1 dodge in WVW is just.... terrible

[scerevisiae.1972]

can't comment on sPVP (cause it sucks) but WVW 1 dodge was definitely an overnerf.

mirage was nowhere near top dps even in zerker gear even before the nerf.

very hard to understand or sympathise with anet's thinking here, hard to see as anything but a clueless kneejerk reaction.

[Draygorn.7012]

It seems the general pattern of nerfing has sunk into a concerning state. I've seen band aid nerfs to thief and Rev skills is just increase the resource cost instead of altering the stats of the skills themselves, which is an egregious way of applying balance. Now they have limited mirage to a single dodge in competitive modes to prevent overperforming. Whether mirage was overperforming or not is not the point. It's the fact that these patches are ruining the flow of combat by heavily restricting the recourse mechanics tied to some of the classes, making them feel clunky and unintuitive. At this point, we have to dig up some weird gimmicks to keep up.

[scerevisiae.1972]

@Draygorn.7012 said:weird gimmicks to keep up

even berserker + double greatsword, double energy sigil and energy regen food still does not get mirage into the top 10 for WVW squad dmg with a reasonable level of regularity.

and that's before you consider added utility like group barrier from scourge, dwarf and boons from revenant, superspeed from scrappers.

also, good luck avoiding dmg with 1 dodge when dodging is also your key dmg move.

but... i didn't need 2 weeks of playtesting to know 1 dodge mirage was going to be weak - it was weak in WVW with 2 dodges!

i wish anet would swallow its ego a bit and provide a video or written baancing update on why they make some of the balance decisions they make, preferably with gameplay stats, cause balance decisions like this really just make them look bad.

[Draygorn.7012]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:

@Draygorn.7012 said:weird gimmicks to keep up

even berserker + double greatsword, double energy sigil and energy regen food still does not get mirage into the top 10 for WVW squad dmg with a reasonable level of regularity.

and that's before you consider added utility like group barrier from scourge, dwarf and boons from revenant, superspeed from scrappers.

also, good luck avoiding dmg with 1 dodge when dodging is also your key dmg move.

but... i didn't need 2 weeks of playtesting to know 1 dodge mirage was going to be weak - it was weak in WVW with 2 dodges!

i wish anet would swallow its ego a bit and provide a video or written baancing update on why they make some of the balance decisions they make, preferably with gameplay stats, cause balance decisions like this really just make them look

bad

.

True. They really should have explained the motive behind removing 50 endurance from a spec. Especially one that uses dodge as a part of their offensive rotation.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:

@Draygorn.7012 said:weird gimmicks to keep up

even berserker + double greatsword, double energy sigil and energy regen food still does not get mirage into the top 10 for WVW squad dmg with a reasonable level of regularity.

and that's before you consider added utility like group barrier from scourge, dwarf and boons from revenant, superspeed from scrappers.

also, good luck avoiding dmg with 1 dodge when dodging is also your key dmg move.

but... i didn't need 2 weeks of playtesting to know 1 dodge mirage was going to be weak - it was weak in WVW with 2 dodges!

i wish anet would swallow its ego a bit and provide a video or written baancing update on why they make some of the balance decisions they make, preferably with gameplay stats, cause balance decisions like this really just make them look

bad

.

gs ambush their backline -> lose 1/4 HP to retal LUL

[Yoci.2481]

I often lose a lot more than 1/4 and then their support heals them back to full within the blink of an eye, while I have to wait 15 seconds for my heal to get off cool down, which will get me from 27% to 63% HP.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@"scerevisiae.1972" said:can't comment on sPVP (cause it sucks) but WVW 1 dodge was definitely an overnerf.

mirage was nowhere near top dps even in zerker gear even before the nerf.

very hard to understand or sympathise with anet's thinking here, hard to see as anything but a clueless kneejerk reaction.

