Virtuoso Does NOT need UNBLOCKABLE Shatters

[Mik.3401]

43 minutes ago, Monkey See.1498 said:

Mesmer players look at being on equal footing with other classes as the end of the world.

 

Get good and you'll win on virtuoso.  If you suck you'll be bad on it.  Why do you think it should be any other way?

The point is of course there are other play styles and builds, but virtuoso fits none of them as a superior build choice within Mesmer specs. Why would anyone roll it then?

of course it’s cool non-Mesmer players can enjoy playing without clones but it doesn’t change the fact it is not meta as it stands

[Monkey See.1498]

14 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Funny how you linked that but didn't link anything Helseth said about Virtuoso.

By your opening post I can deduce Helseth is actually a bad player and was only carried by playing mesmer/chrono/mirage because he couldn't kill anything, he died a lot of times and lost almost all matches he played while on Virtuoso.

It's to remind people that Helseth and players like him said the exact same thing about Mirage being bad and completely unplayable garbage.  Turns out it wasn't and they just needed to get used to the spec because it was outrageously OP right out the gate.

[Arheundel.6451]

3 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

The point is of course there are other play styles and builds, but virtuoso fits none of them as a superior build choice within Mesmer specs. Why would anyone roll it then?

of course it’s cool non-Mesmer players can enjoy playing without clones but it doesn’t change the fact it is not meta as it stands

The issue is not Virtuoso but that designs like Mirage even existed in the first place, Mirage is nothing short than a glorified turret engi, the way it gets played by the vast(all?) of mesmer main: camp staff and 2-2-blink-stealth-chaos field-2-jaunt-jaunt-2-2-chaos field...and the homing device condi clones doing all the work thx to Infinite Horizon.

 

To me it seems Anet trying to bakcpedal on the class design as they try to attract more players...the game would not survive another batch of elite specs playing themselves.

 

As a core game lover, I can only pray Anet won't cave in this time and force people to actually learn where the dodge button is, when and where to enter combat stopping the Rambo syndrome, this community doesn't need another half decade of condi mirages,scourges, holosmith, symbolbrands etc etc etc etc

[greedywholesome.9081]

This is the first ever Mesmer elite spec that's not great/OP. 

 

Im hoping that it gets a buff. The casting time of Bladesong is too long and the utilities arent that good. 

 

Yes I did ok with it and even enjoyed a few matches with it. But it's sad that I enjoy playing core power shatter more. 

 

I had high hopes for this. 

 

Instead I ended up playing Harbinger naked and still winning 1v1 for fun. 

[Mik.3401]

11 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

The issue is not Virtuoso but that designs like Mirage even existed in the first place, Mirage is nothing short than a glorified turret engi, the way it gets played by the vast(all?) of mesmer main: camp staff and 2-2-blink-stealth-chaos field-2-jaunt-jaunt-2-2-chaos field...and the homing device condi clones doing all the work thx to Infinite Horizon.

 

To me it seems Anet trying to bakcpedal on the class design as they try to attract more players...the game would not survive another batch of elite specs playing themselves.

 

As a core game lover, I can only pray Anet won't cave in this time and force people to actually learn where the dodge button is, when and where to enter combat stopping the Rambo syndrome, this community doesn't need another half decade of condi mirages,scourges, holosmith, symbolbrands etc etc etc etc

It is true that staff mirage is seriously op, but to me virtuoso is a downgrade from chrono and in certain aspects as sustain - even from core.

Of course it is healthy for the game to release underpowered spec given mirage is already in place. However even with nerf to infinite horizon and further needs to staff I still cannot see virtuoso outperforming mirage. The axe and ambushes in themselves are strong, pair it with F4 distortion and access to clones and you get a good/ok spec still. Virtuoso would still have less mobility and worse sustain. And the damage - hard to say as slow projectiles are not very reliable in intense combat

I agree nerfing mirage will bring some educational value to the community as staff build promotes passive gameplay. I can see virtuoso is a bow towards new players, but without huge buffs the merely interesting class would quickly be labelled as kitten

Edited August 26, 2021 by Mik.3401

[Levetty.1279]

4 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

An improvement from the stealth burst BS we are used to....

