Guild Wars 2

I want this thread to discuss how effective Arcane will be after the Dec 10 patch, what people normally use it for, and what we can use in place of Arcane.

Arcana
5: Fury on Attunement Swap
10: Vigor on Critical Hit
15: Lingering Elements (lOl)
20: Boon on Attunement Swap-
Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Protection
25: Condition on Critical Hit
30: Skill used on Dodge -
Extra Heal and Extra Blast Finisher

Arcane Provides::
Faster Attunement Swapping
Fury, Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Vigor, and Protection
Extra Heal and Extra Blast Finisher
Boon Duration

Notes:
The reason many Elementalists dodge so much is because of Evasive Arcana. When we don’t need to dodge to proc a skill, we are more likely to use the dodge to avoid damage. This might mean we wont need vigor as much as we need now.

Access to Protection, Swiftness, and Fury can by obtained by an Aura Elementalist by speccing 10 in Air and 10 in Earth.

Access to Vigor and Regeneration can be obtained by speccing 20 in Water and taking Cantrip utilities.

Might can be accessed by Might Stacking.

Now I can see the skeleton of a D/D build in the making.
0/10/10/20/0
Traits Used: 40
Traits Left: 30

It would use auras for the Protection, Fury, and Swiftness buffs.

Variation 1. Bunker Elementalist:

I could put 20 in Fire and 10 more in Earth.

20/10/20/20/0

I would take Burning Fire. (Use Cleansing Fire when you have 3+ conditions on you)
This keeps me from getting condition spammed, gives me Regeneration and Vigor.

I would add the extra 10 in Earth for Rock Solid.
This allows me to take Ether Renewal which improves my healing and Condition Clear.

Variation 2. Bunker Elementalist:

I would add 20 to Earth and 10 to Arcane:
0/10/30/20/10

I would add 20 in Earth for the Diamond Skin Trait.
This will make me pretty strong against lots of Condition spam enemies.

I would add the remaining 10 in Arcane.
The fury and the dodges from Arcane Precision would be pretty helpful while bunkering.

Variation 1. Roaming Aurashar Healing Support Elementalist:
I would add 20 to Earth and 10 to Water.

0/10/30/30/0

I would take Rock Solid and Diamond Skin.
Rock Solid would allow me to provide AoE Stability for stomping (and Ether Renewal) Diamond Skin would help me avoid an initial CC burst.
I would take Powerful Auras.

This would allow me to share my awesome boons (Protection, Fury, Swiftness) across the board during large team fights.
The auras themselves are pretty freaking amazing and are on a low cooldown.

Variation 2. Roaming Aurashare Support DPS Elementalist
I would add 20 to Air and 10 to Water.

0/30/10/30/0

I would take Powerful Auras for the boon/aurashare.

I would take Tempest Defense which would give me Shocking Aura every time I am CC’d. Tempest Defense would also proc with Powerful Auras providing bonus Fury, Swiftness, and Protection. Not to mention it would provide AoE Static Aura very often which would provide a LOT of CC to my team.

These are just rough skeletons of many builds that I have thought over. I know that these may need a lot of workovers and refinement. Not to mention that I’m doing these based on patch notes which haven’t even been released yet.

This thread has gotten away from me a little bit.

What I want to discuss is whether straying away from the Arcana trait-line would be a viable option.

Arcana provides us with the following bonuses:
Faster Attunement Swapping
Fury, Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Vigor, and Protection
Extra Heal and Extra Blast Finisher
Boon Duration

1. What other ways can we get these bonuses without relying on Arcana?
2. Will it be better to obtain these bonuses using other trait trees?
3. How effective will these builds be?
4. Other thoughts and comments?

What do you guys think?

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Reserved for Later.

Reserved for Later.

Variation 1. Total points: 80+

Asurmir.7956:

Variation 1. Total points: 80

Was a mistype: I fixed it.
I didn’t base my build around those 10 extra trait points :P

I’ve been thinking about this as well. Even now, I have a tab open to GW2 Builder. My concern is about having access to protection and it’s duration.

I’ve thought about 20/15/15/20/0 or 20/20/10/20/0 or 20/20/20/10/0.

I keep running into the same fears though: “Will the reduced base recharge be enough?” “Is there enough protection duration without spending points in Arcane?”

I’m leaning more to adopting a ‘wait-n-see’ stance, because this is driving me a bit crazy.

The reason elementalist dodge so much is renewing staming + boon duration via arcana and or runes. EA isn’t why people dodge so much EA is why people dodge not to avoid damage. Renewing stamina is what allows people to dodge offensively or defensively. soothing disruption is icing on top of icing on the cake and can’t keep up with NOT having renewing stamina.

