Guild Wars 2

1. You trait deeply into radience for radiant power, which is a 10% damage modifier. Since you already put in 5 points you might as well pick up the 6th. If you want to do proper rotations you’ll swap to sword/f to fill in the gaps between gs bursts so you’ll benefit from those traits.
2. Yes it is. I trust obal and keyz math.

If you want to camp 1 weapon, camp gs, the higest dps build is still 4/6/4/2/0/2. But you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot if you do because you’ll pass up on 2 blinds, a block skill and a bit of extra damage.

The only difference between open world and dungeons is that for dungeons you often pick more supportive builds according to the situation. In open world you just yolo max dps everything to death.

From my previous posts it should be clear that I am aware the op doesn’t have his GM traits yet. I just assume that he isn’t kittened and that he can allocate the trait points in the right slots as he levels, knowing that 4/6/2/0/2 should be his end result.

You contributed nothing aside from bashing on players that are trying to help and one confusing post with questionable advise.

Did you even read my post? I just said he can spend the 2 extra points that should go in radiance wherever he wants since it won’t make a difference.

He can spend the extra 2 points wherever he wants then, it won’t make any difference. When he turns 80, which is well before he will finish world completion and the main story line, he will want to change to the suggested build.

It’s a lot better than all the crap you’re suggesting.

4/6/2/0/2 is the max solo dps build, which is exactly what the op asked for. Wheter you want to use it in a dungeon or in open world is irrelevant.

I’m pretty sure players like oxtred know better than using 1 build for everything.

Whenever I see these stacking posts come up I think to myself ‘How come my fotm 50 pugs range nearly every boss and yet these players seem to get groups that fight everything in meelee range?’ Is there some sort of codeword you have to use to get these players in your group?’

By the way, LOSing bosses in the corner is so pre fgs nerf, move on to the next trend already.

You guys don’t do dungeon runs often do you? :p

Almost everybody in this sub complained when they removed instance leaders because you wouldn’t be ‘safe’ anymore. Yet whenever pug victims post in here you put at least 50% of the blame on them.

Some pugs are jerks and people do get kicked for no reason at all. Same language/guild groups are the most horrid . Even asking for a wor during shaman fractal can earn you an ‘are you going to shut your face or getting kicked?’

I agree he shouldn’t have provoked them but come on, he clearly wasn’t the problem, they were.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first

Read it. It’s also worth it to check out dekeyz guides on youtube.

For pve that is, for wvw i suggest you check out http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

Best guide there is on dd pvp ele afaik. This video covers all the essentials:
- Traits, runes/sigils, stats
- Explanation on skills and rotations
- How to fight different 1v1 meta matchups
- How to behave in teamfights

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Why does ANet continue to push PVP
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-guild-wars-2-player-vs-player-tournaments/
When most of us PVE or WvW?

Just imagine how all of that PVP/ESport money could have spent on the content that matters to ANet’s actual base populace?

This is such a disgusting mentality and sadly you’re not the only one that thinks this way.
You don’t enjoy pvp, that’s fine, but there are players that do and they deserve some attention as well. Be happy for them or at least keep your mouth shut.

Azure seems to think Miku responded that way because he is running d/d instead of d/f.

I couldn’t care less about open world stuff.

Blinding ashes and lighting rod are sub optimal trait choices.

Why not open up with churn in fire field+lightning flash combo? Here is a vid you may be interested in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzBV9X6Z07M

Using condition damage on elementalists is quite bad. If you shift your main damage source to power damage you will see a huge improvement.

I don’t do open world pve much, but when I do I use:
d/d strength+force sigil with 6/6/2/0/0 V,VII,XI/VI,X,XII/VI for exploration
staff frailty+force sigil with 6/6/0/0/2 VI,VII,XI/VI,VII,XIII/V for zerging
I use berserker gear with strength runes.
There probably are better rune and sigil choices specifically for open world pve and PVT is more optimal for bosses you can’t crit but I’m not going to waste my time, money and inventory space on them.

