Guild Wars 2

GW2 Forumers,

The Earth Troll

2.7k armor
18.4k health
2.7k attack
1.7k condition damage
__________________________
Traits
20/10/30/10/0

II Burning Fire
IX Fire’s Embrace

I Zephyr’s Boon

II Signet Mastery
VIII Serrated Stones
XII Written in Stone

II Shard of Ice
—
Gear
Full Carrion, including trinkets /w chrysocolas
6x runes of the undead
sigils of corruption & agony

Consumables
Rare Veggie Pizza, Master Tuning Crystal
—
Skills
Ether Renewal
Signet of Fire
Signet of Air -or- Water
Signet of Earth
Glyph of Elementals
__________________________

Numbers to Consider:

Offensive:
no CD | stone shards- 10.5s bleed 3.8k | 900 range
16s CD | signet of fire- 17.25s burn 10.7k | 1200 range
3 11s stacks of vulnerability per signet cast

CC/Defensive:
16s CD | signet of air- 8s blind | 1200 range
24s CD | signet of water- 6.5s chill | 1200 range
24s CD | signet of earth- 4.75s immobilize | 1200 range
15s CD | dust devil- 16s AoE blind | 900 range
no CD | rock barrier (don’t hurl)- +250 toughness
50s CD | obsidian flesh- 4s invulnerability that you can heal through
25s CD | magnetic wave- 3 condition cures, 3s reflect

signets fire -> air -> earth = perma swiftness
__

Your conditions last a very long time, cover conditions are almost always readily available and you have a lot of useful skills on low CDs.

This is not an original build, players have been doing stuff like this since launch. I posted this build before but I never made a thread for it and I’ve since changed it for the better. It’s not the new meta, it’s just something fun that was buffed a bit on the 4/30 patch. It’s also a (mostly) boonless build so it may not suffer as much from recent boon hate.

The Earth Troll never leaves earth attunement, gasp. Try it out—it’s an interesting change of pace and surprisingly effective.
______________________________________

EDIT: I made a small change here; dropped 10 points out of Fire and into Water so that I could eliminate the mostly useless trait III Ember’s Might and take the trait II Shard of Ice—this will give you yet another cover condition on every signet while also providing some indirect group support (+% damage taken from everyone in your group). The +vitality & healing power is also nice, while the -10% condition duration is a marginal loss.

EDIT 2: Bleed duration runes are not necessary in PvE if you are running everything else because you will in fact be 35% over the bleed duration cap. I took out bleed duration runes and put in 6/6 runes of the undead for +toughness +condition damage. This leaves us at 90% bleed duration which is good.

xbaunx.6438:

The Earth Troll never leaves earth attunement, gasp.

I didn’t so much gasp as make this face :-\

it is an interesting change however the casting time of signets is so horendeuos that the perma swiftness is kinda…. not working well with everything else.
I prefer the 2 air traits that reduce glyph recharge and let glyphs give boons based on atunement (air = swiftness) equip glyph of elemental harmony and you get perma swiftness with low cooldown one spell cast away. You can reïnforce it with any other glyph except for the elite glyph for some reason it doesn’t work.

Another point is why don’t you use Fiery Greatsword? It increases both power and condition damage has ranged attacks and a good burn plus and AoE which you lack when you’re running S/F.

Also why don’t you use Geomancer’s Alacrity for 20% lower CD on earth atunement skills which’ll give you more invulnerability and blinds and reflection… I mean y’r gonna stay in earth atunement anyways.
Also burning precision is better than burning fire since you’ll get off burns consistently proccing the 5% more dmg on burning targets.

Gonna test it in WvW today, looks fun!

I have running for a while a similar build for sPVP
20/20/30/0/0
with
ether renewal
signet of air
signet of fire
cleansing fire
CFG
Its very fun and effective but im not staying only to earth,
since the air have very good damage and you can burst with
Gale→dragon tooth and phoenix.
I do not use so much the water except for a quick
freezing gust and comet when i have the opportunity.

btw how long is there the signet of restoration bug with the cool down
to stay at 25 sec even with the signet mastery ? They will fix it soon?

DallasisaLeo.1584:

I didn’t so much gasp as make this face :-\

haha yeah I know—that was my expression while trying to find a way to bring in Arcana without making it a slow and weak version of a good S/D build.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

it is an interesting change however the casting time of signets is so horendeuos that the perma swiftness is kinda…. not working well with everything else.
I prefer the 2 air traits that reduce glyph recharge and let glyphs give boons based on atunement (air = swiftness) equip glyph of elemental harmony and you get perma swiftness with low cooldown one spell cast away. You can reïnforce it with any other glyph except for the elite glyph for some reason it doesn’t work.

