Guild Wars 2

no more evasive arcane and this new elemental surge doesn’t seem so great? Am I missing something? Trying to go to s/d and not sure if there is a good well rounded trait/armor option now?

anyone got something working for em?

Evasive Arcana heal is still nice. Going 20 into this tree will make each attunement a 10s cooldown. You could try something like 0 20 0 30 20 to emphasize condition removal and attack. Or try something like 0 0 20 30 20 to maximize survivabilty.

Jesse.1592:

no more evasive arcane

what

what? why?
15 char

Most people only used Evasive Arcana for the Water and Earth moves. Water for the extra healing (which frankly COULD be accomplished just fine with more points into Water or Earth, either would work) or Earth purely because it is a Blast Finisher (and even that’s not so great). People still liked going into Arcana because it helped lower attunement cooldowns and gave some Boon Duration. Thing is, attunement swapping CAN be mitigated somewhat thanks to Conjures actually being semi-usable now (can use one after you do some big combo, putting lots of your skills on cooldown) and the Grandmaster traits in Arcana aren’t that great now when you take a hard look at them.

I don’t understand, EA is still one our best moves. You get a heal + condi clear, a blast finish + damage from earth, a nice blind in air (great vs. many classes, esp warrior), and a burn (great for fire grab). On top of that, your attunements recharge 10% faster and your boons from swapping last 10% longer. What you get is worth more than 10 points in any other tree will get you.

The only argument I would hear otherwise is maybe if you had 20 in air and really want 10 more in air for more burst, but you are still giving up so much.

For Evasive Arcana, as everyone pointed out.
Water for heal AND 1 condition removal
Earth for Blast Finisher
Air for stomp (in the case your scepter 3 is on cooldown)
Fire is pretty useless, actually, you can use it to set up Fire Grab too.

Elemental Surge is great too for different utilities.
Water/Earth (Chill/Immobilize) are for zoning the enemies.
Air (blind) is great for stomp or canceling enemy attack when you’re unable to dodge, say immobilized by a warrior and he’s going to F1 you with a hammer , since arcanas are instant spells.
Fire (burn) is great to set up Fire Grab.

As you can see, they’re both useful in their own way. But because EA provides a defensive option (water), it’s more popular. Because all eles are weak and squishy right? RGIHT? :p

And don’t underrate blind, it’s the ele best defensive option against dps burst. Imagine warrior’s F1, engie’s shield throw, thief’s s/p stun.

P.S I wrote this really quickly, please pardon the mistakes and the likes

I see nothing wrong with a free heal/cleanse every 10 sec or blast finisher.

dungeon forums are that way —>

30 arcane is still the best PVP/WVW talent, and not just because of 9sec attunement recharge.

mjharrison.3209:

dungeon forums are that way —>

30 arcane is still the best PVP/WVW talent, and not just because of 9sec attunement recharge.

10 in arcana is all we’ve needed for a few patches. D/d lost its luster a while back and all you’re trying to do is hold onto its build.

10 in arcana gives you 12 sec attunement CDs. If your taking fresh air you’re constantly under swiftness/fury and doing good sustained and burst dmg. The boon duration from going 30 into arcana is hardly noticeably when only going with 10.

IMHO take 20 from arcana and relocate it into other trees and try out some more builds.

And pick up a focus with either scepter or dagger and go from there.

Main thing I’d like them to do to make Evasive Arcana MUCH better would be to make all but the Water form of it centre from where you started the dodge. It really would make them far more useful, since generally when you dodge you’re outside the range of what was just hitting you.

whoops yea I goofed. for some reason I couldn’t find evasive arcana and thought maybe the patch ditched it for something else.

so kinda tired of d/d cause well cant really seem to kill much anymore.

tried s/d and want to develop it some more but need some input of what armor and such they are running to not be full glass but still deliver a punch (and be able to take more than one in return).

Anyone got anything?

Jesse.1592:

whoops yea I goofed. for some reason I couldn’t find evasive arcana and thought maybe the patch ditched it for something else.

so kinda tired of d/d cause well cant really seem to kill much anymore.

tried s/d and want to develop it some more but need some input of what armor and such they are running to not be full glass but still deliver a punch (and be able to take more than one in return).

Anyone got anything?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FfEAQJArYhEmibzR4wjEIEFmgLMK0BiHWgDwhlCzAA-jEyAYrASiAoCgZvioxWBLiGr2GT5CpiHStUARMBA-w

You could also go 0 30 0 20 20 for lower cooldown on other attunements as well as vigor on crit.

