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Mirage Prime

Just Another Sanctuary Mirage, I guess.

by last updated 3 years ago

20

Dazzle the opposition with this golden master of illusion and mayhem. Featuring altered mod polarities allow for greater customization.

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ITEM RANK

30

60 / 60

APPLY CONDITIONALS

ENERGY
225
HEALTH
300
SHIELD
410
SPRINT SPEED
1.2
DURATION
100%
EFFICIENCY
100%
RANGE
100%
STRENGTH
100%
ARMOR
185
Damage Reduction
38.1%
EFFECTIVE HIT POINTS
1,032
Guide
0 Comments
Mirage Prime builds
Builds by JellyBlade

Just Another Sanctuary Mirage, I guess.

This guide is largely based on my own experiences of playing with this build for 200 or so days, my thoughts and observations about the various tiles of [Sanctuary], and more I suppose. It kind of ended up being a strategy guide for [Sanctuary] Onslaught as a whole though... oh well.

Quick Strategy

Here's the TL;DR for my strategy of how I do my focus farming.

  1. Start up [Sanctuary] Onslaught (Preferably as host, see Hosting section below for more details).
  2. Each zone, bullet jump into the air, hold down aim glide (RMB default), and cast 4 (Prism) to clear the map.
  3. Wait ~2 seconds for drops to fall.
  4. Press 2 (Sleight of Hand) to turn the drops into bombs.
  5. Press 1 (Empower) to increase bomb damage.
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 until the zone ends.

Also make sure to re-apply Zenurik energy dash whenever it runs out.

Unbuffed Focus per zone: 6-30k (Lua Lens), depending on enemy type and tile (See Tilesets and Enemies section for more details)
Record Focus from 1 zone: ~240k focus (Lua Lens), with 2 boosters and a Smeeta Kavat buff.

Detailed Strategy

Now time for the nitty-gritty details of this build.
We'll start by going over the 6 steps listed in the quick strategy in more detail, discuss Elite [Sanctuary] Onslaught (ESO) viability, suggested equipment loadouts, arcane and helminth ability substitutions, team synergy, then end by briefly discussing Hosting, Tilesets, and enemies.

Here we go.

  1. Why [Sanctuary]? Why not ESO?

We'll go over this in more detail in the next section, so just hold on.

  1. Prism? But you have no duration!
    Also, why jump in the air?

Don't need duration here! Even though prism only lasts 1.5 seconds, it's enough that the 20 lasers will clear the entire map of enemies. It's not intended to be a constant source of damage, as that's where the bombs come in. You just want the map cleared to get the drops to spawn for your bombs (and it also nets you some decent affinity in the first few seconds as well).
That second part is personal preference, really. I find bullet jumping and gliding in the air allows me to better position the disco ball into the most open position of the map and prevents the lasers from being blocked from obstacles, or the disco ball bouncing off of an ally or enemy.

  1. Waiting 2 seconds:

The mines spawned by [Explosive Legerdemain] are proximity mines, which requires the enemy to step on them to activate, or for the mine's timer to expire (which isn't affected by your duration stat).
Waiting for the drops to fall to the ground makes it easier for enemies to step on them, because otherwise you'll have to wait for the bombs in the air (where nobody can hit them) to expire and detonate.

Note: Sanctuary tiles sometimes have a low-gravity effect that change how long it takes for them to drop, so adjust accordingly. 3-4 seconds is usually a good amount of time to wait when this effect occurs.

  1. Self-explanatory, just cast it once, spamming the button doesn't do much.

  2. Alright, Empower time. Here goes nothing:

From my own casual testing, I've found that Mirage's bombs do take Empower into account (Increases this builds damage from ~1,300 -> 1,800 damage), although when it does this is up for debate.
I personally believe the bombs take the current damage value set in [Mirage]'s skills at their detonation time. Thus, I cast Empower after I've cast Sleight of Hand.
When you cast Empower doesn't make too much of a difference, I just try and keep it active as much as possible, hence casting it after Sleight of Hand.

