Guild Wars 2

How important are they in WvW? Can I get away with ruby orbs instead? This is my build so far with 2x water, 2x monk, and 2x major water runes:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1n.h1h.8.1n.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71h.1c.71h.1c.71g.1c.71g.1c.b1h.1c.b1h|211.0.1i.67.1i.67.1n.64.1n.64.1i.0|0.a0.0.u000.u000|2f.2|0.0.0.0.0|

I feel like I’m too weak having less than 1900 power, 30% crit chance, and only 30% crit damage.

Many ele have dropped tge major rune of water.

I run 3x water and 3 monk. Rather that additional 85 healing power, but well, I run rather with healing power items right now.
Keep in mind with blasts, sigil of battle and 60-70% boon duration you will have 13-14 stacks of might only from SWAPPING. With blasts it’s mostly around 20 permamently (or more). It boost nicely damage.

Edit: Just noticed your bad trinket choice – cavalier. Jewel to trinkets is great if you’re going rather for attack, but trinkets themselves not. I’d choose either soldier or knight.
Count it yourself. Jewel to trinkets – 25/15/3dmg (1 critical damage = 5 stats)
Trinkets – 67/48/3dmg (1 c. dmg = 16 stats).

Lert.6287:

Edit: Just noticed your bad trinket choice – cavalier. Jewel to trinkets is great if you’re going rather for attack, but trinkets themselves not. I’d choose either soldier or knight.
Count it yourself. Jewel to trinkets – 25/15/3dmg (1 critical damage = 5 stats)
Trinkets – 67/48/3dmg (1 c. dmg = 16 stats).

Those are actually placeholders until I get 7 more pristine relics for the celestial rings (can’t buy any yet until I’m sure they don’t drop. I got RROD for my thief with relics and 2 daily chests later another one drops).

Another question, since I’m asking – how much vitality do most eles run? I always feel like there’s a psychological component with running a lower vit number because when you heal, your bar fills up completely and it discourages your opponents. Maybe this is a dumb reason.

To make it clear. You’re WvW player right?
Personally I’d never want to go under 16k with around 2.5k armor (if it was possible without wasting other stats, I’d go even for 2.7k armor).
With my cleric set (850-1000 healing power) 16-17k seem to be perfect. For that I use signet to heal, with WvW bonus ’’medic’’ it’s over 300healing per attack and passive around 500 (soothing mist, regen, mango pie).
People with low healing power (250-400) tent do use Ether Renewal with solder’s/knight armor. Glyph is good for roaming tho, but in fights, worst of all 3 heals.
The thing with healing power and vita is that there is no point to go for like 22k health cause 1. you lose other stats, 2. you won’t refill it quick.

I used to run the boon duration 0-10-0-30-30. I’ve since dropped the boon duration in favor of damage, and although it’s a much less forgiving build, it hits a LOT harder.

This is pretty much my current build. It gets really close to the magic numbers of 16k hp and 2.5k armor, which I also consider to be the target for basic survival in WvW, and does nearly double the damage of the bunker build.

In 1vX situations, this build quickly downs low defense characters and puts heavy pressure on tanky builds. It’s not about wading in and facetanking everything then just RTL>heal to full>repeat, so there isn’t a rotation I can recommend. It has enough toughness not to get oneshot, and enough condition removal to escape/sustain, but it’s not built for trolling the masses endlessly.

I still have my old soldier’s/boon-duration set, but I haven’t equipped it for anything in a long time.

The boon duration build is a waste of damage potential the ele has.

60% boon duration gives you perma: regen, swiftness, fury, vigor (trait from arcane), 10+ stacks of might. Over half of the time you can have protection as well (like 7sec after switching to earth i guess). I don’t really think it’s waste of stats.

Depending on your spec, try out a full set of Altruism runes. Im currently running them and am really pleased with how they have worked out. From 60 % with the Monk Water Water runes down to 45 % with Altruism, the flip side of this when running with Ether Renewal as your heal, is group wide 3 x might stacks and fury ~7 secs every 20 seconds or so which imo make up for the 15 % decrease.

If your fully bunker and running with Clerics as part of your trinket set up Altruism will give you piece of mind for switching out to more offensive based trinkets, or even Ascended celestials.

When you guys say perma swiftness, are you talking about consistent 100% uptime of swiftness (like on a warrior)? Or is it more like being able to get swiftness up again quickly but there are still periods of slow times?

