Guild Wars 2

I’m up to the Orr area in exploration. Long story short I’m getting annihilated by pretty much everything. Using scepter/dagger with a fresh air build and berserker gear. I’m wondering if there’s a different trait build or weapon setup I can use to make this area easier. I plowed these zones on my Mesmer and only had a few deaths, mostly to fall damage.

Staff 30/20/0/0/20 makes open PvE really really easy. Full zerker gear, too. Those lava fonts annihilate everything.

Staff is your friend. A full-damage build for doing events/etc would be along the lines of this with full zerker gear and Force sigil: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmYblRygjDAkCoEeQADFIUYBEA-jwxAYLAqAQyrIasF3ioxqWwUlER1ejioVDA-e

Note the 10 free points, you can throw them into Air (10% crit damage), Earth VI (10% flat damage in 600 range) or Arcana V (staff radius boost). Really up to you.
Fireball + Lava Font + Arcane skills will wreck pretty much any group of mobs long before they reach you. Remember to use Arcane Wave in Lava Font or Geyser/Healing Rain for blast finisher. Kiting also kinda works if you’re low on health, just strafe-run in a wide circle while spamming fireball :P

Scepter/Dagger can be a pain because often mobs will move out from under Dragon’s Tooth since it takes forever to land…and Phoenix doesn’t exactly have a short cooldown. Sustained reliable damage is not what S/D is about, it’s all about spike damage.

Staff, zerker, Glyph of storms (in earth), and you´re done.

full damage staff with lava tomb and blasting staff
you can PvE while sleeping and never die because you’ll always rally

Zerk staff is fine if you’re zerging but leads to some painful fights if you’re solo exploring.

S/D doesn’t really have the cleave to deal with more than one mob or the sustain to push through long battles, so I’d recommend supplementing it with LH so that you can stack might in S/D and then hammer away. You could also try 30/30/10/0/0 or 30/30/0/0/10 D/F supplemented with Glyph of Storms (earth) to blind groups of enemies if you pull too many mobs.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Zerk staff is fine if you’re zerging but leads to some painful fights if you’re solo exploring.

S/D doesn’t really have the cleave to deal with more than one mob or the sustain to push through long battles, so I’d recommend supplementing it with LH so that you can stack might in S/D and then hammer away. You could also try 30/30/10/0/0 or 30/30/0/0/10 D/F supplemented with Glyph of Storms (earth) to blind groups of enemies if you pull too many mobs.

^Ditto