Guild Wars 2

Both of these are not working for me.
http://tinyurl.com/daphoenixBuild7
http://tinyurl.com/daphoenixBuild8

Can someone tell me where I can find those builds? I really want to see " Overall setup for new players. Shows gear setup for people without ascended gear as well, and on low budget for consumables. "

Dapheonix what is your build at 08/06/2013 in WvW? TY

I have come to the conclusion that if you come across BM regen Rangers to just walk away unless you want to fight for 30 minutes

@ daphoenix.4283 No judgment man. Do it however you like, as often as you like. I understand why you want it that way. :P

@ devurandom.4256 I m fairly sure there is no spvp variation due to the sole fact the buff from food is missing, and it plays a heavy role in the build’s effectiveness. You should also consider that the environment of spvp is completely different. Tkittenence of his current build is to avoid as much as possible being pinned down. As long he runs he avoids unhealable bursts and does some damage. When the chance appears to grab the kill then he moves in! If I were to characterize it somehow, it would be “Singed-trolololo” from that character in LoL. But in spvp there is no such thing as kiting from one end of the map to the other. There is not enough room, and you have to defend the bases, which limits you enough to make it pointless.

@ SAKRAY.3690 There is a discussion about it a few pages back. The reason ether renewal is chosen is because (1) it heals for a lot more, (2) in critical moments – it can save you from dieing after a big burst while the signet will just get you half health or below that – and (3) it removes 3 conditions, which makes it a must after the condition removing nerfs on d/d.

@ Purist.3175 I know my class but I am not as knowledgeable as an equally knowledgeable wvwvw-er about the conditions that apply there. So if I had to answer that, I ’d say you have chosen a more offensive set-up against your interest in living. I ’d have to do the math to be more precise – unfortunately (not for me) I m not in the mood for extensive theorycrafting at the moment – but it seems like 3.5 seconds worth of stacks of might would not equal 165 power. Still, missing 50 healing and these 1-2 seconds of healing, protection, swiftness (which is mentioned as something daphoenix is straggling to keep up with this build) might be exactly what is needed to get you killed more often.

Another reason I would never like these sigils is the bonus at 4. Getting hit is unavoidable. But a 5% chance to get might clearly implies you are expected to get hit much if you want to pull damage out of it. With a mix of bers and knights, I. Would. Not. Want to be in such a situation. Still, this is an opinion created without mathematical background for support. If you do the math and it supports my theory, then there you have it!

@ Ancient Ranger.3276 If you are set at using the specific trait and armor, with only these 3 items being a subject to change – I m not trying to imply a possible need to change the rest of the build but rather specifying the item of your focus – then go with clerics. Precision is mainly used to proc vigor and 30% (cleric’s) is enough to do that.
Both set-ups have lower than 2k armor which already throws you in the low armor category. Losing 110 armor may not be that big of a change when the kitten hits the fan. On the other hand 332 healing could possibly allow a quicker replenishment of that 100+ damage you are not mitigating. You either way need to be far from bursts and generally the center of Aoes/enemies’ attention. You might as well have the ability to heal quicker when it gets rougher than it should.

@ GreenishTea.9840 I think I opened these the day I linked daphoenix current build and I just tested them and they are working. It might have been a server problem, since I tried them a couple days ago and indeed they weren’t working. Try it now.
If you still can’t, the “7” is basically a mix of knights and berserker stats/trinkets (mainly bers) with the same sigils as his current build. The “8” has full celestial instead (with cavalier back) and some silly +4 vitality enchantments. I guess he was thinking of beggars at that point…

@ kronen.8954 The build is in the first page and definitely mentioned by me in exactly the previous one (14).

Note: Guys, I know 14 pages are heavy reading, especially when certain answers/questions/posts try to compete in size the Greek memorandum all while other posters haven’t read certain parts of the guide, resulting in making questions already answered, creating unnecessary posts that fill up the pages. Don’t be that selfish and arrogant so as to not even take a look at what is already written, at least at the first and last pages. I don’t like helping such posters, and I ve actually started writing exactly because I want to help other people with the class/build. Imagine what daphoenix goes through having to repeat that kitten every other page for the past 7 months! Consider the time of those who help you as important as yours.

Only old, cat and extremely religious ladies wake up with the need to help others.

@ oZii.2864 I have an old guild “mate” who was using this build before it became as popular. I don’t know how to counter it, so I ll leave this completely on daphoenix’s shoulders. However much like any other healing build you have to consider what would optimally be a counter. For pvp I run an alternative I made of minion necro. I could win against him but it took three things aside from my basic routine:
1) Having everything set before engaging
2) Good timing with chill
3) Keeping poison up.

All I had to do after is making him slip up and the match was over as soon as it would be with bers thief.

