Guild Wars 2

Seeing that elite skill in action makes me question my decision on making a sylvari .

Then again… I do have seed turrets.

Reaper of Grenth is the gift that keeps on giving.

Dolores.5471:

I guess you’ll be paying attention to the burns and the bleeds from now on….
What a delightful turnout of events!
Congratulations Ash.

BUT

Get rid of that godkitten earth signet! And don’t forget to make use of your wind 2 skill when you’re fighting burst builds.

I can’t i love Earth Signet too much, even without being in Earth attunement i have more than 2,100Toughness with it, its great. It was a decent fight, i did not use some skills that i normally would, Ele isn’t that much of a threat with burst most of the time, i use it more on Warriors and Thieves

Dahir.4158:

Seeing that elite skill in action makes me question my decision on making a sylvari .

Then again… I do have seed turrets.

I am SO glad my ele is a Human, with my old specs i would laugh at Reaper of grenth but as a condition build, it is SO good, works great in pretty much all situations as well from duels, solo, groups and zergs

It is in my opinion better than all the class elites, they all have issues that make using them a bit either pointless (Tornado in about 99% of situations) or they just lack that something like FGS, it says a lot i see people using it MORE to escape a fight than they do to be offensive with…

Dolores.5471:

Reaper of Grenth is the gift that keeps on giving.

Yep, ties the build i use together very well. I have some times wished i could be another race but remember that Reaper of Grenth is SO good that the little gain i would get from being another race.

We need new condi elites for ele @@@@@@@@@@ listen to us a-netttttttt

the earth signet is actually pretty awesome free toughness who can complain but it provides immobilize when you need it so why he should get rid of it Dolores?; o

Wikie.2610:

the earth signet is actually pretty awesome free toughness who can complain but it provides immobilize when you need it so why he should get rid of it Dolores?; o

I don’t get it for the Immobilize, i use it for the Toughness and rarely will i activate it. It being an “Earth” signet and the Earth attunement about defense (the passive) i think the active could have been something more useful, Maybe a “weaker” version of Signet of Spite in that inflicts some conditions would have been nice Some Bleeding, Cripple and Torment would have been very welcome.

Don’t get me wrong Immobilize is decent, just not something that amazing when so many classes have ways to get out of it fast or use skills that make them immune to damage while having it on them.

Something like:

Signet of Earth:
Passive: Improve Toughness
Active: Inflict Bleeding, Cripple and Torment on your target
Cripple: 5 seconds
Bleeding 5 stacks, 5 seconds
Torment 5 stacks, 5 seconds
Cast time: 1/4second
Cool down 60 seconds

Wikie.2610:

the earth signet is actually pretty awesome free toughness who can complain but it provides immobilize when you need it so why he should get rid of it Dolores?; o

Because he could be using a glyph that provides perma weakness or cripple, you’ve already put little pressure on him, imagine if you had weakness on all the time? Or if you couldn’t run away from him? Condi builds already run enough thoughness in my opinion, the immob on the glyph is nice, but as we saw, he didn’t even needed to use it…. I just think that for roaming you could pick a better utility.

Dolores.5471:

Because he could be using a glyph that provides perma weakness or cripple, you’ve already put little pressure on him, imagine if you had weakness on all the time? Or if you couldn’t run away from him? Condi builds already run enough thoughness in my opinion, the immob on the glyph is nice, but as we saw, he didn’t even needed to use it…. I just think that for roaming you could pick a better utility.

If you are talking about Glyph of Elemental Power, its not “perma” It is 6 seconds but that is 6 seconds every 5 seconds (assuming it procs right away) and with a 25% proc chance, that is unlikely. Overall, it is a VERY poor glyph.

Lets assume that it is 100% on chance with a 5 second cool down that is 6 procs. 6 seconds per a proc, that is 36 seconds of weakness total which sounds decent. However, remember that is it only a 25% chance and on average using Air i have gotten no more than 5 procs with 4 being the average in tests that i have done with it, so lets round that 36seconds down assuming an average of 4 that becomes 24 seconds.

