Guild Wars 2

I’m game!
Here’s an earth elementalist build I’ve been halfheartedly theory-crafting.
It may not make much sense at first, bu there’s a reason for things.

Earth (X) is kind of the key, it allows for massive toughness to contribute to massive condition damage. Using carrion rather than dire stats, and testing in the PvP dps trials, 3k bleeds stacks are reasonably easy to maintain.

Fire signet provides the burning while staying in earth. There’s also some condi-removal with extra burning, and a heal with aoe regen.
It may have trouble with lots of little mobs, but well placed ring of fire and a dragon tooth or two should provide enough aoe burn to tick them down.

Main theory of the build is to bring up rock barrier, use fire signet whenever it’s off cooldown, and then stack bleeding with stone shards. Use the blind and intterupt strategically, and hurl rock barrier when a useful field is down.

Last thing, the elite skill doesn’t matter, pick your own potion there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFUQJArYlUzpxh1NwsB0RMwBgEOwiCjPF7VpzA-TBSAwAaUCSx8XO9EBORAAegAXV+hU9ne7PQIAfzBA-e

Indeed. Was playing around with a build, saw the nice squishy elementalist, started my rotation. and… was downed. 10k arcane burst, then a few 4k vaporblades… (for non-eles the vapor blade is usually a joke, it’s base damage is 111 at lvl 80)

Well, must be time to go on urban dictionary to find a good character name(s) for farming these reward chests.

I’m kidding anet. Please don’t ban me.

Sounds like my experience with a ranger alt yesterday.

I didn’t know that the GS/LB ranger was “not viable” so imagine my surprise when after a while I wanted to share the awesome build I had made, (I was top of the leader boards in every match, I figured I’d somehow made a good build) I found out that apparently only newbs who don’t know how to deal ‘real’ damage use similar builds. I once dropped a 6.5k Maul with the GS and was like “kitten, that’s firegrab terriory on a 3 sec cooldown”.

Casey.9687:

Durzlla.6295:

Casey.9687:

Anything other then trapper or spirit ranger your wasting your time and need to gtfo. Longbow and greatsword rangers are horrible and make rangers look bad. Ranger doesn’t belong in melee range with all the better CC so many other classes have like warrior, necro, and thieves. Longbow is so easy to dodge its not even funny, you get 1 knockback if your lucky and thats pretty much all longbow is good for. Signet Rangers are by far the most lazy of the ranger builds and should be ashamed of running full signets. Also signet rangers have no aoe or support whatsoever. If anyone disagrees with any of this i would love to be proved wrong ^.^

Bad signet rangers are lazy and passive, a good signet player (regardless of class) id say is more complicated than most builds because you have to know when you want to give up your passive, how many of them you want to give up at a time, and when you’re better off roughing it out and waiting.

And longbow rangers aren’t bad, they’re just harder to play than SB, because they’re harder to play you’ll see more bad people with it than another.

EX: there’s significantly more bad eles out there than bad warriors because warrior is significantly easier to play at the high skill end than an ele is.

Well out of the whole time ive played since start of the game i have yet to see any good longbow ranger that even comes close to viable. I have seen every build possible on ranger and i can honestly say when i see a longbow ranger in spvp or wvw i know it’s a free kill. You can’t sit there and tell me its all bad people that i’ve ran into since release of the game. The same with greatsword, when i see somone using a greatsword we joke in steam chat saying there’s another free kill. These weapons are bad….they will continue to be bad unless anet does somthing drastic. For the signet rangers….there are no good signet rangers because the good rangers wouldn’t be running signets. Like i said no aoe or support. Without those 2 aspects ranger is worthless and a cripple to the team cause any other class can out damage a signet ranger.

My GS/LB Ranger would beg to differ with that assessment. It’s all in the playstyle, and keeping situational awareness. If you make your own build, rather than using a cookie cutter meta, you’ll be able to use what you have to your own best advantage. See screen shot in my previous post.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Durzlla.6295:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Actually its pretty much spirits or gtfo..
You can have fun with Traps-BM even Power Ranger but every top team that has a Ranger is a spirit one..

