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Condi mirage currently isn't broken OP like it used to be, but it is ( as it always has been ) very poorly designed for PvP in that most of its strengths come from uninteractive mechanics IE the ability to constantly chain invulns, unavoidable passives, and get out of jail free cards. Honestly they should have reworked Mirage into something less cancerous instead of reworking Chrono. Power Chrono was FINE and chronoburst was actually fun no idea why Anet is gutting the spec.

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@DoomNexus.5324 said:It's like with everything that involves conditions. If you run it against classes with poor condi cleanse (say Rev) it's completely and utterly busted while you do basically nothing to something like Firebrand.

I got hit 192 tics before i died & saw that i got burned for 117k burn damage from FB. Hahaha condi MEZ pffff... LOL

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The problem isn't Chaotic Interruption, that has been the same since trait rework and used to 2s immob since well before then (2013) though it didn't give any boons.

Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaotic_Interruption

So why is CI complained about now? A few reasons.

1. There's more CC for the mesmer since specialisations.Mantra of distraction cool down has gone from 30s > 20s > 12s > 12s + Recharge Diversion by 15s when you charge it. Power Lock 1s daze > 1.5s since Apr 2019.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Distraction

Diversion is not changed but is worth mentioning, the cool down Base + CDR trait is 38s (32.3s) which becomes 23s (17.3s) after the cast of the mantra.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diversion

Descent into Madness now gives a "lesser" chaos storm when you use a heal, this was added in PoF and has contributed to the CC spam.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Descent_into_Madness

Phantasmal Mage now dazes/interrupts targets, it's a wind up and high cast but it is more CC even if it is to complete the theme of having a CC on all weapon sets.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Mage

Mirage Thrust again is added for completeness more than anything, with Infinite Horizon you can spam interrupts fairly hard but it's not used at the moment due to being a power weapon.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage_Thrust

2. There's less trade offs now especially with elite specsSo way back when we had points to put into traits taking a chaos grandmaster meant either giving up Illusionary Persona or giving up damage. Specialisations came and now you could pick it and 2 other trait lines like Domination and Duelling without having to sacrifice the damage, this is where it started but Chaotic Interruption wasn't run by most because getting an interrupt wasn't easy, most skills/builds used 1/2s or less cast times with a few exceptions like necro and as shown above wasting CC was met with high cool downs with most mesmer builds only really using 3 CCs and no way you'd give up portal for mantra.

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attackedThen everything changed when elite specs came. They had no trade offs and still many don't while dialling up the power level of classes significantly and adding more tools at the classes disposal. This is also when the cool down on mantra of distraction got reduced

Chronomancer gained continuum split that allowed them to double up on anything they used including CC, they also gained tides of time which was up to 2 stuns close together and gravity well which was 3 CCs though with a 1s cast. However as mentioned you could use continuum split to use both these + diversion and you would get them back again as well as chaos storm if you wanted. It in many ways diminished balancing around cool down as it could always double up on those abilities while the core class couldn't.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chronomancer

Mirage gained mirage cloak which allows them a few things in relation to the current meta build. Firstly they can cover the cast time of the mantra, magic bullet, chaos storm, whatever with dodge which removes some of the counterplay of there being a cast time. Secondly they gain access to ambush skills that allow them to put more conditions on their target than they could in certainly core but also in HoT and unlike the old condi chrono build they're burns and bleeds so being locked in place and not spamming skills won't help you. With infinite horizon your clones will do ambush skills too and if you trait duelling you get plenty of bleeds on you especially with sceptre.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage

3. The game has been so dumbed down the playerbase spams skillsA lot of people will likely disagree with this but it's true. The cool downs on skills all across the game have gone down so everyone is using something all the time, just look at this last patch, from what I can see there were only 5 cool down increases this patch with at least one of them being a reduction under certain conditions and most were not by a lot. Look at your average holo game play, they spam skills left right and centre, even classes like warrior that don't need to spam tend to spam until you get to the really upper level of play. This makes getting an interrupt very easy, if someone is using an ability most of the time, even if the cast times are low at 1/2s you can spam your CC (because low CD) and you're likely to hit them + because you have clones and infinite horizon they eat 3 ambush skills and have burning, torment, bleed, immobilise, chill and whatever might have been added by someone else.

