quick guide
ele tier
- ele (superb in all 3 gamemodes)
anything else
PvE
good
- warrior
-thief
-guardian
-mesmer
ok
-engineer
a bit weak
-ranger
necromancer
PvP
good
-mesmer
-warrior
-guardian
ok
-thief
-necromancer
needs buffs
-engineer
-ranger
i don’t play wvw a lot.
“7k ap metazerk ele/guard/thief gearcheck” – for citadel of flame p2. pugs requirements are quite high now…
some less skilled pvp players try to use it in wvw roaming. the 6th bonus is a good defense against oneshot builds.
Just interested in it, i play pvp most of the time and have 7 lvl 80s but they are not specialized into pve build-wise. I just give you some examples and would like to know your opinion about them, basically: Would you run a dungeons with these types of build or not.
1. Mesmer with full zerk gear, traveller runes, air/fire sigils and wvw infusions. uses 4/4/0/0/6 shatter build. This build can maintain around 10 stacks might for the mesmer and basically oneshots trash mobs but lacks dps against bosses.
2. Celestial Ele 0/2/0/6/6 with hoelbrak runes and battle/doom sigils, weapons d/d. Build provides AoE conditions cleanse and healing along with a few shared boons, permanent vigor uptime and on demand protection as well as 20 stacks might for himself and 12 stacks might for his group. Build heavily lacks direct dmg compared to a zerker build but deals some condition damage. Uses 3 cantrip spells on utility slots (armor of earth, cleansing fire, lightning flash)
3. Berserker Warrior with hoelbrak runes, 2/0/6/0/6 gs/hammer, hydromancy/leeching on gs and impact/battle on hammer. Build offers CC and good condition cleanse for the warrior himself and ok personal dmg. Uses Dolyak Signet, berserker stance and endure pain as utilities with rampage as elite.
These builds are all metabuilds for wvw roaming , the first two also spvp meta builds. 2 of them are full zerker, so people with these builds will join your typical “5k ap zerker exp” groups. Will you kick them? Tell them to change their build or just pass through?
(Note: it is NOT about speedruns, just usual dungeon/fractal clearing.)
(Additional Note: These people are typically not exp at all in dungeons, but have good basic knowledge about doding and "not standing in big red circles)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t everyone being carried by their builds?
People say it if a build does most of it’s damage with passive procs or unavoidable attacks. Cele Rifle Engi is a great example of this with incendiary powder, slick shoes, hardly visible magnet pulls, overcharged shot knockback without any cast time.
Some other examples: Panic Strike Thief (unavoidable immobilze, allowing him to land all his attacks easily) ,Power Necro(primary Chill of death with damage modifiers from close to death and death’s embrace
to a lesser extend: Meditation Guard (Ring of Warding with Judges Intervention, some instant cast skills, but they still need to be timed well), Shoutbow War (Shout’s have no casttime and warhorn skills very little cast time, longbow fire fields dealing tons of dmg on a point, but he still needs to land the important skills)
back to topic: i think engineer is simply the hardest class in the game. The major problem is the large number of skills combined with the arkward kit mechanic which is hard to master. New engineers need to learn to rotate their kits while keeping an eye on the enemy and using their toolbelt skills. Also the awful ground targeting on grenade kit.
no1 likes these procs.
I like the change to panic strike though. Tons of Stunbreakers don’t really deal too well with immob, so if a stealth-spike hits you and you get dazed/stuned and immobilized, some classes have a very hard time dealing with it.
But the worst thing about these procs is that you cannot avoid them, because they only trigger when they hit. They should just give you a buff that your next atk has the added effect of panic strike/chill of death (be it immob or fear or whatever), and you loose the buff with your next atk – doesn’t matter if it hits or not.
This could and should also be applied to stuff like Sigil of Doom, Life-Leech and all those other unavoidable procs. I don’t mind if you make stretch the effect out over a few attacks, so you cannot simply dodge all of it so easily, as long as it’s at least possible to dodge it.
