agrippastrilemma.8741

Chronomancer has been meta and popular in PvE for years and years, while also being critically acclaimed by pretty much every PvP player, so this is a nonsensical and meaningless statement.

Please refer to a peer-reviewed study to support this claim. No, it is incredibly, ridiculously easy to make something perform in PvP. You can literally just boost the numbers until people start playing it. That is why it is way, way smarter to design things for PvP/WvW and then change numbers to make it work in PvE. Exactly what you do in every single post. No, in casual PvE (the game mode that has the most players) anything can be played just fine, you just need an attractive class fantasy. It's not like PvP, or raids, where people might buy an expansion just to get a competitive advantage. It's not the same. And you don't even want anything, except to simp for ANet at all costs, and pay them like a good little paypig. "Dismissive approach" describes yourself to a T, "contributing to the noise" even more so. Stop projecting.

Objectively incorrect. They ran beta events before previous expansions too, so no, it is not because of the delay. And no, it is not "a privilege" for the player. A privilege for ArenaNet, yes, because they get people to playtest and report bugs for free. Trash logic. It is exactly in early beta where you SHOULD rework skills/the whole thing entirely, if at all. Doing it later (which you are implying) would mean more work down the drain. Zzz, boring drivel.

Make bell node bigger, this way aoe spam isn't quite as strong.

Buff power core not power mirage

You mean the one they can stow at any point and still get the full animation?

I agree f3 is worthless right now, it does 1/2 daze with a slow cast and slow projectile velocity. That's why it should stun, and the projectile should get better tracking/faster velocity.

With "new mechanic" I basically just mean that the f1-f4 are actually different this time around, whereas both Chrono and Mirage retained the core profession skills. This is good in theory; however I def agree that the new shatters are weak hence my suggestions like making f3 a stun.

Why downvote the video? Genuine question, it's nice to know if I got something in particular wrong.

It's very obvious in Temple of the Silent Storm. Helseth noticed it on his recent stream as well.

Yeah, go into Temple of the Silent Storm, it is really dark now.

Lmao, don't drop "you miss that your argument does prove my point even tho you dont get it 😉" and leave, that's actually disrespectful.

What you said was "and yes staff/scepter/axe also need some mechanic reworks in terms of casttime/ traveltime" which makes it sound like you are agreeing/affirming something I said (hence the "yes, ..."), which is weird because I never said anything about that in the first place! But it's fine, it was probably just the language barrier. You are saying that you can/want to always use your damage ambushes at the same time as you want to defensively dodge (it's unclear why you couldn't do the same with a vuln/mightstacking ambush and then counterpressure); I am saying that it is not that simple, which is why this is highly relevant. Why are you saying "that's exactly the point" as if I said the same thing as you. In reality, GS ambush plays pretty kitten similarly to something like the scepter ambush. The only reason you can sometimes afford to use MC for just the ambush, without evading anything, is because of the crutch that is the Energy Sigil, which let's you use your dodge for offensive purposes on one weapon set (e.g. greatsword) and then swap to the other weapon set (e.g. sword) and get your dodge back i.e. not be punished for it - one reason of many I would like to see it gone. However GS power Mesmer does have lower dodge/MC uptime, due to the fact that you tend to not swap weapons as much as condi Mes does; on condi you often swap right when your weapon swap is off cd whereas on power, you often stay in GS for a bit to pressure at range. Stop delivering walls of text and start delivering concise points. Look at what you said: "the blind is locked behind the evade so you are forced to blow a dodge without the need to evade an attack to get access to a tactical timed blind. it doesnt make sense and it is so obvious that i rly wonder why you do not understand that." I already explained how sometimes you want a blind rather than an evade (for ex. to keep your clones alive), not to mention that you might want the damage from ineptitude, not to mention that the ambush window is longer than the MC meaning that you can do dodge -> ambush (blind) to avoid two skills. Anyway I don't really care about this too much, I think all the ambushes are pretty much fine right now (maybe sword should be nerfed a bit). And again basically the only time you use the daze on Mirage Thrust purely reactively is 1. stomps 2. revives 3. res glyph/signet, which is not that often. You typically use it proactively. Let's not even talk about GS ambush because then your argument just falls apart since it is used more for the damage than the "utility" anyways (and not particularly reactively). You are right that sword leap is the best & most skilled ambush, because it has so many use cases due to it being a really overloaded skill. Also because you didn't quote I'm not sure which "2 other points" you are referring to. Chronomancer has the same access to skillful, active and reactive defense as core Mesmer minus Distortion plus Continuum Split; so I can only assume you are saying here that core Mesmer isn't skillful. Mirage has a greater number of tools to be sure, but Chrono has access to the same core Mesmer tools that we all know and love (or perhaps you just dislike core Mes) but more often, due to alacrity and CS (one example out of infinite; you can use CS -> Mantra of Resolve -> end CS -> Mantra of Resolve to burst cleanse conditions). Lol what. Chronomancer has lower instant shatter damage than Mirage and Core. That's the point of Split Second. You can walk out of the second hit, you can dodge out, you can teleport out, and so on. And Chrono is the peak of reactive gameplay vs decent players, it is all about counting defenses and dodges, especially punishing wasted defenses. For example, you see a guy double dodging, you can punish hard with a shatter combo or what have you. Or, you use Mirror Blade, stow it to bait a dodge, and follow up with a combo. By contrast, it is exceedingly rare to see a Mirage stowing anything to bait anything. If you are playing vs a bot scourge / wvw player then sure you can do your macro'd burst combo right off the bat. Yes, mirage is more about attrition and doing damage over a greater length of time, than core Mesmer and Chronomancer (once again I have a sneaking suspicion that you simply don't like Mesmer, only Mirage). Chrono/core is more about baiting defensives and punishing mistakes. It is clear which is your preferred style. It is absolutely, conclusively, less forgiving. If you misplay and tank a stun on Chrono and are out of stunbreaks you are dead, on Mirage you jaunt out or even just dodge while stunned (which also makes a sword clone leap at them and daze them). For a build/class to be "skilled" what is needed is mostly this: Possibility of having really high impact if you execute properly. Possibility of having really low impact if you execute improperly. Assuming a new player starts at 2, it should be somewhat or very difficult to reach 1. A purposefully kitten build without weapons doesn't suit number 1, but Chrono clearly suits both. You can certainly get farmed and have low impact on Chrono, or you can have really high impact if you play properly, are good at surviving, etc. It doesn't help that Anet just nerfed Chrono crit damage completely unnecessarily by 10% because of PvE =(. No thanks, I'll continue here for now.

If anyone is bored enough read this essay of a post I would loooveeeee to hear what you agree/disagree with and if you have any bugs to add =). Let's get this spec fixed as much as possible b4 the next beta.

I said that it requires thought because of the long cast; if you use it thoughtlessly you can be punished since the cast is longer than the evade. I did not say that it needs a quicker cast in order to be tactical. 1. You have stuff like unrelenting assault which is an obvious example where you might want to dodge but not attack back. 2. If the cast time is slow, you can't always just use your ambush with your defensive dodge, because you get counter-pressured. Even with axe, you often can't use your axe ambush with your defensive dodge. It's not as straightforward as you make it sound. 3. Besides, I don't think what we are talking about is that relevant anyhow, your point is basically that MC is only balanced if the mirage is force to use dodge without evading something, but the real reason gs mirage is "balanced" is because gs has no defensive on it, unlike all other Mesmer weapon combos. To me, the way to make it balanced is simply to disallow dodging during cc, and maybe remove Energy Sigil from PvP (which hardcarries Mirage atm). At that point you can restore two dodges to Mirage. The exact same goes for daze... IH Mirage is 10 times more forgiving than Power Chrono. I say this despite IH pMirage being one of my favourite builds.

If pure offensive dodging is what you want, there is a very simple way to accomplish it, which is to have substantial damage on the ambush! (Not saying that I want this, but that this is the best and easiest way to "force offensive dodges"). Daze doesn't add combo potential, I mean it's not exactly a stun or immob, unless by combo you just mean "more damage", which is a really degenerated concept of a combo. I never complained about the cast or traveltime. The blind would by definition not be passive. Congratulations on ignoring my explanation/example of why blind is not the same as dodge, and sometimes you specifically want blind rather than evade. Also, if you are dodging ONLY to apply vuln you are straight up misplaying and a mildly competent player should punish your wasted evade.

