Guild Wars 2

ChaosDoom.8459:

Kailoq, thanks for your feedbacks. The combo is cast Churning Earth then teleport with Lightning Flash to the front of the mobs. I misread Lightning Flash as RTL therefore unable to execute.

By the way, “Play lots of WvW/craft to gain levels too”. What and How to do for WvW specified to leveling? Thanks again for your advise.

I am not touching WvW until I hit 80 (64 now) because this build is so trait-reliant to be used to its maximum potential. Sure I could practice combos and such I suppose but then you’re getting used to life without EA!

Crafting is a huge help, though. I personally leveled Tailoring and Jewelcrafting! (And Cooking because it’s easy).

@Banzai

Fighting in confined places is the most fun.
Remember a few things:

1. Kite melee mobs
2. Drop ranged asap
3. Don’t waist your dodges on blast finisher (when you get 30 arcane) or when unnecessary. If possible try to keep one.
4. Most of your skills are aoe to an extent
5. Fire fields apply a lot of damage to foes passing through them
6. Burning speed apply maximum damage when used at point blank in a corner

1. Kite melee mobs, this can be done in a corridor. Remember 3, don’t waist dodges as you can use these to kite / save your but. Run the melee mobs down the corridor then turn around and either burning speed through them or dodge through them to avoid damage then allow them to catch up and burning speed into ring of fire away from them so they will walk though the fire and take a lot of damage (the second method loses out on the blast at the end of BS as well as the ring of fire damage).

2. Drop ranged asap. If all the mobs are melee thats fine, kite them and PBAoE thier buts to Grenth. If there are ranged mixed in your gonna have a bad day. Step one, kite those melee mobs, remember water 3 and earth 2 (chill pbaoe and cripple aoe) which should hit 5 mobs. When you have a tight group of melees (don’t spend too much time doing this as the ranged will melt your but) use water 3 (some healing in this attunment first if necessary) or earth 2. This will slow the oncomming horde of melees and allow you some time for those ranged guys.

Dealing with ranged. To deal with these ranged guys is much easier with out the large numbers of death chasing you. Not mentioned previously but very helpful, line of sight your ranged foes together. Get behind a rock (not a dredge destroyable or they might shoot through it) or any other solid los blocker. This will force them to re-target you usually moving to a location where they can attack better and usually that position is close together (if there are multi ranged foes).

Now that we have grouped them and not spent to much health / time grouping those melee guys engage the ranged. Try to line up a burning speed so that the fire will go through the foe but the blast will still hit most of them. If 30 arcane try a fire dodge or a air dodge. A fire dodge will allow you to put up some damage with your fire grab. An air dodge will give you 1 shot of each foe hit freedom (aoe blind). Stand away from them (still in lightning flash range) and prime up a churning earth teleport at them. This will cripple those melee guys and the teleport will allow you to hit the ranged guys as it has a limit of 5 and we don’t want to waist it on the melees just yet (unless you have 5 or less targets ignore the above and hit all of them with the CE). Circle kite them using your other skills, mostly autos now and still keep the melee at bay with water 3 earth 2 when off cd.

The above doesn’t mention you updraft, lighting aura, chill aura or earthquake, you will get used to applying the other skills as you go along, this is just a very basic how to go about fighting 7-10 enemies. You will also know when to stay and when to flee. E.G. 1 ranged 6 melee easy peasy. 2 ranged 5 melee mediocre. 3+ ranged 3 melee you want to get out of their or apply daphoenix’s LOS attacking strats to keep those ranged attacks off you.

Continued below …

4. Most skills are aoe, self explanatory here, your skills hit everything. I lied, its actually up to 5 targets and knowing how to get your skill to land on the 5 targets you want it to takes a little getting used to. This is helpful at getting an aoe chill/cripple on melee only when there are about 5 of them, allowing you to kite them while dealing with the ranged guys. Or how to dish out full damage to ranged guys whilst not wasting the 5 on the melee guys now successfully kited.

5. Fire field apply burning only when passed through. Don’t just stand thier pull / push those foes back and forth through those fields. If you earthquake and churning earth are on cd then popping a ring of fire and just standing in it is a waist of resources and time. Walk through the fire field then back in, or even pop it on your foe, walk out and as he crosses use updraft to knock him back though so as he gets up he’ll likely take another hit of burning.

6. Burning speed does maximum damage in a corner. Kite them mobs up, run to the edge of the corridor and use burning speed. The mobs will hopefully move into the fire field and take maximum burning damage (to tell if this the burning speed fire trail will be very short and thus stacked on top of itself). You can also setup the field and try to updraft the mobs into it but that would waist most of BS duration. When your in the fire field with the baddies you want to pop lightning shield so when they hit you they will be stunned. Now is a good time to use fire grab too (that would be BS in corner/at wall then fire grab then lightning shield).

Remember, Dapheonix’s guide is about mastering the elementalist, not beginning the elementalist. That experience you draw yourself, then you apply Dapheonix’s techniques to your knowledge of the class. Its not a single build or guide that will make you a good player, its learning the basics yourself and applying the knowledge / experience of your fellow elementalists to your knowledge base, allowing you to find what works well and to learn some other strategies along the way.

