Can Mirage finally have its 2nd dodge back?

[patton the great.7126]

As a once proud power mirage main, I do request to have our 2nd dodge back. Times have significantly changed. The justification for the nerf years ago no longer exists. Both the exhaustion nerf as well as the loss of 1 of our dodges is no longer necessary. Condi mirage is a joke even if they restore them. Power mirage is a true joy to play. These nerfs singlehandedly killed powers survivability. 

 

This pertains to WvW restrictions. I know already before anyone says anything that they are separate and that mirage in PvE is just fine. 

 

In a world where Celestial is running wild on everybody, we need power mirage now MORE THAN EVER! Let me do the lord's work in thinning out the celestial abominations!

[Waffles.5632]

Preach it because Amen I am a believer. But I firmly believe Mirage will never see it's second dodge back, not unless Mirage dodge becomes extremely nerfed, which, would just kill the class. The defining feature of Mirage is being able to be free from control completely.

You always have the option to dodge, if you have the energy, no matter what action you are doing. Being able to do so twice is just too powerful.

So with that being said I think the better compromise is to ask for traits to be reworked around one dodge, since AFAIK none of them were compensated when Mirage lost it's second dodge.

We also need our third jaunt back please, and then finally, I suggest making Mirage Cloak last 1 second again. I think these changes, perhaps not all of them, or not all at once, would go a long way into putting Power Mirage back into Meta, or at least at the doorsteps of the Meta Kingdom lmfao. I feel these changes also help Condi Mirage just as much while not pushing it into toxic tier again.

[Curunen.8729]

If pve mirage got normalised to 1 dodge there might be sufficient motivation to do something about the rest of the spec.

But given how things have been going, I'd sooner expect GS ambush to have a 360 radius 5k aoe heal slapped on and turned into a healer...

I agree with Waffles above best to hope is eg getting things like Jaunt charge cooldown restored along with other deception improvements that don't rely on alacrity to get "normal" cooldowns. Even 1s mirage cloak would be acceptable.

Vindicator's existence makes it difficult to imagine Anet reverting this for mirage, though chrono self shatter did happen - but at a cost. On this note I would accept losing normal F4 for something different in exchange for getting 2 dodges back (and at the same time get rid of the signet/desert distortion nonsense that limits other changes from being made).

Anyway, I put more faith in dropping a precursor from the next piece of unidentified gear.

[otto.5684]

Wither getting the second dodge, or not, I do not think mirage will ever be viable. 1) I think the dev who designed and understood mirage have long left Anet, 2) There is a bias against Mesmer in general from the current devs. This is no longer a hunch. You can Google it, 3) spvp balance as whole has significant design issues. The current spvp balance devs, are meh. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think it should be changed to one dodge in PvE (like it is in PvP) as well, BUT make every dodge leave behind a Mirage Mirror so you can always get your second dodge by backtracking. This would make it more of a solid mechanic than a nerf, and benefit from traits more.

 

Having two dodges that you don't have to work for is just way too powerful on Mirage. What makes it balanced on other classes is it significantly lowers DPS output and increases ramp up time.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Hannelore.8153

[Junkpile.7439]

Proud mirage main? Why anybody would be proud playing anything else than core? 

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

13 hours ago, patton the great.7126 said:

As a once proud power mirage main, I do request to have our 2nd dodge back. Times have significantly changed. The justification for the nerf years ago no longer exists. Both the exhaustion nerf as well as the loss of 1 of our dodges is no longer necessary.

Not true, Mirage is still significantly stronger, both as power and as condi, than chrono and core mesmer. Mirage can only get its dodge back if they either remove its distortion, or if they remove energy sigil.

Edited June 26, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[FarmBotXD.1430]

3 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Not true, Mirage is still significantly stronger, both as power and as condi, than chrono and core mesmer. Mirage can only get its dodge back if they either remove its distortion, or if they remove energy sigil.

depends how you look at it, yes mirage is stronger then core/chrono.
but both core and chrono are unusable dog kitten so comparing anything to them can make it look good.
 

[Xaylin.1860]

13 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I think it should be changed to one dodge in PvE (like it is in PvP) as well, BUT make every dodge leave behind a Mirage Mirror so you can always get your second dodge by backtracking. This would make it more of a solid mechanic than a nerf, and benefit from traits more.

