Guild Wars 2

Thanks, Keyz. I really appreciate that.

While we’re on the re-orientation subject, what’s a good way for a noob to make some cashflow?

Thanks guys, but I’m looking less for speed clears now or specific builds. I want to learn what’s good for what in general. Right now, I’m still working on storyline and general solo work/farming.

So, before this afternoon, I hadn’t been on in a year (basically no one I know kept playing and the community I started with dwindled after a couple months and then school hit).

When I last played, I was using a very combo-heavy staff build with frost bow and arcane utility skills and the blast finishers from Evasive Arcana, but I know that got fixed right after I stopped playing.

Everyone’s on hear talking about this build and that build for speed dungeons and stuff, but I never even got to finish them on story mode before I left. Can anyone help me out on what to do nowadays for good soloing and then getting into doing that kind of stuff and/or maybe a little PvP?

When you do the update, could you include a section on the utility skills?

I find the easiest way to get a group is to ask my guild. If no one in your guild does dungeons, you should look for a guild that does (remember that you can be in both guilds).

Gauldrath, I wasn’t saying this complaint is only about PvP. I was just saying that your comment wouldn’t apply in PvP in any way shape or form. You can’t simply circle strafe other players.

Also, if you’re so great at underwater PvE, please show us. If you can really handle tons and tons of mobs with ease, then by all means please go record a solid chunk of underwater game play and post it (uneditted so we know you’re not just picking your best 30 second shots out of hours and hours of gameplay).

Also, underwater isn’t the only problem with ele’s. I’m not complaining you have to use every skill. I’m complaining that using every skill gets me not much more damage than simply auto-attacking as fire above ground.

Kaleden, separate underwater traits would be fine, but I certainly don’t see them doing it. Every class loses skills when they go underwater, but not every class loses many of its most commonly used utilities when they go underwater. We lose our elemental and all of our conjure weapons along with one of our heals, Lightning Flash, and Glyph of Storms. We’re also stuck with just the suckpool for our elite.

Thieves are the only other profession that lose so many skills underwater like we do, but then they get to be practically invulnerable for it. We get to be mediocre at best.

Alurazle, I still love my elementalist. I’m just tired of the devs leaving us in the shape we’re in after so long.

Without evasive arcana, there’s nothing we can do that other professions can’t do just as well as (if not better than) us with considerably less effort. Our only advantage is that we can supposedly be the most flexible since we get four bars with different themes to switch in and out of.

When we had Evasive Arcana giving us blasts, I could start a fight by dropping down a ton of might on the whole party, then switch to put a minute of chill on the boss, then switch to bomb heals within the group and switch back for more might, etc., etc. I could be doing any number of different things within a few seconds.

The problem now without Evasive Arcana is that we don’t have that many blasts. I can’t stop after dropping two combos of might on the party and suddenly start dropping AoE heal bombs instead. Before I had as much as three dodges, Arcane Wave, and Eruption for blast combos. If I dropped down an Eruption followed by Lava Font and rolled in for a blast to drop might right as the party got hit, I could switch to water, drop a Gesyer and use Arcane Wave and the other two dodges to get some AoE heal bombs off. Now, I only have Eruption and Arcane Wave. If I drop the two might combos and then need healing, I’ll have another 9 seconds before I can get back into Earth for Eruption to follow it with a Geyser. I’d be able to do that a second time before Arcane Wave came back up.

We’re no longer at a point where we can be reasonably flexible to do things we need to do when we need to do them. It’s fine to be working tons harder than everyone else while not necessarily being as effective as them at any one thing if we can switch around what we’re doing when we’re doing it. It’s not fine if we’re not able to switch like that until it’s too late and the moments have passed.

Gaudrath.6725:

I don’t get all this “we suck at underwater combat” complaining. We have so much choice… just move, don’t stand there like a log. Move and use those kitten spells and you will melt stuff. I mean, if I have a complaint about underwater combat is that NPC pathing is so sluggish, you can literally circle-strafe them to death without even getting hit once.

