It is really hard to get excited about Virtuoso when 2 other elite specs are in an incredibly unhealty situation

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

As a big reaper fan i say this title is bollocks. Right before HoT core necro was hot garbage and that made us necros even more hyped for e-spec not less. And for a good reason - reaper saved the necro back then.

I can see virtuoso being similar here - the "lovely" state of your profession mechanic dipping on you with each kill is pretty annoying. Forget carrying your stacked power (blades) from fight to fight..which virtuoso will. Just having them sticking around after a simple trash mob kill during a single fight with multiple mobs is diamonds.

As for chronomancer - I'm no expert on the subject. But am pretty sure that having access to both party quickness and alacrity under one roof makes certain painful drawbacks justified. Such as lower uptimes compared to supports that have only one of these, or major dip in personal damage.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

26 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

I can see virtuoso being similar here - the "lovely" state of your profession mechanic dipping on you with each kill is pretty annoying. Forget carrying your stacked power (blades) from fight to fight..which virtuoso will. Just having them sticking around after a simple trash mob kill during a single fight with multiple mobs is diamonds.

 

i feel like this point is emphasized far more than it needs to, this isnt very special atm considering that a virtuouso needs to build up more than 3 blades (more than base clone cap lol) to outdmg a 1 clone IP 'shotgun' shatter, so having them stick around is basically a given necessity. hopefully this will change a bit... but im not counting on it

 

why would you stack so many clones on trash mobs, anyway?

[Nezekan.2671]

34 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

As a big reaper fan i say this title is bollocks. Right before HoT core necro was hot garbage and that made us necros even more hyped for e-spec not less. And for a good reason - reaper saved the necro back then.

I can see virtuoso being similar here - the "lovely" state of your profession mechanic dipping on you with each kill is pretty annoying. Forget carrying your stacked power (blades) from fight to fight..which virtuoso will. Just having them sticking around after a simple trash mob kill during a single fight with multiple mobs is diamonds.

As for chronomancer - I'm no expert on the subject. But am pretty sure that having access to both party quickness and alacrity under one roof makes certain painful drawbacks justified. Such as lower uptimes compared to supports that have only one of these, or major dip in personal damage.

Did you bother to read the thread before making this post?

 

No one cares about how core classes were. Its so long ago its an entirely different era. 

 

Blades deal less damage compared to clones, do not provide any distraction like clones do. Breaking targetting or anything and we lose access to distortion. They are not better in any shape or form. Its a tweaked form of clones that is highly lacking. Vortuso will be the most squishy mesmer and do not get any serious damage or mobility. Its just bad and boring.

Chrono's alacrity applies to 5 people only. Its just bad in raids and due to ramp up time to provide these buffs also bad in fractals. Chrono has never been the alacrity class ever since they gave it to other classes, because they do it better. Chrono is a power melee dps with quickness.

[Levetty.1279]

2 hours ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

Really? 2 out of 3 traits on every column are support oriented and pretty much all of its utility skills area support too. If you take away Continium Split, it becomes one of the most boring and passive builds out there. If a class is already 75% support and a power oriented elite spec is coming, might as well make wells affect 10 people and make it full support or even tank in PvE. Its not like its killing the Chrono DPS, since you have to give up some dps to support anyway. 

Sure if you take away its skills, traits and F4 Chrono is boring and passive but Virtuouso is boring and passive from the start so Chrono is still more fun then it.

[Nezekan.2671]

1 minute ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Sure if you take away its skills, traits and F4 Chrono is boring and passive but Virtuouso is boring and passive from the start so Chrono is still more fun then it.

What do you mean skills and traits? Are we just going to ignore 75% of Chrono's toolkit is support? You have to pick a very specific traitline and not use any of your utilities to deal damage as Chrono. Its bad design. Making Chrono's support better will automatically bench Chrono dps without nerfing it, because its just so much better as a support. You bring so much into raids whilst dealing quite a bit of damage, using the same style Chrono does. Dps chrono is basically 75% wasted potential.

[Levetty.1279]

19 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

What do you mean skills and traits? Are we just going to ignore 75% of Chrono's toolkit is support? You have to pick a very specific traitline and not use any of your utilities to deal damage as Chrono. Its bad design. Making Chrono's support better will automatically bench Chrono dps without nerfing it, because its just so much better as a support. You bring so much into raids whilst dealing quite a bit of damage, using the same style Chrono does. Dps chrono is basically 75% wasted potential.

