Guild Wars 2

Awesome work DeKeyz. For a new ele like me is, simple put, awesome. Thank you very much.

Impressive amount of analysis, thought and testing here. I’ve seen websites that charge real money for a lot less. Nice work!

Hi,
I hope I don’t abuse too much… but I have 3 commentaries/questions
i) I would like to know your thoughts on "arcane mastery” for a staff build.
ii) I am not comfortable with underwater combat; I think we are pretty weak at it. Any tip?
iii) Do you have the dps numbers in a solo situation?

Yep, I think I’m abusing, sorry.

Nah, it’s fine to ask questions!
i) For PvE – and especially in situations when you’ll have a series of quick encounters separated by 20 sec or more of running, Arcane Mastery is mostly a DPS loss. Traiting 10 into Arcana instead of putting 10 more into another trait line for another damage modifier is an EP loss to being with, so that’s why I don’t include Blasting Staff in all the staff builds. I don’t think the DPS increase from being able to cast Arcane Wave and Arcane Blast more frequently would make up for the corresponding DPS loss from lower EP. An Ele can maintain 100% Arcane Lightning uptime with just smartly using Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Wave, so taking Arcane Mastery doesn’t improve that buff uptime. In general I don’t recommend cooldown reduction for PvE unless it has a significant impact on a rotation (such as Fire CD for faster fire fields on D/F).

ii). Hide behind your allies outside of cleave range, and make sure you have the right target selected. Also, stack might every 25ish seconds as Ice Wall and Arcane Brilliance come off CD.

iii). I have some actual numbers from fights, but I haven’t calculated theoretical DPS. Calculating solo DPS is a little difficult because might varies more and ele’s are pretty bad at stacking vuln (even if traited). It would be in the same ballpark, though lower than, my “average conditions” DPS estimates.

Actual numbers:
Vet Giant Solos: http://youtu.be/-rLK9kFofBQ (also have ones with warrior buffs)
Giganticus Lupicus: http://youtu.be/E8ehnCh3kOY

Using the variation:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAodnMISLDWABmNAfEGQCPEAGoAGF6AxDLwB4QA-zACBYfChkfAkIIUBg5pFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1CCYUA-e

Initial testing seems VERY Squishy when playing solo. What am I missing?

Oh and how do you exactly use the Flame Wall, Bursting Speed combo? I am a little confused about its synergy

Finally Arcane Brilliance doe not see to be healing me very well.

Angelica Dream.7103:

Using the variation:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAodnMISLDWABmNAfEGQCPEAGoAGF6AxDLwB4QA-zACBYfChkfAkIIUBg5pFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1CCYUA-e

Initial testing seems VERY Squishy when playing solo. What am I missing?

Oh and how do you exactly use the Flame Wall, Bursting Speed combo? I am a little confused about its synergy

Finally Arcane Brilliance doe not see to be healing me very well.

The build by itself only adds 100 toughness and 0 vitality, so yes, it is a squishy build that relies on the player and his or her skills to survive. Once you’re used to it, you can survive all sorts of content short of unavoidable big damage with it or its 30/30/0/0/10 variant – and even then, Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form, and Arcane Shield can get you pretty far.

If you’re still uncomfortable with some PvE content, use some Knight’s armor instead of the recommended Assasin’s or Berserker’s. This will keep your crit chance up to benefit from your crit damage accessories but give you a bit more toughness. If you feel uncomfortable with such a low HP, use Soldier’s instead of Knights, but be warned that your DPS is going to drop quite a bit more. Once you are comfortable, I recommend trying to slowly transition to DPS gear, as this build really shines when paired with high offensive stats so that you can just mow down most mobs.

I’m not sure if I completely understand your question about the rotation. I perform the rotations on PvP golems in my video guides if you’d like to see my placement, which is basically to make a + sign with your enemy at the center. I use both of those fire fields because Flamewall is a very long lasting fire field, which makes might stacking very easy even when I might be dodging frequently, and Burning Speed is a shorter fire field but its burst has a very high coefficient, so it’s a DPS increase over not using it.

Arcane Brilliance has a base heal of about 3.5k at level 80, so yes, when it doesn’t hit anything, it doesn’t heal for a lot. If it hits one or two enemies, then it heals for closer to 5k, which is about the same as Glyph of Elemental Harmony and Ether Renewal. Its main draw is that it provides yet another blast finisher with which you can stack more might. If you are the type that wants to run away and heal, though, take Glyph or Ether Renewal until you are more comfortable with the build and its rotations.

