Guild Wars 2

So, I’m sure the players (and developers) reading these forums have heard enough posts about the Elementalist to hopefully conclude that he is one of the weaker classes right now. But that doesn’t mean we should still try to improve our game and come up with new builds.

I wanted to share a build of mine I used a lot lately in sPVP. The Idea came to me when I thought how fun it would be to play a build where you try to make your opponent blow all his utility skills and endurance by kiting and surviving, and then when he’s “exhausted” and can’t defend himself anymore you combo off with a big Scepter / Dagger Fire Combo. If you play S/D you propably know which combo I’m talking about, but I’m still going to write it down.

Start with #4 Ring of Fire -> #2 Dragon’s Tooth -> #3 Phoenix -> Arcane Blast -> #5 Flame Grab

By using Dragon’s tooth, phoenix and arcane blast all in the ring of fire you will cause an Area might combo 3 times, giving you 9 stacks of might, like in any other build using this combo. But with this build you can expect upwards of 19 stacks of might and the end of your combo.

But using this build, you will propably end with a lot more stacks of might by the time you combo off, greatly increasing your burst as well as your condition damage (if he’s still alive) from Dragon’s Tooth.

Here’s the build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McsMz9cMbTmMmbTmMGaaGamooccsV

I’m going to go through all trait choices:

20 Points Fire: This is important because Power is a very good attribute for us, not only does it increase the burst of our combo, it also increases the harassment we will cause with our Air and Water attacks while we’re still kiting the opponent. We take the trait that increases all damage in fire attunement by 10%, and “Spell Slinger”, which gives 3 stacks of might everytime we use a cantrip. These last for 20 seconds IIRC, so by the time you combo off you should have 6 stacks of might from this trait, since your Cantrips are very important to staying alive.

10 Points Air: You should find yourself spending a lot of time in air, because you can blind enemies before they can initiate on you with their important attacks (e.g. Warrior’s Bull Rush, or Thief’s Steal which can hit for 3k+ with Mug trait), and with the 5 point Air trait it makes you get around from point to point faster. It also deals a respectable amount of damage, which is good for softening your opponents up while you’re kiting them. I chose “Bolt to the Heart” which increases the damage you deal to enemies with low health, because I find that if your burst fails to take them down, it is hard to deal the last bits of damage to them, or often it will just straight up increase the damage of the last spell you use to end your combo, usually Dragon’s Tooth, since they’ll be very damage by the time DT actually lands. The Precision and crit damage is also very handy because with all the power you get from you Might stacks you need some crits to supplement your damage.

10 Points Earth: 80 bonus toughness while in Earth is a nice bonus, along with the Toughness you get from Rock Barrier (which should almost always used only for the Armor, the damage is pathetic), and the trait that gives you Earth Armor at 50% health is not only a must-have to surviving burst from Glass-Cannon specs, it is also another Cantrip to proc your cantrip traits. Toughness and condition damage is good too, but other stats are more important to you.

20 Points Water: Vitality and Healing power are of course great for keeping you alive, and the traits I chose improve your cantrips even further, by reducing their cooldowns (currently bugged with Mistform) and giving you Vigor and Regeneration when you use them.

10 Arcana: Unfortunately I didn’t have too many points left to put into arcana, even though I love the reduced cooldowns on the attunement switching. If you want you can take 10 points from Air and put them here, but I think aside from “Elemental Attunement” most Arcana Traits (besides Grandmaster traits) are not too attractive for our build. Elemental Attunement is great of course because it helps you stay alive and gives you that one more stack of might to seal the deal. Also Arcane Fury is amazing, because if you are quick you should be able to use most of your Combo Moves during the 2 second period.

Utility skill choices:

I chose Glyph of Elemental Harmony because I think it is the beast healing spell we have, especially when you attune to Water or Earth right before you finish casting. Avoid using this in Fire, it only gives one stack of might, not even comparable to the other Element’s bonuses. I tried Signet of Restoration a couple times, but I felt that the active’s heal was too weak. Ether Renewal is interesting if you have trouble with conditions because it removes like 10 conditions or so, but the heal is fairly weak. I use it sometimes, but if I do exchance cleansing fire for something else because you won’t have too much trouble with conditions then.

Cantrips:

Basically you can go with whichever Cantrips you want, but I like Armor of Earth the most because it gives stability which is amazing to have. And occasionally you will find yourself trying to combo off an enemy and Armor of Earth is still ready, then you can use it to ensure you don’t get interrupted in mid-combo. I also take cleansing fire because aside from Cleansing Wave and Phoenix we don’t have any condition removal so it comes in very handy. Also sometimes you can use it to set opponents on fire before using Fire Grab. Mistform is also a good choice, but it seems to be bugged and not work with the 20% cooldown reduction currently.
Lightning flash I am not such a big fan of, but you can definitely use it too.

Last but not least I picked Arcane Wave because it adds so much extra damage to our combo. Also, it is guaranteed to crit, and since this build has extremely high power from the might, and only moderate amounts of Precision, this will become very effective.

For Elite skill I have Glyph of Elementals. I think everyone uses this because the other two are just plain bad.
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Runes, Sigils and Amulets:

For Runes I’m using the Superior Runes of Strength
(1) +25 Power
(2) +20% Might Duration
(3) +40 Power
(4) 3% chance to gain Might for 20 seconds when hit (5 sec cooldown)
(5) +90 Power
(6) +5% damage while under the effects of might

This obviously adds quite a lot of Power, and as you might have noticed this build uses Might a lot, so the 20% increased duration comes in very handy. Also the +5% damage while under the effects of might is pretty much a flat 5% increase in damage for our build because we are under might almost constantly.

