Guild Wars 2

I tested it, Pyromancer’s Puissance and Lava Axe do actually stack!

That’s right, you get two stacks of might per auto attack.

The lava axe auto attack has a .5 second cast time. This means ~4 stacks of might per second. After about 6 seconds, you will have 25 stacks of might. Depending on your might duration, it could even last for another 8 seconds or so.

(P.S. I know a that most people don’t use Pyromancer’s Puissance, but I’ve been using it for months in my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbwR5wjDAkCnEeQADJUeMzO2A-jUCBoLAUBAZPFRjtmpIasqZER16FYWzCR2zp2lATKATUGB-w)

yep it does.You can get to 25 and mantain very easily but i dont think its worth it so much in pvp.Perhaps with a staff build and use axe as a way to deal single target damage.Or with a hybrid to get the most out of them.Also i think there is an aftercast on the autoattack but still no big deal

This is new then, because I tested this a while ago and it didn’t work.

Can you check if you keep getting double might even when out of fire? Also does it work with lingering elements?
Can you check if other conjures benefits from their corresponding attunement’s bonuses?

Unfortunately I’m at work, so I can’t check. But you are right that you have to stay in fire.

My build is very similar to the original poster’s… I love the might stacking and use flame axe a lot.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJAoYhImibwR6wjDAEFn4S4hCDkQRxM7A-jECBoLBkgAkEBIPqIaslhFRjVvATXiIq2loIa1yA4vFA-w

I’m not sure if it works with lingering elements…I’ll test that tonight.

You get might stacks from PP if you are attuned to fire, regardless of what’s in your hands. So…you still get might stacks from frost bow, lightening hammer, and fiery greatsword (as long as you’re attuned to fire), although you don’t get double stacks like you do with flame axe.

Each fire spell you cast grants you might.

So much for traits’ descriptions … but well at least it sounds interesting, we can’t complain!

I guess the tooltip should be like this: “Each spell cast while in fire attunement grants you might.”

Does it work with utilities (signet, arcane spells, glyphs, conjuring the weapons) ?

I’ll also check that, Zelyhn…I didn’t notice.

I did find that some skills seem to count as multiple “casts”… I’m not positive, but it seemed like some of the abilities that were channeled or ticked several times would give multiple stacks of might.

Zelyhn.8069:

Does it work with utilities (signet, arcane spells, glyphs, conjuring the weapons) ?

No it does not. (Or at least, it never used to. They could have changed it in the patch I suppose).

“Any spell cast while attuned to fire will trigger the effect, including utility skills, environmental weapon skills, and even spell-like effects triggered by sigils.”

Source: GW2 Wiki

Ah yes I see, but it does never work out of fire attunement or with lingering elements, so no change in fact.

There’s an aftercast on Lava Axe. You’re not going to actually be able to throw two per second. I haven’t tested it but it’s probably about once per second just eyeballing it. That means Lava Axe will get you 8 stacks of might and Puissance gives you 10, for a total of 18. Which isn’t terrible, given that you can add Ring of Fire + Burning Retreat > Explosive Axe for extra stacks to get you to 25.

Or some boon duration. I get 25 stacks just from the flame axe auto-attack with my build (35% boon duration).

Did some further testing.
1) You get might for any skill cast while in fire (including healing/utilities/any conjure/etc)
2) Lingering elements does not work
3) Lava axe auto attack fires pretty consistently at 1 attack per second. (used 15 charges used in 15 seconds)

you know, you can technically get 3 stacks of might per hit if you use sigil of strength

sigil of strength has a cooldown

But it would be interesting to test for some runes/sigils that create spells on hit

Some sigil testing:
air = yes
blood = no
earth = no
fire = yes
water = yes

I would keep going, but it is seems pretty clear that spell effects work, others do not.

Interesting stuff…I did some testing, too.

Each ability does give one stack (regardless of the type of ability) from PP… it gets applied 1 tic after the ability lands, whether you have a target or not.