You said that staff ambush doesn't need to be timed in relation to what the enemy is doing, this is what I responded to. Staff ambush does take thought; you want to maximize alacrity uptime while also having dodge up for when you need to evade. Because of the long staff ambush cast, you also want to use it appropriately so as to make sure you won't get hit/interrupted while casting it after MC runs out. "blind doesnt have an offensive/ defensive hybrid nature" Ever heard of ineptitude? "why you would a mes dodge for the blind only, esp in a moment you have no attack to avoid to use your endurance dodge for? you can already just dodge the attack" Ineptitude Unless you are IH, you want to use dodge and blind at different moments; for instance if a Holo is using corona burst you want to daze or blind it rather than dodge because if you just dodge, he will kill your clones. "the mirage cannot rly reactively, tactically time the blind that is coming after the dodge from the own or clones ambushes." Depends how fast the ambush cast that inflicts would be. Also, you are not reactively using Mirage Thrust daze 98% of the time (exceptions are res signets, stomps, downstate resses). "mostly passive extension of your dodge" By that line of thought, so is Split Surge, unless you are playing vs bad players who don't punish you for wasting a dodge. "nothing you need to rly use your dodge for offensive, means dodge without evading an attack just for the blind on the ambush itself." Again forgetting ineptitude and some other interactions.

1. "[staff ambush] doesnt need to be timed well in relation to what the enemy is doing", you only have one dodge and cannot typically afford to waste it, so you obviously do use your dodge in relation to what the enemy is doing. 2. There is no reason why a blind wouldn't work/be appropriate but a daze would.

Staff ambush is already more utility than gs ambush.