I also advise you to read these guides, although they mainly focus on doing dungeon runs, they contain a lot of information on eles in general. Most of the builds, rotations and tactics discussed can be applied in open world.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first

PS: guys don’t be so mean, all of us had to learn at some point. 1.5 years ago I thought knights gear auramancer build was the kitten in dungeons :p.
PS 2: It’s Gollum, not Golem

I ask because you mention stacking bosses and using FGS. I assume with stacking you are referring to using LOS to place bosses against walls.

klemen.8439:

Also, many competitive guilds refrain from using exploits such as stacking and using fiery greatswords.

How long has it been since you’ve done a dungeon?

These threads give the optimal combinations of potions and sigils for all dungeons and fractals.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Guide-to-Sigils-and-Potions-in-Dungeons/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/gw2dungeons-Help-verifying-enemy-types/first

The most cost efficient way to run with optimal sigils is to get 3 weapon sets: night/force + x/force + x/night and get a stack with frailty and useful slaying sigils in your inventory (they only cost 2.55s each, except for undead slaying) then replace x with the appropriate sigil for your dungeon.
If you want to be lazy/cheap running frailty/force works everywhere. You can run accuracy/force as well but on some builds in some groups you can overcrit. Frailty will be almost always better since 1 vuln = +1% party dps.

The V.8759:

Why does this guy say he is the best engi or whatever while he is on ele forum….

Just check his posting history and you’ll understand

The 04550 build Iris mentioned has the highest dps in theory but in practice it’s nearly impossible to maintain both of the 10% multipliers, which is what i was poking fun at. It’s a nice benchmark but i doubt it ever gets used for anything aside from dps tests on dummies.

Thaddeus.4891:

petyr baelish.9675:

Iris Ng.9845:

I used to be convinced that S/x LH has higher burst than Staff, even though Staff has higher DPS on long fight. Goku firmly proves me wrong http://youtu.be/BF0ttD5lGkY.

By the ways, Miku, your suggested “absolute highest personal DPS” build is incorrect. It should be 04550 with vuln covered by Lightning Storm.

…. until you take a hit and/or dodge :p

You can say the same about the dodge thing for all profession. And both thing can be said about any dps Ele or thief.

I’m talking about the 10% multipliers in that build ^^

Iris Ng.9845:

I used to be convinced that S/x LH has higher burst than Staff, even though Staff has higher DPS on long fight. Goku firmly proves me wrong http://youtu.be/BF0ttD5lGkY.

By the ways, Miku, your suggested “absolute highest personal DPS” build is incorrect. It should be 04550 with vuln covered by Lightning Storm.

…. until you take a hit and/or dodge :p

It really depends. In high lvl fotm staff ele + hammer guard + PS warr for might is a popular alternative. The group has lower DPS but it’s a lot safer.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

petyr baelish.9675:

Also @LucosTheDutch: Since that ele was the instance owner, he probably started the lfg and according to your story you provoked him first, you guys are the ones that griefed him. At least the previous system discouraged players like you from doing kitten like that since it punished you as well. I’m not saying he was right though and he was probably as bad as you make him out to be.

Maybe you didn’t read my post carefully, or maybe I explained it poorly, but I did not provoke anyone. I said the ele started bossing people around, not me. We didn’t grief anyone and we didn’t even know he was the instance owner.

The previous system was horrible and here is why: The instance owner was not determined by who started the party or who started LFG (which was me, not him), but who entered the instance first (which was him, not me).
I was the one who started my own LFG for AC p1. The ele joined my party. However, the ele was already inside AC when he joined, while I was still in Plains of Ashford. This is the reason why he was instance owner and not me. I didn’t know it worked that way either until then.

I had every single right to kick the ele from my party that I started and everyone else in the party agreed he had to be kicked because he was being the kitten, not me. Sadly, because he started the instance before me, the game considered him to be the instance owner and therefor kicked all of us when we removed him from the party.

