Guild Wars 2

The current consensus is that every speed-run group ought to have at least 2 wars. So if you want to get into groups, roll a war. Other useful classes are mes, guard, and thief. Unfortunately, in PvE at least, rangers, engi’s, and necros are just not needed – although there is 1 build for engi and 1 for ranger which are semi-acceptable in speed runs.

I like playing my mes most. All the evades/blocks are great – waaaaaay better than carrying that stupid, nerfed invuln that only lasts for 3 secs with a 75 sec CD. And watching your feedback make Lupi or Malrona kill themselves is simply fantastic. So is 1-shotting fractal bosses. You just feel totally OP.

You know there are name-change contracts, right? You don’t need to keep deleting your toons. Seems like a waste of time, doing all that level’ing, then just deleting your toon. Although, since you can get a new toon up to 80 in less than a day via EXP scroll to 20, then crafting + storyline, it’s not too big of a deal.

IMO, everything below level 80 is a waste of time. Anet’s storyline is simply atrocious (FYI, Trahearne is the biggest noob this world has ever seen). Get to 80 ASAP, gear up properly for PvE (or WvW if you prefer that), and then make your decision. Or just head straight into PvP and forget about level’ing up in PvE. If you’re interested in PvE, do some research now into meta-builds, so you can see how you’ll be playing once you hit 80 and get geared up correctly. That way, you won’t be surprised if you roll a guard and end up thinking "wow, I’m just hitting “1” a lot for sword auto," for example.

Now to your questions:

- Mesmer mobility is annoying, you’re right, but there IS a way around it. Buy an extra set of gear w/ Centaur runes, and use your healing mantra. It has a base of 2 charges, and each charge procs swiftness via Centaur runes. That plus Curtain and your boon duration sig will give you perma-swiftness for running around/skipping mobs.

- All meta-builds for PvE for all classes are boring. It’s just something you have to accept. If you like PvE, the question you should be asking is not “which class is most interesting,” but “which class is most useful.” At the moment, the consensus is that every group should have at least 2 wars. So if you want to easily find a group for PvE, roll a war. Other useful classes are mes, guard, ele, and thief. The least-useful classes (at least in PvE speedruns), are ranger, engi, and necro – although there is 1 build for ranger and 1 for engi which are semi-acceptable in speed runs.

- If you’re thinking PvP, do whatever. It doesn’t really matter; the only thing you can be sure of is that the OP class of today will be nerfed tomorrow (or, since it’s Anet we’re talking about, it might take a fair bit longer than that).

That is too true – I seem to get targeted by lifesteal 90% of the time when I’m on ele. Unfortunately, it’s made carrying Mist Form a necessity. I haven’t noticed it on guard though.

Fortus.6175:

Staff ele is probably one of the most enjoyable things you can do in the game, with that being said, while enjoyable you also have to take into considerations what they bring. In dungeons, FGS is probably the best boss melter in the game if it is one of thsoe bosses that can be stacked agaisnt a wall, other than that, a mesmer will be outdoing a ele any day, any way. Mesmers have lots of good points to their advantage to support which doesnt really need to be respecced as much as ele.

Same goes with reflections. Mesmers have access to the most reflection in the game, coupled with one of the highest damage in the game and utility for the entire party such as invisibility for bypassing stuff, doubling buffs and group stability, makes mesmers the almost-universal-must-have-class in any team. While eles are pretty much restricted to AC and CoE for the most part.

What’s this guy smoking? He made several statements which are just flat-out wrong. I even addressed some of them in my previous two posts here. I’m going to assume he was just trolling, but on the off-chance he wasn’t and to safeguard against the chance that some gullible person will take him seriously, I’ll respond to his points.

Staff ele is probably one of the most enjoyable things you can do in the game
- No, playing staff ele in dungeons is possibly the most boring thing in this game. The meta is 30/20/10/10/0, sitting in Fire Atune the entire time, and spamming 1, 2, and 3. Plus 4 if you’re backed against a wall, and 5 if your target has a large hitbox. But that’s it. It is simply mind-numbingly monotonous. Plus you’re outputting lower damage AND stacking less might for your group than you would in a s/f or s/d + LH build, so this begs the question…. why are you even fooling around w/ staff?

a mesmer will be outdoing an ele any day
- No, maximum ele DPS is higher than maximum mesmer DPS, unless a mesmer stacks 3 phantasms and picks up an ele’s LH, and you factor in the damage that the phantasms do in addition to the mesmer’s damage. If the phantasms are just sitting there not attacking, meaning they’re just boosting the mesmer’s damage modifiers, ele will still do more damage. This assumes meta specs and all the many outside buffs. Even if you don’t include every single outside buff (eg. in normal speed runs, you don’t run a ranger for frost spirits and Spotter), ele DPS is still higher.

Mesmers have access to the most reflection in the game, coupled with one of the highest damage in the game
- Refer to the previous point. Mesmer is not even close to “one of the highest damage in the game,” except under very particular circumstances (eg. Feedback’ing Lupi, Malrona, etc). Ele and War DPS are undoubtedly higher (I’ve tested both), and there is a broad consensus that thief and guard DPS are also higher (which seems to be right, having played all 5 classes I mentioned, but I haven’t tested mes vs. thief/guard specifically).

