Guild Wars 2

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Retaliation Will kill you if you Scale your Base damage too high as it Redirects damage to you on a % of damage delt,

I’m sorry, but that’s not entirely true. Yes, Retaliation may kill you (if you’re unlucky/not careful enough). But it doesn’t make any difference if you hit each opponent for 5k total damage or if you hit each opponent for 500 total damage. Retaliation scales with the power-stat of the player you are hitting; not with your own power or the damage you’re dealing.

Darksun.1054:

No zerker gear equipped during the screen shots. 100% Valk/Cav gear with sigil of intelgence. 2.8k toughness and over 22k hp

Maybe that’s why I’ve recently encountered quite a few Warriors who’ve hit me (currently running a glassy Mesmer shatter-build) for at least 1k-2,5k with every single attack (even autoattacks), while a full 4clone-shatter of me would maybe do like 1k dmg each clone on them. And I mean… even if I WOULD have gotten them low somehow without dying myself… they’d still have those stances and stuff.

Gokil.2543:

Skills that scale well will require something between 1000-2000 healing power to double.

Skills that scale moderately well are between 2000-5000.

I’m not sure if you realize that even reaching 3000 is (almost?; too lazy to do the math right now) to reach, right? Not even with runes, healing as major stat on everything and full healing power stacks from a stacking sigil (I’m actually not 100% sure if that even exists and I don’t care enough to check that right now). Calling that “scaling moderately well” is just… a weird understanding of the word “well”. Even 2k healing power already requires heavy investment stat-wise, which would in most cases help you much more if it was spent in other stats. Unless you are playing a pure heal/support (and support isn’t really affected by healing power at all) char.

Purple Miku.7032:

-For nourishment, the absolute best possible food that an elementalist can benefit from is Plate of Truffle Steak. If you’re looking to have a cheaper alternative, get Minotaur Steaks.

What about Plate of Steak and Asparagus? Would cost around the same as Minotaur Steaks, but offer better stats than those. 80 power and 60 precision add quite a bit more dps than 60 precision and 50 ferocity.

Shinoobi.1259:

Vitality. You got no condi clear as zerker unless you go for mender’s purity and use mantra heal.

Since when does your gear dictate your utilities? Can’t you take some condi-removal if you’re using zerker-gear? Oh, and this trait works with all healing skills… it’s just that the mantra can trigger it with the highest frequency. However, most zerker-builds either don’t go into Inspiration (WvW), or they take other traits (PvE). An exception might be PvP-phantasm builds, which might chose to use this trait.

Let me just say that I’ve encountered quite a few warriors recently who only take like 1k damage from each clone shattered, while at the same time they hit me for over 1k with autotattacks and 3-5k with other attacks.

Warriors have…

High defense.
High damage.
High mobility.
Lots of CC.
Lots of condi-cleanse.

And sometimes all (or most) of that in one build.

I mean, there ARE bad warriors. But if you encounter a properly built one who knows how to play, you WILL eventually get completely destroyed without even being able to scratch them yourself. I mean, Thieves stealth… can be super-annoying. Yet, I know if I manage to hit them hard| once or twice, they are in deep trouble. Warriors don’t need to stealth. They just shrug the damage off like it would barely tickle them. And even IF they get a bit “low” at some point (for a warrior, “low” means around 50% HP), there are stances that let them take no damage long enough to heal back up to full HP or at least almost full HP.

Edit: Had to insert a | because the words “hard” and “once” want to become kitten.

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

RlyOsim.2497:

you need traveler runes.

With a (Necro) condi-build? Seriously?

mobility is a thing

^
I use speed runes personally and still have more than enough condition pressure to be scary. If you’re solo roaming, speed is very, very important. And if you don’t have access to swiftness or you aren’t using Signet Of The Locust, you better get some runes.

I was just going to say that if you need the speed from runes so badly on a condi-build, you’d be better off taking speed runes, especially on Necro. Because you know… Condi-Necro weapons scale very bad with power and ferocity. You don’t get much condition-damage. You also don’t need the boon-duration on Necro. And the 10% condi-duration… well, it’s not worth enough to justify the tons of gold that those runes cost. The vitality from the runes of speed is much more helpful (also, the swiftness on being struck), and the increased swiftness-duration is nice if you’re using spectral walk.

i would disagree, the extra might duration is a lot more beneficial than the speed rune bonuses. to each their own.

