Guild Wars 2

For those of us new to the game and the class, could you explain your rotation shorthand?

There is no optimal skill rotation for elementalists. Most of the staffies skills are dependent on the situation. For instance, you don’t need to cast water heals if you don’t need it. You don’t need to cast air5 is its not going do anything against PvE ranged mobs. You don’t need earth 4 against purely ranged mobs, burning retreat if no ones attacking you etcs. Just spam the skills you think feel relevant by going through that attunement rotation.

There is an optimal attunement rotation though in terms of most DPS/CC/support/heals in the shortest time frame(as stated in guide). You don’t necessarily go in this rotation in PvP or WvWvW, where rotations are more important

I’m having problems with the forums today. And the internet, lost 2 long posts

Recap of what I lost.
1: Your on your own for this one, don’t have too much to do with the staff

2: Healing staff combo:
Eruption -> water -> Healing Rain over Eruption -> Water Dodge (end of dodge in the field, no blast finisher but the EA heal) with Arcane Wave during.

3: Field priorities is something that may need to be mentioned / researched more.
When using a blast finisher in a field, your air field will take precedence over your water field, not sure if this happens 100% of the time or if it is random / placement etc. But basically if you need to heal your friends try not to over lap you fields too much.

That sums up what I needed to say, and most of my knowledge of staff eles lol, know a lot more about S/D (beta 1 spike builds) and D/D (the “op” builds pfft).

I love running the D/D build with Zerkers or Knights for extra damage, everyone’s like: your build is op, you can hit me for 5-7k (with fire grab while burning and lots of might) and I can’t hurt you because you are d/d. Try fighting me buddy, you’ll learn that with great power comes next to 0 survivability and with your first 2k damage (zerkers) or 5-6 (knights) I basically stop fighting to even have a chance to survive.

If you hit me for 6k and I don’t have protection and its still looks like less damage then the others, that would be knights, you may now proceed to kill me easily due to no toughness and very little healing power.

daph PM me i’ll pass on my condition build. its pretty good. also note in metoer shower that unless they cannot get to you easily do not use meteor shower. it is a death wish. a channel skill which allow them to get closer to you while you can do nothing.

daphoenix.4283:

Optimizing Rotations
The best attunement rotation is to cycle in order: Air, Water, Earth, then Fire + repeat cycle. This is the order in which you should use your attunements, and you can start at any attunement you want to initiate.

This is not the best way to cycle when your goal is to do a damage spike.

Atomic Sharks.7250:

daph PM me i’ll pass on my condition build. its pretty good. also note in metoer shower that unless they cannot get to you easily do not use meteor shower. it is a death wish. a channel skill which allow them to get closer to you while you can do nothing.

There is no such thing as a good condition build as a staff elementalist.

Also you can use meteor shower perfectly fine in most situations if you rotate through your AE damage spike correctly.

I did copy and paste and still got a blank builder!

(true, never go condition with staff) unless you are building your entire dps around E2 lol.

One question: E3 has a huge CD, how can one keep any sort of permanent aura boon up? Zephyr’s also procs off Air’s Tempest Defense, which has a 90s internal CD

Few additions for you Dapheonix

E4 is also a field. Projectile / whirl finishers etc proc Condition Removal etc.

F5 projectiles all have the ‘max 5 hits’ so it truly is amazing AoE. Scales with hitbox size

Healing is meh for elementalist, and really should never be geared for or your primary role. It just sucks for heals/min compared to the incoming damage/min of the party.

(although tornado can do Healing Bolts for a very long time lol) – Ranger field is better imho

Most of your ‘utility’ will be happening when kitten hits the fan, versus ‘burn phases’

I personally think that keeping a fire field with 90% uptime and focusing on Fire tree is the way to go. The synergy in the traits is perfect, which is not true for most other lines.

Faster Cast + Pyro + Boon duration + extra damage from burning/fire attune/vital strike/bolt to heart.

One could try and be utility as staff, but the dps is subpar. The CDs with non-fire fields is horrendous, and relies on party members to actually combo them. (does help if you have a lot of ranged I guess)

I think there are far friendlier utility ele builds out there (like auramancer) Staff should be the AoE / DD king. Allows to go full glass from the 1200 range and slot utility skills for mitigation.

I’ve seen your videos, I think you sould bind your attacks from 6 to 0 on accessible keys and stop backpedding(using S to go backward) and keyboard turning(using D ans A to rotate).

Only suggestion I have is on your heal rotation, you can use Eruption > Geyser > EA, then Healing Rain > Eruption > EA for three blast finishers and an EA heal-roll. Admittedly, the downside of this is that you’re stuck throwing ice spikes or applying chill for a few seconds while your Earth Attunement recharge comes back, but it’s an option for making the most out of your group-heal cooldowns.

Edit: another suggestion!

If you find yourself at close range, you can switch to Earth Attunement in the middle of Burning Retreat and quickly make an Eruption in your combo field for a blast finisher. Best used, in my opinion, with your back to your target so you can roll through them.

Fun with Eruption! Yay.

