Guild Wars 2

@ Frowny: Scepter has 2x blast finishers (Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix). That’s an extra 6 might, multiplied by 5 party members, meaning an extra 1050 Power and 1050 condi dmg total. Then of course, if there are fire fields provided by party members (Ember pets, Guard’s PF/HG, a second Ele, War’s LB f1, etc), you’re stacking even more Might just via the LH AA.

Ele, without a doubt. Perma fury for everyone via Fire XI, a lot of vuln via Air 25 minor. Might via s/f LH (66% uptime on 21 stacks if using Scholars, 100% uptime on 25 stacks if using Scholars + your party is spamming Embers, 100% uptime on 21 stacks if using Might Durations). LH itself gives a lot of dmg, AoE, and blinds. Passive AoE healing via Healing Mist while AA’ing with LH in Water. Then of course, there’s FB 4 and FGS 4 attacks.

“Feelings” do not come into it. I’m not talking about “viable” – that doesn’t matter in the least. I’m talking about “optimal.” And the optimal builds for dungeons and fractals up to 40 are the meta builds, found in my guide.

Fracs above 40, PvP, and WvW are all different, but that’s not what we’re talking about. There is a huge amount of evidence that d/d is not optimal in dungeons; even the well-known players on these forums who choose not to use the meta builds still admit that those builds ARE optimal in the circumstances I’m referring to.

There is simply no logical way that you can argue against the metas from a standpoint of efficiency, effectiveness, and min/maxing – although you’re welcome to try. I’m all for productive discussion, as long as we’re both on the same page: that we’re trying to discover the Ele build(s) that maximize group dmg, resulting in the fastest completion times.

If you were to remove “PvE” from the title of this thread, there wouldn’t be an issue. You could talk about d/d Ele builds in WvW/PvP all you like, and I would never feel the need to post in your thread, because there are good arguments to be made for d/d in WvW/PvP. But unfortunately, it’s a fact that d/d is not optimal in PvE, so I’m just here to make people aware of that, in the hope that nobody will mistakenly think it’s OK to pug as a d/d Ele. I’ve had a few of them in groups over the last month, and it’s always a continuous /facepalm. Not because any particular players were bad, but because choosing d/d instead of s/f LH: 1) lowers your personal dmg; and 2) lowers the group’s dmg, primarily because you stack less might.

I recommend Build G in my guide (link’s in my sig). You can apply your own vuln via Air 25 minor while AA’ing in Water with LH for the 20% modifier. You give yourself perma fury via Fire XI, you’ve got Conjurer, and you can self-stack a lot of might. Since you’ll be moving around the map a lot, use s/d instead of s/f for the increased mobility.

Do not use d/d for PvE. Your dmg is too low and your might-stacking is too low. Use s/f or s/d with LH. The meta builds are in my guide (link’s in my sig).

For WvW/PvP, idgaf what you use. Lots of different things work. But the same cannot be said for PvE; there ARE undeniable PvE meta builds for ultimate min/maxing, and those builds are in my guide.

ZennithRising.8653:

I want to run PVE mostly… Traits are: 30/30/10/0/0 (F: II – VIII – XII; A: VI – IX – XII ;E: VI). Superior Rune of the Elementalist (cause I didn`t had money for something else). I also run S/F (LH). … Should I switch to full Zerk (maybe a combianation of both)? What are the pros and cons for Valkyrie and Zerk? And with what can I live without?

You run s/f LH! Gooooooooooooood! You must have read my guide

Your traits are a bit off though. You should use 30/30/0/10/0, with Piercing Shards in Water instead. I call it Build G in my guide (link’s in my sig). The 20% modifier in Water while using LH is better than the 10% via Earth VI.

Zerk/assassins is the best. The exact mix differs based on which build you use; I detailed which pieces of gear should be what for each build in my guide. For runes, use Scholars.

Great theory. Let’s solve the problem by nerfing Wooden Potatoes.

/facepalm

Google Docs link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-zwZEZiI96oSEVzb1NxSXQ4ZTQ/edit?usp=sharing

This is the summary; I have a slightly different spreadsheet with drop-down menus for each piece of armor with zerk/assassins stats when mixing-and-matching, and also for the food and sigils.

