Proposed Mesmer Rework

[Curunen.8729]

Heh well we get free relic of evasion, though the trait should be renamed as it's neither desperate nor a decoy anymore! 😄

Dune cloak is confusing.

Only builds I can see it working for are eg Condi shatter with MH sword and eg duelling/illusions and shatterstorm with malicious sorcery etc, and maybe both self deception and deceptive evasion to aggressively burst enemies with shatters and get loads of free mirage cloak.

The problem is all player ambush is still pathetic without clone supplement, and it remains to be seen if there will be enough damage with the presumably increased survivability to be worth it in competitive.

It's an interesting trait now but mirage trait line is still a mess, still core shatters with anti synergy like old phantasm core mesmer, and things like IH spec defining.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

1 hour ago, Curunen.8729 said:

Heh well we get free relic of evasion, though the trait should be renamed as it's neither desperate nor a decoy anymore! 😄

Dune cloak is confusing.

Only builds I can see it working for are eg Condi shatter with MH sword and eg duelling/illusions and shatterstorm with malicious sorcery etc, and maybe both self deception and deceptive evasion to aggressively burst enemies with shatters and get loads of free mirage cloak.

The problem is all player ambush is still pathetic without clone supplement, and it remains to be seen if there will be enough damage with the presumably increased survivability to be worth it in competitive.

It's an interesting trait now but mirage trait line is still a mess, still core shatters with anti synergy like old phantasm core mesmer, and things like IH spec defining.

I’m seeing it as a buff to power variants, specifically to Sword Mirage.

Mirage Thrust (the Sword ambush) now does x3 damage compared to before (coefficient changed from 1.0 to 3.0), so a single swing now does over 30k damage, factoring in all the modifiers. And what’s interesting is that this skill is also a built-in Deceptive Evasion, you generate a Clone every time it hits.

As you mentioned, power Mesmer variants have no use for Clones as they hit like wet noodles to the point that the damage could be considered 0. So Infinite Horizon isn’t good on a power build.

With the new Dune Cloak however, presumably I see it as devs want to turn our Shatters into burst buttons in tandem with the Sword Ambush. Therefore it creates a playstyle like you described, “aggressively burst enemies with shatters and get loads of free mirage cloak”.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

6 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

I’m seeing it as a buff to power variants, specifically to Sword Mirage.

Mirage Thrust (the Sword ambush) now does x3 damage compared to before (coefficient changed from 1.0 to 3.0), so a single swing now does over 30k damage, factoring in all the modifiers. And what’s interesting is that this skill is also a built-in Deceptive Evasion, you generate a Clone every time it hits.

As you mentioned, power Mesmer variants have no use for Clones as they hit like wet noodles to the point that the damage could be considered 0. So Infinite Horizon isn’t good on a power build.

With the new Dune Cloak however, presumably I see it as devs want to turn our Shatters into burst buttons in tandem with the Sword Ambush. Therefore it creates a playstyle like you described, “aggressively burst enemies with shatters and get loads of free mirage cloak”.

mirage, unlike chrono/virt and even core, lacks power based damage traits and will definitely not be seeing consistent 30k hits from a 3.0 coeff. its actually roughly the same coeff as many of mesmers #2 skills (mirror blade, bladecall, blurred frenzy), but the long leap animation means that itd likely be inferior and hardly "bursty" (itd be better than autoattack at least)

dune cloak doesnt support fast 1 clone shatter bursts either and instead encourages the systematic "build max clones then shatter" gameplay which is arguably not "aggressively bursty". its more or less mirages version of virts reworked infinite forge which forces the exact same overarching playstyle

[Mevelios.4809]

That pseudo-buff to power mirage won't restore interest to the mainhand sword IMO. Leaving aside dagger/GS which should be more or less fine on their own, tripling the power scaling on Mirage thrust doesn't change anything for the other mesmers, neither does it fix the poor damages from Blurred frenzy, the inexistant damages of Illusionary leap (which isn't the virtuoso's Blade leap) or their respective aftercasts.

