Guild Wars 2

Well I’ve played around with this build in PvE and I like it quite a lot / extremely fun (using Carrion armor + Cleric accessories, I wasn’t going to farm gold to redo my armor set) – I still need to test it in WvW and Dungeons. I’m not 100% sure if the damage is enough for me, but its a very balanced build that seems to last well in the frontline…the boons really make up for the what a balanced build might lack, such as enough crit (fury) or power (might stack). I personally like defense over offensive in GW2…so I’m ok with it. I might tweak it a little, once I play around with it some more.

I ended up using Rune of Dolyak..cost like 7.5g (getting more and more expensive now), but if you guys think Divinity, Undead, or Earth works better..let me know – will need to farm for the cash again. :P

BTW – how much regen does Dolyak do? Also, with a good amount in healing power that this build has..I personally thought having regen would be nice…I am pretty sure the hp regen from Dolyak runes get a boost from healing power…so I wonder how much the standard amount of regen is…and how much it is with like 600+ healing power. With the significant investing into healing power…you might as well make the most of it..no? Unlike the other stats, healing power isn’t consistently being utilized, so the passive effect might be nice.

Lastly, I tried out Signet of Restoration for a quick minute (10% of Healing Power is gained as bonus healing for the passive effect healing)…hmmmm not sure. Will need to test further, didn’t have much time last night. Not a bad idea..though I don’t think it will work against spike damage as well as Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

Do let me know if you like Rune of Divinity, Undead, or Earth better.

Thanks,
________________

UPDATE: Rune of Dolyak – “When gaining health, Regeneration ticks every second and adds 30 health per tick. The amount of health added per tick cannot be increased with Healing Power.” : ( #sadface

~ Arcadian

reQuiem.5986:

Well I’ve played around with this build in PvE and I like it quite a lot (using Carrion armor + Cleric accessories, I wasn’t going to farm gold to redo my armor set) – I still need to test it in WvW. I’m not 100% sure if the damage is enough for me, but its a very balanced build that seems to last well in the frontline…the boons really make up for the what a balanced build might lack, such as enough crit (fury) or power (might stack). I personally like defense over offensive in GW2…so I’m ok with it. I might tweak it a little, once I play around with it some more.

I ended up using Rune of Dolyak..cost like 7.5g (getting more and more expensive now), but if you guys think Divinity, Undead, or Earth works better..let me know – will need to farm for the cash again. :P

BTW – how much regen does Dolyak do? Also, with a good amount in healing power that this build has..I personally thought having regen would be nice…I am pretty sure the hp regen from Dolyak runes get a boost from healing power…so I wonder how much the standard amount of regen is…and how much it is with like 600+ healing power. With the significant investing into healing power…you might as well make the most of it..no? Unlike the other stats, healing power isn’t consistently being utilized, so the passive effect might be nice.

Do let me know if you like Rune of Divinity, Undead, or Earth better.

Thanks,

~ Arcadian

Doesn’t stack with healing power and it is 30 per tick. The rune itself is decent but for the healing it is meh, Divinity is a good choice 60 to all stats and 12% crit damage, Earth is a good contender more so if you run aura builds.

Edit: I didn’t see the edit untill after I posted. :s

Yeah, Divinity is insanely good. Dolyak’s last bonus is worthless, which is really a shame. They should really have tinkered with the scaling aspect of Healing Power and that bonus instead of simply disabling it.

love this build, and style!

yes it is very taxing be this involved, but i went back and played a few things with my p/d thief and the enjoyment wasn’t the same. It takes time to play and i bet even longer to play well, i honestly wouldnt recommend jumping into spvp cold turkey.

is it harder to play? i think so but that is the fun in it. d/d tanky has a grace that is hard to describe but amazing to dance with

Yeah, Divinity is insanely good. Dolyak’s last bonus is worthless, which is really a shame. They should really have tinkered with the scaling aspect of Healing Power and that bonus instead of simply disabling it.

I have to agree. I’m about to jump in and play with earth and divinity because I’m not real impressed with Dolyak’s and the Undead condition damage bonus is something like ~125 vs ~491 total when I was testing last night and honestly I didnt see much difference. I love the high toughness it makes all the difference in survivability with this build. Totally turned the way I play this class on it’s head and improved my game 1000%.

Your build looks interesting. I am at the moment trying to work out a proper build myself so I look around other people’s ideas.

What I would really like to see of you is a video where you do 1v1s in sPvP, best premade tournaments. I tried to judge your effectivity in your sPvP video but failed, because mostly someone else was there too, and I could not make out how much you did and how much they did.

The rest of the time you run around in WvW, which is – as we all know – very equipment-dependent. I have not watched all of the videos you made so understand if I missed something.

I don’t think Doylaks is that great though tbh. It does offer a lot of toughness which I feel like I’m still lacking. I currently have about 1400 toughness, I’m looking to try and bring that to maybe 1700, with reduced condition damage, healing power, and precision.

I’m going definitely try getting Divinitys. Doylak offers 215 combined stats (165 toughness, 50 vitality). Divinity’s offers 360 combined stats, and 12% critical damage. In addition, an elementalist utilizes all stats pretty well. Doylaks last bonus is kinda meh.