But enough about thief, lets get back to Mesmers.

[Axl.8924]

1 hour ago, Mik.3401 said:

It is true that staff mirage is seriously op, but to me virtuoso is a downgrade from chrono and in certain aspects as sustain - even from core.

Of course it is healthy for the game to release underpowered spec given mirage is already in place. However even with nerf to infinite horizon and further needs to staff I still cannot see virtuoso outperforming mirage. The axe and ambushes in themselves are strong, pair it with F4 distortion and access to clones and you get a good/ok spec still. Virtuoso would still have less mobility and worse sustain. And the damage - hard to say as slow projectiles are not very reliable in intense combat

I agree nerfing mirage will bring some educational value to the community as staff build promotes passive gameplay. I can see virtuoso is a bow towards new players, but without huge buffs the merely interesting class would quickly be labelled as kitten

 

Even then i think virtuoso would prob still be outperformed by chrono and mirage.

 

Even if you are able to luckily land a blow, if it becomes a 1v1 situation you are a sitting duck with no way to get out.

 

[Terrorhuz.4695]

If this guy is mad about staff mesmer being a thing, he's kinda right. Staff condi mesmer should be deleted, though I'm not sure how because honestly I love both inspi and chaos, and on their own they are great traitlines... it's just that they become too bunkery when coupled together, and nerfing them would destroy any value they'd have alone. Maybe it's just the couple mesmer + conditions which is toxic to begin with.

If his point is virtuoso is what mesmer should have been from the start, I repeat my challenge to get anything done with virtuoso when there's a daredevil around.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Terrorhuz.4695

[darwins ghost.7961]

Is this a troll thread?

[Leonidrex.5649]

nobody plays staff IH since feb patch, you guys need to let go and move on with your lives.
its equally stupid as complaing about rampage dealing 15k dmg with a rock, its not there, its gone, its not coming back, move on.

[Kyla Jane.6138]

Virtuoso is useless cause other mesmer traits are also garbage since the nerfs. 

[Cjay.6312]

It's a joke to comment on the forums, but all three specs were hot garbage. Virtuoso specifically was appallingly bad from a complete design standpoint. They spent 8 years creating this really intricate playstyle for mesmer where it was really disruptive, elusive, and in your face, only to create an elite specialization that would be better suited for a ranger. For pvp, there was quite literally only one good trait in the entire traitline, and it was giving it aegis for using those trash shatters. My list of all the issues with virtuoso is as follows:

- No passive movement speed OR mobility skills

-Literally 0 attempt at trying to synergize with the core traits whatsoever

-Your shatters all have a long cast time, cannot be used behind you, and flat out miss if someone is strafing (also misses more if you're using a legendary weapon oddly) which is undeniably clunky by design

-All of the traits have no synergy with the rest of the core traits

-You have zero survivability (again) due to no passive movement speed, a really bad block that's supposed to replace distortion (forcing you to take that utility because its the only way you live on the spec), no passive regen, all your heals are unbearably bad (imagine needing a target for a heal xddd), literally nothing. But atleast you'll have fury from 1 column of traits right xdddd

-The pathing on your skills is actually horrendous. The shatters flat out miss more often than not. Your elite skill has a year long cast time and can literally be side stepped the moment it activates, it along with your shatters CANCEL for no reason often, and again can't be used behind you, which is again, clunky. (I keep emphasizing this because not being able to do so means that your main source of damage, your ONLY source of damage, is completely negated not by any skills within the game, but because they have a long cast time and have to be used in front of you, so anything thats in your face can just keep running to the side or through you and you actually cannot use a skill.)

