Guild Wars 2

Xunleashed.5271:

an example with your armor can be celestial rings + amulet and not celestial accessories (maybe berserkers). This is a good way to use celestials and still be offensive

Which is more or less what I do. I mix and match various pieces of various types in various slots to come up with a good mix of offensive stats as well as defensive stats.

Works very well.

Wolfaen.9461:

Are you saying that just because of the cost of the item or because you think the more more specialized trinkets are better? I am less worried about the cost, because even if it is hard to obtain, I still want to work towards a goal. But, if you think it is just not worth it at all then do you have suggestions on which trinkets you prefer? Thanks for your reply!

I’m saying that the new Charged Quartz items are like a very few stat points off of the Ascended Celestial items so to me they aren’t worth buying the Ascended version when you can make the Charged Quartz version instead.

Personally I only use the Gems in my gear because I think specialized stats are where it’s at outside of upgrade slots.

Fire Wall is trash compared to Ring of Fire which is a much bigger combo area to combo out of and vastly higher damage. Fire Grab vs Fire Aura shouldn’t even need to be compared.

Freezing Gust has some merits as a targeted chill but Frost Aura’s 10% reduction in damage taken as well as chilling those who attack you really play into Water being a defensive aura. Comet is basically Dragon’s Tooth on a huge cool down and 1/3rd the damage…but it dazes! I’d still take Cleansing Wave over Comet without hesitation and again fits into that “Water as defense” line of thinking.

Ride the Lightning is going to compete against anything well because it’s great maneuverability can be used in any scenario where as Swirling Winds is pretty situational. Winds isn’t utterly useless but it’s just matched up against a pretty supreme ability. Gale vs Updraft are both fairly competitive with Gale being a ranged knockdown and Updraft being a melee AOE knockback.

Earth is pretty much the only tree where both options are competitive. Earthquake is a blast finishing hard knockdown where as Magnetic Wave is a blast finishing, condition cleansing reflect for 3 seconds (basically a super Magnetic Aura). Churning Earth is a blast finisher with crazy damage, crazy bleed/cripple but also a crazy cast time compared to Obsidian Flesh which is 4 seconds of just pure immunity. Both of the options in each weapon are extremely competitive with one another and each bring their own merits and advantages.

So other than Earth you’re better off going /D which because Earth is good enough to be competitive with one another it becomes a no brainer. This is why you almost never see /Focus being used and why virtually no one cares about it. The /F options aren’t bad in of themselves but rather they just aren’t competitive enough with /D to be used on average.

With the new Charged Quartz items there’s no way I’d buy them for that many Laurels. The Charged Quartz rings are like 1-2 stat points off even if it’d take 25 days for a full set.

kirtar.8453:

Falling damage traits work every time take falling damage. Again, it gives you additional route options in WvW that you could not otherwise have access to. Without arcane abatement certain drops will kill you every time. The falling damage trait is useful in many scenarios in WvW, especially given that one of the spells is static field (and another is earthquake). While things like cantrip mastery improve your effectiveness, they don’t necessarily make things possible that weren’t previously impossible. If anything I could say that it’s even more situational since its effect on the stunbreaking cantrips doesn’t really matter except in prolonged battles. Also this build has zero stunbreaks.

The shield throw ability on Earth Shield is like so amazing cause when you engage in a big zerg vs zerg fight you can throw it and like cripples everyone in a big line. Can imagine if it hits like 10 people? That’s a lot of cripple. And then there’s the charge, which is crazy good cause it’s a 12 second cool down charge ability for 600 which means it’s even better than RTL. Eat your heart out warriors. Then there’s of course the AOE pull which is great and even an immunity ability so if you really get into trouble you can just hunker down and go immune!

kirtar.8453:

I somewhat disagree on getting rid of arcane abatement in (when taken in the absolute sense). Arcane abatement is a somewhat situational trait that can be incredibly useful while roaming. It makes certain shortcuts possible to take without dying and allows you to do fall traps on people that don’t have the trait. Alternatively, in some scenarios you can cast static field then switch to earth and jump into it to blast (or use the fall for static field). If you’re in a group that does a lot of drop down shortcuts, Arcane Abatement may be indispensable. Mostly it lets you do certain things without dying.

Situationally speaking everything is great. Hell, situationally Shield of Earth is fantastic.

Personally I’m a fan of the stuff that works at all times like a 20% reduction to 2 out of 3 of our utility slots.

TGSlasher.1458:

Kodiak.3281:

Was that post directed at me?

I hope not…for your sake.

If your referring to my 2 posts, they were at op.

Then yea I mostly agree, a 0/0/0/20/20+ Ele is a much more solid build if not just for the condition management alone. I rotate between 0/30/0/20/20 and 30/0/30/10/0 all the time and both are rock solid for WvW cause they have everything they need to be successful (good tank, good spank, good condi removal, good mobility, good group synergy).

Was that post directed at me?

I hope not…for your sake.

Seen this build a few places but haven’t tried it. Not really sure how well it stacks up compared to a real D/D based build because this one is just “more boons” at the cost of any form of condition removal. Not having Condition removal in WvW is kinda a death sentence. People like to assume condition removal is everywhere but it really isn’t. For every source of condition removal there’s usually 2-3 more players who are dumping out conditions either intentionally or passively.

On that note when I run a Signet build ironically I tend to run a 30/0/30/10/0 ‘Conditimentalist’ build.

My Condi build is extremely effective at any game play style really. I’ve tried it out in WvW and PvE as well as a slight variation for SPvP and in every environment it does well.

Defensively it has condition management through 10 in Water, Cleansing Wave from Dagger offhand (or Healing Rain with a staff) and Ether Renewal not to mention the passive condi removal from Signet of Water. It also has a huge amount of hit points and Toughness to give you more effective HP than someone in PVT gear.

Offensively speaking there’s no class in the game that can keep up with the number of condition this build can dish out. Stone Shards (Earth 1) is a bleed that’s applied every 0.5 seconds and has a huge duration. I’ve gone up against Shout Guardians and even D/D Eles and they just can’t keep up with the Condi cleansing (but both can do enough to drag out the fight). It also has an extremely strong power base able to stack a huge amount of Might as S/D on top of Puissance. Against someone without a ton of condition removal the MASSIVE duration conditions (25 stacks of bleed with zero effort…hell Eruption is 6 stacks of a 25s bleed for 15000 dmg if it stays on) are just devastating.

