Mell.4873

When there were still 2 dodges that is what i played. Honestly the new EoD specs being very focused on the ability to burst an Inspiration Mirage with Axes could definitely shut that down if you spam signets + dodge + F4.

I am willing to bet Virtuoso we will see some nerf but honestly It wont mater. The main strength of Virtuoso which is highlighted in the fight is the ability to pierce though enemies like no other Elite can currently. Sure Deadeye can do the same but the mobility of Virtuoso has given it the advantage in most fights that have multiple ads. Even if they nerf the golem DPS numbers down to what other Mesmer classes are currently doing (39k roughly), It wont stop being played in end-game content or open world meta events.

A good point to make sustain comes not from a good rotation but being able to be flexible within it. Take Soulbeast, it has one of highest burst with the sic em rotation but at any point during the rotation your enemies dies or you get interrupted your dps will fall through the floor. Same thing can be said for most warrior builds and to some extent firebrand suffers from this problem too.

Necromancer is general is amazing due to the flexibility of damage output. Much like mesmer you have a resource you can expend to deal more damage which in turn allows you increase your sustain.

Im going to get bashed on the head for this but Condi Virtuoso has great sustain even if people say otherwise. What makes good sustain is being able to deal with any type of enemy rather than the builds itself.

Okay okay I changed it. End game content title is only reserved for Raids, Strikes and t4 Fractals. I only really do T4s on a semi-regular basis so I guess I don't play end game content anyway, I mostly PvP now. What a weird detour from my original comment, I made an off the cuff remark and I ended up defending content I don't really even play currently. I mean I join PvP tournaments with Untamed at the moment, I do quite well we are normally placed middle of the pack.

To be fair as well my Staff/Staff Alacrity Support uses Inspiration, and I bring it into Raids and CMs. But if I were to swap out inspiration I probably would do Illusions for more general open world and dueling for harder content.

Hmm you are right so swap out Choas then, I have 2 builds OW with just axes and another with just staffs. It's just a suggestion but it is pretty easy to get clones without dodging. Most open world fights you won't need to shatter more than once to kill everything so most of my damage would come from auto-attack and ambush.

I personally would run Illusions instead of Dueling so that my shatters produce aoe Torment. It makes it much easier to deal with groups of enemies and you end up with more burst.

For Pve discussions I go around and around on this forum about silly distinctions between all the Mesmer elites. I don't think people understand that I and many other players use all the Mesmer elites and it's not a bad thing that we do. Okay so going by elite, this is how I use each one: Chronomancer I normally play this for burst DPS and can also facilitate alot of damage avoidance with clones/phantasms. Pared with Scepter or Greatsword my clone generation is so high that a quickness support build is possible but it requires a target to use. Mirage I swap to Mirage to survive during a duel, so mostly bounties (single target). If I trait for shatters it can be used more generally due to high burst and aoe. Staff/staff provides a great alacrity support similar to quickness Chronomancer but can achieve much higher DPSand does not require a target. Virtuoso By far my highest DPS Mesmer and I run the condition variant so it can provide me with alot of sustain and survivability. It excels at tagging enemies so I par it with Inspiration and can provide roughly 1k HPS to a group. This means Virtuoso can be played unselfishly even if it's just a little healing and faster group pull. To conclude I mostly play Chronomancer for solo and Virtuoso for group content.

The class design was rushed a bit since the ambush mechanic was added last minute but I do believe it has legs as being a better core Ranger. The Untamed pet much stronger in PvP and it offers Ranger more options for engaging combat. I mean the access to super speed alone is amazing in WvW. Where the best way to avoid damage is just to move. I feel like over all with its synergy with core Ranger is can be great but it really needs some traits reworked, like OP points out barrier on cantrips is pretty useless and anything else would be better. It's no Soulbeast dps but neither was core Ranger.

And here I am playing Virtuoso healer in PvE content. I mean when I run guild mates through dungeons especially I play Virtuoso + Inspiration.

I only Unleash the pet when I want to use the ambush since I am using power gear. When I do finally Unleash the pet I normally spam its three skills then swap right away since they remain after you swap. In PvP it's a different story since you can do cool things like super speed the pet unleash him and have it zoom around following a thief.

Untamed is okay in pushing or leading I found and mechnaist for the boons but yeah your are right.

Well it is where I park up and farm while I work I have even been banned because I sat in an event while I was busy with real life stuff and could not respond to admin DM. Honestly I think the main reason it is better for me is because I only play Longbow + Longbow so I don't really benefit from the Soulbeast kit to much.

I do agree pvp in general is in a pretty bad state except for WvW

I think they should just remove bronze rank since you gain an extra 2 pip for being in platinum and 4 for being in legendary (currently 2 players on NA are in it)

Yeah exactly otherwise people would be squatting there high rating but that does not seem to be happening at all.

I fight everything so I can get karma off karmic retribution.

Yeah thanks for the insights, I do agree with most of your thoughts about Untamed. Perilous Gift is a tricky one to balance I do agree the heal needs to be a bit more forgiving when to don't pop it at 0 health maybe so I agree with the 40% off missing health. Other than that I think the heal is amazing although I only use it in WvW.

Well you have never tried to run around in bitterfrost while not being able to mount. Again I'm mostly gathering up stuff and barraging it, so it helps if I have super speed.

Yeah I feel its more then bottom fell out of population but I could be wrong. If no new people join PvP then most of your matches will be against gold players which will mean you will naturally lose matches. If we had a lot of new players in silver/gold then I bet it would be easier to maintain your rank without playing, that is my thinking.

I mostly use it since I have access to super speed rather than just more burst.

I already said I don't play it sPvP but Untamed is a different story I'm almost always in 250 top players. I probably should try a tournament at this point.

There already is one, well two https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hunger_Royale https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Southsun_Survival Just upgrade these to include more PvP elements, ie your class skills