http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.13.0.32.0.16.0.3.13.14.15.24.2.2.7.6.9.0.16.0.0.32.35.42.47.0.0.0.0.0.20.10.30.10.0
Gear is about power, crit chance, and toughness. You’ll have a constant stream of incoming health while you fight, so it’s more important to be able to shrug off big hits than it is to try to soak them. You should also be able to outheal condition damage. Alternatively, you could swap air signet for water signet which like air has a useful active ability as well as the condition dump. Oh, the crit chance is because most weapon sigils proc on crits, and I like keeping my options open.
How it plays:
The key bit is that signets and auras get linked via Fire IX. Every time you activate a signet, you create an aura (fire shield). This in turn procs all your aura traits as well as the signet traits. In effect, you click a signet, you get fire shield, fury, swiftness, protection, and inflict vulnerability. And because of Earth XII, you don’t lose the signet’s passive ability.
Next, the lack of any arcane points means that you don’t flip through elements constantly the way the build that shall never be spoken of again used to. Instead, you hit elements situationally. I prefer running air most of the time because it hits hard and has its own aura which gives you access to most of your trait procs. It also has my fav combo, dagger 5 which interrupts and knocks down your target while getting you out of range, dagger 4 which puts you right back in range and blasts the target. Then, while the target is still down, I hit my aura (dagger 3) followed by air’s vulnerability attack (dagger 2) and then I auto-attack for a bit. This utterly wrecks 3-4 mobs at a time if you get them bunched when you start it.
For stronger mobs, I’ll usually start by popping the fire signet at range. This gets them burning and me moving faster to get into melee without needing RTL. I use the air signet against big charge attacks. The earth signet is either just another proc on fury/shield or actually gets used to hold mobs in place based on my knowledge of the mob wanting to run away or not. I’ll toss my knockdown jump back combo in again at times, using it mostly like I do my air signet unless the mob has stability in which case, I tend to forget about dagger 5 while in air. This paragraph is also my usual approach to PvP with this build.
If I get in trouble health wise (it happens). Flip to water and dagger 5 (cleansing wave). You also get a regen while you’re in water. If you want some extra condition damage, bounce to fire for a moment or two. Keep in mind that if you used fire signet, all you’re doing is adding to duration with fire burning attacks so fire isn’t going to get used a lot. You can also flip to earth and make your target bleed. With 30 points into Earth, your condition damage isn’t totally pathetic.
One other helpful hint. Even tho we poor unwashed elementalist masses don’t get weapon swapping, I still carry a staff. This build works surprisingly well as a stand-off ranged blaster which is useful when fighting event bosses. Just have to remember to switch out weapons before you get into combat.