Guild Wars 2

Hey guys first off, I would like to say that I do not take credit for this build at all. It was created by a friend of mine called Duke On a Buffalo. Here is a link to the video.

Here is the build. switch out the runes of course.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmibzR5gjDAkHnYCLjChUeMTO2A-jkyAIuASLAJPA5xioxWjLiGrSOx6ZAtNmWPqeloKFAEzBA-w

I am sorry for the poor video editing. I was using a free program that I was unfamiliar with.

Let me know if you guys want a write up on the build.

Condition Damage Applied

Burning- This will be the condition that does the most overall damage. I sit close to 1200 condition damage with the +40% condition duration food and my Drake’s Breath does 10k damage in 16 seconds. The way burns work is when one is applied on top of another it just increases the duration of the burn applied. With 16 seconds I have alot of wiggle room with Drake’s Breath. The skill hits 4 times over a period of about 3 seconds. If I wasn’t using the food and lets say the enemy dodge rolls and I miss one of those hits. The original 12s duration is reduced to 9s. That means every 9 seconds I would need to switch back to fire to have an upkeep of burn. The best part is the skill recharge rate is so low that even if the enemy cleanses the burn you can put it right back on him.

Bleed- in bleed I start out with my evasive arcana dodge roll. I dodge into the enemy then I use earth 2, earth 3, couple earth 1s and of course our best damage output/second, Churning Earth. Do to the sheer toughness of this build I have time to land churns as you see in my video. I always go from fire to earth for might stacks and to apply heavy condition pressure.

Confusion- That’s right. With the new confusion runes the damage potential of this build probably doubled. Do to our constant spamming of skills the 20% chance to apply 3 stacks of confusion on hit always happens. We also have access to 3 interrupt skills; Air aura, updraft and the earth 4 skill. Those give 5 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds and it has no icd (even if an icd is eventually added it wont really affect elementalists while hurting stun warriors and daze thieves).

Why This Build is Better

The primary reason is my damage output over time seems to be the same as the traditional power build. Sure I can’t burst an enemy down, but I can outlast enemies while applying constant DoT.

I also have access to almost 1100 healing power so my healing potential is just about the same as elementalists used to be.

I run 30 in water and I get access to extra condition removal.

I have 10 in earth and get a free armor of earth. This trait gets more valuable the longer the fights last.

Tips

This is really easy to pick up if you played d/d ele before. It literally has the same rotations, but in fire you want to focus more on landing Drake’s Breath than Fire Grab.

I like to start with burning speed because of its low duration burns then I will use Ring of Fire and kite the enemy in and out of it for duration. I will use Drake’s Breath while doing this alot.

Lightning Flash is going to be used primarily for landing churns. I have noticed I land hits more often when churn and the enemy is not in the circle at the time I proc it (they won’t try to time a dodge).

I have a tendency to waste my Rtl and Updraft to start the fight. Save both of them for when you need some time to heal.

Constantly apply chill/weakness to them right after you apply your condition damage skills. This way if they cleanse conditions it will cleanse those first.

bumping because I updated it with a link to the build and a brief overview of the playstyle.

Nice gameplay while being outnumbered! that Rune of Perplexity is just so scary right now.

I see 2 nerfs coming to these runes. An ICD on the interrupt and stacked being reduced to 3 on interrupt.

enjoyed, awesome gameplay!

Frowny, this is nice to see. I would have a few suggestions to try:

-Use 2x Giver’s Daggers for condi duration (+20% from daggers)
- Superior sigil of doom would help you get more cover conditions and really help you in your attrition fight by reducing enemy healing.
-Glyph of elemental power would help you out a ton, both applying more burning and proccing more cover condis for your damage. The weakness from choosing air is also REALLY strong against power/burst damage and you can dish it out so quickly/almost constant. This also gives you 1 more stun-break.
-If I went with less than 3x cantrip, I would drop at least 10 in water for 10 in earth for rock solid (so ether renewal doesn’t get interrupted). Instead of cantrip reduction then, I would either take cantrips give vigor or stop,drop,and roll (although landing churning earth seems critical, so more LF seems to help you a lot).

The #6 runes of perplexity are awesome against thieves/other burst (shocking aura immediately puts them on defense). I’d almost consider going 20 in air just to get aeromancer’s alacrity + swiftness on aura use. I would expect the perplexity runes to get an ICD (maybe per target) as they are just so good right now.

