Guild Wars 2

I submitted my request literally 10 minutes before the closing time.

I hope I’M not too late

Human, imo.

Reaper of Grenth is an invaluable elite skill for a lot of condi builds. The other races elites are all pretty meh by comparison.

This looks like a good build to me.
Geomancer’s Alacrity with a focus? (20s magnetic wave, 42s invuln??)
~druel

It looks like a good start, but I’d probably run Arcane Shield instead of Arcane Power. Reason being: everyone needs a stunbreaker.

You also really should include condi-cleanse, but I’ve known a lot of people who just forego it entirely, so I won’t say it’s a requirement.

Basically, in it’s current state, although your damage output will be high, the moment your opponents realize you can’t break a stun, you’ll be insta-gibbed repeatedly throughout a match.

Awesome thoughts, though! And good luck.

MaXi.3642:

I have recently tried some zerker S/F build, it has really INCREDIBLE dmg, I was able to literally one-shot heavy golem with knockdown combo, but it was just too glassy and I wasn’t able to handle it… this build looks more balanced and could be easier to use in a real fight, dishing out still enough dmg

Glad you liked it!

You’ve just described my exact dislike of fresh air. It’s really high damage, which can be a lot of fun! But if you whiff, or your opponent invulns through the burst, or has protection… you’re basically a wet noodle. I wanted a S/F build that wasn’t, and I feel that this is a really strong alternative that doesn’t sacrifice the kind of damage output you get… it just comes through in other ways.

I hope you’ll give it a try, and let me know how it turns out!

Thanks for watching!

Lawful.5314:

Hah, loved the music.

Anyways, seems like Signet builds with 6 in earth are becoming more and more popular, and personally i don’t like the Meta Cele D/D build, so this kind of condition stacking build looks really great for me, i’ve also seen the Amber Elementalist guide, which is very similar to your build, with slight differences here and there, but what i really liked about your video, is the actual PvP footage (unlike some other guides i could mention) , it shows the strengths of your build quite vividly.

Ofcourse there were a couple of times in the video , where you just got lucky and managed to stay alive by a hair’s length but all in all, it was very convincing and the build came off as pretty strong ovreall if you play it to its strengths.

All in all great guide, and thanks for sharing.

EDIT: But if there is one thing i don’t like in your video, is that you only cropped in the parts where you won your fights, which is what brings missconception and the illusion of the class being OP in PvP.
Surely the build is strong, but you should add some video footage where you couldn’t come out on top, with that 1500 hp remaining, and you made mistakes and paid for them by losing, comment them and tell the viewers what you think went wrong and what you could have done better to win that fight.
That would show in truth the weaknesses of the build aswell along to its strengths and not discourage people from playing it, if they seem like they can’t quite pull it off in every fight.

Hey Lawful,

Thanks for your comments and praise! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m in the same boat as you, and I can’t stand to watch a video of people just standing in mists going over the build in intrinsic detail. Not saying it’s not beneficial to some people, but I feel like a format like this with actual pvp footage as its basis goes a lot farther to convince people that the build is valid.

I was tempted to input some lost duels, but I opted out of it for two reasons: I need viewers to believe the build is strong enough to try, and on top of that, I need to convince them that I have enough talent to be worth listening to.

Showing losses certainly helps outline the weaknesses of a build, but not without undermining those first two directives. So I try to find a middle ground. I find battles where I make mistakes, and point them out—illuminating the weaknesses of the build—but where they weren’t so critical that I failed to win.

I had a few of those duels included (The thief duel comes to mind, and the group fight where I went down). I hope that’s an adequate answer.

In future, I am interested to put out more build videos like this, and then run streaming events to really cross out any doubt about it. I think that’s the best way to see that a build is truly workable—youtube videos with cherry-picked duels is a poor substitute for that, I think, so in that regard I definitely agree.

Thanks for watching!

Maesto.9103:

Looks promising. Tried something similiar with d/d. But your weaponchoice should be stronger for this build. Really interesting, will give it a try too.

Btw, having much fun with your staff/blinding ashes build (just changed it a little bit for my playstyle). Funny how ppl react to it in duels. Just need more practise with it^^. Can be a pain… for many builds.

Keep it up.

