Guild Wars 2

So I’m starting the thread for us Elementalist to discuss the viability of the elementalist’s weapons and builds in fractals. From my experiences and from what I’ve heard in higher fractals staying ranged is vital. Healing is non existent. (get hit, you die).

So what I’m running now is a full zerk staff nuke with cantrips.
What do you guys think about the eles in fractals and what are you guys running?

Greetings,
Feros Flamecaller.

>Healing is non existent. (get hit, you die).

not sure what do you mean by “higher fractals” but there are my test at level 16 in asura fractals:
http://imageshack.us/a/img689/9782/gw002dh.jpg

you are not one hit but 3 hit…yet the second champion hits for 13k which more than full gc ele HP pool so 1 hit = die, forntunatelly this attack is quite obious so easy to evade.

Healing ofc is always crucial because its not possible to avoid all hits and you have to cure somehow.

I’m talking about 28+

Luimes.4281:

Healing is non existent. (get hit, you die).

agree on this…not completely but mostly.

You cannot contribute enough as PVT, you need damage at 30+ (max i did atm is 38)

Imho is better to run balanced D/D as starting build.
common build is good but more aggressive equipment is needed

i change weapon according to fractal:

Ascalon:
D/D => boss staff

Volcanic:
D/D => scepter focus at first boss encounter till end

Uncategorized
S/F excluding 4 Champions rooms where i prefer D/D

Swamp
meh…..S/F at mossman, staff at bloomburger

dredge
S/F for first part.

D/D for Killing dredges

Staff for cannons

S/F for doors

S/F or D/D on champion

D/D if you are on switches staff if you are not

underwater ._.

You won t believe me i use trident here…..unless Dolphins

cliffside:
D/D
In case of lag or use S/F at first boss
In case of bad Group use S/F at arms seals.

Snow fractal:
D/D because i want to….
Maybe there could be something better for ice elemental but i m lazy :|

jade maw:
D/D, staff on boss

Sigil are important:
Staff and focus OR scepter with sigil of energy

Daggers:
hydromancy, strength

atm i use (but i play mostly pugs, i would go even more offensive otherwise):

Knight armor
Runes of the pack
All stats trinkets
PVT backpack
berserker weapons

P.S. obviusly you can see how hard we have to try comparing to “some” other classes :<
We need damage buff and no more nerfs for pve.

max I did so far was 28, I died mostly on bosses from agony because I had only 15ar back then. Trash mobs dont 1 hit you, even Jade Maw tentacle hits “only” for 3/4 of gc HP pool.
I expect next level threshold at 30. As staff ele you just have to keep the distance and evade ranged attacks. Generally the higher fractal I go the more range oriented parites I end with. Imho bosses and mobs should use magnetic auras to minimize the huge skill gap between players who use range build vs plyers who use melee builds.
Also currently many fractal encounters are exploitable :/

LordByron.8369:

Luimes.4281:

Healing is non existent. (get hit, you die).

agree on this…not completely but mostly.

You cannot contribute enough as PVT, you need damage at 30+ (max i did atm is 38)

Imho is better to run balanced D/D as starting build.
common build is good but more aggressive equipment is needed

i change weapon according to fractal:

Ascalon:
D/D => boss staff

Volcanic:
D/D => scepter focus at first boss encounter till end

Uncategorized
S/F excluding 4 Champions rooms where i prefer D/D

Swamp
meh…..S/F at mossman, staff at bloomburger

dredge
S/F for first part.

D/D for Killing dredges

Staff for cannons

S/F for doors

S/F or D/D on champion

D/D if you are on switches staff if you are not

underwater ._.

You won t believe me i use trident here…..unless Dolphins

cliffside:
D/D
In case of lag or use S/F at first boss
In case of bad Group use S/F at arms seals.

Snow fractal:
D/D because i want to….
Maybe there could be something better for ice elemental but i m lazy :|

jade maw:
D/D, staff on boss

Sigil are important:
Staff and focus OR scepter with sigil of energy

Daggers:
hydromancy, strength

atm i use (but i play mostly pugs, i would go even more offensive otherwise):

Knight armor
Runes of the pack
All stats trinkets
PVT backpack
berserker weapons

P.S. obviusly you can see how hard we have to try comparing to “some” other classes :<
We need damage buff and no more nerfs for pve.

So you run d/d in lvl 28+? Aren’t you getting 1-2 shot by normal mobs?

