Guild Wars 2

I’m a recently returning player. I really enjoying playing “Wizard” or “Mage” archetypes in games, preferably ranged. I played an ele at release and enjoyed it, however it seems clear that the dominate ele spec plays as an essentially melee build.

I have stuck with scepter. I enjoyed sPvP and I’ve been playing the S/F Fresh Air spec, but I’d like to do some more world exploration and solo PvE. Can anyone suggest what would be a good build for Solo PvE? I like the challenge of soloing Champions and Silver mobs as well as doing stuff solo in the silverwastes and Orr.

What should I focus on? It doesn’t seem like a max dps build is the right solution. What types of gear help for this type of play? What sort of trait alignment and weapon focus? Should I try another profession like Engineer or necro?

Thanks in Advance!

This is the build I use for just about everything solo. be it events, living story, champs, whatever.

If things are really tough then I swap out my Jewelry for more tanky Knight with Celestial jewels which gives me a quick boost in armor at the cost of some power and crit damage. This also minimizes my inventory since it’s the same gear I use for WvW as Staff which is nice only having to carry around 9 slots total in my bags of extra gear.

On boss encounters where there’s absolutely no crits then I swap out Renewing Stamina for Vigorous Scepter since it’s an always on 50% vigor.

In group play I can usually swap in a staff with similar trait spread but with different major traits chosen. This keeps me not having to swap gear as much since my stats are always the same from traits (06044).

Armor of Earth can be swapped for something else as desired. Depending on what I want I will swap in Mist Form, Arcane Shield, Signet of Air, or a Conjure.

First thing you’re going to find is you have absolutely no HP what so ever. Unless you’re extremely familiar with every boss’ moves, every PVE moves and otherwise you’re going to go down. A lot. Much of the later content, such as Silverwastes, has many moves that catch you unaware (such as Thresher vines that auto hit you regardless). Doing down level content doesn’t generally matter and max damage in that one scenario is pretty handy since you will kill everything in a few shots…but then again so will my build.

As a fellow Fresh Air build player and not a mindless berzerker drone, you know that we swap in and out of Air a lot to proc Lightning Strike and abuse those ultra low Lighting Strike and Blinding Flash timers. That means going into Water periodically and that’s why I love 4 in Water. That makes simply going into water, regardless of S/F or S/D give you Regen boon, a flat up heal, Soothing Mist and a Condi cleanse. This also is what makes Lingering Elements nice to have because Soothing Mist stays and it’s almost up forever giving you even more passive survivability.

There are tons of little conditions in this game, and especially in Silverwastes farming. From Torment/Poison to super long immobilizes a lot of it just gets dumped on your head or leapt at you. Ether Renewal is an option but seems rather wasteful when considering Arcane Brilliance is 3 stacks of Might you’re then giving up. This is especially true considering that many times it’s a single condition like cripple or immobilize that simply needs to be removed. Using Cleansing Fire, Cleansing Wave and Cleansing Wave (/D) is more than enough condition removal without having to give up 3 stacks of Might, AOE Damage and a Heal.

In the end the builds are very similar in terms of stats. You’re not going to realistically notice the difference in damage stats. The only real difference is a couple hundred power, bit of crit and crit damage for 5k more HP and a bit more toughness. With 21-25 stacks of Might on you with S/D you won’t even care and I for one appreciate the more survivability. This doesn’t mean I never Berserker staff, I do all the time at large events when survivability isn’t a factor, but when I’m soloing…this is the build for me.

“Mindless berserker build”

So being efficient is mindless? I could make a more substantial argument to say that someone who picks a weaponset with the lowest possible DPS without even the best might stacking potential is mindless. Just because something is deemed meta or close to doesn’t mean that it’s mindless to use it.

