Virtuoso Feedback Thread [Merged]

[Shewolfsilver.3069]

Hi,

I just have one thing to say : i never played any of the specialization of the chrono...BUT after testing this one on a RIBA farm and on Dragonstorm (not mcm for now) just with the build given at the character creation... I'm completly in.

I think i will make for the first time of  9 years of gaming in this game... achrono  with this spec !
I can't tell if there something to change or improve on it, 'cause i didn't play chrono at so i can't compare or whatelse but this class is a great idea

[Xaylin.1860]

Looks like my phone ate my post. So kind of a re-post. I'm not up to date with all other posts so there might be some overlap. Mea culpa.

 

Preface

I didn’t play Virtuoso in any endgame content nor played several hours of PvP but I toyed with it for some time and checked/tested the interactions and builds I theorycrafted in advance. My opinion on things might change when I play it more, so it is more of a first impression and overall thoughts.

 

The Virtuoso overall

As I already expected, I did enjoy the new cloneless playstyle and also the ranged Shatters. I especially liked blocking and then counter-bursting with Quickness which makes the cast time less of an issue. Damage seems a bit undertuned but that’s an easy fix.

 

Sadly, that’s about it when it comes to new things the Virtuoso brings. Themes aside (music/songs, blades, yadda yadda), the mechanical concept and the roles the spec apparently should be able to fill is very messy. It feels like it is either more unfinished than it seems at first glance (although playable) or there have been shifts in concepts while it was developed. While Dagger feels somewhat fine, traits are uninspired, redundant and almost all of them mirror existing traits. Even worse, Virtuosos key features lack synergies with core traits and skills.

 

Looking at Virtuoso from a class-wide perspective, I do believe the playstyle of ranged DPS with the option to be even more dangerous in mid- or close-range offers a new interesting playstyle. However, there is a concerning overlap with existing traitlines and e-specs. This is not a Virtuoso issue. It’s an overall issue of Mesmer. What is the role of Chrono? What of Mirage? How does Virtuoso play into this? What about core Mesmer (unless we finally stop caring about it)?

 

I will go into more detail on specific aspects of this, but overall, I feel ANet needs to define the roles of Mesmer e-specs and make a bigger effort to rework them accordingly. If Virtuoso is mainly meant to be a (crit-affine) power spec, then Chronomancer probably shouldn’t have traits like Danger Time. Instead, it should offer more healing and maybe debuffing options (Slow and maybe even Chill) ontop of the already available Boons. I also feel that Chrono-Shatters didn’t go far enough and ANet should consider incorporating time-themed Boons directly into selected F-skills. Mirage is mainly a mobile close combat condition bruiser. The biggiest issue I see here are poorly implemented gimmicks as pseudo-class-mechanics (Mirage Cloak and Mirrors) and a total disconnect with the main mechanic of Mesmers: Shatters. It needs Ambushes and Mirage Cloak to be incorporated into it’s Shatters, regardless of it’s supposed role.

 

 

Bladesongs (or Shatters)

As already mentioned, I like them. Yes, projectiles have downsides. Boo-hoo. However, they also have upsides. Thanks to Blades, our „Clones“ can’t pop and die will running and they don’t get stuck on pebbles on the floor. Personally, I do enjoy them. We finally get actually new Shatters (sorry Chrono, you got tricked…). What I don’t get: Historically F1 and F2 were kinda dichotomous. For power, F2 is quite useless and vice versa. Unless you count triggering secondary effects from traits. Why do we have the same situation with Virutoso – yet again? This is a missed opportunity. I feel like, while Virtuoso does have condition capabilities – it’s more prominent aspect is power. Do something with. Commit to it. And please, rework the Illusion Minor Adept.

 

• F1 – Fine to me. Not much to say.
• F2 – Shouldn’t be a condi-copy of F1. Make it work like Rain of Swords. This would be very nice because it would offer Virtuoso a tool to at least partically deal with situations with too much reflect. Reduce it’s damage output slightly in return for the ranged area effect. Rework Rain of Swords to do something different. This is not an option you say? Well, then at least make it innately cause Bleeding instead of Confusion. This should be a no-brainer.
• F3 – While some are upset that you can’t use it as safety or counter measure anymore due the cast time, personally, I’m fine with. However, I do appretiate the idea of others to make it a stun instead. This would aid the more ranged playstyle and partly compensate for the lack of mobility. [Edit]: If any F-skill desperately needed  to be non-projectile, I came to the conclusion it should be this one.
• F4 – I personally enjoy it. Sure, it is inferior Distortion but the cooldown is very nice. Don’t forget at core Mesmer traits with cooldowns that effect F4, ANet.

 

Overall quality of life wish: Make them not require facing an enemy. I understand why it is this way. But we already don’t have IP. We already have casttimes. Constantly facing the enemy mainly just results in a gameplay that contradicts the overall design of the Mesmer class.

 

 

Blades (as a resource)

As mentioned, I do like the cloneless playstyle. I do see two issues, though.

 

Having 5 Blades feels nice and is visually appealing. But it is a bit irritating that this isn’t reflected in the damage output. However, it apparently dictates the functionality of all 3 GM aynway (additional resource regeneration). If we can deal more damage with 5 Blades the increased resource requirement is acceptable. If not, it is just yet another loop an already complicated class has to jump through. It also keeps from enabling more interesting alterations to your gameplay since many traits are preoccupied with the task of providing more Daggers. I hope ANet reconsiders/rebalances this situation.

 

Now, even worse… not all baseline traits and skills seem to work with Blades. Either there is no tier above 3 Blades. Or it simply just doesn’t work (e.g. Illusionary Inspiration). This is a big no go. Why on earth would Illusionary Inspiration not be triggered on Blade generation? To me, this has to change, no discussion.

 

Food for thought: Why not make Infinite Forge baseline or at least a Minor trait? This might seem very strong at first, but the reasoning is quite simple. Out of combat you might just as well precharge your Blades with Utilities and then switch them again. Doesn’t work in PvP. But does work everywhere else. It seems justifiable. Especially since Harbinger has a very similar set up going.

 

 

Blades (as a skill feature comparable to Explosions)

First, this is very very confusing when talking about Blades because we’re basically talking about two very different mechanics. Second, this seems to either be a left over of an old design or it is just poorly implemented.

 

Why I do believe it is poorly implemented? On Engineer it works quite well because it interacts with several weapons and traits across the class while not overly defining the class. They are not limited to only one weapon, Utility group and e-spec traitline. Additionally, it successfully provides different effects that aid a diverse number of builds. What do we get on Virtuoso? Vulnerability and Bleeding on hit/crit which core Mesmer already has access to.

 

Even if you didn’t care about the redundancy and lack of inspiration, it also is an aweful implementation especially when looking at Bleeding. We already have Sharper Images. Yes, Blades (as a skill feature) are not Illusions (like Blades as a resource). However, ANet could easily add this functionality to core Mesmer and increase synergies between Virtuoso and the core class. Yes, Virtuoso would innately have less Bleeding if we removed or reworked Jagged Mind. But that can be dealt with by adding some Bleeding in other places. I hope to see at least when it comes to Sharper Images.

 

If you don’t care about all this either, one very easy argument that also shows how poor the design is: The only aspects of Blades that actually affects how you play, is applying Bleeding via Jagged Mind to trigger Bloodsong. That’s it. Do we really need the classification „Blades“ on almost all Virtuoso skills and TWO whole traits just for this purpose? Imho, for what they do right now, we don't need those.

