Wow, this type of build explanation is soooooo awesome! Explaining the basics first, then add in some more stuff. Makes it so much easier than having to remember "5, 1, 1, ... 2, 3, 5, swap, 1, 1, 2, F1, ..." even on the "easier" builds. I mean, yeah, after a while you get the idea with the other tutorials as well, but your way of explaining it makes so much more sense and makes it so much more easy to follow along! I feel like I could even pull off good weaver rotations when they're explained like that :) PLEASE more of this!
The breakdown of the rotation is amazingly explained!! The little animations alongside your voiceover makes the guide even more clear for anyone ^^ you did an incredible job!! Thank you so much for this excellent guide! :D ^^
I'd LOVE to see more guides like this. Really love the way you break it down and focus on the priorities to get 80% of the damage and then introduce other elements that are less important but there if you want max DPS. More please! :D
You made this explanation simple, without making it wrong. Great job, this is what a build guide should look like! I want to comment one thing about the priority of Dagger 3 over Dagger 2 - I am kind of unhappy the way it is worded on snowcrows because priority is much more complicated than this simple rule. Fact: Dagger 3 does more damage than Dagger 2 while having the same cast time. It makes the skill more efficient. But: Dagger 2 has a shorter cooldown. When two skills come off CD exactly at the same time (their cooldowns "collide"), you have to delay one of them for 0.44s (the cast time of the other skill that you press first). If this happens to your Dagger 2, you're actually more likely to lose an extra cast of Dagger 2 in a phase / fight due to delaying it every time. Dagger 3 with its longer CD might be less mad at you for leaving it to wait for 0.44s once in a while. Sooo... in the end you should press them in a way that causes fewer cooldown collisions, and when you watch the benchmark very attentively you'll actually find I use my Dagger 2 in very peculiar priority sometimes just to make it "dance around" cooldown collisions 30 seconds down the line. This is a golem thing though, I wouldn't ever expect to do that in a real fight. So, after this longwinded and confusing comment, all I want to say is "well sometimes I also put Dagger 2 first :D" Maybe you see now why I am a bit unhappy with the absolute statement on SC. It refers to the fact Dagger 3 is stronger than Dagger 2 damage wise - but does that actually result in higher priority? Who knows, it depends. Anyway, I love this video, your animations and editing make this awesome in ways I would never have the nerve, talent or editing tools to do. I hope you have a good day.
Fantastic explanation, you really have a knack for breaking down concepts into concise, easy to understand parts. Great editing as well! 😃 Even though I have around 1k hours on this build, I managed to learn something new: I didn't actually know dagger 3 had priority over dagger 2! There's always more to learn in this game 😂 Keep up the good work, the quality of your videos lately has been outstanding 🤩
I like how your guide prioritizes getting people to the point where they are contributing before trying to optimize. I appreciate the benchmarkers and the in-depth high level guides they provide, but when I'm starting out I really just want a priority list to master and fine tune as I do content.
Great video. I've been looking for a good tutorial that walks through a rotation clearly. Just watching people play is difficult to follow, so I appreciate how you structured the video. Would welcome more like this.
After avoiding playing Mesmer at all costs because I thought it wasn't for me, I tried this and it may actually be my favorite setup in the entire game. Now I'm wishing I just tried Mesmer when I started playing.
Thank you, Lara! I have been waiting for this release since you first mentioned it during one of your streams, haha. Reading the guides is a little confusing at first, but the way you explained the actions made everything so much easier to learn. Please, make more videos like this one.
I recently play GW2 but I'm not really a gamer, just want something to put my stress out, I do play it before but not that much into it and now my classmates play it so I did again and now I choose Mesmer, this kind of explanation is lit! So easy to understand especially for me who is not that good. I have skill issue 🤣
Awesome vid first and foremost. This makes me wonder though about anet and their design of dps professions (rotations). If the “best” players of the game have to use the simplest dps rotation to beat the hardest content, for me it confirms that most dps rotations are a convoluted mess that lack intuitiveness and flow. I wish anet would consider that
This is a great guide. I have played this build for a few months, and still learned a few things!! Would love to see something similar for boon support Chrono.
