Guild Wars 2

Jekkt.6045:

the damage is mediocre compared to other berserker builds and fresh air needs to be played at 200% because 100 won’t be enough. 1 mistake and you get oneshot by a yolo mesmer or thief or guard or whatever… you can oneshot people aswell but they either have to be extremely stupid or you have to force all their stunbreaks/invuls before and it requires you to hit a full tooth phoenix air wave flash combo.

+1

You can one shot people, but its more likely you’ll be dead by the time they burn through their stunbreaks etc.
Due to the 33% reduction traits and the pressure of feeling like you have to use every single skill the moment the cd is up makes S/F feels a lot more spammy than it used to (hard to believe, I know) The pressure to use every skill is due to the power creep, its either pump out all your damage or get killed.

The max number of times a phoenix can hit while solo is 8, but that’s in an ideal situation. With a mesmer it can reach 10+ afaik (by using portal)

A build with Blinding Ashes and Fresh Air will be interesting. BA’s internal CD is being reduced to 3s, making it a much stronger trait when combined with chance to burn on crit- blinding your enemy every 3 seconds which will be extremely powerful vs almost all classes. However the bolt to the heart change is a bit of a nerf.
Also now that you have to go all the way into a trait line, it will be a tough choice between water or arcana. Water will give undoubtedly higher dps, but you will lack the perma vigor and boons you gain from arcane.

Elemelentalist and Yaspire are 2 pretty good D/D eles that produce quality videos regularly.

Elemelentalist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFdVDgf40OVizfafsihvIvw
Yaspire: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwn7Pk6GiS4JP6O21dawsYg

Hybrid GS/SB build I’ve been running: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARVjEqUwaDLusQ1aADBpdrQlYHoxCXFHQB-TFTAABbcBAya/BsV6ljmgJeAAbpMAgDBwOq/0xRA4Clg8pDgBTQkCAm5AA-w

Mainly focusses on the short cooldown stuns you have with GS and SB #5
Moment of Clarity is the main focus of the build, with Maul being your spike damage.
The 1k condition dmg and 60% bleed duration allows for some heavy pressure with bleeds (Easily maintains 10 stacks permanently which is about 1020 dmg a tick)

The stuns from weapons and imob from elite make locking down your enemy easy and since its an uncommon build people don’t usually know how to counter everything it deals out (CC, Spike and condi) and it also has decent toughness so you won’t be decimated by thieves, burst eles etc.
All in all I love running this build because its great fun and I love the playstyle and I’m thinking of doing a video on it soon since I have a few good fights recorded. I play it for fun, not because it’s the most viable etc.

Buell.3701:

it also has ridiculous survivability with Water3 and Earth2, and has the same mobility of d/d.

lol

KaporHabakuk.6219:

Was runing zerker in WvW for maybe half year,and i was dieing a lot.Any outmanned against not complete noobs,was complete fail.Dieing to one CnD-steal-BS combo aint that much funn in my eyes.But hey,if you say you can pull it off,and dont die that often,nice for you.I personally wouldnt recomend anyone,especially not for solo roaming.And in party you would be 1st target to go down,and pull whole team into defense mode.

Sadly i rarely see enemy eles run zerker,its funn to burst em down in 1-2sec.Ofc not if u count zerg meat in.

Yeah when I’m running with more than 3 people I change my zerker armor out for knights and switch my food etc. , knowing that I’ll most likely be focused. The last thing I’d want to be to my party it a liability!

aspirine.6852:

This looks like a terrible roaming build. You almost go down on one player, imagine a camp vet jumping in. Or in some cases even a deer can kill you
Very brave to be roaming with this build imo.

Roaming isn’t all “Build Wars 2” as people seem to think it is. If you play right its fairly easy to stay alive, manage your cooldowns and be aware of your surroundings.
And of course a full zerker thief is gonna hit a full zerker ele hard. Focus offers a lot of utility and FGS gives you mobility, while scepter does good damage.
There are way squisher builds out there that you can roam with (66002 S/D or S/F) and still be viable.

Lawful.5314:

Did i mention the music is great? I laughed quite a bit and it fits the Asura perfectly.
I can imagine little Asura’s singing that in the background in suits and with tall stage mic’s on sticks xD

EDIT: Btw one suggestion: ditch Arcane Blast for Earth Signet, will make landing your fire combo that much easier with the immobilize, and the bleed will replace the little burst Arcane Blast provides.

Yeah I try to make the music upbeat and happy in most of the videos because it suits the playstyle and character well :P

I’ve actually considered using Earth Signet, the passive and active are very strong and it would certainly help land some of the various combos, I’ll definitely give it a shot.

KaporHabakuk.6219:

You seem strugling in 1v1,not that much dps,but still squishie,no movement abils.I mean as solo roamer,i always equip myself to be ready to fight outmanned “not always win” and to counter anything i can meet and ready to run,when red tide comes for me.

The damage is pretty high, both burst and consistent. In terms of outnumbered fights, its all about terrain and how you can use it to your advantage, in most cases fighting on an open field with a build like this will get you killed if its a 1v2.
Also FGS is all the mobility you could ever need, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve popped my invuln and summoned a FGS in the middle of an enemy zerg and managed to survive. As lawful said, its all about experience and you have to move out your comfort zone if you want to try new things.

Lawful.5314:

Good stuff, but lol that guardian was so bad.
And it was funny how that thief almost every time at start would one-shot you.

Yeah the guardi wasn’t the best but he still hit pretty hard, especially with those stacks.

I also find it hard to predict when exactly a thief will hit and I hate wasting dodges so sometimes my caution can cost me a fight.

KaporHabakuk.6219:

Doesnt seem viable for solo roaming…

In what way?

Mattmatt.4962:

Solid build and nice play, just sad that most of the encounter were against very bad player.
I’ll just quote one of your commentary:
“6th Fight- Nothing really special, but the thief was pretty decent. The rock dog also threw me off guard a bit resulting in some clumsiness.”

This thief was everything exept “decent” he spammed 3 like a new be D/D would spamm 2 while you were invu ….

Yeah recent match ups seem to be lacking in any good roamers so I’m finding in hard to get any good clips, hence the long time between uploads.
I agree maybe “Decent” was a bit too generous but I based my judgement watching him fight other people in the OS rather than the actual fight itself, he might of just not been familiar with S/F.

None the less some of the fights in this video were vs rather sub-par players compared to my other uploads, I’ll be sure to increase quality next time even if it does take longer to find good fights.

Haven’t uploaded in a while so I just threw together some of the fights I’ve had the past couple of weeks. This video features 3 outnumbered fights along with a few duels and random encounters. Enjoy and as always, feedback is appreciated.

The build and songs are in the description along with some notes on each of the fights that gives my thoughts/ some background info to them.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Hmm I really want to test that out with engi med kit. A lot of the “on heal” bonuses proc just by swapping to the med kit, being able to pop aegis every 10 seconds without even using a skill would be ridiculously strong.

Someone actually did this a couple weeks ago, its pretty strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqCnue_6XRg

Lawful.5314:

Closed the video at 4 minutes, the PvP in the video is a bad example of your build.
First of all, a lot of these fights, like 80% of them, is you coming and finishing off enemies that were already fighting your team-mates and were low aka the illusion of good damage.
And the other part is you unloading every possible skillshot into scrubs that don’t even dodge and are unaware of whats happening around them.

i ran the same build for a while and let me tell you its problems:
1. Low hp
2. Mediocre damage

If you think the damage is high, then that is only because you are PvP’ing against idiots that are eating your dragon’s tooth, which is a major part of your rotation burst, otherwise if you will PvP against people who aren’t lazy to dodge around, its very difficult to land it, thus negating a good chunk of your damage, since you are running /F in your other hand and don’t have access to other offensive abilities and no escape if you run into someone who knows what he is doing.

You run 14k hp, a decently skilled player will burst you down with almost any class, before you can do any considerable damage without your dragon tooth.

