Guild Wars 2

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Solid Ocean
Good utilities are SoF, GoEP (stunbreak), FB, GoS (Earth), LH. Don’t use GoE.

Swampland
Use Ether Renewal, Lightning Flash, and Signet of Air or swiftness to run wisps. Don’t use Mist Form.
Mossman: Use Energy Sigil. Good utilities are GoEP (Earth), SoF, ArW, ArS, Mist Form. Use GoE (Earth) for a facetank that won’t spin. Chain Swirling Winds with other reflects. LH at your own risk, Mossman doesn’t like people who make big numbers.
Bloomhunger: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH, FB. Elite may be FGS or GoE (Fire or Air).

Thaumanova Reactor
Trash: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, GoEP (Air), GoS (Earth), LH, FB.
Ooze: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH. Chain LH Static Field with other CC’s to keep little oozes away.
Turret Room: Use Arcane Shield, Mist Form, and Obsidian Flesh to get through the room. Use Cleansing Flame to hit the two panels at the back.
Superheated room: Use Lightning Flash to run first cooling rod. Use staff to help your party stack swiftness and regen.
Anomaly: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, FB, LH, GoEP (Air), ArS, Mist Form. FGS at your own risk. GoE (Air or Earth) is useful.

Uncategorized
Harpies: If not stealthing, good utilities are GoS (Earth), LH, ArS, SoF, Armor of Earth. Chain Swirling Winds and weapon CC’s.
Champ Room: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, FB, GoEP (Air), GoS (Earth for vet, Air for others) Mist Form. Use GoE at start or as soon as only 1 is left.
Stairs: Obsidian Flesh and Swirling Winds counter the bars. Use Lightning Flash to hit 2 switches.
Old Tom: Stack might, use GoE (Earth), and then stand behind the elemental. Good utilities are SoF, ArW, FB, LH.
Raving Asura: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, FB, GoS (Earth), Mist Form. Use GoS (Earth) and Elite when all 4 golems are up.

Underground Facility
Switches: Use Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave, Earth Shield, Obsidian Flesh, Arcane Shield, Mist Form to stay alive on a switch. Use GoE (Earth) before passing through dredge for it to pull aggro.
Rabosvich and Clown Car: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH, FB, GoEP (Air). Elite should be FGS.
Ice Elemental: Use Energy Sigil. Use 2 DPS utilities and 1 stunbreak (Arcane Shield, Mist Form, or GoEP). Do not use GoE.
Dredge Powersuit: Use Energy Sigil. Use Swirling Winds for bombs. Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH, FB. Do not use GoE.

Urban Battleground
Trash: Good utilities are GoS (Earth), ArW, FB, GoEP (Air), LH, SoF.
Ashym: Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH, FB, ArS, Mist Form. Elite may be GoE (Air or Fire) or FGS.

Volcanic
Trash: Good utilities are GoS (Earth), GoEP (Air), ArW, SoF, FB, LH. Put on Signet of Air if running stones.
Champion Shaman: Max melee. Good utilities are ArW, SoF, FB, LH. Elite should be GoE (Air).
Legendary Imbued Shaman: Use Sigil of Energy and Dagger/Focus. Chain Swirling Winds with other projectile protection during phase changes. Good utilities are ArW, GoS (Earth), FB, LH, ArS, Mist Form. Use elite GoE (Earth) to draw aggro at phase changes.

Dungeon Tips and Tricks
This section is still under construction but will contain notes about what utility skills I use in particular situations as well as where I stand to avoid some damage.

Building Stacks
With the many changes to stacking sigils and organized group dungeon running strategies, most groups do not use stacking sigils. If you choose to use a stacking sigil, in most dungeons it is possible to build 15 stacks.

• AC: Spiders that trigger the Spider Queen
• TA: Nightmare vines and spiders or archers in the old paths, spiders and other mobs in the first room of the new path
• SE: P1 has Inquest along the way to Nokk (but not recommended). P2 has Dredge with the first few champs. P3 has Dredge along the way to and following Volkov
• CoF: P1 doesn’t have much stacking material. P2 has devourers, and P3 has the mobs around the torches and first boss as well as waves of enemies.
• CoE: Icebrood up to and including the first champ plus the 4 golems. In P2 and P3, stack on the exploding golems and risen after the ele-loving Mark T-B34RC3 if you lose your stacks.
• HotW P1: First room of enemies or enemies preceeding Aldus
• Arah: Infinitely spawning Risen plus spiders. If you lose your stacks, there are some paths with places to refill. In P1, there are the Champ Corrupted Illusions. In P1 and P2, there is the group of risen just before Lupi. In P4, there is a group of weak risen followed by a group of spiders following the Priest of Melandru and also the wraiths at Priest of Grenth.
• Fractals: Each fractal resets your stack count, but it still can be worthwhile in Aetherblade, Molten Furnace, and Urban Battleground.

Fractals
I recommend using D/F and Staff for high level fractals due to its survivability, DPS sustainability, and still decent conjure pairing. A DPS scepter-hammer build also works well for low level fractals.

I provide multiple recommendations for utility skills. If you are comfortable with an encounter, take more DPS oriented utilities such as SoF, LH, or FB. If you are less comfortable, take defensive utilities such as Arcane Shield and Mist Form. Use ArBr if you want the blast finisher, otherwise choose a heal appropriate for the situation. Many of these bosses move around which make FGS+LF risky, but it’s always an option if you prefer that.

Aetherblade
Trash: LH and GoS (Earth) for blinds, and use FGS to melt mobs. Use LF to blink past puzzles.
Golem Room: Use D/F or Staff with GoEP (Air) if not using a LoS FGS spot. Good utilities are SoF, ArW, FB GoEP (Air), ArS, and Mist Form.

Aquatic Ruins
Rotation: Fire 2 – ArBr – Water 3 – Water 3 – ArW on enemy in fire field for 9-12 might. Continue with Water 2 – detonate Water 2 – Air 5 (on krait) – Air 2 – Air 1 until Fire is off CD – Fire 1, 2 until ArW is off CD, then repeat. Fire AA is best for cleaving.
Krait: Good utilities are ArBr, SoF, ArW, ArS, GoEP (Air), Whirlpool. Use Whirlpool on second group.
Jellyfish: Good utilities are SoF, GoEP (stunbreak, preferably use in Fire or Air), ArW, ArS. Air 4 and Earth 4 can interrupt the swallow if you cast it as soon as you see the tell. Hover near allies outside of kick range. Use Whirlpool to clear adds.

Cliffside
Cultists: Good utilities are SoF, LH, GoS (Earth), GoEP (Air), ArW.
Archdiviner: Use Energy Sigil. Good utilities are GoEP (Earth), ArW, SoF, LH, ArS, Mist Form. Use GoE (Earth) for a facetank or GoE (Air) for DPS.