Just because it hasn’t become meta yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the potential, sPvP (especially solo qs) seems pretty ripe with screams of complaint about CC locking rangers, not to mention might stacking has recently become a very strong option for ranger ( I’ll be posting a build when I get home from work).

Trapper builds have remained totally unchanged and have just say in the same spot they always have, great at defending a point, great at 1v1s and 2v2s, not too much else though (granted you don’t need to be that good at anything else when you’re great at killing people in 1v1 point defense)

I hope you are right..Still Spirits will be the ultimate support build tho.
Good builds are out there..
I tried too the build you suggested…Might stacking was bugging my mind before 10 dec patch..
But..The balance is kitten…Only strong-OP builds survive…Every class has a great OP-faceroll build and many other that are really balanced..
I remember a time when Warriors were totally balanced, they had the option to deliver huge amount of dmg but they needed support..“Go in do as much dmg as i can but squishy”.And now they got the Healing signet ticking for 400hp/s
Its not that they are not viable good builds out there for Rangers..Its just that balance is a mess..

Seconded, a power/crit ranger like the one I roll with is pretty much dominating 1v1, and can last a decent while in 1v2.

I’ll link the build below, use the pets depending on the situation, and pop signets to clean up the end of the fight. Drop the heal early for the continual condition removal. stay mobile and use the GS block strategically. The 6s immunity from the signet can prevent burst builds from doing too much damage. Play smart, stay mobile, and kick Kittens.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARTjEVF2JWCWs2Bg1DC7bQ2DFZcRXhRT5JRZKMA-ToAg0CnIkSJlTKjUSpsSNKYVA

Supreme.4051:

When I switch pets and use f2 it immediatly goes on 3s cooldown. Even when waiting for 2-3 secs after switch is still does the cooldown. After 10 seconds or more the pet finally attempts to use f2 skill – then he dies or gets knocked back and the fun starts again

I’ve never had any trouble using pet skills. But then I typically use the Jungle stalker prior to combat for the might buff. I don’t typically use the pet skills in combat.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Atoss.1056:

MarzAttakz.9608:

This is purely a PVE build?

Mine? Plan to test/run in WvW roaming also. My last one had much too less HP to be any competetive but this is 3 times better Will just take some time to get all that Dire stuff…

Sorry, no, the original build. Gonna take a peek at yours now though.

Edit: Why waste the time and material for a fully ascended setup when you could build something way better as a Mesmer, Warrior or Guard?

I honestly don’t see the point, the only people not running decent amounts of conditional removal in WvW are scrubs, which you should be able to obliterate without fully ascended.

Granted the numbers on your condition ticks look fairly insane, if you go ahead and build this I’d be interested to hear how it works out.

Swap the elite skill to FGS and look at the burn damage on skill #2.Total: 28,565 damage, two clicks. not bad.

Just made a pvp variant, am going to go try it now.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArdhMmYbux3wjDAhHCcQBjHg8hGlC6A-TsAAzCpI+SBmDMzXyvsfNq4UxsCA

This. Is. Beautiful.

Nikkinella.8254:

Go with warrior if you just want the most powerful class that’s good at everything, sacrifices nothing, and completely outshines everyone else in every part of the game. Stick with ele if you just enjoy the playstyle, but don’t expect anything spectacular. The class has been nerfed into oblivion and gets progressively weaker with each patch. We’re at a point now where if you go into spvp as an ele people yell at you and insult you because they think you being there will kitten their team because they’d rather have another warrior instead. You’ll also be considered a free kill in wvw. and you’ll have to completely outplay your opponent flawlessly to win against even a mediocre player of another class. Ele is just THAT much weaker than all other classes now.

Roll up your sleeves and do whatever dirty work needs to be done to win. It’s quite possible to stomp faces, you’ll just have to work ten times harder and smarter.

Mash Hog.5672:

Pyrite.9641:

Mash Hog.5672:

Pyrite.9641:

Austin Kootz is my character name.

