Guild Wars 2

So currently, my elementalist is running Carrion gear with Runes of the Undead, Crysocola Accessories. This is recycled gear that I use now because I essentially abandoned my Evasive Arcana Staff build.

I need to re-gear this ele, and I need your thoughts. Currently running an “Auramentalist” spec with 20/10/0/30/10. 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace with Signet usage for aura upkeep. 10 in Air for Zephyr’s Boon, 30 in Water for 20% CDR, Cleanse on Water Attune, and Powerful Aura. Last 10 in Arcana for small CDR on attunements and boons when switching.

I’m highly considering taking the 20 points from fire and redistributing them either: 0/10/20/30/10 or 0/10/10/30/20. I need some advice with this. The points in earth would go towards Elemental Shielding and something else (if I go 20 points). The points in arcana could be anything really… maybe Final Shielding? I’m just putting the points there (if I go 20) for increased CDR on attunements.

Also, would love some advice on gear. Seems the general consensus for Auramentalists is P/V/T with 2x Monk, 2x Water and 2x ???. Jewelry as well.

Oh, this is for general PvE/Dungeons/Fractals. Thanks in advance!

You got the runes right, but add 2x major water and I would go a tad higher in Arcana for the extra boon duration, which is very important in this setup. 30 in water is not necessary unless your intent on sharing out your aura’s.

Isnt that the point of Auramentalist? To share the aura? I mean with the intent being for dungeon grouping, I’d like to be able to share Fury/Swiftness and maybe even Protection.

So, I should run 4x water 2x monk? What about 2x Forge for extra protection duration if I intend on running points into earth?

I have also discovered the power of Powerful Aura. You have to decide what method of proccing auras works best for you. You can spam signets to create aura’s everywhere with Fire’s Embrace but you can not use other utility skills. The aura skills on air magic and water magic on the dagger’s can’t be used as frequently but their cool-downs can be alleviated a little if you spec into arcane and you have freedom with your utilities. Another point though is that going the signet route means that you can use staff and you may prefer it for dungeons because staff is a ranged weapon.

Thanks Ferny, pretty good points. I have also made the same conclusion with the use of Signets, in that they are really taking up all of my utility. I was wondering if D/D’s auras were enough to maintain a decent upkeep of Zephyr’s Boon/Elemental Shielding. I would also love to probably run cantrips with the build since it needs survivability if I’m going to be front lining.

20 points in Arcana, what would my second trait be? I already run V.

You can keep auras up with signets for a long time especially if you use D/D’s auras however auras are most useful in fights so you need to take into account the duration of a fight and decide if you need short term auras from D/D with utilities or long term spammable aura’s from signets without utilities. I only just discovered the build and I don’t have specialised armor for it but with your runes of the monk/water do the boons from the aura’s outlast the recharge of D/D’s auras or signet’s auras?

For arcana use VI renewing stamina or X Arcane energy if you are using signet’s.

Ferny.8250:

You can keep auras up with signets for a long time especially if you use D/D’s auras however auras are most useful in fights so you need to take into account the duration of a fight and decide if you need short term auras from D/D with utilities or long term spammable aura’s from signets without utilities. I only just discovered the build and I don’t have specialised armor for it but with your runes of the monk/water do the boons from the aura’s outlast the recharge of D/D’s auras or signet’s auras?

For arcana use VI renewing stamina or X Arcane energy if you are using signet’s.

The fury and swiftness of shocking lasts around 17 seconds with 60% boon duration while the ones from frost aura lasts about 8 seconds. Coupled with fury on attunement swap, you should have have permanent fury swiftness while giving your party about 70% uptime on those boons.

My current spec is 20/10/10/15/15 and it works very well. Those 15 points in Arcana plus the 45% extra boon duration make a massive difference. I was thinking to test out a 30 arcana build, which would give me a lot of extra boon duration plus the rapid fire attunement swaps give me that much extra fury every time. Its absolutely amazing how much of a difference that extra boon duration makes.

Its very difficult to achieve a well rounded build with PA and 30 in water though. You get a nice build in D/D or S/D but you only get one aura that way on staff without pumping 20 into fire. That wont work for me because I need to have all weapon sets as efficient as possible for Wv3.

What I find interesting is that Anet I think did an excellent job of balancing signets vs. aura’s, and I think the possibility remote that they will nerf this because of it. You really cant have a full signet and aura build at the same time because you have to go 30 in earth to get the signet trait and you have to go 30 in water to get PA if you really want to maximize both, but then whats the point of that? You nerf your damage output badly that way. I find that you really do need to balance power and precision into your build via fire and air to be really effective… Well.. I suppose you could go for a condition build and spec that way… hmmmmmmmm….

For conditions if you put 30 into Water and Earth you could use the two traits in water and the other trait in arcane that synergise with vulnerability.

The fire aura on signet trait requires 20 points…so getting that AND 30/30 earth/water is impossible unfortunately.

Here is my build. Last two runes are Major Rune of the Water.

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbvxygjFA0DtEUIACjCgIK8Q9wMA;TwAg0yoEQJhSFlCKquMeJ8y11Qk5HA

As you can see, this has quite a bit of punch built in. I will let your imagination take over what the damages look like with 18 stacks of Might, and 3-4 stacks of Fury built up.

What this build lacks is passive condition removal and I swap in SoW whenever I go into Wv3. Endurance recharge is np with the Sigil of Energy. I do get +75% boon duration, and this would go up to +105% at 30 arcana.

How about this?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoIGAIPeJlSEFeo8QmZsB;TgAKvMdJ6yqkzLpSDLmaA

Fire Shield via Burning Speed/Ring of Fire + Magnetic Grasp. Do note it doesn’t appear to benefit from extended Boon Duration and thus only lasts 3 seconds.

