Guild Wars 2

I think warrior buffs should be used. Ive done a few vet giant dps tests before and most classes sit around 21 seconds when only using their own buffs. Warrior is faster because of banners. In a group you will always have banners and fury so I think its fair to use them for consistancy. And like keyz said, raising the crit chance reduces inconsistancy on bigs hits failing to crit.

Jeydra.4386:

Well you can’t be including +5% damage from Strength Boosters, 25 bloodlust + accuracy stacks, 25 Might / Fury / Vulnerability stacks inflicted by your teammates, etc, can you? One has to draw the line somewhere, and I prefer that line to be no buffs to start with.

Strength and armor boosters are silly to include, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing those up. Stacks (especially in a speed kill setting), food, banners, 100% fury uptime, and at least some might and vuln is a reasonable assumption for any organized group with an ele and a warrior and thus are reasonable conditions for me to want to replicate.

Jeydra.4386:

This makes the test easier to replicate for different players as well. The variance due to critical hits can be compensated for by repeating the test multiple times.

I have already spent 1.5 hours on new trials, and between interlopers and poor RNG, I have only a handful of acceptable trials for one weapon set done. And different players will add their own variance, especially if they are significantly less proficient with one or more weapon sets than their preferred set.

Jeydra.4386:

Lack of vulnerability is actually OK in this case since you can replace with the +10% while health >90% trait, then sit in Fire Attunement for another +10% damage, although in against this particular foe it’s better to use the Ice Bow.

I’m already using Vital Striking in the LH build, so if I were to switch from Burning Precision to Internal Fire I would be reducing my damage and reducing burning uptime on the target, thus (again) increasing variance while not actually testing the build and rotations that are used in practice.

Jeydra.4386:

I tried it earlier today with my Elementalist (missing Power infusions, ascended backpiece [only have masterwork] and ascended weapons; otherwise full zerk) and got about 21s using S/D. Didn’t record a video, so it’s not very precise.

How did you measure that 21s? I measure kill time from the start of the cast of the first skill that hits the target to the experience gain popup. Do you know for sure that you kept your scholar’s buff up for close to 100% of the trial? How many times did you dodge, and was that more or less consistent across trials? Did you keep boons/conditions up as necessary to benefit from trait multipliers? If you’d like to record and edit videos, MSI Afterburner is free recording software, and Windows Movie Maker is free video editing software.

Anyway, skale venom didn’t provide enough vuln uptime for S/D to perform as I’d like it, and burning uptime was often low for some odd reason. I’ll modify my setup and will likely lose a 5% force modifier to better fulfill the condition… conditions.

I fully agree with Keys’ view on speed-dps testing.

By the way, Keys, I am really fine with the idea of you explaining your setup here in this thread.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

How did you measure that 21s? I measure kill time from the start of the cast of the first skill that hits the target to the experience gain popup. Do you know for sure that you kept your scholar’s buff up for close to 100% of the trial? How many times did you dodge, and was that more or less consistent across trials? Did you keep boons/conditions up as necessary to benefit from trait multipliers? If you’d like to record and edit videos, MSI Afterburner is free recording software, and Windows Movie Maker is free video editing software.

I measured it using a stopwatch. Since I only have two hands and both are needed to play the game, it’s of course not very accurate. I have no idea how often the Scholar’s buff was up for, or how many times I dodged, how often boons were up, etc.

I’d make a video of myself playing for more accuracy, but since you’re insisting on having banners etc up (which I still don’t agree with) I don’t see a reason to. Good luck if you carry on with the tests assuming buffs up, but count me out.

Jeydra.4386:

but since you’re insisting on having banners etc up (which I still don’t agree with) I don’t see a reason to. Good luck if you carry on with the tests assuming buffs up, but count me out.

Why wouldn’t you assume banners and fury? Are you trying to find the best build dps for Dungeons and Fractals or the best open world solo roaming dps build? There is a definite difference in gear choices and traits depending on your goal. If your goal is a team build, testing with the same buffs you’ll have in a team setting is the only rational way to get a realistic comparison.

Because of the below quote.

