Give Power Staff Virtuoso a Try

[Jables.4659]

It really seems to tie the spec together.  Virtuoso's sword leap, phase retreat, and blink give it a healthy amount of mobility.  Duelist's Reversal and Psychic Riposte work well with Chaos Storm's Aegis, and you're able to maintain considerable uptime on Chaos Armor via Staff 4, Chaos Storm, Nullfield (or Feedback), and the two leap finishers.  The main draw-back of power staff is the low damage, but the nature of Bladesongs make that feel like a non-issue.  You can use the Warlocks to soak a target in vulnerability and then cover your Bladesong cast with Chaos Storm.  It feels like a completely different ball-game once you equip a staff.

[OriOri.8724]

So the "power DPS spec" works well with a condi weapon equipped.

 

And yet there are still people that wonder why I say virtuoso is an unfinished design

[Sebrent.3625]

I haven't tried it, but I won't write it off. Pre-virtuoso, we already had some builds that paired Staff with Sword for solid success.

He may have a point with the shatters handling it, but I think that's going to depend on the spec and how he is generating daggers.

He may also be talking more about a hybrid build ... and that's quite common both pre- and post-virtuoso for Mesmers.

 

@Jables.4659would you mind sharing the build(s) you're playing around with and referencing so we can better look at and discuss?

[soltrain.5960]

7 hours ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

I haven't tried it, but I won't write it off. Pre-virtuoso, we already had some builds that paired Staff with Sword for solid success.

He may have a point with the shatters handling it, but I think that's going to depend on the spec and how he is generating daggers.

He may also be talking more about a hybrid build ... and that's quite common both pre- and post-virtuoso for Mesmers.

 

@Jables.4659would you mind sharing the build(s) you're playing around with and referencing so we can better look at and discuss?

I just saw a video on the Sw/Sw Staff power virt build (PvP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIC6jIvj4yo

 

[Jables.4659]

9 hours ago, OriOri.8724 said:

So the "power DPS spec" works well with a condi weapon equipped.

 

And yet there are still people that wonder why I say virtuoso is an unfinished design

Yes.  Its not a new thing.  Staff Sword/Pistol Power Shatter circa 2012..  Staff Sword/Sword phantasm mesmer 2013, staff sword/sword Omega Holy-kitten mirage back in 2019. 

[Jables.4659]

11 hours ago, Sebrent.3625 said:

@Jables.4659would you mind sharing the build(s) you're playing around with and referencing so we can better look at and discuss?

Right now I'm leaning towards Dueling Inspiration Virtuoso Staff Sword/Sword with the following stat spread:  2600 power, 55% crit chance before fury, 2350ish armor, 18.5k health, 205% crit damage (before superiority complex).

My main issue so far is that Virtuoso plays so very different from Core Mesmer and I need time to get a better understanding of how it should behave in various matchups. Also, securing stomps is a pain in the kitten without Distortion.  The majority of my 1v2s and 1v3s end up like this:

Looking back, I really shouldn't have wasted Thousand Cuts.  If I had saved it for cleaving the downed rev, I probably would've secured the kill. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Jables.4659

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

A new video by Vallun of power Virtuoso w/staff + sword in PVP: 

 

[Sebrent.3625]

Nice. The ICD on it and need to be attacked for blade generation are the two reasons I've not been using Psychic Riposte for extra blade generation. You can see it annoys him when he's trying to +1 fights.

 

If/when ANet decides to let Sword skills count as blades, then for Hybrid/Condition I really like Bloodsong coupled with Jagged Mind. I have been using that with the Dagger and loving that I get charges from weapon skills #1 through #3, any Bladesong Utilies/Heal/Elite as well as any Bladesong Shatter.

 

Infinite Forge is just nice and reliable. If you joust more and/or leverage stealth a good bit, it seems to be the way to go w.r.t. blade generation.

 

I wish they'd remove (or at least lower to 1s) the ICDs on the block traits. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:44 PM, Jables.4659 said:

Right now I'm leaning towards Dueling Inspiration Virtuoso Staff Sword/Sword with the following stat spread:  2600 power, 55% crit chance before fury, 2350ish armor, 18.5k health, 205% crit damage (before superiority complex).

