Showing Posts For mygamingid.5816:
1 2
If raid meta is the only/best/safest way to do anything in GW2, why do so many teams complete raids without it? Teams complete them shorthanded, carrying buyers, without the raid meta comp, without the raid meta gear, and without the raid meta rotation in plenty of time. Teams even disagree on what the meta is.
The raid meta is great for maximum DPS, but does nothing else. If you’re only trained to the meta, you might think that nothing else could work, because that’s how it’s presented by many players. The meta has taken on an undeserved cultlike reverence that ignores reality (lots of options work, many much more consistently, none as quickly). Players will kick others over a difference of less than 0.1% theoretical DPS. You’ll lose more than that sneezing mid-rotation.
Using a skill at the wrong time, even blowing an entire rotation, won’t wipe a raid. That’s a fiction that’s held back the raiding community. Ignoring or failing a mechanic will wipe a raid and that’s just about it. There are DPS checks, but they’re set far below what’s provided by the raid meta.
Trusting a player to be good with their build is fine. Demanding that they play another build that they may not know at all hurts the effort more than allowing an off-meta build. Failure is almost always due to failing mechanics, not DPS checks. CC checks can also cause failure and building for more CC can help there. It’ll drop your DPS (you’ll still have plenty), but you’ll be more likely to succeed.
If you’re not going to trust a player, don’t put them in a critical role. I don’t care if it’s what the spec normally does in a particular raid. Let them focus on mechanics. Their gear won’t matter unless it’s particularly egregious.
When was the last time you saw an ele build that ran earth?
Every class has a defensive traitline which is never taken.
Earth is a very solid condi spec and it’ll be a core component of Fire/Earth/Weaver builds with PoF. It’s also great for invincible Water/Earth/Tempest Auramancers.
I’d say power Spite 1-2-2, Soul Reaping 2-2-2, and Blood Magic 2-3-1 for leveling. Dagger/Dagger for primary damage with Staff secondary for unblockable marks and kiting. Signet of Spite, Well of Corruption, and Well of Suffering for utilities. Flesh Golem elite and Blood Fiend healing to round it out.
Meta comp is great if you’ve got experienced meta comp players working together. If not, then they’re going to fail. And they do fail. A lot.
If your whole team has 4+ years of experience and regularly plays the content in question, then they’ll be fine. If anyone is new to the game and/or casual, they’re much more likely to get savaged running glass in raids without additional non-meta support. They can run significant additional support compared to pure glass speed meta without failing any raid.
Phalanx Strength Warrior is a great foundation for a duo. You’ll offer a ton of offensive boon support, even without the elite spec. It’s an easy build and very effective. The other half is a bit trickier.
This being the Ele forum, I’d say that both DPS and Auramancer specs would work well with a PS Warrior. With 25 Might stacks and banners, Ele’s AOEs will melt targets quickly. Auramancer will be more team friendly, but DPS will be very powerful in open world PvE.
Next, I’d recommend Guardian, Revenant, or Ranger. They can all provide great boons for a duo and also rack up big damage numbers.
Condi Tempest is highest DPS in the game right now (I’m still curious if Vanilla Condi could beat it) and has a really easy rotation. It’s the easiest DPS choice.
Staff Berserker Tempest can squeak by Condi Tempest against large hitbox targets if you run perfect rotations, have excellent Scholar Rune uptime, and never have to cut your channels short. If you have a great Druid and Chronomancer, complete your channels, and don’t make mistakes, it might generate another 1-2k DPS over Condi.
Weaver will be a better DPS spec than Tempest. It’ll probably favor Condi overall, but we’ll have to wait for the release to know for sure. The rotations are likely to be atrocious for both Power and Condi. DPS will be completely wrecked for either if you leave your chosen element(s).
Trait for Burning Fire (Fire 3-X-X) and you’ll have a bunch of condi cleanse. For more, use the Cleansing Flame Utility.
Timed events require some amount of DPS/CCPS. For example, the enrage timer in a raid or the need to do a little dance to avoid death and/or hit with sufficient CC in a timed window to avoid instant death in a raid. For every single other thing in the game, time doesn’t matter. If there is no timer, then the time it takes to complete the event does not matter.
If time does matter, you just need to complete the mechanic or event within the allotted time. You don’t want the raid to come down to the last second, but you don’t get anything if you complete it faster. You don’t need max DPS, you need enough DPS.
If you have enough DPS and better survivability, then your whole team is more likely to complete a timed event. You’ll spend less time resuscitating, type /gg less often, recover from blown rotations, and have a lot less stress overall. You’ll take more time, but so what?
Condi is definitely the single-target champ for Eles, but that doesn’t mean power is useless. Power is great against crowds, because Ele AOEs tend to favor power damage.
