Elementalist - S/F Fresh Air

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Strike damageMobility and Control

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:
Normal

Overview

A core version of the PvP archetype. Its role is to roam the map and +1 fights, quickly bursting down targets. With enough experience it could also win some duels, but you need to play it perfectly in 1v1s due to its lack of sustain. Scepter/Focus FA is one of the harder elementalist specs to master.

Being a core Ele build, it's available for F2P players as well.


Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus
Utility


Template Code

[&DQYfKykqJR50AHUATwFPAZAAkAAcAesAlwCWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACVgAxAAA=]
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Specializations


Equipment

Scepter
Focus
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic


Equipment Variants

Amulets and Runes

  • - makes the build a bit more forgiving to play in exchange for lower damage. Take if you go with this amulet.


Usage

General

  • Avoid 1v1s whenever possible, keep moving between capture points to outnumber fights and burst targets down.
  • The build's all about swapping in and out of every few seconds, made possible by which recharges Air whenever you land a critical strike.
  • Swapping to Air triggers which you should immediately follow up with a for instant burst damage. Entering this attunement also grants you Ferocity from for a few seconds, which is why most of your heavy hitting skills should land in this small time frame. More on that later.
  • Recharging Air: to recharge Air you need to score a critical hit. The fastest way to do it on attunements with slower skills is to start channeling the air autoattack just before leaving . Swapping attunements doesn't break the channeling and Arc Lightning is almost guaranteed to critically hit at least once.
  • This build can self-stack Might Might by blasting the fire field created by . Do not prioritize Might stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:
  • 's purpose is twofold.
    • Mobility: and are excellent movement skills that can help you disengage from fights if your defensive CDs ran out, or if you want to get to the other capture point as soon as possible.
    • Cleave: and are excellent AoE skills. Use these whenever you need to cleave a downed enemy or want to take a camp (ball up the NPCs in a corner beforehand).


Notable burst combos

These are some of the most common burst combos used by FA players. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.


From Fire:

  1. Optional: for the Might Might if you haven't used it already to cleanse conditions and think you can afford to sacrifice an otherwise defensive CD for a damage boost.
  2. Optional: Autoattack 1-2x to stack Might Might and Burning Burning for trait synergy. This could maximize your damage but slows down the combo a bit. With this Phoenix and Dragon's Tooh should hit about the same time, this could deal massive damage BUT also makes it easier to negate your entire combo with 1 dodge. If you skip this step and land Phoenix while DT is still up in the air then it could force enemies to commit more defensives or facetank at least one part of your combo.
  3. - optional: right at your target before you finish casting Phoenix to cut down on the projectile's travel time.
  4. - swap to this just before Phoenix is about to hit the target. Note: swapping out of fire triggers an explosion from , dealing considerable damage. Swapping to Air while in melee range of the target therefore adds more damage to your combo.


From Earth:

  1. then swap to during the channeling to make the projectiles land in the right attunement.


From Water:

  1. - the trident does more damage to Chilled enemies which is important. Shatterstone should secure that but could substitute it.
  2. just before Shatterstone and Water Trident hit the target.


Survival

  • makes it easy to kite most specs. Avoid melee range whenever possible! Don't stay in melee unless the target is Blinded, CC'd or you're about to burst them.
  • is a source of spammable Chill Chill which you can even place behind your back when running away. Chill is great at building distance.
  • Needless to say other CCs can also be used for shaking off pursuers.
  • and provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.
  • is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.
  • offers protection against all kinds of pressure.
  • Swapping to Fire procs a Fire Aura from and gaining an aura removes 1 condition via . In the 5th slot on Fire you'll find a skill which grants the same aura, but if you already have the aura it flips over to its chain skill . Smothering Auras removes 2 conditions when you transmute an aura.
  • If you need to cleanse a lot of conditions do the following chain:
  1. - cleanses 1 condition as you gain an aura.
  2. - cleanses 2 conditions.
  3. Use Focus #5 , removing yet another condition.
  4. Transmute again for another 2 cleanses.
  5. if necessary for another cleanse.
  • is great at avoiding crucial skills by blinding enemies, and it also shuts down Power-based specs in general with the Weakness.


Related Builds

  • Freshweaver - a higher damage version of the build that's even harder to play. Bit of a gimmick, it's arguably less viable than core.
  • FA Roamer - WvW roaming version of the same build.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 5 votes.
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4 stars
Hanz gave this build 4 stars • October 2023
Updated it for the relic patch, actually saw a few eles switching to this in ranked after Cata nerfs. I don't think core is better overall, but it could do a bit more damage and has better cleansing. Reduced recharge on Fire skills isn't bad either. It's surprisingly good once you get the hang of it.
3 stars
Ssendink gave this build 3 stars • May 2019
Decent build for f2p players, but lack of all
4 stars
ShaoAZ gave this build 4 stars • March 2019
With all the changes the core specs got, it's hard to say if Freshweaver is actually better than this one if played with Fire. With more control over skills at a loss of a rather telegraphed burst of weaver, core gets to be more volatile and organized, which is arguably putting the player in a better place for any type of situation. IMO water should not be used any longer as long as a focus is involved, the might , damage increase and cleanses in Fire are way more accessible and efficient for dueling.
5 stars
FalkonLink gave this build 5 stars • May 2018
This build has given me quite a bit of success. After a few matches I swapped out S/F for D/D to see if it would make a difference and ended up far more successful.
5 stars
Walle gave this build 5 stars • January 2018
This build has given me the most success with ele so far I still find ele squishy that's why I only put good but obviously that's just the current shape ele is in. I really enjoy playing this build

Comments

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