Zelyhn.8069:

1) This is not a thread talking about speedrunning.
I understand that you wish to attract attention to your thread talking about “meta” builds for speedruns, I encourage you to develop it, but this is off-topic here.
The title mentions “advanced” PvE and I talk about “challenging content”. This may come as a shock to many but in my opinion the only thing challenging in a speedrun with an optimal team is skipping the mobs correctly. The fights last 30 seconds at most. Anyone interested in this boring type of gameplay can easily go on the Dungeon subforums and get all information they need (including my detailed talks about LH and staff).
Players wishing to do speedruns in optimal set ups are a minority and they are not my target audience.

There’s also the pragmatic reason that I don’t have a Warrior buddy or want to spend money on Strength boosters / consumables or whatever.

If you choose to do tests with all buffs up, that’s fine; it just comes under a different domain (and appeals to a different audience) from what I had in mind.

My criticism to that is, if you are voluntarily choosing to be suboptimal by running inferior team compositions (can’t stack Might and Vuln to cap, dont have banners covered, dont have perma-Fury) or choosing to disregard food buffs because they are too expensive, then you have already thrown optimization out the window and you are well into anything-goes-play-how-you-want land.

Long story short, if optimizing for major dps boosts isn’t worth your time I am somewhat perplexed about handwringing over dps tests that have very little outcome differences. It seems penny-wise and pound-foolish.

I still say if you’re trying to analyze the value of a build then it depends on what everybody else in that party is doing both to the party AND to the npc. A build that puts out more vuln might do better in a full buffs, solo dps test than another build but the other 4 players could already be capping.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

My criticism to that is, if you are voluntarily choosing to be suboptimal by running inferior team compositions (can’t stack Might and Vuln to cap, dont have banners covered, dont have perma-Fury) or choosing to disregard food buffs because they are too expensive, then you have already thrown optimization out the window and you are well into anything-goes-play-how-you-want land.

Long story short, if optimizing for major dps boosts isn’t worth your time I am somewhat perplexed about handwringing over dps tests that have very little outcome differences. It seems penny-wise and pound-foolish.

I optimize everything that only needs to be optimized once. I don’t try to optimize what other people do. I’ve also already said that I’m not going to participate in tests with buffs included. What you choose to do or how you choose to play the game is up to you, and no business of mine.

Last post I’ll make dealing with this question.

How will the build change after today’s (10.12) patch?

Hey comrades, I really want to talk extensively about the patch but I am in a place on earth where water is a scarce resource so I am not asking for wifi

Luckily I just finished serving my forum ban, so I am able to give you a preview of how the patch will affect my optimised build:

The build remains 30/30/0/0/10 (or 10 in earth instead of arcana depending on your environment)
The obvious traits are:
- Fire: pyromancer’s alacrity, persisting flames.
- Air: air training, fresh air.
- Arcane: renewing stamina
- (Earth: stone splinters)
This leaves us with interesting choices for fire and air adept traits:
- Fire: conjurer is likely going to be my choice but I may use ember’s might or burning precision too.
- Air: bolt to the heart is a strong choice, although I am much more often using quick glyphs.

The reduction in attunement recharges and the use of pyromancer’s alacrity are the two changes affecting us the most because they speed up our optimal rotation substantially, therefore we are benefiting from an increase in our damaging potential. I am talking about buffs, rejoy!

I will dive in to more details as soon as possible. In the meantime please feel free to ask any question

Zelyhn.8069:

Hey comrades, I really want to talk extensively about the patch but I am in a place on earth where water is a scarce resource so I am not asking for wifi

Luckily I just finished serving my forum ban, so I am able to give you a preview of how the patch will affect my optimised build:

The build remains 30/30/0/0/10 (or 10 in earth instead of arcana depending on your environment)
The obvious traits are:
- Fire: pyromancer’s alacrity, persisting flames.
- Air: air training, fresh air.
- Arcane: renewing stamina
- (Earth: stone splinters)
This leaves us with interesting choices for fire and air adept traits:
- Fire: conjurer is likely going to be my choice but I may use ember’s might or burning precision too.
- Air: bolt to the heart is a strong choice, although I am much more often using quick glyphs.

