Guild Wars 2

I am not use to creating a class other then a mesmer as its my only class I have. I assume Zerker gear (since it come sin light) will be the choice of armour I use, Ill prob roll with S/DD and stick primary air. I hope its not too cookie cutter….

More PVE then PVP, Group run as well….

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#5|0|2771|1848|3975|48|4225|0|0|0|0|30|1619|1606|1607|20|1645|2258|0|0|0|0|0|20|1838|1629|0|0|0|1|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0

Thoughts?

I don’t see any condition removal in that build Salacious. Are you able to do without?

Also, I am seeing more and more “builds” where I have to wonder what people are carrying in Health. There is a thread going called “show me your stats” or something. There are level 80 Elementalists in there fully geared out with 12,000 health. Imo that is beyond squishy. That is dead if I “fart in your general direction.” Not sure what your health will be, but just beware some of the builds people are claiming are glass cannons are just all glass. The cannon is at the bottom of the sea unfired.

You’ve made some odd choices. Why do take 20% reduced cooldown on Arcane spells, when only taking one Arcane utility (Arcane Power)? Why do you take Windborne Dagger, while wielding a staff? In condition-heavy areas you’ll probably have problems with Healing Rain alone, but you could swap a utility out for Cleansing Fire.

Might work on a d/d ele (though you’ll lose out on a lot of healing…), but this does not worth with staff at all. You know you can’t weapon switch on an ele in combat, right?… There is only staff or d/d. Not both at the same time.
Imo, only viable builds for ele (d/d) right now is roll with dapheonix or a derivation of that.

Ugh. I keep falcepalming every time I read a thread and people start throwing out completely incorrect information about running dps on an ele. I’m starting to think I should write a guide so the people who want to go that route have a place to get correct information.

@OP – You have some problems with that build. When looking at damage gear, you should check out http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/69773-mixing-berserker-and-other-gear-how-to-do-it-right/ to give you an idea of the efficiency level of all the pieces of gear so you can better judge what to go with.

Also, fire is the primary damage element for all the ele weapons, although the benefit of the trait line is questionable. But what that means is for pve, you really don’t need the 10% air damage and 20% faster recharge rate. You also don’t need the run speed trait in pve.

Generally speaking when looking at sustained damage (like most pve situations), eles actually get more damage out of water and arcana than the actual damage lines. Admittedly I don’t do a ton of pve so I can’t give you the level of advice I’d like, but this trait build would give you a solid starting point which could be tailored to your preferences as you become more experienced. http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#6|3|0|0|0|0|0|10|1653|0|0|15|1619|0|0|0|0|0|0|25|1684|1683|0|20|2250|2252|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Any build without 15 in water and elemental attunement (arcana) is in my opinion, bad.

stay at 20 air, steal 5 points from somewhere and put 15 in water.

Get rid of arcane power and arcane skills cooldown reduction. get renewing stamina and elemental attunement in arcana.

I swap traits constantly. Bolt to the heart only for champions / bosses, the rest of the times it’s a combination of X, III, I and IX according to what I need. (IX and I are the default ones).

Ignore the people saying that you can’t go dps on an ele. I fail to see what provides a tankier ele that a glass one can’t provide, in a party setting.

Sure you take 1 more hit before you die horribly, but if you knew how to play you wouldn’t be even getting hit.

I didn’t say that ele cannot do dps at all. All classes can, somewhat. Hell, power necro can do more dps than any dps ele. Just that none do it quite as well as a fully specced warrior, or even close to it. Leave it for that class to do its job.
Also, nobody mentioned the word dps until you got here dreztina. Don’t drag the argument i made in another thread and your somewhat internalized bitterness to this one.

The difference is that ele is already the jack of all trades. Going dps doesn’t mean that you suddenly become a mindless autoattack spamming bot. You still possess ridic support, control and boons to give to everyone.

A warrior that goes dps cannot do that. Because he’s just a warrior.

Read the second post, that one triggered this little argument.

