Guild Wars 2

I just geared my Warrior for a Phalanx Strength build, and my question is simply: why take an ele over this warrior build?

Assuming that’s still the case, of course.

As far as I can tell might stacking is the main reason to bring ele, aside from the occasional conjure uses. Does Lightning Hammmer might build offer the DPS to justify bringing over phalanx?

My rationalization is that Ele’s Fire field uptime may outshine warrior might stacking in organized play since people are properly blasting, etc. Is that the case?

Thanks!

Gnat.9405:

I just geared my Warrior for a Phalanx Strength build, and my question is simply: why take an ele over this warrior build?

Assuming that’s still the case, of course.

As far as I can tell might stacking is the main reason to bring ele, aside from the occasional conjure uses. Does Lightning Hammmer might build offer the DPS to justify bringing over phalanx?

My rationalization is that Ele’s Fire field uptime may outshine warrior might stacking in organized play since people are properly blasting, etc. Is that the case?

Thanks!

Ele > Phalanx ideally.

Mainly because Ele sacrifices MUCH less damage to do might stacking as well as giving perma fury. Warrior as far as I know won’t be able to give perma fury. I want to say it’s something like 14k for staff ele vs 13k for LH ele, and like 13k for full dps warrior vs 9k for PS warrior. So a much higher damage loss to get that might.

Ele also provides some nice things like Vuln capping with crit trait and with Glyph of Storms. Sandstorm is also great for blind. Swirling Winds for projectiles. And various other things (including the amazing Ice bow, and even FGS can be useful for long runs).

There’s a reason people stack Ele’s.

That said I love PS when there is no ele or a bad ele, or for whatever reason fire fields are continually being blocked.

Good day,

I prefer an PS build as well, but that may just be because of the fact Iám not that good at playing an Ele. However i’ve seen plenty of PUG runs where we had trouble keeping might up at all times even with an might stacking Ele and my PS Warrior. Long story short…I hope someone else with more experience at playing Ele will answer this. I need to know as well.

Preference < facts.

Thanks guys. I assumed it was a DPS issue. Considering I pug a lot, I imagine PS War will be a safer choice in those runs.

I’ve seen people argue it, but in my experience if you’re lacking might a PS warrior helps but yeah, ideally you want that solid Ele.

ele main here, im a staff ele btw so i dont provide much might stacks but i provide massive aoe so i prefer having a Phalanx warrior with my team esp when i puging semi organized group with my daily 3 CoE paths routine

so yeah being Phalanx is nice even there’s an ele or two coz as of now the popularity of the new ele ice bow meta

Might blasting takes time and sometime it is risky to do so while trying to stay alive. with PS you can just hack away.

maintain 25 might stack is not easy if you are the only one blasting. some ele uses arcane brilliance to blast might instead of reserve it for “ohkitten” moment, some uses arcane wave which takes away one utility slot that could be use for another survival skill.

It really depends on the situation, for pugs i generally bring my PS warrior instead so i don’t have to worry about combo fields.

The new icebow meta ? There is no such thing, it’s just that a lot of players still don’t know how to use Scepter/Hammer.
I guess for pugging a PS is great, because most of pug can screw up ele’s might stack.
But an ele will bring more dmg.
And you should use arcane brillance and arcane wave, it’s in the might stacking rotation.

So how about 5 Berserker Ele’s: 4 with a LH conjurer build and 1 staff camping lava font spammer? Or would this be a huge dps loss?

KevinB.9643:

So how about 5 Berserker Ele’s: 4 with a LH conjurer build and 1 staff camping lava font spammer? Or would this be a huge dps loss?

Should only need 1 LH Ele honestly, the rest could be going staff, you still have 2 easy blasts on staff with AB and Awave, add in earth 2 and that’s 3. Though you’d miss out on a token warrior for banner which is a very nice addition. And, you’d be missing any utility offered by other professions, no stealth, no strong reflects (though enough projectile defense), limited condi removal, no aegis, limited blinds, etc. I’m sure 5 Ele’s could handle quite a bit pretty well, but the question is would you want to? or would grabbing a guard/thief/mesmer be worth it for the ease they can supply?

I’d say as a general group setup something like:
Guard/mesmer
Thief/Engi
Staff Ele
LH Ele
Warrior

would likely do you pretty well, providing stealth, projectile defense, plenty of might and vuln as well as stability and other general defensive tools.

And don’t forget the need for defiance stripping, something Thief and Mesmer’s really excel at.

