Guild Wars 2

Both my Father-in-law and Mother-in-law are playing gw2. I would consider them to be relatively casual players. Most of their time will be spent in open world PvE doing exploration and events. They may one day try out a dungeon or two, but they will probably never step into sPvP or WvW. The good news is that they’ve both been playing for 3+ months now and know the basic game mechanics.

So with all of that said, they have rerolled as Ele and Engi and are asking me for advice.

Because I know very little about the ele, and also don’t know of a good casual friendly engineer setup, I’m seeking your advice. Obviously I’m seeking advice on Ele stuff here, but I will also cross-post something similar in the Engi forum. Advice on either is welcome.

What sort of build, weapons and equipment stats should they be working toward? And remember that they will likely spend a lot of time leveling the characters, so level a build that only shines at level 80 won’t be very helpful.

I really appreciate the help!

Welcome. I saw your post in the engineer forum and thought I would look you up here because someone over there was recommending you build for “staff”. Well, today was my first venture into the engineer fourms and from what I can see, their traits appear to be very much geared towards what weapons and kits etc. you carry. That’s not the case for elementalists.

Sure, there are some players who like one weapon set better than another. But, for the average players our traits for the most part enhance the effects of the attunements, and very few actually affect the weapons directly. There are some exceptions. One example is that dagger/dagger favors the use of aura trait synergy, but they are fine just as they are and not taking all of those traits is not a big deal for the average player who is generalizing his build and not going for some min-max stuff. Anyway, there are uses for all the weapons. For me, switching up the weapons completely changes the game and adds to the enjoyment of the class.

The best one piece of advice I can think of relates to attunment swapping. Swapping between attunements, putting together combos of skills in different attunements, and triggering skills on attunement change is the single biggest part of the effectiveness of an elementalist However, if they do not want to be doing dungeons or Wvw, there is not alot of pressure to heal yourself, remove conditions, place boons, etc. Out in the world map exploration and events are relatively non stressing. To start leveling I would suggest they simply look at points in Vitality(water) for health, Toughness(earth) for survivability, and look at the first few tiers in Arcana to see if anything there interests them. Once the profession gets past the squishyness of the lower levels and into about level 50, and they have had a chance to play around with the different weapons and skills, they will have a better idea what they like to do best with the class. Surviving the lower levels can be tough and apparently many elementalists drop out there. High vitality and toughness will help get thru that.

still need a few more opinions on this please.

Any build in GW2 is casual friendly this whole game is designed solely for casual gamers. It almost does not matter what kind of traits/abilities/gear one chooses. At the end everybody can heal, deal damage and support at the same rate
DIVA

Early on, a combination of water and arcane traits does wonders for survivability, and the ability to help a group. At 10 points in each you have a passive heal to all party members while in water, and can trait for condition removal and a temporary regeneration boon whenever you attune to water (and 1 stack of might when switching to fire, 5 seconds of swiftness when attuning to air, and 5 seconds of protection when attuning to earth, which can all be useful, especially as they’re essentially free). At 15 points in each that expands to an AoE heal when attuning to water, and the passive heal lasting for a short period after switching to another element.

Investing in Arcana also gives a nice decrease to the cooldown of attunement switches, meaning more frequent big attacks, and gives a boost to boon duration, which is a nice little benefit to all the boons you’ll be putting out.

In short, all those popular elementalist builds that revolve around 20-30 points in both water and arcana are also decent builds for levelling, as having that extra survivability is important in open world PvE and the personal story for squishy mages; and you share more or less all of those little bonuses with everybody around you as an added benefit.

Dingle.2743:

Early on, a combination of water and arcane traits does wonders for survivability, and the ability to help a group. At 10 points in each you have a passive heal to all party members while in water, and can trait for condition removal and a temporary regeneration boon whenever you attune to water (and 1 stack of might when switching to fire, 5 seconds of swiftness when attuning to air, and 5 seconds of protection when attuning to earth, which can all be useful, especially as they’re essentially free). At 15 points in each that expands to an AoE heal when attuning to water, and the passive heal lasting for a short period after switching to another element.

Investing in Arcana also gives a nice decrease to the cooldown of attunement switches, meaning more frequent big attacks, and gives a boost to boon duration, which is a nice little benefit to all the boons you’ll be putting out.

In short, all those popular elementalist builds that revolve around 20-30 points in both water and arcana are also decent builds for levelling, as having that extra survivability is important in open world PvE and the personal story for squishy mages; and you share more or less all of those little bonuses with everybody around you as an added benefit.

Great advice. Thanks!