This is exactly the type of content that I need! I'm always looking for li/easy rotation builds that feels rewarding to play without a 40 step piano rotation XD I would love to see more videos like this!
That is quite the build. Did that on my Virtuoso, and wow! It changed my gameplay with my character big time. Went and started tweaking up my Reaper, and brought my cc from 24 percent, to an amazing 54 percent. I just went and listened to what you did here, and applied some of the mechanics here to my Reaper. Thank you.
I think that's probably my biggest issue with playing GW2 non casually, is that some of us struggle with the 40 ability rotation and so having a more simple rotation or a priority list (or even a rotation that isn't as punishing) is much better than how it currently is for most specs. Great video and easy to understand.
I just started GW and boosted a character to 80 not undestanding anything about my build xD Yesterday I unlocked Virtuoso and this video explained everything I need to know as I was clueless. TY!
Oh, yeah, I saw one of the DPS of Snowcrows playing it on Febe CM, and I was dumbfounded to see how button-mashing-like this build was. I remember Arena Net saying, some time ago: "We'll make sure that the more a build is hard to play, the more powerful it will be". I guess they got struck by some form of selective memory loss..? Anyway, thank you for the guide.
It also has versatile utilities, like blink and portals, and front loaded condi burst, often outperforming on power encounters. *You should be melee for F5 to hit.
I recently returned to gw2 this year and swapped to this build to take a break from my ele and it has been so refreshing to not play a piano rotation!! It's simple and mesmer is so rewarding to play! Thank you for this video
okay, I ran this build for convergence and it was fun, but man I was SO squishy! I went down like a hundred times, no health at all, just the ground effects would down me from full health (18k ish), so that's something to be aware of, and staying at distance didn't help with that, maybe in strikes or fractals it's easier, but I definitely need to practice with it too. thanks for the great guide!
You have your mesmer utility for this! You can switch out the blade cd reset or the other signet you're not pressing for some utility/survival if needed. (e.g. teleport, invis) You can use F4 if you're about to get hit or downed if you have at least one blade. Of course it'll impact your damage if you play PERFECT otherwise, but I found if the fight is harder or very heavy on damage I use F4 to stay up a lot. Losing a few blades is worth it over going down!
a 9 min video so u can now do CM CM Cerus XD But in all serious this is really a good guide and simple-to-understand breakdown in one of the best endgame PVE content
yeah, when i saw the video being released i immediately thought: "that´s unfortunate timing, since we have literally a balance-patch coming up in a week". Though in that case, considering the preview-notes the patch isn´t gonna change much, at least for now. Unfortunately you never know what last-minute adjustments ANet does before the actual patch, so this video may be outdated next week already (or not, we can´t tell until the actual patch drops...)
This video is very helpful for a new player like me. The breakdowns are very useful. It always confuses me about the complicated rotation tables on build websites.
I just love your videos. Thank you for explaining things so thoroughly especially for us who are new to game. I was wondering if you could make a video on keybinds, not sure if that’s the correct term.
I love this build. I've been using it since EoD as my open world build. It helps me tag enemies during events and metas and cleave mobs in Rift events, as well as pile on the damage to Champs and big bosses.
I never really was a dps player I was always on the support trap xD And actually, this guide helped me, at least at the golem, to so much more damage than I had managed with snowcrows, so thank you so much xD
And here I am installing a Guitar Hero overlay to get my rotation just right with frame-perfect inputs so that I can reach 40k :( (Not a joke, btw. There's a module for Blish HUD that drops skill icons the same way they do it in GH and it's pretty helpful for learning hard rotations)
this job and mesmer in general is just crazy. You can pull, push, immobilize, have a lot of cc, portals. The only thing that can you can hate about this job is the purple / pink color lol
You want to use signet on focus swap instantly cuz it cuts the cd of 25% so the higher the cooldown the more value u get from it. You don’t want to wait with it
Condi Virtuoso has been a great damager for a long time now, but why did many people only realise this after the last update?) Now on many bosses Condi Willbender is just as good, if not better, and of the Power DPS - Soulbeast tears everyone apart.