Condi is often the better choice because it’s easier to gear and it has a very easy rotation. You’ll do a ton of damage and you won’t make many mistakes. The mistakes you do make won’t hurt much. In the raid meta context, condi also has a little more trait and boon support than power.
In the end, play what you enjoy. I’m playing power now while I build up a new condi set. It’s fun and effective. It’s not the very best DPS that an Ele can do at the moment, but it’s still a lot of damage.
I don’t actually have my Ele in all zerker at the moment, but that doesn’t really matter – the fact is I can kill groups of pocket raptors with relative ease on any other class I play regardless of build/stat combos, and I frequently die trying to do the same on my Ele.
Sounds like you need some sustain! Pocket raptors couldn’t even scratch my Cleric’s Auramancer and I had no issues killing them. No problems killing anything, really.
I soloed Champions running Earth/Water/Tempest with zero Precision and Ferocity from gear, food, or utilities.
Was it fast? No. It was slow at killing anything (trash excepted), but it was incredibly safe. I had no concern at all about dying. Why? Because high DPS does not equal safety. You can absolutely build your way to safety and still have plenty of DPS to down your target before it can down you.
What matters is (Enemy Adjusted DPS/Player Health) / (Player Adjusted DPS/Enemy Health). By “Adjusted DPS” I mean DPS adjusted for any healing and loss to evades, blocks, protection, etc. As long as that number is less than 1, you’re golden. If that number is 1 or higher, then you’re going down. The closer it gets to 1 on either side, the longer the fight takes.
AOE can hit everything, which is nice, but it has a problem in that it depletes all enemies’ health at roughly the same rate. So you’re hitting everything, but nothing dies until after it gets 2+ rounds of attack on you. Enemy DPS runs at 100% until something dies. Strong single-target damage can cut into enemy DPS. Five raptors becomes four for 80% DPS and you’ve got instant improved survivability. Another dies and you’re at 60% DPS. Sustain is a LOT easier under those conditions. It may take you a couple seconds longer to kill all of them, but you’ll live, which is nice.
For any glass cannons having problems with sustain, I’d recommend the following:
1. Open with a stun, blind, evade, or block. You’ll avoid the initial burst of damage, which is usually the heaviest, and give your AOEs time to work. If that doesn’t work, then…
2. Change up your utilities and traits to facilitate #1. What you may need are more stuns, blinds, evades, and blocks. If that doesn’t work, then…
3. Change up your traits to increase sustain. Trait for things that reduce your opponent’s Adjusted DPS. If that doesn’t work, then…
4. Change up your specializations to increase sustain. Again, you’re looking for traits that allow you to reduce opposing Adjusted DPS. If that doesn’t work, then…
5. Change your gear and build to increase sustain. This is – and should be – the last option. Good gear is expensive AF. Change to something closer to a WvW build with more Toughness, Vitaility, and damage mitigation.
The easiest change for a glass cannon Ele is retraiting Fire to 1-1-3. You’ll blind anything you burn and you’ll almost always open with a burn on your target. You only proc this once every 8 seconds, but it’ll mitigate that initial burst and that will likely be enough to get you through. When you’re fighting tougher opponents, switch back to 1-1-1 (if someone else provides your Might or you have a ton of blast finishers in your rotation) or 1-1-2 (under any other condition).
Staff loves multiple targets. The Air auto isn’t completely terrible if you’ve got 2+ targets, but stinks if you only have one target. That said, I’d agree that a damage bump would help. A 50% bump would put it on par with Fire for single targets, which wouldn’t move the needle on the meta, but would at least give Air Staff some sort of offense.
So i was told that i shouldn’t go staff.Is staff unviable? I was told that dps on dagger is better.
Staff is amazing if you can sit back and throw damage, preferably against a single large immobile target or a ton of weak targets. If you can’t stay at range or find yourself facing fewer tougher normal-sized targets, then it’ll be less viable. Meteor Shower’s channel is a pain in crowds, particularly if they have any sort of interrupt.
The weapon choice is really the last piece of this puzzle, though. Changing it won’t matter much for performance. What’s far more important are that your build have a purpose and that your combination of gear and traits support that purpose. So what purpose do you want to fulfill?
Single-Target DPS: Condi is king, nothing else comes close. Gear stats should be Viper/Sinister, Carrion, Trailblazer, or Dire (in order of most offensive to most defensive). Trait Fire and generally stay in Fire to cause damage. For the other two specializations, choose between Arcane, Earth, and Tempest. You can’t go wrong, regardless of choice. Weapon should be anything except Staff, but it will still be okay if you have offensive gear (Viper and/or Sinister).
