Guild Wars 2

Playing elementalist is pretty much the only fun left for me in GW2. That being said, I tried roaming with D/D ele, but I can never find a suitable build. I want well rounded and self sustained builds. Creating a build like that is quite hard on ele at this time. Tried soo many different builds, but every single one I tried has a weakness that makes me dislike the build. Either it doesn’t have enough damage, enough sustain, not enough fury/crit chance, not enough active defenses, lacks mobility, projectile defense (or you become a sitting duck for staff/lb rangers), …..
I know I can’t have everything, but some other classes can. Does anyone have a good roaming build? Tried standard pre-hot D/D but not having any projectile defense hurts so bad.

I play only tempest since hot. I have good success with a bit strange roaming build but its funny and works quite well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XiVYCOOA8RgFBAbIIMDSiup2XbuNIAEKLiA-TlSNABMdCAcQtncUCm6DA4FlHRt/QNKxOSVAA0B0sWgODCAJAwnnHhAOtGA-w

Of course you can do changes like take diamond skin. And it can use dagger. I also swap food often running precision oil.
I also realy like nightmare rune here but its anoying klicking all 5 seconds for permaswiftness…. So i often run air signet.

I went through the same thing. Still am to be honest.

D/D + tempest doesn’t mix. I’ve tried many variants, but it’s fundamentally not compatible sadly.

I could go on page-long rants about just how thorougly screwed the game is, and anything solo is basically dead, but I’ll save you the depression.

Basically, nothing you can play is scrapper/druid/rev/reaper levels of great. The most effective I’ve found after quite a bit of time, is playing earth/air/arcane S/F (with written in stone). Marauder/zerk with pack runes. It’s obnoxiously hard to kill, even on 1900 armor. I feel like it has the most okay to favourable matchups currently. It falls off steeply with teammates or outnumbered though. With mist form, obsidian, flash, arcane shield x2, armor of earth from traits and a whole lot of superspeed you’re basically a mini elite spec with the amount of immunities.

Doesn’t sound too hot, but it works decently well. Other options are D/F fresh air, which does utterly ridiculous damage, but feels very dumb to play at times, D/D tempest stacking all the OP stuff to get by (dmg reduction + boon duration food, durability runes, quadra stats + cele,…).

on dd u have earth 2 as projectile defense. not much, just saying.

im playing sd with fa core (tried temp but doesnt work well enough for the crucial position u are in for ol), sw with temp +/- fa (my fav in grp situation), sf fa not so often.

have to admit that sf and df fa builds like gokil said r the most suitable in 1v1 but outmanned u have one foot in the grave.

that said, being aware of position and situation u want to commit is more key than pre hot as u need to be perfect were other classes can slack.

Yes. I can hold 1:1 with s/f quite well but a +1 when there is a necro or mesmer in the fight usually ends deadly for me quite fast. I can´t bunker a 1:2 as good as the meta ele to wait for our +x as soon as there is an offensive condi spamer on me.
But i can support a teamfight quite well and the option to fight ranged is very helpful there. So teamfight and 1:1 good and especiall in a 2:2 i shine. Outmanded the build falls back behind meta ele. The only thing i can stand outmaned is two full powerbuilds and even kill them if at least one is a glass cannon.

Thanks for all the answers!

As for you Wolfric.

Yes. I can hold 1:1 with s/f quite well but a +1 when there is a necro or mesmer in the fight usually ends deadly for me quite fast. I can´t bunker a 1:2 as good as the meta ele to wait for our +x as soon as there is an offensive condi spamer on me.
But i can support a teamfight quite well and the option to fight ranged is very helpful there. So teamfight and 1:1 good and especiall in a 2:2 i shine. Outmanded the build falls back behind meta ele. The only thing i can stand outmaned is two full powerbuilds and even kill them if at least one is a glass cannon.

What build variant could I run, if I intend using dagger offhand? I know dagger offhand is much weaker right now, but I really hate having no mobility outside FGS (waay to many gank squads in WvW right now).

Have you considered using focus at all? It gives you almost everything you want except the mobility. Honestly when tempest first came out and I was fiddling around with builds I also found it extremely hard to give up offhand dagger, but the stuff you gain from focus is worth it. Personally I run lightning/water/tempest with zephyr boon as my primary boon source of mobility. I also run the trait that gives aura on successfully overloading, between these sources i have no trouble keeping up perm swiftness. The biggest thing is RtL’s CD is 40seconds (26.8 if traited) so you honestly don’t get that much extra mobility from dagger offhand. While you get 2sources of projectile defense, a knockdown, and an invul with focus.