Have you tried Sigil of Doom instead of Sigil of Geomancy? It’d give you another damaging condition to cover your other conditions, and reduce your enemy’s effective healing.

Decent suggestions. Just my survivabilty comes from my toughness/healing power. The more toughness I have the more valuable my healing power becomes. I lose out on condition damage, toughness, and healing power for an extra 2 seconds of damage.

Going 20 into earth is still pretty viable, but you lose out on some vitality and condition cleanses. I am usually pretty good about timing my air aura/armor of earth for the heals. Not to mention obstructing view.

You are right about the stunbreakers though. At the end of the video the thing that killed me was a stun from a hammer warrior. IMO glyph of elemental power doesn’t proc enough to be considered better than a mist form which saved me multiple times.

Neko I have tried it in spvp. The thing I don’t like about it is my evasive arcana can proc it and can go on an enemy i didn’t intend. Also, alot of my skills are aoe and can go onto an enemy I didn’t intend it to. If they made sigil of doom aoe I would switch it in a heartbeat. Right now geomancy gives me a nice aoe 2100 bleed in 7 seconds.

FrownyClown.8402:

Going 20 into earth is still pretty viable, but you lose out on some vitality and condition cleanses. I am usually pretty good about timing my air aura/armor of earth for the heals. Not to mention obstructing view.

Just fyi, air aura doesn’t prevent you from being stunned. It only counter-stuns them afterwards.

The giver’s does trade toughness and healing power, but gives you more procs of renewing stamina for vigor which increases survival.

I understand that deep in water gives you a few more cleanses, but I think the stability might save your butt and allow you to use ether renewal more often and in tighter situations. It is available every time you rotate back to earth, and thus gives you more reliable heal and condition cleansing.

Also, GoEP was suggested instead of cleansing fire, and actually procs a lot more than you’d think with the frequency of hits (i.e. each autoattack in air is 3 hits with a chance to proc). With your condi duration, you will keep up constant weakness, which gives you a TON of active defense vs. power classes. Vs. condi classes you can go with fire for more dmg or water to slow them down as well as their skill recharges. I would only save the stun-break if you are playing against a high-cc build and pace the fight a bit more.

Sure. I will experiment with your suggestions. And I know air aura doesn’t stop stuns but it discourages hitting me

Why didn’t you reply to my posttttt????

I will smuggle these runes into spvp, and armed with a condition staff Ele will rule the gw2 hipsters (when not playing in a future-garage band).

I’ve always felt condition damage worked pretty well thanks to drake’s breath, and with runes of perplexity maybe condi d/d ele is viable in wvw now. The only problem is bleed stacks are still hard to get up for d/d without landing churning earth (all they have to do is time dodge). Would be awesome if we had a “stone breath” that bled people. 5 stacks of confusion on shocking aura sounds amazing though (wasn’t sure it worked since the hit lands).

Pros:
- Runes of perplexity would synergize well with ele because the 6th effect has no ICD.
- Additional source of condi damage aside from Burning and Bleeding

Cons:
- Ele’s interrupts have long CD
- Eles still have way too few conditions to dish out

This is only my opinion and I’m not saying that condition eles are not viable, I’ve been trying them a lot too (D/D and S/D) A good thing is that an Ele’s condition has long duration. The bad thing is the new condition meta forced people to use condition duration reduction gears and food in WvW. Another bad thing is that a good player will bring a decent amount of condi removal and ele’s don’t have the ability to reapply massive amount of conditions in a very short amount of time unlike engis and necros.

TL;DR – This build is very fun but don’t expect to faceroll your enemies a lot especially if you’re against another good player.

Kyon.9735:

TL;DR – This build is very fun but don’t expect to faceroll your enemies a lot especially if you’re against another good player.

I already asked him how he handled all that.

“Tactically withdraw.”

:)

Even if the runes get nerfed the build is still viable imo. I picked up conditions duration food to help counter warriors traited it aganst conditions. It takes much longer but they are possible to beat. I’d show you but tc had never heard of solo roaming

And the build is not op either. I’ve died 1v1 to a thief before and too much spike damage will kill you. Its not a faceroll build. It is an outlast the opponent build

Neat build, dat Drake’s Breath burn.

