Guild Wars 2

My gf and I are pretty casual players, but over the past few weeks we have noticed a dramatic increase in the time it takes to fill groups for dungeons like cof p1-2 and ac 1-3.

Is there some reason for this? Something new everyone has been doing instead? P1 used to fill instantly every time, now it’s consistently a 10+ min wait.

We are est and play early evening/night.

I could see this being and interesting alternative to normal daily content. As long as it provides the same net rewards I see this as only an improvement.

Pretty straight forward, I’m returning to the game after a long absence and would like to know what the current PVE builds are. When I left thunderhammer while in ice was generally the highest single target dps we could do.

I’ve tried looking through the forums but with the new release so recent, most information is either outdated, or accurate but I am unable to ensure its still up to date

So, I know some of you daily forum users will be annoyed by a go-fetch request, but…..

Please? Ridicule me for sucking at searching, but afterwards, please tell me what builds you’re currently using after :>

Preface: I am not looking to contribute to speed runs with this Build. I get it, for strong groups all zerker all the time.

I play my Mesmer with my gf, it’s her first ever video game. We are in the 70’s now and I had just gotten to the point I could start to run a strong phantasm regen + mantra heal build where I could pretty much reach out and save her at will.

As we start moving into explore mode content, I already know it’s gonna get a lot tougher for her (I have 80 war and ele, dungeon master, Arah sets, etc).

With the recent changes, I’m looking for a strong support build I can use to help her out and help carry the lower caliber pug / non-sr groups.

Suggestions? She’s a ranger, if it matters

I play with my gf, and she is very close to her first ever morph cap level character (75 ranger At the moment). She has already decided she wants to play ele next. As we did ranger/Mesmer first, there wasn’t a lot of interesting combo field play. I’d like to have more options to work together on combo fields this time so I’m wondering: if you could pick another class to level with full time, what would you pick?

I’m thinking engineer or guardian would be best as they both have access to many fields and finishers.

6×3 = 18. Where are you getting the other 7 stacks of might? DT, Phoenix, Earth Roll, earth 4, earth 5, arcane wave… six blasts.

Sig of earth is perfect as is. Maybe add a earth trait that breaks stun when you use any signet but only triggers once every 30 seconds. This way no noe signet is buffed beyond the others (say they put hte break on an active or passive that sucks while other signets get/keep good active passives without getting break).

I love playing conjur spec, and feel it is already pretty viable in pve while hilarious in WvW in the right situations. Only really necessary change to conjure spec is that one should be a potent 1200 range dps. Easily fixed by just bumbing up the damage numbers on Ice bow with no skill changes. LH covers mele dps wonderfully, FGS is great at skirmish fighting, need a stand-off weapon. Maybe add a mobility skill to the bow (mimics thief sb 5, call it ice flow or something).

Similarly, the leap on LH should be made into a lighting-flash version of shadow step (since hammer’s weakness in PVP is that you just get kited into oblivion). I actually hate LH4 because.. its just stupid. You already aoe in almost the same range for way more damage just swinging the hammer like the thunder god(dess) you are. Why waste another slot on the same thing to hit for less? Trash the skill entirely and replace with some sort of projectile counter. "Smite the ground, calling down storm clouds which reflect incoming projectiles (Same cd as similar abilites are on other classes). This also gives us access to the mechanic that many classes lack and are overlooked in pve because of (projectile reflect is king in high level pve). Balance remains in PVP since a player knows you have to go back for your conjur if the fight carrys on very long.

Not sure how i feel about on conjur effects. For PVP I could see making each of them a stun breaker (cus… no one is going to go 4 conjures just to get stun breaks abusively.) Conjurer trait itself is fine, though maybe increase it to 30 charges total (so you can be sure to have 100% up time if you take this trait, which is fair for a master trait).

Dev response to this has often been “we don’t want to institute too much micro managment.” Of course, its not like there is a class with 24 weapon based buttons or anythin… wait elementalist who?

Silverkung.9127:

I see your build a lot of signet do you like to use this build 1botton end game?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJARVjEV91JWGWs2Bi1DC1nB1Kop3Da1q2nxRJILC-jwgAEEE5BU3FRjFA-e

Lol, I play ele as my main. So no, one button endgame not really my thing. Honestly went with signets for her since they are easy and powerful.

