Hey everyone! Today I’m going to be talking about Mirage, the new Apex Legends hero that was added at the launch of Apex Legends.
He is an aggressive legend with an interesting kit and a passive ability. Since I’m a professional Apex player here at Immortal Boost working along with Apex Boost Squad, I had to master him immediately so I could do my job perfectly just like before she was released.
One of the Apex Legend’s most unique Legends which does require a typical playstyle and rewards an intelligent thoughtful and aggressive character is Mirage. Mirage even bamboozles the fusels in the metagame because everyone doubts him. I’m here to show you how truly powerful Mirage can be.
Mirage is pretty demanding like a mechanical character, if you’re good with using guns or any other mechanics of the game than just using character abilities then you’re not be going to good at Mirage. Also, mirage is 32 years old but still can dominate the map. If you are looking to style on confused and completely embarrass your opponents, you are in the right spot, wasting no time let’s get right to it.
Mirage Abilities
There are so many ways to use Mirage to your advantage but quickly going over his abilities.
Now You See Me (Passive)
His passive ability is now you see me which briefly gives himself and the teammate he is reviving, the invisibility. He also gets invisibility upon getting knocked and while respawning players at the beacons. Mirage’s passive causes him to spawn a decoy when he gets down while also going invisible.
Spawning a teammate at any Beacon and reviving a teammate from being downed all give him invisibility. On reviving he and whoever he is picked up will remain invisible for 3 seconds unless they draw their weapon. This means you can start healing and not break the invisibility.
This passive does not have a cooldown, meaning you can revive someone into respawning someone and have invisibility for both.
Psyche Out (Tactical)
His tactical is psych out which is a decoy, Mirage can send out every 15 seconds to mimic his movements and full enemies. His tactical or Q ability sends a clone of himself in a straight line mimicking the movement of a Mirage when it is sent and has a 15-second cooldown after reaching the target, The clone stands still and can be taken control of to mimic your current action. Whoever damaged the Clone will be tracked with a marker for 3.5 seconds.
Life of the Party (Ultimate)
His ultimate is Life of the Party which sends out five decoys or clones of Mirage to greatly confuse enemies clutter the battlefield and make plays.
Note- Mirage is also now a member of the support class meaning he can open that secret drawer on the blue Loop hills and he unlocks the option for the entire squad to be able to craft teammates’ banners.
Unpacking Passive Ability
There’s a lot to unpack with Mirage’s passive revive but the big thing is the invisibility that you do get. Specifically, though once you’ve revived your teammates, you get three seconds of invisibility for both yourself and that teammate once they do get up. This means that the revived Player can escape more easily and reposition to heal up and better survive.
Second, if Mirage does have that gold knockdown that revives players with the bonus health and shields, Mirage and his teammate can make massive plays while they are invisible. Even without the gold knockdown though, you as Mirage can make some crazy plays if you are healthy, you can’t fire a weapon. Three seconds of invisibility is honestly a long time and you can use this to your advantage by gaining positioning or an alternate angle to beam your enemies.
Light on Mirage’s Arm
Mirage is also the definitive best character to hit that respawn Beacon, the invisibility that you are going to get is pretty huge. One word of warning when performing revives, some lights will shine on Mirage’s arm. Be aware of this, if enemies are close by and trying to locate you. In general, the lights only appear or are visible to enemies within about 5 meters though.
More about Mirage’s Tactical Ability
Mirage’s tactical decoy is where he begins to unlock his offensive capabilities. At a basic level, Mirage can send out that Decoy to try and bamboozle or confuse enemies to shoot it. This can be done either remotely letting the Clone just stand there or run in a straight line or Mirage can control that Decoy having it mimic his movements.
There are an insane number of little tricks and things to know about those decoys and I do consider these the do’s and don’ts of Mirage’s decoys. As few go forward, knowing all these little things is critical to understanding how to best use Mirage’s tactical and ultimate.
First, decoys have 45 Health meaning it takes at least a few rounds to destroy them from most guns that is. Second, decoys have no physical Mass meaning bolts will go through them and they can’t be used as cover, just visual confusion or some concealment. Thirdly, I have not specially tracked down numbers, in my experience, it often feels like the footstep audio on decoys is louder, which can have several benefits to conceal your movement.
Mirage’s decoys can also mimic his basic movement which includes jumping, crashing, sliding, punching, and even the animation of aiming his guns down sights. Additionally, Mirage decoys can hold grenades as well. It’s critical to make yourself as the Mirage seem like you are a decoy to better utilize Mirage’s abilities. To do this, it is important to understand the following actions are things that Mirage decoys are not going to do.