Frost Aura + Shocking Aura via Dagger Mainhand and Offhand skills.

Utility skills are wildcards, they can be whatever suits the player really.

Sigils for proccing Vulnerability and Fire AoE.

2x Sup Rune of Water, 2x Sup Rune of Monk, 2x Sup Rune of Rage.

Stat priority, Power & Precision.

I really don’t get the point of that build. What are you trying to achieve with it? Arcana 2 is interesting but the time it takes to activate the aura plus the down time while your reviving downed people really does not make sense to me on a D/D build, where mobility is absolutely critical. Also, EA was nerfed and no longer procs blast finishers, so its usefulness is questionable and it does not synergize with Arcana 2 at all.

The water traits are fine for a D/D build except I would probably swap out water 1 for water 2, and water 4 for water 5 or 10 so that you actually synergize with the use of signets more or at least get some condition removal and water 2 will give you the vulnerability on target.

1900 attack and 9% crit… egads!!

boozer.7815:

I really don’t get the point of that build. What are you trying to achieve with it? Arcana 2 is interesting but the time it takes to activate the aura plus the down time while your reviving downed people really does not make sense to me on a D/D build, where mobility is absolutely critical. Also, EA was nerfed and no longer procs blast finishers, so its usefulness is questionable and it does not synergize with Arcana 2 at all.

The water traits are fine for a D/D build except I would probably swap out water 1 for water 2, and water 4 for water 5 or 10 so that you actually synergize with the use of signets more or at least get some condition removal and water 2 will give you the vulnerability on target.

1900 attack and 9% crit… egads!!

I intentionally left out the jewelry because it translates poorly to a PvE gear setup. Thought that would be pretty obvious.

The arcane traits isn’t as much about synergy as it is about a lack of anything worthwhile for this particular setup, which focuses more around vulnerability/auras.

@OP: if you want to go Auramentalist, I would defninetly go 10/10/10/30/20. This way, you can actually vary your build a bit from time to time, and still be very effective. The water magic grandmasters can be used either for solo play (cleansing water is a great self cleanse), or for extremely good support (powerful auras of course).

Also, don’t forget that water magic gives you around the same amount of offence as fire magic in this build, because you deal +2% dmg for each boon, and you have loads of them!

Bean Muncher.5197:

@OP: if you want to go Auramentalist, I would defninetly go 10/10/10/30/20.

That build adds up to 80 points, which is not possible.

Perhaps you mean this build -

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbvxygjEAkHtYSJjCgIK8QRxM8A;TwAg0yoEQJhSFlCKquMeJ8y11Qk5HA

boozer.7815:

Bean Muncher.5197:

@OP: if you want to go Auramentalist, I would defninetly go 10/10/10/30/20.

That build adds up to 80 points, which is not possible.

Perhaps you mean this build -

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbvxygjEAkHtYSJjCgIK8QRxM8A;TwAg0yoEQJhSFlCKquMeJ8y11Qk5HA

I can’t open this link, but I meant 0/10/10/30/20. Thanks for correcting!

Just want to thank everyone so far for their contributions to this post! Let’s make this a great discussion

With regards to heavy investment towards Earth: I always see it as these two scenarios. One, investing points heavy into earth is a more self-centered build, meaning that it revolves more about personal upkeep rather than supporting the team as a whole. Two, investing points heavy into water is more group-centered, where the extra healing power will contribute rather noticeably towards Staff 3/5, D/D 2/5. I much prefer going 30 into water because I always felt the elementalist was more of a support class as a whole, rather than a DPS class like Berzerker warriors. Powerful Auras allows me to support the group.

Now my dilemma is: Is running signets worth it for extra Aura Upkeep? Or is it much better to run 10 earth for Elemental Shielding, with an additional 10 (for a total of 20) in arcana for boon duration/CDR? I’m leaning towards the latter.

Absolution.2851:

Just want to thank everyone so far for their contributions to this post! Let’s make this a great discussion

With regards to heavy investment towards Earth: I always see it as these two scenarios. One, investing points heavy into earth is a more self-centered build, meaning that it revolves more about personal upkeep rather than supporting the team as a whole. Two, investing points heavy into water is more group-centered, where the extra healing power will contribute rather noticeably towards Staff 3/5, D/D 2/5. I much prefer going 30 into water because I always felt the elementalist was more of a support class as a whole, rather than a DPS class like Berzerker warriors. Powerful Auras allows me to support the group.

Now my dilemma is: Is running signets worth it for extra Aura Upkeep? Or is it much better to run 10 earth for Elemental Shielding, with an additional 10 (for a total of 20) in arcana for boon duration/CDR? I’m leaning towards the latter.

I feel similar. I have used 20 in fire to trigger aura’s with signets and I hate the loss of all the utility. I have no ways to save my tooshie

Absolution.2851:

Now my dilemma is: Is running signets worth it for extra Aura Upkeep? Or is it much better to run 10 earth for Elemental Shielding, with an additional 10 (for a total of 20) in arcana for boon duration/CDR? I’m leaning towards the latter.

If you trait for aura’s then going 20 in fire is the way to go to pop a lot of aura’s, so that you can get the benefit of both the aura and the boons that go with popping them. For a Staff build, this is essential. For D/D, S/D or x/F then this is not needed so much because you have access to more aura’s, although because of their respective CD’s, the fire 20 trait is still very valuable.

What going higher in Arcana is useful for is the increased boon duration and faster attunement swaps giving you that much more Fury every time you swap and lingering attunement bonuses on Arcana 15.

For Staff, you go fire 20. For anything else, I would probably go with more Arcana.