First of all thank you for answering so quickly. I am not here to trash this build but learn new way to play better, hence my question about it being squishy. I want to learn this new (to me) technique.

My rotation quesion was from your (DEKeyzToChaos) statement:
“D/F Fresh Air Rotation
Fire – Flamewall – Burning Speed – Air (before Burning Speed completes) "

So I am guessing that you use the flamewall to shoot though, or drop on top of your foe? But how does Burning Speed work with that or do you trigger it after Flamewall dies? you don;t roll though it, do you? Also why the rush to attune to air?

Finally I LET 3 level 11 Arctodus beat me up pretty well ( I was L80), and while being surrounded I hit Arcane Brilliance and got almost no healing at all. So still confused on how to get this to work

thank you so much for your help!

Angelica Dream.7103:

First of all thank you for answering so quickly. I am not here to trash this build but learn new way to play better, hence my question about it being squishy. I want to learn this new (to me) technique.

My rotation quesion was from your (DEKeyzToChaos) statement:
“D/F Fresh Air Rotation
Fire – Flamewall – Burning Speed – Air (before Burning Speed completes) "

So I am guessing that you use the flamewall to shoot though, or drop on top of your foe? But how does Burning Speed work with that or do you trigger it after Flamewall dies? you don;t roll though it, do you? Also why the rush to attune to air?

Finally I LET 3 level 11 Arctodus beat me up pretty well ( I was L80), and while being surrounded I hit Arcane Brilliance and got almost no healing at all. So still confused on how to get this to work

thank you so much for your help!

Let me jump in here and answer:

You drop the Flamewall on top of your target. Try to keep your target in it for the whole duration to maximise DPS. As for the Burning Speed, you just use it at a suitable distance (about 360 units away) so that the line intersects with the mob (which is hopefully still in the flame wall) while still managing to hit it with the blast. That’s the cross DEKeyz is talking about, I think.

Also, you have an extra 10% damage modifier while attuned to air, so the sooner you swap to air, the more damage your Flamewall and Burning Speed will do. For the Arcane Brilliance bit, the healing increases by 20% for every target hit, so if it hits the maximum number of targets possible (5) it heals for double the base value. The blast finisher is a big plus. From a healing perspective if you use it while in a water field and have 5 targets it’s going to heal you for ~80% of your max health.

Thanks Lindbur for your excellent explanation!

Regarding Arcane Brilliance not healing a lot, I would expect downscaling to be the culprit. When scaled from 80 down to 10-ish, some weird things happen with some skills. I recommend the Risen at the start of Arah Explorable for weak mobs in a setting where you’re level 80.

Hey, may I ask a question?

If you want to maximize damage, wouldn’t D/D be more suitable than D/F? Though Focus is better for survivability, Dagger OH has Fire Grab, Churning Earth and the same amount of Fire fields blast finishers.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Hey, may I ask a question?

If you want to maximize damage, wouldn’t D/D be more suitable than D/F? Though Focus is better for survivability, Dagger OH has Fire Grab, Churning Earth and the same amount of Fire fields blast finishers.

Short answer: no.
Long answer: don’t use d/d unless you’re going yolo-mode.

The extra burst of x/d is pretty negligible compared to the main contributions from the d/x. In addition, the fire field from x/f lasts a whole lot longer, and that can be very important for blasts/might stacking.

haviz.1340:

Axelwarrior.9084:

Hey, may I ask a question?

If you want to maximize damage, wouldn’t D/D be more suitable than D/F? Though Focus is better for survivability, Dagger OH has Fire Grab, Churning Earth and the same amount of Fire fields blast finishers.

Short answer: no.
Long answer: don’t use d/d unless you’re going yolo-mode.

That doesn’t answer my question in the slightest.

maxinion.8396:

The extra burst of x/d is pretty negligible compared to the main contributions from the d/x. In addition, the fire field from x/f lasts a whole lot longer, and that can be very important for blasts/might stacking.

The flame wall lasts 2 more seconds and is on a 20 second cooldown, whereas the Ring of Fire is on a 15 second cooldown. I’d say that’s not very important when it comes to might stacking.

