Guild Wars 2

Few things that have already been mentioned:

1.) For Elementalists, Mesmers, Rangers, Warriors and Guardians, I’m not sure there is a better auto-attack option for single target, much less the AOE potential of the hammer. The final hit can hit 5 targets in a GENEROUS area, Blinds, and Blast Finishers.

2.) Your daggers, as is the necromancers, are purely single target with no cleave. Back-stab is an entirely different beast as well, as it is intended to reward positioning and use of stealth properly, but can’t be utilized consistently back-to-back in every situation.

3.) An Elementalist with a proper build, wielding the lightning hammer, is the highest damage per second in the game, outside of a Mesmer maintaining their Phantasms for long periods without losing them, and when wielding the Hammer themselves while their Phantasms are out, nothing beats a mesmer in this situation, bar none.

In an idea group scenario, as long as I play well and the group can give my Lightning Hammer ele 25 might, fury, and keep burning and vulnerability (at least 1 stack) on a foe, Its common for my auto attack to go 7k-8k on the first two hits, followed by a final hit of 13k+. And this isnt even the maximum potential, requires no back stab positioning, and is 3-target and 5-target hitting, while providing utility from Blast and Blind against non-champs.

Elementalists have the single highest potential damage amplification in the game, which is how these numbers can be achieved. Sucks in PvP mostly, but amazing in WvW and PvE in coordinated groups who know how to “enable” your damage.

Traps arent ideal because they cant be used as fields on demand, only when triggered by foes, where as with the spirits you could order them to stand in specific locations for their fields to be immediately available. If more fields become actually useful, this could be a huge benefit.

A light field would be awesome though, but i’d understand if they dont want rangers to have access it if its a necro/guardian specific field

One thing I think that would SEVERELY increase the utility and support of the Ranger spirits is if we could:

1.) Ground Target Select the area they would be summoned to (when not Traited).

2.) Ground Target Select the area they would run to an “activate” their unique skills, and make their activation instant upon reaching the location.

3.) If each spirit’s unique active attack left a rather large (think Frozen Ground from Elementalist or warrior’s Longbow Burst skill radius) Combo Field for each spirit that lasts for a generous time (say 10 seconds) even if they arent actually producing any other effects during that time.

Honestly I’d love to see a combo field / finisher overhaul to make more fields actually useful, and I think having spirits as an excellent source of fields for your team would make Support Rangers suddenly shoot up from “moderately ok” to “a unique niche” of being one of the best “Field” providers, along side elementalists.

This could be the best change I’d imagine to making rangers less “selfish” with their utilities, and would free up different weapon combinations. Sun Spirit + Fire Trap could replace Torch offhand or vice verse depending on if you are a condition or power build or raw support.

Storm Spirit would be our third only lightning field in the game, a huge asset at 10 seconds making it the longest.

Frost Spirit would be a 10 second Ice field, would provide a ton of in class-between class synergy, and bring in another under-represented field.

Flame Spirit would be a 10 second Fire field, increasing our options for providing an already amazing field. I think other fields need to be brought up to Fire’s efficacy.

Stone Spirit could be one of the new “earth” combo fields, with Cripple and Bleed effects tossed in with the various Finishers (along with Warrior’s Stomp, Elementalist’s dagger Earthquake and Staff’s Unsteady Ground).

I think 10 second, wide area fields on like 30 second or 45 second recharge with each spirit would really go a long way towards making them increasingly useful, and I think it makes a LOAD of thematic sense based on the idea of ranger’s bending their natural surroundings to their favor.

Dolan.3071:

Mighty Assasin.3816:

Running signets.

My two cents. Staff users don’t feel the pressure of being targeted (most of the time) so really any “tactic” will work for them, because they don’t know what doesn’t work. As a D/D wielder sitting in one attunement is guaranteed suicide, whereas someone sitting on the sidelines could one mash and think they’re helping.

Or be a real Norn and use Conjure Lightning (and the build i made for it!). I never attunement swap with that, and with the constant Blind against non-champs I can hang in melee for a loooong time in Arah and Fractals.

Ironically, our highest damage build option is to:

1.) Not Switch Attunements

2.) Stay in Water Attunment 95% of the time

3.) Use Conjure Lightning / Fiery GS (w/ 25 use trait)

So, don’t be too judgmental of your friend or other eles, sometimes their build is simply better than yours, with the right modifications, traits, and group composition

Additionally, against a stationary target, Fire-staff is one of the higher consistant DPS options in the game. Lavafont’s short cast time, and very high total damage, and fireball’s respectable damage, and Meteor Showers devistating total potential damage, actually make Fire-staff one of the if not the strongest ranged dps weapon in the entire game. Again, vs a stationary target. Guardian’s scepter is similarly quite awesome in this situation..

The More You Know!

