Guild Wars 2

Hey daphoenix, I’m back to post a reassessment of your build, and what a build it is! Earlier I stated that I had been underwhelmed with this build in spvp after having trouble surviving the initial burst of thieves, and I did have trouble, but there was an unfortunate reason for that: user error/a.d.d. during the gearing stage.

After I took a week off from spvp, I returned only to realize that although I had placed in superior runes of the dolyak as per your suggestions, I had forgotten to switch out my berserker’s amulet and jewel, thus missing out on almost all the essential toughness of this build. Doh. After swapping in the soldier’s I’m happy to report that I’m now having a much more successful go in spvp.

As for the WvW gear, I spent a few weeks saving and got cleric’s gear with 6 superior runes of the earth and a triforge pendant and am currently sitting on about 1640 toughnes. However, I see that you’ve recently swapped from dolyak’s to 2 monks, water, and major water. I’d like to ask a a few questions about this change: This swap probably made a significant change to your overall toughness. Does this mean that you’ve changed your mind about how much toughness is enough for WvW? Previously I think you had suggested 1700 toughness. What are your thoughts on this number now?

As always thanks for the advice. I’m looking forward to more great videos.

nvmvoidrays.2158:

@daphoenix: that’s an… interesting combo. why not get a 6 set bonus (or a 4 and 2)? is the extra boon duration really that good? ’cuz, that combo gives you an extra 45% boon duration (iirc).

It gives him 40% boon duration, which is an effective 30.8% duration boost from 30 Arcane. And yes, boons are fairly good. Just to compare with divinity runes, boon duration provides the following:

• Boosting protection from 43 to 56% uptime which is ~130 points of toughness, or more if gearing toughness.
• The runes directly gives 65 healing power.
• Fury will perhaps go from 85 to 100% which would gives you another 3% crit or 63 Precision.
• Might from 6 to 7.8 stacks will add 63 Power/Condition Damage.

That leaves extra Regen, Swiftness and Vigor vs 60 Vitality and 12% Crit Damage.

All in all we can see that boon duration runes should at least be a good option to divinity runes. Divinity Runes do have the advantage of not being backloaded. And it is possible to cap fury without boon duration runes if you use Auras on cd.

But on the other hand, I didn’t factor in the grandmaster minor water trait which is probably another 30-40 stat points, nor the occasional group splash on your buffs. You can also build more might stacks if you are good

In my opinion, boon durations comes out stronger than divinity runes unless you are receiving boon support from someone else.

Minoru.1237:

After I took a week off from spvp, I returned only to realize that although I had placed in superior runes of the dolyak as per your suggestions, I had forgotten to switch out my berserker’s amulet and jewel, thus missing out on almost all the essential toughness of this build. Doh. After swapping in the soldier’s I’m happy to report that I’m now having a much more successful go in spvp.

As D/D in sPvP always carry a couple of amulets around as it allows you to trade survivability for damage in a very fluid manner. Our traits are pretty much locked in place due to some traits being so much better than others, so we have to rely on gear to tweak our damage output.

Arg! I just spent 40g building a clerics set socketed with divinity runes!

Now, people are saying boon duration is far superior than divinity runes for this build?

Fiddle sticks guys….fiddle sticks! Lol.

Update from my findings last night:

I swapped over to the 0/10/0/30/30 before the guild met and went out. It worked really nice! I didn’t have any survivability issues at the loss of the 10 in earth and the increased swiftness is just sick.

We had several instances where the guild leader was calling everyone away from the zerg vs. zerg battles and I was able to hang in and distract and confuse people while our guys got away and then evac myself without being caught. Awesome feeling!

I also really, REALLY liked being able to chase down enemy players so much easier. I got a lot more kills than normal because people couldn’t escape me.

All this and I only have 5 PVT exotics, 1 knight’s rare weapon, 1 carrion rare weapon, and mis-matched improper runes….can’t wait until I’m fully geared!!

Side notes:

Swapping over to a staff in this build also works just fine. I only do so for keep defense and providing aoe healing and damage on gates/wall defenses, but I am content with the results. Magnetic aura (earth staff #3) will trigger a secondary speed boost with this build btw in addition to air staff #4 regular skill.

