[Suggestion] Ambush Skill Adjustments

[Curunen.8729]

@Abelisk.4527 said:Staff Ambush IMO is worse than Staff's AA because conf/torment aren't cover condis. It would be better if the ambush casted bleed/burn/vulnerability all at once rather than the two common ones.

Why does it need more cover condis? The normal aa from you and clones keeps up all those anyway and it's nice for staff to actually do some proper (Condi) damage with the ambush especially with IH where staff clones become deadly, only neutered by reflects. I love the confusion/torment and would hate to see it changed.

[Carighan.6758]

All I got from this thread so far is that a lot of Mesmers think Sword is super powerful but clearly never used it or know how it works. Please at least use the weapon or read the traits/skills at least. Otherwise it's just really embarassing if you comment on things and openly admit you have no idea.

[Abelisk.4527]

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Abelisk.4527 said:Staff Ambush IMO is worse than Staff's AA because conf/torment aren't cover condis. It would be better if the ambush casted bleed/burn/vulnerability all at once rather than the two common ones.

Why does it need more cover condis? The normal aa from you and clones keeps up all those anyway and it's nice for staff to actually do some proper (Condi) damage with the ambush especially with IH where staff clones become deadly, only neutered by reflects. I love the confusion/torment and would hate to see it changed.

How would this be worse than, say, 5 stacks of bleeding, 3 stacks of burn, and 5 stacks of vulnerability?

[KynnVyr.1378]

I like it, i have some i don't agree but it's minor : the scepter should have less condition but more utilty and just criple isn't enough i think but otherwise great job i really think too the the ambush should be better than just an auto attack, i really hope that they buff this to worthyness because right now i'm gonna play scourge even when mesmer is my main

[Carighan.6758]

@KynnVyr.1378 said:i really think too the the ambush should be better than just an auto attack

This is my biggest gripe. Yeah some of them have nice niche uses, but come on, I give up my motion on dodge for this? For this measely pseudo-improved-but-not-really auto-attack level of damage?

[phokus.8934]

The only ambush I have a problem with (based on the weapons I play) is staff. It needs to home in on the targeted player because it's way too slow.

[Curunen.8729]

@Abelisk.4527 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Abelisk.4527 said:Staff Ambush IMO is worse than Staff's AA because conf/torment aren't cover condis. It would be better if the ambush casted bleed/burn/vulnerability all at once rather than the two common ones.

Why does it need more cover condis? The normal aa from you and clones keeps up all those anyway and it's nice for staff to actually do some proper (Condi) damage with the ambush especially with IH where staff clones become deadly, only neutered by reflects. I love the confusion/torment and would hate to see it changed.

How would this be worse than, say, 5 stacks of bleeding, 3 stacks of burn, and 5 stacks of vulnerability?

Sure if it was that much per orb, per target then I'd be ok with it. Has to be at least 2-3 stacks of burning for 3 seconds, 3 stacks of bleed for 5 seconds and 3 stacks of vuln for 5 seconds.

Although maybe its a flavour thing but I still prefer torment and confusion because it gives another option to stack those condis outside of shattering, opening up a different playstyle. Also helps with enemies in pve that are immune to burning.

[Noss.4105]

Good suggestions. I feel the condis on axe and scepter are a bit on the high side though. Just a little bit.

Infinite Horizon really needs to become baseline before any real balancing can be done with ambushes.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Noss.4105 said:Good suggestions. I feel the condis on axe and scepter are a bit on the high side though. Just a little bit.

Infinite Horizon really needs to become baseline before any real balancing can be done with ambushes.

Yeah, it's hard to find a balance there. I'm sorta assuming no IH with these changes because it just throws the whole thing out of whack. You can't make the ambush attacks both good on their own and balanced if suddenly they're happening 4x over. It's just not reasonable design. It either needs to be baseline and balanced with that in mind, reworked, or removed.

[OriOri.8724]

I have to agree on IH. Like a few other traits/skills that mesmer (or rather chrono) has, it makes balancing mesmer impossible. If ambush attacks are balanced to be used with IH, they will be ridiculously weak without the trait. Conversely, if they are balanced to not having IH, then they will be ridiculously overpowered if we take IH, unless clone ambushes are nerfed so hard as to make the trait worthless.

Just like chronophantasma, IH either needs to go baseline, or be flat out removed from the game. Otherwise ambush attacks will never really be balanced. As they are right now though, a lot of them seem weak even with IH due to special quirks of each ambush attack

[bart.3687]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Noss.4105 said:Good suggestions. I feel the condis on axe and scepter are a bit on the high side though. Just a little bit.

