Post by Mera on Aug 7, 2015 17:38:14 GMT 1
Armor:
Stats: Celestial, but chest is Knight.
Runes: Rune of the Traveler
Infusions: +5 Toughness
I took celestial armor, because I already had ascended set. You can easily replace it with other stats and use celestial trinkets.
I chose rune of the traveler because of +25% speed. It's ok in PvP, but in WvW slow ele can't survive. Second useful thing is +15% boon duration. This build has +25% boon duration in total (you can add another 20% with food though).
Weapons:
1st dagger: Marauder
2nd dagger: Marauder
Sigils: Sigil of Energy and Sigil of Cleansing
Infusions: +5 Power
Vigor was nerfed recently, so sigil of energy became essential part of the build. Almost permanent vigor and the sigil should be enough for wasting dodges just to cast spells.
Sigil of Cleansing helps after nerfing of the diamond skin. It can help to clean immobile by switching an attunement (if not on cooldown). Or clean a strong condition when you're disabled.
Trinkets:
Back: Crusader (Power/Toughness/Ferocity/Healing) with +5 Toughness infusion
Amulet: Crusader
Rings: Crusader with 3x +5 Vitality infusions and 3x +5 Precision infusions
Accessories: Celestial and Crusader with +5 Toughness infusions
If you have no celestial armor you need to replace some trinkets with celestial ones. Just make sure you get similar stats.
/!\ HoT and Celestial stats provide higher summary value than vanilla stats.
Traits:
Traits are standard for d/d ele, but in opposite to most builds I go for earth trait line.
Diamond skin is the reason why I replaced Air trait line and thus lost some dps. Now, there are too many condi roamers and even condi ganker squads. Notice, this trait is nerfed with the Jan 26 patch.
Geomancer's training helps with keeping ele mobile. Not only because of recovery from condi. Reduced cooldown of earth skills allows to use Magnetic grasp (3rd skill) every time you switch to earth.
Skills:
You should never use healing skill, just autocast all the time and it will provide good amount of healing. But be aware of confusion.
Lightning flash can be used for mobility during fight, stomping of thiefs, or escaping from burst when disabled.
Mist form is for safe stomping or escaping when hp is low or other skills on cooldown. Also this is useful skill when you need to pass a zerg, escape from a bomb, etc.
Armor of earth is for safe stomping again and for stability/beaking stuns.
Elite skill is not for fights, but rather for escaping.
Food:
Omnomberry Ghost. This food has useful ghostly visual effect what makes you harder to see in a group. A cheap replacement can be Scoop of Mintberry Swirl Ice Cream.
Also Delicious Rice Ball or Bowl of Saffron-Mango Ice Cream are good. The last one provides ~163 healing power for stats below.
And sharpening stones as utility. Since this build has much toughness the stones give good amount of power.
Stats (from previous version of the build):
All gear is ascended with infusions. Note, that stats will be higher because of food buffs.
Strategy:
Stacking might is not essential now. But blasting fire fields is still a good habit.
As always, switching attunements is good practice, because you get buffs and usually have few weapon skills ready in other attunements.
Usually players have some attunement rotation. Cooldown on attunements allows to switch every few seconds and if you switch all the time you will keep the same order of attunements (just because other is on cooldown). But there are moments when you just need to autocast for some time, for example in air, and this allows you to change the rotation. Personally I open fight with such rotation: Air->Fire->Water->Earth.
2nd vital rule is movement. Always move to make hitting you harder. Ele as light class can't hold all hits. Becides just moving and dodges you can use skills, like burning speed, ride the lightning, magnetic grasp. When you need to make distance, you can target near mob and use magnetic grasp to leap.
Remember, elementalists can switch between attunements during casting skills or being disabled. For example, when some skill has cast time (earth/fire 5th skills) you can start casting it and switch to another attunement, this gives you fury that means +20% crit chance when the skill hits.
When you res someone you can switch between attunements to heal yourself, clean condis and gain protection. But keep in mind that switching to water is better when the ally is ressed to share healing with them. Also you can turn stability or mist form during ressing.
Fights with specific classes:
Power ranger. Stick on ranger and go to their back. Longbow is useless in melee. When ranger switches to melee weapon his attacks are pretty slow and you can evade them.
Warrior. Warriors often try to put much CC, so use stability when they switch to hammer, or keep distance for this period. You always need to dps warrs because they heal a lot, also most warriors like to run for healing. In this case use air 4th, earth 3rd skills and lightning flash. Fights with Warriors are the logenst ones because they are tanky, have much HP and constant healing. But most warrs have short and predictable combos that makes life easier. After the patch many roamers and all pvp players run with rampage skill. When warr use it just run from them using environment and evading their attacks until skill ends.
Power thief. When thief can't down ele with few hits from stealth they often loose the fight. And this build have ~2900 armor that makes it true. Hold stability for the elite skill which makes you a stone. Thiefs pretty often don't expect that thier stun will be broken and continue their burst. Use CC and burst with fire just when thief comes out from stealth. After switching to earth always use 3rd skill and hold leap until thief makes distance between you. If you meet perma stealth thief, just ignore this troll.
Hint: when a thief makes you stone they usually put much dps in melee at this time, so use shocking aura immediately when this happens. You can also use stability or lighting flash to go away from the burst.
Mesmer. I hate mesmers!