Guild Wars 2

(Sorry for formatting issues x_x will fix! )

So the staff ele build I was working on before has evolved further, and I’ve finally found a pesudo-sweet spot between damage and support (still more leaned towards support). As I’ve been running it I get a lot of whispers with questions on what I’m running and how to make it work, so I figured I’d post a bit of a breakdown here for those looking to play their own Healer Staff Ele. Keep in mind this is for the purpose of PvP, and while most of the tips are specifically for staff, I feel any weaponset can make effective use of Aquatic Benevolence as long as they have Evasive Arcana.

Wash Away the Badness

0/2/0/6/6 – Celestial Amulet – Strength Runes – Sigil of Energy/Battle
Air: I – Water: IV, X, XIII – Arcane: I, VIII, XI / Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Cleaning Fire, Arcane Shield.

• I chose Air over Earth to increase my personal damage output, but it is optional. Cleansing Fire is important since my only real weakness is conditions.

Keep in mind that this build is NOT easy to use. In order to play an effective support build there are numerous things you have to do:

Peeling: When you’re not being focused, you have to be able to “peel” enemies off your allies. Discouraging AoEs like Lava Font (Fire 2), Ice Spike (Water 2) and Eruption (Earth 2) are all ideal for both forcing dodges and taking pressure off of enemies.

Boons: You offer Fury, Regeneration, Swiftness, Might, and Protection in abundance. Use them! While Protection, Regeneration, and Swiftness are particularly important defensive boons that help make it easier to keep the allies you’re healing topped off, Might and Fury are more important for yourself to gain a respectable damage output. You also have to keep in mind what classes you are supporting and their personal boon access. (More on this in the “Boons” section)

Positioning: Playing a competent staff ele means putting yourself in a location where you can offer benefits to allies while keeping out of harms way. Playing a HEALER Staff Ele means you’re significantly closer to the heart of the combat, and thus have to be more aware of Thieves/Mesmer, AoEs, and allies in danger.

Cleanses: You have an abundance of AoE condition cleanses, from your [Water] dodge heal to attunement swapping to Healing Rain. This, combined with the actual act of healing, is a huge reason to both keep an eye out for specific classes (Necros/Engineer) and keep an eye on your allies’ meters.

Healing: Your main job, of course, and it’s not as simple as tossing out Geyser and Healing Rain once in a while. Learning to be an effective healer means making split-second decisions on who to use your heals on and exactly what heals to use for specific situation. Overhealing is useless, underhealing isn’t effective enough, and trying to heal a poisoned ally can end up being a waste. People who don’t play healers often think it’s a simple job of “healing the lowest HP ally” but who gets healed when you have both a Warrior and Elementalist at 25% HP? Which classes are more likely to accidentally dodge out of one of your AoE heals? While a lot of tips and tricks are covered in this guide some things can only be truly learned through experience.

HEALING
Like previously mentioned, healing requires more than simply splashing water over allies like an epic wet t-shirt contest. You have to have an understanding of each of your heals; how much health they restore, when to use them, and what additional effects they have. Also, I’ll be referring to the dodge+attunement swap combo heal as the “splish-splash combo” because I’m silly like that.

• HoT – Heals Over Time – Soothing Mist and Regeneration are your two HoTs. These are the heals you should be using all the time, but it’s not always easy to apply, especially Regeneration.

- Soothing Mist applies to all allies (1200r) whenever you’re in Water Attunement; and thanks to Lingering Elements it lasts even when you’re not attuned to water. While not too epic on it’s own, it combines with Regeneration to give a passive heal stronger than Warrior’s Healing Signet.

- Regeneration can be a bit tricky to apply, but you should be trying to grant it as often as possible. Swapping to Water will be the quickest, easiest way to apply AoE Regeneration when you don’t have Healing Rain up.

• Burst Heals Swapping to Water Attunement, Dodging in Water Attunement, Blasting Water fields and casting Geyser are your three burst heals. Each one has a unique purpose.

- Geyser: is possibly the least important heal you have to offer. Geyser casts an AoE heal that pulses three times, healing for over 3k if each pulse connects. This is a very unreliable ability as it’s very easy to accidentally run through it without recieving the heal, and allies rarely stay within the field long enough. It’s best used in tandem with LEAP and BLAST combo finishers.