In addition to the fine points mentioned above by Jerus I would add that an otherwise full glass PS warrior (or any warrior for that matter) is much more forgiving than a glass elementalist and has a more reliable way to stack might. Since you don’t know the skill level of the other players in a random pug group, a warrior may be easier to stack might on and also to stay alive with than a glass elementalist.

I will generally start a run as a glass warrior and I will take careful note of the might the party is generating on the first boss. If we lack might for that fight then I generally switch to PS.

Gunsnroll.2657:

The new icebow meta ? There is no such thing, it’s just that a lot of players still don’t know how to use Scepter/Hammer.
I guess for pugging a PS is great, because most of pug can screw up ele’s might stack.
But an ele will bring more dmg.
And you should use arcane brillance and arcane wave, it’s in the might stacking rotation.

no such thing or u dont know such thing? its not ppl dont know how to use scepter hammer its just ppl dont how how to play with someone using scepter hammer, the ice bow meta is just replacement of the good old fgs rush so now i cast all the aoe then the boss dies for 5 seconds stun of deep freeze instead of camping hammer auto which is boring IMO and not that worth when no one providing fire field to maintain 25 might

long story short
PS is great on pug, dps lost on organized which can provide 25 might easily

It’s not worth using it in dungeons honestly but if you’re pugging in fractals it’s not too bad. Eles handle fury/might much better than PS warriors do, but yeah.

If you use PS, please make sure you’re using 05063 with GS + A/M and strength runes. It’s not worth doing something weird like GS/longbow, nor is it ever worth using without strength runes.

I disagree with PS not being good in organized grps, especially in fractals. in my usual group we run a PS war everytime with a staff and d/f ele, PS is better imo, since you can maintain 20+ might stacks on singele target with phalanx and with emp allies and the banner uptime from insp banners PS can provide more for the team than the usual 65003 full dps, and at certain bosses like mosman, archdiviner, uncat champs i run hammer with guardian so the fire fields are blocked so there is not much room for might stacking.

ShadowRX.9024:

Ps wa combined with 1-2 staff ele is bad. Pls dont run this comp ever. 2 eles is fine for might as long as they are not camping staff and know how to use sd or df or sf. I don’t understand why would you sacrifice wa dps so the eles can be lazy and not stack might QQ. Alsor don’t run hammer guard in fractals omg,such a dps loss for nothing.

Is this even serious?

I think Phalanx build is like a Healing Signet.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

ShadowRX.9024:

Ps wa combined with 1-2 staff ele is bad. Pls dont run this comp ever. 2 eles is fine for might as long as they are not camping staff and know how to use sd or df or sf. I don’t understand why would you sacrifice wa dps so the eles can be lazy and not stack might QQ. Alsor don’t run hammer guard in fractals omg,such a dps loss for nothing.

Is this even serious?

Either trolling or the stupidest thing i read this week >.>

Yea that is a pretty dumb comment… staff ele is the highest DPS in the game.

Sesshi like we talked about last night, I admit that in the past I was wrong about it not being good for fractals because there’s quite a few encounters there where it’s convenient. I still don’t see the point of it in dungeons tho, where you would not need hammer guard and where the fights are too short/trivial for hero teams :P

Staff eles are absolute godsends for certain fractals, especially when dealing with large hitbox targets as shizz just meeeeeellllttssss.
A good elementalist knows when to bring each different spec at his/her disposal and when to ask the warrior to be more than just a banner kitten and trait PS

About hammer guardian in dungeons, the only place I’d consider using it would be HoTW, especially story mode (kittena yoo Hunter of Jormag!).

I thought about that too, it’s just… who cares about HotW -.-

(sowwy Painbow <3)

Purple Miku.7032:

I thought about that too, it’s just… who cares about HotW -.-

(sowwy Painbow <3)

Don’t apologize, he’s a C U Next Tuesday! :P

Purple Miku.7032:

I thought about that too, it’s just… who cares about HotW -.-

(sowwy Painbow <3)

No need to apologise, you’re just speaking the truth <3

An S/D ele makes like 13-14k DPS. PS warrior makes like 8-9k. Pretty vast drop off. For dungeons it’s not worth having your warrior respec assuming you have a scepter ele in group.

In fractals the PS warrior has a few advantages it doesn’t have in normal dungeons. The fights are very long which makes the banner cool down trait a very large team DPS boost. Stacking might with eles is harder since everyone is moving and not often able to stack and coordinate finishers. In fractals most people prefer a staff ele, especially in one ele groups so a PS makes a better compliment to a staff ele than a normal DPS warrior.