Mai Trin
Use Sigil of Energy and Dagger/Focus. Use Swirling Winds when you see her pistol shot. Dodge her lightning projectile spin, and stay out of close melee unless keeping her in a blue field (use Obsidian Flesh to tank). Good utilities are ArW, GoEP (Earth), SoF, ArS, Mist Form, Cleaning Fire. Use Elite when bursting at the end of a phase.

Molten Duo
Chain Swirling Winds with other projectile protection. Good utilitiles are SoF, ArW, FB, LH, ArS, Mist Form. Use GoE after one boss is dead.

Molten Furnace
Good utilities are SoF, ArW, LH, GoEP (Air), GoS (Earth). Run past the enemies at the end of the tunnel toward the steam walls, LoS, and use GoS (Earth) and FGS.

Snowblind
Bonfire: Stack might for lighting the fires. Use Swirling Winds, Arcane Shield, and Obsidian Flesh as needed.
Ice Elemental: Good utilities are LH, FB, ArW, ArS, GoS (Earth), Mist Form. Use elite after grouping vets.
Lornarr: Good utilities are LH, FB, ArW, ArS, GoEP (Earth). Near the end of icicle phases, place a fire field for blasts. Elite may be FGS or GoE (Air).

Slot Skills
While many slot skills have niche uses, I will cover the ones I frequently use.
Healing Skills

• Arcane Brilliance: Moderate, quick heal and self-centered . It is a DPS loss in most rotations but can help stack might.
• Wash the Pain Away: Reliable group heal.
• Ether Renewal: Big, slow heal. Useful for clearing conditions when you won’t be interrupted

Utility Skills
Arcane: Because arcane skills hit for critical damage, they will proc Fresh Air.

• Arcane Wave: Ground-targeted blast finisher on a 30 sec CD
• Arcane Shield: Blocks 3 attacks over the next 5 sec and is a stun breaker. Useful to avoid a hit without interrupting a key skill
• Arcane Blast: A 1500 range projectile finisher. Useful for long range pulls.

Cantrips: Useful defensive skills that can help you in a tough spot or trash run

• Armor of Earth: Only utility source of stability, though Mist Form can also be used
• Cleansing Flame: Fast condition removal
• Lightning Flash: Medium range teleport. Use while channeling Meteor Shower to move to a safer position or Churning Earth to move next to the enemy before the burst.
• Mist Form: 3 sec invulnerability. Useful for reviving allies or if you run out of dodges. It will make you lose any held conjures.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Elemental Power: Adds a chance for skills to inflict a condition on enemies based on your attunement at the start of GoEP’s cast. Cast in Earth for cripple, Air for weakness, Water for chill, or Fire for burning. It is a stunbreak.
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Summons an elemental, dependent upon attunement at the end of cast. Useful in open world PvE for something else to take aggro
• Glyph of Storms: Creates a storm based on attunement at the start of the cast. Cast in Earth for a 10 sec AoE blind or in Air for the most hits plus an easy 15 vuln on a boss for about 10 sec.

Signets

• Signet of Fire: Adds 180 precision at level 80, applies burning when activated
• Signet of Earth: 3 second immobilize when activated, adds 180 toughness at level 80
• Signet of Air: 25% speed boost, blinds when activated

Shouts (Tempest only)
* Feel the Burn: Roughly the same DPS contribution as Arcane Wave and works well with shout/aura traits.

• Aftershock: Provides a group magnetic aura for projectile reflects

Conjures
A conjure replaces your weapon skills. You may use the skills 15 times (25 with Conjurer) over 60 sec. You also create an environmental copy of the weapon that persists for 60 sec. Once picked up, charges last for 60 sec.

Frost Bow: FB5 will take out roughly 1/2 a breakbar in dungeons and fractals. FB4 is useful against targets with very large hitboxes like Lupicus or Gorseval, and FB3 is always great to pair with other skills.

Lightning Hammer: The auto attack chain has a high damage coefficient, and AoE blinds and is a blast finisher on the third hit. LH 3 launches, LH 4 is an AoE that does damage on par with GoS, and LH 5 creates a Static Field which stuns enemies. If fighting a large foe or a group of foes, are not solely responsible for stacking might, and have the Conjurer trait, you may use your last charge for LH 4.

Elites
Fiery Greatsword: High DPS conjure also useful for running. Turn off Auto-Targeting in game options. If auto attack is left on, it can be interrupted by other skills but waste charges. If you press 1 to attack, the skill cannot be interrupted by other weapon skills but can be interrupted by pressing the Esc key or dodging. FGS 2 applies burning.

A full FGS rotation against a very large target (such as Lupi) is: FGS 4 – 3 – 5 – 1 – 3 – 4 – 1 – 3 – 1 – 5 – 4 – 3

You may cut this rotation off after the second fiery rush because the DPS drops off.

Glyph of Elementals: When it is unsafe to FGS, an elemental is a useful boost to DPS or can draw aggro so that you can safely DPS. Elementals are immune to Agony. The summon is determined by your attunement at the end of the cast. Elemental activated skill CDs are affected by alacrity.

• Fire: Best DPS against groups of enemies
• Water: Low DPS, has an AoE heal.
• Air: Best DPS against single targets, attacks at range, and applies swiftness
• Earth: Low DPS, great at holding aggro

Tornado: An Ele’s only aquatic elite. Can be used for stability or throwing around enemies.

Fresh Air Warhorn

Warhorn is a pretty strong offhand with some interesting utility through boonshare, CC, and a water field. It pairs well with both Dagger and Scepter mainhands.

Tactical Weapon Skills

• Heat Sync (Fire 4) grants might and copies might and fury to your allies
• Wildfire (Fire 5) is a large, long-lasting fire field
• Tidal Surge (Water 4) is a small heal as well as a knockback
• Water Globe (Water 5) is a water field
• Cyclone (Air 4) is a hard CC
• Sand Squall (Earth 4) is a blast finisher and provides magnetic aura
• Dust Storm (Earth 5) blinds and cripples foes

DPS Build
19000 DPS in raid gear

Party Support Build
17000 DPS in raid gear

Dagger/Warhorn Rotation
Overload Air
Fire Attunement
Wildfire
Air Attunement
Glyph of Storms (optional)
Lightning Orb
Lightning Whip until OL is off CD

Overload Air
Fire Attunement
Burning Speed
Air Attunement
Lightning Whip until OL is off CD
repeat

Scepter/Warhorn Rotation
Overload Air
Fire Attunement
Wildfire
Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix if blasts are needed
Air Attunement
Glyph of Storms (optional)
Lightning Orb
Arc Lightning + Lightning Strike until OL is off CD

Overload Air
Fire Attunement
Phoenix
Air Attunement
Arc Lightning + Lightning Strike until OL is off CD
repeat

Base Tempest Staff Rotation, no Frost Bow
Glyph of Storms (Air) – Overload Air – Fire Attunement– Lava Font – Meteor Shower – Lava Font – Overload Fire – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font

Then repeat:
Meteor Shower – Air Attunement – Chain Lightning x2ish – Overload Air – Fire Attunement – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Overload Fire – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font -