AOE DPS: Power is better here and Eles are among the best in the game, but you’ll be weak against normal-sized single targets. Aggro management may be difficult and you can easily be overwhelmed if you get the first hit in on a pack of mobs. Gear stats should be Berserker’s (more Power, more Ferocity, best with raid boons) or Marauder’s (more Precision, more Vitality). Mix in Assassin’s for additional Precision, as needed. Weapon can be anything, but a Fresh Air build should avoid Staff.
Support: Auramancer. Ele Auramancer is a very powerful support build. They offer a variety of boons and massive healing. DPS will be much lower than traditional DPS builds, but you can become essentially unkillable and can make your team equally unkillable. Zealot’s gear with an Air/Water/Tempest Fresh Air spec gives a good combination of Power, Precision, and Healing for an offensive-minded Auramancer. If you want even more healing and survivability, then consider Apothecary with an Earth/Water/Tempest spec. Weapon can be anything, but a Zealot’s Fresh Air build should avoid Staff.
Everything: So you don’t know what you want to do or don’t want to commit. That’s okay. Here’s where I recommend Celestial gear (equal bonuses to every stat except Concentration and Expertise). You can swap traits and specializations to favor support or DPS as you go. Neither support nor DPS will be as good as dedicated builds, but you’ll be much more well-rounded than any of those. Weapon can be anything.
Five key things to remember when discussing raids and meta builds…
1. Incoming damage is almost entirely mechanics-based. You avoid damage by moving into or out of a specific location. If you don’t move into or out of the location in question, you probably die instantly. It’s entirely different from standard PvE.
2. Because damage is mechanics-based, any attention to toughness or vitality is wasted. This is why raids run glass cannon builds across the board. Even the “tank” runs just enough toughness to prioritize them over a PS Warrior rezzing someone. Any additional toughness is wasted in raids.
3. The raid meta assumes that you’ll have a Chronomancer, a PS Warrior, and a Druid covering a ton of boons for you with near-perfect uptime. All gearing decisions for the meta are made with that assumption and leave massive gaps in performance if you lack those boons or if any member of the boon trinity can’t keep them up consistently and perfectly.
4. The top raid teams are made of truly outstanding players. They have perfected their rotations with hours of practice. They know how every second of every raid will play out. Unless you’re at that level, their builds and rotations may not work for you.
5. The raid meta is built for speed and speed alone. Safety has no place in it. You use the minimum possible support and maximum possible DPS to get the fastest possible time. When you know the raids like the top guilds do, this is the best option. If you don’t, then you can make some less-speedy choices that will be much more safe for your team.
For example, Ele can outheal Druid and is a safer choice there, but Druid brings key unique boons, so Druids fill the dual role of support and healer. Engi is the toughest class in the game, but Chronomancer gear carries unwanted Toughness, so the Chrono gets dual-purposed as the tank. Bring a Revenant with Facet of Nature and you can get an extra 33% boon duration for the party, allowing you to run a lot less boon-duration gear.
Qtfy doesn’t need to do any of that. They have minimized their support and maximized their DPS. Their players are good enough to make that work. Most others aren’t.
On a related note, a while back I was farming Fractal 40 with some PUGs (3xEle, 2xThief). I was very new to the game, but had rapidly built up my character with raid meta Dagger/Warhorn FA gear. The team leader was a full-on meta fanatic with the same build. We failed a couple times and he’s screaming about needing more DPS. Talk to the group and every single person is running full Berserker’s and dying the second they take a hit. Doesn’t matter, we need more DPS. There is absolutely no boon support on this team and nothing but DPS builds. One Ele drops and an Engi joins. The Berserker’s go down again (“MOAR DPS!” cries the leader) and the Engi proceeds to solo the fractal. The Engi was running a non-meta Celestial build with weak DPS.
How could this Engi possibly handle the fractal by themselves? They didn’t care about being the fastest, they cared about finishing. He had a ton of sustain and enough DPS, flipping the raid meta standard completely. Four glass cannon Berserker’s meta builds singlehandedly carried by a non-meta Cele Engi.
Moral of the story? Kitten the meta, do what works and shift as you get better.
Not sure of the spec you were running or how you were geared, but you can trait and gear Eles for a lot better sustain. You just need to figure out how much damage you’re willing to give up.
The ultimate in cheap sustain condi gear is Dire. You can buy a whole set of Exotic Dire with dungeon tokens. It’ll be safe in any open world areas and good for WvW. I’ve come around to the belief that everyone should have a set of Dire around.
Spec Fire 1-1-2, Earth 2-1-2, and Tempest 3-3-1. Use Signet of Fire and Signet of Earth, plus whatever works best for you in the third Utility slot. I recommend Glyph of Elemental Power in open world. Use Glyph of Elementals for your Elite.
Use Smoldering & Malice Sigils on your weapons, Undead Runes on your armor, and Chrysocola Gems on your trinkets and backpiece. Use Dagger/Warhorn or Scepter/Warhorn – forget Staff.
