Guild Wars 2

I hit 80 a couple days ago and have been running explore mode dungeons pretty much non stop all weekend. Keep in mind that since I’m currently guildless, my experiences may differ greatly from yours as the vast majority of my runs (especially for the indeterminate future) will be with pugs.

Initially I upon hitting 80 I went a (like most I’ve seen) a crit/power heavy staff build, centered around aoe and field manipulation. I believe I was something like (30 /10 /0 /10 /20) with Blasting Staff and Elemental Attunement. Quickly I realized, especially in pugs, I was way too squeshy and, while fields were powerful group wide, with the staff all you could really start was a burning field and vulnerability field. There are two problems with this…

• Burning stacks duration, not intensity – so while the extra duration was nice the damage as I noticed the damage seemed to be based off the last person who added a stack. As you can imagine this makes the final damage ticking vary greatly.
• Most classes I ran with already stacked vulnerability – lets be honest, there are a ton of gsword warriors out there and a ton of longbow rangers.

So I set out to find/create a build less reliant on fields and group buffs and more on one of the stronger conditions in the game, bleeds.

The Build

30 /10 /30 /0 /0

The build centers around earth based bleed damage via Stone Shards with condition damage being buffed by Salt Stone, Serrated Stones, and Strength of Stone. The massive investment in to earth also serves two purposes – keeping you alive (which can be hard as a ele sometimes) and Superior Rune of Undead (6) which converts toughness to condition damage.

The Traits

Fire (30)

• Ember’s Might – most foes, one way or another will be burning in a 5 man dungeon.
• Burning Precision – assists in making sure ember’s might stays active as often as possible. Does work when not in fire attunement.
• Internal Fire – I’ve been debating this or Pyromancer’s Puissance (stacks might) but ultimately what I figured is dmg will come from bleeds (which are not affected by might), the duration on the might buff is too short and as i’ll go over in the playstyle section, fire is meant for aoe/bursting which Internal Fire helps with more.
• Pyromancer’s Puissance – Because you’ll be switching to fire quite often, stacking migh for harder hitting bleeds will be important.

Overall fire gives you 10% extra damage to burning targets and a reliable process to keep burns up (duration buffed as well).

Air (10)

• Bolt to the Heart – nothing new here, one of the best talents we have for damage.

Overall run speed (when needed) and 20% damage for crucial phases of a fight, great for 10 points.

Earth (30)

• Salt Stone – your foe will be bleeding so 5% extra damage is an obvious choice.
• Strength of Stone – 10% extra damage in an attunement you’ll spend most of your time in.
• Serrated Stones – great trait for keeping damage up while power shifting throwing out other buffs or debuffs.

Overall earth ends up being a wonderful line. Tons of extra toughness (very noticeable), and right around 25% extra damage (do to Enduring Damage) to your bleeds.

The Gearing

Condition Damage > Precision == Toughness (once you have Undead(6) > Power > Crit Damage > Vitality == Healing

The above “feels” right to me so far and honestly I have no inclination to mathematically theorycraft out if it is correct or not. Take it with a grain of salt I guess I’d say.

I went Rune of Undead for the toughness -> conditon damage conversion which is roughly at least an extra 110+ condition damage once all the buffs are taken into consideration.

Sigil of Earth and Corruption are pretty good, and I’ve gotten corruption to stack to 23ish before the end of a dungeon plenty of times. (Also note Sigil of Intelligence DOES NOT work with attunement swapping)

The Utility Slots

• (Healing)Glyph of Elemental Harmony – If you need a heal, getting a 3sec protection is wonderfully useful.
• Glyph of Storms – Running s/d one can sometimes feel as though they have too little aoe. In those times you can switch to staff or run with Glyph of Storm, I prefer the latter.
• Alternative Arcane Wave – This is mainly for might stacking, as you can use ring of fire from range then arcane wave for a quick might buff.
• Mist Form – Personally, with how much unavoidable damage that can be thrown out you sometimes, having 100% damage mitigation for 3 seconds is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a saftey blanket I know, but again running with pugs can be dangerous.
• Armor of Earth – Another safety blanket, but I use it primarily in combo ( Earthquake -> Churning Earth) to keep from getting interrupted when AoEing. You can cast it while channeling another ability (in most cases Churning Earth).
• (Elite) Glyph of Elementals – our strongest, most diverse glyph. I only use it in water or earth attunement, fire dies too quickly.

Summary

I hope this was helpful. Like I’ve said, I’ve only just started running with this build but it’s been very effective on bosses and events. The survivabiltiy is extremely high compared to what I used to run with and generally I can keep a constant 17 bleed stack on the target solo.

As always if you’re playing elementalist, don’t fall in love with an attunement for too long. Even though this is a earth heavy build, we have too much utility not to still constantly power shift, throw out heals, debuffs and blinds (we have 2 with s/d use them!).

