Guild Wars 2

Chances are this is already common knowledge, but I didn’t find anything doing a quick forum search, so I figured I “might” as well share this. It’s a Scepter/Dagger combo that goes like:

Ring of Fire > Dragon’s Tooth > Phoenix > Arcane Wave > Earth Attunement > Earthquake > Churning Earth

resulting in a 15 stacks of Might Churning Earth that crits for 5-6k (because you get the combo effect from Churning Earth at the start of the channel). The timing is very strict and minimal delays in casting will result in only 12 stacks of Might, but that’s still a lot and normal mobs will barely survive until the Churning Earth anyway. The combo is of course only usable if you are not targeted and stuff doesn’t move a lot, but it’s fun nevertheless.

It’s already pretty well known (I bring it up myself quite often on these forums). Actually, really everyone using S/D should know this, as it is the core of our dps when given the opportunity to use the chain. Also Arcane Wave should be used immediately after Ring of Fire so that it buffs the damage of DT and/or Phoenix.

edit: It should also be noted that the might it gives is AOE might, and is really nice for buffing the damage of your group’s melee dps (or even your elemental summons), it’s not just a self buff.

some more tips on this:
1. there are 3 different rune sets that give +20% might duration for having 2 runes. Instead of taking 6 of one type, consider using 2 each of those 3 and speccing 30 points in arcane for extra duration on your might stack.
2. use a sigil of battle to get 3 more stacks (18 now) when you swap attunements *in combat* (so make sure you start the fight outside of fire for greatest effect. i like lightning for skills 2+3)
3. use the arcane trait that gives a buff on attunement - you get 1 stack (19 total) from going to fire at the start of the fight (as suggested above)
4. grab 2 cantrips and the fire trait which gives 3 stacks of might (25 total). i suggest armor of earth for stability (use it immediately when you get to fire) and lightning flash to reposition while you are casting churning earth (as long as you start casting inside the fire field, you will get the might when the cast ends)

Some extra notes:
the churning earth might stacks are applied when churning earth explodes. I have not tested if these stacks affect the spell or not.
I suggest doing phoenix *before* DT because the earth4 will stun them in place for the DT to land.
With my suggestions, only 1 of the extra 10 might stacks is aoe. If you want more aoe might to help your group, take evasive arcana and add a dodge between earth4 and 5. This takes time and i often miss the last stacks of might on earth5, so i do not think it is worthwhile.

editted to remove formatting

You can get even more might stacks then that if you have 10 pts in arcane for elemental attunement (which, let’s be honest, every Ele should have). Start in air, use RTL—> updraft, then switch to fire (getting the might stacks from attunement swapping) and unleash your combo for 15 more stacks.
In addition, updraft will knock your opponent down, so Dragon’s tooth will hit even against human opponents (if you’re quick enough).

D/D has a similar one

3 fire, roll backwards through it (evasive arcana)
4 fire
switch to earth
4 earth, 5 earth The timing is tight, but you can stack about 12 might with it. More if you use arcane wave in there.

Wow, and here I thought I was all l33t with the 9 stack I get from Ring, DT, Phoenix and Wave.

Can’t wait to try this all later. But just so I understand, based on the above notes, does the below work out? Assume this is all PvE only for me, and Scepter/Dagger.

Trait: Fire Magic IV- Spell Singer (gain 3 Might when a Cantrip is used)
Trait: Arcane Power V- Elemental Attunement (gain boon when switching to attunement)

Air

1. Air4: Ride the Lightning
2. Air5: Updraft

Switch to Fire- Elemental Attunement grants 3 Might

1. Utility: Armor of Earth (Spell Singer grants 3 Might)
2. Fire4: Ring of Fire
3. Utility: Arcane Wave
4. Fire2: Dragon’s Tooth
5. Fire3: Phoenix
6. Utility: Cleansing Fire (Spell Singer grants 3 Might, plus I’ve probably gotten hit with effects by now)

Switch to Earth- Elemental Attunement grants Protection

1. Earth4: Earthquake
2. Earth5: Churning Earth

Also, where do I get a Sigil of Battle, or is that PvP only?

good points to improve the dmg even more. thanks for sharing

you can get the Sigil of Battle (and any other sigil) from other players via the Trading Post. I have one slotted in my dagger currently.

delmarqo.5038:

Air

1. Air4: Ride the Lightning
2. Air5: Updraft

Switch to Fire- Elemental Attunement grants 3 Might

1. Utility: Armor of Earth (Spell Singer grants 3 Might)
2. Fire4: Ring of Fire
3. Utility: Arcane Wave
4. Fire2: Dragon’s Tooth
5. Fire3: Phoenix
6. Utility: Cleansing Fire (Spell Singer grants 3 Might, plus I’ve probably gotten hit with effects by now)

Switch to Earth- Elemental Attunement grants Protection

1. Earth4: Earthquake
2. Earth5: Churning Earth?

A few notes:
-Elemental attunement only gives 1 (you said 3 at one point by mistake)
-While in air and doing RTL at your target, you might as well slap your 2 and 3 in there because they can be cast while doing RTL.
-There are 2 chains to use in S/D fire – 432 or 234. They have different uses, so i’ll explain:
In pvp your target will move and avoid some hits. This is where you use ‘234’. lets assume they are good and they will avoid as much as possible. Once you updraft, you only have a small window to hit your damage before they get up, so you want to get that DT out as fast as possible. Then phoenix is harder to avoid, and ring is near-instant so missing that is your own fault. It will not give all the might stacks, but it is better to actually hit those abilities than miss and get 6 might stacks.

