PvP PoV Virtuoso (Suggestions included.)

[Vinny.7260]

In my opinion Virtuoso has plenty of potential to stand out really well as a Roamer/Team Fighter in PvP. It has some functionality issues that hold it back, as well as some inconsistencies.

 

 

Pros:

• Higher overall shatter damage
• Generate LOTS of ‘clones/illusions.’
• Low cooldown defensive without dropping a weapon.
• Natural fury access. (Via traits).
• Sword 3 is now a leap. (Great for mobility).

 

Cons:

• Forced to have a target to use Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow. (Can’t preemptively cast to target a Thief in stealth for example).
• Bladesong Dissonance has horrible tracking beyond 400 range mark. 
• None of the Psionic skill type stands out in a meaningful way. 
• Blade skill type feels sparse and traits affecting them feel unmeaningful. (Add Sword skills as a Blade skill type. Also add Phantasmal Warden to Blade skill type.)
• PvP wise trait selection is incredibly limited. (You are basically forced to take Bladeturn Refrain, Duelist’s Reversal, and Psychic Riposte).
• Deadly Blades feels niche and barely noticeable. 
• Dagger’s kit feels lacking. (Dagger 2 only generates 1 blade with mediocre damage; Dagger 3 requires the whirlwind to be over the target to land all three blades to do actual damage. Lack of defenses).

 

Bugs:

• Bladesong Harmony, Bladesong Sorrow, and Bladesong Dissonance get interrupted if someone stands inside their player model or goes behind them. (Should track the target if standing still while casting, similar to Life Blast on Necromancer.) 
• Psychic Riposte will lose its unblockable fact if you cast something else while Bladesong skills are still winding up. (Aka they won’t be unblockable if you cast Blurred Frenzy for example when Bladesong Sorrow is still preparing to fire). 
• Bladesong Refrain only grants Aegis if you allow the after-cast to finish in some instances. (Somewhat inconsistent). 
• Maim the Disillusioned inflicts 5 Torment instead of 1 when landing Bladesong Dissonance with 5 blades. (Inconsistent).
• Flying Cutter won’t activate the third effect if target is downed. 

 

Suggestions:

• Bladesong Requiem could be castable without any blades, but has a higher cooldown that gets reduced based on the number of blades used. (Could start at 45s and gets reduced by 3s per blade. The blades are consumed at the end of the cast or when interrupted).
• Remove target requirement for Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow.
• Give Bladecall boon rip per blade hitting. (1 boon removed each blade). 
• Give Unstable Bladestorm projectile block. (A little bit of defensive to give a bigger presence in team fights. Balanced because it itself is a projectile and can be deleted by Swirling Winds).
• Psychic Force has its cooldown reduced to 35s. (45 seconds feels a bit steep when comparing to skills like Stomp on Warrior.)
• (Non-Virtuoso Skill) Mantra of Concentration loses its Stability and gets its cooldown reduced to 25s. (30 seconds is acceptable too. Just having a low cooldown stun break would improve Mesmer across the board but immensely improve Virtuoso’s Quality of Life.) 
• Sword of Decimation could have a 250% damage increase instead of 100% damage increase. (Using a utility that has a wind-up, animation, and requires target standing still/being downed justifies a higher damage modifier.) 
• Jagged Mind could have its leeching from condition damage factor up from 3% to 5% in PvP only. (Mesmer doesn’t have conditions that naturally tick often, most of their condition damage is built around Torment/Confusion. While Torment is ticking, we don’t have abundant access to make a case towards it. Landing multiple critical hits to inflict 1 second of bleed would make for a small amount of healing at once. Landing a maximum of 20 confusion at once heals for a whole ~87 with ideal conditions when someone casts something. Given the leeching is to increase sustain as condition damage, since Power has things like Inspiration, it can get this as a boost while going more glassy to deal more damage).
• Sword auto attack, Blurred Frenzy, Blade Leap, and Phantasmal Swordsman should count as a Blade skills. Also count Phantasmal Warden as a Blade skill per hit. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Vinny.7260
Small typo.

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

41 minutes ago, Vinny.7260 said:

In my opinion Virtuoso has plenty of potential to stand out really well as a Roamer/Team Fighter in PvP. It has some functionality issues that hold it back, as well as some inconsistencies.

 

 

Pros:

• Higher overall shatter damage
• Generate LOTS of ‘clones/illusions.’
• Low cooldown defensive without dropping a weapon.
• Natural fury access. (Via traits).
• Sword 3 is now a leap. (Great for mobility).

 

Cons:

• Forced to have a target to use Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow. (Can’t preemptively cast to target a Thief in stealth for example).
• Bladesong Dissonance has horrible tracking beyond 400 range mark. 
• None of the Psionic skill type stands out in a meaningful way. 
• Blade skill type feels sparse and traits affecting them feel unmeaningful. (Add Sword skills as a Blade skill type. Also add Phantasmal Warden to Blade skill type.)
• PvP wise trait selection is incredibly limited. (You are basically forced to take Bladeturn Refrain, Duelist’s Reversal, and Psychic Riposte).
• Deadly Blades feels niche and barely noticeable. 
• Dagger’s kit feels lacking. (Dagger 2 only generates 1 blade with mediocre damage; Dagger 3 requires the whirlwind to be over the target to land all three blades to do actual damage. Lack of defenses).

