Guild Wars 2

Very nice guide. Long term ele player but will try out some of your stuff for sure. I really like ele’s sustain so i was never particularly open to drastically changing my build while also aware I’m not the one to deal a lot of dmg. Also, i did try hammer earlier but didn’t like it that much for some reason (probably cuz of bunker build). Your fav build seems like something just for me. Hopefully I’ll like it but even if not tnx for sharing.

Hi, thanks for wonderful guide and mentions about other elementalists to learn more.

I just entered 40+ fractals and I’m having problem with beign almost one shot in my berserker gear. Few parts from my PVT gear did the trick, but I’m at start with looking for how many HP do I need, or which armor combination should I use from now on.

Delta.8107:

Hi, thanks for wonderful guide and mentions about other elementalists to learn more.

I just entered 40+ fractals and I’m having problem with beign almost one shot in my berserker gear. Few parts from my PVT gear did the trick, but I’m at start with looking for how many HP do I need, or which armor combination should I use from now on.

At level 40+ FOTM, when PUGing, I switch back to a more defensive build (good ones are Auramancer and Fresh Air DPS). A more Lightning-Hammer-centric build becomes a bit more trouble than it’s worth at that level of difficulty, with a PUG.

Hey Neko, amazing guide!

I wonder if I could get your thoughts on this S/F build: http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-m;4R0-U0-5VL-Z0;9;4JT-9956-58B;15;04;05J;9;1i-kocF;5L-Q0V1_YeZk437WAV1a;5s-8ZF18Z;9;9;9-kkkkkk;9;0V8k3E

It is a build that WoodenPotatoes made, and it appeals to me because I’m currently bored with D/D (just got to 60 on my Ele) and was looking for a change. I’m also not crazy about the LH because my main is a hammer guardian and I was hoping for something different with my Ele.

Anyway, he claims that the combination of Fresh Air with Electric Discharge helps to offset the Scepter’s lack of sustained dps. Do you think that to be the case? If not, is there a viable way to use S/F in a dungeon without having to use LH?

Here is the video that WP used to explain his build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq2DnGj3icI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUYUY9_i44IDNOs_Ja815mlA

Atlas.4509:

Hey Neko, amazing guide!

I wonder if I could get your thoughts on this S/F build: http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-m;4R0-U0-5VL-Z0;9;4JT-9956-58B;15;04;05J;9;1i-kocF;5L-Q0V1_YeZk437WAV1a;5s-8ZF18Z;9;9;9-kkkkkk;9;0V8k3E

It is a build that WoodenPotatoes made, and it appeals to me because I’m currently bored with D/D (just got to 60 on my Ele) and was looking for a change. I’m also not crazy about the LH because my main is a hammer guardian and I was hoping for something different with my Ele.

Anyway, he claims that the combination of Fresh Air with Electric Discharge helps to offset the Scepter’s lack of sustained dps. Do you think that to be the case? If not, is there a viable way to use S/F in a dungeon without having to use LH?

Here is the video that WP used to explain his build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq2DnGj3icI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUYUY9_i44IDNOs_Ja815mlA

It amazes me people are finally starting to use Focus, especially with Scepter because Offhand Dagger has been such a sacred cow for the Ele community for the longest time. It’s true. Swirling Winds alone makes Focus a better weapon for dungeons.

Given that, no, I don’t think that anything I saw in that video was really enough to convince me that Scepter with no Hammer is really viable. Scepter’s spike damage is as insane as ever, but even with Fresh Air and Lightning Strike procs, you’re still going to be doing really low damage once you’ve used up your burst. Lightning Hammer would work perfectly in that build, however, by just swapping a Fire Trait to Conjurer and replacing a utility with Lightning Hammer. Trust me, I’ve played around with this sort of build a lot, and once you combine it with Hammer, you’ll see that Lightning Hammer is just too good of an option to not use, plus Scepter’s auto attacks are as low as ever.

