Guild Wars 2

so on metabattle there is a wvw zerg staff backline build. It says to run soldier armor….and I can’t for the life of me understand why a backline class meant to dish out damage would be running soldier armor. I don’t have an ele but am considering making one, and I feel going full zerkers would obviously be the best. Is there something I’m missing about this? I just don’t see the point in going tank ele. as long as you have good positioning, you can sit in the back and rain aoe.

You’d get crushed in seconds with zerker gear even if you stay at the back of a zerg with all the AoEs that get thrown about.

Lindbur.2537:

You’d get crushed in seconds with zerker gear even if you stay at the back of a zerg with all the AoEs that get thrown about.

would you REALLY though? I am currently playing full zerker ranger and yes, I know ranger is a BIT tankier than an ele, but I almost never get hit at all as ranger. 1200 range is more than enough to stay out of aoe.

I feel like running soldier would be a crutch for people with bad positioning and who can’t stay out of red circles.

Nausiation.1469:

Lindbur.2537:

You’d get crushed in seconds with zerker gear even if you stay at the back of a zerg with all the AoEs that get thrown about.

would you REALLY though? I am currently playing full zerker ranger and yes, I know ranger is a BIT tankier than an ele, but I almost never get hit at all as ranger. 1200 range is more than enough to stay out of aoe.

I feel like running soldier would be a crutch for people with bad positioning and who can’t stay out of red circles.

Well, this is why it’s advised to have at least a little bit of vitality in your build :

yeah I definitely know the strength of retaliation as a ranger, but it’s usually not THAT extreme xD nothing some mango pies + wvw vitality stacks can’t fix usually.

If your frontline runs glassy, then your backline runs tankier. In this meta, most of the damage comes from the zerk frontline and the zerk necros, so eles spec a bit tankier to support. Of course, if you can survive running zerk, then that’s clearly the better option, and it’s the option that a number of GvG guilds opt for.

The metabattle build suggests soldier armor + zerker trinkets. That’s a big difference between either full soldier/full zerk. Basically it just gives you enough defense so you can ignore some incidental damage that flies around. In any case, there’s a whole host of stat spreads that isn’t just zerker or soldier.

Furthermore, a lot of staff attacks have notable casting times, so it’s significantly easier to survive as a ranger because you don’t really have anything that sticks you in place aside from barrage which you really shouldn’t spam anyways.

Nausiation, keep in mind that this is a Metabuild so most ppl using that are usually in a Guild that do raid on a regular basis. In that situation, elementalist are not as much important as dmg dealer compare to the necro since everybody is moving a lot. Good group of player won’t stay in your meteor shower or Ice storm. Necro do a faster burst to get those type of guys.

Also, the elementalist in this kind of group have a huge support role and need to always stay within range of their frontline to give them water field at each regroup. So they need to be able to take a couple of hits near the battle when they do that.

Of couse, if you have already 3-4 elementalist, you don’t need more support elementalist really. So the additional ele can go glassier. It also depend on what kind of guild you are. If you like to fight in close quarter like defending a fort, then a glassy elementalist can be powerful in choke point. But in Open ground, like I said earlier, the aoe of a staff elementalist are obvious are slow to start damaging.

Thaddeus.4891:

Nausiation, keep in mind that this is a Metabuild so most ppl using that are usually in a Guild that do raid on a regular basis.

That’s not entirely true. The main target auidence are PUGs, because they are the overwhelming majority of the playerbase (afaik guilds are mostly running their own altered versions, catering to them would be a bit pointless and complicated). This means the builds under that section do a great job even without a coordianted team. However, there are options listed for guild teams as well. Or something like that, WvW’s not my territory

witcher.3197:

Thaddeus.4891:

Nausiation, keep in mind that this is a Metabuild so most ppl using that are usually in a Guild that do raid on a regular basis.

That’s not entirely true. The main target auidence are PUGs, because they are the overwhelming majority of the playerbase (afaik guilds are mostly running their own altered versions, catering to them would be a bit pointless and complicated). This means the builds under that section do a great job even without a coordianted team. However, there are options listed for guild teams as well. Or something like that, WvW’s not my territory

I’m not saying that the meta build is targeted at guild group and don’t work with pugs. I’m just saying that pure zerker elementalist is not a metabuild because its a niche role. Ya it can be great, but its not a core element of a group.

If you pick up a gain health when you kill a foe it will help with the retal problem.

celestial staff master race \o/

I run Full zerker ele in Pug and guild raids and don’t have a problem surviving, even recently commanded while drunk on staff ele zerker and didn’t have a problem surviving. To go full Soldier armour though imo is overkill, i’d even go as far as saying 2.3k Armour is overkill.

Picking Apart the Metabattle build

As a staff ele you shouldn’t even be inside the melee train (unless being focused and to lose a thief) just position yourself to the side of the fight. So to go tanky makes literally no sense to me. Also the Aquamancer trait – again seems pointless to me… unless there are like 2 eles in your pug group, then run it to make up for lost waters but to me this seems highly unlikely. Soothing disruption is a better choice for a build where all utilities are cantrips, which helps survivability making up for lost toughness

Sigil of bloodlust on an ele to me again – is a wasted sigil. you can keep yourself up at 20~ stacks of might pretty easily as an ele, although you get an extra 250 power from it, if you dont down, which is a bonus. But you can go more zerker to just have those (more or less) there permanently

With regards to the -40% condi food, if you are running soothing disruption it gives cantrips regen, and with cleansing water you cure condis when you get regen , so you can cure 1 condi per cantrip because they all give regen. So with regards to that i’d run Dragons bun for blob fights and Seaweed for GvG/Scrims.

Elite is just down to preference, I still run tornado too spread downed people apart and make banners less effective.

These are the builds I’m talking about and comparing too – just so you have a rough idea

The Metabattle build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMM6cW5wwBd0AWAC5YzaJKQ5l7CC-T1BEABMp8TiLAgiq/ky+D9pDAgHAwWKBDAgA8bfDAO6RP6RP6R7mL3m3coDtUADsMC-w

My Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMM6cW5wwBr0AWAC5YjaJKQ5l7CC-T1xHwADuAA+U+pZ/Bv6AirEEwDAQv6PBAQA+tvBAHdoDdoDdodzbezbezbWKgBWGB-w

TL;DR – Metabattle build needs some tweaks to be a bit better imo.

Sorry for the text wall lol

The aquamancer might be a rare typo, idk. But still, if you ever feel something’s off feel free to propose changes on the discussion page, takes like 30 seconds and actually helps everyone a lot it’s a community project afterall.

Well to be honest for all build posted on Metabattle, I consider them as a base (especially in WvW). You always need to change them to match your playstyle, your guild and the situation.

I have different set of armor, trinket, weapons, food and change my trait depending on my role in a particular raid.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well to be honest for all build posted on Metabattle, I consider them as a base (especially in WvW). You always need to change them to match your playstyle, your guild and the situation.

I have different set of armor, trinket, weapons, food and change my trait depending on my role in a particular raid.

Yep, that’s what we’re aiming for. Give a core build and then add suggestions for customization. Edit: well, core is not the best word for it, they are more refined than that.

In regular WvW with zergs and what not, basically pugging, I would run full zerkers. However in GvGs it would be a different story.

In GvGs there are often peripheral parties (composed of thieves, eles and warriors sometimes) that go out and try to down the squishies as much as possible. A favourite target of these parties are Staff Eles and if you run full zerker with no one to peel for you, you will die no matter how good you are. That is why you run a mixture of soldiers.