Guild Wars 2

Excelsior comrades!

I am working on measuring how efficient a staff + LH build would be.
It is quite a complicated process because it involves many more factor than simple builds like single LH or single staff.

I am going to go on developing the discussion here as I evaluate the best build, the best rotation and the best dps possible for this weapon set-up. Please contribute, give me feedback, advice, critique, anything that comes to your mind.

Here is what I have so far:

Build: persisting flames, pyromancer’s alacrity

Rotation

target: hitbox radius double that of human size ( 2 * 45 = 90 )

format
time elapsed | spell | cast time | coefficient

Start in fire
00.0 | Lava font | 0.4 | 0.8 * 5 = 4 (five hits because of persisting flames)
00.4 | Meteor Shower | 4 | 6 * 1.3 = 7.8 (six hits on average on target)
04.40 | Fireball | 1.4 | 0.85
05.80 | Lava font | 0.4 | 4
Swap to water during cast
06.20 | Conjure Lightning hammer | 1 | 0
07.20 | Swing chain | 2.82 | 1 + 1 + 1.8 = 3.8
10.02 | Swing chain | 2.82 | 3.8
12.84 | Swing chain | 2.82 | 3.8
15.66 | Swing chain | 2.82 | 3.8
18.48 | Swing chain | 2.82 | 3.8
Swap to earth
21.30 | Eruption | 1.2 | 1.25
Swap to fire
22.50 | Lava font | 0.4 | 4
22.90 | Fireball | 1.4 | 0.85
24.30 | Fireball | 1.4 | 0.85
25.70 | Fireball | 1.4 | 0.85
27.10 | Fireball | 1.4 | 0.85
28.50 | end of rotation

There are actually two phases of 28.5s: one where you conjure the hammer and the other where you just pick up the second previously conjured hammer.

There is one fireball that you could “shave off” in the rotation, but I like to keep it for now to make the computation realistic.

This rotation may not be the best. It is possible that swapping attunement is not the best choice. I need to make full calculations for this and it takes time.

Note that if you use arcane wave than you have a total of three blasts, which makes perma fury and 6 stacks of might on average for the group.

I’ll let you know when I have more!

Actually I think I could just play without pyromancer’s alacrity, and just add one more fireball after the meteor shower. This could result in a dps boost since we can then take ember’s might.

Zelyhn.8069:

Actually I think I could just play without pyromancer’s alacrity, and just add one more fireball after the meteor shower. This could result in a dps boost since we can then take ember’s might.

Well I guess that 5% against burning target is not worth losing 6 seconds on Meteor CD, but that depends on the final rotation though.
But it’s never bad if you have your most damaging AOE prepared sooner I guess

best dps possible does not involve sitting in water
you take on-attunement-swap traits and constantly swap attunements while swinging that lightning hammer
also, instead of throwing out a fireball after channeling meteor shower, use flame burst, so you can cast that second lava font sooner. and also do more damage.

Actually I was making the mistake that MS has 30s cd without alacrity … in fact its cd is 34s since its cooldown only starts at the end of the cast.
The problem I have is that if we switch to water for LH for 15s, then spend 1s in earth and the rest in fire then the total rotation time should be of about 30s. Which means more fireballs would have to be cast, or we would have to spend less than the total hammer time in water.

Ok I worked on first result to get an idea

Rotation without switching attunements
- Lava font, Meteor shower, flame burst, LF
- Conjure LH
- swing 15 times
- LF, FB, 3 FB
Total time: 26s (maybe 0.1 more)

30/20/10/10/0
Bloodlust, curry butternut
Usual buffs & gear etc

Average dps: 16k4 + burn (250) = 16k7

But since we are not switching attunements we are making only one blast

Now I will look into how switching attunements can help us

Edit: nvm this, I made a mistake: we need 28s of total rotation for MS to be back up

Well, I have an idea, what about to calculate the real dps, with a realistic build, I kinda doubt that with this build, Ele would be able to survive even the glance of an enemy

STRanger.5120:

Well, I have an idea, what about to calculate the real dps, with a realistic build, I kinda doubt that with this build, Ele would be able to survive even the glance of an enemy

I get this a lot. The problem you see is: what kind and how much survivability do we need? This is an endless debate since it depends on the content and the skill of the player. Here I am talking about max dps, and I then try to see how sustainable I can make the build without compromising its damage too much. If I wanted to give an actual advice on what to run realistically in what type of content I would just tell people to read my guide or Neko’s !

In short: I can’t include all factors present in the game. So I must stick to a specific situation that I can control.

Zelyhn.8069:

STRanger.5120:

Well, I have an idea, what about to calculate the real dps, with a realistic build, I kinda doubt that with this build, Ele would be able to survive even the glance of an enemy

I get this a lot. The problem you see is: what kind and how much survivability do we need? This is an endless debate since it depends on the content and the skill of the player. Here I am talking about max dps, and I then try to see how sustainable I can make the build without compromising its damage too much. If I wanted to give an actual advice on what to run realistically in what type of content I would just tell people to read my guide or Neko’s !

In short: I can’t include all factors present in the game. So I must stick to a specific situation that I can control.

Yeah, that’s also a truth. the survivability of a character is just something which can’t be expressed by numbers, and I guess that we all can agree that full zerker Warrior/Guard/Necro etc. have more survivability than full zerker Ele. So there is kind of problem to compare those classes in the terms of DPS because of this.
But it’s good to know what the class is theoretically capable of, I just don’t see where is the benefit of this exact calculation really.

Edit: Of course, I mean the benefit in the terms of the actual state of our class, because we face totally another problem than the PvE one.

I am not stating anything for modes other than PvE.

