Guild Wars 2

Hey everybody, I got bored and was messing around on the build editor and came up with a build that focused on having a lot of crit damage and a fair amount of crit chance. I’ve a few people mention that power is not a really good stat at all, so I figured I’d make a build that doesn’t rely on it so much.

Here’s the link:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmObxR0QlDA0DmIZ8QFlHzkjNA-TsAAyCsIsRZjzGjNSbs2ME5wxMDA

Weapon Choice
I chose Dagger/Dagger because it is the fastest hitting weapon for the ele (unless you get CCed or don’t dodge real well), so I would crit more often and then be doing more damage.

Utilities
Ether Renewal and Cleansing Fire are there for my condition removal since I don’t have any condition removal elsewhere. Mist form is there because I can make sure I get a stomp with it and also not be affected by slowing affects so I can reposition myself in a fight. Depending on the situation I might take Arcane Shield so I can cast Ether Renewal more safely.

Even though I have a reasonable amount of critical chance (and more with fury), I decided to take Arcane Power so I can just crit more often and also control more of which attacks I want to crit. So if I was going to use Fire grab while my opponent is on fire then I can pop Arcane Power to maximize my damage there.

Since Tornado can now be cast while moving, putting it there would have a number of uses. For example, while running around I can cast it and get a free knockdown or two and give some of my skills time to recharge.

Traits
The 30 in air is mainly for the crit damage, so the Arcane Lighting will proc with Arcane Power and give me more critical damaging goodness, and the fury and swiftness on auras is great for more crits. Tempest Defense is a nice bonus aura for extra fury and swiftness, plus I can take advantage of the 20% extra damage when I stun them with the aura or when I knock them down.

The 10 points in earth are just a personal choice of mine for more damage that can be swapped into water so you can get condi removal or the water skills reduction, etc. Fire isn’t that worth it to invest points in compared to the earth or water trait lines.

The arcane traits were quite different because I’m not using the standard elemental attunement and renewing vigor traits. Instead I’m using Arcane Mastery and Arcane Retribution so I can have Arcane Power come up even more often. Most likely Arcane Retribution will proc very quickly because of how squishy eles are, so that can be used smartly with burning grab or something.

Gear/Runes
I went for all celestial and divinity stuff which normally I’d rather not do, but the overall stat gain is quite nice actually, mainly because the elementalist is able to benefit from using all of the stats at once. There’s conditions, healing, damage, tankiness, and all of that benefits from every stat boost. Plus is also gives me a bunch of crit damage, which is what I’m going for in this build.

On my weapons I’ve got the superior sigil of intelligence so I can just add on to the critical hits after critical hits after critical hits after critical hits….etc. The sigil of paralyzation is there to extend the duration of the stuns from my shocking auras (not tested though) so I can take advantage of the tempest defense trait. The 25 minor air trait can stack enough vulnerability, so the frailty sigil isn’t necessary.

I thought about making this into a fresh air type of build, but with the large amount of critical hits this build can dish out I decided against it (at least for this version of the build). This build could easily become a scepter dagger fresh air build if desired.

Let me know what you think and comment/critique. It’s different from the standard “required” ele traits, but any critiquing besides repeated mentioning of not using those traits would be great.

EDIT: Updated build with 0/30/10/0/30 traits, putting the 5 from water into air and getting the Tempest Defense trait.

Swapped Sigil of Frailty for Sigil of Paralyzation to extend the stun time from shocking aura and get more out of the Tempest Defense trait (Not tested yet).

Anybody? I didn’t really think the build was so great that there was nothing wrong with it (note sarcasm :p).

(Bump)

Not too sure on the 5 points in water. This will add about 100 hp/s and it is one of the only traits that work with Lingering Elements. However, even if you stayed in water for 5 seconds then switched this would only grant around 1k hp (100 x (5 sec in water + 5 sec lingering)).

I personally think you would be better to spend the 5 from water in air. That will boost your crit damage to 62% boost your crit chance by 2% and allow you to get something like tempest defence. More fury, damage and more shocking aura.

Yeah, I was debating on whether or not I should put it there or not. My first thought was that I didn’t have as much healing/tankiness, so I’d at least get the regen, but I usually don’t do a bunch of number crunching so I didn’t know the specific amount of healing that it gave. That amount of healing isn’t very worth it though, so I’d get a lot more benefit from the extra points in air. Thank you for letting me know about the number specifics.

JuniorSB.7089:

I’ve a few people mention that power is not a really good stat at all

What? Power is the single best stat for increasing DPS. Only if you have over 2000 power and expect to have 15+ might stacks, then you can start worrying about diminishing returns on adding more power.