I will, however, change my guide to talk about adding Focus to Scepter. I used to think it was too radical an idea that people wouldn’t take it seriously (though I personally always use Focus with Scepter). But I guess people are starting to realize that, in our broken dungeon system, projectile blocks are king.

Ouch! You sound so bitter Neko!

Congrats on sticky

For Scepter I agree with you, in fact I never understood why anyone would use it by default in PvE.
For Focus however, I think this is the way to go until they decide to buff off-hand daggers (it is really lacking ATM). While wielding my focus the one thing I miss from the Dagger is the ability to AoE kb (for PvP), but it is possible to make up for that using the conjured earth shield (tricky!).

It seems the Ele community is elvolving, it is good to see that, after a long winter of bunker D/D supremacy!

Zelyhn.8069:

Ouch! You sound so bitter Neko!

Congrats on sticky

For Scepter I agree with you, in fact I never understood why anyone would use it by default in PvE.
For Focus however, I think this is the way to go until they decide to buff off-hand daggers (it is really lacking ATM). While wielding my focus the one thing I miss from the Dagger is the ability to AoE kb (for PvP), but it is possible to make up for that using the conjured earth shield (tricky!).

It seems the Ele community is elvolving, it is good to see that, after a long winter of bunker D/D supremacy!

Heh, thanks.

I think the reason Scepter is catching on is because of Fresh Air and Persisting Flames. And to be fair, in a speedclear group, you actually would rather have Scepter to do a full might rotation stack, then bring out Lightning Hammer. But I think that in general, it really still lacks sustained damage. I think the big thing is Arc Lightning. I know I’ve had to explain to many players that the damage is cumulative, not per tick. That, and Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix actually do a rather significant amount of damage. It’s just that these are still abilities that have cooldowns and you can’t just sit there doing nothing while waiting for them to cool off. Hammer just fits this gap so perfectly I can’t, in good conscience, recommend using Scepter without using Hammer.

Fantastic guide! I decided to read it after the 5th or 6th person asked me if I was the author of the guide, as my IGN for my elementalist is Neko.

Dude, I need your IGN

Anyway, thanks!

Thanks for the guide it is very helpful. When I first saw the title I did a double take and I though some hacked my account and wrote this.

Don’t be too quick to write-off staff. It absolutely sucks for speed clearing, but if you’re doing challenging dungeon content (typically broken, unfun paths for dungeon master, but also applies when learning new content) it can make all the difference by learning to focus on control / support.

Here’s a few tips:

• Water 3/5 + thief cluster bomb spam = full heal for party

• Permanent Weakness from Earth1 is a huge survivability buff for the entire party

• Easily lock down mobs with Water4, Air3, Air5, Earth4, Earth 5 (particularly useful in fights like grawl fractal)

• Eruption can be very potent if you learn to work the timing and placement. It’s really good in heavy movement fights where “fire and forget” skills shine, like Lupi.

Bring a thief, mesmer, and 2 dps warriors and you can cover a lot of tough dungeon ground very fast. And since this comp (or similar comps) won’t typically bring condition damage, for those horrible fights where bosses have giant sacks of HP, your eruption can be very valuable.

Mckeone.9804:

Don’t be too quick to write-off staff. It absolutely sucks for speed clearing, but if you’re doing challenging dungeon content (typically broken, unfun paths for dungeon master, but also applies when learning new content) it can make all the difference by learning to focus on control / support.

Here’s a few tips:

• Water 3/5 + thief cluster bomb spam = full heal for party

• Permanent Weakness from Earth1 is a huge survivability buff for the entire party

• Easily lock down mobs with Water4, Air3, Air5, Earth4, Earth 5 (particularly useful in fights like grawl fractal)

• Eruption can be very potent if you learn to work the timing and placement. It’s really good in heavy movement fights where “fire and forget” skills shine, like Lupi.

Bring a thief, mesmer, and 2 dps warriors and you can cover a lot of tough dungeon ground very fast. And since this comp (or similar comps) won’t typically bring condition damage, for those horrible fights where bosses have giant sacks of HP, your eruption can be very valuable.

