Guild Wars 2

Could this be a viable ele build this patch?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0fJWhJY4AwhJW2AM396f9wSsCyAjghHQA4CC-TZQWAAw+DAA

Dagger + warhorn.
Sage’s amulet/Edit:or Mercenary amulet.
Rune of the Soldier.
Sigil of Doom and Leeching.

You have some extra dmg in air and earth with Lightning orb and Dust storm from warhorn,
compared to focus. You have extra condi regen and healing in water compared to focus. and extra protection boon from Sand Squal compared to focus.
Stone Heart (because new DS is not worth a point anymore) should cover for lack of Obsedian flesh.
Also Dust storm can be kinda nice vs some melee, due to creating blindfields that you can stand in.

Fire, Water and elite shout, will cleanse 2 condis each with these traits and rune.
Regular auras wont be shared, but will cleanse 1 condi on ourself.
Armor of Earth will cleanse 1.
Tidal surge in water will cleanse 1._

Against necros you can go try deal dmg with air, water and earth.
The latter because they use bleeds as well outside of their shroud, so using bleeds vs them is less dangerous if they decide to send them back to you.
It will increase their own bleed stacks if they send them back to you, which wont increase the amount of different conditions on you if you already have some bleeds from their own spells, so its more easy to cleanse them that way.
You can go fire condi on them, once they go in shroud or once they have done fire condis on you for the same principle as with the bleeds.

So what do you think?
Could this be a viable build?
Would arcane instead of earth be an option?
With some other other alterations?

What could be a viable ele build this patch?

EDIT:
Also I forgot to add that you can get some more swiftness from Cyclone in Air attunement, as you dont have the 25% movement speed or swiftness from some other spell in the linked build.
Making you rely less on swiftness from blasting Air overload or from teammates, compared to using Focus offhand.

Yup, tried something very similar to that lastnight and holds it very well! One very important change tho, since you are negating crit hits I changed “Soothing ice” for “Stop, drop and roll” this last worked very well against chill letting me save the shouts for more threatening condis such as poison or bleeding… (vuln if high) …

Another change I made (This one is optional as there’s pros and cons was instead of using “earth armor” I used “Conjure earth shield” for extra bulkyness without relaying on corruptable boons while having an option to cc and deal damage while camping on earth attunement (where I am inmune to crits) … when dealing with Dragon Hunters and their traps earth overload is the stability option I have left. … this earth shield also allows me to pick a weird weapon wich is scepter… the only reason “Rock barrier” for more incorruptable sturdiness… dealing with necros (So far) hasn’t been an issue.

Only counter for this (with my tweaks) are long cc chains.

I prefer Armor of Earth to have a more safer fire/water/air overload in some situations and to have less trouble vs cc chains (just have to use it wisely to not get corrupted).
It also cleanse a condi, gives protection, vigor and regen which can help covering for stability to not get corrupted.

Soothing ice can still proc, because you wont be in earth all the time.
So you wont have Stoneheart up all the time. It also cleanses a condi.
But Stop, drop and roll might work too.

Although I would love to see Scepter being good, I dont feel that I would prefer it over dagger in this build. I also like the fire evade on dagger. The immob leap on earth is nice to combine with Dust storm and Air overload for example.

I tried this build earlier. Maybe I just need more practice with it but got melted by conditions

I just made a bit strange viper ele. Maybe it works. At lest it should dish out heavy hybrid damage.

You want to try a glassy build that dishes out a lot of damage?

Maybe try somethign like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdnMIC9MgNOA+XCcYiFBAzN1+aztBBgQZRsYT2GODA-TJRRAB8cCAstMAA7Pk5DAAA

Its hybrid. It has low stability and is squishy, but has a bit survival tricks to live longer then the target. It can mitigate condi and power burst. It can´t bunker very long but should live long enough to deal deadly damage. Can also be tried with staff.
Did not try it out in this setup, but i used arcane a lot before hot and fire + condi now. I might try it today.

this seems really weak support tbh, why not take the aura sharing, especially if you are taking soothing ice

after testing diamond skin i still believe it’s a must have. you only really have trouble against necros and other heavy condi builds

Lots of necros now. So no worries there will always be a couple around to melt ya

To prevent confusion, I dont mean to say that the build I posted is the new replacement for the previous patch tempest. Maybe it will do good enough, maybe it wont.
Therefore I added questions in the OP.
To see what other people their views are.

arkaxify.3258:

this seems really weak support tbh, why not take the aura sharing, especially if you are taking soothing ice

after testing diamond skin i still believe it’s a must have. you only really have trouble against necros and other heavy condi builds

Depends.