No. More. Mirrors. Please. 💩

[patton the great.7126]

9 hours ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Proud mirage main? Why anybody would be proud playing anything else than core? 

 No core mesmer could ever replicate the raw damage that I could put out. Thankfully very few mirages had mastered the class and resorted to just condi trash.

 

The potential for damage was higher than that condi core guard that dominated with those silly swords in the same zerg busting role. 

 

I just honestly need the dodge back as well as the repeal of that stupid exhaustion cop out of a nerf. 

 

I'm sorry mang, but base mesmer has never been able to do what power mirage could pre nerf. 

 

If you fought prime [YUM] chances are you ate my damage. 

[patton the great.7126]

For the detractors, have you played mirage in the current state? While true it does still have nice damage, it isn't sustainable. I mean part of what made mirage viable was its ability to weave in and out of combat. 

 

Now you can be locked down by just about any even averagely played profession. If your initial burst misses ur finished. You have no way to escape with all the reveals/stunlocks/roots. 

 

I mean if your afraid condi mirage will return your crazy. Perplexity runes/ torment runes are nerfed to heck and back. The traits aren't there anymore to pull off that annoying clone spam with heavy condi pressure. It won't be any worse than the Cele plague that's rotting away the game anyway. 

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

6 hours ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

depends how you look at it, yes mirage is stronger then core/chrono.
but both core and chrono are unusable dog kitten so comparing anything to them can make it look good.
 

That's not the point. Let's say you buff Mirage to the point of it being viable/meta. Now you can't buff core Mesmer because then Mirage will draw advantage of it and likely become overpowered. TLDR as long as core Mesmer is weaker than Mirage, it is objectively a better a idea to buff core Mesmer than to buff Mirage.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

20 minutes ago, patton the great.7126 said:

For the detractors, have you played mirage in the current state? While true it does still have nice damage, it isn't sustainable. I mean part of what made mirage viable was its ability to weave in and out of combat. 

 

Now you can be locked down by just about any even averagely played profession. If your initial burst misses ur finished. You have no way to escape with all the reveals/stunlocks/roots. 

 

I mean if your afraid condi mirage will return your crazy. Perplexity runes/ torment runes are nerfed to heck and back. The traits aren't there anymore to pull off that annoying clone spam with heavy condi pressure. It won't be any worse than the Cele plague that's rotting away the game anyway. 

Have you tried playing core Mesmer?

[Daishi.6027]

40 minutes ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

That's not the point. Let's say you buff Mirage to the point of it being viable/meta. Now you can't buff core Mesmer because then Mirage will draw advantage of it and likely become overpowered. TLDR as long as core Mesmer is weaker than Mirage, it is objectively a better a idea to buff core Mesmer than to buff Mirage.

Core mes builds will always rely on that 3rd trait line to make it good.

You can easily buff core around the meta builds IF NEED BE (cuz you probably don't have to. in mesmer's case the elite specs fix the broken design of mesmer), idk what the meta is now since I haven't been playing recently, but so long as dom and dueling are required to do damage- a power mirage can't slot something like chaos without it being a massive drawback. Then any changes or buffs to dom/duel would only be lined in the context of how much power damage the class can put out.

Unlike other classes mesmer does not have a single traitlines that fufill all the needs for a single aspect; like for example wilderness survival does for sustain on a ranger, or shadow arts for a thief would.

This is also in the context where if a power mesmer would need dom/duel to secure a kill, meanwhile thief doesn't NEED deadly arts and can freely take things like shadow arts and daredevil. Or Ranger who only needs  marksman and wilderness survival as a sword and shield can easily take anything else they like. (or beast mastery instead of marksman for a sick em soul beast build) Mesmer does not get the same luxary.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Daishi.6027

[Salt Mode.3780]

You are also forgetting that one Core Mesmer misses it's burst there is a long wind up time before it can do anything, in which case anyone with half a brain can capitalize on that and kill you.

I don't expect Mirage to ever get it's 2nd dodge back but revert all the nerfs you did to mirage when it did have the 2nd dodge.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

2 hours ago, Daishi.6027 said:

Core mes builds will always rely on that 3rd trait line to make it good.

You can easily buff core around the meta builds IF NEED BE (cuz you probably don't have to. in mesmer's case the elite specs fix the broken design of mesmer), idk what the meta is now since I haven't been playing recently, but so long as dom and dueling are required to do damage- a power mirage can't slot something like chaos without it being a massive drawback. Then any changes or buffs to dom/duel would only be lined in the context of how much power damage the class can put out.

