Guild Wars 2

[Update]
I’ve taken on board what was commented on my first video and I’ve made another with hopefully some improvements on game play and to the build

I’ve altered the gear to give me a shaman Amulet for toughness and healing power

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.2.0.13.0.0.0.0.0.2.10.8.9.24.6.6.10.4.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.48.54.56.65.67.71.10.0.0.30.30

Please comment and criticise I’m willing to learn

I’m a big fan of the Elementalist and I’ve finally got a S/D build I’m happy with and those struggling might enjoy it too.

I decided to make my first video and share it with you all. I’ve been lame on the editing but with practice hopefully I’ll get better.

I think I got lucky on this match but I came in late on a losing team and I like to think I made the difference and helped win the match.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.2.0.13.0.0.0.0.0.2.10.8.9.24.8.8.10.4.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.48.54.56.65.67.71.10.0.0.30.30

Weapons
Sigil of Battle
Sigil of Force

I’ve learnt to play with Daphoenix tank/dps build as it actually gave me a fighting chance when playing to learn the mechanics and from that I’ve come up with the one above.

Aim
I’m wanting to create a PVP build that doesn’t rely on defensive armour and makes use of the offensive. I realise that putting 30 in healing doesn’t quite go down this path but there’s room for improvement.

Method
For damage I keep chipping away with fire and earth mainly
I use the Cantrips and dodge to avoid damage and with 30 in healing I get a healthy heal from spells. I could be worth swapping into the signet of restoration due to the extra heals but I like the boons you get from the Glyph.

I’m aiming to make use of Bountiful power trait (Water 25) with my many boons.
Finally I’ve tried to stack Might through from cantrips, attunement swaps, the weapon sigil and Fire IV Spellslinger. The most I’ve had at one time is 22 though that was on a training dummy and I’ll have to check once I’ve recorded in better quality video.

Please comment on any changes you would make to increase damage through build or game play.

Thanks

- you dodge randomly wasting endurance
- you dont make full use of your attunement skill sets
(sometimes casting Arc Lightning without Lightning Strike, beeing on Earth and not
casting Rock Barrier or Dust Devil)
- wrong skill priority ( like casting Fire Auto Attack in a clashfight when
Phoenix/Dragons Tooth/Ring of Fire are up)
- not using Water Trident to heal yourself
- no updraft-combo to actually hit a Dragon Tooth
- randomly casting Firegrab when target: a) is definately out of range
b) has no burning
- getting chased and switching to Fire instead of switching to Water for chill and heal

etc. etc. etc.

Currently you have probably high defense (which in fact you cant make use of right now) + incredible low damage + lacking support.

= your sPvP team carries you in the 8v8 zerg

Kinda agree with Evie, the main thing that annoyed me was the lack of the simple updraft/knockdown, firefield, DT, Phoenix combo ect.
Oh and if this is a dodge build wouldn’t sigil of energy be a bit mandatory? I mean it’s a free dodge every 9 seconds.

No combos? Why are you always using your #1 attack when other skills that can hit are up?

Thanks for the replies so far.

@Evie
By the sound of it from your reply the main thing I need to do is tighten up my game play. Admittedly I’m still finding my fingers round the keys to and I’m probably quite random. (finger bashing) I’m sure as I play over time I’ll be more accurate with my placing.

I’ll definitely work on all the points you identify and try and come back with a better, tighter game play on my next video

- wrong skill priority ( like casting Fire Auto Attack in a clashfight when
Phoenix/Dragons Tooth/Ring of Fire are up)

Whether this is me or the auto feature I don’t know I’ll have to pay more attention when I’m playing but would it be better for me to learn to play with the auto attack feature off?

Currently you have probably high defense (which in fact you cant make use of right now) + incredible low damage + lacking support.

I’m unsure of what you mean here? Are you saying my build has potential high defence but I’m not making use of it through incorrect game play? (wasted dodge, not evading in water etc.)

Does my low damage come from not using my attacks and combos efficiently or is it a build problem? If it’s the former I can work on it if it’s the latter I’ll need to restructure the build.

@Curring

Kinda agree with Evie, the main thing that annoyed me was the lack of the simple updraft/knockdown, firefield, DT, Phoenix combo ect.

As mentioned above I’ll work on the technique

Oh and if this is a dodge build wouldn’t sigil of energy be a bit mandatory? I mean it’s a free dodge every 9 seconds.

I’ve over looked this one. Do you know if I put the sigil in my off hand dagger will I still get the buff? and can I run SIgil of Energy and Sigil of Battle together? I’ll test it when I next play

@DrGenocide

No combos? Why are you always using your #1 attack when other skills that can hit are up?

I’ve been back through my video and you’re right I don’t combo as much as I can.
I’ll work on this, I am aware of making combos but it’s not fluid at the moment. I’ve only just recently found out that Evasive Arcana procs off Combo field so I’m actively trying to use this too for combos. It could also be partly down to the auto attack? I’ll turn it off and see what happens.

Thanks again.
I’ll practice and tighten up the game play and post another video soon.

Yeah they do work together.

They don’t.

Weapon swap sigils share cooldowns, and Sigil of Battle takes precedence over the rest, so if you’re running battle+<something>, battle will proc every 9s on attunement swap, and <something> will proc rarely, if ever.

Source: I just tested it (to confirm what I was pretty sure was the case anyway)

Yeah they do work together.

No, the Sigil of Superior energy and Sigil of Battle do not work together, you can only have 1 weapon swap sigil active at a time. I use Energy (for endurance gain on swap) and either Accuracy or Force (+5% crit or +5% dmg).