You will cleanse more conditions for your group and yourself than with aura share trait. The auras will do an extra condition cleanse. You will heal your group a bit less with auras, but you will have 2 group heals on warhorn (and one cleanses a condition) and none on focus. Also warhorn has swiftness for personal and group (outside of blasting air overload), which is nice as you lack 25% movement.
Also warhorn can share more might.

Soothing ice will cleanse a condition for me, but I guess I could take stop, dodge and roll too.

The ony auras that I cant share are shocking aura on dagger 3 and the auras on overload. This in exchange for a condi cleanse on all auras. On the ones that I can share and on the ones that I cant(meaning an extra one on the utility shouts too).

I can share magnet aura on warhorn (it shares regardless of aura share) and my aura shouts and elite shout.

I dont like the new Diamond skin.
You need to get hit every second, for it to cleanse a condition every second and
there is also the 75% hp requirement, which can be difficult to stay above if you need to get hit for it to do something.
No hit=no cleanse, even when conditions are ticking on you.
Doesnt seem all that good to me anymore.

Wolfric.9380:

I just made a bit strange viper ele. Maybe it works. At lest it should dish out heavy hybrid damage.

You want to try a glassy build that dishes out a lot of damage?

Maybe try somethign like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdnMIC9MgNOA+XCcYiFBAzN1+aztBBgQZRsYT2GODA-TJRRAB8cCAstMAA7Pk5DAAA

Its hybrid. It has low stability and is squishy, but has a bit survival tricks to live longer then the target. It can mitigate condi and power burst. It can´t bunker very long but should live long enough to deal deadly damage. Can also be tried with staff.
Did not try it out in this setup, but i used arcane a lot before hot and fire + condi now. I might try it today.

Why not use Mercenary amulet?
Due to no precision on there?

Just so you guys know, we’re also talking Ele builds over in this thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Tempest-Build-Discuss-Post-1-26-16-Patch/first#post5955350

I’ll be keeping an eye out here and testing these builds as well.

This is the best build I can come up with for ele:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodncMA9XiVYCeOA8RgFTAzdsmWjrFngCYIgoCEAaAA-TJBBABVt/QGnAAAeAAxXGAA

Here is why:

Burst ele doesn’t work…it just gets destroyed way too easily by thieves and doesn’t even have enough burst for scrappers and reapers. Ele defenses still scale well only on a tanky-ish body, requiring toughness to make all your prot mean anything. Thus you want an amulet with +toughness.

That limits you to (reasonably): Crusader’s, Mercenary’s and Paladin’s.

Taking Mercenary’s and Paladin’s doesn’t work very well b/c you end up with pretty high health, but not enough healing power to sustain. It is better, especially with all of the healing, to invest in higher toughness and healing power than vitality.

However, 11K health, doesn’t work very well, so you still need some vit…meaning its time to check out runes. The only worth-while vitality rune is Soldier’s, which also works well with tempest and shouts. With that, your vit gets up to a more respectable 14K.

Obviously, water traitline is mandatory, as without it you won’t have enough cleanse to trade blows or support your team-mates. Next, you take tempest because healing auras make great use of all that healing power, and having all your auras give extra cleanse pushes your ability to wipe away condis even further. Finally, you need prot, leaving you with either earth or arcana. Earth has no worthwhile GM (stone heart doesn’t do you too much when have such a frail body), while arcana gives you lots of prot., fury (to make better use of ferocity), an extra heal in water-dodge, and 2 more cleanses from water swap/water dodge.