This is true, but the low damage of Staff leads me to tell people to stay away from it in most dungeon instances. The support of staff is decently interesting, but it does so at the cost of any good damage. People are certainly free to choose to run Staff, but I can’t in good conscience let them do so without stating the simple fact that Staff for Elementalist has very subpar damage.

Actually it seems to me that staff deals decent damage in its fire rotation, and more damage than scepter in its FA rotation. When I say “decent” I mean for elementalists…

Neko.9021:

This is true, but the low damage of Staff leads me to tell people to stay away from it in most dungeon instances. The support of staff is decently interesting, but it does so at the cost of any good damage. People are certainly free to choose to run Staff, but I can’t in good conscience let them do so without stating the simple fact that Staff for Elementalist has very subpar damage.

What about Meteor Shower? Especially if you followup with an Ice Spike (for vulnerability and fury from attunement swap), it can make quick work of enemies. If anything, staff Fire’s damage is on par with that of Scepter.

ThiBash.5634:

Neko.9021:

This is true, but the low damage of Staff leads me to tell people to stay away from it in most dungeon instances. The support of staff is decently interesting, but it does so at the cost of any good damage. People are certainly free to choose to run Staff, but I can’t in good conscience let them do so without stating the simple fact that Staff for Elementalist has very subpar damage.

What about Meteor Shower? Especially if you followup with an Ice Spike (for vulnerability and fury from attunement swap), it can make quick work of enemies. If anything, staff Fire’s damage is on par with that of Scepter.

Staff actually has better sustained damage than Scepter, though I often choose Scepter because it lets me use Focus and because Scepter has better Might stacking.

I’m going to update my guide to include a reference to the glassy staff Ele here – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-Glassy-Staff-Ele. That should help people that have been wanting to play a DPS Staff Ele in dungeons.

It seems there’s a Staff meta currently evolving for eles on the forum now that the enormous shadow of D/D is fading. I have played ele since release using staff. According to /age, that’s over 1400 hours of Elementalist play time for me using mainly staff, so I hope you can trust I have an informed insight. More recently I have used all combinations of weapons and have found a consistent feel for each.

• Staff: By far the most underestimated weapon due to it’s extreme difficulty to use in PvP, but probably the most effective weapon in PvE for ele. The staff excels at sustained damage because it’s always trying to hit with multiple attacks at the same time with fields. This means the numbers may not as pretty as Phoenix or Churning Earth, but the damage per second (DPS) overall is higher. This coupled with the control effects makes it one of the best group control weapons in the game, and requires the high skill cap of an experienced ele to truly utilized without putting traits into Arcane, but it is easily worth it. I would recommend every Elementalist to be fluent in staff function, but would not recommend it for a new player.

• Scepter/Dagger: Currently the best burst/combo finisher weapon set for ele. This set is what I would call the current meta for ele due to recent patches. This set is indeed incredibly powerful not only for its relatively good damage output, but this set can perma stack Fury and a great deal of might without much effort (Persisting Flames grandmaster trait). This set is also very effective at debilitating a single target, making it the most ideal setup for 1v1 engagements. I, however, tend not to use this setup myself because I have been staff so long, I can’t seem to get out of the precision I use for staff control rotation and fire field DPS. I would highly recommend this set to new players.

• Scepter/Focus: Probably the most resilient weapon set eles have access to due to Focus’ defense nature coupled with the range of Scepter. This is the weapon set I have the least experience with, as the DPS is atrocious compared to the others. I have however used this weapon set while commanding in WvW because of the enormous group defense and self survivability it delivers. This weapon set is best used to whittle down resilient targets when survival is paramount and time is not a constraint. I would recommend this set to new players looking for group content (dungeons).

• Dagger/Dagger: I doubt I need to explain this set much. Focused on hitting hard and being maneuverable, this set has had it’s place in the class uprooted by balancing taking place on Anet’s level. This set hasn’t found it’s new home yet, but still proves to be very high-risk high-reward oriented. I would not recommend this set to a new player currently.

