Guild Wars 2

Kacbec.8709:

Daywolf.2630 i use simillar build it’s quiet fun as it ^^

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQFAWlMGSNGbQ3A29AQ4BBMkw4RHhQiogFA-jgxAYfAqAQyrIas9hioxqrxUuER1CBMaBA-e

well i could be better probalby but i did not have time to test other options.

No Fiery Greatsword? Such blasphemy!

Lian Olsam.9541:

I ve done some maths of those rune/orb now my doubt is about power vs precision what is better and why?

Something to do with damage calculation. Crit chance and Crit damage have diminished effects on damage making power amd flat damage bonuses better.

Scholar is number one. Dungeon paths like CoE p2 and p3 are purely dodge based where you can easily stay above 90%.

Ranger runes is also currently broken so the damage bonus is up despite having no pets and is the second best. Ogre Rune is also nice but the Rock Dog can be annoying sometimes.

Rune of Strength would be really good if the damage bonus with might actually worked.

FrownyClown.8402:

I feel like I saw a dev post on something like that before. I could be wrong.

No you’re right.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Would-be-great-if-Arenanet/first#post2725812

Last year didn’t they say it was because the 25 stack cap was hardcoded so it’s hard to change?

I won’t say it’s good design but I would say it’s a good compromise. Guardians too like eles have an abundance in +damage traits though not as many.

I think the intent of the design was to force and eles and guardians to choose between offense or defense rather than just giving them high base damage which combined with a bunker spec would make them too strong.

I heard there was a safe spot for Abom. 2 hours spent learning to solo him for naught _

Grevender.9235:

Basically, the discussion is toward ordinary tasks, rather than extremely rare exceptions.

PvEwise, even when talking about ordinary numbers Ele damage would match a warrior though, LH 30/20/10/10/0 vs Warrior GS+Axe/Mace 30/0/0/10/30. When put together the warrior’s banners and empower buff will be given to the Ele making it higher.

In PvE as long as you don’t trait beyond 10 points into Arcana, you have plenty of +damage steroid traits choose from and stack up: Ember’s Might, Burning Rage, Stone Splinters, Serrated Stones, Bolt to the Heart, Vital Striking, Bountiful Power and Enduring Damage.

The real problem is it requires a knowledgeable player to exploit the damage traits. Most eles seem to be of the support notion so few of them make the zerker leap, let alone the trait stacking leap. Regular eles like to play support or just what they run to WvW cos PvE ez doesn’t matter how fast you finish dungeons mentality.

The issue with PvP Ele is it’s too busy stacking defensive traits and having to pump Arcana 30 instead of stacking the offensive traits and so they don’t enjoy the multiplicative effect of damage trait stacking. Because people don’t just sit still for you to Lighting Hammer in their faces and they certainly don’t just sit in Lava Font so your glassiness is easily punished. The gimmicky scepter spike builds that aren’t 0/30/0/10/30 also utilize some of the PvE damage traits to get all-or-nothing power.

haviz.1340:

I heard that bads rez poor zerkers.

In my experience, getting rezzed by cleric jerks happens alot from fotm 30+

For normal dungeons only Slave Driver, CoE golem and Shoggroth hates on my ele butt and becomes problematic with low deeps

clint.5681:

So why do people join my speedrun experienced only groups knowing that is going to be skip galore

That reminds me of my first attempt at getting PUG speed run group for TA. Two of them apparently were first-timers who started complaining when they couldn’t get past the TA wolves, “why don’t we just kill them?” they said.

So I asked why they joined a SPEED RUN and they said they thought speed run meant clearing everything as soon as you can.

The biggest reason for skipping at the time though was that you couldn’t trust the PuGs to be able to handle trash. They ate every big hit and died and complained about how much it hurt to be jumped on/mobs. Watching baddies die to trash isn’t my idea of fun especially when they are pvt/cleric baddies and you being zerker, having to rez them just feels soooooooo wrong.

A trick for fresh air S/X with sig of resto is going out of line of sight i.e. run around buildings/obstructions while spamming air 1 and the escape button to heal up abit with the signet instead of spamming water scepter 1 for health; you don’t want to stay in water too long since you want water to be off-cooldown as much as possible so you can healing ripple more often whereas staying in air long doesn’t mean anything since you can get back to air again readily with fresh air.

