Guild Wars 2

Kodiak.3281
dunno

Nikkinella.8254/Zelyhn.8069
That’d be awesome if they did, but I highly doubt it :S
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I updated the build guide to be relevant / made it easier to read:

http://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/3-build-and-gear-setup-updated/

Quick Update on what I run atm:

0/0/20/20/30
Signet of Air, Mistform, LF, FGS
All celestial Armor/weapons + celestial trinkets / cavalier mix

0/30/0/10/30
Armor of Earth, Mistform, LF, FGS
All celestial weapons/armor, 5 cavalier trinkets, 1 celestial amulet

Incase anyone wants to know how to defeat Liadri, here’s my build setup:

0/0/20/20/30 (same one as on my guide)
https://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/3-build-and-gear-setup-updated/

Utilities:
Ether renewal, lightning flash, arcane shield, mist form

Elite:
Fiery great sword

Food:
Lemongrass poultry
Superior Sharpening stones
(Alternative, opt for orian truffles to grant +40% endurance reg)
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From dulfy’s guide:
http://dulfy.net/2013/08/06/gw2-queens-gauntlet-guide/#12

Make sure to:
1. Turn off post processing in options
2. Party with someone so you can call target (CTRL+T)
3. Scroll your camera all the way back to see impending shadowfalls

You can use D/D, S/F, S/D, or staff here. Personally I prefer D/D because I have much better control than the other weapon setups.

Phase 1:
Keep swapping attunements to upkeep your healing. If your using D/D, use long range abilities in phase 1 to aggro the clone bombs toward the white areas. Long range abilities include Fire2, Water2, Water1, etc.

If your stuck in an area about to get hit by shadowfall, time your dodge such that you dodge once shadowfall hits. Otherwise resort to arcane shield to block, LF, or mistform (not recommended though) or if you can just simply walk out of it.

Oh and make sure to kill those orbs otherwise they pull you. When you get downed for any reason, quickly filter through targets and find one if possible, if not delay your vapor form to hopefully find an orb.

Phase 2:
Liadri will go melee you / daggerstorm which in all honesty doesn’t really do that much damage to your high healing rate. The real problem is the clone bombs and the much larger range of shadowfall.

Shadowfall’s instant KO ring has a safe zone that goes around in a circle, so just circle your way around. Its actually much easier for an ele to do it thanks to FGS. Make sure to summon your elite FGS right after phase 1 is done.

Use the following:
1. FGS’s 1st ability to primarily deal damage to Liadri. This ability has a 360* range cast type, so you can run around in circles without ever having to look at Liadri while dealing damage.
2. FGS’s 3rd ability to reposition yourself into the safe zones. It also acts as a dodge, so you can literally stay in shadowfall the entire time and simply dodge it using the 3rd ability. Sometimes you’ll be casting FGS’s 1st ability and need to use FGS’s 3rd ability to dodge, and it doesn’t work.
You can cancel your attack by pressing [ESCAPE]

3. Use lightning flash + FGS’s 4th ability if you get the chance. You might die on the clones but chances are you’ll kill them at the same time, allowing a rally.

4. After you burnt out your FGS’s (and its pick ups), you need to just use your remaining abilities to finish her last ~20% HP. Personally I used D/D long range attacks.

Raif.9507

I think thats a good alternative to mix and match sets if you don’t like going celestial. I guess the question is how much you value stats other than power, prec, crit dmg and toughness. For me I like a balance of everything, it allows me to be more versatile in any situation :].

Bovinity.8610/Kyon.9735/Nikkinella.8254
For the tradeoff in power, that is why I use superior sharpening stones to balance it off. Also bloodlust helps in offsetting power loss, and its fairly easy to obtain at least 9 stacks of might in combat from just weapon swapping.

Also I suggested using cavalier rings, backpiece, and one accessory (you could opt for more anyhow).

oZii.2864
I agree with you on the weighing stats for celestial. That is why in my calculations in finding stat point trade off for celestial vs knight items I assign the following weights:

https://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/
-> Celestial stat analysis

Weighted values for stat types:
1 : Critical damage, power, precision, and toughness
0.5: Vitality, condition damage, healing power.

Now I could have assigned all stats in equal weights. But that would not make sense, since I’m happy where my vitality, healing power, and condition damage are at.
If you had assigned a higher value for those traits, critical damage wouldn’t be worth as much, and power would be worth a lot more.

Magic find is not really relevant

Rhythm.7256
Well like I said earlier, mixing and matching is dependant on how much you value each trait. I like having all traits, for versatility reasons. For instance, condition damage is worth more when your fighting heavily armored opponents. Healing power makes a difference when your constantly fighting and need to recover quickly. Vitality to prevent burst attacks, etc.

I haven’t tested my attack , but attack is just a gauge for damage. Its not used in any calculations, power, critical damage, and precision are.

Also sacrificing runes for divinity / ruby is not worth it imo, even though it gives you much more attack. However, attack is just an inflated value. That 30-40% additional boon duration goes miles to increased sustained DPS, survivability, etc. Its like a hidden attribute that boosts everything up basically.

Rega.2719
rephrased question:
“Can you build your build on some form of template”

Sure here you go Rega :]. This build is a little generic though toward most setups, but this will give you the general idea :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJAoYhEmmbwR5wjDAkCnIeYhDSUeMTO2A-jkyAo+ASQAJRAJ/ioxWGDS1Nal3wqqFS12Yq4ILDAzYA-w

If you want an overview over all of the gear, traits, and skills involved in detail for WvW, PvE, sPvP, etc. check out my compiled build list on my webby :]

https://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/3-build-and-gear-setup-updated/

oZii.2864
I’m taking a break from making videos :S

Zumy.6318
Your build is definitely viable! 0/20/0/20/30 is like a hybrid mix of other reasonably traited setups. 2x rune superior monk and 2x superior water is definitely a must have, and the last 2 runes are really optional. You could opt with really anything, although I prefer 2x major water or 2x melandru. In my opinion, if your opting for more might, I would suggest going 2x major water, as 10% buff increased over all buffs is superior to 20% might duration increase.

neven.3785
I put all of my recommended items/sets in Rega’s response and my webby link
As to your specific setup, I would opt celestial for berserker’s anyday. It provides the same amount of critical damage, if not more. Also you should never go more than 2x superior melandru.
When I originally created the 0/0/20/20/30 tanky WvW setup, I opted for 6x superior melandru with the addition of lemongrass + the earth 33% CC trait (before all the warrior craze with their new copycat trait). It would provide 98% CC reduction to chills, cripples, immobilize, but you’d sacrifice 30% boon duration, which was a big hit to both defense and offense. I never really have a problem with cc’s at 2x superior melandru (83% CC reduction to chills, cripple, immobilize using 0/0/20/20/30 setup)

Nice guide, thanks for doing this for the ele community :]

Zelyhn.8069

Nice read! I like all of the analysis that you’ve done and for this community :]
I’m going assume all your math is right because I can’t double check all those values lol

I did have a question though on your analysis, something that I haven’t really put a number too

“Max EHP = vitality . 10 . armor
EHP/s = (base heals + coefficients . healing power) . armor / offtimes”

A value for “offtimes” is something that is somewhat difficult to put a value to. Depending on the situation, it might be never, or it might be every few seconds if your extremely pressured / in a heavy terrain jungle.
As you stated earlier in your post, sometimes the situation will be too easy, and hence you’ll waste your EHP/s when it could have been fulfilled with more DPS.
Sometimes the situation will be too hard, in this case EHP/s has a higher priority over DPS.

I usually like to build my setups to fight most, if not all situations. I like to focus on EHP/s because I realize that you can simply stack might in combat when the need for more DPS arises. Max EHP just needs to be satisfactory enough (through experience) that I can react fast enough and not get instagibbed by burst thieves.

On a different topic, I’m not entirely sure why you did a stat analysis between 0/30/0/20/20 and 0/30/0/10/30. For science is always an obvious answer :P. But really the most significant difference between these two builds is the traits, Evasive arcana and attunement CD vs. Water15’s passive heal trait.
edit: I can see why you did the analysis to do analysis on the gear setup after.

“I need more data on the Ice elemental: "
I’m fairly positive that ice elemental offers a full heal, at maximum once per summon. I can’t really remember the exact conditions for it to happen, but I’m sure someone like Zoose would know, or another sPvP’er.

I think the biggest question is this:
What is the optimal amount of damage traits vs. defense traits for common situations?
We can easily do the calculations to figure out the right mix of precision, power, and critical damage with the right assumptions. But how do you compare that vs. max EHP, and EHP/s?
Toughness affects both max EHP and EHP/s which is why I assign it a high value for a stat. It does have diminishing returns though.
On my guide I stated 1600 toughness is a good number by experience. But there must be some estimate you can make for toughness (at the very least) vs. offensive stats. If you can determine this value by some means, then you can figure out how many cavalier (power ,toughness, critical damage) items you should optimally have over celestial items.

protomic.4627
“Took a look through the Celestial Gear analysis and it looks like it could be good. As you said, the analysis focused mainly on Fresh Air 0/30/0/10/30 builds, but I still prefer 0/10/10/20/30 bunker for D/D mainly for PvE. Is Celestial still viable over Knight’s gear in that build, or does it lose too much damage (power/prec/crit%) from not allocating points to air? If that is the case, is it still better to take Celestial on the helm and possibly one or two other pieces?”