(shameless build plug, click here)

(shhh don’t tell anyone you can crit potentially for 8,000 x2 + 12,000 every 3 seconds with my build in an optimal group)

PS: Grab lightning hammer and actually be useful with your Fire-staff friend. If you are at least L.40 you can take the 25 uses trait for the conjured weapons, use Conjured Lightning’s auto-attack Blast finishers on the foes while your staff friend keeps a constant Fire Field up. Say hello to 25 might pretty much when ever you want it, while doing way more damage than your current set up.

Fortus.6175:

also, how the heck do you get 6k-7k with lighting?! I can never get past 1.5-2k with full zerker set(exotic) and all accesorys zerker (ascended and exotic) and 5 stacks of mights and a couple of vulnerability!

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/81706-ouch-my-everything-the-80-potential-amplified-damage-build-with-sustain-support-and-control/

Its a build focused on damage amplification.

Damage Increase effects are multiplicative, so they become stronger the more you mix together.

You mix Piercing Shards trait (20% while in Water Attunement, effects Conjured Weapons too!) Vital Strikes (10%) Ember’s Might (5%) Burning Rage (5%), Bolt to the Heart (20%) and Sup. Sigil of Force (5%) and Sup. Scholar Runes (10%) and Bountiful Power (2% per boon).

All of these combined with mostly berserker gear (i use cavalier’s for my accessories and the all-stats ascended amulet, with Ruby jewles slotted into the cavalier’s) results in some vicious damage.

For full damage, you need to be above 90% health, with vulnerability and burning on the foe from your allies, and you get 25 might from external sources. Never had a 25 vulnerability + 25 might spike damage set up yet but it would be vicious. Once foes go below 33% it increases even further thanks to bolt to the heart

I think its best that the auto’s be retooled to really fit with what ever the main theme of the attunement’s kit, and that they should always be a good source of damage, regardless of their secondary functions. Ideally, you should want to use them because they contribute meaningful damage AND provide a secondary function, like most if not ALL other autoattacks in the game.

This is because even if I’m a full damage traited and geared berserker style staff user, I never have a reason to use Water Blast. Sure, its an ok skill if you specialize in healing power, but for the very least an auto-attack should be universally “ok” for any spec.

With the highest damage build possible in the entire game (my build focusing on damage amplification of potentially over 110%), its hard to get water blast to crit for more than 1k, while the auto-attacks on the first two swings of conjured lightning are hitting for 6 to 7k in similar situations, with the final being able to hit for 11k+ depending on vulnerability stacks. Very different weapons, but the sheer distance between them is just terrible.

If fireball is considered our “base line” auto damage, then the other abilities with a bit more utility (water blast + stoning) should be about 80% of FB’s damage, and the easier to land, more aoe focused or potentially higher dps option if 2 opponents next to each other should be Chain Lighting at maybe 60 to 70% of FB’s damage.

Currently, spamming fireball with lavafount is actually one of the highest damage ranged weapon combos in the entire game for sheer dps, so no help is needed there really, its a niche weapon set that rewards locking down a foes mobility or denying a location with LF. Add in Meteor Shower and this only gets better.

The problem is the other 3 attunements dont just do “less” damage, they do practically no damage compared to Fire. Ice Spike is nice, for sure, but Lightning Surge and Eruption’s direct damage reeaaaally could use some scaling buffs, particularly for how big their cast times are.

Eruption is already perfect for Condi builds, and its my favorite skill in the game for that, but a bit of direct damage option would be nice too, as it would reward swapping attunements while still able to deal some raw damage (less than fire but not abysmal) while applying control skills and Weakness for a while.

Basically what im getting at is that the damage options on the staff need to be present on each weapon set if you truly want “raw damage” elementalists to feel like they have true flexibility with the staff. If water blast did 80% of fireballs dps, then i could justify using it to help heal my allies slightly while i continue to deal damage, but it wouldnt aoe foes, which is fireball’s biggest selling point. If stoning did reasonable damage, i also could see myself stacking a bit of weakness on a boss for a bit while i wait for Fire attunement to come back up, particularly if a boss is landing consistant heavy hits on the group like Lupus does at times.

Currently, its a losing battle for me to swap and stay in any other attunement that ISNT fire on a berserker elementalist. Instead I only cherry pick a few utilitarian and control skills from each attunement then rush back to fire as quickly as possible.

Leuca.5732:

Or just run bunker specced s/d and stack 25 might on your entire team. You’ll heal their bars more than their own healing skills and they’ll simply melt everything for you. Your own damage will be great too once you get your stacks going.

ANNND thats not what this is about

If you have external sources of might, burning, and vulnerability, this will be the highest damage you can personally ever put out in gw2 (likely i believe but I’d need comparisons).