To add to this, interrupt builds have been pretty much not competitive or even used by most people for so long very few people have even played against one let alone know how to fight it. Compounding this is the prevalence of the power meta, look at every meta build currently used, most take few to no cleanses, to put it bluntly the benefits of taking cleanses and traits to deal with the conditions put out isn't worth the risk of being more susceptible to being burst down by all the damage coming out. To add to this people are running base health especially on the classes that are complaining because they have demolishers amulet instead of marauder so you lose out on the additional health buffer you would normally use to help against condition builds.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates

FixesInterrupting is meant to be skilful and should be rewarded, certainly more than for simply pressing a button or worse passively activated like on many classes.If you add an ICD on the trait it reduces the reliability of it and reduces the benefits for using the trait properly, interrupting key casts, setting up the enemy for more damage via the immob and punishing skill spam.

Removing the immobilise would make the trait kind of bad, you'd still get the might for 5s and another random short duration boon but it's not going to make it any more fun to fight. Here is why, you will still be CC chained till you're dead from ambush skills or from other players, sure you'll be able to stun break, move and dodge spam to cover but it's not going to remedy the CC spam which will be as bad.

So what can be done?Here's an idea, lets remove the diversion recharge from mantra of distraction, yeah it's nice and I like the benefit but it's too much.How's about reducing the daze duration of the mantra from 1.5s to 1/2s so it's for interrupting only and up the cool down back to 20s.Remove "Lesser" Chaos Storm on heal, it's an AoE RNG dazefest, it's not fun to have 2 of these on a build, replace it with null field.Rework Mirage - Mirage gives too much, less than some elite specs but it's still basically an upgrade to core. It's been a problem for a long time and the ambush skills aren't being fixed especially when they're stacking a strong condition like torment. They should stack bleeds and maybe a little burn but there needs to be trade offs.Mirage cloak removes the counterplay of having a cast time so you can't interrupt some of these casts (yes interrupting an interrupt build was a thing). This should probably not stay in the game as allowing casts while dodging.Sceptre - Illusionary Counter stacks 5 torment AND 2 CLONES all on a single skill. I feel this is way too overtuned, the torment I think certainly needs reducing in stacks if not changing to another condition entirely and reduce clone count to 1, maybe even 0 given the clone generation of the auto but see how 1 goes.

"Yeah but these are lots of changes let's just change CI and everything will be fine" No it won't, pay attention pls.Ambush skills are always going to be an issue while they stack torment so much and have no real investment needed. (looking at you too holo)CC chaining is as unfun as being immobilised and mesmer has way more CC on this build than anyone wants to ever deal with.Mirage isn't a fun spec, I don't hear many people actually enjoying it and if you looked in the mesmer forums you'd have seen scathing reviews of it being an RP spec.You've all heard the meme of "mesmer will just move onto the next broken thing" and the reason for that is because people complain about the wrong aspects. You look at something that requires skill (interrupting) for a nerf without thinking of what is enabling a trait that does require skill to no longer need skill. It's not exclusive to mesmer but mesmer is one of the biggest sufferers of this paradigm.

Edit: Feel free to use this post and it's contents if you think it has merit, you may link or literally copy + paste large amounts as you want in good faith. I will not be responding past this edit.

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@"apharma.3741" said:The problem isn't Chaotic Interruption, that has been the same since trait rework and used to 2s immob since well before then (2013) though it didn't give any boons.

Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaotic_Interruption

So why is CI complained about now? A few reasons.

1. There's more CC for the mesmer since specialisations.Mantra of distraction cool down has gone from 30s > 20s > 12s > 12s + Recharge Diversion by 15s when you charge it. Power Lock 1s daze > 1.5s since Apr 2019.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Distraction

Diversion is not changed but is worth mentioning, the cool down Base + CDR trait is 38s (32.3s) which becomes 23s (17.3s) after the cast of the mantra.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diversion

Descent into Madness now gives a "lesser" chaos storm when you use a heal, this was added in PoF and has contributed to the CC spam.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Descent_into_Madness

Phantasmal Mage now dazes/interrupts targets, it's a wind up and high cast but it is more CC even if it is to complete the theme of having a CC on all weapon sets.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Mage

