glenndevis.8327

Honestly the only thing the rifle portal needs to become decent is be usable when downed. Like I get what it's intended to be and I LOVE the idea. But with the way it's implemented it's almost never going to be used that way. 1) It's slow (first you need to fire it, then once it's there you need to activate it again to make the portal) 2) if you wanting to use it on someone who's out of position they're probably too confused or panicking or not paying attention to be like yeah right lelts click this portal to be where i have to be. 3) people die too fast to be able to use it to save & get them to your location before they down. Some ways they could fix this: If they'd allow players to use the portal when downed that would increase the usefulness and make up for the skill being slow. Even better, when you reactivate 5 on a person who's downed or if they get downed on the radius of the reactivated 5 they get forcefully teleported if they really don't want to allow players to interact with anything when downed. ALSO If a living person takes the portal they get a heal or if a downed person gets teleported the skill slowly helps revive the downed person. I think they've been way too careful with this skill limiting it in so many ways so players won't be able to abuse it in an weird way to the point it's nearly useless. Especially considering the barrier on the first use is actually pretty decent so IF you ever feel the need to save someone it's most likely going to be on cooldown and by the time it's up they're most likely either already ran back to the group or already down/dead/safe.

Yeah I kinda wish the rifle 5 portal would be usable when downed. Either that or the portal needs to last longer and the skill needs to fire faster. I also kinda wish that the phantasm was a ground target ability that spawns a phantasm that maybe pulses healing or barrier or something supportive.

I'm quite pleased with the weapon overall. There are some things I think could be better though. Friendly Fire: I love that you can target allies when necessary. (even if that's not what players will do 90% of the time) Ambush is very beautiful but range is rather low. Clones using it with Ifinite Horizon should heal a bit more imo. I think rifle clones should heal a little more on their basic attacks as well. Journey: I overall like the skill but it's quite slow. Even the clone it generates feels delayed. Inspiring Imagery: No real complaints. I quite like it. It's a big heal that you can use when necessary but for the most part you'll prob want to use it for the boons. I like that it's pretty much an emergency heal. Phantasmal Sharpshooter: This skill is what I have the most problems with. I like the idea of it but I don't really like the application & honestly I don't think it fits on a "support" weapon. I personally would have liked something that was more supportive overall but it is what it is. I just feel like people will just press it for cannon fodder to upkeep alac/quick on chrono instead of what it's supposed to be for. Due to how most of the Mesmers support traits have been reworked, the class relies quite a lot on shatters to support so players are just gnna press it on cooldown for shatter fodder. And even if you're gnna use it for breakbar damage it's still a very slow ability. I get in PvP it may be intersting to set it up and then combo it with other skills or see what the enemy does to make them "waste" a cooldown or a dodge and follow up afterwards but the weapon in general feels... quite bad for PvP. I think this could AT LEAST be unblockable to give it more use in sPvP maybe? Maybe for WvW the weapon is going to be good (i don't have much WvW experience) but in WvW this phantasm is probably useless. Singularity Shot: Pretty strong skill honestly. The barrier is pretty nice. Resistance is ok and while I think the portal is going to be VERY situational I think in highly optimized groups people will be able to find good use out of it and even in some semi casual groups on voice comm & stuff I think you'll be able to save people as well. I'd love to see some of the restrictions lifted for funs sake and I guess it would be nice if the Mesmer could portal towards his singularity as well to give it some solo use mobility but oh well. Synergies with support traits: I'm slightly disappointed with how the skills or rather heal Mesmer builds synergize. A LOT of the newly reworked traits revolve around shattering. For Chrono you even have to shatter to upkeep alac/quickness but for example Phantasmal Sharpshooter which could be used for breakbar damage is just going to be on cooldown when you need breakbar damage because it creates fodder for your shatters. This is just a personal opinion but i would have preferred it if the support traits were more about tactical use & timing of your skills rather than pumping clones/phantasms/blades for fodder to get more value out of the shatter traits. Which is already how Mesmer has played in dps builds (besides maybe Mirage i guess.) Otherwise I think support Mesmer has a lot of utility & boons. Synergies with elite specs: I feel like this was pretty much made for Chronomancer. However because of how reliant Chrono is on shattering for their alac/quickness it synergizes very well with the reworked traits but talents but Just feels a but off to have a utility phantasm be used for fodder. Virtuoso... Doesn't even have any alac/quickness so not even considering it. My biggest problem is with Mirage. And sure this ismore of a Mirage complaint rather than a rifle one but honestly I think heal Mirage could be a very fun & unique build to play with rifle but due to how bad their alacrity application is ESPECIALLY when considering using rifle. I feel like it's 90% there to be a decent healer with rifle but the fact that you can't give enough alacrity makes it a big flop. It's so close to being good but it's completely pointless to play. This is just a suggestion for Mirage but PLEASE change the trait to give alacrity on ANY weapon ambush additional to the unique boon they get right now. Mirage would still have the problem of being reliant on clones to get their alac while requiring shatters to get other important boons from the support traits but at least it would somewhat work then. Chaos Aura: Since rifle got an innate aoe chaos aura combo & the new support traits lean into chaos aura i thought i'd mention it as well. I think it's cool to have more chaos aura sharing but i'm honestly not a fan of chaos armor at all. it's too random to the point it's not reliable at all. You could give them chaos aura and have it be near pointless. The only reason it's not useless is because of the regen that Chaotic Transference gives but it's not like we're lacking regen now anyway. I wish chaos aura got some sort of rework to make sharing it to allies more worthwhile. I like the idea & design of spreading chaos aura to allies. It's just a shame that it's kind of a very random (meaning it's unreliable and kinda pointless.) Protection is great. But regen (considering we already have tons of it now) and swiftness are kind of duds when those proc. There is no purpose in sharing chaos aura if the pay off of it is completely random. Just feels bad to share. Also this was mostly feedback regarding PvE since I feel like this weapon was mostly designed for PvE. May be pretty good for WvW but I don't have enough WvW experience to talk about this. I can talk about sPvP but I don't think this weapon is going to be very good for sPvP. Maybe some weird tanky bunker build with sword/shield but I think the weapon is too slow to be used properly in PvP. I guess this turned more into overall feedback about heal/support mesmer using the rifle but okay. The few things i really hope gets looked at the most are the Phantasmal Sharpshooter being faster and not requiring to be used on cooldown for optimal boon upkeep, Mirage not requiring staff only to be able to upkeep alacrity & chaos aura actually being turned into a decent aura. I think having support traits that aren't so tied to shatters in specific would be nice too.