The way I run now. Is staff nuke with full zerker gear. Traited into arcana for perma vigor. Using a sigil of stamina. Alot of damage and alot of dodging. And of course I swap my weapons when the occasion arrises.

Lavadiel.6231:

Imho bosses and mobs should use magnetic auras to minimize the huge skill gap between players who use range build vs plyers who use melee builds.

If I may add, some melee attacks (not just ele) are counted as projectiles.

I run fractal 30+ in almost full zerk with a 0/20/0/20/30 build.
Bring all the weapons, I use all of them.

Cliffside:
D/D – Trash mobs
D/D – Bottom boss
Staff – Arm Seal
S/D – End boss

Snow:
S/D – Fire camp and Elemental boss
D/D – End boss

Swamp:
S/D – Mossman and Bloomburger

Dredge:
D/D or S/F and Soldier armor – Button and Door parts
S/D – End Boss

Ascalon:
Staff – Outside walls/Dulfy
D/D – Trash mobs
S/D – End boss

Volcanic:
S/D – Grawl guards
S/D – Grawl Shaman first encounter
S/F – End boss

Uncategorized:
Staff or S/F – Harpies
S/D – Jails
S/F – Old Tom
S/F or S/D – End boss

Jade sea:
D/D – Trash
S/D – End boss

No problem on my side so far, I’m only fractal level 33 though, but I do 28 and 32 daily.

Is there any reason to go for 28/32 dailes?

So, from what I’m hearing, defensive stats in Fractals are not worth it? That’s a somewhat odd way to construct PvE encounters. I’ve never done any Fractals, but would like to start as I’m running out of PvE content to do otherwise.

I usually run Cleric’s gear with ruby orbs and accessories. Weapons are traded between zerker and cleric’s depending on if more healing or more damage is needed.

haviz.1340:

Is there any reason to go for 28/32 dailes?

28 because it’s the highest fractal of the 20+ tier so more chances for a fractal weapon/ring than 26 for example.
And 32 because I’m only level 33 at the moment but 38 will be the way to go once I’m higher.

PinCushion.7390:

So, from what I’m hearing, defensive stats in Fractals are not worth it? That’s a somewhat odd way to construct PvE encounters. I’ve never done any Fractals, but would like to start as I’m running out of PvE content to do otherwise.

I usually run Cleric’s gear with ruby orbs and accessories. Weapons are traded between zerker and cleric’s depending on if more healing or more damage is needed.

It is worth it at lower levels but once you reach 30+, most of the mobs will two hit and the amount of offensive stats needed to sustain a third hit is too much so people tend to go full damage and use dodge/reflect/invul/blind etc more wisely.

Luimes.4281:

So you run d/d in lvl 28+? Aren’t you getting 1-2 shot by normal mobs?

positioning and right bar skills prevent that….
With CC stuff paired with positioning u can manage to just outside attack range of mobs….

If you are careful.

P.S. there is no reason to play 22+ actually…
All skins i got (8) i had them on 20-22 drop are really bad the more you go farther…..

But seems at 28 + you get good players mostly.

I agree with Krag go full zerker gear use all your weapons and bring a pvt set for when needed. Seems like the way to go.

krag, thanks for clering my doubts out. I was almost sure on 30+ dd will be mostly usabe only against trash mobs and ranged set should be used for the hard encounters :/ especially wehen rest of the party is also range.

…there is also an ultimate alternative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIFOmCruUR4

haviz.1340:

Lavadiel.6231:

Imho bosses and mobs should use magnetic auras to minimize the huge skill gap between players who use range build vs plyers who use melee builds.

If I may add, some melee attacks (not just ele) are counted as projectiles.

unfortuntally yes and to make thing worse they dont count as projectile finishers Addidiontally some decend ranged attacks do not count as projectiles and will not be reflected so my idea with magnetic aura on bosses inded is bad. There sould be some other mechanism forcing players to play the game how it should be played instead of easy mode dps’ing mobs from safe distance.

I play at level 30 right now with D/D mostly. I change to staff or scepter depending on the need for each party/fractal though. I survive well enough with good dodging and skill usage though.

Stats (with food, no fury):
Armor: 2379
Health: 16005
Crit Damage: 72%
Crit: 35%
Attack: 2848

With using the 0/10/0/30/30 spec. I also WvW with this gear set, sometimes switch a berserkers dagger for a knigths dagger.

Completely viable and fun to use in fractals.

