Guild Wars 2

Hi Ele Forums,

I haven’t been playing for very long but I do have an 80 Guardian in full Exotics. I spend almost all of my time in WvW (occasionally I help with dungeons in the guild like Arah), and after playing my Guardian in every possible combination and feeling quite comfortable with his gear and playstyle I am looking to add another 80 to the mix. I was looking at Engineer but feel that though they look fun they aren’t going to appeal to my sense of sheer damage output.

Now, with that being said I want to be clear on a few things.

Firstly, I don’t care about being a bunker build. I don’t care if I get three-shotted in Zergs or constantly have fists shoved up my butt by the Heavy classes, if I get frustrated I’ll just hop on my Guardian.

Secondly, I want to do the most potent DPS I possibly can and unload, preferrably during Keep sieges and defense, while being backup and support for small group efforts.

With these two desires, I understand that any class can be a glass cannon. Assuming I have a strong enough support structure to get peels and am smart enough to try and avoid burst (not always possible), what would my ideal Glass Cannon Elementalist look like. Traits/Gear wise? I’ve perused the forums, looked at a lot of posts, looked at the wiki, etc, but want to hear it from the horses mouth so to speak.

Are any of you pure glass cannon? Do you find yourself being able to down enemies quickly? Do you feel your survivability (or lack thereof) is merited by your massive damage output? Do you actually HAVE massive damage output?

Lay it on me, I am not afraid of learning the intricacies or combos.

Note: At 80 the character will be in full Exotics across the board.

Do I simply go Zerker gear across the board and ignore Arcane/Water, dumping my traits in to whatever I feel like and get used to getting eaten alive?

Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImmbkR2gjDAUGoYikhFQUUMzOA;TkAg0CnowxgjAHLOOck4MEB would be the best idea with GC gear.

copy past it, clicking doesn’t work.

Gear should be power/pres/crit dmg, and staff is basically the only viable option since daggers are melee range (=instant death) and scepter doesn’t work very well either.

About the damage; You’ll have quite alot of AoE damage, but you shouldn’t expect to kill anyone 1v1. You will literally die from 1 auto attack chain from most classes.

Haha alright so it’s mainly unload AoE abilities and pray no one pops me?

Yes, your AoE is really strong and you can destroy groups of people standing in it. IF, however, you take damage you need to get away as soon as possible. You have the options to heal yourself back up but you can’t heal up if you’re dead. Stand at 1200 range and nuke’em!

Enjoy being ganked by every thief on the map, there’s a reason we build or gear defensively in WvW!

I suggest switching out Arcane Lighting for Air Training. You’ll get a flat 10% boost in air attunement which is much greater than a measly 6% from blowing 2 arcane skills. Afaik, attuning to Air will grant you 10% damage to all spells in progress. This means that spells like meteor storm, Ice spike and Eruption will the boost as well as your air skills if you attunement dance to air after casting them.

Nice thank you.

And I already got slammed by Thieves even on my Guardian, not really worried about that. I know there is a reason why you build and gear defensively, I completely understand that. I just plan on being a literal glass cannon is all.

Thank you all for your help

It is fun nuking Duke style but bear in mind AOE is going to be adjusted shortly although we have no idea about the particulars.

Yea that’s one trepidation I have.. But wasn’t it AoE’s being used in place of single target skills that was the problem? i.e. Rather than using your direct damage the AoE was doing more single target than other skills?

If that’s the case then I’m sure this would still be greatly viable.

I run a “sorta” glass cannon build/gear, which is:
20 (Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity)
20 (Glyph Mastery, Bolt to the Heart)
0
10 (Aquamancer’s Alacrity)
20 (Elemental Attunement, Blasting Staff)

(sometimes I pick Water 20 and Arcana 10)

Gear is Valkyrie Armor/Weapon, Berserk Trinkets, Rune of the Pack.
That leaves me at about 3300 Power, 35% Crit Chance, 80% Crit Damage, 1800ish Armor, 15k Health.

Everything that hits me, hurts. Everything.
But I have a bit of health to take on a few hits (sometimes you will need to) like popping your face out of a keep to throw some AoEs.
1/3 of your spells will crit, and they’ll hurt. ALOT.

Meteor Shower during sieges always clear spaces. 3~5k crits each meteor, and Fireball hits for 700~2500ish usually (700 being non-crit on a bunker build).
When I’m defending a location (with walls, of course) I feel awesome. I get people downed in 2~5 spells usually (as long as they don’t run away). The usefulness of being an Elementalist during siege defense and attacks is great (I also play a Guardian, and I feel it lacking in this area).

During skirmishes or 1v1s though, I have a hard time being a Staff user and being paper-armored, but when my opponent doesn’t get the jump and I can dodge his skills perfectly and start kiting them, they usually run away after 2~3 crits.
Thieves instant-down me. I get hits like 8k+ from Cloak and Dagger crits, and Backstabs go up to 12k.
But well, I think this was before the Signet nerf, so I don’t know how it is now (haven’t played for a bit).

For massive battles, I enjoy them greatly (even more than my Guardian, since it’s unthinkable to get inside the enemy zerg) and getting badges with an Elementalist is really easy.
For retreating, I find Elementalists in 2nd or 3rd place losing to Thieves and sometimes Mesmers.

If you intend to play like this, keep in mind it’s definitely not for soloing. You’ll do wonders in your Zerg battles though.

I’m not one to roam but I definitely plan to be absolute paper and obliterate with AoE. I am really afraid of this Monday patch though..

As far as Thieves, I can get nearly insta-killed on my Guardian with 18k HP and with such little health left they sneeze on me and I am downed (and that’s saying something with stacked toughness and valk gear) so I am really not too worried about getting insta-killed on my Ele. It’s going to happen.

If you’re insta-killed by thieves on your guardian with retaliation just a keypress away then you’re in for trouble. First target hit most times is the staff ele. Not sure what build you were running on your guardian though (only familiar with a few altruistic healing variations), would some more defensive stats have helped?

Here’s hoping you’re not going to get frustrated with an Ele.