Guild Wars 2

Dahir.4158:

I don’t think power engineers are all that when using a DS condi build against them. So far the only engis that ever gave me trouble were ones that used turrets and they were really tanky.

d/f is a lot easier to use against the condi mesmers you speak of because of earth #4 and #5. The pistols don’t mean squat when they’re being reflected back to the caster and killing themselves. Plus, you’re using perplexity so they won’t be expecting the interrupt coming from water #5 and air #5 which you can cast from any direction, even looking behind.

Diamond Skin is pointless against them, the good ones i am talking not the terrible “Power” ones that deal no damage. The good power ones deal insane damage and the knockbacks from turrets, Rifle and such can be very annoying.

Yeah i am looking into another possible hybrid condi build using Scepter/Focus as well. Though i am not sure how well it will do as Dagger/Dagger is just that little bit better when it comes to Conditions.

I am thinking about Elemental Surge or Glyph of Elemental Power. Elemental Surge has the benefit of you know when it will proc. Could be combined with Arcane Power as well and affects ALL Arcane Skills. Where as Elemental Power COULD get an extra proc off 6 Vs the 5 of Elemental Surge combined with Arcane Power but you can activate it in one attunement and use it in another which is very good.

Though i need to find out if these are PER a target or skill. I mean if i could use Arcane Power and combine that with say Phoenix for AoE burning then i would be very happy, i think that is what Scepter lacks the most – AoE Conditions.

It does have Dragon’s Tooth but really who gets hit by that? Flamewall is just a TERRIBLE version of Ring of Fire which is better in every way, lower cool down, longer burning. I mean it deals FOUR times the duration of burning that Flamewall does, has a shorter cool down, i just don’t see the benefit of Flamewall :/

Shatterstone is near useless as well due to its actual time from being cast to hitting is simply too long and that is it. TWO skills that can inflict Conditions,one of them being rather Meh and both being near impossible to actually hit someone with

In the process of making changes to my build to counter specific weaknesses. The first new build will focus on Rifle Power Engineers. Though some are rather easy to beat, others can be a real pain with the constant knock backs and such.

I had some fights against a Power one last night and though he couldn’t beat me i was easily able to escape. Other times i would get him down real close but would have nothing left as all my skills were on cool down so would have to back away. We had some duels which you don’t run from! and it was more 50-50 on who would win.

I changed a bit and then managed to beat him like 5 out of 6 duels in the OS Before he went to bed. This new build will concentrate on those players that like to just spam attacks from range and have way better ways to create distance than we have to close them down.

Another one i need to make is to counter Sword/Pistol and Scepter/Torch Condition Mesmer builds. It does say A LOT about this game when you have such a build that relies on Illusions. I mean the weapons themselves, offer VERY little in terms of conditions and yet, here we are.

I think a Dagger/Focus build might be the answer to this one as well. It is pretty much the iDuelist that is winning the fights. So, if i can get away to stop that it might swing it back in my favor, even with them using -40% food and me just using Diamond Skin it still took them more than 5minutes of dueling to win. So all in all no threat when actually roaming As all they have is Blink to really get about.

Personally, though it might need a rework, i would give Focus Churning Earth with Magnetic Wave. The projectile reflection is SO needed on Dagger/Dagger. Though for both i would make slight changes.

Magnetic Wave now inflicts 5 stacks of Torment for 8 seconds to targets around the Ele. I would increase the reflection to 4 seconds. Increase the cool down to 30 seconds. The damage from 5 stacks of Torment would be about the same (assuming they move during whole time) to that of 8 stacks of Bleeding for 8 seconds. It is like 500 damage less but at the benefit that it would be easier to get on people without having to stand their doing nothing and being a kill target for the channel.

Churning Earth, Not quite sure what i would do with this. Decrease the Bleeding a bit. Down to 5 stacks and do something :/

I would also swap Fire Aura with Fire Grab. Make Fire Grab a 100% crit if the person has Burning (this should have been in the skill already) i know the damage is increased which it also should but it should be a crit if they have Burning.I would reduce the Cool down of Fire shield by 5-10 seconds as well, 40 seconds seems a bit steep as compared to others which offer more (imo)

That would be my perfect Dagger/Dagger combo. I just think its lacking that little something currently with the biggest being the counter for range spamming people.

What would you guys change?

Dahir.4158:

I’m pretty sure you’re going to miss confusion. I tried Balth and Krait runes for the bleed and burn increase with additional respective sigil effects, but it still didn’t fill the hole left by the Perplexity rune. It’s too good of a rune to pass up.

Yeah, its just a shame that Perplexity is just SO many levels ahead of other condition based runesets that it isn’t even a choice if you want to deal damage.

