Guild Wars 2

o/ Very interested in what people are thinking of running after patch.
As a roamer i really hope S/D becomes viable and not outdone by S/F, absolutely love the playstyle and close range burst. My thinking is that the 30 in water i will be able to get will make it survivable enough for a viable burst spec.
Would love to hear your guys/girls thoughts

will be as useless as it is now. it’s a babysit build that brings no viable group utility and is easily outdone by mesmer and thief.

more survivability is nice but it doesn’t change the fact that it brings no stealth, no boonrips, no moa and no portal. even if it was the best 1v1 berserker build in the game, if it doesn’t add anything for the rest of the team it’s useless.

it might be fun to play and everything but that’s all there is to it.

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

Jski.6180:

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

congratulations, you have a build with no survivability and condi cleanse.

the fire line is lackluster and arcane not worth it anymore for the following reason: with the reduced vigour you absolutely can’t afford to waste dodges for evasive arcana.

what i will be testing is air earth water with vamp runes and air/energy sigils. water could be switched to fire for cleansing fire and blinding ashes but i am not sure of it’s worth it.

The base will remain the same, now more than ever, you will need water/arcana always as the condi spamm will get worst, on the zerker side, thieves will get a 1200 range steal + executioner/panic strike all in one go you’d get obliterated in no time, not counting the buffed mesmers and lb rangers.

If before zerker ele was unviable..now more than ever, save zerker staff in WvW and PvE, forget about scepter is a trash weapon set for PvP and PvE..everything counts.

Jekkt.6045:

Jski.6180:

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

congratulations, you have a build with no survivability and condi cleanse.

the fire line is lackluster and arcane not worth it anymore for the following reason: with the reduced vigour you absolutely can’t afford to waste dodges for evasive arcana.

what i will be testing is air earth water with vamp runes and air/energy sigils. water could be switched to fire for cleansing fire and blinding ashes but i am not sure of it’s worth it.

Who needs vigor? You go fire line for blinds or fury you got Ar line for shielding and boon dmg. So the vigor becomes +2% more dmg more or less.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgAB2AW8A_g~

This is scepter we are talking about its mostly burst dmg builds.
Maybe one with flames might be better then better dmg in fire though a 13.4 sec cd on Phoenix seems realty nice.
I also like to see number on arcane precision it may be worth running if it can add more then 2% dmg to the over all build.

Jekkt.6045:

Jski.6180:

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

congratulations, you have a build with no survivability and condi cleanse.

the fire line is lackluster and arcane not worth it anymore for the following reason: with the reduced vigour you absolutely can’t afford to waste dodges for evasive arcana.

what i will be testing is air earth water with vamp runes and air/energy sigils. water could be switched to fire for cleansing fire and blinding ashes but i am not sure of it’s worth it.

I disagree. Arcana is still worth it and ele will need the vigor more than ever, you’ll just need to be more careful about your dodges.

Jski.6180:

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

Same but not all in full damage .Im gonna mix it up with goep for weakness and superspeed plus tempest defense instead of full damage traits and scepter focus of course
I think with this setup it might be possible to mantain 3 burns average just by spaming auto in air on someone which is more damage than current burn plus better scaling for your might stack.Maybe even the trait thatt converts power to condi.
Put there the procs from air /fire and thats very good damage just by pressing 1 and 2 in air!!
And then ill do occasional bursts of burn like doing earth 2 into flamewall and fire aura procs aside from all the other standard damage fa combos.

If a thief jumps on me i try to disengage with the superspeed away from the fight (not from the theif ofcourse thats impossible !! :P) and hope that my tempest defense helps me survive till i start the blind spam and then apply weakness and prot to myself again which prob would be stolen by then.
If i fail miserably i ll go 0 6 0 6 6

edit: skipping arcana and making it up with both earth and water is a bait imho..i dont even consider it theres no point as far as efficiency goes in burst builds

vigour is 1 dodge every 7.5s while normal regen + energy is still 2/10s so i will drop renewing stamina. contingency is meh for fresh air and evasive is not good enough to justify dropping earth or water.

water giving you the needed cleanse and heal while earth gives you prot for soothing ice, tempest defense and fire5. reduced earth skills means 20s condi cleanse and 40s invul instead of 50.

fresh air didn’t go into fire so with the 30% stat increase of amulets you get a natural +~300 power which will make up for air training.

@jski
pure burst builds are always trash because a dead dps deals no damage at all.

Avead.5760:

Jski.6180:

Ppl are saying 3 fire 3 air 3 ar for s/d or s/f for an all in burst dmg build.

