Mirage - Shatter Mirage

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

Focused on: Strike damage, Mobility and Control

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on July 08, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 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

Skill Variants

Utility

Mantra of Distraction can be replaced if you feel like you need more sustain:

• Signet of Midnight - stealth access and stun break.

• Illusionary Ambush - evasion and repositioning. Could also help you chase and burst targets, it's not purely a defensive pick.

• Sand Through Glass - low CD stun break + evasion, also gives you an opportunity to immediately counterpressure targets by granting you Mirage Cloak.

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Specializations

Variants

• Renewing Oasis increases your sustain a little especially against conditions, but makes it harder to build clones for burst combos.

Equipment

Head
Assassin

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Assassin

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Greatsword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Marauder

Torch
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Wayfinder - improved mobility at the expense of some burst damage.

• Relic of Isgarren - 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.

• Relic of the Adventurer - defensive relic with Mirage Cloak synergy.

Sigils

Greatsword

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Vision - ensures that your entire burst combo's going to crit, but it's only relevant when you're using slightly different gear, as our current recommended setup has ~94% crit chance with Fury (which could go even higher with consumables or WvW effects like Borderlands Bloodlust).

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Agility - the bit of quickness makes it harder to dodge your burst.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Air - strong damage proc for extra burst.

Sword/Torch

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

Consumables

Food

• - extra endurance is quite useful not only for personal survivability but also for its inherent synergy with Mirage's ambush mechanic.
  • Budget:

• - higher burst damage and passive damage mitigation.

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: Mirage Thrust for Sword and Split Surge for Greatsword. Ambush skills replace the autoattack of the weapons for 1.5 seconds and can only be used once per Mirage Cloak activation.

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

General

• Shattered Concentration can be used to strip important boons such as Stability or Protection off targets before or during bursts. Cry of Frustration will primarily be used for this, but also works as a substitute for Mind Wrack 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:
  • Mirage Thrust 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 Power Block 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. An example: if you're being pressured and have to dodge while on Sword not only will you avoid incoming damage, but also summon a clone via Deceptive Evasion, then make that clone do its ambush attack through Infinite Horizon, and now this clone can interrupt your enemy whilst triggering Power Block for the Weakness potentially ruining their entire burst.
  • Split Surge 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 in and out of combat.

• Use the Sword ambush skill Mirage Thrust for mobility even without a target (in case you need to build some distance).
  • You can also use this skill for a minor burst combo: Mirage Thrust ⇒ Jaunt ⇒ shatter.

• Blurred Frenzy 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.

• The Prestige is a relatively powerful defensive skills because of the stealth and condition cleanse.

Sword burst combo example

1. Swap to root the target
2. Dodge for Mirage Cloak access
3. Mirage Thrust
4. Jaunt to summon a clone via Self-Deception
5. Mind Wrack

Optimal Greatsword 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 or not.

Try to execute it as fast as you can, ideally all the damage should land within a ~1 second window. May take some practice to get it right.

1. The Prestige 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 and to summon another clone.
3. Pre-cast Mirror Blade, 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 stacks. This skill spawns a clone on the first hit.
4. Daze your target with Mantra of Distraction if possible, shortly before Mirror Blade hits the target. If it's not available then other sources of daze such as Mirage Thrust will do just fine. When playing with Infinite Horizon and the Dueling variant it's your clone who's going to do the dazing - just dodge on sword and swap to GS for the Mirror Blade right after.
5. Optional - Jaunt at your target for a bit of extra damage, or to get rid of Aegis if the target has it.
6. Mind Wrack to shatter the clones. More damage in melee range because the caster too counts as a clone for shatter skills.
7. Mind Stab for some extra damage.
8. Optional - Phantasmal Berserker can be used right before or after the burst.
9. Optional - Use a CC after the burst such as Illusionary Wave if the target isn't dead and tries to heal up.

Without any of the optional steps, just for clarity:

1. Mirror Blade
2. Mantra of Distraction (technically "before" Mirror Blade, as you need to use it before the projectile hits)
3. Mind Wrack
4. Mind Stab

Related Builds

• Mirage - Power Shatter - Conquest PvP version of the build.