Mirage Totale Eclipse QoL changes

[Evhel]

Hello all! 

I decided to invest my second umbra forma on Mirage, a frame i never really used, and so i played her quite a lot lately. I am by no means a Mirage main, but here a few QoL i would really love to see in game for the Total Eclipse augment. I am a team player, and as such, most of my builds try to get some utility for the team, and after the great augment update, i saw the opportunity to use Total Eclipse. Getting allies that dmgr and dmg boost is really nice, however:

The range is still to short. I even use Stretch, but due to the fast paced nature of the game, i more often then not find myself not able to offer my teammates my buffs. Some players are more experienced, so they tend to rush, while other are not used to parkour, so they are slower. The team is usually splitted. That's why i think it would be awesome to have allies retain the buff even if they leave the range. Something like Rhino's Roar, if they are in range at the moment of the cast they don't need to be close to the player to continue using it. Or, the ability could work like the updated augments for Ember/Frost/Volt/Saryn/Oberon's 1, with a longer tap of the ability creating an expanding buff wave. Otherwise, a direct buff on the range, maybe increasing it to the affinity range.

Augments for team buffs were really made smoother with the very good update you did last month, but it could be even less stressful and rewarding trying to keep everyone buffed with little tweaks.

More buffs for everyone!

Thank you for your attention 🙂

 

[Xzorn]

I'm surprised they even gave that augment base 15m.

Chroma's Vex Armor buff is base 18m and DE went out of their way with damage control to promote that as one of the best team damage boosts in the game even though it was not true from the start. Now they turned around and gave Mirage who's multiplicative 15m. I'm guessing it's because they know the buff doesn't work right.

[Evhel]

7 hours ago, Xzorn said:

I'm surprised they even gave that augment base 15m.

Yeah but, lets be real, without that range buff Total Eclipse was definitely not viable. 4 meters base range? Oh god. Same goes for Ash aoe invisibility. Point is, while the buff was super, it's really stressful to keep it on allies anyway, also considering that you are sacrificing a core mod like Narrow Minded and, in my case, a mod slot (stretch), to get it to work, and it's still not great.

Therefore a lingering effect would be greatly appreciated.

[Birdframe_Prime]

9 hours ago, Xzorn said:

I'm guessing it's because they know the buff doesn't work right.

True, I would say that the base ability definitely needs to have a look over before we go for any real improvements on the Augment.

The base issue that players have with the value that is displayed for DR or DI is never accurate. It's displaying the maximum possible value, but the volumetric lighting usually makes it impossible for that value to be reached. Shadows are never fully dark, areas of light are almost never fully bright, and there are plenty of places in the game (such as the Plains or the Vallis) that have long periods of one lighting type, with only a few instances of the other.

Mirage needs that way to be able to adjust her own 'lighting' so that she can choose which buffs she's applying and how strongly she's applying them.

After that? Sure, let's look into buffing the Augment.

[Xzorn]

59 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

but the volumetric lighting usually makes it impossible for that value to be reached. Shadows are never fully dark, areas of light are almost never fully bright, and there are plenty of places in the game (such as the Plains or the Vallis) that have long periods of one lighting type, with only a few instances of the other.

 

Yep, this is the reason it doesn't work right. I even have old pics I posted in the past proving the buff used to give full values back in the day.
DE just decided to leave it for some reason. They screwed up Mirage pretty good in general I'd say. She used to have a lot of build diversity.

[Birdframe_Prime]

21 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

DE just decided to leave it for some reason.

It was the lighting change. The moment that the lighting stopped being absolute 'zonal' lighting on the geometry and started being volumetric per source... the ability can only give the percentage that is keyed to the light it's exposed to.

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

13 hours ago, Evhel.nVbs said:

The team is usually splitted

split*

[Evhel]

17 minutes ago, (PS4)LoisGordils said:

split*

Split split split?

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

51 minutes ago, Evhel.nVbs said:

Split split split?

Split - Verb. To Split. Past tense: the logs were Split, the team was Split.