My main issue so far is that Virtuoso plays so very different from Core Mesmer and I need time to get a better understanding of how it should behave in various matchups. Also, securing stomps is a pain in the kitten without Distortion.  The majority of my 1v2s and 1v3s end up like this:

Looking back, I really shouldn't have wasted Thousand Cuts.  If I had saved it for cleaving the downed rev, I probably would've secured the kill. 

oh look, a video of bad players getting carried by rezzing.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Havent found a Virtuoso that I cant stomp on Mirage atm hopefully someone finds something that I haven't looked into yet and prove me wrong. 

Like I said one evasive mirror and all their projectiles is thrown back at them, or simply interrupt them while they are casting.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[Jables.4659]

17 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

oh look, a video of bad players getting carried by rezzing.

I hate down-state so much.  Its an unpopular opinion, but I wish Anet would just do away with downstate in competitive modes.  I'd be fine with "Downstate weekends" once a year. 

[Arshay Duskbrow.1306]

Nice joke.

[Mik.3401]

In the comments above and in game I see almost everyone running inspiration on power virtuoso which kind of confuses me. Every utility is invested in sustain which needs to be used most often whilst bursting because otherwise one would miss or be interrupted. But at the end - inspiration yields so much lower damage than taking other line (apart from chaos) instead. So in the end the whole build makes little impact, meanwhile power heralds or holos just get the job done.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Mik.3401

[Senqu.8054]

I personally always found, that Staff Sword/Sword is one of the most fun weapon combination on mesmer and am actually pleased that some synergy is given here. Staff Sword/Sword Power Chaos Mirage was actually one of the coolest builds i have played beside Core Power GS/Staff. So that actually is pretty cool but i still feel like the build is a dumbed down version of what we had. I could imagine with shorter Blade-Song-Cast-Times and mesmer traits actually function above a blade count of 3 or 5 it could actually bring the basics for a bruiser build.

 

But, and this is also important, even then i dont see what virtuoso brings beside 2 aoe dazes (not even stuns). If you switch to dagger you even lose port and invul just for a little bit AOE. So all this gets carried by the fact that you can maybe tickle out a little bit more sustain with Inspiration + Blade generation.

 

Plus i feel like this just gets attractive because Mirage is handicapped with one dodge and easy target as power and Chrono has no real defensive F4 and therefore also handicapped in this regards. And while i wrote this out im now extremely frustrated again because WHY do we have now a handicap on every single espec? Trade-Offs my kitten this is ridiculous.

[draxynnic.3719]

57 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

In the comments above and in game I see almost everyone running inspiration on power virtuoso which kind of confuses me. Every utility is invested in sustain which needs to be used most often whilst bursting because otherwise one would miss or be interrupted. But at the end - inspiration yields so much lower damage than taking other line (apart from chaos) instead. So in the end the whole build makes little impact, meanwhile power heralds or holos just get the job done.

It's often a good idea to have a defensive traitline if you're doing solo/story or competitive - raid builds that go with two offensive traitlines and an elite specialisation work in those environments which have DPS checks and where you can rely on a healer to keep you up, but when you're on your own, it's good to be a bit more well-rounded. You can get away with going full offence sometimes, but not always.

(Personally, though, I've been using Chaos for Bountiful Disillusion, but like most people at the moment, I'm still experimenting.)

 

[Mik.3401]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's often a good idea to have a defensive traitline if you're doing solo/story or competitive - raid builds that go with two offensive traitlines and an elite specialisation work in those environments which have DPS checks and where you can rely on a healer to keep you up, but when you're on your own, it's good to be a bit more well-rounded. You can get away with going full offence sometimes, but not always.

(Personally, though, I've been using Chaos for Bountiful Disillusion, but like most people at the moment, I'm still experimenting.)

 

I meant the competitive Setting actually the quoted vallun’s build is what I see everywhere. Power build with such low offence numbers just cannot penetrate through the stacked meta imho + it is not hard for other classes to outlast Mesmer in duels.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Which is why i said that i havent lost to one so far, that build will only really work in spvp because of the stat and rune limitations in WvW it practically does nothing. At the end of the day even one dodge mirage will work significantly better due to the fact that GS provides might stacking + vuln stacking which ups your damage source from both ways, and you wont get projectile hate.

[Jables.4659]

12 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

In the comments above and in game I see almost everyone running inspiration on power virtuoso which kind of confuses me. Every utility is invested in sustain which needs to be used most often whilst bursting because otherwise one would miss or be interrupted. But at the end - inspiration yields so much lower damage than taking other line (apart from chaos) instead. So in the end the whole build makes little impact, meanwhile power heralds or holos just get the job done.

