Guild Wars 2

They unnerfed the Signet of Restoration, and removed the hidden CD on Cleansing Water.

It makes eles pretty good at clearing conditions compared to most classes. It goes a long way to make us more viable, especially given the current strong condi-meta

No. I’ve seen many successful S/D players in sPvP since the patch.

I personally really love using Aquatic Benevolence with S/D… but that might be thinking ‘outside the box’ at present.

Fresh Air is still strong. Water Trident got a buff.

So we’ve all had a chance to get some experience with the new GrandMaster traits. So let’s start a poll here… How would you rate the Grandmaster Traits against each other? Taking all things into consideration (alternative GM traits, Trait Tree, meta builds, etc)

Example:

My list is as follows, in descending order from Best to Worst:

1. Lightning Rod
2. Aquatic Benevolence
3. Stone Heart
4. Blinding Ashes
5. Elemental Contingency

Bonus Question

Of all the new GM traits, do you use any of them in your ‘Go-To’ build, and why?

I take solo Q more seriously than I take Team Q.

The reason for that is because solo Q is a far more accurate representation of how well you are improving.

Disclaimer: It is NOT an accurate representation of how you compare to the other players on the board, make no mistake there.

But in Solo Q you are the only constant. You will get 4v5s, and you will get noob teams. But so does everyone else. So it’s fair to assume that it is balanced in that regard (law of averages).

So over the course of 100 games, you are more likely to see yourself improve in rating if you are doing well. You will see yourself slide if you are not doing well.

Team Q adds many other constants. You could be improving very well, but your team could be quite weak. A single teammate may be quite weak. You have no way of knowing. So your personal rating in tPvP means less.

My $0.02

Confirming that s/d is not an ideal condi weapon set.

Lingering elements only affects the minor traits (first point into each tree). I do not think it has any other effect.

Dee Jay.2460:

You don’t outplay condition spam, you endure it and hope your class-mechanics are good enough to keep up. If not, you die.

I could not have put this more eloquently. Thank you.

Or is it just me?

I’ve been playing Elementalist with 9x condi clears and I still find myself getting inundated with condis.

Is it just me or is there a considerably higher amount of viable condi builds out there post-patch?

Just pulling a number out of my butt here… but it seems like about 70% of all players are fielding condi builds.

This has been my most-used build since the patch:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMac25wwBd0ANAG5jQN4HIeCEAihleCA-TJBFwAOeAAl2fAaZAAnAAA

D/D has some great uses with lightning rod since you can potentially get 3x interrupts, and a weakness from #2 Air.

Aeromancer’s alacrity really helps with those cooldowns too and makes it more feasible to land multiple interrupts in a fight.

I read through some of the replies here, but not all of them. So bear with me if this is already mentioned.

Aquatic Benevolence works amazingly with directly applied heals as well. Blast finisher are great, but I found it hard to land them on my allies when they really needed it (a lot of times they’re squirrelling away).

I tried it on S/D – and it’s incredible.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhcMac25wwBd0AOAG5iwQYGKOCEA6gluCA-TJBFwAHeAAK3fAaZAAnAAA

You do decent DPS, and your direct heals (Water Attunement, Water Trident, Cleansing Wave) all heal allies for ~2500 EACH. And there’s still the heal which comes from your on-hit sigil.

The condi clear is a little weak compared to some builds. But it has good applications in tPvP.

Hey guys. These are some great discussions. Be advised that I will add the builds to the post ASAP. I’m currently on vacation so my access to a proper computer is quite limited. But I will add them when I get the chance. Thanks!

amaranthined.5167:

…

Staff ele roaming can be fun with a good thief. But my guild’s thiefs would rather have a S/D or D/D. They see a staff and they just think “easy target”

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Nice vid bud. All I could think about during that fight with the warrior that started around 6 mins in was man that warrior is awful and you still have had to work your butt off to kill him.

Haha, yeah I know what you mean. Warriors give me the hardest time lately because that Sigil can give them enough passive regen to heal through your sustained dps, and their Health pool is too large to burst down.

Fortunately, with the help of magnetic aura, he helped me overcome it

Thanks for watching!

Reality.9256:

Greetings,

I just wanted to say that the video was amazing. With a Staff Elementalist as my main, I want to say that you have actually have inspired me to try out using Staff on my elementalist instead of switching to D/D everytime when I want to duel.

