Guild Wars 2

Would just like to add a note, an aura sharing balanced D/D build is quite excellent in tPvP, had some great success running it with my group today.

Wildclaw.6073:

200 condition damage is nothing. A single dodge into a fire field with Evasive Arcana will give you 105 condition damage and 105 power for 26-34s (latter with boon duration runes). In addition to the attunement specific Evasive Arcana effect.

But I could still stack might (17+) on top of all the CD I had (I was using an amulet of the shaman + some condition runes) and since I had nice defense and healing all I had to do to stay alive was remove conditions. It feels slow compared to the original build (swiftness and fury do not last as much), but the damage output was very nice, I was killing people with earth 1 spam lol, not to mention the amount of damage fire 2 was doing. But as I said, I couldn’t kite as much.

Thanks for doing this, daphoenix.

If i have 6 runes of divinnity, u think is better change for 2 superior of water and 2 monk?? this runes are expensive….

kronen.8954:

If i have 6 runes of divinnity, u think is better change for 2 superior of water and 2 monk?? this runes are expensive….

The water and monk runes are what really make this build great. The boons that you get from switching attunements are up probably 80-90% of the time just from attunement switching because of all the extra boon duration. You can keep fury and swiftness up 100% of the time…plus regen and vigor are up all the time once you use a cantrip.

Without the extra boon duration your boons won’t be up as much which hurts your defense from lack of the protection boon. Plus your offense suffers too because your might stacks drop earlier and you may not have fury up 100%…and every boon up gives you 2% bonus damage.

threw in some edits on air weapon skills. Sorry I don’t have time to respond to posts this week. I did mention powerful aura in water trait 12 in skill section

S/D guide please =D!

daphoenix.4283:

Is there more to this “superior line of sight” thing?
…
You can even take this further, and shoot him through a solid wall as long as the wall is not too high. Or you can pop a churning earth below ground, and hit an enemy that’s standing around 600 units above you on a cliffside right next to you.
…

Just wanted to inform you, this does not work at keeps. Standing on the ground while an enemy is only a few feet above you shooting you, Churning Earth and EQ will not hit. Tested this last night 11/14/2012. It was only hitting on level surface. Maybe cliffs and stuff are different from towers / keeps?

rTeku.4379:

S/D guide please =D!

I concur. I’d like my ele to be able to use Meteorlogicus some very distant day.

Just wanted to say that this guide is pretty awesome and detailed already. I even learned some new things about the auto-attack skills!

as my baby ele is only 16 this will help me keep her thanks

Great guide been using your build and advice since your old thread.. looking forward to the next update of this thread.

I have played this build for quite some time now in spvp. It is very good and the survivability is really great with healing and condition removal.

I have found, however, that I might as well go full beskerker amulet without it affecting my survivability much. This provides more burst. It may only work in hot join, though, where the zerg rules. The thing is, if things get tough having +200 healing and +300 toughness when using Celestrial, is not going to make any material difference. In the few situations where I do go down, I would go down anyways irrespetively of amulet choice.

To outweight the beskersker choice I do sometimes go full cantrips and drop arcane wave (mist, earth armor and lightning flash). Also, I sometimes replace water 30 condition removal with lower cantrip cooldowns, depending on the amount of condition builds present.

The guide’s great I’ve enjoyed reading up on it and understanding each of the skills spoken about and how they coincide with one another. My only criticism is that it’s not necessarily newbie friendly yet (it looks like you may add this to your “Basics and Fundamentals of playing an Elemetalist” section). The guide helps you make yourself better closer to endgame but what about those that are just starting out and know next to nothing about the class and how to level them. Eles are a bit squishy in the beginning. What skills would you recommend they start with? What traits should they start adding points too first? Possibly even the kinds of techniques (defensive, offensive, supportive) they could start using early on; the fundamentals they should practice that will be the foundation of their repertoire which would allow them to branch out more creatively the further along they go. These in themselves could differ a lot compared to what build you’ve recommended nearer to endgame since I would consider it even more so about survival than near cap level. This is asking a whole lot though but I believe it’s something to think about doing.