I wrote a new response on the blog, and I believe you asked the question to the first one. For the last question, I would take celestial on items that have much more weighting first, i.e. coat / legs. These items offer more stats than the other pieces yet still have a fixed cost of 5 quartz crystals (to my knowledge)

FirstBlood.7359

Your statements are correct. In PvP, investing 30 points in water is definitely a big advantage for your team, and that outweighs the traitlines in other areas for D/D at least (such as earth). Then you’d still want to invest in 30 points in arcana, and well the rest in air for perma swiftness.. 30 points in air for D/D has too many drawbacks in sPvP, due to lack of survivability.
However in PvE and WvWvW, I don’t really think it matters too much. I think min/maxing is the most important aspect for both of them. Your setup doesn’t need to be tailored for a specific reason in these instances, unless you want to run a particular weapon type (staff for zerg WvWvW). In sPvP, synergy is much, much more important. Every little change in traitline makes a significant difference, especially since you have less stat points to work around. This brings out specific builds / trait/ gear roles, such as burst support, solo tanky point cap, roamer, etc.

I made some errors on my wordpress blog

https://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/

You should actually invest in both superior sharpening stones, and bloodlust/battle sigil.
Stick with celestial armor + weapons
Same runes (2x melandru, 2x monk, 2x water)
Go with power,toughness, critical damage rings (2) and an optional power, toughness, critical damage accessory (1), and the already power,toughness, critical damage backpiece. The rest of the trinkets should stay full celestial
This applies to all trait setups

@Bismuth

I’ve read about the 30/30/0/10/0 (or any 30/30/x/x/x) based build for PvE S/D.
In my opinion, I don’t see why you’d want those traitlines. I can see the logic as to why 30 points in fire might be worth it, since you can grant allies permanent fury with the new trait:
Persisting Flame: Updated this trait to also allow blast finishers to give fury (10 seconds) as well as might.

But really, the permanent fury that you can gain from this setup is really, really trivial in the long run. Its because your sacrificing so much just for fury. You lose out on maintaining buffs to allies, overall defense, overall offense due to inefficient trait setups, and more.

If you really wanted to maximize your DPS, you would go invest points in arcana regardless, even though it doesn’t directly increase your DPS. Indirectly, it does so much toward increasing your DPS and survivability. Longer boon durations, more choices in combats, ability to stack might using sigil of battle, ability to stack might more often using fire/earth attunement, more inherent healing/defense leading to reduced downtime (and less staying on the floor dead). Those all add up to more overall DPS, or what you actually do in combat.

As to maintaining 25 stacks of might on S/D, you could already do that with D/D. It doesn’t matter how long good your damage is if your dead on the floor half the time.

Fractals is also one of the more harder PvE areas. You want to build tanky to survive most agony encounters, as well as heal off any hard hitting attacks from bosses ASAP.

Tldr; Don’t invest in fire. The other traitlines are way better.

I made a wordpress website, with the celestial stat analysis + revised guide
I had to teach myself how to use wordpress, so it might look slightly shabby :P
Any input is welcomed

http://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/

Raif.9507
To your question on whether celestial stats will be viable, I’ve written a 10 page analysis on it, will post it fairly soon (on my new website once I finish sticking in menus)

Flux Qemist.6712
To re-phrase your question “S/D fresh air builds are great, but what about D/D?”
From what Zelyhn.8069 (I’ve read some of your analysis, there awesome :P), the air15’s lightning strike is half the damage of lightning whip. I’m going assume this statement is correct.
D/D elementalist do not benefit as much from fresh air as staff and S/D as mentioned previously. 0/15/10/15/30 or 0/10/10/20/30 are imo, is generally a much tankier build setup. This build setup is imo superior to fresh air setups in sPvP and mostly everything else. For PvE, a fresh air D/D build does much more single target damage imo. For WvWvW, there really isn’t a clear winner.
As vinceftw states, it gives us two completely viable builds for PvE (well 3 actually, if you consider 0/0/20/20/30, 0/15/10/15/30 + variants, and 0/30/0/10/30 + variants).

I still think S/D and Staff are extremely great setups using 30 points in air, with tempest defense and fresh air. S/D is a bit lackluster when it comes to applying consistent pressure to an enemy, and fresh air helps close that gap.

I think people are also forgetting the fact that when you use air2, air1, and air15’s proc all at the same time, the damage shown on the enemy is the combination of all of the skills.

I’ll have more details later on celestial stats, invest in them for now :P.
(It takes 70days to get a whole set anyways)

Sorry the late reply, I’ll try to answer as best as I can on current updates / responses, since I missed one cycle of updates.

Ancient Ranger.3276/Yuki Chuki.2457/Wolfaen.9461/kartana.3769
“So do you think D/D isn’t viable anymore? Or are you just having a better or more fun time playing S/D and Staff?”

I’m spending a lot of time writing a celestial stat analysis / post udpate analysis and atm organizing a website since updating my guide is rather tedious with this forum’s features.
I was too overexcited about ranged changes using fresh air. D/D is definitely still viable, as others have mentioned. Like from what Mpiftekis.1529 and others stated, the two main builds for D/D that does not utilize fresh air are :

0/15/10/15/30 (a variation of 0/15/0/25/30)
0/10/10/20/30 (variation of the traditional 0/10/0/30/30)
Traits you would pick for D/D are

Swiftness + Fury on aura cast
10% more damage if target <600 units away
Cantrips grant reg. and vigor (and 50% fall down damage trait for 20water points)
Standard 5,6,11 arcana traits.

Mpiftekis.1529/Salar.7285
To your question regarding 0/0/20/20/30 setup as still viable, it is still viable. Note that this build was meant entirely for WvWvW, and I ran it in all my recent videos.The build itself hasn’t actually changed at all. The only downside is the nerf of Pots of Hylek Poison all together, which has been removed from WvWvW. This means you’ll have a harder time maintaining swiftness, or in this case you’ll get outrunned and flanked.
So in a sense, its not as great as it was before. You could, however, use the new signet of air trait since it is a stun breaker now, over cleansing flame. Then it would be viable. But if you use signet of air as a stun breaker, be warned you would need to counteract the swiftness loss somehow using air attunement.
The new setup would be :

0/0/20/20/30
Earth traits: 33% reduction on CCs, at 50% HP grant armor of earth
Water traits: 50% fall down dmg reduction, Cantrips grant reg and vigor
Arcana: Standard 5,6,11 traits

Utilities: Ether renewal, LF, signet of air, and Mistform
Same weapons and gear

Thats what the alternate build is for :]

The 0/30/10/0/30 does require A LOT of intensive button pushing. Sometimes I do find myself swapping attunements out of air just to swap back into air asap, to get the free air15 spell.

You don’t really need to cast half the spells in the other attunements anyways. Water doesn’t offer much except its’ 3rd, 4th, and 5th ability for healing. Earth mainly for its 2nd and 4th ability, and maybe its 3rd (I barely use churning as S/D). Fire is used primarily for 3rd, 4th, and 5th ability (Dragon’s tooth always misses against a decent player). Use EA’s dodge roll to proc burning into 5th ability. I only auto attack in the other attunements if I’m shut off from air, and need a critical to proc fresh air (water 1 earth 1 both hit 3xs a cast, 3 chances for a crit).
The way I currently use S/D, I don’t stay on attunements very long. I use on average 3 abilities every attunement swap as I get the most bang for my cast times, and swap frequently to quickly air burst someone down. Quickly spamming attunements also allows me permanent fury.

Hey guys,

Here’s my favorite builds so far post patch. They both revolve around “Fresh Air” since it is extremely powerful (broken too, but still probably powerful after hotfix).

I use for the most part the same armor / gear setup:
Gear : http://tinyurl.com/daphoenixBuild6

0/30/10/0/30
Traits:
For S/D
Air – > 10% more damage in air, 20% more damage if target <33% HP, Fresh Air (Recharge air attunement upon critical)
Earth → 10% more damage if <600 units away
Arcana → Standard traits → 5,6,11

For Staff
Earth→ At 50% Hp, gain armor of earth
Arcana → Blasting staff trait over the vigor trait

Skillset → Ether Renewal. Mistform, LF, Armor of Earth. Fiery GreatSword

Logic behind traits chosen: It is essential to either have 15 water (passive heal), or 30 arcana (EA) as these are your 2 main healing methods. Since you need 30 points in air, you can’t have 15 in water while having 30 in arcana, thereby reducing the recharge rate of water15’s passive heal. So 30 in arcana is logical, plus it offers low CD attunements.

Fresh Air is so effective because it procs air15’s passive, a lightning strike that deals single target damage if enemy is in range combined with the instant S/D’s air 2 lightning strike. You can essentially cast get free 4 single target air15 spells within a ~10second duration, totaling to 4~8k damage. You need to have other attunements ready to swap in and out of air constantly, hence the 30 in arcana. Constantly swapping in and out of air offers another feature → permanent fury through swapping attunements, and permanent swiftness through arcana 5.

Stone splitters is chosen due to its reliable 10% DPS; you are going to be fighting enemies <600 units most of the time to land fire spells.

Alternate build
0/30/0/20/20
Air → Same as above
Water → 3,8 (Cantrips grant regen and vigor, and 50% reduced fall dmg)
Arcana → 5,6

This build is similar to the one above, but offers a different set of utility / defense

Just tested out fresh air, its broken and has no CD (states its 5 seconds).