Wyrden.4713:

i didnt mean u lol. didnt even check ur build:0 just said that there was a godlike ele immortal to everything, who was actually silver

on other hand i solod 3 ppl who were silver and higher:p

Lol, sorry. I was duelling some people in OS for hours. Thought it was me you were talking about. wasn’t sure as no idea what server you are on

Though kind of strange that i would be fighting a Mesmer and you would be fighting an ele at the same time. I did ask the person i was dueling and he said it wasn’t him, thats why i was coming back to delete it ^^

Wyrden.4713:

altho i gotta say that there was one condi ele in obsidian sanctum whom i duelled for hours and couldnt beat, he was running dskin and 3 points in water, tanky as hell, condis hurt as hell

/waves to the ele if u ever check this post, u were one hella good player

edit: tried all different spec against the ele in this one hour

I’m sorry you didn’t like the build i made
Though at least this post isn’t similar to the one in my thread…
Though, i have to say i am enjoying the fact that a build i made annoys people ^^

Unfortunately, i can’t remember which Mesmer you are

Well, their goes that idea. Thanks to Anet trying to force people to go through terrible dungeons to farm the shard. I hated doing that dungeon the first time, i would hate it even more having to go through it again and again and again to get the shards -.-

I am kind of tempted to give Runes of Orr a try. I could get up to 100% Poison duration and have 12 seconds of Poison every 9 seconds as well as 6 seconds of Poison every 3 seconds for 15 seconds with the Elite. The 4/6 is pretty decent as well That if i have 100% duration could be near Perma on its own

Though i do wonder just how much i would miss the Confusion procs that some times hit for 2k. I don’t think the loss of the added condition would hurt that much as it would be replaced with near Perma poison.

But it would need to be on the target for like 8 seconds just to do a similar kind of damage that Confusion could do in one hit….

I love your opening Paragraph. Rather arrogant, but if you are from NA server. I would expect nothing less. i have had my ele since pre-launch. I have never heard of you or even seen you post

Azure.8670:

youve come a long way Ash thats all im gonna say. great video.

Thanks. It still feels kind of strange that people in game actually know me and my videos and build and even several saying they are trying condi because of the build and videos i made.

At the moment i am trying to figure out how (if at all possible) You can beat a Diamond Skin ele. For pretty much every other class going Hybrid is easy and the condition damage and direct damage is still great. Though it is not the case with Ele.

Same with the Cele builds that you see about. The damage, the defense, the healing and the condition damage is just a bit too much to be able to handle currently. Been thinking about maybe a set of armor with Soldiers stats and Perplexity, but i have to save up for Perplexity first

You need to have high enough damage both direct and condition but still be able to keep the defense and healing up as well which is rather tricky. Personally, i hate the Celestial stat combo and think it should never have been introduced. The game shouldn’t have a stat combo that is near useless on most classes but extremely powerful on one class.

More than likely just the basic build with Cele stats.Nothing to new about it. its been around for a long time. It is just the basic (normally) 0/0/4/4/6 or some times 0/0/6/4/4 or some variation and they would normally grab Might on swap sigil and high might stacking Runeset.

Nope, it lasts 60 seconds, assuming it doesn’t die before then. The cool down starts after it dies as well. What they should have done is made it so that we could activate their special abilities for the Elite version and allow us to do the same for the Lesser but of course one that is like 75% of the strength of the Elite version but that also kills the Elemental. That would have been pretty good.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Also question: Does our Lesser Elemental Glyph suck? The Fire Elemental might be a fun extra utility, since I’m only really relying on Lightning Flash + Glyph of Elemental Power right now. The 3 second cripple would be handy. Plus having a pet is rad.

In my opinion – Yes, it sucks. The Elite version sucks as well just not as much. Though it all depends on your gameplay style, build and such. For me it sucks but others think they are great. Same goes for FGS, i have never liked it and yet see loads that love it.

While its “rad” unless its Earth one they die VERY fast. The lesser ones don’t have the special attack that makes the ele even worth having .

Sigmoid.7082:

Its a great build. Wrecked me when i ran into you on my guard and ranger last night. Not to sure how to pressure this setup enough to force the player on the defensive. All in all hard o beat 1v1. Dual you again sometime man.

-Gandara Player-

Yeah were some good fights, i found it funny that you was easier to kill WITH the condition reduction food. Made a change from last night seeing as it was mostly Gandara just ruining fights like when it was 1 Vs 1 i had FIVE other Gandara get involved the moment they saw i was winning and it wasn’t the only time that happened.

Was winning a 1 Vs 2 against a Warrior and Engineer and then 3 other people came along to ruin the fight -.-

Eucalyptus.9784:

Can’t watch from Canada

Is your build still the same as in the first post? I’ve been toying with a few slight changes with this build.

Could you link your current build/WvW gear actually? It’s not in your first video either, and I wonder if you’ve changed anything since the one before.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYlcMonhFOwvB8rNwHgRcEECGfACAPwirgUAA-T1yCABQoEEgDIAPqUgiGCuUa0iegl3fwH1Vk4BAklyspPRAkCAipRA-w

That is my basic build. I change some traits around depending on the person(s) i am fighting. For example no point using Diamond Skin against Power builds for example.

