Virtuoso is so satisfying to play

[Mell.4873]

I'm loving it way more than I should, being able to line up a bunch of enemy and then shooting the Bladesong Harmony though them is so satisfying.

The gameplay reminds me of Mirage with the Mirage Cloak where you can avoid damage with well timed dodges, in this case its well time Bladesongs and Bladeturn Refrain trait. I just cant get over how easy it is to manipulate the fight from ranged with all of your skills.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Yashizuko.9165]

I agree, it feels really nice, i am probably switching from guardian to mesmer to play EOD story

[Levetty.1279]

I can't wait till every thread is Mell saying he likes killing mobs with Virtuoso.

[phokus.8934]

Just now, Levetty.1279 said:

I can't wait till every thread is Mell saying he likes killing mobs with Virtuoso.

Can't have a discussion with people with no reasoning skills.

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, phokus.8934 said:

Can't have a discussion with people with no reasoning skills.

LOL nice

[Hirosama Nadasaki.6792]

6 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

I can't wait till every thread is Mell saying he likes killing mobs with Virtuoso.

Between Mell and Obtena, people with the mesmer profile pic are starting to hit me as a red flag.

[necromaniac.7629]

8 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

 

The gameplay reminds me of Mirage with the Mirage Cloak where you can avoid damage with well timed dodges, in this case its well time Bladesongs and Bladeturn Refrain trait. 

mirage cloak can't even compare to how well you can avoid damage with the insane aegis uptime!

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Hirosama Nadasaki.6792 said:

Between Mell and Obtena, people with the mesmer profile pic are starting to hit me as a red flag.

What do you mean?

[Mell.4873]

34 minutes ago, necromaniac.7629 said:

mirage cloak can't even compare to how well you can avoid damage with the insane aegis uptime!

True in places it can be strong, the main issue is you cant avoid multiple mechanics at the same like with mirage cloak, but you still have dodge for that so over all it's better. 

[Mell.4873]

Since this is my own thread i will say. It is a bit conspicuous that all the top dps in EoD are Virtuosos.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

15 hours ago, Hirosama Nadasaki.6792 said:

Between Mell and Obtena, people with the mesmer profile pic are starting to hit me as a red flag.

Wouldn't be shocked if Mell is Obtenas alt, they write the same way.

[OriOri.8724]

You're free to enjoy virtuoso dude. But at the end of the day that doesn't change the fact that its core design is unfinished.

 

That's why mesmer mains don't enjoy it. Its an unfinished design, and frankly it doesn't matter how high the DPS is if the design isn't good and fun to play

[StarPT.7431]

2 minutes ago, OriOri.8724 said:

You're free to enjoy virtuoso dude. But at the end of the day that doesn't change the fact that its core design is unfinished.

 

That's why mesmer mains don't enjoy it. Its an unfinished design, and frankly it doesn't matter how high the DPS is if the design isn't good and fun to play

You can crap on the design all you want, but "fun" is a subjective concept, what is fun to you might not be to others and vice-versa.

[Sebrent.3625]

30 minutes ago, OriOri.8724 said:

You're free to enjoy virtuoso dude. But at the end of the day that doesn't change the fact that its core design is unfinished.

 

That's why mesmer mains don't enjoy it. Its an unfinished design, and frankly it doesn't matter how high the DPS is if the design isn't good and fun to play

What attributes of it are you citing as making it "unfinished" ? I'm truly asking as I don't dive through the whole Mesmer forum each day so am not privy to all prior conversations.

 

I'm enjoying it as well as I feel like I'm shattering far more in both PvE and sPvP and the shatters are more reliable as I'm not dealing with AI and its pathing. That said, I'm aware of the pros/cons we're trading between shattering daggers (projectiles) and our clones (line of sight, cast time, counters to projectiles, etc.)

