Guild Wars 2

cheshirefox.7026:

step one, go all out and realize you can’t get it below 40%
step two, if you do, watch opponent zoom off like a drag racer
step three, use cleansing wave skill cuz it’s cool to watch ._.

Rofl this is so true lol also should add watch Warrior start skipping at the end of his rush or whirlwind when he reaches 1500+ distance from you.

Mbelch.9028:

EDIT: just saw your ‘best’ condi build at the end. I don’t think it’s necessarily best. You get another cleansing fire, but what do you lose out on?

If the goal is to have the best condition removal setup through traits it doesn’t matter what you lose out on. It’s obvious you would lose evasive arcana and zephyr’s boon vs 0/10/0/30/30. The 20/0/0/30/20 probably provides more damage than 0/10/0/30/30 in most cases but that is a different discussion.

That wasn’t really the point of the post Build Y vs Build X. If my goal is to maximize damage I wouldn’t run 0/10/0/30/30. This was about maximizing to have the best condition removal possible. There is always sacrifice so of course you sacrifice evasive Arcana for this setup.

This is also just some information not a rule. That is how all theorycrafting is when you apply it to a PvP environment or attempt to, it is never law just things to consider if you want to apply it to your playstyle.

I always wondered which condition removal setup potentially is the best for ele if you have 30 water and 30 arcana since you can configure different ways.

This is all hypothetical as if you are receiving nothing but constant condition pressure this is also for WvW since Cleansing Water has a ICD in sPvP looking at this I think they should remove it in sPvP

I didn’t factor in Evasive arcana but if you have perma vigor you should be able to use it 16 times

Assuming a 3 minute fight.

9 second Cooldown coming out of water
1.25 GCD
10.25 swap in and out of water.

Soothing Wave 10 sec ICD + Cleansing water + Elemental Attunement + Cleansing wave + Cleansing Fire.

Soothing wave can proc potential 17 times
Cleansing Fire can be used- 4 times
Cleansing Water + Cleansing wave water Attunement swap 16 times x2 conditions = 32 potential conditions.

61 potential condition

Cantrip Mastery + Elemental Attunement + Soothing Disruption + Cleansing Water:

Lightning Flash- 4 conditions
Cleansing Flame used 5 times- 20
Armor of earth- 2 conditions.
(there is no difference in a 3 minute fight between Armor of Earth or Mist form they can both only be used 2 times if the fight goes on longer mist form will come back up faster)

42 potential conditions

Cantrip Mastery + Cleansing wave + Cleansing Water + Elemental Attunement:

Cleansing Fire -15
Cleansing Wave + Cleansing Water -32

47 potential conditions

Soothing Wave + Cantrip Mastery w/Cleansing Fire + Cleansing Water or Cleansing Wave:

Soothing Wave(if running cleansing Water)- 17
Cantrip Mastery w/ cleansing Fire- 15
Cleansing Water OR Cleansing Wave -16

48 potential conditions

Sooo..

How potent Soothing Wave 10 sec ICD + Cleansing water + Elemental Attunement + Cleansing wave + Cleansing Fire really depends on how often you have incoming crits. If you aren’t hit with a crit at all soothing wave might as well not even be taken at all. dire p/d thief that didn’t take thrill of the crime comes to mind. It probably is the best setup to combat a necro because the 5 point trait in curses gives fury going into Death Shroud and many Necro rely on Dhuumfire to proc and to also be covered so you could remove dhuumfire quickly or get to it for removal faster because soothing wave and dhuumfire icd are the same.

I am not very familiar with engineers conditions builds relying on crits. Warriors conditions builds don’t have to have criticals but they are probably unavoidable since warriors pop SOR anyway. Against PU Mesmers they definitely rely on criticals for bleed stacking.

Obviously the weight of how important cantrips coming up faster is also important.

Best condition removal setup is 20/0/0/30/20
Reliable is Burning Fire + Cantrip Mastery + Cleansing Water + Cleansing Wave.

Potentially Burning Fire + Soothing Wave + Cleansing Wave + Cleansing Water

Math I seen on here and even on dulfy.net says that you only want to use this for infusions expensive ones and that you make out better just buying another rune. So in the case of this armor you would have been better just to salvage with a BLTC.

Disagree especially since this is 5 man team vs 5 man team which happens rarely at least where my server sits. The numbers are usually not even and with your comp the spirit ranger, elementalist, and guardian will take most of the focus while the thief and mesmer dip in and out of invis. If my guild came across your comp the first target would be ranger then the ele if we recoginze your thief is running venom share we kill that since he has none of the usual slippery utilities.

Nuzt.7894:

One or two seconds is all we would need, do you see mesmers all dropping portals at the same time ? You would have to coordinate those stuns. I can assure you I play a Warrior, if you think stacking CC is the way to go then your entitled to that opinion but don’t kid yourself that killing players that cannot fight back = skill. I don’t blame you though I blame games like WoW for making MMO’s so brain dead easy that it’s become an expectation.

Your only focus is on the warrior. Lets add DR to CC only because of warrior and really because of 1 weapon. Hammer isn’t even a problem and merciless hammer promotes that you chain CC with the trait.

