Guild Wars 2

Since WvW is based on a weekly reset, the amount of resistance being put up against your server is depending on the enemy servers. The build you’re using also depends on the resistance. When you’re outnumbering the enemy you’ll be less prior target than when outnumbered yourself. Since the elementalist can be built to be the squishiest and one of the tankiest classes ingames, it is important to take the situation into account and change your build according to the situation. These 5 builds i’m representing have been my standard builds for the last 2500 hours with continuous adjustment.

The ultimate destroyer:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIS1D2yAONAdEIgAQoEOQkBSLlp0bA-T1REABLp8LiLAAK7PknOCAeQAWq+jWKBDAgAczbGAO6RP6RP6R7m38o38o7sUAlrrC-w

This build relies on very heavy damage and insta nuking the enemy (zerg) down. There are no cantrips in this build because any serious damage will get you insta killed anyways. Good placement is a must at this build! Glyph of storms is very OP when used in earth (11 pulses 1.5-2k dmge with ~300 bleed dmge and blind) aoe and therefore should be used properly in the earth element. When using this build don’t feel afraid to die since you (should) get alot of rally’s on your oponents.

bottlenecks of this build are bad placement and retaliation. As we all know the staff elementalist worst nightmare is retaliation, but since this build is using low HP (~14.5k)
he’ll die very quick.
Since the elementalist has the lowest HP+armor base i’d consider applied fortitude to be a must if you want to use this build.

Nuker:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIS1D2yAONAdEGgAQCHIyARlK/+bZA-T1REABLp8LiLAAK7PknOCAeQAWq+jWKBDAgAczbGAO6RP6RP6R7m38o38o7sUAlrrC-w

This build does a littlebit less damage than the 1st one, but in exchange for the damage loss this build provides some basic healing and support. (cleansing wave+elemental attunement). I prefer to use arcana instead of water because elemental attunement offers party support aswell. you’ll still have the condi cleanse and heal with cleansing wave and the 30% attunement recharge rate+30% boon duration is just awesome.

1st bottlenecks is just like 1st build the lack of health->retal kill. However you won’t be able to facetank a zerg, the arcana will provide basic healing to survive under normal circumstances (without a ganker).
Again, since this build doesn’t use any traitpoints in water i’d suggest to get applied fortitude before trying this build.

“main build” for elementalist
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIShD2yAeOAdEGwCQIHbULRBKvcXQA-TFCEABps/geaISU9ntUCykyPJuAAtpDAgHEQAAEgbezAwRP6RP6RPa38mH9mH9mlCochVA-w

The next build is using the traditional traitline providing alot of extra healing and some vitality. under most circumstances i’d advise to run to run with zerker gear in this setup. If you’re not feeling to confident about running berserker gear you can swap to celestial (please don’t wear soldiers crap). This build is considered to be the “main” build for the elementalist. (i’d use this build myself with even zergs-enemy zerg bit stronger).

Stability ele:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIShD2yAeOAdEGIEIIv1dNKocd5KA-TFCEABps/geaIEUJImq/IxFAQLlftpDAgHEQAAEgbezAwRP6RP6RPa38mH9mH9mlCoclRA-w
This build swapped bolt to the heart out for earth’s embrace. Build is mainly for people who don’t feel confident enough with their stability. Losing alot of potential kills but giving you 1 more chance when you’re getting the full blob on top of you. instead of 9 in water 8 should be a more valid option. since you shouldn’t have problems with surviveing, you should always be a constant factor for the water blastfinishers.

Healer:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIShD2yAONAdEGIEwIvB6ANwRBgyhgSwKA-TFyDABEqEcPNEPt/wVK/wTHAAPIgivAAVq+TAAEgbezAwP/5P/5P/Z/8m/8m/8nlCgJlRA-w

This build isn’t meant for large scaled zergs, 10-15 max. the main priority of this build is giving heals to your party. However often discussed and thrown away in the garbage disposal, this build actually does work and can provide up to 2k hps (for every party memb). Requirements for this build is that you have a well organized zerg for effective use of your area heals. Also note that blasting staff has been removed out of this build, this is for extra healing for the extra healing from blast finishers. Damage loss aint to big big.

For the first destroyer build, I personally would recommand 66002 to gain Lightning Rod trait.

It work nicely with air 5 and earth 4, not only the damage is good combine with these skills have no limit of numbers, but also the " aoe " weakness could be also helpful, especially on wall or bridge fighting.

I also agree lighting rod is very important especially in such a crit heavy build it will also provide a nice source of bonus damage to play with. In addition why waste your grand master fire trait on anything other than free might? it would even allow you to drop sigil of battle for sigil of restoration so all your tags are free heals. Also arcane brilliance is apparently not acting as the blast it should so until further notice use the glyph or signit. These things and a few other minor details aside you have the general idea and you seem to have the experience but you lack optimization your too build around being able to use the same gear and specific traits/utilities for all scenarios. Also your advice about glyph of storms while valid is not always the best the lighting storm will actually deal more damage and it provides a quick way to get a whole group of enemies up to 25 stacks of vulnerability especially if you drop it inside a static field to lock them into additional hits.