 

I'm also enjoying getting fury, quickness, and regen all the time from the blocks I get from the constant Aegis I'm also getting. It is at least feeling good as I use it. I don't feel like I'm having to play awkwardly to get the pieces to work together correctly.  Even the Sword leap change is nice as I can go from range with the dagger, swap to sword, leap into melee for sword action, then teleport back to range and swap back to dagger.

 

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I'm enjoying it as well as I feel like I'm shattering far more in both PvE and sPvP and the shatters are more reliable as I'm not dealing with AI and its pathing. That said, I'm aware of the pros/cons we're trading between shattering daggers (projectiles) and our clones (line of sight, cast time, counters to projectiles, etc.)

These kinds of statement already shows what kind of a player you are. First off Shatters has never changed from Core to Virtuoso. The only spec that made shatter not used as much is Mirage other then that you should be using shatters regardless.

Virtuoso did not introduce anything new to shatter aside from it has a cast and its ranged other then that clones can serve the same functions.

In terms of shattering more this is also untrue because Virtuoso's shatter CD is the same as all the specs and I have mentioned before Chrono is a true premier shatter spec because of it's built in alacrity when shattering which lowers the CD of your shatters allowing you to do so, you are encouraged to shatter more because it lowers your overall CD of your other skills.

The only reason why you feel you are shattering more isn't because the spec itself is a "shatter spec" its because that is the main source of damage. Dagger itself does very little damage, compare that to what Mirage can do with a GS on ambush allowing to self stack 25 might and consistently uptime that pressure that Virtuoso cannot. The only damage Virtuoso offers is shatter and nothing else thats why you feel like you are shattering more. 

FYI doesnt matter what weapon set you may come up with that makes you feel like you are doing damage they dont change the weapon modifiers for each e-spec so at the end of the day you can do the same amount of damage on all the Mesmer specs, but I can say you do less on Virtuoso because you dont have self boons like might stacking.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[OriOri.8724]

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

What attributes of it are you citing as making it "unfinished" ? I'm truly asking as I don't dive through the whole Mesmer forum each day so am not privy to all prior conversations.

 

I'm enjoying it as well as I feel like I'm shattering far more in both PvE and sPvP and the shatters are more reliable as I'm not dealing with AI and its pathing. That said, I'm aware of the pros/cons we're trading between shattering daggers (projectiles) and our clones (line of sight, cast time, counters to projectiles, etc.)

 

I'm also enjoying getting fury, quickness, and regen all the time from the blocks I get from the constant Aegis I'm also getting. It is at least feeling good as I use it. I don't feel like I'm having to play awkwardly to get the pieces to work together correctly.  Even the Sword leap change is nice as I can go from range with the dagger, swap to sword, leap into melee for sword action, then teleport back to range and swap back to dagger.

 

There's so many.

 

* One of the devs said in a livestream at some point that it was supposed to be a "selfish ranged power DPS class" but the kit doesn't support that

* Bladesongs are strictly worse versions of core shatters. They didn't even take the time to give us new effects, its just new visuals and now they can be blocked and reflected, but the effects are the same. It would have been nice to see some work put in to actually changing up F1-4 to be different, instead of yet another spec where its power dmg, condi dmg, CC, and a defensive F4.

* Mesmer is now the only class to not get an elite spec that added 5 new weapon skills. We've had 2 MH weapons and 1 OH weapon on our specs. We should have gotten dual dagger like spellbreaker had, which would also have been another 2 skills to round out the whole spec better

* Dagger is a ranged weapon that works best and has traits for close range combat. That's pretty kitten weird, and feels more like people were designing a spec around visuals that looked pretty than anything else. If its a ranged weapon, on a supposedly ranged spec, it should be designed so it works best at range, not to work best at close range

* Virtuoso has a condi traitline stacked on top of what is very clearly supposed to be a power DPS spec (they even told us it was). If its supposed to be power, go all in on power

* For a "ranged" spec, virtuoso has almost no ability to keep enemies at range. It has a single knockback, which only knockbacks a little bit, has no mobility in the spec itself to get away from an enemy that gets close (and over time core mesmers mobility vs other classes has dropped significantly, so there's no help there), has no cripple and only a single way to immobilize enemies. It doesn't have the kit to stay at range

 

It honestly comes off as an artist made some cool effects and the spec was designed around that. Even if its at the top of DPS charts (for now, mesmer always gets unnecessary nerfs), its a purely selfish DPS spec which offers 0 utility of any form, so it should be miles ahead of other DPS specs that bring their own utility, however little. And its not. It can't even be that great at the one thing its supposedly designed to be.

