Guild Wars 2

Basically I really enjoy the S/D so what I’m going with is an arcane air fire Fresh Air conjure, and I was wondering whether Assassin or Zerker should give better damage results and why?

I believe I recall DEKeyz of DnT recommending zerk and mixing in a bit of assassin’s to achieve your desired crit chance. While down scaled in the past, you could easily close in on 100% crit chance even in full zerk with Signet of Fire, Banner of Discipline, and other buff sources. With the recent changes to down scaling, you get less bang for your buck with precision, so I’m not sure how this affects min/maxing.

I’ve personally stuck with full zerk, as it’s straightforward and useful outside of PvE (namely for WvW and GvGs). Power also has the current advantage of being the only stat that matters when attacking non-crittable entities, such as structures and certain bosses. How much you value this is up to you.

If going for full ascended, you may consider starting by crafting a zerker armorset and then mixing in trinkets of other stat combos if desired, since these are much cheaper and easier to obtain.

If running s/x with conjures, I’d also recommend swapping out Arcane for Water in order to maximize your DPS with both Aquamancer’s Training (+10% while >90% HP, which matches the 6th slot bonus on Scholar Runes) and Piercing Shards for +20% while attuned to water, which synergizes well with your primary source of sustained damage, Lightning Hammer.

Good luck.

Interesting thought on the arcane swapout, I had mostly been thinking in terms of solo play and 100% fury uptime from swaps, which is the arcane line really kicking in. So I guess the question is how much can you rely on group buffs from other classes?
The arcane line also has the lovely boon uptime buff, which I was thinking of combining with (painfully expensive) strength runes for a build which should build might might and more might (stacking it every time I go through fire faster than it decays), and the fresh air should probably give me 100% combat swiftness as well.

Ah, when you specified dungeons I assumed you meant with a group. I have basically no experience soloing, so I’d defer to a more seasoned player. When solo, I could see how Arcane might be more valuable for vigor, boon uptime, Final Shielding, and optionally Bountiful Power for additional damage. Runes of Strength would prove more beneficial too (and I believe DEKeyz also mentioned this).

Of course the skill, knowledgeability, and composition of your group are huge factors in deciding how smooth non-solo dungeons runs are and how survivable you are on a full zerk ele. Persisting Flames with s/x (or really any weaponset, I highly recommend staff) easily grants party-wide perma-fury and good might, but a single PS warrior can help maintain 25 might with little effort. Guards providing well-timed aegis plus reflects and thieves (or others) with easy access to blinds can make a huge difference. With a group you trust to be effective, Runes of the Scholar and Water over Arcane, coupled with Ice Bow/Lightning Hammer and Glyph of Storms, definitely produce better DPS.

for solowing on ele id reccomend staff or dagger focus
scepter is really just usefull when you are trying to replace a warr in a group ._.
but jeah, arcane is asome for solos- just ignor EA, boutiful power is the way to go
for utility take whatever you need to survive, but in places like ac the fire signet should never leave your bar^^
what i usually do is pre buffing might and then switch to staff when i dont need the utility from d/f

I personally don’t worry about crits that much, but because you are running scepter, I agree Elestian to do a mix, but I go with main stat power runes, that give pre to compensate for the lack in power.