Mirage Suggestions (PvP)

[Vinny.7260]

Brief Introduction:

Hi there, I've been playing Mirage off and on for a few of years now and Chronomancer before that, then Core Mesmer... I refuse to acknowledge Virtuoso at this current time in any game mode... It's not Mesmer- anyway. My experience with Mirage mostly focused on the PvP side with builds like Chaos Staff, Carrion Axe, Power GS, etc. My experience with Chronomancer was Phantasm Chrono (Partially responsible for the build existing), Boon Chrono, Lost Time Chrono, the Forbidden Condi Chrono...

 

Anyway, my rating ranges from P1-P3 off and on from seasons... Unfortunately yet to finish a season due to real life always getting in the way and preventing me from properly finishing up a full season. I've always played Mesmer and consider myself quite knowledgeable in the profession as a whole. I've gone the whole Core Mantra oneshot deal to even messing with the disgusting Settler's PU Core Mesmer days...

TL;DR: I've played Mesmer a lot and have a lot of experience with the profession as for how it plays, where it's used, etc.

 

My goal with these suggestions:

I want Mirage to properly fill that +1/Roamer role in its own way while having a reasonable amount of self-sustain to be a reliable duelist without being overwhelming powerful. I want to open up options for Mirage in PvP specifically to be able to provide a formidable chance against other Professions filling similar roles. My changes will focus on removing traits that don't currently meet to standards for current modern PvP scene and adjusting or providing QoL to utilities that haven't seen the light of day in a meta.

TL;DR: Touching traits and utilities, improving their roles they already serve minimally.

 

Traits:

Some traits are going to be moved to give them a better chance to compete with others, some are going to be removed due to their inability to compete. A couple will be changed to better suit the entire Profession.

• Renewing Oasis: The regeneration portion of this trait has been merged into Elusive Mind, this trait has been replaced with Mirage Mantle.
  • Renewing Oasis' trait has been competing with Mirage's ability to generate clones for Shatters. This trait focuses on minor sustain increase while reducing incoming condition duration- moving this trait to where Elusive Mind is simply turns the Condition Management traits into a one-stop-shop. Since Mirage currently uses Elusive Mind in Carrion Axe, it provides a minor increase to resustaining while still being able to generate clones with Self-Deception. It also keeps Chaos Staff in check by not being able to take Infinite Horizon while getting access to Regeneration to get all the benefits from Chaos (Illusionary Membrane and Chaotic Persistence.) Putting Mirage Mantle here opens up an option to have more damage reduction while still having access to Desert Distortion, fact it ends on Mirage Cloak prevents it from being able to constantly stack Protection.
• Nomad's Endurance: This trait now provides increased Strike Damage and Condition Damage while under the effects of Vigor.
  • This would improve Mirage's ability to use Power builds and get benefit from Dueling more as a Power setup. Increases burst damage potential too since it grants Vigor on shatter.
    • Damage Increase: +7% to all sources
• Desert Distortion: This trait has been moved to where Mirage Mantle used to be.
  • Lining defensive traits up.
• Quicksand: This trait reduces the cooldown of Shatter skills based on the number of clones shattered.  You count towards the cooldown reduction total.
  • This trait will enable the ability to shatter more often without Illusions trait line. It also provides more defense via reducing cooldowns on Diversion and Distortion. Competes with Desert Distortion to tie for type of defense. Also provides more offense via reducing cooldowns on Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration.
    • PvE: 1.5 seconds per clone.
    • PvP/WvW: 1 second per clone.
• Speed of Sand: This trait now grants Swiftness when Mirage Cloak ends in addition to previous effects.
  • Opening up rune options for Mirage would be a great step forward for Mirage as a Roamer and +1er. Additionally justifies this trait being a Grandmaster Minor.
    • Swiftness: 7 seconds
• Elusive Mind: Now grants regeneration from Renewing Oasis in addition to previous effects.
  • See Renewing Oasis' notes.
• Dune Cloak: Now causes Ambushes to steal a boon from enemies struck. Only affects the Mesmer, only once per target.
  • The original effects from this trait made it impossible to work with all of the weapons Mirage had. This would improve Mirage's baseline boon removal while also using any weapon to get a benefit from it. Sacrificing recovery from Elusive Mind and damage from Infinite Horizon for boon stealing.
    • PvE: 2 Boons Stolen
    • PvP/WvW: 1 Boon Stolen

 

Ambushes:

Some ambushes haven't been adjusted in PvP overtime when comparing to Unleashed Ambushes on Untamed and Stealth Attacks on Thief. These are primarily number adjustments to improve the ambush for the Mesmer themself to prevent Infinite Horizon from becoming overwhelmingly powerful.