• I use a mental D/D burst build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoIhMmMbsR3IACKOgghCN6QowCHKFyB-TsAg0CnIoSRljKDVSqsUNq4UxsCA

The +5 from the runes is always active, tested to confirm. I could go slightly higher damage if I needed to, but only for a loss in survive-ability, and massive amounts of dodging to avoid damage. I may need to make some adjustments after the patch, we’ll see.

I’m game. let’s do this.
There’s also a staff build I’ve been wanting to try, I wonder….

How exactly do you do your damage with that build?

Arcane Power
Burning Speed
Ring of Fire
Fire Grab
(dodge sideways to evade opponents return stroke)
“air attunement” (gives lightning strike)(gives fury)
Updraft (knocks down long enough to hit with..)
Ride the lightning.
Shocking Aura
Lightning Whip
(dodge sideways to evade)
Lightning Whip
If the bad guy isn’t dead by this point, I will be.

Perma vigor helps keep the evades going, and the white damage is high. I have a variant with greater crit chance/damage but less toughness, and that’s too glassy.

It’s great as part of a team, I’m mobile and can nuke the beginning of a cap point and bugger out, leaving a severely weakened group to be taken out by someone with more staying power. Also works great on mesmers, one shots all the clones/phantasms (on the LW chain) so they never get the benefit from them.

I’m not saying it’s pretty, but it works well, and I am open to suggestions.

The bleed sigils help bury the burning and when both conditions are on, I have an additional 10% damage.

Since the patch, I’m considering a change to:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmMbsR3wjEAhHHIABjCdIUYhDlC5A-TsAg0CnIoSRljKDVSqsUNI4QwkAA

Whats with the sigils though?

The Sigils on that first build were to keep the burning buried, and give the +5% damage to burning foes.

That changed build I mentioned works like you see in the combat log of the attached screenshot. Not shabby

Mash Hog.5672:

Pyrite.9641:

Austin Kootz is my character name.

• I use a mental D/D burst build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoIhMmMbsR3IACKOgghCN6QowCHKFyB-TsAg0CnIoSRljKDVSqsUNq4UxsCA

The +5 from the runes is always active, tested to confirm. I could go slightly higher damage if I needed to, but only for a loss in survive-ability, and massive amounts of dodging to avoid damage. I may need to make some adjustments after the patch, we’ll see.

I’m game. let’s do this.
There’s also a staff build I’ve been wanting to try, I wonder….

How exactly do you do your damage with that build?

Arcane Power
Burning Speed
Ring of Fire
Fire Grab
(dodge sideways to evade opponents return stroke)
“air attunement” (gives lightning strike)(gives fury)
Updraft (knocks down long enough to hit with..)
Ride the lightning.
Shocking Aura
Lightning Whip
(dodge sideways to evade)
Lightning Whip
If the bad guy isn’t dead by this point, I will be.

Perma vigor helps keep the evades going, and the white damage is high. I have a variant with greater crit chance/damage but less toughness, and that’s too glassy.

It’s great as part of a team, I’m mobile and can nuke the beginning of a cap point and bugger out, leaving a severely weakened group to be taken out by someone with more staying power. Also works great on mesmers, one shots all the clones/phantasms (on the LW chain) so they never get the benefit from them.

I’m not saying it’s pretty, but it works well, and I am open to suggestions.

The bleed sigils help bury the burning and when both conditions are on, I have an additional 10% damage.

Since the patch, I’m considering a change to:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmMbsR3wjEAhHHIABjCdIUYhDlC5A-TsAg0CnIoSRljKDVSqsUNI4QwkAA

Austin Kootz is my character name.

• I use a mental D/D burst build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoIhMmMbsR3IACKOgghCN6QowCHKFyB-TsAg0CnIoSRljKDVSqsUNq4UxsCA

The +5 from the runes is always active, tested to confirm. I could go slightly higher damage if I needed to, but only for a loss in survive-ability, and massive amounts of dodging to avoid damage. I may need to make some adjustments after the patch, we’ll see.

I’m game. let’s do this.
There’s also a staff build I’ve been wanting to try, I wonder….

