Guild Wars 2

I’ve been sifting through the forums, focusing primarily on the profession of Elementalist. Having been a part of this profession since launch, taking a hiatus due to work, and then coming back to, what many claim as refuse. I have to wonder about the state of the Elementalist.

I’ve seen and played with the 0/10/0/30/30 bunker build and its variations. I must be honest, while it survives in a war of attrition, it still doesn’t feel powerful. It feels more around the realm of “ok, I can heal myself through this and wait for an opening.” In short, I don’t feel proactive, but reactive in my bouts.

I’ve spent my time watching the streams of other Elementalists and, much to my dismay, the builds do not vary much. When I left GW2 the fist time, Elementalist were expected to trait 30 into Arcane. Now, I have learned that the requirements to play well have increased to include 30 points into Water (or no less than 15 ).

Now, it seems that this build, or the healing aspect, has come under the ever watchful eye of ANet. It is quite possible that a nerf is on the horizon (I hope not for my brethren’s sake).

Amid the hubba, though, some of the “top tier” players are even welcoming the possibility of a nerf. Some even mention that there are other viable builds.

Other viable builds. These words caught my interest. I would love to see these builds, tried and tested in the fires of the arena. More specifically, I am interested in builds that do not rely heavily on Arcane or Water (those bases have been covered).

In short, are there really other viable builds? What are they? And, most importantly, why are they not used regularly?

Amid the hubba, though, some of the “top tier” players are even welcoming the possibility of a nerf. Some even mention that there are other viable builds.

What ‘top tier players’ are you talking about?

I would argue that there are no other viable builds PvP/WvW-wise. They are certainly variations, but they are all based around the principle of having high Arcana with the 15+ Water, as you mentioned. Phantaram rolls 20Air/20Water/30Arcana with double Arcane nuke in his bursty S/D setup, which is also pretty good.

You can obviously play 30Air/30Fire + whatever and still do great in PvE or WvW as a very high damage Staff build that stays behind others, but it’s not really “viable” in any situation where you may take damage.

My currrent build is 10,30,0,0,30, I use Scepter/Dagger, I like it for PvE, can kill some people in WvW. Terrible for PvP though, also good for mobs, but not champs because blind and knockdown don’t work as well. I don’t know if thats “different” enough for you but its an idea

Viability is mostly a matter of perspective. A Lot of People consider erverything besides the 0/10/0/30/30 not viable simple because other specs do Not deliver the Same things.

the Problem is that water and arcane outshine fire and earth tremendously.

Well there is also 10/10/10/20/20 or 0/10/20/20/20 you could try ( or even 0/15/15/15/20). If you want to use 0/10/0/30/30 you could always use full berserker gear if you don’t feel like you do enough damage.

I can’t see any viable build that doesn’t go deep into arcane at least, simply because how much better we are with the attunement cooldown reduction.

9 sec attunement swap cooldown needs to be baseline imo. Any greater cooldown means you’re wasting time using our crappy #1 attacks.

Intigo.1653:

What ‘top tier players’ are you talking about?

Note the usage of quotes in the OP. I use it because its a familiar term that is used frequently on the forums to recognize popular streamers. As for my actual feelings on the matter…GW2 isn’t big enough for a real distinction among players in PvP.

Anyway, I am pretty much in agreement with what everyone has stated. I was just hoping that maybe…just maybe, someone found something with a different flavor. As for me, I am using 0/20/15/15/20. I’m still not the biggest fan of the Arcane line limiting choices, and I never will be. But yeah, I was hoping that some one found another useful build.

Since that doesn’t seem to be happening, I really wonder what will happen if the Elementalist is nerfed in the future.

Viable and possible are the same thing in your question.

However, to answer your question, for PvE there’s a good variety of choices for your build. Most will suit you just fine in most areas of the game, including dungeons and the lower tiers of fractals.