This is my (way too big) Virtuoso feedback and bug list after ~80 ranked games and some duels. I'm including a 4h PvP condi Virtuoso video. There is some random power virtuoso gameplay in there too but that was unintended. By the way, ignore the video title lmao, that's just dumb clickbait, Virtuoso is actually not great in PvP. I think Illusions 132, Chaos 133, Virtuoso 112 was the best Virtuoso beta build I could find: https://i.imgur.com/6OhUsrn.jpg. The reason for Shatter Storm over The Pledge is because it allowed you to stowcancel F1 every second instead of every four seconds, giving you potentially perma stability and 18-21 stacks of might. Rune of the Guardian has interesting synergy with the aegis trait, though Rune of Orr may still be better. Content TL;DR Feedback Bugs TL;DR Fix lots of huge bugs obviously. Fix laggy animations, notably Unstable Bladestorm and Rain of Swords. Remove the bleed-related traits at the bottom of the Virtuoso line, or condense them into one trait. Make three/two new traits. Illusionary Leap - often misses the target, fix the accuracy (see this video). Dagger - consider decreasing range to 600/900 and increasing damage/utility. Mesmer already has a 1200 range power weapon in greatsword. Flying Cutter - fix tracking, increase projectile speed. Unstable Bladestorm - fix it disappearing when touching a wall. More consistent damage and/or make it do something else than just damage (cripple/projectile block/swiftness/superspeed). Maybe ground targeted like old Chronomancer shield 5. Twin Blade Restoration - fix it cancelling when not facing target and buff it (lower cd/more condis removed/etc). Sword of Decimation - make it hit after ~1/2 sec instead of after ~1 sec. Rain of Swords - make it cripple and feel more like Ranger Barrage. Psychic Force - lower cd to 30 seconds and make it give stability for 1 second. Blade Renewal - consider making it the elite skill. Keep the stow cancel trick. Thousand Cuts - fix annoying targeting and buff the damage (or remove it and make Blade Renewal the elite). Maybe make it a regular AoE instead of a projectile (or make it unblockable). Bladesong Harmony - make it cast quicker, and make the projectile speed faster / track better. Bladesong Dissonance - make it cast quicker, and increase the projectile speed / make it track better. Make it stun for 1/2 per blade because it has a reactable cast time and long cd, and because it suits the Virtuoso kit. Bladesong Requiem - separate the pulsing damage and the block because it gets interrupted by stuff like Shocking Aura, Full Counter, Static Shield (move the AoE damage to F2 instead?). If not, at least increase the damage. Clarify how this skill works; is the block supposed to be 1.5s or 3s? Confusing tooltip. ______________________________ FEEDBACK The good: I like Mesmer without clones; It feels refreshing to not have to work around frustrating AI and to not be kept in combat forever by your illusions. Even though I have a lot of problems with Virtuoso I still played it for 3 days straight. I like that the F1-F4 are new which is a first for Mesmer elite specs, it's always fun to learn new mechanics. The floating daggers above your head/shoulders look sweet. I like that the spec doesn't have broken mechanics like dodging while stunned and that it is mainly an offensive power-based class. I like the new (?) "bouncing on walls" mechanic but it is only used on one skill. Virtuoso feels decently hard to play, which is good. If you compare chaos Virtuoso vs chaos Mirage there is a massive difference. To be fair, this is partly because of the bugs that gave beta Virtuoso a very high skill ceiling, so we will see how it is on release. The bad: Currently, Virtuoso seems to get more or less countered by a lot of classes: Thief and power Revenant, because they have unblockables and because they are fast and run through your character, which makes your Bladesong targeting difficult. Elementalist, because Shocking Aura interrupts your F4 block, and because they tend to have a lot of projectile denial. Engineer and Warrior, to a lesser extent, because Static Shield and Full Counter interrupts your F4 block. Necromancer, because you don't have a lot of condition removal and because they have unblockable marks that hit through your aegis and F4. Many condition builds, unless you play inspiration. Otherwise, assuming you are running Blink and Blade Renewal (which you most likely are), you need to run Mantra of Resolve, but then you only have one stunbreak which makes you highly vulnerable now that you don't have instant blind/daze/distortion on Shatters. If Blade Renewal were an elite skill (as I suggest) you could fit both a second stunbreak and a condition removal utility. Another possibility is to make Twin Blade Restoration a viable answer to conditions. Line of sight in general. For example in my duels, if my opponent decided to hide behind the rubble on Niflhel mine, I couldn't really do much because everything is a slow projectile. Ranger has Barrage to counter LoS and regular mesmer has pbAoE shatters and stuff like axe 3 and sword 3 which go through walls. Virtuoso doesn't have any of this. The class theme also seems a bit confused in my opinion. Its like there are three ideas mashed into one messy class: Throwing dagger class. I like the idea of throwing quick sharp daggers that would feel satisfying to land. Think of how it feels to throw a small knife in real life, it has a lot weight and impact to it. I also like the concept of the "magician with throwing cards" like phantom in maplestory or zander in battlerite. Instead what we got is floaty purple magic. Only dagger 2 satisfies the dagger throwing fantasy for me, F1-F3 have such big shiny animations that I don't even notice that I am throwing the daggers above my shoulders which is a shame, I prefer clear and precise animations. God knows this game doesn't need more visual clutter. "Psychic" class with PSI/telekinesis abilities. I am reminded of earthbound, or kinesis from maplestory, but in that game you throw buses on people, whereas here what we got for psionics is... one knockback on a 45 second cooldown. I think an elite spec leaning heavily into the telekinesis/psychokinesis theme could have been really cool. Musical dancer class. I'm guessing the only reason the profession skills are called "Bladesongs" is because people have been asking for a music-themed Mesmer and the devs decided to throw them a bone, because in every other sense this spec has nothing to do with music or singing or dancing. But maybe it will make more sense in context of the PvE lore. Let's get into more specifics... Dagger: I found this to be strictly worse than greatsword. For a weapon that ONLY does power damage the power damage it does is underwhelming. It plays weirdly because it is technically 1200 range but skill 2 and 3 both work better at ~300-600 range, and skill 1 misses on moving targets at ~400+ range. I suspect this was intended to be like greatsword which rewards melee range to hit mirror blade. But greatsword still has good value on 1200 range with Phantasmal Berserker, Mind Stab and Spatial Surge. I would consider lowering the range of dagger to 600 or 900 and increasing the damage and/or utility, since Mesmer already has a 1200 range power weapon in greatsword. That said, I think dagger has some potential on a power build because the problem with greatsword is that your skills are slow and need a target, which makes you very vulnerable to thief; dagger doesn't have those problems. Flying Cutter - Low damage without the flurry and the flurry is inconsistent. Much worse than Spatial Surge. Can be strafed at ~400+ range - make the projectile much faster. Also, and this is more of a matter of taste, I don't like that it feels so "floaty" and "magicky", I would prefer it to feel more like quickly throwing a sharp object (I wrote about this above). Bladecall - I like the idea of this skill and the trick where you detarget and shoot it into the ground to hit faster in melee range is cool, but it should return much faster instead of "sticking" to the wall/floor for a second. Make it feel like it is bouncing. The animation is good. Unstable Bladestorm - This skill feels very fire-and-forget and unsatisfying. Ideally you want skills to feel satisfying to hit like Mirror Blade, Mind Stab or Axes of Symmetry, and this skill doesn't. The animation is fancy, but if you zoom in on it you will notice your FPS drop massively. It suffers from a problem where it disappears if it touches a wall or an enemy with block/aegis/projectile destruction. I would honestly considering reworking it. If you do want to keep its current design I would suggest some of the following: Make it ground targeted, let us shoot it out like old Chronomancer shield 5 (when you could use it behind you). Make it a regular AoE instead of a projectile so that you have an answer to projectile hate. This would fix it disappearing upon touching an aegis. The skill has a big problem right now in that it disappears if it touches a wall. If possible, make it bounce off of walls like dagger 2 - otherwise, just make it stop moving when it hits a wall. Make it inflict cripple and/or block projectiles and/or give superspeed to allies inside it. I found myself forgetting multiple times that it isn't a cripple because it really looks like it. Remove the "blades shoot out" mechanic and make it deal more consistent pulsing damage to enemies inside it instead, to reward you for keeping enemies inside it using stuff like Magic Bullet, Temporal Curtain or Sword of Decimation. Bladesongs: Contrary to some other people, I like that you need to face your target at the start of the Bladesong cast. After all, with most projectiles in the game (like say Mirror Blade) you need to face target both at the start and at the end of the cast. Bladesongs basically work like Renegade shortbow autoattack (type 2 in this video). That said, Bladesongs should be able to be used without a target. There are movement options which will really highlight the difference between good and bad players. Couple examples: Start Bladesong channel, press about face. You will be able to kite away while hitting the skill, and hide the animation slightly. See this video (I forgot to record a clip on Virtuoso but Renegade shortbow 1 works the same way). While running from an enemy that is targeted behind you, release W and press F1, then instantly press W again. You will able to run away from your target while casting F1. I use this at some points in my video, it will take a while to get into muscle memory though. See this video. In general the Bladesong animations are not my favourite because the purple effect is so big and fancy that it feels less like actual throwing daggers and more like shooting generic "purple magic". I have a feeling this would be way better if F1-F3 didn't all feel so indistinguishable "shoot some purple magic at range for a bit of damage" - I go into some ideas on that note below. The moves that the player character performs look neat though. Bladesong Harmony - This skill is too slow and too inaccurate. Currently, this skill only hits at short ranges because the projectile speed is so slow and the tracking is so bad. I suspect this "shotgun" functionality may be intentional to incentivise the player to not camp at 1200 range, but if that is the case it needs to be 1/4 or 1/2 cast because you cannot really channel a slow 3/4 shatter in melee range on a build as squishy as power Virtuoso. Also, because F1 is so much weaker than F2, you are basically incentivising people to play condi Virtuoso if they ever want to land their damage and I think I speak for most