Thanks.
D^t

(originally linked from here )

You have no way to remove conditions other than a 40 second cd in water. I’d reccomend putting 10 points into water for condition removal on attunement to water. It’s extremely good.

I could see that as a possible weakness but honestly I’ve not yet run an explore mode where a condition couldn’t be healed/mist formed through if it was critical.

I’ve also noticed a lot of Mesmers running with Null Field which could also be a solution on condition heavy fights.

I’ll take it into consideration though. Thanks.

(the link to gw2skills doesn’t seem to be working atm with GW2’s website, I’ll try and get that fixed,)

The biggest reason on my elementalist that I use the condition removal on attunement to water is for removing Poison, since when you switch to water it is typically to heal (trident, wave, soothing mists, elemental attunement, and the glyph heal (which has 10-20 seconds of regeneration in water)) which all get hit pretty hard by poison (-33% healing, and a DoT that cancels out gain from HoTs). Obviously it can also remove any other troublesome condition as well, but poison is the main reason I actually traited it. In PvP it’s not as amazing because typically you’re going to be getting hit by multiple conditions, but in PvE where you’re usually just hit by 1 type of condition at a time, it’s really amazing.

But otherwise yeah it looks like a really nice build. I still have 10 points in my build that I’m not entirely happy with so I’ve been constantly scouring builds to get ideas of better places to put them, which may end up being earth. (they’re currently in fire for +10% dmg in fire, but since I attunement swap so much and lingering elements not working, it can be a let down at times)

Updated link now to gw2db

30 /10 /30 /0 /0

I always forget about poison, but that is a good point.

Are you sure Might doesn’t increase Condition Damage? Because the wiki says:
“Might is a boon which increases power and condition damage”

Your right, that was changed in BWE3, it affects the final total damage of the condition – I’ll fix it.

I wouldn’t change the final trait though since I wouldn’t stay in fire long enough to build up a sizable large stack of might.

Scepter/Dagger can already get a very respectable stack of (aoe) might anyways without having to trait anything.

Ring of Fire>Dragon Tooth>Phoenix>Earth Attune>EQ>Churning Earth= 12 stacks of aoe might. If you have arcane wave you can raise that to 15 stacks, or 16 stacks if you have elemental attunement as well, 17 if you heal in fire, or 18 if you heal in fire with Inscription (healing in fire is significantly less advantageous to healing in other attunements though)

Edit: I just remembered Phoenix also cures conditions, so technically the 40 sec water cd wouldn’t be your only conditional removal, my mistake. I pretty much never use phoenix for condition removal though being as good as it is for so many other things.

Were you going to expand on the Playstyle section you alluded to in the initial post? One thing I have found I’m doing more of is starting in Fire attunement for the 4-2-3 (plus Arcane wave) might stacking before switching to Earth (and if you get a 4 or 5 from Earth in, that’s another 3 might.) Plus I’m using the sigil that grants 2 might on weapon swaps, well attunement swapping for us. That gives a significant might stack to start off on a tough mob. I’ve been using a bloodlust sigil on the offhand. Might switch to corruption for even better bleed damage.

The problem I’ve found with might stacking in fire is it’s difficult to keep those stacks for too long once you start power shifting (ideally back to earth).

If you’re aoeing then by the time you do get a decent stack of might (enough to out weigh 10% extra fire damage), the mobs are already dead.

And to preform that combo specifically you’d need to be in melee range at which point a few traits would have to shift around. Swap Serrated Stones for Stone Splinters and Burning Precision for Pyromancer’s Puissance.

This might be the way we play in the future, tailoring traits even per fight. I’ll test it tonight and report back how annoying / silly the playstyle feels.

Thanks

@nifty

Remember this is for dungeoning with a 5man group, not for soloing. For solo I run a standard d/d build with arcane blast. I do run might stacking when solo btw.

Yes I completely forgot about that playstyle section – when I get off work I’ll add to it.

Hah, I completely missed that it was a dungeon discussion (read the entire subject line next time, nifty)! Still, some might would be beneficial in a team setting right? Both DT and Phoenix are ranged blast finishers, so it’s not a complete waste if you aren’t in melee. Plus, if another class drops a different type field, you can get some affects off their field. Anyways, I’ll check back to see your playstyle section!

As a note, I wouldn’t run s/d in DE’s. There should already be enough people supplying bleed debuffs so you’ll end up with bronze and silver badges (due to low contribution).

You can stick with the same build just switch to staff and aoe/nuke in fire.

I find that usually the best use of an elementalist in a dungeon is supplying combo fields via staff, usually in a 30 arcane 15+ water build. Because it’s really the only thing we do better than other classes. Lots of other classes can do bleed builds and finishers. Almost no one gets good combo fields.

We only supply two combo fields with staff, burning and vunerability.

Vunerability is ok but like I said above other classes stack it quicker and better than using a short duration combo field on a long CD.

Burning field has a much lower CD but it doesn’t stack intensity.

Of all the classes, we’re actually one of the best at stacking bleeds and have the most bleed related talents. Our bleeds can do nearly 35% more damage if the target is burning, 55% if under 25% hp.

