Guild Wars 2

First of all hello.

What is really important about this thread is the fact that it is created with the sole purpose of asking questions about the elementalist profession. It is not that I can’t find answers in the forums or by searching individually but I get the feel that a lot of people turn to this profession (both new players to the game, like me, and people that want to see the profession itself) so I figured that instead of rummaging through pages upon pages of threads trying to gather a bit of information here and there, we could create a thread that will cover things that new elementalists need to know.

One thing that potential interested people need to know is that this thread will try to aim to the PvE side of things. From what I’ve seen elementalists are really fun to play in PvP and WvW but there is only a very small margin covering the PvE elementalist. (Also bear in mind that this is my personal preference, anyone interested can post anything about the profession covering any aspect they feel they are interested in.)

So without further ado, the Elementalist.

Up to lvl 57 that I am now I have figured out, by trial and error mostly, that the Elementalist is one of the most, if not the most, versatile profession of the game. This versatility comes from the four different attunements we have that provide a series of spells according to element and weapon set currently equipped.

Leveling as the elementalist so far had not proved that much tricky considering that dying is never far away (if you are not careful) regardless of what kind of weapon you use. I used to run S/D (scepter main-hand/dagger off-hand) until 30ish, when I turned to the staff and now I am currently killing things with D/D (dual dagger) stance dancing like mad, trying to weave into the rotation signets/sigils and cantrips. If I am no entirely mistaken you can pretty much level up with anything you like.

This small introduction, hopefully not a terribly boring one, will bring me to the list of questions that I have in mind for the elementalist.

TRAITS

The list of traits of the elementalist is:

Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Arcana.

While I am tempted to ask what is the best trait combo to level up, I will resist the urge since I am certain that upon hitting 80, the traits invested in leveling will be refunded and relocated to fulfill certain roles.

Question #1:
Is there a cookie-cutter (most default) build for an aspiring PvE elementalist? If yes, what is it?

I am pretty sure that is a strange question to be answered considering the nature of the game and the profession itself but nonetheless here goes nothing.

Question #2:
I’ve seen a lot of threads talking about the support ele, providing auras, boons and regeneration. What is that?

Again a question that is somewhat difficult to answer, but please make the effort

Question #3:
Arcana Trait Line. Since I am a stance-dancer, doesn’t that mean that I have to max this line? To benefit from the attunement recharge rate?

Self-explanatory I think.

Question #4:
The last trait in the Water line talks about transferring auras to other allies (Powerful Auras). What are auras?

I seriously have no idea how auras work or what they are for that matter.

Question #5:
I am thinking of going an all-out asset to the party, being the support elementalist. Is the Water trait line necessary?

Once again, somewhat difficult but self-explanatory.

STATS & GEAR

This part of the questioning process will be a rather annoying one to answer based on the nature of the elementalist and the game itself, but I will try to ask straight-forward questions.

Question #6:
If I am to go support ele, will I need to stack healing power? Especially in Water line?

Simple one I think.

Question #7:
What are the best things an elementalist should look out for in gear?

I am aware that there are different stats for the damage build, and different stats for the support build, but I would very much like some general guidelines.

Question #8:
Is condition damage worth it? When compared to other professions (e.g. the necromancer) I only have damaging conditions on the S/D build.

Self-explanatory.

Question #9:
Can I play any kind of elementalist in PvE with any combination of weapons? Is the D/D build viable for dungeons or is Staff-S/D the way forward?

A question that has been bugging me for a while.

Question #10:
Could I possibly be the tank elementalist? I am pretty good at dodging.

Is a deep earth + toughness/vitality gear viable in dungeons? Not sure if that works yet, since I’m still leveling.

And that I think concludes the post for now. After all it’s just be opened and it would be good to get answers for the questions I think bug every new elementalist out there. Then we can proceed to even more questions

At this point it is safe to say, that if any of the above questions did not cover you, feel free to post your own covering anything you are interested in. (including PvP and WvW)

Please excuse any shabby English in there since it’s not my native language and let me thank you all in advance for the time you may or may not take to answer this rather “newbie” questionnaire.