I also wouldn’t call D/D bunker just because you put 30 in water. +200 power via stats is alot of non bunker damage.

This also depends on runes if you wanted to grab boon duration runes for 45% gives you 4.35 secs of protection on aura which I don’t think is worth it over grabbing more focused runes. If your dropping points from arcana completely I think it is better to grab other rune options over boon duration.

I would say your variation 1 is more dps than bunker. Using that template I would run it like.

20/20/10/20/0 W/E for the first trait, cleansing fire, Zephyr’s boon, bolt to the heart, stone splinters, cantrip mastery, and cleansing wave.

Sigil of energy over battle, runes forge(which are the best protection runes imo if your really want protection)? if you must run elemental shielding or 5/6 rune of earth. Other wise divinity or traveler depending on how much you really need the 6th piece from traveler. With stone splinters I would probably go with traveler in most cases.

Don’t see a reason to go 30 in water ever if you aren’t running elemental attunement and soothing disruption.

oZii.2864:

The reason elementalist dodge so much is renewing staming + boon duration via arcana and or runes. EA isn’t why people dodge so much EA is why people dodge not to avoid damage. Renewing stamina is what allows people to dodge offensively or defensively. soothing disruption is icing on top of icing on the cake and can’t keep up with NOT having renewing stamina.

I also wouldn’t call D/D bunker just because you put 30 in water. +200 power via stats is alot of non bunker damage.

This also depends on runes if you wanted to grab boon duration runes for 45% gives you 4.35 secs of protection on aura which I don’t think is worth it over grabbing more focused runes. If your dropping points from arcana completely I think it is better to grab other rune options over boon duration.

I would say your variation 1 is more dps than bunker. Using that template I would run it like.

20/20/10/20/0 W/E for the first trait, cleansing fire, Zephyr’s boon, bolt to the heart, stone splinters, cantrip mastery, and cleansing wave.

Sigil of energy over battle, runes forge(which are the best protection runes imo if your really want protection)? if you must run elemental shielding or 5/6 rune of earth. Other wise divinity or traveler depending on how much you really need the 6th piece from traveler. With stone splinters I would probably go with traveler in most cases.

Don’t see a reason to go 30 in water ever if you aren’t running elemental attunement and soothing disruption.

I call it bunker because I trait it with the amulet, runes, and sigils which allow it to bunker. I call it a bunker because it would play the role of a bunker in PvP. I agree though with the right traits it could be set as a balanced roaming class.

The AoE Auras are reason enough to put 30 into Water. The bonus boons are just bonus support.

EA is the reason people waste dodges, since we have removed EA, people won’t feel the need to waste as many dodges meaning they can use the dodges more defensively. I agree a build without renewing stamina won’t have as many dodges as one specced with it, but soothing disruption allows us to take advantage of vigor during a tough spot. The lack of evades though are probably something that we have to deal with if we don’t add to Arcana.

If we saved endurance to dodge attacks we need to, we wouldn’t need the heal from water as much. The blast finisher is nice and I would think only the best players even think about using the blind actively.

A possible replacement for renewing stamina is zephyr’s focus. With a fresh air build, S/X will usually be in air using that (almost useless) auto attack and lightning strike when other skills are on cooldown. It also works with ether renewal and the earth auto. This can keep a very high uptime of “vigor” without arcana, but you would lose a bit of damage from traits. It’s a bit different for D/D though and it only works with fire/water 2 and earth 5, so renewing stamina will still be very powerful, especially in melee range.

I had a bit of success with a 0/30/20/0/20 D/D traited for auras and fresh air with soldier’s amulet build in pvp. I had 35% crit damage with 32% crit chance which gives a good amount of damage and still be a bit tanky with soldier’s. With the upcoming changes, I would probably change it to 0/30/30/0/10 and take diamond skin instead.

I think dps builds should keep 10 points in arcana: CD-wise and also the fury on swap is a must-have!

Marcos.3690:

I think dps builds should keep 10 points in arcana: CD-wise and also the fury on swap is a must-have!

I agree; the 10 points for Vigor and Fury is well worth it and should find it’s way into most builds.

I see a possible signet build with 20 fire, 30 earth.

The other builds don’t really appeal to me in duels/roamin.

Would we be able to make any of these DPS builds?

I’ll be trying fresh air with diamond skin and vigorous scepter first thing double asap.

-Siz

feliscatus.1430:

I’ll be trying fresh air with diamond skin and vigorous scepter first thing double asap.

