Meet the virtuoso

[Levetty.1279]

6 minutes ago, Me Games Ma.3024 said:

You're stating things without a trade off.

Are you saying that Replacing F1-F4 is not a mechanical replacement? That's all necros got for ages. They always just get "another shroud". And on top we got our ammunition replaced to be less clunky and more reliable and bursty.

Hey everybody Shades are just another shroud. They work completely differently but yeah its just another shroud. Do you want to try that one again?

 

Here lets put it another way. Imagine Soulbeast, the merging with pet mechanic, the traits around merging and unmerging and the skills it gave you. Instead of all that it just removed the pet. The pet is gone, the traits that effected it don't effect Ranger and the Soulbeast traits are just bleed on crit or %damage modifiers. That is Virtuoso. Rangers would be understandably pissed., so are we.

[Me Games Ma.3024]

12 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Hey everybody Shades are just another shroud. They work completely differently but yeah its just another shroud. Do you want to try that one again?

 

Here lets put it another way. Imagine Soulbeast, the merging with pet mechanic, the traits around merging and unmerging and the skills it gave you. Instead of all that it just removed the pet. The pet is gone, the traits that effected it don't effect Ranger and the Soulbeast traits are just bleed on crit or %damage modifiers. That is Virtuoso. Rangers would be understandably pissed., so are we.

You know as much as I that I am referring to Reaper and Harbinger here. That's the majority of necro's specs.

 

And no. That's not how it is if you were to compare SB with Virtuoso you'd have a ranger without pet that can use skills that previously affected the pet to generate an adrenaline like ammunition for their profession skills. 

I'm not saying that I love the way Virtuoso is done but it does have a different mechanic. That's just a fact. Not a great one, I give you that but you can't say it doesn't have a replacement.

[mortrialus.3062]

2 hours ago, Quadox.7834 said:

it wont do 0 dmg in pvp

 

also there seems to be another big negative with f3, it only applies one big daze instead of one per clone. so if you hit a 5 blade f3 it will still only apply 5 vuln with domination while a 3 clone shatter applies 15-20 vuln.

 

i agree that it should probably stun or maybe even knockback (the latter would fit a ranged class).

All CC do effectively zero damage in PvP.  That's a result of the megablance.   Warrior hammer 3/6 skills do zero damage because they're CC.

[mortrialus.3062]

41 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Hey everybody Shades are just another shroud. They work completely differently but yeah its just another shroud. Do you want to try that one again?

 

Here lets put it another way. Imagine Soulbeast, the merging with pet mechanic, the traits around merging and unmerging and the skills it gave you. Instead of all that it just removed the pet. The pet is gone, the traits that effected it don't effect Ranger and the Soulbeast traits are just bleed on crit or %damage modifiers. That is Virtuoso. Rangers would be understandably pissed., so are we.

Traits that improve shatter also improve Bladesongs.  In the initial reveal you can even see the way the Bladesongs are augmented by traits. 

 

Dunno where you're getting the core traits don't impact bladesongs thing. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/HMu8BqV

 

The blue text means trait bonuses.

[Me Games Ma.3024]

1 minute ago, mortrialus.3062 said:

Traits that improve shatter also improve Bladesongs.  In the initial reveal you can even see the way the Bladesongs are augmented by traits. 

 

Dunno where you're getting the core traits don't impact bladesongs thing. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/HMu8BqV

 

The blue text means trait bonuses.

I think he's referring to Sharper Images(?), and I have to give him that point. Sharper Images is way weaker without clones.

[Levetty.1279]

31 minutes ago, Me Games Ma.3024 said:

You know as much as I that I am referring to Reaper and Harbinger here. That's the majority of necro's specs.

At least Reaper got 5 new skills with a different focus, not the best but better then if they had just removed Shroud and claimed that was a new mechanic. Harbinger gets a whole health decrease/blight mechanic to play with. Watch the reveal it is hard to miss.

 

31 minutes ago, Me Games Ma.3024 said:

And no. That's not how it is if you were to compare SB with Virtuoso you'd have a ranger without pet that can use skills that previously affected the pet to generate an adrenaline like ammunition for their profession skills. 

I'm not saying that I love the way Virtuoso is done but it does have a different mechanic. That's just a fact. Not a great one, I give you that but you can't say it doesn't have a replacement.