I tend to use PS in pubs because of the following:

• Pubs don’t might stack, and solo-providing 25 stacks of might even when they won’t stack or when they drop fields underneath fire fields is important for those groups and making runs quicker.

It’s really that simple. It helps the lowest common denominator. I never would run PS in an organized group where I could pack an Ele, but in that case it’s just a quick retrait and all is well.

Correct me if I’m wrong, folks, but it seems to me that in terms of might stacking ability,
staff ele < PS warrior < other ele builds?

ShadowRX.9024:

You serious that ps warrior +2 staff ele is good? wtf . The dumbest thing i see is everyone in iV uses that comp beacause ele is too hard or something.
How can you say ps warrior is a good build for organized dung runs.

Im not saying staff ele is bad no way, what i want to say is ps wa is very bad if you have 1 ele in the party. There is no reason for a wa to sacrifice dps for might when the ele can easily do the might… and im talking about dungeons, fractals i agree ps wa is good in some situations.

I was talking about fractals, also assuming that running a PS war with 2 ele because ‘ele too hard’ is even dumber than the first comment you made, tho ‘hammer guard in fractals omg,such a dps loss for nothing’ is hard to top, had a good laugh at that, you’re either trolling or have no clue about fractals…

Lindbur.2537:

Correct me if I’m wrong, folks, but it seems to me that in terms of might stacking ability,
staff ele < PS warrior < other ele builds?

Maybe I’m just bad but D/F is kinda /meh in the might stacking category, better than staff but much worse than scepter. You get what, earth 4, water 3 and 5, Awave, and Abril? So I’d imagine you’d be lacking if you relied solely on that D/F Ele, of course if you had some other outside blasts that’d change things.

I’m still a fan of PS at times, it may not always be optimal but it sure is easy mode and sometimes that’s nice.

ShadowRX.9024:

Lols i did way more fractals then you, and i agree at the start we used hammer guard but after a while you realize that there is no need for that. Hammer is just dps loss.
And you use 1 ps wa and 2 ele in organized runs beacause i played 2 dung tours with iV and all the time on ts some1 asked for ps wa. I dont care why are you running ps wa all the time in organized dungeons runs but why suggesting a worse build when you can use the best? Also dont understand why you guys from iV hate ele so much even after fgs nerf lols.

Like I said, I was talking about fractals only, I cant speak for the rest of my guild because I dont do dung tours anymore, and about hammer guard in fractals, It’s a matter of preference whether or not to use hammer on certain bosses, personally I had the fastest and smoothest runs with using hammer on mossman/archdiv etc, saying that it’s a dps loss for nothing is just kittened

lol and the same people who are now recommend a PS-Warr flamed me when I suggested a PS-Warr /staff-ele 2 months ago.
k.

ShadowRX.9024:

It is a dps loss. Compare GS dps with Hammer dps? how is that not a dps loss….
and yes i agree with ps wa being good in fractals but dungeons no.

I had good and smooth kills on both but if the guard was using gs instead of hammer it went a bit faster and also not destroying the fire field with light field spam.

Main reason for using hammer on a boss like archdiviner is for protection for the group, for example to prevent a thief/ele getting 1 shotted, also hammer has high sustained dps, for a boss like archdiviner that you can’t burst down in 10 seconds It’s quite useful, what annoyed me was that you stated that it’s a dps loss for ‘nothing’

ShadowRX.9024:

It is a dps loss. Compare GS dps with Hammer dps? how is that not a dps loss….
and yes i agree with ps wa being good in fractals but dungeons no.

I had good and smooth kills on both but if the guard was using gs instead of hammer it went a bit faster and also not destroying the fire field with light field spam.

But they talked about PS in fractal from the beginning.

Btw. Hammer only guardian is 96-97% of the dps of a GS-Sw/F Guardian. So, ya its a dps lost, but that’s almost not even worth mentioning at that point. Especially, since the protection can help a lot your team to stay in melee and don’t run in range. Keep in mind that not all group can melee everything in fractal. If you can melee wihtout a Hammer guardian, that fine. But a lot of party need the protection in some fractal.

In the end. PS Warrior is not worth the DPS lost in coordinated run. But, that’s only the case if the group can have a LH Elementalist that can stack might without much problem. Having that in most dungeon is easy. In fractal, that’s a bit harder. Some can, but the majority of LH Elementalist can’t do it all the time in fractal. Against some boss, they will down or will need to stop their might stacking to avoid dmg, making them less reliable compare to a PS warrior as a source of might.

ShadowRX.9024:

I dont think protection is that great of a buff tbh. Aetherblade fractal finalboss is nice but other then that i dont find it that usefull. Also thief doesnt get oneshot by archdiviner as far as i know.

