Guild Wars 2

Hello friends! ^^ Zoose here, your friendly neighborhood Elementalist. Today I’m going to present to you a mini-guide on how to play Scepter/Dagger Ele.

Personally, I like to see the big numbers, so I enjoy playing DPS Scepter/Dagger. Here’s my build:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gw2esports/comments/1e985g/daily_discussion_513_scepterdagger_burst/

^ Link is broken on here, use that to click on link

About me:
I have played Elementalist back when it was really buggy and horrible to play Ele (on launch). I enjoy playing this class and have a lot of tournament experience in it as well.

Before GW2 I competitively played DotA 1, and spent a lot of time playing WC3. I had a small stint in GunZ, a korean third person shooter that required extreme reaction time. I enjoy playing League of Legends [currently Diamond] as well as competitive GW2.

My previous GW2 teams are: Jo0, Curse, Team Paradigm, and Nonstop Nonsense.
I currently play on EU for [TCG] The Civilized Gentlemen (formerly Curse)

Pros:
- Extremely fast burst potential
- Insane burst if you can crit
- Good sustain
- Good mobility with Ride the Lightning + Swiftness
- Excellent boons—protection, swiftness, might, regen
- Boons and heals can be shared to teammates
- 1 Instant blind, 1 AoE blind
- Good AoE damage
- Good AoE CC
- Strong elite pet that you can heal/protect

Cons:
- Weak to instagib
- Mist form is your ONLY stun break (75s CD)
- One mistake can cost you your life
- Position dependent build
- No stability
- Heals can be dazed/stunned/CC’d
- Missing burst means you will have to wait at least (10s) for the next burst rotation
- Can be RNG dependent (minorly alleviated through Fury 20% crit chance])
- Fire grab, Ride the Lightning, Updraft, and Earthquake (the most important spells imo) have long 40s cooldowns. You must land these consistently to be successful.
- One of the higher skill cap ele builds because it requires timing, awareness, quick reactions, proper positioning, and multiple muscle memory combos

Tips:
- Count enemy dodge rolls and force at least 1 dodge before initializing any type of combos such as [Air 2,3,4 + double arcane]
- Mind game opponents by dodging into them to create damage pressure and/or causing them to burn a dodge [Dodging in fire gives burning which in my opinion is one of the strongest conditions in the game]
- Utilize might stacks on opponents if you’re fighting in a small area or on a node, this can also damage them or create pressure for them to dodge [Fire 2,4,3 + Arcane wave + Earth dodge roll + Earth 4 (optional)]
- You can cast phoenix backwards [Fire 3]
Phoenix can hit 3 times if you properly position it just right behind an opponent [Fire 3]
- You can change attunements while channeling spells [Fire 5, Earth 5, Earth 4, Water 5, Water 3, Air 1, etc.] This will proc Fury which lasts 2 seconds and grants [+20% crit chance]
- Fire grabbing people who are burning does 2x the damage and can crit twice as hard.
Use ride the lightning most of the time for escape purposes or gap closing purposes, don’t just use it randomly (40s CD)
- Don’t sit in one attunement waiting for a spell unless it is absolutely necessary, you’re better off attunement dancing and casting other spells as they will do more damage or be more productive as you get boons in between attunement swaps.
- Utilize your elite depending on the situation [Fire gives most damage, Water heals and creates frost field, Air stuns from range, Earth gives protection]
- You can use the air elemental and position it outside of something like clocktower’s rafters and have it snipe people with stuns and spells from range
- Try to save one dodge roll for water attunement to heal and cleanse a condition

Combos:
- Air 2,3,4 + Double Arcane
- Fire 3,5 [Attunement swap] Air 2,3 + Double Arcane
- Earth 4 + Fire 3, 4 + Arcane blast
- Fire 2 + Earth 4 + Double arcane
- Water 4 + Fire 1 + Fire 5
- Water 4 + Fire 2, 3, 5
- Potential 1 shot combo: Earth 4 + Fire 3, 5 [Attunement swap] Air 2,3,4 + Double Arcane

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEBSaDhuGow
[Mini-Guide, gameplay, mind gaming]

Where you can find Zoose:
http://www.twitch.tv/thundercatshoooo
http://www.youtube.com/YumDeliciousWater
https://twitter.com/ZooseGW2
In your bed

Shoutouts:
[TCG] The Civilized Gentlemen
Leviosaaaa
ArenaNet

bad link on build

I think you have to copy and paste the url into a new tab/window. The forum doesn’t like that format.

