Ele Open World Build?

[etmaho.3967]

I've been playing for a little over a week, so my gear isn't all that great or anything. I've basically just got the exotics that the max level boost gave me. However, it seems like everyone else in out in the world does significantly more damage than I do. At the moment I'm running this build.

I'm not sure if my damage just seems lower because of my gear, if I'm doing something wrong, or if there's just a much better build I should be running for open world PvE. I know generally people say something along the lines of "Your build doesn't matter in open world PvE, just use what you enjoy," but there has to be a build that is just more efficient than others. Just wondering what other elementalists are running.

Thanks!

[Silmar Alech.4305]

You try to fly where you just started to crawl. If you play for a week, then you just started to see all the game mechanics. You must be overwhelmed and probably don't know where and how to start.A good build doesn't automatically produce top damage, it's the player who must use a build correctly. If you stick on earth attunement with autoattack, you will not do any memorable damage, for example.You double and triple your damage simply by using skills in a certain sequence, so the skills that do most damage are used as often as possible and buffs are generated and stacked as much as possible. This is called "rotation". A good Weaver rotation is very difficult, even for experienced players. As Weaver, you have 26 weapon skills at your immediate disposition, all mixed through the attunements, I doubt you know what each skill will do and for what it is good.

I suggest you start with a plain Ele or Tempest. With these it is much easier to first learn the basic staff skills. A tempest build, like this, is a bit more stable for solo play, because it is simpler to use. For damage, you stay on fire attunement, for running you use air attunement, and during fight you switch away from fire only in emergency.I use that build for open world, in the standard air variant, with Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash and Glyph of Elemental instead of Glyph of storms, Frost Bow and Fiery Greatsword. You must realize that these builds originally are made for raids. Raids are a very controlled environment. Only boss fights. You learn each of your step by heart and only reproduce what you learnt, produce the absolute maximum damage possible. In the open world, you have to be a bit more flexible and have a bit more defensive skills, because you cannot always control how many enemies are coming or the direction from where they attack.

Your equipment is very important as well. If you change your current gear to full berserk, you will double the damage you are doing, or more. With the Tempest build I linked, you will get without much buffs in a casual open world fight against some veteran or champion with Meteor Shower up to about 10000 points of damage with one hit. As far as I remember that's the same number with the Weaver build as well, but it's much more tedious to play while having less defense than with Tempest.

[Esprit Dumort.3109]

Elementalist is one of the more in depth classes to get the most damage from. I suppose you could go Fresh Air, Tempest Air Overload, but it really is not that great for DPS anymore, and is quite boring. As stated above, you need to learn rotations, blast finishers, and mechanics to get the most DPS from Ele. Warrior or Revenant are easier DPS classes, if that's what you want.

[Weo weo.6378]

Thing about metabattle builds/ raid builds, alot of them only work well with a team and support to back you up.

In solo situations, I find it way better to run traits with survival in them or a bit of min max.For me, a go to open world build would often be something like Water, Air, Tempest due to the versatility which superspeeds, large health recovery etc.

Good thing with weaver is that it has a nice mix if you build properly. I often find having offensive stats but mixing up things like Arcane/ water/ weaver gives me more than enough DPS/ survival to roll over most of the open world content.

[mygamingid.5816]

If you've got the max level boost exotics, then you're running Soldier's gear. You'll have good power, but no precision or ferocity, so you'll be pretty far behind the damage shown in the Quantify site. Quantify also assumes you're running under raid meta boons full time. As a new player, you probably aren't playing under those conditions (the vast majority of players don't play under those conditions ever), so you should expect to have a big damage deficit. Don't worry about it.

Unlike the others, I recommend sticking with Weaver. Everyone else had to unlearn Core and Tempest to pick up Weaver, so you'll have an advantage working from a clean slate. Without changing your gear much, I'd offer this build. You'll have a lot more damage with the magnanimous sharpening stone and your Soldier's gear. The Superior Sigil of Intelligence will be a big boost, as will Arcane Power, because you'll have some automatic crits. Matching skills, traits, and gear will net a ton more damage without any cost to survivability.