The only change I would make for the build in PvE/WvW is the addition of the Earth Shield. I know conjures (such as the Earth Shield) are a bit gimmicky or just not very useful (some would say bad).

I reason that because you have those Runes of Perplexity, the two interrupts (3 and 4) on Earth Shield would contribute to your confusion stacking.
Provided the runes are not nerfed again.

Rarerly see an effective use of Earth Shield, but it’d be nice to see a video of someone using it effectively.

Your youtube name and video is title Bad Elementalist, take it a step further and use the Earth Shield.

I’m using a condition build quite some time now with my Asura Ele (due to access to Confusion and Poison it was always fun to play).

Those runes make it perfect and traiting 30 in earth totally rounded up my build- and after the confusion nerf it’s nice to see some high confusion ticks again

I’m currently very happy about my condition dmg build being somewhat viable now. I’m curious what the future of this rune will be though and have some fears connected to that…

what? my name in game is Bad Elementalist your jerk

Nice build!

My main issue is lack of damage and survivaility. The reason why 30 arcane bunker ele’s are more popular and “viable” is because of its heavy use of boons. With the right gears to mix survivaility and burst and having boons like fury, might, and protection being kept up for nearly the whole fight makes it superior overall compared to builds like yours.

Also, it doesn’t quite keep up like other classes can because of how attunements work. Basically, you have one condition each on fire and earth. That’s it. Note that as well as significantly higher cooldowns to balance out having 20 skills, you’re also restricted to one attunement. That’s obvious but the repercussions are significant: you’re locked out of either half or all of your condition damage depending on attunement.

The small success of this build obviously relies on runes of perplexity which is great for the number of cc’s the profession has. Air 3 with perplexity runes synergize perfectly, especially when activated while channeling earth 5. However, as I stated earlier, other classes can do better, as well has having the same access to the runes that your build uses as a crutch.

Good build, good gameplay, but fails to hold its head up among established builds.

I’m playing around with a condition ele build myself. I’ve gone full rabid (ascendeds too).

I am OMG Glassy and might borrow some from this to get that glass shored up a bit. But my question is this:

Why the sigil of geomancy? Eles cant weapon swap so that seems like a wasted sigil slow. What I use instead is the sigil of malice which extends condition duration another 5%. And though it may not seem like much, its helped win some fights for my team even after I’m killed :P

I die a lot. Might make a video later of this haha.

Also here’s mah current build that I’m toying with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJAoYhImcbzx3QlDIkCoQ4xBQAJw4hG8BdIA-jkxA4sASLAyhFRjtaWENW1NmOmIqWKAImDA-w

Attunementswap = Weaponswap

Zumy.6318:

Attunementswap = Weaponswap

… Why I shouldnt be thinking about this on no sleep! What a kitten :<

BlackBeard.2873:

Frowny, this is nice to see. I would have a few suggestions to try:

-Use 2x Giver’s Daggers for condi duration (+20% from daggers)

unfortunately they do not stack…
tested on my 100% duration ranger

might want to confirm it yourself …it was late

@azunai, I can respect that. What you are saying is true. It takes a lot of work to down enemies and the build isn’t as tanky as some might think. I find the game play fun because the survivabilty is closer to what ele used to be. I disagree about it falling to hold up with established builds though. I see more ekes running it every day

Hey frowny I don’t know if this has been asked but have you thought about trying your build with Scepter/Dagger? The earth auto attack is nice to keep bleed pressure up and you can extend those and extra second with trait or throw on a sigil of earth or agony or both. You would lose shocking aura but still keep frost for chill not alot of mileage out of water attunement but you can cover with vuln and air can give you blind but you could run GoEP so that you have some more cover conditions you get burn on auto attack in fire. Cover conditions is the name of the game in good condi builds throw on a sigil of doom maybe for poison.

You could proc – Poison, burns, Bleeds, Confusion, Vulnerability, Blind thats without factoring in GoEP good might stacking in fire attunement.

