Chronos and Virtuosos PvE Defense/Sustain Problems

[SeTect.5918]

Hello everyone,

First off, I'm not going to suggest anything that will increase the damage of benchmarks. I will also avoid changes to PvP and WvW.
And No, this isn't going to be a post about how hard it is to survive with these e-specs whenever you start playing solo in PvE.

Rather, its a post about how you have to trade by far too much damage to gain the defense you need to survive.

Mirage can solo champions and legendary enemies quite easily due to its dodge spam and maintains a dps of 18-20k.
Mirages dodge spam mechanic is probably why the core traitlines have that low access to self-defense because it would overload mirage too much if mirage would have both dodge spam and good heal abilities. The clones that often get focused dont come too short too on mirage.

Chrono and Virtuoso on the other hand have it far harder.


Chrono:
Chrono is a power spec, which means soloing hard champions (like mushroom queen or some of the PoF bounties) and legendary enemies are far harder to solo because of the lack of defensive stats.
What would help are probably some boons like protection or regeneration to receive less damage. A minor trait to let Chrono regen hp while having Quickness/alac would also be pretty nice (Similar to Scrappers Rapid_Regeneration). Traits like that could be balanced that way, that these are different per game mode so that this regenerative healing effect or the protection and regeneration mentioned before do not exist in PvP or WvW. I am also talking about adding this effect to an existing minor trait in the chronomancer traitline and not a fully new trait.
The thought behind this:
Chronomancer lacks defense and to achieve this defense, lots of players use the chaos or inspiration specializations. The problem with that is, that chaos is a self-defense / Condi traitline and inspiration is a self-defense / support traitline. None of these give bonuses to power damage, thats why the dps with power chrono and these traitlines is very low. Chrono also needs Dueling to achieve the fury uptime for itself and its illusions. To access good damage you have to use Dueling + Illusions or Domination, but these have no (or not enough) defensive traits, so the defensive abilites have to be straight up in the Chronomancer traitline to make a usage of Dueling + Illusions or Domination possible while having decent defense.

Virtuoso:
As Virtuoso its mandatory to have permanant fury, each of the major master traits give fury, but not enough to have to perm. Thats why its needed to use the Dueling spec on that one too. Virtuoso has it also pretty hard to gain self-boons. Virtuoso has no clones that sometimes tank away something for you. To achieve boons, you have to swap in sigils or utility skills that reduce your dps further.
On Duelist's_Reversal I would suggest to increase the duration of regeneration, fury and quickness from 3 to 4-5 seconds in PvE only and to reduce the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 2 seconds since this trait does only trigger on successful evade or block anyway.
Maybe some access to might and done.
This should probably be enough to give Virtuoso enough dps and defense in solo play to let it deal around 18k solo dps while having decent defense.

Please keep in mind all suggestions are for PvE only. Also keep in mind the suggestions I made are for builds to solo Champions and Legendary enemies as easy as mirage or other e-specs off-mesmer.

I also want to mention that lots of e-specs have these problems and imo there is a huge imbalance in self-defensive abilities between e-specs atm.
An example: A solo Deadeye does far more damage than a solo daredevil. A solo bladesworn or berserker does far more damage than a solo spellbreaker. A solo mechanist or Holo does far more damage than solo scrapper and so on.
Here is a link of a youtuber named "Lord Hizen" who made a tier list and shares my opionion about Mirage in comparison to Virtuoso and Chrono in solo play:  
https://youtu.be/UjPSQgr_0jk?si=FkDP7rRLbtBBgOgt.
Please keep in mind that I came to my conclusion myself and its not based on this video. I just linked it to show someone else who shares my opinion.
Also keep in mind these are just suggestions. The suggestions are just ideas I came up with days ago before I thought them through and released them here now.

Also some ending words:
I am a huge fan of soloing open world content and duoing fractals.
And I have the opinion that every e-spec should have possibilites to maintain self-boons and self-defense to have decent solo or duo builds. Not just 33% of professions e-specs while some other professions have e-specs that are all perfect for doing so.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day.

Edited January 2 by SeTect.5918
Spelling

[Mevelios.4809]

Increasing virtuoso sustain...? No, as a main mesmer I wouldn't want that especially if it were to come with any nerf to counterbalance that. Jagged mind coupled to Bloodsong when having the Signet of the ether up lets you generate, even on power builds, an absurd amount of blades you must spend to keep regenerating.

If you do not spend blades you stop generating them, hence you stop regenerating. The amount is so absurd from the two above traits you won't know what to do with them on a power build against a single target, so for condi virts with Jagged mind... Nah. You should dodge just like mirage does, and where mirage relies on vigor uptime & Deception utilities, virtuoso instead gets an absurd amount of self-healing. If playing solo's your issue, rely on Duelist's reversal while you're at it - unlike mirage, when your virtuoso will dodge you'll be getting several boons: regen (more healing!) +quickness (more blades, more healing!) +fury.

The real strength of mirage for soloing tougher targets merely comes from its many dodges, so it's highly restricted by whatever players think of behind the umbrella term of "skill" - knowledge of the mob's pattern, knowledge of the character played, reaction time, and so on and so forth. On the opposite, virtuoso's largely carried by its innate mechanics but that doesn't mean any virtuoso can facetank everything - dodging every once in a while's still necessary!

Whenever adds come in, since for both power & condi virtuoso builds you want to stick to the dagger, you can obviously resort to an offhand focus and pull them in (especially since your attacks are piercing), then if projectiles are pressuring you the focus' warden denies them for a while. So honestly, no... virtuoso doesn't need any extra sustain or whatever. It doesn't lack any self-heal, but maybe you weren't simply aware of how different blades are from ordinary clones - unlike clone replacement, when you reach the blades cap, just like warriors' adrenaline your production is stopped! 😉

Chrono's a different beast. Tougher topic because it's heavily relying on shatters with the smallest clone generation ability of all three e-specs. I'm fine with it not being as efficient as the two other e-specs for soloing content, but it's capable enough already, although indeed at a cost. You can still solo content by trading off damages for Inspiration, while maintaining Dueling for more clones to feed your shatters (Desperate decoy to immediately take the heat off you, Deceptive evasion to get more clones on dodging, Evasive mirror to make you pretty much immune to projectiles so you don't need the focus).

It's awful to your damages, but you can still use chrono's traits to combine Delayed reactions with Danger time to produce burst phases with high crit rate (similar to virtuoso), you can top your defense off both of shield's blocks for more slow status (against adds to reduce the pressure on you, against bosses to break their defiance bar, and shield's Tides of time can be used depending positioning to break projectiles or simply stun) while still generating for yourself alacrity constantly (although not 100% uptime). Then take your pick from the last trait line - more alacrity, some quickness or more damages during your burst phases, the latter able to feed double the usual amount of healing with Signet of the ether. Might be one of the rare occasions on which I'd see celestial gear having some use for a mesmer!

Trying to balance things around the objective of soloing things is wrong IMO. It kills, y'know, the thing called "group play"; otherwise why are we even playing a "massively multiplayer online" game? 😋

Edited January 2 by Mevelios.4809

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Increasing virtuoso sustain...? No, as a main mesmer I wouldn't want that especially if it were to come with any nerf to counterbalance that. Jagged mind coupled to Bloodsong when having the Signet of the ether up lets you generate, even on power builds, an absurd amount of blades you must spend to keep regenerating.

Why would they buff virtuosos defense up to nerf it right after? That makes no sense unless they gave it far too much defense which would still be more if they take a bit of it away afterwards.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

If you do not spend blades you stop generating them, hence you stop regenerating. The amount is so absurd from the two above traits you won't know what to do with them on a power build against a single target, so for condi virts with Jagged mind... Nah. You should dodge just like mirage does, and where mirage relies on vigor uptime & Deception utilities, virtuoso instead gets an absurd amount of self-healing. If playing solo's your issue, rely on Duelist's reversal while you're at it - unlike mirage, when your virtuoso will dodge you'll be getting several boons: regen (more healing!) +quickness (more blades, more healing!) +fury.

