Guild Wars 2

I have almost exclusively played an Engineer for nearly two years, and recently wanted to branch out. I always felt like the Elementalist was sort of like an Engineer because of kit swapping.

I am not to 80 yet, but I have been leveling in EOTM and trying to learn different combos (using both Staff and D/D), and looking ahead to my max level gear (i.e. charged crystals…think I am up to 10ish) and build.

When looking at roaming using D/D, one of my big concerns is the RIDICULOUS prices for any viable rune set. The Strength runes nearly set you back 100 gold (heck…most gold I have ever had is 111). The Hoelbrak set isn’t much cheaper. I have also looked at Pack, which a decent amount cheaper.

I also noticed when practicing with the “standard” builds I had to burn useful auras to keep up Swiftness. Auras I wanted when engaging in combat. So I started to think about Traveler’s runes. It has some Boon duration and Celestial stats. It also allows me to take Stone Splinters, which as a D/D seems like a flat 10% damage increase to Power based damage.

Here is the build I came up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcM6c24wwBf0AdAB5xpvRBlzbnB-TFyFwAlV/59+DLeQATV+pRPRgTIAAlgaNBFAABgvbzhezhmQAlXAA-w

Omnomberry Pie and Precision Oil with Sigil of Blood seems like a nice “hybrid” approach with damage and healing. The Might stacks will be much lower, but the flat 10% damage will help greatly.

Has anyone else tried this approach? Even Traveler’s are expensive, so I wanted to get some feedback from the community before investing most of my gold.

Based on your link, you will be hitting like a wet noodle. Which is common with full celestial builds. Most d/d builds that have celestial are baseline celestial, they have either their armor or trinkets full celestial, while the other is knights, or soldiers. The reason why you must use runes of strength, or holebrak is because of the might increase and power boost you get. Without them you wont be doing as much damage as you possibly could. Sigil of blood isnt really a good sigil since you dont really have that much crit, sigil of battle/doom would be better since your constantly switching between attunements, which counts as a weapon swap. The oil does help, but doesnt help to the point where the sigil would become viable. Your trait set up is good, but you could change your master water trait so that you get regen and vigor when you use a cantrip since you get condi clear when you grant regen. I understand that the prices are rather rediculous (i remember buying mine XD) but its because theyre required for ele’s, especially when using d/d.

As a note, I do also take Sigil of Battle. Also…let’s compare my damage with other D/D Celestial builds.

I will still have Might stacks. Slightly more than Pack runes, but less than Strength/Hoelbrak. I gain a flat 10% damage bonus, which works with both Power and Precision (so using Oil is not wasted).

In a roaming situation when I come across a fight I have that 10% damage before any Might has had time to build, so theoretically over the course of a fight, if I end up stacking to 10 stacks and the Strength/Hoelbrak gets to 17, I still have my 10% bonus so I should not lose much, if any, damage in shorter skirmishes.

I enjoy theorycrafting, but I definitely could be wrong about this is practice!

Looking at the stats your sitting at about 1500 power. Which is a wet noodle. Lets say your theory is correct, so if you add 10% it would be 1650. Add another 10% would be 1850. Which is ok damage, but thats only if your able to gain 10 stacks of might, in the middle of a fight, which some experienced ele’s cant even do. You cant take things like that into account when you’re new to the class. (not trying to sound condescending XD) I would reccomend keeping your ascended armor, get runes of holebrak or strength, then getting knights or valkery trinkets. Then once your more experienced and you can stack might then go to full celestial. But overall full celestial isnt reccomended.