And Virtuoso is 100% wasted potential. So Chrono is still more fun.

[Nezekan.2671]

8 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

And Virtuoso is 100% wasted potential. So Chrono is still more fun.

Well, imagine what Chrono is that will be replaced by a 100% wasted potential spec. It must be in the negatives! Chrono's top damage is sword 1. Virtuoso has better power damage traits. Whatever Chrono can do with any weapon, Virtuoso will outperform it. A 100 second cd Continium Split will not save it and its much better for stacking boons.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Nezekan.2671

[Hackuuna.4085]

The conclusion I've come to is that traits are simply darts that ANet throws at the board. If enough of them stick, and at least one of them hits the mark (becomes meta) they don't worry about fixing the rest.

[Levetty.1279]

1 minute ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

Well, imagine what Chrono is that will be replaced by a 100% wasted potential spec. It must be in the negatives! Chrono's top damage is sword 1. Virtuoso has better power damage traits. Whatever Chrono can do with any weapon, Virtuoso will outperform it. 

What are you even arguing? How is nerfing Chrono going to fix the dumpster fire that is virtuoso? If you think virtuoso does more damage then chrono why do you want Chrono nerfed so bad? What has some boring %trait got to do with how fun the class is? How can you possibly think Chrono only auto attacks?

[Nezekan.2671]

3 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

What are you even arguing? How is nerfing Chrono going to fix the dumpster fire that is virtuoso? If you think virtuoso does more damage then chrono why do you want Chrono nerfed so bad? What has some boring %trait got to do with how fun the class is? How can you possibly think Chrono only auto attacks?

I do not mean this as an insult, but since you did it three times now I should mention it. You are either utterly incapable of understanding simple sentences or you are trolling. I never asked for nerfs to Chrono. I said if they buff support Chrono by letting wells affect 10 allies instead of 5, it benches dps Chrono. Because support Chrono can deal around 75% of dps Chrono's damage while also providing boons and healing. Its how Chrono was before they gave alacrity to other classes. Power dps Chrono was not bad, it was just suboptimal slot. Power damage is a very common slot that can be filled by plethora of classes. But a decent dps class who provides quickness AND alacrity is rare. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

they can brute force virtuoso into being meta, it doesnt take much effort on anyone's part, as a DPS you just increase DPS untill it sticks, but chrono will be by far, more mechanically intensive and interesting. I personally think that chronophantasma and F4 are stupid mechanics, and dislike them, and what they did to the rest of the mesmer, but at least they are mechanics. Virtuoso doesnt have any.

[Nezekan.2671]

37 minutes ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

they can brute force virtuoso into being meta, it doesnt take much effort on anyone's part, as a DPS you just increase DPS untill it sticks, but chrono will be by far, more mechanically intensive and interesting. I personally think that chronophantasma and F4 are stupid mechanics, and dislike them, and what they did to the rest of the mesmer, but at least they are mechanics. Virtuoso doesnt have any.

They already have by the looks of traits and abilities. But its not like power brute force is not a spec. Other classes also have it. 

Chrono is indeed great as a support. But when you go dps Chrono, you ignore a lot of its core mechanics. The mechanics you dislike are integral parts of Chrono. Time manipulation. A DPS chrono is basically a slight upgrade to core mesmer and doesn't have a real identity. Its good because Sword main hand is good. Making Chrono support, Mirage Condi and Virtuoso power is not that bad of an idea. People generally complain about Virtuoso's lack of mobility and similar weaknesses. Damage seems fine. On paper at least. Dagger/Pistol + Greatsword might be great on it.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Nezekan.2671

[Nananyfo.6015]

9 hours ago, Hirosama Nadasaki.6792 said:

 

Honestly, in my opinion chrono and mirage shouldn't have shatters at all. They should keep shatters as a core mesmer mechanic, mirage could have something different such as clone commands that leave them alive instead of shattering them, or perhaps your skills that create clones create mirrors instead, and your shatters turn mirrors into clones, so you can choose between walking through the mirrors to gain an evade or use them to make some clones, and chrono loses clones but instead creates time anomalies that they can use to speed (F1) slow (F2) stop (F3) and reverse (Continuum Split) time. Virtuoso still gets his blades instead of clones, but instead of just shooting them, each F skill gives him a wieldable illusionary weapon that fullfills a different role (power, condi, CC, defense), with number of charges/duration/skills available based on the number of blades stocked.

