Support elementalist

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Posted by: Icarrus.5421

Icarrus.5421

Hey all,

I’m recently coming back from a break from GW2 and wondering which character to start back on. I want a character that can do some nice support in groups and dungeons and is pretty versatile as I can often get bored after a while if I can spice things up

How are ele’s now with support and what kinda things can they do?

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Posted by: Quakeman.9378

Quakeman.9378

I personally love ele 100% for the sheer variety. There’s so much you can do, and so much for you to combo. I’ve played other classes and for me they just get boring, mostly because you only get 10 skills, but with ele you get 5 for each attunement, so you have 20 in total; I really can never get bored with ele I swear. As far as supporting goes, eles have good condition removal for themselves and groups. When traited into water, you heal for a pretty large amount too. Especially with cleric’s gear. However, if you went for the full support your damage will be very low, and assuming you’re staff, you’d most likely get destroyed 1v1 in WvW. However it’s still fun and works in PvE and WvW (not too sure about spvp).And ele is just flat out fun I’d recommend it all the way!

Yoloswaginz- D/D thief SBI
Tyronee Biggums- Warrior SBI
“If fifty people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing”-Bertrand Russell

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Posted by: PinCushion.7390

PinCushion.7390

Don’t run Cleric’s gear in dungeons please. You’ll be tanking every fight, because everyone else will be in Zerk gear. Your healing will be great, but not that great.

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Posted by: Icarrus.5421

Icarrus.5421

So can eles only heal and condition remove? Or is there more to them?

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Posted by: Baladir.2736

Baladir.2736

The word “support” is used pretty loosely. If you are thinking healing and condition removal is “support” and you should build for that, that is a no go.

If you mean that, above, plus crowd control, conditions, boons, and combo fields, that is not a build, those are skills of the different weapon sets that you can use.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have some Healing Power in your build, or boon duration, or condition removal etc. Those are helpful and useful, but do not alone justify a spot. Every character in a party should contribute some meaningful dps. That doesn’t mean the party will not succeed if you do not. Heck, alot of material for a party can be 2 or 3 or 4 manned.

(edited by Baladir.2736)

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Posted by: Icarrus.5421

Icarrus.5421

I understand that. So I guess what I want to get a flavour of are some of the tricks you can pull off as an ele

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Posted by: Kirbyprime.2645

Kirbyprime.2645

Eles are more… “enablers” than support. We provide some of the more useful fields though we lack enough finishers to actually trigger them.

Actual support that we have would be boons ( which aren’t useful in all situations as they overlap other classes or redundant due to 25 stack cap ) or healing which isn’t too strong by itself without others triggering fields.

Our hard CCs aren’t as efficient as other classes and our soft CCs other than daggers aren’t on a short cooldown which makes it hard to justify going full support as opposed to full damage or tank.

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Posted by: PinCushion.7390

PinCushion.7390

I understand that. So I guess what I want to get a flavour of are some of the tricks you can pull off as an ele

Some basic tricks:

Loads of AoE Might stacks using blast finishers in Fire fields. Scepter/Dagger is probably best at this.

Constant AoE 25 Bleed stacks in a Condi build. Staff is best at this.

Permanent Chill, which can be useful in a few boss encounter.

Very high ranged burst in Scepter/Dagger. Most useful in WvW.

Incredible mobility and survival with Dagger/Dagger. Most useful in WvW.

Loads of buffs and high Protection up time with a D/D Aura Sharing build.

Decent burst heals and long duration Regeneration with ample CC using Staff Clerics build. This is interesting in WvW, and useless in dungeons. Very newbie friendly, but not the most effective build.

Instantly kill siege weapons by casting Frost Bow and having a buddy pick the extra one up in WvW. Frost Bow 4 × 2 will put a huge dent in most siege, if not kill it completely.

There’s more stuff you can do and builds you can try. The general theme is that there are often classes that fill individual roles better, but few that can be built to switch roles on the fly as easily.

