Guild Wars 2

thats pvp and not wvw

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoIhEmibwBHHAIPOxEWGFCp8YmcsB-ToAgyCuICSFkLITQygsBNEZWA

try that

Hey guys I have logged at least 3000 hours in this game and have well over 1000 hours playing an elementalist. The current build I run right now is bunker/condition. I am versatile in builds and can become a spiker or a roamer when needed.

I have at least 100 hours on ranger and 100 hours on thief. I play them both average. I am willing to learn other classes.

I haven’t done very much tpvp. I am available most evenings to early in the morning every day.

You can whisper me in game if you are interested. My name is Bad Elementalist or Frownyclown.

That’s understandable. It is very possible to make mechanics that prevent griefing from lower levels. I would play this game for years if they had more pvp mechanics outside of the pvp zone.

I think you made an unfinished build in your link. That might improve your build.

So like I could run a d/d elementalist then switch to s/f and die in that instead.

Open world pvp opens up server competition between guilds and adds in that “we are the best” factor. I want it because it makes guilds more fun to be in. They can also make it so you cant be pked unless you are level 80. The reason they won’t do this is because they want to make a different type of game then what we have seen. Their focus is more on rewards and pve content. In the long run, however, they will have to add things to the game that will draw people in again because lets face it; no one cares about the living story. The best thing it has is events like the crown pavillion. Because of there payment system they will eventally get diminishing profits. Why do you think they offer 2 days of free to play gw2? They do it when they notice a significant drop in sales. Eventually the only thing that will hold them afloat is the cash shop. They might as well make it f2p by then. That being said, most of the people who play this game are pvers and do not want any sort of pvp to reach them. I would be fine with smaller zones dedicated just to pvping within the server.

PVP servers. Can only attack people your level. RIP WvW.

that being said it will most likely work with the staff, but the cooldown is like 45 seconds. might be worth it in zergs for dps.

I posted a build yesterday with the runes. Shocking aura has the potential to proc 10 confusion on baddies. Not to mention the chance to interrupt from earth 4 skill.

can you confirm rock solid is applied to yourself as well. It says nearby allies. Also it is only 2 seconds. I would prefer geomancer’s freedom for the kiting ability. The runes were picked solely for applying large amounts of confusion. Undead runes would be a second choice.

I would probably switch out sigil of earth for doom So I can have a 66% upkeep of poison. Then I would switch out the sigil of geomancy for some type of on crit sigil. Putting a sigil of force isn’t worth it when you have 980 power. 5% of that is nothing.

despite what other say, elementalists are pretty decent in dungeons and fractals. Necro’s are pretty op, but I find an ele’s quick playstyle mor appealing

This is gw2 there is never a build that can beat every other build. it will last about 5s ticking at about 680 per tick. It does only like 3k damage. If you are solo roaming simply run. If not, let your team mates deal with it. And the Arcane Fury 33% up time is probably not that great now that I do the math. Experiment with the sigils. There are probably better ones out there.

also, haven’t tested against condition duration builds. Given the fact that most of my damage would come from drake’s breath, I see you having a hard time. Good thing these warriors are easy to kite. They would still have a hard time if you landed a churning earth on them though. Don’t underestimate air auto attack still. It will give you the pressure you need when they are at low hp

poison is only good for the -33% healing. If that is the case you can switch out the sigil of geomancy for one that applies poison. I am not sure about sharing the internal cooldown. if that is the case then switch it out.

Apothecary gear is the second choice. You lose out on toughness for healing power. I find toughness more reliable defense though.

I used the sigil for crit because elementalist gets permanent fury and i have 28% crit chance.

I don’t have a good computer atm to record so I am currently stuck on my laptop.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyx4gjDAEFm4yQRIbUeMTO2A-j0xAIuASVAJPA59ioxWjLiGrSmIqWbjJDAzaA-w

They didn’t have this site updated with the new runes, but replaces the runes I put in there with the superior rune of perception. This increases condition damage, 20% to apply 3 stacks of condition damage on hit (15s cool down) and apply 5 stacks of confusion on interrupt. Since it is dagger dagger, you have potentially 2 interrupts with air aura and another interrupt with earth 4. Not sure if updraft interrupts at all. Against a bad player who will hit your air aura twice, he will get 10 stacks of confusion. That is roughly 1.8k damage per tick.

