Mirage
You just want his thick and big thing, right?
Basic Info
- No: 75
- Ship: Mirage
- Affinity: Shield Breaking
- Type: Offensive
- Main Weapon: Plasma Rays
- Aura: Bullet EMP
- Zen: Nightfury
- Rarity: Super Rare
- Price: 3000
- Main Description: A pair of instant tracking lasers that fire 7 successive short bursts on the nearest target and can only track targets within an approximate 140° forward arc in front of the ship (if tracking is not achieved, it will not fire), before the pair of lasers fire a final sustained forward firing burst (which does not require tracking).
- Upgrade Info:
| Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Ult |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DPS | 20.00 | 21.00 | 22.00 | 23.00 | 24.00 | 25.00 |
- Test Results:
| Main | Aura | Zen | Survival | Survival Tier | Speedrun | Speedrun Tier | Fun | Fun Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 83.18 | 100.36 | 77.45 | 44.18 | A | 18.00 | C+ | 40.91 | A |
| APEX1 | APEX2 | Base Score | Base Rank | Low Score | Hi Score | Apex Rank | Final Score | FinalRank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27.20 | 34.91 | 261.00 | 48 | 288.20 | 295.91 | 68 | 399.00 | 57 |
- Main Weapon Illustration:
Survival
- Mirage's main is difficult to use. The many tracking laser bursts followed by the final straight and long laser burst can be difficult to follow. It takes quite a bit of getting used to and it's a rhythm that you must catch. This means that you need to have advanced planning on how you want to land your final burst, whether you want to use it to hit the cockpit of a Vulture or sweep a bunch of Sparrows. Ironically this means that despite being advertised as an instant tracking main, you actually have to aim, and the aiming can be annoying.
- One round of Plasma Rays takes down 2 Ravens of any affinity. For Shielded Ravens, there will be some spillover damage which can be used to damage another Raven or kill some Sparrows.
- A Nightfury is usable every heavy and/or dense wave. Sometimes, you can use them in medium waves too.
- The highly damaging yet rather abusable Nightfury, coupled with its massive bullet clearing capabilities from both BEMP and Nightfury, makes it suitable for any MIRV/Shuriken mission, even Armored ones.
- The Nightfury, although looks like one gigantic laser, is actually 3 MLs side by side. This means that it usually pops off the middle 2 turrets from a backline Vulture with invaders still alive in front, assuming they aren't Eagles.
- It is often difficult to charge Nightfury in the center of the field in MIRV/Shuriken missions, unless the wave features a Vulture in front of everything. This does not matter and charge it where comfortable.
- This is because MIRVs left over by the previous wave will often make it difficult to stay close to that side.
- After the Nightfury has fired, if you are short on Aura, go forward with it to collect some from the destroyed invaders. Otherwise, head over to the other side to start eliminating invaders, or launching BEMPs to eliminate MIRVs.
- The Nightfury usually eliminates most of the shuriken cloud, and even kills majority of Eagles due to the high damaging Nightfury. Thus, shurikens are usually of little concern, although sometimes a BEMP is needed to clean up the rest of the cloud that wasn't cleared by the Nightfury.
- In a Roc, because bullets are still so slow, you can pull off 2 consecutive Nightfurys. Just make sure the first one is charged before the Roc fully arrives. Avoid using your BEMP, and immediately charge your second Nightfury at the extreme bottom of the screen. Try to dodge your way for quite a while (maybe at least 5 seconds?), launch a full size BEMP to reset all the Roc's turrets (or at least the front turrets), then charge your third and final Nightfury to take out the Roc pretty much instantly.
- You can also do that for a Condor, although 2 should be enough to take it out quickly with a few more laser bursts. However, when accompanied by tons of other invaders including Eagles, 3 Nightfurys would be needed to clear out majority of the threat including the Condor. You might be still faced with invaders hiding behind the Condor, however, where you will need to use BEMP to clear up the mess they create. A forth Nightfury can then clean them up as well. Just don't do a fourth Nightfury if this wave isn't the last one.
- In Shield Laser missions, because the first round of lasers only go off after approximately 3-4s after the wave arrives, there is a lot of time to charge Nightfury between waves and Acts. Just make sure not to over-abuse Nightfury. You can use it for every heavy and/or dense wave. You can then charge forward with the Nightfury and launch BEMP to immediately reset all lasers.
- After that, the field should be clear of most of the threats. There might be a few more remaining invaders on that side which the main can take care of. You can then surgically take out the rest of the invaders, even going to the top of the screen to allow time for Nightfury to recover.
