Mirage - Shatter Mirage

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

Variants

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

Skill Variants

Utility

错乱咒语 can be replaced if you feel like you need more sustain:

• 午夜纹章 - stealth access and stun break.

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

• 沙铸玻璃 - low CD stun break + evasion, also gives you an opportunity to immediately counterpressure targets by granting you Mirage Cloak.

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: 幻象戳刺 for Sword and 分裂涌流 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

• 粉碎专注 can be used to strip important boons such as 稳固 or 保护 off targets before or during bursts. 挫败之吼 will primarily be used for this, but also works as a substitute for 心灵粉碎 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:

  • 幻象戳刺 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 力量阻隔 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 虚弱. 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 欺诈闪避, then make that clone do its ambush attack through 无限视界, and now this clone can interrupt your enemy whilst triggering 力量阻隔 for the 虚弱 potentially ruining their entire burst.
  • 分裂涌流 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 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: ⇒ ⇒ 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.

Sword burst combo example

1. to root the target
2. Dodge for Mirage Cloak access
4. to summon a clone via

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 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. 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 , 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 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 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 for a bit of extra damage, or to get rid of 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:

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

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 , whichever is cheaper (note that the sharpening stone lasts twice as long).

Equipment Variants

Relics

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

• - makes your Sword set more threatening, boosting your ambush damage quite nicely.

• - 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.

• - defensive relic with Mirage Cloak synergy.

Sigils

Greatsword

• - 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 (which could go even higher with consumables or WvW effects like Borderlands Bloodlust).

• - 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.