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Our New Mesmer Elite Specialization: The Virtuoso


Tseison.4659

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Spec looks decent, assuming they will keep polishing it until the xpac launch. The only real negative I see is that all animations are omega boring and dull looking. Not the flashy kitten skill effects, but actual character animations. After the mirage's  and daredevil's moveset it's really yikes to see these new animations look just as boring as chrono, where 50% of your gameplay consists of resummoning phantasms with hand waves. I do hope they upgrade them. 

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I quite like the dagger, I've never liked a sword on mesmar. I prefer the GS, So having something that can be paired with it is nice.

Dagger and Pistol might be nice together. Dagger + Focus would be an ok option for wvw groups.

I feel like this spec is meant to be for large groups in wvw spec for or a straight Power damage in PvE.

 

I've only used support chrono, so having a pure power spec for Mesmar will be a good change of pace.

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15 minutes ago, Kondor.2904 said:

3s block, 3s distortion baseline, 6k+ heal on 20s with aegis + double dodge is a glass canon ? k

You forgot to mention that Virtuoso will still have access to core weapons, utility skills and even 2 traitlines. :') That will give even more sustain to it.
I really don't get how people forget so often that elite specializations are only 1 traitline with 1or2 more weapon and skill set to pick while also having most if not all core mechanics...

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Another thought, would blades not despawning on target death even solve the problem of low burst due to long ramp up time of chrono, even if you have all five blades come prepared, you used it right away, and then quickly use skill to refill all five you will just be faced with your f1 being on cooldown again, and all other bladesong skills are terrible for power damage, one of them is basically useless (f2 with confusion again). even the acquisition of blade is the same as clones, you will still be faced with the fact that you need other target to get your source of damage with the exception of that one new utility skill. I found this a bit similar to the burst of berserker, you build of your resources and then spend them for big damage skill, but berserker can recharge their resource with almost every single one of their skill while only a few can recharge blades, and berserker can use their burst very rabidly while we have to wait for both cooldown and a somewhat slow recharge rate of blades unless we take signet of illusion or illusion trait line, which both are pretty bad for power dps and bursting. 

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15 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You forgot to mention that Virtuoso will still have access to core weapons, utility skills and even 2 traitlines. :') That will give even more sustain to it.
I really don't get how people forget so often that elite specializations are only 1 traitline with 1or2 more weapon and skill set to pick while also having most if not all core mechanics...

It's also entirely possible that it has a trait like Deadeye's Silent Scope in that it single handedly provides all the survivability it could ever need in PvP. 

 

It's also entirely possible that the specialization's baseline damage is so high like Holosmith that it lets you spec into 2 defensive trait lines, in this case inspiration and chaos, and still have very high killing potential. 

Edited by mortrialus.3062
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6 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You forgot to mention that Virtuoso will still have access to core weapons, utility skills and even 2 traitlines. :') That will give even more sustain to it.
I really don't get how people forget so often that elite specializations are only 1 traitline with 1or2 more weapon and skill set to pick while also having most if not all core mechanics...

core mesmer utilities don't have much sustain is the issue, and the only good sustain from core mesmer trait line is inspiration with the distortion on signet activation, which also means forgoing all of your damage, cleanse and stun break.

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16 minutes ago, Kondor.2904 said:

Spec looks decent, assuming they will keep polishing it until the xpac launch. The only real negative I see is that all animations are omega boring and dull looking. Not the flashy kitten skill effects, but actual character animations. After the mirage's  and daredevil's moveset it's really yikes to see these new animations look just as boring as chrono, where 50% of your gameplay consists of resummoning phantasms with hand waves. I do hope they upgrade them. 

Hey its a Dagger spec... welcome to the world of Spellbreaker and Soulbeast. Excuse me Mr. Monster whilst I stand directly in front of you and go stabbity stab stab... 🙂 

I can see where you are coming from though. Its going to be interesting to see if those are the final character movements when using the skills. Fingerwiggling hand waves hmmmm.

Edited by Andy.5981
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I am really excited about this specialization (mainly for sPvP). Mesmer in general does not appeal to me. I recently played some chrono stun in sPvP and it was fun but still not enough to get me into the profession. I also tried some power burst and am thinking about trying chrono power phantasm.

 

Virtuoso looks like it could fit me perfectly! Clear animations on F skills (finally!), a somewhat range damage dealer feeling and some aoe in addition to the base kit of mesmer which can give defense / burst. It reminds me a bit of a psionicist in an other mmo, also with a blade skill, aoe control and psychic abilities.

 

I just hope it does not get too many defensive traits (the recharge + invuln got me a bit scared because it was the first thing shown).

Edited by aymnad.9023
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1 minute ago, aymnad.9023 said:

I am really excited about this specialization (mainly for sPvP). Mesmer in general does not appeal to me. I recently played some chrono stun in sPvP and it was fun but still not enough to get me excited. I also tried some power burst and am thinking about trying chrono power phantasm.

 

Virtuoso looks like it could fit me perfectly! Clear animations on F skills (finally!), a somewhat range damage dealer feeling and some aoe in addition to the base kit of mesmer which can give defense / burst. It reminds me a bit of a psionicist  in an other mmo.

 

I just hope it does not get too many defensive traits (the recharge + invuln got me a bit scared because it was the first thing shown).

The skill type for the Virtuoso's utility skills was "Psionic" IIRC, so that similarity is perhaps not too surprising.

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11 minutes ago, AXLIB.8425 said:

core mesmer utilities don't have much sustain is the issue, and the only good sustain from core mesmer trait line is inspiration with the distortion on signet activation, which also means forgoing all of your damage, cleanse and stun break.