The reason why most condition ele builds are unsuccessful is because we have a low health pool and somewhat low toughness, thus we can’t out survive our conditions. The sigils I chose both apply bleeding. I have about 30% crit chance with fury in this build, so the 60% chance to apply bleed is worth it.

The most important thing is to make sure you hit the entirety of drake’s breath on the enemy, then switch to earth and apply as much bleeds as you can. After, switch to lightning and apply a weakness to an enemy (this is mostly so the bleed/burn has a condition to hide behind) or go into air and use air aura for confusion. Go into water when needed or when you need a freeze condition to hide your damage conditions.

Some things to note

You will have a harder time against other conditon bunker builds. I find myself having trouble with warriors due to their high hp pools and somewhat decent condition removal.

We don’t have 20k hp so learn to kite some enemies.

This build plays similar to dapheonix’s build due to the low condition duration.

Sometimes you simply will not apply enough pressure to the enemy to take them down. Know which enemy to run from/kite and which to focus.

Some easy to kill classes are traditional thieves, berserker warrior (with proper kiting), berserker guardian, other elementalists, non-bunker rangers, most mesmers.

Watch out for necros, high hp warriors, condition removal guardians, bunker elementalists, condition bunker rangers.

Anet wanted to slow this class down so they got rid of our stun breaker cantrips and our mobility. They nerfed our heals because we had “too-high” burst heals. That was then. IMO, since the game has become very condition based I would like to see a higher base heal for this as well. I would also like cleansing wave to be unerfed. Its healing was halved and it removes 1 condition instead of 3. It is nonsense how much condition damage can do on us given our low health pool while we are being forced to stack extra toughness/healing power just to kite power builds.

much better gear for a build like that. The life steal concept has already been tried with fairly decent success. Better for you to get around 25-30% crit chance since elementalists have a permenant upkeep of fury. Stack that crit damage brah.

You can run from and avoid those. Try to run from bleeds. All I am saying is my survive rate seems to be much lower when I fight against a necro.

sorry for not being specific. I mean if you are been hit hard from multiple enemies with conditions. Condition cleansers don’t mean much in this situation.

I mean specifically in pvp/wvw. Why should damage over time do more damage per second then raw power. Makes me rage.

I am looking to try a beast-master build in wvw and have seen full clerics gear for accessories and armor/weapons. Is it necessary to have 1400 healing power in these types of builds? Just a thought since my heals only go up 1-2k with 1000 more healing power

im camping the jp. please come -Bad Elementalist

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h1.8.1c.h1m|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.7f.1c.7f.1c.7f.1c.7f.1c.7f.1c.7f|2s.d1c.2s.d1c.3s.d16.2v.d1c.3v.d16.2v.d1c|0.a1.a3.k59.u56b|55.2|1l.1s.1t.1u.0|e

Alternative build. Has less vitality and healing power, but more toughness and a 6s armor of earth trait. I chose to replace mist form with armor of earth because it works better with ether renewel and the 20% cantrip reduction trait makes this pop every 72 seconds. So I get 2 armor of earth’s and about 100 more toughness than xunleashed’s build. The reason it has less healing power is because the life steals will be the same regardless of healing power and because ether renewal scales badly. The condition removal that was traited from water is now used in ether renewal.

an alternative build you could switch out the signet for ether renewal and then use superior sigil of vampirism. Switch out one of the soldier daggers for a berserker dagger. You would be around 17k hp and 1450 toughness. Gain some power and you get an extra 950 heal after your use ether renewel, a 5% chance to get another 950 heal and a mist form at 10% hp.

idk why we shouldnt be able to have a burst. “Because you are ranged” is a bs excuse when scepter ele’s have it and it really only buys us an extra 2 seconds to do mediocre damage.

Who else would like this CD reduced by half? Longbow ranger needs more survivabilty if we are going to invest deep into skirmishing and marksmenship.

what weapons do you use? Condition bunker type builds is more engineer style. If you wanted something with nice range and good burst you could try a scepter elementalist. If you wanna face roll easy mode roll a thief.