First: you haven’t set foot in PvP before, have you?

Second: so much choice… in one weapon. A lot of the more “fun” skills or more useful in PvE are blocked out for underwater combat. Our only elite is the suckpool (though at least we have one to use underwater now, that’s an improvement).

Third: I’m glad you can circle strafe and kill a single target after five minutes. I’m not complaining that it doesn’t work at all, just that it sucks. Other professions don’t take NEAR as long to kill a single mob underwater. To meet the damage of my AUTO ATTACK above water, I have to hit every button I have underwater. Forget the damage I can do above water when I actually use the other 16 skills on my first bar. We’re back to the “elementalists have to work twice as hard as anyone else for half the results” thing here.

Four: Fighting one mob is okay. Fighting three is really starting to push it simply because of how long it takes to kill and our limited ability to protect ourselves against multiple opponents or opponents that aren’t tightly grouped or opponents that actually move around. Yet, other professions can handle multiple mobs underwater without problem. I just want some equality.

Grevender.9235:

OP, I don’t think our profession is hated by devs: it’s just extremely complex to balance. Give them time, things may get better.

and now:

I don’t get all this “we suck at underwater combat” complaining. We have so much choice… just move, don’t stand there like a log.

For my Aura Cannon build is a total disaster, ‘cause it’s completely based on combos and underwater we have none.
This doesn’t prevent me to pull out some trick, but it feels like learning a complete alternative profession. I think underwater combat is an epic idea, but need improvements…

I gave them there months. For a company that likes to think itself highly dedicated to quality, I expect better after three months. At least some changes. The only significan changes we’ve gotten in the last three months to our underwater combat have been changing suckpool to be useable and then nerfing it shortly thereafter. How about letting us actually have a bit of damage?

Also, you did kind of hit the nail on the head at the end: with all the skills that don’t work underwater, it’s hard to have a build that translates well when you go for a swim. Your above water build, that you use 90 percent of the time, is set a specific way. Then, when you go underwater, a lot of the more popular utility skills for PvE are suddenly barred from you. In my case, only one of my three preferred utilities for above water combat are usable underwater. It’s a problem.

I just want to see the devs finally do something about how one of the potentially most fun classes is by far the most underpowered one.

I’ve been gone a lot recently thanks to school and work, so I haven’t gotten to play near as much as I’d like since the beginning of September. At the beginning of September, we had two major problems:

We had to work twice as hard to get half the results of any other profession.

We sucked beyond understanding, reason, and possibility underwater.

Not to mention half our skills were bugged or the graphics sucked. Our only real saving grace was the blast combos from Evasive Arcana. Every other class was better than us at whatever we chose to do, and EA was the only way we could actually fulfill all the roles in a reasonable time choice (i.e., actually be flexible in a way that let us change what we were doing faster than 10 seconds from when you want it).

Now, I come back to find that we still have to work our tails off to barely be equivalent to what the other professions do with auto-attack and that we’re still unbelievably awful underwater. Some of the bugs are better, but then they took away the blast combos.

Everyone pretty much knew that the game stil wasn’t actually ready when it launched at the end of August. And while still not having not having guesting (one of the most advertised features of the game pre-launch) sucks, having these kinds of issues with a profession after three months is simply inexcusable.

I was as hardcore about this game as anyone during the betas. Before launch I managed to have 150 hours logged in the game. I, with many other people, thought the Elementalist was absolutely fantastic and fell in love with it the moment I touched it during BWE1. But at launch, it was simply meh. Three months later, it’s still meh.

When will we actually see some real balance?

There really, really isn’t a “best”. Use whatever you find you’re comfortable with and like the style of. My personal style is the post I’ve got linked in my signature, but it may not work for you.

Elementalist’s fire attunement 4 skill on staff, Burning Retreat, doesn’t always properly function as a combo field.

I can reliably detonate blasts or whirls in it for a combo, but projectiles seem spotty. Most of the time, I can’t get a projectile to work going through the field, even if I roll the line out right in front of a ranger with a bow.

