User:Masel/Builds/Mirage

Condition "Staxe"  Mirage

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	3/5
Sustained Damage	4/5
Utility Options	3/5
Survivability	5/5
Difficulty	5/5

Condition  Mirage is a build with a very high damage potential, but a fairly long ramp-up time and a complex and movement-heavy rotation to get close to the benchmark. I tried to keep the build as simple as possible while retaining good enough damage and teaching the main aspects of the rotation. Due to the ramp-up, it excels at fights without many phases and fast-attacking bosses and soloing boss-type enemies in open world. It has many Evade windows and is able to provide all important Boons to itself in open world gameplay: ( Might,  Stability,  Aegis,  Regeneration,  Quickness,  Alacrity,  Fury and  Protection).

Link to the Build on the Editor

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Axe + Pistol
Axe Ambush
Staff
Staff Ambush
Utility Skills

  Mirage Mirror and Related Traits

• Whenever you Dodge on Mirage or pick up a   Mirage Mirror, you gain   Mirage Cloak. This makes you Evade attacks for a short time, but it does not move you.
• Whenever you gain a   Mirage Mirror, you also gain access to an Ambush skill. These are much more powerful than you auto attacks, making it ideal to Dodge as much as possible during the damaging rotation.
•   Imaginary Axes applies a lot of conditions, and even more with  Mirrored Axes.
•   Chaos Vortex on Staff allows you to cover  Alacrity with  Mirage Mantle.
• Some skills create   Mirage Mirrors with a delay. These remain ready to pick up for 8 seconds, so you can control your Ambush with them for that time. Note that you need to walk through them, which can cause issues in actual encounters.
•   Infinite Horizon grants clones   Mirage Cloak whenever you gain it. This makes them cast weaker versions of Ambushes. Note that since they rarely have  Quickness, they might take longe than you to cast them, which is important for sharing  Alacrity.

Utility Skills

Utility Skills

Default Skill	Notes
False Oasis (Chaos)	False Oasis triggers  Method of Madness every other cast and provides a Mirage Mirror
Crystal Sands	Used for the  Confusion and   Mirage Mirror it provides.
Signet of Domination	Just there for the passive  Condition Damage, but you should use the active cast for Defiance bar damage whenever necessary. Don't hesitate to do so!
Signet of Midnight	Just there for the passive  Expertise. Don't use this!
Jaunt	Leap Finisher that generates Chaos Aura when used inside the fields from   Chaos Storm and   Lesser Chaos Storm  Method of Madness and applies a bit of  Confusion. Instant cast, can be used during other stuff. You can keep one charge for emergency movement.

  Jaunt Usage &  Illusionary Membrane

• Due to  Illusionary Membrane, keeping a decent uptime on Chaos Aura is essential for a high damage output.
•   Jaunt is a Leap Finisher and the primary way to gain Chaos Aura aside from   Chaos Armor and   Cry of Frustration. You can use it at all times since it's instant cast and does not interrupt anything else.

To gain Chaos Aura, you can...

1. use   Jaunt or   Axes of Symmetry inside an Ethereal Field. The two fields you have access to are   Chaos Storm and   Lesser Chaos Storm from  Method of Madness, which triggers on every second cast of   False Oasis.
2. use   Cry of Frustration.
3. use   Chaos Armor.

Tips for learning the rotation

• Start learning the basic loop without actually pressing the Shatters. This doesn't cost a lot of damage and makes it easier since you can't mess up clone management.
• Practice the Shatter Combo repeatedly!
• Do the rotation without Dodges. Pay attention to when auto attack windows occur, as that is where you can freely use Dodges later.

Rotation Concept & Video Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.
Damage Log

Section	Notes
Opener (  Cry of Frustration Combo)	The opener is essentially equal to the what we're going to refer to as the "Shatter Combo". I adjusted it a little to reduce forced movement by skipping   Lingering Thoughts leading to a small dps loss. The idea is to use   Cry of Frustration with three clones and regain three clones quickly after that. For that, we're using the following skill sequence: Use   Phantasmal Warlock,   Chaos Armor and   Chaos Storm on Staff (3,4,5).   Phantasmal Warlock generates 2 clones roughly 3-4 seconds after you cast it. Swap to Axe + Pistol. Use   Phantasmal Duelist - this generates 1 clone with a ~2 second delay. Use   Axes of Symmetry and   Magic Bullet.   Axes of Symmetry grants Chaos Aura since   Chaos Storm is still active. Immediately after   Magic Bullet, use   Cry of Frustration. You can also use   Mind Wrack right after for a little bit of free damage (and  Vigor), but it isn't required. You will gain the three clones from   Phantasmal Warlock and   Phantasmal Duelist soon after that. From here onwards, the regular rotation cycle starts.
Section 1: Axe + Pistol	The skill sequence in Axe & Pistol consists the following skills (and skill sequences): Finish the Shatter Combo as described above.   Crystal Sands x1. This creates a   Mirage Mirror ~1 second later, don't overlap this with a Dodge. Simply wait for the Dodge from this to happen and proceed with the other skills after.   Lacerating Chop,   Ethereal Chop and   Mirror Strikes (Auto Attack Chain) x2 Dodge into   Mirrored Axes x2   Axes of Symmetry x1. Swap to Staff as soon as possible.
Section 2: Staff	On Staff, you want to use the following skills:   False Oasis x1. It creates a   Mirage Mirror for   Chaos Vortex three seconds later, don't overlap this with a Dodge.   Jaunt when   Lesser Chaos Storm from   False Oasis is active (every second loop). Dodge into   Chaos Vortex x2 Start the Shatter Combo when Weapon Swap has ~2 seconds left on its cooldown.
CC Skills for Breakbar Damage	Chaos Storm   Magic Bullet   Diversion   Signet of Domination

Gear & Traits

Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):

1. Reach ~73% overall condition duration in your hero panel without Boons.  Chaotic Persistence provides additional ~17% with  Regeneration up.
2. Maximize  Condition Damage.

