Build for (core/elite spec)Open world and eventually Dungeons/Fractals

Hi everyone,

I want to make new character and i'm thinking about elementalist. But before i create him i want to ask gw2 community about some tips/build for open world leveling ele. Always before i start playing new char i like to have some "foundation" and general way/idea of building my hero because with that i have more certain way of playing and have better fun. I have both expansions so tempest/weaver is no problem, but before i can make it i need to stay awhile on core ele. Eventually after i hit 80 and get elite spec i wanna do some dungs/fractals. Can you suggest me some builds/tips for open world/leveling (i have HoT so please some decent survi) and build for Dungeons/Fractals :) .

Check out this thread. It has some nice insights and priorities for levelling every profession—the ele section in your case. :)https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/72254/a-leveling-guide-early-builds-and-tips

1) Open World and Core:

A. D/D Elementalist Fire-Air-Arcane for damage, or Fire-Water-Arcane if you're struggling to survive. The stats are Berserker's stats, but if you feel that you want to play around Water line/attunements a lot, then you can add in some Healing Power, best stat for this would be Marshal (heal and damage) and Knight/Soldier (defense and hp), but for OW, anything but Berserk is a bit wasted in my opinion if in excess. The build gets better the faster you are on using D/D and it provides lots of fun and good damage burst. It relies on being good at reacting to incoming damage or chances to hit hard. You can replace the off-hand dagger for a focus if you need some utility and defense.

B. Staff, also Fire-Air-Arcane, or Fire-Water-Arcane. This build is great for metas as some bosses can burst you down if you're not familiar with dagger. It provides lots of AoEs, utility and good CC while dropping great damage with Meteor Shower. If you're familiar enough with the weapon and the tricks, you can play it in OW except vs Champions as it's slow for their burst potential. One of the tricks that each Staff Ele player must learn imo is how to Burning Retreat forwards, this can be achieved by checking the hotkeys for the About Face option and assigning a key for it, you hold onto mouse left click, then press About Face button and immediately afterwards use Burning Retreat, it will take some time to learn, but it's great for making gaps or closing them.

2) Open World with E-Specs:

A. Sc/Wh or D/Wh Tempest Fire-Air or Air-Arcane: it's to be the best OW Ele build, it provides great AoE damage with Air Overload, which is spammable thanks to Fresh Air trait in Air line. Warhorn provides utility, CC and combo fields with some damage. You can also generate Might from Fire Overload, cleanse from Water Overload, or gain Stability from Earth Overload. You most likely run full Berserker, but if you want to add in some Knight or Soldier pieces for surviving, it's totally fine.

B. If you love to play as a support, you can play Water-Arcane Tempest: Great burst heals with many boons thanks to Aura traits and Tempest line. You can play Magi/Harrier/Misntrel (never run minstrel in raids though) mix. Since these stats are hard to come by, you can try adding in healing power till reaching ~800-900 and then complete with either damaging stats or more HP and Def, or Concentration for dungeons and fractals.

All of these 4 builds are great for OW and ok in dungeons as long as you don't face elitists (don't know why), then you will only have Tempest builds only wanted by such groups. For fractals, of these 4, you will most likely run Tempest builds as DPS or boon healer, but Weaver is better for DPS. For raids, better check snowcrows.com

If you found Weaver to be more fun in OW, you can surely play it, but keep in mind that it's really squishy, but the damage is great.

3) Meta/Expected instances (fractals/raids) group builds:

Better check snowcrows.com for builds and rotations.

Leveling:

Alright, now it's time for leveling. After you pick either D/D, D/F or Staff, you will need to know which lines to spend Hero Points on. Glyphs are the best utilities for starting, reason: AI to tank for you on elite skill, Burst heal, and Glyph of Storms that provides either great damage or 10s of Blind when surrounded by many mobs or lethal hits are expected. For the trait lines, choose either Arcane if you want sustain on early levels, or Fire if you want damage, but keep in mind that Fire provides no defense at all while Arcane is an all-round line for the class. You can then unlock Water or Air, depends on your taste of more damage or more sustain. Earth line is leveled last as it's sadly the most worthless of them.

Tips:

1- When playing Ele, you want to prevent hits as much as possible, as your defense is mostly active defense, meaning, you'll need to use the evades, kiting and utilities to survive.

2-The class relies on being as fast as possible on rotating, but wise. Something you will experience with the class is that you can channel an ability while in Fire and attune to Air during channeling time without cancelling the skill, this should be 100% taken to your advantage (except Overloads, they get cancelled).