I checked my results with gw2buildcraft.com, and they’re the same, as long as you use exotic weps and manually put in the stat differences for ascended (8 power & 6 prec). Using ascended weps gives an unwanted 5% modifier, which messes up the EP.

For the dmg modifiers, I allowed them to go out to infinite decimal places during interim calculations, then rounded them down to 4 dp at the end. This was totally arbitrary on my part; I have no idea what GW2 does concerning dp. For the prec-to-crit chance conversion, I rounded it down to the nearest full percentage; I’m pretty sure this is what the game does, but I could be wrong.

@ MagicSlurpees: Impact said it in his 2 posts; this guide assumes you’re already lvl 80, and you have full ascended zerk trinks, ascended zerk weps, and exotic zerk/assassins armor, as well as a bunch of modifiers and buffs (banners, scholar runes, modifier sigils, etc). When all of that is baseline, % dmg modifiers will ALWAYS be better than raw stats (power/prec/crit dmg). At lower lvl/gear, it’s possible that raw stats may be better than % modifiers, but idgaf about that situation. I’m only talking end-game here.

EDIT: Updated the link for the spreadsheet to incorporate eliminating Build C and the subsequent re-lettering

Da Beetus.1275:

No matter what profession you land on there are lots of great guides (on these forums/reddit/youtube) that will help you learn the ropes quickly.

Guides are good, but only if you follow the “Meta” guides. Following other guides is a bad idea, since you’ll get into very bad habits (think bearbow ranger or staff guard spamming AA – yuck!). These guides usually assume you’re already at max lvl (at least mine does); what you need to do is play the game for a few days to understand the terminology, then read a meta guide, then finish lvl’ing up your toon while keeping in mind the playstyle you will be using at lvl 80. (eg. Warriors will be using axe/mace + GS, so you ought to practice with those weps while lvl’ing up.)

The War meta is axe/mace + GS, 30/25/0/0/15. Nike from [DnT] made a guide for this.
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The elementalist is normally challenging to play. You can make it A LOT simpler by putting 10 points into fire magic for conjurer and primarily using Lightning Hammer.

If you choose to start with Ele (I did, but in hindsight, I recommend War), use the Lightning Hammer. The various meta builds for Ele are in my guide (link’s in my sig). The LH simplifies life AND does fantastic dmg while preserving utility (keeps might/fury/vuln stacking options open, and provides blinds and AoE). Play the game for a bit to get a handle on the technical terms before reading my guide though, or you’ll quickly get lost in the theory-crafting.

Make a War. Get some combination of power/prec/crit dmg gear whenever possible while lvl’ing up. War is probably the most forgiving class if you’re new to GW2: huge health pool, heavy armor, incredibly useful in endgame once you’ve figured stuff out. You’ll probably end up making a War anyway (virtually everyone does), so might as well start with it. It’s far easier to lvl up than Ele, and is very straight-forward gameplay. I think it’s a snooze-fest, but I still play my War anyway since it usually helps the group more than Ele. Only need 1 Ele per group, but there’s usually 2 or 3 Wars.

OK, fixed all the gear/stacking/food combinations for each s/f build, taking into account the Conjure Lightning Attributes buff. I also added that to the Assumptions section.

Here are the new Effective Powers for each build:

A 19505.92
B 23820.38
C 22542.28
D 23341.00
E 21853.86
F 21607.91
G 20803.00

A few things to remember when looking at those Effective Powers:
- READ THE ASSUMPTIONS SECTION
- You can’t compare Build A to the other builds via EP because it uses Staff
- All builds have Air (VI), and there’s no easy way to factor it in, so I just excluded it
- Vuln, Wep Strength, Attack Coefficient, and Target’s Armor are not factored into any of them; those all come afterward.
- EP = Power * (1 + Crit Chance (Crit Dmg – 1)) * Modifier

@ MagicSlurpees: Build F has higher EP than Build G because dmg modifiers > raw stats, since multiplicative > linear.