• Dagger/Focus: As far as I know, no one ever uses this set (at least to no outstanding effect). Currently the 2 weapons seem rather incompatible as each weapon expresses the extreme of damage and self defense. A seemingly complementary concept, limited by actual skills not working well together. However, I might encourage some radicals to see what they might be able to find hidden in this combo of weapons and share with your peers. I would not recommend this set to a new player.

All that said, I feel the hammer that seems to be so popular would fit into the scepter/dagger area, as being melee is incredibly risky in our line of work in most cases. however I have found it’s damage to be rather disappointing when I compare it to my staff DPS output and the much higher risk it brings to use. In the few times I need to be in melee range (Subject Alpha in CoE for example) I find I’m using the FGS to more effect than hammer would ever be in the same situation. Until a more fluid change can be introduced into the utility weapon summons, I feel they are too much of an interruption in ele’s combat flow to be worth using in most situations.

I foresee staff becoming the norm soon for PvE, and the S/D shining for at least a few weeks until new variables are introduced. I hope the debating cropping up lately is helping people to realize the true potential of staff.

No one ever uses D/F? It’s the best weapon set for pve except conjures.

And even then, conjure builds are only viable for speedruns!
D/F is the best choice for advanced PvE.
Scepter has terrible damage.

I have no clue what happened for why Scepter suddenly became so popular in PvE. While it has the best might stacking in the game, and while Scepter’s burst damage is very good (making it an excellent pair with Lightning Hammer), on its own, it’s very subpar in terms of damage.

Staff has always been a favorite of Elementalists, mainly for flavor reasons. I can understand its popularity. It’s unfortunate that ANet made it primarily a Utility weapon instead of a Blasting one. I truly think that was a mistake on their part. I hope in upcoming patches when Eles get more weapons that they get a weapon set with DPS similar to that of Grenades for Engineers – high damage from far away.

Anyway, I do not see Staff becoming the new meta for Dungeon Eles. It just doesn’t do as much as other weapon choices. Given that, if you go truly deep into your damage trees, I do find you can put out pretty decent damage. But only decent. And it comes at the cost of any real utility to your team since you spend most of your time in Fire attunement and don’t even Might Stack like a Scepter Ele does.

And indeed, Dagger/Focus is the best non-conjure choice for Eles. I believe I said so in my guide. It’s what I use when PUGing difficult content. While it is true that Focus is a little bit awkward at times, it’s actually a very high utility option that compliments Dagger Ele fairly nicely in PvE.

I will update this guide soon enough. I’ve just been busy with school work. A few things have changed here and there and I’d like to add them all to my guide.

Neko.9021:

I have no clue what happened for why Scepter suddenly became so popular in PvE. While it has the best might stacking in the game, and while Scepter’s burst damage is very good (making it an excellent pair with Lightning Hammer), on its own, it’s very subpar in terms of damage.

Staff has always been a favorite of Elementalists, mainly for flavor reasons. I can understand its popularity. It’s unfortunate that ANet made it primarily a Utility weapon instead of a Blasting one. I truly think that was a mistake on their part. I hope in upcoming patches when Eles get more weapons that they get a weapon set with DPS similar to that of Grenades for Engineers – high damage from far away.

Anyway, I do not see Staff becoming the new meta for Dungeon Eles. It just doesn’t do as much as other weapon choices. Given that, if you go truly deep into your damage trees, I do find you can put out pretty decent damage. But only decent. And it comes at the cost of any real utility to your team since you spend most of your time in Fire attunement and don’t even Might Stack like a Scepter Ele does.

And indeed, Dagger/Focus is the best non-conjure choice for Eles. I believe I said so in my guide. It’s what I use when PUGing difficult content. While it is true that Focus is a little bit awkward at times, it’s actually a very high utility option that compliments Dagger Ele fairly nicely in PvE.

I will update this guide soon enough. I’ve just been busy with school work. A few things have changed here and there and I’d like to add them all to my guide.

