Guild Wars 2

so yeah….bought GW2 at release, didn’t play very long. (highest character is a 30-ish Engineer).

thankfully because of B2P, I can come back to GW2 whenever I want. which I did.

trying out various classes, made a Ranger, tried Mesmer, and now made an Elementalist. Level 20 now and it is pretty fun thus far. problem is, I haven’t the slightest idea about anything regarding Builds and stat focus and such(for any class really)

so far I like:

Dagger/Dagger
Earth Magic (specifically Dagger, awesome)
Fire Magic (Specifically Dagger, not as awesome as Earth, but still pretty awesome)
Conjures (the few I have, Frost Bow is pretty fun)
Glyphs(specifically Glyph of Storms).

Neither Here nor there on:
Water(I’ll use it cause it seems necessary, but not sure I want to focus on it)
Cantrips (the few I have, I suppose they’ll be essential in the future, but I feel “meh” about it thus far)
Arcane Magic

Don’t like:
Air Magic(I don’t like how the Whip obscures my view of my targets, and the other skills seem Meh, except for Updraft’s Knockdown)
Staffs

Haven’t tried:
Scepter (I know you start with one, but I got rid of it for a Staff the instant I finished the Prologue)
Focus

Now I’m not saying what is most effective or whatever, because I don’t know. I’m just saying what I find to be fun and “cool” and what I don’t find fun and cool.

for flavor/theme purposes, my Elementalist is Blood Legion Charr. I’m sure that means absolutely nothing, but I figured I’d mention it anyway.

So, with that said. I need some help figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing here.

I’m not asking someone to hand me a build or anything, I just want to read some philosophy on the pros/cons of certain trait lines, trait combos, and stats, based on my Like/dislike list above.

so….halp plz?

Try S/D with focus on damage.

You might like it.

No matter what style you play
spend 15 pts in water tree and get cleansing wave (the 5pt grants hp regen and 15pt is an aoe heal)
10pts in arcana for elemental attunement (boon whenever you swap attunements)

save yourself the trouble and reroll to warrior. It is better stronger, faster, developer LOVE it.

I mean they love it so much that they re the best bow class in the game. The ranger only wish it was that good with the bow.

When you get to level 40 re-trait 20 points into fire and 10 into water. Take lightning hammer and the fire trait “conjurer” and the water trait “piercing shards” and use signet of restoration as your heal. Stay in water attunement and you’ll do huge damage with decent survivability that you can ride out until level 80, at which point you can try some of the endgame builds with exotic gear. Just avoid fighting dredge, they are immune to this build’s gimmick.

Listen to silvermember.8941. Rune of Torment and Rune of Perplexity were put into the game to allow warriors to get out-of-class conditions. I had an up-leveled (lvl 45 in WvW) guardian get one shot by a warrior rifle – 14.5k damage. GW2 is turning into the type of game where warriors solo roam, or form power groups (in PvE too), meaning that anything other than a warrior is beginning to be excluded. If you want in on the party, then you better be a warrior player soon.