If you have a a problem with the CC in guild wars 2 its because your in a outnumbered situation alot. You do have to pick your battles. Immobilize is much worse if you don’t have the condi clears.

Atrophied.8725:

ITT: People who think going 30 in earth leads to any kind of viable competitive build. Not sure we’re playing the same game.

It has people talking about 30 earth. 30 earth is also not bad it is just different.

For organized it is all about roles. D/D=not more mobility than a warrior, can’t bunker better than a guardian. So not needed.

Before d/d worked because of rtl and the mobility as a mobile bunker now other classes do that better.

S/D or Staff is what is wanted now the type of damage is why they are wanted. Staf provides great aoe bombs for downed.

We have probably a 30/30 put 10 points some where over 100 crit damage hidden killer with assassins signet up. That is all it isn’t common but it’s still around. Not really problem it sucks but I wouldn’t say it is a problem.

They are the thieves that I have to be more careful of but I know they die quick the ones built with survivability in mind are much easier.

Moon.6371:

@ oZii:

I think you`re mixing it up quite a bit. I am aware that we are using hardcounters (somewhat) all the way. I just don`t see the trend of introducing more and more of it as a good thing for the game.

You are basically reiterating what you told the other guy. I get it, you want to bring your message across that we`re using hardcounters (in fact, I did not only mention DS but at least two more) not only since the introduction of DS. I was never questioning that from the beginning?!

“If you want everything to be active all the time you should play a fighting game.”

Where does that come from? I never stated I want everything to be active (well, it wouldn`t be bad for the game, but I didn`t state it in my previous post), my concern is, that the direction of patches is promoting passive play more and more, instead of promoting skillful (active) play…

How about appreciating other`s input, instead of trying to tell them what to play? Go play minecraft, look I can do it, too.

Best regards

I appreciate others input but what they are asking for is cake and to eat it too. You won’t get truly active play in MMO’s. People saying passive is bad are also using passive skills and traits. Pointing out diamond skin but not pointing out regen or protection or any boons or any condition damage. Truly active play requires a input for each action. If you are ok with putting a DOT on someone and watching it tick for 3k damage you should be ok with diamond skin they are both the same thing.

Moon.6371:

While I`m not convinced that diamond skin is overboard, it is really terrifying that so many people do not realize hardcounters are always bad for the game. There at least has to be a reasonable chance that the counter can be overcome by skill.

Whats worrying me is that with the introduction of more and more hardcounterish traits and skills Anet is balancing for the 99%, the scrubs. But balance is only achieveable at the top, where play is flawless enough to even recognize balance issues.

I`m a scrub, too, but I would never expect any serious developer to cater to my flawed play just because I make too many mistakes to overcome difficult situations. That`s what`s happening here: scrub cries, balance gets adjusted.

The counter to diamond skin is direct damage. You apply direct damage diamond skin goes away therefore it is countered. If you don’t have direct damage diamond skin doesn’t go away.

The opposite coin is conditions which are a direct hard counter to toughness at least damaging ones are. Where as vitality and toughness help against direct damage. Vitality is better against conditions while toughness does absolutely nothing.

If I am running my thief as a hidden killer build may add more power or crit damage because I feel I need to break through bunker warriors or guards better with a backstab.

When I take that same thief and run him as condition damage I don’t even think about warrior or guardians toughness at all it is a non-factor.

People are using hard counters all the time in this game it runs through the game just this trait is highlighted now. Hard counters are what are giving you victory in a battle.

If I am out on my necro and I happen to be running corrupt boon, with the GG signet (spite). Prior to diamond skin I run across a guardian or elementalist I never thought to myself I am in for a tough fight. I thought “Oooh free bag”. I know my build hard counters their build because for a Ele to not run diamond skin and counter a condition necromancer needs off hand focus or enough dps to blow the necro up which means he is weak against just about anything with sustain like another more balanced elementalist.

I run greater marks on my necro I don’t run it because of the increased size I run it because it is unblockable therefore I hardcounter anyone with a block or aegis. People who take skills to block damage take those skills so that they can block damage. Greater marks hard counters their ability to block damage.

There are more little hard counters that happen through out battles and everyone uses them. There is rock/paper/scissors running all through this game they just aren’t as in your face as Diamond Skin but there are plenty of them used by everyone that is where the strategy comes into play.

Minions and AI is extremely passive and those could be brought down but passive is happening all the time and running through the game also. You actively apply your swiftness then you passively move faster for it’s duration you aren’t actively pressing buttons to continuously move faster. That is extreme example but a example. I need some healing let me do something to get some passive HPS via regen.

If you want everything to be active all the time you should play a fighting game.

Guardians seem fine to me I just made one it is low level but I look at the guardian forums often. I main ele but have other classes and I just notice guardians don’t have the ability to escape easily but that is kind of a choice you make though you can have good swiftness uptime on guards you don’t have that skill that really can help you disengage.

Ele kind of has it but it isn’t like thieves or warriors. Really it sounds like your looking for a class just so you can disengage and get time to heal up and come back in the fight. Any class can win 1v2’s and that has more to do with the people you are fighting then the class you are currently playing. If the 2 are bad you can possibly pull out a win but it isn’t guaranteed.

