Side Mirage

February 2023

Side Mirage is a duelist build based on Confusion to burst your opponents.

Build fundamentals

Side mirage is a duelist build. It has decent impact in a teamfight however it has much more value on a sidenode. Most of your damage comes from Confusion under the form of a burst, as well as your staff clones casting Winds of Chaos.
Below is the perfect burst, a few abilities can be skipped but Cry of Frustration is mandatory:

1. Phantasmal Warlock
2. precast Chaos Vortex (use the following skills at the end of the cast)
3. Jaunt
4. Mirror Images
5. Cry of Frustration
6. Chaos Armor

Note that you can also use Magic Bullet to ensure you hit all of your burst.

Between bursts you can use every other cooldown to survive and slightly pressure the enemy. Illusionary Counter should be used as soon as you can as it blocks and applies 5 stacks of Torment on your opponent.
Be really careful when using Confusing Images: it has really strong damage but it’s really easy to get punished during its cast, so you’ll most likely have to interrupt it before you finish casting it fully.

It is VERY important you spam Chaos Vortex (staff ambush, obtained instead of Winds of Chaos when you use a dodge, distortion or pick up a mirror) for the Alacrity. Without it, you won’t be able to burst often enough and your opponent will just get their defensive cooldowns back up.

Other shatter skill usage:

• Mind Wrack should only be used for Stability from Bountiful Disillusionment.
• Diversion can be used offensively or defensively. You can interrupt a heal, or your opponent’s burst. It also procs Ineptitude so it can help a bit with the offensive but it’s not a major source of damage.
• Distortion gets longer the more clones you have and lets you use ambush skills as well.

Matchups:

As this build is based on Confusion bursts, you can win any matchup by catching your opponent off guard. However, classes with lots of condition cleanse, boon corrupts and/or boon steal are really hard to face. Some of these include Scourge, most Ranger builds or Thief.
Against Thief specifically, you will have to use no port spots, as it will always win against you (unless the thief is bad and you are good).