And where does the healing come from in your opinion? Just from jagged mind? I calculated it for you. 3% of virtuosos condi dmg to heal. Virtuoso does very high power dmg due to its high crit chance and crit dmg, 25-30% of virtuosos damage comes from power. So lets just say 75% condi. Lets say you deal 18k solo dps, which is very unrealistic for virtuosos current solo Performance but whatever. 18000 and 75% is condi. So 18000 x 0.75 = 13500. 13500 x 0.03 = 405. 

At a dps of 18k, you would get 405 hp per sec by that trait. Thats less than harbinger gets by its 5% to condi trait. Additionally harbinger gets regenation, heal from blight, 50-150 hp per sec by vampiric aura, 50 hp per sec by another trait in blood magic and 100% heal to barrier by blood bank. All that while dealing 18k dps where virtuoso is far away from in solo play.

On condi you generate more blades than power and even then i know what to do with them. 

Just dodge like mirage does..sounds easier than it is if mirage has perma vigor and sigil of energy. On mirage dodge is a dmg increase, on virtuoso its a dmg loss, unless you use duelists reversal which has a too high internal cooldown and too low duration on boons. 

More blades do not mean more healing unless you use inspiration line which is a massive dps loss on virtuoso. 

Why does Mirage not use inspiration line? Because it can maintain enough defense to go for a dps line. Thats the problem with virtuoso and chrono, because these cant maintain enough defense to go with a dps line. I discussed that in my original post already. 

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Whenever adds come in, since for both power & condi virtuoso builds you want to stick to the dagger, you can obviously resort to an offhand focus and pull them in (especially since your attacks are piercing), then if projectiles are pressuring you the focus' warden denies them for a while. So honestly, no... virtuoso doesn't need any extra sustain or whatever. It doesn't lack any self-heal, but maybe you weren't simply aware of how different blades are from ordinary clones - unlike clone replacement, when you reach the blades cap, just like warriors' adrenaline your production is stopped! 😉

Nice, but it was never about adds. I clearly mentioned i was talking about champions and legendary enemies.

And Dont worry, i know how blades work.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Chrono's a different beast. Tougher topic because it's heavily relying on shatters with the smallest clone generation ability of all three e-specs. I'm fine with it not being as efficient as the two other e-specs for soloing content, but it's capable enough already, although indeed at a cost. You can still solo content by trading off damages for Inspiration, while maintaining Dueling for more clones to feed your shatters (Desperate decoy to immediately take the heat off you, Deceptive evasion to get more clones on dodging, Evasive mirror to make you pretty much immune to projectiles so you don't need the focus).

To be honest I dont know if you did actually read my post. It was not about how hard it is to solo in first line. It was about how much damage you have to trade for defense compared to mirage. Like having to use inspiration on virtuoso to deal 7-10k dps while mirage does 18-20k on the same boss because having enough defense to NOT use shield and to not use inspiration. And here you come saying "you can still solo content by trading off damages for inspiration". Thats the exact thing i mentioned that eats away too much damage. I know you can solo stuff on virtuoso and chrono. The question is just: How much of your damage is still left?

On virtuoso and chrono, the answer is: not a lot.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

It's awful to your damages, but you can still use chrono's traits to combine Delayed reactions with Danger time to produce burst phases with high crit rate (similar to virtuoso), you can top your defense off both of shield's blocks for more slow status (against adds to reduce the pressure on you, against bosses to break their defiance bar, and shield's Tides of time can be used depending positioning to break projectiles or simply stun) while still generating for yourself alacrity constantly (although not 100% uptime). Then take your pick from the last trait line - more alacrity, some quickness or more damages during your burst phases, the latter able to feed double the usual amount of healing with Signet of the ether. Might be one of the rare occasions on which I'd see celestial gear having some use for a mesmer!

High burst phases dont mean good dps. If you burst 50k for a second and the rest of the fight your damage is at 6k your dps will still be low.

Using shield supports the exact problem i was talking about, trading off too much damage. Why do you think mirage doesn't use shield? It doesn't need it. It dodges everything away and gets aegis by chaos storm if you still get a hit sometimes.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Trying to balance things around the objective of soloing things is wrong IMO. It kills, y'know, the thing called "group play"; otherwise why are we even playing a "massively multiplayer online" game? 😋

Well if you have mirage as a main and you have to kill a Champion for an achievement u can do it solo fast and as virtuoso you d have to wait to find a group. Or solo it with 7-10k dps but thats kinda sad to see. 

Either give every e-spec possibilities to solo or none. Seeing how things like mirage or scourge are easily soloing stuff since years now while other e-specs cant even attempt to is kinda sad to see balance-wise. 

I also use mirage for soloing on my mesmer but i would use virtuoso if it would deal at least 85-90% of mirages dps against Champions and legendaries. But it currently deals the half of it because having to use both shield and inspiration and quickness sigils and utility skills to get any kind of defense and boons.

Edited January 2 by SeTect.5918

[Ellon.4316]

Could always try chaos/illusions/virtuoso with some seraph gear (chaos 2-2-3, illu: 3-3-3, virt: 3-3-3, dagger/torch). Non-optimized first try build sits around 16-17k dps without food/utility/boons. With chaos you get protection/regen/stab/might, take psychic force for 100% fury uptime. Defence comes from stealth of torch and blade renewal for some extra distortion. Not perfect but could solo Mai Trin fractal on it.

[Levetty.1279]

This is why Mesmer really needed a brawler elite spec instead of 3 varieties of duelist.

[SeTect.5918]

3 hours ago, Ellon.4316 said:

Could always try chaos/illusions/virtuoso with some seraph gear (chaos 2-2-3, illu: 3-3-3, virt: 3-3-3, dagger/torch). Non-optimized first try build sits around 16-17k dps without food/utility/boons. With chaos you get protection/regen/stab/might, take psychic force for 100% fury uptime. Defence comes from stealth of torch and blade renewal for some extra distortion. Not perfect but could solo Mai Trin fractal on it.

Dont know. Seraph offers no toughness or vitality at all. Feels kinda squishy to me to try T4 fractals in both duo and solo.

Stealth of torch only holds on for 3 seconds with a cooldown of 20 seconds. Additionally you cant deal and damage for the time you are in stealth or you will be revealed.
Thats basically the problem i saw with lots of virtuoso solo builds. They take shield and torch or something and go to a golem and say "look it does 20k dps" while not pressing a single shield block button or torch stealth skill in the whole benchmark because it would be a dps loss that doesnt happen on a golem but in a real fight. So essentially they go to a golem, bench 20k solo, then go to a boss and deal like 7k dps because having to dodge, block or stealth in real fights while mirage handles it all with dodge and even gets its damage by the dodging.
But I dont know if you tried this on a golem or in a real fights where you have to dodge, block and so on. So I cant tell if this is the case with your build.

Torch is at least a better option dmg-wise than shield tho.

Which tier you did mai trin on? T1, T2, T3 or T4?
Because I was mainly talking about T4 in my upper post, maybe I shouldve mentioned that before.

Blade renewal is an option, but I feel like this skill is also heavily underpowered. A 2 sec immunity on a 60 sec cooldown in PvE is kinda bad tbh. Lots of classes get blocks on utility skills that last 2 seconds are have a lower cooldown.
For example Daredevils Bandit's_Defense has a 1.5 second block on a 16 sec cooldown. This is by far stronger than virtuosos Blade renewal.
Yes, blade renewal does stock blades, but Bandits Defense has a stunbreak and good cc in it (2 sec knockdown).