Weapon Mechanics

Axe (offhand)

Path of Scars

This skill works like a boomerang and hits decently hard. It also has the potential to hit the same enemy twice. I actually wouldn’t change this skill.

Whirling Defense

Everything about this skill is good except the damage is pitiful for the duration of the skill (12 seconds). Melee players will hit you harder than you will hit them in that time. I would make this comparable to a warriors “100-blades” skill to be a worthwhile offhand.

Great Sword

The only thing I would change is Counterattack. That skill is so much more useful as a block mechanic than a knockdown if the enemy hits you. I would like it to increase in duration by 1 second and not break if a melee fighter hits you.

Longbow

Long Range Shot

Okay, I understand this concept but I don’t think you should make the damage less if enemies are closing in on you. I would take the middle ground and go for the mid-range damage at all times.

Rapid Fire

I like the update that added the vulnerabilty, but it is still a bad skill. It is bad because of these three reasons. First, the duration of the skill is well over 5 seconds. This gives the enemy plenty of time to come to you. Second, the enemy can dodge roll and you miss a good chunk of the damage. I like that it makes them waste a dodge roll, but that isn’t going to save me when they get within hitting range. Third, the skill doesn’t restart until after the animation is over. That means that 10 second cool-down is really 15+ seconds. Not to mention we often need to stop midway in order to push back an enemy

What I want to see is this skill becoming only 1 shot. The damage of the skill should be halved to be fair. This way it can synergize well with opening strike.

Hunter’s Strike

I love the stealth mechanic. It is almost perfect now. The only thing is I would like to see a blind added. Also, the stealth only procs upon damaging the enemy. One block or dodge roll and our entire stealth is ruined. It should proc on skill use and not on damaging the enemy.

Point Blank Shot

My favorite skill. It is the ultimate troll skill. I would like to add a cone- affect to this skill. Take a look at this scenerio. I am having fun when all of a sudden two thieves gank me. I can knock one away. Who will not kill me? Give it more crowd control and less single target. I would even take a 5 second longer duration for that.

Barrage

I wouldn’t change it. Has its uses in all types of gameplay.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I don’t believe we are far off from successful power-type builds. I just think if we are going to go direct damage we should be given more options for survivabilty. I believe that can be done within the weapon mechanics.

Let me know what you all think. Feel free to post criticisms. And that one guy that is going to try and argue with me about how fail my ranger is somehow, I hate you.

I have noticed a lot of complaining and suggested fixes posted on the forums lately so I wanted to make a detailed analysis of a power-focused ranger.

Cookie-Cutter Build

The typical build I see rangers use are x x 30 30 10. Below is a brief description of each of those trait lines

Wilderness Survival

This trait offers +10 condition damage and +10 toughness for each point spent. The user gets increased endurance regeneration, protection on dodge rolls and condition mitigation.

Nature Magic

This trait line offers 1% boon duration and +10 Vitality for each point spent. Users typically use this for the 33% regeneration bonus. This plus the regeneration at 75% health (traited in this line too) plus the water field in one of the heals can offer a ranger permanent regeneration

Beastmastery

10 points usually goes in here because of the shout recharge rate. One of the grandmaster traits in Nature Magic gives regeneration on shouts. The shouts have generally low durations.

Why Is This Build Favored?

It is simple; survivabilty. These trait lines favor survivabilty and synergize well with bunker builds. Condition damage allows for people to build more bunker because it is only 1 stat that we need in order to have an increase in damage output. If we wanted to make a direct damage build, we would need to waste points in power, precision and critical damage. Going bunker allows for more toughness, vitality and healing power.

The Problems Of Attempting a Power Build

In my opinion, there are very few things I would do to the trait lines for power type builds. T

Here is a look at the direct-damage oriented traitlines

Marksmanship +10 power +1% condition duration
Opening Strike Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat
Alpha Training Pets have Opening Strike
Precise Strike Opening strike always critical hits

Skirmishing +10 precision +1% critical damage
Tail Wind Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat
Furious Grip Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat
Hunter’s Tactics Deal 10% more damage while flanking

The Marksmanship grandmaster trait called “Remorselessness” works very well with “Precise Strike” This skill lets you regain an opening strike when you enter stealth. Precise strike means every opening strike will be a critical hit.

