RetributionZero.1347

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP NERFING ALAC MIRAGE! It's ONLY useful in raidbosses, and the damage keeps getting nerfed. Stop. Please. It's already dead. Its becoming like Ele at this point with the stacked nerfs for no reason. Now it cant dodge while immobilized in PvE (which, the WvW and PvP getting another dodge doesnt help PvE at all), and also the staff damage is nerfed. At this point, you may as well remove alac from it and go back to launch of PoF where AlacMirage wasnt a thing.

This is actually a really interesting idea. Would allow possibly other weapons (Hey, does anyone remember Scepter exists?) to have some use other than just Staff/Staff, and also allows for easier tuning to keep the Alac build in check. Finally, it creates more interesting gameplay than just “Spam dodge and make sure you have 3 clones up with your signet build”. Another interesting point of note is that all these builds that are “overperforming”, not once did anyone mention condiVirtuoso’s DPS output with 4 signets. Just a point of note here.

I feel like the issues with Virtuoso were completely disregarded, as most of them were not even addressed in this post (or the livestream). The only issues addressed were fixed in half-measures. Shatters still require target-facing, still have both a cast time and a travel time. This creates very clunky gameplay, not to mention make the shatters VERY bad in both PvP and WvW. On top of being able to be easily interrupted, they are able to be reflected as well as projectile hate means they are 100% useless in competitive game modes. Speaking of projectile hate, all of the Virtuoso abilities are projectiles, so a well placed reflect completely nullifies the entire kit (except the Ultimate skill, which the damage is incredibly nerfed now). Next up, for some reason ANET seems to want to make condi Virtuoso a thing. We have Condi Mirage, which means that Virtuoso unless it out-damages Mirage (which it wont) will never be played in this capacity. And with the power coefficients getting nerfed across the board, it seems that they want to push this spec into Condi DPS (which is problematic, given it has an enhanced fury trait. So you're wasting that if you're playing condi). Virtuoso is useless in PvP, useless in WvW, and now as a low-mobility low-defensiveness (yeah, getting rid of the ability to distort on shatters because you cant shatter without blades, not to mention them not being instant-cast) spec with nerfed damage, will be pretty useless in PvE as well. Can we please stop ignoring the major issues, and please decide what this class wants to be? If it's going to be condi DPS, delete the power tree and give more options to apply conditions. If it's going to be power, delete the condi tree and give some options with unblockable and ability-combination use. As it stands, virtuoso is not only the worst mesmer spec, but it's unfun as well.