The reduction in attunement recharges and the use of pyromancer’s alacrity are the two changes affecting us the most because they speed up our optimal rotation substantially, therefore we are benefiting from an increase in our damaging potential. I am talking about buffs, rejoy!

I will dive in to more details as soon as possible. In the meantime please feel free to ask any question

Do you think taking internal fire for the adept would be worth it, just for the +10% on burning speed’s explosion? Or would the other traits be better?

You said the u’ll take the conjurer trait. Does it mean u r using LH?

I would need access to my dps calculator to reply accurately, I will remember to give you an appropriate answer as soon as I return to more civilised lands.

My estimate is that burning precision would bring more damage (about twice as much) if the target is not already maxed out on burn.

Anyway this may not be a problem because it is possible to swap to air before burning speed lands. I have experienced issues with this in the past, such as the attunement swapping being effective only after burning speed’s channel is over, so I would have to reconfirm.

Also, what can u say about the healing of the build. I find it to be lacking

GodAmongUs.9713:

You said the u’ll take the conjurer trait. Does it mean u r using LH?

Of course. While I dislike the conjure mechanics there are situations where using these weapons is highly appropriate. Only the axe appears useless to me.

Note, however, that it is often viable to use conjures without the conjurer trait.

As for the healing of the build I agree: it is very weak. I tend to play in a way that I do not get hit, and if I fail I die. It is possible to use my “comfortable” build (with 20 in water) if you need heals, but then you will lack damage. It is a matter of personal choice. I like to challenge myself with avoiding all hits by using pro-active defenses rather than overcoming my failure with the help of re-active fixes (heals). It is a risk-reward matter.

That’s why I take arcane barrier LH and fire signet as my utilities. Arcane barrier gives me the survivability I need

Excelsior comrades,

This is probably the last time you will see me post in this thread. I am leaving GW2.
My time here, until the events that have caused this decision, has been really great. I feel satisfied from my experience with the GW2 community, and I hope my contributions have been helpful.

I encourage anyone interested to use any/all of the works I have done. This includes my calculator, which I would have liked to complete before leaving. I am glad to provide assistance to anyone wishing to further develop this tool.

I leave you in the hands of DEKeyzToChaos.7381, you can find her comprehensive guide here. I have worked with her and I fully support her approach. Not only is Keys one of the best elementalists in this game but she is also a meticulous guide writer. She is animated by the will to promote excellence. For these reasons I believe her guide should be the reference for PvE elementalists.

Remember that the great masters, those who have the knowledge and skill, are often the most humble. Keep this in mind when deciding who to listen to.

Have fun!

Best regards,
Zelyhn

I am still not playing but I feel like updating the guide I left behind
Expect improvements coming soon after the patch!

Could be waiting a while. We have no confirmed date for the big balance patch. :<

When you do the update, could you include a section on the utility skills?

Yes I will
Is there anything else you would like me to develop?

d/f is underestimated. I managed to get a group to let me experiment with it in a couple speed clears like CoE p3 in good conditions where we’d usually run lightning hammer and I didn’t see a major drop in damage. You also contribute more vuln uptime with a d/f rotation than the slow LH pokes when running group contribution builds rather than the LH “leech” build. Weak Spot trait has a 60% chance of vuln on crits and no ICD. I didn’t cast lightning hammer even once during that p3.

LH is still insanely good constant might stacking, plus blind on trash but d/f can defend itself well and the buff to add one more blast finisher is only going to make it look more attractive. So far, the popular belief that mh dagger shouldn’t be mentioned on a dps build seems wrong to me.

S/D and S/F have superior might stacking but most groups should have enough contribution from more than one party member and SD can make you feel like crying whenever something happens that makes you lose your LH. Such autoattack, much fun/damage, wow.

It is true that S/F+LH stacks more might. But with D/F you can always pre-stack full might and mobs will die before the stacks run out, in organized groups. In pugs it is better to run D/F anyway.

A long time ago when I started playing I was using S/F+LH and in my guild application I stated that I could stack 20 might easily. I still remember my guild leader’s retort: "Cool bro, so with the rest of the group we can reach 50 stacks! " It’s a team game.

One more advantage of running D/F without LH is that you have an extra utility slot available. I am quite a fan of Glyph of Storms. And this means even more damage.

I’m fine with people underestimating D/F. In fact the less people run it the less Anet is likely to think it needs to be nerfed “for diversity”. Still, once you’ve tried it, you can never leave it!

Welcome back Zelyhn!!!

oZii.2864:

Welcome back Zelyhn!!!

Zelyhn? Hmm… That was what they used to call me.

No Sigil of Bloodlust? Seems like full 25 stacks of that is better
than the two listed. What am I missing?

You are not missing anything and you are right. It is possible to stack bloodlust and then use two other sigils though.
My “Gear” chapter is in rewriting, as mentioned. Detailed infos can be found in my calculator.

Stats optimisation (part 1/2)

In order to maximize your damage output it may be best to mix the stats combinations of your gear.

For this analysis I am assuming the following speedrun situation:
- Ascended gear
- Signet of Fire (180 precision)
- Permanent Fury (20% critical chance)
- 25 Might stacks (875 power)
- Strength and Discipline Banners from Warriors (170 power, 170 precision, 15% critical damage)
- 25 Stacks of Bloodlust (250 power)
- Curry Butternut Squash Soup (100 precision & 10 critical damage)

The basis of our build is 30 in air (300 precision, 30% critical damage), therefore the only variable that can affect our stat optimization is Fire (power). The other trait lines offer modifier bonuses that affect our dps independently of stat points. Depending on how many points you put in Fire it will be best to swap a number of armor pieces from berserker to assassin. There are four possible scenarios: 0, 10, 20, or 30 points in Fire.

For these four scenarios it appears optimal to swap your entire armor (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, shoes) to assassin. This results in a shift of -94 Power and +94 Precision from full berserker gear. Our critical chance is therefore brought to 100%. In regards to Fresh Air, this gives the highest consistency in our rotations.

Therefore our gear is best as:
- Armor: assassin
- Weapons: berserker
- Trinkets: berserker

This result is due to the speedrun assumptions I made. I will continue my analysis for less optimal situations in a later update.

Just don’t craft any assassin gear before ferocity revamp.

What runes did you use? Any infusions? At 30/30/x/0/x I’m getting that a mix is better and that full assassin’s armor is 5 precision short of 100% crit chance under those conditions.

I think that is because in your calculator you assume a base crit chance of 4%. This is effectively the base crit chance but only because the system uses a rounding down formula. In fact we have this base chance plus an excedent of 10 precision points, that are not effective due to the aforementioned rounding down. If we disregarded the rounding we would get a base crit chance of (916-822)/21/100=4.476% .

I’ll try to check more thoroughly, I could be mistaken.

I see. I wonder what method someone used to test that so exactly.

In the case of no infusions and under those assumptions, yes, assassin’s is better. On the other hand, using precise infusions and a mix of gear might still allow for a slightly higher EP. Of course, this is all pre-ferocity update and likely to change (though guaranteeing FA procs is very nice).

On the other hand, I feel like most players would realize more of a DPS gain if they were to work on their rotations instead of wringing hands over a percent of crit chance.

I agree with you of course.

I have made some updates to my calculator. Since I am focusing more on the elem than other classes for now, I am going to post about it here rather than in its original thread.

Here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B88y8fHnpBfZRnJRdVNqVC1MYXc&usp=sharing
(likely requires excel 2007 or later)

I have integrated the rotation calculator to the build tabs. This allowed me to better measure the effect of the lightning hammer attributes (like you do in your calculator).
- The Lightning Hammer utility option has been renamed Perma Lightning Hammer and retains its use as permanent attribute booster. This is not meant to be used to compute normal DPS anymore, instead the rotation calculator manages the boost from LH attributes.
- The Conjure Lightning Hammer input for rotations triggers a new LH mod that takes LH attributes into account until a Conjure drop input is issued. This mod is used to compute the coefficients of the rotation. Therefore the boost from the lightning hammer now affects DPS more accurately.
- EP now only reflects the base (permanent) build. I will try to include the effect of the boost from LH in a later update. Edit: added a side calculation to show EP inclusive of LH attribute boost.
- Gear is more customisable.
- The Zalculator looks better.

