Mirage - Shatter Mirage

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

Focused on: Strike damageMobility and Control

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on September 18, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Mirage WvW roaming build that's all about pulling off massive bursts and pressuring targets through interrupts and smaller combos inbetween or just surviving until the main combo comes off CD.


Skill Bar

Greatsword
Sword/Torch
Utility


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • increases your sustain a little especially against conditions, but makes it harder to build clones for burst combos.
  • increases both your damage and CC capabilities. This trait is especially useful on Sword where clones can interrupt targets/eat through multiple stacks of Stability Stability and even proc .
  • improves ambush skills. This more more relevant on Sword, the boon removal is quite good at softening up targets and the trait scales in value with . The tradeoff is less access to ambush attacks and slightly lower survivability.


Specialization Variants

The build has a more interrupt-heavy version where we replace Illusions Illusions with Dueling Dueling and take , but we have to give up some defense against conditions to do this. The idea is to use the combination of and to crank out more s and proc more often:


Equipment

Head
Marauder
Shoulders
Marauder
Chest
Marauder
Hands
Marauder
Legs
Marauder
Feet
Marauder
Backpiece
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Amulet
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Greatsword
Marauder
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Marauder
Torch
Marauder
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic

Stats

  • Beginners can mix in a few additional Marauder stats Marauder stats pieces for more sustain (don't overdo it though), while more experienced players could even consider going full Berserker stats Berserker stats for higher burst potential.


Equipment Variants

Relics

  • - a damage bonus that's easily maintained in most cases, but can be hard to get value out of when the enemy is playing defensively. Could offer higher damage modifier uptime than Fireowrks in exchange for less control over when it's going to be active.
  • - bit better defense against conditions.
  • - defensive relic with Mirage Cloak synergy.


Sigils

Greatsword

  • - ensures that your entire burst combo's going to crit.
  • - the bit of quickness makes it harder to dodge your burst.
  • - strong damage proc for extra burst.


Sword/Torch

  • - stacking damage boost at the expense of sustain. Could replace either one of the sigils.


Consumables

Food

  • - extra endurance is never bad on a spec that only has 1 dodge and the core mechanic is centered around it.
    • Budget:


Utility

  • or .


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 its duration: for Sword and for Greatsword. Ambush skills replace the autoattack of the weapons for 1.5 seconds and can only be used once per Mirage Cloak activated.
  • Pressing dodge removes conditions thanks to the trait .
  • You can dodge while casting skills or stomping/rezing, but you can't dodge while CC'd.


General

  • can be used to strip important boons such as Stability Stability or Protection Protection off targets before or during bursts. will primarily be used for this, but also works as a substitute for in your burst rotation when that's on cooldown. CoF deals much less damage than MW does, but it's better than nothing especially for finishing low HP enemies.
  • There are several tools for stomping downed enemies including mirage cloak, stealth, and distortion.
  • Ambush attacks on the two weapons fill different roles:
    • provides excellent mobility both in and out of combat, but what truly makes it powerful are the trait synergies. The daze works with a bunch of traits on Domination, most notably which increases its damage significantly. Aside from doing damage or denying them healing for 15 seconds upon a successful interrupt of a healing skill, Mirage Thrust can also be used defensively for the Weakness Weakness. <
    • is more of a filler. Good for ranged poking and setting up burst through Vulnerability and Might stacking.


Sword/Torch

  • A defensive set that can be used for mobility both out of and in combat.
  • Use the Sword ambush skill, for mobility. You can also use this skill for a minor burst combo: shatter.
  • is mainly used as a defensive skill with a Distortion-like effect, but also offers decent cleave damage if the target has enough Vulnerability stacks.
  • is a relatively powerful defensive skills because of the stealth and condition cleanse.


Optimal burst combo

Keep in mind that this is pretty much the perfect scenario, you'll often have to resort to shorter versions of this combo based on which parts are not on CD and whether the target has Stability Stability or not.

Try to execute it as fast as you can, ideally in ~1 second. May take some practice to get it right.