 

Dagger and weapon skills

Using Dagger feels fluid and is kinda fun. The animations are fine although the AA is a bit too blurry for my taste. As for Virtuoso overall, the damage feels undertuned. Aside from that, I don’t think too much has to change. However, there are some mostly quality of life things that could and should be done. First, if Bleeding remains part of the Virtuoso toolset, at least put some Bleeding on the third AA hit. The detour via Jagged Mind is kinda silly. Second, consider putting pulsing 1s Swiftness (and maybe even Fury) on the orb of #3. This would mainly benefit close to mid-range combat but would add some depth to Dagger while providing Virtuoso with some basic mobility.

 

A very nice surprise: Sword #3 on Virtuoso. I’m aware that there are opposing opinions on this because it’s no longer possible to teleport upwards in some scenarios. However, overall I wished the skill would also work this way on core, Chrono and Mirage. It seems to be way more reliable in many situations.

 

 

Utilities

I’ll keep this rather short. They are fine but not very interesting. Psychic Force probably has a slightly too long cooldown. Others could need some tuning damage-wise. I’d also like Rain of Swords to be turned into F2 (see above) but don’t really have any suggestion on what to add specifically. Personally, I’d like more CC and Boon removal.

 

Food for thought: What if Psychic Force was the Heal (Heal and Knockback, no Stunbreak)? So far, we don’t have any CC or offense on Heals. Yes, this would favour close combat builds, but would also help ranged Virtuosos in a PvP setting.

 

Traits

This is going to be a long one. I’ll start of with a general assessment and then go through all of them.

I mentioned it elsewhere, but overall (or when look at the effects without context) traits are fine.

However, they are uninspired because of two reasons: First, they mostly mirror existing traits which makes me wonder wether ANet just didn’t manage to make core Mesmer work with Virtuoso or they didn’t have any idea what to do with Virtuoso aside from it flinging psionic blades everywhere (…sadly reminds me of „Mirage Mirrors are so pretty“-situation). Second, the traits don’t really change how you play Virtuoso. pVirtuoso played almost exactly the same as cVirtuoso. Even close to mid-range combat wasn’t too different from ranged. This is just… bad. Traits should feel meaningful.

 

Now, if I had my way, I’d remove Bleeding from Virtuoso entirely and make it a power spec with some debuffinc/CC capabilities. One trait-set focussing on ranged combat, one set being melee to mid-range combat (higher-risk but more damage) and one being about debilitating foes (CC, interrupts, debuffs, boon removal). However, for this I’ll assume that Bleeding is here to stay. And that ANet will make Sharper Images work with Virutoso.

 

 

Adept

 

Majors

• Bladeturn Refrain: It’s fine and offers at least some defense.

• Mental Focus: Yeah, supposed to be a high risk, high result (or just PvE) trait. But this basically forces ranged power Virtuosos into Bladeturn Refrain. At least work like the inverse version of Pure of Sight on Dragonhunter.

• Jagged Mind: My new arch nemesis. I want this to be gone. The trait itself is fine but imho this exact effect should be covered by Sharper Images. Still uninspired, but put the +Bleeding damage modifier here instead. Maybe even something like „Dagger AA causes Bleeding“.

 

Master

Deadly Blades – Throw-away. If ANet wants Virtuoso to throw Blades left and right, make THIS the main trait to procc Blades. Make it „Shoot a Blade at your enemy when you crit“ (x seconds ICD) and get rid of the Vulnerability on Virtuoso. Either very low ICD with low damage for maximum pew pew or higher CD but significantly more damage than the current iterations we have on Phantasmal Blades etc. Those are irrelevant damage-wise.

 

Majors

• Duelist’s Reversal: Probably my favorite trait on Virtuoso and very very fun with Sword or Scepter MH. It might be nerfed. Regardless: ANet needs to rework Furious Interruption (either totally or by making it work „on CC“ instead of interrupt). Otherwise, the discrepancy in efficiency would be silly.

• Phantasmal Blades: Obviously just here to serve the Blade throwing fantasy. However, I don’t understand the idea of promoting Phantasms on a cloneless spec (I know it's not the same, but still). Just no. Suggestion, in case Fury von Psychic Force was removed: Psionic Fury, reduced CD for Psionics and gain Fury when using them. Not original but way more efficient.

• Sharpening Sorrow: Just a F2-version of the Bountiful Illusions effect on F3. If we keep Bleeding on Virtuoso, I’d rather have it trigger via x stacks of Bleeding like it currently is on Bloodsong (or the Burning trait on Guardian we already have). Expertise is nice.

 

Grandmaster

Quiet Intensity – Very nice trait. Only flaw is that Ferocity doesn’t benefit condition builds.

 

Majors

• Psychic Riposte: Blade on block/evade is fine. I personally don’t care about the thrown Blade. IF Deadly was reworked as I suggested, the GMs could also alter Deadly Blades instead of just generating Blades. For example, Psychic Riposte could turn Deadly Blades in a fan of blades (think D3 DH) around the Virtuoso.

• Infinite Forge: As mentioned above, I feel like this should be a core mechanic of Virtuoso. If not, this probably should be a „ranged“ option since Psychic Riposte is a bit more melee oriented. For example, gain a Blade when hitting an enemy that is farther than 600 away with ICD. The alteration to Deadly Blades could be throwing an additional blade (or even two) for more pew pew.

• Bloodsong: This trait is so busted. It does need some ramp up time depending on your weapons or Utilities. But even on power builds you can gain way more Blades than with the other traits. If the trait wasn’t changed, it desperately needs an ICD. I easily managed to get stuck with 5 Blades with all Songs on CD although I had Shatter Storm equiped. IF ANet decided to rework F2 like I have suggested (s. above), this trait could change F1 and F2 into Bleeding versions with lower power damage and generate Blades on Bleeding with ICD. Of course, this would cause some kind of self-maintaing cycle for F1 and F2 but the ICD should prevent any serious issues. Plus, we also already got Illusionary Reversion (please unnerf it…) so ANet isn’t against in general.

 

Now, as I mentioned earlier, if I had my way, I would probably get rid of Bleeding on Virtuoso and use the lower traits for debuffing, CC and Boon removal.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Xaylin.1860
Edit for F3

[glenndevis.8327]

Hmm I got a lot to say about Virtuoso. For one I LOVE the idea of Dagger mesmer and stocking blades instead of clones. It's a really cool idea. I just feel like it hasn't been fleshed out well.

I feel like the spec was designed to be a power dps spec but other than that i don't really see anything unique or special about it.

Kinda confuses me why there's an entire trait line designed around conditions while Mirage is more of a condi spec already.

 

The Weapon:

I love dagger for mesmer but I REALLY wish there was an offhand dagger too. I think its a big missed opportunity to have a new damaging phantasm and since the spec already seems to have synergy with blocking/dodging offhand dagger could have an ability that quickly dodges and dazes an enemy

 

Either way, the abilities we have now I feel like they're a but uninspired design wise but oh well.

Basic attack is fair, seems a bit on the weak side but It's alright. #2 ability is alright. #3 seems a bit weak on small target. Maybe it would be better if it was static or moved more slowly.

 

The Bladesongs:

Where do I start. I love the idea of the stored blades. But the Bladesong abilities really don't seem very different than the statters despite not using clones. They more or less have the same effect of shatters but now have a cast time, all having a similar animation. I think there's a huge missed opportunity to do something more unique. But as they stand they just seem like nerfed shatters. They don't need cast times.

F1: Damage wise it's fine. Straight forward shooting blades.

