Being displeased by all the celestial cheese going around these days, I share my most beloved build <3.
I have been playing variants of this ever since Lightning Rod was introduced, it packs the best burst in the game and now that we have 3 traitlines, it can survive just fine. I won’t go into too much details as this one is a fairly advanced build (Strictly combo based) Anyone trying it should familiarize themselves with ele mechanics. It has a high learning curve and until you manage to make it work, it fails hard, really hard. You’ll need a mouse with some extra buttons and clever hotkeys to play this fluidly.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhMMokh9MwzB8RMIBYzHYCkCl7YA4EWPhmwRA-TJBFABIt/g4lBY4EAAwDAAA
Air line is self explanatory, Lightning Rod hits for 3k and procs from Earthquake, Updraft and Tempest Defense. Weakness from Lightning Rod is also very very nice.
Earth line is incredibly important, Stone Heart + Ether Renewal will cary your kitten alive through pretty much anything. Geomancer’s Freedom is also key, as you actually start your bursts from earth attunement, you need the CD reduction on Earthquake. Passive Earth Armor is good and adds to passive Arcane Shield on Arcane line as well as Tempest Defense. These kind of defenses are nice on burst characters, as thieves runing Vamp signet demonstrate.
Finally, arcane traits are also self explanatory. The important thing here is to get used to Elemental Surge… Immobilize from earth is amazing, as you start your burst in earth. +150 Ferocity obviously helps, and you will have this permanently. Blinds and Chills are also useful when used right, even burn has its uses to enable Fire Grab.
The most powerful combo is as follows:
From comfortable earth attunement, prepare your Rock Barrier and, having your enemy on sight, cast Earthquake anywhere and mid air, Arcane Blast your enemy while simultaneously throwing your Rock Barrier. Before your earthquake finishes casting, Lightning Flash on top of your enemy and switch to Air attunement. At this point, earthquake should be landing and procing Lightning Rod, Air sigil and Hydromancy (Hydro crits for 2.5k+) have gone off too, also electric discharge from the trait. From air attunement, cast Lightning Strike, RtL and Updraft.
Yeah, lots of skills. What all of them (Minus Earthquake) have in common is a cast time of exactly 0, with quick fingers and clever hotkeys you can do that whole combo before anyone can react. (Delay the LF jump) The entire combo downs a heavy golem, and then you have all of your fire attunement to finish downed players, something at which S/D excels (It is faster to do a standard fire combo on a downed player than to down it manually, it is also faster to kill someone from 100 to truly dead than it is to res an ally manually.)
I leave to you figuring all the tricks that make this a viable build and not the one chance gimmick it certainly looks like at first, be smart when you engage, coun’t dodges, check stability/invuls, bait. Most of your skills have no cast times and can be used together, chained or comboed in a lot of ways… Forget about might and blasting fields.
Defensively, if you are sustaining damage on earth it will not be worthy to switch to water for the heal, even with Frost Aura, however, if you want to go defense from any attunement do go water before earth. Arcane Shield + Frost Aura + Switch to earth + Ether Renewal is a good all purpose panic button.
And you have the glorious FGS, for when all else fails (Or you are feeling slow) Combined with Stone Heart and this build’s offensive stats, its pretty kitten OP. Feels like an actual elite.
Thieves: Very Easy, they explode with passive procs alone, as you camp Earth they can’t touch you. React fast if engaged by one in a teamfight and it will go boom. You will get a lot of hate from thieves, it will feel unfair having to chew through Stone Heart + 2 Arcane Shields + Tempest Defense just so you switch to air and it dies from the sigils procs.
Rangers: Can be tricky if you don’t bait the invul, you should win anyway but you might have to entertain the ranger for a while and be good with all your active defenses or it will kill you fast outside of earth. Can be 100-0 with some combos.
Necro: A Joke, just burst them down without regards to anything. You can time the stab pulse on Lich and your 2 consecutive CCs to bring down a lichform in one burst.
Guardian: Fair fight, make sure to cleanse a reasonable amount of burn with Cleansing Wave before you use your heal, or a clever Guard will kill you.
Engineer: Gimmicky fight, you can do the complete combo on one at the start and instantly kill it, they usually won’t expect it. Good ones can be annoying tho.
Mesmer: Fair fight outside of earth attunement, but you can stale a fight by going earth and sustaining with your heal. Prepare to unleash the combo as soon as the mesmer pops up, beware their passive stealth trait, it will make you waste air skills if you overdo the burst.
Warrior: Easy if you don’t kitten it up. Have to entertain it for a while on earth attunement, until the window of opportunity appears. Might even have to use the FGS to further entertain before bursting a second time. They can’t kill you if you play well. Keep your rock barrier up when entertaining.
(This build fails with D/D, Scepter actually is very very important! Yes, even considering the Shocking Aura synergy)
I know I did a half job at explaining everything so feel free to ask.
(edited by Cristobal.8640)
).
