Guild Wars 2

Hi, i hit 80 on my main ele a while ago and i really never paid much attention on my build so i just picked traits the way it felt right to me.
I ended up with 30/30/5/5/0, full berserker armor and a staff.
Could someone tell me what would be the best trait combo that would work with my zerker gear and a staff? Pointing me to some guide would also be appreciated.
I’m also thinking to buy one of those ascended items with laurels. What stats should i look for there?

zerker is the way to go and if you’re already used to its playstyle then even better.

pick traits the way you want, but to me 15 in water and 10 in arcana are mandatory, no matter which trait combo you’re doing.

personally I use 0/20/0/20/30, full berserker (arcane shield, wave, and mistform)

ZERKER IS WASTE.
In armor and weapons 1% critical chance is counted as around 11-14stat points. Comparing to jewel, 1% critical chance = 5stat points.

Therefore, to get more out of almost every proffession, people shouldn’t be using any other berserker parts than jewel/orbs/runes.

Lert.6287:

ZERKER IS WASTE.
In armor and weapons 1% critical chance is counted as around 11-14stat points. Comparing to jewel, 1% critical chance = 5stat points.

Therefore, to get more out of almost every proffession, people shouldn’t be using any other berserker parts than jewel/orbs/runes.

Do you think that 1k-2k more health is so much better?

In order to use your critical damage successfully, you need to stack dat precision, and every single bit counts.

I see where you’re getting at though, you made me consider the possibility of using valkyrie armors.

You should rather pick knight instead of valkirie.
In my opinion: Critical chance > critical damage.
What I noticed is 95% players don’t know kitten about criticals. Let me lighten you: If your critical damage is at 0% and critical chance at 50%, it means every second hit will do 150% damage instead of 100% (non-critical). In other words, the basic critical damage (with critical damge 0%) is 150% of normal attack.

Since I’m rather WvW player in survivality it all matters. There is such huge gap between tank and cannon ele. As example I can drop thief against one: Tanky will most likely out-heal damage yet still dealing damage to thief. But thief will take down cannon ele in seconds.

For PvE/Exp it’s ofc better to boost your attacks since staying alive there and in most dungeons isn’t problem, but from experience on WvW and sPvP it’s huge difference.

You are the one who doesn’t seem to realize how much of a difference crit damage makes.

1000 base damage
1500 critical hit with 0% crit damage
2000 critical hit with 50% crit damage
2500 critical hit with 100% crit damage

We’re talking about a difference of 1000 damage between a normal crit with 0% damage and an enhanced crit. That’s twice the base damage of the ability.

1500-1800 critical hit to 2500. I don’t know about you but the difference is massive. It’s an additional 60% damage on average.

SIXTY PERCENT, not 5% from sigil, 10% from traits or 20% from bolt to the heart. And the damage difference is even greater if the skill in question is a nuke.

High damage values scale well with high % bonuses.

Once your critical chance is high enough, you’re supposed to capitalize on it with crit damage instead of power. It is absolutely pointless to have a moderate crit chance rate with little crit damage, just like it’s pointless to have condition duration without condition dmg, and high power with no crit chance at all.

Lert, you really shouldn’t be giving advice about a build you obviously don’t have experience with.

The only thing I don’t have experience with is dying.
Jewel = 18% critical damage.
+Traits and stuff it’s getting more.
Let’s say with ballanced build it’s not 1500 but around 1800 instead of your 2500. But with higher critical chance it’s getting hit for 1800 much often than your for 2500.
And you do not realize how huge difference is additional 600armor. Then it’s not 600dmg less, but much much more.

OP, think logically. You can either have 1% critical damage for cost of 5stat points, or waste 11-14stat points for critical damage being attacker-kitten.
For PvE it might work, since mobs doesn’t deal that much damage and dungeons aren’t really hard. But for WvW, it’s huge.

I’m not talking here about 0 critical damage. I’m talking here about ballance between chance and around 20-45 critical damage as for D/D ele. Going for 90+ critical damage and 50+ critical chance will lead you nowhere beside grave having 13k health and 1.9k armor.