Tbh while i'm generally happy with the rifle, i agree that Mesmers are usually quite unconventional and besides the portal the rifle is just raw numbers output.

Tbh i guess one thing i'm sorta disappointed by as well is that for Chrono a t least you wanna shatter to keep up your alac/quickness so the whole clones healing on their auto attack thing becomes a lot less practical. It sounds cool on paper if u can have ur clones auto attack while maybe doing other things or being on your other weapon but with chrono you're just gnna have to shatter them. I guess on Mirage it can be nice but I wish they'd buff Mirage's alacrity overall. But yeah this makes me wish Chrono gave their boons without shattering to make better use of the clone auto attacks.

I love almost everything about the weapon. Woulda been cool if you could have clones "attacking" allies honestly but eh it's fine either way. The only skill i'm a little disappointed with is the phantasm. I wish it was something diff that was supportive. Sure CC is always nice to have but CC is generally something you want to come out FAST. Whether it's for breakbar damage or to interrupt something an enemy is doing. But the phantasm stun just looks VERY slow to me. First you need to cast it and then it takes another sec for the shot to happen. Otherwise i love it.

I'm honestly kinda excited for rifle still. It's just that the trailer didn't really show much at all. I'm very interested inseeing what the clone skill does & what the phantasm will do. Also quite interestend in what the actual basic attack will do since it may matter quite abit considering clones use it too.

I was thinking this from the very beginning when they announced this. I was worried. Sure we have more options to choose from but ofc everyone is gnna want to play the "best" set of weapons. Sometimes there's somethingn nice & niche that people can play with and that's fine i guess but unless they buff specific weapon related traits or traits in general we're gnna end up with irrelevant specs because others can just do it better. Every spec & Every weapon need to have their useful niche for this to work properly and then the weapons still need to be balanced well.