The only difference between all the class for roaming is how well they can create distances if things go wrong allow time for important cooldowns to come up and engage again.

I have pretty good roaming classes outside of my necro that can still roam but has to be more careful. Thief and Warrior are imo the best classes to roam on currently and I would say Mesmer after that I have all 3 of them. My favorite class is Ele but not because it is the best roamer just that I get bored with the other ones quickly.

Mesmer can roam but it is more you need willing enemies to stay and fight, almost every build that people run in WvW can ignore just about any mesmer build.

Like I said I don’t know alot about guardians but I think they are strong for roaming. The dps meditation guards are pretty good when horns are locked in a fight guardian is a very strong roamer. The problem is getting away don’t know if that necessarily makes guardian a bad roamer though just because they can’t escape better then other classes. If that was the case everyone that really wants to roam would do nothing but play a thief.

Looks good for your purposes. It is actually perfect for what you want to try to accomplish as a front liner. I would go 4 altruism 2 water or 2 water, 2 monk, 2 traveler. For your purposes and helping others on the front line boon duration would work well. I would personally go with 3 water 3 monk to get 60% boon duration and 155 healing power if I was using your specific build.

You don’t need the 6 piece bonus of speed or traveler if you have boon duration, you actually don’t need boon duration at all to maintain swiftness with 30 arcana and your zephyr’s boon. You want the protection uptime to allow you to stay front line so boon duration is the best for that.

Colt.9051:

I’d also use a different food than the might on dodge one, with Renewing Stamina the food’s endurance regen might get outshined by the vigor procs… I could suggest the one that gives heal power based off toughness and vitality, I forget what it’s called though >.<

Mango Saffron Icecream

I like arcane shield to sometimes replace cleansing wave which I usually run. Sometimes I wish arcane shield was a cantrip Armor of Earth is overall better imo. I do love shield when it explodes though.

Ryld.1340:

What if, instead, it gave Stability, Protection, and immunity to condition damage above 80% health? You could still be chilled, poisoned, vulnerability, crippled, and immobilized. More useful against power builds. Lets necro kite a bit.

Permanent stability above 80% and protection? Not happening that’s stronger then what it is now. The trait and the trait line are useful against power builds. You get 300 toughness just for grabbing the trait and an addition 120 toughness when you attune to earth. What else do you want against power builds because defensively I don’t now what else you would be looking for on top of the potential +420 toughness . Protection on auras, stability when you attune to earth. The earth line has plenty to deal with power builds on top of toughness while giving you far more damage then you can get out of water.

Take 0/10/0/30/30 with zephyr’s boon and go hit the heavy golem, then change your build to 0/0/30/20/20 taking stone splinters then go hit the heavy golem and I bet you will do more damage with 30 earth then just 10 in air. Earth is a pretty strong trait line not even factoring Diamond skin.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Furiousbeard.7602:

You’re a necro. Drop some wells at your feet to keep him from standing beside you spamming an ability that you can essentially walk away from.

well seeing as i am MELEE i would be doing alot less damage if i was at range…

It has evade frame during the slashes just time your attack at the end of the channel. Same as you should do again mesmers using blurred frenzy you know you can’t hit them just time attack to hit at the end of the channel. The stun portion of pistol whip doesn’t have evade frames if you dodged or moved away the thief likely will be trying to infiltrator strike to stay on top of you which you can also interrupt with doom.

scerevisiae.1972:

oZii.2864:

All Ele’s run x/x//20/30 D/D!!

Would be willing to bet if you collated the specs of Ele who’ve played at least an hour of either WVW or sPVP in the past 2 weeks, that x/x/x/20+/20+ would be the most common trait setup, with cantrips as the most common utility type.

Probably but if it isn’t 30 arcana I would say it is different enough. Putting 30 points into fire, air, or earth changes how you play. It is good people are grabbing grandmasters in trait lines besides water and arcana. Which is what we all want. If people don’t reach for grandmaster traits then that means we have some bad GM traits.

I think Ele has pretty good GM traits in each line now. It just doesn’t have that hard choice between GM traits but that goes for alot of classes there is either 1 clear cut choice at GM or both traits aren’t good.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Where do these few people come up with this made up “most Ele" statistic…. Just to clear it out you, your friends and even the few that actually post in the forums are not most eles. DS isn’t as strong as I thought it would be for my bursty non glass cannon ele. However, I can definitely see it coming very helpful towards those good players that have different ways to heal and with decent armor type. Personally, necros are no longer even a challenge when I roam with focus offhand.

All Ele’s run x/x//20/30 D/D!!

Lopez.7369:

Totbot.4583:

Can’t believe people are defending Diamond Skin. Its practically the definition of a badly designed game mechanic.

Yeah. I can’t imagine what compels people to defend such passive, thoughtless play. It’s disappointing.

Barbed Precision passively stacking bleeds because you have crit chance or dhuumfire proccing because you have crit chance. It is such active play to crit. Pot you seen Kettle?

I have a necro that I enjoy but let us be realistic here about passive play. Just about every build in the game takes advantage of something passive.

Lopez.7369:

That was one example in the post to show the absurdity of the trait and passive mechanics that support it.