Same but not all in full damage .Im gonna mix it up with goep for weakness and superspeed plus tempest defense instead of full damage traits and scepter focus of course
I think with this setup it might be possible to mantain 3 burns average just by spaming auto in air on someone which is more damage than current burn plus better scaling for your might stack.Maybe even the trait thatt converts power to condi.
Put there the procs from air /fire and thats very good damage just by pressing 1 and 2 in air!!
And then ill do occasional bursts of burn like doing earth 2 into flamewall and fire aura procs aside from all the other standard damage fa combos.

If a thief jumps on me i try to disengage with the superspeed away from the fight (not from the theif ofcourse thats impossible !! :P) and hope that my tempest defense helps me survive till i start the blind spam and then apply weakness and prot to myself again which prob would be stolen by then.
If i fail miserably i ll go 0 6 0 6 6

Arcane precision maybe godly in more of a condition dmg build that your looking at (if the numbers are better then they are now).

Guys, please use the following nomenclature:
F=Fire
R=Air
E=Earth
W=Water
A=Arcane

So instead of saying 00666 use EWA, which is the build that a lot of DD players will use in pvp.

I will personally try FWA in pvp, and in PvE most builds will use FRA.

Jekkt.6045:

vigour is 1 dodge every 7.5s while normal regen + energy is still 2/10s so i will drop renewing stamina. contingency is meh for fresh air and evasive is not good enough to justify dropping earth or water.

water giving you the needed cleanse and heal while earth gives you prot for soothing ice, tempest defense and fire5. reduced earth skills means 20s condi cleanse and 40s invul instead of 50.

fresh air didn’t go into fire so with the 30% stat increase of amulets you get a natural +~300 power which will make up for air training.

@jski
pure burst builds are always trash because a dead dps deals no damage at all.

With Soothing Ice you’ll get protection only every 20 second and it will be more random, unless you take other auras. Otherwise it’s just a waste of trait slot. And even if you did take Tempest defense, having 3 sec of prot on 20 and 25 sec cd doesn’t seem too good.

every reduction in a normal fight is great and for big bursts you switch to earth to negate everything. basically the same way as you do now with attunement protection but better.

Jski.6180:

Arcane precision maybe godly in more of a condition dmg build that your looking at (if the numbers are better then they are now).

They have to be !! Who slots a 10% on crit otherwise?! Btw if you check it it already mantains okish weakness uptime in a FA build cause the trait activates more often in the air auto in scepter.
Id argue that if it goes to something like 30% with no icd or 60%with icd it might be worth to any crit build cause of that weakness. Besides vigor is nerfed so the value of renewing staming drops a bit.

Jekkt.6045:

every reduction in a normal fight is great and for big bursts you switch to earth to negate everything. basically the same way as you do now with attunement protection but better.

Okay, I don’t follow. How is 3 sec of protection on 20 and 25 sec cd’s better than 5 sec of protection on 9 sec cd? You have to invest so much into the auras and you don’t really get that much. The aura itself are obviously powerful but fresh air might as well go air, water and arcana.

you lose earth if you go arcana and the earth traits are just better in every way. you get stone heart + the protection from auras (that makes a bit up for elemental attunement) but the gm minor and stone heart is what makes it so powerful. while elemental attunement is good to negate bursts with earth stone heart is just on a higher level. 33% damage reduction from prot vs 50-100% crit damage that is not applied + the on crit procs.

Jekkt.6045:

you lose earth if you go arcana and the earth traits are just better in every way. you get stone heart + the protection from auras (that makes a bit up for elemental attunement) but the gm minor and stone heart is what makes it so powerful. while elemental attunement is good to negate bursts with earth stone heart is just on a higher level. 33% damage reduction from prot vs 50-100% crit damage that is not applied + the on crit procs.

See i feel by adding boon on swap arcana effectively killed earth line its kind of cool to find some one who thinks earth is better then arcana.

But you lose the regen and i dont think stoneheart works well with fresh air.
You will go to earth anyway either for the blind or the defensive spells or just as part of a rotation to pump up more damage with fresh air.
My point is that protection is already losing effectiveness when you go to earth on a focus build and become immune to burst or reflect it with the focus spells..cause it doesnt do anything for you during that time
Isnt it logical that stone heart is even more kitten by that playstyle? At least protection carries over so you arent limited and has way higher uptime as well so it makes even harder for other burst builds to find a window to burst for max effectiveness. I just think its very hard to make stoneheart work on a fresh air build.. way harder than just having high prot uptime that still allows you to use FA at full effectiveness

Jekkt.6045:

you lose earth if you go arcana and the earth traits are just better in every way. you get stone heart + the protection from auras (that makes a bit up for elemental attunement) but the gm minor and stone heart is what makes it so powerful. while elemental attunement is good to negate bursts with earth stone heart is just on a higher level. 33% damage reduction from prot vs 50-100% crit damage that is not applied + the on crit procs.