I can because it doesn't have a replacement. Where is the replacement for clones? There isn't any. The fact that Sharper Images doesn't work on blades is all the proof you need. That is why the Soulbeast example is apt.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Levetty.1279

[mortrialus.3062]

3 minutes ago, Me Games Ma.3024 said:

I think he's referring to Sharper Images(?), and I have to give him that point. Sharper Images is way weaker without clones.

 

Ah, true.  Also bad is that 50% of scepter and staff's autoattack damage comes from clones, and with staff literally all your damage is the auto attack.  Like that's the design the autos are the weakest in the entire game without clones but they're workable when you have full clones. So without any sort of compensation for that, if you try to make scepter or staff work on condi virtuoso you're just gimping the damage you can do. 

 

I've been saying for a while that I wish they'd moved 100% of the condition damage from clones onto the mesmer itself, and I reiterated that when Virtuoso was announced. 

 

Will still effect phantasms though. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by mortrialus.3062

[AXLIB.8425]

4 hours ago, Quadox.7834 said:

100% agreed. i feel like they saw on the forums/reddit that people have been asking for

 

* Minstrel/bard/siren (song based spec)

 

* Bladedancer

 

* Telekinesis/psychic based spec

 

and they basically made mostly a standard blade throwing assassin but threw in the song theme in the shatter names (bladesongs) and the psychic theme in a single utility (the push), even though this doesn't make any sense.

Judging by the current state of viruoso with blades and traits, i feel like they saw this things we wanted on forums around March and April, and made the class then, no way this has been worked on for long

[AXLIB.8425]

3 hours ago, Me Games Ma.3024 said:

You know as much as I that I am referring to Reaper and Harbinger here. That's the majority of necro's specs.

 

And no. That's not how it is if you were to compare SB with Virtuoso you'd have a ranger without pet that can use skills that previously affected the pet to generate an adrenaline like ammunition for their profession skills. 

I'm not saying that I love the way Virtuoso is done but it does have a different mechanic. That's just a fact. Not a great one, I give you that but you can't say it doesn't have a replacement.

reaper and harbinger gets new skills with different effect, like reaper with the aoe spin and charge instead of a shawdow step and a aoe life leech, harbinger with our grav well one one third of a cooldown instead simple fear, as well as the two mobility skills they have. Or another example, DH virtues and core guardian virtues, Dh virtues 1 tether and pulse burn and vun indead of next attack burn, virtues 2 is a leap and heal on landing instead of press to heal. Those are new mechanic and new skills, not the virtuoso's F1 scalable power damage, F2 scalable confusion, and F3 scalable? daze, because core mesmer is also scalable power damage, confusion and daze, F4 is the only one that can be count as a different skill, just because virtuoso's f skill have cast time and is now projectile means they are different enough to be new skill.

 

the only two meaningful new mechanics the virtuoso has are that our ammo now longer disappear on target death, and we can't get more condi with clone auto attack. the first one is just a qol that should've been on core mesmer, but instead they made a new elite out of it and want us to pay for a problem they created. The second one is a straight nerf to condi build, but virtuoso is a power spec to begin with (the condi trait line does not belong).

you mentions that blades don't have hit point while clones does, I personally will put that with the qol thing i mentioned earlier, because clones these days have no reason to have hit points, enemies rarely attack them, and you also won't be fooling anyone with a brain in pvp with clones either, I actually think making clones to have determined buff in pvp will actually help mesmer player in the long run despite making clones even more obvious, it will make clones useful in wvw and also reduced the amount people screaming that they can't figure out which one is the real one, so it should only open more rooms to buff mesmer in pvp. also maybe put more condi damage from clones to base mesmer, especially on mirage (or just make mirage clones a special case) if clones become invulnerable. 

[JazzXman.7018]

5 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Clones only ever had a bad reputation is when they massively decreased the HP of them. Back on release clones can be used as a way to block a incoming ranged attack or serve as actual distraction rather then what it is now.

 

Another thing they should've done is now that WvW has bloodlust and buffs here and there including food buffs they should also include it to the clones.

 

Clones was never an issue before HoT.

 

May 11, 2021	Undocumented change: Clones now self-destroy without effect when attacking invulnerable enemies, or if they have no path to their target.
February 06, 2018	Phantasms can no longer be shattered and no longer count toward your maximum illusion count. Phantasms are destroyed and then replaced by clones after completing their unique attack or if their attack is interrupted. Fixed a bug in which downed clones could persist after a rally. Fixed a bug in which downed clones could exceed the illusion limit.

