Guild Wars 2

The following post is basically just me asking for advice on my characters build, trying to see if anyone can help me notice where I may not be maximizing damage output. For the record, I don’t have HoT – and obviously such a glass cannon build isn’t viable in PvP so we’re really only looking to improve damage output if at all possible. Thanks in advance for any feedback/suggestions you may be able to help me find.

I run full ascended, assassin’s gear (main precision, subs are power and ferocity) with the exception of trinkets as they’re only available in rampager’s stats (main precision, subs power and condition damage). So if you’re beginning by wondering why I don’t use zerkers meta let me clarify – when I eat Plate of Truffle Steak (+100 power +70 Precision) ankitten ot in a zone under level 80… I practically have 100% chance to critically hit my target. Not everything is vulnerable to crits which I understand, however my build is very dependent on being able to crit every hit so that’s what guided my choice in the matter. Only thing I don’t have ascended yet is back piece, and underwater gear.

For traits I run Fire 1-1-2, Air 3-1-1, Water 1-3-3… utilize superior runes of the eagle (mainly to boost precision but the 6% damage increase to targets under 50% health works well with Bolt to the Heart)… Superior Sigils of Accuracy and Strength (cause 60% chance to gain might on every hit, coupled with the might for using any fire skill or glyph keeps me between 16-20 stacks of might just soloing).

I wield staff, cause having absolutely no defense requires keeping my distance from targets – and because staff really feels like the only weapon with fall back healing capabilities to me. I use the Healing Glyph, Glyph of Storms, Lesser Elementals and Greater Elementals for the Elite. I also have the Signet of Fire on my skillbar but that’s because I don’t know how close to 100% crit chance I’ll be able to get with ascended back piece is, considering changing it for arcane blast or wave… cause I like being able to do more damage.

So, any suggestions? I do swap into Water and Air but rarely find myself jumping into Earth with this build. Water tends to be my main fall back since the second staff skill does so much damage…

You don’t need aeromancer’s training, uses inscriptions instead (air staff is low dps so yo udon’t need the CDR, and you don’t need the precision in there either, since your main output is in fire and water)

and take aquamancer’s training instead of the cantrip cdr one..?

I use both of those… are you using a build editor perhaps instead of the game to check those traits? Just wondering why there’s a discrepancy…

Change assassin.

Alekt.5803:

Change assassin.

To…?

And why? It would do less damage if I changed lol, objective is to deal more damage since I have no defense. Need to kill stuff faster not slower.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Change assassin.

To…?

And why? It would do less damage if I changed lol, objective is to deal more damage since I have no defense. Need to kill stuff faster not slower.

Your idea about being “very dependant” to crit is flawed from the start. You don’t even have fresh air to begin with. With berserker, you have more power, which means that your critical strikes will benefit from that extra power (Crit is a simple multiplier.)

I could bet that your build deals less damage than the majority of max glassy builds with that set-up.

Alekt.5803:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Change assassin.

To…?

And why? It would do less damage if I changed lol, objective is to deal more damage since I have no defense. Need to kill stuff faster not slower.

Your idea about being “very dependant” to crit is flawed from the start. You don’t even have fresh air to begin with. With berserker, you have more power, which means that your critical strikes will benefit from that extra power (Crit is a simple multiplier.)

I could bet that your build deals less damage than the majority of max glassy builds with that set-up.

Fresh Air allows me to swap to air attunement after a crit, correct? Trying to understand how exactly (on staff) that would be of any benefit…

Secondly, I tried zerker stats – and when fighting jormag’s claw the highest my base fireball damage ever did was 8k per attack. By simply swapping my gear set for assassins I always crit, dealing a minimum of 10.3k per base fireball to that same meta during the same phase.

If you’re not going to research things and have any viable input please feel free to leave. I’m looking to get feedback supporting my build not scrapping it and starting from scratch on a much weaker version.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Change assassin.

To…?

