Guild Wars 2

So I am leveling a elementalist at the moment. I used to roam a lot in wvw, but I guess I’ll do that mainly on other classes. I want to do some more pve, especially raids.

I don’t want to have another plain dps character, I am looking for something different. Would a full cleric (or a bit mixed with soldiers for example) be a viable build in raids? What weapons should I use then, d/f or d/w? I have played the cleric meta (d/f) in pvp and I absolutely love it!

Also, could I use this (if I mix it with a bit of berserker maybe) in wvw from time to time? Or should I really go for either berserker as backline or full celestial?

Like I said, I have played gw2 for a long time but I am pretty noob as elementalist. So I appreciate any advice I can get! (The reason I don’t get full cele in wvw right now is because I didn’t make the charged quartz crystals…)

no
In raids, the healer needs to have lower toughness than the tank
and the tank needs to do damage

You can have some cleric’s, but not full. It has too much toughness. Clerics + zealot’s would be viable, yes.

And you’d use a warhorn for your offhand, as focus doesn’t offer any heals.
At least for the first boss. I haven’t actually killed the other ones yet. dunno if swirling winds offers a large advantage somewhere

reikken.4961:

no
In raids, the healer needs to have lower toughness than the tank
and the tank needs to do damage

You can have some cleric’s, but not full. It has too much toughness. Clerics + zealot’s would be viable, yes.

And you’d use a warhorn for your offhand, as focus doesn’t offer any heals.
At least for the first boss. I haven’t actually killed the other ones yet. dunno if swirling winds offers a large advantage somewhere

Alright thanks. What is the maximum amount of thoughness I should have then?

1400 something seems to be fine from my experience, as that’s what you get when using all ascended healing power gear (ascended trinkets with healing power and no toughness are extremely impractical to get, as they are apparently random drops from raids) but I’ll let someone else answer that.

The primary role of elementalist in raids right now is pure DPS. This means nothing but berserker/assassin gear.

You can make a healing set if you want, but you will likely have trouble finding a group that is willing to take you. The healing capabilities of elementalist are not really any worse than those of druid, but druid provides huge party DPS boosts with spirits and grace of the land, while the elementalist healing mechanic (auras) doesn’t provide any unique benefit outside of frost aura. Frost aura isn’t bad, but it also isn’t spirits, gotl, and spotter. Druid also has the benefit of being able to heal from long range.

If you’re really set on running healing, cleric is potentially bad for raids because it will increase your toughness and may draw boss aggro when you don’t want it. As healer you will typically need to be able to swap around your gear to get above/below everyone else’s toughness, and so some combination of zealots/berserker/magi armor and weapons along with magi/cleric trinkets is probably the way to go. As healer you will be playing pretty much exclusively dagger/warhorn.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry much about getting ascended armor. Focus on the weapons and trinkets first, because the stat and damage differences on those is substantial. The stat increase from a full set of ascended armor compared to exotic is like 2% or something, which comparatively isn’t worth the cost.

It’s also worth noting that elementalist is probably the hardest class to play in raids because they are super squishy and they take on extra responsibilities in the gorseval and sabetha fights. Don’t be surprised if you die a lot against vale guardian =P

Thanks for the reply.

I have been trying some stuff on a build editor and came up with this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0fJ2gJYhJwhJW2AMiVQKoC4uX/rH2hHQAoAC-TFiXABIo8zuHAwOqF8hegQPBA1oE8IVdAY/BA-w

I might throw in some zealots, but I’d rather not since it is a bit harder to get xD. What do you guys think of this build? Any recommended changes?

Or should I just get this whole main healer idea out of my head and use this build as a secondary healer: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Auramancer_Raid_Healer ?

As long as people are running decent builds and know how to rotate their skills, I find dps isn’t usually the issue. People getting downed is what breaks runs. I mean, if you have 6 minutes to beat on the boss, split the boss’s 22million hp over 9 people, and that’s an average of 6.8k dps needed per person. A single person can do 15k+ sustained dps (apparently as much as 25k with high dps classes under ideal conditions). So the best thing you can do is make sure no one gets downed, let people focus on doing dps. Someone going down is a huge dps loss anyway, even if it doesn’t chain into anything else, like missing a green circle or not hitting a breakbar.

but on the other hand, you do sometimes have groups that inexplicably struggle to do good dps no matter what

Diederick.7906:

Thanks for the reply.

I have been trying some stuff on a build editor and came up with this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0fJ2gJYhJwhJW2AMiVQKoC4uX/rH2hHQAoAC-TFiXABIo8zuHAwOqF8hegQPBA1oE8IVdAY/BA-w

I might throw in some zealots, but I’d rather not since it is a bit harder to get xD. What do you guys think of this build? Any recommended changes?

