Guild Wars 2

I’ve been leveling up my ele and it’s on the homestretch to 80 so I’m trying to look at what type of builds I want to be running. I’ve noticed a lot of the ele builds use evasive arcana but I’ve just found that I really don’t like that particular trait.

So are there any decent builds that forego taking Evasive Aracana? My foreseeable future is going to be PvE and WvW content, so I don’t really need the top tier competitive builds.

EDIT: If it helps my preferred weapons are Staff and D/D or D/F. Tried really hard to like scepter, but never quite feels right.

Going below 20 Arcana is not really optimal, but I guess you can forgo EA if you’re not really looking to be competitive. My first question would be what it is about the trait that you don’t like, because it’s such an amazing multi-tasker.

That aside, I’d also have at least 15 in Water to give yourself some sustain. From there it really depends on what you’re going for. What are you aiming to do with the build?

elemental surge works really well in spvp

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Leuca.5732:

Going below 20 Arcana is not really optimal, but I guess you can forgo EA if you’re not really looking to be competitive. My first question would be what it is about the trait that you don’t like, because it’s such an amazing multi-tasker.

That aside, I’d also have at least 15 in Water to give yourself some sustain. From there it really depends on what you’re going for. What are you aiming to do with the build?

Mostly I just don’t like dodging when I don’t have to. I still rely heavily on dodging to not die so wasting endurance to produce an effect I don’t find particularly useful just makes the trait feel wasted. When I dodge away things are rarely in range and when I dodge into things to hit with the effects my life-span become significantly shorter. The earth burst feels like the only one that’s really useful anyway, and only because it’s a blast finisher. I get the importance of building might, my main is an HGH engineer, and it’s cool that blasting like that can share the fun, but doing so usually leaves me feeling like I’m in an awkward situations afterward because I wasted a lot of endurance and CDs to do it. Beyond that I just feel like I’m not getting the mileage out of it as a grandmaster trait.

As far as what I’m hoping to do, I don’t really have a set plan. I’d like to start running dungeons but I don’t have a set ‘role’ in mind. I’ve been a fan of staff for events thanks to the water fields and control effects, but it probably won’t being the damage people are expecting for that sort of thing.

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

I thought about it but from what I’ve read and what little I’ve seen trying it out it might not be the best option for PvE and WvW.

its not great in pve or wvw

Hyena.2037:

Mostly I just don’t like dodging when I don’t have to. I still rely heavily on dodging to not die so wasting endurance to produce an effect I don’t find particularly useful just makes the trait feel wasted. When I dodge away things are rarely in range and when I dodge into things to hit with the effects my life-span become significantly shorter. The earth burst feels like the only one that’s really useful anyway, and only because it’s a blast finisher, and I get the importance of building might, my main is an HGH engineer, and it’s cool that blasting like that can share the fun. beyond that singular purpose I just feel like I’m not getting the mileage out of it I should for a grandmaster trait, and doing so usually leaves me feeling like I’m in an awkward situations afterward because I wasted a lot of endurance and CDs to do it.

As far as what I’m hoping to do, I don’t really have a set plan. I’d like to start running dungeons but I don’t have a set ‘role’ in mind. I’ve been a fan of staff for events thanks to the water fields and control effects, but it probably won’t being the damage people are expecting for that sort of thing.

I guess I tend to approach the trait from a SPvP perspective; I can see why the fire/air effects might not appeal to you as much in a PvE setting, though the water heal is definitely nice.

a 0/20/0/20/20 (leaving you 10 points to spare) will give you a lot of options when it comes to crit chance/damage, heals and utility. From there you have a few options:

1. Dip into Fire for some extra damage via Internal Fire or Spell Slinger

2. Dip into Earth for defense via Elemental Shielding or Earth’s Embrace. You can also use something like Serrated Stones to get a nice bonus by transitioning from Earth into Fire during combat and getting more damage out of Lava Font/Meteor Shower after Eruption, while also increasing bleed duration. I would save that trait more for PvE than anything else.

3. Max out your Air magic and get some extra precision/crit damage while adding to your offensive utility with Tempest Defense or Fresh Air. (Fresh Air is probably better suited for a scepter, which you don’t particularly like)

4. Max out Water, giving you amazing synergy within the entire traitline and increasing your potential condition removal/boon sharing with your team considerably. A trait like Cleansing Water will make your Healing Rain skill remove up to four conditions on everybody it affects instead of just the normal two, since it applies regeneration that will proc the trait.

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Chill + stealth.
But taking Frost bow with arcane power and elemental surge is for fun, not what I normally play.

TGSlasher.1458:

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Chill + stealth.
But taking Frost bow with arcane power and elemental surge is for fun, not what I normally play.

You cover a condition with another condition that should be covered?

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Chill + stealth.
But taking Frost bow with arcane power and elemental surge is for fun, not what I normally play.

You cover a condition with another condition that should be covered?

Yes. The chill is applied with the burn .. then say Mr thief disappears into stealth for a while without the stealth removes conditions …. dead.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’m a little curious about aura sharing. It seems like it could be useful with the earth trait that gives it protection, but are they really that useful with their cool downs being what they are? Up until now I’ve been using them more as emergency buttons or a might builder in the case of fire shield, so it feels a little strange to create a build around them, but then I haven’t been in many situations where it might be worth trying quite yet.

Also, what about Persisting Flames? I know it’s a deep investment in fire, but AoE Fury on fire busts sounds kind of awesome, and longer fire fields doesn’t sound too bad either.

Hyena.2037:

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’m a little curious about aura sharing. It seems like it could be useful with the earth trait that gives it protection, but are they really that useful with their cool downs being what they are? Up until now I’ve been using them more as emergency buttons or a might builder in the case of fire shield, so it feels a little strange to create a build around them, but then I haven’t been in many situations where it might be worth trying quite yet.

Also, what about Persisting Flames? I know it’s a deep investment in fire, but AoE Fury on fire busts sounds kind of awesome, and longer fire fields doesn’t sound too bad either.

Powerful Aura isn’t quite as strong as it used to be, but it’s still a valid option.

The problem with going that far into fire is that it decreases your survivability immensely; as soon as you switch from staff to d/d or d/f in WvW you’ll probably die. Fury’s also common enough that you’ll really mostly be benefiting from the prolonged fire fields, which isn’t really an issue to begin with because most of their durations are fine.