Guild Wars 2

Okay guys, so I have been playing D/D Ele for a while now, pwning face with it left and right, but I just discovered this whole powerful auras trait. I wanted to share with you all how freaking amazing this is for smallish groups in WvW, when you combine it with Zephyr’s Boon (Air 10), the prot on aura trait (Earth 10), and boon duration runes.

Now…I always knew what the trait did, but I guess I never really realized the impact it can have on a battle so I never really used it. Speaking of that impact, let me tell you why this trait is freaking awesome.

The powerful auras trait makes it so whenever you use an aura, it now affects (I think) up to 5 allies who are in close proximity of you (maybe 300?). Now, this may seem good in and of itself, but there are several reasons why it is more than just good:

1. All your “aura perks” from traits get applied to allies as well. So everytime you use an aura, your nearby allies gain a long duration fury and swiftness, and a short duration prot.

2. Your boon duration modifiers affect your allies as well, so the fury and swift lasts like 12s or so, and the prot lasts like 3.5s. Not bad at all…you can basically keep up perma swiftness and near perma fury on your entire group like this if you stay tight with your group. That, and that alone is amazing for a 5 manish WvW squad.

3. Chill stacks duration. This may not sound like a big deal, but melee classes love to do big AoE attacks that hit multiple times like whirls (Guardian GS) or flurries (100B). Every single time they hit you or any of your allies they get 2s of chill. This is almost a hard shutdown for most melee builds, and will at least force them to use their cond removal to survive. After all, ONE guardian spin on your group after frost aura will probably chill him for upwards of 10 seconds.
Oh and even better? Your group will have prot up from your earth aura trait for most of the damage, so not only does the melee class get super chilled…they also do 33% less damage.

4. Stun is ridiculously powerful in PvP. Every good D/D Ele knows that shocking aura is a devastating counter to heavy hitter melee classes like thieves. After all, it basically renders them near impotent for 5 seconds. Now imagine that you spread that effect to your group. Yet another near hard shutdown for melee classes.

One more thing, I don’t use staff, but I can only imagine the havoc that a shared magnetic aura would wreak on a thief doing dagger storm.

So yeah…if you haven’t tried this aura build, and you do WvW, I would SERIOUSLY recommend giving it a shot. It greatly increases the effectiveness of a small WvW team.

To be honest, I’ve been pondering the potential of a staff-aura build using combo fields to create auras. But that mostly depends on wheter your traits proc on those. Say, eruption+frozen ground=frost aura+protection? Could make for an interesting support build…

ThiBash.5634:

To be honest, I’ve been pondering the potential of a staff-aura build using combo fields to create auras. But that mostly depends on wheter your traits proc on those. Say, eruption+frozen ground=frost aura+protection? Could make for an interesting support build…

Auras gained from combos and arcane resurrection don’t benefit from powerful auras.

Staff has access to two aura’s – one on Earth 3, the other via fire trait (fire shield on signet cast). BOTH get the benefit of Earth trait 12.

Yes, auramancer is in fact a VERY POWERFUL build in any weapon type you use. It is highly effective when solo PvP and especially for teams. Lets face it though, it is nigh impossible to find others willing to take advantage of the very highly powerful auras the Ele can provide but even if its just you, you will find that there are very few other builds that can provide this level of boon stacking in such a short time period, especially after the EA fix. If you combine this with effective use of Combo fields and finishers, this build easily outshines the FoTM bunker build in every way.

Auramancer is the only build I strongly advocate a medium – high Arcana spec for, and that is only because of the traitline buffs – increased boon duration and attunement swaps.

For runes, make sure to use Monk x2 and Water x2 to get the most out of your boons.

boozer.7815:

Staff has access to two aura’s – one on Earth 3, the other via fire trait (fire shield on signet cast). BOTH get the benefit of Earth trait 12.