If you played S/X ele you would know that dragons tooth is NOT a major part of your rotation burst. Dragons tooth is a high damaging skill, but a correctly placed phoenix will do way more damage. Dragons tooth is a good low cd skill to bait out dodges. If it hits, even better but if it doesn’t then you can still deal out considerable dps.
This build has high damage if used correctly. Saying an S/X ele has little damage outside of dragons tooth is just stupid.
If you were a good player you wouldn’t need to rely on a high health pool to keep you alive. S/f has many active defences: invuln, 2 blinds, increased armor, 2 missile defence and 2 condi removal skills. The focus also helps set up your burst with 2ccs.
In sPvP you shouldn’t be running away, and if you are its fairly easy to kite around terrain regardless of class/build.

Pretty much everything you said makes it look like you have no idea what your talking about.

Lawful.5314:

I was just wondering how viable focus builds then i ran into this 2013 video, with a ele running focus zerker and dealing insane WvW damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD1S_sP90Ao

Holy crap, seeing this video brings back so many memories. I remember this vid was what got me interested in fresh air after getting bored of D/D and I’ve never looked back since, its a shame its not nearly as powerful as it used to be but still fun as hell to play.

This is pretty useful for all the new eles wanting to try out a scepter build. I’m seeing an increasing amount of fresh air eles in WvW and PvP and some of them could use a video like this, good job :P

I would recommend full zerker for S/F ele. The survivability you gain from trying to go hybrid isn’t enough and your damage will suffer. Unless your small scale roaming (3-7 people) where you can afford to lose some damage. As an ele you’re most likely to get focussed so you should build in some minor defence (swapping a few zerks pieces for valk etc. and using an energy sigil over fire) But for solo roaming/duels and stuff, full zerks all the way.
S/F ele is pretty unforgiving especially if your full glass, and since you don’t have much experience I would say just take it easy and expect to die a lot at first. Once you learn your rotations and skills it gets easier.

ResJudicator.7916:

I’d recommend Ogre over Scholars, just cause you’ll lose the Scholar’s bonus in one hit (or less if your opponent has retal).

I’m not a fan of the rock dog you get from ogre runes, but I might get something other than scholar if I feel the bonus isn’t being used to its potential.

sorrychief.2563:

FrownyClown.8402:

your build is probably only good for duels. Duels vs other squishies. I dont see you lasting against a good d/d ele or a good warrior. This is easily fixed by changing your build. You need more vitality and shouldnt be using ruby orbs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhcM6c2zwkBd0ACAW4AQCoIKOFcBqhVA-TVCFwA+VCuRPAgHAggTAASlGoUbxqyMS7PoSVCCBYeCA-w

youd probably be better off running something like this if you want to duel.

full zerk or bust for s/f

I agree with sorrychief, S/F needs to be played full zerks otherwise you’re not getting the max potential you can get. I’ve tried hybrid sort of stuff before and it never usually works out. I run Doom Sigil when fighting vs a class with constant healing like ele or war.
When I’m running in a group in WvW I swap out some zerks stuff for knights and Valkyrie but for 1v1 duelling/roaming I find the full zerks to be most effective.

Kraljevo.2801:

Nice little fights, but seriously, who on earth still uses ruby orbs?

Pack, Strength, Hoelbrak, Pirate, Ogre, Eagle, all these are better than ruby orbs.

As I said in the description I’m waiting till I can buy a full set of scholar, ruby orbs are just a cheap place holder.

cursE.1794:

I agree with using blinding ashes instead of going into water/arcana because those defensive traits won’t really do it, you could start right away with the “lucky passive” and some more power.

These s/f fresh air burst builds are nice to watch and every ele should have played it at least once, but in the end it’s just a lot of button mashing and looking at your skillbar which of your cooldowns are available. There are simply too much uncertainties within fights to stick with such builds for a longer time imho. If an opponent does those two clutch dodges and you miss your burst, you’re screwed. Otherwise your opponent dies within 2 seconds. Of course you can now take the 50% of the fights where you got away with it and make an awesome ZOMG OLOLOL video out of it, but in reality you will die a lot with this. Because humans make mistakes. And lucky dodges will always happen. A more sustained build like d/d allows for making mistakes (for both sides) and will result in less “variation”, meaning that luck won’t play such a big role.