Lightning Whip more. It’s your top sustain damage skill, the other auto-attacks are alot weaker so try to linger in Air the most (i.e. switch to it last after Ring of Fire→Earthquake→Ring of Earth). Try to reserve water for healing and earth for protection so you don’t develop spammy habits.

Zelyhn.8069:

I changed food to curry butternut, factored in 9 boons (multiplicative stacking assumed), and I got 17k8 dps

5-7 boons is more realistic. Aegis doesn’t particularly last long (except for the abundant CoE encounters) and where do you get Vigor from? Protection is hard to come by in a DPS party and Regen needs luck/positioning for the RoJ to bounce to you.

Tree.3916:

How can you make something fun once you’ve done it 100+ times?

The same thing I said 9 months ago.

Robert Hrouda himself said they could remove mob leashing was easily but they didn’t want to since Anet knew how kitten the drops were and suggested full-clearers to make their own groups. Yet even after he made that post the anti-skipping threads still came in 1-2+ times a week. I suppose people don’t read forum title much like they don’t read LFG descriptions?

You know what happened to the guilds of “full clear” dungeon running groups from 9 months ago? They all got bored of clearing everything and quit/became skippers themselves. Only we skippers/cheaters/exploiters/elitists have endured since then.

It seems with the loss of Hrouda, some of that skip-tolerancy of Anet as also been lost.
But guess what is happening to the new Twilight Assault which is so unskippable? It’s becoming deader than TAFU after everyone’s done it.

Anet is in a trap, they can’t make the trash mobs rewarding without people farming the trash and ignoring the rest of the dungeon but forcing people to clear trash is also bad. Their game engine apparently can’t handle complex AI either, you’re better off waiting for GW3.

Every weapon has it’s use.

For PvE if you reeeeeaaaaally want to save gold, then invest in staff. Other weapons matter less since you can just whip out the Lightning Hammer and FGS which have their own weapon strength so weapon grade matters less (under 100 stat difference) and the scepter/X are mainly just there to carry sigils.

I rarely fotm, but I once heard someone say at 48+ that even in PuGs: no LoS and stacking = kicked since it gets you party wiped. The baddies have finally caught up huh?

The only stun that’s unbreakable is the almighty Deep Freeze.

I haven’t used AoE awhile, I’m starting to prefer Signet of Air anyway since I find 30s CD stunbreak+blind better than 90s CD stunbreak+short duration stab+prot.

The real question is,

Ogre or Ruby Orbs?!!

Navzar.2938:

AFAIK shots fired through fire fields just get a 1sec burning effect.

Oh I was merely reminiscing the good ol’ days. I seemed to forget to meantion beta in there.

I’m curious.

From a scale of not playing the game 0 to 10 playing the game where do you put elitist mob-skip filled dungeoning?

Now… Where would mindlessly spamming 1 on a zerker/pvt staff guardian to tag for credit in Frostgorge champion farming and World Event Zerging?

Neko.9021:

I agree that the person asking to stack might was being a bit silly. Expecting the average PUG like yourself to understand how to stack Might in a Fire Field is expecting a lot. :P

The person asking only had 1.5k Anet points. I was kinda like that myself 2 months after release. I remember myself teaching PuGs about fire fields and stacking, how projectile reflects trivialize 90% of pve content, how to not step out of shadow refuge etc and I felt like a true pioneer in creating a more well-informed dungeon community.

Then at several points in time I got called the E word for e.g. suggesting Wall of Reflection to a 4-signet guardian, asking a pistol-pistol thief to come into melee range to use 5 etc so then I stopped caring.

MyPuppy.8970:

Well I think originally Fire Wall was designed to be a combo field, thus purely a support skill.

Yes!

It just goes to show how much of a dinosaur eles are. Projectile finishers used to all be 100%.

Some still are since ANet failed to alter traited skill versions like Warrior’s Stronger Bow Strings and Mesmer’s Duelist’s Discipline.

I THINK shots fired through fire fields also added 10% more damage but I can’t remember for sure.

AntiGw.9367:

Skipping content isn’t playing, it’s actually not playing.

