Guild Wars 2

Going to be hitting 80 soon and would love to do fractals among other dungeons; I’m kind of overwhelmed, and despite looking around, haven’t found anything definitive.

What are some viable builds for dungeons? What prefix should I get on my exotic gear? Strategies? My thief was easy, but right now I’m kind of lost.

If you’re at all worried about playing dungeons as an Ele, don’t be! I’ve been playing with a pretty offensive 20/25/0/15/0 build for the past week (still in pow/cond/vit gear though) and I never really feel like I’m too squishy.
That being said, I’d recommend building on the defensive side and playing with a Staff to start. This will give you ample survivability, and you still bring a lot to the table with all of Staff’s combo fields.
As far as forgiving traits, try taking 30 in Earth for Written in Stone, and play with Signet of Restoration. Really, how you play your Ele is up to you, and my suggestions are aimed at allowing you to play high level content with a low skill requirement. Try different weapons/skills to see what suits you best!

Have a look at daphoenix her builds on this forum, I run the d/d build which is tons of fun very survivable.

If it’s your first try, go with staff. It’s support yes but you can never go wrong with staff. As for main stats I would look for Healing power/power/toughness/vitality.

But again depends on your trait built, so look for daphoenix her topics

If dungeons are what you’re after, don’t be afraid to go full power/prec/critdmg with ruby gems and 30/30/0/10/0, it’s actually the best if you want to finish them as fast as possible. daphoenix’s build is really good but that’s way more defensive and you’ll be lacking damage for such things like dungeons.

Staff, and dps in fire to your heart’s content, if you feel like supporting you can throw a healing rain onto your party, switch to earth, eruption and arcane wave for a pretty massive group heal. Aaand that’s all I know, I’m not a big staff user, lol.

When you feel confident enough you can try d/d or s/d for massive might stacks and watch your dps skyrocket.

0/10/0/30/30
In a group situation, this is the only viable build imo (0/0/10. . . is an option though). Our damage is already fine, and going full out damage in your traits is a waste! We’ve so much more potential! You’re nearly immortal with all the healing, buffs and condition-removal that this build gives – And it’s AOE!

Know how people loves Warriors with “Shake it off”? We’ve 3 of those in the traits – all on lower CD’s than that Utility skill.

The staff is great when dealing with many enemies (and allies) at once. Learn to time the #2 in Earth with combo-fields from different Attunements, aswell as the 30-trait in Arcana (Earth dodge is a Combo-finisher) and Arcane Wave. (Use AW and 2 Cantrips as Utility)

. . . I can not believe that no one else suggested 30 in Arcana!

because there is a forgotten strong build based on cantrips….
10/10/0/30/20

Or just find those needed 10 points in fire removing anything you don t like.
With spell slinger you increase your offence by a lot.

Sacrificing evasive arcana heals/cond removal (for earth blast finisher you get many more with that trait)
But you get regeneration and thus cond removal even using cantrips…..

5 responses and 5 different “must have” builds.

Tells me this is either a very diverse class, or a very limited one where traits don’t mean jack.

Methal.9045:

5 responses and 5 different “must have” builds.

Tells me this is either a very diverse class, or a very limited one where traits don’t mean jack.

It’s not the latter. Eles can be very versatile.

@ OP
I’d say the key thing about Eles that I have experienced in dungeon-play is that the first time you will die a lot. Mostly because you don’t know what situations you are going to face so you don’t know how to be prepared. A staff build can be viable the first time through but I can’t help you with staff builds (I played staff 1-80 but currently am using D/D for all dungeons).

Like another poster said Daphoenix has a good guild for D/D and my build is similar with different traits. For me everything is much easier as a D/D than staff. The only time I ever use staff is in a situation where I must range such as Giganticus Lupus.

Either way I suggest finding a good build you can play with high HP, good amount of toughness and support. A good idea would be to start on Ascalonian Catacombs and get PVT gear.

they are not diverse builds…
They are all based on the same basic principle…..

25-30 healing
10 wind
20-30 arcana .-.

Those are mandatory for D/D ….and the playstyle is almost the same whatever you choose

I.E. the usual combo for PvE to spam might.
And the same but reduced in www