Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJArYlw1iMWZQzAPyAApAKhHEwQBlH5EjNA-jgyAYLhQCCIZBI5psm9EELdht6GtybQ01YKXioaA-e

Note: This is intended for PVE.

What this build sacrifices versus standard builds:

Some condition removal (still feels like plenty with water 5 and water dodge, optional ether renewal), and 100% fury and swiftness uptime. I feel that other classes bring fury while sacrificing less than an Elementalist has to.

I’m not happy with Elementalist meta builds, I feel like they give up too much damage in favor of support, and that the support provided is not an adequate recompense. This is my attempt to fix things. Note that the 10 in water can be swapped out to 10 in Earth or 10 in air for to fulfill slightly different needs.

What it brings:

25 stacks of might to party, great damage, great AOE. Feels incredibly fun and versatile.

Rotation:

Take a deep breath

Use Arcane Blast asap, its off the GCD.

Fire 2 as you’re running into melee range, 4 (fire field), 3—> earth, (dodge) 4, 5— while 5 is casting, arcane power, arcane wave, (25 stacks of might will now be up for the rest of the fight) —-> Swap to air, 2, 3, water 4… back to fire for two rotations of 2, 4, 3, then after a few rotations of your high damagers in fire and air, (still getting timings perfect), swap back to Earth for a 4, 5 inside the fire field. (repeat).

During “downtime”— when all but your fire moves are on cool down, feel free to use Earth 2, and water heals and evasive arcana for a minimal DPS loss. Also use RTL as a damaging move in PBAoE situations. Fire 5 is also good damage to slip in whenever you can.

You can also use earth 3 blind before churning earth, and air 3 blind DURING Churning Earth to keep the boss unable to hit you while you use your big attack.

Why is this build good?

Churning Earth crits every time you use it. Arcane blast and wave do great damage off the GCD— meaning they are absolutely free damage increases. Arcane power ensures that every Churning Earth cast ends up being worth it. Fire damagers all hit surprisingly hard.

Possible Tweaks

If you don’t have a Guardian, you can give up whichever Arcane Trait you’d like for Elemental Attunement. I’ve also tried out “Arcane Energy” instead of Renewing Stamina. It gives you less stamina overall, but right at the moments when you need it to dodge away from churning Earth, and a bit more control over when its available.

Arcane traits can be swapped around a lot of different ways depending on if you care more about providing buffs, gaining lots of stamina, etc.

I’m currently using 4x boon duration 2x might duration. I haven’t tested if these are actually necessary to maintain 25 stacks of might; I strongly suspect you could maintain 25 might with just ruby orbs instead, for even more damage.

Ether renewal is the better heal in some situation. I find that water 3, 5, dodge gives me a nice mid-sized heal, and that I prefer having one HUGE heal available with the human racial heal.

Alternative Gearing Option

Standard is zerker, with PVT in 3 slots to make it easier to spend a lot of time in close range and get off your churning Earths. Perhaps a better player than me could pull off full zerker. Theoretically, chest or legs with knight armor, rest zerker might be an even better balance than PVT in 3 slots.

Since you are using Arcane Power and arcane blast, which guarantees crits, you can theoretically go with a much tankier PVT/Celestial mix, or PVT/Zerker mix rather than full zerker. I’m not saying this is a good idea, but if you’re already running full tanky gear, you will be hurting less on damage with Arcane Power than you would with other builds.

This will allow you to still benefit from crits at the most intense parts of your rotation for nice burst damage. You can also use Arcane Energy or Vigorous Scepter instead of Renewing Stamina, since you won’t have as much crit.

Balanced Gearing Option

Zerker hands, feet, shoulders, weapons. PVT helm, chest, legs. Celestial trinkets.

I’ve tried this one out personally and it feels infinitely survivable with great damage.

Why Celestial? Scepter benefits from the condition damage, time spent in melee range will make your 3, 5, and dodge heals a bit more in demand and +200ish healing power from celestial will make them a bit stronger. Obviously lower damage than going pure Zerker, but this feels like a balance that I am happy with in casual play.

