I Tried Alac DPS MIRAGE - Thoughts
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I have about a thousand hours on miralac, mostly in fractals. Some comments:
- Just play a different alac dps until ANet buffs this.
- Crystal Sands should be placed on top of the boss when you can manage it - each of the six projectiles that come in to your ground targeted point do damage.
- Whenever you Staff 2, try to get a chaos field down first. You want chaos armor. (This doesn't apply to the opener.)
- Ritualist gives you way more boon uptime than you'll ever need, but this can be the right choice on fights with lots of downtime where your dps already sucks.
- Mirage is in the middle of the road for maintaining boon uptime without a target. It gives 66% of the duration without a target (and thus without clones), which is better than, say, Willbender.
- Because you stand in place when you dodge, you can spend more time getting the downed up by just dodging while you res.
- The same thing applies to the F4 shatter. Boss doing some stuff? Just F4 and keep ressing.
- Your F4 also gives group stability when you take Bountiful Disillusionment in Chaos - this is a DPS loss but also helps cover group vigor uptime and can be used for even more personal stability.
- This class got nerfed twice: confusion got changed and does less damage, alac duration got nerfed, and on top of those, nearly every other alac source got buffed.
- Just play a different alac dps until ANet buffs this.
Its a shame really, liked this build for aesthetic and solo potential in opw, now it just sits in bjora😒
i only ever used this on SH and Largos twins. the confusion nerfs really hurt
thanks for saving me the time to give basically the same remarks ^^
The build is actually pretty good with boon sharing, tons of alac, might, fury. It can also do other boons through bountiful disillusionment. The problem is the dps ramp up after confusion nerf. With power creep and every fight finishes shorter, the spec's damage output just can't compete with other choices. Similar issue exists with condi dps mirage.
The largest QoL that anet could give mesmers would be to tie clones to the player instead of the target and have them fade after some amount of time (5-10s) of no combat. It would smooth out so many problems from target swapping to open world play where things die too fast to shatter (chrono problem).
I wish someone at anet would see this
Honestly, I still don't know why, of all the elite specs in the game, Mirage is the only one to require a specific weapon. Why doesn't the same trait just make ALL ambushes give alac? It would open up the build so much more so it could compete with chrono and the other professions.
I get what you are saying, but if that happens then it will just be another Dagget/Sword-Insert Off Hand Mesmer Build.
I would rather they go back and make some builds Weapon Specific to create more Weapon Variety in the Builds/Classes/Roles
@cambeul That's the same argument that people used back when only some peofessions could give one of the two important boons. "Oh people are just going to find the best alac/quick build and only use that." When Anet gives us more option we have more, not less. Sure, there will always be a more optimal way of doing things, but honestly most ppl don't care and will prob just go with what they like.
Even if they do change it to all weapon ambush, in raids staff would still be preferred unless weapons are reworked which won't happen.
@@cambeul mirage cannot use D/SW because it isn't virt.
cvirt its built around number of crit hits = bleed, and thats a virt specific trait.
c crono for example, doesn't have it, therefore, it doesn't use d/sw, because neither dagger or sword do any kind of condition damage.
sadly, only cvirt and power mesmer builds are allowed to do full dps at 1200 range with no downsides.
It's simple: It would make Mirage broken. The reason Chaos Vortex is bound to have staff clones is because Anet doesn't want Stax-Mirage to exist. Axe is a potent weapon for condi mirage. Stax-Mirage was able to do 40k DPS with full might and alac. That's why you don't get alac on any other ambush.
They nerfed the alac duration to force you to only use staff for alac instead of the staff/axe build and to try to force you to use ritualist gear instead of full vipers to keep up alac which cut the damage too.
This sorta made sense when they did it because it did really good damage with very easy alac uptime compared to most other classes at the time, but then they went and made a bunch of other classes just as easy to provide alac and do significantly more damage and have better utility options so it's just kind of... why would you play this one over anything else now.
One thing to note is that when you dodge on a mirage you still get a speed boost, so you can move almost as well as a traditional dodge. It's also worth mentioning that while it's important to have clones to give alacrity, you still give a meaningful amount without them. Your tooltip said that you give 3 seconds per ambush and each clone give 0.5 seconds, so with 3 clones they give 1.5 seconds together, or 33% of the total alacrity given.
You can also swap out Jaunt for moa signet for more CC. Jaunt is a tiny bit more damage and condition cleanse, but sometimes the extra CC is nice.
I think it's fun that this build exists, but chrono generally outclasses it. If played perfectly each will do similar damage, but I think Chrono can be more flexible with its utilities. You can swap out the signets on mirage to use a different utility skill, but it feels bad losing the damage that the signets give you.
As you said Mirage is best on long fights against a single target, but it can also be better than chrono for survivability. Mirage will be dodging a lot and can provide its own regen and vigor if needed. Its heal skill is over time, but it does heal more in total than most standard heals.
