Mirage - Celestial Signet Roamer

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

Focused on: Hybrid damage

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 14, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A hybrid Mirage build for WvW roaming with extremely high sustain and moderate damage/CC.

Skill Bar

Staff

Axe/Torch

Utility

Skill Bar Variants

Utility

• Signet of Midnight over Blink - Blink is a staple Mesmer skill in almost any roaming/PvP build and replacing it is generally not recommended. SoM however has great synergy with many things in the build and adds an instant source of Distortion/Stealth/mass cleanse on top of breaking stuns. Your mobility and chase potential will be much lower however.

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Specializations

Variants

Take Infinite Horizon if you need more damage and can afford to trade cleansing for it.

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Staff
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Celestial

Torch
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Tormenting - CURATOR NOTE: before the February 2022 patch this was the recommended option for the build. We're busy with EoD specs at the moment so didn't get to update some older builds yet. This might very well be the optimal rune still, but we didn't feel comfortable recommending such an expensive rune set without testing it post-rework. The rune still looks perfectly viable however, so this is just a disclaimer before you buy.

• Rune of Superior Rune of Antitoxin - much improved cleansing without sacrificing too much damage.

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Traveler - passive mobility and increase to boon/condition durations, minor overall stat boost.

Sigils

Staff

Sigil of Superior Sigil of Battle doesn't make or break the build and can be replaced. Currently we recommend this because the build benefits a lot from Might stacking and with the boon duration it has, the 5 stacks from this sigil have near permanent uptime. Other viable options include:

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing - better cleansing.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Corruption - at 16 stacks and above this is a bigger boost to condition damage than the current sigil, but requires setup and your power damage will still be lower.

Consumables

Food

• • is a cheaper version of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and sufficient enough in most cases.

Utility

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 over its duration: Chaos Vortex for Staff and Imaginary Axes for Axe. Ambush skills replace the autoattack of the weapons for 1.5 seconds.

• You can dodge while casting skills or CC'd, but only have one dodge bar.

General

• Always do your boon stacking rotation on CD!
  • Rotation: Chaos Vortex ⇒ Shatter ⇒ Signet of Inspiration ⇒ Chaos Vortex. Consider using your shatter in the middle of channeling the signet, as shatters are instant but the signet has a cast time. Just make sure to shatter before the signet goes off.
  • This combo is important for both damage and sustain, playing a key role in achieving a high uptime of Alacrity, Vigor, Regeneration and Might. All of these are very important for the build.
  • Any shatter will do, as the main goal is to prolong the Vigor granted by Nomad's Endurance. Each shatter however also grants a unique boon from Bountiful Disillusionment which you could capitalize on with the signet.

• Try to send your Phantasms on CD before using Signet of the Ether as your healing skill partially recharges them.

• Aim to either have no endurance, or low endurance right before swapping weapons. Both sets have a Sigil of Energy which refills your entire endurance bar, so let's not waste it.

• Using Signet of the Ether has a chance to drop a Chaos Storm at your location via the trait Method of Madness. Both sets can take adventage of the combo field created by Chaos Storm and combo Chaos Armor:
  • Phase Retreat on Staff.
  • Axes of Symmetry on Axe/Torch.

Sustain

• Conditions shouldn't pose a threat to this build:
  • (If taken) Weapon swapping to Staff removes 3 conditions via Sigil of Cleansing.
  • (If taken) Signet of Midnight is your mass cleanse, removing a total of 5 conditions with Blurred Inscriptions.
  • Dodge rolling removes 2 conditions thanks to Elusive Mind.
  • Due to Sympathetic Visage Phantasms take 1 condition from you when summoned.
  • Mender's Purity removes another one when you use your healing skill.
  • Restorative Illusions cleanses whenever you shatter.
  • Last but not least, The Prestige is another source of cleansing.

• Every signet grants Distortion.

• Blink is an excellent panic button and mobility tool that instantly yeets you across the battlefield whilst breaking stuns.

• Your strongest option against damage in general is Distortion, granting you immunity to any form of pressure including CC and conditions that are already on you.

Mobility

• Use Phase Retreat for mobility while roaming or chasing after targets. PR teleports you in the opposite direction of where you're facing, so in order to teleport "forward" simply turn around and use it 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).
  • About face ⇒ Phase Retreat ⇒ about face is the rotation.
  • Make sure that you don't have an enemy targeted when doing this!

Damage

• Cry of Frustration is the strongest shatter skill here when it comes to damage, followed by Mind Wrack. These 2 will help you burst.

• Staff is for sustained damage and survival while Axe is where your burst damage comes from.

• Chaos Vortex spam puts out decent pressure from a safe distance whilst stacking important boons.

• There are 3 ways to gain access to Ambush attacks:
  • Dodging.
  • Picking up a Mirage Mirror created by the Desert Distortion empowered Distortion. Each shattered clone will place one on the ground.
  • Gaining Distortion, which you can do by using your F4 ability or activating any of your signets.

• Don't be afraid to use Signet of Illusions if you need to keep the pressure up but you're all out of shatters. This signet also lets you be a bit more wasteful of your shatters, knowing that you can recharge them anytime.