You're super right, it's been awesome pretty much since EoD! I think the recent hype is mostly because people are excited for the new Challenge Mote, and the world first teams have been stacking Virtuoso
Temple of Febe CM shoved us that best boon dps is Herald, best dps is Condi Virtuoso and best healer is Druid. People can say many words but when it come to efficiency you see the real results. Hope Anet will do something about it. I wish I could see Power Rifle Mech do the same :) as rotation is as easy as it is on Virtuoso
@@maakonis11unfortunately power will never be able to match condi DPS builds. The devs are afraid of small window high damage without ever considering overall damage
What a cool and helpful video! Thank you :) And btw. what a sweet little asura girlie (i love asura ;D) Could you do a video about condi wilbender too? I would love that!
Not sure why I didn't get to see this video sooner but, yes, more video's like this one. But one question, can signet of midnight be swapped for signet of inspiration for the added boons it gives or no?
You can but its unnecessary, its someone elses job to provide it to you,unless you running solo ow,but thats different build and we already have jadebot buff for that
Surprised to see Signet of Illusion over Rain of Swords. Not only does Rain count as a blade, and therefore stack bleeds with Jagged Mind, but it also scales with cleave, giving you a properly silly amount of blades in those circumstances (you get 1 guaranteed blade per target due to bleed stacks applied from Jagged Mind feeding into Bloodsong), _and_ does a 3/4th as much damage per target as the the F1 Bladesong (plus the same 5 bleed stacks), _and_ applies 15 vulnerability stacks per target over the duration. Ya, you lose out on the Illusions refresh on Bladesongs, but honestly I've not found that to be especially necessary for the build. Mechanically, Illusions is, _best case,_ essentially letting you trade an F3 for an F2 once per minute, since most of the refresh on F1 will be wasted due to it's already short recharge. Rain of Sword plus F3 plus the accompanying DoTs does very close to the same damage as a cast of F2 with its DoTs, and Rain of Swords can be cast slightly more than twice as often as Illusions. It's also a bit burstier, since it doesn't cost blades. F2 + Rain + Thousand Cuts is a LOT of AoE burst all at once.
This is weird af. Before SOTO came out, I remember Virtu being either top or almost top damage. Half a year++ later, it's top damage again? Or did it not leave it to begin with?
The damage is about the same! It does good damage, but it’s not the highest build out there. However, the utility, range, cleave and ease of use often make it outperform other builds on real fights. This is why it’s really popular even in really hard content :)
@@Laranity Yeah, but I'd add that it's not the most fun when it comes to clearing story modes. As much as I want to use mine everywhere, there's something about condi virtu that somehow makes it less than other classes in the open world, so much so that I actually switched over to my Willbender halfway through the first area in SOTO. Oh yeah, there's a bit where you missed with the timing of the F1 F2 F3 buttons. You aren't actually supposed to wait for the fifth dot to appear before you throw out the bladesong. What you need to do instead is to *trust* that the fifth dot will appear before you can see it.
@@owa1985I like running qchrono for story stuff. (With phantasmal berserker, a well, signet of domination for cc, and either big well or moa on the elite). You make some of your alacrity, and your quickness, and you have stupid utility to help out with a lot of things.
Wow, this type of build explanation is soooooo awesome! Explaining the basics first, then add in some more stuff. Makes it so much easier than having to remember "5, 1, 1, ... 2, 3, 5, swap, 1, 1, 2, F1, ..." even on the "easier" builds.
I mean, yeah, after a while you get the idea with the other tutorials as well, but your way of explaining it makes so much more sense and makes it so much more easy to follow along! I feel like I could even pull off good weaver rotations when they're explained like that :)
PLEASE more of this!
The breakdown of the rotation is amazingly explained!! The little animations alongside your voiceover makes the guide even more clear for anyone ^^ you did an incredible job!! Thank you so much for this excellent guide! :D ^^
Going over the principles is such a good way to do this. Literally will recommend out of ten
I'd LOVE to see more guides like this. Really love the way you break it down and focus on the priorities to get 80% of the damage and then introduce other elements that are less important but there if you want max DPS. More please! :D
You made this explanation simple, without making it wrong.