This is different from other might stacking… the might from the flame axe gets applied on hit…the PP might gets applied after that. As you are attacking, you’ll notice that it doesn’t jump by two, but adds one on hit, another just after. Interesting.

Utility skills and heals do indeed add might with PP, right after they complete. Using Glyph of Elemental harmony while attuned to fire gives 4 stacks of might.

With the basic 20% boon duration from my trait setup (without my runes), I sustain between 21-23 stacks of might using flame axe auto attack.

It works with any fire spell, but anything that applies to only fire weapon skills it won’t, such as pyromancer’s alacrity.

It should probably apply to Fiery Greatsword as well if you’d prefer to keep the third utility skill.

I found out about this yesterday and tried it in pvp. It’s horrible. Yes you can get 25 might stacks easy if your opponent is standing still doing nothing, but at least 40% of the time you’ll be missing… and lava axe 1 is pretty horrible single target damage even with 25 stacks so while you are getting those stacks you’ll be sucking. And once you have the stacks, what do you do? Can’t use firegrab without dropping axe. Can’t use fgs without dropping axe. And then you are left with axe on cd for 30s (and most of the time you’ll be moving and not able to pick up your second axe). And taking 30 in fire along with a wasted utility slot means you’ll be dying in seconds (especially since you don’t want to move out of fire).

Might be good for pve since mobs usually take all hits.

Fire 30 does seem pve only

you’d get more DPS from persisting flames and GoEP/GoEH used on CD with the inscription trait.

so no, lava axe is still useless.

shrug That hasn’t been my experience at all. I find it works very well (situationally) Maybe just a matter of practice, and obviously using all the skills and combos, not just auto attack. But to each his/her own…do whatever works and is fun for you. The less people that use a similar build, the less enemies will be expecting it.

Just as a quick tip…if you are having trouble picking up the second axe during a fight, try casting the conjure flame axe by some landmark on the field like a rock or post or something. I find it works well, because then it’s easy to circle back and know right where it is. You lose out on the quick little fire damage from dropping the axe on your opponent, but when you are able to utilize both axes, the conjure comes off cooldown before you’ve used them up.

If you can’t figure out how to make good use of 25 stacks of might…I think it’s more a problem of mentality (and being resistant to any change) than it is a problem with the profession. It really seems like a lot of long-time eles on this board are still stuck in a build that was overpowered months ago and got nerfed…and are completely unable to try anything new (not just new build…but also a new play style and mentality). I can understand the bitterness that comes with nerfs…but really, things aren’t as black and white as some make it seem. Conjures certainly aren’t “useless” by any stretch, and it might take more than a few minutes of testing to figure out.

I’m not that great of a player. If it’s working reasonably well for me…I’m sure that some better players could really kick kitten with it. I’m new to elementalist, so I didn’t come in with the baggage of the old pre-nerf builds. Looking at the profession from a new player’s view…things aren’t that bad. It’s fun to play.

Fozzik.1742:

My build is very similar to the original poster’s… I love the might stacking and use flame axe a lot.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJAoYhImibwR6wjDAEFn4S4hCDkQRxM7A-jECBoLBkgAkEBIPqIaslhFRjVvATXiIq2loIa1yA4vFA-w

I’m not sure if it works with lingering elements…I’ll test that tonight.

You get might stacks from PP if you are attuned to fire, regardless of what’s in your hands. So…you still get might stacks from frost bow, lightening hammer, and fiery greatsword (as long as you’re attuned to fire), although you don’t get double stacks like you do with flame axe.

I just tested it on PvP. The might stack is incredible but lava axe attack animation is too horrible. When everyone is strafing and you throwing your lava axe is often miss. I managed to get 2 kill with flame axe due to with flame leap. It’s pretty good imho but I rather spend the 20 trait point of arcane on elsewhere.

