Virtuoso Final Changes Thread

[phokus.8934]

2 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

This thread has been derailed several times, the balance is fine, the game is fine just talk about Virtouso or make another thread.

This is why no one can have a serious discussion with you when you make asinine remarks like this.

[Sebrent.3625]

I've been amused by the comments here and there talking about Virtuoso and conditions being bad. One button and I applied 5+ bleeds, 20 stacks of confusion, and 5 stacks of torment as well as 10 vulnerability and cripple. It's on a nice low cooldown too. It generally gives me back 2 of my 5 blades to boot.

Am I missing something w.r.t. to that?

[Levetty.1279]

10 minutes ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I've been amused by the comments here and there talking about Virtuoso and conditions being bad. One button and I applied 5+ bleeds, 20 stacks of confusion, and 5 stacks of torment as well as 10 vulnerability and cripple. It's on a nice low cooldown too. It generally gives me back 2 of my 5 blades to boot.

Am I missing something w.r.t. to that?

Yeah, condi cleanse.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

47 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

This thread has been derailed several times, the balance is fine, the game is fine just talk about Virtouso or make another thread.

Someone that said distortion is bad doesn't have a clue regarding balance. 

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Someone that said distortion is bad doesn't have a clue regarding balance. 

Well having Chronomancer f4 and f5 both doing different things was a mess, this preventing me from enjoying chrono for years. I tried very hard to play it when it was required for fractals but to no avail. I ended up sticking to a condition ranged soulbeast since it let me live long enough to do damage. Chrono is still a mess but in different ways, like the wells.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Levetty.1279]

5 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Well having f4 and f5 both doing different things was a mess

I don't even know whats going on anymore.

[Salt Mode.3780]

They placed a dude who mained d/d ele in core days as the head of balance you tell me where that is going. If you dont know the history of CMC dont make comments that balancing is fine. 

And if you dont know how stupidly broken d/d ele was in core days dont even make comments.

[otto.5684]

7 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

I said it once and I'll say it again. CMC is the worst thing that ever happened to gw2 balance. He can be a cool meme guy but in what balance is concerned he is just worthless. 

Worthless is too mean, however, I do agree with you. Though, people blame him sometimes for things he probably have no say in or control. 
The sad part GW2 originally had a system (at least pre HoT and during HoT) where we had 1 dev mains and is responsible for 2-3 classes. Not that things were balanced, but we had the most improvements and the fastest response during that period. And of course HoT and PoF elites. I dunno why that had to change. Though I think 2-3 of these people left post PoF.

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, otto.5684 said:

Worthless is too mean, however, I do agree with you. Though, people blame him sometimes for things he probably have no say in or control. 
The sad part GW2 originally had a system (at least pre HoT and during HoT) where we had 1 dev mains and is responsible for 2-3 classes. Not that things were balanced, but we had the most improvements and the fastest response during that period. And of course HoT and PoF elites. I dunno why that had to change. Though I think 2-3 of these people left post PoF.

He had every say in the feb patch....probably the darkest patch in gw2 history. 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[HotDelirium.7984]

16 hours ago, mortrialus.3062 said:

Power creep is way, way way less of a problem in that you at least ensure the specs are generally playable and fun right out the gate.

Dropping in an expansions worth of new builds/classes/characters/cards that languish unplayed for potentially 3-5 years until they get a rework is the worst thing a game can do.

There's a reason no game releases characters deliberately designed to be way weaker than what already exists, which is what EoD has done.

This. RIGHT out the gate no excuses. It has done nothing but hurt this game's image when they do try to fix skills and professions years later.

[HotDelirium.7984]

4 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

They placed a dude who mained d/d ele in core days as the head of balance you tell me where that is going. If you dont know the history of CMC dont make comments that balancing is fine. 

And if you dont know how stupidly broken d/d ele was in core days dont even make comments.

Its been noted he's more in charge of Pvp balance and not pve balance so where is THAT person?

[HotDelirium.7984]

5 hours ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I've been amused by the comments here and there talking about Virtuoso and conditions being bad. One button and I applied 5+ bleeds, 20 stacks of confusion, and 5 stacks of torment as well as 10 vulnerability and cripple. It's on a nice low cooldown too. It generally gives me back 2 of my 5 blades to boot.