Mesmers have lots of good points to their advantage to support which doesnt really need to be respecced as much as ele
- Neither mesmers nor ele’s need to be respec’d out of their respective meta’s for PvE. In WvW, all professions need to be respec’d, unless you’re going full-glass just as you would in PvE. Therefore, this is a moot point.

While eles are pretty much restricted to AC and CoE for the most part.
- Ele’s are most useful in AC and CoE due to being able to pull most bosses against walls for Fiery Rush (and the utility of icebow in AC), but ele’s are incredibly useful for might-stacking in any dungeon, as well as for very good damage. In “example dungeon X”, where you don’t need reflects and where you can’t pull enemies to the wall, most groups prefer a s/x LH ele over a mes (although, since you can push at least 1 boss/group of mobs against a wall in almost every dungeon path, or just Fiery Rush + blink/shadow step/lightning flash if there is no wall, it’s not a fair comparison. It means that ele will ALWAYS be better than mes in “example dungeon X”).

BlackBeard.2873:

S/F is meant to be played at near-max range (900) as no skill on the kit requires any closer range.

NO! Just…. no. This could not be more wrong in anything PvE. Staying at max-range is the cardinal sin that WILL get you kicked from a dungeon group.

In PvE, you should ALWAYS be within melee range of your team-mates, and almost always within melee range of the boss. Why? So you can stack more might, so that might will get stacked on your allies, and so that their boons will effect you as well.

Might stacking combo for S/F is:

Dragon’s Tooth, Flamewall, Phoenix + Arcane Wave + Earth Atune, Magnetic Wave + Water Atune, Comet, Summon LH, LH AA.

You’ll be able to get off 1 blast finisher from a complete AA chain before Flamewall expires, assuming you traited into Persisting Flames. That’s 18 might in 10 secs. It’s even better than S/D’s 15 might in 10 secs. And it’ll only happen if you are right on top of the boss and your flamewall is directly underneath both you AND the boss.

Prism.5649:

Both Mesmer and Ele are completely viable in Dungeons and WvW.

That being said, Mesmer is in a bit of a better position right now:

PvE
-Mesmer/Guardian reflects make endgame PvE content much easier and while they are not required, you will have a vastly easier time getting a group as a Mesmer.
-Unfortunately right now the support role (which is primarily the role of a Staff Ele) is not in a strong position for PvE. There are certainly viable builds for using a staff in PvE content and you will not necessarily be a burden to your group for using them, but the hard truth is that your group would be better off not having a Staff Ele.

I disagree. There are certain dungeon paths where you’ll definitely want a mesmer, and ones where you’ll definitely want an ele (which I enumerated in my last post). For other paths, where neither are necessary, I’ve found that groups usually prefer me to run ele over mesmer since ele has superior damage and might stacking. It’s the dungeons where you don’t need reflects (around half of them) where this usually happens. *

*My mes is in 10/30/0/20/10 sword/focus + offhand swap to sword, and my ele is S/D / S/F + LH w/ 30/10/10/20/0 or 0/20/25/25/0, depending on how much I’ll need to dodge [metas for both classes]. I always make sure groups know this before they choose if I go ele, mes, war, guard, or thief. Although, most groups want me to go war, so this question of ele vs. mes is a moot point. The general opinion is that every group needs at least 2 wars in it – so you’d be best off making a war. lol

Both are useful in dungeons.

Mes in necessary for pulls/reflects/TW/blink + portal hacks (though not for much longer. Gahd, anet fixed the harpy frac blink!)/disenchant (in very, very few instances). Don’t worry about shatters – in PvE, you’ll be stacking phantasms for higher damage, so you’ll rarely use them anyway.

Groups almost always take a mes in: all Arah, all CoE, CoF p1, SE p1/3, certain fractals.

Ele is necessary for might stacking and abusing Fiery Rush. The days of 4x war & 1x mes are over – there’s almost always a spot for an ele in speed runs these days (assuming you’re running S/D or S/F + LH – otherwise, you’re out of luck).

Groups almost always take an ele in: all CoE, AC p1/3.

In all the dungeon paths I haven’t listed as being favorable to either mes or ele (generally the ones where you don’t need reflects), groups usually prefer an ele for superior might stacking and damage over a mes.

MarzAttakz.9608:

The difference is you can faceroll with close to zero class experience as a guardian or thief, it works differently for an elementalist, but you should know that already.

I disagree. You can faceroll ele about as easily as war, and both are only slightly more difficult than mes, guard, and thief. This is talking PvE, of course.

Ele: Fire Atune > Dragon’s Tooth > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Earth Atune + Arcane Wave > Earthquake > Summon LH + Water Atune > LH AA > repeat

So basically: Might stack w/ S/D, LH AA in Water atune (which is also might stacking, assuming fire field via embers, guard, war, a 2nd ele, etc), repeat. You’re just hitting “1” the majority of the time. How is that any harder than war/mes/guard/thief? … it isn’t.

War: 100blades, whirlwind, swap to axe/mace, vuln stack w/ axe 2 & mace 4, axe AA, swap to GS, repeat. Summon banners in fire field for might. Keep FGJ and OMM on CD. Use Warbanner to res downed players. I’d argue this is more interesting than ele, since you only do 1 AA chain w/ axe, then you wep swap.

