Guild Wars 2

Why jade maw? o_o

You can perma blind the tentacles, for lazy afternoons when you don’t want to touch the dodge key

Thats what my necros for. That and the dark fields. x)

Never even thought about LH on them because they are so easy. Thought it was gonna be some revolutionary tactic involving static field or something. :<

Can I just say I’m looking forward to the updated videos of the new fractals

Is the sigil of strength better than force when you don’t have 25 stacks of might?

Yes it can be, depending on your stats, and it is more likely if you run runes of strength.

Depends on how far away from 25 might you are. If you’re already at 20 might and don’t have a warrior with EA, Force and Strength give about the same EP and DPS for the builds that I checked. Below 20, Strength would probably be the better option, and above 20 Force will probably pull ahead. This Might threshold will probably be a little lower if you do have a warrior with EA in the party.

• For Firestaff, you’re averaging on your own 5-6 might with Scholar/Force, 6-8 with Strength/Force, and 10-11 for Strength/Strength.
• For D/F, it’s more like 7-8 with Sch/For, 8-10 for Str/For, and 13-15 with for Str/Str.
• For S/D+LH, it’s 9-11 with Sch/For, 13-15 with Str/For, and 14-16 with Str/Str,
• For S/F+LH it’s 14-16 with Sch/For, 19-21 wtih Str/For and 21-23 with Str/Str.

Thanks a bunch for the replies. I am usually the only provider of might, so the might stacks are for the most part standing at below 20. Guess I’ll be getting a new weapon with a sigil of strength on it now.

I am working on an update to the text guide that includes little things like FB/FGS specific builds, sigil and rune alternatives, and might/vuln math (or links to said math).

Recently I looked at how well certain builds use conjures based on their DPS in a 12ish second FGS rotation. Results are at http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13086970-who-picks-up-fgs since I can’t do tables in these forums.

Just curious, in the d/f section, how many ‘stacks’ of its trail are you assuming hits the target?

Xae Isareth.1364:

Just curious, in the d/f section, how many ‘stacks’ of its trail are you assuming hits the target?

One stack for four (untraited) or six (traited) ticks, as if it were used in the open with a boss that’s not running around a lot.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Just curious, in the d/f section, how many ‘stacks’ of its trail are you assuming hits the target?

One stack for four (untraited) or six (traited) ticks, as if it were used in the open with a boss that’s not running around a lot.

Ah I see. I was wondering how much DPS it would add if you walled it. How many stacks does it lay down in total?

And if you could remember (or kept the data around) what was your total coefficient for a 30 second rotation for D/F?

Thanks

On average the trail will do two ticks per second on decently large targets like most bosses, but once walled you can have all the 5 fire patches ticking every second and that hurts It also applies a lot of vuln. If you wall burning speed then the DPS goes up the roof. Last time I computed it I found figures close to that of the staff.

As for the rotation coefficients, the rotation that Keyz labels as Might Rotation 1 has a total of 36.98 for 26.35 seconds. Bear in mind that this includes ArBr and excludes ArWa, while sunspot is not assumed to hit.

^ that’s interesting. Most mobs would get seared by 2 stacks of the trail at once, and each full extra stack increase your DPS around 3% depending on rotation, which would mean your DPS with d/f is actually pretty neglibly close to s/f with a hammer.

Also, unless I’m tripping balls, it also stacks up vulnerability, so in some situations its actually better than a staff in DPS.

Well yes, that’s what I have always said ^^

In fact it used to be higher than S+LH even using pessimistic assumptions. The Ferocity change hit DF hard though, but we were given one more dodge and one more blast finisher.

Darox.8069:

Well yes, that’s what I have always said ^^

In fact it used to be higher than S+LH even using pessimistic assumptions. The Ferocity change hit DF hard though, but we were given one more dodge and one more blast finisher.

Interesting. I’ll probably try it out more once I return to GW2, on Wildstar for now until the next balance patch.

Actually, I’ve always wondered something. Why does the rotation use flamewall and burning speed at the same time? Would using BS after FW to keep up fire fields and possibly blast it with a LH/compensate for delayed mightstack combos (cos its a shock to me as well but there are actually some bosses in GW2 which I can’t fight with my blindfold on) be a huge DPS loss or something?

Edit: nvm, I see why now. Was being silly.

This got me thinking. If we can assume s-LH and d/f have very similar DPS, doesn’t that mean in a situation where theres 2 eles in the same party, and you need might/vul/fury, if you both run strength runes, shouldn’t at least one ele go d/f?