In combat, you’ll stay in Fire and go crazy. Use Signet of Fire and Overload Fire every chance you get, then prioritize your highest condi damage attacks after that.
If you insist on wasting stats, that’s up to you. But at least be objective. There are no issues with playing Fresh Air solo using full zerk stats. It gives you 65% crit from stats + Signet of Fire + Sigil of Accuracy, which you should run anyway. 65% chance per hit and you hit multiple times every second when you stack on top of each other Overload Air, Glyph of Storms, Lava Font, Meteor Shower… And then there’s Fury.
You’re undervaluing crit chance, particularly with big Ferocity numbers. Without raid boons, Berserker’s comes up short compared to Assassin’s. It’s as simple as that. Fresh Air Staff doesn’t generate Fury unless you make a bad choice in your utilities.
Think of it this way, 35% of the time in Fire (26.4% in Air, unless you don’t trait x-2-x, in which case it’s still 35% in Air), the Berserker’s build gives up critical damage and does base damage only. It doesn’t proc crit-based traits during that time or generate any sort of benefit. That’s vulnerability and burns (which proc Burning Rage for 10% damage) dropped.
That same Assassin’s build only gives up critical damage 9% of the time in Fire and always crits in Air. More vulns, more burns, and a LOT more critical damage. That Precision also increases Ferocity for harder crits.
If you go full Assassin’s (the build linked above used a mix), you can get over a 96% crit chance with over 230% crit damage with no other boons in effect. Trait 3-1-2 if you want, then. Otherwise, that extra 180 Precision is always worth it if you don’t have raid boons, even if you only get the bonus in Air.
Same goes for the trait. If you want to take a trait for half the effect for about a second on most fights not featuring a champ, that’s up to you. The trait is used on x/Warhorn builds because you spend the majority of your time there and because you also have a strong attack skill which benefits from the cooldown reduction. On staff, it’s still a waste. Because you start in Air, by casting Overload.
I assume you want to trait 3-1-2 for Air? A 20% recharge cut on a medium recharge utility, plus a single stack of might? You’d take that over an effective doubling of the effect of Signet of Fire in Air, where you’ll be for at least half the time? 3-3-2 is great for PvP, but fairly useless in PvE.
In many cases, before you actually engage, to just leave the damage area and move to Fire. By the time you should go back to Air, the fight is over.
If you’re fighting non-expansion trash mobs, sure. Anything will work. Go Cleric’s Scepter/Empty and you can survive well enough. If you’re fighting expansion mobs without raid boons – or even have a veteran show up – things survive quite a lot longer. They’ll survive longer still if you handicap yourself with a raid build and don’t bring raid boons.
Doesn’t matter, unless you’re trying to raid with a composition that doesn’t supply said boons. And if you are, you’re either experienced enough to not need build advices or you shouldn’t do it. In open world/dungeons/fractals the difference will be minimal and it’s just not worth having a secondary set of gear with the same function or stat-swapping it all the time. Of course, if it doesn’t bother you to stat-swap (or have no intention to run high-end group content whatsoever), by all means, go for Assassin’s.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, I don’t believe the OP is seeking raid advice. Seems like straight build help, mostly for open world. That “minimal difference” is pretty huge when you’re talking about crit chance without raid buffs on a build that assumes critical hits to flow correctly.
x-2-x Air is a waste on staff. You don’t spend enough time in Air to be worth it. Both other traits are much better. You either get glyph CD reduction (more Glyph of Storms) or a strong damage modifier against hard-cc’d targets.
You’ll be in Air for at least 9 seconds a pop. Five of those are waiting on Overload Air, four are casting Overload Air. You’ll have a Conjure in your hand for the first 5 seconds, but you’ll still be in Air. Even casting every Fire attack you can, you’ll be in Air plenty to take advantage of 3-2-2.
1. The rotation goes to Firestorm (Glyph of Storms) if it’s available after Meteor Swarm, not Conjure Fiery Greatsword? You use CFG when you switch back to Air, because Air Staff’s skills are terrible DPS. CFG makes up for that while you wait for Overload Air to charge.
2. Not sure what you’re asking here. Do you think it needs to be used more often or less?
3. You’re getting the most out of Fire that you can while you’re in it, because those Fire skills will outdamage Overload Air.
4. The build is heavy on AOEs, which are natively less effective against small targets unless there are a lot of them. What else would you propose using, though?
5. CFG is an elite skill, so you can have both. They recommend Lightning Hammer over Ice Bow, mostly due to the autoattack and the fact you’ll need to spend more time with it equipped. Ice Bow is better if you only need to pop two attacks to fill a gap in your rotation.
