Guild Wars 2

So bassically I am super bored of my guard and necro now… and I decided to make an ele.
Ive been pvping with it for a while now and im just wondering is commanding with ele viable? And if so what build should i run?

Current PvP build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMM6cW0wwBd0AhAGxNwCYYAoAUuGUCegA-T5QIwAAuAABeAADLDAA

The only thing I havent locked down is the rune.

Guys please suggest to me if ele is:
1) A viable commanding class
2) The build i should run if i want to command
3) The rune to run in WvW/PvP

Thank you.

I have seen three people command as eles in WvW in the last year and a half. They usually only run for a little while, waiting for someone else to tag up. The problem with an ele commanding in WvW is that the commander should never get killed. That is pretty tough for an ele leading a zerg into melee.

If you REALLY want to command on ele, go with a very tanky D/F setup. 00644 with diamond skin, rock solid and elemental shielding. The focus skills are quite nice for frontlining (obsi flesh and winds specifically).

A potentially more interesting idea is using stone heart and a lightning hammer. Use your big focus cooldowns, drop a hammer, static field and autoattack away.

I’m not a commander myself, but I don’t think it would be incredibly difficult to command. Ele has extremely high protection uptime, lots of regen, and tons of healing. If a Warrior can command and survive, an Ele can definitely do so. Diamond Skin is a trash trait, what you’ll want as a front liner is a 00266 build with the normal water and arcane traits, and elemental shielding. Since your frontline, you’ll want to use D/D instead of staff. You should use a mix of soldiers and knights armor; maybe even clerics. Less on the vitality, 20k should be good, and then go max in armor. Because your in arcane, you should have good fury uptime, so 15-20% crit chance should give you enough damage while maintaining survivability. Utilities should be Mist Form, Cleansing Fire, and Armor of Earth, but you can change those of course. Heal should be signet, both other heals are garbage. The best rune for commanding in WvW is either superior rune of the Dolyak, or Superior Rune of Melandru. Superior Rune of Hoelbrak can also work.

Edit: Forgot to say, in the Water Line you should take the aurashare trait for group protection and aoe stun armor and frost armor.

Elitist.8701:

I’m not a commander myself, but I don’t think it would be incredibly difficult to command. Ele has extremely high protection uptime, lots of regen, and tons of healing. If a Warrior can command and survive, an Ele can definitely do so. Diamond Skin is a trash trait, what you’ll want as a front liner is a 00266 build with the normal water and arcane traits, and elemental shielding. Since your frontline, you’ll want to use D/D instead of staff. You should use a mix of soldiers and knights armor; maybe even clerics. Less on the vitality, 20k should be good, and then go max in armor. Because your in arcane, you should have good fury uptime, so 15-20% crit chance should give you enough damage while maintaining survivability. Utilities should be Mist Form, Cleansing Fire, and Armor of Earth, but you can change those of course. Heal should be signet, both other heals are garbage. The best rune for commanding in WvW is either superior rune of the Dolyak, or Superior Rune of Melandru. Superior Rune of Hoelbrak can also work.

Edit: Forgot to say, in the Water Line you should take the aurashare trait for group protection and aoe stun armor and frost armor.

Im afraid you severely underestimate just how tanky a frontline warrior is if you think this spec is equally tanky.

Offhand dagger doesn’t offer much for a commmander since it moves you around erratically which messes up your melee. Damage won’t be your strong suit either so I don’t see why you’d take it.

You have to make a difference between raid commanding a small force e.g. two or three party sized groups max or leading a blob to battle.

As a raid commander, the Ele is in a decent spot, if you spec into more tanky builds, like Soldier, Celestial, Knight’s or a mixture. The choice of weapons isn’t a big issue as well. Your tactical skills count the most here.
If you think about blobs the Ele has a few disadvantages:
1. You want your allies to follow your tag exactly to stack and push. Your low health and armour, combined with limited access to Stability makes you vulnerable (and that’s why Guardian is pretty good commander class).
2. Big groups profit most from your AoE or Aura share abilities. For that you should be in midline or backline of the army, but you can’t direct pushes from there without 80% listening to you on TS. Movement and pushes will be slower if the Ele commander runs in the middle of the army.

