Guild Wars 2

What are the pros/cons?

I’ve played staff ele and I think it’d be hard to give up some of the skills it brings to the table but it seems like a shout aura build could potentially bring huge sustain to a melee group like old shout warrior.

It depends, are you in a zerg or siege? staff . Are you roaming with 5-15 people? aura share.

Aura share is only between 5-10 man. If you have more than that. A staff is almost always better.

Staff is overal better I guess. Since you have lots of CC and Support trough fields and statics. On top of that u have huge AoE damage. That said, You are sceptible to the enemy focus party and CoR.
Frontline has more direct support (since you dont need to account any blasting of waterfields) and more burst at 1 point. (bombs)

I played both a lot and I must say that I prefer frontline’s playingstyle. A lot more active.
Both builds are viable though, Comes down to what you like to play the most.

Sunshine.5014:

Aura share is only between 5-10 man. If you have more than that. A staff is almost always better.

i’ve heard of zerg’s using both. d/x ele’s have a metric kittenton of blast finishers/direct heals and the staff ele’s in the back provide the water fields(or druids)

kornfanxxx.9143:

Sunshine.5014:

Aura share is only between 5-10 man. If you have more than that. A staff is almost always better.

i’ve heard of zerg’s using both. d/x ele’s have a metric kittenton of blast finishers/direct heals and the staff ele’s in the back provide the water fields(or druids)

The thing is D/x Ele is extremely weak to mass CC in WvW. Versus bad enemies you can steamroll them, but versus good groups that know how to CC, your Armor of Earth is the only thing that can keep you alive. If the fight last longer than 8s, you can’t really rely on your heal to get through it. Staying behind raining death and providing fields is much more useful.

Remember, when you use D/x, your team lose the water field. It doesn’t matter how many blast you have.

Shout build is very nice in small fights but turns into a ping pong ball in zerg vs zerg.

Sunshine.5014:

kornfanxxx.9143:

Sunshine.5014:

Aura share is only between 5-10 man. If you have more than that. A staff is almost always better.

i’ve heard of zerg’s using both. d/x ele’s have a metric kittenton of blast finishers/direct heals and the staff ele’s in the back provide the water fields(or druids)

The thing is D/x Ele is extremely weak to mass CC in WvW. Versus bad enemies you can steamroll them, but versus good groups that know how to CC, your Armor of Earth is the only thing that can keep you alive. If the fight last longer than 8s, you can’t really rely on your heal to get through it. Staying behind raining death and providing fields is much more useful.

Remember, when you use D/x, your team lose the water field. It doesn’t matter how many blast you have.

I understand completely what your saying, my only counter argument is between focus 5, armor of earth, correct composition with gaurds ect ect.. a d/x ele’s stability isn’t as much as a weakness as most would suspect. matter of fact my buddy told me in T3 wvw he saw a huge spike in D/x frontline aurashare trains that were wrecking face. you can say that everyone there is a baddy or he was lieing or whatever, just food for thought.
another thing as well – You get moving water fields with warhorn so to say ANY d/x build loses waterfields isn’t correct. D/D of D/F indeed would. I’d also be willing to bet any serious group that knows what it’s doing will have anti-peripheral targeting zerker staff ele’s in a heartbeat- which I’ve noticed. Today’s zerg consists of alot of light armored broadside fighting, something thieves are excellent at countering.

Guess breaking this down barney style into two simple pro/con lists would be best – Correct me if any of these are wrong

D/x- Pro’s
1.High healing potential~Rebound!, 2 Auras, Wash The Pain Away!
2. Shared Shocking aura CC’s (if traited)
3. Boon sharing capabilities(Regen/Vigor/Protection)
4. Insane condition clensing abilities(With shout runes and proper traiting)
5. Projectile hate – Focus(4) Earth, Focus(4) Air, Aftershock!, Overload Earth
6. Hard Invulnerability(With Focus)
7. 4 blast finishers available within a rotation

D/x- Con’s
1. Singular access to stability(Armor of earth)
2. Loss of water fields(If not using WH)
3. So-So Damage output(We’ll assume Celestial)
4. meele range fighter~healbot at a keep wall, more useful open field
5. loss of hard CC via static field ect ect..
6. somewhat slow, little access to swiftness(Outside OL’ing)

So those are some things that came to mind for me for D/x in particular – Correct me if i’m wrong on any of those points. Thanks.

I am thinking about getting into WvW with ele and want to play frontline.
Obviously the idea of going shout/aura share/soldier rune is quite nice.

But I am also interested in the possibility of going cleansing water/durability rune. Would that also work out? Because in addition to zerging, I also want to roam with 1-2 friends. It would be great if I can accomplish both with one set of runes.

D/x ele is dead in wvw other then the full aura support build and staff can pull off a good aura support. Your way better off running staff in wvw at all times.

Jski.6180:

D/x ele is dead in wvw other then the full aura support build and staff can pull off a good aura support. Your way better off running staff in wvw at all times.

I dont fully agree with you. Staff is a bit better yes. But D/F has a place in the melee train as well and not only as full auramancer.

D/D and D/wh are not viable imo. they lack the survivabilty very much. If someone says he can survive on a D/D or D/wh then im pretty sure he isnt close to the tag or the bomb and then you are better off running staff indeed.

Exciton.8942:

I am thinking about getting into WvW with ele and want to play frontline.
Obviously the idea of going shout/aura share/soldier rune is quite nice.

But I am also interested in the possibility of going cleansing water/durability rune. Would that also work out? Because in addition to zerging, I also want to roam with 1-2 friends. It would be great if I can accomplish both with one set of runes.

I’ve recently put soldier runes on my cele set and it’s very nice in roaming/small party as a D/D ele. I wouldn’t play cele with any runes for a zerg frontline anywhere higher than T8. Cele ele with those runes has about the same HP as a zerker warrior so anytime enemies chain cc your group, ele can die very easily. No you won’t outheal the dmg, once your stab is gone you can’t even overload due to cc.

Between d/f and d/w, d/f is generally better but if the group (talking small party roaming) has no water fields and has 2 or more ele, one should go d/w. One water field is like a magic.