Our New Mesmer Elite Specialization: The Virtuoso

[Daniel Handler.4816]

16 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

sorry what E-spec means?

Elite specialization

[Swagg.9236]

Wildstar Esper did it better.  Their builder system was also WAY less jank than this one.

[rylien.3824]

Negative:
- I would have preferred a Barde so much personally, which I think was far more original than what we have now. So I was particularly disappointed to know that the class was reduced to "playing a pole" (lack of huge mobility) which always balances the same thing in a linear way, the class seems at first sight not very interesting and not very worked...
I still have right here the impression finally with this class that played an umpteenth 2.0 thief, as inspired the Mirage...
And then we are again an umpteenth DPS, where it would have been more interesting to follow the idea of "support" (what we lacked...).

Positive :
- There are nice visual effects, it is much more inspired by a prismatic/crystalline style, which is nevertheless appreciable, and then finally have a distance weapon again.

Wish :
- I hope there will be changes in this class,
and that the LORE will not be limited to "inspired once again by the assassins".
I hope that the reviews will really come back and that it can change the class for its release...
For example, they could talk about inspiration from Aurene’s crystals? (Resonance).
This would remain on the theme of music and on the theme "crystalline".
With a mechanism of resonance and throwing crystal-clear daggers... and prismatic.

 

So I am disappointed for the moment with the class... and it is not only because it is not a Bard, but because the mechanical potential of the class seems to be poor.
I don’t get the impression that, except to have clumsily replaced daggers instead of clones, that it really brings something. As much in the artistic/visual field (game-design that I consider very little worked) as the rest.

Its lack of "sounds", "music" (resonance), if they want to stay on the theme of "BladeSong", effects, and mobility, and a better connection with the principle of resonance. I hope that this will happen, and that they will work much more on the class in question so that it has better mechanics...

 

So I wait while waiting to test the class, to make me a final opinion, but remains disappointed for the moment.

Edited August 5, 2021 by rylien.3824

[Xaylin.1860]

15 hours ago, Kicast.1459 said:

Is it me or do the skills look slow as hell ?

If not mistaken, you will hit nothing with the auto and the 2.

The AA looks concerning. The othe skills look kinda fine to me.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Xaylin.1860

[otto.5684]

It seems interesting. My concern for pve is that it seems the aoe damage is questionable and it will be similar to GS where you can hit from 1200, but you really need to be close for damage consistency.

 

Not that care for pvp anymore, but this will be significantly nerfed. Anet can never balance ranged characters in pvp (or pvp in general).

[Xaylin.1860]

For open world PvE it's probably going to be the best Mesmer ever had unless they tune down the damage. For organized PvE, sure, probably won't be enough DPS from range especially if you need F4 do be part of the rotation. But that's an overall GW2 thing.

[Xaylin.1860]

Maybe others have discussed this already. But I don't remember reading about it. I've wondered, shouldn't 'Blades' inherit Illusion properties from traits?

 

• Impowered Illusions - +15% damage on Blade attack
• Sharper Images - Bleed on critical Blade hit
• Illusionary Defense - Defense per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)
• Illusionary Inspiration - Heal when creating Blade
• Compounding Power - More damage per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)

 

The footage doesn't support this thought as far as I can see. But it would make sense and be pretty interesting.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Xaylin.1860
HEY EVERYBODY, ITS TAIMI! *rewatch

[Tseison.4659]

3 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Maybe others have discussed this already. But I don't remember reading about it. I've wondered, shouldn't 'Blades' inherit Illusion properties from traits?

 

• Impowered Illusions - +15% damage on Blade attack
• Sharper Images - Bleed on critical Blade hit
• Illusionary Defense - Defense per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)
• Illusionary Inspiration - Heal when creating Blade
• Compounding Power - More damage per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)

 

The footage doesn't support this thought as far as I can see. But it would make sense and be pretty interesting.

 

Yeah so I'm guessing when we get more info on the trait line(s) next friday we'll get more info as to how or what our Blades will benefit from, but I'm going to safely assume because our illusions are replaced with blades, that whatever affected clones/illusions will fall onto our blades as well. Phantasms obviously not because those come from our weapon skills, but the clone/illusion focused traits I hope so.