@ katniss.6735 Episode 15 has been released. Go check it http://www.youtube.com/user/daphoenix555

oZii.2864

I put 15 up to showcase how to use fall down points to your advantage

Faux Sheaux.6179
I guess its pretty surprising people listen to my rambo :P

devurandom.4256
PvP variant would be utilizing a 0/10/0/30/30 setup with aura share for team based setups.
Traits:
Air1
Water 3,5,12
Arcana 5,6,11

Aura share (water12) is vital for teamplay imo, but if you want to opt for a more solo style setup go for (water 11) trait.

For the runes, I would suggest 6 rune of the ogre.
Sigils → Sigil of Geomancy (Bleed nearby enemies upon swapping weapons)
→ 5% damage buff.

I don’t recommend +10 stats per kill since you will most likely be dying and therefore losing stats. Any sigil with a cd shares with cds on other sigils. Sigil of battle is not used since boon are harder to sustain in tPvP due to reduced boon duration.

Atoss.1056
:P

Purist.3175/oZii.2864
the -30 boon duration is a really bummer though imo. It helps a lot with sustaining defensive buffs such as swiftness, protection, and regeneration.

Ancient Ranger.3276
I opt for neither, since critical damage is Best in Slot on accessory items, hence why I use +all stat items.

kronen.8954
I still use the same setup, since this last update was more of a bug fix if anything

oZii.2864
Anyone that I come across as too “tanky” I simply ignore in WvW. They’re not worth the effort :]

Mpiftekis.1529
I’ve been playing LoL recently, the singed trololol reference is pretty suitable to the 0/0/20/20/30 setup I’m using.

+infinity, you answered everything for me in great detail better than I would

So I have all my celestial trinkets and 1 cav trinket. Also was lucky to get a cleric ascended to drop and the precision main stat that is similar to knights.

What I found interesting messing around in buildcraft is that pretty much when you get around 11 stacks of might the effective power difference between different trinkets really becomes small.

I think that is when boon duration comes into play offensively you can gauge fury and might stacks and maintaining might. The flip side is how much you value protection, regen and swiftness as far as rune choices.

I have 2 divinity on right now I know many run full divinity and the stat layout becomes extremely attractive when you have divinity combined with celestial trinkets. It is extremely balanced and the only stat that I would say people value the least would be the magic find on celestial.

When combined with divinity celestial looks really good. Just messing around fury is easy to keep up without rune boon duration it would be might and the defensive boons that you would take a hit. You do get more power, precision, and crit dmg with divinity. Vitality is just right and toughness is just right to go along with 563 healing power.

What I did see just from messing around in buildcraft is that boon duration will top a full celestial build damage wise if you assume that boon duration runes will give you a 7 might advantage majority of the time.

Any pro d/d’s can duel with me as well, in Spvp and maybe I can practice through that and you can tell me my mistakes.

Thanks in advance

If I can’t afford the Ascended Triforge Pendant, what other ascended amulet would you recommend as 2nd best?

Edit: woops. Didn’t realize there was an equivalent that you could buy with laurels.

daphoenix.4283:

Ancient Ranger.3276
I opt for neither, since critical damage is Best in Slot on accessory items, hence why I use +all stat items.

Seeing how you suggest Crit Dmg I altered the build a little bit. I personally don’t like to spread out my +stats to everything i rather keep them in fewer things i find it works much better for me. Would you kindly suggest an elite for me i have not found one i like yet. For the build do you think the Crit Dmg i have now is sufficient or do i need more?
Thanks in advance Ancient Rager.3276

Edit: for got to add the link to the build. So here it is:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJAoIhEmmbxR4GAIPOxEWGFCp8YmcsB-jkCBYMBkwAgEBMBqIasltBt6KhlXRTbDTDDQFbR1A-w

You ll have to learn to use them all, much like your utilities. There is no “best in slot” especially for ele’s elites.

FGS has 2 gap closers/openers, 1 evade, a small radius aoe and mid-range autoattack (good for kiting). It also packs the most damage which makes it ideal for when you need to dish out some heavy damage and preferred when you are outnumbered in small groups.

Tornado on the other hand, grants stability, while doing knockbacks, blinding damaging (aoe), and something else I don’t remember. If I had to imagine the ideal situation to use it in, it would be charging into a group vs group fight where you are not the target yet. With it you ll take advantage of any combo fields, while CCing enemies.
Second best would go fighting near cliff edges, if you know what I mean… ^^

Glyph is the least appreciated by people in both pve and pvp and I can’t really see why.
Fire can be a nice pushing device against those who want to pressure you, or keep you grounded until reinforcements arrive.
Water is a life savior if you happen to be close by when it heals.
Air in all honesty is the fire axe of glyphs but whatever… I m fairly sure it blinds every so often (or on attack) which makes for a good damage mitigating partner.
Earth will distract pets and survive. That’s all. – In pve it can fight easy veterans until they are close to dead -
And if nothing of the above works, they will at least present themselves as a distraction for your kitten to flee.