Or should I just get this whole main healer idea out of my head and use this build as a secondary healer: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Auramancer_Raid_Healer ?

Bringing the earth traitline in raids is pretty sketchy. It conditionally gives toughness (which is bad) and provides no real benefits for DPS or for healing, with the exception that Rock Solid is decent against sabetha and gorseval. You would to much better just taking air like the metabattle build, because then you can continually reapply lightning aura via overload air. If you want to be a more dedicated healer you should use the alternatives in the metabattle page: runes of the monk, healing sigils, as much zealots/magis as you can get (some clerics is probably ok, but again you have to check with your tank. You should be able to adjust your toughness between 1000 and 1400). Something to consider is that the boost from healing power is a lot less than the “outgoing healing” boosts, and the healing loss from having berserker/assassin gear instead of healing power gear actually isn’t that much. So don’t be afraid to just run a few cleric/magi/zealot trinkets and full zerker gear. This zerker gear can also be used for a full DPS set.

As an aside, I know you didn’t ask this but I would strongly recommend you play “meta” builds in raids until you have the mechanics down. The mechanics can be difficult to pick up quickly as a first timer, especially when your mistakes will be severely punished as an elementalist. Trying out a custom/nonmeta build is totally fine in raids, but you will likely take longer to learn how to play through the fights properly, and what you learn will be less applicable to raiding with other classes. Considering that when you are learning the raid it will likely be at the expense of hours of nine other players’ lives – players who are being very generous by teaching you the fight – it’s probably better to start out with a “standard” build which lots of people play and can give you advice on how to play well. Once you have the mechanics down and you understand why certain traits are/aren’t important you can start modifying your build…but right now you’re trying to tinker with a build on probably the most difficult raid class without any raid experience. It’s also worth reiterating the difficulty you will have finding a raid group willing to take a first timer who wants to play ele healer. Play the standard crap, learn the mechanics, and then you won’t need to come to the forums to ask people about your build because you yourself will already know what will and will not work.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Play the standard crap, learn the mechanics, and then you won’t need to come to the forums to ask people about your build because you yourself will already know what will and will not work.

Thank you very much for the advice.
I guess you’re right, I’ll start out with the meta and change my build on the way. I just like to try new and different builds and spend a lot of my time on build editors :p.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Something to consider is that the boost from healing power is a lot less than the “outgoing healing” boosts, and the healing loss from having berserker/assassin gear instead of healing power gear actually isn’t that much.

This is a lot less true for eles than it is for druids. Eles have better healing power coefficients than druids do, while druids have better base values.

Avoid toughness unless your going to tank.

For my first PUG VG kill I solo healed as staff Elementalist, ran with the Green circle group, and was wearing Cleric gear/staff with Monk runes and Renewal/Transference sigils. All trinkets and back piece were Zerk because the tank toughness was low.

I also did not run Earth or Air; I ran Fire to do more damage and provide for the lack of being Not Druid. When you swap attunements to Fire, you do a good amount of healing via the Fire Aura. You definitely shouldn’t run Earth if you have a hammer DragonHunter in the raid.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCVYi9XCeOAcYiFBAj4JsFOCBBgCwBwt1GbztA-TxRRABXo8Lj9HMRJIAq/IkOAdvAAP+AAIFgf7tA-e

I personally believe this staff healing build is better for VG than Druid, and of course if you had Zealots you could make it even more effective. You can put yourself in the subgroup with the ranged to prioritize them for Soothing Mist, and have flexibility of using all 4 attunements while also having the option to camp Water and aiming your heals anywhere.

And don’t tell ANet, but the Water 1 auto attack can still be aimed at the ground to spam heal whoever you want as a last resort.

yeah, for my first ever VG kill (and to date, the smoothest run I’ve done), I joined a pug as the healer and went scepter/warhorn. arcane/water/tempest. taking the soothing mist boost rather than aura share (shout auras are already shared, as is the passive one from elemental bastion). low damage, but sick healing

second smoothest, I went d/w fresh air aurashare off healer to supplement our full zerker druid’s weaker healing

I don’t know. If I was going to ever raid in GW2, which I’m not, I would follow the DPS advice.

You are going to spend huge amounts of cash to develop a zealot’s set and then wtf are you going to do with it outside of the few hours a week that you raid?

The answer is nothing, because the holy trinity mechanic they hacked into a game that was never built for it doesn’t have any place outside of raids.

The issue is only made worse by the best stat prefix for healing raiders being largely lost to time.

Use pvp meta auramancer traits. Knights armor, clerics trinkets. You can now tank and easily take care of front line healing wise. Can use a bad druid or zerk druid for other healer