The Skirmishing grandmaster trait that gives you an attack of opportunity works well with the great sword’s “Hilt Bash” which will daze or stun a foe. If you have this trait and interupt a foe, the next attack will do 150% damage. That and the fact you get fury on a weapon swap and “Maul” is a hard-hitting skill means you could hit 4-5k on it.

The only thing I would like to see changed is the Skirmishing grandmaster trait called “Moment Of Clarity”. This increases daze and stun durations by 50% and gives an attack of opportunity on interrupt. The only problem is the attack of opportunity only procs if you interrupt an attack, not if you just daze or stun someone. I would like it to proc even without interupting an attack.

The real issue I see with these builds is the lack of survivabilty with melee range fighting. I have a fun time using a longbow to dish out damage to enemies, but the minute one guy is on me I melt relatively quickly. I also enjoy using a great sword to layout the hurt, but I lack condition removal and one knock-down will end the fight.

I see power builds fail time and time again not because of faulty trait lines; it comes from the weapon mechanics.

The stealth is good IMO.

Here is a link to the build

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.0|3.1p.h1j|1.1p.h17|1p.7j.1p.7j.1p.7j.1p.7j.1p.7j.1p.7j|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|k18.u4ac.k38.0.0|3l.8|4h.4w.4x.4q.54|e

Traits

Marksmanship 20

+200 power, +20% condition duration
Opening Strike Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat
Alpha Training Pets have Opening Strike
Steady Focus Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full (I)
Piercing Arrows All arrow attacks pierce targets(VIII)

Skirmishing 30

+300 precision, +30% critical damage
Tail Wind Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat
Furious Grip Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat
Hunter’s Tactics Deal 10% more damage while flanking
Primal Reflexes You gain 5s of vigor when you are struck by a critical hit. This can only trigger once every 15 seconds (IV)
Quick Draw Shortbow and longbow skills recharge 20% faster (X)
Moment of Clarity Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. This effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds. Daze and stun durations you inflict are also increased by 50% (XII)

Wilderness Survival 20

+200 toughness, +200 condition damage
Natural Vigor Increases endurance regeneration by 50%
Companion?s Defense You and your pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll
Shared Anquish Incoming disables (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, launch) are transferred to your pet. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds (III)
Oakheart Salve Gain regeneration for 5s when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning. This can only trigger once every 20 seconds (VII)

Gear

For gear I was having trouble deciding if I wanted Valkyrie or Soldier’s. The amount of toughness I gained with soldiers was only about 200, which is about a 8% decrease in damage. I also don’t think it was necessary to give up 40% critical chance because I am traited to gain 2s of protection every time I dodge roll. I am also traited to gain vigor and I also have a 50% endurance regeneration. I put a sigil of energy on my bow for even more endurance regeneration. If you use your dodges at the correct times, you could have a decent amount of protection.

For accessories I chose all berserker because I need more crit chance to have a successful burst.

For weapons I chose valkyrie over berserker because this build lacks condition removal and I need the health for survivabilty.

Runes

I chose Superior Rune of Ranger. This is a precision rune that gives me 5% more damage with a companion. You can change this to eagle or whatever precision runes you prefer

Explanation of Traits

For marksmanship I chose steady focus, which increases damage by 10% with full endurance. I will explain why when I get to skirmishing. I also chose Piercing arrows for wvw situations so my longbow 2 skill will hit multiple targets.