F2: disappointing. I hoped to see something more interesting for a spec that seems to be aimed for power damage. Would be nice to have some sort of ground target aoe ability with spinning blades that deals damage over a few seconds time.

F3: Same ish as shatters. CC is nice I suppose but not very inspiring. Would be nice since it has a cast time if it would be a stun if used with 3 or more blades.

F4: Nerfed version of the shatter. Damage is horrible, block synergizes well with the traits but woulda been nice if the ability was a blur instead that dodges. 

 

The Traits:

Not gnna talk too much about them individually other than the ones I think are lacking or need a change.

Generally I like the blocking/dodging talents.

Bladeturn Refrain should grant aegis on the start of the bladesong cast. Phantasmal Blades I find phantasm support abit odd for this spec but fair. The blades that some traits/heal skill shoot at the enemy generally are a bit on the weak side. I think they need a buff.

I really like the idea of Psychic Riposte, but I feel like the blades stocked should be buffed to 2 and the damage from the Riposting blade you shoot afterwards is very weak, barely counts as a counter.

The bottom condi row imo should be completely replaced with talents that focus on utility, maybe make the dagger a bit better. Maybe some regen/condi cleanse utility.

 

The Utilities/Elite:

Heal seems ok. Condi cleanse is a bit weka in general. Seeing a bit more condi cleanse on this would be nice.

Psychic Force is alright but why does this have the cast time.

Blade Renewal sis interesting but not being able to do anything while casting it is something i'm personally not used to on Mesmer.

Swords of Decimation. Why. Root is nice i guess for some things but slow af. May be useful for zergs i guess

Rain of Swords does decent damage i guess but nothing special.

Thousand Cuts: I like the idea but outside of PvE I see no use for this.

Generally I think the utilities should have a bit more utility to them rather than damage. Utilities also seem abit uninspiring.

 

Sword #3:

I'm conflicted about this. I like the fact that mesmer has a "proper" leap now but I miss the immobilize. Would be a nice combo if we could dash in to slow and then retreat while immobilizing enemies to make landing the Bladesongs easier.

 

Overall:

Virtuoso seems kinda weak for anything that isn't a power build for PvE. No survivability, no utility. Utilities are slow, easy to dodge. No condi cleanse, Dagger generally seems a bit weak, almost everything is a projectile that gets screwed by any reflect.

I like the idea of blocking & dodging and getting a counterattack/other benefits from it but it's not strong enough imo.

I'm not a fan of the condi side of this spec. Both the bottom trait  row and the F2 bladesong just don't feel very good.

 

In the end I feel like Virtuoso is trying to fix the "broken" elements of Mesmer that makes them hard to balance by limiting them alot but that directly makes the spec either weak or less fun. A shame because I really like the theme of the spec.

Edited August 18, 2021 by glenndevis.8327

[Exzen.2976]

From a purely wvw perspective, I have enjoyed playing Virtuoso and it's visually stunning.

 

I find that Dagger is pretty useless in wvw, there is no defensive utility on it and have projectiles on the skills makes it very difficult to use. 

 

The heal is extremely clunky requiring line of sight.

 

The elite is next to useless; too narrow, slow and not worth the slot.

 

Im not sure I agree with those suggesting the bladesongs need unblockable, since they need some counterplay, but I find them a little slow with cast times, even with quickness. Especially if you're relying on them for Aegis.

 

Also, the new sword leap is a good workaround, although the loss of immob is a shame. The extra mobility is welcomed though.

 

Overall though, it's pretty good, it just feels like it needs a bit of tweaking to make it feel less clunky. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Exzen.2976

[Flow.2947]

an impression about vituoso (WvW).

First time I started... the dmg is not good....

Well, we should change that and put on some bercerkers... dmg is ok now i think.... could be better....

hmm... kinda lacking sustain .... try to block/dodge more... well... kinda clumsy.... 1s cd means almost no blade generation... dodge and aegis is not enough to work or the duration is to short.

 

....meanwhile, when running in Zerg.... 

Fire degger1-3 gets hit by degger 1-3.... Don't you dare use your F1 F2 uff sooo much reflected now....🙃

hmm meybe it's the build ... and the playstile fix the build.... change the playstyle.... well...💡Things can't kill you if you kill them first right?💡...  Soo max all dmg load your blades and get your kills....

Step1 press F1 

Step2 press distraction and pain before F1 hits (13k dmg).

Step3 sword 3 (5k dmg) love this new sword 3

ok here is the point when your opponent should wake up and your time to run or defend or kill....

 

All in all the vituosso is pretty well balanced in terms of dmg I think.

F1 animation feels too long 1/2s would be better i think. 

F2 is almost the same dmg output in wvw ? (F1 400 and F2 300 +condi).

F3 is somthing i am not so fond of it yet. you have to time the interrupt perfectly. Since the blades are only there for the duration of the daze, it feels like a waste of blades 

The F4 skill is "blocking only," which means you still get hit by Wells Marks.... hit and can't use any other skills while doing so. The "post animation" for this skill feels a bit too long or I don't understand it. Channel for 1.5s and then block for 3 seconds or animate for 1.5s while blocking. Same as F3 to use the blades, is a bit of a waste when 1 blade does the same thing for you.

 

I'm very impressed with the degger's abilities and utilities, but I think the dagger doesn't fit the theme of the build, accapt for with Jagged Mind there is no synergy within the build and the dmg could be a tone higher. In my opinion a 0,5s dodge on skill 3  or get aegis for 1s or a blind is missing. Also when you blind or an enemy misses you could be a nice addition to crate a blade.

GM repost can 

 

ulti is a nice traid off but it may surprise some ppl

still testing builds to improve sustanability but can't w8 playing more 🥰 

 

What i forgot:

Dear dev team please it would be soo awsome to sum all infos and Feedback you got up. Share your point of view.  

i'd Like to see this from you side from a pve / pvp / wvw prospective. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Flow.2947
dev Team viruoso feedback

[Simonoly.4352]

I love the blade animations and the sound effects - truly excellent! Plus it's really fun stacking blades and landing your bladedancessongs (if you're going to call it a "bladesong" our characters should surely be singing, right?). Mechanically it takes some getting used to, but it's nice for Mesmer to have something different. I think the removal of illusions should make this elite spec a nice choice for players that maybe found the illusion side of things a bit of a drag or potentially confusing. Not having to rely on illusions is a massive boon for large battles. I have some further specific comments below on skills and traits:

 

Skills

 

The change to main-hand sword 3 is wonderful (should probably make that a standard change for the weapon as it's such a big improvement on the player experience) and it was interesting to see Greatsword re-categorised as a "blade" for Virtuoso - though not sure why sword isn't getting the same treatment?

 

I really like the dagger skills - though dagger 3 should probably have some crippled added to it to help the Virtuoso delay melee attackers. As it stands, Virtuoso is a very vulnerable elite spec, which is fine, but it needs more ways to deal with incoming melee attackers. I think the confusion on bladesong 2 could possibly be removed and slow or maybe even weakness added instead - just something for disrupting people so the Virtuoso can reposition and not POP as soon as the Thief arrives.

 

Sadly I'm not a fan of the Elite skill - it just seems like an inferior version of the utility skill that does the same job really. I'd have much preferred something akin to a single blade that does a large amount of damage but with a longish cast time and a big "WATCH OUT FOR THIS ONE" animation. Essentially a Kill-shot for a Mesmer - potentially difficult to land but the payoff for landing the attack would be very noticeable and satisfying. 

