david r.3947

You've seen the title. If you've ever played a Daredevil, you've probably used the Staff at some point. Can you recount how many times you used Dust Strike? Probably not that often. Not a lot of things can compare to Weakening Charge. So how about we make it a little bit more useful? It would be a lot of effort to make a new skill out of this, so let's make things easier for the developers and just add things onto the existing skill. Namely, a Smoke field. Suggested tooltip: Dust Strike Casting Time: 3/4 Seconds. Initiative cost: 4. "Sweep the ground, blinding enemies in front of you." Damage: Remains the same. Impact Blind(5s) Number of Impacts: 3 Impact Vulnerability(5 stacks[8 stacks in PvP and WvW], 8 seconds) Number of Targets: 3. Combo field: Smoke. Field Duration: 2 Seconds. Range: 600. Note that there is no pulsing Blind that comes with the typical Smoke Field. This is mostly due to fear of the skill's Initiative cost being increased, but maybe we'll get lucky. Why is this change needed/wanted? To be perfectly honest... I don't have a real reason besides seeing that this skill was seldom used and thinking up a way to give it more usage. Maybe you can come up with a reason. Down below are a list of things this change will impact, whether positively or negatively. The Buffs: The Stealth Attack(Hook Strike) can now be more easily accessed without Pistol 5(Black Powder Shot), Blinding Powder, or Smoke Screen. The third skill in the Autoattack(Punishing Strikes) has one Whirl finisher, which will inflict Blind. Staff 2(Weakening Charge) has one Whirl finisher, which will Blind. Staff 5(Vault) has a Leap Finisher, which will grant Stealth when used in the Smoke field. This is nowhere near the level of Dagger 2(Heartseeker) spam, however, due to the longer animation and higher Initative cost. The Elite Trick Dagger Storm has a lot of Whirl Finishers, which will all Blind when used in this Smoke field. The field doesn't last the entire cast time of the skill, however. Bound(a traited Dodge) has a Leap Finisher, which grants Stealth. Staff Master(Daredevil middle column, top) can grant endurance. Because using Bound through a Smoke field grants stealth, this trait(which grants dodges faster) is indirectly buffed. Cloaked In Shadow(Shadow Arts middle column, bottom) has a few more chances to lifesteal due to the increased Blind application. Having another Smoke field means that effects relating to Stealth and Stealth Attacks have more use. The Nerfs: Unless Dust Strike's Initiative cost is increased to compensate(which wouldn't be likely due to the short duration of the Smoke field), nothing. What will people like about this? Staff Daredevil gets buffed. It will also be able to supply more Breakbar damage due to easier access to Blind and Hook Strike. What will people not like about this? Shadow Arts Daredevil gets buffed. This is also one reason why the Smoke field's duration is so short, the other being that I don't want the Initiative cost to change. If we keep mentioning things like this, there is a chance, however small it might seem to be, that they will be acknowledged and acted upon. Also, someone else mentioned putting an Ice Field onto the Revenant's Hammer 2 for Chill uptime. I personally approve. If you're also interested in such things, you can check it out.

Here's an idea for a Mirage/Deadeye's Special Action skill: Untouchable: Instant cast time. Ammo count: 5. Cooldown between counts: none. Cooldown per count: 1 Second. Deception: You and four allies you summoned(Clones, Thieves' Guild, Rune of Golemancy, those kinds of things) break enemy targeting and Shadowstep to a targeted location within Range 1200, all gaining Phased Out for half a second. This does not require valid pathing, and you do not pass through the space between your start and end points. Phased Out makes all effects- whether positive of negative- that would be applied to you from any source besides yourself instead target your previous location. Since removing buffs is a negative effect and this prevents that, this can only be removed by natural causes. Only the first charge of this skill breaks Stun; I know I could, but I'm not greedy enough to make a Stunbreak on a one-second cooldown. You'll need very quick hands, a high-damage build, and good knowledge of the map you're in, but with proper timing, you can avoid every attack while still dealing decent damage. Admittedly, I made this to counter other overpowered skills, so it's neither an Evade, absorption(Full Counter), nor a miss; the attacks still land... just on empty space. Also note that you can use this while Downed, since this is a Special Action. Finally, as a bonus note; since effects are displaced to your previous location, some ally unlucky enough to stay there can actually get hit by any attacks you would've gotten... unless they're another Mirage/Deadeye, in which case they've probably Phased Out too.

