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Virtuoso - Inspiration Duelist

This is a rough draft. Once adequately written, it will progress to the testing stage, where it can be rated by the community. You can help by proposing changes with a comment.

Focused on: Direct damageCondition damage and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required: End of Dragons builds

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on July 06, 2022.

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. Comes with both power and condi variant.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Pistol
Sword/Focus
Utility

Traits

Variants

  • Maim the Disillusioned for Condi variant
  • Master of Fragmentation for 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 Quiet Intensity when you have fury from Duelist's Reversal.

Variants

Condi variant - Higher toughness, focuses on damage through confusion stacking via Bladesong Sorrow

  • Rune of Undead

Zerker amulet variant - More damage, but less survivability

  • Rune of Evasion

Usage

Blade Generation

  • Make sure to make good use of your blocks from Illusionary Counter, Bladeturn Requiem and Aegis from Bladeturn Refrain to generate blades and make your Bladesong Harmony and Bladesong Sorrow unblockable via Psychic Riposte.


Burst Combos

  • Sword/Focus burst combo:
    • Phantasmal Warden -> Temporal Curtain -> Bladesong Harmony OR Bladesong Sorrow -> Into the Void
  • Scepter/Pistol burst combo:
    • Phantasmal Duelist -> Bladesong Harmony OR Bladesong Sorrow -> Magic Bullet -> Confusing Images
  • In both cases the point is to get quickness through Phantasmal Haste to speed up your Bladesong casts and following up with CC from either Into the Void or Magic Bullet to ensure the Bladesongs land.
  • Note that the Malicious Sorcery gives 20% attack speed increase on ALL skills while you are in your Scepter/Pistol set! That includes your Bladesong Harmony, or your Signet of the Ether. 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 Duelist's Reversal after successful block/dodge.
  • Mass Invisibility can also be used to land your Bladesong Harmony OR Bladesong Sorrow from stealth.


Sustain and Defense

  • The primary sustain of this build comes through the looping synergy:
    • Blocks/dodges stock up blades thanks to Psychic Riposte -> which heals through Signet of the Ether and allows casting Bladesongs -> Bladesongs heal and condi cleanse via Restorative Illusions and give aegis thanks to Bladeturn Refrain -> 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.
  • Your main defensive cooldowns are Blade Renewal and Bladeturn Requiem.
    • Blade Renewal heals you thanks to Signet of the Ether and is safe from unblockables.
    • Bladeturn Requiem gives you boons and blades back on succesful block thanks to Psychic Riposte. Keep in mind that the block duration doesn't scale with blades, so you can use it with any number of blades.
  • Signet of Midnight and Blink are your stunbreaks and oh shit buttons.

Counters

  • Power Bladesworn is a direct counter matchup for this build. Dragon Trigger attacks with Unyielding Dragon cannot be blocked, blinded and they stun you while doing lot of damage. The main options are to evade by dodge rolling or by distortion from Blade Renewal or Blurred Frenzy.
  • Projectile Destruction/Reflects - Corrosive Poison Cloud, Seal Area, Magnetic Wave, Swirling Winds etc. Blades that are made unblockable thanks to Psychic Riposte will not be destroyed/reflected/blocked, but blades generated from skills such as Phantasmal Warden, Phantasmal Duelist, Ether Clone, Illusionary Counter, Blade Leap will be not unblockable!
    • Due to a bug, the blades from Psychic Riposte will not be unblockable when traited with Master of Fragmentation.




Ratings

This build has a rating of 3 stars based on 1 votes.
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3 stars
MadTavish gave this build 3 stars • July 2022
This build attempts to play more sustained dueling role by utilizing the synergy between Inspiration and Virtuoso traits, however like most Virtuoso builds it suffers from the need to get hit often enough to generate its sustain and offense, but not too often as not to die. The damage is passable if one can shatter on CD, the unblockable property really helps when dealing with Willbender, Untamed and Vindicator blocks. However, lack of instant CC or domination trait line for boonstrip, as well as more easily avoided burst from bladesongs make this build struggle to perform better than Chaos Staff Mirage in the duelling/sidenode role.

Comments

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