Earth has a notable grandmaster trait – Diamond skin. 10% of your toughness is added into condition damage. S/D and S/F ele’s can cap their toughness over 2000, or a solid 200 condition damage. This adds on the already 300 condition damage as part of a 30 point earth investment. You could possibly be seeing tanky S/D cond. specs utilizing this trait with the new serrated stones (5% damage while bleed, 20% bleed duration) to spam condition damage for mainly PvE oriented purposes.
Fire’s traitlines still seem mediocre. Arcana’s buff with windborne dagger doesn’t change anything since D/D elementalists have permanent swiftness access already, and speed buffs don’t stack past 33%.
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For the utilities, cantrips no longer are stun breakers, with the exception of armor of earth? and mistform. For D/D setups, mistform is still going to be a must have in tight situations. LF teleports, so its not necessary vital that a stun breaker is actually needed on it. Cleansing flame takes most of the nerf.
Glyph of elemental power now a stun breaker – >This is an ability to be used on CD, so having it as a stun break as well means defeats the purpose of the skill.
Signet of air → Now a stun breaker. This could now be used toward S/D and staff setups, where achieving perma swiftness is more difficult than D/D.

TL;DR;
Don’t invest past 20 points in water unless you are going aura share. Invest at minimum 20 points in arcana for CD attunement reduction, 30 points for evasive arcana. Evasive arcana is still superior due to its 10 second water roll CD heal. Air’s grandmaster traits apply mostly toward S/D users, as its long CD benefits ranged users, S/D’s updraft can be used in conjunction with burst (20% damage increase), and the lack of shocking aura and nerfs to cantrips for stun breaks makes you more susceptible to burst. D/D’s receive an overall nerf because of cantrips. Staff, focus, underwater skills are buffed.

With the upcoming leaks, here is my opinion on how I feel about it:
Staff (and focus, but not as much) is overall buffed, no doubt about that. Half the notes are directly related to reducing the aftercast and cast time leading to overall increased DPS. This will definitely make the staff elementalist much more kite-effective.
One notable buff is meteor shower, with a reduced cast time and increased area size per meteor strike. IIRC, a total of about ~50 meteors land in the field upon a full cast, with more meteors if blasting trait is taken. Each meteor has an AoE cap at 5 targets, and its original AoE strike size of 90, although you don’t normally utilize its AoE potential most of the time.
Gust’s buff seems interesting as well. It knocks back all enemies in a line (most likely target cap of 5). This could be potentially useful in prolonging a squad of enemies from capturing a point, or potentially knocking more than 1 person off a cliff.
Underwater skills were buffed as well, with a debatable nerf/buff to electrocute.
-
For Scepter, the most noticeable buff is phoenix. “Doubled the velocity, add unblockable skill fact”. Phoenix procs up to 3xs, 1st a PBAoE upon cast, 2nd a damage upon phoenix passing through enemy, and another 3rd a PBAoE on your location. With the buffs, it would make it much easier to land the 2nd and 3rd part of the damage, making S/D’s much more reliable in DPS. The “unblockable” is rather vague in notes, since phoenix can proc 3 times
-
For builds now, before these notes, water and arcana rained supreme to all other traitlines, with air next in line, followed by earth and then fire. Fire will still be inferior if these notes are correct (Not sure why you’d pick lava tomb, a good elementalist does not get downed unless seriously outmatched, in which case you are going to die regardless). Air shows much more promise due to the tempest defense buff, a 60 second CD and a 20% damage increased toward stunned/knockdowned foes as water’s value is diminished due to bountiful power’s nerf from 2% damage per boon to 1%. Note that you can maintain 4-5 boons at all times with boon duration gear, so this leads to a rough 5% nerf toward damage for bountiful power. Tempest defense would be inclined more toward ranged setups, such as staff and S/D since D/X setup already has shocking aura, and ranged users would not be placed into harms way as often.
Air has another notable trait – Fresh air. Critical strikes will recharge air attunement, meaning you can potentially spam air’s passive 15 trait skill, which does ~2k damage when building bursty. S/D’s air 2 skill with its no CD cast and 5 second CD, can be spammed as well. If this buff adds a reasonable CD reduction, then S/D builds revolving around constantly spamming air for 2 burst skills every ~5 seconds can be viable.

oZii.2864

I put 15 up to showcase how to use fall down points to your advantage

Faux Sheaux.6179
I guess its pretty surprising people listen to my rambo :P

devurandom.4256
PvP variant would be utilizing a 0/10/0/30/30 setup with aura share for team based setups.
Traits:
Air1
Water 3,5,12
Arcana 5,6,11

Aura share (water12) is vital for teamplay imo, but if you want to opt for a more solo style setup go for (water 11) trait.

For the runes, I would suggest 6 rune of the ogre.
Sigils → Sigil of Geomancy (Bleed nearby enemies upon swapping weapons)
→ 5% damage buff.

I don’t recommend +10 stats per kill since you will most likely be dying and therefore losing stats. Any sigil with a cd shares with cds on other sigils. Sigil of battle is not used since boon are harder to sustain in tPvP due to reduced boon duration.

Atoss.1056
:P

Purist.3175/oZii.2864
the -30 boon duration is a really bummer though imo. It helps a lot with sustaining defensive buffs such as swiftness, protection, and regeneration.

Ancient Ranger.3276
I opt for neither, since critical damage is Best in Slot on accessory items, hence why I use +all stat items.

kronen.8954
I still use the same setup, since this last update was more of a bug fix if anything

oZii.2864
Anyone that I come across as too “tanky” I simply ignore in WvW. They’re not worth the effort :]

Mpiftekis.1529
I’ve been playing LoL recently, the singed trololol reference is pretty suitable to the 0/0/20/20/30 setup I’m using.

+infinity, you answered everything for me in great detail better than I would

oZii.2864

Np.

TGSlasher.1458

Well they finally nerfed infinite underwater to land air4 / earth 4 finally, which was kind of op but really fun to do :P

Other than that, I think they’re fine. RtL still kind of blows though >_>

oZii.2864
20 Power ~ 1% crit dmg. I did this off some calculations I found on reddit, its in the links in table of contents.

From wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit
Expected damage = Base damage * (((0.50 + Critical Damage / 100) * (Critical Chance / 100)) + 1)
I find 50% crit chance (fury included) and 50-75% crit damage (not including base 50% crit damage) to be a optimized DPS setting.

Normally when I think of crit damage / crit chance, I think of geometry.
Think of building of a fence enclosing your house. The fence’s perimeter is affected by the length (crit dmg) + width (crit chance). The fence’s enclosed area (damage) is length * width. Theoretically, a square has the biggest area (dmg) for the lowest perimeter (stats, crit dmg and chance), or the best bang for your buck.
However, now you have to factor in the $$$ (Opportunity cost of other stats) to build said fence. You want to build the cheapest fence line with the most area (damage). Unfortunately, the critical damage fence and the critical chance fence do not cost the same, and they actually vary in price on previous decisions you make (aka the stat choices on your other armor pieces!). This is because you could’ve obtained more precision / crit damage had you gone berserker over knights armor, for instance. But you traded off defense, which is a whole other issue. Then you must factor in that you occasionally get a 20 unit crit chance fence (fury), and a free 50 units of crit dmg fence (base crit dmg).
So now your fence is no longer a square, but a rectangle. If you consider the units of your fence lines by cost, it’s a square. If you consider it via crit chance vs. crit dmg units, it’s a rectangle.
Janairo.4289 / oZii.2864
PvP (Heart of the mists) differs from WvWvW and PvE. This is because in PvP, your skills are actually reduced. For instance, the passive 15 water trait is halved. Evasive arcanas dodge roll heal Is halved. Your boon duration runes are reduced as well. In addition, your choice in stats and customization is very limited, and your overall total stats as well.
PvP therefore requires a different style of gameplay. For gear, I use amulet → Valkyries. Runes – 2x superior rune monk, 2x sup. Water, 2x divinities, or 6 runes of the ogre.
In PvP, you can decide what role you want to play. You have to pick one, you can’t have everything. Do you want to play as a roaming tanky solo player? Or you do want to be a supportive, DPS team ganker?
PvP also gives you lots of oppurtunities to abuse terrain, since most maps are pretty compact and objective points have walls/obstacles. Utilization of terrain is really imo the deciding factor of how well you do in surviving PvP.
TGSlasher.1458
I guess whatever floats your boat then :P
SAKRAY.3690
It’s got a 5 second CD now due to nerfs IIRC. Can’t remember if this was per enemy or not though.
Either way lemongrass poultry -40% condition duration is flat out amazing though.
On your latest comment, remember you can customize your armor, and your traits seperaretly. You can do 0/0/20/20/30 and run mostly berserker stat gear and still perform well. Or you can run 0/10/0/30/30, and its variations (more air over water) with a more defensive tanky gear setup. Both would perform well in most situations, try both out and pick the one that feels better
If you want to be purely aggressive, go with the latter build, and berserker gear

Mpiftekis.1529
:P. I know I should respond more often, but I usually like to type out super long, detailed responses which take forever to type out and I prefer to do it all in one go.

1. Your right. Toughness and power are must haves. Healing power is a great addition but not necessary, eles have already really high base healing. All stats is chosen since the elementalist utilizes all stats effectively, unlike other classes that have only access to 1 or 2 heals, tradeoffs between conditions / normal damage, etc.

2. Divinity’s is overrated. It cost way too much money for the return you get out of it, and the returns are really mediocre at best anyways. Since your getting 2x superior rune water, and 2x superior rune monk, you’ll need 2 more runes. Those 2 can be either 2 major water, or 2x superior rune melandru.

SAKRAY.3690
The major reasoning for +all stats I listed in the table of contents under section 7 in table of contents.

To give you a short summary, its because the total sum of stats you get + % crit dmg outweighs any other ascended item. You can’t really put an exact value to how much each stat is worth relative to each other (Power vs. Toughness, for instance), but the elementalist does benefit more than any other class with +all stat items.
Your question is pointed toward why not sacrifice more healing power for more DPS.

