Is there a reason to play Mirage when Virtuoso & Chrono exist?

[MilkyTea.9042]

Title.

Condi virtuoso just seems so much easier to consistently push out dps as seen by Cerus CM and Chronomancer fills the support role well enough with providing alac or quickness. Is mirage ever going to get some more love for strikes/raids or is it just going to be cursed to being the open world solo build?

[Geronmy.3298]

2 minutes ago, MilkyTea.9042 said:

Title.

Condi virtuoso just seems so much easier to consistently push out dps as seen by Cerus CM and Chronomancer fills the support role well enough with providing alac or quickness. Is mirage ever going to get some more love for strikes/raids or is it just going to be cursed to being the open world solo build?

As i always say, you play Mirage because

A)You actually love the concept even if the execution is not the best.

B)You actually hate yourself

C) A and B

Edited April 3 by Geronmy.3298

[sanguigasm.1325]

Power mirage is really good in wvw actually. Laser gun is super satisfying. Edit: oh I didn't read body text. Oh well

Pve esp instanced probably no so much. Playing staxe is more of a statement imo

While we're at it, anet buff mirage PLEASE. Give my phantasmal spinning axe back 

Edited April 3 by sanguigasm.1325

[Micah.3789]

Mirage has very few benefits over the other Especs, and they're usually not very relevant to instanced PvE. Mostly, it has very good damage mitigation through regular evasion and it has pretty great mobility. Alac mirage also provides a massive amount of might, easily maintaining 25 stacks by itself, but that's pretty redundant with most healers.

Really, the only unique strength I've found in mirage is the ability to maintain support and some damage simultaneously. That makes it a pretty excellent celestial hybrid healer. Problem is, the playstyle is VERY high intensity. So high in fact, that the build is relegated to non-meta obscurity due to low accessibility. Though for me, nothing in the game performs better as a boonhealer. Healing just a bit less than good meta healers while doing about 60% of a boondps' damage is an incredible way to ensure smoother encounters, especially while you're personally evading 50% of the time. You won't find a build posted anywhere, as I might be the only one playing it lol. Hit me up if you want to try it. I could even do a separate post if people are interested.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, MilkyTea.9042 said:

Title.

Condi virtuoso just seems so much easier to consistently push out dps as seen by Cerus CM and Chronomancer fills the support role well enough with providing alac or quickness. Is mirage ever going to get some more love for strikes/raids or is it just going to be cursed to being the open world solo build?

I ask the same question myself sometimes. I guess if you practice Mirage enough you can get alot more DPS out of it especially if you plan on playing a Alacrity Support. 

It ends up being an extra 5k depending on the equivalent role compared to Chronomancer.

In terms of Virtuoso and Mirage comparisons. It's so close now there is almost no reason to play Mirage. Especially since for what ever reason Virtuoso has no ramp up even if it is Condition damage. It has less ramp up than Chronomancer which is power. 

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Micah.3789 said:

Mirage has very few benefits over the other Especs, and they're usually not very relevant to instanced PvE. Mostly, it has very good damage mitigation through regular evasion and it has pretty great mobility. Alac mirage also provides a massive amount of might, easily maintaining 25 stacks by itself, but that's pretty redundant with most healers.

Really, the only unique strength I've found in mirage is the ability to maintain support and some damage simultaneously. That makes it a pretty excellent celestial hybrid healer. Problem is, the playstyle is VERY high intensity. So high in fact, that the build is relegated to non-meta obscurity due to low accessibility. Though for me, nothing in the game performs better as a boonhealer. Healing just a bit less than good meta healers while doing about 60% of a boondps' damage is an incredible way to ensure smoother encounters, especially while you're personally evading 50% of the time. You won't find a build posted anywhere, as I might be the only one playing it lol. Hit me up if you want to try it. I could even do a separate post if people are interested.

You are slowely convincing me to play Alacrity Mirage again. I recently went back to playing Axe DPS Mirage mostly in Open World though. 