In terms of current stats, as stated above, go for 1700 toughness. I currently have 1400 toughness with dolyaks, and will lose 150 if I switch to Divinitys. My gameplay style for Wv3 is rush directly into the enemy zerg mob and cause havoc. Healing power is not as important as a stat when I’m getting focus fired heavily on, as I cannot pull off that many heals.
——————————————————-
So this is my theoretically proposed new armor setup for me:

Full Vigil Armor (Power,Toughness,Vitality) < Not sure if I can get this though…I’m not a vigil member. Maybe I can make another class to unlock it? Anyone know?

Mix of Jewelery (Toughness, healing power, and Power) and (Condition damage, vitality, power). I personally want toughness in every item possible.

Only problem with this build is that I can’t find jewelery with the stats I want… condition damage needs to be sacrificed to get toughness. I personally find precision to be a stat that I don’t really want as the effects are diminished when you have an already +20% crit chance from fury on most of the battle.

I still need to do some further theorycrafting on condition damage vs power, and % dmg mitigation from increase in toughness.

Here’s the list of all the prefix combinations:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Carrion#Prefixes
—————————————————————————-

@Arian
I don’t really have a guild that specializes in sPvP, so it would be hard for me to make a video without getting seriously annihilated because of lack of coordination.

I have played against a match against team paradigm before, we lost horribly but I ended up pressuring their mesmer treb to retreat from treb (I didn’t record this)

I’m aware that Wv3 is not a good indicator of skilled gameplay. I’m currently against Blackgate(one of the top servers), so I usually go off and find some really competent players to fight. Usually ends up with me dying b/c most of their Wv3 players travel in PvP guild groups.

@FannonCodder (Cannon Fodder?:s)
D/D ele is definitely lots of fun

daphoenix.4283:

Full Vigil Armor (Power,Toughness,Vitality) < Not sure if I can get this though…I’m not a vigil member. Maybe I can make another class to unlock it? Anyone know?

Mix of Jewelery (Toughness, healing power, and Power) and (Condition damage, vitality, power). I personally want toughness in every item possible.

Only problem with this build is that I can’t find jewelery with the stats I want… condition damage needs to be sacrificed to get toughness. I personally find precision to be a stat that I don’t really want as the effects are diminished when you have an already +20% crit chance from fury on most of the battle.

PTV set is available in few different sources.

• Dungeons – AC, SE and HOTW
• WvW Tokens
• Karma Vendors in the Cathedrals @ 42k/piece – 252k tokens Total (AFAIK only 5/6 set are available)
  http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/

I think to fully complete a customized set, you need gear from dungeons too. They have a variety of different options. There are only 2 healing types of gear. Perhaps those could be used as your some-healing-but-not-too-much set.

Precision Vitality Healing – AC, HOTW, TA
Vitality Healing Condition – CM

Dungeons sorted by Armor
Sorted by Armor Types:
Power Precision Condition – AC, CM, COF, COE, TA
Power Precision Toughness – SE, Arah
Power Precision CritDmg – COF, COE, Arah
Power Vitality Toughness – AC, SE, HOTW
Power Vitality Condition – SE, COF
Power Condition MagicFind – COE
Precision Toughness Condition – CM, TA, HOTW, Arah
Precision Vitality Healing – AC, HOTW, TA
Vitality Healing Condition – CM

OP posts several high quality videos showing his sucessful build in several practical PVP situations against an assortment of non-terrible opponents.

People still comment saying that ‘this build won’t work against a good player, etc’

wut.

daphoenix.4283:

I don’t think Doylaks is that great though tbh.

It definitely isn’t. Dolyak is a really crappy rune. The small regeneration is worth ~60 stat points, bringing the total up to ~275 points total. That is basically pure crap.

If you want toughness from your rune, Earth/Forge are far better choices. Divinity is also a better choice as you point out, as D/D makes good use of it all.

Or you could go 2xWater+2xMonk+2xEarth. It reduces your burst defense a bit, but improves your sustained survivability significantly, and it is by far the most group friendly rune setup of the bunch, especially with a 0/10/0/30/30 setup.

To OP:
Nice setup you’ve got there, I’ve tried it last night. I wasn’t fond of D/D playstyle until I tried your build, works pretty great, gonna play around with it a little and see where I can change some things..

Nice post!

@daphoenix

I love your videos. You are truly an inspiration. I have been working on a variation of your build that leans a bit more towards auras, as it takes Elemental Shielding along with Earth’s Embrace. Choosing whether to take 10 from arcane and lose Evasive as well as have longer attunement CD, or losing Cleansing Wave has been a hard decision to make. I would like to hear your feedback on this.

My main question, however, is about gear. I have been farming dungeons for power/tough/vit gear (soldier’s). I’m trying to get a full set of weapons, armor, and jewelry. Armor and weapons can be gotten from AC/HotW/SE, as well as WvW (too many badges required to be efficient), or armor from Temple Karma. Jewelry can only be gotten from WvW to my knowledge (can get rares with karma, exotics require badges), and I already have the soldier’s guild backpack with soldier’s crest.

I’m about halfway done with the set, and I wanted to know if you thought it was worth it. I would not have any extra condition damage aside from the 20 points in earth, and would not have any extra healing aside from the 10-20 points in water. And I see you use a mixture of Carrion and Cleric’s.

Also trying to decide on rune set. Divinity looks great overall, but Earth seems better suited for an aura build as it provides an extra aura. Forge seems very good overall combined with Earth’s Embrace, and 2xEarth/2xWater/2xMonk looks amazing for just raw boon and protection duration, but suffers from low stat gains.