My dagger dagger has changed alot. Started with a build similar (prolly very much the same) as dapheonix’s Tanky elementalist build (0 0 10 30 30). It was actually a copy of my friends OP staff bunker build, got him into the game, gave him a few pointers of which traits I though would be good for a healing ele and 20 mins later he has an unkillable staff ele build (without EA). Then I showed him the ea blast finisher bug and well I’m sure you get the picture, super unkillable ele. So taking all the elements that made his build good I went with a S/D build for about 1 game then went to d/d. Haven’t turned back. A week or too later Dapheonix’s tanky build showed up then later this current guide. I saw that he took 10 out of earth and put it into air for swiftness and fury. That was the game changer for me, a large upkeep of fury would allow my to dish out more damage. Before that I was going mad swapping attunements before big hitters for the 2 sec of fury off 10 arcane (still do this with conjures)

hi I’ve bought the Mhenlo’s set of named light armor (which has healing power as main stat, power and toughness), just cause i liked the looks of it LOL. Wondering if its possible to build a d/d ele around that set. Will my dmg output be affected significantly, as compared to using the AC set (power as main stat, toughness, vit)?

I see. Thanks Mahanaxar and Kailoq for your advise. Actually, I didn’t update my equipments as often :p Mostly 10 or 15 level once and only uses Hearty (+Vit +Tough) eqs.

I did this in purpose so as I can practice more combos and the mechanics of ele. Normally I do the kiting of mobs to a confined or a circle, then Water 3 + Water 4 switch Air 3 + Air 5 ensuring these mobs are stun and chill before going with Fire 3 + Fire 5 and finally set a Fire 4 for Combo field. I always have a warrior and guardian in my party so that field speed things up.

What do you think of this move? After Fire 3, sometimes I press Fire 1 without direction to re-orient my direction to face the mobs then Fire 5. Same goes for Water 4 then Water 1 for re-orient before Water 2. Correct me if I am wrong please, autoattack skill can re-direct us to face the mob.

Thanks.

As far as gear, I have my character leveling alongside her tailoring skill. Whenever I reach an appropriate level I craft the Rare recipes with defensive stats (Hearty at 35 and 50, Knight’s at 65). That not only levels tailoring really quickly it basically keeps you adequately geared for 15 or so levels! Blues and Greens don’t keep up until it’s time for the new rare.

@TGSlasher

I was always under the impression you were level 80 :P

I hadn’t thought of the uses of FGS in legacy of foefire with the door and NPCs= P

@BlackPaw

Pure preference tbh, it depends whether you want more total stats w/ crit damage or specific PVT stats. I think karka shell and triforge are superior to other ammys/accessories.

@Banzai
You really don’t need alot of space. Small cramped areas are actually beneficial to fire3, as your fire trail sections are much shorter. There’s around 4 fire trail sections iirc, and each trail can proc several times. On bigger enemies (aka bigger hit boxes), they can take much more damage as there standing on more sections of the fire trail. If you use fire3 in a tight corner/don’t move very far with fire 3, most of the fire sections will actually overlap to where the enemy is, and therefore more damage.

The downside of tight spaces is that you do have less space to move around, and therefore can get hit much easier against melee mobs. You can’t kite as efficiently though either. The other advantage of small spaces is in team group fights : you are not always going to draw all the aggro as your teammates will take some as well. But since your whole team is in a confined space, so is your enemy mob. Therefore you will always hit everyone

Work makes it lots of fun. If your the type of player like me, I’m fairly impatient when it comes to easy PvE mobs and like to charge in /plan out my combos. D/D sort of fits my natural tendency to do w.e I feel like, and thats why its fun.

@void
:D

@Mahanaxar
You make a good point =P. Small confined spaces can backfire if your enemy has heavy AoE

@Chaos doom
Well I run 2 superior rune of water, 2 superior rune of monk, 2 major runes of water in PvE. PvP I just use 2 sup runes of divinity over 2 major runes of water.

Yes the boon duration does add on. Arcana at 30 = 30% boon duration buff. 15% boon duration comes from monk runes, another 15% from superior water, and 10% from major water. So thats a total of 70% boon duration

2. Nope, swap sigils of the same type dont stack. Any sigil that has an internal cooldown is shared with the other weapon your wielding as well. Meaning if you use haste (45second cooldown, 10% chance on critical) with sigil of battle, you may prevent yourself from using sigil of battle for 45seconds if haste procs.

Water 12 is incredibly useful for PvE, WvW, and tPvP. Its not worth sacrificing 10 pts in water for 10pts in fire. Its also possible to get 25 stacks of might while in combat for short periods of time, although this requires you to set up perfect combos or sacrifice some time to build up might.

Your tihnking of lightning flash + churning earth. Lightning flash is a teleport

@Orikx
didn’t realize you had already answered the question, lol +1 = P

@Banzai
I went through the same thing in certain parts of PvE too :P. Sometimes I’ll be fighting an enemy next to a large dropoff zone, and I will refrain myself from using air4 in fear that I accidently deselecting him and shoot myself off the edge and suicide.

I also have a tendecy to go through zones really quickly, and use Ride the lightning frequently to travel faster. At times I’ll be on a cliffside, and realize that the fastest way down is just to hop over to the next area using ride the lightning. Then my estimations go wrong, and I fall off and die :S. Luckily we have that new 50% fall damage trait which is great for PvE, incase I accidently over estimate fall drop offs

Fire3 gives me the same problems at times. I refrain from using it if I think its unsafe, and will get me killed

@Chaosdoom
altruism only applies to the 6th utility ability. I never cast my signet of restoration, so its not beneficial to me. Even if you equipped ether renewal (15 second CD), I still think its inferior.