Mes: Stack phantasms/clones and Sword AA. If your phantasms die, restack them. That’s about it as far as “rotations” go. Everything else is conditional. Try not to use up your mantras to keep your damage modifiers up. Use feedback at certain points. Pull certain bosses/adds with Focus 4. Use Sword 2 if you need an evade. Use kitten certain bosses. Use Power Break if your team needs Stab and Power Cleanse if they need a cleanse. Use Sig of Insp if they need Might. Most of the time, you end up hitting “1” a lot. It’s slightly easier than ele and war, but slightly harder than guard and thief.

Guard: Sword AA… and that’s the only real “rotation.” Everything else is either conditional or something you keep on perma-CD. Sword 2 for blind/vuln, Sword 3 when you need a block, Focus 4 for blind/vuln, Focus 5 for blocks. VoJ each time you kill an add for burning/blinds/vuln, VoR when your team needs a cleanse, VoC when they need Aegis. WoR when your team needs a reflect, Retreat when they need aegis/swiftness, HG when they need Stab, PF when they need a cleanse. Easier than ele and war, I agree. It mostly consists of hitting “1” a lot.

You see what I mean about PvE? Ele is no harder than any other class, so there is simply no point in wasting time between lvl’s 1 and 80. Just level your toon up, figure out the meta, do a few dungeons, and you’re golden. This idea that “ele has a steeper learning curve than any other class” is just a myth. It doesn’t. All classes are approximately equally easy in PvE.

^ exactly what Durend said (hiya – I know you! Aphiera here).

Some stuff we both left out is:

- The first and last grub spawns in phase 1 can target both players AND your clones/pets/embers/ogre pets, and are undodgeable. The grub spawns in between only target players and ARE dodgeable. So keep an eye out for the first and last grubs, and kill them quickly.

- Single-target life steal in phase 3 is easy on mes, and a pain on most other classes. On mes you have 2x dodges + 1x evade – you can survive it. On ele (s/d + LH), I’m forced to use Mist Form utility, because otherwise I dodge twice, then life steal kills me. I usually just pray I’m not the one targeted by it. On war, you have to rely on the notoriously finicky Whirlwind evade, or carry Endure Pain.

- Both Kick and Swipe have defined tells – learn them!

My previous post told you everything you need to know.

Yes, “you HAVE to have the party in melee range for feedback to work properly.” Everyone should also spawn Embers and Ogre Pets the moment he goes into phase 2 so more projectiles appear, and you should pop TW as well, then run outside of TW and wait for him to hunch over and cross his arms. When he does that, use Feedback and run back inside (or hit 3 the trade places w/ your clone and teleport to within melee range). It’s important to use Feedback while outside of TW because otherwise the duration is shortened. When he goes into phase 3, tell your team to NOT MOVE. Moving causes him to do his bubble attack. If he does bubble, activate power break for AoE stability so everyone can run/dodge out of the bubble. If he does his projectile AoE, use feedback.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Firstly, that’s not the pve meta build as it does not optimize fully for damage.

Secondly, included in the list is Colesy’s pve dungeon guide which happens to include multiple effective dungeon builds.

Well, of course it doesn’t optimize damage – anything in inspiration kills your damage, and it puts 20 there for focus reflects and shortened Feedback CD (assumed necessary. if you haven’t got them, why the **** are you bringing a mesmer?). But that doesn’t mean it’s not the meta. 10/30/0/20/10’s been the meta for ages now.

Rainshine.5493:

Ele is a little more complicated than some of the other classes. I would have been pretty overwhelmed if I’d been thrown into it at 80 with no practice beforehand.

Personally, I think leveling via crafting is a bad idea for this class.

Lol. EXP scroll to 20 + crafting/storyline to 80 is way better than actually playing the class up to 80. Insta-80, buy full zerk/scholars with tokens you got via other toons, ascended trinkets with laurels/relics/commendations you got via other toons.

This lets you skip Anet’s incredibly boring storyline (fyi, Traherne is the biggest noob in this game) and lets you start playing the meta straight off the bat so you don’t develop bad habits. I got my guard to 80 via EXP scroll + crafting + storyline in less than a day, bought full zerk, specced him 10/30/0/5/25 sword/focus, and started speed runs with my guild that same day. I did the same thing when levelling my thief, only starting playing when I was full zerk, d/d, 25/30/0/0/15. Maybe if more people did this, we wouldn’t see so many noobs in PvE (eg. GS mes, shout-heal or sig war, mace/shield guard, etc.)

I just looked at the stickied “[List] Mesmer Builds” thread, and the PvE meta isn’t there. I was like “wtf?” Blackwater’s decent, but for PvE you should be running the meta, which is: 10/30/0/20/10, sword/focus + offhand swap to either sword or pistol, zerk + scholars.

Just took a quick look at the list of all the trait setups on the first page, and none of them were the 10/30/0/20/10 sword/focus + offhand swap to either sword or pistol, zerk + scholars. That’s been the PvE meta for some time now – how can there not be a guide on that somewhere here?

