17 replies to this topic

[Fenice_86]

So i've been reading a lot of topics here and there and i came up using (since lot of time) the Auramentalist build...

It rocks a lot in pve exploration but i feel it lacks something in dungeons...

So i watched some Cantrip related build and i've build my own one (but still not tried it)

I'll link u the 2 builds (hope they work):

Auramentalist:  http://gw2skills.net...gw4BIiQiowDlCzA

Cantrip Master: http://gw2skills.net...Hn8CLhCKUeMzO2A

About the Cantrip one you can make a few changes to increase self survive ability and a bit less party support if you want to but that's not my intent...

Both build grants a lot of boon stacking (protection, swiftness, might, fury, vigor, regen) and they are very efficient, clearly Auramentalist more in SOLO and Cantrip more in Party

My question is:

Since i have to make my full exotic armor based on which one of these 2 builds i'll use.... which one is more effective in Dungeons and, at the same time, flexible for pve esploration and WvWvW ??

(if you want explanations about how those builds works feel free to ask me )

Thanks everyone!

[Pyra]

For your auramancer build, I'd actually recommend going 30 into water over earth. You'll get some condition removal (of which you have none) and besides Written in Stone (and than only for resotation) you gain nothing out of Earth. By going 30 into water you'll gain some condition removal, and you'll be able to provide fury and swiftness to your party, which is obviously very strong. http://en.gw2skills....gw4BIiQiowDlCzA


For a more balance aproach to your cantrip build I'd recommend shaving 10 points from water and adding that to Fire to pick up Internal fire. Also switch out for Cantrip Mastery, makes your 20 in water well worth the investment along with healing ripple. I think there's better builds for support roles than cantrips, which because of their personal nature work best in offensive or more balanced builds.

http://en.gw2skills....Hn8CLhCKUeMzO2A

There's certainly very, very valid reasons to go 30/30 water/arcane for Staves, but if you're looking for a generalist PVE/farm/wubwub build I think the cantrip build is balanced (I run a dagger variant which fills out fire for puisance at the expense of ripple/cantrip mastery).

edit: For either of those builds I'd go full bersker gear with runes of your choice (I use of the wurm to plug a vitality hole, but I run daggers primarily). Divinity runes with berserker's gear would be a nice compromise for the cantrip build I posted.

Edited by Pyra, 17 October 2012 - 08:52 AM.

[Fenice_86]

uhm... may u share ur build? (expecially the cantrip one and those more support oriented)
i wanted to make an healing/boon oriented build

PS: i tought "Powerful Aura" trait would have worked on me only, i went 30 Earth cause of Protection when activating a signet, 20% faster use of signet and no loss of passive effect

Maybe i could move 30 earth to water and 10 arcana to earth (so i can still have the protection buff to spread all around)

And why berserk? isn't Cleric a better choice if i wanna be healer/support ?

Edited by Fenice_86, 17 October 2012 - 03:12 PM.

[Aetou]

Yeah there are 2-3 reasons for taking Earth 30 in a Signet/Aura build - all three of the major traits you pick up from the line are useful.  That said, I'm starting to become quite disillusioned with my Auramentalist after playing my other 80s and am about to try running a Signet build which isn't about auras (I really want to work Arcane 20 into the mix.)  We'll see how it goes.

[Viesis]

Pyra, on 17 October 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

For your auramancer build, I'd actually recommend going 30 into water over earth. You'll get some condition removal (of which you have none) and besides Written in Stone (and than only for resotation) you gain nothing out of Earth. By going 30 into water you'll gain some condition removal, and you'll be able to provide fury and swiftness to your party, which is obviously very strong. http://en.gw2skills....gw4BIiQiowDlCzA

This depends on whether you're running with a group or by yourself. If you are running solo and condition removal is the only concern, swapping Signet of Air for Signet of Water will do. The 30 points in Earth for Written in Stone far outweighs any traits in Water in this case.

For dungeons and WvWvW where you will be likely running with a group, the staff would be the recommended weapon of choice and investing 30 points into water for Powerful Aura would be ideal.

[Fenice_86]

Tbh as Condition Removal i find Cleansing Wave from Water #5 more than enought for 90% of situations
and yeah, if i need an additional one i usually switch Earth signet in favour of Water signet.

@Aetou: keep me informed if u find an efficient signet build without improving the "Aura side", GL

[The Great Al]

Just wanted to say that I'm having a lot of fun with the aura build posted above. The healing isn't that great but I feel like I have much greater survivability without sacrificing damage.

[BakaB]

what equipment do u guys run for aura? carrion's?

[Kenworthe]

BakaB, on 18 October 2012 - 07:14 PM, said:

what equipment do u guys run for aura? carrion's?

I'm wondering this too.  Does full Berserker's gear + toughness/vit runes work??

[Fenice_86]

I run full carrion (with rampagers weapons + jewelery), still not rune'd it cause i'm not sure to invest all my money into an armor set made for this build atm ^^

[Aetou]

It depends what weapon you are running to a certain extent (S/D definitely wants Carrion, Staff comes down to playstyle more but I still favor relying on Eruption, Flameburst and Lava Font as your three main sources of damage.)  For what its worth I'm in roughly 40% Pow/Vit/Tough and then most of the rest is Carrion.  2x Monk and 2x Water Runes are also a good investment (or kill two birds with one stone and get two pieces of AC gear as part of your not-so-squishy allocation.)