As a general rule of thumb, in conversations and debates you’re supposed to stick to the overall topic being debated and take everything in context. Breaking debates down into cherry-picked statements is highly fallacious.

You are right I just wanted to highlight your faulty testing and lack of understanding that power/precision/crit damage > precision in a dps race.

Lopez.7369:

You cherry pick posts too much. Read the full post and context to get my point. I don’t want to repeat the same post over and over because you disagree with a narrow example.

I read the post your point is hard counter to condition builds and the necro and engi running condis are helpless against the elementalist. You back up your argument by saying that you verified that it hopeless for the necro to break through the elementalists 90% threshold because zerker>rabid in a dps race with a 10% damage modifier on top of his zerker gear unless he was dodge rolling around so that enduring damage wasn’t working. You can call it cherry picking but your test was terrible.

Lopez.7369:

oZii.2864:

Not everyone runs 30/20/0/0/20 condition build, I run 30/20/20/0/0 on my Necro because greater marks is a powerful trait. I see more condition Necro’s running greater marks now then 30/20/0/0/20 standard Terrormancer.

Everyone does at high-level play, which is where balance needs to be focused on.

Your response is mostly missing the broader point of the post, though.

This is the WvW forums what are you talking about with high-level play? The OP is talking about Solo-Roaming in WvW. I didn’t miss anything I know the person he fought and I am on the same server as the OP was in the same borderland when he was talking about it in map chat I haven’t missed anything.

Lopez.7369:

Personally, I’ve tested Diamond Skin by putting my necromancer in rabid gear against an elementalist in berserker gear. All I used was my staff auto-attack; he used his water attunement staff auto-attack. I died before I broke Diamond Skin.

Why would you do such a crappy test? First your testing rabid gear vs zerker if rabid would out dps zerker it would be the go to PvE set. Second Staff auto sucks and water auto gives vulnerability stacks. Terrible testing. Power>precision everyone that understands the game knows that. Doesn’t matter if your in full rabid with 80% chance to crit and no power to back it up.

Lopez.7369:

Straegen.2938:

Oozo.7856:

Oh, so you are saying that you can’t block, dodge, invuln, blind, reflect attacks that put conditions on you? Interesting.

Only some of them not all of them. Most DD invulns do not work against existing conditions, many conditions (such as wells and marks) are blind immune, condition application frequently ignores blocks, etc. Many conditions are applied when you hit someone or walk over an area which cannot be avoided aside from these two trait lines and the right circumstances.

There are FAR more ways to mitigate and avoid direct damage. There are even more direct damage invulns than there are condition ones.

Marks are not blind immune. They can bypass blocks with a Death Magic trait, but that trait is only taken by power, not condition, builds.

Wells also aren’t blind or block immune. They do bypass those mechanics more easily, but a constant source of blind, such as a blind field, or block, such as a two-second block, can negate wells. Also, wells are taken by power builds, not condition builds.

Area-of-effect abilities aren’t blind or block immune either. By default, they can be blocked and blinded. In fact, if a necromancer is blinded before casting an AOE like Grasping Dead, the AOE misses on all its targets.

Come to think of it, the only ability I have as a condition necromancer that bypasses block is Corrupt Boon. The only two abilities I have that bypass blind are Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark, which only transfer conditions.

Whatever the case, it’s helpful in these conversations if you only talk about balance when you actually know what you’re talking about.

Not everyone runs 30/20/0/0/20 condition build, I run 30/20/20/0/0 on my Necro because greater marks is a powerful trait. I see more condition Necro’s running greater marks now then 30/20/0/0/20 standard Terrormancer.

Derek.9021:

But condi removal is that dmg reduction. You can’t take away from a power build hitting you with a sword, you have that dmg. If you get hit by a mark, you can cleanse.

What? Let’s keep things in perspective here. Protection reduces physical damage taken, then there are damage reduction traits or abilities. If I am facing a power build and have permanent protection hello -33% damage the whole fight.

I have a necro and I have a thief that I run condi on sometimes. Conditions is passive and active play. You actively apply your damage then you can passively wait for the person to die while you kite. They can cleanse but if you are a engi or necro we all know that application is not a problem at all. Depending on the class you are fighting they just might not have enough condition removal. I like conditions but I recognize that a large part of condition damage builds are passive. If your bleed is 5 seconds and it runs its course and does 1k damage you just pressed a button and let the dot do the work. You didn’t actively remove that 1k damage. Thats a kind of extreme example but that is just how condition damage is.

The physical damage example would be a mesmer running around letting their phantasms do everything, a ranger with spirits.

Hard counters are already in the game inherently. If a condition necro carries corrupt boon and comes across a ele that doesn’t have 30 in water and ether renewal with stability to protect ether renewal he just hard countered the Ele.

It is a hard counter trait but that is cause you are running dire. I was fighting a very good necro earlier testing the trait. First fight I rolled him, second fight he adjusted with minions and almost got me was very close. Third fight Lich mode even in a condition build puts out enough damage bye bye diamond skin hello dead Ele.

Gorni.1764:

snip

You are dissecting the trait on it’s own and isolated as if it is the only trait taken. It is fact that you can get more damage from the earth line than you can from arcana or water. I don’t know why everyone is so hung up on it is the condition damage line. The only damage trait people take in water is bountiful power with boutiful giving you on average + 5% damage and a very slim maybe vital striking people take it to instagib.