Um guys i already have the zerkers set i made this thread to get some info on how to work with it as i can’t afford a completely new set right now.
I need help with the traits which from what i gathered should be something in the lines of 0/x/0/x/30…right? I can also choose between my two staffs one is valkyrie and the other is zerker. Oh and I’m using sup. rune of golemancer.
I don’t have accessories/rings etc. figured out either.

Most common is 0-10-0-30-30 cantrips build. With it you have basicly few boons on all the time (fury, some stacks of might + something else).
You’re more of a WvW player or enjoying PvE?
You can just go check that what you already have in action and see how it is going and what you’re lacking of.
It’s pretty enjoyable taking down players pretty fast, but you’re dropping down most likely even faster.

Razor.6392:

You are the one who doesn’t seem to realize how much of a difference crit damage makes.

1000 base damage
1500 critical hit with 0% crit damage
2000 critical hit with 50% crit damage
2500 critical hit with 100% crit damage

We’re talking about a difference of 1000 damage between a normal crit with 0% damage and an enhanced crit. That’s twice the base damage of the ability.

1500-1800 critical hit to 2500. I don’t know about you but the difference is massive. It’s an additional 60% damage on average.

SIXTY PERCENT, not 5% from sigil, 10% from traits or 20% from bolt to the heart. And the damage difference is even greater if the skill in question is a nuke.

High damage values scale well with high % bonuses.

Once your critical chance is high enough, you’re supposed to capitalize on it with crit damage instead of power. It is absolutely pointless to have a moderate crit chance rate with little crit damage, just like it’s pointless to have condition duration without condition dmg, and high power with no crit chance at all.

If you are responding to Lert, I have to agree with what he said. Crit percentage is > Crit Damage. That’s all he said lol.

It is, imo, btw, not pointless to have Crit Chance without huge amounts of Crit Damage. Obviously it would become the area of damage one would want to concentrate in instead of power or conditional damage. To me it depends on the rest of the build and gear and how much toughness and vitality the character needs as to how much Crit Damage is available. There are too various effects that proc on a crit which give the stat added versatility. In other words, a character with high crit chance does not have to be made of glass.

Edit I see, I missed a post of his. Still lol he is making the point I just made. There is a trade off in the case he is mentioning of 600 armor. I like that approach for the most part. I personally have never liked min-max builds.

Lert.6287:

I’m not talking here about 0 critical damage. I’m talking here about ballance between chance and around 20-45 critical damage as for D/D ele. Going for 90+ critical damage and 50+ critical chance will lead you nowhere beside grave having 13k health and 1.9k armor.

My current gear setup has 70% crit with wrench and fury, 88% crit damage, just under 2k power, 14.8k hp before any bonuses, and 2.3k armor. Your numbers are way off.

It’s true you can optimize certain pieces of gear (http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/69773-mixing-berserker-and-other-gear-how-to-do-it-right/), but at the end of the day, you still need those damage stats if you want to do damage.

Like I said, good intentions or not, you shouldn’t be spreading bad information about a build you aren’t familiar with. Ele dps builds are 100% viable, and even more so as staff with the 1200 range.

Lert.6287:

But with higher critical chance it’s getting hit for 1800 much often than your for 2500.

Too bad I have 61% crit chance? and 81% with fury? The damage numbers don’t even come close.

Protection is more effective if you’re taking more damage, and elementalists have also many ways of staying alive besides just going for high armor numbers. With a mechanic like dodging in this game, it makes glass builds more viable compared to your average mmo.

I posted my stats in the “stats thread” that is also in first page. I might be swapping some berserker pieces for valkyrie (not knight’s). Be glad that your advice worked.

@your previous post:
“Tanky will most likely out-heal damage yet still dealing damage to thief. But thief will take down cannon ele in seconds.”

I can use the same logic and say that tanky will never kill a thief that can disengage at will because your damage was never an immediate threat.

@Dreztina, my build is about tank, not burst and be bursted. I’m running with 520-800 healing power, ~2.6k armor and boon durations.

I don’t see point of losing more stats than it can be on critical damage (5 instead of 11 or more).

@Razor: the hipotetical thief we are talking about would have either hell lotta of toughenss or healing power then. I’ve got basicly from all regenerations spam up to 500hp/s, + healing skills in water + normal heal. All thief has is food (maybe), one heal per 30sec and 300hp/s in stealth when traited.

