Mevelios.4809

With some patience (three days per piece) crafted ascended armor lies on the cheaper side though. If you bother doing dragonfall/silverwastes metas during that time for purchasable components you may miss (no need to spend the entire week there, one or two hours are enough) or even simply do the fractals, the first set would look like the most complicated to obtain but everything else is much smoother to get - the principle being merely a bit of patience, which isn't comparable to what patience it takes to make legendary pieces. Making several sets may look like a chore, but that's also the price to be able to manage every role you fancy; if it were all about a single set (such as celestial), then everything else wouldn't have any meaning. The thing with ascended pieces is, exotic armor/weapons are merely 5% behind ascended counterparts - the real difference is found in jewelry, for which the gap can go as far as 30 to 50%. That's why to follow in the recommendation I make to my guildmates when raiding, I just tell them whatever set they want to run, it doesn't have to absolutely be an ascended one; ideally it should be at least ascended jewelry because of that huge stats gap, precisely because NM raids are the starting point where performance becomes necessary. The more people are held back by that gap, the worse the raid's performance is, putting at risk any dps-related phase (or healers, if something goes wrong) such as W6 CA (the first boss), in which you don't want to suffer one clap and two lasers because damages were lacking (there are still ways to cheese it, but at that point you know something's wrong - either poor performance, either lack of knowledge about the mechanics). Otherwise for weapons/armor it doesn't matter, exotic is largely fine - the difference in performance is too small to care for it in normal modes. The open world armor has been requested for some time, and honestly I'm surprised it hasn't been introduced earlier; raid armor may look daunting, but what it takes is finding a guild doing training runs - you can find several in the Looking for guild section. It takes some patience as you have to do at least five weeks of W1 raiding on Gorseval for its collectible (which is easier said than done when you start out), then it depends on the chests you collect for ectoplasmic residue; however W1 & 2 are definitely amongst the least demanding wings. W3 & 4 are only a little more effort since a lot relies on the tank then handkiter rather than the rest of the raid. Coalescence would be the harder thing in comparison, as W5/6/7 are more intense and take more than one or two people to mind their mechanics. In any way, in raids knowledge matters a great deal - not just your character to adapt to each boss, but more than anything knowledge of the encounter. Whatever falls onto behaviour about the raid community will always be tied to players. I almost never do any clearing raids, nearly always lead or participate to training runs and that's enough to get my weekly rewards minus a few CMs. That's where you need to clearly differentiate the objectives of the LFG announces; most indeed are about clearing, and expect performance in return, because again raids are the beginning to a performance requirement. Training/semi-training runs however are far more forgiving and do not immediately yell at you because you missed the cue for whatever mechanic. Besides, not only do I dislike the very idea of letting people check your kp but my worst runs also took place with groups asking for kp or LI, so... I can't really be bothered with these, they don't tell a thing about the player. You could've been carried 100 times as a dps merely aware of where [not] to step, yet clueless about everything else; any beginner who cared to learn in their two/three first runs may have more knowledge and carry themselves better than that so-called 100 runs "veteran". If you do not look for/find a training guild, I'd advise checking the LFG between 8 and 10 PM (whichever your timezone is). That's when most raid runs take place, including the training ones; and if you're still struggling but are on EU servers, send me a message - I do guild training runs during the week-end and we do not have a full roster, so extras are always welcome! 🙂

That's my thought behind expecting everyone to run specialist gear in raids (glass cannon stats - usually zerk/viper/harrier). When leading training runs, I want my squad to learn the mechanics and to make full use of their character's potential, including active defences, rather than trying to ignore this or that because "I can facetank it". That way they realize what a difference can they make individually when somebody else misses something for whichever reason, because GW2 is a forgiving game in most of its content. I'd rather start the encounter over than have us forcing our way through, so those learning keep on improving whether they stay or leave us later on. For easier content like fractals/strikes I don't mind the brutal approach, but starting raids or CM strikes it may quickly ruin someone else's experience. Being aware of what one profession can do on a hybrid build is something that usually comes with more experience, many hybrids can be made-up but often lack efficiency compared to ordinary specialists. While I recommend to let go of celestial gear, if someone knows what they're doing and pull off proper results with it, I no longer mind - the only remaining issue being sometimes indeed the toughness.

Was it timed with a boss' action? Interrupting traits indeed work on bosses, whether the defiance bar is up or not; it must be timed during the boss' attack though, maybe the defender was slightly off on the timing. You're giving me a doubt however, can't remember whether the Mage works properly or not on these... Well, it has quite some delay in its attack though, so timing's always a pain. But almost sure the mage triggers properly Chaotic interruption. Maybe a bug indeed?