EDIT: Updated EP numbers

@ MagicSlurpees: Gahd, I knew I forgot something! The LH buff isn’t in my assumptions section, and I didn’t include it in my calculations either. With that, Build G would go over 100% crit chance. /facepalm

I’ll redo everything now. More work

EDIT: LH buff is 5% crit dmg and 180 prec, right?

maxinion.8396:

I have been noticing this as well. Is there a new meta we are missing?

Meta is still s/f LH. Builds are in my sig.

As for these frost bow AA spammers…. they’re just noobs. FB is good for 1 thing, and 1 thing only: 4 attack, usually used only once and then dropped, except for certain parts of AC.

The current meta builds use Lightning Hammer. There are different ones depending on what you need to provide for your group (might/fury/vuln). The link to the guide is in my sig.

What can you say? It’s Moderator Logic. lol

EDIT: someone call Danicia to fix it? =D

@ Biscuits: read the thread. Then read the section of my guide that analyzes Blasting Staff. It is not worth getting for PvE.

Emanuel.9781:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

~

Winner. Saving this post in case it gets deleted.

^

From another thread that went in a similar direction…

Anierna.6918:

If you think your time is valuable, then it’s in your best interest not to waste it. If you think the time of your party members is valuable, then you also shouldn’t waste it. That means doing dungeons as fast as possible – all dungeons, across the spectrum from CoF p1 in 6 mins to Arah p4 in 30. Doing dungeons in those time-frames necessitates certain professions in strict builds. We call those builds “PvE Metas.”

I dislike wasting my time. I dislike wasting other people’s time. I really, really dislike other people wasting MY time. Therefore, if you’re not in the meta for your profession, go take a hike. Anyone who deliberately wastes his own time AND the time of the people he parties with by not playing efficiently is: 1) incredibly disrespectful to his party members; and 2) a noob. I don’t have time for that, so I won’t play with those people. What I WILL do is provide the resources necessary for those people to escape their noob-dom; in regard to Ele, I wrote a guide to the meta for exactly that purpose, to teach noobs how to play efficiently.

From the comments section of my guide:

Anierna.6918:

@ Xinsa: This is a PvE guide. Soothing Wave (V) should NEVER be used in PvE.

Answering in a PvP/WvW context, though, Soothing Wave does activate in all Atunes, not just Water.

@ Xinsa: This is a PvE guide. Soothing Wave (V) should NEVER be used in PvE.

Answering in a PvP/WvW context, though, Soothing Wave does activate in all Atunes, not just Water.

sry for spelling, im typing from phone.

build g has piercing shards, the 20% modifier while in water. all the builds have this trait, which is why every build LH AA’s in water as long as possible. however, in order to use comet during the next might-stacking rotation, you need to leave water a little early, which is why you execute the last 2 LH chains in a different atune.

the builds that have the 10% modifier while in fire execute those last 2 chains in fire; build g has the 10% modifier in air, so you execute the last 2 chains in air.

I cant answer the question about personal dmg at the moment cause my spdeadsheet with effective powers in on my other comp, but personal dps should not matter at all. group dps is the only thing that matters, and that means providing fury/might/vuln for your group as needed.

sry to dissapoint, but I am a theorycrafter. Theorycrafting is just what I do. lol. so, if you’re interested, look at the Blasting Staff section of my Ele Meta guide, and you’ll learn why BS is not worth getting in PvE. (My guide is stickied, 2nd from the top)

PvE, go s/f. If you REALLY want to use a dagger (God knows why), use s/d. Link’s in my sig.

EDIT: what the kitten happened to my sig? It was here this morning, and I didn’t get any messages from moderators saying it was removed/edited. wtf?

My guide’s stickied in this section of the forum, 2nd from the top. It’s easy to find. It’d be easier if I had my bloody sig back -.-

oZii.2864:

He said he is currently running 0/30/20/15/5 D/D ele tzephyrs boon, zephyrs focus, tempest defense, elemental shielding, rock solid, vital striking with soldier amulet zerk jewel

With 6/6 Rune of Fire.

uh, wtf? Really? …. I can’t see that build being optimal for ANYTHING! … Is no one else deeply disturbed by that build? About as disturbed as I was when reading this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Funniest-player-fails-thread/page/35#post3379967

Josh Davis.6015:

(Please don’t hurt me.)