Focus is the better OH choice because earth focus is amazing, the projectile hate really helps, and the low-CD on fire aura for extra cleanse/healing does more for you than RtL (the main reason you take /D).

The build has low vit, but doesn’t get hurt by condis too much because it has insane amounts of cleanse. (Water is 3 every 10s, fire is one every 25, air has one every 25, earth has 3 every 25, and shouts give you 2 every 20s and 25s, while traits give you 1 regen/20s, 1 frost aura every 20s, and 1 every 30s, and you can leap finish a fire field 1x every ~20s) mean you can cleanse about 8.5 condis every 10s), tons of healing from auras/water swaps/regen/signet of restoration/soothing mist (amounts to about 1.2K HP/s), and decent damage due to power/ferocity and fury (for precision). FGS helps you get around the map.

The build is susceptible to coordinated burst, but if you play well you might survive 1v1. Not sure how great this is vs. scappers, but can handle unranked-quality reapers.

Edit: Updated numbers to account for auras/regen from traits (soothing ice and elemental bastion) + aura from leap finisher on fire field every 20s.

My thoughts on the meta regarding on how to build an Ele:

- You’ll definitely need Stoneheart or Focus: Good powerspikes will absolutely destroy you otherwise, there’s no way around it anymore.
- You’ll need solid Conditionremoval as well, cuz condi-builds like Necro, Viper Rev etc. are still very very strong.
- Many builds can run the risk of simply being a worse version of Engi. I’ve had this problem especially in bunkery/sustainy D/D builds.

Amu’s:
- The high Healing Power Amu’s are very tricky, since they don’t offer toughness, which will result in about 20-25% more physical DMG taken. This means that even if you are not spiked down b.c. of stonehart or focus, you can get trained easily by 1-2 thief, rev, engi dealing massive physical DMG. Also, when running those amus, you can actually run the risk of not dealing enough dmg, which can be a big deal in 1v1’s against classes you should outsustain, but can’t since you don’t apply any return pressure and force them to play defensive.
- The mixed power/condi amus (sage’s, merc’s) would offer a lot of dmg on dagger especially, but it’s very risky and hurts more than it helps against necros. -> I prefer the power/precision ones.
- No Vitality Amu’s are absolutely unusable on Ele.

Runes:
- Especially on builds without mender’s, I’d absolutely love to go for healing power runes like Water or even Monk’s or on certain builds boon-duration increase like on leadership. They offer a bit of longer boon-duration and the small amount of healing power really is worth it on Ele. Often I have to choose Soldiers though.

Trait-lines:
- Earth is pretty much a must have: tons of mitigation, protection and either DS or Stoneheart, which are both very strong atm. Well, not really strong, but simply needed I guess. Geomancers training is pretty much also worth it’s weight in gold.
- Tempest: Duh….
- Arcane: I don’t see anything that’s needed in the current meta in there.
- Water: very strong, especially the combination of invigorating torrents (in the tempest trait-line) and cleansing water. Not needed as much as earth though.
- Air: Fresh air is incredibly strong atm. Overloading Air every ~10 seconds is absolutely insane. Tempest defense and zephyr’s boon are the other obvious choices and also very strong.

So here’s the build I think works best: (depending on setup and preference, both mender’s+soldier runes and paladin+leadership (or water, or soldier) runes work pretty well. Element bastion and the constant reg benefit strongly from high amounts of healing power. Also, stoneheart or DS depends on whether or not you are using soldier runes, the setup of the enemy team and your own team and the exact role you want to play.

This build here is probably the best allrounder: (paladin amu)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XCdOg9XCWYCcYilHAzdyeZ/sDngMQHUIAcA2gA-TZQABAw+DAA

Why Scepter? More ranged pressure, more on point pressure and blind to have an easier time, especially in 1v1’s to finish the air overload. Mainhand Dagger was mostly used to have schocking aura (which I get from constant air-overloads and tempest defense) and more reliable sustained dmg (which I get from constant air-overloads).

Why Focus? You are harder to get spiked down, have some decent condi-cleanse, more ranged options for on point pressure and the Swirling winds helps against certain classes with getting an air overload through.

