I was running a 0/0/10/30/30 build in WvW last night with excellent success. While it lacks some of the mobility of D/D builds (mostly Swiftness), I found my ability to pursue enemies and harass them at range in the field to be very effective. Focus is on Soldier’s and Cleric’s gear mostly, with a bit of condition damage thrown in in the form of Carrion jewels and a matching dagger. Still tweaking it a bit but no deaths in hours of play with a nice stack of kills is good news, in my eyes.
how does it compare to d/d builds though. i ran dagger dagger for a long time now and wanted equal burst without having to be right on top for the enemy
I wouldn’t say it quite has the same burst potential due to the lack of attacks like dagger’s Fire 3 and the quick auto attacks, but as far as enduring and easily outlasting your enemy, the condition damage fills the role nicely. You also still have access to dropping dagger Earth 5 on people from range and gain obnoxious instant attacks like scepter Air 2, neither of which require you to really be right up on your enemy. I’m still fine tuning the playstyle a bit so I’ll have to get back to you on its overall potential.
Huh? Scepter fire attacks are the most powerful attacks available to ele when they land, a balanced s/d build can reach like 13 stacks of might in 2s and deliver a 2-3k dmg dragon’s tooth followed by 3k phoenix, no crit dmg and no precision with an heavy armor target, from there you can follow with a 1.5-2k lightning strike.
It’s very hard to land dragon’s tooth/phoenix in PvP and you will have to either bait the enemy to get close where he can’t avoid phoenix and must double dodge to avoid dragon’s tooth or you use updraft+immobilize.
Regardless for team gameplay a s/d ele is devastating, you can walk along side your mele allies and supply 20+ stack of might, 5k aoe heal on demand, single target and multiple target blind, when you give 20+ stacks of might to that backstab thief or gs warrior is really gg, literally a s/d ele is a might stacking factory, your dmg get tripled against glass cannon builds ( shatter mesmer-BS thieves etc etc) even bunker guardians will start soon to receive your 2k arc-lightning ( max dmg after full channeling)
For s/d I recommend a condition based build with something like 15-0-30-15-10. The 15 points in fire are rather optional and could really go anywhere, but I like them for the power and cond duration mostly. The grandmaster earth trait that gives the passives of signets after activation plus the attack rate of many scepter skills makes the healing signet quite effective, and signet of earth is great for holding things under dragons tooth (so keeping the extra toughness is a good bonus). Lightning flash and arcane wave would be good extra utilities for might stacking and tele-churning.
Scepter really shines with the #1 earth attack (among other things, really the only “bad” skill on scepter is fire #1).
Hats off to all the ones who stood before me, and taught a fool to ride.
Scepter really shines with the #1 earth attack (among other things, really the only “bad” skill on scepter is fire #1).
Actually the worst scepter auto-attack is water, the dmg is sub-par, no condition or extra effect..truly pathetic
It procs 3 times and at close range is quite fast, with a decent crit build and renewing stamina you can stack 1 min of vigor really fast with this skill.
Hats off to all the ones who stood before me, and taught a fool to ride.
That’s too restricted in my opinion, I’d love if they’d add 3 stacks of vulnerability( 6s duration) to it and add weakness to shatterstone ( increase CD to 6s)
Yeah, mostly I was referring to the lower burst in that it is more difficult to land those sorts of moves against any human opponent who is actually awake. Pretty much anything works on NPCs. Love the burning and lightning spells though.
Yeah, mostly I was referring to the lower burst in that it is more difficult to land those sorts of moves against any human opponent who is actually awake. Pretty much anything works on NPCs. Love the burning and lightning spells though.
No no I was talking about real opponents, You can land dragon’s tooth and phoenix when the enemy is up close
I don’t WvW but my build is 10/20/0/30/10. Don’t remember my gear I’ll look later. I start in Air 4>5 switch to Fire 2>4>3 switch to Earth 2>4>5 (while using 5 I use Cleansing Flame, Armor of Earth, and Lightning Flash, then switch to Water before it ends for Fury)
Haha, it’s pretty hard to miss a point blank Phoenix, yes. x)
With s/d you can bring hell pain to your enemies, a soldier amuler s/d ele with common 10 stacks of might can deal like 3k dmg with dragons’ tooth alone, I use this combo when the enemy is close and I have 10 stacks of might min:
1)Dragon tooth – 2/3k dmg
2)Ring of fire – 1.5k dmg
3)Arcane wave -1.3k dmg
4)Phoenix -3k dmg
5)Fire grab -2.5k dmg
6) Shazam! 60-70% of your HP is gone! ( And I’ve still got arc lightning 2k dmg +lightning strike 1.5-2k dmg)
I use elemental surge with arcane shield and arcane wave for additional pain or you can drop arcane shiled for lightning flash and teleport with churning earth followed by the above combo.
It’s a sigil build, it is ridiculously tough, has good healing and the might stacking is incredible. Very easy to stack up to 25 might, especially against static targets. Lighting 4>5>fire>2>4>3(you can cast ring of fire before dragon’s tooth executes and still get the might stacking from the blast finisher)>Earth4>5 (as long as you start casting prior to the field disappearing you still get the blast finisher!). Hi there 19 stacks of might. this is difficult to pull off in PvP unless you have friends locking down your target.
It’s nothing but aces in PvE, in PvP it is not as mobile as a D/D build and suffers a bit from lack of good ways to slow/cripple targets (hence signet of earth) and the necessity of air signet due to the relative dearth of ways to stack swiftness (only lighting attunement swtiching and lightning 5). Some targets will get away from you that wouldn’t escape your D/D build. on the plus side it is good for small/mid sized group work as you are rock hard and bring some nice targeted area heals to the table. In addition to the constant healing from your signet and the ability to use it every 20 seconds synergize well with your 3k+ armor.
Utility slot 9 is a flex slot that I tend to mix up a bit depending on what I am doing, but I the immobilize is awesome for “tackling” in wvw and making sure someone eats a Dragon’s tooth.
Gear is PVT armor/weapons and P/t/heal jewelry.
Aliquot Love – Engineer
Gable Thorn – Elementalist
Shining in Darkness – Warrior – Mag