Come on, Grouch, it’s common knowledge that even if us players aren’t trying to be hurtful, even if we’re only having a pragmatic discussion of something, there is an incredibly high chance that some Moderator will interpret what we post in a way it wasn’t meant to be interpreted, leading to deleted posts & threads, frivolous bans, and the doling out of Infraction Points. Just use the Dungeon sub-forum as an example; it has gotten to the point where Moderators delete anything they personally disagree with, and hand out arbitrary bans on a daily basis.

In regard to us players as users of this forum, let’s make a deal; we won’t hurt you, if you don’t hurt us. Fewer bans and deleted posts, and you may restore our confidence in Anet, which is at an all-time low at the moment. There are a couple great new games coming out next year (Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar, and the new EverQuest, to name a few), and if Anet wants us to stay with Guild Wars 2, you’ll have to use more carrot and less stick.

In regard to us players as Elementalists, let’s make another deal; stop nerfing us, and we might keep playing our Ele’s. Otherwise, our first step will be to play a different profession, and our second will be to play a different game.

Just so everyone knows where I’m coming from, I have never been banned. I have never personally been mistreated by Anet or it’s Moderators; however, I’ve seen many people who gave honest, well-written opinions about Anet’s performance have their posts/threads deleted and their forum privileges revoked. I’ve also seen the Elementalist class be nerfed time and again. In both cases, Anet just needs to back off a bit; soften the heavy-handed approach to the forums, and stop proactively nerfing this profession.

@ Iris: What I used to tell people was: It takes a bit of practice to get the camera angles and the timing right, but after a few tries, you’ll figure it out, and it’ll work every time.

That was 3 or 4 months ago, though. Back then, this method worked perfectly for me, every single time. Recently, though (in the last month or 2), it’s only been working about 50% of the time for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing Ele far less and have just lost my touch, but I suspect a ninja-fix. Anet seems to be kittening us with those a lot.

@ The Great Al: Assuming your group won’t be able to melt bosses immediately (eg. a pug), you have 2 options:

1) Because your group is a bad pug, you have to do all the work; you can’t rely on your team. You need to maintain all the fury and all the might, and stack all the vuln all by yourself. Therefore, you should go Build G, 30/30/0/10/0. This is the glassiest of the glass builds, but it provides the most utility; you just have to hope that all the group buffs you’re providing are enough to help your noob group kill the boss before you go down. Survivability-wise, you can use Arcane Shield and Glyph of Elemental Harmony in Water Atune to provide Regen.

2) You can use the tankiest of the glass builds, Build C, 10/10/25/25/0, which has greater survivability due to 25 in both Earth and Water. It also has Conjurer, which you’ll need since your noob group will probably prolong the fight past 30 LH charges. If you need greater survivability, same as above: Arcane Shield and Glyph of Elemental Harmony in Water.

If you need even more survivability (gahd, your pug group must be REALLY noob, lol), you can use OH dagger instead of focus for Frost Aura and Cleansing Wave, and CC’s via Updraft and Earthquake. Believe it or not, the AoE cleanse and heal of Cleansing Wave has saved many a stacked-up bad pug. lol. I usually stick with focus for the invuln though.

Anierna.6918:

Playing the S/F Builds (C, E, & F):

—SNIP—

This rotation is shown in the following vid (pretend the Boon Durations are Might Durations – it was an error on my part):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeRhQ40ckQ4

There’s the rotation vid. I need to remake a lot of my vids to show the might upkeep while using scholars or might durations. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll spend some time at the practice dummies today and just get it done.

A photo gallery of where to focus pull for every dungeon sounds like a great idea; I’ve played mes enough to know them all (I seem to be playing mes almost exclusively these days). I can also include all the spots you need to Feedback, when to Sig of Insp, how to make sure your Warden placement works out, etc. I think I’ll get on that ASAP.