I have updated the guide entirely.

I still need to write about utilities, as promised

Nike did tests a while back to confirm 822, and I did some more tests a couple of days ago that also confirms 822.

Also, as a followup to a discussion we had a little while back, if you’re checking rotations in the mists, go with a Rampager’s Amulet, precision main runes that don’t have nonlinear damage modifiers, a Sigil of Accuracy, and Signet of Fire to ensure that FA procs as needed. Just remember to reset your PvP stuff before heading into a game!

Also, I noticed something a little weird with on-attunement-swap trait procs while wielding LH. I think if my hunch is correct then we’ll be able to figure out the true weapon strength of LH and other conjures. If it’s not correct but I wasn’t hallucinating, then maybe we need to do more research into those traits. If I was hallucinating, well, I guess that wouldn’t surprise me as I was mid-dungeon and was more focused on other stuff.

Follow-up edit: I wasn’t hallucinating, but my hunch wasn’t correct. Conjured weapon base damage is still an unknown

I have noticed there are many new elementalist players coming on these forums. I have been asked many times what is the best build for our class. My answer is that there is no clear picture. Read the introduction of my guide: the most important and most variable factor is your play-style.

Do not simply copy builds to fit the “meta”. This is the worse mistake you can do.
Instead you should get inspired by published build and experiment with all of them on your own. I like to emphasise the importance of personal experience. If you only follow what you are told to be the best practice then you will never improve.

There are a number of builds that are adaptable enough to be efficient with many setups and different weapons. If you are a new player then you should consider using one of those.

However I must make one essential warning: most high-end elementalist builds are very “glassy”. They are designed to fit the play-style of experienced players who know how to avoid taking damage relying mostly on dodges and group-play. If you are a new player you may find them hardly viable in practice. Using a stronger build will not likely make you a better player. In fact the best way to learn this game is to play with sub-optimal PuGs !

On the topic of adaptable builds, here are a few things I would like to point out about the 30/30/x/0/x build I use:

• It allows for an optimal use of staff. The little fall in optimal damage you can notice due to not taking as many damage modifiers as the usual 30/20/10/10/0 build is vastly compensated by its ability to output constant damage in varied situations. Note that I do not advocate the use of the staff (at least until Anet decides to rework its air attunement).

• It is easily the best build for underwater combat. This is because our optimal underwater combat style is close to that of the daggers. And because the build I advocate is thoroughly though through :p
  I will provide DPS figures and optimal rotations for our underwater potential as soon as our skill data is complete.

• It is a very powerful build to use the Lightning Hammer on single targets. In fact it deals more damage than the “meta” 30/10/10/20/0.

And this is just a glimpse of the possibilities!

I’m currently running D/D 0/30/10/0/30 (yes, yes, I come from a PvP background) and I mainly use Evasive Arcana to get might and cure conditions and cycle through the attunements faster (I get boatloads of boons). The 10 in Earth is clearly for the raw damage increase which is awesome, imho. I’m pretty loathe to give that up, but I’m willing to try spending 20 in Fire and see if it’s worth it: so I’m curious, is the Might and Cleanse from EA, as well as the boons, made up for by the raw power that Fire offers?

Hey Mikhail, I am going to try to give you a detailed answer as to why fire is much more desirable than arcana.

First let’s take a look at what arcana gives you:
- Fury on swap (very desirable)
- Vigor (very desirable)
- Lingering Elements (public enemy number 1)
- Elemental attunement (desirable for the most part)
- Arcane precision (public enemy number 2)
- Evasive Arcana (cleanse and blast are desirable)
- Boon duration (somewhat desirable)
- Attunement recharge (insignificant due to fresh air and relevant skills’ cooldown)

Then let’s look at the advantages of fire:
- Flame Barrier (public enemy number 3)
- Burning precision, internal fire, or Conjurer (all desirable)
- Sunspot (desirable)
- Pyromancer’s alacrity (very desirable: aligns the cooldown of our important fire spells with the rotation pattern of a build with little arcana points)
- Burning Rage (desirable)
- Persisting flames (very desirable)
- Power (very desirable)
- Condition duration (desirable)

