Elementalist sPvP | Tournament Scepter/Focus | Roamer Fresh Air Scepter Elementalist (Last Updated 4/19/2014)
Table of Contents
Summary
Hello, I am Debs, former top 15 in the NA soloq. I present you, the Fresh Air S/D Elementalist!
After the June 25th patch, the S/D Elementalist has got a new play style. With the new grandmaster trait [Fresh Air], the burst potential from the scepter elementalists has gotten even stronger, making them highly sought after in high level tPvP.
Here I go over both Scepter Dagger and Scepter Focus combinations. The weapon set you choose is up to your play style, experiment with both to see which fits you more!
Please do not hesitate to ask whatever questions you have by whispering/adding testinga.9108!
I. Weapons and Skills
Weapon and Skill Details
Notable Scepter Skills
- Fire 2, 3: Very strong skills that destroys foe when they land. Unload after strong CC to ensure that these skills land.
- Water 1: A very fast skill that attacks 3 times. Useful for triggering [Fresh Air]
- Water 3: Good AoE heals to boost survivability.
- Air 1-3: The bread and butter of the build. Note that Air 2 and 3 are instant casts, and as such can be cast during the channel time of Air 1 or when under CC. Use these skills whenever they are off cooldown.
- Earth 1: A very fast skill that attacks 3 times. Useful for triggering [Fresh Air]
- Earth 2: Free armor. Attacks 5 times when activated, useful for triggering [Fresh Air].
Notable Focus Skills
- Fire 4: A long lasting fire field that can be used for combos.
- Fire 5: Fire aura used against melee attackers.
- Water 4: Freezes target. Useful for setting up defenses against Warrior/Thief.
- Water 5: Small AoE daze that can be used to perform fire burst of CC enemy.
- Air 4: A swirl that destroys enemy projectiles. A very strong skill when used correctly.
- Air 5: A knock back skill. Use to perform fire burst, or CC enemy
- Earth 4: A defensive skill that gives both reflect and cleanses conditions.
- Earth 5: Very strong invulnerability skill, unlike mistform does not lock out skills. Use with ether renewal for uninterrupted heal.
Notable Dagger Skills
- Fire 5: Very strong skill that destroys foe when they land. Unload after strong CC to ensure that this skill lands.
- Water 4: Freezes melee foes that hit you. Useful for setting up defenses against Warrior/Thief.
- Water 5: Good AoE heals to boost survivability.
- Air 4: A 1200 range dash skill. Use to engage and disengage from fights.
- Air 5: An AoE knock back skill. Use to perform fire burst, or CC enemy
- Earth 4: A very strong AoE knock down skill. Use cautiously.
- Earth 5: Use very sparingly. At high level tPvP, this skill will never land in small skirmishes.
Healing/Utility Skills and other possible skills choices
- Ether Renewal: The strength of this skill is held in check by the long, interruptable cast time. Use with defensive skills to heal completely.
- Signet of Restoration: A strong healing skill for a very spam heavy playstyle. Attunement swaps also heals self, making it very very strong for this build.
- Armor of Earth: A stun breaker that grants protection stability and stun break, this skill is very strong against direct damage/CC heavy team.
- Mist form: A stun breaker that gives you a brief invulnerability, this skill buys you time for cooldowns to come back.
- Lightning Flash: As a ranged roamer/carry, mobility and positioning is most important.
- Cleansing Fire: Removes 3 conditions and burns nearby foes. Use when against a very condition heavy opponent.
- Arcane Blast: An instant, ranged skill that is useful for outputting damage and triggering [Fresh Air]. Use if you can survive without 1 cantrip.
- Arcane Wave: An instant, AoE skill that is useful for outputting damage and triggering [Fresh Air]. Use if you can survive without 2 cantrips.
- Arcane Shield: A stun breaker that also blocks the next 3 hits. Good against burst berserker builds (esp. thief+warrior) to block big hits.
II. Traits
Fire Magic
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Water Magic
Arcana
Trait Details
Air tree uses VI/X/XII. Notable traits:
- Bolt to the Heart: DO THE DAMAGES. Strong execution trait.
- Electric Discharge: A crucial trait, that does lightning strike when attuning to air. This means that you will want to swap to air whenever possible, to trigger this trait.
- Air Training: You will spend most of your time in air meaning this trait will give you a fairly constant 10% damage bonus.
- Fresh Air: The best (and the only useful) offensive trait hands down for the elementalist. Every crit will mean you are able to attune back to air, meaning you deal more Electrical Discharge from scepter or the trait.
Earth tree uses VI.
- Stone Splinters: Adds overall DPS while nearby the target.
Water tree uses VI.
- Vital Striking: Adds overall DPS while your health is high enough.
