Power Virtuoso

May 2023

Power Virtuoso offers very strong ranged damage and a forgiving DPS option for new players. Careful rotation optimization during encounters also rewards skilled players, making this build a great long-term choice for Power DPS.

Power Virtuoso also brings ~50% Fury uptime for your subgroup and a solid amount of Vulnerability stacks on the target.

The Greatsword variant currently offers higher DPS than Sword/Focus, but both versions are more than capable of handling End-Game Content. Sword/Focus may be beneficial in certain encounters, as it provides an evade via Blurred Frenzy and the ability to pull enemies with Temporal Curtain Into the Void (AKA “Focus Pull”).

Build Fundamentals

Virtuoso replaces the Mesmer’s instant-cast Shatter mechanic with Bladesongs, which have a short cast time and fire daggers at your enemies.

Using Bladesongs increases your damage via Deadly Blades, which is a trait you will want to keep up to boost your DPS during your rotation.

Fencer's Finesse also boosts your DPS: to keep this up as much as possible, use Phantasmal Swordsman twice every time you are on Dagger/Sword – once at the start and once at the end. Also, whenever your weapon swap is ready, promptly swap to your sword set to use Phantasmal Swordsman to maintain this uptime.

Once Deadly Blades and Fencer's Finesse are both active, use Mantra of Pain and Thousand Cuts off cooldown: they’re both instant-cast and you won’t lose anything by doing so.

You always want to use your Bladesong Harmony with 5 blades, and ideally Bladesong Sorrow as well. Other Bladesongs can be used with fewer blades only for keeping Deadly Blades up.

It’s worth practicing segments of the Rotation involving Mind Stab and Signet of the Ether as they can easily interrupt your other skills and significantly lower your DPS.

Crowd Control

• Illusionary Wave (Greatsword)
• Illusionary RiposteCounter Blade
• Temporal CurtainInto the Void (Sword/Focus)
• Bladesong Dissonance

Alternatives

Skills

Replace Rain of Swords if you need to bring more utility such as:

• Blink or Portal Entre for extra mobility
• Feedback for reflects
• Mantra of Concentration if your group is lacking Stability
• If you need extra CC, replace your elite skill Thousand Cuts with Signet of Humility

Gear

For some encounters, you’ll want to use Superior Sigil of the Night: a good example of that is Harvest Temple Challenge Mode. Here are a few examples of how to swap your gear to reach 100% Critical Hit Chance without Superior Sigil of Accuracy:

• Use full Berserker’s gear, replace Superior Sigil of Accuracy with Superior Sigil of the Night and use Writ of Masterful Accuracy as food.
• Since you are already replacing the sigil to Superior Sigil of the Night, just swap out Weapon stats to Assassin’s. To reach 100% crit, get Assassin’s on your Amulet and Chest piece, that way you don’t have to use Writs.