Virtuoso offers a lot of damage on its own.  +5% dmg after using a bladesong, optional +7% damage while within range of enemy, enhanced fury, bonus ferocity, high damage sword 3, and power damage spread throughout all of your shatters.  You really don't need to run two offensive core traitlines with Virtuoso.  When using the unblockable GM trait, you will pretty much always have at least 3 blades every-time you shatter, so you're always receiving the maximum heal from Restorative Illusions.  The sheer quantity of blades that Virtuoso generates makes the passive on Signet of Ether more powerful (the 5 blade cap makes Ether Feast more valuable as well).  Inspiration also offers a lot of condition cleanse which frees up a utility slot for whatever you desire to fill in the very obvious gaps in Virtuoso's kit.  The signet trait further enhances Virtuoso's healing and cleanse while offering a source of distortion.  Inspiration also gives you a passive source of healing power which works nicely with Virtuoso's enhanced healing capabilities and solid regeneration uptime. 

It is obviously far from perfect, but at the very least it is a playable build. 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Jables.4659

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:43 AM, Jables.4659 said:

I hate down-state so much.  Its an unpopular opinion, but I wish Anet would just do away with downstate in competitive modes.  I'd be fine with "Downstate weekends" once a year. 

I've said this before too, and people always reply with the cope "it adds strategic value" but in practice this is how it actually looks like. Or even worse, a mechanist mech and ranger pet killing you while you futilely try to stomp. Downstate is, first and foremost, a crutch for the worse player - it is a comeback mechanic.

Edited March 7, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

I've said this before too, and people always reply with the cope "it adds strategic value" but in practice this is how it actually looks like. Or even worse, a mechanist mech and ranger pet killing you while you futilely try to stomp. Downstate is, first and foremost, a crutch for the worse player - it is a comeback mechanic.

The idea, back when it was discussed in the day, was a mix of making spikes a little less effective (if you blow everything spiking someone down, you might not be able to prevent a revive), and it also creates emergent regions of tactical importance, making AoE abilities, particularly persistent AoE abilities, more valuable than they'd normally be in party-scale PvP. There's also an element of making revive effects relevant while having means to prevent a revive without necessarily having to interrupt the reviver.

[Yoci.2481]

I like the downstate mechanic. It makes things more interesting.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The idea, back when it was discussed in the day, was a mix of making spikes a little less effective (if you blow everything spiking someone down, you might not be able to prevent a revive), and it also creates emergent regions of tactical importance, making AoE abilities, particularly persistent AoE abilities, more valuable than they'd normally be in party-scale PvP. There's also an element of making revive effects relevant while having means to prevent a revive without necessarily having to interrupt the reviver.

I can buy this being 20% of the reasoning behind downstate but I am certain that mostly, is it there so that bad/new players don't get obliterated by more experienced players (they can be ressed by their teammates etc). Without it, a good players could 1vX much much more easily.

[piitb.7635]

I feel like anyone using a staff is just trying to make a point in not using a dagger.

[koopatroopa.5360]

On 3/2/2022 at 6:44 PM, Jables.4659 said:

Right now I'm leaning towards Dueling Inspiration Virtuoso Staff Sword/Sword with the following stat spread:  2600 power, 55% crit chance before fury, 2350ish armor, 18.5k health, 205% crit damage (before superiority complex).

My main issue so far is that Virtuoso plays so very different from Core Mesmer and I need time to get a better understanding of how it should behave in various matchups. Also, securing stomps is a pain in the kitten without Distortion.  The majority of my 1v2s and 1v3s end up like this:

Looking back, I really shouldn't have wasted Thousand Cuts.  If I had saved it for cleaving the downed rev, I probably would've secured the kill. 

So where is the build? 

[Jables.4659]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:24 AM, Senqu.8054 said:

I personally always found, that Staff Sword/Sword is one of the most fun weapon combination on mesmer and am actually pleased that some synergy is given here. Staff Sword/Sword Power Chaos Mirage was actually one of the coolest builds i have played beside Core Power GS/Staff.

I'll shamefully admit that I abused the hell out of Staff Sword/Sword power phantasm Mesmer back in 2012.

I played the Staff Sword/Sword Mirage build a lot less.  It was brokenly powerful beyond reason and I felt like a complete scumbag anytime I used it.  That build was responsible for the nerf to offhand sword's might generation.