 

Examples like what you placed such as: Compounding Power and Illusionary Defense will likely not be changed as they have a maximum already. So I'm guessing since our blade pool is 2 pips higher than our active clone pool, the buff would just refresh in duration and the same goes for Compounding Power.

[Xaylin.1860]

Yeah, I forgot they reworked the functionality of the stacking buffs a while ago. But still... the interaction could be very interesting. I hope ANet puts in the effort for this and doesn't take the easy route.

[AXLIB.8425]

On 8/6/2021 at 3:38 AM, Xaylin.1860 said:

Maybe others have discussed this already. But I don't remember reading about it. I've wondered, shouldn't 'Blades' inherit Illusion properties from traits?

 

• Impowered Illusions - +15% damage on Blade attack
• Sharper Images - Bleed on critical Blade hit
• Illusionary Defense - Defense per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)
• Illusionary Inspiration - Heal when creating Blade
• Compounding Power - More damage per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)

 

The footage doesn't support this thought as far as I can see. But it would make sense and be pretty interesting.

One interesting combo is illusionary inspiration with that one skill give us 5 blade and distortion. It will make it a channeled heal skill with invulnerability on top of it. With minstrel healing power it will be 3000ish aoe heal. It seems likely that anet probably don't want that to be the case so they might finally look at and rework inspiration. But then again they probably just going to slap a icd on it and call it a good day.

Edited August 7, 2021 by AXLIB.8425

[Xaylin.1860]

Yes, for example. Illusionary Inspiration is indeed the one I'm most interested in. But instantly getting the stacking buffs up to 5 as well.

 

The more I look at the Virtuoso, the more I want ANet to make Phantasms untargetable/killable (and rework defensive Phantasm traits). Not totally related, I know. But Mesmers just got the worst resource system in GW2 imho and Virtuoso clearly shows that ANet is willing to try something different. 

[Noodle Ant.1605]

8 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

For open world PvE it's probably going to be the best Mesmer ever had unless they tune down the damage. For organized PvE, sure, probably won't be enough DPS from range especially if you need F4 do be part of the rotation.

 

the dmg doesnt look too high imo; besides, if its higher than core mesmer, it would already be overkilling things which doesnt really do the spec much favor. it does improve on mesmers range capabilities however (i believe thats the main aim of the spec), making it more suited for kiting bosses or other hard enemies you cant just shotgun-shatter burst out of existence

 

for high end pve, i can tell you that you wont be trying to use f4 in rotation because it does less dps than the sword auto chain and wastes precious resource for f1, which you always want to be using at max blade stacks (if possible). again, i see the new espec serving as mesmers best ranged power-based option, but as for competing in the benchmark/dps race... as far as whats been shown, it seems rather tame compared to the notorious pof especs at release

 

7 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Maybe others have discussed this already. But I don't remember reading about it. I've wondered, shouldn't 'Blades' inherit Illusion properties from traits?

 

• Impowered Illusions - +15% damage on Blade attack
• Sharper Images - Bleed on critical Blade hit
• Illusionary Defense - Defense per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)
• Illusionary Inspiration - Heal when creating Blade
• Compounding Power - More damage per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)

 

although interactions with empowered illusions and sharper images would be interesting, illusionary inspiration would be broken considering that you can probably create maybe 10-20x as much "blades" than illusions, dagger #3 by itself shoots out up to 13(?) blades... unless you mean stocked blades (the profession resource replacing clones), which i would assume already functions as intended

 

illusionary defense and compounding power have max stacks as someone has already mentioned

 

i dont think theyll change illusion traits to affect blades, but im sure theres some virtuoso trait has that specifically interacts with all the blade skills though

 

2 hours ago, AXLIB.8425 said:

One interesting combo is illusionary inspiration with that one skill give us 5 blade and distortion.

 

the skill does have a 60s cd attached to it...

[Stavros.8249]

8 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Maybe others have discussed this already. But I don't remember reading about it. I've wondered, shouldn't 'Blades' inherit Illusion properties from traits?