• Imaginary Axes: Increased the Power Scaling from 0.5 per Axe to 0.75 per Axe. Increased Player Torment Duration.
  • This skill has been rarely useful to Ambush with as you always had a better Ambush to use with Sword or even Staff.
    • Player Torment: 5s
• Ether Barrage: Increased Torment and Confusion Duration. Now grants Might on successful hits.
  • Improved the damage from this skill via Might generation, increased duration of Conditions to open up potential for damage again.
    • Might: 1 stack; 5 seconds
    • Torment: 3 seconds
    • Confusion: 3 seconds
• Chaos Vortex: Alacrity duration reduced. Might stacks and duration increased.
  • Reduced the potential to constantly provide Alacrity but improved Might access to compensate. Keeping Blurred Inscriptions Mirage and Chaos Staff in check.
    • Alacrity: 1.5 seconds
    • Might: 6 stacks; 10 seconds

Utilities:

The skills Mirage has have fallen behind over time due to constant nerfs from Chaos Staff. Bringing forward cooldowns due to previous nerfs. Such as Sand through Glass ammunition to open up a potential duelist playstyle.

• Crystal Sands: Reduced the cooldown.
  • This skill is difficult to land and only operates as a Mirage Mirror generator. Taking utility slot for a free evade on a lower cooldown could help.
    • Cooldown: 15 seconds
• Illusionary Ambush: Reduced the cooldown.
  • This skill was originally used with Chaos Staff as a means of target breaking and dealing burst damage with Ether Barrage. Lowering the cooldown slightly to make it possible to be used by other professions while other sources that improved Chaos Staff have been adjusted.
    • Cooldown: 30 seconds
• Mirage Advance: Increased the range, reduced the cooldown, and reduced the blind duration.
  • This skill has never truly seen play in any gamemode due to its animation and awkward cast time. Reducing the cooldown and increasing the range gives it a potential role as a gap closer against ranged enemies. Reduced the blind duration to compensate for these changes.
    • Cooldown: 20 seconds
    • Range: 1200
    • Blind: 2 seconds
• Sand through Glass: Now has two ammunition with a slightly increased cooldown. Has a cooldown between each use.
  • This skill will offer an option for stun breaking with 2 potential evades.
    • Count Recharge: 35 seconds
    • Ammo: 2
    • Cooldown: 3 seconds

Axe Skills:

Axe skills have been performing plenty well and quite frankly are one of the best designed weapons on Mesmer. (In my own opinion). Looking to improve Axe's power coefficients to better enhance its role as a hybrid weapon.

• Autoattack Chain: Increased scaling from 0.366/0.366/0.732 to 0.45/0.45/1.1
  • An autoattack that is difficult to pull off on Mirage. Increasing the end-chain's damage to same amount as PvE damage would improve the reward from cleaving downstate enemies a little bit.
• Axes of Symmetry: Slightly increased the scaling from 1.25 to 1.5.
  • A slight nudge to increase rewarding landing this burst skill.

 

[Parasalin.4137]

I like a lot of these suggestions, especially the Speed of Sand change and the utilities buffs.

Mirage Advance would be awesome if it gave mirage cloak, basically shadowstep to an ambush then hop out again.

 

Imo I think that Condi Mirage should be geared towards being a slippery duelist that can hold its own in 1vX while Power mirage gets buffs towards being a slippery pink thief like its usually run these days. 

 

Im only qualified to speak about power mirage, but what we really need is some mobility because with only 1 dodge its not hard to chase/escape us.

 

How do you think the the 1 dodge should be handled tho? Even with these buffs its a glaring shortfall with the spec. 

[Salt Mode.3780]

Mirage advance would be good if it didnt have a stupid cast time.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Apart from crystal sands and mirage advance they're all good suggestions. 

Crystal sands needs a functionality change. No matter the CD it will always be awful if the skill remains the same. 

Mirage advance needs either to be instant or to provide quickness to allow combos. The only way I could ever made it work, although still clunky, was with the sigil that provides quickness on weapon swap. 

[Tseison.4659]

Great ideas and thank you for the write up. My only two cents is that Mirage Advance and Illusionary Ambush should still be combined and I’ve said this since the beta. As mentioned as well, Mirage Advance without the cast time would’ve made it perfect but still, since MA & and IA are pretty much the same, they might as well be combined and create another unique skill. If not, MA should have no cast time and I also like Parasalins idea of giving it Mirage Cloak.

Sand Through Glass, I’m sorry but unless that evade distance is increased to give a bit more distance, I personally don’t think the extra charge would make a big difference. I think my reasoning is, yeah the extra charge for an evade is great, but I just hate the short distance and on top of leaving a mirror that I have to walk up to just to grab while putting myself in danger is a 🙅‍♀️

Alacrity on staff I still think should be removed. I really see no reason for Mirage being an alac bot/support role when Chrono was suppose to fill that role…

Lastly, with the one dodge which should NEVER be a thing and don’t see anets obsession with it, especially for the Vindicators. If Mirage only get to keep the 2 dodges for PvE and only 1 dodge for PvP/WvW, then there needs to be endurance based traits like what the Vindicator has to compensate.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Tseison.4659

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 hour ago, Tseison.4659 said:

Great ideas and thank you for the write up. My only two cents is that Mirage Advance and Illusionary Ambush should still be combined and I’ve said this since the beta. As mentioned as well, Mirage Advance without the cast time would’ve made it perfect but still, since MA & and IA are pretty much the same, they might as well be combined and create another unique skill. If not, MA should have no cast time and I also like Parasalins idea of giving it Mirage Cloak.