To me, that is not worth it, while an extra condition is nice the way its applied just doesn’t work.45 second cool down for a skill that procs 4 maybe 5 times just doesnt seem worth it, they could buff this skill and actually make it worth using – 100% chance or at least a 50% chance would be a welcome start.

They could also remove the stun break (its pointless anyway!) and buff it that way. Maybe remove Immobilize and replace it with Torment, maybe even think about swapping Weakness out for a few stacks of Confusion as well would be very much welcome.

25% chance ON HIT is just fine considering the speed and the amount of skills a d/d ele can put out, it has 6 seconds BASE duration for weakness and 5 for cripple , which is already larger than the icd + your condi duration food/gear. It lasts for 30 secs and has 45 sec cooldown, meaning you’ll be able to use it again every 15 secs, the icd is PER TARGET so minions, pets, clones, etc won’t ruin your party and on top of that it’s a stun breaker. How is that not good enough?

You want to turn it into an overpowered skill, think about it, if people already complain of 3 stacks of confusion in 25 secs icd how would they feel about it triggering every 5s? Additionally raising the proc to 50 or 100%(!!!!!) would make it more powerful than many sigils or entire runesets. Condi eles could use some love for sure, but it has to be something reasonable.

Dolores.5471:

25% chance ON HIT is just fine considering the speed and the amount of skills a d/d ele can put out, it has 6 seconds BASE duration for weakness and 5 for cripple , which is already larger than the icd + your condi duration food/gear. It lasts for 30 secs and has 45 sec cooldown, meaning you’ll be able to use it again every 15 secs, the icd is PER TARGET so minions, pets, clones, etc won’t ruin your party and on top of that it’s a stun breaker. How is that not good enough?

You want to turn it into an overpowered skill, think about it, if people already complain of 3 stacks of confusion in 25 secs icd how would they feel about it triggering every 5s? Additionally raising the proc to 50 or 100%(!!!!!) would make it more powerful than many sigils or entire runesets. Condi eles could use some love for sure, but it has to be something reasonable.

Yeah, so you will have to on average hit with 4 attacks to proc it once, which if luck isn’t on your side still won’t be enough. Now for Cripple you have to remember that several classes have traits to reduce Cripple duration. You are again making assumptions that it will proc the 6 times, i have NEVER had it proc 6 times on any test i have done with it.

The Stun break is SO useless, like it has NO use what so ever, you will want to use it as soon as you can in the battle, so the Stun break is wasted SO many times.

Overpowered? How exactly is adding Confusion and Torment to a class that lacks conditions. You are AGAIN making assumptions – tip it would ONLY proc 100% every 5 seconds if the proc chance was 100% – its not. It is 25%. Sure the stacks and duration could be adjusted.

Their are several ways they could add the new conditions, change it to 50% chance and still have it balanced. They could increase the ICD a few seconds, maybe make it go on cool down like Burning Ashes does so it goes on cool down as soon as it procs rather than per a target.

25% chance with some rather average conditions is simply not enough, I have not once encountered a situation where i thought “wow, i would totally have won that had i had more access to Weakness”

the Burning is average, nothing amazing. Same goes for the Chill and the Immobilize (imo) is the worst part. The duration on the Weakness is pretty much the only thing that is decent about it, i would rather be taking hits and then taking damage through Confusion seeing as i run very high toughness already.

I will not argue with you about the triggering chance because I think you should just redo your tests… Same goes to your statement about weakness.

The way I see it your suggestions take us to two places:

A) the glyph being as useful as blinding ashes.

B) the glyph being out of control aoe confusion/torment.

How about Runes of Strength? Might stacking is great for both Power and Condi builds but you’d lose the chance to apply other condis from other rune sets.

Dolores.5471:

I will not argue with you about the triggering chance because I think you should just redo your tests… Same goes to your statement about weakness.

The way I see it your suggestions take us to two places:

A) the glyph being as useful as blinding ashes.

