Guild Wars 2

In the main hand, it seems that Scepter skills do a lot more damage and have 3 times the range. I honestly am trying to understand.

Scepter has some VERY slow casting abilities and auto attacks except the water and air auto.. I will write more later for unknown reasons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-elementalist-11-6-12

:)

These are just a couple things:

1) Drake’s Breath is huge damage, much bigger than anything Scepter has and is the biggest single reason.
2) Dragon’s Tooth has a nice range but takes too long to land and so is very easy to see and avoid. Phoenix can be hard to hit too when both players are moving. The rest of the damage skills are nothing special.
3) DD gives two auras instead of one. With proper trait setup this gives alot of crowd control and defense.
4) Dagger has Burning Speed and Magnetic Grasp to get close and do damage. Or, Burning speed can be used to separate. Together with Ride the Lightning that is alot of mobility.
5) No inductions. All instant cast.

For PvE, I prefer a might-stacking S/D build. AoE options are better, and group buffs are better. The fact that abilities like Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix take a long time to hit doesn’t matter in PvE because mobs are stupid.

In PvP, I (and many others) prefer D/D because it has more mobility, more survivability, and its big damage attacks are easier to land. Overall they don’t hit quite as hard, but they hit much more consistently. D/D’s autoattacks also hit harder.

Once you stack might your air attunement will tear people up when using scepter, but until then you have to updraft into tooth and phoenix to get considerable damage.

You guys do not realise that the proper dps is staff, the only reason why ppl dont use it is because its useless casting time make it an useless dps weapon, its not even close to the dps of other classes with its gigantic recharge time and slow casting times.

TheWarKeeper.5374:

You guys do not realise that the proper dps is staff, the only reason why ppl dont use it is because its useless casting time make it an useless dps weapon, its not even close to the dps of other classes with its gigantic recharge time and slow casting times.

I use it, and it does way more damage than scepter or daggers. XD You can even suicide and take out multiple people if you think you are going to die.

Also, i can kill with it from a safer distance if the mobs are not moving away, yes that “if” is a big deal but as ive said, i do not come from a mmorpg where ele is a tanker with melee, that entire concept is broken to me as the diversity goes down the hill.

Scepter can hit hard but it is much easier for enemies to avoid their big hits. You can literally walk out of a dragon tooth attack with time to spare. The other problem with scepter is the lack of great mobility tools. D/D’s attacks on the other hand are much harder to avoid and you get ride the lightening for quick hit and run tactics.

Sure, staff is the ultimate DPS tool because it has tons of AoE, but it’s not really that bursty. I never really got the hang of the scepter, but I do remember getting really annoyed at how slow Dragon’s Tooth animated. I have started playing around with a D/D setup, and it takes out one enemy faster than staff in PvE. I can’t say too much about D/D in group situations yet.

In WvW, if I get caught alone with my staff, I’m dead meat. Meteors are too slow, and Shockwave and Static Field can be dodged. It seems like I could convince someone I’m too much trouble with all the in-your-face conditions and damage of D/D. Plus RTL + Burning Speed is too much fun

I assumed when he said was asking why DD was considered a DPS build, that he was refering to those for who that build is the best DPS build, and those are PvP players.

If you ask a PvE player or Dungeon rat, DD is not considered as such. PvE mobs group up nicely and stand still lol, and groups benefit nicely from the synergies an Elementalist offers with staff and scepters. Ask a PvP player who is often in melee combat, as many 1v1 turns into, and the answer is often DD.

Point is, DD is a melee range DPS setup that has virtually no inductions to be interrupted, high burst damage, defensive abilities to mitagate melee damage, and does that better than any other setup in melee range combat.

Course the easy answer is that it doesn’t do much of anything else. It’s a DPS build because there are two but only one useful group combo field, the healing and aoe is subpar compared to other weapon sets, and there is no aoe or ranged attack of any kind. I don’t know what else you could call it. It does not offer much of any support to other players. It’s singular strentgh is melee combat.

Baladir.2736:

Course the easy answer is that it doesn’t do much of anything else. It’s a DPS build because there are two but only one useful group combo field, the healing and aoe is subpar compared to other weapon sets, and there is no aoe or ranged attack of any kind. I don’t know what else you could call it. It does not offer much of any support to other players. It’s singular strentgh is melee combat.

To get this out of the way staff is a better support weapon hands down. That being said D/D is pretty complete. No we cant heal like a staff player but we do heal. We Can CC like mad and we have a lot of AoE. Fire 1,2,3,4,5 are all aoe or cone. Water 1 Pierce 2 cone, 3 aoe. Air 1 is cone (but admit it is limited to 3 targets) 5 is aoe and superb. Earth 2, 4, and 5 are all aoe and make up the majority of our aoe dps.

We do have certain amount of ranged but its not the much the beauty of team play with D/D is mobility. Fact is all the support in the world will not keep a glass cannon up. Support in the game entails mostly boons and cc. Healing has it place but its not “HEALING!” like other mmos but more patching where you can. What D/D brings to the table isn’t blinds and superb healing but CC and mobility. The cc comes the form of snares knockdowns. Offhand gives access to the KDs Main hand dagger the snares in earth and water.

Our patch healing if traited is good too. Honestly I know it doesn’t compare to staff but if you really don’t want to pop your main heal you don’t need to.

The other thing is the 1v1 thing. Actually D/D is much more useful 1 v group (so is just about every other ele weapon set). In PvP D/D when played right can go in and hassle a group and survive. In PvE taking on less than 2 mobs is a waist of energy and the most I can fight (so far) is 10 regular or 4 vets (doesn’t matter if ranged is mixed in).

I think each weapon set has its advantages and disadvantages but imho D/D isn’t the dp weapon set but the balanced weapon set. It mixes dps with mobility, cc, and support for survival.

I think it needs to be mentioned that mobility is the strongest form of defense in the game. If your’e not getting hit your’e not taking damage. Much like some alchemy tanky/bunker based engi builds we survive off our mobility it just so happens almost all of it is in the left side of the bar. The right is freed up for what even you like.

I probably don’t spec for D/D properly because I just don’t find it useful as a Carrion Ele. I use S/D mostly… stacking might in fire then finishing them off in earth destroys stuff pretty darn fast for me.

Staff is great if you are going to run in and throw meteor shower. I also love the primary air skill that bounces lightning off three enemies.

I love Scepter and Dagger (I carry at least two weapon sets with me (2 daggers, focus, scepter and staff) and I love with S+D I can throw a combo and then stack it with skill 5.

Then I can combine the Earth skills to stack bleeding, along with increasing my defense. To me, I find it decent.

However, the elementalist weapons are all about the range and style of combat.

Staff is great DPS if you are fighting a group on the defensive in the middle to back row. D/D means getting closer to enemies, and really letting them have it. S/D is between Short Range and Melee Range. It has some security and cool things you can do. Lets not forget about the other combinations, they are out there and have a use.

The rule of thumb is that Ele needs everything…This is why you should ALWAYS carry your five weapons (six if you want special trident) with you since situation might have you swap weapons out.

If you are a healer and know you wont need to FULLY THROW DOWN all your heals in a particular battle and can help with damage, going S/D helps a lot to tip more things towards damage and conditions, but if you know you are going to heal large areas, thats when you put in your staff.