Now let’s analyse the contributions:
- First, Evasive Arcana. This trait is actually detrimental. This is because you are going to use your dodges for something else than dodging. Therefore you are actually more likely to take damage and conditions. So either you use this trait strategically and the outcome is paradoxical, or you don’t and then it is simply useless.
- I am going to assume that you are using EA strategically, and therefore that you are not dodging as efficiently as you could. This means that you need more sustain. Therefore boons like protection and regeneration are relevant for you. But you could do without them if you used dodges for dodging. Therefore only the might from Elemental attunement is relevant. This is a nice group contribution, but it is very weak compared to what you could get in fire for the same amount of points.
- Boon duration is nice. If we disregard unnecessary boons then the best we can get from it is the following: say you can maintain 19 stacks of might on average then boon duration will bring this to 25 (rounding a bit), this is a contribution of 6, and that is 210 power. Fire gives you 300. Granted, there is also a group effect to take into account.
- I personally use 10 in arcana to maintain perma vigor and ensure my fury uptime. This is because I tend to play in non-optimised groups. However it can be argued that persisting flames nullifies the contribution of fury on swap if you can realise a proper rotation.

In comparison, fire gives you the following:
- Offensive defense via the use of defensive conditions (chill, cripple, etc)
- Much greater group effect: fury for the group (equivalent to a 420 precision boost for the group), increased vulnerability stacks from Weak Spot = more damage for the group.
- Synergy everywhere.
- Damage, damage, damage. And well, the “Zerker Paradigm” dictates that the faster you kill your foes the less likely you are to get hit before they die. Therefore damage is defense, somehow

To conclude:
Once you are confident in your ability to rely on dodges to survive, then the defensive contribution from arcana becomes irrelevant and paradoxical. In contrast fire brings much more to the table.
In the future, burning speed and frozen burst will be buffed. This implies that pyromancer’s alacrity and persisting flames will be even more desirable.
My advice to you is to start playing with less arcana progressively. Keep vigor but start putting points elsewhere (water is a safe choice to start with). Then gradually increase your investment in fire. Also, you should grab a focus. In the end the most efficient build is 30/30/x/0/x (+10 in either arcana for vigor or earth for damage).

Zelyhn.8069:

Hey Mikhail, I am going to try to give you a detailed answer as to why fire is much more desirable than arcana.

First let’s take a look at what arcana gives you:
- Fury on swap (very desirable)
- Vigor (very desirable)
- Lingering Elements (public enemy number 1)
- Elemental attunement (desirable for the most part)
- Arcane precision (public enemy number 2)
- Evasive Arcana (cleanse and blast are desirable)
- Boon duration (somewhat desirable)
- Attunement recharge (insignificant due to fresh air and relevant skills’ cooldown)

Quickly browsed the thread linked and the Lingering Elements not affecting damage modifiers has never bothered or surprised me. It’s even on the wiki. I don’t know about the recharge being insignificant… a second can let you live or die if you need to, example, swap to water and cleanse.

Then let’s look at the advantages of fire:
- Flame Barrier (public enemy number 3)
- Burning precision, internal fire, or Conjurer (all desirable)
- Sunspot (desirable)
- Pyromancer’s alacrity (very desirable: aligns the cooldown of our important fire spells with the rotation pattern of a build with little arcana points)
- Burning Rage (desirable)
- Persisting flames (very desirable)
- Power (very desirable)
- Condition duration (desirable)

Hmm…

Now let’s analyse the contributions:
- First, Evasive Arcana. This trait is actually detrimental. This is because you are going to use your dodges for something else than dodging. Therefore you are actually more likely to take damage and conditions. So either you use this trait strategically and the outcome is paradoxical, or you don’t and then it is simply useless.
- I am going to assume that you are using EA strategically, and therefore that you are not dodging as efficiently as you could. This means that you need more sustain. Therefore boons like protection and regeneration are relevant for you. But you could do without them if you used dodges for dodging. Therefore only the might from Elemental attunement is relevant. This is a nice group contribution, but it is very weak compared to what you could get in fire for the same amount of points.