First of all, with 2 eles in strength runes, if you aren’t getting 25 might, one of you is screwing up. So then you have 2 possible situations:

1. One is on staff, the other using LH to blast LF. In this case, it doesn’t really matter what you use in your actual weapon set, because LH+LF with d/f or s will get you 25 might. Given that d/f has the insurance that your DPS doesn’t flop to the floor if you lose LH, d/f is the better choice.

2. Both of you are blasting independently. You both will generate 15+ stacks of might, so again, in terms if might/fury, there’s no difference between s/LH and d/f, but d/f pumps out more vul and has better survivability. So again, you should run d/f.

Am I missing something?

It’s really a matter of context.

In a record run you would have fights last no longer than 15 seconds, so the front-loaded damage and might generation of S+LH would be superior. D/F generates might continuously, so it takes time before it reaches its full buffing potential. Assuming your group is able to provide full buffs, there are some S+LH(FGS) specs that are designed to beat any other dps. You get the idea.

I would say that DF is the best general option. But you can specialise more with other builds.

That’s true. However, I tend to think that theorycrafting starts losing its purpose a bit when fights are <15 seconds, because the difference it would make becomes a bit trivial. Even if you lose 20% DPS, which is huge, it’s only making a difference of a few seconds, which is rather of little consequence.

It’s great if you want to chase records, but then for your average dungeon run, most players don’t do that so its good to focus on a general position.

Its a big consequence in a record attempt.

^ Haha, true.

Should be interesting to see what people do in the upcoming tournament.

You can theory craft for every context, although my favourite is definitely the fractals, and that’s why I designed the DF build for in the first place

I don’t do much “casual” speedrunning. I find it quite boring. I like record attempts because they make you think out of the box. Otherwise PHYW fractals is the way to go!

I remember [SC] did a CM path with 3 eles; one of them (Nat) was running the elusive 0/4/5/5/0 build. They was able to get a sub 3-minute with an excellent execution.

Even in an attempt to do SE p1 with 4 eles, none of us used Staff build as the fight is too short anyways.

@Zelyhn: In a casual speedrun, I play how I feel the most fashionable X)

Edit: I like [rT] record run because of the music, which is always stellar :p

Darox.8069:

You can theory craft for every context, although my favourite is definitely the fractals, and that’s why I designed the DF build for in the first place

I don’t do much “casual” speedrunning. I find it quite boring. I like record attempts because they make you think out of the box. Otherwise PHYW fractals is the way to go!

It is boring but that’s where the money is .__.

Regarding front-loaded might (not burst, that makes a difference, depending on how long the fight is). Would that really make a difference? In your faceroll dungeons, you’d just rinse all your blasts on d/f straight off anyways, so…

1. In situation 1, you’d load 18 stacks, staff man loads 9. 25 stacks of might straight off.
2. In situation 2, you both load 15. 25 stacks straight off.

So either way, you get 25 stacks at the start, then you just maintain it from there.

Iris Ng.9845:

I remember [SC] did a CM path with 3 eles; one of them (Nat) was running the elusive 0/4/5/5/0 build. They was able to get a sub 3-minute with an excellent execution.

For our Lupi speedkills we were using 0/5/5/4/0 for vulnerability generation so it really depends how many boons can you generate and how good is your vulnerability generation.

Darox.8069:

It’s really a matter of context.

In a record run you would have fights last no longer than 15 seconds, so the front-loaded damage and might generation of S+LH would be superior. D/F generates might continuously, so it takes time before it reaches its full buffing potential. Assuming your group is able to provide full buffs, there are some S+LH(FGS) specs that are designed to beat any other dps. You get the idea.

I would say that DF is the best general option. But you can specialise more with other builds.

Just thinking about this further (no maths sadly, not in the mood to look at too much GW2 numbers but the we already know the maths behind it anyways.)

If you got sub-15 fights with 2 eles, assuming no FGS, it would be better to use s/d for its very high front-loaded burst.

In a long-ish fight of 25~+ seconds, if you don’t use strength runes, I was toying with a possibility of both of you using s/f+LH and one of you go with filler for 5 seconds and then start mightstacking to fill the gap between rotations, but then it would be better for the first guy to go d/f anyways because then you’re on full rotations so the DPS evens out and d/f stacks more vul. It takes 3-5 seconds depending on how fast you can keyboard dance to blast 5 times (the less agile amongst us like me being more towards 5 seconds), so you won’t be able to take advantage of the extra blast on s/f anyways.

If you don’t need vul/fury but need might, then its still the same, because then you’d be just running a high DPS LH build, which still fits into both scenarios as I’m quite sure even if you just spam LW on dagger, its better DPS than what you can do with scepter alone.