Another point is why don’t you use Fiery Greatsword? It increases both power and condition damage has ranged attacks and a good burn plus and AoE which you lack when you’re running S/F.

Also why don’t you use Geomancer’s Alacrity for 20% lower CD on earth atunement skills which’ll give you more invulnerability and blinds and reflection… I mean y’r gonna stay in earth atunement anyways.
Also burning precision is better than burning fire since you’ll get off burns consistently proccing the 5% more dmg on burning targets.

You’re right, signet swiftness isn’t something you want to use unless you know you’re not going to be in combat. I prefer the Elemental over FGS because FGS takes you out of your defenses. I like to have the tank that you get from Earth Elemental (recently buffed as well) when facing multiple targets. I agree, FGS is certainly better in several situations (vs. structures, vs. other players, mobility, etc.) so there would be no harm in using it over the Elemental.

I don’t take Geomancer’s Alacrity because usually the target doesn’t outlive my defensive abilities. The only ability that has a cooldown over 30s is Obsidian Flesh, and it’s already 25s lower than Mist Form. Also, when facing another player your defensive skills are generally better and still on lower cooldowns than theirs. If you did choose to take it, I would swap it in over Serrated Stones. I like Serrated Stones because having long bleeds can get you a rally if you’re downed.

I left out Burning Precision because I can maintain a permanent burn on the target with signet of fire, also the base damage on stone shards is so low that you won’t see much benefit from an added +5% (this percentage only applies to the base damage, not the bleed).

Xaos.3257:

btw how long is there the signet of restoration bug with the cool down
to stay at 25 sec even with the signet mastery ? They will fix it soon?

This appears to only be in sPvP, I think they nerfed the passive on signet of restoration for sPvP—hopefully it’s only a bug and not part of the nerfs.

Starting WvW for several hours with this build now.

have you tried this with rabid gear for more toughness and precision? You could swap out corruption sigil after getting 25 stacks for sigil of earth to utilize your crit %.

I’d also mention you have, in terms of bleeding, 20% (serrated stones) + 10% (agony sigil) + 20% (20 fire) + 60% (runes) + 40% (food) = 150%, which is 50% over the cap. So I could suggest keeping the food but changing to Runes of the Undead (if you’re going rabid) for higher condition damage.

KazNaka.4718:

have you tried this with rabid gear for more toughness and precision? You could swap out corruption sigil after getting 25 stacks for sigil of earth to utilize your crit %.

I’d also mention you have, in terms of bleeding, 20% (serrated stones) + 10% (agony sigil) + 20% (20 fire) + 60% (runes) + 40% (food) = 150%, which is 50% over the cap. So I could suggest keeping the food but changing to Runes of the Undead (if you’re going rabid) for higher condition damage.

Runes: 45%
Sigil: 10%
Fire Line: 20%
Earth VIII: 20%
Food: 40%
—————————-
Bleed duration= 135%

An excellent point, I overlooked the bleed duration cap. I agree, the best thing to do is to take out the bleed duration runes and put in runes of the undead. This will give +toughness and +condition damage. You’ll be at 90% bleed duration, which is adequate. In sPvP you can leave your bleed duration runes in and still be under the cap because there is no food buffs.

as was mentioned above, you could also swap in Geomancer’s Alacrity in place of Serrated stones but you will still be 15% over the cap and if you swap out bleed duration runes for runes of the undead you will be at 70%—too low for my liking.

It takes some time for your damage to ramp up, I find that Carrion’s +vitality is often necessary to stay alive long enough to down your target.

xbaunx.6438

Xaos.3257:

btw how long is there the signet of restoration bug with the cool down
to stay at 25 sec even with the signet mastery ? They will fix it soon?

This appears to only be in sPvP, I think they nerfed the passive on signet of restoration for sPvP—hopefully it’s only a bug and not part of the nerfs.

If its a part of the nerf then it is undocumented, maybe its a ninja thing :P but the fact
is that does not make any sense to be a nerf (its a signet so the rule must be applied to it like all the others ) and when you are going to select this its write 20 sec. When you actually slot it the number goes 25.

And something strange that i just discover to day, (in sPVP ) the signet of air
suddenly some times interrupts channeled skills. That was an old problem
but lately i had no issues like that. And the most bizarre, when i conjure the fiery greatsword fery often it does not appear in my hand, just on the ground.
I have never experience this problem before, can someone confirm if its
a new bug or not ?
Sorry for my English !

Just stopped my testing.

It is awesome, but i think Rabid Gear + the bleed weapon rune on crit would also fit this almost perfectly. Maybe with undead runes..