And why do I suspect the bombs take the damage value (if at all) at the time of their detonation?
Well, it's what I would do if I had to program it. Keeping track of multiple, potentially separate bomb damage values is doable when you have, say, a few dozen. But when there's potentially hundreds on a single tile at any time, that gets a bit excessive. It's much easier for the bomb to, upon trigger, grab the current damage value from the player who spawned the bomb.
You can see this in action with [Rhino]'s Roar as well, as it affects bombs spawned prior to receiving the buff. The same goes for Empower. You can see the damage increase in the Abilities screen from the ESC menu while it's active, and it has a noticeable effect on the damage output and killing speed of the bombs.
Empower is also about the only useful ability you could stick on there with this no-duration build. Hall of Mirrors, which is replaced by Empower in this build, is only active for maybe 2 seconds, same with Eclipse. You could replace either of the two abilities with Empower, but ideally we'd live in a world where we could replace both with something useful.

TL;DR: Empower works unless I'm crazy, so keep it on as long as possible, and Hall of Mirrors and Eclipse do nothing on this build anyways.

Can I run this without a Lua lens?
Absolutely, Lua Lenses are not required. The blueprints for them are kind of a pain to get anyways if you don't like Disruption, but I would say at least a Greater Lens or an Eidolon Lens is required. They're not too difficult to acquire if you're already getting the Lenses themselves from Cetus bounties, anyways.

I will say to take a look at how much time you save from a small [Sacrifice] to get the Lua Lens though. You can likely get enough Somatic Fibers (and the blueprints) for one, maybe two Lua Lenses from a couple hours of playing Lua Disruption. You're getting 44% more focus than an eidolon lens, which means you'll spend significantly less time grinding over the course of the 200+ days it takes to max out all of your focus schools. It's hard for me to justify using a lower-level lens, but its your time to spend.

Suggested Focus School

Zenurik, always. That energy dash is vital.

Elite [Sanctuary] Onslaught?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Not really.
If you're intending to do a full 8 zones in ESO, you're better off soloing it as an ESO-build Saryn. Mirage, even with this higher-damage glass-cannon build lacks the ability to kill Grineer on higher zones effectively, as she doesn't scale like Saryn does. If you're alone and get 2 or 3 back-to-back Elite grineer zones, you'll likely fail to efficiency loss. It is possible to do, but not recommended.

However, [Mirage] is viable with friends! I'll talk more about team synergies in a later section, but to put it shortly, [Mirage] is fueled by death. The more stuff that dies, the more bombs you can make. Playing ESO with a [Saryn] or an [Equinox] allows you to ramp up damage faster than you could normally do by yourself. However, you might make the [Saryn] upset if you kill too much and prevent her spores from spreading, but your mileage may vary.

On a separate note, we should also quickly discuss player mentality.
This may change based on platform, I play on PC, and am largely basing this on my own experiences, but I find people really don't like playing ESO for more than 2 or 3 zones. A large majority of people who play ESO are there to level weapons with a booster, and will drop as soon as it hits 30, which makes it hard to do focus farming, especially if you're not the host (more on that later).

I personally do all my focus farming in regular [Sanctuary] Onslaught, as you have a much higher chance of people sticking around to 8 zones before dipping out, because they're trying to get [Khora], or level up a Warframe. It also feels nicer when people are happy you're there to carry them to 8, rather than just silently disappearing after zone 3 because their MR fodder weapon got leveled.

You do technically get more focus in ESO, but I personally prefer being able to not have to rely on and people sticking around to make it to 8. I personally find I get about the same amount of affinity anyways, with more kills equaling out the difference in Affinity per kill between SO and ESO. Again, your mileage may vary, and if you have good team members to support you, you'll have a much easier time of it.

However, if there's a good rotation of map + enemy types in ESO for the first 3-4 zones, definitely pursue that. Corpus + small maps are great to look out for, and you can get a lot of focus from that combination.

TL;DR: If you have friends, play ESO with synergistic frames, or use [Saryn] instead. If you want to feel good inside because you're helping people get an amazing frame (Khora), play regular Sanctuary Onslaught.

