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Open World Domination: Mirage


AliamRationem.5172

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I think I should say thank you. As a returning player from the pre-HoT era I was a bit overwhelmed. Was working toward chrono (like the wells) and planing to create my first ascended set (Commander) but now I think that it's good idea to try a mirage beforehand. Your Trailblazer setup looks very tempting so... I guess I'll try Rabid to get a feeling. :)
And Thank you.

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@"Roziotti.9420" said:I think I should say thank you. As a returning player from the pre-HoT era I was a bit overwhelmed. Was working toward chrono (like the wells) and planing to create my first ascended set (Commander) but now I think that it's good idea to try a mirage beforehand. Your Trailblazer setup looks very tempting so... I guess I'll try Rabid to get a feeling. :)

And Thank you.

I'm really liking the Trailblazer set. Since Viper Mirage is ~80% condi damage, I suspected that dropping power and precision wouldn't hurt too much. It's most noticeable in the increase to ramp-up time, but once you get going you really lose surprisingly little damage. I also had in mind that I could take advantage of Trailblazer's passive tankiness to adjust in other areas and compensate for the damage loss. Toward that I end, I swapped out adventurer runes for the nightmare/trapper setup.

I did some benchmarks with my go-to bosses: Chak Lobber and Zintl Inquisitor. Between the nerfs and reduced burst from Trailblazer, the Inqusitior with all his little adds went a bit slower than previously. Still, I was able to reliably defeat this challenge before the adds could respawn. Surprisingly, against the more or less single target Chak Lobber I was able to match my Viper build in damage output. It's also passed the test against various champions including all of the bandits and the executioner, various PoF champions and legendaries (including a few I couldn't beat with Viper!), and basically everything else.

Latest build:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAnfWnELDNohFMDWoBMMjlZjqMAutkxf+7//3sC2tWC-jByHQBAZfAAcKACoyPKqEMeq/EO9B06JA0sFGIFQVi2A-e

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I really wanted to share some video with the new setup, but I'm getting really poor framerates again (in the recording, not actual gameplay) and nothing has been usable. But I'll share with you some results from tonight.

I made 18 attempts on the Mushroom Queen in Tangled Depths. Zero deaths. Best time: 1:50, at around 7k DPS. For comparison, the video I have of this boss up on my channel was done in Viper gear back in early April and completed in 2:33. In the earlier video I was forced to play much more defensively. She quickly forced my Viper build out of melee range. However, the much tankier Trailblazer setup can afford to trade blows with the boss and stand in her ground cover if it means finishing burst rotations with axe/torch.

It's remarkable how well Trailblazer performs in open world. 7k DPS is sufficient to beat timers on legendary PoF bounties and to take down any HoT HP champion in a couple minutes or less. It's more than adequate. And you can take hits that would flatten a glass build, which means you can play ultra aggressively! I might be in love. <3

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@AliamRationem.5172What is your opinion about the current state of scepter? Can it be an alternative to a staff? Is it possible to use the Trailblazer set in other activities like a fractal without a significant loss of damage? Have any tips on rotation?

For the time being, it is more difficult for me to survive on a mirage than a chronomancer because of the protection on two swords and the well giving the Aegis boon. Need to get used to correctly positioning myself, and to save evades. Do you have any advice on how to do this better?

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@Roziotti.9420 said:@AliamRationem.5172What is your opinion about the current state of scepter? Can it be an alternative to a staff? Is it possible to use the Trailblazer set in other activities like a fractal without a significant loss of damage? Have any tips on rotation?

For the time being, it is more difficult for me to survive on a mirage than a chronomancer because of the protection on two swords and the well giving the Aegis boon. Need to get used to correctly positioning myself, and to save evades. Do you have any advice on how to do this better?

I don't like scepter. I think it needs a lot of work. But you can do whatever you like! It's open world. Staff is not going to top the DPS charts in raids or fractals either.

I also don't recommend trailblazer for raids or high end fractals (e.g. t4 challenge modes). But outside of that I think it would be perfectly adequate for your average pickup fractal daily run in any tier.

On how to survive, it should be pretty easy with mirage because you do have access to so many evades. The setup I use has on-demand evades every 8 seconds with axes of symmetry, every 9 seconds from sigil of energy, every 20 seconds from illusionary ambush, every 25 seconds from False Oasis and every 5 seconds from vigor + food regen. This equates to about 50% evade uptime to start with. But you also have access to stealth, blind, invuln, a little bit of aegis, several teleports, and some solid CC options as well. The trailblazer setup is quite resilient via passive defenses on top of this.