I’ll leave for now with this question: Whats ele’s “job” and what prevents a DPS ele from fulfilling said job (whatever your answer is) if they choose the berserker route?

Biggest thing is that you become too paper, and that your dps doesn’t match that of a warriors. Just not as good of a zerker as wars are and you’ll lose out on all the other wonderful healing, protection, aura, etc. buffs that you can otherwise give.
opportunity cost for a space in the party that can be otherwise given to another warrior.

Warriors are entirely offensive support – that’s why you don’t notice it sometimes. The banner of discipline gives quite a hefty buff to your team’s dps, and the vulnerability stacked continuously is very high as well as the utility of other shouts that go directly to the team for offensive power. Yeah, eles can stack mights – about 12 stacks at a time (with evasive arcana), which you lose out in a totally glass dps build (typical build). Warriors can stack might and fury as well for their team, but in addition put vuln. on their enemies.

You have to realize that I’m not saying that ele is a bad class. I’m just saying they’re not fit for the dps role. the utility of the class is much higher when the ele is specced for support for the team, when they can focus on dps and worry less about surviving while the ele gives boons of all sorts and maintaining heals. if you want to support, you want to focus on supporting and being alive to support others who may die easier than you will. The role of the supporter is huge. for cof p1e runs, support is not needed because of the rate at which things are cleared – completely brute forcing your way without defense by clearing things very quickly. Any slower than that, and support – heavy on heals, and defense – is essential to securing a successful and fast run. You’re gonna be the fifth. Instead of a being a wanna-be war, eles should realize how important they are in that sort of a team (heavy dps/ no armor parties) and save the party’s kitten for their own sake and for the party’s sake.

And also with the recent development that certain traits got shafted having a glass cannon ele is even less desirable than before in a party where his role can be easily taken and done better with a warrior.

If there is anything to be blamed for the current state of eles, have to blame game balancers. Bunker build is still very amazing for support, so I wouldn’t cry over that, and gc staff is still useful for wvw and raining 5k meteors on people. Just that dps with d/d isn’t ideal atm and the rest of the gw2 community knows that.

I do all of that while inflicting 4x more damage. And I will keep doing that.

Enjoy your 700 damage lava fonts

Maybe i should make it a point that i roll an aurashare d/d ele for pve …

Okay, enjoy your 1200 damage burning speed then.

Razor.6392:

I do all of that while inflicting 4x more damage. And I will keep doing that.

Enjoy your 700 damage lava fonts

If that’s the case that you can do what every bunker can do WHILE doing 4x more dps, why doesn’t every one roll it? And that it does more dmg than a warrior? are you saying that others are simply being ignorant (everyone else who thinks that eles can’t do more dmg than a warrior/ rolls a bunker ele) are simply worse at the game or are ignorant of this almighty build?… cmon man you know better than that

There are no perfect builds like that. you’ll lose out on survivability and utility. and in any case, if you try hard to make up for the support, you’ll lose out on dps. it’s not something that you can have most of both out of, you can only have all of one, all of other, or a bit of both.

Raptured.9307:

Razor.6392:

I do all of that while inflicting 4x more damage. And I will keep doing that.

Enjoy your 700 damage lava fonts

If that’s the case that you can do what every bunker can do WHILE doing 4x more dps, why doesn’t every one roll it? And that it does more dmg than a warrior? are you saying that others are simply being ignorant (everyone else who thinks that eles can’t do more dmg than a warrior/ rolls a bunker ele) are simply worse at the game or are ignorant of this almighty build?… cmon man you know better than that.

Wasn’t long ago everyone in the game knew ele was one of the weakest classes and d/d was a terrible build and staff was the only viable way to play.

Some people figure out successful builds ourselves without worrying about what ‘everyone’ else thinks, and some of us don’t.

