Guild Wars 2

Hi there everyone,

I started to play one month ago and I enjoyed to play as Elementalist. And, after some researches I decided to go fully glass cannon. But, after read some guide and build around some forums, I’m unsatisfied about my crit. dmg, and the rate of my crit. chance.

At the moment, my stats are : power 3.346, Crit. chance: 53%, crit. dmg: 89%.

As I was reading some forum, people were writing they can actually reach over 8k dmg, which I never did with my end setup (full berserker’s set + divinity rune, full berserk jewels, + staff + sigil of fire). I can barely reach 4k, and 5k if I’m lucky probably in combo with some others spells from players.

I’d like to know first if this is normal, and how I could improve my build. I’ve 30/20/0/0/20. I don’t want to sacrifice the larger aoe spell from 20 spec arcane. Preferred to go fire, but maybe that I’d do more dmg if I’d switch 20/30/0/0/20?
fire: 6, 7, 12
air: 6, 9
arcana: 1, 8

So, my question is how I could improve my build to maximize my dmg overall, my gear, or whatever so I can hit like those people reaching apparently huge amount of dmg. In my opinion, it’s probably coming from some potions giving crits. dmg. But, atm I’m searching to know how I could improve my glass cannon build, gear, traits, etc.

If you have some advice to help me maximize my elementalist full glass cannon overall dmg, I’d appreciate your comments, cause I don’t see what else I can do, except to use potions to increase my overwall dmg crits. I even used to play with sigil of fire to have this 5% chance crits.

Will it helps me also to have an legendary weapons staff? (don’t know much about it yet)

I’m thankful to everyone who will try to teach or give me some advice in advance.

maz

What is the average number of might stacks you have? Taken a look at consumables yet? You’ve already reached a theoretical maximum from gear and traits leaving only the above as possible improvements.

As MarzAttackz said above, you already reached the theoretical maximum for damage.

Incredients for maximum Elementalist damage:
Full Berserker gear
Churning Earth (Earth Dagger 5), Lightning Flash (Utility – optional), Arcane Power (Utility), Shard of Ice (Water II), Piercing Shards (Water IV)
Everything else is up to you.

Start casting Churning Earth, while still channeling switch to Water and use the utility Arcane Power, a split second before the cast is finished use Lightning Flash to port to your target.

Result: Even normal mobs in Orr will be one-shotted. That’s the maximum possible DPS available to an Elementalist than I know off.

For events and such, you can use Scepter / Dagger and build some Might before initiating the combo for even more damage

I assume you’re using a staff? Not even staff water/earth 2 have as high of a coefficient as churning earth and fire grab. Even burning speed’s is higher so they’ll naturally hit for lower damage per hit assuming everything else is equal (stats, might/vulnerability stacks etc.)

If a staff ele is hitting 8k under normal conditions, I’d like to know how…

Fire staff2 scales very very nicely with P/Pr/% and can have very high uptime and radius with the right traits. Try it out on mists dummies and you’ll be surprised.

Generally though glass cannon eles are not that great, other professions like mesmer do that much better.

Also people, DPS>“damage” in almost all MMO scenarios bar pvp.

Whenever you are fighting against other players, spike (burst) damage is superior. The only time DPS is superior is in PvE fights. This has been true in every MMO to date.

Regarding full glass cannon…. get used to being 2/3 shot by people that close the gap to you.

DPS wise, ruby orbs are the best for our armor slots. Our most damaging staff skill is Ice Spike, which when traited for it, I’ve easily hit for 8k+. Also superior sigil of Strength for that extra might on crits is nice as well.

Running 30/30/0/10/0(Blasting staff really isn’t need for wvwvw, if that’s your main focus) is how I got numbers that high.
Fire 6,7,12 as you already have.
Air 6, 10(Our air autoattack is unbelievably good, and upping it’s damage is never a bad thing), 12.(12 is since it’s wvwvw, there’s a pretty good chance someone will have cc’ed whatever you’re going for.)
Water 4(20% more damage when attuned to water to vuln. targets.)

If I run any wvwvw today, I’ll post up a video

Interesting comment about blasting staff. It would be a no brainer to user if there was no AoE target limit of course… but I guess you are always sure to have 5 people in radius? Personally, when I switch to staff from D/D for a choke/keep I retrait my second arcane ability to pick it up. I want to make sure I always hit 5 people to maximize effectiveness (given that I am specced and geared for D/D primarily)

With full Zerker gear and full rubies I hit 61% crit and 100% crit damage with 30 in Air as well. Tupac’s advice won’t lead you wrong (albeit unsure about Air 12 but there’s really no other decent options so it doesn’t really matter). A lot of the times people quote you those absurdly high numbers remember that some people are bolstered up to 80 and you’ll see 8k crits cause you hit some level 5 who’s coming in there for Skill Points.

A lot of people are going to come here and tell you that you’re going to get 1-3 shot by EVERYONE. This isn’t true. It happens for sure, but it’s not an every fight occurrence if you play intelligently:

1. Find a team to attach yourself to. You don’t have to be in an organized group with them, just find some group of people and just follow them around. Use them as a meat shield to soak up damage for you and serve as a distraction.