The change in traits is what spurred the use of Scepter recently, I believe.

I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself to get the point across.

STAFF IS THE HIGHEST DPS WEAPON ELE’S HAVE.

I understand the skepticism, but I know the numbers I get. Between Lava Font and Fireball always hitting, all the time for 5-7k EACH every second, this means you’re doing FAR more consistent damage than anything else, even hammer. This is before even taking Meteor Shower into account. When MS and Lava Font are up, and auto attacking, you can be hitting a single or group of mobs for over 25k repeatedly, up to 3 or 4 times if you get lucky with MS, all within Lava Font’s duration(4 seconds). I doubt even the entire burst from S/D can match the total damage dealt in the same amount of time.

Bluefox.9580:

Neko.9021:

I have no clue what happened for why Scepter suddenly became so popular in PvE. While it has the best might stacking in the game, and while Scepter’s burst damage is very good (making it an excellent pair with Lightning Hammer), on its own, it’s very subpar in terms of damage.

Staff has always been a favorite of Elementalists, mainly for flavor reasons. I can understand its popularity. It’s unfortunate that ANet made it primarily a Utility weapon instead of a Blasting one. I truly think that was a mistake on their part. I hope in upcoming patches when Eles get more weapons that they get a weapon set with DPS similar to that of Grenades for Engineers – high damage from far away.

Anyway, I do not see Staff becoming the new meta for Dungeon Eles. It just doesn’t do as much as other weapon choices. Given that, if you go truly deep into your damage trees, I do find you can put out pretty decent damage. But only decent. And it comes at the cost of any real utility to your team since you spend most of your time in Fire attunement and don’t even Might Stack like a Scepter Ele does.

And indeed, Dagger/Focus is the best non-conjure choice for Eles. I believe I said so in my guide. It’s what I use when PUGing difficult content. While it is true that Focus is a little bit awkward at times, it’s actually a very high utility option that compliments Dagger Ele fairly nicely in PvE.

I will update this guide soon enough. I’ve just been busy with school work. A few things have changed here and there and I’d like to add them all to my guide.

The change in traits is what spurred the use of Scepter recently, I believe.

I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself to get the point across.

STAFF IS THE HIGHEST DPS WEAPON ELE’S HAVE.

I understand the skepticism, but I know the numbers I get. Between Lava Font and Fireball always hitting, all the time for 5-7k EACH every second, this means you’re doing FAR more consistent damage than anything else, even hammer. This is before even taking Meteor Shower into account. When MS and Lava Font are up, and auto attacking, you can be hitting a single or group of mobs for over 25k repeatedly, up to 3 or 4 times if you get lucky with MS, all within Lava Font’s duration(4 seconds). I doubt even the entire burst from S/D can match the total damage dealt in the same amount of time.

I’d actually like to see the math behind this now. I’m quite aware of the DPS of Staff. I’ve used it before. However, I sincerely doubt it reaches the DPS of Lightning Hammer. If someone could post some math behind it, that’d be nice (and not a silly Risen Giant DPS test because I’m quite aware of how unreliable those are).

This is an interesting screenshot I managed to take that shows the scale of Staff DPS over the course of about 10-15 seconds.

Screenie

If you assume the first 2 numbers were from round one of the boss, round 2 clearly starts near my minimum damage. It then scales with some vulnerability, some might (mostly self sustained with the grandmaster trait) and culminating in the rather large numbers when it fell below 33% HP. Unfortunately I don’t have an identical example for hammer, but I’d imagine it’d fall just short of the total damage sustained, but at much higher risk to the user. Also note that fight took place without the 200 additional power from the food I use, despite seeing the shield icon. The total damage dealt was 123,089 starting at the 4th number in 10-15 seconds on one target, and that’s with only 1 meteor shower hit.

I’d also like to link this screenie to show just how high those numbers can be in some situations, and to remind everyone this is done at 1200 range meaning very little interruption.

Theoretically the hammer may dish out slightly more DPS in ideal situations, but I deal in practicality. I too would like to see this figured out using accurate math though.