Staff Tempest Rotation with Frost Bow
Glyph of Storms (Air) – Overload Air – _Fire Attunement– Lava Font – Meteor Shower – Lava Font – Overload Fire – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Air Attunement – Conjure Frost Bow – Ice Storm – Frost Fan – Frost Volley (50%ish) or Glyph of Storms – Overload Air- repeat italicized skills

Base Staff non-Tempest Rotation
Eruption – Air – Glyph of Storms – Fire – Lava Font – Meteor Shower – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font – Fireball x4 – repeat from 1st Lava Font

Staff non-Tempest with Frostbow
Eruption – Fire – Lava Font – Meteor Shower – Lava Font – Air – Glyph of Storms – Water – Conjure FB – (Deep Freeze) – Ice Storm – Frost Fan – (Frost Volley or Ice Spike if Fire is not up) – Fire – Lava Font – Fireball x3 – Lava Font -Fireball x3 – Flame Burst – start rotation 1 from first Lava Font

If you need a Deep Freeze to open: Glyph of Storms (Air ) – Conjure Frost Bow – Deep Freeze – Ice Storm – Frost Fan – start rotation 1 from first Lava Font

Staff
A fire staff build is powerful when others provide might, vulnerability, and fury. This build supplies an average of 4 might stacks and 70% fury uptime plus 100% fire field uptime through synergy between Pyromancer’s Training and Persisting Flames.

Tactical Weapon Skills

• Lava Font (Fire 2) produces a 4 sec circular fire field
• Burning Retreat (Fire 4) is an evade and produces a 6 sec rectangular fire field that may be stacked under a target if used into a wall or corner
• Healing Rain (Water 5) is a large water field and cures conditions
• Windborne Speed (Air 4) gives swiftness to nearby allies.
• Static Field (Air 5) stuns foes with each pulse and is a lightning field
• Eruption (Earth 2) is a blast finisher
• Magnetic Aura (Earth 3) reflects projectiles and can be aurashared
• Unsteady Ground (Earth 4) and Shockwave (Earth 5) can prevent enemies from moving out of a Lava Font

DPS Tempest Build
>20000DPS, trace might and vuln.

DPS Non-Tempest Build
17000 DPS, trace might

Arcane Non-Tempest Build
Sacrifices about 10% in Frostbowing modifiers for more survivability from Renewing Stamina and Final Shielding

Scepter Dagger LH Build
Fire (Top, Top, Top); Air (Bot, Bot,Top); Water (Mid, Bot, Top)
14500 DPS, 12-15 might per hammer with scholar runes. Use for fights under 45 sec.

Scepter Focus LH Build
Fire (Top, Top, Top); Air (Bot, Bot,Top); Water (Mid, Bot, Top)
14000 DPS, 18 might per hammer with scholar runes. Use for long fights.

Since PS Warriors are very common, it is unlikely that an ele should need to run these builds.

S/D Non-Conjurer Rotation
Hammer 1: Lightning Strike – Ride the Lightning – Glyph of Storms (Air) – Fire – Dragon’s Tooth – Ring of Fire – Arcane Brilliance – Phoenix – Fire Grab – Water – Conjure LH – LH auto chain x4 – Air – LH auto chain x1 – Drop Conjure – Lightning Strike – Ride the Lightning – Fire

Hammer 2: Dragon’s Tooth – Ring of Fire – Phoenix – Pick up Conjure – Water – LH auto chain x1 – Arcane Brilliance – LH auto chain x4 – Air – Drop Conjure – Lightning Strike – Ride the Lightning – Fire – Dragon’s Tooth – Ring of Fire – Phoenix – Fire Grab

S/F Conjurer Rotation
Hammer 1: Dragon’s Tooth – Flamewall – Phoenix – Air – Glyph of Storms (Air) – Lightning Strike – Earth – Magnetic Wave – Arcane Brilliance – Water – Comet – Conjure LH – LH auto chain x6 – Fire – LH auto x2 – Drop Conjure

Hammer 2: Dragon’s Tooth – Flamewall – Phoenix – Earth – Magnetic Wave – Arcane Brilliance – Pick up LH – Water – LH auto chain x6 – Fire – LH auto chain x2 – Drop Conjure

Scepter and Hammer
Builds that combine Scepter and LH are strong because of their solid damage and high group buffing potential with their own fire fields and blast finishers. S/D+LH rotations provide 12-18 might, S/F+LH provides 21-24, and both can maintain fury if traited. Scepter/Hammer builds are relevant only when Tempest is unavailable.

Tactical Weapon Skills

• Dragon’s Tooth (Fire 2) is a target-centered blast finisher, damages, and burns. To aim an untargeted Dragon’s Tooth, look up, walk forward, stop, and cast. It will appear 300 units away in the direction you are facing.
• Phoenix (Fire 3) is a ground-targeted blast finisher. To hit an enemy with both paths and the blast, aim it behind or inside the back half of the enemy.
• Ring of Fire (Dagger Fire 4) is a 6 sec self-centered circular fire field that deals damage when cast and burns foes that cross the fire ring.
• Flamewall (Focus Fire 4) is a 8 sec rectangular fire field that deals damage and burning each second.
• Fire Grab (Dagger Fire 5) deals massive damage to burning enemies. Use at 300 range to hit your target.
• Ice Shards (Water 1) is the auto attack used if LH and FGS aren’t up when using a build with Piercing Shards. Use Shatterstone (Water 2) off cooldown if the enemy is relatively stationary.
• Cleansing Wave (Dagger Water 5) heals and cures a condition on nearby allies.
• Comet (Focus Water 5) dazes an enemy and is a target-centered blast finisher. To aim without a target, look down, move forward, stop, and cast. The comet will land 300 units away in the direction you are facing.
• Arc Lightning (Air 1) is the auto attack used if LH and FGS aren’t up when using a build without Piercing Shards. Spam Lightning Strike (Air 2) with it.
• Blinding Flash (Air 3) is a single-target blind
• Updraft (Dagger Air 5) is a medium-distance launch that deals no damage.
• Swirling Winds (Focus Air 4) blocks projectiles for 6 sec.
• Gale (Focus Air 5) knocks down an enemy but deals no damage and does not put you in combat or break stealth.
• Dust Devil (Earth 3) blinds foes along its path
• Earthquake (Dagger Earth 4) is an AoE knockdown and self-centered blast finisher
• Churning Earth (Dagger Earth 5) is a self-centered blast finisher but DPS loss in LH rotations.
• Magnetic Wave (Focus Earth 4) damages nearby foes, cures 3 conditions, reflect projectiles for 3 sec, and is a self-centered blast finisher.
• Obsidian Flesh (Focus Earth 5) grants invulnerability for 5 sec.

Rotations
When swapping to air from other attunements, change attunements during the channel of the preceding spell so that non-air spells to benefit from the 190 precision from Aeromancer’s Training. When in combat, have your target selected to benefit from Electric Discharge, which these rotations try to proc as frequently as possible. If you don’t have a target, Electric Discharge does not activate.