B) the glyph being out of control aoe confusion/torment.

I would be happy to retry the tests it has been a few months since i last tested it but we will see.

A) The difference being that 1 Blind every 5 seconds is terrible. Burning, Chill Confusion or Torment every 5 seconds would be very good, of course better for condition builds but i think it would be worth it for condition builds, currently its just “meh”

B) That can easily be fixed and adjusted. They could adjust it so that it can only proc on X number of people (normally 5) when it procs, so it would proc on the main target and others around that target within a reasonable radius.

No one wants it to be so insanely broken that it becomes a “i win” button pretty much like what Signet of Spite is, i would just like ele to be given a little bit more access to conditions, we (at base – no traits, gear, runes anything) have TWO damaging conditions. I think an increase to that would be beneficial both to condition eles but other builds as well giving them other options.

I also play condition ele and it is very powerful in wvw. A few days before the patch I encountered a very highly skillful condition ele from Fa like no other condition ele i have ever faced. I even whispered badelementalist “There’s this condition ele solo roaming around and kicking my you know what so hard” I have never met any other condition based ele that can spam so many different conditions constantly. The pressure was insane way more than any burst or dps ele has ever done on me (back then my ele also had several ways to remove conditions). Mobility, heals, condition removal, defensive/offensive boons, massive condition damage with and without confusion… he had it all.

haha awesome!!!
I play 20+ tpvp games a day for several weeks now have never lost to another elementalist before. I run somewhat of a hybrid build focused mainly on debuffs.

Still kind of wanting to change Perplexity but just not sure what i could try :/
My latest roaming Video: http://youtu.be/GieXgGnX1Bs

That Grenth elite is op, perma chill and poison in 1 skill.

Atoss.1056:

That Grenth elite is op, perma chill and poison in 1 skill.

I wouldn’t say its overpowered, it only ticks every 3 seconds, can be kited and is in a small radius. You have to be on the target 100% of the time. Plus its a 180second cool down for a max of 15 seconds of Poison and Chill at base and like 21 seconds with 40% added duration and again assuming you are on the target(s) 100% of the time so when it procs.

I mean every condition based build on other classes have much better class elites that is is rarely used – in fact i have ONLY seen it used by Human Elementalists and no one else. With that in mind, It is rather balanced.

It is strong but the fact it is only used by 1 build/class says it all really, that is only because Elementalists have NO condition based Elite or an Elite that helps in this sort of build, other classes have Elites that are useful in ALL builds, we are very limited with some of the worst in the game.

I meant it more as “my asura doesn’t have useful elites” :P So I usually fight without any, just fgs to escape when roaming. Duels – no elite (unless some rly annoying guy then elemental)…

Atoss.1056:

I meant it more as “my asura doesn’t have useful elites” :P So I usually fight without any, just fgs to escape when roaming. Duels – no elite (unless some rly annoying guy then elemental)…

Yeah some of the race Elites could be buffed a bit, i do find that the Golem (the attack one) is pretty strong and deals some very solid damage as well. Better than Fire Elemental in my opinion

I like Sylvari elite Summon sylvan hound
Its poison and bleeding scale with our condition damage, and it is immune to condi.

Not a beast elite skill but i like it.

Not a bad skill, Poison is very helpful. What is its attack speed? If its like once every 2-3 seconds then not so sure.

Looks like it’s 2 seconds.

Thats not too bad. The skill has a long duration, it all depends on how much damage it takes i mean it would be pointless if it melts in seconds. I really like the idea of Hounds of Balt but it is rather weak.

Hounds has poor health (10k) and very low armor (2k) a Weak burning (1 second) Fiery Leap seems decent and counts as a Leap Finisher but i think its still not that great 30 second duration isn’t too bad. The stats are rather poor and access to 1 condition is poor as well.

When I use it it lasts for a very long time since your healing abilities (except main heal) also affects the hound so it heals with you. From previous fights I’ve seen warriors try to target it first, but lose all sense of awareness while I freely use Churning Earth so the Sylvan Hound can prove to be a great distraction while also being useful.