Arcane Resurrection is a joke. The devs themselves have said it’s “useless,” along with Soothing Wave. They just haven’t gotten around to redesigning it yet (although they’ve said they will, like they have with Soothing Wave), and they moved it up a tier because nobody uses it anyway and they wanted to make Blasting Staff, Vigorous Scepter, and Windborn Dagger more easily available.

Use an EXP scroll to instantly get to level 20, then craft to 80. I did it a few days ago on a new toon. It took me less than 4 hours. Incredibly easy.

durend.6237:

Most pugs will not do as much damage as recordings of organised groups.

Unlike most mobs, the only thing feedback reflects on lupi are bolts that actually hit the feedback bubble, so it works pretty consistently on p3.

p2 however, the shots are psudo targeted at players. So if everyone is spread out at range there will be very little shots hitting at lupis feet causing low damage. I’d suggest learning to melee him so there’s at least 1 target (plus clones) at his feet to improve damage.

People range Lupi? Really? … that’s news to me. lol

Have your group melee Lupi, and when he goes into Phase 2, use TW, spawn 3 phantasms/clones, and run outside of TW, w/ your finger on the Feedback button. Have your group use Ogre Pet Whistles & Embers so more projectiles will appear. When he hunches over and crosses his arms, use Feedback then run back into melee range. TW + Feedback + your team’s DPS should get him into Phase 3. Having ele/mes/thief on your team pick up FGS and use Fiery Rush + Lightning Flash/Blink/Shadowstep (or just Fiery Rush if you’ve backed him against the wall) helps too. If Feedback gets off CD before you’ve killed him, use it in Phase 3 when does his circular projectile AoE. Activate Power Break if/when he bubbles your team.

Here’s a gallery of my ele in 2 outfits and 3 weps sets that I posted on another thread. I’ve included the styles and colors in the pic, and my DCUO sig (I haven’t got one for GW2 yet).

oZii.2864:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Well, i disagree to an extent. I’m talking more along the lines of wvw. A full dire geared ele, with d/d, is pretty amazing. I can apply every condition available except for fear using runes/sigils.. give me 3 seconds and ill load you up with more condis than a necro could dream of. and i can reapply them really fast, every 10s.

Now, probably matching a necros output of condis, i also have more healing, much much more mobility, and 20k health with 3k armor. condi eles do exist, and theyre good, dont put them down. if youve done a s/d-f condi ele, youve done it wrong obviously.

There is no way you have ever played a necro and make that statement. It is impossible for a elementalist to match a condition necros output. Engineers and Necro’s are on another level when it comes to condi pressure. Necro’s have a signet with 6 conditions 5 with a base duration of 10 secs and 1 condition that lasts for 5(blind). Every rune or sigil you can put on necro can put on and necro’s condition duration trait line is pretty good and their condition damage line is pretty awesome unlike eles earth and fire lines.

I play both classes though ele is my main I can kill people in less than 10 seconds on my condition necro and that burst is back ready again easily in another 15 seconds.

Not putting condition ele’s down I seen frowny in action but it isn’t even close to a necro’s potential instagib in a 30/20/X/X/X.

I only have 1500 condition damage on my necro and Terror which makes fear do damage is 1k per tick that is pretty huge dps that you don’t have. 3k from Doom, 2k from reaper’s mark, 2k from spectral wall. That is 7k damage from 1 condition thats only with 1500 condition damage.

^ This. Exactly this.

@ Game Slayer: As I said, condi ele’s can’t hope to match condi <insert other class here>, so don’t even try. Ele’s have good burst, so capitalize on that. This is talking PvP/WvW, since it seems you agree with me that condi ele in PvE is simply ridiculous.

The Game Slayer.7632:

There are some builds out there that are working for ele. Just gotta put more effort forth. Try out condi ele, dire gear is OP.

this quote from Game Slayer is a perfect example of why I should join a teaching guild, gasmic. ill be on in half an hour and pm you for an invite (assuming no rep req, right?)

we’ve got to convince these people that stupid stuff like condi ele just doesnt work. in a pve context, I’ll be happy to prove that both the s/d + lh and the staff metas do higher damage. in a pvp context, you’ll never be able to match the condi damage of other classes (think necro), so dont even try.

you need to use it once lupi hunches over and crosses his arms. in phase 3, you need to use it when he sort of tilts back a bit before his circular shooting aoe

Burnfall.9573:

A clarification of what define a troll; a troll hide, lie and manipulate the truth, whereas i, expose it, all of it.

As the saying goes, “many will hate the truthbearer, because of the light”

As a Truthbearer; i will continue to stand my ground until Arena.net honors their mission.

Guys, this Burnfall person is starting to sound biblical. And we all know you can’t reason with people who think of themselves as “bringers of truth and light” or “divinely inspired” or some other sort of brainwashed, possibly religious, mumbo-jumbo. The messiah complex is just too think for the concepts of “reason” and “logic” to penetrate.

Anyone know how to request that Anet close a thread? When the OP is clearly egotistic and delusional, there’s no point in further posts. As the saying goes, “Don’t feed the troll.”

Right on! ELEtism4ever!

BlackDevil.9268:

You’re talking about pve, you can run anything in pve. And even if, ele is far from being the best in pve. Just roll war and faceroll 1-5.
The balances arenanet makes are around spvp/tpvp, not PvE.
I don’t see I should be happy with this patch. I don’t even PvE.
And what? Raging, after waiting 1 year for the devs to clear their mind and actually improve elementalist instead of nerfing it time after time, is wierd? Wow, guess I’m impatient.

