Guild Wars 2

How would you advise playing a ‘support’ elementalist. his came up the other day whn I was with a group of friends and I needed to play the more supportive roll. I failed miserable and wound up going back to double daggers earth spec and just raging on things…

Help?

in a support roll, i use water with a staff which heals allies over an AoE. i also like to use Air as it has a stun skill to assist your allies in kicking the enemies butt. I use earth to assist me with incoming damage. fire is not a support type attunement.

Like Rayner said, Water and Staff is a good way to go for support. If you’re looking for a more permanent-support build, there are plenty of trait options that will help with providing boons, auras, and regeneration to your allies.

First off, use a staff.

Second, don’t limit your self to support, use control as well. Focus on keeping things away from people, stunning, blinding (GoS earth), chill, ect. Lining these up for combos is even better, like a chill field as the thief uses unload.

Use blast finishers (arcane wave, eruption, evasive arcana) on fire/water fields to buff/heal. You will heal WAY more if you do 2-3 blast finishers in a water field than the water field alone.

you can fairly easily get a total of 4 blasts in 1 healing rain by precasting eruption, arcane wave, 2 rolls with evasive arcana. That’s a good 8-9k healing without healing power.

and.. don’t stop dpsing. All of our support and control can be done while still putting out damage

Quintal.6594:

First off, use a staff.
you can fairly easily get a total of 4 blasts in 1 healing rain by precasting eruption, arcane wave, 2 rolls with evasive arcana. That’s a good 8-9k healing without healing power.

I completely forgot about arcane wave! I agree that utilizing the combo fields with blasts is sooo useful. I rarely initiate fights without eruption blasting at least.

Elemental Attunement is huge. Fully specced into arcane to reduce the recharge on your attunements, you can have a pretty high uptime of protection (awesome!) and regen on your group.

There are also tons of possibilities for condition removal in your water traits, which is also very helpful.

Grab 30 earth and 30 water, water elem staff + remove conditions when you apply regen + Dwayna runes + Shaman or Cleric armors/jewelry.

Don’t forget about earth attunement when supporting with staff. Elementalists are the best at stacking weakness which reduces the damage mobs can do plus you have an extra blast finisher. It’s easier to land a blast finish with eruption if you cast it and then set your field on top of it before it’s had a chance to explode. With evasive arcana, eruption, and arcane wave you can instantly put out a lot of might stacks or healing.

Quintal.6594:

First off, use a staff.

Second, don’t limit your self to support, use control as well. Focus on keeping things away from people, stunning, blinding (GoS earth), chill, ect. Lining these up for combos is even better, like a chill field as the thief uses unload.

Use blast finishers (arcane wave, eruption, evasive arcana) on fire/water fields to buff/heal. You will heal WAY more if you do 2-3 blast finishers in a water field than the water field alone.

you can fairly easily get a total of 4 blasts in 1 healing rain by precasting eruption, arcane wave, 2 rolls with evasive arcana. That’s a good 8-9k healing without healing power.

and.. don’t stop dpsing. All of our support and control can be done while still putting out damage

fully agree with this post, works great in dungeons.
id add that you have 2 aoe blinds on air (2 and the one from evasive arcana, which especially in dungeon where everyone and their mother is immune to cc and has slow powerful attacks is immensely strong.
Also, the first 2 minor traits in water are amazing.