when I say that we are tired of condi Mesmer always being stronger in PvP than power Mesmer. Bladesong Sorrow - This is the best new Shatter. It is reasonably fast, and hits fairly consistently at range. However, as others like Teapot also pointed out, F1-F3 feel very same-y, and does Virtuoso really need a condition option considering we just had Mirage? What if you gave F2 the "spinning blades around you" effect that is currently on F4, and increase the damage. Bladeturn Requiem would instead be just a block (more on that below). Bladesong Dissonance - This skill is really bad. It only dazes once, which means it doesn't synergise well with traits like Dazzling, Shattered Concentration and Vicious Expression, unlike normal Diversion. The combination of 38 second cooldown, 1/2 sec daze duration, slow cast time, slow projectile travel speed, plus exremely bad projectile tracking, makes this really bad. It is basically only a filler damage skill for when you have a blade to spare (it is never worth using with more than one blade). I would suggest increasing projectile speed and accuracy (aim for it to feel more like throwing Mirror Blade), and making it a stun (1/2 sec per blade). The reason the stun on Diversion was removed was because instant hard cc is unhealthy, but Virtuoso F3 isn't instant anymore so this is a perfect time to add the stun back in. Sword of Decimation, Rain of Swords, Thousand Cuts, and Bladesong Harmony all synergise perfectly with stuns, but then Virtuoso doesn't have a single hard CC, which just feels weird. Additionally, the loss of immobilize on sword 3 means Virtuoso has one less way of locking down the enemy. Bladeturn Requiem - I love how it synergizes with traits like Shattered Concentration and Rending Shatter, and it is a great idea to have some melee counterpressure in order to be able to deal with stuff like Thief and Revenant, but right now the damage is super low. I would consider putting the "spinning blades" effect on F2 (which means you can justify buffing the damage) and Bladeturn Requiem instead becomes a block that protects against a number of hits (use 5 blades = block 5 attacks), like Elementalist Arcane Shield. This serves four benefits: Purity of purpose. Having blocks that pulse damage in PvP is a problem because it easily gets interrupted by Shocking Aura, Static Shield and Full Counter, and you can't do much about it. Using Bladeturn Requiem with a lot of blades becomes more worth it; currently using it with more blades doesn't provide much value. Virtuoso becomes less reliant on projectiles; only 2/4 Bladesongs are projectiles instead of 3/4. A different and simpler alternative would be to make Bladeturn Requiem give distortion and instead make Blade Renewal a block and a stunbreak. Basically, with these reworks we go from "F1: high damage F2: medium damage F3: low damage F4: damage with block" to "F1: range damage F2: melee counterpressure F3: stun/setup F4: block". Utilities/heal/elite: Twin Blade Restoration - The fact that it cancels if you aren't looking at your target combined with the long cd, mediocre healing and long cast time, makes this heal unusable. I like that the new heal isn't strictly better than core heals in every scenario (*cough* False Oasis) but currently it is just always bad. First of all, it needs to be usable without line of sight, second of all the one single cleanse is really weak considering you actually need to hit your target to get it - look at Consume Conditions, Hide in Shadows, or Mending. Because it has counterplay it needs to also be rewarding. Rain of Swords - This is very slow and does no damage in PvP, which honestly might be a good thing because you generally don't want big pulsing AoEs in PvP. That said, I would make this skill hit rapidly and cripple enemies like Ranger barrage, instead of pulsing once per second. This would fit the name and animation better. Speaking of the animation, it needs to be simplified somehow because currently it is officially known as "that one utility that lags my game". Sword of Decimation - Cool utility concept that rewards smart use, but currently it is hard to combo because it actually takes about 1 second to hit even though the cast time is 1/2 sec. For instance if you use SoD -> Chaos Storm, the Chaos storm will hit slightly too late, and if you do Chaos Storm -> SoD, the daze will wear off before the Sword of Decimation hits even though Chaos Storm daze is 1 second and SoD is supposedly 1/2 sec cast. Either make the cast 1/4 sec and retain the aftercast delay (which allows you to do combos like SoD -> Chaos storm or SoD -> Illusionary Wave), or remove the delay and make the skill hit after exactly 1/2 second (which lets you do Chaos Storm -> SoD or Illusionary Wave -> SoD). Also this skill would fit better into Virtuoso's kit if you made F3 a stun as previously suggested. Blade Renewal - Consider making it the elite skill instead of Thousand Cuts (sort of like the equivalent of Renewing Focus on Guardian). It feels elite skill worthy, and there is a risk it may become a locked utility on every build especially because it is the only way to charge blades out of combat - you don't want that. It gives Virtuoso some much-needed survivability vs condition bursts and vs Thief/Mirage/Rev. Currently you are sort of forced to play Mass Invisibility. Aside from that, I like the tech of stowing it and still getting the distortion (but not the blade recharge) while being able to use skills, which should stay in the game for now because it is fun and skilled (and still weaker than core Mesmer distortion which can be used in cc). I think the cd is appropriate for the strong effect. Psychic Force - I like the theme and the animation, but it is too weak and the cooldown is long. Normally, you can counterplay getting blinded by stow cancelling your skill and saving it, but if you do that with Psychic Force, because it is a stunbreak, it goes on the full 45 seconds cooldown. There are too many situations and ways it gets countered: You are blinded. Imagine a thief stuns you with Basilisk Venom then follows up with Shadow Shot, now you have to waste your 45 second cooldown stunbreak. Opponent has aegis. Opponent has stability. It is a 1/2 cast stunbreak but gives no stability (unlike say Blinding Powder) so you can get ccd instantly and Psychic Force then gets interrupted and goes on 45 seconds cooldown. There is a reason stunbreaks with cast time generally have stability. Thousand Cuts - Aside from being buggy and annoying to use, the reward you get for managing to lock somebody down for four seconds is underwhelming. It needs to be usable behind you like old chronomancer shield 5, or it should lock onto your target like prime light beam. Consider making it a regular AoE instead of a projectile attack, or maybe even make it unblockable (though that could be too strong). Does Virtuoso really need three utilities/elites that focus on plain AoE power damage? What if Blade Renewal becomes the elite skill and the 4th utility slot is replaced by something more unique, something that fits the "psionic/telekinesis" theme? Traits: Bladeturn Refrain - Pretty good trait! Your cast times are slow (F1-F3, greatsword 2-4, scepter 3, heal, elite) so you need this to be able to cast anything when playing vs stuff like Spellbreaker or Holo. I dislike how reliant Virtuoso is on aegis and blocks, but that is mostly because this trait and Duelist's Reversal are so much better than the alternatives. Mental Focus - Mostly a PvE trait. Jagged Mind - Consider removing the whole condi line from Virtuoso and freeing up three trait spots. Notice that nothing stops you from playing condi even without these traits - in fact I found 112 or 112 to be better for a condi duelist. Just think about Mirage; the three bottom traits have been mostly dead since release (only the axe trait is halfway decent) because even condition builds prefer the utility or sustain from stuff like Elusive Mind, Desert Distortion, Renewing Oasis and Self-Deception. Compare to Chrono, where the same traits (like Chronophantsma) can be used for both power and condition builds. Let the condition damage come from weapons and core traits. This makes Virtuoso more interesting and versatile. This is the conclusion Teapot and his podcast guests came to as well. Deadly Blades - Super strong trait. What I think many are missing is that greatsword and sword skills also count as blades (though the tooltips are bugged), meaning that greatsword auto can apply 3 vuln, sword auto can apply 2 vuln per hit, and blurred frenzy can apply 8 vuln! Really nice synergy with Domination. Duelist's Reversal - The best of the three major master traits. In practice, this gives surprisingly low quickness uptime, because a lot of the time you are doing stuff like kiting, outranging, blinding, or interrupting to avoid attacks. Also traits that trigger "passively" like this are typically less fun than something like Zephyr's speed, it's not the end of the world though, it's a decent trait. Phantasmal Blades - The blade damage is pretty low and could be increased a bit. I heard RIP say the blade should do 10 times more though which would obviously be totally insane, imagine 10k trait procs after a berserker summon. More importantly, the fury duration is way too low; for an elite spec so focused on fury it is annoying that only Duelist's Reversal gives decent Fury uptime, especially compared to the Dueling traitline. Double the fury duration. Sharpening Sorrow - See Jagged Mind - consider removing this trait. If it is kept, the fury duration is way way way too low, it actually gives less fury uptime than Bountiful Disillusionment, which also gives Might, Vigor, Stability and Regen. Make it so Bloodsong Sorrow provides fury per blade, 3-5 seconds per blade. If F2 is used instantly off cooldown with max blades this trait should basically give permanent fury. Quiet Intensity - Good trait. The 10% vitality -> ferocity conversion does not at all make it worth to run marauder over berserker in PvP, but that's fine. In practice, right now it kinda incentivises you to run carrion in PvP. Psychic Riposte - I thought this would be the strongest GM by far before I actually played. It is a good trait, but you actually block/evade more rarely than you'd think. The blade attack part should be removed in my opinion as it is unnecessary, deals no damage, and is basically just annoying and reveals you in stealth. I can't imagine the damage is that relevant to PvE benchmarks either. Infinite Forge - Great trait, really good for builds that use range and kiting to avoid attacks rather than evades and blocks, like greatsword power builds. Make it work out of combat though. If that turns out to be too strong it can just be reverted after the next beta. Bloodsong - See Jagged Mind. Core traits: Master of Fragmentation - This only gives one more tick of damage to F4 currently, it would be more interesting if it gave projectile relfection to Bladeturn Requiem like it does with distortion. Restorative Illusions - When/if this scales up to 5 blades it could end up being too strong, keep an eye on this. Trait ideas: Seeing as I just suggested to remove the three bottom major traits of Virtuoso, here are some random trait ideas to replace them... Major Adept "Quick Wit: You gain 7% increased movement speed per blade you currently have" Can be changed to 10% or 5% depending on testing. This would provide a roaming alternative where Bladeturn Refrain and Mental Focus provide defense and damage, respectively. You are forced to choose between movement speed and aegis (both very strong) which means you cannot be both mobile and tanky. It rewards players