Elementalist in need of help

Elementalist in need of help

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Posted by: Crnicelad.5924

Crnicelad.5924

Q:

Hi, I am gona go straight to the point this time …

I want to know what you guys think of the following things:
a) PvE: Cookie cutter gear combinations on armor+weapons+jewelry (including gems, runes, sigils) Like give me an idea what you are using. (ex.: zerk arm+valk wpns+cavalier jewels)
b) I cant decide between S/D (25 might + Conjure Hammer) build // or S/D (solo dps Fresh air) // or S/F – currently trying out the defensive focus replacement for dagger, since I want to run as much glasscannon as possible
c) Which set of gear would you prefer on female human eli; 1.) Winged crafted, 2.) Arah, 3.) Named exotic, 4.) Feathered Crafted
d) Is there any nice looking focus at all that doesnt get stuck into my robes?
e) Is staff worth a tryout?

^^
Regards,
Blaze Burns

Power through strength, strength through wisdom …

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Posted by: Anierna.6918

Anierna.6918

A:

The following answers are all in a PvE context:

a) – ascended, infused zerk trinkets;
- ascended, infused zerk/assassins weps with Force/Accuracy/Night/Dungeon sigils;
- exotic zerk/assassins armor with Scholar runes;
- crit dmg + power/prec food;
- double bloodlust or double perception stacking sigils on a second set of exotic/ascended weps (either S/D or D/D);

I didn’t specify the exact balance between power and prec in gear, food, and stacking sigils because it differs based on your trait setup and group buffs. I’ve calculated it for a few of the builds I use for S/D, but you’ll have to do it yourself if you use a different spec and want to maximize damage.

b) If you choose S/D, use LH and don’t go 30 into Air for Fresh Air. The goal of S/D in PvE is to stack the maximum amount of might in the shortest amount of time, then use LH for continuous blast finishers, blinds, and higher damage (which also happens to be AoE). Builds to choose from include: 30/10/10/20/0, 30/0/10/20/10, 25/25/0/10/0, 0/20/25/25/0, and post-Dec 10th update, 10/10/25/25/0 for Conjurer trait at Adept.

The rotations for all the above specs are very similar. I’ve described some of them here: The Ele Meta

c) I’ve attached a pic that’s a gallery of my current Ele styles (unfortunately, the forum keeps giving me an error when I try attaching a high-quality .png, so I attached it as a .jpg). In that pic, I included armor styles and color schemes, as well as my DCUO signature. I don’t have one for GW2 yet =(

d) There are a few good-looking focuses, but I forgot to take pics of them when I was putting together the gallery attached to this post. The Arah focus looks great (it’s a blue dragon, similar to the Arah daggers I showed) and so does the Zojja focus (it’s kind of a serrated red shield, similar to the Zojja scepter and dagger I showed).

e) Yes, you should try out staff. The two standard staff builds, 30/20/10/10/0 and 30/10/10/10/10, will both be getting buffed by the Dec 10th update due to an additional 5% damage modifier (which will work out to more than a 5% damage increase via multiplicative stacking of modifiers). Blasting Staff will also be moved to Adept, so that will probably be useful in the 30/10/10/10/10 build.

Beware though: max-DPS build for staff ele is possibly the most boring gameplay ever, of any class. It also stacks less might for your group due to an absence of blast finishers (it only has 1, and that one’s delayed). I’ll have to recalculate damage for the builds after the Dec 10th update, but it will probably still do slightly less damage than S/D + LH.

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(edited by Anierna.6918)

Elementalist in need of help

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Posted by: Slanderman.9532

Slanderman.9532

go d/d and do it like a boss

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Posted by: Jeydra.4386

Jeydra.4386

1) I run full Berzerker’s in PvE. I have no proof it is optimal though; I just did it because I believed in GW1 that one should always try to play better instead of bringing more defense, so I just went full glass cannon. There’ve been times when I get instant-downed, but so far nothing I can’t handle.

2) I say go with S/D + Persisting Flames. The reason is that Staff is (in my opinion) the second most powerful Elementalist weapon set, and it’s sufficiently powerful that you will often want to be using Staff instead of S/D. But Staff really only works with Persisting Flames (it’s awful with Fresh Air), so to maintain versatility you should also use S/D with Persisting Flames.

3) No clue. Personal tastes.

4) No clue. Personal tastes.

5) Yes. Staff has lots of strengths. Your DPS isn’t bad. Although I haven’t done the video-taking, damage-counting things I did in GW, from experience the difference between S/D and Staff isn’t big, if there is one at all. If it comes to spike damage S/D has no equals and you can easily kill trash mobs with just one Fire chain; however with the Fire auto being so bad and not that much damage in the other attunements S/D is quite restricted in this regard. Staff damage is significantly stronger if fights last long since you can spam Lava Font and the Fire auto is so good. Meteor Shower is great too against monsters with large hit boxes.

The other key advantage of Staff over S/D is that you can maintain perma-Swiftness (Air #3, Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Air #5 + Arcane Wave). Beyond that both weaponsets have their uses. S/D is highly versatile in that if you ever need more defense you can always put up Earth #2, Water attunement has 3 defensive skills, one of which can be activated while stunned, and RTL can be used to deaggro quite well, but Staff’s own tricks like Burning Retreat, Earth #3 and the two Water AoE heals that double as Water fields that can be blasted aren’t bad either.

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Posted by: Crnicelad.5924

Crnicelad.5924

go d/d and do it like a boss

Sry but was runing d/d 1-80 and a bit after it and smashing all the buttons whenever sth is off cooldown and then saying: “Look how much I have to click compared to GS warrior #2” is not fun anymore + if I wanted to play melee I would have rolled a Warrior, but the thing is I hate the 90% of population is Warr/Guardian thingy so thank you but … NO!

P.S. Thank you Jeydra.4386.
Would be interested in more opinions and data.

Power through strength, strength through wisdom …

(edited by Crnicelad.5924)

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Posted by: Zelyhn.8069

Zelyhn.8069

How about the only build that is both potent and truly feels like playing an elementalist: D/F ?

Zelyhn.8069 [rT]
Retired elementalist theorycrafter

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Posted by: KumaTazZ.8054

KumaTazZ.8054

I run staff with 0 0 20 20 30 (WvW build with Bifrost PVT, Knight armor with 6 rune of travelers and celestial trinkets)

I am too lazy to re-trait so when I go PvE I just change to Bifrost berserk, berserk gears+trinkets with same trait and switch defensive utilities to Frost Bow, Arcane Wave, Glyph of Storm