Guild Wars 2

like i said,
for all ppl complain about d/d bunker ele, tell me another viable build, prefer with staff,
and i will more than happy to give up with the 0/10/0/30/30 build..

when i use the staff i’m a free kill, due to ridicolous long cd on cc skill + no mobility at all.

if i use a d/d balance-defensive build, i do a little more damage then bunker, but sacrifice too much survavibility,

if i go scepter/x i have to pray that my opponent is afk to be able to hit him with dragon’s tooth.

if i go full glass cannon with any weapon, i kill one ppl, and after that i get kitten by the other, due to not stealth, death shroud, and no healing.

i have tried everything, with any weapon set, cause i find the d/d bunker ele too boring.
but nothing work, an ele in the current state need atleast 15 in water, 30 in arcane for be competitive.

so don’t complain about ele, complain about anet, if they give us another COMPETITIVE build, or change somthing in our other weapon set i give up with bunker d/d without looking back.

think about it

This is the case for most classes. Mesmers are forced to go into shatter, warriors are forced to go into greatsword, eles are forced to go into d/d…

It’s not that other builds are bad, it’s just that these specific builds are better. If they simply nerf all the current builds that people use (within reason), then lesser used builds would actually have a place. Look at necromancers. They don’t have a single shining build, so they have a lot of possible variety. MM, Wells, condi, and variations of those.

Stop saying d/d eles, most eles use scepter.

i die often, but i prefer to die when i using a staff with an inusual build, instead surviving while using classic d/d ,this because i don’t found d/d fun..

ofc when i do tpvp serious i use the the classic d/d bunker-build..

i love cc ppl, and make it unable to catch me, but in comparison to d/d or s/d build, i recognize the staff build is more and more weakness..

if i only can have a traits “recharge all staff skill by 20%”…(looking out the window)

I feel the same. Balance in this game is appalling. In 6 months they haven’t fixed kitten either.

Dragon’s Tooth is the perfect example of incompetence. It’s a skill that’s designed to miss. Ridiculous.

mjharrison.3209:

I feel the same. Balance in this game is appalling. In 6 months they haven’t fixed kitten either.

Dragon’s Tooth is the perfect example of incompetence. It’s a skill that’s designed to miss. Ridiculous.

Or maybe you should use Dragon’s Tooth on players that are CC’d, downed, or resing. Maybe it’s not designed to be spammed every time you’re in fire attunement.

No offense, but there’s a lot of posts like yours and they’re ridiculous.

If you think scepter burst is in fire you are mistaken…

titaniumm.2983:

like i said,
for all ppl complain about d/d bunker ele, tell me another viable build, prefer with staff,
and i will more than happy to give up with the 0/10/0/30/30 build..

S/D ele.
That was fast. Do I get a prize

Then there’s a whole bunch of whining. I get ele’s could use some improvements in other places but calm it down. Build diversity is wonky basically everywhere.

Man you guys cry too much. Look at skill, says 1200/900 range. So sit 1200/900 distance back instead of sittin on the point. No wait nvm go GC in melee range as the squishiest profession in game with limited evasion for that roll and complain it’s hard.
Well that sounds wise.
The current state of the game can pretty much let you run anything in general tpvp, anything, because there’s what 7 teams in the game on NA give or take a couple?
You could slap 4 conjures on your bar, go full GC, and get consecutive kills in current tpvp. That’s not a brag, it’s just pointing out where the game is at right now. The amount of competitive teams is little, with a small amount of team work you can basically run anything. So if you’re sad via lack of builds, don’t worry there isn’t enough pressure in the meta right now to actually literally force you to play anything.

Even if not it’s not like you lose anything of worth, especially if you only solo que.
/realitycheck.

but again.
S/D ele.
Check and mate.

I’m playing with a build I really have fun now. It’s similar to the bunker one but more dps orientated.