Let’s imagine a 3 dimensional plot of potential of dps, support, and survivability. x axis – dps, y axis – support, z axis – survivability. For every class there it is a bounded curve in that the curve does not meet any of the axes – meaning you cannot have zero support, survivability, or dps at any time. at the point of max x (dps) – for warriors it is higher than it is for eles already xmax(war)>>xmax(ele). At that point, they have more vitality and toughness/armor too, so survivabilitymax(war)>>survivabilitymax(ele). Support at that point is comparable, because ele has lost much support capabilities to reach that point to match the war’s pretty decent offensive support of vulnerability amd might/fury stacks to team and max crit damage boost support(war)~= support(ele). At this point, war is much more wanted because of the utility considering all three stats. There is a utility function in our heads (different for everyone perhaps and different for every situation, but not too much off for say the same dungeon) that changes depending on the situation, but it exists as utility (dps, support, survivability) for each dungeon. per se: cof may weigh dps more, while ac may weigh support/survivability more. Plug in numbers for ele with max dps (in dps, support, and survivability) into that function and plug in numbers for war with max dps and you’ll find the utility for wars to be much greater, which is why people want dps wars for cof runs. The difference is so great, such that dps wars are wanted all across the board more than d/d dps elementalists within every utility function for most situations/dungeons. However, the utility for eles geared towards max support is comparable to that of the dps war in any dungeon other than cof pie, if not higher – but it does so in that it makes the most out of the other variables (survivability, support) at the dps, survivability, and support toward the utility function. Thus this is why ppl want support eles, not dps eles – because of ele’s max potential at support (z axis) is higher than the warrior’s by quite a bit.

dreztina.4820:

Raptured.9307:

Razor.6392:

I do all of that while inflicting 4x more damage. And I will keep doing that.

Enjoy your 700 damage lava fonts

If that’s the case that you can do what every bunker can do WHILE doing 4x more dps, why doesn’t every one roll it? And that it does more dmg than a warrior? are you saying that others are simply being ignorant (everyone else who thinks that eles can’t do more dmg than a warrior/ rolls a bunker ele) are simply worse at the game or are ignorant of this almighty build?… cmon man you know better than that.

Wasn’t long ago everyone in the game knew ele was one of the weakest classes and d/d was a terrible build and staff was the only viable way to play.

Some people figure out successful builds ourselves without worrying about what ‘everyone’ else thinks, and some of us don’t.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-2-16-12/first

Was released nov. 16. People embraced the d/d build back then too, no backlash for it being terrible.

tldr for post above; Not saying power d/d is absolutely bad dps, but warriors can deal higher maintained dps to one target and targets in front of the warrior. And, mobs/ bosses aggro toward the war so they pretty much stack / get hit by the auto so the dps goes to them too. target limit of pbaoes and aoes is 5, so not much there. The only way dps ele wins out in terms of overall dps to every target is if every mob is located just sparsely enough to be able to get hit by all of the eles attacks but not by the warrior’s auto, and that they are either immobile or don’t aggro towards the war/ele. That’s pretty much the only condition. For bosses and traditional mobs warriors are going to do a lot more dps, while having 1.8x ish times more hp and lot more armor and comparable offensive support. If you take all these factors together and make a general “utility value” for these traits, utility (dps war)> utility (dps ele) in most dungeons (i’d say all, but i have not yet done ALL dungeons and paths, so there might be a dungeon with loosely spaced tars/ jellies that can’t move, who knows).

Innovation is good. It’s just that the changes anet made is taking this class away from variety and forcing more and more people towards the d/d bunker build, and for a good reason. It’s all based on the multidimensional idea/value of utility. Survivability is taken away for all builds recently, and this hurts dps oriented eles more than bunkers because at an already low value for survivability, that loss of survivability is a much more significant impact on the utility of glass builds than on bunker builds (marginal utility in respect to survivability is greater in magnitude when survivability is low).

Of course, there are other things to consider for this abstract concept of utility, or whatever you can choose to name it. This is just a simple way to demonstrate it, and it is in no way a linear curve. I just picked out the 3 most important attributes to me and decided to model it off of that.

Tl;dr .

haha okay, glad you understand.

Also, this may be why the recent patch screwed glass cannons over more than bunkers if u decompose the patch down to its components.