Most importantly we get a ton of control with high duration immobilize and Chill from signets. 4s Immobilize without Food and a 5.75s immobilize with food is nuts and easily lets you pull off a Dragon’s Tooth combo for a ton of damage. I catch more people with that 6-7s Chill than I did under any other spec as an Ele. With a large group around landing that Immobilize is literally the same as killing them.

All in all huge fan of signets and the Signet play style.

Personally I think EA has been overrated since they nerfed all the effects being blast finishers. It’s still good, especially in a large setting such as WvW Zerg style combat, because being able to dodge roll in Water and do a decent AOE heal isn’t bad at all or as another Blast Finisher in Earth if you really wanna micro that. The part that I found personally was that more often than not I’m dodging out of Attunement (such as in Air or Fire while DPSing) for survival which then blows the cool down and wastes it so now I want to use the EA Dodge and it’s waiting for another 5 seconds.

You of course also get the extra 20% Attunement Cool Down and Boon duration. Some people think that 20% cool down is wasted with Fresh Air but more often than not when playing as Fresh Air I’m waiting for my other Attunements to be up so I can swap to them and trigger Fresh Air to swap back to Air. Especially with it still being bugged currently and having 0 cool down haha.

Typically I rock S/D most of the time. When you’re running in a Zerg often times the goal is to run through the enemy where things like Ring of Fire, Phoenix, Updraft and Earthquake are devastating. Even Dragon’s Tooth is bound to him someone(s) in the pile. Even your average scenario dropping Dragon’s Tooth on a ledge then swapping to Lightning with Discharge + Lightning Strike can overwhelm people on keep ledges. Also the RTL lets you get out of a bad scenario if you need to. Typically I use staff mostly when Defending (such as defending Center Stonemist or Walls) because the fire and forget AOE is pretty clutch there.

Your gear setup is pretty close to it, might as well play with both specs and see how you like it.

Zelyhn.8069:

I can’t believe it, but I am going to agree with Kodiak on this!

I’m immediately declaring victory on all fronts and all past arguments are to be considered won by me.

/unfurl the “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner

Looks fine for WvW.

May want to swap Arcane Abatement for Cantrip Mastery as a 20% cool down is pretty nice and brings your Lightning Flash and Cleansing Fire to 32s.

I would sometimes swap in Armor of Earth (Utility) too cause when you run into another Zerg that Stability is pretty clutch during the first few seconds of initial contact and still lets you act unlike Mist Form.

Rune wise the only other real option is Divinity Runes (more Defense at thee cost of Offense) and Rubies (which would fill some of your missing Crit at the cost of 10% dmg at above 90%). Scholars are solid and will work fine in your setup though. Boon Duration is less important when in the WvW Zerg as you’ll easily maintain perma Swiftness with even 30% and staff doesn’t have many boons beyond that. You will feel it slightly when doing D/D play though as it’s usually more reliant on Boon stacking.

If you don’t got the Celestial Ascended gear the new Charged Quartz gear is pretty competitive with it (just a few points off) but would take 25 days to make.

Otherwise I run something very similar (PVT Armor with Divinity Runes, Knight Jewelry with Celestial Jewls, Zerker weapons on a 0/30/0/20/20 build) and I do pretty great in WvW in all things using Staff or S/D.

The reason likely has to deal with the fact they want the game play to functionally be similar through PvP, WvW and PvE. They talk about this a lot as the primary reason they don’t want to split change (IE: Something works X in PvP and Y in PvE/WvW) abilities.

So imagine Player X has been doing PvE all day on his Ele using RTL to travel around on a 30 second cool down. They’ve gotten used to that 30s cool down and how it functions and reactively hit that button every 30 seconds. Then they go into WvW and start roaming and all of a sudden it has a 40s Cool Down and they die cause they expected to be able to RTL but it was on cool down for another 10s.

You can argue against that all you want but it’s the design philosophy they’re going for. Pretty sure they’d rather keep the flow of the 3 play options similar rather than split things up even further just because people got used to easy travel.

Mesiphidon.8324:

Either way, all the doom and gloom is just annoying to read all the time and ARM is one of the biggest whiners. It’s no wonder this forum is so dead. It has a horrible atmosphere. And I usually try to avoid posting in forums like this, but just the incessant kittening has annoyed me beyond belief. Ele’s need work yeah but they are not unplayable by any means.

Just be glad it isn’t F2P or there’d be another 100 people like him and for every one of them that realizes they’re wasting their time and everyone elses there’s always someone new just trying out the game to replace them lol…

Currently I’m running a (WvW and PvE) build of:

0/30/0/20/20
(GoEH, Lightning Flash, Cleansing Fire, Armor of Earth, Greatsword)

Soldier (PVT) Armor socketed with Divinity Runes
Knight (Emerald) Jewelry socketed with Charged Quartz Gems
Zerker (Ascended) Back
Zerker Scepter x2 (Bloodlust and Force)
Knight Dagger (Battle) or Zerker Dagger (Battle)
Zerker Staff (Fire)

1788 Power (2783 Attack)
43% Crit
1675 Tough (or 1585 with Zerk Dagger)
16135 HP
315 Healing
20% Boon
62% Crit Dmg (or 67% with Zerk Dagger)

Usually use Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup and Maintnence Oils (brings me to 55% crit and 72/77% crit dmg) when doing WvW.

Extremely survivable and have really great damage.

Gear did not take long to put together as I was able to farm out tokens between HOTW and AC for most of the gear. COF would have been available for the weapons but I crafted these since I had the mats. By far the most expensive part was the Divinity Runes (at 9g a pop) and Sigils.

Celestial Jewels seem fairly competitive because you’re comparing 25/15/15 vs 11 to all. However I am not sure I’d necessarily want them for full gear beacuse you’d loose too many other stats elsewhere. Sometimes it’s best to specialize in a few areas (such as my Zerker weapons, Soldier Armor, etc) since that can net you more of the stats that you want compared to getting stats you don’t want (such as Condition Dmg or Healing Power in my build).

Mesiphidon.8324:

I win fights all the time, 1v1 2v1 ect. Last night my guardian friend and I won a 6v2 in WvW while doing our daily. And I stream frequently, everything from Spvp to GvG. Why don’t you watch the Xunleashed video if you demand something right now? It’s a pretty good showcase of a skilled elementalist.

