Guild Wars 2

I wanted to know what the general consensus from elementalist on the all stat vs specialized items.

Some prefer all divinity others prefer specialized like cavalier, or knights or zerker. The reason why I am wondering is that on many other classes I have played and forums I read most people will only grab divinity runes but most do not think all stats are worth it because you aren’t good at any particular thing just medicore at many.

oZii.2864:

but most do not think all stats are worth it because you aren’t good at any particular thing just medicore at many.

Pretty much that. While it’s true that elementalists benefit from a wide variety of stats, you really should still decide whether you’re aiming for direct damage or condition damage and offense or defense, so I don’t recommend taking all Celestial.

Still, a mix isn’t bad. I’d advise not focusing on condition damage as an Ele, our damage conditions (burn and bleed) are either easily maintained duration wise, or outperformed by others such as Necros.

So focus on direct damage, with enough survivability to do said damage. Knight’s is good because it gives you that defensive boost along with power and precision. Valkyrie is also good for the added vitality, along with the critical damage synergy to precision.

A nice mix is to go Knight’s on the armor, Berserker on the weapons, and Celestial on the jewelry. With the recent nerfs to Ele survivability, Azurite Orbs might go well with Knight’s armor for the vitality boost.

A while back I did some number crunching and it turned out that damagewise, PVT gear outperforms Celestial if you use no conditions. If you frequently use conditions (like on D/D) then it pulls ahead slightly.

When it comes to defense, the healing power gives Celestial a slight edge in longer fights but of course again spikes, PVT wins.

However, the interesting part was that PVT and Celestial are so close in efficiency. It makes sense when you consider the fact that they perform the same role (balance of offense/defense) but you’d think due to the higher number of total stats, celestial would be better. But it’s not that much better, if at all.

The main reason it works for the ele though, is that there’s virtually no sitiuation in which we don’t use all of it.

If you play a bunker, which most eles have ended up, celestials make a lot of sense. More than most other specs, bunker eles really do benefit from just about everything on the celestials. Damage is gotten by a few mini-bursts and a some decent damage stacks (bleeds and burns, using power and condi damage). The toughness and vitality is decent, and healing power is very helpful without going full cleric. The precision is helpful with the vigor trait, while the crit damage is just a nice bonus.

You don’t see much a tradeoff because we do use everything. When you choose to increase your PVT, for instance, you lose out on the condition damage, precision, and healing power such that it is about a wash. I still think celestials are better b/c they are more nerf-proof as I am sure major shifts in eles composition aren’t done. People still do play the class.

What I have is a 2x daggers, head & shoulders with power, toughness, vitallity on it. Then the 4 other parts of armor is Cleric’s – which I plan to switch with Zerk, for more damage. But then again, I go with 0/10/0/30/30 for most support and boon duration, hence my choise of runes, the popular 2x major water and 2x superior water and also 2x superior monk.

Even now I think I do some good damage, though not a lot compared to other professions, but I can’t wait til I have more zerk-stats and see how that goes :P

BlackBeard.2873:

If you play a bunker, which most eles have ended up, celestials make a lot of sense. More than most other specs, bunker eles really do benefit from just about everything on the celestials. Damage is gotten by a few mini-bursts and a some decent damage stacks (bleeds and burns, using power and condi damage). The toughness and vitality is decent, and healing power is very helpful without going full cleric. The precision is helpful with the vigor trait, while the crit damage is just a nice bonus.

You don’t see much a tradeoff because we do use everything. When you choose to increase your PVT, for instance, you lose out on the condition damage, precision, and healing power such that it is about a wash. I still think celestials are better b/c they are more nerf-proof as I am sure major shifts in eles composition aren’t done. People still do play the class.

I’m accumulating a set of Celestial jewelry for this reason, as well as the convenience of being able to change my build without having to get all new gear every time. Armor/Weapons/Runes are expensive enough already. Sure, it’ll never be “optimal” in any situation. That’s not really the point. Quality of Life counts, and versatility is a benefit as well.

After looking at celestial and finding a balance I decided that I will grab 4 pieces of celestial jewelry accessories and rings, cav amulet and soldier backpiece.

This is basically the stat setup I came up with

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1c.h1.8.1n.0|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71h.1n.71h.1n.71g.1c.71g.1c.a7.1n.a7|3v.d16.211.d1c.311.d16.211.d1c.311.d16.2u.d1c|0.a1.0.u15b.u56b|15.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

I like to be around 30% damage mitigation, after playing ele alot the past 2 weeks I feel like -40% condition duration a must for me. So far the main things that get me killed are immob, cripple, and chill. I also feel like I don’t have to spec alot of power since might is pretty easy to get. So 1850 was my goal but 1847 works for me. The hp is a bit high at 18k but its more than I currently have and also more armor than I currently have. The healing is nice and will end up slightly more than I currently have.

Really the biggest difference now and when i finish getting the celestial items is a little less power about 20 pts. I would like to get to 2.00 critical damage mark so I may change a dagger to zerker eventually.

I dropped the 2 major water runes for ruby orbs the 10% boon duration isn’t big imo when I looked at the boons I get often the biggest difference was in soothing disruption but its less than a second difference same with swap into earth for protection.