Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

Just coming back to the game after a long absence, and I decided to open the dances by leveling up an elementalist. Looking for informed opinions on what build to go for.

From what I read there seems to be a big focus on high dps, fire heavy builds. Thing is: I usually like to play support builds (I used to have a mesmer, and much preferred the reflect/focus build to the shatter one).

Back when the game came out I remember reading a lot about auramancer elementalists. Are those still a thing?

I should specify I usually play PvE and dungeons, with the occasional WvW.

Auramauncer in pve is not really a thing anymore.

You have three main family of build in PvE for Elementalist

Staff : Its all about DPS there. You have support skill in water and such, but you pretty much are fire camping with this build.

Scepter/Focus or Scepter/Dagger : This might be your thing. Your goal here is mainly might stacking. You have a rotation that can give 18 stack of might to your party. There is several variation of this build from more DPS oriented, but only stack might, to less dps, but stacking might, fury and vulnerability. Like you can see, not much defensive support, but a high amount of offensive support. So basically, you are stacking might and fury, then switching to your conjure Light Hammer to do dmg and keeping up your might. So you are always switching attunements and weapons for a far more active gameplay than a staff Elementalist. (I’m talking dungeon specifically here).

Dagger/Focus : Similar to the last build. You trade of 1 blast finisher and a bit of DPS for more survivability. You stick most of the time with D/F so you always have access to some great defensive skills from your focus. But these skill are for personal defence and are not really support skill for your team. Its mostly used in difficult content like high level fractal where S/X Elementalist have a tough job sticking in melee range and completing their rotation without dodging in the middle of it.

In WvW if you do Zerg, you need a staff, which is probably one of the most support build. But, in a pug zerg, you won’t see much of your support noticed and used. You need to work with other profession to blast your water field, fire field, static field, etc.

For pve, usual support traits are 6/6/2/0/0. As Thaddeus explained, the goal is to stack fury/ might/vuln via fire fields+ blasts. Since everything was covered in his post I won’t go into details but ele is a great offensive support class and also bring blinds+ proj defense.

The Ele is one of the best support classes. How can you argue with permanent Fury and tons of Might generation, along with the ability to bring tons of Vuln or Blindness with Glyph of Storms and a projectile block with Swirling Winds on Focus? Not to mention the blast finishers + blinds with Lightning Hammer, or the long CC and burst with Ice Bow 5 + 4.

Cool, I’m going to try those! Thanks!

Out of curiosity (and because I like to try unusual builds) are auramancers dead? It seems like a signet-based one would still be pretty competitive?

Litania.7095:

Cool, I’m going to try those! Thanks!

Out of curiosity (and because I like to try unusual builds) are auramancers dead? It seems like a signet-based one would still be pretty competitive?

It would be terrible no matter the format. Auras are just not worth speccing into ever since they fixed/nerfed Zephyr’s Boon.