Nice read and good advice here. I’m curious though is throwing traits into fire not worth it then? I mean is the Power in the end bad for an Ele? or rather should I say staff Ele. I would think something like power and crit is something looking into? currently I run 0/10/0/30/30 not just for D/D but for well, basically all weapons. I enjoy the support from it but I have been really wanting to switch it up to something like fire/air/water/arc – anywho thanks again for the read. Ciao

I didn’t read the hole thing, I’ll admit that, but i read through the trait part. and i must say that while ArcaneV (elemental attunement) is a great trait and its probably one of the “must have”-traits, there are better traits to be taken in the arcane tree especially as a staffi. like you said, the V, VI , VIII , XI. are the best. so we have 4 different traits to choose between. so here is a few reasoning why i choose other than you:

V ( elemental attunement) : great trait but as i will explain, the other is better.

VI ( renewing stamina) : in the most ele staffs build you have high critchance (40+) and you hit usually quite a few foes, this in combination with 30% extra boon duration should give 100% up time of vigor. which grants us 100% more dodges. V is good, but you cant compete with 100% more dodges. ( note, i’m usually playing higher fractals where a dodge makes a huge different in a lot of situations.) the only reason why V should be taken over VI is because its more supportive. but note its a rather low range ( only 360 or 240) so you have to be reeealy close to others in order to have any good use of it. and if your smart as a staffie you stand 1000-1200 units away from the front-line. and as a egoistic trait the VI is better.

VIII ( staff have bigger aoe): as you said it’s a must have. as a staffie this is good no matter if your going supportive, dps or a mix of them. I’ve tried without it but i quickly changed it back.

XI (evasive arcana): this spell brings more utility than the V trait due to blast finisher and aoe heal and aoe blind.

so it all comes down to if you want the V or the VI trait. and in my mind VI is a clear winner due to the OP-ness of being able to dodge 100% more of the time which have saved me sooooo much more than a few seconds of protection or regeneration.

but that’s my opinion, maybe you have a different view on this choice.

one of my favurite combos is ;

w4 , → earth , e1 inside w4 , dodge into w4 , arcane wave ( , e3)

this will grant you 19 (26) seconds of fury if you have the zefhyr boon. and this with attunement swaping will keep you at permanent fury even without having to switch attunements very often. you could add this as a combo. this is very useful if you have a lot of critdmg as it will increase your dmg output with 10-30% (depending of how much critdmg you have).

Sorry, didn’t read everything that carefully, just wanted ask though if you are running 0/10/0/30/30 none condi build, how do you utilize/combine earth element in the staff build? I rarely swap to it, using the other 3 elements mostly.

Hypno.2649:

One question: E3 has a huge CD, how can one keep any sort of permanent aura boon up?

the adept minor arcane trait (arcane fury) adds 2 seconds of fury on attunement swap, with full boon gear it goes up to 3 seconds, and since most eles are swaping constantly the extra boost from the Air I trait (8/30 seconds with that much boon gear) brings ‘lots of fury’ up to ‘permanent fury’ if you attunement swap 7.333… times in 30 seconds

@daphoenix, i noticed a couple of errors in skill descriptions you gave.

first off
water1’s damage is single target, only the healing is aoe.

water1 and air1’s in-game tool-tips say that they have casting times of 3/4ths of a second, the wiki agrees, though i have not tested this myself.

earth1, you forgot to write about it’s casting time like you did for the other auto attacks (3/4ths of a second according to both the in-game tool-tip and the wiki).

second off
blasting staff is very inconsistent and there are a few things in your descriptions that should be changed to reflect this:

note: i just went through and tested each staff skill that i thought would be affected to make sure (fire1,2,3,5, water1-5, air2,4,5, and earth2).

fire1 has a radius of 90, the tool-tip was incorrect for a long time but has since been updated. it IS affected by blasting staff though the in-game tool-tip doesn’t say so.

fire3, air2, and air4 are all affected by blasting staff but the in-game tool-tips don’t change to reflect this.

fire5 does not appear to be affected by blasting staff. i found a giant mushroom in caledon forest the same width as fire5 without the trait, and then with the trait i keep casting on it and not one meteor has missed the head of the mushroom so far.

and finally

water5 has a minor bug with blasting staff. the white line that is supposed to mark the edge of the rain’s effect does not increase, but the actual radius increases as it’s supposed to (a purely graphical bug).

i also feel it may be worth noting that blasting staff does not increase the size of the green circle used for targeting ground-targeted skills. this applies to fire2, water 2-5, air5, and earth2.

So the ‘perma’ fury = swaps plus one E3 cast per full rotation? (or does something else proc it)

I don’t get WarAxx’s talk of proc’ing Zephyr’s Boon from an Ice Field.

