Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to mimic a celestial set for D/D(WvW) without actually investing the time to get celestial. This is the closest that I have come up with: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k;4B2-V015wM-Z0;9;69TT;9;9-m9fgm9fg10FSF6;52V6091EYa3h49s0Tk-BV6ZF18Z;9;9;9;9;9;4VT-6r

The stats come very close to that of a pvp celestial build, with a little more power and little less hp. Does anyone have a better non-celestial mix? Also is a celestial mix the best way to go for WvW? If there are other mixtures, what stats do you guys prefer and why? I’m completely open to personal opinions for the sake of ele knowledge.

Thanks!

How useful is condition damage? I always just considered something that is incidentally there and a little beneficially since we “kind” use it but more of a “nice to have” stat than an “important to have” stat.

Honestly based on my recent experience I’d drop the celestial and just go full zerker. Been testing it out in pvp, still in the early phases of testing it but so far I’ve been able to take down 2 thieves at the same time multiple times in several matches. Different thieves every time. With every other set-up I always die with facing a thief-combo.

But as for celestial-like pve stats. I go for 2x knights trinkets, 2x cleric trinkets and 2x zerker trinkets. Then depending on my weariness I go for full zerker armor, soldiers armor or clerics armor. I also have rabid armor but rarely use it nowadays since you can get high condi dmg with mightstacks as well.

@Lostwingman, good question! I’ve noticed conditions from rotations to be pretty effective. Since a traditional D/D ele seems to be more sustain than burst, keeping a mediocre amount of condition is nice. I hope someone with more experience can contribute..

@Swimsasa, what about toughness and healing power? I would assume that a talented d/p thief could drop you incredibly fast if you cant tank/heal through his initial bursts.

panicbutton.1053:

@Lostwingman, good question! I’ve noticed conditions from rotations to be pretty effective. Since a traditional D/D ele seems to be more sustain than burst, keeping a mediocre amount of condition is nice. I hope someone with more experience can contribute..

@Swimsasa, what about toughness and healing power? I would assume that a talented d/p thief could drop you incredibly fast if you cant tank/heal through his initial bursts.

Keep a constant eye out for thieves in all directions, If you see a thief stealth count to 3 and dodge. Also I use D/F so I have plenty of defensive capabilities even with a little bit less healing power and toughness.

I know you don’t want celestial, but look at how much better your stats could be!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoIGoDIIz3ogyMD-TVROwAV1DAY/hYK/yqEEs6PkCwchRA-w

Ascended trinkets are also WAY easier to get than armor

@Swimsasa, would you mind posting the D/F build you’re referring too(unless its literally all zerker as you mentioned), as it would be interesting to know what food/util you run? I was originally interested in D/F but made the post in reference to D/D so that more people could relate to the topic I main a thief and constantly get my butt handed to be by talented D/F ele’s, so I figure it would be interesting to try one out.

@Carpboy, I only notice less condition, and more critical percentage/damage with the link you posted. I feel like one could easily tune the link I posted for that, with slightly inferior stats. That and all ascended gear, which all in all will lead me to crafting, which is what I’m trying to avoid doing

panicbutton.1053:

@Swimsasa, would you mind posting the D/F build you’re referring too(unless its literally all zerker as you mentioned), as it would be interesting to know what food/util you run? I was originally interested in D/F but made the post in reference to D/D so that more people could relate to the topic I main a thief and constantly get my butt handed to be by talented D/F ele’s, so I figure it would be interesting to try one out.

@Carpboy, I only notice less condition, and more critical percentage/damage with the link you posted. I feel like one could easily tune the link I posted for that, with slightly inferior stats. That and all ascended gear, which all in all will lead me to crafting, which is what I’m trying to avoid doing

What I’m currently running is literally all zerker but with lava tomb. 66002 D/F
Its crazy how fast people go down with it and when you go down (which you will) you’ll do even more damage then before >_< (2k lava tomb and 3k on downed skill)

But when I’m in a more serious mood I use 60026 or 60206 or 40226 or 40244 and I do sometimes pick different grandmasters besides evasive arcana.

You do not need full Celestial gear or any combnation that gives “Celestial alike” stats for your Elementalist, and I’ll explain why in this post. First I will cover my build and its benefits and then I will speak a bit on alternative roles.

(These are experiences from someone who has run full, 100% Cele gear.)

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My exact build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQFAWhMMqe20wsBdUBEACpkhDEZxoZiKV6NA-TRCBAB3p0wKlB2pj4KlY1Z+DgLIAO7Pq/4qSwAeQAkBwfMA-e
Maximum damage output is 187% (360% on crit) if I use a proper slaying sigil instead of Sigil of Force in the Staff and combine it with a potion.

You need only five Charged Quartz Crystals and Artificer 400* to create this setup, as you only have to create the single Staff and optionally, Trident. Use Ascended Laurel merchant trinkets and a Spinal Blades or Quiver of a Thousand Arrows/Yakkington’s backpiece (these are crafted in the Mystic Forge and require farming only a single VIal of Mists Essence in Fractal which only take a few hours) or another backpiece with selectable stats which will usually offer Celestial (e.g Mawdrey).

• For D/D you need an extra 5 crystals for creating two weapons instead of one.

Most of your stat selection comes from weapons and trinkets, not armor. So you want your armor to remain Berserker because your defensive stats won’t hurt too much since they have low contribution in comparison.

Celestial backpiece in particular has the highest stat allocation of any BP.

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Damage:
For damage I use mixed Cele and Berserker. You get very nice stats with Berserker armor, Flame Legion runes (17% damage against Burning when you have it traited), Celestial Trinkets/Staff and using the bog-standard Fire DPS damage build of 6/2/2/2/2 that maximises your percent scaling.

This is considered a “hybrid” setup because the Celestial gear still offers some Healing Power, Condition Damage, Toughness and Vitality. So you don’t die instantly like you do on full Berserker, it takes about 60% longer for you to die.

Yet I still do 3k autohits on bosses with this gear (5-6k when buffed) if I have an appropriate slaying sigil and slaying potion equipped.

You can also generally kill players in WvW with Ice bow #4 on this setup. And I don’t mean “kill them after using it a few times”. I mean you immoblize them with Earth atunement, push the ice bow key, and hit 4, and they’re defeated.

Support:
As I mentioned i still use full Celestial for support, but Clerics or Magi will do as well, since support on Elementalist is mostly about healing (they’re the de facto healer class). This is because they can reach 147% healing with Monk runes, giving about 450/tick on Regeneration, 220/Tick on Soothing Mist and 1k from Staff-Water autohits, which is a total of about 45k HP in the same cooldown as most healing skills (30sec).

You can play other support builds on Ele, such as spamming Lava Fonts for Fire fields, and having all recharge traits so you can spam CC. But they are less viable than either going full Fire or Water, as the Elementalist doesn’t have enough good utility skills to supplement their weaknesses like other professions.

So if you want to go support, do not use Celestial. I did, and I regret that I lack the Healing Power to min/max my Elementalist in that area now.

Condition Damage:
Full Dire. The Air trait line and Fire Signet provide more than enough crit rate to proc on-crit sigils and traits to stack conditions on your opponent. This leaves you without Healing Power, but if you’re on conditions then you are likely D/D or D/S+F which do not have strong healing capabilities anyway.