Glyph overall is a good deal but it wouldn’t be the elite you want to have when you are fighting anything but (very) small numbers. It’s definitely my choice though for pve content when the group is feeling pressured.

Weight the situation at hand, get out of combat, chose the proper elite and (re)engage.

what is the good skill rotation?? – I have some problems recently

You think the stats are good for DD ?

http://i.imgur.com/KiW52Up.jpg

I think i need some tough for a melee class. Armro PTV with divinity, zerk jewels. Maybe put tough on earings and backpack.

Would you go Lunaria and Solaria instead of the berserk rings ?

What do you guys thinking about mixing Knights and Berserker gear? I’m using all stats trinkets, with berserker daggers. Thinking about going 2 Knights / 4 Berserker, or maybe half n half.

Any thoughts?

Knox.3748:

You think the stats are good for DD ?

http://i.imgur.com/KiW52Up.jpg

I think i need some tough for a melee class. Armro PTV with divinity, zerk jewels. Maybe put tough on earings and backpack.

Would you go Lunaria and Solaria instead of the berserk rings ?

My personal opinion is you are pretty glassy. Alot of people like around 2.5k armor. I like 2.6-2.7k myself or -30% damage mitigation.

2.3k armor you would be better off running S/D cause thats pretty glassy imo. Scepter would take advantage of those stats alot. I run standard but I’m kind of hybrid not bunker not glass right in the middle. When I just put on my berserker scepter the damage goes up alot just because of the attacks on scepter the base damage is high.

I though phoenix was on some kind of stimulant with all stats. I was use to playing other classes that wouldnt benefit from it. Ele is just different. I now run all stat trinkets but I keep boon duration runes because the boons are important but that depends on how much you value swiftness, protection, and regen.

I have with food
1899 power,
17.3k HP
2.6k armor,
586 healing power
37 crit chance
48 critical damage (wish I could get 2 more crit dmg from somewhere but cant find it without dropping below the minimums I like)

Yeah but im still changing my jewels. Full Celestial

r z.7261:

What do you guys thinking about mixing Knights and Berserker gear? I’m using all stats trinkets, with berserker daggers. Thinking about going 2 Knights / 4 Berserker, or maybe half n half.

Any thoughts?

Hi, my ele armors are half knights and half zerk, with mix of knight and zerk for trinkets as well, so far i’m quite satisfied with my build, decent damage, and sustainability.

Has daphoenix read the “leaked notes”? What will you (@daphoenix) be trying out after patch if they all go through?

Where are these notes available for checking?

http://pastebin.com/2rrFg9pS

I have my support staff build for WvW that I have been using. When I decide to try solo in WvW I was thinking about using S/D. I can’t see how to keep perma swiftness up with no combo fields like Static.

I can get 16 seconds of swiftness out of Glyph of Harmony with 60% boon duration, but I don’t want to get Zephyrs Boon when I only see one Aura available. Might have to get Inscription ?

Are you seriously suggesting the possibility of them all going live at once?!

Edit:

Ok, for those who haven’t gone through them yet, the synopsis goes like this:

1) Staff is buffed (half the notes is just that basically)
2) Focus is buffed
3) Underwater weapon skills get buffed almost at the point of equal strength with Water
4) D/D build gets the finger and a spit in the face which in details goes as follows:

a) Damage per boon from 2% to 1% (if you followed the discussion a few pages ago you now know that the maximum accumulation of extra % of damage was 18% which will apparently drop in half)

b) No more stun breakers in cantrips. Your only choice from this group is armor of earth. On the positive side Signet of Air (one of the new stun breakers) is on 20 seconds cooldown. But will you ever consider a Blind on 20 sec cd, to be worthy of a slot?!

Trait-wise:

Arcane receives only a change in the trait that grants speed on dagger wielding (from 15% to 25% total)

Water receives the soon-to-be notorious change in bountiful power (the damage per boon reduction)

Earth is given a little boost in damage increasing traits as well as a buff in Obsidian Focus for which I have yet to figure out a purpose.

Air moves towards being the “burst” trait line, in conjuction with arcane utilities.

It will take me a few days to figure it out, but first impressions are, D/D will move away from water and probably head towards Air. Since Cantrips get the short end of the stick condition removal is (rather agressively) nerfed despite not being the direct target. To make up for it, either we ll have to give up regeneration and go a bit with clerics while using something else for cond. removal – maybe the signet in conjuction to cleansing fire which pretty much closes the 3rd utility we had for a conjuration or something – or try to buff healing even more, along with vitality and maybe find another way to gain vigor (since this will probably have to be done through changing to clerics fully)

A third option might be, moving once again away from water (a bit or maybe not at all) and going for Earth and condition damage to boost toughness which will then be traded through gear with vitality. Damage from criticals will go to conditions but the 33% crit will have to be maintaned which means “Rampagers”.

