Gearing for raids
So I’m about to craft my third ascended armor set but I’m having trouble deciding what to go for now in light of raids. I already have Assassin on Mesmer and Berserker on Necro. I was thinking getting a condition or healing set. I like healing as an ele and it worked fine in exotics vs Vale Guardian. The main problem I see though is that I think we’re slowly gravitating towards more damage oriented support. I think a few weeks from now no one will be running pure dedicated healers anymore and all the tanks will only have just enough toughness to have aggro and go full damage. At the same time, conditions don’t seem to be Ele’s strong suit. While they can definitely pile on some heavy burns it seems that in a dedicated party you’d rather have a second/third/fourth engi over a condi ele.
So far the builds I’ve traid is a condi/tank ele, a condi/heal ele, a heal/tank ele and a standard staff DPS ele. All work nicely but I just don’t really feel like I’m contributing anything that someone else can’t do. Im leaning towards just making another Berserker set and call it a day but I’m not sure.
What do you guys think Ele meta is in raids right? Would you invest in a healing or condi damage set for an ele at this time?
Eles can heal, but they cannot swap out of water as easily to contribute dmg as effectively as a Zealot’s druid. This seems to be pretty clutch, especially in the second fight as his timer seems to be even more finely tuned than the first. If you are dead set on Ele, you could possibly opt for a tank build, as I think it would be possible to build a pretty durable tank that can still dps well. Use your original Air/Earth/Tempest build but use only a few toughness pieces, and the rest Zerk.
Honestly though, your mes will likely be more valuable overall to the group with heavy boon stripping and alacrity/quickness. I want to find a place for ele besides zerk staff, but I don’t think the class is as optimal for dmg in mobile fights with D/F as say, a zerk Herald is. Personally, you may want to consider having optimal options for all the desired roles. This increases the likelihood that you will be needed for the raid. Save your coin for making an optimal condi build (engie or possibly warrior), and maybe a druid healer/dps hybrid and possibly a tank (not sure what the optimal tank is, atm).