Guild Wars 2

Hi, I have a full dps build which unfortunately allows me to do a lot of damage but at the same time makes me very very weak in defense … Then ask someone who knows if the Elementalist can give me some advice about the traits, the stats, etc … In short, a build that makes me stronger but at the same time allow me to make a decent dps. Thank you =)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyRAxjEAEFm4yoQHiCPUeMTO2A-j0CBYfChUEgEBIUBApPFRjtMMIVXht8KaabYqYER1WzFRrWKgRVGB-w

An example of a balanced build. Very good mix of survivability and burst. Bit low on healing power but that’s fine. This build relies on permanent uptime for fury, hence the boon duration runes and 10 in air for zephyr’s boon. I found this more efficient than stacking precision, as in this build you get more critical damage and power, while also having higher health.

Things to note when building:

1. Account for precision and fury when going for a bursty build. I feel that for it to work, you need either high precision and you can forgo boon duration to pick up more survivability or utility from melandru or traveler runes, while also taking ten out of air and into somewhere else like earth, OR go for lower precision (minimum 10%) and definitely go for boon duration runes and 10 in air to stack fury for 30%.

2. Consider your food carefully. If you already have high enough condi removal from 30 in water and/or ether renewal, you can opt for a different food to increase burst (100prec+10%crit if your crit rate is too low OR 100pow+10%crit if you have about 20 already) If you run 20 in water and feel too pressured by condi’s, consider the -40% condi duration food. It stacks nicely with 2 runes in Melandru, for a total -50% reduction. This is mainly a good food for builds leaning to survivability.

3. When creating a balanced build, try to stay above 2.5k armor and 14k health. Let the WvW buffs take care of your health and try to build towards toughness rather than vitality.

4. When including crit damage in your spec, keep them on trinkets and weapons. Armor pieces generally have bad crit damage. Do keep in mind that armor has vit/crit and trinkets have both vit/crit and tough/crit. When doing a mix of both, out vit/crit on armor and tough/crit on trinkets. Use weapons to round out your build, usually to either increase crit rate to acceptable levels or to get enough toughness, so pick between beserker and cavalier weapons.

5. Do keep in mind that when making a heal spec, keep your healing power above 1k or it won’t keep up. You’ll need healing power on both armor and trinkets to achieve this, so go for either heal/cond or heal/pow. I personally recommend heal/cond but it requires a different playstyle than a direct damage approach. Weapons are to round out your build, of course.

6. I’ve ran many tests on celestial stats and never really found a good balance. Often times, mixing three-stat gears were much more balanced overall. And honestly, not worth the grind. Try mixes of knight/cavalier or soldier/beserker and so on.

7. As for utilities, I find cantrips a must unless you’re some sort of one-shot spec. When going for burst, avoid arcane precision unless you plan on taking the arcana trait, Elemental Surge, (makes the next five attacks proc an effect based on attunement, with no cooldown. Very good for conjured weapons) for lots of immobilization and blinds. Always consider taking lightning flash. It’s an all around fantastic skill for offensive and defensive purposes. Also, personally, I’ve always liked taking lightning hammer with me for more CC and damage than over armor of earth.

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8. Pay attention to sigils. Especially as to what stat you want per kill. The rule of thumb is power becomes more useful once you get enough crit rate. Basically, get crit rate up to snuff then invest more into power. I feel this point is around 30-40% crit rate, fury being included. When building a balanced spec, you may have a build on your hands that has higher effective health but your damage suffers. Sigils can help round that out. Onthe other hand, you could have plenty of both but lacking in healing oower, so get that. Oh, and pay attention to when you have full stacks. When that occurs, switch to an identical weapon with a permanent effect. You’ll keep the stacks. Usually, I go with 10% damage at night but stuff like additional crit chance works too.

9. Traits. Keep in mind that putting points into fire is useless. The others are fine. MOST IMPORTANTLY, never put points into a trait line for stats only. Invest points for traits that are important for your build.

General rules:
-30 in arcana if you plan on taking evasive arcana. You want EA for any of those reasons: extra heal/cleanse, blind, blast finisher, and reduced attunement recharge.
-30 in water if you either want massive condition cleanses or better support through powerful aura.
-20 at the most for earth if you want to take advantage of CC reduction and armor of earth trait. 10 in earth is great for burst if you take the trait for additional damage within 600 (irc) range.
-Either 30 in air for Fresh air builds, or 10 in air for zephyr’s boon.

Any more questions? Feel free to ask.

All right, so I’ll try this build and see how I get on =) Listen, what about for a good spec WvsW?

GrandeGiove.6192:

All right, so I’ll try this build and see how I get on =) Listen, what about for a good spec WvsW?

This build is great for WvW and also works for swapping to staff when needed (just swap the traits Earth VI for Earth III and Air I for Air VI)

nvm I forgot how to bodmas, Cavaliers wasn’t as good as I thought,

If you crudely replaced all the cavalier pieces with knights, you will get 2% more damage on average and critting more often = more vigor and you can stack bloodlust instead of perception to get better damage gains.