A Mirage Guide: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Tip for Optimal Play.
We’ve made it to the end of the line. The final of eight playable characters in the initial form of Apex Legends. The holographic trickster, Mirage. This guide will help you play as, with, and against him much more effectively. I’ll explain everything after covering the abilities to establish a foundation.
Passive: Encore!
When you get knocked, you leave a decoy standing where you were and cloak for five seconds. This ability requires you to be effectively out of the fight already, so it doesn’t help win a fight in any realistic way. I’ll cover more on why in the “weaknesses” section.
Ultimate: Vanishing Act
Upon activation, a team of decoys deploys while you cloak. It seems like you also remove the disorient effect (caused by arc stars and the ult from Bangalore and Gibraltar) by activating, but activation time is long enough that it wouldn’t be much of a difference if this is true. Sometimes one of the decoys will run off, which is incredibly useful. But, I haven’t figured out how to purposefully cause this to happen despite over a dozen hours of play time on Mirage.
Tactical: Psyche Out
You can send a holographic decoy in the direction chosen. This is a great tool for confusing and distracting enemies. When your decoy is damaged by an enemy, their location is revealed to you. Psyche Out is essentially the only reason Mirage remains viable in the game. Sometimes a decoy will turn to continue running instead of doing the normal straight line, but I haven’t figured out how to purposefully cause this to happen similar to the seemingly random effect with Vanishing Act.
Strengths:
Mirage is all about confusing the enemy. The mantra of Mirage is “buy time.” Using decoys to create distractions to allow you and your team to rotate, recover, and get shooting priority is what Mirage is all about.
Weaknesses:
While Mirage is cloaked, a trained eye can see his outline moving around. “Cloaked” is equal to “camouflaged” not “invisible.” After cloaking from using the ultimate, Mirage cannot heal, shield, reload, shoot, or really anything other than move. The cloaking is on a set timer and cannot be canceled. If the cloaked mirage is spotted, he is a defenseless runner.
The passive is honestly pretty useless as it can only be used after being knocked. The cloaking is the same as with the ult and only lasts for five seconds anyway. In many cases, getting knocked means you lost or will at least get finished by the enemy. Five seconds isn’t a lot of time either. Many fights last a minute or longer, so it’s not very common these few seconds would amount to anything significant. This is even if the cloaking was true invisibility.
Over a hundred hours of time played in Apex, and a Mirage passive has never once been the difference maker in a fight won or lost. Essentially only having two abilities puts the character at an immediate disadvantage to characters like Wraith who have three useful abilities.
Tips to Play:
Using your tactical regularly during a fight can buy a lot of time for your team to recover and create that split second reaction time delay for you and your team to get the first shot in a fight. Getting that extra shot can be the edge you needed to win the fight. I’ve had engagements where a perfectly placed decoy bamboozled an enemy enough that they were completely facing the other way from me while shooting the decoy. This allowed me to have such an advantage that I knocked them before they were able to turn around to get a shot sent my way.
Many fights can last a minute or longer and the decoy’s cooldown is fifteen seconds. Developing the presence of mind to use the decoys as often as possible will go a long way for you. Psyche Out can be used while doing things like reloading and using a medkit, so be sure to use these distraction tools to let you be able to recover and get back into the fight.
Psyche Out is especially amazing in the early game when other players are struggling to find and conserve ammo while having small magazine sizes. The few shots they waste on your decoy could result in them running out of ammo in the fight or at least cause them to require reloading, which can be the couple of seconds you would need to escape or take them down.
I also like to send decoys to the side or behind me while roaming. If anybody is looking to flank my team, they’ll likely shoot my decoy and reveal their location to me. The decoys trigger Caustic traps as well, so you’re even a direct counter to an otherwise annoying character to deal with indoors. Triggering the traps also reveals the Caustic’s location.
The ultimate seems to be designed as an escape mechanism when under fire or otherwise getting collapsed on. You’ll want to hug corners when escaping like usual as a trained eye can still spot you out. But, you are still far more difficult to see than normal and become virtually impossible to locate when there are explosions, gunfire, etc all around.
I’ve found the best time to use the Vanishing Act is if I can immediately recognize a disadvantaged situation. If I can pop the ult as the enemy is collapsing and I haven’t taken damage, then I can easily slip around to a better position for the fight. You seem to get a slight speed boost as well which is nice, but doesn’t feel anywhere near as fast as Bangalore’s or Bloodhound’s.
Try to not use the ult while your team is the focus of the enemy though. You’ll want to be free to assist with focus firing on a targetted enemy is possible. Using the ultimate is a commitment to a few seconds where you cannot assist your team. The ult is more of a tool when you’re isolated and need to regroup with the team or reposition for a better flanking angle.
*Edit: While skydiving (initial drop or using a redeploy balloon), Mirage can use his tactical to send up to two decoys. These decoys appear to be diving down just like any other player. Use these decoys to make other players think more enemies are landing in a location to scare them away and secure a safer initial looting experience. When using a redeploy balloon, use them to distract players to give yourself a flanking position.
Tips to Play Against:
Try to train yourself to recognize the character outlines when against a mirage. If you look carefully, you can spot his hazed figure when he used his ult. Speaking of which, try to aggressively push him if possible when you see numerous clones suddenly appear. If you’re positioned close enough and no other enemies are nearby to punish your aggression, then you can get free shots on the chameleon for a few seconds.
When you see a mirage wildly running at you, express caution to your team while looking for signs of if it’s a player or the automated clone. You don’t want a player to freely walk up and get shots into you to start the engagement, but you don’t want to recklessly give your position away either. You could take cover while observing the potential threat. Signs of it being an actual player are things like crouching or readying a weapon. As far as I’ve seen, a clone can only run and stand still.
Most mirages have their decoy lead the charge. If you see double, then shooting the one in the back is typically the right call. Your revealed position from shooting a decoy is only the location you were in when the decoy was damaged. So, try to quickly reposition to different cover while concealed so the enemy doesn’t have the information advantage.
Works Well With/Without/Against:
Bangalore smoke can be hard to deal with in a fight without a digital threat scope. Sending a decoy through it can help direct your fire when you’d otherwise be shooting blind. Also works for added chaos to throw off the enemy while rotating around them. As mentioned before, Mirage is essentially a direct counter to Caustic by trigging his traps with a decoy and revealing his position to your team.
Summary:
If you enjoy tricking enemies and causing shenanigans on the battlefield, Mirage is a good character to play. Mastery of using his decoys creates a high strategic skill ceiling for the character. Using them to dictate firing angles is a lot of fun. I’ve found the most success with “buying time” strategies and coming up with more creative ways to use this character is fun.