Maybe your target had already been affected by a previous CC? Delayed reactions works with a 3s CD. Otherwise maybe it only triggers when it interrupts an attack, the same way our many interrupting traits only trigger on a successful interrupt rather than just on applying daze/stun to an idle target?

I can understand the comment though, you stated before you were only doing open world stuff - anything goes there. In raids I don't want any celestial, ascended or not; I'd rather have exotic specialist gear, such as zerk/viper/harrier/minstrel 😉

As a reminder, staff still is part of what's being called the "meta" Cdps mirage. Staff is the main source of chaos armor, to which so much is tied currently, from offensive stats to defensive boons. Staff is the main provider of boons (shield being the only second one worth mentioning, no mainhand existing to compliment it and offer an alternative) even when you take away from it alacrity. Staff trait from chaos spec is the provider of pure condi damage stats, a trait you want even when you don't use the staff - which incindentally also reduces the CD on the Lesser chaos storm for more boons, more condis and more combos. Chaotic potency as a pure stats bonus is inevitably reinforced by Illusionary membrane & serves the purpose of extra expertise from Chaotic persistence, making chaos effectively the must-have as a spec when going Cdps - bringing back to the topic of the staff as the main source of chaos armor & boons. When you look at it as a purely offensive weapon, I'd have a different analysis: it's not an abysmal weapon. What's wrong about the staff merely is its sustain relying almost entirely on its auto-attack, the same way the scepter is a poor choice when you use its auto-attack to generate clones since it denies the application of torment. Both of these weapons still make decent choices as a side set to switch to; you simply don't want to be using them the most out of both sets, because the axe is that much more efficient thanks to Mirrored axes. The only counterbalance to this lack of effectiveness from the staff is the aberrating amount of benefits you get out of it: utilities, combos & boons - no other weapon can do that much.

That'd mean ignoring Sharper images, which is a huge damage factor especially on multi-hit phantasms such as the Warden under Phantasmal fury (since in OP's case there's no intent on using the pistol). Chaos can already handle a huge chunk of condi duration through Chaotic persistence, then add the Signet of midnight to get close to 100%; round it up with some cheap food like Koi cake and you no longer have to think about condi duration, since you've hit the 100% cap 😉

You can use shatters without clones if the objective is purely to keep cumulating vigor duration; that's especially the case with shatter 1, which (without illusions spec) doesn't have much interest in a condi build. So basically, you get your three clones out, use shatter 2, and before any other action use shatter 1; then 12s later (while shatter 2 is halfway through its cooldown) that's when you should make a choice, between giving up on that renewed shatter 1 for three more seconds of vigor or not using it for more damages through your clones. If you're using axe & scepter on both weapon sets though, clones shouldn't be an issue - spin twice and jaunt in to resummon three clones in two seconds!

The truffle stew's indeed a great help in this regard, although I'd rather use it when soloing something is the objective 😋

Here is what I'd use, following your weapon set. Viper gear allows for a 1/3 chance to land a crit, which thanks to dueling provides vigor every 10s. Then, chaos offers some more on your main shatter, on top of the usual mirage trait. You want to spam your shatter 1 as well merely to renew your vigor, not for the damages; shatters 3 & 4 are rather opportunistic uses. Vigor shouldn't have 100% uptime however, it'd take some concentration in the stats set to allow it. Dodging isn't the only way to get mirage cloak, the utilities are here too - you could drop the signets to take Illusionary ambush and Sand through glass (which has the added value of breaking stuns/immobilize). Take in consideration also ethereal fields to combo with the axe & jaunt; extra stacks of confusion on spinning are always welcome, while your leap finishers will trigger some chaos aura from which you expect stacks of regen, to maintain all its benefits from the chaos spec. That way you can fully benefit from your healing skill, for maximum duration on its vigor, on its regen thanks to chaos again, and for another ethereal field - its cooldown being reduced and almost the same as your healing skill thanks, once more, to the chaos spec. You could also consider using the dagger, since its interrupts would trigger dueling's Ineptitude. For relics, the Mirage one pairs well with a bunch of dodges you could perform, the Fractal one is a safe choice for big damages although not really fit for clearing crowds of trash mobs (because of its CD), and finally the Demon queen one could fit the dagger well alongside ineptitude's effect.