Thanks to anyone who answers, especially daphoenix.

daphoenix.4283:

@Arian
I don’t really have a guild that specializes in sPvP, so it would be hard for me to make a video without getting seriously annihilated because of lack of coordination.

I have played against a match against team paradigm before, we lost horribly but I ended up pressuring their mesmer treb to retreat from treb (I didn’t record this)

I’m aware that Wv3 is not a good indicator of skilled gameplay. I’m currently against Blackgate(one of the top servers), so I usually go off and find some really competent players to fight. Usually ends up with me dying b/c most of their Wv3 players travel in PvP guild groups.

Well that is impressive, but as I can’t see it I can’t learn anything from it.

You can find a random group to do the tournaments, most use teamspeak and some even really know what they are doing. You don’t need a coordinated team to do a proper 1v1 though.

I know the problem with people running around in groups. You should try the jumping puzzles, I find many 1v1s there.

It think if we all work together, we can really make even a more amazing build here – improved on what daphoenix has already done.

That said…I’m really liking the idea of going Rune of Divinity or 2xEarth/2xWater/2xMonk…also I think Rampager’s daggers aren’t really needed (precision), if you go Divinity. As mentioned, this build gives you quite a lot of fury which grants you 20% crit…so I don’t feel like we need to invest to much into precision. Save those stats for something else. Personally, I’d like to have about 13% crit chance, which would make it 33% with fury…I wonder if Divinity rune alone would give me that.

Hmmmm…need to play around with stats/gear more…I would love to make this build even more survivable. The trait build looks very solid to me, though Elemental Shielding (3 sec Protection on auras) as mentioned by Muchkin does sound nice with 2xEarth/2xWater/2xMonk (boon duration). However, I’m not a huge fan of Aura builds, since they aren’t constantly triggered.

We only have 2 auras that are really easy to activate. The other requires combo and the 4th is from going all Rune of Earth (Magnetic Shield) and only activated at 20% HP…doesn’t seem as useful. I rather have a build that makes use of the boons/stats/traits as often as possible.

Since this build is very boon based, having the increased duration from 2xEarth/2xWater/2xMonk (30%) might be very nice…though yeah, not as many stat increases as Divinity. Nevertheless, a very solid idea..I’m kind of leaning toward this right now.

Also in practice, I think Glyph of Elemental Harmony (has boons also) will probably work better than Signet of Restoration. I’d like to hear others opinion on this. Also, I’m thinking of switching out Arcane Wave for something else…not sure yet.

If you guys end up doing some theory crafting to figure out which stats are most important for this build, and how much should be invested based on diminishing return – please report back. I’m really interested in seeing how much healing power is ideal.

This is what I am currently thinking:

High Investment: Vit/Toughness/Power/Condition Damage (boons for extra boost)
Medium Investment: Healing Power (defensive boons to help mitigate damage)
Low Investment: Precision (Crit Damage/Crit Chance – fury boon to fill in gap)

What’s your thoughts on Vitality vs. Toughness on elem..balance is best, but which is more important normally?

Creating a balanced build + using constant boons to improve stats overall…sounds like the best way to make an elem – versatile and fun with all our weapons. How to exactly balance these stats for optimum usages is the real question.

Thanks.

PS: Has anyone tried this build with another weapon swap Sigil (along with Sigil of Battle)?

Sigil of Intelligence: Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat has a 100% chance to critical. (No cool down!?)

Sigil of Hydromancy: You freeze nearby foes for 1 / 2 / 3 seconds when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)

Sigil of Leeching: Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat steals some health. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s) (Ingame tooltip lacks information) <— anyone know how much this steals? This link:http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing mentions “Life stealing triggered by Sigil of Superior Leeching heals for 975 health at Lvl 80.” That seems very nice – 1k heal + 1k damage..might be a good healing power gap filler.

Im giving this build a try in spvp just to change it up from staff, but im finding it impossible to manage to pull off the things youre doing in your video in terms of survival. I literally just melt when I get more than 1 person in me, and the healing skills in water attunement arent really putting out a whole lot of healing.

My damage isnt terrible, but it too isnt near where you are in your videos. I have all my abiliies keybound, and was a binder in WoW so its not new to me. I can kill off any of the NPC professions in the heart of the mists with ease, but im just not seeing that translate into spvp at all.

Im doing air>earth>fire>water rotations typically.

Do you have autotargetting activated when you play? It doesnt seem like it since you use Ride the Lightning and Burning Speed as escape abilities, so thats what im trying at the moment. I suppose that could be an issue, but since very few of our abilities actually require a target I doubt it.

What sort of gear setup are you using in spvp? I imagine you use the same sigils for the daggers, but what about the amulet/jewel? Currently im using a soldiers amulet with a clerics jewel, and trying out the dolyak rune.

Hmm, if you want more toughness and still decent dmg, I would go:

Cleirc Gear ( keep it, ele utilize it the best), Precision, Toughness, Condition Trinket and Power, vitality, toughness weapons.

All sets have toughness, 2 have powers and 1 for each vit, precision, and condition dmg. You lose a little power which is not a big concern given you take bloodlust and battle.

Rune of divinity for sure.

Total Bonus stat (with trait and without backpack):
Power: 464
Toughness: 842
Precision: 490
Vit: 388
Condition dmg: 646
Healing: 575

Oh I am fighting Blackgate as well. Are you on FA or TC?