Found something very iffy….

40% Condition Duration food
Runes of Balt (45% burning Duration)

85% Burning Duration
1 second Burn becomes 1 1/4second Burn deals 879 damage

40% Condition Duration food
10% Condition Duration from Fire trait line
25% Burning Duration from Embers Might

Total 75% Burning Duration.
1 second Burn becomes 2 second burn dealing 1,670 damage

Can anyone explain this? Does gw2skills not add the duration from Balt runeset?

Trying to think about changes i could make. Thinking about what Hounds of Balt in a Burning Build could be like, Would have to buy new Dire Gear though, just in case. Perplexity can do insane tick damage.

Depending on the attack speed of The hounds and the base attack that inflicts 1 second Burn, i would assume that it is increased by caster Condition duration and damage (can anyone confirm?)

I can tell that when I put that fire trait 25% burn duration increase it wasn’t showing increased burn durations in skills. Was before patch though, would have to check it again, but I guess some bonuses from traits or runes not always show up in skill descriptions…

Also at times the burn seems to tick double number o_o No idea why.. Look at 0:34 in the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg8DTopvSjo

Dolores.5471:

I will not argue with you about the triggering chance because I think you should just redo your tests

I redid the tests, it seemed to gain 1 extra proc as it would proc 4-5 times. What i did. Activate in Fire for bruning and go to Air and spam the auto attack for the whole duration and it inflicted 4-5 Burning procs, it is still not quite proccing the 6 possible times.

So with my build 4 Burning would deal about 12-15,000 Burning damage (assuming no removal) that is about the same as Drake’s Breathe. To me, that is rather poor. 45 second cool down skill JUST being better than a 5second cool down skill. Thus in that say 30 second duration, i would only need to use Drake’s Breathe twice to deal more Burning damage which is kind of sad.

Wow dat 1382 burning damage, it is like having 4220 condition damage !!
Strange …

Croustibat.7035:

Wow dat 1382 burning damage, it is like having 4220 condition damage !!
Strange …

My Drake’s Breathe without many Burning Trait improvements and 40% duration at fully buffed does like 12-13k Burning damage. My burning ticks are about 850 ticks.

With 10 in Fire, Balt Runes and 40% food Drakes Breathe can apparently do up to 21,000damage….

Yes of course but on the video it is 1382 in one tick, might be some kind of ‘bug’.

Croustibat.7035:

Yes of course but on the video it is 1382 in one tick, might be some kind of ‘bug’.

Yeah it seems to be something to do with duration set at a specific duration or something. It affects all classes i think, i know Mesmers Staff Auto attack it has been mentioned about this so its a bug that is for sure, the reason behind it i have no idea. When it will get fixed, i have no idea either.

Been giving Balt rune set a think, If Dire armor didnt jump through the atmosphere in terms of price i would have defo given it a try. A single item when i last looked cost MORE than my whole set did a few months back :/

Also been thinking about getting Sigil of Leeching in place of Torment, the damage is like 3-400 less but its all upfront and the extra healing would come in handy but i am not too sure, its just a shame that the damage and healing is set and can’t be boosted with more power and Healing Power.

I played condi before it was cool. Ive quit gw2 for a bit from overplaying. Might make a dire based ele instead of apothecary if I come back. Condi gets boring after awhile though definitely more user friendly than power builds.

FrownyClown.8402:

I played condi before it was cool. Ive quit gw2 for a bit from overplaying. Might make a dire based ele instead of apothecary if I come back. Condi gets boring after awhile though definitely more user friendly than power builds.

Didn’t you started playing after perplexity?
Aren’t you the VR guy?

Dolores.5471:

FrownyClown.8402:

I played condi before it was cool. Ive quit gw2 for a bit from overplaying. Might make a dire based ele instead of apothecary if I come back. Condi gets boring after awhile though definitely more user friendly than power builds.