Unlike other classes mesmer does not have a single traitlines that fufill all the needs for a single aspect; like for example wilderness survival does for sustain on a ranger, or shadow arts for a thief would.

This is also in the context where if a power mesmer would need dom/duel to secure a kill, meanwhile thief doesn't NEED deadly arts and can freely take things like shadow arts and daredevil. Or Ranger who only needs  marksman and wilderness survival as a sword and shield can easily take anything else they like. (or beast mastery instead of marksman for a sick em soul beast build) Mesmer does not get the same luxary.

Yeah what you wrote here is mostly true however that doesn't diminish my point that core Mesmer buffs are far more pertinent than Mirage buffs.

Edited June 27, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Daishi.6027]

5 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

You are also forgetting that one Core Mesmer misses it's burst there is a long wind up time before it can do anything, in which case anyone with half a brain can capitalize on that and kill you.

I don't expect Mirage to ever get it's 2nd dodge back but revert all the nerfs you did to mirage when it did have the 2nd dodge.

Yes this too. But I'm tired of parroting that point. It's been years- no one listens I assume it's by design or systemic oppression. 

 

 

4 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Yeah what you wrote here is mostly true however that doesn't diminish my point that core Mesmer buffs are far more pertinent than Mirage buffs.

First off, if Power mirage got buffed because core mirage got buffed- it would deserve the buffs.

Second, Core's only role is a super niche gank build that is inferior to core thief in every way; and simply lets F2P people play. You cannot fix it with number-based buffs and nerfs. And frankly even if you could; we will never get them. It's been like a decade. It's baseline design was garbage and rushed, and even the things that made it worth taking were gutted. (no LoS for phants, clones applying pressure IN ANY FORM outside of light condi application, portal and moa actually being worth slotting, and more.) There is nothing reasonable you can do to the baseline design without fixing it mechanically; That's what Mirage and Chrono did at the time, and would still do if they weren't gutted. In the case of Mirage it trades taking Chaos invis gank for reasonable evade and in-fight sustain.
-Since Salt called out and old argument I guess I should point out that that it's sustain (that everyone cried was OP) was calculated against daredevil and Mirage STILL came up short, and STILL had less on demand evasion than ranger if we're ignoring thief, and don't even get me started on holo at the time, and STILL Mirage was nerfed. (nice double standard, devs aren't biased or anything 😒, nice leaks A-net; goes to show everything I've been bitching about for years is true.)

And people aren't even asking for a full restoration, just a simple 2nd evade back and the use of ambush that comes with it. Again I haven't played in a while, so correct me if there has been some massive nerfs to the likes of every medium class, that are somehow just as profound as what mirage/chrono have gotten. But if not, holding out because "core could get buffed tho" isn't a reason to not fix mirage. Core Mesmer is for all intensive purposes, is a one trick pony that might as well be dead in the meta, and would only MAYBE have value in pvp if we could switch classes on the fly for a rotation mixup kind of thing, or if thief didn't exist

Third. Because of the nature of traits that don't cover all your damage needs like other classes, you CAN buff the lines only core takes, and the nerf to damage would be considered a trade off if an elite spec took it. And, sure if you buff traits used by both elite and core it will inherently buff the elite specs; But what I already pointed out was that Mesmer has bad/garbage design and the elite specs FIXED the bad design to make it functional. All the nerfs did was make the elite specs more in line with core; which was garbage from the start.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/26/2022 at 10:39 AM, Curunen.8729 said:

On this note I would accept losing normal F4 for something different in exchange for getting 2 dodges back.

 

Yeah, this is something I've been advocating for a while for mirages, except my viewpoint is to make desert distortion baseline, at the cost of shorter distortion. You F4, you always get one second of distortion, and get mirrors to go and pick up for extra cloak. At the moment, mirages get double benefit from each clone when using F4 if they have the trait (an extra second of distortion and a mirror), meaning that at full clones they effectively get 7s of distortion and evasion with a single F4 if they collect all the mirrors. That's a long time to be nearly untouchable, particularly when other defenses are likely recharging.

Having its own F1-F3 shatters would also allow for Mirage to have another lever by which it can be balanced without impacting core.

