Elementalist sPvP | Tournament Dagger/Dagger | Roamer Skov's D/D Hybrid Ele
Table of Contents
Summary
Brothers in Elements, here's a well-balanced, versatile and highly optimized D/D build that offers moderate-to-high damage output, great sustain, good mobility and a large amount of team fight support.
I've been theorycrafting for an optimized D/D build that fits my playstyle ever since the large balance patch in late June, and this is the result. There are two variants to the build which are in my opinion equally viable but still significantly different-- which to write the guide for was a hard decision, but I ultimately went with the higher sustain variant. The alternative version has slightly higher damage output and is less susceptible to burst, but has less sustain and less team fight support than the one featured in this guide. Which build is more effective really depends on the team comp that you're running it with. If you'd like to try out the alternative version you can find it here.
I. Weapons and Skills
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- 0Fury: 2 s
- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
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- 0Fury: 2 s
Weapon and Skill Details
This guide is intended for experienced Elementalists, and as such I will not be covering the basics of how to play D/D Ele such as weapon skills and basic rotations. If you're brand new to the class and would like a high level introduction, Blinx does a great job detailing such in his guide found here.
The first thing you're probably asking yourselves when looking at these utilities is "wat? 2 sigs?" but fear not, brother Elementalist, for the re-attunement is upon us!
- Signet of Fire is purely for the passive, with the 9% critical chance increasing your base critical chance from 15% to 24%. As this build does not have Zephyr's Boon, it has substantially lower fury uptime than your typical 10+ air D/D build, making the increased critical chance that much more valuable.
- Signet of Air is incredibly useful for this build in several ways. Passive: with neither the speed boost from Zephyr's Speed nor the swiftness uptime from Zephyr's Boon you'll find that your mobility significantly lacking compared to a 10+ air D/D build, and the +25% movement speed passive on Signet of Air does a great job at compensating for this. Active: not only is having a stun break on a 30 second CD incredibly useful, but the fact that it blinds your opponent's following attack makes it very effective against the stunlock warriors all-too-common in the current meta.
- Lightning Flash is just amazing for D/D Ele. You can use it to land awkward burning speeds and churning earths, make updraft and fire grab plays, and all sorts of cool stuff. Go ham or go home.
- Ether Renewal offers a large heal on a very low CD with tons of condition clear. Just make sure to coordinate it with the stability from your Rock Solid whenever possible, because having it interrupted at the wrong time can leave you in a really bad spot.
II. Traits
Fire Magic
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Water Magic
Arcana
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 23425 (+11780)
- Vitality 2094 (+1178)
- Armor 2114 (+278)
- Toughness 1194 (+278)
- Attack 3175 (+1278)
- Power 2194 (+1278)
- Critical Hit 19% (+19%)
- Precision 1174 (+258)
Secondary Stats
- Attunement Recharge Rate 30% (+30%)
- Bleeding Duration 20% (+20%)
- Boon Duration 30% (+30%)
- Condition Damage 278 (+278)
- Critical Damage 65% (+65%)
- Damage 981 (+0%)
- Defense 920 (+0)
- Ferocity 978 (+978)
- Healing Power 278 (+278)
- Movement Speed 33% (+33%)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
Stat and Effect Details
Valkyrie amulet plus Divinity runes plus the +200 toughness from Earth plus Stone Flesh gives you substantial mitigation for an Elementalist. The build's healing power makes your water attunement heals decently strong, and being able to coordinate these heals with the asynchronous Ether Renewal leads to a large amount of versatility in how you can effectively rotate your abilities, enabling you to balance offense and defense as necessary through the ebb and flow of the battle. Between Ether Renewal and Cleansing Wave (both the trait and the skill) this build also has tons of condition clear, with the high protection and vigor up-time helping you mitigate burst (assuming that you know how to properly manage your endurance). With all of these things combined you have great overall sustained survivability.
However, this build far more than just survivability. The +10% damage from Stone Splinters paired with the +10% damage from Vital Striking offers a significant damage boost, especially when you start getting the might stacks up from Sigil of Battle and fire-field blast finishers. Match this with a 24% base critical chance (44% with fury) and the bonus critical damage from Divinity and Valkyrie and you'll find that your Elements pack quite the punch-- especially considering how survivable you are.
So we've now got good damage, good survivability and good mobility covered. What more could you want for a well-balanced build? How about some team support! Not only do you have the usual AoE protection and cross-heals from a Valkyrie D/D build, but having 25% AoE stability uptime can be pretty useful when you're buddy's getting trained. Just a little bit. And then there's all that stomping and rezzing junk-- I heard that AoE stability can be useful for that, right?
IV. Runes, Sigils, Accessories & Jewels
Armor & Runes
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
Rune Stat Totals
- Power 78
- Precision 78
- Toughness 78
- Vitality 78
- Condition Damage 78
- Healing Power 78
- Ferocity 78
Rune Bonuses
PvP Rune of Divinity- +8 to all stats
- +10 to all stats
- +12 to all stats
- +14 to all stats
- +16 to all stats
- +18 to all stats
Accessories & Jewels
- Power: 0
- Precision: 0
- Ferocity: 0
- Vitality: 0
Accessory Totals
- Power:1200
- Vitality:900
- Ferocity:900
- Precision:0
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
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 Accuracy+7% crit chance.
- Weapon Strength: -
Water Weapon I
Upgrade Item Details
If you're new to D/D Ele then it may be useful to use Energy instead of Battle sigil, but I would otherwise strongly recommend using Battle. While Energy is incredibly good, the build already has very high vigor uptime and great survivability, and when you look at everything except for the sigils what the build benefits from the most in terms of overall effectiveness is more damage. Power scales incredibly well with D/D skills, especially when combined with the percent damage bonuses from Vital Striking and Stone Splinters, and having a sustained 6-9 might stacks in addition to those from your fire field blast finishers makes a very big difference in your overall damage output. In short, go ham or go home.
V. Basic Gameplay
Elementalist is a versatile class by nature, and this build is meant to maximize that side of the class. Having a reliable stun break and descent stability uptime helps with many of the Elementalist's usual problems. You do good damage, have good sustained survivability, have good support with both boons and peels, have good mobility, and have countless options for how to chain and rotate your abilities depending on the situation. This build is really intended to be played reactively, offering countless options for how to react to most situations. It can be susceptible to burst, however, so you always have to stay alert and be ready to react. Though you can do fairly well in most 1v1's, I would recommend that you avoid 1v1 situations as much as possible. This is not only because doing such is essentially wasting the build's large amount of team fight support potential, but also because this build's duels tend to be long and drawn out which gives the enemy team plenty of time to respond if you're trying to assault an enemy point.
As I mention above, there's an alternate version to the build which you can find here. The alternative version has a small (yet substantial) damage boost and is less susceptible to burst, but has significantly lower defensive sustain (though it's still alright) and less team support (not as much cross heals due to the lowered healing power). Nevertheless the two builds play very similar and are in my opinion equally viable, with which is preferred really depending on your team's particular composition and the amount of heavy burst on the enemy team.
Thank you for playing, and may the Elements guide you.
Main Skill Rotation
In the eternal words of Great Grandmaster Gronzi: 12345 swap 12345 swap 12345 swap.
Comments
@ 09:10 PM, Fri November 01 2013
Reply @ 04:45 AM, Wed November 06 2013
Reply @ 04:51 AM, Fri February 21 2014
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