23 replies to this topic

[Fenice_86]

Before i start i'll say that i've largely copy/pasted my old build and made just a few little fix to it...
I preferred to make a new topic just to make the whole discussion not a complain about how this build was stronger before the latest patch ;(
Here it's the link to the old one: http://www.guildwars...e-mighty-build/
I've updates values and durations and all the new infos are written in italic's style.

Weapons & Equip:

Dagger / Dagger (Berserker) ---> General PvE Roaming + Easy Dungeons
Staff (Berserker) ---> Hard Dungeons + Situations where staying Ranged is a must
Full Knight Armor or Mix 3/3 (Knight/Valk) ---> Power, Precision, Toughtness
Berserker Trinkets ---> Power, Precision, Critical Damage

Traits:

10 Fire
10 Air
10 Earth
20 Water
20 Arcana

I will not mention Minor Traits assuming everyone knows them, Major Traits to pick are:

Fire:
Spell Slinger ---> Cantrips grant you 3 stacks of Might (15s)
Air:
Zephyr's Boon ---> Auras grant you Fury and Swiftness (5s or 10s with Shocking Aura) (when playing with Daggers)
Quick Glyphs ---> -20% CD of Glyphs (when playing with a Staff)
Earth:
Earth's Embrace ---> Gain Armor of Earth at 50% HP
Water:
Shooting Disruption ---> Cantrips grant Vigor and Rigen (9s)
Cantrip Mastery ---> Cantrip's CD -20%
Arcana:
Elemental Attunement ---> Gain a Boon on Attunement (Might / Regen / Swiftness / Protection)
Blasting Staff ---> Staff AoE are larger (when playing with a Staff)
Renewing Stamina ---> 33% to gain Vigor on Crits (when playing with Daggers)

Skills:

Healing:
Glyph of Elemental Armony
Utilities:
Cleansing Fire
Arcane Wave (when wielding Daggers) or Glyph of Storms (Staff)
Armor of Earth
Elite:
Glyph of Elementals (and Whirlpool while Underwater)

Runes & Sigils:

Runes: (all Superior quality)
2*Monk + 2*Water + 2*Fire
Achieving +50 Healing Power, +25 Power, +30% Boons Duration, +50% Might Duration

Sigils: (all Superior quality)
Sigil of Fire (or Battle) + Sigil of Precision ( Dagger / Dagger)
Sigil of Battle (Staff)

Usage & Skill Rotations:

I'll try now to explaine how i use this build as best as i can...
As you can see from Traits and Skillbar this build relies a lot on Cantrip's sinergies, you can get a bounch of boons before and while in combat from them in almost everything from DPS to Tankiness.
I usually run around in Air Attunement for passive speed boost and because it's my opener skill rotation startup which i'm going to describe you:

Air ---> Ride the Lightning + Shocking Aura (istant cast) + Updraft than switch to...
Fire ---> Burning Speed + Armor of Earth (istant cast) + Ring of Fire + Dodge Roll back than...
Earth ---> Lighting Flash (istant cast) + Earthquake + Cleansing Fire (istant cast) + Arcane Wave (istant cast) + Churning Earth than...
Earth ---> Ring of Earth + Autoattack a few times, than switch back to...
Air ---> Lighting Touch + Autoattack if anything still alive + Shocking Aura when ready.

In the space of 6-7 secs with this heavy rotation you gain:
Swiftness: 14s
Vigor: 40s
Rigen: 40s
Fury: 20s
Might: 16 stack for 30-32s (10 are AoE)
Protection: 15s
Stability: 11s
Clean any condition you had on
Inflicting:
Burning: 4-5s
Bleeding: 12-14 stack for 12s
Cripple: 6s
Weakness: 5s
2 Knockdown Lock
Massive AoE Dmg

With this rotation my Lightning Whip autoattack hit for almost 3.5k Dmg on crits (up to 3 targets) while doing 1.5k-1.6k on average normal hit. (Crit chance is around 50%++)
Ofc you also can make use of less skills to save your best rotation (the one above) for more dangerous encounters... basically the startup (Air + Fire) stays while you can skip the rest at your will
I switched to Sigil of Fire because i think that, since we've lost anyway 6 Might stacks from dodges, is it better to trigger a Flame Blast every 5 secs or so, than getting 3 Might, it's a lesser loss of DPS compared.
Other stacks will not depend by our team mates.