Why DS and not Stoneheart? I feel like I have decent options with focus to deal with spiked dmg and the high amount of toughness and many shocking auras helps against sustained pressure from thiefs, revs, engi’s and other power-based builds.

Why leadership runes? The added boon-duration is amazing, it’s also not useless against conditions and the boon-duration and tiny bit of healing power helps with sustain and teamsupport.

PowerBottom.5796:

My thoughts on the meta regarding on how to build an Ele:

- You’ll definitely need Stoneheart or Focus: Good powerspikes will absolutely destroy you otherwise, there’s no way around it anymore.
- You’ll need solid Conditionremoval as well, cuz condi-builds like Necro, Viper Rev etc. are still very very strong.
- Many builds can run the risk of simply being a worse version of Engi. I’ve had this problem especially in bunkery/sustainy D/D builds.

Amu’s:
- The high Healing Power Amu’s are very tricky, since they don’t offer toughness, which will result in about 20-25% more physical DMG taken. This means that even if you are not spiked down b.c. of stonehart or focus, you can get trained easily by 1-2 thief, rev, engi dealing massive physical DMG. Also, when running those amus, you can actually run the risk of not dealing enough dmg, which can be a big deal in 1v1’s against classes you should outsustain, but can’t since you don’t apply any return pressure and force them to play defensive.
- The mixed power/condi amus (sage’s, merc’s) would offer a lot of dmg on dagger especially, but it’s very risky and hurts more than it helps against necros. -> I prefer the power/precision ones.
- No Vitality Amu’s are absolutely unusable on Ele.

Runes:
- Especially on builds without mender’s, I’d absolutely love to go for healing power runes like Water or even Monk’s or on certain builds boon-duration increase like on leadership. They offer a bit of longer boon-duration and the small amount of healing power really is worth it on Ele. Often I have to choose Soldiers though.

Trait-lines:
- Earth is pretty much a must have: tons of mitigation, protection and either DS or Stoneheart, which are both very strong atm. Well, not really strong, but simply needed I guess. Geomancers training is pretty much also worth it’s weight in gold.
- Tempest: Duh….
- Arcane: I don’t see anything that’s needed in the current meta in there.
- Water: very strong, especially the combination of invigorating torrents (in the tempest trait-line) and cleansing water. Not needed as much as earth though.
- Air: Fresh air is incredibly strong atm. Overloading Air every ~10 seconds is absolutely insane. Tempest defense and zephyr’s boon are the other obvious choices and also very strong.

So here’s the build I think works best: (depending on setup and preference, both mender’s+soldier runes and paladin+leadership (or water, or soldier) runes work pretty well. Element bastion and the constant reg benefit strongly from high amounts of healing power. Also, stoneheart or DS depends on whether or not you are using soldier runes, the setup of the enemy team and your own team and the exact role you want to play.

This build here is probably the best allrounder: (paladin amu)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XCdOg9XCWYCcYilHAzdyeZ/sDngMQHUIAcA2gA-TZQABAw+DAA

Why Scepter? More ranged pressure, more on point pressure and blind to have an easier time, especially in 1v1’s to finish the air overload. Mainhand Dagger was mostly used to have schocking aura (which I get from constant air-overloads and tempest defense) and more reliable sustained dmg (which I get from constant air-overloads).

Why Focus? You are harder to get spiked down, have some decent condi-cleanse, more ranged options for on point pressure and the Swirling winds helps against certain classes with getting an air overload through.

Why DS and not Stoneheart? I feel like I have decent options with focus to deal with spiked dmg and the high amount of toughness and many shocking auras helps against sustained pressure from thiefs, revs, engi’s and other power-based builds.

Why leadership runes? The added boon-duration is amazing, it’s also not useless against conditions and the boon-duration and tiny bit of healing power helps with sustain and teamsupport.

Very interesting. Will try this out.

How does it fare against Reapers though? All those boon corrupts on low cool down…

Glenstorm.4059:

Very interesting. Will try this out.

