Phoenix.6023

So I actually kind of like where Harbinger was going. But the Blight and Harbinger Shroud could have been implemented differently. The biggest flaw with Harbinger, is so much as taking ambient damage breezing on you, let alone being in a situation where you have a lot of damage going around you. Even when 100% and completely built into life force regeneration and shroud, with soul marks, vital persistence, eternal life, and running skills such as Spectral Armor, Signet of Undeath, or Spectral walk. Even running Elixers of Promise and Bliss. It's IMPOSSIBLE to maintain life force. What so ever due to it depleting every time you're touched, even when not in Harbinger shroud. So here's what I propose to be considered. A reverse death shroud. Not a second health bar, but think about the Holosmith's Holo Forge, but on Harbinger. Instead of generating heat, you generate Blight. The longer you're in Harbinger Shroud and the more aggressively you use your skills/and elixer's. The Lower your HP gets and if you overload it then the consequences would be devastating in the same sense of overloading the holo forge and receiving significant increments of damage. I suppose when you think about it in this sense. The Harbinger would be drawing from it's own life force, rather than the life force of it's opponents as your time and skill usage while in Harbinger Shroud would be directly correlated with how much over-all health you have. Upon drinking an Elixer. The skill itself should have a follow up/with an AoE targetted toss. After the Elixer is consumed it's tainted with blight so that the spent elixers do things such as converts conditions into boons on enemies. So for example Blighted Elixer of Ignorance for example would stun enemy players on impact. Tossing the Elixer should have approx 1000 range, AoE targeted. While in Harbinger Shroud. Elixers should change their effect into a better support the various play styles of power, condition damage and support that's encouraged in the various trait lines, while in Harbinger shroud. Perhaps even removing one or two stacks of blight if used strategically. Elixer of Ambition should also convert existing conditions applied, into boons and break stuns. Devouring Cut, is a really clunky Bulls Charge from the warrior.. this could be reworked to allow quicker movement or a follow up combo upon exiting the animation and should be able to be cancelled. Voracious Arc needs to be more fluid, In my mind it should be a shadowstep daze/stun AoE target to 5 targets with a return point. Vital Draw should be a 600 or 900 radius that follows the player at their feet. All 900 range skills, should be increased to 1000 range.

I feel like a few things could be mechanically adjusted and fixed for the Virtuoso. FIRST AND FOREMOST WHY ON EARTH DOES REGULAR SWORD NOT GENERATE BLADES? BUT GREATSWORD DOES? FIX THAT!!! 😡 As aforementioned above. Sword Mainhand, and Sword Offhand don't generate blades. However they are blade orientated weapons. This strictly restricts your blade generation and your over-all build style to one very specific weapon set. It's not even worth running Regular Sword Off Hand. Because Sword Off Hand Skills, DO NOT GENERATE BLADES. There is ZERO BUILD DIVERSITY! This is the most linear out of the three elite specs because of this reason. Dagger/Sword/ Greatsword would be significantly more viable than Dagger Pistol. And maybe having an offhand weapon that generates Blades, will be significantly better. Also Due to the lack of defensive utility with Virtuoso. The Virtuoso needs should run Sword Offhand for Riposte and Counter "Blade" < IT'S IN THE NAME! OBSERVE.... Phantasmal Swordsman should also grant Blades. Increase Riposte and Counter Blade's range to 1200 to match Phantasmal Swordsman and the Dagger Skills. Trait wise.. I feel like the traits are on the right track.. You're either going to fill gaps with boons, build into Burst/Power DPS or Build into Condition DPS. I've found that Dueling, Illusions and Domination are the more dominant trait lines depending on exactly the sort of build players are having. There's certainly build diversity, and room for improvement to better define the objective of each build style. However Condition Damage traits, and Builds are significantly under whelming and seriously under perform. With the Shatters/Blade Songs. Reduce the cooldown Blade Song Harmony to roughly 5sand the cooldown of Bladesong Dissonance to 35s, Also consider giving Bladeturn Requiem a follow up counter. A counter would allow for Distortion to be re implemented during the