Not really sure how easy D/D is early on. I ran mostly s/d and staff lvls 1-80.

@Brickforlife

I don’t usually notice the overshooting when I use it, but I’ve noticed when fighting players that they constantly overshoot themselves way past where they should be using magnetic grasp.

I use clerics accessories and knights accessories atm, but PVT works fine too

@Kailoq
:D more +1 lol

@Chaosdoom
You can level from 1-80 using WvWvW, but its not really recommended. Imo, you should be atleast level 30 so you can get your elite skill and enough traits to be semi useful.

If you wanna level up quickly in WvWvW at lower levels, I’d recommend using a staff and following your zerg team around, and party up with other players. You earn lots more exp this way, and money and loot. D/D shines the most at level 80 once you get all your traits in. Plus its always good to learn how to use staff, s/f, and s/d anyways.

Crafting guides to level up are everywhere :P. You can just google search them, its a pretty common thing to look up^_^

@Wolf
o.O I usually die alot to make those videos, lol. I got a lot of good video material but some of the tactics I used in WvWvW are kind of iffy, and I probably won’t upload those until later =P

Hm well I guess an alternative is to list out some of the combos that I do, so you can get more out of it. Sometimes I don’t notice alot of things that I do either, and if I don’t notice them right away I highly doubt people watching will too. Maybe I’ll put in comments while video is rolling.

Theres one video that really stands out in terms of what I screwed up, and what I did right.

On E.7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_GXr9o-Us
at 4:59 I pressed water 5 but didn’t let it activate b/c I cycled earth too quickly and overrided it with other buttons
5:03. I got my churning earth interupted at 3.1 seconds, and couldn’t see my avatar interupted, lol. Used the skillbar to recognize the interruption, and wasn’t fully aware that my churning earth landed either. Had my cantrip ready incase I was stunned or knocked downed. I reacted in 0.6seconds by pressing my cantrip to break stun
5:04. I quickly used shocking aura to negate some of the damage against me, and dodge roll to further reduce. I quickly deselected target thereafter
5:05. Spammed ride the lightning asap
5:19 I used earthquake there, but it was really hard to see
5:40. At 5:31 I planned on swapping to air and chasing him down, as the other thief weakened him up for me
5:55 somehow had my stomp interupted, still don’t know why
5:59 messed my dodge roll by 0.5 seconds
6:04 to 6:30 Had the most chained flawless executions ever =P.
6:08-6:09 had a nice perfect water3+ animation end cancellation + quick turn around+fire3
6:10 setup fire field for 6:12
6:11 Drakes breath LoS harassment followed by an earthquake once there in my LoS to hit me, combined with earth4+earth5+lighting flash combo counter
6:25 to 6:30 . Somehow managed to get that down perfectly. Ring of fire hit everyone entering in as I juked behind a tree. Drakes breath shot everyone down in a straight line, and firegrab would have hit everyone had it not been blocked by aegis. Followed by a might stacking combo if EA was what it was currently.
6:37 backcasted RtL just for fun =P
6:47 shouldn’t have burned off cantrip
6:53 timed my shocking aura perfectly right b4 I got hit
6:54 intended to RtL away but accidently selected a target
7:06 Reacted a tad slow for my lightning flash escape
7:09 double jumped, should have dodged there instead
7:16-7:24 flawless comboing there. Had enemies eat chill damage at point blank and set up an ambush as ring of fires CD came back
8:17 invisible countering with magnetic grasp
8:33 got lucky and got a long range magnetic grasp
8:42 saw the port coming, and used a blind RtL to auto finish my enemy
8:58 Didn’t see that guy at all and quickly set up a nice combo on him
9:07 dodge+updraft combo as it comes back on CD :P
9:11 screwing around trying to get on the roof top
9:13 fails, end up a ring of fire as all the enemies run in, quick turn around fire3 ambush
9:16 chilled enemies followed by using a cheap LoS abuse onto them with cone of cold so they cant hit me but I can
9:19 thought earthquake would go through wall since it goes through mostly everything, apparently not
9:22 screwing around again, trying to get to the roof for fun. Ends up netting me a perfect RtL on everyone at 9:25
9:25 to 9:28 Drakes breath everyone in a straight line, end cancellation on fire grab.
9:30 to 9:32 juked all those silly npcs and punished them with fire fields
9:33 saw the impending attack, quick juke back to hit as many people as possible with water 3.
9:35 Earth 2 to cripple so I can safely LoS behind a wall and buy time to cast churning earth without taking any damage
9:39 intended to use a delayed shocking aura as first hit came, CD was on
10:10 went to wrong attunement, meant to go water

@TGS
+1 to all those answers:D

@Sprezzatura
Mhenlos works perfectly fine. Your damage shouldn’t be too much lower, but you do get so much more sustainability in healing :P

@Chaosdoom
Yes auto attack can redirect you to the mob atleast for fire1. Lightning 1 does not I think (not really sure). Water 1 has the same aiming mechanics as fire1. Earth 1 does not matter where you face to attack.