As you get used to playing and start to acquire more resources, then the Quantify build can come into play. Buy Ascended trinkets with laurels. Buy Exotic armor at the auction house or with dungeon currency. Level up Artificer so you can craft an Ascended Staff. Then you can join a dedicated raid training guild and put that Quantify build to it's intended use.

Note that a Berserker build may feel unplayably fragile when you first start with it. Just remember that it's built for raiding and assumes that: 1) you'll be able to avoid almost all damage through mechanics, and 2) that someone else will be responsible for healing you through other sources of damage. If you're not raiding or supported by raid boons, don't be afraid to mix in the Soldier's armor with the Berserker trinkets and weapons for added survivability.

EDIT: link had ascended armor before

[reikken.4961]

staff weaver raid build is awful for open worldIt's designed to be used against relatively stationary single targets with a healer and lots of other support backing you up

[Razor.6392]

Elementalist has a lot of builds that you can use for open world!

First you need to decide what weapon set you enjoy using. Note that you might need to change depending on the situation.

1. Dagger / FocusDamage ◙◙◙○○Survivability ◙◙◙◙◙AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙○○○○Burst dmg ◙◙○○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙○○○

Great against projectiles and mitigating damage. Does ok damage and will keep you alive especially if you equip the water traitline. Works best with tempest because you need the overloads to make up for the lack of damage.

2. Dagger / DaggerDamage ◙◙◙◙○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙◙Mobility ◙◙◙◙◙Burst dmg ◙◙◙◙○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Good all-around build. Allows you to storm in and out of combat or stay around in the fray provided you can time your abilities well! Range isn't much of an issue since you got multiple gap closers. Works best with core and weaver for extra damage. Tempest can work too but trash mobs will die quick enough with your regular abilities.

3. Dagger / Warhorn requires tempestDamage ◙◙◙◙○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙○○○Burst dmg ◙◙◙○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Inferior to d/d in most open world aspects but provides more support for group events and better might / fury stacking. Tempest only. Fresh air is a must too.

4. Scepter / DaggerDamage ◙◙○○○Survivability ◙◙○○○AoE cleave ◙○○○○Mobility ◙◙◙◙○Burst dmg ◙◙◙◙◙Range ◙◙◙◙○Difficulty ◙◙◙◙◙

Niche build. Perfect for one shotting trash mobs from afar while you explore maps. Good at tagging mobs in events like mad king's labyrinth too due to the instant damage on scepter air abilities. Tied for best good might / fury stacking. Works best with weaver but the other 2 are also good. Not recommended for prolonged fights because its dps lacks over time.

5. StaffDamage ◙◙◙◙◙Survivability ◙◙○○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙○○○Burst dmg ◙◙○○○Range ◙◙◙◙◙Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Most standard elementalist weapon for instanced content. Not that great in my opinion for open world due to how clunky and slow it can feel. You need to know how to kite to use this weapon to its greatest potential. Works best with tempest or weaver.

6. Sword / Daggerweaver onlyDamage ◙◙◙○○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙◙○○Burst dmg ◙◙◙○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙◙◙

Another great all rounder that excels both in power and condition damage. Tied for best might / fury generation weapon combo in the entire ele set (maybe even the best because the blast finishers are in lower cooldowns). To get the most out of this weapon set you need to know all about combo fields and combo finishers.

As for traits, the rule of thumb is: Fire, Air and then an elite spec (weaver or tempest). If you are running core ele (no elite spec) then fill the last slot with either arcane or water.

If you go tempest, you must equip the Air grandmaster trait Fresh Air if you're a power build.

Persisting flames (fire grandmaster trait) is mandatory in almost every single one of these builds.

[Cell.6821]

@Razor.6392 said:

If you go tempest, you must equip the Air grandmaster trait Fresh Air if you're a power build.

Being a new ele (Power Staff Tempest currently), can you elaborate more on why Fresh Air is that important? I usually camp Fire and use its abilities, then switch to Air for its Overload and Glyph, but I'll switch back to Fire as soon as possible. Am I playing it wrong?

[Feanor.2358]

@Cell.6821 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

If you go tempest, you must equip the Air grandmaster trait Fresh Air if you're a power build.

Being a new ele (Power Staff Tempest currently), can you elaborate more on why Fresh Air is that important? I usually camp Fire and use its abilities, then switch to Air for its Overload and Glyph, but I'll switch back to Fire as soon as possible. Am I playing it wrong?