- In all 3 mission types, you can control when the next wave arrives by letting each instant burst go off one at a time. Simply let go to attempt charging Nightfury after one tracking laser burst has fired. It may also be beneficial to waste the final straight burst so that the next wave can be tackled with better ease. Then when the last invader dies, you can charge Nightfury to completion rather quickly (particularly during MIRV/Shuriken missions).
- As Mirage's main is mostly tracking, positioning is mostly not an issue for survival. However, when faced with MIRV Bloomers, you should try to go in the middle of the rings of MIRVs to fire off a BEMP (after you fired the Nightfury for earlier waves of MIRVs).
- Don't be afraid to go inbetween clusters of MIRVs to launch a BEMP, so long you do it quickly.
Speedrun
- Due to the need to aim the final straight burst, BEMP becomes a very important positioning tool so that you can line up for your final shot. You don't always have to wait for a full size BEMP to use it. Based on the rhythm, you should try to use BEMP about 2 or 3 bursts before the final straight burst to allow for re-positioning time. This applies for waves with many Ravens, as it's not important to reset Ravens' turrets.
- Abuse of Nightfury can make it go quite fast. However, at the maximum, you can only pull it off once per heavy and/or dense wave. It is possible to pull it off in medium waves but it's generally not worthwhile in speedrunning unless the wave after that is a light wave. In Rocs, it is possible to pull off 3 Nightfurys on the Roc.
- However, using BEMP aggressively and making the final straight burst hits something is able to keep Mirage in pace, together with its highly damaging Nightfury.
Fun
- Mirage's main can be hit or miss. The instant tracking lasers is nice, but because there are so many tracking laser bursts, it can be hard to keep track of how many have fired to know when the final straight burst is going to fire. After a while though, it then becomes a nice rhythm that you can catch. BEMP helps in allowing the final straight burst to hit.
- The Nightfury is without a doubt, the most awesome Zen to pull off. Firing a super gigantic laser (although it is actually 3 MLs side by side, but whatever, it looks like one gigantic laser anyway) is really satisfying.
- It's a pity the Nightfury firing sound isn't particularly satisfying as it's not impactful enough.
- The bullet clear from Nightfury is really awesome and just cleans the field up by a great margin.
Trivia
- Mirage was only introduced into Phoenix 2 at v3.5.
- Mirage is one of the 5 ships that got brought over from Phoenix 2's predecessor game, Phoenix HD (Phoenix, Shogun, Trinity, Mirage, Corsair).
- Mirage's Zen, while similar to ML, is basically a super buffed version of ML. Nightfury is unique to itself.
- The main firing bears similarities to its Phoenix HD counterpart, as the Mirage in Phoenix HD has tracking lasers as well as straight firing lasers.
- Mirage's main is the only ship that alternates its type of attacks between homing and straight lasers.
- Mirage's Nightfury isn't actually one gigantic laser. It is actually 3 MLs side-by-side, which is why it can pop 2 turrets beside the cockpit of a Vulture. If aimed in a certain way, you can also see the Nightfury being split due to Eagles that resist the Nightfury for a short while. The 3 purple shining laser pods when charging a Nightfury isn't just aesthetic apparently, it tells the true nature of the Nightfury.
- You can also view some additional renders and versions on Mirage in the following link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/2423514/Mirage
APEX 1
- Name: Increased Stun
- Type: Aura
- Description: Expert tunning slightly increases the stun duration.
- Interpretation: The max stun time increases from 0.6s to 1.2s.
- Form: Omega
- Price: 50000
- Score: 1.70 / 5
The extra stun time is useful against turrets that fire fast bullets such as darts or boomerangs, so that you have more time to reposition yourself at another side of the field to take out these dangerous turrets first. The increased stun duration also saves you a BEMP on a laser infested wave to reset laser turrets as the mutliple BEMPs used on such a wave will stack up enough stun time to take out these lasers quickly enough before Aura runs low. This makes Mirage viable for General or General/Dart missions.
APEX 2
- Name: Extended Range
- Type: Aura
- Description: Amplifiers give Bullet EMP more range.
- Interpretation: The max radius increases from 450 to 500.
- Form: Delta
- Price: 20000
- Score: 2.18 / 5
The effect of this APEX is not particularly obvious. The only difference is that you can get a larger range of aura with the same energy. Most of the time, this bonus is redundant. Instead of worrying about this little range increase, it is better to try to use Bullet EMP among the invaders to expand its effective range.