So you are saying Might stacks lasting 1-2 seconds longer justifies paying 52 gold for a runeset that gives inferior stats otherwise? With a runeset (20 gold) that gives better stats and does give you even more speed than travelers (and speed was the actual reason why travelers were suggested) being available?

arguing on the internet is cool and im clearly wrong so lets go.

this build is an offensive build. the extra condi and boon duration plus the additional stats provided by traveler runes greatly outweighs any positive aspect of the speed runes. the last i heard vitality was not an offensive stat. “but hurr durr, youll live longer”, then buy dire and equip a warhorn/use a different build. the build listed by the op has no access to swiftness, this negates a large part of the speed runes. also, 30g difference for a rune set is definitely not an issue, #casualproblems.

as i said, to each their own, if someone wants to run speed runes and they are happy with it go nuts! i like traveler runes.

Replace Well of Suffering (I can only guess it’s meant to cover bleeds with vulnerability?) with Spectral Walk. The result will be a quite high swiftness uptime, 25% moving speed otherwise and of course a stunbreak and some kind of an in-combat teleport. Or, if you do want it offensive… use Nightmare Runes and slot the Locust signet instead of WoS. You’ll get even more condi-duration, way more condi-damage, a nice fear-proc, 25% movement-speed and due to traits some additional might-stacks if you want to temporarily increase the pressure at cost of the movement speed.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Celestial scales better than Knight or Soldier DPS-wise and offers comparable survivability. Of the four possible “defensive DPS” sets:

Zealot is highest DPS but gives the smallest boost to survivability overall.
Celestial is second-best DPS (since it scales best with buffs) and very high overall defense.
Knight is highest sustain (best damage reduction, which equates to more healing effectiveness) but lowest effective health pool.
Soldiers is highest health pool but worst overall DPS and worst sustain.

What you’re forgetting here is a mix of zerkers/soldiers/knights/maybesomeother. I’d always rate that higher dps-wise than celestial, and at least equal in survivability.

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

RlyOsim.2497:

you need traveler runes.

With a (Necro) condi-build? Seriously?

mobility is a thing

^
I use speed runes personally and still have more than enough condition pressure to be scary. If you’re solo roaming, speed is very, very important. And if you don’t have access to swiftness or you aren’t using Signet Of The Locust, you better get some runes.

I was just going to say that if you need the speed from runes so badly on a condi-build, you’d be better off taking speed runes, especially on Necro. Because you know… Condi-Necro weapons scale very bad with power and ferocity. You don’t get much condition-damage. You also don’t need the boon-duration on Necro. And the 10% condi-duration… well, it’s not worth enough to justify the tons of gold that those runes cost. The vitality from the runes of speed is much more helpful (also, the swiftness on being struck), and the increased swiftness-duration is nice if you’re using spectral walk.

i would disagree, the extra might duration is a lot more beneficial than the speed rune bonuses. to each their own.

So you are saying Might stacks lasting 1-2 seconds longer justifies paying 52 gold for a runeset that gives inferior stats otherwise? With a runeset (20 gold) that gives better stats and does give you even more speed than travelers (and speed was the actual reason why travelers were suggested) being available?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

RlyOsim.2497:

Saturn.6591:

RlyOsim.2497:

you need traveler runes.

With a (Necro) condi-build? Seriously?

mobility is a thing

^
I use speed runes personally and still have more than enough condition pressure to be scary. If you’re solo roaming, speed is very, very important. And if you don’t have access to swiftness or you aren’t using Signet Of The Locust, you better get some runes.

I was just going to say that if you need the speed from runes so badly on a condi-build, you’d be better off taking speed runes, especially on Necro. Because you know… Condi-Necro weapons scale very bad with power and ferocity. You don’t get much condition-damage. You also don’t need the boon-duration on Necro. And the 10% condi-duration… well, it’s not worth enough to justify the tons of gold that those runes cost. The vitality from the runes of speed is much more helpful (also, the swiftness on being struck), and the increased swiftness-duration is nice if you’re using spectral walk.

RlyOsim.2497:

you need traveler runes.

With a (Necro) condi-build? Seriously?

I never was a fan of Celestial stats, and I probably never will be. Even for Eles, who are probably the only ones who potentially could make some use of it, other stat-combinations are much better imo. Being a jack of ALL (literally: ALL) trades stat-wise never works out well. I’d always prefer more toughness over a bit of healing power, and more power over a bit of condition damage.

I’d like to use the celestial ascended rings just because I like the names. And the whole concept (and even the name “celestial”) sounds kinda tempting. But in fact (in this case, in fact = what I and afaik also some other people are convinced of), celestial stats are just bad. Even for Eles. It may sound nice, but as soon as you start looking at the numbers, you’ll be disappointed.

Hmmmm… here we even have some commanders being Rangers.

As you said, you probably were more helpful to the zerg than many of the other players there. So the main problem here is probably that some people are meeeooooooowww. And some others just don’t have the guts to speak up, even if they disagree.