What you're playing is known as the "standard staff tempest". It's fine and in the long run it has higher target dps than the Fresh Air variant. The latter has higher cleave, though, so for the open world I'd rather run that. Even with all Overload Air nerf back then, it is still a very strong skill.

@Razor.6392 said:...

Don't spread misinformation, please. Your "ratings" are totally off. Nothing has higher cleave than staff (duh!) and you certainly don't want to kite (!!!) with it. It's by far the most flexible weapon for the open world.

[Wolfric.9380]

First you have to get e feeling and decide the content you focus on. Then which weapon you like most. For open world more damage is usually better.Staff is totaly solid for open world. I personaly prefer scepter with hybrid stats (mostly Viper) so basically pick what you like and learn it. I always have a staff with me if needed but rarely do use it.

[Razor.6392]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Cell.6821 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

If you go tempest, you must equip the Air grandmaster trait Fresh Air if you're a power build.

Being a new ele (Power Staff Tempest currently), can you elaborate more on why Fresh Air is that important? I usually camp Fire and use its abilities, then switch to Air for its Overload and Glyph, but I'll switch back to Fire as soon as possible. Am I playing it wrong?

What you're playing is known as the "standard staff tempest". It's fine and in the long run it has higher target dps than the Fresh Air variant. The latter has higher cleave, though, so for the open world I'd rather run that. Even with all Overload Air nerf back then, it is still a very strong skill.

@Razor.6392 said:...

Don't spread misinformation, please. Your "ratings" are totally off. Nothing has higher cleave than staff (duh!) and you certainly don't want to kite (!!!) with it. It's by far the most flexible weapon for the open world.

Staff's cleave is clunky and relies on slow skills with moderate cooldowns and aoes. Nothing has better cleave than lightning whip and other dagger skills.

You do want to kite 5-10+ mobs, unless you can facetank them.

[Feanor.2358]

What's to facetank? They're dead before they can do anything meaningful.

[Cell.6821]

What about tagging? What weapon does it best?

My first thought is Staff with its 1200 range and aoe.. but so far it hasn't been working out too well. Mobs either die too fast for the casted large aoe to land, or they move to a different location. Air #1 and Fire #2, along with Overloads are decent, but I wonder if other weapons do it better.

I'm basing it off my Scourge. With Scourge it's so easy to tag mobs.. Just F1 then use other F skills. All Staff skills are aoe 1200. Wells also work well. Can Ele outperform Scourge on tagging potentials?

[Razor.6392]

@Feanor.2358 said:What's to facetank? They're dead before they can do anything meaningful.

Stuff like HoT and PoF mobs won't die so easily... especially not with his stats.

Sure if you're ascended zerk super mega lul dps 250% crit dmg, then its easier to run up, cast lava font and spam fireball, but I don't think that's the case here.

@Cell.6821 said:What about tagging? What weapon does it best?

My first thought is Staff with its 1200 range and aoe.. but so far it hasn't been working out too well. Mobs either die too fast for the casted large aoe to land, or they move to a different location. Air #1 and Fire #2, along with Overloads are decent, but I wonder if other weapons do it better.

I'm basing it off my Scourge. With Scourge it's so easy to tag mobs.. Just F1 then use other F skills. All Staff skills are aoe 1200. Wells also work well. Can Ele outperform Scourge on tagging potentials?

Dagger or sword if they're like waves of monsters coming at you in a static spot. For running around, scepter can work too. Equipping arcane wave and blast also helps a lot (+elemental surge trait in arcane).

[etmaho.3967]

Really useful information, thanks guys! I guess I'm still in a WoW mindset when it comes to gear and builds, but it seems like there's a lot more flexibility in GW2.

[etmaho.3967]

@Razor.6392 said:Elementalist has a lot of builds that you can use for open world!

First you need to decide what weapon set you enjoy using. Note that you might need to change depending on the situation.

1. Dagger / FocusDamage ◙◙◙○○Survivability ◙◙◙◙◙AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙○○○○Burst dmg ◙◙○○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙○○○

Great against projectiles and mitigating damage. Does ok damage and will keep you alive especially if you equip the water traitline. Works best with tempest because you need the overloads to make up for the lack of damage.

2. Dagger / DaggerDamage ◙◙◙◙○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙◙Mobility ◙◙◙◙◙Burst dmg ◙◙◙◙○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Good all-around build. Allows you to storm in and out of combat or stay around in the fray provided you can time your abilities well! Range isn't much of an issue since you got multiple gap closers. Works best with core and weaver for extra damage. Tempest can work too but trash mobs will die quick enough with your regular abilities.

3. Dagger / Warhorn requires tempestDamage ◙◙◙◙○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙○○○Burst dmg ◙◙◙○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Inferior to d/d in most open world aspects but provides more support for group events and better might / fury stacking. Tempest only. Fresh air is a must too.

4. Scepter / DaggerDamage ◙◙○○○Survivability ◙◙○○○AoE cleave ◙○○○○Mobility ◙◙◙◙○Burst dmg ◙◙◙◙◙Range ◙◙◙◙○Difficulty ◙◙◙◙◙

Niche build. Perfect for one shotting trash mobs from afar while you explore maps. Good at tagging mobs in events like mad king's labyrinth too due to the instant damage on scepter air abilities. Tied for best good might / fury stacking. Works best with weaver but the other 2 are also good. Not recommended for prolonged fights because its dps lacks over time.

5. StaffDamage ◙◙◙◙◙Survivability ◙◙○○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙○○○Burst dmg ◙◙○○○Range ◙◙◙◙◙Difficulty ◙◙◙○○

Most standard elementalist weapon for instanced content. Not that great in my opinion for open world due to how clunky and slow it can feel. You need to know how to kite to use this weapon to its greatest potential. Works best with tempest or weaver.

6. Sword / Daggerweaver onlyDamage ◙◙◙○○Survivability ◙◙◙○○AoE cleave ◙◙◙◙○Mobility ◙◙◙○○Burst dmg ◙◙◙○○Range ◙○○○○Difficulty ◙◙◙◙◙

Another great all rounder that excels both in power and condition damage. Tied for best might / fury generation weapon combo in the entire ele set (maybe even the best because the blast finishers are in lower cooldowns). To get the most out of this weapon set you need to know all about combo fields and combo finishers.

As for traits, the rule of thumb is: Fire, Air and then an elite spec (weaver or tempest). If you are running core ele (no elite spec) then fill the last slot with either arcane or water.

If you go tempest, you must equip the Air grandmaster trait Fresh Air if you're a power build.

Persisting flames (fire grandmaster trait) is mandatory in almost every single one of these builds.

I'm really interested in trying out dagger/dagger with weaver. Are there any specific traits I should take other than persisting flames? And do you have any advice on what utility skills I should take?

[Razor.6392]

@etmaho.3967 said:I'm really interested in trying out dagger/dagger with weaver. Are there any specific traits I should take other than persisting flames? And do you have any advice on what utility skills I should take?

For maximum damage you could go fire / air / weaver with glyph heal, fire signet (more crit chance), glyph of storms (earth is an aoe blind that lasts 10 seconds!) and the last one is up to you.

Another option is to go fire / arcane / weaver with arcane brilliance, arcane wave, and other 2 choices.

Consider stances if you need extra survivability (and x/3/x in the weaver trait line).

[Fate.8413]

I like having mixed stats on Ele, IMO it's the best class for mixed stats since we can make good use of every stat available. For running around and learning the class, full Celestial D/D is nice but because you're new you won't have access to Celestial gear. A mixture of Berserker and either Apothecary or Cleric has worked for me. I personally prefer Apothecary because having condi damage mixed in suits my playstyle if I'm not going full berserker, especially because I use Earth attunement quite a bit and the bleed stacks add up. If you want some vitality mixed in, Carrion is IMO a decent choice as the gear is cheaply available through TP or the dungeon merchant in Lion's Arch.

Trait Water/Air/Tempest or Water/Earth/Tempest for good survivability/healing, condi cleanse as well. Water 1-3-3, Earth 3-3-1/Air 1-2-2, Tempest 3-2-3. Overloads will all grant swiftness and protection and auras which give you regen and vigor.

