Need Help: Explorer Dungeon Build
this works for Dungeons PvE also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ
Currently running 10 Air/30 water/30 Arcane as Staff Elementalist with the utilities Glyph of Storms, Arcane Wave, and Arcane Shield.
Rune Set – Dwayna
Air Trait – Reduced Glyph CD’s
Water – Remove Condition on Attunement and Condition, Reduce CD
Arcane – Attunement Bonus, Blasting Staff, and Evasive Arcana
kitten’s so support it’s not even funny. You can do a single juggle of switching between Earth/Water while using your GoEH to keep a steady protection/regeneration to the party along with the rest and you can also throw down Fire/Water fields and “MAKING WAVES!” to quick healing and Might Stacks. Use Frost Field to put down an AoE Frost Armor to help mitigate damage.
Cleric’s set of Dwayna with a Cleric’s Staff (masterwork is enough for me so far); Carrion set of XYZ with Carrion S/D and Carrion Staff of XYZ is for a swap if you really need to go more DPS (those are my exotics, as i’m running Carrions for W3 as well); my jewelry is a mixture of Knight/Cleric.
I focus on cc and throwing in combo fields, as well as outright heals (the Rain is imba with high healing power, though i’m not really sure it’s worth running Cleric’s stuff anymore, currently testing using only Cleric’s Staff with Carrion armor… but the rune sets make a difference and i’m not running Dwayna runes in my W3 armor, and that extra toughness is nice…), providing DPS in the meantime but not trying to be the main damager of the team, unless the fight requires swapping onto fast-killing machines – going S/D to stack 15x might on the whole party on my own becomes handy.
In regard to traits, i’m running 0/20/20/20/10, but that’s a setup i find the most versatile and useful for a pure PvX player who enjoys each part of the game, be it event running, dungeons or W3 (ofc sPvP is a totally another matter, obviously). I’m using 20 in air solely for Inscription as this lets me get perma swiftness and it’s a simple convenience for me (running between events or after death in W3 is so much less painful!), but if you don’t mind not having swiftness up all the time (or getting it with a bit more pain in thekitten using a staff), i suggest going 0/10/20/20/20.
With 10 arcana, i have 13s resue on an attunement and it’s just enough to get back onto some of the attunements for recharged skills; being able to fully cycle every <10s isn’t really helpful if your skills are still on cooldown, so going 30 arcana is a bit of overkill imho, and the major traits found there are not THAT useful.
For utilities, i’m using a mixture of glyphs (heal, elems) and arcane (shield! wave for blast finisher in the rain/geyser), and i can put both of those as well as most of my weapon skills on shorter cooldown using major traits, and this is what’s most important imho – you can dish more damage and, more important, more cc if you can use your skills more frequently.
Of course i’m swapping them as the fight requires, though i barely ever use cantrips or summoned weapons, but that’s my default setup.
So far i’ve done all routes of AC, first route of CM, all routes of TA, one route of CoF and, of course, all dungeons in story mode.
I died the least in my party, each time (got downed pretty often if i went on S/D and really wanted to pull Churning Earth off, but that’s just my unnecessary risk – but Vapor Form rules in dungeons), using the combination of staff’s range and more tanky stats setup. Even at the collectors part in one of the AC routes (with the asura), i was able to tank one side on my own and never died while my guildies ran into some survival issues.
In explorable dungeons, i think that more tanky builds with focusing on cc are the way to go, as you lose out on DPS much more when you are downed/dead all the time rather than when you have some less power. Tanky builds can also carry the team if everyone else has died and is running back from wp, which can be really far away, while you’re keeping the boss from regenerating hp, just running around and kiting.
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Thank you so much for the responses everyone, you guys have definitely cured my doubts. Appreciate the long responses too. Going to give it a try now. Thanks again.
@lilian no offence, but I find the ele really attractive. I have a low level thief, but I prefer my ele.
(edited by Lipin.7529)
Pretty much like Rlyd, only I do 15 water/15 earth instead of 30 water. Both are viable.
Basically the best explore dungeon ele build right now is heavy staff upport that relies on frequent switching between water and earth for the passive attunement bonuses, comboing with water fields and the heal on dodge you get from 30 arcane.
With that build and decent +healing you’re looking at a 1kish aoe heal + condition removal on every water attune, plus another 1kish heal + condition removal on dodge in water every 10 seconds, plus constant aoe regen, plus aoe protection about 50% of the time. Without even getting into your actual skills. That’s a lot of added survivability for your group.
(edited by Yukishiro.8792)
As note, the range on the group aura is very short, as in you need to literally be standing in melee range for someone to benefit. This won’t happen in a group setting as most of the encounters I’ve seen encourage the group to spread out due to lots of aoe or mechanics.
I used to be a fan of heavy support staff builds but you can heal just as easily in scepter (better burst healing btw) as Iv’e pointed out in other posts, I’m just not in love with either the burning field or vunerability field.
That leaves just might stacking in melee (eruption→ lava front) but that’s only for melee.
- DT
You’re not gonna hit your whole group 100% of the time with everything, no. But you don’t need to be standing in melee range. It’s like 240ish radius iirc, which is about double melee range. I usually manage to hit 2-3 group mates most of the time.