Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing GW2 for about 2 months and quickly gravitated to ele and s/d as my favorite weapon set. I’m saving PVP for when I get bored of PVE and that hasn’t happened yet. I try to use and learn all the weapon sets and have some questions about the non scepter sets.

With s/d might stacking is the obvious start to most attacks. Its so easy with the scepter and the skills you use to stack might are useful on their own. Stacking might doesn’t seem easy at all with the other weapon sets and I’m wondering if I should just ignore might stacking with them. For example d/f, is it worth stacking might at all on that setup? For staff I often get one stack from the Eruption>Lava Font combo but I would prolly start fights that way even if it didn’t stack might.

So I’m curious if for the scepterless setups might stacking is important. So far when I’m not using a scepter I find it easier to just ignore might stacking all together and focus on other things.

you don’t really “stack” might with sets that aren’t scepter
when I D/F, I’ll take arcane wave and try to blast my fire fields as often as practical, but I only make a point of doing so because I take the trait that grants me fury when I do it. For a build with high levels of power already, 3 stacks of might alone isn’t worth using a suboptimal skill order (luckily arcane wave mostly circumvents this, so I can still get my fury). Magnetic wave is too good to waste just to stack might (unless of course you know that you won’t need it. And even then it does a nice chunk of damage, so make sure to hit something with it when you do it)

Staff is very good at might stacking- with EA, I can maintain 10-15 stacks on myself pretty easily. That’s with 20% might duration runes and Arcane Wave as well.

Fire 2 > Earth > Dodge into field. Burn your Earth Cooldowns as needed until your attunement is up again. Earth 2 > Water 3 / Fire 2 as needed. If you use Arcane Wave and Arcane Brilliance then thats 2 more blasts you can use either to keep might up or fully heal yourself in a water field.

And how do you cure condis Rhyse?

There is a perfectly optimal skill rotation with D/F that stacks about half as much might as S/F+LH solo. That is basically just two blast finishers less. It is likely that MH Dagger will get an additional blast finisher next balance patch though.

(Oh and D/F does more damage, but shhhh, it’s a secret)

You can also stack might with D/D well.
I’ve traited into Arcana to get the free spells at the end of my dodge.
Basically it’s Burning Speed > Ring of fire > Earth attunement dodge > Earthquake > Churning earth

You get 9 stacks from that. I also use Arcane Wave in that combo, so it’s 12 stacks with it.
It’s not as good as scepter, since you can’t move freely while using the combo, but I’d say it’s easier to hit enemies with it if you start with lightning attunement knockback. Of course, hitting enemies in PvE isn’t really that much of a problem, which is why people prefer the Scepter, I’m assuming.

Axelwarrior.9084:

You can also stack might with D/D well.
I’ve traited into Arcana to get the free spells at the end of my dodge.
Basically it’s Burning Speed > Ring of fire > Earth attunement dodge > Earthquake > Churning earth

You get 9 stacks from that. I also use Arcane Wave in that combo, so it’s 12 stacks with it.
It’s not as good as scepter, since you can’t move freely while using the combo, but I’d say it’s easier to hit enemies with it if you start with lightning attunement knockback. Of course, hitting enemies in PvE isn’t really that much of a problem, which is why people prefer the Scepter, I’m assuming.

Personally, I like to use my combo fields one at a time, so that I can rely on them for another combo later, like magnetic grasp/leap (I will never turn down more burning uptime), and after the patch we will have a blast in water as well, pun intended, which will make staggering our fields more important.

Assassin.7890:

And how do you cure condis Rhyse?

Shifting into Water, and dodge rolling while in water. Can slot utilities as needed as well, 2 of em are open.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEEVZYuBeGQlgAgoAFTCFIQUwiyjcmxGA-jgBBYjAEEAJfFRjtqpIasabYqYER1SBY1wI-e

This build is very flexible; elite and 2 of your utilities can swap around however you like depending on your preference/situation. The signet of air is just for runspeed, I’ll swap it out (usually glyph of storms, sometimes a cantrip) for real fights. Evasive Arcana, Elemental Attunement, and Cleansing Wave are the only required traits. Actually, I used to run 10/10/10/10/30 until the last patch (build diverstiy lol) forced me to go deeper into water.

evasive arcana is terrible in PVE.

in most good PVE builds you can’t really match Sceptre/X mightstacking, though DF doesn’t do too bad of a job and has superior AA DPS, while staff does an amazing job of supplying fire fields while doing massive damage.

of course, if you have a partner supply fire fields (guardian/ele) you can just use a lightning hammer.

Who goes 30 points into Arcana with a Staff in PvE?
Don’t get me wrong, EA “works” with pretty much any weapon but you’re only sacrificing a ton of damage by not putting 30 points into Fire or Air instead.