Depends on your build. I run my D/D always with 30 arcana – I think it is a must on D/D.
On staff I use 20 arcana for Blasting Staff trait.
Scepter builds depend, I often only run 10 there.

For a s/d s/f fresh air build… Run celestial armor and weps. If not celestial weps the run either zerk or valk weps depending on what your crit chance is at.

Keep your crit chance around 30-35%(obviously before fury)… Take a mix of cavaliers,pvt/valk,zerk/valk trinkets. I’m also running all beryl orbs for the extra vit and straight power/crit dmg.

30 in air… Bth, +10% dmg in air, FA
10 in arcana, V or VI if you want more dodges… Is rather have the perma swiftness from being able to use FA
Put the other 30 as you see fit.

I’m around 16.5k hp/1800-2400toughness/2900power/35%cc/105%cd
Scepter/focus for wvw/pvp all the way.

Utilities are your choice for more def or burst. Personally I run ER, LF, arcane shield, mistform, FG for mobility

Treborlavok.3504:

mjharrison.3209:

dungeon forums are that way —>

30 arcane is still the best PVP/WVW talent, and not just because of 9sec attunement recharge.

10 in arcana is all we’ve needed for a few patches. D/d lost its luster a while back and all you’re trying to do is hold onto its build.

10 in arcana gives you 12 sec attunement CDs. If your taking fresh air you’re constantly under swiftness/fury and doing good sustained and burst dmg. The boon duration from going 30 into arcana is hardly noticeably when only going with 10.

IMHO take 20 from arcana and relocate it into other trees and try out some more builds.

And pick up a focus with either scepter or dagger and go from there.

I can only surmise you’re some kind of PVE player in which case I’d say you can literally spec anything and still faceroll all the content in this game.

I almost exclusively solo and smallgroup roam in WVW. In that context, 30 arcane is easily the best talent to base a build around. Focus isn’t a viable roaming choice and neither is a a GC fresh air gimmick build (except for lolz).

mjharrison.3209:

Treborlavok.3504:

mjharrison.3209:

dungeon forums are that way —>

30 arcane is still the best PVP/WVW talent, and not just because of 9sec attunement recharge.

10 in arcana is all we’ve needed for a few patches. D/d lost its luster a while back and all you’re trying to do is hold onto its build.

10 in arcana gives you 12 sec attunement CDs. If your taking fresh air you’re constantly under swiftness/fury and doing good sustained and burst dmg. The boon duration from going 30 into arcana is hardly noticeably when only going with 10.

IMHO take 20 from arcana and relocate it into other trees and try out some more builds.

And pick up a focus with either scepter or dagger and go from there.

I can only surmise you’re some kind of PVE player in which case I’d say you can literally spec anything and still faceroll all the content in this game.

I almost exclusively solo and smallgroup roam in WVW. In that context, 30 arcane is easily the best talent to base a build around. Focus isn’t a viable roaming choice and neither is a a GC fresh air gimmick build (except for lolz).

Go ahead and waste 20 extra points into arcana. FA is hardly a gimmick. It’s viable with dagger or scepter mainhand. 10 in arcana gives you 12 sec attunement swaps, with FA your constantly in and out of it and don’t even notice the 3 second cd difference from having 30 in arcana.

30 arcane not worth it anymore?

I refuse to spend more than 10 points until they fix lingering elements.

Perhaps because I’ve never seen it working, I am confused on what lingering elements was supposed to do in the first place. Could anyone explain?

PlatypusRex.3428:

Perhaps because I’ve never seen it working, I am confused on what lingering elements was supposed to do in the first place. Could anyone explain?

Nobody does.

It depends on how you like to play. Nothing in the game is mandatory people just say that.

You take traits because you like them and feel they will help your build. If you like traits in Arcana take traits in Arcana. Simple

Evasive arcana as a Grandmaster trait(looked at objectively forgetting about D/D spec etc) is a good trait. I think it could be at Master or Grandmaster tier as I put it on par with deceptive evasion (mesmer clone on dodge) in terms of usefulness.

So you take the trait if you like it and you think it fits your builds purpose. There is no right or wrong here as some people are trying to make it sound as if your bad if you take or don’t take the trait. I have tried every trait so try them all if you don’t feel you need 30 Arcana then don’t run 30 arcana. It’s not like respeccing is expensive and there is the mist for testing.

oZii, those are some very good points. However, one major problem with ele is that we have so FEW traits that are worth taking, and of those few, 4 show up in arcana. EA does so much to enhance ele’s strengths and mitigate its weaknesses (even if they are still glaringly large).

