Why is Split Surge Damage on Greatsword So Bad?

[chripsy.1027]

Seriously. The damage of this skill is truly woeful. Why does it do hardly any damage?... Even with the 25 stacks of vulnerability and might, it takes me forever to kill elite mobs, and it took so long to kill a champion I actually had to leave I was so bored. In contract, Chaos Vortex on staff does very decent damage in comparison to Split Surge.... Why is Split surge so bad? I tried it with full glass canon gear and it is still woeful.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

It seems like Power Mirage is designed to be played as every other Power Mesmer build.

 

You spam Phantasms and reset their cooldowns with Signet of the Ether. Then rinse and repeat.

 

Split Surge looks like it's not designed to be useful against single targets. Its design is clearing rooms of trash mobs quickly.

[Veprovina.4876]

It's not a single target skill. It can apply vulnerability to a large number of targets (IF you get your clones out, so probably not in WvW), and is probably more designed to apply the condition rather than do damage. 

It's great for Halloween lab farm tagging trash mobs, but not single target damage. 

It's called split surge for a reason i guess.

[Daishi.6027]

I remember when split surge was actually fun to play with. Not super viable, but very fun.

I used to screw around with double GS and spec into spamming mirage cloak just to go pew pew pew in the FFA arena for hours.

To bad A-net nerfed everything mirage had until condi was the only thing even moderately usable, but only in the clunkiest way possible.

[Leonidrex.5649]

5 hours ago, Daishi.6027 said:

I remember when split surge was actually fun to play with. Not super viable, but very fun.

I used to screw around with double GS and spec into spamming mirage cloak just to go pew pew pew in the FFA arena for hours.

To bad A-net nerfed everything mirage had until condi was the only thing even moderately usable, but only in the clunkiest way possible.

relax, condi is also not usable 😄
 as for OP mirage is a condi speck in pve, its power damage is terrible, dunno why ask the devs. split surge could easily get a buff

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

Power mirage is the highest dps power mesmer build in sPvP. If you get some free casts of with 3 clones + surge, you will melt everyone in teamfights. 

They're buffing a trait in the follow up patch to increase its damage in pve. Based on your post, I assume you mostly pve, so you have this to look forward to. 

[phokus.8934]

3 hours ago, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

Power mirage is the highest dps power mesmer build in sPvP. If you get some free casts of with 3 clones + surge, you will melt everyone in teamfights.

Mirage power damage is garbage.  Power Chrono has a faster TTK which is undeniable.

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

3 hours ago, phokus.8934 said:

Mirage power damage is garbage.  Power Chrono has a faster TTK which is undeniable.

So there are two ways to look at damage. Sustained damage vs. Burst damage. Mirage would be better at sustained damage with big AOE split surges in team fights, chrono would be better at burst damage. It's definitely not garbage damage. 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ronald McDonald.8165

[dead.7638]

Considering you can down someone with x2 surge and burst, is not garbage dmg.   Mirage may have the best dueling set atm with both the sustain and burst dmg that has been mentioned.   Not to mention the detargetting skills.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

 

33 minutes ago, dead.7638 said:

Considering you can down someone with x2 surge and burst, is not garbage dmg.   Mirage may have the best dueling set atm with both the sustain and burst dmg that has been mentioned.   Not to mention the detargetting skills.

Best dueling set! 
Turns out Mirage needs a nerf!
 

[phokus.8934]

55 minutes ago, dead.7638 said:

Considering you can down someone with x2 surge and burst, is not garbage dmg.   Mirage may have the best dueling set atm with both the sustain and burst dmg that has been mentioned.   Not to mention the detargetting skills.

Mirage is still bad but at least serviceable.  You're still better off playing power chrono for TTK purposes.  Although, the skill floor is a lot lower on mirage than it is chrono so for any person not performing clean power chrono setups, you're going to have a bad time.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

4 minutes ago, phokus.8934 said:

Mirage is still bad but at least serviceable.  You're still better off playing power chrono for TTK purposes.  Although, the skill floor is a lot lower on mirage than it is chrono so for any person not performing clean power chrono setups, you're going to have a bad time.

Power chrono is better at +1, but mirage vastly outperforms in teamfights with its extreme cleave and vulnerability application that hits automatically. Theres nothing to aim or land. It's honestly ridiculous if you aren't getting focused. 

Power mirage counters power chrono as well. 

[phokus.8934]

2 hours ago, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

Power mirage counters power chrono as well. 

I'd say that is very debatable.  Mirage lost its get out of jail for free dodge and the power of csplit/moa still can't be discounted.

[dead.7638]

Chrono is for sure harder to play.   I thought this was about split surge so didn’t go there.   Honestly Mesmer vs Mesmer is all about out playing the other.   Which mirage can easily do.   I do find it kinda weak in design when I have to chase using great sword auto for a kill.   Boring and lame.   But what can you do, such is Mesmer.

[Lana Del Bae.7156]

Split surge getting a PvE damage increase trait next patch is pretty deserved. It's damage probably feels insubstantial because there are ways to build mirage so that you can cast your ambushes many, many times in a row. That, and its a skill that's designed to scale with the volume of enemies on screen. If split surge did great damage to a single target it would be absolutely horrifying to witness against group of enemies. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

Because back in the day a ranged AOE 1.35 coefficient at 1200 range was pretty good.

And by a lot of standards for a lot of other lesser-used skills on other classes, it's still not bad, especially since so many competitive mode damage skills over the 2.0 coefficient mark were reduced to < 2.0 since Feb2020.

PvE has just had so much asinine damage inflation that skills which haven't become wildly bloated no longer feel strong.

Edited July 16, 2023 by DeceiverX.8361

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I can't remember how much of an increase it is per clone.  I think it is 25% per clone.  Anyway, the low damage is because it is spammable.  With the right gear and traits, it's possible to use Split Surge as nearly every other attack.