Thanks!

Great call on the 15 point protection minor. Thanks!

Money is lolz. Buying the new tier of rare quality costs less than you make from one COF run.

And it is easy for anyone thats ever play video games before, but when you hae never played anything at all before this, it can be kind of amazing how many little skills we take for granted.

Thanks! Updated build in OP

I’ve spent the last few hours reading alot of the threads trying to get a handle on the class before posting, but I’ve never played Ranger so forgive my ignorance!

My gf plays ranger and is leveing with me, she only ever plays with me (as mesmer) and does not solo. This is her first game and I am trying to help her out as much as I can.

Accordingly, I’m looking for what people think of as pretty vital for leveling as ranger to make it as painless as possible (ie: minimize deaths with an emphasis on survive rather than damage.) I know ranger is often said to be the “easiest open world PVE class” but I have no idea as to why this is said. Someone told me using the brown bear to tank makes karka farming /snooze, but idk if its the same principle for leveling, or how pet tankign works when you aren’t solo.

Currently we are level 47, her favorite weapon is the longbow and her favorite pets are shark, eagle, and sylvari hound. We are both sylvari. She will not be giving up bow play, so even if a dual mele set up is ideal.. its just not gonna fit this need. That said, axe/torch and gs all get used often as the other set so what ever you guys think is best as a swap set for LB.

From what I’ve gathred, 10 points in nature magic to get regen duration is more or less mandatory.

I was thinking somthing like this mgiht be good?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARTjEVF2JWCWs2Bg+BNfFo1VY0MOKBZRA-e

Are there any commonly used leveling builds or tricks? Like signet warrior/thor ele (War and Ele are my 80s).

I’m always hearing so many people talking about the SB as being amazing, what in particular makes people love it so much?

I have 100g set aside just for our gear and sigils and runes and stuff, so feel free to recomend particular armor builds and so on that will help. Also, any particular pets I should make sure she has?

Thanks for your suggestions… and sorry if I blatently missed an identical thread. The 0/0/30/10/30 threads kinda make me wanna play ranger….

25/20/0/25/0 Is a very powerful PVE build with access to the highest damage multipliers we can get.

Ember’s might, Fire cool down
Bolt to the heart, Air cool down
Vital Striking, Condition removal on swap.

Can change fire VII to VIII and use hammer for best sustian mele dps (also change condi removal to piercing shards in this case).
Carry a focus with you and you will be able to adapt to any fight (makes lupi a joke if you use s/f, lightning flash, arcane shield and mistform).

Superior sigil of energy on the scepter and force on your off hands.

Percision/crit food and master maint oil.

Can move 10 points from air to arcane and pick up vigor on crit if you are having survive issues.

Works on every attunement swap, but it can only trigger once every 9 seconds and if you are using more than one on swap they conflict with each other.

Does swirling winds still work on Lupi’s phase 2 aoe bounce attacks? If not.. does arcane shiled or earth 5? Cus… that’s the entire reason I own a focus.

Mikemad: I wont link it again, but the build I linked to at the top of this thread is exactly intended for that playstyle. It is designed with the inetion of staying “on the tag” of your commander or group leader or who ever it is you want to follow. If all of your armor is PVT you can do what ever you want with the accessories, though PVT is a good starting point. (As I mention in the post, I am also building towards full all stat acended and already use cav and knights). If you notice, I discuss the particular utilities I chose as being strong damage and control support.

I tend to move to more and more PVT as the zerg gets larger and more dps accessories as the group size comes down since you are dealing with less and less blind aoe damage and more singletarget which you can actively counter.

Of course over extension is a concern, but that is not about gear. I have found that as long as I stay right with the core of my team’s mele, I never get heavily singled and am able to sustain through the fight and keep up even with the hardest to kill members so that I am still around for the final pushes that can really decide a fight and determine who gets their loot bags.

If you like the build give me your feed back on its thread please!!!