-The damage is just really bad. ANOTHER elite spec where you won't take the weapon given to it because it's god awful because of how low its damage output is, how clunky it is, and how little utility it provides. It could literally NEVER usurp MH sword as is. Your f2 hits HARDER than your f1 randomly. Literally no reason at all as to why but it does. The utilities are also really bad. I really enjoy using the immob utility but with the maximum amount of modifiers you can take on zerker spec, it crits for 2k and is easy to miss despite all the setup it requires. The other skill like it but is more damage based literally will hit someone a maximum of 1 times, and its also just as low damage even if they sit in it. The stunbreak, potential to be good, is on a 45s cd. Automatically terrible and could never be used. The elite, terrible pathing, terrible damage, long cast time. You'd get better use out of timewarp and that is saying something. 

-It is genuinely way too hard to generate daggers. This spec was clearly designed to be power based, and anything power based has to have some sort of consistent way of dealing damage, especially if its way of dealing damage is the class mechanic. But say you have 5 daggers and use f1, you're waiting an unbearably long time to generate more daggers because your other skills just dont give any. The one trait in your GM line that gives you daggers takes 9 seconds just to generate 3, a barely suitable amount to actually pressure someone. You could say "Just take deceptive evasion" and then you lose out on something you needed, whether it be something that provided a needed damage boost or a needed way of surviving. Your sustained damage is non-existant, so your burst damage has to be compensated as such. It's just not enough to ever be viable in PvP.

-Please change the block. It takes all your daggers only to do 100 damage per tick no matter the amount of daggers you have. It doesn't even get rid of blind by hitting those around you until like 3s into the cast. It's also a channeled block on a light armor spec that provides no other benefits like earth shield on ele does. And oddly enough, everything that pressures you on mesmer is unblockable anyways. It's just bad by design and through proper utilization. 

The spec is boring to play. It has the same problem harbinger does, you're not incentivized to actually play the game. You just run around waiting until you can actually contribute something and the moment you can't, you fade away from the fight altogether and rinse and repeat. It's incentivizing taking problematic traitlines (chaos and inspiration) to try and provide for it what the spec lacks. I can unironically, no meme, see bunker virtuoso being meta before any form of dps because it already doesn't do damage nor generate alot of daggers, but it can definitely run in a circle really well, and that will make me quit the game again. Now with all that said, buff chrono 😄 I'm 100% gonna slide that in because it's the best designed mesmer spec that doesn't do too much and only buffs core mes and fixes its problems. Its traits are all good and synergize well, and would only take about 2 changes to make it meta over that disgusting mirage spec 😄 Give it distortion, maybe buff some heal values of the heals (they're condi specs with 25k hp with a 5k heal on a 25-30s cd, i think a buff would be nice 😄  Maybe make ether feast cleanse a condi per clone 😄 Nerf chaos and inspiration and rework Signet of Illusions 😄 Doooone

 

 

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[De Bourgogne.9642]

Virtuoso has same downsides as other mesmer specs and only one upside (which in a way is also downside) which is no clones. You take away the broken stuff mesmer has which is instant cast damage, daze, invun and give it nothing in return to compensate, your F1 shatter with 5 blades does same amount of damage as Renegade 7 shot with impossible odds, weapon skill vs a class mechanic that requires stacking something dealing same damage, dagger damage is no existant. Virtuoso in current state is worse then core mesmer and is comparable to core ele in terms of power. So this thread makes a lot of sense lol

Edited August 31, 2021 by McPero.3287

[Leonidrex.5649]

nah, lets just wait for virtuoso to come out garbage, and OP to show us how its done on it 😄 

[Loules.8601]

8 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

nah, lets just wait for virtuoso to come out garbage, and OP to show us how its done on it 😄 

Don’t forget - Top-50 😂

[De Bourgogne.9642]

On 8/26/2021 at 12:59 PM, Monkey See.1498 said:

Mesmer players look at being on equal footing with other classes as the end of the world.

 

Get good and you'll win on virtuoso.  If you suck you'll be bad on it.  Why do you think it should be any other way?