Didn’t you started playing after perplexity?
Aren’t you the VR guy?

Perplexity was pretty much the build back then. That and burning. Yes I was the perplexity condi ele from 8 months ago. The only thing I could see replacing perplexity is torment runes but that also depends on the aoe of the bonus. Create a build focused on stacking bleed and torment rather than confusion.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYlMMouhdOwxB8rNwHQQ87ZYRQ560XA-TViHABpoSAH6BiTJYSKLyd/hVU3BgHAgRK1A+EAQKAImGB-w

This is what id try to run

You know, perplexity isn’t exactly before it was cool.
Should’ve seen how it was before apothecary gear came out…

Dolores.5471:

You know, perplexity isn’t exactly before it was cool.
Should’ve seen how it was before apothecary gear came out…

Lol dont think I was playing that long ago. All I know is condi ele wasnt popular when I introduced the build I ran on the forums. Im glad some people developed condi builds further as im sure there are great builds out there better that what I used.

Those were dark times, anyway, the builds are still highly overlooked. Your traits and gear are good, I run soothing disruption so I usually pick windborne dagger over signet of air and add another utility. I personaly wouldn’t pick the same sigils and runes, perplexity is still too good to pass, specially against burst mashing-button classes. Geomancy is good, but you arealdy have enough bleeds (for an ele condi build) so I’d switch for doom since the only poison you currently have is in a huge cooldown, and poison is a VERY important condition.

FrownyClown.8402:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYlMMouhdOwxB8rNwHQQ87ZYRQ560XA-TViHABpoSAH6BiTJYSKLyd/hVU3BgHAgRK1A+EAQKAImGB-w

This is what id try to run

Just my opinions:

Utilities, personally i think they are all rather weak choices. Not a lot of defense. You got a Bloind on a 30 second cool down that you won’t really want to use due to the passive. 32second blink which most classes can still catch you if you try to run and Cleansing Fire which decent condition removal but at a 32 second cool down i think it could be better.

In Earth, I would take the Protection on Aura with D/D you have 2 auras as well. Though if you don’t have it in utilities it is nice to have it part of a trait (Armor of Earth)

In Water, i personally run with Soothing Wave and the cool down reduction trait. of course if i am facing condition builds i switch from Stone Heart to Diamond skin for that little added protection against conditions

In Arcana, i personally run Windborne Dagger, this is to free up a utility and/or Rune set though running with Evasive Arcana does make Renewing Stamina worth it, but as i don’t run with it anyway it is less useful.

Sigils. Torment is a solid choice and great that it is AoE i personally go with Doom as my second option as its great against Warriors and heavy healing builds and classes.

Armor seems very solid as well, though i would be inclined to squeeze as much Healing Power as i could out of the stats, so going Apoth weapons and Rings as well as grabbing Apoth chest and legs would be my aim just to get it up to around 800Healing Power.

Its the Runeset that is its biggest weakness. 2 stacks of Torment on Heal is AWFUL for a 6/6 bonus and the fact that it has a 20second cool down as well. I would personally if you aren’t interested in Perplexity give Balt a look. The added Burning Duration and Burn on heal is pretty solid.

Think if you swapped out Evasive Arcana for Elemental Surge and grabbed Arcane Brilliance that would be some very nice Burning, assuming both would proc and i wouldnt see why they wouldn’t You could also combine it with other Attunements like Water and get AoE chill and Burning off.

Dolores.5471:

Those were dark times, anyway, the builds are still highly overlooked. Your traits and gear are good, I run soothing disruption so I usually pick windborne dagger over signet of air and add another utility. I personaly wouldn’t pick the same sigils and runes, perplexity is still too good to pass, specially against burst mashing-button classes. Geomancy is good, but you arealdy have enough bleeds (for an ele condi build) so I’d switch for doom since the only poison you currently have is in a huge cooldown, and poison is a VERY important condition.

Condition ele can be very good when played right. I agree i think that the sigils and mostly just Geomancy i would change for Doom, the Torment one actually procs rather nicely, even with low base Precision thanks to its 50% proc chance.