-Siz

Why not Renewing Stamina?
If it’s a crit build, with Renewing Stamina you can keep Perma Vigor (2x faster than vigorous scepter)

oh for some reason thought that was getting moved/nerfed. Regardless, will prolly keep 10 in arcana.

feliscatus.1430:

oh for some reason thought that was getting moved/nerfed. Regardless, will prolly keep 10 in arcana.

Agreed, the bonus vigor is quite nice.

Have to ask — why are you forcing yourself to lose Arcane? If you put 30 points in it anyway, the trait reshuffling won’t matter, right?

Anyway for me, I only play with 20 arcane, happy that I can bump it down to 10 arcane, since I only use 20 for Blasting Staff. Now I can get it with 10.

I will probably run with 0/10/30/10/20.

Mochann.5298:

Have to ask — why are you forcing yourself to lose Arcane? If you put 30 points in it anyway, the trait reshuffling won’t matter, right?

Anyway for me, I only play with 20 arcane, happy that I can bump it down to 10 arcane, since I only use 20 for Blasting Staff. Now I can get it with 10.

I’m not forcing myself to lose arcane. I am observing other possible opportunities for builds with the upcoming patch.

This patch will lower the general attunement cooldown for attunement swap which will make it less required.

If you are d/d you really need the vigor on crit. That, or pick up a Sigil of Energy. How much is the attunement cooldown being reduced anyway?

I experimented with 0-10-20 in arcane this past weekend.

It doesn’t really promote high speed play. Evasive arcana really allows a new tier of speed.

I will say evasive arcana is worse versus confusion builds though, hands down.

There’s not much to the change to arcana.

All existing builds will be the same except if you spent 10 points to invest in elemental attunement.

The change to attunement recharge rate doesn’t matter because it’s going to be a smaller recharge for every investment into the line except for 30 points, which will be the same recharge as it currently is due to the base recharge reduction on attunements.

There’s really nothing to discuss about the arcana line, except that there’s the potential for more builds to viable with less arcana investment. However, no other trait lines are going to be anymore worth investing into than they are now (unless diamond skin offers a full condition cleanse upon reaching it’s threshold).

Shockwave.1230:

There’s not much to the change to arcana.

All existing builds will be the same except if you spent 10 points to invest in elemental attunement.

or if you spent 20 to invest in blasting staff

30/30/0/0/10 incoming

I think for staff 30 points into air isn’t really worthwhile unless you are purely trying to maximize your crit damage.

well the idea is to do as much damage as possible, so yes
and tempest defense is getting a nice buff
also air 15+fresh air has great synergy even if you don’t want air’s spam skill. though I’ve never actually tried it in a serious build; not sure how easy it is to actually make use of when you also want to switch back out of air right away

anyway, I could also see taking 10 in earth for stone splinters and a bit of condition damage. but that’s not as awesome

Ea is not “wasting dodges”.
Removing conditions and healing is what a low HP low armor profession needs to stay alive….

the fact that ele can t have dps via stats but only via traits is just one of the many profession problems.

I just hope this thread isn’t related to pve at all, because if so all of above builds are really bad, including the 30/30/0/0/10 one.
As for pvp ele’s suck anyway, in wvw roaming you shouldn’t have spent 30 points into arcane anyway. Defensive/slow builds are just a bad choice there. And about zerging: i don’t really see how the build matters much there.
@Boryn: All professions get their damage mainly with their traits. This is exactly the reason why elementalists are extremely strong but mesmers, rangers and engineers are very weak. And together with the mesmer, the ele has the best recources of improving damage via stats, just because air combines two of three important stats. Taking the guardian as example, those have power in a trait line with one modifier, precision in the line you go to 25 anyway (which is good) but critical damage in valor, which is the worst traitline existing. With 25/25/10/10/0 you are able to maximize your (solo, fgs) damage while maintaining a good part of it when your trait requirements are not met. On a guardian you’re just screwed in that case, because your stats are low.

I would never go to www without 10 arcana and 20 water….
If it comes to PvE….you are fine if people keeps you alive…

But i have to ask one thing:
If a more balanced ele (zerker armor 20 water and 10 arcana at least) can solo many stuff in dungeons…

How would a full offensive ele go soloing kohler for example?

I think the Dec 10 patch changes nothing, all of the good traits are still in arcane & water and nothing worthwhile has been added to the other trees.

The 30 earth trait will be quite OP in a 1v1 vs a high condi dmg spec but in every other situation it will be 100% useless, as 10% HP on an Ele is nothing.

