Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I just reached Lv80, and will now start experimenting with the options of my character.
Its already settled that im going as zerk, i often use Fiery GS with Rush/Lightning, but also ofcourse using my regular skills from staff.

Sigil choice.
Im debating between Fire or Force, (will use bloodlust on a secondary to stack power)

Traits.
I was certain to go with 30/30/10/0/0
But then i saw that water also had “10% DMG if health is above 90%” just like Earth if you stay within 600 range. (which i often do and for the main reason, GS Rush)

So if i remove 10 points from Air, and adds those into water, it will be a battle between the following.

5% Crit Rate & 10% Crit Damage
VS
10% Damage (if health is 90%+)

Really appreciate an answer!
Im not sure whats worth risking for what, damage wise, and how much crit rate u’ll have anyway with full zerk gears, perhaps trading away 5% CR for 10% damage is better at that stage? And its also those 10% crit damage aswell, which should be noticeable?

What do you think?

Thanks!

I use the water 10% if ur health is above 90 it will always do 10% more as to crit damage which is basically a little rng game. If u get around 50% crit chance then theroretically ull hit1 out of 2 attacks.a crit which is jst 10%more crit damage wxcept u only hit it every 2 attacks conpare to 10% every hit

Also the vit helps plus a little healingfor ur sig or other heal jst make sure u keep them a little far from u so u dont drop hp

There is nothing to think, there is maths, and the Zalculator.

The Zalculator is my rather-user-friendly DPS calculator:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Zelyhn-s-Advanced-D-F-PvE-Guide/first#post2333478
(Chapter 9 of my guide)
This tool will allow you to optimise you traits, your gear, and your skill rotation.

Let me know if you need any help

30/30/10/0/0 is not the best for staff. It is an optimized build for D/F (x_x)

If you want consistent, optimal damage for staff, 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10 (zerg, big hitbox) are your choice. In practice, they have about 1K more damage per meteor shower hit than the 30/30/10/0/0 build, and can be higher if you have a full 25 stacks of might.

There aren’t any particular builds which are optimized around FGS, since you cannot whip it up 50% of the time, due to cd. But for conjured weapons in general, I think it’s either 10/25/10/25/0 or 25/10/10/25/0. I don’t remember exactly.

Interesting, could you perhaps name why its better to go with 30/10/10/10/10, what traits will increase the damage?
I only see a huge loss of Precision and Crit Damage by skipping Air.

Appreciate an answer!

I think its leaning on 30/20/10/10 then, for both 10% dmg.

And also, what sigil was recommended in weapon? Fire, is that Aoe really doing any good?
Or 5% damage from Force, seems good.

Of course your should take 10 pts in Air and put in water. 10% dmg is way better that the stats Air give you. Take in mind that Damage modifier are multiplicative so this modifier don’t give you just 10%. You already have 93.3% damage modifier with Rune of Scholar and Sigil of Night. So if you add up another 10% from water, its gonna actually give you 19.3% more damage at this point. Of course this is in theory, not all damage modifier will be activate at the same time and for all the fight, for exemple Bolt to the heart will only be activated for 1/3 hp of the boss so most of the fight so the 10 in water will only give you 16.1% more damage, if you are in a day dungeon this will drop to 14.6%, etc.

30/10/10/10/10 is good for the inceased AoE size for staff attack. You gonna hit more often with Meteor Shower and a bigger Lava Front. You will hit more often with more skill, but you will hit less hard. This depend on you, i prefer not put point into arcana, but both build are good. For the sigil it depend on what you prefer to do. Night is the best, but don’t work everywhere. Force is also good (remember dmg modifier are multiplicative so its higher that 5% for you). I like having several weapons with several sigil. Otherwise Sigil of Bloodlust is great. I don’t recommend Fire since you only have 1 sigil emplacement.

Arccai.4870:

Interesting, could you perhaps name why its better to go with 30/10/10/10/10, what traits will increase the damage?
I only see a huge loss of Precision and Crit Damage by skipping Air.

Appreciate an answer!

I think its leaning on 30/20/10/10 then, for both 10% dmg.

And also, what sigil was recommended in weapon? Fire, is that Aoe really doing any good?
Or 5% damage from Force, seems good.

Some (if not most) LF builds take 30 in fire for Persisting Flames (keep blasting fire fields while AA chaining your LF for perma Fury). You also get an additional 180 Precision and 5% crit damage at lvl 80 from LH.

If you plan to go with conjures:
– solo or no other source of vulnerability in group – 25/25/10/10/0 (S/F)
– grouped or using skale venon for vuln – 30/20/10/10/0
extra charges for conjures, burn on crit, fury on blasts – 20% dmg to oponents under 50%, 10% crit dmg after arcane – 10% dmg in melee – 20% dmg in water against vuln foes

Arccai.4870:

Interesting, could you perhaps name why its better to go with 30/10/10/10/10, what traits will increase the damage?
I only see a huge loss of Precision and Crit Damage by skipping Air.

Appreciate an answer!

I think its leaning on 30/20/10/10 then, for both 10% dmg.

And also, what sigil was recommended in weapon? Fire, is that Aoe really doing any good?
Or 5% damage from Force, seems good.

You can read more details here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/3436714

The build 30/10/10/10/10 may not have as high effective power as the others, but considering you can stack precision with buff and food, it is the most effective against target with large hitbox. Your main DPS comes from Lava Font, which has increased AoE, meaning more ticks, more damage. I prefer Blasting Staff when it comes to:

• The Nightmare tree in TA
• The Destroyer boss in CoE p3
• The effigy and molten duo bosses in Fractals
• The Urban battleground fractals
• Lion Arch (Under Attack!)

That said, 30/30/10/0/0 is a very flexible trait build, which has access to both grounds: D/F and Staff.

When it comes to staff, it is Sigil of Force. Most of your attacks come with an AoE, so Sigil of Fire is redundant, especially for its internal cooldown. When two sigils can be applied to staff, I’m thinking of Force+Night, Force+Battle (for the occasional swapping out of fire), and Perception+Perception.

For staff, the two highest DPS builds are 30 (VI – VII – XI) / 20 (VI – VII) / 10 (VI) / 10 (VI) / 0 for single, small, stationary targets and 30 (VI – VII – XI) / 10 (VI) / 10 (VI) / 10 (VI) / 10 (V) for groups and large targets, like the scenarios that Iris listed. 30/30/10/0/0 is a few % less EP and DPS, though it works alright and opens up at least D/F as an alternate weapon set.

For FGS, all you want to do is maximize the number of damage modifiers you have active. So 30/30/10/0/0 is pretty weak with FGS compared to a number of the LH builds that grab a bunch of modifiers such as by going 25 into earth or water. You’ll still do a lot of damage, though, so don’t worry about it too much for casual dungeons.

Edit: For sigils for now, go Night or Force. After the patch, I expect Night+Force to be good for night dungeons and either Force + Accuracy, Force + Strength, or Force + Fire for day dungeons if you’re doing a pure fire staff DPS rotation. Battle will be inferior to Strength since you’re not attunement swapping often.