Guild Wars 2

It looks like swirling wind blocks channels now I don’t think it did before that’s really a game changer for me. Need to test this later

Lol

Every 1v1 build is essentially takes the same considerations some do it better than others.

Go hop on a power cele DD ele and fine a competent signet boon corruption Necro and get back to me.

A DD ele has always and still does need boons for damage and defense. Signet Nero’s are now even stronger vs boon spammers like ele, engi, and guardian. Especially since they fixed the bug so that stab turns into fear.

Celestial only makes sense on certain builds classes and guard/ele/ and Nero make good use of celestial. Wolfineers celestial rifle build is popular for a reason.

Depends on what your traits are. Air+Arcana get’s pretty good fury uptime if you take fresh air and fury on aura’s, but not as good as Fire’s fury uptime. I’ve finished fights and had like 20-30 secs left of fury.

None of your choices are clear cut winners just some are more “optimal than others”. I personally have no plans to switch from Hoelbrak so that means every build has to have Air trait line, which is ok because I like it as much as fire.

You can’t really go wrong with any of those choices you are either gonna be slower, less fury uptime, less condition management, or more damage. It depends on how you prioritize each one.

I think the proper way to look at it is you are forced into speccing for condition removal. That is just the way the game is and every class is “forced” into whatever gives them best condition removal that could be traits, utilities or weapons.

I don’t think arcana is mandatory anymore, but you definitely want water.

From my other classes Medi Guardian is forced into Valor, virtues, and whatever else you want(usually radiance). Medi Guard has been forced there since well inception. Support guard is forced Virtues.

Should sound familiar.

Arcana definitely isn’t mandatory for a Staff Elementalist when I put on a staff I’m trying to nuke from 1200 arcana is a waste of damage in that scenario.

Thieves are probably all running SA which is “forced” because of conditions.

We perceive we are “forced” when it is something we don’t want to take, but find necessary based on the meta, we don’t feel “forced” when we can pick something we chose that doesn’t cause us to get killed.

My dream D/D trait setup? Fire/Air/+whatever

lLobo.7960:

Malpractice.7850:

That is somewhat the problem. As an engineer main, and we’re a “jack of all trades” — we end up playing 2nd fiddle to ele (who is also a jack of all trades, seemingly) in every single game mode.

Pve, Fractals, speedrunning, WvW, Spvp. You guys are top tier in everything atm, and is that fair? I’m not sure. Engis certainly need a little love atm.

Engy has access to way more stuff than an ele.
Engy can do anything in the game. We might be both jack of all trades but engy have much more trades on his sleeve. Access to stealth, (much) more conditions, more blasts and so on…
Yes, an Ele have more dmg but engy have more of everything else.

I agree here and the play styles are way different or different enough that it’s fun. Rifle, Bombs, that new Wolfineer Flamethrower build, Conditions with the new mortar kit, nades, new HGH build. While we are over here moving one trait line or 2, but it still pretty plays the same as it has for 3 years.

I have a Engi too it’s probably my second favorite class and it’s much more versatile than my ele.

lLobo.7960:

oZii.2864:

I maybe late and people have already used this, but I would recommend checking into the Superior Sigil of Cleansing it is basically a condition clear on weapon swap with a 9 sec cooldown. So it gives you basically cleansing water without having to swap into water.

The recipe is on the trading post it’s fairly cheap to make it’s account bound on acquire so you won’t find the sigil itself on the TP.

I need to test it more though I am not sure if it goes on cooldown even if you don’t have a condition. I don’t think it does, but I am not 100% sure I just tried paying attention to it when I was taking a camp, but I was playing normal so I didn’t really slow down to pay attention.

I use the generosity one…
The good thing is, it transfers the full stacks of conditions… Its great to send back that full stack of burn or bleeds. I’ve managed to transfer fear to a necro that stood on my RoF. It was quite funny. Can work great on immobs too.
The bad thing is, its unreliable… It can get your 25 stacks of bleed back to the thief or just that 1 stack of vulnerability that was covering it.

Its much more expensive than the cleansing one now… I got mine on the wintersday that it showed up…

Yea I have 2 of them back when it was 20g on the TP lol now it’s over 100g

I still maintain that you can replace Arcana with Earth especially if you run Focus having stone flesh and Magnetic wave on such a low cooldown is really strong and magnetic wave is 3 clears every 16 secs, a reflect, a cripple, and a blast finisher. I only slightly miss the Water dodge heal, but not so much with Focus Earth 4 always handy.

Water I think is more needed than Arcana, but you want one of them I wouldn’t drop both.

You can easily turn tanky by taking earth if you have some celestial in your gear or running celestial ammy.

For WvW I used Fire/Water/Arcana and Air/Water/Arcana.

Anything without Air I have to have traveler runes personally, still after using Fire/Water/Arcana for about 2-3 days I went back to Air/Water/Arcana. I had fun with Air/Earth/Water and Fire/Earth/Water using D/F and actually fought 1v3 some condition Engi’s for a little while and I wasn’t even using diamond skin. I just can’t get into Focus off hand fully though lighting rod does help it’s dps a little.

I maybe late and people have already used this, but I would recommend checking into the Superior Sigil of Cleansing it is basically a condition clear on weapon swap with a 9 sec cooldown. So it gives you basically cleansing water without having to swap into water.

The recipe is on the trading post it’s fairly cheap to make it’s account bound on acquire so you won’t find the sigil itself on the TP.

I need to test it more though I am not sure if it goes on cooldown even if you don’t have a condition. I don’t think it does, but I am not 100% sure I just tried paying attention to it when I was taking a camp, but I was playing normal so I didn’t really slow down to pay attention.

What guild are you in maybe I’ve ran into you?

I found this pretty entertaining especially his use of lightning hammer.

Original Post

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3d8rtg/staff_ele_roaming_montage/

FrownyClown.8402:

This seems like a solid build. Pack runes will also solve your problem of lack of swiftness.

Did you move servers Frowny? I haven’t ran into you on Mag at all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMozhVOwwB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAUrhkYZA-TFDHABA8AAUb/hhUGwoKBGp0xPVNcSJUcaBCTHAdKBDUNkBOBABAOA+twBwyL/8zP/c/+8z/+7vlCgJdWA-w

Just posting for how I setup the stats on Fire/Water/Arcana roaming with traveler runes.

It does feel good being able to slot mist form again for secure stomps knowing you have cleansing fire setup on trait. The Fire damage is undeniable, but it does feel slower than a Air build, but that damage!!

I 2v1 a glass warrior and a glass boon sig of inspiration mesmer they weren’t really all that good, but I wanted to see how it held up.

I need to fight more conditions with it, traveler runes are an ok supplement to Air, but it is slower if you are use to running Zephyr’s Boon.

Going to play with it a little more tomorrow since late night it’s pretty dead in my tier.

This is what I cooked up that I’ll be trying. I’m a 17k hp minimum guy I never really consider guard stacks in any of my builds especially since they will be removing them in HOT. I looked at rune of speed also which would give me the hp threshold I like and move stats around. The overal gain of travelers combined with what arcana gives you in boon duration is better overall; it results into about 1-1 1/2 sec across the board for most boons we would really care about, its a loss of about 3 seconds vs hoelbrak on might stacks, but you get an extra cleanse with burning fire trait if you decide to take it, which I think is a better choice over burning precision.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMozhNOwwB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAUrhkYZA-TFDHABA8AAUb/hhUSwoKBGpcJIlQ+pqRcaBCTHAdKBDUNkBOBABAOA+twBwzP/8zP/c/+8z/+7vlCgJdWA-w

cursE.1794:

I don’t think Fires damage greatly outshines Air’s damage because 9% crit chance from Aeromancers Training and bolt to the heart aren’t anything to sneeze at.

It actually does. I would estimate that about 75% of your entire damage output come from fire. Aeromancers training only affects crit chance while attuned to air. You cannot expect to win by slapping an enemy to death with lightning whip.

Fire is your leading source of damage as a d/d celestial ele. Now the fire trait line gives you:

1) 33% cooldown reduction: This is a huge sustained damage boost
2) +150 power for your main damage attunement
3) permanent 25 stacks of might with burning fire and sunspot (combined with all other sources of might, e.g. sigil of battle)
4) if you start your fire rotation with drake’s breath which you should do in most situations since burning was buffed, you get a 20% damage boost for your burst that is not limited by a 50% enemy hp threshold

These benefits synergize. The synergies push your damage output to a level that I did not expect from those numbers in the build calculator. One has to experience it. IMHO, it’s totally worth going for fire/water/arcana with traveller’s runes because celestial ele also benefits from the entire set of stats.

@topic

The stats look good in general, thumbs up for selecting the CHEAP bufffood which you will actually use. Quite balanced. When going for air though, I would take a bit more power and ferocity and sacrifice about 1500 hp. But fine tuning celestial ele stats is more about personal preference.

Good points! I’ll eventually get around to checking out how roaming is with Traveler Runes. It will give me a chance to really see how well it fairs. The burning rage damage multiplier would actually be good if you can extend the burns well enough so that you can get the benefits whille in another attunement.

Hmm.. I may this try out sooner rather than later.

With traveler runes you would get the +10% duration on burning + by taking Water you could get away with not running the cleansing fire trait and use burning precision in it’s place. Definitely need a fury source so fury on fire field blast is a must and of course pyromancers training.

Yea I think I’ll be trying this tomorrow.

Laraley.7695:

atreyu.9624:

FlawlezZ.3178:

Why air? I think fire offers more damage and also survivability in form of passive blind

Im not really sure about fire offering more survivability, more often in roaming u are not 1v1ing, that blind trait gets worse the more stuff join up the fight, be it players, pets , guards, or even clones.

I went back to roaming yesterday, started with my usual SPvP build Fire/water/arcana, it was all good.
Then I also tried Air/Water/Arcana. And I was pleasantly surprised.

I think air is pretty good in WvW, I don’t like it as much in sPvP.

Also Mobility is a pretty BIG part of roaming, and RTL on 13/26 secs CD is pretty kittening sweet.

I agree. When I play d/d, I use air even in pvp simply because it’s most fun for me. I love the air trait line, it’s probably not the best, but for roaming I think the mobility definitely helps a lot.

I agree with Air for roaming. The damage fire offers is tempting, but I can’t give up the mobility that Air offers. I could if I put on Speed or Traveler Runes, then I would run Fire/Water/Arcana to see how I like it, but I haven’t gotten around to trying that yet.

I don’t think Fires damage greatly outshines Air’s damage because 9% crit chance from Aeromancers Training and bolt to the heart aren’t anything to sneeze at.

I think it’s damage is fine and it’s a godsend if you happen to run focus offhand since that weapon needs all the damage it can get. It’s lower base damage and scaling than Power block (mesmer damage on interrupt also with no ICD). The difference is you just have to land the interrupt skill for Elementalist, but the Mesmer skill needs the interrupt portion for the damage which isn’t that big a deal since they have access to more than we do.

If it hit jfor any less then fresh air and bolt to the heart would be the clear winner as it is right now you can’t really go wrong with any of those choices, which is how GM traits should be.

Force them to heal and switch to water. They will most certainly use a dodge roll in water After that spike. So about a half burst at the opening then whatever you have left after they come out of water.

Ok so I went back in threw on the D/F. Randomly ended up in a 1v1 with a D/P SA thief took a while but I won never really felt in danger because of earth 5 on standby to go with cantrips.

Later I ran into about 3 condi engi’s and I held up for a while actually while I was able to still get away when I was low I couldn’t get a stomp though just because I had to use about everything to stay up against the conditions.

Overall I’d give Off hand Focus a B right now.

Fire 5 is actually really good if you run -condition duration food + hoelbrak it’s basically a free removal almost.

Flamewall is wayyyy to awkward it just doesn’t fit for me. It has that cast time for so little damage and 1s of burning it’s just horrible imo.

The rest of focus skills are good. It is less damage and I feel you rely on Lightning Whip spam and drakes breath more. I think fresh air and lightning rod are good compliments for the extra damage on interrupt I don’t think either of those traits outshines the other with focus off-hand.

The missing piece is that one really good damaging ability like a fire grab, ring of fire, or RTL,

It needs another damage option probably on fire 4. Flamewall is just so bad I’d feel better wasting time casting if it was something like 3 stacks of burning or even a reduced cast time.

Focus offhand always feels like a little voice saying “I could have killed him faster if I had dagger off hand” on the other side of the coin you will survive a little bit longer.

Off-guard is what this shines at imo. I’ve fought them before and I died because I didn’t know what I was fighting.

The other day I came across a similar build signet of earth with focus offhand me and a friend where fighting 2 other people when the ele came and I thought it was honestly a Necro, but then I saw the burn and immob. The second time I ran into that Ele I could make it disengage every single time. I was on my mesmer I just sat in stealth launching phantasms making sure I had distance, and I run Arcane Thievery, which I often roam with on my mesmer even if I got hit with the signet and burns I just gave them back to the ele anyway.

Not saying everyone would fight it the same just my experience fighting a condi ele recently. I don’t really like condi ele’s much, because I have a Necro and Engi that do it much better or occasionally my thief or mesmer.

I don’t see it being meta which is usually referring to sPvP. Roaming “meta” is usually centered around as much mobility as possible, cleanses, and dealing with thieves. Looks like a 1v1 dueling build mostly I don’t see it replacing the preferred celestial direct damage build.

I don’t mind it I liked the old Moa with the skill 5 that I think was an evade/charge for escaping.

I’ll have to try it again to see if I like it over elemental contingency.

Ele is the Top of the food chain, but everyone is complaining about Mesmers on other forums. I hopped on my mesmer just messing around trying to find a phantasm zerk build with Scepter/pistol and sword/torch. Scepter 3 and Duelist will take a Ele to close to death in just 1 channel and I can fire it all from stealth. The confounding suggestions shatter build will force a ele to retreat and die. On my Necro with boon corruption I am happy to see a D/D ele.

I guess since I main Ele when I play most of my other classes I have no issues fighting Ele except on my Medi-Guardian and occasionally my thief.

The bursty skill spam of confusion is down because they added the DOT part of it. I have 2 sets one with nightmare and one with perp. I still like perp over anything else simply because of Pew Pew rangers which drive me nuts and at a minimum you can get smart ones to stop Pew Pewing for a second or 2 to cleanse.

I asked the same question not long ago and the answer I got is Krait, Perp, Nightmare, Undead/Scavenging are all viable choices just depends on preference. Condi necro’s damage is down since the patch. Seems to me anyway that a more corruption with signets of suffering is the way to go. Many builds rely on boon spam in some way or another so it still works in that form.

Timiok.1048:

I see. Well I saw some guides saying that I can just go celestial for all my trinkets instead because of the timeshare on celestial armor.
Another question, was my second non-celestial idea even useful?

Honestly for PvE it’s usually advisable to focus on power as the main stat. If you wanted condi then throw on some sinister gear, because power is still the main stat. Mixing gear works as long as Power>All. If you are running around with friends etc that don’t really care then run whatever you like I would say. PUG meta it’s usually expected that you focused on Damage as much as possible.

I haven’t played it I watched a lot of streams and read up on it, but it looks very different from a Necro so I don’t see a real comparison to be made as if it would replace the Necro because it does Necro things better.

scerevisiae.1972:

oZii.2864:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

What is all this non-sense about Arcana being mandatory? Water is, true, but not arcana. Come one ppl, stop being so conservative.

I don’t know why people are so scared to play without arcana or even water to try it out it doesn’t cost them anything.

Earth can completely replace Arcana as long as you run water and a energy sigil. Air/Earth/Water with zephyr’s boon will give you enough fury uptime, soothing disruption+energy sigil enough regen+endurance, and earth will give you a ton protection with protection on aura’s+soothing ice. Not to mention if you take Rock solid you can run Ether Renewal much more reliably than any other non-earth build. Oh and I don’t have to mention stone heart.

I would certainly run a fire/water/earth build if I wanted to put on traveler runes instead of hoelbrak which i think is certainly viable.

I find it strange that people won’t experiment more.

I experimented, it’s just not as good.

one of the key elements is prot on earth attune due to EAtt is usable anytime, whereas prot on aura requires a stunbreak, or an aura-generator. this is a massive difference.

evasive arcana by itself is better every other GM.

at the end of the day, you get more from arcane than any other trait line except water.

Hmm Evasive is a great trait I agree there, but I feel that the potential 12-15s of protection from Air/Water/Earth completely overshadows the protection that Air/Water/Arcana gives you. Then you only have 1 or 2 seconds downtime before you could potentially bring it back up. Also prot on aura doesn’t require a stun break since attunement swapping and aura’s are instant cast so if you are stunned swap to air and activate shocking aura.

When earth is on CD you can’t get prot in arcana with Air/Water/Earth you can get it in any attunement with soothing ice, any attunement with tempest defense, and Fire if you get a magnetic leap through fire field. Then of course air 3 and water 4 on command if they aren’t on cd. That is strictly looking at protection in Air/Water/Earth vs Air/Water/Arcana no to mention the -10% damage against melee from the earth minor that applies no matter your attunement.

FrownyClown.8402:

Jski.6180:

Its not a bad build just think Elemental Contingency is better then the arcain shield due to always having it trigger on you becuse you should be getting hit most of the time.

arcane shield saved me alot of times in pvp. the only boon worth having with elemental contingency is the protection.

That little bit of Vigor is decent along with more fury there can never be too much fury unless it’s 100% uptime. I feel like Arcane Shield is essentially 3 dodges and damage if you get it to pop near them. CD is to long and 25% is is to low to matter imo.

It looks like you want a PvE setup which I’d just recommend some Zerk and a few zerk pieces if you find yourself dying more often. I mean you can do celestial in PvE, but usually the idea is to get through it as fast as possible.

If it’s WvW then the rationale behind Celestial for a D/D roaming build is a different and more inline with what Frowny said.

Celestial is just time gated it isn’t hard to get. Buy quartz from the TP and charge them one a day. I think you need 5 for a top and bottom, 5 for a weapon, and 3 for the other pieces if you are putting it on armor.

If you don’t want to do that just get the trinkets for laurels and more focused gear on your armor or weapons.

Messing around with Air again I kind of feel differently about these traits than I did before.

Immediately post patch I thought to myself Tempest Defense+Lightning Rod is a clear winner. Now I am not so sure, but I wanted to get some other peoples thoughts.

Right now I am thinking more that Aeromancer’s training will give you good synergy with fresh air since air skills are up faster, which further decreases the predictability of a D/D’s rotation it also is a dps increase for extra precision about 9% crit chance increase. Tempest defense does provide a substantial damage increase and you would have 4 ways to proc it.

The tough one for me is fresh air vs lightning rod. Fresh air means more static discharges so that is a dps increase on it’s own, but lightning rod for myself is usually criting for 2,200-2400 and it benefits from tempest defense if you decide to take it too. It provides good burst if you are able to land a interrupt.

Even if you are in a 1v1 situation and fighting a mesmer that means you still did something productive if you knockdown a clone or phantasm probably destroying it or very close and it’s not wasted.

Going to play around with these 4 traits more I don’t know if there is a clear cut winner at master or gm all 4 are very good.

Edit: Bolt to the heart looking at that it’s also on par with the other GM air traits.

I haven’t gvg’d in a long time, but I think you pretty much hit everything for a gvg staff setup.

LionChain.7694:

snip

He didn’t say they make changes based on player feedback he just said they do read them, which is true, they do interact on the forums, which is also true. They may not make the changes players want or even communicate often, which would only be quantified by each person satisfaction.

Still the forums are not really active it’s usually the same posters who are comfortable speaking their minds on the forums. Reddit has much more activity from multiple people than the forums do and they read and reply there too.

The truth is that they read the forums, but whatever their design philosophy is there is no certainty it will always align with the forum hive mind.

You can post something you don’t like or like hope they read it try to keep in on the front page, relevant, and continue to play the game or not.

I think they consider player feedback, but it isn’t the driving force for balance changes.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

What is all this non-sense about Arcana being mandatory? Water is, true, but not arcana. Come one ppl, stop being so conservative.

I don’t know why people are so scared to play without arcana or even water to try it out it doesn’t cost them anything.

Earth can completely replace Arcana as long as you run water and a energy sigil. Air/Earth/Water with zephyr’s boon will give you enough fury uptime, soothing disruption+energy sigil enough regen+endurance, and earth will give you a ton protection with protection on aura’s+soothing ice. Not to mention if you take Rock solid you can run Ether Renewal much more reliably than any other non-earth build. Oh and I don’t have to mention stone heart.

I would certainly run a fire/water/earth build if I wanted to put on traveler runes instead of hoelbrak which i think is certainly viable.

I find it strange that people won’t experiment more.

Depends on how much fury your build has. The extra durations on fire fields is a nice bonus that shouldn’t be ignored. If you have zephyr’s boon or arcane fury you have flexibility to run something else. If not I would run Persisting Flames. Pyromancer’s Pusissance requires you to camp fire a little longer and spam some auto’s, but the might stacking is there if that’s what your going for.

I think blinding ashes is good in a 1v1 and meh anywhere else because it doesn’t have a per target icd.

Blooperz.6145:

Tbh it doesnt matter much at the end of the day, once someone finds out what the new strongest meta is 95% of people will play with that specc, regardless of how viable anything else is. I think with Ele the meta didnt really change much which is why everyone is so sour.

Bingo!

The D/D Ele pre-patch and post patch plays almost exactly the same just a few different changes to playstyle and consideration, but it isn’t anything like taking a pre-patch condi necro with some spectrals or corruption skills and post patch turning it into a boon corruption spec. That is why I have been playing my necro more than my Ele lately because it’s different enough from what it was pre-patch.

Sure I can either be more tanky with a earth build or I can do more damage with a fire build, but the fundamental aspects of playing D/D are almost exactly the same, because cantrips. I tried focus it’s ok in certain fights, but the damage is missing I understand it’s range so it shouldn’t match offhand daggers damage. It just feels like it’s utility, which is fine, but paired with main hand dagger it feels like your running a kitten set. I think scepter fixes would really help me get into running focus, but right now I just do it to change it up.

They didn’t even really change much in necro utilities, but that one signet of suffering trait made signets a thing now on Necro now condi necro doesn’t do as much damage because of the changes, but it’s still fun to play because everyone else relies on boons so much.

Ele needs a trait that makes you want to really consider glyphs or signets something that makes them feel good enough to drop one or all cantrips.

I wouldn’t really hold my breath for anything else sweeping until HoT.

Overall I think ele is in a OK place it’s just to similar to what many of us have been playing for 3+ years now.

If meta is the game within the game then what is the strongest at that moment will dictate what else is viable.

What’s the alternative is the question I would consider. If ele’s aren’t running arcana or water then they are running Fire/Air which = burst damage build then all the eles would run Fire/Air and the last trait line would be earth, arcana, or water, because it wouldn’t matter much because they are of least importance is that really that much better than what you state the meta is?

I’d assume you would see “I’m forced to run Fire/Air” it would be a stop gap maybe it would be fire/air meta eles for a year and then people would be tired of it and say buff earth/water/arcana which ever one is perceived to be the weakest.

One of the things a tier list can give you is a picture of what the meta is. S-Tier dictates to every other class based on how well they can compete with S or A tier then you have the meta. You could run a C-Tier build, but you can’t really be mad if people want you to run the A-Tier build, because your team wants to win.

I’m saying that I think it’s more important that the class is viable to be played more so than what build is ran. If the meta changes and their is nothing the class can do to be played at all, which forces people to hop on a alt then you have a problem.

FrownyClown.8402:

hey ozii. If you add 200 power and take 20% crit damage from your build you do more damage in the long run.

I know power is the superior stat, but I kind of feel 180 crit damage is low. I’ll mess around with it more. Probably throw on 2 zerk rings to see how that damage damage looks.

lordhelmos.7623:

ButterOfDeath.2873:

lordhelmos.7623:

Guardian/Mesmer will completely wreck a necro in a condition fight.

This is the sentence that spoiled you. The necro has terrible application, yes, but it should always win a condition fight.

Guardian stacks 15 burning on you > plague signet > instantly win.
Mesmer stacks 8 confusion, 10 torment and 5 burning > putrid mark > instantly win.
<class> stacks <tons of conditions> > putrid mark/plague signet/dagger 4 > instantly win.

All you need is one moment to target your opponent and transfer the condis.

Of course, if you’re condi vs something else, then you’ll do worse than another profession going condi as necro’s application is mediocre, that is a fair statement.
But as long as you’re against another condi user, you really should just win.

You know I really want to agree with you here. Timing and skill is everything, but even with plague on transfer traits, plague signet, putrid mark, and dagger offhand sometimes the condition application from other classes is still too much.

You really have to nail every transfer. I’ve had alot of transfers mysteriously fail on me for some strange reason or guardians just COP it all into boons and it basically turns into a CD war between you and the guardian for transferring and corrupt boon vs. clear.

In a CD war, the guardian will win because he can apply burning faster than you can transfer, clear better, and his standard survival and weapon set skills are superior to yours. Your CDs are also longer so getting into a trade war with a guardian 1v1 will not usually go your way.

It also takes too much effort to make work. Your playing reactively in a meta that is strike first to win.

On the bright side, at least MM rocks.

That’s why you wait to corrupt boon after they COP.

After 3 years my conclusion is resources. They don’t often change animations for anything, but more tweak what effects it might have. They don’t mess with attacks all that often larcenous strike was changed into 2 attacks, warrior gs burst skill took a while, but they did change it, though it’s more looks like they took a part of whirlwind slowed it down and added some effects on it. Other than that I can’t think of many weapon attacks they really overhauled maybe added a condition to something usually.

Fire 1 is just awkward looking the attack its self is good because it is guaranteed burn, but how slow it kind of comes out just feels off.

Water 2 should just be a field you laydown and explodes immediately maybe a 1/4 sec before explosion if you keep the vuln stacks on it.

I think earth 2 is strange and I never really liked it. I’d prefer something else for earth 2 the active attack of it is to similar to earth 1 imo. Maybe change the second part of it to a cripple

Jski.6180:

My question is aura fury vs blast fury going fire over air lets you hit a lot harder in fire the main d/d burst dmg. I could see aura being nice for more of a arcan less build on the lines of going air earth water with some boon duration though this build would be the “you cant stop the ele from moving build” with -93% duration to movement conditions.

Added note thank you for posting the build that show the one builder is updated.

I think blast fury is better. I think fire line blows air out of the water for damage but I like air’s utility better. If I went blast fury and no arcana I would probably take both. If I had fire line+air+arcana I would take one with air or ferocious winds. Though in my build ferocious winds is good for+7 critical damage so I think one with air is better with fresh air.

I hope more ele’s run direct damage fire line builds. The damage you can put out there is really crazy it’s so good it is tempting to not run water or arcana for it.

Just change earth to air and take advantage of the traits. It’s not a huge difference in play style we aren’t talking running a mantra mesmer to phantasm to shatter or a non shadow arts thief vs a acrobatics thief. The play styles across d/d are almost identical really.

The Build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMozhNOwwB8RM8AY0QIGsDkAwBoFWVhZ4TA-TlCHABA8AAkTHAjqG4nKGOp8LOtA0pEMQ1QG4EAUy+DBAOA+twBwzPv8yLvc/+8z/+7vlCgJtWA-w

Here is my current WvW D/D build. I think statistically this hits all the check marks HP could be trimmed for another stat you like more, but with burst higher the extra HP is good if you are caught off guard.

18k HP

2800+ Toughness

2000+ Power

30% Crit chance (pre-fury)

200 Crit damage

434 healing power

I think this is very versatile meaning you can switch your trait lines any way you like. I like movement speed so I always take Air line.

I think Sigil of Intelligence is great for damage, as suggested by another forum member. We usually open with burst in each attunement especially in fire and nothing is worse than not criting on fire grab. Also Lightning Rod will crit which is great extra damage.

I’d give strong consideration to Ferocious Winds if you run Fire trait line with air just to get a little more damage.

Not reinventing the wheel here, but I think this checks all the defensive stat markers while also giving you good offense.

If you run Earth in your build I would take rock solid if you want to run ether renewal instead of running geomancer’s training. With hoelbrak and food you should be fine with cripple, chill, immobilize.

In water I like soothing ice because it will remove any condition when it procs the regen, but burning is pretty strong right now so I think both are good choices.

Note the one precise infusion in my dagger to get crit chance over 29.5% so that it rounds up to 30%.

scerevisiae.1972:

oZii.2864:

The vigor is probably the best thing you get from arcana. EA has that one extra heal/condi removal but I don’t think it’s mandatory anymore.

No line offers more to Ele defence and sustain than Arcana. With Ele contingency thrown in, IMO it’s more mandatory than it’s ever been (for sustain). What line offers more?

I think it was a mistake not to have made Ele Attunement baseline and re-balance around that.

You can get prot from earth line on aura’s, you can get stability attuning from earth, you get reduced cripple, chill, immobilize durations, and stone heart from earth, +180 toughness while in earth. Rock solid will guarantee you get at least more than half of a ether renewal channel off.

Fire line gives you fury and might stacking that is un matched by any other trait line and it also has condition removal, which will have synergy with soothing disruption and cleansing water.

Air has movement speed, fury/swiftness, but I think it offers more utility than damage at least for my favorite traits in air line.

Water doesn’t really need to be talked about because of the sustain.

There was a post running around about the cooldown reduction on attunements with arcana and it came out to pretty much the same prepatch I think because of the GCD IIRC.

I ran around again last night with no arcana with a fire/air/water and the only thing I missed was movement speed from Air, but the damage was so good.

Tarkan.5609:

oZii.2864:

nearlight.3064:

SrebX.6498:

Do you think this can perform as well with a more defensive set up, like using earth line instead of arcane?

No…. arcane is mandatory on all celetial builds, as is water.

You could go earth/water/arcane, which is honestly better on cele staff and d/d. D/F is best using fire/water/arcane for the extra mightstacking from the extra fire aura and the earth/air skills make stone heart and rock solid feel like overkill for it. On staff though you need earth/water/arcane since you need rock solid and stone heart to cover ether renewal and to rez people, since cele staff is a supder duper ultra rez build.

I disagree celestial lets you take advantage of the fact that our weapon sets are truly diverse in attacking being direct+condition damage/defense. Celestial is great on elementalist because of how we do our damage with a mix of dots and direct damage you can never go wrong with celestial. You just wont be the best direct damage dealer there is nor the best condition build. If you build tanky you can with traits and celestial you would augment condition removal, healing, and defensive modifers like protection.

Arcana doesn’t benefit from celestial more than any other trait line we have. Every trait line has multiple traits that benefit from the stats on celestial.

imo arcana is mandatory as it offers you a lot of sustain an might stacking via EA (a way to make celestial even more worth it as might affects both power and condi dmg), perma vigor, a lot of fury (if not perma) and quite some protection as well

You can get fury and might stacking from fire and air respectively. No trait line matches fire when it comes to might stacking and fury. The vigor is probably the best thing you get from arcana. EA has that one extra heal/condi removal but I don’t think it’s mandatory anymore.

Nice video I’m running almost exactly the same thing 2 signets one is always locust and then the last util I swap out. I’m also using warhorn mostly also, gonna go back to dagger tonight to see if I miss warhorn. Most condi necros had 3 condition removals/transfer pre-patch with the signet of suffering trait and plague you still have 3 even if you run warhorn, which wasn’t the case before.

Edit: Looking at your video it looks like curses/death magic/soul reaping. Hmm, I’ll try death magic again, but I kind of feel like spite is the better choice. I’ll have to look at it again and try it out.

Aidan Eighthrain.8612:

I personaly think rotations do change with Fresh Air & Aeromancer Training, as I’ve given an exemple above.

As for Piercing Shards, you don’t really need it. A Sigil of Intelligence + Rune of the Pack are more than enough to deal great amounts of damage in any attunment.

Too many people stuck in Arcana playstyle and can’t figure out anything else now.

Yea I kind of get this feeling too. The first few days post patch I was in water and arcana then just tried fire/air/earth to see which one I liked. The next days after that I tried no arcana, water, or both and found that it was fine. My only main gripe at least in WvW was my movement speed. So I will always take air for zephyr’s speed/mobility. Everything else is interchangeable imo even water for the earth line since rock solid should give you enough stab cover to even run ether renewal if you so chose though I think geomancers training is better if you paired them with hoelbrak. Another alternative would be to run melandru runes for toughness, -condi duration, -stun/daze duration and running a more zerk/valk mix with a few knights/cavs or captain’s(prec main stat) pieces to make sure you have decent crit chance. Then run a fire/air/earth build.

EremiteAngel.9765:

bhagwad.4281:

Roe.3679:

So what you’ve been doing is forcing necro into a roaming role even though it’s been known for years to have weaknesses in that area, and then complaining when better roaming classes have an advantage. This is the definition of forcing a round peg into a square hole, and you’re complaining that it’s not fitting.

Again, he’s complaining that being good or bad in roaming should be a function of your build, not your class.

I think bhagwad gets my point totally and put it very clearly.

oZii.2864:

I haven’t had much problem with LB rangers I fought one I thought was decent and he caught me off guard. I been running plague and locust signet and usually corrupt boon with staff/scepter+warhorn. A lot of roaming builds rely on boons so I just keep corrupting their boons to keep condi pressure up. Nightmare runes are good if you are worried about being caught of guard.

Warriors have been a little difficult with rampage.

Rampage is fine. Necros have options to counter it. Elite plague form or lich form counters it very well. traited shroud stability and stun breaks counters it to some extent too. Even berserker mode, if you are condi, counter it with spectral walk/wurm or just use shroud to tank through it.
It is fine because we can build to counter it.

BUT KITING IS DIFFERENT.

To all of those who said necro should inherently be weak against something like kiting because of class design/philosophy, I totally dont agree. like bhagwad says, a counter should be against a certain build, and not as a class totally.

Name me one class that can’t build to counter melee. Every class can.
Name me one class that can’t build to counter condi. Every class can.
NAME ME ONE OTHER CLASS THAT CAN’T BUILD TO COUNTER KITING.

Every class can EXCEPT necro.
By counter I don’t even mean to hardcounter kiting, but just to fight fairly and evenly. Necros don’t even have that option.

Even Guardians the 2nd least mobile class in the game can build to counter kiting!
Judge intervention, GS leap, sword blink, healing block, wall of reflect, invulerbility, focus shield.

Guardian is my 2nd most played class and I can fight evenly against a kiting class.

Please give necros the option to build to fight evenly against a kiting class.

I think you need to be a little more specific take Guardian that builds to counter condi then it would probably be a shout build which should end in a stalemate with a condition necro. He converts conditions to boons you convert boons to conditions. He sacrificed because he won’t kill you. I wouldn’t call it a hard counter unless he is always going to win the fight, but he probably doesn’t do enough damage to you or anyone else for that matter. No way a shout guard can put out enough dps to kill a Warrior.

I’d look at those classes/builds you named look at their strengths then compare the weakness of that build vs the weaknesses of the ones you mentioned about necro.

A guard isn’t catching a gs/sword ranger or a thief so in that respect when it comes to kiting there is nothing the guardian can do at all to overcome it. JI is to long of a cooldown to stay on top of them indefinitely which is why you would want to run medi and be able to push out alot of damage while you are on top of them. Still you gave up the part of condition counters. I personally don’t find medi guards that difficult on my necro many of them lost alot of vitality from the stat gear changes so out sustaining them isn’t to hard, especially since traiting to take selfless daring is kind of out of the question now.

Kiting classes are harder on a necro, but I don’t feel they are impossible rangers/nike warriors/thieves are either built that way because of their utilities or weapons which is the inherent part of the weapon sets they chose. Wurm is probably the worst teleport in the game, but I don’t think it’s class breaking with the changes.

Many world vs world builds are countered by something I make sacrifices on just about every class I play and some fights are definitely harder than others.

I haven’t had much problem with LB rangers I fought one I thought was decent and he caught me off guard. I been running plague and locust signet and usually corrupt boon with staff/scepter+warhorn. A lot of roaming builds rely on boons so I just keep corrupting their boons to keep condi pressure up. Nightmare runes are good if you are worried about being caught of guard.

Warriors have been a little difficult with rampage.

nearlight.3064:

SrebX.6498:

Do you think this can perform as well with a more defensive set up, like using earth line instead of arcane?

No…. arcane is mandatory on all celetial builds, as is water.

You could go earth/water/arcane, which is honestly better on cele staff and d/d. D/F is best using fire/water/arcane for the extra mightstacking from the extra fire aura and the earth/air skills make stone heart and rock solid feel like overkill for it. On staff though you need earth/water/arcane since you need rock solid and stone heart to cover ether renewal and to rez people, since cele staff is a supder duper ultra rez build.

I disagree celestial lets you take advantage of the fact that our weapon sets are truly diverse in attacking being direct+condition damage/defense. Celestial is great on elementalist because of how we do our damage with a mix of dots and direct damage you can never go wrong with celestial. You just wont be the best direct damage dealer there is nor the best condition build. If you build tanky you can with traits and celestial you would augment condition removal, healing, and defensive modifers like protection.

Arcana doesn’t benefit from celestial more than any other trait line we have. Every trait line has multiple traits that benefit from the stats on celestial.

Not much about each D/D set changes it plays almost exactly the same no matter what traits you use besides a few specific scenarios say with stone heart or fresh air. Just try it out.

I’ve played without arcana and you don’t have to take arcana. I think the best base trait lines are water, earth, and arcana; meaning you should take 1 of those 3 and then pick whatever other 2 you want. Changing to D/F makes things a little easier if you take earth because you get reduced cool down on focus 4 to remove 3 conditions every 16s. Fire has the cleansing fire trait so you have synergy with water there. Just put some energy sigils on and don’t dodge as much take stop drop and roll to help even further with conditions specifically burns.

Scepters across the game aren’t all that great besides necro and the 3 on necro scepter is kind of debatable.

The mesmer scepter’s auto sucks even with the new attack speed trait. The block is decent and of course 3 is good for confusion stacking.

Guardian Scepter auto isn’t that great and easily dodgeable the scepter 2 is meh unless they are afk the scepter 3 is good of course.

Ele scepter at a minimum is better than most classes scepter skills, if you take the heal in water, phoenix, earth 2, earth 3, air 2 and 3. So a debatable 5-7 skills. They just aren’t all good.

I’d prefer a better fire auto and remove the burning component to compensate.