You have to consider that not every proc can be changed like this, or evasion builds (s/d thief or d/d ele with energy runes) will rule. Instant proc mechanics provide some counterplay to these builds, but every proc should be counterable with utility skills. For example, mesmer has very few ways to deal with immob, if he gets struck by panic strike it is pretty much game over. Same with non-bow warrior. As said, the problem with Chill of death is not the chill effect but the instant 3-6k dmg. There is a reason why the original skill has 1,25s cast time.
speaking of Panic Strike and Chill of Death
Panic Strike is just… you get below 50% HP and don’t have a instant cond cleanse? Well.. you are death. Ask some mesmer players about this trait if you want.
Now Chill of Death: I don’t mind the chill, it is powerful but does not lock you in place like immob, the problem about this is the damage. It is always combined with the close to death trait (+20% dmg against <50% HP enemys) so it hit’s like a truck. Bonus points if procced from down state.
Both of them are not avoidable and should be reworked, since it can proc on everything. Some ideas:
Panic strike: Does 1s of fear instead of 2,5s immob. Fear duration does not increase with condition duration.
Explanation: Fit’s way better with the idea of “panic” than the immobilize. Also gives some additional counterplay with stunbreaks.
Chill of death: inflicts 1s of chill on low health enemys and removes 1 boon. No longer deals dmg. 5s icd
Would be still powerful but removes the crazy dmg spikes.
could also be any pve staff ele build. 6/6/0/0/2 with all the damage modifiers to hit like a truck.
Please put a link to your build into the video description in your next video.
how do you close that gap with hammer/bow tho? just kinda waltz?
Use LoS (Line of Sight) to avoid getting hit at range, walk close to walls etc. In pvp you should always fight on top of a capture point, this way the enemy has to stay there too or they lose it. For WvW, well… you already got the reason why most peole use greatsword there instead of bow.
When you get conditions you want to cleanse it with the longbow burst skill. Reason: If your hammer/gs burst misses (enemy dodges or you get blinded etc.) you won’t get the cleanse. LB burst always cleanses conditions even if you hit nothing. That’s the main reason everyone takes LB in spvp, the fire field from LB f1 also covers a large area, ideal for fighting on a capture point.
In Wvw however, no one will keep standing in your fire field. LB won’t be an effective weapon there, some warriors use it for the immobilize to set up burst (GS 2 or Axe Burst) but it is much weaker than in spvp. WvW allows much higher stats with ascended gear, buff food and applied strenght/fortitude, you can deal a lot more dmg than the same build in spvp.
They rather have to buff PUG’s brains so they don’t keep running into these turret engis. Lost so many matches because people kept engaging turret engis on point.
i would recommend the axe build, maybe with some tweaks.
Final Thrust on Sword does nice dmg (between Lvl 2 and Lvl 3 Eviscerate), but axe has better DPS on autoattacks. Sword is a hybrid weapon while axe is a pure power weapon, so axe fits better into a berserker setup than sword. Sword is better with celestial stats.
I do not recommend 4 points in arms for Forceful Greatsword. Try 4 points in strenght for Slashing Power and Great Fortitude. You need around 8 stacks might just from “Forceful Greatsword” to get an equal damage bonus compared to slashing power on a berserker build, since other sources of might affect both variants.
Leg specialist (2 points in tactics) is great for any sword build.
you like axe #5? try this one:
(you can swap flame legion for hoelbrak if you like)
It is build around fire fields and combo finishers: Blast on longbow, leap on sword and whirl on axe. You inflict large amounts of burning to the enemy with some additional conditions from the sigils while still dealing power damage with whirling axe, combustive shot and final thrust.
The problems with your build: no longbow (poor condi cleanse, weaker on point), weak dps and only 1 burst with some cooldown. If you look for other axe builds, they are either berserker (wvw axe builds) or have longbow and sword for conditions to maintain dps outside of eviscerate.
Shoutbow warrior.
No skill required, super easy to play, tanky with strong healing, good in teamfights and still good 1v1.