Your enemy still needs to be atleast in front of your character in order to auto attack. Basically you get a 180* attack range in front of your character.

@Blackpaw
:P

@Mahanaxar
to each his own =P. Personally I like buying rare weapons b/c I want to pewpew things faster, and cheap green armor since its practically free

Wow thanks TGSlasher and daphoenix for all the great tips!

Its good to know as well that I’m not the only one that’s sailed over the edge of a drop for an electrifying finish. I’m still currently running a SD/SF heavy earth and fire condition build with a bit in water for some heals and vit but with gear so cheap while levelling I’m itching to give D/D a try again since I can now access Evasive Arcana. PVT gear isn’t quite as cheap as condition gear but its still very affordable for the lvl 60-70 range. Think I’ll give it a try over the weekend. Especially now I’m out of the nasty mine with all those really narrow walkways and dredge that like to chain stun you while their buddies shoot you with rifles.

Ele community has been great so far! Good for an old retired GW1 Ele like me.

I’m level 71 now and I’m wondering if I should respec and trade the 10 final points in Water to get myself more acquainted with Evasive Arcana before I start abusing it in WvWvW. I’ve been doing fine with only 1 condition removal so far so… yep, I think I’ve talked myself into it.

That’s only applicable if you’re leveling D/D as I am, I noticed daphoenix converted after he was already 80. :-P

Why three stacks of might on weapon swap? You can’t swap weapons as ele. Then i thought maybe its on switiching attunements, but thats not it either, what could it be?

Aurum.9534:

Why three stacks of might on weapon swap? You can’t swap weapons as ele. Then i thought maybe its on switiching attunements, but thats not it either, what could it be?

Sigh…

It only works when you’re in combat.

Aurum.9534:

Why three stacks of might on weapon swap? You can’t swap weapons as ele. Then i thought maybe its on switiching attunements, but thats not it either, what could it be?

Attunement swap does indeed count as a weapon swap for sigils. A few really important things to note about sigils in general:

• They only proc in combat.

• All weapon swap sigils have an internal cooldown of 9 seconds. If you attunment swap more than once inside of 9 seconds, the sigil will not proc more than once.

• All weapon swap sigils share an internal cooldown with all chance on hit sigils, and only one of each can proc at a time. For example: Sigil of Rage (chance on crit sigil) has a 45 second internal cooldown. If you have that and a weapon swap sigil equipped, and Sigil of Rage procs, neither sigil will crit again for 45 seconds.

If you’re not seeing might on an attunment swap, you either swapped too recently, you have another weapon swap or chance on crit sigil equipped, or you’re not in combat.

I didn’t know about the in-combat rule. Thanks!

Yeah I didnt know about the in combat rule either, thanks

Thanks Daphoenix for this awesome build! You made my Staff – ele more interesting again with this set up, I really like this play style.

I’m just wondering from time to time in WvW I will be engaged by 2 or 3 people and usually I can take on one or two of them but most of the times the damage they do is to big for me to outheal so I have to use my escape skills. It’s usually that they to a high burst damage to me (like Engineer rifle) which I just can’t outheal.

Is this something that’s normal or that more Toughness stacking will resolve? I have 1550 toughness with 1750 power and 1450 vitality at the moment but also 900 healing power which helps a lot.

Thanks for the build and keep up the good work!

@JonSnow: One factor that might come into it is proper dodging. If you can manage to learn which key-attacks you should dodge, you can neglect a lot of the enemies’ damage. For example, you might want to eat a few auto-attacks, before dodging a very big ability. If you just dodge the first attacks someone throws at you, you’ll be left with no dodges when you see them charge up a more powerful ability. This’ll come with experience, since you need to familiarise yourself with the other classes’ abilities. Apart from that, the only thing that can really save you from burst damage is a bigger health pool and toughness to some extent. Burst damage, just like the name implies, gets dealt instantly. Healing on the other hand, is all about sustain. So it’s normal that a heal-heavy build won’t be able to outheal burst. That being said, if you manage to survive the front of their burst, you CAN heal up again to full, effectively resetting the fight.

@Daphoenix: I’ve been trying both Knights trinkets with the standard jewels and with beryl (pow/vit/critdmg) jewels. If you ever have some spare cash, be sure to give beryl a shot! You swap out a tiny bit of toughness for vitality and you change precision to crit damage. And crit damage just blows precision away when it comes to increasing your damage. My toughness is still around 1638 and I have 18.5K HP. In theory you could swap out the knights amulet for a cleric one (also with beryl/ruby) if you want less HP but more healing power.

@daphoenix: So ive been playing DD ele a lot for the last few weeks, and really did learn a lot from your guide, and i was actually wondering what do you think of the asura spell “pain inverter”? it appears to me as a very usefull spell, especially against all kinds of glass canons. if it was mentioned in this thread, sry didnt read all 8 pages

All the trait links lead to a blank builder!

@Crempa – Copy and paste the links into your address bar.

@Kailoq – I see where you’re coming from with regards to pure damage output, but I personally think precision would be more beneficial in conjunction with the trait that has a 33% chance to grant Vigor on crit. That’s 2% more damage (traited properly) plus quicker endurance regen which means more dodges which means more heals (or earthquakes, or blinds, or useless flame bursts)! But I guess it depends on your playstyle.