animation of the counter itself. Consider Giving Bladeturn Requiem Stability, Resistance and Resolution. With the Dagger Skills: Unstable Bladestorm is in serious need of a rework. It's way too slow and it's damage is way too little for it's intended purpose. I strongly suggest increasing the speed literally by 50% And use the opportunity to give the mesmer a physical charge skill that makes up for the lack of maneuverability in the currently given playstyle with the Virtuoso. Think along the lines of the Elementalists Tornado Elite. Also: Please consider perhaps dual wielding daggers. Offhand Dagger with some physical or psionic maneuverability and defensive abilities would be more than truly welcome here. Utility skills could do with a slight rework to allow perhaps for some playstyle diversity. For starters. Blade Renewal's 60s cooldown is far too punishing for what it's even worth. It needs maybe 30s tops. Secondly Add a Psionic skill similar to Judges Intervention or Merciful intervention on Guardian to make up for the loss of maneuverability. Sword of Decimation. Combine this with Rain of Swords. To increase the DPS, and make the immobilize last the full duration of "Rain of swords" Just make it a single skill. Sword of Decimation drops down, hitting hard with the immobilize and triggering the damage increase as per normal, but instead of making a second skill. Overlap it with Rain of Swords. Give it a full 1 second cast time and increase the cooldown to roughly 28-30 seconds. Twin Blade Restoration should have a 1 second Distortion while the heal is activates and the blades generate. Consider applying protection to the heal as well. Lastly, Thousand Cuts should follow the player, firing forward facing towards the players target or Circle the area in a 1200 radius central to the players character model. It needs to do more than just fire in a straight line.

The Heal Skill should honestly work exactly the same as the Engineers A.E.D Perhaps with a counter or something even at the cost of a slightly reduced recovery/heal.

So with the Willbender.. for starters. I get that this is the Guild Wars 2 answer to the monk. However, there are quite a few issues with it and is by far the class out of the 3 that have been released that probably needs the most attention at this stage. So: Let's start with the traits, where arguably the biggest flaw comes in.. The Willbender really only has one effective way to build it, a lot of the traits are redundant due to the sheer playstyle and concept of the class itself. I feel like the development was all over the place and people couldn't decide on what exactly they wanted their "Monk" class to do. The traits themselves, need to be more streamlined towards the intent of the class to open up more options. I understand that there intent is to make the players decide on whether to focus on their virtues, their maneuverability or their damage. But for example: All 3 of the Major Adept Traits are absolutely redundant and I feel like it's just lazy development, there have got to be better focuses on the class as a whole than to no brainer trade off stats to increase stats, two of which 90% of players will never choose because this is a "DPS/Burst" Focus class with hardly any genuine options for anything else. Holy Reckoning, should probably be reworked and merged with lethal tempo, to allow what will be for the most part a rampaging frontline guardian with the lowest heavy health pool, have a chance at some sustain during 1 on 1 combat or 1vX even against Raid Bosses, Willbender's get punished hard once their Aegis is gone. In PvP Willbender's are better at running away from fights like knock off Thief imitations, than actually surviving a fight long enough to genuinely win it. Tyrant's Momentum is also another really disappointingly lazy trait. Wasting a perfectly good opportunity to come up with something more meaningful to the class itself. This should have been reconsidered and merged with Lethal Tempo to open up space for something more creative, perhaps weapon wise even. Phoenix Protocol made me twitch irritably. Guardian could have used access to Alacrity for a long time... This trait should probably be or reworked as the virtue of resolve could perhaps work in a different way for the monk like Willbender to sustain such as the Warriors Defiance Stance for 3 seconds upon activating or something along those lines. Providing the Willbender a more tactical way to utilise the trait. Anyway the Alacrity and Regeneration should be removed from Phoenix Protocol, and applied to absolute Resolution. In