Virtuoso Feedback Thread [Merged]

[zealex.9410]

Dagger aa both looks and feels bad, the slow kitten projectiles of staff and dagger are an archaic design that simply has no place ij current gw2. 

 

F3 is a daze its supposed to be reactive yet it has a cast time. Everything has cast times and that might have worked back in 2012 but in 2021 class design has evolved past that (either rework every spec and class pre eod to confine to this design or rework eod specs to confine to the current design albeit less busted on release). Edit: obviously anticipating and proactively using the daze is a skill play but the casttime on top of the travel time make it unrealistic. I wouldnt mind cast times for the rest but at least f3 shouldnt have it and maybe the f4 skills should travel faster.

 

The heal skill cant be used if you dont face your target, its incredibly niche for not that good of a return and id rather see it reworked.

 

Some utils are fine but still cds are too long the utils are barebomes on what they give you for the time you spend using them (again its like you designed skills that would exist in pre hot gw2 but we are in the post pof era). No utility type recharge trait.

 

The traits are stat bumbs of uncreative and overly safe choices with no real creativity put to them for the most part, its like the dagger aa being a copy paste of thief dagger aa regardless of how offputting it looks.

 

It begs the question of when did you actually start work on these, these dont feel like elite specs that are ready for release in 6 months, hell they dont feel lile elite specs that have been worked on for the better part of the last 15 months.

 

No movement, barely any cc, its a spec built around projectiles in a game that evolved past projectiles. Its an overly fair elite spec for a game thats not remotely that fair anymore.

 

Edit f4 being a sort of chanelled block doesnt even allow us to stop while blocking like core mesmer can distort and mirage can dodge.

Edited August 18, 2021 by zealex.9410

[Silveran.7250]

Just first impressions on the spec, it feels kinda clunky? The cast time on the shatters feels bad, and the f1-f3 shatters simply firing forward like the elite would feel a lot better (especially on multiple targets).  It's really noticeable when you hit f1 against an enemy that's closed the distance and all the swords fly into the ground and miss all other targets as a result.  Sword of Decimation feels a tad underwhelming in its current form- damage seems fine, but it'd be awesome if Sword of Decimation at least had a flip over to teleport to the location where the sword dropped (even if the teleport had zero damage/zero effect outside the teleport, it'd still make the skill more fun).

 

It feels like Virtuoso just kinda lacks that feeling of chaos that mesmer's always had- mirage with its teleports and cloak and clones, chrono and Continuum split/lots of phantasms.  It'd be interesting to see at least the dagger 1 (Flying Cutter) be a ricochet instead of a simple piercing line AoE.  Admittedly, I'd love to see ricocheting blades on more skills than that to capture that chaos thematic a bit better, but even just on the dagger autoattack would help.  Flying Cutter's animation (the character's swing) could also use some work, it's just awkwardly repetitive.  Bladecall and Unstable Bladestorm felt pretty alright.

 

Summary would be Virtuoso doesn't really feel chaotic enough, cast times on f1-3 and target aiming instead of simple forward firing feels clunky on them, would like to see dagger offhand and a new phantasm.  

 

Also please find a way to get an overworld movespeed buff into the traitlines.  It is absolutely miserable trying to scrounge together enough swiftness to not feel like a snail.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Silveran.7250
Forgot to add something.

[Reklus.2093]

im sry i really did have high hopes....  either    lower cast times and make a gm that makes blade skills non-projectiles or this spec is toast...  i really don't know what to say,   it has no direction and i'm kinda sad other then the animation team did well..    still to slow..    traits are worse then any core build.    and the elite skill,   Gut it!!

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Reklus.2093

[Jables.4659]

Its a fun spec but it needs work.  The most glaring issue is that the build is close to worthless against players or groups with a lot of projectile management.  All 3 dagger attacks, the first 3 shatters, and the elite skill can be reflected.  One core guardian is enough to shut this spec down.  I am very happy with the change to sword 3, but I've noticed a lot of issues with the leap malfunctioning (it often leaps in place without moving the character).  The current f4 skill doesn't feel right regarding the flow of staying protected in combat.  When the skill is used with a high blade count the attack outlives the block and it prevents you from going into stealth.  I am definitely not a fan of the cast times on the shatter abilities but that may be due to 8 years of instant shatter muscle memory. 