I’m talking about D/D and D/F specifically here, isn’t it true that dagger OH contributes a lot more to damage than focus? I agree that focus has a lot more utility and is probably more useful overall, but I’m asking about damage, not utility.

Pretty sure the only dps increase on dagger offhand is fire grab. But you lose extra utility and an extra blast (comet). Churning earth is not worth casting in combat, whereas comet needs to be cast in combat to get the blast and is worth it

I only use dagger offhand for mobility. Thats pretty much its only advantage over focus.

When fully buffed and in optimal circumstances, I think D/D is a little higher sustained DPS than D/F, but I still don’t recommend it.

How is it higher DPS? Compared to Lightning Whip, Fire Grab is a pretty good damage increase. Ride the Lightning in melee on targets with small hitboxes is also an increase, but Magnetic Wave has the same coefficient and is almost just as spammable. Earthquake is a damage decrease, but not as much as Comet, and it’s a little easier to land. The damage from Ring of Fire is similar to that of Flamewall when the target stands in the Flamewall, but if the target moves out then Ring of Fire is more damage since it all hits at once.

Why don’t I recommend D/D over D/F? D/F has two blast finishers that are useful in combat while D/D only has one. Moreover, D/F is a very survivable weapon set that brings defensive utility without tanking DPS. I run D/F in Arah groups of three or fewer people and in high level fractals because I usually need those extra defensive skills. When I am in a setting where D/D would be fine, I would just go S/D +LH because it’s much better DPS and much better at stacking might.

I may add my notes about D/D in some future update, since the burst can be useful in open world. Also, with FA getting pushed back to level 80, I may put in some D/x rotations for leveling eles since LH can sometimes be inconvenient in open world exploration.

I’m still running all the numbers for the builds now that Sigil of Strength and Runes of Strength got buffed, but my initial recommendations for builds are…

http://youtu.be/OmMN1UH6ymo

Dagger/Focus

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force in groups that max might, Night/Strength otherwise
• Main sigils for day are Force/Strength or Force/Accuracy
• Runes are still Scholar’s
• For Assassin’s armor, use precision/ferocity food
• For other armor, use power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust

Scepter-Hammer

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy or Force/Battle
• Runes are Strength, but Scholar’s is still competitive
• Use power/ferocity food
• Stack bloodlust unless you have 0 points in air

Staff

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy
• Runes are Scholar’s
• Use precision/ferocity or power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust if you have 6 points in air, perception if you have 2 or fewer points, and whichever at 4 points.

I’ll work on full updates to all the builds over the next week or so.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

I’m still running all the numbers for the builds now that Sigil of Strength and Runes of Strength got buffed, but my initial recommendations for builds are…

http://youtu.be/OmMN1UH6ymo

Dagger/Focus

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force in groups that max might, Night/Strength otherwise
• Main sigils for day are Force/Strength or Force/Accuracy
• Runes are still Scholar’s
• For Assassin’s armor, use precision/ferocity food
• For other armor, use power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust

Scepter-Hammer

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy or Force/Battle
• Runes are Strength, but Scholar’s is still competitive
• Use power/ferocity food
• Stack bloodlust unless you have 0 points in air

Staff

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy
• Runes are Scholar’s
• Use precision/ferocity or power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust if you have 6 points in air, perception if you have 2 or fewer points, and whichever at 4 points.

I’ll work on full updates to all the builds over the next week or so.

I’m really enjoying the Dagger mainhand changes, I hope the math will also be favourable for D/F and not just my feeling about it. Looking forward to your updated guides and thank you for all the work you and your friends do for the PvE-community!

Just one question to anyone who can answer it: How do you stack bloodlust/perception now-a-days? Whenever I unequip the stacking weapon I lose my stacks like intended, I couldn’t work around it with a Sigil on my underwater weapons, besides that I can’t think of any other work-around.

If so would you recommend Night/Force + Force/Accuracy or Night/Bloodlust + Force/Bloodlust?