Also you might want to edit your last arcane trait, you are using d/d and yet you trait blasting staff. ROFL!

Again, I switch to staff when running in big groups attacking towers… so I do switch that trait out when I switch weapons. Yesterday when I was running with a large group I also switched out to shorter cooldowns on fire and water spells, just to be more effective in that situation.

And I agree…the auto attack can be tricky to land on moving targets…but using in combination with the fire fields, blasting, and leap… it’s possible to do good damage.

There are other nice uses for the might stacking… one example would be when attacking a keep/tower. Get 25 stacks of might using auto attack on the door…then drop the axe and use meteor shower on the top of the wall. Big damage.

Jacks.5367:

When everyone is strafing and you throwing your lava axe is often miss.

I agree with Jack here.

But I think lava axe has some great potential as well. The combo fields make for some great synergy if you can set it up right. Zephyr’s Boon works with the Fire Aura from flame leap so you can do the following combo:

Fire element [drop all abilities] >> Ring of Fire
Lava Axe >> Explosive Lava Axe [3x Might/Blast Finisher], Flame Leap [Fire aura/6s Fury/6s Swiftness/Leap finisher], Ring of Fire
Earth Element >> Earthquake [3x might/Blast finisher], Churning Earth [3x Might/Blast finisher]

Bonus — With the exception of Churning Earth (optional), everything here is instant cast, and you’re building fury/might/swiftness while dealing a heck of a lot of damage (Flame leap alone does 1k dmg + burning without crit)

So the conjured weapon just gets added into your rotation as a different element. If the fight continues around your flame axe, you can do it again in 10s when the axe abilities/Fire element cycles.

As a D/D Elementalist running Zephyr’s boon—you get 3 auras using flame axe which is ~18 seconds of Fury overall.

The biggest problem with PP is that it’s in the fire magic traitline. There’s very few worthwhile traits to fill in the master category. Yes, you can go for Conjurer, but it’ll probably be a better idea to drop Flame Axe after using the blast finisher two times. Another possibility is +5% damage to burning foes, which is underwhelming compared to Guardian’s +10% damage. Still better than nothing.

With PP, you’ll have to be in the fire attunement, with +20% damage total (counting with burning foes), Fury and Swiftness, probably Bolt to the Heart as well. That makes 30/20/0/0/0. You would want the remaining points to go to arcana and some might runes, so that stacking with PP and axe’s auto-attack lasts long enough to be meaningful. That probably means 10 points in renewing stamina for double dodging, and… what else? I would personally go for 10 more arcana, or invest 10 in earth or in water for an extra +10% damage.

But without spending too much time on fire attunement, we could probably sacrifice PP and use, say, sigil of battle. Sigil and blast finishers last long enough to not rely much on might/ boon duration, which opens some space elsewhere.

25 air (zephyr’s boon, bolt to the heart, weak spot)
10 arcana (renewing stamina)
10 earth (stone splinters)
20 water (piercing sharts, vital striking)
+5 elsewhere.

With scholar runes, sigil of battle and of force, that’s about:
+20% damage with high hp + 20% damage to vulnerable foes + 10% damage in melee + 5% damage with sigil of force, +20% damage to hp bellow +33, +X% based on vulnerability. In general pve, if you can dodge well enough, that’s 55% or more damage while in water, and 75% or more if enemies have weak HP.

You’ll still have massive might stacking with scepter and axe combined:
- Fire Attunement: fire ring, DT, phoenix -> water attunement while casting phoenix -> flame axe -> explosive axe, leap and auto-attacking, ring of fire and explosive axe 5s after, get out of axe, earthquake, churning earth. That’s 18 stacks of aoe might, plus ~6-ish from sigil and ~6-ish from axe, which is enough to reach the cap yourself, especially if you don’t cast churning earth.

Interestingly, I’m not sure if +20% damage to vulnerable foes would be worthwhile either.

You can also use the flame axe’s burning retreat as a combo field.