Hmmm… I’ve tried this build, and while I’m still fairly new to it (and I normally have a way more defensive playstyle no matter what I play), it can be fun. I still have LOTS to learn, though.

That being said… I’ve had some duels today. Took an Eviscarate from a Warrior like a noob and was hit for more than 12k because full zerk (me) xD. BUT what I actually wanted to ask… how do you fight P/D condition Thieves? Those condis were melting me quite reliably, and only in one fight I got him kinda low… but he still won. He was running P/D and D/P as offhand, with Shadow Refuge and Basilisk Venom as elite. No idea about the other two utilities. I swear it happened more than once that like… a few stacks of bleeding actually killed me while my condi-removal was on cooldown, because I’ve just removed confusion, torment, poison and some more stacks of bleeding before. Fought him like 10 times or so, and lost each time. So yeah… how do you do it?

I’ve gotten the closest to killing him when I actually managed to surprise him with a shatter while he was closing in on me, but having him close usually was quite dangerous for me as well.

There’s actually a thread somewhere in the BLTC-forum… hold on… ah, right there:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/List-Of-Things-We-Want-In-Gemstore/first

Here you can post stuff that you’d like to see appearing (or re-appearing) in the gemstore. Necro-ing (or creating) a thread in the Mesmer class-forum won’t get the attention of the people in charge of the gemstore. The thread I linked will.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Scepter/Dagger with Spectral Wall and Bone Fiend, traiting for Dhuumfire:

Non-RNG access to every condition in the game. Not even using runes or sigils for it.

Yeah, even confusion! Eh wait… nope.

Quakeman.9378:

This is what I currently use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhMMqc25wwBf0AdAB5xpvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

You’re fairly tanky, but you still have loads of burst with the high power. Some scoff at the low crit damage, and I did too at first, but trust me, you have a do a lot more damage than you’d think.

That’s awesome to hear. Since, after all, it’s the build I’ve originally put together (except one trait that you’ve changed). Really awesome to see that someone is using it and has good results with it (that’s always better than just the theory). I myself am still leveling haha.

Ranger pets are an essential part of Ranger dps. Without their pet attacking, they do less damage than other classes with comparable stats.

Necros need to trait heavily into minions to make them worth using. Usually, they can’t do much harm without having their minions up.

Engineer turrets are stationary.

Elementalists get their (mobile) elementals as an ADDITION to their normal dps/utility. It’s neither a replacement, nor an essential part of their dps.

I also liked your argument, that not many Eles go for glyphes anyway… so accidentally overbuffing some of them isn’t a big deal, right? Lol. You know… if that would happen, it wouldn’t take long and Glyph-Eles would be the new meta, until it gets nerfed to something more reasonable.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Because Necromancers have a high health pool, Runes Of Scavenging will synergize better than Runes Of The Undead.

If with synergizing you mean stats, then that’s true only if you are actually going for equipment with Carrion-stats. Scavenging runes scale from vitality, and base vitality is the same for all classes. Just the size of the basic health pool is different. Now if you go for Rabid, Dire or a mix of those two, Runes of the Undead will actually give you more condition damage. Even with full Dire they would win statwise, because they add some extra-toughness, while Runes of Scavenging don’t add any vitality.

Hitman.5829:

Saturn.6591:

How does stealth make them useless?

Are you seriously asking that? Going in stealth and waiting for the skill to fade is what is making the utility skill useless.

Congratz; you did a good job on ignoring the rest of what I’ve written just after the sentence you’ve quoted.

You use the stance because you don’t want to take damage. The Thief is in stealth. You don’t take damage. Stance worked just fine.

Aside from the usual q.q-topics, there also were already multiple threads made in the Thief subforum where people ask for advice in fighting Thieves. And they were given really good advice. There are also similar topics in the subforums of the other classes about how-to-fight-Thieves. Last but not least, I remember there once was a topic made in the Thief-subforum that pretty much did what this topic was made for: It lists a lot of hints and tips on how to fight Thieves.

Oh, and I also remember how once some Warrior made a topic there with a video of him playing and he was like “I really don’t understand the problem people have with Thieves… for me, they are usually free kills.”

And before you ask: I main Mesmer. I also have a Thief, though. And a Necro. Leveling an Ele and an Engi too. The other classes I also have, but they are around level 10.

So uhm… some advice, which counts for fights against all classes:

If you win a fight, be happy. Be respectful towards your defeated opponent (aka don’t use laugh- or dance-emotes or the like).
If you lose a fight, try to find out why. And no, “that class is so op” isn’t the reason. Look at what led to your defeat. Recall the fight. What mistakes did you make? What could you have done better? What could you have done that would probably have screwed your opponent in that situation? Or maybe your build has a weakness? Or it just doesn’t fit your playstyle completely yet? How could you improve that? Also, practice makes perfect. Or at least much better over time. ^^

On a more serious note…

Hitman.5829:

Stance is when you courageously resist opposing forces, you take—or make—a stand.
Anyone around you should be aware of you and you should be aware of anyone around you. Going in stealth breaks this utility skill, thus making it useless.