I’m glad to hear it! I still really like that build too. I think it might still be the only viable dueling staff ele build—but my main reservation now for taking into ranked spvp is the nerf to tornado/meteor. That annoyed me to no end

Thanks for watching! I’m always glad to hear the older videos are still relevant to some people

Mayama.1854:

You forgot to select the traits and amulet in the build editor :P .

Nice guide

Haha! Thanks. Fixed it.

This is Azilyi,

I have a series of Staff Spvp tutorial videos, and I decided to fashion this one with the same style as those. This is something a little different, but equally potent and far more devastating. Very strong build. Take a look, and enjoy!

Please leave your comments. I read them all, and try to respond to each one.
Click Here for the Video

~~~Pulled from the Video Description~~~

Hello again,

This is a scepter/focus tutorial video done in the same style as the Staff Elementalist tutorials that I have previously uploaded. This build utilizes signets and is most useful in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 settings. Any larger, and you’re in for a rough ride.

Here’s the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhcM6bW2wuBf0ACACxrJDGox4eBLC-TJRHABfs/AAnAgjKDE8DAAA

Please remember to like and subscribe. It’s the only way I can be sure that anyone is actually watching this, and not some silly web bots.

Enjoy!

Skip ahead:

The Basic Combos:
http://youtu.be/tWR4-Vxds6I?t=1m34s

Advanced Dueling:
http://youtu.be/tWR4-Vxds6I?t=5m4s

Team Fights:
http://youtu.be/tWR4-Vxds6I?t=10m40s

The Build Rundown:
http://youtu.be/tWR4-Vxds6I?t=16m52s

Basically, the title. The build is going to be used for WvW roaming but the catch is it has to use a focus.

Preferrably nothing glassy, or relies too heavily on clones.

Let me know what you got, forums!

Hey Teef, you can sign me up if you need another ele. I can play just about any weapon set or role (Condi/power/bunker).

My youtube channel has a lot of demo vids if that’s important to you, but most of the builds I use in them are outside the meta (I don’t see a point to post videos of meta builds when there’s already hundreds up). But rest assured, the meta builds are well within my range to perform.
~1200 solo queue games.

https://www.youtube.com/user/kkildron

I love dueling, as well. So if you want a match, let me know. Always happy to showcase the skeelz. Hit me up in-game.

Character name: Azilyi

Very entertaining videos. I enjoyed watching the 2v2 one the best.

I agree with a lot of the comments here. I was going to mention that it was odd you were running the trait for 20% more damage while attuned to water (and vuln). I think there’s a lot of interesting interactions with that trait, but you really need to build for it and I don’t know if it makes sense here unless you have a teammate stacking vulnerability.

You seem to play the support staff pretty well though. It’s a tough job chasing down your teammates to heal/support them—least of all a thief

My only advice would be to pair up with a bunker build or hybrid power warrior/guardian. They’re really easy to keep track of (they stay on point) and they give you lots of time to set up full healing blasts.

But even then, expect the enemy team to figure you out pretty quick and come hunting for blood after one or two ‘Run in/full heal/run out’ maneuvers

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

6/6/0/0/2 is pretty fun. A little less fun, now that they nerfed Tornado/meteor but still fun

I really don’t like the full-glass builds. They’re fun for a laugh, but once the enemy thief picks up your build, you’re just boned. Everywhere you go, a target reticle over your head is sure to follow.

Necrotize.2974:

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

I’ve been playing around with a bunker staff build that is working pretty well. I can pretty much hold a point against even zerkers for a fairly long time although the might stacking with staff is a bit restricted compared to daggers and I had to switch Battle sigils out for energy.

I also have problems might-stacking in staff. Lots of blasts, but not nearly as many as dagger/Evasive arcana build. I try to shy away from the strength runes now for that reason

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

This is a huge part of why I love staff so much.

I spent a lot of time dueling a guildy thief who tells me a huge problem for him is Burning Ashes… Having those blinds come in at inopportune times can kill a thief when they’re trying to cloak and dagger.

Loads of fun when they don’t know what to expect from you.

emikochan.8504:

That was pretty fun Agree with the zoom comment, maybe only combine it with slowdown to highlight a crucial moment.

Definitely – I’ll be keeping that in mind for my next one.

Necrotize.2974:

Just saw the title and immediately thought Lindsey Stirling and then I had to watch the video for two reasons. One because I love staff ele pvp, and two because that sweet violin. The effects, while cool, seemed a bit distracting in some parts but at the same time fit well with the music and place in the fights. I would definitely not use the screen panning/zooming effect so much in mobile fights and instead more selectively to zoom in or focus on key points in the fight like landing a specific skill or interrupting something important. Using it during finishers is a good example of when it worked really well for you.

I did love the LB ranger bit though, made my day.

Hey, thanks for the great response. I have to admit, I was a bit worried at the panning/zooming at the mobile fights as well. I’ll keep an eye out for that next time

Click here:
‘Shadows’ Music Video

This short video was an experiment to learn how to use Adobe Premiere. It’s featuring my Staff Elementalist Condition build doing 1v1 and 1v2 in WvW and sPvP… but I really just wanted to see what I could do to make my GW2 videos not look so bland…

The video is done to the song ‘Shadows’ by Lindsey Stirling.

Let me know what you think of the effects.

The Other Videos

amaranthined.5167:

I ran this last night for 2-3 hours of dueling with a friend who plays every class and another ele friend. It’s been a long while since I did staff dueling (been playing a lot of s/f lately) so took me a bit but this build really has a lot of 1v1 potential and was quite fun. I struggled more with a medi guard than mes actually, since so much of the damage in this build is condi and I just couldn’t dish out enough before all the teleport burst destroyed me – occasionally I’d be able to catch them with a static but I probably just don’t know them well enough to catch the tells. With mesmer, I think my main issue was that I’m used to running a sigil of energy and/or Renewing Stamina, so I was struggling to not waste dodges before their shatter spikes.

The signet of earth, which I hadn’t tried post-patch, is absolutely incredible for setting up bursts and the bleeding is a nice chunk of damage. The short CD as well as all the other cc available to staff eles got pretty ridiculous the longer the fights went on. While I don’t think I’ll be running it in pvp, for dueling I really enjoyed it! Been a fan of your builds since that first staff 1v1 video you posted so I was thrilled to see this new one and hope to see you keep making these.

Hey, I’m glad you gave it a shot! It is very different from the older staff builds, but I think it’s stronger in 1v1 and 2v1 scenarios than previous. But thanks to that stupid Tornado/Meteor nerf, I feel like condi is the better alternative now

Mesmers definitely give me trouble, as well. But Guardians are really fun to fight with this build once you get a good idea of how they set up their burst.

It’s really telegraphed. Once you see that shield pop up, you know they’re coming at you. Try to dodge it. Usually they’ll immobilize you right before so here’s some fun stuff to do if that happens.

1. Burning Retreat while immobilized. Someone mentioned this on a previous video. It’s a good 2-second dodge that works even while immobilized. You won’t go anywhere, but you’ll dodge their whole burst while standing on the spot.

2. Cleansing fire the immobilize, Dodge.

3. Arcane Shield, block it!

4. Nothing else? Switch to earth for protection!

Dodging that first burst is usually easy. After that, you have to be careful about saving one of your ‘outs’ for the next one

Thanks for watching! I’ll try to keep posting

Bluefox.9580:

The build is fleeting imo. While it’s viable, it won’t hold up to the meta 00266 build or other blinding ashes builds (like signets). I recommend the 6/2/6/0/0 build for dueling with staff, especially since you’re able to function without blasting staff. I found I was able to tackle everything with the exception of a -skilled- condi spam engi.

Eventually I got bored with that though and am back to the standard. You have the skills, but from what I can tell you’re not quite to the point of setting up killzones with your CC’s yet. You make yourself an easy open field target all the time. I never saw you use a wall to your advantage (to increase the chance of them being forced to run into a CC for example). I’d also recommend kiting less in a circle and more in straight lines. Fooling them into thinking you’re easy to predict allows you to make their “prediction” backfire by letting you counter play with stationary fields. While I won’t point to any specific thing, I would encourage you to be more aggressive with your CC’s. Force them to hit them instead of using them as a trap when you’re pressuring. It’s possible to hit them both with wall and static field when they’re not moving.