No, skipping is a game of it’s own especially when dealing with Deadeyes where you utilize more game mechanics than any bearbow ranger/gs camping mesmer/support guardian.

If you’re employing more game mechanics than the above players are, it’s highly arguable that you are playing to a greater extent than those who refuse to acknowledge such mechanics: dodge, cleave, LoS and combo fields.

‘Play’ in gameplay is extremely subjective and could be argued to no end. The mere fact that you fail to see play from other player’s perspectives and indeed are an elitist of your own kind. The people who YOU deem elitist are actually very wise people who are more versed in builds and perspective, they are simply tired of preaching optimal play to those whom like yourself are too ignorant to listen.

Maybe the Ele was really glass but he was just really good at not getting hit? Also in sPvP the zerker amulet gives some vitality so glass eles have a minimum of 14k hp.

Your own build matters alot as to how much damage you take too btw.

dante.2864:

zencow.3651:

CMstorm.8679:

How many rocks does rock barrier hurl? is it 5? or 6? and i didn’t see that he used it, but i guess that would be smart to do. I so wanna try that. What if you could teleport allies with lightning flash?

5 Rocks. In total it does more damage than a Lightning Strike. You’d see him using it if you watch it again closely.

From what I can see dante’s build is either 30/30/10/0/0 or 20/30/20/0/0. Sigil of Geomancer and Sigil of Force.

Its 25-30-10-0-5 and acording to my tests its the highest burst build you can make, hitting for up to 25k hp on a 2600 armor target.

I see, I forgot about the fury :P

And they don’t work with the seemingly channel-like Frost Bow skills 2, 4 and 5.

The most practical use is with dagger mainhand since Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold.

The strange thing is Stone Shards works with Obsidian Focus but not Zephyr’s Focus.

On the other hand, Zephyr’s Focus is buggy to the benefit to Cone of Cold: It lasts for 9 seconds even regardless of how long you channel it for and even after you finish channeling the skill it will stay unlike the other channels where it will end abrupted on cancel/interrupt/channel finishes.

CMstorm.8679:

How many rocks does rock barrier hurl? is it 5? or 6? and i didn’t see that he used it, but i guess that would be smart to do. I so wanna try that. What if you could teleport allies with lightning flash?

5 Rocks. In total it does more damage than a Lightning Strike. You’d see him using it if you watch it again closely.

From what I can see dante’s build is either 30/30/10/0/0 or 20/30/20/0/0. Sigil of Geomancer and Sigil of Force.

ricohman.7302:

I would of understood if he was standing at boss but he wanted me to hit him before boss then stack.

So I’m guessing you DON’T know what combos do assuming you also referred to engineers as ‘bomb guys’ and so it sounds like you’re angry/confused at someone for no reason while they were only making a passing remark.

I’ll grace you with a helpful observation and explanation since you made me laugh at how angsty and naive that post sounded.

What I gather from that scenario it sounds like he wanted you to do was spam cluster bomb in an engineer’s fire field from fire bomb so everyone got some might stacks before you began the boss fight. The 9-12 might stacks (can’t get 25 stacks off a 3 second field unless others helped) would increase your damage output somewhere between ~20 to 40% which is like having an additional party member for 20 seconds.

The glaring issue is group roaming. My friends prefer warriors and thieves so if I play ele they’d have to pointedly not use their mobility skills or I’d get left behind while we navigate around the map.

Which was almost the opposite case before RtL nerf where I’d be the one going too fast and leaving the group behind…

CMstorm.8679:

what about if you did dragons tooth, earthquake then halfway thru earthquake, teleport @ target and swap to air, arcane wave+arcane blast and RTL/lightning strike all within like 1-2 tops like in dat vid… im still flabbergasted at that burst…

1. You want to save Fire Attunement for Phoenix in case the spike falls short for any reason.
2. You’d likely miss out on Hurl since Stone Barrier only last 15 seconds so will only have a short time window before it runs out by the time Earth Attune’s back off recharge.
3. The opponent will likely walk out of DT anyway, combined with the loss of dps from point 2 and safety net of point 1 you open yourself to more risks.

Used to be way stronger when you could pop it immediately instead of having to wait.