Core mesmer on its own has more than enough sustain. You have several core utilities that can offer stealth, mobility, detarget, double f4. And on top of that you have traitlines that can offer full on traited invis monkey or signet spam monkey. Problem is you might lack proper amount of pressure for enemies not to ignore you past ress bot capabilities. 

Edited by Kondor.2904
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D/F will be a problem in WvW zergs given the utilities - Sword of Decimation is absolutely busted for ZvZ since it'll ignore reflects - and D/P probably a problem in roaming.

 

Shame they didn't release it with OH Dagger though.  Gonna be all daggers and then just a few random illusions/clones from the OH weapon skills lol.

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59 minutes ago, Kondor.2904 said:

Spec looks decent, assuming they will keep polishing it until the xpac launch. The only real negative I see is that all animations are omega boring and dull looking. Not the flashy kitten skill effects, but actual character animations. After the mirage's  and daredevil's moveset it's really yikes to see these new animations look just as boring as chrono, where 50% of your gameplay consists of resummoning phantasms with hand waves. I do hope they upgrade them. 

Idk, I think the particle effects look cool enough.  Gotta remember that we aren't gonna be the only ones hitting a target most of the time, and having EVERYONE with super flashy abilities on every button is what makes combat a bit of a mess to look at.

 

My only gripe is that the physical dagger charges over your character are a bit too small and transparent making them a bit too hard to see.

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I see that a lot of people wanted a class similar to a bard or music themed. It seems more like they are trying to keep Mesmer close to its roots, even similar to that of a GW1 mesmer. It is all about illusions, enchanting, the mind. Something that typically occurs in video games is that a musical themed class is generally a support role. EQ1/EQ2 - Bards, LOTRO - Minstrel, DnD - Bards. I'm sure there are even more games with similar classes that could be used for example. In the original guild wars, the music themed class was basically... Paragon. It had chants, arias, ballads, chorus, etc; however, the class itself wasn't exactly viable from what I remember.

I do think a music themed class would be neat, but I think that should be its own separate core class that is built upon than a specialization for a class.

Edited by Veta.6174
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1 minute ago, Roda.7468 said:

Idk, I think the particle effects look cool enough.  Gotta remember that we aren't gonna be the only ones hitting a target most of the time, and having EVERYONE with super flashy abilities on every button is what makes combat a bit of a mess to look at.

 

My only gripe is that the physical dagger charges over your character are a bit too small and transparent making them a bit too hard to see.

I'm a bit confused, so you mean a character performing an action will make combat look like a mess, but overstacked flashy particle effects from every elite spec stacked at 1 spot won't ?

I don't know, mate, I'd rather be watching 20 daredevils spam their fist flurry and bound than catching epileptic seizure attacks from having to distinguish mob's attack among 20 stacked aoes and 50 multicoloured particle effects.  

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49 minutes ago, Kondor.2904 said:

Core mesmer on its own has more than enough sustain. You have several core utilities that can offer stealth, mobility, detarget, double f4. And on top of that you have traitlines that can offer full on traited invis monkey or signet spam monkey. Problem is you might lack proper amount of pressure for enemies not to ignore you past ress bot capabilities. 

You named a lot of disengage skill, not skill that keep you healthy and alive in fight, sure you end up alive, but also probably somewhere else on the map. also i literally named inspiration signet distortion as the only good sustain from core mesmer trait line. 

running away when thing goes bad does not equal to good sustain during a fight

Edited by AXLIB.8425
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I'm not exactly sad or anything but it's rather... underwhelming.

When the shadowed teaser art was shown it was kinda obvious that the illusion blades instead of clones mechanic would be a thing, and even though I love clones as a mechanic, I'm happy to have something that's actually unique from core mesmer for once, and the idea of creating and controlling floating illusionary blades is really cool.

 

That being said, all the shatters still do pretty much exactly the same thing they do as a core mesmer, except they're now a pierce instead of a proper aoe (which is arguably worse). Press F1 for raw damage, press F2 for confusion, press F3 for daze, press F4 for distortion (which is now block, which is, again, worse).

 

Also the only thing you can do with the blades is throwing them? That feels rather uninspired. We could've used them as follow-ups to our attacks, counters, pets, persistent aoes (ala renegade charr things), or even wield them. In fact, our utility skills could've been like elementalist conjure skills, but we summon illusionary weapons instead of elemental ones, adressing complaints that mesmer has the least elite espec weapon skills of all classes in the process, but all we get are projectiles?

 

It seems like it deals good damage, and the gameplay seems cool enough at a first glance, but it just doesn't feel like enough. Nowhere near enough.

 

On a smaller note, some of the visual effects like dagger 1 are fuzzy and ugly, hope they polish it a bit.

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Pretty pleased.

Theme is good, name is a bit weird though. 

Cloneless playstyle 

Dedicated power dps spec

Ranged one handed power weapon

 

Just hoping they retool chrono back into a more support oriented spec now that we are getting a spec focused on pdps.

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1 minute ago, AXLIB.8425 said:

You named a lot of disengage skill, not skill that keep you healthy and alive in fight, sure you end up alive, but also probably somewhere else on the map. also i literally named inspiration signet distortion as the only good sustain from core mesmer trait line. 

running away when thing goes bad does not equal to good sustain during a fight

Well, yeah, mesmer has always revolved around active defense and damage avoidance rather than facetanking and outhealing damage, so I wouldn't be expecting such kind of sustain from any new elite spec. 

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