the virtues trait line and while you're at it 'Absolute' "Resolution" Resolution should also be provided within that trait as well. If you're going to name this trait Phoenix Protocol, Then be inspired from the name and not just throw random support boons on it and assume that's good enough. Vanguard Tactics, I have the same gripe as Phoenix Protocol. It's a trait that by suggestion, has so many opportunities to do something far more technical than apply a couple of extra boons, which should already be in the Virtues Trait Line under Indomitable Courage. Which should probably grant Protection and Resistance to truly represent the "Indomitable" In the name. The Sword Offhand... was terrible from the start. Offhand Axe may have actually been interesting for close range/melee styled combat perhaps with options to close range cleave/physical Crowd Control focused skills with maneuverability. I would have thought Firebrand should have had Warhorn instead of Axe. Anyway, The Sword Skills themselves, are a little clunky and while I get the intent is for them to couple well with Sword Main hand. Sword Offhand Skills need to be able to chain with sword main hand smoother, quicker. I feel like there is a subtle delay. Executioners Calling.. if we're doing this right, should have a third strike. Two outward slashes either side of the opponent. Render, Lunge and Stab/Pierce, Then Tear Outward. Good opportunity to apply bleed/condition damage for the 3rd strike. Advancing Strike needs a slightly longer range, and could certainly do with a that takes place during the dash as you can't cancel Advancing Strike once you've activated it The Utility Skills: Just make them smoother and more responsive, perhaps rework a couple of them as well. The Physical skills do work.. But they feel unnatural and very much like a disproportionate rampage warrior, trying to do daredevil things. If that makes any sense... Just very clunky, wide open, big gaps in I-Frames between Skill Combos/Transitions. So Roiling Light is a prime example of that clunky, wide open, big gap in I-Frames between the skill combo's and transitions. But After the evade, when the skill flips and changes to Quick Retribution. There is approximately. 00.70 seconds of delay between the when roiling light ends and the charge for quick retribution begins. That opening needs to be more responsive for the skill to be polished. I would actually increase the target cap to 3. One Target for the knee thrust. Another for each palm/elbow that would rhetorically make contact as the arms would be are technically raised in a boxers guard during the animation and how that particular strike is performed in Kung-Fu. So it would also make sense that with the guard and the name "Retribution" perhaps consider granting Aegis for Approximately 4-5 seconds. Grant Aegis on the start of the charge, and then for the duration of the stun that follows, then allow for roughly 1.5 seconds to reposition/evade or finish the follow up. Whirling Light has a lot of potential... But it should be implemented better and continue with the follow up system. Consider a Shadow Step, Ground Targeted. With a range of Approximately 750-800. Shadowstep would apply slow, vulnerability and blind to any targets within range of the shadowstep itself. Perhaps consider the something along the lines of "Blinding Light" for the skill, which then Transitions into "Whirling Light" As the skill itself, can be slow to reach it's target or maintain it's intended damage on said targets. Flash Combo is another clunky skill. I like it, I think it's a great skill. But the Repose delay is lethal. It's roughly 1.2ish seconds delay between when flash combo ends and repose begins. Heel Crack. Okay.. I scoffed.. What the hell is this? And why does it have a 20 second cool down? Just get rid of it. It's not necessary. Please rework. Heavens Palm: I feel like Heel Crack should and could be the follow up on that initial target once their knockdown has finished. Just to really lock that target into place. In which case the heel crack should also apply 5 stacks of vulnerability and cripple for the same duration the target is vulnerable for. Virtues: Please just rework them and increase their range. They're really cool concepts but they just don't perform as well as they are perhaps intended or should. All of the virtues should have a range of probably around 700-ish, and the duration for each of the effects to adequately and consistently trigger Willbender Flames. Should all be around 8 seconds each. I'm half mindful to suggest increasing it to 10 seconds.