I have been testing a few things out which i need to do more realistic testing as they were done in OS duels so need actual WvW roaming experience with it to see if it will work or not.

Mattmatt.4962:

i donno, i feel like 30% would be too much, maybe reduce alatracy to 10% but then it just moving the issue, people will have to go max arcana + alatracy to get the 20%.
Maybe keep the trait has they are but cap the max CD reduction to 20%. seems legit.

I would say change the Alacrity traits to be more like the traits other classes get, where they get a buff for weapons as well as cool down reduction. Make the traits be the buff part and make Arcane line be the cool down reduction. Still keep it at 20% though

So you want Ele to have LESS cool down reduction? O.o
I would rather we keep the alacrity traits so i can get the reductions for the lines i WANT than to have to have 12% but in all attunements.

petyr baelish.9675:

I don’t care what the tooltip says, it’s wrong, earth is CC and defense. If you want conditions as your main dmg source go play a different class (except the conditionalist guy).
The focus earth skills are so bad, they definately should definately change those kappa.

“Attune to earth, gaining superior damage-over-time and defensive abilities. "
Thats from the Wiki

Need i say more?

A bit late but here is my latest WvW Roaming Video: http://youtu.be/cXh6KxXEMWQ
Some decent fights, Aurora Glade were SO hard to find, it was like they gave up on the first day and decided not to do WvW or something :/

Already have some great videos for next weeks video, including a 1 Vs 2 against a Ranger and Warrior pair

petyr baelish.9675:

Earth is a defense/CC attunement and is working fine.

D/D has projectile block, gap closers and cc, what more do you need against a range spamming class? If they range you from a relatively safe spot they can be quite annoying but once you catch up to them they won’t be running away.

Earth is meant to be the Condition/ Damage of Time attunement as well. What does Earth have when it comes to Conditions, Bleeding and Cripple.

Dagger MH: Terrible auto attack with Bleeding. decent Bleed and Cripple on Ring Of Earth and an Immobilize that is SO buggy and unpredictable if it will work.

Dagger OH: Nothing on Earthquake for conditions and Great bleeding on Churning Earth, shame its near impossible to land.

Scepter: Great Auto attack. Nothing on Rock Barrier. A decent Line AoE blind.

Focus – Nothing.

Staff – Easily dodged auto attack. Good Bleed on Eruption, easily dodged though. Long low stack Bleed on Shockwave

Overall, for Conditions it is seriously underpowered.

Lenor.8197:

Oh kitten, mom look, i’m on TV! Well, i got my kitten handed to myself (I’m the boyscout condi ranger), but i enjoyed this encounter. I’ll add that first time we met Armageddon forfeited instantly because he didin’t manage to switch from Stone Heart to Diamond Skin.

That’s beside the point, anyways. I really like the idea put behind this build. It offers extreme verstatility on the 30 Earth slot, being able to adequately combat both heavy power and condition builds. I’d love to see how it stands up versus hybrids, though.

Also, is Perplexity the absolutely best rune choice? I believe some new runesets, like Grenth might be considered (The chill from Reaper of Grenth hurts a truckload)

Yeah IF I can tell the build and swap in time then it is a huge advantage. Without Diamond you will die. That simple even Ether Renewal cant save you most of the time due to how very easily all other condi builds can spam conditions over and over. Though I have won fights where I havent been able to switch I time. I have also noticed power builds that spam conditions as well and you’ll see one especially in my next video that I will be uploading when I get home.

As for Perplexity. I have considered other rune sets though grenth isnt one of them. I think Balt or even Torment with the right build changes could be very solid. The problemwould be losing that burst damage when they are taking 2k hits when they attack.

petyr baelish.9675:

Why change what isn’t broken?

Though i would agree its not “broken” i would say for Earth attunement is VERY poor as a “condition” attunement. I would love to see it get access to Torment. I would love to see D/D get a way to counter Range spamming classes and builds, especially those that constantly cripple.

Faced my first Dagger/Focus Condi ele in OS, i won. It was an “easy” fight, they weren’t much threat it just took time to get her down. She managed to get me below 90% once but couldnt take advantage of it and i was back up in seconds.

She seemed to be running 0/0/6/2/6. The Obsidian Flesh was very decent. Some of the other skills like Swirling Winds were just wasted and pointless though.

In the process of editing my next video it is against Gunnars Hold and Aurora Glade, well mostly Gunnars Hold because it was near impossible to find any AG roaming :/ It should be up tonight or tomorrow

Dahir.4158:

Started using focus today and I f#king love it. It feels weird not using d/d anymore, the off-hand skills are kinda new to me even though I know full well what they do. I have a lot more survivability now and that helped me beat some players that I wouldn’t have been able to beat before with d/d.