- Using healing items
- Firing bullets
- Reloading guns
- Swapping weapons
- Climbing up objects
It’s also worth saying that Mirage’s decoy can pop up or jump on top of objects if the Mirage is coordinating his movements but they never climb up a wall. The decoys do not pop up dirt or marks on the ground when you’re running or sliding and any highly skilled player might be able to use his information to reveal the real Mirage.
If you want to extend your abilities even further, Mirage does have a handful of different animations that the decoys can mimic. Using these will let you confuse enemies as they aren’t used to seeing some of them.
Firstly, everyone knows the basics of sending out a decoy in a typical Jogging-like motion. Second, you can also crouch and send out a decoy if you want to appear as if Mirage is ratting through a building. The next is, if you don’t have a weapon equipped or drawn, a decoy will appear to fast walk. If you do have a gun drawn, the decoy will move with the sprinting animation and the gun will be out.
Tips to use Mirage’s Tactical Ability
If you’re holding a grenade, this seemingly forces the decoy to run faster and with more instantly, and then finally Mirage’s decoys will slow walk when you’re using the healing item. You won’t find all of these to be useful in every game but sometimes if a fight is drawn out, being able to send a decoy out in a different type of run animation can greatly add to confusion and frustration for your enemies.
The bread and butter of Mirage’s tactical is to send it out purely defined enemy locations, when someone does shoot a decoy, an indicator will appear on that enemy and track them for about three to four seconds. If you know an enemy is nearby this can be great to do but even if you have no idea where players are, sometimes just sending a decoy out across an entire large open area is an option to give yourself more intel, if an enemy does choose to fire in that decoy.
The best way to use the tactical for combat is going to be to send out a decoy right around the corner right before you ask the Mirage to engage the enemy. This forces an enemy to turn away from the corner and waste some rounds on the decoy.
Most players just instinctively shoot the decoy or the first thing that they see. This gives you a massive advantage as the enemy is not only shooting you. It increases the chances that they are going to have to reload to finish you. Also fighting with a decoy right in front with a mirage can slightly trick enemies into who is firing and give just enough confusion and protection where not every single shot might connect to you.
How To Use the Ultimate Ability Effectively
A quick word of warning and something every Mirage player is going to want to know is that while Mirage is fun to play, skill level or meta-ness will always somewhat be capped. This is because better players just know how to spot the real Mirage and how to counter him. This has consistently left Mirage in a weird state and it truly makes it a battle of the skill of that Mirage versus the skill or plain awareness of the opposing player.
Mirage’s ultimate is really where things start to get explosive at a basic level, the ability has an active timer of 15 seconds and it does spawn five decoys meaning six Mirages including himself. Upon activation, you also get one second of invisibility or a flash of being invisible to allow you to be a little bit more tricky with its use.
His Ultimate is arguably one of the better ones in Apex as well because the timer is only 60 seconds which is the fastest in the game. The first tip I can give is to simply use this ability all the time. There is no need to save the ability like Ultimate of the Gibraltar. The best way of activating the ability is to either use it while you’re in cover or out of sight or use it when an enemy already has a line of sight.
Effectively using 1 Second Invisibility
If you’re using it out in the open actively being looked at, this is where the one second of invisibility comes into play as it gives you a brief moment to redirect your movement and increase your chances of survival or not getting discovered, so if you’re running away and using the ultimate right as it activates then it is a solid idea to change your line or direction of movement so an enemy doesn’t predict on continue to shoot you in a very linear way.
You will more times than you use the ultimate in this way as an emergency to rip it as you might be getting beamed overextended or you’re just in a situation.
Utilizing Ultimate effectively
The better way to utilize Mirage’s Ultimate is when you’re not in the line of sight or loss of enemies. Using this ability when enemies can’t see you means they have no way to tell who the real Mirage is until you as the real Mirage make a move that reveals your hand.
The big thing with this is to not force or Rush plays, you don’t want to pop the ultimate and then be Mega obvious about where you’re moving. You want to decoy or clone to be the first thing the enemy player sees as almost all players shoot the first thing that they do see and if it is you the real Mirage then that’s the real problem.