 

Bugs:

• Bladesong Harmony, Bladesong Sorrow, and Bladesong Dissonance get interrupted if someone stands inside their player model or goes behind them. (Should track the target if standing still while casting, similar to Life Blast on Necromancer.) 
• Psychic Riposte will lose its unblockable fact if you cast something else while Bladesong skills are still winding up. (Aka they won’t be unblockable if you cast Blurred Frenzy for example when Bladesong Sorrow is still preparing to fire). 
• Bladesong Refrain only grants Aegis if you allow the after-cast to finish in some instances. (Somewhat inconsistent). 
• Maim the Disillusioned inflicts 5 Torment instead of 1 when landing Bladesong Dissonance with 5 blades. (Inconsistent).
• Flying Cutter won’t activate the third effect if target is downed. 

 

Suggestions:

• Bladesong Requiem could be castable without any blades, but has a higher cooldown that gets reduced based on the number of blades used. (Could start at 45s and gets reduced by 3s per blade. The blades are consumed at the end of the cast or when interrupted).
• Remove target requirement for Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow.
• Give Bladecall boon rip per blade hitting. (1 boon removed each blade). 
• Give Unstable Bladestorm projectile block. (A little bit of defensive to give a bigger presence in team fights. Balanced because it itself is a projectile and can be deleted by Swirling Winds).
• Psychic Force has its cooldown reduced to 35s. (45 seconds feels a bit steep when comparing to skills like Stomp on Warrior.)
• (Non-Virtuoso Skill) Mantra of Concentration loses its Stability and gets its cooldown reduced to 25s. (30 seconds is acceptable too. Just having a low cooldown stun break would improve Mesmer across the board but immensely improve Virtuoso’s Quality of Life.) 
• Sword of Decimation could have a 250% damage increase instead of 100% damage increase. (Using a utility that has a wind-up, animation, and requires target standing still/being downed justifies a higher damage modifier.) 
• Jagged Mind could have its leeching from condition damage factor up from 3% to 5% in PvP only. (Mesmer doesn’t have conditions that naturally tick often, most of their condition damage is built around Torment/Confusion. While Torment is ticking, we don’t have abundant access to make a case towards it. Landing multiple critical hits to inflict 1 second of bleed would make for a small amount of healing at once. Landing a maximum of 20 confusion at once heals for a whole ~87 with ideal conditions when someone casts something. Given the leeching is to increase sustain as condition damage, since Power has things like Inspiration, it can get this as a boost while going more glassy to deal more damage).
• Sword auto attack, Blurred Frenzy, Blade Leap, and Phantasmal Swordsman should count as a Blade skills. Also count Phantasmal Warden as a Blade skill per hit. 

I agree with almost everything except I haven't noticed this (do you have a clip?):

• Maim the Disillusioned inflicts 5 Torment instead of 1 when landing Bladesong Dissonance with 5 blades. (Inconsistent).

And I think instead of "Bladesong Requiem could be castable without any blades" and "Mantra of Concentration loses its Stability and gets its cooldown reduced to 25s" I think it would be easier just to add a stunbreak to Bladeturn Requiem.

And I don't think Sword of Decimation should have a 250% modifier, however it should have higher base damage.

[vanflyheight.6832]

Virtuoso should have more condis than just vulnerability and bleed. Sword of Decimation and Rain of Swords should have some of the following condis. (confusion, torment or poison) As far as the damage modifier on decimation, id rather see the base dmg itself buffed instead. Same goes for rain of swords. Here's what i suggested back during beta 4 for the dagger skills below. As far as the condi traits since two of them are closely the same id rather see em combined and then add another condi trait like adding additional condis like similar to the trait in the corruption traitline from rev. 

 

Dagger #1 auto, either make this into an auto atk chain with each skill within the chain doing bleed stacks with the final adding the condi slow to the mix or just have the auto as is with 2 bleed stacks with slow as well. Id think that by adding slow to this, it might make some interesting playstyle. 

 

Dagger#2, add in either torment, burn or poison with either regen or swiftness on dagger return. (or any other boon/boons that would fit this skill) 

 

Dagger #3, this could have blindness with another condi or add boons based on the number of targets hit. 

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

51 minutes ago, vanflyheight.6832 said:

Virtuoso should have more condis than just vulnerability and bleed. Sword of Decimation and Rain of Swords should have some of the following condis. (confusion, torment or poison) As far as the damage modifier on decimation, id rather see the base dmg itself buffed instead. Same goes for rain of swords. Here's what i suggested back during beta 4 for the dagger skills below. As far as the condi traits since two of them are closely the same id rather see em combined and then add another condi trait like adding additional condis like similar to the trait in the corruption traitline from rev. 

 

Dagger #1 auto, either make this into an auto atk chain with each skill within the chain doing bleed stacks with the final adding the condi slow to the mix or just have the auto as is with 2 bleed stacks with slow as well. Id think that by adding slow to this, it might make some interesting playstyle. 

 

Dagger#2, add in either torment, burn or poison with either regen or swiftness on dagger return. (or any other boon/boons that would fit this skill) 

 

Dagger #3, this could have blindness with another condi or add boons based on the number of targets hit. 

Def disagree, rain of swords could use a cripple but I don't think Virtuoso really needs more condis, we already get the condis from illusions and dueling (and chaos).

[vanflyheight.6832]

5 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Def disagree, rain of swords could use a cripple but I don't think Virtuoso really needs more condis, we already get the condis from illusions and dueling (and chaos).

Yea thats exactly what i was looking for, just need to add like 1 other condi to both rain of swords and sword of decimation to give it more affect than just having it for invuln or immob.