The Focus is a bit too defensive for my liking, it has like 3 skills out of 8 that i would like, the rest are subpar compared to Dagger off hand. Dagger offhand offers more in my opinion – More access to burning, Healing, Frost Aura, 2 knockback/knock downs and mobility as well as Churning Earth, sure it might be useless most of the time but when it hits boy its deadly.

oZii.2864:

Well grats Ash condi ele has become popular or blackgate just so happens to like condi ele. I never seen so many Diamond skin condition elementalist since this week. I can’t do anything on my necro until someone breaks it. Blackgate seems to like D/F though for their condi ele builds. The spec I see them running is 0/4/6/0/4.

I encountered a condi ele last night and wanted to duel them to see what adjustments i could make to my build/gameplay style to counter another ele using Diamond skin as i know currently my direct damage isn’t enough to get through them. I have a few ideas but would prefer to give them a real test.

It turned out they were trying condi ele because of my posts and videos, it seemed rather odd. Not actually used to people knowing me but i have to admit, it made me smile

I have been seeing a increasing amount of condition ele in WvW and in OS, which just puts a smile on my face, knowing that i helped with it. Though i haven’t encountered any running with Focus.

To me that just seems a bit too defensive. Though Flame Wall has a rather good duration at 8 seconds the fact its just a line and not a ring around me does weaken it a bit and it has 5 second longer cool down. I think i would take Fire Shield over Fire Grab, in my build the damage is just pathetic

Water is even worse, No heal is very damaging. A 3 second chill on a 25 second cool down is decent but mainly due to its range, nothing else. Though i wouldn’t take it over Frost Aura nor would i take Comet over Cleansing Wave.

Air is weak mobility wise. The projectile destruction is decent though would have preferred reflection. Gale seems a bit weak as well, the 2 second knockdown is decent and so is the range but it has a rather long cool down and i really like that Updraft can hit several people at the same time, grants swiftness and has a lower cool down.

Earth. This is the one. Magnetic Wave is something that D/D really needs. range spamming is very annoying and having no skills that can counter that is really annoying. A reasonable reflection duration (3 seconds) as well as crippling foes and curing 3 conditions and being a blast is very very nice. Obsidian Flesh is nice, i just don’t like the cool down. I think 50 seconds is very steep. All in all i think if we had the choice i would take Focus Earth skills over x/D skills but i think i would take x/D skills over Focus skills for the other attunements Fire Shied in place of Fire Grab as well.

0/4/6/0/4 seems very interesting. Would assume taking Soothing Winds to counter the loss of healing Power from not going into Water, guessing they would also go more into Rabid armor/weapons/accessories as well to boost up the Healing Power and Crit chance as well. Would think Inscription, likely with the Inscription heal. The rest i would assume would be the basic choices.

Dolores.5471:

Depends on what we’re talking about here..
Duels? Yes I can see this working.
Roaming/outmaned fights? You’d be tough to hit, but you’d have no big cc, 1 or none traited big heal and no runaway skill (unless you run FGS which isn’t optimal in a condi build), additionaly, the only damaging condi you’d be puting out in aoe is burning.

I spend 99% of my time Roaming and i win far more than i lose. No need for FGS either. When you can just tank hits as you are running, swapping to Fire for Burning Speed and evade attacks and using Air for Swiftness and Ride The Lightening as well. I have been chased before by 3-4 people at the same time and escaped.

The AoE conditions don’t matter as much, even in out numbered as you would be (or should be) focusing someone and the other(s) would still be getting Burning and Torment at the very least. You have AoE Chill, Frost Aura, Shocking Aura, Earthquake, Ring of Earth and even Churning Earth and then you have to include the Auto attacks, Cone of Cold and Updraft as well as all the fire skills (minus Fire Grab) that can cause AoE conditions and damage.

CC isn’t the be all and end all of the game. We have 2 as D/D and they both work really well and are both AoE CC. You don’t need no big heal when going into Water heals you, going into Water grants Regen and casting abilities heal you and then you have things like Stone Heart that can help you as well as Arcane Shield, Armor of Earth and such as well.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Question: With such a low crit rate, does Sigil of Torment actually proc all that often?

Also: When your trait that gives you Armor of Earth at 50% hp kicks in, does it use the Cooldown for Armor of Earth if you have it slotted as well?

The crit chance is 7% that goes up to 27% when you swap attunements. Every crit hit you have has a 50% chance of proccing the sigil, that is what makes it a good option. If it was like 30% like some of them are then it really wouldn’t be worth it but as you have a 50% when you crit to proc it it does proc quite alot and has a very reasonable cool down.

No. The Trait is separate, so even if you have Armor of Earth it won’t use it up when you reach 50% health.

FrownyClown.8402:

I hear its a 10s base duration though. Havent tested personally. Those where the utilities I ran and was comfortable with. Ill prob give it a try soon. Ill let u know how it foes.

Yeah it seems to be 10 seconds, which is very decent and with just the rune set that becomes like 15 seconds thanks to the 45% Torment Duration, add in 40% food and that is a total of 85% duration increase which would make it about 18 and 1/2 seconds.