Vaugh: Remember that earth 5 is also an imobilize, if you wanna free up the utility slot (though the toughtnessf roms ignet of earth is nice).

30 Points in earth is “wasted” because earth traits are not contributing to your damage out put in any meaningful way. Earth is just not a good trait line in PVE because every point you take in earth is a point youa ren’t taking in fire or air.

@ Stealth: I run Thor in all dungeons with no survive problems. The build is actually very versitle as long as you are willing to change traits for particular fights (Ex: Lupi I move to condi removal on swap, reduced fire cool down, etc [unless I’m ina group that wants someone to mele grubs rather than evade]). Thor just takes a lot of practice to learn to keep yourself up. 25/20/0/25/0 has a nice trait lay out for nearly any weaponset (though D/D seems redundant). S/f is a great off swap for thor since its exactly what thor can’t do on its own.

Playing a full zerker mele ele will make you better at GW2. And you will be the damage god. Nothing like being able to actually see boss healthbars move because of your attacks.

PVT is very easy to get with karma, as an observation. All but one piece which you’ll need from AC.

You can use what ever youw ant I suppose, though my playstyle is sustain up on the front line helping with fields and snares on top of my group, so I feel I need the vitality and toughness. Comming off PVT will just mean you need to move back some, but this makes you easier to get left behind/singled out.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/WVW-Stoneline-Staff-Build/first#post1997811

This build makes cc on you pretty meaningless while giving you access to plenty of swiftness and snares to at least stand a chance at heading for safety. Staff is always gonna be kinda slow though.

For one, its our only good glass build, and I would hate to loose it. “Glass staff” is terrible stingle target dps for example. And, its really not entirely glass. Arcane Shiled + Constant blind spam = you should have no problems taking this build into every single dungeon. As a tip, most LH builds I see people take FGS as the elite, which I think is some what overkill (baring a few fights where you really can’t mele). Try taking glyph of elements and putting out a water ele, enjoy spamming frost armor and aoe heal on your group at a rate even a staff ele really can’t keep up with. I did DM with this build with no problem. The 25/20/0/25/0 trait lay out leaves you with a lot of options to pick up traits for particular fights that might need more condition cleanse or force you to range. Playing a zerker mele ele will make you better at the game which I think all of us can benefit from.

For anohter, they are very potent PVE builds if you got a little more conservative on your traits. 25/10/25/0/10 for example is much more forgiving (vigor on crit in a crit build).

LH can be a big trump card in small group in WvW for several reasons, least of which being that no one expects to see it and hardly any know what it can do. Aoe Blind and blast every three seconds is very powerful even if you are in full soldiers with a bunker build. Not to mention, it gives all ele weapon load outs access to static field as well as a knock down and a gap closer. Extremely powerful weapon when used creatively. (I run stoneline staff in WvW and will often roam with one out just to have the field to keep air 5 on cd as many groups expcet to see one or tow fields isntantly and then no more, leaving me with a suprise/extra field). FGS requires no traits to make it powerful and usefull in PVE or WvW. It is both great as an escape tool and as a front end group dps tool. Surely more useful than the elementals in WvW.

People complaing about lossing it if you get interupted… don’t get interupted. It should interact with msitform in a more intelegent way though. Bow shiled and axe all blow and need reworking. (Really bow just needs all its numbers improved and maybe the aoe cd reduced). One suggestion I’ve seen that might be nice is to just roll all 4 into one utility, and let you swap between them via utility sawp (thereby retaining the util swap nature of ele while giving you these weapons.) Of course, this would butcher the glass build and kill our only good sustain dps.

Devs: DO NOT LISTEN TO THE BADDIES!!!

FGS and Lightning Hammer are amazing! Do not touch them!!!

Shield and axe could use updates though, and bow needs its auto attack upped to give a conjur build a range viability (FGS can already be used as skirmish range, but I would like to have a real ranged option in my conjur build that isn’t just go back to lolterrible staff dps).

TBH: Fix staff first.

