[WvW] Need some build advice, recent rune changes

With the recent change to infiltration runes (not granting stealth anymore) they became useless for me. Was such good rune for squishy eles. :(And now I am not sure what to use. For now its strength, mainly because I still had some in my bank gathering dust:

link to build - gw2skills.net

Would like to try the new rune of speed but they are way to expensive for mere testing only to find out I dont like it.Maybe go for rune of the eagle and more crit? With bolt to heart thats some nice bonus damage right there, but I would lose fresh air...What's better, raw power or higher crit (I guess power)?

Need some opinions please.

Btw, has someone tried a max quickness build with ele?With the rework of the intelligenz sigil to vision I also put a rage sigil in, and well, a quickcast meteorshower with all the crits is quite effective vs fast moving zergs. :o

Fresh Air sucks for staff because Air's auto-attacks are terrible.

You're not using enough multipliers to really hit hard, your meteors are probably only hitting 6k-8k when they could be hitting for 13k-15k instead.

Sigil of vision is pretty redundant when your build has 70% crit chance with fury already. You may as well mix in Marauder's pieces/food/infusions etc to reach 100% with fury and free up the sigil slot. Vision is only best used for Valkyrie/Crusader's mixes to provide healing when you're not meteoring on staff or zapping on Fresh Air scepter.

Quickness isn't worth the loss of damage from Force (switch to Night at nighttime) + Bloodlust (switch to Cruelty if you have a pocket Herald maintaining 25 might, assuming 100% crit chance and permanent 25 might, Cruelty pulls ahead slightly by 3%).

JUST METEOR BETTER.

The Sylvari Elite roots you, you're better off with Fiery Greatsword or Weave Self for the mobility to get out than stall for 3 seconds and 90% of the time die anyway.

Considering that you're core ele, your best rune options are strength and pack. Bloodlust sigil is a must, there's just no better option (even frailty cant match it, as suggested in the comment above, since you dont crit that often to make it worth), it's just too strong. I use frenzy sigil as my 2nd choice, but cleansing, strength, force, night, energy are all great options.

The most important thing lacking in your build is lightning flash. You cant go very aggressive without it and non aggressive ele is useless ele. You dont need 2 invulns in your build, especially if those invulns dont let you cast anything useful.

Also power is always the best choice on ele. No matter how many buffs and boons you get. I didnt test quickness sigil, but it seems a bit unpredictable and random quickness is pointless since you only benefit from it on meteor shower. Vision sounds like a good choice for core ele since you dont get the precision bonus from weaver. However...casting MS and swapping out of fire to proc the sigil loses you a lot of damage modifiers and swapping to fire to proc it makes you lose the bonus crit chance since MS has 2-3 sec delay. Just use bloodlust and one of the sigils mentioned above. These two arent worth on ele.

@steki.1478 said:Considering that you're core ele, your best rune options are strength and pack. Bloodlust sigil is a must, there's just no better option (even frailty cant match it, as suggested in the comment above, since you dont crit that often to make it worth).

Actually, even with core Ele Cruelty would do more if you mix in assassin's pieces/signet of fire to bump crit chance up to 80% + 20% assuming 25 might. Simply explained, investing in 5+5=10 and 8+2=10 but 5x5=25 yet 8x2=16. When power reaches a certain point ferocity is more stat efficient in doing damage. If running in a group with a Herald you should use Cruelty over Bloodlust if you have the legendary weapon or extra ascended weapon to do so.

I don't really understand the reasoning behind FA on Staff - in a zerg I don't think Electric Discharge is that useful, air skills on staff doesn't hit as hard and are mostly utilities, and you're probably better off with Bolt to the Heart for the extra damage.

Burning Fire is alright, but you also have condi cleanse in Ether Renewal (and a very good one). You can take Burning Precision for the burning - it synergizes with Burning Rage (increased damage to burning foes).

Lightning Flash seems to work better for me too, you can be way more aggressive with it by using it to place a better Meteor Shower. That can even eliminate the need for quickness, although that's a very interesting idea that I'd love to try out sometimes, probably will do after I finish my Bifrost.

Lastly I don't get the Sylvari Elite. As an Ele that last thing you want to do is root yourself in a position. Fiery Greatsword is an awesome elite (except for the long CD) - you can be way, way more aggressive and it's really fun going in and out of enemy zergs and cleaving people. If you want something more to help you be more aggressive and get out of those situations after being aggressive, you can take all 3 Arcane Shield, Mist Form and Lighting Flash to help with re-positioning (and possible swap to Evasive Arcana for some quick heal in Water).

