Guild Wars 2

I’ve spent since launch playing around with my thief. Learning just what, exactly, I wanted on my theif (in terms of stats) To make her awesome. I finally found the perfect build for me this weekend, got everything put together, transmuted, and am very happy with the result.

Unfortunately, My elementalist is now rapidly approaching 80, and now I need to find gear for her as well. And I have problems. I’ve been playing my ele like I play my thief. Dual dagger, high risk high reward in your face DPS Facemelt. It’s beautiful. For PvE. But I made my ele to do Dungeons and WvW. I want to heal, support, and tank. And I am at a complete and total loss as to what to do.

I’ve been doing some research on bunker builds, and thus far the only real consensous I’ve seen is put points into water/arcane and get evasive arcana. everything else is all over the place. I have no clue how I would build this, what stats I want, or anything. It seems no one really agrees.

I’m okay with that, I’ll probably modify it to the way I want, to fit my playstyle and the way my teammates play. But What’s the Core of the Bunker build? What is the basic stuff that I MUST have for the thing to work at all? I get the general idea of “You regenerate a lot of health really quickly, and take very little damage” But I’m not sure I really understand HOW elementalists do that. I’m not really looking for a complete build, just enough of an outline that I can finish filling in the dots myself.

TL;DR: How do I bunker Ele?

An easy way is to trait 0 10 0 30 30. Air: I, Water: III, IX, XI (or III, V, XII if you prefer aura sharing; better for groups / dungeons), and Arcana: V, VI, XI. Use Cleric’s weapons and jewelry (Healing, Toughness, Power; crafted gear), and Soldier’s armor (Power, Toughness, Vitality; from AC dungeon tokens). On armor you’ll use Major Water x2, Superior Water x2, and Superior Monk x2 for runes, and on weapons you’ll use Superior Battle on offhand with either Superior Life or Superior Bloodlust on main hand. This is a D/D build, but it also helps to keep a scepter in your bags just in case you need to swap for a bit of range on some fights.

P.S. You can also get a decent rare back piece for cheap (Soldier’s Spineguard) on Trading Post, and put an Exotic Sapphire Jewel in it. Which is good, because you won’t be able to get an exotic (or ascended) back piece for quite a while after you hit 80.

I hope this helps,
Good Luck, codingCaptor.

I have a build that I use and love that allows me to be tanky/healer with some bite. I can switch from d/d to staff with only a change of weapons and 1 stat change in Arcane. I roll 10 (6)fire, 0 Air, 15 (3)Earth, 15 (5)Water, 30 (5, 8 or 9, 11) Arcane. You switch from #8 or #9 in Arcane for either dagger/dagger or staff. You can also switch this setting for scepters too. Let me know what you think.