Rotation for Fire/Air/Tempest

OL Air – Fire – Burning Speed (or Flamewall for a longer fire field) – Earth/Water blasts if needed – Air – Lightning Whip – repeat

Rotation for Fire/Air/Water

Fire – Flamewall – Burning Speed – Air (after BS completes) – ArW if applicable – LW x3 – Water – Comet – Frozen Burst – Air (before FB completes) – LW x3 – Earth – Ring of Earth or ArBr – Mag Wave – Air – Auto x4

Fire – Flamewall – Burning Speed – Air (after BS completes) – ArW if applicable – LW x3 – Water – Frozen Burst – Air (before FB completes) – LW x3 – Earth – Ring of Earth or ArBr – Air – Auto x5

This rotation will average 9 might, 100% fury uptime, 5-7 vuln, and almost 100% burning uptime.

Rotation for Fire/Air/Arcana

Fire – Flamewall – BS – Air (after BS completes) – ArW – LW x3 – Earth – Ring of Earth or ArBr – Magnetic Wave – Air – LW x9 – Fire – Flamewall – BS – Air – LW x3 – Water – Comet – Frozen Burst – Air – LW x8

This rotation will average 10 might, 6-7 vuln, and 100% fury and burning uptime. Flamewall’s long-lasting fire field is useful when others have a lot of blasts to contribute or when you are frequently interrupting your rotation. Swap to fire about five seconds after Fire is off CD.

If using GoS, use GoS in your first set of LW.

Dagger/Focus
Dagger/Focus is a self-sufficient weapon set excellent for difficult situations such as high level fractals. It has a mix of offensive skills from dagger and defensive and control skills from focus. Note that Fresh Air builds such as this do not do well in situations in which you can’t crit such as against structures.

Tactical Weapon Skills

• Burning Speed (Fire 3) is an evade and places down a 4 sec rectangular fire field that deals damage and burning every second and ends with a damaging burst. If not at a wall, start at 300 range away from the enemy and use this skill through the enemy to inflict damage from the field and burst.
• Flamewall (Fire 4) is a 8 sec rectangular fire field that deals damage and burning each second.
• Icy Burst (Water 3) damages and chills nearby enemies and is a self-centered blast finisher.
• Comet (Water 5) dazes an enemy and is a target-centered blast finisher. To aim without a target, look down, move forward, stop, and cast. The comet will land 300 units away in the direction you are facing.
• Lightning Whip (Air 1) is the primary source of sustained damage in MH dagger builds.
• Swirling Winds (Air 4) blocks projectiles for 6 sec.
• Gale (Air 5) knocks down an enemy but deals no damage and does not break stealth.
• Magnetic Wave (Earth 4) damages nearby foes, cures 3 conditions, reflect projectiles for 3 sec, and is a self-centered blast finisher.
• Obsidian Flesh (Earth 5) grants invulnerability for 5 sec.

DPS Tempest Build
Fire (Up, Up, Up); Air (Bot, Mid, Mid); Tempest (Top/Bot, Bot, Bot)
For challenging content, swap Harmonious Conduit for Invigorating Torrents

DPS Non-Tempest Build
Fire (Up, Up, Up); Air (Bot, Mid, Mid); Water (Mid, Bot, Mid)

Non-Tempest Build for challenging content
Fire (Up, Up, Up); Air (Bot, Mid, Mid); Arcana (Mid, Bot, Bot)

Tempest build + Scholar’s Runes: 17000 DPS with Truffle Steak
Non-Tempest build + Scholar’s Runes: 13800-13950 DPS with Truffle Steak
Non-Tempest build + Strength Runes: 13000-13150 DPS with Truffle Steak

Tempest builds maintain a very high level of vulnerabilty on Unshakeable enemies and have the potential to stack might and fury with variations on their base DPS rotation.

Non-tempest builds average 5-7 vulnerability on Unshakeable enemies and 9-10 might (Scholar’s) or 13-15 might (Strength). With Golden Dumplings and a Strength sigil, both rotations will sustain 20+ might with Scholar’s Runes.

This self-sufficient build combines the synergy of a high fire field uptime with blast finishers for 100% fury uptime and decent might. Rotations jump in and out of air attunement, which is refreshed because of Fresh Air, to activate Electric Discharge for additional DPS.

Ele’s have a variety of combo finishers (mostly blasts) they can use in their and others’ fields to provide a variety of effects to those standing within 360 range of the blast. These effects include boons to the party and conditions enemies. By blasting in a fire field, for example, an Ele can provide might. Because of this self synergy it is preferable to be near an enemy – even when using staff – so that an Ele can quickly reach her or her fields to apply blasts and benefit from the effects. Note that if two fields are placed on top of each other, the first field placed will react with finishers, so if a guardian partymate wants to use a symbol for DPS, ask him or her to wait until a fire field is down.

Weapons, Armor, Trinkets and Consumables
Weapons
Use Berserker weapons of the best rarity that you can afford.
Daytime sigils: Use Force/Air for general group activities, Slaying/Air for single targets and Slaying/Force for groups if available.
Nighttime sigils: Use Night/Force for general group activities and Night/Slaying if available.
Other useful sigils: Sigil of Strength is strong in solo situations, and Sigil of Energy is useful for difficult content.
Budget alternatives: Sigil of Hydromancy, Fire, and Leeching are useful budget alternatives. Sigil of Accuracy usually causes an Ele to run into crit chance cap but is also acceptable in suboptimal situations.

Armor
Exotic: Full Zerk. Assassin’s armor is okay but often less economically feasible. While learning to play, use some defensive armor such as (in order of lowest DPS loss) Marauder, Valkyrie, Knight, or Cavalier, swapping out to Zerk/Assassin shoulders, gloves, boots, chest, pants, and helm, in that order, as you become more comfortable with content. Try to keep your gear one step out of your comfort zone.
Ascended: Both Berserker and Assassin armor are strong. Predominantly Berserker gear is stronger when using a Fresh Air build, while Assassin’s Armor is stronger with fire-centric Staff builds. Suboptimal balances of Berserker/Assassin are typically <1% DPS difference.

Trinkets and Infusions
At the ascended level, use Assassin accessories and otherwise Berserker trinkets. When prioritizing gear upgrades, improving the rarity of your trinkets will result in some of the highest DPS/survivability increases. Prioritize offensive infusion slots if you plan on eventually using Precise or Mighty Infusions. Mighty Infusions are in general a safer choice in order to avoid 100% crit chance cap, though having 2-4 precise infusions is easy to work with.

Runes

• Runes of the Scholar are the highest DPS option.
• Runes of Strength are 7% less DPS but enable better Might stacking. They are most beneficial in S+LH rotations and D/F soloing.
• Runes of the Flame Legion are an economic option that could be higher DPS if one can’t maintain a 50% uptime of a Scholar’s bonus.
• Runes of the Ranger are strong with Staff and D/F if using both Elementals for high companion uptime.
• Runes of Rage, Runes of the Ogre, and Runes of the Eagle are third-tier options if Flame Legion ever gets too expensive.