As much as people rag on how it's bad, I've found double tap arrow keys to work wonders with mirage as far as traditional dodge rolling goes.
I also love how since their dodge roll interrupts nothing, you can just use it while reviving or stomping to hilarious effect.
So my biggest feedback on the build you ran involves a couple traits that majorly impact some of the issues you had.
1) you took Ineptitude in Dueling, which gives a tiny amount more dps, but i GREATLY prefer Deceptive Evasion because it generates a new clone every time you dodge. This makes keeping up clones soooo much easier cause you're constantly farting out clones when you ambush.
2) you put perma Vigor and Regen on the console, but you can literally do that yourself by taking Renewing Oasis (over Riddle of sand) which provides 5+ seconds of Regen every time you gain mirage cloak, and it dramatically reduces the incoming condi damage you take. All Shatter skills give you 4 seconds of vigor via Nomad's Endurance, and Bountiful Disillusionment gives you another 11 seconds vigor on your shatter 2, so JUST hitting shatter 2 alone gives you like 15 sec of vigor (+/- boon gear), REGARDLESS of how many clones you have out because that boon time is not dependent on how many clones you have out. So you can literally hit all of your F keys when you don't have any clones out and still get all that vigor uptime. I almost always blast F1-F3 (saving Distortion for emergencies) any time my clones go down, or my cooldowns for clone generating skills come back up because you can stack like 25 sec vigor at a time. Then you also get vigor from critical strikes via Critical Infusion, so Vigor can be suuuuper easy to upkeep, snowballing you into more dodges, thus more clones, thus more alac uptime and damage....
To me, Deceptive Evasion and Renewing Oasis, plus mixing in some Shatter 2 are hugely important in this build because of all the things you gain via those traits and the synergy you get with them and Regen and Vigor.
This.
Using self-deception (adept trait) Lets you generate clones much faster if you have split phases. you just use staff 2, and two deception skills and you can generate all the boons on whatever you're attacking. might be worth it
I still play it because i only play Mirage. To kinda workaround the invul phases and stuff i just bring sigils of boon duration and swap my weapons and amulet from vipers to ritualist. That gives you enough BD to cap alac by the time you can't really ambush with your clones anymore.
I'm soo here for this. I loved this build but needed a break from it for a while. Yep the clones disappearing makes this build stressful. I'm pretty sure some builds said to use at least some ritualist pieces instead of full viper, but that might have changed since the initial nerf or whatever they did to it last year.
LETS GOOOOO ALAC MIRAGE GUIDE! TY MUKLUK!
He's said several times, even in this video, that these are not guides lmao
Great thumbnail idea! :D
When you switch targets (IE: CO when she go invulnerable, and ads appear) the clones stay up cause the main boss is still up. I normally am able to keep up 100% up time. For AH, beginning of scarlet phase you can also continue to pump out your own for a little bit while clones are on standby and using multiple ad phase your clones will choose a random new target but still stay up since your original boss is still up.
The mirage heal skill might heal you slowly but its healing per minute is pretty high.
You can use the grandmaster trait in Dueling that gives you a clone every time you dodge to make target swapping a bit easier at the cost of DPS. The spec already has mid-low DPS but it's an option.
Mirage's one remaining party trick is DPS uptime against a single massive health bar. With all the port/evasion on tap there is almost no reason to not be attacking & keeping the level of condi high. Boss'es like the one at the end of silent surf are great for just grinding you way to the top of the DPS chart.
It's not much, but it's what we've got.
i remember playing this back in the day, and feeling very very sweaty just mindlessly dodging lol
If you're having difficulties keeping clones up, you can swap to Deceptive Evasion on the Dueling Traitline, this gives you a clone every time you dodge, which will also immediately use the ambush skill. This can be useful for repositioning your clones as well.
Also also, if you find yourself needing to swap targets often (rather than outright dropping target because boss went untargetable) consider taking Illusory ambush over one of your signets, as this will retarget all currently active clones rather than them disappearing.
I like this build a lot. It's good for learning encounters because you can do the rotation without looking down at your skill bar / buffs, and jaunt is great when you notice an attack telegraph too late to move. Cleave is lacking, and it gives you bad habits because you dodge for your rotation, and you wind up using jaunt instead of dodge to avoid things. I use Mirror Images to generate new clones quickly, since it instantly generates clones with no cast time or waiting for phantasms to become clones. It is definitely a boring build, but sometimes you don't feel like playing piano.
Just curious Muk, do you have a fav profession?
5:25 chaos field - jaunt in it and staff 2 for more chaos armor
Mukluk on mesmer again? Never thought he would side with his mortal enemy.
great thumbnail, 10/10
You can move and ambush while dodging. Mirage cloak also gives you movement speed
"The alac mirage has not seen a lot of traffic lately." Something I hope to change. At least for HEAL alac mirage. But it's quite a bit of work for me to make a build video. I've uploaded a small sample as my latest vid to show people what it's like. Turns out heal mirage _can_ heal through the extreme damage field in the training area. And heal mirage doesn't have as big a problem with target swapping compared to dps mirage, since you have Ego Restoration and Self-Deception to instantly make clones with the heal mantra and jaunt respectively. Also...I take back what I said in one of your previous videos: I no longer see heal mirage as mostly a worse chrono, now that I've spent more time with it.
And as a small note, as someone else pointed out, your Staff 2 is also a Leap finisher, not just Jaunt. You can use both in your Chaos Storm to get chaos armor. Uptime on that is pretty important for your damage.
Is there a barrier dps?
gotta appreciate those thumbnails 😂😂
Needing valid targets to pump out boons within a rotation feels daunting enough on Chrono, needing to maintain multiple clones for both damage and boon uptime is just miserable.
It's one of the cases if they want to make use of class identity (ambush skills) for a role, it needs to be overtuned to compensate for the drawbacks.
Why not full Ritualist stat? This build deals very little power damage and barely benefit from critical hits. Power and Precision are not that useful here. On the other hand, Concentration from Ritualist can help stock some boon durations.
Exactly what i think. And vitality would help so much to walk away from reds. People just can't stop playing glass cannons... i swear 80% of the players i've seen in strikes/fractals/raids would be much better off with some defensive options instead of mindlessly copying builds that are supposed to be used by 5% of the playerbase.
Because Sharper Images = bleed on crit
@@vidaliver1447 Ditto. Even my zerker gear options often have notable defensive options. Such as my rifle deadeye using 125 vitality ogre runes, and shadow arts over deadly arts. Sure, you lose a bit of damage, but you still put out more them plenty, while getting notable survival options such as 2k lifesteal per rotation, condition cleansing, a little more initiative to truly make the combo infinite (deadly arts version runs out of initiative with quickness boon.) and the best part, superspeed with stealth! It's almost like adding 2 more seconds to your dodge roll! XD
also, with extra concentration from Ritualist you can try running Staff/DaggerPistol instead of Staff/Staff for more DPS.
I just run a few pieces of ritualist / celestial, it's more than enough for boon uptime, even in fractals. Dunno what mukluk did that boon uptime slipped, after latest buff it's fine almost even without clones. Just press staff 2 A LOT.
hope someday, the illusions can keep alive by time slot, but not one single target
Here's the thing about Mirage dodging red circles: using the cloak activates the Speed of Sands trait giving you a speed increase that is equal to Superspeed, so in theory, every time you cloak you get superspeed and can outpace the distance of a standard dodge really damn quickly.
The little itty bitty giant problem is that this is a move speed buff, so you can outpace dodge if you are running in the direction you are looking at. Since you want to dodge backwards a lot of the time and most of us use dodge to do that quickly *without* turning around... congratulations, you will need to fight your muscle memory from the entire damn rest of Guild Wars 2 classes to do this.
"little itty-bitty giant problem" caused me to have to pick myself up from the floor (roflmao), so thanks for that and the good info.
Used to be favourite spec. Glad you gave it a try! This is still a great open world spec, but I think you were on the money saying that you have much better options now. You lose out on all the good mesmer utility to pull in only passing grade damage.
It needs some buffs, or another build idea. It's just too niche for instanced pve in my opinion, and it somehow isn't as fun to play anymore since it can't give me the top 3 dps good brain juices!
You can move during Mirage Cloak btw
what staff skin is that muk?
Bifrost and Empowered Boneskinner's Spine (change's your projectile to that green thing)
Until your video about quick dps untamed made me dust off my ranger, I'd been playing Mirage for about a year. I almost exclusively solo open world. I like it because I can jump anything, even champions, and I never have to worry about health. I'm sure I play it wrong, and I have crappy gear, but I have so much sustain I never even hesitate to try and solo even the biggest mobs.
Why do I feel like Noxxi might've developed an eye twitch whenever she hears the word "ambush"?
i gave up on double staff and just run dagger and offhand pistol and offhand torch. staff is great for alac and being tankier but the condis just seem a bit to weak atm for staff at lease. i love the spell caster feel of staff C: so much fun but the damage doesnt seem as good as it used to be.
also staff 3 used to apply Vulnerability but anet change it to torment idk if it was better but i just felt Vulnerability was better the fact it would increase all dps to the target aka you,clones condis and teamate damage etc.idk maybe iam wrong and the torment is better but it doesnt feel as good as vul was. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
as mesmer main, i can't resist the idea of switching up my build after 10 years
Okay but funny pietha relic tho
Mirage just keeps getting handed Ls because Snowcrows just came out with a condition chrono build that has both DPS and boon variants, same as power. Chrono out here eating all the other mesmers' lunch with only condition virtuoso holding on to theirs.