If you're feeling squishy with a mesmer despite its clones and 16K base hp pool, don't try elementalist, it's the next light armor profession on the list with even less health and unlike the others, has no pets/illusions 😁 The two posts above mine essentially tell you what's important: you shouldn't just stand in the way of damage, thinking you can brush it off without effort. Very few abilities/profiles can do that! Mirage has a bunch of dodges from vigor uptime and utilities generating Mirage mirrors, so you can avoid a lot of damage thanks to it. It's really strong on its own, although that means you need to pay attention to what your target is doing - if you don't dodge, you'll take the usual number of damages! The prime way of playing it is with a condi build, which will make the axe your prime candidate as mainhand weapon - Axes of symmetry adds another dodge frame to that, although not triggering the Mirage cloak mechanic. Virtuoso can have a lot of self-healing from the Signet of the ether, since the blades replacing the clones can be generated in high numbers in a short time. Playing condi can largely reinforce that through the combination of Jagged mind with Bloodsong, but that doesn't mean you can facetank absolutely everything - you should still dodge when the opportunity arises, on the worst damaging attacks! Core mesmer & chrono are different cases without the same level of survivability as the two others (although chrono has easier access to aegis pulses). Chrono has quite the bursting ability though, so when everything threatening you lays dead, who cares about survivability differences?

Again, disagreeing's fine too, and agreeing that we disagree is already a success; the whole purpose of discussion is to try to understand one another, and obviously it's not as easy as when everyone blindly agrees. Otherwise if it were unidirectional, that's no longer a discussion but (in the best cases) something called persuasion! 😉 From your former messages, you were saying you'd be fine if either overperforming solo abilities were made baseline, either the overperforming profiles were nerfed. That's why I tried turning the topic around (so far it's about buffing virt/chrono) by asking what would you do, if instead we were nerfing mirage's dodges? Maybe it sounded like a rhetoric question but it wasn't; what would you do in this case, to go all the way down that logic so it doesn't sound like an empty statement? This is why I'm feeling like so far, since we've only been discussing the first half of your stance (buffing e-specs) the debate is incomplete when we're supposed to be talking "balance"; I'm curious, what would you imagine for the second half - that is, before even considering other professions, nerfing mirage? Maybe good ideas can come out of it, hence my curiosity! My point so far has been to say that we already have abilities conciliating damages & survival, by making choices between three specs (dueling/chaos/illusions), having a trump card that may create a hole in your damages but makes you unkillable (inspiration), and adapting your relic to compensate or reinforce whatever you want/need. If we were to slap (to quote a single example) 15 extra stacks of might on top of it when we can already have 8 of them up easily (shatter 1 on Bountiful disillusionment & any phantasm on Phantasmal force, without considering extra stacks when summoning another phantasm or having both shatter 1 ammos ready) that makes hitting 25 might possible on your own! Let's be honest, that's not healthy. Another thing missing from your stance is as simple as: what are you using to solo things? I mean, your chrono & virtuoso builds, since just like @ShadowKatt.6740 (with whom we've had differing opinions on several occasions, but here we agree) I do not struggle much by myself. That's why I've been throwing one argument after another about our available specs; I have no idea what base are you using to work on and make these suggestions! Mesmer's not as straightforward as some other professions, but a lot can be achieved with it. So let's resume the discussion by stepping for a moment away from theory, and make it practical: what build(s) are you using? Then back to theory to complete your ideas, if you're fine with nerfing (again before even considering other professions): what would you do to nerf mirage's dodges? I'm curious! 🙂 The one thing to remember as mesmer is, since we can do so much but not necessarily everything at once, there's no do-it-all builds; you must make choices, and adapt to every situation. Where one fight has low pressure and lets you use, let's say, dagger+sword for a virtuoso (which isn't exactly the best defensive setup) another fight may pressure you a lot more and impose the use of the shield, or of an undamaging utility such as the Mantra of resolve/Power cleanse. There's a lot involved in knowing what you're about to fight, precisely because we have the tools to deal with it - we simply can't do absolutely everything at the same time, and that's fine for the sake of balance!