Tempest Defense is more fun.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImIblx5gjDAkCoMK0h4hFOIBA-ToAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNsYWA

Hurl+Earthquake+Lightning Flash -> Air Attune+Lighting Strike+RtL+Arcane Wave+Arcane Blast is instant kill but you have to rebind your keys so you can press 5 buttons at the same time. You still have time to Phoenix under the same knockdown if the target somehow manages to survive but if they stunbreak+stability e.g. Dolyak’s Signet, turn 180 degrees and run for abit using Blinding Flash to avoid possible Earthshaker/Shield Bash and then Updraft -> Phoenix, Ring and Grab.

If they dodge the quakeflash, RtL away and hopefully lose aggro and wait for cooldowns.

20 points usually go into 10 Fire for Spell Slinger and 10 into Arcane for Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina. This is also more convenient for switching to Fresh Air/SF on the fly.

If you’re really confident and can rack-up bloodlust/stay alive, put 10 each into Earth and Water instead for Geomancer’s Aclarity and Cantrip Mastery instead so you spike more often.

Once the patch hits one of the Arcanes can be swapped for Frost Bow for the improved frost bow 5 for the 5 seconds un-stunbreakable tanky Ice Shard that’ll let you spike more frequently.

Fuzzion.2504:

zencow.3651:

Fuzzion.2504:

Stun warriors hate FGS. Also i found it more efficient not to bother with stun warriors. Then again im pure wvw and no jack about spvp.

One does not simply ignore warriors in circle wars.

What circle?

The capture points.

dante.2864:

How to beat stun warriors before they even react.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdBJw9cBuEo

There’s a 20% chance that the warrior isn’t absolutely terrible and block/dodges as he sees the earthquake animation though. Or you simply suffer from critfail/Warrior is using Defy Pain and not Spiked Armor and then you’d have to hope that Updraft/Phoenix lands.

Plus I prefer s/f for not getting pew pewed on by rangers/engies.

Erebus.7568:

any vid against a half decent war that doesnt miss 60%+ of his stuns/burst becouse he simply sucks? (60%+ of his stuns/burst he uses out into tin air, no dodge or defensive used to negate them, he simply just use them without being close enough or facing the target.. its really sad to see…)
else it doesnt really show much and i would still say vs a decent stun war you got 0 chance to win.

Find me one and I’ll see what I can do. The second vid was one of the better warriors I’ve found after searching all day.

oZii.2864:

Even when I wasnt running tanky I still benefit more from saving it for disengage than using it to attack.

Pretty much. It’s damage coefficient is only 1.0, which is less than Lightning Whip’s 1.4. They should at least give it a blind or vulnerability or just revert the CD.

Fuzzion.2504:

Stun warriors hate FGS. Also i found it more efficient not to bother with stun warriors. Then again im pure wvw and no jack about spvp.

One does not simply ignore warriors in circle wars.

In terms of PvE damage, without might/vulnerability you can do 3 Lightning Whips (1.14 second each) for 12k damage within the time it takes to channel 100b (3.6 second) for 14k damage. With Lighting Hammer a chain does 4k-4k-7k =15k in 2.82 seconds (third hit also aoe blind + blast finisher). One lava font does 12k? with a cast time of 0.4 second and you can chuck fireballs while it’s ticking.

Warrior damage is only on par due to the axe auto-attacks in between the 100b but no-one tops the FGS 4 against wall/with lightning flash exploit is 300k.

The game has been out for a year and people are still clueless about ele damage in pve even after much preaching. Sigh.

sorrychief.2563:

Has anyone tried sigil of doom instead of energy/battle?

It’s what I use for this build. Generally all other bunkers use it to kill other bunkers, only ele is pigeonholed to sigil of battle/energy due to low damage/necessity to dodge.

Erebus.7568:

no vids
espected to see some show off, of how good it was with that title :/

Heres some footage
Most warriors are like this: http://youtu.be/gysAUPrILo8
Hence we see why baddies claim warriors don’t need a nerf since they don’t actually use the meta warrior builds. This once lacked Cleansing Ire.

vs decent meta warrior: http://youtu.be/Zu-JkC6Zhoc
Yawn-fest. Lag started kicking as you can see at 19 seconds in so I couldn’t play that well. Would’ve been faster if Aegis/blocks weren’t always up by the time gale/signet of fire finally responded etc.