Virtuoso literally has the upper traitline to gain some self-defense but you get far too low defense out of it.
All 3 grandmaster major traits have the focus on blade stockage, but Bloodsong is by far the strongest because it increases bleed damage (where most damage comes from) and stocks the most blades if you use Jagged_Mind which is mandatory on every condi or cele build of virtuoso if you want to deal any damage.
So you are locked to only have Duelist's_Reversal as defensive trait option on virtuoso which also isnt that good because of its low boon duration compared to its high internal cooldown.

Its currently not possible to make a virtuoso build which can solo a legendary in around the same time as mirage.
You have to switch to Chaos or inspiration to get boons, even if that means a massive dps loss and exactly that is the problem sadly.

Look at the Mirage DPS build. It uses Dueling and Chaos. Its open world solo version also uses dueling + chaos.
Look at the Condi Druid, Soulbeast or Untamed DPS builds. All use Skirmishing and Wilderness Survival. Their Open world builds also use Skirmishing + Wilderness Survival.

There are only a few builds that have to switch specs to gain defense and thats the case with virtuoso and chrono, thats why these lack damage in soloing champions and legendary mobs.
Another problem is that most of Virtuosos damage comes through traits. Like: Blades Inflict bleed on crit. Illusions inflict bleed on crit. Inflict torment on shatters.
These 3 are what makes virtuoso deal damage.
Lose Illusions, lose torment on shatter.
Lose Dueling, lose bleeding on Illusions.
Lose Jagged Mind, lose Bleeding on Blades. (Which would be the most dmg loss)

Sorry this didnt have really that much to do with your post, I was too deep into it and just continued to write. 😅

Edited January 2 by SeTect.5918

[Mevelios.4809]

11 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Why would they buff virtuosos defense up to nerf it right after? That makes no sense unless they gave it far too much defense which would still be more if they take a bit of it away afterwards.

Think you misread the intent: more defense would likely come at the cost of offense. Get more sustain, lose damages. All virtuoso has are its damages, so I wouldn't risk it especially for such a niche use that's already available to another e-spec (again, at the cost of at least some player skill, which is rewarding in its own right). What you refer to as an example is a player relying on a druid, an e-spec already capable of solo healing some raid encounters, using an overheal trait nobody uses unless learning the ropes or... soloing stuff. Yes, it's a performance in itself - but such a niche that I surely wouldn't want to risk the e-spec state for something that wouldn't create a new way to play your class. It's just a niche way to have a mechanic carry your fight, the way scourge's barriers easily carry red AoE lovers.

11 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

And where does the healing come from in your opinion? Just from jagged mind? I calculated it for you. 3% of virtuosos condi dmg to heal. Virtuoso does very high power dmg due to its high crit chance and crit dmg, 25-30% of virtuosos damage comes from power. So lets just say 75% condi. Lets say you deal 18k solo dps, which is very unrealistic for virtuosos current solo Performance but whatever. 18000 and 75% is condi. So 18000 x 0.75 = 13500. 13500 x 0.03 = 405. 

At a dps of 18k, you would get 405 hp per sec by that trait. Thats less than harbinger gets by its 5% to condi trait. Additionally harbinger gets regenation, heal from blight, 50-150 hp per sec by vampiric aura, 50 hp per sec by another trait in blood magic and 100% heal to barrier by blood bank. All that while dealing 18k dps where virtuoso is far away from in solo play.

[...]

More blades do not mean more healing unless you use inspiration line which is a massive dps loss on virtuoso.

In all that demonstration, you're ignoring the Signet of the ether. The way I read it, you seem focused on the idea of "do damages = self heal". We're not harbingers, we're mesmers and we do things our way! Despite the signet's poor scaling with healing power, that base healing of 350 on an e-spec capable of generating an absurd amount of blades is massive. Top it off with Jagged mind, and even from that quick theoretical math you get an incredible input of healing without dropping a single damage spec. Then if you end up getting the inspiration spec, you're unkillable with the insane amount of self-healing from Illusionary inspiration, from Restorative illusions which is largely eased thanks again to that massive blade generation, and while you're at it to survive you can get Warden's feedback for more pull/phantasm/projectile reflection on both skills.

What virtuoso lacks the most is not self-healing, it's condi cleansing. So again, from inspiration line you can use Sympathetic visage to get rid of some, and/or find some room in your utilities in high condi pressure fights for the Mantra of resolve/Power cleanse. If with all that, you still think virtuoso needs more sustain, we must be playing vastly different characters despite playing the same game! No offense meant, but really, virtuoso has the highest self-sustain of all our three e-specs; simply don't fire away that signet and you shouldn't need a healer anymore, unless trying to facetank everything.

All this can be applied with even more ease with celestial gear. What you trade in direct or condi damage lets you easily reach a 90% crit rate (base of 50 +fury, from dueling's Master fencer & virt's Duelist's reversal). Dodging here doesn't become a dps loss, precisely because while mirage keeps attacking (again, I feel like you're too focused on "hit hit and hit again to recover"), you're getting a source of quickness, fury & regen from a successful dodge or block which mirage doesn't have access to (you can even combine it with the shield or the sword, their blocks dealing damages). Quickness & fury aren't exactly a dps loss! 😉 Besides on celestial gear, the extra concentration makes it much easier to maintain your boons. Fury's likely to be near 100% uptime (again, you have to dodge, not facetank everything - we're no druids), quickness won't be 100% but can let you start a burst phase, regen won't be 100% but still is extra free healing.

The way we generate many blades comes from several short bursts, not from a sustain play. Unstable bladestorm is an excellent source of it, Rain of swords as well, and obviously Thousand cuts even moreso. Any phantasm performing several hits, such as the Warden or the Swordsman can cumulate a bunch of bleeding stacks from dueling's Sharper images, thus again increasing your blade output. That quick accumulation incites you at spending your shatter skills, so it's definitely about several short, quick burst phases that fit into the window of a Duelist's reversal, rather than a sustained way of firing everything off CD blindly. The theoretical maths applied to an average dps cannot hold up in this situation because of our nature of damages; it'll obviously not go as smoothly as it sounds as long as you don't get to practice this way of playing, but it works, and it works really well by pairing it with Jagged mind & Bloodsong!

11 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Nice, but it was never about adds. I clearly mentioned i was talking about champions and legendary enemies.

You've been mentioning fractals, in which some fights bring in adds (Mai Trin's goons, Snowblind, etc). Without mentioning whatever may be close to them, some open world champions/leggies also bring their lot of adds (branded, elementals, harpies...) and when your attention's on the big game, it's easy to forget about them and let damages/conditions build up. The quote to which you were replying with this extract also includes boss uses, but I think we both know already what can be made out of the focus!

11 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Either give every e-spec possibilities to solo or none. Seeing how things like mirage or scourge are easily soloing stuff since years now while other e-specs cant even attempt to is kinda sad to see balance-wise. 

I also use mirage for soloing on my mesmer but i would use virtuoso if it would deal at least 85-90% of mirages dps against Champions and legendaries. But it currently deals the half of it because having to use both shield and inspiration and quickness sigils and utility skills to get any kind of defense and boons.

I'll be skipping the quotes to shorten the post; scourge has insane barriers, druid has insane healing, mirage has insane dodging. But what's the topic? Soloing stuff, a niche practice (much less niche in open world, then again in open world anything goes). The feeling I get from reading your suggestions is that you want everyone to maintain top dps while slapping on top of it top survival. Then what's the use for healers? What's the use for raid tanks? Making it baseline for every e-spec would just ruin the balance by making roles as simple as either boondps, either dps. Several e-specs would then likely disappear: Qberserker already is a very rare occurrence, Arenegade as well, and so on and so forth - let's bring in only heralds! Though since they can provide the main boons on top of quickness with 100% uptime, shouldn't they then become the next OP thing worth nerfing?

