Revan.2015

Ele for me has a lot of flaws that make it pretty hard to enjoy and it starts with the concepts and what it is meant to be, a spellcaster. However, instead of being one all Ele weapons and all builds force you into melee range to be remotely effective minus the Staff.... we don't talk about the staff (this weapon and its associated skills/animations warrant their own thread). I like the battlemage aesthetic, so I was kind of dealing with the class so far, there are numerous mechanics that are just cumbersome that add to the displeasure of playing an Ele. For example, the not being able to weaponswap is a double-edged sword. Sure the logic behind it is that because of the 4 attunements it's not needed, but that fails in practice. Why? Because each Weapon has a set range associated with an element. So if you engage in combat with your staff out you are basically sol if you are forced into melee because staff has nothing that's effective in dealing with close-range fighters whether that's in PvP, WvW, or in PvE. This issue persists from weapon to weapon in different scenarios. You are in WvW and have your sword out but you're defending a fort and need to do long-range dmg? Too bad, sit there until you get out of combat before you can contribute anything. And the Attunements don't fix these issues because the skills under each are limited in range. A good example is hammer catalyst, Fire and lightning are mid-range and water and earth are short range.... which again if you need that 1200 range at any point too bad. This isn't even talking about the DPS rotation and how having to break away from it to heal yourself or cleanse conditions is unforgiving or its severe lack of gap closers and disengages incorporated into its weapon skills despite being constantly forced into melee range. At the end of the day Ele is a soft spellcaster that is forced into melee range which then forces very limiting and specific builds (that still fall short in areas) to survive regardless of the e-spec in use and that limited build-diversity is what makes it off-putting and not as fun to play as other classes.

Interesting, I hadn't considered using Honor trait with staff. How do you handle ranged fights? I normally always match a melee and ranged weapon to fix that gap. Plus having torch available helps with the burn upkeep. I used to run purging flames for forever and switched to Signet of Wrath for the condi dmg boost and last resort CC if need be since the CC on this build is just alright. But I do think about putting purging flames back on each time I need condi cleanse and Tome of Resolve is on CD. I'm not too concerned with min/maxing dmg/healing since I won't be doing high level fractals and raids. Just interested to see if a decent dps/support build could be made. The full viper build does very good damage to begin with so I figured a little dps sacrifice would be ok (without crippling it) to increase it's support/survivability to get a bit better use out of Tome of Resolve and Courage.

This is a build for PVE - Champ Solo, Open World groups and occasional Fractals (non-high level). The goal:Retain as much DPS capabilities as possibly while increasing Survivability/recovery/support via increased effectiveness of Tome of Resolve and Courage I have been toying with the idea of creating a "partially fused" build combining elements from the quickbrand build and Support Healer build. The challenge mainly falls to proper stat distribution. Currently I run this quickbrand build Ideally It would be nice to play a Support Healer all the time, but I feel in Solo and Open world content the dmg output is far too low. It's an amazing build as some of you know for solo and group play. But, I did come across a few downsides though over time playing it. Mainly it's survivability/recovery in certain situations involving heavy condi dmg and massive burst dmg. The condi cleanse only coming from Tome of Resolve and it's skill 2 can place you in a predicament (in those moments i wish I was on my necro). Mainly because the overall heal output is rather mediocre so it can't be used to compensate for the limited condi cleanse and the overall self heal isn't as great as in other classes due to the Vipers stat commitment. This is where this partial fused build idea originated. So I wondered what if we sacrifice a bit of DPS/condi dmg to increase healing power and boon duration? In turn increasing survivability and support? Would replacing Accessories with Harrier stats nudge the stats just enough to accomplish this while retaining the viper armor stats? I don't have a full set of harrier accessories to test this myself so I was wondering what some of you thought about this idea or if another stat combination would work better to accomplish this?.

Personally It would be neat if the Spear was redone as a land weapon. Guardian lore points to their origin as a result of Paragon (who used spears in GW1) teachings melding with other traditions like the monk resulting in the Guardian. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guardian It could be a hybrid weapon offering something like 3 melee skills and 2 range skills if it was 2-handed or 2 melee and 1 ranged skill if it was a 1-handed weapon. I mean a Guardian with a Spear and Shield would look badass.