Guild Wars 2

I joined a guild recently and I am not considered full meta as I prefer running d/d ele over s/d. Arguments were made by the guild that d main-hand is lowest dps of ele weapons and that no meta forum/guide lists d/d as part of the meta. I strongly disagree with all of the above, but I did go ahead and ask a respected member of the dungeon community to help me do a test relating to the dps of d/d and s/d. Now before I reveal our findings ( even though it has been proven over and over again by others-at least I can say I participated in this test myself and did not just go on hear-say or what some link says) or reveal who helped me, I’d first like to know what the meta ele community thinks about this. Can we assume we have a competent staff ele already in this make believe dungeon party and we are only focusing on s/d and d/d that the other ele in the party might run. (Both d/d and s/d are using LH on a side note) My main question really is, is there room for d/d in ele dungeon meta?

Eles have 3 good specs for dungeons:

Dagger/Focus – PUGing, hard content, casual runs
Scepter + Lightning Hammer – Great burst and sustained damage, permanent blast finishers, best might stacking
Fire Staff – Best sustained damage in the game, permanent fire fields

Here’s a really great guide about PvE Ele

Neko.9021:

Eles have 3 good specs for dungeons:

Dagger/Focus – PUGing, hard content, casual runs
Scepter + Lightning Hammer – Great burst and sustained damage, permanent blast finishers, best might stacking
Fire Staff – Best sustained damage in the game, permanent fire fields

Here’s a really great guide about PvE Ele

completely missed the point of the OP. An ele doesnt need a scepter to use a LH, OP assumed there was a staff ele in the group, other ele was either s/d or d/d both using the same build…once might is stacked, LH down, who does more damage. Those guides never mention maining d/d, though its fine to if you actually understand what weapons do what. Just using “build becoz build” does not show knowlage of a class, just using what others have told you to use.

Problem is the dagger mainhand and the dagger offhand serves opposite purposes. Dagger mainhand is for dps outside of conjures, and dagger offhand is for burst before conjuring. Dagger focus relies on the defensive utilities of the focus and the good dps of dagger mainhand, scepter focus relies on the good burst of scepter, swirling winds before casting hammer, and then the conjures dps, and scepter dagger is the burst heavy set. Dagger/dagger is a non bursty weapon mainhand with a bursty weapon offhand. You’ll also have less blast finishers than d/f or s/x, and using dagger on a full conjure build is indeed a dps loss over scepter.

oxtred.7658:

Problem is the dagger mainhand and the dagger offhand serves opposite purposes. Dagger mainhand is for dps outside of conjures, and dagger offhand is for burst before conjuring. Dagger focus relies on the defensive utilities of the focus and the good dps of dagger mainhand, scepter focus relies on the good burst of scepter, swirling winds before casting hammer, and then the conjures dps, and scepter dagger is the burst heavy set. Dagger/dagger is a non bursty weapon mainhand with a bursty weapon offhand. You’ll also have less blast finishers than d/f or s/x, and using dagger on a full conjure build is indeed a dps loss over scepter.

Cool, so you have done a full dps test with all these weapon sets to see what the average dps is on each and you have found that dagger offhand comes out less. If your looking at it from a solo point of view, it has less finishers, but in an organised group you dont need to do EVERY blast to cap 25 might and are you honestly expecting every boss fight to out last 2 LHs and lets even throw in an ice bow there for fun…in that case, what weapon set would do more DPS…before you answer, the hint is, your not attacking with the daggers…

The reason we rarely take Dagger Offhand with Dagger Mainhand is because Fire Staff and Lightning Hammer are simply higher damage.

Dagger Mainhand’s biggest upside is that you can take Focus for defensive purposes. If you’re going for high damage, then Lightning Hammer or Fire Staff is better. Furthermore, if you’re going with Lightning Hammer, you might as well use Scepter for the high might stacking capabilities it has. That’s why the really three good builds that have developed over the course of people analyzing the class and dungeons has been:
-Dagger paired with Focus for defensive skills and good average sustained DPS
-Scepter paired with Lightning Hammer for high might stacking and then the high autoattack daamge of Lightning Hammer
-Staff camping Fire for the highest damage

Mind you, in many situations and in PUGing, I think the Dagger with Focus will be the most reasonable choice.