Otherwise, you'd be fine with taking that possibility away from everyone. Some nerfs could be done indeed, but is it really interesting to just take away from some people their fun, without providing something in return because "if I can't do it on my favorite, it shouldn't exist"? If providing something in return, what would it be, without making related builds excessive again? Let's consider the mirage alone here: too many dodges, you'd be fine with taking it away. Let's say we backtrack a bit and mirage ends up with a single dodge again. Would you offer something in return, and if so, what? Balance's such a fickle thing!

That's why I disapprove your suggestion; while I could agree about chrono struggling the most in solo play out of every mesmer e-spec, it definitely isn't the case on virtuoso with the Signet of the ether, while Duelist's reversal brings in offensive buffs to support our short bursts (especially quickness, which you shouldn't have access to when playing on your own). But chrono's topic is so intimately tied to the opposition between relying on shatters to trigger its mechanics while having the lowest clone generation ability, that it means any condi chrono build (which is favored against champions/leggies that don't phase out) would be inefficient compared to others. Trying to change that implies touching the core functions of the e-spec, which will realistically never happen because regardless of the will (or lack of), it would involve a lot of work with likely a lot of opposition... Anyway, disagreeing's fine too! 🙂

Edited January 2 by Mevelios.4809

[Ellon.4316]

2 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Which tier you did mai trin on? T1, T2, T3 or T4?
Because I was mainly talking about T4 in my upper post, maybe I shouldve mentioned that before.

T2, Died in T3 at 15% and couldn't be bothered with trying again. But this is probably a skill issue on my side.

2 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Dont know. Seraph offers no toughness or vitality at all. Feels kinda squishy to me to try T4 fractals in both duo and solo.

Did make some changes to celestial/rampager for this reason. It's still just a quick "this might work" build and nothing more.

2 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

You have to switch to Chaos or inspiration to get boons, even if that means a massive dps loss and exactly that is the problem sadly.

Chaos/illusion virtuoso was for a brief moment a stronger DPS build then dueling/illusion. Chaos still gives a ton of expertise and 10% extra condi-damage with chaos aura. Don't focus too much on what the meta is. Chaos is still a pretty solid pick for condi damage.

 

But I have to agree with Mevelios that changing virt to be a stronger solo spec just because other specs can solo group content better isn't the right way to go. Imho every class should be able to do everything but not every spec. It would be the same as asking for an heal-alac-reaper build because other specs in the game can play an heal-alac role.

[Teknomancer.4895]

44 minutes ago, Ellon.4316 said:

every class should be able to do everything but not every spec

This is an important point, and one that I don't think gets enough attention. People talk about elite specializations as if they're completely separate classes sometimes, instead of just different parts of the class' toolkit.

People fall into the trap of thinking that all they need is a Philips-head screwdriver because that's usually true, but when presented with a problem that instead requires a socket wrench, they go to great lengths trying to figure out ways of buffing the screwdriver instead of just reaching for the correct tool in the first place. 🤷‍♂️

Edited January 2 by Teknomancer.4895
typo

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Think you misread the intent: more defense would likely come at the cost of offense. Get more sustain, lose damages. All virtuoso has are its damages, so I wouldn't risk it especially for such a niche use that's already available to another e-spec (again, at the cost of at least some player skill, which is rewarding in its own right). What you refer to as an example is a player relying on a druid, an e-spec already capable of solo healing some raid encounters, using an overheal trait nobody uses unless learning the ropes or... soloing stuff. Yes, it's a performance in itself - but such a niche that I surely wouldn't want to risk the e-spec state for something that wouldn't create a new way to play your class. It's just a niche way to have a mechanic carry your fight, the way scourge's barriers easily carry red AoE lovers.

I dont know why it should come at cost of offense. Condi Mirage literally has more defense and benches over 4k higher than condi virtuoso.

2 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

In all that demonstration, you're ignoring the Signet of the ether. The way I read it, you seem focused on the idea of "do damages = self heal". We're not harbingers, we're mesmers and we do things our way! Despite the signet's poor scaling with healing power, that base healing of 350 on an e-spec capable of generating an absurd amount of blades is massive. Top it off with Jagged mind, and even from that quick theoretical math you get an incredible input of healing without dropping a single damage spec. Then if you end up getting the inspiration spec, you're unkillable with the insane amount of self-healing from Illusionary inspiration, from Restorative illusions which is largely eased thanks again to that massive blade generation, and while you're at it to survive you can get Warden's feedback for more pull/phantasm/projectile reflection on both skills.

Signet of ether is just a heal skill like every other healskill. Every class and every build has one. Its not carrying you through anything. The 30 sec cooldown doesnt help either because this is rather high for a heal skill. But I can understand why the cooldown is so high because of its active bonus which resets illusion cooldowns.
I m not that focused on that idea. I just had some random ideas. But increasing like the duration of Duelist's_Reversals boons while decreasing the internal cooldown would help a lot already and wouldnt hurt anyone.
Yeah, the suggestions I made were probably too overloaded for virtuoso, but what "suggestion" means i clear i believe. Like an increase of jagged mind healing is probably not needed. But I m still for a buff of Duelists Reversal. And some self-might wouldnt hurt either. I m not talking about perm 25 might. I m talking about maybe perm 15 might with cele gear.

3 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

All this can be applied with even more ease with celestial gear. What you trade in direct or condi damage lets you easily reach a 90% crit rate (base of 50 +fury, from dueling's Master fencer & virt's Duelist's reversal). Dodging here doesn't become a dps loss, precisely because while mirage keeps attacking (again, I feel like you're too focused on "hit hit and hit again to recover"), you're getting a source of quickness, fury & regen from a successful dodge or block which mirage doesn't have access to (you can even combine it with the shield or the sword, their blocks dealing damages). Quickness & fury aren't exactly a dps loss! 😉 Besides on celestial gear, the extra concentration makes it much easier to maintain your boons. Fury's likely to be near 100% uptime (again, you have to dodge, not facetank everything - we're no druids), quickness won't be 100% but can let you start a burst phase, regen won't be 100% but still is extra free healing.

Yeah tho the internal cooldown of Duelists reversal could be 1 sec lower and the boon duration could be 1 - 1.5 sec higher. I hope we can agree that this wouldnt be overpowered but would help to maintain more duration on these boons. At least the fury and quickness could be higher to maintain a good fury duration which is very much needed to let Blades (and Illusions) crit to inflict bleed.
Not saying you dont have to dodge, thats why I suggested a buff to Duelists reversal which is ofc on dodge. In its current state you cant dodge too often tho. If you dodge again within 3 seconds you dont get any boons.

3 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

You've been mentioning fractals, in which some fights bring in adds (Mai Trin's goons, Snowblind, etc). Without mentioning whatever may be close to them, some open world champions/leggies also bring their lot of adds (branded, elementals, harpies...) and when your attention's on the big game, it's easy to forget about them and let damages/conditions build up. The quote to which you were replying with this extract also includes boss uses, but I think we both know already what can be made out of the focus!

Agree. Focus is kinda good to pull enemies to you and offers good damage if choosing Dueling because Illusions inflict ton of bleeding then. Warden also offers great vulnerability stacks. Even tho sadly on a low duration, but you get enough by blade attacks.

3 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

The feeling I get from reading your suggestions is that you want everyone to maintain top dps while slapping on top of it top survival. Then what's the use for healers? What's the use for raid tanks? Making it baseline for every e-spec would just ruin the balance by making roles as simple as either boondps, either dps. Several e-specs would then likely disappear: Qberserker already is a very rare occurrence, Arenegade as well, and so on and so forth - let's bring in only heralds! Though since they can provide the main boons on top of quickness with 100% uptime, shouldn't they then become the next OP thing worth nerfing?

Nonono sorry if you got that feeling by reading it.
I just want that Virtuoso gets enough boons to maintain good dps in solo play. And maybe slightly more healing but a better regeneration uptime would fill that already. A good/perm regen uptime is also needed to maintain a good uptime on the 250 concentration and expertise that comes by the chaos traitline if you want to choose that.
My goal is not to make that drastic changes that boon supports or healers become completely useless.

