The Virtuoso nerfs were motivated by spite, not balance

[Seventh Ranger.3968]

Personally I never even found the chain blocking and distorting that hard to deal with anyways, since all of it except the F4 had to be channeled, so enemy Virtuosos couldn't attack you either, but it was definitely a little stronger and more annoying to 1v1 than some builds. That said, you still didn't see that many Virtuosos in pvp because their damage was mostly single target, so they kind of fell off in teamfights, to a certain extent. While one or maybe even two of the nerfs they were bludgeoned with could be justified, the spec was absolutely gutted, which speaks to the devs just being spiteful because none of them play Virtuoso, and don't like having to figure out how to deal with it in pvp. As someone who plays both as and against Virtuosos from time to time, I really don't think the nerfs were necessary or warranted, and if some sort of nerf really was necessary, I think reducing the duration of Blade Renewal would've been more than enough by itself. It should've also been accompanied by a proportional cooldown reduction, to compensate: 2 second duration on a 40 second cooldown.

[Richard Marcinko.5132]

I've responded with this before but it still holds true, if you take into account the leak that devs balance based on the input of 5 or 6 people and don't listen to the people playing the game, all of this makes sense.  They don't balance for players, they balance based on what helps the friends they play with.

[Dante.1508]

The Virtuoso nerfs were motivated by spite, not balance

Isn't that how they do all the balance in this game?

Edited July 4, 2023 by Dante.1508

[Mell.4873]

I wouldn't even say the Devs need to be called out. I have many times posted in the Mesmer forum about the posts that vilified the Damage immunity. 

The PvP forum was filled with people who wanted Virtuoso straight up removed since they didn't know what animations to watch for and bursted into a Wall. 

[Veprovina.4876]

5 hours ago, Seventh Ranger.3968 said:

chain blocking and distorting

If that was the problem, elementalists would be nerfed to the ground but here we are.

[Javonovich.5280]

The block/invuln builds were a symptom of a poorly designed class for pvp to begin with. The constant blocks and invuln were awful gameplay resulting from a bad class that had distortion slapped onto it at the last minute because it sucked that bad in competitive modes.

After distortion bandaged Virt, it was only useful as an ignorable nuisance in spvp, where you had to hope someone took the bait and fought you. Otherwise, opponents could really just rotate around you or take advantage of the fact you couldn’t hold a point because of invulnerability. It fulfilled no role that other classes couldn’t do better.

After the nerfs, we got no compensation to actually make Virt useful in spvp. None of the major problems are fixed. It’s worse than ignorable now, it’s farmable.

I don’t know if this was motivated by spite, but I do think it’s motivated by ignorance of Virt and of Mesmer as a whole. 

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

42 minutes ago, Javonovich.5280 said:

The block/invuln builds were a symptom of a poorly designed class for pvp to begin with. The constant blocks and invuln were awful gameplay resulting from a bad class that had distortion slapped onto it at the last minute because it sucked that bad in competitive modes.

After distortion bandaged Virt, it was only useful as an ignorable nuisance in spvp, where you had to hope someone took the bait and fought you. Otherwise, opponents could really just rotate around you or take advantage of the fact you couldn’t hold a point because of invulnerability. It fulfilled no role that other classes couldn’t do better.

After the nerfs, we got no compensation to actually make Virt useful in spvp. None of the major problems are fixed. It’s worse than ignorable now, it’s farmable.

I don’t know if this was motivated by spite, but I do think it’s motivated by ignorance of Virt and of Mesmer as a whole. 

This. Virt is terribly designed. Giving it distortion was a stupid decision by the devs. It isn’t a fun class to play with or against. 

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

This. Virt is terribly designed. Giving it distortion was a stupid decision by the devs. It isn’t a fun class to play with or against. 

I mean that is not entirely correct. All the EoD specs suffering from essentially Crunch. They didn't have long to come up with a new theme and mechanic for each Elite so instead they provided every Class with a simplified core version.

Virtuoso is essentially a Ranged Spellcaster with a somewhat unique spin. It's the only Elite in the game where its core mechanic and damage boost come from piercing enemies. Rather than using a cooldown reset (Continuum Split) like Chronomancier or Dodging (Ambushes) like Mirage.
It really easy to overlook but during Strikes/Raids this really comes becomes apparent, with the ability to essentially inflict the same DPS on two or more enemies via piercing attacks. Finally, the damage immunity made some encounter much easier since Virtuoso could take some agro from certain PvE boss mechanics.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

22 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I mean that is not entirely correct. All the EoD specs suffering from essentially Crunch. They didn't have long to come up with a new theme and mechanic for each Elite so instead they provided every Class with a simplified core version.

Virtuoso is essentially a Ranged Spellcaster with a somewhat unique spin. It's the only Elite in the game where its core mechanic and damage boost come from piercing enemies. Rather than using a cooldown reset (Continuum Split) like Chronomancier or Dodging (Ambushes) like Mirage.
It really easy to overlook but during Strikes/Raids this really comes becomes apparent, with the ability to essentially inflict the same DPS on two or more enemies via piercing attacks. Finally, the damage immunity made some encounter much easier since Virtuoso take some agro from certain PvE boss mechanics.

Im only talking from a PvP perspective. I don’t know enough about PvE to talk about it. PvE is totally different beast I have no idea about. 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

All the EoD specs suffering from essentially Crunch. They didn't have long to come up with a new theme and mechanic for each Elite so instead they provided every Class with a simplified core version.

First time I kind of agree with you. I don't think it's lack of time tho, but lack of both knowleadge of the game and inspiration. Virt is an abomination in terms of lore, gameplay, uniqueness. It's the laziest spec I've seen in an mmorpg by far which could have been avoided if devs could read since there are a dozen of threads with more interesting specs created by players.
 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Junkpile.7439]

It's always same. They add these totally broken specs in game, fotm abusers play these and get mad when nerfs come.

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

Im only talking from a PvP perspective. I don’t know enough about PvE to talk about it. PvE is totally different beast I have no idea about. 

Conquest PvP my logic doesn't really apply but WvW you can definitely run Virtuoso in the way I describe.
I have seen some amazing Videos of people getting top DPS during a Zerg Clash. Even after the Invulnerability nerfs, I saw some nice beta shield gameplay.

I have some infamy around a post where I claimed Virtuoso can one shot players in WvW.
Up until last patch this was possible in two ways; Power, Stun + F1 burst and then Condition, F2 + Confusion self-kill.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Ixl Super Eu Ixl.3259]

It is because of the reliable unblockable confusion in between the solid defenses, which was a good answer to the current elementalist problem. Elementalist is a high APM class with projectile hate that constantly gets buffs, and CMC the knowledgeable but slow elementalist saw that good virtuosos had the sauce to handle the case so he handled it first behind closed doors at dev city. Glad I barely play this dumpster fire game anymore. P.S. I used to pull CMC through the old holes in skyhammer so I'm okay with him getting the last laugh. 

[necromaniac.7629]

i can't take these thread titles seriously

[Richard Marcinko.5132]

Says the obvious necro main....

[necromaniac.7629]

6 hours ago, Richard Marcinko.5132 said:

Says the obvious necro main....

i am a mes main, you don't know me. lol.

[Salt Mode.3780]

As a mesmer main I have no clue why they decided to remove the block instead of removing the distortion. The identity of Virtuoso is blocking we already have a utility that acts like distortion for us. It was extremely annoying to fight Virtuoso with the distortion but prior to buffing it by giving it distortion I personally never had an issue killing virtuosos even when they had distortion as block ties into too many traits for Virtuoso then it does for distortion.