You can’t run just anything in PvE; there are metas, and running a meta does make a huge difference to group performance. Ele’s running something other than zerk/assassins get kicked; Ele’s traiting further than 10 into Arcana get kicked; Ele’s not traiting into damage modifiers get kicked; Ele’s not stacking might get kicked. And fyi, Ele top damage is higher than warrior top damage.

Devs DO make decisions around PvE; their decision to keep Arcana VI at Adept was PvE-motivated. EA is useless in PvE, since Ele’s are staying in a single atunement the majority of the time for damage modifiers, but VI is useful in certain circumstances. Both are useful in PvP. Therefore, the devs made the right call in keeping a trait that’s useful in more situations at the adept tier, and moving a trait that’s useful in fewer situations to the master tier.

BlackDevil.9268:

For gods sake, listen to the players once. These bullkitten conjure weapons are not gonna bring us up in any part of the game. Especially while even nerfing the rest of our skills/traits.

Not true. Lightning Hammer is incredibly useful in PvE, since it compensates for the low damage of scepter autos and it gives regular blasts/blinds/aoe. There are a few great S/D + LH builds out there, and the update’s going to allow 10/10/25/25/0 with Conjurer trait, which I’m happy about.

On the subject of useful conjures, no sane person will ever say Fiery Rush isn’t useful.

Plus, every single PvE staff and S/D + LH build is going to get buffed by the Dec 10th update, since they invest either 0 or 10 in Arcana. So overall, I’m quite happy with the update. And you should be too; even if you’re not, raging at the devs isn’t going to do any good.

The following answers are all in a PvE context:

a) – ascended, infused zerk trinkets;
- ascended, infused zerk/assassins weps with Force/Accuracy/Night/Dungeon sigils;
- exotic zerk/assassins armor with Scholar runes;
- crit dmg + power/prec food;
- double bloodlust or double perception stacking sigils on a second set of exotic/ascended weps (either S/D or D/D);

I didn’t specify the exact balance between power and prec in gear, food, and stacking sigils because it differs based on your trait setup and group buffs. I’ve calculated it for a few of the builds I use for S/D, but you’ll have to do it yourself if you use a different spec and want to maximize damage.

b) If you choose S/D, use LH and don’t go 30 into Air for Fresh Air. The goal of S/D in PvE is to stack the maximum amount of might in the shortest amount of time, then use LH for continuous blast finishers, blinds, and higher damage (which also happens to be AoE). Builds to choose from include: 30/10/10/20/0, 30/0/10/20/10, 25/25/0/10/0, 0/20/25/25/0, and post-Dec 10th update, 10/10/25/25/0 for Conjurer trait at Adept.

The rotations for all the above specs are very similar. I’ve described some of them here: The Ele Meta

c) I’ve attached a pic that’s a gallery of my current Ele styles (unfortunately, the forum keeps giving me an error when I try attaching a high-quality .png, so I attached it as a .jpg). In that pic, I included armor styles and color schemes, as well as my DCUO signature. I don’t have one for GW2 yet =(

d) There are a few good-looking focuses, but I forgot to take pics of them when I was putting together the gallery attached to this post. The Arah focus looks great (it’s a blue dragon, similar to the Arah daggers I showed) and so does the Zojja focus (it’s kind of a serrated red shield, similar to the Zojja scepter and dagger I showed).

e) Yes, you should try out staff. The two standard staff builds, 30/20/10/10/0 and 30/10/10/10/10, will both be getting buffed by the Dec 10th update due to an additional 5% damage modifier (which will work out to more than a 5% damage increase via multiplicative stacking of modifiers). Blasting Staff will also be moved to Adept, so that will probably be useful in the 30/10/10/10/10 build.

Beware though: max-DPS build for staff ele is possibly the most boring gameplay ever, of any class. It also stacks less might for your group due to an absence of blast finishers (it only has 1, and that one’s delayed). I’ll have to recalculate damage for the builds after the Dec 10th update, but it will probably still do slightly less damage than S/D + LH.

burning stacks in duration, not intensity. even with the highest condi damage you can achieve on an ele, the DPS of that burning is nothing compared to a necro stacking bleeds. if you want to play condi, choose another class

I had to refresh the page for that vid several times because it kept freezing. It’s not my connection – I checked my ping and loaded other YouTube vids, and they worked fine. You might want to re-upload that vid.

I laughed when I saw that phrase “balanced build I made for s/d that has high condition damage as well as controlled burst and sustained damage.” Spamming earth auto does NOT count as “high condi damage” since anyone who knows a thing about ele will cleanse it as soon as you swap atune to cover the bleeds w/ another condi, or just burst you to death while you’re wasting time w/ earth auto. The only decent condi we have is Earth 5 + lightning flash, since that’s AoE burst and 8 bleeds instantly. And if you spec far enough into earth and fire to make your bleeds/burns do anything whatsoever, you’re losing superior damage via air.

If you want to play condi, choose another class. Condi ele just can’t compare to burst ele atm.

Mash Hog.5672:

#ELEtism

lololol! I love it!

rhodoc.2381:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pyromancer%27s_Puissance

High level trait.