3 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Duelist's reversal brings in offensive buffs to support our short bursts (especially quickness, which you shouldn't have access to when playing on your own).

I dont know. Lots of classes maintain permanent self-quickness in solo-play. Basically every e-spec that has access to group quickness or alac can also access these boons permanent in solo play.
Professions with wells can use cele gear + relic of chronomancer and have access to very good quickness uptime.
Chronomancer can maintain permanent quickness even if not choosing Chronomancers quickness traits. You just have to use Persistence_of_Memory and Phantasmal_Haste and the permanent quickness comes passively, even without any boon duration. It lets Chrono deal good damage but the defense lacks on it.

3 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

But chrono's topic is so intimately tied to the opposition between relying on shatters to trigger its mechanics while having the lowest clone generation ability, that it means any condi chrono build (which is favored against champions/leggies that don't phase out) would be inefficient compared to others. Trying to change that implies touching the core functions of the e-spec, which will realistically never happen because regardless of the will (or lack of), it would involve a lot of work with likely a lot of opposition... Anyway, disagreeing's fine too! 🙂

Agree.

As you can probably see, I am really for a buff of duelists reversal. It offers good boons. My problem is that it offers all these boons halfbaked.
I think I mentioned enough that i m for both a boon duration increase on it and an internal cooldown decrease.
If you want to deal good damage on virtuoso, you need 100% fury uptime. If you want to use chaos traitline effectively, you need 100% regen uptime.
Quickness is a good dps boost on itself.

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Ellon.4316 said:

T2, Died in T3 at 15% and couldn't be bothered with trying again. But this is probably a skill issue on my side.

I see, tho T4 is also a whole different level than T3 imo.

2 hours ago, Ellon.4316 said:

Did make some changes to celestial/rampager for this reason. It's still just a quick "this might work" build and nothing more.

Yeah you can swap out all vipers for cele and the crit chance and expertise will stay the same.

2 hours ago, Ellon.4316 said:

But I have to agree with Mevelios that changing virt to be a stronger solo spec just because other specs can solo group content better isn't the right way to go. Imho every class should be able to do everything but not every spec. It would be the same as asking for an heal-alac-reaper build because other specs in the game can play an heal-alac role.

Some of these suggestions were probably not my best ideas and I will remove them from my original post.
Still for a buff on Duelists Reversal tho. A small buff to that trait alone wouldnt be op but would help a lot with boon uptime which is basically dps and defense.

My problem is mainly the access to self-boons.
Not talking about perma everything. But you should at least be able to maintain 2-3 boons permanent if playing solo.
Virtuoso comes close to perma fury, but I wouldnt say it perm. Duelists reversal lacks duration on the fury to have it perm.
No access to might at all.
Halfbaked Quickness, halfbaked regen.
But maybe permanent protection by Chaos with cele gear if you are lucky.

[Mell.4873]

I don't know unless you are play Staff/Staff Mirage I have a really hard time soloing anything. Staff mirage is only about 10k damage with Celestial gear to. 

My best solo class is a Half Celestial Virtuoso with 100% Condition Duration and Critical Chance. This thing is broken and can easily get 15k+ on a single target with it getting up to 30k if multiple exist. I also run Signet or Inspiration so it is very easy to maintain EoD Jade buffs.

The real powerhouse of Virtuoso is the inbuilt passive crit chance a condi duration in the Traits. This means you don't have to run silly stuff like assassin's like with Chronomancer. 

Edited January 2 by Mell.4873

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Reading through this thread I am now thoroughly convinced I have no idea what sustain even means anymore. I had assumed it meant surviving, pulling your weight, not being a burden to the people around you, you know, being a decent player, but I suspect my definition and y'alls definition are not the same because you can solo most things with any espec and a staff. Might take a while, it's absolutely a battle of attrition, but then mesmers have always excelled not in our damage but in simply being hard-nigh-impossible to kill. I don't PvP, WvW, or Strike/Raid so maybe definitions change, but in the open world I can and have done pretty much everything with every Espec at this point without any issues, for the most part. There are some bounties I struggle with, like the bounties with the ranged shield forcing you into melee, but outside of that I've never really struggled with anything, and I just wear celestial armor. I'm not purpose built for anything, just a generalist build. Staff Condi for my base, Shatterstorm for my Chrono, and mirage and virt are just....mirage and virt. So I'm not sure what y'all are discussing.

[Mevelios.4809]

7 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Signet of ether is just a heal skill like every other healskill. Every class and every build has one. Its not carrying you through anything. The 30 sec cooldown doesnt help either because this is rather high for a heal skill. But I can understand why the cooldown is so high because of its active bonus which resets illusion cooldowns.

You do not use the signet, though. It's the passive you want, offering minimum 350 health per blade generated!

9 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

But I m still for a buff of Duelists Reversal. And some self-might wouldnt hurt either. I m not talking about perm 25 might. I m talking about maybe perm 15 might with cele gear.

Yeah tho the internal cooldown of Duelists reversal could be 1 sec lower and the boon duration could be 1 - 1.5 sec higher. I hope we can agree that this wouldnt be overpowered but would help to maintain more duration on these boons. At least the fury and quickness could be higher to maintain a good fury duration which is very much needed to let Blades (and Illusions) crit to inflict bleed.
Not saying you dont have to dodge, thats why I suggested a buff to Duelists reversal which is ofc on dodge. In its current state you cant dodge too often tho. If you dodge again within 3 seconds you dont get any boons.

Again, I have to disagree. What would be the use of boondps and concentration stat if any dps could, by themselves, maintain such a high amount of boons? 15 stacks of might are a lot, that's 450 power & condi damage here. If you bother playing with celestial gear, without even considering any spec it provides you 4.5s long boons on Duelist's reversal. Might still sound like a pain to maintain, but given blocks also trigger it, a sword offhand or both of shield's blocks (providing protection and two phantasms to feed your Signet of the ether) can go a long way.

Here you can easily reach a few of such objectives through the use of chaos spec. You get protection on shatters (which will be frequent and fed by five blades instead of the usual three clones), you get regen and chaos aura (the latter able to feed regen & protection some more) on shatter 2, regen feeding both concentration & expertise to bring Duelist's reversal to 5s duration, and more boons again on every shatter used - except shatter 2, which anyway from the chaos aura feeds your damages. There's a lot going on with this single spec, and given how much it provides both offensively & defensively, it's hard to disregard it for soloing stuff.

If you're ready to drop dueling (which sounds wrong to me as it's the only source of vigor here, the most reliable way to feed Duelist's reversal) and want to stick to the illusions spec to hit hit and hit some more, you can obviously get a lot more of offense in the whole spec from the combination of Cry of pain, Compounding power and Master of misdirection to improve your shatters' damages. Your blade generation ability definitely allows it, while you can get extra quickness to, well, spam some more your autoattack and feed again your blades. From there thanks to the Signet of the ether, you can afford facetanking a few attacks for the sake of timing your dodges & blocks right to trigger with precision Duelist's reversal. Then the last line gives you three decent choices - extra confusion on dodges with increased duration (which is useful here as you won't be at 100% duration), improved shatters (although IMO that's the poor choice since you'd basically have use at most for the extra crit rate on shatter 1 and duration on shatter 5), or precisely what you were looking for: might stacks.

Then there's the relic choice... If you indeed drop the dueling spec to take chaos & illusions, you could use something like the Relic of evasion as your only source of vigor. If you want more buffs (especially might), the Relic of the midnight king can be a good choice to really ensure 100% fury uptime. If you'd rather take dueling or even go down inspiration, you could pick something offensive like the Relic of the fractal. In the end, without even relying on the Relic of the chronomancer, you can get your own sweet quickness uptime! Then you can play around with consumables and rune sets to refine whatever you want - virtuoso's often called a selfish class, but it really works well on its own without external support.

