I need a good virtuoso soloing/open world build

[Lynx.9058]

Any suggestions?  I mostly play open world pve solo.  I've never been a big fan of mesmer in the first place, I never liked the clone/phantasm/illusion playstyle, but I do love the floating and flying daggers virtuoso brings, thematically it's my favorite mesmer spec by a long shot, but it is pretty squishy and seems to have some sustain issues.

[MrAmputatoes.6031]

Best defense is a good offense. IF you really wanna make it work, go just full power and mow stuff down faster than it can kill you. ALOT of Mesmer traits don't interact with blades (i.e any that increase illusion damage) and many skills like Signet of the Ether stop functioning at 5 blades, so you need to use your bladesongs often. A lot of Virtuosos damage still comes from Phantasams though, which are fire and forget skills.

Dagger/Focus and GS or SW/SW provides the most damage. A mix of Zerkers and Assassin to reach crit cap w/ fury.
Personally I run Illusion 2-2-1 | Dueling 1-2-1 | Virtuoso 3-3-3

Everything for damage except Virtuoso which is running the bleed traits since it gives the most reliable blade generation. 

Now whenever theres more difficult content, I switch to either Chrono or Mirage as they are both more reliable, safer and deal good damage.

[Teratus.2859]

I haven't made one yet but I plan to at some point.

I cobbled together a quick build for open world PvE but it's untested and I didn't devote a whole lot of time to it in all honesty.
It's what I will probably be using when I eventually get around to making a Virtuoso. 
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiBBgqx3llyWZtMWmLOWLdRLA-zRJYzxfZERFkeK42A-e

[Exciton.8942]

Chaos + illusion + Virt. You can play either power or condi. Cele should work pretty decent as well.

 

However, it is not going to be as effective as mirage or chrono in open world.

[Curunen.8729]

Dagger/Focus is really nice for grouping and unloading burst.

Gear balance not sure - currently running a marauder/commander mix with pack runes etc, aiming for crit chance at 70% so fury takes care of the rest.

While inspiration is nice for focus reflects, duelling for superiority complex and domination do add to nice damage, so I'm not sure what feels best yet.

Chaos with staff and BD interesting for boon enhancement, but I hate that the staff cooldown trait only benefits condi. I think the staff trait(s) need some further changes.

 

[Raffrey.5271]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiBBg+trlFwqYIsE2IWOX/xfA-zxIY14vMioqCJF8cA-e

This is what I use right now. 

Ether Feast is now one of the biggest heal in only 20s cooldown. With five blades stocked and celestial gear, you can heal for more than 9k. 

With the trait Master Fencer, I don't think there will be much problem maintain fury uptime. 

I think the only problem with virtuoso is that it's relies highly on your critical chance, whether it's power build or condi build. Virtuoso trait Jagged Mind only makes your blade skills inflict bleeding on critical hit, which affects your blade stocking speed (I'm using Bloodsong, which stock blades when you inflict bleedings), which affects Bladesong output rate, and ultimately, DPS. That said, this build I'm using, if there's anything you don't like, feel free to adjust it yourself. But, I strongly suggest against trailblazer gear or anything low critical chance, if you want to go condi.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Raffrey.5271
clarification

[Nezekan.2671]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgyFlVwmYtsVmLOySqxMA-zRRYbBlKGdcWnREqgKkCKeA-e

 

This is what I have been using. Permanent Fury uptime thanks to runes and Phantasmal Blades trait from Virtuoso. This means permanent 100% crit chance. Since you summon 2 phantasms when you have the Bountiful blades trait from Domination, it deals very high damage and triggers Phantasmal Blades twice (and gives fury twice).  I also like these runes for the movement speed, I hate being slow when in combat.

This build constantly grants you aegis, and when you trigger aegis, successfully evade with dodge or block with sword 4, you immediately get 3 blades, which you can capitalize to get 5 and immediately shatter, granting you aegis yet again, and the cycle continues. If you are doing events where you are not going to be hit like you would when soloing, change the grandmaster trait to Infinite forge instead.

Since all your weapons have "blade" modifier on them, they will always crit, you will always apply vulnerability with majority if your attacks. Can solo 25 even, though for a short window of time. But around 10 vuln is guaranteed.

The inspiration tree is mainly for sustain. It really works in that regard due to how high your blade creation is, shatters will keep you full hp, you also have one mantra to help you.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Nezekan.2671

[Mell.4873]

Nice ideas so far, i would also suggest focusing on sustaining damage over bursting except for Greatsword opener. The real strength of Virtuoso is it never lets up damage unlike chrono where the damage falls of a cliff when phantasms are on cooldown.