I tried out a blinding ashes build and it just didn’t feel that great and I couldn’t really get into it. I like playing S/F for the reason that its pretty unforgiving, especially compared to something like D/D. Winning longer fights just depends on who I’m fighting, but its always about playing aggressive and keeping pressure. The moment I let them heal up and prepare a counter attack, they have the upper hand. While my main burst is from the fire combos, I can still keep a decent amount of pressure on them with the lightning bursts every few seconds. Longer fights never usually go in my favor if its a class I know can out-sustain me (DD ele etc.) But vs most classes you find in the arena (Thieves, Mes, Engis and so on) I find long fights to be 50/50

A few of the duels/fights I’ve had the past week. Most are in OS and some random encounters, enjoy!
As always feedback is appreciated and build is in the description.

Roaming in WvW the past couple of days I’ve noticed that some thieves are applying around a 6sec chill, it’s mostly been S/D thieves but a couple D/P too. Is this a new build or something? I know that drake venom applies a short duration chill, but it definitely wasn’t that.

I’m most excited to see what the new Elite for this ‘Specialization’ will be, it can’t be worse than any of the ones we have atm.

Korimor.2406:

TomoHawkx.8139:

Maugetarr.6823:

I’m sort of new to S/F ele, so i just have a few questions. Against the thief, it seems like you didn’t use arc lighting very much, but wouldn’t that have cleared the blinds and procced the fire sigil more. Also starting AL then switching attunements pretty much guarantees Fresh Air triggering instantly. How come you use arcane blast rather than wave? It seems like you could have downed the thief inside of SR/while stealthed a couple of times with it which would justify the longer CD.

IMO arc lightning is useless, the damage is way too low and its awkward to cast. It is useful for proccing sigils, but its not effective to clear blinds (since the thief only blinds me when he’s up close and AL is hard to cast against a constantly moving/dodging enemy)
You’re right about arcane wave instead of blast in that fight though, I just didn’t seem to think of it at the time :P

arc lightning is one of your best skills lol. you can cast it while hitting 2 and 3 then swap at the same time and it will still be casting with a good opportunity of critting and proccing sigils as well as proccing air back up…. but if it’s useless I guess its useless…

I failed to mention that I was talking about AL vs a thief(my bad). I think that against other ranged classes or ones that don’t teleport constantly it can be very useful. In my latest video I use it a lot but as I said it can be situational.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/preview-of-upcoming-balance-changes/

So ele is getting nerfed pretty hard in the upcoming changes, the D/D specs will suffer the most but it’s a well needed change imo. Might is getting an overall nerf, on top of that so is Sigil of Battle. Though its good to see some well needed Scepter buffs.
Opinions?

Hamster.4861:

Only things that stick out to me were -

Rock Barrier: You are almost always using your hurl as soon as you put up rock barrier. You will gain a considerable amount of toughness by keeping it up. Some of the longer fights you had, it would have been beneficial to keep the rock barrier up.

Fire shield: I will need to watch again, but i only saw you using Fire shield once or twice during the video. while you’re questing about looking for where to lay down your burst with the phoenix, and you’re still getting pew pewed (like in your fight with the Pistol teef, rangers or engineers) you can punish them and might yourself by using your fire shield more.

Yeah the rock barrier thing is just a bad habbit that I need to stop doing so often and take advantage of the passive, I sometimes use it to bait out dodges at the start of a fight so that my burst has more chance to land.
Also not using fire shield is another bad habbit that I need to quit.

Another video showing off some of the fun fights/duels I had during this weeks matchup, build in description and any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks and enjoy.

Maugetarr.6823:

I’m sort of new to S/F ele, so i just have a few questions. Against the thief, it seems like you didn’t use arc lighting very much, but wouldn’t that have cleared the blinds and procced the fire sigil more. Also starting AL then switching attunements pretty much guarantees Fresh Air triggering instantly. How come you use arcane blast rather than wave? It seems like you could have downed the thief inside of SR/while stealthed a couple of times with it which would justify the longer CD.