[Hirosama Nadasaki.6792]

1 hour ago, OriOri.8724 said:

Even if its at the top of DPS charts

Legit question, where are people picking this from? I've checked both metabattle and snowcrow and neither have any mentions on the new EOD specs performances.

[Sebrent.3625]

@Salt Mode.3780 That's great that that somehow says what kind of player I am. Provides nothing to the conversation though and extremely vague. We're probably better served talking about the class.

 

Back to the conversation. It feels like I'm shattering more because I'm generating charges for my shatters quite often and quite naturally.
- 3 Charges every time I block/dodge an attack (3s icd)
- 1 Charge every 3s

- or 1 Charge every 5 bleed applications (which can feed itself more charges from shatters w/ some spec combos).

If you haven't combined the bleed on crit with 5x bleeds gives a blade and Duelist's Discipline ... I recommend trying it. Haven't run the numbers on it yet, but it feels good.

 

These are things I'm just doing that have a positive feedback loop into each other. I like the feel of it the same way I like the feel of Chronomancer shatters providing me alacrity so I can summon more Illusions to shatter more. It works well with itself.

 

For Chronomancer, we could more quickly use our utilities and weapon skills so definitely the most comparable probably followed by Mirage's ability to spam clones with Sword's Ambush attack and then Core as the slowest. Have you or anyone else actually run the numbers for Resource Generation for shatters between the specs?

 

Shatter cooldowns Core/Mirage/Chrono/Virtuoso

#1: 12 / 12 / 12 / 12 

#2: 25 / 25 / 30 / 20

#3: 38 / 38 / 38 / 30

#4: 50 / 50 / 105 / 30

Shatter #1 is the same cd across the board.

Shatter #2 is longest for Chrono and Shortest for Virtuoso

Shatter #3 is tied for 2nd with Shortest for Virtuoso

Shatter #4 is longest for Chrono and Shortest for Virtuoso

 

Now, throw in 50% alacrity with 100% uptime, Chrono definitely takes the cake though as 12 becomes 6, 30 becomes 15, 38 becomes 19, and 105 comes down to a more reasonable (for the power it brings) 52.5. It's just a matter of Illusion generation at that point.

 

If running Alacrity Mirage, for the 25%, then 12 becomes 9, and so on as well.

 

So standing alone, Mirage and Chrono can get lower cooldowns for sure. If I have someone else providing the Alacrity (sadly Virtuoso can't and I'm sad about that), then we have a different story again though ... though Chrono's 50% alacrity is boss.

 

As far as projectiles vs clones ... in PvP, people can't avoid Virtuoso's shatters by using a small ledge or other similar terrain pathing abuse. That is nice. I also don't have to watch super speed and teleports be used to avoid/delay my shatters hitting. I think the counterplay to the shatters has simply changed.

 

Now, would I prefer shatters to go back to 0 cast time? Heck yes. I think that's in-line with how the class is supposed to feel.

 

@OriOri.8724

It does seem selfish as it's not providing crap to others. The question is "is it a good enough pure dps to warrant that"?

 

I don't disagree that it would be nice to see different shatters.That being said, I do like that #2 gave us bleeds on the shatter. Not a huge change, but a bit of one that has some nice synergies with various things including Virtuoso traits.

 

Why does dagger "work best" at range? Its damage does not scale up/down based on range like the Greatsword.