I know I’m just some random Jack to you, but after 5k hours with staff ele in all areas of gameplay, you can consider my feedback constructive. Keep it up! I often wonder if the amount of skilled staff ele’s is in the single digits.

Interesting build. I am tempted to try it, although I worry at the lack of condi clear. My other complaint is that only a few signets are strong and the others you have to take just because.

I am not a huge fan of Signet of Air or Signet of Water and you have to take both to make a signet build (condi clear and a stun breaker). Which means your last one is probably going to be Signet of Earth. I think I would like water more if it cleared condis on use instead of chilling. But this is all just my personal preference. I love that the Signet of Air is on a 20s CD though…. so much stunbreak

And I agree about that straight line thing. You’re right—I could definitely try being more predictable. I’ve also noticed myself utilizing shorter combos which isn’t good, either. Great comment!

Thanks for watching!

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

I have a really hard time not using AB now. You’re right, just hitting one person isn’t how it was meant to be played… but it’s also a blast finisher so you’ll get the bonus healing from blasting a water field when you use it. So running a quick test in spvp…

From Arcane Brilliance:

3752 from Arcane Brilliance (0 targets hit)
1448 from blast combo.
5200 Total Heal

4502 From AB (1 target hit)
1448 from blast combo
5950 Total Heal
(Deals 445 Damage)

Glyph of Elemental Harmony:

5373 Total Heal + 1 Boon

Ether Renewal:
721*8 = 5760 Total Heal

The kicker here is that i’m also using Arcane Mastery which makes AB a 20s cooldown instead of 25s. You might be able to devise a build to reduce the glyph cooldown, but that would require 2 pts into air which could work… but would require some tinkering.

Ether Renewal is great… but my build doesn’t have a great deal of stab to make it viable, and enough condi clear already.

Last note, is that the above is only 1 target hit. This thing can go up to 5 targets hit…. which is basically a full-heal in a fight against a mesmer or turret engi.

On the note of your build: I really like the 0/0/2/6/6 build myself… but it’s too bunkery for me. I found it very limiting in actual 1v1 or duels which is what I’m really most interested in. With zerker amulet, it might be more feasible… but then you’re shoe-horned into cantrips which (great as they are) are too defensive for my liking. But I’m glad to see others are still out there rockin’ that staff

Thanks for watching, and great question!

Ralkuth.1456:

Being used to 00266 Staff, and too afraid to do 66002 because I don’t want to be looking at the downstate most of the time in a match (l2p issue tots), this just seems to be a great, flexible middle ground to advance my magecraft…
Azilyi, any advice against D/P and S/D thieves in general? I can hold them off for a while, but I would like to be more offensive against them.

My best advice for fighting thieves is Elemental Attunement. Be careful with your Earth Attunement for protection and Magnetic Aura.

Make sure to become familiar using your combos without relying on Earth. When your opponent goes into stealth, have your finger hovering over your earth attunement. The moment he strikes, switch in. Give yourself protection. If he’s trying to stack bleed from range, use magnetic aura.

DO NOT linger in earth. The moment he breaks off, get out of Earth and into something else to allow it to come back up.

Duel lots of thieves and you’ll notice they tend to follow the same kind of pattern (Range damage, stealth, close-combat, stealth, rinse and repeat). Once you catch on to their rotation it’s really just a matter of managing your earth attunement and mag auras and wait till they make a mistake coming out of stealth so you can kill them.

Reading a thief becomes easier when you understand the lengths of time they have in stealth. Dropping a static field on yourself half a second before they pop out can be devastating to them and mess up their whole rotation.

Good luck, and thanks for watching!

Junkpile.7439:

Your enemies seems to use weird tactics.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any dueling video (from anyone) can be put up without this argument being valid. There will always be a better opponent out there, and even they can make mistakes.

And capitalizing on those mistakes is 50% of dueling

Thanks for watching!

InfernoCrossing.8063:

I love this build and what you do for Staff Eles everywhere. I’m really interested in try out this build, but I do have one question.

You chose Soothing Wave over something else like Shard of Ice, or even Vital Striking. Do you feel like the importance of the regen to survivability is more important than the damage we get from Vital Striking?

Vital Striking isn’t as strong with this build. I have been told (but not verified) that direct increases to damage (+10% more damage when over 90% health) does not affect condition damage.

