Guild Wars 2

hi my name is Inflambio and i’m a pvp elementalist player. i have around 1000 hours and 1500 played matches on my eles and played for several teams in tournaments.

The current meta of celestial d/d is quite effective but recently i got bored of it and decided to find a more offensive but still effective enough build. after theorycrafting and testing many builds i finally found one that fits my needs and i would like to share this build with you:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcM6c24wwBr0APAGxhQMQcA4B0CLWFSCA-TJBGwAKOBAAeAAMLD8e/BA

the weapon choice is d/f as shocking aura and the focus interrupts synergize well with lightning rod.

amulet is still celestial as it provides good crit chance, crit damage, condi damage and healing. the sigils are blood and battle. blood can also be swapped for air.

this build gains its additional damage from sigil of blood, the higher crit chance and crit damage, the perm fury uptime, air attunement, lightning rod and the parrot.

it is still defensive enough to tank hits but then again you shouldn’t try to facetank with it.

utility choice is lightning flash, cleansing fire and arcane shield which can also be swapped out for armor of earth. the reason why i picked shield over armor of earth is that both are stunbreaks, with the shield you take no damage for 3 hits instead of -33%, its better against boon strips and deals additional damage when it explodes.

as elite you can use tornado as it works with lightning rod and hits around 3k with each stun and can be fatal for engis. you can also use the greatsword for more mobility. im not a big fan of the elemental because its more of a 1v1 elite and you are already strong enough in 1v1.

the tricky thing about this build is the conditions. it has less condi cleanse than a normal dd build, overall 5 (3 from cf and 2 from earth 4) so you have to work around that with stunning your enemies at the right moment or going invul when condispiked. the projectile blocks work well against condi engis so necros are the real pain but can be killed faster due to the damage of this build.

use your dodges at the right moment and dont spam them. you dont have evasive arcana anymore so there is no need for water dodge rolls. sigil of blood will make up a bit for the healing you lose without evasive arcana but overall this build has less healing than dd.

i had a lot of fun with this build and won a decent amount of 1v2 fights. you can surprise your enemies quite a lot with it and it is perfect for players that want a more challenging build which is still effective enough compared to dd.

feedback and criticism are welcome as long as they are constructive.

I’d recommend the following to you:

Fresh air is just better than lightning rod, even for d/f as lightning whip is so much of your damage, and the extra air procs are great. The ability to swap back into air almost any time for auras, lightning touch, swirling, or the knockback are also great.

Either cleansing wave or evasive arcana are going to do more for you than soothing disruption. You get enough vigor from renewing stamina, and you a good amount of regen from soothing wave and water swaps. Having that additional condi cleanse is really gonna help. Soothing disruption is really only GREAT when you have cleansing water so that every cantrip is an on-demand condi cleanse. This will increase your amount of cleanse (Focus 4 in earth is 3 condis btw) to be more manageable.

I would personally take sigil of energy over blood if you aren’t going to take doom. Without doom you are gonna have a hell of a time with any high-sustain specs (especially because you lack a lot of the high-damage skill on offhand dagger). If you take evasive arcana, energy synergizes very well.

i dont like fresh air on dagger as it kinda kills the rotation.
the reason i took soothing disruption over cleansing wave is for the heal and the 100% vigour uptime with renewing stamina. condi cleanse is nice but i feel like 1 more cleanse on a 10s cd is not worth it.

blood/leeching over energy is for additional heal as i dont have evasive arcana.
the only high damage skill i lack from dagger is fire grab which has a pretty long cooldown anyway.

For a truly offensive D/F build try this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcMKc24woBd0AGAGpqQ4EQAoHW+MsFCDA-TJBFwAOeAAQLDA4EAMf/BA

Use glyph of elemental power while in fire same for the elite add in the parrot and keep stacking might. (might might also affect your parrot and elite elemental.)
glyph of elemental procs burning which in turn procs blinding.

thanks but i did not want a truly offensive build^^ just a more offensive :P

I have to agree I would take Fresh Air over Lightning Rod every time. I suppose you can make it work pretty well with Tornado, but outside of that Fresh Air will always be superior. I get why you don’t like it on d/f but it’s sooo good. Speaking of zerker d/f build, though. I never tried cele with that trait set up.

I do understand where you’re coming from, wanting a bit more offensive set up for your ele while not going all in. I think that’s the issue with eles, we have to trait everything in the defensive trees and there’s not much left for the offense if we want to be somewhat team supportive. I’m a bit worried if you’re not sacrificing too much defense for a bit too little of offense, , though. You’re still going to have the same power as a normal d/d ele, only the crit is a bit higher. Which is nice unless you lose tons of defense, which you might do. You got perma fury which is nice and some damage modifiers but not sure if it’s enough to be able to perform as well as d/d ele. On the other hand with focus in off hand, you’re more defensive and losing all the damage d/d has there. But you’re still probably going to be vulnerable to condis.

I really don’t like the x/x/x/4/4 builds, as it doesn’t take any of the best traits ele has, which is Evasive Arcana or Cleansing Water. Maybe I’m biased because I really can’t live without Evasive Arcana on any build I play but it’s just that good. I really think you would be better off dropping two from water and putting it in Arcana. That could solve the issues with little condi removal this build has. You’re not even running tripple cantrip and you’re going to have enough vigor uptime from Renewing Stamina anyway. You’re still going to have heal from Evasive Arcana and it scales quite good with Healing Power actually on 10 sec cd. With Soothing Disruption you got a bit over 7 sec of regeneration on two skills that both have 40 sec cd. I really do believe Evasive Arcana is still superior to that. And you can use EA offensively, too.

With the sigils…I suppose Blood can be okay. Did you try it with Doom, though? I think Doom could be better as it helps with your sustain a bit more but I don’t think Blood is bad completely.

I hate the parrot runes, though. Not because they’re bad but I can’t stand the freaking parrot. I guess that will compensate the less might stacking you’re probably gonna have on d/f.

Also, if you’re planning on having the same playstyle as d/d has, meaning holding nodes, Obsidian Flash could ruin some caps. It’s where it gets a bit tricky. What is this build supposed to do? Just be more fun? Or being able to do what d/d ele does? It’ll be nowhere near the damage of Fresh Air, so I’m not sure about this one.

I mean it could be worth a try and I get why you get bored of d/d ele. I really wish we had more choices of what we can play but in the end of the day d/d will always be superior to any other build in a team set up. At least for now.

I might try it, though. Seems like it could be fun to mess around with. (Only with fresh air :P).

the problem with evasive arcana and cleansing water is exactly that its hard playing without it.

will still have to test fresh air and evasive arcana, im not tryhard testing the build atm as im a bit bored. i dont think it is as effective as d/d but its a welcome change that is still able to keep up with most other builds.

i tried it with hoelbrak instead of the parrot and the damage is not high enough, im not a big fan of the parrot either.

i do not have the same playstile as a d/d though, i can take 1v1s pretty well but as soon as its 1v2 i start to struggle. i think its more the role of a rifle engi, roaming but still being able to hold the node to some extent.

what i would like a lot is if they would just buff or overhaul s/f fresh air. it has so much potential but is held back by bad skills or thieves.

I actually saw a pair of d/f eles running almost this exact setup except they had zerk instead of cele. It was really interesting to watch how it worked. Definitely underrated (coming from my own skepticism until watching the details for myself).