Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I’m a wealthy, sophisticated WvW player(lol), and I’d like to try my hand at roaming as a D/D Ele. But as any sophisticated WvW player, I don’t want to wait!! The time gate for Celestial gear is kind of insane, is there any other ways to build a D/D Ele without Celestial gear? I have 1 Ascended Celestial ring that dropped in WvW and that’s it!

My questions are:
- What stats from Cele gear can you do without? Is the healing power super beneficial for signet? The condi damage for burning? What stats can be dropped so that I’m not wearing 3-4 different prefixes of gear?

- For a novice, what’s a typical “rotation” look like? What are my offensive and defensive “rotations” or attunement dances if you will?

- Is not having any Cele the dumbest idea ever? Will I still be able to compete in a roaming environment or is it completely suboptimal? Will an actual Cele Ele eat my face?

- Does a Cele Ele’s innate defenses come from the stats of the gear or the traits they choose/abilities they use?

That’s all the questions I can think of starting out, if this discussion isn’t even possible because all stats are needed to make it optimal then I suppose I’m stuck in the time gate. But I have seen some people take Zerker trinkets combined with Cele armor etc, so I’m curious if this build can be “optimal” with NO Celestial gear, and if so, what stat prefixes?

Here’s to hoping I can play D/D in WvW this afternoon after work, thanks guys!!

I guess you are talking about the “meta” D/D Cele Elementalist and its Water/Arcana/Cantrip setup.
Your main “protection” comes from the Water traits + Cantrips and not really from running Celestial gear, so mixing WvW armour (Soldier) and Knight’s trinkets (+ perhaps Beserker’s weapons) will give you gear quickly without the time-gate on making Celestial stuff.

What Cele gear does, is giving you a “Swiss army knife” while roaming alone when you rotation based primarily on Power/dps gets screwed up a bit (bad aggro of NPCs, sudden enemy jumping on you etc.) A bit more vitality and healing gives you time to react before getting downed, a bit more Condi damage makes your burns way more damaging.

In duelling other Eles, (not counting player skill) it is usually the Cantrip/Trait synergy of offensive & defensive properties that will make you win over Signet, Arcana or Glyph builds, because the later ones are not on par with what Cantrips/Trait synergy does.

So would I take Ether Renewal over Signet of Regen? Or is Signet a staple of D/D builds? If someone would be so kind as to post a WvW build using non-celestial gear, or outline some key stat thresholds I should aim for (i.e: 18k hp, 2300 toughness, 2200 power, 35% crit, 210% crit damage, etc), that would be awesome! I’m also not too sure what to take as far as traits, would nom-celestial gear change them I’m any way?

Signet typically works better because of the fast dagger attacks, but Ether Renewal gives you more condition cleanse.

The meta celestial build is mostly for PvP where amulet choices are limited. You simply get the most value out of celestial amulet as an elementalist.

Not the case in WvW. You are better off doing a mix of like Soldiers and Beserkers or any other combination of power/toughness/vitality and precision gear.

So what I’m getting from these responses is:

- Cele is not needed, good news for me!
- Soldiers/Knights/Zerk would be the way to build it without Celestial. Which means power/crit/survivability are the most important aspects.
- Without the extra healing power from Celestial(which adds ~50 healing per attack to signet), it may be worth taking Ether Renewal.
- I read somewhere that you need 1500-1700 condition damage for any considerable increase in condI ticks, which means condi damage you get from Celestial is meh, and thus don’t need any form of condi damage or duration. (Nothing was spoken of about this in this thread but I can start to see which stats I can get rid of from the Celestial bundle).

I have a few questions still, which trait lines are the most important? Can anyone list any sort of rotations for burst/defensive rotation for when getting bursted down?

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/Dagger
Trait lines:
Arcane: Renewing Stamina – Final Shielding (because I like the auto-defence, when something like a unseen attack happens from a Thief or a siege shot) – Evasive Arcana

Metabattle has a section on rotations too

Thanks! I didn’t look at metabattle because it was all Celestial and not updated very often, plus I’ve never seen this in depth of a guide, thanks for sharing! I’ll piece together a build when I get home. Should I shoot for 40ish% crit most likely and probably 2500+ power? How much armor is reasonable and what’s a health pool that you guys feel comfortable with?

WvW is working different than PvP and has more different types of Roamers. First of all, don’t build somehting like 2700+ armor or 2500 power as base stats! Never! Such stats are overkill. You are squishy (die fast) or tanky (kill nothing) as kitten.

Cele has the best mix what DD ele needs in WvW. Condi dmg is strong, heal is needed and power you get from Might and Lord stacks. With that you will get your buffed 2,5k power.
Makes sure that your fero, condi and healing power stats are ~350 (without cele gear), and then build up with bersi/knight/soldier stuff.
Begin with accessiore then armor gear.
example build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMozhVOwwB8RM0AY0RoG8DkCQAIGWZhrwUA-TlTEABEYCpUlgvoGAK7PwiKIAYiAIlIro6REPAgAMBBiegsUeUkSIHOBABAQA4m38mBA-w