If you don’t need vul, fury or might, and the fight isn’t too short then both of you should just go staff.

So Just thinking about it. Doesn’t that make s/f only optimal if you’re the only ele in the group?

I’m working on rotations for two eles in short fights.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13273765-synergy-vs-brute-force

My main conclusions so far when playing with this is that D/F is pretty unimpressive DPS wise and LH really is filler between uber scepter burst, LH isn’t all that amazing even after its buff. Staff is pretty linear DPS.

^ that’s interesting. What’s making s/f generate more vulnerability than s/d though?

What about in a longer fight, where the DPS evens out?

haviz.1340:

Iris Ng.9845:

I remember [SC] did a CM path with 3 eles; one of them (Nat) was running the elusive 0/4/5/5/0 build. They was able to get a sub 3-minute with an excellent execution.

For our Lupi speedkills we were using 0/5/5/4/0 for vulnerability generation so it really depends how many boons can you generate and how good is your vulnerability generation.

I may mix up at some point and quite agree that 5 pt in Air is much better than 5 pt in Water. The common comp for speed clear requires fast pump of vuln which benefits the total group DPS much more than the individual ele’s DPS, with or without FGS.

Flamewall adds quite a bit of vuln because it’s multi-tick while Ring of Fire is just one hit. The might-stacking combo of /f is usually a bit more involved, too, so you in general have a lot more hits (and thus opportunities to apply vuln) on your target.

In long fights if you’re at 25 might, 25 vuln, staff is highest DPS, then scepter-hammer stuff, then D/F, assuming no wall/LF shenanigans. A lot of ele pairs have the potential to maintain that 25 might/vuln but scepter hammer eles would need to take conjurer and use some different rotations if the battle is going to be very long (> 40 sec).

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Flamewall adds quite a bit of vuln because it’s multi-tick while Ring of Fire is just one hit. The might-stacking combo of /f is usually a bit more involved, too, so you in general have a lot more hits (and thus opportunities to apply vuln) on your target.

In long fights if you’re at 25 might, 25 vuln, staff is highest DPS, then scepter-hammer stuff, then D/F, assuming no wall/LF shenanigans. A lot of ele pairs have the potential to maintain that 25 might/vuln but scepter hammer eles would need to take conjurer and use some different rotations if the battle is going to be very long (> 40 sec).

Oh right. Forgot Ring of Fire was one hit. It’s been a long while since I used x/d.

The reason why I was asking was because I’ve grown to like using d/f-LH. I pug a lot and s/f-LH isn’t very reliable there because things can go either/all horribly wrong, someone dies next to my hammer/places a banner over it, or even worse, they just steal my hammer.

What about condition cleaning. Is the earth focus ability (or staff water, or offhand dagger) the only clean you have? In boss fights 25 seconds is a LONG time to go without condition cleaning.

Scepter fire 3 removes a condition, and earth focus 5 makes you immune from taking conditions. Besides that, take Ether renewal as your heal instead of Arcane Brilliance if you need it – but I would also think that if you’re taking that many conditions, you’re probably also taking a lot of direct damage and should rethink what attack you facetank vs. which ones you dodge.

Would you choose Sigil of Bloodlust or Forge for sub-level 80 dungeons? Considering both FGS and non-FGS scenario?

Hello, did the nerf on strengh runes change anything ? Or they’re still worth taking over scholar ?

Aww geez, the forum ate my reply that I attempted to post a couple days ago.

Iris Ng.9845:

Would you choose Sigil of Bloodlust or Forge for sub-level 80 dungeons? Considering both FGS and non-FGS scenario?

Um… maybe for SE P2 and Aetherpath but that’s about it. AC as well if you can tag all the little spiders at the start, and CoE 2/3 during the laser defense if you’re good at tagging.

You need about 15-20 stacks to equal the effect of a Force sigil. So over the course of a dungeon you’ll need to get above 20 stacks pretty quickly to see the benefit – which is a lot harder to do now that you can’t double stack.

Gunsnroll.2657:

Hello, did the nerf on strengh runes change anything ? Or they’re still worth taking over scholar ?

I’d say they’re still worth it if you’re an LH ele and the only ele in the group or if you’re soloing. In both cases, your group is usually might deficient, so the amount of group DPS your runes add through that extra might makes up for the personal DPS you lose from choosing Strength over Scholar. If you play in multi-ele groups then your Strength runes may be unnecessary.

Awesome! Thank you very much DEKeyz. I think I would stack in WvW for a less power-oriented build.