They upped might stacking, decreased survivability. Survivability took a bigger hit than might stacking got buffed. Survivability though has more utility value to gcs because they have less of it to begin with than to bunkers (who have more of it) so gced suffered more, and additional power was more useful to builds with less power (bunkers) than gcs (who have a lot of it) so bunkers gained more.

What they should do to allow for variety of builds – make the utility of builds about the same for gc, condition dmg, and bunker across builds across all classes. Naturally this isn’t the case, so we see more of some classes actively playing and builds for some classes than others.

I already understood that it’s pointless to even argue with you. There’s no way of making you understand anything at all.

You even lack the game knowledge to say that dagger necro can hit more than one target at a time lol, I just concluded that this discussion is completely pointless.

People like you are the ones that promote elitism, I would never do fotm with an ele like that.

The more significant point is that dps eles don’t win out against dps wars. and obviously you choose to ignore that because it’s convenient to you to win an argument for the sake of it, even though you did not give any constructive ideas or points, going straight for the personal attacks.

What you’re saying: oh, you didn’t know necro dagger hits only one target? kitten you don’t know anything else about eles or warriors. Great argument. The fact that you waited to call me out on it when you are obviously so belligerent also shows that you didn’t know this fact until now, and you’re using it as the only leverage you have. Since I’m arguing against you, I must also be wrong and am also a terrible person. Your argument is just pathetic.

So much theory crafting, so little actual experience.

Raptured.9307:

The more significant point is that dps eles don’t win out against dps wars. and obviously you choose to ignore that because it’s convenient to you to win an argument for the sake of it, even though you did not give any constructive ideas or points, going straight for the personal attacks.

What you’re saying: oh, you didn’t know necro dagger hits only one target? kitten you don’t know anything else about eles or warriors. Great argument. The fact that you waited to call me out on it when you are obviously so belligerent also shows that you didn’t know this fact until now, and you’re using it as the only leverage you have. Since I’m arguing against you, I must also be wrong and am also a terrible person. Your argument is just pathetic.

More bright assumptions brought to you by Raptured.9307.

Alright I’m out Sorry for ruining your dps d/d ele circlejerk. obv you two just don’t like the idea of me telling you that warriors do better in pve with dps than eles (probably your builds) and will argue against me to your deaths for that. You know exotics aren’t really hard to get, and you can always reroll right, if you wanted that dps so badly? I’m simply letting you know there’s a reason why eles are fit for support, and that you can maximize your potential by building for support and survivability instead of dps as d/d especially with recent changes to the class. It’s not bad by any means, if you’re just doing it for fun. If you’re running dungeons though, i’m just letting you know what’s working behind people’s heads when they want dps wars more than dps d/d eles, every time. The more arguable point right now is who has a better support role, the d/d ele/ staff ele/ or the support guardian.

Edit: when i say more significant point, i meant the more significant point i was making in my previous post.

And I told you that I can support well while still pulling out damage numbers that you won’t ever achieve not even in your dreams. It’s not on par in terms of support because I lack enough healing power (I have 200) but everything else is exactly the same. Aurashare was nerfed to oblivion so don’t think that 6 (x2) seconds of fury for your party makes you the ultimate support master.

I’ll repeat myself, and I expect no answer because you already announced your departure, right?

Razor.6392:

Whats ele’s “job” and what prevents a DPS ele from fulfilling said job (whatever your answer is) if they choose the berserker route?

Your answer was support, but you didn’t or couldn’t formulate an appropriate answer for the second part of the question. I guess that giving everyone 25 might stacks with s/d isn’t supportive enough, same can be said about all the combo fields and CC that I bring with staff, and the superior AoE burst that D/D offers.

I’d rather support at 80% effectiveness while doing 300% your damage than going for 100% support and doing damage comparable to an NPC.

You probably think that the damage difference isn’t that massive so here are some numbers: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/47076/dmg.jpg

Ouch. And that’s solo..

Thank you for the fun but this was too easy, good riddance.

Ele can’t do dps that’s obvious, same as guardian. We’re meant to support, end of the line.

That’s solo from Arah explorable: