Guild Wars 2

I returned from 3 years about 2 months ago and leveled my elementalist. Then went back to my mesmer and decided to go back to elem after a few days of HoT. However, I have not done any dungeons or fractals since I came back. My elementalist has been poorly geared and I’m looking to gear it up in order to maybe get back into these contents. I know I should be looking for a guild, which I will probably do in some days, but I figured I’d ask here first because my main concerns are about the class itself.

What do people expect from an elementalist? I’ve read stuffs about people complaining that the elementalist doesn’t provide might, which lead me to the next question: Are we always expected to roll D/D, D/F or S/F with LH for dungeons and fractals?

People are also asking for berserker gears left and right, but does this also apply to elementalists if we’re just there to stack might?

Ever since I learned about Celestial gears being time gated, I’ve been working on stacking up Charged Quartz in hope to make myself an Exotic Celestial set(17/25, got Tempest Shoulders), but should I really get that? Elementalists seems to be doing a little bit of everything, so to me, Celestial gears sounds great.

As of right now, I’m geared with:
-Exotic Beserker Mask from Zhaitan’s quest
-Rare Berserker Shoulder, Chest, Gloves, Leggings and Boots
-Divinity Runes because cheap

-Exotic Berserker Staff, Rare/Masterwork Berserker Daggers, Exotic Berserker Scepter(from a drop), Fine Berserker Focus and Exotic Celestial Warhorn.
-Major Sigil of Force and Superior Sigil of Accuracy on everything

-Rare Berserker Backpack
-Exotic Celestial Earrings x2(Forgotten Seal and Karka Shell from 2012)
-Exotic Celestial Amulet(drop from Halloween)
-Ascended Offensive Berserker Ring and whatever Vine of the Pale Tree stats are(got these and a few more rings from Fractals back in 2012)

I know at some point I will have both set, but I’m not rich, so I’m looking for tips on what I should do as the first step for my gears. Superior Runes of Strength and Superior Sigil of Force are expensive, so I don’t want to throw them into a set I wouldn’t use them with. My current gears as been fine for anything I’ve done in HoT, so I guess I’d be asking for dungeons and fractals.

Qelris.6901:

I returned from 3 years about 2 months ago and leveled my elementalist. Then went back to my mesmer and decided to go back to elem after a few days of HoT. However, I have not done any dungeons or fractals since I came back. My elementalist has been poorly geared and I’m looking to gear it up in order to maybe get back into these contents. I know I should be looking for a guild, which I will probably do in some days, but I figured I’d ask here first because my main concerns are about the class itself.

What do people expect from an elementalist? I’ve read stuffs about people complaining that the elementalist doesn’t provide might, which lead me to the next question: Are we always expected to roll D/D, D/F or S/F with LH for dungeons and fractals?

People are also asking for berserker gears left and right, but does this also apply to elementalists if we’re just there to stack might?

Ever since I learned about Celestial gears being time gated, I’ve been working on stacking up Charged Quartz in hope to make myself an Exotic Celestial set(17/25, got Tempest Shoulders), but should I really get that? Elementalists seems to be doing a little bit of everything, so to me, Celestial gears sounds great.

As of right now, I’m geared with:
-Exotic Beserker Mask from Zhaitan’s quest
-Rare Berserker Shoulder, Chest, Gloves, Leggings and Boots
-Divinity Runes because cheap

-Exotic Berserker Staff, Rare/Masterwork Berserker Daggers, Exotic Berserker Scepter(from a drop), Fine Berserker Focus and Exotic Celestial Warhorn.
-Major Sigil of Force and Superior Sigil of Accuracy on everything

-Rare Berserker Backpack
-Exotic Celestial Earrings x2(Forgotten Seal and Karka Shell from 2012)
-Exotic Celestial Amulet(drop from Halloween)
-Ascended Offensive Berserker Ring and whatever Vine of the Pale Tree stats are(got these and a few more rings from Fractals back in 2012)

I know at some point I will have both set, but I’m not rich, so I’m looking for tips on what I should do as the first step for my gears. Superior Runes of Strength and Superior Sigil of Force are expensive, so I don’t want to throw them into a set I wouldn’t use them with. My current gears as been fine for anything I’ve done in HoT, so I guess I’d be asking for dungeons and fractals.

First things first, in terms of PvE the dominating weapon is Staff. In high level fractals that is the weapon you will be using. For general PvE you can get away with a lot of different setups.