Healing power scales linearly. Toughness has diminishing returns. Power, crit dmg, precision all scale together. Condition damage scales linearly.

To put it bluntly, your going to have alot of toughness already with the other gear. Healing power will have a higher return as you have more toughness, and you need both healing power and toughness to survive. Vitality prevents you from being instagibbed, so you need to have a bare mininum amount of HP of at least 15k, and more does help. Vitality doesn’t come that easy since you are getting knight stat items, so the +All stat item fills that gap. +all stat items also grants power, precision, and crit dmg which are all essential to doing damage as well. Condition damage on the +all stat is just an added bonus, and is worth the least of all the other stats since its return is flat (plus you get condition damage from might anyways)

You could put a lot of calculations explaining why +all stats is superior, but its better to just put logical reasoning behind it since you can’t quantify how much X is better than Y in terms of stats. There’s too many variables to consider, like how much more effective is condition damage is in situations A vs. B, or how much more healing I need on a small zerg vs. a large zerg, how much HP do I need to prevent 1) one thief attacking me 2) two thiefs 3) a small blatoon gank squad. Other examples include: This battle is easy, why would I need so much defense? This battle is way too difficult, why didn’t I get more defense? Fury is down, how much more value does precision have since I have X crit dmg, and the optimal crit dmg / crit chance is so and so based on spreadsheet G’s calculations?
Then you have to rate each situation against each other and see which is more important. Then it gets REALLY confusing!

TL;DR ; Don’t worry about the math. Just trust me on +all stat trinkets :P. Elementalists are the master of none, and extremely versatile. +All stat fits in that category.

Mpiftekis.1529

I wanted to just clarify that there was no perfect build since everyone loves theorycrafting :P.

Your correct, there are better builds for various situations. I listed the ones I use and think that are the best for my situations that I encounter in the builds section. Note that not everyone plays the same :]

I find the water 30 aura trait to be a skill that creates a lot of value to the team, since you can pair it up with the air 1 trait for perma fury for your allies. Not to mention the shocking aura to CC and reduce damage to your allies, and the frost aura to mitigate 10% damage for a short time frame.

The Great Al.2546
I never run fire traits, the tradeoff between air , earth, water, arcana never seems worth it. Cantrips will always be better than signets in most situations, so having a signet isn’t the greatest trade off to go, at least for the time being until they get buffed further on par with cantrips.

Liquid Swords.1740
0/10/0/30/30 is definitely the best team support setup. For a more solo oriented setup, I could definitely see 0/25/0/15/30 to be favorable, with air traits in “swiftness/fury on aura cast” and “reduced 20% air CD” so that you can travel faster using RtL.
For PvE roaming, I prefer having at least 20 water, because I can have 2 water traits. I find the trait that “reduces fall dmg by 50%” as a must have for roaming, since I have killed myself a lot misjudging cliff drop distances. The other water trait I would need is “regeneration/vigor on cantrip cast” since it greatly improves survivability.

So in my opinion having 0/20/0/20/30 is also viable too. Just make sure you have at least 15 in water (since the passive at 15 water points is amazing) and 30 arcana (for evasive arcana) in any build you run. 20 arcana is the bare mininum due to reduced CD on attunement swaps. The rest can be allocated to earth, air, or water. Fire is still useless imo.

SAKRAY.3690
Having the monk/water runes really helps out. It helps you offensively, and defensively.
Offensively it allows you to maintain more stacks of might and longer duration of fury, meaning more overall DPS.
Defensively it grants longer HP regeneration, and protection for longer sustainbility
Then it allows you to have perma swiftness for roaming applications:]

2. Indirectly
A. CC’ing / stunning enemies reduces the amount of damage your team takes, because your attacker can’t deal damage for that duration. This can be applied a number of ways, to more than one enemy at a time : updraft, earthquake, shocking aura (team share), frost effect from water3/water4, cripple from earth2 and evasive arcana, blinds, etc. In addition, consumables can be factored in here as well. You can permanently stun enemies doing this method reducing all damage to allies.

B. Buffs to reduce allies’ damage taken / remove conditons leading to reduced need of heals in combat (less downtime). Reduction of damage is primarily via through the “protection” given off by arcana 5 trait and swapping to earth. The other would be a shared water4 aura granting 10% reduced damage. Removing conditions would be done via water5, staff water5, evasive arcana, etc.

C. Buffs to heal allies, such as regeneration and direct heals. Regeneration is applied “Regeneration” and “Soothing Mist (minor water passive trait)”. “Regeneration” is done via arcana 5 trait swapping to water, and any water combos. Heals through swapping to water attunement (major passive water trait), and water evasive arcana dodge rolls.

D. Drawing aggro. Lower armor allies draw more aggro than heavier armored allies. Since you have the lowest base armor, and hefty heals to yourself, elementalists make really good tanks, 2nd only to guardians. As long as you don’t die, and can output steady buffs and DPS, you should be fine. Control the amount damage you draw through picking knights armor over berserker. Berserker armor would be used in easier situations where reduction of damage is not as vital.
Also note since you are a D/D elementalist, you will be in the frontlines therefore already drawing more aggro than your counterpart teammates.

As you can see from the above reasons, having a D/D elementalist on a team makes a tremendous difference in value for the team.
Value is what is important, and is dictated by your point of view and your allies. But the value that you offer to a team also depends on the battle situation, and your teammates. For instance, lets you say your team has a D/D elementalist already, and you are the 2nd one to join in. That D/D elementalist might already tons of duration stacking buffs through the 0/10/0/30/30 setup using aura share, making your value less worthwhile. Another instance may be your entire team is ranged, and none of your buffs apply to them since they are never close to you. Or maybe whatever it is your team is doing does not require any damage mitigation because its so easy, but rather needs overall raw DPS support (think of CoF, and the zerker warriors / haste mesmers).

So because of these different situations and teams, it is always important to note that there is no one perfect build for everything . I use a variety of setups to heighten my value in different areas. For instance, in fractals I would be a useless, suicidal asset if I went D/D the entire time. S/F and staff lots of defensive support which is more essential than DPS in this scenario. Or in WvWvW, sometimes I’d prefer to go pure berzerker staff in a zerg battle because of the crowd control, and DPS I have to offer. Adjusting to different scenarios like these makes a big difference to the team, sometimes to the point that a team might fail without you! A good commander in WvWvW doesn’t offer raw DPS or buffs, but rather morale, a blue dorrito to follow, and essential positional tactics. He might do less damage than all his teammates, but if he dies the whole team would fall apart.

P.S. This applies to everything in life not just gaming.

Stealth.9324
Sure I’ll duel you whenever:]. Pm me once you upload the video, and I’ll check it out

Liquid Swords.1740/Mpiftekis.1529
0/25/0/15/30 is definitely viable. I’ll put a long response to my thoughts at the bottom :P

Suicide Yammer.2540
My builds up to date on the table of contents (trinket included!)

SeuRafinha.5924
Yes you can

Graendall.4765
Its exactly the same as what I’m running, but I like arcane abatement (50% fall down damage reduction) because I love playing mind games with enemy mobs.

Pix.8173
:D you know what I mean, lol. 0/0/20/20/30 :P. I mistype that alot

Redian.6983
Everything looks good! When I run S/D though, I generally go full berzerker (app. 75% crit damage) since I don’t need to be in close quarters. Helps out with my burst as well, using a combo such as earth4+earth2+Fire3 (point blank, aim slightly behind enemy)Fire5(swap to air midcast)Passive Air spell+ Air2+RtL+ArcaneBlast+Wave. You can instagib someone like that given you have enough might,fury, crit dmg, power, etc.

Here’s some food for thought on everyones theorycrafted builds and calculations:

Mpiftekis.1529
0/10/0/30/30 is definitely superior for teamplay in PvE, and most sPvP setups as well due to the “shared aura” trait. It also offers more defensive traits over a build focused heavier on air.

When I’m playing as a team in PvE, I like to think more in terms of value that I have to offer to the team, as opposed to just raw theoretical DPS. Value would be described in how much more efficient I am making the team (by comparing how much faster the team is with, and without me). An easy way to figure this out is to not do anything in the party, and then compare it to trying as hard as possible. You can also determine whether or not your carrying the entire team this way, or if your team is competent without you.

Value is affected primarily my presence increasing the team’s overall DPS. This is measured directly, and indirectly. The higher value you have relative to your teammates, the more of an asset you are to the team. All allies have a perceived value as well.
1. Directly: My DPS, my buffs to allies DPS directly, and indirectly
2. Indirectly: My presence reducing the amount of damage taken to the team, and the perceived overall DPS increase as a result due to reduce downtime (as in allies don’t have to heal as often)

1. Directly
A. My DPS: This is straightforward. This refers to how much damage per second I am doing on average in a fight(factors in AoE, DoTs, etc), downtime with heals included. You can also think of it as how much total damage you do in a battle vs. a small group of enemies.
B. My buffs to allies directly. This refers to the average amount of might I am giving to my allies in a situation, leading to direct DPS increase to the team. Fury is factored in via how long you can upkeep it to your team
C. My buffs to allies, indirectly. This refers to swiftness buffs to melee allies, leading to reduce amount of downtime for them to go whack the enemy. Conjures are also in this category – > some allies have low DPS, and conjures are based off my primary stats. In addition, conjured icebow is important to mention here, as its 4th ability drastically improves DPS on structures and large hit box enemies. Another instance is pulling mobs together for easy AoE using magnetic shield, or using conjured fiery greatsword elite to drastically impove your DPS and an allies.

katniss.6735/VitalSuit.1980
Yes I made that assumption before the update went live

rolos.7491/LightningBlaze.4913
Yup, the timerlands location pot has always worked :P. You just need to do an event and ressurect one of the frog guys.