I also gotta smirk a bit at the irony where you say ether renewal seems wasteful, yet you’re going 0 in Fire Magic for PvE and 4 into Water Magic for condition cleansing. Ugh, if I were you I’d edit that out of your post. Yikes. :x

You can do some really cool things with staff in a solo. In open world PvE, generally most things will die before they can even reach you! You can use earth #4 or water #4 to slow down mobs and then lava font and meteor shower and ice bow them to death. Note that glyph of storms provides lots of blind when used in earth. For champions you probably want to summon an earth elemental. You can hide behind it while casting your meteors and ice bow barrages. It’s an amazing tank. The earth ele strategy is in my opinion one of the best solo strategies that works for almost any encounter. I’d definitely recommend the builds Ark.9586 posted, as I use the staff setups daily.

Here are some examples of staff solos, they’re in dungeons but the concept is the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfT0rr7oX4
http://www.twitch.tv/007austin/c/6177507 (potato quality, sorry!)

Here’s a brief guide I made showing how to get the most damage possible from staff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DE8It42yQI
Just swap out FGS for the earth elemental when it’s needed. Hide behind it and drop your nukes and things will die.

Iam a new Elementalist. I’m going for the staff builds. Mages are not iconic without their staff. If you are a true mage, stick with staff

Ark.9586:

“Mindless berserker build”

So being efficient is mindless?

It’s mindless to blindly accept the same information vomited all over the place and then mindlessly lapped up only to be vomited by the next individual in a never ending cycle. It’s mindless because the same advice with the same builds are recommended the same number of times regardless of what the person is actually asking for. It’s mindless because when those same people who lapped it up have issues and are frustrated they’re dying and embarrassing themselves in groups they’re told to learn to play cause the build is fine. It’s mindless because you’re not bringing anything new or fresh to the table, you’re just co-oping the builds already plastered around everywhere else.

Being efficient is wholly dependent on the metrics used to gauge efficiency. If we’re talking about damage over time, Scepter has one of the highest burst potentials of any weapon and many cases in PvE things don’t even live it to me swapping to Earth from Fire. Most encounters that live past that tend to be present in group content, not solo content. In fact much of solo content’s Living Story harder encounters rely on bursting as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time in between phases. However there’s many other measures of efficiency as well.

The most important part about helping someone is making sure you are giving them advice that works for them. You completely ignored the fact that the OP directly mentions they don’t want to be melee and that they’ve already seen the existing Melee oriented DPS builds and is looking for something else. Furthermore the OP goes on to state that not only do they like and are comfortable with Scepter, but they also state that a maximum DPS is not the right solution for them. What I find ironic is that in spite of all that not only do you give them exactly what they say they directly aren’t looking for but then you attempt to mock someone else who is actually addressing what they want.

Now THAT’S “yikes.”

No one’s blindly accepting any information, it’s just one person, you, refusing to admit being wrong. They’re asking for a good build, so that is precisely what I gave them. Hell, I didn’t give them just one… I gave them four.

And if you think scepter is any more of a ranged weapon than staff then you don’t know what you’re even talking about lmfao. Also regardless of whether or not we’re talking about burst or DPS, staff has the potential to do both. Scepter is completely garbage besides DT + phoenix which are the only spells worth casting on it.

You can whine all you want, but I gave OP exactly what they asked for and more. They wanted to range, I gave them staff builds. I also gave them D/F builds as another effective alternative, in case they feel like trying it. I didn’t give them garbage traits, I gave efficient builds. And I even offered defensive alternatives and advice in case he feels he needs more endurance and struggles surviving. There’s plenty of options to make something work rather than playing with a clownshoes 06044 scepter build like you posted.

Ah, scepter doesn’t have any cleave. OP shouldn’t play scepter exclusively in PvE without any conjured weapons. Also, ele dps is all about stacking damage modifiers. And do not forget that veteran and above has twice to more times HP as players so there is a point which stacking defense becomes obsolete. If you solo several mobs at once and their attack pattern is hard to predict, it’s better to deal big damage and try to rally from the fallen enemies than survive and dragging the fight.