Well, I can’t agree with it. I don’t think having to stay in earth to negate damage will work with fresh air. I’m not a fan of Stone heart because of the gameplay it brings. It could possibly work somehow for dd ele, but I don’t see the point in building a tanky fresh air spec that will be forced to camp earth when you get under pressure.

with what they changed they made it possible to drop arcana if you want to. it’s still good but not the only option anymore.

one big factor is (for fresh air) having an additional line. while 6 points were always used for fresh air the other ones went into water for hp and into arcana for vigour and cooldown on attunements.

with nerfing vigour and setting the base cooldown for attunements to 10s you don’t feel forced into arcana anymore, it’s still good but not the only viable line.

for d/d it’s different. if you want the additional support you need to go into arcana but you can now choose to drop earth because you get 2 more seconds of prot from contingency and shorter attunement cooldowns. so you can actually spec into fire or into air or whatever but you can even pick the full earth line now.

i’m a big fan of earth and the traits in that line are actually not a no brainer. on adept it’s embrace vs shielding, on master it’s rock solid vs geomancer and on grandmaster it’s written in stone vs stone heart (sorry but diamond skin is crap no matter how you look at it).

I think stonheart makes sense with weapons that dont bring a lot of defense on earth like staff for example so you actually enhance that attunement in a way.I dont think its good in an attunement that has immunity,cond clear and reflect and a very weak autoattack/zero cc unless you actually wanna make the non defensive spells work like cond ele spamming earth 1

Stone heart only works with tanky specs, anything with toughness above 1700 in my opinion, I tried few builds against well played thief and mesmer in a duel and ..yes, fresh air with stone heart is a waste of traits , you only avoid crit not the dmg itself that will still hit for a lot at low levels of toughness/healing

Laraley.7695:

Jekkt.6045:

you lose earth if you go arcana and the earth traits are just better in every way. you get stone heart + the protection from auras (that makes a bit up for elemental attunement) but the gm minor and stone heart is what makes it so powerful. while elemental attunement is good to negate bursts with earth stone heart is just on a higher level. 33% damage reduction from prot vs 50-100% crit damage that is not applied + the on crit procs.

Well, I can’t agree with it. I don’t think having to stay in earth to negate damage will work with fresh air. I’m not a fan of Stone heart because of the gameplay it brings. It could possibly work somehow for dd ele, but I don’t see the point in building a tanky fresh air spec that will be forced to camp earth when you get under pressure.

that’s basically what you should already be doing on fresh air now. when you are about to get bursted you switch into earth to negate all the damage you recieve and if you can you use obsidian flesh so you can escape and switch to other attunements without getting any further damage.

that’s how it works for every ele build that uses elemental attunement and to a lesser degree for builds that use elemental shielding with popping auras.

Supreme.3164:

Stone heart only works with tanky specs, anything with toughness above 1700 in my opinion, I tried few builds against well played thief and mesmer in a duel and ..yes, fresh air with stone heart is a waste of traits , you only avoid crit not the dmg itself that will still hit for a lot at low levels of toughness/healing

obviously you will still be eating a lot of damage, i’m not saying you should camp in earth. what i’m saying is if there’s unavoidable damage incoming, like a mighty blow by a guardian, and you have no dodges/blinds or whatever left then this is your best option. a non crit mighty blow will only hit you for around 2k instead of 4k + air sigil.

the other option to earth is fire with blinding ashes, but at this point i can’t tell whats more beneficial for a fresh air build in an actual fight, it might even depend on what you face. and what is this about, “building a tanky fresh air” it’s not like you gain that much more damage from going into arcana or going into fire.

very often in a fight against a thief at one point you will take out a big chunk of their hp and they will go into shadow ref. that’s usually the crucial moment in which you’re not able to do anything because they can sit in stealth for 15 seconds. stone heart is perfect in such a moment because their backstab will not hit you for 6k+ if you can’t dodge it and there is no time limit to stone heart like for example on arcane shield or protection.

the other problem with blinding ashes vs stone heart is, blinding ashes is, even with a 3s icd, single target and not aoe so it might be good for 1v1 but not if its 1vx when people chase you for example. now if blinding ashes was “blind foes and the area around them each time you burn them” then it would be good.