Like you said… a stance lets you RESIST opposing forces. You are basically making an effort to resist damage. This needs a lot of concentration. Being able to see someone who normally can’t be seen would need a lot of concentration as well. You can’t do both at once.

Hitman.5829:

• These utility skills have 60 second cool down and are of vital importance to warriors. Stealth makes them completely and utterly useless.

How does stealth make them useless? You use them because you don’t want to take damage. Is a Thief in stealth-mode damaging you despite you using the stance? Not? So, the stance still works fine, right? So again… how does stealth make stances useless?

Edit: Frenzy is the only stance that is kinda countered by stealth, assuming you don’t manage to hit the Thief. But then again, that’s normal counter-play. And you weren’t even talking about Frenzy; you were just talking about the two other stances.

Of course. Make it so that Thieves are unable to stealth while Warriors are using a stance. And then make Warriors unable to hit a Thief with AoE’s while they are in stealth.

:)

And then add a trait that gives Warriors automatically 5 seconds of Regeneration and Protection as soon as a Thief hits them. In turn, give Thieves a trait that gives them a chance of 50% to automatically evade a Warrior’s attacks, with a cooldown of 10 seconds.

Well, I’d say yes (of course). I ain’t no expert, though.

maha.7902:

Also, obligatory reference to “well I don’t run in a speed clear group” – spoiler alert I rarely run in speed run groups either – and I would consider myself an average player anyway, so it’s not like you need to be some sort of mlg pro to melee bosses.

Hold on… your signature implies otherwise. YOUR twitch channel has boss solos and more. You also refer to DnT, which is a guild well-known for being speedrun-addicted, doing boss-solos and stuff, doing extensive theory-crafting and number-crunching, and last but not least discrediting everyone who doesn’t 100% agree with them. Nah… you’re not one of those 1337-guys. I mean, you don’t even talk like one of them… oh wait. You do. Every now and then, and also in the last part of your post (not gonna quote the other examples a second time in the same post):

maha.7902:

What we need is less excuses to range and more people trying to learn to melee and figure out boss choreographs.

.

maha.7902:

Downing is fine. Dying is fine. The key is learning the tells – and then putting your knowledge in to practice by meleeing.

You know… dead DPS is no DPS. Also, if people die a couple of times and then try to range the bosses instead and succeed… they will keep ranging them. Because you know… wiping 5 times takes much longer than ranging them and killing successfully in 10 minutes. Because if you wipe 5 times and then end up ranging them anyway, you’ll take 40 minutes, plus you end up frustrated. Why would you want that?

OF COURSE there’s people like you and DnT who try to be as fast as possible. Because dungeons are your life. Because it makes you feel good. Because whatever. Does it hurt you if not everyone (hint: “not everyone” means “most players” in this case) feels like you guys?

maha… first, take a look at your signature:

My Twitch Channel – Boss solos and more
colesy.8490 / Serah Mahariel – Death and Taxes

Then, let’s take a look at this part of my post:

Saturn.6591:

It’s also a good option in every fight where the party doesn’t stack up and you need to range mobs/bosses. And yes, that happens to be the case VERY often, unless you are in a speedrun-group.

Okay. Now that this is clear, let’s look at the other stuff you’ve written…

maha.7902:

Placebo. You think the mirror blade bounces are doing nice damage but you’d do more just using sword auto. Warden covers cleave, mind stab is basically just a sword auto attack.

Saturn.6591:

You know… start in GS, use 2, 3 and 4, *switch to sword and finish them (if they are still alive, that is). *

You talk like we’d have only one weaponset. Start in GS, switch to sword, problem solved. The more AoE, the quicker groups of trash-mobs die. And since iZerker is one of our two only AoE-phantasms… why not use it? You can switch to Sword/Focus right after, you know.

The rest is again something that I’ve already covered in the beginning of this post… you can’t compare DnT (or similar) with pug-groups of people who’ve never ran with speedrun-groups who pretty much spend most of their playtime in fractals and other dungeons.

maha.7902:

Or …. you can melee. Meleeing tentacles really isn’t that hard – it’s pretty much just dodge the moment they do an animation.