I have presonally always tried to find some other build than

0-10-0-30-30 (classic bunker)
0-20-0-20-30 (s/d burst)
0-0-10-30-30 (staff bunker with earths embrace)
0-0-20-20-30 (staff bunker with rock solid)

but any build i could come up with was far less survivable for a minor damage increase. Especially because of the massive condition bursts (6+ in 1-2 seconds) and immobilize spam I am always running with cleansing water in WvW. So currently for me 30 water and 30 arcane are hardpoints that I don’t want to miss (and the replacements in the other lines imho don’t make up for the lack of survivability and team condition remove).

Columbo.5924:

I have presonally always tried to find some other build than

0-10-0-30-30 (classic bunker)
0-20-0-20-30 (s/d burst)
0-0-10-30-30 (staff bunker with earths embrace)
0-0-20-20-30 (staff bunker with rock solid)

but any build i could come up with was far less survivable for a minor damage increase. Especially because of the massive condition bursts (6+ in 1-2 seconds) and immobilize spam I am always running with cleansing water in WvW. So currently for me 30 water and 30 arcane are hardpoints that I don’t want to miss (and the replacements in the other lines imho don’t make up for the lack of survivability and team condition remove).

the total lack of fire seems weird to me. To survive, you need to kill stuff before it kills you, right?

And I really wish the fire tree would help with that, but you can easily check whats there and find out that it doesn’t.

FrownyClown.8402:

Jesse.1592:

whoops yea I goofed. for some reason I couldn’t find evasive arcana and thought maybe the patch ditched it for something else.

so kinda tired of d/d cause well cant really seem to kill much anymore.

tried s/d and want to develop it some more but need some input of what armor and such they are running to not be full glass but still deliver a punch (and be able to take more than one in return).

Anyone got anything?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FfEAQJArYhEmibzR4wjEIEFmgLMK0BiHWgDwhlCzAA-jEyAYrASiAoCgZvioxWBLiGr2GT5CpiHStUARMBA-w

You could also go 0 30 0 20 20 for lower cooldown on other attunements as well as vigor on crit.

I like this build and gearing setup, thank you for this. Good amount of dmg with some nice toughness. My problem with the build, and with using scepter and the 10% air trait dmg is that…. scepter has deplorable damage in air. Most of your damage is coming from the fire attunement which makes it seem less than optimal to use scepter in this situation instead of daggers where you can spam 1 in air a few times before swapping out and get some good dmg on someone.

Bhima.9518:

FrownyClown.8402:

Jesse.1592:

whoops yea I goofed. for some reason I couldn’t find evasive arcana and thought maybe the patch ditched it for something else.

so kinda tired of d/d cause well cant really seem to kill much anymore.

tried s/d and want to develop it some more but need some input of what armor and such they are running to not be full glass but still deliver a punch (and be able to take more than one in return).

Anyone got anything?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FfEAQJArYhEmibzR4wjEIEFmgLMK0BiHWgDwhlCzAA-jEyAYrASiAoCgZvioxWBLiGr2GT5CpiHStUARMBA-w

You could also go 0 30 0 20 20 for lower cooldown on other attunements as well as vigor on crit.

I like this build and gearing setup, thank you for this. Good amount of dmg with some nice toughness. My problem with the build, and with using scepter and the 10% air trait dmg is that…. scepter has deplorable damage in air. Most of your damage is coming from the fire attunement which makes it seem less than optimal to use scepter in this situation instead of daggers where you can spam 1 in air a few times before swapping out and get some good dmg on someone.

The bulk of the damage comes from your 15 air trait and your air 2 skill. You could sub it for the one with air trait too.

Columbo.5924:

And I really wish the fire tree would help with that, but you can easily check whats there and find out that it doesn’t.

They’ll prolly add more Conjure traits in the fire tree in the next patch!

On a serious note, as mentioned by someone else above, any build will and can work in a PVE setting. Right now I’m running 30/0/0/30/10. And I can easily tweak some traits here and there either for conjures, condi removal on regen for support, or more damage multipliers depending on the situation.

Gallrvaghn,
It’s PvE. Just run full power and crit. Why do people worry about PvE survival, as if dying in PvE happens? Seriously, if someone is worried about dying in PvE, then they are with the wrong group.

Jacks.5357,
I was one of the pioneer players you could say. I tried running a champ train shortly after game release. I ran dual daggers with ultimate speed before that nerf. I ran full Arcane when few would bother with a no-stat line because everyone was berserker for staff and fgs. Back then Lingering Attunement turned me into an incredible player. Really, my skillz was tied to that. It allowed 100% uptime for all attunement bonuses for capable players. I started showing people. It became a buzz. ANet nerfed it on the next patch. That was the start of the “kill ele” campaign.