I play with valkyrie and 20 in air, 20 water and 30 arcane. I can still heal myself a lot and I’m a very good 1v1 build.

I play it in teamfights, I normally don’t invade. In fights I can dps a lot and don’t have to get much out of the fight, still doing really decent damage.

With next patch I’ll provably use same build but with scepter, maybe even more dps orientated.
It’s really hard to stand 1v2 good players.

Hey laza!
i know, you’re a very skilled ele

anyway, in the original post i said an ele could have atleast 30 arcane, 15 water to be competitive, i tried also many build, even my usually build, 10/15/0/15/30 with full arcane utility, zerker, it’s quite good, very high dps, decent survavibility.

but this don’t change the fact the our other traits except arcane/water are still underpower, near to useless, if we spec near to glass cannon, like you, we don’t still have enough burst to compensate the lack of survavibility.
in a similar setup, a thief, mesmer, can outshine us in burst damage, and in survavibility due to the stealth mechanics.

when we talk about bunker, we are exceptional, but when we talk about dps, we are not so good.

for example, if i rtl to a gc war, for bring him down i have to use rtl, fire 2-4-5 + arcane blast, arcane wave, when a thief use backstab, backstab, gg, a mesmer sword 2+shatter.

they have our burst only with 2-3 skill, reserving the utility for escape.

hovewer they don’t are as good as us when we talk about bunker spec.

even dev’s says that we have only one viable competitive build..

my op was provocative to all ppl that complain about x/d bunker ele.

Follidus.8027:

mjharrison.3209:

I feel the same. Balance in this game is appalling. In 6 months they haven’t fixed kitten either.

Dragon’s Tooth is the perfect example of incompetence. It’s a skill that’s designed to miss. Ridiculous.

Or maybe you should use Dragon’s Tooth on players that are CC’d, downed, or resing. Maybe it’s not designed to be spammed every time you’re in fire attunement.

No offense, but there’s a lot of posts like yours and they’re ridiculous.

Even a 2 second CC isn’t long enough for Dragon’s Tooth to hit an enemy before they can dodge. Signet of Earth does the trick, but Dragon’s Tooth isn’t powerful enough to warrant sacrificing a utility slot for.

Lazarast.6571:

I’m playing with a build I really have fun now. It’s similar to the bunker one but more dps orientated.

I play with valkyrie and 20 in air, 20 water and 30 arcane. I can still heal myself a lot and I’m a very good 1v1 build.

I play it in teamfights, I normally don’t invade. In fights I can dps a lot and don’t have to get much out of the fight, still doing really decent damage.

With next patch I’ll provably use same build but with scepter, maybe even more dps orientated.
It’s really hard to stand 1v2 good players.

I actually run this setup with scepter/dagger, air training in air, with arcane blast and wave instead of full cantrips(only mist). Its incredibly strong in both 1v1 and team battles with the safety of range allowed by the scepter and less telegraphed single target burst than D/D(Earth to Air with arcane utilities). It will only get stronger with the patch with the beaming being able to hit multiple players.

I love this build we run because its much less face roll and higher skill cap than bunker setups. Its much easier to get punished for being out of position or bursted down if you and your team are playing bad but its very rewarding for playing well. Nothings more satisfying than smacking a thief from 100>20 percent in a second and watching him spam disabling shot in a panic. The damage is also insane. I HIT, not crit, a ranger for 4k with my fire grab yesterday! My crits usually range from 5.5k-8k usually with some outliers close to 9k.

To those of you complaining about dragon’s tooth, its just icing on the cake and not worth building around. Sure it hits like a truck but its more for zoning and laying waste to points with AOE where players can’t easily decipher when to dodge. Point blank phoenix with arcane wave is more than enough to sate your AOE fancies.

Chaosky.5276:

Follidus.8027:

mjharrison.3209:

I feel the same. Balance in this game is appalling. In 6 months they haven’t fixed kitten either.