Food

• Bowl of Seaweed Salad for Fresh Air rotations
• Plate of Orrian Truffle Steak for Staff rotations
• Experimental Remnant or Bowl of Asparagus and Sage Salad as an economic alternative to seaweed salad
• Slice of Candied Dragon Roll, Omnomberry Ghost: Lifesteal food for difficult content
• Dragon’s Breath Bun: Optimal when clearing small groups of enemies such as in open world or some dungeons if salads aren’t an option
• Minotaur Steak: Precision/ferocity food for everyday
• Plate of Steak and Asparagus: Power/precision food for everyday
• Birthday Blaster: All stat food (better than Minotaur Steak) with +%karma for open world

Utility Consumables

• Slaying Potions: Use in situations with many enemies of the same type.
• Skale Venom: Useful in high level fractals. Attacks that affect foes as well as you or your allies (Phoenix, Vapor Blade, Water Blast) may apply the effect to you or your party.
• Toxic Sharpening Stone: Use with staff or offensive Fresh Air builds if not using slaying potions or Scale Venom.
• Bountiful Sharpening Stone: Use with aurashare builds if not using slaying potions or Skale Venom.
• Bountiful Maintenance Oil: Use with staff or D/F if not using slaying pots AND not using Signet of Fire.

When with a Ranger with Spotter
If not using a salad, use Sweet and Spicy soup instead of Truffle Steak. Utility consumables unchanged. Alternatively, swap out 150 precision worth of gear or use another utility instead of Signet of Fire.

Other Useful Items

• Fire Elemental Powders from Jhales Coalgrip in Fireheart Rise for fire fields or additional DPS in tough situations. They have a 30 minute cooldown.
• Harpy Feathers (6 sec CD) from Forager Hitkiti in Harathi Hinterlands, Ash Legion Spy Kits (60 sec CD) from Kyra Sharptracker in Plains of Ashford, and other stealth consumables for deaggroing at the end of a trash run or communing with a skill point.

Profession Overview
The Elementalist is a light armor profession with low HP. Its unique mechanic is the four elemental attunements that each provide a set of weapon skills instead of having two weapon swaps. This gives an Ele 20 weapon skills instead of 10.

An Ele can equip six weapons, including one aquatic:

• Dagger: Main hand and offhand. High burst and mobility when using dual daggers, good might stacking and sustain when using dagger/focus. Main hand dagger provides a fire field, one blast finisher, and one aura. Offhand dagger provides a fire field, two blast finishers, a leap finisher, and an aura.
• Focus: Offhand only. Good support, defense, and single-target control. Focus provides a fire field, two blast finishers, and one aura.
• Scepter: Main hand only. Weak auto attacks, good burst and might stacking when paired with dagger, good might stacking when paired with focus. Scepter provides access to two blast finishers.
• Staff: Two-handed. Low DPS except for fire. Good in WvW for fields and AoEs, and useful when running through trash mobs. Staff provides fire, water, ice, and lightning fields, one blast finisher, and one aura.
• Trident: Two-handed. Trident provides fire, lightning, and smoke fields, one blast finisher, and one leap finisher.
• Warhorn: Offhand only. Tempest only. A unique mix of offensive support and damage. Access to a fire field, a might/fury copy skill, water field, two hard CC’s, one blast finisher, and an AoE blind.

This yields six weapon sets that are generally useful in PvE:

• D/F has good DPS and many survival skills and is very strong in difficult content, enabling an Ele to stack some might, have decent sustained DPS, and access survivability skills.
• D/W has great DPS that makes it a worthwhile consideration over D/F. With overloads, its damage is comparable to staff, and it can help buff a party with fire fields + blasts and boonsharing as well as defend it with CC, immobilization, and blinds.
• Staff is also top in DPS and is stronger than all other Ele weapon sets on targets with large hitboxes such as Gorseval or Lupicus.
• S/W is a viable variant on D/W, bringing more blasts at the expense of lower cleave damage.
• D/D has burst combos that make it devastating against targets with low HP, but doesn’t have blast finisher availability to keep up with D/F in utility while being comparable in sustained DPS.
• Trident an Ele’s only underwater option and should be played like D/F or D/D except DPS in Fire, swapping attunements as necessary and using blasts as they come off cooldown.

Since an Ele will die in a few hits, it is important to understand game mechanics, know enemies’ attacks, dodge, and be aware of your positioning. PvE enemies can be LoS’ed for ideal positioning, but your group needs high DPS for you to survive stacking. Having a Guardian who knows when to use Aegis or a Mesmer with group distortion also helps. When fighting, use dodges and evades to mitigate attacks, and once a mob is positioned, remember to use your 300+ range attacks to your advantage. If you are having trouble surviving with a full DPS build, do not hesitate to swap in some Marauder’s gear or grab a utility or two for your survival – the best way to learn a fight is to succeed with a more defensive build.

Unlike PvP, PvE enemies usually have slow attacks, enabling an Ele to focus on maintaining a good rotation. When practicing a rotation, I start at the Indestructible Golems in the Heart of the Mists (DPS Trials Waypoint), then giants and ettins in open world PvE, then finally dungeons.

Looks like the thief just picked up an environmental weapon.

More or less, with a bit more emphasis on blinds and cleave or AoE because you have more trash mobs to clear.

Lendruil.9061:

Can you please tell me what exactly makes an ele so useful in frac and can’t be done with a war or guard, except from fgs?

With a scepter-based build and lightning hammer, you can provide a hefty number of might stacks plus permafury for your group while maintaining blinds and doing a good bit of damage. With a dagger/focus build you can help cover reflects using swirling winds, provide a reasonable number of might stacks plus permafury using a DPS-oriented rotation, interrupt and help take down stacks of Defiant, and keep yourself alive for a long time using the earth focus skills. And if you have to swap to something ranged, camping fire with a staff isn’t awful DPS.

Lendruil.9061:

What is expected here from a good ele?

Might, fury, blinds, damage, and dodging. Just because you’re the most fragile profession (by base health and armor) doesn’t mean you’re allowed to take dirt naps significantly more often than others or that you should be building tanky. Go for as much zerk gear as you can handle and if you’re having problems surviving, grab knight’s chest, helm, and pants (assuming you’re going with exotic armor, asc weaps and trinkets) with the intention of getting to full zerk.

As of right now, the two trait distributions that provide good DPS while providing that permafury support are base 30/30/0/0/0 for D/F (put the last 10 in earth for more damage or arcana for vigor) or 30/10/10/20/0 for Scepter+LH. Since all the weapon sets have built-in condition removal, you don’t really need to take traits for condition removal.