- Attunement Swap [Water]: is one of the least frequent heals you’ll be applying, but is still very important. Swapping to water grants a meaty AoE heal, AoE Regeneration, AND removes a condition. It’s very important to try to NEVER stay in water attunement for longer than you need to, that way you can more frequently swap to water and apply it’s restorative effects.

- Evasive Arcana[Water] is rather important for two reasons: It’s a strong AoE heal AND it cleanses a condition. It’s very likely you’ll be combining this with Attunement Swapping for your main heal, dodging and swapping to water JUST before the dodge finishes in order to AoE heal for over 5k and remove two conditions from allies in an instant.

- Water Elemental this badboy not only drops an ICE combo field for you to blast for Frost Armor, but it AoE heals for 6.5k every 25 seconds. Thanks to Aquatic Benevolence, it’s pretty easy to keep it alive too.

HEALING PRIORITY
Pop quiz: You run to battle only to find a Warrior low on life, and a Mesmer at half way. They’re not close enough for you to splish-splash heal, so only one can get burst healed. What do you do?

It can be tricky prioritizing who to heal and when, and no two situations are ever the same. Here are some general tips on picking a priority healing target.

• Heal whoever is being focused first.
• You can burst heal Elementalists, Thieves, and Guardians to atleast half life in one splish-splash combo, regeneration + soothing mist will finish the job.
• Mesmer, Engineer, and Ranger have medium HP. Mesmer have light armor, and survive usually by not getting hit, thus benefit greatly from your applied Regen/Soothing Mist (or Healing Rain) but will likely dodge out of your Geyser. Engineer can blast your water fields, especially Healing Rain… um, and then there’s Rangers. x.x
• Warriors in general are pretty tanky. Even when you’re not paying them much mind they’ll be a god next to you thanks to occasional heals and your Protection boon.*

COMBOS/ROTATIONS
These combos are listed in order of whats highest priority to lowest in my opinion. Your experience may vary depending on situation. While it may not seem like a lot, these are the things to keep in mind specifically for the purpose of playing support

• Splish-Splash (Dodge + water attunement swap) into the middle of a teamfight or onto a weak ally.
• Drop Healing Rain, dodge into Earth attunement AoE Regen/Heal/Protection.
• Drop your ICE FIELD. Blast with Arcane Wave while swapping to earth to drop eruption. If you’re fast enough your eruption will proc before the field ends, giving you ample access to AoE Fury/Swiftness. Learning to manipulate your ice and earth fields at the right time can grant near Pema Fury/Swiftness.
  *Blast Lava Font with Arcane Wave/Brilliance.
• SWAP ATTUNEMENT OFTEN! You never wanna be in one attunement for too long, try to never stay in Earth and Water longer than it takes to use your skills. If you have to, fight in Air/Fire.

• Your damage comes from your number 2 skills. Water 2, Earth 2, Fire 2, and Air 2 with honorable mention to Flame Burst (both the skill and the Fire dodge)

WHAT CLASSES NEED WHAT BOONS

(This section is still under construction… cuz I have no idea what Necromancer, Ranger, Engineer and Engineer do/need boon-wise. x.X)

• Warriors generally have access to Might, Fury, Stability and Swiftness. You compound this with Protection and Regeneration. (Your Regen + Soothing Mist is essentially a second Healing Signet for them)

• Guardians have ample access to Protection, Stability, and Regeneration. Offer them offensive boons such as Might and Fury.

• Mesmer can maintain Vigor & Might with a few other boon varieties that change depending on their build. In general the boons they need the most are Swiftness and Fury.

BOONS
THE BOONS
(If this looks like it was ripped from “The Chaos Maestro” it’s because .. it was. =P )
Why They Matter
An unfortunately high number of people overlook the usefulness of boons. Regeneration is largely ignored, Protection doesn’t last long enough to notice, Might means nothing if it isn’t at least 5 stacks, Swiftness only seems useful out of combat, Retaliation doesn’t do enough noticeable damage, who cares about Aegis if it only blocks a single hit? Misconceptions like these, in addition to how poorly Healing Power scales, have shied many people away from support-oriented builds in favor of DPS or Tanking. Try to apply the following buffs at the same time.