[Daishi.6027]

I wouldn't love it, PvE would feel a bit worse for it, but I'd compromise for F4 being an illusionary Ambush or a built in portal. if we got two evades back.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Daishi.6027

[Jobber.6348]

Mirage needs 2nd dodge back in exchange for IH being nerfed. I felt like Mirage dodge removal was meant to nerf IH but I don't understand why didn't they just nerf IH directly. 

If they did something like IH increases your Stamina regen by 50% but in exchange you lose 1 Clone, I would be okay with the dodge coming back. At that point, IH should just be made part of Mirage's core baseline ability. 

I'm suggesting this as someone who also plays Mirage btw, so I believe this is the best balance Mirage can have without demanding too much. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Yasai.3549

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

2nd dodge and critical infusion back. 

If they did what mesmers said since Pof released mirage would still have 2 dodges, vigor and still be balanced. 

They trief to nerf condi mirage and hit power mesmer every single patch instead. Bunch of incompetents. 

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

4 hours ago, Daishi.6027 said:

Yes this too. But I'm tired of parroting that point. It's been years- no one listens I assume it's by design or systemic oppression. 

 

 

First off, if Power mirage got buffed because core mirage got buffed- it would deserve the buffs.

Second, Core's only role is a super niche gank build that is inferior to core thief in every way; and simply lets F2P people play. You cannot fix it with number-based buffs and nerfs. And frankly even if you could; we will never get them. It's been like a decade. It's baseline design was garbage and rushed, and even the things that made it worth taking were gutted. (no LoS for phants, clones applying pressure IN ANY FORM outside of light condi application, portal and moa actually being worth slotting, and more.) There is nothing reasonable you can do to the baseline design without fixing it mechanically; That's what Mirage and Chrono did at the time, and would still do if they weren't gutted. In the case of Mirage it trades taking Chaos invis gank for reasonable evade and in-fight sustain.
-Since Salt called out and old argument I guess I should point out that that it's sustain (that everyone cried was OP) was calculated against daredevil and Mirage STILL came up short, and STILL had less on demand evasion than ranger if we're ignoring thief, and don't even get me started on holo at the time, and STILL Mirage was nerfed. (nice double standard, devs aren't biased or anything 😒, nice leaks A-net; goes to show everything I've been bitching about for years is true.)

And people aren't even asking for a full restoration, just a simple 2nd evade back and the use of ambush that comes with it. Again I haven't played in a while, so correct me if there has been some massive nerfs to the likes of every medium class, that are somehow just as profound as what mirage/chrono have gotten. But if not, holding out because "core could get buffed tho" isn't a reason to not fix mirage. Core Mesmer is for all intensive purposes, is a one trick pony that might as well be dead in the meta, and would only MAYBE have value in pvp if we could switch classes on the fly for a rotation mixup kind of thing, or if thief didn't exist

Third. Because of the nature of traits that don't cover all your damage needs like other classes, you CAN buff the lines only core takes, and the nerf to damage would be considered a trade off if an elite spec took it. And, sure if you buff traits used by both elite and core it will inherently buff the elite specs; But what I already pointed out was that Mesmer has bad/garbage design and the elite specs FIXED the bad design to make it functional. All the nerfs did was make the elite specs more in line with core; which was garbage from the start.

Yeah but this doesn't change anything. It's pretty simple: ALL mesmer specs are underperforming (core, chrono, mirage, virtuoso). If you buff core you buff ALL of these specs. It's literally four times less work, and is far more appropriate.

During early pof/hot people would say the same about core Necro that you say about core Mesmer, that it can never be good and that Scourge/Reaper patches up it's faults, but later core Necro became meta. That said I don't need core Mesmer to be meta, that's not really the point, the point is that buffing core Mesmer improves  the options for core, chrono, mirage and virtuoso in one fell swoop.

Edit: as an example, if you add more options for mobility to core Mesmer (let's say a swiftness trait plus a rework of sword offhand just like when rev offhand got death strike), you are also automatically buffing Mirage because you could potentially run something other than Lynx, etc etc.

Edited June 27, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Curunen.8729]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, this is something I've been advocating for a while for mirages, except my viewpoint is to make desert distortion baseline, at the cost of shorter distortion. You F4, you always get one second of distortion, and get mirrors to go and pick up for extra cloak. At the moment, mirages get double benefit from each clone when using F4 if they have the trait (an extra second of distortion and a mirror), meaning that at full clones they effectively get 7s of distortion and evasion with a single F4 if they collect all the mirrors. That's a long time to be nearly untouchable, particularly when other defenses are likely recharging.

