Virtuoso - Condi DPS

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Fractals and Raids

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on June 12, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition Virtuoso is a powerful ranged condition DPS build with innate sustain.

This build inflicts enormous amounts of Bleeding damage through critical hits while generating lots of Blades to use Bladesongs essentially off cooldown. It is quite simple, yet effective, but very dependent on having the right gear.

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Skill Bar

Dagger/Sword

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Phantasmal Warden attacks randomly any target at range. If there are many adds, it might be better to use pistol.

Skill Variants

Utility Skills

• Signet of Illusions can be dropped for more utility if needed.
• Rain of Swords can replace Signet of Illusions for a higher cleave, but at the cost of burst.

Elite skills

• Signet of Humility - large amount of crowd control if needed.

Equipment

Optimal Variant

The setup below requires a to critcap, which may make it prohibitively expensive for some players. Additionally, you will need to be able to keep yourself above 90% health, which may make it unsuitable in less experienced groups, even with the sustain from Jagged Mind.

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Rampager

Chest
Viper

Hands
Sinister

Legs
Viper

Feet
Sinister

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Rampager

Accessory
Sinister

Amulet
Sinister

Ring
Rampager

Ring
Viper

Dagger
Viper

Sword
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Focus
Viper

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

• Use as your food.
• If you don't have stat infusions, you should run Rampager stats head, rings and accessories, Viper stats feet and amulet, and keep everything else the same.

Accessible Variant

The version below is around ~1k DPS lower than the optimal version, but much cheaper to run and you won't lose crit chance if you drop below 90% health.

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Sinister

Chest
Viper

Hands
Rampager

Legs
Rampager

Feet
Rampager

Backpiece
Rampager

Accessory
Rampager

Accessory
Rampager

Amulet
Sinister

Ring
Rampager

Ring
Viper

Dagger
Viper

Sword
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Focus
Viper

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x11

Infusion
x7

• If you don't have stat infusions, switch the amulet to Rampager stats.

Gear optimization

This gear setup reaches 90.5% crit chance while under the effects of Fury and precision food such as the recomended . It is optimized for raids, where Banner of Discipline and Spotter would allow it to reach 100% crit chance. If playing without those buffs, switching all Sinister pieces to Rampager and running full Precise Infusions would be best, though it won't hit 100% crit chance. A simpler, but expensive solution would be to use a as your utility consumable.

Sigil of Superior Sigil of Accuracy should not be used because Illusions do not gain the increased critical chance from it.

Consumables

Food

Utility

Usage

This build requires an extremely high critical chance, ideally 100%, which is why it uses so much Rampager gear. Thankfully, Quiet Intensity helps with this. The build then converts this high crit chance into Bleeding damage through Sharper Images and Jagged Mind. This high bleeding output generates an insane amount of Blades with Bloodsong, which are then consumed on Shatters/Bladesongs to both deal direct damage and increase your damage with Deadly Blades.

Rotation

Opener

The opener isn't extremely strict, but is mostly based around maximising the benefit of Fencer's Finesse and Deadly Blades.

1. Phantasmal Swordsman
2. Bladesong Harmony - as an ammo skill, we want to get this on cooldown early
3. Bladecall
4. Unstable Bladestorm - by using this slightly later in the opener, more of the hits will be at high stacks of Fencer's Finesse
5. Weapon Swap
6. Phantasmal Warden
7. Signet of the Ether
8. Thousand Cuts - cast once you hit 10 stacks of Fencer's Finesse, as an instant cast it can be used during other skills
9. Bladesong Sorrow - use once you're back at fives blades
10. Phantasmal Warden
11. Bladesong Harmony - use once you're back at fives blades
12. Rain of Swords or Signet of Illusions
13. Bladecall
14. Bladesong Sorrow - use once you're back at fives blades, this will only be available if you used Signet of Illusions

Rest of the Rotation

Most of the rest of the rotation is using skills off cooldown, though there is some structure:

• Thanks to Bloodsong in combination with Jagged Mind and Sharper Images, you stock blades almost as fast as you can spend them.
  • Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow should be used as soon as you reach five blades, with Bladesong Sorrow taking priority.
  • Bladesong Dissonance and Bladeturn Requiem deal negligible damage, but can be used to maximise uptime of Deadly Blades if you cast them as you are about to lose the buff.
  • Use Signet of Illusions when Bladesong Sorrow is on a long cooldown and Bladesong Harmony is out of charges.
• Use all Dagger skills, Thousand Cuts and Rain of Swords (if using) off cooldown.
• Use Phantasmal Warden as soon as you swap to Focus and Weapon Swap away again as soon as you can
  • Use Signet of the Ether as soon as it comes off cooldown, and follow up with another Phantasmal Warden - over time Signet of the Ether will come up later and later in the Focus section. The best choice then will depend on how long the phase will last:
    • If the phase will end within ~50 seconds, stay on Focus each loop until you can use Signet of the Ether → Phantasmal Warden.
    • If the phase will go on longer, skip Signet of the Ether for one Focus section so that it is immediately available for the Focus section after that.
• Use Phantasmal Swordsman as soon as you swap to Sword, use it again when it is off cooldown, and then Weapon Swap immediately.

Video example

Defense

• Bladeturn Requiem - block.
• Illusionary Riposte - block.

Sustain

• Dealing damage heals you thanks to Jagged Mind.
• When Signet of the Ether is not on cooldown, every Blade you stock will heal you for a small amount.

Crowd control

• Bladesong Dissonance - daze. Daze duration increases with number of stocked Blades.
• Illusionary Riposte⇒Counter Blade - daze.
• Temporal Curtain⇒Into the Void - pull.
• Signet of Domination - stun (emergencies only).