Guild Wars 2

It’s possible to do good without perplexity, however, there is no other runeset that gives us as much advantages as of now.

The leap is so slow/broken that its easier to just immob and run to your target, this skill needs to be revisited, perhaps making it so that you leap THEN immob the enemies (kinda like the warrior’s savage leap) or adding another effect like a damaging condition (TORMENT!).

FrownyClown.8402:

Not to discredit daphenix but id prob beat him in a duel. He was good at evading. Probably better than anyone I’ve seen. He didn’t actually create the build. He popularized it. No one could do what he did but now he is obsolete.

I agree he was not the creator of d/d, as no one really was. But saying that he is obsolete seems a little contradictory when we have people coming to this bilion years old thread just to throw shade at him. His build might be outdated yes, but the position he assumed in the ele community, due to all the attention he gathered at the time, is to this day disputed, this discussion is a proof of it. Might be one of the reasons the ele forums seem like an endless episode of The Real Housewives of name your favorite.

Well, sucks that it’s an universal cooldown, but then again if it weren’t eles would be able to blind up to 20 ppl with a single skill.

I was already expecting blinding ashes to be this limited so that didn’t even bother me, stone heart is fun, I’m trying to figure out a nice build around it, if they only made it so that conjures had reliable skills for healing/condi cleanse it would be perfect. I don’t think there’s been much of a positive change, stacking sigil’s nerf felt like a punch in the face but theres a solution for it already… I haven’t paid attention to the other classes buffs/nerfs so I’m hoping that anet did some balancing around toning some of them down…. hopefully things will get better.

Condimentalist*

I don’t see your point ash, he did very nice duels and outmanned fights in a build that is very gimmick. Why question every detail of it?

Yes, but its fairly easy to hit multiple people with a tick of DB, you may test it on the pvp golems. Anyway, I’m inclined to think that weakness would be a better condi for this trait, but perhaps a s/x ele with fresh air may be able to spam blinding as effectively as a thief with it.

Drake’s Breath is actually an area (cone) skill that has 4 “ticks”, each one of them may hit up to 5 people at same time causing around 3 secs of burning. So if this GM trait works with aoe (which is unlikely given similar traits/runes/sigils) you’ll be able to blind 5 foes with the first “tick” of DB.

Are we sure that the blinding from 30 fire will be aoe? I mean, it has 5 secs icd just like glyph of elemental power and the later only affects one target, even when you use aoe skills to trigger.

Not only earth attunement already has nice skills, but you could also equip any conjured weapon while being immune to crits, this should make conjures more viable. You might lose some HP/condi cleanse but remenber that many condi builds make use of “on crit” traits.

It’s not just a counter to backstab, it’s a counter to everything that triggers “on crit” and that is a lot. I’m excited to test this new earth trait, seems like the best of the bunch, blinding from fire might help scepter builds, but I don’t think its worth going 30 on fire, I don’t think anyone would drop fresh air for the new air trait, same to the arcana one.. water is just.. meh.

As others already said, what’s the point if it doesn’t affect you?

I think you should drop some of your healing power, 820 is a bit too much (even to keep ds up), I used to run something close to that, but now I dropped to 6xx and it didn’t really felt different. If you really liked this build maybe you should invest in gears that give you access to more condis.

Why would someone call this cheese?

Eles have to pay such a high price for “on dodge” traits like SDnR and EA, I mean, evasive arcana is nice but it feels so expensive for a trait that will be used in earth/water 90%of the time, I wish we had it divided in adept traits so builds that can’t afford 30 arcana could get some of its effects, and builds that do get it could save at the very least 10 trait points.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Personally, i think Elemental surge is a decent trait that could be amazing with a little work. The Blind it offers in Air attunement is AMAZING. Works so well with Arcane Shield and Arcane Power, The Burning is great as well. The Immbo from Earth is simply poor in my opinion.

What they should have done is make it so that each Arcane skill has something different when it comes to conditions. They could also add new conditions just for that like Torment in Earth attunement and Confusion in Air when using a certain Arcane Skill or something.

What I dislike about it is exactly the fact that it’s married to arcane skills, whom you have to either slot or trait, killing your sustain. They should “merge” it with the 25pts minor trait (arcane precision) to create a grandmaster trait that grants you conditions on crits, but with a reasonable trigger chance (25% at least), more duration and no icd.

