Guild Wars 2

Motivation:

Hello everyone,

First of all, just to be clear, this is for PvE and WvW. I don’t think this would play very well in a setting where sitting on a single point and just surviving is king.

I know we are getting hit hard with the nerf bat on our RtL mobility (so sad), but we are getting buffed signets! I was looking through our traits, and similar to the condition glyph build, I think we might have a chance to maintain a mobile play-style with a condition/signet build. I know the patch isn’t out, but I wanted to start a discussion and get feedback on these kinds of builds. The build is based on a few key synergies:

1.) Written In Stone (Earth XII) works really well with signet of restoration to keep the heals coming with periodic burst heals.
2.) Every signet applies conditions to foes.
3.) Going 30 into earth means +300 condition damage. So why not go with all-out conditions.
4.) Going 30 into earth means geomancer’s freedom is available, to keep up the speed.
5.) Allowing signet of restoration to passive to always be active, using runes that give an ability when using a heal ability give you more spells/effects to keep popping.
6.) Signet mastery (Earth II) seems obvious so that you can keep spamming conditions from your signets, and heal more frequently.

The build template/starting point:
If you are visual:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbvR3wjDAkCmMeAyGkUeMDP2A-jgCBYNCh0CAUHJMFaIa5Rht0qIasKZCpqaRWdDzUuIa1A-e

If you are into numbers:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1m.h1i.8.1m.h5|0.0.0.0.0.0|1h.711.1h.711.1h.711.1h.711.1f.711.1f.711|3x.e17.211.d1d.311.d1d.2x.d1d.3x.e17.3w.e17|0.0.u29c.a5.u5ab|15.d|1n.26.25.24.28|e

The basic idea:

So the basic idea is to keep applying conditions and cover conditions as much as possible while surviving via high toughness, signet of restoration active, and popping the signet’s active as soon as available. The gear is mostly carrion, with a little bit of apothecary to keep healing power up (we should still have a good amount of regen). The trinkets are rabid for survivability + condition damage. The best choice for weapons are giver’s because of the increased condition duration.

Traits:
Earth
- Signet mastery: heal more often, gain more endurance, apply more conditions
-Geomancer’s freedom: avoid being stunned/locked down
-Written in stone: heal more, maintain signet passives

Water:
-Cleansing wave was chosen for needed condition removal. Our condi removal is then
1. switch to water
2. dodge-roll in water
3. cleansing wave (water 5)

Arcane:
- EA provides 4 more spells (some with conditions!), plus extra healing in water
- elemental attunement provides boons to survive
- Arcane energy – popping signets can become an endurance factory, plus crit chance is low.

Heal:
- signet of restoration: passive always works, pop active asap for rune ability + burst heal

Slot skills:
- signet of earth: the immobilize is awesome, extra toughness helps survive
- Signet of air: move faster, apply blinds
- signet of fire: burn a lot, and often. Plus more endurance for dodges!!

Alternatives:
- Cleansing fire: need a stun-break and condition cure. Cooldown is kind of long however. Using runes of melandru decreases the necessity for this some.
- signet of water: if the condition clearing is improved, this might be useful.

Sigils:
- Sigil of doom: apply poison (5s) on next attack after weapons swap. This is to slow down opponent curing and apply a cover-condition
- Sigil of corruption: gain +10 condition damage/kill, up to 25 stacks. Great b/c of the variety of conditions we will be spamming out. I like this more than condition duration runes b/c we have so many kinds of conditions (blinds, vulnerability, weakness, chill, bleeding, cripple, immobilize, burning, poison). By having this variety, cleansing the killers (bleeds, burning, a little poison) becomes much harder

Runes: see below for more analysis, but the adventurer’s runes are used for the +condition damage and the 50% extra endurance every 20s. (that is actually really powerful). By going this route, you get tons of endurance (up to 150% every 20s, meaning 5 dodges every 20s. With evasive arcana, just dodging a lot will get you some good conditions and damage. ALWAYS use a dodge before healing, as the healing ability will give you 75% endurance.

Pros:
- Good healing rate
- Fast paced and dodge like crazy
- Decent straight-line speed
- Spammy with conditions

Cons:
- Weak against tons of cleanse (although variety of conditions and cover conditions try to mitigate this)
- Poor base power
- No stunbreaks and little condition cleanse.

Input is appreciated!

I made something similar, but using s/f since signet of earth is pretty much needed for dtooth anyway, and focus gives some needed condition removal and good ccs/defensive skills. not sure if it’d actually be any better though, but I’m trying to find a way to use that focus :p

I was planning on going in a couple new directions maybe with signets but it depends on the patch notes. For example: 25/15/30/0/0 s/f with fire/earth/air/restoration signets and the gs elite. Signets grant fire shield which grants prot/fury/swiftness and might on hit plus everything will be burning all the time and high crit/dmg. Rotation would go fire→earth→air→repeat, while sprinkling in signets for boons and to enhance spikes.

