Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Mirror Image seems useless - any good usage scenario for it?

On paper it seems useful to create 3 illusions of yourself and gain +9 AC. But it only takes less than a turn (3 attacks) to remove all 3 illusions. When you get hit, it's bad; and when you don't get hit, it's STILL BAD, because it removes one illusion and takes away 3 AC. A spell should at least benefits you for at least one turn. And this one is good for possibly less than 1 turn -- all 9 AC gone in three quarter of a turn! When an enemy casts Mirror Image, I LOVE IT, because it's an easy spell to beat as I described above. If I cast it, is there any scenario that would exploit more benefits out of it?

Larian's implementation of mirror image makes it very underpowered.

In tabletop, mirror image works like this: You create 3 duplicates. When something attacks you, it has a chance, depending on how many duplicates you have left, of attacking one of your duplicates instead of you. Duplicates had their own AC equal to 10 + your dex modifier, and were not destroyed unless they were hit (meaning a monster could attack you and not necessarily destroy a duplicate.)

This is significantly more powerful than the BG3 implementation, imo. There was some randomness to it - even if you had ALL your duplicates up, there was a chance YOU would be targeted, and you could get unlucky. But usually, the spell as written guaranteed that (unless you got unlucky and got knocked out first) 3 attacks directed your way would be wasted. Not bad for a 2nd level spell slot that required no concentration (particularly as you got to higher levels and mostly used lower-level slots for defense and utility.)

I have no idea why Larian changed it, because as you pointed out it's pretty bad - +9 AC is big, sure, but it ticks down quick. It also has the funny property that it actually *punishes* you for having high AC already (higher AC = enemy more likely to miss = you lose your illusions quicker.) It's like Larian wanted to make the simplifying assumption that every time you were missed while having mirror image up it was due to your mirror images, but that is not at all how the spell should work: under the original spell, YOU could have been targeted and the monster missed you (no images disappear) or one of your images could have been targeted and missed (no images disappear). Maybe it was too hard to give the images their own AC in the game engine as it is?

Mirror image doesn't require concentration, so in situations where keeping concentration is much more important than anything you could do with your action and you have enough spell lots, it can be beneficial to use it. For example if you are a level 10+ enchantment wizard who is currently concentrating on a split hold monster.

The way I see it, if your Mirror Images absorb three hits, that's three attacks that didn't hit you. It's a level 2 spell. I still summon Spiritual Weapon at level 2 in the late game, even though it can only absorb a couple hits from enemies. The Raven and Dire Raven my Ranger summons similarly can't take many hits. But again - every hit they take is one YOU didn't have to take. Enemy NPCs don't save their biggest attacks for later - they use their worst stuff every time it's available. Let them waste those actions on magical summons.

In my multiplayer game the two mages make use of Mirror image all the time and to very good effect. While the implementation is not the best it can still be useful.