Psionics in WvW

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Without Mimic in full glass gear, I have a hard time understanding the purpose of some of the psionics, when they literally crit for low damage values.

Rain of Swords is quite low impact with 2k crits on full glass and no real way of landing it properly without a Sword of Decimation (so figure out if you wanna use your mimic to double immob or double cast rain of swords) and Thousand Cuts full cast on an enemy zerg standing on top of it will yield less damage than a double 5 charge-Bladesong Harmony successfully piercing through the enemies.

So how come Anet has simply buffed sustain on Virtuoso, but decides to not even up the coefficients on these skills (dagger I am not even using since it's quite trash) which do not threaten to mae Virtuoso even more obnoxious in smallscale scenarios?

Mesmer players in zergs being restricted to minstrel bot utilities should not be the only playstyle an entire class can offer with 3 elite specs. 

So personally I'm advocating for same CD on these 3 psionics and an increase on their dmg mods by 3 times, so the Elite is actually high damage (lookin at you Prime Light Beam), the Rain of Swords actually hits hard (cause that's all it does) and Sword of Decimation can do some decent damage. but I'd say add some slow on the immob for cover condi and ranged control.

Whether or not dagger can be reliably reworked to function in zergs and if bladesongs will always be bugged in largescale, I do not know and frankly have not played enough Virtuoso to comment about. But the skills that I identify as potent in a single, very specific scenario, should, in my opinion be buffed. 

Thoughts from Mesmer mains on your WvW largescale experience (and whether a DPS/Boonrip Virtuoso would actually be an appealing addition to the meta, for me it would).

[Levetty.1279]

Virtuoso was designed specifically to be bad in PvP. The discord leaks prove this, with one of the devs even saying that Mesmer should never be allowed to be good in PvP.

They slapped some of things that launch era Mesmers were asking for the class back then and gave it good DPS in PvE to sell it but that is about it.

[Justine.6351]

Virtuoso was a damage stick early on. Instead of unnerfing its damage in wvw they decided to add some survivability.

Think the intent with the elite is to stack it with other damage skills at the same time since it's cast and forget.

[Tseison.4659]

As I mentioned in the Virtuoso beta testing, I stated that Rain of Swords, Sword of Decimation and Thousand Cuts are LITERALLY copy and paste with Thousand Cuts being cast horizontally instead of coming from the sky like the other two.

The suggestion I had was to combine all 3 skills into one and either make it a utility or elite, doesn't matter to me. Then the new skill will have high damage while still inflicting the vulnerability and immobilize per pulse. I'd probably also widen the skill a bit more so it covers more area, other than that, that's the change I would make.

This would then free up 2 slots for something more creative as the term "Psionics" is fluid and branches off into so many different attacks that aren't (and shouldn't be) just blade focused. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Tseison.4659

[katte nici.9483]

It's working as intended. Levetty said it how it is.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I had a very good run with Virtuoso in EB. 

After a 5-10 min fight against a blob in SM lord room (the only play where virtuoso can kinda shine due to the chokepoints and the restricted area of the room), I managed to reach 1 mil dmg and do a decent 125 strips via bladesongs, which frankly was on par with a mediocre chrono and dmg was within top 3 (funnily enough 2 more virtuosos were below me).

But here is the catch, aside from free-casting a blob, majority of damage was indeed...you guessed it!!!!!

 

F E E D B A C K

Cause reflects are busted rn and no, don't nerf feedback, I like it on my Virtuoso zerg build, if anything it's ridiculous that Feedback did more dmg than Psionics could ever hope of doing (yes, thousand cuts full cast on stationary zerg did not yield better results than putting feedback on top of them). 

 

Edit: Better slot feedback for damage than slot mimic for double cast Rain of Swords tldr

Edited January 9, 2023 by Grand Marshal.4098

[godfat.2604]

On 1/8/2023 at 8:03 PM, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

whether a DPS/Boonrip Virtuoso would actually be an appealing addition to the meta, for me it would

I really wish this could be the case, unfortunately given the current status, at best I think it's just viable, or acceptable, not really good comparing to Scourge, nor Spellbreaker. From my experience, what Virtuoso can do the best in zerg is the extremely high burst/spike damage. If I have 5 blades, and Psychic Riposte is not bugged, I can easily get a few down every time I cast all the bursting skills. However the damage cannot sustain, so if the fight lasts longer, my DPS would generally drop down quickly comparing to other typical DPS classes.

I think the main problem is that Anet don't know where to put Virtuoso. I bet they didn't even really think about that, because Virtuoso is a pretty clear PvE profession, even the designer behind it admitted that they only knew about PvE. Being slightly viable was probably just a side effect from that.

There are so much we can do to make Virtuoso better, yet they never really did anything beside introducing the bugged Psychic Riposte, making Bladesongs a bit more reliable (when it's in beta, it's extremely easy to cancel them), and that's probably it. Granted, without those, Virtuoso would not even be viable, so good improvements I suppose.

If I could make changes, I'll suggest the followings. Note that I would welcome any ways to make it better, not necessarily using my suggestions. I just want to provide some inspiration if one is looking for it:

* Rain of Swords should hit much harder, and also causes cripple in additionally
* Sword of Decimation should have faster cast, given that there's animation delay, it's actually slower than just having cast time. Or we can remove the animation and make it faster, but it would be better to keep the tell for counter play, so just make it cast faster. It can also add a few stacks of vulnerability, and remove a boon when hit, 2 boons if target is disabled/controlled/down.
* Psychic Force is not useful in zerg. Maybe it's useful somewhere else? Otherwise I'll suggest reworking this.
* Merge Blade Renewal and Bladesong Distortion into one skill. Perhaps gain 1~2 blades whenever hit during the period.
* Bladeturn Requim should hit much harder. Like maybe 10 times harder. Remove channeled block.
* Bladesong Dissonance should hit for 5 targets by default. Cast time should be removed because there's already projectile traveling time. Trait should improve this skill so that it stuns.
* Thousand Cuts should hit much harder, and much wider. Also add some conditions if not removing a boon. Duration and interval can be tweaked accordingly.
* All of the dagger skills should be reworked, as stated multiple times by a lot of people. I do still use it, because it hits extremely hard when fire at point blank. All of the skills can be reflected so all of them don't work most of the time, but if it hits, it really hits pretty hard. Useful to cleave down (some down have skills to destroy projectile so don't work on them), or burn the NPC lords/guards, but that's it. Some movement skills as suggested by others will be nice, or we can rework how the whole projectile works. Or maybe make Psychic Riposte work on all the blade skills, including dagger. This might be overpowered but just an idea. It won't solve all the issues it has because it's still an extremely slow weapons which is easy to just side steps if not fired at point blank.

If all of above are implemented, it will be over tuned. Just some random ideas for inspiration.

14 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

After a 5-10 min fight against a blob in SM lord room (the only play where virtuoso can kinda shine due to the chokepoints and the restricted area of the room), I managed to reach 1 mil dmg and do a decent 125 strips via bladesongs, which frankly was on par with a mediocre chrono and dmg was within top 3 (funnily enough 2 more virtuosos were below me).

I'll share some of my experience.

Indeed in SMC it's one of the places that I can hit top DPS much easier than elsewhere. I did not use Feedback, nor do I really strip a lot of boons though, because most of the gameplay I had did not involve with heavy melee, therefore Bladeturn Requim doesn't really hit most of the time.

Virtuoso is a strong pirateship glass cannon. Every time when we went into melee, my DPS rank dropped very quickly after the first burst was done. Top DPS skills change quite often depending on the fights. Typical candidates:

* Spatial Surge, greatsword auto attack. Yes, this skill can be the top DPS skill when the fight never went into melee, or very seldomly. This is because this skill is very fast, and has 1200 range, great tagging skill, reminded me the old Guardian lootstick staff. This doesn't really mean anything beside that the fight was probably very boring though. It's mostly just tagging, no one will die from just that.
* Mind Stab. The damage is not bad, and it's fast, cooldown is low. When this skill is the top DPS skill, it usually means that again, there's very little pushing, and mostly just pirateships firing at each other. However, this is a great finishing skill because it's fast. Chain this skill after the burst (better be the last skill because this skill has quite some aftercast), it can often take some enemies down. Not that this means DPS though, it's more a bursting skill. I also wish we can get boon strip back on this skill. Phantasmal Berserker is not reliable at all.
* Rain of Swords. Even though the damage is quite bad, when clashing this is still often the top DPS skill because it pulses after all. If the enemies didn't just walk away, that can accumulate. Think of this skill as a much weaker version of Well of Suffering, and that's it.
* Thousand Cuts. Despite being a even weaker skill than Rain of Swords, it can still happen that it's the top DPS skill. When this happens, it usually means that... Rain of Swords was cast in the wrong place or wrong timing, or the fight was too short that Rain of Swords can only be cast once. If there's anything better than Rain of Swords, it's probably the instant cast, very little tell than Rain of Swords, and it's unblockable, however that's it. If I can use Gravity Well in Virtuoso I'll pick Gravity Well any time.
* Bladesong Harmony. This skill is not reliable at all, so for a prolonged fight, it's unlikely it would always work due to the bugs in Psychic Riposte. If the bugs are fixed, this skill might be reliably the top DPS skill. It's extremely strong with 5 blades and each hit will strip a boon. It's very slow cast + animation + projectile flying time, so it's not very easy to pull off though, requiring some lucks or waiting for the opportunity. If this skill is the top DPS skill, it usually means the fight was very short, or enemies were scattering around thus other actual pulsing AoE skills weren't effective.
* Bladesong Sorrow. This is a weaker but more reliable version of Bladesong Harmony. It can also hit hard even though weaker than Bladesong Harmony, but it's faster to cast and the projectiles are also faster, making it much more reliable. If this skill is top DPS skill, it probably means Bladesong Harmony didn't hit, or one forgot to use Bladesong Harmony first.

I regret a bit that I spent too much time writing this. Hope it's worth it!

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 hour ago, godfat.2604 said:

I really wish this could be the case, unfortunately given the current status, at best I think it's just viable, or acceptable, not really good comparing to Scourge, nor Spellbreaker. From my experience, what Virtuoso can do the best in zerg is the extremely high burst/spike damage. If I have 5 blades, and Psychic Riposte is not bugged, I can easily get a few down every time I cast all the bursting skills. However the damage cannot sustain, so if the fight lasts longer, my DPS would generally drop down quickly comparing to other typical DPS classes.

I think the main problem is that Anet don't know where to put Virtuoso. I bet they didn't even really think about that, because Virtuoso is a pretty clear PvE profession, even the designer behind it admitted that they only knew about PvE. Being slightly viable was probably just a side effect from that.

There are so much we can do to make Virtuoso better, yet they never really did anything beside introducing the bugged Psychic Riposte, making Bladesongs a bit more reliable (when it's in beta, it's extremely easy to cancel them), and that's probably it. Granted, without those, Virtuoso would not even be viable, so good improvements I suppose.

If I could make changes, I'll suggest the followings. Note that I would welcome any ways to make it better, not necessarily using my suggestions. I just want to provide some inspiration if one is looking for it:

* Rain of Swords should hit much harder, and also causes cripple in additionally
* Sword of Decimation should have faster cast, given that there's animation delay, it's actually slower than just having cast time. Or we can remove the animation and make it faster, but it would be better to keep the tell for counter play, so just make it cast faster. It can also add a few stacks of vulnerability, and remove a boon when hit, 2 boons if target is disabled/controlled/down.
* Psychic Force is not useful in zerg. Maybe it's useful somewhere else? Otherwise I'll suggest reworking this.
* Merge Blade Renewal and Bladesong Distortion into one skill. Perhaps gain 1~2 blades whenever hit during the period.
* Bladeturn Requim should hit much harder. Like maybe 10 times harder. Remove channeled block.
* Bladesong Dissonance should hit for 5 targets by default. Cast time should be removed because there's already projectile traveling time. Trait should improve this skill so that it stuns.
* Thousand Cuts should hit much harder, and much wider. Also add some conditions if not removing a boon. Duration and interval can be tweaked accordingly.
* All of the dagger skills should be reworked, as stated multiple times by a lot of people. I do still use it, because it hits extremely hard when fire at point blank. All of the skills can be reflected so all of them don't work most of the time, but if it hits, it really hits pretty hard. Useful to cleave down (some down have skills to destroy projectile so don't work on them), or burn the NPC lords/guards, but that's it. Some movement skills as suggested by others will be nice, or we can rework how the whole projectile works. Or maybe make Psychic Riposte work on all the blade skills, including dagger. This might be overpowered but just an idea. It won't solve all the issues it has because it's still an extremely slow weapons which is easy to just side steps if not fired at point blank.

If all of above are implemented, it will be over tuned. Just some random ideas for inspiration.

I'll share some of my experience.

Indeed in SMC it's one of the places that I can hit top DPS much easier than elsewhere. I did not use Feedback, nor do I really strip a lot of boons though, because most of the gameplay I had did not involve with heavy melee, therefore Bladeturn Requim doesn't really hit most of the time.