The ele sucked and he was a kitten, he deserved to get kicked, sadly because of the old flawed system, we all got kicked as a result. Luckily that’s no longer the case with the new system, hence the new system is vastly superior to the old one.

Fair enough, in the case you just described you were right. It doesn’t mean that the current system is better though. Start an instance first, then start gathering a party.

‘The old flawed system’ didn’t encourage griefing like the current one does. It has taken a lot of drama after the september kittenup patch hit to get anet to take the griefing matter seriously. Even now we don’t know if the people that have grieved us have been punished. I think it’s highly unlikely unless you catch them on stream and make a forum post about it. And even then I’m pretty convinced it was more an act to appease us instead of them actually wanting to punish those players for what they’ve done, it should by no means be seen as a standard procedure.

Pretty cynical, I know. Then again, I have a reason to be.

I can tell from experience that people will kick you or threaten you when you ask them to do certain stuff repeatedly. The first time you ask for wor / sota / fb / blinds / banners / might / fury, you will usually be answered with silence. When you ask for the 5th time and you add in a kittening somewhere in that sentence it’s not uncommon to see the loading screen pop up. The same can happen when you want them to use certain strategies.The risk of getting kicked increases significantly when the pugs are friends or in the same guild. It doesn’t happen that often but it’s common enough to be a legit complaint.
If you hold your tongue and endure it’s extremely unlikely you’ll get kicked unless you kitten up hard. I personally can’t just sit silently when I’m trying my best to get the group to succeed and the others are too lazy/special to change one utility that will help the group tremendously.

In general PUGs are a bunch of selfish kittens that are in it for the rewards and don’t give a kitten about the rest. Anecdotal evidence from the month november:
- giving away AC P3 trough lfg. I tell them I’m going to solo the last boss. They join in anyways and kill it.
- Fotm 50, party memeber disconnects during molten duo fight. I mention it the moment it happens and ask the party to stop dpsing when the boss reaches 10% hp. 1 person actually stops, the other 3 killed it.

Langrim is either quite unlucky or a kitten to the people he’s playing with, perhaps a combination of both. Considering the experiences I’ve had with pugs and the attitude of these players in general I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I also agree that removing instance owner is a change for the worse. You have no safety and can’t enforce anything. When people get fed up with you they will kick you without a second thought. A lot of people lack empathy for fellow players.

Also @LucosTheDutch: Since that ele was the instance owner, he probably started the lfg and according to your story you provoked him first, you guys are the ones that griefed him. At least the previous system discouraged players like you from doing kitten like that since it punished you as well. I’m not saying he was right though and he was probably as bad as you make him out to be.

Jana.6831:

Doctor Faustus.6372:

Jana.6831:

GrimmR.3541:

Jana.6831:

Taku.6352:

Jana.6831:

GrimmR.3541:

Jana.6831:

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

Do it and tell me if it is even possible to solo a dungeon in soldier’s.

You can solo in pretty much any gear as long as the bosses don’t have too high regeneration or you don’t fail your evades.

Others have already answered you, I have “discussed” this in several posts. Not really sure what there is left to say.

I have never seen a dungeon solo run in tanky gear and would love to see it – I don’t buy that those doing it have no options to make videos of it. If you know any videos give me the link.

Those who manage to solo a dungeon in none zerker’s gear have more skills in my opinion – I have pointed out why, others have pointed out why. So, again, give me a link so I can be proven wrong.

Not a whole dungeon but shows very well how tankier gear trivialises the content.

http://youtu.be/5-zKXILTkQo

Alright, but I still mean a whole dungeon, not just one part of it =) Thanks though.

Is like this video, just takes longer.
Do you think that dodging/evading takes less skill than simply dpsing ?
So giving up passive defense to do more dmg is less skilled ?
Also, do you think soloing in rabids (f.e.) takes also more skill than in berserker ?

Allow me a question; did you ever solo a dungeon?

I love how people just think that zerkers just autoattack in their solos. Get deeper in the materia and then we can continue discussing.

