Nimeroni.5612

From a tempest heal auramancer perspective I really like that you could permanently keep Frost Aura or Shocking Aura. Aegis on Aftershock! is fine too. I would put multiple stack of stability for Eye of the Storm! considering the long cooldown and lack of stability in the tempest kit (technically there's Rock Solid, but, uh... it's not very good). Also not tied to the patch itself, but could you move the traits around so that the heal tempest can pick both the alacrity trait (Lucid Singularity) and the heal on aura trait (Elemental Bastion) ? Lucid Singularity ask us to constantly switch elements, but without Elemental Bastion, we can't work as healer when outside of water. Okay, we have a few source of healing (the big water boy, the frost bow, and the heal shout), but they are not as fun as throwing 20 bazillions auras around. Personally, I would roll up Elemental Bastion into one of the aura trait (Invigorating Torrents, Unstable Conduit or Powerful Aura, depending on whenever it should be allowed for other elite specs), and add a new grandmaster trait for people that want an easier gameplay. Maybe something that would encourage you to not swap elements (to mirror the other two traits). It could be something as simple as "-50% to the cooldown after an overload" or something as elaborate as "while in combat, you can't switch elements but your overload is passive and permanent. (You can't manually cast overloads and you are constantly pulsing the same effect as if you were channeling the overload of your element (without the need to cast it). It never include the final pulse or field that drop at the end, but it does include the combo field during channeling. For other traits/sigils, you count as starting / finishing an overload immediately when entering combat and then every 10s)". Also while I'm on the Santa wish list, could our elementals be permanent pets ? I'm tired of constantly recasting my big water boy. And change the summon weapons to work like the engie kits or firebrand tomes. Rebalance them if you want, I just want the Quality Of Life of not having to click an additional button. Stability is a support boon, so putting stability on the DPS trait is a terrible idea. It's a way of balancing the game. Whenever it's a good way of balancing the game depends on whenever they will increase only the floor or also the ceiling on DPS class.

Then why do we have traits that plays around aegis ? (virtuoso 111) They obviously intended for a tanking build (that don't rely on clones to distract the enemy). It's a cool idea, but it would require a lot of work.

You can already reset songs with Signet of Illusions. It's... not enough. At all. A Virtuoso 3x3 can keep all songs on cooldown even with the signet, and still have blades to spare. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say so that it would work with Virtuoso x11 ? (just a guess, I'm not a PVP/WvW player)

I would like ANet to reduce the cooldown on all bladesongs (except F4) to 3s. That would distinguish the songs from shatters, it would help distinguish between power and condi DPS (you'd spam Harmony for power and Sorrow for condi, whereas right now, we produce so many blades that we can use all songs on cooldown and still have blades to spare), and it would make a nice loop for a tank build (use a song -> get aegis from Bladeturn Refrain -> block an attack with aegis -> stock 3 blades from Psychic Riposte -> use a song with the 3 blades).

I think that you have 3 ways of improving your survivability when playing Virtuoso : Go for Inspiration, pick Restorative Illusions + Illusionary Inspiration + Signet of the Ether (e.g. inspiration x22). You'll heal each time you stock a blade (illusionary inspiration + signet) and each time you use your songs (restorative illusions). You stock blade fast enough that this will give you quite a bit of passive self healing. Go for Chaos, pick Illusionary Defense + Bountiful Disillusionment (e.g. chaos 2x3). You'll get -25% suffered damage, and stability from songs, as well as a lot of regen. In Virtuoso, pick Bladeturn Refrain + Duelist's Reversal + Psychic Riposte (e.g. virtuoso 111), then play with scepter + sword for their block skills (scepter 2 and sword 4). This will provide a lot of Aegis (and Quickness for good measure), and generally a lot of block. You can play with any number of them, and picking all 3 pretty much turn you into a tank. I personally only run the Inspiration line, because I like virtuoso 333 (you dish out so. many. wounds. if you can get to 100% crit chance).