Tips for sPvP
You didn’t say what amulet and weapons you use, that’s quite important, but from what you wrote, I think it would be good to adjust your build a bit.
Oh right, marauder amulet.
Part I
You still didn’t say what weapons you use, but I’m going to assume it’s s/f. First of all, I would get rid of Svanir runes and the chilling sigils. It might seem good, but you have very little conditions to cover it and you lose dps.
For sigils you usually want Air and Energy/Battle/Doom/eventually Fire. If you take battle, then Strength runes are the best choice or you can also pick up Pack runes. All of this will give you some tools to increase your dps. This goes hand in hand with the trait lines you pick, though.
Generally speaking, I would say Earth is probably the worst choice you could take. There are several variations of the build you can use. I personally like Fire/Air/Arcana the best, but you can also go Fire/Air/Water or Air/Water/Arcana. Earth doesn’t really give you that much honestly. Having Stone heart on fresh air build won’t accomplish much since you will be vulnerable outside earth anyway and you won’t be able to do any pressure while in earth.
For fire you usually want: Burning Fire/Burning Precision (it’s a bit weaker now, though), One with Fire and Blinding ashes. You should take Strength runes if going into fire.
Air: One with Air, Tempest Defense (very good for fresh air build) and Fresh air
Water: Soothing Ice (Piercing shards are just bad since you won’t be doing any damage in water without having Ice bow for example, but I wouldn’t recommend that for pvp.), Aquamancer’s training and Cleansing Water. Honestly, Powerful aura makes no sense at all, unless you’re d/f, but I still don’t think it’s the best choice.
And for Arcana: Arcane Precision/Renewing Stamina, Elemental Contigiency and Evasive Arcana. I find Final Shielding just plain weak, but I suppose it could be a viable option (?), I wouldn’t take it over EC.
Your choice of utilities is quite weak, too. Arcane shield is good, but why on earth are you using Conjure Earth shield? It’s really really not a good idea since you can’t put out any pressure while using this and the skills are rather weak. Glyph of elemental power is just bad, too. What you would want to take is usually: Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Arcane Blast/Signet of Air/Cleansing Fire…For heal I would get Signet of Restoration.
Burst for s/f: Lets be honest here and say that most damage comes from Phoenix and Air skills. You can chain Phoenix with LF to make sure it will land, it will take some practice, but if you follow up with Air Attunement and Lightning Strike and eventually Arcane Blast, you will be able to dish out a lot of damage if not killing your target. Dragon’s tooth is good for cleaving downed bodies, but you will barely land it. You can chain it with Gale and manage to do so, though. Fire wall is good for downed bodies and might stacking. It goes Dragon’s tooth > Fire wall > Phoenix > Magnetic Wave and eventually dodge in earth if you have Evasive Arcana, it’s not that important to do so, though. Might is good, but you shouldn’t be focusing on that. Fire shield is not that great but can be useful sometimes. Your Water attunement is mainly for the heal from Trident, Daze on Comet and Freezing Gust for the short chill to try landing something. In air it’s pretty simple, you need to be able to hit your Air Attunement and Lightning Strike, Blinding flash and Swirling winds are utility skills. In Earth you have most survability, but Magnetic wave can be used for damage to proc Fresh air, same goes for Rock barrier and the followed up skill.
Part II
If you’re using s/d, it’s very similar, but you have some good tools to help you land your burst, which still consists of Phoenix and Air skills. One of them is to RTL, Updraft > Fire > Dragon’s tooth (this is best to cast if you’re certain your target doesn’t have stunbreak, but in many casesit won’t hit and I would say sometimes it’s better to follow up with Phoenix) > Walking up to your target and Putting down Ring of Fire > Phoenix > At this point he should have burning on him so use Fire Grab > Air > Lightning strike > (Arcane Blast). It depends on how fast you are with chaining your skills, but usually after Phoenix your target should recover from the Updraft and most likely he will dodge, it’s what people do from habbit, so wait it out before you try hitting Fire Grab. You can also just chain Dragon’s tooth and Fire Grab. There is an option to chain Earthquake and Lightning Flash and then follow up with fire attunement as described above.There are really a lot of options, but landing your fire skills is important and what you cast is situational, watch your target, their stubreaks, when they get up…etc. You do not have any invulnerability on this build so it could be an option to take Mistform along with Arcane Shield and Lightning Flash.
If you’re using D/F: You’re most damage will be again Air Attunement and Dragon’s Breath and Burning Speed. You can chain up Burning Speed and Lightning Flash > Air > Lightning Strike > (Arcane Blast). On this build you have one advantage and that’s the fact your AA is not as bad as on Scepter, Lightning whip is really good for putting out pressure, you can use it each time you have other stuff on cooldown or you need some quick damage. Again, you can follow up gale with burning speed and Dragon’s breath.
I’m certain I forgot something, but I hope this helps if your goal is to play some good fresh air build. If you want to use what you’re using, I don’t think you can get much help, because honestly a lot of the issues lie in your build. The combos can be used on any build, but you will lack damage with what you have currently equiped. Good luck!
First off, I picked up the glyph of elemental power for the access to chill (along with the weakness/cripple), which is also the reason why I picked up the svanir runes. I got CES for all of the added defensive attributes (along with the invuln). All the chill, coupled with the super speed trait made for some really easy kiting and if kitten got hairy, I’d have a lot of defenses to fall back on. Problem is that I’m trying to go for more control over DPS and I refuse to try lockdown mesmer because of mesmers generally cheesy state at the moment.
First off, I picked up the glyph of elemental power for the access to chill (along with the weakness/cripple), which is also the reason why I picked up the svanir runes. I got CES for all of the added defensive attributes (along with the invuln). All the chill, coupled with the super speed trait made for some really easy kiting and if kitten got hairy, I’d have a lot of defenses to fall back on. Problem is that I’m trying to go for more control over DPS and I refuse to try lockdown mesmer because of mesmers generally cheesy state at the moment.
Well, in that case I don’t think you can really be able to actually dish out any good dps, since you are willingly giving it up for something that doesn’t really work. Chill can seem fun and cool, but it can be cleansed instantly and you just can’t cover it up. It’s also only soft cc, which won’t accomplish much on many classes. It’s totally useless against a thief, fairly strong against an ele, but other classes will deal with it quite well, too. I suppose you can play this for fun, but there’s not much people can advise you to reach some high level of damage comparable to classic fresh air and I would say mesmers can either kill you faster or outsustain you.
Fair enough. I guess my problem was trying to experiment before I fully understood the class.
Fair enough. I guess my problem was trying to experiment before I fully understood the class.
I don’t think that experimenting is a problem at all, though. I have many times in past, but if things don’t work out, I guess it’s good to admit not everything is viable. I honestly don’t know if there are some viable chill specs, I’ve never really tried it, but maybe try the well established specs first to figure out what’s the biggest issue of your spec?
I also think that if we had something like Reaper gets – chill does damage, it would be much more viable. The thing is that if you’re not in an organized group, chill won’t do much and if you are, then they will probably want something like d/d.
you don;t want to utilize chill to kite enemies. one with air will provide you all of the kiting you need. Most will use signet for the heal, i like using the cantrip and going FAW for the reduced cantrip cooldown and the regen/remove condition. This is what I use.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdhMMoxhdOwwB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAIngJQME-TJBFABiXGom9HW4EAAwDAAA
alot of people will use burning precision and blinding ashes for the extra blind. I don’t like it since fury uptime is lacking and the blind is random.
Bad Elementalist