When wielding a Staff (which mean you are in a not_friendly meele situation in hard dungeon's fights) you can make use of Fields + Blasting Staff and simply dodge roll inside to help your team boosting their dmg, healing them, making AoE CC.
My standard staff rotation doesnt involve in such heavy boost as D/D has...
Instead it focuses to stop enemies and deal a good initial dmg, Utilities and Combo Fields are used only when necessary as i try to keep always avaiable as much as possible.
Rotation:
Air ---> Windborne Speed + Static Field (between team and enemies) + Gust on nearest enemy, than...
Earth ---> Unsteady Ground + Eruption + Shockwave on nearest enemy + Glyph of Storms, than...
Fire ---> Cleansing Fire (istant cast) + Flame Burst + Lava Font + Meteor Shower
*Activate Armor of Earth when needed*

That's it more or less... stay in fire autoattack, switch water to spam heals and AoE Chill if needed... switch back to Air or Earth for more CC than go back to Fire to make good use of Elemental Attunement trait.
Remember that you havent free Blasting Finishers anymore so you'll need to sincro ur fields with someone else in your team to make 'em work effective (i.e. a Banner warrior would be the best for it, simply dropping banners over and over into fields to trigger effects)
Also remember to cast ur Healing Glyph (while in Fire) as soon as possible to gain an additional stack of Might.

Since they slightly boosted Conjured Weapons you could also tryout to switch those 10 points in Earth to Fire and pick up "Conjurer" trait and equip Lightning Hammer instead of Arcane Wave but tbh i'd rather prefer to switch D/D than "wasting" an utility slot to go into meele in hard situations

Hope you'll like my work,
It's a bit gimped build but Hey! not my fault and i still prefer to play with sinergized traits than going mindless 30/30/0/0/10 without any clue

Have a nice day!
Fenice

Edited by Fenice_86, 19 November 2012 - 09:42 AM.

[Allpha]

Noob question: why Sigil of Battle when you cant swap weapons in combat?

[Adaina Telnadris]

Attunement switching counts as weapon swap.

Took me a while to figure out too ...

[Allpha]

Adaina Telnadris, on 19 November 2012 - 08:38 PM, said:

Attunement switching counts as weapon swap.

Took me a while to figure out too ...

Ah ok. Thx.

[Mik Hell]

As I said on the other topic, nice build, I am still using Evasive Arcana because I think water's dodge is too good to pass up survability wise and I need to be as durable as possibile since I pvp and wvw a lot. (I know this is pve forum, just saying)

But I'd use this if I played my Elementalist only in pve.

I would only change utilities:

Mist Form is incredibly good for reviving, if you start channeling and then activate it you will be immune from any incoming damage, this is something to consider with the recent introduction of Fractals and the unavailability of WPs to respawn midfight

Arcane Shield instead of Wave for D/D, you already have 2 blast finishers, one more will not have a huge impact on you offensive power, but blocking 3 hits from a boss or a group of mobs could save your life.
I usualy cast it every time I am channeling Churning Earth, blocking some of the "cleave" damage you are exposed to while in melee range.

Using MF has the side effect to devalue Cantrip Mastery as ANet couldn't find a way to fix it outside spvp yet.

So I would swap it for Cleansing Wave and use Lightning Flash instead of Cleansing Fire as having both a dedicated Utility and condition removal on Water Attunement swap is redundant.

On a side note I hope ANet will revert the decision to completely remove blast finishers from Eavasive Arcana and consider to tie one to Earth's or Fire's spells.

I've found my fun has dropped while playing my Elementalist in pve, I loved the added mechanic of "dodge blasting": having to manage energy to sqeeze out of it as many blasts as possible while keeping some to evade key attacks was so entertaining to me.

Edited by Mik Hell, 19 November 2012 - 10:04 PM.

[Vyle]

I'm running a similar build to this, but i'm still a bit new to build creation, so I have a question. Why do you bring Glyph of Storms (while using a staff) instead of taking another cantrip such as mist form?

[Fenice_86]

I use Glyph of Storm because, when activated in Earth, it makes a storm that Blind + Bleed pulse for the whole duration (also as the highest dmg above all) and that's really useful against big bosses

[FrancisCrawford]

Glyph of Storms is probably for the repeated AoE blinds when it's cast in Earth.

If you have a Sigil of Battle (or other on-swap Sigil), then:

A. You might want to swap attunements right AFTER a fight (e.g. to Water).
B. You might not want to always run around in your favorite fight-STARTING attunement

[Rainu]

Is Earth's Embrace really worth it when taking into consideration that putting those 10 points into water would mean you could use Cleansing Water with staff and Powerful Aura with d/d? It shifts the focus to a more group oriented build which could be more useful in dungeons.

[Fenice_86]

Sure it could be viable

I personally find an additional Armor of Earth (with all its singergies bonus added) it's better but Hey! we are here to try everything and bring all ideas to the table so why not

Let us know how it goes

[Fenice_86]

So... it would be something like this, moving 30 points into Water:

http://gw2skills.net...4CLhCKIK8QRxM5A

[Nonlinear]

I use staff and have gone with a 30/20/0/0/20 build:

http://en.gw2codex.c...eon-staff-build

I stand at max range and if I need condition removal I just change up skills, e.g. swap mist form for cleansing flame.

[DOW161]

Could this build be adapted for Sceptre / Dagger? Also is this really a viable build for DD in dungeons? Just I have I died far too often with DD in dungeons. I guess it was because I was up close a lot.

[Fenice_86]

Not really suited for S/D playing imho but Hey! try it out
Personally i play Staff in Dungeons (and tbh i've not played GW2 last 7-10 days...)

