When they were designed to be core+, people were all over asking for core to be gutted to balance them, or lamenting how core was useless. Defined weakness is fine.
Since Mirage is designed to be an evasive, mobile, condition damage skirmisher it makes more sense for mirage to lose sturdiness which gives it a clear weakness for the strengths it gets.Evasive and condition oriented yes. Mobile I doubt. In addition to losing flat sturdiness, there should also be mechanical situations that they cannot just cover with cloak or distortion whenever they want, as long as they have endurance.
Mirage should keep 2 bars of endurance and lose -300 vitality, which makes more sense for mirage both thematically and gameplay wise than it ever did for scrapper. They maintain evasiveness but when hits land they matter more.I'm not on board with this, but-
Two Clone Limit is a far smarter change than one dodge roll bar.Fair.
Dodge on stun still needs to go.Fair. If it goes we don't need this endurance reduction, and then the 300 vitality reduction is fair game. Clones can even be kept the same.
@Quadox.7834 said:Everyone: Infinite Horizon is the problem with mirage and must be reworked!Anet: Nerfs renewing oasis, mirage cloak, and dune cloak

I don't know why they seem to be just plain avoiding that. It would have fixed all of the problems I can see with the class as it stands.

Regarding Evasion:

Cannn mirages just focus on chaining evade mirrors? I know the evasion shave seems like a lot , but there's a pretty sizable avenue for creating mirage mirrors that you can chain into for more evasion. Even jaunting into them would work. Mirror chaining seems like it would be the apex of mirage gameplay and it's pretty skillful at that.

Whatever gets picked, as long as mirages cant just panic press at least one of those options they normally use when they get cced, that is fine. The fix proposed needs to address that. If you just shave vitality off them, it does nothing to people that will just panic press their non-utility resources to get out of a situation they should have avoided to begin with, especially with cc itself not doing any damage up front. If anything, they have more of a window now to avoid damage, and that needs to be limited somehow.

I'll avoid being petty regarding this because I don't want the class to outright die/be unplayable. I do think, though, that mirage mirrors would help fix the problem that one dodge bar offers and people just seem to be ignoring them.

alain.1659 · February 2, 2020

Ages ago mesmer was not forced to play shatter only. Bring glamour traits back, revert condi changes to pre hot where confusion only dealt dmg when enemy casts a skill and torment deals dmg when enemy moves. Buff glamour fields and make null field a really powerful. Maybe then mesmer can be fun to play in groups.But giving mirage one dodge will force most people to play more bursty style in my opinion.

mortrialus.3062 · February 2, 2020

@reikken.4961 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:
@reikken.4961 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:
@reikken.4961 said:actually what gives me the most issue playing against mirages is indeed the mirage cloak uptime, so I think this change is pretty solid. mirage just has way too much built in defense
with all the mirage mirrors and distorts and teleports and target breaks and stealths and endurance gain it's impossible to keep tabs on when you can actually pressure them and get a hit to land. with this change you have a short window where you can know at least one thing is down

Current meta condi mirage has less evade+invuln+block up time than meta Glint Shiro, Thief+Daredevil, Spellbreaker, and Fire Weaver. Math mathtically comes down to about 66% of what those builds can do.

Sure. however, the uptime they do have has more practical value in several ways.teleports and target breaks and

~~stealth~~

buy time in between hard defensive optionsMeta condi mirage is not running stealth. Teleports and target breaks are what helps keep condi mirage meta in the face of it's lower evade up time compared to other popular builds.

and mirage can attack while defending, so defending doesn't result in lost offensive pressurecompare to weaver for example, where a weaver using riptide poses exactly zero threat and can be attacked or forced to burn another defensive cooldown immediately

Currently so can all of the builds I listed.

Riptide into Earthen Vortex? Maybe. A fire weaver using Primordial Stance in fire and then double dodging, both dodges also pulse out fire condi blasts in themselves, poses a ton of threat. A fire weaver can lay down fire vortexes and flame walls, and then dodge, and is a threatening / zoning presence. A thief in dagger storm, or casting Flanking Strike or Pistol Whip evades is very threatening. A warrior bull's charging is very threatening. A warrior's normal dodge roll is threatening and crits as hard as the meta condi mirage ambushes while also being unblockable right now. A Rev unrelenting assaulting is very threatening. A rev pressuring you while covering himself with Infuse Light is very threatening.

Sure. And that would be a problem, but all of those skills are explicitly getting nerfed (by which I mean nerfed harder than the global -33% damage)riptide and earthen vortex are getting huge cooldown increases, primordial stance burning is getting cut in half, dagger storm damage is cut by 40% (relative to the global -33%. total cut of 60%), reckless dodge damage cut by 50% (relative), etc

However, this does make me realize that unlike every other class, rev is getting no cuts to its heal skills.edit: probably because infuse light is the main heal skill, and that scales off of damage, which is going down

And outside of the trade off mirage/mesmer are seeing nerfs as well.