Oh and go re-roll already. You’re obviously not happy with the class.

Guys like him never reroll. They sit around on forums complaining about the class thinking that will somehow get things changed. He’ll eventually realize that all his efforts will change absolutely nothing and he’ll eventually reroll or just move on.

Changes almost never occur because of forum “feedback.” Most changes in these kinds of games happen due to game data that’s being collected. How many elementalists are being used in PvP. What’s their K/D? What’s their traits? What’s their utility? I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what stats they can pull.

oxide.8324:

I’m from BG. Every server relies on a second server to some degree, it’s the nature of the game.

There’s “relying on another server to a degree” then there’s the attachment below.

oxide.8324:

Less QQ please

I understand.

If I had to rely on a second server for any measure of success I probably wouldn’t want to read about it either.

I think the saddest fact is even though JQ is losing terribly at the moment for point generation they’re still going on with a double team with SOR in Eternal Battlegrounds despite having plenty of open territory to take inbetween ticks.

I guess some groups were just destined to ride on the rear seat of a motorcycle.

I’m glad we’re keeping it classy in Eternal Battlegrounds.

Stealth.9324:

Is that all we can do? Roam in Zerg….Sad…

Do you mean to imply actually contributing meaningful progression of the map with the ability to take points as part of a larger group (let alone our continued solid role in said groups) should somehow be looked down upon compared to solo roaming and contributing absolutely nothing except to the number of kitten waving videos on youtube?

Somewhere in a cubicle at Anet a tear is rolling down the cheek of a developer in empathy of your plight.

Lotta people rocking 0/30/0/20/20.

Gear is going to vary performance based on how survivable you want to be and how much damage you’re willing to give up for it.

Personally I rock 30/0/30/10/0 as S/D and have a lot of fun too.

S/D is just a great set all around because it gives you some 1v1 options but also has relevant damage for large scale ZvZ or group v group style fights with all it’s AOE.

Jarek.2430:

I play only WvW.

All my characters have Melandru + Lemongrass soup = -65% condition duration. Now add in condition removals. I see no problems so agree with Kodiak "I disapprove of this thread’.

As a Conditimentalist this is why I stack 90% condition duration.

:)

There’s really nothing like the old GW1 Eles who were pure ranged burst nukers. Fresh Air has opened up some options for burst but nothing to the extent that we were in GW1. Most of the Ele builds that are common/present today resemble more close up style Earth based Obsidian Flesh style builds from GW1. Not a lot of damage, but very survivable with a bit of damage.

The closest would be a Shatter Mesmer because they have some really high burst moves that can be done from range. Maybe a Rifle Warrior.

cheshirefox.7026:

when elems can apply 5 conditions in .2 seconds like other classes.. then you can disapprove of this thread ^^

First of all, what?

Second of all, wouldn’t the ability to remove conditions more rapidly hurt the classes that can’t apply conditions as fast as others more than those who could rapidly apply them?

As a person who plays a Conditimentalist I disapprove of this thread.

If you’re going for Flame Carvings then that’s COF. COF P1 and P2 farming is pretty easy regardless of build and you should slam your way through it staff and any gear set. I think in CoF you do a grand total of killing maybe 8-10 things in P1. Only thing you need is enough survivability to survive the part where you’re keeping the door open to get to the final boss with 3 melee mobs banging on ya.

I wish he’d update the buildcraft website with all the changes that have happened.

Hasn’t been updated in months and manually adding in stats can be annoying :/

covenn.7165:

Kodiak.3281:

Nothing really new here.

That and it isn’t even optimized.

Oh you people and your optimization.

Nothing really new here.

Actually I was just looking to help the Original Poster with my experiences before someone came in and started pooping on what I said and claiming it was “sub-optimal.” I didn’t really want to have a fight as much as request that you prove it was sub-optimal, which you have for purely damage purposes and even then only by a tiny amount.

The build I recommended with 2 Major Monks was 0/20/0/30/20 but you keep talking about 30 Arcane. You’re talking around the point when you do this and you never talk about the merits of losing 10 in water or 10 in Air to gain the 30 Arcane and the stats/DPS lost from that decision.

Talking about the benefits to one source of boons is novel and all but we’re Elementalists: We have numerous sources of boons. This is where you and I probably conflict the most. I’m trying to look at part of the forest and you’re looking at a tree in that section.

Might is just one part of the equation as previously stated, we have many boons of a variety of types many of which we can share (which is why, in your thread, you even have an Aura share build).

That’s fine, this was taking up a lot of time as is.

Zelyhn.8069:

Right, so I am getting trolled. There is no other explanation.
But sure baby, let’s go further!

Classic forum defense. “I don’t like what the bad man is saying, he is trolling me!”

Zelyhn.8069:

With 30 arcane or with 20 arcane you will get pretty much all the stacks from sigil of battle because you can swap 4 times during the recharge time of your attunements. This gives a very small error margin, around 10%. As opposed to what you say, you will not miss the buff entirely, but you will have less stacks on average so somehow you have a point! Congrats! But it’s negligible.

If you have a 9.375s recharge on your Attunement and you swap on cool down and Sigil of Battle has a 10s internal Cool Down if you swap prior to Battle being up you will miss the buff entirely. Since attunements then have a 2s cool down period after swapping that’d then make you go back to a 11s cool down (same as 20 Arcane). Aren’t you the one going on about how even the smallest percentages add up?

I won’t even get into the absurdity of blowing attunements when you don’t want another function out of them (such as firing off a combo).

Zelyhn.8069:

You could take any damage!! Even plug in coefficients, or the age of you favorite pet, it does not matter because you are going to divide it by the same thing after!
All that matters when you want to know the increased damage from additional power is its proportion to your total base power.
So you did not read my hint did you?

Quite frankly you’re only explaining yourself half the time and the other half of the time you’re making assumptions on what is known (which is why I’ve repeatedly asked you to provide the formulas you’re using to calculate your numbers). In addition if you expect me to take one of your calculations seriously, you should explain what you are doing with it.

That all said comparing Power Alone you’re looking at a 1.22% increase when comparing 15.6 Power to 40 Power (and since my numbers were originally based around your 15s Might duration the % increase would be even smaller).