Have you ever soloed a dungeon or soloed a dungeon in soldiers?
You do’t seem to read what I write, here again: If you don’t dish out max damage you’ll likely get in troubles with your cooldown or with tiny mistakes or things you can’t avoid. So to me everybody who’s able to solo an entire dungeon in soldier’s is more skilled than someone who does that in zerker’s – just read the stuff I wrote, maybe you’ll get my poiint of view and where I’m coming from.
Btw: If soldier’s were easier there would be more soldier’s videos than zerkers and I always see zerker’s.

Okay. Are you stupid or ignorant or both?
I’ll try to explain:
People who can actually solo dungeons DO NOT USE soldier gear!
Everyone who can solo it with zerkergear can do it with soldier too – you just need longer. So why would you do that? explain.

also when soloing (bosses) you don’t use zerk gear cause of your cooldowns, you use it to be faster. the cooldown thing is only for trashmobs.
players who can dodge will use zerker gear. you don’t wanna face lupicus for 15mins if you can kill him in 5mins instead. if you can’t dodge his attacks you will die with nomads or soldiergear. if you can dodge you will survive with zerker gear.

What is the problem with you guys? I initially said that someone soloing “anything” in soldier’s has got more skill in my opinion maybe that’s because I main a thief and can’t survive if I don’t put everything into offense – I don’t really play warrior or guardian or even ranger. Nonetheless it’s my opinion and you’re free to “educate” me on that but what makes you tell me that I’m stupid?

Edit, and for everything else you just wrote: there are plenty of posts from me in this thread in which I explain why I have got that opinion. Just read them.

Your opinion is wrong. The lupi solo posted in this thread shows how forgiving passive defense stats are and how faceroll the game gets when you use them.

This goes for every class btw, even for thief.

Caithe is pretty op: massive damage, lots of moblity and iframes, a reflect, stealth that doesn’t reveal you even when you attack and to top it off everything has super low cooldowns.

This is just a L2P issue, read what the skills do, use them at the right time and the fight will be a breeze.

Pre fight stacking 25 might is possible and if you run strength runes it lasts for a significant amount of time. You do need to be out of combat since you’ll have to swap weapons. I personally use my inventory to swap but people use the equipment tab in the hero window as well.

end in earth: start s/f in fire -> dragon’s tooth -> flamewall -> phoenix (-> 2nd tooth if you don’t want to use arcane wave) -> get mainhand dagger -> water attune -> comet -> frozen burst -> earth attune -> arcane brilliance -> magnetic wave (->arcane wave if you didn’t 2X tooth) -> offhand dagger -> earthquake -> churning earth

People often switch to staff and follow up with eruption -> glyph of storms in air -> lava font and icebow. I personally find this method the most convenient, once you get the hang of landing your tooth and comet on the flamewall.

alternate way that ends in fire: s/d in fire -> dragon’s tooth -> phoenix -> mainhand dagger -> water attune -> frozen burst -> earth attune -> earthquake -> churning earth -> focus during channel and magnetic wave -> staff -> eruption -> fire attune -> lava font -> arcane brilliance ->dragon’s tooth -> phoenix

You can easily get 21 stacks by switching to offhand focus and casting magnetic wave during churning earth channel when you do the standard s/d prestack.

If you’re looking for in combat rotations i suggest you search on youtube for dekeyz vids.

S/D and S/F in combination with the lightning hammer conjure are the most potent mightstacking weapon sets.
In my opinion S/F is better for in combat might stacking because the longer duration of your fire field (flamewall) enables you to stack more might with your lightning hammer chain + obsidian flesh ensures you won’t have to interrupt your rotation to dodge an attack. The advantage of S/D in combat is higher damage, which also results in you being less useless if you happen to lose your LH. The various S/D and S/F DPS rotations and builds can be found in this video made by DEKeyz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LJOEvCO0DA
For pre combat might stacking S/D is a lot easier to use since it’s quite hard to land dragon’s tooth and comet on top of your flamewall without a target. The common combo is: dragon’s tooth->ring of fire->phoenix->earth attune->arcane brilliance->arcane wave (during arcane brilliance channel)->earthquake->churning earth-> during churning earth channel change to offhand focus and cast magnetic wave