Phase Retreat: 2s Longer CooldownIllusory Counter: 4s Longer CooldownAxes of Symmetry: 5 Second Longer Cooldown.Blink: 5 Second Longer CooldownPhantasmal Duelist: Traited bleed Duration cut by 66%Sharper Images: Bleed Duration cut by 60%

Not to mention the global purging of Expertise amulets is going to hit Condition Mesmer the hardest because it's the only class that ever really played with them right now.

dubidubidubidu.5308 · February 2, 2020

@reikken.4961 said:actually what gives me the most issue playing against mirages is indeed the mirage cloak uptime, so I think this change is pretty solid. mirage just has way too much built in defense
with all the mirage mirrors and distorts and teleports and target breaks and stealths and endurance gain it's impossible to keep tabs on when you can actually pressure them and get a hit to land. with this change you have a short window where you can know at least one thing is down

not only what mortrialus said but you also forget that there are other mirage builds having way less dodges then the condi/hybrid mirage build using illusionary ambush/axe and adventure rune you describe here. why you want to nerf them all and kill the skillful power builds for the sake of balancing the few op condi/hybrid builds? as a power mirage player this doesnt make sense to me.

you also forget that such a nerf affects all possible mirage builds and not only the op ones. you lit force the not op builds more into using toxic or lame skills by overnerfing them for the sake of balancing the op ones. like when the change of mirage cloak goes through i might be forced into using illusionary ambush or signet of illusion over illusion of life/portal to even have a chance to survive. so my build will be dumbed down in several aspects:

first i will be more pressured into spamming dodges when my one bar is full to prevent wastes of endurance reggen and vigor (= more spammy, less reactive less mindful uses of dodges)second i have not enough dodge resources anymore for active, skillful and tactical offensive plays via comboing with ih and gs/sword ambushes (completely contradicting the mechanic of mirage and mostly the skillful ones)

and last but not least i am forced into the use of utility skills with lower skill ceiling and for my enemie more annoying to fight mechanics like illu ambush retargeting cancer and also forced into more sustainy and more forgiving to play traitlines like chaos or inspi to compensate the overkill in active defense and offense from having only one dodge.

now tell me, does that make sense to you? dumbing-down or even killing all possible mirage builds for the sake of nerfing few op ones esp when you have good alternatives to nerf only the op builds without touching stuff like power mirage as a side effect?

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:Cannn mirages just focus on chaining evade mirrors? I know the evasion shave seems like a lot , but there's a pretty sizable avenue for creating mirage mirrors that you can chain into for more evasion. Even jaunting into them would work. Mirror chaining seems like it would be the apex of mirage gameplay and it's pretty skillful at that.

me lazy me copy pasta what already being said:

mirrors are a nice side mechanic but not well enough designed to replace normal dodges. the mirror placement is too random (since you cannot rly affect clone movement, your target affects clone movement), esp with melee clones you often have them being too near to each other to pick them up one by one when you do a 3 clone f4 shatter, you cant rly reactively use them most time because often they need a movement to their position before, their lifetime is limited so i cant even wait until i need them to pick them up etc.

mortrialus.3062 · February 2, 2020

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:TLDR:
One Bar for Dodge Roll fundamentally alters how endurance is played with in a way that means endurance regeneration is only ever in a state where it is being wasted.Maybe? more on that below.
With dodge rolls in a state where endurance regeneration is inherently wasted in some way, enemies fighting a mirage can both maintain a dodge for important skills and dodge minor skills while regenerating more dodge rolls.Understood, but more on that below.
Trade offs are dumb, well designed elite specs never necessarily needed direct drawbacks.Not on board with this. When they were designed to be core+, people were all over asking for core to be gutted to balance them, or lamenting how core was useless. Defined weakness is fine.
Since Mirage is designed to be an evasive, mobile, condition damage skirmisher it makes more sense for mirage to lose sturdiness which gives it a clear weakness for the strengths it gets.Evasive and condition oriented yes. Mobile I doubt. In addition to losing flat sturdiness, there should also be mechanical situations that they cannot just cover with cloak or distortion whenever they want, as long as they have endurance.
Mirage should keep 2 bars of endurance and lose -300 vitality, which makes more sense for mirage both thematically and gameplay wise than it ever did for scrapper. They maintain evasiveness but when hits land they matter more.I'm not on board with this, but-
Two Clone Limit is a far smarter change than one dodge roll bar.Fair.
Dodge on stun still needs to go.Fair. If it goes we don't need this endurance reduction, and then the 300 vitality reduction is fair game. Clones can even be kept the same.
@Quadox.7834 said:Everyone: Infinite Horizon is the problem with mirage and must be reworked!Anet:
Nerfs renewing oasis, mirage cloak, and dune cloak

I don't know why they seem to be just plain avoiding that. It would have fixed all of the problems I can see with the class as it stands.