Some of my favorite slot skills are

• Heals: Ether Renewal if I’ll need more condition removal, Glyph of Healing if I need a good, quick heal, or Signet of Restoration if I don’t expect I’ll need a significant heal
• Lightning Hammer: Blinds, blasts, damage, and Static Field for mob control
• Arcane Wave: Blast finisher
• Glyph of Storms in Earth attunement: AoE blind for 10 seconds
• Arcane Shield: Blocks the next 3 attacks over 5 seconds and is a stunbreaker. Good if you run out of dodges or need to help rez someone.
• Mist Form: Become invulnerable for 3ish seconds. Good if you run out of dodges or need to help rez someone, but you’ll lose your conjure.
• Glyph of Elemental Power in earth (cripple) or water (chill) for kiting bosses.
• Frost Bow (particularly skill 4) or Glyph of Storms in Air for AoE trash mob clearing.
• Cleansing Fire: if I think I’ll need even more condition removal
• Signet of Fire: 180 precision (if I don’t have anything else to take)
• Elites: FGS (of course) or, in some cases, Glyph of Elementals in earth to have a dumb and durable thing to draw aggro and facetank hits – even better now that it’s not affected by agony.

Oranisagu.3706:

so if rT is using it (assuming they went into earth for exactly those modifiers) to break records, why are there nearly no builds around using it? =)

I’m just wondering about the reasons, I’ll probably stick to my 30/20/0/20/0 because more often than not pugs don’t max might and this way we have at least an average of around 20.

Builds with a base 0/20/20/20/0 are pretty much just DPS machines. Sure, going 25 into earth is manageable when you have FGS for dodges, but what about the 1-2 minutes when you don’t have FGS?

Also, 30/10/10/20/0 is higher DPS than 30/20/0/20/0, especially if you can change your second arcane skill (Arcane Blast) for Signet of Fire.

Jeydra.4386:

Lol I got comparable (actually slightly faster) times with S/D compared to the S/F build you used, without using food.

You’re absolutely right, S/D’s burst damage shaves off a few seconds. I got 18.73 seconds with a rotation of Fire 2 4 3 5 Earth 4 5 Air 2 3 Water (finish Earth 5) LH AA using the same setup as S/F (except with oh dagger, of course). I could upload it if anyone is interested in seeing the rotation. I’m not sure if waiting to get an extra Dtooth off would be a DPS gain or loss, but it’s something to look into. And Zel already pointed out an improvement to my D/F rotation. It’s actually been a great experiment in refining my own rotations with some extra eyes to go over everything!

The solo DPS tests are good indications of what a particular build brings to a party, but yes, it does miss part of the picture.

pho.9412:

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

what the frack?

little utility to party? more than d/d and s/f or s/d. All the fields up keeps, I’d say staff bring more to the party than other weaps. but that’s just my opinion.

I agree, staff has the potential to bring a lot of utility to a situation. But as I already said…

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

OP asked for good staff builds. I linked the staff build that I would run if I had to use a staff for an extended period of time. OP also said that he or she is new to ele, so I gave a cautionary bit of advice that the optimal rotation for said staff build requires pressing 4 buttons – 1, 2, 5, and whichever slot Arcane Wave is on.

Staff in WvW, for example, is much more engaging because of the control and support that it brings – properties that are suboptimal in current PvE. It as a weapon is not boring, but its best use in PvE is.

Please don’t confuse my criticism of a build for criticism a weapon.

And I would agree that 30/30/0/0/0 is a build base that is about as weapon-universal as you’d get. It is best tailored to MH Dagger’s strengths, but it can be used pretty well with any other weapon.

After a bit of a spinoff discussion in Zelyhn’s PvE D/F guide, I decided to do some Veteran Risen Giant killtime comparisons in Cursed Shore to have some sort of data that people may use to make better informed decisions.

With a warrior providing OMM and banners: http://youtu.be/N_hIDPYrsvI
Without the warrior: http://youtu.be/-rLK9kFofBQ

I tested Scepter+Hammer, Dagger/Focus, and Staff. Builds are listed in video descriptions and are all relatively high DPS builds appropriate for the weapon.

Weapon Set: Time with Warrior / Time without Warrior
Dagger/Focus: 14.4 seconds / 16.2 seconds
Scepter+Hammer: 15.1 seconds / 21.9 seconds
Staff: 11 seconds / 17 seconds

I mainly used gear that I had on hand, though for the scepter-hammer trial without a warrior I had to use a Sigil of Frailty to maintain vuln. For the trials with a warrior, I got stacks and ate food that would give me the theoretically highest EP for that weapon set and used a potion of undead slaying. For the trials without the warrior, I stacked and ate food to boost precision and used Skale Venom as I initially thought it would give me sufficient vuln for the hammer build (but it didn’t) and I didn’t want to redo trials that I had recorded previously. I swapped from S/D (in the first hammer trial) to S/F (in the second hammer trial) to have better burning uptime on the target. While in the warrior video I used heals I would normally run, I swapped to the signet heal to help keep my health up for the second set of trials.

Kill times are recorded from the start of the cast of the first skill that hits the giant to the experience gain popup. I performed multiple trials from each weapon set but included the fastest trial of each weapon set in the video. Slower trials lagged by usually 1 – 2 auto attacks and possibly an additional dodge and were made slower either by losing too much health to maintain Vital Striking and scholar’s rune damage multipliers or by needing to dodge too much.

While I have formulated a few of my own conclusions from this experiment, I would like to hear others’ thoughts and reactions. Here are some questions to get those brains working:

• Are the killtimes what you expected?
• Why do you think the scepter-hammer killtimes were the highest in each trial?
• Why did the staff and scepter-hammer killtimes change so much between the videos, while dagger/focus only increased by about 2 seconds?
• Does this mean dagger/focus > staff > hammer in all PvE? Why or why not?

FLiP.7680:

Why do you think that everyone should play the same way you do?

I don’t see how linking to other people’s builds, which are focused on clearing PvE content in a fast and efficient way and thus are better (using mob killtime as a metric) than other builds, means I think everyone should play the same way I do.

OP asked for good staff builds. I linked the staff build that I would run if I had to use a staff for an extended period of time. OP also said that he or she is new to ele, so I gave a cautionary bit of advice that the optimal rotation for said staff build requires pressing 4 buttons – 1, 2, 5, and whichever slot Arcane Wave is on.

Staff in WvW, for example, is much more engaging because of the control and support that it brings – properties that are suboptimal in current PvE. It as a weapon is not boring, but its best use in PvE is.

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/3138306

I can’t link to them because it would just get my post deleted (threads about the new heals on these forums have been deleted already) but… Reddit knows all.

I hope it’s as OP as the warrior one my guildmates are going on about. But knowing Anet, it means that when you use the Arcane skill you’ll burn/chill/blind/immob yourself.

FrownyClown.8402:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArdhEmKbkxzwjDIkCpg4xE4AcY5RMoD1AA-jEyAYrASQAJRAZvioxWULiGr2GT9CoiXUtQACWAA-w

Something like this? Not sure if it stacks, but has 150% endurance regen potential.

I don’t think endurance regen stacks, though it would be awesome if it did. I think it’s like speed buffs – only the highest one applies. If endurance regen buffs did stack, warriors could use signet of stamina, eat endurance regen food, and possibly even get vigor and really never run out of dodges.