[mirage.8046]

Not unless you love the class theme or you are a dedicated mirage player. I really wish confusion get buffed again so condi mirage could shine like it used to. Axe condi mirage has a pretty high skill ceiling which may be more fun than the 1200 range condi virtuoso. For PvE, alac mirage is okay, but it has to twist its arms by taking infinite horizon and your utilities are less flexible unlike many support builds. I miss the old condi alac mirage that only ever needed desert distortion, even if staff ambush had alacrity for free. xd.

[Averax.8617]

Mirage is fun and it makes me feel safe... like a warm blanket

But i only do open world/solo stuff so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

I guess only if you like the Mirage theme and gameplay. But practicality-wise then yeah there’s really no reason.

With Staxe now practically gone due to trait split, I wish they’d allow a fraction of the original Alac Mirage back, and also get rid of the dependence on Clone for Alac uptime (and increase the Alac duration up a bit for easier buffer room). That’d make Alac Mirage a lot more reliable, and a choice against Chrono as a condi vs power choice in fights that favor condi more. I don’t really understand why they had to destroy Alac Mirage like what they did.

At least outside of Strikes/Raids/Fractals then Mirage is still a beast. For example, I’ve just begun the Raid armor journey and yesterday I’ve just used Mirage to solo a few HoT champs required for the Envoy collection. So to me Mirage still shines at the 1 niche it’s really good at.

[Dadnir.5038]

If you're a performance focused player then, atm, the answer is "no".

If you're a fun focused player then there isn't even a need for this question.

GW2 developpers mainly create things for fun focused players then they tweak numbers from time to time to change the perception of the performance focused players.

[Fueki.4753]

It may be a hard concept to understand, but there is a thing called fun.

Some people simply enjoy playing Mirage.

[zeyeti.8347]

They need to rework confusion in order to have mirage back on wheels , it's the only class (with mace on engi) who rely on confusion that much and as the condi is now the worst condi damage in the game the class has been forgotten , for me it doesn't matter mirage was strong on peculiar bosses , as long as they not fit everywhere.

For now the confusion condi deals without the bonus damage less damage than bleeding ... and that is a huge problem 

bleeding is 22 + 0.06 ratio from condi damage and confusion is 18.25 + 0.05 ratio from condi and the damage ramp up from skill activation is 16.34 + 0.0325 ratio from condi damage , so even the bonus damage is weak and as you cannot stack this condition as much as bleeding it will always be a poor choice. and it's even worse in pvp/wvw.

They need to rethink this condition , why not making it a condition who procs damage on hits then pulse condi damage normally , scaling with the number of stacks of confusion the target has , with a max treshold ofc , we don't want mirage stacking xD , or a condition who deals more damage to moving targets , or one who consume some stacks of confusion , making their damage instantly instead of on a duration with ofc another max treshold when the boss get hitted in a certain period with x stacks of confusion , or simply remove it and replace it with torment that will do too 😛 .

Edited April 4 by zeyeti.8347

[eXistence.3876]

For fun. Stop thinking so much about numbers...it's ruining the game.

[dead.7638]

Mirage is a great dueling spec

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Mirage's value comes in places that generally aren't useful in PVE: defenses, and mobility.  It is rare for me to need the mirage, but one such place was when i was duoing the Hearts and Minds CM, both against Eir and the final boss.  I tried using the other specs, but both Virt and Chrono just couldn't heap on the damage or stay alive.  But the mirage was able to kite and dodge everything.  The clones would upkeep a relatively high sustained damage, while Jaunt/Axes of Symmetry/Phase Retreat let me avoid all of the ground AoEs, and the prolific amount of Endurnace and mirage mirrors let me avoid attacks while reflecting projectiles in mass.  

[draxynnic.3719]

On 4/4/2024 at 6:05 PM, zeyeti.8347 said:

They need to rework confusion in order to have mirage back on wheels , it's the only class (with mace on engi) who rely on confusion that much and as the condi is now the worst condi damage in the game the class has been forgotten , for me it doesn't matter mirage was strong on peculiar bosses , as long as they not fit everywhere.