The passion daphoenix shares is indescribable (does that good himself, lol) but very inspiring!

It should also be noted that you can get Karma Armor that is PVT (identical stats to the AC set) from the Temples in Orr! All but the Shoulders and Pants, anyway (and daggers).

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Seeking-Level-80-Armor-Advice-Please

hehe to all those looking to be pro d/d eles in WvW, PLEASE just don’t forget to bring a focus and a staff if you really want to be useful xD but if you’re only in wvw to farm badges and test your skills well good luck then ^ ^

Mahanaxar.1386:

@Kailoq – I see where you’re coming from with regards to pure damage output, but I personally think precision would be more beneficial in conjunction with the trait that has a 33% chance to grant Vigor on crit. That’s 2% more damage (traited properly) plus quicker endurance regen which means more dodges which means more heals (or earthquakes, or blinds, or useless flame bursts)! But I guess it depends on your playstyle.

There’s only a 51 point difference in precision, which roughly translates into a 2.5% difference in crit chance. With crit damage on the other hand, each time you crit you’ll deal 182% damage, rather than 170%. Evasive arcana has a longer cooldown than vigor regen, even when running with just 30% crit chance. Where are you getting that 2% damage from?

Kailoq.3051:

Mahanaxar.1386:

@Kailoq – I see where you’re coming from with regards to pure damage output, but I personally think precision would be more beneficial in conjunction with the trait that has a 33% chance to grant Vigor on crit. That’s 2% more damage (traited properly) plus quicker endurance regen which means more dodges which means more heals (or earthquakes, or blinds, or useless flame bursts)! But I guess it depends on your playstyle.

There’s only a 51 point difference in precision, which roughly translates into a 2.5% difference in crit chance. With crit damage on the other hand, each time you crit you’ll deal 182% damage, rather than 170%. Evasive arcana has a longer cooldown than vigor regen, even when running with just 30% crit chance. Where are you getting that 2% damage from?

Plus, using active damage mitigation resource for passive damage mitigation seems a bit out of place for me.

Kailoq.3051:

Mahanaxar.1386:

@Kailoq – I see where you’re coming from with regards to pure damage output, but I personally think precision would be more beneficial in conjunction with the trait that has a 33% chance to grant Vigor on crit. That’s 2% more damage (traited properly) plus quicker endurance regen which means more dodges which means more heals (or earthquakes, or blinds, or useless flame bursts)! But I guess it depends on your playstyle.

There’s only a 51 point difference in precision, which roughly translates into a 2.5% difference in crit chance. With crit damage on the other hand, each time you crit you’ll deal 182% damage, rather than 170%. Evasive arcana has a longer cooldown than vigor regen, even when running with just 30% crit chance. Where are you getting that 2% damage from?

The 2% damage comes from the Water 25 trait that gives you 2% damage per boon. Probably should’ve worded that better.

Either way it depends on your playstyle. I like to dodge a lot, even if it doesn’t proc EA every time. I can certainly understand your desire for more crit damage because it scales wonderfully! I just hit 80 so in my foray into WvWvW I tend to be more defensive as I get used to my new surroundings. Once I get comfortable I’ll likely shift around gear to get more damage.

Can’t let this fall to the second page.

Tried WvWvW for the first time last night on my Elementalist (I wanted to make sure my gear was mostly in order first… which is still getting there) and man was that a blast! I was only defeated once and that’s because I Tornado-suicided into a group to push back the zerg. Great suggestion on Tornado, by the way! Nothing’s more fun than popping that skill when pushing the front line on a bridge. :-D The escape ability and mobility is incredible. I know D/D doesn’t do the greatest damage in the world but at the very least you’re a very good distraction, boon distributor, and instigator!

@Banzai

:D glad you like the tips.

Also I’ve killed myself many times while I’m in air and get downed. My first instinct it to spam press 4, and accidently press 4 again once I’m rezzed

End result : I get rezzed and shoot myself over an edge using RtL
To avoid: Only press 4 once (unless you get hit and take damage). I’m fairly certain spamming 4 in downed state doesnt improve the rez time

@Mahanaxar
well your probably 80 by now
EA does take some time to get used to though

@mouse/ndranc
+1 for answering

@Jonsnow
Its not necessarily just stats, as Kailoq states. It does depend alot on mitigating damage using dodges correctly and predicting their next move. Also using the environment helps mitigate damage as well.

I think your thinking of the warriors rifle adrenal ability. It does atleast 5k dmg usually, but its animation is extremely noticeable

@Kailoq
I’m one step ahead of you already xD
+1 to answers :P

@Maff
pain inverter is definitely useful (applies 5 second confusion to nearby enemies, 5 second retaliation, and 30second CD).

I didn;t mention racial abilities in the guide, as not everyone is the same race. Having a means to get 5 seconds of retaliation is extremely useful, especially against spam attack builds.

Retaliation does 300ish damage back to your enemy once you get hit (it scales with power as well). Some setups like P/D thieves, have openers that hit 5-8 xs on you. Flamethrowers from engineers hit multiple times as well. Water1 from S/D eles hit 3xs per auto attack.

Retaliation can make a big difference if casted right before those multiple hit attacks. You can easily proc 2-3k dmg from retaliation on one enemy in that 5 second window

@Mahanaxar
+1 ;D.