Currently, Perplexity is the go too Rune in my opinion. It offers great damage and the duration and uptime it has is really good as well. It is in my opinion SO much better than Rune of Torment. Though another option could be the Balt rune set, increased Burning Duration is very nice and Burn on Heal

Though another option could be, go with Rune of Torment, grab Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance. When used in Fire – you would have Burning and Torment proc and could be combined with Water for Chill and Torment. Though procs from Air wouldn’t be that great and the proc from Earth would actually be a damage loss for Torment.

Could be rather interesting. I mean With the right buffs you could have 85% Torment Duration so the proc from the Heal could last nearly 20 seconds assuming it doesnt get cleansed add in potential procs from Torment Sigil and the Burning from Elemental Surge (in Fire) that could be some nasty condition spike.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

FrownyClown.8402:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYlMMouhdOwxB8rNwHQQ87ZYRQ560XA-TViHABpoSAH6BiTJYSKLyd/hVU3BgHAgRK1A+EAQKAImGB-w

This is what id try to run

Just my opinions:

Utilities, personally i think they are all rather weak choices. Not a lot of defense. You got a Bloind on a 30 second cool down that you won’t really want to use due to the passive. 32second blink which most classes can still catch you if you try to run and Cleansing Fire which decent condition removal but at a 32 second cool down i think it could be better.

In Earth, I would take the Protection on Aura with D/D you have 2 auras as well. Though if you don’t have it in utilities it is nice to have it part of a trait (Armor of Earth)

In Water, i personally run with Soothing Wave and the cool down reduction trait. of course if i am facing condition builds i switch from Stone Heart to Diamond skin for that little added protection against conditions

In Arcana, i personally run Windborne Dagger, this is to free up a utility and/or Rune set though running with Evasive Arcana does make Renewing Stamina worth it, but as i don’t run with it anyway it is less useful.

Sigils. Torment is a solid choice and great that it is AoE i personally go with Doom as my second option as its great against Warriors and heavy healing builds and classes.

Armor seems very solid as well, though i would be inclined to squeeze as much Healing Power as i could out of the stats, so going Apoth weapons and Rings as well as grabbing Apoth chest and legs would be my aim just to get it up to around 800Healing Power.

Its the Runeset that is its biggest weakness. 2 stacks of Torment on Heal is AWFUL for a 6/6 bonus and the fact that it has a 20second cool down as well. I would personally if you aren’t interested in Perplexity give Balt a look. The added Burning Duration and Burn on heal is pretty solid.

Think if you swapped out Evasive Arcana for Elemental Surge and grabbed Arcane Brilliance that would be some very nice Burning, assuming both would proc and i wouldnt see why they wouldn’t You could also combine it with other Attunements like Water and get AoE chill and Burning off.

Dolores.5471:

Those were dark times, anyway, the builds are still highly overlooked. Your traits and gear are good, I run soothing disruption so I usually pick windborne dagger over signet of air and add another utility. I personaly wouldn’t pick the same sigils and runes, perplexity is still too good to pass, specially against burst mashing-button classes. Geomancy is good, but you arealdy have enough bleeds (for an ele condi build) so I’d switch for doom since the only poison you currently have is in a huge cooldown, and poison is a VERY important condition.

Condition ele can be very good when played right. I agree i think that the sigils and mostly just Geomancy i would change for Doom, the Torment one actually procs rather nicely, even with low base Precision thanks to its 50% proc chance.

Currently, Perplexity is the go too Rune in my opinion. It offers great damage and the duration and uptime it has is really good as well. It is in my opinion SO much better than Rune of Torment. Though another option could be the Balt rune set, increased Burning Duration is very nice and Burn on Heal

Though another option could be, go with Rune of Torment, grab Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance. When used in Fire – you would have Burning and Torment proc and could be combined with Water for Chill and Torment. Though procs from Air wouldn’t be that great and the proc from Earth would actually be a damage loss for Torment.

