Guild Wars 2

I play glass cannon D/D in both sPvP and PvE. Here is a list of helpful maneuvers that have improved my gameplay significantly. I have not included blast finishers inside fire fields, since people generally know about this already. Most “helpful hints” I see are defensive in nature. These are to help you maximize your offense.

• Arcane Blast in Ring of Fire

If you use Arcane Blast inside Ring of Fire (or generally just a fire field), you can combo straight into Fire Grab for maximum damage. Projectile finishers in fire fields inflict burning. I used to use Drake’s Breath to ensure my target was on fire, but this little improvement has eliminated that step and dramatically improved my burst damage on a single target.

• Ether Renewal/Mist Form

I hesitated a long time before using Ether Renewal over any other ability, but one of your best assets in glass cannon D/D is the ability to run away and prepare for another burst. Ether Renewal ensures that you can run away by curing a total of 16 conditions over its duration. Mist form ensures that you can cast it unhindered. Your enemy will not immobilize you.

• Auras/Zephyr’s Boon/Arcane Fury

D/D gets two auras, lightning and frost. With Zephyr’s Boon, each of these grants 5 seconds of fury and swiftness plus any boon duration adjustments. 5 points into arcane grants and additional 2 seconds of fury per attunement swap. Between those and the swiftness you gain from updraft, it seems unlikely that in any normal circumstance you will go without either of these two boons. 5 seconds is long enough to end a fight.

If you start from water and use Frost Aura, switch to Air and use Lightning Aura into RTL, Updraft, Fire Attune, etc., you have just accumulated 14 seconds of fury and 24 seconds of swiftness before accounting for your points into Arcane.

• Instant-Cast Spells

If you can wrap your mind around it, there are a number of instant cast spells which will dramatically improve your performance when melded with other spells. For example, before casting RTL, I will cast Lightning Aura, but I might as well be hitting them simultaneously. Also, if I notice my fury running low, I can swap into ice and pop Frost Aura while also casting Cone of Cold.

Arcane spells, too, work while doing other tasks. When used at the same time as other skills/spells, they contribute heavily to a concentrated burst. Aside from the burning/might which you get from using them in a fire field, you also get another ~5k damage instantaneously by casting blast/wave, which is no small number.

Air spells in general tend to work this way. Attuning to air gives an instant nuke, then you can immediately RTL even when you’re next to someone for an extra 2k on a crit. It will cast lightning whip immediately, for an impressive total burst of up to 6k or so in an instant.

• Lightning Whip

This is minor. Another thing I tend to hear is that some classes can just spam the same skill endlessly and do decent damage. Well, here is our skill. If I don’t feel like blowing my cooldowns, I can literally stand still doing lightning whip against most creatures. In a full glass build, You may do 2k per cast once your crit rate is high enough. Once vulnerability starts stacking (air 25 trait), I’ve seen 4k per cast.

Anyhow, I hope some of these suggestions will help you add a bit more cannon to your glass cannon. These suggestions work with any style of play, but I’ve been able to use them to great effect in doing damage.

Shocking aura actually gives 10 seconds of fury and swiftness before boon duration is factored in (all other auras only give 5 though).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Boon

Thanks for the tips. Didn’t know you could cast frost armor and the lighting shield while channeling.

Getting the most out of Churning Earth - More PvP oriented.

Assuming you’re running enough points in Water to reach Bountiful Power (2% damage per boon) once you start the churning earth cast, swap into water and pop Frost Aura (Swiftness and Fury (and Might if you have a Sigil of Battle). Now anyone who hits you is getting snared in the radius while you channel. Additionally, you can either pop Armour of Earth if you think you’ll be interrupted, or instead start the cast out of range and Lightning Flash in at the end, both of which grant Regen and Vigor (if you’re running a heavy cantrip build).

Enjoy your 10% extra damage from having 5 boons up, and your 20% extra crit chance on our hardest hitting ability (possibly combined with a reasonably big hit off Lightning Flash if you used it to reposition).

With Bolt to the Heart factored in, I’ve had 1.4k Flash crits directly followed by up to 7.2k CE crits on densely packed people before. You’ll pretty much gib anything that’s unfortunate enough to be in the radius, or at the very least vaporise a huge chunk of hitpoints.

Is the 5% critical chance of superior sigil of accuracy working??
Is it possible to add 10% critical change with Dual Daggers?
Last time I checked the critical chance of the sigil is not shown in values in “H”.
And I felt no 10% critical change increased when hitting the dummy golems.

It works, but it’s bad in comparison to Minor Accuracy which gives you 14% more crit chance at max stacks, which is only 5 kills in pvp.

You can gain another aura by using magnetic grasp through a field (burning speed, ring of fire or the ice elemental’s frozen ground).

If someone is trying to run away and they are out of range I RTl to them followed by a5 to knock them down. Switch to earth and use magnetic grasp and then e4.

Thanks for the input. Glass cannon is a strong option for us, but only if you play it well. The more advice, the better. Here are a few more extras to incorporate into your routine.

• Close-range Magnetic Grasp

If one considers Magnetic Grasp as merely a leap/distance-closer, one loses out on a very useful application of this skill. Casting MG from a distance will miss fairly often, making it a not-so-great skill in that regard. If you instead use it up close, you can take advantage of its immobilize. Use it to retreat, to use spells from a distance, or even to set up a Burning Speed combo.

• Time your combos

In the first post, I suggested using Arcane Blast as a lead-in to Fire Grab. As I was reviewing my traits and considering my gameplay, I realized that I oftentimes end up waiting for my arcane skills to recharge before running my Burning Speed combo (Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Arcane Blast & Wave, Fire Grab). Even if Fire Grab isn’t available, it’s still nice to be able to set them on fire and have an extra three stacks of might. Pick your traits accordingly. There’s no sense in picking 20% faster recharge on fire spells if you’re waiting for other spells to recharge before using them.

And now for some more PvP-oriented tips.

• Maximize Your Burst Damage

If you’re playing glass cannon, your role is to end the fight in a matter of seconds. Pick the traits that will help you do this; don’t approach the “cannon” part halfheartedly. Your best defense is for there to be nothing left to attack you. All the 5, 10, and 20 percent bonuses our traits give us will add up to an incredible burst.

Slow-burn builds don’t get many kills except in 1v1; they start wars of attrition. Your goal when entering a fight is to sink someone’s health all at once so that there is no hope of recovering. There may hypothetically be ways to increase your sustained DPS, but that burst will be more useful in downing players.

• Don’t Force a Fight

In sPvP especially, I have found that the most effective thing is to unload your spells and then retreat to a defensible position. By “defensible,” I mean that your enemy is not attacking you. This means that there’s either a person or a wall in between you and the enemy. Wait for RTL to recharge before reentering the fray.

Also, don’t feel like you have to participate in small skirmishes. With near-constant swiftness and some tactical awareness, you can skip 1v1 fights where you’re not as effective and move straight on to supporting your group with heavy AoE damage. If you spec glass cannon, own your role instead of trying to be what you are not.