Guild Wars 2

Really havent used my ele much lately. Been using mostly warrior and necro lately, but My ele has been calling my name. Anyone out there switch to maining viper for pve

So far Sinister will do the trick as Ele can easily get 100% burning duration without the use of Viper gears. However, if you have an idea that will make full use of bleeds without lowering the DPS as switching attunements has CD, better make sure it’s worth it or you’ll end up throwing away a lot of gold. Well, at least your Necro can use those Viper stuff just in case otherwise it’ll be a really bad investment.

Hey dude!im tryng to find some way to have a decent condi ele too,my discussion ia near yours x)

Dunno about viper,seems if you want dmg viper is better,if you want tanky also trailbaizer seems good.Or the good ol celestiam maybe can be more beneficial :S

Burn ele:
Balthazar Rune: 45% Burn duration
Adept Trait: 20% Burn duration
Koi Cake: 20% Condi duration
Toxic Maintenance/Sharpening: 10% Condi duration

Total: 95% Burn duration with no viper’s gear.

The only way a full condi DPS ele works is by going full burn. Bleeds do pretty garbage DPS, especially because you need to swap to Earth attunement to apply them, which means you lose your burn generating abilities. Therefore burns are the only condi you apply that matters, and so burn duration is all you need.

Sinister > Viper for ele.

Except for drake’s breath/dragon’s tooth, most of your burn sources have a cooldown that’s about as long as the attunement cooldown, or longer, or don’t come from weapon skills. so you can use all your long cooldown moves, then swap to earth while you start the cast for drake’s breath, and then apply bleeds and miss out on almost no burning

but it isn’t that much better than just sitting around waiting for another drake’s breath, and it requires investment into bleeds, which you could invest into something else

Prism.5649:

Burn ele:
Balthazar Rune: 45% Burn duration
Adept Trait: 20% Burn duration
Koi Cake: 20% Condi duration
Toxic Maintenance/Sharpening: 10% Condi duration

Total: 95% Burn duration with no viper’s gear.

The only way a full condi DPS ele works is by going full burn. Bleeds do pretty garbage DPS, especially because you need to swap to Earth attunement to apply them, which means you lose your burn generating abilities. Therefore burns are the only condi you apply that matters, and so burn duration is all you need.

Sinister > Viper for ele.

I think viper armor with sin trinkets and berserker runes would be better

Having ascended quality head+legs will give the ele 74 expertise. That with balth runes, trait, food and toxic maintenance means we’ll land on 99.9% condi duration (missing 1 expertise for 100%)

reikken.4961:

Except for drake’s breath/dragon’s tooth, most of your burn sources have a cooldown that’s about as long as the attunement cooldown, or longer, or don’t come from weapon skills. so you can use all your long cooldown moves, then swap to earth while you start the cast for drake’s breath, and then apply bleeds and miss out on almost no burning

but it isn’t that much better than just sitting around waiting for another drake’s breath, and it requires investment into bleeds, which you could invest into something else

Except that OLF applies a very large number of burns, is an integral part of the condi ele DPS rotation, and increases the cooldown of fire attunement to 17.5s. Swapping out to earth loses you a huge amount of DPS.

Condi ele doesn’t do bleeds.

Prism.5649:

Condi ele doesn’t do bleeds.

Yes it does…

I’m not sure if its worth it.

I mean, the difference in offensive stats between Sinister and Viper isn’t much if at all really. Viper has slightly less Condi, but slightly more Power, which may be good for hybrid damage builds, and for an Ele build that expects to encounter condition resistant enemies or structures.

The debate reminds me of when Celestial was first released. Taking just straight up numbers, Celestial far out-performed every other stat set, assuming equal or nearly so weighting of stats like Healing Power when put up against Power or Precision. And Viper does have more raw stat (for example 376 points on a Viper Ascended Chest vs. 343 on a Sinister Ascended Chest), so it does kind of fit that mold, plus its all offensive based stats, making it less likely to fall into the trap that Celestial does, especially in PvE.

So the question then becomes, what mode is it for, and how valuable is the Expertise trade off when considering the lost Precision? For a build that incorporates certain Sigils like Torment, Geomancy or Doom, the extra duration on non-burn conditions may be worth it. Which of course pushes Viper as a PvP stat set, but which may be quite dangerous to use as an Elementalist.

I would say stick with Sinister until the more experienced and knowledgeable theorycrafters have had a run at Viper. I like the idea of a balanced offense between Condi and Power, but I’m not sure the loss in Precision nor the idea of branching out of burn would be worth it, especially in PvE.