It is also just to be able to stay with the front ball. We, at least, often end up pushing through zergs or defenses on long interior shorties especially at garrisons and SM and so on, where being able to survive with the guardians and warriors means you can actually make a difference. I also really don’t like standing in the back pewing as you are living only as long as it takes one or two enterprising thieves to notice and go in search of free loot. That said, I would not suggest rolling even the tankiest staff ele into a true zerg v zerg mele. Again, this is for small-mediums groups where your pressure can be felt.

Expiatus: Glad you like it!!
I forgot to mentino this in the op, but I have a superior sigil of energy in the staff and I am using master maintenance oils (+crit based on vitality and toughness which I have in spades).

You can pick up the buff on swap, but not wearing any + duration runes I found they just don’t feel like they are doing much where as laying down constant aoe pressure means you don’t need a great crit rate to always have a proc. Plus, if you are on the front lines, you SHOULD be gettign frenzy from somewhere to help it even more.

Like 47:
The damage you are doing is spread out, this is a group pressure build. You will not do much to a single target (other than be able to lock them down with snares imobilizes adn so on). As I mention in the post its damage is more ability draining for the other team than it is about getting a signle kill. Just about every enemy passing through a chokepoint you are hitting will be an easy target on the other side laden with cripple, chill, affect of your choice from storms, some light burning and a decent amount of their health drained. Not to mention all the other aoes you trap them under from team members.

This build lets you sway the tide of the fight, not hammer one random loot bag. Advantage: you will get ALL the loot bags.

Glyph of storms is pretty decently powerful with quick hits in its area. If you use glyph of power in water first, its hits will be applying chill which is just awesome. The real point of this build is to control the movement of the enemy group while continually making them think about wasting heals and evades (so many people knee-jerk roll out of red circles that laying down so many will waste lots) so that your team can land more hits.

This is, in a sense, a bunker build. But before you reject it on that basis, realize how much damage and control you will be outputting. This build is meant for front line combat in small group fighting(5~20). Staff just isn’t good for roaming, but the traits do still work decently well with s/d or d/d should you need to run somewhere alone. And in a big zerg as a staff ele.. it doesn’t super matter what your build is. Pewpew and collect all the loot.

0/10/30/0/30 or 0/10/20/10/30.
Air: Quick Glyphs (III)
Earth: Armor of Earth (III), Geomancer’s Freedom, Stability on Earth Attunment
Water (if taken): Cleanse on Water Attunement
Arcana: Vigor on Crit, Blasting Staff, Evasive Arcana

Armor: PVT
Accessories: PVT (ascended all stat if available)
Runes:
If in prefered build: Use melandru runes with lemograss poultry. On top of geomancer’s freedom, this means that all slows will fall of you nearly instnatly while bleeds and burns are nearly irrelevant.
If 10 points in water: 2 major water, 2 superior water, 2 superior monk and what ever food you feel helps you with your H20 fettish.

Consumeables: Lemongrass Poultry + Master Maintenance oil to maximize the vigor on crit trait while getting a nice damage boost considering the quantity of V and T you have.

Utilities:
Glyph Heal, Glyph of Power, Glyph of Storms, Mistform, elite of your choice (I use human racial avatar of grenth).

Staff: Knights or Soliders (I have knights) with Superior Sigil of Energy. Evades keep you alive in mele, and in this build you will alomst never lack one.

But Jester! You’re a staff ele with no water points lolusobad!
But naysayer! What’s the piont of water now that the clense trait is pretty heavily nerfed? 1 condition per use of water 5 is a drop in the bucket. Yes the trait is now on a five second internal cd, but the actual field is on a long cool down and only lasts so long.

What you’re doing isntead: This build is not about standing in the back and pewing, because that’s for baddies and you’re not a baddie. The durability of this build is huge with access to endless snares and heals, as well as a strong passive defensive buffing from the free armor of earth and toughness from 30 points in earth. With quick glyphs you are able to use glyph of power and storms over and over, laying down huge volumes of damage and keeping chill on the ball. Stay up in the fray laying down fields and dishing out damage. Constant AOE will help pressure more and more of the team into disengagments and recoveries rather than leaving most enemies at high health. It also will provide a bit of breathing room for your team as the area immediatly around you is constantly quite dangerous to the enemy.