I haven’t played my war or guard in a while, but I hear there’s an enormous amount of rubbish in the guard sub-forum about holding aggro and how great clerics gear is and other ridiculousness. Dispelling such myths might be fun.

With war, I’m pretty sure others have already figured it all out. I’d just be kicking a dead horse. Necro could be interesting, but I’ve hardly played it, and I’ve heard that Spoj has already done a lot of work on it.

Thanks for the suggestions, Neko. Helpful as ever

@ Daedalus: That’s how I play; I suck the fun out of the game by turning it into a science. I suppose you could say I find replacing “fun” with “efficiency” to BE fun. To my mind, the optimal is the ONLY viable, and the quest to discover the optimal IS the fun. Anything that’s not optimal is: (1) a burden on your team; (2) because of (1), is not viable; and (3) not fun. Playing the optimal with others who play the optimal is incredibly fun; playing any other way is not fun, as it wastes not only your time, but also the time of your teammates.

On that note, I’m looking for another project, now that this Ele guide is finished. Any suggestions? I don’t suppose any other class is lacking a comprehensive guide to its meta?

What you need to do for your group (stack might/fury/vuln) determines what build you use. Check out my guide (the link’s in my sig, and it’s also stickied) to figure out the highest-DPS build based on what your group needs.

I think I did a pretty good job explaining everything in the guide; however, if I missed something or didn’t explain something clearly, please tell me in this thread and I’ll reply. Maybe update the guide too, based on your feedback
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EDIT: oh, you edited your post saying you saw my guide. Great!

In regard to the food, I know Sweet&Spicies and Butternut Curries are expensive; for pug’ing, I use Griffon Egg Omelet’s and dungeon potions (or the lvl 60 prec pots for AC). Griffon Omelets were only a few copper back when I bought them, so I loaded up; I dunno what they are now. Dungeon pots are really cheap too, even the Powerful ones, so you might as well stock up on them.

The gear differs based on which build you use. I have a full set of assasins/scholars, and full set of zerk/scholars, so I just switch out pieces of armor based on what build I’m running atm. My third set is assassins/might durations; I haven’t bothered to get a zerk/might duration set, since I only use might durations while pug’ing.

Unless your group is already: maxing out might, keeping perma fury, and maintaining maximum vuln, you shouldn’t use Build A , the one with the Staff in my guide. You ought to use a s/f LH build, or s/d LH if you prefer that (although s/f is more effective; watch that s/f rotation vid I linked in my guide).

oZii.2864:

Ele can’t out dps a warrior

Just a minor point; in PvE, Ele does higher dmg than War. I expected you to know this, as well as exactly how an Ele achieves it, but if you don’t, the link’s in my sig.

Now that my guide’s done, I’m looking for another project. I could get started on a War vs Ele dmg comparison in PvE to tell you exactly how much more dmg an Ele does than a War, if you’re interested.

The two ways I make cash are: 1) daily dungeon tours; and 2) selling Arah.

Selling Arah is undeniably better cash per hour, but it just gets boring.

My daily dungeon route is as follows: all AC, SE p1/3, CoF p1/2, all CoE, TA up/fwd, CM p1/3, Arah p2/3, HotW p1.

XinsaX.1238:

Hi there! I’m relative new with this game and I’d played with Warrior and Archer, but I’d created an Ele and it’s a lot more complicated class.

Can someone help me with this? I’m looking for an Ele build that generates good damage.

oZii.2864:

Purpose? sPvP, WvW, PvE.
For PvE check the stickies at the top by Zelyhn and Neko.
For sPvP/WvW builds there are a few to choose from.

XinsaX.1238:

Mostly WvW and PvE.
I don’t understand a few things like…
For example the traits, Arcana up to 10 and Blasting Staff has influence on other tree skills? Does that affect Fire Skills as well as it affects Arcane Skills?

@ oZii: I revised my guide 3 days ago, and it got stickied 2 days ago. The link’s in my sig. The OP asked about dmg in PvE, and for that, all the builds in my guide are undeniably better than those in Zelyhn’s and Neko’s guides.

