Guild Wars 2

Yo, what’s up everybody?

It’s your friendly neighborhood Zoose here. I just wanted to share my current build with everyone that I’m running post patch. It’s still S/D, but it’s got some changes to it that create a lot of insane burst potential. Feel free to share it and discuss here.

Sorry I haven’t been so active on these parts of the forums. I usually tend to just do podcasts, and talk to people via voice/stream instead. :P But this time it’s a video!

http://youtu.be/Ex7Bt8faeBQ

Hey Zoose I watched your video and I’ve created the exact same build after the patch was released. Basing the main opening for the burst to be ‘electric discharge’ is what I believe is the whole ideal for this exact build you’re using. It may be for personal preference but using the knights amulet will give you a slight extra survivability. The sigil to use for your main hand should be ‘intelligence’ allowing you to switch to lightning attunement for ‘discharge’ frequently plus it’ll allow you to rely on one arcane utility.

For healing, the ‘glyph’ or ether renewal would be a bit more reliable since we wouldn’t be able to pull off a lot of heals from using the skill plus (I’m sure you know) it’s best to not use the heal for signet of restoration unless it’s really needed or you’re traited correctly and fully to earth.

Lastly for runes i wouldn’t rely on you getting hit to get that dog in ogre since you’re pretty much a glass cannon I guess the ones i would recommend would be ‘eagle’ and ‘scholar itself’.

what happened to “Hi im Zoose and I’m quitting GW2 because positive changes for the PvP scene are too slow coming?”

good vid though.

Zoose, awesome video! Could you link to your build that you use for this video please? I want to try it out.

Urukami.4796:

Hey Zoose I watched your video and I’ve created the exact same build after the patch was released. Basing the main opening for the burst to be ‘electric discharge’ is what I believe is the whole ideal for this exact build you’re using. It may be for personal preference but using the knights amulet will give you a slight extra survivability. The sigil to use for your main hand should be ‘intelligence’ allowing you to switch to lightning attunement for ‘discharge’ frequently plus it’ll allow you to rely on one arcane utility.

For healing, the ‘glyph’ or ether renewal would be a bit more reliable since we wouldn’t be able to pull off a lot of heals from using the skill plus (I’m sure you know) it’s best to not use the heal for signet of restoration unless it’s really needed or you’re traited correctly and fully to earth.

Lastly for runes i wouldn’t rely on you getting hit to get that dog in ogre since you’re pretty much a glass cannon I guess the ones i would recommend would be ‘eagle’ and ‘scholar itself’.

I have actually tried out the glyph heal a bit, and I find it is a bit better than the signet heal yeah because of the nerfs to evasive arcana proc’ing the heal.

Ogre is used for the raw damage, not necessarily the rock dog. I prefer it over Eagle. ^^
I may or may not switch to scholar though ;o

Plus don’t forget that glyphs are also in the lightning attunement trait line.

Fair enough usually for raw damage i’d use hoelbrak or strength. Hoelbrak is good due to -20% condition duration and strength for 5% damage if you have might.

Wasn’t rune of strength bugged? Or is it fixed?

Urukami.4796:

Plus don’t forget that glyphs are also in the lightning attunement trait line.

Fair enough usually for raw damage i’d use hoelbrak or strength. Hoelbrak is good due to -20% condition duration and strength for 5% damage if you have might.

I’ve actually switched my runes to Hoelbrak now, but yeah I remember strength being bugged. Not sure if it still is right now.

The condi meta in spvp right now makes it so that -20% condition duration is really good.

I’m not really sure if rune of strength is fixed either but i usually use hoelbrak for a decent survivability if i choose to go as am offensive build.

But i’m fixated with mostly support so i’m using staff most of the time.

Love your videos Zoose. So for the current build you are taking Fresh Air and at the moment it doesn’t have an internal cooldown on the trait. Do you feel the trait will still be good when it gets fixed to have a 5 second internal cooldown?

Urukami.4796:

I’m not really sure if rune of strength is fixed either but i usually use hoelbrak for a decent survivability if i choose to go as am offensive build.

But i’m fixated with mostly support so i’m using staff most of the time.

just checked, Runes of Strength are still bugged and not giving the +5% damage with might…kitten.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Love your videos Zoose. So for the current build you are taking Fresh Air and at the moment it doesn’t have an internal cooldown on the trait. Do you feel the trait will still be good when it gets fixed to have a 5 second internal cooldown?

