Guild Wars 2

Been trying alternate D/D builds that don’t involve Cantrips or Water/Arcane and came across and interesting one.

I run something close to this ideal:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMKb22wuBf0ACAW4AQDoIOOI0DKCi2AA-T1RJABXp+TRK/A4EAgmeAueAA7u/QbKBJDAzWA-w

What’s interesting is that fire shield counts as an aura , which Im not sure has always been the case? But that gives you high uptime on fury/swiftness/protection when you pop a signet (and occasional aegis if you run resistance runes), burns proc blindness and tick for a respectable 500-550 or so. Combining generosity + purity + water signet give plenty of condi mitigation.

There might be some serious room for improvement too, I think you could probably run glassier to good effect. Flame legion runes might be really good, a lot of rune sets could work.

xD indeed it looks fun, what is the cd on blinding ashes? i think that is where we need to look at.

I love the fire trait on paper…

The horror when i discovered it hits everything like doors, walls, bridges, trees and invisible objects everywhere….

Its cool in 1vs1 but since ele’s weakness is indeed XvsX the fire trait won t help.

Btw the signets could…
I like it on paper except i could never go www with 1700 base power .-. and a signet of spite will eat you alive.

Idea is really good it needs tweaking.

P.S. its a global 5 seconds ICD that means you will waste your blind on eveything random (against a mesmer is awful).

I was thinking about same synergy of resistance runes and signets but on scepter. Build looks really nice i’ll try it in pvp maybe. About blinding ashes @lordbyron i can see an usage in the build here – they hit u and get blind because of fire aura – so it is not as random. Also the signet burns single target so it can proc it too.

Btw i found out that aura from rune of fire works as ele aura with traits (if someone doesnt have the gold for strengh runes can give it a try).

Blind cooldown is global

That means it procs randomly whenever you hit something.
If you hit a wall, a phantasm and a player, you will probably waste the effect.

It means also the trait will be weak against any pet profession (necro/mesmer/ranger etc)

When i considered the trait i went with these:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Balthazar

It looks interesting on paper, but I doubt I will be giving up cantrips for signets.

You lose all the surivability and mobility of cantrips for some kind of helpful passive effects and weak active effects of signets. Plus, you lose the only skill that gives us stability.

As opposed to the traditional water/arcane spec, you lose all the condition removal, healing, regen and vigor from cantrips for a focus on blind, an extra aura for more fury uptime and constant passive bonuses. I’ve never had much of a problem with the fury uptime in the cantrip build from Arcane Fury and Air I with the three auras available in D/D.

You got more power and precision than the standard cantrip build, but you had to trade out Sigils of Strength and Bloodlust for Sigils for sigils that make up for you loss of conditional removal which means a loss of might. Combined with no boon duration either from runes or traiting in Arcane, I would wager the dmg output is about the same between the two builds, given you have a flat dmg increase and no might and bread and butter cantrips has plenty of might stacking and less flat dmg.

Build also has no healing and support for allies like a cantrip build traited in Water and Arcane.

I used something like this for a very short time after the game was released (then I changed it back to something more useful)

The traits seem to synergize at first but:

1. Fire shield is rather weak. It gives you a stack of might with a rather short duration and burns your opponent for a second when you are struck. 1 second of burn really doesn’t help that much because you already have lots of burn on your fire skills and might can be stacked a lot better using other tools. (fire field combos, signet of strength & battle..)

2. It blocks your utilities. Other utilies (especially cantrips) are FAR more useful. A single churning earth that you can land right on target thanks to lightning flash will change the combat more than 5 fire shields.

3. Signets are not that good in my opinion. A single drake’s breath will do more damage than all of them combined and the passive effects dont really shine either. The only really useful thing is that you can use the active and passive of signet of restoration.

4. Although you have a good protection/fury/swiftness uptime, it is generally more advisable to go for arcana and get this via the arcane traits and the enhanced boon duration. This will also give you the very important regeneration and vigor boons.

5. You have no points in water. Although this is just personal opinion I would not want to play a build without water traits. That 1,5k heal every 10 seconds (healing ripple) + regeneration (via elemental attunement) + soothing mist + 2k heal from evasive arcana dodge is just too good to pass up. The fact that this combo uses your healing power very well is 50% of the reason to go for celestial gear in the first place (as opposed to soldiers gear for example).

6. Blinding ashes is really not the best choice. It is far too random (especially if you throw in a lot of fire shields).

7. The condition removal is really poor. As others have stated even a single signet of spite will put you in a very bad position.