Would love to see you go from thief to current state virtuoso and tank 400 rating.

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, McPero.3287 said:

Would love to see you go from thief to current state virtuoso and tank 400 rating.

reminds me of no IP chrono, when I legit felt like i wouldnt be able to go out of gold it was so kitten.
good old days.

[Nezekan.2671]

As an ex mirage main, I did not play mirage much this season and focused on other classes. Mirage was literally the easiest class to beat.

 

Which has made me automatically assume anyone who thinks mirage is hard to beat is bad at pvp.

 

As for Virtuoso, its badly designed for pvp. It needs a lot of fixing, or mesmer will remain dead in all pvp scenarios.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Nezekan.2671

[De Bourgogne.9642]

19 hours ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

As an ex mirage main, I did not play mirage much this season and focused on other classes. Mirage was literally the easiest class to beat.

 

Which has made me automatically assume anyone who thinks mirage is hard to beat is bad at pvp.

 

As for Virtuoso, its badly designed for pvp. It needs a lot of fixing, or mesmer will remain dead in all pvp scenarios.

I would say core design of virtuoso (no clones, shatters not instant) is good design for PvP though it makes it much weaker because it doesn't compensate for the loss of op instant casts with more damage on shatters. And ofc a lot of it is clunky af and dagger is useless. Dagger is lower power level then core release weapon (no condi, no boons, no cc, no evade ...). Compare it to sword that has evade, vulnerability, immob port and higher power damage (it is a melee weapon though so it should but not that much higher.)

Edited September 2, 2021 by McPero.3287

[JazzXman.7018]

aside from the thing, that the complains about instant skills outside of stunbreaks being IN GENERAL bad/broken/ unhealthy/ toxic (NO MATTER of their balance and the mechanical context they are put into), is the most narrowed stuff i have heard so far and will not only kill mesmer/ skilled interrupt gameplay (and when they are done with mesmer they will look at thief, core guard, fa ele, etc etc., at what point you stand up against this nonsense bc it will affect your main class?) but also will destroy the fast action combat in gw2 at some point, we in the end all play the game for. 

 

for virtuoso its pretty obvious:

 

this has overall less counterplay and a way lower skill requirement than classic mesmer (even tho it has casttime-songs instead instant shatters, casttime is simply not the only factor determines counterplay) and when they make changes to reduce the over-downgrade and clunkyness it will become broken pretty fast and with that will become even worse for the target of the virtuoso. and that even on a way lower skill requirement lvl so everyone can be carried by it then, the scourge 2.0 syndrome. 

 

the blade mechanic is so dumbed down, way less mechanical complex and with way lower tactical deepness and way lower counterplay compared to clones, it will either stay clunky as it is in terms of songs to compensate for the less counterplay in the setup part or it will be a broken ranged warrior/ ranger pew pew that can max range shot in his back with quickness carry and overall pretty passive/ spammy blade generation.

 

actually power ih mirage is what they should have aimed for to be mesmer meta, its lit the highest skill cap/ceiling build, giving power mes some more tools for high iq outplays and combos and active surviving tools, so it doesnt need to be a meme stealthspam oneshot one trick pony (on chrono just with double burst and op lock down abilites from grav well) or mirror images instant burst stuff carried by too high dmg on instant shatters bc of too much passive dmg multiplier stacking possible and too many traits buffing instant shatters in cd or dmg (the basic shatter dmg and cooldowns are totally fine atm). 

 

while all those outplays and more in combos power ih mirage adds over core/ chrono have a good amount of fair counterplay and add mindgaming/ bait potential to the interactions and also balance out the strong mc abilities by forcing the mirage into blowing dodges pure offensive (means when not in need to dodge an attack, since the mainly utility based ambushes on sword/gs lose a lot of value when not well timed outside of a pure passive side effect from defensive dodging and when not combo-ed into offensive burst/ dmg moves with other shatter and weaponskills) for enough impact. mainly utility based ambushes reduce the defensive uptime and the use of the too strong mc abilities remarkable and also way more than the one dodge nerf, with way less negative side effects and no contradiction of mechanics and with adding skill requirement instead deleting it (what the one dodge dumb down does). 