Having its own F1-F3 shatters would also allow for Mirage to have another lever by which it can be balanced without impacting core.

Yeah this is my issue also - one trick long duration invuln/evade which prevents buffs in other areas of the spec.

And yes thematically it makes sense given chrono has the 1s distortion with CSplit, that mirage has 1s distortion (with ambush access) plus all clones becoming mirrors.

BUT at the same time reduce Jaunt charge cooldown to 20s again, and potentially increase charges to 3 (may be too much though).

Equally reduce Illusionary Ambush to 30s baseline, Sand through Glass back to 25 seconds. Of course buff Mirage Advance with eg 3/4s evade like axe 3 has.

Then restore 2 dodges. So mirage would not have long duration distortion access and would need to be more aware of position to take advantage of chain evades via F4.

Clone position as usual would be an issue so another possibility is on F4 to have all active clones first port to within 450 radius of player (random position like IA, maybe even detarget player) before turning into mirrors. Not great and yes using mirrors, but tbh I think reasonable in exchange for 2 dodges.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

Honestly, you guys are complicit in the terrible state of Mesmer in PvP considering how resistant you are to the idea of buffing Core Mesmer (going by the "reactions" to the comments in this thread).

[Daishi.6027]

10 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Yeah but this doesn't change anything. It's pretty simple: ALL mesmer specs are underperforming (core, chrono, mirage, virtuoso). If you buff core you buff ALL of these specs. It's literally four times less work, and is far more appropriate.

During early pof/hot people would say the same about core Necro that you say about core Mesmer, that it can never be good and that Scourge/Reaper patches up it's faults, but later core Necro became meta. That said I don't need core Mesmer to be meta, that's not really the point, the point is that buffing core Mesmer improves  the options for core, chrono, mirage and virtuoso in one fell swoop.

Edit: as an example, if you add more options for mobility to core Mesmer (let's say a swiftness trait plus a rework of sword offhand just like when rev offhand got death strike), you are also automatically buffing Mirage because you could potentially run something other than Lynx, etc etc.

Lmao. Yeah, okay sure. If they give blink a 5 second cooldown maybe all mesmer specs would be viable, Or maybe if clones did like 50% of our base damage, Or more relistically maybe give everything Dom and Duel has in one line and then make a better survivability line on par with wilderness survival or shadow arts. To bad that's never going to happen.

Necro never had a broken and rushed base design that made it objectively inferor to another class that would intrinsically replace it in slot in all metas, it was never a one trick pony to CC one person out of a fight on a super long cooldown with an objectively inferior kit to the rest of the cast behind it. When Death Shroud and Litch was first buffed (idk how it looks now) it stared knocking people out basically for free without over reliance on the team, mesmer WILL NEVER get anything like that- This is not analogues in any way. It had times when it underperformed sure, but even then it had a role and a reason to be taken over those competing in the slot. Also to a lesser degree than literally every medium class, Necro trait lines don't really need to double up to do one thing effectively either.

You don't fix the core issues that Mesmer has without redesigning Mesmer as a whole, I already said that in my post. But this is a lot of resources and effort, that A-net already doesn't want to spend buffing Mesmer; rather than oh idk RETURNING THE EVADE BAR AN ON A ELITE SPEC.

As for your example you do nothing to solve the actual issues with Mesmer. Mesmer's issue is that it's survivability has always been a mechanic that doesn't actually add survivability against anyone that isn't simply bad, with a one shot burst that leaves you massively vulnerable after, and a damage resource people can literally kill or and put all the control in the opponents hand. Meanwhile thief gets to escape for virtually free and try again on a whiff and is completely un-targetable until then (unless it's an evade spam build). <- This is the issue that needs to be solved, this is the issue that mirage exclusively was supposed to solve; It was the wilderness survial/shadow art equivalent line- and it was gutted to the point of only being playable in one particular clunky way because A-net can't balance condi on anything ever... (Even though the solution for condi mirage was actually fairly simple, but they didn't listen they wanted to do whatever tf they wanted, much like with their demeanor in the leaks... It's almost like Supcutie called this out in freaking 2013, but here we are.)

Edited June 27, 2022 by Daishi.6027