Guild Wars 2

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.18.0.34.0.0.0.2.15.14.8.24.8.8.8.6.9.0.16.0.0.35.32.42.0.0.0.65.0.0.20.10.30.0.10

How it works: Every signet you cast gives you fire shield which is an aura. Since you gain an aura, you also gain the aura boons (protection, fury, swiftness) for each cast. You have 3 signets on your right and 2 auras on your weapon set. This means lots of fury, protection, and swiftness.

Pros:
1. You only have 13% crit chance, but since you will be defecating fury all over the place it goes to 33% crit.
2. Lots of protection.
3. Lots of swiftness
4. You get all of the focus’s beautiful skills such as obsidian flesh and swirling winds.
5. Very good damage (1k damage per hit on lightning whip with crits on medium dummy)
5. A build like this is the only way to get access to 3 auras on your right, meaning a skilled player can use pop up an aura for protection in a tough spot REGARDLESS of attunement.
Cons:
1. Lose out on dagger off hand’s mobility and cc
2. (To be continued)

All in all, it is a very unique build utilizing signets and auras to their full extent. 2k Toughness is delicious, made even better by the focus’s excellent survivability. 20 in fire and dagger mainhand means we still are a powerful force.

If you’re bored with D/D cantrip and aura builds then check this out and please post your own suggestions to improving the build. Thanks for reading!

i was contemplating something like this but not with focus… interesting.

i was so discouraged by not being able to take 25 water with fires embrace, written in stone, and zyphers boon. thats like the combo there.

also signet are so slow.

Honestly you could easily just go D/D with this. Personal preference, really. I just really love the diversity in the focus with swirling winds, earth 4, and earth 5 as examples.

A guild build. Works with all weapon sets.

I’d rather use signet of water.
It has both the better passive AND the better active.

Looks good ill try it out instead of my staff bunker :|

Haha I’m specced identical. Loving it. Works well with my sceptre/dagger build too. Also instead of cleansing flame I use the flash cantrip (up more for one thing and also gets me out of the hot spots better), and signet of water instead of earth for the extra condition removal as well as the chill on demand.

Also for equipment I go a bit less power and tough for a lot of condition damage.

Let me try to convince you to bring signet of earth instead of signet of water.

Active: 3s immobilize vs 4s chilled. Immobilized means your opponent can’t dodge, turn, or even move. The most important part of immobilization is the ability to remove a player’s dodging ability. Chill’s skill recharge debuff is nice, I agree, but the debuff only lasts for 4 seconds. 66% extra recharge time for 4 seconds means 8/3 extra seconds on any skill on cooldown. Useful, yes, but extremely difficult to use to its full potential and in the end its just a bit over 2 seconds longer recharge. The speed debuff is inferior to immobilize, even if it lasts for an extra second.

Passive: One condition removed every ten seconds is both unreliable and weak. Rangers are able to cleanse all conditions every ten seconds, but the ability to cleanse 1 condition and you don’t even know when it will be cleansed is not worth it. Signet of Earth’s +100 toughness is just so much more reliable since you always feel it working and you can count on it.

But of course if you still like signet of water then you can do whateva you want

While this build does not give you Earth 12, its darn powerful and is a hybrid Sigil/Aura build..

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbtxywjEAhHCgQCDFgIiowDlCzA;T8Ag0yoEQJhSFlCKquMeJ8yqjrLpODROiMF

I suggest you try this out on some dummies in the Mist with D/D. This build works nicely with any weapon though, but its a bit more challenging with Staff. The key to it is increased boon duration. Its fairly easy to burst up 18+ stacks of Might, but with increased boon duration, those stacks just keep on building and building and stay up there. Aura’s give you protection, fury and swiftness stacks, and you get the fury stacks for switching attunements as well and the extra goodies from Arcana 5.

Turbo Whale.1738:

Let me try to convince you to bring signet of earth instead of signet of water.

Active: 3s immobilize vs 4s chilled. Immobilized means your opponent can’t dodge, turn, or even move. The most important part of immobilization is the ability to remove a player’s dodging ability. Chill’s skill recharge debuff is nice, I agree, but the debuff only lasts for 4 seconds. 66% extra recharge time for 4 seconds means 8/3 extra seconds on any skill on cooldown. Useful, yes, but extremely difficult to use to its full potential and in the end its just a bit over 2 seconds longer recharge. The speed debuff is inferior to immobilize, even if it lasts for an extra second.

Passive: One condition removed every ten seconds is both unreliable and weak. Rangers are able to cleanse all conditions every ten seconds, but the ability to cleanse 1 condition and you don’t even know when it will be cleansed is not worth it. Signet of Earth’s +100 toughness is just so much more reliable since you always feel it working and you can count on it.

But of course if you still like signet of water then you can do whateva you want

Earth sigil is overall better in my mind too, but I’m building in as much condition removal as possible since I dont use cleansing flame and I want three signets. It does dispel the odd imob/cripple/chill which can get you killed if you’re on the run, which is what I keep it for. Its a bit of a die roll but its a die roll in your favor. In wvwvw, chill works well enough to slow down the runner I want dead, or the guy whos leading the charge.

edit: add to that someone is much more likely to hit their condition removal with imob (i sure as heck hit my teleport usually), where they might let chill slide.

boozer.7815:

I suggest you try this out on some dummies in the Mist with D/D.

How do you do this? I’ve been to the Mists once and didn’t really see how to try out different builds, but I didn’t really know where to look. Also, is there any kind of combat logging so you can try out different builds and analyze them for DPS, etc.?

OldRodKS.9758:

boozer.7815:

I suggest you try this out on some dummies in the Mist with D/D.

How do you do this? I’ve been to the Mists once and didn’t really see how to try out different builds, but I didn’t really know where to look. Also, is there any kind of combat logging so you can try out different builds and analyze them for DPS, etc.?

you can turn on your combat text and watch the damage. you can switch up your builds whenever you are out of combat in the mists.
there are dummies and npc classes to practice on. just rrun around a bit and you will see them. golems.
i would get all the jewels from the merchants, which are free, and a few different sets of runs and sigils and swap around to see what i liked.

There are also the boss mobs and minions to practice on.

however… i found that what works in the mists is not always so great in spvp. in the mists i tend to spec more pve like. glass cannon stuff which doesnt work so good in actual play. so dont forget the basics.
toughness.
condition removal
hp’s

and most important… ease of use.
since the ele can die in one hit its important to not have to think too much about it. at least it was for me.

Throw a Sigil of Minor Accuracy on the focus (+10 Precision per kill thing) Helps with the crit chance. Change Arcane 5 to Arcane 6 for Vigor on crit. You will maintain quite a bit of buffs.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

however… i found that what works in the mists is not always so great in spvp. in the mists i tend to spec more pve like. glass cannon stuff which doesnt work so good in actual play. so dont forget the basics.
toughness.
condition removal
hp’s

and most important… ease of use.
since the ele can die in one hit its important to not have to think too much about it. at least it was for me.

All of that is true. I build in Knights gems to beef up the survivability and I am still (always) tweaking the build for what works best in Wv3. The key to this build is active defense so if you get caught or badly CC’d your most likely done unless you can fight your way out of it. You need to be popping those Sigils as soon as they are up and using the combo fields and many blast finishers that D/D has (3 – DT, EQ, CE), or S/D (4 – DT, Pheonix, EQ, CE), or Staff (1 – Eruption), and use AW heavy too. This is a “best defense is an unbeatable offense” build.