I try to keep an eye on endurance. What I want to avoid is having below 50% endurance and no other damage avoidance available. If I'm about to end up in that position, it's usually a good time to swap weapons to proc sigil of energy or, if swap is still on cooldown, use stealth or teleports to buy some time to recover. The most common example of this is chaining evades and cooldowns to avoid damage while bursting with axe, then swapping to staff and immediately using staff 2 to teleport backward out of range once my available defense options are exhausted.

Mostly I expect the key to staying alive is practice. But if you have the resources for it, Trailblazer certainly helps to take the edge off and still deals surprisingly good damage despite its tankiness. And there's no reason you couldn't use it with scepter and still do fractals. I'd just say stay away from raids and t4 fractal challenge modes is all. You might try a build with the illusions trait line if you want to use scepter. I expect it may work better.

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Looking back, I may have been a bit too vague, depending upon your ability to follow my example.

When you see yourself running out of ways of outright avoiding attacks (i.e. evades, blocks, and invulns) and you either don't wish to or can't afford to remain at melee range, your best option is to get to range. Swapping is instant and staff 2 is instant. So it's a quick way of escaping to range. But when you swap to staff you also proc sigil of energy. You are now at range with 50% + X (whatever your previously remaining endurance) meaning that you essentially have 2 seconds of dodge ready to go. However, since you gain 2s reflect following an evade and you are now at range, you can often safely drag that out for 4 seconds. You can then use staff 5 a few seconds later to produce some aegis.

Estimate that just by swapping you've likely covered 50% of your time until another weapon swap and probably recovered a good 4-5 seconds on your cooldowns while more or less invulnerable to damage. It's a defense that is pretty hard to beat in open world play, if you think about it. You just have to practice until you're comfortable with it. Trailblazer will make it much easier, if you can afford it!

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The extremely low framerates I've been experiencing in my recordings persist, unfortunately. However, every once in awhile I'm able to get something usable. I felt this one was a worthy demonstration of just how strong the Trailblazer build is. I hope you enjoy watching my Legendary Starcaller solo as much as I enjoyed fighting this boss. He really is one of the coolest bounties out there!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

They still work as well as they always did.

As someone running the staff/staff trailblazer variant the only real change is the nerf to nightmare/trapper meaning you need to switch to renegade or undead for viper/trailblazer respectively. Torment runes are potentially a large boost to survivability without losing damage but I havent spent the ~50 gold on them yet to see if they will change.

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Thats easy to explain, weapon swap sigils exist. Using energy sigils is a really good increase to the ability to use ambush attacks. I find I get better damage with energy sigils than a swap to axe/torch due to staff ambush being an amazing might generator.

Another example is on condition necromancer, especially reaper. Back before scourge it was really nice running hydromancy/geomancy sigils in scepter/dagger x scepter/dagger for a aoe 6 bleed 10 second cooldown attack that was way better than swapping to staff.

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@"AliamRationem.5172" said:So, I don't personally like this playstyle, but it's undeniably effective. Here's a video of a modified Trailblazer variant of the staff build I shared yesterday.

Build:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAWWnsICNohFMDWoBMMjlZjqMAutkxsC2tWyf+3//H-jxxHQBUUJY40F4i9HAwTAIgK/o1lAIeq/QKgqEtB-e

Trailblazer Staff Mirage vs. Legendary Seneb the Desecrated

Greetings! I'm planning on making a Mirage and this build looks kinda fun (at least to me) XD Just a question, since it's a double staff build, would it be okay to switch out one of the staff to a Greatsword? Thanks :smiley:

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  • 2 weeks later...

@TheHomeButton.4196 said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:So, I don't personally like this playstyle, but it's undeniably effective. Here's a video of a modified Trailblazer variant of the staff build I shared yesterday.

Build:

Trailblazer Staff Mirage vs. Legendary Seneb the Desecrated

Greetings! I'm planning on making a Mirage and this build looks kinda fun (at least to me) XD Just a question, since it's a double staff build, would it be okay to switch out one of the staff to a Greatsword? Thanks :smiley:

You will probably lose a little in translation doing so. If you take Viper or Trailblazer stats, you just won't get value from the condition portion of the stat prefix on a GS. The double staff swap makes lots of sense. The only drawback I can think of is if you face mobs that reflect and of course, on easier trash mobs, building up condi is a rather slow approach for little gain. Then again, no one is playing a build like this to bulldoze over trash mobs.

