Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJArdhcMqb23wsBf0AApQLhHHgQAjHg8RGA-z0BB4iBkWAgkGMTtIas1gFRjVJjIqWpEjQALWDA-w

I played d/d ele and followed some twitch streamers builds, mainly bitcloud’s d/d ele build and play wvw only. So the best new trait people are talking about the most is Stone Heart, which makes it so you can’t be crit while in earth. A lot of people are complaining that they are never in earth so this GM trait is terrible, and yeah the primary dagger auto attack is terrible so you’ll probably not want to use it. This got me thinking more about scepter right away where earth actually has a good auto attack, but its only good for a condi build so I started thinking of that.

To use stone heart to the fullest you have to make a build that lets you stay in earth more or less 90%+ and thats why I went with a condition build that im testing still. By going full condi/vit/toughness gear your basic auto attack hits with 4000 damage of bleeds which is pretty powerful. You also have 20,000 health and can get 3300 defense with earth 2 is up which it should always be up.

By going full condi, there are several interesting things I noticed, the signet of fire dealt 17,000 damage in burning. I didn’t think that was possible lol its so much damage for a signet, and its at 1200 range, seems op in a condi build. I started looking at the other signets more carefully then and tested them all out. Signet of fire is op just for the burn, you can have it burn over 16s+ and its on a 16s cooldown when traited so if they don’t remove it, you can have it always up just with that. I also used the signet for 25% movement and aoe blinds, signet of air, and signet of earth. You need the 25% speed for wvw mobility. Signet of earth seemed fairly strong too with like a 5% toughness increase and a 5 second root, a full 5 seconds is pretty op as well, very good against thieves and other people trying to rush in and back out to kill you with their glasscannon builds.

As for traits I am thinking 30/0/30/10/0. The thing about sitting in earth is you don’t really need arcana since your not switching, like ever, most fights I stayed 100% in earth. Burning increased duration by 25% is great since that will be our main form of damage besides bleed stacking. The fire shield whenever you activate a signet is totally awesome and punishes melee that get up and smack you. You can get this fire shield up which lasts 3 seconds up close to the majority of the fight. And binding ashes will be the GM trait. We get absurd burning abilities while staying in earth 100% of the time, the fire signet alone might proc 3-4 blinds just from base burning which seems crazy.

In earth we will reduce our signet times by 20% with this build and we will basically be using them whenever they are free in a fight which makes the fullest use of the trait. We can increase our condition damage more in the master line, and grand master will be Stone Heart which will significantly reduce the damage we take while in earth, which is basically 100% of the time. Water gives our signets even more power by inflicting 3 stacks of vuln as well.

With this build there is no reason to use any other attunements besides maybe water for a quick heal and daze, but its not great since you have to wait to get back into earth so long so its almost better to just stay in earth. Healing isn’t that big a problem since its a full bunker build basically, and stone heart is gonna make it absurdly hard to kill. Earth 5 on the focus has the power level of all three cantrips most d/d ele’s run anyways and im enjoying it in wvw a ton where I can pop that and fgs and get out of any fight it seems.

All I know is I was running this build with the two slots missing in wvw today and it was going pretty well, was solo’ing thieves and guardians and other ele’s and it didn’t feel like the huge struggle d/d has become, and I was doing this missing two powerful GM traits that are soon to make this build even stronger. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions, or if you are brainstorming new builds yet using these GM traits!

you don’t mention glyph? Doesn’t glyph proc burn if you activated it while you were in fire attune?

Anyhow this does sound neat, but will probably be held in check by a few things… namely ICD on blinding ashes, it’s non aoe attacks, and it’s lack of cover condition spam. Still could faceroll thieves though!

Yeah, the lack of aoe is a big tradeoff, again its a bunker build so you might just have to accept that fact you’ll be doing less damage, but still I found the single target dps to be solid. In wvw I usually try to attack the backline anyways so now I just focused specific backliners. Earth 4 removes 3 conditions pretty easily and isn’t the longest cooldown, and I was debating which heal to use, but it seems like we have the best heal in Aether Renewal to deal with conditions as well so if other condi builds become a problem I can just go to that instead of the signet.

Can you explain the glyph proc burn? One of the reasons why I think burn isn’t a huge deal and why switching to fire attunement doesn’t make much sense is that burn doesn’t stack intensity and we can get tons of burn just in earth already, theres really no need to switch out of earth to go to fire.

I disagree about a few thing although i like that you are trying out an Ele condi setup. With that being said if people are never in earth…they’re doing something wrong. Earth is not only for conditions, it is your control. for DD example you have an immobilize, a gap closer, a cripple, a knock down and one of your single most powerful attacks. Yes the auto is pretty bad but air is the only good auto to be honest. Other weapon sets have just as much control in earth. Staff immob, line CC, reflection. Scepter Blind.
As is Earth is where you go to help control the fight either in an offensive or defensive mindset. Adding Stone Heart makes earth that much more viable for a glassy build. I am not trying to debunk your idea at all Rocket. Just know with a high toughness from traits and dire gear why would you need Stone Heart? I’d be more concerned with condi removal at that point….since Anet is trying to kill burst classes with the Ferocity bull “kitten” (still soar about it if you couldn’t tell). I would expect to see alot more Condi Bombers and would only take this trait if i was running more glassy myself.
But that’s my two cents

The way I am looking at stone heart is, it adds a lot of defence especially vs glass cannons but it adds a lot of defense vs any class using power really. I think this trait is pretty powerful and making a class that simply doesn’t die or would be very hard to kill is appealing, especially after struggling in wvw on d/d ele so much and dying so often. I just know with d/d you don’t stay in earth that much so you wouldn’t be getting the full potential of the trait, in the sense of total damage blocked. I see the ferocity change as a nerf to all power classes, which just makes condi builds more appealing. I think there is a master level spell in fire that removes 3 conditions as well, cleansing fire I think its called. That might be an option if the meta switched super heavily to conditions.

Also thanks for responding ^^

If you cast glyph while in fire attune and then swap to earth afterwards, it will continue to proc burn for its entire duration.

Burn does huge damage per stack, provides another condition to screw with cleansing, and the glyph procs every 5 seconds iirc so cleansing isn’t even that good against it (compared to signet which is totally wasted if cleansed). Additionally procs cannot be dodged/blocked so it seems like a natural inclusion.

It turns you into an engineer for 30 seconds, seems like a good deal to me.

edit: it’s a 3 second base burn, so will easily burn for 4 seconds with +33%. With 700 damage burning ticks that’s almost 3k from each proc. The reason this skill never got used in the past was eles needed all their utilities just to survive and could never last long enough to make use of this…. that may be changing

You’re welcome! its a good topic to bring up. It does sound pretty awesome. It would shift the meta from being mostly in air and fire to earth and fire. I would like to see it theory crafted on [http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/]. I think it would work pretty well with for DD too with all the immobilize you’re proposing. If you’re running full signets i would also consider written in stone so you really lose nothing by procing them. I can see and condi ele becoming pretty OP lol. Also something to think about is they will be adding “on hit” instead of “on crit” sigils. Maybe a burn or blind on hit sigil in our future? o_o

PS i was also running Bitcloud’s build for a while so i share in your struggles

Came up with a very similar build, changed a few thing though, with the patch in mind I took sigil of earth and torment for more passive procs along woth burn on crit trait and vigor on crit in arcana instead of the 10 in water. Also took perplexity runes for the passive procs for earth 1, and am using a mix of Dire and Rabid to get your crit to about 20% with the fire signet to proc the earth, torment, burning and vigor. Which synergizes well with the earth auto attack as it does 9 hits. Basically you stay in earth and use obsidium flesh to keep defence up while you rotate quickly through water, air n fire. Spamming daze, gale, blinds, heals, and some more fire aura/migh stacking. Think this build will be pretty kittened in terms of duelling but thats about it, and most likely countered by condi specs. As magnetic aura and ether renewal won’t most likely cut it.

Was thinking something like this. keep in mind the new GM in fire should be in there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJArdhMMKa23wsBf0AQ4hAGAw4hIaQSpQOA-zECBohBkCEkEAITtIaslhFRjVJLyqbY6YCpkBgZNA-w

Known concerns-
Low Health – Can compensate for this by having defense against guard stacks
No Stability – I have never run without stability and understand some people manage (at least there is a stun break).

Thoughts?

I think you guys are right about glyph being a good choice here, ill have to test it out. As for the earth GM that deals with sigil passives, it is a little odd since sigil of fire I really don’t care about my precision, earth only gives 5% toughness, and if were using the heal sigil which I don’t think would be ideal would give us basically another 3000 heal every 20 seconds for free. Stone heart will still be good. I think water 10 is good just as ens was saying it adds another condition to screw with cleansing, also for a bunker build its 100 points in vitality as well. I’ll play around with it more today.

Question though, why would we need any precision in a build like this? Seems like one of the best things about condition damage is to have high dps it only takes up 1/3 slots in gear you need.

Condi is much better with D/D much better access to Burning which is our key condition. Most of the skills in Scepter is more about direct damage than condition. The only area where Scepter is better is Earth Auto attack, much better on Scepter but that is about it when it comes to Scepter Vs Dagger when thinking about Condition Builds.

Drakes Breath has AoE Burning that in my build is potential for more than 14,000 Burning Damage. Burning Speed is solid direct damage ans the Burning is very nice and works great against groups. Scepter Just can’t do the same Burning. The Auto attack is single target and slow. Dragons Tooth is nice direct damage but in a condition build it is rather poor and easily dodged. Phoenix is exactly the same, great in power builds near useless in condition builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEEQJAoYncMcMonhwhFOsNwohyB8rdJOAQUAzLDFi8R5BNzYDA-zkCB4MIIOBkWAg8Oh5RRMTaIrl1FRjVJTIVPLy6GYkCAmpRA-w

My current Condition build, i swap Corruption out once it hits 25 stacks for Sigil of Doom for more access to different conditions.

Also those talking about Glyph of Elemental Power – Don’t waste your time. I did some testing with it. It has a TERRIBLE proc rate. It would proc 4-5 times during the 30second duration. Some times it would proc within a few seconds of another proc and then go 10+ seconds without proccing at all.

I tried it with Scepter and Dagger in different attunements and it was just not worth it. It can’t have a 20% chance to proc because even using Dagger Air for the full duration like 55-60 attacks and it would never proc more than 5 times. It just isn’t worth it.

Rocketmist.5436:

Question though, why would we need any precision in a build like this? Seems like one of the best things about condition damage is to have high dps it only takes up 1/3 slots in gear you need.

I have no Precision gear in my build. No traits or anything proc with Crit effects so it is pretty much wasted. Sure you get a little extra damage but at the cost of defensive stats. I run with Toughness and Vitality on a lot of my gear. I have 8% Crit Chance and 3% Crit damage from a Jewel that i have been to lazy to replace and it doesn’t really bother me.

All my conditions do the work, i just have to keep myself alive and Air D/D is great as it is very fast attacking and deals like 5-600 damage per a hit which is fine for me.

Looking at your build now, drake’s breath seems to be hitting pretty hard XD, still you gotta get up and close with 15k hp and only 2700 armor, also it doesn’t seem like you have any good auto attacks the stack conditions wells like scepter has in earth. But yeah you still have decent power on d/d attacks and way better healing. Are you thinking about trying to use stone heart at all with d/d condi?

I just did a bunch of 1v1s just now with my build still missing the traits in obsidian sceptum and won a couple vs mesmers, won another vs a staff ele, and lost vs eviscerate warrior. These new traits will do wonders vs these crit warriors and crit thieves, can’t wait XD.

Overall I think your build is pretty neat and would like to test it out myself maybe too, but I don’t think its fully able to take advantage of stone heart. Also earth 25 punishes you for dodging slightly too, so you have some dis-synergies with evasive arcana.

Anyway, its cool to see condi builds, im sure we’ll see more after the patch ^^

I added the link to the build at the top of my original post

Rocketmist.5436:

Looking at your build now, drake’s breath seems to be hitting pretty hard XD, still you gotta get up and close with 15k hp and only 2700 armor, also it doesn’t seem like you have any good auto attacks the stack conditions wells like scepter has in earth. But yeah you still have decent power on d/d attacks and way better healing. Are you thinking about trying to use stone heart at all with d/d condi?

I just did a bunch of 1v1s just now with my build still missing the traits in obsidian sceptum and won a couple vs mesmers, won another vs a staff ele, and lost vs eviscerate warrior. These new traits will do wonders vs these crit warriors and crit thieves, can’t wait XD.