You do not use the signet, though. It's the passive you want, offering minimum 350 health per blade generated! Again, I have to disagree. What would be the use of boondps and concentration stat if any dps could, by themselves, maintain such a high amount of boons? 15 stacks of might are a lot, that's 450 power & condi damage here. If you bother playing with celestial gear, without even considering any spec it provides you 4.5s long boons on Duelist's reversal. Might still sound like a pain to maintain, but given blocks also trigger it, a sword offhand or both of shield's blocks (providing protection and two phantasms to feed your Signet of the ether) can go a long way. Here you can easily reach a few of such objectives through the use of chaos spec. You get protection on shatters (which will be frequent and fed by five blades instead of the usual three clones), you get regen and chaos aura (the latter able to feed regen & protection some more) on shatter 2, regen feeding both concentration & expertise to bring Duelist's reversal to 5s duration, and more boons again on every shatter used - except shatter 2, which anyway from the chaos aura feeds your damages. There's a lot going on with this single spec, and given how much it provides both offensively & defensively, it's hard to disregard it for soloing stuff. If you're ready to drop dueling (which sounds wrong to me as it's the only source of vigor here, the most reliable way to feed Duelist's reversal) and want to stick to the illusions spec to hit hit and hit some more, you can obviously get a lot more of offense in the whole spec from the combination of Cry of pain, Compounding power and Master of misdirection to improve your shatters' damages. Your blade generation ability definitely allows it, while you can get extra quickness to, well, spam some more your autoattack and feed again your blades. From there thanks to the Signet of the ether, you can afford facetanking a few attacks for the sake of timing your dodges & blocks right to trigger with precision Duelist's reversal. Then the last line gives you three decent choices - extra confusion on dodges with increased duration (which is useful here as you won't be at 100% duration), improved shatters (although IMO that's the poor choice since you'd basically have use at most for the extra crit rate on shatter 1 and duration on shatter 5), or precisely what you were looking for: might stacks. Then there's the relic choice... If you indeed drop the dueling spec to take chaos & illusions, you could use something like the Relic of evasion as your only source of vigor. If you want more buffs (especially might), the Relic of the midnight king can be a good choice to really ensure 100% fury uptime. If you'd rather take dueling or even go down inspiration, you could pick something offensive like the Relic of the fractal. In the end, without even relying on the Relic of the chronomancer, you can get your own sweet quickness uptime! Then you can play around with consumables and rune sets to refine whatever you want - virtuoso's often called a selfish class, but it really works well on its own without external support.

Think you misread the intent: more defense would likely come at the cost of offense. Get more sustain, lose damages. All virtuoso has are its damages, so I wouldn't risk it especially for such a niche use that's already available to another e-spec (again, at the cost of at least some player skill, which is rewarding in its own right). What you refer to as an example is a player relying on a druid, an e-spec already capable of solo healing some raid encounters, using an overheal trait nobody uses unless learning the ropes or... soloing stuff. Yes, it's a performance in itself - but such a niche that I surely wouldn't want to risk the e-spec state for something that wouldn't create a new way to play your class. It's just a niche way to have a mechanic carry your fight, the way scourge's barriers easily carry red AoE lovers. In all that demonstration, you're ignoring the Signet of the ether. The way I read it, you seem focused on the idea of "do damages = self heal". We're not harbingers, we're mesmers and we do things our way! Despite the signet's poor scaling with healing power, that base healing of 350 on an e-spec capable of generating an absurd amount of blades is massive. Top it off with Jagged mind, and even from that quick theoretical math you get an incredible input of healing without dropping a single damage spec. Then if you end up getting the inspiration spec, you're unkillable with the insane amount of self-healing from Illusionary inspiration, from Restorative illusions which is largely eased thanks again to that massive blade generation, and while you're at it to survive you can get Warden's feedback for more pull/phantasm/projectile reflection on both skills. What virtuoso lacks the most is not self-healing, it's condi cleansing. So again, from inspiration line you can use Sympathetic visage to get rid of some, and/or find some room in your utilities in high condi pressure fights for the Mantra of resolve/Power cleanse. If with all that, you still think virtuoso needs more sustain, we must be playing vastly different characters despite playing the same game! No offense meant, but really, virtuoso has the highest self-sustain of all our three e-specs; simply don't fire away that signet and you shouldn't need a healer anymore, unless trying to facetank everything. All this can be applied with even more ease with celestial gear. What you trade in direct or condi damage lets you easily reach a 90% crit rate (base of 50 +fury, from dueling's Master fencer & virt's Duelist's reversal). Dodging here doesn't become a dps loss, precisely because while mirage keeps attacking (again, I feel like you're too focused on "hit hit and hit again to recover"), you're getting a source of quickness, fury & regen from a successful dodge or block which mirage doesn't have access to (you can even combine it with the shield or the sword, their blocks dealing damages). Quickness & fury aren't exactly a dps loss! 😉 Besides on celestial gear, the extra concentration makes it much easier to maintain your boons. Fury's likely to be near 100% uptime (again, you have to dodge, not facetank everything - we're no druids), quickness won't be 100% but can let you start a burst phase, regen won't be 100% but still is extra free healing. The way we generate many blades comes from several short bursts, not from a sustain play. Unstable bladestorm is an excellent source of it, Rain of swords as well, and obviously Thousand cuts even moreso. Any phantasm performing several hits, such as the Warden or the Swordsman can cumulate a bunch of bleeding stacks from dueling's Sharper images, thus again increasing your blade output. That quick accumulation incites you at spending your shatter skills, so it's definitely about several short, quick burst phases that fit into the window of a Duelist's reversal, rather than a sustained way of firing everything off CD blindly. The theoretical maths applied to an average dps cannot hold up in this situation because of our nature of damages; it'll obviously not go as smoothly as it sounds as long as you don't get to practice this way of playing, but it works, and it works really well by pairing it with Jagged mind & Bloodsong! You've been mentioning fractals, in which some fights bring in adds (Mai Trin's goons, Snowblind, etc). Without mentioning whatever may be close to them, some open world champions/leggies also bring their lot of adds (branded, elementals, harpies...) and when your attention's on the big game, it's easy to forget about them and let damages/conditions build up. The quote to which you were replying with this extract also includes boss uses, but I think we both know already what can be made out of the focus! I'll be skipping the quotes to shorten the post; scourge has insane barriers, druid has insane healing, mirage has insane dodging. But what's the topic? Soloing stuff, a niche practice (much less niche in open world, then again in open world anything goes). The feeling I get from reading your suggestions is that you want everyone to maintain top dps while slapping on top of it top survival. Then what's the use for healers? What's the use for raid tanks? Making it baseline for every e-spec would just ruin the balance by making roles as simple as either boondps, either dps. Several e-specs would then likely disappear: Qberserker already is a very rare occurrence, Arenegade as well, and so on and so forth - let's bring in only heralds! Though since they can provide the main boons on top of quickness with 100% uptime, shouldn't they then become the next OP thing worth nerfing? Otherwise, you'd be fine with taking that possibility away from everyone. Some nerfs could be done indeed, but is it really interesting to just take away from some people their fun, without providing something in return because "if I can't do it on my favorite, it shouldn't exist"? If providing something in return, what would it be, without making related builds excessive again? Let's consider the mirage alone here: too many dodges, you'd be fine with taking it away. Let's say we backtrack a bit and mirage ends up with a single dodge again. Would you offer something in return, and if so, what? Balance's such a fickle thing! That's why I disapprove your suggestion; while I could agree about chrono struggling the most in solo play out of every mesmer e-spec, it definitely isn't the case on virtuoso with the Signet of the ether, while Duelist's reversal brings in offensive buffs to support our short bursts (especially quickness, which you shouldn't have access to when playing on your own). But chrono's topic is so intimately tied to the opposition between relying on shatters to trigger its mechanics while having the lowest clone generation ability, that it means any condi chrono build (which is favored against champions/leggies that don't phase out) would be inefficient compared to others. Trying to change that implies touching the core functions of the e-spec, which will realistically never happen because regardless of the will (or lack of), it would involve a lot of work with likely a lot of opposition... Anyway, disagreeing's fine too! 🙂