I’m not saying Celestial is bad, but you better be putting that healing power and condition damage to some good use.

Read my post well cos I will explain how your spec breaks down in fundamental level.
I wouldn’t really critisize personal choise but fundamental mistakes I will point out. Something that Alphard touched on above me too. Your setup screams of valkyrie or berserker burster. Not celestial.
It will help you change stuff around for better reasoned setup. And yes I do run with more than 50% celestial atm, DD roaming.

Aight, first of all the setup is combination of utilities, traits and gear.
Celestial choise should make you think, “Ok NICE! I’m gonna get all healing skills I can get, and I will make sure all my condition skills land extra careful and I better balance out that power with traits or bloodlust+might. I got fury too, I’m DONE with crit” “Or I might aswell just use PVT…”.
You have to justify those condition damage and healing power.
This is why you firstly make sure you land that insane Drake Breath, and think about your usual Burning Speed, Ring of fire later. Allows you to stack that burning twice too.
And atleast have 15 in Water, 30 Arcane, get that healing power into use. Mayby extra regen too with dolyak runes.
Justify your choise!

Power is by far the best of power/prec/critdmg and that is what celestial lacks. So you have to balance it by food/bloodlust/traits. And last thing to do is get more crit (Arcane Power), deep Air traits.
And you even chose Sigil of Intelligence. You got crit flying out of ur kitten .

Thusly few tips for you to rebuild your Celestial setup:
1. Get more healing skills. Use that healing power. -> 15 Water minimum, 30 arcane. Cantrip, Elemental attunument Regeneration, Evasive arcana water, Soothing mist, Healing ripple. Make sure you and your buddies get those all time. Concider healing Signet and never touch it. You aim for long battle.
2. Bloodlust, Dragon’s Breath Buns, Sigil of Battle, Might blast. Balance that power. Keep the aura fury unless you want something funky like Rock Solid. Avoid more precision like plague.
3. Prioritise Drake’s Breath and your earth bleed skills higher aswell, often better than Lightning Whip. Stay in fire for a second channel of that motherkittener. Condition stat working.

So we end up in 20 earth, 20 water, 30 arcane. Or standard 10 air 30 water 30 arcane. Or 25 X, 15water, 30 arcane. With long fight Cantrip, Cantrip+arcaneshield Utitilities. Or one utility for a condition, say Glyph of Elemental Power.

If you go anything different you have to seriously question the celestial choise.

Alphard: This is the link to the topic where I saw them say power isn’t that good. There was a debate/argument thing with a whole mess of number crunching (something I tend to stay away from), and then he ended up saying:

“Build uses a meaningless stat (attack). It is rubbish and should not be attempted”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Best-PvE-tank-bunker-build/first#post2509357

I still think power is useful to a certain extent, but that’s just an opinion coming from someone who doesn’t actually go for the nitty gritty and figure it out numbers wise.

Sabull: Thank you for your detailed response. I don’t mind criticism as long as it is constructive.

I made a few changes to the build to add in more power and healing. The effectiveness of condition damage is all based on how the build is used and how often you hit with the condition attacks, and when playing I would definitely take advantage of that. As far as Ether Renewal vs Signet of Restoration I think my choice on those skills would just depend on the enemy team. If there was a lot of condition spam then I would take Ether Renewal and Arcane Shield. If not then I’d pick the signet and mist form.

I took 5 points out of air and 10 out of earth so I could get 15 in water for the healing minor traits and the condi removal. The reason I kept 25 in air is so I can still apply vulnerability and also so I could have zephyr’s boon and quick glyphs ( for glyph of elemental power). I changed arcane power to glyph of elemental power and would use it in air for the much overlooked weakness in general situations. If I wanted to really burn them down or chill or cripple I would use it appropriately. The quick glyphs trait reduces the cooldown nicely by 9 seconds so I would be able to keep it up most of the time, with just 6 seconds in between, if I wanted to. The arcane traits I just switched to the fairly standard 5, 6, and 11 traits (5 and 6 being the changes).

For gear I swapped in sigil of battle and strength for a bunch of might stacking (Sigil of Strength is a new one for me. I usually use bloodlust). Then I brought in Dolyak runes for the extra regen to make use of my healing power. Maybe not all of the changes you suggested, but enough to overall improve my build.

