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In what game modes do you find Virtuoso enjoyable?


Gibson.4036

In what game modes do you find Virtuoso enjoyable?  

39 members have voted

  1. 1. Where is Virtuoso fun, check all that apply

    • Instanced PvE
      24
    • General Open World
      22
    • Metas
      15
    • sPVP
      7
    • WvW
      14
    • None
      4


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On the various sites, I find Virtuoso builds for each area of the game, but a kind of middling enthusiasm about most of them. It only seems to get really high marks as DPS in instanced PVE. I do, however, see a fair amount of Virtuosos doing business aorund the banks and TP and know meta-build sites aren't necessarily an accurate picture of things.

So where are you playing and enjoying your Virtuoso? What makes the espec shine in that particular area? What makes it lack in other areas?

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Okay so, loaded question of course, because 'enjoyable' is subjective.  I was considering doing a 1 year review of Virtuoso but given that I don't care about logging into GW2 the last few months, not much point in it.

I have played Condi Virtuoso in Instanced and Open World content even soloing some Champ Bounties.  It is no where near as enjoyable or as powerful as Chrono prior to EoD launch (yes Virt does more DPS, but Chrono can simply do far more in a wider range of situations, that's power).  Chrono has been so poor since EoD that I have considered it basically unplayable (although it is slowly getting better).  Stuck with Virtuoso being the most cohesive mesmer eSpec to play, I enjoyed it for a month but there is no skill involved once you understand what to do.  To quote myself from the Virtuoso Beta "Count to 5, dump daggers, repeat".

So is Virtuoso enjoyable, not really, but it has been at least for me the most reliable Mesmer eSpec since EoD.  It is actually pretty boring when compared to other profession eSpecs, as you are basically a one trick pony.  I've dabbled with most of the other profession eSpecs over the past year, and I would say that there are a number of more enjoyable play styles than that of Virtuoso.

Edited by Mungo Zen.9364
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2 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Okay so, loaded question of course, because 'enjoyable' is subjective.  I was considering doing a 1 year review of Virtuoso but given that I don't care about logging into GW2 the last few months, not much point in it.

I have played Condi Virtuoso in Instanced and Open World content even soloing some Champ Bounties.  It is no where near as enjoyable or as powerful as Chrono prior to EoD launch (yes Virt does more DPS, but Chrono can simply do far more in a wider range of situations, that's power).  Chrono has been so poor since EoD that I have considered it basically unplayable (although it is slowly getting better).  Stuck with Virtuoso being the most cohesive mesmer eSpec to play, I enjoyed it for a month but there is no skill involved once you understand what to do.  To quote myself from the Virtuoso Beta "Count to 5, dump daggers, repeat".

So is Virtuoso enjoyable, not really, but it has been at least for me the most reliable Mesmer eSpec since EoD.  It is actually pretty boring when compared to other profession eSpecs, as you are basically a one trick pony.  I've dabbled with most of the other profession eSpecs over the past year, and I would say that there are a number of more enjoyable play styles than that of Virtuoso.

Thanks! That's the kind of feedback I was interested in.

'Enjoyable' is defnitely subjective. But it's helpful to hear what people feel and some of the why.

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PvE only. It is good for low tier fractals, openworld, and any instanced PvE where there is quick phasing. In instanced PvE whenever you want to apply quickness or alacrity you would still opt for chrono or mirage. I am not a fan of condi virtuoso but power virtuoso brings in extra burst you do not have on chrono.
However I do not recommend it for WvW or PvP whatsoever: I would definitely run chrono in those modes.

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In PvE you essentially spend less time worrying about your rotation and more time on mob positioning. In most cases Virtuoso will get lower damage than most other end game professions even Mirage but as soon as you have more than one enemy it's a different story.
Being able to line a sight multiple enemies is very fun and can exponentially increase your damage.

Edited by Mell.4873
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sPvP you need to duo-que, and in WvW you need someone to assist you in kills. But if you can find this helpful person (like me with my Wife who plays Virtouso) it is amazing.

It starts with Mass Invisibility; this is easily the best stealth in the game. The ability to capture multiple people while they are moving puts it above most other forms of invisibility that require you to stand in one place.

Aegis application synergies really well with Virtuoso which can get Quickness and even Regeneration from blocking. Along with this the Inspiration line allows you to passively heal while you spawn blades.

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The only enjoyable part about Virtuoso is how brain dead easy it is to play.  I only switch to it when I just want to run around wvw not wanting to worry about dying.  In pve, specifically raids, fractals, and strikes, it's such an easy elite to play to do damage.  Low effort elites are not enjoyable.

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I tried really hard to like Virtu, but it just doesn't play well. My idea of Virtu is similiar to this video:

 

So like, when Virtu was first announced, that's how I thought it would play. Similar to how engi's can nade spam with 360 degrees movement, I imagined Virtu running around, kiting people while throwing daggers.

Then the biggest issue came, and still to this day I can't play virtu because of it and that is you need to be directly facing your target to land pretty much all your important skills and that just isn't fun. It severely limits the kiting you can do and furthermore without any clones... well yeah.

So I know mechanically it's pretty strong atm, but for me it is just not fun to play at all in any game mode. My brain kinda goes offline whenever I try it because it's so simple compared to any other elite spec for Mes. I get it for newer players, or even just players who want a more chill Mes experience, so not knocking anyone here, but between how awful it feels to play (for me) AND the constant 5 dagger graphic even out of combat, I could never get into it unfortunately.