[Andemius]

Quite a good guide, I'll be sure to try it out.

RE: title issues, this is the internet. if you're getting offended that easily, you ought not to be here.

[Fenice_86]

Stellarthief, on 26 November 2012 - 12:48 PM, said:

hehe touchy much?  

But the word does have a very specific meaning in the english speaking community.  I cant say for sure how it's viewed in current day italty where the OP is from.

But at either rate, I use this build, quite similar. Planned with 30 points water isntead of 10 earth eventually. I enjoy levelling with it too. It decimates things.

Andemius, on 26 November 2012 - 12:59 PM, said:

Quite a good guide, I'll be sure to try it out.

RE: title issues, this is the internet. if you're getting offended that easily, you ought not to be here.

Thanks

@ Aether: read it as "post massacre" than, i already said i did not want to make any allusion to historical facts, i just wanted to say that the patch has "killed" a lot eles, and that's it. Now if you dont have any technical tips to improve the build just dont make posts at all.

[Stellarthief]

Fenice_86, on 26 November 2012 - 01:21 PM, said:

Thanks

@ Aether: read it as "post massacre" than, i already said i did not want to make any allusion to historical facts, i just wanted to say that the patch has "killed" a lot eles, and that's it. Now if you dont have any technical tips to improve the build just dont make posts at all.

technical tips:

I also think that 30 points into arcane isnt wasted.

It's true ele's dont get the free blast fnisher anymore ( but that was only once every 10 seconds for another 105 power/cond = 13% or so damage increase / some 5 bleed damage per tick extra. ) It's not exactly as game breaking as everyone makes it out to be.   A free churning earth is still great.  I was playing around in mists with the build and after a decent rotation churning earth was doing 6k crit to the heavy armor dummy with 30% crit damage increase only.

So 12k crits + double the stacks of bleed is still a solid investment.  Also a solid heal in pve (reduction was in PVP only iirc?). also in addition a 10% redcution in attunement time.

So I think 10 points in earth, water or arcane are still valid.

[Fenice_86]

it was once every dodge, not every 10 sec (that was the bug )
yeah reduction is in pvp only and about the churning earth made by EA it is actually a Shockwave afaik (at least wiki says that: it's shockwave with the churning earth animation, funny they did not fix THIS bug... lol)

[Stellarthief]

Fenice_86, on 26 November 2012 - 02:12 PM, said:

it was once every dodge, not every 10 sec (that was the bug )
yeah reduction is in pvp only and about the churning earth made by EA it is actually a Shockwave afaik (at least wiki says that: it's shockwave with the churning earth animation, funny they did not fix THIS bug... lol)

They removed the blast finisher part from it entirely too I think?

I also noticed Dragon's Tooth does not blast finisher at all now either.

[Fenice_86]

Stellarthief, on 26 November 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

They removed the blast finisher part from it entirely too I think?

I also noticed Dragon's Tooth does not blast finisher at all now either.

Yep entirely removed, before it was meant to be 1 every 10 sec, but it was bugged it was 1 every dodge...
we all expected a nerf to FIX it as originally intended as 1 every 10 sec but things went much worse and they totally removed it

About Dragon's Tooth u are right and that's one of the reasons i dont suggest to use this build with S/D

[Stellarthief]

Fenice_86, on 26 November 2012 - 02:31 PM, said:

Yep entirely removed, before it was meant to be 1 every 10 sec, but it was bugged it was 1 every dodge...
we all expected a nerf to FIX it as originally intended as 1 every 10 sec but things went much worse and they totally removed it

About Dragon's Tooth u are right and that's one of the reasons i dont suggest to use this build with S/D

I tried it with S/D and S/F (in mists because my ele is only 18 so far) and found that it is totally inferior (S/F).  If dragons tooth worked though it would actually be a option, and if fire wall had a bigger trigger range: as it can afford also some nice might stacks, some nice burst but you can fall back on 900 range and a few blinds/projectile kill/have increased armor, toughness, etc.  An overall more survivable build with a bit more defensive utility.

[Stellarthief]

Also reminded, where to fit firegrab into this build? Switch back to fire after all the might stacks put on a dragons breath and go for huge firegrab hit?

The burst potential on firegrab is huge, but I dont see it worked into your heavy rotation.

[Fenice_86]

Stellarthief, on 26 November 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

Also reminded, where to fit firegrab into this build? Switch back to fire after all the might stacks put on a dragons breath and go for huge firegrab hit?

The burst potential on firegrab is huge, but I dont see it worked into your heavy rotation.

yep it's not in the rotation because it already hurts a lot alone...

like u said i use it after the full combo, switching back to fire and using it after Drake's Breath (i always try to save it since the long CD)

[Enzi]

Quick question, are the 16 might stacks pre-nerf or something? How do you achieve this with the 'rotation' you are doing?

Guess I'm missing something here. Is 13 correct?

edit:
Got it, missed the churning earth blast finisher.

Edited by Enzi, 27 November 2012 - 06:29 PM.