‘432’ is for pve. you have the ring out right away so you get all the might stacks. phoenix is still fairly easy to land, and DT hits while the enemy is stunned from earth 4 – this chain still locks them down for the DT hit, gives you the full might stacks, but is not a 100% guaranteed DT.

As someone mentioned, search the TP for a sigil of battle.

oh and you can only have 1 sigil that works on weapon swap (attunement swap for us). so dont bother buying 2 of those.

This is the routing I use to get 25 stacks of Might using D/D
(It could work with just off hand dagger with a few changes) .

Start with Lightning (auto set to Shocking Aura (3))
=Fury & Swiftness from Air I trait
+Protection from Earth V trait

1) Ride the Lightning (4) →
2) Lightning Touch (2) →
3) Updraft (5) →

4) Attune to Fire (while usually taking 2 steps forward)
+1 Might from Arcana V trait
+3 Might from Superior Sigil of Battle (if off internal cool-down) →
5) Burning Speed (3) →
6) Ring of Fire (4) →
7) Arcane Wave while moving to the edge of the ring
=Blast finisher (+3 Might) →
8) Dodge into the middle of the ring
causing Churning Earth (bug!) from Arcana XI trait
=Blast finisher (+3 Might)

9) Attune to Earth while in mid-dodge (causing the above bug)
+Protection from Arcana V trait →
10) Dodge back to the edge of the ring
causing Flame Burst (bug part 2!) from trait
=Blast finisher (+3 Might) →
11) Earthquake (4)
=Blast finisher (+3 Might) →
12) Churning Earth (5)
=Blast finisher (+3 Might)
(Ring of Fire usually expires here. It’s important to start CE BEFORE it does.) →

13) Armor of Earth (cantrip – immediately after starting CE)
+3 Might from Fire IV trait
+Regen & Vigor from Water III trait →
14) Lightning Flash (cantrip – just before CE goes off)
+3 Might from Fire IV trait
+Regen & Vigor from Water III trait →

At this point, if everything went well, you should have 25 stacks of Might as well as a few other boons.

This sounds awesome and I’ve dabbled a bit but this is A LOT of work. Not to mention that you can’t even do this again for a loooooooooong time. I applaud anyone that can do this but I will stick to my already complicated and hard rotation for damage. Really cool though. I didn’t even know you could get up to 25.

Messed a lot with this last session and yea, this isn’t a normal-use rotation I was amazed that it almost didn’t matter what amount of targets there were. 1, 5, 8, whether my level or plus 1/plus 2, they all died at roughly the same point in the rotation. But I did get caught a few times with fast respawns. Luckily the pet could handle that.

For normal running around few-target PvE I’ve found Fire 432+Arcane Wave very adequate and refreshes quickly enough. But against larger or tougher waves, this new rotation is fantastic.

Force.5861:

A few notes:
-Elemental attunement only gives 1 (you said 3 at one point by mistake)
-While in air and doing RTL at your target, you might as well slap your 2 and 3 in there because they can be cast while doing RTL.
-There are 2 chains to use in S/D fire – 432 or 234. They have different uses, so i’ll explain:
In pvp your target will move and avoid some hits. This is where you use ‘234’.
…
‘432’ is for pve.

Great points and thanks for the correction Force!

Something you may not have realized is that the arcane trait evasive arcana although it only procs the aoe once every 10 seconds it will actually activate 3x might per each roll with no cooldown so I generally roll twice in succession to instantly gain 6 stacks, no doubt though it’s most likely a bug. You can use evasive arcana to activate a blast finisher in any combo field and it will activate the corresponding effect as often as you can roll through it.

This is just the base spells required not including the filler abilities on other trees like Ride the Lightning and what not that I would usually use.

1: Burning Speed
2: roll back for evasive arcana also (3x might)
3: hope for crits for renewing stamina procs two quick hits should do
4: Ring of Fire
5: 2x rolls in the rings also add Arcane Wave ( 9x might )
6: switch to earth for either Earthquake or Churning Earth you don’t have time for both unless you have the XI fire trait ( 3x might )

in total 15 might just for the opening combo and not including the added might from fire trait XII if you use it, if you use your extra stamina to focus dodging on might stacking you can easily keep 25 stacks rolling the only issue there after is staying in combat in order to allow evasive arcana to keep procing.

good contribution, ty

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This sounds awesome and I’ve dabbled a bit but this is A LOT of work. Not to mention that you can’t even do this again for a loooooooooong time. I applaud anyone that can do this but I will stick to my already complicated and hard rotation for damage. Really cool though. I didn’t even know you could get up to 25.

Fire/Water has a lot of cantrip synergy.

Or…. you could use Pyromancer’s Puisance… which ought to stack a bunch of might on it’s own, and is always up.