 

• Impowered Illusions - +15% damage on Blade attack
• Sharper Images - Bleed on critical Blade hit
• Illusionary Defense - Defense per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)
• Illusionary Inspiration - Heal when creating Blade
• Compounding Power - More damage per active Blade (5 instead of 3 max)

 

The footage doesn't support this thought as far as I can see. But it would make sense and be pretty interesting.

The trait will work as the blades are clones. 

[Zoser.7245]

My fear is if they end adding internal cooldowns to clone/illusions traits nerfing the whole profession due to the virtuoso and its 5 blades.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Zoser.7245

[Daniel Handler.4816]

On 8/6/2021 at 1:24 PM, Stavros.8249 said:

The trait will work as the blades are clones. 

 

Except they aren't working if you watch the video. Sharper images is not proccing on blade skills. It's possible this is supposed to be a grandmaster, or it's a bug. But I wouldn't be surprised if it just wasn't a thing.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Daniel Handler.4816

[Xaylin.1860]

That's why I said it doesn't check out in the video but it would make sense. I hope they just didn't implement the interaction yet. I would hate a "Heat" situation (Holo not interacting with baseline Engineer) on Virtuoso.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

23 hours ago, Zoser.7245 said:

My fear is if they end adding internal cooldowns to clone/illusions traits nerfing the whole profession due to the virtuoso and its 5 blades.

You can bet some core traits will get nerfed if 5 blades proves to be too much.

Never forget:
- Power Block
- Confounding Suggestions
- Critical Infusion
- Blinding Dissipation
- Evasive Mirror

All killed due to Mirage.

[Salt Mode.3780]

39 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

You can bet some core traits will get nerfed if 5 blades proves to be too much.

Never forget:
- Power Block
- Confounding Suggestions
- Critical Infusion
- Blinding Dissipation
- Evasive Mirror

All killed due to Mirage.

And that is why they should stop making e-spec without basing it off core spec...e-spec comes they ignore core traits which results in core getting nerfed even more resulting in nerfing all spec 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

8 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

And that is why they should stop making e-spec without basing it off core spec...e-spec comes they ignore core traits which results in core getting nerfed even more resulting in nerfing all spec 

ANerf is only partial guilty. 

Their mistake is that they always listen to the wrong people. All those traits were qq'ed by  clueless pvp'ers, like "mirage is op due to (insert core trait)".

 

I don't know if you were around that time, everytime a patch nerfed something on mesmer the community would find other target, all this while mesmer players kept saying "that isn't the problem, the problem is x y z" and were ignored by ANerf. 

Hence the pathetic trash mesmer became where you spec a bunch of useless traits to get to a major grandmaster. 

[Salt Mode.3780]

28 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

ANerf is only partial guilty. 

Their mistake is that they always listen to the wrong people. All those traits were qq'ed by  clueless pvp'ers, like "mirage is op due to (insert core trait)".

 

I don't know if you were around that time, everytime a patch nerfed something on mesmer the community would find other target, all this while mesmer players kept saying "that isn't the problem, the problem is x y z" and were ignored by ANerf. 

Hence the pathetic trash mesmer became where you spec a bunch of useless traits to get to a major grandmaster. 

Oh its not news that ANET is bias towards mesmers and continue to listen the masses to nerf mesmer. From the looks of virtuoso, the cloneless isnt because they listen to us how clones are clunky and how they die before doing dmg, but instead listening to players not wanting to deal with clones. Without clones and a cast time it is harder for mesmers to actually cast anything out without clones being a diversion. 

 

Looking at the skillset it is neither mobile or fast, it is a very slow paced class, traits isn't going to make virtuoso suddenly great or suddenly more agile and mobile, fact that 2/3 traitlines are still the nerfed core traits that havent been looked at or revised. 

 

Like I said before, IH didnt make mirage OP in fact people often ran Elusive mind even after it gave it exhaustion. It was nerfed to a point where we had no choice but to pick up IH because im pretty sure Dune cloak was never used since released even tho they try to make it useful. Patch notes says it all.

Like why run Elusive Mind with one dodge that cleanses 3 condi when I can run Sigil of Cleansing (WvW).

