13 replies to this topic

[lordlp]

Lately I've been playing a full dps ele - I started off with rampager gear, but then someone recommended me to go Berserk.

Now survival isn’t the issue - I can glass cannon survive quite nicely in PvE. Question I have is raw DPS – what is the ‘best’ way of going about it?

I’m leaning Scepter/Dagger for weapon, unless someone can convince me Scepter/focus is better DPS. Dagger/Dagger seems like a death sentence, and staff is more ‘buffing, healing’ oriented.

So flat gear wise, stack all Power/Precision/Crit boost, or Power/Precision/Condition? Or is it wise to go for X condition, or X crit boost, then gear for the later? Right now my spike dmg is through the roof, but I wander if I’m gimping my self out considering 5 of my main attacks bleed or set on fire.

I'm open to ideas or debates - simply want the best numbers.

[Fenice_86]

Personally i think is better that u decide if wanna go full direct dmg (therefore crits) or condition...
I dont find really helpful getting a mix because you need a lot of stat stacking to make 'em effective.

I personally prefer to stay direct dmg/crit oriented and i'm equipping full knight armor + berzerk trinkets & weapons (i use D/D or Staff)
Ofc S/D is naturally oriented to condition dmg so it's really up to ur preferred playstyle to choose which stats are better imho

Hope i've helped u out a bit

[MisfitAndy]

I guess my answer to your question would be if you choose to go full DPS, decide on if you like to do condition damage or direct damage and then gear yourself for that role.

Either is fine, but the larger numbers come from direct damage with power/precision/crit damage, if that is what you are after.  I haven't looked into the data with condition damage as much, but I'd assume that it would become less and less valuable with more and more people focusing on it (burn only stacking duration, bleed limited to 25 stacks).

Interestingly enough, I don't see any real reason to go full DPS in the endgame for PvE.  This game, from my experience, doesn't seem to be structured in the same way that games in the past have.  Each class brings something useful to the group, and those things can not possibly be measured by metrics such as DPS meters, etc.

For instance, I am currently wearing a mix of gear (that's right) and using a staff, switching through attunements as necessary.  Am I not leet?  Who cares, because the instances seem to be doable regardless, and until they add raids (doubtful), I see no need to min/max.  I also seem to do adequate damage while adding to the group's overall survivability.

[Aetou]

Don't mix direct and condition damage - choose one then go for those attacks,  S/D makes it a little harder than Staff as Fire has a heavy Burning element but burning scales badly anyway so just accept that as a downside of the weapon.  Some defensive stats or traits are pretty mandatory to maximise damage too - being 1 shot downed will diminish your dps significantly.

[Shadowrose]

^

unless you go full condition damage, don't bother getting that stat.

and 1 shotted? where would that be? I never get 1 shotted by anything, except in dungeons. but even with a bit of survivability I would still get 1 shotted there (or 90% of my HP taken, which is, quite frankly, the same)

[Aetou]

Nope, going down and staying up with 10% Health (and being able to get back up to 50% very quickly while still doing damage) is very, very different.  In the first case you are doing basically 0 damage yourself and also causing other people to do 0 damage, while running a real risk of getting defeated and having a long run back.  Going down to 1500 health means you then pull back, drop your defensive cooldowns, heal and spend 15s or so in water doing perhaps 50% damage for that period while still being able to kite like crazy and prevent the possibility of the group wipe (you can also get other people back up while in that state, although it will be risky as it will draw aggro and you may well end up downed too.)

[Nabuko Darayon]

What I fear about your setup is getting 1 shot by a Champion or a Boss... I saw some get 1shot by a Veteran too. So I dunno, I always go balanced

[Featherman]

For D/D or S/D I find that the best DPS for eles comes from might stacking (something that eles can do very well), because might boosts both power and malice while many of your attacks have conditions tacked onto them. You can wear clerics or soldiers gear and still deal very good damage as you'll be boasting 4k attack and 800 malice with high enough might stacks. For staff, berserker's gear should give you optimal damage output. You can still stack might with a staff, but not as well as with D/D and S/D and your skills themselves won't benefit as much from the malice.