Soon you will have the atention of the enemy group and find that you are more than able to tank them effectively while your group picks them off. I frequently battleheal in earth for the protection rather than the regen, or even swiftness since I am virtually immune to snare. Despite your tankiness, you can lay down large sums of damage. With all your toughness it really is no issue to stop dead and cast a meteor shower right on top of yourself, and glyph of storms can be cast on the move. Blasting staff means your Fire2’s will always find targets, and Air5 becomes a major mele lockdown. That said, a well placed earth 5 can ensure enemy deaths and Air 2 will still pack a punch in full power gear.

While not a 15second cd rtl, the build is also pretty solid at escape (not amazing, but you stand a chance). Immune-ish to snare/immobilize, you can jsut keep swifting yourself and head for the nearest body of water (remember that most classes cannot grant swiftness underwater and you still can).

Air 4 + Glyph is enough for perma swiftness even with no +duration other than the 30 points in arcana for those wondering.

Thoughts and suggestions? This is for the ele that misses the front lines and wants to feel like iron god, because you will when you are the last one up every single time.

Half Tooth.1867:

Yes, I find static field useful, but not as 5th skill. It does not compare to the usefulness of Healing rain, nor the AoE of Meteor shower. It would be better as a or 4thskill, with the 5th skill reserved for some colossal spike damage. Or I don’t know if anyone remembers the mission thats later on in the main story where you’re an asuran golem and you get a skill that’s like static field except it starts as a small circle and moves outwards. That would also be more useful, but then maybe overpowered if it kept the combo field?

I am not telling you to L2P, but static field is probably our most powerful skill in WvW or large scale PVE engagements. Its situational use is less obvious than fire and water 5, but I would not point to air 5 being the weak skill on that set. Its power stems from its absolute domination in terms of control. If you fight in choke points, this skill lets you OWN the choke point. Air 5 → Water 4/2 → Fire 5/2 → earth 2 → you just killed EVERYTHING on a bridge.

As a suggestion for the thread:
I woudl like to see air 1 made more like scepter air 2, its animation is you thrusting your staff into the air and calling down a strike on the target. They can dodge based on cast time and its no longer a projectile (how does it make sense for lightnign to mvoe slow anyway?) It can arc out from that target as it currently does, or instead have a large damage boost and become single target (since Air is our single target dps in theory.) Air 2 can just either hit for more, be faster cd/cast, or have a very long duration blind.

Agree with pretty much everything else.

I roll hammer into 90% of my pugs, and people notice. Any time they see you solo on a mob just wrecking, or notice they’re never getting hit because of blinds, or notice how many of their fields you’re blasting. And you’re numbers are still good without vuln/burn. You can always use glyph of power to mitigate it some. This build will also make you better at the game. Mele’ing successfully as a zerker ele is challenging and fun. The moment the warrior realizes you’re wrecking his damage and he rage quits, perfection in this life.

You can go 25/10/0/25/10 for the LH build and pick up vigor on crit from arcana to really help survive in mele. This also leaves you with a lot of good on the fly retrait options for fights that are better ranged (for example, last fight of MF) with options to pick up cleanse on swap, reduce fire cool down, quick glyphs (quick heal!), buff on swap, and so on.

For LH traits are
Ember’s Might, Conjurer
Bolt to the heart
Piercing Shards, +damage if hp > 90%
vigor on crit

Posted on behalf of guildie, because you’ll see. Idea is Brosef’s:

“When will they wise up and remove this stupid mechanic? This is exactly the same as the rididulous arbitrary capture timers from Warhammer Onlines capture points. It’s the single biggest reason it’s super efficient for people to always ball up into a mobile zerg. Zerging keeps should happen, that’s thier intended gameplay role. Zerging camps should be made heavily inefficient. Even worse, zerging a camp and not having to leave a garrison of players behind to protect it after the zerg moves on.

Instead, they buff it more in the last patch.

If the concern is camp-flipping collusion, nerf the camp rewards down to 20% of where they are currently. The WvW would be so much better if camps could change hands at will based on who actually controls the territory. Folks wanting to hold camps would have to spread out more to cover all of them. Less zerging, more small group action. No arbitrary 5 minute timer to be manipulated.