Regarding Evasion:

Cannn mirages just focus on chaining evade mirrors? I know the evasion shave seems like a lot , but there's a pretty sizable avenue for creating mirage mirrors that you can chain into for more evasion. Even jaunting into them would work. Mirror chaining seems like it would be the apex of mirage gameplay and it's pretty skillful at that.

Whatever gets picked, as long as mirages cant just panic press at least

one

of those options they normally use when they get cced, that is fine. The fix proposed needs to address that. If you just shave vitality off them, it does nothing to people that will just panic press their non-utility resources to get out of a situation they should have avoided to begin with, especially with cc itself not doing any damage up front. If anything, they have more of a window now to avoid damage, and that needs to be limited

somehow

.

I'll avoid being petty regarding this because I don't want the class to

outright die/be unplayable.

I do think, though, that mirage mirrors would help fix the problem that one dodge bar offers and people just seem to be ignoring them.

If the change goes through if Mirage is going to have any hope they're going to have to switch from the Protection on dodge trait into Desert Distortion where Distortion turns your clones into Mirror. But even then that and the other Mirror utilities don't really compare to just having a dodge roll. For starters, they all require preparation. None of them are a proper replacement for seeing an attack coming and being able to react to it. They also don't last super long 8 seconds. It's not like some of the thief preparations aside from Shadow Portal that last 300 seconds. And even if there was some kind of mechanic that spawned a mirror in combat while in combat every 10 seconds that simulates having a dodge roll, racing to a mirror before you opponent connects whatever attack they are throwing at you still isn't a replacement for a dodge roll where as soon as you understand an attack is heading your way you can react to dodge it. This is triply true if they're spending a Jaunt to get to it.

MrAmputatoes.6031 · February 2, 2020

honestly, one dodge is such a drawback mirage will be a dumpster prof like chrono. If they seriously wanted a drawback, remove the sustainability, the prot on dodge, the ability to dodge while cc'd.

Curennos.9307 · February 2, 2020

It would be interesting if Mirage traded out Distortion for a skill that gave Cloak, and then 'dragged' all lingering mirage cloak thingies produced by skills to the mirage to give +1 sec per and some other buffs. Would be a nice reason to make the ground cloak thingies last longer and give some love to utility skills.

apharma.3741 · February 2, 2020

Everything needs to be nuked down, if it's bad it can be fixed later but the new power level needs to be set.

Don't cry over the details, look at the forest, it's over grown and rotten.

ZeteCommander.4937 · February 3, 2020

Add a 5 second public cooldown for each shatter.Or completely change the shatter of mirage.Mirage should keep its original characteristics

Zoser.7245 · February 3, 2020

@apharma.3741 said:Everything needs to be nuked down, if it's bad it can be fixed later but the new power level needs to be set.
Don't cry over the details, look at the forest, it's over grown and rotten.

Like they fixed the Chronomancer? Must be really fixed when you rarely can find one. Hopes aren't really there.

Daishi.6027 · February 3, 2020

Current Power mirage that can't one shot is already on par with everything after nerfs. Reducing the damage of everything else even more and limiting the dodge just kills it.

If mirage baseline created more mirrors and didn't have to pick it between other, frankly more viable options on most traits, it would almost be okay. But currently with this preview you have something that dodges less than other classes, and has less reliable damage, with less stability even with the boon changes. Also Mirrors are kind of terrible anyways, If anything should be changed mirrors are what should be more removed.

Condi should be fine after these changes even with two dodges, but if it's not and is still overwhelming, then take condi damage off the ambush and replace it with non damaging condis. Then increase application in other more cooldown driven areas.

People point out how Distorion lets you continue to attack, that is trade off for spending all your resources. If it was just "You go invuln for 4 seconds" I'd agree, but by a slightly faulty analogy this would be like a warrior losing all adrenaline for popping endure pain.