Yes, auramancer is in fact a VERY POWERFUL build in any weapon type you use. It is highly effective when solo PvP and especially for teams. Lets face it though, it is nigh impossible to find others willing to take advantage of the very highly powerful auras the Ele can provide but even if its just you, you will find that there are very few other builds that can provide this level of boon stacking in such a short time period, especially after the EA fix. If you combine this with effective use of Combo fields and finishers, this build easily outshines the FoTM bunker build in every way.

Auramancer is the only build I strongly advocate a medium – high Arcana spec for, and that is only because of the traitline buffs – increased boon duration and attunement swaps.

Yeah, I’m actually surprised that they nerfed EA, after I saw how uber powerful auras (another GM trait) is in practice. Last night I remember this guardian did his spinny through just myself and an ally that both had frost aura. It put about TWELVE seconds of chill of him.

For a melee class, unless you can purge that chill, that means you’re done. Add to this that these auras will affect ANY melee class that attacks your group for the duration, with no target cap, and it really borders on being an “I win” button for smallish group fights. EA was nowhere near this level of power.

Even more, since you can do your frost and shock auras one after another…that means you can more or less hard shutdown melee for TWELVE SECONDS (5s shock + 7s frost), so that if any of them attack your group, they will either be stunned or chilled for a likely long duration.

Once organized groups start to figure out how powerful this is, I’m almost expecting it to be nerfed lol. Let’s enjoy it while we can.

Oh one more thing I wanted to add is that it seems like your auras affect ANY allies…not just players. So like, summoned pets, mesmer clones, etc. will probably be effected as well.

I’m already psyched about doing a two man team with my one of my mesmer buddies, and popping frost aura after he summons three clones. Go ahead…take out those clones Mr. GS warrior. They will give you about 18 seconds of chill for your trouble.

I guess you could also even capitalize on this solo by summoning your elite ele and a lesser ele.

I love the powerful Aura skill. I was trying to come up with a viable wvw build that uses 20/10/10/30/0 to get fire shield aura on signet activation (and then run signet of resto, and signet of earth, as well as two cantrips for regen/vigor) but I just feel naked and useless without at least 10 pts in arcane for elemental attunement and shorter cooldowns on attunement swaps.

I suppose I could build it without the 10 pts in earth as the protection buff is a short duration, but it’s a short duration cause prot kicks kitten as a boon, it’s difficult to let go. You’re also very squishy without it.

The aura’s themselves are very nice without doubt, but are actually secondary to the boon stacking benefits. Staff Earth 3 is darn powerful vs. any ranged as it reflects ANY incoming ranged attacks at the instant of cast. This can be really fun to watch when you pop it and run out in front of a zerg or if you pop it right before going into Tornado form. With any spec in Earth and maybe Arcana 6 to get the attunement switch buffs to boot, you become a very well protected tornado ripping through people for about 4-6s…

But that’s just it, isn’t it?.. The Ele never was designed to be a one button wonder class. Learning how to use the MANY build options, combo field/finishers, aura’s, and etc.. THAT is what turns the Ele into a god on the battlefield.

Creslin.1758:

Oh one more thing I wanted to add is that it seems like your auras affect ANY allies…not just players.

Yeah, but you can only give out 5 auras max so this is really more of a negative.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Creslin.1758:

Oh one more thing I wanted to add is that it seems like your auras affect ANY allies…not just players.

Yeah, but you can only give out 5 auras max so this is really more of a negative.

Depends on your point of view.

Sometimes you don’t have a large party available, so you can’t always spread out your powerful aura to maximum effectiveness. Also…mesmer clones are basically the perfect “fodder” to get hit, because many players will want to AE them just to get rid of the distraction, or because they are confused…and in doing this they inflict 0 damage to your group, but seriously disable themselves due to the auras.

Also…the range of powerful auras is relatively short, so you should be able to get around most “unintended targets” by moving to a better spot before triggering the aura. I know that sometimes crap will happen…but all in all, I view effecting clones and stuff with auras as a perk more than a downside.

Bsquared.3421:

I love the powerful Aura skill. I was trying to come up with a viable wvw build that uses 20/10/10/30/0 to get fire shield aura on signet activation (and then run signet of resto, and signet of earth, as well as two cantrips for regen/vigor) but I just feel naked and useless without at least 10 pts in arcane for elemental attunement and shorter cooldowns on attunement swaps.

