Dungeon/PvE Damage Gear
I’ll start off saying that healing power in general is over-rated, it scales badly and isn’t too useful to begin with. For damage gear you need some form of defense, glass cannon is a very bad choice.
Depending on your build I suggest Power/Prec/Tough, Power/Vital/Tough, or Power/Vital/Cond. You do less damage but you do no damage when dead, and your allies have to waste time picking you up.
I’ll start off saying that healing power in general is over-rated, it scales badly and isn’t too useful to begin with.
Noted. Not what I wanted to talk about. Maybe PM me if you wanna talk about it some time?
For damage gear you need some form of defense, glass cannon is a very bad choice. Depending on your build I suggest Power/Prec/Tough, Power/Vital/Tough, or Power/Vital/Cond.
I’m really interested in your suggestion for PVT when its only damage stat is power. Is this because the power stat is so much higher than on PVC or PPT?
All gear has pros and cons, if you are interested in PVT gear it is one of the best balanced gear. You wont crit much but your white damage will be more stable. Keep in mind that even though you have tanky stats you still need to dodge roll to the best of your skill.
PM me with any questions if you are still curious.
On my current Ele gear I have the P/T/V AC set. On it I have 5/6 superior rune of the adventurer and 1 superior rune of the necro. Works pretty well for me.
People can go glass cannon and survive just fine in dungeons. You just have to be good to dodge and maybe have some vigor to back you up.
That said, I’d advise looking at your playstyle and making a decision from there.
IMO, if you’re trying to do damage, Power/Toughness/Vitality isn’t going to get you there. It’s adaquate but you’ll always be able to do better if you took more offensive stats which will still never do as much raw damage than only taking offensive stats.
Precision is a decent stat to build up to, but I’ve heard people getting high crit chances without touching percision via utilities, equipment and traits. If you can manage that, you can forgo precision for a defensive stat (AFAIK, there is no set-up with Power/Condition Dmg/Crit dmg which would be pretty keen in some builds).
Condition Damage…it honestly depends. You’ll most likely be dealing with bleeds and burns. It’s great when you focus on it and you can get your tics over 150 (bleeds). If you’re not aiming for good high tics with decent durations, you probably don’t want to worry much about gearing for it. Keep it as supplemental damage and leave it at that.
Personally, I went Valkyrie as I feel toughness isn’t particularly useful to my style (I focus on not getting hit rather than enduring it). The vitality gives you a bigger buffer for error and you have heals/regens to get it back. Use Arcane Shield, Mist form, whatever defensive spells you have to not get hit in the first place.
I’ve never tried a condition build on an elementalist. It seems to be decent for a mesmer and the alternate armor I have for my condition warrior isn’t half bad which makes me believe a condition elementalist would be pretty good too.
Start with something like full knight’s gear (Tou/Pow/Pre) or even full soldier (Pow/Vit/Tou) and gradually change your gear to more damage oriented (berserker primarily) when you get used to mitigating damage through good usage of endurance, protection, blocks and cantrips.
Start with something like full knight’s gear (Tou/Pow/Pre) or even full soldier (Pow/Vit/Tou) and gradually change your gear to more damage oriented (berserker primarily) when you get used to mitigating damage through good usage of endurance, protection, blocks and cantrips.
Nice advice.
I have to say to the person bashing healing power above that it’s not really the case if you’re a 30 water ele.
healing power scales very well for 30 water eles, I definitely notice the difference on signet of restoration procs, and my ice breath does some serious healing numbers (I can heal half a warrior’s hp on my healing rotation, not shabby At all)
running all clerics will make your entire party VERY survivable, and is the new FOTM in FOTM.
I have to say to the person bashing healing power above that it’s not really the case if you’re a 30 water ele.
healing power scales very well for 30 water eles, I definitely notice the difference on signet of restoration procs, and my ice breath does some serious healing numbers (I can heal half a warrior’s hp on my healing rotation, not shabby At all)
running all clerics will make your entire party VERY survivable, and is the new FOTM in FOTM.
Unfortunatly, he’s right. Healing power scales horribly. Assuming you have about 1200 healing power, cone of cold heals for 1124 instead of 740 (with 0 healing power) and passive from your signet heals for 322hp instead of 202. Yet you do 3 times less damage. This game is about active damage mitigation, not passive. Playing a healer only gimps your party.