(edited by mygamingid.5816)
I got more to ask guys so bear with me:
Qtfy says that i should take summon fiery greatsword and according to what i saw the fresh air build is, it says:Go use overcharge use lightning then use lightningstorm then go fire throw meteor use lava font then go fiery greatsword and then back to air ele charge.Wouldn’t you have to constantly apply lava font for it to be useful? I am messing around with fresh air build and right now my luck is far too low at a whopping 17% critical hit chance.
All of Quantify’s builds assume near-perfect raid boons from a Druid, PS Warrior, and Chronomancer. Their trait and gear choices are made knowing that they’ll make up for any deficiencies with the raid boons. If you have full raid boons, go with Quantify’s build and don’t bother reading any further. If you don’t have those boons, then your performance will drop off quickly from expectations without making some big changes.
Assuming you don’t have full raid boons, Fresh Air favors a very aggressive build with a lot of Power, Precision, and Ferocity. For example, an Assassin’s/Berserker’s mix. In Air, that will have a 100% crit chance and 232% crit damage. I’d go Dagger/Focus now, but any combination of weapons will do fine. I equipped Staff for the build since you seemed most interested in that.
Why not Berserker’s? Straight Berserker’s will be ~5% behind the mostly-Assassin’s build in damage, due solely to the difference in crit chance. The Precision offered by Assassin’s gear also plays nice with the Ferocious Winds trait in Air (7% of Precision added to Ferocity).
Fire is typically traited 1-1-1, but that only makes sense if you’re dropping blast finishers. The Fresh Air build has no blast finishers. Since you’ll be in melee range anyway, I recommend 1-1-3 for the blindness. The combo of Burning Precision and Burning Ashes will provide decent protection. If you don’t care about that, trait Fire 2-1-2 for reduced recharge on Conjures and Might on everything cast in Fire.
Air should be traited 3-2-2 for Fresh Air to cap crit chance in Air. Quantify uses the Glyph recharge trait “Inscription”, but they also assume Spotter, Fury, and Banner of Discipline will max their Precision. You won’t have those, so you need more Precision of your own.
Just keep in mind that what Quantify is presenting is very focused on raids and makes assumptions based on their own capabilities and needs. In that context, those builds are outstanding. Outside of that context, don’t be afraid to make adjustments.
I would recommend unlocking the Conjure utility skills quickly. They’ll hit like Exotics, which will be amazing early on, and they’ll grant stat bonuses. Their power adjusts with your level, too. Even if the rest of your gear is past its prime, the Conjure will keep rolling with you. The axe, bow, hammer, and greatsword all work well.
Pick up a level-appropriate sigil of speed for your weapons. That will give you superspeed every time you kill an opponent. I also like the sigil of bloodlust for leveling.
As Sunshine mentioned, you’ll do most of your damage in Fire. You’ll be fine with whatever weapon combination you choose, but range can be helpful for players new to this fragile class. I’d probably recommend Staff or Scepter/Focus. If you want to mix it up in melee a bit more, Dagger/Focus or Dagger/Dagger are a lot of fun.
If you just started then it’ll be a while before you can trait any specializations. When you can, I would recommend prioritizing Fire first. It will ramp up your effectiveness quickly. I’d trait it 2-1-2 at the start to give you faster recharge on your Conjures, faster and more damaging fire skills, and might-generation in Fire. With the Conjures, you should be able to stay in Fire and generate a ton of Might for extra damage.
You can hit 100% burn and bleed duration with:
- Viper weapons, trinkets, and back piece
- Superior Sigil of Agony
- Two Trapper runes and four Nightmare runes
- Burning Precision and Weaver’s Prowess traits
- Rare Veggie PizzaAfter that, it’s just a question of what stat set you put on your armor. Sinister and Grieving are the most likely choices, and we’ll probably have to wait for release to know which is going to be better.
Assuming Fire/Arcane/Weaver? I’m weighing that against Fire/Earth/Weaver. Earth grants more base condi damage, permanent passive Signets, faster recharge on Signets, and you can swap out the Sigil of Agony. Both offer improved sustain. Arcane offers faster attunement refresh, some default concentration, Fury & element-specific boons on swap, and condi damage on Arcane utilities.
If I found myself switching attunements often, then Arcane would probably be better. If I camp Fire or Fire & Earth, then Earth would probably be better. I’m probably going to start with an Earth build, but Arcane is tempting.
for raids: https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/necromancer/condi-reaper/
For fractals or open world PvE, take this and change abit when needed.
Looks like this build uses mostly sinisters, though. Is this one also out of date?
That’s a bit of a weird build made expressly to get the highest possible DPS against the golem. It relies in part on proccing Deathly Chill off of an Ice field with Whirl Finishers. Given how many fields drop in gameplay, this isn’t guaranteed or even likely outside of the golem.