While we’re at it, let’s do away with the 15 minute ticks. If they can dynamically updated the score on dolyak deaths, they can have the score updating on much faster intervals at lesser values. Update the score every minute with: 1 point per camp every minute, 2 points per tower, 4 points per keep, and 6 points for stonemist.

The “time-window” aspect of WvW needs to go away. It’d be a whole lot healthier.

I’d have posted this on the official forums, but I don’t remember my password."

For the person asking about the spider fight. I really love this build, though on the spider I’ve found that either just staying in staff or going scepter / dagger rather than trying to stay up on it will let you put out alot of healing to the group to sort of “carry” them. You can also go scepter/focus if you feel you need more personal survival. Also, if you are having trouble with Lupi in Arah, scepter/focus entirely kittens that fight in phase 2. This is my general dungeon build and I’ve been following the conversation on guru, I really enjoy it.

Lot of people come to S/D and just start with the 0/10/0/30/30 d/d build. All the things that make it great for D/D make it great for S/D. As you get comfy, you can start going about 20 points into fire and take either 20% less cool down or +charges on conjures. Play with the thunder hammer and FGS and you’ll see why. Full dps specs also look for 20 into air (or even 30) since each point is crit damage %.

As to gear: Probably fastest ways to gear up right now are either still karma for a Power/Vit/Toughness set or WvW with the badge changes.

So, with the new items available via badges, I finally have a reason to care about badges/hour. While I am fortunate enough to be in a WvW guild, our strategic play often means I end up feeling as though I may have made a big contribution to the over all score, but not necessarially earned the maximum badges/hour I could have some other way. My question then is, what do you think is the best way to farm the most badges per hour just as someone showing up to WvW alone? Go to EB and follow the biggest zerg? Roaming? Etc. Looking for thoughts and opinions here (and it shouldn’t really cause anyone to give away secrets since badges aren’t a monitizeable currency in any real sense). While comments on class may be useful to some strats, not everyone has every 80. Though for the purposes of this post I have warrior and ele 80.

Thunder hammer water ele > warrior. A fire-traited ele staying in fire on an immobile target in PVE (such as large boss) > all other atunements or combination of attunements for PERSONAL DPS. The two claims can and have been proven by analyzing the dmage done by abilities (as listed in tooltips) and cool downs in multiple threads on these forums.

An argument can be made for warrior surviveablility… but say a 20 fire 20 water 30 arcane TH ele will have more than enough tools to live for a very long time and thirve in situations which wreck warriors (such as large numbers of conditions in arah trash).

A secondary argument in this thread about PVE and the viability/efficiency/what have you of staying in just one attunement has boiled down to considerations regarding the utility to the group of various skills such as weakness on boss, healing to allies, combo fields and so on. I do not think that even the most staunch “I like to stay in fire” staff ele will say “I never ever change.” That isn’t really the origional issue. The question was, is a ele staying in fire for most of the time inherently weak or limited. It seems that this has been somewhat exagerated in the responses, with commenters treating the question as assuming the ele stays in fire 100% of the time.

Advantages to staying in fire for MOST of your time on a PVE (NOT WVW, original post was NEVER about WVW):
1) High(est) sustained DPS. A poster noted that dropping several skills such as earth 2 and water 2 in rotation after maybe fire 2 and 5 would result in better dps. This is possibly (though dubious) true for that small frame of time starting at the moment the first fire 2 is cast to the end of the earth 2 cast, but then you are waiting to get back into fire using underpowered abilities when a traited fire ele is going to have F2 and 5 on reduced cool down to the point that F2 is almost always on the boss. Meanwhile, moves like earth 2 have long cool downs that result in you just twiddling your thumbs. This is a counter argument to the “go try to kill a mob before it reaches you by staying just in fire” post above. A single mob does not live long enough for sustained impact of longer cool downs to come into play, also you kind of loaded the deck since swapping makes the mob take longer to get to you due to control on earth and water. And who cares what the fastest way to kill a single mob with staff skills is? Regardless, its drop a thunder hammer and auto attack.
2) In a sense, defaulting into fire actually increases utility. Because the fire ele is mostly in fire, at any moment earth water and air are likely to be available, meaning that if a clutch heal is suddenly needed, the fire ele is extremely likely to not only be able to swap into fire, but to have water 3 and 5 up. This is true of air 5 and earth’s controls as well.
3) Increased Might Potential: A traited fire mage can keep fire2 on a boss almost continuously (I am not able to get in game, but I know the traited time reduction from end of cast to next is only a few seconds). This means that burning projectiles and a field for leap and blast is always on the boss. While the ele is not personally finishing the combo, that’s what the other four people in your group are for. If you’re really worried about finishing you’re own combos, hand thunder hammers to mele and poof they are giving a blast every third hit that the ele “made” and doing more SUSTAINED dps than they would with their native weapon set in most cases—again TH autoattck out damages even warrior axe. (Honestly I wish I could elect to set TH inplace of FGS as my elite while runnign staff).

