Guild Wars 2

I’m a D/D elementalist, and I am looking for recommendations on crafted gear. My goal is to do good dps, while having good survivability. (If that’s possible)

I know a lot of people use the P/V/T gear obtained in Ascalonian Catacombs, but I would like to get opinions as to what the best crafted gear there is, taking into account the nerf patch. I have all the mats needed to craft the Exotic armor, daggers, and Trinkets (just need to pick what Fine Crafting Mats I need).

I’ve looked at a combination of Carrion & Cleric gear, and also Valkyrie, but I’m unsure if they will limit my dps output.

Is there a combination of crafted gear and Runes/Sigils that stands above the rest, and will allow me good dps and survivability?

I use full Cleric’s weapons/accessories, and PTV armor from AC. I use Major Water / Superior Water / Superior Monk on armor, and Superior Life / Superior Battle on daggers. I have great survivability through Healing, good Toughness, decent Vitality, and plenty of Power. A bit lacking in Precision / Condition damage, and if you really wanted you could always trade a few pieces out for something different. But so far that combination has worked really well for me, and I would definitely recommend it.

I use a mix of knights and clerics. I have 30%ish crit and good enough heal that it takes more than 2 to kill me in wvw.

I use full Valkyrie (Power/Vit/Crit Dam) on my armor and weaps, and full Berserkers (Power/Pres/Crit Dam, jewels included) on my jewelry. I’m a D/D ele running a perma fury/vigor cantrips build based around might stacking.

I chose Valkyrie and Berserkers because my brother plays a staff/Hammer support heal guardian with power/tough/vit gear (and some healing somewhere). I usually group with him. He heals a lot.

A lot of classes can give you protection buffs, but the one thing you can’t get is Vitality. That’s only from gear. Power/Tough/Vit seems great, but that’s way too much survivability imo in dungeons where even full tough’d out Guardians sometimes get 3-4 shotted. Having all the defenses doesn’t help you jack squat in a game like this. I’d rather have some and do very good damage than go that far.

With my set up I’m close to 50% crit damage and crit chance with 3k power and close to 20k HP. I can easily hit 19 stacks of might in a couple of seconds, and my brother can help max to 25 if needed with staff. That’s not bad imo.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

@Marius: What Runes and Sigils do you use with your build?

Whats wrong with Berserker gear?..

Power/Precision/Crit

Mix in survival trinkets – Power/Vitality/Toughness or heal power..

Works wonders.

For a DPS/support, you can try…

Berserker (Pwr, Pres, Crit) stats on your armour.

With

Apothecary (Cond, Tgh, Heal) for Trinks.

Gives you a good range of stats. In a group, you get some burst damage in through air, fire and earth. Swap to water for support. Then go again.

Some people would disagree with taking condition damage, saying power is a better overall DPS increase. Truth is, that it can be pretty situational. You can swap out Apothecary for Cleric’s, if you like. You probably wouldn’t notice any difference, really.

The build lacks Vitality, so you need to learn which abilities in a boss fight will one shot you. And be ready for them. Watch players who drop light fields, combo with them to cure conditions off yourself.

For any stats you feel you are still lacking in, or want to buff more. Use the upgrade slots in your trinks to fill out you character as you see fit. Thats a further 6 slots worth of stats that you can play with.

Also, “on kill” weapon sigils that increase your stats are good, if you can stay up. The precision one or the heal one, would both support this gear well. If you struggle to stay up, you can go for “on swap” sigils. Since swapping attunements counts as weapon swapping. “On swaps” are probably the better choice if you prefer melee over ranged. Sigil of Energy for more Dodges is a great one.

FYI, I use a D/D Cantrip based, might stacking, Auramancer build. Which is pretty standard these days, it seems.

Hope I’ve helped. Have fun.

Zektor.7613:

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

@Marius: What Runes and Sigils do you use with your build?

I run Valkyrie weaps with Superior Sigil of Battle (3 stacks of might on attunement swap) and Sigil of Force (5% damage passive).

I used to use Battle + Sigil of Fire (PBAoE fire damage). Fire is nice because it can AoE 5 targets, and against the Heavy Mech practice dummy in the Mist it does about 800-900 damage non-crit damage with 3k+ power. That’s not bad damage. The Lightning proc sigil does a little over 1000-1100 damage non-crit against a single target.

The reason why I swapped out of Fire and went passive is because of my playstyle. I’m a D/D ele, I swap attunements ALL the time. The Battle sigil and Fire Sigil both share an internal cooldown that is global between both. I think Battle is a 9 sec cooldown, while fire is 5 sec. That means if you proc either of the two, the other (or the same one) cannot proc again until the respected internal cooldown has ended. This becomes bad in situations where you either need more might, or AoE is not important (say against a boss) and the Fire sigil procs (putting you in a 5 sec global cooldown) and thus you don’t get 3 stacks of might on attunement swap from Battle (plus your doing lower damage because it’s an AoE hit from Fire).

Also, the Fire Sigil is a 30% proc chance while the Battle and the Force sigils are not a proc chance. If you have crappy crit chance to begin with, Fire sigil sucks. I’m a Might-stacking D/D ele, it’s more important I stack might and keep it up than have a situational damage proc sigil.