 

February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5.
July 16, 2019	This trait has been reworked and new visual effects have been added. It now attacks at the end of Mirage Cloak rather than the beginning. Additionally, its damage has been increased by 100%, and instead of inflicting bleeding it now removes a boon from up to 5 foes on hit. The mirage gains a copy of any boon removed.
September 22, 2017	Path of Fire release: Dune Cloak has been added to the game.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Salt Mode.3780

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

18 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Oh its not news that ANET is bias towards mesmers and continue to listen the masses to nerf mesmer. From the looks of virtuoso, the cloneless isnt because they listen to us how clones are clunky and how they die before doing dmg, but instead listening to players not wanting to deal with clones. Without clones and a cast time it is harder for mesmers to actually cast anything out without clones being a diversion. 

 

Looking at the skillset it is neither mobile or fast, it is a very slow paced class, traits isn't going to make virtuoso suddenly great or suddenly more agile and mobile, fact that 2/3 traitlines are still the nerfed core traits that havent been looked at or revised. 

 

Like I said before, IH didnt make mirage OP in fact people often ran Elusive mind even after it gave it exhaustion. It was nerfed to a point where we had no choice but to pick up IH because im pretty sure Dune cloak was never used since released even tho they try to make it useful. Patch notes says it all.

Like why run Elusive Mind with one dodge that cleanses 3 condi when I can run Sigil of Cleansing (WvW).

 

February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5.
July 16, 2019	This trait has been reworked and new visual effects have been added. It now attacks at the end of Mirage Cloak rather than the beginning. Additionally, its damage has been increased by 100%, and instead of inflicting bleeding it now removes a boon from up to 5 foes on hit. The mirage gains a copy of any boon removed.
September 22, 2017	Path of Fire release: Dune Cloak has been added to the game.

The only person I remember that always used IH was Jazz. 

Apart from him/her, all used EM.

 

Dune cloak was always a joke indeed. 

 

Thing that is funny is that after the paprika leaks, I commented with some friends that if the new mesmer spec would have more dodge than thief it would get nerfed into oblivion. Turns out that we still had less and still got gutted. 

 

I agree, Virt seems bad, mostly because of cast times in everything imo. Get rid of F cast times and it will be playable even if sustain is still an issue and fgs get rid of channeling F4. 

[Levetty.1279]

The other elite spec reveals are starting to take the shine off Virtuoso. The simplicity, the damage on dagger, everything being a projectile, the lack of sustain/defense and the cast times on everything. I've said before the simplicity of it can be a nice change of pace for mesmer but even with the idea of making it simple they could have done something more interesting then shatter fuel can't be killed now. Its a new elite spec so I'm sure they will make it good at its job, either at launch or post launch patches, but will it actually be fun and interesting? Hopefully the traits can do some interesting things but it already looks like core traits don't have any interesting interaction with blades. I just fear we are going to end up with a 'slap a bunch of % modifier traits and rank well on dps charts using S/x + GS' spec.

[Sodeni.6041]

 

On 8/6/2021 at 10:03 AM, Xaylin.1860 said:

For open world PvE it's probably going to be the best Mesmer ever had unless they tune down the damage. For organized PvE, sure, probably won't be enough DPS from range especially if you need F4 do be part of the rotation. But that's an overall GW2 thing.

Laughs in staff/staff mirage. You can literally kill champions solo with that build by just spamming ambush #1 on staff and get tons of condis to all enemies around you. Virtuoso struggles against enemies in PvE open world, especially because they have no tankiness or evasion spam like chrono or mirage do. Virtuoso lose aoe shatters and get no aoe ambushes but piercing shatters instead. The aoe on dagger and the utilities don't make up for that, especially since you need other important utilities and dagger #3 tags other enemies you don't want to fight so it's even harder to survive and end fights quickly.

[Loules.8601]

On 8/6/2021 at 11:03 AM, Xaylin.1860 said:

For open world PvE it's probably going to be the best Mesmer ever had unless they tune down the damage. For organized PvE, sure, probably won't be enough DPS from range especially if you need F4 do be part of the rotation. But that's an overall GW2 thing.

+1 to previous commentator

 

Without clones Mesmer-Virtuoso will be completely useless in open-world PvE — it’s only redeeming chance is organised PvE (if we talk about PvE)