Simonoly.4352

More tedious raid balancing trickling down to make Mesmer in PvP and WvW even more of a ball ache to play. It's just so boring. Also limiting the Quiet Intensity buff to PvE only is just so weird when one considers just how dire Virtuoso is in competitive modes. Anet I'm so confused 😆

Yes please - I'd very much like for the daggers to only appear when in combat. They're a bit of an eyesore and honestly it looks a bit silly having deadly psionic daggers floating over my head when chatting to story NPCs etc - it's a bit like my Virtuoso is holding a gun to the heads of these poor people.

It's a bit bizarre seeing Virtuoso in his B tier and apparently just above Mirage too. It's so heavily bugged and borderline dysfunctional that it really is delicious feed tier fodder. I don't think I've ever come up against a spec in this game that is so trivial to kill since base Engi.

Did Anet just remove the Mirror Blade nerf inherent to Virtuoso by nerfing it all other Mesmer specs? 😆 I know it's probably just a bug, but it would be hilarious if true.

I would highly recommend spending some time playing as a Thief instead. It does a lot of what one would want from Mesmer but with far more flexibility and a greater potential to actually control the map. Mesmer just doesn't have the assured "kit" required to really proliferate competitively at present. Removing the 50% endurance nerf on Mirage would be a good start, but I think the overall threat of the class needs to be upped. Not even sure where to begin with Virtuoso 😆

It's largely redundant in PvP and WvW yes due to a vast array of issues. Quite possibly one of the least threatening things to encounter: I usually kill Virtuosos on my core Mes and Daredevil builds by auto-attacking them whilst standing within their character model - it's a bit ludicrous.

Yes, whilst it's workable in PvE, it's not particularly engaging to play. Of course it does great damage against a training golem, but it's just really rather inflexible for open-world stuff. You miss out on a ton of AoE damage from shatters and you no longer have clones to draw aggro and up your sustained damage if condi - plus no more boon rip from sword clones. I tend to only use Virtuoso for encounters where there is just one target in an open-world event and my clones are being popped too easily. Otherwise it's largely redundant. I generally find the design of Virtuoso a bit confusing if I'm honest - its many facets are without cohesion and it desperately lacks a sense of purpose. The one thing that Mesmer, the original "duelling class" didn't need is another single-target specialist option. I'm quite surprised Anet didn't go down a different design path here. Ho hum, the disco twirls when you use a Bladesong still look pretty cool 🤷‍♂️

I'd quite like an update to all pistol, sword, dagger and shortbow skills when playing as Spectre so they can heal like scepter skills. I'm not really a fan of having class mechanics exclusive to one weapon only - feels a bit at odds with the original design principles of the game. Could imagine using cloak and dagger on an allied target to stealth and heal them along with me. I also want to backstab heal my allies dammit!

There really isn't any good matchups for Virtuoso, whether that be condi or power. It's all projectiles so you can just LoS to avoid the shatters or just use any old projectile block or reflect to completely neuter the Virtuoso. The main source of defense is Bladeturn Requiem and not only is this a block and therefore makes you incredibly vulnerable to any old unblockable anyone has, it also does (pitiful) damage so you also get to trigger any and all on-hit unblockables whilst apparently trying to defend yourself.😆 It is just such an incredibly easy spec to counter with any basic toolset available on any class. I'm genuinely shocked when anyone ever tells me they actually lost to a Virtuoso unless, of course, they are also a Virtuoso.

It's quite possibly one of the least threatening things to come up against in WvW right now, whether that's roaming, havoc or zerging. You can just dive into them and auto-attack within their character model as they constantly interrupt their bladesongs as they attempt to face you and actually get something off. If a Bladesong comes my way I'm just able to kite out of the way of anything that isn't Bladesong Sorrow. Condi Virtuoso is even less threatening than power as you only really need to avoid the Bladesong Sorrow burst and there's no sustained Condi damage from clones to worry about anymore. I am absolutely destroying Virtuosos on my Thief - it's not even fair 😆 I've been playing Virtuoso myself and honestly staff feels like a must against anything that has a leap/teleport in a 1v1/group encounter (that's basically everything now) or it's just too easy to melt to Cc chains plus cleave. I actually found myself playing identically to the same old core shatter burst Mesmer - pre-casting Bladesong Harmony with blink for a point-blank burst - to reliably land my bladesongs. This is of course inferior to all other Mesmer specs as you can't do ye olde Mirror Blade as well as your shatter AND it's single target so you can't punish groups. Virtuoso is very VERY much a PvE spec 🤗

When mounted you still do not stock blades out of combat. It really messes with the pace of Virtuoso as you have to wait around before mounting to get a full stock. It's quite irritating.

This is sadly my reasoning for not purchasing the expansion also and I'm not saying this to be mean or deride those who enjoy Virtuoso - the new elite specialisations just didn't meet my expectations during the beta and unfortunately new class features are a fundamental part of why I would buy an expansion. I do really hope the expansion is successful though - clearly lots of work has gone into it 🤗

In-game? Nah, Mesmer is a bit messy at present in terms of design and effectiveness. In real life? Yes, confound your enemies and impress your friends with your glam moves and butterflies.

I truly love my Thief and all the irritating things I can do in WvW, but I must admit that Shadow Portal feels like a mistake. It's so easy to remain completely hidden in a keep as a Thief because it doesn't suffer from the same cool down pressures as Mesmer. Even with a target painter thingie, if people can't actually target you, it's a bit redundant. It does feel a little bit "have your cake and eat it" in terms of what limitless stealth access + Shadow Portal can provide in WvW. I'm not sure what a solution would be though other than to completely change how Shadow Portal works. Maybe make it a utility shadow step so it can't be used to get over walls? Pfft probably a bit boring 🤷‍♂️

Aww clone death was fun and an interesting take on the punishment mechanics of Mesmer. I remember the super tanky builds that used the traits - they were pretty persistent but the condi output was quite pitiful and you could mostly ignore them and just...walk off. I think it was more of an issue for PvP - clone death traits were quite redundant in the grander scheme of things in WvW. There were ways to counter those clone death builds through the use of superior mobility and ranged attacks, but the number of people who would just dive into a bunch of clones swinging their melee weapon was quite staggering. Similar bizarre lack of community awareness was seen with glamour traits back in the day: you could drop a portal at a choke point and people would run back and forth through it, stacking up confusion and killing themselves - it was madness and very amusing. Of course neither clone death nor glamour confusion traits would be much of a threat these days, but oh lord did the community struggle with those 😆