• Swiftness/Vigor/Regeneration
Regeneration “Resist Bleeds/Burns. Grow back life.” is more effective with the less damage we take. Having a high Healing Power allows Regen to mitigate effects of Bleeding/Burning. At 1300 healing power classes with lower vitality Guardians, Thieves, Elementalists(15k) can benefit so much from Regeneration that it feels reminiscent of an FPS)

Swiftness “Maneuver Quickly Without Dodging” allows you to avoid melee, projectile and AoE attacks without having to waste a dodge, as well as keep within buffing proximity of your allies much more easily. Swiftness makes you the kiting king.

Vigor “Dodge Twice As Often” allows you to dodge twice as often. ‘Nuff said. One bar of endurance usually takes 10 seconds to recharge. Vigor cuts this in half.

• Aegis/Protection/Retaliation
Aegis“Block The Next Attack” is much more useful than it seems at first glance. Aegis is great for blocking obnoxiously telegraphed “This-Is-Probably-Gonna-OneShot-You” attacks, it also gives you further combat advantage against Blinded enemies.

Protection “Take Less Damage” reduces incoming damage by 33%. That’s a lot. Protection is one of the highest priority boons in the game, and combined with Retaliation, makes up a huge part of your melee “tanking.” Protection is the main reason you want to be in Earth Attunement the LEAST of all attunements. The less time you’re attuned to earth, the faster you can swap back to it and apply AoE Protection

Retaliation“Hurt You For Hurting Me” scales off Power, which works well with Cleric’s armor. The damage on it’s own isn’t good, but combined with Confusion or other damaging conditions, it can become devastating.

• Might/Fury
Might “Do More Damage.” Increases both direct damage and condition damage. It takes about 7 stacks of Might for the damage to become noticeable(At level 80, 35 per stack. A ridiculous 875 at 25 stacks. Make friends with a shortbow thief who knows about fire fields and blast finishers.)

Fury“Crit More Often”(20% crit chance increase; Suddenly your lousy 22% crit chances now crits nearly half the time.) is the real reason you want to blast your ice field.

I feel like there’s a lot going on here but your guide just kind of stopped. Is there more to the guide to come at a later time after the boons section? Also, would it be possible to supplement your guide with a video tutorial? thanks

You haven’t considered the Necromancer in many paragraphs T.T

To make it simpler for you: Necromancers will gladly take any boon aside from HoT like Regeneration or Mist (unless they’re not forced to soak bursts in DS).

@izzue: Well I wrote it here at work, and ended up having to rush near the end. x.x I plan on formatting and editing it up a bit better though. I’d love to get some video footage but it’s hard since I end up lagging pretty bad when I try to record.

@Rym: I know. =[ I’m so Necromancer-illiterate. What boons do Necros have easy access to?

I have finally trying my elementalist in WvW and am using Monk Runes so as to maximize heals. The build is almost the same as yours barring a few differences.

Might I asked why you took 1 in air? I took bolt to the heart for some damage boost. What is the source of your Auras or am I missing something?

How is this build with out the self blasting in say a wvw setting? Its near death to go into a group and blast your own water fields and the lack of the condition remove on a heal seems like a great lost.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqc25wwBr0AhAG5NQHoBOKAUuGUCWBA-T1xGwAAuAAqU/5pyP56AGu/AhHAAUlgkCYUhRA-w

Is what i been running but i can see why some one would want to go say 2 air 6 water 6 ar with more celstal gear.

babazhook.6805:

I have finally trying my elementalist in WvW and am using Monk Runes so as to maximize heals. The build is almost the same as yours barring a few differences.

Might I asked why you took 1 in air? I took bolt to the heart for some damage boost. What is the source of your Auras or am I missing something?

He gets magnetic aura (30s cd) and frost aura from blasting his ice field (40s icd). I would personally take another trait such as bolt to the heart or even one with air (you get some nice distance with burning retreat + immediate air swap). The points are still probably better spent in earth, as the 1 point trait in air doesn’t actually exist as far as I’m concerned. With his described playstyle, you could probably take stone splinters as you are often within 600 range in conquest, and not suffer any dps loss.