I am pretty sure that fire shield will also activate the aura buffs if you find yourself with a focus equiped. (which you should on occasion)

I did run into another D/D ele from Yak’s Bend and found it to be a stalemate just because I either couldn’t catch them or our abilities canceled each other out. Great fight either way, even though it ended in a draw with them running away one direction and me the other.

Hey there! I’ve been following this thread for a while, reading in on what everyone is saying and taking into account all the questions and answers. I think this is really great and really helpful. Especially since, when I started my elementalist, all I generally found were threads complaining about how bad Eles were. I tried changing at one point, but I just couldn’t get as absorbed into other professions as I did with my Ele. In the end, I stuck with it, and now I’m finding more and more threads like these popping up. Makes me so happy, honestly. I am definitely not the best, and I definitely die a fair bit, but in my opinion, Ele is a super fun class and I’m glad people are finding a way to work with it/are enjoying it.

But uh, anyway. Little story thing aside, I had a quick question for you. I’m currently trying to level to 40 (level 37) at the moment. However, I find I generally get bored of PvE play after a few hours, meaning that even if I make myself continue, more often than not I find myself just dawdling around and not doing anything. Which means leveling is pretty slow (unfortunately). And while this isn’t a HUGE issue, it is an issue. Mostly because I’ve been wanting to try out WvW for a long time. At first, I told myself I’d wait to level 80. At least then I would have level 80 gear, even if it wasn’t as optimal as it could be.

And while that is still a viable option, I’m getting really, really impatient. Oops?

Anyway, the short version is that I’m thinking about forgetting the whole “get to 80 first” thing, and just jumping in when I’m level 40. Now, my question to you (and this thread in general, I suppose) is what build/stats should I be looking into for going in at such a level? I currently have ten in earth, ten in water, and by the time I get to 40, I will also have ten in arcana. From your build, it seems like I should switch out the ten in earth for ten in air, but my main concern is that my toughness will already be lacking due to my low level gear. Thus, I don’t know if doing that would be such a good idea.

Anyway, I’m just asking for any general opinions/tips to going into WvW at level 40. Honestly, I’m probably going to die a lot anyway while trying to figure out the mechanics and up my WvW skill level (especially considering I’m a complete newbie at anything even remotely PvP), but I’d like to increase my chances at surviving/actually doing slightly okay as much as possible.

Thanks a bunch in advance!

(Also, I’m slightly laughing at the fact that I kept saying “short” version and whatnot, and this still ended up kind of long. Sorry about that.)

@reQuiem

Yes your idea was good =P

@Srebrna
Healing power is definitely useful from what I’ve seen. I haven’t done any calculations yet

@Minoru
My toughness at the moment is approximately 1600. The boon duration i get from the runes is extremely useful for both survival (increased regeneration and protection) and DPS (longer stacks of might)

@Wildclaw
Thanks for the analysis =P. Actually I didn’t think about swapping amulets in gear in sPvP, thats a great idea!

@XoDoK
Were you in video 2 or 1?: S

@DivineBeing
Yea my bad i didn’t update my build recently.

@Bleeds
glad your having fun =p

@chandelier
Well if you get bored trying using different weapon combinations. Staff, S/D, D/D, S/F, D/F, etc and familiarize yourself with them.

As for traits and gear, get the 10 air trait as soon as possible. The next traits should go to a mix of arcana / water.

Also buy your gear from auction house. you can get free armor there by simplying buying blue colored gear then reselling it at a merchant when your done using it.

I’m making a new guide at the moment:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-elementalist-11-6-12/first#post656535

I might make a website too, once I get it up and running then make other guides.
Also don’t forget to check out my latest video

Do you use 0/10/0/30/30 on WvW too?

@chandelier – Don’t forget that crafting is still a fast way to make exp if you just aren’t into the PvE grind. I’m messing with a engi and a thief on the side and leveling by crafting and DE’s that I come across while out gathering. I have leveled up 2 other chars besides my ele and I feel your pain on filling in hearts to level! Hang in there, I find the 35-50 level range to be the worst. Once you break out of it you can get to zones with a lot going on and a good flow to them.

@Aurum – Yes, daphoenix definately uses that build in WvW.

@daphoenix, I was in neither. I think my scraps were earlier that night, but I distinctly remember your character and your playstyle. I was showing WvW to one of my noobie friends and was trying to explain to him that there must have been a skilled player behind this elementalist. On a side note, watching your vids has inspired me to put my staff away and take daggers for a spin. I was not disappointed.