I have to say to the person bashing healing power above that it’s not really the case if you’re a 30 water ele.
healing power scales very well for 30 water eles, I definitely notice the difference on signet of restoration procs, and my ice breath does some serious healing numbers (I can heal half a warrior’s hp on my healing rotation, not shabby At all)
running all clerics will make your entire party VERY survivable, and is the new FOTM in FOTM.
Unfortunatly, he’s right. Healing power scales horribly. Assuming you have about 1200 healing power, cone of cold heals for 1124 instead of 740 (with 0 healing power) and passive from your signet heals for 322hp instead of 202. Yet you do 3 times less damage. This game is about active damage mitigation, not passive. Playing a healer only gimps your party.
The HP pools are so absurd in pve that the best way to play this game is to outlast.
A boss fight lasting 15% longer but having 50% fewer downs is preferable to the alternatives.
The HP pools are so absurd in pve that the best way to play this game is to outlast.
A boss fight lasting 15% longer but having 50% fewer downs is preferable to the alternatives.
Your average pug glass cannon will be spending most of his time on the floor, yet it doesn’t mean it’s the actual image. Better players stay alive not thanks to stacking defensive stats but by smart usage of defensive skills. As an example, one guy, glass cannon, soloed lupicus faster than most groups do.
Eruption creates insane amounts of bleeding quickly. That will work well with condition damage. If you spec into condition duration in combination with pyromancer’s alactricity as well then flame burst will also apply permanent burning.
Hey everyone! Great responses so far, and I really appreciate all the advice! I hadn’t even given Valkyrie’s a glance before, thanks Leo G. Just keep it on topic; this thread isn’t about healing power. It’s about building your gear for damage! Q(;`A`)9 manly damage
(And perhaps not killing yourself while you do it? not so manly)
My current setup is S/D with situational use of /F and Staff. While that will likely change once my conversion to damage is complete, it needn’t necessarily. I guess the topic of this thread could be focused to…
What gear sets do you think are the best for each weapon combination?
Carrion seems a good choice for Staff (thanks Ferny!). Agreed?
I assume most of the discussion so far has been in the context of D/D use, is that the case? What do you all think about gear for S/D; would you gear it differently than D/D, generally speaking?
Forgot to mention that I have tried geomancer’s alactricity with eruption too…. it’s just insane.
What does everyone think about the idea of having mixed armor types ? I’ve been toying with the idea of going 1/2 carrion and 1/2 knights as a general all purpose PvE build (dungeons and solo explore).
What does everyone think about the idea of having mixed armor types ? I’ve been toying with the idea of going 1/2 carrion and 1/2 knights as a general all purpose PvE build (dungeons and solo explore).
I run mixed types for my heal/defense set, being Magi on the armor and Cleric’s everywhere else, and it works pretty well for me. I assume it would work well for damage too, but for me it would probably boil down to a sort of compromise glass cannon (for instance, 50% Berserker’s, 50% Valkyries), or adding condition damage to an otherwise direct glass cannon (50% Rampager’s, 50% Berserker’s). I might end up having to run 50% Carrion and 50% Rabid on my Necromancer for awhile, but that’s off topic.
50% Carrion, 50% Knight’s could be pretty interesting. You’d have a hefty boosts to condition damage and toughness, and a modest crit rate (boosted by 5 into Arcana and/or Auramancy?) balanced by solid power with just a sprinkling of VIT. What weapon set and traits would you use with such a stat layout? If Knight’s precision interests you, I’d imagine you likely have some into air?
For me, mixing armor sets is a bit too much to think about as I’m trying to contemplate how to build my Elementalist for damage. I’ve been having more fun and doing better with staff in the situations I use it, so a Carrion+Staff build is growing on me a lot, especially since D/D Auramancy is so ‘flavor of the month’. Maybe I should wait ’til after the patch to see if they increase the burn duration on Flame Blast or lower the cooldown on Eruption or make Lava Font last longer or some other roflstompshenanigans.
I prefer Knight’s, personally. The toughness is pretty much essential given how squishy we are and the power and precision make the d/d bunker build have a lot more kick to it (which is what I am). The AC PVT gear which daphoenix calls for is great for PvP but PvE/dungeon play is much more predictable so you shouldn’t need the vitality.
Relentless Raven, 80 Warrior
Robin Sparklies, 80 Elementalist
Crimethink [ct] – Yak’s Bend
Robin Sparklies, 80 Elementalist
Crimethink [ct] – Yak’s Bend