Now that you've tried all the boon mesmer specs, I'm gonna suggest a (semi-)meme spec: Heal DPS Virtuoso. Yes, you heard that right. This spec will do 14k-15k dps while outhealing moderate pulsing damage in the Training Area and giving allies Might, Fury, Vigor, Regeneration, Protection, Swiftness, some Resistance, frequent cleanses, has 2 sources of Stability and 2 free Utility slots to adapt to each fight.
Build: Chaos 2-3-3, Inspiration 2-2-2, Virtuoso 3-3-3
Skill bar: Mantra of Recovery, Mantra of Concentration, 2 free Utility slots, Thousand Cuts
Gear stats: Mix between Seraph and Celestial so that you have just enough Precision to be above 93% crit chance while on food and Fury.
Weapon: Dagger+Shield, optionally Rifle on the other set for panic heal or additional defiance break for cc phases.
Runes: Superior Runes of Divinity
Sigil: Superior Sigil of Accuracy (this will crit cap if you can already reach 93% crit with gears, food and Fury) + 1 free sigil slot, (+ 2 more free sigil slots on the optional Rifle)
Relic: Free slot, adapt however you want.
Play style: Precast all of your Mantras before fight. During fight, do the usual spammy DPS Virtuoso rotation, plus pressing 6 and Power Break (the 2-charge flipover skill of Mantra of Concentration) whenever they reach 2 charges and Shield 5 on cooldown. Since this spec can't keep up 100% Regeneration by itself, you can only do 10k-11k dps without full Regen uptime, but if you have an additional Regen source in your group, you will be able to reach 14k-15k. Your F4 and Power Break are your 2 sources of Stability on demand. Your F4 and Shield 4 are your 2 sources of s on demand. By default, you don't have CC on demand because you use F3 and Shield 5 as parts of your rotation already, but that's what optional Rifle and 2 free utility slots are for in case the fight needs cc. In panic heal situations, switch to Rifle and exhaust its skills first, THEN burn the remaining skill 6 charge if you still need more heal.
Pros:
- You are a healer that contributes significantly to group dps. Your group is technically an "All DPS group".
- 2 free Utility slots, 1(+2) free sigil slot and free Relic slot to adapt to many fights. If you need nothing more than the baseline here, use these slots to increase damage (which I have been able to push to 17k).
- By default, your ability to cleanse, give boons and react to panic situations is not that much compromised in order to deal damage compared to a full heal Chrono.
- 1200 range.
- Unlike Chrono and Mirage, your blades don't disappear during transition phases.
- All the utilities of core mesmer, which you have 2 free Utility slots for.
- Your incremental heal adds on top of group Regeneration.
Cons:
- You need 2 boon dps in your group to cover Alacrity and Quickness instead of 1.
- Unlike Chrono and Mirage, F1-F3 skills can't be used during transition phases.
- You have some CC, but not on demand by default, you have to use up your free Utility slots and/or temporarily swap to Rifle.
- Weak Regeneration uptime.
- Your burst heal (as opposed to incremental heal) is a mandatory break in your DPS rotation and takes at least 8 seconds to go back.
This used to be a full meme build exploiting the Virtuoso quirk of having both damage and heal scaling off crit chance, but ever since the mesmer rework to become more of a healer plus the addition of access to Rifle, Heal DPS Virtuoso became a bit more serious.
I've always wanted to try this build but I am so intimidated by the forced movement on the staff. I don't have the balls to try play this anywhere where there is a platform you have to try stay on (like W6 Largo's or KO Strike) or where it could just lead to death (W5 SH walls, W4 MO arrows).
Mirage, the main victim of the balance clowns 🤡
Second
First
short comment this time: why does alac mirage exist when condi alac chrono does more dps and has more utility? mirage literally has no advantage over that except for having fancy dodges.
maybe one additional note: not entirely sure how viable it is anymore since the chaos trait changes, but just never shattering your clones used to be a very easy to play decent dps alternative for alac mirage
They kept nerfing the clones´ condis so you have to shatter to compete. Imagine, they changed axe clones to apply 3s of bleed and torment each strike and then nerfed them to 1 second. You had better damage before the ´´rework´´ than after the nerf to said rework. Same with staff, they took half the condi duration from the ambush.
My guess would be class fantasy. I am very inclined to play this once I get my light leggy armor.
Mirage has big advantage in survivability and mobility. Also much easier to learn.
lol pro players :S..... best class and pretty fun to play might not be the best but it bring tons of fun :>
but defnitly it sucks with difrrent targets
better get some quick weapon o tag on mobs and switch to staff when needed the dmg
and also the heal its quit the best with all the evades blocks and shields u apply lol i duno how it feels when i change that healing
it quite the best in my opinion :>..