This is the Core Staff Ele that I used: gw2skills.net/editor/?vFMQFAWhMMolhFOwzB8RMIAIRgCPq3tTLrukC-j1BBQB6THwZUCWj9HwiyPAcBAYwDAQhq/EAAB4m3MAgMA6jB-w.

@zencow.3651 said:

@steki.1478 said:Considering that you're core ele, your best rune options are strength and pack. Bloodlust sigil is a must, there's just no better option (even frailty cant match it, as suggested in the comment above, since you dont crit that often to make it worth).

Actually, even with core Ele Cruelty would do more if you mix in assassin's pieces/signet of fire to bump crit chance up to 80% + 20% assuming 25 might. Simply explained, investing in 5+5=10 and 8+2=10 but 5x5=25 yet 8x2=16. When power reaches a certain point ferocity is more stat efficient in doing damage. If running in a group with a Herald you should use Cruelty over Bloodlust if you have the legendary weapon or extra ascended weapon to do so.

Yeah but using assasin/marauder means that you have less power than berserker, meaning that bloodlust would still have higher value. Not to mention that you lose defensive utility and that 25 might and 100% crit chance are nearly impossible, making cruelty even less valuable.

So basically you're changing whole build depending on some random factors that don't even secure that your gear setup will be worth it, while losing defense which is the main weakness of ele. A potential 5% damage gain (pretty sure it's less, if it's even a gain) is not worth wasting gold and relying on too many factors you can't control.

@"steki.1478" said:Yeah but using assasin/marauder means that you have less power than berserker, meaning that bloodlust would still have higher value. Not to mention that you lose defensive utility and that 25 might and 100% crit chance are nearly impossible, making cruelty even less valuable.

So basically you're changing whole build depending on some random factors that don't even secure that your gear setup will be worth it, while losing defense which is the main weakness of ele. A potential 5% damage gain (pretty sure it's less, if it's even a gain) is not worth wasting gold and relying on too many factors you can't control.

Guaranteeing 100% crit chance to ensure all your meteors land for 10k-15k+ instead of flopping minimizes randomness. 25 might and fury is highly realistic in team comps that allow it to happen passively and if you can afford to squeeze out more damage, you certainly should. Cruelty comes out on top of Bloodlust in niche cases where your crit-damage is below 220% such as not traiting Air AND not taking Ferocity granting runes like Scholar.

If you consider the following build for example:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFUQFAWhMMoyhlNwzB8RMIAY1boN8JjAQB4AIXyLQKA-jVSBQBA4BAkQ1KMpSQRpqyCuAAFSHAZUilRlH0Y/hAAIA7cnBgbezbezbezuuwFuwFuwFuwFuwFOpA0TrF-w

Against the following build that is considered to deal higher damage:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFUQFAWhMMoshVOwzB8RMIAYRAoAcAkL5FIFUvh2wnE-j1RBABUq+zVK/MTJIAPAgFuAA4pDgm9HCAgAcezDA+tv9tv9tv5628m38m38m38m38mlCIihWA-w

You'd realize that despite the latter being 4% stronger in effective power on average unbuffed but when maximally buffed the former does 8.9% more damage.Walking around with 11.8k health and having your meteors have more RNG on top of them from the risk of not critting is also just making yourself a walking meme.Here's the number crunching for other values if you're interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nM5u3dYcl8DW7phjP6T8NHh9jdJ-VPw1Btq4uUdyMMA/edit?usp=sharing

Sitting at 15k HP (or even better, 17k+ as weaver) is actually viable as it puts you above OHKO thresholds like Siege fire or skills like Coalescence of Ruins/Backstabs/Rapid Fire at 13k-14k and gives a larger buffer before dying to siege fire/retaliation, leaving you room to be saved by your Firebrand.

@zencow.3651 said:

@"steki.1478" said:Yeah but using assasin/marauder means that you have less power than berserker, meaning that bloodlust would still have higher value. Not to mention that you lose defensive utility and that 25 might and 100% crit chance are nearly impossible, making cruelty even less valuable.

So basically you're changing whole build depending on some random factors that don't even secure that your gear setup will be worth it, while losing defense which is the main weakness of ele. A potential 5% damage gain (pretty sure it's less, if it's even a gain) is not worth wasting gold and relying on too many factors you can't control.