@ Xinsa: Blasting Staff is not worth it in PvE. I explain why in my guide; click on the link in my sig and scroll down to it if you’re interested.

+1. Nice joke

PS. Seriously though, Anet, please add “making Necros useful in PvE” to your to-do list

Anierna.6918:

(“Fun” is not a logical reason; I’m asking in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. )

@ Neko: … so, in light of what I actually asked (above), there is NOT a reason? OK, thanks for clearing that up

@ Dub: I was in TS w/ my friend. The pugs weren’t in TS with us, so I had to type. That’s always the downside of pug’ing – no voice coms.

We never kicked anyone who was using a good build, unless you’re referring to that ele….. and after all those fails, he definitely deserved it. I thought we gave him more than enough chances.

I’m wondering why you’d say s/d or s/f sucks in AC. You stack literally every single boss, most of them against a wall. Therefore, s/f is optimal; it allows you to stack more might due to more blasts, then use FGS if the boss is against a wall (Spider, Kholer) and LH if if he isn’t against one (last bosses in p1 and p2). You aren’t killing that many adds in AC, so you don’t need the greater AoE of dagger MH or staff, and you’re using Ice Bow on burrows.

Only thing that me and my friend did wrong was letting the pug open; each of us just assumed the other had opened. lol

I’m on my ele & grouped with a friend on his war, and I post under the AC tab: “all paths, READ: zerk meta builds only, no necro/engi/ranger. ping gear. stack Kholer.” Bit of a round robin for the first 5 mins; bunch of sub-80s join, KICK! Couple rangers/engis join (pugs don’t read -.-), but I give them a chance and ask about their builds. Not in meta; KICK! Finally, after the first 5 mins, we’re at a pug ele and 2x pug wars, who’ve pinged proper gear. The ele pinged s/d and said he used LH, and I wasn’t gonna quibble over s/f instead, so I relogged mes, assuming that since ele pinged proper gear and weps, he’d know how to use them. We start with p1; first boss, no FGS. Even worse, no Might. Turns out the pug did use s/d and LH, just like he said….. used them by immediately summoning the LH and never giving any Might. /facepalm

So next part, burrows. Pug ele knows enough to give us an ice bow. Whew, at least he did that right. I pick it up, go to the far burrow in the corner, use 4. What does the ele do? … follow me, and use 4 on the exact same burrow. I ask him why he used it on my burrow, instead of a different one. He says his 4 attack never 1-shots the burrows. So he assumed mine wouldn’t either, and came to help preemptively -.-

So, next part: Kholer. Me and the wars stack behind the left pillar. The ele runs around the edge to skip Kholer. I type at him to get back here and stack on us. Then, since this ele isn’t too bright, I walk him through which attacks to use to prestack Might for us. Typing 1-by-1 what attacks to use results in him only using 2x blasts before his fire field expires. Luckily, wars have banner summoned and stomped (I’ve found pug wars to generally be pretty good). Pug ele then thinks something akin to “whew, that difficult might-stacking-thing is over, let’s start the fight,” and he pulls Kholer, before summoning FGS. Goes down instantly, before he gets back to the stack. Luckily he has the sense to mist form back over to us; we res him. I’ve been furiously typing “FGS FGS FGS” at him ever since we finished might stacking. It seems he’s reading chat, so he summons FGS. He uses Fiery Rush; it does nothing because he had Kholer targeted. He then uses the 3 attack, but he misses the corner and ends up whirling through Kholer, into the center of Kholer’s spawn chamber. Kholer runs after him, running out of our stack -.-

Me and the wars have pretty good DPS, so we’re able to unstack and kill Kholer before he wipes us with that pull/AoE thing (I’m telling you, war pugs are far less likely than pugs of other classes to be idiots). I’m just incredibly sick of this ele, so I vote to kick him, and my friend seconds the kick. All 5 of us are kicked from the instance. I ask “what happened?” in party chat; I thought my friend had opened it. He says “I thought you opened it, Ani.” …/fail

Moral of the story: Never pug an ele; if you want it done right, do it yourself. If you’re ever forced to pug, only pug wars.

Don’t count your chickens yet – I can still be annoying. lol

Eg. As per the DISCLAIMER, in all dungeons and fractals up to 30 (IMO, up to 40), what logical reason would anyone have to use your d/f build instead of one of my meta builds? (“Fun” is not a logical reason; I’m asking in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Oh and I heard for ele 0/0/0/10/10 is the new meta. Due to the trait changes, having more stats actually HURTS you rather than helps.

um…… I’m sry, what? 10 in Arcana, in order to get…… what? Blasting Staff or Renewing Stamina? …. is higher DPS than not having 10 in Arcana? …. not for any build I can see.

I updated the Ele meta builds – the link is in my sig. There are different ones based on what you need to give your group (some combination of might/fury/vuln; perhaps none of them). I optimized the dmg for each possible build via zerk/assassins mix, food, and bloodlust/perception stacks. I listed the assumptions I used in the first section of the guide when optimizing each build’s dmg.

Under “Elementalist:” in the original post, it’d be more accurate just to replace what you’ve currently got there with the following link: The Ele Meta: Dungeon Speed Clears

The damage is in my sig, over in PvE land

@ Assassin: Let’s look at the dmg you get from traiting into Fresh Air. It comes from 2 sources: the 15 minor in Air, which does single-target dmg when swapping to Air, and Lightning Strike, the Scepter 2 Air instant-attack, which is on a 5 sec CD, the same CD as Fresh Air. You can play it in 2 ways: either stacking Might with s/f and trying to fit in burst via Air 15 and Lightning Strike via Fresh Air, or forgetting about Might stacking and trying to maximize burst dmg via those 2 sources.

Trying to fit Fresh Air burst into s/f Might stacking rotation:
Fire 2 > Fire 4 > Fire 3 & Arcane Wave > Air Atune & Air 2 & Arcane Brilliance > Earth Atune > Earth 4 > Water Atune > Water 5 > summon/pick up LH > 6 complete LH AA chains > Air Atune > 2 complete LH AA chains > Fire Atune & drop LH > repeat

Because you swapped to Air to activate Air 15 and use Air 2 between Fire and Earth Atunes, your LH hits 1.625 secs later than it would have had you not gone Air. This means it does not combo Area Might, since your fire field expires before the first chain finishes. The extra dmg you do by using Air 2 and 15 do NOT compensate for losing 15 Might total (3 stacks * 5 party members). Therefore, if you’re trying to maximize group dmg, Fresh Air is useless.

You might be thinking “well, why don’t I atune swap while using the LH to activate Air 15 more often, instead of staying in Water with the LH?” If you swap out of Water, you lose the 20% dmg modifier – and that is FAR more important that the amount of dmg you get via Air 15.

The alternative is to abandon Might stacking and try to use Fresh Air to activate Air 2 and 15 the maximum number of times. Assuming you don’t trait into Arcana, you have a 13 sec CD on each Atune and a 1.625 global Atune CD, as I said before. Fresh Air also has a 5 sec internal CD. Air AA w/ scepter has a 3.5 sec duration. If you are PERFECT at timing Atune swaps (and I mean perfect) and lucky with crits, that means you can:

Time: 0.000: start in Atune 1, swap to Air to activate Air 15, AA in Air and use 2 while channeling,
Time: 1.625: swap to your 2nd atune while channeling,
Time: 2.000: assume an instant crit with the channel and instantly swap back to Air, activating Air 15,
Time: 3.500: start a 2nd Air AA,
Time: 3.625: swap to Atune 2,
Time: 7.000: assume the last tick of the Air AA channel crits, and swap to Air to activate Air 15. Use Air 2. AA in Air
Time: 8.625: swap to Atune 3
Time: 10.500: Air AA ends; start to AA in Atune 3
Time: 12.000: Assume the Atune 3 AA crits, and swap to Air to activate Air 15. Use Air 2. Start to AA in Air
Time: 13.625: Swap to Atune 1, continue to AA Air channel.
… etc