I don’t want to make argument out of this tiny tiff.
There are attacker-kittens and people who actually rather to stay alive.
As Robert Hrouda said about dps and tank (partly out of contecst): Can’t do damage if you’re dead.

I know life and enemies. With low supporting stats it’s easy to die. And ele with high criticals is nowhere compared to warrior, mesmer or thief.

I don’t care what build you prefer. I’m saying you shouldn’t be giving incorrect info on a build you have no experience with.

I don’t know what anything what I said above is incorrect. Seems it was too much to read for you so you didn’t get the point. So here’s TL;DR version: Going full set zerker = waste of stats.

Lol. All I’ll say is, if anyone reading this is considering a dps ele build, I strongly urge you to ignore the bunker ele and listen to the people who actually play the build.

Conversion between % crit dmg and other stats:

5 stat points – upgrade slot of trinkets and backpack
7 points – Ascended Back Piece
8.5 stat points – Ascended Rings
10 stat points- traits (not an equipment, but listed for comparison)
12 stat points – glove, shoulder and boots
12.8 stat points – 1H weapons and amulet
13.33 stat points – Earring
14 stat points – Backpack (rare version from guild armorsmith)
14.22 stat points – 2H weapons
14.4 stat points – Coat
16 stat points – Ring, helm and legging

GG lert. Imo, eles aren’t the best to run zerker on unless ur glassing in wvw to drop 5k meteor showers on people. DPS is not their main thing.

I have one acronym for you guys who think ele dps is low: AOE

Still can only hit at most 5 targets at a time. Only place where ele AoE dps truly shines imo is glass cannoning meteor stone/ lava font etc. in WvW. Even that is getting nerfed. Otherwise, please stick with your bunker healing aura support stuff in pve. Staff is okay too, provided that you give some water fields and are specced for that. DPS? we got that kitten down for other classes.

I’m going to let you guys know though, ele is still a better pve class than rangers, necros, thieves, and engies. So take pride in that.

At the moment, seems like mesmer is the most op class. They rank very high in pve, wvw, AND spvp.

pointless to argue with such close minded individuals.

Listen. Stop with the ad hominem and show me real results. do you really think that ele dps can compare to that of a warriors? Even when you spec full zerkers the dps still doesn’t cut the cake, and you end up with what, 10k hp? I’ve been there, done that. Rolled both warrior and ele. Until then, really, you’re just not contributing to the argument at all and making a stab just at me. I’ve come to acknowledge that as a fact rather than be in denial that there are better dps classes out there than ele and that ele isn’t omnipotent (hell even power necro does more dps).

There is a reason why cofp1e is full of warriors, not eles. Because there is no class that can sustain dps quite like the warrior.

Eles should stick with what they’re best at – sustaining a moderate dps while maining support. There are other players out there for the dps role. Like it or not, there are class specific strengths and dps isn’t that of eles. You might come to do pretty high dps, but you still can’t do as much dps as warrior over an extended amount of time and you’ll have the survivability of a gold leaf (as if zerker wars aren’t paper enough).

You want facts? My elementalist does more damage than anything else in the game. That’s a fact.

Okay. Please roll a warrior to 80. The only dps you know about is necro and ele… lol
Or even go to spvp and fight a gc thief.
Or you know what, here’s one that hits closer to home for you.
Get dagger warhorn on your necro, spec double wells, blood is power. Get all power and prec traits and other traits that go with glass cannon necro
BIP, throw down some wells, press 5 (warhorn) get close to something, autoattack. HF

Raptured.9307:

Okay. Please roll a warrior to 80. The only dps you know about is necro and ele… lol
Or even go to spvp and fight a gc thief.
Or you know what, here’s one that hits closer to home for you.
Get dagger warhorn on your necro, spec double wells, blood is power. Get all power and prec traits and other traits that go with glass cannon necro
BIP, throw down some wells, press 5 (warhorn) get close to something, autoattack. HF

Dagger does single target damage fyi.

