Tweaking meta builds for open world?
No modifications required. Kill mobs faster = they hit you less times (if at all) = more survivability.
I’d advise running a power build tho. It has better burst, meaning the above survivability plan is more efficient.
I recommend marauder gear for a great balance of offense and survivability in open world for players who find ele too fragile.
Marauder is a fine alternative if you don’t mind spending some gold for essentially a crutch wheel. Eventually you’ll want to get back to zerk, if only to avoid constant swapping back and forth between gear.
Crutch? its an armor set. As for Zerk the only people who care about that set are those that min max for a raid. Outside of a raid Zerk is useless beyond giving bigger numbers and less utility/support/heal/condy/defense.
Personally i switch between marauder/celestial/trailblazer as my mood fits. Choice is much more enjoyable.
“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize
I’m running a modified raid build in open world myself. Changes I did include:
- Get some condi cleanse. I’m using a Superior Sigil of Cleansing for that.
- Get some stability / stunbreak. Harmonious Conduit has saved my life more often than I can count. Though it was included in the meta build, so it’s not really a change.
- Try out different heal skills. Personally I prefer Arcane Brilliance, because it’s a blast finisher and has a really high heal effect if you’re surrounded.
- Glyph of Storms cast with Earth Attunement basically makes big blobs of monsters completely unable to harm you. In PvE this is probably the strongest protection you can get.
- Learn your combos. In open world you don’t have buffers running around with you. You have to provide your own might and fury. Even generating just a few stacks at the beginning of combat can make a huge difference. In mid-combat you might want to blast some water fields for an extra heal.
- Elementalist IS fragile. So don’t get hit. Most of the time it’s better to cancel a spell that is currently rooting you, than to pay for it in hp.
Thanks for the tips! I had gotten lazy and was pretty much just going ham on mobs’ faces while dodging in a little triangle. Too much glass, not enough cannon. Taking some of these suggestions and making some changes of my own as well wrought an immediate improvement.
Crutch? its an armor set. As for Zerk the only people who care about that set are those that min max for a raid. Outside of a raid Zerk is useless beyond giving bigger numbers and less utility/support/heal/condy/defense.
Personally i switch between marauder/celestial/trailblazer as my mood fits. Choice is much more enjoyable.
Berserker’s gear doesn’t just produce bigger numbers, it clears faster. I used to run Marauder, so I know. The difference isn’t large, but it exists. And at some point it becomes boring to swap gear back and forth for no apparent reason. Power/condi swaps I can understand. Marauder and zerk serve exactly the same purpose, except zerk does it better.
Thanks for the tips! I had gotten lazy and was pretty much just going ham on mobs’ faces while dodging in a little triangle. Too much glass, not enough cannon. Taking some of these suggestions and making some changes of my own as well wrought an immediate improvement.
I just made a custom burn build for open world. Idk meta unfortunately but I’m assuming it’s also scepter warhorn? Specifically hoping you have off hand warhorn. You can 2 things without changing stats.
First is to acknowledge warhorn Earth is very tanky and OL earth is also tank plus does condi damage. It can help weed out vets n below while setting up pulsing protection for you to do a real doe rotation on the bigger guys. I use scepter main hand so usually I blind alot of foes with skill 3, then cast skill 5 correctly (it doesn’t show but it has the same exact mechanic as fire 5 wildfire). This is a pulsing blind. Any elites or below can not hurt you if you hit them and fight in the blind aoe. It’s basically an invuln. This gives time to cast prot earth 4 and if you have scepter cast skill 2. Earth OL should be ready and go ahead and OL for bleeds, soft cc and once it’s done it will pulse prot. Usually your earth 5 will stop pulsing half way thru earth OL so now damage should be coming in. With prot buff it’s pretty easy to burn the rest of the mobs or evade big hits from champs or elites left over. Don’t be afraid to go to water to heal. Glyphht heal is very powerful single heal and lowest CD. Not sure what meta currently says.
Other thing you can do is take trait lines fire EARTH tempest. There is a GM trait I believe earth x x 2 called written in stone. You can use that with signet heal and you have alot of sustain while being aggressive.
My condo build I made just to have a fresh build for LS3. I’m using budget gear. But it’s carrion armor n weap. Clerics acc and Ammy. And some random vipers or rpagers for the rest of my trinkets. A clerics ammy is all you would really need with the changed traits to get the most sustain without much change to your build.
Tldr master earth warhorn/OL to engage large mobs. If sustain is still an issue mess with a trait line by inserting earth
Hmm here or in game if you need help!
Oh shoot bunji has a rly good point with glyph of storms. It’s exactly like warhorn Earth 5 so it gives you another big AOE blind if you need it. With all the bleeds in earth you could always camp earth on big mobs and just spam blind after blind. I do it alot when my gf and I duo dungeons. I’ll blind everything while she zerk staff. Then we both dps when adds are clear
Honestly, offense is your best defense. Grab fa Dagger/Wh or Fire Staff and aoe the living hell out of everything – typically NPC’s will die before you do. If you do go down, your aoes are likely to rally on something.
Not 100% foolproof, but I’m the sort of person who would rather make one set fit all!
Oh shoot bunji has a rly good point with glyph of storms. It’s exactly like warhorn Earth 5 so it gives you another big AOE blind if you need it. With all the bleeds in earth you could always camp earth on big mobs and just spam blind after blind. I do it alot when my gf and I duo dungeons. I’ll blind everything while she zerk staff. Then we both dps when adds are clear
Sounds like fun!
I think my favorite thing about elementalist (and why I’m having trouble picking up other classes!) is just how versatile the toolkit is. And you don’t have to lock yourself into a one-size-fits-all build. You can (and should!) adapt your build to the situation.
I did my first solo legendary bandit executioner kill on my ele last night. I won’t rule out that some insanely good player out there could pull it off on a full glass ele, but I’m not that good. So I came up with a tanky build that gave me enough room to make a mistake here and there without getting 1-shot by her whirlwind or killed by the monster bleed + stun that follows it.
When I’m not trying to solo bosses that routinely wipe out groups of players, I use a much more offensive build. “Squishy” only applies to full glass. Ele can be whatever you want it to be. And that’s why it’s such a great class!
Sounds like fun!
I think my favorite thing about elementalist (and why I’m having trouble picking up other classes!) is just how versatile the toolkit is. And you don’t have to lock yourself into a one-size-fits-all build. You can (and should!) adapt your build to the situation.
I did my first solo legendary bandit executioner kill on my ele last night. I won’t rule out that some insanely good player out there could pull it off on a full glass ele, but I’m not that good. So I came up with a tanky build that gave me enough room to make a mistake here and there without getting 1-shot by her whirlwind or killed by the monster bleed + stun that follows it.
When I’m not trying to solo bosses that routinely wipe out groups of players, I use a much more offensive build. “Squishy” only applies to full glass. Ele can be whatever you want it to be. And that’s why it’s such a great class!
I concur! Really fun off meta build to try are the full glyph util bar and arcane traitline. It really allows you to have a large amount of stuff to play. Obviously it’s worse then just spamming skill 1 and 2 on fire staff but it’s pretty fun AOE weakness bombing and spamming prot. Between the glanced hits and the damage reduction on what lands you can pretty “tank” and still have fun with zerk fresh air. Obvi it depends on landing debuffs at the right time and not overlapping them :P. I’ve spammed weakness and blind at the same time too many times to count! Feels bad watching weakness expire and the mob was blind the whole time anyway lol
Oh shoot I think they just changed weakness to vuln on glyph of power. Might still be other fun stuff to do with a glyph build tho