People kept trolling the forums cause they could not tab target and find the not-mesmer in PvP. "Whaaa, I can't fight mesmers cause I can't tell the difference between AI and people!" Probably the same people that fell for Cambridge Analytica ads.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:

@Draygorn.7012 said:weird gimmicks to keep up

even berserker + double greatsword, double energy sigil and energy regen food still does not get mirage into the top 10 for WVW squad dmg with a reasonable level of regularity.

and that's before you consider added utility like group barrier from scourge, dwarf and boons from revenant, superspeed from scrappers.

also, good luck avoiding dmg with 1 dodge when dodging is also your key dmg move.

but... i didn't need 2 weeks of playtesting to know 1 dodge mirage was going to be weak - it was weak in WVW with 2 dodges!

i wish anet would swallow its ego a bit and provide a video or written baancing update on why they make some of the balance decisions they make, preferably with gameplay stats, cause balance decisions like this really just make them look

bad

.

I guarantee you CMC plays Firebrand and lost to a Mirage. Repeatedly.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Yoci.2481 said:I often lose a lot more than 1/4 and then their support heals them back to full within the blink of an eye, while I have to wait 15 seconds for my heal to get off cool down, which will get me from 27% to 63% HP.

the best feeling, you flank them, keep attacking them from behind, then dont give a crap,after 20-30s they are still full hp due to broken aoe heals, but you are at 2k hp walking away from combat, retal alone did it.the blobs are so bad its staggering, there are occasions where I can free cast for almost 1 minute and none of 15 necros turns around to throw a mark at me, but there is no way to punish, I punish myself half the time from attackers, all you can do is try to get clones up, wait for someone to split up slightly -> IA->shatter burst and blink off into the sunset

[pninak.1069]

I think cmirage is fine in wvw. would prefer to have normal number of dodges and compensation for it by a nerf of the ambush attacks. pmirage is propably the weakest one to play atm. cmirage still got block and stealth.

[Daishi.6027]

The entire game should have followed a balance philosophy precedent using pre HoT core power mesmer, without stealth, as a base line.(Then abandoned conquest as the main PvP game type, and actually made PvP about P vs P.)

If they did that we'd have true balance and e-sports rn... And WvW would feel so much better on every profession, and people would live and die purely based on skill.

[Kodama.6453]

@"Draygorn.7012" said:

True. They really should have explained the motive behind removing 50 endurance from a spec. Especially one that uses dodge as a part of their offensive rotation.

The line of thought has probably been the same they had when giving scrapper a vitality penalty. Scrapper is supposed to be a tanky elite spec, yet scrapper's have less maximum health than any other engineer spec.

Why? Because the engineer gets access to the damage-barrier conversion. Scrapper might have less maximum hp, but in the end they are still tankier than other engineer specs as long as they keep damaging enemies.

Now to look at mirage: yes, mirage relies on dodges for their new ambush mechanic. Their line of thought might potentially have been that mirages actually have ways to generate more "dodges" than other mesmer specs by utilising the mirror mechanic. Thing is that mirrors simply are not used, tho. In my opinion, creating mirrors should have been a thematical focal point for the entire profession with ways to generate them baked into their class mechanic in some way. As far as I can tell, a mirror is even used as the elite spec symbol to represent mirages.

If they work on mirrors that people might actually use them, then this nerf might make more sense for people.

[ASP.8093]

The biggest problem with the one-dodge design is that it means you're always wasting endurance. In normal play, you dodge once and then you've got your second dodge in reserve while endurance fills back up. This lets you actually time your dodges while still enjoying the full benefit of endurance regen (and vigor, energy sigils, traits, &c.). With Mirage, you need to aggressively stack that endurance regen stuff so you're not totally caught out, but there's a lot of pressure to burn dodges quickly since otherwise all that endurance regen is completely wasted (and tying your offense to dodge via IH means your damage suffers if you don't dodge, too).

Now, the reason we ended up with that is that Mirage Cloak is a pretty good substitute for dodge! You get a lot of room to counter-burst rather than just avoiding attacks — that's pretty powerful! You can use dodge to cover a stomp or a res! Cool stuff all around. But the nerf, imo, directly punishes you for trying to do that instead of overloading on other evasion mechanics so you can use dodge as a damage source.

[Draygorn.7012]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Draygorn.7012" said:

True. They really should have explained the motive behind removing 50 endurance from a spec. Especially one that uses dodge as a part of their offensive rotation.

The line of thought has probably been the same they had when giving scrapper a vitality penalty. Scrapper is supposed to be a tanky elite spec, yet scrapper's have less maximum health than any other engineer spec.