Kudos to you!

auras are your skills on weapons: staff-earth-3, dagger(Main hand)-lightning-3, dagger(Off-hand)-water-4.

Cookie-cutter build right now is dagger/dagger 0/10/0/30/30 which allows you to share your auras and when traited they also provide fury and swiftness to you and your allies and also gives you huge survivability and mobility overall. Gear that most people use is P/V/T with runes for boon duration.

Too lazy to answer the rest. I’m sure there’s more people who are ready to answer all these

I can answer Question 5:

Auras are four specific weapon skills, found on different weapons.
- Fire Shield (Focus 5 fire)
- Frost Aura (Dagger 4 water)
- Shock Aura (Dagger 3 air)
- Magnetic Aura (Staff 3 earth)

What they have in common is that they do something to foes who hit you during their duration. Traits that refer to auras always refer to these skills. It is also possible for anyone (not just elementalists) to gain Fire Shield or Frost Aura by using a Leap Finisher in a fire or water Combo Field, respectively. (See http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo_field for more information.)

Obviously, I meant Question 4.

At level 80, your trait points will NOT be refunded. Instead, you get a free refund every time you use a trait book (at level 11, 40 and 60).

However, you can reassign your trait points any time you want by talking to your profession trainer (the NPC who sells those books), by asking to reassign your traits. This costs only 5c per trait point, so 3s50c at level 80.

(You only need to buy each trait book once, to unlock a higher tier of trait powers. You do NOT need to spend 2 gold on a trait book every time you want new traits. Some people actually made that expensive mistake in the past.)

Note: My answers were aimed more at PvP. In PvE people use what they feel comfortable with. I myself play full berserker with solider biju(except for ascended rings which are also berserk) and swapping between S/D and D/D depending on situations. Builds are also variable from 30/20/0/10/10 to obvious 0/10/0/30/30 depending on what i am doing and what group composition we have. There is people who use staff but it is actually very weak at all roles and are good only for people who are not comfortable with dodging and just want to stay at max range and be atleast somewhat useful for the group(There is only few encounters where staff can outperform S/D or D/D)

Thanks a lot for the answers!

It is true that now I have a better grasp of the profession itself, however I come across things that are still mystifying.

For instance, why should I go 0/10/0/30/30 if I don’t aim to play a dagger? Admittedly the water line has some nice things on it, but I thought that the Powerful Auras was the heavy asset here? If for instance I go S/D I can only throw around a single aura (if I’m not mistaken)

Also @benda:

You mentioned berserker’s gear. Isn’t that P/P/CritDmg? If yes, can you really support it with a cookie-cutter build? I mean, no heal power at all?

Overall, your answers were quite helpful, and I do hope I’m not becoming a pain in the butt with all my relentless questions

Cheers ^^

The main reason to put that many points in water is because of the 25-point minor trait, which gives you 2% extra damage for every boon active on you.

Putting 30 points in Arcana gives you access to many minor and major traits the grant boons (especially on attunement switch), as well as increased boon duration and reduced cooldown on attunement switching.

By using this combination, you can have a playstyle with rapid attunement switches, which all grant boons, often facilitated by combo finishers, that may provide you with even more boons (most notably might). And yes, there is a trait that also grants you 2 boons every time you activate an aura.

Your support doesn’t come from healing but from boons and auras you provide for your group, if you’re able to do that in berserk gear you will do more damage > be more useful for your group

1. The closest you’ll get to cookie cutter is the d/d 0/10/0/30/30 – great for pve and pvp

2. Staff eles have tons of skills that put down combo fields. To learn about these I STRONGLY suggest looking up the wiki article on Combos. In a group setting, where other members will have tons of finishers, this can be quite potent, spreading boons everywhere.