 

Traits

 

Unfortunately, the new Virtuoso traitline is very unexciting. I feel like I could pick any of those traits at random and I wouldn't even notice. There's nothing there to really craft a build. Where's the trait to augment my dagger? Where's the trait to get me thinking about my stacked blades differently? Where's the trait to augment my psionic utilities? Give me some traits with the same kinds of flavour and pizzaz seen in the skills! 

 

Also, in regards to traitlines, it's really confusing to decipher how specific core traits related to illusions affect our blades, or even if they do! I think the wording of every skill and trait needs to be updated to reflect its new effect when playing as Virtuoso. I think this will be extremely important for new players in particular - blades and illusions function so differently!

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

23 hours ago, TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

DAY 1 - Initial impressions after a few hours of OW PVE play:

• Lack of synergy with other trait lines, especially Illusion and Inspiration. This makes Virtuoso feel like it was duct-taped onto the Mesmer, not integrated into it.
• Damage is generally good - maybe a bit too much; however, there is a definite tradeoff of dps for survivability, so it may not be too much, although CD on dagger3 might need a slight increase.
• Cast times on Bladesongs too long.
• Bladesong F4 seems to be quite mediocre damage.
• Psychic Force is nice, but knockbacks are detrimental in group play, and also detrimental to the small radius AOE skills Virtuoso has, so it's good/bad. Also CD seems too long at 45s.
• Twin Blade Restoration heal skill cast time is waaaaaay tooooooo looooong. C'mon, get real.

 

Summary: Virtuoso is a muddle

• It doesn't feel like an elite to mesmer - it feels like a ele or thief elite got painted purple and taped onto mesmer.
• The playstyle lacks fluidity with too long cast times, and it seems that damage on skills have been upped to compensate for that. Yet, it seems it wants to be seen as a mobile spec, dodging and throwing blades. Which is it? It would be far better to reduce both cast times, CDs, and skill damage for a faster-paced style more in line with mesmer.
• It lacks sustain due to the lack of synergy w/Inspiration.

 

I'll keep playing it more (the other two bet elites don't interest me) but as of this moment, I'd go back to my Mirage if I had to choose.  

 

 

DAY 2 - Update

• Felt more comfortable with it today. I swapped out rings and accessories from Marauders to Celestial and also used Dagger/Sword+Dagger/Focus. The added toughness from cele helped alot, and Dagger/Sword makes a nice combo as Sword 5 tends to get aggro and Sword4 is the block I needed. I also used the Bladeturn Refrain trait for aegis, and liked that.
• Twin Blade Restoration is bugged, and often did not work (when walking away from target). It also would sometimes try to fire daggers at some nearby creature rather than the targeted one, so it created unwanted aggro as well. Along with its suicidal 1s cast time,  I finally gave up and used Ether Feast instead.
• Unstable Bladestorm has some interesting uses. Since it moves at about the speed of the player moving in combat, I could cast it into a pack, run with it (like it were whirling blades around me, casting Bladecall & Flying Cutter on the run, then almost at the pack, cast F4 Bladeturn Requiem and Rain of Swords, and its a wild AOE soup. 
• Another way I used Unstable Bladestorm dagger3, was to cast dagger3>2>1>F1. By the time Unstable Bladestorm reached the target the other skills were hitting almost simultaneously, so it usually melted anything that wasn't a vet before they had time to react.
• Chak Gerent and Dragon Stand metas went well, except for bugs with hitting Mordrem banners and Thousand Cuts refusing to fire at Mordremoth on the islands. (I noted those in the bugs thread.)
• Speaking of Chak, reflection domes on Chak can be a killer, literally. I can only image what WVW/PVP would be like.

 

Day 2 Summary:

• With some toughness and sword offhand, the Virtuoso felt much nicer today. It was pleasant to play, for the most part.
• It still feels like it should be more mobile, given its lack of sustain, but the cast & CD times work against that.
• It's obviously a "selfish" spec, so adding support for others doesn't make sense. But it needs more sustain for itself. Maybe make Restorative Illusions work with blades, except if triggers on every other blade, not each blade. But preferably, it would be a trait within the Virtuoso line (maybe in place of Psychic Riposte).

Edited August 18, 2021 by TheAgedGnome.7520

[Wounder.7526]

I can't describe how happy I was to finally get a Mesmer spec that doesn't rely on clones! The class can finally play WvW as more than a portal-and-veil-bot, scout and roamer! 😄 I have been tinkering with some way to make use of the bottom three traits with a Grieving/Celestial build, but the condi damage is just so low, even taking Main the Disillusioned and Bladesong Sorrow into account, and being able to spam all Bladesongs with 5 blades on CD due to the blade generation of Bloodsong + Jagged Mind in a high-target environment. That torment and confusion and bleed doesn't amount to much, and no matter how I try to wiggle the build, at the end of the day, it would just do more damage by going pure power instead. I would love to see the Virtuoso have the option to go condi and not be a straight downgrade because of it. The base duration of jagged Mind could easily be 3s in WvW where the rapid cleansing means that higher duration gets kept in check anyway. I also agree with other posts here that Sorrow could be Bleed, to work better with the Virtuoso's focus on Bleed. 

Here's an idea: replace the Expertise on Sharpening Sorrow with "While you have Fury, your Blade attacks are Unblockable."

Please let us reactivate Bladecall to call the blades back to us immediately, at any point after launching them, preferably including before they have traveled the full distance. 

I do think it's cool that Virtuoso has the option of being a real boonripping monster if they want, with Shattered Concentration letting you rip 5 boons from 5 people in WvW with each shatter, but that is something you might want to keep an eye on. Normally, the power of the trait is modulated by the clones susceptibility to stiff breezes and you get at most 3 procs, but here we can trigger it super reliably. Maybe split it so that for Virtuosos, each target can only lose at most 1 boon to each Bladesong cast?

 

Thousand Cuts: please make the range 1500. 

 

Phantasmal Blade is very underwhelming. You only have so many phantasms, and Fury is only so interesting. The blade also does very disappointing damage. Considering it's on the same row as Infinite Forge, maybe you could instead have them generate an extra blade for you when they disappear?

I really really like that there is no ICD on Jagged Mind and Bloodsong. If there were, it would be impossible to design a build around them. In general, any trait with an ICD can at most be a nice bonus on top of another concept, but you can never design a build around it. This combo of traits is very interesting to build around. Thank you!

 

Please give Psychic Force a 1s long single stack of Stab to let you finish the knockback animation. Since the entire effect is not instant, you can have feelbad moments where you stunbreak but are CCd again before you finish the skill. 

[Kitta.3657]

After trying virtuoso, some issues became so glaring and so quickly that it compelled me to post my own feedback. These issues are from a WvW perspective and my suggestions are targeted at competitive modes but I have taken in consideration how one change would affect the other modes as well.
 

1. Projectiles.
   Problem: This alone makes Virtuoso unplayable in WvW (large scale - small scale in WvW is closer to sPvP scaling so it doesn't hurt there the same way it does in large scale) as almost every single skill is a projectile and can be reflected or absorbed while projectile-hate has quite a high uptime in WvW. Mesmer lacks a build that can have competitive damage at large scale and this is the niche I think Virtuoso should fill in WvW. We don't need another duelist/roamer spec. 
   