Xervite.5493 · February 3, 2020

Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.

felix.2386 · February 3, 2020

@mortrialus.3062 said:
@reikken.4961 said:actually what gives me the most issue playing against mirages is indeed the mirage cloak uptime, so I think this change is pretty solid. mirage just has way too much built in defense
with all the mirage mirrors and distorts and teleports and target breaks and stealths and endurance gain it's impossible to keep tabs on when you can actually pressure them and get a hit to land. with this change you have a short window where you can know at least one thing is down

Current meta condi mirage has less evade+invuln+block up time than meta Glint Shiro, Thief+Daredevil, Spellbreaker, and Fire Weaver. Math mathtically comes down to about 66% of what those builds can do.

mirage doesnt need to be in ur face to land 100% of the burst damage and mirage damage is 200% easier to land, thus giving mirage more time to avoid damage. also in combination with extremely high blink up time, if u run out of evade, u just blink away or even stealth if thats what u took AKA signet, biggest offender is being able to evade when CC'ed without stunbreak...it's not always just about the evade.

AliamRationem.5172 · February 3, 2020

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:
@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:It's seems that their method of balancing mirage is to ignore the busted mechanics and instead just nerf it to the ground until it is unplayable. While that may seem lazy, a lot of PvP focused games like SMITE or dota have done this in the past when a champion has toxic unfun mechanics they just nerf it
to oblivion
so that it can never be meta.
I'd rather they just rework it to something akin to GW1 mesmer.

Yeah, this just reads as a lazy bandaid "fix." As much as I loathe Mirage, them getting 1 dodge is just silly.

It's pretty much along the same lines as passive saves having their cooldowns increased to 300s. We all know the logical thing to do is to remove the offending trait and replace it with something less problematic. But no. We're just going to nerf these traits to the point where they are completely irrelevant and leave them in that state for for the foreseeable future. It's the GW2 way!

Leonidrex.5649 · February 3, 2020

@Xervite.5493 said:Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.

IH is and was the only overperforming thing cmirage gad.they took away EVERYTHING exept it lol. and its still gonna be there, still overperforming.

dubidubidubidu.5308 · February 3, 2020

@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@Xervite.5493 said:Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.

IH is and was the only overperforming thing cmirage gad.they took away EVERYTHING exept it lol. and its still gonna be there, still overperforming.

you mean the clone ambushes on condi mirage are op right? because ih doesnt have anything to do with how strong ambushes are. what ambushes do and how strong they are is only based in the ambush skill design itself. you can just nerf the too strong ambushes either from the mesmer itself or from clones to solve problems with ambush dmg. that is also the reason a clone cap of 2 as a trade-off makes way more sense, since this change rly is directed to the problem mirage has (on condi at least), it reduces the dmg spam from clone ambushes. and the best thing is: it does it without deleting active combo potential you have on power mirage from ambushes/ ih. it only will nerf a bit of gs dmg what is acceptable. but on gs and sword it wasnt the best play to spam 3 clones for their ambush dmg or ambush effect without shattering anyway because on power mirage shatters are still more rewarding than spamming clone ambush dmg which is not that high. on gs it is more the ambush of the mesmer itself could get a bit of a dmg reduction (what will happen with next patch anyway and even better when they also add a dmg redcution to superior complex trait, since sc is what makes split surge from the mirage itself crit spike up to over 10k on a single target sometimes and also lead to insane high dmg spikes from 7k+mw, too high dmg on phantams and mb and that on all mesmer specs not only mirage).

Koen.1327 · February 3, 2020

@"Jazz.4639" said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@Xervite.5493 said:Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.

IH is and was the only overperforming thing cmirage gad.they took away EVERYTHING exept it lol. and its still gonna be there, still overperforming.

you mean the clone ambushes on condi mirage are op right? because ih doesnt have anything to do with how strong ambushes are. what ambushes do and how strong they are is only based in the ambush skill design itself. you can just nerf the too strong ambushes either from the mesmer itself or from clones to solve problems with ambush dmg. that is also the reason a clone cap of 2 as a trade-off makes way more sense, since this change rly is directed to the problem mirage has (on condi at least), it reduces the dmg spam from clone ambushes. and the best thing is: it does it without deleting active combo potential you have on power mirage from ambushes/ ih. it only will nerf a bit of gs dmg what is acceptable. but on gs and sword it wasnt the best play to spam 3 clones for their ambush dmg or ambush effect without shattering anyway because on power mirage shatters are still more rewarding than spamming clone ambush dmg which is not that high. on gs it is more the ambush of the mesmer itself could get a bit of a dmg reduction (what will happen with next patch anyway and even better when they also add a dmg redcution to superior complex trait, since sc is what makes split surge from the mirage itself crit spike up to over 10k on a single target sometimes and also lead to insane high dmg spikes from 7k+mw, too high dmg on phantams and mb and that on all mesmer specs not only mirage).

particularly the synergy of deceptive evasion with IH is extremely strong and couldve been targeted a long time ago instead of other nerfs