IMO arc lightning is useless, the damage is way too low and its awkward to cast. It is useful for proccing sigils, but its not effective to clear blinds (since the thief only blinds me when he’s up close and AL is hard to cast against a constantly moving/dodging enemy)
You’re right about arcane wave instead of blast in that fight though, I just didn’t seem to think of it at the time :P

Gokil.2543:

I personally run 66002, and find that the increased damage and blindspam are more effective at keeping me alive than a little healing which doesn’t help much on a 2k armor build. Might wanna give it a shot. The burst cleanse from burning fire gives you the upper hand in almost every duel.

One last thing, I noticed you used maintenance oil in your reddit post, I’d strongly advise changing that to sharpening stone, since the overall damage is much better.

Nice, I’ll try it out! and yeah my prec is high enough so I’ll switch out to stones, thanks.

Yeah I screw up a few times, I only usually do LF combos when I know I can hit them but with the constant stealth/teleport and blinds I’m cautious to blow my skills with the risk of them missing. I know, it pains me watching back on some of the fights knowing I could of won if I just burst a bit faster and more efficiently (I waste arcane blast quite a few times)
As I said its taking some use getting use to the offhand focus but I think I prefer it more than dagger for its utility and it has better synergy with scepter. I also blew a few dodges that I didn’t need too which didn’t help. I just need to be less cautious and more aware instead of flailing.

Thanks for the feedback its appreciated! and btw the band is “The Asteroids Galaxy Tour”

Just a couple of duels I had with a talented thief this morning plus a few other fights, enjoy!
Feel free to leave any feedback since I’m new to s/f (usually play s/d) I make a few mistakes with my combos and panic at times but I’m still getting used to the focus.

Just a quick video of some of the fun fights I had over the weekend, I make a few mistakes since I’m a bit rusty on ranger. Enjoy!

Melee ranger is fun and I encourage people to give it a shot

Only posting because this bug was supposedly fixed. Received almost 40k damage in a couple of seconds. Screenshot taken 2 hours ago

Auron from Final Fantasy 10

Someone in my guild also got their chest early.

The lightning auto attack is broken, look at your combat log to see how much the attack is really hitting for. The numbers will be a lot lower.

My sniper/assassin warrior

Devs are fixing it atm

People are speculating that with the return of the Crown Pavilion , t6 prices will fall due to the crazy champ farm. So if you’re gonna buy them off the TP, try and get most of them during the next few weeks if you want to save some gold. I just completed my gift of fortune today, couldn’t of done it without the help from my guildies

I got 12 gold selling whispers in a period of 40 mins

Buttercup.5871:

Because they’re OP in WvW. Leave them as a drop in the BL chests only.

15% movement speed is “OP”? loooool

Yes the upgrade extractor is capable of doing that.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Hambow warr:“Lol blind spamming thief no skill class”

that’s pretty rich coming from a hambow warrior lol

It shot up in price because of the release of the wardrobe system, people want every skin they can get their hands on. It will spike but most likely stabilise again in price after a while. Also the Zephyr Sanctum might be returning this year so chances are that the skin will be dropping again. I don’t think its a worthwhile investment, but that’s just my opinion.

30 seconds a day?? insanity! plz nerf

Most people that use earth shield usually run condi builds with perplex runes, you get 2 interrupts with it so its quite useful. I’ve never used it before in a pvp situation but from my experience its clunky and slow, but it might be useful for tanking if specced right.

Ozx.5683:

your main burst combo will be done by starting off in earth attunement with rock barrier/hurl. then switching to air attunement using lightning strike and arcane blast. Make sure you have your auto attack turned off in Earth because you’ll want to be using Arc lightning, not Stone Shards.

I would recommend saving arcane blast for fire attunment. Once you go into fire, cast dragons tooth and when the tooth is in the in the air, start casting fire grab, while thats channelling use arcane blast to proc fresh air and switch to air attunment. If you can pull this off your dragons tooth and fire grab have 10% increased dmg (due to your air trait). You’ll have to cc/imob them for this so updraft them or earthquake + lightning flash onto them for even more damage (target enemies with lack of stability eg. necros, rangers or engi). This combo is really powerful and can hit for 16-22k damage, most of it aoe so it can be a game changer in small fights

Seems like a good build overall, but as soon as you are focussed in a group you wont last very long, I also use an s/d group roaming build that has pretty decent survivability (2.6k armor and 18k health) while being able to pull of a very high damage burst.