I know that’s not a lot compared to you guys. But I’ve done around 200 Fractals so far, and I’d say at least half of them back when Maw was the only boss-fractal. So that means I’ve probably done the Maw-fight around 30 times in total. And I’ve NEVER seen someone trying to melee those tentacles. NEVER. Not even one person in one single Maw-fight out of 30. I’m not saying it’s not possible. It’s just that… well, obviously you think just because DnT does something, everyone does it. When in fact, most players wouldn’t even get the idea to melee them.

maha.7902:

You also have yet to provide any example of “[a fight] you need to range [the] mobs/bosses”.

For normal mobs, then you can range them while running towards them. Charr-fractal for example, after the fight vs Dulfy. You now… run towards group, Mirror Blad and iZerker, then you’re there, switch to Sword… usually you won’t even get to summon iWarden anymore, because the mobs are already dead. Same with the next group. And so on. And even if they’re not dead yet… the additional AoE from iZerker and the Mirror Blade at the beginning doesn’t hurt anyone (aside fromt he mobs). After that, you can camp sword until they are dead. Even you should agree that mobs die quicker if you already AoE them before you’re in melee-range, and if you start out with two AoE-phantasms instead of just one.

For bosses… well, let’s just say that pug-groups (aka everything that isn’t a speedrun-group) usually ends up ranging most bosses. And guess what… they die. Maybe in 5 minutes instead of 2. But they die.

maha.7902:

I keep asking for real examples and people keep giving me ones you can just melee on.

Well, you know… to give a bit of an extreme example… humans also can pull trucks. Can YOU pull trucks? Humans can also fly to the moon. Can YOU fly to the moon? Not? But humanity can do that. Why can’t you? Maybe because you didn’t train for it? Maybe because you lack the know-how? Because nobody ever bothered to tell you? Because you never needed to try to find out yourself because you don’t really need to do those things to be successful?

Westside.7213:

Saturn.6591:

You could also take a look at this build here:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

I didn’t get to use it myself yet since I still need to hit lvl 80 on my Ele. But according to this thread, it should be quite decent.

Thanks to you aswell Saturn!

This is the exact build I’ve been using where I figured I needed more damage; The survivability of this build is insane; I don’t think I’ve seen any other ele builds being able to tank 2 DPS oriented enemies with such ease. But it really lacks damage big time.

The only difference is, I used celestial stats and this one uses Soldiers and Knights; a tradeoff I will test aswell to see how well it goes under such circumstances and will let you know!

The other build seems more damage oriented anyways, so I think I’ll stick to that one unless it turns out to be survivability lacking or if this one turns out to have enough damage for my taste.

Thanks again for your input anyhow, I wish you all the best with leveling your elementalist!

Thanks.

Well, celestial stats usually spread the stats all over the place, and you end up with a way too low power-value, which might be the reason why you weren’t doing enough damage. If you take a look, the power in my build is above 2,2k, while full celestial leaves you way below that (around 1,7k iirc).

Now to compare my build to Bo Van Swill’s build: If you look at the raw stats, his build is clearly better. However, he’s using his utility slots for things we could argue about, and the heal also might not be the optimal choice for WvW. You also need to remember that my build will most likely have around 12 stacks of might permanently, as well as perma-fury. Both of which his build won’t have. Also, lots of Regeneration.

In the end it’s a matter of preference I guess. And I personally still prefer my build.

I like to use GS and Sword/Focus for AoE-situations. I end up using it quite often in Fractals, even while stacking up in a corner. You know… start in GS, use 2, 3 and 4, switch to sword and finish them (if they are still alive, that is). Mirror Blade and iZerker do a really nice bit of damage to stacked groups of mobs. And it’s our only AoE aside from Staff 5 and iWarden (and sword cleave of course).

Also, in the Maw-fight it’s pretty much our only option (aside from spamming Mantra of Pain, which would be ridiculous) to kill tentacles without summoning illusions (some parties don’t like if you do that there, since the fight could (omfgtheworldwillend!) take a minute or two longer). It’s also a good option in every fight where the party doesn’t stack up and you need to range mobs/bosses. And yes, that happens to be the case VERY often, unless you are in a speedrun-group.

You could also take a look at this build here:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

I didn’t get to use it myself yet since I still need to hit lvl 80 on my Ele. But according to this thread, it should be quite decent.

Rasimir.6239:

Saturn.6591:

Does that really work? =0

Yes it does . I just did it recently myself when I wanted to get a full set of dungeon runes for my warrior. I had one of the runes on my guardian, just placed it in the bank, and the warrior was able to put it on his armor from there.

That’s nice; thanks!

Rasimir.6239:

Easiest workaround is to put the runes into the account bank and use them straight from there. Only the character they are bound to can take them out of the bank, but any character on your account can right-click and use them to put them on his/her equipment.

Does that really work? =0

That would be awesome.

