Guild Wars 2

I’m fairly new to GW2 and I’m kind of stuck in a spot. I have a level 80 ele, but I still don’t really know how to work an ele. I’ve been trying to figure out what eles are good at and what builds I can do, but I can’t seem to find anything that matches what I want. Also, I love to play D/D instead of staff. I like to get into action instead of standing back and pressing buttons. I have no idea what to do for armor, or the traits, or anything. I don’t really understand most of how builds work and go together, but I am still learning everyday. But I am leaning towards more of a defensive build instead of glass cannon. But I also don’t want to be completely powerless. Anything will really help. Thanks!

PvE or WvW? For PvE, high damage almost always wins. Survivability has a much greater impact in WvW where your fights don’t follow a pattern unlike in PvE. You’ll want to have different setups for both modes.

I use a build that is reasonable good in both PvP and WvW.
I use signet of restoration and in most situations I use signet of Air, signet of Earth and signet of water (swapping the last in case I want the icebow for some specific dungeon).
I have 30 points in Earth trait line and use the master trait ‘Written in Stone’. This means that the passive effects off the traits keeps active when I use the traits.

So I always:
- heal for 202 for each spell I cast (spamming one is often better when your on low health then to activate a power attack that takes time to load)
- 25% increased movement speed (and mobility is important for an Ele)
- 160 touchness
- remove a condition every 10 seconds.

While I can also use these skills to heal me, blind my foe, immobilize them and chill them.

I know this means you don’t have a lot off offense in your utility skills. but you can use e.g. fiery greatsword as your elite to solve that. Besides, due to the rotation between attunements I rarely have skill on cooldown.

I personally don’t use d/d a lot but it is very viable for this setup.

TL;DR at the bottom.
Obviously it differs per aspect of the game, but due to the level 80 part I’m guessing it’s either WvW or PvE. Elementalist main shine in being able to put down long-lasting/low cooldown Fire fields (and for WvW Staff with Waterfields) and the ability blast them along with high DPS (but also low base-armor/low base-HP) but they can do this in multiple weaponsets, not just D/D and Staff. There’s always; D/F, S/D, S/F, all at their max potentional within 600m range (due to the range of party-wide buffs any class applies this goes for any class/weapon) I’d start building a set-up that fits you by picking a weaponset, then matching up the traits and lastly fit the gear with it.

For PvE:
The weapon I think suits your needs most would be; Dagger/Focus. Focus provides long-lasting firefields for offensive support aswell as strong defensive capabilities to keep yourself alive such as; Air-4 for anti-projectile, Air-5 for a knockdown, Earth-4 for Condition Removal, short-anti-projectile and Earth-5 for Invulnerability.

To have access to the survivability from your weapons on-demand I’d recommend going atleast 30 in Air for Fresh Air so it won’t affect your damage as much. Rest would be up to your preferance though I personally am a big fan of 30/30/10/0/0 to provide my group with Fury on top of Might due to Persisting Flames. Due to Persisting Flames I always take Arcane Brilliance as Heal and Arcane Wave in my utilities, the other 2 depend on the fight. Think skills such as Signet of Fire, Arcane Shield, Glyph of Storms (Earth) or Cantrips. Cantrips are likely the best options we have towards survivability since we’re simply a very squishy class.

Lastly you gear, as an Elementalist (and due to the condition cap) it’s usually recommend to go Power-based. I’d recommend a healthy mixture of Berserker/Knight/Soldier/Valkyrie etc. depending on your preferances, obviously Berserker being the highest DPS-option and Soldier the highest Survivability. It’s one of the few places an Elementalist can find some passive survivability (along-side Signet of Earth.)

For WvW Zerging
You’ll almost always be stuck in Staff due to the supportive (Waterfields and (near-perma) Firefield, AoE Swiftness for moving around) and AoE capabilities in PTV gear with points into Water-Magic of likely Earth for more survivability and support. I don’t use my Elementalist in WvW anymore so no up to date build.

For Roaming the bursty style of D/D will likely be fantastic, but I prefer roaming with other classes, so someone else can help you out a lot better.

TL;DR: Try out some other weaponsets, my recommendation;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAo9mEEVZAPiBkwDBgBKgRhOQ8wCcAOE-jQxAYLhQiAIVAQXjpcJiqBA-e

One thing for D/D – if you have attunement hotkeys still set to F1-F4, I really recommend switching them, unless it’s really easy for you to switch fast using those. Personally, I’m a girl with small hands, so I changed mine to V, R, T, and Z, respectively. Makes constant swapping with daggers much easier. If you haven’t gotten the hang of it already, practice switching these until you can do it at a split-second’s notice. D/D is fast-paced, and you shouldn’t be in any one attunement for long.