Cleansing water is on par with diamond skin and everyone loves that trait. If I dissect cleansing water all on its own it is a terrible trait. If I look for synergy with elemental attunement and soothing disruption then it looks great.

Diamond skin is no different on it’s own it looks lackluster then you consider that you are going to get 120 toughness when you attune to earth, you can grab obsidian focus to reduce damage taken from ether renewal, you can grab elemental shielding for protection uptime further reducing damage taken. Rock solid is also in the there and is a very good trait. Sure if you can’t leave arcana or 30 water then those look bad to you but you never planned to leave water or arcana anyway so that trait isn’t for you. I don’t plan to ever run shout heals on my Warrior so I could care less what the tactics line looks like but I wouldn’t bash traited shouts.

Stone splinters with enduring damage will give you more damage than you can get from arcana or water. You don’t need boon duration is it good yes I agree but you don’t have to have it. I ran it with 0/0/30/20/20 only thing I didn’t have is evasive arcana which is also not a must have trait. I ran the trait with clerics armor + boon duration and celestial trinkets then ran it again with my knights/celestial armor mix divinity runes and zerk/cav trinkets.

The 0/10/30/20/10 build posted can put out alot of damage not being blinded by a thief is a very big advantage. I am not saying the trait is a must have I am just saying that it isn’t a bad trait at all and is actually very good.

The effectiveness of a build is always influenced by your opponent even standard D/D ele, fresh airs or any other ele build. I know to spike the ele after he comes out of water I know to check for signet or resto or ether renewal. I can figure all these things out in the first 2 seconds of fighting a ele what kind of build it is. Adjust on the fly if I am on my other classes. Same thing with diamond skin sure it isn’t always effective against everything but neither is cleansing water.

If I am out trolling on my P/D condition thief all the water traits a ele normally takes doesn’t bother me because I know how it works. If I didn’t know very much about ele then it is going to be much more effective. So I can’t sit here and say don’t go into water trait line because people know how it works.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Very nice video and gameplay from both of you! I was seriously surprised to see you perform that well with that low armor number against multiple targets focusing fire on you even if they were very noobish players. That’s how skillful players do it! Like Ozii I also loved the split between you and your partner on the video.

I looked at the video again its like perma protection party. I only see a few moments where there is no protection up between him and the guardian very effective combo.

Tyndal.1350:

I said the same thing in the other DS thread. Yes, DS, by itself is not the over-the-top-faceroll-I’m-as-OP-a-Warrior trait, however, it can be a very effective tool.

I have been running with a 0-10-30-20-10 D/D diamondskin build for the last couple of weeks in roaming non-zerg WvW, and have had great success. I have also been trying out other builds with the same gear setup, most notably a high-crit Fresh-Air (0-30-10-20-10), and the standard Evasive Arcana (0-10-10-20-30). The Fresh-Air build can put out some very impressive burst numbers, and the might-stacking and extra heal/cleanse can be clutch, however, I keep migrating back to my DS build.

The reason I find is that, in most cases, the opening will dictate the flow and outcome of the fight. Against condition classes this is just devastating. There is nothing more satisfying that watching a necro try to fear/signet of spite and have nothing happen. Keeping over 90% health early isn’t that difficult with Omnoberry Pies and SoR, you just need to heal early. Additionally, against power classes, I still am over 2,700 toughness with a decent enough health pool. With my current gear set-up, I still have 60% crit chance with Fury and 87% crit damage. This generally means 2k lightning whip crits and burning speed and fire grab crits in the 4-8k+ range.

My build & gear: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmgbzx4wjEIEFugJMeECdQHKK8AlC5AA-jEDBYfIYjBkEJIUBgJqFRjtMsIasqaAKkYaXJVFLyWzDRziO1SBUuwI-w

Hmm Ill give that trait setup a go I been running it with 0/0/30/20/20 and it works pretty good with that setup will try your trait setup when a little later.

Tell Amins I said hi and hi to the rest of AD/Bsty <3

Gorni.1764:

So you say the trait is good because you killed 3 people in total while using it? What if I tell you that you could’ve killed them even faster without this trait?

This should be fun please tell me how I could have killed a P/D perplexity theif and S/S long bow warrior faster without the trait.

Then I will tell you how every trait you took that doesn’t increase dps would have killed them faster.

Do you tell everyone with points in arcana the same thing? Throw them all in fire and air and take stone splinters.

Dat 2v10 at the beginning Great Video!!! Awesome editing like the split between you and the guardian. Reaper of Grenth if your human I think it is the best elite for Ele. So good!

It isn’t bad at all and pretty strong trait. The problem is that it is passive BUT it is strong and isn’t worthless against power classes.

First I tried it out with apothecary and runes of the noble. Celestial trinkets, Cav backpiece. A kind of hybrid but focused more on condition damage. Condition damage builds on ele isn’t my cup of tea but it worked pretty good. My damage was ok with burns being the main damage. I found that it took to long to kill though.