Because, you know… I’d need a full set of Nightmare Runes for my Condi-Necro. But afaik, Condi-Necros aren’t really helpful in TA, especially since the last boss is completely immune to conditions (according to the wiki). I COULD go there with another character (e.g. my Mesmer who’s got full zerker equipment)… but those runes also drop, and they are soulbound. Whose idea was it to make soulbound runes for condi-builds drop in a dungeon where condi-builds can’t even scratch the last boss?

Rudy.6184:

Full celestial, rune of strength. Makes wonders.

Nah, sorry. Celestial takes ages to get, is super-expensive and makes you “meh” at everything and good at nothing. I’d rather go full Soldiers; I’d hit harder and survive longer than with Celestial. Also, Rune of Strength is super-expensive and might get nerfed at some point. I like Rune of the Pack; it fits my trait-setup very well I think.

Feel free to prove me wrong… if you can. ^^

Carpboy.7145:

100 power adds a lot more dmg than a few %crit dmg does, and it applies it to non crits as well.

So does that mean I’ve overseen something in my calculations in the first post?

I’ve tried calculating it in another (and as I just noticed, probably much more accurate) way now. If I just multiply the power with 1,3 in the first build, and with 1,39 in the second build (since that’s the average multiplier with 50% critchance), the difference is only 2,75% without Might-stacks and 3,32% with 10 stacks of Might. Hmmm… interesting. In this case, the first build would indeed be much better. Unless I’ve overseen yet another thing (I’m tired and should go to sleep ). Gooooood that I’ve made this topic. There are people here who are awake and more used to do such calculations. ^^

Gokil.2543:

I’m gonna take an educated guess that that wiki edit implies that you have to consume the ‘leeching’ stack you get when swapping (gives a little toolitp) before you can proc the next one. So that you couldn’t stack a bunch of leeching hits on top of each other by not attacking while in combat.

Hm yeah, that might be.

Gokil.2543:

Seriously, there’s no real discussion to be had on what build is better. Do the numbers and the first one comes out on top every time.

Well, the first one has more survivability (due to the higher HP), while the second one does more damage. So I guess it really depends on if I’ll need those additional HP or not. And on if I still do enough damage with the first one. And since I lack the experience, I’m asking here. So far I’ve got one vote for the first build and one vote for the second build. Hmmmm… tough question! I’d love to read some arguments.

Acilas.5041:

Hello,

I have been using a heavy fury build. I sacrificed power for healing power which really helps keep me alive. However this an interesting build its really powerful, if you dont get countered im sure this could do some nice damage.

Yeah, I myself am not a fan of Healing Power; especially not since I really need the other stats, since Eles already need a heavier investment into toughness and vit than other classes (and you still need the offensive stats as well).

Aiden.6483:

Arcane wave is quite unneccesary. You should be blasting your fire fields with earth and/or water, leaping through with earth 3 for fire shield and maybe using strength / hoelbrak runes for might duration.

Hmm… I could certainly try the leap-thing. I’m not so sure if switching to water for the blast finisher is a good idea, though. What if I eat some unexpected heavy burst right after and don’t have water ready because I’ve just used it solely for the finisher? Of course I would then have an additional utility skill that I could use as an “oh crap”-button to buy some time, though… hmm. As for the runes, I’m not intending to change them, since that would mess up the entire build.

Aiden.6483:

The second build is definitely better as once you stack up a load of might, that 100 or so power difference becomes very small (3~ might stacks).

What about the lower HP, though?

Aiden.6483:

Also, sigil of energy/doom/leeching/hydromancy is probably better than air- not for straight up dps, but for excellent utility.

Energy is overkill imo, since I’ll already have perma-vigor. Doom is easily cleansed since I’m not applying that many conditions I guess. Hydromancy requires me to be in range to have an effect and could thus easily be wasted most of the time (since I’m not exactly intending to facetank my opponents). Leeching might be an option for more survivability (and still some damage), though. Question is, will I need it/is it worth the dps-loss. Then again, I’d probably not trigger Air every 3 seconds anyway, since (again) I’m not exactly facetanking. So the difference might not be THAT big after all… hmmm…

Thank you all for the input so far. (And of course I’d always like to get more of it. ^^)

Edit: The wikipage for Sigil of Leeching says "This effect must be used before other on-swap effects may trigger. " And this was added AFTER the feature patch. I kinda doubt it, but does that mean it will interfere with Sigil of Battle (unless Battle triggers first, but then I don’t see any reason for why that line was added)? o.o

Since nobody else replied, I guess everybody agrees 100% with what Gokil said?

Not even a “Nah, you won’t need Arcane Wave” or an “Arcane Wave could be nice but other stuff is way more important” or “Arcane Wave is just bad” or similar popped up. Or maybe something like “Arcane Wave is indeed almost necessary”. ;P Hmmmhmmm. Well; looks like I have to live with that and just find out through my own experiences.