Also, @Scorpion Over Lord, I can barely understand what you’re writing because of your constant use of ellipsis (“…”), incomplete sentences, and poor grammar. You’re clearly trying to imply something, and hoping it becomes apparent and obvious to us, but I’m afraid it’s not clear to me at all what you’re trying to say.

-Is it that because the OP is in an organized group, they can just use Dagger/Dagger because everyone else has already capped to 25 might? Because my point still stands that Dagger/Dagger really doesn’t really have as much of purpose compared to the other 3 sets I mentioned.
-Is it that the OP should use Lightning Hammer because of its higher autoattack damage (and blinds) in an organized group? While that might be true in some cases, other cases (perhaps let’s say, fractal 40+ runs), there still might be times where falling back to the more defensive Dagger/Focus build might be better, at least at first. Also, just based on what the OP wrote, it’s not clear to me that the guild the OP is in is really an organized dungeon guild, or just some casual players bringing whatever (or even a group of people who think they understand what the so-called “dungeon meta” is but really don’t, as I’ve seen in a lot of guilds; if the OP was in an actual speedrun guild, they probably should have been able to explain this all to the OP themselves, rather than the OP coming to the forums and asking us instead). That’s why I tried to present a lot of information, rather than a small snippet of it.
-Is it that the OP should just do whatever the heck they want, and not care about what we wrote? If that’s what you meant, I’m not entirely sure why you’re even posting on this thread then in the first place.

Also, for anyone interested, if you’re looking for the relative DPS numbers of the various specs for classes, there’s a wonderful calculator that shows this all for you, based on extensive testing done by some really good players:
http://gw2dps.david-reess.de/

The point was missed regarding my post and poor grammar or not, Scorpion understood what I was trying to get at. I will try and be more clear as it seems that anyone unknown to the forums will be assumed immediately as a complete noob.

In “my party” we have a warrior, thief, engineer and 2 ele’s, 1 being staff. We have fury up time, sufficient vulnerability and might. When engaging with a mob or champ it does not matter if the ele is running s/d, d/d or d/f as long as the group reach 25 might and the ele in mention is wielding a LH. If a dungeon fight out last 2 LH they obviously screwed up some where and should not be considered sc meta, no? My point I was trying to make to the guild I joined is that it is not about the weapons the conjure ele is wielding but whether they are running the right build and with LH in use @ 25 stacks of might, d/d, s/d or d,f become irrelevant. Yes, d/d might not have the highest might stacking (even though a single ele swopping weapons while stacking might can reach 25 might on their own) but with a thief, warrior and engi in the group, they can easily reach 25 might, vulnerability and fury up time. I did a dps test with members from IX last night regarding this. s/d at 25 might, d/d at 25 might, s/d holding LH at 25 might and d/d holding LH at 25 might. S/d and d/d both wielding LH did the same damge. As it is about the ele’s build and wielding LH and the rest of the group comp and not about s/d or d/d on it’s own. This was the point I tried to make to my guild and I was hoping someone else would confirm to this.

And yes Scorpion, your hint was missed, not attacking with d/d haha

Wow, the grammar kittens are out in full force today on the forums, obviously I need to be perfect and spell everything out for people on my cellphone that cant understand the OP…I missed an apostrophe, the world shall end!!!

Back on track, OP is not pugging, assumtions were made that the group had a brain cell between them.

Kira Hotaru.7865:

The point was missed regarding my post and poor grammar or not, Scorpion understood what I was trying to get at. I will try and be more clear as it seems that anyone unknown to the forums will be assumed immediately as a complete noob.