Mirage Thrust again is added for completeness more than anything, with Infinite Horizon you can spam interrupts fairly hard but it's not used at the moment due to being a power weapon.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage_Thrust

2. There's less trade offs now especially with elite specsSo way back when we had points to put into traits taking a chaos grandmaster meant either giving up Illusionary Persona or giving up damage. Specialisations came and now you could pick it and 2 other trait lines like Domination and Duelling without having to sacrifice the damage, this is where it started but Chaotic Interruption wasn't run by most because getting an interrupt wasn't easy, most skills/builds used 1/2s or less cast times with a few exceptions like necro and as shown above wasting CC was met with high cool downs with most mesmer builds only really using 3 CCs and no way you'd give up portal for mantra.

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attackedThen everything changed when elite specs came. They had no trade offs and still many don't while dialling up the power level of classes significantly and adding more tools at the classes disposal. This is also when the cool down on mantra of distraction got reduced

Chronomancer gained continuum split that allowed them to double up on anything they used including CC, they also gained tides of time which was up to 2 stuns close together and gravity well which was 3 CCs though with a 1s cast. However as mentioned you could use continuum split to use both these + diversion and you would get them back again as well as chaos storm if you wanted. It in many ways diminished balancing around cool down as it could always double up on those abilities while the core class couldn't.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chronomancer

Mirage gained mirage cloak which allows them a few things in relation to the current meta build. Firstly they can cover the cast time of the mantra, magic bullet, chaos storm, whatever with dodge which removes some of the counterplay of there being a cast time. Secondly they gain access to ambush skills that allow them to put more conditions on their target than they could in certainly core but also in HoT and unlike the old condi chrono build they're burns and bleeds so being locked in place and not spamming skills won't help you. With infinite horizon your clones will do ambush skills too and if you trait duelling you get plenty of bleeds on you especially with sceptre.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage

3. The game has been so dumbed down the playerbase spams skillsA lot of people will likely disagree with this but it's true. The cool downs on skills all across the game have gone down so everyone is using something all the time, just look at this last patch, from what I can see there were only 5 cool down increases this patch with at least one of them being a reduction under certain conditions and most were not by a lot. Look at your average holo game play, they spam skills left right and centre, even classes like warrior that don't need to spam tend to spam until you get to the really upper level of play. This makes getting an interrupt very easy, if someone is using an ability most of the time, even if the cast times are low at 1/2s you can spam your CC (because low CD) and you're likely to hit them + because you have clones and infinite horizon they eat 3 ambush skills and have burning, torment, bleed, immobilise, chill and whatever might have been added by someone else.

To add to this, interrupt builds have been pretty much not competitive or even used by most people for so long very few people have even played against one let alone know how to fight it. Compounding this is the prevalence of the power meta, look at every meta build currently used, most take few to no cleanses, to put it bluntly the benefits of taking cleanses and traits to deal with the conditions put out isn't worth the risk of being more susceptible to being burst down by all the damage coming out. To add to this people are running base health especially on the classes that are complaining because they have demolishers amulet instead of marauder so you lose out on the additional health buffer you would normally use to help against condition builds.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates

FixesInterrupting is meant to be skilful and should be rewarded, certainly more than for simply pressing a button or worse passively activated like on many classes.If you add an ICD on the trait it reduces the reliability of it and reduces the benefits for using the trait properly, interrupting key casts, setting up the enemy for more damage via the immob and punishing skill spam.

Removing the immobilise would make the trait kind of bad, you'd still get the might for 5s and another random short duration boon but it's not going to make it any more fun to fight. Here is why, you will still be CC chained till you're dead from ambush skills or from other players, sure you'll be able to stun break, move and dodge spam to cover but it's not going to remedy the CC spam which will be as bad.

