Guild Wars 2

I have some ascended armor chests of different types in my bank, and the stat combination they have in common is Celestial, so I figured I could use them to build my Elementalist to run Fractals.

Is Celestial gear any good for high level Fractals (40-50)? If so, what kind of build should I use with it?

Also, should I combine other type of accesories with it, like Zerker? Or just go full Celestial?

I’ve seen many Eles use Staff on Fractals too. Is it really any good?

It’s been a while since I used my Ele, so I’m not sure how the lastest changes affected the viable builds.

Thanks!

Staff is mostly bad in fractals, and so is any other gear than full zerker (or assassin mix). But then this is for optimal play. Some people like to invest into more passive defence in order to rely less on active defence

Yeah for fractals I usually run D/F but I switch to staff for the ascalon fractal where its really good, or for lazily killing tentacles in the jade maw.

If you want to use celestial, especially for PUGs, I don’t see it as a huge issue, and fractals can give you celestial stats relatively easily. I run full zerker, 6.6.0.0.2 and I honestly wish I didn’t sometimes. I die so easily in PUGs, and even though my DPS is great, if my teammates suck at reviving me then I usually die against some of the “harder” bosses.
Although I honestly suck at dodging correctly, so its my own fault

Earlier today I ran a fractal in which one warrior flamed me excessivley for dying a lot, and for my suggestions of how to use the earth elemental against old tom to make that fight go quicker (like in Deykeyz’s video). He basically said I was a terrible player that probably didn’t have AR and that I had crap DPS.. which couldn’t have been more of a lie, now that we know that ele can outDPS a warrior. He only had 2K AP, and needless to say he got kicked for being so impolite when he could’ve disagreed politely, although I feel like If I were a better player in full zerker, maybe that drama could have been avoided.

Celestial gear isn’t bad if you want some passive survivability. After the changes there were some calculations on the forum, which is likely still find-able somewhere comparing both it’s damage and survivability to Soldier’s gear, so you won’t be hitting hard, but neither do most PuGs in my experience. Another thing to be careful of is that some bosses (Mai Trin for example) are lured to high toughness. I’d try zerker-trinkets instead of celestial if you’re comfortable with it.

As for build I’d recommend D/F aswell, in the sticky DEKeys has an amazing guide for both Fractal Elementalists and Elementalists in general. I find her information very useful and thus recommend you go through the parts that interest you. Just remember certain tactics won’t work as well unless your whole group is zerker and/or willing to melee.

I run D/F 80% of the time in Fractals, but I understand why some people run staff. First of all Staff is relatively easy to play, you stick to 1 attunement for DPS and the rotation isn’t complicated, nor do you lose DPS if you go at range a bit which some Elementalists find very valuable. It’s DPS is higher aswell, how-ever it doesn’t come near D/F utility and thus survivability. (And any utility it has on Water/Air/Earth will drop your dps by a lot until you can swap back to Fire) Hence I’d recommend D/F with Staff on certain occasions at the most. (E.g. when people feel the need to range, e.g. Fire Shaman) or when DPS beats utility (E.g. Old Tom or Molton Duo, assuming anti-projectile is covered and you’re tactic is bursting them down.)

If you don’t want to check out DEKeys guide (which I do highly recommend) traits I run are:
D/F: 6 (V-VII-XI) / 6 (VI-X-XII) / 2 (VI) / 0 / 0
Staff: 6 (VI-VII-XI) / 6 (VI-VII-II) / 0 / 0 / 2 (V)

I mostly use staff in lvl 50 fracts, especially when puging. U can dish out loads of dps and stand just a little bit behind so you’re in safety all times. Since most encounters are stacking anyway I dont see the point of running anyting else. Lavafont and meteor shower too stronk aoe.

Esmee.1067:

Celestial gear isn’t bad if you want some passive survivability. After the changes there were some calculations on the forum, which is likely still find-able somewhere comparing both it’s damage and survivability to Soldier’s gear, so you won’t be hitting hard, but neither do most PuGs in my experience. Another thing to be careful of is that some bosses (Mai Trin for example) are lured to high toughness. I’d try zerker-trinkets instead of celestial if you’re comfortable with it.

As for build I’d recommend D/F aswell, in the sticky DEKeys has an amazing guide for both Fractal Elementalists and Elementalists in general. I find her information very useful and thus recommend you go through the parts that interest you. Just remember certain tactics won’t work as well unless your whole group is zerker and/or willing to melee.

I run D/F 80% of the time in Fractals, but I understand why some people run staff. First of all Staff is relatively easy to play, you stick to 1 attunement for DPS and the rotation isn’t complicated, nor do you lose DPS if you go at range a bit which some Elementalists find very valuable. It’s DPS is higher aswell, how-ever it doesn’t come near D/F utility and thus survivability. (And any utility it has on Water/Air/Earth will drop your dps by a lot until you can swap back to Fire) Hence I’d recommend D/F with Staff on certain occasions at the most. (E.g. when people feel the need to range, e.g. Fire Shaman) or when DPS beats utility (E.g. Old Tom or Molton Duo, assuming anti-projectile is covered and you’re tactic is bursting them down.)