Thanks for the link too ;p

Kailoq was going more for overall DPS efficiency ;p

@Alfred Nobel
:D Thank you Mr. Nobel

@Art
I use both staff and d/d alot in WvWvW when I go command :P. Staff is just way more efficient in WvWvW zerg battles and controlling the battlefield

When I swap to d/d, its usually for morale effects so I can lead my zerg army to victory !:P Or to roam solo and have fun =]

@Mechanics argument stuff
I ’m almost positive that the 2% damage per boon is calculated at the very end, and just adds to your base damage (power)

@Mahanaxar
:D. Its not the damage that counts all the time but the distraction too

also instagibbing an entire team with tornado is fun as well

May I ask what is the max possible crit % you can get on D/D?

ChaosDoom.8459:

May I ask what is the max possible crit % you can get on D/D?

The D/D build being discussed in this thread doesn’t stack crit at all. Most variants don’t have more than 20% crit unbuffed, although it does get higher with the Fury you get from auras.

In theory, you could make a D/D build with different runes, sigil and amulet and a full 30 points in Air and you’d have over 60% crit, but that build wouldn’t be anything like the build being discussed in this thread, and generally speaking, it would be pretty bad.

Sorry for the misleading question. What I mean is slight variant from this build, same traits at 0/10/0/30/30, but equipment wise focus on crit %. Its glassier compared to bunker.

The idea is to use Regen vigor 33% on crit to get endurance almost in perm state thus allowing player to do countless dodges.

Anyone tested this kind of build?

Thanks this is super helpful for a new ele player!!!!! : D added to favorite!!

Mahanaxar.1386:

The 2% damage comes from the Water 25 trait that gives you 2% damage per boon. Probably should’ve worded that better.

Oh! Good point, I didn’t realise vigor stacked. That being said, I still don’t think 2% crit chance can have that much of an impact ;p

Amazing guide! You made my life so much easier!

What armour and weapon should i buy before i get my hands on the AC set? I can’t figure out whts the best option, knights or clerics? If anyone could help me out, I’d really appreciate it!
Thanks!

Gothir.3604:

Verdican.5138:

I have 1 question regarding the water traits .
Cleansing wave and cleasing water seems to do more or less the same no ? as they both remove condition when attuning to water ( with regen popping up when attuning to water from the elemental attunement from air )
So isent the cleansing wave a “lost point” ? or is it purely focused on group condition removeing ? Or do they stack maybe ?
Personaly i can see alot more benifit in cantrip mastery then speaking from a Spvp PoV .

Those 2 traits actually stack with each other. So when you attune to water you remove 2 conditions, heal yourself, and apply regen…all in an aoe around you. Plus it allows you to remove a condition everytime you use a cantrip since they apply regen to yourself.

I’ve been using this build, and it’s really great so far. Both in PvE where i mostly use d/d, and WvW where i also use staff.

But I came to the same conclusion when it comes to the water trait. Since this build has so many ways of removing conditions, i don’t see any harm in having one way change from removing 2 to 1 condition removed to get lower CD on cantrips.

@daphoenix
Nah not 80 yet, just overtook my previous highest lvl char (which is actually a Charr lol), LvL 54 now I think. Don’t need to be 80 to learn the class, though the higher lvls will start to challenge me according to my Staff ele friend.

Was lvling my Charr Ranger when the game came out but got enraged with my River Drakes lightning breath always failing to hit anything but the ground, leading me to die a lot. Want to try her out again.

I could probably answer all the non gear related questions from personal experience (although I’m 54 I have played my ele more then any other toon in the game, I just do way to much pvp). However I don’t have the time unfortunately, between work and other commitments. Usually try to keep an eye on this tread but can’t read through every thing. Also have been taking a break from GW2 to try out Planetside 2.

Most of what is in your guide I knew about or had tried before, the only thing I hadn’t seen was the use of pbaoe’s through walls/line of sight. I had done this with ranger traps accidentally but it never clicked as to be useable on my ele lol.

Grab a friend and jump into hot join foefire. Go to the big gate whip out the FGS and get your friend to grab the other, then open up on the door with it. It drops so quickly that its not funny. You want to use FGS 3 (the spin) at point blank in the door.

Another cool use for the FGS is when you are imob or chilled. The FGS 3 will hit someone close to you for all spins and do maximum damage, similar to how a burning speed into a corner works.

When fighting the Lord, if you have the frost bow with you and can predict his heal you can freeze him and try to dps him down before his heal goes off. This is hard to do with a bunker spec. If the gate was dropped and you still have your FGS off cd you can get some good damage out before the freeze ends. I haven’t tried this solo before mind you, once you drop the door everyone seems to run in (in hot join anyway).

I would suggest to first use FGS and either use the 5 skills and drop or drop straight away, fight him till he is almost at heal hp, then use Frost bow, Frost Bow 5 when you think he may heal, then drop the bow pick up the FGS and use it to burn him down. Remember to use the change attunement trick I talk about before each move for the 2 sec fury bonus. (Note: the FGS cast time is horrid and you will lose to much damage if you try to cast it after the frost bow 5, also try to drop the ground FGS where you will be luring the lord).

The best place to position the lord for this is in a corner if you can get him in one. Or to lure him to the ramp and try to teleport/ quickly move into the ramp corner as to increase your FGS 3 ability. If you do this then you defiantly want to attunement change just before the FGS 3 to apply maximum damage.

