Of all the changes in today's patch notes preview, I am most excited about the possibility of Alacirage (ok, still workshopping the name). It gained the ability to apply 10-man Alacrity for 3 seconds baseline when using staff ambush skill (as well as 8 stacks of might for 15 seconds). Could this be enough to compete with Alacrigade? Eh...unlikely, but you can bet I'm going to try my hardest to make it work.

Speaking as an Alacrigade main, it's incredibly hard to think that even with this buff, Mirage could compete with it. But there's a lot more going on than just the Alacrity access, so there might be something here after all. The strength of Alacrigade is that thanks to Diviner's gear, it has a pretty easy time of getting just enough boon duration for 100% uptime, so it can devote the rest of its build to maximizing its dps. For Mirage to be competitive with Alacrigade, it's got to not only provide 100% alacrity uptime, but also provide damage output in the same ballpark, which means I'm aiming for at least around 25k dps.

Can a staff Mirage really do it all that while providing 100% alacrity? At first I thought there was no chance, because I have tried staff/staff Mirage before and it is pretty low on the dps, but then I thought about the other changes going on in the patch, and that got me thinking:

• Mirage staff is getting faster animations.
• Instead of random conditions (4 sec bleed, 4 sec torment, or 1 sec burning), it now will have consistent 5 sec Torment.
• Torment is getting a HUGE buff, dealing 50% more damage to stationary targets.
• Enemies with broken breakbars will now take 100% bonus damage from conditions such as Torment instead of 50%.

With this many factors buffing staff Mirage's damage, it's possible that staff Mirage's benchmarks are about to have a massive increase. There are still too many factors to say whether it would be competitive next to Alacrigade, but I'm starting to have some glimmer of hope.

So what would the build look like? Despite being boon Mirage, I don't think you'll need much boon duration. 3 seconds of Alacrity baseline is pretty good if you can spam your staff ambush. How much can we spam it? Dodging costs 50 endurance, and baseline endurance regens 50 endurance every 10 seconds. Vigor increases it by 50%, and food can boost it by another 40%, for 90 endurance every 10 seconds. Add on Sigil of Energy (which you'd run on 2x staff) and you're looking at 140 endurance every 10 seconds, almost enough for 3 dodges. To supplement your dodges, you can run utilities like Crystal Sands or False Oasis for mirage mirrors and more ambushes. And since your ambushes contribute to your dps anyway, maxing your endurance gain is going to be top priority. (Of course, fractal potions make this even easier to do). Not running axe means you can also trait Desert Distortion for more sources of mirage mirrors.

I think I'd start with just Sigil of Concentration and Sigil of Energy, but no other concentration gear. This allows us to run full Viper's to maximize our dps. With the change to Winds of Chaos inflicting consistent Torment instead of random conditions, we can now run Runes of Tormenting. This lets us swap one Viper ring for Sinister and still hit 100% Torment duration. Runes of Tormenting also provides you with a ton of self sustain now that you're inflicting reliable Torment stacks.

This is what I'm currently looking at running, but not sure on the traits yet: (EDIT: changed Illusions to Chaos) http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PigAYZlRwiYIsEmJWOP9vKA-zRRYfBJYGVf9lRmpQ6Vg3zSVmVA-e

Things that I like about this build over Alacrigade is even more easy might generation (you're going to provide 25 might to 10 players without even trying) and its flexibility with its attack range. Alacrigade also got its Soulcleaver's Summit nerfed hard so that might bring it down a smidge too. One big question still up in the air, though, is the AoE range of the alacrity it applies. I'm also looking into a Seraph's Mirage with healing via the new changes to Restorative Mantras and how mantra recharges work now, but I'm not as convinced that it'll be as good as current healers.

Will this be able to compete with Alacrigade? It'd take a small miracle, honestly, but I'm going to give it a shot and see once the patch hits.