Dragon’s Tooth is the perfect example of incompetence. It’s a skill that’s designed to miss. Ridiculous.

Or maybe you should use Dragon’s Tooth on players that are CC’d, downed, or resing. Maybe it’s not designed to be spammed every time you’re in fire attunement.

No offense, but there’s a lot of posts like yours and they’re ridiculous.

Even a 2 second CC isn’t long enough for Dragon’s Tooth to hit an enemy before they can dodge. Signet of Earth does the trick, but Dragon’s Tooth isn’t powerful enough to warrant sacrificing a utility slot for.

Who says you have to bring Signet of Earth? Who says you have to bring one long CC? Who says YOU have to bring the cc?

So for s/d you have updraft and earthquake as basically 2 two-second CCs. One is a knockback, and one is a knockdown. If you chain this with another CC then you’re good to go. If you run focus you still have a 2s knockdown.

So lets say you’re playing with a mesmer, you can updraft > dragon’s tooth and chain the mesmer’s illusionary leap > shatter so it all lands. That’s a lot of burst, and if the build doesn’t have any escape cooldowns (or doesn’t get any help from his team) he’s going to lose a lot of health, along with anyone near him because all of that damage is aoe.

There’s so many CCs in this game that you can do this with every class.

- Maybe you want to do it with a thief w/ basilisk venom, or maybe venom share.
- Maybe you want a guardian to put a root down, or you can chain it with his knockback.
- Maybe you want to chain it with a d/d necro's 4 second immobilize. I’ve never tried this, but you can probably pull off fear > dragon’s tooth > earthquake before the fear moves him out of range. Maybe you need to put criple or chill on first.
- Maybe you want to chain it with a warrior using bull’s charge, throw bolas, or any number of the weapon CCs that they have.
- Maybe you want to chain it with an engineer's rifle knockback, rifle root, or magnet pull
- Maybe you want to chain it with a ranger's pet fear, an RNG pet knockdown, or any other kind of pet CC. Maybe you want to do it with the trap that immobilizes. Maybe entangle.

There’s so many ways to chain CC in this game yet no one does it.

Follidus.8027:

There’s so many ways to chain CC in this game yet no one does it.

When I was running with my greatsword guardian bud he would binding blade pull people into dragon tooth’s blast radius as it came down. People expecting to just eat whirling wrath were immensely surprised. Now he just uses line and ring of warding for me to set up easy point blank phoenixes and firegrabs. Gotta luv that guardian CC!

The reason why we don’t see more chain CC I think its a whole lot of there being no competitive teams(no competitive features) working together and real lack of information flow within the community. There is no top players innovating so players just with some of the stuff see.

Follidus.8027:

Who says you have to bring Signet of Earth? Who says you have to bring one long CC? Who says YOU have to bring the cc?

So for s/d you have updraft and earthquake as basically 2 two-second CCs. One is a knockback, and one is a knockdown. If you chain this with another CC then you’re good to go. If you run focus you still have a 2s knockdown.

So lets say you’re playing with a mesmer, you can updraft > dragon’s tooth and chain the mesmer’s illusionary leap > shatter so it all lands. That’s a lot of burst, and if the build doesn’t have any escape cooldowns (or doesn’t get any help from his team) he’s going to lose a lot of health, along with anyone near him because all of that damage is aoe.

There’s so many CCs in this game that you can do this with every class.

- Maybe you want to do it with a thief w/ basilisk venom, or maybe venom share.
- Maybe you want a guardian to put a root down, or you can chain it with his knockback.
- Maybe you want to chain it with a d/d necro's 4 second immobilize. I’ve never tried this, but you can probably pull off fear > dragon’s tooth > earthquake before the fear moves him out of range. Maybe you need to put criple or chill on first.
- Maybe you want to chain it with a warrior using bull’s charge, throw bolas, or any number of the weapon CCs that they have.
- Maybe you want to chain it with an engineer's rifle knockback, rifle root, or magnet pull
- Maybe you want to chain it with a ranger's pet fear, an RNG pet knockdown, or any other kind of pet CC. Maybe you want to do it with the trap that immobilizes. Maybe entangle.