I've got a thick skin so people being toxic doesn't bother me (still should be fixed & addressed though) but it's honestly beyond ridiculous how many afkers there are. I thought i'd do some PvP to progress my legendary armor. First game, enemy team had an afk, easy stomp. 2nd game, myteam had an afk, easily stomped. 3rd game my team had an afk again & once agai neasily stomped. It's literally impossible to have a good ranked experience with afk players just going unpunished. The ONLY time i've seen anything happen to an afk player is when they legit don't connect from the very beginning because that's when I see I lose 0 points but chances are those players just had an issue loading into the game or dced after accepting the queue or so. They're not even the problem because that happens once in 50 games or so. The problem is the amount of players who just go afk after dying once, losing one teamfight, being 100 points behind. This SERIOUSLY needs to be looked at.

The one simple change that would fix sPvP imo is actually have reports matter. It's hard to have a decent pvp scene when about half of the games played have an afker in them. On the suggested change, I think 2v2 & 3v3 should always be available to queue for. At least normals. Not sure for ranked though.

I'm personally fine with whatever they're saying. I guess i got thick skin. And blocking works. U can try reporting but I don't think reports do much. What i have the most problems with is players just going afk instead. Anet really needs to look at reports & punish players a LOT harder I think they should make a blog post explaining how players get punished IF they get punished at all.

After coming back from a 5-6 year break it doesn't surprise me to see people talking about nerfing Mesmers even more. Back then mesmer got nerf after nerf after nerf. Now i come back & see it in a weaker state than before & people still asking for nerfs. It's about time they started buffing mesmer a bit. Wth did they do to phantasms, what happened with Mirage's 2nd dodge? What even is Virtuoso? I like how they always give mesmers cool mechanics but end up nerfing them over & over again to a point where you can't even play it the way it was intended anymore. When confusion was a "mesmer" condition & alacrity was chrono only. Now everyone and their dog does it better than mesmer/chrono.

Honestly I don't necessarily want those players to be banned from the game (well bots should be banned) because the reason why they afk is mostly related to PvP. But definitely they need to be banned from PvP. Even from unranked. Idk start with a 1 day ban for the first offense. A week for the 2nd. A month for the 3rd.

It's not even afk farmers that i've been seeing the most (I have seen a few but if it was just them it wouldn't be enough to make it a big problem for me.) It's the players who start out playing, seeing we are losing (even if it's just by 100 points) and they go afk or just walk around spawn. Or start complaining and then go afk because "bad team."

I've recently returned to the game as well and most of my time playing has been going into PvP. I think as a whole GW2 PvP is pretty amazing. Sadly I feel like it's let down mostly by the amount of afk players. I wish the people who tend to go afk often should get punished harsher or even punished at all. Other than that the balance has always felt a bit wrong. I feel like even back when i played more Necro & Guard felt way too strong, returning now and both necro & guard still feel like the 2 outliers. Just feels like those 2 classes are Anets little babies that can't be bad. Scrapper has been feeling a bit crazy as well honestly. Thief has also always been too strong but I feel like they're just really good at what they're supposed to be good at so i'm kind of a bit more forgiving towards thieves. Other than the amount of afkers & certain balance outliers GW2 has my fav PvP out of any modern popular mmo.

I'll probably keep reporting just inthe chance of. But yeah it certainly feels this way, otherwise there wouldn't be nearly as many. I also think it would be nice having a surrender option if the team in general doesn't wanna play anymore. Alltho in a game where matches don't take longer than 15 min it'sn ot a big problem i guess.

Idk I feel like idle players are still gnna idle, I think they'd rather die out in the open over & over again than do anything to help the team win the game. I just feel that in general the game should have more systems in place to deter players from going afk (or pretending to go afk while still being there.) Like reports actually being looked at. And if reports are already being looked at there need to be harder punishments for game ruining behaviour. I'm a League of Legends player (or was, haven't played in a month or 2 now.) and while that game is more toxic overall and afk players still exist, the game has a lot of ways to deter players from going afk, the game even shows whether your report had an impact on players. I think it would also be nice if the game as a w hole allowed players to type a short message when reporting someone to say what happened. But yeah I feel like reports should actually be looked at and punished. Punished more heavily and maybe give players a sign that their reports matter if it's legit.

It's crazy how many afk palyers there are in ranked. One wrong thing, one discussion, one hundred points behind, too many players go afk because of the smallest things. I try to report them but does Anet do anything about it? Some just move probably so the game would read inputs to not be seen as afk as well.