   Solution: a) Make the majority of the skills non-projectiles and keep the animation/cast time on them still allowing the possibility to dodge/block those skills. I believe all skills but dagger 2 should not be projectiles. The biggest pain point are the shatters though having all dagger skills a projectile also hurts. I will go in more details on my ideas of changes to dagger skills in a later point. b) Alternatively adding a trait that will alter Virtuoso's projectiles into a special type of piercing projectiles that cannot be reflected/absorbed but can be blocked. I believe Unblockable as an effect to be too powerful and is why a new type of effect for this would be required. This trait could either be a minor or major although I believe if a major trait, it makes such trait a mandatory trait which how I believe design of traits shouldn't be. This solution is a bit more convoluted than solution a but I thought this could be an alternative that leaves the projectiles flavor that seems to be desired from the design. 
2. Dagger.
   Problem: Damage values do not match the skills. The balance between projectile speed vs damage is not there yet. Also the range doesn't make sense to me, greatsword is plainly a better long range power weapon, staff is a better long range condi weapon, scepter is a better condi medium range weapon, axe is a better short range condi weapon. Dagger currently is competing with sword which is the short range power weapon while dagger has 1200 range, why? It feels like there is no defined purpose for this weapon while we are lacking the medium range power weapon. 
   
   Solution: All dagger skills range lowered to 900. Damage value changes only in WvW/PvP. Dagger 1 no longer a projectile, very small bump up of the damage. Dagger 2 stays projectile but bump up the damage. Dagger 3 needs to either have it's speed bumped up or it's damage *significantly*. The damage value currently is way too low for how slow this skill is as it is insanely easy to sidestep. Then with the additional aspect of the skill being a projectile makes these 2 values even more undertuned. Something has to give. I'm uncertain whether this skill should be a projectile or not. I am tempted to feel like the skill can stay a projectile but is faster and higher damage.
3. Traits.
   Problem: The attempt at offering 3 types of traits (utility-defensive/power dmg/condi dmg) has made the choices incredibly limited. I believe Virtuoso should have a power flavor and the condi angle does not belong on it. We already have Mirage which excels at condi making you think why would you choose condi Virtuoso when you could simply go Mirage and be more effective? Also the traits in general lack flavor.
   
   Solution: My suggestions here are not that helpful because I haven't thought of compelling replacements but I believe the condi traits should be replaced by flavorful traits that help power damage builds.
4. Utility and Elite skills.
   Problem: Their damage values are simply too low in WvW/PvP. Some other fine tuning necessary. The current state of the elite skill is unplayable.
   
   Solution: Bump up damage on all utility skills in WvW/PvP only (besides the heal and Psychic Force). Rain of Swords should have a higher damage than Sword of Decimation since the latter has an enormous bigger impact with it's immobilize application.
   -Sword of Decimation; reduce the immobilize to 2 seconds and up the cast time to 3/4 of a second.
   -Psychic Force; lower cooldown to 35 seconds and the radius to 240.
   -Blade Renewal; lower cooldown to 45 seconds and lower the distortion duration to 2s. 
   -Thousand Cuts; Up the damage, make the radius 130 and lower the range to 900. Keep the same cast time but maybe       lower the duration depending on how much damage is augmented.

Other comments I have on the elite specialization:

- The visual effects are gorgeous but some are too obnoxious which would make me sad to see changed though for gameplay's sake, it is way too flashy and cluttering the screen far too much.

- I like the change to sword 3 but I think the immobilize should remain on the skill either on the first part or on the flip part. Alternatively maybe replace with a daze. The cripple is really weak and I don't like that flavor, it feels like an unnecessary nerf to the skill considering baseline I could already port onto my target or use the immoblize+port for mindgames.

- Auto-attack animation feels really wrong for a ranged skill.

- Fix interaction between Mental Anguish and the shatters / Signet of the Ether / Illusionary Inspiration / Scepter auto-attack / Restorative Illusions. None of these work properly with blades.

Thanks for reading!

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Kitta.3657

[Nefertitu.9214]

I absolutely love the vertuoso, awesome to play and i love the visual effects of the skills.

Did enjoy every minute playing it. 😍

[Aplethoraof.2643]

I do like that condi is an option (as I typically enjoy DoT builds the most, plus all my gear currently revolves around condi). It certainly isn't the strongest option, but it is OK. I don't expect it'll be super common though - so maybe condi virtuoso could use a bit of a tune-up.

 

Maybe some bleeds on the weapon skills themselves would be OK? As well as a 33% increase to bleed damage instead of a 25% increase from the grandmaster trait (I saw someone else mention that as well).

Perhaps bleeding on dagger #1 & #3, and cripple on dagger #2? As well as bleeding + cripple on the elite?

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

6 hours ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

That's some high level BS (and I don't mean boonstrip) there. Yes, sure do ele and and rev have those, but the things they deal their high amount of damage with are actually AoEs. Now if the new mesmer spec had damage in that area on their AoEs, we would be talking. Or reliable access to unblockable. But as far as I have seen and tested, that is not the case. So for blob fights it's gonna be a hard choice.
And warriors? In blobfights I never see berserkers being anywhere near relevant. No surprise either, given the limited utility, while needing external sustain to keep them going.
Compared to warrior DPS, Virtuoso is probably doing fine even, but at that point we can clearly stop the discussion.

I also don't doubt that it's much different in smaller scale fights, where you can bait some defense out of the enemy and then drop your heavy burst when you got all your blades stacked. Maybe it will need some tuning, but it'll probably be doing okay here - but for proper roaming, more mobility would be necessary. As it is, it sits somewhere in between, which is a bit weird. This is not what I thought would happen, when Anet announced that they are not sticking to the old rules regarding elite specs.

there's a load of pretty good players that destroyed the dmg of eles even (which are normally the highest dps) within blobfights. of course u normally don't see that, but u can even see absurd differences in dmg between single revs and necros on the squads, so what are we talking about...

zerkers isn#t for the normal casual zergling, as u gotta work for the damage, and its also not for sustain heavy fights within keeps, where u fight against +800 extrastat loaded players. and ele is also very squishy. openfield it needs still personal bodyguard or it can just get focused, immobed, pulled etc . and ele dmg is mostly hard meteor showers, that's about it. even dragonhunter with the superstale dmg is yet used in blobs, and virtuoso + harbinger both are on that level any day.

 

been today inside a enemy garri with a bigger zerg (roughly 38-40) on virtouso, and it done quite well. i popped just before we wiped, but that was also bc the firebrand of the party died before and i couldn't pop the invuln skill due to lags thaha. till then i could sustain pretty well.

 

tried GS + staff this time; the thing is, u cannot just bomb always, but its a good offense support. daggers probably less worth to play there, as its type of dmg isn't needed in zergfights.

 

one thing virtuoso normally really has no space for is actually that, it has like zero mobility stuff. which makes is fine for zergs and complicated for smaller scale, as everything is brutally fast in roaming and anything up to 15v15 even.

[Kiazz.1625]

I liked how it played with the default stats that were laid out-whatever came to 66% critical chance with 205% critical damage. However, switching to try my tank build did not work. Healing did not work with blades and heal upon summoning an illusion. I felt very squishy with high toughness and healing power-nomad armor set and apothecary were squishy, even with the dolyak runes. Love the piercing on the dagger skills!!! Much appreciated!! My guild wars friend played yesterday on the beta for the Mesmer and today, some of what he built was removed-like traits and armor pieces. If you would like, I can him to contact you for more details. Advice on the armor sets, since we can't salvage or sell them, make a beta specific armor set that can be customized like the legendary armor series but still be exotic. One armor set per build tab to make it easy to swap between. I love the Beta character slots idea! And the in game Beta tag that comes on the character! I plan on playing tomorrow night on another profession. I played for about 3 hours. I deleted the character and will start fresh tomorrow.