I’ve found that with condi-Thief, I can clear an unupgraded camp pretty fast if I switch out the mainhand pistol for a dagger and also use Signet of Malice and Caltrops. I then stack them up behind a building, drop Caltrops, maybe a few Death Blossoms and then Dagger Storm. After that, Death Blossom again. Oh, and throw in some evades (with the Caltrops-on-Dodge trait) too. This usually kills everything pretty fast, although sometimes you might get a bit unlucky due to blinds and stuff.

Gokil.2543:

Why the arcane wave though? Arcane shield, mist form and cleansing fire are way better.

I’ve taken Arcane Wave for the additional blast finisher. I’d actually like to take something else, but I felt like I would need it. That’s from some testing in the PvP lobby, though; since I still have quite a bit to do until I reach lvl 80 with my Ele (lvl 52 currently). Iirc, the difference was something like 9-15 mightstacks (without AW) and 12-18 mightstacks (with AW).

As some might remember, I’ve already asked for opinions about my build in another thread, and I was told that it’s nice but that critical damage might be a bit low (although my power is higher).

Then I’ve also read in a more recent thread, how someone claimed that Soldiers gear makes you hit like a wet noodle. Thus, I’ve just put it into the calculator, and that’s the result.

Original build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

Changed build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-T1CFwANOgAsU/ppShN6BA8AAcqswxJAIpSMCHIQJYt9HyohgMA5bB-w

As you can see, the changed version has around 4% less power, but 18% higher crit-damage. Now if I do a critical hit 50% of the time (thanks to nearly perma-fury), that makes for an overall damage-increase of 9%; that’s 5% more dps compared to the first build. With Might, the difference will be higher, because additional power gets added to the basic power, but multiplied by crit-damage. On the other hand, the second build has 40 toughness and 1370 HP less. The toughness I don’t really mind (since it’s not much), but the HP…

Now, a while ago I’ve read in the Thief-forums that actually, Soldiers gear is the best choice in terms of a trade-off of defensive stats for dps. And if you look at EHP, this is probably true. Compared to my actual HP, my armor-rating is way too high (or vice versa), thus I should actually have way more HP and/or less toughness. The problem is however, that EHP doesn’t take the awesome healing capability of a D/D Ele into account, which (as far as I know) makes a higher armor rating desirable.

So now my questions: Did I miss something? What do you think about the builds? Which one would you prefer? Or maybe some other input?

Thanks in advance.

Jerus.4350:

Personally I picked my guys for the opposite of the OP, I went Asura guard/war, and a Norn Mesmer,

Asura in heavy armor can actually look really cute. Well, awesome (or fearsome) too… depending on the style I guess. I just remember once in WvW, that Asura Guardian sitting next to my dead body in an enemy keep, guarding it. Oh, and of course it looks quite hilarious if you see a little Asura in heavy armor swinging his greatsword while chasing a Norn or Charr all over the place.

Mystogan.4157:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcMKb23wuBd0AEAW4AQCIIOOH0DCCiuAA-TFCEABG8AAeTHgiq/0kyP/0Ckz+DAcCA2SJIpAkYZE-w
this is what i use

tried to keep tough and vit up while maximizing power followed by feroc and crit chance

Interesting build; kudos for that!

Conditions could become some kind of a problem, though. But it’s certainly not something I’ve seen before.

(And yes I know I’m off topic but I just wanted to say that anyway and yes I’m writing this part without punctuation on purpose. ;D).

Przemek Pro.1309:

LordByron.8369:

P.S. leave the bloodlust on the staff builds.
If you roam could take some time to charge it, while with staff 1 aoe and you are done

U will lose stack when u change weapons so u cant stack with staff and change to d/d

While that’s certainly true, it’s not what he actually was talking about. In his opinion (and I agree there), Bloodlust works much better if you’re using staff. He wasn’t saying anything about using the staff only to get the charges and then switching back to D/D.

Przemek Pro.1309:

Bloodlust and battle

Doesn’t an on-crit sigil like air or fire add more dps than 250 power from the stacking sigil (which you lose as soon as you’re downed)? Assuming you have a decent crit-chance, of course.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Before it was “bugged” but like all HELPFUL bugs it was fixed fast while we are still suffering from issues that were in the BETA…

There also were a lot of non-helpful bugs fixed. And I’m sure there are still lots of “helpful” bugs around (aka bugs that are heavily abused by some people… which technically isn’t allowed, but Anet seems to be tolerating it since so many do it).

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You do know that ALL classes have the same cool down on Sigils right?