Yes you are missing something.
The scepter/dagger combo is quite powerful with some condition damage gear.
My leveling build is s/d with water,air,fire,earth signets and FG.
An example PvE encounter without preparation would go something like this:
Open with DT
Ring of fire,
Switch to earth
Auto attack as long as the fire field is up,
Earth 2, for the extra armor and a later dps burst
Auto attack till burning is about to expire.
Pop fire signet to maintain burning.
Use earth three and air signet for blinds to reduce damage
Rinse repeat.

My build is fire, earth, arcane.

Unload some fire to get a massive stack of burning going, then switch to earth and roll on the bleeding… works great for 1-5 bad guys, not enough AOE for more than that. The condition heavy build means there is a lot of flexibility in kiting technique.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEUQJArYhMmebuR2wjDAhHEwwAjHg4BJlCyA-jwxA4MhQSgQYOvIasVzioxqsxUvER1G/ioVDA-e

Hammer #5!?
I’m overall loving my white-dmg/fire hammer build, but am constantly frustrated trying to use the number five skill effectively. It only casts while standing still, and it doesn’t root, so when I move too soon I get a self interrupt, and the victim gets away. My mobility is fine given my utilities (instant meditations ftw) but the time it takes to cast the #5 means that everyone has more than enough time to walk out outside.

I just would like to be able to cast it on the move like the #4 skill, also a long cast time but I can at least have a chance to land the launch.

Alside from some issues letting players teleport out of the ring, it’d be perfect if it was usable in dynamic combat. Particularly in sPvP.

“of the Forge”
+toughness
Adds protection duration and burning duration
With aoe burn at 50% health.
Properly traited with a hammer. (I’m using 0,15,20,20,15)
Using larger/healing symbol traits and some shout/signet/consecration/meditation recharge time reduction with instant meditations; it’s a versatile survivable build.
Knights amulet and shamans jewels. Weapon inscription and utility’s based on play-style/scenario. Look for movement enhancing/burn creating utilities first.
Then proceed to play smart and win.

Also, how does burning on every third crit, compare to a 10% damage increase across the board for fire?

So to make the build viable, I should reconsider several things.

Perhaps switching my earth 10 talent to salt stones for more damage to bleeding foes, and changing out signet of air for something else, perhaps arcane power? I think I would want to keep the air talents if only for getting to the fight in WvWvW.
I would rely on the windborne dagger arcane talent for movement in battle I think.

Any suggestions on a revision of the utility skills?

Thanks! Yes that was what I was thinking, I misunderstood the conditions for how the various talents interacted.

Well, now I feel silly. And why would the air talent for 25% moment increase not stack with the air adept auto-talent? That just seems to waste the first 20seconds of air attunement in terms of speed increase.

This is what I’ve been using for my play-style, I’m mostly playing PvE and WvWvW.

All suggestions on increasing the effectiveness of the build are welcome.

Theory crafting for the build here:
10 (V) / 10 (IV) / 10 (VI) / 10 (IV) / 30 (V) (IX) (XI)

fire, 30%chance burning on crits, 20% chance burning when struck;
air, 35% movement increase;
earth, toughness, 5% damage at melee range;
water, 20% damage to vulnerable foes, health regeneration for self and allies;
arcane, fast attunement swapping, 15% movement increase (with daggers), boons on attunement, aoe on evades.

TLDR:

1. 50% movement speed
2. most talents synergize across elements
3. designed for damage even while using water to heal.
4. utilities:
   - signet of healing(small heal every cast)
   - arcane shield (in close and personal, so sometimes you need to block damage for an escape)
   - signet of fire (increased crit chance)
   - signet of air (10% movement brings total speed to 60%)
   - Tornado (not really a fan of any of the elites, dislike this one the least)

Spec other stats based on personal play-style, I try to balance between toughness vitality and precision.

Any thoughts on how to improve the build?
And how would you develop the build as you level?

The amazing artwork. And I stayed for the racial skills.
-Sylvari Elementalist
D/D air/water

I like the racials for my mage…
plus they are the best looking of any of the races.

D/D with an air/water focus for traits.
and staff for PvP
though, arcane power and scepter “dragons tooth” is awesome….