Mpiftekis.1529/nothing.7941
Mist form is still going to be always useful, especially toward bursts where you are either immobilized or stunned. Its a 3 second invulernability, but you can also reposition yourself / move which is invaluable even post nerf.

thesserd.8602
I don’t recommend any spec with 30 fire in it, Pyromancers Puissance trait (1 might per spell cast) really isn’t that great.I only capped at about 8 stacks of might in fire using full boon duration gear, and thats hardly anything.

For the recent build, this is almost exactly what I ran since day one in GW2. I adapted to better traits and currently use 0/0/20/30/30
http://tinyurl.com/daphoenixBuild3

I’ll run this on my staff or S/D
0/15/0/25/30
http://tinyurl.com/daphoenixBuild4

Mpiftekis.1529
+1 everything you said there was correct :]
Yes 0/15/0/25/30 is the way to go for PvE DPSing imo, or a 0/25/0/25/20 setup.

thesserd.8602
Keep the same trait setups, and run berzerker armor and weapons with +all stat trinkets :]

SAKRAY.3690
I run all knights armor and knights weapons in my gear setup using 0/0/20/20/30 trait setups for my all purpose build. For my DPS oriented setup, I’ll run the same trait setup, or 0/15/0/25/30, and then use berzerker weapons + berzerker armor (except on the legs, and helmet which are knights due to stat optimization)

protomic.4627
You need to run crit dmg on all accessory slots since its optimal. I use +all stats items on amulet, accessories, and rings. For my backpiece, I use power, toughness crit damage.

If you can’t obtain ascended gear, I would opt for knights with a beryl or ruby jewel in it.

Liquid Swords.1740
I used ur link and updated it with my preferences :P
WvWvW
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1n.h1h.8.1n.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.71g.1n.71g.1n.71h.1n.71h.1n.7r.1n.7r|311.e17.211.e13.311.e17.211.e13.311.e17.3v.e17|0.0.k39.k38.u56b|15.1|1l.1t.1u.1v.0|e

SAKRAY.3690
Use 2x superior monk rune, 2x superior water, 2x superior melandru :]

Knights accessories with beryl or ruby jewels if you can’t get ascended gear. Back piece use a rare power, toughness, crit dmg with a ruby or beryl jewel off auction house if you can’t afford an ascended.

Mpiftekis.1529/Yuki Chuki.2457

I might not have clarified the entirety of the nerfs Anet is implementing. I usually anticipate the worst case scenario possible in every situation, so that I am almost always able to escape regardless of how bad it gets. I intentionally hold back on a lot of my abilities until I feel the need to use them. This is how you fight extremely hard battles against several opponents at once, and live to tell about it.

In terms of nerfs, signet of restoration to me is like an easy mode skill, since it makes easy situations even easier. When dealing with difficult situations, your burst healing options are poor, which makes you more prone to die with SoR. Ether renewal resolves this problem due to its higher burst healing / cond removal. Like I mentioned earlier, its all about preparing for the worst situation possible, not the easy ones.

Ride the lightning behaves in a similar manner. I always assume everything will go bad in a situation, and refrain from using RtL offensively unless I clearly know that nothing bad will happen in the near future (i.e. fighting one person in open terrain, having a clear field of view on surroundings).

RtL will always be an escape skill in my mind. Its one of those “oh —--” abilities, in addition to all those cantrips. You can’t fight difficult situations without having these skills on hand, since they increase your survivability by a large factor.
Yuki Chuki.2457/Raif.9507
I still run 0/0/20/20/30, so there’s an auto proc’d armor of earth built in already. I maintained perma swiftness using items, i.e. pot of hylek poison. Its’ first ability offers 15 seconds of swiftness, so its fairly easy to maintain perma swiftness in combination to swapping to air. I never think of updraft as a means of obtaining swiftness, since its CC is way more important.

I also weapon swap before every battle starts. I proc 1 minute+swiftness + 300 armor before every battle I jump in. This is done using staff’s air 4 abilility, combined with staffs air 5 + scepters Fire 3 + scepter/focus’s earth 2 + earth 4. The best part about this combo is that if executed correctly, you can do this while constantly moving without ever having the need to stand still and cast (This is when your not in combat). I maintain swiftness in combat thereafter using pots as mentioned previously, in combination with poison jukes + LoS. It takes some practice though since you have to memorize how long 15 seconds (CD of the pot’s first skill) is approximately while in combat.

I haven’t tested anything yet though after the update.

Imalight.6124

I haven’t played much into engineer, but from my perspective as an elementalist, you need to avoid the engineer’s bombs/melee attacks. Engineers now a days run prybar / wrench set combined with confusion bombs iirc to proc 8-12 stacks of confusion. Another thing to note is that engineers that run heavy encampments (bombs / turrets) are usually have an advantage in close range combat. Mid range combat tends to favor the elementalist more, and terrain does make a big difference vs. engineer.

davidcrickett.8536/xarallei.4279
Well actually that would be 15+15+30(from arcana)= 60% boon duration for 6 runes: P

Raven Quiroz.6870
Water X or soothing wave is not really that great, since its duration is rather low and only applies to the mistform cantrip in battle.
All of the items you use look reasonable though, with that knights setup! :]

engnayr.9150
I think the recommended armor setup I currently use fits that criteria. I spent a lot of time adjusting to what I felt was min/max for me, after reading various theorycrafting from other people.

Grimstar.6931
I feel like Anet likes to go over the top with nerfs in general, and this is their way of approaching nerfs. They want to invoke a response form the community in order to gauge how much they should nerf X by, instead of going the lighter route and nerfing it harder later.

Ride the Lightning: Recharge increased from 20s to 40s. Recharge on this skill is now halved if you strike a foe. Reduced the range to 1200 from original 1550.
As to the elementalists nerfs, 40 seconds for missing RtL is a bit excessive. It really limits our out of combat mobility to a really excessive degree, considering the nerf also applies a range reduction of RtL from 1550 to 1200. We’re talking about a nerf to RtL by over a 50% margin in this case.
In addition, I rarely ever use RtL to initiate unless I know that I will not have to run in the next 20 seconds. You can never be sure what the situation will be 20 seconds after a battle starts (or 40 now if you miss your RtL), so it is always better to assume the worst case scenario.
My point is that RtL in my mind is now 40 seconds because I almost never use it for damage/initiation purposes. I usually just run up to opponents and use a combination of Fire 3 and Earth 3 instead. The only time I use RtL on a target is when I’m chasing someone.

Mist Form: Now locks heal, utility, and elite while in use
This doesn’t change much in terms of utility, but does for elite / healing.
Mistform+ Fiery Great sword (FGS) cast was a useful tactic for me since casting FGS requires you to stand still, making you vulnerable to attacks.
Mistform+ Ether renewal was another common tactic I used, but this nerf doesn’t change much. It requires that you now cast ether renewal before using mistform, and you can still get the same effect.

Signet of Restoration: Reduced effects passively
I don’t really run Signet of Restoration anymore, since I still feel ether renewal is superior in every situation

ICD on condition removal on applying regeneration to 5 seconds (water 11 trait)
Regeneration was applied every 10 seconds at the minimum swapping to water attunement with Arcana 5 trait, and cantrips with the water 3 trait. I’m not sure why this nerf was necessary since it doesn’t change anything. Unless you use 2 cantrips within a 5 second duration, then I don’t see a problem with this.

50% condition damage reduction on confusion
I feel like confusion damage for mesmers/engineers in general was a bit excessive, since I have killed myself in one dodge roll at full HP (~16k) by swapping to earth attunement. (1 Spell = EA dodge roll, 1 spell = dodge, 1 spell = earth attunement, 1 spell= passive earth attunement spell, 1 spell = auto proc’d armor of earth at 33% HP) = 5 spells in one dodge = instant death with 8 stacks of confusion. The real issue was passive dodge procs not really confusion itself. A reasonable nerf would be 25% imo, or reworking of confusion damage.

I would hope that in lieu of all these nerfs, that S/D and staff would be buffed instead.

Arganthium.5638

I watched the commentary and learned a great deal about D/P thieves, and tried one for myself. The backstab is something to watch out for, since it is their strongest opener imo.

Another thing to note is that thieves can actually use their blind AoE field + leap and hit you, while stealthing at the same time. The damage does not negate their stealth in this case, where damage normally does unstealth you.

Kaleden.9386/Goblin Beet Farmer.3045
some reason my updraft never works, it might just be because I’m missing.

FoolsErrend.2168
I prefer earths embrace to be honest, since it offers more defense rather than flexibility. The loss in perma swiftness and fury is a lot to sacrifice though, its personal preference.

TGSlasher.1458
Interesting, didn’t know you could use the summon as an attack for 25seconds of burning. I usually never use my summoning to attack my enemies, but rather place it off the side where I can hide/pick it up later.

PierPiero.9142
For a pure DPS spec, 0/15/0/25/30 is usually my other traiting choice for pure offensive trait setup on any weapon type. Alternatively you can use a more defensive trait setup like the 0/0/20/20/30 setup, with berserker armor and weapons. The traditional 0/10/0/30/30 does not need the last water trait, since its mostly for condition removing purposes/aura sharing.

Yohimbe.1876
Probably because ANet does not want to promote d/d elementalists, since they are considered to be “op” and will be nerfed to some degree in the near future.

Sheris.6789
For PvP, I use valkyires amulet w/ soldiers jewels. The soldiers jewel is used since my HP pool is a little low and needs to be higher against instagib burst from thieves.