Crackmonster.2790 · February 3, 2020

@"mortrialus.3062" said:While I've always maintained "Condition Mirage will find a way. It always finds a way." and it always has. And it still might. But if anything is going to kill the spec it's going to be this.
The main thing of condition mirage going to one dodge roll isn't just that it loses out on a dodge. Think about how every class including condition mirage currently play; You're inherently and unconsciously programmed to dodge once pretty flippantly and then save the second dodge roll until you really need it. Because in order to regenerate endurance at all at least some of your endurance needs to be drained. If you aren't dodge rolling at least once every 10 seconds of a fight or 7.5 seconds with vigor you're losing out on potential dodges you could have taken and thus momentum. That lack of a second dodge translates to more time you're going to squat on that completely full evade bar, which translates into your opponent regardless of build evading more of your attacks than you are of theirs. A normal build can potentially gets 5.25 seconds of evade through their dodge rolls naturally regenerating. High vigor builds can get potentially 6.75 seconds. Now granted you aren't going to be spamming dodge rolls literally every time they're available as soon as they're available. But the way the endurance system works you're incentive to use them soon.
You watch good players that are actively in a fight like Tramadex, Sindrener, Naru. Unless it's a situation where there is literally nothing threatening them coming their way they don't sit on full endurance for more than a couple seconds at most and if anything does it's always the dodge roll that gets used first. It changes the fundamental principals of how endurance is played. You are forever only in a state where you are wasting your endurance regeneration; either by wasting it by spending it before truly highest priority skills are thrown at you, for or by squatting on endurance and not spending it for seconds longer than you would on other classes ensuring the momentum of the fight is not in your favor.
Another thing is that there are so many things in the game that require double dodge. Rapid Fire on longbow ranger, you either double dodge it or you blow a blink to get behind line of sight, if you can even get one. There's so many times I've capped waterfall on Legacy and as I begin to push towards mid when a ranger runs of the graveyard staircase, and immediately tries to Point Blank Shot you into Rapid Fire. You either double dodge that or get bursted for over half your health.
Dagger Storm, 3 seconds of sustained pressure you need double dodge to deal with it and simply blinking away doesn't always help because thieves can and very much might steal or shadow step back onto you or infiltrator's signet.
All in all this particular drawback just isn't a good idea. It feels spiteful "Kill Mirage, anything will do." And some people will cheer for that. People cheered about Chronomancer going away but the point of balance is to increase the diversity of the characters and builds you see. While at the time I did not like what the primary Chronomancer was doing when it got nerfed (Power Greatsword abusing the Slow and Bonus Damage and Crit Damage Traits, basically normal power greatsword but with the damage bonus kitten like Mantra of Pain were criting for 8k). And sure getting caught in a Gravity Well isn't fun. But getting caught by any attack isn't fun. And GW2 PvP is less rich with Chronomancer in the dumpster and it will be with less rich with Mirage in the dumpster.
And also, the whole idea of Drawbacks ArenaNet have fallen in love with is faulty to begin with. When elite specializations are well designed the DON'T NEED Drawbacks. Take Druid. Druid as an elite specialization is lazy focused on healing support. Your new weapon? It's 100% healing with mobility and some immobilize. Your new utilities? Have heavily focused on support and group buffing. Your traits? Heavily focus on healing, group support and some survival options like stealth, daze. Druid didn't need trade offs, because the way Druid was designed down to it's fundamental DNA means you would and could never do as much damage as a core ranger was capable of regardless of how you built your druid. It didn't need the pet stats nerf And if there are problems with Druid it's a lot, lot easier to laser focus on things specifically in the Druid's kit. Similar situation with Scrapper, as scrapper you simply cannot do as much damage as a core engineer let alone a holosmith, it's already baked into the DNA of scrapper.
Holosmith even with it's "trade off" is not a well designed elite speciation. Holosmith radically upped the damage and mobility of Core Engineer. But that's not all it did. It also had really out of place healing traits that boosted it's self healing compared to Core Engineer. It had stuff like Traited Corona Burst to give it more stability than Core Engineer. It gave it blocks it can use to cover it's attack, it has a utility that gives it 50% incoming damage and condition damage. So in exchange for one losing an Elite Toolbelt skill, none of which are game changing, holosmith gains more damage, mobility, healing, stability, and scaling defenses. That's the problem with a number of elite specializations, not arbitrarily "Oh none of the professions skills changed". And yeah, Mirage is definitely in the holosmith camp.
Mirage is designed to be a condition skirmisher that boosts both it's evade potential, condition damage potential, and mobility. So why does it have things that boost it's self sustain such as regeneration on dodge in addition to reduced incoming condition duration? Why does it have protection on dodge? Why did it come baked with Stunbreak on Dodge and Condition Damage on dodge (Let alone dodge on stun which still needs to go)? Why does it have hands down the best healing skill for mesmer in terms of both utility and the self healing? Why did it come packaged with so much weakness just with it's Mirror splashing them around? All of which directly impact both its self sustain and physical durability on top of evasion, condition damage, and mobility.
At this point you need to think about what Mirage should be doing that improves upon core mesmer and what it should lack. If it should be a more evasive skirmish with higher condition damage, the obvious answer is to make it less sustaining and less durable than core mesmer when hits do come in, let alone chronomancer. If any of the elite specializations should have gotten the reduced vitality as a draw back, it makes much more sense for it to have been Mirage that get that trait and not scrapper. That change didn't make any sense and really hurt Scrapper and just almost knocked them out of ranked entirely. Because it doesn't make sense to have Scrapper be designed to be good at being defensive and tanky and make it also kneecap itself at being defensive and tanky. This is like -300 power and condition damage as the trade off to Berserker. Or Daredevil getting -50% reduced Endurance Regeneration because it gets a 3rd dodge bar. It just literally doesn't make sense.
TLDR:
One Bar for Dodge Roll fundamentally alters how endurance is played with in a way that means endurance regeneration is only ever in a state where it is being wasted.
With dodge rolls in a state where endurance regeneration is inherently wasted in some way, enemies fighting a mirage can both maintain a dodge for important skills and dodge minor skills while regenerating more dodge rolls.
Trade offs are dumb, well designed elite specs never necessarily needed direct drawbacks.
Since Mirage is designed to be an evasive, mobile, condition damage skirmisher it makes more sense for mirage to lose sturdiness which gives it a clear weakness for the strengths it gets.
Mirage should keep 2 bars of endurance and lose -300 vitality, which makes more sense for mirage both thematically and gameplay wise than it ever did for scrapper. They maintain evasiveness but when hits land they matter more.
Two Clone Limit is a far smarter change than one dodge roll bar.
Dodge on stun still needs to go.