As much as that's a kind gesture, it's still missing the mark. I enjoyed power mirage a lot during the PoF years, but it definitely didn't scale with today's performances. No use just pointing that out; since warriors don't seem interested in my feedback about how they perform already as healers, guess I'll go back to my favorite character and make suggestions!

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

3 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

mirage, unlike chrono/virt and even core, lacks power based damage traits and will definitely not be seeing consistent 30k hits from a 3.0 coeff.

I'm just as surprised as anyone else when they decided to buff power Mirage, which is of course a spec more known for condi. I'm very aware it's not chrono/virt, and it won't be benching anything relevant. But at least the build went from meme-tier to something coherent, and that's a good start. So the buffs are nice regardless and a welcoming addition.  

Quote

its actually roughly the same coeff as many of mesmers #2 skills (mirror blade, bladecall, blurred frenzy), but the long leap animation means that itd likely be inferior and hardly "bursty" (itd be better than autoattack at least)

The difference is that you can't spam those skills, so by the time those skills are off cooldown you would have finished ~4-5 Ambushes.

Quote

dune cloak doesnt support fast 1 clone shatter bursts either and instead encourages the systematic "build max clones then shatter" gameplay which is arguably not "aggressively bursty". its more or less mirages version of virts reworked infinite forge which forces the exact same overarching playstyle

Of course I don't claim it to be a brand new playstyle, but for something like Mirage then it really is a fresh breath of air.  

And I don't think devs were trying to enforce an overarching playstyle, the way that Clones were designed fundamentally makes Shattering them the only meaningful way to play in any power builds. Which isn't too bad if you add some thematic variations in what they are Shattered for, like Chrono's F1 still feels different from Virt's F1 and soon Mirage's F1.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

6 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

The difference is that you can't spam those skills, so by the time those skills are off cooldown you would have finished ~4-5 Ambushes.

maybe with the exception of blurred frenzy, thats highly unrealistic, and mirage thrust is really bad dps wise that it still wont be bursty even if you could miraculously chain 5 of them

if my arcdps is to be believed, then the current mirage thrust is worth 1/3 of auto dps (minus the clone) and tripling its dmg will only put it on par. the culprit is the long leap animation

6 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Of course I don't claim it to be a brand new playstyle, but for something like Mirage then it really is a fresh breath of air.  

And I don't think devs were trying to enforce an overarching playstyle, the way that Clones were designed fundamentally makes Shattering them the only meaningful way to play in any power builds. Which isn't too bad if you add some thematic variations in what they are Shattered for, like Chrono's F1 still feels different from Virt's F1 and soon Mirage's F1.

the trait wouldnt need a clone count conditional if they werent trying to promote certain playstyles

[Curunen.8729]

15 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

I’m seeing it as a buff to power variants, specifically to Sword Mirage.

Mirage Thrust (the Sword ambush) now does x3 damage compared to before (coefficient changed from 1.0 to 3.0), so a single swing now does over 30k damage, factoring in all the modifiers. And what’s interesting is that this skill is also a built-in Deceptive Evasion, you generate a Clone every time it hits.

As you mentioned, power Mesmer variants have no use for Clones as they hit like wet noodles to the point that the damage could be considered 0. So Infinite Horizon isn’t good on a power build.

With the new Dune Cloak however, presumably I see it as devs want to turn our Shatters into burst buttons in tandem with the Sword Ambush. Therefore it creates a playstyle like you described, “aggressively burst enemies with shatters and get loads of free mirage cloak”.

The pve sword buff could enable something interesting with dune cloak, though in wvw (and by extension pvp) I think the longer cooldowns across the board still don't enable power mirage sufficiently. IH does have more interrupt potential with sword, and EM condi cleanse (while not as good as before since immobilise prevents dodging) may still be preferable. But equally there could be scenarios of eg F1 in sword and immediately detarget and leap away for distance from free mirage cloak - could allow some more juking potential.

I am confused by the seeming redundancy with distortion apart from giving an ambush, and that gets done by desert distortion anyway - it feels not quite there yet in the vision.

Sadly we're still left with problems like core shatters when ambush could/should have really been the F skills and decoupled from dodge, though I will take any little bit of variety we can get!

Edited February 17 by Curunen.8729