Those of us in PvE won’t be affected that much. We ll have to change a bit only for making up for the lost damage.

For PvP, I would not want to be boon-based, cantrip d/d after these go live.

Note: The above are merely my thoughts based on the changes on Elementalist. In order to properly deduct the direction we ll take in PvP, changes in other classes ought to be taken in consideration. So expect it to take quite some time, coming up with another build.

Edit – 2 : Since I forgot about Mist I didn’t include it. These changes though will make it even more of a must for cantrip users in pvp.

Mistform is still a stunbreak. Only ones that aren’t according to those “patch notes” are lightning flash and cleansing fire. The rest stay the same.

D/D 0/10/0/30/30 isn’t getting hit as hard as you think it is. True, the % loss hurts, the loss of a cantrip does too, but each of those can be made up with some skill and a change in your gear.

Learn to use lightning flash offensively to land burning speed as well as learn the max range on it so you can get the most of it to use it as a gap creator regardless of it breaking stun or not.

Change your gear a bit and get more damage stats if you are so concerned about the change to bountiful power. Or stop speccing into a defensive trait line and expect to do a great damage and move some points into air.

Either way, the spec is still viable, and will still be powerful with the right gear set and playstyle. It is after all a tanky build, meant to outlast opponents, not kill them with huge damage.

I totally forgot about Mist! Huh… Let me edit that.

This makes it a bit better since the biggest perk of armor of earth is its stability and I doubt it is usefull enough on its own, to earn a spot in the utilities.

The loss of overall damage is going to be a heavy hit. If you go a few pages back, not only you ll find a discussion with another member where we compared damage coming from vulnerability (investing more in air) vs damage from Bountiful Power (at several levels of boon exposition) but you ll also find links to the “currently” used d/d build (by daphoenix), which relies heavily on Berserker’s as well as Knight’s, gear. That and the 12% increase on damage (on average) by the water trait, are enough to justify calling this build anything but tank! And since FGS is used for bursting, I ’d say, boon – d/d at the moment is a defensive dps.

It is the upcoming(?) changes that (may) nerf the build down to support, not its “nature”.

On another note:

Raif, I see you have come to argue in a fairly offensive, yet passive, manner (being dismissive and assuming things I didn’t claim). I ‘d almost say you want to pick a fight – and I ve spent enough years on the internet to be able to pick such cases before they even get a chance to start, by now -. However, neither am I in the mood to “feed” you nor do I plan to derail from my initial intentions when I joined this thread. I m here to help, either through explaining or through discussion. Pick one if you need to but leave the "oh, it’s so obvious! stop whining111" attitude at the door. Neither is it wanted, nor is it needed.

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that the nerf to bountiful power will be spvp only and it will remain untouched in PvE. we need all the help we can get in PvE as far as damage goes.

Mpiftekis.1529:

Snip

Oh no, you certainly misunderstood me then! I’m not here to troll or anything, I’m obviously as concerned as you about these new changes as this changes my own build. If it was understood that way, then that was certainly not my intentions. And on a side note, no one needs your schoolteacher attitude either, so check your attitude at the door as well. This could have been said in a PM too, not in public.

My intent was to say that the sky isn’t falling, that the build will still be used, and will still be good at what it does, which is survive and do good damage. We both know this to be true. It might just not do what you want it to do anymore. I wished it would have stayed as is, but that trait did allow you as a tanky spec to do a lot more damage than maybe was wanted as far as balance goes.

My own build is a mix of berserkers/cavaliers/knights/soldiers to get a balanced build and have been running without bountiful power for the last few days to see how much it would affect me. I am aware how much it does lower your damage, but it will still be useful (the spec that is)l. Those who want a more DPS build will lean more towards the air line, but would most likely still spec 20 or 30 in water anyway for the survivability which is still necessary for the class as a whole.

My builds are here:

D/D (WvW/PvE) -http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1c.h1h.8.1g.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71g.1n.71g.1c.71h.1c.71h.1c.71j.1n.71j|2s.0.2v.d1e.3v.d1e.2v.0.3v.0.2v.d1e|0.a0.0.u35b.u56b|40.7|1l.1v.1u.1s.28|e

S/D Burst (WvW) – http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1g.h1h.8.1c.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71g.1g.a7.1c.71h.1g.a7.1c.71j.1g.a7|2s.0.2s.d1e.3s.d1e.2v.0.3v.0.2v.d1e|0.p16.0.p56.k56|40.7|1l.1o.1u.1v.28|e

That S/D burst build isn’t done yet, since I don’t have the runes I want in the armor just yet.

You are correct that this WILL lower the damage of the tried and true 0/10/0/30/30 spec no doubt or any way around it. But it will at the end of the day still be a valid and useful option as a tank who does a bit less DPS than he did before. It will make that spec for people who actually want to have a defense oriented character or an all around-er as you can do some decent damage with the right gear. You can get around this (note i was not saying this as a “duh”, there are some people in WvW who refuse to add anything but PTV or Knights) by adding more offensive gear! Or similarly not spec into water (which should be a defensive trait line in nature) and get some more offensive stats/traits in Air.