Nobody uses that – it’s inferior to Persisting Flames, the alternate fire Grandmaster trait.

The best way to stack might is with S/D, then LH AA in fire fields (given by Embers, a second Ele, a guard’s 2 fire field utilities, a war’s longbow, etc).

Fire Atune > Dragon’s Tooth > Ring of Fire > Phoenix + Arcane Wave > Earth Atune > Earthquake > [Churning Earth if prestacking; skip this step if stacking on boss] > Summon LH + Water Atune > LH AA [assume fire fields from outside source].

You’ll pull off 5 blast finishers within your own Ring of Fire (either with Churning Earth or with a single complete LH AA chain before RoF expires) giving the party 15 might, then you’ll do a blast finisher every 3rd attack in the LH AA chain, giving 3 more might to everyone as long as there is a fire field in place (Embers ftw!). It’s possible to stack up even more might if your other party members use their own blast finishers within your fire field (banner summons and 5 attacks, Cluster Bomb spams, etc) or use utilities (eg. FGJ spams + Sig of Insp activation, etc).

Sabull.5670:

There are thefeely wishy washy answers like many above.
And then there is the average damage answer. Which you get from using say gw2buildcraft.

@ Sabull: gw2buildcraft is one of many calculators for effective power – not “average damage,” as you put it. They are totally different things. Effective power is only useful in comparing damage within the same profession with the same wep set and rotations. Average damage can be used to compare specific builds within AND between classes, but requires a LOT more work to calculate. Certainly more work than your quick use of gw2buildcraft to provide your own “wishy washy” answer.

Although effective power does have a bearing on average damage, there are other factors in play. An example of this is comparing the staff ele meta to the S/D + LH meta – just comparing effective power from, as per your example, gw2buildcraft will not give you a definitive answer. You have to factor in length of rotations, damage per skill used, might applied to group at various times, etc – all of which gw2buildcraft is useless for, although there is a nice list Zelyhn made up that would help with this task.

Taldren.7523:

Can someone name a decent build that really uses anything in fire? Because even with these changes I don’t see one that relies on any point investment for fire.

You can make an entire build around Fresh Air and Electric Disharge in Air for example … but Fire has nothing that I can see on the surface that is worth anything other than the new cleanse. However, that is more of an addon for other builds … not something to make a build around.

Fire’s vital in PvE for extra damage modifiers, Persisting Flames for perma fury (and perma lava fonts if running staff), and Conjurer if running a S/D + LH build.

Popular S/D + LH specs post-Dec 10th are gonna be: 10/10/25/25/0, 30/10/10/20/0, 25/25/0/10/0. Staff specs will be the same as before, spamming 1, 2, and 3 in Fire atune w/ VI, VII, and XI, but they’re gonna get an additional 5% modifier from the buff to the 25 minor in fire.

You didn’t say what gear you’re using. Zerk, or something else? That is an important factor in bloodlust vs. perception.

Factor in your power/prec/crit dmg stats, your multipliers, your food, your boons, and your buffs, then do one simulation w/ 250 extra power, then a second simulation w/ 250 extra prec. If the first simulation has a higher effective power, use bloodlust. If the second does, use perception. It’s that simple.

The changes to atunement CD, changing the base from 16 secs to 13 and decreasing the recharge rate from 2% per point to 1%, is a buff for every build that puts either 0 or 10 points into Arcana. That means every single damage-oriented PvE spec out there (SD+LH: 0/20/25/25/0, 30/10/10/20/0, 30/0/10/20/10, 25/25/0/10/0, and with Conjurer being moved to Adept, 10/10/25/25/0; Staff: 30/20/10/10/0, 30/10/10/10/10.)

A great many PvP/WvW ele’s still play the classic 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/0/10/30/30, and in regard to Arcana, these specs will be the same as they were pre-Dec 10th: Vigor on Crit, Boon on Atune, Evasive Arcana. Anet probably tried to preserve this spec when considering changes. Since cantrips got stripped of stun-breakers, I don’t run it anymore, but a lot of people still do, and Anet know this.

A lot of Ele’s view Arcana VI, perma vigor, as a must-have in PvP, and also in PvE to an extent (eg. solo’ing Lupi, or if you’re running full DPS gear/spec in a 5-man group and just need more dodges). Anet said they were going to move either Arcana V or VI up a tier, and gave us the choice of which: the majority of us chose to keep VI at Adept because it’s important to both PvE and PvP/WvW, whereas V is only important to PvP/WvW.

I LOVE that vid you linked – it’s my new favorite. It’s not possible to overestimate the importance of dodging in this game. tyvm =D

In WvW, where you can customize everything, I’d give the same advice: dodge. But in PvP, where your options are far more limited, you just haven’t got enough dodges to last the duration of the fight, since your severely-nerfed offensive power causes fights to last longer, and you can’t use food to enhance endurance regen.

Trying to avoid boons altogether is similarly difficult; I normally have perma vigor, might, and regen, almost perma fury and swiftness, and occasional protection and stability. I’d say I have an average of 4 boons. I would have to retrait specifically to avoid boons, which would be more effective against necros, but less effective against every other class.

