Guild Wars 2

^Tis true. There is a pretty noticeable difference when im on siege and using condition gear. Bleeds on arrow carts and such hit a lot harder.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Zephyrus, also, someone said here that condition damage stats translate to siege damage. Do you know if that is true?

Yes for siege weapon condition damage so treb poison and ac bleeds benefit from condition damage. But I wouldn’t recommend it for ascended staff stats. If you use siege that much, just have a condition damage armor set for normal ACs and treb cows. You can also use tanky condition builds on d/d or s/d eles.

use full zerker if u not play on my server and toughness stuffs if we play together.

I see allot of people disagreeing on each other while they take their own situation as the situation all staff eles will be in. I’m playing on UW with one of the few guilds that actually did not drop out just before season one or during the first weeks. The groups we face tend to have 2 or 3 times our numbers during prime time. If I would wear zerker I would be melted in no time. So I’m wearing full celestial. The thing I’m doing: putting down support fields, placing area denies, slow/immobilize enemies and throw some tagging around with meteor shower so I actually get loot. According to some people who are playing full zerker this would make me useless because I would lack damage, I however stay alive during the fight while if I would run full zerker in the situation I’m in at the moment, I would most likely die in the first min of every fight, because I do not have a massive melee train to protect me. The thing is just If you play a staff ele, look at your own situation and build your armor around that. Since a living ele is more useful as a dead ele.

PS. if all could think also about the situation other people might be in a discussion like this would have way more benefit as whit the current I’m right and all others who do not agree on me are wrong.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Zephryus, I’m thinking eles don’t do that much damage in the zerg anyway. I’m seem to be out there throwing heals and boons, and basically leeching WxP so I can build up my siege traits. I’m not actually killing much except by pitching in a little in emergencies. Is a zerker build going to change that or just make me squisher and more of an agro foo?

It’s really dependent on builds. I haven’t counted but I would estimate my Meteor shower does around 80k+ damage if it hits a train/blob in the right place and that’s just 1 skill. You won’t be hitting individual players for much more than 4-9k but all your main skills are AoE so add it up…

Zerker build does over 75% more damage than full PVT gear but also has probably 1/3 or 1/4 the raw survivability. Your survival is in skills, utilities, and traits (earth 3, fire 4, all CCs, mist form, teleport, 1 other defensive utility, best condition removal heal in the game, and many traits in earth, water or arcana trait lines). That’s really what makes the set possible.

You’re a pure backline with combat mobility, projectile reflection, stab/stun breaks, invulnerability, and lots of condition removals (depends on traits). Also, going down in the backline is nothing like going down in the front line.

On average I’ll probably die once an hour or less while zerging with a pub zerg using roughly 2/3s zerker, 1/3 celestial. I’ll also admit if I had used a zerker-heavy set in the first 50 or 100 hours of playing WvW, I would have been pure rally bait because it’s all about reading where the enemy train is moving during the fight.

In short, if you’re going down in the middle of many of the fights as zerker, you need some more survivability. If for some reason you need to be glued to the commander tag in fights, then yes, definitely much more PVT/celestial/tank gear.

I go pure zerker.. Ignore all this nonsense that pure seeker Eles are useless in wvw. And just rally bait. Being that heavy damaged nuker can turn the tide for your Zerg.

Yes, it’s a difficult role to play, but as an Ele you are probably used to fighting uphill battles all your life.

I’m very rarely rally bait and its all about predicting the opposing Zerg’s movements and playing smartly to avoid getting downed. If I get focus fired yes I will go down, but I typically only die when we are outnumbered and almost never when we are equally matched or with superior numbers. Stay at the back of your Zerg and move up smartly to lay down those AOE and you will rake in the kills, turn the tide of the battle, and get lots of loot.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Zerkers just seems really stupid for a squishy support build. Need explaination for why that would work.

Like, you get killed just a few seconds slower, yay! You wasted other stats so you lived another 2 seconds. Wheee!

Staff Eles are squishy no matter what you do, so might as well emphasize your best trait and specialize: by being a walking nuke. You’re especially great at siege attacks, as your meteor swarm is the best tool to destroy enemy arrow carts on the battlements. Most classes can’t reach those hidden ACs but meteor swarm gets them all easily and deals massive damage to anyone on the battlements. I’ve killed many idiots who didn’t think to retreat from the battlements with these swarms.