Nuithari.3728
Thats definitely a good setup to use for PvP, since you don’t need to run as tanky in most situations. Some PvP elementalist users also run “dodging removes burning and chill” trait as well over “10% more damage when hp>90% trait”

Altharion.7961
;]

Vapur.4680
When in doubt go knights with a beryl jewel (Power, vitality, crit dmg jewel). The karka shell is used because it offers a very high combined stat total, and offers 6% critical damage, which is 1% more than the +all stat equivalent ascended item.

Nikkinella.8254
To spend the 100 laurel, you should consider the following:

First do you have an ascended amulet? If not buy that for 30 laurels, since the alternative is buying the triforge which cost over 200gold at auction house.

Do you have a karka shell? Then you only need 1 ascended accessory. You can either obtain it with 40 laurels+50 ectos, or 12 guild commentations. Pick one or the other

Do you have ascended rings? Personally I would do fractals for these, since its not too bad to obtain. Otherwise you need to spend 35 laurels, and those laurels could definitely be used elsewhere such as amulets for other characters, etc.

Items statwise should be +all stat items mainly.

Emperor.1360
Yes these builds I listed were mostly for PvE and WvWvW, since I didn’t play too much PvP recently. PvP definitely favors a 0/10/0/30/30 setup, 0/0/10/30/30. or 0/15/0/25/30 setup in terms of overall effective builds for good team play and mobility.
WvWvW / PvE tends to favor the above as well, and 0/0/20/20/30 for more solo-oriented roaming.

There are definitely other builds out there that are viable. For instance, 0/25/0/25/20 is a fairly effective staff setup. You can also run a conjure-oriented setup, with a focus on the major fire trait that adds +10 more charges as well. There are definitely other builds for various applications, you just need to try them out:]

Whizzy.5723

Evasive arcana is our best trait, for the water dodge roll. Having a free condition removal +2k heal every 10 seconds is very significant. It also eliminates the need to have to cast an additional heal as well, and offers lots of versatility in combat. Imo evasive arcana is a must have for a D/D ele.
For S/D and staff, that is debatable though, since you are at a much further distance generally when attacking your enemy, and don’t need to dodge as often/ take damage.

TGSlasher.1458
0/15/0/25/30 is definitely a great setup for a glass cannon GC spec. I would argue against going pure berserker gear though, since going into melee generally means you will take damage in mostly every situation.
I’m not sure why you chose frostbow in that setup with a GC spec. I know it offers ranged oppurtunities when you can’t go into melee range without dying, but thats what fiery GS is for. I’m not sure how much great frostbow’s damage is either.

I’m still all for ether renewal though, instead of sig of restoration. Since you are all DPS, it does make sense that you would want the sig’s passive heal while maintaining DPS in combat, over having to cast a spell. The only problem with the setup you have there is condition removal, and defense.

Whizzy.5723
You can run D/D in mostly every scenario, but running staff is just much more faceroll easier to do in fractals.

Lavadiel.6231
Thieves can finish anyone at 50% hp, by burning additional utilities to finish the job. In my opinion, they are balanced as is due to the quickness nerf, which solves the keyboard 1 click macro 1.5 second 15k burst move. Now its probably at ~2 seconds, which is more than enough time to react.
Note that higher tiered thieves don’t use this cheesy strategy because its a one time deal, with a long CD associated with it.

Ryn.6459
The problem with running a trait specifically for removing boons with shatter is that not everyone runs a whole lot of boons. The elementalist of course runs several types of boons, and so do guardians. For other classes, removing a boon does not affect them as much as the elementalist. Elementalist’s rely heavily on boons to survive, other classes not so much.
It doesn’t make much sense to spec against one class, when you can spec against everyone in general. Speccing confusion damage is already a direct counter to elementalists.

Whizzy.5723
Try a mesmer. Its like the D/D ele except at range, with more consideration into positioning. It focuses more on burst, as opposed to tankiness. Its also a lot slower to move from point A to point B as well though for a mesmer.

alexparris.3754
I don’t use the cantrip CD reduction by 20%, because I don’t feel as if I need it. I prefer the 50% fall down damage reduction any day, because it offers more versatility in combat options, which is what my preference is.

Whizzy.5723/Bubbles.5926
No D/D is not as viable the higher up you go. Staff is still incredibly useful.
I use S/F every now and then over staff, depending on the situation.

vinceftw.5086
Yeah thats what makes EA so great:]. 4 unique spells, all with their own CD

chaos.5471/Raif.9507
Superior sigil of battle applies 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds with no boon duration, ~33 seconds with boon duration. Sigil of battle has a 9 second cooldown, and works by swapping attunements in combat. Within 33 seconds, you can use up to 3 sigil of battle procs, 9×3 = 27 seconds, or 3 sigil battle procs x 3 (within 30seconds)= 9 stacks of might at all times in combat.

Arganthium.5638
I think knowing the thief downed state is important, especially when your fighting several enemies at once and don’t have time to go for a stomp.

I didn’t really realize about the new D/P trend, but it does make sense using a combo + leap to grant stealth. I’ll add that in the notes.

“Just emphasize “spam AoE/PbAoE” when Shadow Refuge is thrown down. " →
I thought I mentioned t hat already, but I’ll make an additional note about that, and about thieves edging its field of effect

Air5 is the only spell that misses against invisible people. I’ve tried it before with an enemy thief in the party.

Lavadiel.6231

:D glad you appreciate it

Whizzy.5723
Your right it is pure preference. My preference is the most versatile reliable build possible that can handle any situation

Lavadiel.6231
I’m aware of how OP the ele is, it takes someone to be really blindsighted not to realize that. That being said, confusion damage in WvWvW is also seriously OP as well, AND it is a direct counter to elementalist, while still performing questionable AoE feats as well.

The reason why confusion damage is rather broken in WvWvW is because, there’s no damage negation to it. Sure you can avoid casting spells, but the elementalist can “casts” several spells within a span of 2 seconds, i.e. through dodge rolls (2 spells per dodge, with EA), attunement swaps, auras, etc. Its pretty easy to obtain 8 (or up to 12) stacks of confusion from either a mesmer or engineer, at 400 damage per spell (3.2k damage total per skill use). I’ve had times where I’ve instantly killed myself without being able to react b/c I was confused right before performing an attunement swap EA dodge roll (3 spells in one dodge, up to 10k damage taken penalty → that imo is ridicolous. I shouldn’t have to take a 10k damage penalty for not reacting to one condition in the heat of battle, and making one bad dodge roll attunement swap). I don’t even know why a dodge (not referring to EA) is even considered a spell, because its not.

The real culprit imo is lemongrass food, rare veggie pizza, confusion damage and confusion damage’s AoE limit cap with glamour fields. Like I said earlier, eles are OP, but so are these mentioned above. If you nerf one, you’d have to nerf its’ associated buffs / counters for balance reasons.

PvP is a different story though. Elementalist are slightly on the OP end, but not so much due to all the healing nerfs (50% on EA water dodge roll, 50% on water ripple, boon duration reduction, etc). Confusion damage not so much either, 50% damage reduction there as well.

TGSlasher.1458
I tried S/D, I’m not a big fan of unreliable dragon’s tooth, even if you don’t have to use it. Air1’s attack as a reliable damage dealer is not for me either, since I am really big into blindsighting an enemy with LoS, either with terrain or weaving into their avatar back and forth on their backside.

I’m not really sure what this fiery axe build your referring to is. Fiery axe is a conjure, and it does offer a mediocre ranged attack.

Lavadiel.6231
Necros are hard to beat, because there aren’t as many noticeable animation cues as that of a mesmer, or thief. Their DPS is no joke either, alongside with the ability to turn your boon’s against you, and your conditions as well.
You have to be unpredictable vs. a good necro, and utilize terrain to your advantage to win.

I use a different setup in sPvP. 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/15/0/25/30 is still superior for sPvP builds.

Altharion.7961
:D glad you like it!

LightningBlaze.4913
There’s always the option to change into DPS gear while maintaining the same traits :]
Having a bunch of players running D/D is not necessarily a bad thing, it helps the game balance itself at a much faster pace leading to better balance progression.

Supasilvafoxy.1247
Well said!

Whizzy.5723
I haven’t really thought too much about that combination of specs, but it definitely does sound plausible. Have the Water trait granting regneration + vigor on cantrips, the Air trait granting fury +swiftness on aura, and earth for → 50% HP = armor of earth. Then combine the condition removal downsides with lemongrass + 2 x avatar rune of melandru:P.

This spec would definitely be great for 1v1 or small team battles purposes, due to the minor air 15 trait, and high defenses from the earth trait Not so much for large battles though, which is my playstyle :]

Whizzy.5723
+1 :]

Here’s my most recent video if you haven’t seen it already describing my spec I currently run, in detail with traits ,armor, etc. It also describes the 0/0/20/20/30 spec mentioned earlier, and alternative traits you may want to change around

FrownyClown.8402
4% crit damage and 20 + all stats doesn’t compare to -10% cond duration imo.

Swarley.8642/Raif.9507
Yes it does work perfectly fine in PvE :]. The 0/10/0/30/30 is great with aura share to help out your teammates. My current 0/0/20/20/30 spec allows me to survive longer in team battles due to its higher defensive spec. You can alternatively increase your DPS by swapping knights weapons for berzerker weapons, and you can also swap out +all stat rings for power,precision, crit dmg.

Like Raif said, you can keep the exact same trait setup, but change the gear you run for more DPS and tankiness :]

Cariyah.1429
I put in the guide and the video link at the top of this response :]

Liquid Swords.1740
I started using lemongras poultry and melandru post -nerf on omnomberry pies. They were food buffs that healed you @ 300 HP every 66% chance on cirt, with no limit on AoE, or procs.