[Bunny.9834]

They need to rework the casting time for the Bladesong Shatters. 

My suggestion is to have them be instant cast BUT with a delay AND also telegraph an attack coming. 

• Why? Because you already lost survivability without your clones. 
• You can continue attacking while you fire off your daggers. 
• It reduces "CLUNKINESS" 

 

Twin Blade Restoration -  Is a horrible heal skill. Please rework this into something like: 

11/2 Casting Time. 30s CD

- Block the next 2 attacks. Each time you block, heal yourself (3k heal each) and gain a blade. 

- This will synergize with some of the traits, remove the necessity of a target, and helps with stacking blades. 

 

 

 

[Roda.7468]

3 minutes ago, DragonSlayer.1087 said:

They need to rework the casting time for the Bladesong Shatters. 

My suggestion is to have them be instant cast BUT with a delay AND also telegraph an attack coming. 

• Why? Because you already lost survivability without your clones. 
• You can continue attacking while you fire off your daggers. 
• It reduces "CLUNKINESS" 

 

A lot of the other cast times in the spec would feel and flow a lot better if we could do things like bladesong (bladesing?) while casting.  There's a lot of FAST FAST FAST GO GOGO THINGS ARE HAPPENING aaaaaaand waaaaaaaaaait GOGOGO FIGHT FIGHT GO aaaaaannnnddd wwwweeee'rrreee caaasssttinnng AAAAAAAAAAHHH KNIIIIIIVVEEESS!!!!

 

Would be cool if they could be layered on top of eachother.

(Basically I want the satisfaction back of winding up a haunt while simultaneously casting three concentrated blades into a telekinetic strike 😛)

(Yes i'm still pining for wildstar's esper alright?)

[Bast.7253]

I'd agree that going with a different elite spec weapon like bow or giving them dual daggers would have been a better choice.

As it is, you either run pistol for slight burst and a stun, or focus for the pull to get them in line with your aoe. I didn't even bother trying scepter, staff felt terrible, and greatsword is just... greatsword. 

It felt like it had little identity. Attaching "song" at the end of every shatter and tossing "blade" into the word of every skill but giving them little synergy with anything else in the traits does not cohesion make. 

If I had constructive criticism, in its current state, I would say the elite will never be used outside of MAYBE boss fights in pve. It's slow, it's narrow, it's a long cast time. Why does it behave like the holo elite but not follow target, knockback, or apply conditions? Maybe it does apply conditions, I wasn't invested enough to notice. Looks like it's mass invisibility in competitive mode.

The shatters - terrible. I have to be facing the target, long cast time, can't cast while dodging. I'm pretty much just standing still as bait and HOPING that I land even a few projectile attacks of my shatters. 

The traits? These might be more worthwhile looking into if the rest of the kit wasn't extremely dull. The aegis on shatter would be interesting if the shatters weren't terrible. 

The heal - I just ran the mirror heal that reflects because when every offensive ability I have is a projectile that can be reflected back at me, why wouldn't I run a reflect of my own?

Dagger - I'd say the only thing worth keeping is skill 3 as it seemed to be the only thing that actually ever landed enough damage to matter. 

I honestly don't even have any feedback on this spec because it just felt like they decided they wanted something to appease anime fanatics with pretty animations and that's the entirety of the thought process behind it. I guess it's benchmarking well in pve.. for now.. until it gets ele treatment and someone bored out of their minds hits 50k with benchmarks and it becomes irrelevant in ALL game modes. 

 

[akipappi.3917]

Anet, please change virtuoso into a longbow and change most traits. Longbow wouldve made so much more sense and it still would have worked with the current kit. Mesmer needs a new twohanded. Just give skill 4 phantasmal bard and 5 a blink arrow or smth. It frustrates me how much the class makes sense as a longbow user, psionic arrows, elite couldve been a psionic arrow barrage and channeled, rain of swords couldve been rain of arrows. Just imagine all skills with arrows instead of blades, it makes sense

 

 

[Chichimec.9364]

Wow, I love the Virtuoso! This is feedback from an old, slow player who needs a durable build that is easy to use. A player who is also not into the minutiae of builds, traits, gear, and such. My first reaction to the Virtuoso was that, unlike the Harbinger, it is fun to play. The combat animations are beautiful. The weapons feel powerful and very useful, especially their ranged AOE capability. Haven't taken it into WvW yet but all those ranged AOEs look to be great fun both in clearing the tops of walls and in heavy zerg to zerg combat. It's durability in heavy combat remains to be seen but I am hopeful that as I learn the class better, I will be able to use it consistently. I will also be keeping an eye on Metabattle to see if they come up with a Low Intensity Virtuoso build after EoD arrives.

The Harbinger felt bland, boring, and underpowered to me. It made me wonder if pre-ordering the expansion was a mistake. Nope, the Virtuoso convinced me it wasn't. I am very much looking forward to playing this class on a regular basis.

[Mount Carsten.7913]

I think the daggers that float around you seem a bit clunky when switching directional movement, I guess I wish the animation when the daggers change direction was smoother. Also the Infinite Forge grandmaster trait always stocks the blades asymmetrically (1 on the one side and 2 on the other), I think this should be switched to 1-1-1 distribution around the Virtuoso. Also agree with other commenters that not giving Mesmer dagger off-hand seems like a missed opportunity and that the F1-F2-F3 skills are pretty unimaginative as they don't feel much different from normal shatters, I interpret the Virtuoso as being basically a mesmer that forgoes it's clones in order to focus on shattering, in that I case I expect the shatters to feel a bit more distinct in their effects as well. F4 is a great example of what I would expect! 

[Quadox.7834]

On 8/18/2021 at 3:00 AM, Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

Flying Cutter

- Flurry trigger should be 2 hits. The damage simply lacking compare to GS1.

 

Bladecall

- Projectile needs to be faster and homing back to the Mesmer instead of following a straight path.

 

Unstable Bladestorm

- Effect is not very clear. How damage does it deal to targets inside the bladestorm? How often do they get hit? After testing, "damages foes it passes through" doesn't seem to happen. Damage only applies when the blades shoots out.

 

Blade Renewal

- CD is too long

- Should be a stun break

 

Psychic Force

- Should not be a stun break

- Reduce CD if stun break is removed

 

Jagged Mind

- has a 100% chance to apply bleed on crit...why not just say it applies bleed on crit straight up?

- Why GS is considered as Blade, but Sword isn't? Blurred Frenzy and Counter Blade should both be the type Blade

 

Duelist Reversal and Psychic Riposte

- should trigger on "block and evade", instead of "block and dodge", because it triggers on evade (e.i. Blurred Frenzy)

 

Infinite Forge

- it's rather useless

- It's better if it restocks 1-3 Blades whenever you use Bladesong.

 

Bloodsong

- this trait necessitate that you also take Jagged Mind which means there's no other way to build around this GM trait -- in other words, it's useless without Jagged Mind

- If the Dagger skills applies Bleeding, then this trait makes sense. Otherwise it's a waste of GM slot.

 

Overall feel

- It's a fun E.Spec specially with Sword/Sword build.

- Dagger skills need work (see above)

infinite forge is absolutely not useless, it is actually the best one for many builds. but it should prob work out of combat.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Quadox.7834

[Ciel.8705]

F1 to F3 :

Cast time made shatters feel clunky, making it not flow well with the skills.

Also as a master of blades, Virtuoso should be able to execute their blades with grace instead of "Give me 1/2 to 3/4 sec to throw my dagger stacks...".

With the cast time in place, it is just ungraceful.