95% of ele D/D spells do aoe damage.

anyway like I already said in that other thread, keep being “supportive” I’ll be slightly less supportive while inflicting 4x your damage.

Raptured.9307:

Okay. Please roll a warrior to 80. The only dps you know about is necro and ele… lol
Or even go to spvp and fight a gc thief.
Or you know what, here’s one that hits closer to home for you.
Get dagger warhorn on your necro, spec double wells, blood is power. Get all power and prec traits and other traits that go with glass cannon necro
BIP, throw down some wells, press 5 (warhorn) get close to something, autoattack. HF

Yep, I only do about 40-50% of the damage on a single target as a warrior, thief, or necro. Luckily, I can hit five targets at once. I’ll let you do the math on that one.

you realize necros auto attack and warriors auto attack and other skills can hit more than one target and that most mobs aggro and walk towards you so that you can hit a lot of them at a time after the initial aggro? And that most drawn out fights are single bosses or ones with mobs that go towards you and stack?

Bunker up, dps is overrated. Support all the way imho.

dreztina.4820:

You want facts? My elementalist does more damage than anything else in the game. That’s a fact.

Loled at this one. That only shows how ’’much’’ you know about this game.

Loled at you for not getting his sarcasm.

I wasn’t being sarcastic. My elementalist does more damage than any other class in the game. You think thieves or 100b warriors hit for 40k in a single ability in pvp? I do. I routinely land hits that put backstabs to shame. 15-20k? No problem. If I do 10k in a hit it’s just an ok attack.

The ele isn’t single target, and ignoring the fact that you can potentially do five times as much damage with every ability you have is dumb.

I worry for your sanity. Okay, the only way that works is if people always run in mini zergs of 5 people in radii of 180-360 in spvp and stand there for you to cast lava font meteor shower, and then sit there as meteors fall on them instead of going after you when you have what 10-11k hp? with little to no running/healing capabilities? You realize how absurd that is right? The first thing I and other experienced spvpers go after (bunker or glass cannon) are staff eles because their current state in spvp is terrible. They’re only viable in wvw because crit damage is not capped like in spvp and that they have a strong line of defense to save their kitten . If you really want to aoe glass cannon in spvp, run mesmer. The greatsword is an immensely powerful long ranged aoe weapon and when coupled with shatter zerker builds it is just plain scary. If the other team has a shatter glass mesmer, you are done for because their range is just as great as yours and they can burst so much better than you while being more survivable and mobile, and we all know how many mesmers there are in spvp. The only place where glass cannon staff does better than greatsword shatter mesmer (in some but not all respects) is wvw, where your illusions may get wiped very quickly while Meteor shower holds a steady curtain of 5k fire on your enemies, especially on choke points like bridges and such, and boy is it powerful there as an anti-zerg mechanic. Even then, its effectiveness is limited by the max 5 enemies cap

oh uh, if you’re using gc d/d in spvp.. you’re gonna rtl in and drop dead.

You keep writing these essays filled with theory crafting as if that means anything. You have two experienced glass cannon eles telling you how things work from their countless hours of actually pvping with the build, and you’re sitting there telling us everything we know is wrong because you wrote some stuff down that says it doesn’t work that way. Do you realize how absurd that is?

he refuses to reply in that other thread where I absolutely destroyed him lol

Basicly I can agree with everything Raptured says, and to nothing what you two are saying.
‘’Experienced player’’ in my kitten Claiming you can do the highest damage and (from what and how you’re writing) kill everyone on 1vs1.
Even with armor over 2.5k, full zerker mesmer (zerker mesmer makes sense) can do around 15k damage to you in 1-2 sec if all of his hits crit. So with your builds (~13k hp, 1.9k deff) he probably wouldn’t need to bother you with destorying illusions to make you down in 10sec.

Lert.6287:

Basicly I can agree with everything Raptured says, and to nothing what you two are saying.
‘’Experienced player’’ in my kitten Claiming you can do the highest damage and (from what and how you’re writing) kill everyone on 1vs1.
Even with armor over 2.5k, full zerker mesmer (zerker mesmer makes sense) can do around 15k damage to you in 1-2 sec if all of his hits crit. So with your builds (~13k hp, 1.9k deff) he probably wouldn’t need to bother you with destorying illusions to make you down in 10sec.