I’ve always thought that that grandmaster trait was in the wrong spot altogether and should have been placed in the Air tree or the Fire tree. Would make more sense in the name of specializing the trees. I would have been more of a fan if they kept the trait as is and moved it to the Air tree. That would have made some incredible burst builds.

I do think that overall though this does lower the average output of damage on the class, and wasn’t warranted. I think it was fine as it was, as the “tank” elementalist gained damage at the loss of toughness and vitality and no real active mitigation like a blind or aegis. We got damage, healing and mobility as our tank stats instead of mitigation, healing and group support (stability) like the guardian tank does.

With the upcoming leaks, here is my opinion on how I feel about it:
Staff (and focus, but not as much) is overall buffed, no doubt about that. Half the notes are directly related to reducing the aftercast and cast time leading to overall increased DPS. This will definitely make the staff elementalist much more kite-effective.
One notable buff is meteor shower, with a reduced cast time and increased area size per meteor strike. IIRC, a total of about ~50 meteors land in the field upon a full cast, with more meteors if blasting trait is taken. Each meteor has an AoE cap at 5 targets, and its original AoE strike size of 90, although you don’t normally utilize its AoE potential most of the time.
Gust’s buff seems interesting as well. It knocks back all enemies in a line (most likely target cap of 5). This could be potentially useful in prolonging a squad of enemies from capturing a point, or potentially knocking more than 1 person off a cliff.
Underwater skills were buffed as well, with a debatable nerf/buff to electrocute.
-
For Scepter, the most noticeable buff is phoenix. “Doubled the velocity, add unblockable skill fact”. Phoenix procs up to 3xs, 1st a PBAoE upon cast, 2nd a damage upon phoenix passing through enemy, and another 3rd a PBAoE on your location. With the buffs, it would make it much easier to land the 2nd and 3rd part of the damage, making S/D’s much more reliable in DPS. The “unblockable” is rather vague in notes, since phoenix can proc 3 times
-
For builds now, before these notes, water and arcana rained supreme to all other traitlines, with air next in line, followed by earth and then fire. Fire will still be inferior if these notes are correct (Not sure why you’d pick lava tomb, a good elementalist does not get downed unless seriously outmatched, in which case you are going to die regardless). Air shows much more promise due to the tempest defense buff, a 60 second CD and a 20% damage increased toward stunned/knockdowned foes as water’s value is diminished due to bountiful power’s nerf from 2% damage per boon to 1%. Note that you can maintain 4-5 boons at all times with boon duration gear, so this leads to a rough 5% nerf toward damage for bountiful power. Tempest defense would be inclined more toward ranged setups, such as staff and S/D since D/X setup already has shocking aura, and ranged users would not be placed into harms way as often.
Air has another notable trait – Fresh air. Critical strikes will recharge air attunement, meaning you can potentially spam air’s passive 15 trait skill, which does ~2k damage when building bursty. S/D’s air 2 skill with its no CD cast and 5 second CD, can be spammed as well. If this buff adds a reasonable CD reduction, then S/D builds revolving around constantly spamming air for 2 burst skills every ~5 seconds can be viable.

Earth has a notable grandmaster trait – Diamond skin. 10% of your toughness is added into condition damage. S/D and S/F ele’s can cap their toughness over 2000, or a solid 200 condition damage. This adds on the already 300 condition damage as part of a 30 point earth investment. You could possibly be seeing tanky S/D cond. specs utilizing this trait with the new serrated stones (5% damage while bleed, 20% bleed duration) to spam condition damage for mainly PvE oriented purposes.
Fire’s traitlines still seem mediocre. Arcana’s buff with windborne dagger doesn’t change anything since D/D elementalists have permanent swiftness access already, and speed buffs don’t stack past 33%.
-
For the utilities, cantrips no longer are stun breakers, with the exception of armor of earth? and mistform. For D/D setups, mistform is still going to be a must have in tight situations. LF teleports, so its not necessary vital that a stun breaker is actually needed on it. Cleansing flame takes most of the nerf.
Glyph of elemental power now a stun breaker – >This is an ability to be used on CD, so having it as a stun break as well means defeats the purpose of the skill.
Signet of air → Now a stun breaker. This could now be used toward S/D and staff setups, where achieving perma swiftness is more difficult than D/D.

TL;DR;
Don’t invest past 20 points in water unless you are going aura share. Invest at minimum 20 points in arcana for CD attunement reduction, 30 points for evasive arcana. Evasive arcana is still superior due to its 10 second water roll CD heal. Air’s grandmaster traits apply mostly toward S/D users, as its long CD benefits ranged users, S/D’s updraft can be used in conjunction with burst (20% damage increase), and the lack of shocking aura and nerfs to cantrips for stun breaks makes you more susceptible to burst. D/D’s receive an overall nerf because of cantrips. Staff, focus, underwater skills are buffed.

Sup Daphoenix and fellow Elementalists.,

I’ll go straight to the point with this post. We are all aware of the recent changes and I’m sure you’ll already thinking about new builds and methods to take most out of elementalist class. Daphoensix even explained his thoughts about them 5 hours ago with his latest post… So my question here is, what should be better used for a staff build from now on?

I use:
Full Knights / Divinity Runes
Koss on Koss Back / Celestial rings and Amulet / Zerk Accessories

Thanks for the attention guys, hope we can come up with great builds soon!

D/D is complete and utter dog kitten right now. I can’t get away from anyone. And I’m going from 20k to 0 hp in 3s. Either there’s some massive packet loss, or D/D doesn’t work at all anymore. I can’t tank anything but npcs now. GG patch. Game sucks.

Specs played: 0/10/0/30/30, 0/0/10/30/30, 0/0/20/20/30. 98% pvt in wvw. and divinity/celestial in spvp. I’m running from mesmers and necros nonstop. WTH are we supposed to spec? There’s nothing that can survive the incoming burst now.

I’m going to run around with staff at the back of the group like anet has pigeon-holed us to do now.

katniss.6735:

D/D is complete and utter dog kitten right now. I can’t get away from anyone. And I’m going from 20k to 0 hp in 3s. Either there’s some massive packet loss, or D/D doesn’t work at all anymore. I can’t tank anything but npcs now. GG patch. Game sucks.

Try 0/0/10/30/30 with shaman/cleric jewel
Condition tank still invulnerable to conditions, I still use triple cantrip because a sinle stun breaker is what you really need I believe

I just tested 0/10/0/30/30 with 6 clerics with 6/6 dwayna’s. 3 cantrips. Works decent. My accessories are still pvt/2 zerker tho. All of them with badge/laurel sockets filled.

17k+ hp. 780 healing power.

I just ran into a zerg, finished off a guardian in mist form, then zoomed out. Just running the 1 cond. clear on 30 water, and the one I get from dodging in water.
Game just came down right after. Will need more testing.

Just tested out fresh air, its broken and has no CD (states its 5 seconds).

Raif.9507:

Snip

First of all, your first couple of paragraphs, I will ignore, since you make it very obvious that you still want a fight out of this, by using snide remarks/comments.

The rest can get us a small piece of nice discussion, so let me go through it. Keep in mind that I wll remain focused on d/dcantrip ele only. I won’t go further into staff, s/d and such.

When I mentioned “heavy nerf on damage” I didn’t strictly define it as a nerf in bountiful power. The overall changes done to the d/d elementalist in the last couple of patches, were rather directed to cantrips. In order to keep the post from going big I won’t list the changes. You can find them yourself if you wish to.

That being said, I m not much of a pvp-er, so I may have to set a condition or two. You can definitely understand that wvwvw is not about dueling with a single enemy nor is a place were you want yourself to be pinned down, unless you offer such service by being a support. So having a stun breaker is essential. What the nerfs got us the last time was a reduction in the ability of surviving bursts, and another small one in condition removing (and boon up-times if I recall correctly). In combination with the current changes however, the message that ANET sends, is “I want you to change, or die”! With only one stun breaker in cantrips which is also your oh-kitten button, you are free to elaborate on how will you deal with 2 enemies that have a stun. For the record, by considering the popular builds only, and restricted to terrain, Ranger has 2, Engi 2 too, Ele 1, Thief 2-3, Warrior 1-2, and Mesmer 1-2 and aside from a couple of them, they all have small cooldowns.

If you choose to try and cover up for this, you ll have to go for more defensive gear, preferably clerics which in a chain reaction sequence will cause

1) a loss in precision (cause it affects vigor and may subsequently cause a change in condition damage through the sigil used),
2) a loss in crit damage (cause only berserker’s and celestial, to my knowledge, carry this stat), and in combination with the bountiful power nerf,
3) a loss of a minimum 2% and maximum 9% extra damage.

and that is while, lighting touch gets its small nerf too.

Pretty much, you get forced to change from being a defensive melee dps, to becoming either a defensive support or change to a very offensive melee dps. Maybe an assassin of sort.

Have you found a fourth option I haven’t considered or thought of, yet for (cantrip) d/d?!

Now, if I wanted to play the dying doll, I would roll naked down the hills and spamm /wave and ./fart at the hordes of enemies. Considering how we are in the lower tiers of armor and health too, I don’t see how these changes help towards enjoying playing the offensive d/d ele. Having the two options of better burst or more defensive, at the cost of something in the middle, is what I call “kittenty changes”!