Infinite Horizon really needs to become baseline before any real balancing can be done with ambushes.

Yeah, it's hard to find a balance there. I'm sorta assuming no IH with these changes because it just throws the whole thing out of whack. You can't make the ambush attacks both good on their own and balanced if suddenly they're happening 4x over. It's just not reasonable design. It either needs to be baseline and balanced with that in mind, reworked, or removed.

This. All ambush attacks feel as if devs assumed every mirage will run IH, and they balanced them around it. So there are two ways: remove IH and improve ambushes, or make IH baseline.

[OriOri.8724]

I think removing IH is the better option honestly. The whole gimmick of it about "fooling enemies as to which one is the real mesmer" is just that, a gimmick. It won't stop any good players for more than a second or two, and doesn't have an impact in PvE.

[Curunen.8729]

But IH baseline is more fun and thematic.

Yes the whole "pretend to be a clone" gameplay isn't perfect, but in the interest of aesthetics and thematic consistency, giving all your illusions mirage cloak when you dodge looks cool and enhances the enjoyment of mirage.

I would be so upset if it was removed - that would ruin a lot of what makes mirage fun for me.

For instance, seeing 3 staff clones all blurring at the same time and casting chaos vortex is beautiful - especially if equipping something like Bifrost as the colours match mirage cloak's white/rainbow visual effect.

It's too beautiful to lose and ideally it should be a minor trait - then balance everything around that.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Curunen.8729 said:But IH baseline is more fun and thematic.

Yes the whole "pretend to be a clone" gameplay isn't perfect, but in the interest of aesthetics and thematic consistency, giving all your illusions mirage cloak when you dodge looks cool and enhances the enjoyment of mirage.

I would be so upset if it was removed - that would ruin a lot of what makes mirage fun for me.

For instance, seeing 3 staff clones all blurring at the same time and casting chaos vortex is beautiful - especially if equipping something like Bifrost as the colours match mirage cloak's white/rainbow visual effect.

It's too beautiful to lose and ideally it should be a minor trait - then balance everything around that.

The problem here is that now you end up in a situation where the ambush skills are balanced around having maybe 2 clones out also casting them. In PvP this will go poorly, because in high pressure situations you won't have that. Ditto for WvW. In PvE it'll be problematic because the ambushes will still be weaker than phantasms, so you'll still stack 3 phantasms.

Basically, making IH baseline means that you end up balancing a basic mirage mechanic around an idea (clone sustain) that has been proven to not work. We'll end up in a similar situation to now where all the ambush attacks still feel absolutely awful because you'll never be in a situation where you can use them properly.

[OriOri.8724]

I mean, if its the visuals you want then clone ambushes could go baseline and do absolutely nothing. This would keep the visuals, and would also make it so that only we are actually performing an attack, thus keeping the theme of the trait (no matter how effective/innefective it is). But Fay is right. Balance wise, IH is better off removed.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@OriOri.8724 said:I mean, if its the visuals you want then clone ambushes could go baseline and do absolutely nothing. This would keep the visuals, and would also make it so that only we are actually performing an attack, thus keeping the theme of the trait (no matter how effective/innefective it is). But Fay is right. Balance wise, IH is better off removed.

*Pyro

[Cantatus.4065]

@OriOri.8724 said:I think removing IH is the better option honestly. The whole gimmick of it about "fooling enemies as to which one is the real mesmer" is just that, a gimmick. It won't stop any good players for more than a second or two, and doesn't have an impact in PvE.

Yeah, but even a second or two can be a useful distraction, which I think is more the intent. Sword ambush is also really good for re-positioning clones for Shards of Glass so your mirrors aren't spread out all over the place.

[OriOri.8724]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:I mean, if its the visuals you want then clone ambushes could go baseline and do absolutely nothing. This would keep the visuals, and would also make it so that only we are actually performing an attack, thus keeping the theme of the trait (no matter how effective/innefective it is). But Fay is right. Balance wise, IH is better off removed.

*Pyro

Are you not one and the same? I thought Fay was Pyro?

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:I mean, if its the visuals you want then clone ambushes could go baseline and do absolutely nothing. This would keep the visuals, and would also make it so that only we are actually performing an attack, thus keeping the theme of the trait (no matter how effective/innefective it is). But Fay is right. Balance wise, IH is better off removed.