Like Grim said Eles are walking siege. Sure you have only 11k hp, but if you play it right most enemies in a Zerg will ignore you as they only focus on the closest enemy at hand. It seems that since most people have Show All Enemy tags on in options, they only have time to check the foremost opponents in a big zerk battle and lose sight of you in the back lines. Use this to your advantage. It helps I think if you have a really small Ele, like an Asuran, people will just ignore you.

Word of warning : stealth burst thieves are your hard counter. I die more from them than any other opponent in wvw.

I use Celestial w/ Superior Divinity runes. Accessories are mixed ascendeds, and I’m going with Wupwup as my ascended staff. Basically this build http://intothemists.com/guides/107-staff_build_for_organized_groups.

So I am a lifelong staff ele, and I am not really any good, but I think absolutely, you want to do everything possible to max your damage. I like to sit in the back of the zerg laying down meteor showers, chills, stuns, water fields etc. I am a kinda small Sylvari and people don’t always see me.

A zerg only needs a couple staff eles, but they can be hugely effective when the enemy ignores them. Nothing is more fun than watching an enemy zerg stack up for might , laying a metor shower on them and then having your outnumbered group wipe them because of all the damage they just took.

Expect to die 100% of the time in 1v1 though.

Totally depend on your build and playstyle
1) If you have strong melee zerg and tend to play backliner with more fire trait – Berzerker gear is what you’re looking for

2) If you wanna play close combat supportive buffbot role like me – i still insist power vit toughness gear is what you’re looking for. Do note that elemental attument provide buff to “close targets” Cleansing/Stability that you provide from elemental swapping, you gotta be in close combat meaning toughness and vitality is a must to survive. Power alone of 2600+ is already pack-a-punch without the need of crit% crit dmg at all.

Celestial can be good all arounder but still i dont like the concept of having a bit of everything. Cause even with my full PVT gears and all the buff 24k hp, sometimes i still instantly die by focused fire burst thieves. I cant believe you can keep yourself alive having anything less than 21k hp even with lessen armor. (Also depend on which server you’re playing against also)

I dont really feel the healing stat is justified. We only have one blast. Your job is just to provide water fields, no matter the healing stat.

Really your best bet is to reroll as a Guardian since they’re far superior siege users.

tbh why leave the seige to cast a water field?
just keep hitting those four digit numbers

when i commanding i always hunt down the backline first as any other commander. if u play zerker in the backline you are just a free loot bag. to heal a met shower is 2 dodge roll to a guardian.
if i not commanding and i see that 3-4k dmg flash on i will focus on that nabs. once i killed 3 eles with 2 hits. lol.
the escaping, positioning take time and lower the dmg. grab as much toughness as possible, stack to your buddys, use team speak and heal, stun, buff, aoe everybody

Here is one of the video showing WvW staff ele play through
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyRsSk4l0T4

Tajz.9826:

Totally depend on your build and playstyle
1) If you have strong melee zerg and tend to play backliner with more fire trait – Berzerker gear is what you’re looking for

2) If you wanna play close combat supportive buffbot role like me – i still insist power vit toughness gear is what you’re looking for. Do note that elemental attument provide buff to “close targets” Cleansing/Stability that you provide from elemental swapping, you gotta be in close combat meaning toughness and vitality is a must to survive. Power alone of 2600+ is already pack-a-punch without the need of crit% crit dmg at all.

Celestial can be good all arounder but still i dont like the concept of having a bit of everything. Cause even with my full PVT gears and all the buff 24k hp, sometimes i still instantly die by focused fire burst thieves. I cant believe you can keep yourself alive having anything less than 21k hp even with lessen armor. (Also depend on which server you’re playing against also)

I dont really feel the healing stat is justified. We only have one blast. Your job is just to provide water fields, no matter the healing stat.

Only 1 blast? The build that I run has 2 blasts that I can use for my own waterfield and I could also run Arcane Wave for an extra blast if I needed to. On topic: staff eles are casters and therefore shouldn’t move with the melee. Full zerk, zerk + valk + celestial mix always works well. Just stay out of red circles.