 

I didn't fully confirm this part as I stopped using the distortion utility fairly early on, but it didn't seem to work with Auspicious Anguish (its supposed to convert 2 damaging conditions into boons when you gain distortion).  Ideally that trait would be modified to proc when f4 is used despite it not actually being distortion as virtuoso is in dire need of cleanse.  Arcane Thievery is still unusable from the May 11th patch and there isn't a good alternative utility cleanse on Mesmer.  My final critique revolves around the dagger weapon skills.  As mentioned, all three abilities are projectiles and without access to unblockable the entire weapon can be shut down very easily.  The animation of dagger skill 3 is very pretty, but the skill doesn't feel very valuable in small scale fights.  The projectiles moves at an awkward speed that is incredibly easy for the enemy to avoid, but its still fast enough that when you lock an enemy down the aoe projectile passes through them without dealing much damage.  Dagger as a weapon would feel far more valuable if that ability was replaced with either mobility or a block/evade.  I find myself wanting to use scepter in place of dagger on virtuoso as it would alleviate the projectile issues while providing an additional source of active protection.  The problem is that Scepter as a weapon more or less requires the illusion trait-line for Malicious Sorcery.  Its long-overdue for that 20% attack speed bonus to be made baseline on scepter. 

[SkylightMoon.1980]

I know this may diverge from the direction of the design a bit but changing the dagger shatters in a way so they can't be reflected? 

Edited August 18, 2021 by SkylightMoon.1980
...

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

Feedback:

 

This spec is absolutely terrible. 

[De Bourgogne.9642]

 Speaking purely for PvP and a bit WvW:

 

While bad part will be much longer because I explain why certain things are bad I think spec overall is very good. 

 

Good:

Love spec overall not having clones, animations are great, its fun and for most part fluid to play. Great choice for Bladesongs to have cast time and animations. I love new sword 3. 

 

Bad:

- Bladesongs shouldn't be projectiles. Being projectiles makes it completely useless in WvW and much weaker in PvP when they are already weaker because they have cast time as opposed to shatters. Keep them exactly as they are just make them not projectiles. 

- You should be able to cast bladesongs behind you. Animation for shatter is above the player thus there is no reason for them to not be able to cast behind you. This obsession with making skills not being castable behind you is running the game by making it clunky and less fun. Same issue with new heal not going off when not facing your target.  You already ruined Arcane Thievery with this policy, because now it bugs out and it won't go through even when facing enemy in range sometimes. 

- Damage on F1,  F2 and dagger is too low. Again Bladesongs are weaker then shatters in most ways thus they should be compensated with higher damage which is the case for F3. Now look at dagger autoattack is low damage even with 3 hit passive. Dagger 2 is 2k damage with full berserker with both hits combined (1k + 1k) and gives dagger. Dagger 3 is slow storm that you can walk away without any movement speed buff and even if you get hit damage is a joke probably less then dagger 2. Non of the skills do anything else then do power damage and 1 blade, no conditions, no cc, no boons. That is fine I don't like skills that do 6 things but it needs to do damage it is absolutely terrible right now it is far worse then Greatsword 1-3 skills and Greatsword is a weak power weapon at the moment I believe it's damage is even bugged to be too low. Buff dagger damage. 

- Elite and Utility skills are bad. The distortion one recharging blade is the only utility skill that is good. I don't have a big problem with utility skills being bad since two of them are designed for WvW (but then again virtuoso is useless in WvW  in current state). Elite however, think about this with full damage set up this skill does 9k damage if every again projectile hits them. This means person literally has to afk or play the game for the first time to stand in it and it is an elite with 60s cooldown. This has to be one of the worst skills in PvP ever. With how bad this skill is it would have to be an instant cast to be ever worth using (don't make it instant cast). To fix it you could make it like a beam in front of you that moves as you move your body. 