I would say 75% of this build’s damage comes from conditions, so I feel that the regen is a wiser choice. Although I have taken Cantrip Mastery at times instead (to reduce the CD of Cleansing Fire (x2 from Fire VIII)

That aside, I strongly feel that regen is a huge contributor to an ele’s survivability. Elemental Attunement isn’t quite enough, and Healing Rain’s cast time/CD is a little too long in both cases to be enough.

Thank you for watching

I experimented with this for a long time. Surge was mostly overlooked before because conditionalists weren’t a practical option.

It might make more sense now though, but I would have a hard time justifying a condition build that used arcane abilities instead of sigils.

Magusaero.5740:

…

+1 because you have flame axe in there

But you may need at least one stunbreak

keenlam.4753:

…

Hey Keenlam

I spoke with you ingame but I thought i’d reiterate how awesome that idea is regarding the Meteor/Nado while attuned to water. I’m not sure how well this build will work out due to it having a bit too much reliance on water, but the concept would definitely be cool to test out.

Another cool idea would be to put 5 pts into Earth for Enduring Damage (10% more damage when endurance is full) and Stone Splinters (another 10% more damage at 600 range)

That would give your Tornado a 40% damage increase before runes or sigils which would just be hilarious.

A bit of a one-trick pony though, but an interesting interaction to say the least.

Snakebyte.2804:

Are you suggesting that women can’t be bros? This is the the 21st century. If you identify as a sis though then I will respect that.

…..
…………
:D

I had a very very long discussion with my own social circle about this.

Girls cannot be bros.

They can be Brah’s. Ba da Schhh

LightningBlaze.4913:

I always enjoy watching these pvp videos from KrazyFlyinChicken. No doubt he is the best staff ele!

lol, I wouldn’t go that far. But thank you for the ego boost

keenlam.4753:

Hi Azilyi
Thanks for this great guide. Truly inspired me to try out staff ele and I’ve been constantly practicing the combos to improve my skills.

Awesome! And now with Sigil of Earth, there opens up a whole slough of new ones too

Bhima.9518:

Solid build. Looks more useful than the standard kamakazi glass staff builds without sacrificing much of the dps.

Definitely, and it still works in the current meta as well. It’s just too bad they took away our meteor + Tornado combo

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for justice.
Where is that STICKY

Lol – im flattered people like you are still watching this thread at all.

Dennis.3068:

I cant understand why this is still not a sticky. But anyway, are there ans Updates since the last feature patch?

Hey there Dennis. As of this morning, I made a post with a new build for the new feature patch. Thanks for remembering this post. Sorry it took me so long to reply.

The Dueling Video Post

Hello, and we’re back with another Staff Elementalist Dueling Video.

Summary

So here it is! Enjoy:
The Featured Video

I am Azilyi, and I’ve created a number of Staff video tutorials and dueling videos in the past which are posted on this forum as ‘Scrap/Burn the Zeitgeist’.

This time there are no WvW duels included here. The reason for that is because the server I am stuck on (DB) has no dueling community in the OS. And due to my recent hiatus, I have no money to buy any updated gear to reflect the build I’ve designed in sPvP.

That being said, this entire video’s footage was captured over only 2 days in the sPvP dueling arenas and solo queue live matches. I tried to make sure to only include the duels with opponents that had viable builds. The only class I didn’t get a video of was Ranger… for some reason they were completely MIA from these dueling areas.

Build Comments

The Build

At first glance, this build looks like a complete mess with 1 cantrip, 2 arcanes and a sigil. But there’s a lot more synergy in this build than first appears. The whole build is constructed around Blinding Ashes.

Sigil of Earth is entirely too strong to pass up, especially for staff. Having another CC which is only 25s cooldown is incredible, and cannot be afforded to pass up.

Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Shield are just nice. I can see someone wanting to take Blasting Staff, and taking away Arcane Mastery in the build which would work just fine. But I like the 20s blast-finish heal, so I keep them in.

Cleansing Fire (from VIII in fire and the utility) are great ways to cause burning when not attuned to Fire, and great for blinding downed opponents before a stomp.

But the most important trait for that by far is Burning Precision which causes burning on critical hits. This gives you burning in every element to apply Blinding Ashes as frequently as possible.