Haven’t died yet from a lack of dodge, though. Fire Field, dodge into it for an Earth finish x3 and switch to something else. Since I got vigour from the first hit, stamina isn’t an issue, so I can’t agree with your first point. As the others tie into it, I’ll go the same route there.

- Boon duration is nice. If we disregard unnecessary boons then the best we can get from it is the following: say you can maintain 19 stacks of might on average then boon duration will bring this to 25 (rounding a bit), this is a contribution of 6, and that is 210 power. Fire gives you 300. Granted, there is also a group effect to take into account.
- I personally use 10 in arcana to maintain perma vigor and ensure my fury uptime. This is because I tend to play in non-optimised groups. However it can be argued that persisting flames nullifies the contribution of fury on swap if you can realise a proper rotation.

Sounding more and more like a staff build… I do wonder though if Persisting Flames’s fury makes up for the 10% damage of Earth, since I already have 100% fury uptime, it’s not as impressive to me.

In comparison, fire gives you the following:
- Offensive defense via the use of defensive conditions (chill, cripple, etc)
- Much greater group effect: fury for the group (equivalent to a 420 precision boost for the group), increased vulnerability stacks from Weak Spot = more damage for the group.
- Synergy everywhere.
- Damage, damage, damage. And well, the “Zerker Paradigm” dictates that the faster you kill your foes the less likely you are to get hit before they die. Therefore damage is defense, somehow

Er… where do you get the chill and cripple from in the Fire tree? If you mean the ones from Frozen Burst and Ring of Earth, then that’s already in the other build.
This applies to the conclusion as well (because I’m lazy): essentially, it’s some survivability/utility in exchange for some damage by going into Arcana instead of Fire.
Going back to 30 points in Fire, I know the 25 minor adds 10% to burning foes, but that’s not a guarantee you’ll have (though, I see the preference as with reduced fire CD, you can keep the fire up more often so it comes down to foes that might be hard to get close to vs foes that can’t be burned).

(I do have a focus, for whenever I need Swirling Winds and Magnetic Wave, though guardians are so common, it’s gathering dust.)

I am confused then: you tell me that you never died from lack of dodge but also that cleansing a second earlier is matter of life of death for you?
How did you get the conditions in the first place, if not by lack of dodge?

Could it be because you spend time casting churning earth? This is also why we tend to favor the focus: the might stacking is faster, more damaging, and virtually risk free.

I’ll point out that it’s for dungeons, not general PvE or fractals, so my “never died” doesn’t come off too… arrogant.
Some conditions are harder to avoid than others. A frozen circle in HotW, a fire field that you dodge into because it wasn’t there when you actually dodged, etc. And it’s not just for myself, it’s for others too. I don’t have a dedicated pve group.

Eeeh, Churning Earth has never killed me yet. And I don’t quite see how… the frozen meteor thingy and the fire field (which, if I recall correctly) does enough damage.

Don’t get me wrong, Zelyhn, I’m genuinely curious about it and appreciate your answers, but whenever a build gets labelled as “meta”, it feels like it’s hypothesis over practice and I’m wary to start using it. I’ll give it a try, ofc.

Don’t worry I don’t get you wrong

Might stacking with the focus is both faster and more damaging, look at the cast times and coefficients.

Now to the build.
Notice that I never said this build is “meta”. While it certainly is, I am not a fan of this concept. Contrary to an other thread in this forum I do not have the arrogance to call my builds “meta” and state that everybody should follow them. This would be very narrow-minded. Instead I claim that every build is specific to its owner. Therefore it may or may not work for you, depending on your play-style and your performance level.
However the build does work. It did not come out of thin paper. In fact there were people using this build even before I started writing about it. This is not something we simply theorycrafted (as opposed to staff builds for example): this build is the result of a lengthy game experience.
I bring this build everywhere: open world, dungeons and fractals (up to 80). I play with talented groups (not necessarily optimised) and I PuG with it. It requires a bit of practice, but it does work, and it works quite brilliantly!