Could be rather interesting. I mean With the right buffs you could have 85% Torment Duration so the proc from the Heal could last nearly 20 seconds assuming it doesnt get cleansed add in potential procs from Torment Sigil and the Burning from Elemental Surge (in Fire) that could be some nasty condition spike.

I hear its a 10s base duration though. Havent tested personally. Those where the utilities I ran and was comfortable with. Ill prob give it a try soon. Ill let u know how it foes.

FrownyClown.8402:

I hear its a 10s base duration though. Havent tested personally. Those where the utilities I ran and was comfortable with. Ill prob give it a try soon. Ill let u know how it foes.

Yeah it seems to be 10 seconds, which is very decent and with just the rune set that becomes like 15 seconds thanks to the 45% Torment Duration, add in 40% food and that is a total of 85% duration increase which would make it about 18 and 1/2 seconds.

Add into that the what would be nearly 10seconds of Torment from the Sigil and that is pretty decent. Though i would question just which heal would be best to use it and personally find those that require healing to be pretty poor. If it was like Krait and on Elite use would require higher stacks maybe but that would be pretty solid as well.

But if you take it and combine it with Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance that would be quite good i think, though you would (imo) need to run the Arcane Cool down reduction trait – 35seconds (iirc) is simply too long a cool down.

Well grats Ash condi ele has become popular or blackgate just so happens to like condi ele. I never seen so many Diamond skin condition elementalist since this week. I can’t do anything on my necro until someone breaks it. Blackgate seems to like D/F though for their condi ele builds. The spec I see them running is 0/4/6/0/4.

Are you sure it’s 0/4/6/0/4? That shouldn’t be a problem, it is very simple to break the anti-condi ceiling (even on dire gear, really) and once you do that and get poison + weakness in most diamond skin eles will fall, specially in a build like that.

Dolores.5471:

Are you sure it’s 0/4/6/0/4? That shouldn’t be a problem, it is very simple to break the anti-condi ceiling (even on dire gear, really) and once you do that and get poison + weakness in most diamond skin eles will fall, specially in a build like that.

I didn’t ask but I was hit by lighting strike from a diamond skin that was only build I could think of. Breaking it isn’t really a issue I can life blast it but the invuln on focus swirling winds makes it hard to keep it down and of course you would take rock solid and ether. One ele says he runs it 0/0/6/4/4.

I don’t even run focus but when I went out in 0/4/6/0/4 on my Ele to try focus I didn’t really have a problem until I got to about half health anything above that wasn’t hard to recover the HP.

Depends on what we’re talking about here..
Duels? Yes I can see this working.
Roaming/outmaned fights? You’d be tough to hit, but you’d have no big cc, 1 or none traited big heal and no runaway skill (unless you run FGS which isn’t optimal in a condi build), additionaly, the only damaging condi you’d be puting out in aoe is burning.

oZii.2864:

Well grats Ash condi ele has become popular or blackgate just so happens to like condi ele. I never seen so many Diamond skin condition elementalist since this week. I can’t do anything on my necro until someone breaks it. Blackgate seems to like D/F though for their condi ele builds. The spec I see them running is 0/4/6/0/4.

Good to see condi eles come out of their shells.

oZii.2864:

Well grats Ash condi ele has become popular or blackgate just so happens to like condi ele. I never seen so many Diamond skin condition elementalist since this week. I can’t do anything on my necro until someone breaks it. Blackgate seems to like D/F though for their condi ele builds. The spec I see them running is 0/4/6/0/4.

I encountered a condi ele last night and wanted to duel them to see what adjustments i could make to my build/gameplay style to counter another ele using Diamond skin as i know currently my direct damage isn’t enough to get through them. I have a few ideas but would prefer to give them a real test.

It turned out they were trying condi ele because of my posts and videos, it seemed rather odd. Not actually used to people knowing me but i have to admit, it made me smile

I have been seeing a increasing amount of condition ele in WvW and in OS, which just puts a smile on my face, knowing that i helped with it. Though i haven’t encountered any running with Focus.