Sharing Auras comes from Powerful Auras – one of the last traits in water. More on this later. Essentially shares any Aura you gain on yourself to nearby group members.

3. No, I played with only 20 arcana for a long time and didn’t really have any issues with rotations. Comes down to personal preference

4. Not sure if I have a good way to straight up describe them, they’re like a Stance that have beneficial effects, but are not boons. They’re scattered across the different weapon sets that eles have and can also be gained through combos and traits. Ones I know best for d/d are Shocking Aura (air3) and Frost Aura (w4). Staff gives you Magnetic Aura (e3).

Auras that you gain can then be shared to your party through Powerful Aura (400 range – wiki).

The above mentioned auras and the fire one i didn’t mention WILL be shared. Auras gained through traits WILL be shared. Auras gained through combos will NOT be shared.

5. If you want to play Aurashare, yes, necessary. Otherwise no, but this would give you better healing, and everyone likes healing. Depends on personal preference and what your group expects/needs out of you.

6. IF your group wants to abuse your combo fields only and each individual member has enough heals, no. You can spec for more damage.

IF your group needs you for heals, you should be all over that Cleric’s gear.

7. Depends on playstyle and build. I made a post in this thread (3rd post) about what I use and why so I won’t repeat it all here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Some-gear-questions-about-the-elementalist/first#post1306814

8. People have crunched the numbers, I can’t refer you to those threads or people, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one, but the end was result was that we can’t do it as efficiently and so get what Condition damage you can through might stacks and your bleeds and burns will be nice extra damage, but forget about straight builds for it.

9. In PvE I’ve never had trouble playing with any weapon sets, though I did stay away from Focus. Once you find a build you like or find your niche in your dungeon group you’ll start favouring one or the other. But by all means, try them all and see what you like

10. Yes they are viable as long as you dodge what you need to. I run PVT in dungeons and pvp. Earth isn’t a necessity, since being in that close with the other melee, aurashare might benefit you more. Again, depends on your group composition, but definitely viable.

Thank you all very much for the time you took to answer all the questions I had. I have to admit that now I am faring much better with the elementalist.

I will return with more questions I am sure, but for now you can feel safe.

Thanks once again

Hello again everyone!

As promised I came back with even more questions about the elementalist and hopefully this time they will be a bit more specific.

This time it will be about:

ARMOUR, RUNES & SIGILS

As mentioned in earlier replies, the choice of gear varies depending on what style you want to play, but I feel that the options are too many and since I’m close to 80 I thought I should maybe narrow down the things I like.

The three types of armor that I like to try out and use are the following:

Berserker’s
Valkyrie
Soldier’s

In all fairness I am looking at the first two, because I think that the soldier’s armour will be a bit too tank for my “refined tastes”. What do you think?

In case you are wondering you can find those types of armour along with a complete list here.

Moving on to runes.

Now I will have to be frank. I have no idea how those work or if they work, or how difficult are they to acquire/craft. Still I checked the list and came up with the ones that I think will work better for me and my build (here bear in mind that I think I made my mind about the cookie-cutter build D/D or S/D).

Rune of the Centaur
Rune of Earth
Rune of Mercy
Rune of Dwayna
Rune of the Flock
Rune of the Monk
Rune of Water
Rune of Altruism

Again, which one of those (if any) or any combinations, are decent for a D/D or S/D 0/10/0/30/30 elementalist, according to your opinion and experiences.

You can find a complete rune list here.

Lastly I followed the exact same way about sigils (which apparently are equipped on weapons).

Sigil of Restoration
Sigil of Strength
Sigil of Water

The question here is the following (besides the obvious one). The Sigil of Strength says that you have a chance to apply might on critical strike. You apply might to you or to allies? If you apply might to you, does it benefit in any way the rest of the group according to this build of elementalist?

For a list of sigils check here.

I posted the lists I checked before coming up with my own personal preferences in case there are new people out there that might have the same questions as I do. Usually I am not that meticulous :P

So once again, thank you very much for the time you may or may not take to read this post and answer.