Raif.9507:

Stats (with food, no fury):
Armor: 2379
Health: 16005
Crit Damage: 72%
Crit: 35%
Attack: 2848

May I ask what your armor set is?

I play a s/d crit damage.tank build that works great in high level fractals. It goes 0/30/0/30/10 with full knights gear, valkyrie weapons, and cavaliers accessories. I can put out 5k arc lightnings but still have 3000 armor with food and my rock shield.

skinnyb.5920:

I play a s/d crit damage.tank build that works great in high level fractals. It goes 0/30/0/30/10 with full knights gear, valkyrie weapons, and cavaliers accessories. I can put out 5k arc lightnings but still have 3000 armor with food and my rock shield.

Can you give complete run down of your stats (attk, vit, etc.)

i do not suggest to go tankish for high lvl fotm….

There are clearly some DPS checks to stop tank parties to proceed.
They are not so clear until higher levels.

But actually uncategorized second boss (the robot in the poison room) and shaman veterans in lava stage just to say a couple are such.

i’d argue that ascalon is another….but its doable even by tanks ._. with strong crowd control.

Asura.4709:

The ele class needs a rebuild from anet. There is absolutely no incentive to play an ele, regardless of weapon choice. I have spent well over 1000 hours on my ele, I have always loved ele’s in RPG’s, but when my ele does less dmg, less consistently than my gaurdian or warrior and can only take 2 – 3 hit in a dungeon; there is no point in frustrating the hell outta yourself because you can’t keep your ele alive. With all the builds out there the crit builds seem to be wining, where a crit ele can potentially do massive amounts of dmg, with a staff, to STATIONARY targets, 9 times outta 10 your targets have moved out of your AoE and will take no dmg at all. Then there is channeling time, in the time it takes to drop meteor shower a guardian with a crit build could have already pulled 5 targets done a 3 hit gs combo and whirling wrath; dealing 12k + dmg. All in the time it took you just to channel meteor shower and do 0 – 2k dmg. Anet seems to think that this is ok, that ele players still have the edge of versatility, well versatility doesn’t count for much when you are spending your evening dead, observing other players beat the dungeon. If Anet insists on keeping, my favorite class of all time, as squishy as an ambient rabbit then I respectfully request double if not triple the dmg out put with 1/3 the channeling time. That way while I’m watching everyone else beat the boss I can at least sit back and chuckle about how I took him down to 3/4 of his over all health before he killed me. And it would still be a challenge to pick the ele back up without wiping, maintaining the aspect of team play and banning together to get through tough spots.
I really love my ele, but I refuse to play her untill something is done about this unscrupulous disadvantage that no other class seems to have. Like I said, there is absolutely no incentive to play an ele, all it does is raise your blood pressure and drive you to early an early grave.

I understand where you’re coming from and I feel the same. But in overal I feel like the elementalist is more challenging at the moment and for me, more fun to play.
I do agree that they should get a bit of a rebuild because the damage is to mediocre for what in each game that I’ve played should be one of the highest dpsing classes. Also the fact that mobile targets are virtually un-hitable by most of your skills is very annoying.

Asura.4709:

The ele class needs a rebuild from anet. There is absolutely no incentive to play an ele, regardless of weapon choice. I have spent well over 1000 hours on my ele, I have always loved ele’s in RPG’s, but when my ele does less dmg, less consistently than my gaurdian or warrior and can only take 2 – 3 hit in a dungeon; there is no point in frustrating the hell outta yourself because you can’t keep your ele alive. With all the builds out there the crit builds seem to be wining, where a crit ele can potentially do massive amounts of dmg, with a staff, to STATIONARY targets, 9 times outta 10 your targets have moved out of your AoE and will take no dmg at all. Then there is channeling time, in the time it takes to drop meteor shower a guardian with a crit build could have already pulled 5 targets done a 3 hit gs combo and whirling wrath; dealing 12k + dmg. All in the time it took you just to channel meteor shower and do 0 – 2k dmg. Anet seems to think that this is ok, that ele players still have the edge of versatility, well versatility doesn’t count for much when you are spending your evening dead, observing other players beat the dungeon. If Anet insists on keeping, my favorite class of all time, as squishy as an ambient rabbit then I respectfully request double if not triple the dmg out put with 1/3 the channeling time. That way while I’m watching everyone else beat the boss I can at least sit back and chuckle about how I took him down to 3/4 of his over all health before he killed me. And it would still be a challenge to pick the ele back up without wiping, maintaining the aspect of team play and banning together to get through tough spots.
I really love my ele, but I refuse to play her untill something is done about this unscrupulous disadvantage that no other class seems to have. Like I said, there is absolutely no incentive to play an ele, all it does is raise your blood pressure and drive you to early an early grave.