As someone who is -still- leveling (currently 65) and if I would do 1-65 all over again:

Traits: 10 air, 10 water, 10 arcane, 20 arcane, 20 water, 30 arcane then your choice of 30 water or 10 earth.

10 air in the beginning is important just so you don’t gouge your eyes out on moving like molasses. You’re also already helpful in WvWvW since you can run supplies like no other class can.

As far as skills, that’s really preference I think. There’s no right or wrong. For leveling, conjures like Frost Bow are actually good for some decent AOE and kiting (and its fun as all heck…. pew pew) and Signet of Healing has a great passive.

For armor, again, no right or wrong answer. Just important to do your dailies, get the huge 4k karma boost and do level appropriate stuff to progress alongside the heart karma vendors. Armor (and possibly vit/toughness) matter more than anything at earlier points, while power factors in more and more as you level.

Couple of things:
*1 whats your thoughts on fast ground targeting?
I have been using this for a while.
My skill are pretty weak but i like its instant effect better than having to put the target down. I am just wondering if you have put any time into learning to use this ability and if so why don’t you use it.

*2 Chat and fighting
How in the kitten balls do you do that?
In your videos i see you doing some fairly complex running around and chat with editing of that chat.
that is amazing to me.

It looks like they systematically targeted this build (one of the few good ones) and nerfed it to the ground. They even removed the leap finisher from magnetic grap and blast finisher from dragon’s tooth.
What’s next? Even lower boon uptime probably. I still have permafury with 2xmonk 2xwater 2xrage. That’s pretty good, so that might warrant another nerf.

So whats everyone plan with this build since Boon Duration Runes in PvP and Evasive Arcana blast finishers were nerfed?? Any build changes? I think I’m leaving my build at 0/10/0/30/30..but might revisit runes for pvp.

FYI – I ran EA and boon duration in sPVP and still did very well…I could still beat the usually people in 1 v 1…however, the matches were tougher/closer…def. not as easy. I’m now looking into different Runes though…I’m not sure the 20% boon duration is worth 4 rune slots anymore..might look into HP, CD, Vitality, toughness runes now.

Daph, will you be working on another build, or has this broken your spirit? I would be really interested to see what you do! Thanks so far and in advance of your work.

BRAiNZ.7480:

It looks like they systematically targeted this build (one of the few good ones) and nerfed it to the ground. They even removed the leap finisher from magnetic grap and blast finisher from dragon’s tooth.
What’s next? Even lower boon uptime probably. I still have permafury with 2xmonk 2xwater 2xrage. That’s pretty good, so that might warrant another nerf.

D/D is still fine. You lose a little bit of dps from not getting some extra might stacks from blast finishing from EA. You lose out on some rune duration if you sPvP. Healing ripple was nerfed for sPvP as well. No idea how much, I don’t sPvP just WvW.

Staff was hit the hardest, D/D is still a fantastic build.

Is it worth it to move 10 points from arcane to 10 fire (Spellslinger) for might stacks from cantrips now that EA is bleh….

What is the stat priority with this build?

Daphoenix, I’m using your basic build with a few improvements. First, instead of using water trait 5 I use 20% faster cantrip recharge. Here is why. Cantrips trigger our regen and vigor. The regen then triggers extra condition removal with trait 11. So yiu get double synergy out of that trait. In addition, I am able to maintain Constant regen and vigor without the boon duration armor runes. I am also able to maintain constant fury and might without the armor rune. And sometimes or almost constant swiftness.

the boon duration armor rune is not needed at all. You can just eat some cheap food to give you 14% more if yiu feel its needed I am using undead runes instead for extra condition dmg. My crit rate is 56% with fury so I do alot more dps without sacrificing survivability. I use alot of knights gear to achieve this. I am putting out some serious dps. My vitality is only 1424 but with the high toughness and super healing I don’t even notice. I also use ether renewal heal sometimes for extra condition removal (which is why yiu need vitality.).

I use a mix of ac and knights gear. Great job with all the detailed info!