20/0/20/10/30 = 80 trait points…. I really wish. So I’m assuming you meant 20/0/10/10/30.
Anyway, elemental surge is a bad trait you’ll kill your utilities for no real gain when it comes to condition applying, same to the water trait that grants vulnerability on arcane skills (why would you trait vulnerability when you have it on water 1!). Traiting 20 on fire isn’t really effective on condi ele, our fights last longer due to the nature of our damage, we need reliable sources of condi cleanse, stun break and healing, sadly the only way to get that is going 20/30. You could try 20/0/0/20/30 but I really think those 20 pts are best invested on earth.

By the way, 20/30 and 30/30 builds do have a lot of synergy, you get vigor from traited cantrips or renewing stamina (which triggers due to the arcana minor) and enough crit chance to trigger sigils all the time. There’s nothing gimmick about condi eles (or any other build, really) and we are actually strong against other condi classes, the only one who’s gonna give you trouble are engis due to their high healing/cleansing/cc.

Forgot to mention that you get enough condi duration from food/crystals!

It works because of your arcana 5 trait, that gives you fury every time you change attunement, that’s enough to trigger…..at least I find my targets getting torment pretty often.

Well for an exit strategy the fgs is certainly better, but reaper is nice skill to have when zerg diving, the constant chills might even help you escape sometimes, but it wont be as effective as fgs for sure. Diamond skin is very situational, I don’t really run it anymore, but when I did it used to shine on duels and on guild groups with organized healing, not very good for roaming imo…

Also, I know for sure that sigil of torment + sigil of doom work together, but I don’t think energy + doom would (I believe there are plans for making on swap sigils trigger together in the future though). You could run energy + torment and see if it works…

I see your point with the healing, but I don’t think it’s enough to deal with condis, for example, if you do your healing/cleasing burst and then happen to be hit by poison or confusion (or both :p) you’ll be in a very difficult situation for at least 10 secs. I also have the impression that in a condi build you tend spam skills like lightning whip in a much lower rate than a power ele does and even if you do It’ll be in a way thats less effective… so I don’t really like it.

Hummmmm I don’t think thats a very tanky build, you seem to be very vulnerable to condi bombs and c/c (which are everywhere in wvw). I also dislike the idea of signets on condi ele, simple because their effects are very limited, so I’d suggest you try something different like 0/0/20/20/30.

Getting earth III (for the extra stun break and stability) and VII, water II and X (sorta replaces signet of water + adds group support), with more points in water you’d also get healing ripple which is a nice aoe heal. Take signet of water out of your utilities and put in cleansing flames to get cleanse + aoe burning + reduced cool down via water II. Having extra traited healing/vit allows you to be more flexible with your healing skill, you could either keep the signet, which I personally think works better for power builds, or change it to something else like ether renewal.

If you’re human I recommend using reaper of grenth as your elite, it’s the best elite for condi ele atm. Instead of running 2x duration sigils, you could use one or two sigils that actually add more condis to your build, I’m using sigil of doom and sigil of torment (which DO work together very well thankyouverymuch) for pretty long stacks of poison and torment (aoe), those serve as cover condis to my burning, bleeds and confusion.

Hope you have fun with condi ele!

You may judge me because I will reiterate that doesn’t matter how “simple” it is the bottom line is it’s effectiveness.

I could sooo easily spam drake’s breath all day and not kill fly as I could do an entire burst rotation and end up spiked on the floor. The resilience given by my stats doesn’t grant me space to make mistakes, as you assumed, it’s there because I do damage over time and my enemy has much more space to react so I need to sustain myself to be effective. A power ele doesn’t get as much resilience from his stats but can put an incredible high pressure on their enemies, giving them much less space to react and thus being effective.

Now now, people may claim that sustain is a problem for power eles, but I think it’s a problem in many builds, even in mine! Again, it’s all about the flow of the battle, fast passed for power, slower for condi, make mistakes and you’re a dead elementalist. At the current state of the class both builds can be fun and rewarding and in my opinion both are easy to play.

magikfox.9658:

But if too many of you start to run it, I will be running diamond skin. So watch the kitten out!

You’d be surprised at the raw damage condi builds can do, I’m dire/apoth and my hard hiting skills like fire grab still reach 2,5-3k crits, never really had a problem with diamond skin.

To your other point, don’t really think it’s a training wheels build, it may have more defensive stats, but you may find yourself being very ineffective damage wise if you don’t know how and when to apply your conditions. The main difference I see in burst and condi ele comes to the flow of the battle, burst requires you to be fast, condi requires patience, a thief may not take me down to 25% hp instantly but due to the nature of my damage he may have many other opportunities to burst me or reset the battle. Thinking you’ll be very tanky as ele with def stats is just as wrong as thinking you’ll burst everything down instantly with power/crits.