@XodoK
Glad you like d/d =P

@aurum
yes

@bleeds
leveling is a pain >_>

I made a new video, and will probably follow this format in the future videos I make. I’ll upload some with commentary (for you learning players out there) and some with music (cause no one wants to listen to elementalist commentary if they haven’t played one)

daphoenix.4283:

@XodoK
Glad you like d/d =P

@aurum
yes

@bleeds
leveling is a pain >_>

I made a new video, and will probably follow this format in the future videos I make. I’ll upload some with commentary (for you learning players out there) and some with music (cause no one wants to listen to elementalist commentary if they haven’t played one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ-c0wK13Ww

Being from yaks bend, I’m kinda embarrassed by how poorly they were doing. Just horrible zergers with no idea on position. They just run in and get chewed up. Killer play and positioning.

well played ele is cool to watch.
hit and run.
pull some chasers. kill them.
use speed/maneuverability to control the fight.
thanks for sharing man

Here’s another video

that one is again stunning… how are they not focus firing you into nuthin.
still what is your level of enjoyment from doing that amazing work?

They actually are hitting really hard, I’m just doing so much CC’ing , juking, dodging, and blocking that I actually mitigate most of my damage on me

How much difference did it make for you switching from Carrion to PVT gear, is it really noticeable or not so much?

daphoenix.4283:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzBn32Fqm9w

Here’s another video

spec/gear/runes?
How are you stacking so much might?
It looks like you’re using evasive arcana in that vid.
Your hp is above 17k so your gear probably has vit on it, or at least your accessories do.
I use 0/10/10/30/20, knight’s exalted 4pc, and the pvc% accessories and have around 16.8k hp. I’ve been using 40% swiftness duration and swiftness on heal. The damage is lacking, but escape is easy.

@Strodor
I noticed a big difference in survivability

@Katniss
Evasive arcana is considered a blast finisher, but don’t get used to it cause it was probably never meant to be this way.

Here’s my newest video
enjoy

daphoenix.4283:

@Strodor
I noticed a big difference in survivability

@Katniss
Evasive arcana is considered a blast finisher, but don’t get used to it cause it was probably never meant to be this way.

Here’s my newest video
enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5LPuQdiMCE

nice ending. classic sci fi.
so on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is as much fun as you have ever had in a game.
how would you rank this?

BTW the commentary is pretty good.

nice vidya.

i do have a question: i noticed from your WvW commentary videos to these new ones, you switched around your spells a bit.

you’re using cleansing flame, mist form, lightning flash and tornado rather then earth armor, mist form, lightning flash and elemental(iirc). is cleansing fire really that good and is tornado worth using just for the stability over using the elemental?

and, color me curious: what foods do you run? judging by the increase in health, omnomberry bread or cookie?

EDIT: i also love the whisper you get about the ranger saying his team thought you were hacking, l0l.

how do u acomplish this u must have really good FPS i could only hope to do all this in my dreams.. ive tried and tried again with D/D i guess i need more practice :P

Whew so we got hit with the nerf bat a little bit today. things that stuck out to me were:

• Updated Rune of Water to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
• Updated Rune of the Monk to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
• Updated Rune of Earth to provide 15% protection duration instead of 20%, and 3 seconds of protection instead of 4 seconds in PvP.
• Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended blast finishers.
• Healing Ripple (the heal when attuning to water): This skill’s scaling with healing power has been reduced by 50% in PvP only, as it had scaling that’s normally reserved for main healing skills. The maximum number of targets has also been reduced from infinite to 5.

Now I’m not sure how bad the evasive arcana change is. If it make it so all of them are no longer blast finishers then thats really bad. However the fire/earth spells that get triggered are actually blast finishers, so hopefully those will still work. These nerfs were probably justified, what do you guys think?

Edit: Confirmed that evasive arcana gives no blast finishers. Also it seems the tooltips for the runes weren’t updated, so its hard to tell is major monk runs got nerfed too.

Reportedly, evasive arcana does not produce any blast finishers at all now.

daphoenix actually says in his commentary or guide or whatever “dont get use to evasive arcana blast finishers”

Was just in pvp after the update, didn’t notice a big change for worst in this build… I guess staff eles got it worst.