Increasing virtuoso sustain...? No, as a main mesmer I wouldn't want that especially if it were to come with any nerf to counterbalance that. Jagged mind coupled to Bloodsong when having the Signet of the ether up lets you generate, even on power builds, an absurd amount of blades you must spend to keep regenerating. If you do not spend blades you stop generating them, hence you stop regenerating. The amount is so absurd from the two above traits you won't know what to do with them on a power build against a single target, so for condi virts with Jagged mind... Nah. You should dodge just like mirage does, and where mirage relies on vigor uptime & Deception utilities, virtuoso instead gets an absurd amount of self-healing. If playing solo's your issue, rely on Duelist's reversal while you're at it - unlike mirage, when your virtuoso will dodge you'll be getting several boons: regen (more healing!) +quickness (more blades, more healing!) +fury. The real strength of mirage for soloing tougher targets merely comes from its many dodges, so it's highly restricted by whatever players think of behind the umbrella term of "skill" - knowledge of the mob's pattern, knowledge of the character played, reaction time, and so on and so forth. On the opposite, virtuoso's largely carried by its innate mechanics but that doesn't mean any virtuoso can facetank everything - dodging every once in a while's still necessary! Whenever adds come in, since for both power & condi virtuoso builds you want to stick to the dagger, you can obviously resort to an offhand focus and pull them in (especially since your attacks are piercing), then if projectiles are pressuring you the focus' warden denies them for a while. So honestly, no... virtuoso doesn't need any extra sustain or whatever. It doesn't lack any self-heal, but maybe you weren't simply aware of how different blades are from ordinary clones - unlike clone replacement, when you reach the blades cap, just like warriors' adrenaline your production is stopped! 😉 Chrono's a different beast. Tougher topic because it's heavily relying on shatters with the smallest clone generation ability of all three e-specs. I'm fine with it not being as efficient as the two other e-specs for soloing content, but it's capable enough already, although indeed at a cost. You can still solo content by trading off damages for Inspiration, while maintaining Dueling for more clones to feed your shatters (Desperate decoy to immediately take the heat off you, Deceptive evasion to get more clones on dodging, Evasive mirror to make you pretty much immune to projectiles so you don't need the focus). It's awful to your damages, but you can still use chrono's traits to combine Delayed reactions with Danger time to produce burst phases with high crit rate (similar to virtuoso), you can top your defense off both of shield's blocks for more slow status (against adds to reduce the pressure on you, against bosses to break their defiance bar, and shield's Tides of time can be used depending positioning to break projectiles or simply stun) while still generating for yourself alacrity constantly (although not 100% uptime). Then take your pick from the last trait line - more alacrity, some quickness or more damages during your burst phases, the latter able to feed double the usual amount of healing with Signet of the ether. Might be one of the rare occasions on which I'd see celestial gear having some use for a mesmer! Trying to balance things around the objective of soloing things is wrong IMO. It kills, y'know, the thing called "group play"; otherwise why are we even playing a "massively multiplayer online" game? 😋

