Re: Legend Spotlight - Mirage!
by Uncl3Psych0Original Post
I've played Mirage for a good while and mained him at the start of Apex's launch. Seeing enemies shooting my decoy while fully believing 'I got you' is one of the best things in the game IMO. However, nowadays I find him lacking in certain ways compared to other legends and always feel bad for choosing him. I am already sorry for the big text I am about to type! TL;DR at the end.
Looking at the abilities gives me the impression that Mirage should be played as an assault class in addition to 'always being able to escape when things get too hot' character. He can confuse the enemy and then escape no matter what. If he is in a bad situation, the ultimate should get him out. If he is downed, his passive should get him out. On paper, this seems like a pretty good design to bring some variety in the assault legends, but in practice 2 of the 3 abilities feel kind of useless in the current state.
ENCORE - Passive
Medium experienced players (that have played the game for like 20 times) can already recognize the mirage downed player animation. I can almost never escape certain death with this ability. It gives maybe a few seconds delay to get killed (which allows for my teammates to come in and attack my enemy). Still, I am saved by my teammates, not the passive of Mirage. 5 seconds cloak seems like a reasonable time, but as I am not fully invisible and can only move slowly while being downed, the enemies still just shoot me.
I would suggest buffing his passive as it is by far the most useless passive in the game. I don't know how this escape should be made more effective, but the fact remains that 'escape while being downed' is only useful WHEN you are already downed. Instead, I would like to see a more useful passive. Maybe even keep this ability as it is now and just add another action to his passive. A nice suggestion I read is that his passive could send out 1 or 2 decoys while his shields are breaking under fire. So for example you run with Mirage, you get shot and your shields break: he automatically sends out 2 decoys running to confuse the enemy.
It may not be stated on the website, but Mirage passive also includes deploying decoys while flying in the air (from the dropship or the jump balloons). When this ability is used, it can confuse players to turn away from a certain drop location or even confuse them while you can safely land on the ground from the balloon. This part of Mirage passive seems to be more effective than his downed-decoy does. I would not buff this part and just leave as it is.
PSYCHE OUT - Tactical
Apart from the amazing voice lines, the tactical ability is the only reason why players should choose to play Mirage. It is amazing and works great. Enemies see movement and instantly think it is you, seems to work pretty well, even against more experienced players. Just be sure to activate it while others cannot see you, as they are more likely to fall for the Bamboozle.
The ability is on a short cooldown with no activation time whatsoever: it is great, effective and should be kept the same.
VANASHING ACT - Ultimate
His ultimate is on a pretty short cooldown, however that is the only real positive of it. I feel like the ultimate abilities in the game should be exactly that: ULTIMATE. Either very useful to quickly cover ground, doing a massive attack or calling in supplies. Mirage's ultimate is meant to allow escape from fights really quick, but it instead puts a massive 'SHOOT HERE' target on my head. The activation time is short but long enough to be fair.
The ultimate has two parts: creating decoys and going invisible. I will discuss both in that order.
He creates multiple decoys that move for a very short time and then just transfer into static decoys. When an enemy player sees the decoys, he already knows that Mirage is not one of them, so why bother shooting them? They do not provide that 'reflex shooting' that his tactical does because the decoys are all static, immediately giving away the bamboozle. Literally no one falls for it.
Then Mirage cloaks (becomes semi-invisible) and is able to escape the situation. His decoys should keep the enemies busy while he can run a while and.... sit and wait until the ability is worked out. His decoys do not confuse the enemy and are currently only there to let enemies know that you are running around unarmed and probably on very low health. Instead of an easy 'ultimate escape ability' this quickly becomes 'let's focus all the enemy attention on hunting me down'. I've also tried and use this ability offensively, I tried flanking teams or just cover some ground while it is a bit harder to see me. However, these methods are ineffective at best, because once you know where you are looking for, medium experienced players can see through the cloak. That and the fact that you cannot stop the ultimate escape makes it hard to use and pretty much useless.
There are many ways to improve his ultimate and what to do depends on how the devs want Mirage to be (escape god or having a usefull team ability). If the focus is more on escaping, then he should either be harder to see, decoys should be running. I maybe favor it when Mirage doesn't even cloak and just sends out 10 decoys runnig around him to confuse the enemy.
When the devs want Mirage to be a more team character, then I would advise changing the ultimate more drastically, maybe make the decoys running and have skins of the legends of the team.
In conclusion, by far one of the hardest to effectively use ultimates in the game and honestly the worst ultimate overall.
TL;DR
Mirage is currently a very selfish character, with no abilities to help the team. That is a huge disadvantage of having a Mirage player on your team. His decoys should make up for it, effectively confusing the enemies. With 2 of 3 abilities being close to useless and by far the worst abilities in their categories compared to other legends, I would strongly suggest a major Mirage buff.
