Now someone is going to cast “Eviration” on me probably, expecially those guys who play MMOs with a Oregon Scientific calculator on the desk, the main point is: I don’t care.
Since the beginning GW was different from other MMOs in the same way Dark Souls is different from other combat rpg games, the important is how you play because there is NOT a standard build that can be nominated best or worst.
In this case we are dealing with a fairly complex system, elementalists are difficult to play and there are gazillions of setups for the traits plus 4 attunements.
But let’s go step by step:
Gear I am using for this build: full berserker, including staff and daggers and rings. Every piece of gear uses Ruby orbs.
Fire: 10 points with Burning Precisions. Why? Because this build relies heavily on crits to do his job and do it quickly. You will crit as hell if you have the right gear, vitality will be around 14.000 and forget about toughness which is very overrated, so you need to know how to dodge roll to stay alive. Burning Precision makes you set on fire every enemy very easily which is a very good bonus damage.
Air: 10 point with Bolt to the Heart. Do I have to explain why? Dealing more damage is very useful against every enemy, but in case of a champion is even more useful since fight are very long and dealing more damage to a foe that stays for very long time below the threshold is sweet. Impossible to miss this trait.
Earth: 0 points. Why? Well, this is your choice, i love the trait that gives you Armor of Earth but i have a trait on Arcane that gives me Arcane Shield and i didn’t want to give up 20 points in water. If you want the Armor of Earth then remove 10 points in water and go more defensive.
Water: 20 points and well spent. Apart from Soothing mist, which you should always have in every build from my point of view, you want to heal yourself more often with a full berserker gear. Not all battles end up as you want so sometimes you have to fall back and give yourself a good healing moment because the Glyph of EH is not eternal and his CD can make you sweat. Aquamancer Alacrity made me realize how much better is to have a healing fountain more often, just cast it and fall back to fire or air attunement for dps. Soothing Wave has the only purpose to help you a bit when casting Mist Form, the important is that you learn to cast Mist Form not only when you have really low HP but everytime you fall to 60% health. If you don’t like it then use the 10 trait points wherever you want, i personally prefer the Armor of Earth trait for some more defense but also going 20 fire would be great for dealing more damage to burning foes.
Arcane Power: 30 points and I will never regret it. Do I use arcane skills? Only underwater for obvious reasons, so why 30 points in Arcane? Because this is a all rounder build, so we will get Arcane Retribution which will make crits go to the stars, Final Shielding which does a wonderful job when you are in danger and Elemental attunement to buff you and your party in dungeons or everyday’s map duties. Now i want you to think seriously about it: I wanted Arcane Shield and Arcane Power as skills, but they were stealing 2 of my slots! So what’s better than having your skills in your 4 slots plus the arcane skills activated automatically? There is nothing to do, the crits and the final defense will make you almost invincible and without sacrificing any skill slot.
This build works like a charm with both D/D and Staff, you have to decide depending on the situation but in Dungeons i always run staff. If you want to have some fun in PVP/WvW then get the trait for larger AOE with staff, remember to abuse your Mist Form and support a lot your allies.
Practically the build is mainly for PVE at lv80, you will be able to run anything on the map with some training, but it’s also a good starting point to explore PVP/WvW. Of course if you want to run mainly PVP/WvW then you will have to gain more vitality on the gear and different traits/skills but that’s life and this is not a focused build.
For leveling up till lv80 i abused of lighting hammer and FierySword which are great staying in water because of consta regeneration, so of course i had the trait for more charges on conjured weapons, but in the moment that you reach lv80 and you are geared well you will see that D/D on the map will blast any enemy away from the universe.
Remember that your skills are not there to stay permanently on the slots, depending on the situation change the skills accordingly when out of battle. To be more clear: be elastic and don’t suppose that your skills are ok for every fight.