Guild Wars 2

@Keys
That’s the problem actually: it is not easy to make a simple model that allows for attunement swapping mid-cast. I think the best I can do is to enable the user to manually adjust the attunement in which the spells are cast, in addition to an underlying automatic system.

@Haviz
The trait points allocation won’t change (30/30/10/0/0 for max damage, 30/30/0/10/0 for LH ability like Keys does, 30/30/0/0/10 for Renewing stamina like you and I use) but we will change a few trait choices:
- pyromancer’s alacrity will become desirable due to the changes to arcana and the importance of burning speed. The idea is to reduce the complete optimal rotation cycle time. I will expand on this later.
- the fire adept choice will be freed for adaptability: +25% burn duration, conjurer, internal fire or burning precision. Adaptability is something I really appreciate.

Edit: on a side note, if burning speed could trade a bit of its range for an evade factor I would be so happy

Can you explain why you favour D/F over the other options? Your writeup at the moment is rather threadbare on this.

In particular, even if it is true that it is preferable to stay in melee range than at a distance, that doesn’t show that it is preferable to use melee attacks as opposed to ranged attacks at melee range. Otherwise Scepter is admittedly rather spiky in nature, but Staff also does “good and constant damage”. You also sacrifice more than “occasional burst” by going with OH Focus over OH Dagger – you lose mobility + the extra heal coming from Cleansing Wave. And finally you may not be able to imagine PvE without a Focus, but I certainly can (and in fact rarely if ever use the Focus).

So why D/F instead of the other alternatives?

Good question indeed! There is no short answer to this. I am on a trip at the moment so I will explain my choices only a bit later.

Anyway thank you for asking. Before rewriting my thread I asked the community if there were aspects of my take of this class I should develop. This is because the picture is so clear in my mind that I may neglect to explain the reasoning behind my choices. Discussions are a good way to expose the thought processes involved. So if there is anything you would like clarified or if you disagree with something please do not hesitate to participate.

As a newer player, I could really, really use a screenshot or something to see the build layout and runes/sigils :/

I guess that is something I overlooked when reading the guide – Zel, could you put together your builds on your favorite build calculator and link them as a quick reference?

I was going to do some video build guides after the most recent patch that had skill changes, but by the time I got my homework done, the Dec 10 changes were announced. Stay tuned!

Will it come with commentary?

Of course it will.

Can’t wait!

Is there even that much in the December Patch that changes the D/F builds though? We managed to successfully QQ enough to save Renewing Stamina so I thought the build was more or less the same even post-December patch.

I’m hesitant to come to any conclusions until I see the patch notes. Optimal rotations may change a little bit based on the attunement CD reduction. I’m also expecting that there will be some changes that weren’t in the preview that may warrant some build or rotation reevaluation.

Neko.9021:

Is there even that much in the December Patch that changes the D/F builds though? We managed to successfully QQ enough to save Renewing Stamina so I thought the build was more or less the same even post-December patch.

Faster attunement rotations, adept slot of choice in fire magic, and slightly higher toughness from earth magic.

Hi Zelyhn,

Newbie ele here, I’m trying to master this class (my main is thief) so many thanks for the guide. I have a question though, what utilities/elite would you advise taking with 0/30/0/20/20? I mainly PvE, probably will try dungeons later.

I will update the build section after the 10/12 patch. I will add links to build calculator websites.

@Jeydra.4386
I could really write for hours about why I prefer D/F to any other set up. But in the end it comes down mostly to what type of content I play: I do many kinds of dungeons and high level fractals, in groups that are not necessarily “optimal” or perfectly organized. However I play with people who know how to adapt and best respond to any kind of situations. About the weapons:
- Staff: strong damage potential in fire, but requires the target to be immobile and is dependent on party buffs. Cannot do anything else but damage, or at a very high cost. Probably good for speedruns or when you desperately need the range, so not really for what I play.
- Scepter: by itself this weapon does very little damage, but it is still an option because it allows you to use the focus. I love the focus.
- Off-hand Daggers: bad. The extra heal is weak, the control is weak, the mobility is weak, the damage is weak, might stacking possibilities are not as great as with the focus. Only ring of flames attacks me, but I can easily do without.
- Focus: O amore mio It is the best weapon for might stacking (so fury sharing with persisting flames), it has many crucial defensive abilities for yourself (better avoid damage than healing it) or for the group which makes it staple for advanced PvE. This is my value added.
- Main-hand daggers: much better sustained damage than scepter and allows you to use the focus.
My set up may not be the best for speed runs, scepter burst may be more efficient, but with wall-burningspeed and FGS this is not an issue for me.
Also D/F is fun to play.
That being said this is really a matter of personal choice, and it depends on your play style. I still use all weapons and I expect that after 10/12 patch my build will be even better suited to switch between weapons.

@allire.3984
You are welcome It is hard to say what utilities you should use because it depends on what kind of PvE you do and with who. For most world-PvE content I use a good amount of glyphs (harmony + power or storm), signet of fire and usually lightning flash or arcane shield. Try them all!

I must say I find your points quite unconvincing and even a bit biased.