DanyK.3842:

Tajz.9826:

Totally depend on your build and playstyle
1) If you have strong melee zerg and tend to play backliner with more fire trait – Berzerker gear is what you’re looking for

2) If you wanna play close combat supportive buffbot role like me – i still insist power vit toughness gear is what you’re looking for. Do note that elemental attument provide buff to “close targets” Cleansing/Stability that you provide from elemental swapping, you gotta be in close combat meaning toughness and vitality is a must to survive. Power alone of 2600+ is already pack-a-punch without the need of crit% crit dmg at all.

Celestial can be good all arounder but still i dont like the concept of having a bit of everything. Cause even with my full PVT gears and all the buff 24k hp, sometimes i still instantly die by focused fire burst thieves. I cant believe you can keep yourself alive having anything less than 21k hp even with lessen armor. (Also depend on which server you’re playing against also)

I dont really feel the healing stat is justified. We only have one blast. Your job is just to provide water fields, no matter the healing stat.

Only 1 blast? The build that I run has 2 blasts that I can use for my own waterfield and I could also run Arcane Wave for an extra blast if I needed to. On topic: staff eles are casters and therefore shouldn’t move with the melee. Full zerk, zerk + valk + celestial mix always works well. Just stay out of red circles.

In reality u cant use the earth element to blast as it’s too slow for a fast pacing game. Arcane wave and Arcane3Earthdodge are the only viable instant blast staff ele have. (Theoritically u have 3 blasts but only 2 is viable at practice) I dont really agree that you shouldnt run with melee. Sometimes u need, and during those time, you will need more PVT. Leave the range dps to necro. WvW ele staff can provide a much better buff/Stability/cond removal if trait correctly. Staying range wont give your team those buffs.

We’re talking about staff. If you want to support the melee pack just run d/d auramancer with maxed boon duration.

I am fairly new to ele and I was thinking of taking full Carrion gear because staff ele has a lot of burn and bleed you should give it a try I really like it so far and it seems like my team is doing better than it does before.

Sounds like we got lots of options as a Staff Ele. Personally I run a mix of stuff that does give relatively high Healing Power. I like to blast my own waterfields. Plus Regeneration also scales with HP.

But I didn’t really sacrifice too much Power to do it. I sacrificed Cond. Dmg. of which I have none and Vitality.

Read “traited for full siege” as an ele and was a bit confused.

Then saw OP was from TC, and everything suddenly made sense. So here’s my advice:

I’d definitely recommend a full carrion set, maybe with some rabid trinkets thrown in there because why the hell not. Go full Rune of the Svanir because I’ve seen a lot of people using that from TC lately and if you get focused while on your siege you can turn into a block of ice for 5 seconds and survive! Sigil of Sanctuary pairs really well with Svanir runes because as you rack up tags and kills with your siege you’ll also be getting closer to ANOTHER 5 seconds of invulnerability after your 26th kill, which will really help mitigate damage that you will be taking at that point. It’s like having two separate endure pains available as an ele, and we all know how OP endure pain is from complaints on the war forum!!!! Ele has access to a ton of conditions (burn, bleed, poison from AC, cripple from AC, bleed from AC, chill from cannon, bleed from cannon, bleed from ballista, cripple from oil, burn from mortar, poison from treb cow (cow is highest DPS in my experience and you should always be on treb cowing if you have the chance)), so condi dmg and condi duration stacking is definitely the way to go for staff ele, especially since you’re a TC player and it’s pretty much assumed you will be spending 90%+ of your time in a tower or keep manning siege.

Don’t worry about dropping water fields as that’s not your job, you worked hard to max out those siege mastery so leave that job to some noob who didn’t properly use his WvW mastery points.

Maybe he’s an otherkin and siege is his real true soul? Check your privilege, geez.

deathTouch.9706:

Read “traited for full siege” as an ele and was a bit confused.

Then saw OP was from TC, and everything suddenly made sense. So here’s my advice:

I’d definitely recommend a full carrion set, maybe with some rabid trinkets thrown in there because why the hell not. Go full Rune of the Svanir because I’ve seen a lot of people using that from TC lately and if you get focused while on your siege you can turn into a block of ice for 5 seconds and survive! Sigil of Sanctuary pairs really well with Svanir runes because as you rack up tags and kills with your siege you’ll also be getting closer to ANOTHER 5 seconds of invulnerability after your 26th kill, which will really help mitigate damage that you will be taking at that point. It’s like having two separate endure pains available as an ele, and we all know how OP endure pain is from complaints on the war forum!!!! Ele has access to a ton of conditions (burn, bleed, poison from AC, cripple from AC, bleed from AC, chill from cannon, bleed from cannon, bleed from ballista, cripple from oil, burn from mortar, poison from treb cow (cow is highest DPS in my experience and you should always be on treb cowing if you have the chance)), so condi dmg and condi duration stacking is definitely the way to go for staff ele, especially since you’re a TC player and it’s pretty much assumed you will be spending 90%+ of your time in a tower or keep manning siege.