Suggested Equipment Loadouts

Primary/Secondary/Melee: Anything. You can level weapons if you'd like, although most of your affinity is going only to your Warframe and Lens.
A lot of [Mirage] builds will use weapons like Acceltra, Kuva Bramma, Proboscis Cernos, etc. However, this build doesn't rely on Hall of Mirrors/Malevolence at all, so using a high-tier weapon isn't necessary for this build. Use whatever you would like to.

Note: If you do use a weapon to supplement your bomb's damage, make sure to throw on a basic lens to get more focus from your kills (You could use a higher-level lens, but its not really worth it. Most of your focus is coming from your bombs).

For your companion, I fully recommend the [Smeeta Kavat]. Smeeta's affinity boosting buff lasts upwards of 2 minutes, and doubles the amount of Affinity you get from kills, which doubles the amount of focus you can get. The energy buff that refunds spent energy is very useful as well. [Tek Enhance] is highly recommended for the duration bonus here.
Other companions aren't really as useful here, but it's entirely up to you.

Aura Mods

I use Corrosive Projection to offset the difficulty in killing Grineer.

Arcanes

I use Arcane Energize and Arcane [Rage] here to keep my energy full, and increase my primary weapon's damage.
If you do not have Arcane Energize, please see this build based around Helminth Protea's Dispensary

Some other options for the replacing Arcane Rage:

  • Arcane Guardian for increased survivability,
  • Arcane Barrier, for the same reason,
  • (Non-[Sanctuary]) Arcane Healing, if you decide to use this build where you could be affected by a radiation proc and don't wish to annihilate your entire team,
  • (Untested) Arcane Arachne's damage buff affects some Warframe abilities, it's likely that damage bonus applies to your bombs,

Or any arcane you fancy, really.

Helminth Abilities

For this build, I use Empower to get an additional 50% power strength to my next cast.
I try to keep Empower active as long as possible, re-activating it as soon as possible after casting Sleight of Hand.

For survivability, you could possibly use Rebuild Shields, as the cooldown isn't affected by duration (of lack thereof)
However, for the most part, this build is limited in what you can use for Helminth. 13% duration makes almost all ability choices useless as they only last 2-3 seconds at most.

If you do not own Arcane Energize
Please see this build for a higher-duration build focused around using Helminth [Protea]'s Dispensary
This alternate build also opens up the potential to use [Rhino]'s Roar as well.

Team Synergy

[Mirage] works well alone, but is great with others!
I'll briefly highlight Warframes that have a direct effect on the ability for [Mirage] to deal damage and cast Sleight of Hand.
This isn't an exhaustive list, of course. A lot of frames have good general team support abilities, weapon damage buffs, etc., but these have no effect on Explosive Legerdemain's bombs.

Great synergy:

  • Saryn: More Kills = More Bombs! Also, the armor-stripping from her spores help your bombs do even more damage to enemies.
  • [Equinox]: Again, more kills = more bombs! Also, your bombs will increase the amount of damage that [Equinox] does with [Maim], which leads to even more kills. Additionally, Provoke will increase your bomb's damage through ability strength buffs.
  • Rhino: Roar buffs all of your bomb's damage, and turns Mirage into a serious killing machine.
  • Nekros: Desecrate (Despoil suggested) increases the number of drops created by dead enemies, which means more bombs!
  • Protea: Her dispenser can keep you topped up on energy.
  • [Mirage]: Good with herself! More kills = more bombs, and since [Explosive Legerdemain] only affects your drops, the other Mirage(s) can have their own set of bombs. Double, triple, even quadruple the bombs!

Decent Synergy:

  • [Trinity]: Like [Protea], she can help you stay full on energy. Because her Energy Vampire relies on enemies staying alive for longer than 2 seconds, this isn't as effective though.
  • [Volt]: More kills = more bombs, although there's a small caveat to this one. [Volt]'s Discharge keeps enemies stuck in place during the duration of his ability, which can affect the ability of your bombs to detonate.
  • [Nova]: Molecular Prime makes enemies take more damage from your bombs, although you possibly run into the same issue as Volt here, where they're too slow to effectively hit your bombs.
  • Khora and Hydroid: Pilfering Dome/Swarm leads to more drops, which means more bombs! However, the grab of their abilities can lead to bombs clumping up into one area, reducing your even spread across the map (which is a bigger issue with this lower-range build).