I usually do solo roam as a Staff Elementalist in WvW but I usually never end up killing my opponent because of the lack of damage with my 0-10-0-30-30 with 3 Cantrips. I am definitely going to try out using more Arcane utilities later today when I get home.

Maybe I will see you around in OS sometime this week or future matchups!

Haha, unlikely as I’m on vacation right now, but when I get back you can always hit me up for a duel

And I know what you mean. The 10/30/30 build is the requirement for my guild’s GvG. I really hate it, but it’s hard to argue with results

Thanks for watching!

WilnerGW.3275:

Hey, nice vídeo! I loved Staff Ele since 1st time i played it!

And its nice to see a skilled player playing it! Grats!

Thanks for the high praise. I’m glad you enjoyed it

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Will the runeset in PvE/WvW be nerfed? or will it just have another version added for S/TPvP? I wonder if the duration bug will even get fixed…

Im pretty sure all the runes will be the same across all aspects of the game. Not just perplexity. So I suspect these changes will also affect PvE and WvW.

It will be a nerfed version of the existing perplexity runeset. Consensus seems to be that it will still be very powerful, but all in moderation.

For the lazy:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

I wanted to come in here and clear a few things up. We wanted to add this runeset because it will open up a lot of builds increasing build diversity. Keep in mind we will be adding more options over time to PvP, which currently are not available. We know perplexity is a touchy subject but it has been substantially nerfed. I’ll run through the changes with you guys so you can better understand what is different.

Currently Live: Superior Rune of Perplexity
(1) +28 Condition Damage
(2) 15% Confusion Duration
(3) +55 Condition Damage
(4) 20% chance to cause 3 stacks of confusions for 5s on hit. 15 ICD
(5) +100 Condition Damage
(6) +15% Confusion duration; Causes 5 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds on interrupt. 8s ICD

New Version: Superior Rune of Perplexity
(1) +25 Condition Damage
(2) 10% Confusion Duration
(3) +50 Condition Damage
(4)) 25% chance when struck to inflict 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds. 25s ICD
(5) +100 Condition Damage
(6) +20% confusion duration; when you interrupt a foe, cause 5 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. 15s ICD.

Now here are the changes bonus by bonus
(1) -3 Condition Damage
(2) -5% Confusion Duration
(3) -5 Condition Damage
(4) +5% trigger chance, +10s ICD, changed the trigger from on hit to when you are struck
(5) no change
(6) +5% Confusion Duration, -2s confusion duration, +7s ICD

Granted a few of these changes were done for consistency to align with the entire rune balance pass such as pushing larger boosts towards the later bonuses, but the 4-piece and the 6-piece bonuses are the main areas to look at.

The 4-piece bonus which is changing from an offensive on hit trigger to a when struck trigger will make it much less offensive and controllable in many situations, especially larger team fights. This means it will be harder to ‘spike’ all of the confusion on one target. The ICD of the 4-piece also had 10 seconds added to it which is about a 66% increase in ICD.

The 6-piece bonus is going to have it’s confusion duration decreased by 20%. It also had around a 90% increase in ICD for the trigger as well.

While we do think this runeset is still good, we feel it is in a much better spot after a lot of internal playtesting and when comparing what other sets will now offer.There is a lot that is changing in this build and a lot of different pieces that intertwine together. I want to reiterate that every single runeset in the game has been changed and brought more in line with each other.

Perplexity is getting added to sPvP.

I can also foresee an interrupt Ele build being put into the works now with the lightning GM trait.

D/D eles will get 3x methods of interrupt… with perplexity being applied on interrupt, as well as weakness, as well as damage…

It’s gonna be mean.

Simple question, because I thought it was unclear in the ready up.

Are the existing items in our locker going to be deleted? Or added to the skins wardrobe in the feature patch?

Thanks.

what about a perplexity rune that is nerfed? I think that sounds like the more likely scenario

I think most of the people on this forum would agree—ele is fun.

I think the general sentiment is that we would also like it to be rewarding. Whereas now, at least in sPvP—you’re basically treated like a Street Rat in Agrabah just for trying.

But one day, the devs will give us our genie

That’s a good question. I would assume that it is a different ICD for every attunement, otherwise the trait is completely worthless.

cheese.4739:

…

Glyphs definitely need some work.

I don’t see a practical use for them outside of Glyph of Renewal (and even that’s quite a stretch since the cast time is so long).

I don’t think we’ll see glyph changes this time around though. In fact, aside from Armor of Earth, I don’t think the utilities are going to get touched at all, which makes sense.