Kaleban.9834:

I would say stick with Sinister until the more experienced and knowledgeable theorycrafters have had a run at Viper.

Theorycrafting has already been done.

Particlar’s build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqKc1_CyFH4
Raid example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZm4c5gss8

WP’s build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPKnSjhdl7U

Notice that both Particlar and WP have less than 120 expertise. Particlar uses only one viper weapon while WP uses two. Everything else is sinister.

Dahir.4158:

Yes it does…

No… it doesnt. Condi ele camps fire attunement for burns. You don’t swap to earth unless for some reason you need the other utilities it offers.

Prism.5649:

Dahir.4158:

Yes it does…

No… it doesnt. Condi ele camps fire attunement for burns. You don’t swap to earth unless for some reason you need the other utilities it offers.

You do what you want in pve. In wvw it’s different.

while testing with the jaxnx dps meter, on core ele continually swapping attunements resulted in nearly the same dps, especially when I used dagger off hand (ring of fire has the same cooldown as fire attunement, while flame wall’s is slightly longer, making you have to stay in fire 2-3 seconds too long and thus making burning speed less efficient)

Dahir.4158:

You do what you want in pve. In wvw it’s different.

As per the OP, this is a thread about PvE, so of course we’re talking about builds for PvE…

reikken.4961:

while testing with the jaxnx dps meter, on core ele continually swapping attunements resulted in nearly the same dps, especially when I used dagger off hand (ring of fire has the same cooldown as fire attunement, while flame wall’s is slightly longer, making you have to stay in fire 2-3 seconds too long and thus making burning speed less efficient)

First, base ele condi damage is insignificant compared to tempest condi as well as the condi of other classes. If you have access to Tempest, you should absolutely be using it for a condi build. If you do not have access to Tempest, then to be honest your DPS will be subpar and you will be a detriment to your group. If you are a casual player then of course this doesn’t matter, but if you engage in any activity in which your group relies on your DPS then you should bring a power build.

Also, despite the cooldown difference, Flamewall does significantly more DPS than Ring of Fire and is worth the extra time spent in Fire Attunement (especially since there is no reason to swap out of Fire for DPS purposes). Ring of Fire requires an enemy to actually pass through it to apply burning. Just sitting in the ring will not apply extra stacks, so RoF will do subpar damage to any stationary boss. Maybe that’s why you were getting nearly the same DPS from camping Fire Attunement vs swapping.

Finally, even if an enemy did continually pass through the Ring of Fire, Flamewall still does better DPS even with its longer cooldown, so there really is no reason whatsoever to use OH dagger over OH focus for DPS.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdyxAU2A23A4fJwHBWEAsgAQo8B42ant12hYwOoIA-TxRAQBtRJYA1Twk9HAwJEIAPIgIq+jYU+RKgFVWB-e

Solo, sustained 8k bleeds, and 10k burns.

Repeatable rotation, with no wasted time.

In full raid buffs, 10k bleeds 15k burns.

The high condi damage means you steal the damage from other folks bleed and burn stacks.

Also ±25% to all direct damage to burning and bleeding foes after overload.

It’s the highest dps toon I have according to JaxnX. Roughly tied with condi engi.

Bleeds aren’t bad, (at all) just underated.

Rotation: begin in earth. 2,5, auto until overload. Swap to fire, 5,3,2 cast both signets, overload.

Repeat. In the second repetition, earth is unchanged. When in fire, 5,3,2, fiery GS, 2 overload, 2, drop, 2. Back to earth.

In 3rd repetition, after swapping into earth 2,5, auto, overload, 2, auto x3. The switch to fire. Original fire rotation with signets ready again.

some quick math pointed out to me by a friend suggests that Rune of the Berserker will be as good. Loose only 30 condi damage to gain 100 power and 5% direct damage bonus.

Personally, I avoid using the Toxic Focusing Crystal. Not because it isn’t optimum, but because it is so dang expensive. Take whatever you’re doing and shave off 1.1g per hour, and you’ve got the maintenance cost of the crystals. Put Koi Cakes on top of that, and it is 1.5 gold per hour.

I haven’t done much math on this subject, because “optimization” generally implies limitless funds. The food expense is a quality judgement more than anything. But I do wonder how much damage is lost by swapping out to viper sets until you have 100% without food bonuses. Or another option, 82% and using super veggie pizzas, which are an extremely affordable 2.8 silver.