@rTeku

I’ll wrote one maybe after my d/d guide =P

@Otaur
I use it predominantly in sPvP matches. Its actually more like 300 Z units upward (I think I may have overestimated units earlier), or basically the height distance of a very large norn. . You can use earth 1,2,4,5 to hit enemies on the the small raised platform in graveyard on legacy of foefire from ground level. You can also hit enemies on the 2 raised platforms from the pathways to svnair / chieftains from capture point at keep. You could also hit enemies from the capture point at dock to the raised platform coming from the red base in Raid of the capricorn. I haven’t had time to check out the new map though.

@Plague
I’ll try and make a guide when I got time, just I got so much stuff to do in rl :S

@zzled / quidnunc /ljaphillips
:D glad you learned something

@Superkav
Try using clerics amulet with a soldiers gem. I find it to be optimal in terms of survivability, and it has made a pretty big difference.

@PlagueParade
Your right. This guide assumes you have some knowledge about what an elementalist is, and how its played. I know that some people struggle playing as an elementalist, and I find that the key to becoming better is to test out the elementalist with different weapon setups and see what works for you from level 1-80. Make sure to constantly upgrade your armor from auction house and your weapons, by buying blue/green/gold gear. Green / blue gear is dirt cheap, and can be bought, used, and sold at nearly the same buying price at auction house too so you don’t lose any money.

Here’s my short sweet version to your answer:
Traitwise,
I find zephyr’s boon (10 air) to be really useful for d/d players early on. It provides the ability to maintain perma swiftness so you can have a much faster gaming pace.

I would recommend aiming for 15 water for healing ripple followed by maximizing arcana straight after, using some of the traits used in my build setup

Also learn to kite and heal; battles are won by outlasting the enemy in terms of survivability. Learn to strafe away from enemies while attacking as much as possible.

@Soraky
Thanks for your input =S. Didn’t realize you had said a lot of things I had just thought of and wrote down lol

@Crunchy gremmin
Fast targeting is not good in my opinion. While you may pull off a spell perhaps .1 seconds faster, you are introducing a very high probability of missing your spell because you misjudged the distance of your AoE circle (its hard to tell where the circle will be on your mouse pointer at different camera angles / slopes / against walls)

I did recall that some top PvP players said to avoid using fast targeting because of this. Its better to learn to increase your actions per minute (APM) and nail that spell perfectly and flawlessly in a short frame of time then possibly risk messing it up.

As to your question to typing while fighting, playing an elementalist tends to give you alot of versatility and leeway even in the heat of battle. Sometimes I’ll have a conversation going on while casting churning earth b/c I don’t need to pan my camera, or talk to someone once I hit a corner and autorun. It just comes down to instincts and playing too many video games :S

@Brainz
The leap finisher from magnetic grasp from what I’ve read on forums is still the same, but the aura generated from fire 4+earth 3 is no longer considered by zephyr’s boon. I’m not relaly sure whether the issues concerning magnetic grasps / dragon’s tooth are actually bugs, or just hidden stealth nerfs.

@ReQuiem /Kuthos
Not really sure how viable this build is now for sPvP (healing ripple reduced to 50% in sPvP is a really big slap in the face for any elementalist). It’s still perfectly fine for Wv3 and PvE, and just a tad bit weaker due to Evasive arcana blast nerfs (meaning less might). I’ll probably work up some other variation to this build later, but evasive arcana is still useful for its dodge roll under water attunement (which helps out survivability)

@Wal
If you do this you have less survivability, but more DPS. All up to you =P

@Zahrim
Stat priority is in defensive stats (mostly toughness + heal power) and a decent amount of vitality (b/w 15 to 20k HP). Offense stats are mostly in power and condition damage.

@Anacrusis
Thats actually a pretty good idea, water 5 is kind of inferior to water 11 anyways. Ether renewal did get buffed to total cast time from 4.75 to 3.5seconds, but I’m not sure if this maintains the same number of extra condition removals as it had previously

Incase anyone wants to know how I feel about the update:

Evasive arcana nerf kills all the fun of playing an elementalist. It brought about a means of rewarding advanced positioning and planning skills, but now the removal of EA has dumbed down the overall skill level for any elementalist, whether staff , d/d, s/d, etc. Anet should focus on making a better input / reward incentive, and this update completely contradicts what playing an elementalist is all about. While I agree that EA was slightly over powered, it should have been nerfed to a 10second CD, or possibly have a reduced effect in conjunction with combination fields. I find it kind of stupid that the mechanic itself was removed, it sets a poor precedent of where this game is heading in the future.