The dream is to have devs thinking this clearly...

Cpt Crunch.7058 · February 3, 2020

@mortrialus.3062 said:
Phase Retreat: 2s Longer CooldownIllusory Counter: 4s Longer CooldownAxes of Symmetry: 5 Second Longer Cooldown.Blink: 5 Second Longer CooldownPhantasmal Duelist: Traited bleed Duration cut by 66%Sharper Images: Bleed Duration cut by 60%
Not to mention the global purging of Expertise amulets is going to hit Condition Mesmer the hardest because it's the only class that ever really played with them right now.
More than that, with the global changes to Mesmer greatsword Mirror Blade will do less damage on a target for each time they are hit by the projectile, and the projectile from Phantasmal Berserker will no longer boomerang with no increase to the base damage it does to compensate. All this on top of the power coefficient reductions for PvP/WvW. Mirage already has the drawback that it needs to use its dodge in an offensive manner as well as defensive thus forcing the player to make a choice on how to manage that endurance. However Mirage should have another drawback for having such a powerful dodge and that is the loss of superspeed with all movement speed bonuses coming from other skills or utilities. This would reward good timing, smart positioning, and strategy on whether to use a dodge or use another utility like Blink, Jaunt, Sand Through Glass, Illusionary Ambush, etc. IH should be made into the grandmaster minor so that Mirage is in a better position from which it can be balanced and a new grandmaster trait should be added so there is actually a compelling reason to choose something.

mortrialus.3062 · February 3, 2020

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:
@"mortrialus.3062" said:TLDR:
One Bar for Dodge Roll fundamentally alters how endurance is played with in a way that means endurance regeneration is only ever in a state where it is being wasted.Maybe? more on that below.
With dodge rolls in a state where endurance regeneration is inherently wasted in some way, enemies fighting a mirage can both maintain a dodge for important skills and dodge minor skills while regenerating more dodge rolls.Understood, but more on that below.
Trade offs are dumb, well designed elite specs never necessarily needed direct drawbacks.Not on board with this. When they were designed to be core+, people were all over asking for core to be gutted to balance them, or lamenting how core was useless. Defined weakness is fine.

Wanted to come back to this to add a few extra points.

Let me put it this way;

Just swapping the profession mechanic skills in and of themselves for different ones does not make it a proper trade off. If we look at the core capabilities of the class; what can you do in terms of damage, what can it do in terms of healing, what can it do in terms of mobility, what can it do in terms of defense, it's not tinkering with Profession Skills that makes it a good trade off, though that is certainly an option.

The examples I give are druid, which 100% of the elite spec pigeon holes it into healing that no matter how you build it, you can never build one that has the damage capabilities of a core ranger let alone soul beast. Just taking druid means you gain more healing than a core ranger, but you have less damage just based on the weapon, traits, and utilities you get, even though pre-drawback it just gave ranger an F5 mechanic on top of their other profession mechanics.