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Posted by: Swimsasa Stoon.8936

Swimsasa Stoon.8936

paint the arena’s in pvp full of red circles with a staff+fiery greatsword+ice bow.

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Posted by: Neko.9021

Neko.9021

If you want someone who can support well, please go look at the Guardian first. They have the best supportive abilities in the game. Their ability to support in dungeons is superb and I would highly recommend them over the Elementalist in this regard.

If you want to play a class that is highly versatile and able to do many things pretty well, the Elementalist is a great choice, however. Good Elementalists provide a steady stream of Support, Control, and Damage that may not be as good as other classes, but they are able to do all three pretty well at the same time. The biggest upside to an Elementalist is their power to do many things without having to give up much in return. Their downsides include low stats, low default dps, and the inability to do things quite as well as other classes can (the developers constantly monitor the Ele to prevent it from outshining other classes in their own roles, such as mobility for the Thief or support for the Guardian or damage for the Warrior).

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Posted by: Baladir.2736

Baladir.2736

I understand that. So I guess what I want to get a flavour of are some of the tricks you can pull off as an ele

“your experience may vary”, would be a way to start this lol.

There are so many ways to handle a situation depending on the weapon set, party makeup, and other countless variables that I am failing to come up with any one in particular to give you a flavour of the class. I guess that is in esscense the flavour of the class for me.

Just be warned, no matter what you do, someone is going to say they can or did it better lol.

Some of my memorable moments are soloing mulitiple veteran, elite mobs in a dungeon with a staff while three are dead and one is downed until they rez themselves, to assisting in holding a bridge choke point in WvW against a push using the staff’s crowd control and area denial skills until we could mount a counter attack. One manning a supply camp in WvW. Getting my kitten kicked in sPvP but knowing others don’t and there is room for improvement. Meleeing dungeon bosses and ranging the same because I have the choice. Clearing keep walls or defending the same. We can chill, stun, immobilize, cripple, knockdown, weaken, single target and aoe dps, heal, and the list seems endless. Grant boons, grant auras, remove conditions. Reduce incoming damage, increase outgoing damge. Combo fields and combo finishers. Countless builds.

That is the beauty of the class for me. It’s always asking the question, “How can I be most effective in this situation?” and finding the answer. It’s simply fun.

(edited by Baladir.2736)

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Posted by: sweetmesquite.5024

sweetmesquite.5024

I run a dagger/dagger boon/aurashare support build. (Mainly. I swap weapons when the situation calls for it, ie harpy fractal, in which focus is beautiful thing.) D/D has some truly incredible staying power, both in higher-level fractals and wvwvw. Players who stay within range of my auras benefit from permanent swiftness, protection, fury, and about ~7 consistent stacks of might—if I keep my rotation up properly. Now, granted, I don’t do a massive amount of damage to everything, but with my might stacks from attuning and a Sigil of Battle, I can still put a respectable dent into whatever we’re killing.

Raenia—Elementalist
PUNCH STONEFIST—Warrior
Skera Veidhimadhr—Necromancer

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Posted by: Icarrus.5421

Icarrus.5421

The aura sharing sounds cool. How does that work?

I like the support of the guardian but I prefer ranged primarily and guardian ranged just doesn’t do it for me

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Posted by: sweetmesquite.5024

sweetmesquite.5024

Elementalists have four auras, distributed between the different weapons. Staff has Magnetic Aura, focus has Fire Shield, mainhand dagger has Shocking Aura, and offhand dagger has Frost Aura. If you trait 30 into the Water line, you can pick the major trait “Powerful Aura,” which shares your aura with other players within range.

Each aura has a property unique to it; Magnetic Aura reflects projectiles, Frost Aura chills, etc. With a dagger/dagger build, you have access to the water and air attunement auras. You can trait to have your auras grant additional boons, and if you’re sharing your aura, those boons would transfer to your allies as well.

I run my build 0/10(I)/10(V)/30(V,IX,XII)/20(V,VI) with boon duration and protection duration runes and boon duration food.

