Guild Wars 2

A few eles i know i ditching Arcane.

I have yet to try the 33300

It’s generally agreed that you want either arcane or water for pretty much any viable build, anything else doesn’t have quite enough defense (due to cantrips being locked to water, and otherwise having very weak condition removal and no real defensive utilities), and meta builds have both.
Ofc in PvE it’s less relevant, but in any form of current PvP damage is way too high for eles to roll around without investment in real sustain and defensive trees.

Yeah i think you would need water. 33030 is possible. But the meta 03033 is my own favourite with dnd in wvw. Though hoelbraks are much more important now in wvw.

I ditched arcane long ago. Can’t stand Evasive Arcana. I do just fine, though I’m not winning tournaments and crap.

Imo, in soloq and when not facing good organized teams you can get away with playing a lot of things. However, I believe that Arcana and Water will still remain mandatory in high level pvp.

Laraley.7695:

Imo, in soloq and when not facing good organized teams you can get away with playing a lot of things. However, I believe that Arcana and Water will still remain mandatory in high level pvp.

Yeah given how broken some the classes are and how strong condi became, arc and water seem relevant still.

But earth.

Earth doesnt seem mandatory if u r going for a mixed build.

Fuzzion.2504:

Laraley.7695:

Imo, in soloq and when not facing good organized teams you can get away with playing a lot of things. However, I believe that Arcana and Water will still remain mandatory in high level pvp.

Yeah given how broken some the classes are and how strong condi became, arc and water seem relevant still.

But earth.

Earth doesnt seem mandatory if u r going for a mixed build.

No, I actually thing Fire/Water/Arcana is better due to how much damage you can get from Fire. I think it’s most likely this will get nerfed, though.

Arcane is still way too valuable to ditch for a balanced d/d build. I personally run fire/ water/ arcane for my d/d set up.

Ive tried replacing fire with air but air has two horrible minor traits, one decent adept, one good master, and two decent gms IMO. Air also lacks condition clears and seems to offer less damage for a d/d ele. In other words im very dissapointed with air when I play d/d.

Replacing fire in my build of choice with the earth can be handy if youre trying to make a very bulky bunker. Earth only has a couple traits in the entire line which are subpar. If youre using focus then this traitline is a no brainer!

IMO there are two solid choices for d/d.

Fire/Water/Arcana
Or
Earth/water/Arcana

I also find Fire/Earth/Arcana pretty great if you pick up focus and take the signet trait so you can use your heal. Even though you wont have the water line you wont really lack much condition removal with this set up. You can take the air signet too for a 20s stun breaker which also means one more blind ontop of blinding ashes which I find sooo good.

Btw most of my experience is in spvp. Air might be alright in wvw with condi reduction food + hoelbrak.

Am still of the opinion that water and arcane offer more than any other 2 lines you can choose on Ele for pvp/wvw. The only real choice is what to take for the third line, but even then, it seems fire is the best of the 3 by a decent margin.

It still kittens me to tears that this is largely the exact same predicament as 3 years ago and that Anet continue to kitten this up.

scepter and staff builds are ditching arcane. d/d still utilizes it.

I still maintain that you can replace Arcana with Earth especially if you run Focus having stone flesh and Magnetic wave on such a low cooldown is really strong and magnetic wave is 3 clears every 16 secs, a reflect, a cripple, and a blast finisher. I only slightly miss the Water dodge heal, but not so much with Focus Earth 4 always handy.

Water I think is more needed than Arcana, but you want one of them I wouldn’t drop both.

You can easily turn tanky by taking earth if you have some celestial in your gear or running celestial ammy.

For WvW I used Fire/Water/Arcana and Air/Water/Arcana.

Anything without Air I have to have traveler runes personally, still after using Fire/Water/Arcana for about 2-3 days I went back to Air/Water/Arcana. I had fun with Air/Earth/Water and Fire/Earth/Water using D/F and actually fought 1v3 some condition Engi’s for a little while and I wasn’t even using diamond skin. I just can’t get into Focus off hand fully though lighting rod does help it’s dps a little.