Yeah, -33% dmg received is totally useless on hard hitting bosses…

And I thought playhowIwant’s were the cancer of this sub, we have a new winner.

I’ve said before I’m not a fan of double ele set ups in fotm that aren’t trying for YOLO record run strategies. If you’re doing a casual run it will be smoother and faster with one staff ele, a PS warrior and an extra utility class.

ShadowRX.9024:

Yes it is if you know how to dodge those hard hiting bosses. If youre gonna wipe youre gonna wipe anyway even with or without protection.

Ye, ‘just learn to dodge’ … pathetic mentality

ShadowRX.9024:

Sure, I was not talking about casual runs but w/e. No point arguing with you Sesshi.

I done 18-20 min fractal 50 full runs with PS war and hammer guard, like I said It’s a matter of preference, I wasn’t the one saying that using hammer ‘is for nothing’ ,with that you lost all credibility tbh

The reason you bring a hammer guardian (or a guardian to fractals) as top priority NEVER been to optimize DPS. With that said the reason you choice hammer over GS – S/F is because many bosses last for a longer amount of time, where as you don’t lose much going hammer instead. What you gain overall team DPS, as your team can eat a few more hits, which dodging is quite ironically a dps loss if you can manage to survive with a hammer guardian so the team dont have to dodge as much.

As for the PS warrior and staff Elementalist thing, for sure it’s more dps to go with a full dps warrior, one S/D and one Staff Elementalist, than a PS warrior and two staff Elementalists. It comes down to a matter of perference what works best for your group. I rather prefer what has the best synergy for a certain envoirment, rather than using what “mathematically” gives the highest dps
Generally speaking for fractals PS warrior seems much better for this as they can manage to take a few hits, might will never spike down below 25 fora seconds, assuming you use GS – A/M 0/5/0/6/3 with proper rotations.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

And I thought playhowIwant’s were the cancer of this sub, we have a new winner.

You should have seen that coming. There is always extreme on both side. Ppl that can’t stand meta build and dps oriented build on one extreme.

And ppl that can’t stand the lost of 3% dps for a 33% decrease in incoming dmg. Or the lost of 30% dps lost for a reliable constant 25 stack of might for the whole group.

You either do a casual run where you can bring anything or a record run where you need to bring the best composition with player that can melee everything without more support. There is nothing in between right?

Triple eles for fractals tbh.

Sesshi.2610:

ShadowRX.9024:

Yes it is if you know how to dodge those hard hiting bosses. If youre gonna wipe youre gonna wipe anyway even with or without protection.

Ye, ‘just learn to dodge’ … pathetic mentality

Based on your youtube you still have that to learn

Wooo, this got active! Quoting a few responses I want to discuss

Jerus.4350:

Maybe I’m just bad but D/F is kinda /meh in the might stacking category, better than staff but much worse than scepter. You get what, earth 4, water 3 and 5, Awave, and Abril?

That’s the same number of blasts as you get with S/D and one less than with S/F (excluding the 1-2 extra blasts from LH AA).
A lone D/F ele in fractals should be able to maintain between 15-20 might for the party (assuming str runes) on his own. A warhorn blast or any other outside help and your party might should be set.

That said, no one plays perfectly and I always seem to blast retal instead of might. We tend to run with two eles in fractals to consistently keep max might (together with the wide advantages that an ele brings too of course).

Thaddeus.4891:

PS Warrior is not worth the DPS lost in coordinated runs if the group can have a LH Elementalist that can stack might without much problem. […] In fractal, that’s a bit harder. Some can, but the majority of LH Elementalist can’t do it all the time in fractal. Against some boss, they will down or will need to stop their might stacking to avoid dmg, making them less reliable compare to a PS warrior as a source of might.

I don’t like LH for many fights in fractals due to that you either have to interrupt the AA by dodging or you’ll be locked out of LH because it wont be recharged for the second fight. I know its very popular to stay close to the theory, and on paper LH looks great. My personal opinion is however that there are very few fights in fractals where LH > D/F in practice.

Though, I have to agree that in some cases PS might is more reliable than to trust an ele not to fail a dodge.

hybrid.5027:

I’ve said before I’m not a fan of double ele set ups in fotm that aren’t trying for YOLO record run strategies. If you’re doing a casual run it will be smoother and faster with one staff ele, a PS warrior and an extra utility class.

