Guild Wars 2

I originally made an ele alt with a ranger as my main, and … I fell in love with this class, despite everything I was hearing and reading. Love the skills, effects, playstyle, etc. and, most importantly, the clothes; far better options than trenchcoat after trenchcoat (kidding about most important).

Ele is definitely trickier to play than most of the other classes, so my question is what are the “mainstream” or accepted builds for PvE and PvP (mostly WvW, not in zergs)? I’ve read the stickied builds thread and a few others running around, but I have no idea what is legit and what is trash. I just know the general idea of keeping up as many buffs as possible.

Well, I can’t speak for PvE as I’m only level 11 so far, but for PvP the basic setup is 20 Water/Air, then whatever else. Avoid Fire line, it’s pretty much useless for most builds.

Tank/Heal is 0/0/10/30/30 taking Armor of Earth trait, Evasive Arcana, and the regen/condition removal in Water. Cantrips are you absolute best option 99% of the time. Signets can be good in some builds, but cantrips provide so much benefit. Armor of Earth/Mist Form/Lightning Flash. Can be used with S/D or staff. Staff provides better group healing and support, while I find S/D to be a bit better at point holding.

For D/D it’s basically the same thing, but there are some variations. Some folks only run 20/20 Water/Arcana, but I find Evasive Arcana and the survivability/group utility in Water to be too good to pass up. The build I’ve been using is posted in the sticky. Can also work well with S/D, but you have to use Signet of Earth to land any Dragon’s Tooth against players that are awake.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/d-d-spvp-d-d-elementalist-spvp-tpvp-7678.html

Sigils are kind of up in the air. Energy, and Battle are both excellent choices. Energy for better survivability + more Evasive Arcana, and Battle for more might stacking. Sigil of Accuracy or the fire AoE are good, too. You get 100% Fury uptime, so seeing the Fire sigil proc isn’t too rare, but it’s still relatively low crit, so Accuracy might be better. Haven’t tested. Runes are 2x Water and 2x Monk for boon uptime. Secondary effects tend to trump the minor stat boosts. The last 2 are up to you. I like prot duration and might duration.

Essentially, as long as you stick to the 20 Water/Arcana guideline with cantrips, you can’t go wrong with Ele.

15 Water/15-30 Arcane Power is the basis of most viable builds.
If you already have 20 points in Arcane Power (e.g. the the bigger Staff AoE) I advice to put 10 more points in Arcane Power to get Evasive Arcana; it isn’t in the trait description but each of those spells count as a blast finisher. That means you can use it with a fire field to give yourself (and each nearby ally) 3-6 stacks of Might (+105-210 Power and Condition Damage at max-Level) and ~1.5k healing every ~10 seconds which is properly more than you get for 10 trait points in any other line.