Raikkonen.3196:

owever the fire/earth spells that get triggered are actually blast finishers, so hopefully those will still work.

I don’t know why I keep seeing this. Unless it’s a completely undocumented effect, the fire spell is not a blast finisher (it’s the same as staff 3).

Neither is the earth finisher according to the stickied bug list.
It’s Shockwave but the animation is churning earth

Hi I am running a similar build.

Though I gave up the last 10 arcane on 10% more damage on fire. That is because I don’t find evasive arcana (or anything in the last tier of arcane very useful). Good thing since it is now nerfed (and bugged)

10% more damage on fire benefits more from various weapon combinations, especially staff.

I am running full PVT gears. I agree D/D benefits from many stats, but I chose PVT because more often than not I find myself RTL or burning speed into a cluster of dungeon mobs (it is my natual reflex I do this when I see mob cluster…too juicy to pass up!). I would need enough survivability to perform a series of combos and get out alive.
PVT gears would benefit me more than precision as it is good for other weapon combi as well.

My weapons all stay PVT, mainly because I am too lazy to plan other sets. Plus I am glad to take Toughness and Vitality over crits. Yup even for staff (you never know).

Trinkets are PVT as well for the same reasons. The only way to get full PVT exotic trinket set now is wvw.
I used to run cleric set, but seriously the heal on ele isn’t at all amazing. So I trade in heal for power and survivability. I retain the full water spec.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

Neither is the earth finisher according to the stickied bug list.
It’s Shockwave but the animation is churning earth

To be fair the spell effect is also churning earth since shockwave causes immobilize and is linear rather than radial.

kirtar.8453:

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

Neither is the earth finisher according to the stickied bug list.
It’s Shockwave but the animation is churning earth

To be fair the spell effect is also churning earth since shockwave causes immobilize and is linear rather than radial.

yeah true. who knows what that thing is.
likely its not casting any other spell in code. its casting a new spell that is supposed to be something else but is a copy and has not been updated to match whatever the actual spell is.

That “thing” is second tier minor earth trait: Earthen Blast, damages foes and clipples them for 3 seconds (when attuning to earth).

Mik Hell.8206:

That “thing” is second tier minor earth trait: Earthen Blast, damages foes and clipples them for 3 seconds (when attuning to earth).

I’m fairly certain the EA spell causes bleeding, so it’s probably not a normal spell.

That’s true, I’ll jump on the “who know” train then.

@Nvmvoidrays

I run mango pies and master tuners
tornado is more or less useless now, unless you intend to knock off alot of people
(I’ve knocked off 13 people with it and killed 8 within one duration of tornado – will upload that video later)
Cleansing fire is great b/c it removes alot of conditions and has a low CD.

@lord
lots of practice =P

@Raikkonen
everything except eliminating evasive arcana to nothing is justified. They should’ve just reduced its effects as a blast finisher.

@everyone
Yes evasive arcana no longer gives blast finishers for stacking might

well first i wanna say that your build is very awesome but i dunno how do you use the earth skills without get instantly killed and i wanna know what armor/runes/jewelry etc. you use for wvswvsw and if this playstyle is also useable for dunegeons/pve?

@Shazor, not trying to be a troll, but those questions are pretty much answered in the first few posts of the thread. The latter questions you had are answered in his video commentary.

@RawkFist
Yeah i know what you mean but the posts are about a month and since that there was a lot of patches so i just wann know if they are still up to date.

@Shazor
Could try making one and give it a shot. I know a lot of new players are looking for pre-existing builds to build a foundation to start on, but you will never learn the class until you play it yourself and learn the builds.

But to answer your question, DD elementalist build has always been and is a viable build even with the updates. How you should build it depends on what you want it to do. If you want to troll WvW against really “questionable” players, then build a full tank spec and learn your rotations (not to jab at phoenix here). Keep in mind though, that your objective is not really to burst but win through attrition.

If you want it to be a bit more offensive, consider adding critical hit to your build and don’t play recklessly (a good DD ele can pretty much burst down most squishy classes in 1 rotation with arcane finishers). Lightning —> Fire and they explode.

