Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I’ve been playing on and off since launch, and I’m a fairly casual PvE player. I’ve recently really started getting into WvW after exploring for map completion and getting hooked onto the mechanics. I’d like some help putting together an effective Staff build for running with the zerg and occasionally with smaller groups to take camps and control points.

This is what I have so far:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=Vl;4R0-U0z47N-Z0;9;49;0TT3;624847A;6Tu8rRztbo-k51;5V0-50A1F2KZQ4-aV8F0J;0cVX8aA

At a glance, it’s a 10/0/0/30/30 Staff build with Arcane Wave, Cleansing Fire and Mist Form as utilities. Traits include Elemental Attunement, Blasting Staff, Evasive Arcana, Cleansing Wave, Soothing Disruption, Cantrip Mastery, and Spell Slinger. Equipment is PVT armor, Boon Duration runes (2x Monk, 2x Major Water, 2x Superior Water), Cleric’s Earrings, Cleric’s Rings but with Exquisite Ruby Jewels instead of Sapphire, and a somewhat random Berserker Ascended Amulet with no infusion. I haven’t yet added a Sigil to my Staff, and I don’t typically use any Food or other nutrition buff.

I basically run this same build in PvE and in dungeons, and it has served me well. What I’m worried about is that I don’t feel like I’m doing much damage. I’m trying to switch out Sapphire Jewels from my Cleric’s trinkets with Ruby Jewels to find a good balance between damage and healing, but I don’t know if I’m just gimping myself by doing this. I’m also wondering if I shouldn’t just switch to a 30 Fire and/or 30 Air build for pure damage and rely on the zerg to protect me.

I’m slowly working towards Ascended equipment and I’d like advice on what amulet/rings/accessories I should be aiming for. Also, I’d appreciate any advice about the Sigil and any food I should use.

Thanks a lot!

No one?
/15char

WvW (in large groups/zergs) it is important to do damage but not that important where you want to stack all zerk. You need a balance between damage and defenses. You don’t want to die fast since that rallies the enemy down players.

With that in mind your fire trait should be +10% when attuned to fire rather than cantrips grant you might. The reason being is that the cantrips you have are mostly used for defensive purposes. Cleansing flame to remove condi and mist form as an oh crap have to be invul against this burst. You wouldn’t go oh man I need more might and burn cleansing flame and mist form only to not have it up when you really need it.

If you don’t want to go fire then there is always 10 air for bolt to the heart or 10 earth for armor of earth at 50% hp (which you will get from time to time in fighting big groups).

I recommend water 30 (cleansing water) for the extra condi removal and this allows you to change water V for something else like Arcane Abatement (fall damage) or reducing cantrip mastery without losing condi removals (only 1 is lost from attuning to water [from 2 to 1 if cleansing water is used]).

As for stats, my base lines are 15k hp with 2.6k armor or 17-18k hp with 2.4k armor. Both of these with 20-25% critical chance and 50% critical damage. I would work around those baseline stats. If you are the support staff ele in your group/team I would get a bit more healing power and defenses to support your group. If that isn’t your role then I would use the trinket slots to stack some damage stat. Good ones are: Zerk/Valk Ascended, Cavalier Ascended, and Celestial Ascended. Alternatives are: Knights or Soliders ascended when you need more pure stats and less critical damage and Berserker if you have enough defenses (like around my baseline recommendations).

As for your heal I would recommend the signet heal (due to the arcana traits it gives you a lot of sustain since Attunement and Evasive Arcana counts as a spell for the signet heal). Ether Renewal is another alternative if you need more condi removal. Glyph isn’t worth it since it only gives the boons which you will get enough of from swapping attunements already + boon duration runes. I would use arcane blast since you ranging enemies. Arcane wave isn’t needed if you run sigil of battle on your staff you will get enough might stacks and the arcane blast will add to your dps when you are running in a small group roaming around in WvW. Swap to arcane wave when say you are in a zerg v zerg.