Zelyhn.8069:

Yes, and that’s the same thing as what I have been talking about in my last three posts. It’s still correct, and quoting it again and again won’t make it wrong.

You’re the one saying it’s wrong not me…lol

Zelyhn.8069:

So now that I have explained to you for the fourth time why my calculations are correct, the results still hold: 10% boon duration runes are suboptimal. They are suboptimal compared to ruby orbs, but I compared them to that just because you mentioned it. The real thing is when you compare two major runes of monk with two superior runes of force. It’s not hard to compute: it’s twice the benefit in power!

They’re sub-optimal for purely damage purposes but anyone could have told you that. As was discussed if you’re not in 30/30/0/10/0 build with Zerker/Zerker, Zerker/Zerker then you are “sub-optimal” damage.

Furthermore all you’ve done is proven how marginally sub-optimal they are for damage. Going 10% boon duration isn’t half the DPS because it’s only half the buff. It’s 98.78% of the DPS. That’s game changing DPS loss (lol?). This is of course, still, ignoring all the other benefits you have with additional boon duration. None of them will ever add up to be a lot or game changing in their own right, but in essence you’re giving up a marginal amount of damage for a marginal amount of more utility/survivability via Boons. This conversation is like talking about the difference between Divinity Runes and Ruby Orbs.

And WTF is a Superior Rune of Force? The only Force I know of is Sigil of Force.

Zelyhn.8069:

READ: this is what you need to learn to do before attempting MATHS.

The only thing I need to do when doing Maths is not base my Math on what you say and instead go to the source in the future. You mentioned a 15 second Might time and everything was based on that. Apparently you only meant for Elemental Attunement as most every other source of Might is 20 seconds.

Zelyhn.8069:

Superior Sigil of battle: Gain 3 stacks of Might (20 seconds) when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
Ok? So 9.6 on average (9 with the occasional 12) with 60% boon duration. Or 9 on average with your 50% boon duration.

Now it’s my turn to act smug and tell you that maybe you should learn to read that all “On Swap” sigils have an internal 10 second cool down. Meaning even with 30 Arcane you won’t ever get more benefit than 10s of Attunement Swap times meaning if you swap too fast you can clip it and miss the Buff entirely.

Furthermore, again, we’re talking about 20 Arcane which has an 11s cool down meaning we’re actually talking about an 8/11s up time on 9 stacks (which would still be the majority).

Zelyhn.8069:

I’m glad you go the wiki formula right, but I told you to calculate raw damage: damage before coefficient, weapon damage & target’s armor: raw damage= power x (1+(precision-822)/21/100 x bonus crit damage /100)
Yeah arguably it’s not on the wiki

This is a huge problem and it dramatically skews all your results. While mathematically it works out, it will ultimately show results that are vastly higher than they actually are. Two Ruby Orbs don’t increase DPS by 3%, they increase it by a fraction of that % once you actually plug in real numbers into those other parts you’ve taken away because as the numbers scale up the damage numbers scale relatively downward.

Then we get back into talking about 0.X%…

You got my calculations about might stack completely wrong.
What I do is: average might stacks without boon duration (duration x number of stacks on proc / proc cooldown), multiplied by boon duration coefficient (1.5 with your build) = average stacks with boon duration, multiplied by 35 = average bonus power from might with boon duration.
You can change move multiplications and divisions around, it’s ok, it’s maths well done.

I only have what you give me to work with. The little work you did show reflects what I have listed that you took the boon duration, divided it by the cool down which gave you an “average” number of stacks which you then multiplied by the boon bonus (in this case Might, so Power) and compared those two power ratings. You do this here:

Zelyhn.8069:

When you have 30 in arcane (30% boon duration) and 2 superior duration runes (30% more) then you have 60% boons duration, and your attunement recharge is 9.375. The base duration of the might boon from arcane is 15, add 60% to get 24s of might on attunement swap. That gives you 2.56 stacks of might on average, which is about 90 power. Now if you increase your boon duration by an other 10% you get 2.72 might stacks on average: an increase of 5 in power.

Zelyhn.8069:

So you want a grand feast? give me a build for PvE and I’ll tell you how to improve it. Or you could just click on my signature like I told you many times.

This conversation is getting tiring.

I already listed a template and a way for the user (in the original part of this thread) with a build of 0/20/0/30/20 with Soldier/2 Sup Monk, 2 Sup Water, 2 Maj Monk and Knight/Emerald jewelry. You insisted the 2 Major Monk was “sub-optimal” and I contended that you couldn’t prove it was sub-optimal and since then we’ve gone and talked about the merits of 10% boon duration, the extra might/power you gain from it, and the proper way to calculate the might gained. We haven’t even gotten into the merits of 10% boon duration for other Boons like Fury or the Ruby Orb’s crit increases.

Strap in or punch out…cause baby this ride is just gettin started.

Zelyhn.8069:

I am going to say it again and for the last time: small difference (less than one percent) may seem meaningless, but it is the the accumulation of those that make a good build (many small differences make a big difference…). So every single one of them is worth discussing.

You’re giving me potatoes and are telling me it’s all part of some grand feast. Until I have more than potatoes expect me to react as if I have potatoes.

Zelyhn.8069:

My calculation for might stacks are accurate (with some rounding up). If you think otherwise then please show me where I did a mistake.
Your calculations are far from correct. This is because you limited yourself to full stacks, while it is more accurate to use average number of stacks like I did, and this is why you got a lower number.

Your calculations are:

<Boon Duration> / <Skill Recharge> == <Boon Multiplier> * <Number of Boons gained> == <Average Boon Duration>

What they should be is:

<Skill Recharge> / <Boon Duration> == <% Up Time> * <Boon Effect (e.g. Power)> == <Actual Boon Effectiveness over time>

The key is I’m focusing on the actual effect the boons give, which are what we are trying to actually measure. You can tell your numbers are incorrect you when you state:

Zelyhn.8069:

What this number means is that most of the time you will not have 6 stacks like you predicted, but closer to 9 (with occasional 12). The key words are “on average”.

