Guild Wars 2

Hello every1. Yesterday (finally ) I’ve got 80lvl on my ele and I want to play her in dungeons. I heard that now, the best think what can ele do in dungeons is fire gs, ice bow and “might blasts”. I was looking for builds with this might blast but there is a lot of them. Could You help me, beginning elementalist ?

Use this youtube channel -> https://www.youtube.com/user/DEKeyz2Chaos

She gives guides on the Meta Builds for PvE. The guides are really detailed and shows you the rotation to use as well, it’s really helpful for beginner elemetalists!

As most fights in dungeons are versus 1 boss at a time, investing in a 1v1 build is really cool. I run dagger/focus for pvp but for PvE I go scepter/dagger. It has a lot of might blasts and you can do massive damage! Dungeons require high dps, and scepter help you with it. Try going with this build: 25-30-10-0-5. Its really good for damage versus one boss. Note: This build is good in dungeons ONLY, because the boss wont evade and wont attack you all the time.

I’d like to recommend you to the stickies on the Elementalist forums: DEKeys’ guide explaining all meta-possibilities very indepth and Anierna’s guide more aimed at Dungeon Speedclearing (which from experience works just fine in PuGs aswell.) For amazing well-indepth guides.

I personally prefer swapping build a lot depending on what the team needs, easily reviewed in Aniera’s Diagram but if you’d just go for 1 set-up I’d recommend: S/F with 5/4/0/5/0 or 0/4/5/5/0 both explained in depth in DEKeys guides. Focus offers survivability I find incredibly important whilst running in a PuG, you simply are a squishy class. If you need to provide Fury go with 30 in fire for Persisting Flames, I’ve hardly ever run into groups that need it though due to Warrior’s For Great Justice, Rangers Warhorn and Staff-Ele’s.

Scepter offers easy to place blast-finishers with relatively high burst: Fire #2, Fire# 3 in the Firefield of either Dagger or Focus; Fire #4 with a blastfinisher from Earth #4. In the meanwhile Focus offers: 5 seconds of invulnerability (Earth 5) self-Condi-cleanse with mini-reflect (Earth 4) an anti-projectile (Air #4) another Blast (Water #5) at the cost of a smaller firefield, single condi-cleanse (water #5) and mobility (air #4, 5) that /D offers. (Note: To aim Dragon’s Tooth (Scepter Fire #2) aim your camera up, walk a step forward and it will drop infront of you, try it a few times to see the distance, if you feel like pre-stacking Might.)

Other Blastfinishers are provided with your Utilities: Arcane Brilliance (Heal) Arcane Wave and Lightning Hammer auto-attack (3rd in chain.) Hammer only triggers if someone else in the group provides a Firefield how-ever.

Ice-bow is great on either targets with a large hitbox (TA Nightmare tree, AC burrows etc.) or large groups. FGS is great against anything that can be stacked against a wall and use untargetted Fiercy Rush #4 into the wall, Fiercy Whirl #3 into the wall, #5 for damage and evade, #2 for burning, fill with #1. On fights were the boss can’t be stacked I usually don’t bother (unless their hitbox is huge,) I might aswell be stacking might and LH away for DPS whilst giving my group Might.

Lastly, first field laid down counts, so if you run with anything that puts down a field in their dps-rotation make sure you hurry with putting down your field.

One key thing to remember is that the Ele optimization touted in the posts above are in regards to organized PvE, where you’re playing with guildies who know that they’re doing.

Doing a run through the Aetherblade path of TA, or a level 25 fractal run with a PUG that doesn’t try to communicate is an exercise in frustration at best with a burst damage build with little to no defensive ability.

If you’re going to be doing any sort of PUGing, I recommend a more defensive build, and with the way dungeons tend to lay conditions down, you might even look into a build designed for PvP.