After they do shoot one decoy, you now know where they are via the tracking and you can’t make a much more methodical or smart play by shooting an enemy is the side or escaping in more of an intelligent run path since you do know where they are. This way of using it from behind cover also means you need to have great awareness as to where enemies are and have a plan of attack. Using it in this fashion often makes you a more aggressive player who is a little bit more proactive than the reactionary player or method of using it in the open.
Tips to use Vanishing Act
If you want to extend the use of an ultimate, you can utilize a technique called the reshuffle. This is when Mirage may be getting shot at or you have been discovered as to who the real Mirage is. During the Ultimate, you can more or less get another go with the old by running into the center of where those decoys were deployed and then pivoting and changing direction right when you’re stacked in the middle of all those cones.
The big thing to make this work is not to be doing it while you are actively getting shot as taking damage makes it much easier for the enemies to track where you’re moving to. If you want a better way to make it hard for enemies to tell where you are then you can utilize the circle play.
This is done by using the ultimate and then running in a circle with a decoy in front and behind you. You don’t turn and look at the enemies till you’re ready to fire and make a play. It’s nearly impossible for enemies to tell who the real Mirage is, and more times than not they’re going to start spraying that circle of Mirage clones.
If you do want to add some extra confusion, you can pop his ultimate and then go into a revive of a teammate. Just note that this does give enemies some indication that you are reviving nearby but sometimes the extra decoys can add a lot more confusion. Not always useful but if want to add a ton more clones than the five that spawn, you can pop Mirage’s ultimate and then do an emote.
Depending upon the emote, this will spawn two to three times as many clones and make it very difficult for enemies to see things. This can work nicely if a teammate is reviving or if you just Style on an enemy. Because Mirage always has that slight cap in the skill because someone comes down to the rank or else the opponent that you’re going up against, Mirage is just a fine Legend in the meta. A Middle of the pack with lower-tier Legend but as with all Legends it’s up to the player as any Legend can be incredible and Mirage is absolutely no exception to this.
Mirage Inventory
When playing Mirage, the most ideal guns to use are going to be the Assault Rifle or any non-single-fire gun with range, Plus an SMG or shotgun secondary. I choose to use these guns because the entire kit is built for fighting. In terms of other utility, you don’t need to carry Alt Excels because this Alt, especially with the mastery tree perk is going to be on a 30-second cooldown meaning Alt Excels won’t do very much.
I usually opt to take more grenades since you’re able to play more aggressively on them instead of an extra stack of ammo. Grenades are something still not utilized very much by a lot of players in Apex especially when playing aggressively as they can be used to force opponents to make bad decisions.
Countering Mirage
Here’s how to counter Mirage. First, his passive. It’s pretty hard overall to counter Mirage, as the invisibility is very strong, and on top of Apex’s sound not being the greatest, it makes it hard sometimes to pinpoint where someone may be getting revived. When he’s invisible or using tactical, the Clone moves in a straight line and isn’t able to be controlled until it reaches its end destination. So, the movement will look more bot-like.
Mirage’s Ultimate is very annoying to deal with and doesn’t have much counterplay. When Mirage pops his Alt, the invisibility will flicker on his shoulders, if you’re close enough to him allowing you to discern which one is real. As you play against the character more, you’ll get used to how people use it and help you figure out which one is real.
Using game sense to try to figure out which Mirage is real when he uses his ultimate isn’t the best way to counter him but it gets easier and you’re able to recognize which one is real, faster the more you run into it. Legends like Wraith and Ash will be a perfect pick to tackle the Mirage’s unique abilities.
A small detail to tell which one is real Mirage, whatever Mirage has out in his hands when he Ults, will be mimicked by his Clones. For example, if he has an heirloom in his hands when he Ults then all of these Clones will have the heirloom in their hands. However, when he Ults, when he has his gun out then the Clones will have whatever gun he has out in their hands instead and the real Mirage will have the heirloom on the back of his back instead of in his hands.
Downsides
The fact you don’t have full control over your decoys until the end range and your ult not fully making you invisible are the only small downsides to his strong kit. Even with how strong everything is, doesn’t have much utility to support the team on rotation, defending, or anything macro-related.
His revive invisibility while strong requires you to be at a disadvantage. For it to benefit you compared to other Legends. The counters section the pay-to-lose aspect while running an heirloom, Mirage isn’t ideal and hopefully gets changed.
Final Verdict
Thank you for reading my guide and I hope you have great success as Mirage! Don’t forget to check our Apex badge boosting service where we can unlock any badge for you with Mirage, or play her to any rank you wish with our Apex Legends rank boosting service.