Runes I've experimented with are Berkserker, Elementalist and Strength - I personally like Berserker runes best but Strength runes aren't a bad option either if you run Sigil of Strength in one of your daggers. The other dagger I run sigil of Force. If you wanted more condition damage, you could always try Aristocracy runes. Damage is actually not that bad if you know how to utilize your fields efficiently, and you can slowly swap out gear towards zerker for more dps as you get better acquainted with the class.

Healing skill I take Signet of Restoration, Elite is Rebound. Arcane shield, Aftershock I almost always keep as I get CC, a stun break, a (potentially damaging) shield, blast finisher and magnetic aura which, with my traitlines, gives me regen, protection and vigor in addition to the projectile reflect. I take either Eye of the Storm (superspeed, stun break), Feel the Heat (burning, Fire aura) or Flash Freeze (a bit of damage, AoE soft CC, Frost Aura) to round it off.

With the mixture of Exotic Berkserker and Apothecary Armour, Carrion Trinkets, Celestial Amulet and Berserker rings with Passiflora (Apothecary stats) facets I was able to solo most HoT Hero Point challenges without too much experience on the class. The mixture of vitality, toughness and healing power along with water and earth traitlines means that you can take a fair amount of abuse while having high regen uptime and access to good burst healing, stab, protection and vigor. This means that you're VERY difficult to kill while still outputting more than enough damage for open world stuff. Once you're comfortable with rotations and feel like you're able to play without getting hit often, you can explore Weaker and work on a set of Ascended Zerker gear and watch stuff melt.

[Razor.6392]

^ I would argue that you don't need that much survivability for open world. The better you play, the more it will become a burden, especially as you advance to more complex instanced content like fractals.

Mixed stats is no longer the best with D/D. I would say sword is the new king of hybrid damage.

[Fate.8413]

@Razor.6392 said:^ I would argue that you don't need that much survivability for open world. The better you play, the more it will become a burden, especially in places like fractals.

Mixed stats is no longer the best with D/D. I would say sword is the new king of hybrid damage.

I don't run that build anymore for most OW content - I've switched to more damage oriented gear/traits since learning Ele better. However, I feel that If I tried running mostly dmg for HoT content when I first started playing my Elementalist I would have probably died a lot and given up on the class. It was also fun learning rotations and fields properly in more dynamic fights (HP challenges and random Champions) which can one or two shot glass cannon Ele if you're not 100% confident in what you're doing =P.

I haven't tried hybrid Weaver but I'm sure the dps is excellent. I still prefer D/D because of the mobility but I haven't used Weaver since the balance patch so I'll give it another go.

[Razor.6392]

It's pretty great. You keep most of the mobility with off hand dagger, and there's a looot of condi application with very easy might generation. Can't go wrong with it.

[Fate.8413]

I'll have to give it a try tonight then - I enjoyed playing ele more with D/D and mixed stats because it forced me to use all my attunements and every button press felt impactful. In full zerker with staff I just camp fire as long as possible and it gets really stale really fast.

[etmaho.3967]

@Razor.6392 said:

@etmaho.3967 said:I'm really interested in trying out dagger/dagger with weaver. Are there any specific traits I should take other than persisting flames? And do you have any advice on what utility skills I should take?

For maximum damage you could go fire / air / weaver with glyph heal, fire signet (more crit chance), glyph of storms (earth is an aoe blind that lasts 10 seconds!) and the last one is up to you.

Another option is to go fire / arcane / weaver with arcane brilliance, arcane wave, and other 2 choices.

Consider stances if you need extra survivability (and x/3/x in the weaver trait line).

Thank you for all the help! I'm really excited to try this out, now I just have to try to find a couple of cheap daggers to buy haha.

[Feanor.2358]

@Razor.6392 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:What's to facetank? They're dead before they can do anything meaningful.

Stuff like HoT and PoF mobs won't die so easily... especially not with his stats.

Sure if you're ascended zerk super mega lul dps 250% crit dmg, then its easier to run up,

cast lava font and spam fireball

, but I don't think that's the case here.

There's your problem. That's not how staff ele is played. You stack as many damage areas as possible as a staff ele. That's what makes it great. And if you do that, you won't need to have a single ascended piece to make it work.

[juno.1840]

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