Guild Wars 2

Things I had often read:

1. You’ll never kill anything without points in condi duration

2. Diamond skin is not worth the point investment

3. Condi can only kinda/maybe work with scepter, and probably s/f

4. Just about every other class does condis better/more easily.

5. Rock solid sucks

6. You’re an idiot

So I decided to run full settler gear (exotics only, and no guard stacks) for a week or so with d/d while solo roaming WvW and see how it went. Crazy, right? Turns out, it’s FUN. My guildie told me to record a bit and share it, so I thought I’d post it here also on the off chance someone else finds this playstyle as fun as I do.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAoYhMM6cW4wxBf0ACRhLYCjHhwI0hFF0wMA-z0CBodCh03gUHBJvrIasVTFRjVLDWrTIVtATxCybAzrYIqECQxaA-w

It’s true that other classes can condi spam way more effectively, but guess what? they don’t have Diamond Skin. And they cannot kill this build in a 1v1. It’s not even really a contest, and I am by no means a pro ele. I always see Strength of Stone trait in condi builds, but with Rock Solid trait, swapping into Earth during Ether Renewal makes it mostly uninterruptable. And with 850+ healing power, ER is a full heal every 15s. PU mesmers will give up and leave. Engis run away if they can. Necros just die. P/D thieves question their existence. Basically anyone in Dire gear eventually realizes that they can’t win. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but they can choke on it, as far as I’m concerned.

Burst is an issue with only 15ishk hp, but 3k armor helps, and diamond skin is great for negating non-damaging conditions like immobilize, blind, and cripple. As crit damage is nerfed across the board this build will only get stronger against burst. I have no idea how it could get better against conditions. More hp would be nice I guess.

Without making this video too long – I tried to show this build’s ability, even without max gear/buffs/etc. to mix it up in big group fights while solo, to escape roaming groups, and to dismantle condi spammers.

Also – if you roam with a partner, particularly someone with burst damage, this build works great. You will draw player aggro but they will be wasting their time as you can kite/chill/cripple/immob while being resistant to all of those things yourself. Rock solid trait gives aoe stability which is also great for stomps and helps with hammer spam.

Anyway, enjoy/destroy.

Change the armor to dire so you can get 200 vitality. Other than that the build is fine. I’ve used it the same traits it doesn’t handle necro thief situations well but does great damage when might stacking.

The low hp vs high toughness can also be sort of nice with diamond skin in mind. This build (as far as traits go) is actually known as eles current cheese build by some.

DS seemed to work ok in the video. I just can’t wrap my head around a 1300 hp cushion before the DS breaks. That isn’t a lot of damage.

I didn’t know people think it’s cheese. I can understand why. It is OP against certain builds. I think it’s closer to hard counter than cheese.

The 1500ish cushion is small, yes, but with 3k armor a dire-wearer will take a while to get through it. Once they do one switch to water and you’re back to full. The stability means you can’t get chain cc’d into a condi bomb either.

I think you should drop some of your healing power, 820 is a bit too much (even to keep ds up), I used to run something close to that, but now I dropped to 6xx and it didn’t really felt different. If you really liked this build maybe you should invest in gears that give you access to more condis.

Why would someone call this cheese?

Consider Koi Cakes and Perplexity Runes + Dire Armor.

There’s an ele I fought this week in wvw that uses perplexity with chill and torment sigils, plus condi duration food. I don’t waste my time fighting him.

Hmm I think I might try this out with d/f instead of d/d.

I have a love-hate relationship with windborne dagger, but it can definitely be good for getting place when you need to.

I might also elect to go with soothing disruption instead of cleansing wave since the regen and vigor would help keep you above the 90% threshold to avoid needing the condi removal in the first place. Either that or redirect 10 from water into arcane for evasive arcana, but that could be really risky.

Nice to see different builds. +1 for anti condi bunkers!

60% of the people who roam are thief or mesmer. How do you manage a d/d thief (not the spam 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 type). How about a mesmer who isn’t condi? How about a warrior with a hammer? A decent guardian with a GS?