Iris Ng.9845:

Ah, scepter doesn’t have any cleave. OP shouldn’t play scepter exclusively in PvE without any conjured weapons. Also, ele dps is all about stacking damage modifiers. And do not forget that veteran and above has twice to more times HP as players so there is a point which stacking defense becomes obsolete. If you solo several mobs at once and their attack pattern is hard to predict, it’s better to deal big damage and try to rally from the fallen enemies than survive and dragging the fight.

Lava Tomb….

:D I tease.

@Ark: You literally gave the OP exactly what the OP said they weren’t looking for. I mean section by section, every build the exact opposite what they said they were looking for.

I don’t know how to make that anymore clear than that. If you’re incapable of understanding that or just being willfully ignorant of it either way it’s kinda like…why bother?

@Iris Ng: Do you really need more cleave than the DT -> Ring -> Phoenix -> Blast -> Arcane Brill combo when doing solo? I mean that alone will down most Veterans I’ve fought let alone if you take it a step further and EQ -> Churn -> Air (while Churn) -> Light + Flash. Honestly most multi-wave scenarios I tend to split the Fire -> Air combo and Fire -> Earth -> Air combo and that’s sufficient for cool downs and keeping the might stacks at 25. Honestly if you need more cleave than that you likely aren’t doing solo content anymore. Only time I’ve found stacking defense is obsolete is when 1) You know the encounter well enough you can handle avoiding all the damage or 2) you’re going to get one shot regardless of what you put on. Again, I’ve always found the high burst of Scepter and the sustain of 00044 to be a great combo.

Also, it’s worth noting that S/D’s only fire field is a PBAoE that requires you to be in melee range to use if you want any might. At this point you may as well be running dagger/focus. If you really want to stay at range, staff is your best option.

I Just wanted to pop back in. I really appreciate all the advice. My original post was a bit disjointed. I did do a fair bit of reading about what the meta dps builds are, but I have no interest in doing dungeons/fractals and I’ll be honest, for world bosses, builds seem to be irrelevant. The content dies almost no matter what. I do not know most content so I probably take more damage than someone with much more experience.

I’ve gathered that ranged play isn’t really supported in the game. It seems like might only stacks when you’re sitting in the field so for scepter or staff it’s a bit of a moot point. Maybe there will be some adjustments with the expansion.

My original question was aimed at what else could I do to trade off damage for more “sustainability” to solo content while trying to stay away from D/x. For example my understanding of conditions is that they are not competitive because of the cap, since I’m playing solo should I get more condition damage? Maybe get a set of sinister? I really appreciated the suggestion to buy some life steal food. I might try the sigil as well. I am definitely going to give the staff a little more of a go and some more practice.

Kodiak.3281:

@Ark: You literally gave the OP exactly what the OP said they weren’t looking for. I mean section by section, every build the exact opposite what they said they were looking for.

I don’t know how to make that anymore clear than that. If you’re incapable of understanding that or just being willfully ignorant of it either way it’s kinda like…why bother?

@Iris Ng: Do you really need more cleave than the DT -> Ring -> Phoenix -> Blast -> Arcane Brill combo when doing solo? I mean that alone will down most Veterans I’ve fought let alone if you take it a step further and EQ -> Churn -> Air (while Churn) -> Light + Flash. Honestly most multi-wave scenarios I tend to split the Fire -> Air combo and Fire -> Earth -> Air combo and that’s sufficient for cool downs and keeping the might stacks at 25. Honestly if you need more cleave than that you likely aren’t doing solo content anymore. Only time I’ve found stacking defense is obsolete is when 1) You know the encounter well enough you can handle avoiding all the damage or 2) you’re going to get one shot regardless of what you put on. Again, I’ve always found the high burst of Scepter and the sustain of 00044 to be a great combo.

Maybe it’s just me who lacks aptitude but I would love to see a footage of how you tackle, perhaps, 3-4 copper and/or silver mobs with your usual scepter/dagger combos. May I suggest solo an occupied objective in Silverwaste. I find it pretty “challenging” for new elementalists.