Staff
Water provides AoE heals and condition removal, which admittedly you might not need. Air provides AoE speedboost, which helps with running.

Scepter
Fire #2 hits for big damage on quite low cooldown. Fire #3 isn’t low damage either, although Fire #1 is a terrible autoattack. Air #2 is instant cast and easy to spam with Fresh Air. On its own the damage isn’t high but it adds up. The damage may be spiky, but as long as the overall damage is similar it’s not too bad a thing; you can also blow all the high-damage skills and then spawn Lightning Hammer. Earth #2 also provides extra Toughness if you need it, similar to what you wrote about Focus’s defensive abilities.

OH Dagger
If you say the heal is weak then you are also saying getting 20 points Water for Cleansing Ripple + Healing Wave is weak. Might stacking is perfectly OK if you run with Persisting Flames (you have enough time to hit all four blast finishers in seven seconds). Mobility matters when you are running past mobs, e.g. in CoF p1 bridge.

It’s also worth pointing out that if you do other things than dungeons and high level fractals, such as running world bosses, D/F is significantly weaker than the other options (Staff vs. SB, for example). While it is true that world bosses are very easy anyway, Staff / OH Dagger still gives you the mobility to get to the world bosses before they die. Scepter #2 even gives you the ability to tag the world boss at long range before it dies, if necessary.

Personally of all the weaponsets possible I find D/F one of the weaker ones and definitely inferior to D/D, S/D and Staff, but it might be my playstyle.

The sustained damage of Scepter is terrible, even if you camp Fire attunement and spam 2-3 and 4-5 Dagger off cooldown. It’s only good for Might Stacking and then combining it with Lighting Hammer (an idea I pointed out quite a while ago that has since become the meta for speed clear groups).

I don’t use Focus in the open world. I find OH Dagger much more fluid there. But in Dungeons, I find the utility of Focus to be far and above superior. In fact I’m fairly certain that Scepter/Focus with Lightning Hammer is the “best” combination for Ele, if you don’t mind the sheer awkwardness of it.

Hello Elementalist-Community! Special thanks to Zelyhn and Neko! You guys and your efforts really made a difference. I, for instance, have rekindled with my Elementalist thanks to your guidance and input.

I would like to remind everyone (@Jeydra) that they both said in their guides that the “best” way to play is the way that fits your personal style and preference. I really appreciate Z & N for saying this, as I personally find this to be very true. Without wanting to sound too preachy: Have faith in your judgement and opinion.

Experiment with all kinds of builds, gear, weapon-sets and utilities. That is why they are interchangeable. I really try to sound less “american” but this is the beauty of Guildwars2: The fact that you can do whatever the hell you want – and it works.

To those who would argue that this is not the optimal way to maximize ones dmg output and efficiency in a group and for a dungeon I would like to say the following:
1: yes. this is true.
2: who cares.

My intent here is to remind those reading and those posting that there are significant differences in peoples playing environments. A great many do not play in “high lvl” groups and don’t need to concern themselves with min-maxing or optimization.

Zelyhn and Neko have done a superb job of giving their examples and thoughts on berserker-based dungeoning. You should not need to ask questions about heal and utility-spells, sigils, runes, or even gear, as these are all up to you and your goal for your elementalist, and what works for you best.

(for example, I don’t like the ever popular Sigils of Bloodlust, as I think they further punish people for downing)

If you want to deal more dmg, look for opportunities that allow you to deal more dmg. Read tooltips and the effects of runes and sigils etc. and decide for yourselves if they are worth it. Do not let the Tradepost prices influence you.
It takes a lot of playtime to even “sort of figure out” how an elementalist works.
Warriors are more straightforward that way.

I think initially, this was intended as being a guide/discussion thread on berserker based D/F play, and I think Shadowfax, has done great in terms of interaction.

The way I understand it is that this thread has sort of become a discussion for builds in high lvl / semi-organized play – namely fractals 30+

I would not recommend going 30/30/x in a PUG

For those interested in WvW:
http://melementalist.com/builds/
is a nice website for some inspiration/input for what works in WvW – including videos and a stream.
http://melementalist.com/booncondcontrol-cheatsheet/
offers some in-depth calculating for those interested.

Edit: also, for newer Elementalists: check out Neko’s suggestion for key-binding attunements – really helps a lot if you have regular keybord and mouse. (Neko’s – recommendable – guide: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Comp-Guide-to-the-Dungeon-Ele/first)

@Jeydra
In staff if you swap to water then your are locked out of fire for a long time, which dramatically reduces your dps.
The scepter’s sustained damage is very low. I have explained this in many threads in the past, if you need it I can explain it here again, otherwise the rotation calculator I will release in the near future will dispel any confusion.
Cleansing wave from the OH dagger has the same effects as healing ripple + the cleansing wave trait, except it is on a 40 second cooldown and with lengthy cast time.
It is true that mobility is an issue for D/F as it is, but as I always say all elementalists should learn to use all weapons and conjures and pick the set-up best suited for the situation, so one can easily swap weapons occasionally for better mobility. Anyway I find that I can keep up with most warriors by using a combination of perma-swiftness and lightning leap. Also as Haviz pointed out, if you know that you are going to to a run-by in combat then the FGS + One with air can solve all your problems.
The only way I face world bosses is in small committee: four or five players at most. In this kind of situation tagging the boss is not really the challenge anymore I like to play in melee because this is where the fun is. I play for fun! This is why I do not advise to run fire-staff builds or LH builds: they are boring and not efficient outside of speedruns.