Thanks for the insight.

I believe that SnF/DnF could run without Arc but would require earth.

My own testing.

the fire/water/arc is a decent street fighter with good gear

the air/water/arc can be run as a balanced fighter or out right burst kitten.

condi signets was fun but slow. Still good. Can be done without arc but requires Fire/water/earth

Not sure about staff.

So 30033 / 03033 /00333 for classic dnd ele

Pick your poison.

I think it all depends on what you are doing.
Arcane is still really strong for group support if you run D/D and don’t have the fields from staff.
Water is important for self heals and sustain in close range, and also great support for groups.
so for the spvp meta, where group support is important, water and arcane are the best choices.

On a solo roaming pov, arcane isnt so important, you can run air/water/earth and still have great access to swiftness and protection, good amounts of vigor and regen and great burst. tempest defense and lightning rod are a great combo against all the thieves and mesmers running interrupts… The lack of the EvAr heal is compensated with the extra defense from earth, even more if you go stone heart.

The thing with water is that it provides the 2 most important things for an D/D cele ele: Healing and Cleansing. On top of that it improves cantrips, that are used by D/D for both offense and defense.

You could probably make a Fire/Air/Earth spec work, by using ER for heal and cleanse and getting slotting Arcane Shield, Earth Armor and the stab on earth attune, all to ensure a full ER when you need (even more with so many roamers going interrupt mes or s/d thief) but I guess that setup would suit more a S/F ele with more burst to finish fights fast before all those safeguards are in CD…

lLobo.7960:

You could probably make a Fire/Air/Earth spec work, by using ER for heal and cleanse and getting slotting Arcane Shield, Earth Armor and the stab on earth attune, all to ensure a full ER when you need (even more with so many roamers going interrupt mes or s/d thief) but I guess that setup would suit more a S/F ele with more burst to finish fights fast before all those safeguards are in CD…

Yup.
33300 works for signets as well. And yes SnF could utilise all the benefits it brings with er .

33300 was tuff on the dnd.

FrownyClown.8402:

staff builds are ditching arcane.

Am still mainly seeing water/arcane builds for staff amongst friends and enemies… have seen some zerker eles too, but they melted like butter.

As staff, why would you ever give up the easy extra heal, condi cleanses and blast finisher from EA? Especially now you get ele contingency for free for even more prot and vigour

scerevisiae.1972:

FrownyClown.8402:

staff builds are ditching arcane.

Am still mainly seeing water/arcane builds for staff amongst friends and enemies… have seen some zerker eles too, but they melted like butter.

As staff, why would you ever give up the easy extra heal, condi cleanses and blast finisher from EA? Especially now you get ele contingency for free for even more prot and vigour

you don’t need it in guild raids for wvw. For pvp zerker staff ele is a double-edged sword and only works with certain comps so its not the best for a solo queuer.

After 3/0/3/3/0 i am now using 3/0/3/0/3
I traded the super cantrips for boons and damage and like it. Maybe i go down a bit earlier but i kill. Its more agressive and has stronger short term defence.
Did always feel water is mandatory, especially for a tanky build but works great without.
I agree that i sometimes miss LF and earth armor but the tradeoff seems fine.

Edit: oh its a D/D discussion … I am not runing daggers :-/.

FrownyClown.8402:

you don’t need it in guild raids for wvw.

need it, no. but what beats the AOE heal/prot/condi cleanses from EAtt and EA?

i notice a lot of people talking about damage, but after the patch, there’s not a massive difference in damage add from any line other than fire.

Not to mention Arcana still adds quite a bit of damage through high fury uptime and extra might stacks and duration, retal. Not to mention, Elemental Surge is an under-rated trait for a ranged staff ele running AB, AW.