In my opinion the best possible build for a D/D or S/D ele is a focus on the Valkyrie PvP Set. Valkyrie is Power/Crit Damage/Toughness, in sPvP you can use a Berserker’s Jewel to balance out with some Vitality. When playing sPvP I am usually at full hp again with one proper water rotation (the heal at the swap, Trident, Cleansing Wave and a dodge roll with the “Evasive Arcana” trait).

Now the point is, as a burster you need offensive stats, but you can take out Precision (Critical Chance) and invest in full defense instead. Why is that?

Arcane Power (Your next five attacks do critical damage.)

Arcane Power balances the scales. You have relatively low damage per second and in exchange, you can survive very long. But as soon as you use Arcane Power, you become a burster.

There are two things to take into consideration though. First, it requires a highly refined playstyle, because your cooldowns really have to hit (luring stunbreakers in advance, keeping track of their endurance etc.). And second, Arcane Power is still bugged. I’ve never seen it actually hit five attacks.

Runes of Divinity with that of course.

English’s not my main language so bear with me if my post is not grammatically correct.

This is turning to be my favorite topic, lot’s of great ideas to consider instead of the general negativism of Elementalist’s forum.
That rune mix is brilliant! I was using a full Rune of the Earth setup because of the protection duration bonus, but this is even better

I’ve been running a small variation of daphoenix’s build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbzxzgjEAkCmMUEiIiCPUeMTO2A

With this build i end up sacrifying Arcane Wave to get Elemental Shielding: I’m moving 10 points from Water to Earth, losing Soothing Disruption, but since I value too much Vigor I also swap Final Shield for Renewed Stamina.

Keep up the good work

Mik Hell.8206:

With this build i end up sacrifying Arcane Wave to get Elemental Shielding: I’m moving 10 points from Water to Earth, losing Soothing Disruption, but since I value too much Vigor I also swap Final Shield for Renewed Stamina.

Keep up the good work

Soothing Disruption says you gain vigor/regen when you use Cantrips (Mist Form/Lighting Flash) – do we know how much exactly? how beneficial is the vigor/regen? I will test when I get home from work. If it is not that impressive, yeah Elemental Shield would be nice. Though I would miss the healing power/vitality from the build (but i guess you could add back in with armor/upgrades).

please note that the ele is a true 80 and the ones she killed are not.

Still a skilled ele is fun to watch and frustrating to realize… im not that good. lol.
I mean i get in there with the ele and at best i can see where i screwed up…

I guess thats a good thing. So i can learn from mistakes.
err. i have no idea what video im talking about now…

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

please note that the ele is a true 80 and the ones she killed are not.

Still a skilled ele is fun to watch and frustrating to realize… im not that good. lol.
I mean i get in there with the ele and at best i can see where i screwed up…

I guess thats a good thing. So i can learn from mistakes.
err. i have no idea what video im talking about now…

not all of them, some of them were 80. Now if the ones 80 are in full gear? don’t know, but either way it was fun watching that gameplay. It did take some skill to pull that off.

reQuiem.5986:

Mik Hell.8206:

With this build i end up sacrifying Arcane Wave to get Elemental Shielding: I’m moving 10 points from Water to Earth, losing Soothing Disruption, but since I value too much Vigor I also swap Final Shield for Renewed Stamina.

Keep up the good work

Soothing Disruption says you gain vigor/regen when you use Cantrips (Mist Form/Lighting Flash) – do we know how much exactly? how beneficial is the vigor/regen? I will test when I get home from work. If it is not that impressive, yeah Elemental Shield would be nice. Though I would miss the healing power/vitality from the build (but i guess you could add back in with armor/upgrades).

I use this in my build, currently using Rampagers exotic armor set for the power/condition damage and toughness. and 3/5 cleric accessories, and currently runes of water as a place holder (still trying to make the gold required to craft the rest of the exotic accessories and buy the runes).

I have mist form and lightning flash equipped for the ability to teleport Churning Earth. The vigor is great on the cantrips with evasive arcana equipped as it allows you to heal up a fair amount and escape trouble for a few seconds.

@Rias

Thanks for the input, I didn’t really know alot of those things. How easy (or how fast) can one get armor from those dungeons anyways? (I haven’t even touched half the dungeons lol)

@Lifelike

Thanks for support. I can understand where they are coming from, most of those battles fought didn’t involve highly skilled players. Its also hard to determine what level and gear they have on, but I can get a rough idea based on how they play, how much damage they take, how much damage I take, etc.

@Antrasith
Thanks

@Munchkin

I just wanna put out what 2earth/2water/2monk is so everyone is on same page

2 rune of monk = +25 healing, 15% boon duration
2 rune of water = +25 healing, 15% boon duration
2 rune of earth = +25 toughness +20% protection duration

Stats are a tad low at a total of 75 for that combination as opposed to 360 for Divinitys.

I think for the main armor set, PVT (Power, vitality, toughness) is the best combination of stats for mostly every class. Power is considered to be overall the best offensive stat, and vitality / toughness increases your EHP (effective health points), meaning you survive much longer.

As to your build idea, elemental shielding (gain protection upon casting auras) is very useful for a 6rune of earth set. If you want to add those extra 10 points to earth, you have to either sacrifice 10 in water, or 10 in arcana. Sacrificing 10 in water means you dont heal upon changing to water attunement, and sacrificing 10 in arcana means a 11 second attunement CD from 9 seconds, and no dodge rolls to heal. Also the evasive arcana dodge roll in earth attunement behaves similarly to earth 15’s passive.