I tend to play cantrip heavy, D/F (or Staff in range fights), using Conjures only if a PUG knows where and when to stack. I like a 4/0/2/2/6 build, and switch between damage increasing and condition clearing traits as the situation merits. I almost always run Water 3 for cantrips, and Arcane 2, 8 and 11, switching out 2 for 5 when using Staff. In Earth I switch between 3 and 6, depending on if I need more damage or better clutch defense. I usually run Fire 4 and 8, with the idea of being focused on cantrips and condition clearing.

Running all Celestial gear gives a good base on stats, and gives you the most flexibility you can get, then sock in some Runes of Strength for the Might duration, along with a Sigil of Battle in one of your weapons to keep up 25 Might stacks, which more than make up for any damage deficit on your Celestial gear (which incidentally isn’t that bad anymore, especially considering the nerf to Critical Damage with Ferocity). Add in 25 stacks of Bloodlust, and you’ll notice almost no dip in damage output while maintaining a much better defensive base.

The PvP meta for Eles atm is Celestial amulet coupled with Strength rune. If you think about what you face in harder content in PvE, its either trash mobs that don’t require absolute min-maxing to kill efficiently, or hard hitting bosses that require the ability to sustain more than a few burst rotations, meaning that healing power and boon duration play a good part, such that a PvP dedicated build works well in PvE.

Kaleban.9834:

The PvP meta for Eles atm is Celestial amulet coupled with Strength rune. If you think about what you face in harder content in PvE, its either trash mobs that don’t require absolute min-maxing to kill efficiently, or hard hitting bosses that require the ability to sustain more than a few burst rotations, meaning that healing power and boon duration play a good part, such that a PvP dedicated build works well in PvE.

Excuse me, but I don’t see such is the case in Arah. Or maybe Arah is not a hard enough PvE content. :\

Every builds can work out its way to dungeon. But the only way to play the ele best is to follow the meta described in Dekeyz’s and Anierna’s guides.

Iris Ng.9845:

Excuse me, but I don’t see such is the case in Arah. Or maybe Arah is not a hard enough PvE content. :\

Every builds can work out its way to dungeon. But the only way to play the ele best is to follow the meta described in Dekeyz’s and Anierna’s guides.

No, the only way to do the most DPS is to play as DeKeyz and Anierna suggest, full Berserk all the time. This is fine as long as your success is not reliant on four other people.

And yes, while I’ve seen people solo Lupicus with Ele (and various other professions) the majority of players can’t. So advocating all damage all the time to the exclusion of everything else is counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

So really, the only way to play Ele best is to tailor your build and gear to each situation. Playing with an organized group on Vent is a much different experience than pugging with randoms who aggro everything in sight. In my experience, counting on everyone to know how to play their profession to the hilt 100% of the time is being naively optimistic. And being able to provide support through area heals and condition removal, while not going down like a sack of potatoes every time a juvenile marmoset glances at you is a good thing.

While I’m blessed to receive the guidance and support from the most elite PvE players, I came a long way from pugging as well. I have a fair share of experience how playing with pugs is detrimental compared to playing with friends or guildies. Yet, there are really no instances in PvE that a meta PvP build could outshine a meta PvE build. It is called meta for a reason.
Here I mention Arah as one of the harder contents that elite trash mobs takes forever to kill without a good dps and ele cannot tank a single hit from any bosses one of which, Lupi is just a glorious example. Yet, many skilled eles are able to solo or duo the dungeon without the need to ‘counting on everyone to know how to play their profession to the hilt 100% of the time’. Do you think any of them use meta PvP build? Honestly, the backward thinking of ‘as long as I don’t drop like a potato sack, I’m good’ is just a false security that impedes your progress to be come better at the more challenged content. I assure you, healing your group won’t make them better than they have already been, while improving your own DPS will save them the hassle of an awry long fight.

My second point is no one started out as a good zerker ele, not even Dub, Zelyhn, haviz or Dekeyz. But with continuing learning and practice, they become the master of the class. So every new zerker eles should expect to wipe the floor hundreds to thousands of times to become great. There is nothing wrong with that.