I suppose I could build it without the 10 pts in earth as the protection buff is a short duration, but it’s a short duration cause prot kicks kitten as a boon, it’s difficult to let go. You’re also very squishy without it.

Yeah, 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace for auramancer is kind of a trap imo. You can’t take 30 Earth for Written in Stone so whenever you pop a signet you’ll lose the passive effect. With D/D your best auras are weapon skills and the points in arcane will not only let you swap faster but every ten points adds 10% boon duration.

I posted about this just yesterday. The build I use and the armor/weapon set-up is described. Powerful aura’s is an amazing trait. If the group you run with is used to it, you can make a devestating frontline push if you throw in a couple of guardians, a banner warrior and a 2H hammer warrior. The enemy will melt in seconds. Here is the link.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/d-d-aura-share-WvW-elementalist/first#post875100

cant wait to sink my teeth into this build! thanks for the post guys!

Give this one a try. Works great for me. I have tried a few variations (such as Water 30/Earth 30/Air 10) and TBH, they all work great.

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhMmYbtx3wjEAhCGMeAiIkIK8QRxM8A;T4Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJquMeJ8yGkrLZQDROiA

A really fun Staff rotation with this is →Eruption→Magnetic Shield→Frozen Ground→FGS→Fiery Whirl

You gotta be quick with this but if you work it right you get the mag shield aura, frost aura with the eruption blast finisher, followed by the whirl finisher from FGS. The effects of this are ~6 stacks of protection, 6 stacks of Fury, 6 stacks of swiftness, frost aura, and mag aura. You may not get the mag aura after the frost aura executes. Havent fully tested that yet. When the FW goes off though you will have the frost aura up and most of your boons still though. With the combination of runes you will have an extra 30% on your boons and an extra 45% on Might stacks (executed via combo fields and etc.)

boozer.7815:

Give this one a try. Works great for me. I have tried a few variations (such as Water 30/Earth 30/Air 10) and TBH, they all work great.

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhMmYbtx3wjEAhCGMeAiIkIK8QRxM8A;T4Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJquMeJ8yGkrLZQDROiA

That’s a signet build. The thread was on Powerful Aura builds (30 water trait)

the problem with signet builds is all the signets.

Highlet.8039:

boozer.7815:

Give this one a try. Works great for me. I have tried a few variations (such as Water 30/Earth 30/Air 10) and TBH, they all work great.

(copy/paste link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhMmYbtx3wjEAhCGMeAiIkIK8QRxM8A;T4Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJquMeJ8yGkrLZQDROiA

That’s a signet build. The thread was on Powerful Aura builds (30 water trait)

Its an aura build too, just not using the PA build. Like I mentioned in the edited post above, I do also use the PA build but I find going heavier on Signet use combined with Aura’s on Staff works best and it also works very well with all other weapon sets. Thing is that there are more aura’s available in D/D and D/F than in Staff so I try to use what works the best across all weapons for efficiency.

Nonlinear.9823:

the problem with signet builds is all the signets.

Yea you do sacrifice our most powerful escape tools in favor of the signet stacking. This works awesome in a Staff build but not so much in D/D, but still doable with smart play and a more active defense definitely makes the build powerful, ie. roots and chills from SoE and SoW combined with the trait boons for using them AND the maintaining the passive buffs (cond. removal, tough, crit, heal).

Nonlinear.9823:

Yeah, 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace for auramancer is kind of a trap imo. You can’t take 30 Earth for Written in Stone so whenever you pop a signet you’ll lose the passive effect. With D/D your best auras are weapon skills and the points in arcane will not only let you swap faster but every ten points adds 10% boon duration.

If they could just swap it with Spellslinger

I don’t even care about losing the passives on the signets. The heal-per-cast on restoration signet is nice, but i can live without it for awhile, and the extra toughness on earth is inconsequential honestly, i would bring it JUST for the immobilize and for the chance to proc fire shield (and fury, swiftness, and prot for the group).