Esmee.1067:

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

I’m still running all the numbers for the builds now that Sigil of Strength and Runes of Strength got buffed, but my initial recommendations for builds are…

http://youtu.be/OmMN1UH6ymo

Dagger/Focus

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force in groups that max might, Night/Strength otherwise
• Main sigils for day are Force/Strength or Force/Accuracy
• Runes are still Scholar’s
• For Assassin’s armor, use precision/ferocity food
• For other armor, use power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust

Scepter-Hammer

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy or Force/Battle
• Runes are Strength, but Scholar’s is still competitive
• Use power/ferocity food
• Stack bloodlust unless you have 0 points in air

Staff

• Main sigils for night are Night/Force
• Main sigils for day are Force/Accuracy
• Runes are Scholar’s
• Use precision/ferocity or power/precision food
• Stack bloodlust if you have 6 points in air, perception if you have 2 or fewer points, and whichever at 4 points.

I’ll work on full updates to all the builds over the next week or so.

I’m really enjoying the Dagger mainhand changes, I hope the math will also be favourable for D/F and not just my feeling about it. Looking forward to your updated guides and thank you for all the work you and your friends do for the PvE-community!

Just one question to anyone who can answer it: How do you stack bloodlust/perception now-a-days? Whenever I unequip the stacking weapon I lose my stacks like intended, I couldn’t work around it with a Sigil on my underwater weapons, besides that I can’t think of any other work-around.

If so would you recommend Night/Force + Force/Accuracy or Night/Bloodlust + Force/Bloodlust?

Put the stacking sigil on your underwater weapon— this works. Make sure it’s of the same type as your main stacking sigil, and note you can’t double stack anymore with d/f or s/f or whatever. So just stack with one of those, get to full stacks, and replace it— the underwater weapon should hold it.

maxinion.8396:

Put the stacking sigil on your underwater weapon— this works. Make sure it’s of the same type as your main stacking sigil, and note you can’t double stack anymore with d/f or s/f or whatever. So just stack with one of those, get to full stacks, and replace it— the underwater weapon should hold it.

Ok, I tried it on a low-level alt, something must have been out of place. Thank you.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23841f/lod_elementalist_build_breakdown_post_feature/

Is your recommendation for D/F based on the added utility/survivability as opposed to the raw DPS outlined in this table? It seems odd that you two would end up recommending such different builds for fractals.

Veydar.5017:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23841f/lod_elementalist_build_breakdown_post_feature/

Is your recommendation for D/F based on the added utility/survivability as opposed to the raw DPS outlined in this table? It seems odd that you two would end up recommending such different builds for fractals.

There are multiple reasons why I recommended D/F over staff for high level fractals:

• Defensive utility: Swirling Winds, Obsidian Flesh, and Magnetic Wave are pretty amazing – and these skills can help keep elementalists alive in bad or mediocre PUGs.
• Offensive utility: With a total of 3.5 usable blasts on D/F pre-patch (yes, I consider comet pretty unwieldy) and a sustained 5 vuln, the loss in calculated DPS felt worth it over the 2 usable blasts and 3 sustained vuln of staff.
• Cleave: D/F cleaves in a 180 degree(ish) area up to 300 range away, Fireball cleaves in a 360 degree area of 180 radius while Lava font hits in the same area
• Speed: By the time I cast meteor shower my partymates would have killed half of the mobs. ;_;
• Frost Bow: While it’s something I picked up while making the guides, I think D/F + frost bow (or situationally glyph of storms) gives sufficient AoE damage for dredge and cultists
• Lightning Hammer: Flamewall lasts a lot longer than Lava Font, allowing better might stacking when using LH for blinds.
• Double stacking sigils: I already miss it ;_; It was even better before the fractured update when you could keep stacks between fractals.

Just a note: that table doesn’t show anything about DPS, it only calculates Effective Power (and with a slightly different set of assumptions than I make, so even my post-patch numbers will be different than the ones listed in that table).

Thanks for your very detailed answer. As I understand it they can make do without the additional blast finishers since their party as a whole provides sufficient might and double stacking is no more as you already mentioned. I asked my question on reddit as well, its in the comments section, but I’m just going to quote the part of the answer that I consider relevant:

The groups that Dan and I run with usually don’t need the extra utility so we just have the eles on pure DPS. A lot more squishy but things blow up a lot faster.

To me this implies that his (or her) staff build will have a greater overall DPS than your D/F. On the other hand what you are saying in regards to cleaving and meteor shower casting time seems very compelling.
Thanks for your note on EP vs DPS by the way, this quote is the reason why I appeared to be oblivious of this difference (and I have to admit that I was).