Some of the utilities which were otherwise unusable, are workable now… Anet will need to wait and see what people do with them.

I made a post which I think has some pretty good suggestions:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Theorycrafting-the-Next-Ele-Meta-Builds/first#post3805691

Lurock Turoth.9085:

…

Save your invuln for when you want to switch out of earth

You could cycle through all your good skills before it runs out and it’ll only leave them with a 3 second window before you’re ready to switch back into earth.

Dear lord, people are going to QQ…….. I really hope they play tested this thoroughly enough to know this isn’t going to happen.

That, or I really hope it does happen. It’s going to be so much fun drinking those tears about conjures…………

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Liewec.2896:

crit immune conjurer could be a pretty awesome pvp build,
you heard it here first :P

It sounds absurd… but I can almost hear the crying already:

“ZERO SKILL ELE…. L2P YOUR CLASS, STOP USING 1-BUTTON CONJURES.”

It won’t ever be like that. We need Utilities for defensive skills. Combine that with the limited uses and boom, once that is gone – then what?

You can get more uses in the fire tree!
Blazing retreat on flame axe!

What’s not to love!

Liewec.2896:

crit immune conjurer could be a pretty awesome pvp build,
you heard it here first :P

It sounds absurd… but I can almost hear the crying already:

“ZERO SKILL ELE…. L2P YOUR CLASS, STOP USING 1-BUTTON CONJURES.”

Lurock Turoth.9085:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I am loathed to try anything with 0 pts arcane.

I personally have been running 20/20/0/30/0 for a couple months with great results. I get a decent amount of survivability vs power or condi while dealing some pretty devastating damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAoYhUMacW5wzBf0AA5hLnwSQBBGIUYRDA-zkyAYrASQAICgJvioxWMLiGrqBTZKkqfhUxwujhsSKARFGB-w

This looks like it would really shut down a lot of condi builds. I like it. I think I might drop 5 pts in air for 5 pts in arcane for the fury on swap though… but it seems like it could be a legitimate hard-counter to condi builds especially after they take off the ICD on cleansing water. And I’m no longer a fan of the minor fire trait… but it can’t be helped to get that second Cleansing Fire (and the cantrip mastery affects that one too… Condi necros, I bite my thumb at thee!)

But I think without any source of protection you’re a sitting duck for most classes on power builds (IE Thieves)

Bas.7406:

Krazy, been trying to catch you via PM. On the notes of elementalists, I think anytime you can’t completely avoid a single tree and it not feel clunky something needs to be done. This is the problem with Elementalists you have to put points in the Arcana tree to make the profession feel less clunky and more smooth.

I tend to agree. I remember reading a suggestion post somewhere that they should all eles should get the effect of Elemental attunement as a base—but only affects the ele, not party members.

The trait would convert this skill to affect party members. I think that’s a pretty kitten good idea and would have gone a long way toward balancing out eles, and fixing a simple problem of a trait that’s been too strong for too long.

But oh well. We have other means of getting protection and regen so I can’t say it’s a staple.

mcarswell.3768:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I am, so far, wholly disappointed with the new traits and how they will relate to staff. Besides making staff ele a pure healbot—I don’t see much viability for them in the future given these traits.

As it stands with what we know—I think the only viable staff ele build is going to be 0/0/30/30/10 with pure +healing. This just basically makes us a bunker.

But there are still unannounced details about the balance coming out, so who knows.

Krazy, i’m quoting you from another thread but wanted to post in this one since i think it’s more appropriate. I was inspired by your use of Elemental Surge and have been having a lot of fun learning new combos with it.

What do you think about a 30/0/0/10/30 staff build using blinding ashes and ES?

That’s a darned good suggestion, and I think it’s definitely worth a try. I think the main weakness with blinding ash (for staff) is that you can’t burn people outside of fire attunement. Even ES needs you to be attuned to fire to apply burning.

So for 3/4 of your total rotation, you won’t get any use out of Blinding Ashes. At least not with an arcane build. Other weapon sets can consistently apply burning every 5 seconds, so i think they will get more out of a build like this than staff will.

A Sigil build with Fire’s Embrace (VIII Fire) and Elemental Shielding (V earth) might work with this. But the counter-argument here is that a full-sigil build is likely more viable on D/F or S/F or S/D.