Holosmith, despite having a "drawback" according to Arenanet's definition, is a badly designed elite spec because while it gives it higher damage and mobility potential the traits and utilities means it also has higher healing, active defenses, stability, than what a core engineer is capable on top of that.

While drawbacks can and often are appropriate (I think the Spellbreaker drawback is a beautifully designed one), it's not always appropriate or necessary to have a drawback with certain more carefully designed elite specializations.

If the capabilities of a core profession look something like this:

Then elite specs should be doing something like this:

And sometimes you can achieve healthily that with certain drawbacks. Sometimes drawbacks aren't necessary. That's what I'm trying to explain.

Since Mirage is designed to be an evasive, mobile, condition damage skirmisher it makes more sense for mirage to lose sturdiness which gives it a clear weakness for the strengths it gets.Evasive and condition oriented yes. Mobile I doubt. In addition to losing flat sturdiness, there should also be mechanical situations that they cannot just cover with cloak or distortion whenever they want, as long as they have endurance.

Literally half of Mirage's utilities are blinks; Illusory Ambush, Mirage Advance, and Jaunt. In fact when Mirage was first playable during the demo weekend one of the main complaints from my first impressions is that so many of the utilities were boring blinks.

Azure The Heartless.3261 · February 3, 2020

@mortrialus.3062 said:
@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:
@mortrialus.3062 said:TLDR:
One Bar for Dodge Roll fundamentally alters how endurance is played with in a way that means endurance regeneration is only ever in a state where it is being wasted.Maybe? more on that below.
With dodge rolls in a state where endurance regeneration is inherently wasted in some way, enemies fighting a mirage can both maintain a dodge for important skills and dodge minor skills while regenerating more dodge rolls.Understood, but more on that below.
Trade offs are dumb, well designed elite specs never necessarily needed direct drawbacks.Not on board with this. When they were designed to be core+, people were all over asking for core to be gutted to balance them, or lamenting how core was useless. Defined weakness is fine.

Wanted to come back to this to add a few extra points.

Let me put it this way;

Just swapping the profession mechanic skills in and of themselves for different ones does not make it a proper trade off. If we look at the core capabilities of the class; what can you do in terms of damage, what can it do in terms of healing, what can it do in terms of mobility, what can it do in terms of defense, it's not tinkering with Profession Skills that makes it a good trade off, though that is certainly an option.

The examples I give are druid, which 100% of the elite spec pigeon holes it into healing that no matter how you build it, you can never build one that has the damage capabilities of a core ranger let alone soul beast. Just taking druid means you gain more healing than a core ranger, but you have less damage just based on the weapon, traits, and utilities you get, even though pre-drawback it just gave ranger an F5 mechanic on top of their other profession mechanics.

Holosmith, despite having a "drawback" according to Arenanet's definition, is a badly designed elite spec because while it gives it higher damage and mobility potential the traits and utilities means it also has higher healing, active defenses, stability, than what a core engineer is capable on top of that.

While drawbacks can and often are appropriate (I think the Spellbreaker drawback is a beautifully designed one), it's not always appropriate or necessary to have a drawback with certain more carefully designed elite specializations.

If the capabilities of a core profession look something like this:

Then elite specs should be doing something like this:

And sometimes you can achieve healthily that with certain drawbacks. Sometimes drawbacks aren't necessary. That's what I'm trying to explain.

Fair enough, I get your point. I'm inclined to agree with that design philosophy. As long as whatever proposed solution does not cause cause addition to or persistence in the "holosmith camp," that's fine. If that ends up not being as hard as a 50% endurance shave, fine, because I still want to fight mirages (and chronos for that matter) when this is over. Just not stacked ones.

Since Mirage is designed to be an evasive, mobile, condition damage skirmisher it makes more sense for mirage to lose sturdiness which gives it a clear weakness for the strengths it gets.Evasive and condition oriented yes. Mobile I doubt. In addition to losing flat sturdiness, there should also be mechanical situations that they cannot just cover with cloak or distortion whenever they want, as long as they have endurance.Literally half of Mirage's utilities are blinks; Illusory Ambush, Mirage Advance, and Jaunt. In fact when Mirage was first playable during the demo weekend one of the main complaints from my first impressions is that so many of the utilities were boring blinks.

Short range, though. I'd call that more agile/deceptive than mobile.You're not going to blink with total freedom, only around a target. I get what you mean however, there's no need to split hairs on that, and that kind of target breaking definitely fits the skirmisher archetype.

dubidubidubidu.5308 · February 3, 2020

@Koen.1327 said:
@"Jazz.4639" said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@Xervite.5493 said:Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.