Don’t really like scepter on condi ele, earth 1 bleedings are attractive but the weapon is so slow for non fresh air burst builds. You can have acces to torment via sigils, it’s jut one stack though, but has very good duration.

Everybody is trying condi ele after perplexity, kinda scary for ppl like me that have been trying it since… Forever… It’s funnier then burst IMO, but to each it’s own.

If you’re a condition ele with perplexity runes you can use churning as a beacon for OMGLETSINTERRUPT and then pop shocking aura for the stun, this usually results in about 3k raw damage + bleeding + confusion…. And it’s quite funny to watch

My problem with churning earth is that it has become the most easily avoidable skill in the game, you almost always have to use an utility skill to land it (either teleport or stability), you’re completely vulnerable for 3 freaking seconds! It may be one of the highest damages in the game but if you compare it to other high damaging skills ,when it comes to landing the hit, churning will possibly be the loser.

I wish they’d reduce the cast time a little, or do something crazy like being able to walk while you cast it….. Would that be too crazy? With so many interrupts and blinds being thrown around, I think it would be fine.

Of course it would need a cool down…… Otherwise it’ll be crazy aoe torment everywhere.

Playing with the idea of chilling + burning resulting in a third effect:
Make a trait called Antipoda “add X stacks of torment when your enemy has stacks of burning and chilling coming from you”, cooldown 20-30 secs depending on the amount/duration of torment given.

Now that would be dandy!

If it had damage it would still be a tick per sec like burning and poison, not a big punch, easily removed even when spammed (unless they go very crazy about its damage). I think this would make chill even more interesting as a cover condition, but I doubt they’d ever do that.

Mercenary Higgins.1807:

Dolores.5471:

Nice to see more people trying condi ele!!
As someone already said, your 10 points trait in water isn’t really doing anything for your build (except for the health of course), I’d change it for a more useful water trait or 10 points on fire and get embers might, that would give you 10% condi duration, 25% burning duration and a little bit of power (your hard hitting skills still do decent damage even in a condi build, that should not be overlooked).

I’m not a big fan of signets, have you ever tried the glyph of elemental power? Besides the burn and chilling which are very nice, it also can perma cripple/weakeness a foe, definitely worth a try!

Signet on use causes 11 1/2 vuln, great for masking other condis, that alone is enough for me to go 10 into water

You’re D/D, your water 1 has close to 10 secs vulnerability to cover condition, this trait isn’t really worth it.

Nice to see more people trying condi ele!!
As someone already said, your 10 points trait in water isn’t really doing anything for your build (except for the health of course), I’d change it for a more useful water trait or 10 points on fire and get embers might, that would give you 10% condi duration, 25% burning duration and a little bit of power (your hard hitting skills still do decent damage even in a condi build, that should not be overlooked).

I’m not a big fan of signets, have you ever tried the glyph of elemental power? Besides the burn and chilling which are very nice, it also can perma cripple/weakeness a foe, definitely worth a try!

I think one of the best things about this game is that you can do whatever you want with your class. Condi builds for ele have always existed and its nice to see that people are at least willing to try them out, it’s good for those builds who perhaps will get a little more attention and for the class that gets more diverse.

But thats the thing, most of us don’t even use the entire effects of it, given that all 4 are usefull somehow, still I find myself only in need of 2, so that would mean 10 extra points I could use in another trait.

I had this crazy idea the other day when thinking of how to make eles less dependent on arcana. Along with making elemental attunement baseline, as its already been suggested, why don’t we divide the evasive arcana trait into 4 minor traits spread on the other trait lines? It has always seemed a little odd to me how other classes get “on dodge” traits so easily and ele has to spend 30 points for it.

Anet could make it so that for example, an adept trait in the water trait line granted cleansing wave when dodging in water attunement, same on earth, fire and wind for their respective effects. That way we could pick which effects of evasive arcana we wanted and possibly save points to diversify/strengthen our builds… Was this ever suggested before? Is it too crazy/op?

You have to remember that condis are not always about damage, as an ele, the only real damage you’ll have is burning (and the occasional churning bleeds), if you don’t cover them with other conditions they’ll be easily cleansed. That is why your runeset and sigils should make up for the lack of condis the class has.

The glyph has 25% chance to trigger at every hit, I think that is a fairly good chance to proc something. The sigils do share cooldown, but with increased condi duration you will be able to have the 2 conditions proc on the same target and even though torment is just one stack it works well as a cover condition since its duration is rather long, as for the proc, you have fury at every elemental swap, I find that enough to trigger it. Perplexity may not be fixed, but it triggers quite often and does very good damage, I still think its worth getting.

