Guild Wars 2

Staff and daggers dont work because they restrict moment.

You have to be in melee or the enemy has to stand still on your field or you stop moving to cast or you are moved out of alignment or allies have to stand still on your field.

I know you guys hate scepter and hate warhorn, but can we actually theorycraft together a useful build? For what will probably be the sc/w raid meta?

Both staff and daggers work very well in melee. Raids won’t change that. That said, sc/warhorn isn’t a bad pick either.

I used it to excellent effect in BWE3 to the tune of the second phase of the final boss before my team started screwing up the color split.

My color was always dead and I was a major contributor to that end. Ele’s are still going to be a good pick for DPS (direct and condi) and potent party sustain.

A potential setup might be a good druid specced to do a mix of healing and damage + an ele with more or less the same setup (more biased to DPS).

This would be a great addition to a raid team. Together they’ll be able to keep their group alive and still contribute respectable DPS for bosses that are heavy DoTs.

Weapon picks won’t really matter for ele in that regard. It’ll depend more on what you want to build your traits around, and on that + effectiveness is where people will argue.

Personally it doesn’t matter to me all that much as long as your setup makes sense for what you’re claiming to do and you’re not a liability.

I don’t think most people will care as long as you’re not full of crap when you’re offering to fill a role.

IE if you say you’re DPS, don’t show up in nomad’s. If you’re not pure DPS, be honest about it and explain what you’re doing or wanting to do.

If you’re using staff, don’t play it at max range when you need to be with your party at the front.

Things like that. Be what you say you are and don’t play like an idiot and most people will be peachy keen.

Not really that into raids, but a poster here discussed a condition tempest build that she did quite well with for the content. It was D/WH rabid/sinister and used earthen proxy to ensure it had enough damage mitigation with all of its toughness that the signet heal could sustain the attacks that weren’t wholly dodgeable, and apparently the burn output and boonshare skills with such a build ended up being quite high. I’d imagine you’d start out in earth to stack protection with earth overload, then camp fire to burn everything forever.

Scepter is unusable in pve because it has absolutely no decent sustain damage. The only saving grace for it was/is lightning hammer which nullifies that flaw. However, might stacking doesn’t belong to ele any more hence this build is rather not used.

I can’t see anything decent you could get from getting a warhorn which arguably doesn’t offer anything other off-hands do.

Zerk staff is still going to be a thing with ice bow and it’s 5s stun. It’s still one if not the strongest power builds. Maybe some further buffs to scepter can bring f/a builds back (I’d love that)

Support builds are going to be out classed we are better going damage and providing water fields for blast heaking

5s stun in raids? Haven’t you heard about breakbars?

I won’t bother giving suggestions anymore, as it seems some guilds have certain privileges so their input will work better than mine anyways.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Staff and daggers dont work because they restrict moment.

False and false. Eles will continue to be the most busted class post HoT.

I’ve been told many times how “Un-viable” my S/Wh burn heal build is going to be, but I think it’s working out pretty well and will be in good form once i’ve got access to overloads again. I plan on doing a full rundown once i’ve had a chance to get through some raids as well.

The actual elementalist is not meta for show. There are plenty of tools that make it meta beside it’s DPS. Conjure, ability to blast, usefull combo field, boon provider, mobility… etc. And Tempest only add more to these. What we could see in the raid sample was primarily that healing is secondary and tanking marginal.

There is a lot of elementalist’s build possibilities for raids :
- The classic staff build which will be as effective as it is right now if you got a good agro manager (tank).
- Probably a staff healer with a build mostly focused on healing but in DPS gear.
- A Dagger melee bruiser that could even tank since the boss damage are negligible. Be it tempest or pure elementalist there is plenty of possibilities.
- A mobile scepter damager can be done as well.

Note that for both dagger and scepter there is a still a lot of potential for sustain damage with fresh air. I know that it’s seen as a burst tool for PvP, but it’s also a really good sustain damage tool in PvE. With a pur elementalist, you’ll make full use of your attunment rotation while with a tempest, you’ll take advantage of the air overload shortened cool down.

Dadnir.5038:

The actual elementalist is not meta for show. There are plenty of tools that make it meta beside it’s DPS. Conjure, ability to blast, usefull combo field, boon provider, mobility… etc. And Tempest only add more to these. What we could see in the raid sample was primarily that healing is secondary and tanking marginal.