In sPvP, elementalists now seem to be much weaker. The decrease in boon duration for gear, nerf to EA, and nerf to healing ripple hurts the elementalist greatly. There weren’t many viable builds to run in sPvP besides a bunker setup, be it staff or d/d. Staff elementalists were nerf to oblivion, so that only further kitten the input/reward incentive, and discourages teamplay synergy coming from an elementalist.

Anet did have a focus at the beginning of the game to make all classes fairly simply to play, while rewarding advanced players with tactics that gave players an advantage. I feel like the update completely contradicts this notion.

Not sure why they buffed conjured weapon skills, there almost never going to be viable in sPvP besides Icebow regardless of how much you buff it

I haven’t really had much time to play this week either, so thats why I haven’t really responded to posts

general question:

what gear set would you suggest going for while getting the PVT armor? i went with a mix of carrion and cleric armor, since, they both have stats i want. cleric gives me PTH whereas carrion gives me PVC.

Thanks for the info on the start of my trait build. I’m barely lvl 10 right now so its good to know where to place those points early on. Decided since the lvl cap increases at the lost shores for the weekend to give that a shot. Managed to take down a Young karka, barely; it was a fight to the finish with both our lives at the black but I won out. Meh, its a start. Its forcing me to start using my elements more, which I find to be a good thing, being more of a challenge and most important of all – its fun.

P.S.

What would you recommend is a good start in skills to get early on as I progress?

@nvmvoidrays

AC dungeon armor for PVT gear

@plague
I put a update for people leveling in guide

pre-nerf video I uploaded awhile ago

and

an update for an alternative build

Just wanted to say thanks for your guide!
I’ve been using your pre-nerf build for about a week now and I could immediately tell the difference in terms of effectiveness with my Elementalist ;]

Great builds pre and post EA nerf.
I like to play staff besides D/D when I get a Finisher Spamming group or when the boss fight prefers ranged combat.
What traits or utlities would you swap? Renewing Stamina for Blasting Staff? One cantrip for arcane blast?
(I would like to stay in the 10/10/0/30/20 Build)

Ummm actually what combination of runes is better in the new build? 2 runes superior of monk, 2 runes superior of water and 2 runes of divinity

@Oatsan
:]
@Empresso
Walk out of the boss fight and swap weapons =P

@Kronen
Still the same setup is fine for wv3 and spvp. For sPvP, I might change all the boon gear
to divinity’s runes.

Notes: Added a really long wall of text for earth (had to cut off some parts cause it didnt fit in)

Newest videos E.4 and E.5

Walk out of the boss fight and swap weapons =P

@Kronen
Still the same setup is fine for wv3 and spvp. For sPvP, I might change all the boon gear
to divinity’s runes.

Notes: Added a really long wall of text for earth (had to cut off some parts cause it didnt fit in)

Newest videos E.4 and E.5

What kind of gear stats do you recommend while leveling? Taking into account that P/V/T can’t be obtained until 80 and you need a decent gear to grind for the exotics.

From (1 to 34) you can only get one stat,
(35 to 64) there are 2 stats,
(65 to 79) the usual 3 you get from crafting.

What do you recommend on each?
Would berserker even work for Orr grinding with this build?

Sorry if this info is wrong(only been playing for few weeks), but while playing my own D/D elementalist, which is lvl 25 at the moment. i’ve found Glyph of storms quite helpful while leveling, Earth version that is(Sandstorm, it’s the only one i use anyways). As far as i know it applies blind on targets inside it, which is quite helpful for pulling off Churning earth+ring of earth combo. you can kill bunch of melee mobs this way, but of course this has quite limited use with the cooldown.

Great guide! Spent some hours reading all this stuff (as I’m a mainly Staff Ele) and I’ll try it tomorrow. Thankyou, nice guide and great videos! That epic tornado was, indeed, EPIC!

This really deserves its own website

Great work

Hi,

I must say your build is fairly good. I am using it now with some success (missing the divinities and the corruption sceal). Good thing I saw this topic ni time as I was about to leave my elem to rot.