[Roda.7468]

Ok, I gotta say, I soloed that champion gold ooze in auric basin as a condi virtuoso, and that was pretty sweet lmao.  Took a hot minute, and the fact that it was slow helped with the kiting, but the flow was interesting.  There is definitely something here.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Roda.7468

[Hirosama Nadasaki.6792]

I've only tried the beta especs on pvp so far, so my feedback is from that perspective.

 

Much as I expected, it plays like a power dragonhunter. All out offense, burst, little survivability, focus on range and sniping.

Except unlike a dragonhunter, the numbers are way smaller, you need to choose between your main source of damage (F1) or your main source of defense (F4) as both shares resources, and the elite skill is near useless in pvp since you can just take 2 steps to the side to get out of it.

 

I tried using the dagger first and found little success, but when I switched to the greatsword it was significantly better, especially on blade generation. The best loadout for a power virtuoso imo is sword/pistol and greatsword.

 

I haven't tried a condi virtuoso yet, but I did have to switch to the Bloodsong trait, coupled with Duelist's Discipline and Jagged Mind, since the blade generation from it is immensely better than the other two grandmaster traits. Psychic Riposte was half-decent, but Bloodsong is just so much better and more reliable. Even on a power build it was a lot better. Infinite Forge needs to have the 3 blade cap at least increased, but preferrably removed. It's easy to reach 3 blades, especially since the entirety of core mesmer is based around 3 clones, but once you put your clone-making skills on cooldown you got nothing, and Infinite Forge reached cap. Removing the ICD from Psychic Riposte's blade creation would also make it an interesting alternative, since you could get some cool value out of F4, sword 2, and blade renewal with it. Naturally the ICD would stay for the blade attack.

 

As expected, the cast times on Bladesong skills feels super clunky and needlessly inconvenient. Reminds me of playing 1 dodge Mirage actually.

 

The good news is, this is very well salvageable without a large rework. Ignoring the QoL and balancing issues, there was a fun gameplay to be found there. It needs to find its intended gameplay and doubledown on it. Since it forgoes clones and trickery in favour of throwing blades, it needs to either:

 

(a) Have much larger damage on the Bladesong skills, while keeping the current cast time, blade generation and cooldowns, aiming for a sniper-style gameplay where you accumulate 5 blades and nuke a single target at range.

or

(b) Keep the current damage, or maybe even lower it if necessary, but reduce the cooldown of Bladesong skills, remove the cast time, and increase blade generation to go for a constant stream of damage as you rapid-fire blades at the target.

 

As it stands it takes quite some effort to accumulate 5 blades, in comparison to getting 3 clones, in an extremely vulnerable espec for very little pay-off.

 

Again, this is from a PvP perspective, I'm sure it feels very different in PvE.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention about sword 3. I like it a lot, makes it much smoother and adds some off-combat mobility to the weapon.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Hirosama Nadasaki.6792

[Kirrund.2654]

All shatter skills should be able to be used without any blades. They should also be useable without a target, and fire off in the direction you're facing at max range, instead of into the floor. Having to have a target makes it where once again there is no counterplay to aiming at people in stealth. 

The traits are bad and should be reworked. Every grandmaster trait is weak and should be added on to or remade. None of the new utilities provide any secondary functions or have any mobility. And why isn't there a stun?

[wesly.6497]

pretty and interesting build, but so far the only thing that I noticed is that Thousand Cuts  it is literally invisible by its color, it is difficult to understand when it flew, it is not noticeable, of course, it is only in dark locations, but in the wilderness it is quite light in color

[Pacificterror.7805]

So far all I can say is, please discard any suggestions for renaming the specialization "Blade Dancer". All I can think of when I hear that is the subclass that exists in Destiny:

 

https://destiny.fandom.com/wiki/Bladedancer

[Roda.7468]

4 minutes ago, Pacificterror.7805 said:

So far all I can say is, please discard any suggestions for renaming the specialization "Blade Dancer". All I can think of when I hear that is the subclass that exists in Destiny:

 

https://destiny.fandom.com/wiki/Bladedancer

I'm more in favor of "Psion" 'cause that would make talking about the spec and/or aurene very funny.

[zealex.9410]

59 minutes ago, Hirosama Nadasaki.6792 said:

I've only tried the beta especs on pvp so far, so my feedback is from that perspective.