Gear

Armor	Prefix	Rune
Head	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Shoulders	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Chest	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Gloves	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Legs	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Boots	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Viper's
Ring 1	Viper's
Ring 2	Viper's
Accessory 1	Viper's
Accessory 2	Viper's
Backpack	Viper's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Axe (Main Hand)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Bursting
Pistol (Off Hand 1 - Chaos)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Torment
Staff	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Bursting Superior Sigil of Energy
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Plate of Beef Rendang
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters Gnashblade
Damage	Utility	Toxic Focusing Crystal
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic (Chaos)	Relic of the Fractal
Survivability	Relic	Relic of Nourys

Traits

Dueling
Chaos
Mirage

• For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces with rare/exotic pieces.
• Ascended gear is always ideal, but exotic gear is fine for everything aside from higher-tier fractals.
• Ascended food is always ideal, but never required.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

Link to the Open World Build

Increasing General Survivability

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

• We're going to use a second Staff in open world to make the build fully ranged. Taking  Mirage Mantle further allows you to cover  Might,  Fury and  Alacrity on yourself and allies via   Chaos Vortex.
• Use Relic of Nourys. It has a neat interaction with   Persistence of Memory, since the boons transferred from your Phantasms stack the Relic up. This is allows you to trigger it every 15-20 seconds with   Signet of the Ether (resets Phantasms),   Phantasmal Mage (2 stacks) and   Phantasmal Disenchanter (1 stack). This makes it stronger in damage than Relic of the Fractal and great for survivability.
• You can use   Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for higher Endurance recovery and thus more Dodges.
•   Distortion provides an invulnerability window, save this for emergencies.
•   Jaunt and   Phase Retreat are instant movement skills that you can use to get out of trouble. Stay behind your clones and let them take the beating for you.

Boon Coverage

• Mirage is probably the only build in the game that can maintain all(!) relevant Boons on itself and share many of them with allies.
• As a first step, you can increase the self-coverage of essential offensive boons by using  Illusions instead of  Domination.
• With the traits of choice, this will allow you to cover  Quickness on yourself without relying on Jade protocols and/or Relic of the Cavalier.

Tier	Trait		Description
Minor Adept	Cry of Pain		Shatter skill 2 inflicts more stacks of confusion for an increased duration.
Major Adept	Persistence of Memory		When a phantasm becomes a clone, it transfers its boons to you.
Minor Master	Compounding Power		Creating an illusion increases your outgoing damage and condition damage for a short duration. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.
Major Master	Phantasmal Haste		Phantasms spawn with quickness. Gain quickness when you create a phantasm.
Minor Grandmaster	Master of Misdirection		Shatter skills gain recharge reduction.
Major Grandmaster	Phantasmal Force		Phantasms deal increased strike damage for each stack of might you have. Gain might when your phantasms become clones.

•   Signet of Inspiration extends all boons on you by 3 seconds. This is crucial for self-boon coverage, so use this on cooldown.
• You can replace Viper's with Ritualist's or Celestial 1-to-1. The more pieces of Ritualist's or Celestial you have, the easier it becomes maintainting boons.Ritualist's Rare Armor and Exotic Trinkets are cheap to buy. I recommend using at least a few larger pieces (Chest, Amulet, Weapons, Rings).
•  Protection is covered by swapping out  Method of Madness for  Illusionary Defense and   Chaos Armor.
•  Regeneration is crucial for damage and Boon coverage on the open world build due to  Chaotic Persistence:  Metaphysical Rejuvenation and  Renewing Oasis cover a full uptime on it as long as you Dodge enough.
• The same applies to  Vigor. This is covered by Shatter skills, so make use of them frequently. The boon duration doesn't scale with the number of clones.
• Full  Might stacks are covered by   Winds of Chaos and   Chaos Vortex.
• If you want to solo harder content, make use of   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge for 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat. The  Quickness from this is a gain in damage too, as you can take  Maim the Disillusioned in that case.
• These will further apply 30 seconds of  Regeneration every time you enter combat. You can change to  Riddle of Sand when using protocols.
• Note that they get removed when you enter story instances, fractals, raids and strikes.

Dealing with Conditions and Control effects

•   Jaunt cleanses one condition on cast.
• For additional frequent condition cleanses, make use of a Staff with a Superior Sigil of Purity or Superior Sigil of Generosity.
•  Bountiful Disillusionment applies  Stability to you every time you use a shatter skill and additional  Stability to allies when you use   Bladesong Distortion.
•   Signet of Midnight is an emergency Stun break.