Mirage Axe 2 Idea/Suggestion - 3 Illusion Use?

[Silveran.7250]

I'm not sure if others feel the same, but I'm finding that when I'm on my mesmer half the time I don't want to use Axe 2 (Lingering Thoughts) and replace a phantasm against things I actually want high damage on, since it replaces my phantasm with a clone. This does apply to the greatsword somewhat as well regarding Mirror Blade, but with that at least Mind Stab's still usable. It'd be amazing if Axe skill 2 didn't replace illusions if you had 3 phantasms so Mirages at least had a weapon where you wanted to use all your abilities while doing damage, was wondering if anyone else had some thoughts on it.

Ideas:

• Lingering Thoughts just doesn't replace phantasms when there are 3. This is probably the simplest (note- would still generate clones, but only when there were less than 3 Illusions)
• Another idea could be to change the mirage effect on Lingering Thoughts when there are 3 illusions- maybe something like a detonation for a little extra damage or confusion instead of the clone generation?

I know the forum probably won't result in any change to this, I just really wish mesmers had at least 1 mainhand where all 3 skills could be used for offense without any of them crippling damage by replacing phantasms.

[Curunen.8729]

I can accept it not replacing phantasms if you have 3, however it should always replace clones even if you have 3 illusions and one of them is already a clone.

Reasoning is that in pvp it's useful to have a fresh clone as guaranteed shatter fodder that isn't at low health - otherwise there could be the situation that say you have 3 clones out, the first one is at 20% health or something, you don't spawn anything with axe 2 and then that first clone gets killed leaving you with only two illusions - whereas if the axe 2 clone had overwritten the first clone you'd likely have 3 illusions, the most recent of which is guaranteed in melee range ready for shatter.

I could accept it not replacing anything but only if the attack itself gets a solid damage boost if 3 illusions are already out - or the mirage created by lingering thoughts as you say has some effect - ie pulses out 5 stacks of might and I dunno, heals all allies in the 480 radius when it expires. Many options for the effect here.

[Carighan.6758]

Also, they really ought to first and foremost fix the lag with the #2 and #3 skills. I have a feeling Axe might not be such a bad weapon once that is dealt with.

[bart.3687]

@Carighan.6758 said:Also, they really ought to first and foremost fix the lag with the #2 and #3 skills. I have a feeling Axe might not be such a bad weapon once that is dealt with.

^ This. Once the bugs are gone, Axe will be a pretty solid weapon. It's beautiful and extremely fun in PvE. I'd still like some tweaks like being able to change your movement direction during Lingering Thoughts, but it's not necessary.To my mind, Axe is one of the best weapons mesmer has. Wish other weapons were as much fun as the axe is.

[Zenith.7301]

Axe needs evade frames on lingering thoughts or its cast time needs to be reduced.

Lingering Thoughts is virtually the same as Thief's Death Blossom but without the evade frames. There's a reason why animation lock abilities like death blossom and vault have initial evade frames.

So should Lingering Thoughts.

[Curunen.8729]

@Zenith.7301 said:Axe needs evade frames on lingering thoughts or its cast time needs to be reduced.

Lingering Thoughts is virtually the same as Thief's Death Blossom but without the evade frames. There's a reason why animation lock abilities like death blossom and vault have initial evade frames.

So should Lingering Thoughts.

I used to think this but the fact we can hit dodge during lingering thoughts animation makes it less important.

I'd rather have axe skills return endurance on hit - say lingering thoughts returned 10% endurance for each hit or something.

This would be better synergy for more frequent dodge and mirage cloak access.

[Cantatus.4065]

Ideas:

• Lingering Thoughts just doesn't replace phantasms when there are 3. This is probably the simplest (note- would still generate clones, but only when there were less than 3 Illusions)
• Another idea could be to change the mirage effect on Lingering Thoughts when there are 3 illusions- maybe something like a detonation for a little extra damage or confusion instead of the clone generation?

This is one of those things where it'd be really nice to know what their goal is with mirage. If mirage is intended to be more about using clones, then having axe be more of a clone generating weapon makes sense. It means you can generate two clones extremely fast which synergizes with IH/ambushes and, to some extent, shatters. And, if that is what they're going for, then obviously some balancing needs to be done in that regard to bring this side of the spec up to the level of having multiple phantasms.

If not, then obviously you do run into the same problem with how scepter 1 used to be where it becomes a detrimental ability to use due to a dps loss when it overwrites a phantasm. Already the best mirage dps benchmarks that are coming out are ones that completely forego ever using Lingering Thoughts specifically for this reason.

In either case, I don't think Lingering Thoughts is where it needs to be. Either it's functioning in a way that is consistent with their vision of mirage and therefore underpowered in a way that speaks more to the class's mechanics, or it's not and underpowered due to destroying one of your primary sources of dps. It's just very hard to say how it is underperforming without having any idea of how they believe mirage is meant to function.