Add into that the what would be nearly 10seconds of Torment from the Sigil and that is pretty decent. Though i would question just which heal would be best to use it and personally find those that require healing to be pretty poor. If it was like Krait and on Elite use would require higher stacks maybe but that would be pretty solid as well.

But if you take it and combine it with Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance that would be quite good i think, though you would (imo) need to run the Arcane Cool down reduction trait – 35seconds (iirc) is simply too long a cool down.

Meh i have 2,100Condition damage buffed. I dont need Might. Now if it was for USEFUL fields then of course i would be using them more but Might isn’t needed when you have so much condition damage. So your point saying i am “bad” because i don’t combo for might, i don’t need Might. If the timing is right and i can get might that is okay i wouldn’t go out of my way to spam blasts for Might. Maybe that is a requirement/desired for some build it isn’t needed in mine.

I have ZERO power, my Fire Grab hits for like 900-1000 against Cloth users. It is rather pointless and rarely used because the damage is so low that it just isn’t worth using. So they got away, that doesn’t really bother me. I count them running as a win in my book.

Narkodx.1472:

Good stuff gotta try it. Have you thought of Perplex runes? Got a decent amount of rupts with D/D.

Edit – Just noticed the confusion procs. DUH!

Yeah Perplexity is very strong. Even with our limited number of Interrupts.

Eucalyptus.9784:

I keep seeing people say that Signets are a bad Conditionalist choice. I’m relatively new to my Ele still, and came from a few years of playing a Mesmer, but to me the passive boosts, on top of using the “keep passives when activated” trait seemed pretty good…

If I want to run something like this:

http://tinyurl.com/ksl228h

What are some of the stronger utilities to use if Signets suck then? I don’t like Conjures, Glyphs don’t seem that good either, and I don’t get Regen/Vigor upon Cantrip use with this build…

(Note: The Signets are still assigned from when I had the “Keep Passive” trait assigned. Looking for what I should replace them with)

The problem is that without Written In Stone they lose much of the thing that made them great and Written In Stone is no where near as good as Diamond Skin when facing Condition builds or Stone Heart when facing Burst builds.

You take Written In Stone and you weaken yourself by not having either Diamond Skin or Stone Heart.

The other issue is the active of them. The Passive is just so much more useful that you dont want to use the active and that is a problem, the same one that Warriors have with Healing Signet but slightly different due to just how powerful Healing Signet passive is.

Signet of Earth is pretty much the only one where i would actually WANT to use the active and i do, it is very useful. However, a Blind on a 30 second cool down? No thanks. Signet of Fire is pretty solid though.

As for your build, Signet of Fire isn’t needed as you would be using Fire quite a lot and the Burning from that with 40%+ food is plenty to be able to keep very good to near perma Burning going on a target. Signet of Earth is a great option though, i use it as well the added toughness is great and the immbo to catch runners is great. I would Keep Signet of Earth and replace the other 2 utilities myself.

With that you have plenty of options, Arcane Shield, Armor of Earth for defensive options. I personally wouldn’t use Mist Form as that really damages Condition Builds – too much time spent not applying conditions and they can be removed during that time and people can heal up abit knowing you are no threat for a few seconds.

Other options could include Glyph of Elemental Power or Maybe Lightening Flash for that little bit of added mobility and escape option.

With Diamond Skin i dont think Cleansing Fire is needed, i mean if you are really that worried about conditions you could just run Ether Renewal and again the Burning while nice isn’t needed due to all the Burning from Drakes Breath, Burning Speed and Ring of Fire.

As i Human which i believe you are, i wouldn’t run FGS. Reaper of Grenth is SO much more useful, great Chill and Poison access.

FrownyClown.8402:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYlMMouhdOwxB8rNwHQQ87ZYRQ560XA-TViHABpoSAH6BiTJYSKLyd/hVU3BgHAgRK1A+EAQKAImGB-w

This is what id try to run

Just my opinions:

Utilities, personally i think they are all rather weak choices. Not a lot of defense. You got a Bloind on a 30 second cool down that you won’t really want to use due to the passive. 32second blink which most classes can still catch you if you try to run and Cleansing Fire which decent condition removal but at a 32 second cool down i think it could be better.

In Earth, I would take the Protection on Aura with D/D you have 2 auras as well. Though if you don’t have it in utilities it is nice to have it part of a trait (Armor of Earth)

In Water, i personally run with Soothing Wave and the cool down reduction trait. of course if i am facing condition builds i switch from Stone Heart to Diamond skin for that little added protection against conditions

In Arcana, i personally run Windborne Dagger, this is to free up a utility and/or Rune set though running with Evasive Arcana does make Renewing Stamina worth it, but as i don’t run with it anyway it is less useful.

Sigils. Torment is a solid choice and great that it is AoE i personally go with Doom as my second option as its great against Warriors and heavy healing builds and classes.

Armor seems very solid as well, though i would be inclined to squeeze as much Healing Power as i could out of the stats, so going Apoth weapons and Rings as well as grabbing Apoth chest and legs would be my aim just to get it up to around 800Healing Power.