Edited by Featherman, 07 November 2012 - 06:22 PM.

[The Great Al]

Aetou, on 07 November 2012 - 11:01 AM, said:

Don't mix direct and condition damage - choose one then go for those attacks,  S/D makes it a little harder than Staff as Fire has a heavy Burning element but burning scales badly anyway so just accept that as a downside of the weapon.  Some defensive stats or traits are pretty mandatory to maximise damage too - being 1 shot downed will diminish your dps significantly.

Aetou,

As a follow up to this, and your previous advice to me -

Regarding S/D, the earth and fire attacks seem to generally be a combination of direct damage with conditional damage (burning or bleeding). How is one supposed to know whether it is best to supplement the direct damage or the condition damage? You have convinced me to choose one or the other. Unfortunately it is not clear to me which is preferable. I am at work so I cannot check now, but AFAIK, outside of dragon's tooth, all of your fire and earth spells will be doing direct and condition damage.

As a very (and not realistic)  basic example, lets say you just sit and cast earth #1 over and over. What would make that more powerful, a condition damage or a direct damage build?

Edited by The Great Al, 07 November 2012 - 06:37 PM.

[Raif89]

you can go either way, its your choice for S/D, just dont mix. I don't like going for cond damage because i tend to run with a condition necro so i look at cond damage that i do as a nice addition to the damage i do.

either way works and is completely viable, just dont mix them.

[Aetou]

For Scepter Earth 1 the Bleeding component should be by far the most significant element, the direct damage is just a tiny bonus in comparison to the 18s(+) of Bleeds from each attack.  In fact, the direct damage is probably on a par with your first tick (3 ticks really) of the bleed (I don't have game access currently to check precisely, but the wiki and gw2skills suggest my memory is about right.)  Dagger Earth 5 is similar, it's a Bleed attack that does a relatively small amount of direct damage too.

With Scepter Fire it is more complicated, and also depends on if you are running solo of in a group.  The reason for that is how Burning stacks duration, which means that generally in a group you'll probably actually not be adding anything with the Burning element (Guardians with Renewing Justice can pretty much keep Burning up on a target by giving everyone in the group a 5s Burn every time something dies.)  In theory it is really a Condition attack, its just Burning doesn't work well in group situations.  

All in all, I still consider S/D to be best as a Condition weapon (build might and burning duration in fire, then swap to earth and stack bleeds, with Air and Water primarily useful for Control and Utility.)  In contrast, D/D is definitely a Direct Damage setup while Staff can work as either (Direct if focused on damage, Condition if focused on Support/Control/Eruption.)  Obviously you can make arguments for using weapons differently, but I think that S/D as Condition, D/D as direct, Staff as either and X/F as fail probably is a good guide for those who don't understand the class inside out yet (at which point you can try breaking all the rules and find what really works for your playstyle.)

[lordlp]

Thanks for the imput guys. I think I prefer direct dmg and high numbers so I'll take the advice, try dagger/dagger or staff. Think the last time I tried anything out other then s/d was at level 8 so it'll take some getting used to.

[Scorch Raven]

http://www.guildhead...i5707kIw70m7kNI

20,30,0,20,0

D/D and its pretty effective if you use the synergy correctly :-)

This is mainly Single Target, has mild AOE capability but opens like this

RTL>SoF>AB>AP>LT>LWx4, the Mob should be dead in most cases, if not then Switch to Fire and Either breath or Claw to finish your target off, then switch back to Air.

rinse and repeat.

Its very effective. I can take down 5-6 Normal Mobs together with this build, or a Vet and 2 Normal Mobs and not have to pop my Elemental. You have Mild AoE with Fire, you have CC with Air(updraft), with the Conditions you can apply(Vulnerability/Burning) you increase your damage by 30% in most cases. Mind you I run low Base Crit, thats why I use Acrane power to give me 5 Free Crit hits which also Apply's Vulrnerability, but all in all this is my current favorite D/D Build ive played with.

[Leyana]

Please check the date of the last post in the thread before posting.

Thanks.