Overall I like your build, I think its got potential. But persisting flames might be a better choice for this build since you’ll be able to grant yourself and your team permanent fury which I think will amount to more than a blind every 10-13 seconds (when fire attunement comes up).

Everything that follows is highly speculative based on the limited information provided so far but going through the other GM traits—I feel as though staff really got the shaft (hehe… pun). These GM traits seem largely focused toward dagger/scepter.

Blinding Ashes is not great for staff because of the reasons states above. Staff has limited access to burns outside of Fire Attunement. Other weapons could make use of traits like Burning Precision (V Fire), but staff attacks so slowly (and unreliably) that an occassional blind from critical damage will just be a nice effect… not really skillfully applied.

Lightning Rod seems like there might be some value here. We have a few interrupts, but they’re unreliable because it requires enemies to move into them. It could work, though. But I feel that the benefits of Elemental Surge far outweigh the benefits of lightning Rod. The only alternative, at that conclusion, is to run both. 0/30/0/10/30 might be worth a look in to. But you’ll have exactly 0 condi cleanse—and even cleansing water isn’t truly enough.

Stone Heart has a lot of potential. But it’s main failing comes from being stuck in earth. I can see this working with great synergy with Flame Axe or another conjure which would allow you to linger in earth just a little longer on your rotation—but the trait in itself will not win you fights. A good player will hold their burst back until you swap out of earth.

I think there is a lot of potential with stone heart – but almost every spec that I can come up with ends up being entirely too bunker-like for my taste. If that’s your game, though, I think bunker ele has established some serious viability in conjunction with the next trait:

Aquatic Benevolence in combination with Stone Heart is a pretty obvious combo. 0/0/30/30/10 seems a very tough bunker build to break. And in a team fight—the enemy team is going to want to focus you down or face huge healing to your teammates. I can see this trait getting a lot of use with the right build. It will be unique to the ele class and I think a lot of players may find this particular build quite rewarding.

Elemental Contingency is basically Elemental Attunement. It’s pretty cool, but it doesn’t offer any change to the way you play…. it just tweaks you a little more. I can never see myself running this over Elemental Surge. Elemental Attunement is enough.

wolfer.1587:

Written in Stone signet ele is a very durable build that I have run before. The build could potentially be very buffed thanks to the new grandmaster fire trait, depending on how exactly it works. Why? Because you have nearly 100% uptime on the fire aura, which applies burning when you are hit. Anyone trying to fight you has to deal with getting blinded every five seconds, and there’s no dodging or outplaying they can do about it.

Signets and other aura skills give you protection, fury, and swiftness on use. Written in Stone plus Signet of Restoration is a great combination, as you can use the active heal and still keep the on-cast heal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAoYhcMKb23wuBf0AQ4BBIAw4hIgQiowDA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w

It’s pretty weak to conditions compared to 30 water 30 arcane tanky D/D elementalists. I find moderate condition pressure to not be a problem, but condition necros and the like are a bit brutal. You can always quick-swap to Diamond Skin and include some extra vitality on your gear, though.

Still, it’s a fun build and is a good variety from the standard cantrip setup. A good fit for Celestial gear as you make great use of every stat.

I am loathed to try anything with 0 pts arcane. It just feels dirty to me. But the strength of these new GM traits may be enough reason to put 2 traitlines to 30 which is going to make a lot of people want to leave arcane empty. So I won’t judge this build based on my own prejudice.

I also think the survivability is going to be quite weak without any regen.

But I’m curious how other people feel about it.

Added to the main post.

You know what ‘Glass Cannon’ means, right?

A thief will literally two shot an ele that is making that happen.

I adjusted the original post to make it more legible.

I added suggestions from Cheese and Rudy (I can’t add posts that don’t have links to builds… would be too frustrating).

This is a reminder that this thread is predominantly for what you think the meta will be. We’re not looking for highly experimental builds.

If you think a build posted here should be brought up to the main post, let me know.

If you think a build on the main post should be brought down, let me know.

The idea is to bring discussion about the many traits—and the pros and cons of choosing one over the other in a highly theoretical sense.

Kyon.9735:

Exactly. There are people locked into the mindset that you’re required to have 30 points in Arcana if you’re playing DD. EA is good but it’s not a necessity. You will just need 20 points in Arcana at most if you can balance your build well. I’ve even tried builds with 0/10 points Arcana for fun.

I’ve found it incredibly difficult to run a build that doesn’t have elemental attunement. But maybe it’s just me.