*Pyro

Are you not one and the same? I thought Fay was Pyro?

No, no, well sorta. Fay is Fay, I'm Pyro. I just...had to put on a different face for a while after all my accounts got permabanned a while back.

[Curunen.8729]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:But IH baseline is more fun and thematic.

Yes the whole "pretend to be a clone" gameplay isn't perfect, but in the interest of aesthetics and thematic consistency, giving all your illusions mirage cloak when you dodge looks cool and enhances the enjoyment of mirage.

I would be so upset if it was removed - that would ruin a lot of what makes mirage fun for me.

For instance, seeing 3 staff clones all blurring at the same time and casting chaos vortex is beautiful - especially if equipping something like Bifrost as the colours match mirage cloak's white/rainbow visual effect.

It's too beautiful to lose and ideally it should be a minor trait - then balance everything around that.

The problem here is that now you end up in a situation where the ambush skills are balanced around having maybe 2 clones out also casting them. In PvP this will go poorly, because in high pressure situations you won't have that. Ditto for WvW. In PvE it'll be problematic because the ambushes will still be weaker than phantasms, so you'll still stack 3 phantasms.

Basically, making IH baseline means that you end up balancing a basic mirage mechanic around an idea (clone sustain) that has been proven to not work. We'll end up in a similar situation to now where all the ambush attacks still feel absolutely awful because you'll never be in a situation where you can use them properly.

@OriOri.8724 said:I mean, if its the visuals you want then clone ambushes could go baseline and do absolutely nothing. This would keep the visuals, and would also make it so that only we are actually performing an attack, thus keeping the theme of the trait (no matter how effective/innefective it is). But Fay is right. Balance wise, IH is better off removed.

While I could accept that, I kind of like the gameplay of having 3 staff clones up proccing as many sources of mirage cloak as possible through skills and dodges. Eg something like this which I enjoy a lot for casual and open world pve so far - http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhQQNAnfWnELDlLj1LDGMDMMjlZjqMAutkxf+7//3MEWhWC-jxxHABA8kCMTfDRK/U+UKc2+DPpEcQ1fCAgAMzysMnZycmzcmn5Mn5Mn5M77ycmzcmzcmzcmzcmlCoKdaA-e (yes I know condi cleanse is very low, so this is a pve only build - would need adjusting to take Mantra cleanse and other things for competitive play).

With both DE and Self Deception together with a full set of deceptions (heal, stg, IA, crystal sands, jaunt) you can pop out clones so fast it's easy to have 3 up almost all the time (here I'm disregarding the fragility of clones in certain game modes - eg large scale wvw). Tbh clone sustain and maintenance is fine outside of the aforementioned scenario where they get crushed too fast - in which case of course use a different build. In any kind of smallscale fight - whether pve or pvp, DE and SD pop out clones so fast you'll always have enough up.

At least for open world pve it plays similar to old phantasm mesmer, just with clones and you running around proccing evades and mirage cloak - the staff clones stack up a huge amount of condi providing they hit.

I suppose the main counter argument to this I can think of is it could be considered "cheesy" gameplay - kind of a different flavour of summoning 3 phantasms and then hiding behind them, or old clone death builds - but in this case you just proc clones to cast condi ambush all the time. In any case it's not disfunctional - rather it functions pretty well and would be even more effective if staff ambush tracked the target.

If condi application was taken away from staff clones this wouldn't work - which personally I think would be sad because I don't think this kind of playstyle is overpowered or cheesy given you're not able to permastealth like old PU due to evasive mirror procs and bouncing staff attacks.

[tnhalbertsma.7682]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@tnhalbertsma.7682 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Ok, lets clear up some of the things that aren't even remotely true here.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It does damage

It has a .75 power coefficient. This is functionally identical to a single sword autoattack. Please don't confuse this for "damage".

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze.

Yes, but it's on a .75s windup that also needs a prior activation to use. At best you're looking at a realistic 1s activation time...and that's not sufficient to actually use as an interrupt for the vast majority of skills.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes.

No you can't. Unless you somehow manage to make your melee sword clones that follow the target around end up more than 600 range away from the target, all the clones will hit at the same time. This isn't possible without ridiculous LoS shenanigans that won't ever happen.

@atlashugged.7642 said:In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage.

It's a grand total of 1s daze breakbar damage with 3 clones in PvE. Firstly, this is utter trash. Secondly, if you ever have 3 sword clones up in PvE, something has gone terribly wrong, so you'll never even hit that already trash 1s daze.

