Guild Wars 2

so im lvl 24. playing solely PVE. loving it so far, but ive been warned about wasting my skill points and what “build” to use.
could someone tell me a rough idea where to use my points so i dont waste them please?
right now i have like 14 unused points because im worried about messing up. i obviously just want the strongest build i can muster. i use the staff and dual daggers..kinda switch between both depending on situation.
also maybe a quick guide on best trait point allocation.
thanks in advance.

You can always reset your trait points so dont worry about choosing the wrong thing. As for what you want to put them into.. at level 25 i had 10 in arcane and 5 in air, just because i love attunement swapping and the fire / earth trait lines are useless. The water is okay but it doesnt help much in pve where u just want things to die quickly.

Edit: Made a mistake in my post and used my downscaled hp. After correction, Toughness+Condition Damage definitely looks better than Vitality early on.

r, just because i love attunement swapping and the fire / earth trait lines are useless.

At lower levels, the trait lines are all about stats.

Just to take an example. Without traits, my decently geared level 27 guardian has

• 2899 health
• 420 armor
• 280 power

100 Power: 36% damage
100 Toughness: 24% effective hp
100 Condition Damage: 31% bleeding, 21% burning
100 Vitality: 34% effective hp
100 Precision: 13.5% damage (assuming 10 crit damage)
10 Crit Damage: 2.3% damage (assuming 27% crit)

The elementalist benefits a bit more from Toughness, but as we can see, investing in primary traits early on is a hugely beneficial strategy.

Its cheap to retrait so ill asume you mean utility stuff.
For lvling take arcane blast/wave (i used blast due to range), glyph of lesser golem (a MUST have) and signet of fire or pretty much watever you want.
As for traits.. 0/10/10/20/30 is what i use. Water and arcane have great overall utility. And dont forget to switch attunments a lot

As Wildclaw has said at lower levels the attribute bonuses are more important than the actual traits, so put points in Power and Condition Damage primarily and Toughness and Vitality secondarily.

At level 40 I advise you to switch to the Conjure Lightning Hammer build (you can use the skill prior to that, though); you can use other builds but in my experience with the limited number of traits point you have until level 55-60 they lack much needed synergy.

If you are using d/d and staff you do not need to invest in fire magic. You can get plenty of power by using combo fields and putting a sigil of battle on one of your daggers. Water and arcana are your best friends early on; once you get 15 in water your attunement cycling will become an important part of your healing rotation. Even at level 20 you can put 10 into water for a free condition removal on attunement, or get regeneration/vigor whenever you use a cantrip, which happen to be some of your strongest utilities, even the first tier ones.

You should not be worrying about toughness; get used to avoiding damage and you won’t even need it. There are some encounters that will require staff usage no matter how much toughness you have, so you should also get used to analyzing enemies before you go in.

TL;DR- Water and arcana are superior lines everywhere in the game right now. Make up for power with sigils and combos with yourself.

I just reached level 42 with my Elementalist and I agree with what Leuca is advising. Water trait provides valuable condition removal and minor healing, which really helps in survivability. I also use glyph of lessor elemental to summon stuff to distract the mob while I pound away. At level 30, Glyph of Elemental is very useful for me, especially the Earth elemental for tanking. With the elemental, I was able to survive and kill three mobs that are 3 level above me. I user Sceptre+Dagger

Get used to switching attunement alot, it will keep your dps high.