2. Don’t be in the thick of things soaking up AOE damage. Fight along the edges.

3. Play defensively. Secure routes for retreats. If things look like they’re going south, retreat.

covenn.7165:

Interesting comment about blasting staff. It would be a no brainer to user if there was no AoE target limit of course… but I guess you are always sure to have 5 people in radius? Personally, when I switch to staff from D/D for a choke/keep I retrait my second arcane ability to pick it up. I want to make sure I always hit 5 people to maximize effectiveness (given that I am specced and geared for D/D primarily)

When you play Zerker spec you’re going for the most amount of damage possible not necessarily hit the most amount of people. An extra 10 points in Arcane will cost you elsewhere lowering said damage.

Kodiak.3281:

covenn.7165:

Interesting comment about blasting staff. It would be a no brainer to user if there was no AoE target limit of course… but I guess you are always sure to have 5 people in radius? Personally, when I switch to staff from D/D for a choke/keep I retrait my second arcane ability to pick it up. I want to make sure I always hit 5 people to maximize effectiveness (given that I am specced and geared for D/D primarily)

When you play Zerker spec you’re going for the most amount of damage possible not necessarily hit the most amount of people. An extra 10 points in Arcane will cost you elsewhere lowering said damage.

As a staff ele you aren’t maximizing your damage output if you don’t hit the maximum amount of targets. I would rather have a 6k hits on 5 targets than a 8k hit one one. If we are referring to other types of fights, then using a staff period isn’t optimal.

Kodiak.3281:

A lot of people are going to come here and tell you that you’re going to get 1-3 shot by EVERYONE. This isn’t true. It happens for sure, but it’s not an every fight occurrence if you play intelligently:

Sure not everyone will do it. However, any competent player with a gap closer will because they realize that not only is a cannon staff ele free points and easy to kill, they are deadly if left alone.

A staff ele is only as good as the team supporting them.

You can lay down vicious damage if your team is keeping people off you. If, however, it’s like most groups and playing every-person-for-themselves.. then you’re going to be wildly ineffective and feel fairly frustrated.

Personally I don’t think anyone should start with a staff, I think people should start with d/d and learn how to function up close and personal. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you’ll hate it.. but you’re going to get a good view of what other classes are trying to do to you… and once you learn that it won’t be such an overall shock to you when someone pounces on you while you’re playing a build that doesn’t handle up close as well.

^^ This is true. I run as a “backline” staff ele, but Im also on teaemspeak
with 25-30 other people in preplanned groups with specific roles. Under
those circumstances, the staff ele shines best.

You are using the wrong type of rune and weapon type to maximize your dmg output.

covenn.7165:

As a staff ele you aren’t maximizing your damage output if you don’t hit the maximum amount of targets. I would rather have a 6k hits on 5 targets than a 8k hit one one. If we are referring to other types of fights, then using a staff period isn’t optimal.

I’d rather finished a down guy with a super charged Lava Font doing maximum damage possible rather than maybe hit a few extra targets. Most alive people will dodge out of the fields and they pretty much can all be dodged out of in a single dodge. Better make that 1-2 ticks that will land hit harder in my experience.

covenn.7165:

Sure not everyone will do it. However, any competent player with a gap closer will because they realize that not only is a cannon staff ele free points and easy to kill, they are deadly if left alone.

The only trouble I have is a thief honestly. Just about every other class requires some form of CC to stop you which the time it takes them to do the CC is usually enough to counter with a stunbreaker or something of that nature and get away. This is because no one really knows what spec you are when you spec staff. I could be on a 20/0/0/30/20 cantrip build and actually be somewhat defensive or I could be a 0/0/10/30/30 super defense support build OR actually full double glass cannon spec and gear.

Maybe it’s just cause how I play or the length of time I’ve been playing it but I might get 1-3 shot only once in a great while. I think this mostly has to deal with how everyone’s blabbing on about how PVT gear is mandatory with defensive specs so you don’t really see much spike anymore outside of large blobs.

Its also worth mentioning what ACTUALLY happens in big melees. We have
been fighting this week in Tier 1 WvW, and even in those battles of better than
average players, not many people every get around to the back line to drop
the range. If they do, we have people protecting the backline anyhow.

Personally, I have settled on 0-20-0-30-20 with all berserker. I trade off some
power and precision with my traits, but it insures that even when things go
crazy I stay alive to do even more damage.

Thanks a lot for your answers guys,
I learned a lot from your treads. I’ll now use 30/30/10/0/0 cause indeed, I think larger AoE isn’t maximized. It’s better in my opinion to hit less targets with more dmg.

But I wanted to know the number limit of target in AoE, especially in Static field. Cause I think SF + Meteor or water spike, or earth crush is quite good too?

Thank you Tupuc too for good advice, and yes, always fun if you can post a video so I can see how you doing, and your playstyle.

Edit: I’d be also interested to know about your combo with boss in PvE with full glass cannon, and combo in WvWvW as for solo even if my specc isn’t maximized for solo. Tips, advice would be great for a starter like me. Thank you! =)