Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, how’s it going. Figured I’d leave the build I’ve been using lately to great success here for you guys. It has decent killing power and a lot of survivability.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEUQJAoYhImmbwR5gjDAkHn4CLhCEUeMDO2A;ToAA1Cqouxcj4G7Nubk3MEZCB

Some reasoning behind my choices:
10 in fire to get 10% more fire dmg plus the extra power/condition duration always helps.

30 in water for regen removing conditions, cantrips granting vigor and regen (running 3 cantrips), and reduced cantrip cooldown (even with the bugged mist form).

30 in arcane for the obvious elemental attunement since you should be cycling through your attunements whenever you can depending on the situation, arcane shield at 25% because I couldn’t find anything better, and finally evasive arcana which works really well with me having vigor up to dodge roll more/cleansing wave in water dodge/churning earth dodge all very good

My skill choices: 3 cantrips obviously for this build. since I went 30 in water and have pretty good condition removal already, I opted not to grab cleansing fire and instead grab lightning flash which gets me out of sticky situations or allows me to move faster or allows me to get off some clutch churning earths. Armor of Earth is just awesome for the stability and the stomp capabilities and the defense. Mist form because it’s just amazing invulnerability allowing me to heal up/escape/stomp people.

Heal: Glyph of Elemental Harmony, very good heal. I can heal in whatever attunement I need the buff from: Conditions overload? water heal for regen to remove them. Burst overload? Earth heal for protection. Need more dmg? Fire heal when lowish 2: fold purpose. Need to get somewhere fast and dont have rtl / swiftness from air attunement switch? Air heal for sprint. I don’t use signet because it’s more useful when running a signet aura type build that allows you to keep its passive effects on use. Ether Renewal takes too long and I already have the condition removal.

Elite: Glyph of Elementals. Use on water or air, maybe fire depending on what you need it for. The other ones are crap.

Amulet: Soldiers plain and simple is the best amulet for my playstyle. Die much too fast with beserkers and have far too little health with clerics. I like the power for burst dmg, tougness to survive burst, and vitality for condition builds/burst dmg. Balanced approach.
Jewel: Rampagers. Why? It gives me a little big more crit and condition dmg from my bleeds/burns that I don’t have too much of. It helps round out my build a bit instead of being all power/vit/toughness.

Sigils: Bloodlust for power stacking 5 stack on kill, which adds up fast for that extra dmg you want. Battle for might stacking a little bit ever 8 or so seconds, again giving you some dmg.

Runes: These are more personal preference but Dwayna, Flock, Forge, Grove, Water, Earth, Flame Legion, Hoelbrak, Strength, Elementalist, and Fighter are all very good choices. Choose whichever one helps you the most.

Let me know if I forgot anything or you have any questions. If I had recording capabilities (old laptop), I’d show you how this build works along with how it should be played but I don’t have that right now, sorry.

i used this set up for several hours of spvp as well. although lightning flash just got wasted fat fingered too much for my taste. so i generally used arcane shield/cleansing fire(for the burn)/mist form.

I think this setup is one of the first levels of the ele learning curve. it works.

I have found though that it doesnt really matter how i trait as long as it is somewhat reasonable.

I do about the same no matter what i do.

currently im runing 25/0/25/20/0 s/d arcane shield/flaming axe/mistform/tornado

Playing the ele really seems to come down to more about how good i am at the game and where the buttons are more than how i trait.

as long as my build is somewhat reasonable i seeem to do about the same in spvp.
My 1v1 ability is ok but sometimes i just get dominated
My biggest issues are mesmers and thieves.
mesmers because i spend all my time attacking, stomping and being killed by illusions.
thieves because they do a lot of damage.
and both of these issues are game skill things.

The link is bad. Could you please relink it? I tried running D/D ele, but was having a hard time not getting my face smashed in or not putting out a lot of damage. I have been some vids of people who play it…. seems powerful in a group setting, but they seemed to cycle nonstop to get AoE.

Zarrik, copy/paste the link. ANet forums dislike semi-colons in links.

huh i missed the dagger/dagger part…. i dont know much about dagger dagger but i know the trait\skill set used here.

i use scepter/dagger mostly. I am going to try out dagger/dagger as i have pretty much done all i can with scepter/dagger at the moment.