Your skills for Staff look OK, but Arcane Wave might be more useful than GoEP and Cleansing Fire might be a better sustain than Lightning Flash.

When I flag on to command in WvW, I get the feeling that “it gets worse” if I go past the “raid level” in terms of coordination and effectiveness. Blob commanding is not made for the Ele class IMO.
Small havoc teams, raid parties etc. are OK though.

All valid points. Thing is i have a lvl 80 guardian but its sooooo boring to command with… (i do have tag on it)
The reason i was intrested in this is because in pvp it was working really well… i was able to fend of 2/3 people for sometime. But i do understand that in wvw the squishiness will be the doubt.
If anyone has more ideas keep em coming.

Got something like this on the editor :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcM6bW4wxBr0AbABxzrhNBl7jvB-TFCEwA22fQrSvWq/4UZQc9AAeAAcVC+4EAQGAmxA-w
It’s basic, but you should stick around these values if you want to do one by yourself : 3k armor, 17500 hp (20k with guardstacks), 1900 power, and 20 %. It’s sustain oriented, feel free to add healing power if you want to and find it more comfortable but i think you shouldn’t go that far. You have a pretty good reduction on movement condition so it will help you to move on the battlefield easily.
You certainly will ask, why Signet Of Earth ? Because if you have to use mistform while commanding, it means that your partners will not follow you. But if you want to use it anyway, you can replace SoE. Personnally I wouldn’t.

It also depends what size of zerg you will command and against what enemy. In spvp you fight in 5 man teams, in WvW you can get hit by 30 ppl meele train at once if things go wrong, not to mention the constant AoE spam…
The above build seems nice, melandru+lemongrass+trait basically makes you unstoppable. Now you just have to stay unkillable = good positioning, trying to be on enemys back, not letting them be on yours – if you commanded on guardian you should know where to stand. You will also get some support from guardians in your party so it could work out somehow.

The downside is that guardians do have more blocks+group friendly shouts+things like line of warding/empowers on relatively low cooldowns… On ele it’s more selfish and longer cd’s. That 2sec stability from trait is not much, so as mentioned earlier you will need guards near you. Obsidian flesh being your only “oh kitten” button, with its 50sec cd.
I would take Armor of Earth and Blink as a must. Third utility is optional, might be mist form if you expect tough fight, or some stunbreakers – Signet of air for shorter cd, GoEP for longer cd… Funny thing would be Earth Shield – Leap with daze effect, Pull with protection for each enemy pulled, Invulnerability – 3 useful skills, sadly at the cost of 1min cd on shield if you drop it or use the stacks.
With Energy sigil you could try Arcane Brilliance as a heal+blast finisher as well as take Arcane Wave and trait for shorter cd’s on arcanes. Not sure if signet would be good enough, especially if you needed burst heal.
Elite tornado or fgs, your choice.

I don’t know how it would work out for you, different classes have different playstyles. Most commanders are meele for a reason. If you wanna try something new, go for it

And also, keep in mind that you wont control the momentum of a fight like a guardian because of the group stability and empowering.

Honestly if I were to command on my ele, I would just to kitten with any damage of my own and go as tank as I could.

Something like this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhMMKcW5wzBf0AeAG5QwEoDM+AEAigluBA-TFyGABAcCAgV9HOVCKryvWN/5qeAO2fg4HAApA8aYE-w

You may like this: WvW – Staff Elementalist Walkthrough by Commander Siegerazer [VcY] http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2aa226/wvw_staff_elementalist_walkthrough/

I command frequently on my elementalist. This is the build i run.
Damage is Meh, and i switch between D/D and Staff depending on the size of my group, but I’m frequently one of the last people standing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMM6cW5wwBr0APAC5fv2JKQ5sJfC-T1SDwA9Ua84CAkb/BfKxgp+TXlBg0RM4ACAw0niDEoEUyDAIAACA7MQGglFA-w