Interesting about F1 & F3 gaining area from Blasting Staff. I concur F5 definitely doesn’t.
Which lead me (when making a max dps Fire build to omit it) Have to be more surgical with Font more than anything. (and I lost 2sec of might duration)

gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmObyR2wjDAkCoEeQADJIe8gFSA;T8Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJqcM5IyxmjLHZOjMOQMXA

Is what I ended up with.
Pyro’s might stacks roughly = your might duration. (testing 6 might runes for 20% boon duration and 5% damage) Sitting over 4k attack and 54% crit self buffed in a fight (I swap a stacking sigil and accuracy one, can hit 59% crit maximum)

Hypno.2649:

So the ‘perma’ fury = swaps plus one E3 cast per full rotation? (or does something else proc it)

I don’t get WarAxx’s talk of proc’ing Zephyr’s Boon from an Ice Field.

i can clarify my combo i mentioned:

first put down water4 infront of you, quickly switch to earth and use earth 2 inside the frost field asap ( if u do it to late you wont get the third proc). then dodge into the frost field, ( if you have the evasive arcane witch most eles have you will have a combofinisher in earth dodge). and once you’ve dodged into the frost field you may proceed to use your arcane blast ( which also is a very popular skill due to the fact its a combo finisher)

(basically its 3 combofinishers in 1 frost field. giving us 3 frost auras)

a few notes; firstly the zephyrs boons proc will “wait” for a while, if u make all combo finishers go off at the same time, then additional fury/swiftness will be added after 3 and 6 sec because that’s how long the auras last. ( the auras will stack on each other and wont activate until the previous frost aura have worn out), try it out and you’ll understand.

secondly, the auras applied this way will count as a “shared aura” thus it will also grant fury and swiftness to allies that is in the blast area ( with the trait). however, if you are in the blast area and you are within 400 units of an ally which is not in the blast area he will not receive the aura. it’s only the blast finisher that can give the aura and its buffs.

and please, it’s Waraxx

hope it clarified.

Water XI plus Healing Rain (Staff water #5) is an AoE condition cleansing machine. It grants regeneration 3 times during its duration.

Water VIII water proc works, but procs before fall damage is applied. So, unless you’re in combat and already injured you won’t receive healing.

Physical projectile attacks can exceed their listed range. Staff fire #1 can reach further than 1,500 range.

I see this guide as more of a loophole for D/D Eles who switch to staff in certain situations supportish even.
It might work but there are far superior staff builds out there.

Reldin.3217:

I see this guide as more of a loophole for D/D Eles who switch to staff in certain situations supportish even.
It might work but there are far superior staff builds out there.

and yet you don’t seem to have a better build because you don’t state why the guide is more of a loophole for d/d ele, nor do you link or make a quick example of a “better” staff build. as a dungeon experienced staffi this guide is pretty much what i’ve concluded aswell part from a few small details which i disagree with.

I personally feel that 20 in fire for the reduced weapon skills is a must for Staff elementalist

@Everyones suggestions
I read the suggestions you guys made, and put them into the guide / looked deeper into those subjects. Also put credit for most of them too =]

@Strife
I feel as if backpedaling is needed in certain instances, you can’t go ignore bind a backpedal key, it serves a purpose. Yes backpedalling is less efficient than strafe casting.

jinxy.8457:

I personally feel that 20 in fire for the reduced weapon skills is a must for Staff elementalist

i used to think this aswell actually. and yes it is a very strong trait because mainly when we deal dmg we use fire and its spells. but i have to disagree.however, this is from a dungeon perspective so if you talk about wvw then i might agree with you as you normally just stick with fire when you are playing staff ele in wvw. but then again when i’m playing ele in wvw i roll d/d.

lets break it down, fire have no other type of spells other than dmg. well, ok, it have a dodge but a 20% cd reduction wont make it much more reliable. and an elementalist usually find himself in 2 different types of modes we are either in dps mode or in utility mode. a typical dps mode encounter is the snowblind fractals last boss. the boss is super easy and we really just want do as much dmg as we can so we can have it all over with asap. in these types of scenarios the 20% cd reduction is a nice trait, but note its not needed its just a nice bonus.

in the utility mode we usually switch between the elements like crazy. water 3,5 for healing, water4 for chill , earth 4,5 for cc, earth 3 for projectile reflection, earth storm for blinds, lightning2 for a blind and lightning5 for a aoe cc and fire so we can deal dmg ( we need dmg to kill them, right?). so in the typical utility mode situation we only go into fire to get down 1 autoattack, fire2 and dodge if needed followed by lava , meteor ( and maybe lava again) and then into another attunement so we then can continue with whatever the situation need. so the fire 2,3,4 will most likely be off cd once you enter the fire attunement again. thus the cd reduction is useless because we don’t have any cd on them anyway. the only thing that really gain on the 20% cd reduction is the meteor shower. witch is a initiation spell in most cases because either the encounter is allready over (or soon to be) or it is to risky to stand still for the 4 sec that’s needed to get the full effect. so very rarely do u actually gt to use of the 20% cd reduction.

in my opinion the water 20% cd reduction is better than most water traits because it lets me use my combo ( as i described before) 20% more often, meaning my group have 20% more fury uptime. witch in its turn gives us more overall dps. not to mention that almost all of the water spells have long cd. i use the 20% cd on water spells in my build atm. and you might wonder why i’m not using the extra dmg while over 90% hp.

