Guild Wars 2

Since different attunements have different weakness and different sources of damage, to keep constantly changing between them with traits focused on one or two elemental lines feel a bit like a waste; even ignoring how many traits are focused on specific attunements, some stats are also more useful for an attunement than for others (condition damage is more important under Earth Attunement than Air Attunement, for example).

In order to deal with this, I was thinking about using an “all traits” build, focusing on switching attunements often. Something like:

• Fire 15
• Air 15
• Earth 15
• Water 15
• Arcana 10

Coupled with Runes of Divinity. This would give an even spread of stats, plus all the minor traits linked to bonuses when switching attunements, and 10 in Arcana would reduce a bit the cooldown between attunements without sacrificing the other stats.

My question is, would this kind of build be viable in PvE, or would it be too inferior to more specialized builds?

personally i find it more beneficial to build around certain skill usage rather then elements, lets assume your gonna use all elements pretty much equally. you default air for speed boosts, generally combo fire/earth for blasts, stay in earth abit, the switch 2 water for a bit of group heals, or slows or in my case an extra aura, then switch back and rotate to what is situationally neccessary.

there are plenty of traits which are not things such as +10% dmg to fire etc, try building around a utility set such as signets, cantrips or arcane. personally i like cantrips and use regen,vigor on cantrip as well as 3 stacks might, and also regens grant cure. investing at least 15 into arcana is always worth while, and personally i think 20 is, if your staff, larger areas. if your sceptre or daggers, vigor on crit is amazing, you can easyily keep up vigor indefinately, specially when used with cantrips and fury builds.

anyways my experience is focusing heavyily on 1 element just dont work, as elementalists our skills are not that great singularly but as a whole they are very versatile when used correctly. i think for that same reason conjured weapons will always be a joke, as you give up everything that an elementalist is, for a weapon with no combo opportunitys.. they normally have finishers or fields but not both which would be fine if evasive arcana wasnt removed.

personally conjurers should just be another mage class.. it shouldnt be tied into ele’s because it just doesnt synergise.. unless they were like kits.

Yes it would be viable.
But u need some vitality and toughness gear. u can also use vit/crit and vit/condition
I use 15,15,10,20,10 to get Soothing Disruption & Cleansing Wave traits. and its works great with D/D.

You seem to be assuming Lingering Elements isn’t bugged.

Anyhow, the importance of attunement cooldown relates in part to the planned playstyle. For example, I’m a very “standstill” player, so I don’t have the patience to bleed an enemy out with Stone Shards, so I need rapid cycling of attunements when I play Scepter/Dagger.

But Arcane aside, it’s probably better to trait for the actual traits than for the stat points. Many builds are light enough on condition removal that Cleansing is a really good idea. Quick Glyphs, Elemental Attunement, and the GoEH choice for Heal give a lot of Regeneration and/or Swiftness. Other combinations can also boost condition clears, regeneration, and speed.

For play-styles with a lot of dodging, vigor traits may be crucial.

And then there are traits that buff particular skill groups — Quick Glyphs (again), Blasting Staff, the aura traits, and so on.

! There’s no “Lingering Elements” in my build or Erasculio’s.

Whoops; good point! Sorry!

This will make you a 100% jack-of-all-trades build. It’ll be good, but be prepared to not excel at any one thing.

I’d recommend taking 2 each of Runes of the Monk and Runes of the Water. Combine that with the 10% in Arcane and the trait that gives boons when you swap attunements, and you’ll keep tons of boons up on yourself. It’ll make the build even better.