So what can be done?Here's an idea, lets remove the diversion recharge from mantra of distraction, yeah it's nice and I like the benefit but it's too much.How's about reducing the daze duration of the mantra from 1.5s to 1/2s so it's for interrupting only and up the cool down back to 20s.Remove "Lesser" Chaos Storm on heal, it's an AoE RNG dazefest, it's not fun to have 2 of these on a build, replace it with null field.Rework Mirage - Mirage gives too much, less than some elite specs but it's still basically an upgrade to core. It's been a problem for a long time and the ambush skills aren't being fixed especially when they're stacking a strong condition like torment. They should stack bleeds and maybe a little burn but there needs to be trade offs.Mirage cloak removes the counterplay of having a cast time so you can't interrupt some of these casts (yes interrupting an interrupt build was a thing). This should probably not stay in the game as allowing casts while dodging.Sceptre - Illusionary Counter stacks 5 torment AND 2 CLONES all on a single skill. I feel this is way too overtuned, the torment I think certainly needs reducing in stacks if not changing to another condition entirely and reduce clone count to 1, maybe even 0 given the clone generation of the auto but see how 1 goes.

"Yeah but these are lots of changes let's just change CI and everything will be fine" No it won't, pay attention pls.Ambush skills are always going to be an issue while they stack torment so much and have no real investment needed. (looking at you too holo)CC chaining is as unfun as being immobilised and mesmer has way more CC on this build than anyone wants to ever deal with.Mirage isn't a fun spec, I don't hear many people actually enjoying it and if you looked in the mesmer forums you'd have seen scathing reviews of it being an RP spec.You've all heard the meme of "mesmer will just move onto the next broken thing" and the reason for that is because people complain about the wrong aspects. You look at something that requires skill (interrupting) for a nerf without thinking of what is enabling a trait that does require skill to no longer need skill. It's not exclusive to mesmer but mesmer is one of the biggest sufferers of this paradigm.

Edit: Feel free to use this post and it's contents if you think it has merit, you may link or literally copy + paste large amounts as you want in good faith. I will not be responding past this edit.

so being able to use dodge when channeling on mirage is too good now? 99% of the time its a waste of a dodge, cant ambush when channeling so thats lost. and most channels are bad anyways ( entire scepter 3 is usually worse then 1 ambush while having 1 and a half year cast time )scept 2 is REALLY strong, but guess what, every class has that 1 good ability somewhere, scepter 3 and scepter 1 are bad and they are offset by good 2 + its a rebuke kinda of ability, if you are running/stunned/focusing someone else mesmer wont be able to hit you with it, its pure dueling ability.actually they only good thing about scept 3 is that it doesnt get reflected, and you can use it on someone that you think will stealth to continue hitting them, its better to autoattack. the only good channel for dodge i can think off is axe 2, to bait hard hitters, use dodge at the end and then ambush after.

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@Lyndina.7984 said:Yeah right. Nerf mesmer more. Not like they just patched chrono out of the game. But here come's the next one that wants to nerf the last remain Elitespec. Just take condi remove if you do pvp.

That was Chrono though, and also a change nobody asked for.

It's convenient really, that Chrono gets the trash bin when everyone had feared the infinite daze, blind, imob Chaotic Interruption Mirage build might be a little too strong. Oh well, guess we can't complain about that now that, because an entirely different elite spec gets nerfed.

Because of the nerfs to every other side-noder, Mirage and Holo are probably the best side-noders after the changes, and we're right back to where we were before the March 5th patch. But this time Scrapper, Rev, and Soulbeast have all had some pretty heavy nerfs too, so that's sort of a stealth buff to Mirage they didn't have back when. It's a shame something entirely different got changed instead, therefore revoking my right to complain about circular balancing with Mirage.

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@yusayu.3629 said:Riiight, nerf Mesmer more because you can't be bothered to learn to play against it.

Exaclty, thank you. Are you unhappy about Mesmer go and try it out, you will be fine since it’s OP and braindead, oh wait... no I guess you will be smashed in 2s.

Learn to play is the hard (sometimes salty) way but definitely rewarding. Mesmers in general are now in a good place, due the recent nerfs (4-5 in row), is it annoying to play against one? Yes, is it OP though? I don’t think so, there are only a few capable Mesmers who could give you a hard time, however it’s not about the class it’s the skill gap. Literally every class has now tons of condi cleanse, and you know [ kite] makes it right :)

No more nerf needed maybe some adjustments, or trade off. Smashing buttons and not knowing your opponent’s skills is like playing blindfolded - crying on forum for Mesmer now is just meh. Why?

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