Now bottom line: Since I’ve seen your fractal videos countless times I would think that you run max DPS builds with your DnT mates as FotM doesn’t get any more organized than that. In such groups you wouldn’t need the defensive utilities or the constant might uptime since your party can generate its might with a few coordinated blasts.
Which build would you think leads to a higher overall party DPS in organized runs disregarding surviving in PUGs?

I apologize if I seem to be waving that new build at you expecting you to do all the thinking for me its just that this level of in depth knowledge and number crunching is above my current knowledge of elementalists. If this is annoying I am sure you know how to point that out and feel free to do so.

Veydar.5017:

Now bottom line: Since I’ve seen your fractal videos countless times I would think that you run max DPS builds with your DnT mates as FotM doesn’t get any more organized than that. In such groups you wouldn’t need the defensive utilities or the constant might uptime since your party can generate its might with a few coordinated blasts.
Which build would you think leads to a higher overall party DPS in organized runs disregarding surviving in PUGs?

First, I don’t think any of the builds presented in the reddit thread are “new” or should be considered “their builds” – I know many elementalists who already run those builds and it would be hard to pinpoint the source of many builds – apart from maybe Guang’s staff ele build, Kitsune’s LH build, and Zel’s 30/30/x/0/x FA build (though I know there was more group development there). Similarly, I wouldn’t think of any of the builds that I list as “mine” – though I would like to think of some of the rotations as my own ideas.

There is no denying that under optimal conditions in which there is a magical might and fury machine keeping everything at 25 stacks for all eternity, Staff is higher sustained DPS, especially in nicely LOS’ed clusters of mobs (which an organized group should be doing).

Problem is, there are a lot of fights in fractals that don’t conclude in 20 seconds, either because a boss has lots of HP or mobs spawn in waves – or if they conclude in 20 seconds, they conclude in 6 or so seconds because trash mobs are bursted down very quickly (getting back to my comment about things dying before I finish channeling Meteor Shower).

So in those very quick, very easy fights, I would contribute more damage and vuln with D/F burst (Flamewall if not used for stacking – Burning Speed- Magnetic Wave – Ring of Earth – LW a few times) than with staff even if I don’t start off with a Meteor Shower. I’ve noticed similar things with Scepter/Dagger – Hammer: in super quick fights, it’s preferable to use Fire Grab at the start and potentially miss a stack of might instead of going through the whole general rotation, especially if we pre-stacked might.

What is even more superior to either of these is Frostbow 4 + 3 or FGS, which neither EP calculations or DPS calculations address – though there is a good correlation between EP and relative damage of those weapons across builds.

In those very long, drawn out fights, you will run out of might. The party composition used in our guides was 1 guardian, 1 warrior, 1 ele, 1 thief, and 1 mes. In battle, a guardian has 1 spammable blast finisher, a warrior between 0 and 1, a thief 0 without swapping weapons, and mesmer 0. And while there are banners around, no one wants to pick them up to blast unless there is a lull in the action. So after those 20 seconds of good might, those extra few blast finishers that a D/F ele has really would help.

An analogy for this would be the EA warrior: even though it was nerfed, after a while we started experimenting with them for record runs despite their lower personal DPS because the combined 750 power added to the group more than made up for it.

So why not just run a LH build? Well, mob spacing makes it more difficult. In normal dungeons, fights tend to be under 20 seconds but more than just 5, and then there’s significant running between these fights, so LH is usually up (or if not, it’s FGS time anyway). In Fractals that’s not always the case – groups are maybe 10 or 15 seconds apart, which is too far to conveniently place a hammer for future use or to have might carry over from battle to battle. On top of that, I’ve noticed that the big numbers from LH tend to attract the attention of bosses much faster than D/F, and allowing the guard to maintain aggro means others (and especially I) don’t have to dodge as much and can continue DPSing.