 

I'm having good success with that condi traitline as it is popping out blades for me faster than I can shatter then using all 4 shatters with two charges of #1. I want some friggin alacrity for my shatter cooldowns :-p. It's also got some pretty nice synergies with other traitlines for that condition damage. I think they are providing flexibility in running it power/hybrid/condi ... however you want. I do think the duration on blade bleeds could use a bit more base duration though.

 

Again, why is it a "ranged" spec? Just because it can tag someone at 1,200 range doesn't mean it has to be at range. There's also nothing keeping you from using Dagger with your off-hand(s) of choice for helping with you being/staying at range.

[Salt Mode.3780]

6 minutes ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

@Salt Mode.3780 That's great that that somehow says what kind of player I am. Provides nothing to the conversation though and extremely vague. We're probably better served talking about the class.

 

Back to the conversation. It feels like I'm shattering more because I'm generating charges for my shatters quite often and quite naturally.
- 3 Charges every time I block/dodge an attack (3s icd)
- 1 Charge every 3s

- or 1 Charge every 5 bleed applications (which can feed itself more charges from shatters w/ some spec combos).

If you haven't combined the bleed on crit with 5x bleeds gives a blade and Duelist's Discipline ... I recommend trying it. Haven't run the numbers on it yet, but it feels good.

 

These are things I'm just doing that have a positive feedback loop into each other. I like the feel of it the same way I like the feel of Chronomancer shatters providing me alacrity so I can summon more Illusions to shatter more. It works well with itself.

 

For Chronomancer, we could more quickly use our utilities and weapon skills so definitely the most comparable probably followed by Mirage's ability to spam clones with Sword's Ambush attack and then Core as the slowest. Have you or anyone else actually run the numbers for Resource Generation for shatters between the specs?

 

Shatter cooldowns Core/Mirage/Chrono/Virtuoso

#1: 12 / 12 / 12 / 12 

#2: 25 / 25 / 30 / 20

#3: 38 / 38 / 38 / 30

#4: 50 / 50 / 105 / 30

Shatter #1 is the same cd across the board.

Shatter #2 is longest for Chrono and Shortest for Virtuoso

Shatter #3 is tied for 2nd with Shortest for Virtuoso

Shatter #4 is longest for Chrono and Shortest for Virtuoso

 

Now, throw in 50% alacrity with 100% uptime, Chrono definitely takes the cake though as 12 becomes 6, 30 becomes 15, 38 becomes 19, and 105 comes down to a more reasonable (for the power it brings) 52.5. It's just a matter of Illusion generation at that point.

 

If running Alacrity Mirage, for the 25%, then 12 becomes 9, and so on as well.

 

So standing alone, Mirage and Chrono can get lower cooldowns for sure. If I have someone else providing the Alacrity (sadly Virtuoso can't and I'm sad about that), then we have a different story again though ... though Chrono's 50% alacrity is boss.

 

As far as projectiles vs clones ... in PvP, people can't avoid Virtuoso's shatters by using a small ledge or other similar terrain pathing abuse. That is nice. I also don't have to watch super speed and teleports be used to avoid/delay my shatters hitting. I think the counterplay to the shatters has simply changed.

 

Now, would I prefer shatters to go back to 0 cast time? Heck yes. I think that's in-line with how the class is supposed to feel.

 

@OriOri.8724

It does seem selfish as it's not providing crap to others. The question is "is it a good enough pure dps to warrant that"?

 

I don't disagree that it would be nice to see different shatters.That being said, I do like that #2 gave us bleeds on the shatter. Not a huge change, but a bit of one that has some nice synergies with various things including Virtuoso traits.

 

Why does dagger "work best" at range? Its damage does not scale up/down based on range like the Greatsword.

 

I'm having good success with that condi traitline as it is popping out blades for me faster than I can shatter then using all 4 shatters with two charges of #1. I want some friggin alacrity for my shatter cooldowns :-p. It's also got some pretty nice synergies with other traitlines for that condition damage. I think they are providing flexibility in running it power/hybrid/condi ... however you want. I do think the duration on blade bleeds could use a bit more base duration though.

