Guild Wars 2

I’m creating a new ele to play through and I’ve never played it before.
I have levelled other characters to 80 so I generally know what’s going down, but I’m completely new to ele.
What is the best build for levelling and what is the best support build at 80? I generally run a lot of dungeons with zerkers, so I’d like a support build (I hear water is quite good for that sort of thing).
Anyone know of any good ones?

A general good build involves 0/10/0/30/30 traits or 0/20/0/20/30. These are both generally the most user-friendly/numerically effective builds, combining crit chance/damage with good survivability and utility. Eles have plenty of access to fury, so I don’t find running pure Berserker stats quite necessary.

Right now I’m using a combination of Berserk/Soldier stats with a little Knight thrown in, with runes of Melandru to help with stuns/conditions to open up my utility slot options a little more. My traits are 0/20/0/20/30 and I like to have all weapons available for whatever situation I may be in.

Most builds are built around a X/X/X/10/20 base. Without that, you will find general survivability to be an issue in any situation. Getting there will put you half way to 80 and let you decide what direction you want to go from there.

Thanks for the replies!
I’ve had a look around and a x/x/x/30/30 build looks good. I’d like to base it around power more than crit chance/dmg though, for more consistent damage. Would a 10/0/0/30/30 build with Power Toughness Healing gear work for heal support with acceptable DPS?

there’s no point in going into fire unless you plan on using a signet build or lightning hammer build. Fire is generally crappy and has very few decent traits in it. if you want more power, get that through gear, not traits.

10 in either air for zephyr’s boon (grants fury and swiftness – better dps and mobility than the crap fire traits) or earth for a couple traits (up to you)

Zoij.3498:

Thanks for the replies!
I’ve had a look around and a x/x/x/30/30 build looks good. I’d like to base it around power more than crit chance/dmg though, for more consistent damage. Would a 10/0/0/30/30 build with Power Toughness Healing gear work for heal support with acceptable DPS?

Eles scale much better off of having crit damage than you would expect. It’s not hard to get about 25% crit chance and 50+% extra crit damage while retaining decent survivability.

So if I were to go into a 0/10/0/30/30 build, what sort of gear would I want for healing and damage output with defence as third importance? Precision vitality healing or something like that?

Zoij.3498:

So if I were to go into a 0/10/0/30/30 build, what sort of gear would I want for healing and damage output with defence as third importance? Precision vitality healing or something like that?

Bunch of knights, really. Soldiers with beserker mixed in works too.

Zoij.3498:

So if I were to go into a 0/10/0/30/30 build, what sort of gear would I want for healing and damage output with defence as third importance? Precision vitality healing or something like that?

Cleric gear works great if you want a more defensive build.

since you are starting out shoot for about 500 healing power, 15k vitality, 1600 toughness. The rest can be invested into damage output. More experienced players often go with more damage and less survivabilty shooting around 400 healing power and 1500-1600 toughness.

15k vitality!? Jesus! I might try for 15k health instead
But thanks heaps, that’s really helpful

First, the idea of a “support” build is nonsense. Our support comes from our skills and they don’t require a build to use them, with the exception of sharing auras. In that case you are dagger/dagger to get the full benefit. I don’t like the limitaton of a build to be best just for one weapon set. I like to use all weapon sets in pve. And to share the aura, there is a pretty small radius as I recall, but I could be wrong about that.

Other players can combo blast our water fields and that uses their Healing Power, not ours. The actual heal from the field is secondary. Healing power’s primarily effect is to buff our own healing. If we can survive without it, we don’t need it or much at all. If you hadn’t noticed, in dungeons and fractals the party is spread all over the place. There is a very small benefit to buffing our healing power to use a healing skill for a small area for the benefit of one or two players. The biggest benefit is the combo blast and you can’t be spending your time running around combo blasting your own fields.

Second, damage output is necessary to be a contributing member of the party. 30 in water and 30 in arcane gives you no damage. That is commonly refered to as a bunker build. You don’t need a bunker build in Pve to survive. That doesn’t mean you have to min/max and go beserker. That doesn’t mean ignore your own water and arcane trait lines entirely. It does mean you have to get your power, precision, crit damage, crit percentage up to some decent levels. Knowing “what is going on” as you say will give you some idea of the relative values of damage.

Many elementalists like to enhance their endurance and vigor for dodges and there are two traits that affect that. Stacking might during battle is the single most useful thing an elementalist can do to enhance their own damage and the damage of the party. Learning and using all the skills at the proper time is the second most useful. After all, speaking of support, you do have weakness, vulnerability, stuns, cripples, chills, invulnerability, knockdowns, knockbacks, blinds, and so forth. But, you don’ t build to use them.