Chances of commander putting a core ele in a party of fb and 2 revs to ensure it's buffed enough are close to 0. Having different builds for once in a year situation is certainly not worth the effort. Especially as a 12k hp core ele.

@steki.1478 said:Chances of commander putting a core ele in a party of fb and 2 revs to ensure it's buffed enough are close to 0. Having different builds for once in a year situation is certainly not worth the effort. Especially as a 12k hp core ele.

'Not worth the effort' from is a mentality that's not compatible with playing Ele. That comment reminds me of dungeon days when Eles were considered trash in PvE over Hundred Blades in the 4 Warrior + 1 Mes 'meta' while the better informed would make their own groups with 4 Ele + 1 Mes.

Empower + 1 Herald's passive and consume on engage is 25 Might. 1 Firebrand per party and 1 Herald per 10 is pretty standard. Backline Revenants also positions themselves off-tag so with just 2+ Revenants in a 20 man squad you'd find yourself soaking in all the might you need.

Being 11.8k hp objectively does significantly less damage than at 15.1k in the squad scenario I presented. You can build yourself to perform well in squad settings while not aggravating your supports by constantly being downed and actually deal meteors and aoe that are timely and significant enough to have an impact on the fight 100% of the time from instantly downing 3-5 of the enemy midline once you master the timing. As I find with any setting, if you can prove yourself useful, people WILL be happy to have you along.

Or you can keep being a PuG ele that just randomly meteors with 0 impact because it doesn't deal nearly enough damage/commanders don't follow up on it and gets picked off by random Soulbeast/Deadeye/Daredevil/Spellbreaker/Mirage while literally noone cares.

Stating the fresh air is bad due to air auto attacking being negligible is pretty poor advice. You need the mobility, and you now gain a mountain of ferocity just going back and forth from air to fire all the time. His spec should be weaver over arcane, though.

2x crit heals helps with retal. Fiery greatsword is only valid as an escape if your team dies. I use the air elemental on people near the backline to stun them, and fire elemental on a group of downs or npcs/gate to constantly deal extra damage. If you can get away with it, keep swapping in more zerker pieces. Mist form over arc wave if there's a lot of movement through enemy lines.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vFUQFAWnMMAtMg94CeOA0zhFBA7+VPrv1CrgLQNMIAUAOAA-j1BEQB+T9HHq0BBPAAms/oMaLKBbjOAAcBACAgAczbGAu5Nv5Nv5N7628m38m38m38m38mlCwclRA-w

@katniss.6735 said:Stating the fresh air is bad due to air auto attacking being negligible is pretty poor advice. You need the mobility, and you now gain a mountain of ferocity just going back and forth from air to fire all the time. His spec should be weaver over arcane, though.

2x crit heals helps with retal. Fiery greatsword is only valid as an escape if your team dies. I use the air elemental on people near the backline to stun them, and fire elemental on a group of downs or npcs/gate to constantly deal extra damage. If you can get away with it, keep swapping in more zerker pieces. Mist form over arc wave if there's a lot of movement through enemy lines.

Actually no,Fiery greatsword is used to boost Meteor Shower damage and spin evade/repositioning within the fight after the Meteor root and if you're winning you Firestorm the downed players.Weave Self's 50% movement speed is a better alternative in more mobile while not hindering your ability to attune through Fire/Earth.

If you're really considering the Air Elemental's value over the flexibility of what you as the ele can provide then I really question your judgement there.

Thanks for the answers so far, really appreciated.

I think I should have explaind the reasoning behind my build in more detail. Keep in mind pre rune/sigil rework:First, this was NOT a zerg/group ONLY build, its kind of a mix of solo and zerg build that did not depend on teammates. While not be able to do the same damage compared weaver (I dont have PoF anyway) in zergs, the survivability was quite good with this setup. More often then not I was still up fighting while half of my zerg is already dead on the ground.

Why fresh air. Obviously not for the bad auto attacks, its for superspeed. The intelligenz sigil ontop of the high crit chance made sure I could reliable proc fresh air and get superspeed (+ damge from discharge). The survivalbility with superspeed on such a squishy build is way better than anything else I tried. Like, really really good. Thats why I mentioned the new rune of speed.Btw, the second sigil befor I recently started to experiment with rage was bloodlust.

No lightning flash; yeah that was a tough decision, but with arcane shield I can be very aggressiv too. And with two arcane skills, elemental surge becomes better than evasive arcana. Suddenly you have a 2 sec immob or 3 sec chill, with arcane wave even AoE (2 times!) + arcane and final shielding. For more survival I had the invis from infiltration runes, everybody expects a staff ele to lightning flash away if things get tough, not to simply vanish. Caught people really offguard sometimes, lol.