simple logic; when a fight is difficult i need as good traits that i can possibly give myself .and during a hard fight i will be below 90% of hp for 50% of the time at least.
when fights are easy i wont need any traits, i would have made it anyway so the extra dmg just makes it somewhat faster. and for me its more about being able to succeed in a hard fight rather than how fast i can succeed at easier fights. that’s why i’m playing fractals and not AC.

also it takes 20 into fire to get the cd red. i don’t know what to sacrifice… :S i wont sacrifice anything in arcana as they are all to good ( 100% more dodges , bigger aoe with staff , evasive arcana) i need 15 in water to get the heal on atunement swap witch is really good and have saved me many times. and i need 10 in air for zephyr’s boon witch is the best dmg trait in our trait book. so that leave me with 15. witch isn’t enough.

Thanks! Always assumed that aura combos required leap finishers. Something to add to my play then This might allow me to move some Air points out! Not crazy about any Air GM traits. .. although I love the 91% crit damage I have now :/

The (Air 25) vulnerability on crit is ok, but very short lived … quite nice when FB/Font and Meteors crit at same time and stack up.

I know the deeper into Fire you go, the more it requires you to stay in Fire. And yes … it typically makes an elementalist feel like 1/4 of their former self. :p

There is no denying that it is the only dps attunement we have as staff, so I guess a lot of it depends on your party setup.

With a good team (and in WvW of course) the max dps build really shines, albeit it is over simplified playstyle. And always best to start out of Fire as to generate a field or 2 before you go into ‘full burn mode’ and generate your Pyro might stacks.

Oh and man does it make one elite skill SHINE! Fiery Greatsword of Doooooooom. Can have 50%+ uptime if you grab your second sword before it despawns (and no one else nabs it)

the fire build link doesn’t working, at least for me

daphoenix.4283:

30/30/0/10/0
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmObyR2wjDAkCoEeQADJIe8gFSA;T8Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJqcM5IyxmjLHZOjMOQMXA
(This is a pure fire type setup, only recommended for PvE (Hypno.2649))

Here’s a shortened hyperlink:

http://goo.gl/QmYuw

Or copy and paste the long one directly into the address bar. Not sure why it breaks sometimes :/

Pretty well the most damage you can squeeze out of an elemental build lol.

Air XI could be swapped for XII depending on party (or if you need defense in WvW)
Utility #9 Slot I swap a lot. Signet Air/Fire, Glyph of Storms, Arcane Blast.
Mist is semi-optional depending on what boss I am on.

When I list all that I gained from dumping 20 Arcane into Air, from what I lost (as a Fire spec elementalist) … it really was pretty one-sided. TBH its the first time I have had 0 Arcane since I rolled this Elementalist.

someone from anet confirmed semi-colons ; break links and that they are having more trouble fixing it than you’d think for such a seemingly minor issue

I roll with the standard old Staff Cantrip build.

1. I use full Berserker gear top to bottom every piece and even have Rubies slotted. This still gives me a 41% chance to crit and 70% critical damage. My total attack is 3315. While I’m certainly not blowing up the damage world like a 30/30/0/10/0 is the added utility listed below is pretty noticeable and nice.

2. You may be worried about defense, but Cantrips in this build offer a ridiculous amount of defense to your character. For one every time you use one you gain 3 stacks of might, regeneration (removes Condition), and Vigor. This makes all your utility such as Lightning Flash into self heals or damage increases on demand. Cleansing Flame alone removes 4 condition types because whenever you do Regeneration you remove a Condition. All listed Cantrips remove stun as well. If you get in tune with the character play style, it’s pretty hard to die.

3. You also bring a fair share of support to the table. Healing Rain becomes massive AOE condition removal and heals for all allies that enter it. You can still do the standard Eruption -> Geyser combo except when you swap to water you will grant Regeneration to everyone nearby clearing a condition as well as heal with Healing Ripple. Without healing gear the heals will be fairly lack luster there’s no 2 ways about it but that’s fine.

4. The Bigger staff area attacks catch a lot of people off guard in PvP cause they are used to the smaller more powerful ones in the 30/30/0/10/0 glass cannon build. They also help out in PvE for more tags on targets during events.

5. Permanent Swiftness can be obtained one of two ways: Give up a Cantrip for Signet of Air or maintain a rotation of (start in Attune to Water): Attune to Air (6s) -> Glyph (12s) -> Windborne Speed (12s) -> Attune to Water (repeat). If you do all that at once the duration stacks to 30s total which Windborne will reset by then.

Best part of all about this build is it doubles as a second build with same stat distribution for Conjured weapons.

All you need to do is swap around a few trait selections like this.

1. Now you have Lightning Hammer. Lightning Hammer is incredibly strong because it’s base attack is 0.5 so it blinds targets in a MASSIVE AOE every 1.5 seconds. That’s roughly the same average attack speed of most mobs. This means using this build you can literally charge into 4-5 mobs and never take damage once you get the blind off on them all. Watch out when fighting Dredge as they are immune to blind!

