Guild Wars 2

In your opinion, which provides better group support?

Combo fields because they don’t require investing 30 into Water Magic, giving you a plethora of options without any investment but picking a weapon.

well you can do both because its not like we have any combo fields in our utilities its all weapon based. Its not like its one or the other

Sancz.9345:

well you can do both because its not like we have any combo fields in our utilities its all weapon based. Its not like its one or the other

That wasn’t his question though; I think he’s aware that combo fields will exist whether or not he brings Powerful Auras.

Why not do both? Use blast finishers in your Frozen Ground (or that of your Ice Elemental summons) to create Frost Auras.

ThiBash.5634:

Why not do both? Use blast finishers in your Frozen Ground (or that of your Ice Elemental summons) to create Frost Auras.

I believe he is referring to the trait Powerful Auras, but you’ve pointed out another example of why combo fields are generally sufficient.

Good points everyone, thanks for feedback! I suppose I was making the mistake of assuming I needed staff for combo fields and d/d for aura sharing, thus my need to determine which provided better support. I just didn’t realize that auras and combo fields are quite accessible on both weapon sets.

I think he’s contemplating 30 water or 30 fire.
Aura share can be good, it also carries over buffs gained though aura traits (e.g. Zephers boon). However auras granted through blast finisher will not.

Personally I don’t think investing heavily in fire is a good idea, though I am 20 there myself.

TGSlasher.1458:

I think he’s contemplating 30 water or 30 fire.
Aura share can be good, it also carries over buffs gained though aura traits (e.g. Zephers boon). However auras granted through blast finisher will not.

Personally I don’t think investing heavily in fire is a good idea, though I am 20 there myself.

Surprisingly enough, direct from the wiki:

Guild Wars 2 Wiki

This trait also grants fury and swiftness to allies in two situations:

The elementalist also uses Powerful Aura and/or
The elementalist triggers Frost Armor on the allies by combining a blast finisher with an ice field.

However, it will NOT grant boons when an ally uses a leap finisher to acquire Flame Shield; the elementalist must be the source of the finisher, though not necessarily the field.

With persisting flames you can give consistent group fury on top of might stacks so there really is no reason to aura share anymore. Whenever I run 30 water(not often) I just take cleansing water, even after the nerfs it got.

Solo.9027:

With persisting flames you can give consistent group fury on top of might stacks so there really is no reason to aura share anymore. Whenever I run 30 water(not often) I just take cleansing water, even after the nerfs it got.

Because they removed the bonuses from actual auras…right?

Strang.8170:

Solo.9027:

With persisting flames you can give consistent group fury on top of might stacks so there really is no reason to aura share anymore. Whenever I run 30 water(not often) I just take cleansing water, even after the nerfs it got.

Because they removed the bonuses from actual auras…right?

Well, they did half the bonus from shocking aura+zephyr’s boon. That was really the last time I used auras regularly.

The actual auras are pretty lackluster anyway, outside of magnetic aura. The others don’t really encourage strategy because people generally just keep them on cooldown spamming them for swiftness.