@Hedonismbot
Thank you for your appreciation. Neko and I are driven by our will to help this profession’s community achieve more. We want elementalists to be better players. If our advice is useful we are very happy.
While we encourage everybody to stick to the play-style they like, we will always try to guide them to the most optimal way to achieve this.
This thread is, and will remain, about “advanced” PvE. What I mean by this is the type of content that challenges you at all times. This is especially true for fractals (even more so when they release all levels), most dungeons and a lot of world content if you are not in a zerg situation. My view is that D/F is the best set-up for this type of encounters, and I will keep talking mainly about this weapon.

Please do not hesitate to ask any question that you have, like Shadowfax did. I believe discussing is the best way to clarify any kind of matter

To be honest I’m a proponent of in-game testing over any kind of mathematics. I’d suggest choosing something in the game and then test sustained D/F DPS against it. If you want to do S/D or Staff DPS against it that’s fine too, but if not I’ll be happy to bring my Ele for that. For reference my Ele has full zerk gear but isn’t fully kitted out – missing ascended weapons, ascended backpiece, and infusions.

If you have no preference I’d suggest the champion cave troll in the area north of Twilight Arbor. Reasons to pick this guy: he’s usually there, he’s tanky, usually nobody else is attacking him, and I think he mimics general PvE quite well. We try it, and record the time taken to kill the troll solo. If you prefer another champion, I’m OK with that too.

No thank you, sorry but I am confident with my numbers
If you would like to discuss the validity of my calculations, and what they imply, you can do this in my DPS calculator thread.

As you wish.

I may still give it a try someday, and post the numbers.

I posted concerns about Zelyhn’s build at the following link, and am hoping for a response from him justifying his build.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/21#post3245968

I’m using my phone atm, and am having difficulty copying my actual two posts into this thread, but the link should be sufficient.

EDIT: I’m at my comp now, so will copy my posts over.
.
.
PART 1

Zenith.7301:

Zelyhn.8069:

I play fotm 70+ with an offensive build (30/30/0/0/10 zerker scholar D/F) and I am doing fine
But in fact I agree: Anierna’s “meta” builds are only good for specific speedruns, definitely not for PvE as a whole.

I played till 80, and your build is garbage. LH is viable everywhere.

If you’re using dagger as a mainweapon the group is justified in kicking yyou for a guardian or warrior. Even a guardian does more damage than a dagger ele.

While I would never say it as bluntly as Zenith did, seeing as Zelyhn has done a lot of work in researching and documenting aspects of the class, I’ve been thinking along similar lines for a few weeks now. I’ll give a little of my own history w/ GW2 so you can see where I’m coming from.

I played DCUO for a year and got very, very good at it (I focused mainly on PvE, but I got to the highest tier of PvP too. We’ve got REAL league vs. league over there (the equivalent of the much-sought-after guild vs. guild, which doesn’t exist officially in GW2 yet, and is only simulated somewhat successfully in WvW). I was playing all 4 classes, min/maxing everything, doing speed runs, etc. I published meta-builds and made vids of damage-maximizing gameplay. The issue with DCUO was the grinding; when tier 5 gear came out, I just couldn’t stomach re-grinding everything for 7 sets of gear, so I left in favor of GW2. I was kind of intrigued by the idea of an elementalist-wizard-mage-thingy. This was sometime over the spring-summer of 2013 (May, maybe?)

First thing I did was read Daphoenix’s guide. I played that aura-mancer build with Knights for a few weeks, then realized that the only things groups wanted were wars and mes’, so I put my ele in storage and farmed CoF as war and mes. At come point during the CoF-era, I switched to a d/d Fresh Air + Arcana build. That was lots of fun, and by then I knew everything well enough to go full Zerk. But things weren’t still dying fast enough for my taste (I’d been spoiled by 6-7 min CoF runs), so I asked in LA /map chat for a higher-damaging spec. In came the LH spec! It was a god-send; I could finally main my ele. Since then, I’ve been S/D + LH, although in the last month I’ve gone S/F + LH.

At some point, I also read Zelyhn’s and Neko’s guides. But they weren’t very helpful. I’ll post some excerpts from each so you can see why:

Zelyhn.8069:

The main-hand dagger is our weapon of choice. Its attacks deal high damage at point blank, and due to their above-average melee range it is easy to land hits. You can deal very good and constant damage with this weapon. It is fast paced, it is dynamic and it is fun to play

The obvious off-hand choice is the focus. This weapon gives you incredible utility and support, which is much more valuable than the occasional burst an off-hand dagger can provide. This is a team-play weapon. I can not imagine playing PvE without a focus.