Thanks for Reading/Critique away please!

Another option for a balanced gear set is P/Pre/T armor, Zerk trinkets, and your choice of P/V/T, Zerk, or P/Pre/T weapons.

I run this:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.3|b.1g.h4.8.1g.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7b.1p.7b.1c.7b.1g.7b.1g.7b.1g.7b|3v.0.2s.0.21k.0.2v.d1e.3v.d1e.2s.d1e|a4.a6.f3.p39.a5|69.7|1l.25.1u.1s.0|e

it takes a bit of everything and can pack quite the punch while not being a piece of paper:P

I do feel that you could use some more toughness tho:P

Forgive me for my ignorance, but how did you get the might stacks? And how did Apply
to everyone else?

Chaoz.7846:

Forgive me for my ignorance, but how did you get the might stacks? And how did Apply
to everyone else?

No problem!

The might stacks come from using this game’s combo system.

Blast finishers in a fire field give 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds AOE to party.

Fire 4 is a fire field. Fire 2, 3, Earth 4, 5, Earth dodge, and arcane wave are all blast finishers.

So if you use ANY of those moves inside the fire field, you give 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds.

6×3 = 18. Where are you getting the other 7 stacks of might? DT, Phoenix, Earth Roll, earth 4, earth 5, arcane wave… six blasts.

Here are my thoughts:

1. 30 fire trait I find is just wasted because your ring of fire will go from 6 seconds to 7.8 seconds. I just find that you will be able to stack might in the normal 6 second duration since you will cast the fire spells in melee and arcane + earthquake is almost instant. On top of that, Earth 5 gives you the might stack after the skill is used so this trait is wasted.

2. 20% on fire I don’t find that useful since you are going to use like say: Dragon’s tooth → Ring of Fire → Phoenix → swap earth → Earthquake → Earth 5 → swap air → Air 2 → some damage maybe air 3 if needed → swap fire. Something along these lines and when you go to fire again the 15 second skills will be up. The trait reduces these skills to 12 seconds but I don’t find that useful since it will be up under both conditions based on my experience. You can try this to see if it is true for you as well.

3. I would drop 20 in fire and go for 20 air with Bolt to the heart which helps you finish your enemies with higher burst damage. And the extra 20% for RTL.

I would suggest something along this for traits (from my previous s/d build):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1c.h1h.8.1c.h8|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1|2t.0.2t.0.2v.0.1n.67.1n.67.2v.0|0.k69.0.k38.u54b|39.7|1l.1u.1r.1t.28|e

or

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1c.h1h.8.1c.h8|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1|2t.0.2t.0.2v.0.1n.67.1n.67.2v.0|0.f6.0.p38.u54b|39.7|1l.1u.1r.1t.28|e

I know this is a PvE build but I feel that these trait lines are very good for harder PvE stuff like dungeon bosses and at the same time it is good for WvW pvp if you ever wanted to go into it. This will decrease the amount of grind that you have to do since you have a set that works well for both game modes.

Jester.1546:

6×3 = 18. Where are you getting the other 7 stacks of might? DT, Phoenix, Earth Roll, earth 4, earth 5, arcane wave… six blasts.

Oh hm. I think I’m actually able to wait and get a second DT off in the fire blast.

Either way, on the second rotation through you do fire 2,4, 3, for another. I just stopped at an arbitrary place in the rotation incorrectly.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Here are my thoughts:

1. 30 fire trait I find is just wasted because your ring of fire will go from 6 seconds to 7.8 seconds. I just find that you will be able to stack might in the normal 6 second duration since you will cast the fire spells in melee and arcane + earthquake is almost instant. On top of that, Earth 5 gives you the might stack after the skill is used so this trait is wasted.

2. 20% on fire I don’t find that useful since you are going to use like say: Dragon’s tooth -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> swap earth -> Earthquake -> Earth 5 -> swap air -> Air 2 -> some damage maybe air 3 if needed -> swap fire. Something along these lines and when you go to fire again the 15 second skills will be up. The trait reduces these skills to 12 seconds but I don’t find that useful since it will be up under both conditions based on my experience. You can try this to see if it is true for you as well.