BTW, I'm loving these OWD Mirage ... it easily competes with the best pet tank builds and it more engaging.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
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I felt like checking out the new map and storyline after taking a few months off of GW2, so naturally I went ahead and scoped out some of the new bounties as well. Pet Rock and Ettin were pretty straightforward and I was able to take them down on the first go. Sword/Shield I need to take a closer look at as I ran out of time and there are some mechanics there I wasn't clear on. The damage spikes were pretty scary there, too. But I expect once I figure out the rules of that fight it will get easier and I might be able to manage it. The wyverns so far I've only gotten in on the tail end of a squad kill, so big question mark there but from what I could tell it was pretty standard wyvern attacks. Just not sure how well being the only target for two legendary bosses is going to go on a solo attempt! We'll see!

As I said in my previous reply, I didn't expect any of the changes would have a significant impact on the PvE build I use. Confirmed! It's still pretty much invincible in open world and deals plenty of damage besides. If you aren't soloing bosses Viper might be a good choice for adding a little punch to your burst, but Trailblazer still gets the job done and nothing short of a tough champion or legendary is going to threaten you.

I played around with traits to see if anything felt better, but ended up going back to my earlier setup. If I could get better clone generation without taking dueling I'd really love to go chaos/illusions/mirage, but that setup really just screams "Shatter everything!" and I don't have the clones to make it play the way I'd really like to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAnfWnELDNohFMDupBMMjlZjyf+7//3sC2tWqMAutkB-jByHQBUUJIAOFABU5X8U/pZLMAk9BCn+Aa9EAIFQVi2A-e

Nothing has really changed here. The only swaps I make are False Oasis/Mirror and Arcane Thievery/Signet of Midnight. If I'm using Mirror I like to swap Illusionary Defense out for Master of Manipulation, especially if I'm also using Arcane Thievery. Any condi set will work, but Viper or Trailblazer are obviously your best options because they have expertise. Viper will give you better burst for clearing the small stuff and better damage against bosses in groups, but Trailblazer will make you pretty much bulletproof against just about anything and can sometimes even out-DPS Viper on tougher boss solos where it allows you to play more aggressively.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I played around with traits to see if anything felt better, but ended up going back to my earlier setup. If I could get better clone generation without taking dueling I'd really love to go chaos/illusions/mirage, but that setup really just screams "Shatter everything!" and I don't have the clones to make it play the way I'd really like to.

Hi there, I've been gone a while and this little bit confused me, would you be able to clarify please? With the build as you linked it, it appears that I would be shattering frequently to get the benefits from 'Bountiful Disillusionment', but I'm reading your comment that you wouldn't shatter regularly. Also, would you take 4 Runes of Nightmare and 2 of Trapper, or go full Nightmare?

Thanks for the assist!

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@"sallen.6410" said:

I played around with traits to see if anything felt better, but ended up going back to my earlier setup. If I could get better clone generation without taking dueling I'd really love to go chaos/illusions/mirage, but that setup really just screams "Shatter everything!" and I don't have the clones to make it play the way I'd really like to.

Hi there, I've been gone a while and this little bit confused me, would you be able to clarify please? With the build as you linked it, it appears that I would be shattering frequently to get the benefits from 'Bountiful Disillusionment', but I'm reading your comment that you wouldn't shatter regularly. Also, would you take 4 Runes of Nightmare and 2 of Trapper, or go full Nightmare?

Thanks for the assist!

I take dueling for clones on dodge. With the build set up to dodge so frequently, this results in excellent clone generation which you can use to feed shatters. But your shatters would be much more effective if you could take chaos/illusions/mirage. The problem, of course, is that if you do that then your clone generation is much more limited. It still works, but it's not a tradeoff I find worthwhile. I prefer to have clones on dodge from dueling and I switch between chaos or illusions (illusions for burst, chaos for better defense and boon generation usually when soloing champions).

Having said that, it's really more of a personal preference/situational thing. Any combination of chaos, dueling, and illusions trait lines paired with Mirage will work. The only trait lines I don't use are inspiration and domination as healing and direct damage don't really fit with a condi mirage build, in my opinion.

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