Then I tried it in my full clerics armor w/ boon duration runes again all celestial trinkets. Changed my food from condition to power and the truffle steak (pow,pre). Ran into a P/D thief and S/S bow Warrior and killed them both was kind of funny.

They grabbed a power thief to help them and it was to much for me but I could kite all day long and forced both thieves to back off killed the warrior. The D/P thief was pretty screwed because blackpowder is important opener for d/p thieves with the blinds but I was immune and by time he came out of stealth he took to much damage to try to stay on me and attack.

My verdict is that it is a pretty decent trait for sure. Not totally useless against power builds staying above 90% isn’t hard with rock solid. I would say celestial trinkets work very well with it. Your 300 points into the condition damage line, toughness isn’t a problem if your 30 in Earth so celestial works pretty good take stone splinters to help with damage. Ill try it again in my power armor but I don’t think the trait is weak at all.

It is probably the best troll trait in the game though for sure. I was dueling a necro that is very very good and I kind of felt bad because he didn’t stand any chance at all. I just ran through everything. We dueled again and he went lich mode which definitely will break you below 90% quickly even on a condi necro.

I’d say proper use of the trait is to remember to stay above 90% as best you can if a condition damage class is in the fight like necro or engi. If facing power just play normally the trait still helps combat blinds, cripples immobilizes etc.

Nah doubt it is this. If that would be it then it is more about potential of ele than “pro” players. If you make ele to survivable while still being to grab damage gear and traits then it becomes faceroll easy instagib it would be a warrior but worse.

Why they have to find a balance. I mean if you go out and run around in ful zerker the numbers will make you giggle no matter what weapon you are running. The one thing you will say to yourself is “My hp is to low” and/or “I’m so squishy I die to fast”. What you wont say is “I don’t have enough damage”.

Ele’s weak natural defenses is what balances it out for it’s damage potential. They can balance this if they give more survivability options that can allow eles to leave water and arcana with anything other than staff. You would just end up with a different type of ele which is ok it would do good damage, kind of weak to condis, but be survivable. They need to find a way to allow this type of Ele to develop and still keep the tried and true builds we have in place.

Bios.1398:

d/d for the most part is fine

condition spam by other classes like mesmer/necros is insane though , torment and confusion have to be 2 of the dumbest condition additions to the game. stun spam by warriors is another issue. i would add thieves and rangers but for the most part the d/d playstyle counters both of those classes pretty hard and any good d/d ele will wreck both (traps are a bit of a pain but thats a ranger style that actually requires a brain on the ranger’s part) and even thieves running p/d perplexity

toning down conditions will ultimately fix alot of the issues the ele currently faces, you don’t even really need to do much to the class itself

of course, this is purely from a 1on1 scenario

The class as a whole is on basically on the verge of being good overall. The utilities need to be looked at again to help provide some more survivability.

In PvE which I am no expert seems to be fine from what I can tell from the PvE guru’s posts.

It really is tPvP/sPvP which in turn affect WvW because they don’t really balance for WvW. If they did we would be nerfed even more if we had to deal with sPvP nerfs that Ele received.

Fire trait line is the go to in PvE in all the videos I have seen. I actually do run Staff 20/30/0/0/20 in WvW when we go out group roaming and need staff I actually like that build for staff alot. No elemental attunement and run arcane reduction cds with shield and blast to keep arcane lightning trait up 100%. Also I like 30/20/0/0/20 for group roaming staff.

The problem with fire line being viabile in a PvP setting for other weapon sets besides staff is that you can’t get them without giving up important traits that are needed because you are then fighting much closer to the action. So some more defensive help needs to be given somewhere to the elementalist.

Elemental attunement should just be inherent and get it over with. Trait for the ability to hand the boons out with something else tied to it. Like a additional 20% reduction on attunement recharge rate move to grandmaster slide elemental surge down to master.

Similar to thief slight of hand where you get a bonus to steal recharge rate if you take that trait. This gives eles a good alternative grandmaster trait along side evasive arcana but you can’t have both.

It should just be necro’s or the occasional condi Mesmer that should give you trouble. I wouldn’t make drastic build changes for terror necro’s or condi mesmers. It really is about Dps against necro’s. Even Dps meditation guards do better against necro’s instead of the traditional guardian builds.

If you don’t have Dps you can’t get past death shroud if you can’t break through death shroud you won’t ever win.

Alquinon.2957:

Shockwave.1230:

If ever there is a day where ANet release a stat combination that has Vitality and Precision both in it, min maxers will be all over it, because we know Celestial Wastes stat points.

There is, it’s called Magi’s. It’s healing power primary, with precision and vitality.

I can’t possibly see why anyone would ever put that on with what is available now. I know some support guards liked the combination before celestial was released.

FrownyClown.8402:

Met a tc ele called incenerary that destroyed me as full zerker. I’m running the same gear and stats you are. Only thing I’d say might work better dps wise is celestial. Use the gain health on crit food..

Ahh Inceneray is pretty good he runs Scepter focus I think mostly.

Looking at cavalier and celestial effective power comparisons for standard d/d setup they are about the same dps wise assuming 10 stacks of might and good fury uptime. It is kind of like celestial vs soldiers factors like might, fury, runes change which one is better or worse.

So I was bored and decided to get a Cavalier Armor set. This was mostly WvW roaming and some duels.