If you gain 3 stacks of a boon lasts 24 seconds, and you can get said boons every 10 seconds, there is at no point in time ever where Sigil of Battle will give you “occasionally 12” because it’s mathematically impossible. The maximum you will ever see is 9 Boons and only for 4 seconds. To see visually:

(These forums suck and messed up my cool graphic…added a manual graphic/picture below)

This is why your math and the way you calculate things is wrong and you should instead use the method I listed. At most you will ever have is 4/10 seconds of 9 Stacks of Might and in the rest of the time you will be at 6 Stacks. That is not an “average of 9 stacks.”

Zelyhn.8069:

So you talk about maintaining 6 stacks if you swap every 12 or 11 seconds. Not only is this vague, but also the attunement swap cd is 9.375 with 30 in arcane so the difference is big.

So lets pause and state that again we’re not talking about 30 Arcane. We’re talking about 20 Arcane with 10% boon duration or 20 Arcane with 2 Ruby Orbs. 20 Arcane has a different cool down period on Attunement Swaps.

If we talk about 30 Arcane then we have to then include the merits of 30 Arcane over 30 Water (which is 1% dmg increase per boon) or 20 Air (which is 100 Precision/10 %Crit Dmg).

Zelyhn.8069:

The percentages of increase I stated are not random. Go on the wiki and look at the direct damage formula, calculate raw damage without the buff/item you want to evaluate, then calculate raw damage with that buff/item, divide, get percentages.

The wiki states:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Every spell has a different coefficient. This means you can not properly calculate out a generic percentage increase without calculating out all the abilities you will use, their respective DPS, add them all together. Do the same with the other gear setup. Then compare to see the percentage increase.

MATHS: This is why no one wants to have a legitimate conversation.

Zelyhn.8069:

Why I am replying to this …

What you need to understand is that making a better build means making a lot of these 0.X% > 0.Y%. An optimized build is just an aggregation of these small improvements. So yes I am discussing them, and rightfully so. And if you play good only to the point where people stop calling you out then you are not a good player, or a player at all. Also, that kind of “looking good” remark is off-topic: the OP is asking for an efficient build, what good is it going to do to him if he only “looks good” while leveling up? I am astonished by your attitude.

I have a practical attitude. Discussing the differences between less than a % of performance are completely nonsensical.

Zelyhn.8069:

I can prove all my statements. I have done so, but then you just criticise my numbers because you do not understand where they come from. Maybe if you only looked at the damage formula on the wiki you would have a clue. Do you expect me to copy paste that formula here or you can find it yourself? If you are not going to do your share of the work then at least show some respect.

You showed your math and how you got your numbers when comparing Ruby Orbs to Major Monks. For that I applaud you.

However I also noticed you do not calculate their benefits correctly as it appeared you were multiplying the number of stacks by duration. This is incorrect especially when talking about Might because multiplying stacks on something that doesn’t stack infinitely (there’s a hard 25 cap) is simply inaccurate. Boons (and Conditions) are all about their up time (duration vs recast) to determine effectiveness. Therefore I “did my share of the work” and provided the math to properly calculate them (even though it ultimately hurt my argument because it resulted in an even lower number).

Furthermore I criticize not your numbers, but your refusal to show the numbers where you start randomly stating percentages of increases. There are lots of damage calculations on the Wiki. If you refuse to even point out or reference which one you talk about then that would be one thing but instead you simply started spitting out numbers at me with no basis what so ever. You can’t possibly expect me to take that seriously especially when you’ve proven you’re capable of trying to show the numbers behind your math.

Zsymon.8457:

I prefer staff as well, but the damage is so bad that staff skills alone do not cut it for
any of the game content. My solution is to use Flame Axe and Lightning Hammer
in a 20/0/0/30/20 build. The 30 in water for defence, healing, condition removal, to
support team mates, the 20 in arcane for faster attunement switching, attunement
bonuses and larger staff area circles (blasting staff).

Conditimentalist

That’s the build I’ve used for around 3 weeks now in SPvP, WvW and PvE. Lotta fun, effective, survivable and flies in the face of everything people consider “mandatory” on an Elementalist. I swap in Fire 11 sometimes when doing groups for perma group Fury and I’m already Might capped due to group buffs.

Zelyhn.8069:

You asked to be proved with numbers that some builds can be better than others, then you say that min-maxing is pointless because you only have to look busy.
Well have fun looking busy! I will not commit any further to this conversation.

My interest in the matter goes as far as to say that there’s really no way for anyone to prove there’s one build that’s better than others because threads like these are always filled with people who come in and poop all over anyone else’s advice that doesn’t match up with the current line of thinking. No one is willing (or usually capable) of proving their point beyond repeating their same assertions as if saying it repeatedly will make them true. I don’t think it’s unreasonable if someone makes an assertion they are also capable of proving that it’s true. If they are unwilling or unable to prove what they’re saying then you can tell they most likely have no idea what they are talking about and just telling someone else what they were told.

That’s what I find a shame about you. You seem like you at least have done some sort of work looking into it but refusing to prove what you’re saying just makes what you said meaningless.

Where my interest dies off is when we get into discussions about whether or not a 0.X% increase from boons is greater than a 0.Y% increase to direct damage because the simple truth is it doesn’t matter and no one will ever be able to call you out on the difference.

Zelyhn.8069:

@Kodiak
You have an odd way of calculating that, you are much more pessimistic than me, but your results make sense.

This is the “proper” way to calculate the values of Boons. Boons are only as good as the duration they last on your character. If you can only maintain one stack of might 50% of the time then that means you’ll effectively have an increase of 35 * 0.5 Power.

Same goes with Fury. If you can keep Fury up 100% of the time that’s a static 20% increase to crit. However if you can only maintain Fury 50% of the time then that’s effectively only a 10% increase to crit.

Where this all gets tricky and overly complicated (and where damage meters really help) is if you do the bulk of your damage while you have your boons up. So if you super charge up with boons (25 Might, Fury) and then blow the majority of your DPS under that duration it will throw all the numbers way off. For example doing a Fire Grab under 25 stacks of Might and Fury is a lot different than say doing a Fire Grab with 9 stacks of Might without Fury.

Zelyhn.8069:

Now, if you gain 15 power from the extra runes, that is 0.5-0.75% increase in damage (depending on your zerker build). If you buff 4 allies at the same time that is an additional 4×0.75=3% increased damage, so your total group output is increased by 3.75%.
Two ruby orbs (40 power 24 preci 4 critdmg) give you between 3.5% and 4.5% increased damage (depending on your build), so it is better on average, and you are less dependent on your group.