 

Rain of Swords :

The pulse damage does not reflect the skill name & animation. The damage from this skill should be more rapid (think ranger's longbow 2). The slow pulsing damage and low damage per pulse make this skill laughable and easily avoided without much consequences. Instead of a 5 pulse damage why not make it damage rapidly (x10~x20) at lower damage per tick, so that it feels more like "Rain of Swords" instead of "Pulse of Swords".

 

Jagged Mind :

A poor designed trait to incentivized condition build when most of the condition damaging weapons and utilities do not use "Blade" to trigger this. The only "Blade" are the F1-3, Psionic, Dagger 1-3, Greatsword 2-4, Which means those are the only skill benefitting from the trait itself and of all the mentioned ones only F1-F2 benefit most from it. The lack of synergy of this trait with weapons skills, utilities and other core traits is just bad.

 

Other feedback and suggestions :

 

 

1. Condition traits on Virtuoso currently is not even worth taking, considering Mirage does a better job. These traits are better off converted into traits that benefit Virtuoso's Psionics & Weapon Skills which isn't available in Core Mesmer Traitlines.
2. F1-3 & Thousand Cuts are projectiles without Projectile Finisher and yet gets punished by reflects. The lack of counter play as the Virtuoso is sad.
3. Illusion related traits and floating dagger should be updated. Gaining floating dagger should be considered as summoning illusion.
4. Bountiful Blades trait can be rework to benefit not just Greatsword in general, since the name is about blade why not make it also benefit blade related skills.

[Raven.8156]

Spec feels fun to play but survivability /mobility is limited. 

 

I don't understand the song aspect of the theme. Are we supposed to hear some canthan themed chime or musical sound when executing the blade song skills? that would be pretty cool!

[Chrolo.8536]

Hello devs

Thanks for developing the game and bringing the new e-specs to it!

Below my feedback/experience on virtuoso so far. This is mostly based on open world pve and general feel of the class there.

 

Core mechanic/shatters:

I like the animations on these new shatters, well done!

The casting time is definetly something to get used to. I think it is probably alright on f1 and f2, but too slow on f3. Also the projectiles could fly a bit faster. That they can be blocked adds additional challenge to fighting the occasional open world mob with reflect, but will probably be a great detriment in other game modes. The f4 is a strange one since its not beneficial to cast it with more then 1 blade, since the extra duration only leads to very minor additional dmg. With certain traits (for example boon rip) it can certainly be valuable in other game modes, but in open world you better safe the blades. That the skills go on 4s cd when you cast them will not facing is also a great detriment.

 

Dagger and interaction with other weapons:

The dagger seems viable in a condi setup and can lead to a lot of bleeds. Maybe reduce the range of the auto attack to 900 and buff the dmg a bit, you dont want to be at max range anyways, because the 2 and 3 are unviable in those situations. I think the blade generation on 2 could be faster/on the first hit. When you shoot it out you have to wait an eternity until it comes back to give you a blade. And the "trick" CMC showed on stream is not something I want to deal with all the time. The 3 skill could also probably be a bit faster and/or have a second activation effect which makes it stand still/return/move faster or something.

 

It was great to discover that you properly adjusted the skill 3 on sword! Very cool! But the other weapons lack out. On greatsword the 2 is very clunky because it can not jump on a single target. And the auto attack on staff should be adjusted. Either to be stronger on its own or be stronger based on the amount of blades you have stocked. Also the blade generation of scepter auto attack stops on 3 blades. This may be inteded but it is annoying for the same reason it is with Infinite Forge (see below).

 

Traits:

First off, on the reveal stream clones and blades were always used interchangeably. So it was a great dissapointment to see that many "on illusion" effects dont work with blades. For example the grand master in inspiration for healing, the adept in chaos for +defense, the minor in illusions for +power and condi damage, the sword trait in duelling, sharpening images in dueling, as well as skills like the healing signet. These absolutely have to interact with blades. If they are owerpowerd because of an increased blade generation then adjust the numbers appropriately.

 

The virtuoso traits seem not that interesting to me or undertuned. The bottom line (the condi line) is very strong. The GM there generates a lot of blades and is clearly better then the other GMs. I think you have to decide what level of blade generation virtuoso should have and then (probalby nerf) the bottom GM to that level and buff the other GMs to that level as well. Infinite Forge was not fun to play around, because it kind of gives an incentive to slow down clone/blade generation after a shatter to profit from it and then it does nothing after you have reached 3 blades. I think that power builds need a blade generator on the level of the bottom (condi) GM, but the top and middle one cant serve as that in pve.

The bottom adept trait (bleed on crit) was what I thought sharper images in dueling would do when you are specialiced as virtuoso. It is a very strong trait and it is nice to have it in virtuoso so that you dont have to rely on dueling for the bleed on crit. But a the same time its strange and redundant. One of the things I enjoy and look forward the most with e-specs is their interaction and synergy with core specs and I feel that virtuouso is missing out a lot on this. There are cool synergies but there are also obvious (imo) things that don't work (like the inspiration GM as already mentioned).

 

I don't have much experience with the other traits or find them rather bland (at least from an open world perspective). I find always like utility/QoL traits but the top line doesnt really do it for me atm because you can only benefit from them when you dodge or block something. The may be very good in wvw or pvp and then its fine - for pve they seem to not be a good choice.

 

Overall the blade generation for power builds in open world is a bit wonky. When you summon a phantasm you only get a blade when it despawns while the enemy is still living. I missed out on a lot of blades while doing a standard GS rotation for example, where you summon the berserker, throw the 2 and shatter. Most mobs die after the shatter and you miss out on the blade from the phantasm. Maybe we just have to deal with it, but once you are accustomed to "collecting blades" its annoying to miss out on these obvious one. I found myself to be wanting to stack up blades before engaging a champion, but its difficult when standard mobs die too fast.

 

One thing regarding the display of blades over your character. I personally would prefer to only see them when weapons are drawn and/or you are in combat.

 

Heal/Utility/Elite skills:

I think the heal is very good in pve. I noticed that you have to face a targeted enemy to use it, which I can imagine is a pain in pvp and wvw. From the utilities I really like blade renewal and think its a great skill. The stunbreak is probably good too, but I have not had much opportunity to use it yet. The other two seem very low impact, even when you are in high damage gear the output seems laughable. Like others suggested, these could maybe be merged and make place to one more cool skill. The elite skill is laughable... :D It is even hard to hit NPCs with it and most of the time it doesnt even amount to the damage of a fully stacked F1 (which also pierces and can hit all enemies in a line).

 

Overall I am glad we can test these e-specs out and give feedback. I think virtuoso is a fun reimagination of a mesmer without clones. It is not a revolutionary spec, but it offers a new and fun way to play nevertheless that I will certainly enjoy once more work and polish went into it.

 

 

[Axl.8924]

11 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Virtuoso fails as a spec for a very obvious reason:

 

A spec can't be solely appealing just because it disposes of a core flawed mechanic of a class while doubling down on other flaws the class has while offering nothing else.

 

Virtuoso as a spec virtually offers nothing over core mesmer over the main problem the mesmer has in PvE design: It has ramp up in clone generation, the clones die on target death, shatters don't redirect to your chosen target, and you can't redirect clones outside mirage axe 3. This makes mesmer a terrible aoe cleave class and hamstrings it to be a ramp up single target class, but the problem is due to nerf after nerf, most of them PvP motivated, mesmer in PvE doesn't even shine as a single target DPS spec over classes and specs that perform better in single target, have burst, have effective cleave, bring utility (which mesmer has none outside Feedback, and Moa Signet and chrono's elite well has a hideously long CD in PvE  for some ridiculous reason despite offering nothing more than CC), and have the capacity to easily switch target.