Hmm Im kinda in the same boat, although im 0,30,0,10,30 with d/d. When I tried the 30 fire I found myself wanting to stack that fury out of combat whenever I could and started alot of fights with stuff on cd.
I do see your point about Evasive arcana and that IS my main reason for the 30 points. If I did stop using a dogde roll for a blast and only used it for dogding, wouldnt that kinda mean I wont need sigil of energy as well?!

I dont know.. Im just not sure..

When you don’t need a sigil of energy, you open up a slot for more damage. It would be Force + Night for most dungeons, or Force + <something else>. 30 in Fire is just too good, imho. It allows staff as a second powerful weapon readily available when the situation calls for it (e.g. Fractals!).

I already have a night and force daggers, and you havent said WHY its “too good imho”
:/

To put it briefly I would say that the offensive contribution of fire far out-weights the offensive contribution of arcane Furthermore, the defensive contributions of the master and grand-master tiers of arcane are unnecessary (and potentially detrimental).

It takes a bit of practice to learn how to play without more than 10 in arcane but the drastic efficiency gain is worth the effort.

Also, you should really try switching for an off-hand focus. This weapon is stronger than its dagger counterpart in many regards. Such move will ease the transition from arcane to more efficient trait point allocations.

Sarahfull.4930:

I already have a night and force daggers, and you havent said WHY its “too good imho”
:/

Hey Sarah,

This is an ideal setup of my ele when using 30/30/10/0/0 build.

• D/F variant: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodnEEVZYnByGgjYAJ8QAYgCYUoDEPsAHgDB-jQCBYfChkfgUBBJzUZNPVQs4qIas6aYKXER1GcFRrWIARTAA-e

With D/F as a ‘close quarter cleave’ weapons, it benefits the most from three traits Burning Precision, Burning Rage and Persisting Flame; and a nice 300-point boost in power. In a long fight like with Bloomhunger, I’d like to have Persisting FLame to keep up fury and boosts my crit chance to above 90%. Now with this trait setup, when we crit more, we proc more burning and deal more damage in Air Attunement. Burning Speed is a personal favorite, which I use as a mini FGS to clear a clutter of trash rapidly (e.g. the chanter blob in Cliffside).

• Staff variant:
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArdnEEVZYpByGwjYAI8gAGKYUoDxDLooCA-jQCBYfJk8DkKAJzUZNPVQs4qIas6aYKXER1GcFRrWGg8tA-e

I use staff as a ‘blob nuking’ weapon. For staff, the two most essential traits would be Pyromancer’s Alacrity and Internal Fire, which boosts your main DPS power. Then we have Bolt to the Heart, Stone Splinters and Arcane Lightning as your extra damage modifiers. I use staff most of the time in the Urban Battleground and Molten Boss duo fights.

In my conclusion, with the same trait setup, I gain access to two variants of play style, equally powerful and incredibly effective in fractals and general dungeons. So 30 points in Fire is just too good to me. However, if I am in an optimized party with another ele, I will have to switch traits for a better group damage. Or, switch to 30/30/0/0/10 in Arah.

Iris is right
Except for the staff build: I’d never take inscription, instead I would use arcane lightning.
Also you need more Ice Bow! And in ascalon I would use the lightning hammer, making sure that one of my teammates wields the other one, so that mobs don’t land a hit. This is an other reason why fire is desirable: you can take the conjurer trait.

I have always wanted to publish a little something about the potency of D/F when you are attacking mobs against a wall. In such situation, all the ticks of burning speed will be stacked into the same place. This is damaging. In fact if you did the usual rotation against a wall your DPS would increase by 14%.

I like to compare this with the staff build (30/20/10/10/0). I do this because staff requires enemies to be immobile in order to be effective. I have updated my calculator with a few builds (staff and DF-wall). For this comparison I am ignoring meteor shower and I am assuming permanent arcane lightning.

The result is that D/F against a wall beats Staff by a small margin.

It is especially interesting if you consider that I am assuming D/F to realise the usual rotation. Instead if the players were to stack might beforehand (like it is required for staff) then you could swap to D/D and deal additional damage.

This could have implications for speedrunning