To me that just seems a bit too defensive. Though Flame Wall has a rather good duration at 8 seconds the fact its just a line and not a ring around me does weaken it a bit and it has 5 second longer cool down. I think i would take Fire Shield over Fire Grab, in my build the damage is just pathetic

Water is even worse, No heal is very damaging. A 3 second chill on a 25 second cool down is decent but mainly due to its range, nothing else. Though i wouldn’t take it over Frost Aura nor would i take Comet over Cleansing Wave.

Air is weak mobility wise. The projectile destruction is decent though would have preferred reflection. Gale seems a bit weak as well, the 2 second knockdown is decent and so is the range but it has a rather long cool down and i really like that Updraft can hit several people at the same time, grants swiftness and has a lower cool down.

Earth. This is the one. Magnetic Wave is something that D/D really needs. range spamming is very annoying and having no skills that can counter that is really annoying. A reasonable reflection duration (3 seconds) as well as crippling foes and curing 3 conditions and being a blast is very very nice. Obsidian Flesh is nice, i just don’t like the cool down. I think 50 seconds is very steep. All in all i think if we had the choice i would take Focus Earth skills over x/D skills but i think i would take x/D skills over Focus skills for the other attunements Fire Shied in place of Fire Grab as well.

0/4/6/0/4 seems very interesting. Would assume taking Soothing Winds to counter the loss of healing Power from not going into Water, guessing they would also go more into Rabid armor/weapons/accessories as well to boost up the Healing Power and Crit chance as well. Would think Inscription, likely with the Inscription heal. The rest i would assume would be the basic choices.

Dolores.5471:

Depends on what we’re talking about here..
Duels? Yes I can see this working.
Roaming/outmaned fights? You’d be tough to hit, but you’d have no big cc, 1 or none traited big heal and no runaway skill (unless you run FGS which isn’t optimal in a condi build), additionaly, the only damaging condi you’d be puting out in aoe is burning.

I spend 99% of my time Roaming and i win far more than i lose. No need for FGS either. When you can just tank hits as you are running, swapping to Fire for Burning Speed and evade attacks and using Air for Swiftness and Ride The Lightening as well. I have been chased before by 3-4 people at the same time and escaped.

The AoE conditions don’t matter as much, even in out numbered as you would be (or should be) focusing someone and the other(s) would still be getting Burning and Torment at the very least. You have AoE Chill, Frost Aura, Shocking Aura, Earthquake, Ring of Earth and even Churning Earth and then you have to include the Auto attacks, Cone of Cold and Updraft as well as all the fire skills (minus Fire Grab) that can cause AoE conditions and damage.

CC isn’t the be all and end all of the game. We have 2 as D/D and they both work really well and are both AoE CC. You don’t need no big heal when going into Water heals you, going into Water grants Regen and casting abilities heal you and then you have things like Stone Heart that can help you as well as Arcane Shield, Armor of Earth and such as well.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have been seeing a increasing amount of condition ele in WvW and in OS, which just puts a smile on my face, knowing that i helped with it. Though i haven’t encountered any running with Focus.

Started using focus today and I f#king love it. It feels weird not using d/d anymore, the off-hand skills are kinda new to me even though I know full well what they do. I have a lot more survivability now and that helped me beat some players that I wouldn’t have been able to beat before with d/d.

Dahir.4158:

Started using focus today and I f#king love it. It feels weird not using d/d anymore, the off-hand skills are kinda new to me even though I know full well what they do. I have a lot more survivability now and that helped me beat some players that I wouldn’t have been able to beat before with d/d.

The Focus is a bit too defensive for my liking, it has like 3 skills out of 8 that i would like, the rest are subpar compared to Dagger off hand. Dagger offhand offers more in my opinion – More access to burning, Healing, Frost Aura, 2 knockback/knock downs and mobility as well as Churning Earth, sure it might be useless most of the time but when it hits boy its deadly.