Also, it’d be great if we could get one of the combo field borders for the field this thing creates, so that it’s obvious to other players that don’t know our skills.

Bug: Burning Retreat creates a fire combo field, and if you detonate a blast or whirl in it, you’ll get the right combo. However, I frequently have issues of it not working correctly with physical projectiles (haven’t tried leaps). During betas, I could hit Burning Retreat, take a quick sidestep and pop a projectile through it for the combo. Now, most of the time it won’t work, even if I’m shooting perpendicular through it.

Flame Burst isn’t listed as a finisher in its description. Energy Sigil only gives so much energy. I still dislike its use. That’s a personal preference, which is what this guide is written on: MY personal preference. Feel free to write your own, sir.

I reckon I’ll do this in parts.

Eldrene Ay Ellan.9206:

IV. Skills I Use
Personally, doing dungeons without a stun break/immunity skill is not so smart. Id advise for sth. like mistform, which not only breaks stun but is amazing for rezzing people out of sticky situations.

I never find myself getting stunned in dungeons on a regular basis, or even a semi-regular basis. I don’t use it, because I don’t see the need for it at all. Also, it doesn’t rez anyone or break anyone else out of stuns.

V. Traits to Use
here i disagree with almost everything, which might be cause my build is more supporty but still, i do not understand how you can run a combo based staff ele without evasive arcana. It adds a lot more blast finishers to your kit, which frankly is amazing.

I do this very easily. I simply dislike Evasive Arcana. First, Flame Burst, Cleansing Wave, and Blinding Flash are not blast-causing skills. Only Churning Earth is. Secondly, dodging is something I prefer to use for actually dodging. That is, I don’t want to dodge to create a combo and then be out of energy when I actually need to avoid being hit by a spell. Wasting energy is unwise as far as I’m concerned.

Another point: you take arcane mastery over elemental attunement. Im pretty sure that trait is superior when you are alone and only gets better the more people you have around you.

This superiority that you’re “pretty sure” of is completely subjective. The combo effects I get from Arcane Wave are much stronger (e.g., 3 stacks of Might instead of 1, straight healing instead of Regeneration). I can also cause a greater variety of effects using Arcane Wave than Elemental Attunement lets me cause. Therefore, I’d rather have Arcane Mastery. There isn’t an absolute superiority here.

I also spec 20 into water but id say that is preference (might be cause i run TA a lot and having cleansing wave for the billions of poisons is pretty good).

This is something that you (not I) do for one specific dungeon. Thus, it has no place in my guide.

Overall i fell 30 points in arcane with the traits I listed (and blasting staff ofc.) are more or less mandatory if you want to run such a build. The blasts also have decent utility, providing heal/condi removal, blind and cripple. This setup allows you to stack 12-15(if you are fast) stacks of might, amazing area healing (both optimal for melee heavy groups). It’s worse in applying chilled over lengthy periods of time, so possibly better in ranged only groups against single melee opponents.

Again, this is all stuff you do that I don’t. It’s not that I don’t think your idea can work, because I’m sure it can. I simply find that some of your ideas are unwise and restricting.

Also i disagree vehemently with fiery greatsword (I run wave, GoS, Mistform, Elemental) as it locks you out of supporting your team for way too long and doesnt provide amazing dmg to make up for it.

That’s cool, and that’s again something you do. CFG can cause quite the bit of damage if you use it correctly. Yes, it takes away your other stuff for a while, but that’s also time I can use Arcane Wave and GoS and Fiery Whirl to still create combos using my group’s abilities. Elites aren’t an all-the-time thing, and should rarely be used on cooldown. Since you can’t prove any one is better than the others, it’s all up to personal preference. My personal preference is the CFG.

That tool is nice, but it needs a good bit of refinement.

Renari, read this.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/A-Combo-Based-Playstyle-Guide
It’s all about playing an ele using a lot of combos.