 

This is obviously just an example of what could've been done, made out of the top of my head rather than an actual specific suggestion, but it's what I'm talking about when I say that chrono's and virtuoso's shatters are completely uninspired and dull, and the especs feel extremely similar to one another.

 

The way I see it, as it stands, necromancer is the holy grail of espec design. Each of necro's especs change the main mechanic of the class (the shroud) greatly, with both upgrades and drawbacks, considerably different gameplay, and varying roles. Seeing the Virtuoso reveal made me feel underwhelmed, but seeing the Harbinger reveal right after felt just insulting. All classes, but mesmer in particular, could stand to gain from necro's espec design.

Best suggestion so far.🤚

[Levetty.1279]

3 hours ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

I do not mean this as an insult, but since you did it three times now I should mention it. You are either utterly incapable of understanding simple sentences or you are trolling. I never asked for nerfs to Chrono. I said if they buff support Chrono by letting wells affect 10 allies instead of 5, it benches dps Chrono. Because support Chrono can deal around 75% of dps Chrono's damage while also providing boons and healing. Its how Chrono was before they gave alacrity to other classes. Power dps Chrono was not bad, it was just suboptimal slot. Power damage is a very common slot that can be filled by plethora of classes. But a decent dps class who provides quickness AND alacrity is rare. 

The only troll here is you who keeps screeching about support Chrono in response to a post that said DPS chrono is more fun then virtuoso. Go troll somewhere else.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Mesmer class suffers because non mesmer players or those who dab for RP come making suggestions and comments on what they want and dont want is the reason why there is no clear focus on how mesmers should work. 

 

Not every class is meant for everyone it doesnt matter if you are using the class to Roleplay or your own other personal agendas, it should not be molded to what YOU want. 

 

Reading a few comments here and there you can genuinely tell who actually plays mesmer and those who only dab or roleplay as mesmers, or have some weird fantasy of GW1 when in reality GW2 is a completely different game that could almost be said does not stem from GW1 but being tethered by a string because of lore wise.

 

Those who are mesmer mains ask for core functions to be improved and talent to be worked on whereas those who don't have a kitten clue about mesmers will ask for this to be removed and that to be added in.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Salt Mode.3780

[Nezekan.2671]

4 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

The only troll here is you who keeps screeching about support Chrono in response to a post that said DPS chrono is more fun then virtuoso. Go troll somewhere else.

I can at least read what other people say, unlike you. So glad you are not accusing me of wanting nerfs on Chrono for a 4th time.

 

No matter how much you like it, dps Chrono is a scuffed version of its support counterpart that does not use many of integral abilities of the class and its more close to core mesmer than Chrono itself.

[Salt Mode.3780]

To make this simple if we look at each class at release and how e-specs are suppose to work...

 

Chrono was the premier active shatter support for mesmer, Alacrity was a new mechanic as well as being able to supply quickness and provide debuff called slow.

 

Mirage was the premier passive gameplay condi class for mesmer, fact that ambush skills on condi weapons were stronger then ambush skills on power weapons was the biggest tell for this. Also the fact that you want to actively have your clones up because of detargetting skills.

 

Virtuoso....I'm guessing is suppose to be the premier power class but I dunno core just seems better for dmg.

 

Im not saying that there isnt condi or power chronos nor am I saying that there isn't power mirage im just saying with how they release the specs themselves that was they were at release.

The only reason why things got muddled is because the nerfs and buffs towards other classes caused mesmer especs to lose identity real quick.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Salt Mode.3780

[Levetty.1279]

41 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

I can at least read what other people say, unlike you. So glad you are not accusing me of wanting nerfs on Chrono for a 4th time.

 

No matter how much you like it, dps Chrono is a scuffed version of its support counterpart that does not use many of integral abilities of the class and its more close to core mesmer than Chrono itself.

Nobody can understand what you are saying because you keep going on non sequitur rants about support chrono in response to a post that says dps chrono is more fun then virtuoso. Yes of course you don't take support traits on your dps build. I don't know why it bothers you that chrono has different choice and multiple times since its release it could be built for a support build or a dps, several especs have also had multiple builds. Not one of your posts has had anything to do with any of mine. Sorry classes having multiple builds sends you into a blind rage.