Why? Because the engineer gets access to the damage-barrier conversion. Scrapper might have less maximum hp, but in the end they are still tankier than other engineer specs as long as they keep damaging enemies.

Now to look at mirage: yes, mirage relies on dodges for their new ambush mechanic. Their line of thought might potentially have been that mirages actually have ways to generate more "dodges" than other mesmer specs by utilising the mirror mechanic. Thing is that mirrors simply are not used, tho. In my opinion, creating mirrors should have been a thematical focal point for the entire profession with ways to generate them baked into their class mechanic in some way. As far as I can tell, a mirror is even used as the elite spec symbol to represent mirages.

If they work on mirrors that people might actually use them, then this nerf might make more sense for people.

Yeah I understand the mirror mechanic, but the reason they're not used much is the same sort of reason people don't like the healing orbs on rev staff. In order to utilize the mechanic, you have to sacrifice your movement patterns to collect the darn things :P When faced up against other players, your movements need to be erratic for several reasons. If you need to keep running to that mirror you just spawned, the other player can easily predict your movement and set up bursts on you easier. On paper, this may seem like a nice way to keep mirage's other forms of unpredictability (stealth, clones, target break) in check and give the opponent a fair way to gain an opening. But in a game like GW2, that sort of mechanic doesn't feel good and is more punishing than one might think. But I agree if they make the mirrors function better to justify -50 endurance, then by all means.

[SaferMurderweapon.7143]

@"Ansau.7326" said:As someone who has mained mesmer since gw2 launch, I've realized there is a thing with anet not being comfortable with mesmers staying relevant in big scale fights. At the beggining we had glamour confusion build but it was destroyed like 6 months after game release. Later we had boonshare but it only lasted less than a year until it became subpar. And finally we had minstrel mantra chrono which was also destroyed 1 year after it was born.

But beyond that, in the recent years anet has taken a very dull and toxic approach to balance mesmer by adding huge trade offs, and the worst part is it seems anet doesn't has any intention to revert it. Mesmer is doomed to live with trade off mechanics that work against its main ones.

• Core: Overnerfed core specs because elites "are" too strong.
• Chrono: No IP in an elite based on shatters.
• Mirage: 1 dodge in an elite based on dodges.

In Vanilla, mesmer was one of the hardest classes to play, with complex damage setups but without any of the passive sustain most other professions had (clone death build was the exception, but an exclusive WvW dueling build has never been relevant for anet or gw2).

With HoT and new trait system based on specs, anet finally put mesmer in a similar level as the rest. Suddenly, the community realized mesmer being equal as others was not ok and the doom of mesmer began.Happened with chrono at the beggining (apparently it was ok for druids, scrappers and guards to be unkillable tanks but not chrono), happened with mirage (apparently it was ok for thiefs and weavers to jump and evade through everything but not for mirages), and happened for core power mesmer (it is ok for thieves, soulbeasts and holos to cc+oneshot you from stealth with 2-3 skills but not for mesmers when you burn half of your skill set).

This unreasonable drama reaction has led anet to act like they did. They cannot balance mesmer in a sensible way because the community doesn't want a balanced mesmer, they are only fine as long as mesmer is nerfed. Unfortunately, when this trend and behavior extends for years, surprise surprise, that's what we end up with.

Once you have experience with several profession you realize how much higher the bar is set for mesmer compared to others. How much you need to chain skills and mechanics to achieve mediocre results, when others is 1 button = 8k AoE damage or speading condis faster than covid. And how your sustain is entirely based on limited evades and the few invuls/blocks that are easily outplayed, when others is let me show you how I spend 20s chaining evades/invuls/blocks or how my sustained healing beats your DPS.

My suggestion, forget about mesmer and have fun with anything else.

My thoughts exactly. Been having fun with other games. Can't tolerate a developer that is prejudiced against something they developed. They made a masterpiece of a class that actually took some degree of understanding and mastery in this bland genre and vandalized it in the name of "balance".

[HowlKamui.5120]

@pninak.1069 said:I think cmirage is fine in wvw. would prefer to have normal number of dodges and compensation for it by a nerf of the ambush attacks. pmirage is propably the weakest one to play atm. cmirage still got block and stealth.