If you want to tryhard prestack here are some more combos:

24 might: start S/F->dragon’s tooth->flamewall->phoenix->earth attune->arcane brilliance->arcane wave (during arcane brilliance channel)->magnetic wave->change to dagger offhand->earthquake->churning earth->water attune->change to dagger mainhand (during channel)->frozen burst

25 for the lolz: start S/D->dragon’s tooth->ring of fire->phoenix->earth attune->arcane brilliance->arcane wave (during channel)->earthquake->churning earth->switch to offhand focus (during channel)->magnetic wave (during channel)->water attune->switch to dagger mainhand->conjure flame axe->ring of fire->explosive lava axe->drop flame axe->frozen burst
@train: is this the hat trick prestack you mentioned or is there another way? :p

Although S/F and S/D are superior for mightstacking, in fractals and arah it might be better to use D/F instead. You sacrifice DPS and might, but you gain extra utility and surviveability. Everything is explained in another vid by DEKeyz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sr5tJKLfZk

The staff is another option since it’s the highest dps weapon in the game, however you cannot stack as much might compared to the other weapon sets. That’s why in group play you shouldn’t use it unless you want to be lazy or when you aready have another ele in the party. DEKeyz vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H0HI_OdQtQ

staff prestack combo where you end in fire attunement so you can cast lava font and meteor immediately: start with staff->eruption->fire attune->lava font->arcane brilliance->arcane wave->switch to S/D->dragon’s tooth->ring of fire->phoenix-> switch to staff. Normally there should be no occasions where you use this in group play but it has it uses if you’re looking into soloing some dungeons.

Don’t use D/D in dungeons because it’s inferior to the aforementioned weapon sets in every way. Unless you ‘want to play it because it’s fun’ or roleplay.

In PVE the fresh air trait is used in D/F builds. You need it to be able to change to air and keep your dps up with lighting whip in between skill rotations. Without this trait D/F would never be viable, while right now it’s used a lot in high level content where you need the extra survivability/utility of your focus skills.
There is also a s/f or s/d LH build that uses the trait for extra dps with electric discharge while you attument swap during the lh chain.

Its uses in pvp have already been covered by the above poster.

On a side note. Magnetic grasp, the elementalist dagger earth 3 skill is quite alike the mesmer sword 3 skill. Here are the tooltips:

Magnetic grasp: Immobilize your foe, making them vulnerabile to a Magnetic Leap attack.
Magnetic Leap: Pull yourself to your magnetically grasped foe and deliver a strike.

The skill has a projectile with immobilise first and then a gap closer. However you are still able to use magnetic leap after the immobilisation effect has worn off/been cleansed. So by anet logic being able to use magnetic leap after the immob wears off is clearly a bug and will be fixed soon?

JMadFour.9730:

so being able to swap places with a clone that doesn’t exist anymore is a “defensive part of the skill set”? that really does sound like a bug to me. was the Mesmer meant to swap places with nothing?

because that patch note does not say you can’t switch places with the clone anymore. it says you can’t switch with the clone if the clone is already gone. i.e. the clone has to exist, in order to switch places with it.

Please play mesmer before commenting. It has always been assumed that it was intended but not proplerly explained in the tooltip, like many other skills. I doubt anybody has ever complained about the way it functioned, suddenly it’s a bug that needs fixing and has higher priority than the countless of other bugs that plague the class.

Sword 3 has always been hard to use because of the terrian bug, instead of fixing that first they changed the skill so it’s completely unusable now. In the off chance you actually do spawn a clone that doesn’t get stuck, it’ll almost always die before reaching it’s target. You won’t be able to use ileap either if you overwrite the clone, which happens on A LOT of occasions.

The 2 helmet crafting components of the weight class you want your mantle to be.
Or so I’ve heard.

