Guild Wars 2

Couple questions about Eles for zergs.
i recently dusted off my Ele that I hit 80 on a bit back and shelved him.

now with season 2 starting, I wanted to bring him back to life and do some wvw.

My goal is to be backline and support. I would be running the staff and full cantrips.
Build wise, I was thinking of 0/0/10/30/30

But a few specific questions.

First, I’d the ability to run backline support, but also run backline DPS (providing more damage against the zerg, mixing it up a bit.) That said, what sorta builds are recommended for that setup.

Secondly gear setup.
What should I be looking for? I have a lot of comms saved up that I need to spend. I do not want to be a glass cannon. I would prefer not to die a lot if possible.

Any thoughts/suggestions or guidelines for gearing?

Much appreciate the help and suggestions.

Best.
TCG

Run knights and pick up caviliers trinkets from the karma vendors in the level 80 areas. If you need more toughness 1 or 2 pieces some soldiers wvw gear can be had with tokens.

Runes are being changed but currently you can get superior water x 2, major water x2 and 2x monk or travelers to top the set off. Chocolate omnomberry creams

Thanks guys.
What about staff? What should I focus there?

Get your healing stack sigil and stay away from condition damage. This choice is up to you.

if you want to do more dps in addition to backline support, just remember you don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into the cookie cutter 0/0/10/30/30 cantrip build. it’s a solid build and a good place to start, but as you get better at positioning you can spec more for damage and still support just as effectively.

your main sources of support for your zerg are 1) your water fields and 2) your control skills (static field, unstable ground, frozen ground). these are just as effective with any other build, assuming you’re alive to deliver them.

Prepare to get constantly chased around and destroyed by thieves.

I know people will argue with me over this but an elementalist’s back line support vs an enemies back line dps; the back line dps will win almost all the time, unless they are really incompetent.

I tested out seeing how much healing I could dish out when spec’d for it, bottom line, 5 of me in that spec wouldn’t be enough to hold off 1 elementalist’s dps. My advice, stay away from support as your primary goal and stick to either hybrid or dps.

Ele’s dish out a crap load of dps, you just have to learn to stay alive, and keep Lightning Flash on your skill bar to quickly get out of harms way. I don’t want to say support is useless because you can still provide decent condition cleanse and combo fields.

If you plan to stay in the back line, stick with staff for dps.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I know people will argue with me over this but an elementalist’s back line support vs an enemies back line dps; the back line dps will win almost all the time, unless they are really incompetent.

I tested out seeing how much healing I could dish out when spec’d for it, bottom line, 5 of me in that spec wouldn’t be enough to hold off 1 elementalist’s dps. My advice, stay away from support as your primary goal and stick to either hybrid or dps.

Ele’s dish out a crap load of dps, you just have to learn to stay alive, and keep Lightning Flash on your skill bar to quickly get out of harms way. I don’t want to say support is useless because you can still provide decent condition cleanse and combo fields.

If you plan to stay in the back line, stick with staff for dps.

TBH I don’t know what Anet’s planning with Aquatic Benevolence. In WvW, zergs heal from blasting water fields and not from the Healing that the skill with water fields give. Sure, a “Healer” role Ele with Aquatic Benevolence can blast his own water fields too but like you said, a single DPS elementalist will outdamage the heals of a pure support Elementalist.

I have found a very rewarding DPS spec with lots survivability if played correctly is

0/10/25/25/10 cantrip build.The traits are your choice mostly but be sure to pick up Piercing Shards/Bolt to the Heart and +5% dmg on bleeds in earth line.Tornado as elite.
With celestial i have almost 3k armor 29k hp(with guard stacks) 3300 AP(with bloodlust stacks) 20% crit chance and around 100% critical dmg.Though this will be nerfed,i can see it still doing some nice dmg.My trinkets are Cavalier.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback.
Still working on gear (armor and weapons specifially..have a ton of comms for trinkets).
I have to say though, after reading the above, I am starting to shift my thoughts to what DeadlySynz and Graendall posted.

Even though I am not geared out (not even close), i can see the damage output is pretty impressive. I am starting to wonder what they would look like when I am geared out.

Just to get further suggestions, what should I be looking for on my staff, ascended that is. I’d like to get that piece going (i have the mats and everything) so I think that might be a good place to start.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Cheers

Eles don’t heal much, ppl smashing your water fields DO, it is their healing power that counts not yours.

Eles should worry about the following WvW:

• Killing Stuff
• Geting the right fields under the commanders feet at the right momment
• And most importantly not geting killed so you rally several foes (valid for everyone actually).

Find the right balance and you’ll be an asset for your world, until now I considered celestial to be a decent trade off between survivaility and damage in WvW, after 15th update celestial will only be good to salvage for dark matter :P

Kyon.9735:

TBH I don’t know what Anet’s planning with Aquatic Benevolence. In WvW, zergs heal from blasting water fields and not from the Healing that the skill with water fields give. Sure, a "Healer" role Ele with Aquatic Benevolence can blast his own water fields too but like you said, a single DPS elementalist will outdamage the heals of a pure support Elementalist.

I can actually see it being useful in sPvP sometimes, since the incoming damage can still be high but is much easier to handle than the pitched battles of WvW... but iunno if it’s worth building for over other things.
Using all available finishers miiight be a bit overkill, like, but it’s possible to get pretty high burst heals on allies as you get to a point with Geyser (quick cast) or land huge numbers of finishers (4-5 is pretty huge personal blast number) in the longer lasting Healing Rain.

Whether it’ll be worth taking over Cleansing Water largely depends on the rune/sigil changes, as well as balance on other classes - if condi hasn’t been toned down at all I’d be likely to stick with CW.