Therefore we are going to be mainly in a Dagger/Focus set up. I will not expand further on how to use each weapon. I advise you to learn by yourself and to read Neko’s guide for further help.

The issue I have with Zelyhn’s guide is that there is no disclaimer in “LARGE FONT” that says something like “This build does less damage than a S/x LH build, and it stacks less might as well.” That is REALLY important information, and something that he ought to have put up-front so readers won’t miss it. Kudos to Neko for bringing up this exact issue in one of the first comments following Zelyhn’s guide.

The other thing I don’t get is: Why ISN’T Zelyhn using LH? He sticks with focus for “utility,” rather than just using it for might-stacking then going LH, but that utility isn’t even needed; in all the speed-runs I’ve done, there is either a mes or a guard, so using Swirling Winds (which eliminates projectiles rather than reflecting them back at enemies) is actually detrimental to DPS. He sticks with dagger main-hand, but he could achieve the same personal damage and superior might-stacking for the group if he used scepter, then swapped to LH.

PART 2

Neko’s guide was a lot better with the 30/20/0/20/0 s/x + LH spec he gave, but it’s still not optimal damage using LH. Maybe he just hasn’t updated it recently.

Then there were things like double-bloodlust stacking, aiming Dragon’s Tooth, and banner stomping in fire fields for might that are INCREDIBLY important in the dungeon tours that top-quality guilds do every day, but which aren’t included in any guide published on this forum that I could find. That’s why I wrote my own guide, here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

After the Dec 10th update, I plan to update the guide to include the s/f + LH build I’m currently using, which I described here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-and-s-d-ele/first#post3245035

I view the changes I made to my ele during my time in GW2 as an inevitable evolution towards a meta-build, steadily trading in defense for offense as my skill increased. It’s taken me six months of gameplay to reach this point, but I only started playing the game 8 months after it was released. Most of the ele’s in this forum (I’m just guessing, but I’d say that includes Zelyhn, Neko, DEKeyz, etc) have been with this game since launch, or maybe 1 or 2 months after it. I know that DEKeyz was already playing a meta-spec before I even bought this game; what I’m wondering is, why hasn’t Zelyhn? Why is he still stuck in a sub-optimal spec, rather than evolving away from survivability and towards damage? I know he’s not kittened, so is he just stubborn, or what?

Anierna.6918:

PART 2

Neko’s guide was a lot better with the 30/20/0/20/0 s/x + LH spec he gave, but it’s still not optimal damage using LH. Maybe he just hasn’t updated it recently.

Then there were things like double-bloodlust stacking, aiming Dragon’s Tooth, and banner stomping in fire fields for might that are INCREDIBLY important in the dungeon tours that top-quality guilds do every day, but which aren’t included in any guide published on this forum that I could find. That’s why I wrote my own guide, here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

After the Dec 10th update, I plan to update the guide to include the s/f + LH build I’m currently using, which I described here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-and-s-d-ele/first#post3245035

I view the changes I made to my ele during my time in GW2 as an inevitable evolution towards a meta-build, steadily trading in defense for offense as my skill increased. It’s taken me six months of gameplay to reach this point, but I only started playing the game 8 months after it was released. Most of the ele’s in this forum (I’m just guessing, but I’d say that includes Zelyhn, Neko, DEKeyz, etc) have been with this game since launch, or maybe 1 or 2 months after it. I know that DEKeyz was already playing a meta-spec before I even bought this game; what I’m wondering is, why hasn’t Zelyhn? Why is he still stuck in a sub-optimal spec, rather than evolving away from survivability and towards damage? I know he’s not kittened, so is he just stubborn, or what?

I think I’ve always been pretty blunt that Scepter + LH is the “meta” build for optimal groups. I just list everything else because I find as a matter of practicality, it’s actually fairly hard to pull it off. Just wanting to put my own position out there. Besides, I stopped running with optimal groups a long time ago. These days I play with all sorts of play-as-you-want players and have fun doing that. My guide is indeed outdated and I’ll update it once the December patch comes (I keep putting it off every time changes are made), but I try and put forth that the guide is a guide to the Ele in dungeons, in general. This includes meta builds as well as near-meta builds and non-meta builds. I’m also going to broaden the guide into something larger, mainly because at this point in my playtime in GW2, I’d rather write a guide that talks about more aspects of the game for the Elementalist than just Dungeons, since I think that saying “here is how to play Lightning Hammer Ele, GO!” is a rather poor impression to give of the Elementalist, when there are surely other things to do with it, as well as many other styles of play and literally other game modes, such as the open world PvE and WvW.

LH Ele with Scepter is the best (again, something that I was one of the first to point out in a public guide, and which ended up becoming adopted as the meta) for speedclearing dungeons, but I seek to explore other non-optimal builds when I write a guide on the Elementalist. I also made a wonderful video about Fire Staff Elementalist which demonstrated its DPS, though to this day I still do not like the build simply because its only utility is fire fields, plus you gotta just stick around in Fire Attunement and hope you don’t die from the lack of vigor or any other real defensive abilities other than Burning Retreat.