[Fenice_86]

Sooo... i've finally made a full exotic knight set and moved to a Cantrip build, specifically:

20 Fire: Spell Slinger + Internal Fire
20 Water: Cantrip Master + Shooting Disruption
30 Arcana: Elemental Attunement + Blasting Staff + Evasive Arcana

I tried this build with both Staff & Dagger/Dagger as weapons and i feel i'm hell more squishy than my Signet/Aura build of before and doing so/so dmg...

My old build:
20 Fire: Ember's Might + Fire Embrace
10 Air: Zephyr's Boon
30 Earth: Signet Mastery + Elemental Shielding + Written in Stone
10 Arcane: Elemental Attunement

I used to run it with a Scepter / Dagger setup

I'd like to know where i'm doing wrong... because i rarely pop more than 900dmg per hit with daggers and 700-800 with staff...
I tried for fun to use Thor's Hammer but even with it i hit for 700dmg and crit for around 1000-1100... (i saw screenshots of ppl spamming 3-4k++ dmg per hit ffs!!)
Max i saw was a few 3-4kdmg / 5k dmg from dragon's tooth, fire grasp and churning earth, nothing more.

I use Knight armor set + Berserk Weapons (for the cantrip build) and Carrion/Rampager (for the aura/signet build)

edit: dmg written above are dealt to normal monsters in lvl 80 areas (Orr and Frost Gorge)

Edited by Fenice_86, 24 October 2012 - 01:03 PM.

[The Great Al]

Why would a S/D auramentalist use carrion armor?  I find that I have fury more often than not. Wouldn't I want to maximize critical damage?

[Aetou]

The Great Al, on 24 October 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

Why would a S/D auramentalist use carrion armor?  I find that I have fury more often than not. Wouldn't I want to maximize critical damage?

It depends what attacks you are using.  S/D's Earth 1 & 5 are two of its highest damage attacks portentially and are both primarily Bleeds while Fire 1 also relies on Burns to do most of its output.  While you have a lot of fury you also should have a lot of Might and you need to invest roughly double the stat points in direct damage (pre+crit dmg) to get the same sorts of results as just stacking Condition damage.  The main plus of the Auramentalist, in my opinion, is the Protection and not the Fury.  Air is weak on the Scepter while Fire 2 is hard to land in a lot of situations which means that stacking bleeds and letting rip with Earth primarily (into Fire to build Might, into Air for Control, into Water for Support) is very efficient.  If you can land the attacks and you are in a group that can let you then both S/D and Staff function best as Condition weapons.

[The Great Al]

Aetou, on 24 October 2012 - 04:01 PM, said:

It depends what attacks you are using.  S/D's Earth 1 & 5 are two of its highest damage attacks portentially and are both primarily Bleeds while Fire 1 also relies on Burns to do most of its output.  While you have a lot of fury you also should have a lot of Might and you need to invest roughly double the stat points in direct damage (pre+crit dmg) to get the same sorts of results as just stacking Condition damage.  The main plus of the Auramentalist, in my opinion, is the Protection and not the Fury.  Air is weak on the Scepter while Fire 2 is hard to land in a lot of situations which means that stacking bleeds and letting rip with Earth primarily (into Fire to build Might, into Air for Control, into Water for Support) is very efficient.  If you can land the attacks and you are in a group that can let you then both S/D and Staff function best as Condition weapons.

Thanks for the response. It is always fun to see an enemy's health bar drop dramatically with a single hot, but I agree that air scepter is just terribly underpowered and dragons tooth is unreliable.

On a side note, has anyone found that ring of fire does not consistently cast? Really screws up might stacking.

[Fenice_86]

Ok so... i have to retract what i've said before in part...
After a few more hours of gameplay with D/D in open PvE i'm starting to like the Cantrip build...
I guess my problem was a lot about gameplay style, i'm getting better as long as i keep spamming buttons (not brainless eh! )
I still cant see "good numbers" but i do them quite more often and doesn't matter if i'm against 1 or 5 monsters, they all go down at the same time more or less!

It's a bit stressy to play like that, massive attunement swapping and dodging, buttons of any sort...
i feel like i'm playing Unreal Tournament or Quake 3, action is so fast paced and fun!

I will for sure start a 2nd and more "quite" char... cant decide between thief or warrior mainly

I'm still waiting to try some dungeon (i'll probably switch to staff) and check if i can still be effective.

I'm a bit disappointed by evasive arcana... i find it useful ONLY in water attunement, other 3 are pretty pointless

[08Ray]

I'm now going for a build that combines Auras and Cantrips. Haven't tested it yet but I hope they combine well. I want to get Soldier's armor + Knight's trinkets for better survivability. I already have the trinkets, but until I have my Exotic armor I'll be using Knight's Masterwork armor.

[MisfitAndy]

I think your issue is you are using knight's armor.  You are neglecting condition damage which is a big part of your damage as either scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger.

I don't care what other people say, a balanced approach in either of these cases seems to work best, especially if you are as frenetic as me and switch attunements quite frequently (every 5 seconds or so).  I like to build for power/precision/condition damage, I use a combination of rampager's trinkets and carrion gear.  Just having small amounts of power and precision are not going to do it, to be honest.  You have burns and bleed damage to account for if you are going to fill out your character.  The power increases your direct damage, precision increases your chance to crit with said direct damage, and condition damage is self explainitory.  The carrion gear gives you enough vitality, along with 30 in water.  You focus on precision and neglect the bonus damage because you still want to be able to crit, but I don't think that the bonus damage is worth the investment over increases to your dot damage.

Also, evasive arcana is still better than the alternative.  The water proc is nice, the earth proc is still a blast trigger, the fire proc throws out a little additional damage, and the air proc blinds.  This is just for doing something that you will be doing in dungeons anyway, so it is on auto pilot.