DO NOT INVEST IN CELESTIAL EXOTIC. Celestial stats on armor are not worth it at exotic rarity and really people only get it in Ascended rarity. And only for dagger/dagger builds if they decide they don’t want to do some interesting mixed set. Celestial has its benefits as a dagger dagger build as you do a bit of everything but as a staff build what you want is simply more damage as your base numbers are usually more than enough for a team. Water fields are blasted with blast finishers for healing and you do no condi dmg with staff/very little.

I would highly suggest getting a full berserker set of Armor/weapon in Exotic quality. If you have a World v World guild to run with I’m pretty sure you can actually buy the whole armor set for pretty cheap as it would be 1 gold per piece+badges. If you don’t you’ll either have to craft or buy them. Neither of which is cheap but it is completely worth it imo. If you get your daily login reward and get laurels you can actually buy Ascended trinkets with that. Generally I would suggest Berserker or Celestial. Celestial is very versatile and gives you a little bit of everything though I’m a bit skeptical about their use in extremely high level fractals where damage is king.

As for runes, Superior Runes of the Scholar are a big favorite though I would also argue for Runes of Strength in the case where you can’t stay about 90% hp all the time. For weapon runes I prefer Sigil of Bloodlust (stacking power sigil) and one other sigil of choice. I prefer sigil of Energy to give myself a good amount of dodges to fall back on. Sigil of force is a good choice for more damage though.

Trait Lines that work for staff ele right now:
Fire/Air/Arcane – more vigor uptime, a defensive arcane shield, more dmg based on number of boons you have.
Fire/Air/Water heal a bit more and stay above 90% for more dmg+if you switch to water attunement you do more dmg
Fire/Air/Tempest – overload for 10% more dmg

tl;dr
Get Berserker EVERYTHING and use a staff. Get Celestial backpack/trinkets if you are fine giving up a little damage for survivability. Exotic is attainable easily while Ascended is if you really want to work for it.
Superior Scholar runes and Bloodlust + another sigil.
Most builds use Fire/Air/X.

#1: What is expected of you depends on how elitist your teammates are. The “meta” changes a bit, but generally this is what eles are expected to have:

Full Berserker Gear of at least Exotic tier
Staff
Fire/Air/Third Line of your choice
Use Lava Fonts for damage, blast lava fonts for might and fury.

The fury is the big thing, since other classes can stack might pretty well. The more pro elementalist will carry all weapons, and then swap through them in the midst of might stacking to buff up the whole party.

To might stack, just use a blast finisher in a fire field. Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, “Aftershock!”, etc. You can still stack might with scepter/x and dagger/x. The rules are only as rigid as your teammates want them to be, and the only people who really enforce these rules are the “pro” dungeon runners who specifically demand it. As far as open world is concerned, they’re just glad you are there.

#2: In general, any class is attempting to maximize their damage no matter what their role is. Nobody should be “just might”.

#3: Celestial Gear is good in PVP and WvW. PVE, not as much. The thing is, most damage can be avoided, and as such toughness/vitality/healing power aren’t as important as skilled play is. The ratio of damage to durability in this game is low, and it is designed like that to encourage preference in play. So, there is nothing built specifically to prevent you from just stacking high damage.

I would like to add that Blood Red Arachnid is completely right. And I hadn’t considered carrying around different weapons to stack might faster. I don’t think that is necessary tbh but yes. Use your blast finishers and at least in general there aren’t too many super rigid people out there who want perfect teams. High level fractals are usually run with friends anyway.

PvE wants damage because most things can be dodged. I will say that being human it is fine to mix in some celestial accessories/backpack/trinkets if you need a little bit more defense. But if you played perfectly zerker no contest.

Thanks for the replies!

DO NOT INVEST IN CELESTIAL EXOTIC. Celestial stats on armor are not worth it at exotic rarity and really people only get it in Ascended rarity.

Alright, though I’m still going to stack up to like 30 Chargeds incase I ever decide to do an ascended celestial, or for whatever requires it.

I would highly suggest getting a full berserker set of Armor/weapon in Exotic quality. If you have a World v World guild to run with I’m pretty sure you can actually buy the whole armor set for pretty cheap as it would be 1 gold per piece+badges.

Oh my god. I never knew about this. I got over 4k Badges stacked up from just lurking in wvw. I just looked at the prices, it looks like that’s more than enough for everything.

As for runes, Superior Runes of the Scholar are a big favorite though I would also argue for Runes of Strength in the case where you can’t stay about 90% hp all the time.

