Guild Wars 2

So Im looking for a build that can come close to the damage output of a warrior’s axe/mace and greatsword build to run in dungeons only. No fractals, no wvw.

Also Id prefer not to die whenever an enemy sneezes on me. I do know how to dodge but even on paths I know well like COF p1, I still go down at least once per run in my zerker gear. Im a big believer in no matter how much damage you do, its all for not if your always lying on your back.

Ive read that the lightning hammer build can actually out damage a warrior but Ive also heard that it takes a specific group set up and that its glassy as all get out. Are any of the changes coming out on the 10th of december gonna help dungeon ele’s. Am I in the right place or should I be looking at Rangers

If you’re pugging, don’t do Lightning Hammer build. That build is only for coordinated groups. I’ve ran the build in PuGs before, and it’s terrible. On fights requiring you to range, or in fights where melee isn’t always going to happen, your damage is reduced a lot. Not to mention you have to worry about juggling the second hammer, and ask people not to pick it up every time, and if you don’t, someone will. That build is really only good if you have a group that can lay down a fire fields consistently, and you’re not the only one in melee. In theory it’s the best damage we have, but in practice it’s not.

Fire Staff Ele is the best option for general pugging, in my honest opinion. It’s a boring build to play, but it deals a lot of damage, and you still have access to more than 5 skills.

A good team orientated build is the scepter dagger build. It does amazing burst damage, and it focuses on party might stacking. Once again, it’s more useful when everyone is in melee, but in PuGs that rarely happens.

Personally, I use scepter/dagger for bloodlust stacking on trash mobs, then switch to my staff for boss fights.

However, if you decide to go with another class, which happens more often than not, there is only four classes that are usually wanted in dungeons/fractals. Warriors = Guardians > Mesmers > Thieves.

Warriors and Guardians because they have high armor and high damage, as well as abilities that work well with group play, such as banners and reflects.

Mesmers are needed for a lot of tricks for skipping mobs or making general things easier. Such as laying a portal down for someone carrying a wisp in the swamp fractal, or totally skipping the last set of harpies in the uncategorized fractal.

Thieves are wanted for almost the same reason as the mesmer. Thieves can stealth the entire group to make skipping trash mobs easier as well as bring the most single target damage to take down bosses faster. They also have AoE blindess that can be kept up almost, if not, 100% of the time for unavoidable trash mobs, such as in the ascalodian fractal.

Almost all speed clearing groups want these classes. Sometimes thieves aren’t wanted, but that depends on the people playing.

Anyway, I know you didn’t say fractals, but that’s what I have the most experience playing, so I used that as an example of some things these classes can do to help the team. The problem with elementalists is that we don’t bring much to the team in terms of group buffs, and we don’t make skipping mobs easier, the only thing we really have is damage, which we do very well, but most experienced dungeon runners would rather have classes that buffed the groups damage or have ways to make the dungeon more smooth and faster.

Taking all of that into consideration, the best build we have that group runners would want would be the might stacking scepter/dagger build for continual might stacking during a boss fight.

Savoy.6824:

So Im looking for a build that can come close to the damage output of a warrior’s axe/mace and greatsword build to run in dungeons only. No fractals, no wvw.

Also Id prefer not to die whenever an enemy sneezes on me. I do know how to dodge but even on paths I know well like COF p1, I still go down at least once per run in my zerker gear. Im a big believer in no matter how much damage you do, its all for not if your always lying on your back.

Ive read that the lightning hammer build can actually out damage a warrior but Ive also heard that it takes a specific group set up and that its glassy as all get out. Are any of the changes coming out on the 10th of december gonna help dungeon ele’s. Am I in the right place or should I be looking at Rangers

If you want to do good damage and stay alive, staff is your only choice. You won’t outdamage a warrior, though.

Staff is the horrible choice for dungeons. I’d advise to stay away from it as much as possible.

Nice advice, thanks guys. Ill try to find some handy scepter dagger builds. Is Zoose good to look at, he seems mainly focused on Spvp but he seems to be a leader in the ele community.

Savoy.6824:

Nice advice, thanks guys. Ill try to find some handy scepter dagger builds. Is Zoose good to look at, he seems mainly focused on Spvp but he seems to be a leader in the ele community.

Basic S/D dps build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQBYAJ8gAYgCYUoDEPsAHgDB

Fire 2435 -> Earth 45 is the basic might stacking combo with this build, use lightning attunement while your fire skills are recharging.

I like the 30 0 10 20 10 build. Perma fury for your team and vigor for yourself to keep up that endurance regen. My whole team uses embers so I have firefields to blast most of the time while using LH. Rotation in s/d is pretty simple, do your stacks in fire, earth, switch to water and pull out LH. When 25 charges run out you do rotation again, etc etc.

All goes well, until a teammate accidentally grabs my lightning hammer…. ;-;