Guild Wars 2

As elementalists are so versatile I like to run different builds often specifically dps(berserk), healer/Auramancer(cleric), condition Damage(dire) …but this became so annoying with the lack of the Save/Load build function … not only because having to change gear/skills/traits but mainly because the room those gears takes in the bag!!!! so I considered to become this so called Jack of all trades!

My first approach was naively to just combine the gear I had (zerg trinkets, healer armor, condition weapon) … the stats were lame so I made comparisons with the specialized gear vs Celestial gear and made me wonder why the stats aren’t balanced I mean … how come the sum of the added attributes of specialized gears isn’t the same of celestial ones!?! let’s just see a two handed weapon.
Specialized sums 605 while celestial sum 826 so that’s a 36.5% overall increase in attributes! so the answer was obvious… if I want to be a jack of all trades I need celestial gear … that’s where the pain started. Basically for exalted tier and bellow the only way to get celestial gear is by crafting it yourself! regular vendors won’t offer celestial modifiers (has anyone found one I don’t know about?), so in my case, none of my toons has jeweler profession so I will have to re-gear trinkets with laurels/dungeon rewards will take time but that’s part of the game

So, in theory Celestial look quite good, but before changing I kinda wanted to see what would I be loosing and by comparing celestial vs specialized came with this numbers using the two handed weapon as reference:

Specialized / Celestial / Loss %
Main: +251 / +118 / 53% loss
Secondaries (2x): +179 / +118 / 34% loss
All other +0 / +118

So applying this to roles:

- Dedicated healer won’t be an option but will still be able to heal and support with boons/auras while dealing more damage (Great for solo, not as good for team)
- As for DPS would think I would suffer lots but truth is that damage is a mix of condition damage + direct damage. Secondary attributes (Ferocity & Precision) have a saying in this as well (Mostly/only in zerk), but adding in a different scale as they don’t always proc so kinda have to play with the numbers again.

Damage:
Specialized / Celestial / % Loss
251(direct) / 118(Direct) + 118(conditions) = 236 / 6% Loss

To calculate the loss from Critical damage:

Critical chance Secondaries (on full gear):
Specialized / Celestial / % Loss (spc-cel)
46.9% / 30.8% / 16.1% less chance of critical

Critical damage Loss (on full gear):
210 / 187.3 / 23%

Total damage done by criticals (chance x critical damage)
Specialized / Celestial / % Loss (spc-cel)
98.5% / 57.7% / 40.8%

40.8% is the total damage loss that applies only to direct damage, since that kind of damage is only half the source of damage (debatable) we can roughly say the total loss on damage due to critical hits on a mixed build vs a critical heavy class as Berserk is 20.4% (can be seen as 0% loss on condition damage build, 40.8% loss on zerker build)

So an aproximate number for the total damage loss is 26.6% less damage (Decreases as the toughness of oponents increases)

So in conclusion we can say the loss by gear is somewhat noticeable yet can be compensated by builds with the stacking of boons (might/fury for dps, regeneration/aura sharing for healer and protection/regeneration for tank) so can deal similar amounts of damage while healing and being more bulky!! not to mention the extra room in bags

So before doing this investment of re gearing and before I start crafting ascended stuff I was wondering… should I keep this path or continue carrying my specialized gear? So far I think celestial do well in WvW, PvP (does not required gear) and of course PvE …. the only thing I consider will require specialized gear would be raids… am I right? am I missing something? is celestial a good choice? Should I archive all the gear on a bank toon and only getting when doing raids?

Any opinions, suggestions, additions (Like the name of trading posts buyable gear) are well welcomed!

I honestly don’t have the experience to comment but you need to take into account that ele does more direct damage than Condi, and you aren’t taking into account skills + weapons you use as they’ll be different in your jack of all trades build to a pure dps build so I think you are losing out on more damage than you think

definitely losing out on more damage than you think, for two reasons
first of all, the power damage stats multiply each other. Ex: the less precision you have, the less the ferocity you have is helping you
And the other is that a power ele and a condition ele play very differently. When I play condi build, I’ll do a rotation that quickly stacks up 15+ stacks of burning, and most of that involves moves that do almost no power damage. And conversely, when I use my power build, I get very few stacks of damaging conditions, since air nets the most power damage.

My solution was to throw in some healing power and support traits (or a LOT of healing power on the condi build, since it can afford to without losing a lot of damage, as condi ele only uses one stat for damage, other than condition duration which caps easily). I traited water, and mixed in some zealot’s gear with my zerker, and used apothecary’s/shaman’s instead of dire (unfortunately no condition damage primary sets exist that also have healing power). Still takes two builds, but each feels pretty versatile, and it’s better than needing 3 or 4 gear sets

reikken.4961:

definitely losing out on more damage than you think, for two reasons
first of all, the power damage stats multiply each other. Ex: the less precision you have, the less the ferocity you have is helping you
And the other is that a power ele and a condition ele play very differently. When I play condi build, I’ll do a rotation that quickly stacks up 15+ stacks of burning, and most of that involves moves that do almost no power damage. And conversely, when I use my power build, I get very few stacks of damaging conditions, since air nets the most power damage.

