Guild Wars 2

I’m a huge ele fan. Played it in GW1 for 4-5 years and since the beta of GW2. Him being my main and actually only played character i always try to use him as effective as i can.

In PvE i used to start with D/D, since i hated scepter at the start, and encountered just a few problems, mainly survivability. Tryed to mess a little with my traits but i figuered afterwards i’d go for for D/F. Reason being i loved to support of focus. Whirling Winds is an awesome safety skill often saving many of my team mates (in pugs).
Comet is a good ranged and fast CC and obsidian flesh + mist form is the best way to rezz anyone since you get 7sec invul + arcane shield or w/e. Everything else is inferior to D/D.

I decided to go for Meteorlogicus too about 4-5 months ago, so i decided to train with S/F. At first it was annoying and troublesome (even in PvE). Since my dragons tooth always missed and my other skills were either too slow or had not enough dmg.

But eventually i learned to play with it. It took me a great amount of time to sync combos and to know when to use what. But i mastered it (yes i even dare to say it). My conclusion: S/F is incredibly strong at single-target damage and at being able to hit without geting into dangerous zones.

As for PvP, i suppose it’s not on par with a bunker D/D but at least it’s something new. I use Soldiers amulet (Power, toug, vit) and my points are 0/30(25)/0/10(15)/30 depending on the playstyle. The reason i go for air is because of the 25 trait. You have a 60% chance to inflict vulnerability on crit. What this does now is that you basically always have vulnerability on your target.

It sounds weak but the scepter allows me to outrange my enemy quickly and keep him off me while i constantly do a fair amount of damage. The usual combo starts in Air: 2-3-5 f1: 2-3-4 f4: 4 in combo field 1-1-1 f2: 2-3…. That works for most players. You probably can’t finish them off but you are able to inflict dmg without getting hurt too much. Switching to water is situational if you need heal and or want to snare the enemy. I suggest to not use skill 2 since it can’t keep up with the speed or usability of the other skills.

The main traits i use are:
Arcane: creating an attunement based spell on dodge, boon at switching attunement, arcane shield at 25%/scepter endurance.

Lightning: zephyrs boon, 5% prec —> healing and the last is optional
Water: remove con on switch.

Those traits are granting me a fast endurance reggen, combined with sigil of energy, which allows me to dodge really often and evade further dmg.

So what do you think of it? As i said it worked quite well for me especially in 1on1 situations. True it never touches to mobility of D/D or the dmg output but played right it can be deadly. I tend to use rather defensive utilitys like mist form and arcane shield to even survive in 2vs1 scenarios. Depending in their playstyle ofc^^

So what do you think about it? Would love to hear your opinions

Where to start…

The damage output of s/f is higher than d/d although the skills are that much harder to land and damage is not equally distributed as in the d/d case, hence unless played quite strategically you may lose quicker on a s/f compared to d/d, and of course the lack of mobility make it so that s/f is not suggested for 8vs8 hot join or any situation where there is a zerg involved.

True an ele doesn’t lack the means to achieve perma swiftness but a sudden movement burst ( RTL) it favourable to quick movement therefore people go for d/d over focus but…..there are situations where s/f is best option

1) Fightning a ranged opponent
2) Fightning a static opponent

In the first case by using a well time magnetic wave against quickness rangers/engineers/unload thieves will guarantee a good dose of laughters ..for you, while swirling winds can buy you some time to recover

In the second case you’ve got fire attunement, against a static enemy who think to tank your dmg, you can make great use of flamewall and fireshield(used after flamewall as burning stacks in duration and not intentisty), at close distance you can’t miss with phoenix and dragon’s tooth, prior to your burst you can use gale quickly followed by flamewall – dragons’tooth-phoenix( which will hit before dragon’s tooth giving you 3 stacks of might)

I wouldn’t use the combo straight away but rather wait for the right time, of course this is easier said than done because s/f lack dmg outside the above mentioned combo and while arc lightning+lightning strike deal good dmg, it doesn’t happen fast enough, not enough pressure, reason why the base dmg on these two attack is quite low even with 2k power+, you’d normally total 2k dmg on a 2800 armor target..not a lot given the time required to reach that dmg.