Am I missing something w.r.t. to that?

I think the critique is in that mez already has a condi build with mirage and main staff so why bother reinventing the wheel. Mesmer needed more mobility skills too and some of the utilities are unimaginative. We are competing with games like Lost Ark...they have to do better and be more creative.

[Chrolo.8536]

On 2/28/2022 at 8:45 PM, Zenith.7301 said:

 

 

They barely did any changes from the last beta, in more than 6 months.

 

Abysmal development practices, total disrespect for the players.

It feels like elite specs gor like 0,5% of the development budget this time around. Other balance is also minimal and thenext balance is in sommer? Nice

[HotDelirium.7984]

8 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Sorry but that's BS. 

First of all if one goes by your narrative the fault lies solely on ANerf. Remember they were the ones that left gw2 to die to focus on a new game until NCSoft force them to work on gw2.

6 months are more than enough to get a good balance stage in any game, even if understaffed specially if you have the whole kittening community spoon-feed you what is wrong and what need a change and how to change it. 

This is just pure ignorance balance wise and laziness. 

And that balance garbage this game has came at the exact time CMC got on board. 

CMC has no experience in game balance, there's plenty of devs out there with experience in that respect that could be hired (this game combat and skill design is pretty forward and doesn't take long to understand) instead they decided to hire a 0 experience dude. 

That's the rub I believe one team is in charge of the actual skills and their concept and another is in charge of testing the math and the numbers and then giving that feedback. It should be collaborative because even CMC himself joked about them giving ele a hammer for whatever reason. Its a team effort so all the blame can't be on one dev.

[Salt Mode.3780]

6 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

That's the rub I believe one team is in charge of the actual skills and their concept and another is in charge of testing the math and the numbers and then giving that feedback. It should be collaborative because even CMC himself joked about them giving ele a hammer for whatever reason. Its a team effort so all the blame can't be on one dev.

If he is the one that is made charge for updates there is no reason for there to be a "team" effort, he calls the shots. Its clear to me that he and his team are too busy reading the false positivity that is reddit or twitter and not looking into their actual forums to see what needed to be done. So far MOST of the especs not just Virtuoso did not get updated and still have their prior issues...and they thought releasing them at this state at launch was good? Its bad enough that they decided to launch right around Lost Ark and Elden Ring...and they thought putting this out was a good idea...RIIIGGHHHTTTT.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[HotDelirium.7984]

1 hour ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

If he is the one that is made charge for updates there is no reason for there to be a "team" effort, he calls the shots. Its clear to me that he and his team are too busy reading the false positivity that is reddit or twitter and not looking into their actual forums to see what needed to be done. So far MOST of the especs not just Virtuoso did not get updated and still have their prior issues...and they thought releasing them at this state at launch was good? Its bad enough that they decided to launch right around Lost Ark and Elden Ring...and they thought putting this put was a good idea...RIIIGGHHHTTTT.

No launch is ever perfect. Lost Ark had queues and EOD has inefficient elite specs. They'll get fixed hopefully sooner rather than later. I thought they would have at least addressed it more formally by now.

[Zenith.7301]

6 minutes ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

No launch is ever perfect. Lost Ark had queues and EOD has inefficient elite specs. They'll get fixed hopefully sooner rather than later. I thought they would have at least addressed it more formally by now.

 

Reaper hasn't been fixed to be a competitive power DPS spec since its release in HoT, and Scrapper only recently became relevant 5+ years after its release.

 

It's stupefyingly naive to expect them to fix their classes. Herald hasn't even been a thing in GW2 PvE outside some gimmick comps.

 

Deadeye only saw the light of day in Qadim 1 & 2 niche roles.

[Hirosama Nadasaki.6792]

3 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

That's the rub I believe one team is in charge of the actual skills and their concept and another is in charge of testing the math and the numbers and then giving that feedback. It should be collaborative because even CMC himself joked about them giving ele a hammer for whatever reason. Its a team effort so all the blame can't be on one dev.

I don't know which scenario is worse; either CMC really is in charge, calling the shots, and he's just wholly incompetent, or he's not actually in charge and Anet has no actual development director or leader, so they're just a complete disorganized mess.

Either way one shifts the blame, it still falls down to Anet having some serious staff management issues.