What problems do you see with a rotation like this, that makes maximum use of Fresh Air, Air 15 minor, and Scepter Air 2 attack? I see a bunch: no Might stacking (and I proved in the previous example that losing even a single Area Might combo is disastrous), and you’re spending a LOT of time using the Scepter’s weak AA… oh, and of course, it’s humanly impossible to maintain a rotation like that to the 3rd decimal place of a second. The first 2 secs of rotation are very good burst; after that, though, Fresh Air doesn’t do much for you. Average DPS over a 30-sec time period is FAR lower than what you’d get with the rotation I showed in this vid, using the LH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeRhQ40ckQ4

Nobody else euphoric it’s a blast finisher? Like, jumping-out-of-your-seat, run-around-laughing happy? …. oh well, must just be me

EDIT: 5/5

That’s why I started to main War in PvP a while ago. lol

Really though, as long as Anet doesn’t nerf Ele in PvE, I’m fine with it being mainly for that. Worst nightmare is a might-stacking, FGS, or LH nerf.

State we’re in for PvE is fine. For PvP, we can hold our own in 1vs1. For zergs, we can spam AoE.

It’s only in the area in between, in 1vs2 or 2vs3, that we have issues, since multiple opponents always target us first. Lots of classes have advantages over us there. Being pretty decent in duels and zergs, but horrible in small-scale group combat doesn’t seem so bad to me. Two out of three.

Then of course, you look at PvE, and we’re in a great place right now. Sure, plenty of things I wish could get changed, but I’ve got a pretty long wish-list for each of the other classes as well.

A big thank-you to the moderators for the sticky

It would still not be better than either Scholars (if your group can already maintain perma 25 stacks) or Might Durations (2x Fire, 2x Pirate, 2x Hoelbrak)(if it’s up to you to maintain all the Might).

I did a Might Durations vs. Scholars comparison at the end of my guide; the section is linked here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs-2-0/first#post3112693

I can do a Strengths vs. Might Durations vs. Scholars if you like, but I can tell you right now that Scholars will be better than Strengths if you’re looking at dmg, and Might Durations will be better than Strengths if you’re looking at upkeeping Might.

Assassin.7890:

I feel that I am not doing enough DMG without fresh air. It is such a massive dmg boost

With 0 in Arcana, you have a 13 sec CD on each Atune, and a 1.625 global Atune CD. This prevents you from making full use of Fresh Air. Looking at Fresh Air builds without Arcana, I am 100% sure that LH builds do more damage, under the constraint that you still need to stack maximum Might. If you didn’t need to stack Might, you might as well ditch Fresh Air and the LH altogether, and use Staff.

If you put points into Arcana to make better use of Fresh Air, your Effective Power drops very, very rapidly. Putting points into Arcana quickly makes non-Arcana builds far better. So you’re in a bit of a bind with Fresh Air, which basically prevents you from using it, if your goal is to do maximum dmg under the constraint that you must stack Might.

Gyler.8150:

How much does blasting staff affect meteor shower damage?

I don’t know exactly, since it depends on the size of the hitbox for each individual target, and since I haven’t run enough tests to be 100% sure of the exact increase in dmg. However, I AM 100% sure that a 30/20/10/10/0 build (what I call Build A ) will do more dmg than a 30/10/10/10/10 build with Blasting Staff. I posted why in another thread, which I will quote below:

Anierna.6918:

The PvE staff meta is 30/20/10/10/0. In my guide, I called it Build A, at the following link:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs-2-0/first#post3112677

30/20/10/10/0 with Arcane Lightning is better than 30/10/10/10/10 with Blasting Staff. For PvE, since the boss is a single target and standing still, Blasting Staff does not effect your Fireballs and Lava Fonts in any meaningful way, in regard to DPS. The only thing it does it make Meteor hit higher. So what you need to do is weigh that increase in Meteor damage against: perma 10% crit dmg from Arcane Lightning, perma 10% crit dmg from extra 10 in Air, 100 prec from extra 10 in Air. Since the majority of your damage will be done by Fireballs and Lava Fonts, even against targets with large hitboxes, the choice is obvious. The extra 10 in Air is FAR superior to 10 in Arcana.