Guild Wars 2

I’ve been messing around with s/d and really like it so far but I was wondering what you all think works best for mostly pve. Looking for some decent damage and some nice group synergy.

This is the build I was looking at trying, if anything looks good/bad I love criticism.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArIIAIPMBlSCFIQUwiiiZ0B

Also what armor/runes would work best do you think? Been looking at Valkyrie and maybe a couple pieces of zerker, or maybe straight clerics?

Any ideas are very welcome thanks guys.

Rinso

I don’t have much input, still pretty noob (Casual Player). However, I LOVE d/d ele, but started to actually try out S/D last night.

I can get 2 area of might combos with fire (Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Arcane Wave ). Which is the good part of fire with scepter. Dragons Tooth is good, if you aren’t targeting something moving around too much.

Shatterstone is great for building up Vulnerability, and Ice Shards aren’t too shabby if you need to stick in water for a bit to heal up or support.

Scepter Air is weak imo. It’s fun being able to channel while hitting foes with a lightning strike, but that’s about it…..Still love the Ride the Lightning > Updraft combo. Plus Ride is great for getting around a bit quicker.

Earth has got to be my favorite in the Scepter line thus far. I try to cast Rock Barrier when approaching combat. You can switch back to earth later and cast hurl, granted time isn’t up, which does good dmg.

So typically my ideal skill combo is….

Rock Barrier > Ride the Lightning > Updraft > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Arcane Wave > Hurl > Earthquake > Churning Earth

Granted its a boss. Typically the fire combo gets them low enough it doesn’t really matter. BTW I switch a lot…hehehe.

I have Meteorologicus, so I use it for fun. Outside of that, the scepter is a weak weapon at the moment. Staff and d/d do more overall aoe and their utilities are better.

The gap between scepter damage and mainhand dagger or staff is vast. Outside Dragon Tooth, which only has stationary burst, all the damage on your s/d setup actually comes from your offhand dagger part of the combination. Scepter does no good damage whatsoever, only semi decent burst (still very situational and low compared to thief and mesmer or warrior burst), but its sustained damage is terrible.

It’s a nice bunkering weapon for pvp though due to rock barrier and the 2 blinds it offers plus the extra condition removal and vigor from phoenix.

if i was to S/D in PvE I’d start in fire, give my team as much might as possible (15) then go to earth and spam 1. If you stack condition dmg and duration you can maintain 25 bleed stacks by yourself. Its the highest single target DPS u can do as an ele assuming no other bleeders are present. Other then that run D/D for its AoE burst.

The best thing about D/D you don’t have to aim anything worst thing about S/D it is a big pain to land any hit, if you can, it has better burst I think…..

To say the truth I like the Scepter more which give me the option keep my distance but that slow flying Phoenix and no aim Dragon Tooth kills me…..

Personally the only way I’ve been able to do anything decent with a Scepter was to stack absurd levels of zerker gear and 30/30/0/10/0 spec and then it did okay because I could burst anything down in a single auto attack cycle and lightning strike.

Otherwise D/D or Staff just does it better.

Get any random combination of trait points.
Any random combination of gear.

Use Dragons Tooth -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> switch to earth attunement -> (Dodge roll if you have evasive arcana) Earthquake -> Arcane Wave somewhere in between -> Churning Earth (will still give you the might if the ring disappears during the channel so don’t worry). Repeat as many times as possible with as many ready blast finishers as possible.

Enjoy 25 stacks of might for the entire party near permanently(if they’re close enough, range seems to be 600-900)

Open fire, then earth and lighting if solo mob.

Rotate your two blinds.

Ray.2640:

Get any random combination of trait points.
Any random combination of gear.

Use Dragons Tooth -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> switch to earth attunement -> (Dodge roll if you have evasive arcana) Earthquake -> Arcane Wave somewhere in between -> Churning Earth (will still give you the might if the ring disappears during the channel so don’t worry). Repeat as many times as possible with as many ready blast finishers as possible.

Enjoy 25 stacks of might for the entire party near permanently(if they’re close enough, range seems to be 600-900)

Does Powerful Aura shares Might with your allies in this case since the Might is gained from combos not casting?

ChaosDoom.8459:

Does Powerful Aura shares Might with your allies in this case since the Might is gained from combos not casting?

Might from blast finishers is AoE. You don’t need Powerful Auras to give might to allies.

I enjoy using S/D in PvE and what I use most is Dragon’s Tooth → Ring of Fire → Phoenix
If CDs are up in earth (you use magic to count them), switch to Earth and Earthquake → Churning Earth (still get the Blast Finisher) and Arcane Blast.
If I’m taking hits I set up Earth Barrier and stay in Air until Fire CDs are avaliable again.

A 4 sec Lightning Strike is kinda nice, and so is the 8 sec blind on non-bosses mobs.
I go Water if I or the party needs heals, and switch either to Fire or Air back.

I use a 20/20/0/20/10 build, for both Fire and Air getting a decent damage and getting heals + regeneration just for swapping to Water.
I don’t think the damage is better than a Staff’s, though I haven’t tested it, but it’s just more spiky and grants better boons.

Shameless bump.

I too was instantly drawn to S/D Ele for PvE. I picked up on the full combo listed by Ray pretty quick, which I just found to be amazing. (I might add, it does great burst damage on top of stacking might incredibly high)

I’m curious to know what other S/D PvE builds there are out there. I’m still new to the class, and haven’t played around with many traits, so build advice while leveling is also appreciated.