- Alternatively: Water III gives more survivability if you choose to go more cantrip heavy.
Arcana tree is a standard II/VIII/XI. Those of you who have played cantrip ele will recognize these traits. Notable traits:
- Arcane Fury: Constant Fury with very rapid attunement swaps.
- Renewing Stamina: A traits that grants high vigor uptime.
- Evasive Arcana: A trait that creates a skill at the end of dodge. Learning to dodge in the right attunements will take experience.
Use either 0/6/2/2/4 or 0/6/0/2/6.
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 12645 (+1000)
- Vitality 1016 (+100)
- Armor 1936 (+100)
- Toughness 1016 (+100)
- Attack 3275 (+1412)
- Power 2291 (+1375)
- Critical Hit 57% (+57%)
- Precision 2116 (+1200)
Secondary Stats
- Attunement Recharge Rate 20% (+20%)
- Bleeding Duration 20% (+20%)
- Boon Duration 20% (+20%)
- Condition Damage 100 (+100)
- Critical Damage 82% (+82%)
- Damage 984 (+4%)
- Defense 920 (+0)
- Ferocity 1235 (+1235)
- Healing Power 100 (+100)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
Stat and Effect Details
- High fury/swiftness/vigor uptime, high might stacks.
- Access to strong AoE CC
- Access to lots of condition removal
- Access to up to 3 stun breaks
IV. Runes, Sigils, Accessories & Jewels
Armor & Runes
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
Rune Stat Totals
- Power 175
- Ferocity 35
- Damage 4%
Rune Bonuses
PvP Rune of the Ogre- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
Accessories & Jewels
- Power: 0
- Precision: 0
- Ferocity: 0
- Vitality: 0
Accessory Totals
- Power:1200
- Precision:900
- Ferocity:900
- Vitality:0
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 895-1010
- Weapon Strength: 832-883
Weapon Set I
Sigil of Superior BattleYou gain 2 stacks of might for 20s when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
Sigil of Superior BloodlustYou gain +10 power each time you kill a foe. (max 25 stacks and ends on down or weapon change)
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
Water Weapon I
Upgrade Item Details
Runes
Runes really are personal preference. Rune of Ogre provide good offensive stats that the scepter ele desperately needs. Other options include Rune of Divinity, Rune of Scholar, Rune of Eagle.
Amulet
Berserker amulet and jewels are a must. Without these stats, you simply do not get enough crits or the air skills do very little damage. Use more defensive utility skills if you are concerned about being eaten alive.
Sigils
Sigil of Battle grants a strong offensive stats for swapping weapons. As attunement swaps count for this, you get free 3 stacks of might.
The other sigil is a personal choice. If you are confident enough to get high stacks, use Bloodlust. Else, use Accuracy or Air.
V. Basic Gameplay
This build has a certain goal in mind: Target execution. It is one of the few ranged carry options available, dealing constant DPS to a selected target. Your goal in the match is to take out the enemy carry and back line. While remaining at a safe distance, try to drive away the enemy's greatest threats away from skirmishes so that your team can win the team fights.
The following are some targets you should prioritize over others. Note that you will need to identify builds by the foes playstyle.
- Condi / Power Necromancers: Condi and Power Necro have the potential to deal great amounts of area damage in team fights. As the burst roamer it is the job of the scepter elementalist to neutralize necros quickly.
- Grenade-based Engineers: Grenade primary engineers similarly deal great team fight damage, and need to be dispatched quickly.
- Staff Elementalists: Although very rare, they do sometimes pop up in tpvp. Another great team fighter that needs to be taken down quickly.
- Thief: As squishy as the scepter ele is, thieves will quickly down the scepter ele in a team fight. Killing the thief is the best way of staying alive.
Here are some targets you should NOT focus during a team fight:
- Bunker Guardians: Unless being CC chained in a coordinated team, wasting damage on the bunker will lose you the team fight.
- Tanky Warriors: Builds that emphasize the strong health regeneration on the warrior will mean that the damage is wasted in fights.
Main Skill Rotation
There is no real set skill rotation for a Fresh Air S/D Elementalist. It all depends on the cooldowns available and whether or not Fresh Air has triggered. Most of the time, however, you want to try to attune back to air attunement however possible.
Water and Earth auto attacks attack 3 times, which often triggers air attunement. Changing attunements during the Air 1 channel also triggers Fresh Air when it crits, meaning you do not even have to use any skills and attune back to air sometimes.
Close Range Fire Burst
A strong execution combo. When the target foe nears 50% and is within melee range, use this combo to destroy him. The fire skills are the hardest skills to hit, but you are rewarded heavily if they do land.
I tend not to use this build in hot joins since I can't dish out AoE damage in team fights, getting little glory :(.