Virtues pointless atm w/ FB?

[drgast.1469]

Considering that Absolute Resolution doesn't work with Tome of Resolve and Indomitable Courage only gives you the stunbreak when stowing Tome of Courage, it seems like using Virtues is mostly kind of pointless with FB atm. Yeah, the minors are okay and if you're using consecrations it could still be useful...and maybe permeating wrath (but how many people ever use that?). Just thinking that until those things get fixed or changed I'll start running a different 3rd traitline, which is weird since I almost always run virtues.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@drgast.1469 said:Considering that Absolute Resolution doesn't work with Tome of Resolve and Indomitable Courage only gives you the stunbreak when stowing Tome of Courage,

These are most definitely bugs.

Virtues goes well with a power-based FB due to unscathed contender. You should have enough aegis application to always land your bursts with aegis on so it's a pretty solid +20% damage modifier.

[Garimeth.8725]

Dude, permeating wrath is AWESOME for FB, especially if you are not tome spamming. On a single mob you get 2 VoJ procs every auto attack chain, if you have three mobs you are getting two procs EVERY swing, add in quickness or quickfire to that... it's good. In my own personal dps tests w/o raid buffs the extra JoJ procs from PW on axe made up for not having zeal on - but I don't camp my tome and run RF much, I run the elite mantra. I'm sure in a raid boss setting there is a better option than Virt (like zeal 2/3/3) for dps, but the rest of the time virtues wins ime. Also remember that in a movement intense encounter you are losing 10% bonus dps from the symbol major in zeal.

As far as the first tree choices, as Arcaedus mentioned above, you can pretty reliably land a big burst with Unscathed Contender on, especially if you are using shield. In wvw, consecrations are some of our best abilities (WoR and PF come to mind) so consecration master is very good there. Lastly, the reduced CD on virtues, while not game changing, is still pretty nice.

TL;DR: Permeating wrath is good enough in any aoe situation that it alone is enough for me to take virtues over zeal in everything but a significant boss encounter.

DISCLAIMER: That said I don't raid or run max level fractals, I mostly wvw as that's my end game. The above is my experience in mid level fractals, dungeons, LS quests, and open world.

[Knox.8962]

If you have any number of adds that need cleaved down, this is an extremely competitive setup.

Your Tome rotation is different with this build. You run F1 - 5421 Purging 1245. This puts you above 35k single target with 'normal' buffs, but when you start adding additional targets to cleave down, your DPS goes totally bonkers.