[dead.7638]

I want more blast finishers.  As well as more access to them on weapons.   GS 3 would be a good example. Mesmer power burst really benefit from being next to the target.   So when I go in to burst on my normal rotation there is a good chance there is also a field in place from someone else for me to access boons.   This helps keep builds in check as it’s not always an option that you have access to.  

[SeTect.5918]

47 minutes ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

You do not use the signet, though. It's the passive you want, offering minimum 350 health per blade generated!

Again, I have to disagree. What would be the use of boondps and concentration stat if any dps could, by themselves, maintain such a high amount of boons? 15 stacks of might are a lot, that's 450 power & condi damage here. If you bother playing with celestial gear, without even considering any spec it provides you 4.5s long boons on Duelist's reversal. Might still sound like a pain to maintain, but given blocks also trigger it, a sword offhand or both of shield's blocks (providing protection and two phantasms to feed your Signet of the ether) can go a long way.

Here you can easily reach a few of such objectives through the use of chaos spec. You get protection on shatters (which will be frequent and fed by five blades instead of the usual three clones), you get regen and chaos aura (the latter able to feed regen & protection some more) on shatter 2, regen feeding both concentration & expertise to bring Duelist's reversal to 5s duration, and more boons again on every shatter used - except shatter 2, which anyway from the chaos aura feeds your damages. There's a lot going on with this single spec, and given how much it provides both offensively & defensively, it's hard to disregard it for soloing stuff.

If you're ready to drop dueling (which sounds wrong to me as it's the only source of vigor here, the most reliable way to feed Duelist's reversal) and want to stick to the illusions spec to hit hit and hit some more, you can obviously get a lot more of offense in the whole spec from the combination of Cry of pain, Compounding power and Master of misdirection to improve your shatters' damages. Your blade generation ability definitely allows it, while you can get extra quickness to, well, spam some more your autoattack and feed again your blades. From there thanks to the Signet of the ether, you can afford facetanking a few attacks for the sake of timing your dodges & blocks right to trigger with precision Duelist's reversal. Then the last line gives you three decent choices - extra confusion on dodges with increased duration (which is useful here as you won't be at 100% duration), improved shatters (although IMO that's the poor choice since you'd basically have use at most for the extra crit rate on shatter 1 and duration on shatter 5), or precisely what you were looking for: might stacks.

Then there's the relic choice... If you indeed drop the dueling spec to take chaos & illusions, you could use something like the Relic of evasion as your only source of vigor. If you want more buffs (especially might), the Relic of the midnight king can be a good choice to really ensure 100% fury uptime. If you'd rather take dueling or even go down inspiration, you could pick something offensive like the Relic of the fractal. In the end, without even relying on the Relic of the chronomancer, you can get your own sweet quickness uptime! Then you can play around with consumables and rune sets to refine whatever you want - virtuoso's often called a selfish class, but it really works well on its own without external support.

To be honest I dont think you will agree with me and I wont agree with you.

I will be like Virtuoso lacks xx and you will be like but Virtuoso has xx.

This ends up nowhere and thats why I wont start discussing it all over again with quoting specific parts and so on. 

I will just accept it because its just a waste of time if it ends up in no agreement anyway. 

Edited January 3 by SeTect.5918

[Mevelios.4809]

10 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

To be honest I dont think you will agree with me and I wont agree with you. [...]

This ends up nowhere and thats why I wont start discussing it all over again with quoting specific parts and so on. 

I will just accept it because its just a waste of time if it ends up in no agreement anyway. 

Again, disagreeing's fine too, and agreeing that we disagree is already a success; the whole purpose of discussion is to try to understand one another, and obviously it's not as easy as when everyone blindly agrees. Otherwise if it were unidirectional, that's no longer a discussion but (in the best cases) something called persuasion! 😉

From your former messages, you were saying you'd be fine if either overperforming solo abilities were made baseline, either the overperforming profiles were nerfed. That's why I tried turning the topic around (so far it's about buffing virt/chrono) by asking what would you do, if instead we were nerfing mirage's dodges? Maybe it sounded like a rhetoric question but it wasn't; what would you do in this case, to go all the way down that logic so it doesn't sound like an empty statement?

This is why I'm feeling like so far, since we've only been discussing the first half of your stance (buffing e-specs) the debate is incomplete when we're supposed to be talking "balance"; I'm curious, what would you imagine for the second half - that is, before even considering other professions, nerfing mirage? Maybe good ideas can come out of it, hence my curiosity!

My point so far has been to say that we already have abilities conciliating damages & survival, by making choices between three specs (dueling/chaos/illusions), having a trump card that may create a hole in your damages but makes you unkillable (inspiration), and adapting your relic to compensate or reinforce whatever you want/need. If we were to slap (to quote a single example) 15 extra stacks of might on top of it when we can already have 8 of them up easily (shatter 1 on Bountiful disillusionment & any phantasm on Phantasmal force, without considering extra stacks when summoning another phantasm or having both shatter 1 ammos ready) that makes hitting 25 might possible on your own! Let's be honest, that's not healthy.

Another thing missing from your stance is as simple as: what are you using to solo things? I mean, your chrono & virtuoso builds, since just like @ShadowKatt.6740 (with whom we've had differing opinions on several occasions, but here we agree) I do not struggle much by myself. That's why I've been throwing one argument after another about our available specs; I have no idea what base are you using to work on and make these suggestions! Mesmer's not as straightforward as some other professions, but a lot can be achieved with it. So let's resume the discussion by stepping for a moment away from theory, and make it practical: what build(s) are you using? Then back to theory to complete your ideas, if you're fine with nerfing (again before even considering other professions): what would you do to nerf mirage's dodges? I'm curious! 🙂

The one thing to remember as mesmer is, since we can do so much but not necessarily everything at once, there's no do-it-all builds; you must make choices, and adapt to every situation. Where one fight has low pressure and lets you use, let's say, dagger+sword for a virtuoso (which isn't exactly the best defensive setup) another fight may pressure you a lot more and impose the use of the shield, or of an undamaging utility such as the Mantra of resolve/Power cleanse. There's a lot involved in knowing what you're about to fight, precisely because we have the tools to deal with it - we simply can't do absolutely everything at the same time, and that's fine for the sake of balance!

Edited January 3 by Mevelios.4809

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

My point so far has been to say that we already have abilities conciliating damages & survival, by making choices between three specs (dueling/chaos/illusions), having a trump card that may create a hole in your damages but makes you unkillable (inspiration), and adapting your relic to compensate or reinforce whatever you want/need. If we were to slap (to quote a single example) 15 extra stacks of might on top of it when we can already have 8 of them up easily (shatter 1 on Bountiful disillusionment & any phantasm on Phantasmal force, without considering extra stacks when summoning another phantasm or having both shatter 1 ammos ready) that makes hitting 25 might possible on your own! Let's be honest, that's not healthy.

All this requires you to use celestial gear. Otherwise the stacks of might wont be perm.
25 might is a thing mirage easily has access to either. It doesnt overperform.
But to be honest, Mirage has also far better access to Relic of the Midnight King due to the daze-spam of dagger ambush.
I played Dagger/pistol mirage in T4 nightmare and it was able to shred the defiance bar of every boss within 4-6 seconds everytime after it pops up.
The incredible amount of dazes by dagger ambushes makes it keep up permanent fury and 25 might just by spamming dodge while having relic of the midnight king. Adding perm regeneration by just dodging too. And adding perm vigor by just hitting and using heal every now and then.