Bluefox.9580:

This is an interesting screenshot I managed to take that shows the scale of Staff DPS over the course of about 10-15 seconds.

Screenie

If you assume the first 2 numbers were from round one of the boss, round 2 clearly starts near my minimum damage. It then scales with some vulnerability, some might (mostly self sustained with the grandmaster trait) and culminating in the rather large numbers when it fell below 33% HP. Unfortunately I don’t have an identical example for hammer, but I’d imagine it’d fall just short of the total damage sustained, but at much higher risk to the user. Also note that fight took place without the 200 additional power from the food I use, despite seeing the shield icon. The total damage dealt was 123,089 starting at the 4th number in 10-15 seconds on one target, and that’s with only 1 meteor shower hit.

I’d also like to link this screenie to show just how high those numbers can be in some situations, and to remind everyone this is done at 1200 range meaning very little interruption.

Theoretically the hammer may dish out slightly more DPS in ideal situations, but I deal in practicality. I too would like to see this figured out using accurate math though.

The thing is Fireball has a 1 second cast time whereas Dagger and Hammer have half second cast times. This doesn’t include the casting delays inherent in Staff attacks. Those numbers on a screenshot honestly don’t mean as much to me. In this case, I’m looking for someone to plug in the skill coefficients and damage and come out with something. I’m sure you can add all of the damage done and do it manually, as you are trying to do, but it seems pretty imprecise. And honestly, Hammer seemed to do far more damage just from seeing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUe8xg2yPXI&t=4m53s

Though I will say this. For sure, Meteor Shower does insane damage against really large targets. It’s quite well possible that Staff is the optimal choice against the Destroyer boss as an opening in CoE, go figure.

The total damage dealt in that particular video by hammer was 163,883 over a period of roughly 18 seconds. Now from what I can tell he was able to attack for a few seconds longer than I, but as I suspected staff is right behind hammer in the ideal situation. I’ll grant you that these numbers are highly situational, but it does give us an initial frame of reference for DPS output in similar situations.

The hammer is much more inefficient and prone to difficulties; such as people taking your second, and having to sacrifice a utility slot AND a trait simply to use it. Not to mention getting downed removes the weapon entirely which is bad news since you have to be in melee range to even use it.

This particular CoE boss is a fair target for example damage output as he really is just a punching bag, but what do you do against Lupi, or many other of the very unfriendly melee bosses in this game? Using hammer puts ele’s from being slightly better at DPSing than a versatile staff ele, to a less effective backup weapon ele with a tied up utility slot and a useless trait in effect. Upon rethinking that I realized that’s not actually true, though you are still forced to potentially have 20 in fire you may not want at the time.

Regardless of my personal feelings towards hammer, it’s obviously a viable build. All I’m really trying to point out here is that staff is no where near as ineffective as many are making it out to be.

Bluefox.9580:

The total damage dealt in that particular video by hammer was 163,883 over a period of roughly 18 seconds. Now from what I can tell he was able to attack for a few seconds longer than I, but as I suspected staff is right behind hammer in the ideal situation. I’ll grant you that these numbers are highly situational, but it does give us an initial frame of reference for DPS output in similar situations.

The hammer is much more inefficient and prone to difficulties; such as people taking your second, and having to sacrifice a utility slot AND a trait simply to use it. Not to mention getting downed removes the weapon entirely which is bad news since you have to be in melee range to even use it.

This particular CoE boss is a fair target for example damage output as he really is just a punching bag, but what do you do against Lupi, or many other of the very unfriendly melee bosses in this game? Using hammer puts ele’s from being slightly better at DPSing than a versatile staff ele, to a less effective backup weapon ele with a tied up utility slot and a useless trait in effect. Upon rethinking that I realized that’s not actually true, though you are still forced to potentially have 20 in fire you may not want at the time.

Regardless of my personal feelings towards hammer, it’s obviously a viable build. All I’m really trying to point out here is that staff is no where near as ineffective as many are making it out to be.