I have no trouble keeping my 900 toughness, 13.5k hp ele alive.

Maybe… just maybe you need to improve your game?

On topic:
I run 0/20/0/20/30 full berserker’s (arcane shield, wave and mist form) and the highest frac ive done is coincidentally level 28. Dredge fractal can really be a pain, especially the first part, but it’s doable.

This is my comprehensive list of weapons I use for each encounter:

Uncategorized / asura:
Staff at all the harpies & champion ettin (Focus seems better for harpies)
Scepter old tom (Used to be s/d but I can see why focus would excel here)
Staff final boss (AoE and magnetic aura)
Equip Armor of earth for the harpy part

Cliffside:
S/D archdiviner first encounter (Lots of might stacks for everyone, and he moves a lot)
D/D trash mobs
Staff at arms seals (Combo fields and control)
D/D final boss (Doesn’t move as much, and D/D does more damage)

Ice:
Staff at the first part + Ice elemental (Need control over vets)
Final boss S/D (Dragon’s tooth hits him while he’s on top, also free 25 might stacks)
Equip Glyph of storms for the two first parts, AoE blind can save you.

Water:
-_-

Grawl:
Staff trash mobs (AoE galore)
Staff first boss (Safe choice + controls vets well)
S/D last boss (Air 1 allows me to move while casting without any effort, also, mobility)
Equip Ether Renewal for the final boss.

Ascalon:
Staff until the final boss
S/D for final boss (Boss moves a lot, staff ground aoes become pointless)

Dredge:
S/F or staff for the first part (Invuln, and lots of projectile cancelling)
S/F for bombs / Staff for trash mobs
D/D for champion
S/D for final boss (Again, move while casting while being safer than D/D)
Equip Signet of Earth for the final boss.

Swamp:
Staff at all times.
Equip Armor of earth, Lightning flash and Cleansing fire for the first part, just to be sure.

Jade maw:
S/D final part (Two blinds are priceless against those tentacles. RtL can also come handy)

I adjust with my air traits according with the weapon I use:
I and IX for D/D
VI and III for staff
VI and X for scepter.

I have only started to use focus recently, and I realized that it’s invaluable in certain encounters.

Needless to say, I’m squishy, but I rarely die. I’ll have to play flawlessly as I keep rising in difficulty.

Razor.6392:

I have no trouble keeping my 900 toughness, 13k ele alive.

Maybe… just maybe you need to improve your game?

i quite doubt you can survive and contribute to a party with that build…

You can show me in fotm (without 2-3 guardians obviously)…..i met a lot on forum that assume they can go full GC…..but seems in game i never see any ._.

maybe they are all in USA.

Yet saying “im good you are not” is not of much help…..

sure, whats your fotm rank?

whatever you want …..
i have enough AR…..

LordByron.8369:

whatever you want …..
i have enough AR…..

not possible not enough ar existant to get to the level’s I’m at:)

I’d run full zerker as we’ll. mostly you win with utilitie skills some good defense ( you need pre prot for example on arcane shield)

and to proove that I know what I’m speaking about:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

LordByron.8369:

whatever you want …..
i have enough AR…..

not possible not enough ar existant to get to the level’s I’m at:)

I’d run full zerker as we’ll. mostly you win with utilitie skills some good defense ( you need pre prot for example on arcane shield)

and to proove that I know what I’m speaking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrtfwlZdeE

How cute

LordByron.8369:

You can show me in fotm (without 2-3 guardians obviously…

that is the point
2 guardians and a staff ele on shaman doesn t impress me…..
Staff is not a good weapon on shaman….

Still available for a fotm runs without guardians
As i said i have enough AR….motly because as everybody knows, i have at least as much as you….so its enough…..

The fun thing about high level fotm is that its not the work of a single player, and its most about knowing what to do ….skill is not much involved….

As its quite obvious you have to exploit the hell of the game to get to 80 as now as before…..

I’d rather see how people play first part of dredge…..or svanir stage at 80…..

Dat envy.

I guess some people can’t just admit that there are better players out there, using builds that are ‘useless’ according to their limited mindset.

“skill is not much involved”

clearly, Mr. PVT guy, clearly.