- you dont make full use of your attunement skill sets
(sometimes casting Arc Lightning without Lightning Strike, beeing on Earth and not
casting Rock Barrier or Dust Devil)

This is something I see A LOT when watching Ele videos and that comes with practice. I’ll admit however, than when playing, I’m often guilty of the same thing. We all are on occasion, no ones perfect. It’s far easier to watch a video and call people out on this than it is to play yourself and remember to do so.

Currently you have probably high defense (which in fact you cant make use of right now) + incredible low damage + lacking support.

= your sPvP team carries you in the 8v8 zerg

while Evie could make better use of the defensive nature of this build (i.e., by switching to water more often when getting beat on, pop a regen, and then back to earth for the protection bonus making the regen more net effective) he didn’t play THAT bad. I wouldn’t say he was getting carried.

I run a similar build (I use D/D and put 10 trait points into earth, not fire, for earth’s embrace, and I often wear Dolyak, so I have 20k hp and almost 3k armor) making me VERY tanky. I do incredibly low damage as well, but my bleeds/burns DO add up and I have enough burst to put a good dent into people (it takes forever to kill folks solo, but I often do as they rarely kill me). If I have 3 enemies beating on me thinking “Ele, free kill!” it frees up my teammates to beat on THEM, unhindered. Sure, my allies pump out more damage then me, but I keep the bad guys off of them and soak up all of their big damage. Some might say I’m getting carried, but hey, if the bad guys drop and we’re all still standing, a wins a win

Monkeymoo.6091:

I’ve been back through my video and you’re right I don’t combo as much as I can.
I’ll work on this, I am aware of making combos but it’s not fluid at the moment. I’ve only just recently found out that Evasive Arcana procs off Combo field so I’m actively trying to use this too for combos. It could also be partly down to the auto attack? I’ll turn it off and see what happens.

Self-combo’ing your fields as Scep/D (and D/D) is very hard with Evasive Arcana as you basically only have ONE combo field, that is ring of fire in Fire (obviously). Evasive Arcana rolling to it only yields 3 might stacks, so it’s not particularly game changing (although it helps). Basically, drop the fire field (ring), then move a bit, and dodge roll back into the middle. This will get you 3 stacks and burn the enemy a bit longer due to the flame burst from evasive arcana. Again, good but not game changing, don’t put yourself into a dangerous position JUST to get those 3 stacks of might.

Along these lines, I think DrGenocide referencing “Combo” was targeting the fact that you didn’t use, for example, the ubiquitous RTL into updraft, swap to fire, and drop ring/dragon’s tooth/pheonix all at once to get 7 stacks of might (1 from fire attune, 3 from DT blast, 3 from Pheonix blast) and HUGE damage. Be sure to target pheonix just behind them so it hits 3 times, once going out, one blast, and once returning to you.

You can also use Ring of Fire/Dragon’s tooth at close range, and if you’re quick (and they’re not) swap to earth for magnetic grasp (immobilizing them for DT to hit) and giving you a fire aura as Mag. Grasp is a “leap finisher” (as well as 3 might stacks from using DT in the ring). You have to be fairly close for this to work though, cause grasp is slow. This is another good combo to use when you’re already in fire and can’t swap to air to start with RTL/updraft (cause it’ll put fire on cooldown so you can’t go back).

Finally, I suggest you DO NOT take your #1 skills off of auto-attack. There will still be times you find yourself repositioning, moving, dodging, etc., and NOT using your big cooldown skills. Why wouldn’t you want the free damage from the auto-attacks, leave them ON. Although I personally set lightning strike, #2 in air, to auto if I run a scepter cause it’s a great instant hit on a short cooldown of 5 seconds, so I want it going off every 5 seconds reliably without having to hit the key. the #1 skill (arc lightning) is a 3 second channel anyway that announces to the world “Elementalist over here, COME KILL ME,” so I prefer to hit that one myself

You can also use Ring of Fire/Dragon’s tooth at close range, and if you’re quick (and they’re not) swap to earth for magnetic grasp (immobilizing them for DT to hit) and giving you a fire aura as Mag. Grasp is a “leap finisher” (as well as 3 might stacks from using DT in the ring). You have to be fairly close for this to work though, cause grasp is slow.

Magnetic Grasp is a dagger mainhand ability. You can’t have it and Dragons Tooth/Phoenix.

Magnetic Grasp is a dagger mainhand ability. You can’t have it and Dragons Tooth/Phoenix.

Haha, whoops, my bad I know that. In my quick typing I got mixed up about the build we were talking about

Huh my bad, I swore they did, then again I never really keep track of my stacks of might but I notice energy. Sorry for the incorrect info then.

@Bsquared
Thanks for the help – I’ve had a few sessions this evening and though no video to show I’ve starting linking RTL, updraft, fire field, DT, Phoenix. It’s a hard one to pull off and aiming the DT is bloody difficult. I’ve also changed my air auto attack to #2. Thanks for that.

Interestingly I swapped my amulet for rampage to increase my crit % and crit dmg. Though it helped a bit I was getting owned again. Especially by a particular thief. As soon as I went back to soldiers Amulet I could take him on again without fear of being 2 shotted. Because of this I’m going to experiment with shifting where my toughness comes from to see if I can squeeze any more DPS out of somewhere.

Finally I was thinking about your comments on Evasive Arcana, would this build work well with a staff trading vigorous sceptre to blasting staff and using the dodges to trigger the many combo fields? just a thought. I’m keen to test and perhaps I’ll submit another video.

Hi Everyone,

I’ve updated/edited the original post. Please comment/criticise

Thanks