Jekkt.6045:

Laraley.7695:

Jekkt.6045:

you lose earth if you go arcana and the earth traits are just better in every way. you get stone heart + the protection from auras (that makes a bit up for elemental attunement) but the gm minor and stone heart is what makes it so powerful. while elemental attunement is good to negate bursts with earth stone heart is just on a higher level. 33% damage reduction from prot vs 50-100% crit damage that is not applied + the on crit procs.

Well, I can’t agree with it. I don’t think having to stay in earth to negate damage will work with fresh air. I’m not a fan of Stone heart because of the gameplay it brings. It could possibly work somehow for dd ele, but I don’t see the point in building a tanky fresh air spec that will be forced to camp earth when you get under pressure.

that’s basically what you should already be doing on fresh air now. when you are about to get bursted you switch into earth to negate all the damage you recieve and if you can you use obsidian flesh so you can escape and switch to other attunements without getting any further damage.

that’s how it works for every ele build that uses elemental attunement and to a lesser degree for builds that use elemental shielding with popping auras.

You can switch to earth but you’re not forced to camp earth to negate damage. With stone heart you’ll be losing a lot damage potential.

that’s kinda true. seems like a trade off. but then again i wouldnt chill in earth anyway, i would use obsidian flesh that is on a 40s cd with the master, switch to water to heal and use the healing signet if i need it.

there will be a lot to test on the 23rd.. not only on ele.. will definitely be busy for a while^^

Jekkt.6045:

that’s kinda true. seems like a trade off. but then again i wouldnt chill in earth anyway, i would use obsidian flesh that is on a 40s cd with the master, switch to water to heal and use the healing signet if i need it.

there will be a lot to test on the 23rd.. not only on ele.. will definitely be busy for a while^^

But then Stone Heart is useless…

it’s not if you use it at the right moment, your invul won’t be up all the time. you kinda have to see it as your last resort.

Jekkt.6045:

it’s not if you use it at the right moment, your invul won’t be up all the time.

But you only have two choices. Switch to earth, use OF, switch out.
Switch to earth and take reduced damage in earth.

So you either will have to not take Stone Heart or you’ll have to camp earth.

why do you have to camp it. even in your normal rotation it will reduce the damage by a lot while you rotate through the earth skills and it can act as a failsafe, you should obviously not put your main focus on camping earth but to normally do your rotation and use it when it’s needed/availlable. stone heart is after all not the only reason why i want to take the earth line but also the 10% reduction minor and the lower cooldown on earth skills.

Jekkt.6045:

why do you have to camp it. even in your normal rotation it will reduce the damage by a lot while you rotate through the earth skills and it can act as a failsafe, you should obviously not put your main focus on camping earth but to normally do your rotation and use it when it’s needed/availlable. stone heart is after all not the only reason why i want to take the earth line but also the 10% reduction minor and the lower cooldown on earth skills.

Because protection would be much better otherwise?

i would say it’s more convenient in sustained encounters because it provides continuous reduction on a lower degree compared to stone heart that provides a big reduction when used right.

this is theoretically speaking anyway, if i feel like that the earth line is not giving me what i expect i will switch it out, be it arcana or be it fire. it’s gonna be that line that i benefit the most from.

what i expect is an advantage when facing other dps classes, it needs to be good against thieves, mesmers and medi guards. i don’t care much about what it gives me against celestials because 1v1ing them is not something i should do.

Yeah, honestly there is nothing new, I wish we got the guy who did engineer to work on our class. Not that all his changes were good, but at least he had the balls to make some real changes, instead of giving us the umpteenth balance patch with nothing but changes to arcane/water bunker builds.

i’d rather have the mesmer/necro guy tbh

Jekkt.6045:

i’d rather have the mesmer/necro guy tbh

Well the Robert kinda screwed over the necro with consumed conditions, but in any case still better than karl.

He super nerfs us, then reduces some of the nerfs and people call it a “buff”.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Jekkt.6045:

i’d rather have the mesmer/necro guy tbh

Well the Robert kinda screwed over the necro with consumed conditions, but in any case still better than karl.

He super nerfs us, then reduces some of the nerfs and people call it a “buff”.

He’s got some good marketing skills, I have to say that.

he’s just the opposite of what people do at a bazar. u set the price too high and let it go down to what you actually want.

karl sets it so low that everybody cries of happyness when he sets it to what he actually wants.

as for robert, all the forums are full of complaints so i think he will remove the corruption category from consume conditions. with that necros have some solid buffs and very interesting things (interesting as in.. strange). if it will give them a spot in the meta is a different matter.

On the PVE side, I’m still coming up with builds for each weapon set. Staff is fairly easy: Fire/Air/Water. I considered going into Earth for diamond skin, since it can trivialize certain effects (Grawl fractals hot foot, for example), but water has more damage modifiers and AoE magnetic aura is difficult to pass up.