Yes, I feel the trait will still be strong with 5s internal CD because that’s when your Lightning Strike will come back anyway ^^

Playing with your build and I’m enjoying it so far. I usually prefer using Valkyrie gear (and 20 water), because I can usually kill fast enough, and enjoy having higher margin for error, but I guess renewing stamina and EA are equally good for survival?

Any opinions on staff builds, traits, gear etc?

Hierophant Firedance.5809:

Any opinions on staff builds, traits, gear etc?

I think staff in spvp still has the same issues as it did before, the support got nerfed way too hard 6 months ago, and it still is not very strong to be a support build because S/D support outshines it with consistent faster cast heals whereas if you use Water 5 + Earth 2 + a blast finisher in it, that takes quite a while to get the heals you want, plus your teammates have to be close to the blast finishers, where as S/D support only needs you to be close enough to your teammates to dodge roll + switch to water + water 5 + water 3.

The aoe for staff support is much larger and the range is nice, but I believe that staff is only exceptionally strong in WvW. in WvW staff can utilize the towers and large terrain to abuse it’s range advantage and big aoe advantage on zergs and things of that nature. You can sit back with a full zerker staff full DPS and not get hit and do tons of pressure to the enemy. Staff support in WvW wouldn’t be bad either IMO because it is a lot of people you can aoe support whereas in spvp it’s a 5v5.

I have got one question.

1.Why not 20 on Water and 20 on Arcana?

For example, what is wrong with this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImkbxx5gjDIEFmwLIeYBOAHWUkDzAA-ToAg0CnICSFkLITQygsBNKY+B

Authority.6145:

Why Air Training instead of Aeromancer’s Alacitry?

Lets pretend X spell does 100 damage and has 10 seconds cooldown.

With Air Training (deals 10% more damage when attuned to air)

It will do 110 × 6 = 660 total damage within a minute.

With Aeromancer’s Alacitry (all your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster)

It will do 100 × 7.5 = 750 total damage within a minute

Is something wrong with my calculations?

Alacrity doesn’t affect electric discharge but air training does. The only cooldown reduction traits that are sometimes nice are water in staff and earth with focus imo, but even then theres usually something better you could take.

Apparently not. It combines well with Fresh Air and this way you may have a RtL each 16 secs.

Fresh air already has an internal cooldown.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Fresh air already has an internal cooldown.

It’s supposed to, but appears to be bugged so that it doesn’t.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Fresh air already has an internal cooldown.

It’s supposed to, but appears to be bugged so that it doesn’t.

I’m not sure if it is exactly 5 seconds but there is a cooldown on fresh air. Try this (starting in air attunement):

Switch to fire, attack until crit procs fresh air, switch to air, immediately switch to another attunement, use arcane blast or wave for the auto-crit, and fresh air won’t proc.

IMHO the problem is simply people thinking the internal cooldown starts when you switch out of air, when instead it simply starts the last time fresh air procced.

Solo.9027:

Authority.6145:

Why Air Training instead of Aeromancer’s Alacitry?

Lets pretend X spell does 100 damage and has 10 seconds cooldown.

With Air Training (deals 10% more damage when attuned to air)

It will do 110 × 6 = 660 total damage within a minute.

With Aeromancer’s Alacitry (all your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster)

It will do 100 × 7.5 = 750 total damage within a minute

Is something wrong with my calculations?

Alacrity doesn’t affect electric discharge but air training does. The only cooldown reduction traits that are sometimes nice are water in staff and earth with focus imo, but even then theres usually something better you could take.

Your argument is more sound but I would still argue that being able to use Lightning Ride twice within a minute instead of once or 4 times if successful within a minute (16 seconds cooldown) instead of 3 times might be another option as well.

IMHO Air Cooldown reduction is only worth it for D/D, but then very much so (32s updraft and RTL and 20s static aura is awesome).

Wanna give mad props to OP.. i remember him from when i was on NA servers.. i only pvp’ed back then for the first 3 or 4 months and stopped at r40.. anyways <3 he was the first d/d ele i ever saw

if i am mistaking the person i am sorry but that name really stuck in my head and i am pretty positive i am not! think he made me rage on my thief lol

was checking the video to look at his hair style but cant see through the hood .. white or black hair.. long .. parted down the middle?

Authority.6145:

I have got three questions.

1.Why not 20 on Water and 20 on Arcana?

For example, what is wrong with this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImgbxx5gjDIEFmwLIeYBNAHWUgDzAA-ToAg0CnICSFkLITQygsBNIY+B

2.Why Air Training instead of Aeromancer’s Alacitry?