It wasn't working like that, the attack speed buff was only effective when missing quickness - in other words it wasn't cumulative, quickness was overwriting it completely making it only a CD reduction trait in group play. That was part of the notes in the former wiki entry, which has been removed. 🙂

It definitely can, the only quirk right now (as long as the rifle isn't out) is that it's difficult to manage for healing at range, since unlike mirage you can't compensate with higher mobility to jump wherever heals are needed. Only wells can do that for now, taking a 3sec delay your allies should be waiting for! And those who can't wait meet with natural selection, so... 😆

In PvP or WvW roaming, I'd rather use the scepter. The counter is punishing, the beam cannot be neutralized/reflected, and the autoattack is a reliable source of clones for shatters. As a side weapon in PvE, I couple it with the pistol (axe/torch + scepter/pistol). The brief burst from it since the CD reduction is decent over 10s (counter > beam > ambush > counter > ambush > beam > counter under alacrity, fill holes with autoattack cycle/deception skills) although obviously not OP compared to the axe+Mirrored axes. What's horrible in scepter right now IMO is the sustain from the autoattack, especially if you use it to generate clones since Ether clone only inflicts torment if you have all clones out (even in this case, it's a single stack). Then again it doesn't compete with Mirrored axes' effect, so you still want to stick to the axe in mainhand whenever you can. Using the illusions spec instead of chaos (The pledge/Main the disillusioned/Malicious sorcery) can produce decent results thanks to the scepter's high clone output (you still want to use primarily the axe when you can help it), however chaos has the upper hand - just like utilities you want raw stats before anything, so the signets are better over other mirage utility skills and Illusionary membrane/Chaotic potency (even if you don't use the staff, and if you do it's indeed even better)/Chaotic persistence produce better results than anything brought by illusions spec.

The attack speed increase was not stacking with quickness, so it was utterly meaningless aside from playing the storyline. The CD reduction has been normalized too, and these two thingies were all that trait was offering. It was definitely not worth keeping! While that new extra confusion duration isn't really attractive (I mean, we already hit the 100% cap on viper+food+Chaotic persistence) the three confusion stacks on dodge are welcome as a little extra for our trouble! I disagree. The scepter was quite a dead weapon apart from some PvP uses. Good on the defense, handy for generating illusions, but terribly slow and it took the counter to produce actual low damage (an upgrade from abysmal low). Now, the counter can be offensively broken with real interest (5 stacks of confusion, +2 with Ineptitude since it kept its blind). PvP & WvW didn't get even a single confusion stack on that so it'll likely remain rare there, but the CD reduction improves its performances while the mirage's Ether barrage can still be a good source of bleeding through Sharper images. It's still underperforming against other options, especially if not running it as mirage. But it got an up from that change! Surely not enough to make it a main weapon, but possibly as a side one when mechanics force you to move away from the target, making your axe useless. Personally, I hope they'd remove already all weapon traits which do not affect a whole gameplay but rather a single weapon type, normalizing most of the associated effects. Might be a crazy idea, but weapon proficiencies could be turned instead into an independant system apart from the build tab, although working similarly; it could take HPs to train and unlock traits for each weapon your profession can use, one line per weapon from which we could pick a single trait to alter said weapon, so you get to experience completely new effects while retaining their current moves! As a mesmer, want to keep your greatsword and optimize it for power builds? Here, have a trait for power that works the same way Bountiful blades does; want to use it as a condi tool? There, this other trait reduces the power modifier on all skills to add bleeding or torment stacks here and there; want to use it as a healer? Here, that trait reworks your auto-attack making it a healing beam similar to the druid's staff; your Mirror blade loses damage but gains extra bounces, might duration & becomes a projectile finisher; your Mind stab becomes a light field for the sake of combos on other skills; your Phantasmal berserker summons two phantasms, losing half their damages but retaining their whirl finishers; Illusionary wave provides boons on use such as fury & might, and could even turn into a blast finisher. It would likely involve too much work to ever happen and make autoattacks feel bland by likely reproducing similar effects from others (see my example above, making the GS beam the same as the druid's staff beam) but such a system could give a chance at experiencing our favorite weapons in completely different roles. We're already picking weapon traits because they vastly improve their respective weapons (thus often slotting said weapon on both weapon switches) or provide raw stats (looking at Chaotic potency obviously, which you end up taking even if you don't play the staff) so currently I really feel like they don't give us much of a choice: you want these weapon traits BEFORE whatever improves/introduces mechanics in your build. Feels like there's only the illusion of choice in the end!