I was actually theorycrafting a wvw havoc squad ele build at the start of the wvw season and the Arcane Power/Arcane Retribution/Elemental Surge combo really intrigued me. Unfortunately I don’t have enough wvw friends on my server to test it out

Ludus Rex.1562:

Alright, so without flaming me as hard as you can for being an unskilled chump, are there any viable playstyles that utilize D/D that don’t have to swap elemental attunement?

I used to play a Warrior in WoW, and it just feels too much like stance dancing to me. I’d be interested in a D/D playstyle that didn’t have to stance dance, but I don’t know if such a thing is viable or if swapping attunements is pretty much mandatory to succeed.

From a PvE perspective…

For any ele weapon set except staff, you’ll need to swap attunements for it to be competitive with the DPS that you’ll see from other classes. For staff, you can pretty much camp fire and do good DPS to a single target or a group of bunched up targets, but the build doesn’t bring much to your party other than a few stacks of might (which, compared to many other ele builds out there, is a DPS leech build).

Jeydra.4386:

Well you can’t be including +5% damage from Strength Boosters, 25 bloodlust + accuracy stacks, 25 Might / Fury / Vulnerability stacks inflicted by your teammates, etc, can you? One has to draw the line somewhere, and I prefer that line to be no buffs to start with.

Strength and armor boosters are silly to include, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing those up. Stacks (especially in a speed kill setting), food, banners, 100% fury uptime, and at least some might and vuln is a reasonable assumption for any organized group with an ele and a warrior and thus are reasonable conditions for me to want to replicate.

Jeydra.4386:

This makes the test easier to replicate for different players as well. The variance due to critical hits can be compensated for by repeating the test multiple times.

I have already spent 1.5 hours on new trials, and between interlopers and poor RNG, I have only a handful of acceptable trials for one weapon set done. And different players will add their own variance, especially if they are significantly less proficient with one or more weapon sets than their preferred set.

Jeydra.4386:

Lack of vulnerability is actually OK in this case since you can replace with the +10% while health >90% trait, then sit in Fire Attunement for another +10% damage, although in against this particular foe it’s better to use the Ice Bow.

I’m already using Vital Striking in the LH build, so if I were to switch from Burning Precision to Internal Fire I would be reducing my damage and reducing burning uptime on the target, thus (again) increasing variance while not actually testing the build and rotations that are used in practice.

Jeydra.4386:

I tried it earlier today with my Elementalist (missing Power infusions, ascended backpiece [only have masterwork] and ascended weapons; otherwise full zerk) and got about 21s using S/D. Didn’t record a video, so it’s not very precise.

How did you measure that 21s? I measure kill time from the start of the cast of the first skill that hits the target to the experience gain popup. Do you know for sure that you kept your scholar’s buff up for close to 100% of the trial? How many times did you dodge, and was that more or less consistent across trials? Did you keep boons/conditions up as necessary to benefit from trait multipliers? If you’d like to record and edit videos, MSI Afterburner is free recording software, and Windows Movie Maker is free video editing software.

Anyway, skale venom didn’t provide enough vuln uptime for S/D to perform as I’d like it, and burning uptime was often low for some odd reason. I’ll modify my setup and will likely lose a 5% force modifier to better fulfill the condition… conditions.

Neither of those builds are the best builds for their respective classes.

Full zerk, either 30/30/10/0/0 with mainly D/F or 30/10/10/20/0 with mainly Scepter + LH. I rarely use staff, but everything else gets frequent use regardless of build. If I need more dodges, I’ll grab a weapon with an energy sigil.

I run with guild groups that are 1 guard/ 2 warriors + 2 out of (ele/mesmer/thief/warrior), so while I don’t have to carry PUGs, I am expected to take care of myself and contribute to party utility. This was our party composition at fractals 60+ before the fractal patch and from 30 to 50 after patch.

For trash clearing in Urban Battleground, Cliffside, Molten Facility, Reactor, and to a lesser extent Dredge, my utilities are Glyph of Storms, Lightning Hammer, and Arcane Wave. Put down fire field, stack might, cast GoS in earth attunement, lay down a Static Field with LH, and then DPS away with LH to keep up the blinds.

For single target fights I’ll go with Arcane Shield, Arcane Wave, and either Lightning Hammer, Signet of Fire (if not using a LH-centric build), Glyph of Elemental Power for permacripple, Cleansing Flame (for Mai Trin), or Mist Form (for rezzing or getting out of tough spots).

While FGS is pretty useful for some easy DPS, Glyph of Elementals in earth or water attunement is situationally useful, especially now that it is immune to agony damage. It facetanks Old Tom’s attacks while we DPS it down, is a decent aggro magnet for Archdiviner, Mossman, and other bosses, and possibly might be able to eat the crazy asura’s agony attacks if you can position it correctly (haven’t tested that).

Survivability of a zerk ele comes from just being familiar with the content. Figure out which mobs have attacks that can one shot you and then position yourself accordingly or save a dodge for when you see the tell. I certainly wasn’t able to just throw on a set of zerk gear and survive everything at first.

There are multiple reasons why I would still use food, stacks, and skale venom:

• Vulnerability is necessary for the lightning hammer build to be at its maximum potential, but is not necessary for the other builds.
• Faster kills due to more buffs means I’d have to burn fewer dodges and would more likely maintain high health damage multipliers, which will result in more consistent kill times.
• Keeping crit chance at 85% or higher should also help with consistency of DPS across trials – having fire grab, meteor shower, and lightning hammer not reliabily crit will be some massive losses of damage. D/F, on the other hand, has pretty even sustained damage and wouldn’t be as affected. I need stacks, food, fury, and signet of fire for that kind of crit chance since I don’t have assassin’s armor yet.
• Damage multipliers are weird – according to the spreadsheets, LH’s possible damage output due to its high coefficient and many multipliers in the build is not very high when not given buffs and especially when it isn’t making uber big numbers from crits.

I guess I can go without the warrior’s assistance, but I would still do stacks, food, and probably skale venom for vuln across all trials because it is necessary for the S/D+LH build. DnT usually uses warrior buffs for these trials because we have access to them (or an alternative source of fury and swiftness) in dungeons.

I’ll start a new thread with more details about my setup once that video is done.

Weapon debates aside, Fresh Air often does not benefit PvE main hand scepter builds as much as it benefits main hand dagger builds because scepter’s sustained damage in air is abysmal while dagger’s sustained damage in air is pretty decent.

As others have said, you want to use Lightning Hammer for sustained damage in combination with main hand scepter to basically burst + might stack (from scepter) and then make use of those might stacks via the large coefficients from Lightning Hammer. Since you can use LH for 15+ seconds without tanking your DPS, you can just sit in one attunement while the others are on cooldown.

Jeydra.4386:

As you wish.

I may still give it a try someday, and post the numbers.