Lets pretend X spell does 100 damage and has 10 seconds cooldown.

With Air Training (deals 10% more damage when attuned to air)

It will do 110 × 6 = 660 total damage within a minute.

With Aeromancer’s Alacitry (all your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster)

It will do 100 × 7.5 = 750 total damage within a minute

3.Why not put the trait Final Shielding in the Arcane Power Trait since you would be able to overuse it with its short internal cooldown?

1) 20 water 20 arcana is perfectly fine (that’s what I run), it’s a matter of preference between that and 10 water / 30 arcana

2) your reasoning about air cd reduction would be valid, if you were to stay in air attunement for a whole minute. However, considering air attunement recharge / fresh air 5s icd, which is the same cd as Lightning Strike, you would gain nothing damage wise (you would actually reduce your lightning strike and arcana spells damage by 10% when in air). RTL/Updraft cd reduction is not worth that trait (while Shocking Aura and the new buffed Lightning Touch would for d/d)

3) Final Shielding has a 75s cooldown, unless it is broken.

Shar.3402:

Authority.6145:

I have got three questions.

1.Why not 20 on Water and 20 on Arcana?

For example, what is wrong with this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImgbxx5gjDIEFmwLIeYBNAHWUgDzAA-ToAg0CnICSFkLITQygsBNIY+B

2.Why Air Training instead of Aeromancer’s Alacitry?

Lets pretend X spell does 100 damage and has 10 seconds cooldown.

With Air Training (deals 10% more damage when attuned to air)

It will do 110 × 6 = 660 total damage within a minute.

With Aeromancer’s Alacitry (all your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster)

It will do 100 × 7.5 = 750 total damage within a minute

3.Why not put the trait Final Shielding in the Arcane Power Trait since you would be able to overuse it with its short internal cooldown?

1) 20 water 20 arcana is perfectly fine (that’s what I run), it’s a matter of preference between that and 10 water / 30 arcana

2) your reasoning about air cd reduction would be valid, if you were to stay in air attunement for a whole minute. However, considering air attunement recharge / fresh air 5s icd, which is the same cd as Lightning Strike, you would gain nothing damage wise (you would actually reduce your lightning strike and arcana spells damage by 10% when in air). RTL/Updraft cd reduction is not worth that trait (while Shocking Aura and the new buffed Lightning Touch would for d/d)

3) Final Shielding has a 75s cooldown, unless it is broken.

Ah I see. Thought Final Shielding’s CD was much lower than that.

Aether McLoud.1975:

I’m not sure if it is exactly 5 seconds but there is a cooldown on fresh air. Try this (starting in air attunement):

Switch to fire, attack until crit procs fresh air, switch to air, immediately switch to another attunement, use arcane blast or wave for the auto-crit, and fresh air won’t proc.

I just tested this on a dolyak in Dredgehaunt Cliffs and had 0 cooldown. I switched attunements as rapidly as it would let me, got a crit immediately, and Fresh Air activated every time. No internal cooldown at all.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Aether McLoud.1975:

I’m not sure if it is exactly 5 seconds but there is a cooldown on fresh air. Try this (starting in air attunement):

Switch to fire, attack until crit procs fresh air, switch to air, immediately switch to another attunement, use arcane blast or wave for the auto-crit, and fresh air won’t proc.

I just tested this on a dolyak in Dredgehaunt Cliffs and had 0 cooldown. I switched attunements as rapidly as it would let me, got a crit immediately, and Fresh Air activated every time. No internal cooldown at all.

Confirmed.

I prefer Aeromancer’s Alacrity, because I want my Lightning Strikes ready when I swap. Rather important if you are close to downing someone that you can get that extra damage quickly. Lowering the CD of 3, 4 and 5 also makes it worthwhile.

The reason you want Air training over any other trait at that slot is because you can “abuse” the trait by attunement swapping part way through a cast.

All of our hard hitting spells have some sort of delay between when the cast is initiated and when the damage occurs. You can use this delay to switch into air attunement and get a bonus 10% damage on those spells.

Example: Cast dragon’s tooth and switch to air attunement before it hits the target. The dragon’s tooth will do 10% more damage.

This works with EVERY spell that has a delay. Which means 2-5 in fire, 3 in water, and 4 and 5 in earth. With fresh air, that means that a ton of your hard hitting spells can get that 10% bonus damage. It’s an incredibly strong trait combination.

Edit: it also works with utility skills. So if you’re running arcane spells, try to use them in air attunement (if you dont want to use them to force an air attunement) for the bonus damage