2. The damage is pretty kitten good but don’t waste your time with a lot of the other moves. The only other one I use is static field cause it can help if you’re getting overwhelmed or the mobs got out of your blind cycle.

3. With 25 charges you should be able to keep your two hammers rotated withing Lightning Hammer’s cool down. Worst case scenario is someone will come up and take your other hammer. You gotta just get used to it cause it’s going to happen all the time. Usually if I am going to clear out an area I place the second hammer where I think I am going to be not where I am fighting currently so I don’t have to go back for it.

4. Firery Greatsword. This thing is monstrous and quite honestly you can do crazy stuff with it because it does a stupid amount of damage for very little charge cost with Flame Wave (1). The fact you get a cripple in it that also dashes you through targets means it’s a kiting machine while providing good AOE burning as well. If you drop it in a populated area, expect everyone to take it. I’ve kited numerous Veteran mobs with this thing out and won handily.

5. Still got all your cantrip power at your finger tips for healing, survival, and power. Lightning Flash will provide you good manueverability when you need to get in and out of situations. Cleansing Flame is your ultimate Condition remover.

6. Perma 25% runspeed comes into question a bit more here but I tend to run around with a Signet, then swap to Conjure Hammer when I am at the area where I’ll be fighting.

7. You get to wield a Hammer made out of Lightning. Cool Factor +10. The screen shot shows it all. Come at me bro.

covenn.7165:

Atomic Sharks.7250:

daph PM me i’ll pass on my condition build. its pretty good. also note in metoer shower that unless they cannot get to you easily do not use meteor shower. it is a death wish. a channel skill which allow them to get closer to you while you can do nothing.

There is no such thing as a good condition build as a staff elementalist.

Also you can use meteor shower perfectly fine in most situations if you rotate through your AE damage spike correctly.

uh yes their is i’ve experimented with it and its pretty decent

Daphoenix,

Thanks for this guide, I just started using staff lately in wvw because my guild is actually able to man 2 full groups every once in a while now.. and I’m really enjoying it. I’m not really bored of D/D, as I’ve still got alot to learn, but Ive been wanting to try something new. Just wanted to say thanks for putting this together.

I ran with full berserker gear and traits (30 to first 2 trait lines) as a Staff
and loved it. The absolute KEY is map awareness. Knowing where to be
and where not to be is essential in survival. The problem is, if there is a smart
thief, he will come to the back lines and drop you.

I have been toying with the same staff setup as Im trying now with a scepter/dagger,
and thats using the same gear and traits as my d/d bunker build. Its hard
giving up 6000 potential crits though on Meteor Shower and Ice Spike.

Few things I found out in a month of playing that build:

1) You highest potential aoe damage is Ice Spike, even more so if you take
the water trait Piercing Shards (20% more damage after the first one).
To clarify, it spikes higher damage than Meteor Shower on a target.

2) Lighting Flash is awesome when defending a keep. Cast Arcane Shield on
yourself, or Magnetic Aura, switch to fire and step up to ramparts and
start casting Meteor Shower. Immediately use Lightning Flash to get away
from the edge. This prevents anyone from pulling you down. Also, even if
you flash beyond your normal casting range, the MS will finish casting.

3) Chain Lightning auto attack was my most used ability, especially in zerg
fights where things die so fast. Automatically tag 3 targets, and it hits
for over 2k each strike when max zerker.

There’s 1 skill missing on your list: Glyph of Elemental Power. When cast in Water or Earth, it basically gives your spells a chance to snare your foe. It’s got a fairly decent uptime (especially if you pick cripple), and by constantly snaring your opponents, you make them more susceptible to getting hit again (rinse, repeat). As an added bonus, it’ll help you kite.

Also, it can make your Meteor Shower snare those hit by hit…that’s pretty neat.

this is all interesting stuff but isn’t the main focus of a staff build is AoE (damage, heals, control). Its probably the least used build compared to the other two and now Anet are going to nerf AoE.

I think people will be hanging up their staves for the D/D build. We are being almost forced to use one build only to remain competitive.

What I hate most about staff is all the delay on all the core damage abilities – earth 2, fire 2, water 2. It makes staff not viable for 1v1 and pidgeonholes staff into AOE/support.

There really ought to be a trait that eliminates or reduces the explosion/damage delay on some or all of them.

Great discussion we’re having here! Keep going guys.

Here’s a nice tip for WvW killing: Use Earth 2 to distract your enemy > Earth 5 to lock him > Air 5 to make him go crazy > drop fire skills. This is also usefull when he missteped inside one of your Meteor Shower recently droped =P.

PS: Anet NEVER said that they were going to nerf AoE, they said that they were looking at it.

Hey guys, what do you think of a build like this? For WvW mostly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmcbtx5gjDAEFm4y4RIeQSRxM7A

I kinda like the passive 25% running speed increase from Air Signet. Or is it not as good as I think it is?

What are the better options to run faster other than putting 10 points into Air? Or should I get used to normal speed and not spec so deep into Earth?