I can’t record and beat the top-dog warriors at the same time or I’d just eat every stun.

Zeon.8239:

All you really need is mainhand scepter/well timed dodges to avoid their stuns, setup for a burst so that they waste their defensive resources, and then stay well aware of your cooldowns while surviving long enough to be able to setup your burst again.

I agree, burst ele is the only way to go in this meta.

You still don’t want to get caught 1v1ing tho. At best, if you land Dragon’s Tooth -> Phoenix and Air Spike+double arcane it only takes of 75% of their health (borderline OP for ganking). You have to then survive for the next 20 seconds to spike the remaining 50% after Heal Signet gets the warrior back up and there’s just so much room for error.

Fuzzion.2504:

This is how i see it

We play a support role with staff —> Healing, Speed and Disruption with Staff
We can also play a solo role --> Full Bunker DnD
We can also play a small group Auramaner —> DnD /SnD
We can also play a small group DPS -->1/2 Bunker 1/2 Glass DnD
We can also play a pure DPS role —> Freash air Build with SnD

Perhaps this is what they meant by jack of all trades.

That’s build-diversity.

Jack-of-all trades is more like the old D/D ele who can counter-play everything like the 0/10/30/0/30 warriors we have today.

But who knows what Anet thinks.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodhMmibsR3gjEAUBBFHgw4BIiQS9wMA-ToAg2CuIuRdj7GzNybs3M6YuA

http://youtu.be/gysAUPrILo8
http://youtu.be/Zu-JkC6Zhoc

Notables:
- Fire shields and Signet of Fire allows you to maintain burning outside of Fire Attune and keep the warrior burning through Cleansing Ire.
- Perma protection can be achieved through spamming all signets and the weapon skill auras on CD, but in reality is not constantly needed since you have other countermeasures.
- Due to above point, will out-last power-based build.
- Signet of Air isn’t that bad, 24 CD stunbreak makes it the with the lowest CD SB in game.

Observed Weaknesses:
- Not as much dodges as regular ele bunkers.
- No heal on demand from 15 Water and 30 Arcana
- Due to high toughness and perma-protection you won’t need it the above when fighting power-based builds since the Soothing Mist, Regen from water attune/dwayna and Signet of Resto’s Active+Passive will easily outheal and damage taken but:
- Condi builds. Condi Engis and Condi Rangers are less of an issue due to Swirling Winds but Condi Necroes and Condi mesmers counters this build hard. And you certainly won’t outlast a Condi warrior. The Ice Elemental’s 6570 HP can help you alot against condis in general.

In closing, the Rock Solid 0/0/20/20/30 approach better for bunkering be you clerics or shaman, but this is the only build that I’ve played around with that could kill a warrior. It also makes back-stab thieves a walk in the park but SD thieves are the real threat in sPvP anyway. Again nice for hot-joins, even the standard bunker build can’t handle the condis of this meta so this is far from viable outside of 1v1ing the builds it was made to counter.

I wish Eles were more one-build-fits-all like it used to be instead of having to build so specifically for what you want to kill and suck at everything else… so much for versatility >.>

haviz.1340:

Axelifus.3269:

About as stupid as it works really, your sig alone proves it.
Then again its still more fun than playing a warrior, that class is boring as balls.

p.s. plz fix stuff anet

This could be only my opinion but warrior is more fun than lh ele.

But the thunder effects makes it feel like you’re doing more!

Pretty sure the gfx is the only reason why some people refuse to go engi for wvw and spvp when it’s the superior ele.

7/10. Nice armor mix. The dye colour’s too boring though.

My condi, zerker and pvt suits:

Sharpe.1485:

I find the cheese scepter fresh air builds to be unfair for the enemy.

As for playing competitively – no point with an ele.

I don’t find it unfair at all. Gale -> DT -> Phoenix -> Air spike sure hurts as hell but air spike by itself does nothing. It’s fun when you team up with a warrior to help you force out all the opponent’s stunbreaks/stabs and you could take grounded instead of fresh air and deal 75% of someone’s health or insta-downing them in a ghetto ranged but stealthless thief sort of way, but you won’t ever beat someone in 1v1 unless they are bad/get caught with stunbreaks on CD.