TL;DR: There is nothing INHERENT to the fire ele playstyle which renders that play inefficient or ineffective in GROUP PVE play. It is dependent on player skill and wherewithall. Traited into and played sensibly, a staff fire ele has the highest personal dps potential of any staff ele (I’m also pretty sure it beats D/D, but i’m not positive. This would be on a non-threatening stationary target for optimal comparrison so as to negate the mele/range safety trade off) while retaining access to all normal group utility.

I’ve been playing with 20 fire 30 water 20 arcana and I found its an exceptional group build. If you are trying to play staff ele alone or just as a random pug in pug balls, then I imagine it would be pretty miserable. But if you use it as part of a organized group (even small “havoc” groups) you’ll find that you are immensely potent. You can also just roll the classic 10/30/30 build and switch to DD for solo and staff for group with little to no triat changes. Its worth mentioning that each individual ball on meteor shower counts as an aoe (with a really small radius, like 90 or something I think). So you can actually do damage to more than five targets with one cast if they are clumped up. Aoeing yourself is also very awesome as Scrambles said.

This is sort of unfortunate, in a game that’s supposed to lack the holy trinity, it seems ele is more or less stuck in a support role in ranged fights. Which is great in groups that need it, but say TA final boss… really no one should need any support. Lupi phase 1 and 3 are the same way. Dont get me wrong, I love that a staff ele can all but heal a group through most fights if things are going poorly. But we sholdn’t be playing to fix mistakes, we should be playing to benefit groups at their peak. Even on scepter I still feel weak at range (since really scepter dagger wants to be up close for might stacking and dps, rather than having to pick between using moves to mightstack or deal damage). Thunder hammer is a nice solution on mele-able bosses, but not all are, and honestly those are usually the easiest bosses since the same mechanics which make it possible to mele the boss often make the boss less threatening. Also, if I can mele the boss… I already have a tool to deal damage: scepter/dagger. The utility skill just makes you a little better at something you’re already pretty solid at rather than filling in a hole in your capacities.

I dig about the combo fields, and am alla bout using staff to support the group. But we both know there are times where the fight is stable and its mostly just “this is taking forever, I want to pew harder.”

All else aside, (assume the group is high on health and not needing a cleanse) what are the highest DPS rotations for the various weaponsets against large health targets? (say champion trash or bosses). I really enjoy staff and scepter, but I find myself wondering if switching off fire just to use other abilities is actually lowering my damage output. I saw the thread specifically about COF P1 discussing the use of thunder hammer, and I am very intriqued by that… but it does have a dark implication: the best damage we can do against one target is just to auto attack with TH 1 :< For a class that’s so much about versatility and atunement swapping, it is frustrating that it feels like the answer to the question of “how do I do lots of damage to this boss while my friends don’t need heals or cleanse” is “spam 1-2 attacks.”

Is it really jsut keep 1 2 and 3 on cool down while in fire if you are using staff or scepter? It seems like Air 2 in both staff and scepter are supposed to be high damage single target moves… and yet I feel like I’m actually lowering my DPS by coming out of fire to use them.