Moving Ele attunement and cleansing water traits up a tier without any kind of improvement of other lines only served to make water and arcane more mandatory, not less.

More than anything this patch just highlights what lazy unimaginative designers there are behind this game that the best they can come up with 12 months post-release is shuffling a few traits around.

LordByron.8369:

I would never go to www without 10 arcana and 20 water….
If it comes to PvE….you are fine if people keeps you alive…

But i have to ask one thing:
If a more balanced ele (zerker armor 20 water and 10 arcana at least) can solo many stuff in dungeons…

How would a full offensive ele go soloing kohler for example?

I wouldn’t ever take more than 10 water and 10 arcane into WvW. Elementalists are strong in 1v1’s but can’t stand any chance in a 1v2 unless both opponents are extremely bad. I just fit to ele’s strength’s building as much into burst damage, so i can down everything but PVT warriors/necros/guardians in one go, who won’t be able to do any pressure to me and will die in a second burst.

As for kholer you’ll have problems dealing with him anyway. It’s either range him, evade everything or try to tank and die. When he spawns mobs you either FGS them down or die quick yourself. With a x/x/x/30/30 build you won’t be able to burst them down. In 25/25/10/10/0 you will.

Not correct….
X/X/X/15/30 is the base to be able to survive as an ele…

Recently in most section people suggest builds that heavily rely on the party…..as if pugs didn t exists.

(not to mention www)

I m not the one of telling people to go soldier in dungeons…i still go fullzerk, but conjured build is not reliable imho and requires too much support from Others.

(and i use D/D mostly so im not telling of ranging stuff)

How could 30 arcane be useless in WvW situations, Anicetus? Thats so wrong. It is our most useful skill/trait line.

I also find it promotes high speed play.

(Talking D/D Roamer and some zerging)

Just that D/D sucks for roaming or in smallscale. And it doesn’t promote high speed play, just flats out the skill level required to bash low skill players.

Anicetus.1253:

Just that D/D sucks for roaming or in smallscale. And it doesn’t promote high speed play, just flats out the skill level required to bash low skill players.

I’d say the opposite….

I m suspecting you are mistaking “execution” with skill….
And its really not the case….

Execution is just one of the component of skill and probably the least important.

Anicetus.1253:

Just that D/D sucks for roaming or in smallscale. And it doesn’t promote high speed play, just flats out the skill level required to bash low skill players.

This statement confuses me – D/D’s strength is roaming and small-scale. What spec is better for roaming than D/D?

S/D

That’s why as DD, i just crush SD roamers …

Skilled S/D roamers crush you within 0.2 seconds.

Anicetus.1253:

Skilled S/D roamers make sure to burst you after you use shocking aura

oops

Anicetus.1253:

Just that D/D sucks for roaming or in smallscale. And it doesn’t promote high speed play, just flats out the skill level required to bash low skill players.

You have no clue what you’re talking about. Ive fought the best S/D roamer I’ve ever seen, and I won more frequently than he did, but he was amazing.

Duel me, mate. You’re quite wrong, and your statements don’t jive with anything proven here. Show your D/D skills, and I’ll show you what you’re doing wrong.

EA really helps roamers. D/D is good. End of story.

As i imagined some people thinks that pressing a fast button sequence is skill..
D/D is all but a newbie killer…..mostly because it has some anti burst builds in order to kill S/D ele and thieves…(losing from standard bunker ele)

Just think how you can keep up permaprotection with D/D and pair the auras you have with 3 utilities to avoid bursts.

Reacting a burst on the other way is far more skill than executing one.

Anicetus.1253:

Skilled S/D roamers crush you within 0.2 seconds.

Most s/d burst setups are noob traps, relying on downing a single target within 0.2 seconds, which requires one to be in control of the opponent. This is not always the case, especially when roaming in WvW. Skirmishes and imbalanced fights require some defensive options if you want to survive anything but arranged duels.

I don’t see any skill involved in playing sth. like this (e.g.: earth -> arcane immobilize -> air attunement: burst -> fire attunement: rof, arcane blast, phoenix, fg -> air attunement). It’s a skill sequence which could be set up as a macro, which will kill most things in one go if the initial immobilize hits, but if one survives the burst, you only have your arcane shield and 2 +1 (vigor) +1 (updraft) dodges left, while being on almost full cooldown. I don’t see how this results in more skillful play than skill management and some reactionary gameplay which most balanced builds (both d/d and s/d) aim for. Skill is not just about getting your combos and chains right, but also about reading your enemy and decision making based on his or her input as well. That, or you’ll become the victim against any decent player…

-Arcane Brilliance: Arcane. Blast the target area, hitting foes with critical damage and healing yourself. Healing effectiveness is increased per target hit.

