Virtuoso - Inspiration Duelist

This is a placeholder build that was useful in the past. Click here to view current builds.

Focused on: Direct damage, Condition damage and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

Overview

A 1v1 Virtuoso build that deals unblockable burst damage, has good sustain through blocks and heals. This build is a capable sidenoder with potential to add ranged damage to teamfights. Has both power and condi variant.

Best played as a Duelist with some roaming capability.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Pistol

Sword/Focus

Utility

Variants

• instead of for more single target CC.

Traits

Variants

• for Condi variant
• for or variant

Equipment

Scepter

Pistol

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

With this gear you will have 70% crit chance, and 100% crit chance thanks to when you have Fury from .

Variants

Condi variant - Higher toughness, focuses on damage through Confusion stacking via .

Zerker amulet variant - More damage, less survivability

Marauder amulet variant - Safest power option, takes to make up for lost crit

Why not X?

• Why not Dueling traitline? - Dueling has more condi damage via , , , allowing to apply up to 20 stacks of Confusion. However, it has both longer cooldown than and can't get 2 charges via , resulting in less frequent pressure.

• Why not Torch offhand? - Because Bladesongs have cast time, and are not instant like say , you want CC to increase their chance to land. Torch is a good defensive weapon, but the CC from or is too good to pass up.

• Why not Sword offhand? - Again, for the same reason as Torch, it doesn't provide hard CC to setup Bladesongs. Though, makes it a nice defensive option that synergizes with Virtuoso block traits.

Usage

Blade Generation

• Make sure to make good use of your blocks from , and Aegis from to generate blades and make your and unblockable via .

Burst Combos

• Scepter/Pistol burst combo:
  • OR

• Sword/Focus burst combo:
  • OR

• In both cases the point is to get Quickness through to speed up your Bladesong casts and following up with CC from either or to ensure the Bladesongs land.

• Note that the gives 20% attack speed increase on ALL skills while you are in your Scepter/Pistol set! That includes your , or your . This bonus does not stack with Quickness though, but is still very nice.

• In case of the Condi variant, you don't get Quickness from Phantasms, so you can skip them and go straight into Bladesongs + CC combination
• You may also land these combos without Phantasms in either variant with the Quickness gained from after successful block/dodge.
• can also be used to land your OR from stealth.

Sustain and Defense

• The primary sustain of this build comes through the looping synergy between Virtuoso and Inspiration traitlines:
  • Blocks/dodges stock up blades via -> which heals through -> Bladesongs heal and condi cleanse via and give aegis thanks to -> enabling block and continuing the loop.
• It is important to maintain tempo by constantly blocking -> stocking up blades -> firing Bladesongs to heal and enable more blocks.

• Main defensive cooldowns are:
  • - heals for a bit thanks to and is safe from unblockables.
  • - 2 second block that gives blades back on succesful block thanks to . Keep in mind that the block duration doesn't scale with blades, so use it with any number of blades.
  • - stunbreak, Stealth, AoE Blind and 5 condi cleanse.
  • - stunbreak and 1200 range shadowstep.

• Condition cleanse is available through:
  • - cleanses 1 condition at the start of a Bladesong cast.
  • - cleanses 1 condition when summoning or .
  • - cleanses 5 conditions thanks to .
  • - cleanses 1 condition on both weaponswaps.

Counters

• Power Bladesworn is a direct counter matchup for this build. attacks with cannot be blocked, blinded and they stun while doing lot of damage. The main options are to evade by dodge rolling or by distortion from or .

• Projectile Destruction/Reflects - , , , etc. Blades that are made unblockable via will not be destroyed/reflected/blocked, but blades generated from skills such as , , , , won't be unblockable!
  • Due to a bug, the blades from will not be unblockable when traited with .

• For the Power variant especially, high Protection uptime builds such as Protection Holosmith can be tough to kill as this build lacks boon removal. is good choice in such a matchup. Alternatively, or can be used at cost of personal defense/mobility.

Media

• Youtube: Build guide
• Twitch: Blindside_TV