18 replies to this topic

[Mystic]

Hello!
First I have to say I am mostly playing as a warrior, and Elementalist is a little bit new to me in GW2, and I was surprised at how many things you need to learn / master  / build.
So I got my self to high level, and I'm preparing myself for two things: PvE, and Dungeons. That seperates me with two weapon sets - D/D (or S/D) for PVE, and Staff/Support for Dungeons. Each weapon set is unique - and for that you need a specifiiec armor specs and traits to maximize their full potential.
Now sadly, switching builds in GW2 is rather annoying and not worthy ( I hope they change it), so that means I'm looking to get the most balanced build and traits for both Pve(D/D) and Dungeons(Staff),  and also with the same armor set ( if it'll be that difficult  then I will get two sets, one for each weapon set)

This is the current build I came up with:
http://gw2skills.net...CAEeIACDMeAiGkA

I still haven't decided on which armor to use with this build. Also, any changes are welcome. Having 30 on Earch is a bit risky as I produce a lot less damage, and having so much toughness can be very dangerous in dungeons, but it is an imminent choice to make everything tick.

Edited by Mystic, 06 January 2013 - 04:02 PM.

[MegaCotts]

The link didn't work for me so not too sure what you are running at the moment, however my thoughts are as below....

My usual D\D build is a standard auramentalist/cantrip build with trait points spent 0/10/10/30/20 and that does for me at the moment, however if I was considering speccing for staff as well I'd take the 10 points out of earth and put them into arcana (0/10/0/30/30) and when running D/D use the below build.

http://gw2skills.net...Hn4SJiCPUeMDO2A

When using Staff I'd retrait to....

http://gw2skills.net...HmADLiCVUeMzO2A

That way you've got plenty of condition removal, and can use Mist form and Bow to grant regen. Having the frost bow gives you a bit of extra options for damage and has some good skills on it.

As for gear go Carrion, for toughness and condition damage and even more vitality. Use earth evasive arcana as an extra blast finisher when needed and blasting staff for the extra width to make your combo fields larger.

[Mystic]

Sorry! This is the build I built so far.

http://gw2skills.net...CAEeIACDMeAiGkA

Takes full use of signets and Condition damage. Thinking of rolling a Tough/vit or tought/crit damage. This build can give me both great damage and great surviviability. Opinions?

[MegaCotts]

I think with that build you're not maximising the support options of the staff and the potential of the daggers to provide boons, both to yourself and definitely to allies. It would be ok if you're soloing pve with the staff, but I think it's best to have at least 20 points in arcana for the additional boon duration and reduction in elemental attunement cooldown. Also FGS, while fun to use, just doesn't have the same impact as the Greater Elemental, especially as you have 4 Elementals to choose from. Generating boons and stacking them seems to have more impact than just having the raw power I've found so far.

I'd be interested to see how you find it after running with both

[Mystic]

MegaCotts, on 06 January 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

I think with that build you're not maximising the support options of the staff and the potential of the daggers to provide boons, both to yourself and definitely to allies. It would be ok if you're soloing pve with the staff, but I think it's best to have at least 20 points in arcana for the additional boon duration and reduction in elemental attunement cooldown. Also FGS, while fun to use, just doesn't have the same impact as the Greater Elemental, especially as you have 4 Elementals to choose from. Generating boons and stacking them seems to have more impact than just having the raw power I've found so far.

I'd be interested to see how you find it after running with both

My built had somewhat aimed for that. Not maximizing both but providing a great balance.

Ok... So for me to move on a little, i think i have far more to learn. What is Boon exactly? And stacks?  How do they provide together with effective play?

[MegaCotts]

Hmm how far have you managed to level without knowing about boons and stacks??? Boons boost your stats, and the more stacks you have of these boons the more they do so. For instance Fury increases critical hit chance by 20%, and stacks by duration, which means if your boon duration is maximised you'll be able to keep fury up for longer.

Might increases Power and stacks in intensity, rather than duration, to a maximum of 25. Therefore if each stack adds say 10 power, 25 stacks will give you 250 power (at level 80 I believe it increases to 35 per stack, an overall increase of 700 power if maximum stacks are built). As all 30 points in fire will only give you a maximum 300 power it shows the effectiveness of boons. My D/D builds will usually only stack around 7 might when soloing, but I also have fury, swiftness (movement speed increase), regen (Healing per second), protection (incoming damage reduction) up on both myself and my allies to varying degrees, and along with the ability to add vulnerability stacks to foes.