I dont think going arcane is going to be worth it anymore without deep investment into water for the 25 trait and cantrips procing regen+vigor. Like I said though, depends on the patch notes.

Navzar.2938:

I made something similar, but using s/f since signet of earth is pretty much needed for dtooth anyway, and focus gives some needed condition removal and good ccs/defensive skills. not sure if it’d actually be any better though, but I’m trying to find a way to use that focus :p

If your going S/F just use air 5 or water 5 before hopping into fire and immediately dropping DT, same effect without needing to take the earth signet.

Parktou.4263:

If your going S/F just use air 5 or water 5 before hopping into fire and immediately dropping DT, same effect without needing to take the earth signet.

Air 5 doesn’t last long enough for Dragons Tooth to hit, and water 5 does nothing to lock a target down.

just want to point out, for pve/wvw, gw2buildcraft.com is a far better editor than the one you’re using. once I run the conversion, so I can see honest gear numbers, I may have an opinion on the build.

Hm, y’know, I just went and tried a condition build in SPvP*, ‘cause I’ve had some moderate success with them in the past and, well, I was bored.

Anyway, it went quite well. The last build I tried used Ether Renewal, Signet of Fire, Lightning Flash, Mist Form, and 30 in Water instead of Earth, but in the end I gave up on it because the damage didn’t flow very well – condition removal absolutely destroyed me, and beyond Signet of Fire my conditions were really only in the earth and fire attunements.

This time, however, the decreased downtime from not using Ether Renewal, as well as the blind from Signet of Air and the poison from Sigil of Doom, seem to mitigate those weaknesses to the point that I may run it regularly if it continues to hold up.

*http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmYbux4gjDAEFm4y4BIaQSRxM5A-TsAAzCuI0SBjDGDMSYswMq4UxsDA

Chaosky.5276:

Hm, y’know, I just went and tried a condition build in SPvP*, ‘cause I’ve had some moderate success with them in the past and, well, I was bored.

Anyway, it went quite well. The last build I tried used Ether Renewal, Signet of Fire, Lightning Flash, Mist Form, and 30 in Water instead of Earth, but in the end I gave up on it because the damage didn’t flow very well – condition removal absolutely destroyed me, and beyond Signet of Fire my conditions were really only in the earth and fire attunements.

This time, however, the decreased downtime from not using Ether Renewal, as well as the blind from Signet of Air and the poison from Sigil of Doom, seem to mitigate those weaknesses to the point that I’ll be running it regularly if it continues to hold up.

*http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmYbux4gjDAEFm4y4BIaQSRxM5A-TsAAzCuI0SBjDGDMSYswMq4UxsDA

That looks pretty cool! Curious why you chose cantrip mastery just for cleansing fire. Its still very defensive to use the arcane energy + evasive arcana to dodge like crazy from popping signets (and the heal ability from the adventurer rune). If you use all signets + adventurers, you get 150% extra endurance every 20s (100% w/o the adventurer’s 5th rune). With the 5% recharge rate, that gives you 5 dodges every 20s, or once every 4 seconds. If you are attunement dancing, that is at least 3 extra spells from evasive arcana applying extra conditions. With the vigor on crit, you only get 100% extra endurance for 5s every 9, which is much less.

Also, just for space, here are some runes I think work well with a condition build that is popping off the signet every 20s.

I am not 100% decided on the runes. Some that I like and will be testing.
Defensive:
- 2 melandru: -10% condition duration to you, + toughness
- 4 melandru: above, plus -10% stun duration, + toughness
- 6 melandru: above, plus -15% stun duration, -15% stun duration, + toughness
- 6 Dwayna: gain regen when use heal, + healing power, +20% regen duration, gain regen 10s on hit (5% chance)

Offensive:
-2 Lyssa: +10% condition duration, + precision
-6 grenth: +condition damage, + chilled duration, 5% chill when hit (3s), chill foes on heal

Balanced:
- 2 altruism: Gain 3 might when heal, + healing power
- 4 altruism: above plus +boon duration, + healing power
- 4 Lyssa: above, plus gain random boon for 10s on heal
- 6 runes of the adventurer: gain 50% endurance on heal, + condition damage, + power

Holy cow is this fun to play! The pace is even more frenetic than regular d/d b/c the number of spells you have between switching attunements for EA (with your tons of endurance), popping signets (on a short cast time) for conditions and more endurance, and your regular skills. This does WAY more damage than the bunker!

Earth 4+queue up earth 5, wait and pop air signet on instant cast is a great combo! Followed immediately by a EA dodge roll (switch attunement if already hit earth during this “rotation”).

BlackBeard.2873:

Curious why you chose cantrip mastery just for cleansing fire.

