What is Virtuoso superior at?

[Mik.3401]

As in the title, I have been wondering what Virtuoso does better than the other Mesmer specs (including core).

 

Is it ease of play? Maybe some better pressure at range? Does it outweigh the sacrifices?

[otto.5684]

Range? It is a ranged dps power build. And as far as I have tested and aware, it has the damage in pve, which will definitely be refined between now and lunch.

 

PvP? I do not talk heresy anymore. Your question here could be refined to what Mesmer is good at. Good luck with that.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Dying.

[Daishi.6027]

Virtuoso would be better if you can shatter aiming away from opponents, and you shouldn't have to de-target just to heal while kiting.

Core mes already has terrible defensive mechanics in PvP, a better pew-pew is nice on paper, but that Pew-pew needs to be more efficient and omnidirectional to be worth taking if we're not getting any better defense.

[Infusion.7149]

Benchmarks higher DPS at golem than other mesmer specs 😛
see https://snowcrows.com/builds/mesmer/virtuoso/power-virtuoso

VG:

I would not recommend running it in WVW or PVP. It's too projectile reliant and cast times plus travel time of projectiles make it easy to strafe or otherwise miss completely.

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[apharma.3741]

Higher "clone" shatters more easily.

Ranged damage.

The block on F4 is lower cool down than distortion. I know unblockable blah blah blah but a 3s block is very good.

Some decent AoE damage psionics.

Above is PvE which looks like it's strength.

 

What is letting the spec down is a lot of traits and skills are not working properly with it which makes the spec difficult to really guage properly. Additionally the shatters miss as they don't seem to track or they do it badly and can be reflected a lot which causes problems and the elite is a steaming pile of poo. Some polish and it has promise, I just wish the other elite specs also had this balance instead of being class ++

 

Will it ever be meta for PvP/WvW? Probably not but it could be fun and playable/competitive. Remember not everything has to be the best and the meta pick, it just has to offer another play style and be playable.

 

Also is this Mini Mik?

[Loboling.5293]

 

[darwins ghost.7961]

It is more noob friendly in PvE, that is it.

[Leonidrex.5649]

nothing, devs will brute-force high numbers to make it a dps and thats that.
It has no mechanics, boons, condis. nothing unique or distinguishing from other classes or specs.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

Since we are going to Cantha, all 3 E.Spec is obviously inspired by the GW1 Assassin. Virtuoso using Sword/Sword can go in -> burst -> and get out like an Assassin. It can deal a lot of damage against slow or immobile target. It has a lot of ways to bait targets into a burst trap -- the profession is deceptive that way. It looks slow and weak, but if you took the bait, you will suffer from a thousand psionic cuts.

Bladesong is a bit clunky -- there's a cast time and an after cast delay that makes it too much of a telegraph. Try catching a Willbender with your Bladesong -- what? you can't? Then how are you going to catch a Thief?

 

The dagger skills need improvement.

 

Against a tank-n-spank target, it can deal a lot of damage, but it is not as mobile as the Mirage so once you caught up to a Virtuosso..it's dead.

 

TL;DR - it's superior against slow or immobile target. But it's a sitting duck and not as mobile as the Mirage. 

[Puck.3697]

EoD speccs are a tier below PoF in how bloated they are. But I imagine PoF speccs will see nerfing / reducing. 

 

It seems they are reducing power creep in specc designs which overall is likely a good thing

 

At the moment they seem kinda irrelevant compared to PoF choices but tbh I imagine it won't be that by their launch's. 

 

We are looking at first testing / balancing realistically and they have a long time to get it right realistically currently. 

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Daddy.8125 said:

EoD speccs are a tier below PoF in how bloated they are. But I imagine PoF speccs will see nerfing / reducing. 

 

It seems they are reducing power creep in specc designs which overall is likely a good thing

 

At the moment they seem kinda irrelevant compared to PoF choices but tbh I imagine it won't be that by their launch's. 

 

We are looking at first testing / balancing realistically and they have a long time to get it right realistically currently. 

You cannot expect to close the floodgates after not even PoF but HoT. The real power creep was HoT then PoF took it a step further. 

Fact is you cannot nerf the mechanics of HoT and PoF e-specs without having to rework them completely, Mirage for example, do you expect them to remove both dodge then?

 

Fact is there is no point in releasing subpar e-specs, the biggest offender for powercreep is boon application which the devs failed to realize even after the big balance patch to crunch the numbers down, which actually made it worse because everyone's dmg is lowered which results in people who are able to spam protection to be even harder to kill.

 

Ofc this is more towards the competitive side, in terms of PvE numbers can be crunched down and dmg modifiers can be adjusted. Balancing isn't as relevant in PvE in comparison to PvP modes.

 

Fact is the new E-spec fail to even compare to Core, its understandable that they want to tune things down but the problem with the new e-specs is there is no connection between core traits, Virtuoso is the biggest offender for that seeing repeated traits for no real reason and "Psionic" having the "glamour" treatment.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Salt Mode.3780

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

You cannot expect to close the floodgates after not even PoF but HoT. The real power creep was HoT then PoF took it a step further. 

Fact is you cannot nerf the mechanics of HoT and PoF e-specs without having to rework them completely, Mirage for example, do you expect them to remove both dodge then?