Outside of the weapon skills I dno't see that your build provides much more than Protection to yourself, and vulnerability to targets. You appear reliant on blast finishers by allies in the combo fields you lay to generate boons and apply them to others effectively.

If you need to know more about fields and finishers check out the below link.

http://en.gw2skills.net/combo/

[Mystic]

MegaCotts, on 06 January 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Hmm how far have you managed to level without knowing about boons and stacks??? Boons boost your stats, and the more stacks you have of these boons the more they do so. For instance Fury increases critical hit chance by 20%, and stacks by duration, which means if your boon duration is maximised you'll be able to keep fury up for longer.

Might increases Power and stacks in intensity, rather than duration, to a maximum of 25. Therefore if each stack adds say 10 power, 25 stacks will give you 250 power (at level 80 I believe it increases to 35 per stack, an overall increase of 700 power if maximum stacks are built). As all 30 points in fire will only give you a maximum 300 power it shows the effectiveness of boons. My D/D builds will usually only stack around 7 might when soloing, but I also have fury, swiftness (movement speed increase), regen (Healing per second), protection (incoming damage reduction) up on both myself and my allies to varying degrees, and along with the ability to add vulnerability stacks to foes.

Outside of the weapon skills I dno't see that your build provides much more than Protection to yourself, and vulnerability to targets. You appear reliant on blast finishers by allies in the combo fields you lay to generate boons and apply them to others effectively.

If you need to know more about fields and finishers check out the below link.

http://en.gw2skills.net/combo/

I am only lvl 40. I knew about might fury etc, didnt know they are called boons thought. Was a little confused.
So i want to understand a few things, how does power works exactly? If a description says gain might, how do i know how much power? And how mant i stacked?
Also, besides skills that provides obvious might, what source do you relay on for might and fury? Combo skill? And how do i create those combo skills exactly? I need some further reading!

Thank you for the patience and help!

[DarkOrange]

hey there

for information like that, you're probably best off using the gw2wiki and looking at the pages for the various different boons. For example, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Might this page explains might, including how much power you gain per stack, and what skill can stack might.

[Mystic]

DarkOrange, on 06 January 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

hey there

for information like that, you're probably best off using the gw2wiki and looking at the pages for the various different boons. For example, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Might this page explains might, including how much power you gain per stack, and what skill can stack might.

thanks! That was a nice read. Actually, finally i figured it. But im still
Not getting, how I stack might in DD and in Staff... It requires a certain play?

[MegaCotts]

Mystic, on 06 January 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

thanks! That was a nice read. Actually, finally i figured it. But im still
Not getting, how I stack might in DD and in Staff... It requires a certain play?

For might, specifically, you can either use Ring of Fire from Dagger Offhand (notice the description says it's a Field). As you're only lvl 40 I'd advise having a scepter in your main. Notice that Scepter skills 2 and 3 description calls them "Blast Finishers". Use them in the field and hey presto! Might stacks. Also notice Trait 5 for Arcana, Elemental Attunement. Change to fire and gain might. Other than that do some research, all the info you need is in the links we've sent you.

P.S. For staff use Eruption in earth and lay fields on top of it from other attunements before it blasts.

Edited by MegaCotts, 06 January 2013 - 10:26 PM.

[deckcard]

MegaCotts, on 06 January 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

For might, specifically, you can either use Ring of Fire from Dagger Offhand (notice the description says it's a Field). As you're only lvl 40 I'd advise having a scepter in your main. Notice that Scepter skills 2 and 3 description calls them "Blast Finishers". Use them in the field and hey presto! Might stacks. Also notice Trait 5 for Arcana, Elemental Attunement. Change to fire and gain might. Other than that do some research, all the info you need is in the links we've sent you.

P.S. For staff use Eruption in earth and lay fields on top of it from other attunements before it blasts.

This is not entirely accurate. What you are describing is area might using fire combo fields which is different from individual might. Area might can stack to nearby allies via combo fields but individual might stacks can be very quick depending on traits/sigil/runes you used.

[Fenice_86]

My suggestion is to make a set that privileges: Power (always) + the stats you miss from Traits (example: if you have 30 in Earth u have enough Thoughtness therefore go for something that provides Vit and reverse if you have 30 in Water).

Same thing goes for Precision ofc... I have 0/10/10/30/20 and i use full Knight's Armor to make up for Power/Precision/Toughtness i dont get from traits, make ur choices

[Mystic]

Fenice_86, on 07 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

My suggestion is to make a set that privileges: Power (always) + the stats you miss from Traits (example: if you have 30 in Earth u have enough Thoughtness therefore go for something that provides Vit and reverse if you have 30 in Water).