Videos and text guide updated. There are some numbery things that I’d like to flesh out a little more in the text guide, but if I waited until all my calculations were finished I’d never get this done!

hi DEKeyz, thanks for the update and the quality of your builds
I was playing your previous build (I run ele in dungeon, doing might and fury) : S/D 30/10/10/20/0.
What are the new features/pros of your new build S/D 6/6/2/0/0 ? (seems we loose some damages without water traits ?)
Thanks in advance

Lea.6194:

hi DEKeyz, thanks for the update and the quality of your builds
I was playing your previous build (I run ele in dungeon, doing might and fury) : S/D 30/10/10/20/0.
What are the new features/pros of your new build S/D 6/6/2/0/0 ? (seems we loose some damages without water traits ?)
Thanks in advance

The 6/6/2 build was also in the previous guide? Anyways seems logical you gain some potentional to stack vulnerability and deal more damage when you are not using a conjurer, however you lose the damage potentional from camping water when using LH or FGS. As a general rule of thumb, if you cannot camp LH in water and you’re party members do not keep vulnerability/fury/might up, just stick with the 6/6/2.

Lea.6194:

hi DEKeyz, thanks for the update and the quality of your builds
I was playing your previous build (I run ele in dungeon, doing might and fury) : S/D 30/10/10/20/0.
What are the new features/pros of your new build S/D 6/6/2/0/0 ? (seems we loose some damages without water traits ?)
Thanks in advance

6/6/2/0/0 is higher sustained LH DPS and stacks vulnerability. Basically with the ferocity change, our damage modifiers became less effective while Arcane Lightning didn’t become less effective, so now, the 250 ferocity and 100 precision you get when you trait for it is a larger boost to your damage than taking a 10% damage modifier in water or air. Then with the suggested rotation, you can stay in Air most of the time (whereas for water camping you have to swap out sooner to stack might, so you get enough use out of Air Training to make it worth using over Piercing Shards – and you get vuln stacking, which is even more important now that warriors will stack a little less vuln with GS camping.

If you are specifically FGSing things and don’t need the vuln, you can always quickly retrait to 6/4/2/2/0 – but remember you can get a boss to 25 vuln on your own with a Fiery Rush.

Also 6/6/2 is one of the best spec for underwater combat. Not that anyone does any of that, but just for your information

Whats the underwater rotation? I must know this! ;d

We have not yet recorded the animation times for the Trident so all I can give you is based on estimations, but luckily the idea is pretty simple: Cycle everything, spam the damaging stuff!

So essentially:
Air
1-Forked Lightning
Fire (swap during the cast)
2-Boil
Air
1-Forked Lightning (four times)
Water
2-Ice Globe
3-Ice Wall & Detonate (may not be worth it on single targets, we need the cast times for this)
Air
1-Forked Lightning (five times)
Earth (swap during cast)
2-Rock Spray
Air
2-Electrocute
1-Forked Lightning (three times)

The number of air AA required to meet FA’s cd may be refined with more accurate data.

If one were to go F – A (Forked Lightning x2ish) – W – Ice Wall – Det – (ideally Water 5 into a wall to return) – Ice Globe – Det, then you’d get the 6 might from the ice wall bug in Boil’s fire field (unless they fixed it, haven’t checked because who does underwater combat). Saying Ice Wall isn’t worth it is like saying Comet isn’t worth it in the D/F rotation.

Also, I think Electrocute has a pretty reasonable cooldown and coefficient. It may be worth mixing in with Forked Lightning more often depending on cleave and total cast time.

But honestly, if they removed the PvP map with underwater combat, what does that say about what they think about underwater combat at the moment?

Probably wont ever use it but it was helpful seeing as I never know what skills to use for ele underwater. Other classes are a bit more obvious when it comes to the good damage skills underwater.

I see that D/F seems to be good for fractals and such, but which weapon/build would you recommend for leveling? I do some solo leveling, but I mostly group with friends whether exploring or once we get higher we will be running dungeons mostly.

For leveling, I recommend D/D, which has the highest mobility and nice damage across all the attunements. Burning speed is really good for damaging structure. If you need projectile negation, swap /D to /F. Use Rocky against multiple Vets or Champ (if you solo them), or you can always try yolo with FGS.

Okay, thanks. I’ve been trying out staff, s/d, and d/d and wasn’t sure which to use. Do you know an “optimal” rotation for d/d? I know he posted the d/f on the first page, but nothing on d/d.

While your lvling you wont have access to fresh air so i recommend just using lightning hammer for pretty much everything. You could also use staff.

LH build is for S/D, not D/D

With D/D you should initiate with your fire combos then switch to Air for its auto-attack which is by far the strongest AA of all the attunements. You can use Hammer but as the post above stated it works better with S/D.

D/D is all about your mobility and burst damage. Fresh Air is the best trait to take but you wont have that while levelling which is a pain.