Thanks!

Just want to post my build. This build works really good in both sPVP and PVE. You might be a bit squishy at first but try it out and you will soon learn how to use it and staying alive.

sPVP Build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VlZ;1J0BJ-U0y47N-Z0;9;49T-EE5;059B;15;04;0S;2o0-Ewk2Ewk25BI

It´s a 10/30/0/15/15 build This build above is the one I use for sPVP for PVE i slightly change the trais but nothing major.

PVE Build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VlZ;1J0BJ-U0v47N-Z0;9;49T-EE5;0594;15;04;0S;2o0-Ewk2Ewk25BZ

Also switched utility spot #2

Great Guide.
@daphoenix: What kind of armor and trinkets do you use for your staffy?

kythor.7650:

Hey guys, what do you think of a build like this? For WvW mostly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmcbtx5gjDAEFm4y4RIeQSRxM7A

I kinda like the passive 25% running speed increase from Air Signet. Or is it not as good as I think it is?

What are the better options to run faster other than putting 10 points into Air? Or should I get used to normal speed and not spec so deep into Earth?

Thanks!

Personally, I would not trait the way you did. To answer your question about the
Signet of Air, I took a stopwatch in Lions Arch and timed my run between two
points under two scenarios 1) Signet of Air at 25% and 2) Swiftness buff at 33%.
The difference in speed is not discernible to the naked eye, and in terms of the
time between points it was very similar.

I tried something new last night with my staff build, and it was running with
Fiery Greatsword instead of the Glyph of Elementals as my elite. This was the
first time I ever looked at it, since it seemed better for bunker builds. I did
discover another use for it though, especially with staff build: More means of
escaping. The skills 4 and 5 are good escape tools, especially combined with
Lightning Flash.

Atomic Sharks.7250:

covenn.7165:

Atomic Sharks.7250:

daph PM me i’ll pass on my condition build. its pretty good. also note in metoer shower that unless they cannot get to you easily do not use meteor shower. it is a death wish. a channel skill which allow them to get closer to you while you can do nothing.

There is no such thing as a good condition build as a staff elementalist.

Also you can use meteor shower perfectly fine in most situations if you rotate through your AE damage spike correctly.

uh yes their is i’ve experimented with it and its pretty decent

No there isn’t. However, I will be happy to listen to you explain how you both keep enough conditions on enough people reliably to warrant doing that instead of one of the many methods of increasing front load damage.

You can keep burning on targets consistently if you trait to do so. We can get into a whole separate discussion as to why that in of itself may gimp you overall. I really hope you aren’t relying on keeping bleed stacks on people either. Eruption puts 6 on target, but due to attunement cycling and/or cool down, you cannot consistently keep the stacks on people without gimping yourself by staying in earth. Shockwave’s bleed isn’t even worth bringing up.

But yeah, explain how throwing points into condition damage for a burn + a couple of bleeds once in a while, all back load is worth more than hitting harder all the time, front load.

@Waraxx

I had a hard time reading that comment :S. Not sure what you meant by

“in my opinion the water 20% cd reduction is better than most water traits because it lets me use my combo ( as i described before) 20% more often, meaning my group have 20% more fury uptime. "

There’s no water skill that grants fury, unless you consider earth2+water4+air I trait

@Hypno

You could definitely use FGS (fiery greatsword elite) :P. Staffs single targeting dps is kinda meh, so FGS is definitely useful.

I’m not a big fan of Fire XII trait (10seconds of 1 stack of might per fire spell cast) even if your on fire the entire time. Auto attack spells from fire 1 are kinda slow, so I’m not sure about it. I think the most stacks of might by purely using this with full boon duration (30 arcana+boon duration armor) was like 16-17 stacks of might. Note that I can get 22ish stacks of might using d/d easily. I get 9 stacks of might pretty easy with sigil of battle (3might stacks per weapon/attunement swap), plus an additional 3 stacks from just using earth blast finishers on staff per 10seconds for a total of 12 stacks of might. You really don’t get that much more from going to a pure DPS fire build imo (12 stacks of might vs 17 stacks of might).

Also I think air>fire if you want to get more DPS overall. Critical damage is not really that easy to come by, so I think you benefit more from using those traits.

Were you implying that spells from FGS also proc on the Fire XII trait too? Or maybe if your in fire attunement casting it?

Do you prefer a 30/30/0/10/0 setup or a 0/x/0/x/x setup?
I think that 0/25/0/25/20 would be less favorable in terms of DPS but offset that with much more utility and be more useful overall.

@Kodiak

1. I definitely agree that if you want to go raw DPS on a staff, rubies is definitely the way to go. 20+power +2% crit damage +10 precision at a fraction of the cost of divinity’s runes. Berzerkers is also good too

2. It all depends in what situation your in. In Wv3, I like running 3 cantrips too. PvE is more predictable, and icebow tends to shine much more so I always take conjured icebow.