@atlashugged.7642 said:It doesn't need damage to do good.

It doesn't, which is why I suggested an option that simply increases the daze duration. Otherwise, it needs damage.

@atlashugged.7642 said:The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

Feel free to explain why a 1s daze would break PvP, but I have a feeling there's going to be no explanation forthcoming.

Well, now that that's cleared up, does anyone else have some

valid

comments?

Again, because it synergises with the Domination tratiline increasing Daze duration and Stun duration, while making Dazes potential Stuns. This is pretty good, since you have loads of on-demand dazes. Can lock someone down for a decent amount of time. Only issue is that, to do this correctly for a longer duration, you'll be using your dodges offensively as well.

If your illusions are already on the target, and you dodge out of there while at the last bit of that 1 second window using your Mirage Thrust, you end up on the target later than your illusions right? Possibly stacking duration upon the cc already there. Haven't paid enough attention to see if this works in practice, but I'm fairly certain it works.

You need to remember that confounding suggestions has a 5s icd. You can't actually stunlock someone with that, you can only use it once for a burst before it's on cd. Additionally, the duration of the daze doesn't actually matter for that trait. No matter what, it ends up as a 1s stun, so buffing it to 1s daze wouldn't change the balance of it.

You're correct that you could hold your own mirage thrust to the very end up of the window and stagger the attacks that your clones produce with your own attack. However, atlashugged compared this to staggering clones with diversion. With diversion, you can set up your clones at varying distances from the target, causing dazes over and over as each clone reaches the target and explodes. You can't do this

at all

with mirage thrust. All 3 clones will always land at the same time.

Thanks, that clears things up. Wasn't aware of those mechanics. And yeah, having played with it some more today it really didn't feel too effective. Too bad, feel like it it's the only way for Power Mirage to be viable.

Still a pretty big fan of GS on the Mirage, it looks amazing if you have three clones and yourself shooting the Ambush laser ability on a bunch of enemies. Actually adds a surprising amount of damage on top of the already pretty big burst.Sadly there's just no great melee set to go with it.

[R E F L H E X.8413]

GreatswordThe greatsword is used to facilitate close range, single target, burst damage and long range harassment. Currently the skill does neither. My version uses reverse range >scaling to boost the damage of a close range burst and applies some control to allow it functionality as long range harassment."

Actually the greatsword is used for ranged cleave and the ambush does that amazingly well. you hit atleast 3 people on point with all kinds of ranged cleaves while standing far away.

[FJSAMA.2867]

I like op changes except staff. I dont like the current staff ambush either.It would be better to make it a small channeled block that dropped up to 3 wind of chaos bolts at the end of block, aiming up to 3 nearby enemies. Exacly like revenent staff block but instead of blinding bolts, it drops wind of chaos.The animation even syncs up...

[R E F L H E X.8413]

@FJSAMA.2867 said:I like op changes except staff. I dont like the current staff ambush either.

The gsword ones really bad you want to range like a longbow ranger with that weapon and you want it to be aoe.

[Zenith.7301]

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Sword

This skill is also fairly decent, but for such a short duration cc, the damage is really awful. This skill could be modified in one of 3 ways:

1. Boost the damage coefficient to 1.5. This makes the attack appropriately noticable.
2. Boost the damage coefficient to 2.5 on a successful interrupt, but lower the base damage to .5. This makes the skill very punchy when used carefully and fits with the mesmer interrupt theme.
3. Leave the damage as-is and boost the daze duration to 1s. This makes it a powerful control skill and produced the option to scale daze duration for additional control.

Mirage thrust isn't decent, it's amazing. It does damage, it makes a clone, it moves you, and it does a daze. In PvP an interrupt only needs a quarter second daze. It's worth noting that if you have the Domination trait that replaces dazes with stuns, this gives you a 1 second stun. It's also worth noting that with proper clone positioning and infinite horizons, you can stagger the dazes. It's like a mini diversion. In PvE, it's break bar damage, and with infinite horizons, it's pretty good break bar damage It doesn't need damage to do good. The non damage buff you suggested is also obscene, and would probably break PvP.

I agree with you that the ambush skills need work, but try to keep your suggestions reasonable.

lol please, 1/4 daze breakbar damage is pathetic. For reference, mantra of distraction barely scratched a breakbar at 1s daze, even with a 1s stun the ambush is trash.

And the opportunity cost of taking power mirage in pve is you do some of the worst damage in the game.