And the last, most important comment is condi duration. This gives your spammable (Earth 1) attack, a 4s weakness to deal with those power builds. Sigil of Doom is up almost 100% of the time unless they clear it. At 80% condition duration, burns are up constantly and provide a nice boost to your dps.

Considerations

It took me a long time to get this video out because Anet had decided to nerf staff elementalists which really got me upset. Taking away Meteor + Tornado combo was a huge part of the reason for my staff’s viability in spvp.

In return they gave us Blinding Ashes which will apply to players when using AoE abilities which is better, but not what we asked for. This ability’s ICD should be triggered independently for each player… but I dont’ think Anet’s code will allow this to take place.

Sigil of Earth was a strong buff. Too strong, in fact. I suspect an impending nerf.

The class which gives me the most trouble is definitely Mesmer. I don’t understand their class well enough to predict their movement, which makes my CC all but useless.

Earlier Videos

Staff Elementalist Tutorial Video ‘Scrap the Zeitgeist’

Staff Elementalist 1v1 Duels from a Previous patch

Harbinger.8637:

Most left, sure you have the few hardcore people around. However for the most part, people come back and play in the major tourneys and that’s it. Teamq is fairly dead, mostly just solo players. Then you have soloq which is its on can of worms (4v5, skyhammer, etc).

Can’t really blame people for quitting. Been over two years, and pvp is still pretty much the same.

That’s very disappointing…

But that makes a lot of sense…. See, I saw those tournament rosters and thought “Wow, GW2 is still bumpin!”. I guess it makes sense that the higher-tiered players are just waiting in the wings

I returned to the game to figure out if anyone was still playing…

This is by far the most depressing post/thing I’ve seen so far. I have known a great many people to ask for this build, and the fact that I’m seeing it now is solid enough evidence for me that the old community in this game is all but gone.

Good luck in Archeage, Serane. I may see you there.

This video was hilarious. Thank you

I bet you got a bunch of those new rangers rethinking their reroll decision with this.

Cam Ron.4170:

Some guy in the top 20 is 10-5, its a joke. I judge people based on their winrate/games played instead of the leaderboard, and you should too

Games played might be a good indicator of telling if a player is new or not, but not a good way to determine skill level.

Winrate, likewise, has the adverse affect of including all games you played on all classes. So someone with more alts will have a lower winrate due to learning curves.

Learning curves are also a consideration. For example, some classes will take a lot longer to master than others—which will cause more losses and a lower winrate—but might equate to a much higher skill-level than someone who (as an EXAMPLE) played a hambow warrior exclusively in the past patch.

The leaderboard may not be a GOOD indicator of skill due to the outliers you defined… but they are just that. Outliers. And it may still be the best indication of skill available to the public thus far.

But that’s neither here, nor there. The real question is why the board seems so inactive (or is it?)

Hey guys,

I’m back after a long hiatus just to see what the status of the game is like post-patch.

One thing that has been worrying me…. I have played probably a dozen solo-queue games so far. I’m not trying to be narcissistic here, but with little-to-no effort I am already topping the leaderboard.

3 months ago, it used to be a major struggle for me to break into the top 1k players on the leaderboard. This is no longer true. Just by messing around with builds, I have managed to worm my way into the top 200. I don’t think I’m that good… which means something is up.

Are there just so few players now that the top 1k leaderboard is filled with inactives? Are people just bad? Did everyone get nerfed except elementalists (and rangers?)

What the heck.

amaranthined.5167:

Originally came from this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/1v1-Serious-Staff-Elementalist-Video (I may have changed some stuff I’m not 100% sure?)

Thanks for posting this! I am the one who made this video. I’m flattered that you took the time to dig it up… I had thought they had all fallen into obscurity.

This is the most recent build from my latest tutorial video (Caution: this may be slightly outdated now)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMISLD2zAOOArEGgAQIm8Y4AFGUc7XA-TJxHwADeAAa2fAwFAoYZAA

This is the tutorial video featuring the build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCubgeoc6A0

Good luck

I made this note in the past post, but ill reiterate:

I would use runes of strength because it provides a guaranteed 7% damage increase, rather than a conditional 10% (from 90% health). Might stacks are up all the time with 50% duration increase and….. well…. ele.

You must use fresh air and not tempest’s defence. I think you may have just misclicked this trait though so I won’t get into it. If you need more explanation just look up ‘Fresh air’ build videos on youtube and you’ll get a pretty apt description.

I have also heard (but not confirmed) that Sigil of Air is better than Sigil of Force in terms of damage output.

Good luck!

There was a post about this not long ago:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/One-shot-Ele

in short: 0/6/5/2/1 is probably the highest burst achievable by an elementalist.

Hamster Wheel.2948:

I play gc ele in spvp and it’s great fun. The build I run is a bit different from the video posted above since it utilises damage modifier traits to achieve the massive damage. with the build 0/6/5/3/1 with arcane wave, lightning flash and ice bow, zerker amulet, scholar runes and fire and air sigils. The damage achievable with this build is true burst.

Also, unlike in the video where the burst were killing the medium and light golems the burst of the build I run can kill the heavy golem in a shorter time.

This build was recommended to me by a guildmate (Hijk Elemental P)

One look at this build I "LOL"ed him. Then I tried it…. and it is without a doubt the burst-iest build available.

Here’s the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhMMKZ25wlBdEBOAGpaw0PwKQcEIA0BrA-TJRBwA02fQzJAgcZAAPAAA

The Pros

Under Prime Conditions this build is getting:

+10% damage from Air Training
+20% damage from Bolt to the Heart (BttH)
+10% damage for being with 600 of target.
+10% damage from having full endurance.
+10% damage from being full health
+5% damage from Sigil
+7% damage for having might stacks.

For a grand total of:
+72% damage (52% without BttH)

So when you crit, this modifier is multiplied by your critical damage which is at 200%.

Your full combos (under prime conditions) will easily hit 15-20k damage in under a few seconds.

The Cons

Prime Conditions are really hard to keep going when you’re getting targeted. And if your opponent knows what they’re doing… you WILL be targeted.

If you get attacked:

A) Your health drops below 90% (-10% damage)
B) You have to evade, so you lose stamina (-10% damage)
C) You’re a wet noodle and fall over yourself when the enemy even looks at you funny.
D) No condi cleanse (you basically have to kill them before they kill you)

Enjoy!

A couple of quick tips which will greatly improve your game against D/D elementalists:

1) Watch out for their fire attunement. 40% of D/D ele DPS comes from their fire attunement. It’s a fairly obvious ‘buff’ on their character’s portrait which will indicate fire. It usually comes after Air attunement.

When they switch to fire—learn to find the ‘burning speed’ and dodge it. If you see the fire attunement, just spam auto-attack and watch for that ability. It’s got a fairly obvious animation. Dodge it. This is huge. Many talented players will know how to dodge this attack and it almost wins the fight for you if you can avoid this burst reliably

Note: The rotation generally goes as follows: >>Fire attunement > Blazing Speed > Lightning Flash (to you) > fire breath > Fire hands. (Dodge the parts in bold)

2) Clear the bleeds and burning. Don’t worry about the other condis. The meta build for eles doesnt include condi duration… so focus on clearing the ones which cause damage instead.

3) Don’t stand in their fire rings. Many eles will be trying to might-stack throughout a fight. The problem: their blast finishers are relatively short ranged. If you see them put down a fire ring—back right out. Make them leave their fire ring to come after you (makes it harder for them to blast it)

4) Pull their cantrips. The cantrips are on relatively high cooldowns. Try to follow the first three steps until you see them pop Armor of Earth. After that—go nuts and try to burst.

Good luck.

Astaso.4806:

Eucalyptus.9784:

The arrogance in this forum makes me want to never come back sometimes.

“Wait he’s Staff? Well I’m the best D/D Ele there is, so the guy he won against must be really bad. Only way Staff wins.”

Well I didn’t want to be arrogant or offend somebody.
I think dd ele will always win against staff ele on same skill lvl.
Its my opinion. Maybe I choose a bad way to say this. English is not my native language.

No offense taken My gradeschool teacher once told me “True knowledge can come only from experience.”

Give it a try if this sounds like it might interest you—it might change your mind!

manveruppd.7601:

By pivot, do you mean just by holding down RMB and turning again? Cause I’m using A and D to strafe, don’t have turning by keyboard bound anymore. If you can do it with the RMB then I think I could manage it with practice. Neat trick though! How did you even discover it?