Omnitek.3876:

Nice to see different builds. +1 for anti condi bunkers!

60% of the people who roam are thief or mesmer. How do you manage a d/d thief (not the spam 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 type). How about a mesmer who isn’t condi? How about a warrior with a hammer? A decent guardian with a GS?

Guardian will take forever. Warrior just use poison. Mesmer keep up burns. Dagger thief shouldnt even be hard.

FrownyClown.8402:

Omnitek.3876:

Nice to see different builds. +1 for anti condi bunkers!

60% of the people who roam are thief or mesmer. How do you manage a d/d thief (not the spam 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 type). How about a mesmer who isn’t condi? How about a warrior with a hammer? A decent guardian with a GS?

Guardian will take forever. Warrior just use poison. Mesmer keep up burns. Dagger thief shouldnt even be hard.

I am asking against skilled players, who know how to dodge. I have met 1 (maybe 2) ele who can 1v1 well. Now, 99% of ppl in wvw are not looking for 1v1 and are terrible, but that is besides the point. There is that 1%.

You will have to remind me in leagues to 1v1. I have a ranger, warrior, thief and maybe mesmer (dont play at all anymore) who would love a challenge with an ele!

As far as condi goes im not great at it anymore because I’ve conditioned myself to power builds now( found condi boring after 4 months of perfecting it). I wouldn’t be a good example anymore. I’ve played against some of the best players out there in wvw. It usually goes 50/50. You want great eles to fight? Fight mbelch serane heidia or incinerary. They are the best I’ve seen. Ozii is good too.

Dagger thief is always a risk with such low HP. There isn’t much margin for error there. Even with this toughness CnD and BS can hit for 10k, and pretty much every thief in the world clears conditions in stealth through trait. With extra Hp from Dire gear and/or guard vit stacks it certainly would be much easier. Again I gave this a whirl in only cheap exotics, and without wvw buffs, so there is more potentially there.

Hammer warrior is tricky but there are 2 armor of earths and stability on earth attunement swap so that does help. Doom sigil helps versus healing signet but again, not much room for error against any burst class when your hp pool is so low and your opponent is so resistant to cc (dogged march). Hammer warriors also tend to travel in pairs, which is just bad news for a solo ele unless they’re terrible.

Bursty mesmers tend to have very little condi cleanse, so they’re not bad actually. They pretty much all run sword to immobilize you either to shatter or to make sure zerk phantasm lands, so when they open with the immob (as they tend to) your immunity can save you that initial burst (especially if you did not see them coming).

Bursty guards all do the same thing pretty much. You need to use stability vs binding blades (earth swap), and you really need to avoid the explosion of focus 5. Other than that a lot of the problem of fighting them is burns and blinds, and you should have some immunity uptime on those. Would I rather have 17 or 18k HP for those fights? Absolutely. Can you stand and trade with them the way you can vs condi spam? No. Will you kill a bunker guard? Maybe, eventually, but bring snacks.

The worst matchup is frankly hybrids, like GS mesmers wearing rabid/zerker combos. They can eat through diamond skin pretty quickly and then the condis melt that miniscule HP. All the stability means you won’t get cc’d to death but you can quickly be on the back foot and never fully recover.

As to windborne dagger – in a perfect world I’d rather have vigor on crit (and would switch for a duel if I could ever remember), but if you have spent any time roaming with traveler runes or boon duration for high swiftness uptime, you know how painful it is to run around at the regular plodding pace…

What i would change:
Armor: Dire
Rune: Perplexity
weapons: Apothecary

Momentum i dont think is worth taking

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEEQJAoYncMcMonhwhFOsNwohyB8rdJOAQUAzLDFi8R5BNzYDA-zkCB4MIIOBk8OhUHA5RRMTaIrl1FRjVJTIVPLy6GYkCYRpRA-w

This is my exact build. I have Corruption to get 250 extra condition damage.