3. I would drop 20 in fire and go for 20 air with Bolt to the heart which helps you finish your enemies with higher burst damage. And the extra 20% for RTL.

I would suggest something along this for traits (from my previous s/d build):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1c.h1h.8.1c.h8|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1|2t.0.2t.0.2v.0.1n.67.1n.67.2v.0|0.k69.0.k38.u54b|39.7|1l.1u.1r.1t.28|e

or

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1c.h1h.8.1c.h8|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1.1n.a1.1p.a1|2t.0.2t.0.2v.0.1n.67.1n.67.2v.0|0.f6.0.p38.u54b|39.7|1l.1u.1r.1t.28|e

I know this is a PvE build but I feel that these trait lines are very good for harder PvE stuff like dungeon bosses and at the same time it is good for WvW pvp if you ever wanted to go into it. This will decrease the amount of grind that you have to do since you have a set that works well for both game modes.

A lot of people have suggested that build instead. I don’t understand why except that it is more standard. It does not seem to do nearly as high of damage. The gear choices are absolutely tragic. Why would anyone need that much survival for PVE? There isn’t any content that hard in this game.

Fire moves hit harder with this build than air moves do with that build. In practice, I did not find that I was able to get full might stacks without the talent— it might just be that the extra time accounts for user error/lag.

It also helps a lot with keeping up the 25 might stacks during a fight, when it becomes far more difficult to do this rotation perfectly— I’m almost never able to do this perfectly in an actual boss fight, but I can always maintain the 25 might stacks. It is possible that that talent could be swapped around though, and maybe even the points taken somewhere else.

It sounds like you’re suggesting abilities that are a lot more useful for pvp— just not a concern of mine as I don’t mind retraiting.

It’s possible that all the condition damage, with the 30% duration, is actually boosting the damage more than one would suspect without any additional crit damage beyond what might provides.

Hamartia.3421:

A lot of people have suggested that build instead. I don’t understand why except that it is more standard. It does not seem to do nearly as high of damage. The gear choices are absolutely tragic. Why would anyone need that much survival for PVE? There isn’t any content that hard in this game.

High level Fractals and Arah somewhat. For easier stuff you can toss full Zerk and it’ll be ok. The gear choices is a balanced approach so you don’t have to swap out gears but hey if you want to have multiple armor pieces feel free. The choices in that is surprisingly high damage with high survivability. Now you can like I said take out some valk or whatever and toss zerk for even more damage if you want.

Hamartia.3421:

Fire moves hit harder with this build than air moves do with that build. In practice, I did not find that I was able to get full might stacks without the talent— it might just be that the extra time accounts for user error/lag.

It also helps a lot with keeping up the 25 might stacks during a fight, when it becomes far more difficult to do this rotation perfectly— I’m almost never able to do this perfectly in an actual boss fight, but I can always maintain the 25 might stacks. It is possible that that talent could be swapped around though, and maybe even the points taken somewhere else.

My experience is that it doesn’t really matter plus instead of investing 20 points under fire for an extra 3 stack from casting DT again you could just run like sigil of battle which gives you 3 stacks of might on swap and since you are already stacking might on fire then swapping into earth or something you’ll have enough might without throwing 20 into fire. This opens up for air which gives you crit damage plus crit chance which increases your dps output.

Hamartia.3421:

It sounds like you’re suggesting abilities that are a lot more useful for pvp— just not a concern of mine as I don’t mind retraiting.

It’s possible that all the condition damage, with the 30% duration, is actually boosting the damage more than one would suspect without any additional crit damage beyond what might provides.