Right now I’m getting swiftness from shocking and frost auras, and when I switch to the air attunement. But between cooldowns on skills and attunements I can’t maintain permanent upkeep of swiftness. Unless you guys are talking about perma boons while in combat (like fire aura which we can’t get without a target for the Earth 3 skill).

td;dr I’m a noob

Edit: my build so far
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1n.h1h.8.1n.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71g.1c.71g.1c.71h.1c.71h.1c.b1h.1c.b1h|211.0.211.0.21j.0.1n.67.1n.67.1i.0|0.a1.0.u35b.u56b|2f.2|1l.1t.1u.1v.0|e

Ultimately my goal is to provide some group utility when I party with two or three other people. I’m not too concerned with killing people while solo (I have a thief for that purpose). The ability to run away successfully is probably the most important solo trait for me.

Some people use updraft to get 10s (and one extra second for every 10% boon duration) additional swiftness. They often use it with about face key, because it causes character to evade backwards.
Personally, i use glyph of elemental harmony while attuned to air followed by shocking aura. With 70% boon duration it gives you 17 + 8.5s of swiftness on 25s cd both skills. Then i switch to water (pop frost aura if active) and after 10s again to air to keep it up.

But I would love to find out how to keep other boons all the time. I imagine that perma fury can be obtained by constantly switching attunements (and by constantly I mean switching to next attunement when it’s ready, not using any skills on active attunement except auras). With normal switching imo perma fury cannot be maintained, probably it drops a few times during combat.

I don’t think perma protection is possible. Well, maybe with signet build and fire aura but i guess you need to constantly popping all signets like a crazy.

Can someone clarify this bunch of text I’ve wrote?

Yams.6082:

I always feel like there’s a psychological component with running a lower vit number because when you heal, your bar fills up completely and it discourages your opponents. Maybe this is a dumb reason.

I’d say that whatever psychological advantage you gain from that is a pretty poor tradeoff to actual health.

Low vitality makes you extremely vulnerable to bleed/burn/poison.

1. Perma means perma. Both auras give around 8sec, switching to air gives 7-8sec and air #5 gives 16 (with 60%). It’s already half minute boost within 3sec. With glyp it’s even easier.
2. @GrandmaFunk. Ye, but low vitality means 12-14k (cannon ele/ cannon thief) and with so much condi removal ele has it’s not really big problem. Ofc sometimes 10stacks of confussion are, but it happens.

Edit:
3. @mbk. Perma fury can be easy obtained with 60% boon duration (at least 50 which makes 3sec of fury instead of 2 once you switch). and 10 in air which gives fury. Ofc it won’t hit nowhere near 1min, but during fights (if your combo is good and you don’t spend year on each of attunaments) it should stay at level of around 15sec.
4. Cleric set (keeping healing power over 800) gives great group utility. Soothing mist and regen you apply is already around 400 passive and if you dodge-switch to water-water#5 you can heal almost 7k of allies heath within 2 seconds.

High critical chance with lots of toughness is as well great, elementalist’s base attack isn’t low so to cannoners you might hit easly for few k, and that hurts.

mbk.4926:

Personally, i use glyph of elemental harmony while attuned to air followed by shocking aura. With 70% boon duration it gives you 17 + 8.5s of swiftness on 25s cd both skills. Then i switch to water (pop frost aura if active) and after 10s again to air to keep it up.

Since I am on a roll with questions: Is glyph what most eles run for a heal? I have ether renewal as a heal for the extra condition removal (and short cooldown). But 3 sec cast time leaves this ripe for interruption (after fighting D/D thieves I am constantly on the lookout for that blue glow). If I had 800-1000 healing power like Lert I’d use Signet of Restoration

The boon duration runes are worth it. But it works best when you go pro in DnD. If you need training wheels, pure pvt with heal pow. Slowly by slowly, adjust ,add,reduce to what you are comfortable with.

Yams.6082:

mbk.4926:

Personally, i use glyph of elemental harmony while attuned to air followed by shocking aura. With 70% boon duration it gives you 17 + 8.5s of swiftness on 25s cd both skills. Then i switch to water (pop frost aura if active) and after 10s again to air to keep it up.

Since I am on a roll with questions: Is glyph what most eles run for a heal? I have ether renewal as a heal for the extra condition removal (and short cooldown). But 3 sec cast time leaves this ripe for interruption (after fighting D/D thieves I am constantly on the lookout for that blue glow). If I had 800-1000 healing power like Lert I’d use Signet of Restoration

Your slots should be this:

6 = Glyph
7= Signet of earth
8= Mistform
9= Lightning flash
0= conjure fiery great sword

Ether renewal is better during actions due to short cooldown, high healing (for me it’s 6k) and uncredibly great condition cure. It has pretty long cast time, but used the right way it is very powerful. As far as I know when you use it, you should run back for 2sec to avoid melees (knockdowns etc.). And on versus against whoever has confussion it’s really GG.