Personally, I considered that a good thing. Gives incentives to change up the squad structure occasionally rather than bringing two heralds, two scourges, and six virtuosos (or whatever the default squad for organised guilds is nowadays) to everything.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Personally, I considered that a good thing. Gives incentives to change up the squad structure occasionally rather than bringing two heralds, two scourges, and six virtuosos (or whatever the default squad for organised guilds is nowadays) to everything.

That was just Snowcrow's Cerus squad; 1 Druid, 1 Scourge, 2 Herald and 6 Virtuoso. It's not a default composition to anything, it's just a very safe composition to try out unknown content, and Virtuoso was chosen specifically for SC team's portal strategy.

Players can bring most classes to any encounters nowadays, but of course they still must respect the optimal way to deal damage in said encounter (i.e. power damage over condi in Harvest Temple, ranged damage over melee in Surf/Dagda, etc.). 

11 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Mirage's value comes in places that generally aren't useful in PVE: defenses, and mobility.  It is rare for me to need the mirage, but one such place was when i was duoing the Hearts and Minds CM, both against Eir and the final boss.  I tried using the other specs, but both Virt and Chrono just couldn't heap on the damage or stay alive.  But the mirage was able to kite and dodge everything.  The clones would upkeep a relatively high sustained damage, while Jaunt/Axes of Symmetry/Phase Retreat let me avoid all of the ground AoEs, and the prolific amount of Endurnace and mirage mirrors let me avoid attacks while reflecting projectiles in mass.  

This.

All of Mirage's strengths are not what instanced PvE group content needs. There's no need to be evasive and mobile when you have to stack with the squad 99% of the time and the support members take care of your survivability; if anything the random teleports make you more likely to fall into the wrong AoEs and die miserably (Axe 3, Illusionary Ambush). 

Although that's only a problem with condi variants. The new approach with power Mirage is very interesting and seems to be a lot more reliable (no Clone dependence, no random teleports). It's already very promising, with a few more tweaks to flesh it out then power Mirage might definitely see more play in instanced content.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

That was just Snowcrow's Cerus squad; 1 Druid, 1 Scourge, 2 Herald and 6 Virtuoso. It's not a default composition to anything, it's just a very safe composition to try out unknown content, and Virtuoso was chosen specifically for SC team's portal strategy.

Players can bring most classes to any encounters nowadays, but of course they still must respect the optimal way to deal damage in said encounter (i.e. power damage over condi in Harvest Temple, ranged damage over melee in Surf/Dagda, etc.). 

This.

All of Mirage's strengths are not what instanced PvE group content needs. There's no need to be evasive and mobile when you have to stack with the squad 99% of the time and the support members take care of your survivability; if anything the random teleports make you more likely to fall into the wrong AoEs and die miserably (Axe 3, Illusionary Ambush). 

Although that's only a problem with condi variants. The new approach with power Mirage is very interesting and seems to be a lot more reliable (no Clone dependence, no random teleports). It's already very promising, with a few more tweaks to flesh it out then power Mirage might definitely see more play in instanced content.

I see you saw where my source was. It doesn't really change my point, though: in practice, you can run most content with just about anything as long as the basic roles and any encounter-specific mechanics are covered, but when the going gets tough, the tough know what works. Things have now been normalised so much that outside of dealing with encounter-specific roles like kiters, pushers, portalers, or reflecters, you pretty much bring the same comp to everything. If bringing 'the best' matters to your group, people know broadly what that is and while it may change with balance patches, it doesn't really change with bosses - the saving grace is that you don't normally need the best and people can bring what they feel like playing (including mirage) and be okay.

Edited April 5 by draxynnic.3719

[zeyeti.8347]

On 4/6/2024 at 1:36 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

I see you saw where my source was. It doesn't really change my point, though: in practice, you can run most content with just about anything as long as the basic roles and any encounter-specific mechanics are covered, but when the going gets tough, the tough know what works. Things have now been normalised so much that outside of dealing with encounter-specific roles like kiters, pushers, portalers, or reflecters, you pretty much bring the same comp to everything. If bringing 'the best' matters to your group, people know broadly what that is and while it may change with balance patches, it doesn't really change with bosses - the saving grace is that you don't normally need the best and people can bring what they feel like playing (including mirage) and be okay.