Great job, this is what a build guide should look like!
I want to comment one thing about the priority of Dagger 3 over Dagger 2 - I am kind of unhappy the way it is worded on snowcrows because priority is much more complicated than this simple rule.
Fact: Dagger 3 does more damage than Dagger 2 while having the same cast time. It makes the skill more efficient.
But: Dagger 2 has a shorter cooldown. When two skills come off CD exactly at the same time (their cooldowns "collide"), you have to delay one of them for 0.44s (the cast time of the other skill that you press first). If this happens to your Dagger 2, you're actually more likely to lose an extra cast of Dagger 2 in a phase / fight due to delaying it every time. Dagger 3 with its longer CD might be less mad at you for leaving it to wait for 0.44s once in a while.
Sooo... in the end you should press them in a way that causes fewer cooldown collisions, and when you watch the benchmark very attentively you'll actually find I use my Dagger 2 in very peculiar priority sometimes just to make it "dance around" cooldown collisions 30 seconds down the line. This is a golem thing though, I wouldn't ever expect to do that in a real fight.
So, after this longwinded and confusing comment, all I want to say is "well sometimes I also put Dagger 2 first :D" Maybe you see now why I am a bit unhappy with the absolute statement on SC. It refers to the fact Dagger 3 is stronger than Dagger 2 damage wise - but does that actually result in higher priority? Who knows, it depends.
Anyway, I love this video, your animations and editing make this awesome in ways I would never have the nerve, talent or editing tools to do. I hope you have a good day.
This was great, I would love to see more builds explained this way
Now that cVirt has shined in Cerus CM, and asserted its dominance over other dps builds, there’s no way Anet won’t nerf it in future patches
Anet watching this: "Well, it seems like Mirage needs another nerf"
@@kalebriss « And Untamed as well, just for good measure »
Because it doesn’t have E-L-E in its name
@@LaHuguu”and buff our baby boy guardian because we love guardian”
@@HaseoDanette Wasn't guardian low dps for the past 3 years though?
Fantastic explanation, you really have a knack for breaking down concepts into concise, easy to understand parts. Great editing as well! 😃
Even though I have around 1k hours on this build, I managed to learn something new: I didn't actually know dagger 3 had priority over dagger 2! There's always more to learn in this game 😂
Keep up the good work, the quality of your videos lately has been outstanding 🤩
nerf
The play explanation was very clear. I would love to see more of these. ❤
I absolutely loved the way you explain how to play the build, so much easier to understand. Thank you!
I like how your guide prioritizes getting people to the point where they are contributing before trying to optimize. I appreciate the benchmarkers and the in-depth high level guides they provide, but when I'm starting out I really just want a priority list to master and fine tune as I do content.
Great video. I've been looking for a good tutorial that walks through a rotation clearly. Just watching people play is difficult to follow, so I appreciate how you structured the video. Would welcome more like this.
Totally agree; I don't know why this is hard to find. Really helpful when there's a breakdown.
After avoiding playing Mesmer at all costs because I thought it wasn't for me, I tried this and it may actually be my favorite setup in the entire game. Now I'm wishing I just tried Mesmer when I started playing.
Lara please do other specs ( even harder ones ) in this format. This is very good to learn
Thank you, Lara! I have been waiting for this release since you first mentioned it during one of your streams, haha.
Reading the guides is a little confusing at first, but the way you explained the actions made everything so much easier to learn. Please, make more videos like this one.
Condi Virtuoso has insane DPS. I think it’s time to nerf Mirage.
I recently play GW2 but I'm not really a gamer, just want something to put my stress out, I do play it before but not that much into it and now my classmates play it so I did again and now I choose Mesmer, this kind of explanation is lit! So easy to understand especially for me who is not that good. I have skill issue 🤣
My first video from you and the way you explain WITH pictures is awesome!!