Awaiting for your recorded footage,
Sincerely,

P.S. The cleave is really not as strong as mobs can just walk away, or CC you, or simply charge to you and deal a considerable damage that forces you to cancel your channeling. Oh and I forget, how would you deal with multiple silver and gold as one? Like Elite Risen or Elite Mordrem?

Iris Ng.9845:

Maybe it’s just me who lacks aptitude but I would love to see a footage of how you tackle, perhaps, 3-4 copper and/or silver mobs with your usual scepter/dagger combos. May I suggest solo an occupied objective in Silverwaste. I find it pretty “challenging” for new elementalists.

Awaiting for your recorded footage,
Sincerely,

P.S. The cleave is really not as strong as mobs can just walk away, or CC you, or simply charge to you and deal a considerable damage that forces you to cancel your channeling. Oh and I forget, how would you deal with multiple silver and gold as one? Like Elite Risen or Elite Mordrem?

Do you mean like if we take Red Rock Garrison and we hold it for a bit there’s some Veterans and eventually some Elites that spawn? Cause “occupied” to me means the part where the Mordrem own the tower and not the Pact forces and there’s no Veterans/Elites during then so I don’t think you’re talking about that. I just want to be clear what I’m going for as typically when I do Silverwastes I go find partially completed instances (LFG -> then look for “SW X% complete” taxis) and go there and ride the wave of easy mode staff farming on group content or honestly just bring my Ranger and afk rapid shot snooze fest my way through it. I also, in order to maximize rewards, typically don’t stick around and defend beyond a few kills because if I down 4-5 mobs and then move on to the next base I can get more reward chests that way.

BUT if you can clarify I can see what I can deliver to you in a few days (WvW reset in T1 and all that makes for busy weekends ).

I will also admit that I’m leery, but not deterred, from posting a video. Typically it either becomes a pointless argument of, “How many times did it take for you to get those results NYAH!” or “Here’s a bunch of random critiques about how you play without caring about results NYAH!” which makes the whole affair a huge waste of time. Haha I remember when Zelyhn went on and on about how I was using Scepter Fire 1 on a WvW door for a few ticks till FGS was up…it’s like there’s 3 superior rams on the door…it doesn’t matter what I’m going to do to it the thing is going down lol…but I digress.

@Auren I’m glad I didn’t misunderstand what you’re saying, but yes ultimately you going to end up meleeing at some point. A lot of mobs have gap closers and will end up closing range regardless. However if you use a ranged weapon like Scepter or Staff ranged is always a viable option if Melee becomes inconvenient.

Conditions will be more viable post HOT when the max stacks go away. TBH we’re going to be one of the few classes that benefits immensely from this as we can easily stack more than 25 bleeds with strong Bleed duration as we have some of the longest lasting bleeds in the game. I actually have a few condi builds I use that are pretty crazy in terms of condis it can kick out but I stopped posting them around here cause the relentless negativity out of some people who take a dump on anything not berserker has long since gotten old.

Scepter is really, really, really terrible to use for PvE unless you’re only using it to blast in a fire field with prior to taking out a LH. There’s absolutely no other reason to justify taking it unless you don’t care about having dreadful damage output.

It’s not really something that’s up for debate, it has terrible DPS. If it’s what you like then by all means, do as you please.

Kodiak.3281:

@Ark: You literally gave the OP exactly what the OP said they weren’t looking for. I mean section by section, every build the exact opposite what they said they were looking for.

Auren.9142:

What should I focus on? It doesn’t seem like a max dps build is the right solution. What types of gear help for this type of play? What sort of trait alignment and weapon focus?

I must’ve missed where he specifically said “No max dps / meta builds” I fail to see how any of Ark’s suggestions were the opposite of what he said. OP simply said he wasn’t sure if zerk was the way to go and Ark showed some really good builds that were. The only thing I seen otherwise was a low single target weapon with half tank stats.

