Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good week and are ready for the weekend!

So I've been playing a lot and watching a lot of people WAAAAYYYYY better than me play DMC5 and it got me thinking about the balancing of Vergil's weapons in the game. Maybe I am just overthinking it but it seems like the Mirage Edge is kind of the forgotten tool in Vergil's arsenal, especially by the guys who are actually good at the game (so you would assume that means its genuinely less useful). I think a similar thing could be said for Cavaliere, which is why I think, of all of Dante's weapons to tweak with DLC, they chose that and added Red Line which is extremely useful. Otherwise, Cavaliere isn't overly useful compared to the other weapons Dante has (long load, leave yourself vulnerable with each attack, no broken moves, not great for parrying etc.). I think the Mirage Edge displays a similar issue so I got started on thinking on how to improve it by comparing it with the Yamato and Beowulf.

So, I think the Mirage Edge is already done a bit of a raw deal because it has the super move that is the weakest, but in general I actually like what they did with Vergil's weapons. They had 3 weapons that offer different things and can be useful in different scenarios, I just think they didn't make the Mirage Edge useful ENOUGH compared with the other 2. So, I think what makes the Yamato & Beowulf great is that they each have three main things: they have a clear niche/focus, they both have a broken mechanic and they both require a skill to be mastered very well to be used effectively. So, for the Yamato, the niche is the speed and general combat agility & versatility, whilst the broken mechanic is the judgement cut system and the skill to master is the timing of the just judgement cut. The Yamato is the best to use with the Doppelganger too, so that's another tip in its favour. For Beowulf, the niche is high damage, the broken mechanic is the entire charging system (specifically Dragon Breaker) and the skill to be mastered is being able to integrate Heavy Rain seamlessly and with good timing into your combat (maybe also SDT but you could say that about everything). For the Mirage Edge, things get a bit tricky. It's niche is probably its reach? It has a wide attack range so it is theoretically the best for fighting groups of enemies, but SDT/doppelganger and some judgement cuts are probably a better option. I would say the reach makes it the best for parrying, but I think in general Vergil has lots of ways to parry and it can still be done with the other weapons very effectively. I would definitely say its the worst for combos, especially since aerial combat with it is extremely limited. It also only has two full combos if I remember correctly. There is no real broken mechanic to it either, the only thing people really use it for are drive and roundtrip and I wouldn't call those broken. Finally, there isn't really a skill you need to master to be good with it. It feels like it was either fairly underdeveloped or that it was the accessibility option. I think these three points need to be addressed to give it more utility.

So, I think one thing that could be done, along with some general improvements to the Doppelganger (like shortening the activation animation or just removing it entirely, maybe adding a Quadruple S function to take away the load time), would be to make the Doppelganger use the Mirage Edge instead. Maybe the Doppelganger could have the real Force Edge and Vergil has the Mirage Edge and that sword is how Vergil controls him. The Mirage Edge and Doppelganger could both change colour when the Doppelganger mode changes as well. With this, they could align the Mirage Edge's combat to exploit the second hit that the Doppelganger provides. For example, they could make it so that the knockback from it is very small, so that when you delay the Doppelganger he can follow in right after you attack easily. Therefore, learning how to effectively set up the Doppelganger would become the skill you need to really take advantage of the Mirage Edge. This could build on the reach aspect that the Mirage Edge already boasts. They could also make the sword longer to build on that, closer to the length of the Rebellion maybe. I think more SDT exclusive combat traits would help too, like the ones that come with the Yamato and Beowulf. Lastly, Deep Stinger probably needs it's damage tweaked up (or the other super moves have theirs tweaked down) and the start up and finishing animation should go so that you can quickly just get into and out of it and integrate it heavily into your combos like how Sin Stinger can be used really effectively in Dante's combos when using Quadruple S. Lastly, it needs to have something broken about it that makes people want to use it. I would like them to lean much more into its ability to parry. If they reduced the ability of the Yamato to parry specifically and increased the size of the Mirage Edge's hit box even further, I think it could become the go to parrying weapon and that could get you through a lot of boss fights. They could also do this by making the dual wielding function much more integrated into the combos, so that each strike of the Mirage Edge is basically a 270 degree attack, which could help with hitting and parrying multiple enemies at once. Maybe they could add a move that's like roundtrip but it has the functionality of Ice Age to lean into this defensive aspect even more.

But yeah, that's what I would hope they can bring to DMC6 SE (because we all know Vergil won't be in the main game) to make the Mirage Edge a bit more useful. I like using it personally because I think its conceptually the coolest of Vergil's weapons, but I must admit its not as useful as the others, even at my level of play. Let me know your thoughts and opinions. Would you prefer if they just gave Vergil a brand new weapon as his third one in the next game? If so, what would you want it to be? I would personally want it to be a more defensively oriented weapon, like a staff/spear (with an integrated block move as like it's back to front input that maybe takes some concentration or DT to use) or maybe even a straight up dual-wield of the Yamato (or the Mirage Edge itself) and a shield (again, with an actual blocking function). Anyways, have a nice night everybody!