Guild Wars 2

Warning !This build is for experienced WvW Eles looking todo some real damage while still maintaining a great deal of survivability and not just laying down water fields to heal your allies.

There comes a time in every Ele’s life where they can no longer bear the thought of placing well timed water fields in huge fights no more! They look towards the darker arts of being an Ele, they look towards the all consuming Fire’s of Balthazar and the storm known as Air that comes with it. Well I dug deeper, becoming a disciple of Zhaitan himself. I learned through his ancient teachings of bringing death, that Fire and Air is capable of just that. Imagine Raining down Zhaitan’s Tooths(Dragons Tooth) @ a constant 20 stacks of might from the sky! I’m talking about Throwing down 2.6k damage teeth into the zerg critting anywhere from 4-10k at 215 ferocity! pls… that’s only 1 tooth, what if I continue to throw some more teeth down? :O
I role play a bit too much for my own good ..
But essentially this build focuses on bursting enemies by laying down dragon tooth into grouped up, downed and/or single target enemies, While still maintaining great survivability.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJArdnMMUMonhnhlM0NwzhyB8RcJOABgEMQExly0pY6vA-T1CCABdqWhXKNM4EAEpqKjpE0hHAAVKzA4ABw3+D1pn4iDIQAAEgdWnBwPH6PH6PHa78n/cn7cnlCgJlRA-w
~ for tips and tricks on rearranging traits, how to burst single targets, when to attune to fire and earth scroll to the next segment on this post

So you’re really looking to rain down fire from the sky huh? well then let’s get to it.
1. So first things first, this build relies heavily upon your party set up, good WvW’ers know why when I say having at least 2 guardians in your party(an Ideal party for me is 2 guardians 1 support staff water ele and a warhorn condi cleanse warrior) . For zerg passes, your needing to train through with your commander many different AOE fields you don’t want to get caught without stability in those passes as you will most likely get pulled into anywhere from an enemy 30-80 man zerg and all those AOE field’s. Stability allows you to basically pass through all the guardian pulls, all the static fields etc.
2.There are times you simply won’t be able to just run with your commander through enemies, as your allies are probably running anywhere from 2.5k – 3k toughness and healing traits to help them survive passes. Your job is to rain fire down from the Gods!! —-To pass with your commander without a care in the world use your earth invulnerability to make pass 1 with a breeze. While invulnerable take the opportunity to pull out your FGS and spin to win through all your enemies(which is also an evade). Throw down FGS skill 5 and 2(while attuning to fire for fury) in a target location then swap back to your actual fire attunement and begin throwing down teeth preferably on grouped up enemies or (this is where the build gets evil) on downed enemies. After you threw down your 1st dragon tooth use your heal skill to heal back up through that retaliation damage(with the runes I use, you will gain fury and might to not only yourself but surrounding allies) then throw down another tooth with more power and a higher chance to crit. Burn them to ashes(cleave heavily). Thus, not only killing that enemy to the point of needing to respawn AKA sending their soul to be conscripted into one of Zhaitan’s minions. Which in turn rallying your down allies(who probably would’ve rally botted sending the fight in your enemies favor).

~ That is basically what you should be doing during passes. Zerg passes only last 1 or 2 passes before the commander calls it and backs off. Sooo they may regroup for waters etc, that’s a lovely time for you to smash down a tooth or two.
~Thing’s to be weary of when playing this spec is your heath bar! You don’t even have 12k hp, you are the epitome of a zerker. keep in mind if people so much as sneeze on you, it will hurt. But luckily you have arcane shields and You do have a sigil of restoration equipt and roughly 650 healing. So you want to kill your enemies, for you gain health when you do, eventually this becomes second nature and you really begin to look for kills in an attempt to sustain.

How to single target burst someone !!
This part is basically known by good scepter ele’s but for those who don’t know the burst combo it is as follows. Both combos work differently.. but the end result will be different. As combo snipe 1 leads you into fire so you can rain down teeth as combo 2 starts you in fire and leads you into a might combo that ends you in air.
*Combo snipe 1 :Starting in earth attunement while simultaneously using your arcane blast on a selected target and then using your rock barrier skill(scepter earth 2), begin to auto attack in earth getting some crit vulnerabilities and bleeds then hurl your rock barrier while attuning to air for fury crits. Immediately using your air 1 skill for lightening autos, then use your air 2 skill while then attuning to fire while still auto attacking in air, so now your air auto attack now gets fury crits and might boost from runes(That combo is your bread and butter!! So practice it often so it becomes 2cd nature) also A good guardian party along with an ele(also your boon duration traits and runes) keeps you at a constant 20 stacks of might ez pz. You will snipe someone unless they used an invulnerability(among other ways to avoid damage) during that burst and they noticed the dmg. But not every WvW’er is quick on the keys, some are lagging and some are just plain bad then some people are just as glassy as you are. So you will burst those people regardless. Once you downed them throw down a phoenix and some teeth. GG you
Snipe combo 2 : Starting in fire throw down your focus fire 4 skill lay it directly in front of yourself, phoenix into it for might, swap to earth and earth focus 4 for more might and follow the earth into air combo from combo 1, just make sure you did it through that fire field for more burns!

