Guild Wars 2

I wanted the title to be “Viability of condition damage Ele and basic ele questions” but it was too long.

Hi guys, I’ve had the game for about 6 months and played a fair bit. Messed around with half the classes and found Ele to be the most fun due to having the 4 elements to switch between and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the storm I can bring down on enemies (meteor storm >icebow attack 5 > glyph of storms then the flaming greatsword attack 5)
I’m trying mostly for a high DPS build

So since I main an ele I quite like the sheer amount of burn I can inflict on the enemy (I play almost exclusively PvE) so my first question is is it possible to have a good condition damage ele, I was thinking stats being Condi, power and precision on armour and weapons. Also what would be the best rune to use in armour and weapons for this build

I apologize in advance I don’t know the names of some of these off by heart!!! Just warning you
I also read somewhere arguably the best build is berserker (power, precision, ferocity) staff, arcane brilliance (I think it’s that, it’s the splash damage blast finisher heal spell), glyph of storms, the precision passive effect skill which burns on use, ice bow and the elite skill being elemental. Is this true, arguably one of the best, ok or wrong? Please explain how thanks!

What’s the best set of masteries to use? I’ve been going flame air and arcane is this good?
I’ve heard a lot of people saying the tempest one is great to use is this true and why?
Also I’ve yet to try out the D/D why does this work well? I thought we eles had little survivability.

What runes etc are best to use in an eles armour/weapon?

Thanks for any help in advance! I’m aware a lot of this I ask is probably subject to preference but I’d like to hear as many sides as possible.

P.S. I don’t know a lot of the lingo used in these forums except basics like tank, glass cannon etc

Condi Ele in PvE is quite bad when we’re talking Fractals/Raids etc. In the Jungle/Open World it will work but its to in any way viable for high end content. It’s not that we are bad at burning, it’s just that other classes can do so much more condition DPS than we, there is no point to ever going condi on an Ele. All we have is burn and we can a decent amount of stacks but not the most in the game. Add to that that other classes can easily stack bleeds/poison etc aswell and it doesn’t look good for Ele.

The best power based, DPS build right now is Fire/Air/Tempest if you want to go staff or Air/Tempest and then a choice between Fire or Arcane if you want to go dagger/x. The gear is indeed power/precision/ferocity mixed with some pieces of precision/power/ferociy. (Berserker and Assassin). Best runes are Scholar for the staff build and Strength for the dagger build. Sigils are Force + Strength/Air/Accuracy.

Utilities imo you want Arcane Blast/Glyph of Storms and Signet of Fire. Ice Bow is still good for break bars but I don’t use it much anymore for DPS. I just cycle overloads.

I prefer rabid armor + weapon , and the dire/rabid trinkets. (Personal taste is giver wepon is good with tempest)
Very good and cheap rune is scavenger. Add torment sigil and blood. Played that and it was fun. Traveler and Tempest rune will work too but cost condi damage.
Of course you can use burn runes but it prefer not to focus alone on burn.
Traitlines Fire/Earth/tempest or arcane if no tempest available.
Cleansing flame on the toolbar is great. Rest is personal taste. For PvE use glyph of storms!

Good thing about Ele is there is really no wrong way to play Elementalist. You have access to all styles of damage. You can be master of them all (Celestial), Focus on condition (Sinister/Rampager/Rabid), Power/Critical damage (Knight,Cavalier,Marauder,Berserk), and many more. If you are playing in Heart of Throns areas wearing Berserk on all your armor and Trinket slots is not good playing alone. Also Berserk leaves you with very little defense. A good point to start is figuring out what are your prime attunement(s) that you wish to use and use armor and trinkets that will support it. [Example] – Fire Water Air or Earth. Then you can decide what type of weapon works best for your build, and what sigils you want to use based on your focused attunement. An example for that would be increased conditions, vulnerability etc. Just play with different styles of armors and go from there.

Good luck to you.

Tempest has a rather good condition build, I remember it being posted not long ago. Here is the link https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Condi-Tempest-Build-for-PvE-22k-DPS

Yeah no way in hell that build does 22k dps. Sinister engi is the highest condi DPS class/build right now and that is calculated at 20k dps and that math might even be off and overstated.