Cheers ^^

My personal (limited) stance on stats is that you EITHER want a lot of +Precision, so that you have a critical rate of 50% or better, OR no +Precision at all, because a low critical rate is simply not worth the stat points.

I’m taking the second road with my own elementalist. Instead of trying to rely on criticals, I am going for Power (for reliable damage) and Toughness (for damage reduction), with secondary but still significant boosts to Vitality, Condition Damage and Healing Power.
For example, the stats on my armor are about 50% Cleric’s (Power/Toughness/Healing) and the rest Carrion (Power/Vitality/Condition Damage). For runes, I use Rune of Melandru for Toughness and condition mitigation.
I have not yet settled on sigils on my weapons, and I am also still undecided on my jewelry, because ascended items only offer a limited set of stat combinations.

With close to 1000 hours on ele, I’ll do my best to think back to my leveling days and answer your questions accordingly

Question #1:
Is there a cookie-cutter (most default) build for an aspiring PvE elementalist? If yes, what is it?
- Yes, I would focus on Water Trait Line primarily, as ele does require a lot of attunement dancing and boons to remain viable, and you wont have enough trait points or understanding of the class until you reach 80 and beyond. Even there you’ll probably almost always have 20-30pts in Water. We are a squishy light armor class, we become tanky by learning how to maintain boons and dancing around like a ninja. The 0/10/0/30/30 trait lines are very common with many weapon sets for ele. Toughness is just a stupid concept in the game, imo, I’d rather have more vitality. As a jack of all trades class, there’s no reason to max out a glass cannon build in precision/power and just stick to nuking in fire attunement, that’s just stupid. A balanced approach between healing and power/precision is best. I have run multiple builds that do not require 30 in arcane, and they work just fine, especially for early levels and a lot of pve content… but the more time you spend in dungeons and WvW/PvP the more you will need that extra cooldown, and equally if not more important, boon duration. Boons and combo fields/finishers are your lifeblood as an ele.

Question #2:
I’ve seen a lot of threads talking about the support ele, providing auras, boons and regeneration. What is that?
Aura’s are basically a shield you provide yourself that give different benefits to you and problems to your enemies. Aura’s can be enhanced through traits to add boons when Aura’s are applied and both the aura’s benefits as well as the boons associated with them can be shared AoE with 30 points in water, trait 11. A d/d ele can perma swift a 5 man team, you can perma fury yourself and a 5 man team through aura’s and attunement swaps and a little bit of boon duration.

Question #3:
Arcana Trait Line. Since I am a stance-dancer, doesn’t that mean that I have to max this line? To benefit from the attunement recharge rate?
Not necessarily. However it’s not just the lower cooldown on attunement, but also the boon duration to consider. Also, the best ele’s out there understand there is a reason we are given the best access to combo fields and finishers, and having 30 in arcane does give you one extra blast finisher. If you’re not playing a style heaving on combo’s and boon stacking, you’re severely limiting yourself as an ele and might as well go play warrior or ranger

Question #4:
The last trait in the Water line talks about transferring auras to other allies (Powerful Auras).
Hopefully I’ve already answered that, as well as some of the other responders to your questions Just basically a shield you put on yourself, fire aura burns foes, frost aura chills them, shock aura dazes them, all when they hit you. And with 10 pts in air for Trait 1 each time you apply an aura to yourself you gain swiftness and fury. With 30 pts in water each time you apply an aura to yourself it gives it to anyone in range. That means each time you apply that aura to yourself, you teammates get it also, AS WELL AS swiftness AND fury. This is why in group play the auramancer build is extremely popular

Question #5:
I am thinking of going an all-out asset to the party, being the support elementalist. Is the Water trait line necessary?
For one of two reasons yes. Either a staff ele with regen and condition removal support (splash healing using 6 runes of water), or a d/d or scepter/dagger ele for aurashare and AoE might stacking (boon duration runes including two runes of the monk, two runes of water, and two runes giving might duration). I have a different armor set with different runes depending on what wep set I want to use, but primarily just run P/T/V with the runes I listed for aurashare (boon duration).