I’m sorry you feel offended by what Ark said and are on a rampage. Go out for a jog, get your head back into the game and stop making this thread an emotional crusade.

Here’s some videos for OP:
49 Mai Trin vs D/F Ele https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuwaTr6E4Os
Lupi vs Staff Meta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr7sV6W54vg
Arah P3 Solo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdcYxFY6fE
Me scrubbing it up in Silverwastes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYwvg2QpKvI

OMGimAnoobLOLOL.4730:

I must’ve missed where he specifically said “No max dps / meta builds” I fail to see how any of Ark’s suggestions were the opposite of what he said. OP simply said he wasn’t sure if zerk was the way to go and Ark showed some really good builds that were. The only thing I seen otherwise was a low single target weapon with half tank stats.

I’m sorry you feel offended by what Ark said and are on a rampage. Go out for a jog, get your head back into the game and stop making this thread an emotional crusade

It’s all good, the OP came back and clarified their position for you. You may find this surprising, but the Berzerker meta is literally plastered everywhere. Generally speaking if someone is looking for build advice that it is incredibly likely that they saw that and weren’t interested (or the threads end up being about how they tried it but can’t pull it off).

Unfortunately people are incapable of addressing those people and just shout the same things even louder (zerker Zerker ZERKER!) and many of us who can give them viable alternatives (even if they don’t conform to your standards of “good” despite working just fine) are also usually shouted off these forums as well. One would think the strength of the build would be enough of it’s own argument without having to simultaneously talk down other builds but that never seems to be the case.

Kinda sad you can’t even have a discussion without it being “a crusade.”

Kodiak.3281:

Kinda sad you can’t even have a discussion without it being “a crusade.”

It was very clearly personal the way you opened your first reply with a paragraph antagonizing him about your previous conversation. Ever since then you’ve been very graphically insulting zerk players or anyone that hints toward suggesting it for solo play and what little evidence was requested of you – you mockingly backed out of.

Feel free to post videos, theorycraft, numbers or things that would help lesser experienced players. However, also respect that things have also been tested, tried and a multitude of evidence to back that up.

Stay classy, thanks!

Purple Miku.7032:

Scepter is really, really, really terrible to use for PvE unless you’re only using it to blast in a fire field with prior to taking out a LH. There’s absolutely no other reason to justify taking it unless you don’t care about having dreadful damage output.

It’s not really something that’s up for debate, it has terrible DPS. If it’s what you like then by all means, do as you please.

Depends on the content. WHile you’re absolutely right that sustained damage on Scepter is terrible, the burst seems pretty sweet and in a lot of open world content things die within that burst quite easily.

I took my scepter through my personal story when I did it all on that character ( yeah i know, I have all 11 chars all the way through it >.<) things would be dead by the time I finished the might stacking rotation more often than not. Really had no complaints about it for that type of content.

Of course when I got to a boss I’d pull out the LH or swap Staff if I… died on my first attempt ;-;

So yeah, anything that doesn’t die in a couple hits, absolutely agree, but a lot of trash does and I kinda liked it in those scenarios.

Accepting another’s path blinds you to alternatives

Adventurous Cookie.1658:

Accepting another’s path blinds you to alternatives

If you want to be unique go ahead, but don’t assume that uniqueness for the sake of itself is somehow superior.

Jerus’ response pretty much sums up my experience with it much nicer than I could ever say it. It gets the job done in most scenarios you need it to get the job done and I’m very comfortable with the weapon set from SPvP and WvW Roaming. I also like the burst in content like living story where often cases you have fights where bosses are vulnerable for a very short period of time then invuln the rest.

Unique for the sake of being unique isn’t superior but the way you read some of these posts man it’s like you can’t possibly succeed in this game unless you conform perfectly to someone’s build. Not everything has to be about one extreme view or another: Moderation in all things.