Our bleed in scepter is spammable, stacks 3 at a time and like I said solo I can maintain a 15-18 stack pretty easily. It’s my belief bleed is one of the primary functions ANet intended for us to dps with, and to that end I would say the earth line is a better dps line than fire (better buffs, more synergy etc…).

It sounds like blasphemy I know but I think most are approaching Elementalist fundamentally wrong the more I play this build.

Staff ele have fire, water, ice and air combo fields.

Those produce the following possible effects for your team:

Might (x3), Fire Armor, Burning, Burning Bolts, Aoe heals, heals, regen, healing bolts, frost armor, chilled, chilling bolts, aoe swiftness, daze, vulnerability, vulnerability bolts.

But yes, bleed ele is viable if there’s no one else on the team doing bleed. I just find that practically speaking the one role I know no one else in my group is going to be doing is combo field creator. I’ve never, ever run a dungeon where I didn’t feel useful putting down combo fields and putting out aoe heals + condition removal. Whereas with bleed build if you get into the dungeon and find another class is running bleed, well, you’re redundant.

With the staff support you also end up laying down a lot of eruptions which put out decent aoe bleed anyhow.

I do agree with you Yuki that a field providing support staff build can be extremely effective when in a solid group. Maybe as more melee learn about combos (leaping effects vs. blast effects) and learn what good fields are vs bad fields, then I’ll probably go back to playing it.

It just seemed like with all the visual clutter in melee, the pugs in my groups constantly avoided fields instinctively or did not combo correctly when inside of them. Which just left projectile combos (players didn’t have to think about what they were doing just auto attack) which I believe are the weakest of the elemental arsenal.

Not specific to teaming or solo play, but the traits that do more damage to targets based on burning, bleeding, health under 25%, those extend to bleeding and burning damage as well as straight weapon/spell damage? So the 5% more damage to bleeding targets actually makes the bleeds 5% stronger as well? I just thought it acted like power and only affected weapon/spell damage. Silly me again!

Yep that is correct, and as Yuki corrected me earlier, power might now (as of BWE3) affects condition damage.

You could say it’s pretty… nifty… XD

(I really need to get off these forums at work ><)

you mean might adds to both power and condition damage. Power alone still is for weapon/spells only, right? I’m easily confused!

and yeah, I really should be taking a required online training course right now…

Actually you are correct that’s my mistake, power doesn’t affect conditions, just Might.

Might adds condition damage.
*0.375 * Level + 5 = Power/Condition Damage per stack

Dominia.5179:

Of all the classes, we’re actually one of the best at stacking bleeds and have the most bleed related talents. Our bleeds can do nearly 35% more damage if the target is burning, 55% if under 25% hp.

To my knowledge none of the DOTs (burn, bleed, etc) gain any benefit from the increase talents. Give it a try, but I don’t believe your bleeds will tick any higher if the target is burning or under 25 hp.

That’d be interesting if that’s the case.

I was switching traits in and out last night trying to complete the new CoF and thought I noticed a decrease in bleed damage but I’ll test it on a test dummy for sure.

Anyhow I didn’t mean to say your build is bad. It isn’t. Ele can def do the bleed build.

It’s just like any other bleed build, more than 1 person leads to partial redundency because of the bad stacking mechanics for conditions in this game.

And I also agree that pugs don’t know how to use combo fields well. I find that when I start educating people about 50% of people just ignore me and 50% learn. The 50% who learn often end up thoroughly impressed with how some well timed blast combos on healing rain can turn a wipe into a breeze.

I think I just need to find a good guild, that would probably solve most of my problems lol

Then we could strat who would bring which buffs/debuffs with no overlap.

yeah, pugs are definitely not the way to go if you want effective or efficient. They are ugly, just like the dog breed. (No offense to any pug owners, I’m sure your pug is a sweet little dog.)

Tested last night, traits definitively do not affect condition damage. As such I’ve changed around my traits and utility abilities slightly.

I’m focusing more on might stacking now (since it does affect conditions) and it seemed to work pretty well. Basically I started the fight getting my initial bleeds up (just a 3 stack for the earth IV trait to be active) then switch to fire and begin stacking might.

Once there was ~2 seconds left on my earth attunement CD I’d Ring of Fire → Arcane Wave for another quick burst of Might before switching back to earth to stack bleeds. Ideally you’ll want to do this near a teammate.

Using this method, for quite a while after switching back to earth my bleeds would tick for roughly 10% more damage before tapering off.

I wish you had proved me wrong

Might stacking definitely works, but is a whole lot more work.

I’ve taken to wearing two runes of strength for +15% Might duration and 2 runes of water(?) for another +15% boon duration. That plus 30 points in arcane makes the might stacks last a good long time to be worth the effort of stacking them up.

Also, if you go 30 arcane for evasive arcana you can dodge roll on your fire fields for combos and more might stacks.