There’s so many ways to chain CC in this game yet no one does it.

If I chain Updraft and Earthquake to get Dragon’s Tooth to land, I have to forego all my other fire skills. I’ve also tried CCing my target after casting Dragon’s Tooth (scepter/focus is better for that because of the ranged knockdown), but they usually leave its radius by the time I can do so.

As for chain CC with allies, I’d like to have at least one ranged weapon that doesn’t require team support to be effective with. (Not referring to bunkers.)

guys about the dragons tooth i dont agree much about being useless.
Its just requires a really good amount of skill to use it properly.
One way i use it to land dts lately(just an experimental build) is i use glyph of elemental power to keep my enemy on weakness and after i see them out of dodges
i roll on oearth for evasive arcanas 3 sec cripple and then cast the dt.If the guy doesnt react immediately he wont manage to avoid it.If he blows a defencive cooldown for a 6 sec cd dt You Win.
Also you can cast it and then go in earth and blow up an arcane with elem surge for the immob or blow arcane power→ phoenix -> and immediately switch to earth.
The phoenix will ALWAYS cause immob 3 times and thats enough most of times.
Just another example of how high skill cap this class has/.
Such a shame people think its a faceroll..that makes me feel bad

I must say it, I’m proud of the people posting here, I mean, it’s a constructive post with lot’s of info on diferent and rewarding builds (ofc they need more skillcap).

Another problem of the elementalist, is that we haven’t got much utilitys to go with, If I said half of them are good I would be lying.

Chaosky.5276:

If I chain Updraft and Earthquake to get Dragon’s Tooth to land, I have to forego all my other fire skills. I’ve also tried CCing my target after casting Dragon’s Tooth (scepter/focus is better for that because of the ranged knockdown), but they usually leave its radius by the time I can do so.

As for chain CC with allies, I’d like to have at least one ranged weapon that doesn’t require team support to be effective with. (Not referring to bunkers.)

I guess you can do it that way, but I was referring to Updraft > Dragon’s Tooth > someone else follows up with a CC, and Earthquake > Dragon’s Tooth > someone else follows up with a CC.

As far as scepter goes, like caed said you don’t need to land Dragon’s Tooth for scepter to be viable. It’s 1 spell that is situational. You still do good burst in air, and if you have a dagger offhand you still do good burst in fire with phoenix and fire grab. Not to mention arcane skills if you choose to take them.

Follidus.8027:

I guess you can do it that way, but I was referring to Updraft > Dragon’s Tooth > someone else follows up with a CC, and Earthquake > Dragon’s Tooth > someone else follows up with a CC.

As far as scepter goes, like caed said you don’t need to land Dragon’s Tooth for scepter to be viable. It’s 1 spell that is situational. You still do good burst in air, and if you have a dagger offhand you still do good burst in fire with phoenix and fire grab. Not to mention arcane skills if you choose to take them.

I just want to do ranged spellcasting…

kostbabis.8791:

One way i use it to land dts lately(just an experimental build) is i use glyph of elemental power to keep my enemy on weakness and after i see them out of dodges
i roll on oearth for evasive arcanas 3 sec cripple and then cast the dt.If the guy doesnt react immediately he wont manage to avoid it.If he blows a defencive cooldown for a 6 sec cd dt You Win.

I can’t seem to keep my target immobilized long enough with Elemental Surge, but perhaps if I combine weakness with Chilling Gust I could get it to land.