Finally for your elite I would grab the conjure greatsword. It works well offensively and defensively. If you are in a bad situation (say your team gets flanked) or you are caught out of position (walking to where the battles are at) you can quickly escape with FGS #3 and FGS #4. And offensively you can you the evade frames on FGS #3 against zergs or just move as a group with FGS #1 which auto tracks and pierces enemies. Extremely useful with skill lag.

What I use, for a damage-staff-WvW build is:

0-25-0-25-20
Bolt to the heart or zephyr’s boon and areomancer’s alacrity for more static fields.
Piercing shards for more damage on meteors (start channeling>swap) and cleansing wave.
Elemental attunement and blasting staff.
Full knight’s armor and trinkets with beryl orbs in everything (I don’t have any ascended, too many builds and alts to bother, but a mix of knight’s/valkyrie’s/cavalier’s would be ideal).

Lotta good advice in the post above, basically do what he says.

You lack offense because your gear is a mess. You’re trying to gain a lot of Toughness with PVT and Cleric gear and then you go further defnesive with Vitality in PVT and Healing in Cleric gear. On top of this your traits you only put 10 into an offensive line (Fire) so you’re really sacrificing a lot of DPS both on gear as well as traits.

Personally I’ve found min-maxing that you usually only need one or the other OR go hybrid in both areas. For example I use a 0/20/0/30/20 build (offense from 20 Air and heavy Defense from 30 Water, 20 Arcane) but then use Berserker Armor with Rubies and Emerald Jewelry (A lot of offense and a bit of Toughness). Top all that off I go with Cantrips which are even more Defense so the whole thing comes together because I have satisifactory amount of DPS (I get plenty of kills) and Defense (I usually only die if I get literally ran over and often am one of the last ones standing due to good situational awareness).

CuRtoKy.8576:

-snip-

Wow, thank you so much. Excellent post. You’ve pretty much addressed all the questions I had, and then some. I’m going to be using this post as the baseline for my future Staff builds.

For your “baseline” stats (15k hp/2.6 armor or 16-17k hp/2.4 armor with 20-25% crit chance and 50% crit damage): are these stats possible to acquire using only Exotic armor and trinkets? I was trying various combinations of Knights/PVT/Valkyrie armor and Knights/Valkyrie/Berserker trinkets but couldn’t get those values. (The only Ascended piece of gear I have is my Berserker Circle of Logic amulet, and I’m working towards the rings and accessories.)

Glenstorm.4059:

Wow, thank you so much. Excellent post. You’ve pretty much addressed all the questions I had, and then some. I’m going to be using this post as the baseline for my future Staff builds.

For your “baseline” stats (15k hp/2.6 armor or 16-17k hp/2.4 armor with 20-25% crit chance and 50% crit damage): are these stats possible to acquire using only Exotic armor and trinkets? I was trying various combinations of Knights/PVT/Valkyrie armor and Knights/Valkyrie/Berserker trinkets but couldn’t get those values. (The only Ascended piece of gear I have is my Berserker Circle of Logic amulet, and I’m working towards the rings and accessories.)

Np trying to help all the eles out there. As for my personal baseline you can achieve something like this: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|6.1p.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.71g.1n.71g.1n.71h.1n.71h.1n.a1.1n.a7|1i.61.1n.61.1n.61.1i.61.1i.61.1i.61|0.a6.0.u38b.u58b|0.0|1n.1o.1t.1v.28|e

The problem with exotics is that you don’t have an upgrade slot with power, toughness, critical damage you only have power, vitality/precision, critical damage. If you managed to remove 100 toughness from the build above you an add it into vitality for 1,000 more hp giving it 17k hp and 2.4k armor. My baselines are just what I personally like and feel comfortable with. Your comfort level may be different so I would use that as a reference to tweak your style.

Having ascended gear is much better and I tend to like the zerk/valk over pure zerk since it gives me that extra health and eles don’t need a lot of critical chance since we have a high uptime on fury. You can cast something like Air #2 and before it hits swap to another attunement to get fury.