who manage their blades well by adding the decisionmaking (i.e. skill) of "should I use my Bladesong now or save it?". Analogous to Herald Rising Momentum. Major Master "Perfect Fifth: Using a bladesong with 5 blades grants fury for 15 seconds and 5 stacks of might for 10 seconds" The top traits suit a playstyle of using Bladesongs quickly without max blades in order to get a lot of aegis uptime and hence a lot of quickness, fury and blade generation. Thus it is fitting for the bottom line to be about saving your blades and using them at the opportune moment (notice Quick Wit also fits this style). The exact duration/stacks of boons can be tweaked obviously. Vigor would also fit well instead of might. The random name idea comes from music theory. "Sharp Harmonies: Bladesong Harmony grants fury and vigor for 3 seconds per blade that hits your target". As above, this fits the playstyle of saving up your blades for the opportune moment. It also rewards you for hitting the blades rather than just using the skill. If you manage to hit a 5-blade Bladesong every time Bladesong Harmony comes off cooldown, you deserve to get permanent fury from that. Notice that Duelist's Reversal gives quickness, and Phantasmal Blades gives damage, so it seems appropriate that the third choice would give defense (in the form of vigor). Alternative name, something like "Harmonious Blades". Major Grandmaster "Bladedancer: Whenever you stock a blade from a weapon or utility skill, stock one additional blade. Psionic skills also stock a blade on hit." This trait makes it so Mirror Blade gives 2 blades, phantasms give two blades, Mirror Images gives three blades, Decoy gives two blades, Psioncs give two blades, and so on. People have been asking for a trait that interacts with Psionics like Twisted Medicine does with Elixirs on Harbinger, so I think this would be a good spot for it. This trait would provide a playstyle that makes your active skills feel more rewarding, in contrast to Duelist's Reversal which is more defensive, and Infinite Forge which is more passive. It also suits a more "bursty" playstyle where you summon lots of blades quickly (for example, Mirror Blade -> Mirror Images gives 5 blades), whereas the other two GMs give blades more every spread out over time. This plays into the concept of the bottom traits promoting a playstyle of saving up blades rather than spending them quickly. "Encore: Blade attacks grant a stack of Encore on critical hits. Stock a blade after gaining 5 stacks of Encore." Psychic Riposte gives blades for defense and Infinite Forge gives blades passively, so it makes sense for the third option to give blades for offense. The idea of the encore name is that you are gaining blades from expending blades, as if you are using them "again". "Bloodsong: Blade attacks apply bleeding on on critical hits. Stock a blade after applying 5 stacks of bleeding" If you wish to keep the bleeding playstyle, you can condense it into a single trait like this, which could honestly be usable for both condition and power builds, which makes it quite versatile. ______________________________ BUGS General: Phantasms - if the target dies before they convert into blades, they disappear and you get no blades. If you are too far away from your phantasm (possibly 1200 range) when it despawns you also do not get a blade. Hovering your mouse over the "clone dots" above your Bladesongs says "X illusions" instead of "X blades". Is it intended that most skills and traits do not give blades out of combat? Currently pretty much only Blade Renewal does. It seems strange to me that you are so pigeonholed into a single utility across the entire profession if you want to make use of the new mechanic of being able to prepare blades out of combat. But perhaps this is fine. Skills that only summon clones when used in range of a target also need a target to summon blades, for example Decoy and Mirror Images. This may be intended but is fairly unintuitive for virtuoso. Normally, when you have max clones and summon a new clone it overwrites the old one, triggering traits like Compounding Power and Illusionary Defense, but on virtuoso summoning a 6th blade doesn't overwrite an old blade which means these traits do not get triggered. This may be intended. You can stack blades before PvP matches start and keep them. There are a bunch of underwater bugs but I'm focusing on PvP relevant things here. Traits: Mental Anguish - says "Shatter skills deal more damage" but doesn't increase the damage of Bladesong Dissonance or Bladesong Requiem. Bountiful Disillusionment - gives boons even when stowing shatter skills or using them while facing away from your target. Inspiring Distortion - doesn't work with Bladesong Requiem (no aegis to allies) Restorative Illusions - heals even when stowing Bladesong skills. only scales up to 3 blades (might be intended). Using a Bladesong with 1 blade gives you a 0-clone heal instead of a 1-clone heal which is unintuitive but perhaps necessary for balance purposes. Illusionary Inspiration - doesnt work with blades Shatter Storm - I found that bladesong harmony dealt very slightly lower damage when having Shatter Storm equipped, but somebody else reported slightly higher damage, so i am confused. Look into if this trait causes Bladesong Harmony to use a different coefficient. This trait also causes the Bladesong Harmony projectiles to be invisible. Master of Fragmentation - clarify how the F3 AoE works. for F4 it says "duration increased by 1 second" but it only gives 1 extra damage tick and no extra block duration; not sure if intended. Jagged Mind - some blade type skills do not inflict bleeding; notably greatsword and sword skills. we know this is a bug because those skills do inflict vulnerability from Deadly Blades. This but may be an unintended stroke of luck because greatsword inflicting 3 bleeds per autoattack could possibly be obnoxious. Sharpening Sorrow - this makes Bladesong Sorrow inflict bleeding instead of confusion. It actually interacts well with jagged mind so maybe it is intended. In that case the trait tooltip is bugged. Phantasmal Blades - the blade attack damage is not increased by damage modifiers. If the blade attack counts as originating from the player it should be increased by the likes of Superiority Complex and Vicious Expression, if it counts as originating from the phantasm it should be enhanced by the likes of Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Force, and Vicious Expression. Psychic Riposte - same as above. Greatsword: All skills count as blade skills, but only skills 2-4 have the blade tooltip (iirc) - add correct tooltips. Mirror Blade - doesn't bounce at long ranges because there is no clone to bounce to. This is technically not a bug and not necessarily the worst thing in the world. I suspect this is why you reworked Mirror Blade in the february 2020 patch so that it gives more value on the first hit than the subsequent hits - it was surely in preparation for Virtuoso. Sword: Sword 1-5 all count as blades, but none say blade in the tooltip - add correct tooltips. Illusionary Leap - The leap often misses targets even when they are standing still, just like Mirage Thrust (or possibly even worse). Make this skill use the leap mechanics that ranger monarch's leap uses - which is much more accurate. See my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXU5DKfGO3U. Hide the "swap" tooltip if this skill isn't intended to immobilize anymore. If it is intended to immobilize on the swap back then fix this. This skill is also affected by movement impairing/enhancing effects, like chill, cripple, swiftness and superspeed, unlike other leaps in the game. I wonder if this is because the leap is the same as how sword 3 used to work during beta - back when movement skills were affected by movement modifiers. I personanlly enjoy this aspect but i suspect that the devs will want to remove this. Scepter: Ether Clone (3rd autoattack) - only summons blades up to a maximum of 3. Dagger: Flying Cutter - flurry triggers inconsistenly and doesn't trigger at all on players in the downstate. It may also have something to do with what dagger skin you are using. The 3-hit counter may also be resetting when using certain skills, like utility skills or Bladesongs - check this out. Also, somebody said the flurry uses unequipped weapon strength instead of dagger weapon strength - I didn't check. Unstable Bladestorm - disappears completely if it touches a wall or an enemy that is blocking or projectile blocking (the latter of which may be intended). Also, and I'm unsure if this is bugged or not, the damage seems to be very inconsistent, sometimes it does almost nothing and sometimes you get two ~2k+ hits on your target. Bladesongs: Bladesongs - F1 and F2 cannot be used without a target while F3 can; they should all be usable without a target. If interrupted towards the very end off the cast (possibly in the aftercast), your attack doesn't go off but you lose all your blades and the Bladesong goes on full cooldown. Bladesong Harmony - invisible projectiles when you have Shatter Storm traited. Bladesong Sorrow - can hit twice if you stand inside your target's hitbox. I'm not 100% on this, but the Bladesong Sorrow animation doesn't seem to scale with character size i.e. the animation is still huge on Asura while the Bladesong Harmony animation is tiny. Bladesong Requiem - clarify/fix how this skill is supposed to work. on the tooltip it says "block duration 3 seconds" and "duration increased for each blade" but the block is clearly 1.5 seconds regardless how many blades you have. Utilities: Signet of the Ether - the passive "heal on illusion summon" doesn't work with blades. Twin Blade Restoration - skill gets cancelled if you use it while facing away from your target, which makes it unusable. Blade Renewal - does not interact with any traits that usually give effects on distortion i.e. inspiring distortion (distortion gives aegis), auspicious anguish (distortion removes conditions), and master of fragmentation (distortion reflects projectiles). Also, if you stow the skill you stil get the full 3 seconds of distortion and can use skills during it, however you do not get the blade recharge. This may not be a bug, and if it is, it should be kept in the game because it has a natural tradeoff between getting to channel skills safely, or getting your 5 blades back. This choice allows for strategic/skilled play which increases skill gap which is a good thing. Thousand Cuts - It gets cancelled and goes on full cooldown when you try to use it behind you instead of interrupt cooldown. It also doesn't lock onto your target when using the setting "lock ground target at current target", which may be intended. The target indicator for this skill has a clock and shield symbol like Chronomancer shield 5 "Tides of Time"; this is probably a placeholder. Downed State: Deception (skill 2) - summons a clone. ____________________ Also, I would caution Anet not to listen TOO much to top players, for example Helseth made some pretty crazy suggestions in the Mirage beta: Called Jaunt useless and wanted it to be 600 range back when it was 20s cd, had 3 charges, and did 3 confusion for 5 seconds!!! Called False Oasis a "sack of garbage" and "worse than ether feast", and wanted it to remove a condition each pulse!!! Wanted Axe Ambush to inflict 4 stacks of confusion for 4 seconds PER CLONE! And said "it's still probably not good enough"! Wanted mirrors to spawn 2 clones. Some feedback was really on point though obviously, for example the idea to rework Elusive Mind (stunbreak on dodge). Remember that it took years to nerf Mirage down to a reasonable level.