Its the Runeset that is its biggest weakness. 2 stacks of Torment on Heal is AWFUL for a 6/6 bonus and the fact that it has a 20second cool down as well. I would personally if you aren’t interested in Perplexity give Balt a look. The added Burning Duration and Burn on heal is pretty solid.

Think if you swapped out Evasive Arcana for Elemental Surge and grabbed Arcane Brilliance that would be some very nice Burning, assuming both would proc and i wouldnt see why they wouldn’t You could also combine it with other Attunements like Water and get AoE chill and Burning off.

Dolores.5471:

Those were dark times, anyway, the builds are still highly overlooked. Your traits and gear are good, I run soothing disruption so I usually pick windborne dagger over signet of air and add another utility. I personaly wouldn’t pick the same sigils and runes, perplexity is still too good to pass, specially against burst mashing-button classes. Geomancy is good, but you arealdy have enough bleeds (for an ele condi build) so I’d switch for doom since the only poison you currently have is in a huge cooldown, and poison is a VERY important condition.

Condition ele can be very good when played right. I agree i think that the sigils and mostly just Geomancy i would change for Doom, the Torment one actually procs rather nicely, even with low base Precision thanks to its 50% proc chance.

Currently, Perplexity is the go too Rune in my opinion. It offers great damage and the duration and uptime it has is really good as well. It is in my opinion SO much better than Rune of Torment. Though another option could be the Balt rune set, increased Burning Duration is very nice and Burn on Heal

Though another option could be, go with Rune of Torment, grab Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance. When used in Fire – you would have Burning and Torment proc and could be combined with Water for Chill and Torment. Though procs from Air wouldn’t be that great and the proc from Earth would actually be a damage loss for Torment.

Could be rather interesting. I mean With the right buffs you could have 85% Torment Duration so the proc from the Heal could last nearly 20 seconds assuming it doesnt get cleansed add in potential procs from Torment Sigil and the Burning from Elemental Surge (in Fire) that could be some nasty condition spike.

Dahir.4158:

Axialbloom.8109:

Are you talking about duels?

I’m guessing maybe duels, and roaming. Definitely not zerging.

I run the same build with slight changes (Diamond Skin and Stone Heart changes alot) in duels, solo roaming, small group, guild group and zergs. It all depends on how you play it that will decide if you will be good. Especially in Zerg situations.

I will tend to pop Reaper of Grenth and fly into the group using Ride The Lightening or Burning Speed. This instantly gets Poison and Chill going, maybe burning as well. From there i will normally go through all my Burning Skills and pop either Earthquake or maybe Updraft before retreating to get health back up and before going back in.

It is all about getting in, getting your stuff done and then getting out again. It is also good as you can plan your next move, if you see them moving in a certain direction and you drop Burning Speed/Ring of Fire in their path knowing they will go through it which works really well as well.

If you are running low it is time to get out as fast as you can, things like Armor of Earth is great for that attack as they will normally drop stun fields and such.

Elite wise in Zergs you have one choice (as Human) and that is Reaper of Grenth, solo and duels you have other options but i again find Reaper of Grenth to be the better choice, mostly due to the insane cool down Hounds of Balt has and the fact it can die in seconds

Anomaly.7612:

Wow. I read through these pages without looking at time stamps. The whole time I thought, “wow I hope the devs look at our base health and armor, and the cooldown rates of our highly used skills like RTL/EQ/FG,” to go back and see that those things were mentioned a whopping 4 months ago.

That’s seriously discouraging. I remember I left this game a while ago because devs didn’t seem to do much about issues that the majority of the playerbase would speak up about. (back then it was when I was maining a necro). To come back to the game knowing that these things were talked about 4 months ago and nothing has been done about them isn’t instilling any hope. =\

yep, we have been making suggestions for SO long and been pretty much ignored. It will be interesting when the Ele CDI or what ever its called happens and these suggestions come up again (and they will) i wonder what (if we get any!) response will be.

Croustibat.7035:

Yes of course but on the video it is 1382 in one tick, might be some kind of ‘bug’.

Yeah it seems to be something to do with duration set at a specific duration or something. It affects all classes i think, i know Mesmers Staff Auto attack it has been mentioned about this so its a bug that is for sure, the reason behind it i have no idea. When it will get fixed, i have no idea either.

Been giving Balt rune set a think, If Dire armor didnt jump through the atmosphere in terms of price i would have defo given it a try. A single item when i last looked cost MORE than my whole set did a few months back :/

Also been thinking about getting Sigil of Leeching in place of Torment, the damage is like 3-400 less but its all upfront and the extra healing would come in handy but i am not too sure, its just a shame that the damage and healing is set and can’t be boosted with more power and Healing Power.

Croustibat.7035:

Wow dat 1382 burning damage, it is like having 4220 condition damage !!
Strange …

My Drake’s Breathe without many Burning Trait improvements and 40% duration at fully buffed does like 12-13k Burning damage. My burning ticks are about 850 ticks.