IH is and was the only overperforming thing cmirage gad.they took away EVERYTHING exept it lol. and its still gonna be there, still overperforming.

you mean the clone ambushes on condi mirage are op right? because ih doesnt have anything to do with how strong ambushes are. what ambushes do and how strong they are is only based in the ambush skill design itself. you can just nerf the too strong ambushes either from the mesmer itself or from clones to solve problems with ambush dmg. that is also the reason a clone cap of 2 as a trade-off makes way more sense, since this change rly is directed to the problem mirage has (on condi at least), it reduces the dmg spam from clone ambushes. and the best thing is: it does it without deleting active combo potential you have on power mirage from ambushes/ ih. it only will nerf a bit of gs dmg what is acceptable. but on gs and sword it wasnt the best play to spam 3 clones for their ambush dmg or ambush effect without shattering anyway because on power mirage shatters are still more rewarding than spamming clone ambush dmg which is not that high. on gs it is more the ambush of the mesmer itself could get a bit of a dmg reduction (what will happen with next patch anyway and even better when they also add a dmg redcution to superior complex trait, since sc is what makes split surge from the mirage itself crit spike up to over 10k on a single target sometimes and also lead to insane high dmg spikes from 7k+mw, too high dmg on phantams and mb and that on all mesmer specs not only mirage).

particularly the synergy of deceptive evasion with IH is extremely strong and couldve been targeted a long time ago instead of other nerfs

ih is a dodge trait (adds a reward to the dodge aside from simple evading an attack), all dodge traits need for several reasons to work on each dodge, at least that is how they work on other classes like warrior or engi for example, right?other dodgetraits also dont have a delay on the effect or the need that the player prepares the dodge in a way to make the dodge trait function, an engi/ warrior dodges and the trait effect activates just by pressing dodge, right? their dodge trait works no matter how many adrenaline a warrior has build up before, they work without the engi needs to use another weaponskill before the dodge, right?

now lets look at what ih does without de and without a clone up you have to create BEFORE dodging from using weaponskills: nothing! wowzi! i want that!

so without de ih will be the one and only dodge trait in the game not working on every dodge without preloaded actions from the player. is that fair? that mesmer either has a big delay on the dodgetrait (cannot just dodge when needed because if you dont have a clone up already ih does nothing) or needs to use another trait to make ih work like every other dodge trait in the game? giving up superior complex or ineptitude just to have a dodge trait equally to other dodge traits in the game? what you call good synergy i call a trade-off. but it is ok since mirage has to have that trade-off because of the other strong mechanics it has. but there lit. is nothing to nerf, it is already a trade-off and not a strong synergy.

a strong synergy between a dodge trait and another trait would be when warrior has a trait in defense line like: everytime you hit a target with unblockable dmg you gain protection for x secs - that i call a good synergy because that means everytime warrior hits a target with his dodge trait dmg he also gets protection in addition. that is a plus, that could be nerfed to not have double reward for one dodge (dmg+protection).

now mirage gets another trade-off because some mirage builds are still too strong. fine, no problem. just that the planned trade-off is completely contradicting the mirage nature by overnerfing the resource it needs to even funtion in a skillful way. cool dat!

mortrialus.3062 · February 3, 2020

Things that should happen to Mirage and to a lesser extent core mesmer irrespective of trade off.

Dodge On Stun Should be removed.
Condition damage from Clone Autos should be rolled into the mesmer itself.
Infinite Horizon clones should follow the above principal, with Infinite Horizon providing a damage boost to the Mirage's own ambush attack based on the clones the mirage currently has.

This will cull a lot of the main problems with how condition mirage current operates, namely how it kites around and as long as it keeps clones alive they will grind down opponents with chip damage while the mirage can just dodge incoming damage, doesn't even need to ambush, but it's clones will ambush too. Even if you have no clones you'll make a clone that ambushes and damages the target for you.

Staff/scepter mesmer/mirage is fine for it to be a very potent defensive zoner that kites opponents while debilitating them with conditions. But it should be 100% the one committed to doing it's own damage outside of phantasms, which currently operate like any other weapon skill just with unusual 3rd party delivery mechanisms and are only an issue for one attack.

And mirage should have a trade off, but said trade off shouldn't run so completely counter to what the specialization is and is supposed to be.

Koen.1327 · February 3, 2020

@"Jazz.4639" said:
@Koen.1327 said:
@"Jazz.4639" said:
@Leonidrex.5649 said:
@"Xervite.5493" said:Wait I don't get it, why are you people after IH? How different is the espec mirage from its core spec mesmer without IH? I've hardly used mirage but without IH I see no reason to use the spec.