It’s decent DPS, for sure. And worth adding in the next revision of the guide. But it still lacks much utility of any of Ele’s other sets while still doing less damage. Its main plus is that it can be done from 1200 range, which I personally don’t feel is that large of an advantage. But it’s worth noting, and so it will be added soon enough.

Sabull and I calculated staff’s dps some time ago.
We considered an optimal rotation (stay in fire, spam meteor shower and lava font on cooldown), with cooldown (which deals more damage than the +5% on burning targets if you take all final modifiers into account). In theory the total time of the rotation was 29.8s, but in practice it appeared to be 31s. It was Sabull who did the empirical tests, and he told me that this lag is hard to explain but constant.
We assumed a player-size target (meteors have a 25% chance to hit on average).

Total time: 31s
Casts per second: 0.74 (so Puissance stacks might to 7.4, not included in calculation)
Total coefficient: 38.25

Coefficient per second: 1.23 (Lightning whip: 1.22, LH: 1.42)

So yes, it appears that staff deals good damage, but wait! In fact staff’s weapon damage is about 10% higher than one-handed weapons.

So the correct coefficient per second would be 1.36 !

Bluefox.9580:

This particular CoE boss is a fair target for example damage output as he really is just a punching bag, but what do you do against Lupi, or many other of the very unfriendly melee bosses in this game?

Don’t say lupi is very unfriendly melee boss, you might not be taken seriously by some people. If you want some examples of bosses that are most likely to be ranged it would be archdiviner during phase 2 and maybe colossus rumblus.

Neko.9021:

-snip-

Any reason why are you using tinyurl instead of forum formatting? Like this:
Check out my Comprehensive Guide to the Ele in Dungeons

Zelyhn.8069:

Sabull and I calculated staff’s dps some time ago.
We considered an optimal rotation (stay in fire, spam meteor shower and lava font on cooldown), with cooldown (which deals more damage than the +5% on burning targets if you take all final modifiers into account). In theory the total time of the rotation was 29.8s, but in practice it appeared to be 31s. It was Sabull who did the empirical tests, and he told me that this lag is hard to explain but constant.
We assumed a player-size target (meteors have a 25% chance to hit on average).

Total time: 31s
Casts per second: 0.74 (so Puissance stacks might to 7.4, not included in calculation)
Total coefficient: 38.25

Coefficient per second: 1.23 (Lightning whip: 1.22, LH: 1.42)

So yes, it appears that staff deals good damage, but wait! In fact staff’s weapon damage is about 10% higher than one-handed weapons.

So the correct coefficient per second would be 1.36 !

Build was 30/30/0/10/0 and staying only in fire?

The build does not really matter for this calculation Haviz, sorry I forgot to mention that we were merely calculating the average skill coefficient per second from the rotation without including any modifiers or buffs (so only the cd reduction trait choice).
So the build has to be with at least 20 in fire, and yes, staying in fire is required.

I feel bad.

Zelhyn

Sabull and I calculated staff’s dps some time ago.

By some time ago do you mean before or after the staff buffs?

Bluefox.9580:

Zelhyn (he means Zelyhn)

Sabull and I calculated staff’s dps some time ago.

By some time ago do you mean before or after the staff buffs?

After, of course.
But we still lack a lot of information to be perfectly accurate. I would really appreciate if people contributed to the completion of our skill data .

I read that thread and had to go take some pain killers. I guess I should be happy I can nearly comprehend all of it.

STAFF GOOD!

I’am quite new to the game and I already read lots of guides. As my first target is, of course, leveling up to 80, I’am still looking for a build for normal PVE aka leveling. I want to play D/D.

In first case, I wanted to take “bunker build”, but I now want to have a more offensive one. Basically I want as much damage as possible but still enough endurance.

What build do you suggest for fast (!) leveling?

Schnudi.9178:

I’am quite new to the game and I already read lots of guides. As my first target is, of course, leveling up to 80, I’am still looking for a build for normal PVE aka leveling. I want to play D/D.