In “my party” we have a warrior, thief, engineer and 2 ele’s, 1 being staff. We have fury up time, sufficient vulnerability and might. When engaging with a mob or champ it does not matter if the ele is running s/d, d/d or d/f as long as the group reach 25 might and the ele in mention is wielding a LH. If a dungeon fight out last 2 LH they obviously screwed up some where and should not be considered sc meta, no? My point I was trying to make to the guild I joined is that it is not about the weapons the conjure ele is wielding but whether they are running the right build and with LH in use @ 25 stacks of might, d/d, s/d or d,f become irrelevant. Yes, d/d might not have the highest might stacking (even though a single ele swopping weapons while stacking might can reach 25 might on their own) but with a thief, warrior and engi in the group, they can easily reach 25 might, vulnerability and fury up time. I did a dps test with members from IX last night regarding this. s/d at 25 might, d/d at 25 might, s/d holding LH at 25 might and d/d holding LH at 25 might. S/d and d/d both wielding LH did the same damge. As it is about the ele’s build and wielding LH and the rest of the group comp and not about s/d or d/d on it’s own. This was the point I tried to make to my guild and I was hoping someone else would confirm to this.

My comments about understandability wete directed @Scorpion Over Lord, not at you. :/

Anyway, you certainly could run double dagger Ele with a Lightning Hammer, sure. You could run whatever. But I still don’t see much point to it. Focus is still going to offer in many cases better utility if you’re worried about the utility of the offhand (Projectile Block, better blast finishing). Running MH Dagger with LH is fine if you’re worried about the DPS of your character if for some reason you can’t use LH, but scepter still offers better Might Stacking if you’re going to spend your time autoattacking with LH anyway.

Well, put it this way OP, are you using the 6/6/2/0/0 build with dual daggers or are you using the traditional 0/0/2/6/6 dual dagger build? If the answer is the first one with LH, then you are fine. If you are using the 2nd build with LH, then your DPS will be pretty weak even using a LH.

Is there a particular reason you are set on using only dual daggers? I mean you should have all the weapons. I use a S/D LH build most of the time but sometimes I will switch to D/F or staff depending what I’m doing and whether I’m bored with the weapon set I’m using atm.

I’m with Neko on this one. I couldn’t understand Kira initially until the clarification post. I still cannot understand scorpion.

Anyway, thus far I agree with Neko and Sauzo.

Scorpion Over Lord.9036:

oxtred.7658:

Problem is the dagger mainhand and the dagger offhand serves opposite purposes. Dagger mainhand is for dps outside of conjures, and dagger offhand is for burst before conjuring. Dagger focus relies on the defensive utilities of the focus and the good dps of dagger mainhand, scepter focus relies on the good burst of scepter, swirling winds before casting hammer, and then the conjures dps, and scepter dagger is the burst heavy set. Dagger/dagger is a non bursty weapon mainhand with a bursty weapon offhand. You’ll also have less blast finishers than d/f or s/x, and using dagger on a full conjure build is indeed a dps loss over scepter.

Cool, so you have done a full dps test with all these weapon sets to see what the average dps is on each and you have found that dagger offhand comes out less. If your looking at it from a solo point of view, it has less finishers, but in an organised group you dont need to do EVERY blast to cap 25 might and are you honestly expecting every boss fight to out last 2 LHs and lets even throw in an ice bow there for fun…in that case, what weapon set would do more DPS…before you answer, the hint is, your not attacking with the daggers…

The point is, since you’ll be using LH after your might stacking rotation, you take the fastest and hardest hitting might stacking rotation you have. Scepter has a better burst than dagger, and that’s why conjurers take it. Your role has an ele is offensive support and a bit of projectile reflection if using focus, even if your party can cap might without you the scepter rotation (including only fire 2,4,3, earth 4) doing it will cap might faster and lower the boss kill time. Dagger/dagger isn’t bad per say, it has no place in the current meta because every other options are better, and as I said earlier the two weapons doesn’t really work well together in pve.