Necros aren’t really about any boons. We can keep up 100% uptime on regeneration with Staff #2 AoE for allies in range.

We have limited access to short protection bounded with long cooldowns. We can get short fury when flashing DS, 3 sec Stability on DS when traited 6 points in SR for it, retaliation with adept Spite and Axe #3. And some might if you decide to take Adept Spite or Blood is Power.
That would be it. No Necro invest in boons, unless it’s mightstacking

And whave no access to Vigor at all (aside from Well of Power convert)

BlackBeard.2873:

magnetic aura (30s cd) and frost aura from blasting his ice field (40s icd).

You can make very good use of the auramancy traits with Staff, actually.
Magnetic Aura is personal and 30s cd, yes, but blasting the ice field will grant AoE Frost Aura to everyone in range of the blast.
This AoE aura doesn’t stack in duration, but the boons from Air I and Earth V do, so you and your allies will gain them for each blast finisher in the field.
With the right setup and careful management of finishers, you can maintain protection on yourself, get high uptime on allies, and still have a blast or two left over to use in water fields.

I should try 0/0/2/6/6 with V – x/VIII/XIII – I/VIII/XI. Monk or Grove runes (healing/protection). Hm.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Rym: I know. =[ I’m so Necromancer-illiterate. What boons do Necros have easy access to?

None, and that’s not even a joke :|

I assume this guide is WvW centric, so I’ll answer from necro WvW p.o.v. (Wellmancer, Staff & Axe/Horn, transform elite):
*Stability: super low uptime outside of elites (standard in zergs, with very little deviation) unless traited for (rare). Desperately needed :P
*Vigor: zero uptime (I use stamina sigils and could still use more dodges). DESPERATELY needed.
*Regen: no meaningful way of applying regen that I’m aware of, doesn’t work in DS, is absurdly strong when used on Plague Form necro (not that we need it most of the time ^^). Doesn’t hurt I guess. Don’t go out of your way to give a necro regen though. The frontliners will use the blasted water fields during short regroups (burst heals while out of DS work well for us).
*Protection: not available to standard frontline wvw wellmancers, rare ‘support’ builds might have burst application during wells, zerker backliners will have a 6 second proc on a 60s CD. Always needed
*Swiftness: 50%~ uptime on their own with warhorn 5. More is always appreciated
*Fury: 50%~ uptime on their own (when we can use DS to DS-flash). Always appreciated
*Might: Unless battle/strength sigils are used (not too common), zero. Try to burst-stack it on us just before wells get dropped or Lich form is used (Lich = backliner elite, Plague = frontliner elite that does little to no damage)
*Retaliation: we get 3+ seconds per target (up to 3s+ x 5) on a 15s CD in Axe

YMMV depending on exact builds, but this is what you can expect the average midline zerg necro to bring.

Would you ever recommend support ele in any hard PvE content?

Hey sorry guys. Haven’t had much time to reply on the forums, but I wanted to touch on a few things.:

• Will be reformatting and updating the guide to make it more fleshed out and easier to read.
• I actually scored some video footage!

@Jski: My condition removal comes from dodging in water attunement/swapping to water, Healing Rain and Cleansing fire. So far I haven’t needed more than that.
The blast finishers are very important: a large portion of damage boosts and heals comes from blasting (as well as a bit of added boon support.) As a result, I’d recommend at LEAST grabbing Arcane Wave especially with it being a ranged blast finisher. Combined with fancy shuffling into Earth with EA and Eruption, you should be good to go.

@BlackBeard & Baba: Cheese took the words straight from my mouth. Zephyrs Boon essentially gives me and nearby allies perma-Fury as long as I can manage two blasts of my ice field.

@Bwai & Rym: Many thanks guys! I’ve been paying special attention to necros after Rym’s comment for future updates and I’m aiming to specifically get footage of how to “heal” a necro. I’ll be adding your guys’ info to the main article though.

@Aphro: The problem is … “hard” and “PvE” is sort of an oxymoron. The majority of PvE can be conquered with proper dodging ability, so you don’t necessarily have to build specifically for it. As far as staff elementalists in PvE are concerned, we come with so much natural support just by using staff (combo fields, CC, cleanses, ect.) that there is little need to actually trait/gear for a support build the way you would for WvW or PvP.