[keikogi]

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Mirage needs that way to be able to adjust her own 'lighting' so that she can choose which buffs she's applying and how strongly she's applying them.

After that? Sure, let's look into buffing the Augmen

I've augested a while ago something like this. During eclipse

If mirage is running , rolling , jumping , bullrt jumping or croching she hides behind a thick screan of smoke and is in full darkness.

If mirage is aiming downsight she is iluminated by a Ray of light and is considered in full light.

[Evhel]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Split - Verb. To Split. Past tense: the logs were Split, the team was Split.

So split split split.

Noted 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Evhel.nVbs

[Leyers_of_facade]

Currently, the only way to guarantee the damage buff on eclipse is by setting yourself on fire
while that is reasonably easy to do with some investments in rivens, it is notable that there is yet a method that allows you to put yourself in the dark
Personally, I would recommend making it so that her 2nd ability can at least change the environment such that it is considered dark / light.

[TehGrief]

I have to agree.

I was excited when they rolled out the patch that made all the changes to so many different augment mods - mostly improving quality of life and mechanics.
However, the base range for the augment does need to be increased from what it currently is.

On a side note, Zephyr's augment Jet Stream has a laughably small radius of only 6m default that also should be greatly increased. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, TehGrief said:

On a side note, Zephyr's augment Jet Stream has a laughably small radius of only 6m default that also should be greatly increased.

While I agree that the range is terrible, that's not the Augment doing that, the base Ability only has a max-rank range of 6m before modding. Jet Stream just uses that.

That's more a topic of 'buff Zephyr' than 'buff Jet Stream' ^^

[TehGrief]

5 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

While I agree that the range is terrible, that's not the Augment doing that, the base Ability only has a max-rank range of 6m before modding. Jet Stream just uses that.

That's more a topic of 'buff Zephyr' than 'buff Jet Stream' ^^

I had more lumped it in to the mix since it is the augment that provides the buff to allies, whereas the base ability only affects Zephyr.

I think the base ability works fine, but from the standpoint of trying to have a support build, it simply cannot be done without hiding inside an ally's pocket. 

[(PSN)Gorbihn]

On ‎2019‎-‎10‎-‎10 at 4:35 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Mirage needs that way to be able to adjust her own 'lighting' so that she can choose which buffs she's applying and how strongly she's applying them.

After that? Sure, let's look into buffing the Augment.

Well Slight of Hand as it is wouldn't be missed, I'm sure.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Gorbihn said:

Well Slight of Hand as it is wouldn't be missed, I'm sure.

Certainly not. Despite DE's attempts to give it more function, it still has the fundamental flaw of the effects coming with additional cost in the form of lost pickups, and the only time it has any more meaningful effect (status procs being quite useful when they happen to enemies without you shooting at them first) is when you Augment it so that the pickups become mines rather than timed detonations, except at that point it starts destroying your ammo as well.

It's a great thematic ability, the Harlequin frame turns everything into a dangerous jack-in-the-box, where ordinary things become explosive and confetti fires everywhere... but ye gods is that a one-and-done effect that I'd be happy to see replaced with something that actually generates a mechanical effect for her.

Take that Vauban rework as a base, the dual cast we've seen on Bastille/Vortex, and call the ability Stage Light (or something similar). Cast one of those crystal prisms on the ground, it generates a field of Light, hold the ability for a short time and she either converts an existing Stage Light to a field of Shadow or recasts the ability as that (the two effects can't be active at once). The fields then are small sources of mechanical damage and status just like the casts before, so just entering a Stage Light area will cause small amounts of damage over time. Entering a Light will blind enemies while a Shadow will slow them, giving the ability a reason to be cast on its own merits. (Having the ability work, at base, is important.)