^^

Anierna.6918:

The issue I have with Zelyhn’s guide is that there is no disclaimer in “LARGE FONT” that says something like “This build does less damage than a S/x LH build, and it stacks less might as well.” That is REALLY important information, and something that he ought to have put up-front so readers won’t miss it. Kudos to Neko for bringing up this exact issue in one of the first comments following Zelyhn’s guide.

Anierna.6918:

Neko’s guide was a lot better with the 30/20/0/20/0 s/x + LH spec he gave, but it’s still not optimal damage using LH. Maybe he just hasn’t updated it recently.

Then there were things like double-bloodlust stacking, aiming Dragon’s Tooth, and banner stomping in fire fields for might that are INCREDIBLY important in the dungeon tours that top-quality guilds do every day, but which aren’t included in any guide published on this forum that I could find. That’s why I wrote my own guide, here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

Neko.9021:

I think I’ve always been pretty blunt that Scepter + LH is the “meta” build for optimal groups. I just list everything else because I find as a matter of practicality, it’s actually fairly hard to pull it off. Just wanting to put my own position out there. Besides, I stopped running with optimal groups a long time ago. These days I play with all sorts of play-as-you-want players and have fun doing that. My guide is indeed outdated and I’ll update it once the December patch comes (I keep putting it off every time changes are made), but I try and put forth that the guide is a guide to the Ele in dungeons, in general. This includes meta builds as well as near-meta builds and non-meta builds.

LH Ele with Scepter is the best (again, something that I was one of the first to point out in a public guide, and which ended up becoming adopted as the meta) for speedclearing dungeons, but I seek to explore other non-optimal builds when I write a guide on the Elementalist.

@ Neko: I mentioned your initial comment on Zelyhn’s guide earlier, and I totally agree. I just think that, for both your guide and Zelyhn’s, there needs to be in the opening paragraph something like “The s/x + LH build is top DPS and might-stacking. If these are important to you, use that build. No other builds mentioned in this guide will excel in both those areas to the same degree.” It is simply amazing how many noobs on this forum refuse to use LH because they think their own builds somehow do higher damage. We need to combat that by asserting truth up-front.

I totally understand that the LH spec in your guide is just outdated; my own guide was written just a few weeks ago, and it’s already outdated as well. What I don’t understand is this: there are “best-practices” that the most elite guilds EXPECT applicants to know, but those methods were not included in your guide, Zelyhn’s guide, or any other guide I could find on this forum. That’s why I felt it was VERY important for me to write my own guide and post them there. There are a few things that still aren’t in it, but I intend to add them after the Dec 10th update.

I assume that you and Zelyhn know the same methods I do for speed-clears, but you never included them in your guides. So it’s very hard for someone who wants to maximize his damage or properly play his class in the context of an experienced speed-group to learn what he is supposed to do, because neither of your guides cover that. I’d like you to edit your guides to provide that information; if you like, you could simply copy what I wrote into your thread, but even if you choose not to do that, it DOES still need to be there. Part of why there are so many noobs in this game is that it’s difficult for them to learn. Step 1 for a new player interested in playing the best he can are looking at guides by yourself, Zelyhn, and Daphoenix, but those guides are not giving him the information that he needs to play at a high level. It’s up to you guys to fix that. I’ve tried my best, writing my own guide, but there’s really not much more that I can do.

Anierna.6918:

@ Neko: I mentioned your initial comment on Zelyhn’s guide earlier, and I totally agree. I just think that, for both your guide and Zelyhn’s, there needs to be in the opening paragraph something like “The s/x + LH build is top DPS and might-stacking. If these are important to you, use that build. No other builds mentioned in this guide will excel in both those areas to the same degree.” It is simply amazing how many noobs on this forum refuse to use LH because they think their own builds somehow do higher damage. We need to combat that by asserting truth up-front.

I totally understand that the LH spec in your guide is just outdated; my own guide was written just a few weeks ago, and it’s already outdated as well. What I don’t understand is this: there are “best-practices” that the most elite guilds EXPECT applicants to know, but those methods were not included in your guide, Zelyhn’s guide, or any other guide I could find on this forum. That’s why I felt it was VERY important for me to write my own guide and post them there. There are a few things that still aren’t in it, but I intend to add them after the Dec 10th update.

I assume that you and Zelyhn know the same methods I do for speed-clears, but you never included them in your guides. So it’s very hard for someone who wants to maximize his damage or properly play his class in the context of an experienced speed-group to learn what he is supposed to do, because neither of your guides cover that. I’d like you to edit your guides to provide that information; if you like, you could simply copy what I wrote into your thread, but even if you choose not to do that, it DOES still need to be there. Part of why there are so many noobs in this game is that it’s difficult for them to learn. Step 1 for a new player interested in playing the best he can are looking at guides by yourself, Zelyhn, and Daphoenix, but those guides are not giving him the information that he needs to play at a high level. It’s up to you guys to fix that. I’ve tried my best, writing my own guide, but there’s really not much more that I can do.

