Guild Wars 2

I am coming to Elementalist after being a long-time Engineer. I love the feel of the class, and I am having a pretty easy time getting a handle on attunements thanks to running a multi-kit engineer.

But I have a few questions regarding this class. I read on the forums that this class is weak and not in a good place, and I aim to make myself and my build into a passable, and maybe even decent Elementalist.

1) If I choose not to run a staff in WvW, will this be something that will hurt me. Every friend I have that is an Ele runs staff. They say it works, but I do not wish to be like every other Ele. I am currently using S/D as I level, and I love the feel of it. D/D isn’t bad, but I like keeping my distance when I want to. Would S/D be viable in say, dungeons and WvW? I found the Fresh Air builds, and have often found myself wondering how they;d work in areas outside WvW/PvP (I know to keep all of my weapons in my inventory, so I will always carry a staff, but I do not want to feel railroaded into using it).

2) I like conjures. Frost Bow and FGS are awesome. Are these plausible in WvW/Dungeons?

3) Will it hurt me not to put trait points into the Arcane Power tree? I know it provides bonuses to all of your attunements etc, but as I said, I dont wanna be a copy/paste ele. X/X/X/30/30 isn’t what I am looking for. What are the community of ele’s thoughts on this?

I can’t wait to dig into this class more, as coming off of Engineer, it’s a literal breath of fresh air (no pun intended). Thanks for reading!

(The build, after everyone’s stellar input! http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmgbzR5wjDIkHwwJwCiHWQDwhlC5AA-jkyAYfAsFC+CkoAQFSY6rIasFuioxqWwUlER1ujioVLFwoCjA-w)

Hmm. I can say you’ll adapt quickly, but coming from a fast paced engineer, staff isn’t for you.

Why not try D/F? I think you’ll like some of your options with it.

Honestly D/D isn’t for everybody, but no weapon set is “generic” as there’s so few to choose from. I main D/D but try to do a little of everything. Focus is very effective, especially if you go 20 deep into earth.

Dagger is our fastest paced weapon. (Scepters might argue with me, but air is the only quick attunement with that one).

You might stick with engie in spvp until our patch hits in march. That’ll really help us there, but we’re super viable in WvW in all forms if built correctly.

I advise you to prepare a budget and buy a tanky set of gear, a mixed set of gear and a bursty set of gear. Run with each under each weapon set and mix and match. You’ll figure out what is right for you.

1. If you’re zerging around staff won’t hurt. If you’re roaming solo or with a trio or something it will hurt because you simply would be able to land anything. I run a glass S/F build in wvw (i roam only) and it works. The obsidian flesh is really nice to tank thieves. Focus just brings a lot of survivability to the table. If Dagger offhand is your thing I think going D/D would be better. S/D Is viable in dungeons, so is S/F. Really, for dungeons you just use your weapons to stack might and then use lightning hammer/fgs to dps.

2. Lightning Hammer and FGS are used in dungeons, you can try ice bow in wvw with teleport. Start casting 5 and then teleport closer to target before it fully casts so you get that range closed. FGS is nice in wvw as well, gives you mobility.

3. I run 0/30/10/10/20 on my ele for both spvp and wvw. S/F. I like the 20 in arcane to get the protection when switching to earth and the regen when switching to water. It really does help. In D/D I think you’d go 30 into arcane to get evasive arcana because you’re not tied to 30 into fresh air as scepter is.

Hi Nabarue, welcome to the ele forum. My first and most helpful advise is to not let yourself get influenced by the negativity you see on the forum. Every mmorpg has them specially on professions that require some skill from the player to perform well. The ele is not easy to play great. Those that fail will complain and try to convince others that the profession is trash because of their bad experiences.

1)Staff is more oriented when you need to target multiple foes due to its many aeo skills capabilities. It will not hurt you quiet the opposite, depending on the build you are running it will help you and your teammates. S/d is more than just viable within all aspects of this game. I use it myself for most pve content. I stopped using dagger for wvw (both main hand and offhand) but loved it during all the time I spent with it.

2)I admit conjures do need some work but you can still perform some crazy combos. and dps with them specially with frost bow, lightning hammer and FGS within all 3 areas of this game.

3) Part of your playstyle is like mine. I also refuse to be part of the majority on playing with 0/0/0/30/30 builds. I won’t ever go back again on spending a lot of points within the arcana and water trait line. Nowadays i go as low as only 10 in water, 5 in arcana and still perform extremely well with my ele. However, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend to spend 30 in water and 30 in arcana for someone that is just getting started with this profession. Those traitlines provides the most sustainable, defensive traits for our class. My recommendation is to start with as much defensive traits/utilites/stats/skills as you can and slowly as you are becoming better and better with the ele remove some defense in favor of offense specially if you plan to burst.

This profession is a whole lot of fun and if you enjoyed engi you will surely love the ele.

Such informative responses, TY so much!

I absolutely see the similarities between Engi and Ele. I love the fast paced, kit swapping, “tool for every job” feel of my Engi, and I can tell that a lot of what I love is here in Elementalist. The attunements are like kits of their own, and I enjoy having 20 spells at my disposal before I even get to my slot skills!

