Epic of Virtuoso's missing sustain..

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

It's no big secret Virtuoso is a trainwreck in terms of defense. Especially in PvE where it should shine..
This is both due to misguided design and some additional hits from the side during launch of EoD.

Mesmer at it's core has it's defense cut into two parts - misdirection/deception/crowd control and standard healing/damage mitigation.
Problem is that the latter is weak at best compared to other professions because of the former part.
Mesmer is not supposed to tank hits, his job is to keep enemy focused on his illusions while he does his work from behind the scenes.
Healing is there to patch up few scratches he did take, and some panic button skills to stop unfortunate big hit from smashing your skull.

But Virtuoso throws out half of that defense out the window, giving little in return. EoD added it's own extra blows too.

1. No clones means Virtuoso gets 95% of mobs' attention. There are phantasms but they are very short lived and on cooldowns.
2. Stealth is  near useless. There's no clones to shift enemy attention to. Or to keep pouring condies while you stay hidden and heal up.
3. Misdirection - same story. Skills that remove enemy targetting off you, are useless - you're the only enemy there!
4. Rune of Tormenting was gutted to oblivion. Even for non virtuoso mesmer specs having it was crucial for sustain.
5. Very condi unfriendly - condi virtuoso wants high precision. There are nearly no tanky gear sets that have high precision and good condi output.
Only one that comes to mind is rabid and that comes with it's price (no expertise, no vitality, no power damage of any kind).

Basically virtuoso must either kite real well (not much of an option vs ranged mobs) or play like a necromancer - facetanking most hits.
Except necro has phletora of tools exactly for that situation while virtuoso not only lacks such, he has half of his initial mesmer defenses stripped away!

Edited March 30, 2022 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[LucianDK.8615]

Ironically Harbinger can say the same thing. Losing what made him resilient. Both damage resisting shroud, as well getting his healthpool gutted.

[katte nici.9483]

From a WvW point of view it would help a alot if Psychic Force had defensive boons like protection and stability instead of might and fury.

[Ombras.2853]

23 minutes ago, katte nici.9483 said:

From a WvW point of view it would help a alot if Psychic Force had defensive boons like protection and stability instead of might and fury.

While those boons are great tbh, it’s definitely true. 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

2 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

It's no big secret Virtuoso is a trainwreck in terms of defense. Especially in PvE where it should shine..
This is both due to misguided design and some additional hits from the side during launch of EoD.

I can't tell if you are serious or just don't get what PvE Virtuoso is meant to do. 

If you play towards Virtuoso's strengths, it really does shine in PvE.  Perhaps detail what situations you are having issues playing Virtuoso in PvE and we can get you a build and gear that suits your playstyle.

[Exciton.8942]

Signet of Ether and Illusionary inspiration are pretty strong sustain for virtuoso with the rapid blade generation.

[Mell.4873]

I survive far longer on my Virtuoso than I ever did on my chrono especially against bosses where clones get 1 shot.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Veprovina.4876]

13 hours ago, katte nici.9483 said:

From a WvW point of view it would help a alot if Psychic Force had defensive boons like protection and stability instead of might and fury.

I think that skill is actually one of the few Virtuoso has that is pretty spot on.

Its not meant to save you, it's meant to punish enemy melee engagement.

Someone gets close, bam, knockback and you unload your boosted damage into them.

 

Losing might and fury would totally change how that skill functions. And I kinda like it this way.

Virtuoso needs other sources of defense and sustain in WvW.

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Exciton.8942 said:

Signet of Ether and Illusionary inspiration are pretty strong sustain for virtuoso with the rapid blade generation.

This.

More than any other mesmer spec, virtuoso gameplay revolve around building blade (clone) and capitalising on that.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

3 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

I think that skill is actually one of the few Virtuoso has that is pretty spot on.

Its not meant to save you, it's meant to punish enemy melee engagement.

Someone gets close, bam, knockback and you unload your boosted damage into them.

 

Losing might and fury would totally change how that skill functions. And I kinda like it this way.

Virtuoso needs other sources of defense and sustain in WvW.

It needs more knockback. 600 would be fine, 450 is barely out of melee range. 

[rune.9572]

>I can't tell if you are serious or just don't get what PvE Virtuoso is meant to do. 

