Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I started a thread a few months ago, because I got the materials together for an ascended set and I planned to use it for my ele. But I geared my thief up instead. So here’s my second time – with the mats almost ready – to craft gear for my ele. Back then I got quite detailed responses how to pick stats and so on… I’d like to know if they are still valid suggestions? Is there any compatibility between staff and d/d stats? (I’m planning to switch staff and d/d quite often depending whether I join a zerg or go roaming.) Where is the damage/survivability/support sweetspot for staff and d/d stats? From my own thoughts – staff can either be more glasscannon-ish than d/d or it should go full support if in a zerg, while the d/d set should be somwhere between the two. But I’d really like to hear opinions from more experienced players.

There is really no sweet spot between the two. Celestial gives you healing power which is 100% wasted on a Staff support build. I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it’s your Guardians/Warriors who will be blasting Water fields for heals and not the fields themselves that do the healing. It also gives you Condition damage which is largely wasted by a power based weapon. Sure your Burn will burn for a bit more but otherwise it’s really points better spent in Power.

That said Celestial stats aren’t going crack the sky open and unleash the four horseman of the apocalypse down upon you.. 100% Celestial with a Berserker Staff still gives you reasonable stat spread all around even with points wasted (mostly because it gives you more over all stats as an armor type). Yea you end up with -300 power where you could be, but a lot of that is moved into Vitality in addition to still getting that additional 500+ Condi/Healing.

Unless you really planning on taking it super hardcore with some Guild vs Guild group who is all super extreme time I wouldn’t worry about it and just play D/D stats with a Staff when you group up with a zerg. Even then if you do join one of those guilds, they will tell you exactly what they expect out of you.

“Celestial gives you healing power which is 100% wasted on a Staff support build. I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it’s your Guardians/Warriors who will be blasting Water fields for heals and not the fields themselves that do the healing. It also gives you Condition damage which is largely wasted by a power based weapon. Sure your Burn will burn for a bit more but otherwise it’s really points better spent in Power.”

I think you are seriously underestimating the healing potential of a full cleric’s staff ele.

Allow me to direct you to my post on tempest healing:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Maximum-Healing-Potential-Tempest-BWE-3/first#post5510323

Staff healing is already almost as potent already, we’re just missing some of the good healing tools of the Tempest.

With JUST Soothing Mist, while traited, you’re healing allies for 750+ per second. Water staff 1 is easily over 1,200 per second. Geyser is worth what two blast finishers alone would do, and you can blast it as well. AND regeneration certainly adds up over time as well, though in WVW you need more instant healing than over time generally I suppose. That said, tossing down Geyser + spamming Water 1 will out heal any blast finisher spamming player, and this will especially be true once we have “Rebound” “Wash the Pain Away” and Overload: Water in the mix.

Swiftwynd.1685:

I think you are seriously underestimating the healing potential of a full cleric’s staff ele.

Allow me to direct you to my post on tempest healing:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Maximum-Healing-Potential-Tempest-BWE-3/first#post5510323

Staff healing is already almost as potent already, we’re just missing some of the good healing tools of the Tempest.

With JUST Soothing Mist, while traited, you’re healing allies for 750+ per second. Water staff 1 is easily over 1,200 per second. Geyser is worth what two blast finishers alone would do, and you can blast it as well. AND regeneration certainly adds up over time as well, though in WVW you need more instant healing than over time generally I suppose. That said, tossing down Geyser + spamming Water 1 will out heal any blast finisher spamming player, and this will especially be true once we have “Rebound” “Wash the Pain Away” and Overload: Water in the mix.

You heal 5 people for 750 per second. Enemy is 40 people deep at least 25 of which are all AOE bombing for multi thousands of damage per second. No amount of healing will let you sit in damage let alone mitigate damage because there’s simply vastly more damage than there will ever be healing.

This is why WvW follows the “engage -> refresh” model. Because you engage (aka: “bomb”) the enemy and then pull back to refresh by dumping water fields that Guardians and Warriors blast as well as blast as they engage (such as guardians using Hammer 2). Healing 5 extra people in here for a couple hundred more is redundant and wasteful when refreshing 10-15 people. I suggest watching any number of top tier WvW videos on youtube to show how this works or any number of GvG videos as well.

Edit: Tempest is bad. Leaving it at that. Without serious reworks it will have no place in the meta as the base Elementalist is superior in every way.

Kodiak.3281:

There is really no sweet spot between the two. Celestial gives you healing power which is 100% wasted on a Staff support build. I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it’s your Guardians/Warriors who will be blasting Water fields for heals and not the fields themselves that do the healing. It also gives you Condition damage which is largely wasted by a power based weapon. Sure your Burn will burn for a bit more but otherwise it’s really points better spent in Power.

That said Celestial stats aren’t going crack the sky open and unleash the four horseman of the apocalypse down upon you.. 100% Celestial with a Berserker Staff still gives you reasonable stat spread all around even with points wasted (mostly because it gives you more over all stats as an armor type). Yea you end up with -300 power where you could be, but a lot of that is moved into Vitality in addition to still getting that additional 500+ Condi/Healing.

Unless you really planning on taking it super hardcore with some Guild vs Guild group who is all super extreme time I wouldn’t worry about it and just play D/D stats with a Staff when you group up with a zerg. Even then if you do join one of those guilds, they will tell you exactly what they expect out of you.

Thank you for the helpful input. I dont mind a little more grinding, I’ll get both gear sets. I just wanted to make sure the exact goal. Speaking of which – does full cele d/d only work in GvG or small scale scenarios? I see metabattle suggests some zerk/knight gear mixed with cele for roaming plus air trait line instead of fire.

ty

It’s like any game mode really. You only want to go as defensive as you have to go in order for you to survive. When you first start out, the more defensive you are the more lazy/forgiving you will want to be to learn the content, in this case what you’ll be facing roaming wise. Over time and experience you will learn you can phase gear out in more optimized but riskier options like Berserker. Maybe shave off 100 armor here and gain power/ferocity there (IE: Knight → Zerker). A lot of cases I find it depends on the night and who is out. Some groups out there I have to put in more defensive gear cause it’s super spikey and other nights I got the “B” crew out and I can just run over them. This really applies to any setting, be it solo roam, small scale roam, or even zerg v zerg fighting.

What is going to work best for you will ultimately be determined by your ability to play the class and the opponents you are facing.

In PvP, you have limited amulet selections, so it’s all about choosing the one that gives the most value. Celestial amulet gives more stat points than other amulets and all of them can be utilized in some type of way.

This is not the case in WvW or PvE, because you are free to min and max to your hearts desire.

I am a staff elementalist. I haven’t touched daggers in like a year and a half. Staff is pretty simple: you take enough soldiers to feel comfortable, then stack up on beserkers for the rest. I personally run all soldiers ascended armor, all ascended berserker trinkets and ascended beserker weapons.

Most of the D/Ds in my WvW guild do a few celestial peices, than the rest some combination of beserkers, knights or valkyries.