Chaosky.5276:

I just want to do ranged spellcasting…

I don’t understand, scepter is a viable ranged weapon. =/

There’s ways to land dragon’s tooth, but there’s lots of other spells that are good too…

Follidus.8027:

I don’t understand, scepter is a viable ranged weapon. =/

There’s ways to land dragon’s tooth, but there’s lots of other spells that are good too…

If I can’t effectively fight my enemy from a distance, it’s not a viable ranged weapon. As it is, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatterstone, the lack of offense in the scepter’s earth attunement, and the weak autoattacks make it ineffective at ranged combat.
Scepter/Dagger’s good, but mainly when close to your target (Phoenix, offhand dagger skills), and I don’t want to be forced to adopt a support-oriented playstyle by taking the staff.

Chaosky.5276:

Follidus.8027:

I don’t understand, scepter is a viable ranged weapon. =/

There’s ways to land dragon’s tooth, but there’s lots of other spells that are good too…

If I can’t effectively fight my enemy from a distance, it’s not a viable ranged weapon. As it is, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatterstone, the lack of offense in the scepter’s earth attunement, and the weak autoattacks make it ineffective at ranged combat.
Scepter/Dagger’s good, but mainly when close to your target (Phoenix, offhand dagger skills), and I don’t want to be forced to adopt a support-oriented playstyle by taking the staff.

sadly, this game lack of spellcaster ranged, the best guess is the necro, scepter/dagger, staff..

the necro staff spell embarass the ele staff spell, the scepter are quite good both, and the necro dagger offhand have 900 range.

with traits staff necro

2=damage + bleed+regen aoe every 4 3/4 sec
3=damage + chill+poison aoe every 16 sec
4=high damage+transfer condition aoe every 20 sec
5=little damage+fear aoe every 32 sec

they can ALSO swap weapon and with scepter / dagger can have:

1= autoattack every 1/2 sec, (not 1sec and 1/4 like ele) damage +bleed,damage + bleed, damage + poison
2= cripple + bleeding aoe every 10 sec
3= a damage spell
4= transfer 3 conditions + blind every 15 sec (with trait)
5= a bleeding (10 sec), a weakness, and a damage aoe

if u wanna a spellcaster ranged change class, cause some pro here can say ele rock etc etc, sure ele rock i’m agree, but it’s not a ranged spellcaster..

every 40 seconds a chill aoe without damage vs every 16 sec a damage + chill + poison aoe speak for itself, also mark don’t disappear..

until we have that ridicolous spell in our ranged arsenal, with that ridicolous cooldown, we have only two choice..

wanna be a ranged spellcaster? sure use a 0/0/10/30/30 and use staff..you will stay alive enough..but don’t except to kill a skilled player..
or use the x/x/x/15/30 with any other not ramged weapon set, use cleric for full defensive with cantrip, use zerker for more offence..

that’s all

ensoriki.5789:

Look at skill, says 1200/900 range. So sit 1200/900 distance back instead of sittin on the point.

Yeah, and watch helplessly as points tick for your opponents since they’re sitting pretty on the node while you pew pew at range. Because node capping isn’t the objective of conquest. Genius

Gallrvaghn.4921:

ensoriki.5789:

Look at skill, says 1200/900 range. So sit 1200/900 distance back instead of sittin on the point.

Yeah, and watch helplessly as points tick for your opponents since they’re sitting pretty on the node while you pew pew at range. Because node capping isn’t the objective of conquest. Genius

Or don’t be sittin on a node by yourself trying to 1v2, 1v3 when you could’ve been pushing mid or far with someone else, and doing something “Fruitful” and using your range. Instead of chilling with a 1200 pt weapon, and unable to take significant pressure.
If you want to play fragile you realize you don’t sit in the middle of the fray and just eat damage.
Genius.

S/F bunker with 100% protection, 100% swiftness, 100% fury, a large invunerable time, reflect and projectile destroy.

from memory:
20, 10, 30, 0, 10
Grab all signet related traits and the other obvious ones. 4 signets (3 if you want a stun break) and whatever elite you want.

Armour and weap and amulet, you can work these out. Either full defensive or conditions.