The problem I have with this entire section is you have no math associated with these percentages. Why can’t I say that the increase from Orbs is 3% and the increase from Might on 3 targets is 7%? See now my percentages seem higher than yours.

Math = Credibility.

(See what I did there?)

Zelyhn.8069:

As for your last paragraph, come on!

You come on.

Show me the experience in this game where someone has been thrown out of a group for actually doing low DPS? No one can prove it. If I could wave my arms around excitedly with spell effects in hand while running around avoiding AOE’s no one would be any the wiser that I’m doing no damage. After doing literally hundreds of dungeons (and I still haven’t farmed enough for my Legendary…) one of three things will happen if DPS is low:

1. People will just straight up leave.
2. People will just deal with it and stay.
3. People will rely on assumptions/superstition/popular opinion that <insert class> is in the group and therefore is holding the rest of the group back.

The only reason we ever even see threads like this is because a few people (few as in relative to the whole) actually want to contribute and feel helpful and are looking for the best way to do so.

Actually Might calculation is all based on up time which has to be analyzed entirely by source and the ability to recast that source of might.

So lets take your example of Sigil of Battle. This is reusable every 10 seconds. That’s 3 stacks of Might every 10 seconds. With 60% boon duration that’s 24. With 50% that’s 22.5 duration. This means in either scenario we can keep up 6 stacks of Might (210 Power) assuming you switch perfectly every 12 or 11 seconds. Fire Attunement is the same thing each time you swap into Fire Attunement with similar up time.

(As a side note, technically if you did everything perfectly the additional time would lead to additional Might up time which means more effective Power but since no one is that robotically perfect we will skip it. I’m merely noting it to be complete)

However now lets look at something a bit more Complex: a Ring of Fire → Arcane Wave combo. Arcane Wave has a 30 second cool down meaning the AOE Might given it will be 3 stacks lasting for 22.5 or 24 seconds (which is a 75% and 80% up time respectively). This means effectively you’re getting 78.4 Power vs 84 Power (a 5.6 gain). This is the same for Churning Earth.

Yet something more complicated, Ring of Fire → Earthquake. Earthquake has a 45 second cool down menaing AOE Might given will last again for 22.5 or 24 seconds (which is a 50% up time and a 53% up time respectively). This is even worse for 10% boon duration since 50% is 52.5 and 56 (only a 3.5 gain).

This largely accounts for 17 of our stacks with the other 3 (for me) coming from GOEH (which is another 3 stacks but since I don’t believe in just throwing out your heal randomly I won’t count it but it’s a 22.5 and 24 vs 25s recast) for 20 stacks total.

From there we add up all the advantages. The 10% boons netted us a grand total of 14.7 Might in D/D compared to 40 with Ruby Orbs. The final bit of calculation is the number of targets effected which would mean if you only affect yourself and 1 other person, you will do less than Ruby Orbs. However if you affect 3 or more people you would collectively add more Power than Ruby Orbs.

As for your “efficient PvE build” honestly I don’t see the point in min-maxing the game as all this. If I join a group and just look like I’m busy no one will know the difference. I have joined groups as S/D on my Condition spec (30/0/30/10/0) and no one was any the wiser because I was kicking out huge Might stacks and perma Fury to the group (with 0 Boon duration…that new 30 point Fire trait is nutty) but most importantly I looked busy. Without said damage meters perception of how the class performs (as in collectively everyone believes we are high/med/low DPS) trumps actual performance (whether or not we are actually high/med/low DPS) every day of the week.

First off allow me to congratulate and thank you because you’re probably the first person ever to actually try to engage me with numbers instead of just doubling down on your rhetoric.

What I have always wanted is someone to mathematically (as in with hard numbers) prove their point that X build is better than Y build. I do not really care for the very simple, I care for realistic scenarios and situations. What weapons are being used? Utilities? What damage/increase are there to side conditions? Even survivability can have a DPS number assigned to as the old saying goes, “If you’re dead you’re doing 0 DPS.”

While I see your point regarding 10% boon duration seeming suboptimal you’re really undervaluing the real game play scenarios of how many might stacks you will have. When you tally up Might stacking (something very common with either S/D or D/D game play) it’s not unheard of to be at 20 stacks or more. When I run 0/20/0/30/20 I am regularly over 20 (but admittedly it goes up and down) as D/D which is the same base duration as you going 30 Arcane (which got you EA). That means you’re going to give up something, either 10 in Air (where I will get 100 Precision/10% crit, Bolt to the Heart or Zephyr) or I get 30 in Water (where I will get 100 Vitality and 100 healing plus Aura Share). In addition to which it’s 10% for all boons (including defensive ones such as regen, swiftness, vigor and protection) not the least of which is also Fury.

Furthermore things like team composition comes into play. Aura Share doesn’t help at all if you’re grouped up with 4 other Ranged people or you’re sharing Fury with one other dude. If you have a Guardian taking up 15 Might stacks then anything over 10 is wasted. However also if you got 3 melees then if you are equal to 40 power for the gem, you also have to calculate it in x3 for the three people not just the gem which only affects yourself.

Don’t even get me started on Diminishing returns of stats, which aren’t affected by boons

I think we can all agree that going 30/30/0/10/0 in Zerker/Zerker gear is probably the most optimal damage possible. Bringing up the numbers to show that doesn’t negate the reality of game play where you won’t be running full tilt DPS like that. The matter has never been to argue what is the best possible DPS but rather what gives you the most amount of DPS with the bare minimum amount of survivability required and yet is still somewhat user friendly to play. Going on about some high meta level game play/build obviously has no place in a thread to someone just coming back or starting an Elementalist.

Zelyhn.8069:

All my calculations are based on hard numbers that have been confirmed, and the empirical tests validate all my conclusions.
That’s a nice way to say that I am right, and I can prove it any time. Also, I am not the only one! There are plenty of clever people on these forums who have come to the same conclusions … sometimes we disagree on details, but the facts are here.

I do not doubt you are experienced. But when it comes to theory crafting, you are saying a lot of baseless things.
For example: using major monk runes as a third set of duration runes is very suboptimal. Also if you are going for direct damage it is suboptimal to go for zerker-armor/knight-jewelery instead of knight-armor/zerker-jewelery.
Air is the trait line that increases your damage the most, and it does so in an exponential manner, so going from 20 to 30 in air gives more damage than going from 10 to 20. Crit damage is never less of a factor.