If you don’t want to check out DEKeys guide (which I do highly recommend) traits I run are:
D/F: 6 (V-VII-XI) / 6 (VI-X-XII) / 2 (VI) / 0 / 0
Staff: 6 (VI-VII-XI) / 6 (VI-VII-II) / 0 / 0 / 2 (V)

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I’ll check that guide out.

I’ll probably go with Celestial gear and Zerker accesories. I have only 3 ascended chest, so I’ll start leveling up the last 100 points on Tailor to craft the armor.

Thanks everyone.

Ehragus.5843:

I mostly use staff in lvl 50 fracts, especially when puging. U can dish out loads of dps and stand just a little bit behind so you’re in safety all times. Since most encounters are stacking anyway I dont see the point of running anyting else. Lavafont and meteor shower too stronk aoe.

I find theres barely any stacking in fractals unless you’re set up to stack with protection, Aegis and reflects. The only place I can think of where you minlessly stack is cliffside, but then DPS isnt very important there.

I have honestly no idea why people would prefer d/something over staff in pug high level fractals. With staff you have both high constant damage and cc/utility in case something goes wrong while being safe. Focus indeed provides some useful things, but there is no need in them except some rare encounters (fire shaman, cliffside stacking, dredges), while dagger is a big “why”. Mediocre close range weapon for a class that get downed from a gust of wind.
As for celestial, well, for staff is it strictly inferior to berserk. It may help if you want more defence, but I would suggest to use personal skill for that, it isn’t that hard to live in 50 fractals. For closer range you may want it, but why not leaving that close ranger for warriors?

Arcturus.8109:

I have honestly no idea why people would prefer d/something over staff in pug high level fractals. With staff you have both high constant damage and cc/utility in case something goes wrong while being safe. Focus indeed provides some useful things, but there is no need in them except some rare encounters (fire shaman, cliffside stacking, dredges), while dagger is a big “why”. Mediocre close range weapon for a class that get downed from a gust of wind.
As for celestial, well, for staff is it strictly inferior to berserk. It may help if you want more defence, but I would suggest to use personal skill for that, it isn’t that hard to live in 50 fractals. For closer range you may want it, but why not leaving that close ranger for warriors?

People use d/f so they can keep up a moderate amount of might stacks for the party, same reason you go s/f or s+d instead of staff if you’re the only ele in a group doing one of the easier dungeons. You go mainhand dagger so you’ll have decent dps in between rotations without having to rely on conjures so you still have acces to the utility a focus offers.

Staff’s DPS tanks through the floor the moment you switch away from fire. So in other words, it doesn’t offer any utility whatsoever if you want to not hit like a wet noodle.

Also, although you can stay at 1200 range, you need to be relatively close to your group for buffs, and within 360 range to your own fire fields if you want to blast them. Staff also needs your target to stay still, which often doesn’t happen with FotM and pugs.

People use dagger because if you want your focus there, you gotta choose between sceptre and dagger. Sceptre absolutely needs LH to do any reasonable DPS at all, which is fine in your AC/CoE/CoF/etc facerolls, but in FotM, the combination of the lack of fluidness and you dying more means it’s not such a great option. Using LH also means you can’t use your /f utilities in the middle of your LH rotations.

Are u people kidding with those 66200 builds for staff? There is only one viable staff build for fractals which is 64200. Stop confusing people.
Also any gear is viable but your simply slowing groups and make it harder for them since encouters simply last longer. Also celestial wont give u anything in particular so i assume u get full exotic berserker gear + ascended jewelry (which u can get with laurels/guild commends/fractals) for AR stacking. By having full ascended jewelry u can easily hit 50 AR which is enough for lvl 49 fotms.
You have to learn to dodge,u will die no matter what if u get hit on 40+ FOTMs even if ur wearing knights, so there is no real point in going anything but zerkers.
Also ull come to groups when whole group relies on ur dps if theres a poor composition. Look through boss animations, watch Youtube guides. When ull notice boss animations its gonna be much much easier.

^ unmm, I think it’s a mistake but, are you gonna use those 2 last trait points? o.o

Grifenqt.3401:

Are u people kidding with those 66200 builds for staff? There is only one viable staff build for fractals which is 64200. Stop confusing people.

Right!

^^ 64220, sorry for that xD

Also i assume u bring in 3 builds for all levels of fractals: 64220 staff (barely use it myself for sometimes ull need for thing like ascalon, archdiviner), 66200 s/f LH and d/f builds and 54050 s/f LH build when ur 2 ele in group.
Also u might want use something super defensive like 00266 evasive arcana d/f builds with triple cantrips for maitrin encounter to tank throuh her damage while standing on shock fields.

Naaaah Maitrin is super easy even with 66200, you just need ER, and maybe you can go for my personal favourite: earth shield

im using 00266 on maitrin for group condi clear mainly