TGSlasher.1458:

S/F bunker with 100% protection, 100% swiftness, 100% fury, a large invunerable time, reflect and projectile destroy.

from memory:
20, 10, 30, 0, 10
Grab all signet related traits and the other obvious ones. 4 signets (3 if you want a stun break) and whatever elite you want.

Armour and weap and amulet, you can work these out. Either full defensive or conditions.

I’ve tried signet s/f builds. Many times, because I really wanted them to work. The problem I ran into was that I lacked mobility and control, and poor and/or unreliable damage + relatively unremarkable defense + lack of escapes = dead ele.

I haven’t tried a full bunker signet build, though, so that’s worth a shot.

There are guys that will kill you.
And the lack of mobility is horrid at times

But this build is quite fun and 100% protection time is very good.
I run carrion or rabid. Sometimes rampagers. Since the only real dot is fire unless in earth a lot you could try zerkers or knights.

This build has to be played well. You have 3x blinds (2 instant, sig and air 3). You have a lot of defense against ranged but not so much against melee.

With 4x signet you have 100% fire aura if you time them correctly. 6 fire auras, 4x sig, 1x fire 5 and 1x earth leap finisher through fire field.

When you down a warrior you can use swirling winds to stop his interrupt. You can use your 2 blinds to down and you can use your reflect against thieves with the downed damage boost to get then to finish themselves.

Putting the fire wall on a downed foe is quite good as well.

You also have chill up-time a lot. With enough toughness you have a lot of burning (just left the enemies hit you with their autos and dodge / interrupt their heavies)

I use the FGS, personal choice. Cleansing fire if I need a stun break. Although earth 4 is a much better skill without a stun break. Earth 5 is also better then mistform.

Tried a signet bunker… It wasn’t all that bad, but it was better with an offhand dagger than a focus. In the end, though, it just didn’t have enough healing power, and the attunement recharge rate was too slow.

Chaosky.5276:

Follidus.8027:

I don’t understand, scepter is a viable ranged weapon. =/

There’s ways to land dragon’s tooth, but there’s lots of other spells that are good too…

If I can’t effectively fight my enemy from a distance, it’s not a viable ranged weapon. As it is, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatterstone, the lack of offense in the scepter’s earth attunement, and the weak autoattacks make it ineffective at ranged combat.
Scepter/Dagger’s good, but mainly when close to your target (Phoenix, offhand dagger skills), and I don’t want to be forced to adopt a support-oriented playstyle by taking the staff.

Scepter/dagger has effective range options for both sustaining damage and burst but the purpose of the set is to function like many of the dps range/melee sets that exist within the game. Its the jack of all trades of our weapon selection.

Like others have said, I doubt you’re going to see a really strong sole ranged dps option for elementalists especially with the significant AOE leanings of the staff. We have far too much sustain and mobility to be allowed such an option. Like others have said, Necros can deal much more damage purely from ranged but lack our versatility.

Id be happy if 1 or more of this changes were to happen to scepter
1)Shatterstone..you know it,i know it this kitten is bugged.It lets you cast nothing after you activate it and there is no casting bar ..it even lets you dodge at that time without interrupting it..Besides its so bad of an ability that i can count in 1 hand the times ive used it total.
2)Dust Devil..A blind with non existant damage with that casting time and that travelling speed??Another poor excuse of a filler
3)Fire autoattack..its slow,weak and it burns when an ele can burn so reliable..bad autoattack is bad!No one bothers to cast it apart from the game system if you have set it to auto
4)Maybe slightly(and only slightly) increase Dragon’s Tooth landing speed so its harder for a chilled person to avoid it.Increase cd to compensate.I really doubt anyone is getting any benefit from it having only 6 cd anyway.You ll only use it 1 tops when on fire.Number 4 is more of a dream!! than a request

You can nerf stuff all you want but for the good of the game there should be no weapon skills that are NOT good to cast at pretty much any situation like shatterstone..