We don’t need another forum hero with his guide, after that @ Daphoenix dude( who now play a mesmer lol) started posting his non sense, this profession has seen nerfs month after month due to the invasion of fotm kids and thei bunker build….now this @Zoose dude, another forum hero start with “his” guide and the QQ cycle starts again…..

As soon as a couple of scrub thief player start to get killed by another fotm ele playing s/d burst, we’ll see the “QQ Ele burst too strong nerf it” bullkitten as it was prior to BW2 ( where the ele burst got nerfed).

That’s why people stopped posting builds and guides on GW1 forum, to keep away the fotm kids from their own profession

Keep it up Zoose!

This community is more afraid of a nerf than even thieves… As an Ele I am kinda ashamed of these guys.

This is a solid build — I’ve been playing it for a while. I believe Phantaram of TP also uses it.

To anyone considering playing it, there are a bunch of things you can switch out and still be super viable. This is how I run in Khylo (which is the current map) http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k34;0J0B2-P015-N-Z0;9;5E-OT;15;308-45ASN0;3qNnCrV2D4Bh – really similar but switches a burst utility for a stunbreaker/blink.

I typically like to go 25 into water instead of 20 in Air because of our great uptime on boons (and also take boon duration runes). The burst is a little bit less than with 20 in air but I think it provides more sustained damage.

I occasionally switch Bolt to the Heart for Quick Glyphs and then take GoEH. Makes for a more situational heal but I can use my elite more often and is just a slightly different way of playing.
Also, as you can see from the build I posted, I usually switch one of the water traits for Cantrip Mastery when playing 2 cantrips.

@Arheundel
I really doubt the Ele will be receiving nerfs because of this build. It’s terrifically balanced. When you make a mistake, you pay for it. You also are rewarded for playing well, with the build having a high skill cap. It doesn’t use a cheesy FotM playstyle but requires a decent amount of thought. It’s a good build! If it is nerfed… then ANet is seriously in the wrong.

@Zoose
Thanks for posting this. Enjoyed your video as well and hope to continue to see more of you!

0/20/0/20/30 is by far my favourite ele build (I usually use Vital Striking and Divinity runes tho, plus sigil of battle instead of geomancy), it’s so much more fun than running bunker ele.

Arheundel.6451:

We don’t need another forum hero with his guide, after that @ Daphoenix dude( who now play a mesmer lol) started posting his non sense, this profession has seen nerfs month after month due to the invasion of fotm kids and thei bunker build….now this @Zoose dude, another forum hero start with “his” guide and the QQ cycle starts again…..

As soon as a couple of scrub thief player start to get killed by another fotm ele playing s/d burst, we’ll see the “QQ Ele burst too strong nerf it” bullkitten as it was prior to BW2 ( where the ele burst got nerfed).

That’s why people stopped posting builds and guides on GW1 forum, to keep away the fotm kids from their own profession

Being playing a burst build since beta and I can assure you that even when one or more of these type of builds are given with guides to the public not many will utilize them as an ele. There are two main reasons. The first one is, many eles are so used to the bunker/healer build that it will be extremely hard for them to even consider on trying other builds that are not as bunker. To do well with these type of builds is a challenge and will take a lot of effort and frustration to master it (this is where many will quit using it even if they try it).

Arheundel.6451:

As soon as a couple of scrub thief player start to get killed by another fotm ele playing s/d burst, we’ll see the “QQ Ele burst too strong nerf it” bullkitten as it was prior to BW2 ( where the ele burst got nerfed).

I don’t think Arena Net balanced based on forum whining. They balanced based on actual hard data and stats from inside the game.

This means that builds like this – which show, in the video, that you can die – are probably fine. Someone out there is saying, “Crikey, I just got alpha striked into the ground! Nerf Eles!” but the thing they don’t see is the next slot where the guy gets ganked.

It’s not like bunker.