Guild Wars 2

Hello ele community, I’ve been messing around with S/D builds in pvp for a while now and I’d like to run one in WvW, probably mainly for roaming and skirmishing due to its greater emphasis on burst than team support.

Trait wise I’m either going to go 0/6/0/2/6 or 0/6/0/4/4 with fresh air, I’m not sure which one would be better. Gear wise I"m probably going to use a mix of zerker/celestial/cavalier/knight’s but I’m not at all sure of the optimal set up for that, so any help in regards to this would be greatly appreciated! For Runes, I was thinking, holebrak, strength or scholar, and for sigils, I was thinking hydromancy for its added burst on swap abilities, and then either battle or energy for the other slot. Which of these things would be ideal?

I’m not sure for utilities, Ether renewal would probably cause me to lose all my momentum, so glyph or signet seems ideal. Lightning flash is a must to help with burst combos, and then other good utilities are arcane blast, cleansing fire, signet of air and arcane shield (or maybe ice bow lol).

Also I’ve read that a year ago, the air trait, Air Training was bugged and didn’t work. Did that trait ever get patched to work properly? If not I’d go with aeromancer’s alacrity or something like that instead.

Do not go for cavalier or knights gear on a ele. Burst damage is what kill us so you need vitality. For a mix set try pvt armor/berserker trinkets, full celestial works too but you will need to rely on wvw buffs/stacks for extra damage. You are not using many cantrip so arcane evasion is better. If you are tend to not time your dodges well swap back to 4 water. Ether renewal is our best heal but S/D has alot of extra heals and condition removals. The other heals can not be interrupted but you will heal for less overtime in comparison to ether renewal. Signet of restoration tends to work best for tank builds so do not use that.

Ulion.5476:

Do not go for cavalier or knights gear on a ele. Burst damage is what kill us so you need vitality. For a mix set try pvt armor/berserker trinkets, full celestial works too but you will need to rely on wvw buffs/stacks for extra damage. You are not using many cantrip so arcane evasion is better. If you are tend to not time your dodges well swap back to 4 water. Ether renewal is our best heal but S/D has alot of extra heals and condition removals. The other heals can not be interrupted but you will heal for less overtime in comparison to ether renewal. Signet of restoration tends to work best for tank builds so do not use that.

Alright thanks a lot for that advice! Maybe using some valkyrie gear instead of zerker gear for some slots would help with the vitality in some parts, as long as I can use some celestial and knight’s to patch up the toughness and precision.

for weapons i usually do one cavaliers and one valks. i have never messed around with celes because its just not my thing for trinks i use the zerkk valk mix and soldiers armor. then again i go 2/6/2/4/0

First of all, I’m sorry if bumping of this variety is not allowed. I just think that this might be helpful to OP and it may help bring up new ideas

Hello! I’m also very interested in this thread so I’ll help move it along and hopefully others contribute more

I’ve only ever seriously run S/D on my Elementalist but I’ve never done sPvP. Lately, I’ve started doing more and more wvw so I became interested again in my build. I’m also running a fresh air 0/6/0/2/6 or a more sturdy 0/4/0/4/6 which means I’m going for a really bursty S/D.

If it helps, I’ve been consulting two guides:
1.) Ilthel’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD1S_sP90Ao (build here: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k34;2BJVV0c4-N-Z0;9;5T-T9;1589;14584;0LN;4G3G3G3G35BX) As a plus: the video is really inspiring.

2.) Aiden Frost’s: http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=202

Personally, I’ve been mixing and matching suggestions from both of the guides as well as adding in some of my own. Right now, I’m running full zerker but I find myself too squishy so I’m planning on running mostly zerks with a few valk armor pieces for more health without losing too much of my damage. The trinkets I think will remain zerkers.

I’m currently running Ogres for Runes because I think the rock dog is fun to have. Plus I don’t think the % damage from Runes of the Scholar will be insignificant because I find it hard to maintain more than 90% health in wvw because people tend to CC me down. Also, I don’t do math, but I think I have more damage with the Runes of the Ogre than with ruby orbs.

For sigils, I use Sigil of Fire (MH) and Force (OH). But I think it’s really a toss up between Fire, Air and Hydromancy. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages and I think it just puts them in near equal footing with each other. I just like the animation of Sigil of Fire a lot teehee

For utilities, I’ve been going arcane wave and blast and lightning flash. It really helps blasting down enemies in tight spots. I tried using the survivability utilities but I find that the evasive arcana in water and healing ripple and the water heals are enough for me to survive long enough to burst. Of course sigil of air is a no-brainer when running around with a group. Just don’t forget to switch it out before engaging. And Ether Renewal is amazing.

I’ve always run Aeromancer’s Alacrity because of the Air Training bug but I haven’t read any updates on the bug so I’m not changing it just yet.

I’ve been running those in wvw and I’ve been having a lot of fun (and success, I guess) in small groups because I can usually burst people down real quick. However, I can’t consistently dish out the damage shown in the video above (I swear, for the life of me, I can’t understand how he gets those numbers).

I hope this helps! And I hope more people give input so we can all be better s/d eles :>