Guild Wars 2

It is a lot of time i play d/d ele with quite all his subbuild . for tpvp and spvp it seems to me that EA is not usefull. It helps to survive more but when you are targetted with low health you die in any case ( i play with celestial) and for taking EA I have to giveup with my dps .
What are your feeling now with arcana points ? Now i am trying a d/d build with only 10 points in arcana and i was thinking to try to go without any arcana point. your experience ?

I feel that arcana is a must. Don’t forget that EA isn’t only userful for defence, but also great for offensive purposes and synergies perfectly with permavigor. I don’t think that there is anything really worth giving up an ability to do aoe burn (suprisinly useful with celestial and might stacking), aoe heal+condi removal, blind and aoe cripple. Without this not just dodges feel aimless compelled waste of time, whole d/d gameplay fees half-empty.
Same for elemental attunement, it is a huge boon machine that helps poor ele’s stats greatly. Do you really want to play without that swiftness or protection? Might and regen are great too, and all this you get at once.
And permavigor is really important for d/d since d/d ele without dodges is instantly dead ele.

Surely you can play d/d without points in arcana, but it would be just a wreck, the most
prominent part of such build would be an absence of arcana. “Look, no hands!”

The loss of Evasive Arcana is debatable, but to lose all of Arcana is a massive hit to the survivability of d/d—a weapon set that is range locked and generally very aggressive. Don’t forget that without investment in the Arcana trait line, you’re losing Vigor (II), Protection and Regen (VIII), and boon duration. Additionally you’ll increase the CD of attunements, which won’t necessarily be devastating, but it draws out the time you are stuck in each attunement and loses the great timing synergy with the on-swap benefit of other traits and sigils.

This is why there are several variations on the typical d/d build, but all keep the 30 (now 6) Arcana.

Elestian already explained why Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement are important for a D/D ele survivabulity.
As for Evasive arcana , with D/D and celestial amulet you’re going to be in the middle of the fight, stacking might and doing AOE dmg.
Flame burst will be stronger burning because of the cond dmg from might
Cleansing wave is obviously sustain through extra healing/cond removal every 10 seconds
Blinding flash is an extra blind if you dodge near your enemy
Churning earth is a blast finisher every 10 seconds so even more might stacking..

Though depending on your build there might be better options for these 10 points such as Spell slinger in fire if you run triple cantrips, Or stone splinters in earth.

Arcana line is such a balanced and strong line. You have both defensive and offensive options so if you choose to go deep in that line you can’t go wrong unlike if you go in say air or water you know you only get either offensive powers or defensive powers for the most part. Like EA has blind or cleansing wave on dodge as defensive but it also has burn and blast finisher + cripple on the other dodges. Access to fury. Elemental attunement trait gives you boons that are useful to you offensively and defensively. Then there is vigor or increased AoE on Staff. Just a lot of good stuff that I would say is hard to pass up unless you want to build a one hit wonder Ele.

My opinion is that it you need 1 of the extra heals either evasive or 15 water to not have both really hurts so you can chose what you want from there.

Its very possible to play without either heal if you use scepter. One with air and traveler runes is op kiting. Use ice bow to finish enemies.

Evasive arcana is almost the best trait in game. Both design wise and profession wise. That trait is so usefull that there is literally nothing better for eles, but in the meanwhile the use of that trait forces active play instead of passive so it is not one of those empty stat boosters or passive procs that anet tends to throw out to others. IF you as ele think that EA is useless it only means that you havent learned to utilize it yet.

but i have the feel to be weak with 30 point in arcana , For me now best trait is rock solid becouse otherwise i have great problem finishing my opponent . If i take 30 point in arcana … 20 in earth or water … i have very low damage …. what i see is that without EA i win quite often 1 vs 1 instead with EA …. usually i have to go away … i don’t die ok … but i don’t win…

obviously i can go berserker with EA arcana but it is really difficult to survive in any case… perhaps it is my playstyle but i see that i win much more without point in arcana …

I run 4/2/2/6/0 with d/f on my ele atm, gaining all the boons the arcana line would offer in a different way. EA is weird in my eyes, as it creates more situations where you would want to dodge; I’d rather just dodge the opponents attacks instead of using it as an offensive tool.

df for pvp ? my questions were for pvp not for pve . for pve i use EA also

Yea i almost exclusively play pvp.

having extra 100 or 200 power wont suddenly make you hit like a beast. If you feel there is nothing wrong with your build then it is great. I just dont think that most of the ppl realize how powerfull evasive arcana really is. Especially with the energy + vigor.

It’s just that EA doesn’t offer anything for me. I got enough condi cleanse, might stacking and burns, only the heal would be useful and i don’t want to invest a GM trait in a line I don’t really need. But opinions, I guess.

alvarez.3159:

It’s just that EA doesn’t offer anything for me. I got enough condi cleanse, might stacking and burns, only the heal would be useful and i don’t want to invest a GM trait in a line I don’t really need. But opinions, I guess.

I tried EA, didn’t like EA so I don’t use EA. But 20 in arcana is a must. the boons on atunement swap is more than worth it. then 20 in water for the sustainable healing.

Then you can choose to go 30 in air, fire or earth depending on what role you wanna fill in I prefer 30 in air for the fresh air with air runes and air sigils
You could also just split up y’r points like 15 in earth and 15 in fire for the D/D since fire will then give a burn on swap and earth cripple I think it was. Water gives the heal and the 20 in arcana makes the swapping reliable CD-wise.