Bad Synergy:

  • [Vauban]: His Bastille strips armor while enemies are suspended, which is great for doing more damage to them with bombs. However, his Vortexes draw in drops and, unlike [Mag]'s [Greedy Pull] augment, pull them in for everyone, including yourself. This means all of your bombs get centered into a single cluster instead of being spread out. And to make it worse, as far as I've observed, the enemies ragdoll state seems to prevent them from being able to trigger the bombs, which means a large portion of your bombs don't end up detonating until they expire, and are now clustered in a central location instead of being neatly spread out.
    I'm also not clear whether or not the armor stripping effect also applies to enemies that are ragdolling into the Vortex, which possibly ruins the good aspects of Bastille, in terms of synergy with your bombs.
    Nothing against the ol' Booben, he just has terrible synergy with [Explosive Legerdemain] [Mirage].

Hosting

Just a quick note, if you set your ping limit in Settings > Gameplay low (around 125ms is good for me), you can almost guarantee you'll be the host.
This is suggested because:

  • Smeeta Buffs do not survive a host migration. If you get graced by the good holy Kavat near the end of a round, you'll have a roughly 30 second window to get as much affinity with it as possible before it it snatched from your grasp by someone wanting to leave at Zone 3.
  • Similarly, [Mirage] bombs also do not survive a host migration. If you spend all of your energy in that 30 second window where the conduit is closing, you'll start with no energy and nothing to show for it after the host migration. It's not a good time, and this is usually when I end up getting 4 or 5k focus for a single zone.
  • Nobody likes a host migration (citation needed). If you're hard-carrying a team through [Sanctuary], you might as well be the person hosting the party.

Note: This is honestly not a requirement, just something I got sick of over the course of half a year before I realized I could guarantee being a host. If you've got the internet speed for it, why not?

Tilesets and Enemies

Just one last little section before I close this out. [Sanctuary] Onslaught has a lot of different tilesets, some of them are great, some of them are bad. The record focus I've gotten with this build was on the orokin tower tileset with that tree in the center, which is amazing for [Mirage]. Her bombs excel in small, tight maps without any huge open areas. The Corpus ship and infested ship tilesets are also good for this, while the Europa tilesets are awful.
Your luck in getting a good combination of enemy and tile is the difference between 5,000 focus and 30,000. Leave it up to the jester to turn it into a game of chance.

Here's some quick notes on some particular tiles:

  • Corpus tiles in general will activate every hazard simultaneously when your first bomb goes off. The Corpus Ship tile that spawns you on an elevated U-shaped platform in particular will kill you with an electric proc as soon as your bomb goes off, so make sure you're like, 10-15m away from the U-shape platform when they do.
  • If you're using [Mirage Prime], some of the Orokin tiles will have inactive death orbs, but these will still give you the energy bonus that Prime warframes get. Use them when you're in a bind!
  • The Jupiter Gas City tile where you start inside of a small building has two interactable panels outside next to two large pillars. Activating a panel causes the pillar to rise up, which will give you some Oxium, even though it's a "simulation".
  • Similarly, the infested ship tileset with the large cargo containers and the two halves can spawn Ayatan stars in the container on the other side of the map. Activate the panel to move the container to a position you can get to it, and enjoy the loot.
  • If you're on Europa, cry yourself to sleep and be prepared for 6k focus.

And finally, enemies.
Mirage excels at killing Corpus, Infested, Kuva Grineer, and Corrupted Crewmen/Grineer, but struggles with Elite Grineer and Corrupted Heavy Gunners/Bombards. Toxic Ancients, Ancient Healers/Corrupted Ancients, and Ancient Disruptors will reduce the effectiveness of your bombs, and should be targeted with weapons first.

If you see an Ancient Disruptor when you spawn, make sure to kill them before casting Prism, otherwise your map-clearing superweapon will be reduced to a snazzy decoration for the 1.5 seconds it exists.

The End

Thanks for reading, and have fun.