 

even more sad, that it would actually not be that much more work to bring condi mirage in line to that mechanically, just with some condi ambush mechanic reworks, what also would delete the need to contradict and dumb down the whole mirage mechanic and the basic dodge management with the one dodge nonsense.

 

condi mirage would need the mechanical rework+number tweaks on mesmers and clones ambushes and power mirage would only need some simple number tweaks (nerf of direct dmg on gs ambush, so spamming dodge+gs ambush is not rewarding enough, and no remarkable direct dmg, no condi no power dmg, only utility stuff on clone ambushes when getting 2 dodges back).

 

in the end mirages biggest balance problems are not even in the mirage line (the overly strong mc abilities can be balanced out by correct ambush design as power ih mirage proves), they are in the broken synergy to also still broken and unhealthy designed low skill requirement core traitlines like chao and inspi (esp inspis signet invuln trait and signet of illusions are unhealthy also on core mes already). and when they finally fix all the bugging inspi traits for blades it will be exactly the same problem with virtuoso but here on top of the simplified and lower counterplay profession mechanic of the recycler (virtuoso). 

Edited September 2, 2021 by JazzXman.7018

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

On 8/26/2021 at 12:54 PM, Monkey See.1498 said:

It's to remind people that Helseth and players like him said the exact same thing about Mirage being bad and completely unplayable garbage.  Turns out it wasn't and they just needed to get used to the spec because it was outrageously OP right out the gate.

Got it.

Helseth is trash since he couldn't win a single match while playing virtuoso and even got down into gold tier.

Like Leo said, show us how it's played once it releases plox.

[Allarius.5670]

2 hours ago, JazzXman.7018 said:

aside from the thing, that the complains about instant skills outside of stunbreaks being IN GENERAL bad/broken/ unhealthy/ toxic (NO MATTER of their balance and the mechanical context they are put into), is the most narrowed stuff i have heard so far and will not only kill mesmer/ skilled interrupt gameplay (and when they are done with mesmer they will look at thief, core guard, fa ele, etc etc., at what point you stand up against this nonsense bc it will affect your main class?) but also will destroy the fast action combat in gw2 at some point, we in the end all play the game for. 

 

for virtuoso its pretty obvious:

 

this has overall less counterplay and a way lower skill requirement than classic mesmer (even tho it has casttime-songs instead instant shatters, casttime is simply not the only factor determines counterplay) and when they make changes to reduce the over-downgrade and clunkyness it will become broken pretty fast and with that will become even worse for the target of the virtuoso. and that even on a way lower skill requirement lvl so everyone can be carried by it then, the scourge 2.0 syndrome. 

 

the blade mechanic is so dumbed down, way less mechanical complex and with way lower tactical deepness and way lower counterplay compared to clones, it will either stay clunky as it is in terms of songs to compensate for the less counterplay in the setup part or it will be a broken ranged warrior/ ranger pew pew that can max range shot in his back with quickness carry and overall pretty passive/ spammy blade generation.

 

actually power ih mirage is what they should have aimed for to be mesmer meta, its lit the highest skill cap/ceiling build, giving power mes some more tools for high iq outplays and combos and active surviving tools, so it doesnt need to be a meme stealthspam oneshot one trick pony (on chrono just with double burst and op lock down abilites from grav well) or mirror images instant burst stuff carried by too high dmg on instant shatters bc of too much passive dmg multiplier stacking possible and too many traits buffing instant shatters in cd or dmg (the basic shatter dmg and cooldowns are totally fine atm). 