So this is my thoughts on the Virtuoso and of how I personally would revamp it. I understand that there is a very small chance that any of these will be implemented, but as long as it's seen, it's okay. I like the spec, but more could be done to needlessly complicate it. As a PvE main, I didn't feel brave enough to tackle PvP or WvW, but there are people who say Profession X is bad in place Y because reason Z. Therefore, I'll be trying to angle these revamps to pander mostly to those places, and- needless to say- the respective mentions of skills and traits will be based on their PvP/WvW variants. This will definitely be imperfect due to my lack of experience in those areas. Please note that since this spec tosses around the words Blade a lot, I'll be referring to attacks with the Blade property as just Blades, and those floating pink daggers above your head as Clones. It'll be easier to understand that way. The Shatters: Bladesong Harmony is a faithful remake of Mind Wrack, still dealing heavy damage. This can remain unchanged. Bladesong Sorrow has a slight delay before the Clones are sent out. This is probably to bait dodges from other players, which is smart, but it usually means an easier dodge. Then again, as a PvE main, I will still respect the opinions of PvP and say this remains unchanged. Bladesong Dissonance finally combines Daze instead of overwriting it like Diversion did, thank goodness. The only confusing thing is that it's slow, but it can remain unchanged. Bladeturn Requiem is nice for its melee zone of pain, but Unblockable CCs exist to interrupt that. A trait can fix that, though. The Skills: Flying Cutter is a nice skill, but it’s weird that only the wave-attack does any damage. So in my opinion, it should gain a melee counterpart if the target- specifically- is in melee range: Agile Cutter/Rending Cutter/Elusive Strike: Slash your foe twice, then perform a downwards stab to inflict a stack of Bleeding, then spin around for a final attack, evading for a quarter of a second. (Only underwater weapons have auto-attacks that Evade, and I kind of want to see more. The melee-attacks only hit two targets and also deal slightly less damage than the ranged attack, but they proc Blade traits more often and there’s the evasion.) Bladecall has very few visual effects compared to Bladestorm, so it should have some more visual noise. Bladestorm is memed about as being the giant pink tornado of doom, so it should be less obnoxious, especially when it fires fragments. Blade Leap, the sword skill replacing Illusory Leap, seems like a poor man’s Mirage Thrust. The Shadowstep back is nice, but there is quite a bit to do to have this outclass Infiltrator’s Strike or Mirage Thrust. I personally don't have any ideas for this skill except that it casts faster, leaving you in the air for a shorter duration, and that it Immobilizes foes when you teleport back to your starting location. Twin Blade Restoration seems like an excuse to make every skill on the Virtuoso deal damage, but it's a bit clunky right now. This should have a shorter cast-time. Rain of Swords is a nice AoE that- combined with other traits- carries the spec to its high DPS benchmarks. Besides applying only two stacks of Vulnerability instead of three, it can remain unchanged. Sword of Decimation has a very similar animation to Rain of Swords, and it’s hard to land it on CCed foes because of the cast-time. The animation can stay the same to confuse players, but it should be cast a tiny bit faster- if at a slight expense to damage. Blade Renewal is some free Distortion as well as regaining five Clones. Not bad. Due to a trait idea of mine, I'll say it stocks Clones faster if you somehow have a larger maximum Clone count, leading to it always fully filling your Clone bar. Psychic Force: Get CCed? CC them back! The Boons are also useful. This can remain unchanged. Thousand Cuts is hard to land on mobile foes. Maybe it will work like the Toxic Barf instability in Fractals and always face in front of you. So my rendition has it always face your front as it fires Blades, but deals slightly less damage. This makes it a lot harder to avoid; less Prime Light Beam and more Facet of Chaos. Combine with Dodges and strafing for interesting plays. The Traits: Bladeturn Refrain makes Bladesongs grant Aegis after they finish casting. Bladesongs themselves have long cast-times compared to the instant Shatters they came from, so this would be better if Aegis was granted at the start of the cast. Additionally, with Unblockable CCs on the rise, around two stacks of Stability is required to reliably use this in PvP, and you aren’t supposed to feel like Chaos needs to be traited in for this. Therefore, my rendition will be to make Bladesongs grant Aegis and a stack of Stability at the start of their cast, except for Bladeturn Requiem; which just pulses Stability each half-second its shield is out. It’s now a nice counter to CC. Phantasmal Blades makes Phantasms shoot a blade that grants Fury after they die. The blade itself deals too little damage, and the resulting effect is unimpressive. Therefore, I'm moving this trait to the Adept tier and making it deal more damage but not grant Fury. Also, if a Phantasm is killed through HP depletion, it could explode to inflict a lot of damage. Since the Virtuoso has fewer distractions, may as well make the distractions that still exist a tiny bit stronger. Jagged Mind makes Blades Bleed on critical hits. If this is the only thing it does, that would be boring- despite giving Dagger a more Condition-oriented