Sylvari elite; havent used the sword in a long time. Its my mindset I think. This build was not a "ohnoes an enemy is looking at me, run for the hills" but a "13k HP zerk staff ele here, whaddup, come at me bro" kinda thing. Plus with take root you do can tank some key skills or get the extra seconds till your heal is of cooldown.But yeah, maybe I should start using the sword again, point taken I guess.

Same with mixing in assassins or marauder, I need to get three more ascendent gear anyway, sounds good.

180s cd for fgs, and moving in on downs as a backline is not really your job. Tbh ele is very bad without the help of other classes doing things like bubbling over the downed so they can't get rezzed easily, and putting chill/poison there so they can't heal at all. 90s cd Weave self is crap because when are you ever going to cc ever with that? 50% movement speed isn't even useful when you have fresh air already. Greatsword is mostly bad because you can't use your staff skills while equipping it. It's a lot easier to die that way. If you're playing against a team that is pirate shipping, then it's fine, I guess.

@katniss.6735 said:180s cd for fgs, and moving in on downs as a backline is not really your job. Tbh ele is very bad without the help of other classes doing things like bubbling over the downed so they can't get rezzed easily, and putting chill/poison there so they can't heal at all. 90s cd Weave self is kitten because when are you ever going to cc ever with that? 50% movement speed isn't even useful when you have fresh air already. Greatsword is mostly bad because you can't use your staff skills while equipping it. It's a lot easier to die that way. If you're playing against a team that is pirate shipping, then it's fine, I guess.

Moving in happens quite a lot when the fight is one-sided when you face the zergs of PPT servers.

Once the scourges have spent their load, it's still part of the backline's cleaving role secure the kills to ensure they don't get rallied. Spending more rotating through elements allows you yo be much more useful between meteors.

Fresh Air isn't even useful when you could bedoing more damage with Ferocious Winds and Bolt to the Heart to end fights and using Weave Self for ~29 seconds of 100% uptime of 50% movement speed and 15% damage reduction instead. Tailored Victory is just win-more to catch fleeing targets. 90s cooldown isn't long at all in regards to WvW timescales, it's up once in every 3.75 meteors. Spellbreakers are useful in squad solely for WoD and that's also a 90s cooldown.

@katniss.6735 said:180s cd for fgs, and moving in on downs as a backline is not really your job. Tbh ele is very bad without the help of other classes doing things like bubbling over the downed so they can't get rezzed easily, and putting chill/poison there so they can't heal at all. 90s cd Weave self is kitten because when are you ever going to cc ever with that? 50% movement speed isn't even useful when you have fresh air already. Greatsword is mostly bad because you can't use your staff skills while equipping it. It's a lot easier to die that way. If you're playing against a team that is pirate shipping, then it's fine, I guess.

FGS's skills are perfect for cleaving and getting out of messy situations. Also behind aggressive is fun for me - I like going in and out of enemy zergs as a slippery Ele knowing that I get targeted but can't die thanks to Twist of Fate (if playing Weaver) or Arcane Shield (and Lightning Flash sometimes).

@Nimrod.9240 said:

Hmm I seriously doubt a staff zerk core Ele could survive alone - your opponents must be really, really bad. The Sylvari Elite only lasts for 3s and has a 150s CD - 3s is too short and anyone can just kite/block/evade to wait for it to be over, and in the mean time they can even throw some AOEs on you - which you can't get out of.

@zencow.3651 , really enjoyed your input here, I don't often bother reading a lot of the ele theorycrafting because it is often misguided but you really seem to have a great attention to detail. Thanks for speaking up. While I'm here, I posted a thread in this sub-forum this morning, if you care to critique one of the videos I invite you to do so, I'm always looking to improve (within reason) and would greatly appreciate the analysis of a competent ele.

! /discussion/62138/oh-sweet-moamander-its-two-more-weaver-montages/

I changed my mind!The FGS trick is a huge damage boost.Still feels super slow moving around without fresh air, though.

@katniss.6735 said:I changed my mind!The FGS trick is a huge damage boost.Still feels super slow moving around without fresh air, though.

You don't need to move fast, you just need to react fast and do damage meanwhile. There's no point of constantly swapping to air just to move faster. Unless you're roaming on staff.