Interesting what you’re saying, but I’d have to disagree with you on defensive or support build being useless. My main is a tank/heal based guardian, and that works really well. I focus on AoE healing with high healing power, so I can stay alive, take a lot of the damage and keep my party alive too.
The people I usually play with are a berserker warrior, a turret support engi, a boons/damage mesmer and a condition based necro and we always chat through teamspeak. I get where you’re coming from in that a bunker build won’t help me with freeroam PvE, but I play a lot of coordinated dungeon runs, so I think a more defensive build will suit me better

Zoij.3498:

Interesting what you’re saying, but I’d have to disagree with you on defensive or support build being useless. My main is a tank/heal based guardian, and that works really well. I focus on AoE healing with high healing power, so I can stay alive, take a lot of the damage and keep my party alive too.
The people I usually play with are a berserker warrior, a turret support engi, a boons/damage mesmer and a condition based necro and we always chat through teamspeak. I get where you’re coming from in that a bunker build won’t help me with freeroam PvE, but I play a lot of coordinated dungeon runs, so I think a more defensive build will suit me better

I get your point, but we are talking about two different classes. We are talking elementalist. And, I never said a support build was useless, I said, “the idea of a “support” build is nonsense. Our support comes from our skills and they don’t require a build to use them”

Now, if you pick a weapon set and do the math on just what skills your “support build” enhanced that are significantly better than what you started with in another build, I’d sign on to your idea. I think you will find the “support” skills that can be significantly affected by a “build” are few, the cooldowns longer than you would like, and the benefit to your party no where near as significant as you would like.

Actually support builds like the Auramancer build are based entirely around the bonus from traits that allow for the application and spread of boons to nearby allies. The weapon skills themselves offer very little in the way of sustainable support, due to their protracted cooldowns. In that sense, you do need to spec/build your traits to a specific allocation for that role.

Solkard.5136:

Actually support builds like the Auramancer build are based entirely around the bonus from traits that allow for the application and spread of boons to nearby allies. The weapon skills themselves offer very little in the way of sustainable support, due to their protracted cooldowns. In that sense, you do need to spec/build your traits to a specific allocation for that role.

Yes, I allowed for that one exception in the first paragraph of my first post in this thread. There are btw, no other “support builds like the Auramancer”. You share auras in daggger/dagger, that’s it. If that floats your boat and you think you have replaced a guardian or significantly supported your party with those 4 auras, go for it.

Considering every Ele build, save maybe Fresh Air, is a very minor variation of that build? That one exception covers pretty much all current Ele builds.

Solkard.5136:

Considering every Ele build, save maybe Fresh Air, is a very minor variation of that build? That one exception covers pretty much all current Ele builds.

If you are speaking of builds with 30 in water, that is pretty much what many eles like to run with to stay alive, but not for the Auramancer. It’s for the grandmaster trait Cleansing Water’s heal and condition removal primarily, because they need that for themselves. That sPvP nerf to a 5 second cooldown for Cleansing Water destroyed the sPvP build. Not because the ele was not supporting the party, but because he was d e a d.

So to say that two builds with 30 in water and different traits is a minor variation? The one grandmaster trait entirely changes the build’s use and purpose. The few condition removals it grants to party members certainly can’t be construed as a build whose purpose is support.

Which brings me again to my statement. The ele gets his support from his skills. Show me a build that substantially alters that to the significant benefit of the party.

What sort of builds do you run Baladir?

I’ve been running high crit builds since my first exotic set of armor and have never gone back.

Forgeting sPvP for this, high crit has a strategic use in WvW with aoe staff damage and crowd control. Crit aoe stings and many opposing players are afraid to get caught in it. They move out or stay out. The aoe crowd control is significant. Of course it actually does do some real damage lol.

In Pve I use everything. Staff can work wonders in alot of dungeon content. As I do not run an aura-mancer build, my support is limited to might stacks, blinds, cripples, chills, knockbacks and the occasional heal and condition removal with s/d and d/d. That is pretty much all we have with those weapons and it’s not much in the support department.

As far as my build, I am in-between. I am giving fresh air a second try and being selfish about it. I find most players can take care of their own conditions and heals. If they are inexperienced, then a guardian has a much larger impact than an elementalist. The Gauntlet and new Clockwork? champions mobs have made me impatient with my damage output. They can’t be defended against for any period of time thru healing and dodging or the use of utilites. The only defense is offense, damage per second, not over time. Sure it is one time content, but I did not like at the way we measured up against the other classes with our classic builds. I did not like people saying, “No, I didn’t do that on my ele, I used my thief, or guardian.” or whoever. I believe we should be competitive on our elementalists.

I realize this doesn’t answer your question, but perhaps you get why I object to “support” for the sake of support. It does not pull a party members weight imo if that is all they do. I am not alone there. Pve content can be done with alot less than 5. I don’t like to feel like I am a character the party can do without. When I step into they fray in WvW, I want to see something happen. Players dying comes to mind.

I understand where you’re coming from; with a full DPS group you can blaze through a dungeon just as well as, if not better than a well-rounded group. This is, in my opinion, unfortunate. It means people playing CoF will LFG with ‘Zerk warriors ONLY’ and stupid stuff like that. Really disappointing.
I am personally thoroughly into support. I enjoy condi removal, boon sharing and healing. Sometimes I tank too. With the removal of these specific role in GW2, I try and maintain reasonable damage, but I still think it’s important to support the team.
I have been in dungeons with full berserker parties, and have seen one person dying cause the whole group’s DPS to plummet and because nobody has any defence, the whole group wipes. Chalk that up to lack of experience if you want, but I really feel like there needs to be more support and because I enjoy support I want to build my ele like that.
I’ll keep the damage up of course, attunement dancing takes care of that, but having good heals and combo fields is important too for me.
I respect full DPS builds, and selfish builds are often the best in general, but without coordination and support, a dungeon run can far more easily fall apart, and even if it doesn’t, it’s nowhere near as fun. And that’s to what it all boils down.

Baladir.2736:

The only defense is offense, damage per second, not over time.

That’s actually the same thing, but I get what you mean.