[wolfyrik.2017]

9 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

I don't even know whats going on anymore.

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with that remark...they do different things and this is ...bad?

[mortrialus.3062]

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Well having Chronomancer f4 and f5 both doing different things was a mess

Of course they're going to do two different things. 

They're two different buttons.

[Salt Mode.3780]

4 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

No launch is ever perfect. Lost Ark had queues and EOD has inefficient elite specs. They'll get fixed hopefully sooner rather than later. I thought they would have at least addressed it more formally by now.

Queues is a game's success not its downfall. Queues means the marketing was on point and there was an interest. Like FFXIV they had to STOP SALES because the queue times were ridiculous that didn't stop players from playing. Compared to PoF launch there is no que in WvW at all barely anyone in the PvP scenario. 

The reason why this launch failed is because every beta testing they had each time there was an "update" nothing was changed. 

Its a shame because the visual team and arts team worked really hard and you can tell, just the balance team fell hard. You can def tell which team put the work and which slacked.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[Sebrent.3625]

17 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Yeah, condi cleanse.

This is why we have the other buttons ... and it's on a lower cooldown than many cleanses ;-)

Same build applies bleeds on crit (mine and phantasms), phantasmal duelist

Then have torment on all the shatters, 5x instead of 3x from the other builds ... and each shatter is blades too so those can cause bleeds.

I didn't find the conditions from clones to be that great TBH and I had tested on the golems a decent bit where I'd turn off my auto and just have 3 staff, scepter, or axe clones do their thing as I watched and recorded.

12 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

I think the critique is in that mez already has a condi build with mirage and main staff so why bother reinventing the wheel. Mesmer needed more mobility skills too and some of the utilities are unimaginative. We are competing with games like Lost Ark...they have to do better and be more creative.

I think that is fair.

 

The primary benefit I see of the Virtuoso is more reliable resource management for shatters (nothing is popping my daggers early). which has benefits in each game mode. That being said, "did we actually get a new role we can fill" or "become more viable in 1+ game mode" with the introduction of Virtuoso? That is a solid question and the one to continue to ask not just for Mesmer but for the specs for every class.

 

[marcin.4602]

'm trying condi virtuoso and Viper + nightmare + dagger/pistol dagger/torch is killing pretty fast (pve). Last trait is generating from bleeding more blades then you can spend. I wondering if runes of krait aren't better then nightmare

Edited March 5, 2022 by marcin.4602

[mortrialus.3062]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:30 AM, Sebrent.3625 said:

This is why we have the other buttons ... and it's on a lower cooldown than many cleanses 😉

Same build applies bleeds on crit (mine and phantasms), phantasmal duelist

Then have torment on all the shatters, 5x instead of 3x from the other builds ... and each shatter is blades too so those can cause bleeds.

I didn't find the conditions from clones to be that great TBH and I had tested on the golems a decent bit where I'd turn off my auto and just have 3 staff, scepter, or axe clones do their thing as I watched and recorded.

I think that is fair.

 

The primary benefit I see of the Virtuoso is more reliable resource management for shatters (nothing is popping my daggers early). which has benefits in each game mode. That being said, "did we actually get a new role we can fill" or "become more viable in 1+ game mode" with the introduction of Virtuoso? That is a solid question and the one to continue to ask not just for Mesmer but for the specs for every class.

 

The thing with condi mesmer is that for scepter and especially for staff half of your auto attacks damage comes from clones also auto attacking and applying their own conditions and procing sharper images. I've done a lot of testing to confirm this, for both staff and scepter 3 clones is pretty much exactly a 50% boost in auto attack damage over 0 clones. With staff this auto attack is your entire weapon damage source so it's an especially big deal.

Virtuoso takes away the clones, thus taking away half your auto attack damage on these weapons.  And they weren't compensated like giving staff and scepter longer condition duration to compensate.

So with virtuoso, rather than making sure the core condi weapons actually work with the spec and allowing buildcraft to happen nature through interesting trait choices like we saw with condi chrono and power mirage the devs just give virtuoso a cookie cutter like of trait choices to brute force dagger into being a condition weapon.  But that still leaves the core weapons functionally unviable on virtuoso leaving literally no build craft.

Edited March 5, 2022 by mortrialus.3062