Anyway by using a combination of defensive tools and small dmg source you can reach the time where the combo can be executed for devastating results, should the target survive the ordeal , quickly follow with frozen gust comet to crush any hopes of recovery, if all goes well after the combo you should have 9 stacks of might and with a soldier amulet your air attacks will total 3k, that should be enough to finish off the enemy.

In the end s/f offer greater versatility combat wise compared to d/d as you can fight both mele and range, the problem is ( and I believe this is for balance) scepter lack versatility in damage department compared to d/d and it also lack the roamer capabilities of the latter, the perfect use for s/f users is assault supporter where you can be of greater help compared to d/d eles

I doubt ( even if I strongly hope so) we will ever see improvement in the dmg department for water/earth scepter, should that happen the only difference between s/f and d/d will be the role covered , one as assaulter/support and the other as roamer/assaulter; in the meantime is you like to tag along a team I’d suggest to use s/f, you can quickly dispose of a single target while remaining at relatively speaking safe distances and not become an obvious target

About your build…
If you liek soldier amulet ( like me ^^) then I’d suggest to use fire traits, yeah the grandmaster traits are quite useless but we still got some good traits, as build I suggest to use : 20(III – VI)/0/10(III)/20(V -VII)/20(I -V) + 6 strength runes , your combo will have like 20% base increase and like 25% base dmg increase for when you’re outside fire ( for as long as burning last)

As utilities I’d suggest to use arcane wave – arcane shield – mist form, you’ve got enough condition removal, enough defense and outstanding damage.

Thanks for your awnser and i appreciate the advices but the main thing i run my traits like this is the crit dmg. I normally try to avoid condition dmg since i doubt it’s favourable as ele. The reason why i use air traits is to enhance it further.

Given that the enemy has vulnerability on him you take advantage of your fury boon. You can then quickly swap through your attunements and crit very often. This compensates for the lack of power. I tryed to fight with fire traits before but it seems that i’m just not too good with it^^

My experience only is completely based on PvE and a little sPvP. I have neither tryed normal nor payed tournaments before so like i said i can just guess whether it’d be useful or not. But i suppose it’s a nice difference than the well known D/D. If someone’s seeing a RTL they instantly pop their breakstun afterwards.. kinda makes it hard to fight if everyone knows your skills.

focus is worthless pve and subpar pvp.

a single target chill, knockdown, projectile denying swirly thing, invuln and daze aren’t that good for pve.

100% utility skills that do extremely low damage (I fail to see how it outdamages d/d, arheundel) :|

You are right in the case of damage. The utilitys are for survivability and to be able to get our of complicated situations.

Focus is great in terms of support actually. It was never supposed to be full dmg. Whirlingwinds is great because it can deny almost all ranged skills whih is incredibly strong! The 4 sec invul is actually quite handy at times since you can either rezz in dire situations or dodge forceful attacks (it’s instant casted even in stun). I think focus seriously gets underrated, it has very awesome skills that depend on your surroundings.

Like arheundel said magnetic wave can boost your dps against ranged enemys. The chill can be good at times but where focus really shines is whirling winds, magnetic waves, comet the stun and invul. Although many tend to ignore it, in 1on1 and group scenarios focus can be a game changer! You should try it though :P

Focus is a great choice for a good conditions/support build.
Anyway I prefer to play with a signet or cantrip build.
2 posts to help you :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Focus-is-OP-Ele-condi-hotjoin/first#post1285166
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/PVP-Conditions-and-anti-conditions-support/first#post1270383

I tried a signet S/F build but the casting of the signets was too time-consuming. Time that I could’ve better used for casting other stuff. my signets did give me perma swiftness and perma fiery aura which was nice. Ow and perma fury just get the fire trait that gives fiery aura on signet use and the air trait that gives you fury and swiftness when you get a trait.
If you then up your condition damage anybody attacking you will die. Its nice since while you’re taking down one enemy all the other enemies receive fire damage.

Tried to do HotW with two people. With D/D cantrip build I died to the first group of mobs in 4 tries. With S/F we just beat them all nice and clean without getting downed even once.