 

while all those outplays and more in combos power ih mirage adds over core/ chrono have a good amount of fair counterplay and add mindgaming/ bait potential to the interactions and also balance out the strong mc abilities by forcing the mirage into blowing dodges pure offensive (means when not in need to dodge an attack, since the mainly utility based ambushes on sword/gs lose a lot of value when not well timed outside of a pure passive side effect from defensive dodging and when not combo-ed into offensive burst/ dmg moves with other shatter and weaponskills) for enough impact. mainly utility based ambushes reduce the defensive uptime and the use of the too strong mc abilities remarkable and also way more than the one dodge nerf, with way less negative side effects and no contradiction of mechanics and with adding skill requirement instead deleting it (what the one dodge dumb down does). 

 

even more sad, that it would actually not be that much more work to bring condi mirage in line to that mechanically, just with some condi ambush mechanic reworks, what also would delete the need to contradict and dumb down the whole mirage mechanic and the basic dodge management with the one dodge nonsense.

 

condi mirage would need the mechanical rework+number tweaks on mesmers and clones ambushes and power mirage would only need some simple number tweaks (nerf of direct dmg on gs ambush, so spamming dodge+gs ambush is not rewarding enough, and no remarkable direct dmg, no condi no power dmg, only utility stuff on clone ambushes when getting 2 dodges back).

 

in the end mirages biggest balance problems are not even in the mirage line (the overly strong mc abilities can be balanced out by correct ambush design as power ih mirage proves), they are in the broken synergy to also still broken and unhealthy designed low skill requirement core traitlines like chao and inspi (esp inspis signet invuln trait and signet of illusions are unhealthy also on core mes already). and when they finally fix all the bugging inspi traits for blades it will be exactly the same problem with virtuoso but here on top of the simplified and lower counterplay profession mechanic of the recycler (virtuoso). 

 

Regarding Mirage specifically, are you sure its an ambush issue? As you say, that's mostly just a matter of numbers tweaking. I imagine the issue with Mirage is and always has been the Mirage Cloak mechanic. Dodge to cover your casts, dodge to avoid attacks while cc'd, etc. This is probably why we see one dodge rather than number tweaks. Until the relationship between dodge, mirage cloak, and ambush skills get reorganized or mechanically reworked, I cannot imagine we will see much happening for Mesmer. 

 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 minute ago, Allarius.5670 said:

 

Regarding Mirage specifically, are you sure its an ambush issue? As you say, that's mostly just a matter of numbers tweaking. I imagine the issue with Mirage is and always has been the Mirage Cloak mechanic. Dodge to cover your casts, dodge to avoid attacks while cc'd, etc. This is probably why we see one dodge rather than number tweaks. Until the relationship between dodge, mirage cloak, and ambush skills get reorganized or mechanically reworked, I cannot imagine we will see much happening for Mesmer. 

 

Regarding the ambush thing, the problem is it's dualism.

Like I and some other proposed over the years was to make IH baseline on mirage. Why? Because ambushes are either useless trash (no IH) or good/very good (with IH), you can't balance something as defining as this while the dualism exists.

[Leonidrex.5649]

3 hours ago, Allarius.5670 said:

 

Regarding Mirage specifically, are you sure its an ambush issue? As you say, that's mostly just a matter of numbers tweaking. I imagine the issue with Mirage is and always has been the Mirage Cloak mechanic. Dodge to cover your casts, dodge to avoid attacks while cc'd, etc. This is probably why we see one dodge rather than number tweaks. Until the relationship between dodge, mirage cloak, and ambush skills get reorganized or mechanically reworked, I cannot imagine we will see much happening for Mesmer. 

 

nope, its the sustain damage, core mesmer absolutely lacks any sustained damage pressure.
no matter the build you make, yes scepter 2 and 3 +F2 has decent condi " burst "
or you can gs shatter for damage, but ultimately always run out of burst and have nothing to fall back to actually make people stay low on HP, Mirage gives you that sustain damage AND mobility. Mobility translates into everything, damage, survivability etc.

[Genesis.5169]

I just wanna come in and say virtuosos suck so for the community its on par with other classes, Mesmer's not allowed viable specs in PvP anymore.