I've only returned to the game recently after not being active for about 5-6 years and only got EoD yesterday so my experience in PvP with it is limited. I do like the idea of a cloneless mesmer & I like the blade idea. But I agree that the bladesongs just feel like nerfed shatters. Can't use them in your behind, they got cast times, can't use them without any blades up (so no free distort whenever.) Either way the bladesongs are pretty much the same as the shatters either way so not very inspiring. It's not really a new mechanic because technically we use them in the exact same way as shatters. I do think the spec has some strengths though. It feels quite strong in duels but i feel like it falls off a bit the moment the enemies are ignoring you. It reminds me of that old "clone on death" build (literally giving your enemies conditions for killing your clones, whether it was intentional or just cleaved them down by accident) where if enemies just ignored you there was very little damage you could do. In that sense Virtuoso (at least the one build i've been playing) feels a bit lackluster. Either way, I do think that at least the cast times should be removed. I can live with not being able to use them behind me but the cast times really feel bad. It's not that they'd be too fast & unreactable, the animation can still be there & not too bad to react to.

Hmm I like it but i'm fine with the old one on other specs. Mirage already has it anyway. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't immobilize anymore. I wish that the "return" would have an immobilize effect on it. Would be nice to combo into bladesongs.

PvE Power damage I guess? Would be nice if it could be a good duelist for PvP or WvW roaming, would be cool if not everything was a projectile so it could finally be a good power dps spec for mesmer in WvW zergs but as it stands right now it's just not good for either of those things so Just PvE power damage. If this would have been a purely PvE game this spec woulda been amazing.

Actually a few proposals I'd like to mention here as well to make sure it's seen. Sword 3 on Virtuoso should immobilize when returning to your previous position. Would make it a good setup for bladesongs. Many probably said it before but Bladeturn Refrain should grant aegis at start of the cast. Psychic Riposte needs a BIG damage buff. The blade does negligible damage. Same with Phantasmal Blades. Duelist's Reversal. I honestly quite like the idea of fury & quickness on a dodge but I feel like it's not serving it's intended purpose. Keep the fury but please remove the quickness in change for making the next bladesong instant. (bladesongs should already be instant anyway imo but ok.) I think the condi traits should honestly be reworked to be more about survivability, mobility and or cc to help kiting. Mirage is stronger condi wise anyway and having 2 specs on the same class competing for which one is the stronger condi build is a balance nightmare and will always end up in 1 being picked over the other. Psychic Force: add a few sec cripple to it to help kiting. Twin Blade Restoration: Make players able to consistently use it when facing away from the enemy. Unstable Bladestorm: should be a static ground target ability. It's really hard to hit enemies with all damage ticks.

I pretty much agree with most points. Especially the condi trait line. I get Anet wants the spec to be versatile but I don't think that's a good idea. Better have each spec have a "best" role. Players can still tweak their build based on what content they're running either way. I personally love the dodge & block traits that Virtuoso has but they're quite weak. If Virtuoso is supposed to be a duelist, it's doing a bad job at it. Bladeturn Refrain should give aegis at the start of the cast. Psychic Reposte I love as a trait but the blade should have a LOT more damage. The current damage is downright useless. I think a good way to change Duelist's Reversal is to give fury (forget quickness) and makes your next bladesong instant. The trait would actually feel like a reversal.

Hmmm I've been PvPing with Virtuoso quite a bit and I get that not EVERY ability is supposed to be good for PvP but i'll give my 2 cents on them anyway. Dagger: Honestly quite useless for PvP Auto attacks are too weak. #2: It's pretty good blade regeneration since low cooldown, the return is way too slow, low damage. #3: pretty useless honestly. I think if it would be a ground target skill that doesn't move and stays in place with a cripple effect on it it would at least not be useless to cast. I think the weapon needs something that helps kiting. Utilities: Heal is alright but you need to face the enemy while casting it. Let people cast it when not facing the target. This is a big problem for PvP. Blade Renewal: Sucks that it's a channel/cast. Wouldn't be as bad if bladesongs were instacasts so you could burst right after coming out of it. Psychic Force: Needs a cripple tied to it to make it more useful. Traits: Bladeturn refrain should grant aegis at start of cast. Psychic Riposte blade should do a lot more damage. The damage is WAY too low. Bladesongs: Generally the cast times are a big problem imo. Especially with the lack of mobility making it hard to kite and use them safely if being pressured from close up. Sucks that you need to be facing the enemy to land them Overall I feel like the spec is suppsosed to stay at safe distance and kite while doing good burst damage with bladesongs but we're not giving the tools to kite & stay at range to do the damage. Plus everything being a projectile kinda sucks I suppose.