I’ve seen this discussed before so I’m unsure if we can come further than to disagree with each other
I don’t follow the reasoning that two ele’s equals YOLO record run. If what we want is casual runs why not run 2 guards and 3 wars? Pardon the analogy, I know its exaggerating. But there is a difference between sacrificing party defenses (blinds, reflects, stability, cc, etc) to bring more damage and sacrificing damage to personally be more tanky.

A fractal party composition of 2 eles, 1 guard, 1 war and 1 engineer/thief doesn’t lack any active defense that the party would get without the second ele. The only reason said party composition would be worse is if the ele’s are being carpets (read play bad and lay on the floor).

spoj.9672:

Triple eles for fractals tbh.

Oh, don’t tickle my Swedish meatballs <3

Anyways, to answer OP:
Go PS on warrior if your party might is low. This can be due to various reasons.

• No ele in your group
• Bad ele in your group
• Content demands ele to go staff
• Missed blasts due to messy coordination or underlying fields

In the terms of choosing PS or Ele, Ele > PS.

Why not 3 warriors 2 guardians for casual runs? Because that comp isn’t nearly as good or smooth as 1 guard, 1ps warrior, 1 staff ele, 1 thief and one mesmer/engineer. It doesn’t have the same dps or utility. I think your implication was it was even easier, but I would disagree.

Dunno why you would argue over compositions for fractals. Most people run what they are most comfortable with or what they feel like playing at the time. Because any multitude of compositions achieves nearly identical times. Things slow down when people play out of their comfort zone. Obviously a very high damage party will have the potential to be much faster. But the reality is most decent groups still achieve 50min full runs with any composition.

Eles are the best class for fractals. You can stack 5 eles and you wont lack any of the required utility and you will still have good survivability and damage. However most people cant play them comfortably in some fractals.

Thanks Snowball, good point. Though I’d count LH as an additional blast, if you rotate perfectly you’ll get that last blast in the field before it dissipates. Though like I said I’m not very good at Ele and the dagger rotation was the last I needed to work on before I gave up my Ele and went Engi

Would 430k HP sponge be a good enough sample to compare 1 ps war & 2 staff ele vs 1 dps war & 1 staff ele & 1 sc/x ele? Basically, a vacuum test.

frifox.5283:

Would 430k HP sponge be a good enough sample to compare 1 ps war & 2 staff ele vs 1 dps war & 1 staff ele & 1 sc/x ele? Basically, a vacuum test.

Maybe, but part of what makes a PS Warrior desirable at all is that it can more easily maintain the Might under extreme pressure that might force the LH Ele to break its AA chain or leave melee range, etc.

Snowball.3497:

That’s the same number of blasts as you get with S/D and one less than with S/F (excluding the 1-2 extra blasts from LH AA).
A lone D/F ele in fractals should be able to maintain between 15-20 might for the party (assuming str runes) on his own. A warhorn blast or any other outside help and your party might should be set.

Actually. S/D and S/F have the same amount of blast. D/F have 1 less. I agree with your point, D/F do the job done pretty good in fractal. Just pointing out that a lot of ppl forget about Churning Earth because of the cast time, but it still work.

Snowball.3497:

I don’t like LH for many fights in fractals due to that you either have to interrupt the AA by dodging or you’ll be locked out of LH because it wont be recharged for the second fight. I know its very popular to stay close to the theory, and on paper LH looks great. My personal opinion is however that there are very few fights in fractals where LH > D/F in practice.

Though, I have to agree that in some cases PS might is more reliable than to trust an ele not to fail a dodge.

I think you missed my point. I wasn’t arguing that LH Ele are better in fractal than D/F ele. My point was, in ideal group ya LH Ele would be the best, but in fractal PS Warrior do a more reliable job than LH Ele, because not that many LH Elementalist can do their job completely in Fractal.

In the end, we pretty much say the same thing. I wasn’t talking about D/F because it wasn’t part of the discussion at that moment. It was over the usefulness of a PS warrior in fractal.

Rising Dusk.2408:

frifox.5283:

Would 430k HP sponge be a good enough sample to compare 1 ps war & 2 staff ele vs 1 dps war & 1 staff ele & 1 sc/x ele? Basically, a vacuum test.

Maybe, but part of what makes a PS Warrior desirable at all is that it can more easily maintain the Might under extreme pressure that might force the LH Ele to break its AA chain or leave melee range, etc.

^^ Hence my love for PS, if everything is perfect and I have a good Ele, sure it’s amazing, but PS is such a nice option for the not so perfect players.

ShadowRX.9024:

Ye iV is the best playhowiwant group indeed ^^.

Nice move mate. 10/10..