There is a lot of elementalist’s build possibilities for raids :
- The classic staff build which will be as effective as it is right now if you got a good agro manager (tank).
- Probably a staff healer with a build mostly focused on healing but in DPS gear.
- A Dagger melee bruiser that could even tank since the boss damage are negligible. Be it tempest or pure elementalist there is plenty of possibilities.
- A mobile scepter damager can be done as well.

Note that for both dagger and scepter there is a still a lot of potential for sustain damage with fresh air. I know that it’s seen as a burst tool for PvP, but it’s also a really good sustain damage tool in PvE. With a pur elementalist, you’ll make full use of your attunment rotation while with a tempest, you’ll take advantage of the air overload shortened cool down.

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

nearlight.3064:

Not really that into raids, but a poster here discussed a condition tempest build that she did quite well with for the content. It was D/WH rabid/sinister and used earthen proxy to ensure it had enough damage mitigation with all of its toughness that the signet heal could sustain the attacks that weren’t wholly dodgeable, and apparently the burn output and boonshare skills with such a build ended up being quite high. I’d imagine you’d start out in earth to stack protection with earth overload, then camp fire to burn everything forever.

Might have been me

I tanked for my raid in dire gear and had no issues really with keeping the boss highly immobile and just face tanking the damage from its frontal aoe. If i had taken a toughness healing and condi stat combo i would have been even better off for self sustainability.

The bleed contribution from earth overload and scepter warharn was good. Now that i know that the boss has no crit mechanics, i could have swapped between earth and fire more reliably, and would change my traits up a 6bjt to have more sigils with Writ in Stone and maybe take earthen shield.

The thing is everyone thinks the boss has to move a lot, but with the tempest ele tank style the boss inly moves if you have to dodge out of the blue teleport aoe or if the lightning aoe is too far for your rdps to hit. This makes an ele tank actually extremely effective if you have damage styles that work best on stationary foes, which eles and thieves excel at.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

Elementalists can achive the highest armor potential in the game, or close enough to not matter.
Source: tanked for my raid with over 3k armor.

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally run for a raid?

I think people overate the Boons Ele provides.

Remember, this is a 10 man Raid. Any semi competent group that randomly blast will have 25 stacks might, perma fury, perma regen. There is not that much value of adding an Ele unless it’s a glass staff.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally fun for a raid?

I’ll probably test a S/D fresh air build on the raid when HoT will go live. (well that’s at least the choice I come up with for the boss we could try in the BWE3). I’m not sure I’ll use tempest in this encounter thought. I’ll probably play something that look like this :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMICdOglNA2NA8RghGAjyBFhBpEIDAfwKLcDTkA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1D0r+zjSQA-e

Note that some of the utilities skill are just place holder.

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally fun for a raid?

I’ll probably test a S/D fresh air build on the raid when HoT will go live. (well that’s at least the choice I come up with for the boss we could try in the BWE3). I’m not sure I’ll use tempest in this encounter thought. I’ll probably play something that look like this :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMICdOglNA2NA8RghGAjyBFhBpEIDAfwKLcDTkA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1D0r+zjSQA-e

Note that some of the utilities skill are just place holder.

I accidentally wrote fun instead of run on my phone. I’ll look over the build after class but I just want to check this was your serious and not for fun build.

it’s mostly serious for the encounter that we could see . Simply because it give me range sustain damage, self sustain/boon, mobility, enough hard CC and burst sustain for me and allies to recover in the lightning area. Other build may be able to do the same thing but I think it would be one of the most effective for this encounter and this role.

Dadnir.5038:

it’s mostly serious for the encounter that we could see . Simply because it give me range sustain damage, self sustain/boon, mobility, enough hard CC and burst sustain for me and allies to recover in the lightning area. Other build may be able to do the same thing but I think it would be one of the most effective for this encounter and this role.

It seems to be a very typical S/D build. What aspects of dagger did you find lacking on warhorn?

Scepter is pretty bad without Lightning Hammer due to lack of any sustained damage (no good auto attack or spammable skill like Lava Font) And honestly, with the mechanics as they are, and 9 other people running around, I wouldn’t bother with a Scepter/Hammer Elementalist.