With 10 in Fire, Balt Runes and 40% food Drakes Breathe can apparently do up to 21,000damage….

Dolores.5471:

I will not argue with you about the triggering chance because I think you should just redo your tests

I redid the tests, it seemed to gain 1 extra proc as it would proc 4-5 times. What i did. Activate in Fire for bruning and go to Air and spam the auto attack for the whole duration and it inflicted 4-5 Burning procs, it is still not quite proccing the 6 possible times.

So with my build 4 Burning would deal about 12-15,000 Burning damage (assuming no removal) that is about the same as Drake’s Breathe. To me, that is rather poor. 45 second cool down skill JUST being better than a 5second cool down skill. Thus in that say 30 second duration, i would only need to use Drake’s Breathe twice to deal more Burning damage which is kind of sad.

Dahir.4158:

I guess since my character is Sylvari I can use the Sylvan Hound elite to get them below 90%. Even though I use it I’m not even sure it does a lot of damage since I only use it for poison and bleeding. I’ll have to test it somehow to see how much damage it actually does.

The benefit of the Sylvari Hound is that its immune to conditions and lasts for 60seconds (or it dies) Not even sure what its Health and Armor is. It deals 800-950 damage with 2 seconds of Poison and 4 seconds of Bleeding though no idea what the cool down of this is.

Hounds of Balt has 10k health and 2000Armor, not immune to conditions, lasts 30 seconds and deals 450-500 damage and inflicts 1 second of Burning with basic attack though again no idea cool down, it also has a second attack that deals 1800-2000damage in an AoE and is a leap finisher again no idea cool down on this either.

Hounds of Balt has a 240second cool down while Sylvari hound only has a 180second cool down and lasts up to 60seconds. It is quite hard to decide which is the better option, Hounds of Balt dies within seconds and has (imo) an INSANE cool down.

Dahir.4158:

I’m not even full condition ele. I’m a hybrid so I have a little bit of dps, but I am still unable to kill other eles who use Diamond Skin against me. DS eles with average amount of healing power and one or two warriors that I’ve faced are the only ones I’ve been unable to beat continuously.

I haven’t actually unlocked the Stone Heart trait as of yet just because I’m a lazy git and cant be bothered, lol. I will try it today for sure and hopefully I’ll choose it over WIS.

I am FULL condition damage, i wouldn’t be able to beat a Ele with Diamond Skin, at best it would be a tie i think. Though i could use Hounds of Balt and use that to get the Ele below 90% health as Hounds of Balt does hit rather hard and then just keep the pressure going and hope they can’t get back up to 90%

Stone Heart is really good. When i first heard about it i was really thinking it would be poor but it has been so good.

Dahir.4158:

To add to this post I’d like to give an example. My build relies on the 30 in earth for the grandmaster traits. Depending on who I fight (condi or dps builds) I can switch to Diamond Skin or Written in Stone and do really well against them. I fully agree with Ash in saying a simple trait change can be advantageous for us when fighting against difficult builds.

Some of you may say “oh diamond skin, such a noob no skill at all”, it doesn’t matter. It is a perfect counter to certain builds and why would I not take advantage of it? It’s here for a reason and I plan on making full use of it.

Exactly. When i see someone is running a condition build, i will swap out Stone Heart for Diamond Skin and then suddenly your build becomes stronger against a different type of opponent.

In my Videos i have shown fights against Condition builds and while it is no where near as strong against Hyrbid builds it will destroy full condition builds and that is what it was designed to do, not force people out of condition builds altogether but force them into making a choice -

Do you stay full condi and destroy everyone but be countered by Diamond Skin ele or do you sacrifice a bit of condition power for that little extra upfront damage so that you can beat Diamond Skin ele.

I actually don’t use Written in Stone, i find Stone Heart to be the better option, in by build at least. This is what benefit Condi Ele, in fact all ele have over other classes but it requires points to be spent in specific trees like 30 into Earth so that you can counter direct builds and condition builds, of course not at the same time because that would be insanely overpowered.

Axialbloom.8109:

Pity ele condition builds are so bad

The last person that said that i beat in a 1 Vs 1, They are far from bad. It just takes the right build and playstyle to bring the best out of them, sure we lack damaging conditions at the base of the class but that can be changed with ruins and sigils.

Ele is also the kind of class that you can make a few trait changes and be able to combat a different enemy build. Is it as strong as the other condition based classes? In some ways maybe not but its better in other ways. It is how you choose to build it that defines how good it might become.

jonwar.4186:

enjoyed, nice video!

Thanks, at least some people liked it i guess :/

Found something very iffy….

40% Condition Duration food
Runes of Balt (45% burning Duration)

85% Burning Duration
1 second Burn becomes 1 1/4second Burn deals 879 damage

40% Condition Duration food
10% Condition Duration from Fire trait line
25% Burning Duration from Embers Might

Total 75% Burning Duration.
1 second Burn becomes 2 second burn dealing 1,670 damage

Can anyone explain this? Does gw2skills not add the duration from Balt runeset?