For skirmishing I chose Primal Reflexes because of the vigor regeneration from it. I also chose quick draw, which reduces the cooldown of my longbow moves by 20%. Those few seconds off each skill is a life saver. The last one I chose is one of the most important parts of the build. Moment of Clarity. This increases my daze and stun durations by 50% and gives me an attack of opportunity. What attack of opportunity does is it increases my next attack by 150%. My greatsword has a daze/stun skill and it also has a hard hitting skill called maul. This is my general attack combo; bow 4 to knock them back, bow 2 to shave 4-8k damage, bow 3 to gain stealth, while in stealth I switch to greatsword then I use the 3rd skill. I will fly to the enemy still stealthed and suddly appear in front of them with a daze and then a maul. I am traited to gain fury on a weapon swap so I will have about 70% crit chance (without stacks). I did some math and I can hit 4-5k with maul on someone with 3000 armor. With full endurance and if the enemy has more like 2600 armor this could hit closer to 6k. If your enemy isn’t dead yet, use your 4 skill to block incoming attacks and your bow should be back up right when you need it.

For wilderness survival I chose Shared Anguish just to get free from 1 cc. I also chose Oakheart Salve to get some regen in case I have conditions on me.

Tips

Know when to run. The greatsword can be used defensively as well. Take advantage of that block and that 1100 range move to run. The bow can be used to gain quick stealth for tactical reposition and the knockback can be used against enemies catching up to you.

Your bow’s 2 skill is a channel so it will hit thieves even after they go into stealth. Thieves can do 3 things here; take the entire damage, essentially killing them, waste a dodge roll (or 2) or they will use basalisk venom on you and try to burst you down with a steal/backstab combo. Use your utilities in that situation.

Cooldowns on cantrips too long to be very viable

Power is your best bet. The only way u can gain vigor is through an arcane trait (gain vigor on critical) or water trait (cantrips grant regen and vigor). So either put 20 into arcane or 20 into water and use one of those traits. The only condi staff really has is fire 3 (single target might be good if u stack condition) and earth 2, which takes too long to proc. Try a 0 20 0 20 30 build.

Bad Elementalist -NA
Teacher/student
I have logged over 600 hours on an ele. I would like other perspectives on playing against condi builds (necro, engi)

I have tested many variations of the cookie cutter build and know what generally works in each set up for all weapons.

I am friendly and can be helpful

0 20 0 20 30. Just switch one of the traits in arcane for the staff one. Go pvt with some cavalier/zerker accessories. Get around 20% crit chance 50% damage and 1800 attack.

I mean its not bad just a couple things.

1. you missed many potential combos. You missed your fire 3 a lot too.
2. The burst damage is okay. My guess is you are running 0 10 0 30 30 with some zerker type accessories. I would go more damage as you shouldn’t underestimate an elementalist that can apply pressure.
3. I tested ether renewel vs signet of restoration and the signet won in terms of survivability imo (use a lot of condition removal traits, utilities for condi). So that is good. Problem is in your vids I hardly saw many conditions being placed on you. Ele + no conditions = easy mode

Good points where you knew to pressure one enemy, your pace of skill use is top notch and you seem to have decent survivability/ attack.

I use the ruby orbs instead of boon duration runes and I hardly notice a difference in my survivability.

you cant use water fields in scepter. It doesn’t have a large area heal either. It has better crowd control than scepter. The dodge roll is at 2.6k at 1560 hp. Yes you sacrafice alot of potential points elsewhere, but once again, I am not trying to make an elementalist that can kill opponents.

I usually go to fire for some damage and the extra dodge then lightning for cc then i go to water then i go to earth. The build isn’t designed to kill people (although I can usually win a 1v1 against an average/bad player). at least with Clerics the damage aspect seems more affective. I am currently running shamans gears in tpvp. it has condition damage rather than power. The conditions are too slow though imo

ill post some videos in a couple of days. I’m on a laptop so its too laggy to record

yup. nothing new. Just thought i’d share with people a build that does decent group healing and that I really enjoyed playing. Thanks for the idea on the sigil. I might do that.

attune to water. myself and allies near me get a 2.8k heal (getting these heals off guild wars 2 wiki). now lets say I dodge roll to proc EA. thats 2.8k again. lets say I use a geyser now. Thats a potential 3.5k heal. Now I use arcane wave within it. thats 1.6k Now Ill use my healing rain. that is 5.9k heal over 5 seconds. then I will dodge roll in that with earth attunement for another 1.6k. That heals for about 16k hp. not to mention the constant regen allies get per second while I am attuned to water and the fact that I have extra regeneration duration and lingering elements.