I will try the Focus. It’s one weapon I have yet to really dig into, and from the skills, it looks like it might cover a lot of the bases that dagger doesn’t. I will still keep a dagger on me for sure though. Scepter is my weapon. From the time I spent playing, I know that much. It’s like the first time I tried the bomb kit on my engi, I loved it, and knew it just worked for me. The offhand weapon is what was really getting me. Thanks for the input from all of you on that one!

As I am not yet 80, I am still contemplating a build. Fresh Air looks fantastic. I will probably put 10 into arcana solely for either Vigorous Scepter or the Vigor-on-crit trait. (need to test which one meshes with me better) As an engi, dodging and Vigor are like bread and butter, as we are one of the prime thief/warrior targets, so I am no stranger to the “it’s XXX class, lets try killing them first.” Beyond that, I know the 30 for Fresh Air, and a few in Water (maybe the rest). I’ll work it out and take everything you all said into consideration.

Lightning Blaze, I’m glad to see others that have a similar mindset as me. I like to be the wild card, the one they don’t see coming. The non-meta build, if you will. Crazy works more than it doesn’t for me xD

Thanks again for the input!

scepter/dagger is awesomee for dungeons (especially mightstacking)

for roaming its top as well along with d/d

in pvp ur only viable options r scepter /d or s/f , dagger mainhand just sux there atm(some other ppl might disagree, if so dont hate on me, just my own opinion, u can point it out tho)

staff in wvw is for zerging mainly, u tag many enemys, therefore tons of loot and wxp(i personally find myself roaming w d/d tho, zerging is just so boring , note: personal prefference once again)

anyway, ele comes out to be one of most fun proffessions (yes its my opinion again) since it has a higher skillcap and therefore its more of a challenge

ps.: sry for my crap english

Nabarue.3290:

1) If I choose not to run a staff in WvW, will this be something that will hurt me.

it depends solely on your playstyle. Zerging with staff is “badge collector mode ON”, but roaming with it is having a big sign “please kill me” on your back.

Every friend I have that is an Ele runs staff.

they most probably only zerg…

Would S/D be viable in say, dungeons and WvW?

WvW roaming definitely yes, at times you can even be a challenge in some encounters, but you will not be self sufficient .
Elementalist has been recognized by the whole community and by developers to be in dire need of buffs, second only to rangers; it doesn’t means it’s unplayable and not necessarily that it’s not fun to play, but it means that most of other classes can just do what you do with 1/10 the effort or even do better with 2/10 the effort.
Elementalist, in its current state, is unrewarding

2) I like conjures. Frost Bow and FGS are awesome. Are these plausible in WvW/Dungeons?

yes they are, although especially in WvW it requires some practice.
Maybe these can be of your interest:
FGS in WvW: http://youtu.be/ZFrVWCLwErI
Staff + Frost Bow in WvW: http://youtu.be/pBkeli62Lok

3) Will it hurt me not to put trait points into the Arcane Power tree? I know it provides bonuses to all of your attunements etc, but as I said, I dont wanna be a copy/paste ele. X/X/X/30/30 isn’t what I am looking for. What are the community of ele’s thoughts on this?

unfortunately we have no other choices: the only viable build is water/arcana based, because Elementalist completely lacks any other form of self sustainability.
This doesn’t mean you can’t choose to be even more underpowered, but you will play with huge handicaps Vs classes who already are in a far better position than you to begin with, incrementing the difficulty of any encounter de facto. I approve your spirit, as I myself stopped playing d/d and water/arcana immediately after it became mainstream (testing the weirdest stuff possible).
It’s my opinion that at least in the beginning, going water/arcana will make the Elementalist experience slightly less frustrating, leaving further room for experimenting new frustrations in the future

HTH o/

about fgs in wvw = http://youtu.be/dsdib4FVqLM

perfect to bust zergs, i several times managed, this was only time i recorded tho, came way too late

awesome videos guys, ty! FGS will certainly fill my elite slot. After some time spent working on a build, I have crafted one I am going to give a go. I will be swapping between S/F for PvE and S/D for WvW (Fire Grab and Ride the Lightning are incredible, and I think the Ele class needs to work quickly on a target or it won’t work as well, and those two help expedite the death dealing process).

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmgbzR5wjDIkHwwJwCiHWQDwhlC5AA-j0xAYfAiCQ6rIasFuioxqWwUlER1ujioVLFwoCjA-w

How’s this look? I am trying to take into account adding Vitality for survivability (I am not bothering with Toughness as much, the current WvW meta seems to be conditions, and conditions ignore Toughness, so I found Vitality to be the more useful stat atm), and adding Precision and Crit Damage (YES, I know Ferocity stat change is coming, and may change the build accordingly :p ) to supplement my Fresh Air build.

take a force sigil to dagger, the build seems pretty much stable :p

Updated in original post. Thanks again for all the help and input everyone! I appreciate it.