Another bunker ele who’s never played glass telling us all our experience counts for nothing because his paper pvp says we’re wrong. And when have I ever mentioned 1v1? The whole point of damage ele (or any ele) is trying to hit as many targets at once as possible. The build is ok 1v1, but it isn’t great and certainly isn’t where it shows its full potential.

“you disagree with me, and therefore you are wrong”.
Obviously, these guys are personally insulted at me saying that gc ele isn’t the way to go in pve/spvp (especially spvp).
Here’s the thing.
Eles aren’t god. they can’t do everything. Yeah, they’re a jack of all trades, but you do know the second part of the idiom called “master of none” right? Thankfully, eles are very good at one thing – support, much like the guardian, but in a slightly more offensive fashion. They can’t give full heal, but give considerable healing and condition removal, while giving protection, swiftness, and lots of might (and fury sometimes). This is where the ele stands out, and not dps.

I chose not to respond to your other thread not because I felt “I lost the argument and therefore you are better than me”, but because I simply didn’t feel like going back to that thread. It was boring and inane to try to convince you two. However, @ razor, note that:
#1. You did not show if you used food
#2. You did not show what sigils you were using – did you have bloodlust stacks?
#3. Status of mobs – any vulnerability on them?
#4. # of stacks of might on your char. I noticed you were doing some considerable might stacking combos there.
#5. The idea that churning earth, the staple skill which you circled, has a charging time of 3.25 seconds to charge and hit

This is about the same amount of time to do hundred blades (without frenzy) and as a “burst” skill, it takes a 30 seconds to recharge compared to the 8 seconds warriors need to recharge theirs (without the very common -20% cooldown trait). In cof runs without full stacks of might (I personally do not like 4war1mes groups, because of how much time they want you to dedicate to them and how abrasive people are), my war is able to 100b about 19k with 100b on slave driver (who may have even higher toughness) with <10 might stacks, while being downleveled to match cof. Let’s compare that to the 11k you hit with a skill of 40s cooldown, while being what 4 levels higher and god knows how many might/ bloodlust stacks. It is already apparent that war dps is higher. Even their axe autoattack (which is supposedly highest sustained dps) hits about 10-11k a second in cof runs (3.5k ish per crit, ~1/3s/hit). If you are to say, oh, but wars can’t aoe, that’s because they don’t need to. They can move when they attack (axe 1), and aggroed mobs go right in front of them (and they can hit multiple targets). Most sustained fights are single bosses too, so they need even less of that.

Here’s where we get to compare gc war and gc ele in other aspects than just dps. Warriors are terrible for defensive support when gcing, true, but their offensive support isn’t to be neglected. The banner of discipline, which gives near constant 90 prec and 10% crit damage is well worth the what, 12-15 stacks of might that eles can give to the team as a gc at most if they spec for might duration. Most wars run with this banner, and great justice which give fury and might as well. They can inflict ~ constant 10-18 stacks of vuln individually on the boss if they choose to with “on my mark” and axe/mace skills 2 & 4 at the same time. with a group of 4 wars, you can already maintain 25 stacks of vuln on boss and ~ 20 constant stacks of might on the whole group alone. In a group setting and in an individual setting, there is really nothing that comes close to war on sustained offensive strength (except thieves and mesmers, who come very close or even may do better in terms of burst – this is very arguable. But once again, that’s burst, not sustained). And this is done while maintaining about 20k hp and 2.2k armor with no vitality added in traits or gear compared to ele’s 11k hp and 1.85k armor.

The ele isn’t almighty. It is a jack of all trades and yes it can dps in an aoe fashion, but in the pve world of sustained dps for boss runs and minions that aggro toward you, warrior comes first. Where ele shines most in pve is bunker, because you can give those ridiculous might stacks while giving long durations of protection, auras, swiftness, regen, condition cleansing… etc that no other class can simultaneously do. You don’t sacrifice too much dps from what i remember as well as a bunker (dapheonix), i distinctly remember doing 7.5k crit churning earths on the last boss in cofp1e while surviving and helping my team survive (role of the support/bunker) and finish this fight faster with immense stacks of boons. It’s because of all that support eles can give that they made ele dps weaker for bossing. After all, a class can’t have everything and be better at everything than every other class, right? Otherwise everyone would simply be ele… which they are not.