OK, answers to your second set of questions…

All of my answers are for basic, cookie-cutter pve. I have multiple sets of weps, armor, etc, but I primarily WvW and run dungeons for money, so I often swap stuff around depending on what I’m doing… however, here’s my recommendation regarding a basic pve build that works well for everything with either s/d or d/d.

If you’re a straight PvE player, then zerkers all the way. If you know how to attunement dance, balance your boons, etc. then you should never be squishy. And for pete’s sake, it’s PvE, npc’s attack about once per second. Now, you’re fairly new to the class and things really open up once you hit 80 and beyond and really learn what you’re doing, so if you still feel squishy, go for a power/vitality/condition damage if possible, that extra vitality will save you. I’m not a fan of toughness… ever… but just personal preference… I’d rather have the extra vit.

regarding runes, two runes of the monk from AC armor and 2 runes of water… this adds a lot of boon duration, which again is your lifeblood as a d/d or s/d ele. There’s no argument here, this is how the class and wep set was designed. After that you have 2 more spots, which can either be runes of hoelbrak/strength/fire for might duration or citadel/rage for fury duration in my opinion.

Sigils are a choice, although with a dual wep set and a PvE focus, I’d get one stacking sigil (like corruption/bloodlust etc) and one perm stat (like 5% extra dmg). Another option would be sigil of fire for the AoE fireblast, but that would be best if used with precision heavy gear.

Jewelry and trinkets… don’t know if you realized when I talked about armor, but really you want to start out slightly tankier and work your way towards more damage as your skill with the class increases. So if you still feel squishy, get knights stat jewels and as you get better with the class replace them with zerkers.

Missed some of your questions, here ya go… wow I’m spending a lot of time on this thread

Question #6:
If I am to go support ele, will I need to stack healing power? Especially in Water line?

I’d spend more time regarding which traits you take thinking more about how those traits work together instead of the extra points you get for them… meaning if you’re taking 30 in water, it’s to be an auramancer d/d or to work off conditions with staff. If you’re going glass cannon staff bomber then probably nothing in water, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re all precision and power for traits, weps/armor/accessories add a lot more to that than trait lines do. Build your trait lines for the traits themselves. My point being, the 300 pts in vitality and healing power really don’t add up to much, most ele’s put 30 in water not for the points, but for the traits you can get at the top tier. S/D and D/D ele is an offensively-minded support role, sharing swiftness and fury through aura’s and stacking insane amounts of might, in order to do this you need 30 in water, not for the points, but to share the benefits from your aura’s, you’d also need 10 in air. If you just solo’ing around Tyria, there’s no need for 30 in water, throw that into Fire or Air for more dmg.

Question #7:
What are the best things an elementalist should look out for in gear?

Personal preferences here. I have 2 gear sets, but I’m primarily a WvW’er. I have a PVT set that I use with my auramancer, and I disagree with above post regarding damage output, if you know how to stack boons and might, the extra vitality and toughness is far more beneficial for WvW and you can still hit hard (not as hard as a thief or glass cannon warrior, but you’re far more versatile than that)… My other set is my support set, which is an all Precision/Vit/Healing Power set and I use staff for that. I have a sup rune of water and water runes. I use a lot of the AoE more for crowd control than anything and focus more on passive and active healing my team and condition removal.
For PvE however (if I ever did that anymore, except dungeon runs) I’d rock a straight zerkers gear on everything and probably never die… but I’ve been playing this class for a long time. As your skill increases, you need for toughness should drop to 0 and vitality should drop substantially, still keep some though.

Question #8:
Is condition damage worth it? When compared to other professions (e.g. the necromancer) I only have damaging conditions on the S/D build.

Yes and no, I vote no. Burning is minimal and easily removed. Bleed stacks are so/so for ele in s/d and that’s about it. I’d either focus on crit or power, you’re going to pick up some extra damage from, say churning earth bleed stacks, but I wouldn’t build an entire playstyle around conditions.

Question #9:
Can I play any kind of elementalist in PvE with any combination of weapons? Is the D/D build viable for dungeons or is Staff-S/D the way forward?

I play whatever weapon set best compliments my team. If I’m in a mainly melee dungeon group, I’m running scepter/dagger and just stacking might like it’s my job (cuz in that team, it is). If I’m with a bunch of ranged players, I’ll spend more time running support on staff, don’t want to be the only melee character taking damage. If I’m in a mixed group of 2 melee and 2 ranged, I’ll usually run d/d. I’m I’m just running around solo’ing, it’s whatever I feel like playing with at the time, it’s pve, it’s easy, it’s just practice

Question #10:
Could I possibly be the tank elementalist? I am pretty good at dodging.
There are some good tank builds that some use for sPvP, but I don’t really see why you’d bother for any other gameplay except in the Mists. Why tank? In wvw you’ll just get zerged by too many people, in dungeons you’ve likely got other characters more suited for it and in PvE it’s just so easy to steamroll over everything, why bother with a tank build.

I will say quickly that for straight PvE, especially solo’ing… my favorite build is a 10/10/10/25/15 in d/d. Carry cantrips for extra might and protection, and boon duration runes. All zerkers gear

Woah indeed!

Thanks a ton for the time you took Slim, as I thank everyone else for their contribution to this thread.

Personally I now have a much better idea on how I should experiment with the elementalist and with what, and I intend to do it as soon as possible. I also hope this thread will help others like it helped me.

I also hope that I did not annoy you or anything, cause soon I will most likely be back with even more questions that need answering.

Once again, thanks a bunch

I run full cleric gear with some sort of vitality+healing power accesories.
2 runes of water, 2 runes of the monk and 2 major runes of sanctuary.
sigil of force for 5% extra damage
sigil of health or something to stack more healing power
traits are: 10/0/10/30/20 because when you use your cantrips and use combo fields you get 7ish boons (+14% damage) +5% from sigil +15 might giving you decent damage.

result is a decent survivable healer with decent damage output. Not the best at any one thing but able to run with any group.
also instead of aurasharing I have the remove condition upon giving or getting regeneration which turns all your cantrips into condition removal spells.

Hello all! Back with more questions!

First off, I finally hit 80 and I am very proud for that. Please, please stop clapping :P

Now on to more important questions:

I had in mind to create a full soldier’s kit so I can go in dungeons and learn to play the profession, but so far I haven’t been able to find any. By that I mean I had some money stashed so I can buy 80 lvl masterwork gear of the soldier (plus trinkets) but on the BLM I did not find any soldier’s cloth armor at all.

That naturally leads me to assume that there is another way to obtain such gear and I am woefully misinformed. In any case, I did find some trinkets (in fact all of them) of the soldier for bargain prices and I have those slots covered. As for the rest of the gear plus weapons, I’ve chosen to go with berserker’s and learn to play the profession the hard way. Either way I’m about to go dungeons with close friends/family so the retribution of my failure will not be too severe.

Now, the real question.

I have seen that maybe one of the biggest cons of this game is the tooltip section. It is just plain bad. Dagger2 (fire) and dagger2 (water) have exactly the same tooltip. However dagger2 (water) deals the increasing form of damage. Consequently I found a trait that I have some hard time explaining.

Arcane 25: Arcane Precision
Skills have a chance to apply a condition on critical hits.

So I am sitting there, looking at the trait trying to figure out what kind of conditions we are talking about. Conditions based on attunement? Conditions pre-set? What is the chance? 30% or lower? Is it worth it in the long run?

Anyone tips or info will be highly appreciated as usual

Thanks a lot in advance!

You can get Soldier’s (PVT) gear out of dungeons. The most popular one is Ascalon Catacombs explorable mode which takes 1380 tokens for a full set. The dungeon is fairly easy to do even with moderate gear. Also Eles are typically welcome because Frost Bow makes Paths 1 and 3 easy against the burrows. It’s extremely easy to get runs for this dungeon.

You can also buy the Soldiers gear from Temple Karma vendors, all but the legs. Each piece costs 42500 karma. Searching Google for “Dulfy Temple Gear” should tell ya everything you need. You can also buy the Soldier trinkets and such as needed from the Grenth Temple.

Dagger 2 Fire/Ice is a channeled attack. Any channeled attack in the game that has increasing damage is actually just the damage total for the entire channel. So each tick does 80 would display has 80, 160, 240, 320, 400 as in that one attack did 400 total to the target.

Arcane Precision has a (seemingly low) chance to proc whenever you perform a critical. So for example if you pull out a staff and sling Earth 1 at a dummy with Arcane Precision and lots of crit you will notice once every so often you will also add a Bleed to the target in addition to the standard Weakness.

Hey, mods! This need to be a sticky!

I know, off-topic. But I think more than just noobs can benefit from this thread.

Ele is a very complicated class. Take your time. I was well past 80 before I really figured out what I was doing, and that was 3 or 4 months ago… I’m better today then I was last week, and will be better next week. Huge learning curve for this class, but extremely worth it.

Because of that, ele’s seem to be shunned sometimes for dungeon runs simply because so many of us just haven’t had it all “click” yet in our minds. Those of us who have already powered through the learning curve, well, we know how much better we make our team, and our teams thank us for it. I constantly have people say in chat, “where the heck is all this might coming from? Is that you guardian?” People just don’t fully know what we’re capable of yet because it takes a while to get there, and so few ele’s really understand the class and what we excel at. It pains me when I join a pug dungeon group with another ele and think to myself, “man we’re really going to destroy this,” and then we get in and the other ele in there is just plinking away with staff 1 or meteor shower, or even worse, a d/d ele who has no idea what a combo is… Sad face

Keep working at it. My guild recently recruited two new ele’s, both are as experienced (or more so) as I am, we’ve been working as a team, we’ve been training other ele’s in our guild and from other guilds on our server (we’re a WvW focused guild). In a class as complicated as ours, if you have guys that know what they’re doing you can adjust and do something different, if one of my guys is running a s/d might stack build, I’ll switch up and aoe heal on staff, or aurashare on d/d and vice versa. Or sometimes we’ll both rock out a s/d build and our team pretty much permanently has 25 might stacks. 2 S/D ele’s that know what they’re doing are devastating. Our last FOTM run on lvl 26, two ele’s and 3 guardians, no one ever had less than 25 might, no one ever went down, and the guardians were begging us to come play with them again.

I’m an ele snob. I have 4 lvl 80’s in full exotics, but I will always be an ele snob, and it’s easy to see why. We are the best class in the game, especially regarding group dynamics and the benefits we can offer the group/party as a whole. The only one that won’t get boring over time because of the volume of things we can do, and have to do to be effective. But with anything, to achieve perfection takes time and effort, once this game is a year or two old, and lots of ele’s know what they’re doing, we’re going to be like the Monk of GW1, every LFG message in chat will include, “GLF more, ele’s please”

btw, I was a Monk in GW1

Hello again!

I am back with more of an update instead of a question, just to give the heads up to people who may be in the same positions as I am.

First off thanks for the answers about the soldier’s gear. I have to admit that I chose another path but even I cannot say when I’ll decided to go grab it and annoy people in WvW with my presence.

For almost 80 silver I covered the trinkets (neck, back, accessoriesx2, ringsx2) with soldier’s gear. For the armor I got 6 pieces of 80 lvl masterwork berserker’s (green) gear for the total sum of 12 silver. Got 2 daggers, 1 scepter (rare), 1 staff, 1 trident, all of those for about 60 silver in total. The result is a bestial elementalist that can rampage through all of the low level territories (since I chose to use the downleveling system) with an impressive speed. Plus I am fairly confident that I can manage in any dungeon besides Fractals.

Also bear in mind that those prices are in my server, so there may be variations, but overall I think it was a bargain purchase.

Now the reason I said all this is for other new elementalists out there that might want to get back to the toon, or discover it from the beginning like I did, and might not know where to start. Browsing this thread you can also find build(s) and trait allocation that can help you do just that.

As for the profession and its learning curve, I have to say that I am pleased. It is not that I am the best there is out there but I always relished a challenge. Being 80 for almost a day now has only showed me that up to now, I’ve only managed to scratch the surface of the elementalist as a whole and that is something I like in a game such as this. There will be always room for improvement and I have to agree that most likely I’ll never get bored of the profession.

We have everything. Damage, boons, auras. Last night I cleared an area with my brother (warrior) and I had lots of fun going in with the dagger3(fire), dance to earth4 and then aurashare my air3, all the while stacking might so that we could actually bull-rush through the whole area (yes it’s lower than 80) with ease and speed. It was rather special and I can’t wait to get into dungeons and give people the tools to get the job done.

I have no idea what it is going to be like in a month or so, what will be changed/removed/altered/buffed/nerfed but this profession gave me something I always valued in mmos. The feeling that I am needed somewhere. Maybe that was the reason I only managed to level healers back in my WoW days. Still, whether I am the support, the aura-giver, the might-stacker, the staff-healer or the glass cannon I will enjoy this game immensely. Because at the end of the day, taking out of the equation runes/boons/traits/GENERALLYNUMBERS you are left with pure, wild, 15 year old child fun. And I think that is what matters.

Once again thanks for the answers everyone, I seriously hope you won’t be annoyed by my incessant need to question everything, and let me tell you (or warn you, pick one :P) I will be back with more.

Cheers

I feel bad for people who are annoyed by someone else’s enthusiasm You’re doing great and asking all the right questions, seeking help the right way and listening to people who know more than you, so kudos. While I feel I have a great grasp of my main profession, I’m constantly asking questions and seeking guides for my mesmer, thief, guardian, etc. No one is an expert at everything.

If you ever need some help you’re welcome to send me a mail in game. I run an ele training guild on our server (Maguuma) to get all our WvW guys up to snuff. Be glad to run a dungeon with you some time and see how you’re doing.

just a point, the TP is cross server, so the prices are the same everywhere iirc.

And once again hello!

I am here yet with another update of my adventures with the elementalist. First off thanks for the tip that TP is cross server. In that case you can get a nice set of masterwork gear (including trinkets) for a bargain price.

I came across some money in game and upgraded my green armor to yellow berserker’s armor for 2.5g (the downside is that the Masquerade set looks terrible if you put the mask on and do not have the right dyes to paint it) but generally it was a good purchase. A couple of berserker’s weapons too.

I also did my first 3 fractals. Aside from the fact that these dungeons have to be the best PvE encounters I played in all my MMO time (Cliffside Fractal, hell yeah!) I realised that the elementalist is a great asset in the group. We were 2 warrs, a mesmer, a guardian and an elementalist. I found myself popping back and forth between D/D and S/D just to put some healing down were it was needed and switch again when some more consistent damage was required.

Following that I realised that I want a pure-healing set. With water runes. And that brings me to this post’s main question.

How on earth can I manage to gather 6 runes of water for example? I assume that the major runes are the best in slot, for lack of a better term, but will I need to salvage (using the BL salvage kits) 6 exotic items? If that is the case, it will be quite painful. Also if I put a Major Rune in a rare item and then salvage it, will I be able to keep the rune?

I think that is all for now but I will be back. Once again your favourable replies will be highly appreciated

Cheers!