That is to say, while you could be the groups might stacker, nothing wrong with another ele or other profession fulfilling that role. Additionally, this spec can STILL reach 25 might stacks for the group by itself if others provide fire fields.

Sabull.5670:

Swiftwynd.1685:

Sabull.5670:

Swiftwynd.1685:

Hey guys.

Based on this thread, and a very weird, vivid dream I had, I ended up making a very similar build that is both durable, supporty, and probably the highest damage any profession in an ideal group. Here is the full build on Guru

Its focused on using damage amplification, crit damage, self-healing over time, and lastly a little bit of toughness. Obviously if you went pure zerker on the jewelry it would pump out more damage, but I don’t feel like I’m missing much with Cavalier’s exotics with ex. Ruby jewels.

In an ideal scenario, you get either 55% or 60% bonus damage, and up to 80% once foe goes bellow <33% HP, while having around 70% or more crit chance with fury and food up.

I’d love some critiques of the build So far its run amazingly in dungeons.

You should swap 10 earth for 25 water + 5air. More damage bonus, you’ll have more than 3 boons in a dungeon.

Also I think you’ll be happy to hear your “60% Damage increase at virtually all times” is 78% bonus. And 113% when everything is rocking. (i used 3 boons, with 25 water version – 6%, and assumed force working, havent tested.)
Damage bonuses are multiplied, not added.

Interesting!

Will the boon damage increase more than make up for the 5% damage buff and toughness losses from earth along with losing the crit chance/damage from air?

Spec would be 25/20/0/25/0. So you would gain 5 points in air = dmg boost. And swap earth 5% boost for 6-10% from water. So all positive.

And someone was saying about the 20% dmg boost. Yeah only in water, but that’s the point, you stay in water attunument with conjured weapons.

Nice, ill give this a try, although the extra bit of toughness is useful from earth, the health and healing gained from water should more than make up for it since im using Cavalier’s in my accessories.

Sabull.5670:

Swiftwynd.1685:

Hey guys.

Based on this thread, and a very weird, vivid dream I had, I ended up making a very similar build that is both durable, supporty, and probably the highest damage any profession in an ideal group. Here is the full build on Guru

Its focused on using damage amplification, crit damage, self-healing over time, and lastly a little bit of toughness. Obviously if you went pure zerker on the jewelry it would pump out more damage, but I don’t feel like I’m missing much with Cavalier’s exotics with ex. Ruby jewels.

In an ideal scenario, you get either 55% or 60% bonus damage, and up to 80% once foe goes bellow <33% HP, while having around 70% or more crit chance with fury and food up.

I’d love some critiques of the build So far its run amazingly in dungeons.

You should swap 10 earth for 25 water + 5air. More damage bonus, you’ll have more than 3 boons in a dungeon.

Also I think you’ll be happy to hear your “60% Damage increase at virtually all times” is 78% bonus. And 113% when everything is rocking. (i used 3 boons, with 25 water version – 6%, and assumed force working, havent tested.)
Damage bonuses are multiplied, not added.

Interesting!

Will the boon damage increase more than make up for the 5% damage buff and toughness losses from earth along with losing the crit chance/damage from air?

Razor.6392:

doesn’t “piercing shards” work when you are attuned to water only?

go try it at the mists.

Yes, but you are still attuned to water while wielding the lightning hammer. You stay in water the entire time, giving party regeneration while simultaneously having a rocking damage bonus.

Hey guys.

Based on this thread, and a very weird, vivid dream I had, I ended up making a very similar build that is both durable, supporty, and probably the highest damage any profession in an ideal group. Here is the full build on Guru

Its focused on using damage amplification, crit damage, self-healing over time, and lastly a little bit of toughness. Obviously if you went pure zerker on the jewelry it would pump out more damage, but I don’t feel like I’m missing much with Cavalier’s exotics with ex. Ruby jewels.

In an ideal scenario, you get either 55% or 60% bonus damage, and up to 80% once foe goes bellow <33% HP, while having around 70% or more crit chance with fury and food up.

I’d love some critiques of the build So far its run amazingly in dungeons.

This really does ruin my Condition Duration Elementalist Staff

Least I recently finished my pure power/crit/tiny bit of toughness set, so I can make due until this (hopefully) is resolved quickly!

Malcastus.6240:

Well, sadly attunement recharge rate lies there, so if you plan on PvP’ing you want at the very least 10 points in arcane. And sadly you need 20 in arcane for blasting staff, which I think shouldn’t exist, but be part of the staff at all times as you will feel much weaker without it, and that doesn’t help with build diversity at all.

I couldn’t agree more about Blasting Staff.

I’m currently running a raw damage Staff build with 30 fire, 25 air, 15 water, but it REALLY hurts to not have the increased area on the skills, but the points in water, fire, and air really are needed for my build to function.