So the alterations to this build is changing that 20 in fire to just 10, So your adept trait will be Burning Precision instead of internal fire. Those free 10 points can be spent into grand master for arcana, so you get a sexy dodge roll water which is soo legit with 600 healing. Or you can spend those 10 points and put them into earth so when your tempest defensive triggers your protection on aura trait will trigger as well. Crafty eh? Keepo!! But essentially this build should be played fresh air, in the build editor I chose a more defensive trait for those who genuinely wish to learn the dark arts. But for those experienced in air, just use fresh air. Big bursties! But the tempest defense is legit for when a basilisk venom thief decides to jump you, that aura stun plus protection is very good in those split seconds where you need to react fast.

I hope you enjoy this build! It may not be for everyone, but I truly find amusement in raining down fire from the sky..

lastly I know I will get questions about can this be played staff, and it certainly can.. but the problem with staff is survivability, it has great aoe but doesn’t allow you to really 1v1 someone when the time strikes if your pressured. Since your so glassy, Scepter focus allows you todo just that.
“Reap The Whirlwind”

Hello, I think I remember going up against your guild a few weeks ago (I’m on Dragonbrand, just transferred there)! Anyway, I’ve had some fun experience with both S/D and S/F in spvp, and I was working on an S/D build for roaming, but I also feel like running a similar build for zerg-play with S/F but one thats a bit less glassy than yours. I’m also worried about my guild approving the build, as we’re technically supposed to run group play centric builds, which for ele means staff and 0/x/x/6/6, but maybe I could see if they’d let me play S/F on a night when we have 4+ staff eles.

Anyway this is the build I was working on:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhUM6c24wnBf0AOACxgxEHJQiiXXC-T1CBAB7pHgjHAwlqp0lSh0UCilSIAOBAepkJLlBWqaRR7PAA-w

Basically it uses a mix of valkyrie, soldier’s, zerker, knight’s, and cavalier to obtain a good mixture of stats. I may swap out the zerker-valk amulet though for a celestial one (which also has a karmic infusion in it), which would be only a little less power but more toughness/healing power/vitality, since my armor is still a bit low for the ideal amount. For runes, I just picked pack runes, but I was also thinking about hoelbrak, and for sigils I picked accuracy so I wouldn’t have to use as much zerker or knight’s to get a good crit chance, and hydromancy to help out with CC and burst in combos, but that might be a better idea for roaming, so sigil of fire or battle might be a better option. As far as traits go, I didn’t go into fire at all, and if I go with tempest defense, 6 in arcana might be better, but I like going at least 4 into water at all times for the extra vitality. So let me know if that build looks at all viable!

I was also wondering why you built a lot of magi’s and cleric’s into your build. I got an ascended armor chest drop that I haven’t used yet, so I might be able to incorporate that as well.

Hey There! Nice, DB seems like a chill server to be in, unfortunately It’s hard to keep track of who I fight unless they left a lasting impression on me when I fought them :/ Although every fight group’d or a good ol’ 1v1 I do cherish. Yes, many ele’s are confined to a usual guild build which is basically 10 earth 30 water and 30 in arcana staff ele with celestial armor and trinkets. That build is very group orientated. My build is far more selfish as my build doesn’t support allies via water, I support via all my blast finisher via fire 2 and 3 along with earth dodge roll and focus earth 4 and water 5.
But your build is strong none the less, for S/F, The hydromancy is great cc when timed right and actually hurts. You incorporated many elements to make a build that matches the prowess of the zerker lifestyle. The build your running is great for people wanting to deal big damage and mitigate damage from themselves at the same time. I see warriors and gaurdians do that set up more so.. since they are directly in the line of fire of many different aoes. But you put together a really strong build that would be outstanding if you had some extra power from fire, you could be dealing so much more dmg. You match my damage so I know what your working with, but if you took that 4 in water and gradually put 5 points into fire over time you will definitely see a big difference. I remember being new to scepter ele running earth signit and a similar set up that you have. But I noticed i can sustain just fine with 600 healing and no water traits at all. I only have 11k hp so a 6.5k heal does wonders, from magis and cleric which add precision and healing to my guild. so with fury I have a 70 pecent chance to crit. But unlike your build mine runs on a constant 20 stacks of might so instead of say 2k power I run at 2.7k usually with an increased 700 cond dmg. So 1 auto attack from fire literally is 2k dmg. That’s just a fire auto, burn does 1k dmg per tick for 2 seconds since I have condi duration from fire traits. Not to mention staying attuned to fire I deal 10% more damage and I’m able to throw out more tooths. Since I deal this damage it comes with the price of Retal.. I haven fallen down to retal before. Got a really good tooth on a crowd of people but they had retal and I just died haha it’ll happen sometimes. But my build lacks vitality and toughness, but Ele’s kit is wonderous in that you can work around being that squishy and still make it viable. Arcane Shields, boon duration on regen and protection, Rock barrier from scepter, blinks and invulnerabilities. One last thing worth mentioning is that, playing this glassy basically teaches you to zerk your enemy to death rather than surviving their burst and trying to outsustain them into crit dmg. if I get hit with a 10k eviscerate or 10k backstab it is my fault for not paying attention. there goes my health pool but it will be my mistake. But I def like your build