 

Again, why is it a "ranged" spec? Just because it can tag someone at 1,200 range doesn't mean it has to be at range. There's also nothing keeping you from using Dagger with your off-hand(s) of choice for helping with you being/staying at range.

congrats you basically listed a long detailed version of what i had mentioned and yet you said i provide nothing to the topic...yikers....

Generating more charges does not equate to more shatters its called wasted resources...again under the false assumption that you are shattering more when the CDs are the same. Granted if u have a alacrity pump on you perhaps you can shatter more but Virtuoso as a stand alone class does not.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[desu.2514]

played mes for over 9 years, tbh i love playing virt i think its fun and quite smooth. this being said it has a fair dincum amount of flaws and is lacking quite a lot in comparison to most the other new elites in wvw. wont speak on pve/spvp as i dont often venture into those areas. for instance all sword skills need to be blades and focus 5 should be a blade. the 1second bleed. i mean come on 1 second! it should be the same as sharper images. and speaking of sharper images this trait needs compensation for no longer having clones by as a minimum making shatters that use blades or blade skills proc sharper images. the list goes on xD many bugs and overlooks that need ironing out for it to be brought upto speed

the new f4 is hot garbage also, top way to break stealth. would be better off not increasing duration but striking x times per second where x is the number of blades you used to cast, no longer a channeled skill.

Edited March 2, 2022 by desu.2514

[Sebrent.3625]

@desu.2514

100% agree on sword skills counting as blade skills (it's certainly not a blunt weapon :-D)

 

I'd love for that on Focus as well as it would provide more synergies with other weapons with the traits. Right now the only ones I have are the Block on Sword and Bleeds from Pistol if you are using Dueling as well (but that's quite a trait investment unless you're already going that route).

 

Yeah, as said above, the 1s bleed is too short.

 

100% on sharper images. It's a trait that is made almost useless (only almost because we do have phantasms). It's a pity too because Dueling has some good synergies with Virtuoso.

 

4 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

congrats you basically listed a long detailed version of what i had mentioned and yet you said i provide nothing to the topic...yikers....

I said that about the one part where you try to talk about the person and not the class. That part is 100% useless. Just like this derailing. This is the Mesmer forum. Not the <insert player name here> forum.

 

I'm allowed to agree with you btw. There are the points where I agree and the points where I disagree or think someone should run the numbers and let's see as I have yet to see anyone share them for those things. This is how conversation works. We're not going to 100% agree or 100% disagree on everything.

 

Perhaps look at the areas we agree and build from there for some common ground. Then take another look at where we disagree and gather some numbers or other points to contribute. Just a suggestion for what would actually contribute.

[OriOri.8724]

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I don't disagree that it would be nice to see different shatters.That being said, I do like that #2 gave us bleeds on the shatter. Not a huge change, but a bit of one that has some nice synergies with various things including Virtuoso traits.

There's not that much synergy. Virtuoso has a GM trait that increases bleeding dmg, and an adept trait that heals you for 3% of your condition damage dealt, and that's all the interaction it has with bleeding. The other bleeding traits are all about applying more bleeding, so there's no actual synergy between them and bladesong 2.

 

Compare that to chrono's shatter changes which are much bigger (while still keeping it as power dmg, condi, CC for the first 3). Chrono F1 hits twice. Chrono f2 gets CD reduction for each clone that you shattered. Chrono f3 gets slow added to it. Virtuoso's shatters, in comparison, have added cast times (that are long too), can be reflected, and their F4 went from distortion to a simple block.

 

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

Why does dagger "work best" at range? Its damage does not scale up/down based on range like the Greatsword.

It doesn't work best at long range, that's part of its problem. Its supposed to work best at long range, since its a 1200 range weapon on a long range DPS spec. That's what virtuoso was originally described to the community as by the devs. Yet dagger works best at close-mid range.