 

Much as I expected, it plays like a power dragonhunter. All out offense, burst, little survivability, focus on range and sniping.

Except unlike a dragonhunter, the numbers are way smaller, you need to choose between your main source of damage (F1) or your main source of defense (F4) as both shares resources, and the elite skill is near useless in pvp since you can just take 2 steps to the side to get out of it.

 

I tried using the dagger first and found little success, but when I switched to the greatsword it was significantly better, especially on blade generation. The best loadout for a power virtuoso imo is sword/pistol and greatsword.

 

I haven't tried a condi virtuoso yet, but I did have to switch to the Bloodsong trait, coupled with Duelist's Discipline and Jagged Mind, since the blade generation from it is immensely better than the other two grandmaster traits. Psychic Riposte was half-decent, but Bloodsong is just so much better and more reliable. Even on a power build it was a lot better. Infinite Forge needs to have the 3 blade cap at least increased, but preferrably removed. It's easy to reach 3 blades, especially since the entirety of core mesmer is based around 3 clones, but once you put your clone-making skills on cooldown you got nothing, and Infinite Forge reached cap. Removing the ICD from Psychic Riposte's blade creation would also make it an interesting alternative, since you could get some cool value out of F4, sword 2, and blade renewal with it. Naturally the ICD would stay for the blade attack.

 

As expected, the cast times on Bladesong skills feels super clunky and needlessly inconvenient. Reminds me of playing 1 dodge Mirage actually.

 

The good news is, this is very well salvageable without a large rework. Ignoring the QoL and balancing issues, there was a fun gameplay to be found there. It needs to find its intended gameplay and doubledown on it. Since it forgoes clones and trickery in favour of throwing blades, it needs to either:

 

(a) Have much larger damage on the Bladesong skills, while keeping the current cast time, blade generation and cooldowns, aiming for a sniper-style gameplay where you accumulate 5 blades and nuke a single target at range.

or

(b) Keep the current damage, or maybe even lower it if necessary, but reduce the cooldown of Bladesong skills, remove the cast time, and increase blade generation to go for a constant stream of damage as you rapid-fire blades at the target.

 

As it stands it takes quite some effort to accumulate 5 blades, in comparison to getting 3 clones, in an extremely vulnerable espec for very little pay-off.

 

Again, this is from a PvP perspective, I'm sure it feels very different in PvE.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention about sword 3. I like it a lot, makes it much smoother and adds some off-combat mobility to the weapon.

Yeah except f3 and the channel of f4 i think cast times are fine so long as the abilities are worth it and the travel time.

[Roda.7468]

5 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

It is very easy to overload on blades to the point I could have all Bladesongs on CD with F1 being an Ammo skill via Shatterstorm in Illusions.  Easy DPS and Blade generation from Dagger means plenty of room to play around with different Utilities.

 

OK YES I have done octovine as a condi build with shatterstorm and WOOF  Once that ball gets rolling IT SURE GETS ROLLING

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

Bladesongs need unblockable trait at the cost of damage or pierce. The interruptible animations (esp F1 with 3/4 second CD) is already a counterplay.

 

Honestly going from destructible illusions to one-dodge mirage and now reflectable projectiles.......at this stage Mesmer should be renamed Masochists.

[Razadune.9260]

I had a great time with Virtuoso and would definitely play it as my main character if it were available on live.    

    

The #3 Unstable Bladestorm skill was the only major drawback I had, because its AOE seems huge and it's difficult to keep it from drawing in extra enemies that you don't want to an encounter. It seems very indiscriminate for a skill with such a long range to it.    

     

I played a human female and her class-specific voice line triggers seemed too frequent, too. I like them, but they seem like they're going off too often.    

     

The only other worry I have for Virtuoso is that there's no good way to deal with break bars. Psychic Force works, but has a bit too long of a cooldown to be good for it. 

[UsagiShinobi.2597]

I don't think I've ever posted on the forums but figured I may as well for the feedback!

 

Something to note: I only play open-world PVE. I'll do dungeons if it's the daily, but I don't do raiding (since I'm awful at it). I also only do WvW for Gifts of Battle when I'm making a Legendary, and I only did PvP to get the Warlord armor skins. So for the past four-ish years, I've been a OW-PvE player. I have no comments on what others have been saying on PvP/WvW/raiding stuff. I'm also not some min-maxing player who cares about getting those last 20 points of Power to increase DPS by .05% or whatever. I'm just here to have fun, beat up world bosses, and play fashion wars 😛

 

Overall: I love the concept! The whole aesthetic of psionic blades floating around you is *chefs kiss*. I think some more can be done with their mobility, however -- not just mechanical mobility (in terms of blinks/shadowsteps, leaps, etc.) but also in terms of animation.

 

I mainly play Warrior, and the stacks of blades honestly reminds me a lot of Warrior's adrenaline. I like that the new shatters can be used on any target, not just the one you're attacking. Mesmer doesn't have a whole lot of target-change skills for their clones (Mirage adds a couple, but that's a different elite spec altogether). There have been times when I've wanted to move my clones over to a new enemy to deal with a new threat, but most of the time it's: primary target dies > my clones disappear > new opponent appears > I have to rebuild my clones. Yes, I'm fully aware that other players (who are more competent and aware of how to build their traits) will probably have combos to get back to full clones within mere seconds, but I am but a Warrior main with hardly any brain cells to clap together. But, I digress.

 

I like the blade-stacking, though. As a Warrior, I can use a burst on a new target mid-combat -- maybe I'm smacking someone with a mace, and a nearby enemy is charging up an attack. I can just swap focus to them, give 'em a mace burst on the head to interrupt, then go back to my previous target. No sweat off my back. And the blades are like that, to me. I can be focused on one target, apply a burst of blade damage to another target, then return my focus. And I can keep the blades outside of combat, unlike adrenaline? Score!

 

As some other folks here have said, the blade-summoning doesn't seem to be fully integrated into the other traits, skills, etc. yet. Scepter's auto-attack stops at 3 blades, rather than going to maximum, and I feel like there were some core mesmer traits that weren't activating when summoning a blade or casting a bladesong shatter.

 

Mainhand dagger is cool (and in terms of fashion wars, I can't wait to pair it with Binding of Ipos!), but the projectile seems slow, especially for such a long-range attack! Maybe, and hear me out: make the dagger work like necro axe -- ranged, but instant-strike rather than a projectile. 900 range, summons a psionic blade that strikes from a random direction, and it still stacks up charges to do its multi-strike.

 

The issue with Flying Cutter's long range is that it doesn't seem to mesh with the rest of Virtuoso. Its other two attacks require targets to be close to you for maximum effect, and the Mental Focus trait doubles down on needing you to be close to a target.

 

And that brings me to the issue of mobility. If you're going to get up close to an enemy, you better have a good plan for when the proverbial poop hits the asuran bladed-air-transfer device. None of the Virtuoso abilities provide mobility of any kind, so I'll have to rely on Blink to get out of sticky situations. This seems odd, because a knife-juggling trickster seems like the perfect choice for mobility! Willbender gets some impressive mobility (much-needed for the sluggish movement of Guardian), combined with all the awesome martial arts animations. Now, Virtuoso doesn't need to suddenly become Thief-levels of shadowstepping dodge nonsense, but I think some cool flips, dodges, and short-range blinks could be neat. The attack animations could use some more life as well. Go crazy, go nuts! Have them literally juggle the knives, or add some pompous flourishes. Their autoattack animation just feels like the regular dagger autoattack for Thief, Spellbreaker, and Necro.

 

For the actual skills themselves, there isn't much I can really say that hasn't already been said by others. Get rid of the "you need to be facing the target" stipulation for bladesongs. Their utilities are flashy but a bit same-y and feel "safe" rather than "outside of the box". Their stunbreak has a ridiculous cooldown! And the elite skill either needs to be buffed out the wazoo or changed entirely to be useful -- even in PvE, where enemies usually stand still! And I can definitely see how lots of Virtuosos popping their abilities off could tank people's FPS -- I have a mid-range rig with decent graphics settings and saw no noticeable frame drops out in "regular" open-world, but I bet Drizzlewood Coast's zerging will turn my FPS to mush with these effects!