Armor is all Cavalier exotic
Trinkets are Celestial amulet cav rings, knights accessories with zerk jewels. Ruby orbs instead of runes.

2054 power
27% chance to crit prefury
72 critical damage
2740 toughness
15k HP.

Standard D/D 0/10/0/30/30 setup but I slot arcane shield for sure to take advantage of the critical damage. Run soothing wave to help with condi’s since I am not running cleansing fire.

On ascended I would say that if you have enough crit chance and are looking at celestial on legs I would look at cav legs since they give the same critical damage now with more power and more toughness. Celestial still is the best critical damage on helm and coat but at ascended level, all crit damage gear is the same on legs now at 4.

As anyone can guess cav is good against melee not good against necro’s. It works against pretty much every class except necros because the hp pool is way to low.

What I have come to realize about standard D/D 0/10/0/30/30, 0/15/0/25/30, 0/20/0/20/30, and 0/10/10/20/30 is that if you are looking for damage but don’t want to go full zerk.

No matter what the numbers are going to pretty much come out to about the same in a PvP environment as long as you understand how power, precision, crit damage works. The defining difference is rune choices which will make your damage either front loaded or backloaded.

Front loaded – any dps rune set

Back loaded – boon duration

I think cav armor can really shine in a fresh air s/d build. With a few valk pieces haven’t tried it yet though but will later

So really D/D with 20 water and 30 arcana is almost always going to be about the same damage unless you go extremes of full zerk or full bunker. Not really any math need to support any of this looking for more damage on D/D then you have to move trait points from water and arcana. Cavalier armor is for if you value thoughness and crit damage and I would only recommend running it if you are ok with your crit chance. Knights armor > cav for me personally if I had to chose between full knights or full cav.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Xaos.3257:

Actually maybe the stealth mechanic in wild star is not so OP.
The developers had the common sense to make the grass move in a way that you can understand that a stealthed player is step in it!

That’s sounds helpful! As long as the stalker is taken out of steath if he is hit then the steath mechanic will never be broken like it is here in gw2.

I just looked at some video’s and stalker has a trait they can take to not be revealed when they take damage. You can see vids on Zybaks channel.

The theme of the game isn’t really my style it has the effects clutter that gw2 has but then all the UI and combat indicators thrown on top of it. The Enemy fire cone indicator is cool but I see that only being good in 1v1 more people more clutter less useful it would be.

I’ll keep looking at the game though but sci-fi themed MMO’s kind of turned me off after SWTOR.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

If you do celestial gear make sure it is only the armor and weapons. Celestial trinkets are not a good option. I your looking for pure dps zerker trinkets(option for zerker of Valkyrie if you still looking for dps with slight survivability) . If you want a little more tank while still doing some dmg cavaliers trinkets are pretty good. Those are three pretty good options you could always choose different ones depending on your play style.
I play a 0/0/20/20/30 build which is a variation of the classic 0/10/0/30/30 build. But I have learned through my play style, that I can have a base build of x/x/x/20/30 leaving me 20 points to play around with depending on how I am feeling that day.
Edit: Boon duration runes are 2 monk, 2 water, 2 traveler.

^^ This is solid advice

madamred.1463:

Well I have my game a downloading. I have my thumbs a twiddling now what should I make? I have been struggling between Elementalist and Necromancer for awhile now and I just can’t pick. Are Elementalist good for those who have no idea how to play? Or is there a better class for those who have never attempted this sort of game before?

I have a Ele, Warrior, Mesmer, Necro, and Thief. I would say out of those that Ele was the hardest to learn to play effectively with thief after that. You can get by on basics but if you want a extra level of depth once you learn the game I would say stick with Ele or go engi.

Personally I find my other characters a bit boring once you figure them out. Warrior I find fun because it has alot of different weapon combinations.

For a straight easy answer I would say go Warrior. If you play any other type of games like fighting games, FPS and such and are thinking of something to play once you learn the basics Ele and Engi I think have that extra layer to keep you interested.

Also depends on what you want to get into if it is strictly PvE then Warrior is simple and easy to learn and do well there. Ele can do well there too and has damage to match warriors but it requires a bit more thinking with combo fields etc. sPvP/WvW warrior does great in sPvP currently Ele not so much for top tier competitive play. In WvW both are good.

S/D, S/F fresh air or maybe CmC’s D/D build possibily. Those are the only ele’s that give me trouble when I am on my necro. The more damage the better other wise you just can’t win a attrition fight against a necro that is decent.

Usually though the only ele’s i ever have a problem with on my necro are fresh air scepter ele’s. Cause blind is very strong

reikken.4961:

burn duration and general condition duration modifiers are added (I tested), so I would assume damage modifiers are added as well. have not tested myself, however

Damage modifiers are multiplicative I believe but defensive modifiers are additive. I could be wrong here but there is a really long post in the guardian forums about it about 0 damage taken.

Sizer.5632:

A lower CD on mist form and armor of earth would be nice considering most classes have similar buffs with 20-50% less cooldowns before traiting them, though im sure some pro player will come in and tell us that you cant compare abilities between classes because theyre designed differently and w/e. Arcane shield is definitely pretty weak too, though if anything id rather a form of it without any damage but on a 30-40s cd, a lot of classes have block abilities on less cd than that so it would be fair.