The QT build also focused on bleeds. It uses Krait runes and just enough (actually a little too much) Viper’s to get 100% bleed duration. Other condis have much shorter durations. Necros have every condi on tap, so you’re leaving some damage on the table if you don’t go for as much global condi duration as possible.
I expect we’ll have a new Condi Necro meta with Scourge, but we’ll have to wait for the release to know for sure.
Fire has the “Burning Fire” trait…
Welcome back, Chev!
Staff has no real damage in Air, though it does offer some good breakbar options. The best main-hand weapons for an Air-focused build are Dagger and Scepter. Dagger does more damage, Scepter has more range. Off-hand, Dagger has better offense, while Focus has better utility. Dagger/Dagger feels great in Air, but you have a bunch of options to choose from.
Air has no condi damage, so you’ll want to build for Power, Precision, and Ferocity to get the most out of it. Berserker’s, Assassin’s, and Marauder’s gear will be most useful – I prefer straight Marauder’s unless I have full raid buffs on my team.
And please be objective. The AOEs on d/f are nothing to brag about regarding cleave damage. Flamewall is tiny, and so is Burning Speed. Overload Fire is strong, but its radius is the same as your smallest AOE on staff (Lava Font). There’s also Drake’s Breath, but it’s a cone, which makes it less reliable against larger packs of enemies.
Compare this to Overload Air + Lava Font + Meteor Shower on top of each other. You create a larger kill zone in less time and the enemies inside die faster, due to virtually no ramp-up. The only cases where d/f can match its efficiency is when fighting against single strong opponent. To put it short, it lacks good cleave like I already said.
AOEs are overrated unless you’re tagging for bags or dealing with immobile mobs. As Axl stated, expansion content enemies move out of the AOE patch. Single-target attacks will burn down opponents faster and result in fewer incoming attacks, allowing you to avoid dodging and repositioning, so you can do more damage, etc.
I’ve been soloing Power Staff for the past week, trying to see if I’m missing something. I’ve been most effective with a Fire/Arcane/Tempest build. I thought Air would be the best (either with Fresh Air or Bolt to the Heart), but the nerfs to Air Overload hurt. I’ve been better off using Air just for CCs.
Pre-expansion content has been easy, but it’s easy regardless of build. Power Staff is frustrating in any content where the mobs won’t sit in my AOEs or I have to move a lot. Cancelling Meteor Shower to dodge or relocate away from damage is really annoying.
Viper’s is the condi gear of choice for PvE and nothing is expected to change there. The Condi Necro meta will likely change to incorporate Scourge with the expansion, though.
Condi, Healing | Expertise, Concentration
So wait:Condi Eles are kittened in pve outside raids? So what do you go for for pve solo? dagger focus? I said dagger focus because of onyx skin thing from earth which gives you protection.
Nope, they’re amazing everywhere. Feanor just loves power staff Ele. D/F in Fire gives three skills with AOE and you can get more with Arcane Brilliance and Conjure Fiery Greatsword.
Condi does have a much easier rotation. You’ll camp Fire and use CFG unless you need utility from another attunement (and you have a lot of it). So you won’t have to do the Fresh Air attunement dance and you’ll do more damage.
The biggest damage from Condi is Signet of Fire, which is why I tend to recommend Fire/Earth/Arcane (faster recharge on signets, permanent passive signets) over Fire/Arcane/Tempest. It is a single target attack, but it hits crazy hard. If you need more AOE for a fight, then spec Fire/Arcane/Tempest or Fire/Earth/Tempest and use Overloads.
(edited by mygamingid.5816)
If you don’t want to spend any time farming and just want to spend laurels toward a WvW-friendly build, then I would recommend Celestial trinkets. It’ll give you both damage and sustain stats, even if it doesn’t make you great at anything. It’ll also allow you to focus the rest of your gear on offense (Viper, Berserker, or Marauder).
From what i’ve seen i’m starting to get a grudge playing a ele.Maybe having full condi gear but its beyond frustrating trying to survive and getting downed instantly and then using mist to move a few feet away and still die instantly.
This class just feels so squishy and weak that it becomes a chore to get Hero points. I’m not even sure how people can stand tangled depths with all the billions of adds and low dmg.
It’s difficult to talk about Eles, because many players think only in terms of raids and the Raid Meta, where damage is avoided mechanically, buffbots take your offensive performance to otherwise-impossible levels, and someone else provides your heals. The Raid Meta is “meta” only to the extent you raid or otherwise run with the buffbot trinity. In raids, a glass cannon Ele is the most efficient build. Outside of raids, it’s heavily dependent on your capabilities and preferences.