This being said, in your vids, I always get the impression that the guys in front of you at utterly useless. Whenever I get myself in a situation with a couple or 3 guys by myself, I get a good beating and you somehow don’t seem to get damaged that much.
Seriously, on your vids, I hardly see you get CC’ed.

Is it because you pick your vids to make it look like it? Or is there something special you do?

Also, could you post your stats fully geared to see where I stand?

What food do you use?

Thanks again for the guide, it helped me quite a lot.

@Ndran

I recommend going defensive stats, such as toughness, vitality, and healing power.
I don’t really farm, but going defensive is almost always the best way to go. Berserker means u can’t aggro as much though, however. I find that taking on 10+ mobs at once and slowly taking them out is more enjoyable than taking out 1 mob at a faster pace.

@reiska
Yes, glyph of storms under earth attunement constantly blinds all enemies which is useful. I forgot to consider that as a levelling skill, it is fairly useful but has a long CD.

@Wolf
:D

@xiv
I need tog et around doing that lol

@Shiffu
I usually upload the videos that I like the most. Yes, I do die a lot when making these videos. Sometimes its due to fighting a team that seriously knows what there doing (I’ve had some teams just chain CC me to death), or just because I was making mistakes / wasn’t trying hard enough. Also most of the time I go rambo solo into a huge army for fun, so that has a fairly big dent in repair costs. I’ve been taken out by just 2 skilled thieves (they double spammed thieves guild on me though and caught me in open terrain though) before.

There is really a lot of factors determining how well I do against players. It depends on what level they are, how good they are, and what gear they use. It also depends on how well I play (utilizing terrain, jukes, line of sight techniques, timing of skills, etc). I don’t always play like that in my videos, that’s only when I’m seriously trying (I honestly don’t try that hard unless a serious challenge comes my way). Usually when I do get cc’d, I counter it as soon as possible (so you don’t see it last very long). Plus theres all the juking, line of sight, and CC’s that I do that may cause enemy CC’s to miss or fail, so you don’t actually see those connect onto me.

I haven’t logged in for awhile so I don’t know my exact stats at the moment. I usually use mango pies.

@daphoenix
Using your build for some days now, it’s very effective, my PvP got much much better, but I’m having lots of difficult mainly when I get Imobilized or when a warrior/guardian rush at me, KD and riple my organs out with a greatsword. How do you counter this 2 moves?

Also I’ve seen that I’m mainly using my flash to spike with Chunning Earth, and leaving the Cleasing Fire for when times like 5 or 6 conditions on me…. When should I exacly use Armor of Earth? Killing a downed Guardian? Holding the point?

Thankyou.

I don’t know why but I can’t see your build from those links you post… They are blank builds.

@Wolf

I’m not sure how a guardian “rushes” you. I was always under the impression that guardians have lousy burst damage, but hey I might be wrong here.

Immobilization is countered only by condition removal. Swap to water attunement, cast cantrips, cast water 5 to remove it.

As to warrior bull rushers / hundredblade+frenzy spammers, there actually really easy to counter. Just use air3 (shock aura) and it ends this spike instantly, and you can use it while knocked down too. If that doesn’t work, just pop one of your 3 cantrips (think of each cantrip as a lifeline). If none of those work (you should’ve prepared your cantrips better!), well swap to water to heal it off, or pop earth to mitigate damage.

I honestly don’t use armor of earth. I never really needed stability all that much, because I just never give my enemies many openings to attack me. If they fight on my terrain (forestry comes to mind) they will get lucky even pulling off a stun /knockdown/immobilization admist all my hiding behind walls, line of sighting, dodging, and CC’s. Plus most people don’t know when a d/d ele is vulnerable, so they just spam those CC skills without a second thought
Armor of earth is good if you want to hold a point, such as in sPvP. Its also good when your expecting alot of CC’s and stuns too. I personally don’t like armor of earth cause its CD is soo long, and cleansing fire is just way better for WvWvW (lots of enemies = lots of conditions).