The way you explain the rotation is super easy to follow, great job with the animations! Please do more of this 😊
Awesome vid first and foremost. This makes me wonder though about anet and their design of dps professions (rotations). If the “best” players of the game have to use the simplest dps rotation to beat the hardest content, for me it confirms that most dps rotations are a convoluted mess that lack intuitiveness and flow. I wish anet would consider that
This is the type of thing I really struggle with. Even with it writen out it helps so much to be able to see it. Please make more of these!
Such a nice explanation! Would be great to have more content like that :D
This is a great guide. I have played this build for a few months, and still learned a few things!! Would love to see something similar for boon support Chrono.
Man you made that so simple. Ive read the snowcrows guide about a dozen times and you distilled it so much more simply. Ty 🙏
I like the rotation breakdown. It lets you add complexity as you get comfortable.
Ofc we need more build videos like this. The explanations are insane ❤
thank you. very easy to follow. i give this build 3 months before it get nerf.
Great guide video. Especially how well the voice over and highlighting of the skills and order of button pushing, very well explained.
If u could do this with a few support dps’ that’d b great! Your simple build explanation made the build so easy to understand
This is exactly the type of content that I need! I'm always looking for li/easy rotation builds that feels rewarding to play without a 40 step piano rotation XD I would love to see more videos like this!
We need more of this!
That is quite the build. Did that on my Virtuoso, and wow! It changed my gameplay with my character big time. Went and started tweaking up my Reaper, and brought my cc from 24 percent, to an amazing 54 percent. I just went and listened to what you did here, and applied some of the mechanics here to my Reaper. Thank you.
Wow. That is it... That is beautiful simple you create this and make me understand how to do with my virtuosos. Thank you, Lara!
I think that's probably my biggest issue with playing GW2 non casually, is that some of us struggle with the 40 ability rotation and so having a more simple rotation or a priority list (or even a rotation that isn't as punishing) is much better than how it currently is for most specs.
Great video and easy to understand.
Lara... Please do more builds videos. You're awesome at It.
I just started GW and boosted a character to 80 not undestanding anything about my build xD Yesterday I unlocked Virtuoso and this video explained everything I need to know as I was clueless. TY!
This was so much better than trying to figure it out through just the snow crows site. Thank you!
Rampager trinkets are available for just some Laurels, so I was able to get a full set super easily.
Oh, yeah, I saw one of the DPS of Snowcrows playing it on Febe CM, and I was dumbfounded to see how button-mashing-like this build was.
I remember Arena Net saying, some time ago: "We'll make sure that the more a build is hard to play, the more powerful it will be".
I guess they got struck by some form of selective memory loss..?
Anyway, thank you for the guide.
Laranity - Harbringer of CMC’s nerf Hammer
Earned a sub started playing two weeks ago. Your videos are clear and concise. You've really helped me a lot.
I wish most of snowcrow videos would have this kind of break down... thank you for making this.
It also has versatile utilities, like blink and portals, and front loaded condi burst, often outperforming on power encounters.
*You should be melee for F5 to hit.
Fantastic explanation, please more guides!!! you are awesomeeee
I recently returned to gw2 this year and swapped to this build to take a break from my ele and it has been so refreshing to not play a piano rotation!! It's simple and mesmer is so rewarding to play! Thank you for this video
okay, I ran this build for convergence and it was fun, but man I was SO squishy! I went down like a hundred times, no health at all, just the ground effects would down me from full health (18k ish), so that's something to be aware of, and staying at distance didn't help with that, maybe in strikes or fractals it's easier, but I definitely need to practice with it too. thanks for the great guide!
You have your mesmer utility for this! You can switch out the blade cd reset or the other signet you're not pressing for some utility/survival if needed. (e.g. teleport, invis) You can use F4 if you're about to get hit or downed if you have at least one blade.
Of course it'll impact your damage if you play PERFECT otherwise, but I found if the fight is harder or very heavy on damage I use F4 to stay up a lot. Losing a few blades is worth it over going down!
a 9 min video so u can now do CM CM Cerus XD
But in all serious this is really a good guide and simple-to-understand breakdown in one of the best endgame PVE content
Best rotation guide ive ever sern. Subbed!