How does it fare against Reapers though? All those boon corrupts on low cool down…

not as easy as before, but it’s still favoured for Ele if you play it right:

- save blind for shroud 5
- Use knockdown/daze + phoenix once the stunbreakers are gone and he is just out of shroud or has no pulsing stability left.
- Kite and apply pressure with air overloads, don’t eat auto’s or whirl of the shroud.
- Use cleanses right (this is pretty important, try to use earth focus 4 against necro scepter 3.
- try and stay topped off (at least above 75%), don’t be afraid to leave the point shortly to resustain with water-overload.
- dodge heal signet….
- don’t stack too much of your boons by just spamming aura’s, w8 out the boon-conversions.
- keep the CD’s of the interrupts in mind, it helps a ton to properly use your overloads.
- LoS’ing and kiting is pretty much the key to any 1v1, since Air overload doesn’t care about obstacles and if you stand on point just when the overload finishes, it’ll keep storming havoc onto the point.
- Don’t be afraid to cancel the overload if the necro uses spectra armor. I often fake an overload and cancel it in the very last moment to bait out spectral armor. This also works against glint heal for the rev btw. It’s no big deal to loose part of a 10s CD compared to a full 50s CD for the necro. This MU isn’t gonna end very quickly, so using CD’s effectively matters a ton.

Arcana provides quite a bit, however with sigil of energy nerf, it loses out too much.
The buffs for one are always solid, and the cleanse/blast/burn/blind on dodge was handy, particularly the cleanse imo. But again, since our only source of energy now is vigor, it’s kind of useless:(

Tested about 30 games and maybe 50 1v1’s on this Staff build today: [paladin amu]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCdOg9XCWYCcYilNAjYFkCGBDPgAwF0dv+XPsA-TpgXAAWZAY/BA

worked pretty well and it distinguishes itself enough from Engi to be useful. It’s very strong in teamfights and can hold a point against anything in 1v1’s. I tested it out with menders amu, but as soon as the enemy team has some decent rev’s, thiefs, engi’s, you get trained down like crazy.

It doesn’t really kill much in 1v1’s though, but the huge teamsupport makes up for it. Staff Ele didn’t really win 1v1’s before this patch either and actually lost badly against certain builds like power-revs, which are IMHO a bit easier to deal with now.

MU vs Necro is likely the hardest IMHO, since you can’t really run comfortably without stoneheart. If you manage Water 5 well, you can hold long enough.

*Edit: Depends on how the metagame develops if it’s gonna be useful though. I predict sth. like this:

2x Engi (pala)
2x Rev (1 marauder/zerker and 1 Viper)
1x Necro (merc)

Some might add in a Ranger or Ele (likely cutting 1 rev). It’s gonna be much more bursty and have tons more dps than the meta before, but fights might last longer than with a simple power-spike, which is where a Staff-Ele could do well.

PowerBottom.5796:

Glenstorm.4059:

Very interesting. Will try this out.

How does it fare against Reapers though? All those boon corrupts on low cool down…

not as easy as before, but it’s still favoured for Ele if you play it right:

- save blind for shroud 5
- Use knockdown/daze + phoenix once the stunbreakers are gone and he is just out of shroud or has no pulsing stability left.
- Kite and apply pressure with air overloads, don’t eat auto’s or whirl of the shroud.
- Use cleanses right (this is pretty important, try to use earth focus 4 against necro scepter 3.
- try and stay topped off (at least above 75%), don’t be afraid to leave the point shortly to resustain with water-overload.
- dodge heal signet….
- don’t stack too much of your boons by just spamming aura’s, w8 out the boon-conversions.
- keep the CD’s of the interrupts in mind, it helps a ton to properly use your overloads.
- LoS’ing and kiting is pretty much the key to any 1v1, since Air overload doesn’t care about obstacles and if you stand on point just when the overload finishes, it’ll keep storming havoc onto the point.
- Don’t be afraid to cancel the overload if the necro uses spectra armor. I often fake an overload and cancel it in the very last moment to bait out spectral armor. This also works against glint heal for the rev btw. It’s no big deal to loose part of a 10s CD compared to a full 50s CD for the necro. This MU isn’t gonna end very quickly, so using CD’s effectively matters a ton.

Great tips +1
thanks