Overall summary of changes:
Gear
-Sigil of Intelligence
-Sigil of Paralyzation
-Divinity Runes x6

+Dolyak Runes x6
+Sigil of Battle
+Sigil of Strength

Traits
0/25/0/15/30
-5 in air
-Arcane Lighting
-10 in earth, Stone Splinters
-Arcane Retribution
-Arcane Mastery

+15 in Water, Cleansing Wave
+Elemental Attunement
+Renewing Vigor
+Quick Glyphs

Utilities
Ether Renewal+ Arcane Shield, OR Signet of Restoration+Mist Form
-Arcane Power
+Glyph of Elemental Harmony

Here is the build link. (It’s also in the first post)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmObxR0QlDA0DmIZ8QFlHzkjNA-TsAAyCsIsRZjzGjNSbs2ME5wxMDA

Feel free to point out more flaws or places that can be improved. Just be constructive in your criticisms is all I ask.

JuniorSB.7089:

Alphard: This is the link to the topic where I saw them say power isn’t that good. There was a debate/argument thing with a whole mess of number crunching (something I tend to stay away from), and then he ended up saying:

“Build uses a meaningless stat (attack). It is rubbish and should not be attempted”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Best-PvE-tank-bunker-build/first#post2509357

I still think power is useful to a certain extent, but that’s just an opinion coming from someone who doesn’t actually go for the nitty gritty and figure it out numbers wise.

Nothing in that topic says power is bad. What the build maker there means that he theorycrafted the build with assumption Attack stat is used for damage calculations.
Which isn’t true, he talks about that in the last posts, and dismissing his whole theorycrafting thusly. Power and Weapon damage is used in calculations, their multiplication. Not Attack, which is their sum. Thats all they talk about.
So like I said, pump up that power.

Sabull: Thank you for your detailed response. I don’t mind criticism as long as it is constructive.

I made a few changes to the build to add in more power and healing. The effectiveness of condition damage is all based on how the build is used and how often you hit with the condition attacks, and when playing I would definitely take advantage of that. As far as Ether Renewal vs Signet of Restoration I think my choice on those skills would just depend on the enemy team. If there was a lot of condition spam then I would take Ether Renewal and Arcane Shield. If not then I’d pick the signet and mist form.

I took 5 points out of air and 10 out of earth so I could get 15 in water for the healing minor traits and the condi removal. The reason I kept 25 in air is so I can still apply vulnerability and also so I could have zephyr’s boon and quick glyphs ( for glyph of elemental power). I changed arcane power to glyph of elemental power and would use it in air for the much overlooked weakness in general situations. If I wanted to really burn them down or chill or cripple I would use it appropriately. The quick glyphs trait reduces the cooldown nicely by 9 seconds so I would be able to keep it up most of the time, with just 6 seconds in between, if I wanted to. The arcane traits I just switched to the fairly standard 5, 6, and 11 traits (5 and 6 being the changes).

For gear I swapped in sigil of battle and strength for a bunch of might stacking (Sigil of Strength is a new one for me. I usually use bloodlust). Then I brought in Dolyak runes for the extra regen to make use of my healing power. Maybe not all of the changes you suggested, but enough to overall improve my build.

…

The changes look perfect. As you use the Glyph cooldown reduce you can concider using Glyph heal aswell. It scales better than Signet and regen from it is kinda like passive healing from the signet. It’s a great heal especially when combined with regeneration cleanse from 30 water.
Anyway good fixes, good luck have fun.

Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot more sense now. I did get confused on what he said after I looked up the damage formula.

Yeah, that would probably be better. I think I’d do that. I like the healing glyph because of the choice of boons that I can get when needed.

Thank you for the suggestions. Quick question: Do you know how many stacks of might the Sigil of strength gives on average? I’ve never tested the sigil before.

JuniorSB.7089:

…
Thank you for the suggestions. Quick question: Do you know how many stacks of might the Sigil of strength gives on average? I’ve never tested the sigil before.

Without boon duration in a optimal situation, aka rampager engineer flamethrower aoeing you can get 7 stacks of might. Ele will be looking at half of that in a practical situation.
Thus Battle is better which gives 6+ in any situation, more with boon duration ofc.

Ok. So with a battle sigil in addition I’d be getting somewhere around 10-12ish stacks fairly easily? I think depending on how well I can kill people I might just take bloodlust instead.

Darn, when I was writing that I was saying remember to say they don’t stack. But I didn’t :P.

Crit proc sigils, swap sigils share the cooldown. Aka doesn’t work together. So bloodlust+battle → force+battle or stamina+battle for example is what you can use.

I’d definitely suggest the sigil of battle, that’s for sure.

Really? That seems kind of weird that they share the same cooldown. Yeah, then I’d definitely take bloodlust or force, etc. Thank you for that info.

Navzar: Yeah, I would too. It’s much better overall and works best with the ele in my opinion. (: