Guild Wars 2

Impressive as always~ Nice music selection as well!

Wolfram Alpha/ Mathematica is faster than by hand

Laurelinde.4395:

In both PvE and WvW (can’t speak to dungeon PUGs as I don’t PUG dungeons), I see a lot more cats, dogs, and spiders/destroyers than bears unless I am in starter zones. I can’t help but think that there is some ‘bearbow’ confirmation bias happening.

I’ll admit that more pugs these days are running less bears. That’s great. But bows, and lack of spotter+frost spirit, are still a problem.

I’m just going to laugh at the picture again. What a great flow chart!

Verock.8234:

Thank you for all the help!!

Gear
Full Zerker Armor (Rune of the Eagle)
- Should I switch my runes out? Or is Eagle fine?

Weapons:
GS (Zerker Stats + Accuracy)
Sword / Focus (Zerker Stats + Bloodlust / Force)
Sword / Pistol (Zerker Stats + Force / Accuracy)
- When running this I’ve taken your advice and gone S/F 5, GS 4, GS 2, Auto. What should be the rotation in dungeons with the S/F and S/P combo to get the most DPS?

Build:
10/30/0/30/0 (Thanks to Xyonon!)

Utilities:
Signet of the Ether
Mantra of Concentration
Mantra of Power
Mantra of Distraction
TW
- Are these good enough? Going for that +4% stat in the dueling line.

Stats:
Crit Chance: 62% or 67%
Crit Damage: 106%
Power: 2,061
Attack: 3,002
Precision: 2,136
Vitality: 1,234

Seriously guys, thank you for all the help! Only trying to run the most efficient dungeon build / PvE Phantasm build.

If you want the single most efficient build, the above builds are slightly wrong.

10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 are better. The 30 in inspiration does not give you anything worth taking.

Also, if you are truly interested in the best build: drop the greatsword, and use it only when absolutely necessary. Sword+sword and sword+focus and sword+pistol are significantly better. In most encounters, s/s and s/f are the best, and you can use the 30 in dueling to take Empowered Mantras and boost your personal and reflect DPS. The reason to not use greatsword is that melee is always better DPS, you get cleave for multiple targets, and you benefit from boons from the rest of your team which you will not receive if you are camping at 1200 with gs (which is the only range where gs has decent damage).

For runes, ruby is fine, but scholar is better. People will complain that the 10% bonus from scholar does not apply to phantasms, and so is not worth the price, but the 10% bonus does apply to reflect damage. As a mesmer, one of your fundamental contributions to your party is reflect damage, so maximizing that is critical.

For rotations, etc: if it’s a full DPS race fight, start with sword, get swordsman out (incidentally he is your best damaging phant), switch to focus, get warden. Get back to sword asap to get another sworsdmen. In the meantime, close to melee and autoattack. Dodge, or use sword 2, as defense. Use sword 4 for defense if you have it.

Your utilities should change based on the situation. For most content, what you suggested is good, but there are situations where you’ll be required to change out.

Sorry I did not specify this earlier. Yes: this is a standard phantasm berserker build. You should be using berserker everything with scholar runes (ruby orbs if you cannot afford scholar). You summon phantasms (preferably swordsmen when you’re fighting one target, preferably wardens when fighting many) as rapidly as you can, and otherwise melee with your autoattack, using dodges, sword 2, sword 4 to keep yourself alive.

Thanks to PyroAtheist for the clarification on how empowered mantras works! I was not aware the bonus here was multiplicative (thought it was additive). Neat!

You do CoF in 5 min , I do it in 1 hour, I still beat the dungeon so you are not better.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

I am 99% sure it is per type, but someone will clarify, I hope.

For most situations, yes. The stun and damage ones can be swapped in situationally.

The meta builds of 10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 both take empowering mantras as the grandmaster in dueling. The idea is to use sword/sword and sword/focus, spam phantasms, and use the insane damage from your reflects (feedback) to protect your party and do damage. The empowering mantras bonus does not affect phantasms, but does affect reflect and personal damage. You’ll want 3 mantras + feedback on your bar most of the time.

All other mantra traits are not really worth taking.

Shizlam.4310:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Grok Krog.9581:

I only like Ranger’s when they’re using the proper things.

Spotter (gets me up to the 99% crit chance cap)

Frost Spirit. 7% extra damage is nice on top of all other damage boosts

Extra Fury/Blast Finisher Might from Warhorn.

Decent Vulnerability

and a Jungle Stalker for 5 stacks of party wide Might

This… And if a ranger joins my group with a bow equipped. They are insta booted.

Really? You kick a RANGER because he uses ranged weapons? It’s like saying i’ll kick a thief if he uses daggers.