I have thought about that build before, but I find that sacrificing a heal like that really lowers your overall long term survivability (meaning small scale battles get harder). Having the extra +10 earth is obviously much better for charging into a zerg fight, but you have an increased downtime upon retreating (as you will be healing after charging in).

I made a really good video demonstrating how a D/D ele leads and charges into large zerg fights, but I was going upload that later this week (probably weekend) and try to put voice commentary on it so people can learn more from it.

@ Arian

I’ll just upload random PUG teams I join and demonstrate some of my roaming / PvP tactics.

I don’t usually jump people in puzzle unless I’m doing puzzle myself. It is pretty fun to kill trollers who stop people from progressing though.

@reQuiem

Divintitys gives 60 precision, approximately additional 2-3% crit chance with 12% crit dmg bonuses from an already inherent base 50% crit dmg bonus.

As stated in Munchkins reply, I think elemental shielding is viable. However, sacrificing a 1500ish heal every 10 seconds (be it from evasive arcana or attuning water to heal) is a rather large sacrifice. I also don’t find that I’m utilizing the protection really that well most of the time, as I am not always getting hit when protection is on. In addition, there’s a pretty significantly large amount of downtime when it comes to protection boons. Extra healing on the other hand, is always useful, and has a consistent, predictable downtime.

I still haven’t really tried SoR much in effect yet.

Just from what people have told me, power has diminishing returns apparently ( I honestly don’t know if this is true) . Also healing power gives low stat returns too from what I’ve been told.

When it comes to toughness vs vitality, you want to maximize your toughness while maintaining a decent amount of vitality. Toughness is great in any situation, be it large scale battles or small scale battles. Vitality improves short term survivability in large scale fights, whereas toughness improves survivability in both large and small scale fights. This is because you are sustaining yourself consistently in small battles, and vitality doesn’t improve overall recovery of your HP. Toughness and healing power does.

As to your weapon questions:

Weapon swap sigils do not stack
I don’t know how great sigil of intelligence , hydromancy, and leeching is.

@Cidolfas

I turn off auto targeting. I’m not even using a fancy keyboard, its a cheap crappy $5 one. I don’t need extra functions

Burning speed’s targeting system is determined primarily on camera angle iirc.
I double click the screen for Ride the lightning when i escape

I think I mentioned in the beginning of post what I run in PvP

@Vanillea

I’m on FA.

Clerics is actually toughness, healing power, and power
Are there Power vitality, toughness weapons on AH?. I might just buy a pair of daggers there.

@Arian

I’m not a big fan of critical dmg/ crit chance. Bursting does sound nice though with arcane power, but the CD is at 45 seconds so I’m not sure how great that is. Sacrificing a defensive utility for extra burst is really something I don’t wanna invest in. The only thing is you have an inherent crit chance bonus on most of the time from fury.

@MikHell

I’m running arcane shield too atm as my last utility skill for wv3. I find it to be really useful vs HB warriors and thieves.

As stated earlier, my concern for getting the +10 earth to get extra protection is that you need to sacrifice healing from either water or arcana. I don’t think thats worth it tbh.

@Requiem

The hp healing from cantrips is approximately 12-13seconds of regeneration. For me, thats approximately 2000 hp in healing. Vigor also lasts same amount of time

If you add that 2 earth/ 2 water/ 2 monk mix, its going obviously be slightly higher, perhaps around 2.5k hp heal

@crunchy and Bast
Yes not all of these players are good

@Strodor
That is actually the reason why I get arcane shielding (shield at 25% hp) instead of (33% chance of vigor on critical hit) from arcana tree. I find the vigor from teleporting into a mob with churning earth is good enough for survival.

@daphoenix

Thank you for the reply. I agree with your points about Elemental Shielding. I don’t want to lose the Evasive heal (CD too), and I don’t want to lose the Healing Ripple when I pop into water along with either losing Cleansing Wave or Soothing Disruption. The loss of Cleansing Wave could be alleviated by taking Cleansing Fire as a utility, but yeah you would still lose the Healing Ripple. I’ve been thinking of just straight out replacing Earth’s Embrace with Elemental shielding. You would probably want to take Armor of Earth as a utility in that case, but yeah, not too keen on losing Earth’s Embrace.

Anyways, to address your gear question posed to Vanillea, you cannot get PVT gear on the AH. However, it’s not that hard to get. Here’s how:

Weapons:

Ascalonian Catacombs- Super easy dungeon. All 3 paths are quick. Looks like crap but you can just skin it.

Honor of the Waves- Easy dungeon, but a bit harder to find a group for it. The gear looks very good IMO and very “frost mage”-like.

Sorrow’s Embrace- Never ran it, and can’t find a group for it. It has PVT though.

Armor:

You can get the armor in the same dungeons as the weapons, but in addition you can purchase pieces with karma from the Temples in Orr.

Jewelry:

You can only get PVT exotic jewelry from WvW for massive amounts of badges. You can get rares for karma though. Also I’d like to add that to the right of the entrance to the bank in Lion’s Arch, you can purchase a guild backpack, which is rare (don’t think there are exotic backpacks yet, but could be wrong). It has 20P 14V 14T, and you can slot it with a soldier’s crest which also has 20P 14V 14T.

You can still get rares of everything for karma from WvW, but Ascalonian Catacombs is so easy and quick, there’s really no reason not to just run it once a day. You’ll have your set in no time.

