Guild Wars 2

Hello Everyone,

I’m new to mmorpg world and this is my first one, i’m a new lvl80 elementalist (i love the profession ^^) playing both d/d and staff. A friend of mine showed me metabattle.com to help me understand more about builds and after some time i tried to create my own on d/d with a fairly decent outcome, the problem lies with Staff.

I run this build right now.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VqZ;1J0BJ-V015NN-Z0;9;402G;0036036156;44N;4H7W3H7W3a0F

Runes: Rune of the strenght (x6)
Sigil: Sigil of accuracy (+7% critical damage) Sigil of Fire (50% on critical hit to cause flame blast)
Amulets: Marauder

I used to run with berserker amulet, it deals a lot of damage, but it has no vitality or toughness stats, so i’m stuck with 11,000 HP and everytime someone picks me as a target i’m dead.

I even tried to run with Celestial Amulet, +560 on all stats, but well….the damage is still not enough so i switched to Marauder Amulet for more balance.

talking about sigils i found the Sigil of accuracy very good for critical, and i switch the second one to try something new (for sometimes i used sigil of force for might stacking, but with staff ele i didn’t see many options to stack might like in d/d)

What i’m asking from experienced staff elementalist is a balanced DPS build that don’t get me killed after 1 minute for both for Spvp and WvW.

Feel free to comment my build as much as you like, i’m here for advice afterall and i’m also fairly newbie too.

Thanks in advance for the support.

I am not a big fan of anything besides staff bunker in PvP, but you can use this both in WvW zergs and sPvP, since the principals apply for both.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFA2gMMozBWOMIBYUPYFUDk7YAIBUPhmQSA

Gear and a few slot skills are intentionally left blank, because that’s like a whole discussion in and of itself.

The problem with using Fire to increase your overall dps is the top tier traits don’t work very well in both PvP and WvW.

Persisting Flames only grants fury on blast finishers used by the elementalist. You only have one in Staff and it requires attunement coordination to use with fire. Giving up utility slots for arcane brilliance and arcane wave is questionable at best.

Pyromancer’s Puissance (and Pyromancer’s Training) give you very limited value, because you aren’t in fire attunement long enough to build might stacks or benefit from the 10% damage increase. If you are camping fire in a WvW zerg, unless you are excluded from the static and water rotation, you are paying your zerg a huge disservice. The dmg pressure in PvP doesn’t allow you to camp fire either.

So what you need is something that increases your dmg output across the board, regardless of what spec you are in and that’s Air. You get a flat increase to your ferocity, a flat 20% increase to foes below 50%, a flat 20% increase to stunned or knocked down foes, additional survivability in the form of shocking aura on disable and vulnerability on critical hit.

MadRabbit.3179:

I am not a big fan of anything besides staff bunker in PvP, but you can use this both in WvW zergs and sPvP, since the principals apply for both.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFA2gMMozBWOMIBYUPYFUDk7YAIBUPhmQSA

Gear and a few slot skills are intentionally left blank, because that’s like a whole discussion in and of itself.

The problem with using Fire to increase your overall dps is the top tier traits don’t work very well in both PvP and WvW.

Persisting Flames only grants fury on blast finishers used by the elementalist. You only have one in Staff and it requires attunement coordination to use with fire. Giving up utility slots for arcane brilliance and arcane wave is questionable at best.

Pyromancer’s Puissance (and Pyromancer’s Training) give you very limited value, because you aren’t in fire attunement long enough to build might stacks or benefit from the 10% damage increase. If you are camping fire in a WvW zerg, unless you are excluded from the static and water rotation, you are paying your zerg a huge disservice. The dmg pressure in PvP doesn’t allow you to camp fire either.

So what you need is something that increases your dmg output across the board, regardless of what spec you are in and that’s Air. You get a flat increase to your ferocity, a flat 20% increase to foes below 50%, a flat 20% increase to stunned or knocked down foes, additional survivability in the form of shocking aura on disable and vulnerability on critical hit.

So basically i have to switch Fire with Air.

i have yet to understand the boons of this game, cause i would’ve never picked air if you didn’t explain to me how it works and i thank you for that.

About the gears (talking about WvW) people on forum always talk about this berserker full set. now:

- is it recommendable for an elementalist? (good dps but no vitality or toughness)
- if it’s good can i buy it on the trading post or i have to craft? (thing that i hate)

i don’t need ascended or legendary set, i love the game but i simply don’t have time for a Lineage style full grind, so i’ll stick with exotic gear.

i do a lot of searching in the web but i didn’t find a guide on how to obtain it. Apart from the gear (gloves, chest, and so on) i also need all the ring, necklake, jewels and so on and i don’t really know where to find them, cause in the trading post there aren’t all those pieces.

zapphyre.6548:

MadRabbit.3179:

I am not a big fan of anything besides staff bunker in PvP, but you can use this both in WvW zergs and sPvP, since the principals apply for both.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFA2gMMozBWOMIBYUPYFUDk7YAIBUPhmQSA

Gear and a few slot skills are intentionally left blank, because that’s like a whole discussion in and of itself.

The problem with using Fire to increase your overall dps is the top tier traits don’t work very well in both PvP and WvW.

Persisting Flames only grants fury on blast finishers used by the elementalist. You only have one in Staff and it requires attunement coordination to use with fire. Giving up utility slots for arcane brilliance and arcane wave is questionable at best.

Pyromancer’s Puissance (and Pyromancer’s Training) give you very limited value, because you aren’t in fire attunement long enough to build might stacks or benefit from the 10% damage increase. If you are camping fire in a WvW zerg, unless you are excluded from the static and water rotation, you are paying your zerg a huge disservice. The dmg pressure in PvP doesn’t allow you to camp fire either.

So what you need is something that increases your dmg output across the board, regardless of what spec you are in and that’s Air. You get a flat increase to your ferocity, a flat 20% increase to foes below 50%, a flat 20% increase to stunned or knocked down foes, additional survivability in the form of shocking aura on disable and vulnerability on critical hit.

So basically i have to switch Fire with Air.

i have yet to understand the boons of this game, cause i would’ve never picked air if you didn’t explain to me how it works and i thank you for that.

About the gears (talking about WvW) people on forum always talk about this berserker full set. now:

- is it recommendable for an elementalist? (good dps but no vitality or toughness)
- if it’s good can i buy it on the trading post or i have to craft? (thing that i hate)

i don’t need ascended or legendary set, i love the game but i simply don’t have time for a Lineage style full grind, so i’ll stick with exotic gear.

i do a lot of searching in the web but i didn’t find a guide on how to obtain it. Apart from the gear (gloves, chest, and so on) i also need all the ring, necklake, jewels and so on and i don’t really know where to find them, cause in the trading post there aren’t all those pieces.

No, it’s not recommended to go full zerker in WvW. You are the most important class in WvW zergs and are going to get targeted. It’s typically some mix of soldiers and zerkers.

I recommend full soldiers armor, zerker trinkets and zerker staff for ascended, because you can’t change the stats out on trinkets. It is what I run and what I think is ideal stats for a WvW zerg elementalist.

For a new elementalist looking to get exotic, I recommend using your karma to get exotic soldier’s trinkets at the Cathedral of Silence. You can usually find a map with it uncontested about a hour or so after reset once the WBT trains have finished the Grenth events.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temple_armor

Once you have solider’s trinkets, getting zerker armor and zerker weapons is relatively easy. They can be acquired with WvW badges, karma once again at Cathedral of Silence or dungeon tokens from CoF. CoF is usually the best way to get zerker’s gear, because the runs are quick and people farm them daily. You can do your daily CoF runs and then grind it out in EotM for WvW badges and more karma.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon_armor

Arah and CoE have zerker gear as well, but harder to find groups for those.

Of course, you can just buy it all with gold off the market or craft it yourself, but I don’t recommend it. If you saved up all your karma when leveling, it’s not hard to get full exotic.

As far as PvP, I don’t know what would be the best amulet for this kind of build, because I have never run an Air/Water/Arcane build in PvP. I generally think a dps based staff is not useful or effective in PvP.

Following your explaination i got:

- Exotic Soldier and Berserker Gear both equipped with “Rune of the Strenght (x6)”
- Berserker Trinkets
- Molten Staff with Sigil of accuracy (7% critical chance) and Sigil of force (5% damage)

Now i’m working to get the Ascended Berserker trinkets, i’ve read a guide on the wiki so i won’t bother
you on this ^^

I began doing some fractals to get “Ring of the red dead” but without agony resistance it’s a bit tough.

Thanks Again for the time.

zapphyre.6548:

Following your explaination i got:

- Exotic Soldier and Berserker Gear both equipped with “Rune of the Strenght (x6)”
- Berserker Trinkets
- Molten Staff with Sigil of accuracy (7% critical chance) and Sigil of force (5% damage)

Now i’m working to get the Ascended Berserker trinkets, i’ve read a guide on the wiki so i won’t bother
you on this ^^

I began doing some fractals to get “Ring of the red dead” but without agony resistance it’s a bit tough.

Thanks Again for the time.

Yeah, I run runes of strength. If you are going to spend the money on those, you really need a sigil of strength as well to leverage your high crit chance to stack might.

All of that is really expensive though. Some of the other elementalists I know who run the same build prefer Superior Runes of the Pack, because they are cheaper.

I won’t go with a flat stat increase on your sigils.

Superior Sigil of Energy is a good choice for the extra dodge. I don’t really feel I need it, so I run a Superior Sigil of Fire as a complement to Superior Sigil of Strength.

Superior Sigil of Air is another good choice. Your crit chance is high enough with this build that both Fire and Air will increase your damage significantly.

I’m not gonna speak to scepter right now, but if you want to do damage you really need to be scepter not staff, and it’s under powered and very squishy. Today’s D/D changes may have ruined D/D – I don’t know because I barely play D/D anymore and don’t plan to. D/D was over powered because it did far too much damage for a Celestial “jack-of-all-trades” class/build that made it deadly in a 1v1 rather than being a true bunker that struggles to get kills quickly. Instead, I have been playing a Staff Celestial Bunker Ele build that I think could well enter the meta. Most D/Ds were playing Fire over Earth – Staff Bunker is all about Earth. It does very little damage, but you will easily be able to survive 1v2s or 3s even if only because of your mobility, and most of your damage and CC is AOE, thus making you much more of a threat in team fights. Check out the Celestial Staff build on Metabattle. It’s been in the great section for ages through a few metas now, and in the pretty extensive testing I’ve done with it in Stronghold it performs better than in Conquest. Only change I’d suggest you make to the build on Metabattle is to go with Fiery Greatsword instead of Elementals because it will allow you to do more damage when you need it while still taking advantage of your most valuable defensive resource – earth and water attunement.

MadRabbit.3179:

zapphyre.6548:

Following your explaination i got:

- Exotic Soldier and Berserker Gear both equipped with “Rune of the Strenght (x6)”
- Berserker Trinkets
- Molten Staff with Sigil of accuracy (7% critical chance) and Sigil of force (5% damage)

Now i’m working to get the Ascended Berserker trinkets, i’ve read a guide on the wiki so i won’t bother
you on this ^^

I began doing some fractals to get “Ring of the red dead” but without agony resistance it’s a bit tough.

Thanks Again for the time.

Yeah, I run runes of strength. If you are going to spend the money on those, you really need a sigil of strength as well to leverage your high crit chance to stack might.

All of that is really expensive though. Some of the other elementalists I know who run the same build prefer Superior Runes of the Pack, because they are cheaper.

I won’t go with a flat stat increase on your sigils.

Superior Sigil of Energy is a good choice for the extra dodge. I don’t really feel I need it, so I run a Superior Sigil of Fire as a complement to Superior Sigil of Strength.

Superior Sigil of Air is another good choice. Your crit chance is high enough with this build that both Fire and Air will increase your damage significantly.

Speaking about Sigil of Strenght, i already tought about buying it, replacing Sigil of Force.

The Runes of Strenght i already purchased them for 2 full sets.

I also followed your advice regarding WvW, now i’m running in Soldier Armor and it’s a lot better, in full zerk my damage was amazing, but even if i run in group (zergs??), once they hit me i’m dead. let’s say i roam a bit doing 1vs1, i didn’t even had the time to react in full zerk, but with more vitality and toughness let’s say it’s an even battle, even if staff is not really recommended to pick on people from what i’ve seen.

one thing i’d like to ask is, from your prespective, how many people run with full ascended gear in WvW?

i’m making this question cause i don’t want to run undergeared, and if everyone has ascended full sets i think i should invest time crafting mine.

for Lauriewonnacott.9841:

i have still to try scepter, i never used it.

I played Celstial Staff too for sometime, and as you said it has a very good defense, expecially while attuning to earth.

I’m a newbie in this game, but looking at the stats Celestial Amulet provide, it has a little bit of everything (+560 all stats) but it doesn’t excel in anything. I met a Celestial Staff Ele in yesterday’s match (pvp), she was really tough to die, but the damage she did was trivial, as well as her mobility. All she did was running around trying to get out the brawl, defending herself with armour of earth doing little to no damage. I’m not saying it’s a bad method to play but it really doesn’t fit my playstile, staff ele is already a pain the kitten as it is, when i hit i want to hit hard

Another thing, most of the defensive boons you get in that build are while you’re attuning to Earth, and even if a switch a lot, Earth is the one i use less, apart from casting Unsteady Ground and Eruption. (that connect 1 time out of 250)

Like i said i’m far from experienced in this game, so i’d like to hear your point of view on this.

Thanks in advance.

I prefer hoelbrak rune and strengh sigil. This is good to use in WvW too. For pure fast PvE Damage strength might be slighly better.
A mixed setup not too squishy thats well rounded for pve and WvW. Needs training but works as allround build.
Looks like this. Food is chagable. Power/precision for PvE, lemmongrass for WvW.
Blood sigil is cheap and potent allrounder too. Air or fire instead fits well but cost more.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWnMIC9MglMAeOA0RgBCALKABgFgMJ7AlgaNkGGDA-T1BGwABuAAHV+VRHAgHAgJ1fSt/wUlgBAQAYn78o78o7sQAlHDA-w

The Valk/captian has more crit chance then soldiers/zerker and thats better then a few % more crit damage.
This build is adapted by changing the staff. If you want more defence i suggest knights staff.

But for sPvP i can´t realy tell. Staff Bunker is the meta there. I am a dedicated scepter/focus user :-). I have a only staff as backup with me for Zerg/Keep combat.

My take on ele is this…

2200 to 2400 armor is a good value, going full zerker is silly and dumb for the simple reason that you melt too quickly under different circumstances. Take AC fire for example, you’ll really melt under a superior AC and focus party only has to look at you to drop you down if you’re full zerker.
So that means combination of zerker with soldier is ideal since I like to balance my armor and HP instead of going high on one and low on the other.

I tend to stay away from other gear stat combinations that doesn’t have power as highest value and find zerker + soldier the easiest to combine with. I got both sets in armor and trinkets to combine.

Power => Precision. What that means is that you should ALWAYS pick power over precision if you have a choice. If you can get both, that’s great, but for example taking a food with higher power over precision instead of vice versa is better.

Force sigil => Accuracy sigil. Force sigil is a damage multiplier that works on ALL your hits, the accuracy only increases the times you crit.

Energy sigil is almost a must because you swap attunements a lot, you really benefit from this.

Strength rune is good, good alternative is pack runes.

As for traits. Fire > Air in WvW in my opinion. If you go fire, take 1 | 1 | 2 or 3 | 1 | 2. Persisting flames is not worth it simply because people don’t stay inside your lava fonts, so any extra time on your lava fonts is wasted anyway. And if you do not blast inside your fire fields you also won’t get the fury effect from this trait either. Puissance is in my opinion a better trait, pretty straightforward and really helps you get your might up, good sync with strength rune.

If you really want to go air instead of fire, go with 3 | 2 | 1. Tempest defense doesn’t work for a staff ele like you’d like it. And lightning rod is a fun trait but doesn’t work on an initial engage when your opponent knows what it’s doing (stability), so bolt to the heart is a trait that is always useful as long your target is below 50%.

arcana and water traitlines are too good to pass on in my opinion.

potent superior sharpening stone, not anything else. And for food, you can go for truffle steak or seaweed salad as good choices.

In PvP it’s personal I guess but I like to go for the celestial amulet on both staff and D/D.

In PvE, simply go full zerker. :P

I prefer the agressive F/A/Ar version. Water is OK instead of air.
Soldiers/Zerker is easy to mix, but it falls easily below 40% crit chance and you should lean more to 50%. When going Soldier/Zerker acuracy sigil might be needed. I ran acuracy/strength for a while but got bored with staff very fast.

Retsuko.2035:

My take on ele is this…

2200 to 2400 armor is a good value, going full zerker is silly and dumb for the simple reason that you melt too quickly under different circumstances. Take AC fire for example, you’ll really melt under a superior AC and focus party only has to look at you to drop you down if you’re full zerker.
So that means combination of zerker with soldier is ideal since I like to balance my armor and HP instead of going high on one and low on the other.

I tend to stay away from other gear stat combinations that doesn’t have power as highest value and find zerker + soldier the easiest to combine with. I got both sets in armor and trinkets to combine.

Power => Precision. What that means is that you should ALWAYS pick power over precision if you have a choice. If you can get both, that’s great, but for example taking a food with higher power over precision instead of vice versa is better.

Force sigil => Accuracy sigil. Force sigil is a damage multiplier that works on ALL your hits, the accuracy only increases the times you crit.

Energy sigil is almost a must because you swap attunements a lot, you really benefit from this.

Strength rune is good, good alternative is pack runes.