Thus, LH will sooth your pain.

Forgive me for not remembering the skill names, but I’ve been away from GW2 a long time. This is the D/D combo I used to use, and when logging in yesterday it still worked ok.

Fire
2
5
4
Earth
4
5
Air (its the toss away then lightning gap closer.. which is 4 and 5 or 5 and 4 I can’t remember right now)
4
5
3
2
AutoAttack
If low on health
Water
5
3
2
Fire
2
5 (if off cool down)

That should give you 6-9 stacks of might and some serious AoE damage. The biggest risk is being interrupted.

Hi, just a note about the consumables section: It says both harpy feathers and Ash Legion Spy Kits have a CD of 60 seconds. IIRC Harpy feathers have a 6 second cooldown; it’s the Order of Whispers Spykit that’s on a 60s CD.

Is there any way to alter the base D/F build in a way that gives it a little more DPS by sacrificing might stacking?

I tend to run Fractals with a phalanx warrior quite often. Our party does okay, but we’re in no way organized enough to keep up the maximum might stacking potential of a D/F Ele (meaning the phalanx might stacks outweigh the warrior’s DPS loss). Additionally, our hammer guardian tends to disrupt the stacking.
I could just run one of your staff builds, which I do quite often, but staff feels boring when compared to the very active and agile d/f style.

So, in a world where the ele doesn’t need to stack any might at all, should I just camp the staff? I could of course play the D/F build and simply not stack might, but something inside of me cringes when I think of playing a build and not utilizing one of its strengths.

I think 6 point in Fire give you more than just to serve a purpose of stacking might.

• It means 300 extra Power and Condition Dmg (?)
• The synchronization between Burning Precision (V) with Grandmaster minor (5% more dmg when target is burning) and Persisting Flame (longer lasting fire field) is an integrated part of your DPS.
• Trait (VII) means pumping out more Burning Speed in your rotation = more DPS.

However, after the patch, Lightning Hammer has a considerable boost of damage thanks to the carry over effect of ascended weapons to conjure weapons. You may want to alter the tradition 6/6/2/0/0 (D/F) to include LH. I’m thinking of either keeping the same trait setup or change to (2/6/2/4/0) or (4/6/2/2/0) with LH. I would switch totally to (5/2/2/5/0) or (2/5/2/5/0) for a pure LH build if I were comfortable enough with LH in fractals.That said, I don’t do theorycrafting so I leave the damage testing to other masters in this thread.

Also, do consider to get a +10% dmg sigil on your main hand and sigil of battle/or strength on you OH. I have more DPS boost in terms of personal might stacking. If your phalanx warrior already caps might stacks then do consider sigil of Air/Fire/runes of Strength etc…

Phalanx warrior doesnt provide perma fury. So having 6 in fire is still important for that. Its also a dps increase. There isnt a disadvantage to having a group that overstacks might passively. D/F ele stacks might and fury in its rotation so dont worry about the fact that phalanx warrior is rendering some of your might pointless. You are still helping by providing fury and lowering gaps between dropping of might stacks if the warrior stops attacking.

Good points, especially the part about fury. But at the end of the day, we’re all primarily looking for fastest clears so in this case Staff would probably be the way to go, would it not?
Or would the lack of partywide fury lead to less DPS in the end? I should really be able to calculate stuff like that on my own…

Well you should be able to get pretty good fury uptime with staff. But staff really isnt as amazing dps as people make it out to be. The utility of D/F can allow for much faster runs because of the safety it provides for the whole group. And you can always just use staff for the easier parts of fractals. For boss fights like arch diviner and mossman I would definately recommend sticking with D/F as they will be moving around a lot and walk out of lava font. Also reflecting your fireballs on diviners phase 3/4 can pretty much 1 shot you which is hilarious but also incredibly annoying xD.

Silly question… When do you use LH on a d/f build?
I mean, I can understand LH on scepter build due lack of sustained dps

Ryn.6459:

Silly question… When do you use LH on a d/f build?
I mean, I can understand LH on scepter build due lack of sustained dps

When you need blinds or static field for cc.

^ For example, Cliffside fractals level 50, when defending against horde of cultists.

Cliffside, Aetherblade, sometimes end boss of Grawl, at Jade Maw. Static Field works pretty well if you don’t have a guard that will use Line/Ring of Warding.