I am, so far, wholly disappointed with the new traits and how they will relate to staff. Besides making staff ele a pure healbot—I don’t see much viability for them in the future given these traits.

As it stands with what we know—I think the only viable staff ele build is going to be 0/0/30/30/10 with pure +healing. This just basically makes us a bunker.

But there are still unannounced details about the balance coming out, so who knows.

Falassion.8031:

With this set you are gonna lose evasive arcana …

Yes you will. But you’ll gain more critical damage, more critical chance in place of boon duration (Rune is getting nerfed) and attunement swap speed (already nerfed) on top of the new GM trait in air which is strong for D/D.

All for EA? I think the choice is obvious now.

The ‘meta’ for most GvG guilds with staff is 0/10/0/30/30.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWhMMqc25wwBr0AA5hLvwiogFlH7MjNA

Gear varies greatly from guild to guild.

I agree, there is some synergy for stone heart and conjured weapons. But it still seems like a huge waste to give up on 3/4 attunements and your utility slots just to make use of one trait.

It’s still a powerful trait, no doubt. So it will be interesting to see. But I won’t be calling in the nerfbat anytime soon. I strongly suspect this one will go the way of Diamond Skin and be used only for very specific purposes.

I dont think Stone Heart is going to be worth while for the most part (unless you’re going full condi build anyways).

As has been mentioned… Thieves will just wait for you to switch out of earth, and then burst you down—rendering the trait useless.

The only reason to take it would be if you planned to sit in earth for an extended period. There aren’t a lot of reasons I can see an ele wanting to do that unless you’re just running away.

Placeholder. - Please ignore -

This thread is for sPvP tournament builds. Please post your own suggestions and I will add them to the list if they pass scrutiny by the community. I will also remove builds currently posted if they are discredited.

Disclaimer:

These builds don’t have any gear/runes applied due to obvious impending changes. So this is just trait-lines and utility builds.

Dagger/Dagger Builds

(0/30/0/20/20)

(0/10/0/30/30)

(30/10/0/0/30) submitted by Rudy.6184

(30/10/30/0/0) submitted by wolfer.1587

Dagger/Focus

(30/0/30/0/10)

Scepter/Dagger

(0/30/0/30/10)

Staff

(0/0/30/30/10) Submitted by Cheese.4739

Scepter/Focus

Scepter/Focus (0/30/0/30/10)

I think the new D/D ele is going to be fine.

0/30/0/20/20

Cantrip build (as usual) but with cleansing fire to make up for the loss of cleansing water.

Interrupts causing weakness to your opponent will be a huge boon. Updraft, earthquake and lightning aura will cause weakness.

Furthermore, if they put some variation of Runes of Perplexity into sPvP, you can cause confusion on interrupt….

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

FrownyClown.8402:

You can heal enough to heal the entire party to full health twice. Give yourself perma protection and get an organized group, and conditions won’t do much good.

Nah just thinking about what Powerr said about elepocalypse and something about Staff… but saw nothing regarding Staves…

They said they were going to give us something that would shake up the condi meta.
And they said they were going to give us something for staffs…

I see nothing here for either of those things.

ThiBash.5634:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

However, strictly in my opinion, I feel that every player in a tournament needs to be able to win a 1v1 fight to be considered a viable build.

But what if you lose every 1v1, but win every 2v2? There’s also such a thing as ‘greater than the sum of the parts’. And if there’s anything that applies to that, it’s combo fields. The more people with finishers you have around, the stronger your combo fields (and to a lesser degree, AoE skills) get.

I completely understand. As I stated, it’s strictly in my opinion. A prime example to support your argument might be that a full-glass staff ele could wreck a group of 5 players in a 3v5 given the right circumstances… where it would die miserably in a 1v1.

But I think that’s a flaw in the game’s current design. I think that the only true support is through pure, raw, DPS. You support your team by killing your opponent.

Again, strictly in my opinion, the fields you lay down… or the buffs you provide to your teammates will never amount to the value of a player that can simply down an opponent reliably.

If you’re in a 2v2 with a thief—and all you’re doing is buffing your thief…. that thief must be able to kill 2 people on his own or else your build is only hindering your game. And I don’t think the buffs in this game are powerful enough to make that happen.

If I was that thief, i’d wish you were another thief instead. But again… this is just my opinion.

