Guild Wars 2

Hello friends! ^^ Zoose here, your friendly neighborhood Elementalist. Today I’m going to present to you a mini-guide on how to play Scepter/Dagger Ele.

Personally, I like to see the big numbers, so I enjoy playing DPS Scepter/Dagger. Here’s my build:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gw2esports/comments/1e985g/daily_discussion_513_scepterdagger_burst/

About me:
I have played Elementalist back when it was really buggy and horrible to play Ele (on launch). I enjoy playing this class and have a lot of tournament experience in it as well.

Before GW2 I competitively played DotA 1, and spent a lot of time playing WC3. I had a small stint in GunZ, a korean third person shooter that required extreme reaction time. I enjoy playing League of Legends [currently Diamond] as well as competitive GW2.

My previous GW2 teams are: Jo0, Curse, Team Paradigm, and Nonstop Nonsense.
I currently play on EU for [TCG] The Civilized Gentlemen (formerly Curse)

Pros:

- Extremely fast burst potential
- Insane burst if you can crit
- Good sustain
- Good mobility with Ride the Lightning + Swiftness
- Excellent boons—protection, swiftness, might, regen
- Boons and heals can be shared to teammates
- 1 Instant blind, 1 AoE blind
- Good AoE damage
- Good AoE CC
- Strong elite pet that you can heal/protect

Cons:
- Weak to instagib
- Mist form is your ONLY stun break (75s CD)
- One mistake can cost you your life
- Position dependent build
- No stability
- Heals can be dazed/stunned/CC’d
- Missing burst means you will have to wait at least (10s) for the next burst rotation
- Can be RNG dependent (minorly alleviated through Fury 20% crit chance])
- Fire grab, Ride the Lightning, Updraft, and Earthquake (the most important spells imo) have long 40s cooldowns. You must land these consistently to be successful.
- One of the higher skill cap ele builds because it requires timing, awareness, quick reactions, proper positioning, and multiple muscle memory combos

Tips:
- Count enemy dodge rolls and force at least 1 dodge before initializing any type of combos such as [Air 2,3,4 + double arcane]
- Mind game opponents by dodging into them to create damage pressure and/or causing them to burn a dodge [Dodging in fire gives burning which in my opinion is one of the strongest conditions in the game]
- Utilize might stacks on opponents if you’re fighting in a small area or on a node, this can also damage them or create pressure for them to dodge [Fire 2,4,3 + Arcane wave + Earth dodge roll + Earth 4 (optional)]
- You can cast phoenix backwards [Fire 3]
Phoenix can hit 3 times if you properly position it just right behind an opponent [Fire 3]
- You can change attunements while channeling spells [Fire 5, Earth 5, Earth 4, Water 5, Water 3, Air 1, etc.] This will proc Fury which lasts 2 seconds and grants [+20% crit chance]
- Fire grabbing people who are burning does 2x the damage and can crit twice as hard.
Use ride the lightning most of the time for escape purposes or gap closing purposes, don’t just use it randomly (40s CD)
- Don’t sit in one attunement waiting for a spell unless it is absolutely necessary, you’re better off attunement dancing and casting other spells as they will do more damage or be more productive as you get boons in between attunement swaps.
- Utilize your elite depending on the situation [Fire gives most damage, Water heals and creates frost field, Air stuns from range, Earth gives protection]
- You can use the air elemental and position it outside of something like clocktower’s rafters and have it snipe people with stuns and spells from range
- Try to save one dodge roll for water attunement to heal and cleanse a condition

Combos:
- Air 2,3,4 + Double Arcane
- Fire 3,5 [Attunement swap] Air 2,3 + Double Arcane
- Earth 4 + Fire 3, 4 + Arcane blast
- Fire 2 + Earth 4 + Double arcane
- Water 4 + Fire 1 + Fire 5
- Water 4 + Fire 2, 3, 5
- Potential 1 shot combo: Earth 4 + Fire 3, 5 [Attunement swap] Air 2,3,4 + Double Arcane

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEBSaDhuGow
[Mini-Guide, gameplay, mind gaming]

Where you can find Zoose:
http://www.twitch.tv/thundercatshoooo
http://www.youtube.com/YumDeliciousWater
https://twitter.com/ZooseGW2
In your bed

Shoutouts:
[TCG] The Civilized Gentlemen
Leviosaaaa
ArenaNet

Nice gide about dps ele and i would add even if u have only 1 stunbreak the ratio burst/survability is pretty amazing imo and u can do well in 1vs1 as well as in teamfight
Just one question abtout this combo : Water 4 + Fire 1 + Fire 5 -> i don’t understand the water 4, same for the next combo
I don’t understand the sigil neither why bleed whereas battle, kill proc one, energy etc.. or even poison are more usefull imo (it’s a good choice for 1vs1 tho)

Anyways good initiative

Defyx.3956:

Just one question abtout this combo : Water 4 + Fire 1 + Fire 5 -> i don’t understand the water 4, same for the next combo

The enemy gets chilled so it’s much easier to land the firegrab since the enemy can’t strafe that fast.

So sad how it’s all about arcana always with the ele. Buff the fire, earth, and air traitlines ;(

I would like to use glyphs for a change. Even signets.

The aggressive playstyle reminds me of my build, but for D/D http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmIblx4gjEAEFm0yogIiHPYhElCzA-TsAA0CnIeS9k7JzTynsPNw4gxEDA

…..great another guide….
All I need now is another invasion of fotm kids, the happiness for the departure of those fotm eles who recently left to play BM ranger/thief and mesmer has been short lived.
Seriously @Zoose what you think to know…was already well known to players who have been playing this profession since BWE1, like the 30 arcana tank build with @Daphoenix.

Defyx.3956:

…I don’t understand the sigil neither why bleed whereas battle, kill proc one, energy etc.. or even poison are more usefull imo (it’s a good choice for 1vs1 tho)…

try it out with test dummies, the geomancy sigil procs a so called frozen burst which hits for a huge damage (1-2k), bleeding is like a bonus there

You can join the discussion @ http://www.reddit.com/r/gw2esports/comments/1e985g/daily_discussion_513_scepterdagger_burst/

well didnt now about the geaomancy sigil, it’s time to arenanet to write the entire description in the tooltip, gonna try this, anyways this is surely not the only good choice for this build.
And to Arheundel ppl who dont know how to play this build and land the burst at the innapropriate time are so easy to kill for every class (even warrior), so it’s not such a big deal and pple will figure it ou anyway

I really hope the situation doesn’t change, I was enjoying the ele free environment with no more QQ thread popping out every day like mushroom

gunz was awesome.

Follidus.8027:

gunz was awesome.

Gunz > > > > > > > >

Too bad Gunz 2 looks like they dumbed it down.

Nice guide!
But have considered hydromancy instead of geomancy.It deals good damage and you already have frost aura at 32 sec in this build.Chill is a very powerfull tool ele has to make up for the massive cd anet slapped to all our skills
Also would you consider elem surge instead of evasive arcana?Arane wave applies 6 sec chill on your targeted enemy (bug?) and you can also use the immobilises of the arcanes to burst in fire but from distance if you time it very good.
I know the survivability will drop massively but whatever :P
Imo exchanging some damage with different rune setup for example for high uptime of chill is totally making up for it due to enemys increase on their defencive cooldowns and does wonders in teamfights.