The other weapon sets are a bit harder. Now that bolt to the heart is mutually exclusive with fresh air, the funky fresh tactic of combining it with elemental attunement for boon spam won’t be as good as I always wanted it to be.

I plan to try F/W/A for some reason I have always been a fan of the fire line. Fury Uptime should be good, but I’ll have to see how it is with out fury/swift on aura’s. I think A/W/A will be the D/D build. Movement speed is pretty important, and I just don’t plan to give up a utility slot for signet of air.

Sitting there thinking about it not as much swiftness/movement speed access might really suck unless I buy some traveler runes, but I don’t want to give up my power from strength. I think how stats are now allocated will influence me between fire and air in the end.

PvP:
D/D FWE → perma fury, (near?) perma protection, tons of might, good hybrid dmg.

PvE:
FRW → water camp conjurer (IB+LH)
FRA / FRW→ staff dps

for wvw/spvp I will probably try 0-0-3-3-3 staff

I am leaning towards F/E/W.
I would like to try A instead W but it feels like making me unable to survive. I just get to much healing/condi cleanse and team support from water to skip it. I even have te feeling each ele will run water + two other that fit him …

00666 – FOr DnD or 06066

Either way you are going to nee XXX66 for the general DnD ele

DF or DD 00666 full cantrips seems like it will be a staple roaming build. Rock solid + Diamondskin + CD-reduced Ether Renewal and you’ll be facerolling any and all condi specs, while still being decent at handling everything else.

roamzero.9486:

DF or DD 00666 full cantrips seems like it will be a staple roaming build. Rock solid + Diamondskin + CD-reduced Ether Renewal and you’ll be facerolling any and all condi specs, while still being decent at handling everything else.

Ether Renewel’s cd is 18s now. With 20% less cd it’s back to 15s. The master trait on water giving vigor and regeneration also applies on it

DirtyDan.4759:

roamzero.9486:

DF or DD 00666 full cantrips seems like it will be a staple roaming build. Rock solid + Diamondskin + CD-reduced Ether Renewal and you’ll be facerolling any and all condi specs, while still being decent at handling everything else.

Ether Renewel’s cd is 18s now. With 20% less cd it’s back to 15s. The master trait on water giving vigor and regeneration also applies on it

And it takes one thief to completely deny any heal.
Mesmer and necro can do that, too. Gl playing with ER.

I think ether renewals days are numbered tbh. Messing around with it in pvp doing some duels. Thief can daze with sleight of hand and mesmers get to use confounding suggestions more often now. Impossible to get that off unless you protect it with stab or shield.

Messing around I think swiftness downtime is to much if you try to run a 3/0/0/3/3 build. To get to 3 fire will require a unconventional build for sure when it comes to wvw/pvp.

Hmm I guess nomenclature will change.

Small things I noticed in playing though I am extremely rusty having not played for a year was that might was still easy to stack, dodging seems fine still. Base stats look better now.

It was always important to cover ether renewal with stability, shield or los, depending on circumstances.

I’m sure it is still a great ability for some builds. Once I start to find some good working builds with these changes, I’m sure I’ll find one that uses ER. Only time will tell, but I think outside of the glyph, ele’s have good healing skills.

I hope they fix some of our terribad elites and utilities soon though. Elementalist is fun, but it could be so much better with more build options. (in my opinion)

Loboling.5293:

It was always important to cover ether renewal with stability, shield or los, depending on circumstances.

I’m sure it is still a great ability for some builds. Once I start to find some good working builds with these changes, I’m sure I’ll find one that uses ER. Only time will tell, but I think outside of the glyph, ele’s have good healing skills.

I hope they fix some of our terribad elites and utilities soon though. Elementalist is fun, but it could be so much better with more build options. (in my opinion)

That’s true, but now everyone gets access to another trait line and the ones that had the ability to interrupt it before the most will be able to do it even more now namely thieves/mesmers.

Been a while since i dueled with d/d but i was using a build 0/6/0/6/6 and i kep getting rekt by Eviscerate warriors.My shocking aura wouldn’t stop the leap mid flight and the eviscerate seemed to land earlier than the animation.Anyone got feedback?

On the build discussion.D/D i tried 0/6/0/6/6 (lightning rod)AND 0/0/6/6/6 (stone heart).Earth survives a lot more while Air clears the fight MUCH faster.The gear i used was a mix of celestial and zerker.Earth trait line can vary.Written in stone is a good option to consider.
I think other classes are way more stronger melee wise after this patch.Mesmer Warrior Engi.Thiefs surprisingly where easier to handle.