Condition damage is iffy even with 25 stacks of might. The build I just posted along with suggestions is aimed at bursting down easy targets as fast as possible like trash mobs, vets, silver mobs, and champions (dungeons). In dungeons and stuff you will burst down mobs really fast with a high crit damage along with a high power build which is what I posted. On top of that, I run bolt to the heart which gives 20% addition damage (for damage calculations it is like having 20% more crit dmg but only when an enemy is at 33% hp or lower). This gives you really high low hp burst dps to kill all the PvE stuff really fast. When mobs are dead condition damage is pointless since the mob is of course dead. And this is what PvE is pretty much about, killing stuff really fast. Conditions like burning and bleeding do good damage but it is over time and +condition duration just adds to this time which is again pointless when your goal in PvE is to kill stuff in a matter of seconds. Think warriors and why they are so valuable to dungeon groups.

My thought process:

10 into air = 10% additional crit damage vs 10 into fire = 10% additional damage in fire
40-50% crit chance means you’ll get this damage 40-50% of the time versus if you swap between (fire→earth→air→then fire again) that is like 33% of the time.

Bolt to the heart = 20% damage at 33% hp

15 air is similiar in damage to 15 fire

25 fire = 5% to burning targets vs 25 water = 2% per boon (at fire start, might + vigor from phoenix = 4% then swap to earth for protection + fury which gives you 8% and then swap to air for swiftness boon giving you 10% total). Swapping during earth 5 gives you these buffs allowing you to do more damage (both with and without arcane power).

Your build gets: Base crit damage + 10% in fire attune + 5% for burning targets
Mine gets: Base crit damage + 2% per boon (easy 6-10% damage all the time considering might and vigor on fire plus fury swap burst) + 15% additional critical damage + 20% from bolt to the heart

Even if you wanted to say drop 5 for the 2% per boon damage along with 5 in air and to go 10 in fire for 10% you are only losing 200 power and +5% to burning and you can go arcane spells causes vulnerability. Arcane Wave + Blast = 6 stacks of vuln (6%) + 1 stack per attack in Arcane power which gives you 10% additional damage at the same cost of losing 20 in fire.

I just find that the traits bolt to the heart and other % traits you can grab will give you more dps to go 100 to 0 most mobs in PvE.

I really don’t want to have to nit pick every part of what you’ve said because I’ve tried it and the damage is a lot lower. That’s really all it comes down to. Fire moves just hit hard and have short cooldowns.

Sure, you get a lot of % damage increases along the way— but percent damage increases can’t do much for you when your base damage is so low. 300 healing power and 300 vitality do nothing to help your damage. 20% reduced CD on air is crap compared to 20% reduced CD on fire, which hits much better.

Bolt to the heart only does bonus damage to those with less than 33% health. So its a 6.67% damage increase, not a 20%.

Those builds also throw away 3 moves that vastly increase your damage in favor of survival utilities.

Thanks for critiques.

Hamartia.3421:

I really don’t want to have to nit pick every part of what you’ve said because I’ve tried it and the damage is a lot lower. That’s really all it comes down to. Fire moves just hit hard and have short cooldowns.

Sure, you get a lot of % damage increases along the way— but percent damage increases can’t do much for you when your base damage is so low. 300 healing power and 300 vitality do nothing to help your damage. 20% reduced CD on air is crap compared to 20% reduced CD on fire, which hits much better.

Bolt to the heart only does bonus damage to those with less than 33% health. So its a 6.67% damage increase, not a 20%.

Those builds also throw away 3 moves that vastly increase your damage in favor of survival utilities.

Thanks for critiques.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is not a 6.67% overall damage increase. It is exactly what it says on the tin – a 20% damage increase against foes below 33% health. As in, it provides you with a huge chunk of extra burst against low health foes, as well as helping you to finish off your target. It implies a change in playstyle as well as becoming that “6.67% increase in damage” if you were to remove all other factors and box the Ele into a prolonged duel.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is not a 6.67% overall damage increase. It is exactly what it says on the tin – a 20% damage increase against foes below 33% health. As in, it provides you with a huge chunk of extra burst against low health foes, as well as helping you to finish off your target. It implies a change in playstyle as well as becoming that “6.67% increase in damage” if you were to remove all other factors and box the Ele into a prolonged duel.