I’m taking 20 points in Water for Healing Ripple and the vitality and healing power, and I don’t need to heal quite as often due to SoR, so it just seemed like the best choice.

BlackBeard.2873:

Its still very defensive to use the arcane energy + evasive arcana to dodge like crazy from popping signets (and the heal ability from the adventurer rune). If you use all signets + adventurers, you get 150% extra endurance every 20s (100% w/o the adventurer’s 5th rune). With the 5% recharge rate, that gives you 5 dodges every 20s, or once every 4 seconds. If you are attunement dancing, that is at least 3 extra spells from evasive arcana applying extra conditions. With the vigor on crit, you only get 100% extra endurance for 5s every 9, which is much less.

Renewing Stamina allows me to maintain Vigor pretty much indefinitely due to the 20% increased boon duration from Arcana, and the increased Bleeding and Poison duration seems more useful to me than an extra dodge when I heal.
Running with 4 signets isn’t really an option due to the lack of a stun-breaker, and the duration of Signet of Water’s Chill is pathetic anyway. (I’m not really using Dragon’s Tooth, so Signet of Earth wouldn’t be of much use.)

Snickers.9570:

Parktou.4263:

If your going S/F just use air 5 or water 5 before hopping into fire and immediately dropping DT, same effect without needing to take the earth signet.

Air 5 doesn’t last long enough for Dragons Tooth to hit, and water 5 does nothing to lock a target down.

They both work fine for me and water 5 combined with water 4 slows them enough that they either waste a dodge or get hit by the DT area, not to mention the daze from water 5 makes the bads think they’re stunned, lol. Either way your ability to land DT is not based off of having an immbolize, just got a know where to use it based off of what your opponent is going to do, you obviously can’t just drop wherever you want. I can hit air 5 and switch to fire and drop DT in time for it to land so I don’t see why anyone else shouldn’t be able to.

Standard kd seems to be 2 seconds, and DT takes 3 seconds to hit, so they should be able to dodge. I’ll guess I’ll try it out more often. If you’re already running signet build though, popping SoE isn’t really costing much.

Parktou.4263:

I can hit air 5 and switch to fire and drop DT in time for it to land so I don’t see why anyone else shouldn’t be able to.

Your opponents aren’t spamming their dodge enough if they can’t roll out of the way after being knocked down by Gale – it’s a 2 second knockdown, and Dragon’s Tooth takes 3 to drop.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmYbvR3wjDAhCCMeASIkUeMDP2A-TsAAzCoIaS1krJTTymsNN640xsEA

a build for fun

Fire/earth signets got buffed(doubled) and restoration only nerfed some in spvp. No signet stun break still but nothing too earthshattering aside from the RTL gutting.

If you’re running scepter/focus, you might get away with no stunbreaker and only limited condition removals.

LonelyReaper.8075:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmYbvR3wjDAhCCMeASIkUeMDP2A-TsAAzCoIaS1krJTTymsNN640xsEA

a build for fun

This looks really good! Be advised, that your 2 sigils won’t work together, however, as they share cooldowns, so only 1 will proc. I do like the idea of using that sigil for condition clearing however. If you combined that with the water signet, we could get some decent cond. clearing (esp if you do 10 water). I will test this out for my own fun.

I am really loving the build that spams so many abilities and dodges! (the energy on heal rawks!)

Here is a build I’ve been using pretty much since I hit 80. I got bored playing glass cannon and getting one shotted and didn’t want to play the 0/10/0/30/30 bunker cookie cutter build.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVsMz9Mz0oaGLMoaGLoGaxa0MszMVbM8khG7khi7070z7khs707kuW70V7ow38ofZ

I was avoiding sharing this build, as I feared it would become one of those cookie cutter FotM builds. However, with the recent changes/nerfs to staff ele’s and bunker builds, I suppose it couldn’t hurt.

The only change I’ve made to this build since launch is the 10 points from arcane to water, as water has passive heals, gives more vit (allowing me to go for more dmg/toughness in pve/wvw), and boosts the effects of using signets even further. That is the one variation I’ve made to this build, and I can’t say the loss of attunement recharge has hurt anything.

However, I may wind up switching out my dagger for a focus, as they’ve always been under-appreciated as offhand weapons and OH dagger is becoming less and less useful as patch nerfs roll in.

This is the build I use for everything…works well in pve and wvw and wins against most classes/builds 1v1 in pvp (I thought of myself as the bunker bane because this build stomps most bunker builds with relative ease).

Edit: In pve/wvw I mix rabid/carrion gear for the extra toughness (15k hp instead of 17k but about 400 more condition dmg) and use undead runes/sigil of battle (since other classes do poison better in pve). The build I linked was what I use in spvp/tpvp. I also switch out burning fire for burning precision as rabid gear gives you more crit chance which means more burns without leaning on the signet.