Virtuoso is a strong pirateship glass cannon. Every time when we went into melee, my DPS rank dropped very quickly after the first burst was done. Top DPS skills change quite often depending on the fights. Typical candidates:

* Spatial Surge, greatsword auto attack. Yes, this skill can be the top DPS skill when the fight never went into melee, or very seldomly. This is because this skill is very fast, and has 1200 range, great tagging skill, reminded me the old Guardian lootstick staff. This doesn't really mean anything beside that the fight was probably very boring though. It's mostly just tagging, no one will die from just that.
* Mind Stab. The damage is not bad, and it's fast, cooldown is low. When this skill is the top DPS skill, it usually means that again, there's very little pushing, and mostly just pirateships firing at each other. However, this is a great finishing skill because it's fast. Chain this skill after the burst (better be the last skill because this skill has quite some aftercast), it can often take some enemies down. Not that this means DPS though, it's more a bursting skill. I also wish we can get boon strip back on this skill. Phantasmal Berserker is not reliable at all.
* Rain of Swords. Even though the damage is quite bad, when clashing this is still often the top DPS skill because it pulses after all. If the enemies didn't just walk away, that can accumulate. Think of this skill as a much weaker version of Well of Suffering, and that's it.
* Thousand Cuts. Despite being a even weaker skill than Rain of Swords, it can still happen that it's the top DPS skill. When this happens, it usually means that... Rain of Swords was cast in the wrong place or wrong timing, or the fight was too short that Rain of Swords can only be cast once. If there's anything better than Rain of Swords, it's probably the instant cast, very little tell than Rain of Swords, and it's unblockable, however that's it. If I can use Gravity Well in Virtuoso I'll pick Gravity Well any time.
* Bladesong Harmony. This skill is not reliable at all, so for a prolonged fight, it's unlikely it would always work due to the bugs in Psychic Riposte. If the bugs are fixed, this skill might be reliably the top DPS skill. It's extremely strong with 5 blades and each hit will strip a boon. It's very slow cast + animation + projectile flying time, so it's not very easy to pull off though, requiring some lucks or waiting for the opportunity. If this skill is the top DPS skill, it usually means the fight was very short, or enemies were scattering around thus other actual pulsing AoE skills weren't effective.
* Bladesong Sorrow. This is a weaker but more reliable version of Bladesong Harmony. It can also hit hard even though weaker than Bladesong Harmony, but it's faster to cast and the projectiles are also faster, making it much more reliable. If this skill is top DPS skill, it probably means Bladesong Harmony didn't hit, or one forgot to use Bladesong Harmony first.

I regret a bit that I spent too much time writing this. Hope it's worth it!

I made similar observations so it's not a wasted discussion!

My main boonrip came from Bladesong Harmony successfuly piercing enemies that were well-stacked.

My second main boonrip was ofc Phantasmal Berserker and ig absorption sigil on focus pull did something too once in a while.

Feedback I utilized because I noticed just how much better numbers the other Virtuosos were getting without rly using any skills. Needless to say when I used it I was far above them in DPS so clearly knowing when to drop this skill is essential, but not my main burst if that makes sense.

Dagger I usually dropped either point blank to cleave or in chokepoints where the hits were more or less guaranteed.

focus 4 does quite low dmg for a full glass build, tho ig it matches the utility role of focus?

Requiem I used where kiting back to not get hit by rev hammers, only used it once offensively, quite insignificant dps and high risk inside the enemy bomb with no support.

I actually have a lot of fun dropping my main burst initially, but to maintain some of that constant pressure, I try to cycle through GS and dagger a lot till my CDs are back up and ofc as said, Feedback is excellent filler.

Ofc I run with no stunbreak, no cleanse, so I need the distortion/requiem for key moments and dodge reflect/heal reflect play a big role when in long range for me.

Also yeah, surprised by autos doing so good cleave on stacked enemies tbh.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Grand Marshal.4098

[Tiah.3091]

On 1/8/2023 at 3:52 PM, Levetty.1279 said:

Virtuoso was designed specifically to be bad in PvP.

I know this thread is about WvW, but it doesn't feel like Virt is all that horrible in PvP in general (I mean sPvP). Especially now, that it has distortion. It has a crapload of active and passive defense, so you can survive fairly well even with a glass build. And the shatters are pretty nice too (unless enemy has too much reflect), considering that you can spam them much more often than other mesmer specs.