@daphoenix.4283 True but i enjoyed watching you fight, I am also a D/D ele but i go a little bit different in my build. Though i need to farm some money or dungeons cause i want more toughness in my build. So i want clerics or some from HoTw

@daphoenix

Have you played around the the idea of having a moderate amount of crit then mixing in condition damage and power? I believe you mentioned before that at some point power and +condition has diminishing returns., but have you found a happy medium?

I have debated trying to to stay around maybe a 25-35% crit rate and then mixing in +condition and PTV route.

Also for all the people that are reading then thread, playing a ele like this is not easy, it takes time and a lot of it to really feel comfortable playing it. You kinda do ride the fine line of control and chaos, and taking a whole day off from playing I can tell coming back in that it did take some effort to settle in.

Honestly it is going to take a fair amount of time to for me to really feel at ease with this build. That is fine though, I have plenty of levels to go and I am sure as you get higher, the traits, gear and stats tend to help the build out more.

Divinity runes vs boon duration (2x water, 2x monk, 2x earth, OR 2x water, 2x monk, 2x major water):

If you’re not as good with timing your buffs, +30% (or 40% or 50%) boon duration is amazing.

Going from 130% boon duration to 180% boon duration =

1.5s more regen on attuning to water
2.5s more protection on attuning to earth (technically 100% uptime with 9s prot boon on earth attune), and 3s more from Armor of Earth
4s more vigor from each cantrip
Fury and swiftness uptime over 100% (might also be that high without extra boon duration if you swap attunements fast enough)

Really, the extra vigor and protection durations are the biggest wins from this setup. Is that worth 300 stat points and 12% crit damage? I’m not sure.

However, you can probably run 0/10/0/30/30 like this. And either aura-share or have a lot of condition removal.

Spifnar.4712:

Divinity runes vs boon duration (2x water, 2x monk, 2x earth, OR 2x water, 2x monk, 2x major water):

If you’re not as good with timing your buffs, +30% (or 40% or 50%) boon duration is amazing.

Going from 130% boon duration to 180% boon duration =

1.5s more regen on attuning to water
2.5s more protection on attuning to earth (technically 100% uptime with 9s prot boon on earth attune), and 3s more from Armor of Earth
4s more vigor from each cantrip
Fury and swiftness uptime over 100% (might also be that high without extra boon duration if you swap attunements fast enough)

Really, the extra vigor and protection durations are the biggest wins from this setup. Is that worth 300 stat points and 12% crit damage? I’m not sure.

However, you can probably run 0/10/0/30/30 like this. And either aura-share or have a lot of condition removal.

^ Awesome! This is exactly the analysis was I planning on doing myself when I had time. I am still debating Divinity vs. Boon Duration Runes. 50% increase in boon duration does sound amazing…whether its worth the lose of distributed stats (300 points; I don’t care so much about the 12% crit damage), I’m not sure either…but off the bat..I think it might be..will have to test them out and see which feels better. The fact that Divinity spreads out the stats..might not really fill in the gaps of this elem build where it is most needed – especially for that stats you have a lot of (diminishing returns, might not feel the impact as much as 50% boon duration).

The way I see it:

Boons = temporary stat increases…way more than you’ll get from Divinity alone (such as fury’s 20% increase in crit and protection’s 33% reduction in damage), yes they have to be activated and will only happen when you switch attunements/use aura…but with this build that should be very often and if they last longer – that would help fill in the gap during downtime.

@ Spifnar, how are you getting 50% boon duration? I’m only seeing 40%…15% from Sup Water + 15% from Monk + 10% from Major Water. Can you give me a breakdown to 180% (80% extra)? I know 30% cames from having 30 points in arcane. Thanks.

I am in FA too so if you want to do dungeon for the gear, just pm me. And Healing is just as good if not better than vit for sustainable tank( especially ele) so I would recommend keeping cleric gear

Cleansing Wave vs. Soothing Wave….hmmmm – thoughts?

reQuiem.5986:

Cleansing Wave vs. Soothing Wave….hmmmm – thoughts?

I think from a spvp and a wv3 standpoint you have to go with Cleansing Wave, the condition remove is needed.

pve is a different story though..

My question is – pve I know dagger/dagger works but say in a dungeon instance you wanted a go the range/support route. Would daggers still work or could you switch it up and use staff? I think even this build staff could be great with attunement swapping and the PTV approach. Maybe try to stay around the 35% mark with crit, sense this build/style is a more balance build stat wise.

I looked at scepter as well and focus… I donno though Staff just seems more group friendly

Thoughs?

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and playstyles!
You certainly upped my Ele’s game!

Keep the awesomeness coming

Kind regards

Protection is basically a 33% hp increase, so imho it’s well worth the stats loss from Divinity runes, same goes with fury and regeneration.

The catch is even without the rune set up you still can get really good up time of all the boons. The difference is a matter of 1-3 second (except for might which can make a difference). Thou, boons dont need to last forever, and only when you need them. Even with this set up, you wont get perma protection unless you switch to earth right when it is off cd and then switch to other attunement immediately. 7 sec or 9 s of protection is not that important in my view cause you probably only need the first 3-5 s of protection for a quick mitigation. And perma regen doesn’t change the equation either because regen doesn’t stack in intensity. Sometimes I notice I have regen up when I am fully healed. It all come down to personal preference but I would say pure stat is more reliable than boons especially in WvW or PvP.

Mik Hell.8206:

Protection is basically a 33% hp increase, so imho it’s well worth the stats loss from Divinity runes, same goes with fury and regeneration.