What are you trying to say? What duels? Please explain.

haviz.1340:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is not a 6.67% overall damage increase. It is exactly what it says on the tin – a 20% damage increase against foes below 33% health. As in, it provides you with a huge chunk of extra burst against low health foes, as well as helping you to finish off your target. It implies a change in playstyle as well as becoming that “6.67% increase in damage” if you were to remove all other factors and box the Ele into a prolonged duel.

What are you trying to say? What duels? Please explain.

Facepalm.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is only equal to a 6.67% overall damage increase if all other factors are removed and the situation is that of an Elementalist as the sole source of damage against his target. No opposing heals. No allied sources of damage. Nothing. Any other factors will either increase or decrease the overall damage percentage increase of the trait.

And a 20% vs. low health foes makes the Elementalist a good class for finishing foes off – a 6.67% flat increase vs. all foes would make the Elementalist mediocre during an entire fight rather than excellent towards its conclusion.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Hamartia.3421:

I really don’t want to have to nit pick every part of what you’ve said because I’ve tried it and the damage is a lot lower. That’s really all it comes down to. Fire moves just hit hard and have short cooldowns.

Sure, you get a lot of % damage increases along the way— but percent damage increases can’t do much for you when your base damage is so low. 300 healing power and 300 vitality do nothing to help your damage. 20% reduced CD on air is crap compared to 20% reduced CD on fire, which hits much better.

Bolt to the heart only does bonus damage to those with less than 33% health. So its a 6.67% damage increase, not a 20%.

Those builds also throw away 3 moves that vastly increase your damage in favor of survival utilities.

Thanks for critiques.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is not a 6.67% overall damage increase. It is exactly what it says on the tin – a 20% damage increase against foes below 33% health. As in, it provides you with a huge chunk of extra burst against low health foes, as well as helping you to finish off your target. It implies a change in playstyle as well as becoming that “6.67% increase in damage” if you were to remove all other factors and box the Ele into a prolonged duel.

How many times do I have to say this is a PVE build?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Facepalm.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is only equal to a 6.67% overall damage increase if all other factors are removed and the situation is that of an Elementalist as the sole source of damage against his target. No opposing heals. No allied sources of damage. Nothing. Any other factors will either increase or decrease the overall damage percentage increase of the trait.

And a 20% vs. low health foes makes the Elementalist a good class for finishing foes off – a 6.67% flat increase vs. all foes would make the Elementalist mediocre during an entire fight rather than excellent towards its conclusion.

How many mobs can heal themselves? Try to read thread title before throwing facepalms, it makes you look less ignorant.

haviz.1340:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Facepalm.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is only equal to a 6.67% overall damage increase if all other factors are removed and the situation is that of an Elementalist as the sole source of damage against his target. No opposing heals. No allied sources of damage. Nothing. Any other factors will either increase or decrease the overall damage percentage increase of the trait.

And a 20% vs. low health foes makes the Elementalist a good class for finishing foes off – a 6.67% flat increase vs. all foes would make the Elementalist mediocre during an entire fight rather than excellent towards its conclusion.

How many mobs can heal themselves? Try to read thread title before throwing facepalms, it makes you look less ignorant.

Quite a few actually, especially dungeon bosses, skale, etc.. And why assume everything is about PvE? It’s not like PvE requires specific theorycrafting.

And I think a facepalm was warranted. I shouldn’t have to re-explain a simple concept.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Quite a few actually, especially dungeon bosses, skale, etc.. And why assume everything is about PvE? It’s not like PvE requires specific theorycrafting.

And I think a facepalm was warranted. I shouldn’t have to re-explain a simple concept.

Which dungeons bosses? And skales? Do you understand the difference between passive regen and healing burst? What next? Destroyers are immune to burning, do you see people debating on that?

I assume it’s about PvE because it says so in thread title. Reading thread title usually helps with constructing proper arguments. Right now I should do at least 2 /facepalms.

It’s not like zvz requires specific theorycrafting as well.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

haviz.1340:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Facepalm.