How about this, I’ll link to your guide for your guide since you seem far more into it than I am, these days. To be honest, I stopped being as into “elite” PvE a long, long time ago. I just want people to have decent damage and use good pulling techniques. I even stopped swapping between a stacking weapon and a Force weapon a while ago just because I’d always feel crushed when I lost my stacks and had to swap out and everything. Just became a hassle.

I’ll make sure to make it more clear about what is the “best” though, and I was pretty good about linking to other guides that I felt would help others. I do think your own guide is closer to the “meta” than any of the others in this forum. And it’ll definitely be one of the first changes I link to.

Given that, to be quite honest, I don’t even know what the “optimal” LH Ele trait spread array is, outside of at least 10 in Water for the abusive interaction between Piercing Shards, staying in Water Attunement, and Lightning Hammer have together. And I’ve listened to enough PvE theorycrafters top dog and out-calculate and spreadsheet wars each other over whether more in Air or Fire or whatever leads to ever-so-slightly higher DPS (and subsequently got a bit sick of thinking about it). I guess I’ll look around and try and figure out what the “best” one is for Might stacking, Fury, and DPS (probably something like… 30/0/10/20/0, and then you can put 10 points in either Air for more damage or 10 in Arcana for the slightly more noobish among us), just to make sure that information is out there. I’ll put it out once we see what December 10 has in store for us.

By the way, I would also suggest PMing a mod and asking for your guide to be stickied, if you feel it’s an important enough resource for the community as a whole. It’s probably about time we had a dedicated pure meta-builds guide on the sticky section.

Anierna.6918:

I assume that you and Zelyhn know the same methods I do for speed-clears, but you never included them in your guides. So it’s very hard for someone who wants to maximize his damage or properly play his class in the context of an experienced speed-group to learn what he is supposed to do, because neither of your guides cover that. I’d like you to edit your guides to provide that information; if you like, you could simply copy what I wrote into your thread, but even if you choose not to do that, it DOES still need to be there. Part of why there are so many noobs in this game is that it’s difficult for them to learn. Step 1 for a new player interested in playing the best he can are looking at guides by yourself, Zelyhn, and Daphoenix, but those guides are not giving him the information that he needs to play at a high level. It’s up to you guys to fix that. I’ve tried my best, writing my own guide, but there’s really not much more that I can do.

I think at one point his guide was saying something about playing with less than optimal team setups (without guardians for instance) where pure LH build might be too problematic to utilize properly and you might have to take care about things like projectile defense.

To add more, my guild does normal runs (which are probably on similar level as typical speedruns) with the rule that every profession is welcomed so we often play really strange team compositions where pure LH does not work as good as with speedruns teams.

There’s also a question how much boredom you can resist.

Alright I have some time to reply now. I am travelling and writing from a mobile device, sorry for the possible inconvenience.

If I understood you well Anierna you are saying that I should mention the fact that the D/F builds I talk about are generally less potent in terms of might stacking than S/x. You are saying that for speedruns it is more optimal to run builds dedicated to the lightning hammer.

I used to have a whole paragraph talking about the LH but I discarded it when I re-wrote my guide. Instead I expressed my gaming philosophy in the introduction and any cautious reader can then understand why I am not talking – and will not talk – about dedicated LH builds.

There are three reasons.

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.

2) The builds I mention are highly capable of performing in speedruns.
Yes I do use the LH, because with my build I can. Any of the builds you support are locked into one set up and this is simply limiting. Let’s face it: a speedrun build is worthless outside of a speedrun team, or in a challenging situation.
You are right that my builds stack a bit less might than speedrun builds, but my builds are so much more efficient in other ways. For example the combo of weak spot and fiery rush is incredibly strong and gives me value in speedruns. I have no dps numbers to give at the moment but I am quite confident that the dps potential of D/F is not far from that of dedicated LH builds, which leads me to my third reason.

3) I want to play an Elementalist, not a boring warrior gimmick.
I have lost enough brain cells doing optimal speedruns when I first started playing. Now I want to enjoy my time. D/F works really well in so many situations, it works with LH, and it is fun.

In conclusion I can do what you can’t do and I can do what you do almost just as well. To each his own!
By looking at the type of content that Anet is releasing I know my choices will pay off even more in the future.

Stopped reading at casting drake breath to benefit from bonus 10% damage from Air.

Lingering attunements doesn’t work that way.

Razor.6392:

Stopped reading at casting drake breath to benefit from bonus 10% damage from Air.

Lingering attunements doesn’t work that way.

Haha surely you have missed that I am waging a holy war with the devs about Lingering Elements because I wish they would make this trait as awesome as it should be

Anyway if you read everything before that you should know that I would not put more than 10 points in Arcana, so no Lingering Elements, instead we are using the ability to swap attunements during casts to benefit from the air bonuses while casting spells from other attunements.

Razor.6392:

Stopped reading at casting drake breath to benefit from bonus 10% damage from Air.

Lingering attunements doesn’t work that way.

He’s referring to the fact that you can start the spell, then switch to Air and gain the bonus damage from Air Training, since the spell is dealing damage while you’re attuned to Air, even if it’s a Fire spell.

Just like to mention I recently finished leveling my ele and have been enjoying this build sooo much. Definately a good flexible build for fractals and relaxed speed clear groups. Eles my new favourite class at the moment.

Zelyhn no offense but the reasons you give for not including LH builds are pretty bad.

LH doesn’t have to be for speedruns. It can simply be a way to patch up your DPS when your big damage skills (i.e. Scepter mainhand) are on cooldown, or even as a way to improve mobility. By neglecting to mention it, of course you come to overlook Scepter. Note as well that LH is not the only useful Conjure out there, and as you wrote, you are supposed to adapt, i.e. change your utilities depending on the situation. If the situation demands you use LH, that’s what you should do.

I’ll also point out that you cannot claim Fresh Air builds are versatile and therefore “better” than speedrun builds because Fresh Air is awful with Staff, and there are occasions on which you will want to use Staff (example: against foes with large hit boxes). Furthermore, if versatility matters, then the fact that D/F is weak overland is a strike against it, as is the fact that you’re recommending full zerker gear with very little extra defense on a light armour character with minimal HP (no Rock Barrier, no auto-heal + condition removal on attuning to Water, no healing skills, etc). You may say that your team will compensate, and perhaps they will, but then you restrict your audience to organized dungeon groups … which isn’t that far from speedruns, is it? Plus, how many people are there that run with organized dungeon groups, or even do dungeons often in the first place? If you criticize speedrun builds because the community that does speeduns is small, then it seems awfully like you’re indirectly criticizing your own build as well.

Finally you may say that you want to play an Elementalist, not a Warrior imitation, but it doesn’t matter: if you’re writing a guide that purports to be a general one (like this guide) it is only responsible to include the other viable builds, especially if they are superior up to aesthetic factors. That’s why when I wrote my GW1 Elementalist guides, I recommended AP caller even though that bar plays fairly similarly to other professions. If a GW1 Ele wants to play Ele like what Eles are “supposed” to be (and different players have different interpretations of what Eles are supposed to be) then there were other builds given, but I indicated that they will often be subpar.

I don’t belong to the speedrun community, but I think Anierna’s criticism is justified.

Jeydra.4386:

I don’t belong to the speedrun community, but I think Anierna’s criticism is justified.

I do and I don’t think so.

It should be noted that this build’s damage is quite good… If you’re not aiming for a speedclear record it most certainly will still be more than adequate for your average run, really. To me, Dagger/Focus with Fresh Air represents the most “normal” build for the Ele in PvE, and one that really highlights and shows off its cool versatility.

Hi,

My name is Vani and I have been playing Ele since Beta. I originally started in PvP and archived decent success with it. I have switched to PvE around 6 months ago to play with my friends and guildies. I was once into speed run, CoF and CoE. I have experienced many builds with eles, including all the weapon combinations and LF builds.

First of all, I want to show my respect for Zelyhn for his dedicated research about elementalist. Information was not always as available as it is right now and theory crafting was rather difficult.

Then I want to state my opinion about the current discussion about “meta” build. I played LH with optimal group and I know how much damage you can do with it. Thou, I do agree with Neko and Zelyhn: the best DPS build does not mean the absolute build

I don’t run with optimal group anymore. Being in a guild that constantly has 150-200 people playing, I don’t exclude people from groups because they cannot run optimal spec or profession. It all comes down to everyone’s priority:

• If you are interested in clearing the dungeon as fast as possible to save time and resources, then you should run with your optimal group and use LH
• Personally, I enjoy helping people learning the dungeon and more importantly have some laugh with it. Some might find wiping a hassle and bothersome. I find it quite hilarious ( as long as people are not trolling). Many of my most memorable experiences with the game are from dying and rezzing each other in boss fight.

I also think that speedruning is very efficient but not the best and definitely not the only way you should run dungeon. In general, speed running focuses on stacking, might stacking and burning mobs down. I don’t find it challenging and I don’t feel that I am growing my skill as a player when I am speed running. There are many mechanics of the game that you can ignore if you are running with an optimal groups.

As a pvp veteran, I am quite spoiled with ele’s utility in a group set up. I find myself running 0/20/0/20/30 most of the time. Yes, the dmg is rather mediocre but I enjoy the play style and it works on most situations.

I would encourage people to use the guide in this forum as reference and not guideline to develop your own playstyle and reference.

Best,

@Jeydra
I find a lot of truth in what you are saying, and it goes along with my philosophy. You understand that there is a difference between a build that can use LH efficiently and a build that must use LH to be efficient, don’t you?

The problem with questions like that is that they’re vague … I suspect many dungeons can be done with a party of four, which means you can go into a dungeon with no weapons and no armour and still complete it. That in turn means that there are few “musts”. A S/D build can just sit in Earth attunement using only the autoattack if it doesn’t mind being suboptimal.