In regards to PvE the bountiful power nerf was anything but needed, yet not so bad. At the moment I consider moving to a 0/20/0/20/30 spec (or maybe a variation of 0/20/0/10/30) with the same gear. The buff in Cleansing indicates that this should be now the replacement for removal through regeneration. If you have trouble surviving after that, maybe changing a berserker piece into celestial or clerics is in order.

At any rate, results from tests are bound to come out soon, and that only means I ll either be very right, or very wrong, by the end of the week.

Nope. Ele still sucks. Dying every 5s to every class.

What do you guys think of using the pre nerf 0 0 20 20 30 build with instead of cleansing fire, signet of air and instead of the healing signet ether renewal.

You’ll still maintain condition removal through ether renewal and be able to break stun every 30 secs using the signet. Since not every kitten class but those hammer warriors apply stun all the time you also solve the massive lack of swiftness through the signet.

I’ll still have to figure out if the stun removal of lightning flash is actually that bad. The only thing I know is that I now cannot just slam it somewhere ramdomly right in front of me to save my kitten .

Didn’t test it yet.. Deadly tired atm will try it tomorrow.

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It also might be an idea to swap earths embrace for obsidian focus, since with the latest patch you’ll gain 300 thoughness (!!) while channeling. Since basically everything is a channel (some are just rather short). However, you might be able to take a serious advatage from this (fire/water 2, earth 5, etc).

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Just some random thought spraying since D/D has to change some bits to be effective. Any idea’s/critism/thoughts welcome.

katniss.6735:

D/D is complete and utter dog kitten right now. I can’t get away from anyone. And I’m going from 20k to 0 hp in 3s. Either there’s some massive packet loss, or D/D doesn’t work at all anymore. I can’t tank anything but npcs now. GG patch. Game sucks.

Specs played: 0/10/0/30/30, 0/0/10/30/30, 0/0/20/20/30. 98% pvt in wvw. and divinity/celestial in spvp. I’m running from mesmers and necros nonstop. WTH are we supposed to spec? There’s nothing that can survive the incoming burst now.

I’m going to run around with staff at the back of the group like anet has pigeon-holed us to do now.

Divinity\Celestial will get you killed in SPvP, try Valkyrie’s\Berserkers or some other amulet combo that gives a larger boost in stats celestial is too spread out. Personally celestial has never worked for me.

@ avatar:
I post-patch run a 0/0/20/20/30 build not completely bunker but i say the dmg is better than the 0/10/0/30/30 build pre-patch with a lot more utility but less swiftness and fury up time, since you loss zephyr’s boon. It is also very similar armor to the cookie-cutter build 0/10/0/30/30. As for utility skills i keep Lighting Flash as now for offensive and some defensive, Arcane Shield as it is now a stun breaker, and finally Mist-Form.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

@ avatar:
I post-patch run a 0/0/20/20/30 build not completely bunker but i say the dmg is better than the 0/10/0/30/30 build pre-patch with a lot more utility but less swiftness and fury up time, since you loss zephyr’s boon. It is also very similar armor to the cookie-cutter build 0/10/0/30/30. As for utility skills i keep Lighting Flash as now for offensive and some defensive, Arcane Shield as it is now a stun breaker, and finally Mist-Form.

I know, I used the “Excala build” also pre patch. The loss of fury upkeep isn’t that much of a loss for me since I just use the attunemt switch for fury when I need it (mostly for the fire 3/4/5 combo and earth 5). I’m just trying to figure out what the best replacement is for cleansing fire, since there is some need of stun breaking. I think you should either go for armor of earth, arcane shield or signet of air.. The down side of armor of earth and the shield is the humongous cooldown.

Which are you using at the moment?

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Edit: Yes I’m also keeping LF as an offensive uttility, since I did allot of practice with LF + FGS skill 3/4.

@ Avatar:
I am using Arcane Shield. I would have pick Signet of Air if i was running in a zerg. But my play style in WvWvW is small roaming groups so with the other 4 people in my party we already have perma swiftness. Armor of Earth i am not choosing since of its cooldown and i think Arcane Shield does a better job and still deals dmg to targets in range which is always a bonus.
As for “Excala build” pre-patch I altered it with my own traits in Water and Earth for my dps.

Edit: My elite is tornado for my teams purpose. But FGS is great mobility especially combined with LF i can see that being a great gap closer or for getting away better than RTL was pre-nerf

If you go by buildcraft as a gauge you still come out with more damage taking 25 in water and 15 in air if you assume 5 boons for +5% damage than taking 20 points in air and 20 water. % damage traits are always the best. If you take the new stone splinters trait with 10 in earth you get more damage than 20 in air unless you take something conditional like 10% damage while attuned to air.

I am running now 0/10/10/20/30 which gives me more toughness than I had before but I loss hp and healing power. So I drop to 481 healing power and 16.1 hp but I can get the hp back with Mushroom loaf which is 100 vitality and 70 power. Right now though I am playing with the less HP and taking herbed chicken for 100 toughness and 70 power.