If you bring your friend with you remember to time 2x frost bow 5 to do 2x 4-5 sec freeze in a row. You want him to start his FB 5 1 second before the freeze ends.

Double freeze also work wonders vs PvP players. And single freeze is great against bosses and champs, however no-one ever cc’s them to remove the 5x immune buff

Final note. In tourney your skills are locked (unless they changed this, has been a couple of weeks since I’ve been on) So you will be stuck with the FGS if you chose it for foefire. You will not be able to get the elemental at all in this situation

daphoenix, from your previous posts your HP is about 16k HP. How high is your crit % before fury?

With your current crit %, how often your endurance/vigor get refilled from boons? Eg. how many continuous dodges you can do before you have not enough energy? How fast your energy refill?

The reason I am asking is to tailor this build abit to suit my playing style. I am looking at toning down the toughness/vitality to roughly 16k HP and hopefully get the crit % up to keep getting my energy near perm state. Thanks for you guys advise, you all rocks

Banzai.5681:

Wow thanks TGSlasher and daphoenix for all the great tips!

Its good to know as well that I’m not the only one that’s sailed over the edge of a drop for an electrifying finish. I’m still currently running a SD/SF heavy earth and fire condition build with a bit in water for some heals and vit but with gear so cheap while levelling I’m itching to give D/D a try again since I can now access Evasive Arcana. PVT gear isn’t quite as cheap as condition gear but its still very affordable for the lvl 60-70 range. Think I’ll give it a try over the weekend. Especially now I’m out of the nasty mine with all those really narrow walkways and dredge that like to chain stun you while their buddies shoot you with rifles.

Ele community has been great so far! Good for an old retired GW1 Ele like me.

No probs mate. I’m sure we’ve all gone off an edge, either when first unchecking auto target option or when the skill fails to target track properly. I got pretty used to it after my rangers sword main hand and the number of times I fell off the edge with that thing and the greatsword auto targeting things off cliffs when trying to move about with is. I’m 54ish, and using d/d. EA is not really needed at the lower levels although the dodge water heal is great and the dodge fire into flame grab is also nice. Water 15 or 25 ( the one with the heal ) that is very helpful. Think I currently have about 10 arcane, 20 water maybe 5 earth and the rest heading toward air.

Another great tip with this build. If you are using the signet heal and need to be healed but don’t want to use it smash auto attack in water. Even if you have no target, use the water auto attack, water because you get soothing mists, some regen when you change the other healing skills as the cd and water auto is pretty fast. Just don’t fire in the direction of mobs :p

Hey Daphoenix:

I tried using the D/D setup leveling a newbie Ele. I really tried, but I’m losing constantly. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the setup, maybe it’s not meant for low level Eles.

Using Mist Form + Cleansing Fire. Usual rotation is Burning Speed-Ring of Fire-Fire Grab-Earthquake.

Especially with multi-mobs, I’m just losing health too fast. I can’t keep up with the damage. Down half my health before I know it. Any suggestions on what I’m doing wrong?

Oneira.1495:

Hey Daphoenix:

I tried using the D/D setup leveling a newbie Ele. I really tried, but I’m losing constantly. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the setup, maybe it’s not meant for low level Eles.

Using Mist Form + Cleansing Fire. Usual rotation is Burning Speed-Ring of Fire-Fire Grab-Earthquake.

Especially with multi-mobs, I’m just losing health too fast. I can’t keep up with the damage. Down half my health before I know it. Any suggestions on what I’m doing wrong?

updraft – > shocking aura -> (optional if very twitchy- touch for weakness) -> burning speed -> fire grab – > fire ring -> earthquake -> arcane shield -> churning earth will net you more damage while keeping as many knocked down or stunned for as long as possible.

Arcane shield toward then end will cover you as you use churning earth to finish anything off (it tunes down as you level, but at low levels churning earth is absolutely devastating, as its less gear dependent then)

important traits in order:

1 – zephyr’s boon
2 – water 5
3 – arcane 10 (drop water 5 for 5 levels at that point)
4 – fill in water to end
5 – fill in arcane to end.

(at least until ANET slaughters this build and its children the way they promised in the last Q&A)

What would you suggest switching out for Arcane Shield? Go AS + Mist Form or AS + Cleansing Fire? I was thinking of going Lightning Flash for #3 when I make lev 20.

What upgrade did you use on Ancient Karka Shell ?

@Frykas, Sapphire (Cleric’s) Jewel

@Daphoenix, I’ve realized that you rarely use the EA dodge roll into the fire fields for those extra Might, do you think it’s a mistake doing that a lot (usualy I do it every fire field I land). Sometimes you also change to water just for chilling the enemy, you do that because you’re full/almost full HP and know there’s noone else coming?

@ChaosDoom

Crit % for me with fury on goes up to 60% for me usually with knights gear. Can be pushed up higher though. 30% with fury on for tanking gear.

Number of dodges is determined by my high upkeep on vigor. Can only dodge twice in a row.

@Tgs
+1
I’m not that much of an expert on PvP as you :P

I do the autoattacking + signet too all the time.

