Silimaur/corecondiele

Core Condition Elementalist for New Players

Introduction

Please note this guide is a work in progress that I will be adding to as and when I have time. If you have any specific questions or suggestions please get in touch!

The below builds assume you have reached level 80 as an elementalist and therefore you have all traits and utility skills unlocked. These builds are designed to work both in the open world and in instanced content such as fractals, raids and strikes.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Optional skills for your third utility:

Glyph of Elemental Power Note: always cast in fire attunement

• Pros:
  • Decent DPS
  • Acts as a stun break
  • Simple to use in all content
• Cons:
  • Higher damage options available

Glyph of Elementals Note: always cast in fire attunement

• Pros:
  • High DPS
  • Can be pre-cast multiple times to stack your elementals (cast before a fight starts)
• Cons:
  • Can be clunky in the open world as elementals will die when you mount up
  • If you are not able to pre-cast this skill stacking your elementals prior to starting an instanced encounter you will not be able to get the most out of this skill
  • Encounters such as the Kaineng Overlook strike will also kill all your elementals making this skill sub-optimal
  • Damage can be RNG based

Lightning Flash

• Provides additional mobility in the open world
• Situationally useful in encounters requiring a lot of movement

Arcane Shield

• Useful if you require additional defence
• Situationally useful in certain encounters requiring blocks

Arcane Brilliance

• You can sacrifice the sustain of Signet of Restoration for additional damage

Specializations

Variants

• Pyromancer's Puissance can be used to generate consistent 25 might in the open world.

Variants

• Arcane Resurrection can be very helpful group support if your group is struggling with a lot of downstates.

Equipment & Consumables

For your equipment you will want to choose from the following:

• Free to play condi elementalist (22k DPS)
• Budget 8 gold condi elementalist (27k DPS)
• Optimal build for core condi ele (not worthwhile unless you have legendary gear) (32k DPS)

You could additionally use a vipers set up but I would not generally recommend wasting your time and gold on this - TBC convert to page

Playstyle

Basic DPS

The DPS rotation can be summarised as, 'stay in fire attunement and spam all the things'.

At a very basic level you can simply use all of your damaging skills and utilities off cooldown and never leave fire attunement unless you need to.

But you can get more out of some of your skills, for example:

• Glyph of Elementals: if you can, precast this before a fight starts so you are starting the encounter with 3 elementals
• Glyph of Elemental Power: if you are instead using glyph of elemental power, this can also be pre-cast prior to starting an encounter
• Arcane Power: can also be pre-cast prior to an encounter - note that if you are playing solo you will want to summon your elementals prior to casting Arcane Power.

Elite Skill

Typically you will summon your elite elemental in fire for the highest damage available but elite elemental can be used flexibly.

• If you require additional healing, summon a water elemental
• If you need additional CC, summon a lightning elemental

Due to the Final Shielding trait your elite can also be used as a powerful defensive tool providing 3 blocks on command. Lesser Arcane Shield can be triggered both on the initial summoning of your elemental and also when you order your elemental to cast its ability. This gives you the option to control your elite elemental casts to provide you with blocks as and when you need them. Note, the cooldown of your elite elemental's skill is faster than the 16 second internal cooldown of the trait so if you want to trigger Lesser Arcane Shield on every cast you will need to delay your skill casts. Alternately, you can keep things simple and accept that you will have access to the blocks every other elite elemental cast.

Crowd Control

In order to access your CC abilities you will generally be required to leave fire attunement (I know, sacrilege). On the brightside, all of your crowd control is ranged which can come in handy.

Hard CC:

• Comet - a 2 second daze
• Gale - a 4 second knockdown
• Glyph of Elementals - summoning your elite elemental in lightning provides access to a 1.5 second stun

Soft CC:

• Shatterstone 2.5 second chill
• Freezing Gust - 3.5 second chill
• Blinding Flash - 2 x 7.25 second blind
• Dust Devil - 1.75 second cripple and 7.25 second blind
• Magnetic Wave - 6 second cripple

Defensive Skills

Core ele has access to some powerful defensive skills on top of Final Shielding mentioned above.

• Signet of Restoration can be used whenever needed and will continue to provide constant passive sustain due to the earth trait Written in Stone
• Phoenix provides you with a consistent source of cleanse while providing more than 50% vigor uptime for more dodges
• Water Trident can be used when additional self-healing is required
• Swirling Winds is a 6 second projectile block for when you are struggling with ranged enemies
• Rock Barrier grants you 250 additional toughness (although watch out for this in instanced content relying on toughness based tanking), barrier, and 4.25 seconds of resistance allowing you to shrug off non-damaging conditions.
• Magnetic Wave is a 3 second projectile reflect (combined with swirling winds this gives you up to 9 seconds immunity to incoming projectiles)
• Obsidian Flesh gives 3 seconds of invulnerability to almost everything the game can throw at you - this is your get out of jail free card