Trying to think about changes i could make. Thinking about what Hounds of Balt in a Burning Build could be like, Would have to buy new Dire Gear though, just in case. Perplexity can do insane tick damage.

Depending on the attack speed of The hounds and the base attack that inflicts 1 second Burn, i would assume that it is increased by caster Condition duration and damage (can anyone confirm?)

Thats not too bad. The skill has a long duration, it all depends on how much damage it takes i mean it would be pointless if it melts in seconds. I really like the idea of Hounds of Balt but it is rather weak.

Hounds has poor health (10k) and very low armor (2k) a Weak burning (1 second) Fiery Leap seems decent and counts as a Leap Finisher but i think its still not that great 30 second duration isn’t too bad. The stats are rather poor and access to 1 condition is poor as well.

Not a bad skill, Poison is very helpful. What is its attack speed? If its like once every 2-3 seconds then not so sure.

Ele is next to have a CDI as they finished 2nd in that poll behind Rangers, but the question is – is it worth it? Have Rangers gained much from theirs?

Atoss.1056:

I meant it more as “my asura doesn’t have useful elites” :P So I usually fight without any, just fgs to escape when roaming. Duels – no elite (unless some rly annoying guy then elemental)…

Yeah some of the race Elites could be buffed a bit, i do find that the Golem (the attack one) is pretty strong and deals some very solid damage as well. Better than Fire Elemental in my opinion

LightningBlaze.4913:

He made a couple of mistakes. Some noticed and some left unnoticed but that’s ok even against good players. The reason why it’s ok is because this game make bunker builds to be very forgiving. He can easily recover from mistakes on 1v1 encounters with his build. It is not about the profession only being fun. Every profession is the most fun towards different type of people. Every profession require time to perform efficiently. Sure the ele takes a bit more time due to the larger amount of weapon skills it possess but that’s all it requires… time. Every build across all the professions within this game has their strengths and weaknesses. When you are struggling against a specific profession/player you can be sure there are builds (including other weapon sets) that counter them as an ele. The ele can defeat all professions and all great players within this game but don’t expect a single build and playstyle to accomplish that goal.

Yeah several times i use things like Frozen Burst a bit too late after Fire field has gone, a couple of times wasted skills like Cleansing Wave and Earthquake. I don’t think any player in the game can play this without making mistakes.

I even some times go to use a specific skill and forget that i am in the wrong attunement and waste some skills, that has happened a few times but again these sort of things can happen so it doesnt really bother me.

I would say many classes and builds can survive making the odd mistake. It isn’t just down to Bunker builds – Condition builds and high burst builds can still make mistakes and survive.

I can counter many builds with a few trait changes but that doesn’t mean i am 100% safe, no class and no build is. Hybrid builds will melt me in most situations encountered some VERY high burst builds that just melted me as if i was wearing armor made of paper as well. These things happen. It would be terrible for the game if a class/build could beat every other type of build in the game.

I have always loved ele, it was the first class i made during Pre-Launch and loved it, it got a bit stale when the D/D Bunker own everything period happened and that is when i went to other classes, came back about 4-5months ago before making my condi build.

I run 6 in neither Arcane or Water, nor do i run might stacking build, runes or traits so not quite sure what you are talking about with that. I run my own build, that i made myself several months ago. This isn’t no “Meta” build, It has great strengths but it does have weaknesses but that is just like every other build.

I much prefer playing a “harder” condition based build rather than a condition spam. Playing this takes more work and can be done easier/faster with other classes but does that mean its better. It’s all about how much fun you have.

I have played Condi Engineer, Condi Mesmer and Condi Necro over the spam of the game and i have by FAR had more fun playing Condi Ele.

Also, this is just some of the fights i have had. I am still new to this and still forget to record some video ’s having won fights where i have been outnumbered only to remember that i havent been recording.

Now, is the Condi ele player “good” for beating someone with a weak condition build or is the person that gets beat “bad” for losing to such a build?

So i have been making roaming WvW videos with my Condition elementalist. Let me know what you guys think ^^

The build is the same one i have posted on the forums several times, if you can’t find it, then its in some of the video descriptions as well

Latest Video: http://youtu.be/GieXgGnX1Bs

Darox.8069:

We have that already, it’s called conjures.

Do you even play ele?
That is nothing like Conjures, Conjures locks you OUT of your skills and gives you new ones that mostly suck. This would increase the effectiveness of your CURRENT skills

No thanks, this is a rather poor idea. I do think they could really give us a bit more in depth Attunement swapping.

Something like:

When in Fire (for example) Pressing the Fire attunement again would put you into a stronger version that would buff up some skills and reduce cool downs of Fire skills while in Fire but putting all other Attunements on max cool down.

So you would have be careful when to use it, using it at the right time would make you very strong but using it at the wrong time could backfire if say you use it in Fire but then need healing or need mobility as they would all be put on cool down.