What it's meant to do doesn't matter when you're defeated XD

As it stands right now Virtuoso has no real edge over other classes outside turbo optimized speedclear runs which nobody commenting on this forum does anyway so it's a pointless scenario to consider. I constantly get asked to swap to chrono/alacrage when trying to pug with it. And even in open world 800 hps won't sustain you when random pve vet hits for 10k.

It's weaver 2.0. Viver.

Edited March 31, 2022 by rune.9572

[Ombras.2853]

Someone asking you to swap to a support class when you’re playing dps?

Well, that’s not an issue of Virtuoso, then.

Regardless of the rest.

[rune.9572]

4 minutes ago, Ombras.2853 said:

Someone asking you to swap to a support class when you’re playing dps?

Well, that’s not an issue of Virtuoso, then.

Regardless of the rest.

No silly, people are asking me to swap to a class that benefits others while doing damage, because that's the current meta if you haven't noticed after years of qfb/alacren/healbrand/scourge abuse XD

And now we got mechanist too so get ready for 100% mechanist runs :D

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by rune.9572

[Ombras.2853]

So people are asking you to bring a support Dps class since the group doesn’t have enough. Which doesn’t tell absolutely anything about Virtuoso, since it’s a matter of what roles your pug need to cover.

[rune.9572]

I'm just gonna emoji react to silly posts from now on because engaging is pointless

Edited March 31, 2022 by rune.9572

[Ombras.2853]

Just now, rune.9572 said:

I'm just gonna emoji react to silly posts from now on because engaging is pointless

Engaging to what, exactly?

Your group doesn’t have Alac/quick covered yet? Yeah, ofc they will ask you to play those since any group need them?

Your group already has those boons? There’s literally no reason for you to switch class, in that case, since it would be useless to overlap boons.

As simple as that.

[Veprovina.4876]

1 hour ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

It needs more knockback. 600 would be fine, 450 is barely out of melee range. 

I agree.

But then might and fury after is i think a good answer.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

1 hour ago, rune.9572 said:

>I can't tell if you are serious or just don't get what PvE Virtuoso is meant to do. 

What it's meant to do doesn't matter when you're defeated XD

And even in open world 800 hps won't sustain you when random pve vet hits for 10k.

It's weaver 2.0. Viver.

Perhaps the glass cannon playstyle isn't for everyone?  Virtuoso has access to enough tools via traits and skills to be able to survive everything up to and including some Champ Bounties and most HP.  However it does also require you don't just stand there and face tank everything expecting to succeed.

 

[Levetty.1279]

17 hours ago, Exciton.8942 said:

Signet of Ether and Illusionary inspiration are pretty strong sustain for virtuoso with the rapid blade generation.

 

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

This.

More than any other mesmer spec, virtuoso gameplay revolve around building blade (clone) and capitalising on that.

Until you hit the Bladesong CD bottleneck that other Mesmer specs don't have to worry about.

[Quietas.4891]

Take Jagged Mind, it's quite a bit of passive healing if you are doing a lot of damage. Or take Inspiration and do less damage but even more healing

Edited March 31, 2022 by Quietas.4891

[Veprovina.4876]

7 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

 

Until you hit the Bladesong CD bottleneck that other Mesmer specs don't have to worry about.

This... Also suffers from "every skill on cooldown so you can only autoattack" problem every mesmer spec has.

Haven't tried this in WvW yet though, but in PvE, yeah, it can all go on cooldown pretty fast.

[Puck.3697]

Why should virtuosos sustain shine in PvE? It was launched with the concept of being a glass cannon (weather we agree with that concept or not). 

The role doesn't really work as it lacks flexibility. Seen by both reaper and weaver not rly being the go to speccs either. 

But its role defintly doesn't screech sustain as a shining point. It's a glass cannon. Meaning it's low sustain high damage. Barring abit of QoL the specc arguably fulfills the role better then any other however. 

Virtuoso has a leading Condi and power DPS specc. I mean quite litterally no other glass cannon build in the game could claim the same thing. 

It's extremely flexible in a DPS role. Given its ramp up is far shorter then most Condi builds and its power out DPSes it's other options. 

The Glass cannon Vs support DPS ratio is a seperate matter however and cannot be solved within mesmer that's a game direction change realistically. 

With DH, holosmith etc etc, if a raid needs Condi, they have to change specc completely. Virt just changes it's armour, its a major improvement on what glass cannons normally look like. 