The only viable way to fight necros without speccing specifically to combat them that I’ve found is to abuse melee-stacking them. I know it’s probably a glitch that this will bug out most their skills, but it works, and until Anet nerfs their fear builds, I feel perfectly fine abusing this tactic. When the opposition’s abusing a mechanic, you’ve got to fight fire with fire.

Changes effecting Ele’s in PvE based on the revised Dec 10th patch notes:

- Fire III – Ember’s Might: No longer a 5% dmg modifier; now lengthens burn duration by 25%.
- Fire VIII – Conjurer: Moved to Adept tier
- Fire 25 – Burning Rage: Increased from 5% to 10% dmg modifier

The base cooldown of the attunement that you just left is now reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. Attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now Attunements go from 13s to 10s instead of the old range of 16s to 10s.

Base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. Global attunement cooldown rate now decreases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now global attunement cooldown goes from 1.625 to 1.25 instead of the old range of 2.0 to 1.25.

Since PvE Ele’s invest either 0 or 10 points in Arcana, the changes to attunement CD are beneficial for all damage-oriented PvE specs.

If you were already putting either 25 or 30 points in Fire, your net damage modifiers will be the same, but now you can also get either a) 25% longer burn duration, or b) 30% chance to cause burning on crit; so this will be a slight buff.

Moving Conjurer trait down to Adept opens up the possibility of 10/10/25/25/0 with 25 charges per LH.

Assuming full endurance and Conjurer adept trait post-patch, 10/10/25/25/0 would do more damage than 30/10/10/20/0. The question is: can you survive in a glass spec without dodging? If so, go 10/10/25/25/0.

If you need to dodge a few times, go 30/10/10/20/0.

If you need to dodge a lot, go 30/0/10/20/10.

Burnfall.9573:

Their outrageous numbers are the following….
Ride the lightning (6,799), Fire grab (9,647), Arcane Wave (5,171), Arcane Power (4,865)

D/D Elementalist, the world of guild wars 2 will no longer tolerate, your unjust unfair unbalance practices..

Justice must prevail,
Liberty must prevail,
till, the end of guild wars 2 survival.

(I will continue to encourage and to remind Arena.net; Class Balance, must be enforced for Guild Wars 2 survival).

MarzAttakz.9608:

I think he was being sarcastic …

Of course he was being sarcastic. Can’t you tell from the “enforcing Justice and Liberty” mumbo-jumbo?

And if he were being serious, he’d mention the fact that I consistently hit 2x-3x those numbers with LH AA … oops.

EDIT: lol, I’m hitting higher with LH AA than that 9k Fire Grab he mentioned, and I’m just killing random Dolyaks while waiting for Jormag. So this has got to be a joke thread.

There are a few necro fear builds that are just ridiculous. Armor of Earth is our only Stab and doesn’t last long enough, and we haven’t got stun-breakers on Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash anymore.

The only way I’ve found to kill them is to bug their skills by literally standing inside of them. A lot of our PbAoE’s will still hit, but moving around on top of/inside their characters will cause many of their skills to do nothing upon activation. I know it’s cheap, but so are their fear builds.

For optimizing a 10/10/25/25/0 spec, I’m getting:

- ascended zerk weps/trinks
- exotic assassins armor
- 100 power + 10% crit dmg food
- 250 prec from perception sigils

Same assumptions as in the previous post concerning what I did and did not include, except that the target now also needs to be bleeding and you need 5 boons and full endurance (which is why I wouldn’t be able to pull this off).

no, full PVT is not a good idea.

Just took another look at this thread, and there are some things that need fixing/were left out. I’ll get to it soon.

Need fixing:

- Fire traits for staff build should be: VI, VII, XI, in order to maintain perma-uptime for lava font and perma fury.

Need to be added:

- Embers. Can’t believe I forgot these; they’re OP. Each one lasts for 5 mins, and puts up 3 fire fields on/around your target every 15 secs. These fire fields have 50% uptime. The Embers also do damage to your target. Each player can summon one of them by using a Fire Elemental Powder.

If each player in your group uses one, you get 100% fire field uptime w/o needing Persisting Flames and a fair bit of extra damage from the pets. This means that, for the S/D + LH build, you can keep up perma 25 stacks for your group without any boon duration traits/gear, just by using S/D combos and the LH AA chain within the Embers’ fields. The initial might stack via war banners pre-engagement is still needed, but the wars no longer need to carry FGJ and the mes doesn’t need Sig of Insp. If you’ve got a thief in the group, he can spam Cluster Bombs at the start of an engagement, so you don’t even need to prepare beforehand via banner summons/blasts.

- Superior Sigil of the Night instead of Force Sigil in night-time instances

- A post-Dec 10th build (assuming a new list of changes comes out soon; the original list had a few features that the devs have since changed their minds on, such as moving Vigor on crit to master tier.)
.
.
EDIT: for optimizing gear for the 30/10/10/20/0, I’m getting:
- 100 prec + 10% crit dmg food,
- 250 prec from perception sigils,
- assassins armor except for a zerk chest
- zerk ascended weps/trinks

This factors in:
- str and disc banners,
- 20% modifier from Night + Dungeon sigils,
- 10% modifier from Scholar Runes
- 10% modifier from dungeon potion
- 180 prec from fire signet passive
- modifiers from the spec, assuming perma burning and vuln on opponent and you being above 90% health, in water. and within melee range;
- a 6% modifier from the Air VI trait (which I know is wrong, but I don’t know a better value for 20% bonus when opponent is under 33% health).