@Blackpaw
I named off all my traits in the case the link didn’t work. I named my traits in the page like “water 6” as in the trait in the water tree line with the roman numerals “VI”

What runes / sigils do you recommend for Spvp, cause I found somewhere (probably in one of ur comments) to run with 6 dolyaks and 2x superior force and solider’s amulet , but according to guide under “Armor and Weapons for sPvP” You said it is:
2xwater, 2xdivinity, 2xmonk runes, Celestial amulet with berserker’s jewel and Weapon sigils (10 condition damage per kill) and (3 stacks of might on weapon swap), which set is better?

Does someone tested this build in dungeons? Its especially Arah and Fractals of the Mists (Lv. 15+) which I’m interested in, but I’m not sure if its viable in this dungeons.

It would be great if someone can confirm that this build or D/D in general is viable, otherwise I will stick to my staff build.

Hello!

First of all, DaPhoenix, thanks a lot for your guide! I witness it works very well in both PVE and WvW (I don’t play sPvP).

I would like to propose you to add some gear alternatives to your guide since running AC only for clothes and daggers quickly becomes a real pain (grind).

So:
1. You can buy some pow/vit/tou (PVT) armor with Karma. If I remember correctly three pieces are obtainable that way.
2. Heart of the Waves dungeon has as well PVT daggers. They have a ridiculous and strange look being big and having blades formed of blue ice but still HotW is a nice change to AC.
3. [Not true, see edit.] If we go for boon duration runes once again running HotW we can buy two superior runes of sanctuary two of which give 15 vitality/15% boon duration. We can use these to replace the original Major runes of water hence gaining additional 5% boon duration.

It seems like armor of earth is now working properly. Still not the best trait around.

Thanks once again for your awesome guide, mate. I am anticipating eagerly your next writings

Best wishes,
A happy ele

Edit: My fault with runes. I haven’t really paid attention after seeing that major give +10% boon duration. Sorry!

Two Superior Runes of Sanctuary give 15 vitality / 20% frozen duration, not boon duration.

Zartheon.5874:

Two Superior Runes of Sanctuary give 15 vitality / 20% frozen duration, not boon duration.

He probably meant the Major Runes- 2 for 10% boon Duration

Added 4 pages of fighting techniques

I’m running a variation of this build now, changed out one of the cantrips for frost bow, giving it a run (using cleansing fire and lightning flash for the shorter cds). I also have 15 air (lighting bolt on air switch explained below and 25 water for 2% damage per boon).

Me and another ele run together, I drop bow, bow 5 for ice block, bow 4 them then bow3 at point blank, as the ice ends my friend picks up the second and deep freezes his face into his 16 second burn combo.

Frost bow is also useful for 3 then 4 then 5 then drop into churning earth. And the aoe 4 is great for bursting thieves by standing in the middle of the storm.

Frost bow again is useful for point control, as a guard walks at you start 5 out of range (but in range if you were to teleport) teleport to him (damage pops his aegis) and the bow fires, freezing his face, then bow 3 at point blank, then start your normal keep them out of the ring combo (earth 4, 3, air 5).

Switching attunements still works with the conjures, that’s your might stacking on change (not as well as blast finisher but still ok) and fury from swap. So normally 5, switch, 4, teleport if to far away, switch, 3 for 20% extra crit chance and 3 more might (6 of lucky).

The extra 5 points into air is for this as well, switch to air, gain fury might and lighting them for 1k. I’ve been trying this out, while the extra damage is good, I find that the condition removal is better. However, if you aren’t fighting a necro or condition x, the lighting bolt can be a life saver, also removes aegis, so you can switch then updraft an approaching guardian.

Another good combo I have found is cleansing fire during flame grab if they have condition removed your burning or if you have been too lazy to apply it in the first place. This will boost up your damage but leave you vulnerable to stuns and conditions down the road.

I also like, churning earth teleport into cleansing fire on arrival, switch to fire flame blast for an ultra damage combo leaving you completely defenseless if it fails, but gaining the high ground if it does land.

Was also playing around with arcane 30 points that gives makes your arcane skills do things when in an element in place of evasive. So basically updraft, magnetic grasp, earthquake then churning earth and just as they get up arcane bolt / wave for immobilise. These synergies well as churning earth is in earth, and earth is the imob