DnT prefers the Veteran Risen Giant. Many dungeon battles last less than 2 weapon swaps, which is about the solo kill time of said giant. Here’s what I got using S/D + LH, Staff, and D/F.

The video: http://youtu.be/N_hIDPYrsvI

Kill times and builds:
S/D: 15.1 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmYblRAxjEAEFokS4xBCgwoQHiCWA-jgxAkfQqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1RBERA-e, precision stacks)
Staff: 11 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmYblRywjEAkCoEeQADIMK0hQhFQA-jQxAkIgkXR0YLuFRjVXjpcJiqjCIiA-e, precision stacks)
D/F 14.4 seconds (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodhEmYblRywjEIkCoQowBMU0Bag4hF4AcIA-jgxAkfQqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1BBMK-e, power stacks)

If you really want to run staff in dungeons, you really should go with excelmaster Guang’s advice and run 30/20/10/10/0. I tweaked what he had a little bit to optimize for arcane lightning instead of taking zephyr’s focus, but if you need the dodges definitely take zephyr’s focus instead.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbsxzwjEAkCoEeQADFMK0hQhFQA-jgxAYfAqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1A-e

You don’t want to stack in melee if you don’t have to, but you will want to stay within 300 range of the majority of your partymates in order to share boons with them. Also, when it’s appropriate, run in to blast your fire field. If things look hairy when you get up close to your target, use fire 4 to get out quickly after that and reposition yourself.

But really, staff is often a suboptimal weapon for combat in dungeons.

Sligh.2789:

Josh Davis.6015:

Hey folks,

This is definitely still on the radar. Outside of that, I don’t have any specific updates.

Just stopping by to let you know that I haven’t forgotten! When I have something more substantial I’ll give an update.

Could we get a weekly update ? Any update? just a hello? a random bump?

Not-so-random bump.

Bump.

Dying Numerous Times, of course.

Anicetus.1253:

Yet another bump. Yesterday at snowblind fractal boss, 28 out of 30 dodges fumbled. My connection was perfectly fine.

Those are some amazing numbers. I thought I had a fumble dodge during the powersuit duo thing, but looking at the video I guess my endurance never went down.

I had a pretty epic fumble dodge yesterday at grawl shaman – was dodging across a pool of lava while he was shooting an arrow at me. Got hit by the arrow, died in the lava. Also, whirling defense causes fumbles.

We’ll miss scale 80 and the challenges it and FotM 50+ have provided us and other gamers for the past (almost) year.

It’s somewhat fixed right now. Usually when the party wipes on that part, the chanters will reset on one side (from what I’ve seen, it’s typically the far side that will reset right), so only kill one chanter on that side to keep the seal from being healed as fast. Charge the hammer using the chanters on the other side.

Sometimes you get lucky and both seals will reset, and I wouldn’t put it past the game to bug out and still not properly reset sometimes. If that’s the case, I would try wiping again using the chanters (not by all just falling to your doom).

Xae Isareth.1364:

haviz.1340:

Bagel.4598:

The leader board will determine who is your group, not necessarily class.
PvE revolves around 2 things : DPS and Dodging.
Those that advance to high level fractals, regardless of being heavy, med or light, will be those with the skill to evade and earn their keep. It will be a skill thing.
If you make it to those levels you will be acknowledged.
Rangers in PvE are a poor class on a whole, you don’t need the new Fractals to show you that.
Thieves have their place and I think the new mechanics will strengthen that.
Fractals teaches you a lot about how to play, and I know that even rangers are powerful in a group build, running high end PvE.

Actually, PvE revolves around 3 things: DPS, dodging and reflects.

Not really. For example, in the Snowblind fractal, trying to dodge everything would be like trying to dodge rain. The fact that the midboss is a construct renders Zerker gear useless anyways.

Zerker gear is still good for dealing with the adds before your reflects run out.

I had been scaling up in a group that ran one guard, one mes, a warrior that would swap to thief at times, and either two warriors or a warrior and an ele. We’d swap around who was on guardian duty and thief duty because we were progressing 3 warriors, a mesmer, and an ele. Was certainly more enjoyable than the standard 2g/2w/1 other setup – even when we had to figure out how to fight the Uncategorized boss with no guards.

Other than rangers, I think all classes can do pretty well in fractals. I’ve been in groups with necros that keep blind, weakness, and other conditions up. Thieves can also help keep up blind and weakness and have plenty of cc in addition to all that stealth. Rangers have frost spirit, spotter, and entangle, but their best weapon is bound to send them flying off a ledge in Cliffside or Uncategorized or root them at the wrong time in Urban Battleground.

oZii.2864:

<stuff about D/D bunker build in vs. player situations>

Anierna.6918:

<stuff about theoretical DPS in more controllable PvE situations>

Honestly, when you’re building more tanky to survive the hits you’ll actually take in WvW or PvP, those % damage modifiers start mattering a lot less and the ability to maintain good rotations for might, fury, and using those hard-hitting moves when they would be most effective matter a lot more. And traiting into Arcana helps that a lot not only from the attunement CD reduction and the boon duration but also from EA and all the other major traits one would take in Arcana – while Fresh Air would fall short.

I’m hesitant to come to any conclusions until I see the patch notes. Optimal rotations may change a little bit based on the attunement CD reduction. I’m also expecting that there will be some changes that weren’t in the preview that may warrant some build or rotation reevaluation.

Of course it will.

By Orr, do you mean Straits/Malchor’s/Cursed Shore? What parts are specifically giving you trouble?

If it’s skill points, try RTL/ LF in, pop a spy kit, and channel. If it’s bunches of mobs, try using Elementals and Ember powders to give them more targets, line of sight them, or just try to be careful where you run. If it’s some particular group event champ that no one does… well, there’s probably a reason no one does it.

If I were to choose a build, I’d probably go for something fresh air-centric such as 0/30/10/20/10 or 30/30/10/0/0 (with aura traits in air and earth). If you absolutely can’t live without EA, then maybe something like 10/20/10/0/30.

I guess that is something I overlooked when reading the guide – Zel, could you put together your builds on your favorite build calculator and link them as a quick reference?

I was going to do some video build guides after the most recent patch that had skill changes, but by the time I got my homework done, the Dec 10 changes were announced. Stay tuned!

Grok Krog.9581:

Go Sword/Sword and Sword/Pistol

Definitely highest DPS phantasms, though you’d want different traits than what the OP has. I think the standard trait distribution is based around 10/30/0/0/20. And keep a focus around for utility. If you need the focus, I think /Pistol is better if your phantasms are appropriately traited. Note that Phantasmal Haste doesn’t affect the Zerker (GS) or Swordsman (Sw), so if you’re sticking with GS and Sw/Sw, then you can pick a different trait.

Skills in a DPS oriented group should almost always be the mantra heal (for extra DPS with traits), and a mix of mantras, feedback, signet of inspiration (in a boon heavy group), and possibly null field (but mantra of resolve is competitive with NF now), and of course timewarp.

Now if you mean a shatter build, that’s a completely different ballgame.