Choose Blur over Mirror Image

[Caliban]

Problem being if your enemies had MM in the first place there would be nothing preventing them from casting it when you put up Blur. All the Magic missles would in that case do damage. MI at least forces your enemies to focus on bringing it down. Buying time for the rest of your party.

MI is compared to Blur a shoter lasting but more powerfull shield often buying those few seconds of uninteruption needed.

Well, usually you would have cast shield before casting either mirror image or blur. =P

 

[LokiDR]

Well, usually you would have cast shield before casting either mirror image or blur. =P

Does your shield protect the images?

 

[Bonedagger]

The thing is its not the missle damage you worry about, its what the big monster does to you now that you've lost your images. The only good way to beat blur is with true seeing or with dispels.

I would also say in the long run blur is a better spell, especiallly for sorc. For wizards, you can get both in use them in conjuction.

If you are a magic user and your only defence is 20% miss chance against a monster that will eat you alive I would say you are screwed anyway from round one. With MI you are at least not screwed until round 2-4. And even when there is only image left it is still a 50% miss chance.

Comparing Blur and MI is similar to comparing Armor and Shield. There are certainly times when MI is superior to Blur but Blur is to prefere if you don't face immediately strong danger or you are going one against many and know you can take a few hits. However.

A clever spellcaster only makes himself vulnerable for short enough time to cast his spells. If you try to advoid combat Invisibility is to prefere. And combined with Haste MI is powerfull if you have more than one. (MI + other spell... You get attacked a lot.... MI + other spell etc.)

 

[Caliban]

Does your shield protect the images?

No, it won't protect your images. But it would protect you if they happen to target you, and it works very will with blur.

 

[Bonedagger]

No, it won't protect your images. But it would protect you if they happen to target you, and it works very will with blur.

It's fine if you have time to prepare yourself. Otherwise it would require two rounds of spellcasting to prepare. One round is enough or you would be to much on the defensive IMO.

 

[Caliban]

It's fine if you have time to prepare yourself. Otherwise it would require two rounds of spellcasting to prepare. One round is enough or you would be to much on the defensive IMO.

If only have one round to cast, which spell would you rather have? shield or mirror image.

Under most cirumstances, I would rather have shield. (There are definitely times when mirror image would be better though. Like when you are facing someone who uses a lot of targeted mind-affecting spells. They will fail if they target an image, and it won't pop the image.)

 

[LokiDR]

spell choice

If you chose all spells based on prior knowledge of enemies, you would find uses for mirror image. I won't say it is a bad spell. I won't say shield isn't better in most cases. For an illusionist, though, as a 2nd level defensive spell, blur has most of the advantages over mirror image.

 

[Bonedagger]

If only have one round to cast, which spell would you rather have? shield or mirror image.

Under most cirumstances, I would rather have shield. (There are definitely times when mirror image would be better though. Like when you are facing someone who uses a lot of targeted mind-affecting spells. They will fail if they target an image, and it won't pop the image.)

I won't argue that.

But the question was about MI and Blur.


From a spellcasters point of view 20% miss chance is IMO not much. Displacement however.....


When a battle start I would also normally prefere to cast Shield first. But if I had to chose between MI and Blur I would still prefere Shield + MI instead of Shield + Blur most of the time. Sure MI can be put down by a highlevel MM but that just mean that the other spellcaster spend an action doing that. And you can max have 5 MM but your images can reach 8 (With 3 left that is still 75% miss chance). And at 3rd level you have 1d4+1 images while he only have 2 missiles.

If he combine MM with a lot of fighters [Edit: Or a few cool ones ] then that battle was a bad choise from your side from the beginning no matter if you are using Blur or MI.

 

[LokiDR]

What is your primary concern, being the most versitile or the longest lived? If you can stay in back and not draw much fire, MI comes out on top. If all you do is buff yourself, though, you aren't helping your party as much as you could. MI is just plain shorter lived than blur. A couple archers could take down your MI in a few rounds when blur is still going strong.

Displacement beat blur. Displacement beats MI. Displacement is higher level, and therefore not part of this discussion. My general advice, take invis as your required spell, and then take other utility spells like the stat buffs.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

MY vote's for MI all the way. Here's a brief number crunch comparison of the two spells for 5 rounds and 10 rounds of combat.

[MI assume avg of 3 images, & that each round an image is struck in order to make a conservative calculation for MI.]

Blur: 20% miss, constant.
MI: 3 Images (75% miss), 2 Images (67% miss), 1 Image (50%miss).

MI (5 rounds): 75+67+50+0+0 / 5 = 38.4% miss.
Blurr (5 rounds): 20% miss

MI (10 rounds): 75+67+50+ 7*(0) = 19.2% miss.
Blurr (10 rounds): 20% miss.

Even over the course of 10 rounds (and the majority of battles do not even last this long) the MI spell average miss % is virtually equal to that of the Blurr spell. On top of this fact the MI spell provides a much greater protection in earlier rounds. Besides most arcane spellcasters will not stick around to continue taking a beating for so many rounds.

IMO MI is the better suited choice over Blurr.