The defaults simply feel way too small (except for Meteor Shower), and to make matters worse, Fireball’s AOE damage does NOT benefit from Blasting Staff anyway, which sucks.

I’d love to see Blasting Staff replaced with something that interacts with Field spells, like increased Field duration or reduced recharge for Field spells. Useful but not game-changing like the increased radius is.

I’d love to see Fireball bumped up to a 150 radius, and Blasting Staff’s radius increases made standard, then staff would be in a good place, once Air is “fixed” to be useful that is.

I would change it to the following:

Cast ranges increased to 1200.

Fire: changed visual to represent that it hits on a wide, pulsing scheme rather than a “meteor shower lite” scheme, which the current visual represents. Damage increased by 20%, area increased by 30% of its current values. This is the go-to “i need area damage added to my spec” option.

Air: tighten the area to perhaps 50% of its current area, keep the same number of bolts or add more, but have the duration of the entire storm last only 4 seconds, and increase the damage by 30 or 40% (its really low currently compared to fire’s). Each bolt applies 10s Vulnerability. This is the go-to “i need some spike damage in a very small radius” option.

Water: keep area the same (or change to match Earth’s current duration) and change it to a area-pulse like fire and earth rather than a rain skill, with a sustained “blizzard” visual to match the theme. Have it apply Chill and damage foes with each pulse. This is the go-to “i need anti-movement” option.

Earth: keep it exactly as is, but slightly lengthen the Bleed duration to also make it more of a reasonable condition damage option.

As an elementalist who both runs pure conditions and pure critdamage/power builds, I’d find these changes much welcomed, particularly for Air. We need more single-target ranged damage potential and vulnerability stacking, and a revamped GoS:Air could really help in that area.

Honestly your build isnt terrible, but might stand to have a few improvements.

I run an “almost” pure damage staff build (when im not running my honestly superier condition build, but thats for another time!), but I dont put all 30 points into air.

Instead, I run:

Gear: All beserker for armor with Scholar runes, and all Cavalier’s accessories with ex. rubies slotted. The added toughness allows this build to WORK, despite losing a minor amount of crit chance. obviously switching out for berserker full WOULD improve the consistency of the damage, but honestly it crits well enough without!

30 Fire, 25 Air, 15 Water, with several sources of damage amplification (20% damage bonus when above 90% health due to water trait + scholar runes, 10% while in Fire).

FIRE: I take the Damage Bonus in fire, -20% recharge for Fire, and longer fire Fields (sleeper op trait that no one notices!)

AIR: Bolt to the Heart for some added finishing damage potential, and Arcane Lightning for even more crit damage.

WATER: simply the 15 points to have the heal-swap utility and to slightly buff our healing to stay over 90% with Ether Renewal (best heal in the entire game in my opinion!) and of course Vital Striking for the 10% damage while above 90%.

The idea being my build is set up as the “optimum damage dealer” with outside support: if other people supply the perma Fury and Might and Vulnerability, my build will deal very, VERY nice, consistent damage, particularly in a relatively wide area with Meteor Shower.

Ideally, if you have a Guardian/Mesmer combo supplying an easy stack of 25 Might (particularly with you providing 100% up time on Fire Fields), then Pyro’s Puissance isnt useful, while getting additional damage tics from Lava Font, and REALLY long firewalls from Burning Retreat, help your damage and your group support by offering fire fields.

This results in rather frequent Fireball + Lavafont +6k damage per second on a lucky string of crits easily, if you are playing VERY smart and staying above 90% health. Individual hits from Meteor Shower can hit for over 8k, and this is all without the ideal 25 Might and 25 Vulnerability.

By taking 3 arcane skills with Arcane Lightning, you push the crit damage even a bit higher, while offering in some huge spike potential if its needed, but obviously these can be substituted out as utilities are needed. Ice Bow and Fiery Greatsword are amazing choices for when either structures need to be obliterated or bosses are “walled” if you choose to abuse the FGS’s 4th skill stacking all its hits in one area and its whirlwind hitting all hits.

Due to the multitarget potential, I think it has the highest potential sustained multitarget damage in the entire game, Mesmer phantasms withstanding (if they manage to survive with like a combination of 3 Berserker or Warden phantasms).

EDIT:

Forgot to mention, for a best-case scenario, you can have:

25 Might Stacks
25 Vulnerability stacks on foe
foe bellow 33% health (20% damage)
you above 90% health (20% damage)
fire attunement (10% damage)
butternutt squash curry (more crit chance, +10% crit damage)

This combination takes a normal fire damage spell, amplifies it by first +50%, then apply critical damage bonuses, then increases that total by 25% due to Vulnerability increasing received damage… its a LOT of pain, and a lot more realistically practical because it can be dealt at any range, and even if a foe is moving, you can always reposition the Lava Font shortly after, although stationary foes are vastly preferred.