Yeah, if you’re zerging in WvW then stacking is a good way to boost your DPS since it’s an additive bonus. It’s also decent in open world map completion because you won’t be entering instances and resetting your stacks frequently. Just be careful when trying to get vistas!

I wanted to throw a “thank you!” out to DEKeyz for this thread. I recently came back to GW2 after about a 2 year break. I had been running a D/D Evasive Arcana build, but was having a lot of trouble trying to get the might stacking with that build working the way I remembered once I came back. I am now having a lot of fun with the D/F builds you describe here and in your YouTube video.

I miss Earthquake, but I am liking Flamewall a lot better than the current Ring of Fire, so it’s overall a nice change from how I used to play.

Raven Twospirit.9342:

I wanted to throw a “thank you!” out to DEKeyz for this thread. I recently came back to GW2 after about a 2 year break. I had been running a D/D Evasive Arcana build, but was having a lot of trouble trying to get the might stacking with that build working the way I remembered once I came back. I am now having a lot of fun with the D/F builds you describe here and in your YouTube video.

I miss Earthquake, but I am liking Flamewall a lot better than the current Ring of Fire, so it’s overall a nice change from how I used to play.

Welcome back! The reason why D/D EA now doesn’t work as well as it did at launch is that EA has been nerfed so that only the roll in Earth is a blast finisher and each effect is on a 10 second cooldown (so you can’t double-dodge in earth for two back-to-back blasts). You also missed the addition of Fresh Air, which was a great buff to MH dagger builds including 6-6-2-0-0 D/D. It’s not exactly meta, but it’s not bad DPS – especially on your own.

We may need a table for all those builds. It starts to look very confusing now x.x

Anyhow, Dekeyz, I want to know your input on this Scepter/LH build: 6(V,II,XI)/6(VI,VII,XII)/0/2(IV)/0, water camping. Is it worth comparison to the 6/6/2/0/0 variation?

Additionally, for the staff build, 6/6/0/0/2(V) disperses the ball hits with Meteor Shower way too much (unless I drop it against the wall). Is Blasting Staff there to boost the damage of Lava Font only? I’ve been using this variation 6/6/0/2/0 in the Ascalon fractal. Rotation goes as following: precast Meteor Shower, aggro -> Lava Font -> Static Field -> Water Attunement, Ice bow -> Ice bow #4, #3 -> Fire Attunement, Flame Burst, Lava Font. My rationale is to feel less guilty when swapping out to water for CC and heal yet still does some damage with ice bow. I hope to get some opinions on it.

6(V,II,XI)/6(VI,VII,XII)/0/2(IV)/0 was a significant step for conjure DPS builds but is still inferior to 6(V,VI,XI)/6(VI,VII,XII)/2(VI)/0/0 or 6(V,VI,XI)/6(VI,VII,XII)/0/2(VI)/0 because you have 2 10% modifiers (one from fire attunement, one from earth/water line traits).

Did they change how Blasting Staff works with Meteor Shower? Previously it would make each meteor larger but leave the area over which they are dispersed the same, resulting in an additional 2 hits on a player character-sized hitbox, so the DPS loss from taking Blasting Staff over a 10% modifier was pretty small.

I want to caution people against saying “Oh I have to get the conditional 20% modifier because I want big numbers” when in fact a more global 10% modifier will often produce more consistent results. If you can keep two 10% modifiers active instead of one 20% modifier, then your EP is higher anyway.

Awesome advice in your videos and thread. I checked your youtube a while back after the ferocity changes to see whether or not I was doing what I needed to be doing properly and pretty much the only difference that I really found was that I tended to prefer keeping fresh air regardless D/F or S/F, but that’s because I’m not that fast at changing traits. :<

You also completely steered me away from what a friend of mine suggested a while ago with 6/2/2/4/0, which I never really liked in the first place. Whenever I’m requested to give the build that I use, I just direct them to your guides.

One thing that I usually say though is that I personally don’t think it’s worth getting scholar on an ele unless you’re running dungeons with organised groups that perform well on a consistent basis. In pugs, it’s pretty likely that an ele will not maintain scholar buff as frequently as desired and struggle with it a lot more than say, a warrior with healing signet.

After asking Nike to help me decide on strength vs scholar for my ascended set on my ele, it only reinforced my suspicion that scholar might not be ideal for my purposes since I usually solo Arah or pug (he worked it out for 662 to be approximately 7% better DPS in scholar over strength in optimal conditions). Even in a very experienced and organised team in high level FotM, I feel like at level 40 and 50 mistlock instabilities especially, scholar wouldn’t be the right choice on an ele.