And why? It would do less damage if I changed lol, objective is to deal more damage since I have no defense. Need to kill stuff faster not slower.

Your idea about being “very dependant” to crit is flawed from the start. You don’t even have fresh air to begin with. With berserker, you have more power, which means that your critical strikes will benefit from that extra power (Crit is a simple multiplier.)

I could bet that your build deals less damage than the majority of max glassy builds with that set-up.

Fresh Air allows me to swap to air attunement after a crit, correct? Trying to understand how exactly (on staff) that would be of any benefit…

Secondly, I tried zerker stats – and when fighting jormag’s claw the highest my base fireball damage ever did was 8k per attack. By simply swapping my gear set for assassins I always crit, dealing a minimum of 10.3k per base fireball to that same meta during the same phase.

If you’re not going to research things and have any viable input please feel free to leave. I’m looking to get feedback supporting my build not scrapping it and starting from scratch on a much weaker version.

The only advantage of assassins to zerker is a higher chance to crit. Thus, on your highest damage attack (which IS a crit) zerker WILL always do more damage. If you are getting higher damage on a single crit with assassins, rather than with zerker, some other factor is in play (food/traits?). Otherwise, these numbers don’t make sense.

roelvanesch.2817:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Secondly, I tried zerker stats – and when fighting jormag’s claw the highest my base fireball damage ever did was 8k per attack. By simply swapping my gear set for assassins I always crit, dealing a minimum of 10.3k per base fireball to that same meta during the same phase.

The only advantage of assassins to zerker is a higher chance to crit. Thus, on your highest damage attack (which IS a crit) zerker WILL always do more damage. If you are getting higher damage on a single crit with assassins, rather than with zerker, some other factor is in play (food/traits?). Otherwise, these numbers don’t make sense.

Let me explain where you misread my information…

The base attack with zerkers was 8k – just most frequent and thus closer to average than highest damage I could do. Getting spikes of 11-12k every 7 or 8 attacks does not outweigh the fact that a minimum of 10.3k for each of those same attacks with assassins gear does more damage.

Now, to further explain my build… every crit has a chance to deal burning damage, grant me might – etc. My build is highly dependent on crits because these factors push my geared Ele way over the damage threshold you seem to believe best… you can continue to believe what you will but changing my gear isn’t an option in my search to find better damage output.

roelvanesch.2817:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Alekt.5803:

Change assassin.

To…?

And why? It would do less damage if I changed lol, objective is to deal more damage since I have no defense. Need to kill stuff faster not slower.

Your idea about being “very dependant” to crit is flawed from the start. You don’t even have fresh air to begin with. With berserker, you have more power, which means that your critical strikes will benefit from that extra power (Crit is a simple multiplier.)

I could bet that your build deals less damage than the majority of max glassy builds with that set-up.

Fresh Air allows me to swap to air attunement after a crit, correct? Trying to understand how exactly (on staff) that would be of any benefit…

Secondly, I tried zerker stats – and when fighting jormag’s claw the highest my base fireball damage ever did was 8k per attack. By simply swapping my gear set for assassins I always crit, dealing a minimum of 10.3k per base fireball to that same meta during the same phase.

If you’re not going to research things and have any viable input please feel free to leave. I’m looking to get feedback supporting my build not scrapping it and starting from scratch on a much weaker version.

The only advantage of assassins to zerker is a higher chance to crit. Thus, on your highest damage attack (which IS a crit) zerker WILL always do more damage. If you are getting higher damage on a single crit with assassins, rather than with zerker, some other factor is in play (food/traits?). Otherwise, these numbers don’t make sense.

He or she is a lost soul. There is nothing we can do to help here.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Fresh Air allows me to swap to air attunement after a crit, correct? Trying to understand how exactly (on staff) that would be of any benefit…

Well, all elements have a high hitting spell: Eruption, Ice Spike, Lightning Surge, Lava Font.

In between every cast of air bolts you can swap to Earth or Water or Fire during the travel time. Once the bolt hits for a crit, Air is cooldown is already refreshed: simply cast number 2 on Earth or Water and immediately swap to cancel aftercast. With that, you come back to a decent auto attack attunement while also dealing the 0.7 power ratio bolt. You will also gain from the 1200 bleeding damage of eruption.

I am not saying I did the math, but the fact that EVERY meta power build for every class in the game (except mesmer for some reason) uses full zerk probably has a reason of some sort. You asked for advise, and got it. Take it or leave it. You could check metabattle.com for the most viable ele builds.

Alekt.5803:

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Fresh Air allows me to swap to air attunement after a crit, correct? Trying to understand how exactly (on staff) that would be of any benefit…

Well, all elements have a high hitting spell: Eruption, Ice Spike, Lightning Surge, Lava Font.

In between every cast of air bolts you can swap to Earth or Water or Fire during the travel time. Once the bolt hits for a crit, Air is cooldown is already refreshed: simply cast number 2 on Earth or Water and immediately swap to cancel aftercast. With that, you come back to a decent auto attack attunement while also dealing the 0.7 power ratio bolt. You will also gain from the 1200 bleeding damage of eruption.

Suggesting that I use air as my main damage dealing source instead of fire would be an interesting choice – do you think I would be better using Air, Arcane, Water as traits then since using Air all the time would make it pointless to invest in traits that give me might for using fire skills or cause burning on crits.

I’m really not understanding the points regarding zerker meta, there’s a reason that everyone uses it – I get that. I’m not trying to say they’re wrong, nor trying to say what I’m doing works better. But this is working better for me now, so I’m looking for ways to improve what I’m working towards, not what everyone else does.

Okay so I played around with my traits some more… going Arcane 1-3-2, Air 3-2-2, Water 1-3-3…

Now without eating the truffle steaks – my critical chance is 95%… also swapped the glyphs on my utilities for arcane wave and blast and even replaced signet of fire with arcane shielding for the stun break + block. What Elite skill should I run with to maximize damage? I was using Glyph of Greater Elementals but without inscription it seems like another option might suit better. Any thoughts?

I am wondering how much the base damage will change though as getting rid of half my might building traits would seem to lower my power a lot. Going to run it this way for a week or so and see how it plays out.

Question: Is this build supposed to be for solo play or a coordinated, fully buffed group? Either way I can give you some tips:

Stats
Unless you’re using some traits / other stuff that requires almost 100% critchance to be effective you don’t need Assassin’s. The formula for average damage is
(base damage * (1 + critchance/100 * crit damage/100)).
If you post your build in a build editor I can do the calculations for you how much power and precision is best.

For the highest average damage per hit there’s a balance between power, precision and ferocity that can be calculated. Since access to ferocity is limited (there’s no equipment with ferocity main stat) it’s important to get ferocity where possible.

In general going over 100% critchance has no merit. The formula for critchance is (Precision – 916) / 21. That’s 3016 precision for 100% critchance. If you have fury you only need to reach 80% critchance, which equals 2596 precision. If you expect to have a warrior with banners in your team you need another 170 precision less (2426 precision total) to reach 100% critchance. If you have a ranger with spotter on your team that’s another 150 precision less.

Runes and Sigills
Elementalists get most of their awesome damage from multiplyers that are either in the traits or equipment. Multiplyers in this game aren’t added before being multiplyed with the base damage, but instead multiplyed one by one. The result is that two 10% damage boosts don’t give an overall damage boost of 20%, but of 21%.

That’s the reason for using scholar runes and a force sigill. Also scholar runes give ferocity which is (as stated further up) lower in balance than power and precision and thus needs to be stacked where possible.

If you’re confident in your survivabilty you can pick a stacking sigil. Use either Superior Sigil of Cruelty or Bloodlust. Cruelty should be the bigger damage boost since ferocity is always low in the balance.

Traits
Staff Elementalists get most of their damage from fire spells. Thus it’s mandatory to take the fire traitline for reduced recast time (which is a huge damage boosts because you can cast lava font and meteor shower more frequently), a 10% boost while in fire and another 10% boost against burning foes (remember, mults are good) and longer fire fields (which makes lava font even better).

Air is important for the extra ferocity based on precision (this trait needs to be taken into account when calculating the optimal balance of power to precision) and another damage boost.

The last traitline can be either water or arcane. Water grants a constant 10% damage boost while health is above 90% (which is most of the time). Arcane gives a 2% damage boost for each boon you have active. If you expect to have 4 or less boons it’s better to run water and if you expect to have 5 or more it’s better to run arcane. Remember that multiple stacks of the same boon are counted as one boon.

Utilities
Since you’ll be busy casting other stuff it’s a good idea to take Signet of Fire, which boosts your dps passively.

If you ever get into melee range, Lightning Hammer is your friend. The auto attack chain has probably the highest dps you can get and the hammer grants a nice stat-boost (you need another 180 precision less for 100% critchance).

Glyph of storms is your ace for any situation. Tons of trashmobs (pocket raptors?) cast a sandstorm and you won’t get a single hit even in melee range. You have a champion that isn’t maxed out on vuln? Cast a lightningstorm for damage and a ton of vuln. The foe is almost immune to direct damage? Cast a firestorm for burning stacks. Even though you’re not traited for conditions it’s better than being completely useless.

For the heal skill: Pick what you’re comfortable with. Arcane Brilliance if you need an extra blast-finisher or Ether Renewal if you need condi cleanse.

The elite skills are all equally bad. If I could I’d just pick another utility skill instead. Among all elite skills glyph of elementals is probably the least useless one since it’s fire and forget instead of locking you out of your skills, but don’t put your hopes on the elementals doing any damage. Most of them can’t even destroy a heavy training golem in the pvp lobby before they despawn on top of their amazingly stupid ai. I’ve found the earth elemental to be a reliable meat-shield in certain situations (such as the uncathegorized fractal).

Link
Putting all those thoughts together into one build it boils down to this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWnMIClNgNNAGQA0RgBBALCAFgDgcJDBpgaT2G+kA-ThRBABXt/o8r8LIAe6IA4BBQp6PmpEMAwBwv/G47v58zP/8zPvf/93f/93SBExWL-e

Edit: The calculated best balance of power to precision for this build would be 2064 (with banner of discipline, so it’d be 1894 raw) precision to 3123 power. Since I’m calculating with fury and banner of discipline in mind the maximum usable precision would be 2246 while wielding lightning hammer. 1894 is well below the number of what you need for 100% critchance so there’s no double-crit issue. But it’s also well below what you get in a mix of Berserker + Assassin if you only take Berserker. So the result is that the perfect balance can’t be reached due to game restrictions, but the closest alternative would be to go full berserker.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=max+%28%28%282774%2B2243%2B170%29+-+x%29+*+%281+%2B+%28%28x+-+916%29+%2F+21+%2B+20%29+*+%28%281490%2B170+%2B+7+%2F100+*+x%29+%2F+15%29+%2F+10000%29%29

Honestly, I’m looking for a build that will allow me to carry a group. My parents are both in their late 50’s – and my wife has undergone 5 different surgeries on her eyes already. By focusing on a build centered around crit-every hit philosophy I’m hoping that it’ll be easier for me to maintain aggro and allow them to experience dungeon paths. With the build I started this thread with (for example), I would already have the Svanir Shaman (from the Maw) chasing ME down half the times I participate, even though I stand across that small ramp facing away from the lag-tastic summony thing. I know that aggro doesn’t really exist much in this game but I certainly have no problem maintaining hate in groups – I’m just trying to find the best way to deal damage while I’m doing so, cause keeping hate only gets harder the longer you have to do it.

Your strategy of putting more stats into ferocity even sacrificing precision for it sounds like it might be best after all. I’ll revisit the runes and sigils you mentioned.

Well, for getting aggro ele is the best class imo. A friend of mine and I (both eles with very similar bersi builds) once kited the mordrem champion husk in silverwastes halfway into indigo because the husk would only ever aggro one of us. Of course we could’ve stalled it where it stood, but it was funnyer this way.

For carrying a bad group I can only recommend glyph of storms (sandstorm). The perma blind makes most encounters incredibly easy. Especially in dungeons.

You might also want to think about picking one or two extra blast finishers since boon uptime will depend heavily on you. Or for blasting water fields if your group is in trouble.

If you really want to play with a bad group (instead of basically soloing the content) I’d recommend celestial equipment (or alternatively one of the new HoT stats, didn’t have a proper look at them yet) with superior rune of the traveler for extra boon duration. Pick the arcane traitline for reduced cooldown on your attunements and more boon duration and switch your attunements off cooldown. Also pick some blast finishers (arcane wave + arcane brilliance) to blast whatever the situation calls for.

Your dps will drop significantly, but the constant flow of boons, healing and control can keep almost any group at full health. With that setup I’ve carried newbie groups that didn’t have any up to level equip through dungeons and experienced groups that got stuck through high lvl fractals. The best part about this is, that everyone got a sense of achievement instead of feeling carried (even though they were). Btw: you’ll still have aggro. You’re ele after all.

roelvanesch.2817:

I am not saying I did the math, but the fact that EVERY meta power build for every class in the game (except mesmer for some reason) uses full zerk probably has a reason of some sort. You asked for advise, and got it. Take it or leave it. You could check metabattle.com for the most viable ele builds.

if memory serves precision affects reflect damage, even if u go over 100% crit chance, so thats why they take assassins, for maxing reflects

Arenzo.3298:

roelvanesch.2817:

I am not saying I did the math, but the fact that EVERY meta power build for every class in the game (except mesmer for some reason) uses full zerk probably has a reason of some sort. You asked for advise, and got it. Take it or leave it. You could check metabattle.com for the most viable ele builds.

if memory serves precision affects reflect damage, even if u go over 100% crit chance, so thats why they take assassins, for maxing reflects

I run nearly full assassins and didn’t even know that, ty

Okay, so I’ve dropped the idea of swapping back to air for my main attunement altogether because over the past 2 days I’ve noticed a very clear drop in dps… combined with a renewed dislike for the fact the first skill constantly drags non aggressive mobs into the fight when I’m soloing. After reviewing the different runes and sigils I’ve come up with a new idea concerning ferocity.

I’m thinking about going with the traits Fire 1-1-1, Air 3-1-1, and Arcane 1-2-2… and using Superior Runes of Rage. My passive critical chance will drop because I’m also removing signet of fire (so losing 355 precision altogether) so I can run with Arcane Brilliance, Glyph of Storms, Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, And Greater Elementals.

Did the math and the precision I loose barely drops my crit chance 17%, which will be more than covered by gaining the Fury boon when I do blast finishers on fire fields. The runes of the Rage also boosts my ferocity more than Scholar did (which actually only gave me as much ferocity as the Eagle runes I was using before)… and the Arcane trait Elemental Surge boosts my ferocity for 15s after using arcane skills as well.

I’m loosing some of the pure damage boost from the runes I used and dropping the water trait, but I will still get +5% damage while under the effects of fury (which also gets extended by traits and runes) so going to see if that will be enough to deal more damage or not.

Really appreciate all the feedback so far, let me know what you think of my new strategy as well please

Just a couple things.

If you’re looking to carry bad PUGs or other groups, playing a glass cannon is not really the best call. You need to be able to establish and maintain aggro, so a ranged Assassin/Zerk Ele is not going to cut it.

What I would suggest is looking into Condition setups. There are several sets available that allow very high Condi (using Burn in Fire) output, while also ramping up Toughness, Vitality and/or Healing Power. Since Condition builds aren’t reliant on crits, you can spec into other aspects, maintain high DPS and still be resilient enough to not go down like a wet noodle.