VII. Frequent Combos and Opener

When I start a boss fight, I have a specific opening sequence I like to follow to help my group, and I try to get my group in with it when they’re cooperative. The goal is to load enough chill on the boss to maintain it permanently (requires the group’s help, but I can cause a LOT on my own anyway). With the group’s help, I need only ask them to use as many projectile finishers as they can in the first few seconds through my field. If someone doesn’t have a projectile finisher, they can always use the extra ice bow I drop. Otherwise, by myself, here is my opener against a boss/big mob:

Water Attunement > Glyph of Storms (chills while in water) > Frozen Ground on Boss > CFB > Frost Volley > Frost Fan > Lava Font on Me > Arcane Wave > Pick up second Ice Bow > Ice Storm on Boss > Deep Freeze (if not immune) > Frost Volley, through any other field if possible > Frost Fan once off Recharge
Using this opener, I’ve managed to last as much as 30 seconds of chill on my own with a boss, given decent RNG on each blast landing from Glyph of Storms or big boss with a big hitbox.

Otherwise, I tend to use the following combos frequently: Fire + Blast (AoE Might x3), Fire + Projectile (Burning), and Water + Blast (AoE heal), though I drop fields as much as possible for my group to use during group play. Even if I don’t have a finisher, some of them have finishers simply by auto-attacking (e.g., rangers with bows and warriors with rifles).

VIII. Miscellaneous

Always ask the people in your group what weapons they’re using. If you know enough about other professions, you can often tell what kind of finishers they’ll have. For example, a warrior and guardian using main hand swords have a leap and projectile, respectively. Similarly, you can tell which fields they’ll be generating. It’s important to know what everyone in your group is doing so you can coordinate and increase your overall effectiveness.

Pay attention to where everyone in your group is, and keep look at their health bars. While you may not do much without stacking +Healing on your gear and traits, you can still provide a significant amount of health in an AoE setting with proper use of your skills and combos.

Everyone loves damage, and you can certainly provide a lot of damage when fully utilizing the profession like this, but damage isn’t everything. You’re providing damage, but your main goal is to simply make the group more awesome. Think more about everyone than yourself. Buffs, minor healing, and conditions are more helpful to the group than simply pumping out damage.

Use air attunement when running around the world. Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Windborne Speed, and the Static Field/Arcane Wave combo provide permanent swiftness with only three points in Arcana. It’s not crucial, but if you ever have to run back mid-fight from a distant WP, the seconds can matter.

IV. Skills I Use

It should seem obvious from above, but I use the staff for my build. It has the most number of combo fields, the most number of different combo field types, and a few finishers you can throw in there as well. I also use the following slot skills: Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Conjure Frost Bow, Arcane Wave, Glyph of Storms, and Conjure Fiery Greatsword. I’ll explain the GoS pick further down.

V. Traits to Use

One of the advantages to this type of play style is the freedom you can have in traits. However, I find the following to be the most effective for this style of play:

Conjurer (F8) – As much as I use CFB and CFG, adding 67% to their duration is too good to pass up (especially since that’s a huge increase on the elite skill). It’s also helpful to others in your party using the weapons.

Persisting Flames (F11) – While they have relatively short recharges, the fire fields last the least amount of time and provide the most amount of damage of our fields. It’s very helpful to get more shots through them and more recharges to line up with them.

Arcane Mastery (A1) – I use Arcane Wave almost on recharge, so taking six seconds off is huge. It’s my main finisher.

Blasting Staff (A8) – I don’t know how anyone can use the staff and not use this trait. Not only do you increase the number of targets affected by your skills, but you make it easier to get combos off by increasing the size of the field.

The other traits I personally like are the following:

Ember’s Might (F3) – This is big in group play when you can have perfect or near-perfect uptime on burning.

Salt Stone (E4) – This is similar to Ember’s Might, as in groups you can often have high uptime on bleeding.

Serrated Stones (E8) – Since Eruption is the biggest reason to switch to earth, and the main source of damage while in earth, you’re just adding that much more to the skill. Geomancer’s Alacrity would be nice, except that often I switch to earth for Eruption and switch back out. It’s better to improve the skill all the time than to make it more frequent every now and then.