What a fantastic guide Lara ❤
Me: "Too dumb for complex rotations"
Lara: "Here's an eli5 for you"
Thanks a lot. ^^
Let's all pray Anet does not nerf this build! Been playing "bleeder" virtuoso since EoD and loving it.
yeah, when i saw the video being released i immediately thought: "that´s unfortunate timing, since we have literally a balance-patch coming up in a week". Though in that case, considering the preview-notes the patch isn´t gonna change much, at least for now. Unfortunately you never know what last-minute adjustments ANet does before the actual patch, so this video may be outdated next week already (or not, we can´t tell until the actual patch drops...)
I love your explanations! So easy to follow
This video is very helpful for a new player like me. The breakdowns are very useful. It always confuses me about the complicated rotation tables on build websites.
Every time I see a video like this, I'm worried that ArenaNet sees it and goes: "Yeah... Too OP. We're gonna nerf this. Too much fun."
Great video! More of these, please!
Such a great and clear guide! Thanks so much! 💜
I would love to have fun with this build but somehow I'm extremely squishy and I die pretty fast...
i hope they won't nerf it to the ground - it allows me to be somewhat competent even though i am not very good at the game
I rarely play Mesmer and haven’t unlocked Virtuoso yet, but this video has motivated me to get Virtuoso unlocked asap.
I just love your videos. Thank you for explaining things so thoroughly especially for us who are new to game. I was wondering if you could make a video on keybinds, not sure if that’s the correct term.
I love this build. I've been using it since EoD as my open world build. It helps me tag enemies during events and metas and cleave mobs in Rift events, as well as pile on the damage to Champs and big bosses.
These ELI5 videos are so great to learn how to do good dps. Sometimes it's not that easy to follow a written guide and watch a video at full speed.
Love these build guides! Pls do more! I like easy to play stuff.
The truly sad thing is that Jagged Mind will eventually get nerfed down to 0.75%-1% healing from the current 3%.
It seems my big boy with purple blades is a big start ATM.
Very nice guide, thank you!
I love this sort of content - brb gonna go try this out! Thanks for explaining it to the smooth brains like me
I never really was a dps player I was always on the support trap xD
And actually, this guide helped me, at least at the golem, to so much more damage than I had managed with snowcrows, so thank you so much xD
Its a very nice build! good vid about it!
Thank you for breaking it down so easily.
And here I am installing a Guitar Hero overlay to get my rotation just right with frame-perfect inputs so that I can reach 40k :(
(Not a joke, btw. There's a module for Blish HUD that drops skill icons the same way they do it in GH and it's pretty helpful for learning hard rotations)
ANET: Oh shit, this build is too popular! Should we make other builds better? Nah, fuck it, nerf bat time.
why virtuoso always with one dagger why not 2 dagger i don't get it:
Nice build, you convinced me to play Mesmer more now. Thank you 🙏🏾 lol
this job and mesmer in general is just crazy. You can pull, push, immobilize, have a lot of cc, portals. The only thing that can you can hate about this job is the purple / pink color lol
You want to use signet on focus swap instantly cuz it cuts the cd of 25% so the higher the cooldown the more value u get from it. You don’t want to wait with it
great video. loved the extra graphics .. i will be changing my mesmer over.. TY :)
Pog finally i got a piano sheet for my virtu thanks Lara 🥳
what's a pog
Although i main rev, cVirt carried my needs for condi CMs since EoD release. Feels incredible and like no other.
Cries in elementalist.
Another great Video.
Please do more of these videos!
You do a great job breaking down the rotation. Please post one for Boon Chrono. I need some help.
You just convinced me to give Mesmer another try. Also that elementalist dance. lmao
another banger of a guide!
you should do a series on how to do rotation with other classes as well! It's great!!
why does the snowcrow guide says to use viper amulet?
This is perfect for me, since i left my mesmer collecting dust... I main necro and play all the others but mesmer xD
Condi Virtuoso has been a great damager for a long time now, but why did many people only realise this after the last update?) Now on many bosses Condi Willbender is just as good, if not better, and of the Power DPS - Soulbeast tears everyone apart.