I would expect players to get frustrated playing a Raid Meta build in expansion content without Raid Meta support. GW2’s expansion content isn’t anything like raiding. It requires something closer to a WvW-style build. You have to damage your opponents AND sustain. The Raid Meta doesn’t care about any of that, because it isn’t relevant to raid content.
So the problem isn’t that the player is bad or the class is bad, it’s that the build is being used outside of the context it was built for. No buffbots = no Raid Meta. For example, Berserker’s gear and a crit-reliant build (Sigil of Air, Scholar Runes, High Ferocity) is great if you have Spotter, Banner of Discipline, and 100% Fury uptime. If you don’t have those boons, you’ve brutally nerfed yourself. So what do you do?
Ignoring the defensive side of things, a condi build removes reliance on critical hits. You don’t have to worry about Scholar rune uptime, either. Spec the Fire trait line for Might (1-1-2) and you gain a ton of self-sufficiency. I like vanilla Fire/Earth/Arcane, but am considering Fire/Earth/Weaver. Earth and Arcane both have some nice sustain traits that will keep you up longer than a Fire/Air/Tempest, too.
You like to raid on occasion? Good news! Condi Ele is meta there, too. The preferred build is Fire/Arcane/Tempest. It’s just a good choice to make right now.
Right now, Sw/D and Sc/D are my likely choices for Fire/Earth/Weaver.
Here’s how I see the Fire/Earth/Weaver base: link. Run 1-1-2 Fire if you don’t have raid buffbots with you.
Note: Use Sword/Dagger, not Dagger/Dagger. I needed a placeholder for the Viper stats. You get a nice fire field and leap finisher from Sword 2 and the Sword autoattack has a burn on the third strike. You have bleeds on Earth 1 & 2, also.
If you want more range, try Scepter/Dagger. You get bleeds with Earth 1 & 2, burns with Fire 1 & 2, and Fracturing Strike on a short cooldown.
(edited by mygamingid.5816)
I think you’ll be fine. Staff is currently meta for large hitbox targets, but weak for everything else. That’s not such a big deal in open world PvE. It’s really close to current Staff meta specs.
I’d consider swapping out Air for Arcane (2-2-3) and changing up Fire (1-1-2). That will give you self-generated Might while in Fire and you’ll get a 2% damage buff for every boon on you. Maybe swap out Rebound for Conjure Fiery Greatsword for a bit more offense and mobility?
I’m working on a D/D Fresh Air Auramancer build for general gameplay. It might be a good option for you.
It uses Air/Water/Tempest for auras and boons, Zealot’s gear, Leadership runes, and Accuracy & Concentration sigils. With Fresh Air, you’re constantly generating auras from Overload Air, granting you healing, regen, and boons.
It’s definitely not a raid meta spec, but it’s safe for soloists without completely sacrificing damage. Swap Soothing Power for Powerful Aura and you’ve got a great team support spec, so it’s versatile. I’m likely to work on this set after I get my condi gear settled.
47.86% crit chance.
Here’s what you’re missing: the 8.57% crit chance from Signet of Fire needs to be taken out, because you’re casting it off cooldown. Your real crit chance in that build is the 39.29%.
Ahh, I’ve been used to a Fire/Earth combo with permanent passive Sigils.
47.86% crit chance.
I’m giving my Marauder’s gear to my Reaper as soon as I complete my Ele’s condi set. Power Reaper just seems like a lot of fun outside of the soul-numbing raid context. If it gets buffed, awesome! If not, I knew what I was getting into.
Solo PvE means few buffs, so the heavily-buffed raid meta builds will fall short for you. I’d say try out your most recent build and see how things go for now. Would you post the build for review?
Basically, using Griever to complete the gear is giving around 134 effective power over Sinister, while Sinister is giving 10 damage more per burn and 4 damage more per bleed. I don’t think that’s even a close decision.
The gear I looked at was Viper weapons (Dagger/Focus) & trinkets, with Sinister or Grieving armor. Runes were 4xNightmare & 2xTrapper, with Sigils of Bursting and Agony (Fire/Arcane/Weaver). Condi duration is maxed with Weaver’s Prowess.
Power: Grieving +2.70%
Crit Chance: Sinister +12.06%
Crit Damage: Grieving +9.20%
Condi Damage: Sinister +4.1%
If you take Power * Crit% * CritDmg, you get a net total power advantage for Grieving of… 0.08%. The Precision gap levels the playing field significantly.
The condi damage differential works out to something like 12.2/second/stack on burns and 4.7/second/stack for bleeds, ignoring the impact of any buffs outside of Weaver. Stacks add up really fast and last quite a while on Condi Ele builds. Looking at that, Sinister is winning easily… but…
Things do get a bit more questionable when you add in perfect raid buffs. All of the gaps shrink, but the changes to crit percentage are the most meaningful. Grieving ends up with something like a +4.6% power-based damage advantage.