PvP however, I’d say there’s pretty much 1 or 2 viable builds and those are the cookie cutter standards. The reason for that is that you pretty much need defense and stunbreakers as an elementalist, or get creamed. Because the best traits are also linked to the stunbreakers, that means there’s not much to choose. It’s either best traits and defense against stuns, or lesser traits and no defense against stuns. So the cantrips win every time.

Just think about it. Cantrips are good on their own. The water trait line makes them stack even more boons, and remove conditions. Now compare that to signets (which are slightly weaker, and get less powerful (but still adequate) traits. Arcane is next but with its most powerful trait bugged, and the other traits less powerful than cantrips’ versions, they lose out. Then compare it to glyphs that have only 2 traits. The line closes with weapon spells that get a whopping 1 trait in a fairly useless attribute.

No wonder cantrips win all the time.

Try dagger dagger 0 15 0 25 30 (usual dapheonix’s with 5 in air and 5 less in water) with bezerkers amulet. 2x water 2x monk 2x fire? (20% might duration). This will add some more cannon but keep you alive if you play it right.

If you can live without EA try 0 20 0 30 20 with bolt to the heart in air and the above gear setup.

Water and Arcane are just too good to not put some points into. Fire and Air have some bad traits (10% damage in fire for example).

There is a nice S/D build that my friend runs, I’ve forgoten it but it takes advantage of the 16 sec burn that the flame axe dishes out, and alot of the endurence regen traits as well as sigil of energy.

when our base hp is about 10k there is a reason we need to go that far into water. Also eles have amazing healing powers, which is why it’s such a popular build.

I’ve been tinkering with some builds lately as I’ve been getting a tad bored with my 10/10/10/10/30. Keep in mind that I don’t really pvp, and I’m not sure how viable this may be in arenas, but it seems to hold up quite well for my needs. It’s 30/0/0/10/30 with a focus on cantrips only as utility skills. It’s built for loads of might and lots of damage.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you’ll want to frequently swap into fire. I know the sign of a poor Elementalist is staying in the same attunement for far too long. I’m not saying stay in fire all the time. Just swap back into it as quickly as you can to keep the stacks of might up as high as possible. I’ve managed to get it up to 15 stacks of might and hold it there long enough to do some good burst.

Onto the build itself!

Fire:
*Spell Slinger: Cantrips grant you 3 stacks of might when used.
*Internal Fire: Deal 10% more damage when attuned to fire.
*Pyromancer’s Puissance: Each fire spell you cast grants you might for 10 seconds.

Water:
*Soothing Disruption: Cantrips grant you regeneration and vigor.

Arcana:
*Elemental Attunement: When attuning to an element, you and all your allies get a boon.
*Arcane Retribution: Gain Arcane Power at 75% health.
*Evasive Arcana: Create an attunement-based spell at the end of your dodge.

Utility Skills:
*Cleansing Fire
*Armor of Earth
*Lightning Flash

Mostly I’ve only tested this out in the Mists against the NPCs. It’s really glass cannon, but the extra regen from water and Soothing Disruption help, as well as the natural mobility of a D/D Elementalist. I put a full set of Superior Rune of the Eagle on my armor for a crit boost and Sigil of Intelligence and Sigil of Superior Battle on my daggers for more crit and 3 stacks of extra might every 20 seconds.

Like I said, I really don’t PvP, so as to whether or not this would be a viable build, I can’t say. I’d almost say “not really” because of how glass cannony this is. A few hits and you’re pretty much done. It’s fun to mess around with though.

I actually look forward to this nerf if and only if ANet actually counters out the nerf with some buffs to the other trait lines. As someone stated above that the water and arcane trees outshine fire and air. I believe if those became stronger (or have a lot better synergy ) that more creative and unique builds will come out. I have played with other builds, some work, some do terrible. I just hope that this next patch will bring equilibrium to the ele so the community can move away from the 0/10/0/30/30 variations.

In short, wait for the feb 26 patch before looking into build diversity ( the nerf that will be coming could change the gameplay a little for the ele)

To the OP of the topic :

No

In S/TPvP (also works in WvW) I find 0/30/0/30/10 to be viable, going for 62% critical damage.

While I have coped to not being able to attunement switch as often as a 30 arcane build would (it limits builds too much that you “need” 30 arcane), you get more damage out of it to compensate. It is much more fun to play as you don’t have to nibble on opponents. Fighting other eles is quite fun and will often end in a draw, although I have killed several of the bunker variations given time.

If you are used to the D/D – 0/10/0/30/30 bunker, you should be fine using the build linked below. It demands more of you to stay alive, but it’s a fun build that lets you dish out more damage and bursting enemies down faster, while retaining good healing, mobility, and condition removal that 30 water and cantrips has to offer.

Sadly 30 water and cantrips is a must for survival, and other damage builds I tried didn’t work nearly as well. Until Anet does something that saves us from going 20 (more like 30 if you want to be effective in PvP) into water and 10 into arcane (at least), there is only a tiny handful of viable builds, the cantrip ones being far superior to the alternative in terms of survival, which eles so desperately need.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJAoYhImmbwR5gjDAkHn4CLiHPUhFlCzA;ToAA0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1M+YSA
(Copy and paste link in browser for it to work)

I do very well in WvW with my 0/20/20/0/30 build. Granted it’s still D/D, but I’ve been enjoying my daggers since the BWEs.

@Emmiere

I’ll just let you in on a secret. Arcane Retribution is really bad. It does not give Arcane Power, it gives an even more bugged version that last for 2-5 seconds if your lucky and usually 1 skill 2 if your really lucky.

But if it works your you then soldier on.

TGSlasher.1458:

@Emmiere

I’ll just let you in on a secret. Arcane Retribution is really bad. It does not give Arcane Power, it gives an even more bugged version that last for 2-5 seconds if your lucky and usually 1 skill 2 if your really lucky.

But if it works your you then soldier on.

Like I said, I’m still tinkering with stuff. That build is up for lots of constructive criticism, so feel free to rip it apart. :]

Edit: What’re your thoughts on Renewing Stamina? 33% chance to gain vigor on critical hits.

For unknown reasons people tend to shun fire traits and focus on zephyr’s boon while doing the 0/10/0/30/30 build. I’ve just realized that:
1 don’t need zephyrs boon
2 don’t like evasive arcana
3 gaining 3 stacks of might after using a cantrip which then lasts for 20ish seconds thanks to boonduration is awesome.
4 gaining protection when using an aura can save y’r life.
Because of these reasons I play 10/0/10/30/20
Only reason I do 30 in water is because I’m a healer and the 25th gives 2% extra damage per unique boon on you. If you figure that when you’re doing your spike you have 15ish might and 5-7 unique boons on you you can do quite a bit of damage while still being able to survive stuff.
I’ve beaten 0/10/0/30/30 elementalists in wvw with this build. Took a while and it was 4 am but yea… Try it to see it.
Also if you drop the 20 into arcana you can go for arcane power or arcane shielding.
I prefer arcane power since people and mobs will try to get your health down when y’r casting churning earth (don’t equip mistform though.)

I’m actually hoping they nerf cantrips.

Now I’ve always love cantrips but I’m not in love with them and have actually not been using many lately. Granted I’ll usually keep 1 in there, but IMO, there’s just too many positive things centered around them. Might, Vigor, Regen and they can recharge quickly. It’s not good enough that also our only stun breakers and most of them come with a high defensive effect? And they’re instant cast…

Defending Glyphs, because I’m a fan of air and that’s the only tree that has traits for glyphs, they pale in comparison. I actually don’t mind that glyphs don’t have many traits but offensively, they aren’t that much better and defensively they leave you vulnerable but at least they give you some nice boons. I’m not sure what they can give to Glyphs to make them more attractive, perhaps bigger and better offensive, better support (Would be awesome if GoEP granted boons to teammates or something awesome) or just make the elementals not suck (except earth elemental which is not bad).