It’s really the 10 pts in arcane that I can’t do without. Elemental Attunement and the slight reduction on attunement swaps from 10 pts in arcane is just THAT good, it really isn’t worth swapping it out for anything for the most part.

Bsquared.3421:

Nonlinear.9823:

Yeah, 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace for auramancer is kind of a trap imo. You can’t take 30 Earth for Written in Stone so whenever you pop a signet you’ll lose the passive effect. With D/D your best auras are weapon skills and the points in arcane will not only let you swap faster but every ten points adds 10% boon duration.

If they could just swap it with Spellslinger

I don’t even care about losing the passives on the signets. The heal-per-cast on restoration signet is nice, but i can live without it for awhile, and the extra toughness on earth is inconsequential honestly, i would bring it JUST for the immobilize and for the chance to proc fire shield (and fury, swiftness, and prot for the group).

It’s really the 10 pts in arcane that I can’t do without. Elemental Attunement and the slight reduction on attunement swaps from 10 pts in arcane is just THAT good, it really isn’t worth swapping it out for anything for the most part.

I see your point. I have tried and tested the 20 fire build for the fire aura and it provides you with a lot of extra flexibility in your aura build for staff. I think its probably best to use for a heavy staff focused build because you only have access to one aura on a 30s CD without it. With this trait you have the potential to pop aura’s like a jack rabbit. It has like a 3s CD between signets. Given that through your Air and Earth aura traits you gain protection, fury, and swiftness every time you pop an Aura, that can add up significantly if your popping signets every time they come off CD. It really does make a difference.

funny thing is that these aura builds go well with conjures.
cause vulnerability with signets, +20% damage on vulnerable targets, +2% per boon and run the conjures from water for regen. lowers the group healing and condition removal ability some

I am guessing that powerful auras will someday work with all auras.

its a shame that taking written in stone and powerful auras, and fires embrace is not possible.
it would be interesting if one of those abilities was on a lower trait tier.
being able to do a 10/10/20/20/0 and get all of the above and + aura traits would make auras more attractive on their face.

signets are just slow. if they were instant I would like them so much more. well i guess air signet is instant but all of the others are at least 3/4 of a second which is too long for the short effect they give or while in pvp. at least for me.

the passive on air signet is almost completely useless for most ele builds.

boozer.7815:

I see your point. I have tried and tested the 20 fire build for the fire aura and it provides you with a lot of extra flexibility in your aura build for staff. I think its probably best to use for a heavy staff focused build because you only have access to one aura on a 30s CD without it. With this trait you have the potential to pop aura’s like a jack rabbit. It has like a 3s CD between signets. Given that through your Air and Earth aura traits you gain protection, fury, and swiftness every time you pop an Aura, that can add up significantly if your popping signets every time they come off CD. It really does make a difference.

If you’re running a staff aura build, I could see using signets and 20 in fire. You’re not taking Powerful Aura either, so it’s self-buff only. But as D/D there just aren’t enough points to go around, i’ll make a sad face now…

:(

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

I am guessing that powerful auras will someday work with all auras.

Nah, they seem to enjoy nerfing auras just check the last patch notes.

Just to clarify, you guys are all using Staff for keep sieges, right? D/D with the 0/10/20/30/10 build is amazing for everything else, but go staff with this same build for sieges and watch as those defenders kill themselves on all of the reflected damage. Good times.

Get good at switching weapons when out of combat and you will see just how amazing an elementalist can be for ALL situations.

There are two more sets of runes that work well with all aura builds:

Superior Runes of the Fire give you 165 power, +20% might duration, and also grant you Fire Aura for 5 seconds on 90 sec cooldown when your health falls below 80% – and that’s with all the associated boons from Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding.