3-4. I agree with those statements

5. I forgot to mention glyph of elemental harmony for perma swiftness :p

1. I didn’t even realize that conjured lightning hammer did AoE blinds lol :P , or the fact that you picked 20 fire just so you have the option to get +10 more charges for FGS and conjured hammer. I will put that into the build list sections =]

@atomic sharks
Could you link it here? I can’t see staff being a good condition damage either, but I might be wrong until I test it out.

@Rhoto
:D

@Thunderbrew
Your getting 6000 damage crits on meteor shower?!?! I haven’t tested full berzerkers 30/30/0/10/0 yet so I can’t say much. All I know is that my crits on meteor showers are usually 2-3k=p

2. I do that all the time, minus the arcane shield since 3 hits against a mob doesn’t last long.
You can always try something I call “air casting” which is based off of “air dodging” from my original d/d thread.

Instead of pressing jump followed by dodge to do an “air dodge”, you can actually do “air casts”, Just swap the original dodge to your skill you want to use.

Advantages of aircasting are the following:
You get a clear line of sight to your target so that you can initiate casting your AoE, and then be behind cover in the duration of your jump. This effectively prevents you from getting hit alot defending a castle from single targeting spells.

You can use something like D/D’s churning earth and channel its ability in midair / jumping off a cliff and have it hit finish casting the moment you hit the ground.

Aircasting is done by pressing jump+using your skill in a very short time frame after jumping. Imagine doing air dodging except your using a skill instead of dodging.

3. I think chain lightning is great too as an overall auto attack ability. IIRC if your first target blocks/evades the attack, all 3 of your attacks are negated.

@Thibash
I thought about glyph of elemental power until I realized its a 5 second internal CD
edit: nvm I didn’t realize that the 5 second internal CD is counted for each target. Sounds pretty useful for a condition damage setup

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Power

@wolf

That seems too easy to dodge

@anadur
No idea why you chose those traits. Air30 doesn’t really serve a purpose o.O. Also you don’t usually channel the meteor shower under fire attunemment

@Kythor

A lot of people originally thought of using 0/0/30/20/20 setupts because of written in stone, but there are a couple of downfalls to it.

The only good signet really is “Signet of restoration”. Signet of air is inferior since movement speed bonuses don’t stack with swiftness. Also the active ability of the signets have a long CD, making it less useful. The only other good signet imo is signet of earth, immobilization is incredibly useful for S/D setups. Signet of Fire is okay, you can get access to burning anywhere and it only adds a measly 4% crit chance bonus.

@Got E
I use knights and clerics accessories, karka shell, and ascended backpiece.

Daphoenix indeed I have seen over 6k crits on MS and Ice Spike.
Traited 30-30 in first 2 trait lines, and the last 10 anywhere you
want. Note: Ive tested Vital Striking in Water and it adds 10% to
damage, but only way you can stay undamaged is keep defense.

Full berserk gear with rubies, along with accessories and weapons.
Eat Minotaur Steaks! They lasts an hour, and give 60 precision
and 6% crit damage. My bonus to crit damage with that food is 102.

You can test this full GC build on the heavy target dummies in the
mist, but you wont see as high as numbers as in WvW since the
highest crit damage I get in mists is 58% but its 102% in WvW with my
gear. You will definitely see over 6k hits (but of course not commonly). This may
be due to GC builds in WvW, or just low level players, but you will still
see it. If I played around more on the gear available in the mists, Im sure
I could get closer to the stats I have outside of it, but dont bother. Ill try
to get screenshots tomorrow night in WvW if I run the staff build.

Also, compare it to Ice Spike, and you will see bigger crits with that
over MS. Even more so if you take Piercing shards.

Im still going back and forth on staff, d/d and s/d for WvW and I guess the
answer is mix them all in if anything. I really enjoyed GC staff with high
map awareness, but in large battles good thief will drop you every time.
D/D is fun but I dont prefer to be in melee all the time, and S/D is what Ive
been trying lately, but its damage options are minimal.

Wouldn’t it be better overall for you to drop some of the pure glass cannon for extra health pool at least to survive someone using a gap closer and three shotting you? I do it all the time to glass cannon staff eles in the back line because I know they can wreck people if left alone, and they are quick easy kills.

For example, I do have a dps set. It has some toughness in it and enough vit to push me up to 20k. With my food and stacks, I am sitting at 81% crit damage with 53% base crit (not including fury). I can still hit like a freight train, but I can stay a little less mobile in regards to required positioning for safety and moving out of damage. It also stops people with stealth or gap closers from owning me before I can really respond.

For the Fire > Earth cycle, you may want to add Burning Retreat (F4) + Eruption (E2) + Evasive Arcana earth dodge = 6 stacks of might.

Air 1 is also useful if there’s a mix of hidden and visible enemies because it’ll chain hit invisible folk, too.