In first case, I wanted to take “bunker build”, but I now want to have a more offensive one. Basically I want as much damage as possible but still enough endurance.

What build do you suggest for fast (!) leveling?

Try the Fresh Air build with D/D if you want something that’s damagey and still has decent survivability.

Bluefox.9580:

I read that thread and had to go take some pain killers. I guess I should be happy I can nearly comprehend all of it.

STAFF GOOD!

Lol, it’s more like Staff has decent ranged DPS if you go deep into your damage trees. It’s worth mentioning and will be added. I’ll link your guide too, I think, since it’s the only 30/30/X/X/X Staff Ele guide I’ve seen around.

What do you think of 0/25/25/10/10 for eles, weapons are used depending on the situation, I also use conjured weapons in some situations.

Why not taking fresh air?
The 10% dmg you get from 25 in earth will go away quickly when you dodge.
Using Fresh air is much more than a 10% damage boost.

It won’t go that fast if you have superior sigil of energy and vigor on critical hits, why do you think I got the 10 in arcane, not saying I will have 10% more damage during the whole fight, but even if it was 25% of the fight, it was worth the 5 points.

That would give you a 2.5% increase in damage.

The fact is that Fresh Air would boost your damage much more: you can use LW pretty much all the time (highest c/s dagger spells), you can swap often for Electric discharge procs and a high uptime of fury. This way you can save your energy sigil and get a sigil of force instead (assuming you already have a sigil of battle) for 5% more damage. That’s a full win.

But that would mean I won’t need the 10 in arcana, since I almost always have access to air attunement, so what about 0/30/20/20/0?

You do need at least 5 in arcana in order to have access to fury on attunement swap. With this you can maintain a very high uptime of fury, which is a strong dps boost. If you are interested I suggested you take a look at my guide (link in my signature).

ok, that leaves 5 unspent trait points, 0/30/20/10/5, where do you think I should put them in?

In arcane. If we consider just the might buffs you can provide from Elemental Attunement then you are giving your group a constant damage boost that is worth more than water 25 and earth 25 in most cases. Then you also get other buffs so it becomes even more valuable You also gain access to vigor on crit if ever your would need it.

so, 0/30/20/10/10, like my old build except everything moved 1 spot to the right (30/20/10/10/0)

Hello Neko and others.

First things first, thank you very much for all the effort you put into this guide. It has helped me a lot and made me rekindle with my actual “main” (who was replaced by the being known as “warrior” for a longer time).

So, props, good guide, well done, you did a good thing.

My question:
I seem to have difficulties to survive the “wallstacking” of some tougher mobs or bosses (Kohler in AC). I mainly used the Fiery Greatsword.
Arcane Shield and Armour of Earth only help so much.

Edit: nvm, I got it

Omg awesome guide! It never crossed my mind to hotkey my toolbelt skills to crt+number thats going to help soo much!

Anyway im almost finish my build on my main engi and ive been eye’ing the elementalist as a second for a while now so this will help loads
Thanks ^ ^

Sarah

This guide will see its next major update after the December patch, and in response to constant questioning about it as well as due to my new play habits (joining a WvW Raid guild) I will also include thoughts about WvW Raid builds as well.

Ooh, looking forward to some good WvW ele builds and insight about the upcoming ele changes.

Looking forward to your thoughts on dungeon ele. Do you happen to have any vids of you running dungeons?

Sadly, I think this build will be getting a small nerf from the change to fire trait 3, Ember’s Might. Of course you may take 10 points out of arcane now that they are lowering the attunement switching cooldown globally and put those points into fire to get Pyromancer’s Puissance to stack extra might and get extra power and get that 5% damage back from the burning rage buff they are going to do. That would probably offset the nerf.

Im not sure that spell cast on dodge that you get from Evasive Arcana is key to this build. Im not sure if you went 30 into arcana for that skill or if it was for the attunment cool down reduction or both.

At any rate I look forward to hearing your thoughts.