@Carighan.6758 said:Also, they really ought to first and foremost fix the lag with the #2 and #3 skills. I have a feeling Axe might not be such a bad weapon once that is dealt with.

Definitely. I honestly don't think axe is a bad weapon - when it works. The skill delay just makes it feel really clunky. I've gotten to the point where I just assume Lingering Thoughts will fire twice since it's so unresponsive that I usually have to hit it twice before the first attack will even go. Axes of Symmetry becomes a little more frustrating since you can use it as an evade and not having it actually fire when you need it to can really cost you. That, and its tendency to just teleport you wherever it wants makes it sort of a gamble to use despite actually being a great ability otherwise.

[Zenith.7301]

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Axe needs evade frames on lingering thoughts or its cast time needs to be reduced.

Lingering Thoughts is virtually the same as Thief's Death Blossom but without the evade frames. There's a reason why animation lock abilities like death blossom and vault have initial evade frames.

So should Lingering Thoughts.

I used to think this but the fact we can hit dodge during lingering thoughts animation makes it less important.

I'd rather have axe skills return endurance on hit - say lingering thoughts returned 10% endurance for each hit or something.

This would be better synergy for more frequent dodge and mirage cloak access.

So you need to waste your endurance bar unlike a thief to make the skill function without exposing you massively, and waste your ambush window because you used the dodge in the middle of another skill.

This skill is really no different from ranger's old sword autoattack, and they had to fix that. Animation locks without evade frames suck.

[Curunen.8729]

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Axe needs evade frames on lingering thoughts or its cast time needs to be reduced.

Lingering Thoughts is virtually the same as Thief's Death Blossom but without the evade frames. There's a reason why animation lock abilities like death blossom and vault have initial evade frames.

So should Lingering Thoughts.

I used to think this but the fact we can hit dodge during lingering thoughts animation makes it less important.

I'd rather have axe skills return endurance on hit - say lingering thoughts returned 10% endurance for each hit or something.

This would be better synergy for more frequent dodge and mirage cloak access.

So you need to waste your endurance bar unlike a thief to make the skill function without exposing you massively, and waste your ambush window because you used the dodge in the middle of another skill.

This skill is really no different from ranger's old sword autoattack, and they had to fix that. Animation locks without evade frames suck.

The ambush window extends after axe 2 finishes so it's not wasted - you can dodge during axe 2 and still ambush straight after.

I'd rather have more frequent dodge access right now - for better synergy with elusive mind and IH.

With DE and IH it's 2 clones, ambush straight into shatter, with evade during the animation. Without IH it's still 2 clones straight into shatter while having evade.

Ranger doesn't have on demand 1s evade whenever you like. Mirage's dodge is unique and should be further enabled - with the only real detriment being RSI from too much pressing of the dodge button. It makes it so native evade frames on skills are kind of unnecessary when we can put evade frames wherever we like. More sources of endurance return enabling more frequent dodge is preferable.

I mean sure I wouldn't say no to native evade frame on axe 2, but I don't want to see any increase in the skills cooldown if Anet feels the need to compensate for evade spam by increasing the cooldown in any way.

[OriOri.8724]

At this point I mostly want Axe 2 to be fixed so its not so laggy. Until that goes through I don't see the point in debating anything else about the skill

[Silveran.7250]

@Cantatus.4065 said:

This is one of those things where it'd be really nice to know what their goal is with mirage. If mirage is intended to be more about using clones, then having axe be more of a clone generating weapon makes sense. It means you can generate two clones extremely fast which synergizes with IH/ambushes and, to some extent, shatters. And, if that is what they're going for, then obviously some balancing needs to be done in that regard to bring this side of the spec up to the level of having multiple phantasms.

If not, then obviously you do run into the same problem with how scepter 1 used to be where it becomes a detrimental ability to use due to a dps loss when it overwrites a phantasm. Already the best mirage dps benchmarks that are coming out are ones that completely forego ever using Lingering Thoughts specifically for this reason.

In either case, I don't think Lingering Thoughts is where it needs to be. Either it's functioning in a way that is consistent with their vision of mirage and therefore underpowered in a way that speaks more to the class's mechanics, or it's not and underpowered due to destroying one of your primary sources of dps. It's just very hard to say how it is underperforming without having any idea of how they believe mirage is meant to function.

@Carighan.6758 said:Also, they really ought to first and foremost fix the lag with the #2 and #3 skills. I have a feeling Axe might not be such a bad weapon once that is dealt with.