There is pretty minimal ranged on this build; it is by far the most effective in melee.

Raenia—Elementalist
PUNCH STONEFIST—Warrior
Skera Veidhimadhr—Necromancer

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Posted by: Pero.4362

Pero.4362

Elementalists have four auras, distributed between the different weapons. Staff has Magnetic Aura, focus has Fire Shield, mainhand dagger has Shocking Aura, and offhand dagger has Frost Aura. If you trait 30 into the Water line, you can pick the major trait “Powerful Aura,” which shares your aura with other players within range.

Each aura has a property unique to it; Magnetic Aura reflects projectiles, Frost Aura chills, etc. With a dagger/dagger build, you have access to the water and air attunement auras. You can trait to have your auras grant additional boons, and if you’re sharing your aura, those boons would transfer to your allies as well.

I run my build 0/10(I)/10(V)/30(V,IX,XII)/20(V,VI) with boon duration and protection duration runes and boon duration food.

There is pretty minimal ranged on this build; it is by far the most effective in melee.

May I know how you have permanent protection?
I tried this build and I had a protection for about 2/3 of the time, but by far not permanent….
Did you stack boon duration or did I do my rotation wrong ?

Love this build btw

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Posted by: NeXeD.3042

NeXeD.3042

I think you use boon duration gear and runes and probably the food too which has mf on it so its a nice boost in pve… At least iI like to think so I’m not entirely convinced its effective but every little bit helps…

Attention Moderators I am not
S P E E D Starr #0 Necro NA or
I Am NeXeD awful d/D ele NA

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Posted by: sweetmesquite.5024

sweetmesquite.5024

Elementalists have four auras, distributed between the different weapons. Staff has Magnetic Aura, focus has Fire Shield, mainhand dagger has Shocking Aura, and offhand dagger has Frost Aura. If you trait 30 into the Water line, you can pick the major trait “Powerful Aura,” which shares your aura with other players within range.

Each aura has a property unique to it; Magnetic Aura reflects projectiles, Frost Aura chills, etc. With a dagger/dagger build, you have access to the water and air attunement auras. You can trait to have your auras grant additional boons, and if you’re sharing your aura, those boons would transfer to your allies as well.

I run my build 0/10(I)/10(V)/30(V,IX,XII)/20(V,VI) with boon duration and protection duration runes and boon duration food.

There is pretty minimal ranged on this build; it is by far the most effective in melee.

May I know how you have permanent protection?
I tried this build and I had a protection for about 2/3 of the time, but by far not permanent….
Did you stack boon duration or did I do my rotation wrong ?

Love this build btw

Runes! Two Superior Runes of the Water, two of the Monk, and two of the Earth. That, and chocolate omnomberry creams put me at around +70% duration with the traits, but protection gets +90% duration. I suppose if I were to get Giver’s armor, that would put my duration at a hilariously high amount, but I rather like my PVT.

Raenia—Elementalist
PUNCH STONEFIST—Warrior
Skera Veidhimadhr—Necromancer

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Posted by: Swimsasa Stoon.8936

Swimsasa Stoon.8936

The aura sharing sounds cool. How does that work?

I like the support of the guardian but I prefer ranged primarily and guardian ranged just doesn’t do it for me

30 in water gives access to the aurasharing trait.

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Posted by: fixit.7189

fixit.7189

I play the wrong way….full clerics 10 earth/ 30 water/ 30 arcane staff ele with two armor sets I swap between: one set dwayna and other is guardian. Used to be serker and PVT but I kinda got tired of getting downed all the time. Guess I can sum it up like this: can’t dps while dead (as my old raid leader used to say).

Let’s just say, I have played healing/support/survival builds in almost every single MMO I have been apart of for over 20 years now. Old habits die hard.

Anyways, no worries to dungeon elitists: I don’t plan on ruining your runs. I won’t be stepping into one unless some sort of real in game LFG is introduced. Even then…

(edited by fixit.7189)