 

Fact is there is no point in releasing subpar e-specs, the biggest offender for powercreep is boon application which the devs failed to realize even after the big balance patch to crunch the numbers down, which actually made it worse because everyone's dmg is lowered which results in people who are able to spam protection to be even harder to kill.

 

Ofc this is more towards the competitive side, in terms of PvE numbers can be crunched down and dmg modifiers can be adjusted. Balancing isn't as relevant in PvE in comparison to PvP modes.

 

Fact is the new E-spec fail to even compare to Core, its understandable that they want to tune things down but the problem with the new e-specs is there is no connection between core traits, Virtuoso is the biggest offender for that seeing repeated traits for no real reason and "Psionic" having the "glamour" treatment.

 

Tbh I am hoping they are gonna rework current speccs to some extent lol. If they don't yeah new especcs in current state gonna be a major flop. 

 

[Salt Mode.3780]

5 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

 

Tbh I am hoping they are gonna rework current speccs to some extent lol. If they don't yeah new especcs in current state gonna be a major flop. 

 

The history of the Devs "Balance" patches you can see they won't do it, either they will ignore it or completely gut a class because they simply don't play the game enough to know the class. Also HoT and PoF significantly increased the gameplay speed which if you rework the current specs its going to make everything feel super slow.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Salt Mode.3780

[Genesis.5169]

You asking relative to other mesmers or other classes?

 

To other mesmers you have a more reliable retargetable shatter.

To other classes nothing at all, virtuoso is inferior to thief in every way, not tankier then any other class and you can't duel anyone with any form of sustain outside of their ordinary heal.

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

15 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

As in the title, I have been wondering what Virtuoso does better than the other Mesmer specs (including core).

 

Is it ease of play? Maybe some better pressure at range? Does it outweigh the sacrifices?

 

• Has more visual noise
• Blades don't evaporate on target change
• Has some burst
• Dies quicker to reflection than other mes specs

Otherwise, its an unfinished spec with poor trait synergies, weak sustain, and excessive cast times.

[Levetty.1279]

13 hours ago, Loboling.5293 said:

 

You can do that with Chrono while having your Signet heal actually work.

[Orack.9756]

12 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

nothing, devs will brute-force high numbers to make it a dps and thats that.
It has no mechanics, boons, condis. nothing unique or distinguishing from other classes or specs.

And no CC.

It's was a challenge to made him able to kill some HoT HP alone.
But for that he still have a good sustain thx to clone "blade" gen + inspiration + 5sec egide on shatter.

Mixed zealot / marau and it was fine and fun to play.

But also lack of aoe can be boring.

 

I don't know what to think, when you look at it closely it look like a poor version of weaver while everything is about to dps, but even that isn't great.

And.. can we talk about those weird condi trait ?

 

Dunno, it's weird, but I would said Gardien is worst :x

Necro otherwise feel so easy, well, it's necro.

[Leonidrex.5649]

13 minutes ago, Orack.9756 said:

And no CC.

It's was a challenge to made him able to kill some HoT HP alone.
But for that he still have a good sustain thx to clone "blade" gen + inspiration + 5sec egide on shatter.

Mixed zealot / marau and it was fine and fun to play.

But also lack of aoe can be boring.

 

I don't know what to think, when you look at it closely it look like a poor version of weaver while everything is about to dps, but even that isn't great.

And.. can we talk about those weird condi trait ?

 

Dunno, it's weird, but I would said Gardien is worst :x

Necro otherwise feel so easy, well, it's necro.

when I played virt, blades did not count for inspiration or signet " clone " healing.

[glenndevis.8327]

PvE Power damage I guess?

 

Would be nice if it could be a good duelist for PvP or WvW roaming, would be cool if not everything was a projectile so it could finally be a good power dps spec for mesmer in WvW zergs but as it stands right now it's just not good for either of those things so Just PvE power damage.

 

If this would have been a purely PvE game this spec woulda been amazing.

Edited August 21, 2021 by glenndevis.8327

[Orack.9756]

3 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

when I played virt, blades did not count for inspiration or signet " clone " healing.

Didn't noticed it, health was refiling as a good ratio, will look at it closer tomorrow

[Shaaba.5672]

I think it's a more accessible mesmer for people who are put off by the clones. It plays more like a traditional mage and is easier for people to get their head around blade charges rather than single target clones. I feel that's it's niche more so than any particular combat role, and that's fine IMO.

[Every day pon.5386]

16 minutes ago, Shaaba.5672 said:

I think it's a more accessible mesmer for people who are put off by the clones. It plays more like a traditional mage and is easier for people to get their head around blade charges rather than single target clones. I feel that's it's niche more so than any particular combat role, and that's fine IMO.

It's more basic than Core! New players play core before unlocking elites. It's bland game design

[Me Games Ma.3024]

10 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

You can do that with Chrono while having your Signet heal actually work.

Worse, I just did the exact same hydra on chrono in 7s.

For solo content Chrono is just far superior because of the high boon uptime :(

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:08 PM, Mik.3401 said:

As in the title, I have been wondering what Virtuoso does better than the other Mesmer specs (including core).

It's better at being all style and flash but no substance. 

I don't know if it's the traits or what but this thing just feels like it was made to be a flashy animated E-Spec rather than something genuinely functional. 

 

Meanwhile, Necro E-Spec Shroud go brrrrrrrr