@ZephidelGRS.9520 replied, however don't consider it completely useless; it's still a free extension of what others have whether you can provide it or not (let's say you couldn't offer fury but the dps in your group auto-generates some, there goes the extension - although I'd still prefer sharing boons on a group for the sake of core mesmer). It can provide group aegis on a low CD, and in the end is pretty much the only signet worth using on a support build (unless you really want to use Signet of illusions, although I think there are better options in our utility skills & as aegis generator).

Neither work this way, the build editor hasn't been updated yet 😉 Chaotic transference was exclusively a personal effect anyway. Blurred inscriptions coupled to the Signet of inspiration doesn't spread your boons, it merely adds 3s duration on whatever your allies currently have (concentration does not influence that extra duration). The only boon that would spread this way is aegis through Inspiring distortion, since the distortion from Blurred inscriptions triggers it. It would be really interesting if the Signet of inspiration, whether on its base activation or coupled to Blurred inscriptions, were spreading boons. Sadly that's not how it works!

Because what we're missing are ranged heals, only chrono has any thanks to the wells (which may trigger too late with a 3sec delay). A mirage could move around using Jaunt, but forget it on a virtuoso unless using Blink. Also, rifle 3 offers many stacks of might which are otherwise lacking unless resorting to Mantra of pain (mostly meaningless for a support) or Relic of the Midnight King (forces you to waste your CC); the shield's Tides of time work well in that regard, however we've got no proper mainhand support weapon, only the scepter may have remote use for its clone summoning ability. Let's not forget the rifle was merely a beta, not necessarily the end product. We only got to test the base functionalities it may offer, but not the finite buffs/healing values! Just as @draxynnic.3719 mentioned above, when it came to massive heals there already were droods & tempests since HoT, which in the end didn't prove interesting enough in actual play as soon as professions other than chrono were given the ability to provide quick/alac. Hence, I reiterate - a massive healer without some key boon isn't necessary; you can run one in a premade group with friends & guildies who can cover whatever you lack, as long as you don't care about performance (and it doesn't take much for most of the content)! Inspiration allows making a healer, but not the kind of healer players want because the game is forgiving enough not to need one that dishes out huge green numbers.