So, my final build looks like this.

VI. How I Gear

Gearing is really dependent on what you’re doing. However, I tend to find that I like having a good balance of stats on my gear. My current PvE gear uses the Knight’s (Pow, Pre, Tou) prefix with either Superior Runes of Divinity (+60 all +12% Crit) or you can use Superior Runes of the Traveler (50% MF, 50 Vitality, +5% movement speed) if you’ve got the money and are farming more money. My accessories are all Pow/Vit/Con stats to cover some of the gap in everything. I gear myself offensive-heavy, because I know I can handle the kitten in my armor (read: wet cardboard).

Since clarity was an issue before, and since I’ve gotten so many in-game whispers and private messages, I’ve rewritten my previous post on the subject into this three-post guide.

It’s no secret that this game is highly based on personal comfort and playstyle. That said, some builds are simply on a more advanced level than others. One of the things I’ve developed since BWE1 is my personal combo-based playstyle. It works much the same in solo and in groups, making the transition easy.

(Note: If you don’t know any of the skills or traits by name, we have an official wiki to help you out.)

I. Advantages
II. Combo Fields
III. Combo Finishers
IV. Skills I Use
V. Traits to Use
VI. How I Gear
VII. Frequent Combos and Opener
VIII. Miscellaneous

I. Advantages

The advantages of my combo-based playstyle are few, but incredibly significant. First, I can handle bigger situations with increased ease. Take all of the skills you’ve been using, even though some claim they’re “underpowered” (read: don’t know how to use them), and then add a multitude of optional effects onto many of them. Because of the ways combos work, you can easily adapt to many situations simply by changing how you pair the skills you use.

II. Combo Fields

Here I’ll list the combo field skills from each weapon and slot skill applicable, along with the number on the weapon bar and attunement (F4 for Fire 4) and the type of field generated (F for Fire, W for Water, I for Ice, L for Lightning).

Combo fields with the Staff:
Lava Font (F2, F)
Burning Retreat (F4, F)
Geyser (W3, W)
Frozen Ground (W4, I)
Healing Rain (W5, W)
Static Field (A5, L)

Combo fields with the Scepter:
None

Combo fields with the Focus:
Flamewall (F4, F)

Combo fields with the Dagger:
Burning Speed (F3, F)
Ring of Fire (F4, F)

Combo Fields using Slot Skills:
Conjure Lightning Hammer – Static Field (5, L)

III. Combo Fields

As above, I’ll list the combo finishers for each weapon and slot skills, annotated with the attunement and bar location, as well as the type of finisher (P for Projectile, B for Blast, L for Leap, and W for Whirl).

Combo finishers with the Staff:
Stoning (E1, P)
Eruption (E2,
Shockwave (E5, P)

Combo finishers with the Scepter:
Dragon’s Tooth (F2,
Phoenix (F3,
Stone Shards (E1, P – 20% x3)
Hurl (E2 toggle, P)

Combo finishers with the Focus:
Comet (W5,
Magnetic Wave (E4,

Combo finishers with the Dagger:
Earthquake (E4,
Churning Earth (E5,

Combo finishers using Slot Skills:
Arcane Blast (P)
Arcane Wave (B)
Conjure Flame – Flame Leap (5, L)
Conjure Frost Bow – Frost Volley (2, P x5)
Conjure Lightning Hammer – Thunderclap (1, B, every third auto), Lightning Leap (2, L)
Conjure Fiery Greatsword – Fiery Whirl (3, W)
Tornado (W)

As said, the forums are the vocal MINORITY. All of the crying that’s going on is actually the minority. How is this? Because, most of the rest of us that see that the ele don’t bother posting about it.

Skoodles, if you’re talking about your auto-attack, no profession is auto-attacking for 100 per hit at level 2. Also, we have a lot of conditions that let us not need to hit as hard since we then hit a lot thereafter.