Virtuoso needs Chaos or Inspiration to survive. More likely you are going to choose Chaos because of the boons (including protection) you get on shatters. Even tho it cant handle perm regen uptime to get 250 concentration and expertise because Duelists Reversal regen isnt enough to keep it up perm.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Another thing missing from your stance is as simple as: what are you using to solo things? I mean, your chrono & virtuoso builds, since just like @ShadowKatt.6740 (with whom we've had differing opinions on several occasions, but here we agree) I do not struggle much by myself. That's why I've been throwing one argument after another about our available specs; I have no idea what base are you using to work on and make these suggestions! Mesmer's not as straightforward as some other professions, but a lot can be achieved with it. So let's resume the discussion by stepping for a moment away from theory, and make it practical: what build(s) are you using? Then back to theory to complete your ideas, if you're fine with nerfing (again before even considering other professions): what would you do to nerf mirage's dodges? I'm curious! 🙂

I'm not fine with nerfing. I'm only fine with nerfing if something has been buffed so much that it needs nerfing because it would be overperforming too much otherwise.
I'm currently using Druid and Mirage to solo.
What i tried on Virtuoso:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgy3lVwWZYMEmLW6O+xbA-DyQY1olq6pESN4iIwCwnFkQYBglTNrgKA-e
Something like this. I dont remember which relic or offhand sigils it was. Probably sigils of Earth. Tho Accuracy would also be a thing.
But nothing works. The build deals far too low damage.
Druid solos T4 fractals away with like 15-20k dps.
Virtuoso doesnt even get close to that and has a far harder time.
If you ask why I used so many Rampagers parts:
To keep the dps a little bit up because every percentage of crit chance is more bleed stacks is more damage and blade stocking.
The problem that comes with it:
Less boon duration = less regen and protection uptime = less defense + the less toughness and vitality that comes with it.
This build would probably still work in Open World Soloing for champions. But its not enough to go in T4 fractals, unlike Mirage or Druid what I m currently using.

Why would I nerf Mirages dodges?
Nerfing Mirages dodges would mean issues in PvP and WvW. And having 1 dodge is just clunky as hell.

2 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

The one thing to remember as mesmer is, since we can do so much but not necessarily everything at once, there's no do-it-all builds; you must make choices, and adapt to every situation. Where one fight has low pressure and lets you use, let's say, dagger+sword for a virtuoso (which isn't exactly the best defensive setup) another fight may pressure you a lot more and impose the use of the shield, or of an undamaging utility such as the Mantra of resolve/Power cleanse. There's a lot involved in knowing what you're about to fight, precisely because we have the tools to deal with it - we simply can't do absolutely everything at the same time, and that's fine for the sake of balance!

Yeah exactly and thats the whole problem. Mirage can use the same setup for every situation. Virtuoso deals less damage and even then has to take shield in harder fights which mean even more damage loss. Its just not effective compared to Mirage.
Why would I use Virtuoso if Mirage does it easier with far more damage? <-- My whole problem with Virtuoso.

Again, I know Virtuoso can solo stuff. But I wont accept it that Mirage can do the same while dealing like 150%-175% of Virtuosos damage.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Quote

All this requires you to use celestial gear. Otherwise the stacks of might wont be perm.
25 might is a thing mirage easily has access to either. It doesnt overperform.
But to be honest, Mirage has also far better access to Relic of the Midnight King due to the daze-spam of dagger ambush.
I played Dagger/pistol mirage in T4 nightmare and it was able to shred the defiance bar of every boss within 4-6 seconds everytime after it pops up.
The incredible amount of dazes by dagger ambushes makes it keep up permanent fury and 25 might just by spamming dodge while having relic of the midnight king. Adding perm regeneration by just dodging too. And adding perm vigor by just hitting and using heal every now and then.

T4 is meant to be group content.....if you can't solo it on some specs it really isn't the spec's fault.

Also there are literally only 2 builds out of 27 especs of 9 classes in the game that can self-boon to that degree, and you just picked 1. I don't understand the logic of blaming every other builds as bad when only very few builds could do that.

5 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Virtuoso needs Chaos or Inspiration to survive. More likely you are going to choose Chaos because of the boons (including protection) you get on shatters. Even tho it cant handle perm regen uptime to get 250 concentration and expertise because Duelists Reversal regen isnt enough to keep it up perm.

I'm not fine with nerfing. I'm only fine with nerfing if something has been buffed so much that it needs nerfing because it would be overperforming too much otherwise.
I'm currently using Druid and Mirage to solo.
What i tried on Virtuoso:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgy3lVwWZYMEmLW6O+xbA-DyQY1olq6pESN4iIwCwnFkQYBglTNrgKA-e
Something like this. I dont remember which relic or offhand sigils it was. Probably sigils of Earth. Tho Accuracy would also be a thing.
But nothing works. The build deals far too low damage.
Druid solos T4 fractals away with like 15-20k dps.
Virtuoso doesnt even get close to that and has a far harder time.
If you ask why I used so many Rampagers parts:
To keep the dps a little bit up because every percentage of crit chance is more bleed stacks is more damage and blade stocking.
The problem that comes with it:
Less boon duration = less regen and protection uptime = less defense + the less toughness and vitality that comes with it.
This build would probably still work in Open World Soloing for champions. But its not enough to go in T4 fractals, unlike Mirage or Druid what I m currently using.

Looks like you're using a condi Virtuoso that doesn't have 100% Crit chance, which is the mandatory baseline requirement. If you're wondering why your Virt is doing low damage, that's the first reason: You're missing out on all the missed bleed stacks. Not maxing your Crit chance makes your Phantasms suffer too, since they don't inflict bleed stacks with Sharper Images. 

Continuing the above, not maxing Crit chance hurts Superiority Complex in your trait choice. Also if you're using condi Virt, you can try using the Blinding Dissipation + Ineptitude combo instead. This will net you 20 Confusion stacks every time you use F2.

Use Illusions instead of Chaos, it gives you more Confusion stacks, 1 more F1, Torment on all Shatters, and more Phantasm damage or more Confusion duration. That's more DPS gained over just some raw condition damage stats from Chaos. And I doubt you can maintain Chaos Aura on Virt for the +10% to matter anyway. 

In terms of gearing, Celestial is quite not the right stuff for Virt. Use Rabid if you really want to be tanky, but generally Viper + Rampager is the best mix.

 

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

T4 is meant to be group content.....if you can't solo it on some specs it really isn't the spec's fault.

Yeah I ll accept that, but then no class or e-spec should have easy access to solo T4.
Condi Necro, which is one if the best, if not the best, classes to solo stuff, actually got 2 immense buffs last patch for their solo builds.
Death magic traitline carapace now also gives 10 condi dmg per stack and the 5% condi dmg to heal trait of curses was moved to master which makes it able to pair it with the 200 condi dmg trait now which is an immense dps increase to every necro solo build.

If one of the best solo builds (scourge and harbinger) get buffed even more in solo play, other e-specs that are not so good in soloing stuff should get buffed aswell.
I mean buff everything in soloing or buff nothing, but dont buff the already very strong solo builds while leaving the underperforming behind, it makes no sense at all.

2 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Also there are literally only 2 builds out of 27 especs of 9 classes in the game that can self-boon to that degree, and you just picked 1. I don't understand the logic of blaming every other builds as bad when only very few builds could do that.

90% or something of e-specs can maintain perm self-fury and 1-2 other boons perm.
At least give virtu enough self fury to maintain it perm because its really needed on a spec that relies on a very high crit chance and has +15% crit chance on fury.
Additionally give chaos enough regen to maintain the 250 concentration and expertise and this would be such a big help for virtuoso and every other solo mesmer build with chaos traitline already. It also makes no senst at all for the last balance patch to give Stability on Distortion on Bountiful_Disillusionment instead of regen. Without cele gear you wont get any stability at all because the distortion makes you immune for stuns anyway which makes the stability completely useless for urself. Even with cele gear you just get like less than 50% of the stability because the Distortion will last for over half the time you have stability of that.

