[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: ReaperJr.5967

ReaperJr.5967

I’ve always liked the playstyle of the cele d/d ele. However, in the current meta, it is basically gimping yourself to play dagger offhand at high level pvp. Therefore, I’ve theorycrafted the past few weeks in an attempt to recreate a bruiser ele in this meta. Bonus motivation comes from the hate for clerics support tempest, which is incredibly boring, although undying.

I would not dare to claim that this build has the perfect balance between offense and defense, which cele d/d used to have (imo), but it is a pretty good balance. I’ve tested it, but not extensively. Hence, I would welcome constructive feedback and criticism, if any.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodn0XCdOgFOAOOA8RglNAzdvGYPsErgMwIY4BEAKgA-TJRHABpt/AAPAg7LDEwJAAA

Here it is.
The usual tricks and combos are as below.

Burst
- Gale -> Burning speed + Lightning flash -> Magnetic wave

Sustained damage
- Overload air is your main source of sustained damage.
- Fire overload has good damage if dealt in full but is hard to land and channel is a tad bit too long. Use accordingly.
- Lightning flash helps to land overloads if they try to kite
- Drake’s breath. Always spam this. Along with weapon swap. Geomancy and doom sigils are also part of your main source of damage. Try to land as many as possible.

Might stack
- Not really worth might stacking on purpose in this build, but if you can incorporate it into your rotations then might as well.
- Flamewall/Fire overload -> Magnetic wave -> Frozen burst
- Fire overload grants quite an amount of might, but doesn’t last long.

Sustain
- Heals come from Wash The Pain Away or water overload, try to use these near allies so they can benefit
- Condi clear comes mainly from cantrips and magnetic wave

Misc
- Fgs over rebound for mobility, so you can rotate easier. Take rebound if you want to get into team fights more instead.
- Cleansing fire for general use. Against power heavy opponents swap out for mist form.
- Traveller runes for mostly mobility. Swap out accordingly if you feel you don’t need it.

Lord Ninth \\ Champion Magus
- Primordial Legend
Semi-active.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

I play sage ele as soon as i see more then one potential condi class on oposing team.

1.) In earth you should pick stone heart. You have no armor and it helps you survive power spikes. Also without armor you are below 75% quite fast.

2.) I definitly go invogorating torrets here and use four shouts + cleansing flame + soldier rune. So i often pick cleanse on swap not cantrip CD.

Air overload is nice for starting a fight. Fire is to cleave downed (+ the rezzer).
Earth overlaod is often used by me here.
This build can actually kill and i prefer it over cleric.

(edited by Wolfric.9380)

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: ReaperJr.5967

ReaperJr.5967

I play sage ele as soon as i see more then one potential condi class on oposing team.

1.) In earth you should pick stone heart. You have no armor and it helps you survive power spikes. Also without armor you are below 75% quite fast.

2.) I definitly go invogorating torrets here and use four shouts + cleansing flame + soldier rune. So i often pick cleanse on swap not cantrip CD.

Air overload is nice for starting a fight. Fire is to cleave downed (+ the rezzer).
Earth overlaod is often used by me here.
This build can actually kill and i prefer it over cleric.

Stone heart is a good alternative but it really depends on your opponents.

Ive tried sage with shouts, soldiers and invigorating torrents, it heals more and cleanses more conditions, but you really get rekt by cc so your damage output is non-existent. You literally melt in team fights due to cc spam if you don’t have earth 5 up, and you dont have the mobility to disengage. Only way to survive is to kite at the edges of team fights but no point going more support if you’re doing so.

Just my two cents!

Lord Ninth \\ Champion Magus
- Primordial Legend
Semi-active.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

Indeed. I use scepter and kite ….. This is a huge diffrence. I often disengage using earth overload if needed. I do go in and out of a fight as i see fit not being forced into meele like dagger. I go close for wash the pin away or take a hard hitting ride through the oposing team firing feel the burn + cleansing flame mid going on the other side back to ranged fire. In ranged combat i usually have the edge with reflects.
With 600 radius i can support from the edge.
Most of the time when i disengage this caused someone chasing me and this last a while also pulling the oponent off point.

(edited by Wolfric.9380)

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: posthumecaver.6473

posthumecaver.6473

I nearly use the same setup, I could not found anything else somehow working.

But if somebody catch you without protection or thief steals your protection then it is a sad story, 8K – 9K hits

(edited by posthumecaver.6473)

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

Yep protection is key here. The aura shouts help much.

This is how i run it when seeing much condi oponents.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XiVYCOOAcYilNAb4BEAugu71/6hlYFcBGBA-TJRHAB8s/ABnAg7LDAwDAAA

(edited by Wolfric.9380)

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: posthumecaver.6473

posthumecaver.6473

What hurts me most, when everybody pounding you and you can’t get out of earth because of the stone heart, we can’t deal any damage back that is the worst part.

That 1 stack of bleed and damage is horrible from AA.