In combination with her other abilities, though, it becomes an even more functional cast. With Hall of Mirrors active she makes the ability 50% larger (give that a modded function too) by summoning the extra prisms (the extra prisms she summons now are just more of the function of the ability anyway). With Eclipse active she gains the guaranteed maximum effects of her damage/DR functions (and for the UI we definitely need that buff icon to be variable so that we can see how much boost/reduction we're getting in real time, not just the potential max). And with Prism we can now get dual functions. So standing in the Light the glitter ball is a damage function coupled with the current line-of-sight blind when you end the cast, but in the Shadow the ball deals better Status (proc'ing off things like Electric, Heat and Radiation) and Slows enemies in line-of-sight when it bursts.

Change the base function of one ability in her kit and suddenly the entire rest of it not only works, but has better function than it does currently. Also, this field function could then be used to help allies out with the Total Eclipse augment; any time she has Total Eclipse running and steps into a Stage Light, allies within that range gain the function as well as allies that are just within range of Mirage herself, so it can effectively increase her range as long as she's touching the edges of the cast. This also means that allies who go and stand in the cast will actually always get the maximum boosts as well, whichever function is active, so Mirage really can give her team 95% DR or the 250-500% damage buff in a reliable fashion.

Thoughts?

[(PSN)Gorbihn]

On ‎2019‎-‎10‎-‎15 at 1:25 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Certainly not. Despite DE's attempts to give it more function, it still has the fundamental flaw of the effects coming with additional cost in the form of lost pickups, and the only time it has any more meaningful effect (status procs being quite useful when they happen to enemies without you shooting at them first) is when you Augment it so that the pickups become mines rather than timed detonations, except at that point it starts destroying your ammo as well.

It's a great thematic ability, the Harlequin frame turns everything into a dangerous jack-in-the-box, where ordinary things become explosive and confetti fires everywhere... but ye gods is that a one-and-done effect that I'd be happy to see replaced with something that actually generates a mechanical effect for her.

Take that Vauban rework as a base, the dual cast we've seen on Bastille/Vortex, and call the ability Stage Light (or something similar). Cast one of those crystal prisms on the ground, it generates a field of Light, hold the ability for a short time and she either converts an existing Stage Light to a field of Shadow or recasts the ability as that (the two effects can't be active at once). The fields then are small sources of mechanical damage and status just like the casts before, so just entering a Stage Light area will cause small amounts of damage over time. Entering a Light will blind enemies while a Shadow will slow them, giving the ability a reason to be cast on its own merits. (Having the ability work, at base, is important.)

In combination with her other abilities, though, it becomes an even more functional cast. With Hall of Mirrors active she makes the ability 50% larger (give that a modded function too) by summoning the extra prisms (the extra prisms she summons now are just more of the function of the ability anyway). With Eclipse active she gains the guaranteed maximum effects of her damage/DR functions (and for the UI we definitely need that buff icon to be variable so that we can see how much boost/reduction we're getting in real time, not just the potential max). And with Prism we can now get dual functions. So standing in the Light the glitter ball is a damage function coupled with the current line-of-sight blind when you end the cast, but in the Shadow the ball deals better Status (proc'ing off things like Electric, Heat and Radiation) and Slows enemies in line-of-sight when it bursts.

Change the base function of one ability in her kit and suddenly the entire rest of it not only works, but has better function than it does currently. Also, this field function could then be used to help allies out with the Total Eclipse augment; any time she has Total Eclipse running and steps into a Stage Light, allies within that range gain the function as well as allies that are just within range of Mirage herself, so it can effectively increase her range as long as she's touching the edges of the cast. This also means that allies who go and stand in the cast will actually always get the maximum boosts as well, whichever function is active, so Mirage really can give her team 95% DR or the 250-500% damage buff in a reliable fashion.

Thoughts?

The thematics of her being a harlequin makes me think of smoke and mirrors myself, and her kit is playing with light, so being able to create areas where either light or shadow is dominant wouldn't feel out of place thematically. Being able to either buff allies or debuff enemies giving her an increase to survivability would be nice, and would continue along the idea of how she operates, and in particular would give Eclipse a better chance to shine. Plus, with how Gauss has his AOE, she could be done similarly, though using the Crystals as a centerpiece would be fitting.