The other problem is, you only need 1 of such a dedicated roamer and S/D thief is so much more safe and less risky to play.
The only pros to playing scepter ele over thief roamers are:
+ Rezzing denial + punishment
+ Wiping spirits + turrets
+ Potential to down someone faster than a thief can
+ AoE might stacks
while the cons are too many.

FrownyClown.8402:

zencow.3651:

Condi ele is heavily dependant on Runes of Perp + WvW imbalance to succeed i.e. once it gets nerfed you will end up with a bunch of useless gear.

In sPvP you can’t maintain big bleeds/burning that well on a single target, let alone on multiple targets, while trying to survive and outlive the opponent – which is in turn contradictory to applying conditions, whenever you dodge (which you have to do alot more as an ele than other classes) or switch to water you set yourself back and set the fight to your opponent’s favor and your survival is contradictory to solely applying condis.

I personally find condi guardian to be more powerful and much more ‘viable’ in sPvP than condi ele, partially due to guardians being able to handle carrion gear better.

Have you even tried the build? Even if the runes are nerfed it will still be really decent. The elementalist does not have much of a condi spam, but it can consistently reapply conditions which, imo, is how every condition build accept for necro should be.

I have, and I found it lacking. I have to agree it’s alot stronger than pvt+cleric approach where non-glass people can simply ignore you entirely but then:

When you play a S/S + LB condi warrior, who can cleanse better, tank more damage, can run away, and can consistently apply/re-apply torment and bleeds along with their burning (combustive shot + stronger bowstrings trait bug exploit is ~9+ second burning that can be reapplied every 5 seconds, savage leaping to get fire-shield also can also cover this 5 second downtime) without breaking a stride and dominate anyone swiftly, and then you play the awkward condi ele, the difference ‘viability’ is like day and night.

And as compared to a weapon-burn guardian that’s hilarious to play when all you have to do is sit the sword+hammer weapons on someone to repeatedly apply 2 second burns that makes it uncleansable and all you have to do is spam blinds and blocks and /dance in your symbols for retal and heal, the amount of effort you have to put into condi ele is too much to have comic value.

Shaman Amulet D/D ele DID use to be funny in sPvP and Team Paradigm’s ele also recommended it. But that was before Signet of Restoration nerfs and healing power scaling nerfs killed our survivability, buffs to condition applying to other classes giving them better damage with condi builds and Cleansing Ire came along to give warriors, but after such changes it’s just no longer fun.

When I play condi ele now it just feels like I’m trying too hard to enjoy myself, and it’s especially frustrating when I switch out of fire they cleanse the burn passively (Rangers and Guardians) or with Cleansing Ire on a 7.5 second cool-down and I have to wait 10+ seconds to switch back to fire to burn again. GoEP is strong, RNG is RNG and won’t apply burning as consistently as you’d like it to.

Condi ele is heavily dependant on Runes of Perp + WvW imbalance to succeed i.e. once it gets nerfed you will end up with a bunch of useless gear.

In sPvP you can’t maintain big bleeds/burning that well on a single target, let alone on multiple targets, while trying to survive and outlive the opponent – which is in turn contradictory to applying conditions, whenever you dodge (which you have to do alot more as an ele than other classes) or switch to water you set yourself back and set the fight to your opponent’s favor and your survival is contradictory to solely applying condis.

I personally find condi guardian to be more powerful and much more ‘viable’ in sPvP than condi ele, partially due to guardians being able to handle carrion gear better.

They could just make Revealed last for 4 seconds in WvW like in sPvP so thieves have to be more commited to the fight after they engage.

but WvW is PvE soooooo~

The 1vX godhood feeling I used to feel playing D/D is now felt when I play warrior.

Just don’t feel obligated to stick to one class and you won’t be so heartbroken.

Sigil of Para extends shocking aura’s stun from 1 to 2, a bug that will be fixed in 2 weeks but~

If you are aura-sharing, is the source of the stun you?
i.e. only you need to carry the sigil and everyone’s shocking auras will be doing 2 second stuns

or is it independant?
i.e. everyone needs to using a sigil of paralyzation themselves?

No, lingering attunement only retains the trait 5 effect (which is only really useful for soothing mist yet it’s retention of flame barrier is bugged).