6 hours ago, rune.9572 said:

No silly, people are asking me to swap to a class that benefits others while doing damage, because that's the current meta if you haven't noticed after years of qfb/alacren/healbrand/scourge abuse XD

We don't need to swap class. 

Mesmer already has a boon, tank, alacrity, quickness builds + a mirage build that can provide 25 might and aegis. 

You can't instill the same boons to every single elite specc to make every elite fulfil every role. 

We just have elites that fulfill different elements of the team Comp. The concept of maining a elite just doesn't work. Alike trying to main a specific specc in games like WoW does not work when doing the hardest content avaliable. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[taara.3217]

On 3/30/2022 at 6:47 PM, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Rune of Tormenting was gutted to oblivion. Even for non virtuoso mesmer specs having it was crucial for sustain.

Not crucial

[Puck.3697]

3 hours ago, taara.3217 said:

Not crucial

Pretty sure lord hizens solo build for mirage didn't even use tormenting runes did it? 😂.

Nor did any others. 

[crazyhusky.2985]

There are many problems with virtuoso right now.

1.Power Virtuoso isn't friendly to open world and in many other places, You want to take Dueling and Domination trait lines, but the issue is without Alacarity support part way into your rotation you'll run out of Shatter's to use due to the cooldowns, which means you want to also use Illusion traitline helps with that but if you do, you lose DPS. Also you have no susutain on it.

2.Condition Virtuoso has you using super optimal precise gear to get super high precision so you can inflict the bleeding. You NEED every point of Precision from gear, food, utility item, infusions to get the crit as close to 100% as possible otherwise you won't be dealing any bleeding. There is little to no way play the condition version of this spec in a tanky way, You can use a combination of Sinster and Rabid but that doesn't help you with Condition duration.  I feel like that is a bit too harsh for someone to get set up, as many condition builds don't require infusions to work, this pretty much does does. One way they could fix it, is to give the condition traits should give you precision to help with getting critials. As many other specs have ways to give you more stats to help with condtions.

3. Outside damage, Virtuoso doesn't offer anything for a party or group. As some people have noted above, Groups generally don't want you using Virtuoso when Mirage and Chronomancer can give boons while doing the damage. I feel like Virtuoso it needs a way of giving back to party and groups as the meta for group has changed. Since they took away 10 person targeting, Groups have to find 2 people to do quickness and 2 more to give alacirty, on top of a healer (if it the healer isn't giving 1 of those boons). So a group is going to want Mirage and Chronomancer over a Virtuoso, its only when they have filled those quickness/alac roles that they don't mind what DPS or class you use. There is not a place for Virtuoso right now.

4. Squads in WvW, Virtuoso is subpar at best, There is a lot of protectile hate in WvW such as Reflects and barriers that block projectiles. This is bad for Virtuoso as it means your Bladesong (shatters) can be useless, while other forms mesmar dont have this issue, but they do still suffer from clones being wiped out. A way to fix this would be give the bladesong a beam property like GS's autoattack to prevent it being classed as proper projectile. If they really want Virtuoso to be a part of WvW they NEED to change the shatters to suit WvW environment to help it in large group content.

5.Virtuoso has not sustain at all, If you give yourself sustain, you have to swap out something useful to do damage, again many classes have flexiability slots on their builds but for virtuoso if you want to survive or condition cleanse then you have to give up damage. I suggessted in another post that should change its heal skill to cleanse more conditions without the attack but also it should give you more blades per condition cleansed.

6. I feel Virtuoso lacks an identity, All it has is damage, No boons, it really needs something.

7. A fix for its defensives could be barrier or distortion. Distoration is unique to mesmar but yet... Virtuoso lacks any way of getting distortion onto it F4 shatter is now a block. So what I like to see to is, When you gain 5 stocked blades you gain distortion (1sec), Not only that there should be a trait give you boons and cleanse conditions when you get distortion, this would somewhat help with Virtuoso survivability as you could use skills to gain a 5th blade to block incoming attacks. And we could add something else, when you use a skill like Decoy or Mirror images you gain Distortion when you gain blade from skills like those to help shield the Virtuoso from damage as it lacks a way to redirect attacks from it.

Edited April 1, 2022 by crazyhusky.2985
typo