Virtuoso again really shines with CC and therefore grouping up can boost your damage especially since their self-boons are not great.

[Hesione.9412]

25 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Nice ideas so far, i would also suggest focusing on sustaining damage over bursting except for Greatsword opener. The real strength of Virtuoso is it never lets up damage unlike chrono where the damage falls of a cliff when phantasms are on cooldown.

Virtuoso again really shines with CC and therefore grouping up can boost your damage especially since their self-boons are not great.

Have you posted your PvE build? I'm trying to find it.

[Mell.4873]

21 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

Have you posted your PvE build? I'm trying to find it.

Okay here it is http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABgyh3llyYZtsVmLOULdxSA-zRJYiRPfZURFkeKo2q8bA-e

Edited March 4, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Teratus.2859]

Tried to make mine though I had to make sacrifices, Exotic offhands and Diviners trinkets and back since I couldn't get Dragons on them at the moment.

It's glassy but fun.
Tried to solo the Legendary Annihilator in Silverwastes with it which was going well till I screwed it up lol
Got it down to half health pretty quick though so it was a fun little test.

Once I get more familiar with playing a Mesmer I expect i'll have even more fun with it, it's a class I have played maybe about 40-50 hours tops over the last 10 years so I don't have much experience with the profession.
Virtuoso will change that though, I had a lot of fun playing around with it today.

Just gotta get used to the sword 3 being the leap not sword 2 so I stop wasting my Blurred Frenzy.. Ranger habits die hard lol

[grx.8714]

On 3/4/2022 at 7:23 PM, Exciton.8942 said:

Chaos + illusion + Virt. You can play either power or condi. Cele should work pretty decent as well.

 

However, it is not going to be as effective as mirage or chrono in open world.

Well i think it's already the top farming builds with gs dagger focus, top burst at 1200 range.

For harder content yeah, the usual staff staff mirage is probably still better.

[Levetty.1279]

6 hours ago, grx.8714 said:

Well i think it's already the top farming builds with gs dagger focus, top burst at 1200 range.

No thats GS Mirage.

[Mell.4873]

36 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

No thats GS Mirage.

I would agree but when the traits get fixed it will be top damage. Right now chrono and mirage can get above 20k while Virtuoso is about 15k on average but I have a suspect some of the dps isn't being recorded to soo we shall wait and see. 

[Chrolo.8536]

This is a condi build I run in open world.

I run it with celestial or viper gear and both work very well. Viper provides more damage while celestial gives more sustain. With the sword phantasm you can maintain high amount of might stacks (need to hit the first strike in meele tough).

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgqzlVwWZYsLmLWOXtxfA-zhyIuCIwUQrB-e

 

This is the second build I run. It is power focused and has a much higher burst and probably higher dps then the condi build. The sustain is lower though, since jagged mind provides that much healing. It works excellent in ooen world, too. You can easily stack might and quickness. For gear you can mix and match diviners, berserker, marauder, assassin etc.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgqzlVwWZYsLmLWOXtxfA-zhyIuCIwUQrB-e

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Chrolo.8536

[Levetty.1279]

7 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I would agree but when the traits get fixed it will be top damage. Right now chrono and mirage can get above 20k while Virtuoso is about 15k on average but I have a suspect some of the dps isn't being recorded to soo we shall wait and see. 

You don't DPS when tagging. Stop trying to talk like you understand this game. Its painful.

[mungozen.2379]

In Open World PvE I've been running variations of the Bloodsong + Jagged Minds combo to reasonably good effect.  The goal has been to maintain 100% Crit to soak everything in Bleeds to stock more Daggers and keep Bladesongs on CD.  This has a fairly mobile/ranged playstyle as you aren't tied to melee weapons.

You can generate a massive amount of Blades on single target, more-so on multiple targets.  This can create a very high APM playstyle where you are keeping pretty much everything on CD.  

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABg2hrllyWZssWmLesXtxdA-zxQY1onLsEkXZEXKERF45A-e

 

[Infinity.2876]

I play this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiQAElVwWZcMV2IOSXlRVA-e

Kind of squish but if you stay away from melee and burst is decent. might actually be good for PvP as well because of stealth.

Also kind of nice work around for having too much blades and not enough shatters problem with ammo skill shatter one and reduced recharge time

Edited March 6, 2022 by Infinity.2876