ThiBash.5634:

Arcane Lightning doesn’t add 10% damage though, even if you crit 100% of the time. It adds 10% critical damage, which means:

At 0 critical damage:
-Your critical damage goes up from 150% to 160%.’
-160/150=1.07
-Multiplied by 100% that gives you 107%, or rather +7% damage.

At 50 critical damage:
-Your critical damage goes up from 200% to 210%.’
-210/200=1.05
-Multiplied by 100% that gives you 105%, or rather +5% damage.

And that’s only if you crit every time. If you crit less, it’ll add even less overall dps. On the other hand, a surefire way to make good use of Air Training is to swap to Air and then use your Arcane Skills.

Right, but you only get +10% damage in air 1/4 of the time assuming equal amounts of attunement swapping… and you don’t want to use arcanes in air because the condi applied is only blind (unless that’s what you wanted in which case go for it!)

Overall, I don’t see a problem with either trait based on preference. I prefer +10% damage in air because coupled with Bolt to the Heart, you get 30% more damage when they’re below 1/3 health.

This turns the autoattack into something that doesn’t suck (it crits for 1.9k for me in WvW)—and it hits every time as opposed to fireball so when they’re running away at 5% health you can actually kill them.

Skyre Fawn.7986:

Wow, you are crazy good with timing your arcane blasts, and your heals with your water and firefields! I for one love using Arcane Brilliance and Blast myself when running s/d as well as arcane shield, though I dont have the convenience of casting my own water fields xD The arcane utilities are definitely great help to sustain in my opinion.
My question though is how does this build compare when you run into 2v2’s, 1v2’s, etc. where you are basically getting focused with crowd control seeing as arcane shield seems to be the only legit stun breaker. I’ve experienced firsthand the pain of arcane shield being on cooldown when I get stunned 3 times in a row :P

Those water fields are the main reason I wanted to make an arcane staff build, so I know you know where I’m coming from. I had all those blast finishers and nothing solid to blast… so…

In answer to your question:

1v1 is possible, but should be avoided against some classes
2v2 is optimal for this build.
3v3 is good too, but not great.
4v4+ I found is too much. In these cases I tend to sit on the edge of a fight casting, and then kiting away for a 1v1 with whoever comes for me.

I say that 2v2/3v3 is probably best for this build because

A) You dont do a lot of damage.
B) You have a load of CC.

So really… you can pin someone to the floor pretty effectively in a fight. Having 1 other person there to deal damage to that person will give you the most use of your skills.

In tPvP, you can call out “CC!!” whenever you’re setting up a combo and you’d be amazed how fast your team can tear down the marked target.

But there are diminishing returns because your CC is your primary defence. If they’re overwhelming your CC with numbers/boons (like stab) then you’re dead. Your only ‘out’ is burning retreat which is insufficient against cripple/chill

amaranthined.5167:

I meant to comment on this when you first posted it, but I figured I’d wait until I actually gave it a test run myself. Now that I have, I can say it’s been a lot of fun running this in PvP and actually being able to 1v1 people for caps somewhat dependably (or at least being able to bunker long enough to call for help when I need to, haha)

Staff has been my favorite weapon for a long time and it’s nice to see a build for it that’s not support or zerker. I usually get some good fights while roaming but your video was pretty inspiring.

I’m impressed that so many people are finding great success with this build so quickly. It took me a long time to finally figure out how to play Staff ele – but then I know I’m not the best (or even close to it) :P

I’m glad you found something useful here, and thanks for watching!

This has little/no application in wvw or spvp.

PvE trait. I really hope this wasn’t part of the ‘counter-condi meta’ we were promised. Because it really doesn’t do any of those things.

On the plus side—it’s just a lackluster water trait. If it was strong i might have been more upset given that 30 water is pretty much a given in its current state… another strong grandmaster trait for water would just be silly

FrownyClown.8402:

Its not that great outside 1v1

True. There are some applications, but not many.

However, strictly in my opinion, I feel that every player in a tournament needs to be able to win a 1v1 fight to be considered a viable build.

I hear the word ‘Support’ thrown around a lot, especially on the ele forums. My issue with ‘support’ is that you’ll never be able to support a teammate enough to make him capable of winning a 2v1 fight.

So if your teammate is getting double teamed on a point, and you rush in to help… and you are built entirely around ‘support’, then you had best be able to boost him enough to win that 2v1. Otherwise, you would have been better off just going straight DPS.

This is the only reason the Zerker staff works out so well. But it has other weaknesses which I wasn’t happy with