Guild Wars 2

Hi all. Just to give you an update from this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/No-definitive-staff-leveilng-guide

I’m currently level 80. I used staff almost exclusively while leveling up to 80 and find it the most enjoyable out of the weapon selections (weird, I know).

I was looking through many guides (including the one mentioned by Da Beetus in the previous link) and am having conflicting results on what to do! The problem is, GW2 is so open-ended that staff can be implemented many ways.

I’ll tell you what I currently do (or have done):

I purchased 4 of the 6 pieces from the Temple of Balth. karma vendor. I forget the name but it basically focuses on PVT, something D/D elementalists are told to go for when they hit 80. I figured, what the hell I need some exotic armor so might as well start there.

Currently I’m working on the berserker set but here is where I have questions.

My build is currently 0/10/10/20/30

As you can see, I focus mostly on support. My main intention was to make a pure damage elementalist (one of the 30/x/x/x/x builds) but my mind has changed based on the gameplay I’ve seen in dungeons.

I really like setting up combo fields for my allies and buffing them, not something I’d be doing much by staying in fire all the time besides maybe might stacking.

Is there a way to incorporate more damage into this build? I tried 10/10/0/20/30 and it was doing great but I needed the 10 in earth for the oh !@#$ shield.

Also very confused on skill slot selection. I currently use glyph of elemental harmony, arcane wave, arcane shield, frost bow, and glyph of elementals.

It gets the job done but I continually see builds centered around cantrips (I don’t really like cantrips). Also, many take the armor of earth over arcane shield but I’m unsure why. I like being able to cast meteor uninterrupted.

My usual rotation is to stack Earth2 onto Water3 or Fire2. I can squeeze out two might stacks if I go Earth2>Fire 2. I’m new to evasive arcana so not how to incorporate that in. After that, I usually spend the time setting up healing fields , controlling adds/mobs through L5/frost bow, and perform strong AoE damage via bow/meteor/F2.

Should I forgo this setup and head straight to berserker gear and spec full on fire? My heals, when they do land near my allies, are pretty piddly.

Any help would be great. I’m really new to the terminology in GW2 so if you could be simple, that’d be even more awesome!

Like I mentioned, I read many of the guides (including the one in the other link) but found them lacking or giving conflicting information. I hope that now you know my playstyle, you can help me determine which build is best.

I like being a pure damage dealer with a little support (glass cannon) or a jack of all trades (healing, control, damage). Keep in mind: my goal is dungeons. No WvW or anything else.

You say that you dislike cantrips, yet you spend a whole 10 points in earth to gain… a cantrip.

If you want to spec into damage, put more points into Air Magic from Water Magic.

If you need survivability, put up cantrips, but don’t waste valuable trait points on it which could instead do something more useful (water 30 traits and air 20 traits are both very strong).

Frost Bow is a pretty blah utility. Ditch it.

I personally like Ether Renewal more than Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

To be quite honest, Staff is a low DPS weapon with low utility for dungeons. The main reason is that the nature of dungeons just doesn’t lend itself to Staff’s AoE control, and that as a long-range weapon, Staff’s damage is just really low.

If you want to play DPS, play a Warrior.

If you want to play Support, play a Guardian.

If you want to play a Jack of All Trades, you should look to other versions of the Ele, to be honest. Dagger mainhand with either Focus or Dagger offhand are the best options for now.

You have done the first step towards becoming a good player: choosing what role you want to fulfil: pure damage deal / jack of all trades.
All classes can be jack of all trades and this denomination basically mean that you want to use all assets available to you. let me tell you this will not end well: most likely you will do a bit of everything, badly.
Being a damage dealer is much easier to build for, let’s see: you want to deal more direct damage, condition damage or a combination of both?
It is fine to want to be glass canon: you can just replace the defensive stats by offensive stats, it fits your ambition.
Second step: gear for the type of damage you want to do
Third step: choose your traits, experiment! Many build are viable and it has to reflect your playstyle. Never copy a build from any forum!
Final step: do NOT limit yourself to one weapon.
You have to know how to use the skills from all of your weapons, when to choose which, how to tweak your traits accordingly.
Once you have achieved this, choose your runes & sigils.

Have fun!

So for dungeons I rock two weapon sets on one build. I do use Cantrips. I use Cantrips because they are the best option all around compared to anything else we have. They provide stun breakers, huge condition management, regen/vigor (when traited), all on top of their base effects (teleport, protect/stab, invuln, condition removal). All of those are ideal for dungeons.

My over all point spread is 0/20/0/30/20. This gives me a good base to do whatever I want/need for either D/D or Staff by swapping around Traits for Staff and D/D and gear.

For D/D, I rock a slight variation of the standard Aura Share build. I lose Evasive Arcana but end up picking up a bit more damage from the Air line as a result (figuring I lose 3 stacks of Might for 10% crit dmg and 100 Precision). This allows me to support a melee team pretty well. I typically rock PVT Armor and Knight Jewelry/Weapons for greater survivability. I use 2 Sup Monk, 2 Sup Water, 2 Maj Monk for Runes and Furious/Battle Sigils.

There are many “gotchya!” style mobs in dungeons that can kick out tremendous damage and the added survivability seems to work especially with me in Melee. The huge amount of Boons (Fury and 20+ Stacks of Might) I am pumping out in this build to maintain my damage. This means I’m supporting my allies by giving them a huge amount of Boons to them as well as providing a decent amount of healing/condition removal to them.

For Staff I tend to rock something like this. You can see I really only changed 3 traits (Air I → VIII, Water XII → XI and Arcane V → VIII). You could give up the Arcane VI instead of V too but I like the near permanent Vigor in certain situations (albeit in high Condition areas such as Explorable CM I will use V). In this setup I tend to rock Berserker Gear with Berserker Jewelry/Weapon. I use Rubies for Runes and use a Sigil of Fire (but this is debatable as Divinity is also good but fairly expensive and there are other Sigils such as Battle but I tend to find myself in Fire attunement a lot). I like this setup a lot because it offers me really good damage through high base Power (gear) Crit (gear and spec) and Crit dmg (gear and spec) BUT it still lets me support the team through 30 in Water giving me colossal condition management for the team as well. Some people state this is redundant with a Shout Guardian or Warrior but I have run countless groups with neither of these options being available.

The only downside is that any boons provided are pretty short duration because this isn’t a Boon style build. I find because I am not in melee that my survivability is more than sufficient with this but if I’m really having issues then I can swap to my Emerald Jewelry. Many cases the groups I run with are perfectly fine and I tend to sit in Fire and just DPS most of the time. If I find myself out (such as to swap to Water to heal) I might rotate into Earth first and then do Eruption to blow up a Lava Field along with Arcane Wave for a double Area Might. The self combos are much more limited as Staff compared to D/D.

Arcane Wave is great for setting up self combos in either spec. For on the fly it lets you do Area Swiftness with Static Field or Area Heal or Area Might. It’s pretty great. The Cantrips, as previously mentioned, offer everything we could want. The alternatives (Glyphs and Signets) are ultimately extremely limited on what they provide unfortunately. The only one I’ve ever considered using as an alternative was Glyph of Storms because the AOE Blind in earth is pretty handy (but it’s been nerfed repeatedly). In addition when doing certain Dungeons/Bosses you will swap out Utility based on encounters. For example in Ascalon Catacombs you will often times use Frostbow for Graveling Burrow destruction as well in any other place that requires you to destroy an object. My favorite bit in P2 Citadel of Flame is dropping Meteor Shower, Lava Font, then Frost Bow and watch half the Crystal’s HP just vanish.

I also find this build works very well in WvW so this spec really ends up working out for me because all I need to do is swap around Traits and I’m ready for any scenario rather than having to go back and respec each time.

Neko.9021:

You say that you dislike cantrips, yet you spend a whole 10 points in earth to gain… a cantrip.

If you want to spec into damage, put more points into Air Magic from Water Magic.

If you need survivability, put up cantrips, but don’t waste valuable trait points on it which could instead do something more useful (water 30 traits and air 20 traits are both very strong).

Frost Bow is a pretty blah utility. Ditch it.

I personally like Ether Renewal more than Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

To be quite honest, Staff is a low DPS weapon with low utility for dungeons. The main reason is that the nature of dungeons just doesn’t lend itself to Staff’s AoE control, and that as a long-range weapon, Staff’s damage is just really low.

If you want to play DPS, play a Warrior.

If you want to play Support, play a Guardian.

If you want to play a Jack of All Trades, you should look to other versions of the Ele, to be honest. Dagger mainhand with either Focus or Dagger offhand are the best options for now.

Ah I didn’t realize that the armor of earth proc from 10 points into earth was actually the same skill as the cantrip! It still is rater nice coupled with arcane shield. It’s the only cantrip I use I think.

I appreciate the insight but I see quite a few fellow elementalist wielding staves in dungeons. I’ve heard that the pure dps builds put out respectable damage. I’m not looking to remake a character just for a specific specialization. I think elementalist with a mesmer can be just as good (or a little worse) than a warrior.

I’ll give those slot skills a try…think I’ll follow the advice others have offered: try everything and see what fits your playstyle.

I agree with you, though. I wonder how useful earth 10 for armor if you don’t use any other cantrips. I know lightning later on has some very nice DPS boosting traits.

Zelyhn.8069:

You have done the first step towards becoming a good player: choosing what role you want to fulfil: pure damage deal / jack of all trades.
All classes can be jack of all trades and this denomination basically mean that you want to use all assets available to you. let me tell you this will not end well: most likely you will do a bit of everything, badly.
Being a damage dealer is much easier to build for, let’s see: you want to deal more direct damage, condition damage or a combination of both?
It is fine to want to be glass canon: you can just replace the defensive stats by offensive stats, it fits your ambition.
Second step: gear for the type of damage you want to do
Third step: choose your traits, experiment! Many build are viable and it has to reflect your playstyle. Never copy a build from any forum!
Final step: do NOT limit yourself to one weapon.
You have to know how to use the skills from all of your weapons, when to choose which, how to tweak your traits accordingly.
Once you have achieved this, choose your runes & sigils.

Have fun!

Thanks! This clarifies things a bit. So being a jack of all trades won’t end well…think I’ll start acquiring berserker gear and going pure DPS.

I do enjoy the last bit of advice you gave: don’t limit yourself to one weapon…which is kind of what I’m doing. I really enjoy the focus and scepter combo or scepter/dagger but haven’t had a chance to buy decent weapons (besides the staff) so we’ll see how that goes.

Will be testing a bunch of slot skills to see how things goes.

Kodiak.3281:

So for dungeons I rock two weapon sets on one build. I do use Cantrips. I use Cantrips because they are the best option all around compared to anything else we have. They provide stun breakers, huge condition management, regen/vigor (when traited), all on top of their base effects (teleport, protect/stab, invuln, condition removal). All of those are ideal for dungeons.

My over all point spread is 0/20/0/30/20. This gives me a good base to do whatever I want/need for either D/D or Staff by swapping around Traits for Staff and D/D and gear.

For D/D, I rock a slight variation of the standard Aura Share build. I lose Evasive Arcana but end up picking up a bit more damage from the Air line as a result (figuring I lose 3 stacks of Might for 10% crit dmg and 100 Precision). This allows me to support a melee team pretty well. I typically rock PVT Armor and Knight Jewelry/Weapons for greater survivability. I use 2 Sup Monk, 2 Sup Water, 2 Maj Monk for Runes and Furious/Battle Sigils.

There are many “gotchya!” style mobs in dungeons that can kick out tremendous damage and the added survivability seems to work especially with me in Melee. The huge amount of Boons (Fury and 20+ Stacks of Might) I am pumping out in this build to maintain my damage. This means I’m supporting my allies by giving them a huge amount of Boons to them as well as providing a decent amount of healing/condition removal to them.