Overall I think your build is pretty neat and would like to test it out myself maybe too, but I don’t think its fully able to take advantage of stone heart. Also earth 25 punishes you for dodging slightly too, so you have some dis-synergies with evasive arcana.

Anyway, its cool to see condi builds, im sure we’ll see more after the patch ^^

I run with Fortitude buff, so i have between 18-20k health when it hits 5 stacks. I have plenty high Toughness as well. Not quite sure why i had Elemental Power selected as i don’t run that – i run with Signet of Earth and run with around 2,000Toughness which helps a lot with the lowish health.

Yeah the Scepter Auto attack in Earth is rather nice and wish D/D Earth had the same thing. Auto attacks don’t really bother me. I normally auto attack in Air as its better for damage, faster and such. With my Burns alone doing 800+ Tick damage, auto attacks aren’t really a worry if they are rather low damage wise.

I am not sure about Stone Heart. Having it work in what is rather a terrible attunement especially on D/D isn’t that great. So you take less damage. Being in that attunement means you are no threat anyway. I have been thinking about seeing what my build would be like with a 0/0/30/20/20 build.

Written in Stone could be quite handy with the fact i run with Signet of Restro and Signet of Earth a lot. Other options could be Signet Mastery, Earth’s Embrace, Serrated Stones, Stone Splinters, Rock Solid and Geomancers Freedom. Some varying traits some offense, some defensive. The added Toughness and Condition damage could be welcome as well. Could Mean that i could swap a few bits out and maybe grab that little bit more Healing Power See if i can get Signet of Restro to give 300+ healing per a cast would be quite nice.

The only real issue i have (which most eles have) is Condition classes. I mean i CAN beat some, but it comes down to the player and such. Dagger main hand helps a lot with the direct damage builds with Thieves and Warriors that stun/interrupt can be a life saver and with Confusion it works great.

Seeing as Earth 25 only affects direct damage, i have no need for it. I wouldn’t waste traits on a condition build for direct damage. When you have plenty Burning that can tick for 800+ damage as well as Poison, Torment, Confusion and such as well. Direct damage isn’t that great. I actually don’t like the Earth 25 trait. It doesn’t fit the Trait line nor the attunement seeing as its more about defense and conditions than it is about Direct damage. Now if that was a 10% increase to condition damage when at full endurance, then we would have something decent.

Even less so when you have such low Power. I would take dodging and having that damage removed from a dodge than i would not want to dodge just to get a tiny increase in damage – not that great an idea with Condition builds on ele.

Yeah that makes more sense, its kinda lame its not condition damage. Great point.

“I actually don’t like the Earth 25 trait. It doesn’t fit the Trait line nor the attunement seeing as its more about defense and conditions than it is about Direct damage. Now if that was a 10% increase to condition damage when at full endurance, then we would have something decent.”

Trying to see if i can get around 1,000Healing Power without sacrificing too much. 1,000 Healing Power would grant around 3000 healing per a cast. If you could get that along with Written In Stone then it would be pretty decent.

Rather hard to get around 2,000Toughness, 1,000 Healing Power and a reasonable amount of Health. Debating if i could some how sacrifice some Condition damage. I have nearly 2,000 when fully buffed.

Its just tricky trying to decrease Condition damage but increase Healing Power

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Trying to see if i can get around 1,000Healing Power without sacrificing too much. 1,000 Healing Power would grant around 3000 healing per a cast. If you could get that along with Written In Stone then it would be pretty decent.

Rather hard to get around 2,000Toughness, 1,000 Healing Power and a reasonable amount of Health. Debating if i could some how sacrifice some Condition damage. I have nearly 2,000 when fully buffed.

Its just tricky trying to decrease Condition damage but increase Healing Power

Have you tried Zealot’s gear?

ThiBash.5634:

Have you tried Zealot’s gear?

I have no need for Power or Precision. It might be okay on some condition builds but due to the fact that our attacks with auto attacks being particulary weak compared to other classes i find having Power in a condition build to be pointless.

As for Precision, it depends on the build i guess. Mine has little use of Precision bar for the terrible 25point trait in Arcane. Other than that i have no need for it.