Again, this is for PVE. PVE. PVE. PVE. Please don’t sidetrack into PVP rotations or utilities.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Which is, more or less, why Staff won’t ever really get buffed
> to be usable in any other scenario.

exactly :/
Aoe in this game is a bit bugged. If it would be balanced to 1v1 it obiously would become overpowered in XvX.
One idea is to make aoe damage to split betwen the victims. So if you hit one opponent he gets 3k, but if you hit 3 opponents each of tem gets 1k so your damage is still 3k… but this wil create whole set of new problems anyway :/
While this game has nice 5v5 balance it has problems with 1v1 balance and ZvZ. In WvW aNet tries to improve the balance by limiting aoe to 5 targets making big ZvZ like small 5v5 battles but this obiously failed and was defeated by very primite life forms like “zerg ball” or more advanced “caterpillar zerg”
Current WvW is based on swarm intelligence rather than commanders, complicated/effective tactics, inviduals etc. In one word – WvW failed.

For organized groups, actually “zerg ball” fights are extremely commander dependent with complex tactics and strategems at work. Go watch vids of good guilds fighting each other, espeically if you can find ones with voice over so you can hear what the commanders are calling out.

That said, I do wish there was a nukier build to ele that felt worth while. I really like staff, and really enjoy it, but when it comes time to pew the boss i’m just like “meh. If i was on my warrior i’d hit him for like 12k every few seconds as HB came back.” I’d be happy to atunement hop to do the damage… just give us a build that can.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Which is, more or less, why Staff won’t ever really get buffed
> to be usable in any other scenario.

exactly :/
Aoe in this game is a bit bugged. If it would be balanced to 1v1 it obiously would become overpowered in XvX.
One idea is to make aoe damage to split betwen the victims. So if you hit one opponent he gets 3k, but if you hit 3 opponents each of tem gets 1k so your damage is still 3k… but this wil create whole set of new problems anyway :/
While this game has nice 5v5 balance it has problems with 1v1 balance and ZvZ. In WvW aNet tries to improve the balance by limiting aoe to 5 targets making big ZvZ like small 5v5 battles but this obiously failed and was defeated by very primite life forms like “zerg ball” or more advanced “caterpillar zerg”
Current WvW is based on swarm intelligence rather than commanders, complicated/effective tactics, inviduals etc. In one word – WvW failed.

For organized groups, actually “zerg ball” fights are extremely commander dependent with complex tactics and strategems at work. Go watch vids of good guilds fighting each other, espeically if you can find ones with voice over so you can hear what the commanders are calling out.

That said, I do wish there was a nukier build to ele that felt worth while. I really like staff, and really enjoy it, but when it comes time to pew the boss i’m just like “meh. If i was on my warrior i’d hit him for like 12k every few seconds as HB came back.” I’d be happy to atunement hop to do the damage… just give us a build that can.

I just wanted to post here to say thanks for those who figured out this problem. Luckily I play this on my MacBook and was able to limp along on the Mac side, but with the mac client so poorly optimized I have to run much lower settings. I’m very glad you guis figured this out and shared your solution.

I really loved these videos and have watched each one a few times. I"d really like it if you did a vid on PvP, because while i’m finding I do pretty well, I still often loose to glass builds and have this feeling that i’m kinda just waiting for people to run out of stuff and die. Would really appreciate your insight to pvp (both sPvP and WvW).

Thanks a ton, great vids!

its in sPVP so gear shouldn’t be an issue? I know that in the death summary the top damage attacks are backstab and pistol whip, and it really is in just a few seconds. Can you describe what my response should be to any attempt to burst me down? Like what should i look to do, which abilites, so son. It might not be entirely inside the stun lock, but its super quick, just a few seconds, I often feel like I can’t begin to get distance or even respond before i’m being impaled by a flag.

Hey Yojack, I really love this build. Rifle was what made me pick warrior and a build that makes it so fun in PvP is great. I’m only rank 7 still, but immediately I found I was really capable with this build. I’m yet to lose a 1v1 against anyone set up for endurance, but i have lately run Ito more thieves and keep getting just absolutely smoked, often inside the stun lock. Any suggestions? I copied your soldier and rampaged rune set as well as all utilities and have read the full post, but I’m finding I just don’t know what to do before eating dirt.

Thanks for the build and your feedback!