As for your problem with speed, idk what weapon set you’re using, but you could get windborne dagger or signet of air, so you don’t have to sacrifice your entire runeset. I still think you should get a good source of stability for your build, be it via utilities or traited skills, I just don’t see how you could pull it in wvw without it, but thats just my opinion.

Well the build you choose to wvw seems kinda weird for me (as a condi ele), you seem to have tried arcana XII + water II + arcane utilities, that is too much in my opinion, you could achieve similar results just by using glyph of elemental power, granted that it only affects one target every few seconds, but still, its a stun breaker and you’d save 2 utility slots. I consider evasive arcana better than arcana XII, because besides the obvious blast (bleed +cripple) and healing ( condi cleanse), it does have a few seconds of burn when you dodge on fire.

The dire set for armor is correct, i’d balance it with a few apothecary accessories until you reach about 700-800 healing power. I’d pick perplexity runes over the ones you’re using, confusion is amazing and we have many interrupts for the proc, mind the icd though. For the sigils, I’d suggest you use doom and torment (after you get 25 stacks of corruption) for now.

That build also seems too frail, I don’t really see how you deal with condi bombs or c/c. The thing about building a condi ele is that you don’t really HAVE TO go out of the normal bunker builds to do well and you also don’t need a huge amount of condi damage. Get the usual 0/0/10/30/30 if you’re feeling lazy or 10/0/20/10/30 (with embers might, strength of stone and cantrip mastery) for a little bit more of duration and condi power in expense of healing and condi cleanse.

People seriously underestimate condition builds on ele….. hopefully that will keep them viable and away from the nerfs. Maybe they’ll even give us torment on magnetic leap! Wishful thinking ….

I think you’ll need more heal, as healing yourself back to full will be the key factor here. What I assume this trait is gonna give us are brief moments of condi invulnerability at the beggining of fights and at the end of our healing cycle, which is usually when smart enemies would condition nuke us… Though some people claim healing scales poorly, I run a high healing/thoughness build and I’m generally able to fully heal.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say “auto win”…. It will sure be a little more gimmick for condition appliers to negate an elementalist, but do note that going 30 earth means less cleansing and less healing for the ele. Though even with those losses it will not be very difficult to stay within the threshold, if it was, this would be another useless grandmaster trait…

Peow peow.2189:

With this new trait (conditions cannot be applied when ele is over 90% hp)

If I am sitting at 45% hp and then heal to 100% using my heal and healing water, will all my conditions then be cleared?

Nope.

I’m looking forward to this change though..
As condi ele, I already use 30 earth, but I feel like I lack traited cleansing, since I have to pick one (0/0/30/30/10 – 0/0/30/10/30) or lose both (0/0/30/20/20) evasive arcana and cleansing water. I agree this ~should~ be a shield against initial condition bombing, I wonder if it’s going to work against fear walls/shouts and boon corruption, does the engi trait works against those?
Also, less immobilizes, cripples and freezing surely won’t hurt our mobility..

I assume you’re using a sigil for poison, I’ve been running this for some time and I personally prefer a might stacking sigil, while it’s good to have another condition (specially one that affects healing), the duration and damage of poison make it less worth than what you’d get from a few stacks of might… additionally, might will increase your power damage, giving more balance to the build.

Scary to see the build I’ve been running since forever become a trend…
Hopefully it won’t get nerfed too hard…. let’s enjoy while we can… and pray.

I’d like to take this moment to enjoy the irony of an FA member claiming TC will destabilize other servers.

Thanks

Saweth You Him.9047:

Well TC’s grand Tuesday push went to suck. They are behind Kain 22k points now. No consilation prize for second place. At best you’ll earn the coveted blue fort in EB.

3rd gets a:

Third Place WvW Chest

nibbles.2408:

-TC made a guild called [FA]good luck in tier 4, when we were completly outnumbered by your server.

That must’ve been amazing LOL.

Can’t wait for the Yak Parade!

Oh god, each score update shows a new 1st place _

Welcome Dragonbrand!

I’m astonished with the fact ioj guilds didn’t choose to join us, CD is a very receptive server that does value it’s players and all those who wish to transfer here. We just hope not to kill other servers in the process. We’re not talking you down, in fact we could care less about what you do with your lives, it is funny though to pick on you with the same jokes who were being thrown at us a feel days ago, when people here were saying CD was only leading because of server transfers and folks (literally folk) were all about demeaning our success as a server. It does feel amazing to see that you take them way more serious then we’d expect. I hope you do enjoy your stay in FA though, you may even succeed on beating us this time, I just personally hope that my server’s community deals with defeat better than yours did.