Is that enough to make this an easy choice? It depends on the power-to-condi damage ratio in your rotation. The more damage tips toward physical, the more beneficial Grieving will be. The more damage tips toward condi, the more beneficial Sinister will be.
Outside of Meteor Storm, Staff is really weak on 4 & 5 skills, making it a poor choice for Weaver builds.
So use conjures to fill the gaps. Just like we do now with Tempest. Staff is the current meta for a reason, especially after Scepter damage got wrecked in the last balance. And the reason is largely Meteor Shower.
Condi Dagger/Focus is up ~29% on FA Staff currently, so Staff is far from meta. Staff only enters the discussion against large hitbox, high health, immobile opponents. It’s amazing there, for sure, but so is Condi Dagger/Focus.
If you want to run Staff for fun or in those rare circumstances where it excels, enjoy! Otherwise, Condi Dagger/Focus is the meta. I’m curious where it’ll end up for large hitboxes. No less than the small hitbox DPS, but possibly much more with some of those area attacks.
With Weaver, you’ll have 20% condi duration on demand, so you can ease that burden and pick up more condi damage in your gear. You’ll also get +10% condi damage with that same trait, which is nice. No need to use Unravel, either, just switch attunements.
I didn’t see anything in Weaver that would lead me to believe it would match Tempest Auramancer for those roles. Weaver is definitely built for DPS, but it may not live up to its billing. If nothing else, it’ll be a novel way to play the class.
I suppose it could work either way. You get two additional damage modifier traits for power and one for condi. In the end it will be up to the weapon choice. I expect Staff to remain the weapon of choice for pure Power, running full zerk as now. D/x or S/x could run viper/grieving with either focus on condi or some hybrid. But I still dislike how the best grandmaster in a condi build is a pure power trait. So I lean toward staff.
Can’t have perfect traits everywhere, but EoR will still be very solid for Vipers & Grieving sets. The ferocity bonus will be nice, as it will give a bigger percentage bump in Ferocity than Berserkers with already-high ferocity. Where Berserker shines is in Ferocity and slightly higher Precision.
If all you do is raid or otherwise run with a purpose-built team, then Berserkers is an awesome power gear set. Berserker Ele needs the buff trinity (Druid, Chronomancer, PS Warrior) or it goes soft fast. Chronomancer is particularly important for Staff, which has some really long cooldowns.
If you want to raid power, though, why not just go with another class? Dragonhunter is where it’s at for power. Daredevil, Engineer, and even Mesmer are better. I don’t see anything in Weaver that will turn that tide.
I can tell you that Arcane, Fire and Weaver with S/D is a pretty good combo. Fire can be swapped for earth pretty easily. I suppose you can go Fire, Earth and Weaver.
I like Earth’s recharge reduction and permanent passive bonus for Signets, plus you get a condi bonus off Toughness. That’s 100-133 more condi damage for a full offensive gear spec. You also get some defensive quality of life abilities. Arcane will be solid, too. Neither is a bad choice for a Weaver’s third spec.
In any case, I’m likely to go D/X over Sw/X, at least until Sw/X is rebalanced to account for range and attack speed.
I love a Sinister/Viper’s combo on Tempest or Vanilla builds. I camp Fire in those build, though.
The Weaver spec offers the Weaver’s Prowess trait for a 20% bump in condi duration and a 10% bump in condi damage upon switching attunements. If you’re going to switch, then it’s good to have something like Earth to switch to.
Elements of Rage will work well with Viper’s gear, too. Viper’s has the same Power, Condition, and Precision stats as Grieving. Grieving will get Ferocity minor, while Viper’s has an Expertise minor. The bonus from EoR will be exactly the same for both sets. I’d be surprised if the Ferocity minor out-damages the Expertise minor, but someone will run the numbers eventually.
Outside of Meteor Storm, Staff is really weak on 4 & 5 skills, making it a poor choice for Weaver builds. Grieving will be great for power builds looking to increase condi damage on the side, but it’ll be difficult to top Vipers and a condi-focused rotation under the current build.
I thought it was always 180? Might be a typo on the wiki.
Solo or are you running with teammates when you can?
Condi, no question. Power lags everywhere except large hitbox now and condi beats it there. Dagger/Dagger lends itself to burn builds well. Spec Sinister with Viper’s weapons and rings, Balthazar runes, Sigil of Smoldering, and either Sigil of Bursting or Sigil of Accuracy. I lean Accuracy, because I like maximizing crits and this build has a lot of power, but you do you.
Necro might have significant raid team value if the expansion features boon-heavy opponents, as expected? It’d be like in WvW. That’s my hope anyway, but it kind of assumes that PS Spellbreaker boonstrip won’t be enough.
1 2