Guild Wars 2

in the interest of not hijacking anyone else’s thread, i’m wondering if this build is viable and how it would compare in dps vs zerker? I would play it as d/x in pve but scepter would certainly be a good ranged choice.

I chose water because I feel like I have some trouble surviving as ele in pve. i’m still learning, but if there is a better setup i’d be glad to see it.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMIClNgVPAONA8RgBBAjeCbhjQEAClHAZDcBSBA-ThhMABmpEsU1fAY/hTV+B6DAIU9AkCAmlVA-e

if I went arcane over water i’d probably set it up like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMICtMgVPAONA8RgBBALCAhyDgsBuApgaT2EPDA-ThhMABmpEsU1fAY/hTV+B6DAIU9AkCAmlVA-e

I’ve had friends talking about this and Burning Ele might be fine (I still don’t know at the time of this post), but my question is, since you’re basically camping Fire Attunement and spamming 2, why not run the best DPS spec in the game, Fire Staff Berserker Ele?

1) You shouldn’t use water. It’s a good line for direct damage and burst with Ice-Bow, but for condition, it’s the worst choice.

2) Pyromancer’s Training is better than Power Overwhelming. I know it’s weird but Drake’s Breath for exemple with PT give around 3.5k DPS while the same skill with PO give only 2.7k DPS and that’s only for the burning. You also do more direct damage with PT than PO. Your burning hit less, but you put a lot more burning by attacking more often with hard hitting skills.

3) If you solo, then Zephyr’s Boon is a good choice, but in group you should always have fury and Ferocious Wind will be better.

4) Evasive Arcana is most of the time better than Elemental Surge. Elemental Surge in your build equal to 5s of burning each time you use an Arcane skill (20-24sec CD), while Evasive Arcane will give 2 stack of burning of 6s each time you you dodge. So even if you only dodge once each 20sec you will do more burning with EA than ES. It also free up a slot for another utility like Glyph of Elemental Power.

What is the actual dps of that kind of build compare to a Zerker Staff Ele? Not sure, but I doubt it will be close enough to be worth it in Dungeon/Fracal. But staff ele isn’t as easy to use in open world and this could be where a burning build could actually be better than a Staff Zerker build.

thanks for the responses. there’s been a lot of talk in some of the other profession forums i frequent about sinister gear now being better than zerk for pve. Ele may be one of those classes where sticking with zerk is the better choice.

@Thaddeus: thanks for the trait help, i’ll likely stick with zerk for now unless someone goes through the math or i feel like breaking out the calculator.