Guild Wars 2

Hello masters of magic and campions of the elements!

Im going to try to keep this short. In D/D weapon setup there is a skill called "Drake´s Breath. It is the second skill of fire attunement and it works by channeling flames in a breath-like manner for a few seconds which both damages foes and sets them on fire.

What bothers me about this skill is how it neglects the fast playstyle of a D/D elementalist and locks me into casting this one spell for what feels like a long time until i can move on and do other awesome stuff to kill whatever is infront of me.

I play in such a way that i “deplete” whatever a certain attunement has to offer then move on to the next one for more high cooldown whoppass skills. I feel that Drake´s Breath breaks that appart and locks me into fire for far too long.

So, i dont know. Do you guys have any thoughts about in what situation a Drake’s Breath really is good to use? Or do you like me have doubts about its presence in the D/D skills at all?

Drake’s Breath is the longest range skill you’ll get with a D/D setup, I use it when I’m kiting or i’m afraid to take some hits, otherwise you’re simply gonna have higher DPS with auto attacks from melee range.

There ARE other uses like using it to exploit some traits (Zephyr’s Focus, Obsidian Focus) but I feel like Cone of Cold is better for this since it also heals you.

Its uses are limited I agree, it could use a buff imo, the damage feels lackluster for being a channeled skill with such range.

It is extremely useful for applying burning to multiple foes in a cone then quickly following with Fire Grab for huge AOE damage in front of you.

Initiate with burning speed, pop one tick of drakes breath for the burn duration, melt them immediately after with fire grab.

With decent power/crit that’s still pretty respectable damage in a very small window.

You don’t have to channel the whole thing if all you want is the burn for Fire Grab, but if you choose to it’s a very nice pile of AoE burning with a surprising range. It’s way easier to work into a spell rotation than Churning Earth, at least.

Use it when someone piles up a bunch of mobs in front of you. Or cast one of your blinds first, then flame breath away.

Arc.9374:

Initiate with burning speed, pop one tick of drakes breath for the burn duration, melt them immediately after with fire grab.

With decent power/crit that’s still pretty respectable damage in a very small window.

MindlessRuff.1948:

It is extremely useful for applying burning to multiple foes in a cone then quickly following with Fire Grab for huge AOE damage in front of you.

The burning + fire grab thingy i am aware of but if thats the best usage drakes breath have i say make it an instant cast aoe damage and burn instead.

I love drake’s breath in a vaccum, but I agree it breaks the rhythm of the weapon. I don’t know what I could suggest, though, but maybe changing its animation and functionality entirely for a more fast-paced, equally epic-looking flame breath?

You can channel this skill while swap your attunment.

Isn’t it one of the most powerful skills of ele across all weapons?
The dmg is pretty high and the burning is ridiculous even with 0 condition dmg. 6s cd cone damg too. I wouldn’t complain about it. It is one reason that D/D is desirable for me.

Vanillea.5764:

Isn’t it one of the most powerful skills of ele across all weapons?
The dmg is pretty high and the burning is ridiculous even with 0 condition dmg. 6s cd cone damg too. I wouldn’t complain about it. It is one reason that D/D is desirable for me.

Yes, you are absolutely right, the skill itself, its damage and its burn is compleatly fine. But what i think is wrong with it is the very long channel time which interupts my fast playstyle.

It actually complements the fast play style. You will have very high burst from d/d and fast attunement swap. However after the initial burst and first cycle, you have exhausted many of your cd. That is when Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold come in picture. Instead of spamming auto atk you can use those skills to do your sustained dmg and wait for CD. You know that if you do Burning Speed → Dreak Breath → Fire Grab, by the time you finish fire grab, you can auto atk one or twice and Fire breath is up again.

Overall it is a good for sustain and pressuring, much better than its counter part which is Lava Font and Dragon Tooth. The channel is relatively short and the effect is instant compare to the delay from lava and Dragon’s Tooth.

Hmm… like ppl here have suggest, u can break the channel with any other spell cast or even by switching attunements I believe. What I like about Drake’s Breath is that it gives D/D Eles a very effective AoE spell that doesn’t require long casting like Churning Earth.

Battery.5930:

What bothers me about this skill is how it neglects the fast playstyle of a D/D elementalist and locks me into casting this one spell for what feels like a long time until i can move on and do other awesome stuff to kill whatever is infront of me.

I believe that if you cast something else (say Fire Grab) it cancels the Drake’s breath and fires the next spell. So as others have mentioned, hit it, let it tick once to start burning, nuke with fire grab.

Also, since Drake’s breath is kinda long range I will often spray it over an entire group of enemies to hit as many as possible (fire it off, and while it’s channeling move/spin to face as many enemies as you can, hitting them all).

I play in such a way that i “deplete” whatever a certain attunement has to offer then move on to the next one for more high cooldown whoppass skills. I feel that Drake´s Breath breaks that appart and locks me into fire for far too long.

I really don’t like this playstyle as it doesn’t fit with situational awareness. You may need those other cooldowns shortly thereafter, and by mindlessly switching attunements and blowing all the cooldowns you may find yourself without the one you need at the right time.

In 1v1, sometimes it feels like it’s best to blow every cooldown as quickly as possible, but generally I find that sometimes its OK to sit in a single attunement for a few extra seconds and let an auto attack or two fire off so you can, for example, switch to earth attunement for the protection boon a couple seconds later as they fire up their big damage item…

Daharahj.1325:

Its uses are limited I agree, it could use a buff imo, the damage feels lackluster for being a channeled skill with such range.

On the plus side, it’s cooldown is extremely short. I often find myself getting an opportunity to use it more than once while in fire attunement, i.e., I don’t blindly use the RTL/updraft/burning speed/ring/Fire grab combo and immediately switch out. Sure I use that combo a lot, but only when I need it.

The more often it hits the opponent, the longer the burning duration.

Bsquared.3421:

I really don’t like this playstyle as it doesn’t fit with situational awareness. You may need those other cooldowns shortly thereafter, and by mindlessly switching attunements and blowing all the cooldowns you may find yourself without the one you need at the right time.

I am talking PvE here. Besides if the only usage of the skill is to fire it for one dmg tick and a burn effect its seems to lack something.

Drake’s Breath fits D/D just fine.

If you want to complain about skills that don’t fit D/D, let’s talk about Earth 1 and 3. Those are the only two skills on the whole kitten set that requires a target to work.

Wildclaw.6073:

Drake’s Breath fits D/D just fine.

If you want to complain about skills that don’t fit D/D, let’s talk about Earth 1 and 3. Those are the only two skills on the whole kitten set that requires a target to work.

Earth 3 is awesome.

In fact, for closing gaps it’s much better than Air 4 even though it doesn’t do damage simply because it doesn’t glitch 80% of the time.

The day ANet fixes RtL Eles will receive a huge buff.

Except earth 3 likes to glitch a lot too.

Earth 3 “obstructed” seriously, hes right in front of me. Earth 3, enemy meandered to the side, miss. I use drakes breath all the time, normally cast it and spin whilst there’s an invisible thief nearby, silly fool will usually get set on fire. Water Healing cone is similar, I assume you don’t go into water much