For Sigils I use the Sigil of Superior Force for straight up 5% increased damage, and the Sigil of Superior Battle which gives 3 Stacks of Might for 20 seconds when switching weapons, or in out case attunements. This seems to have an internal cooldown, I’m guessing about 8-10 seconds. But this should give you at least 6 stacks of might by the time you combo off regardless.

On the Amulet I’m not too sure yet about what’s the best option. Currently I’m using the Amulet of the Knight, which gives 798 Vit, 569 Power and 569 Precision. The Vitality ups your hitpoitns to 20k, and the added precision greatly increases your otherwise lousy critchance up to 31%. For the Jewel I use Jewel of the Shaman, which at least gives a little Toughness, because our Toughness is really low. It also adds healing power, which we can use very well, as well as condition damage, which we don’t need too much but it’s good if you can apply some bleeding while in Earth Attunement.

Playstyle:
While this is not the tankiest build ever, you should still play very defensively. Try to be in Air Attunement before fights start, and use the extra movement to get from point to point. If you see an enemy open up with Lightning Strike and blind him if he tries to attack you. Try to keep your distance from him and harass him with the Air auto attack. If you manage to channel it all the way it can deal incredible damage. If he starts attacking you (e.g. a Warrior got too close to you) Switch to earth and try to blind him again. If he’s in melee range stun him with Earthquake. If you ever find yourself in Earth Attunement and have a few seconds to spare, use Rock Barrier. It’s not amazing but it’s a good deal of Toughness for 30 seconds. If they put too many conditions on you, simply use Cleansing Fire or switch to Water to remove them with Cleansing Wave. Don’t be afraid to stay in Water too long, Ice Shards may not be your strongest spell, but they’re still good at softening up your foe. Try to hit Shatterstone two or three times, so your Fire Combo will deal 8-12% more damage.

Don’t be afraid to use Ride the Lightning to increase the gap, but mind that you have to unselect your opponent first, else you will ride towards him. Avoid bringing both Updraft and Earthquake on cooldown, chances are you will need one of them to start your combo (But Remember, Earthquake is better to set it up, since it doesn’t launch him away from you, because you want to be close to maximize Ring of Fire’s potentioal). Try not to go into Fire Attunement unless you wanna use your combo, because if you switch into Fire, just durdle around and Switch away, it will be on cooldown for a long time, and you’ll regret if when the perfect situation arises and your attunement is on cooldown. That said, don’t forget that Phoenix can be used defensively, it removes three conditions and gives Vigor, remember this when trying to escape.

Pay attention to how often your opponent rolls. If he can’t roll while you use your combo, he will eat a lot of damage, because one simple roll can dodge so many of your spells since you will try to use them all at the same time. A perfect setup for a combo is if your opponent is out of Endurance, in melee range and chilled by your Icy Aura, or stunned by Earthquake/Updraft. If he can’t dodge and he is Chilled/Stunned, he will be forced to eat all your spells.
Your combo is the stronges if you are close to your opponent, because you want all your spells to not only hit your opponent, but also proc Area Might from your Ring of Fire. Remember that Unlike Phoenix, Dragon’s Tooth doesn’t have to land in the Fire Field, you just have to use it inside one.

In big teamfights you can use Ring of Fire, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix Arcane Wave, then use Earthquake and Churning Earth while giving yourself Earth Armor to guarantee a succesful channel. This is very risky and if someone focus fires you while doing it you will likely have to switch to water to escape.

A well executed combo can deal ridiculous amounts of damage in a very short time. Sometimes you can take your opponent by surprise and kill them while they are at 60-70% health, before they even have a chance to use their healing spell.
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Wow this was a lot longer than expected. Suggestions and Questions are of course very welcome. As I said before, I’m not playing this build for a long time now, so there’s still some room for improvement. But I love it because I feel it is semi-viable, since it is not very glass-cannonish, although it is definitely not as tanky as all those Water/Earth tank builds people use in tournaments. It is also a great deal of fun for me, since I love playing around my opponent and punishing him with loads of damage as soon as he makes a mistake. It almost plays like a fighting game in that sense.

you dont really need arcane wave, switch it out for signet of earth

without SoE’s root dragons tooth is far too unreliable, im shocked actually how horrificly slow it is… i mean you can just walk out of it without using a dodge roll

20 into fire is also questionable, you could drop internal fire and put another 10 in arcana

other then that its actually very cookie cutter, but cantrips might is neat

madatom.5218

you dont really need arcane wave, switch it out for signet of earth

I disagree. the fire combo can be executed with the knockdown of airs’ #5. signet of earth is a waste of an utility slot. escpecially when its so easy to counter.

as to the OP:

im running a build with 14k hp and its quite hard to kill me cuz of high thoughness.

toughness>hit point.

The explanation is easy: i probably survive as long as you do with 20k hp. anyhow my heals are way more effective due to less hp.

I’ve heard toughness was not as good for survivability because it doesn’t reduce damage from conditions, not sure whether that’s true though

Condition damage bypasses toughness. If you want to try a high toughness / low hit point build make you pack multiple condition removal options or bleeders will melt you.