DPS style. Therefore, this could Bleed for a smaller duration, but makes CCing foes inflict a stack of Confusion on them, and inflict another stack if it Interrupts something. Deadly Blades makes Blades inflict Vulnerability on a critical hit. Steel-Packed Powder, but weaker. How about it inflicts a shorter duration of that, but attacking foes at or above 20 stacks of Vulnerability now makes your attacks Unblockable? Because the Vulnerability application is shorter, you need to work hard to keep this buff active... or have a friend with you. Duelist’s Reversal makes you gain Quickness and Fury whenever you block or evade an attack. With the Distortion that some skills grant, it would be nice if getting hit while Invulnerable also granted these boons. Mental Focus makes you deal 15% more strike damage to enemies within 600 range. While practical, it's boring, and players usually play for flashy things. Therefore, let's have this play into the Psionics skills! My rendition is moved to the Master tier where Phantasmal Blades was, and it now makes Psionic Skills gain a 20% reduced recharge and grant you a buff for a few seconds that makes projectiles you cast home in slightly, homing in better if they already have homing properties. (The latter buff will be tough to implement, but if it already exists it can be done. This is to counter A/D strafing, notorious for abusing the projectiles' aiming system to make them miss. If needed, this buff can be moved to Quiet Intensity, and be replaced with Fury here.) Sharpening Sorrow is an attempt at a condition build, making Bladesong Sorrow grant Fury and Fury granting Expertise. Since the Dagger seems utterly focused on power DPS- beside traiting for Bleeding-, this is an unlikely trait to be taken unless you really like Scepter/Staff. And since those don’t have Blades, this doesn’t really work out. This can therefore be replaced by Advanced Composition, which plays into the Dagger. Advanced Composition would reduce the recharge of your Dagger skills by 20%, and also makes Bladecall fire two more daggers. It'll still apply conditions through lots of hits, but in a different way. Quiet Intensity makes Fury grant a 30% crit-chance increase instead of 20%, and also grants you Ferocity based on your vitality. Not bad, but more can be added. How about we actually use those floating Clones for something? Right now, we are incentivised to spam out Bladesongs as fast as possible, since we lose the benefit of a distraction. We have no need to keep Clones unless we’re out of combat. Now, what if there was an incentive, like a DPS boost of sorts? That could make playing as a Virtuoso have another layer of depth. A static DPS boost seems more like something for sustained damage, while the Virtuoso was built to be bursty. So I propose an effect like Impossible Odds, so you feel bursty, land a ton of Blade attacks, then finish foes off with a Bladesong. Therefore, I present Precise Bladework! This still makes Fury grant a 30% Crit-chance increase instead of 20, but you don’t gain any Ferocity. Instead, when you land an attack, your Clones attack alongside you to deal pitiful damage on an interval of one second. This is why the other effect-on-Blade traits were weakened; as this leads to a lot of attacks, leading to a lot of conditions from Blade traits. Just a warning; Enemies relying on Aegis will now have a bad time due to how many attacks per second this will grant, and melee-centric enemies will have it even worse as these can attack from range. Psychic Riposte makes blocking or evading an attack shoot a blade at your target for pathetic damage, then stock a Clone. Unless this is spiced up, this can probably be merged with Duelist’s Reversal and few would notice. Therefore I'll scrap the concept and keep the name. Psychic Riposte could now make Bladeturn Requiem’s zone of pain parry blows coming your way, represented by pulsing Weakness. It also makes blocking, evading, or Invulning through an attack inflict a short amount of Weakness on the foe. Infinite Forge makes you passively gain a Clone every three seconds, up to three Clones. This could probably do with a maximum Clone-count increase, since that seems easy to implement. Maybe eight? Although the Bladesongs could be too strong with eight blades instead of five, so this could nerf the Bladesong's base damage slightly. Remember that- because of Precise Bladework- you're not defenseless while you're ramping up Clones, even from range. Bloodsong makes your Bleeding deal 25% more damage, and makes inflicting three stacks of Bleeding stock a Clone. With Jagged Mind and some AoEs, this makes you gain way too many Clones; more than even the Sword Mirage can handle. It's fun, sure, but a bit wasteful. The Clone-generation could probably be nerfed to needing ten stacks and the Bleeding damage can be buffed to 33%. However, if the Bleeding threshold remains the same, then the Shatters will probably need a shorter cooldown so we can actually use all these Clones. One last thing. People have been saying that the Virtuoso plays a bit too similarly to the other classes Shatter-wise. Maybe you keep the Clones as regular humanoid decoys and have your normal Shatters, too, but then use an F5 skill to transform them into the pink daggers they are now alongside the Bladesongs. Personally, I'm fine with the daggers as-is, but anything to get people thinking. Those were my ideas. Feel free to mention your own- just as complicated- ideas or laugh at mine below. Just note that they are this diverse to get people thinking.