30 Air is great becaus you can get several nice things from it. First of the 300 precision to help you crit more, then you have 30% critical damage, I played around whit a 30/30/0/0/10 build and from what I experienced you dont lose to much damage compared to my 10/30/0/15/15 build. This build is made mostly for damage but whit a little twist.
Then we got the traits and here we have the mandatory VI (Blot to the heart) That kicks upp your damage by 20% when enemy is below 33% health. This will help you finish of your foes quicker. Secondly I choosed X (Air training) this will boost you DPS when you hit Air atunment the Elextric discharge can hit really hard and be a lifesavior when you switch to Air. But where it Really shine is when you combine it whit XII (Grounded) and you stunn you foe whit #5 and then hit them whit #2. I got crits above 5000 damage this way. This is what I use mostly, when i do pvp and want to be more supportive I switch out the XII for V (Soothing winds)
so upp my healing a bit.

You dont use Meteor under Fire? That the thing use it! Hit #2 then#3 then Meteor #5. When its doen casted #2
and #3 is upp again so you can dish out them before switching to next atunment. Or when you want to stort fight whit #5 the extra damage is really nice having crits above 4500-5000k.
———————————-
While am at it I can explain the other traist aswell. the 15 in water are for 2 things. First you have the 10% more damage while ocer 90% health, hey we love damage!. Secondly we have the extra healing it provide both to you and you team mates. Saved me manny times.

15 Points in to Arcane, well do I need to explain this? I used to run 20 points in to arcane but the VIII (blasting staff) was not required after I practiced whitout it. I feel I can still hit my targets and doing fine whitout it.

If you have any questions, pleas I´m more then happy to answer them.

Kaleden.9386:

For the Fire > Earth cycle, you may want to add Burning Retreat (F4) + Eruption (E2) + Evasive Arcana earth dodge = 6 stacks of might.

Air 1 is also useful if there’s a mix of hidden and visible enemies because it’ll chain hit invisible folk, too.

The air auto attack will hit stealthed people off a bounce?

daphoenix.4283:

@Waraxx

I had a hard time reading that comment :S. Not sure what you meant by

“in my opinion the water 20% cd reduction is better than most water traits because it lets me use my combo ( as i described before) 20% more often, meaning my group have 20% more fury uptime. "

There’s no water skill that grants fury, unless you consider earth2+water4+air I trait

no there isn’t a water spell that give direct fury. the thing I meant was like you said the blast finish from the frost field in combination with air1 trait.

and why would lowering the cd in water give me 20% more fury uptime? well to be fair it isn’t 20 its more like 15%.
why? because if i use erupt + earth dodge + arcane wave in the frost field i get 3 frost auras. ( in the combo i previously mention and that you so kindly included in your guide) but this combo can only be done once the water4 spell is off of cool down (40sec). and then i usually try and do the combo asap.I tend to prepare for the combo 5-7 seconds before the water spell come off cd by making sure earth is available to me once i use the frost field and i save arcane wave specifically for this combo. andby reducing the cd by 20% on this ability i get to use the combo 20% more, meaning that i get 3 out of my 4 auras 20% more often. thus giving me and my party 15% more overall fury.

hope it clarified.

@daphoenix

Why do you use knights + clerics? Because of the benefits for water attunment?

What kind of Staff do you use and what Sigill?
What kind of Rune do you use?
And why do you use them?

Iam kinda new to elementalist and at first i thought it is kinda boring. But than I found this thread and it looks amazing. So much depth.

My human staff ele uses Avatar of Melandru in WvW.

You get a 10s water field that heals for 3500-4000 and 1200 range AoE grasping roots (immobilize + damage) that last for 20 seconds (or until destroyed). How is that not one of the best abilities in the game for WvW? The AoE condition removal and protection abilities are not bad either.

What do you think is the best weapon sigil to use with a staff once you’ve built up 25 stacks of bloodlust/precision; battle, force or fire?

Got E.9432:

@daphoenix

Why do you use knights + clerics? Because of the benefits for water attunment?

What kind of Staff do you use and what Sigill?
What kind of Rune do you use?
And why do you use them?

Iam kinda new to elementalist and at first i thought it is kinda boring. But than I found this thread and it looks amazing. So much depth.

i have 400+ h logged on my ele so think i can help you with those questions

What kind of Staff do you use and what Sigill?
well depending on what stat you want you pick the staff, if you are unsure just pick the same stats as your gear. for the sigil, going with sigil of accuracy is good (if you are on a crit build) otherwise i’d say go with sigil of battle as it’s a pretty solid choice and the most used i think. i use the battle because with my boon duration ( 30 in arcana) i get 3 stacks of might every 9-11seconds for 26 seconds. meaning i will almost at all of the time have 6+ stacks of might on me.

What kind of Rune do you use?
i use divinity because as a ele you gain from every stat. and you lose almost no dmg compared with if you’d go with any other more dps-oriented rune. it’s very expensive but it is the best rune for a elementalists. if you can’t afford it, going with a cheaper rune is absolutely viable but this is the rune you should aim for. boonduration runes is the second best of a choice because you have a lot of boons that you grant both to yourself and to your allies. this is for more support elementalists. or you can go with a mix of them both.

and i think i covered why i choose the different runes/sigils.

and even though i have 400h+ logged in my elementalist i still learn about more combos/ viable builds and other things.