We’ve had 2 years to practice said dungeons and design strategies to clear them in the most efficient ways possible. At the start of the game these dungeons were percieved to be far from easy and the meta was entirely different from what it is now.

My proof? Check the dungeon forums and search for posts from a while back. After AC got redesigned there was a lot of qq that the dungeon was too hard, now it’s faceroll easy. Recently a thread on GL from a year ago got necroed, people had a lot of trouble to beat him with 5 man parties while a lot of players can solo the fight now.

All we need is new content because the current one is old. We need a new puzzle to solve, code to crack, whatever metaphor you wish to use.

If you really are that bored go do some lvl 50 fractals. They have more depth and solve a lot of the issues you have with the easy dungeons.

edit: inb4 ‘but rewards suck’ – Then your issue is not with how faceroll/one dimensional/insertcomplainthere the content is but with the imbalance of the rewards in the game. In that case you should make/post in another thread. If you truly desire to experience harder content then the lower g/hour shouldn’t stop you from doing it anyways.

I see. I always stealth past them without pulling aggro though but it seems they follow me no matter what I do. Worst part is that their reset location became the location in the picture so I had to sacrifice myself to the turrets a few times to get past.

Edit: thx for the brazil video, really helped me understand.

There really is something wrong with the pack of mobs (the ones with the one hunter) right after the 2nd boss in arah p1 and p2. I’ve had some really weird kitten happen when I skipped past them. This time they actually warped trough walls and they were waiting for me near the orrian turrets.

The entire video is pretty interesting but you’ll probably want to see the colossus rumblus fight.

stobie.2134:

petyr baelish.9675:

stobie.2134:

A game that requires you be in one set of gear, filling one role only, has some issues. I’m sure some are fine with that, but given all the classes & theoretical variety they provide, I think I’d be very sad to see everyone in the same gear, let alone with the same 3 classes. And I hope ANet will get beyond that mentality, even if some players do not.

Completing the content requires none of the things you mentioned, everything is viable but not everything is optimal and it’s about time people got over it.

Can an engineer be ‘optimal?’ Can a necromancer, or a ranger? What gear besides berserker is ‘optimal?’ If all classes can do this magical optimal build, why are so many groups & guilds requesting zerk warriors, guardians, & elementalists?

That’s not good for any game, though it probably works well for those who play those classes & who obediently follow a meta build.

Good rangers running sword+warhorn/gs are desired in real speedclear groups for traited frost spirit and spotter. They alone boost party DPS by 14%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Without a ranger it would be impossible to do a 2 phase skip feedback on GL.
Engineers have a lot of blast finishers and can stack vulnerability really fast, which makes them quite valuable. They are used by speedclear groups as well.
Necros are indeed less desired in PVE but it’s not because of their lack of direct damage, which is quite good on single targets, but because of their lack of utility.

Why are lfg ‘speedclear’ groups asking for warrior, ele and guardians only? Because people are kittened and don’t know any better. Also when you pug it’s more likely you’ll find meta warriors and eles. There aren’t that many engi, ranger and necro players that run meta and it gives them a bad reputation. Most guardians don’t run meta but they are accepted in pugs because people don’t really know how a guardian works, they heard that guardians have great group support so according to them staffcamping guard with 10% dmg reduction signets and without wor must be supporting the group really well => people are kittened.

If we’re talking about berserker/assassins gear being optimal. Why shouldn’t it be? You forego any kind of passive defense for more damage. It’s high risk high reward, you actually need to pay attention and have some experience when running full glass cannon or you’ll get killed.
If you think the gearset is low risk high reward because people stack, yolo and the boss dies before it can do anything then you should try running other dungeons aside from AC.