Elementalists ranks alot lower than other classes when it comes to conditions. It’s very easy to test this by doing a couple rounds on target dummy with different classes to see who kills faster/gets most stacks and duration.

Also to the people saying ‘zerk is not good in jungle low defense’ bla bla. No. Just play better. Stacking defensive stats only means less damage and some of these new creatures require serious beating to take down. Stacking defense only makes those fights last long and over time most vets will likely kill you as they have more health and more toughness than you. The best approach is to stack on as much damage as you can so that all you need is your two dodges and possibily some defensive skills (I’m running arcane shield) before the monsters are dead.

I run Air/Arcane/Tempest Assassin/Zerk mix with Strength runes and sigil and dumplings + sharpening stones. A single OLA kills everything thats not a vet in 30 mile radius instantly. For vets you have Glyph of Storms, Fresh Air bolt spam + the two Breath skills and OLA on a 6 second cooldown but often they don’t even last that long.

Verificus.4320:

Yeah no way in hell that build does 22k dps. Sinister engi is the highest condi DPS class/build right now and that is calculated at 20k dps and that math might even be off and overstated.

Elementalists ranks alot lower than other classes when it comes to conditions. It’s very easy to test this by doing a couple rounds on target dummy with different classes to see who kills faster/gets most stacks and duration.

Also to the people saying ‘zerk is not good in jungle low defense’ bla bla. No. Just play better. Stacking defensive stats only means less damage and some of these new creatures require serious beating to take down. Stacking defense only makes those fights last long and over time most vets will likely kill you as they have more health and more toughness than you. The best approach is to stack on as much damage as you can so that all you need is your two dodges and possibily some defensive skills (I’m running arcane shield) before the monsters are dead.

I run Air/Arcane/Tempest Assassin/Zerk mix with Strength runes and sigil and dumplings + sharpening stones. A single OLA kills everything thats not a vet in 30 mile radius instantly. For vets you have Glyph of Storms, Fresh Air bolt spam + the two Breath skills and OLA on a 6 second cooldown but often they don’t even last that long.

Did you even watch the video? It’s not based off of theory, it’s based off of an actual fractal 50 fight – albeit, a bit skewed since alacrity is up 100% of the time pretty much.

Regardless, there are some new ele condi builds going around right now that is giving top condi builds a run for their money.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I’ll have a look at the video for the Condi ele when I can though from the sound of things it is generally better to just go for the max DPS, I plan to have a good play around with things anyway so I’ll try most things suggested when I hit ascended armour.

Am I right in saying ascended items can swap out their stats and runes?

I mostly use fire for damage then air for the CC and water for healing + slowing enemies so what would be best for that?

I’ve yet to get enough skill points to get far into tempest, is the only way left once you hit 80 the skill points on the map?

Ok so I decided to grab full exotic gear (armour I mean) and went for berserker with the superior runes of the Ogre (I wanted strength but they cost 11g each) as for my staff I got 2 things (I forget their names) but basically I gain strength on crit hits (with my precision at 52% this is insanely useful) and something that replenished my dodges on a kill and oh my God the improvement was insane I’m dishing out a ton of damage plus due to the dodges I get on kills I last so much longer!

condi ele is sick in wvw and in pvp but don’t use crap builds like wooden potatoes does with no survivability

I’ve found that the best way to play Tempest in HoT and high level Fractals (no Raid experience yet) is to run Tempest and Earth, using Dagger MH and either Focus or Warhorn.

Focus will give much better defensive utility, and is great for soloing, while Warhorn is a bit more supporty and group oriented.

Earth gives you easy access to Protection via Elemental Shielding, and Tempest makes it 40% reduced damage. Combine that with boon duration and Imbued Melodies, and you’re very tanky regardless of gear spec. Play as an Auramancer basically.

Kit out in Sinister gear, stick in Fire, switching to Air for Shocking Aura, and cycle your Shout utilities to keep boons up. I’m still in Zerk gear myself but may make the switch to Condi in the near future.

Dahir.4158:

condi ele is sick in wvw and in pvp but don’t use crap builds like wooden potatoes does with no survivability

wouldnt call his build crap, its a PVE build not a WvW or PvP build, you dont really need survivability in PVE