Don’t worry about dropping water fields as that’s not your job, you worked hard to max out those siege mastery so leave that job to some noob who didn’t properly use his WvW mastery points.

This is some of the best advice I have ever read on the forums. I am going to change my set to rabid tonight and prepare for pain through conditions. Imagine dropping bombs with meteor shower of 1k a piece then burning damage with another 1k. Imagine the QQ on the forums immediately after. I cannot wait to bathe in enemy tears after they feel the full wrath of my condition spam.

Boonprot.6274:

I am fairly new to ele and I was thinking of taking full Carrion gear because staff ele has a lot of burn and bleed you should give it a try I really like it so far and it seems like my team is doing better than it does before.

I tried this. Full Rabid is better than Full Carrion in my opinion, because Full Rabid gives you toughness, which currently synergizes with Diamond Skin, giving you a much better condition stat. On paper, it looks great, especially eruption, which can deal a kitten load of damage in one burst.

Then I went Full Zerker, and never looked back. For Elementalist, raw damage is far more powerful than conditions, especially in the current meta where everyone is prepared to deal with conditions.

The main problem with staff condimentalist is that your main bleed option, which is eruption, will almost never hit anyone outside of a big zerg setting, and your burn option while great (Flame Burst) is limited to just one really great staff skill and some utilities. We have no poison, no confusion, no torment so we are a bit lacking in ways to really apply conditions.

I use a berserker staff ele build for WvW simply because I’ve tried rolling with a tanky toughness/vitality build, but the damage is quite average and even with high toughness, I don’t notice any difference because the ele’s armour is so paper thin anyway – I’d rather deal massive AOE and kill multiple players in a couple seconds than to deal average damage and not completely K.O multiple players at once.

Yes it’s extremely squishy, and I do die a lot, but the benefits for me personally outweigh those defeats. There have been so many times where I have been able to take out arrow carts and other siege in 1-2 meteor strikes (superior can sometimes take 3 or 4), and down 6+ players at a time (It’s A LOT of fun and the loot bags come-a-flyin’)

My berserker ele in WvW is now rank 369, or ‘Bronze Footman’, and going berserker works really well for me. As soon as I get another 22 ranks to complete my Defense Against Guards rank for more vitality, I’ll go for maxing out Siege Bunker for that extra defense against siege – because arrow carts melt me, but when I can avoid them (whether through dodging or mist form in near death scenario’s), I can simply meteor them and wipe them out.

I recommend berserker staff ele for WvW if you don’t mind the deaths/squishyness, because there is PLENTY of loot and ranks to be gained from it. In the future I might try a more balanced build, but in the meantime, owning the cabbage out of my enemies is much more fun.

Really it boiled down to whom you encountered with. If you encounter tier1 server with horde of zergs stack retaliation and have way too many enemies outnumbering you. Wearing full berzerk will backfire you. You will instantly dead if u meteo those retaliation group. Even one good dps thief can oneshot you in that level of play. But if u aint in those situation, i think zerker will shine with proper skilled players.

To be honest im not really big fan of staff condition dmg and healing. Also to say staff ele cant be close combat with melee is just wrong. D/D is better in that role yes but staff ele got ton more CCs and more versatile evenif it doesnt provide the group aura buff but stability/CC/heal/cleanse alone top up everything. I still insist PVT if u are in the top level of competition with tons of organized guild groups.

This is pretty much how you’ll be playing Zerker staff ele behind the zerg just raining fireballs and doing massive aoe damage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORUOPqhuLnY

Tajz.9826:

Really it boiled down to whom you encountered with. If you encounter tier1 server with horde of zergs stack retaliation and have way too many enemies outnumbering you. Wearing full berzerk will backfire you. You will instantly dead if u meteo those retaliation group. Even one good dps thief can oneshot you in that level of play. But if u aint in those situation, i think zerker will shine with proper skilled players.

To be honest im not really big fan of staff condition dmg and healing. Also to say staff ele cant be close combat with melee is just wrong. D/D is better in that role yes but staff ele got ton more CCs and more versatile evenif it doesnt provide the group aura buff but stability/CC/heal/cleanse alone top up everything. I still insist PVT if u are in the top level of competition with tons of organized guild groups.

Have you even tried zerker ele vs T1 zergs or just theory crafting? I’ve been running it the last 4 weeks vs T1. It’s really easy. Usually they all run in a line with hammers and low damage PvT gear. Sidestep a little and it’s k or mist form or tele for ‘oh kitten’ moments. Today in 2 hours running with the Mag Badge/K-train I got something between 150-250 kills. Deaths: 0. Down: 0. Idk how to explain that either.

Retal means something against tanky frontline or midline builds because it ignores armor and they are already taking constant damage for the pressure to mean something. Ele has enough small heals for retal to mean almost nothing except stop casting a few seconds to heal up.

The only 1 shot that ever happened was a rifle warrior, I think from JQ a couple weeks ago. That was a 14k damage kill shot. Thieves can’t 1 shot and they’ll rarely reach the backline of a zerg anyway. They can 2 or 3 shot but it’s not going to happen much in practice. I do look forward to dueling BG’s thieves this week though

Zephyrus.9680:

Tajz.9826:

Really it boiled down to whom you encountered with. If you encounter tier1 server with horde of zergs stack retaliation and have way too many enemies outnumbering you. Wearing full berzerk will backfire you. You will instantly dead if u meteo those retaliation group. Even one good dps thief can oneshot you in that level of play. But if u aint in those situation, i think zerker will shine with proper skilled players.

To be honest im not really big fan of staff condition dmg and healing. Also to say staff ele cant be close combat with melee is just wrong. D/D is better in that role yes but staff ele got ton more CCs and more versatile evenif it doesnt provide the group aura buff but stability/CC/heal/cleanse alone top up everything. I still insist PVT if u are in the top level of competition with tons of organized guild groups.

Have you even tried zerker ele vs T1 zergs or just theory crafting? I’ve been running it the last 4 weeks vs T1. It’s really easy. Usually they all run in a line with hammers and low damage PvT gear. Sidestep a little and it’s k or mist form or tele for ‘oh kitten’ moments. Today in 2 hours running with the Mag Badge/K-train I got something between 150-250 kills. Deaths: 0. Down: 0. Idk how to explain that either.

Retal means something against tanky frontline or midline builds because it ignores armor and they are already taking constant damage for the pressure to mean something. Ele has enough small heals for retal to mean almost nothing except stop casting a few seconds to heal up.

The only 1 shot that ever happened was a rifle warrior, I think from JQ a couple weeks ago. That was a 14k damage kill shot. Thieves can’t 1 shot and they’ll rarely reach the backline of a zerg anyway. They can 2 or 3 shot but it’s not going to happen much in practice. I do look forward to dueling BG’s thieves this week though

Well i havent try zerker in tier1 for ages. The reason for that is because my playstyle aint backlinr anymore im now more frontline/midliner so pvt is the only way to go. Even with 24k hp full armor sometimes with some guilds that have proper called target party, thieves will instant kill me without a chance to heal so thats why im not yet going back to zerker build yet

That’s because you’re fighting front mid line. Try going back to the rear and you’ll be fine as long as your zerg isn’t losing.

Staff ele has to be in close combat to throw waterfields and boons like might on the commander.

The waterfields actually seem to work pretty well. I have been suprised at how well people around me including the commander have survived in some big t1 fights in the last few weeks. I feel like I am running through ww3 with a squirtgun, but somehow it works.

My armor and weapon are elite apothecary (toughness, healing power and condition damage. ) I’m using runes of Melandru and a sigil of energy. Jewelry adds vitality, power and condition damage.

Based on what I have read so far, I think I may stick with the apothecary ascended staff. That’s on the asumption healing power affects outgoing heals, and I need all the toughness I can get.

I really appreciate all the input on this question. It is interesting how different people have approached playing a WvW ele.

I run with the zerg about 25% of the time, btw, sentry the other 75% mainly because so few other people will do sentry and it makes such a big difference to the server.

I running most time with celestial armor with zerker trinkets and zerker staff. I have full zerker set in my inv and use it sometimes when I’m bored and fights are to easy. But in harder fights or in attacking good defended tower/keep with tons of arrow carts full zerker is just to squishy.

There is a good video on YouTube by Isaiah Cartwright about playing an ele. He recommends over and over using a mix of stats, ie celestial/wupwup. I don’t understand what he is getting at with that. It seems like you would just be getting less of what you need and more of what you don’t use. But he is the lead designer for this game, he would probably know what would work.

I believe elementalist is at the moment really strong and its very very useful to go full celestial as a staff user!
When you need additional dmg, just take it from buff food or bloodlust sigils!

I would like to share my build, its a really sustainable and useful build which also can deal alot of damage!

Oh, and when you play celestial, I pretty much believe that you should take the toxic sharpening stone!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhMmmbwR5QlDAkHnYCLjChUeMzO2A-jkBBYjAEEAJfFRjtqpIasqaER16aYSB4nwK-w

Yeah, the video emphasizes that eles are intended to take advantage of the full range of stats. I can’t see it yet, but that is what the designers say. Eles are not desiged to be fast, as far as how long it takes skills to activate or recharge. But eles are supposed to take good advantage of a mix of stats on boosts. Isaiah said starcakes like three or four times. LOL

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Yeah, the video emphasizes that eles are intended to take advantage of the full range of stats. I can’t see it yet, but that is what the designers say. Eles are not desiged to be fast, as far as how long it takes skills to activate or recharge. But eles are supposed to take good advantage of a mix of stats on boosts. Isaiah said starcakes like three or four times. LOL

There are many way of playing staff ele in WvW. If you find the right composition between your trait, your gear, and your playstyle, there are many ways.
Still talking about stat;
Healing – Majority of the healing done to the team come from multiple blast from other players not from yourselve. Thus i dont feel it’s a needed to push healing stat further
Condition – Not that many conditions we have as a staff ele compared to D/D ele or necro. Thus i dont feel a need to gear up specifically for condition and its duration at all. If you wanna go condition, play Dagger instead. Condition dmg stat is very kitten on Staff ele
Perception – Crit chance% may be great but i still find it slight overrated. Try having power2600 with all the buffs without any perception stat at all. Your normal meteo hit still hit like a truck.

Playstyle & Trait also related a lot. If u trait for elemental attument with stability buff and cleansing water, make sure you group up with your melee team while pushing as there is minimal range for those elemental swap buff. If you just stand long range and switch, nobody is going to get those benefit so might as well remove elemental attument from your trait and put it something else. And if you serious on moving together with melee pack to provide ele swap buff, then you gotta be serious of your vitality/toughness status as well to survive.

Remember it’s also depend on which server you play against. If you use full zerk and able to survive in any circumstance, then by all means use it! Also remember one basic rule – Dead dps = 0 dps. That’s where the idea of adding more toughness/vitality. How many to add? Really depends

Tajz, I have noticed other players engaged in battle are not paying as much attention to blasting waterfields as I am, especially when I am the one casting them. Even if I call it out in voice comm, half the zerg won’t hear it because they are not in the channel. Most of the rest are too busy with something else. Most of the healing I do is probably going to come directly from me – my stats, my timing, and my position in the zerg right next to the commander.

Offensively condition damage works for me in WvW through siege. (I actually think condition damage works pretty well in PvE too since npcs are predictable and usually won’t remove conditions.)

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Tajz, I have noticed other players engaged in battle are not paying as much attention to blasting waterfields as I am, especially when I am the one casting them. Even if I call it out in voice comm, half the zerg won’t hear it because they are not in the channel. Most of the rest are too busy with something else. Most of the healing I do is probably going to come directly from me – my stats, my timing, and my position in the zerg right next to the commander.

Offensively condition damage works for me in WvW through siege. (I actually think condition damage works pretty well in PvE too since npcs are predictable and usually won’t remove conditions.)

Well as said it’s also depend on who you up against and who you with. If you’re in WvW guild (like mine), there will be many ppl who blasts your waterfield that’s for sure and the cmd will always call for water field. Thus at this case, healing stat is not really important as it doesn’t affect other players’ blasts. But if you are roamers or PUG following without proper communication, may be the build idea gotta change around

I’m not really buying idea of condition staff ele. But i do agree that if you have condition gear already it’s easier to swap to D/D for maximum condition performance so worth having condition gear anyway.

In RPGs, specialization is always the key. The ones who don’t,mend up being middle of the roaders who don’t amount to anything. Isaiah may be a designer, but that doesn’t make him omniscient. A lot of designers never realized what their creation was going to become; look at Richard Garfield and Magic The Gathering. A lot of his assumptions about how the game should work were completely wrong.

You can specialize in being a high stat all around person, but really what role are you going to fill? Even commanders specialize.

Tajz also explains a lot of good things. You don’t need Healing Power at all, as heals should come from blasting water fields. It’s just so much more efficient. The staff healing skills In Water are very weak, the only one worth anything, Healing Rain, has too long a cooldown. Water 3 is a joke, it lasts like, 1 second. Water 2 is where the healing’s at — if you want to heal, keep that up all the time.

Condition — it’s an ok stat but Eles do far more damage with raw power in fire. I’ve played a staff Ele with full carrion and full rabid sets, the damage output just doesn’t compare because our condition skills are very limited (eruption and flame burst being the only ones). And eruption is a pain to get to hit.

Running full berserk gear my power is at 3,400 unbuffed. Goes up to about 3,800 with food, sigil stacks and all. I’d rather hit like a truck than do whatever middling the road role the lead designer wants me to be.

Basicly Mochann summed it all. I also not agreed that Celestial is a good way to go for staff ele. Even D/D i’m still doubting as some stat like healing aint worth taking at all.

Here is my build just to share:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmkbwxyQlDAEFvYyQRIjUeMzO2A-jUCBofBhEBI7pIasltRr6KIlXhVZDT9iIq2erIa1SB8wyI-w
High power for pure raw dps. High Vit/Toughness for surviving Tier1 megazergs. Boon duration>all. Trait Stability/Cleansing buff every 8sec for friend = Teamplayer. Food can be change if you want.

My playstyle is to stick with melee team, stability buff/cleanse them up. (even leading the charge) Collide enemy & CC them then move sideway out of aoe rings. Ppl used to target an ele first, if i can draw off 3-5 guys from our main group to target me that’s also plus. Plus with high power i can still hit like a truck too.

BTW: I’m used to be full zerker before too but now since i’m in the WvW guild environment so they demanded more of a support build and with my current playstyle i cant survive with pure zerker anymore Having played pure zerker before, it really perfect my skill rotation to the max because you’re so low on hp/armor so every seconds every skill count. I’m recommending any ele to start up with pure zerker as a practice too!

Tajz.9826:

Basicly Mochann summed it all. I also not agreed that Celestial is a good way to go for staff ele. Even D/D i’m still doubting as some stat like healing aint worth taking at all.

Here is my build just to share:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmkbwxyQlDAEFvYyQRIjUeMzO2A-jUCBofBhEBI7pIasltRr6KIlXhVZDT9iIq2erIa1SB8wyI-w
High power for pure raw dps. High Vit/Toughness for surviving Tier1 megazergs. Boon duration>all. Trait Stability/Cleansing buff every 8sec for friend = Teamplayer. Food can be change if you want.

My playstyle is to stick with melee team, stability buff/cleanse them up. (even leading the charge) Collide enemy & CC them then move sideway out of aoe rings. Ppl used to target an ele first, if i can draw off 3-5 guys from our main group to target me that’s also plus. Plus with high power i can still hit like a truck too.

+1 that support build. It’s the traits I would run if I ever used a melee train ele.

Though I would think half celestial and half ptv gear would be slightly higher damage and better supporting (healing power) while having equal or better sustainability and slightly lower burst survival. Since you have 2/3 blasts for your own water fields, 3 heal skill+water dodge, and 3 different regeneration sources (2 regen boon and regen trait thingy), healing power is a strong stat to have. It will have better survival returns over the vitality from just a couple skill rotations, unless you’re specced 100% against burst rather than sustained damage.

Also since you actually have 3 different sources of burning as a frontline ele (fire 3, 4, and dodge), condition damage is a nice damage supplement (while it’s terrible on backline).

Both condition damage and healing power are linear stats so you see equal improvements at low numbers as at high numbers, assuming you’re using the same skills anyway.