This does not factor in:
- Empower Allies (which Wars don’t run anymore),
- Spotter,
- Frost Spirit(s).

Everyone doing PvE uses zerk. It’s especially important in high-lvl fracs. Use one of the specs in the link below:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

If you scroll down to the 3rd and 4th posts, there is a staff spec, but you should really use the S/D + LH spec because it’s better at might stacking (which according the most players, is always the ele’s job). Since your ascended staff isn’t zerk, you’d do better using exotic zerk S/D anyway.

Will the Viper medium armor set currently in the gem store be unavailable when the Halloween costumes disappear next week (according to: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/toxic-new-items-in-the-gem-store/?utm_source=client)?

juno.1840:

So no popular and effective staff builds?

Highest damage staff build is sitting in Fire atune and spamming 1, 2, and 3 – maybe also 4 if your target is backed against a wall (and your FGS is on CD) and 5 if your target has a large hitbox/there are multiple targets tightly grouped.

Here’s the staff section of the high-DPS ele builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112688

Although I don’t know why you’d want to use staff anyway. Might stacking on S/D and S/F is better, and virtually everyone in this game designates that responsibility to the ele, so a lot of people get awfully mad if you don’t max out their might.

EDIT: fixed the link

@ Sabull: Swapping power food for prec is probably a good idea, but since you’ll usually be using dungeon potions, using a prec utility instead isn’t really an option.

I won’t know for sure what the exact balance is until I throw everything into Excel, which I’ll do this weekend (but not tonight – it’s Halloween!), after which I’ll update the guide. Unless someone who’s already done it would be nice enough to post the exact gear/buff balance and save me the effort =D

Have you actually calculated relative power/prec/crit dmg? I really can’t be bother to. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow night if you haven’t already done it.

Dub.1273:

That is neither max damage nor “meta”.
Also you’ve got quite some faults in your gear setup.

There are the 2 trait setups that SoliSnake mentioned (25/25/0/20/0 and 20/20/10/20/0) that cause you to do more personal damage, but neither of them has Persisting Flames – which is preferable for increased group damage for 2 reasons. No point in repeating them – you can just scroll up in the thread.

As for gear – what exactly am I missing? I think I covered it all. Zerk/scholars, sweet&spicies/dungeon potions, double bloodlust stacking weps then swap to force/dungeon sigil weps.

The only thing that may possibly be a problem is the balance between power/prec/crit damage – after factoring in buffs from bloodlust stacks/nourishment/disc & str banners/etc and coming up with final values for those stats, I could plug them into the Reddit equations to find the optimal balance. It may well turn out that replacing a few pieces of zerker with assassins yields higher total damage, for instance. However, I don’t see the point in doing that unless someone else advocates a better meta and I feel like proving them wrong.

For dungeon tours, our group comp is usually: 2x wars, 1x guard, 1x mes, 1x ele. We use TS to coordinate everything and stack might via fire field/blasts/banners before bosses very quickly; but even so, sometimes the last 2 people who use banner 5 attack miss the field if I’m not traited into Persisting Flames.

The warriors also prefer to either activate Sig of Adrenaline when they get below maximum might or keep Warbanner ready for a mass res just in case, and they wouldn’t want to waste a Warbanner just to give me fury because I can’t give it to myself. Plus Warbanner has that stupid long cast time.

So yeah, while I agree that the 20/20/10/20/0 spec (or the 25/25/0/20/0 if you, for some odd reason, need to stack your own vuln) is higher damage than 30/10/10/20/0, it lacks the utility that you get from Persisting Flames.

Dub.1273:

Well, this is not even close to being efficient or even a meta build but hey, it isn’t too bad either.

Well, technically the meta is 30/10/10/20/0 S/D + LH, since that’s max damage and superior might stacking, and I did include that spec. But I also included one with 10 in Arcana because I’m just too noob to survive without vigor. I usually need more dodges, and I don’t want to gives up Sweet & Spicies for endurance regen food. There are some ele’s who can survive without extra dodges, or can go full damage because they’re getting vigor from a teammate, but I’m just not one of them.

Some ele’s using S/D + LH go further into the Earth trait line because they think it yields more damage, and if you’re arguing that doing that is the meta, I’m happy to provide numbers proving 30/10/10/20/0 is better.

One way that you can increase personal DPS is to put less than 30 trait points in Fire, but then you can’t give yourself perma fury (which is fine if you’re getting it from another source, such as from Warbanner). However, the bigger downside of not taking Persisting Flames is that your fire field doesn’t last as long, so it’s a lot harder to summon 2x banners and have 4 people use the 5 attacks with those banners inside your field. It IS possible, if the wars start channeling their banner summons before you use Fire 4 and if you get the fire field up at exactly the right time, but it’s a lot more difficult. So although it is possible to get slightly higher DPS than 30/10/10/20/0, the utility of that spec for the group outweighs the personal gain in DPS.

Read this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

I recommend the S/D + LH build. 99% of the people you group with will prefer it because you give them more might, and they like big numbers too =D