This is my (way too big) Virtuoso feedback and bug list after ~80 ranked games and some duels. I'm including a 4h PvP condi Virtuoso video. There is some random power virtuoso gameplay in there too but that was unintended. By the way, ignore the video title lmao, that's just dumb clickbait, Virtuoso actually sucks. I think Illusions 132, Chaos 133, Virtuoso 112 was the best Virtuoso beta build I could find: https://i.imgur.com/6OhUsrn.jpg. The reason for Shatter Storm over The Pledge is because it allowed you to stowcancel F1 every second instead of every four seconds, giving you potentially perma stability and 18-21 stacks of might. Rune of the Guardian has interesting synergy with the aegis trait, though Rune of Orr may still be better. Content TL;DR Feedback Bugs TL;DR Fix lots of huge bugs obviously. Fix laggy animations, notably Unstable Bladestorm and Rain of Swords. Remove the bleed-related traits at the bottom of the Virtuoso line, or condense them into one trait. Make three/two new traits. Illusionary Leap - often misses the target, fix the accuracy (see this video). Dagger - consider decreasing range to 600/900 and increasing damage/utility. Mesmer already has a 1200 range power weapon in greatsword. Flying Cutter - fix tracking, increase projectile speed. Unstable Bladestorm - fix it disappearing when touching a wall. More consistent damage and/or make it do something else than just damage (cripple/projectile block/swiftness/superspeed). Maybe ground targeted like old Chronomancer shield 5. Twin Blade Restoration - fix it cancelling when not facing target and buff it (lower cd/more condis removed/etc). Sword of Decimation - make it hit after ~1/2 sec instead of after ~1 sec. Rain of Swords - make it cripple and feel more like Ranger Barrage. Psychic Force - lower cd to 30 seconds and make it give stability for 1 second. Blade Renewal - consider making it the elite skill. Keep the stow cancel trick. Thousand Cuts - fix annoying targeting and buff the damage (or remove it and make Blade Renewal the elite). Maybe make it a regular AoE instead of a projectile (or make it unblockable). Bladesong Harmony - make it cast quicker, and make the projectile speed faster / track better. Bladesong Dissonance - make it cast quicker, and increase the projectile speed / make it track better. Make it stun for 1/2 per blade because it has a reactable cast time and long cd, and because it suits the Virtuoso kit. Bladesong Requiem - separate the pulsing damage and the block because it gets interrupted by stuff like Shocking Aura, Full Counter, Static Shield (move the AoE damage to F2 instead?). If not, at least increase the damage. Clarify how this skill works; is the block supposed to be 1.5s or 3s? Confusing tooltip. ______________________________ FEEDBACK The good: I like Mesmer without clones; It feels refreshing to not have to work around frustrating AI and to not be kept in combat forever by your illusions. Even though I have a lot of problems with Virtuoso I still played it for 3 days straight. I like that the F1-F4 are new which is a first for Mesmer elite specs, it's always fun to learn new mechanics. The floating daggers above your head/shoulders look sweet. I like that the spec doesn't have broken mechanics like dodging while stunned and that it is mainly an offensive power-based class. I like the new (?) "bouncing on walls" mechanic but it is only used on one skill. Virtuoso feels decently hard to play, which is good. If you compare chaos Virtuoso vs chaos Mirage there is a massive difference. To be fair, this is partly because of the bugs that gave beta Virtuoso a very high skill ceiling, so we will see how it is on release. The bad: Currently, Virtuoso seems to get more or less countered by a lot of classes: Thief and power Revenant, because they have unblockables and because they are fast and run through your character, which makes your Bladesong targeting difficult. Elementalist, because Shocking Aura interrupts your F4 block, and because they tend to have a lot of projectile denial. Engineer and Warrior, to a lesser extent, because Static Shield and Full Counter interrupts your F4 block. Necromancer, because you don't have a lot of condition removal and because they have unblockable marks that hit through your aegis and F4. Many condition builds, unless you play inspiration. Otherwise, assuming you are running Blink and Blade Renewal (which you most likely are), you need to run Mantra of Resolve, but then you only have one stunbreak which makes you highly vulnerable now that you don't have instant blind/daze/distortion on Shatters. If Blade Renewal were an elite skill (as I suggest) you could fit both a second stunbreak and a condition removal utility. Another possibility is to make Twin Blade Restoration a viable answer to conditions. Line of sight in general. For example in my duels, if my opponent decided to hide behind the rubble on Niflhel mine, I couldn't really do much because everything is a slow projectile. Ranger has Barrage to counter LoS and regular mesmer has pbAoE shatters and stuff like axe 3 and sword 3 which go through walls. Virtuoso doesn't have any of this. The class theme also seems a bit confused in my opinion. Its like there are three ideas mashed into one messy class: Throwing dagger class. I like the idea of throwing quick sharp daggers that would feel satisfying to land. Think of how it feels to throw a small knife in real life, it has a lot weight and impact to it. I also like the concept of the "magician with throwing cards" like phantom in maplestory or zander in battlerite. Instead what we got is floaty purple magic. Only dagger 2 satisfies the dagger throwing fantasy for me, F1-F3 have such big shiny animations that I don't even notice that I am throwing the daggers above my shoulders which is a shame, I prefer clear and precise animations. God knows this game doesn't need more visual clutter. "Psychic" class with PSI/telekinesis abilities. I am reminded of earthbound, or kinesis from maplestory, but in that game you throw buses on people, whereas here what we got for psionics is... one knockback on a 45 second cooldown. I think an elite spec leaning heavily into the telekinesis/psychokinesis theme could have been really cool. Musical dancer class. I'm guessing the only reason the profession skills are called "Bladesongs" is because people have been asking for a music-themed Mesmer and the devs decided to throw them a bone, because in every other sense this spec has nothing to do with music or singing or dancing. But maybe it will make more sense in context of the PvE lore. Let's get into more specifics... Dagger: I found this to be strictly worse than greatsword. For a weapon that ONLY does power damage the power damage it does is underwhelming. It plays weirdly because it is technically 1200 range but skill 2 and 3 both work better at ~300-600 range, and skill 1 misses on moving targets at ~400+ range. I suspect this was intended to be like greatsword which rewards melee range to hit mirror blade. But greatsword still has good value on 1200 range with Phantasmal Berserker, Mind Stab and Spatial Surge. I would consider lowering the range of dagger to 600 or 900 and increasing the damage and/or utility, since Mesmer already has a 1200 range power weapon in greatsword. That said, I think dagger has some potential on a power build because the problem with greatsword is that your skills are slow and need a target, which makes you very vulnerable to thief; dagger doesn't have those problems. Flying Cutter - Low damage without the flurry and the flurry is inconsistent. Much worse than Spatial Surge. Can be strafed at ~400+ range - make the projectile much faster. Also, and this is more of a matter of taste, I don't like that it feels so "floaty" and "magicky", I would prefer it to feel more like quickly throwing a sharp object (I wrote about this above). Bladecall - I like the idea of this skill and the trick where you detarget and shoot it into the ground to hit faster in melee range is cool, but it should return much faster instead of "sticking" to the wall/floor for a second. Make it feel like it is bouncing. The animation is good. Unstable Bladestorm - This skill feels very fire-and-forget and unsatisfying. Ideally you want skills to feel satisfying to hit like Mirror Blade, Mind Stab or Axes of Symmetry, and this skill doesn't. The animation is fancy, but if you zoom in on it you will notice your FPS drop massively. It suffers from a problem where it disappears if it touches a wall or an enemy with block/aegis/projectile destruction. I would honestly considering reworking it. If you do want to keep its current design I would suggest some of the following: Make it ground targeted, let us shoot it out like old Chronomancer shield 5 (when you could use it behind you). Make it a regular AoE instead of a projectile so that you have an answer to projectile hate. This would fix it disappearing upon touching an aegis. The skill has a big problem right now in that it disappears if it touches a wall. If possible, make it bounce off of walls like dagger 2 - otherwise, just make it stop moving when it hits a wall. Make it inflict cripple and/or block projectiles and/or give superspeed to allies inside it. I found myself forgetting multiple times that it isn't a cripple because it really looks like it. Remove the "blades shoot out" mechanic and make it deal more consistent pulsing damage to enemies inside it instead, to reward you for keeping enemies inside it using stuff like Magic Bullet, Temporal Curtain or Sword of Decimation. Bladesongs: Contrary to some other people, I like that you need to face your target at the start of the Bladesong cast. After all, with most projectiles in the game (like say Mirror Blade) you need to face target both at the start and at the end of the cast. Bladesongs basically work like Renegade shortbow autoattack (type 2 in this video). That said, Bladesongs should be able to be used without a target. There are movement options which will really highlight the difference between good and bad players. Couple examples: Start Bladesong channel, press about face. You will be able to kite away while hitting the skill, and hide the animation slightly. See this video (I forgot to record a clip on Virtuoso but Renegade shortbow 1 works the same way). While running from an enemy that is targeted behind you, release W and press F1, then instantly press W again. You will able to run away from your target while casting F1. I use this at some points in my video, it will take a while to get into muscle memory though. See this video. In general the Bladesong animations are not my favourite because the purple effect is so big and fancy that it feels less like actual throwing daggers and more like shooting generic "purple magic". I have a feeling this would be way better if F1-F3 didn't all feel so indistinguishable "shoot some purple magic at range for a bit of damage" - I go into some ideas on that note below. The moves that the player character performs look neat though. Bladesong Harmony - This skill is too slow and too inaccurate. Currently, this skill only hits at short ranges because the projectile speed is so slow and the tracking is so bad. I suspect this "shotgun" functionality may be intentional to incentivise the player to not camp at 1200 range, but if that is the case it needs to be 1/4 or 1/2 cast because you cannot really channel a slow 3/4 shatter in melee range on a build as squishy as power Virtuoso. Also, because F1 is so much weaker than F2, you are basically incentivising people to play condi Virtuoso if they ever want to land their damage and I think I speak for most when I say that we are tired of condi Mesmer always being stronger in PvP than power Mesmer. Bladesong Sorrow - This is the best new Shatter. It is reasonably fast, and hits fairly consistently at range. However, as others like Teapot also pointed out, F1-F3 feel very same-y, and does Virtuoso