  1. can be used for the Stealth and a bit of added damage - if you do this, then wait until the Stealth almost runs out before proceeding with the rest of the burst.
  2. Optional - dodge while doing your burst combo to avoid getting interrupted.
  3. Pre-cast , preferably in melee range in order to reduce the travel distance of the projectile and make the bounces go off faster and with better accuracy. Also to gain some extra Might Might stacks. This skill spawns a clone on the first hit.
  4. Daze your target with if possible, shortly before hits the target. If it's not available then other sources of daze such as will do just fine. When playing with and the Dueling Dueling variant it's your clone who's going to do the dazing - just dodge on sword and swap to GS for the right after.
  5. Optional - at your target right for a bit of extra damage, or to get rid of Aegis Aegis if the target has it.
  6. to shatter the clones. More damage in melee range because the caster too counts as a clone for shatter skills.
  7. for some extra damage.
  8. Optional - can be used right before or after the burst.
  9. Optional - Use a CC after the burst such as if the target isn't dead and tries to heal up.


Without any of the optional steps, just for clarity:

  1. (technically "before" Mirror Blade, as you need to use it before the projectile hits)


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 5 votes.
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5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • July 2023
Getting the second dodge back helped a lot. In fact I'm a bit surprised by how well it's doing right now, Mirage with Power Block can be really scary to face because it can deny any heal attempts for many builds, and the damage is quite high too. Mobility's also great and boonstrip makes it even harder to survive burst combos or avoid getting interrupted. Initially I was going to give it a 4 but after testing it a bit more I just don't see why it wouldn't be a 5.
3 stars
Rammy gave this build 3 stars • November 2021
The build is well thought out and can be great in certain scenarios, but there's no denying that power Mirage is very much an inferior roaming burst option at present, which weakens this build sadly. You can absolute delete glassy targets if you time your burst well, but power Mirage cannot 1vX - it just doesn't have the required sustain nor the reliable burst of the other classes to confidently remain in a fight. It's particularly outshone by Thief and Revenant - and to a certain extent Ranger now -who all have much better kits allowing them to handle more 1vX scenarios. Power Mirage is a sub-optimal duelist option at present too. Still, I found this particular build to be decent for small group roaming as a +1 spike option and for picking people off in zergs. Not the easiest thing to play due to the aforementioned downsides of Mirage, but recommended if you fancy a change from Thief or Revenant.
5 stars
Grxrg gave this build 5 stars • November 2018
I think using mantra of pain can be the equivalent of running sic'em in soulbeast, it's a skill you run to get surprise attacks onto unaware players. Due to the constant ganks around the map a good solid choice of skills is blink, illusionary ambush and signet of midnight, you can substitute IA or SoM with decoy if you like stealth more, but now with the new marked buff, stealth got nerfed and using decoy most of times is wasted and it's a 40 seconds stunbreak only, far more beneficial go for IA and SoM over it. Double energy sigil is a must have, even on greatsword. Basically running decoy and the mantra you are a pug noob stomper who goes for oneshots only and win immediately or reset the fight if you fail the burst. The combo burst works only on bad players or people caught off guard, it's better to save up blink as a defensive tool instead of using it as part of the combo. Saw many mirages fail the combo burst on good reapers or warriors using blink into them, the reaper/warrior dodged everything remaining at 100% health and in one second oneshot them back because no tools left to kite.
5 stars
Dekong gave this build 5 stars • June 2018
Better than Chrono in solo roaming. Is one of the strongest classes for roaming atm, and plays an important role on the smallscale setting, keeping the enemies on the defensive and picking of squishies so that your party can capitalize on it.
5 stars
Kdb424 gave this build 5 stars • January 2018
Deals a fair amount of damage. I'm still trying different runes to see what's best, but takes down most glass classes in a single burst. Running full zerk as there is no sustain in this build, and plays like a thief. Either they die, or you stealth and reset. Very rewarding to play, but very glass. Plays well in zergs or solo. Portal is also a great optional skill for jukes or team play.

Comments

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