Yid.3024

If Virtuoso's gonna be the 'shatter spec', I wish they tried some crazier ideas with the bladesongs and blades to make them more distinct from core shatter. Right now, aside from the new blocking GM being fun, the moment-to-moment gameplay is too similar to core mesmer.(except shatters feeling...worse?) I guess F4 tried to be a little different but it just felt like a downgraded distortion rather than its own skill. I want them to really reimagine the upper skill bar, and shatter mechanic as a whole, not just adapt it from core. Also, thematically, telekinetic sword flinging not being instant-cast just feels way uncool. Speaking of themes, I couldn't clearly see what it was trying to be. It's not particularly graceful, nimble, technical, forceful, calculated... it's not particularly anything, it's just a class that flings pink knives in 12 vaguely different ways. I guess the traits want me to block and evade, which ties in to asian martial arts fantasy, but then what are these dagger and utility skills even doing here? Segueing into utility, dagger skills, and elite - besides being incoherent when presented together - as individual skills they overall felt less than exciting. I honestly wouldn't bat an eye if any of the utility skills got axed between now and release. Maybe there's a way to move some VFXs, sounds and animations around to make some creative changes within reasonable development costs? It sounds like I hated it, but I actually did enjoy playing as virtuoso...it's just more fun with core weapons and utilities. When I realized a lot of the gameplay depends on core mesmer kit being fun, it suddenly explained why everything felt way too familiar.

I healed so many bone minions today!

Build crafting / mech customization feels bad. I still think Traits are overly restrictive non-choices, and mech skills being tied to them makes it even worse. Compared to Beta 3, changes to mech's stat scaling sure didn't help. Would it be broken if the mech just inherited 100% of our stats by default? It's not like a full zerker engi giving 100% of its 0 condi damage and 0 expertise to the mech will somehow break its condi output, for example. Condi builds now have to make the choice between your mech having no condi damage or no crit chance. You already make a choice when you choose your gear stats. Why complicate it so much? Would it be broken if Mech skills were freely selectable from the skill bar, independent of the traits?(slot restriction can still apply, if needed) If an offensive build wants that sweet sweet F2 stunbreak, the mech now has 5% crit chance. If a power build wants to use a mace, the mech will stay at range and pbaoe mech skills will miss you, unless you manually call it over. Same with a condi/boon build with a ranged weapon. Traits should do something besides assigning mech skills. Grandmaster condi and boon traits are a good example of traits that make my mech actually do something. Master tier condi and power traits are so boring, even if they weren't such non-choices. Too many choices are unnecessarily tangled together, and deviating from the intended build path is way too punishing. I would like some flexibility if I'm gonna feel like an engineer fiddling with my mech.

Overall I liked it, I desperately want to like it more, but most of the time I'm fighting the targeting controls more than I'm fighting the enemies. It almost felt like it was designed for a different game. I love that they are introducing an entirely new way to play, but the game first needs to make room for that entirely new element. No character or build I have played so far requires you to rapidly and accurately change targets between enemies and allies, or between different allies. It's simply a playstyle the game does not make any effort to support. I don't usually have much trouble getting targets if it was only among enemies, because the game actually supports quickly and easily selecting enemy targets. On Specter, countless times I have targeted on an enemy instead of an ally, an ally instead of an enemy, a full-health ally instead of the one I'm trying to heal, a gosh-darn MINI, etc.. L2P issue? Perhaps. But acquiring AND changing between the right targets in a stacked mess of clipping character models and particle effects and minis and pets have never been this big of an issue since no other spec requires this type of play, and the game's been built for years around that fact. Again, I REALLY want to love this spec more. The idea of a high-impact selective support is cool. Support character with tools like shadowstep and stealth is cool. The theme of shadow magic specialist is cool. The traits are interesting. But it also has to work within the game we have. Hopefully the game's bones get some serious uplift to support this unique idea.

1. I'd love to see Mech skill choices and trait choices separated. Let us pick mech skills the same way Revenants pick their Legends. Picking out the traits right now is quite boring. There are no compelling mix and match options available. You lose too much for hybridizing since too many build components are tangled together in each slot; build-appropriate mech skill, stat boost, trait effects themsleves are all packaged together as an all-or-nothing deal. So separate mech skills from traits, consolidate some of the similar/boring traits, open up some difficult choices. 2. Better ways to reposition the mech would be great. Many mech skills depend on the mech being in the right place. I often found myself burning the shadowstep signet just to get my mech where i want it, but that's obviously not always feasible. Relevant mech skills could either be ground-targeted, or a way to directly move the mech would add a lot. ("go here" skill on f4? or make the mech ai always hug the player?) 3. Mace is underwhelming. I'm not necessarily talking about power level, it's just kinda boring and basic. There's a compelling argument for adding simpler options to engi, but the elite mechanic itself already cuts a good bit of complexity off of core engi. An e-spec exclusive weapon could do a little more.

The feeling of missing out when you haven't unlocked all the mastery tracks and collections was urging me to rush through to the end. It felt like time spent exploring and enjoying the new map was going to waste when a newly unlocked collection asks me to go back and do the same thing again, find things I already found, etc.. Same for mastery XP. Solo experience in new maps was great, wish there were some large-scale meta events.