Confused - Staff / Staff Condi Mirage Build

[Vailaan.7216]

Metabuild has a staff/staff condi mirage build for open world / solo. I do not understand why they recommend dual staff with the same sigils on each staff.

Why would you ever change weapons when cooldowns on abilities are same for both weapons and the sigils are the same. Is the only purpose to get the  50% Endurance, (sigil of energy), gain when swapping the weapon? What am I missing here? I notice that Lord Hizen also recommends this configuration for his open world solo mesmer build.

Would really appreciate if some one could explain to me the theory behind this choice, as a learning exercise for me.

Thank you

Edited April 3, 2022 by Vailaan.7216

[Naxos.2503]

That's just a guess, but I assume you're meant to switch staves to trigger the 50% endurance refill, allowing you to trigger Mirage cloak, and thus the Ambush skill of the staff.

If I remember correctly, it pierces and deals decent condi damage, so it works well against large groups of enemies. I use it in my setup, but with Scepter and torch as a secondary set instead when I need to focus enemies.

[Barraind.7324]

42 minutes ago, Naxos.2503 said:

That's just a guess, but I assume you're meant to switch staves to trigger the 50% endurance refill, allowing you to trigger Mirage cloak, and thus the Ambush skill of the staff.

 

That is why you run those, yes.  

With infinite horizions, the more you mirage cloak, the more your clones mirage cloak.   With staff, the more you mirage cloak, the better your clones are.   Weapon swapping with those sigils gives you a mirage cloak. 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Barraind.7324

[Vailaan.7216]

Thanks folks - appreciate the reasoning 🙂

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Staff/Staff mirage allows you to spam ambush skill (which does high damage btw) while being permanently dodging (+ survivability) and giving out might,fury and alacrity (+utility)..

 

This is something pretty unique to mirage but it technically work with all mesmer weapon. You can run scepter+X / scepter+X or Y as well if you find it better. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Generally, when you see a build that uses the same weapons on each swap, it's because the build is getting something purely from swapping. In this case, as people have noted, it's the Sigil of Energy: Mirage wants to dodge a lot so it can get ambush skills, so having the Sigil of Energy and swapping whenever you can (assuming you're below half endurance). I've seen some other builds on other professions that swapped in order to trigger a trait (I think pistol/pistol and staff/staff thief builds did this for extra initiative).

The reason why the staff/staff condi mirage uses staff/staff and not, say, staff/scepter/X is mostly for the Alacrity and other boons that come from the staff ambush skill. For open world use, you could probably get away with using something else as the swap, but it might be smoother if you're just using staff, and if you do transition into group content, they'll want double staff if you're filling the alacrity role.

[Mik.3401]

Staff is the only weapon you need on this build , you need to swap to trigger sigil of energy for extra ambush and that’s it.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Mik.3401

[Lethion.8745]

There is also  a trait in Chaos that others forgot to mention. It increases condi damage significantly while you have a staff equipped. 

 

[Nezekan.2671]

Staff is an interesting weapon, because the auto attack, whether ambush or regular, is in fact the main source of damage and other skills are clone generation and utility. It has a ramp up time though, which is fair. The ambush is particularly good because it moves in a line and damages everything and clones replicate the same effect if you have infinite horizons. So it makes sense to use every tool in your arsenal to increase the number of times you can ambush, thus two staff build.

Since the build provides 25 might for itself, the celestial variant of the build is extremely powerful in open world and it's almost impossible to die with it, and at the same time damage will not be lacking.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Nezekan.2671