I have a question from the perspective of the fury-bot. When running that I typically have been doing a Lightning Hammer build, with FGS as my elite.

My question is one of efficiency. I pre-stack might/fury for bosses … I assume I should hang onto FGS until it runs out, rather than wall-rushing and then dropping it for LH? I find if there’s another ele they also are usually running FGS and so there are no real fire fields to blast with the hammer chain. Relying on someone other than another ele in PUGS for fire fields seems a non-starter.

I am still very new to the dungeon scene so I’d appreciate insight.

Purple Miku.7032:

Awesome advice in your videos and thread. I checked your youtube a while back after the ferocity changes to see whether or not I was doing what I needed to be doing properly and pretty much the only difference that I really found was that I tended to prefer keeping fresh air regardless D/F or S/F, but that’s because I’m not that fast at changing traits. :<

Scepter-Hammer-Conjurer-FreshAir is a pretty solid setup because you can get to your preferred attunement (Air) whenever you want and make use of extra Electric Discharge procs. I think I wrote down the rotation down somewhere, or if not, I’ll include it in the next edition of the guide.

Purple Miku.7032:

One thing that I usually say though is that I personally don’t think it’s worth getting scholar on an ele unless you’re running dungeons with organised groups that perform well on a consistent basis… After asking Nike to help me decide on strength vs scholar for my ascended set on my ele, it only reinforced my suspicion that scholar might not be ideal for my purposes since I usually solo Arah or pug (he worked it out for 662 to be approximately 7% better DPS in scholar over strength in optimal conditions).

Yeah, at full scholar’s buff uptime, Strength is only about 7-8% worse than Scholar’s without factoring extra might (so it will be more like 3-7% worse if you are using that extra might). For soloing, I pretty much always use my Strength set with a sigil of strength and can keep up 20+ might as long as I’m not interrupting my rotation too much. Staff eles lose the most by using strength runes as they stack the least might innately. And as a reminder for others reading the thread, Flame Legion runes are a good budget-conscious runeset for all weapon sets.

Rainshine.5493:

I have a question from the perspective of the fury-bot. When running that I typically have been doing a Lightning Hammer build, with FGS as my elite.

My question is one of efficiency. I pre-stack might/fury for bosses … I assume I should hang onto FGS until it runs out, rather than wall-rushing and then dropping it for LH? I find if there’s another ele they also are usually running FGS and so there are no real fire fields to blast with the hammer chain. Relying on someone other than another ele in PUGS for fire fields seems a non-starter.

I am still very new to the dungeon scene so I’d appreciate insight.

FGS is actually pretty mediocre if you aren’t rushing, especially if you don’t have might. If four of you are using FGSs (with two eles in party), I would recommend dropping it after your second or third rush to re-stack might and then pull out another conjure if no one else is re-stacking might by then. The rationale behind this is that the three other people FGSing with might will do more than enough damage to make up for you dropping your FGS. If only two of you are using FGS’s, I would hold onto it as long as your targets are nicely positioned – as soon as it moves off the wall, drop FGS to re-stack because you need pretty good rushes and whirls (like 70% of strikes connect) for an unmighted FGS rotation to be more DPS than your normal LH rotation.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

FGS is actually pretty mediocre if you aren’t rushing, especially if you don’t have might. If four of you are using FGSs (with two eles in party), I would recommend dropping it after your second or third rush to re-stack might and then pull out another conjure if no one else is re-stacking might by then. The rationale behind this is that the three other people FGSing with might will do more than enough damage to make up for you dropping your FGS. If only two of you are using FGS’s, I would hold onto it as long as your targets are nicely positioned – as soon as it moves off the wall, drop FGS to re-stack because you need pretty good rushes and whirls (like 70% of strikes connect) for an unmighted FGS rotation to be more DPS than your normal LH rotation.

This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Thank you so very much for taking the time to break it down (and for your excellent guides!)

I just wanted to say big thanks for providing such wonderful guide, DEKeyz! I’ve only played elementalist as an alt since launch, but is now lately my new main. Your guide (along with others from Haviz/Zelyhn and Anierna) has helped me improve my performance as an ele.

Are you going to edit the guide,DeKeyz?Any significant changes?

Not any significant changes other than to elites. I have Scepter and Staff video guides – updated for all the changes between the April balance patch and the September one – already done and am evaluating if D/F needs a redo. I will update the text guide over the weekend.

Silly question. Why staff ele doesnt slot LH? The idea.is that you can be the only ele on the party, provide fire fields with staff and let tge thief be the one who blast them wirh lh