No offense, but this is the problem. A better option exists— the sword— but he will not take it. No pug rangers will. If the better option was only pink umbrellas, you should be using pink umbrellas, because that is what helps your group the most.

When folks are playing “how they want”, that’s great for them, but do not expect to have a reputation for damage or contributions to speed clears.

All is vain

/15

juno.1840:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

staff ele is one of the highest DPS dungeon builds out there; compared to it warrior DPS is nothing.

I can’t agree or disagree as I honestly don’t know any better from a DPS comparison standpoint.

However mobs aren’t smart enough to run out of AoEs which makes the weapon even more awesome in PvE. I remember when GW1 implemented some mob smarts and ruined fire-storm for example. I wonder how GW2 would play with that type of logic.

They don’t. Just spam fire 2 all day and you win at dps. This obviously works best if your group is stacking/LOS’ing on a corner to get enemies clumped up and immobile.

Sword is actually great damage, and spotter and frost spirit are great utility. There’s a reason many record setting runs include a ranger. For whatever reason though, these builds have not been picked up by the pug community. Rangers really aren’t bad, but it is incredibly rare to see them played well.

Too many rangers using bows and too many rangers that cannot control pets. If I was seeing spotter and frost spirit around, I would be ecstatic, but I have literally never run into a pug ranger using those

A++ would read again

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Most likely it will be a buff to condition damage, or something like defiant stacks granting damage reduction. They are certainly not going to change the stats of items, not going to manually change the skill set of every boss in the game, and they aren’t going to change the npc AI. So the only thing that makes sense is a nerf to Precision, a buff to Condition Damage or something where bosses get a reduction to phsyical damage. Or some kind of debuff where bosses take 50% more damage from conditions.

A typical condi spec for pve can max out at like 8-9k dps, with 25% of that being direct damage so a 50% boost to condition damage would make their dps comparable to a berserker’s direct damage.

The buff to condi damage wouldn’t be so bad, then. This does seem like the most likely option, given that devs have mentioned in the past that they are looking into making condi more viable in PvE. All we can do is cross our fingers for now~

Use this text in the signature:

"Never Forget":http://i.imgur.com/Oxra9sj.jpg

I actually find the meta PvE builds for ele to be surprisingly diverse. Staff, scepter+focus/dagger, and dagger + focus all have very effective DPS and support roles in teams. There are basically three choices, all with different playstyles, compared to most classes which have a single meta build, or very small variations of a single build (see: warrior with axe, mesmer with phantasms, guardian with sword/focus, etc.).

kyubi.3620:

Do you play for fun or do you play for profits taku? I feel like having fun every now and then because 1 its a game 2 money is just accessory when you already got everything you want +low level fractals just arent worth running meta in as you wont get a party decent enought to actualy match the needs of the build, most meta build are made to be runned under optimal conditions with premade party and you wont find that in fractals until about lvl 30. If you run fractals especialy at low lvl dont bother using a meta if you cant play it right it will only make your life harder then it should be run something your sure you can nail down perfectly. Ive seen thousand of poor sods running meta when they shouldnt and making runs impossible because they constantly die at the beginning of fight because they either suck at dodging or just do it wrong. Start by running what you can actualy run effectively in lower dungeons then work on running the meta once you got everything well nailed down.

They’re not talking about the meta even, come on. They’re just saying the very reasonable thing: “make sure you have enough AR, otherwise you will have a hard time.” Yes, if you’re l33t you can get through it (I know folks who did 35 with 0 AR), but you’ll still down from the unavoidable agony at the boss stages. For a newbie, like OP, it is solid advice to just make sure you get enough AR.

PS these make great forum signatures

deSade.9437:

maxinion.8396:

deSade.9437:

Romo.3709:

They simply moved on assuring themselves that people will forget…

Which is precisely what’s going to happen.

Just for you, deSade. Everyone knows crying eagles are the best tools for Never Forgetting.

Wat. Wat have I just seen.
Ok, I really need to go but I can’t stop lurking and staring at what dis community can come up with. Mesmerised _
Eagles or not, I still think people are going to stop barking about it and deal with it (not that I think it’s a good thing, quite the opposite…) as many did when that stupid ascended stuff came out. I mean, I never threatened to leave in the first place, but I was very upset too… yet, here I am.
For how long… that, I do not know. I acknowledge the community was hit hard, but you know how it is, people get emotional and then things cool down.
And Anet makes money.
P.S. Try with a cute kitty instead of an eagle.

You ask, I deliver.

deSade.9437:

Romo.3709:

They simply moved on assuring themselves that people will forget…

Which is precisely what’s going to happen.