The 83% immobilization reduction is awesome too! Mesmers with their blurred frenzy spike ave a 2 second immobilize, and reducing it down to ~0.3seconds allows you to walk off any of those spikes.

kubetz.3058/EraSer.5013
:D +1 for answering question. I recommend a 0/10/0/30/30 setup for staff as well EraSer.5013. Blasting staff from arcana tree is also another trait to take as a staff user.

Nikkinella.8254
That minor 25 water trait (2% dmg per boon) is signifcant. On average, I’ll have 5 boons up in battle, equating to 10% more damage which is a lot. That is the main downside of the 0/0/20/20/30 build, in addition to swiftness/fury problems.

zerotwo.4731
No problem !

Zogyark.4597
Your call =P

FrownyClown.8402

Yes you don’t get as many kills with that setup, but in terms of Min/Maxing it is imo superior.

Updated guide for stealthing as an elementalist, and countering stealthy thieves.

FrownyClown.8402

I’m going to make a video this weekend detailing my builds / video, and then progressively work toward the basics – > advanced techniques in later videos.
It’s going be a super duper long video series about elementalist strategy

Feel free to pm me when I’m on though (same applies to everyone else)

Raif.9507
It definitely does take awhile to find a good fight. I usually go through many video feeds before I find one suitable to upload, because most battles end in me dying, or end prematurely b/c an ally group intervenes. Then there’s the times where the battle is too easy, and doesn’t challenge me enough so I don’t post it.

I like videos emphasizing strategy as opposed to just flashy combat. Its more thrilling to have a continuous video where your on the blink of death many times, as opposed to many clips of victories.

I’ve had my run ins with groups of 3 thieves at a time before as well. Its all about keeping the thieves at bay with CC’s if they are going dagger/dagger. Dodge whenever you see an incoming heartseeker spam. For Pistol/Dagger thieves, utilize line of sight to your advantage. I like to predict when a thief will unstealth and attempt to burst me in combat, and chain that with shocking aura / earthquake. Its always also a good idea to pan your camera around while fighting so you won’t be suprised when an army is behind you.

I think the biggest challenge to roaming as an elementalist is map/terrain awareness, combined with knowing when to run away. Running away is always important :]

Raif.9507

My current spec is such that power > precision, also due to the fury uptime as well.
I haven’t really done much with my elementalist guild, albeit Fort Aspenwood imo is like the unofficial ele server
Sure I’ll invite you :P. Remind me in game by mail xD
I like where I am at T2 atm, and we fight losers of T1 all the time anyways.

Simplicity.7208
Just run the same setup and go for berzerker weapons. Sometimes I swap out my knights weapons for berzerker to get ~50% critical damage and ~50% crit chance (with fury on). My attack power can go up to 3800 depending on might, stacks, etc, so I can still burst pretty high if I sacrifice some toughness.

To your arguement on glass cannon: Glass cannons are limited to only so many people though, you tend to short change yourself when fighting many good opponents at once. Sure you can burst someone down in a 1v1 situation using a more GC orientation, but my perspective is surviving any situation, and preparing for the worst case scenario is more important. Plus building more tanky allows you to prepare burst options much readily – aka building might using fire aura, combo stacks, and fiery great sword bursting.

FrownyClown.8402
I am immobilized in that video all the time, its just that I specced anti-immobilization in that video by sacrifcing swiftness and DPS. That and I am also abusing LoS and evasion very heavily as well

Penuil.3679
I guess whatever makes you happy:]. Personally I like going all +stats, b/c I like being well rounded. Healing power, vitality, and condition damage are all still useful stats to have on you.

nealpatel.3406
:D
The current build in use is still optimal 0/10/0/30/30 for any weaponset, and in most scenarios. I opted to go for a 0/0/10/30/30 or a 0/0/20/20/30 spec since I really like the 33% reduce CC effect trait, and the free armor of earth at 50% HP trait. The only downside is no perma swiftness and fury, but I’ve gotten accustomed to controlling fury on attunement swap to burst, and chaining swiftness by using staff out of combat / using pots. It takes alot more skill to use this spec correctly since no perma swiftness is a bummer, and having less swiftness can get you killed.

On my latest video episode 12 I used this spec I made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcprP81h4dk
Setup
20 Earth -> 50% Armor of earth trait, 33% reduce CC trait
20 Water -> 50% fall damage reduction, Cantrips provide vigor and HP reg
30 arcana -> Evasive arcana, Arcana five and six
Superior sharpening stones, Lemongrass poultry
2x superior rune monk, 2x superior rune water, 2x superior rune melandru

^This is my secret spec I use but I haven’t been on much and I’ve already had my fun with it so I’ll share it with you guys. Its far superior to the 0/10/0/30/30 at its full potential (example in episode 12). Plus its an extremely strong counter to confusion mesmers anyways, and they are kind of OP atm (mesmers are kind of a joke using this setup too :P).

I also now actually think about my attunements much more now using this spec, i.e. earth for protection when I expect upcoming damage, staying on water as short as possible, staying on air as short as possible to upkeep swiftness, staying on fire whenever available.

I feel like doing videeo game reviews in the future and making a gaming blog that I never got around to doing, what do you guys think? :S. Also going to teach myself programming in various languages, starting with C, and maybe make some user guides in the future as well. Can’t decide on whether I should make future video content more depth vs. breath either.
Debating on what I should do with future content on youtube, any suggestions? :P
I feel like I’m just posting the same stuff over and over again, lol.
Starcraft 2 is so much fun !

Simplicity.7208

My only problem with shatter based mesmers is that they are squishy, although you can counteract that by planning out all your moves in advance. I know what a mesmer is capable of doing at its full potential, and I haven’t really had any trouble taking one down. Taking a tanky elementalist on the other hand just doesn’t sit well and neither side wins.

My point here is that a shatter mesmer is prone to dying much more readily than what I run on my elementalist against highly skilled opponents. At the same time, a mesmer can deliver a much higher burst. So there is a trade off between survivability and DPS, which is not really a suprise.
Although my DPS is lower than bursting mesmers, there are many ways you can enhance your bursting DPS as an elementalist. These could include pre-emptive might stacking, swapping weapons before combat starts, using underwater CC’s on land, FGS fire trail bursting with walls or teleports, exiting and swapping to arcane blast/wave.

My biggest peeve is to be able to handle any situation I come across, or at least survive from it. Mesmers don’t offer as much flexibility as the elementalist when it comes to this vs. very high skilled opponents. Most of the time mesmers win due to a combination of skill, and a lack thereof skill from the opponent (you’ll see this when enemies wander around whacking clones when the real mesmer goes invisible). People just don’t know how to predict a mesmer’s location upon stealthing/unstealthing, or re-targeting to the real one.

My last peeve is being useful in a team fight. A D/D elementalist does a great job drawing aggro in large fights, can dish out incredibly large amounts of DPS using the fiery great sword, and can actually harass an escaping zerg army / cut it in half through cripples on the FGS 3rd ability. A mesmer can do similar feats using Glamour mass confusion on an army, but again doesn’t have the survivability that I like to handle any situation.
When a situation gets too tough, I leave the battle with ride the lightning. For a mesmer, when the battle gets too tough, you pray that someone doesn’t know how to recognize stealth/unstealthing right off the bat, or go all out and hope that someone doesn’t know how to dodge a spike.

Kaleden.9386

I ran a 0/0/20/20/30 setup in that video. It takes a little while getting used to not being able to use air1’s trait for swiftness and fury. I usually control my swiftness via weapon swapping before combat or pots, and optimized attunement swapping. I also control fury and boost myself with attunement swaps when I aim to burst enemies down.

No precision food in there

unum.6209
Earth 15 is really nice to have, it came in handy a few times in that video. Its an additional tactic that makes elementalist so much more fun to play :]

mobilejunkie.9260
Depends on stats really, I almost always use knights armor all the time. Karma comes in various types of stats though.

Pete.8417
thanks !

Dandelyn.1362
Not sure about anything about nerfs on elementalist. I’m pretty sure if they do nerf them, it will be a PvP only nerf (WvWvW is not PvP).

Simplicity.7208
I did kill a few enemies in that video. I would have possibly killed more at that instant where the guardian fully healed his team. All 3 of those enemies were down to ~50% HP, and I had the upperhand most of that battle.

But yeah when your fighting enemies at once, they can always decide to peace out and exit the battle.

I’ve seen what shattercat mesmers can do. They can definitely deliver a much higher burst than an elementalist, but can’t handle as many enemies as an elementalist can at the same time (Assuming that the enemy knows how to play to a fairly decent degree)

Fazhu.4519 / Yuki Chuki.2457
I use superior sharpening stones and either Lemongrass poultry, Mango pies, or omnomberry pies. In WvWvW I’m currently using lemongrass poultry atm.
I prefer power stats with consumables as opposed to precision / cond damage.

Yuki Chuki.2457
I prefer defensive nourishments so that I can live all that much longer. My personal pereference is going min/maxing damage, with a focus more so on defense. The reason for this is because when you build tanky, there is just much more flexibility in the build for any situations that might arise, like in that video. There is always the option of Fiery great sword bursting too, so killing people is not really an issue if you position yourself correctly.

Mango Pies are better than peach pies, and mango pies are really not that much more pricier. I like using mango pies for PvE definitely, b/c I don’t like wasting expensive cons unless I do WvWvW.

confusion / glamour mesmers are the thing now adays and contribute much more to a zerg battle than a staff ele.