Sorry, meant to quote Anicetus’ post. Fixed it

Anicetus.1253:

Just that D/D sucks for roaming or in smallscale. And it doesn’t promote high speed play, just flats out the skill level required to bash low skill players.

I have commanded with my Support D/D Elementalist build and have been extremely efficient in doing so.

I have always found D/D to be less button mashy and more of a solid and fluid playstyle. I’ve noticed the S/D merely provides more utility (blinds, blast finishers, heals)

How would say the d/d burst fresh air would work after this update? Say a 0/30/10/30/0 with the PA but fresh air over the “if stun” effect. I think you would need to max out boon duration on runes and food though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImmbxR4QlDIkHvgLUCjCig4xD0AcIA-j0CB4fg4LAJQQJREZslhBp6KslXRTVLy6aYKXJV7CAA-w

Something like this? 50% boon duration should let you keep fury up most of the time with the 20% reduction to your air and water.

Jski.6180:

How would say the d/d burst fresh air would work after this update? Say a 0/30/10/30/0 with the PA but fresh air over the “if stun” effect. I think you would need to max out boon duration on runes and food though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImmbxR4QlDIkHvgLUCjCig4xD0AcIA-j0CB4fg4LAJQQJREZslhBp6KslXRTVLy6aYKXJV7CAA-w

Something like this? 50% boon duration should let you keep fury up most of the time with the 20% reduction to your air and water.

Yikes. I’d never use ‘Giver’ armor, and I’d never share my auras. Not in lieu of removing a condition whenever I get regen.

This build seriously lacks survivability. I’d say if you were going to do anything with it, go 30-10-20-10… But after the update, the 10 won’t really be as useful.

Mbelch.9028:

Jski.6180:

How would say the d/d burst fresh air would work after this update? Say a 0/30/10/30/0 with the PA but fresh air over the “if stun” effect. I think you would need to max out boon duration on runes and food though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImmbxR4QlDIkHvgLUCjCig4xD0AcIA-j0CB4fg4LAJQQJREZslhBp6KslXRTVLy6aYKXJV7CAA-w

Something like this? 50% boon duration should let you keep fury up most of the time with the 20% reduction to your air and water.

Yikes. I’d never use ‘Giver’ armor, and I’d never share my auras. Not in lieu of removing a condition whenever I get regen.

This build seriously lacks survivability. I’d say if you were going to do anything with it, go 30-10-20-10… But after the update, the 10 won’t really be as useful.

Well there is the +25% ms even outside of combat i can see that being of some use.

maeggle.6021:

Anicetus.1253:

Skilled S/D roamers crush you within 0.2 seconds.

Most s/d burst setups are noob traps, relying on downing a single target within 0.2 seconds, which requires one to be in control of the opponent. This is not always the case, especially when roaming in WvW.

Nice that you mentioned WvW, because that’s exactly what i’m talking about. There are barely any good players in WvW, not claiming I myself am. Nevertheless with a total of ~15 hours in WvW I have yet to find any single player able to properly play. I’ve seen a rather good 3 men team though.
Anyway, combine this with the high likelyhood of your fight getting messed up by enemies/allies who are entering and you got the reason why I think D/D isn’t good for roaming. Not even taking into account that all Dagger animations are kinda obvious. Burning Speed and air autoattacks, ones main damage output are easily dodgeable or just kitable.
Now to the former part of your response, S/D indeed heavily relies on bursting. But not as much as you think. Aside from the initial 20k burst (on defensive (Clerics/PVT/etc. on heavy armor targets) you still have fresh air, a 4 second cooldown lightning strike (which together with the air attunement one provides some rather good “sustained burst”), RTL/Updraft to survive until your other cooldowns are off cd and all other stuff to keep some pressure, in the uncommon case that someone survives. I’ve done some tests with a PVT 0/0/30/30/0 warrior and got him down to 20% on every burst attempt, being able to reduce his healing so much to be able downing him in a second go.

However, I’m usually not playing my elementalist in PvP scenarios (I’m usually not participating in PvP anyway) because it became boring rather quick and showed some great weaknesses, especially against the current CC/Condition meta. To be able to get some condition removal you are kind of forced to go 30 into water and mostlikely a lot into arcane aswell, making the only partly balanced build unviable because of way too less damage output. Not to mention how screwed elementalists’ stunbreakers are (signet of air, glyph of elemental power…?).