^ That’s what I am thinking…max out duration seems best for this build. This is what I have so far:

Weapon: D/D seems best for this build with Battle/Bloodlust sigil. Also you could run Life, Corruption, Accuracy on separate pairs of daggers…to get the healing power, CD damage, and/or Precision buff (250 points each) and then which to Battle + Bloodlust daggers once you’ve built up the other bonus stats. Yeah, that would be time conusimg – but possible. lol.

Traits: 0/10/10/20/30…overall I think this the best, just as daphoenix linked in OP

Utility (skill #9): Arcane Shield, Arcane Wave, or Sigil of Earth. AS’s recharge is very long, so I’m not a huge fan. AW is pretty nice as is Sigil of Earth…still deciding between these. I’m slightly leaning towards Earth’s passive 100 toughness boost and CC ability..because I tend to only look/go to my utilities for situational reasons (mist form for escape, lighting flash for churning earth/escape) – not for damage skills (just habit).

Trait/Rune Boon Duration: 30% (30 points in arcane) + 15% (2 runes of sup monk) + 15% (2 runes of sup water) + 10% (2 major runes of water/monk) = 70% longer boon duration. Lastly, if you carry some Chocolate Omnombeery Cream – you can further increase duration by 20% for 30 minutes…giving you a total of 90% longer boon duration. Not bad at all. Any way to make this longer? Did I miss something? Right now I think 90% duration time > Divinity Runes in terms of impact.

Armor/Trinket Set: This is the last part, that I personally haven’t completely figured out yet. I agree Power/Vitality/Toughness should be the main stats..followed by Condition Damage and Healing Power….but exactly how to break it down / distribute these points…I have no idea. Getting the most out of your points is key and avoiding any serious diminishing returns is also important…if anyone runs some tests/theory crafts the Armor/Trinket stats for PvE/WvW – let me know what you find out.

Thanks.

My question is – pve I know dagger/dagger works but say in a dungeon instance you wanted a go the range/support route. Would daggers still work or could you switch it up and use staff? I think even this build staff could be great with attunement swapping and the PTV approach. Maybe try to stay around the 35% mark with crit, sense this build/style is a more balance build stat wise.

I looked at scepter as well and focus… I donno though Staff just seems more group friendly

I don’t find this build to be very good in dungeons and find staff far more useful. It’s really best for WvW/PvP.

Deadfall.4601:

My question is – pve I know dagger/dagger works but say in a dungeon instance you wanted a go the range/support route. Would daggers still work or could you switch it up and use staff? I think even this build staff could be great with attunement swapping and the PTV approach. Maybe try to stay around the 35% mark with crit, sense this build/style is a more balance build stat wise.

I looked at scepter as well and focus… I donno though Staff just seems more group friendly

I don’t find this build to be very good in dungeons and find staff far more useful. It’s really best for WvW/PvP.

I heard one Ele saying he did well using D/D in dungeons, by maintaining Protection and sharing his Auras. (Wooden Potatoes on youtube)

Dual.8953:

Deadfall.4601:

My question is – pve I know dagger/dagger works but say in a dungeon instance you wanted a go the range/support route. Would daggers still work or could you switch it up and use staff? I think even this build staff could be great with attunement swapping and the PTV approach. Maybe try to stay around the 35% mark with crit, sense this build/style is a more balance build stat wise.

I looked at scepter as well and focus… I donno though Staff just seems more group friendly

I don’t find this build to be very good in dungeons and find staff far more useful. It’s really best for WvW/PvP.

I heard one Ele saying he did well using D/D in dungeons, by maintaining Protection and sharing his Auras. (Wooden Potatoes on youtube)

FYI – I’ve used this build in all aspects of the game – including dungeons..and to my surprise I did extremely well in frontline…and you know what…D/D is a billion times more fun then backline staff support. lol. But that’s subjective….I just like feeling like a ninja that doesn’t take much damage. :P

My elementalist is only lvl 43 but in the dungeons ive tried so far with this build (ac/explorable, cm) its done pretty well and i dont even have most of the traits yet.

My question is what do you guys think about replacing the weapon sigil of battle with sigil of hydromancy. Ive been using it and im really liking the aoe chill+damage hydromancy gives.

reQuiem.5986:

Armor/Trinket Set: This is the last part, that I personally haven’t completely figured out yet. I agree Power/Vitality/Toughness should be the main stats..followed by Condition Damage and Healing Power….but exactly how to break it down / distribute these points…I have no idea. Getting the most out of your points is key and avoiding any serious diminishing returns is also important…if anyone runs some tests/theory crafts the Armor/Trinket stats for PvE/WvW – let me know what you find out.

This is the bit that I’m wondering about too. Especially since I also play staff and can’t afford two sets of gear yet. Though admittedly both weapon sets do both kinds of damage. Hmm.

@Munchkin

Thanks for all that information. Didn’t know about the soldiers crest

@fannonCodder

Haven’t gotten my new PVT armor set yet, and I’ve been too busy to conduct more theorycrafting testing. Someone else should try conducting some data on power vs condition damage, and statwise returns on toughness and healing power :S

playing an elementalist definitely takes alot of practice. I notice that when I watch my videos, its pretty frustrating to see myself make so many errors lol.

@spifnar

I’m not sure where your numbers are coming from

@reQuiem

There both too good to sacrifice. Soothing wave is better though imo

@vanillea

pm me in game when I’m on

I also think that Divinitys is better than more boon duration. I agree with what you say, because there are times where that extra reg, swiftness, vigor, etc. isn’t really needed.