 

Basically, a lot of the traits and skills feel "safe". I'm worried that the devs were afraid of making them OP right out of the box and disappointing everyone with nerfs. I say, lean into the aesthetic more. We create our mesmers by giving them theatrical masks, and hold the power of the mind at our fingertips! Make Virtuoso feel more like a knife-juggling trickster a**hole with martial arts animations. Make them literally walk the razor's edge of zen concentration versus chaotic madness.

 

There's potential, for sure. There's an awesome aesthetic. There's a neat change to the usual clone-summoning. But there's work to be done, for sure. I wish you luck!

[Hart.8195]

I like the idea of the virtuoso but I must admit some of the animations for it fall a bit flat and feel a little jarring. A few examples:

 

- Why do the blades all fly over the target's head rather than making contact with the target? When using flying cutter it'd be cool if we could see a spinning blade fly at the target rather than that pink blob that flies over their head.

Edit: I've noticed not all targets have the animation fly over their head, only some of them - might need to correct that. The golem in the Aerodrome Training Room had all it's attacks fly over it's head, where as the golems in the PVP area hit on target.

 

- We see all these amazing blades floating above us, ready to be launched at the target, but they kinda get lost in the animation and never really appear to fly at the target, or when they merge into a larger blade it's not clear in the animation that that's what's happening. It would just be nice if the visuals matched the description more clearly. I almost imagine each blade should recoil slightly before being hurled across the room as it spins.

 

- Unstable Bladestorm feels jarring when it moves through the character, almost like it's a bug. Maybe would be better if it just did the animation at the target's spot, but maybe there's a reason for it's movement?

 

- Sword of Decimation and Rain of Swords look cool but they also both look a little too similar - maybe if Sword of Decimation was just a single sword it might work better?

 

- When using a Thousand Cuts I imagine lots of knives flying at the target, which isn't the case. It'd also be cool if it sounded like lots more blades were being used, as the sound effect seems to be the same. There's also a bit of a delay with the sound of the knife hitting the target and the animation of the target being hit, which is a bit jarring.

 

- Blade Renewal could be a bit more impressive. At the moment my character just kinda squats as though bracing for an attack. Maybe if he were to do a dance, go into kind of a trance or do some kind of meditation, something more interesting, that'd be cool. Also, when activating this there's (sometimes) a voice that says 'another' that doesn't sound like my character's voice, which is random - if you're not going to use the character's voice I'd just remove this altogether.

 

- I like Bladeturn Requim, that's pretty cool, but again the random crouching could be replaced with something more impressive.

 

- Three of the finishers - Bladesong Harmony, Bladesong Sorrow and Blade Song Dissonance have a cool pose, so I like that, but they're all the same pose for every one. Would be nice to have some variety. Also the character seems to less jump into the pose as it does float into it like there's no gravity, which doesn't feel right, but that's just me.

 

- The auto attack animation of my character on Flying Cutter doesn't quite give the same vibe as the cool looking artwork you guys made for the virtuoso, who seems slick and graceful. My character appears to be hacking at it's target rather than dancing with the blades. I really liked the cool animation you guys did with the axe weapon when using Lingering Thoughts - that was a well done animation, very cool, and very fun - makes you excited to play as a mesmer. The current animation is kinda lack-luster and not as fun to play. I just don't feel excited about it. Even if the character kinda stood upright and gracefully flung a spinning dagger with a slick flick of the wrist, kinda like Gambit from the X-men with his cards, that'd be cool. Even better, make the character spin on the spot before making a calculated throw with some flair. You can even do what you did with the great sword and make the dagger spin just out of the mesmer's reach as it channels it's energy at the target. Something that really brings out the Virtuoso personality. I think this is the thing I would like to see most. Presentation is important with the mesmer as it's a very theatrical character.

 

- Finally, all the buttons on the UI for your dagger skills all look the same, it's almost hard to tell them apart. All the other weapons have greater variety in their illustrations so I don't imagine coming up with more styles should be too difficult. You can tell that a lot of them have the same dagger simply copied and pasted at different angles. The images just feel like a bit of a last minute afterthought.