Im Too Godlike, your name says a lot about you to begin with. Reaching X rank in SPvP doesn’t really mean much of anything other than you spend a lot of time playing. It doesn’t reflect your skill. You could play 100 matches a day, get your backside handed to you, and still gain enough glory from being with a bunch of players better than you to have a high rank.

There are a lot of complaints on here about the elementalist being either too squishy or too weak or all sorts of things. Here are my favorite complaints.

“Waaah, elementalists are too easy to kill.”
For the love of Dwayna, stop gearing and traiting yourself as a glass cannon. Yes, we have the lowest armor class and health pool of the eight professions. If you can’t use your dodge key or basic defensive skills, stop stacking all power and precision.

“Waaah, I don’t do enough damage.”
By the Bear, you’ve got to be pulling this one out of your backside. You have four bars worth of skills, so use them. If you actually use all of your skills together, you’ll find your damage potential is probably higher than other professions. Even if I stick to just one attunement, I kill regular mobs in about the same amount of time as other players in the area that aren’t elementalists.

“Waaah, I have to work to play the game.”
Yes, the elementalist has a learning curve. Yes, we have major profession mechanics that you have to use. You know what? The other professions have their own mechanics as well. The only difference is that ours are proactive and give us much more to work with than other professions. If you really want to play the game without having to put forth any effort, go back to that other inferior MMO with the lazy player base.

“Waaah, my underwater skills suck.”
Yeah, this is the one area we actually need some adjustment. Our underwater skills actually do suck, and it’s something you can prove with hard evidence rather than complaints of what you think. I’ll give you this one.

“Waaah, elementalists need buffs!”
The only buff we need is to our underwater ability. Otherwise, people just need to play smarter. Use all four of your bars and actually take some toughness. Complain less, learn more.

This is ridiculous. If you’re having to use all four bars to kill regular mobs in PvE, perhaps you should stop gearing and traiting as a glass cannon? Against regular mobs, I never swap attunements unless I pull a bunch at once.

There’s reason we tell you to “learn to play”. It’s not just learning what skills you have. It’s learning to not be dumb and put all of your everything into power. A little toughness goes a long way.

I certainly don’t fight every mob like it’s a boss. I fight bosses like they’re bosses (like a boss). Are we squishier than all of the other professions? Of course! But, we certainly don’t do drastically less damage than anyone else.

Please stop complaining about how elementalists are underpowered or suck until you stop trying to be a glass cannon, use your dodge key once in a while, and actually do learn how to play this game.

Eddard.2930:

Elric of Grans.7684:

That is a very cool and very interesting build. I would be fascinated to see it in action!

No pun intended, I’m sure.

There’s much more capability to it than the chill. I just find the chill to be very useful in boss fights, especially in group play. Most people aren’t at the organized level yet that they’re really thinking about all the people they’re playing with, so no one has any more healing than their own and what bit I’m putting out. By putting that massive slow on attack speeds and movement speeds, I’m making the fight that much easier on the entire group by removing so much of that damage.

But, there’s also putting up tons of burning, since it causes the most damage of the three DoT conditions. You can also a fair amount of vulnerability, though to less effect.

I’ve got several tells and PMs on this.

The traits are ALREADY IN THE POST. They’re the last part of the post. Read the whole thing before you ask about them.

Additionally, if you don’t know what a trait or skill is by the name, there’s this thing called a Wiki. We have one. Use it.

I’m having some issues with elementalist underwater combat, and I’m hoping anyone else can shed some light.

First, before anyone says anything about it, I know to dance attunements and circle strafe. I’ve got a post up about making full utilization of the staff with skills for combos to add more effect to all of your skills. I’m not a noob that just installed the game.

My problems boil down to this:

My underwater damage is pathetic. My staff and my trident are both level 53 rares (I’m 59). My air and earth auto-attacks above water hit for about 200 My fire auto-attack hits for about 300. My water auto-attack hits for about 125. Underwater, my fire auto-attack hits for about 150 all together, my water hits for about 100, my air hits for about 100, and my earth hits for about 20. My auto-attacks hit for about twice, if not more above water as they do underwater.