Better yet, Superior Runes of the Earth give you 165 toughness, +20% protection duration (works great if you have those 10pts in Earth trait for Elemental Shielding), and also grant you Magnetic Aura for 5 seconds on 90 sec cooldown when your health falls below 20%. Again, you get all the boons, and become immune to projectile attacks for 5 seconds. This set is great both for staff (two sources of the awesome magnetic aura, never get enough of it) and I believe even more so for d/d builds, as they normally don’t have access to magnetic aura. 20% of health is a bit low, but this can be a real life saver at times.

The only downside is that currently acquired through runes are not transferred to allies with powerful auras.

And even better yet….

Superior Rune of Water x2 and Superior Rune of Monk x2 give you +30% boon duration.

Nonlinear.9823:

And even better yet….

Superior Rune of Water x2 and Superior Rune of Monk x2 give you +30% boon duration.

Major Rune of Water x2 as well for even more combined with 20% boon duration food.

Does anyone know why they stealth nerfed auras that you gain from combos? I was really dissapointed that powerful auras doesn’t activate every time you gain an aura -that just seems wrong to me.

i’ve been running variations on this for a while, cause i cant live without permaswiftness, and and being able to give that to allies always seemed/felt powerful to me that i took it over the other water GM.

i find it works well with soldiers gear, giving u good power and tankiness with the fury able to keep the dps perfectible. ive recently been running it in a glassier spec (0/30/0/30/10) opting to drop the earth prot since u get protection on elemental attunement of earth in 10 arcana, and grabbing the free shocking aura at air 30. i know this aura gives me the buffs, but does anyone know if the 30 pt air aura gets shared?

Creslin.1758:

After all, it basically renders them near impotent for 5 seconds.

good thing it only takes me 3

Next patch notes:

Removed “unintended” boons due to other traits from Powerful Aura when an aura is applied to allies.

Powerful Auras is an awesome trait, I run it in my D/D bunker build and it works great for both bunkering and roaming support in tPvP.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2R0VU0z4-N-Z0;9;599TJ;10;04;042B43-7w0;3PcW5PRnC3gO

The reason I didn’t go for 6pc Earth is that it does NOT trigger at 20%, in fact it triggers the aura at a much much lower percent, from my observation it procs when you’re at 5-10 percent and I feel is not as viable as it could be. That is why I went for additional boon duration instead. Feel free to test it out in the mists, just go to a dummy and get smacked until it procs.

copypasta if you get badlink.

Sekacnap.3984:

Next patch notes:

Removed “unintended” boons due to other traits from Powerful Aura when an aura is applied to allies.

I can see that, and I would be downright pissed off if that happened. I’ve already re-geared and traited out of a staff support build after the EA nerf, nerfing shared aura’s would be just as bad.

and grabbing the free shocking aura at air 30. i know this aura gives me the buffs, but does anyone know if the 30 pt air aura gets shared?

I would assume not. Aura’s you get from blast finishers, runes, and traits are “granted,” the ones you cast (via signets and weapon skills) are “applied.” Only those that are “applied” get shared with teammates. At least that is how I understood it, I could be wrong

Already used a build that used PA, 0/10/10/30/20 D/D and it isn’t that great in tPvP and is ok is sPvP however this build is brilliant in PvE and I haven’t tried it in WvW so I can’t comment on that.

P.s. I didn’t read the whole thread, too lazy. ._.

Rain King.5914:

Does anyone know why they stealth nerfed auras that you gain from combos? I was really dissapointed that powerful auras doesn’t activate every time you gain an aura -that just seems wrong to me.

They bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp while fixing it. It still activates occasionally but it takes me like 20 tries.

Also has anyone ever tried the trait arcane resurrection. The auras it gives are 10 seconds, but the shocking aura it gives currently scales with + boon. So if you have +50 boon duration you and the person you rez will get 15 seconds of shocking aura. This could be pretty useful if you rez a lot.

Since the recent patch elemental shielding now gives about an 8 second duration when used with arcane resurrection (was 3 previously). If you have 2 water, 2 monk, and 2 earth runes it’ll give you and the person you rez 13 seconds of protection.

I’ve never personally used arcane resurrection, only tested it. Although it seems like if you are heavily invested into boon duration and aura traits it could be pretty powerful.