 

Personally, my main gripe with virt is dagger, which is just beyond trash for no apparent reason. All 3 skills is just plain damage with 0 utility (not even a single puny condi nor boon), and not too much damage for that matter.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Tiah.3091

[Flow.2947]

8-10k is max dps on full Berserker. and this is only possible when you use sod blade rain thousand cuts gs2 into f1. (zerg vs zerg organised play) 

 

i think for a pure dps spec it is a tiny bit to low.

I dont think it is good to have unblockable only on GM 1 trait. The other GM2&3  definitly need a buff compared to GM1. 

 

for me dagger has potential nr2 skill unblockable and nr3 groundtargeted. (might already be too much) 

 

[godfat.2604]

22 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

I made similar observations so it's not a wasted discussion!

Thanks! There are a lot that I am happy to discuss, but being a regular reader, sometimes I am really unsure if it might be worth to take time to write down my thoughts 😅 It takes so much time to convert random thoughts into logical languages.

22 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

My main boonrip came from Bladesong Harmony successfuly piercing enemies that were well-stacked.

That is surprising to know. I always assume it would be coming from Bladeturn Requim because this skill can strip so many boons provided that one can clash and follow the enemies. Bladesong Harmony can strip quite a lot of boons, too, but that really requires the enemies stacking in a line or really tight, and it also needs to be fired closer to the targets. I don't often get good opportunities for this. I generally fired it for range spike rather than when getting closer. That said, if Psychic Riposte can be fixed, my experience can be quite different I suppose.

22 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

My second main boonrip was ofc Phantasmal Berserker and ig absorption sigil on focus pull did something too once in a while.

This is probably quite different from my experience. Granted, I can't really tell which skills strip the boons unless I am paying attention to the numbers when I used the skill. Is there a way to read this from ArcDPS? My gut feeling tells me that my Phantasmal Berserker just won't hit. I wish we can move back boon strips to Mind Stab.

I also didn't use Sigil of Absorption because I don't think I have enough CC to utilize that. If it's under a tight fight, I generally camp greatsword because otherwise my DPS will drop to the bottom. I only swap to focus if I know there's going to be some down time, or I absolutely need to use focus. I wish Phantasmal Warden can be reverted back as well, even though that probably still won't make it work in a tight fight at all either.

22 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

focus 4 does quite low dmg for a full glass build, tho ig it matches the utility role of focus?

Did you mean focus 5, or did you take Warden's Feedback from Inspiration for reflection? I would guess you meant for focus 5, because taking Inspiration will greatly reduce the damage.

23 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Requiem I used where kiting back to not get hit by rev hammers, only used it once offensively, quite insignificant dps and high risk inside the enemy bomb with no support.

The damage is so low that it can almost be ignored. As for running inside the enemies, certainly that I am assuming with a Firebrand + another healing support. If I am running without support, I'll keep away with the melee train and only use it for defense.

23 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

I actually have a lot of fun dropping my main burst initially, but to maintain some of that constant pressure, I try to cycle through GS and dagger a lot till my CDs are back up and ofc as said, Feedback is excellent filler.

I did enjoy watching my DPS skyrockets to the top for the first 10 seconds. It's sad that it's going to drop pretty quickly as the fight continues, but at least down contribution can easily remain at the top. I am not sure about your experience, but I would suggest just camping greatsword, because even just 1111111 has better damage than using dagger, and there's no damage with focus. Of course, if you need pull then you'll have to swap anyway. Or maybe you can consider using scepter to replace dagger. One more block you can trigger for Psychic Riposte, and Confusing Images while very slow, it has some damage, better than never hitting dagger...

23 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Ofc I run with no stunbreak, no cleanse, so I need the distortion/requiem for key moments and dodge reflect/heal reflect play a big role when in long range for me.

At first I run no stunbreak nor cleanses, too, however lately I replaced Sword of Decimation with Mantra of Concentration after it's buffed, mostly because I noticed I needed more stabilities, and Sword of Decimation didn't do a lot of damage anyway. It's certainly nice to add it to the chain of burst, especially for hitting on the wall, but whatever, if I have even better support 😛

Speaking to cleanse, when are they going to buff Mantra of Resolve? It's so bad comparing to the other cleansing skills other professions have...

[Junkpile.7439]

Didn't know that psionics is real word. I was thinking that allods online devs just did put random letters together when they were naming psionicist class.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Junkpile.7439