@ReQuiem

Stacking those on kill bonuses dont work

I’m currently running arcane shield with mist form and lightning flash. I find the 3 blocks to be extremely useful vs warriors who will spin with quickness at you and take out half your hp in 1 second, and against thieves.

I wouldn’t bother with that consumable. I think getting peach pie (70hp reg/sec) is much more useful.

@deadfall

I run everything the same with PvE and Wv3. I’m currently doing AC, and I can definitely say that D/D is way more useful than staff in that dungeon.

@ReQuiem
D/D is definitely more fun

@Lavish
I personally like having an additional 6 stacks of might (up to 9) from weapon swapping, for a total of 200 power and 200 condition (or more).

@Kirtai
Try buying dirt cheap green armor, or some cheap rare armor to try it before investing in exotics.

Protection is basically a 33% hp increase

33% damage reduction equals a 50% effective hp increase.

As daphoenix said on kill bonuses don’t stak and runes might be a matter of personal preference, I will try out both sets and see which one suits my play style.

Wildclaw it’s been a while since my last math class, I’m a relatively old player

@Nearo

You made a thread with this same post, and then copied it to this thread and one other… Not to be mean but it kinda trollish…

Now you say your wife has not spend any traits and using the same skills? I find that hard to believe, mainly because you start with a axe and then either get a off hand after the starting part. So if she is using a bow she had to pick it up and switch skills, and not spending skill points?? I wont go after that.

Now…. Elementalist =/= mage. I cannot stress that more then anything.

honestly I want to post a ton more but for some reason it is going to turn into troll food for your post. All the post is a rant…

/sigh

I ran quite a bunch pf dungeons using this build and D/D combo. Results are so-so. Survivability is good but dps is tad low. Especially of the group already had a good tank.

Instead I use same build but using full berserker gear and staff. Survivability is quite decent but dps is good too. Dungeons benefit from AE and that is where we shine. I just switch gear appropriately.

AC dungeon – high dps, staff meteor shower required

COF esp path 1 – I switch to tanky heal gear because mobs hit harder and are more in your face esp the gate part where mobs spawn. I am basically unkillable.

These are just sone examples. Just swap gear depending on situations. The build can stay the same.

As he’s said before, the build is just a general guide for you. You don’t have to follow it exactly. I’ve changed it to 0/0/25/25/20 and replaced traits that work better for my gameplay. CoF Path 1 is quite possibly one of the easiest paths I’ve ran. And that’s sticking with D/D the whole time. Even running with the AC Set Power/Vit/Tough and the Monk Runes, I still do extremely well.

First off I would like to thank everybody that contributed in this thread on working on a build for an elementalist. I love the videos and it has def. changed my mind about how I should go about changing my play style. However I wanted to pose a question on this thread, although I love that D/D playstyle, in WvW, it doesn’t seem practical when my guild/zerg is attacking a keep/tower.

I would love to switch to staff for the AOE fields. Then once we’re back on our way, I would love to be able to switch over to D/D to tackle some mobs or even possibily back to staff when we encounter large mobs. This would require the switching weapon function which we don’t have as an ele, so I’ve always have my inventory up in the smallest size it can go and in the top right hand corner so I can easily switch weapons as needed. Question: Does anyone know what’s considered in combat aside from the obivious? Sometimes I won’t have any condition stack on me, no mobs attacking me, but I still can’t change gathering picks/change weapon.

Is there any clarification that would detail what would be considered “in-combat” I would love to be in WvW and run into a “small” mob of defenders and only to get in close range and realize that it’s actually 30+invaders and pull back, go out of combat and switch over to a staff. Sorry for the long rant. Any help is appreciated!

I just discovered something really cool about evasive arcana:P

Evasive arcana gives you a spell at the end of your dodge depending on your attunement with a 10second cd with each spell.

Each spell generated from this dodge roll is considered a “combo blast: finisher”, which is very similar to arcane wave. Even the water attunement’s dodge is considered a combo blast:finisher.

That being said, you can actually generate AoE might to the team simply by dodging into a fire field. For instance, I can swap to fire (1 stack of might) then I can use fire 3(burning speed) and dodge directly back into the line i just made to generate 3 stacks of might. I can then proceed to cast ring of fire, followed by weapon swap (another 3 stacks) and then dodge (under earth) within that field to grant another 3 stacks of might. Combine that with earth 4, and earth 5 for an extra 6 stacks. Add arcane wave for an extra 3 stacks. That’s already 22 stacks of might.

^This combination could be used to grant your team in PvE those stacks of might as well. S/D is not the only way to permanently maintain 25 stacks of might for an entire team.

You can see where this is going. It can be used to generate offensive power against really tanky opponents. I can easily effectively have a long standing 25 stacks of might, using runes that increase boon duration. 25 stacks of might = 25×35 = +875 power and condition damage

Yeah, I thought that was standard practice with Evasive Arcana, that’s why I consider it awesomness made trait :p

Staff is the weapon which benefits most out of EA, just think about the healing gained from an Healing Rain plus dodge combo, the aoe frost aura with Frozen Ground(good sinergy with aura build), might out of Burning Retreat and Lava Tomb….

Evasive Arcana is OP and I’m quite sure it’s one of the most important reasons i love my Elementalist so much: it gives me that flexibility advertised on profession’s description.