Stun break on lightning flash would be pretty nice to have back too. Cleansing fire buffs would also be nice since people dont seem to take it often over the other cantrips, maybe up the duration on the burning or something so its more offensive.

I almost always take cleansing fire, mist form is the cantrip I don’t take anymore. I only remove cleansing flame for arcane shield.

FrownyClown.8402:

Been running signet of restoratiob power build. Havinf trouble with condi bursts. Any tips?

30 water, cleansing flame. Yea restoration is hard without 30 water if you come across a condition class.

Yea arcane wave and blast are really only good for getting arcane lighting trait activate and a bit of pressure. If you want them to really hit you gotta be instagib build. Wave is on a low cd so its ok but it almost should be a weapon skill. Shield is nice though love arcane shield. CD is a bit long for only blocking 3 attacks.

This is a really awesome guide grats on the sticky.

MarzAttakz.9608:

We’re looking at two sides of the same coin essentially Da Beetus, well more like two sides and the rim outside.

Heads, we have pve builds, I’m open to correction here since I don’t do much pve, but people playing PVE are often going deep into air and fire and use conjures the most.

Tails, we have sPVP, still dipping into air but with more earth, water and arcana thrown into the mix depending on the role.

Along the rim of the coin we have WvW, either as a roamer, dueller or zerger, again a solid mix of air, water, earth and arcana depending on what you’re doing since you don’t have the luxury of knowing the dungeon or the format of 5v5 structured environment.

Using the coin metaphor further in my opinion what it is cast from would be the common theme for everything, and Elementalists are made from copper, a soft metal lacking survivability.

This is excellent assessment. Though if your zerging you can definitely get away with 30/30 it is funny blowing people up at range with staff as long as nobody notices you. Hitting people for 4k+ with fire auto attack is always surprising especially since it is like 1500 range.

LightningBlaze.4913:

O that was you! The focus just counter so well the ranged condition types with the exception of the annoying constant steaths mesmers haha. FGS is awesome at kitting d/d eles so don’t feel bad because even serane was defeated easily with it at times xD. There was like 1 or 2 instances where I would cast fgs during the wrong time in our duel and I would pay with a defeat lol. I defeated you without the elite too but didn’t keep track of our win/lose ratios. I believe it was very even. Your build and play style was very similar to Serane and that’s why I asked you if you knew him and if you were using his build. Serane was the first very challenging d/d ele I have faced since god mode for the ele was eliminated. You are the second. Against Serane I did keep track and the ratio was usually 1 win for me for every 3 duels…. On rare occasions I would beat him 2 or 3 times in a row and then he would come back with the same winning streak lol. He is so good.

I am like 0-10 against Serane I cannot lie. He is really good.

Rhyse.8179:

Jeydra.4386:

Gorani.7205:

Josh Davis.6015:

There are a lot of valid concerns with the elementalist right now and we’re going to be working on addressing those points. Once everyone gets back from holiday vacation we’ll be posting up our proposed balance changes and we’ll go from there.

This surprises me a bit. Wasn’t the December update meant to be a big balance update to fix stuff? If they have to admit that there are “a lot of valid concerns”, why did they not address them with the December patch?

I’m backing this. If there are a lot of valid concerns, they should’ve been addressed with the December update. Knowing that there are valid concerns and then releasing a big patch that doesn’t address those concerns is like saying there are valid concerns of the balance team’s competence. I know it sounds rude, but honestly, nobody should release something they know to be flawed.

I get the impression that Anet is afraid to make big changes, so they iterate tiny bit by tiny bit. Then they don’t come back to it often enough and those tiny tidbits become insults that highlight how many other, bigger things are being ignored.

Balance patches like Dec 10th should happen once a month. The changes made are tiny, and at most result in a build shifting 10 points or a utility being swapped out. Anet needs to be willing to take on the big problems. If they’re afraid of backlash, then they should start an open test server so they can see the results in advance.

It is really something that started early in the game and backlash is on the community.

Ele was nerfed because the community said ele was to strong. Warrior was buffed because the community said warrior was to weak in sPvP. So ele was nerfed to much warrior was buffed to much.

Now the community is saying ele is to weak and warriors are to strong. So now the choice is to make drastic changes or tiny changes bit by bit. If the changes are to much you end up with scenario’s like now that necro is to strong, warrior is to strong, engi is to strong.

I want them to buff ele but I don’t want it to be to much that we end up back at nerf ele.

I think right now they just need to keep the changes they made and revert the old nerfs. The changes have helped staff users, scepter users, focus still needs love though. D/D is ok in WvW but in the dumps in PvP and in sPvP Scepter or staff is getting play before Dagger will. Revert the old nerfs back RTL at 20-25 seconds. Done everyone is happy just give focus a bit more love in fire attunement. Continue to work on fire attunement.

You know I think this is correct make the trait apart of the class then another trait if you want to share it. I like this idea alot now that I think about it.

I don’t find it op at all just change the base so that it matches the same when you put 30 points into arcana.

Your build 3 I run something similar on my tanky staff clerics setup.