And then the ‘meta build’. There isn’t 1 meta build you obediently follow. If you want to play it right you adjust your traits, weapons and utilities according to the content you wish to complete, your party setup and the skill level of the people in your party.

maha.7902:

30/20/0/0/20

30/20/0/20/0

30/30/0/0/10

10/20/0/20/20

full assassin, scholar runes
sword/sword + sword/focus
undead slaying/accuracy

switch utilities dependent on situation, stack mantras on the first 3 builds if theres no utilities worth taking so you can get a 4% damage modifier per mantra

When do you use 10/20/0/20/20 over 30/20/0/20/0? Is it solely for the times when you don’t run any mantras or are there other reasons?

stobie.2134:

A game that requires you be in one set of gear, filling one role only, has some issues. I’m sure some are fine with that, but given all the classes & theoretical variety they provide, I think I’d be very sad to see everyone in the same gear, let alone with the same 3 classes. And I hope ANet will get beyond that mentality, even if some players do not.

Completing the content requires none of the things you mentioned, everything is viable but not everything is optimal and it’s about time people got over it.

Everybody that claims gw2 pve is stack and burn and that you kill the boss before it becomes a threat doesn’t run arah or fractals much. There really isn’t anything more to say about this.

Running most of the old dungeons is pretty rewarding.
Right now you’re complaining about rewards for AC. Seriously? Just shut the kitten up.

d/f dps is never higher. The 3 mightstacks are significant and don’t forget that wielding a LH gives you 75 ferocity and 180 precision. If we’re comparing 6/6/2 builds for s/f and d/f you’ll also lose out on arcane lighting when running d/f because you need to trait for fresh air, that is another 150 ferocity. The LH attack chain is also stronger than lighting whip attack chain.
With ‘more vulnerability’ against a wall I suppose you mean that you might get maybe 3 extra vuln when you use burning speed against a wall. Then again if you are fighting a boss against a wall you’re going to use fgs anyways, if we’re clearing trash mobs they will die in seconds, no matter what you do.
The extra evade on burning speed is absolutely worthless, the evade frames are too short for it to be reliably used to dodge attacks. Honestly counting on burning speed to evade boss attacks has killed me more often than it has saved me.

The thing that makes d/f so great is the extra survivability trough the utility of the focus and that you don’t have to rely on a conjure to keep your damage up. However the damage will always be lower than a conjure build, which makes sense because you trade damage for survivability.

@Sauzo: If there is one gear type that is broken then it’s clerics. People running in cleric gear with ‘healing builds’ can complete any kind of content without having to dodge once, it’s even possible to solo some bosses without having to use your dodge key.
Wearing tanky gear allows you to make a lot more mistakes and people that are less experienced will have to use tankier gear to be able to complete certain pieces of content. It’s only natural that experienced players are able to run glassier setups and they are rewarded with faster clear times. The developers even said it was intended design.
Inb4 lollowriskhighrewardbossesdieinstantlymeeleeexploit: try running glass cannon in arah or fotm lvl 50 and see how easy it is when failing to doge 1 attack instantly gets you downed and might even kill you.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Iris Ng.9845:

Look at it this way. If you play staff when solo AC or low-manning Arah, it is pretty challenging.

I wasn’t really talking about challenge, I was talking about what you would do to optimise it. You forgo changing elements completely in a fight, which is the whole point to playing an ele. Without the elements, you stop being an elementalist, you turn into a boring class without the mechanic that defines it.

Anet wanted attunement camping builds to be viable, if they didn’t, traits like fire VI and VII wouldn’t exist. Stoneheart is another fine example.
There are other classes that don’t use their ‘class skills’. Like mesmers with phantasm builds. Warriors with meta builds won’t use their brust skill either, aside from the occasional eviscerate because they would lose a 15% modifier if they did.

Being a master of the elements is cool and all but being this powerhouse fire wizard that throws around fireballs, makes it rain meteors and burns his enemies to a crisp can be fun as well.

In my experience most kicks after the first 30 minutes of a fractal run happen because you managed to kitten off the party leader and/or one of his friends and they kick you out of spite. Causes of kittening them off are: you don’t follow them when they do stupid kitten and die, you talk too much, you suggest a different tactic (even if it works), you ask them to use certain skills/utilities like wor or shield of the avenger in the grawl fractal,…. well pretty much anything that can harm their ego.

