RyanThomas.4182

Hey, I'd love to join the guild! I've been playing the game since launch and I mainly do fractals, strikes, and WvW on Stormbluff Isle. I've completed a few raid trainings and I'm looking to learn all the raids and strike CM's (May not HT CM yet lol). Looking for some chill experienced gamers that enjoy teaching others. Thanks!

What traits/skills do you use for Tempest roamer? I'd be interested in seeing the build. Looking to try out wvw roaming.

Fantastic gameplay! I've been playing a lot of in open world stuff with a power hybrid weaver buildhttp://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PGABwixjlJwqYeMFGJWMXavdA-zRhYVhtF9gYQcwBNWKNFCBWAZGBRkAmMLjaGB-ebut I switch to something close to your condi weaver build whenever I need to take on a champ or a bounty :D

Hm I would love to have explosion + might + might sharing without having to give up anything, but I doubt Anet would be so generous haha. Maybe in another 2 years they will revisit the trait once more...

I was playing around with the idea of taking Aristocracy runes which gives 5 stacks of might on inflicting weakness.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_AristocracyWe have a minor trait that inflicts weakness on dual attacks, so that could be a good way to quickly build up might and detonate it. You could still get some decent burn duration by taking smoldering sigil + fire meat chili. Of course, the flame explosion really sucks right now and it seems like an afterthought compared to the main purpose of the trait, which is to grant might to your allies. Seems like Anet needs to figure out what the heck this trait is for. Is it a support trait? If so, why does it reduce your own might uptime, when literally no other class has a support skill that reduces their own uptime of the boon they're trying to spread. Quickbrand, Alacrigade, Chrono, and Druid don't lose their own boons when supporting their allies. So is this a damaging trait? No, because this pathetic explosion isn't worth losing 300 Power and 300 Condition damage. Honestly Anet if you read the forums, please pick a direction for this trait and make it good at that. I'd say remove the explosion and just make it pulse might to your allies without stripping your own might. That would make it a good skill to take when trying to cover might for a pug group or world boss/meta event stuff. Persisting flames can be buffed to be a 1% bonus to power and condition damage, which would make it a good choice for coordinated groups where there's another source of might. It would also be a solid choice in open world for power or condi builds.

Fire in general seems like such a confused traitline. You have the major traits burning precision and burning rage which are great for condi builds, plus you get reduced cooldowns on fire attunement stills. But then you have +150 power and +10% damage to burning targets in minor traits which seem completely useless to condi builds. Wish they'd merge these power-based minor bonuses into major traits that power builds use, and then change the minor effects to be things that have utility for either power or condition damage builds. Something like "Passively might when you have a fire aura active" would be great, since without that the only use for fire aura seems to be transmuting them or just using them to trigger other aura traits. Unfortunately that wouldn't do much for raiders who already have 25 might all the time...

Currently Persisting Flames gives a 1% bonus to direct damage. Should it also give a bonus to condition damage? I've been playing open world Sword/X condi weaver and I'm trying to figure out which fire grandmaster is most useful. • Persisting flames makes fire fields last longer which is great for getting more leap finishers, which gives more fire auras, which can be transmuted if you're using focus. You can also blast them for might, which is useful.• Pyromancer's Puissance seems like it was meant for supporting teammates. The explosion isn't worth all the might you lose, imo• Blinding ashes doesn't seem great in pve. Enemies dangerous enough to kill you tend to have break bars anyway, and I'd rather rely on active defenses like dodging. So should Persisting Flames give a bonus to condi damage as well, to make it useful to condi builds, or am I overlooking something about the other fire grandmasters that would make it a great choice for open world condi weaver?

This discussion seems to have veered into PvP but I think the original question was mainly asking about PvE content. If you're just looking for meta raid builds, you can check here: https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/elementalist/tempest/power/Seems like scepter/warhorn is what they're using right now. Sounds like you're still leveling your first character, so I'll let you know about the options you have access to before elite specs. Imo dagger/dagger and dagger/focus are the builds I use most in PvE. They're very fun and feel rewarding to play because you have to focus on playing optimally to maximize your boons. If you play well, you can maintain your boons and do loads of damage, but also keep yourself alive with lots of kiting/dodging/healing options. I personally use dagger/focus if I'm in areas where I know there will be more projectiles coming at me, but most of the time I'm in dagger/dagger. Scepter is a good option as well if you want to stay at range, and I usually use a scepter when I'm doing bounty events because those have bosses with special effects that force you to sometimes fight at range (which dagger isn't great at). Main problem with scepter is that the autoattacks are really bad, so I often find myself just waiting for my other attunements to come off cooldown. I think scepter would be kind of unfun to play before you have the Fresh Air (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fresh_Air) grandmaster trait, as well as Tempest overloads, but that's just my opinion. Staff is really boring imo. If you're looking for the caster fantasy maybe it will suit you, but it just isn't my thing. It's not optimal for dps these days in raids, so I'm not sure what people use it for in PvE content these days. Maybe just tagging mobs while zerging around? I think it's useful in WvW, but I don't play any sort of PvP content these days so I'll defer to others.