I’ve gone through the various metas, even had full Celestial when it still had magic find on it lol. From what I’ve seen, and apart from “structures” in various game modes, a Burning Condi Ele is likely the BEST mix of DPS and survivability hands down.

In fact, looking at some of the new four attribute sets, it seems to me that for absolute best DPS from both direct damage and Condi, Viper’s may end up being the new meta. It does sacrifice Ferocity, but basically has the best of both worlds from Power and Condition setups, allowing full utilization of both types, while still making use of all “on crit” abilities.

Trailblazer’s is also an interesting choice, and something I’ve been thinking of for Raids. It also allows for high Condi output, while really ramping up your survivability.

Lastly, you’ll likely want to switch to (and practice with) Dagger/Focus and Dagger/Warhorn. The first is excellent for “aggressive tanking” with all the solo survivability tools, while the Warhorn offhand makes for some good party support. In almost ANY game mode short of WvW backline, the Dagger primary is going to be the superior offensive weapon.

Kaleban.9834:

Just a couple things.

If you’re looking to carry bad PUGs or other groups, playing a glass cannon is not really the best call. You need to be able to establish and maintain aggro, so a ranged Assassin/Zerk Ele is not going to cut it.

What I would suggest is looking into Condition setups. There are several sets available that allow very high Condi (using Burn in Fire) output, while also ramping up Toughness, Vitality and/or Healing Power. Since Condition builds aren’t reliant on crits, you can spec into other aspects, maintain high DPS and still be resilient enough to not go down like a wet noodle.

I’ve gone through the various metas, even had full Celestial when it still had magic find on it lol. From what I’ve seen, and apart from “structures” in various game modes, a Burning Condi Ele is likely the BEST mix of DPS and survivability hands down.

In fact, looking at some of the new four attribute sets, it seems to me that for absolute best DPS from both direct damage and Condi, Viper’s may end up being the new meta. It does sacrifice Ferocity, but basically has the best of both worlds from Power and Condition setups, allowing full utilization of both types, while still making use of all “on crit” abilities.

Trailblazer’s is also an interesting choice, and something I’ve been thinking of for Raids. It also allows for high Condi output, while really ramping up your survivability.

Lastly, you’ll likely want to switch to (and practice with) Dagger/Focus and Dagger/Warhorn. The first is excellent for “aggressive tanking” with all the solo survivability tools, while the Warhorn offhand makes for some good party support. In almost ANY game mode short of WvW backline, the Dagger primary is going to be the superior offensive weapon.

I’ve only run 3 of the dungeons myself, and I get where you’re going with this. I’ve done condi build before and understand that with HoT it’s more necessary than it used to be. But if I have a bad group I’m playing with – this won’t really cut it for dungeon runs. I mean it would in some instances when I have hours to do nothing but fight mobs – but for example at the end of TA you have a limited time to deplete en enemies health before minions get respawned and you’re back at the beginning of the fight. Slow burns just won’t work for that.

Survivability isn’t so much of an issue for me, not trying to say I play better than others or anything but recognizing enemies attacks and keeping my health up is how I’ve gotten used to playing. This is why I’m looking for the way to deal the most damage constantly (as in not relying on spikes) because I would rather not be running a build where I’m wasting time waiting for an enemy to burn down.

I do have to say that the Superior Runes of Rage are really working out for me though, this new build is more fun to play because I don’t have to stress about keeping distance as much as I was before. If an enemy closes the gap I can drop a lava font at my location, use arcane wave followed by arcane brilliance which does nice damage (heals me as well) and grants 32 seconds of fury. I find myself actually using Earth attunement much more now because after that I just use Burning Retreat, followed by Eruption and Unsteady ground or Magnetic aura (or both) before moving onto air/water attunement. End up with 48 seconds of Fury keeping my Crit chance at 100% the whole time… plus like a mentioned before I get more ferocity from these runes than other sets.

There was actually an event earlier today where after it was over I still had over a minute of fury left.