I don’t like scepter/dagger for two main reasons. First it is too single target for condition builds. Second the bleed auto attack takes too long to stack and is easily removed. I am going to try and replace geomancy with doom tonight and test it in wvw.

i’d recommend writing out your build in your post, with all your armor, weapons, runes, sigils, etc…

I personally was confusion because in your original post explaining all the conditions you do, how confusion was one of them, even after i looked at your build link. it wasn’t till i scrolled down and saw you were using Superior Rune of Perplexity that i understood. Your link says Rune of Orrian. I understand those “build sites” might not be updated to have the new runes / sigils yet, but hard imagining the build with the wrong info.

Tried your build yesterday and was very happy with the surviveability and i run full carrion/rabid trinkets and i added runes of perplexity

I did adjust the build a little and took elemental surge and arcane power and shard of ice for another cover condition (discarded cleansing flames)

I just like arcane surge for the nifty little tricks you can pull off.

with LF and Chruning earth you get a 1.5 immobilize which really helps you to get it in. in fire it grants an extra 7.5 sec of burn per hit and so on…. lot of cool tricks. with soothing wave you turn into a burning, damaging, chilling, vurnablity applying, regenerating mist

however i found myself switching to scepter later.

was good stuff

just wondering why you don’t use sigil of hydromancy instead of geomancy – yes geomancy gives you more bleed stacks but hydromancy does a lot of dmg as well as chill which helps you to gain an advantage because their skills take forever to recharge, and can also provide you with a way out considering their movement speed will be decreased. yes they can easily cleanse the chill off themselves, but then that makes the bleeds from geomancy pretty useless too if they can cleanse it…

also why don’t you use IX (cantrips grant regeration and vigor) in water instead of X (remove a condition when attuning to water)? since you use 3 cantrips, and you use the trait XI (remove a condition when granting yourself regen) it would mean you’d have 3 condi cleanses. also since whenever you attune to water you gain regen from arcane trait VIII (I presumed you used that), you’d get another condi cleanse. finally from cleansing fire, you clear another 3 condis – so all together you could clear 7 condis at once (if you wanted to ofc but that’d just be dumb). finally you have ether renewal that clears a massive amount of condis. plus the regen and vigor from the cantrips would help you survive longer.

malismagnis.5960:

just wondering why you don’t use sigil of hydromancy instead of geomancy – yes geomancy gives you more bleed stacks but hydromancy does a lot of dmg as well as chill which helps you to gain an advantage because their skills take forever to recharge, and can also provide you with a way out considering their movement speed will be decreased. yes they can easily cleanse the chill off themselves, but then that makes the bleeds from geomancy pretty useless too if they can cleanse it…

also why don’t you use IX (cantrips grant regeration and vigor) in water instead of X (remove a condition when attuning to water)? since you use 3 cantrips, and you use the trait XI (remove a condition when granting yourself regen) it would mean you’d have 3 condi cleanses. also since whenever you attune to water you gain regen from arcane trait VIII (I presumed you used that), you’d get another condi cleanse. finally from cleansing fire, you clear another 3 condis – so all together you could clear 7 condis at once (if you wanted to ofc but that’d just be dumb). finally you have ether renewal that clears a massive amount of condis. plus the regen and vigor from the cantrips would help you survive longer.

I thought you were an Ele, not a Necromancer.
Seriously, this thread is 11 months old.

Malchior.5732:

malismagnis.5960:

just wondering why you don’t use sigil of hydromancy instead of geomancy – yes geomancy gives you more bleed stacks but hydromancy does a lot of dmg as well as chill which helps you to gain an advantage because their skills take forever to recharge, and can also provide you with a way out considering their movement speed will be decreased. yes they can easily cleanse the chill off themselves, but then that makes the bleeds from geomancy pretty useless too if they can cleanse it…

also why don’t you use IX (cantrips grant regeration and vigor) in water instead of X (remove a condition when attuning to water)? since you use 3 cantrips, and you use the trait XI (remove a condition when granting yourself regen) it would mean you’d have 3 condi cleanses. also since whenever you attune to water you gain regen from arcane trait VIII (I presumed you used that), you’d get another condi cleanse. finally from cleansing fire, you clear another 3 condis – so all together you could clear 7 condis at once (if you wanted to ofc but that’d just be dumb). finally you have ether renewal that clears a massive amount of condis. plus the regen and vigor from the cantrips would help you survive longer.

I thought you were an Ele, not a Necromancer.
Seriously, this thread is 11 months old.

He probably only saw the month and thought it was from this year….