Just for you, deSade. Everyone knows crying eagles are the best tools for Never Forgetting.

Find a dungeon guild, and they’ll help you level. Or, just look for pugs at low levels. Start at 9, do that till you hit 10, then do 19, etc. I started doing them about a month ago, with no real problems.

Excellent editing and selection of content. Very nicely done!

Tree.3916:

Staff ele is even better if a LH ele is in the same group. Then you get max might due to all the blasts.

As an LH ele, this is very true. Such might, much fun.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Staff, full zerk, 30/X/X/X/X.

This is the complete and full answer. Check out Anierna’s or DeKeyz’s guides for more details.

lfg?

/15chars

@Hayashi: we should not be debating the overall merits of this build (though if you want more information on it, please see the link above, Anierna’s stickied guide, or DEKeyz’s guide. I personally do not run the build, but just am pointing out that it provides exactly what OP wanted— a viable (perhaps not completely optimal) build that uses one attunement.

Hayashi.3416:

maxinion.8396:

Providing 100% fire field uptime and top tier DPS in PvE.

Only the staff ele camping fire and spamming 2 can do that.

Purpose of fire field uptime? If might, the s/f ele and staff guardian can do both better, where the earlier has much higher DPS and the second has much higher heal. If burning, the Renewed Justice type builds with the guardian can do that just as well in PvE, and add in blindness, retal, might and vulnerability to boot.

Smarter folks than me have shown the dps of spamming staff fire 2 is comparable to LH (see the manly men build above). 100% fire field uptime is for other eles to blast with LH aa, gets you to 25 might easy.

Thinking a bit more, it also obviously will depend on the exact content. If stuff is constantly killing phants, the cooldown reduction is helpful. If you can mostly keep 2-3 phants up, then replacing them throughout the fight with normal cooldowns can be sufficient, and you can use the extra damage. I personally find the latter situation is more common, so I prefer the damage over the cooldowns.

Pyroatheist.9031:

maxinion.8396:

10/30/0/20/10 is good as well. Spec for damage and cooldowns on phantasms, use sword/sword and sword/focus.

That is worse than 0/30/0/25/15. You’re trading 20% cooldowns on all phantasms and illusion skills for 100 power (aka ~3% damage).

This is a matter of taste, I think. If you start on sword and summon swordsman, then swap and summon warden, swordsman is off cooldown by the time your swap cooldown has reset (or worst case, swordsman is very close to resetting). In which case, my 3% damage is helping, but the 20% cooldown reduction is not (though maybe a bit, if your rotation was perfect and you didn’t dodge or leap or anything).

I suppose in trash pulls you often start with focus because you need to pull the trash. In that case, the cooldown reduction would help, but hopefully your trash killing takes less than the time to summon three phants anyway.

Anyway it’s a matter of taste— I quite like both builds, but yours is admittedly probably easier for newcomers.

10/30/0/20/10 is good as well. Spec for damage and cooldowns on phantasms, use sword/sword and sword/focus.

2 fire staff spam is only going to work in pve and maybe zergs. In 1v1, it’s such an obvious effect that very one will leave it.

Hayashi.3416:

If you’re not using all 4 elements, why are you playing an elementalist?

Name me what role you want to do, I can name you a class better at doing that role than a non-switching elementalist.

Providing 100% fire field uptime and top tier DPS in PvE.

Only the staff ele camping fire and spamming 2 can do that.

Back when I was pugging new paths, I always joined groups that said " SE p1 " or something— no speed run, no zerker, etc. groups like this were always willing to explain the run to me when I asked. I had literally zero kicks over several months. Your mileage may vary, but the advice everyone else is giving is very helpful as well.

LH builds all stack might before LH in order to get that good dps. OP wants the staff build linked above. Spam staff fire 2 and 1 forever and ever.

So your ideas is…

1. Post feedback on dungeons to dungeon forum for months, see zero developer interaction (though one nice post from CC, hi Danica!)
2. ?
3. Profit!

We tried this already. Reaching out to GD was a nice idea for trying to get some more attention to the issues we raise.

FGS from ele.

/15 chars

Grok Krog.9581:

My question is, which dungeons do you use a stacking sigil in? The ones I usually run there’s not enough mobs that get killed early on to warrant losing the 10% damage buff from a Sigil of Night

Almost all dungeons (except CoF p1 and fractal swamp, notably) have plenty of trash at the beginning to develop stacks on. The trick is learning to play at a level where you don’t down and lose those stacks later on, when you might not have the opportunity to rebuild them.

Empowering mantras also boosts damage from reflects, which is one of your primary responsibilities as a dungeon Mesmer.

