Guild Wars 2

most of the time when it’s activated and i switch to air my air atunement skills are still on cd.
it’s only good with the lighting strike dmg
which to me…seems like a waste

or am I not doing this right?

need some input thank you

I always felt the same way, not to mention that if you proc it often, you will run out of other attunements to swap out of to go back in to air attunement. maybe we are failing to see something? good for burst builds maybe?

For daggers, you use it so you can spam Lightning Whip more (usually for PvE).

For scepter, it gives you a reliable source of burst from Electric Discharge plus the sustained damage of Arc Lightning (usually for PvP).

In both cases, it gives the Elementalist a reliable way to go back to doing more damage, rather than waiting on attunement cooldowns, while in Earth or Water Attunements, while still gaining the utility of those attunements.

personally i dont really light arc lighting, it’s way too weak to be a sustained dmg
i was thinking to change fresh air for some other traits which allows me to deal more dmg to stunned targets or even air reductions

To be honest if you find that when you swap back to air and the skills are on cd then you are not counting their cd’s in your head, you have to think of it like any other ele build, you can’t just pop into it when it comes up.

darres.8203:

personally i dont really light arc lighting, it’s way too weak to be a sustained dmg
i was thinking to change fresh air for some other traits which allows me to deal more dmg to stunned targets or even air reductions

Arc Lighting does, however, regularly hit your target – meaning it will crit often and can recharge your FAir and let you cast skills that aren’t hitting foes in another attunement before swapping back for some burst.

Yes, fresh air is an awesome trait and very much worth it. However its only use in PVE is to get back to spamming lightning whip after youve cycles through everything else.

In pvp and WvW however fresh air synergizes amazingly with scepter. The #2 skill for air on scepter has only a 5 sec CD, however since the lowest CD you can get normally on attunements is 10s you get only half the DPS out of this ability you normally would. Scepter has tons of burst dmg already available to it, and fresh air doesn’t change that. What fresh air does is add some sustained dmg to scepter because without fresh air you literally have none. Without fresh air youd be doing a 4-6k (attune to air+air#2) every 10seconds max, while with fresh air you can do that every 5sec, essentially doubling your DPS.

In addition, attaining to air and lightning strike can both be cast instantly at the same time, so are essentially unavoidable unless youre an idiot and try bursting people while blocking/dodging/invuln

Fresh Air is the best thing that has happened to me as an ele PvE-wise.

I like it but only with a scepter. It’s a bit of a finger workout though. My friend on the other hand thinks it is a cheese build… in some ways I agree as it promotes mindless attunement switching. I still find it fun.

it’s about as worth it as stone heart    z__z

juno.1840:

I like it but only with a scepter. It’s a bit of a finger workout though. My friend on the other hand thinks it is a cheese build… in some ways I agree as it promotes mindless attunement switching. I still find it fun.

It… sort of does, but a FAir ele who swaps mindlessly will tend to end up with 0 defensive options pretty fast.

If you’re running scepter, the culmination of hits also gives you a very high chance of getting a double sigil proc (if you’re running air/fire).

cheese.4739:

juno.1840:

I like it but only with a scepter. It’s a bit of a finger workout though. My friend on the other hand thinks it is a cheese build… in some ways I agree as it promotes mindless attunement switching. I still find it fun.

It… sort of does, but a FAir ele who swaps mindlessly will tend to end up with 0 defensive options pretty fast.

Zero defense options from being locked out of attunement correct? If yes, then I agree.

However that’s the only way to maximize dps with FA builds.

As someone mentioned, scepter is awesome for this since the air-auto-attack crits often and will persist into the other attunements allowing air to reactivate almost immediately.

IF i ran fresh air this is what i would run:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhMMacW4wnBdEBEAGpkQoAwwdwPQ8JoCEDB-TVRSwAUU+BY/hjKBrpHAq6PkCQWlRA-w

The synergy with One With Air and Fresh Air is cool. Especially for scepter to keep some distance. utilities are mainly defensive because the lack of defense….

would be nice if someone could get a few ‘simulated’ fights rolling between a FA zerk and the old 0/20/0/20/30 valk ele.

calling it simulated is much better than dueling. dueling is for casuls.

Speaking purely from a PvE perspective here, fresh air works out well with D/F. As said before, the air autoattack hits pretty hard (compared to any other ele autoattack), and the Fresh Air trait allows you to do what you need in other attunements then switch back for sustained damage (and the extra minor trait damage proc). What you need can differ depending on your situation, from using burst, defensive or CC skills to blasting fields, or a combination of these. I would not use this build with anything other than dagger/focus unless I am too lazy to switch out traits for a short encounter where I use other weapons.

Benjamin.8237:

To be honest if you find that when you swap back to air and the skills are on cd then you are not counting their cd’s in your head, you have to think of it like any other ele build, you can’t just pop into it when it comes up.

This ^ Some people just don’t realized that it helps to know your CD’s