Mirage - Chaotic Condition Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage, Mobility and Sustain

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on November 29, 2023 and is up to date for the November 07, 2023 game patch.

Overview

A WvW Condition Mirage roaming build focusing on constant condition pressure, mobility, and survival.

Skill Bar

Staff

Axe/Pistol

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

Every utility except can be replaced by the following skills:

• - adds stealth to the build and has a nice passive.

• - if you're having trouble dealing with incoming conditions.

• - more shatter spam and the passive has some nice synergy with the build.

Weapons

• Scepter over Axe is also a viable option. Drop the current rune and take or any of the other runes listed under the equipment variants.

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

• improves your sustain against condition builds but it's going to cost you some Staff CD reductions and condition damage.

Variants

• trades Alacrity on Staff for higher burst damage on Axe.

Equipment

Head
Trailblazer

Shoulders
Trailblazer

Chest
Trailblazer

Hands
Trailblazer

Legs
Trailblazer

Feet
Trailblazer

Backpiece
Trailblazer

Accessory
Trailblazer

Accessory
Trailblazer

Amulet
Trailblazer

Ring
Trailblazer

Ring
Trailblazer

Axe
Trailblazer

Pistol
Trailblazer

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Trailblazer

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Celestial gear is just as good if not arguably better. It has lower burst damage but higher uptime of important boons such as Alacrity and Vigor.

Note: Trailblazer can be rather expensive to get, Dire gear is much easier to collect and should do the trick until you finish your Trailblazer set.

Equipment Variants

Relics

• - permanent uptime on our most important boon. Unnecessary with Celestial gear however.

• - improved cleansing.

Sigils

Staff

• over - if you can afford to give up some condition removal for a stacking damage buff.

Runes

• - better than Rune of Tormenting when playing with Scepter.

• - higher burst damage option.

Consumables

Food

• Optimal:

• Budget:

Utility

• Optimal:

• Budget: (found in Canned Food Crates looted from WvW Skirmish Chests)

Note: the budget options are perfectly fine, not going for the optimal consumables won't really make too much of a difference.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Dodge rolling is replaced by Mirage Cloak, which is more or less the same thing but allows you to cast skills and grants access to ambush attacks for the duration: for staff and for axe. Ambush skills replace the autoattack of the weapons for 1.5 seconds.

• Pressing dodge grants Superspeed and Regeneration (which reduces incoming condition duration while it lasts thanks to ). makes it so that whenever you gain Mirage Cloak, your clones are also going to receive it with all benefits including access to ambush attacks - it can even make your clones evade skills such as , denying your opponent various bonuses.

• You can dodge while casting skills or stomping/rezing, but you can't dodge while CC'd.

General

• Besides cleansing conditions while at the same time pressuring your opponent with them, is also useful for boon removal/stacking in general, for example getting rid of their Stability or stealing Vigor for synergy.

• Staff is your defensive set used for ranged poking, mobility, and sustained damage while Axe/Pistol is there for burst damage.

• The basic game plan is simple: dodge rolling summons a clone and makes all of your clones unload ambush attacks. Your goal is to build up your clone count and spam ambushes on enemies. The Staff ambush also supplies you with a good amount of Alacrity.

Sustain

• Staff is your primary defensive weapon.

• may not look that amazing at first glance, but it's an instant cast skill which applies Protection to the caster and AoE Weakness to nearby foes, effectively filtering their damage through two layers of mitigation. It's an excellent skill for surviving direct damage burst and it's usable even while CC'd.

• is the strongest skill on this weapon. Standing in it supplies allies with defensive boons including Aegis while inflicting several conditions that can mitigate damage like Weakness or Chill (Chill makes it harder to reach you while slowing down their skill recharge rate). The first hit of Chaos Storm always Dazes enemies, making it a reliable AoE interrupt.

• is good for building some distance between you and your target, and can even be used while stunned, potentially allowing you to save dodges for later.
  • If used in PR grants . Keep in mind that this doesn't stack in duration, so try not to overlap Chaos Armors.

• The build has rather poor access to condition cleansing by default, limited only to and . Try to play it safe against condition specs: outrange them with staff, chain block / evade frames in melee, etc. Your strongest option against damage in general is , granting you immunity to any form of pressure including CC and conditions that are already on you.

Mobility

• Use for mobility while roaming or chasing after targets. Phase Retreat teleports you in the opposite direction of where you're facing, so to teleport "forward" turn around to use it and then turn back. We recommend that you set up a bind for about face to do this in a fluid manner (Options ⇒ Control Options ⇒ Movement).
  • Make sure that you don't have an enemy targeted when doing this!

Damage

• The build heavily relies on keeping pressure up constantly by spawning clones through and making them unload ambush attacks with . Building up a clone army and making them perform ambush attacks is more important here than using shatter skills. That said shatters still add some burst damage, especially when used right after ambush attacks with 3 clones.

• periodically stacks Vulnerability on your target, which is useful for setting up burst. After the attack it'll turn into a clone, potentially fueling shatters.

Example of an Axe/Pistol burst combo:

3. , dodge in the middle of it