For PVE, the skickied dungeon guide and the other [Guide] on the front page of the forum have all the info you need.

Might stack and FGS.

rainynoble.6531:

Rainweaver.7302:

Nosoyelarty.7268:

Some bosses have different mechanics depending if their target is in melee range or far away. Spider Queen don’t uses the AOE poison if you are in melee range even if you are not stacked, Giganticus Lupicus don’t uses his kick if you are on range. So you can’t do GL in range because you are exploiting one of his abilities.

It seems like every single post about stacking = exploit is just because of the Spider Queen. They really want the first champion of a lvl 35 dungeon to be the most super epic fight in the game.

Except that I never said Spider Queen stacking was an exploit (way to read the post). I mentioned her as an example of what in my opinion is a poor AI design. I’m fine with bosses doing certain attacks in melee and others in range, but the discrepancy between the efficiency of the two is really something to question. I’d rather the spider use both the web and the poison attacks on both melee and ranged players.

And besides, why can’t people ask for a super epic fight, even if it’s in the first dungeon? An epic fight does not need to be hardcore hard, but challenging and/or exciting, and I’m not sure about you guys, but I definitely don’t find the current Spider Queen’s fight, with the stacking method, enjoyable at all. Plus, being the “first dungeon” is not a parameter for anything. The Cave Troll in AC is harder than a lot of bosses from higher level dungeons.

Back to my original post, I said I consider a few of the current stacking in this game as exploits, not all of them. Exploit because by just doing the mere act of stacking you are nulling one or more of the fight mechanisms/boss abilities that were intended to affect your group. Some examples: (there are probably more)

Colossus Rumble: Stacking nulls his seismic attack

SE P1 golem trio (the “new” stacking spot): Stacking nulls most of their AoEs and attacks

Volkov: Stacking nulls everything he does (that spot has been there since forever and still not fixed)

SE P3 dredge champion duo: Stacking nulls everything they do

Subject Alpha in CoE P1 and P3: Stacking nulls his Teeth of Mordremoth (earth spike thing)

Aetherblade Fractals: Stacking nulls the cannons AoE during the “clear the waves of aetherblades” encounter.

Old Tom: Not sure if the stacking trick still works, but yeah

That being said: when you stack at Spider Queen, you are not nulling an intended attack directed at your group because in theory there wasn’t even such attack, since you didn’t meet the requirements to trigger the poison AoE, so I suppose it’s not an exploit (although I strongly disagree with such design, as I’ve already stated).

More bout the stacking scenarios:

Colossus Rumble: Does not working all the time, even worse when he comes to you from other side. people stack there to avoid the falling ceiling rocks. and the conditions from the boss is what really slows down dps and potentially wipe party.

Golem Trio: are you talking about the corner after the stationary golems? Reflect and stability is needed otherwise face certain death.

Volkov: He still put tons of bleed on a player.

Alpha’s tooth move: still hits you regardless, unblockable too.

Pulling Rhomblus “from the other side” is actually the fastest way to kill him, since you can FGS into the column and wipe him in seconds that way.

santa.1640:

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Scepter + Hammer

• Persisting Flames build for highest might stacking and fury stacking: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYnEEVZYACyGwjgAgoIFUCPGQgCGF6QUwCA-jACBYfBk8DgKAMzUZNPVQs4qIas6aYKXER1A-e

thanks to your guide. after read part of s/d, i have a question.

there is a build for might and fury stacking, traits are 25/10/10/25.

while i use build, how can i stacking FURY?

i think there is no trait for stacking fury.

maybe it’s just silly question for you. but plz be generous. i’m a noob.

so, wish your help. thanks.

You must have misread. The build you link/quote is actually 30/10/10/20/0.

Thanks DE for the detailed comments on those trade offs, and the tips on stacking.

I absolutely agree that 0.5% is not worth sweating it, especially if FGS is better with berserker.

Like I said, the discussion only makes these guides and tips better and more complete for everyone

Play fractals. Still some stacking for trash, but much more spread out play in general.

Thanks also to Zelhyn for the reminders about the benefits of the D/F build!

I think everyone needs to relax a bit, in fact. Both guides are incredibly useful, and both are improving tremendously through the discussions, even if it feels like they are splitting hairs. People’s attitudes here and in the dungeon forums are rarely exactly “professional”, so I would have thought we are used to things like ego and can rely instead on results. I don’t think it’s controversial at all to day that in some spots Anierna has a slightly better recommendation (the assassin’s gear above, I’m convinced by) and in others DE is more helpful (obviously the D/F builds, etc.).

Chill, folks. There’s lots of good work here, and no one is recommending celestial gear.