 

Otherwise I love that we can carry unused blades from a downed target to a new one, very handy for trash mobs 🙂

 

Thanks!

Edited August 18, 2021 by Hart.8195
Missed one of the abilities

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

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)

[Kal.6528]

Condi builds: Bleed stacks are good & bleed damage is good; you can get ~50 stacks of bleed at a given time. However, other condi sources other than bleed is bad. Torment (illu trait) & Confusion lack sources to become viable in endgame since shatters are the main sources for these conditions; Burning from torch remains at the same level & pace as other E-specs.

 

Power builds: Dagger feels a little lackluster for end game since it is overshadowed by sword's auto attack. Sword still gets better numbers. Maybe adding a combo sequence or vulnerability/bleed to the dagger auto attack can help increase its damage potential since you are rewarded at the end of the AA chain with a burst/blade.

 

F1-F4: Current activation time is bad since it slows down burst potential in any rotation. Very predictable in competitive scenes. Maybe can be improved from being a target skill to small aoe skill for similar mechanic with utility skill aoes. With how fast you can get blades, the shatter/bladesong cooldowns seem a little bit too long- if the focus of the e-spec is throwing out these blades, wouldn't it be better to have them have shorter cooldowns with reduced damage? 

 

Open world wise, Virtuoso feels fun since it has a faster pace than other Mesmer e-specs.

[CJH.2879]

My thoughts so far...

 

-Elite Skill = It's clunky to aim (a tab targetting + hit the key to fire off would be better), you can't move while casting it otherwise it cancels out (In my mind, that's bad!), damage is far too low for an elite skill.

-The AOE dagger effects that fall from the sky kills my PC's FPS. Alot of us have older PC's (please keep this in mind until gw3 eventually comes out!)

-The F4 ability when you put a shield up & have spinning daggers around you doesn't stop projectiles from knocking you over. So it's kind of pointless if your hit with something at range that can knock you down. (Yes, there is stability on the trait lines, but still, it's supposed to be a shield & you'd think reflecting projectiles would be a thing for a mesmer...)

 

Overall, not bad! This was by far my most favorite of the new elite specializations. I'm actually liking this more then the daredevil now lol. (Simply because of the range on it & the endless possibilities of what builds could potentially be structured around it!) Well done!

 

On the flip side... I was a little upset at having to redo all of the equipment, dyes, cosmetics, trait lines, utilities etc... was planning on making a video for the beta classes, but then that patch happened & I got sent back to square one after everything reset! Anyways... there is always tomorrow, I believe this happened on the last beta patch that came out for elite specializations as well for HoT! I distinctly remember something about it now... anyways... will see if I can't leave a message for the other 2 elite's as well. Cheers! 😉

[Catilleon.9258]

Now I'm not a huge Mesmer main. I really enjoy Mirage and I really want Virtuoso to work. An elite spec that decouples Mesmer from clones is great to have, for some people a staking resource is much more pleasant to roam maps with. Likewise Dagger didn't click with me immediately but now I can see where it fits around the rest of the weapons, it definetely needs tuning but a good addition.

Problem is seems that a lot of traits which affect clones don't interact with blades. So right now blades feel kinda limited in scope.

The elite skill is also so weak and it's easy to whiff with. Skills in general are luckluster, I wish they had more utility instead of mostly raw damage. And finally Rain of Swords and Sword of Decimation are the same skill it feels really wasteful to have them both on your utility bar.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Catilleon.9258

[Conncept.7638]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I don't see a bug report thread unless we're supposed to use the feedback thread, but then again I guess I don't know if this is a bug anyway.  /shrug

 

As per the title, the mesmer with the virtuoso specialization and scepter equipped cannot stock more than 3 blades with the auto-attack, it can still stack more than three with other abilities like illusionary counter and traits.  Not sure if this is intended or a bug, but if it's intended I think it's a mistake, the scepter does not generate blades nearly fast enough for allowing it to stock five blades to present a balance issue.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Conncept.7638

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

After some more pvp testing, power seems a bit weak, but condi seems very overpowered.