I can actually craft myself a full set of scholars. Should I get a 7th for my aquabreather or nah?

I prefer sigil of Energy to give myself a good amount of dodges to fall back on. Sigil of force is a good choice for more damage though.

I didn’t know Attunement Swap counted as swapping weapons, I might consider while I relearn every dungeons/fractals.

The more pro elementalist will carry all weapons, and then swap through them in the midst of might stacking to buff up the whole party.

I got the habit of carrying every single weapon real quick back then with my mesmer.

To might stack, just use a blast finisher in a fire field. Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, “Aftershock!”, etc. You can still stack might with scepter/x and dagger/x.

Oh, but I’m aware of how combos works. Though, thanks for making me notice that Aftershock is a Finisher, I somehow never noticed. Those skills are actually what I use in Open World along Glyph of Storm.

Qelris.6901:

Thanks for the replies!

DO NOT INVEST IN CELESTIAL EXOTIC. Celestial stats on armor are not worth it at exotic rarity and really people only get it in Ascended rarity.

Alright, though I’m still going to stack up to like 30 Chargeds incase I ever decide to do an ascended celestial, or for whatever requires it.

I would highly suggest getting a full berserker set of Armor/weapon in Exotic quality. If you have a World v World guild to run with I’m pretty sure you can actually buy the whole armor set for pretty cheap as it would be 1 gold per piece+badges.

Oh my god. I never knew about this. I got over 4k Badges stacked up from just lurking in wvw. I just looked at the prices, it looks like that’s more than enough for everything.

As for runes, Superior Runes of the Scholar are a big favorite though I would also argue for Runes of Strength in the case where you can’t stay about 90% hp all the time.

I can actually craft myself a full set of scholars. Should I get a 7th for my aquabreather or nah?

I prefer sigil of Energy to give myself a good amount of dodges to fall back on. Sigil of force is a good choice for more damage though.

I didn’t know Attunement Swap counted as swapping weapons, I might consider while I relearn every dungeons/fractals.

The more pro elementalist will carry all weapons, and then swap through them in the midst of might stacking to buff up the whole party.

I got the habit of carrying every single weapon real quick back then with my mesmer.

To might stack, just use a blast finisher in a fire field. Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, “Aftershock!”, etc. You can still stack might with scepter/x and dagger/x.

Oh, but I’m aware of how combos works. Though, thanks for making me notice that Aftershock is a Finisher, I somehow never noticed. Those skills are actually what I use in Open World along Glyph of Storm.

Don’t bother getting an aquabreather. The only time you really should consider getting one is if you are in a WvW guild that will actually go in the water to fight other guilds. My guild does that because we are all geared up for underwater combat. Other guilds usually aren’t lol.

You can get it if you have disposable income and just are bored. Remember that you will need a rune for the aquabreather. As another side note, if you use sigil of bloodlust try to have a sigil of bloodlust on your underwater weapon (no need for second sigil) this is so that if you have stacks of bloodlust and enter water you will not be losing the stacks. This generally is only useful in WvW as most fights nowadays involve absolutely no water.

I believe playing along the HOT storyline rewards you with the Bladed set of exotic gear that you can choose the stats for so you don’t even need to buy upgraded gear if you play though the PvE story. I"m only partway through so I don’t know if it gives you the whole set.

Dav.9152:

I believe playing along the HOT storyline rewards you with the Bladed set of exotic gear that you can choose the stats for so you don’t even need to buy upgraded gear if you play though the PvE story. I"m only partway through so I don’t know if it gives you the whole set.

It gives you a box where you can choose one piece.

I’m working on full celestial for my ele. I have two and a half complete sets (full medium and heavy, light pants, chest, and head), 10 charged quartz, 1 Ventari exotic insignia, 1 Celestial exotic insignia, and am well on my way to completing my boots then shoulders and gloves in that order. I use staff in PvE but dagger/dagger in PvP. In WvW sometimes I regret taking dagger/dagger over staff whenever I find myself in a situation optimal for staff. Big fights seem better with staff and its combo fields and crowd control whereas dagger/dagger is better for smaller scale fights. Staff tends to be very telegraphy so it has that risk associated with it.

My PvE build and traits is the same as my PvP build and traits except in PvE I replace mistform (except in certain instances like the last boss of living story chapter 8) with signet of air for the passive speed boost. Sometimes I’ll replace earth armor with icebow like in the picture.