Same thing goes for Precision ofc... I have 0/10/10/30/20 and i use full Knight's Armor to make up for Power/Precision/Toughtness i dont get from traits, make ur choices

Wouldn't it be better if I have 30 toughness to maximize it's potential? As in, if I'm going with toughtness, go with it all the day, A toughtnes armor with tough runes?

[Fenice_86]

Mystic, on 07 January 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be better if I have 30 toughness to maximize it's potential? As in, if I'm going with toughtness, go with it all the day, A toughtnes armor with tough runes?

Naa, balance is the key, the dimishing returns you would get by going "all in" in 1 stat are worse compared to a good mix (and this is true everywhere, not in GW only) also Thoughtness doesnt help you against conditions a good HP pool is always needed.

Ofc these are just my suggestion, you are free to test what u think would suit better urself
There's also an interesting "math" discussion about it, check this link: http://www.guildwars...s-and-vitality/

[Mystic]

Ok ... One subject in a time. The armor dilemma will be left for last. I still need to figure something. I am making a huge progress, finally i understood the boons, might and combos, and that changes my play completely. It seems like stacking might is much more powerful than spending attribs on fire. Therefore i am reducing fire... But not sure if to reduce it to 10 or 20, and/or spend it on water/arcane...I still want to keep earth on 30 so far as i feel that con damage and toughness will provide a great deal for me, and is an innevitable part of my signet setup i am testing. Any opinions are welcome

This is what i figured so far:
Experiencing with staff, i am not gaining much might, and is more suited for aupport than pure damage( from what it looks like to me!) which is fine for me.

Experiencing with S/D, i can actually stack a lot of might as i have a few combo options with cire and earth.

Experiencing with D/D, i dont have many might options and therefore i cant stack much might.

First of all, am I right with these assumptions?

Assuming these are legit, it seems like Only the S/D is really the real deal with damage, that DD is mostly just zerging and actually requires raw power that relaying on might, as i only have one combo for area might.

I hate S/D, and id like to stick to DD for pve and staff for dungeons, that means that i will have to relay heavy on which armor to choose. Im thinking so far to get either vita/condition, or tough/condition. Condition for the extra damage that i lack from limited might, and vita or tough for survive.
Opinions?

[Geeri]

First off, I think that you shouldn't bother as much with the attributes you gain from each trait line, except the boon durations from Arcana. All those attributes are greatly surpassed by what can be obtained from gear and/or the effects of the actual traits that you pick in your build.

That being said, I have the following comments:

- yes, you are right, S/D works well for might stacking and the rest doesn't work as well; but this is not something you want to play and that is fine. Damage output does not have to be reliant on might stacking anyway, it is merely a tool that can help you. Also note that S/D provides might stacks in burst, with a proper build you can self-stack upto 25 stacks of might, but you cannot maintain this throughout a fight.

- you keep talking about "dungeons" and "PvE" but "dungeons" are included in the set of PvE activities. I assume that you mean to differentiate between running dungeons and doing stuff in the world. Let's call the latter "roaming" for lack of a better term, but please do not confuse this with what they call "roaming" in PvP.

It is my opinion that you can't make a build that is perfect for both roaming and running dungeons (even with the same weapon set, let alone with different weapon sets) so you will have to compromise. The question here is: how far are you willing to go with a damage drop in order to provide support? I am assuming that your damage output for roaming needs to be "good enough", as well as your survivability. For dungeons you are probably aiming to give more support.

Since you are running staff in dungeons (I wouldn't know why anyone would run staff while roaming, unless you're not soloing), you will probably be wanting 20 points in Arcana for both boon duration, quick attunement switches and bigger staff areas. You may even throw in an extra 10 for Evasive Arcana as it will provide you with a group might stack (in Earth), an AoE blind (in Air) and a proximity heal (in Water). But that's personal preference.

In dungeons, you can't run without at least 10 points in water, in my opinion, giving you a 10-sec-cd AoE condition remover and AoE regeneration (soothing mist).

This leaves you with 30-40 points you can disperse basically at will. At this point you may be content with your "support" spells (the normal staff combo fields, AoE cleanse, some basic boons (from attunement switching) and maybe EA) and go full on damage (e.g. fire spells provide might stacks). This will give you a fairly ordinary staff-build (30/0/0/10/30) that doesn't really work for D/D.