I’m not arguing for going all-in into the build with the highest DPS. I completely agree with Vanillea that people should be free to choose whatever profession they want to play, or whatever spec they want (so long as it’s not clearly stupid, such as the afore-mentioned no weapons no armour “build”). In particular I’m a huge fan of at least 15 points into Water and hence Cleansing Wave + Healing Ripple, as well as Elemental Attunement. I just think that a general guide on Elementalists should include all the possibilities. There are cases when you want to use Staff, cases when S/D is better, etc … Lightning Hammer as well is an important option that should definitely be included or at least mentioned.

Then this is not the guide you are looking for. Neko is doing a wonderful job at providing general information. As for me I focus mainly on what I play, because only then can I provide a high level of details.

Jeydra.4386:

I’m not arguing for going all-in into the build with the highest DPS. I completely agree with Vanillea that people should be free to choose whatever profession they want to play, or whatever spec they want (so long as it’s not clearly stupid, such as the afore-mentioned no weapons no armour “build”). In particular I’m a huge fan of at least 15 points into Water and hence Cleansing Wave + Healing Ripple, as well as Elemental Attunement. I just think that a general guide on Elementalists should include all the possibilities. There are cases when you want to use Staff, cases when S/D is better, etc … Lightning Hammer as well is an important option that should definitely be included or at least mentioned.

Both 15 in water and staff are completely not needed in pve.

haviz.1340:

Jeydra.4386:

I’m not arguing for going all-in into the build with the highest DPS. I completely agree with Vanillea that people should be free to choose whatever profession they want to play, or whatever spec they want (so long as it’s not clearly stupid, such as the afore-mentioned no weapons no armour “build”). In particular I’m a huge fan of at least 15 points into Water and hence Cleansing Wave + Healing Ripple, as well as Elemental Attunement. I just think that a general guide on Elementalists should include all the possibilities. There are cases when you want to use Staff, cases when S/D is better, etc … Lightning Hammer as well is an important option that should definitely be included or at least mentioned.

Both 15 in water and staff are completely not needed in pve.

Neither are weapons and armour.

Zelyhn’s right that this is after all his guide. I’m very busy right now, but perhaps someday I’ll write my own guide, covering all aspects of PvE.

Jeydra.4386:

Neither are weapons and armour.

Zelyhn’s right that this is after all his guide. I’m very busy right now, but perhaps someday I’ll write my own guide, covering all aspects of PvE.

But both are optimal.

Here is an article worth reading:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Guide-to-Sigils-and-Potions-in-Dungeons
(Credits to Target and contributors)

For people who don’t understand zelhyn’s reasonings, they want to be useful while the fight is mobile and they want to press more than 2 buttons per fight so they don’t fall asleep. There might be some losses but unless you’re going for records, who cares? It’s still a decent damage build and it’s not gonna cost you much time.

Jeydra.4386:

As you wish.

I may still give it a try someday, and post the numbers.

DnT prefers the Veteran Risen Giant. Many dungeon battles last less than 2 weapon swaps, which is about the solo kill time of said giant. Here’s what I got using S/D + LH, Staff, and D/F.

The video: http://youtu.be/N_hIDPYrsvI

Kill times and builds:
S/D: 15.1 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmYblRAxjEAEFokS4xBCgwoQHiCWA-jgxAkfQqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1RBERA-e, precision stacks)
Staff: 11 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmYblRywjEAkCoEeQADIMK0hQhFQA-jQxAkIgkXR0YLuFRjVXjpcJiqjCIiA-e, precision stacks)
D/F 14.4 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodhEmYblRywjEIkCoQowBMU0Bag4hF4AcIA-jgxAkfQqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1BBMK-e, power stacks)

This isn’t a good place to discuss it since it’s Zelyhn’s thread … perhaps you could start a new one?

Also can you repeat without the buffs (I don’t have easy access to them)?

I guess I can go without the warrior’s assistance, but I would still do stacks, food, and probably skale venom for vuln across all trials because it is necessary for the S/D+LH build. DnT usually uses warrior buffs for these trials because we have access to them (or an alternative source of fury and swiftness) in dungeons.

I’ll start a new thread with more details about my setup once that video is done.

Buffs including food and boosters and all that … repeating these trials should be easy, at most involving a respec. Unless the buffs affect different builds differently, leaving them out should not change the results.

Of course buffs have varying magnitudes of effectiveness depending on the builds! Any dps test should take them into account. I also think warrior buffs should be included.

There are multiple reasons why I would still use food, stacks, and skale venom:

• Vulnerability is necessary for the lightning hammer build to be at its maximum potential, but is not necessary for the other builds.
• Faster kills due to more buffs means I’d have to burn fewer dodges and would more likely maintain high health damage multipliers, which will result in more consistent kill times.
• Keeping crit chance at 85% or higher should also help with consistency of DPS across trials – having fire grab, meteor shower, and lightning hammer not reliabily crit will be some massive losses of damage. D/F, on the other hand, has pretty even sustained damage and wouldn’t be as affected. I need stacks, food, fury, and signet of fire for that kind of crit chance since I don’t have assassin’s armor yet.
• Damage multipliers are weird – according to the spreadsheets, LH’s possible damage output due to its high coefficient and many multipliers in the build is not very high when not given buffs and especially when it isn’t making uber big numbers from crits.

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. 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. 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 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.