Signets I’m still hating on but I honestly rarely ever use them (or earth traits) but their active and passive effects are very minor. I’d like some good signets like mesmers get.

Arcane? I enjoy arcane but using them basically leaves you vulnerable. They can take the stun breaker off of Armor of Earth and Cleansing Fire and put it on Arcane Power/Arcane Shield. That’d make me supremely happy to have an offensive stun breaker instead of needing a defensive cantrip all the time.

Conjures? I don’t think anyone talks about conjures. I wish they did but they don’t…

Yeah, I’m praying the next update is a good one. It’s so kittening nice to want to use all my utilities in different situations on my mesmer. It’s a pain needing to spec into traits to make my utilities not kitten on my elementalist.

cero.1209:

I actually look forward to this nerf if and only if ANet actually counters out the nerf with some buffs to the other trait lines. As someone stated above that the water and arcane trees outshine fire and air. I believe if those became stronger (or have a lot better synergy ) that more creative and unique builds will come out. I have played with other builds, some work, some do terrible. I just hope that this next patch will bring equilibrium to the ele so the community can move away from the 0/10/0/30/30 variations.

In short, wait for the feb 26 patch before looking into build diversity ( the nerf that will be coming could change the gameplay a little for the ele)

Since when has ANet done anything but destroy builds entirely, more often than not taking down entirely unrelated builds as collateral damage?

Does the greatsword nerf that missed wide on perma-retal and gutted GS symbol support not ring a bell here?

I’d also like to point out that earth is so lack luster nobody is even mentioning it here.

I watched these thoughtless changes make me quit my guardian, which I wanted to raise as GS symbol support, then my mesmer, because I won’t play a class when ANet quite literally apologizes for making it PVE and support vialbe, then hotfixes into the ground. Now i’m watching them “eyeing” the boons.. the boons that form the very core of what elementalist is, what it does for groups.

If the so much as touch my boons, i’m gone from this game.. i’m just done.

I dealt with “homogenization” and the gutting of group support as a role in WoW, I won’t lend my time or effort chasing the dying idea of group support in this game when ANet seems determined to kill it.

Leo G.4501:

I’m actually hoping they nerf cantrips.

Now I’ve always love cantrips but I’m not in love with them and have actually not been using many lately. Granted I’ll usually keep 1 in there, but IMO, there’s just too many positive things centered around them. Might, Vigor, Regen and they can recharge quickly. It’s not good enough that also our only stun breakers and most of them come with a high defensive effect? And they’re instant cast…

Defending Glyphs, because I’m a fan of air and that’s the only tree that has traits for glyphs, they pale in comparison. I actually don’t mind that glyphs don’t have many traits but offensively, they aren’t that much better and defensively they leave you vulnerable but at least they give you some nice boons. I’m not sure what they can give to Glyphs to make them more attractive, perhaps bigger and better offensive, better support (Would be awesome if GoEP granted boons to teammates or something awesome) or just make the elementals not suck (except earth elemental which is not bad).

Signets I’m still hating on but I honestly rarely ever use them (or earth traits) but their active and passive effects are very minor. I’d like some good signets like mesmers get.

Arcane? I enjoy arcane but using them basically leaves you vulnerable. They can take the stun breaker off of Armor of Earth and Cleansing Fire and put it on Arcane Power/Arcane Shield. That’d make me supremely happy to have an offensive stun breaker instead of needing a defensive cantrip all the time.

Conjures? I don’t think anyone talks about conjures. I wish they did but they don’t…

Yeah, I’m praying the next update is a good one. It’s so kittening nice to want to use all my utilities in different situations on my mesmer. It’s a pain needing to spec into traits to make my utilities not kitten on my elementalist.

It’s not by nerfing what’s good that you improve what’s bad! Actually that would the lazy way out and still wouldn’t fix things, it’d make them worst.
If they’d buff the glyphs and signets I’d use them, but right now those signets suck bad and the glyph only saving grace is GoEH, while the glyph elite is quite bad in PvP even though it’s the only decent one

Im trying out 0/10/30/15/15 atm

plasmacutter.2709

…..
I’d also like to point out that earth is so lack luster nobody is even mentioning it here.
…..

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

Baladir.2736:

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

It’s good yes…but it’s also the same thing the Evasive Arcana earth dodge roll does, and that also causes bleeding and is a blast finisher.

Leo G.4501:

I’m actually hoping they nerf cantrips.

Now I’ve always love cantrips but I’m not in love with them and have actually not been using many lately. Granted I’ll usually keep 1 in there, but IMO, there’s just too many positive things centered around them. Might, Vigor, Regen and they can recharge quickly. It’s not good enough that also our only stun breakers and most of them come with a high defensive effect? And they’re instant cast…

Defending Glyphs, because I’m a fan of air and that’s the only tree that has traits for glyphs, they pale in comparison. I actually don’t mind that glyphs don’t have many traits but offensively, they aren’t that much better and defensively they leave you vulnerable but at least they give you some nice boons. I’m not sure what they can give to Glyphs to make them more attractive, perhaps bigger and better offensive, better support (Would be awesome if GoEP granted boons to teammates or something awesome) or just make the elementals not suck (except earth elemental which is not bad).

Pretty much agree with this. Glyph of Elemental Power though, is still very powerful on the staff. Since it counts per enemy, and based on the attunement you’ve cast it in, you can literally make a cripple causing meteor shower with it. It’s actually very good. Glyph of Lesser Elements has its uses and while not great, it’s fairly decent especially with the lowered recharge.

Glyph of Storms though, isn’t a proper glyph. The fact that it lasts shorter in some elements than in others, and causes blindness in Earth but no conditions in other attunements makes it a very weak skill. If they wanted to make it a proper skill, the damage should be the same in each attunement, with a condition that varies per attunment. The way things are now, it’s just…well, way too weak.

Here’s my healing build..
Pretty good when fighting 1 v 1 agaisnt condition spec’s

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1|8.1a.h19.8.1a.h1j|0.0.0.0.0.0|1a.7z.1a.7z.1a.7z.1a.7z.1a.7z.1a.7k|1p.61.1p.64.1p.64.1n.64.1n.64.2u.d1d|0.k15.0.k59.u54b|e

ThiBash.5634:

Baladir.2736:

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

It’s good yes…but it’s also the same thing the Evasive Arcana earth dodge roll does, and that also causes bleeding and is a blast finisher.

I have that too. Also 15 in water for Cleansing wave and a little HOT. A5 Elemental Attunement. A6 Renewing Stamina with Zephers. Decent condition removal for a party and decent party healing, including as well as party protection 5 seconds etc. About 1637 precision for a base 38% crit rate with Lyssa gear and depending on weapon load out, I am a dodging attuning fool. It is a tricky fast paced way to play that I enjoy very much. In a pinch I use an elite skill and remove all conditions and get all boons for 5 seconds. Toughness is terrible at 1276 but I have around 17445 health with some Healing Power. The key is not to get hit, lol, but I can take a hit. Food is a bonus but I never need it.

The support capabilities of the profession for a party are important to me. Considering I can go thru all attunements in 9 seconds and can dodge at will, I can provide decent healing and condition removal. Crippling enemies and providing swiftness and protection to allies are no little thing. To maximize that dynamic I use a staff in dungeons. I guess I would have to rate crowd control as a top contribution of the build too. And, for some reason, I seem to get chased around quite a bit in dungeons, which many have gotton a kick out of, because mobs can’t touch me. Neither can most players in WvW.

I look at it as a middle of the road, general kind of build that is very easy for me to play solo as well. I guess fun is the best part. I took to heart the part about 1) dodging as the #1 primary defensive technique of the game. 2) support as one primary function of an elementalist 3) have fun.