So, it takes forever to kill anything, even making use of slot skills.

So, with everything basically being AoE underwater unless you fight exclusively in earth, it’s difficult to not agro multiple mobs. Had I the same damage underwater as above, multiple mobs would be a walk in the park. The problem udnerwater is that since I do so little damage, it’s near impossible to actually kill them quick enough.

Whenever I start drowning, the real crapfest begins. At least I do enough damage above water that if I go down, I’ve probably got at least one mob sitting at around 5-10%. Underwater, I’m lucky to have that. Our drowning skills don’t do anything for us compared to our already subpar (compared to other classes) downed skills.

Whenever I get drowned, I have two options. I can fight which leads directly to death since the only skill that actually helps me avoid dying takes 10 seconds to come off recharge. Or, I can try to swim away and get to the surface. Since everything underwater tends to move faster than me while I’m drowning, they catch up to me. If I do make it to the surface, I’m stuck sitting there and can’t move while I try to recover. Then, they catch up to me at the surface and yank me back under to kill me.

Is this something just plain broken for us, or am I missing something incredibly obvious?

The traits are really variable and depend on what you like to use. I listed the ones I think are kind of the most beneficial to use there at the bottom of the post. If that’s really not enough, send me a PM and I’ll send you back what I’m actually using then.

I’ll work on doing some video stuff over the weekend, possibly. A lot going on at the moment, so I dunno when. It’s all easy stuff to do, though. Do exactly what I wrote up there, and then branch out and experiment.

It’s no secret that this game is highly based on personal comfort and playstyle. That said, some builds are simply on a more advanced level than others. One of the things I’ve developed since BWE1 is my personal combo-based playstyle. It works much the same in solo and in groups, making the transition easy. It also lets me otherwise difficult situations in the world with ease.

The other two big advantages to the playstyle are the freedom in traits and how much you can contribute in events above your level.

The general keys are using a staff, Conjure Frost Bow, and Arcane Wave. You can optionally add in more skills like Arcane Blast, etc. I choose to use Glyph of Storms (for reasons I’ll later explain) and Conjure Fiery Greatsword (because… it’s just that amazing).

The staff has a lot of big abilities. It also has a lot of combo fields, and combo finishers in the earth magic line. By creating combos with yourself, you’re able to get even more out of your various skills. You’re taking all of those great tools you have, and making them even better.

The staff has the following combo fields:
Fire:
Lava Font
Burning Retreat
Water:
Geyser
Frozen Ground (Ice Field)
Healing Rain
Air:
Static Field (Lightning)

It also has the following finishers:
Earth:
Stoning (Projectile)
Eruption (Blast)
Shockwave (Projectile)

The conjure frost bow can be dropped with the 2 skill used quickly after any combo field skill to get five projectiles through the field in rapid succession. Arcane Wave can also give you a quick blast in a field, even while you’re using another skill. Arcane Blast can add another instant projectile as well if you use it.

Some more combo availability comes in the form of:
Conjure Flame’s Flame Leap is a leap finisher. Every third attack from Conjure Lightning Hammer is a blast. Lightning Leap is also a leap finisher. CLH’s Static Field (separate from the staff’s) is a lightning field. Tornado is a whirl finisher. Conjure Fiery Greatsword’s Fiery Whirl is also a whirl finisher.

So, what are some of the things beyond simply taking the skills? Well, first off, I can start off a boss fight with a LOT of chill on my own. In a group, I’ve managed to help produce an entire minute of chill. I’ve also managed to produce as much as 30 sec on my own. If I’m on my own, it looks like this:

Water Attunement > Glyph of Storms > Water4 (Frozen Ground) > Conjure Frost Bow > IceBow2 ( Frost Volley) > IceBow3 (Frost Fan) > Drop Bow > Earth Attunement > Auto Attack until Frozen Ground goes away > Pick up extra Ice Bow > Frost Fan again when off cooldown.