That's good if you are on a realtively ez content , if people act like that and everyone bring what he feels like well with recent encounters you gonna fall short and it will again resort on your healers to downtime the pressure for a longer period.

I take my own example , i tend to take what the squad needs (because i know the basics of any spec and don't have my fun rooted to just one playstyle) , but on the other hand i largely feel like sometimes compensating for my squad weaknesses , i don't mind doing it , but when you are just a few to be able to adapt and perform well it kind of feel nauseathing, like switching to hscg for Matthias cause downtime is crazy.

Ofc it happens when you have trainees and not at all when i am in a confirmed squad , but they are obvious e-specs who are weaker than the others and mirage is one of them , currently proudly played between 0.1 and 0.5% in endgame content

If a class is so less played by ppl who download their clears that simply means the class is either weak , not fun , badly designed , too complicated , for mirage i would say it's a fun spec but is complicated , weak and badly designed atm.

A good confusion rework could save the day , 2x staff mirage is still there and functional , but it is far beyond any other alacrity dps support.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

That's good if you are on a realtively ez content , if people act like that and everyone bring what he feels like well with recent encounters you gonna fall short and it will again resort on your healers to downtime the pressure for a longer period.

I take my own example , i tend to take what the squad needs (because i know the basics of any spec and don't have my fun rooted to just one playstyle) , but on the other hand i largely feel like sometimes compensating for my squad weaknesses , i don't mind doing it , but when you are just a few to be able to adapt and perform well it kind of feel nauseathing, like switching to hscg for Matthias cause downtime is crazy.

Ofc it happens when you have trainees and not at all when i am in a confirmed squad , but they are obvious e-specs who are weaker than the others and mirage is one of them , currently proudly played between 0.1 and 0.5% in endgame content

If a class is so less played by ppl who download their clears that simply means the class is either weak , not fun , badly designed , too complicated , for mirage i would say it's a fun spec but is complicated , weak and badly designed atm.

A good confusion rework could save the day , 2x staff mirage is still there and functional , but it is far beyond any other alacrity dps support.

By that basis, I'd classify most raids (all of the HoT raids at least, wing 5, CA, the two cardinals, and what's left is probably more lack of experience than anything) and any non-CM content except maybe Pugskinner as 'relatively ez'. Groups I've run with have been able to be pretty laissez faire about what people bring as long as the important roles, including roles for encounter-specific mechanics, are covered.

I would agree, though, that the balance team needs to pay more attention to play rate and less attention to golem numbers when making decisions.

[zeyeti.8347]

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I would agree, though, that the balance team needs to pay more attention to play rate and less attention to golem numbers when making decisions.

Yes this ! making the whole pve balance about a bench done on a non moving and non active pinata is absolutely hilarous.

I would more look into playrate than benches , after all if a class is not played at all , it means the class is just bad , not fun and not efficient enough.

but now that every class can do all sort of jobs (alacrity , quickness , healer etc ) , ppl will mostly stick with what is the more efficient.

the current best benchers is condi deadeye ... have you seen any deadeye condi in your squad ?

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

By that basis, I'd classify most raids (all of the HoT raids at least, wing 5, CA, the two cardinals, and what's left is probably more lack of experience than anything) and any non-CM content except maybe Pugskinner as 'relatively ez'. Groups I've run with have been able to be pretty laissez faire about what people bring as long as the important roles, including roles for encounter-specific mechanics, are covered.

Maybe , but you always have that % of skilled players who outshine the others and do pratically carry them out , as dps or healer , in pugs who accept low kp it's a chance ratio.

i am mainly pissed because i really liked the 2x staff mirage gameplay being outstandingly good against certain bosses and just horrible against other ones, now it's just not effective against any bosses , but that's mainly because we have now way better alacrity dpses than him like renegade and specter and becasue confusion has been completely demoslished thus eeing some skills giving torment instead of confusion being a miarge thing , like staff 3 used to do vulnerability and now it's torment , anet knows confusion is a bad condition hard to balance , cause it can either be useless or completely wreck a boss , but now it's mostly useless.