That's the thing. Mirage mantle is on a line which consists in having a few more mirrors to shatter every 50s (Desert distortion), in raising up your axe numbers (Mirrored axes) or in improving all your ambush skills (the subject here, Mirage mantle). So long as you don't intend on using the axe as your main tool, that's one choice down; the other one, Desert distortion is something I use only in niche occasions such as a damage spike on bosses that often phase out -IF not using the axe-, quick boon stripping on a power profile or in open world to quickly dispatch the trash. In the end, that makes Mirage mantle quite free to take as long as you disregard the axe, and that's easy to forget about it when chaos still offers extra condi stats, including double the dose of condi damage +CD reduction when wearing... a staff. That's also the main obstacle IMO to why can't we possibly have quickness on a support mirage. It would likely be tied to Mirage mantle, making it possible to reinstate an e-spec providing both buffs; something we couldn't stand because of the previous chrono experience for years. Otherwise, it should replace either of the remaining two traits - take away Mirrored axes, anyone playing the axe will obviously notice the sudden drop in performance; take away Desert distortion, I'm unable to imagine how could it even be introduced. On shatters like the chrono? Not exactly original but it works; on another ambush, mirage mantle-like trait? Lack of originality but there's functionality again (and possibly easier to manage to accomodate PvP uses); on illusion summoning? That could combine well with the healer/support gameplay we have right now, although hard to balance. Fact is, the game being forgiving, any support role (healer included) is expected to provide either alacrity, either quickness. There's no factual need of a massive healer (unless in a raid whose members joyfully jump into every AoE 'cause "better red than dead", until they realize they're not mutually exclusive 😆) so inspiration is not enough on its own. It's all about boons in general first, healing second; what I agree on is that right now the chaos spec is a mess, sharing both support and condi traits (the latter making for some competition between dueling, chaos & illusions specs). But you can't just slap inspiration and call it "support" precisely because our base mechanics and utilities neither are healing, neither are providing the ordinary boons expected from a support build - we're that unique little snowflake providing unusual extras that're often welcome, yet take more than one spec in our build to fit into the "support" category. The game has evolved since inception, our core utilities didn't endure that change well - hence the necessary rework that's been done so we could catch up with today's state of the game! I must've missed when that was said by the team; whether they did present the e-spec as such or not, that's what chrono does already especially using the greatsword. If your argument for taking away supportive abilities from the mirage consists in "it already exists on another e-spec", here it is: chrono already performs that spike damage, so following that idea why should it be imported onto mirage? Virtuoso follows closely too on this same theme. Unless I misread it, this is the paradox I do not understand in your logic unless you'd want to take away chrono bursts at the same time; that's effectively taking away ways of playing and trapping e-specs into single profiles (not to mention virtuoso, which without its damages could simply be removed - it can be a massive healer, yet is completely disregarded because of the lack of quick/alac). Something I'd be against because enjoying one e-spec's mechanics does not necessarily mean enjoying every profile associated to it, and vice-versa; I like support roles but dislike chrono again because of the HoT/PoF years (no, it wasn't only about alacrity, it was alacrity AND quickness at the same time), I like mirage but dislike the staff. Yet I still consider mesmer in general as my favorite; hence, innovating and giving diversity a chance's my jam! Obviously, I like the idea of a possible support mirage. If mirage ended up as exclusively a damage e-spec, then that'd make some weapons the only go-to options (something we already see, using only axe/X or staff - the latter largely thanks to Chaotic potency); if chrono was the only one able to provide quick/alac, then support mesmer would only be tied to a single e-spec (something I already see in my guilds with chronoheal only, mirage being ignored, virtuoso being obviously thrown to the trash because no alac/quick). Without even taking away the possibilities for variety, in practice players already dive into single ways to play because there's more efficiency in one profile or the other, then call it "meta". Let's not take these possibilities away. Let's keep some variety so everyone can try their hand at ways of playing differing from the meta, as long as the loss doesn't utterly gut your contribution - so everyone can have fun playing what they like, because performance is NOT the only way to measure the "fun" value! Clones work the same way on both e-specs (inherit base stats but not runes/sigils), so it all falls down to the frequency of each tool to produce alacrity: chrono shatters or staff ambushes. A chrono cannot shatter as often as a mirage can pull off an ambush, hence extra alac on phantasms on one side and alac duration reduced on ambushes on the other. One does power damage this way, the other condi damage - it might be easier thanks to phantasms on chrono to keep it up (and mostly because condi builds immediately jump onto Midnight and Domination signets, thus reducing the number of Deception utilities) but in the end both e-specs can keep the alacrity cap that's 30sec. The key word here is balance, and that works! Some people, hence, do not mind having a mirage over a chrono, as long as 100% alacrity uptime is ensured (which doesn't mean always standing at 30s alac, merely having it constantly regardless of duration)!

That's the thing - what you get for giving up on quick/alac is a pure, powerful healer. It'll contribute with more ease than other ordinary healers to the damages (precisely because you need to get rid of blades) while still dishing out a bunch of heals, but so far the content doesn't expect such high numbers - rather it allows a quick/alac heal. Ordinary groups stick to that, so unless you're in any run with guildies/friends that already cover these boons, virtuoso remains the least interesting option we've got. On the opposite, it's unbelievably tanky and works wonders as such, yet again - it doesn't compete with chrono, because the latter can do the same while providing quick/alac around.

It neither was my meaning, neither is my experience; most groups I encounter fill first the boon/heal/other special roles before grabbing dps, then they don't care however you play it unless you're running a build that's performing too poorly. Staff mirage is not the only way to play - if playing cdps I jump in with my axe/pistol & axe/torch and never got bothered (few exceptions with raids) about why would I play it over the staff, a weapon I personally dislike for being so slow and focused on auto-attack/ambush. Nobody's going to impose how should I play anyway! Now if some key buffs were profession-locked, then that'd precisely be what happens. "You're the only one who can provide alacrity. Not playing the build for it? Get out!" Those were the HoT/PoF years. No offense to anyone who arrived after that era, but that suggestion's wrong considering we already have the very experience of a build doing both boons for years, which caused more harm than it did any good. So much I'm still unwilling to play chrono again. I'd love to be able to provide both again, but I know all too well how unhealthy it proved to be in the end. I doubt the team would willingly jump into that trap again! As for the feeling you're getting, that falls on player behavior. There'll always be such people and won't stop despite how forgiving the game is; make some contacts with those that aren't all about "meta meta meta"!