Played a while today to check things out, and I’m pretty frustrated with the state of the glass d/d. It maybe wasn’t the absolute strongest build before, but it was still very viable. Now, I can’t beat anyone that is even close in skill level. I’ve tried probably 20 different specs, lots of amulets/jewels, tons of utilities, and it just isn’t working.
Has anyone found a way to viably play the glass d/d ele after all the nerfs? Is there some build or way of playing that I missed that makes it work? I don’t mean hotjoins or zergs in wvw, I mean against skilled players.
What spec are we talking about? What traits have you been using?
Fire, Air and Earth trait-lines are all severely lacking compared to water and arcane.
20 points in Air is okay for more dmg, and 10 in fire CAN be used but rarely is.
You need atleast 20 in Water and Arcane even if you’re speccing DPS and not Bunker.
The reason is that those trait-lines are much better overall.
The only way to spec “DPS” is then to pick more offensive runes and armor stats, as well as using Arcane utilities instead of Cantrips.
I won’t say is OP or something (in fact … its very glassy) but its easier to land churning earth/fire grab thx to the Elemental surge trait while in earth using arcane skills
I won’t say is OP or something (in fact … its very glassy) but its easier to land churning earth/fire grab thx to the Elemental surge trait while in earth using arcane skills
I’m going to give this a try. I really didn’t want to give up Grounded, but the problem I’m having is landing my damage, not doing too little damage, and this may fix that.
Focus your efforts on positioning and landing those skills. Ele is the hardest class to play. High learning curve, but extremely powerful when played well. Learn to predict your opponent, work to engage and get out a the right times.
I find it extremely hard to play glassy dd ele without cantrips in our current state. The moment you jump in to a team fight doing aoe-burst you will be targeted straight away. I used to play 0/20/0/20/30 with zerker amu for good dps but since I relied heavily on RTL on survival I’ve changed to the cantrip build + zerk amulet. The damage is not that good though..
So frustrating for me at the moment, cannot seem to find that “perfect” dps dd ele build.
It is possible but are you talking about PvP or PvE?
For PvP, I won’t try it. Elementalist are just way too soft for glass cannon.
For PvE, use the scepter and stack area might. Both dagger and focus can achieve this but I find the dagger to be better at it. Focus on the other hand is better for dungeons because you can stack area might at range.
I’ve been using d/d in some dungeons like CoF, AC, and some fights in TA. At the beginning of TA with all the volatile flowers I find it easier to use staff air. I haven’t really been running anything else lately. I’ve been following da.phoenix’s guide, and in it he has a link to a dps PvE dungeon spec 0/15/0/25/30. He said it’s for staff or scepter, but I’ve been using it for D/D and it works pretty nicely.
I find it extremely hard to play glassy dd ele without cantrips in our current state. The moment you jump in to a team fight doing aoe-burst you will be targeted straight away. I used to play 0/20/0/20/30 with zerker amu for good dps but since I relied heavily on RTL on survival I’ve changed to the cantrip build + zerk amulet. The damage is not that good though..
So frustrating for me at the moment, cannot seem to find that “perfect” dps dd ele build.
Ya this is the problem. I prefer arcane over cantrips, but I just can’t make it work without the mobility. I can definitely see glass ele still working with a coordinated team to support it. If I had a guardian giving me protection and stability and condition clears I’d be golden, but playing it alone just doesn’t seem to work anymore.
I tried the elemental surge build, and while it works, it’s still kind of meh in large fights. I can land spells better, but I’m still blowing up instantly and not able to get out once I unload my combo. It was, admittedly, a game full of rangers and /p mesmers so the daze/stun spam was pretty ridiculous, but still.
I really enjoyed 30 earth when I was experimenting with it, so I think I’m going to look at that again and see if I can work something out that doesn’t completely destroy my damage.
Well, I give up. I got a build dialed in that’s about as strong as possible, and it’s just pointless. I have less damage, less mobility, less survivability, less healing, than every single popular spec right now. DPS d/d ele literally has nothing at all going for it right now. It used to be a high risk high reward build, now it’s just pointless. Anet ruined the build, and there’s just no point playing it in anything more competitive than hotjoins.
Weapon sigils should be energy/force and (of course) they want to nerf energy. Bwahaha. sigh
“We recognize that the changes to [ele] will essentially remove it from play. In the future,
we may consider whether or not there is an incarnation of [ele] that would be viable
but balanced. For now, we do not expect it to see serious use.” – ANet
Thousands of players have looked for a viable “DPS D/D” build for months and couldn’t find it. Since nothing has changed since then (in terms of buffs) chances are ~0% to suddenly find the almighty damage build.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun to create your own builds but don’t expect to find a new meta changing build.
Thousands of players have looked for a viable “DPS D/D” build for months and couldn’t find it. Since nothing has changed since then (in terms of buffs) chances are ~0% to suddenly find the almighty damage build.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun to create your own builds but don’t expect to find a new meta changing build.
Weapon sigils should be energy/force and (of course) they want to nerf energy. Bwahaha. sigh
Ya, I don’t think it’s possible to get much glassier than that these days. Dumb and frustrating, but apparently anet wants every ele to run bunker and not bother trying to kill things.
Could try normal 0 10 0 30 30, but go with divinity runes, Cavalier ascended trinkets, PVT daggers(battle+fire) 5 PVT armor pieces 1 knights(coat). For food 100prec 10%crit dmg(or 80prec 8% crit dmg) and lvl 60 or lvl 80 maintenance oils. This should still give decent HP(around 17K) 2,7K armor, 76% crit dmg, 28% crit chance(48% with perma fury<3).
2 reasons why other dps builds of ANY profession is hard to fit into a team. Mesmer and thief burst. You simply do not have as many abilities as a gc build to mitigate their burst, while they have many ways to mitigate yours.
One burst combo with either mf or lf on cd and you are dead. Couple their burst with ele’s inability to stay at range until the “right” time to burst and you pretty much have a non viable gc build for tournaments.
There are a couple of duo’s I can see trying to run in a tournament setting though I haven’t had the chance to try the comps out yet.
Both for the sake of build variety in this class and hopefully returning some confidence that Anet’s balance team isn’t full of blithering idiots and/or trolls. Seriously… “Want to bring down cantrip Ele without affecting lesser used builds”