A 20% damage increase vs. foes under 33% health is only equal to a 6.67% overall damage increase if all other factors are removed and the situation is that of an Elementalist as the sole source of damage against his target. No opposing heals. No allied sources of damage. Nothing. Any other factors will either increase or decrease the overall damage percentage increase of the trait.

And a 20% vs. low health foes makes the Elementalist a good class for finishing foes off – a 6.67% flat increase vs. all foes would make the Elementalist mediocre during an entire fight rather than excellent towards its conclusion.

How many mobs can heal themselves? Try to read thread title before throwing facepalms, it makes you look less ignorant.

Quite a few actually, especially dungeon bosses, skale, etc.. And why assume everything is about PvE? It’s not like PvE requires specific theorycrafting.

And I think a facepalm was warranted. I shouldn’t have to re-explain a simple concept.

Because the OP says “This is a PVE build”. Because it is a PVE build that I admit is not good for PvP. Because this thread is intended to talk exclusively about PVE.

Hamartia.3421:

I really don’t want to have to nit pick every part of what you’ve said because I’ve tried it and the damage is a lot lower. That’s really all it comes down to. Fire moves just hit hard and have short cooldowns.

Sure, you get a lot of % damage increases along the way— but percent damage increases can’t do much for you when your base damage is so low. 300 healing power and 300 vitality do nothing to help your damage. 20% reduced CD on air is crap compared to 20% reduced CD on fire, which hits much better.

Bolt to the heart only does bonus damage to those with less than 33% health. So its a 6.67% damage increase, not a 20%.

Those builds also throw away 3 moves that vastly increase your damage in favor of survival utilities.

Thanks for critiques.

I think there are some confusions here

Fire does have low CD, the build I just posted is using traits for PvP but you can swap out stuff for PvE dungeons like I said. For example going 15 air, 25 water for 2% per boon. The reason is simply from my experience running specific dungeon comps I get lots of boons (from myself when swapping) and from others. I can easily get 10% for all attunements and since you are running boon duration runes there won’t be any problems keeping it up. The thing is your build gives you more damage at the very beginning (first 2-3 fire damage skills) but I find you can get around that by staying out of fire attune before the fight like water/air attune (ideally air attune). Then you instant cast an air ability (ideally as someone is pulling). Swap to Fire (4 stack might + Fury along with 4% from boons) then hit arcane spells after fire field for vuln stacks (6%) then the usual rotation. Once you hit Fire again you’ll have a higher base % damage and higher at critical damage.

Power is a good stat don’t get me wrong but the scaling isn’t like 1:1. Only in an ideal situation like Fire grab or Earth 5’s high skill ratio where you get 1:1 damage to power ratio. For DT and phoenix the ratio is lower than Fire 5 or Earth 5. So you get less than 1:1 ratio and if your DT and phoenix hits hard like 2k base already then a 10% is 200 damage or 5% (50% crit rate) is 100. Which is why even if you want to go fire, 30 in fire isn’t good and the grandmaster trait isn’t that good compared to say 10 in air for bolt of the heart.

My experience using the build in dungeons with a 3 warrior 1 mesmer group for most encounters is that trash mobs die fast (if you have to clear them). And like champion bosses die really fast under Time warp with warriors tossing Fury and Might along with banners. As for legendary bosses they will survive a few rotations but it’ll hit 33% hp where you will now do more damage to help your team to finish something off while at the beginning you would do comparable damage in both builds and your warriors will burn all their burst to lower the boss’ hp. Being able to do more damage to lower hp mob is useful for trash mobs along with mobs with low hp mechanics like the first boss in CoF p1 or the champion risen abomination (as examples).

Anyone give this a shot? Still enjoying it immensely. Did gate on a COF run and received compliments on the speed :P

i havent seen this before!! gona try it out indeed – most people focus on pvp.
was looking for a big numbers pve build for screenshots n giggles. thanks hamartia.

Jason.9643:

i havent seen this before!! gona try it out indeed – most people focus on pvp.
was looking for a big numbers pve build for screenshots n giggles. thanks hamartia.

Happy to help!