Note that the water version of GoS chills on hit. Using the above opener, I’ve managed to get up to 30 seconds of chill on my own.

Other combos I like to use, lending themselves to the versatility of the build: Burning Retreat or Lava Font + CFB as used above for a lot of burning. Static Field + Arcane Wave for AoE Swiftness (part of the staff elementalist’s permanent swiftness ability). Eruption > Lava Font > Arcane Wave for AoE Mightx6. Static Field > CFB as above for vulnerability. Geyser + Arcane Wave for AoE Heal. Healing Rain > CFB as above > Arcane Wave for stacking regeneration on the melee of your target plus self-centered AoE heal in addition to the AoE regeneration from the initial field.

The gear I use:
Varies by what level of stuff I’m doing. I use Pre/Cond at the moment to simply have more damage output, but will sometimes use Tou/Vit if I’m going into an exceptionally difficult dungeon and can play a more supportive role.

A few traits I like:

Fire VIII (Conjurer): The extra 10 charges on the weapons is really nice, especially in a group when someone else is using my weapons to add to the combo racking. Also adds 67% to the duration of my favorite elite.

Fire XI (Persisting Flames): The staff fire fields are pretty short duration, even if they are short recharge. Extending them makes it easier to get more shots through and coordinate with more group members’ recharges.

Arcana III (Arcane Retribution): I use Arcane Wave almost on cooldown, so speeding it up means more combos so more might, more healing, etc.

Arcana VIII (Blasting Staff): Bigger fields help in general, I find. It’s nice to not have to get in such a tiny space for Lava Font/Arcane Wave. It lets you affect more things with each skill. It’s possibly the best trait for any staff wielder.

Fire III (Ember’s Might) and Earth IV (Salt Stone) are things I like using in group play since I’m helping ensure everything’s on fire and frequent use of Eruption provides strong bleeds in addition to every profession ever having bleeds.

Depending on my focus, I might change things here and there, but this is the style I’ve built since BWE1. I hope it gives some people insight into a higher level of thinking in terms of your build and how to get more bang for your buck in terms of your skills.

Sorry, but you seem INCREDIBLY pompous. Who, exactly, are you that you’re some sort of PvP authority?

Honestly, they need a lot of work for PvP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone using one in SPvP yet, and maybe only occasionally in WvW during the betas. Honestly, it would be nice if they could auto-attack and only have the 2-5 skills use a charge. More standard type traits to just generally buff would be cool. Not so much specific ones.

Everyone loves the conjure skills. They’re tons of fun, and quite useful. The lightning hammer hits hard and has that nice second Static Field and the knockback. The frost bow can be dropped right after a combo field for extra combos (I’ve managed to get as much as 20-25sec chill by myself thanks in part to this bow).

Every profession gets multiple traits that benefit each of their groups of utility skills. We have only one trait for conjure weapons. Going up to 25 charges instead of 15 is nice, if only they lasted long enough to always use those 25 charges instead of the weapon timing out with 5 left.

It’d be really nice if we could see some additional trait support for the conjure skills. Maybe a 20% shorter recharge couple with 20% longer duration for the second weapon on the ground? Maybe something that lets us drop them and pick the same one back up? Maybe one that adds extra combo finishers/fields to some of the skills? I’m not too picky, but I’d really like to see more major traits to use for such a great line of skills.

I kind of like the elementalist underwater, but I feel like fire could use some buffing. Think of the others: they’ve all got a float or sink and stun or blind or heal and decent damage. Fire has cripple and no extra damage.

Also, elementalists NEED an underwater skill. The Engineers can use our Tornado underwater as Whirlpool via Elixir X, but we can’t use our own skill underwater? -_-

I’m a human ele.

I have literally no options for an elite skill underwater.

This includes Tornado, which supposedly should turn into Whirlpool underwater.

I’m told engineers can use their Elixir X to turn into the whirlpool underwater.

Why can another profession use my elite skills better than I can?

I’m assuming this is a bug, because I can’t understand any other reason behind ALL of my elite skills being marked as unusuable underwater.