really need a condition option considering we just had Mirage? What if you gave F2 the "spinning blades around you" effect that is currently on F4, and increase the damage. Bladeturn Requiem would instead be just a block (more on that below). Bladesong Dissonance - This skill is really bad. It only dazes once, which means it doesn't synergise well with traits like Dazzling, Shattered Concentration and Vicious Expression, unlike normal Diversion. The combination of 38 second cooldown, 1/2 sec daze duration, slow cast time, slow projectile travel speed, plus exremely bad projectile tracking, makes this really bad. It is basically only a filler damage skill for when you have a blade to spare (it is never worth using with more than one blade). I would suggest increasing projectile speed and accuracy (aim for it to feel more like throwing Mirror Blade), and making it a stun (1/2 sec per blade). The reason the stun on Diversion was removed was because instant hard cc is unhealthy, but Virtuoso F3 isn't instant anymore so this is a perfect time to add the stun back in. Sword of Decimation, Rain of Swords, Thousand Cuts, and Bladesong Harmony all synergise perfectly with stuns, but then Virtuoso doesn't have a single hard CC, which just feels weird. Additionally, the loss of immobilize on sword 3 means Virtuoso has one less way of locking down the enemy. Bladeturn Requiem - I love how it synergizes with traits like Shattered Concentration and Rending Shatter, and it is a great idea to have some melee counterpressure in order to be able to deal with stuff like Thief and Revenant, but right now the damage is super low. I would consider putting the "spinning blades" effect on F2 (which means you can justify buffing the damage) and Bladeturn Requiem instead becomes a block that protects against a number of hits (use 5 blades = block 5 attacks), like Elementalist Arcane Shield. This serves four benefits: Purity of purpose. Having blocks that pulse damage in PvP is a problem because it easily gets interrupted by Shocking Aura, Static Shield and Full Counter, and you can't do much about it. Using Bladeturn Requiem with a lot of blades becomes more worth it; currently using it with more blades doesn't provide much value. Virtuoso becomes less reliant on projectiles; only 2/4 Bladesongs are projectiles instead of 3/4. A different and simpler alternative would be to make Bladeturn Requiem give distortion and instead make Blade Renewal a block and a stunbreak. Basically, with these reworks we go from "F1: high damage F2: medium damage F3: low damage F4: damage with block" to "F1: range damage F2: melee counterpressure F3: stun/setup F4: block". Utilities/heal/elite: Twin Blade Restoration - The fact that it cancels if you aren't looking at your target combined with the long cd, mediocre healing and long cast time, makes this heal unusable. I like that the new heal isn't strictly better than core heals in every scenario (*cough* False Oasis) but currently it is just always bad. First of all, it needs to be usable without line of sight, second of all the one single cleanse is really weak considering you actually need to hit your target to get it - look at Consume Conditions, Hide in Shadows, or Mending. Because it has counterplay it needs to also be rewarding. Rain of Swords - This is very slow and does no damage in PvP, which honestly might be a good thing because you generally don't want big pulsing AoEs in PvP. That said, I would make this skill hit rapidly and cripple enemies like Ranger barrage, instead of pulsing once per second. This would fit the name and animation better. Speaking of the animation, it needs to be simplified somehow because currently it is officially known as "that one utility that lags my game". Sword of Decimation - Cool utility concept that rewards smart use, but currently it is hard to combo because it actually takes about 1 second to hit even though the cast time is 1/2 sec. For instance if you use SoD -> Chaos Storm, the Chaos storm will hit slightly too late, and if you do Chaos Storm -> SoD, the daze will wear off before the Sword of Decimation hits even though Chaos Storm daze is 1 second and SoD is supposedly 1/2 sec cast. Either make the cast 1/4 sec and retain the aftercast delay (which allows you to do combos like SoD -> Chaos storm or SoD -> Illusionary Wave), or remove the delay and make the skill hit after exactly 1/2 second (which lets you do Chaos Storm -> SoD or Illusionary Wave -> SoD). Also this skill would fit better into Virtuoso's kit if you made F3 a stun as previously suggested. Blade Renewal - Consider making it the elite skill instead of Thousand Cuts (sort of like the equivalent of Renewing Focus on Guardian). It feels elite skill worthy, and there is a risk it may become a locked utility on every build especially because it is the only way to charge blades out of combat - you don't want that. It gives Virtuoso some much-needed survivability vs condition bursts and vs Thief/Mirage/Rev. Currently you are sort of forced to play Mass Invisibility. Aside from that, I like the tech of stowing it and still getting the distortion (but not the blade recharge) while being able to use skills, which should stay in the game for now because it is fun and skilled (and still weaker than core Mesmer distortion which can be used in cc). I think the cd is appropriate for the strong effect. Psychic Force - I like the theme and the animation, but it is too weak and the cooldown is long. Normally, you can counterplay getting blinded by stow cancelling your skill and saving it, but if you do that with Psychic Force, because it is a stunbreak, it goes on the full 45 seconds cooldown. There are too many situations and ways it gets countered: You are blinded. Imagine a thief stuns you with Basilisk Venom then follows up with Shadow Shot, now you have to waste your 45 second cooldown stunbreak. Opponent has aegis. Opponent has stability. It is a 1/2 cast stunbreak but gives no stability (unlike say Blinding Powder) so you can get ccd instantly and Psychic Force then gets interrupted and goes on 45 seconds cooldown. There is a reason stunbreaks with cast time generally have stability. Thousand Cuts - Aside from being buggy and annoying to use, the reward you get for managing to lock somebody down for four seconds is underwhelming. It needs to be usable behind you like old chronomancer shield 5, or it should lock onto your target like prime light beam. Consider making it a regular AoE instead of a projectile attack, or maybe even make it unblockable (though that could be too strong). Does Virtuoso really need three utilities/elites that focus on plain AoE power damage? What if Blade Renewal becomes the elite skill and the 4th utility slot is replaced by something more unique, something that fits the "psionic/telekinesis" theme? Traits: Bladeturn Refrain - Pretty good trait! Your cast times are slow (F1-F3, greatsword 2-4, scepter 3, heal, elite) so you need this to be able to cast anything when playing vs stuff like Spellbreaker or Holo. I dislike how reliant Virtuoso is on aegis and blocks, but that is mostly because this trait and Duelist's Reversal are so much better than the alternatives. Mental Focus - Mostly a PvE trait. Jagged Mind - Consider removing the whole condi line from Virtuoso and freeing up three trait spots. Notice that nothing stops you from playing condi even without these traits - in fact I found 112 or 112 to be better for a condi duelist. Just think about Mirage; the three bottom traits have been mostly dead since release (only the axe trait is halfway decent) because even condition builds prefer the utility or sustain from stuff like Elusive Mind, Desert Distortion, Renewing Oasis and Self-Deception. Compare to Chrono, where the same traits (like Chronophantsma) can be used for both power and condition builds. Let the condition damage come from weapons and core traits. This makes Virtuoso more interesting and versatile. This is the conclusion Teapot and his podcast guests came to as well. Deadly Blades - Super strong trait. What I think many are missing is that greatsword and sword skills also count as blades (though the tooltips are bugged), meaning that greatsword auto can apply 3 vuln, sword auto can apply 2 vuln per hit, and blurred frenzy can apply 8 vuln! Really nice synergy with Domination. Duelist's Reversal - The best of the three major master traits. In practice, this gives surprisingly low quickness uptime, because a lot of the time you are doing stuff like kiting, outranging, blinding, or interrupting to avoid attacks. Also traits that trigger "passively" like this are typically less fun than something like Zephyr's speed, it's not the end of the world though, it's a decent trait. Phantasmal Blades - The blade damage is pretty low and could be increased a bit. I heard RIP say the blade should do 10 times more though which would obviously be totally insane, imagine 10k trait procs after a berserker summon. More importantly, the fury duration is way too low; for an elite spec so focused on fury it is annoying that only Duelist's Reversal gives decent Fury uptime, especially compared to the Dueling traitline. Double the fury duration. Sharpening Sorrow - See Jagged Mind - consider removing this trait. If it is kept, the fury duration is way way way too low, it actually gives less fury uptime than Bountiful Disillusionment, which also gives Might, Vigor, Stability and Regen. Make it so Bloodsong Sorrow provides fury per blade, 3-5 seconds per blade. If F2 is used instantly off cooldown with max blades this trait should basically give permanent fury. Quiet Intensity - Good trait. The 10% vitality -> ferocity conversion does not at all make it worth to run marauder over berserker in PvP, but that's fine. In practice, right now it kinda incentivises you to run carrion in PvP. Psychic Riposte - I thought this would be the strongest GM by far before I actually played. It is a good trait, but you actually block/evade more rarely than you'd think. The blade attack part should be removed in my opinion as it is unnecessary, deals no damage, and is basically just annoying and reveals you in stealth. I can't imagine the damage is that relevant to PvE benchmarks either. Infinite Forge - Great trait, really good for builds that use range and kiting to avoid attacks rather than evades and blocks, like greatsword power builds. Make it work out of combat though. If that turns out to be too strong it can just be reverted after the next beta. Bloodsong - See Jagged Mind. Core traits: Master of Fragmentation - This only gives one more tick of damage to F4 currently, it would be more interesting if it gave projectile relfection to Bladeturn Requiem like it does with distortion. Restorative Illusions - When/if this scales up to 5 blades it could end up being too strong, keep an eye on this. Trait ideas: Seeing as I just suggested to remove the three bottom major traits of Virtuoso, here are some random trait ideas to replace them... Major Adept "Quick Wit: You gain 7% increased movement speed per blade you currently have" Can be changed to 10% or 5% depending on testing. This would provide a roaming alternative where Bladeturn Refrain and Mental Focus provide defense and damage, respectively. You are forced to choose between movement speed and aegis (both very strong) which means you cannot be both mobile and tanky. It rewards players who manage their blades well by adding the decisionmaking (i.e. skill) of "should I use my Bladesong now or save it?". Analogous to Herald Rising Momentum. Major Master "Perfect Fifth: Using a bladesong with 5 blades grants fury for 15 seconds and 5 stacks of might for 10 seconds" The top traits suit a playstyle of using Bladesongs quickly without max blades in order to get a lot of aegis uptime and hence a lot of quickness, fury and blade generation. Thus it is fitting for the bottom line to be about saving your blades and using them at the opportune moment (notice Quick Wit