How are you running your cmirage in wvw?

[pninak.1069]

I use dueling illu mirage. for mirage riddle of sand, desert distortion and IH. illu is all 3 traits at the bottom. dueling is desperate decoy, blinding dissipation and ineptitude. weapon are mostly scepter/torch with occassional staff use. utility are mirage elite signet of illusions and two of the skills that form a mirror. rune of perplexity and rabid gear. plan to get a malice sigil and tempest runes to get longer confusion duration. hardly got any trailblazer's armor.

[frareanselm.1925]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Leap Of Faith.8263 said:Mesmer is no fun in wvw anymore. Been trying to make mirage work in wvw but it doesn’t work. Lack defense, already squishy, other class can so easily outsustain you without even trying. Mirage is probably the worst elite spec to play in wvw currently. It even beats druid.If anyone find something viable to play then do post on forums, will give it a try.Trailblazer condi mirage with double energy sigil and endurance food is 100% viable in wvw.

If you start arguing now that you don't want to play condi and you don't want to use these sigils, but you want to play mirage, then let me tell you:

I can't play condi reaper, I can't play power core necro. And I don't even need to try to roam on any necro build without rune of speed. Welcome at the level of the rest of the classes with limited viable options. Mirage has been overpowered long enough.

Food is for newbies.And yes condi mirage is viable on wvw (roaming), for one reason:

• people suck in wvw.

And the build that's viable is a kitten chore, boring af.

Condi mirages can only beat newbies who try to solo roam camps and guards, which is sad.In zerg fights most people play builds based on support and cleanings condis. This means the condis that mirage can inflict only last 2-3 seconds max in the enemy.Unable of dealing damage, wearing squishy cloth, and having 1 dodge, mirage is a mere lootbag compared to a GOD firebrand.

[HowlKamui.5120]

@frareanselm.1925 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Leap Of Faith.8263 said:Mesmer is no fun in wvw anymore. Been trying to make mirage work in wvw but it doesn’t work. Lack defense, already squishy, other class can so easily outsustain you without even trying. Mirage is probably the worst elite spec to play in wvw currently. It even beats druid.If anyone find something viable to play then do post on forums, will give it a try.Trailblazer condi mirage with double energy sigil and endurance food is 100% viable in wvw.

If you start arguing now that you don't want to play condi and you don't want to use these sigils, but you want to play mirage, then let me tell you:

I can't play condi reaper, I can't play power core necro. And I don't even need to try to roam on any necro build without rune of speed. Welcome at the level of the rest of the classes with limited viable options. Mirage has been overpowered long enough.

Food is for newbies.And yes condi mirage is viable on wvw (roaming), for one reason:

• people suck in wvw.

And the build that's viable is a kitten chore, boring af.

Condi mirages can only beat newbies who try to solo roam camps and guards, which is sad.In zerg fights most people play builds based on support and cleanings condis. This means the condis that mirage can inflict only last 2-3 seconds max in the enemy.Unable of dealing damage, wearing squishy cloth, and having 1 dodge, mirage is a mere lootbag compared to a GOD firebrand.

are firebrands good roamers?

[Ansau.7326]

@mikdepadua.8376 said:

@frareanselm.1925 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Leap Of Faith.8263 said:Mesmer is no fun in wvw anymore. Been trying to make mirage work in wvw but it doesn’t work. Lack defense, already squishy, other class can so easily outsustain you without even trying. Mirage is probably the worst elite spec to play in wvw currently. It even beats druid.If anyone find something viable to play then do post on forums, will give it a try.Trailblazer condi mirage with double energy sigil and endurance food is 100% viable in wvw.

If you start arguing now that you don't want to play condi and you don't want to use these sigils, but you want to play mirage, then let me tell you:

I can't play condi reaper, I can't play power core necro. And I don't even need to try to roam on any necro build without rune of speed. Welcome at the level of the rest of the classes with limited viable options. Mirage has been overpowered long enough.

Food is for newbies.And yes condi mirage is viable on wvw (roaming), for one reason:

• people suck in wvw.

And the build that's viable is a kitten chore, boring af.