[Micah.3789]

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

i really liked the 2x staff mirage gameplay being outstandingly good against certain bosses and just horrible against other ones, now it's just not effective against any bosses

I'm really glad they're moving away from such extreme performance swings. I like staying on a character I'm invested in no matter what content I'm doing, rather than switch to whatever is massively overperforming in that specific encounter. I just wish that was implemented fairly. 

I do, however, agree that they overcorrected with mirage rendering it bad to mediocre across the board. Rather than returning its skewed strengths, I'd like to see its consistency improved. Speeding up the ramp up time would be a great place to start.

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

confusion has been completely demoslished thus eeing some skills giving torment instead of confusion being a miarge thing , like staff 3 used to do vulnerability and now it's torment , anet knows confusion is a bad condition hard to balance , cause it can either be useless or completely wreck a boss , but now it's mostly useless.

A little exaggerated, but I agree that confusion is a problem. Punishing targets with damage for activating skills was a bad design choice in the first place. In competitive modes you deny your own damage by controlling your target. In all modes, you're dependent on the target to interact with your mechanic instead of having the control to proc it yourself, which leads to VERY inconsistent output (usually very low).

IF they wanted to keep the design it should be balanced like torment: does good damage baseline, but does great damage when conditions are met. Instead of being a flat amount that activates per proc, it could be a boost to the tick damage within a small window after activating a skill.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

8 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

IF they wanted to keep the design it should be balanced like torment: does good damage baseline, but does great damage when conditions are met. Instead of being a flat amount that activates per proc, it could be a boost to the tick damage within a small window after activating a skill.

I....kinda think it should go the other way. We were discussing this in your other thread, but I kinda want to expand on it here. We all agree that confusions DoT sucks. And honestly, bumping up its DoT to match Poison or Bleeding isn't really an option given that it also procs damage. WHAT IF, and just stay with me here, we stripped the Damage over TIme entirely and focused instead on the proc. Dump that damage into the proc so every time you use a skill it hits back, and then for every stack it hits back harder. The damage done on proc is....just an incomprehensible equation but if your confusion did....and I'm just throwing numbers here but 250 damage on skill activation but you could stack 6-8-10 stacks of confusion that's 1500-2000-2500 damage every time you swing your sword. Not only is that very significant in the middle of a fight but I think it's a nice callback to Empathy in GW1 but it might even serve the same purpose, forcing them to either back off or cleanse.

I think TOrment is great the way it is since forcing you to move makes it a little harder to fight but we can strafe and fight so torment is really neutered from the start, but this change to Confusion might actually make it more viable, particularly in PvP (I don't see it being that significant in OW/PvE).

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I....kinda think it should go the other way. We were discussing this in your other thread, but I kinda want to expand on it here. We all agree that confusions DoT sucks. And honestly, bumping up its DoT to match Poison or Bleeding isn't really an option given that it also procs damage. WHAT IF, and just stay with me here, we stripped the Damage over TIme entirely and focused instead on the proc. Dump that damage into the proc so every time you use a skill it hits back, and then for every stack it hits back harder. The damage done on proc is....just an incomprehensible equation but if your confusion did....and I'm just throwing numbers here but 250 damage on skill activation but you could stack 6-8-10 stacks of confusion that's 1500-2000-2500 damage every time you swing your sword. Not only is that very significant in the middle of a fight but I think it's a nice callback to Empathy in GW1 but it might even serve the same purpose, forcing them to either back off or cleanse.

I think TOrment is great the way it is since forcing you to move makes it a little harder to fight but we can strafe and fight so torment is really neutered from the start, but this change to Confusion might actually make it more viable, particularly in PvP (I don't see it being that significant in OW/PvE).

That's what it used to do. What we have now is the result of years of moving away from that model.

[kounabi.4352]

i play mirage from the start until now.....nothing give me more pleasure than the build mirage staff/dagger/pistol