Guild Wars 2

In my infinite love for support builds, I’ve been running this in tPvP:

(Edited 2/25/14)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEEVZYwBeGQlgAg8IlXYZUQERhHKK2ZGA-TkAgzCmIuRdj7GzNybs3M+A

0/10/10/30/20
Air: I / Earth: V / Water: IV, VII, XI / Arcane: V, VIII
Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Armor of Earth, Arcane Shield
Runes of Drayna, Sigil of Energy

and I’ve been loving it; some of the strongest support I’ve ever played in this game (even after playing Guardian) but has a rather high skillcap to be effective (which isn’t much different from most ele builds). I was really tempted to work on a guide for it but since Elementalist isn’t my main I wasn’t sure of there was already one out there.

Also, I’m still torn on runes and sigils, so any advice there would be greatly appreciated. What’re the current concensus on Auramancer specs?

Auramancer is fine with any weapon set with more than 1 aura…

But you’re using 3 trait slots to buff up ONE ability, which isn’t even great to begin with. Magnetic Aura is possible the least useful one.

Staff allows me both Magnetic and Frost auras, though I see your point. (Is there a runeset that grants lightning or fire aura?)

The actual aura effects themselves are just one benefit, but Ive found the aoe protection/fury to also be very useful in addition to the natural support/control of staff (such as blasting water fields, high swiftness uptime, ect.) Magnetic Aura has its uses when played properly, especially against engineers, rangers, warriors ect. While the effect alone doesnt seem so great in teamfights it makes for a nice projectile shutdown. (Especially when granted to allies with a higher precision/crit dmg. than myself)

Powerful Aura doesn’t share auras from combos or the Arane Resurrection trait - the only ones it shares are weapon auras, or those from the Fire’s Embrace or Tempest Defence traits.

A signet-based auramancer /might/ be useful, if you regularly activate your signets, but with the way traits are right now you can’t take more than one aura-buffing trait along with signet Mastery (and if you go for Signet Mastery + Elemental Shielding, you miss out on Rock Solid, which is arguably much better party support).

The other aura you share as staff, by blasting ice fields, doesn’t make use of PA - so as KFC says, it’s using a bunch of traits for one 30s cooldown skill.

While we have auras so spread out on weapons, with no utilities that grant them, aura traits very hard to bring together and combo-auras not working with PA... I don’t see the trait being at all useful. You’re better being more selfish with auras, sharing only that frost aura from your ice field.

Oh, though re: arguably the weakest... try telling the commune points in Silent Storm that MA is poor compared to the others.

I really appreciate the feedback guys, and you’re right. I’ve tweaked my build so that it now looks like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEEVZYwBeGQlgAg8IlXYZUQERhHKK2ZGA-TkAgzCmIuRdj7GzNybs3M+A

• Changed XII to XI.
• Swapped Runes of Earth with Runes of Dwayna
  
  I hadn’t even noticed this trait at first. This trait adds a whole new layer of team condition removal to the build, making Healing Rain heal 6 conditions, I remove conditions when I swap to water, and with Runes of Dwayna I remove conditions on heal (blasting Arcane Brilliance on Geyser. AoE heal AND condi removal!)

That changes the focus of the build a bit, giving it better support but sliding away from the aura theme. It makes me wonder if the earth trait (auras grant 3s protection) is worth it over Evasive Arcana. Any thoughts on this?

One important thing about Cleansing Water: it has a 5 second cooldown in sPvP, meaning that you can ’waste’ regeneration applications - particularly from Healing Rain, since it ticks every 3 seconds.

It’s still a powerful group condition removal trait, but it’s really quite a nuisance to use, and doesn’t have the burst condition removal that we might build around.

Also, I’m not sure if this has been fixed yet (I’m guessing not) but when I tried running Dwayna runes when first playing with Cleansing Water, the regeneration it granted didn’t proc the trait - and chances are, the regen it gave you would come within 5s of another source anyway.

Ugh that’s a real kick in the nuts to my plans. Still, since I don’t see many other worthwhile options I’ll stick with it.

Yet again the build has evolved.

• Swapped to Runes of Eagle/Valk amulet with Zerk jewel
• Slid earth traits into air (bolt to the heart)

One of the things I was lacking was pressure, so I added more damage as a result. I’m torn between a couple things:

- Tornado vs Elementals: Elementals seem like trash, but it was suggested I take it for the support of Water Elemental.. which doesn’t really seem all that good compared to Meteorshower + Tornado)

- Air vs Evasive Arcana: I like the increased damage from air but EA looks reealllyy strong is used properly Is it worth taking over air traits? What about over the Cleaning Water? I’m wondering of maybe going 0/20/0/20/30 would make for a stronger build?

Note for the Future: Cleansing Waters ICD will be removed.

Evasive Arcana is a must for you. Dodging in Water is an AoE cond removal + Heal. Earth is another blast and Air is a blind.

Elemental Elite in Water will be worth it for you. At some point it will do a large heal (I wish we could control it) for about 7-8k in an AoE.

I posted this thing somewhere else, but you might be interested.

Traits:
20 Earth for Rock Solid and Earth’s Embrace
20 Water for Cleansing Wave and Cantrip Mastery or Shards of Ice
30 Arcane for Blasting Staff, Elemental Attunement, and Evasive Arcane

Heal Skill:
Either Ether Renewal or the blast finisher healing skill (isn’t that great)

Utilities:
Arcane Wave, Conjure Lava Axe (then press 2), and possibly Armor of Earth or Lightning Flash

Elite: Glyph of Elementals

Amulet/Sigil:
Cleric and Energy

Combo:
Start in Fire/Air: Attune Water +Roll → Healing Rain → Roll + Earth Attunement → Eruption → Arcane Wave → Conjure Flame → Heal → Explosive Lava Axe

Blast Finisher Count: 5

Healing Power: 998

Total Healing: 7598 (from Blasts) + 2300 (Healing Ripple) + 1150 (Water Roll) = 11048 with 2-3 Conditions Removed

Have fun.

Edit: Forgot about some healing power. You actually heal for more. All this had a CD of ~40 seconds I think.

Lots of stuff to consider here, thanks! I’ve decided to go with an 0/20/0/20/30 build to grab EA and pull some more damage out of Air. The suggestions posted here have really help me mold this into something highly effective when played properly.

There seems to be a LOT of interesting options to make a support build for ele, I’m really wishing I had enough traits to grab Earth’s Embrace and some of those fire traits (like fury on fire finishers) look extremely interesting. I’ll be doing more tinkering soon, now what I have a better understanding of the traits but I really appreciate all the help.

(and ryld.. is that a reference to the drow Ryld?)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

(and ryld.. is that a reference to the drow Ryld?)

Yes

oo chaos, nice to see u trying ele

been a fan of shatterlock:p

Ty Wyrden!

Also, I’ve been considering moving the traits out of water and into earth, turning the build to 0/20/20/0/30 with Stab-on-Attunement and Protection on Auras. Also swapped to a Celestial Amulet w/ Carrion ( which amazes me, actually. I never thought I’d ever use that amulet for any class ever, ty KFC).

I’m already missing the healing power and heals I gained from water, in your guys experience if you had to choose traiting 20 points between Water and Earth attunement, which would you say is the superior tree?