The ele isn’t bad at all (possibly one of the best, most fun classes out there). It is a highly mobile class that can do many things together. It can dps, sure, but where the ele strength lies in pve is support. And to do that support, you have to survive.

Tl;dr again. This guy still won’t reply to that other thread.

I guess I’ll have to post it here to see his response.

Hah, sorry for being literate and having responded to your question on the other thread just now in my previous post. Take your time to read, there’s no rush.

Do you really expect anyone to read that? What value is there in reading pages of stuff from someone who has never even played the build yet professes to know it better than those with hundreds of hours using it?

I mean really, you have literally never played the build, yet you are telling people who have spent almost their entire time in the game playing it that you know more than they do. You’re ridiculous.

Uhm yes i have tried the gc zerker build with dd. You can’t survive for jack in dungeons and warriors do your job better than you can, while you’re neglecting your own supportive potential. A zerker war already has crap survivability right now and it only works because they can kill everything before they get killed – as their means of survival. What you get with gc d/d ele is less dps (substantially less), and about half the hp.. just think about that.
What with renewing stamina nerfed, omnom pies nerfed, you are even less survivable than you were before, it just doens’t work.

And yeah, I do expect you to read all that because you have already spent this much effort to go on such an extended argument with me. You guys sound like the people who give eles the (wrong) stereotype of being completely fragile.

Also, please keep your cool. Almost seems like I’m arguing with children, lol.

Lert.6287:

Basicly I can agree with everything Raptured says, and to nothing what you two are saying.
‘’Experienced player’’ in my kitten Claiming you can do the highest damage and (from what and how you’re writing) kill everyone on 1vs1.
Even with armor over 2.5k, full zerker mesmer (zerker mesmer makes sense) can do around 15k damage to you in 1-2 sec if all of his hits crit. So with your builds (~13k hp, 1.9k deff) he probably wouldn’t need to bother you with destorying illusions to make you down in 10sec.

That’s what you see in spvp(11-15kish) and that’s done at a range of 1200, while long range dmg can be maintained simply by autoattack that hits about 1.3k on other players in spvp. I suspect the damage on pve to be even higher, without the crit dmg cap and with ascended equipment. Their burst is immense, and imo (like how many others in the spvp community think), the most broken spvp class right now.

Raptured.9307:

Uhm yes i have tried the gc zerker build with dd. You can’t survive for jack in dungeons

So because you cannot dodge even if your life depended on it, that means that no one else can?

So that’s the root of your hatred towards gc ele… I can understand now.

Btw good job with the ad hominem attacks. Calling us children certainly proves how mature you are.

Edit:

You guys sound like the people who give eles the (wrong) stereotype of being completely fragile.

Actually, that would apply to the people building extremely tanky eles, don’t you think? It’s the other way around.

I have no reason to build tanky because I’m doing just fine. You, however, feel the need to stack survivability stats because like you said, you “cannot survive for jack in dungeons” due to how fragile an ele would be without them. Meanwhile, I don’t consider myself fragile despite running a very unforgiving build. It’s quite the challenge to play and I feel good for being just as survivable, if not more, than most of my groups.

Anyway… so many flaws in your logic it’s almost laughable at this point.

I give up. I never had any intention of convincing you you were wrong; you’re obviously not the type who could ever admit that. All I wanted was for you bunker eles to stop spreading false information about a build you know nothing about. Sadly, it looks like there’s no stopping it, so go ahead, continue lying to new eles who ask for help on the forum. At least my build won’t become fotm.

dreztina.4820:

At least my build won’t become fotm.

But that won’t stop it from getting nerfed

ANet balance #1

Raptured.9307:

Where ele shines most in pve is bunker, because you can give those ridiculous might stacks while giving long durations of protection, auras, swiftness, regen, condition cleansing… etc that no other class can simultaneously do.

For the 3rd time, I can give ALL OF THAT to my group without sacrificing my dps.