 

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16 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

PvE only. It is good for low tier fractals, openworld, and any instanced PvE where there is quick phasing. 

What does quick phasing mean? I've seen it referenced before, but when I research there are several different things that seem to be called phasing.

14 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

In PvE you essentially spend less time worrying about your rotation and more time on mob positioning. In most cases Virtuoso will get lower damage than most other end game professions even Mirage but as soon as you have more than one enemy it's a different story.
Being able to line a sight multiple enemies is very fun and can exponentially increase your damage.

I did play staff Daredevil for quite a while, which has a braindead rotation but a lot of ability to position.

How does Virt do better with multiple enemies? I feel pretty cleavy on my axe Mirage. I got the impression Virt was mostly a single target spec, which is part of why I haven't tried it much yet. By LoS, do you mean that to line them up between yourself and your target like you have to do with Sc/P specter in order to hit multiple targets?

21 minutes ago, Waffles.5632 said:

Then the biggest issue came, and still to this day I can't play virtu because of it and that is you need to be directly facing your target to land pretty much all your important skills and that just isn't fun. It severely limits the kiting you can do and furthermore without any clones... well yeah.

I definitely remember this from a brief time trying Virt in PvP. In PvE, you can reliably circle strafe predictable targets, but trying to constantly face chaotic players is challenging.

I did do a few matches of Virt PvP some time last year, when people were briefly freaking out about them. It was easy to melt unaware targets, but also so easy for anyone who was aware to step out of my burst.

Thanks all, this feedback's filling in the picture that is vaguely hinted at on the guide sites.

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Virtuoso definitely does great damage (fully ranged as well) when put with the proper supports. It generally has a pretty easy rotation, and I hit 30k dps with little effort. However, I really only find it fun in instanced pve or in large meta groups where you're guaranteed to have outside healing and key boons like quickness, alacrity, and might. Otherwise, I find it to be quite squishy in solo situations, and chrono and mirage have better access to more reliable defensive tools while not losing as much damage. (Being able to supply your own boons is nice.) As for competitive modes, I don't play pvp as much, but in wvw the projectile hate is so prevalent that virtuoso can't do much beyond some smaller scale fights. 

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42 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

How does Virt do better with multiple enemies?

With the exception of Bladesong Dissonance (without Master of Fragmentation) and Bladesong Distortion, weapon, utility and profession skills for Virtuoso are 5 target.  Even the AA chain is 5 target.

As Virtuoso skills are all multi-target you are doing the same damage to the first target as the second to fifth target in most cases.  If you are running the Condi variant, then every additional target you stack bleed on triggers the blade stocking mechanism.  This increases the opportunity for DPS the more enemies you face and essentially makes you stronger if you are facing more enemies.

Using the Jade Tech Protocols I have found it really easy to chain pull mobs in Open World and make them melt.  Combined with player positioning you can abuse NPC pathing to force mobs into clumps to take advantage of the AoE and piercing you have access to.

Again, this isn't incredibly engaging gameplay as every combat is basically the same, even when pushing the envelope of what a Virtuoso can do.

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@Gibson.4036

Quick phasing means the boss becomes invuln after hitting a percentage of health (usually 66% or every 25%) or outright dies in seconds. A good example is Nightmare fractal where after you do enough damage it progresses on to the next stage of the fight. In addition, the exposed window is now 10 seconds for fractals whereas it used to be 5 seconds with a larger bonus. Another good example is the Freezie strike mission.

If your group is coordinated or the fractal is a low tier then power damage is preferred. Power virtuoso preloads the blades which allows for a higher burst into the initial damage window. The ramp time of condition builds will not match a power burst in any scenario where the boss health is low or the phases generally are quick.

If you look at the damage logs for common builds you will see the condition builds generally ramp up over time and power bursts hard in the first seconds of the damage output and trails off.

Since the most played class is probably guardian, here is an example of condition firebrand and Dragonhunter:

https://dps.report/5khD-20221215-172651_golem  
10 seconds later it is ~31K DPS ; it takes about 22 seconds to get to 80% of golem health for 1 million total damage.
https://dps.report/iJlg-20230223-101906_golem
Dragonhunter bursts to 55K in the initial seconds and then drops to ~ 40K at 10 seconds mark before leveling out to about 36K sustained DPS
It takes about 20 seconds to get to 80% of the golem health for 1 million total damage ; first 10% in below 10 seconds. What this means is if 4 players with fractal potions can pull off this kind of damage you can kill a 1 million health boss in one exposed cycle (10s) ; likewise 8 players with this kind of damage can take a 4 million chunk of health off a strike or raid boss in about 10 seconds. Most bosses are on the order of 20 million for PvE normal mode.

Of course the most burst in PvE is generally bladesworn (although there is a seconds long precharging, there is a ~90K peak even after PvE Dragon Trigger nerfs) and soulbeast (which had some burst taken down due to one wolf pack changes to 1s interval but ~66K peak). Dragonhunter and holo (~52K peak) were considered in the same vein previously. Power virtuoso peaks around 63K but it is later on around 5 seconds in due to blades.

This is a major reason why there was a huge disparity in perception among players that were doing low DPS and those that were doing high DPS with power builds. Lower power DPS is more punishing than low DPS on condition builds and generally speaking condition focused builds are far less penalized when dealing with mechanics or incoming damage (due to scholar runes). So when you see someone preferring condition virtuoso over power virtuoso this is a similar reasoning in a nutshell.

Edited by Infusion.7149
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