Namely, I’m looking for something to take advantage of Scepter’s quick auto attacks. Taking full advantage of on crit sigils and traits such as Burning Precision looks really promising with a condition build.

This is what I have so far. Signet of Fire for a flat crit boost and access to additional burn, AW for the blast finisher. Third Util is free, filled with either another signet or AS (as not being interrupted is nice).

Even with precision/cnd dmg gear, Accuracy, and Signet of fire however, I’m worried my crit rate will be too low to benefit much from on crit procs… I can’t see going into Air very far.

Also clueless on an elite. Disclaimer: Noob elementalist theory crafting here.

staff is better for pve imo

You can pretty much get through all of solo pve with staff/scepter + lightning hammer (swap for ice bow when dealing with destructibles aka walls, roadblocks, towers, dragons) + signet of air (for speed boost) + cantrip (mist form, flash, armor of earth)

Ray.2640:

Get any random combination of trait points.
Any random combination of gear.

Use Dragons Tooth -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> switch to earth attunement -> (Dodge roll if you have evasive arcana) Earthquake -> Arcane Wave somewhere in between -> Churning Earth (will still give you the might if the ring disappears during the channel so don’t worry). Repeat as many times as possible with as many ready blast finishers as possible.

Enjoy 25 stacks of might for the entire party near permanently(if they’re close enough, range seems to be 600-900)

/signed This.

Stone Shards is a projectile finisher as is Rock Barrier/Hurl. Rock Barrier/Hurl will give you 5 rocks at +50 toughness apiece and Hurl each of the 5 rocks is a projectile finisher. Nice if you have others using fields.

I put Fire Grab into my rotation before i move to Earth. Whether or not that loses me a might stack is fine because the 1% 1 might gives is less than the damage by Fire Grab on a burning target. Of course that is when I am in melee range.

The nice thing about scepter/dagger is that you can start the fight at range but get more powerful in melee range. For the Dragon Tooth to stack might on you for example, it has to explode on you, the target location, which you are if you use it in melee range.

In S/D it’s very easy to maintain 25 stacks might on yourself at all times, so that boosts dmg output a lot. Also, because PvE is against non-thinking NPC’s, they’re not going to run away from your Dragon’s Tooth. I run a 15/0/0/25/30 for S/D pretty much standard wherever I am, PvE, PvP, WvW. Utilities are Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave, and whatever I feel like I need at the time for my 3rd. In WvW I use Dragon’s Tooth primarily as an additional blast finisher in Ring of Fire for more might, if it hits players, great, if not, that’s just more might for me and anyone else in range.

I also fight S/D in melee range like I were running my D/D build, so your big hits are more likely to connect.

SlimGenre.6417:

In S/D it’s very easy to maintain 25 stacks might on yourself at all times, so that boosts dmg output a lot. Also, because PvE is against non-thinking NPC’s, they’re not going to run away from your Dragon’s Tooth. I run a 15/0/0/25/30 for S/D pretty much standard wherever I am, PvE, PvP, WvW. Utilities are Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave, and whatever I feel like I need at the time for my 3rd. In WvW I use Dragon’s Tooth primarily as an additional blast finisher in Ring of Fire for more might, if it hits players, great, if not, that’s just more might for me and anyone else in range.

I also fight S/D in melee range like I were running my D/D build, so your big hits are more likely to connect.

I main an Engineer, so I’m no stranger to having the option of range, yet still preferring getting up close and personal.

A build with more points in water is what I originally intended, better support. I just didn’t care much for Scepter’s water abilities. Also worried that my damage would be crappy overall for soloing PvE stuff. I’ll give it a try though!

Don’t waist your 10 points on Powerful Aura, save it when you go d/d auramancer because with d/d you can get 3 auras (fire, if you combine magnetic grasp trough a fire field; water with skill 4; air with skill 3). With s/d you cant make that many auras so i suggest you put those 10 points elsewhere

0/20/0/20/30 With the traits:
20% more damage to mobs with health < 33%
air +10% dam.
10% more damage when hp >90%
Arcane skills reduction
Evasive arcana
Vigor on critical
Full scholar set.

Arcane wave and arcane blast

It makes our damage so much better. Ofc you need to dodge roll alot to keep your hp up, but when you do: hello 16k churning earth, hello 10k dragon’s tooth, hello 13k phoenix and the chain lightning/lightning burst woooowie free 20k damage. EAT THAT 100B WARRIORS

Humposaurus.5764:

0/20/0/20/30 With the traits:
20% more damage to mobs with health < 33%
air +10% dam.
10% more damage when hp >90%
Arcane skills reduction
Evasive arcana
Vigor on critical
Full scholar set.

Arcane wave and arcane blast

It makes our damage so much better. Ofc you need to dodge roll alot to keep your hp up, but when you do: hello 16k churning earth, hello 10k dragon’s tooth, hello 13k phoenix and the chain lightning/lightning burst woooowie free 20k damage. EAT THAT 100B WARRIORS

Wow Humposaurus, mind posting your build please? That’s impressive damage.

Humposaurus.5764:

0/20/0/20/30 With the traits:
20% more damage to mobs with health < 33%
air +10% dam.
10% more damage when hp >90%
Arcane skills reduction
Evasive arcana
Vigor on critical
Full scholar set.

Arcane wave and arcane blast

It makes our damage so much better. Ofc you need to dodge roll alot to keep your hp up, but when you do: hello 16k churning earth, hello 10k dragon’s tooth, hello 13k phoenix and the chain lightning/lightning burst woooowie free 20k damage. EAT THAT 100B WARRIORS

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