Definitely. I honestly don't think axe is a bad weapon - when it works. The skill delay just makes it feel really clunky. I've gotten to the point where I just assume Lingering Thoughts will fire twice since it's so unresponsive that I usually have to hit it twice before the first attack will even go. Axes of Symmetry becomes a little more frustrating since you can use it as an evade and not having it actually fire when you need it to can really cost you. That, and its tendency to just teleport you wherever it wants makes it sort of a gamble to use despite actually being a great ability otherwise.

Wanted to respond here- it'd be awesome to have clarification on whether mirage is meant to sit on phantasms or not. I didn't really want to open the full clone vs phantasm can of worms though, and figured the "Don't spawn if 3 illusions active" solution had some precedent with the Scepter autoattack chain. I almost included shatters in general in the topic too since they've got a similar PvE issue where they're kinda a trap for players that haven't read up, but figured it'd be better to focus on a narrower topic. I'm glad other people are commenting though, hopefully the feedback ends up helping or getting us some sort of clarification. The lag is definitely a problem too, but that seems more like an implementation issue than an unclear/potentially contradictory design issue like the clone/phantasm conundrum... regardless, hoping this gets more attention because aside from that, mirage is awesome and I'd love to play it without feeling like I've got dead buttons in PvE

@Curunen.8729 said:I can accept it not replacing phantasms if you have 3, however it should always replace clones even if you have 3 illusions and one of them is already a clone.

Reasoning is that in pvp it's useful to have a fresh clone as guaranteed shatter fodder that isn't at low health - otherwise there could be the situation that say you have 3 clones out, the first one is at 20% health or something, you don't spawn anything with axe 2 and then that first clone gets killed leaving you with only two illusions - whereas if the axe 2 clone had overwritten the first clone you'd likely have 3 illusions, the most recent of which is guaranteed in melee range ready for shatter.

I could accept it not replacing anything but only if the attack itself gets a solid damage boost if 3 illusions are already out - or the mirage created by lingering thoughts as you say has some effect - ie pulses out 5 stacks of might and I dunno, heals all allies in the 480 radius when it expires. Many options for the effect here.

I'd honestly prefer it to work this way as well- replace clone with new clone, but not phantasms. That said, I can't remember off the top of my head whether scepter auto works like that, and figured the easiest way to start off the suggestion would be mimicking that behavior. Thanks for pointing out that the clone's kinda nice in PvP though, I haven't got much experience there and wasn't really qualified to comment on it in that scenario.

[AliamRationem.5172]

I've never liked the way illusions work for mesmers. There's too much conflict between clones and phantasms. Obviously, you want to keep the phantasms in play, but you can't because you're constantly spawning clones and/or using shatters! What if shatters could instead be used as a tool to help you clear out clones and keep phantasms in play? Maybe something like this...

Suggestion: Each phantasm spawns with a 15 second life span. Phantasms no longer count toward your 3 illusion limit and cannot be shattered. Each clone you shatter adds 5 seconds to the life of each phantasm in play.

Edit: So, just thinking on it a bit and evolving this idea. A potential side-effect of this is you'd now have up to twice as many illusions in play. Even if we limit the effects of shatters to clones and ambush to phantasms, you'll still have a lot more visual clutter.

The purpose of clones is now clearly to shatter, which not only produces the effects of the shatter skill itself, but also adds to the remaining lifetime of your phantasms. There's no reason for these guys to be hanging around, taking up space!

Suggestion: Instead of the original flat 5 seconds added to the lifetime of phantasms, let's make a game of it! Phantasms spawn with 15 seconds of life. Shattering clones adds 5 seconds of life per clone to each phantasm in play. However, phantasms can never have more than 15 seconds of life. Clones spawn with 3 seconds of life, but spawning additional clones or phantasms will reset the timer to 3 seconds. Phantasms and clones that are killed or run out of life time grant a reduced amount of time to illusions remaining in play (3 seconds to phantasms and 2 seconds to clones). Casting additional clones or phantasms beyond the maximum will simply add the full duration (3 or 5 seconds) to those in play.

The numbers can be adjusted to achieve the right feel. If, for instance, 3 seconds is too short for clone lifespan or the passive benefit for allowing clones to dissipate too generous. But the basic idea is that clones exist for a short period of time. They get in and get shattered or fade away rather than hanging around. Your phantasms are the ones that remain in play. And I want that to be at least somewhat of a consideration. I don't want maintaining phantasms to feel passive - as if it were simply a side-effect of using other abilities. On the other hand, I don't want this to be anxiety-inducing, where you're constantly racing against the timer to avoid losing your phantasms. I'm looking for the Goldilocks zone here.

Also, while I'm thinking on it, with this way of doing things there's no need to have clones and phantasms despawn when their target is killed. They already have a built-in life span that can never be more than 3 or 15 seconds.