also fits this style). The exact duration/stacks of boons can be tweaked obviously. Vigor would also fit well instead of might. The random name idea comes from music theory. "Sharp Harmonies: Bladesong Harmony grants fury and vigor for 3 seconds per blade that hits your target". As above, this fits the playstyle of saving up your blades for the opportune moment. It also rewards you for hitting the blades rather than just using the skill. If you manage to hit a 5-blade Bladesong every time Bladesong Harmony comes off cooldown, you deserve to get permanent fury from that. Notice that Duelist's Reversal gives quickness, and Phantasmal Blades gives damage, so it seems appropriate that the third choice would give defense (in the form of vigor). Alternative name, something like "Harmonious Blades". Major Grandmaster "Bladedancer: Whenever you stock a blade from a weapon or utility skill, stock one additional blade. Psionic skills also stock a blade on hit." This trait makes it so Mirror Blade gives 2 blades, phantasms give two blades, Mirror Images gives three blades, Decoy gives two blades, Psioncs give two blades, and so on. People have been asking for a trait that interacts with Psionics like Twisted Medicine does with Elixirs on Harbinger, so I think this would be a good spot for it. This trait would provide a playstyle that makes your active skills feel more rewarding, in contrast to Duelist's Reversal which is more defensive, and Infinite Forge which is more passive. It also suits a more "bursty" playstyle where you summon lots of blades quickly (for example, Mirror Blade -> Mirror Images gives 5 blades), whereas the other two GMs give blades more every spread out over time. This plays into the concept of the bottom traits promoting a playstyle of saving up blades rather than spending them quickly. "Encore: Blade attacks grant a stack of Encore on critical hits. Stock a blade after gaining 5 stacks of Encore." Psychic Riposte gives blades for defense and Infinite Forge gives blades passively, so it makes sense for the third option to give blades for offense. The idea of the encore name is that you are gaining blades from expending blades, as if you are using them "again". "Bloodsong: Blade attacks apply bleeding on on critical hits. Stock a blade after applying 5 stacks of bleeding" If you wish to keep the bleeding playstyle, you can condense it into a single trait like this, which could honestly be usable for both condition and power builds, which makes it quite versatile. ______________________________ BUGS General: Phantasms - if the target dies before they convert into blades, they disappear and you get no blades. If you are too far away from your phantasm (possibly 1200 range) when it despawns you also do not get a blade. Hovering your mouse over the "clone dots" above your Bladesongs says "X illusions" instead of "X blades". Is it intended that most skills and traits do not give blades out of combat? Currently pretty much only Blade Renewal does. It seems strange to me that you are so pigeonholed into a single utility across the entire profession if you want to make use of the new mechanic of being able to prepare blades out of combat. But perhaps this is fine. Skills that only summon clones when used in range of a target also need a target to summon blades, for example Decoy and Mirror Images. This may be intended but is fairly unintuitive for virtuoso. Normally, when you have max clones and summon a new clone it overwrites the old one, triggering traits like Compounding Power and Illusionary Defense, but on virtuoso summoning a 6th blade doesn't overwrite an old blade which means these traits do not get triggered. This may be intended. You can stack blades before PvP matches start and keep them. There are a bunch of underwater bugs but I'm focusing on PvP relevant things here. Traits: Mental Anguish - says "Shatter skills deal more damage" but doesn't increase the damage of Bladesong Dissonance or Bladesong Requiem. Bountiful Disillusionment - gives boons even when stowing shatter skills or using them while facing away from your target. Inspiring Distortion - doesn't work with Bladesong Requiem (no aegis to allies) Restorative Illusions - heals even when stowing Bladesong skills. only scales up to 3 blades (might be intended). Using a Bladesong with 1 blade gives you a 0-clone heal instead of a 1-clone heal which is unintuitive but perhaps necessary for balance purposes. Illusionary Inspiration - doesnt work with blades Shatter Storm - I found that bladesong harmony dealt very slightly lower damage when having Shatter Storm equipped, but somebody else reported slightly higher damage, so i am confused. Look into if this trait causes Bladesong Harmony to use a different coefficient. This trait also causes the Bladesong Harmony projectiles to be invisible. Master of Fragmentation - clarify how the F3 aoe works. for F4 it says "duration increased by 1 second" but it only gives 1 extra damage tick and no extra block duration; not sure if intended. Jagged Mind - some blade type skills do not inflict bleeding; notably greatsword and sword skills. we know this is a bug because those skills do inflict vulnerability from Deadly Blades. This but may be an unintended stroke of luck because greatsword inflicting 3 bleeds per autoattack could possibly be obnoxious. Sharpening Sorrow - this makes Bladesong Sorrow inflict bleeding instead of confusion. It actually interacts well with jagged mind so maybe it is intended. In that case the trait tooltip is bugged. Phantasmal Blades - the blade attack damage is not increased by damage modifiers. If the blade attack counts as originating from the player it should be increased by the likes of Superiority Complex and Vicious Expression, if it counts as originating from the phantasm it should be enhanced by the likes of Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Force, and Vicious Expression. Psychic Riposte - same as above. Greatsword: All skills count as blade skills, but only skills 2-4 have the blade tooltip (iirc) - add correct tooltips. Mirror Blade - doesn't bounce at long ranges because there is no clone to bounce to. This is technically not a bug and not necessarily the worst thing in the world. I suspect this is why you reworked Mirror Blade in the february 2020 patch so that it gives more value on the first hit than the subsequent hits - it was surely in preparation for Virtuoso. Sword: Sword 1-5 all count as blades, but none say blade in the tooltip - add correct tooltips. Illusionary Leap - The leap often misses targets even when they are standing still, just like Mirage Thrust (or possibly even worse). Make this skill use the leap mechanics that ranger monarch's leap uses - which is much more accurate. See my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXU5DKfGO3U. Hide the "swap" tooltip if this skill isn't intended to immobilize anymore. If it is intended to immobilize on the swap back then fix this. This skill is also affected by movement impairing/enhancing effects, like chill, cripple, swiftness and superspeed, unlike other leaps in the game. I wonder if this is because the leap is the same as how sword 3 used to work during beta - back when movement skills were affected by movement modifiers. I personanlly enjoy this aspect but i suspect that the devs will want to remove this. Scepter: Ether Clone (3rd autoattack) - only summons blades up to a maximum of 3. Dagger: Flying Cutter - flurry triggers inconsistenly and doesn't trigger at all on players in the downstate. It may also have something to do with what dagger skin you are using. The 3-hit counter may also be resetting when using certain skills, like utility skills or Bladesongs - check this out. Also, somebody said the flurry uses unequipped weapon strength instead of dagger weapon strength - I didn't check. Unstable Bladestorm - disappears completely if it touches a wall or an enemy that is blocking or projectile blocking (the latter of which may be intended). Also, and I'm unsure if this is bugged or not, the damage seems to be very inconsistent, sometimes it does almost nothing and sometimes you get two ~2k+ hits on your target. Bladesongs: Bladesongs - F1 and F2 cannot be used without a target while F3 can; they should all be usable without a target. If interrupted towards the very end off the cast (possibly in the aftercast), your attack doesn't go off but you lose all your blades and the Bladesong goes on full cooldown. Bladesong Harmony - invisible projectiles when you have Shatter Storm traited. Bladesong Sorrow - can hit twice if you stand inside your target's hitbox. I'm not 100% on this, but the Bladesong Sorrow animation doesn't seem to scale with character size i.e. the animation is still huge on Asura while the Bladesong Harmony animation is tiny. Bladesong Requiem - clarify/fix how this skill is supposed to work. on the tooltip it says "block duration 3 seconds" and "duration increased for each blade" but the block is clearly 1.5 seconds regardless how many blades you have. Utilities: Signet of the Ether - the passive "heal on illusion summon" doesn't work with blades. Twin Blade Restoration - skill gets cancelled if you use it while facing away from your target, which makes it unusable. Blade Renewal - does not interact with any traits that usually give effects on distortion i.e. inspiring distortion (distortion gives aegis), auspicious anguish (distortion removes conditions), and master of fragmentation (distortion reflects projectiles). Also, if you stow the skill you stil get the full 3 seconds of distortion and can use skills during it, however you do not get the blade recharge. This may not be a bug, and if it is, it should be kept in the game because it has a natural tradeoff between getting to channel skills safely, or getting your 5 blades back. This choice allows for strategic/skilled play which increases skill gap which is a good thing. Thousand Cuts - It gets cancelled and goes on full cooldown when you try to use it behind you instead of interrupt cooldown. It also doesn't lock onto your target when using the setting "lock ground target at current target", which may be intended. The target indicator for this skill has a clock and shield symbol like Chronomancer shield 5 "Tides of Time"; this is probably a placeholder. Downed State: Deception (skill 2) - summons a clone. ____________________ Also, I would caution Anet not to listen too much to top players, for example Helseth made some pretty crazy suggestions in the Mirage beta: Called Jaunt useless and wanted it to be 600 range back when it was 20s cd, had 3 charges, and did 3 confusion for 5 seconds!!! Called False Oasis a "sack of garbage" and "worse than ether feast", and wanted it to remove a condition each pulse!!! Wanted Axe Ambush to inflict 4 stacks of confusion for 4 seconds PER CLONE! And said "it's still probably not good enough"! Wanted mirrors to spawn 2 clones. Some feedback was really on point though obviously, for example the idea to rework Elusive Mind (stunbreak on dodge). Remember that it took years to nerf Mirage down to a reasonable level. Thanks for reading p.s. yes the titles of this post and the video are clickbait

Savage Leap, Mirage Thrust and Virtuoso sword leap all miss targets on slight inclines, and Virtuoso leap can actually miss targets who are standing still on flat ground. I tested different movement skills and noticed that Ranger Monarch's Leap has substantially better accuracy than Mesmer and Warrior leaps, and all of them are 600 range. Hence I suggest reworking Mirage Thrust, Virtuoso sword leap, and Savage Leap to use the same leap mechanic as Monarch's Leap.

This is EU

These 2 players (with blurred names) AFK'd from the start of the match intentionally (they didn't forget the game open while going for dinner or something): https://prnt.sc/1cevtvh Here one admits he plans to ban evade using alts: https://prnt.sc/1cevqda Would be great if the team could take at look at this.