For PvE and especially dungeons, you are hurting your group for the most part by using this build as a tank because you could be doing much more damage otherwise. Ele’s can do massive aoe burst damage with staff or scepter, and has great condition damage if specced into it. You can go DD glass cannon and live on the line as a squishy in dungeons too

@whatever
Kinda sad this bandwagon got created since Staff/DD tank ele spec was one of the first tuned builds I enjoyed in WvW and especially SPvP. grumbles :P

Here’s a video of all my epic tornado compilations =P

You’re not Dabeastie from TSW by any chance?

Are you running Superior rune of Dolyak or divinity ?

@Marz

Nope no idea who that is

@lleyst
2sup rune of water, 2 sup rune monk, 2 major rune water

@daphoenix

hey Do u have any pve ele vids i really like to see the other side of the boat here i kno its amazing in pvp but like engame wise in pve i wanna see that action too aswell and it well help me decide to actually lvl it up

Hey there. :) I really love your videos (about to watch the tornado one atm, actually), and the fact that you’re inspiring all sorts of elementalists. It’s really great, since I know a lot of them get disheartened from time to time.

But, uh, flattery aside, lol.

I just have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.

First being, and I don’t know if you’ll remember, what gear did you use before you got your AC gear? Did you just use anything that could give you the right stats? I’m just wondering, because I have yet to acquire that gear myself, and was wondering what would be best to run with while I’m working my way towards getting it.

Also, how long did it take you to get all of your gear?

Also, why don’t you use Ether Renewal? I myself started off with Signet of Restoration, because I thought the healing per skill (when we have so many) was pretty great. But in WvWvW, where you need to have a ton of condition removals, wouldn’t Ether Renewal be optimum? It not only gives you more healing power than Signet (when activated, anyway), but it also removes conditions. Granted, one of the cons is that it isn’t instant, and you have to run around looking like sort of an idiot for two seconds, but it isn’t SUCH a huge issue. Especially if you were to use RTL to give you some space between your opponent(s) and yourself, and then pop that. Granted, I haven’t actually tried my hand at WvWvW yet, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I was just curious.

PS, sorry if you’ve already answered these questions before, and thanks for taking the time to read. :)

After the change to ether renewal I use it in spvp and wvw. With ether renewal you don’t need cleansing fire anymore, because of the condition removal and short CD.

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This build is drastically overpowered. When I first started going up against players using this build, I called it the “armored cannon build” because that’s exactly what it is.

This is pretty much THE Elementalist build for WvW. This build is going cookie-cutter and needs a nerf for good reason. The “only 0.1% of players are capable of playing this way” argument is completely inaccurate. The same argument was once used for Mesmers, and look what happened to them.

@Erebus Delirium

HOW is this build OP. lol. i admit honestly if u play it right (which ive been practicing) u rarely ever….. die. i think this is wat the build brings is like ultimate survivability. and u can bring on some added pain aswell to ur enemies and i love it lol.

Erebus Delirium.4892:

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This build is drastically overpowered. When I first started going up against players using this build, I called it the “armored cannon build” because that’s exactly what it is.

This is pretty much THE Elementalist build for WvW. This build is going cookie-cutter and needs a nerf for good reason. The “only 0.1% of players are capable of playing this way” argument is completely inaccurate. The same argument was once used for Mesmers, and look what happened to them.

Learn to counter it and you’ll be fine. We need to be close to you to do anything, so use any immobilize/stun you have.

Our main damage skills are fairly easy to evade if you know what to look for, See a ball of lighting coming at you? dodge just as it hits you. This will also stopped you from getting knocked down as most players will use updraft just as they hit. Same goes with burning speed, use whatever you can to get away and keep your distance from us.

Erebus Delirium.4892:

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This build is drastically overpowered. When I first started going up against players using this build, I called it the “armored cannon build” because that’s exactly what it is.

This is pretty much THE Elementalist build for WvW. This build is going cookie-cutter and needs a nerf for good reason. The “only 0.1% of players are capable of playing this way” argument is completely inaccurate. The same argument was once used for Mesmers, and look what happened to them.

This is very true and it is highly likely to get nerfed if a lot more Ele’s start using this build in Wv3, eg. EA nerf. The build itself now that EA has been fixed is pretty much harmless in Wv3 except that its survivability is too much and Ele’s can harass large numbers of people indiscriminately much more effectively than a tank can.