Rangerdeity.5847:

I also agree lighting rod is very important especially in such a crit heavy build it will also provide a nice source of bonus damage to play with. In addition why waste your grand master fire trait on anything other than free might? it would even allow you to drop sigil of battle for sigil of restoration so all your tags are free heals. Also arcane brilliance is apparently not acting as the blast it should so until further notice use the glyph or signit. These things and a few other minor details aside you have the general idea and you seem to have the experience but you lack optimization your too build around being able to use the same gear and specific traits/utilities for all scenarios. Also your advice about glyph of storms while valid is not always the best the lighting storm will actually deal more damage and it provides a quick way to get a whole group of enemies up to 25 stacks of vulnerability especially if you drop it inside a static field to lock them into additional hits.

actually arcane brilliance is working around 95% of the time, so it’s still more viable then signet of regeneration due to the low casting speed. The reason why i don’t take lightning storm is because of the impacts are all single target damage and therefore isn’t better then sandstorm if you’re looking only at raw damage the ice storm would be a better option (18×kittens=90 hits total) however the blinding of the sandstorm heavily outweighs the small loss of dmge. the next point you’re talking about is the lightning rod damage the only time you’re actually able to trigger this effect is when using your static UG. the effect is nice, but not worth it if you look @ the long CD.
soothing mist grants a very easy to get permanent party heal of 80 hps (so total of 400 hps). If you want to go pure on dps i’d suggest to pick tempest defence instead which can contribute alot if the necro’smesmers do their boon strip job.

last but not least you’re asking why i’m using persisting flames instead of pyromancer’s puissance. persisting flames is an excellent skill for buffing up infront of combat (erup+arcane wave/brilliance=33 sec fury) and it gives you a major damage boost during the fight since lava font last 2 seconds longer doing a potential 2×5 times ~4k ish crits= potential 40k extra dps every 5 sec (ofc i understand that you wont always reach the cap with it for the full 6 seconds, but still it contributes alot to the amount of dps put up. pyromancers puissance will give you a decent amount of might, but won’t be able to give you perma might uptime when you are actually swapping attunements.

Sigil of restoration is just a BS sigil, it only procs on enemy kills, however when you’re battleing stronger opponents which don’t directly drop down (like the moment when you actually NEED your extra HPS) it wont pop that often, making it an extremely non trustworthy healing ability.

also i don’t understand why you’re claiming that i’m too build around being able to use the same gear and specific traits for all scenerio’s. Right on top of my post i noted that there isn’t 1 single best elementalist build and there are 100 variations on every single server/guild you’re encountering i could make a list of 1000 possible builds, however that would be incredibly boring to read and only cause confusion to people who actually want to look for new builds. actually i’m switching every evening my build like 5 times atleast, let alone the utility swaps every ~5 min. There is just no way to post that all inside 1 post.

Inside of WvW people do drop like flies if you have a high damage build like this sooo many upscales. If i drop one meteor shower I down and then kill most of the uplevels before the shower even ends. The only other viable heal sigil is the vampiric one which a free 900 hp heal every 9 seconds is actually pretty nice and outside of WvW it would be my first choice.

well thx for confirming my first post, you get your restoration procs of upscaleds=easy fights, when the upscaleds are down/battleing a guildgroup your sigil won’t heal that much GG

the krytan assassin.9235:

well thx for confirming my first post, you get your restoration procs of upscaleds=easy fights, when the upscaleds are down/battleing a guildgroup your sigil won’t heal that much GG

Ew your one of those people who thinks WvW is for guilds to go to the deepest darkest corner of the map to fight other guilds arent you? No WvW is where 1-3 people per map assume leadership and the rest follow those people to take objectives. Unless PPK is enabled this game mode will not be a team deathmatch until then I will focus on killing the players following the enemy commander and whereever there is a taco on the map there will be upscales and i will utilize them as my personal heal kittenes so i can quickly and efficiently kill the players in full ascended. Any questions?

Rangerdeity, I approve of your wvw realism and your build that takes advantage of reality. Since your build relies on upscales, call it “The Flyswatter”

Snakebyte.2804:

Rangerdeity, I approve of your wvw realism and your build that takes advantage of reality. Since your build relies on upscales, call it “The Flyswatter”

That actually isnt a bad name for it

no its clearly known as the staff jihad

I’m using this healer build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIShD2yAOOABiGIEwIvB6ANwRBgy1gSQIA-TFSDABHfBAAV9HSN/d3+Diq8TBlgA8AA8UHARAMjB-w

It has very low armor, but is very hard to die (stay way from frontline as possible). With this build I can do good damege as well. I really liked this build. For me is better than the boring full cleric. Any suggestions?

Mikau.6920:

I’m using this healer build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMIShD2yAOOABiGIEwIvB6ANwRBgy1gSQIA-TFSDABHfBAAV9HSN/d3+Diq8TBlgA8AA8UHARAMjB-w

It has very low armor, but is very hard to die (stay way from frontline as possible). With this build I can do good damege as well. I really liked this build. For me is better than the boring full cleric. Any suggestions?

does make a guardian or mesmer healer count as suggestions i really want to see more of those in this game