Condi mirages can only beat newbies who try to solo roam camps and guards, which is sad.In zerg fights most people play builds based on support and cleanings condis. This means the condis that mirage can inflict only last 2-3 seconds max in the enemy.Unable of dealing damage, wearing squishy cloth, and having 1 dodge, mirage is a mere lootbag compared to a GOD firebrand.

are firebrands good roamers?

The question should be: Is there any game mode in Gw2 where guardians are not, at least, good?And the answer is: Currently guards are in the top of the food chain of professions in this game. Theyy are so ahead of everybody else they can even enjoy to have the same build idea in core and both elites versions and still outperform other classes with any of them.

On top of that, consider it's one of the professions better packed with passive sustain and designed in a simplistic way. Not only it's one of the better performers out there, but also one of the most popular for being so forgiving and casual friendly. Roaming is not an exception.

[pninak.1069]

yea mirage has to take out camp ncps one by one, while fb propably just sits in the middle and spams its tome skills.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@pninak.1069 said:yea mirage has to take out camp ncps one by one, while fb propably just sits in the middle and spams its tome skills.

1v1 a rev, he random dodges 4 times, its ok he has more, gs3 ->gs4, 5k dmg. deathstrike, 11k dmg. Feelsokmanin wvw, pmes lacks sustained damage, burst, cc, survivability of any kind, and relies on enemies being super bad or undergeared lol

[HowlKamui.5120]

Ohhh I should make a guardian then lmao. I enjoy weavers and mesmers but sometimes I feel that im putting in too much effort just to do the same as some other classes. Sometimes I just want to play chill after a long day of work.

[Doug.4930]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Leap Of Faith.8263 said:Mesmer is no fun in wvw anymore. Been trying to make mirage work in wvw but it doesn’t work. Lack defense, already squishy, other class can so easily outsustain you without even trying. Mirage is probably the worst elite spec to play in wvw currently. It even beats druid.If anyone find something viable to play then do post on forums, will give it a try.Trailblazer condi mirage with double energy sigil and endurance food is 100% viable in wvw.

If you start arguing now that you don't want to play condi and you don't want to use these sigils, but you want to play mirage, then let me tell you:

I can't play condi reaper, I can't play power core necro. And I don't even need to try to roam on any necro build without rune of speed. Welcome at the level of the rest of the classes with limited viable options. Mirage has been overpowered long enough.

Food is for newbies.And yes condi mirage is viable on wvw (roaming), for one reason:

• people suck in wvw.

Yes but actually no.

Many players don't know how to fight in WvW, so that part is true. But the build isn't viable because people are bad. The build is viable because its essentially a contender for the best roaming build in the current meta. As far as I'm aware it has no counter. Pre patch some burst builds were able to wear it down before it out sustained them. But post nerf after ttk for power builds was greatly reduced (EDIT:increased typo) (rightfully so) the ability for power to burst down condi mirages has essentially been eliminated when fighting a decent condi mirage. The build has no counter that I'm aware off. It has sustain/stealth/mobility/high hp/high toughness/high condi burst potential. It takes me back to the old pistol dagger perplex thief days. Add to the fact that condi damage was not tonned down in relation to the justified power nerfs and you have the perfect cocktail for the new kingpin of 1v1's.

Condi mirage is broken.

I can understand the reasoning behind taking away mirages dodge. A dodge that allows you to use skills while in evade frames and is usable whilst CC'd is crazy strong. And elite specs should have a trade off and not be a straight upgrade from core. But If I'm being honest, the nerf only affected glassy power mirages and has left condi mirages untouched. Condi doesn't need 2 dodges when its a walking tank and doesn't need to dodge nearly as much for its survivability. So anyone playing power mirage has my sympathy.

EDIT: Actually has anyone even seen a power mirage since the patch?

So I'd be open to giving mirage back its two dodges, but that would need to come at a price. Something needs to be lost for picking mirage.

So I would amend the title.1 Dodge in WvW is terrible if you're running power.Because even with 1 dodge condi mirage shouldn't really lose to anything at the moment, and when played with an ounce of competence it doesn't.

[phokus.8934]

Condi Mirage broken? What a crazy world we live in when condi Revs and condi Thieves do it better with less effort.