Thanks so much for your feedback! And yeah I’d say the extra crit chance and healing power is a definite advantage of your set up over mine. Maybe I could try using a few zealot’s pieces over valkyrie in some slots, but I’ll play around with that later. I’m halfway done making meteorlogicus, so I’ll probably swap between zerker, valk and zealots when thats done

So your might stacks come from guardian allies mainly? Or do you blast flamewall too? (I haven’t been able to check out your video yet but I’ll be sure to later).

And lastly, yeah I really like DB! At the moment, I’m part of one of the few organized WvW guilds we have that are active right now, so its been a struggle. Lately mag and SoS have been ganging up on us, but its still a fun time. I hope my guild would allow me to run such a build. I feel like I could almost contribute more with the extra blast finishers, although I’ll miss the AoE CC from staff, but the fire/air skills on S/F are generally a lot more useful damage wise.

Oh, That scepter is sooo nice, especially after they added those storm cloud footprints to it? Definitely worth getting especially when you have the world revolving around on it too! gratz, But I’ve always had a thing for the minstrel the idea of carrying around a harp and playing the hum of death seemed like a legit idea. But unfortunately the weapon doesn’t seem anywhere near “legendary” especially when compared to it brothers on the list. Even though its an off hand weapon it deserves footprints! for example, The Rodgort torch has a flame arm and fire footprints, I thought what might make the minstrel worth while was maybe a light (insert colour here) aura when no legendary main hand is equipt and maybe some color changing musical notes footprints? So every other footprint is a different note and colour that pops up after you walk and fades into sound?! thought that would be legit. But the meteorlogicus is extremely nice. Makes me jelly

But mainly might comes from stacking before pushing, when gaurdians empower and people lay down fire fields and blast, your sure to get 25 right then and there but it dwindles to 20 as you finally push and fight. But Through blasting your own fire fields during the fight and gaurdians empowering throughout the fight also you can keep pretty good stacks of might for more damage. I sometimes fell naked when I don’t have 20 stacks of might and that extra 700power because I look at my damage like ohhh I could be doing soo much more if I had some gaurdians.. lol

Hahaha I’d say go for the minstrel if you really do want it! I think that overall its a nice looking weapon even if the effects are underwhelming, and the musical note trail is really nice as well. Its also really cheap, to the point where I would be almost finished making it if I wanted it instead of meteorlogicus. Anyway, I hope I"m done making it within the next month, I’m close to buying the precursor, and then I’d need another 600 gold or so to finish off the charged lodes, T6 and icy runestones, which isn’t too bad.

As far as S/F builds go, I’d like to see how well its AoE damage does in comparison to necro-well bombs. Dragon’s tooth has a much much lower cooldown and the same range from which you can cast with the well-target trait. Additionally focus gives ele really cool defensive skills that necros can’t get (they just have their shorud), so overall I see this build forming a similar role to power-well necros in the GWEN meta, but with more burst and probably better 1v1/focusing target potential. And I also like how S/F will give me a much better chance at blowing up thieves that try to pick me off.

@OP You get the gist of what to do and not to do. You understand that glass s/f is much more reliable in small scale fights as opposed to glass staff. But what I feel you did not connect is that wvw is based around large scale fights. That in itself makes the build fall seemingly out of place and unfortunately poor in comparison to a staff.

I suggest you try glass staff out and get out of the habit of the zerg mentality. That’ll give you better positioning and less of the need to have a guard in your party or a party at all.

I hope you can view this as constructive criticism and not salt as glass is not considered meta in wvw and thus hard to be taken seriously from either standpoint.

I play something similar in pvp. I prefer to take 6 in fire and to take trait XIII, i find blind enemy every 5 second quite strong