You're super right, it's been awesome pretty much since EoD! I think the recent hype is mostly because people are excited for the new Challenge Mote, and the world first teams have been stacking Virtuoso
Temple of Febe cm is why, people realized how easy it is to maintain high dps, so they can focus on mechanics
Temple of Febe CM shoved us that best boon dps is Herald, best dps is Condi Virtuoso and best healer is Druid. People can say many words but when it come to efficiency you see the real results. Hope Anet will do something about it. I wish I could see Power Rifle Mech do the same :) as rotation is as easy as it is on Virtuoso
@@maakonis11unfortunately power will never be able to match condi DPS builds. The devs are afraid of small window high damage without ever considering overall damage
What a cool and helpful video! Thank you :)
And btw. what a sweet little asura girlie (i love asura ;D)
Could you do a video about condi wilbender too? I would love that!
Not sure why I didn't get to see this video sooner but, yes, more video's like this one. But one question, can signet of midnight be swapped for signet of inspiration for the added boons it gives or no?
You can but its unnecessary, its someone elses job to provide it to you,unless you running solo ow,but thats different build and we already have jadebot buff for that
Great guide Lara!
Please do one for condi pistol Willbender (Firebender)!
Make. It. A. Series. Please!
I did another one a couple months ago for Scourge :) Definitely wanting to do more though, thanks for watching!
Surprised to see Signet of Illusion over Rain of Swords. Not only does Rain count as a blade, and therefore stack bleeds with Jagged Mind, but it also scales with cleave, giving you a properly silly amount of blades in those circumstances (you get 1 guaranteed blade per target due to bleed stacks applied from Jagged Mind feeding into Bloodsong), _and_ does a 3/4th as much damage per target as the the F1 Bladesong (plus the same 5 bleed stacks), _and_ applies 15 vulnerability stacks per target over the duration. Ya, you lose out on the Illusions refresh on Bladesongs, but honestly I've not found that to be especially necessary for the build.
Mechanically, Illusions is, _best case,_ essentially letting you trade an F3 for an F2 once per minute, since most of the refresh on F1 will be wasted due to it's already short recharge. Rain of Sword plus F3 plus the accompanying DoTs does very close to the same damage as a cast of F2 with its DoTs, and Rain of Swords can be cast slightly more than twice as often as Illusions. It's also a bit burstier, since it doesn't cost blades. F2 + Rain + Thousand Cuts is a LOT of AoE burst all at once.
Very good guide. There is only one reason why I don't play the class - pink. It makes me nauseous for some reason
I love c virt. It feels fast-ish without being overwhelming, and flowy and smooth. Unless boon uptimes are bad. Then it feels god awful to play.
Man, I wanna try this build, but I love mesmer greatsword too much lol
So that’s why there were two condi virts in my raid group last Saturday
Laranity ... did you just give me the fingers! *shock* 3:54. and again at 7:08 !!! What did I do to you???
This is weird af. Before SOTO came out, I remember Virtu being either top or almost top damage. Half a year++ later, it's top damage again? Or did it not leave it to begin with?
The damage is about the same! It does good damage, but it’s not the highest build out there. However, the utility, range, cleave and ease of use often make it outperform other builds on real fights. This is why it’s really popular even in really hard content :)
@@Laranity Yeah, but I'd add that it's not the most fun when it comes to clearing story modes. As much as I want to use mine everywhere, there's something about condi virtu that somehow makes it less than other classes in the open world, so much so that I actually switched over to my Willbender halfway through the first area in SOTO.
Oh yeah, there's a bit where you missed with the timing of the F1 F2 F3 buttons. You aren't actually supposed to wait for the fifth dot to appear before you throw out the bladesong. What you need to do instead is to *trust* that the fifth dot will appear before you can see it.
@@owa1985I like running qchrono for story stuff. (With phantasmal berserker, a well, signet of domination for cc, and either big well or moa on the elite). You make some of your alacrity, and your quickness, and you have stupid utility to help out with a lot of things.
I thought you used f1 before f2 but maybe I'm behind haha. I trust laranity way more than myself