You are right though. This is only a minor mitigation of damage. Pray you don’t have teammates that run into a big group and like to sit there and get hit.

I’m only arguing with you because you say it is useless. The healing potential coupled with your cc and allies own heal makes this a pretty decent build. This is not a build that will make enemies go “no fair you had heals”. It is going to take skillful circle placing and crowd control.

6k regeneration on healing rain, 3-4k heal on water three. 2k heal on attunement swap. 2k heal on dodge roll. 2k heal on dodge roll if your in earth with blast finisher. 2k heal on arcane wave blast finisher. 2k heal on eruption blast finisher. small heal from water auto attack. heal from rune of dwayna. Thats about as “healy” as it gets. I agree though. The heals aren’t a game changer and you should learn to do other things besides that.

I noticed that right after I posted this. If you use healing rain then immediately use eruption it will still have time to work

Today I got to thinking, “what if this game had a dedicated healer?” Well, I created a successful build that heals allies large amounts and offers lots or regeneration. Keep in mind, this build does well in 1v1 if played right, but it excels in large fights and group skirmishes where you are not outnumbered. It is not meant for solo roaming.

The traits are actually almost identical to the cookie-cutter 0 0 10 0 30 30, but just go 0 0 0 10 30 30. The build focuses on the staff because of its massive healing circkitten th of the healing skills in the water attunement are water fields too.

Earth Trait- III Earth’s Embace
Water Trait- XI Cleansing Water, V Cleansing Wave, I Aquamancer’s Alacrity
Arcane Trait- XI Evasive Arcana VIII Blasting Staff V Elemental Attunement

I chose 10 in earth because of the extra toughness (obviously since you will be just healing) and because Earth’s Embraces offers a good defensive buff.

Cleansing Water and Cleansing Wave where chosen solely because they offer condition removals. Aquamancer’s Alacrity was chosen because it shortens the cooldowns on water-based spells.

Evasive Arcana was chosen because of its aoe heal when you dodge in water and because the earth skill is a blast finisher. When you dodge in your water field while attuned to earth it heals allies within the circle for the same amount as it would if you dodged in water attunement. Blasting staff was chosen because of its wider area and elemental attunement was chosen because of the heal when you attune to water and the protection from earth.

The main idea of this build is to stay in earth and water, only going into air for some cc and fire for support damage.

Gear:

Healing Power, Toughness, Vitality

The entire purpose of having this kind of gear is to be a tank and to heal large amounts. I’ve played in spvp using this kind of build and I would not die unless I was focused 3v1 and dazed or feared out of my ether renewal. The most important stat would be healing power. Next would be toughness. Last would be vitality.

Healing Power, Toughness, Condition Damage

This build offers more damage support but less survivabilty (specifically if you got conditions from a necro and your lack of hp causes you to die). The bleed damage from earth 2 is large, probably over 7k. It is better to make healing power and toughness a priority though.

Utility Skills

Arcane wave- I use arcane wave solely because it is a blast finisher. I don’t use it for damage. Use it right after you put down a water field and you get an extra heal for you and allies.

Lightning Flash- Used for escaping

Mist Form- Used for escaping

Runes:
Superior Rune of Dwayna

+25 healing
+20% regeneration rate
+50 healing
5% chance to gain regeneration when hit
+90 healing
When you use a healing skill, heal yourself and nearby allies (10seconds)

Sigil

I use the steal health on weapon swap, but it is up to you

Things to keep in mind.

1. The earth 2 skill is a blast finisher. I haven’t figured out how it procs in the water field.
2. Ether renewal is a must if you want to survive condition damage
3. Don’t use blast finisher’s after water 3 (unless you use arcane wave immediately). This is because the field goes down too quickly.
4. Save your static field (air 5) for when you are taking heavy damage.

enjoy =)

They don’t know what to do yet. This patch is going to be more of a test.

I practiced in spvp not using rtl to run and not using ether renewal in mist form. The ehter renewel isn’t a big deal, the rtl nerf seems like nonsense. Solo roaming won’t be possible anymore at least.

OP? nerf the damage or blind for thieves first. Thanks

anyone agree of disagree?