I read a lot of jargon but still don’t have the numbers. The “everyone else agrees” argument doesn’t fly with me. You’d think out of that everyone else, one of them would be able to actually prove their point with numbers.

Here’s a perfect example. You say boon duration is sub-optimal, but you fail to present a numerical argument. You state the theory but don’t back it up. The only argument ever presented against Boon duration is that there’s other DPS alternatives that might (again, never proven) be worth more DPS. Never is it actually broken down anywhere what 10% boon duration grants you on the boons we provide and what that translates into DPS compared to say going with 2 Divinity/2 Ruby Orbs and the DPS those add instead.

Exponential in what way? I mean when you’re doing D/D Aura Share you aren’t swapping back into Air constantly like you would with a S/D burst build who is relying on crits from other attunements to abuse the dual instant Lightning Strike for a mass burst of damage. In D/D you’re often times rotating between attunements to rock off cross attunement combos (Fire → Earth specifically) and settling back into Air for your auto attack DPS. With even 20 Arcane you more than have enough time for Air to come off Cool Down after doing the various cross attunement combos so you don’t really make any gains with Air being on cool down.

The one time it would be useful, where you were forced into Water to heal/recover out of Air and your Fire/Earth combos aren’t up, is marginal gains at best and isn’t worth giving up 30 in Water (for Aura Share) or 20 in Arcane (for a variety of reasons).

It’s like you guys theorize, but then ignore practical game play.

TGSlasher.1458:

I have been running something similar for a long time. With my old runes water earth monk you could get the boons to almost 100% with exact changes. Atm I run melendrus due to conditions. I run 20 10 30 0 10 with Scepter Focus. Heal, Air, Water, Earth in pvp and fire instead of water in pvp. The reason you had almost 100% protection (I mean very very close) was due to Airs previous C/D with Fire C/D, gaining ~10 sec off the total c/d of the signet summon. This patch gave me a stun break, but also nerfed my build (I count losing 100% protection a nerf over a lowsie stun break). With Water Monk Earth you get around 50% protection duration, that’s almost 5 sec of protection on each signet + about the same for earth swap.

I do not use condition damage for this build for several reasons: 1. I don’t like getting hit, so I dodge appropriately + use the focus’s defences. 2 I like big numbers (should probably play a different class lol) but when you imob someone into a dragons tooth / phoenix combo then switch to air for a KD and poison (poison on switch attunement) by they time they get up they have blown 1 stun break, and used a crappy heal (or blow a condition removal) and I haven’t even started on the defensive moves (2 sec daze, spell reflect / blast finisher / condition removal, invun – used only when not on point, projectile destroy, heal for half my actual heal lol). If I were to use condition damage it would be Rabids (for toughness) or Rampagers (for crit)

That’s a cool alternative that you made work.

Personally tend to either go with Power with Precision (Crit) with Crit Damage or Power with Condition Damage with Condition Duration. Either build get a source of Toughness and Vitality (such as one from gear, one from spec). Not a huge fan of mixing and matching the two because Crit needs Crit damage to really pop out and Conditions really benefit from Duration.

Neko.9021:

For what it’s worth, if you’re going to do some low-DPS build with lots of points in Water/Arcana, you might as well put 30 in Arcana and take Evasive Arcana for the utility (as well as the better Attunement Recharge rate), OR put 30 points in Air so you get access to Fresh Air. I wouldn’t suggest 0/20/0/30/20. Don’t see the benefit to it.

For what it’s worth Evasive Arcana has become entirely optional since it was nerfed last year and is no longer a blast finisher every time regardless of attunement.

Lining it up for 3 more stacks of Might is novel and all but most of the time you’re going to get Might capped in most groups without it and in many boss fights it’s better to dodge when you need to rather than try to save it to do a blast finisher for a might combo. I find the extra 10 in Air far more valuable for Bolt to the Heart with Zephyr’s for D/D play.

The Attunement management is more than manageable with 20 Arcane and boon Duration (especially with 2 Sup Monk, 2 Sup Water, 2 Major Monk) is enough to keep it all stacked forever.

Zelyhn.8069:

You know, there are plenty of people who have calculated everything, we know what is subpar and what is not from verified information. The mechanics are not so complicated that we need metrics in anyway, yes even for a might combo.
In PvE everything will work, but some things will work terribly while other will do a great job, just like in any mode.

Quick advice: if you are going to take items with crit damage (like zerker) always prioritize the trinkets! As opposed to what you told.
Also never use boon armor!

Read Neko’s guide.

Feel free to link or show the calculated numbers. I’d love to see them.

I’ve been around these forums since the start. Back then a bunch of people vomited out a bunch of assumptions and information on what was good and what was bad. People have repeatedly lapped up that vomit and re-vomited it back out for more people to hear over and over for the last 6 months. None of it has been based on fact or numbers.

I prioritize Emerald jewelry because I want those higher stats in the Jewelry. With 20 in Air the Crit Damage is less of a factor. Personally I tend to run more Zerker/Zerker, Zerker/Zerker when doing Staff play because I’m fairly experienced at the game play and don’t fall over instantly if something looks at me. However that’s not something I go recommending to new people not used to the class.

Polaritie.4851:

The Great Al.2546:

I like signets for a 20/10/10/30/0 build – activating a signet will give you and your party a fire aura, swiftness, fury, and protection. I think it’s a very underutilized support build.

I’ve been kicking around a 30/10/30/0/0 idea as well – permanent burning basically for the +10% from that, plus 10% for stone splinters, constant swiftness/fury from fire aura, etc.

Signets isn’t impossible. Elementalists are pretty good about being able to pick a skill type to build around. What isn’t possible right now is a single-attunement build (there’s not enough traits for one – if water spells were more powerful base, you might be able to do it for that with the vulnerability damage bonus and cooldowns, and I’ve considered a conjure build using attunement buffs since you can switch attunement while conjuring, but… it’s not viable atm)

So I thought about the exact same thing with my 30/0/30/0/0 build where I use Earth/Water/Air Signets.

The problem is the base Boon Duration of Swiftness/Fury from Zephyr isn’t enough that even if you rotated all your signets on cool down (which you don’t want to do) it’d never be enough to keep 100% up time because you have 0% boon duration from Arcane.