Staff eles are usually more useful in zerg battles. D/D elementalist at its full potential looks like this

I’m playing a mesmer at the moment and its definitely feels different after playing d/d ele so long.
I would suggest an asura mesmer, due to pain inverter (more confusion?:P). Elementalist human due to avatar of melandru, adds to tanking options.

Commanderwise → mesmers can do more for a team with portals. D/D elementalists are more for leading an assault, and drawing aggro.

fun times with kaineng and TC last week

:D

+1 Kaleden.9386 for clarifying everything

Here’s my newest video showcasing my current skill level

Hopefully this serves as inspiration to everyone :P

Glad you like it Taugrim

I originally wrote the guide based on your inspiring guides =P

Mahedros.9103
Toughness is definitely useful

Bubbles.5926
1. It might be an animation error. IIRC all auras have visual sharing bug effects. The best way to check if its applied is to look at your allies buffs.

2. Very little for the EA earth dodge roll. 3 seconds of cripple IIRC and 500 damage

3. Cooldown on might is 9 seconds, attunement swaps are considered to be weapon swaps IN COMBAT

np

Frykas.8703
Pretty sure sigil of strength has a CD too, so I don’t think you get that much of a benefit from it.

Update notes
Added Advanced techniques and Mesmer 3/13

Since everyone is always wondering how “Mesmer Vs. Elementalist” battles goes from my perspective. I play a mesmer also.
Advanced techniques are only for players that know the class in and out already.

Raptured.9307

I’ll probably get more into pvp later, but the superior rune of flock sounds like a good idea. Not sure what its stats are though

From what I understand, a lot of GC classes use superior rune of the ogre. It allows you to summon a rock dog, and I tend to see those in pvp.

Hydromancy makes a lot of sense as well, since chill is an extremely powerful CC in sPvP against any classes. This is if your leaning more toward support as a D/D ele, or solo bunker. I still think GC burst ele would be better off with sigil of battle though.

Most teams iirc run 2 or 3 elementalist with a mix of support, solo tanky, and GC

DoctorOverlord.8620
I don’t recommend levelling a toon purely by WvWvW. I’ve had my share of playing other classes underleveled in WvWvW, and my DPS is abysmal usually.

I usually craft level all my toons with chef first, since it only cost 2-4g to get to 400 crafting, or ~level 20. From there I’ll just do the low level content / story lines, and do w.e it is that I want

For WvWvW, I recommend at least level 40 in order to have access to your elite / major traits, and so that scaling to level 80 works a little more effectively. You can actually contribute decently as a staff elementalist in WvWvW.

Make sure to party with level 80s in WvWvW and leech off their kills :]

zmonkey.8125/ xiv.7136
:D thank you for the remark

vinceftw.5086
Yes your right, any sigil with (X effect on critical or weapon swap, Y cooldown) has shared effects across all weapons. Once one weapon’s effect procs, the other goes on cooldown too. After the cooldown is reset, the first weapon to proc takes precedent.

xiv.7136
Not sure what the internal CD is though, It should behave the same as Superior sigil of might, which has a 9 second internal CD. It means you can critical every 9 seconds.

I imagine you’d only want to use that critical for opening burst though.

shakle.9258
Yes, 0/10/0/30/30 is probably the most optimal setup across all weapon types for elementalist. It can be a staff, dagger/dagger, scepter/dagger, scepter/focus, etc.

You can easily change some of the traits for a specific weapon, such as staff for its “staff AoE increase” trait. Or you can utilize waters “50% fall damage” reduction trait when your doing jumping puzzles or exploring. Then there’s the “shared aura” trait in the water line that works wonders for your team (For Staff’s magnetic aura, and D/D’s shocking aura / Frost aura/ Fire Aura)

For high level fractals, which is what you’d call “highend content”, elementalists are generally considered one of the most useful classes, on par with mesmers/guardians.

Level 70+ fractals are ran by 4 elementalists and 1 guardian usually. You can run most fractals from level 1 to level 30 using D/D. Staff is much more useful in fractals in most cases, and S/F can be replaced for staff too.

If you like running CoF for farming, elementalists can actually out DPS berzerker warriors with fiery great sword and D/D while sustaining themselves in combat. There’s a general bias toward mesmers/warriors there though, regardless of skill level.

I don’t recommend any setup using 30 fire points, because not that great of a build imo.

golantrevize.2394:

One word: @daphoenix

LordByron.8369:

it became little popular after daphoenix.

Raptured.9307:

+1 to daphoenix.showed me the potential of dd ele in one thread

: P you guys are giving me too much credit, lol

Intigo.1653:

Every D/D auto except for Air is worthless. So, 17 I guess. :p Air is pretty awesome, though.

I use all the auto attacks, fire1 is pretty awesome as a finishing skill when your still in fire attunement. Also doubles up as a way to break #Block attack skills too. Water1 is one of the best ways to cover condition, and does alot of damage in a hallway where everyone is in a line (usually for PvE purposes). Plus it comes back too, so you can prepare another cover condition in advance. Earth 1 (I usually use this one the least, it is kind of useless most of the time :P) is another good cover condition too, you can use it without facing your enemy too. Its a guaranteed hit unlike the other autoattacks if your enemy is within 300 radial units.

yea air> all other auto attacks.

ChaosDoom.8459

No idea :P

Cervaux.8436
It makes cantrips slightly less awesome, but you can still easily perma stack vigor though in battle. Doesn’t make much of a difference.

dmitrycx.7465
Ask your friend to join a server # that has no one in it. Then you join it, and you will be faced against your buddy. Sometimes other people will join, and when that happens you need to start over again.

Ashiri.9342
I used a combination of feathered gear, carrion, and masquerade gear. I used abyss and redemption and white dye.

GoatCheese.2704
Now that they’ve buffed celestial stats even further, I would say that those stats are superior to other ascended items. Elementalist benefit much more than other classes for all stats. The only downside of getting all celestial items is your toughness might be low though. Consider still getting Power,toughness, crit damage.

Mattamis.8143
:D

Gareth.2615
+1 for answer :P

Vitors.6273
2x superior rune of monk, 2x superior rune of water, 2 x major rune water

Ravidel.8546
yeah i still use that setup :]

Zen.1965
+1 for answer

Dylan Lee.5260
Fiery great sword is pretty sick, especially with its 4th ability untargeted. If you use both the 3rd and 4th ability on a wall next to an enemy, it does lots of damage

Talgor.9427
I use divinity’s runes, although there are other choices for PvP. . Boon duration runes are not the same as in PvP to PvE. I haven’t played alot of PvP lately, so I think somebody else might have a better opinion.

katniss.6735
I haven’t played enough of as a necro to really give you a good answer. They do have a ton of HP, and against a good necro you just have to outlast them/constantly hit and run out of combat.
+1 to Raptured.9307 response.

just fyi they also changed soothing disruptions and renewing stamina traits. You can’t stack vigor as heavily now, and there is also less regeneration as well.

flame well pre update iirc could not let you combo?

Frost aura was rather broken against flamethrower engineers and unload thieves, thats why the 1 second interval was necessary.

I was actually expecting a 22 or 25second CD on RtL based on what is fair imo

Didn’t check anything else yet, just the ele changes.

Yuki Chuki.2457
probably 33~50% maybe, just an estimate

Frykas.8703
Yes thats definitely an option :]

Dexter.8650
Condition damage is okay for PvE, it doesn’t scale as well as power, crit dmg, precision. Also it gets hampered by bosses too

TGSlasher.1458
+1

ChaosDoom.8459
I definitely agree with that

Dexter.8650
Yeah it heals you and every ally around you up to 5 i believe, with a radius of 200ish.

dmitrycx.7465
Mango pies are definitely the PvE food item to go. Its cheap @ 25ish copper a piece, lasts 30 minutes, and gives you 70hp/second.

Zartheon.5874
They recieved buff to all+ stats items? Didn’t check yet:P

idorian.2859
Not sure where those values are coming from o.O. 0/10/0/30/30 is chosen primarily for the traits it has to offer, not so much as the stats.

:D

I use the same build still, post nerf

+1 drew :P

plasmacutter.2709
I haven’t played mesmer anywhere near to the degree of my ele, so I’ll take your word on your knowledge about mesmers

PBruce.4507
:P

Vesper.8359
I still use AC /PVT armor for high level fractals

DoodleMoose.6894
A suitable replacement to ascended is full knights gear and clerics acc/knights acc. Use valkyrie jewels with the accessories

Yuki Chuki.2457
1. 1 to Tei.1704 answer. That is exactly the reason :P
2. I feel as if I don’t need that much vitality to begin with, but this is just personally preference. I wanted more DPS, and knights offered the solution while maintaining defense. I use knights most of the time, and PVT when it is really needed in high level fractals
3. At the moment, there is a group that does level 70 fractals with 4 elementalists/ 1 guardian. There is just a lot of versatility when it comes to elementalists, and people who say think that elementalists are weak clearly don’t understand the class. This is due to the misconceptions most likely from watching inexperienced elementalist play. There are always going be PUGs that only want certain classes, it is in your best interest not to join them anyways, since they are so narrow minded and will probably fail as a result. Thats why you play with friends and guildies :P

4. Knights / cleric ascended gear stats will not be better than the current existing ascended items out there. You need more critical damage in accessories, as the crit damage is optimized there.
Power, toughness, critical damage or +all stat ascended items will still be superior regardless if knights / cleric ascended gear comes out

@Tei.1704
+1 :P

I updated the guide and made it more user friendly. I also put the most relevant updates on with armor / skill sets, and changed title tag as a result