The only thing that I’d be lacking would be some healing and the aurashare, but aurashare was nerfed, and it isn’t really useful in PVE. Lots of classes can give fury to your group.

Just admit that you’re not a good player. There’s nothing wrong with having poor reflexes and not dodging / positioning yourself properly in the battlefield.

Razor.6392:

dreztina.4820:

At least my build won’t become fotm.

But that won’t stop it from getting nerfed

ANet balance #1

Ain’t that the truth.

I run the bunker build for the same reason that everyone else runs it. Alright, so you’re saying the only reason people run dapheonix’s build is that they can’t dodge. Otherwise if they were better they can do all that dps while being just as survivable AND support if they were just good. Keep thinking that, but did you know you can’t dodge when you help a downed group member getting chewed up by mobs? Or do your groups never down and everyone is perfect? This is what part of taking a supportive role means, it isn’t about just giving boons (which you also can’t give as much of a duration for if you run full gc and spec for most damage) and healing (which you can’t do as well as a full dpser). You also realize that the recent patch hit gcs harder than bunkers and that auras are still far from useless right? Frost aura is hit much harder in spvp than in pve (in pve, it now grants 10% damage reduction in exchange, and can even be considered a buff), shock aura is only fixed in that it procs the correct amount now, and that fire aura is actually better now? If anything, daphoenix’s build has become even better for supporting, with the only exception that zephyr boon double proc is fixed. The build is hit, yes, but much, much more so in pvp/wvw than in pve, where frost aura used to shut down thieves and multihitters, where mobility of rtl is really essential to survival/chasing, and where healing in fire attribute/fire aura is really not done/used often (so related buffs are nearly useless).

It really makes me wonder why you two are so bitter towards the “fotm build” though. If it’s a bad build, why would you want it to be nerfed so badly? If it’s a good build, why are you so against the idea of it and using it? Do you truly believe anet did a good job balancing this time? This really boggles me. The only thing i can think of is: hipsters.

Raptured.9307:

I run the bunker build for the same reason that everyone else runs it. Alright, so you’re saying the only reason people run dapheonix’s build is that they can’t dodge. Otherwise if they were better they can do all that dps while being just as survivable AND support if they were just good. Keep thinking that, but did you know you can’t dodge when you help a downed group member getting chewed up by mobs? Or do your groups never down and everyone is perfect? This is what part of taking a supportive role means, it isn’t about just giving boons (which you also can’t give as much of a duration for if you run full gc and spec for most damage) and healing (which you can’t do as well as a full dpser). You also realize that the recent patch hit gcs harder than bunkers and that auras are still far from useless right? Frost aura is hit much harder in spvp than in pve (in pve, it now grants 10% damage reduction in exchange, and can even be considered a buff), shock aura is only fixed in that it procs the correct amount now, and that fire aura is actually better now? If anything, daphoenix’s build has become even better for supporting, with the only exception that zephyr boon double proc is fixed. The build is hit, yes, but much, much more so in pvp/wvw than in pve, where frost aura used to shut down thieves and multihitters, where mobility of rtl is really essential to survival/chasing, and where healing in fire attribute/fire aura is really not done/used often (so related buffs are nearly useless).

It really makes me wonder why you two are so bitter towards the “fotm build” though. If it’s a bad build, why would you want it to be nerfed so badly? If it’s a good build, why are you so against the idea of it and using it? Do you truly believe anet did a good job balancing this time? This really boggles me. The only thing i can think of is: hipsters.

dawhatever build excels in pvp, not pve, buddy.

You don’t need that much condition removal or survivability for pve.

^ These 2 lines are enough to obliterate your pointless wall of text.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-2-16-12/first
Uhm no he talks quite a bit about pve…

And also you completely ignored everything i just pointed out. Condition removal, survivability, healing, and boon duration are large parts of “support” that eles have the potential to bring out. Like boon duration, is that not important for pve? Also, condition removal is very essential in pve when you’re running in groups of dpsers, of which warriors are king (so just roll that if you wanna go full dps in dungeons). Please, try running something like ta and tell me condition removal anod survival isn’t that necessary.

Also, here is the definition of “literally”. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literally

Still didn’t answer my question of your bitterness towards “the fotm build”