I remember a run from a few days ago where the leader started throwing a tantrum in the 3rd fractal and threatened to destroy the instance because he died to mobs he engaged on his own. Somebody in the party asked him to chill out (quote: ‘dude just calm down please’) and the leader started a vote kick that got seconded by his friend. When they recruited somebody else I bribed the new guy to help me kick the party leader and destroy the instance. I offered the other random in the party 3g as compensation but he said he didn’t want it and that he wasn’t mad. Needless to say I got reported by the party leader and his accomplice ‘because what I did crossed the line’. Hypocrisy at its finest.

^ good point, didn’t think of that. I suppose the same logic considering vitality can be applied to PVE: make sure you have just enough health to kill the enemy before it kills you, assuming you don’t use active defenses properly. Then again, we are limited by the available stat combinations and knights is the best ‘tanky’ gear damage wise.

edit: Apparently I’m wrong and valkyrie has higher dps potential. So if you’re looking for ‘training gear’ for PVE you should opt for valkyrie.

Really? I always assumed that reducing the amount of direct damage you take has better synergy with all of our heals, compared to just increasing your health pool. On the other hand vitality does improve your resilience to both direct and condition damage but I’m not so sure that that means it’s the better stat to invest in. Of course you do need some vitality so you don’t die to conditions before you can cleanse them.

If we have to consider gear choices knight>valkyrie/cavalier. Soldiers and sentinel make you hit like a wet noodle, celestial is pretty much out of the picture post ferocity, aside from those I don’t see any other useful gear that gives defensive stats.

Please note that a lot of my argumentation is from a PVE perspective.

Toughness>vitality>healing power, I would avoid investing in healing power.

Experienced players that are running the right build, are familiar with their class’s mechanics and the game mechanics are able to do most, If not all PVE content in glass cannon gear.

If we’re talking about WVW or PVP the priority in defensive stats stays the same but you obviously wouldn’t want to run full glass cannon unless you want to play a s/x burst build.

You can get some toughness or vitality so you are more durable. Offhand focus has a projectile block, a reflect+condi removal and an invulnerability skill so it might be worth it to switch weapons. Arcane shield is a good stunbreaker and blocks 3 attacks.
If you die to conditions get some condition removal (ether renewal, staff water attunement 5, cleansing fire)
If you mostly die to bosses learn their mechanics and dodge their dangerous attacks, most of the time these have long visible windups.
If you die to trash mobs try blinding them if you stack. Both ligthing hammer and glyph of storms in earth attunement are quite good for this.

edit: toughness not precision

Agreed on fotm being unrewarding.
If you run arah with a good group you can clear any path in 30 minutes or less and the gold reward is around double the reward for one of the easier dungeons so I don’t see any issues there.
Players can always challenge themselves by doing the content at a lower level character, doing it undergeared/naked, trying to clear it as fast as possible or soloing it. Not all of those methods are more rewarding but soloing and speedclearing (not the lfg kind) certainly are so there is an incentive to do it.

Aegis, protection, condition removal, blind, weakness, projectile block, reflects, blocks, stability, invulnerability, vigor, etc. All of these are defenses that are considered when buildcrafting for solo and group play in the DPS meta. Depending on the content you wish to complete and the skill level of yourself (and others in your party) you try to maximize your damage while grabbing the minimum amount of defenses you or your group needs to survive the run. This is no different from the buildcrafting in trinity games.

The only difference is the community. There are new anti-DPS meta (wrongfully called zerker meta) posts each day on these forums because of all the playhowiwants that interpreted a single sentence in the gw2 manifesto incorrectly and wrongfully believe the game is solely catered to them. They do not wish to accept that their playstyle is viable but not optimal or that they have to improve/adjust themselves in order to be able to play at an optimal level. They wallow in their mediocrity and demand that they get the same rewards as the players that do put in some effort. Be it by buffing their builds, nerfing the builds that do better than them or by changing the game at the risk of destroying the balance we currently have, where everything is viable.