2 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Looks like you're using a condi Virtuoso that doesn't have 100% Crit chance, which is the mandatory baseline requirement. If you're wondering why your Virt is doing low damage, that's the first reason: You're missing out on all the missed bleed stacks. Not maxing your Crit chance makes your Phantasms suffer too, since they don't inflict bleed stacks with Sharper Images.

No, I did also make one with 100% crit but that needs you to use far less cele parts which means you lose like 200 vita, 200 toughness, 200 concentration etc
You lose tons of defense and tons of boon duration which is far more effective than going for 100% crit chance if you take too much damage.
The build I used myself had like 12-16k dps. The dps was fine or "okay", but it had too low defense because I didnt want to trade too much damage for defense (didnt have a relic equipped tho).
So I couldnt take it in T4s for example. At least not more difficult ones which were kind of easy as mirage.
If it was to go for 100% crit chance, I would go for aristocracy relic and put away cele parts for rampages, which means having only like 200 toughness.

2 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Use Illusions instead of Chaos, it gives you more Confusion stacks, 1 more F1, Torment on all Shatters, and more Phantasm damage or more Confusion duration. That's more DPS gained over just some raw condition damage stats from Chaos. And I doubt you can maintain Chaos Aura on Virt for the +10% to matter anyway. 

In terms of gearing, Celestial is quite not the right stuff for Virt. Use Rabid if you really want to be tanky, but generally Viper + Rampager is the best mix.

Illusions doesnt give access to protection or stability.
I would be using rabid if I would be using Illusions. Less boons means you dont need the extra boon duration. But that one is needed to gain defense.

But I actually have relic of nourys in mind which gives basically full heal and some more damage every 30 sec for 5 sec. Cooldown decreased if the enemy has boons to strip which is normally the case in fractals. I have yet to do convergences for getting that relic tho.

Chaos kinda remind me of Engineers "Inventions" traitline.
It has a trait called Energy_Amplifier which gives 250 healing power while having regeneration. But does any trait in the whole spec give regeneration? No, not a single one.
Chaos gives 250 concentration and expertise while having regeneration but has no way to gain a good amount of regeneration. You only get regen by using heal skill (which mean wasting your main source of healing which is the passive effect of "Signet of the Ether"s passive effect. And if chosen, on chaos aura every 20 sec for 5 sec by using shatter 2.
While firebrand for example: 250 vita, condi dmg and healing power on quickness. Here you go, quickness, quickness and even more quickness on both traits and utility skills.

Edited January 3 by SeTect.5918

[Voyant.1327]

Its all how you build it. I run mostly Seraph on Virt, couple pieces of Celestial. I can break 30k solo while face tanking champions, highest I've hit was 34k. (In this current version, have been losing dps a bit each balance update.)

You just gotta get out of the way the meta runs em. Virt is extremely overpowered right now, its just not as fun due to all the bad balance choices. Its more upkeep/high intensity now vs. reactionary defensives like it used to be. Used to need to hit your F5 for defensive etc. Now its just as long as you keep doing the same rotation you're pretty much immortal. 

Only weakness is if for some reason you don't keep up stability (which is near impossible) and thus aren't applying damage.

But when you have a 100% condi duration build on Virt and your 4 highest damage sources are Bleeding, Confusion, Burning, & Torment... Which heal you for 3% of that damage... And then you have 100% uptime on Regen/Stability/Vigor//Resistance with close to 70% Aegis uptime...

I mean you're pretty much unkillable and outdps'ing the majority of the solo players. 

Edited January 7 by Voyant.1327

[SeTect.5918]

9 hours ago, Voyant.1327 said:

Its all how you build it. I run mostly Seraph on Virt, couple pieces of Celestial. I can break 30k solo while face tanking champions, highest I've hit was 34k. (In this current version, have been losing dps a bit each balance update.)

You just gotta get out of the way the meta runs em. Virt is extremely overpowered right now, its just not as fun due to all the bad balance choices. Its more upkeep/high intensity now vs. reactionary defensives like it used to be. Used to need to hit your F5 for defensive etc. Now its just as long as you keep doing the same rotation you're pretty much immortal. 

Only weakness is if for some reason you don't keep up stability (which is near impossible) and thus aren't applying damage.

But when you have a 100% condi duration build on Virt and your 4 highest damage sources are Bleeding, Confusion, Burning, & Torment... Which heal you for 3% of that damage... And then you have 100% uptime on Regen/Stability/Vigor//Resistance with close to 70% Aegis uptime...

I mean you're pretty much unkillable and outdps'ing the majority of the solo players. 

30k? 34k?
yeah sure man keep dreaming.
Video or wont trust you. Unless you are talking about EoD boon and damage/defense protocal things.

[Nephalem.8921]

I don't really understand why all 3 specs have to be able to facetank group events.

Especially the harbinger stuff costs you tons of dps but in that case its no issue when compared to virt? Chrono can burst the 1mill hp golem selfbuffed in ~35sec. Most champions are not that tanky and would just die to burst. The game is not balanced around solo group event performance and should not be balanced around it. And in all cases you can just take the jadecore buff and burst all the champions in seconds.

Chrono has 2 ways of getting perma quick with illusions and with chrono gm traitline. also multiple high dps ways to reach perma fury. The ONLY pve content where this is kinda required are bounty solos. Everything else just dies to burst. Especially with jadecore buffs.

https://dps.report/PPIJ-20231213-170306_boss here a log of what these buffs do to your mushroom queen.

Chrono is a burst spec. No need to turn it into a sustained useless tank. If you want to leech while watching netflix you can play staff mirage or cvirtu and if you want to be helpful you play chrono in open world pve and provide perma quick + fury + some might for 5 while also having top burst. No need to create more minion master noob traps for good builds.

[SeTect.5918]

On 1/8/2024 at 6:13 AM, Nephalem.8921 said:

I don't really understand why all 3 specs have to be able to facetank group events.

Especially the harbinger stuff costs you tons of dps but in that case its no issue when compared to virt? Chrono can burst the 1mill hp golem selfbuffed in ~35sec. Most champions are not that tanky and would just die to burst. The game is not balanced around solo group event performance and should not be balanced around it. And in all cases you can just take the jadecore buff and burst all the champions in seconds.

Chrono has 2 ways of getting perma quick with illusions and with chrono gm traitline. also multiple high dps ways to reach perma fury. The ONLY pve content where this is kinda required are bounty solos. Everything else just dies to burst. Especially with jadecore buffs.

https://dps.report/PPIJ-20231213-170306_boss here a log of what these buffs do to your mushroom queen.

Chrono is a burst spec. No need to turn it into a sustained useless tank. If you want to leech while watching netflix you can play staff mirage or cvirtu and if you want to be helpful you play chrono in open world pve and provide perma quick + fury + some might for 5 while also having top burst. No need to create more minion master noob traps for good builds.

With jade buffs you can basically run every build, even full dps builds. They dont only give boons but also 150 condi dmg, power, toughness and vitality.

I used these and killed Champion Avatar of balthazar in 21 seconds with 35k dps on a condi build (so having to stack dmg first). 

They wont help you much against legendary enemies and thats why people go for open world solo builds. Well, this and not wanting to refresh the duration of these buffs every now and then. They also dont work in fractals. 

Edited January 9 by SeTect.5918

[ShadowKatt.6740]

13 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

With jade buffs you can basically run every build, even full dps builds. They dont only give boons but also 150 condi dmg, power, toughness and vitality.

I used these and killed Champion Avatar of balthazar in 21 seconds with 35k dps on a condi build (so having to stack dmg first). 

They wont help you much against legendary enemies and thats why people go for open world solo builds. Well, this and not wanting to refresh the duration of these buffs every now and then. They also dont work in fractals. 

You...I....are you literally just popping into Dragon's End and grabbing the buffs and going on your way? I didn't know it would follow you off the map; never occured to me to even try.