Guild Wars 2

Hello all. I’m turning to you guys for help tweaking my build. I’m mostly an open-world PvE’er, and I spend more time soloing than not. I intend for my final build to be very much a glass cannon, but I’m not sure exactly how to finish it. I will be running a Berserker’s Staff with a Sigil of Air, Bererker’s Armor with Superior Runes of the Elementalist, and Rampager’s Trinkets with Coral Gemstones.

30 trait points will be in Fire with the Ember’s Might, Burning Precision, and either Internal Fire or Pyromancer’s Puissance traits. 20 points will be in Arcane with the Elemental Attunement and Blasting Staff traits. For my final 20 trait points I’m having trouble deciding between Air and Earth.

If I go with Air I’ll get extra Precision and Critical Damage, and I’ll take the Bolt to the Heart and either Arcane Lightning or Air Training traits. If I go with Earth I’ll gain extra Toughness (which, along with Vitality, I’m sorely lacking at the moment), Condition Damage, and I’ll take the Salt Stone and either Stone Splinters or Serrated Stone traits.

Any feedback you guys can give me would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

One thing I want to mention before I go too far into this, is that I hopped into the Heart of the Mists to try the build out against the NPCs. I also have no idea what utility skills you use, so I used Arcane Shield, Armor of Earth, and Cleansing Fire. The cantrips will be explained when I get to your build.

I’m not too sure stacking condition damage on a staff is the best option. To me, there’s not enough conditions on the staff to justify it. You’d be much better off, I think, to stack power and precision for a glass cannon staff build. In saying that, you could swap out your Elementalist runes for Superior Rune of the Eagle, which will stack up lots of precision and critical damage if you wanted to.

For your staff sigil, I’d say you be much better off going with something like a Superior Rune of Bloodlust. It gives 10 power each time you kill a foe with a max of 25 stacks. That means a guaranteed 250 power with a full stack rather than a mere chance on crit.

For your 30 points in fire, I’d say stick with Burning Precision. When I was testing this out in the Mists, I messed around with a few other traits and found Spell Slinger was a good option for more damaged as well as a bit of survivability. That specific trait is why I chose to use 2 cantrips. Armor of Earth grants you protection and stability already. With Spell Slinger, cantrips will give you 3 stacks of might as well. I also stuck with Pyromacer’s Puissance for the 10secs of might per fire spell. This ends up stacking a decent bit of might and therefore more damage. And the great thing about might is that might also effects condition damage.

The Arcane traits you picked I left alone. They’re perfect as is and there’s no reason to change them. :]

For your final 20 points though, I want to suggest you split them between earth and water. I say this because your stacking all your damage stats onto your armor. Being a glass cannon means high damage, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add a bit of toughness and vitality. In the earth line you can go for Earth’s Embrace or Stone Splinters. I’d lean more towards Stone Splinters because try as you might, it’s hard to keep things ranged for too long sometimes. This also means that if you take Salt Stone and your bleeds drop, you’ve lost that extra 5% damage.

Putting the last ten points in water gives you a little extra vitality along with some healing power. It also means you regen health when you’re attuned to water and it’s the other reason I went with 2 cantrips for utility skills. I chose to go with Soothing Disruption, which means cantrips will grant you regeneration and vigor. This basically just translates into a little more survivability.

As to why I went with Armor of Earth and Cleansing Fire, that’s simple. With the traits I chose, they’ll each grant you 3 stacks of might (for about 15 seconds or so), regeneration (for 10 seconds) and vigor (for 10 seconds). Armor of Earth also will grant you 7.25 seconds of stability and 7.25 seconds of protection. Cleansing Fire will cure 3 conditions and also burn your foe for 4 seconds. On top of that, both skills break stun.

Arcane Shield was mostly something I just threw in there. It only lasts for 5 seconds, but it’ll block attacks. If it blocks 3 it’ll explode and do some damage.

If you do decide to forgo the condition damage on your gear, I’d recommend either Valkyrie or Knight trinkets. The both give you power and precision, but one also gives vitality and the other gives toughness. If you’d prefer neither of those, just stick with the Berzerker stuff for your trinkets as well.

I hope this helped. :] Ultimately you’re free to choose whatever traits/stats you like, I just found these to be effective.

Forget about condition damage and get arcane wave / mist form / arcane shield. You’re gonna need them if you go full glass.

Fire trait line is a noob trap. The only weapon where it’s worth to prioritize fire is staff (maybe scepter), and the cast times for all their spells are very low. Without boon duration your might stacks (pyromancer puissance) won’t last that much anyway.

At most have 10 points in the fire trait line, at least 20 in air, 15 in water (pretty much mandatory, and you can get the vital striking trait) and then decide what to do with the rest of your straits (at least 10 in arcana is recommended, I have 30)

open world roam in glass cannon is a bad idea. in general glass cannon ele is a bad idea . We have the best boon building of all classes , it’s pretty easy to build 10+ stacks of might while having perma fury. So putting pts into damage crit chance really isn’t all that efficient. The fastest way to kill mobs in open world is to kill a lot of them in 1 pull. Defense will help you more imo.

if you’re going glass cannon I would suggest air. More precision and crit damage is nice. I like glyphs recharge 20% faster and glyphs give boons. Then I take healing glyph and glyph of storms.
I originally went 30 in fire but found it way less useful than 30 in water for boosting the effectiveness of my cantrips. cantrips grant regen and vigor, cantrips recharge 20% faster, and regeneration removes a condition. It is slightly less damage but the boost to survivability while still being full zerkers is tremendous

Mogar.9216:

open world roam in glass cannon is a bad idea. in general glass cannon ele is a bad idea . We have the best boon building of all classes , it’s pretty easy to build 10+ stacks of might while having perma fury. So putting pts into damage crit chance really isn’t all that efficient. The fastest way to kill mobs in open world is to kill a lot of them in 1 pull. Defense will help you more imo.

You can play any class as a glass cannon as long as you know what you’re doing.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I appreciate the feedback, and hope to receive more.

I guess I should have gave mention to my utilities. I run Arcane Blast for self-combos, Arcane Shield for when things start to go badly, and the Signet of Fire for a bit of extra damage against trash mobs or a long-lasting burn against Veterans or better. Against burning enemies, I’ll be inflicting an additional 10% damage, and another 10% while in Fire Attunement.

A rotation of Eruption, Unsteady Ground, Frozen Ground, Ice Spike, Flame Burts, Meteor Shower, and Lava Font is usually sufficient to kill any enemy before they get to me. In the case it’s not, I usually knock through Static Field with Gust before starting the rotation again (CD’s permitting). Burning Retreat helps against melee attackers, Magnetic Aura helps against ranged attackers, and Arcane Shield helps against both.

I haven’t quite settled on a healing skill, but I’m running the glyph at the moment. For my elite skill I’m running the Glyph of Arcane Summoning, as the Earth Elemental makes a nice tank when soloing.