Yes – when I pivot, i’m usually holding down my right mouse button—changing my camera’s direction by 90 degrees and tapping “W” to walk forward in that direction to change facing.

I use A and D in the same way, only to strafe. So I think our keyboard mechanics are the same. It shouldn’t be too hard for you to pick up (I’d wager you’ve probably already figured it out by the time you’ve read this).

And actually I discovered it by accident… and I actually found it more of a nuisance.

I play most of my games by holding down RMB to keep my camera facing the right way (Most players do this). So when thieves would steal to me, shadow step back, etc. etc… they’re literally jumping all over my screen.

To keep up with them, my camera would be zooming past and my character would change direction very frequently…

So when I started using the ‘defensive combo’ on thieves… you can imagine my frustration when the unsteady ground consistently came up facing the wrong way….. seemingly at random.

So I tested it, to see if I could figure out how to stop it from happening. But when I realized how easy it was to pivot….. I couldn’t help it. It’s way better this way as a ‘bug’.

I hope that Anet never fixes it. But I don’t think they will. It seems like one of those issues that lies in the core mechanics of the game, and not so much related to the spell itself.

You can do the same thing with any wall, on any class where the wall isn’t insta-cast. And it’s not exactly game-breaking… just handy knowledge.

Great question Thanks for asking

Eucalyptus.9784:

The arrogance in this forum makes me want to never come back sometimes.

“Wait he’s Staff? Well I’m the best D/D Ele there is, so the guy he won against must be really bad. Only way Staff wins.”

Haha. I get a lot of that on all of my videos… I try to remember that it’s exactly these kinds of players that are the reason I play staff ele in the first place.

By and large, the majority of players are good-spirited and swell my ego with private whispers telling me that I’m really good. Sometimes even when I lose, which is really encouraging.

And of course this community which (on the whole) generates very positive feedback.

Astaso.4806:

Must have been a bad dd ele in the video, if he lost against a staff ele.
I never lost against a staff ele on my dd ele.
And I can’t imagine that this will happen anytime. But maybe someone proves me wrong.

Often times, players will lose to a staff ele because they gravely underestimate what can be done with one when played correctly. Opponents very seldom know the combos/rotations of a staff ele and so are unsure what abilities to dodge and which to absorb.

Very few people expect to be beaten by a staff ele because frankly, it’s the hardest weapon/class in all of Guild Wars 2 to play. This means that even a very talented staff player will have issues beating even a novice player on another class.

But once mastered, it can be just as potent (if not more potent) than a D/D ele. And I think once you reach that level of play—you’ll find a simple joy in taking apart the meta builds with an ‘underpowered’ weaponset

Thanks for watching!

Anomaly.7612:

Hey Chicken! Is this build good for WvW as well? I’m about to hit 80, and it’d be nice to use this build as some direction as to what I should shoot for gear wise.

Thanks!

This build will work fine for WvW. But it really depends. The trouble with WvW is that it’s really two different games rolled into one. If you want to roam, then you may need additional mobility. Try swapping out Cleansing fire or Arcane shield for Lightning flash.

If you’re playing with your guild or a zerg, it is likely they will want you to build for support. x/x/x/6/6 is standard for this because it lets you clear condis with your healing rain, and your water fields can have shorter cooldowns.

This build will work in OS duels. I would recommend a set of celestial armor with a spattering of PVT trinkets until you feel comfortable with your survivability.

Good luck!

manveruppd.7601:

It sounds like it’s impossible to do if your aoe targetting is set to “fast” or “fast with range indicator”

It would be much harder, yes. But not impossible.

When you click to start the cast, your character immediately turns to face the direction where the spell is meant to go.

The cast time is very short. But while your character is channeling, this is where you need to pivot your character. The wall will face the direction your character is facing at the end of the channel.

So if you use fast cast, you just have to be ready to pivot your character the minute you push the spell’s button which will mean using your right-mouse click button to change facing at the last second.

The example you saw above is just to give you an idea of how that mechanic works. If you use fast casting then that example won’t be any help to you, sadly