For Staff I tend to rock something like this. You can see I really only changed 3 traits (Air I -> VIII, Water XII -> XI and Arcane V -> VIII). You could give up the Arcane VI instead of V too but I like the near permanent Vigor in certain situations (albeit in high Condition areas such as Explorable CM I will use V). In this setup I tend to rock Berserker Gear with Berserker Jewelry/Weapon. I use Rubies for Runes and use a Sigil of Fire (but this is debatable as Divinity is also good but fairly expensive and there are other Sigils such as Battle but I tend to find myself in Fire attunement a lot). I like this setup a lot because it offers me really good damage through high base Power (gear) Crit (gear and spec) and Crit dmg (gear and spec) BUT it still lets me support the team through 30 in Water giving me colossal condition management for the team as well. Some people state this is redundant with a Shout Guardian or Warrior but I have run countless groups with neither of these options being available.

The only downside is that any boons provided are pretty short duration because this isn’t a Boon style build. I find because I am not in melee that my survivability is more than sufficient with this but if I’m really having issues then I can swap to my Emerald Jewelry. Many cases the groups I run with are perfectly fine and I tend to sit in Fire and just DPS most of the time. If I find myself out (such as to swap to Water to heal) I might rotate into Earth first and then do Eruption to blow up a Lava Field along with Arcane Wave for a double Area Might. The self combos are much more limited as Staff compared to D/D.

Arcane Wave is great for setting up self combos in either spec. For on the fly it lets you do Area Swiftness with Static Field or Area Heal or Area Might. It’s pretty great. The Cantrips, as previously mentioned, offer everything we could want. The alternatives (Glyphs and Signets) are ultimately extremely limited on what they provide unfortunately. The only one I’ve ever considered using as an alternative was Glyph of Storms because the AOE Blind in earth is pretty handy (but it’s been nerfed repeatedly). In addition when doing certain Dungeons/Bosses you will swap out Utility based on encounters. For example in Ascalon Catacombs you will often times use Frostbow for Graveling Burrow destruction as well in any other place that requires you to destroy an object. My favorite bit in P2 Citadel of Flame is dropping Meteor Shower, Lava Font, then Frost Bow and watch half the Crystal’s HP just vanish.

I also find this build works very well in WvW so this spec really ends up working out for me because all I need to do is swap around Traits and I’m ready for any scenario rather than having to go back and respec each time.

Thank you so much! That’s actually the build I run because it allows me to play DD and staff with very little changing that needs to be done. It’s quite nice.

I guess I just need to get some experience with cantrips. I never really found them quite useful, tbh, but I’m probably using them wrong.

All three inputs were very helpful! Thank you for helping me become a better ele.

All I can say is that I used to do D/D but have found the staff to be far superior in dungeons, pve and wvw occasionally.
My set up is:

0/20/0/30/20
25th if water give damage boost (per boon on you), 20th and 15th in air gives more damage (20% dmg against foes with 33% less health) plus for support the magnetic aura which also procs swiftness and fury.

Utilities are:
Glyph of elemental harmony
Mistform
(arcane shield would work better) yet I use a signet, signet of earth/air/fire or glyph of storms for the extra aoe blinds.
Ice Bow
and elite I either bring Fiery Greatsword for the extra mobility or Tornado for the extra damage.

I wouldn’t use your build but can’t say its bad. It looks pretty decent actually but I don’t like evasive arcana because you pretty much use up your dodges for damage while it could be used for damage mitigation and getting away which you as a staff elementalists tend to do alot.

As for gear:
full Berserker with some rampager, zerker and clerics trinkets.

end result is 5k dmg per meteor and 16k dmg with no.3 on Fiery greatsword.

Scepter Dagger and Dagger Dagger works too with this set-up. Scepter Dagger gives a 30k+ burst in fire/earth/air in a matter of seconds.