 

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

Again, why is it a "ranged" spec? Just because it can tag someone at 1,200 range doesn't mean it has to be at range. There's also nothing keeping you from using Dagger with your off-hand(s) of choice for helping with you being/staying at range.

It was originally introduced and described by the devs as a ranged spec. Also, its a weird argument to say that a 1200 range weapon and 1200 range utility skills are not intended to be a long range spec? Please tell me which of mesmers OH weapons keep enemies at range? Focus gives you a cripple/pull, pistol has a stun. Those help, but they aren't enough to keep virtuoso at long range from other players when virtuoso itself doesn't bring any additional items to the table in this regard.

 

1 hour ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I'm having good success with that condi traitline as it is popping out blades for me faster than I can shatter then using all 4 shatters with two charges of #1. I want some friggin alacrity for my shatter cooldowns :-p. It's also got some pretty nice synergies with other traitlines for that condition damage. I think they are providing flexibility in running it power/hybrid/condi ... however you want. I do think the duration on blade bleeds could use a bit more base duration though.

I still find it weird that people are claiming that because a spec that was introduced and billed as a "power ranged dps spec" has a good condi build, the design of the spec is somehow great? If anything that should be showing people that the design of the spec is flawed imo. Core mesmer, chrono and mirage all already have condi builds, we didn't need yet another spec that has one, imo.

 

About generating more blades than you can shatter, that's also a problem with other mesmer builds, its not new to virtuoso. And its also something that we told ANet would happen when they increased the blade generation after the first beta. There are too many blades, and not enough bladesongs to go around. At least with extra clones they can still apply conditions to targets, but stocked blades contribute literally nothing to your fight. This is just another example where the spec design was never finished.

 

You're allowed to enjoy it, don't get me wrong. But that doesn't mean it was designed well

[Mell.4873]

11 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Wouldn't be shocked if Mell is Obtenas alt, they write the same way.

Who the heck is Obtenas I have not seen him in any of the positive Virtuoso posts, he hasn't even posted here. If It was my ult would I post postive responses on my own posts. 

Also all my names start with Mell. 

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, OriOri.8724 said:

You're free to enjoy virtuoso dude. But at the end of the day that doesn't change the fact that its core design is unfinished.

 

That's why mesmer mains don't enjoy it. Its an unfinished design, and frankly it doesn't matter how high the DPS is if the design isn't good and fun to play

I like the design so how can you say its unfinished. This and Untamed are my most played specs after EoD launched, I did pop back into chrono but realised it does less damage -_-

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

These kinds of statement already shows what kind of a player you are. First off Shatters has never changed from Core to Virtuoso. The only spec that made shatter not used as much is Mirage other then that you should be using shatters regardless.

Virtuoso did not introduce anything new to shatter aside from it has a cast and its ranged other then that clones can serve the same functions.

In terms of shattering more this is also untrue because Virtuoso's shatter CD is the same as all the specs and I have mentioned before Chrono is a true premier shatter spec because of it's built in alacrity when shattering which lowers the CD of your shatters allowing you to do so, you are encouraged to shatter more because it lowers your overall CD of your other skills.

The only reason why you feel you are shattering more isn't because the spec itself is a "shatter spec" its because that is the main source of damage. Dagger itself does very little damage, compare that to what Mirage can do with a GS on ambush allowing to self stack 25 might and consistently uptime that pressure that Virtuoso cannot. The only damage Virtuoso offers is shatter and nothing else thats why you feel like you are shattering more. 

FYI doesnt matter what weapon set you may come up with that makes you feel like you are doing damage they dont change the weapon modifiers for each e-spec so at the end of the day you can do the same amount of damage on all the Mesmer specs, but I can say you do less on Virtuoso because you dont have self boons like might stacking.

I mean just the simple fact that illusion got replaced with sticked blades is huge. 

That means, hold on a sec, that all illusion buffs affect shatters now, is your mind blown now. 

Also who cares about self buffs, if you are in a team the other players can give you 25 might. This is why virtuoso currently tops dps numbers for most group encounters.