Sand Through Glass, I’m sorry but unless that evade distance is increased to give a bit more distance, I personally don’t think the extra charge would make a big difference. I think my reasoning is, yeah the extra charge for an evade is great, but I just hate the short distance and on top of leaving a mirror that I have to walk up to just to grab while putting myself in danger is a 🙅‍♀️

Alacrity on staff I still think should be removed. I really see no reason for Mirage being an alac bot/support role when Chrono was suppose to fill that role…

Lastly, with the one dodge which should NEVER be a thing and don’t see anets obsession with it, especially for the Vindicators. If Mirage only get to keep the 2 dodges for PvE and only 1 dodge for PvP/WvW, then there needs to be endurance based traits like what the Vindicator has to compensate.

Crystal sands would be good if the mirror spawned at the end instead of beginning. The distance wouldn't be much of an issue. 

[Vinny.7260]

Follow-up on the comments!

On 7/19/2022 at 11:18 PM, Parasalin.4137 said:

Mirage Advance would be awesome if it gave mirage cloak, basically shadowstep to an ambush then hop out again.

Definitely like the idea for this! Being able to port in, ambush with Axe (for example) and then port back would open some opportunities. I hadn't double-checked something and Mirage Retreat should also count as a Deception so it generates 2 clones potentially. I wish I could give massive adjustments for some of the other skills you all have mentioned.

On 7/20/2022 at 5:25 AM, Tseison.4659 said:

If Mirage only get to keep the 2 dodges for PvE and only 1 dodge for PvP/WvW, then there needs to be endurance based traits like what the Vindicator has to compensate.

Yeah... The fact they haven't really compensated Mirage for having one dodge (50 endurance) is kinda rude when something like Vindicator has the ability to generate Endurance PER entity affected by the dodge (5 targets max though)... They skill have Vigor duration nerfed as if to prevent the old IH Axe build when it really was flourishing due to the bug where each Axe could hit twice... (Meaning you could potentially hit 24 times with 3 Illusions+ yourself + Mirrored Axes). I wonder if they'll revert those duration nerfs at least too but I wasn't going to mention it here. I think giving us passive Swiftness would at least allow us to take Adventurer's Rune so we can generate Endurance again without sacrificing mobility. (Plus it would allow us to go a rune with more damage if we wanted...)

On 7/20/2022 at 4:45 AM, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Crystal sands needs a functionality change. No matter the CD it will always be awful if the skill remains the same. 

Very true, but it unfortunately is a mandatory skill for PvE builds to my knowledge due to the confusion + mirror it generates on a low cooldown. That's why I just slapped on an even lower cooldown since you're rarely going to actually land the skill anyway. I even debated 10 seconds and just nerfing the damage into the ground so it's just a mirror spawner. (Reminds me of the bug with underwater Jaunt LOL).

On 7/20/2022 at 5:25 AM, Tseison.4659 said:

Alacrity on staff I still think should be removed. I really see no reason for Mirage being an alac bot/support role when Chrono was suppose to fill that role…

Agreed. Alacrity on Mirage was a poor choice especially when they've adjusted the entirety of Chronomancer on the fact it gets access to Alacrity... It's just giving them grounds to nerf Mirage for the same reason. 😕

I'm planning on releasing a post similar to this format with Chronomancer suggestions too!  Be sure to check that out too!

Maybe even Core Mesmer changes too but they would be a bit different format due to the variety of paths we could go with it.

Debated even using Logic Gates as a joke for 'if this then that' kinda mindset since Mesmer's identity is basically just a pink wizard with copies that can do damage.

Oh yeah...

 

Also.

Quote

Unwavering Avoidance: Reduced vigor duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only when the Vindicator specialization is equipped. ...

Why didn't Mirage get this with Critical Infusion?

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Vinny.7260
Added Note from recent patch notes...

[Smart College Boy.3249]

I think Jaunt either needs a range increase to 650 or a 3rd charge. Obviously not both or it would be insanely overpowered.

[Tseison.4659]

8 hours ago, Smart College Boy.3249 said:

I think Jaunt either needs a range increase to 650 or a 3rd charge. Obviously not both or it would be insanely overpowered.

Yeah i remember saying this during beta for the elite spec; it did have 3 charges in pvp/wvw too but then they cut that, so i dont think they'll bring that back. But a range increase would be great.

[Xaylin.1860]

On 7/21/2022 at 3:26 PM, Vinny.7260 said:

The fact they haven't really compensated Mirage for having one dodge (50 endurance) is kinda rude when something like Vindicator has the ability to generate Endurance PER entity affected by the dodge (5 targets max though)...

This is actually something I've been thinking about a lot since the "Give Mirage back the 2nd dodge" thread or whatever it is called. I don't think that adapting traits according to Vindicator alone would help - I still see Mirrors (and the Mirage Cloak they provide) as a hindering balancing issue. But it would be a first step. I might make a theorycrafting thread about that. 🤔