 

Mesmer phantasms only do enough competitive DPS contribution in PvE when chronophantasma is slotted, otherwise mesmer power DPS output in PvE is abysmal. After the gutting of confusion with the August 17 patch, Cry of Frustration isn't even a worthwhile shatter.

Diversion for some reason is still single target without a trait despite eating up 3 precious clones and having a sizable cooldown, while doing less CC than a revenant staff 5 or Guardian pull/Warrior CC on what's supposed to be the control/denial class.

 

Virtuoso doesn't offer anything over removing the crippling PvE drawbacks of clones, and even while allowing for better target switching, the shatters have become single target, so the already bad mesmer cleaving/aoe capabilities get worse with the spec.

 

The utility of the spec sucks in a class where the core utility traits and utility skills and elites are awful outside chronomancer's kit.

 

This means Virtuoso only functions when it functions as a high octane DPS spec, because core mesmer utility in organized PvE is nonexistent. Core mesmer provides no valuable high stack and variety of group boons like Guardian, no defensive utility like low cd stability or aegis or barrier that guardian and scourge bring, or the offensive/defensive group utility of renegades. Yet after the flurry of constant nerfs to power chrono and mirage, all mesmer DPS specs underperform thief, underperform holosmith, while doing middling DPS, on less forgiving rotations, with nonexistent utility.

 

You have absolutely demolished condition mirage with the confusion changes. Please revert them, or change Confusion to do 85-100% the damage of a bleed. Torch offhand phantasm and pistol phantasm are so bad; torch phantasm has a whopping 30 sec base cd. Why? It's condition damage application is totally undertuned to the CD, and the 0.5 sec daze is utterly worthless as an interrupt because you have to cast the phantasm and he then performs an attack before the interrupt is applied. Remove the interrupt and halve the cooldown on torch phantasm as well as the Prestige. Pistol phantasm needs to have applied bleed stacks guaranteed per volley.

 

Virtuoso sits in the same spot as mirage where it has no room for utility, so it has to do very high damage to justify bringing it. But neither mirage or virtuoso perform according to their lack of meaningful group utility in PvE. Both also have mediocre sustained cleave capacity to deal well with encounters with waves of mobs or adds.

 

The virtuoso traits and utility skills suck/are mediocre.

I'm gonna start right away with the horrenodous minor that gives vulnerability on skill use as the sole benefit. Why? Vulnerability is trivially stacked in PvE group content, it's essentially a dead trait in organized PvE due to redundancy. But these don't get any better. Redundant boons on dodge that have no PvE relevance, because the meta support classes like healbrand/renegade stack them all. A single 15% damage modifier trait, while scourge and Willbender go up to 25% on top of their secondary effects.

 

The grandmaster traits are completely useless in PvE. Generating a blade while under 3 blades on an interval and doing nothing else as a grandmaster trait is such a horribly undertuned trait. None of the traits modify the utility or weapon skills or the bladesongs.

 

The blade generation utility will never be used as a channel in PvE, and the other three utilities are essentially reskinned chronomancer wells but with worse or no utility. The elite is an anemic stationary line nuke. It was hard to think of an elite that would be even worse than Time Warp in PvE (time warp should have its cd reduced to 60 seconds in PvE, and give alacrity and apply chill as well as dispel boons every other interval). But here we are, with huge cd elites that don't merit the cd's they have at all but only have those really long cd's thanks to your PvP centric balancing of the mesmer.

 

Aesthetics

 

The daggers should be pointing up like a fan of daggers instead of flatly horizontal. Look at Wildstar Esper's Illusionary Blades, looks a lot better.

 

Bladesong 1 has a mediocre animation next to Bladesong 2 (the one that applies confusion).

 

Dagger skill 1 and 2 look too powdery and bluish. Please fix them to look sharper and more mirrorish reflective of a bladed weapon.

 

PvP centric balancing of the mesmer is strangling the class in PvE

 

Why is mesmer constantly as a class only being designed with PvP gimmicks in mind with no relevance to group PvE, and then you go in after the fact fur to player complaints and tack on some last minute half assed numbers buff solution?

 

For once I'd like to have development start the development canvas with raiding/fractals/strike in mind instead of having every single livestream constantly demonstrate that skills are designed with PvP combat in mind.

 

If you had any meaningful involvement and tracked usage statistics for fractals/raids/strikes, you'd realize mirage is the only DPS mesmer had after you overnerfed chronomancer and you just demolished mirage's performance with the supposed adjustment to confusion which turned to be a massive nerf in the vast majority of fractal/raid/strike content.

 

Honestly even that ability to raise all your blades is kinda long cd. Honestly i don-t know how this class could work in SPVP setting without any mobility at all.

 

Necromancers and gaurdians both can easily get tons of stacks of vulnerability easier with that sword of wisdom prob good 20 stacks using the sword twice and necros with their axe once.

 

Virtuoso needs all sorts of improvements if it wants to see any play in PVE and SPVP.

The delay and CD kinda feel bad and i agree with whats said above the thing in the build for bleed feels tacked on.

[Jokubas.4265]

My Second Round of Feedback

I've played around a little bit more with the spec since my last post. My goal was actually just to double check some things I've seen other people talk about, but I ran into some tougher enemies than I was experimenting with last time and it gave me something entirely different to talk about.

 

The Odd:
As echoed in a few places, Blade generation feels weirdly random. Unfortunately I can't give more specifics because I'm not exactly sure why it feels this way. To be fair, with my Chronomancer I just use Scepter and know I'm always going to get a clone every third auto-attack, and with only three illusion slots it's easy to instinctively keep track of where I stand even with other passive generation. I think part of it might be that playing Virtuoso is just that much more hectic so it's not as easy to get a rhythm down. This might be something that just takes time to get used to, but right now it feels messy.

 

The Experience:

I ended up running into a group of Veterans. They were teleporting around and pulling and immobilizing. It was kind of a nightmare. It made me quickly realize how glass this glass cannon really is. I just wasn't doing enough damage to make up for the damage that I had no opportunities to mitigate. I did kind of eventually make it through the group, but after extensive kiting and convincing part of the group to leash without the rest of them. To be fair, in the spirit of testing, I tried to fight this same group as my Chronomancer... it went about as poorly. The abilities on these guys are annoying enough that they ignore my normal clone defenses.

On the other hand, my Tempest beat them fairly handily. They were still nasty, but my Tempest actually has the cannon to make up for their glass, and I'd be surprised if I'm running a competitive build on them.

 

I'm really not sure what to feel right now. I was hoping Virtuoso would allow me to play my Mesmer more like my Tempest, but Virtuoso doesn't come out of this three-way comparison favorably.

 

Elite Skill:

The thing I originally came in to test was some specifics on the F4 and in general how easy it was to accidentally interrupt my own cast times for various abilities. For the most part I pleasantly didn't have any issues with that despite other reports (although the fact that the experience is inconsistent is enough reason to look into it). EDIT: Maybe this is because they were going off anyway, just not on any targets? That would explain my damage not adding up, but everything's so hectic I'm too busy trying to stay alive to notice if the flashy effect hit someone or not.

 

The one exception was the Elite Skill. That thing really needs some help. Every little thing seemed to interrupt it, either the casting itself or as if I had never even clicked it on the ground. Then, even when it did go off, it never felt like it was doing anything.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Jokubas.4265