In the end I found the 20% cool down on Fire abilities much more useful because I’m almost always in Fire or Earth on this build (and I have 20% cool down on Earth too) coupled with 10 in Water for additional Condition management (can swap to Water to remove a Condition and also use Cleansing Wave for dual condition removal).

All in all I love the build if only because it’s viable in the face of all the claims of what is mandatory for an Elementalist.

Benji.9203:

#signetsactivesareauras

Yuck.

If they made Signets into Auras that would utterly destroy my build. I totally rely on the Immobilize and Chill to wreck people. You could instead petition for that 20 point Fire trait instead of always granting Fire Aura on Signet use to instead grant the Aura of the type with Restoration defaulting to Fire. That would give Fire tree more love.

For PvE just about anything will work. I’ve played a wide variety of builds and they all work in PvE till you get to high end Fractals. By the time you get there you should know what you’re doing.

My most probably used build for PvE in general was a 0/20/0/30/20 build because it works with both Staff and D/D (just swap certain traits). For Staff I used Zerker/Zerker armor with Knight/Emerald Jewelry and for D/D I used PvT/Boon armor with Knight/Emerald Jewelry.

The biggest key is to treat anyone who tells you that X, Y, or Z you come up with is sub par as the enemy. There are zero damage meters in this game and consequently almost no way to compare how well people do or don’t do. A lot of that nonsense is just regurgitated information that’s been spread out but never actually verified with numbers and DPS because again that’s almost impossible to accomplish. How do you compare the DPS of an AOE Might combo to just staying in Fire and DPSing? It’s pretty much impossible and a lot of people make assumptions but never provide any facts or numbers to back it up (or provide some of the facts but never the complete scenario).

Start with something basic (like a 0/20/0/30/20 build) and then branch out from there based on what you think is fun. Don’t be afraid to try new stuff and certainly don’t listen to people who tell you that something isn’t viable because you can be guaranteed they have zero proof (as in actual numbers) to back it up.

Navzar.2938:

If you’re going to talk about a build, please talk about the capabilities of the base build or at least make it clear food buffs are essential. Counting food buffs without specifying food buffs is kind of misleading. The main reason being you can’t use food buffs everywhere.

Kodiak.3281:

Signet of Earth comes with a massive 5 second Immobilize (4s without food). That’s enough to land anything you want in the game. Signet of Water also has around a 7 second Chill (6s without food). That’s a lot of Chill to instantly put on an opponent and often times can be used to catch up or use it to get them to use their condition clear before you use Signet of Earth. Signet of Air is awesome as a Stun Break and it was one of the biggest things lacking pre-patch. All of these are on short 30 second cool downs giving you a lot of CC on demand.

You should probably actually read what people write before attempting to correct them.

Asurmir.7956:

Kodiak, while I do not agree with Aether’s attitude, he (or she) has a point.

In pve, any build (or most builds) are possible because the stats on armor, accessories, and equipment makes up the difference. So, while you’ve found a build that works in that environment, I’m afraid it is nothing to be proud of or boast about.

PvE is an environment where the skill floor is set really low. And really, that says more about the content than it does the players.

Well let me start out by saying no one around here ever specifies anything. They never mention PvP, WvW or PvE or even the various sub categories of each. A lot of people just start spouting off an opinion but never preface it that they’re talking about. Then a few posts later they then say they’re talking about WvW. Then a few posts later they then say they’re specifically talking only about GvG WvW and not Zerg WvW or Solo Roam WvW.

Actually from a PvE perspective conditions are extremely bad because any kind of group activity basically renders them useless. I mean I look at my Mesmer, Engineer or Necromancer all of which regardless of spec generates a stupid amount of conditions whether I want them (such as with the Necro) to or not (such as with the Mesmer). My Mesmer can take up 10/25 bleed slots with zero condition damage from Sharper Images alone. This speaks nothing of Burning and how a Guardian just passively makes everyone burn stuff which without Condition damage is just wasting the time of the people who do have good burn damage. The only saving grace of my build from this perspective is that if there are a lot of Condition appliers in the group I can fall back on my high amount of Power.

Personally I primarily play WvW. I play in Zerg WvW and Solo Roam WvW. I mostly speak from those perspectives. In these scenarios I have zero issues with my build either in terms of damage or survivability.

I pretty much almost never do SPvP because I am not a fan of battlegrounds. I think I have done a grand total of three PvP matches on my current Elementalist and I did a bunch when the game came out on my old elementalist back in beginning of the game as a Staff/EA Elementalist. That said, I don’t think my build is entirely terrible:

I don’t exactly just fall over dead and I certainly am not useless or get zero kills. This is because I use the Signets to my advantage to land our hard hitting attacks that most people assume are useless since they are ground targeted. I also abuse the hell out of Condition duration/damage and get some pretty good results.

Again, I’m not the one complaining about having issues. All in all my experience is pretty good.

Aether McLoud.1975:

I feel sad for your non-existent pvp skills.
What a miserable experience you must have in this game.

So it’s your assertion that I have no PvP skills yet I’m able to pull it off and make it work.

What does that say about you who are coming here to the forums complaining about how it doesn’t work?

:o

Aether McLoud.1975:

I’m saying everything is viable in pve. Also using 30 fire in pvp isn’t viable. at. all. Not even 10 fire is. So you will never have more than 3.3 seconds immobilize in PVP. And that’s what should be balanced around. Not some mode where your level and equipment counts more than your build or skill.

I feel sad for you and your limited view point.

What a miserable experience you must have in this game.

Aether McLoud.1975:

That’s not achievable in pvp.

Wait…wait…wait…Lemme get this straight. Are you saying some builds and some ways to play a character excel in certain areas in the game and not others? Gasp and or shocked expression.

More over, as I commented in the post without food the base durations are 4s and 6s without Food. This is done in PvP with my build (30/0/30/10/0) and 2/6 Superior Lyssa and 4/6 Superior Nightmare for +50% duration.

I’d go in and record videos of me in SPvP and how I do but since I have little interest in SPvP I likely will never get into Tournament and hot join is usually considered “meaningless” for most people. Lets just say from the few experiences I have had, a 4s Immobilize or 6s Chill is pretty kitten strong.