Yes they do. But they can still only have two sigils active at a time. And for the weaponswap-sigils, they need to… well, actually swap weaponsets. That means they might end up using a weaponset that’s not appropriate for the given situation, if they swap just to trigger the sigil. Or they build with the same weaponset twice, but then they lack something if they encounter an opponent who kinda counters that weaponset. Elementalists and Engineers with kits on the other hand will trigger weapon-swaps all the time anyway, without running into those problems. Thus, they benefit the most from them.

And yes, Warriors are the only class that can proc on-swap-sigils every 5 seconds. I’m not sure if they can for example use two Sigils of Battle or not, though. Anyway… they have this little advantage over all the other classes; not just those with only one weaponset. They also face the problem of being swapped into a suboptimal weaponset if they want to trigger the sigils all the time, although for them it only lasts 5 seconds… but then again, they will need to switch back to it again after 5 more seconds passed, so yeah… but the frequent on-swap-sigil-triggers might partially offset this disadvantage in some situations.

Well, you’re supposed to lose the stacks if you don’t have the sigil equipped, so that’s indeed working as intended… actually it’s a bug that they stay after leaving the water if you do what you’re describing (unequipping the weapon with the stacking sigil while being underwater). As for the reason why you lose them if you go into water again… this might be because to get into the water, you need to go through the water surface, where you have no weapon equipped (thus, no stacking sigil). The exception (maybe) being if you go underwater fast enough for the game to directly switch to underwater weapons (like when you’re falling into water after a jump for example). Though… that theory doesn’t work well with the fact that you keep the stacks if you have the sigil equipped on land and underwater weapons. Hmmm… anyway; I’d say working as intended.

I agree that it can be a bit of a drawback for Eles and Engis that they can only use two different sigils at a time. But on the other hand, almost all builds for Ele and most builds for Engi can make much better use of weaponswap-sigils than the other classes, unless they really build for it (which usually comes with some other drawbacks for them). And I’d say that kinda makes up for it.

Well, there are actually quite a few human Mesmers, even ingame (Jennah, Anise, Kasmeer). As for Norn, I daresay they usually aren’t much into magic, and those that are, are usually Elementalists I guess. Controling/manipulating the mind of someone doesn’t seem like something they excel at. However, fighting like a Guardian certainly does. Braham is a Guardian too.

^Hold on; I must have missed something. Because I actually noticed that I do GET stacks while using an arrowcart for example, if I have the shortbow out with my Thief (the bow has the stacking sigil) while using it. I’ve also never noticed them going away except when actually unequipping the weapon with the sigil, or going for a swim (the first being working as intended and the latter a bug).

That being said; before the feature patch I wasn’t really a fan of stacking sigils. But since they now give 5 stacks for each player, they can actually be quite nice. Still, for classes/builds that trigger weaponswap often (and Elementalists are usually among those), Sigil of Battle is much better imo. With Air/Fire/Doom/Leeching/whatever as the second sigil.

I’m currently leveling my Elementalist again, and was (also inspired by this thread) tinkering around on a roaming-build. That’s what I came up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFQQJAoYhcMaZ25wwBf0AdAB5xzvRBlzbnB-TlCFwANOgAOOBAsUPIjeiUq4Ub/hmKNIcgAlgKVmB4BAQGg8tA-w

What do you think about it?

Bloodyhell.8760:

Sorry, but why are u suggesting him builds that absolutely aren’t focused on condition damage?

Did you see any powerbuilds being suggested?

Bloodyhell.8760:

The greatest conditioner possible is this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRMQNAW7Yjc00Yb3NW3webichC6AIBq3ovgN4EoqMA-TBSAABKcRAo4BAImyPAOCAhq+TP7PQouh2UCGAABgJGIFAETjA-e .

It is the best (till anyone prove it’s not)

1. Why are you using Spiteful Talisman if you’re not even using a focus?
2. Signet of Spite doesn’t make much sense in PvE. And without it, Signet Mastery will become obsolete as well.
3. Vulnerability on Lifeblast? Seriously? There’s a ton of traits that would make more sense in a condition build. Even if you insist on using those last points in this traitline.
4. Even without food, your bleeds will have a duration of 115%. With the food you’re suggesting, it would be 155%. Too bad that everything above 100% doesn’t benefit you at all; especially in PvE.
5. Obviously, it’s NOT the best build.
6. Stop being so full of yourself.

MotherKitten.6795:

Why is double tapping to dodge related to jumping puzzles??

Because if you are moving forward carefully and press W two or three times in a row (to move bit by bit), you might end up dodging instead… which often leads to falling down.
Aside from that, not using double-tapping also lets you dodge more fluently while moving, as you don’t have to release the movement-key to double-tap, which might save your life every now and then (due to the dodge happening faster).

I use the mousewheel for dodging (clicking it, not scrolling).