Full vipers never gets to 100% without at least, sigil of malice/agony/smouldering… And givers weapons, or various runes, or traits.

I agree that the food is expensive. In the build I posted above, I usually don’t use any food, unless the content is “hard” (high end fractals, or raids), but its a huge damage boost when I do use it.

I don’t mean excluding all sigils and runes. I mean building to 100% without food bonuses.

I’m playing with the numbers now, and ATM it is pretty easy. A tempest with burning precision, balthazar runes, and a full viper set hits 103.5% burning duration by itself. Swapping out the off-hand for sinister gets you 99.8% duration for burning, which I’m going to call “close enough”. I’m not done yet, though. I’ve got to compare the damage of three different sets:

100% burn duration no food build.
100% burn duration super veggie build.
100% burn duration, toxic crystal + koi cake build.

And see how much damage is lost along the way.

EDIT: Alright, I’ve got the numbers. First build

376 burn, 413 burn w/ power overwhelming
At max might and corruption, 531 burn, 413 burn w/ power overwhelming.

Second build

400 burn, 435 burn w/ power overwhelming
At max might/corruption: 555 burn, 600 burn w/ power overwhelming.

Third Build

415 burn, 449 w/ power overwhelming.
At max might/corrpution: 570 burn, 614 w/ power overwhelming.

Generally I go for the recharge skills myself. When compared to the last build, the first build does 90% of the damage at base, and 93% of the damage at max circumstances.

The second build does 96% of the the damage at base, and 97% of the damage at max circumstances.

So really, it comes down to this: you can spend 9.4 silver per hour, or to do 3-4% more damage you can spend 1.5 gold per hour. 9.4 silver per hour is something nearly anyone can afford, so if you’re going budget, shell out for the super pizzas and take the second build. The difference is substantial enough to warrant it. But, if you’ve got money to blow and want to brag that you’re at the maximum, then go for the third build.

Or roughly, anyway. These builds aren’t the end-all beat all. They’re just something I’ve thrown together.

Prism.5649:

Dahir.4158:

You do what you want in pve. In wvw it’s different.

As per the OP, this is a thread about PvE, so of course we’re talking about builds for PvE…

reikken.4961:

while testing with the jaxnx dps meter, on core ele continually swapping attunements resulted in nearly the same dps, especially when I used dagger off hand (ring of fire has the same cooldown as fire attunement, while flame wall’s is slightly longer, making you have to stay in fire 2-3 seconds too long and thus making burning speed less efficient)

First, base ele condi damage is insignificant compared to tempest condi as well as the condi of other classes. If you have access to Tempest, you should absolutely be using it for a condi build. If you do not have access to Tempest, then to be honest your DPS will be subpar and you will be a detriment to your group. If you are a casual player then of course this doesn’t matter, but if you engage in any activity in which your group relies on your DPS then you should bring a power build.

Also, despite the cooldown difference, Flamewall does significantly more DPS than Ring of Fire and is worth the extra time spent in Fire Attunement (especially since there is no reason to swap out of Fire for DPS purposes). Ring of Fire requires an enemy to actually pass through it to apply burning. Just sitting in the ring will not apply extra stacks, so RoF will do subpar damage to any stationary boss. Maybe that’s why you were getting nearly the same DPS from camping Fire Attunement vs swapping.

Finally, even if an enemy did continually pass through the Ring of Fire, Flamewall still does better DPS even with its longer cooldown, so there really is no reason whatsoever to use OH dagger over OH focus for DPS.

The reason to use dagger over focus is for enemies that move.
Yes, I am quite aware that focus deals more damage to stationary targets. When I said “especially with dagger off hand” I meant that the dps difference between swapping and camping fire is smaller with dagger than it is with focus.

Actually I just tested again, and I got a dps increase by swapping elements when using d/d.
On pvp golem, solo, 5700 camping fire, 5900 with some attunement swaps.
With focus, 6500 camping fire, 6300 swapping.

But perhaps more importantly! I found a good rotation for tempest to swap. d/f camping fire, I got 7300, and with swaps I got 7000. so you can do it with tempest too

part of the reason for not much dps lost is you get to blast your fields. so in a group that doesn’t already have perma 25 might and perma fury, swapping is actually going to be better dps in addition to more utility

carrion amulet for all tests, fyi

also, berserker build does less dps to heavy golem than carrion (iirc I got about 6600?), though it does have armor, and stats are overall lower in pvp, which hurts power more, due to the multiplicative nature of precision and ferocity. Then again, carrion is not the highest dps amulet.