You can adapt this build to 20/10/0/10/30 or 20/10/10/10/20 to work for D/D as well, giving you the basic Auramancer setup that can  be adapted to a staff build (some basic survivability in Earth, some extra healing or damage in Air, some more damage in Fire). The Auramancer setup requires you to run full signets (I believe?) with Zephyrs Boon and the Auras give Protection trait from Earth. This will give you a good roamer build that is also very viable in dungeons (though I prefer a 0/10/10/30/20 Auramancer setup myself).

You should know, though, that there are a lot of damage/support builds out there that mostly work off D/D and can be somewhat adapted to Staff in case you need the range; personally I find that my dungeon runs go much smoother as an Auramancer giving buffs to the entire party, than as a staff elementalist. This may be because I suck at playing staff, or because it simply provides more support (though this also has to do with group setup; I find that a lot of pickup groups lack proper supporting players).

[turkashi]

This is what I got: 10/10/0/30/20 as a hybrid
http://gw2skills.net... I8xOj7L5MDMmEA

as you can see in air, water and arcane I've kept 3 blank trait, because I swap those trait even in 1 and the same dungeon:

when I use staff:
air: precision to healing, when I know ally will suffer from that boss or more dmg on low hp enemy
water: remove cond when regen + your choice
arcane: lager aoe

when I use D/D:
air: aura & swiftness on aura (auramencer)
water: give aura to ally + 20% cantrip and put 3 aura in my skill (don't forget your earth 5 is one of the powerfull skill, "with charigng time", so armor of earth isn't a luxe)
aracane: vigor on crit, or faster moving

when I use S/F:
air: more dmg on low hp
water: regen& vigor with cantrip + 20% cantrip
arcane: endurance with scepter
=> why this strange build: lupi dude...lupi

I've also add the runes i'm using, but think this is so not correct, but I'm so cheap right now that I don't want to waste over 70silver of 1 rune >_<

[Mystic]

After more thoughts, I came into conclusion that I am still wrong. As much as I loved the idea of maximizing the effects of signets and putting it all on toughness and Earth...It just won't work properly. The balance will be much more towards D/D.

With Gerri's suggestions (THX!) I came into conclusion that Arcane power is rather...Powerful.I created another build that neglects signets and uses the potential of Cantrips:

http://www.guildhead...LGoa0GaxzcRcmVq

This build goes along with Vita/condition armor.

The idea of this build is mainly to have a great balance between survavability (tough from earth and vita from gear) and damage (power from fire and gear and condition damage from earth and gear), and a great balance between going full D/D zerg and a full Staff support elementalist. I actually think this build could work quite well for support, just not sure if it will be powerful enough for daggers?

This is so far the build I came up. Obviously, among the time I'm changing, neglecting etc until I find the final, and suited build for me. I think I'm close, though!

[Geeri]

Mystic, on 07 January 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

With Gerri's suggestions (THX!) I came into conclusion that Arcane power is rather...Powerful.I created another build that neglects signets and uses the potential of Cantrips:

http://www.guildhead...LGoa0GaxzcRcmVq

This build goes along with Vita/condition armor.

I looked at your build and figured this would be "my" view on it (setup:  [0/10/20/20/20]).

D/D (roaming): http://www.guildhead...bao0aGGGzVRVzVo

For soloing you don't "need" EA and for a proper D/D build you should pick up Zephyr's Boon rather than the fire traits. You should use the cleanse in water in any case as it is useful and another 20 points in water provides you with a number of situational goodies: Soothing Wave (might!), cooldown reduction on either cantrips (survivability) or water spells (more auras = more fury+swiftness+protection). For D/D you should also pick Elemental Shielding as you can keep up your protection buff quite long, giving you a lot more survivability. Note that Renewing Stamina is awesome, especially when soloing (but also in dungeons); even though you might not think you have enough crit, it procs so often in most fights that it's up 100% of the time.

Staff (dungeons): http://www.guildhead...bao0aGGGVmRVzVR

The air trait might be poor for a staff build, but still allows you to provide some additional support (you can switch it to do more damage to low-health targets if you want). It's still at least as good as the 10-point fire trait in your build, imo, and provides more synergy with D/D. The 10-point trait in Earth can be altered depending on the situation: you might need more survivability or more DPS.
You can switch the 20-point trait in Water around for situations as well: you might want to use water spells more often for support reasons, or cantrips for survivability, or remove burning when dodging. I also think you can do without Elemental Shielding and give some more group buffs on attunement swapping as well; this is good for both you and the party.

One thing you should keep in mind, though, is that running a bleed-build in a dungeon only works if there's only one person doing it. You will not be bursty and if there's 2 people running bleed builds you will reach the bleed-stack-cap of 25 easily, costing damage. This is even more true for big open-world events; bleeds will hardly work in those situations.