Condi Virtuoso/Theorycrafting/Fury question

[Eram the Liar.5720]

Hi, I'm effectively new - I played GW2 a long time ago and so much has changed I basically assume I know nothing.

 

I'm playing a condi Virtuoso and really it seems like "condi" is a misnomer, if you're building for conditional damage in Virtuoso you're more like a hybrid build because so much of your conditional damage (i.e., bleeding) depends on crit, so you might as well build some for power too. All that aside, it's obvious that keeping fury up is a very important part of the process because something has to give. So most builds shoot for 60-70% crit and depend on Fury for getting you the rest of the way to 100%.

 

So I'm trying to figure out how to maintain that 100% with 100% fury updtime.

 

The most obvious solution is to use a sword in the offhand, and use the duelist line to get Phantasmal Fury and Fencer's Finesse. That gives you 10s of Fury out of the gate if you open with the sword phantasm and the reduced recharge brings the phantasm recharge down to 12s. That gives you 10 seconds of Fury with 2 seconds wait. But THEN you get Phantasmal blades in the Virtuoso line because if I read it right it adds 3s of Fury - I assume that's what "stacks duration" means, that it adds to your current fury duration instead of overwriting it or just getting swallowed up by the current duration. Do I understand that right?

 

If that's the case, then that basically gives you perma fury right there, you just fire off Phantasmal Swordsman every 12 seconds and you get a one second buffer for Unexpected Circumstances.

 

That said... Quiet Intensity also says "stacks duration". So if Duelist Master Fencer now gives you 4s of fury on crit (with 8s cooldown) Does that mean that a combination of Phantasmal Fury, Fencer's Finesse, and Master Fencer can extend your fury out to 21s? I'm assuming that's the 10s original fury, add 3s from Phantasmal Blades, and then during that time you can get 4s twice from crits.

 

if this is the case then yes, I see how perma fury works...

[Aravind.9610]

Isn't Phantasmal Fury only for the phantasm and not for the virtuoso? It doesn't affect you or your bladesongs.

EDIT: Unless you use Persistence of Memory trait from the Illusions traitline, which transfers the Fury from phantasm to you once it disappears. I don't know how effective that would be for your damage. But at least you can maintain Fury with it in solo content.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Eram the Liar.5720]

Phantasmal Fury is from the Duelist line. Any Mesmer can take it. It doesn't affect bladesongs, it affects phantasms. So you'd use the Phantasmal Swordsman phantasm from your sword off-hand and you'd get 10s of Fury, potentially increased to 13s with the Virtuoso Phantasmal Blade skill. So yeah, it's not affecting your bladesongs but the fury is raising your crit, and *that* would affect your bladesongs.

 

Assuming I understand what "stacks duration" means that right there gives you 100% fury uptime assuming you fire off Phantasmal Swordsman regularly, and then the 11 seconds in between is when you're using bladesongs and stocking blades for more bladesongs. And then, assuming I understand the "stacks duration" part of quiet intensity right, you can extend that 11 seconds another 8 seconds, giving you 19 seconds of bladesongs and blade stacking between firing off Phantasmal Swordsman to start the whole fury maintaining process all over again.

 

Keep in mind all of this hinges on whether or not I actually understand the rules. I'm not actually confident I do. 🙂

Edited June 30, 2022 by Eram the Liar.5720

[Aravind.9610]

YOU don't get the fury, only your phantasms do. So your crit chance isn't affected at all.

[Eram the Liar.5720]

... oh. I see I have critically misread a skill description. LOL

[Aravind.9610]

You can get the fury yourself only if you use Persistence of Memory from the Illusions traitline along with Phantasmal Fury in Dueling.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Eram the Liar.5720]

OK, so if I switched from Shatter Storm to Persistence of Memory that would transfer the fury boon over... I guess that would work. I'd lose the extra Bladesong Harmony. I'd probably miss that.

[Aravind.9610]

Yeah, which is why I said I don't know how effective your damage will be. But its the only way to maintain fury uptime in solo content.

[Eram the Liar.5720]

The next step involves more math than I think I can handle, since it involves figuring out which works out better through an encounter: building for crit with gear and sigils or trying to extend fury for as long as i can through other means.

 

I think before this patch everyone using Duelist figured you just work on getting the target's health below 75% and then it was perma fury until they drop, but that's not the case any more.

[Aravind.9610]

Whatever you do, basically what you need is 60% crit chance as base. Put the rest in condition damage and expertise as much as you can. You will automatically get power from most gear stats. The other 40% crit chance is from Fury. I use Rampager's stats along with some Sinister's and Viper's gear stats. The main condition is bleeding so you can get runes and sigils that boost bleeding in some way, like Runes of the Krait. Aim for 60% crit chance with gear, 100% bleeding duration with gear and runes.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Eram the Liar.5720]

I guess what you're saying is that even if Fury isn't up 100% of the time, the 60% base is good enough to tide you over until it gets back up again, assuming you extend bleeding duration enough? I confess I hadn't even factored that in when I was trying to work this out. Sigh. 😀

[godfat.2604]

Assuming PvE.
Don’t forget that if you choose Sharpening Sorrow, when Fury is up, it adds 10% condition duration (150 expertise) as well. So optimally we can aim for 60% critical chance and 90% bleeding duration assuming Fury is 100% up.

Runes and sigils play a big role here, too. Rune of Krait adds 50% bleeding duration, and Sigil of Agony adds 20% bleeding duration. We can also pick runes which can give Fury like Rune of the Pack or Rune of Rage to better cover Fury uptime, even though not using Rune of the Krait is actually a big loss that needs tons of expertise to add up, and expertise isn’t exactly useful because torment is the only other condition that might really contribute to damage.

Now I am running this, just for your information/reference: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAgy3llyWZJMEmLW6WdxfA-zRZYmRKCkNKYFB9FGFpQUB4fACXL8Z6RA-e

Edited: I forgot to mention that this cannot give 100% Fury uptime when running solo. That’s the compromise I made that I might run into other friendly players around.

Edited June 30, 2022 by godfat.2604

[Aravind.9610]

The thing is, you NEED 100% crit chance for the build to work and apply tons of bleeds. In solo content you need to take Persistence of Memory and Phantasmal Fury to gain permanent Fury for 40% extra crit chance. In group content you get fury anyway so you don't need those traits.

You can't get to 100% without Fury anyways, no matter how much precision you have in your gear. The idea is that you build to 60% crit chance and let the rest be given by Fury.

As for bleeding duration, try to get it up as close to 100% as you can with Krait runes thrown into the mix.

Here is a solo build I hastily cobbled together just now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABgyh3lVwQYJMWmLW6WexdA-zRRYmhUapI6p6oDjiUorC8PICRmMGmFe/tA-e

[Aravind.9610]

Here's probably a better one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABgyh3lVwQYJMWmLW6WexdA-zxQY/Q19UieSJ4woIF6qA/DiQkJ7hZh3fL-e

Edited June 30, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Eram the Liar.5720]

So I wasn't able to use that gear specifically because it's all, uh, pink is precursor, right? Anyway, I had to stick with exotic, but I based it on your second link, though because all of the #'s were lower I had to focus on rampager jewelry (precision high) in order to get the crit to 60. I was able to keep fury up, and my dps went up as well, though I don't think teams will be seeking me out any time soon.

And now I'm out of gold. 😄

Thanks for the guidelines, now I guess I need to start Farming for Stuff a little.

[Aravind.9610]

Good luck, hope you enjoy your condi virtuoso.