 

DPS chrono is still more fun the virtuoso.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Levetty.1279

[Nezekan.2671]

27 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Nobody can understand what you are saying because you keep going on non sequitur rants about support chrono in response to a post that says dps chrono is more fun then virtuoso. Yes of course you don't take support traits on your dps build. I don't know why it bothers you that chrono has different choice and multiple times since its release it could be built for a support build or a dps, several especs have also had multiple builds. Not one of your posts has had anything to do with any of mine. Sorry classes having multiple builds sends you into a blind rage.

 

DPS chrono is still more fun the virtuoso.

So can you post unique aspects of DPS Chrono? Something Core cannot provide. Lets look at them and see shall we? "DPS Chrono" is closer to core mesmer than actual Chrono. So what you are saying is core mesmer is more fun than Virtuoso. 

As DPS Chrono you do not use any of the spec's utility, you do not use the spec's unique weapon and you do not use 75% of the spec's traits. There is exactly one trait on every column that boosts dps and only Chronopphasma's effect is particularly unique.

 

Domination Dueling Illusions would play very similarly to DPS Chrono and I suspect would deal slightly less damage.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Nezekan.2671

[Vicq.4095]

One question. I'm new player (40 lvl mesmer atm) and i just heared in game that mesmer is totally useless. Is that true ? I picked him cause support/dps possibilites in small pve and pvp. I liked clone/mirage playstyle. I'm bit confused now, i hope i wont have problem with finding a party in future.

[Levetty.1279]

21 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

So can you post unique aspects of DPS Chrono? Something Core cannot provide.

Chronophantasma and its synergy with several traits. Continuim shift shenanigans. Gravity well. Swapping in some less then meta traits or utilities because not everything in the game is beating on a golem in dps test. 

 

23 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

 you do not use the spec's unique weapon

Just like virtuoso. 

 

25 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

 you do not use 75% of the spec's traits

Yeah generally when you pick a line you can only take 3 out of the 9 major traits it offers. That is how builds work in this game.

 

26 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

 So what you are saying is core mesmer is more fun than Virtuoso. 

Yes it is actually, be sure to rage about that for the next several hours.

 

27 minutes ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

Domination Dueling Illusions would play very similarly to DPS Chrono and I suspect would deal slightly less damage.

You would be wrong on both accounts. Core Mesmer has neither the burst of Chrono nor any of its tools to add flavor.  

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

9 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

You would be wrong on both accounts. Core Mesmer has neither the burst of Chrono nor any of its tools to add flavor.  

It plays the same. Except for the gimmicky CS.

 

Can't test it now but I'm almost sure core has more burst than chrono due to lower damage and coefficient on split second. This without taking CS double burst in consideration.

 

[Salt Mode.3780]

3 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

It plays the same. Except for the gimmicky CS.

 

Can't test it now but I'm almost sure core has more burst than chrono due to lower damage and coefficient on split second. This without taking CS double burst in consideration.

 

Ever since they removed the danger in time crit dmg bonus chrono's dmg is lowered by a significant amount. Core still has the highest one shot burst due to the fact that its able to take all damaging traitlines to beef up shatters whereas e-specs forces you to choose that e-spec traitline in result lowering the dmg of one whole traitline multipliers. 

 

[Levetty.1279]

4 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

It plays the same. Except for the gimmicky CS.

 

Can't test it now but I'm almost sure core has more burst than chrono due to lower damage and coefficient on split second. This without taking CS double burst in consideration.

 

Even if that was true (it isn't) it would still more fun then Virtuoso. Deal with it.

[Salt Mode.3780]

48 minutes ago, Vicq.4095 said:

One question. I'm new player (40 lvl mesmer atm) and i just heared in game that mesmer is totally useless. Is that true ? I picked him cause support/dps possibilites in small pve and pvp. I liked clone/mirage playstyle. I'm bit confused now, i hope i wont have problem with finding a party in future.

Its not that mesmers are totally useless its that if you are going to be playing this class be prepared to work harder then normal for the same results as other classes. This class has been consistantly nerfed with the devs not knowing the class itself (just because you make the game doesnt mean you know where you are heading).