@Animosity: Thanks! =)

EDIT: How would you open and change between attunements? I normally started in Air or Fire and would go to Water for healing and then Earth to let regen do more. I haven’t really played it all that much mainly because I could never find a good guide or always saw other people using S/D or Staff.

when i run this kind of setup, ani may be different, and with dagger off hand i generally go air for the RTL then fire for the ring and the grab then earth for another knock down and then the big slow ae bleed with an arcane shield on. ani likely uses the earth armor for a like effect.

I try to go to water on an as needed basis but generally i use water after earth just before i get back to rtl to clear out conditions and turn on some regen.

However when i f it up i hit water after fire before earth.

I play dagger dagger, as a bunker build, I normally just switch when everything is used with highest priority on what I need next. Do I need to kd to stop a stomp, or do I need 10sec protection → yes → earth. I also try to use my updraft at the start of the fight so it will be on cd near then end in case I need to stop an enemy res or friendly being stomped. I mostly swap fire / water (evasive arcana, clearics amulet) and fire does the most damage. Air for me is rtl away from a fight and the aura in a fight. I use air 2 only after updraft or earthquake as it never hits any other time.

I pretty much either start out in water or air for any fight. Here’s an example of a typical 1v1 fight: From air I do: rtl, number 2 spell that gives weakness, shocking aura at same time as rtl, updraft>>>Fire: burning speed, fire grab, fire out of mouth spew #2, fire aoe ring>>>Earth: earthquake blast finisher for lil bit of might, churning earth fake for more might, magnetic grasp to root, earth ring 2 >>>>Water: Aoe chill # 3 and aura of frostiness at same time for chill stack if they attack me, water breath attack for healing/dmg, aoe heal #5, then repeat in similar order depending on what I’m fighting at the time, throwing cantrips in willy nilly to do what I want. I also pop my elite if I see more than 1 person coming at me to help me 1 v 2 or just survive. Dodging is obvious shouldn’t have to mention when to do so. Apply liberally with vigor and changing attunements for the arcane tier 3 trait so you don’t waste your dodges. You might have to cycle through your attunements more than once to kill most people, but it shouldn’t take too long.
This all happens very fast mind you, no kitten footin around. If all of my spells are on cooldown, I will only auto attack with lightning’s auto attack, but only til something else is off cooldown. This doesn’t happen very often luckily, because I can always dodge things and attunement switch for better effect than auto attacking.
Armor of Earth and Mist form guarantee me a stomp as well and are extremely valuable in a 1 v 2 fight when you down a person and want a chance at that 1 v 2 victory.

Clackerr.6401:

I pretty much either start out in water or air for any fight. Here’s an example of a typical 1v1 fight: From air I do: rtl, number 2 spell that gives weakness, shocking aura at same time as rtl, updraft>>>Fire: burning speed, fire grab, fire out of mouth spew #2, fire aoe ring>>>Earth: earthquake blast finisher for lil bit of might, churning earth fake for more might, magnetic grasp to root, earth ring 2 >>>>Water: Aoe chill # 3 and aura of frostiness at same time for chill stack if they attack me, water breath attack for healing/dmg, aoe heal #5, then repeat in similar order depending on what I’m fighting at the time, throwing cantrips in willy nilly to do what I want. I also pop my elite if I see more than 1 person coming at me to help me 1 v 2 or just survive. Dodging is obvious shouldn’t have to mention when to do so. Apply liberally with vigor and changing attunements for the arcane tier 3 trait so you don’t waste your dodges. You might have to cycle through your attunements more than once to kill most people, but it shouldn’t take too long.
This all happens very fast mind you, no kitten footin around. If all of my spells are on cooldown, I will only auto attack with lightning’s auto attack, but only til something else is off cooldown. This doesn’t happen very often luckily, because I can always dodge things and attunement switch for better effect than auto attacking.
Armor of Earth and Mist form guarantee me a stomp as well and are extremely valuable in a 1 v 2 fight when you down a person and want a chance at that 1 v 2 victory.

LOL almost exactly my attack too, though I usually skip water and go back to air. Also better to do fire grab after drake breath for burning bonus.