Max-dps calculations are useful only in a handful situations, so most people should not really use the builds derived from these. But they are a necessary starting point, used to compare builds, and from this you can switch to more survivability.

Update on the rotation stated earlier: add two fireballs and take away one flame burst and you get a coherent rotation with 15k4 dps (plus insignificant burn)

STRanger.5120:

Well, I have an idea, what about to calculate the real dps, with a realistic build, I kinda doubt that with this build, Ele would be able to survive even the glance of an enemy

Glance doesn’t kill eles, a mere presence of enemy does.

It always makes me laugh when people say that because of our armor being the lowest we die in a glance … you know if our armor is a problem then just take 10 in earth like we all do for dmg and signet of earth then bam you are a heavy.

Zelyhn.8069:

It always makes me laugh when people say that because of our armor being the lowest we die in a glance … you know if our armor is a problem then just take 10 in earth like we all do for dmg and signet of earth then bam you are a heavy.

It sounds like a poor choice to me. Taking a statline and a signet just for the stats seems a bit wasteful.

The ele has great survivability, but it’s not from base stats or armor. We have to keep active, moving and healing all the way. We can easily get perma vigor, boost our dodges with Evasive Arcana (getting 1 heal, 1 blind and 1 whatever-you-need) and if played correctly, get quite a few heals, regens and protection boons.

Unlike the warrior, we cannot just sit still and auto attack. Doesn’t mean we’re squishy though.

A warrior auto attacking deals little damage.

Read again what I am saying: if armor is a problem, then just take signet of earth. This is because we are already taking 10 in earth for the damage.

Zelyhn.8069:

A warrior auto attacking deals little damage.

Read again what I am saying: if armor is a problem, then just take signet of earth. This is because we are already taking 10 in earth for the damage.

And I’m saying that taking traitlines for stats is worthless because you could just as easily adjust your gear to give you that stat combination. That leaves you free to pick the traits you need instead of having to get subpar traits.

And for the record, while condition damage isn’t worthless, taking 100 points in earth just for the condition damage doesn’t do it for me.

My opinion is that you must consider the stats and the traits when allocating trait points. But this is an other debate. It is not affected the idea that signet of earth makes you a heavy.

ThiBash.5634:

And for the record, while condition damage isn’t worthless, taking 100 points in earth just for the condition damage doesn’t do it for me.

This is not for the condition damage boost, but for the trait that gives 10% damage boost while under the 600 range from the target, m8

Edit: It’s called “Stone Splinters”

STRanger.5120:

This is not for the condition damage boost, but for the trait that gives 10% damage boost while under the 600 range from the target, m8

Edit: It’s called “Stone Splinters”

Ah, now I understand what he meant. I never use that one either though. I don’t like being forced into things by my traits. :-)

I think what people meant in the other thread is to have two Elementalists, one on staff and one on LH. Whilst an interesting concept I doubt it would outweigh the benefit of rapidly stacking might before/between hammers with Scepter/x.
But don’t let me deter you (and stop letting yourself get derailed by wannabe warriors who want to faceroll in every class.)

Since I am at work, can someone experiment ingame to tell me how many meteors fall after
t = meteor shower cast + lava font cast + conjure LH
(so t = roughly 5.4s)
please?

This thread smells like science and as refreshing as that is in the ele forums what youre talking about here is just stay in fire staff, which is like 4 words, but you say it in wall-of-text form.

Keep up the good work though, i’ve tried many of your builds and like most of them.

Thx
It’s not just “stay in fire”, in fact the stay in fire rotation calculation done before was an inital experiment. My intent was to calculate dps for staff + LH rotating attunements.

I don’t have accurate definitve results yet, but it seems that with a 30/10/10/20/0 rotation in water for LH then eruption in earth and the rest in fire gives 6% less damage than when not rotating. However the rotation enables you to have one more blast.

I’ll keep you posted

30/20-30/0-10/0/10

initially in air, and then right before you start, you switch to fire for the fury and might (10 in arcane)

then, if you have 20 in air
switch to earth when you’re done casting in fire and are going to conjure that lightning hammer, for more fury (and some protection, which you’ll need), and then to water for more fury (and some regeneration, which you’ll need), and then to air for Electric Discharge and, yes, more fury. Then you sit there (because all your attunements are on cooldown) getting that damage bonus from Air Training until earth attunement comes off cooldown, at which point you may proceed as outlined in post 1 (eruption)

if you have 30 in air, switch to air first when conjuring the lightning hammer, and then to earth, and then immediately back to air when it resets, and then to water, and then air again when it resets

also, always throw in flame burst immediately after your first lava font after switching to fire, unless someone else has your target permanently on fire

reikken.4961:

30/20-30/0-10/0/10

initially in air, and then right before you start, you switch to fire for the fury and might (10 in arcane)

then, if you have 20 in air
switch to earth when you’re done casting in fire and are going to conjure that lightning hammer, for more fury (and some protection, which you’ll need), and then to water for more fury (and some regeneration, which you’ll need), and then to air for Electric Discharge and, yes, more fury. Then you sit there (because all your attunements are on cooldown) getting that damage bonus from Air Training until earth attunement comes off cooldown, at which point you may proceed as outlined in post 1 (eruption)

if you have 30 in air, switch to air first when conjuring the lightning hammer, and then to earth, and then immediately back to air when it resets, and then to water, and then air again when it resets

also, always throw in flame burst immediately after your first lava font after switching to fire, unless someone else has your target permanently on fire

You know that you lose tons of damage if you switch attunements while using LH? With 30 points in fire you have perma fury and with 10 points in water you have a damage increase of 20% (!) when your target has vulnerability on it. So switching attunements is NOT effective if you want max dmg.
Edit: If you need more survivability keep switching them

but where is this vulnerability coming from?

From your group members or air 25