Guild Wars 2

I recently got this game about a week ago, and I’m wondering what is the best build for PvE?

What level are you? Your build isn’t that important until major later in the levels.

I’m level 15, but I don’t want to screw up anything and regret it later on.

Ah. Well, the cool thing is you have nothing to worry about. You’re not locked into your choices forever.

• You can only train up the first tier of all five of your Traits until you buy a Training Manual. You need 1g at level 40 to do it. You’ll have a minimum of 30 skill points just by leveling up, plus however many skill challenges you complete from the zones you visit. I had all five Traits at 10 points by the time I hit 40, which means I didn’t even need to make a choice. Plus I had nowhere near 1g at 40 anyway.
• At that point you can then train up to Tier 2 in all your Traits. You can start making some choices then, but even at that point you start making some choices.
• By the time you can afford the Tier 3 training manual to unlock Tier 3 Traits, you’ll have a good sense of your preference.
• You can opt to retrain your Trait assignments at any time by visiting an Elementalist Trainer.

Further, where you spend your points just unlocks the slots. You have many options within those slots. For example, I can say I’m 30/ 10/ 0/ 0/ 30 build at 80, but the more important info is which Traits I slotted in those slots.

Finally, the kind of build you’ll want will be dependent on your preferred playstyle and then will inform your gear.

I found that all builds work pretty well because we have such a wide array of abilities. We’re not “best” in any one kind of thing as far as I can tell. Our strength is in our diversity.

The only thing you can “screw up” on would be remember to save for elite skills. At 30 you get to buy them (10 skill points) so it helps to start saving around level 20.
In the long run you can unlock all the skills. Unless you want to speed towards a legendary weapon, you spend your skill points as often as you want (but remember elites =p).
And as mentioned above, you can reset traits later on. At level 80, it costs about 4 silver to reset all 70 points, which is very little.

A bit of advice:
Elementalist should learn to play all their attunements on their weapon of choice (well all weapons really, but I still only know how to play my staff well XD). However, there is usually one attunement that a player prefer. Mine is fire, I love to nuke with the staff and lava font. So in my traits, I have more gear towards fire attunement (10% more damage and 20% quicker recharge traits).
Each trait line does 3 things: gives attributes, has traits that help an attunement (arcana helps swapping), has traits that help utility skill. Fire does Power and Condition Duration with Fire Attunement and has one for Conjured Weapon Utility Skills (although I think it is a waste to get that one). Air does Precision (Critical Chance) and Critical Damage Attributes with Air Attunement and Glyphs Utility Skills. Earth does Toughness (Armor) and Condition Damage Attributes with Earth Attunement and Signet Utility Skills. Water does Vitality (Life) and Healing Attributes with Water Attunement and Cantrip Utility Skills. Arcana does Attunement Recharge Rate (Unique, only from this line) and Boon Duration Attributes with Attunement Swapping Effects and Arcana Utility Skills.

Personally, I like to do a bit of every. I use a 20/20/10/10/10 build. I get a bit of everything with a focus on Fire and Air. I use fire for the damage and the traits mentions above (damage and recharge on fire). I use air for critical and for glyph traits, since I use glyph heal, glyph of storms, and my elite is a glyph. Earth is for the toughness boost on attuning to earth and the armor of earth at 50% life. Water is for passive regen on water and removing condition on attuning to water. And Arcana is to help with swapping and for boons on swapping.

At your level, I’d pick one line and get it to 10 (by level 20). Then put 10 in another, then 10 in another. By then you’ll be 40 and can buy book to reset and allows you to get traits up to 20 per line. Then by 60 you can have 2 to 20 and 1 to 10 and then reset to get to 30 in a line. So you should pick which you prefer. The lower levels are easy so you may want to focus more on damage traits. But elementalist are also very weak (lowest armor class and lowest base health) so if you have trouble surviving, you may want to go with a defensive line. Or you may just want to ignore attributes and go for traits that help skills you use.