@Oneira
Its personal preference =P. Whatever you think is good use that, I don’t run arcane shield too often cause I like stun breakers

@Fykas
Wolf answered that

@Wolf
You bring up a good point. It all depends on the situation really, on whether or not I use an earth dodge roll onto a fire field. Sometimes using a dodge for 3 stacks of might as part of a rotation is not worth it (i.e. when I’m heavily pressured against lots of players in WvWvW by myself). Re-positioning (like behind a tree) with dodging in that case outweighs 3stacks of might anyday. Sometimes I do try to get the best of both worlds, by careful positioning of fire fields such that I get a new position that is strategically useful after dodging, and gives me the blast finisher on the fire field.

If I’m on the offensive (such as there running away from me), I don’t always go for the earth blast onto the fire field. I’d rather just kill my enemy ASAP, might stacking with dodge just buys them more time when I don’t really need the extra damage. Remember that you should not always follow a rotation, albeit it should be a guideline. Sometimes you’ll find that skipping certain skill during rotations in various situations is for the best outcome, as you can save that skill for later / save time not casting spells you don’t need.

Oneira -

I primarily pve (which you seem to be worrying about here) and find arcane shield very useful (despite not being a cantrip), but it is personal preference. It’s probably more useful to me because there are fewer stuns flying around in pve.

The build most definitely favors cantrips.

hello dears Eles,
i jus finished my armor with P/T/V and my AC daggers,now i was looking for jewells and back

which are for u the best amulet/rings/back for this build in PvE/WWW?
cheapest and the expensive one that come in your mind
thx for help ^^

Oneira.1495:

Hey Daphoenix:

I tried using the D/D setup leveling a newbie Ele. I really tried, but I’m losing constantly. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the setup, maybe it’s not meant for low level Eles.

Using Mist Form + Cleansing Fire. Usual rotation is Burning Speed-Ring of Fire-Fire Grab-Earthquake.

Especially with multi-mobs, I’m just losing health too fast. I can’t keep up with the damage. Down half my health before I know it. Any suggestions on what I’m doing wrong?

Hi Oneira, I been through that stage too. My advice is to get Toughness/Vitality gear in the beginning for every 10 levels, either Fine or Masterwork.

I also realize that the most enjoyable and easiest way for PVE leveling is to clear maps, meaning try to get all the maps 100%. Gather/Mine/Chop at every opportunity. You will see the locations on the map. Clear vistas, way points and POI when you see them. When in doubt, check on youtube. Like in my case, I am only 41% map completion and I got to level 67. I guess before 50% map completion, you should be level 80 with a good understanding of where the places are.

If you struck in a location and wish to go to town, go to Hearts of Mist or WvW then use the portal to Lion Arch. That saves u lots of silvers :P

Till now I haven’t even done a single dungeon :P failed AC story with my friend (2 man party) so if anyone interested please PM me Chaosfrenzy in Crystal Desert.

ive tried reading through the thread to see if I could find an answer but I couldn’t. Basically, I feel like I’m not being efficient and wasting potential protection/damage output by using the sapphire accessories instead of knights or berserker’s. There seems to be no toughness at all in this set up (besides the pvt armor), and I’ve noticed a huge change in survivability with other classes I play by adding toughness. I play this exact build/setup and even tho I’m not a blackbelt at it yet, I do think I’m alright. I just find that in wvw/pve if i get caught off guard for one second or make one mistake its over. I feel like there’s something HUGE i’m missing. Especially when I play one of my other classes and come across an ele who seems to take zero damage but can blow me away in fast.

@dapheonix
Have you tried using the energy sigil instead of the might one?
You will lose you soul and 3 might stack per 9, but gain an extra dodge every 9.

Infact my friend runs a build with energy, adventures runes and the ether heal. Every heal is a dodge, +2 dodges, perm vigor and another dodge every 9 sec weapon swap.

This adds a truck tonne of survivability. Even adding just the energy sigil adds a lot of survivability. Now you can go, Ring of Fire switch to earth, dodge, earthquake, churning earth then swap to water or air for another dodge, with a third up your sleeve.

It takes a lot of concentration to pull off the 3 dodge in a row, and this sigil promotes being on 0-50% endurance most of the time. With the vigor doubling the regen of dodge you can get a lot of dodges in.

As you have to remove the might stacking sigil you do unfortunately lose a lot of might, but damage for life is usually the trade off.

I have been thinking of using this in conjunction with Zerkers or Knights. As the dodges will make up for the defense and the Zerkers/Knights will make up for the damage loss.

Been 80 for a bit, messed around a bit more with S/D condition and switched over to D/D again to give a try. I should mention in the interim that I picked up 2 pieces of AC gear and made a whole bunch of crafted “Valkyrie” stuff while levelling tailoring. All I have to say is this…

Wow.

It plays so differently when you can actually take a hit and not die! EA adds a great layer of complexity and strategy to everything and in my opinion, rounds the whole build out nicely. WvW was fun, though I’m starting to see what everyone’s complaining about… Its pretty difficult to escape a D/D ele chasing you down.

Also got the hang of stacking the burning speed trail on mobs in a corner. It really does eat them alive doesn’t it? Tried it while exploring Straits of Devastation last night. Its brutal. Fire grab after and its all over. Feels a lot tougher with the right gear, this build. Its addictive! I hope they don’t nerf it too much.

Again thanks for the build and all the support daphoenix and TGSlasher.