Hmm I got a lot to say about Virtuoso. For one I LOVE the idea of Dagger mesmer and stocking blades instead of clones. It's a really cool idea. I just feel like it hasn't been fleshed out well. I feel like the spec was designed to be a power dps spec but other than that i don't really see anything unique or special about it. Kinda confuses me why there's an entire trait line designed around conditions while Mirage is more of a condi spec already. The Weapon: I love dagger for mesmer but I REALLY wish there was an offhand dagger too. I think its a big missed opportunity to have a new damaging phantasm and since the spec already seems to have synergy with blocking/dodging offhand dagger could have an ability that quickly dodges and dazes an enemy Either way, the abilities we have now I feel like they're a but uninspired design wise but oh well. Basic attack is fair, seems a bit on the weak side but It's alright. #2 ability is alright. #3 seems a bit weak on small target. Maybe it would be better if it was static or moved more slowly. The Bladesongs: Where do I start. I love the idea of the stored blades. But the Bladesong abilities really don't seem very different than the statters despite not using clones. They more or less have the same effect of shatters but now have a cast time, all having a similar animation. I think there's a huge missed opportunity to do something more unique. But as they stand they just seem like nerfed shatters. They don't need cast times. F1: Damage wise it's fine. Straight forward shooting blades. F2: disappointing. I hoped to see something more interesting for a spec that seems to be aimed for power damage. Would be nice to have some sort of ground target aoe ability with spinning blades that deals damage over a few seconds time. F3: Same ish as shatters. CC is nice I suppose but not very inspiring. Would be nice since it has a cast time if it would be a stun if used with 3 or more blades. F4: Nerfed version of the shatter. Damage is horrible, block synergizes well with the traits but woulda been nice if the ability was a blur instead that dodges. The Traits: Not gnna talk too much about them individually other than the ones I think are lacking or need a change. Generally I like the blocking/dodging talents. Bladeturn Refrain should grant aegis on the start of the bladesong cast. Phantasmal Blades I find phantasm support abit odd for this spec but fair. The blades that some traits/heal skill shoot at the enemy generally are a bit on the weak side. I think they need a buff. I really like the idea of Psychic Riposte, but I feel like the blades stocked should be buffed to 2 and the damage from the Riposting blade you shoot afterwards is very weak, barely counts as a counter. The bottom condi row imo should be completely replaced with talents that focus on utility, maybe make the dagger a bit better. Maybe some regen/condi cleanse utility. The Utilities/Elite: Heal seems ok. Condi cleanse is a bit weka in general. Seeing a bit more condi cleanse on this would be nice. Psychic Force is alright but why does this have the cast time. Blade Renewal sis interesting but not being able to do anything while casting it is something i'm personally not used to on Mesmer. Swords of Decimation. Why. Root is nice i guess for some things but slow af. May be useful for zergs i guess Rain of Swords does decent damage i guess but nothing special. Thousand Cuts: I like the idea but outside of PvE I see no use for this. Generally I think the utilities should have a bit more utility to them rather than damage. Utilities also seem abit uninspiring. Sword #3: I'm conflicted about this. I like the fact that mesmer has a "proper" leap now but I miss the immobilize. Would be a nice combo if we could dash in to slow and then retreat while immobilizing enemies to make landing the Bladesongs easier. Overall: Virtuoso seems kinda weak for anything that isn't a power build for PvE. No survivability, no utility. Utilities are slow, easy to dodge. No condi cleanse, Dagger generally seems a bit weak, almost everything is a projectile that gets screwed by any reflect. I like the idea of blocking & dodging and getting a counterattack/other benefits from it but it's not strong enough imo. I'm not a fan of the condi side of this spec. Both the bottom trait row and the F2 bladesong just don't feel very good. In the end I feel like Virtuoso is trying to fix the "broken" elements of Mesmer that makes them hard to balance by limiting them alot but that directly makes the spec either weak or less fun. A shame because I really like the theme of the spec.