Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I never write in this forum, this is my first post. I play this game since the release but I am pretty casual, I play once a week for very few hours. Also my native language is not English so I apologize in advance.

Since I got into this game I really liked playing the elementalist (I always liked playing the fireball throwing mage in video games) and I still play it to this day. I have a few low level alts but I barely play them (and if I do its pretty much spvp only).

Since I don’t play that often I don’t generate too much gold and therefore I can’t afford more than one gear set, and I am trying to figure out a build that I could use in the most situations possible.

In my opinion one of the most interesting things about eles is that they benefit from every stat no matter which skill set they are running, especially on D/D or staff. Therefore an acceptable answer would be to go for a celestial gear set, since the total value of the stats combined is higher than every other gear set, and even though it spreads over every single stat this is still very beneficial for an elementalist.

Then I watched a few videos on youtube and I noticed that pro eles tend to combine only a few pieces of celestial gear in their gear set, but they never go for full celestial. In fact, I rarely see eles that have even half of their gear set celestial. After that I created a pure celestial build on one of these build calculator sites and discovered that my build generates about 20% more stats than the pro eles builds I have seen on youtube (I didn’t include might stacks in my calculations).

I became confused so I thought that maybe someone in the forums would have an answer for me. My build is more about wvw and pve since in spvp you could change your gear as much as you like.

Gear:

Full ascended celestial armor with 6 runes of strength and 6 fine versatile mighty infusion.
Ascended celestial amulet with glided infusion.
Ascended celestial rings, earrings and back item with fine mighty / fine versatile mighty infusions.

WvW Roaming:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhMM6c2zwwBf0APAC5hv2JKQ5qJfC-T1hIABA8gAuY/BkU+tmeivOhAwpE0Q1fCAcA8bfD++bO/8zP/8zb6f/93f/tUAMpMC-w

The problem with roaming is that you need to balance your offensive, survivability and mobility. Have too little offensive, and you can’t down a defensive or an hybrid opponent. Have too little survivability, and other roaming classes like thieves or mesmers or pretty much every class that can stealth could surprise you and get you low before the fight even began (this is without mentioning that BS thieves could 2 hit you). Have too little mobility, and you will be kited or chased to death.

After stating the obvious I want to talk about weapons.

Staff:
Staff has very high damage potential but it is problematic because staff skills either pulse or require their target to stay at one place to take damage. Since players are smarter than NPCs they just move away from the target area. Luckily staff has some decent CC but it isn’t really enough:
Water 4: Chill can be removed easily.
Air 3: Hard to hit with, can be evaded easily.
Air 5: Useful, but long cooldown, and negated by stability.
Earth 4: Bypassed easily, and negated by stability.
Earth 5: Immobilize can be removed easily.
This is without mentioning that 3 out of these 5 skills could be dodged from and this is extremely ineffective against classes with teleport. Most of the times you will find yourself trying to limit your opponent’s mobility instead of doing any damage, and the damage is not even close to be effective when your opponent is mobile. The staff is not giving too much mobility or survivability to its wielder either so this is a downside too. However, in larger scale battles the effectiveness of the staff increases thanks to the long aoe radius.

Scepter:
I always feel like scepter can’t do enough damage if you don’t go for a fresh air build. Fresh air and scepter have a good synergy since it makes the cooldowns of air attunement and air 2 pretty identical. The most popular fresh air builds are 0/6/0/2/6 and 0/6/0/4/4, which have very good offensive vs a single target, but they require high precision which takes off from the defensive stats and hurts your survivability. Also the condition removal is not that great, especially in long battles. You could go for a focus off hand to increase survivability but then you lose the mobility that comes with off hand dagger, and without your emergency escape RtL you will find yourself dead more often than alive. You also can’t rely on FGS too much because of the long CD. In addition scepter fresh air is mostly single target damage, and it loses its effectiveness when fighting more than one enemy.

With D/D or staff the elementalist can burn enemies for long periods and stack some good amount of bleeds. When going for a celestial build this adds up to the direct damage (especially when stacking might) and the total damage output is very high. The scepter applies less conditions than the D/D or staff and this is another reason not to go for it on a celestial build.

Main hand dagger:
In my opinion this is the main hand weapon a roaming elementalist should go. The damage is good, some skills are hard to hit with but with proper practice you could do substantial amounts of damage. It probably has the least survivability of the other main hands since it is a close range weapon, but unlike the scepter the damage does not depend on a specific build which gives you the option to increase the survivability via your gear set and your traits. Also it has better mobility than the other main hands, especially when having an offhand dagger. Again, you could put a focus in your offhand for more survivability but you most likely will be kited and chased to death, and therefore offhand dagger is my choice.

So one set of weapons would be two ascended celestial daggers with sigils of battle and generosity, fine mighty infusions.

Healing and utility skills:

Ether Renewal / Signet of Restoration.
Lightning Flash.
Arcane Shield.
Armor of Earth.
Alternatives: Every other arcane or cantrip skill (Except of arcane power).

Elite:
FGS (mostly for mobility) / Glyph of Elementals.

Traits:

Air (2) I
Water (6) V, X, XI
Arcane (6) II, VIII, XI

Food: Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup.
Sharpening Stone (Potent)

WvW Zergs:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMKaW9wzBf0AEAS0AREXqSnavB-T1hFABAcBBY4BBMy+DUp87OdE8pEUS1fCAcA87vB++bO/8zP/8zb6f/93f/tUAMpMC-w

In zergs the small details don’t matter too much. Most of the time the bigger zerg would win anyways. Going scepter is okay but it is pretty much single target damage, therefore other weapon sets better. Going D/D would put us in danger because it means we need to be at the front lines in order to be able to attack anyone, however it is still a legitimate choice. Going staff in a large scale battle is safer and more powerful because staff skills have big aoe and the potential damage is enormous. Just have your staff equipped, spam your aoe attacks on top of as much enemies possible, get to cover when focused down and this is pretty much all you can do.

Therefore I would like to have an ascended celestial staff with sigils battle and fire, with 2 fine mighty infusion, in addition to my daggers.

Healing and Utility:

Ether Renewal
Glyph of Elemental Power
Conjure Frost Bow
Lightning Flash
Alternatives: Every arcane or cantrip spell.

Elite: FGS (mostly for mobility) / Glyph of Elementals.

Traits:

Fire (5) VI, VII
Air (6) VI, X, XIII (or XI)
Arcane (3) V

Food: Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup.
Sharpening Stone (Potent)

PvE

I decided to try and figure out which weapon does the highest damage. At first I thought it would be the dagger, but after testing on target golems I came to the conclusion that D/D and staff have almost identical dps on a single target, the D/D did about 5% – 10% more damage than the staff (depends on trait distribution). Also in PvE situation enemies wont dodge or escape your target areas which makes staff extremely effective in PvE. Adding the facts that staff skills have better aoe, it is more supportive toward allies and its much safer to attack from 1200 range, I believe that the staff is a better choice for PvE. In terms of traits and utility skills the WvW zerg build is also suitable for PvE, just change the food.

Any opinions?

Review of the litterature

I’m busy playing Wildstar right now so I’ll just give the links to what’s current, up-to-date, and meta:

PvE:
-Berserker’s Dagger/Focus – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sr5tJKLfZk (By Dekeys)
-Berserker’s Scepter/X + Lightning Hammer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Lc5jE-ocQ (By Dekeys)
-Berserker’s Staff – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wVNHgbTzGQ (By Dekeys)

WvW:
-Celestial Staff Zerg Support – http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=107 (By Chemsorly)
-Celestial D/D Roamer – http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMqcW4wzBf0APAC5fD3JKQ5qJfC-TlTBAB0s/QYKF4SZAf6AGVVF0UCelSkuUS0xJAoS1CKTJEiaBwUFCAeAABAQAuZbGADdoDdoDdoVnD9m38mlC4plRA-w (By Intigo)
-Cleric’s Staff Zerg Support – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqcW4wzBr0AhAB5tlrRBlrLXB-T1xHAB0pEs2LAweq/8z+DHp8DgHAAa6AIFgTLjA-w (By me, I’m no longer in a WvW guild but this is my best guess of what an organized Cleric’s satff Ele would run)

PvP:
-Celestial D/D DPS Support – http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2VU0z4-N;9;99TT;45;049A17ATo0;3H7W3H7W30T (By Cmc) and http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMKc25wxBd0AiAB5ukqRBlfHTB-TJhIwAAOBAX2f47DAQYZAA (By Denshee, ToL Winner)
-Cleric Staff Healer – http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqcW0wrBd0AhAB5vlrRBlrLXB-TJxHAB1eBAQqMwP7PAwDAAA (By Chubbz, more of a focus on Glyphs, ToL Winner) and http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqcW4wzBd0AhAB5tlrRBlrLXB-TJxHAB1eBAQqMwP7PAwDAAA (By me, more of a focus on Cantrips)

Now that this is covered you may explain how your opinions build up on the existing theory