As for traits. Fire > Air in WvW in my opinion. If you go fire, take 1 | 1 | 2 or 3 | 1 | 2. Persisting flames is not worth it simply because people don’t stay inside your lava fonts, so any extra time on your lava fonts is wasted anyway. And if you do not blast inside your fire fields you also won’t get the fury effect from this trait either. Puissance is in my opinion a better trait, pretty straightforward and really helps you get your might up, good sync with strength rune.

If you really want to go air instead of fire, go with 3 | 2 | 1. Tempest defense doesn’t work for a staff ele like you’d like it. And lightning rod is a fun trait but doesn’t work on an initial engage when your opponent knows what it’s doing (stability), so bolt to the heart is a trait that is always useful as long your target is below 50%.

arcana and water traitlines are too good to pass on in my opinion.

potent superior sharpening stone, not anything else. And for food, you can go for truffle steak or seaweed salad as good choices.

In PvP it’s personal I guess but I like to go for the celestial amulet on both staff and D/D.

In PvE, simply go full zerker. :P

My traits build is EXACTLY as this.

i Run:

Fire – 1/1/2
Water – 1/1/1
Arcana – 2/2/1

Runes i have Runes of Strenght (x6)

About sigils…well

i don’t run in full zerk, so that 7% more critical is quite confortable for me, so i don’t think i’m going to change it for now.

for the 2nd sigil i switch between sigil of force and sigil of strenght.

PVP wise it’s about personal tastes, i run Marauder Amulet for balancing.

PVE i do run full zerk, even if dangeons are a pain in the

zapphyre.6548:

one thing i’d like to ask is, from your prespective, how many people run with full ascended gear in WvW?

It’s not neccessary to have it in WvW, but it’s a nice to have. The stat difference and WvW infusions are minor. I run AR infusions in my ascended, because I like to do fractals and the WvW infusion bonuses are so minor, it’s not worth preventing myself from doing high level fractals.

Most people in my guild work towards it, because once you get exotic, there is not much else to do with your money, besides working towards a legendary.

WvW is also one of the few areas in the game that ascended gets full valued, because it’s a pure 80 zone. If you get downleveled, the algorithm reduces the gear down to be on par with exotic pretty much, so it really makes no noticeable difference in low level dungeons and zones.

There is a lot of good arguments here from other people for taking Fire over Air.

The decision to take which one really comes to down to what benefit you are providing your zerg.

Like, I run with a guild and I am in teamspeak calling out static fields and water fields. My purpose is primarily sustain and crowd control, so I just don’t spend enough time in fire to gain any benefit from the pyromancer’s traits, which is why I choose Air.

But if you aren’t doing that and are essentially a nuker, then Fire is better choice, because you are camping Fire enough or even Fire and Air if you trully are a nuker and not providing any sustain.

Thats what i run in WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhcMovhdOwyB8RMIAYUUYJUFiAQB4BUby2QaA-TFSDwAvV/hlOgg7PkQJYlHAQXlfAMBJ5CAQKAYGWB-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhcMoAidOwyB8RMIAYUUYJUFiAQBoIWby2QaA-T1iDwASeAAr0BAVpAw9HAYmAhSQnKJcp+jPlZFMhF5CAQKA9UGB-w

The cele/assa Build has enough sustain from Water/Arcane, your own Cc and Immobilize against Stability. Enough Mightstacking with Pyromancer’s Puissance and Earth 2 + Ea Dodge in Fire 4 ( 4 has longer Duration than 2)for good Condition- and Directdamage. This Way you can keep your Rotation up, if you want.. better for Smallscale and Duels.

The Zerkerbuild (playing right now) has enough Directdamage without the need to stack Might. Thats why im running it with Blinding Ashes for a bit more Defense. Even after the Nerf.

Arcane Precision and Burning Precision are nice to have in both Builds. You get more often your Damagemodificators from Fire and Weakness from Air is helpful too. With Cele you can get some nice Burningstacks up with both Traits, Fire 2 and a Dodgeroll near the Enemy while in Fire (Ea..).

Lightning Hammer helps the Zerkerbuild if you have your Cc’s on Cd. 5, 2 and a bit Aa’s are doing enough Pressure. 4 if someone stealthed near your Position.

Run both with Hoelbrak and Strength, but switched to Vampirism because for me a bit more Time to get Attunements and Skills off Cooldown helped me more. Runes of the Pack are doing fine too.

Using it in Smallscale and Duels. But im sure it works out for Zergs pretty good too, without loosing too much Sustain.