My solution was to throw in some healing power and support traits (or a LOT of healing power on the condi build, since it can afford to without losing a lot of damage, as condi ele only uses one stat for damage, other than condition duration which caps easily). I traited water, and mixed in some zealot’s gear with my zerker, and used apothecary’s/shaman’s instead of dire (unfortunately no condition damage primary sets exist that also have healing power). Still takes two builds, but each feels pretty versatile, and it’s better than needing 3 or 4 gear sets

Yes, healing+condi was a good approach I tried as well, but was loosing a lot on armor and lifepoints, also noticed that combining specialized is not as effective as using armors that are already combined (more points to distribute) … as of the damage loss calculations, they were taking into account the multiplication that you mention (critical chance x critical damage) and the loss for criticals was the most considerable loss of all 40% damage is a lot but that damage is if left alone and only using power attacks… that’s where mixed damage comes into play … as you mention affected by playstyle or build. For that I mentioned you have to adjust the build if you want an specific role. if you want to dps you are right, air alone won’t be as effective, you’ll have to focuss more on mixed damage, so fire trait kinda becomes a must (burning on criticals+fury on auras). ..Feel the burn shout, etc. Notice that power damage still deal damage, less but compensates for the condi damage attribute loss on cele.
Also believe the cap of burning is 10, and might is 15. You can reach both by overloading fire on a fire field while shouting.

might cap is 25
there is no cap on damaging conditions

reikken.4961:

might cap is 25
there is no cap on damaging conditions

Yes 25 for might!! ..sorry for that… and cap on burning is 1500 …but you are very likely to reach a fake cap of 10 counting that duration ends before you get to apply more.

I run + 100% burning duration on my condition build
15 stacks is pretty normal, 20+ happens but is rare

reikken.4961:

I run + 100% burning duration on my condition build
15 stacks is pretty normal, 20+ happens but is rare

You beat me to it, was about to add that the value is subjective now with all the viper runes.

Edit:

The important note here I guess is… yes there is damage loss, for both power / condi … but you gain in functionality without having a total power creep … (nothing new since celestial eles are a thing) … Just note that there’s more to dealing damage than dealing damage… in the Vacuum.. pure damage builds excel, … but when what you are attacking fights back active attacking uptime affects the average dps by a lot (meaning can’t attack while you are trying to recover some health or even worst when you are down).

Nah, you don’t need viper. I use apothecary’s and shaman’s gear, like I said above. balthazar runes = 45% burning duration. makes it easy to reach the duration cap

kuritsutian.2987:

Just note that there’s more to dealing damage than dealing damage… in the Vacuum.. pure damage builds excel, … but when what you are attacking fights back active attacking uptime affects the average dps by a lot (meaning can’t attack while you are trying to recover some health or even worst when you are down).

and yes, I agree. which is why my power build isn’t full berserker/zealot’s. I added a little bit of marauder’s/celestial for just enough defense that I don’t get one-shotted.

but the cool thing about d/f fresh air is the attacking uptime is basically 100%. Most of the defensive options are instant. Swapping from air to another element to use a defensive skill actually increases dps thanks to fresh air and electric discharge. and obsidian flesh, magnetic wave, arcane shield, and water trait triggers are all instant. and burning speed evades while doing damage

also my condition build is very defensive. moreso than full celestial

reikken.4961:

kuritsutian.2987:

Just note that there’s more to dealing damage than dealing damage… in the Vacuum.. pure damage builds excel, … but when what you are attacking fights back active attacking uptime affects the average dps by a lot (meaning can’t attack while you are trying to recover some health or even worst when you are down).

and yes, I agree. which is why my power build isn’t full berserker/zealot’s. I added a little bit of marauder’s/celestial for just enough defense that I don’t get one-shotted.

but the cool thing about d/f fresh air is the attacking uptime is basically 100%. Most of the defensive options are instant. Swapping from air to another element to use a defensive skill actually increases dps thanks to fresh air and electric discharge. and obsidian flesh, magnetic wave, arcane shield, and water trait triggers are all instant. and burning speed evades while doing damage

also my condition build is very defensive. moreso than full celestial

That’s great! kinda what I was looking for.. I am currently using a mixture of dire/celestial for the same purpose as celestial set kinda takes a while to build. (almost done) but in general works great … how does the mix works on high level fractals?

I dunno. I’ve only done mid/low level ones so far (30s. only got 25 AR so far)

Problem with this is that eles aren’t really jack of all trades, engineers are, AND they can specialize too if they want.

Sure, we always have a heal and a CC on our weapons and we will always at least share some boons, but that’s the extent of our versatility.

Engineers always bring aoe healing too (healing turret + they can use other heal skills too) PLUS they have access to basically all conditions and have viable condi and power builds and cele builds, and range builds, …