And those troll Daredevil thiefs that damage with dodge rolls, one guy dodged 5 times yesterday without using any weapons skills, ok I know they have 3 dodges but how are they getting 2 dodges back in such a short time.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

Yes getting stuck in earth not to die is quite common. A thief kills you out of earth within 2 seconds …
But this is the secret of scepter. the buff was gorgeous for me. :-). It´s cheesy ^^.
One drwawback: good warriors smash you XD.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: ReaperJr.5967

ReaperJr.5967

Yes getting stuck in earth not to die is quite common. A thief kills you out of earth within 2 seconds …
But this is the secret of scepter. the buff was gorgeous for me. :-). It´s cheesy ^^.
One drwawback: good warriors smash you XD.

Yeah warriors now rekt you if you are running invigorating torrents and shouts. Anything with cc does tbh. That’s why I went cantrips and stab on overload.

Lord Ninth \\ Champion Magus
- Primordial Legend
Semi-active.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

I dislike high cooldown utilities. Especially armor of earth which is 75s CD (or 60) and one boon corrupt or steal ruins it. I prefer short recharge stunbreakers over to much stab.
The only stab i do run is from earth overload which is a very helpful addition.
If realy needed air signet and gale song are my choices. when running arcane i used the shield traited.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: ReaperJr.5967

ReaperJr.5967

I dislike high cooldown utilities. Especially armor of earth which is 75s CD (or 60) and one boon corrupt or steal ruins it. I prefer short recharge stunbreakers over to much stab.
The only stab i do run is from earth overload which is a very helpful addition.
If realy needed air signet and gale song are my choices. when running arcane i used the shield traited.

The problem now is you don’t have a choice if you want to jump into team fights to actively commit with dagger mainhand. You need to get your overloads in, you need to get your burst in.. basically you need to be able to withstand cc to deal sustained damage. Steal will not necessarily get your stability as you always have many boons up and boon corrupt is a matter of timing and watching your opponent.

But, to each his own, 10 stacks of stab works very well for me, but it may not for you. We can only agree to disagree on this point now.

Lord Ninth \\ Champion Magus
- Primordial Legend
Semi-active.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: posthumecaver.6473

posthumecaver.6473

To say the truth, I am playing like old D/D and I am not using Overloads offensively at all, only defensively as stun breakers

Burn people and try to out sustain them with protection/stone heart and lots of stun breaks…. at least overload are good at that, stun break every 5s

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

yep. I use OL as my stunbreakers. I must not fully channel them.
And i do agree that armor of earth is useful for your mainhand dagger. Its a risk too but for one ride it will work often. So its fine to go for it.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Keadron.9570

Keadron.9570

Do you think the flash freeze + soldiers bug being fixed is going to hurt your build?

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

no. It´t fine as it is. My version is more tactical with range. Scepter has nice AE denial. Shure you can evade it but it hurts if hitting and is good on downed. And a singe target will feel the preassure unless hes an ele himself especially meta ele …. You can´t realy kill the cleric bunker with this build unless hes bad.
This build has drawbacks, but it often works surprisingly well. It shines in 2:2 fights.
I can´t remeber loosing 2:2 fights if my partner is not to bad. An it is unbelivable fun if you pair it with another ele that can play. Oh well its no fun for the oponent XD.
Its an endless fighty where the two eles bring one down per minute or so .. even outnumbered.

(edited by Wolfric.9380)

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: ReaperJr.5967

ReaperJr.5967

To say the truth, I am playing like old D/D and I am not using Overloads offensively at all, only defensively as stun breakers

Burn people and try to out sustain them with protection/stone heart and lots of stun breaks…. at least overload are good at that, stun break every 5s

Unfortunately, dagger offhand only works against players of lower skill level. And it’s effectiveness starts diminishing at ruby. Probably can get you through ruby to diamond but I think it will be near impossible to get to legendary with it.

Pity though :/

Lord Ninth \\ Champion Magus
- Primordial Legend
Semi-active.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: posthumecaver.6473

posthumecaver.6473

To say the truth, I am playing like old D/D and I am not using Overloads offensively at all, only defensively as stun breakers

Burn people and try to out sustain them with protection/stone heart and lots of stun breaks…. at least overload are good at that, stun break every 5s

Unfortunately, dagger offhand only works against players of lower skill level. And it’s effectiveness starts diminishing at ruby. Probably can get you through ruby to diamond but I think it will be near impossible to get to legendary with it.

Pity though :/

Because of that I think it is time that they un-nerf the ride the lightning.

The reason why they nerfed is not there anymore, Ele even with reduced CD of the RtL can’t compete with the mobility of the Thief or Revenant.

At least CD increase if does not hit anybody should go, if you play D/D you have no immunities, no block, only way to survive, go away, heal and comeback.

May be if D/D will suuck for another 6 months they will consider it.

[PvP] Sage's Bruiser Tempest

in Elementalist

Posted by: Salamander.2504

Salamander.2504

And those troll Daredevil thiefs that damage with dodge rolls, one guy dodged 5 times yesterday without using any weapons skills, ok I know they have 3 dodges but how are they getting 2 dodges back in such a short time.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Agility