4 replies to this topic

[Lilie Mae]

I'm currently leveling my ele and thing is that I love d/d cus the skills are fun to play around with. My concern is about its usefulness at higher levels since most eles run with staff. I just really don't like staff since it's so slow (fire skills), except maybe for air skills. However, I have no issues bringing an extra staff with me for those situations when it's required (such as attacking from keeps in WvW). But what about d/d in PvE? Especially dungeons... To me it seems that it's only use is in solo mobs or sPvP (however in sPvP im running S/F).

An other problem for me is that staff in WvW seems absolutely uselss in 1v1 or 1v2 (for those rare occassions if you will encounter few enemies alone). I did some testing with a friend inside sPvP, he was running his WvW staff build while I was using my S/F build. I completly slaughtered him and had 75% HP left when he went down. So from that point Staff seemed very weak to me unless you are in a bigger group. So I considered using my S/F build for PvE also.. Though I'd prefer playing D/D..

I would really appreciate some advice on weapon choice and would like to hear what people think of what I just wrote.. Since I have little experience in playing ele, this might have given me some wrong preconceptions.

Edit: I think what I am actually looking for is an aura/boon D/d build (with evasion?), but I am not sure how it's traited. So if anyone could show some examples of such build or give the names of important traits for it and tell me what think of using such build in pve/dungeons/wvw and farming.

Edited by Lilie Mae, 04 December 2012 - 01:49 PM.

[Rekkwum]

Personally, I run Staff in dungeons - AoE vs large mobs is naturally useful, but mostly it's to take advantage of Combo Fields - most of the time you'll find yourself with a party with lots of finishers but few fields. On top of that, the speed isn't nearly as much of an issue.

In solo PvE I use S/D - used D/D while leveling and had a lot of fun with it, but felt it slowly lost it's edge somewhere around level 70. S/D has a good mixture of abilities, and can work at a variety of ranges. I prefer S/D to S/F, because while the focus has some great defensive skills, they're no match for not getting hit. I'll also use S/D in a dungeon if there's another ele that uses a staff in the party.

I do use D/D in WvW though, as it's extremely fast-paced and heavy hitting on priority targets. I do, however, swap over to staff when defending a keep from a zerg if there's no siege for me to use.

So to answer your question ... Carry everything in your inventory, and use what's appropriate to the situation. Unlike other classes, you don't have to trait based on weapon, and so can afford the flexibility.

[Lilie Mae]

Rekkwum, on 04 December 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

So to answer your question ... Carry everything in your inventory, and use what's appropriate to the situation. Unlike other classes, you don't have to trait based on weapon, and so can afford the flexibility.

Actually, that's a very good point there. What I did was actually taking my S/F build from sPvp and transformed it to a D/D build with a couple changes.

http://en.gw2skills....0U1YqRUjtGXNyaA
What would you say of this build? You could also change Arcane VI for VIII while wielding staff to get bigger AoE radius.
For some reason the stats are wrong though, so I got 17695hp, 2880 attack and 47% crit instead of what the calulator is showing.

It's basically a berserker build with some regen abilities, anti condition and vigor boon.

I was wondering about gear though, if I should go full berserker or mix with some other pieces that give vit/toughness/HE or so.

Edited by Lilie Mae, 04 December 2012 - 04:54 PM.

[kissmyelemental]

Lilie Mae, on 04 December 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

snip

Actually, D/D aura/boon builds are very viable in dungeons. I used to think only staff was the way to go, but I started to run dungeons with d/d. Now I almost always run dungeons with d/d except for situations where range is a must (and pretty much all classes go into ranged with these situations).

My build is a 0/20/0/30/20 Aura build.
http://gw2skills.net...Hn4CLCFPURRxM5A

You can swap out arcane shield for arcane wave if you want to use the blast finisher, but I like the extra survivability.Five ways to remove conditions (attune to water, 2 cantrips, heal in water attunement, skill 5 in water). I am running with sigil of battle on one dagger, sigil of accuracy on other dagger, berserker's gear, valkyrie jewelry, 2 superior runes of the monk, 2 superior runes of water, and 2 crests of the soldier.

Very fun, I can hit like a truck, and can survive pretty well. ALways pack a staff just in case though =)

Edited by kissmyelemental, 04 December 2012 - 09:51 PM.

[MisfitAndy]

D/D is useful in dungeons in either a dps role or a support role via auramancer.  I think all weapon combinations are okay in dungeons as long as you are proficient with them.

In W v W, staff is the preferred method for a number of reasons.  The most important reason is that it allows you to keep range, which is a precious commodity when it is a hoard of PvPers looking for a target to tag, psychologically they will nearly always target the person closest to them.  Staff also has the best AOE damage, and to be honest in W v W AOE damage is where it's at.

I can only see using dagger/dagger in W v W if you are chasing down a smaller group with your zerg, and want to get those kills.

Scepter/dagger and dagger/dagger are the best for soloing, actually I'd say that scepter/dagger is probably the best because it allows you to keep some range.  Staff is not great for solo, but some people like it.

And like has already been said, there is nothing stopping you from keeping all of these weapons on you at all times.  I do.