Actively using the tether as your weapon is a really interesting idea. The Druid Staff's Auto-attack was just the beguining of what ArenaNet could do. This could be the epitome. I like that. I hope this is what they go for.

Having run through the story mode of Caudecus' Manor, I noticed that this also happens if you command the Jade Mech to perform a special attack as it's trying to fly away. Coupled with the absurd damage that thing innately deals, I was able to solo Champions with little effort. This is made even worse if you die, because there's a brief 1-2 second window where the mech keeps fighting. If you use a waypoint before then, the golem remains out(maybe still Invulnerable from the above bug) and you can keep the fight going as you sort your inventory a hundred or so feet away.

Having now watched the stream, I'm actually liking the Mech even more. It's a bummer to not see the toolbelt skills, but this is a beta test. This could be changed at the official release. Additionally, with the Mech's ridiculously high HP and stat inheritance, possible traiting for ranged attacks, and two skills to summon it, there's very little mech downtime in my opinion. It's basically turning the Engineer into a Ranger, and I have no problems with that if the mech is so tanky and I have so much control over its skills.

Having noticed many people are worried about the lack of toolbelt skills while the Jade Mech is out, there could be a redeeming feature: If the mech uses the toolbelt skills to perform special attacks, what happens to the toolbelt when the mech's not out? Maybe that's when the toolbelt skills of old return. So if you want your old toolbelt skills (or the new Signets' abilities), you can put away the mech, and if you want to command your mech to do things, you'll have to deal with altered toolbelt skills. Additionally, I noticed that the wiki entry doesn't touch F5, which means that maybe it's always active. With all the other specs eating up the Elite toolbelt skill, having something that doesn't could spice things up. Or- going into the extreme here- maybe F5 allows you to toggle between your toolbelt skills and the Mech while it's active, being replaced with your normal Elite toolbelt skill if the Mech isn't summoned. Personally, my first character was an Engineer, and after reading the trailer and wiki entry for this new spec, I've fallen deeply in love with the idea. I guess we'll have to wait until the beta test comes out to have all our hopes fulfilled.

This idea has been cooking around in my head for quite a while now. Daredevil focuses on improving Dodges, Deadeye improves stealth attacks, so what if the upcoming spec buffed shadowsteps? Additionally, people have been wanting a boon-support Thief, so why not mix in that too? The result was the 'Ninja' (name pending), a spec idea that uses Shadow Curse and Shadow Boon, a unique condition and boon respectively that can be customized throughout the traitline. The Ninja gains these buffs from shadowstepping, and can apply Shadow Curse through traits and Stealing. All of the work was written down on this google document- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JWXZerFHwio_ExQKBfuXzS0w_3FqMvWh_rk6jHqBXxs/edit?usp=sharing -but some highlights will be shared here: The Grandmaster Minor trait allows for Shadow Boon to be granted to ten other allies near you after Shadowstepping. It's not a true support spec if it can't affect ten allies. One of the Adept Minor traits makes Blinding a foe also Immobilize for a very short duration. Combine with Panic Strike to make Blind Poison, and use the pistol's sneak attack in a smoke field for a lot of conditions. This class uses Stances, and most of the names are inspired from names of Guild Wars 1 Assassin skills. The Healing and Elite skills both reduce the Thief's incoming strike damage. No point in a support that dies instantly! The Grandsmaster Major traits mirror the Daredevil's dodging choices in all of them granting unique effects for the two Shadow effects, and new ways to apply them. Way of the Skirmisher is one of the Grandmaster Major traits. It's renowned for making Shadow Boon and Shadow Curse both boost DPS. Way of the Weapon is a utility stance, and it grants you a buff every two seconds that can be expended to perform a special effect depending on what weapons you're wielding. Steal is replaced with the skill Shadow Curse, which is very similar to Deadeye's Mark, I know. At least it can be recast afterwards to shadowstep 1500 units to your foe- and back 1700 units to your starting location if you recast it again. Shifting Shades is a utility stance that makes every skill you cast shadowstep you either towards or away from your foe depending on if it's a melee attack or ranged. Were this to be officially implemented, an internal cooldown between shadowsteps will probably be implemented. As this was made before the Thief poster reveal, the Ninja had access to an offhand sword. Scepter will work perfectly for this as well, though. I hope this inspires Anet and other people; so something similar will become official. I have nothing but high hopes for this expansion!