 

3 years since clones or phantasms received ANY prominent update. This isn't a clone issue this is a lack of attention issue.

wait, do you have the link to the side where the undocumented change from may 11, 2012 is mentioned? that should be a bug and should be fixed. oO

[Salt Mode.3780]

24 minutes ago, JazzXman.7018 said:

wait, do you have the link to the side where the undocumented change from may 11, 2012 is mentioned? that should be a bug and should be fixed. oO

Nope this was taken from the wiki, and I'm pretty sure they don't list shadow nerfs.

[JazzXman.7018]

6 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Nope this was taken from the wiki, and I'm pretty sure they don't list shadow nerfs.

can you still give me a link to that side pls?

[phokus.8934]

27 minutes ago, JazzXman.7018 said:

can you still give me a link to that side pls?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Clone

[Artyport.2084]

The trait that makes blades bleed should also turn your sword skills into blades.

turning the sword into an effective condi weapon.

 

[mortrialus.3062]

28 minutes ago, Artyport.2084 said:

The trait that makes blades bleed should also turn your sword skills into blades.

turning the sword into an effective condi weapon.

 

See this is actually the kind of cool thinking for traits that would make build craft on Virtuoso a lot more interesting. 

[Kondor.2904]

2 hours ago, JazzXman.7018 said:

wait, do you have the link to the side where the undocumented change from may 11, 2012 is mentioned? that should be a bug and should be fixed. oO

That's not a bug, they patched it twice, so it's most likely intentional to make precasts more clunky(?). When it got introduced, clones had a 4 second timer to get in combat or they disappeared, later the timer was increased to 6 seconds, because it supposedly created a lot of issues with clones interrupting their attacks/not having enough time to hit a target and completely yoinking your clone upkeep. So now it's less of a deal but can still f you up if clones can't get in combat in time for some reason. 

[Axl.8924]

I think eithe virtuoso or the new ele spec might be the first i will try.

I am interested in that dagger throw thing to see what's up with it.

[Axl.8924]

On 8/10/2021 at 3:34 PM, mortrialus.3062 said:

 

No reason condi virtuoso might not be a thing the way power mirage was a thing.  5x confusion blades with true ranged potential boosted by illusions and ineptitude has potential even if the focus is power.

 

Virtuoso might be condi but pretty solid power dmg. from the video.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Axl.8924

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

Virtuoso might be condi but pretty solid power dmg. from the video.

 

 

Aside from the elite every other dmg is pretty meh, 1 clone + IP from core = 5 dagger shatter F1 for Virtuoso. That is because range innately have lesser dmg then melee I mean aside from rangers.

[Axl.8924]

8 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Aside from the elite every other dmg is pretty meh, 1 clone + IP from core = 5 dagger shatter F1 for Virtuoso. That is because range innately have lesser dmg then melee I mean aside from rangers.

 

What i don't understand, ist he long CD 1 has for just plain dmg.

Reaper can do that kind of burst without a long cd on 2 pretty ez and possibly more. Guess we will have to wait till its playable to see whats up no?

Edited August 17, 2021 by Axl.8924

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 minute ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

What i don't understand, ist he long CD 1 has for just plain dmg.

Reaper can do that kind of burst without a long cd on 2 pretty ez and possibly more. Guess we will have to wait till its playable to see whats up no?

I mean it doesn't matter doesnt hide the fact that the multipliers are low, you can take dmg traits and it would prob do a fraction of what other classes can do without them taking dmg traits.

[Axl.8924]

2 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

I mean it doesn't matter doesnt hide the fact that the multipliers are low, you can take dmg traits and it would prob do a fraction of what other classes can do without them taking dmg traits.

Guess i'm kinda confused about the vision of the class, and what it aims for

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 minute ago, Axl.8924 said:

Guess i'm kinda confused about the vision of the class, and what it aims for

Literally a ranged core no clones less dmg, its everything anti-mesmer wants but nothing a mesmer main want.

[Yoci.2481]

I would say it's a pure PvE spec, but then the PvE people are telling me it's not that either. I'm not impressed with it, we will see what is salvageable.

[Me Games Ma.3024]

Since we had one Spec that focuses on phantasms and one spec that focuses on clones I had hoped for a spec that focuses on shattering all day. Virtuoso could be that spec but in the state that we saw it is not :(