Imo if you want damage but to still be tanky take the buffed Stone Splinters trait for +10% damage when your with in 600 range of your foe. Thats every d/d ele attack except for Earth 3. So your looking at a consistent 10% damage at all times and it has no ramp up time its already there. You don’t need to say swap from earth etc to get your boons going to get the damage you received as you did with bountiful power. Also your damage can’t be stripped like it could with bountiful power.

The hit is of course healing so you can slot a sigil of life 10 stacks will get you the same healing power back or a clerics dagger which would bring you 10 short of what you had before by going 30 water. I run mostly knights with life sigil now. I do enough damage to kill people already. Once I have my stacks I swap to a sigil of force dagger for +15% damage total at all time.

Water I switched to aquamancers alacrity and cleansing wave. I dont’ think soothing disruption is needed if you don’t have cleansing water trait but Ill play with it more.

Stun breaks I dropped mist form currently for Arcane shield as that is now a stun breaker. Since d/d is pretty much in range when it bursts it will hit up to 5 people the burst is arcane wave. Looking at my combat log since it will always crit because its arcane I have had it bust for as high as 4k. So you can use it offensively or defensively. I still run armor of earth and lightning flash you can still use lightning flash to avoid damage when your stunned. If you are knocked down you teleport away and are knocked down. Its a nerf yes but I feel like its minor.

TL&DR

-10 points in earth for Stone Splinters is +10% damage to foes with in 600 range. That is all d/d ele attacks except magnetic grasp.

-10 points in earth will net you more damage than going 20 air unless you take a conditional trait like 10% damage while attuned to air which only applies to 1 attunement so why would you take that?

-The difference between a nerfed bountiful power with 30 in water and 20 points in air is small. The question is cleansing water better than the master traits of air is what you should ask yourself.

-10 in earth all the way! If you want to make up the damage you lost from bountiful power and its more consitent and can’t be stripped and doesn’t need you to build your boons up its already there when the fight starts.

I know building boons isnt difficult but you still had to initiate the fight and start swapping to get to +10% damage 10 in earth gives you that upfront.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

@ Avatar:
I am using Arcane Shield. I would have pick Signet of Air if i was running in a zerg. But my play style in WvWvW is small roaming groups so with the other 4 people in my party we already have perma swiftness. Armor of Earth i am not choosing since of its cooldown and i think Arcane Shield does a better job and still deals dmg to targets in range which is always a bonus.
As for “Excala build” pre-patch I altered it with my own traits in Water and Earth for my dps.

Edit: My elite is tornado for my teams purpose. But FGS is great mobility especially combined with LF i can see that being a great gap closer or for getting away better than RTL was pre-nerf

As in the FGS combo I ment using the LF to roll over my target twice using LF, its pretty hard.. you have to be quick but if it hits it down massive damage. You should try it some time.. I’d say at the practice targets in sPvP or so ^^

@Avatar:
Sounds Like a fun time with the FGS.

Hooo, didn’t look at the buffed stone splinters yet.. Now I have 3 options..

- Stone splinters
- Earth Embrace
- Obsidian Focus

@Avatar:
I went with Stone Spliters simply because of the passive +10% dmg when within 600 range. Our max D/D spell is 600 range. With the nerf to bountiful power which now yeilds a total of +9% with full boons is a much better dmg increase.

Edit:
Not to mention if solo roaming you only have access to 7 out of the 9 boons as ele’s don’t have access to agies or retaliation unless they have the runes for them

Another thing to note if you want to switch to bunker mode (why I love ele change 1 or 2 things and your something else)

GoEP in air for weakness and it will proc on multiple people 10 in earth for protection on aura = them -83% damage

So LF can be casted when in stun or knocked down? That’s great. I was wondering if that would be possible (thought it would be disabled as other skills). Wasn’t knocked down or stunned yesterday with LF not on CD, so wasn’t sure about it.

oZii.2864:

Another thing to note if you want to switch to bunker mode (why I love ele change 1 or 2 things and your something else)

GoEP in air for weakness and it will proc on multiple people 10 in earth for protection on aura = them -83% damage

Wouldn’t it be 93%?
10% from aura
33% from protection
50% from weakness

93% total

oZii.2864:

GoEP in air for weakness and it will proc on multiple people 10 in earth for protection on aura = them -83% damage

It is 67% damage reduction (50% on average as only every other hit glances) with both protection and weakness. (1*0.67*0.5=0.33)

Wildclaw.6073:

oZii.2864:

GoEP in air for weakness and it will proc on multiple people 10 in earth for protection on aura = them -83% damage

It is 67% damage reduction (50% on average as only every other hit glances) with both protection and weakness. (1*0.67*0.5=0.33)

Are you sure that it works that way?It makes sence though that those % dont just reduce the initial damage individually cause i can see near 100% damage reduction like that :P
Are we even sure that they stack?