3- Burning Retreat forwards, mentioned.

4- Also, you will need to read the trait lines to understand your damage modifiers, such that Fire attunement holds most damage, Air is 2nd, this means, you want to use your damage mostly attuned to these. It's a bit harder on Weaver to get used to the modifiers, but it takes time.

5- You need to learn your combo fields. Blasting Fire fields grants might, blasting water fields grants good AoE healing, blasting Ice fields grants AoE damage reduction for allies. Leaping in Fire fields grants Fire Aura, leaping in Water field grants self healing, leaping in Ice field grants self damage reduction. Fields may seem not that much of importance, but on Ele, they are actually important to generate boons and increase sustain.

6- Once/If you're done with core, I would recommend Tempest first as it's easier to get started on e-specs, than Weaver. Weaver will require muscle memory though and lots of attunement swapping, lots of them, but the idea of dual attuning and fast gameplay is fun.

Or that! @Auburner.6945s post! Very well written! :)

@Auburner.6945 said:1) Open World and Core:

A. D/D Elementalist Fire-Air-Arcane for damage, or Fire-Water-Arcane if you're struggling to survive. The stats are Berserker's stats, but if you feel that you want to play around Water line/attunements a lot, then you can add in some Healing Power, best stat for this would be Marshal (heal and damage) and Knight/Soldier (defense and hp), but for OW, anything but Berserk is a bit wasted in my opinion if in excess. The build gets better the faster you are on using D/D and it provides lots of fun and good damage burst. It relies on being good at reacting to incoming damage or chances to hit hard. You can replace the off-hand dagger for a focus if you need some utility and defense.

B. Staff, also Fire-Air-Arcane, or Fire-Water-Arcane. This build is great for metas as some bosses can burst you down if you're not familiar with dagger. It provides lots of AoEs, utility and good CC while dropping great damage with Meteor Shower. If you're familiar enough with the weapon and the tricks, you can play it in OW except vs Champions as it's slow for their burst potential. One of the tricks that each Staff Ele player must learn imo is how to Burning Retreat forwards, this can be achieved by checking the hotkeys for the About Face option and assigning a key for it, you hold onto mouse left click, then press About Face button and immediately afterwards use Burning Retreat, it will take some time to learn, but it's great for making gaps or closing them.

2) Open World with E-Specs:

A. Sc/Wh or D/Wh Tempest Fire-Air or Air-Arcane: it's to be the best OW Ele build, it provides great AoE damage with Air Overload, which is spammable thanks to Fresh Air trait in Air line. Warhorn provides utility, CC and combo fields with some damage. You can also generate Might from Fire Overload, cleanse from Water Overload, or gain Stability from Earth Overload. You most likely run full Berserker, but if you want to add in some Knight or Soldier pieces for surviving, it's totally fine.

B. If you love to play as a support, you can play Water-Arcane Tempest: Great burst heals with many boons thanks to Aura traits and Tempest line. You can play Magi/Harrier/Misntrel (never run minstrel in raids though) mix. Since these stats are hard to come by, you can try adding in healing power till reaching ~800-900 and then complete with either damaging stats or more HP and Def, or Concentration for dungeons and fractals.

All of these 4 builds are great for OW and ok in dungeons as long as you don't face elitists (don't know why), then you will only have Tempest builds only wanted by such groups. For fractals, of these 4, you will most likely run Tempest builds as DPS or boon healer, but Weaver is better for DPS. For raids, better check snowcrows.com

If you found Weaver to be more fun in OW, you can surely play it, but keep in mind that it's really squishy, but the damage is great.

3) Meta/Expected instances (fractals/raids) group builds:

Better check snowcrows.com for builds and rotations.

Leveling:

Alright, now it's time for leveling. After you pick either D/D, D/F or Staff, you will need to know which lines to spend Hero Points on. Glyphs are the best utilities for starting, reason: AI to tank for you on elite skill, Burst heal, and Glyph of Storms that provides either great damage or 10s of Blind when surrounded by many mobs or lethal hits are expected. For the trait lines, choose either Arcane if you want sustain on early levels, or Fire if you want damage, but keep in mind that Fire provides no defense at all while Arcane is an all-round line for the class. You can then unlock Water or Air, depends on your taste of more damage or more sustain. Earth line is leveled last as it's sadly the most worthless of them.

Tips:

1- When playing Ele, you want to prevent hits as much as possible, as your defense is mostly active defense, meaning, you'll need to use the evades, kiting and utilities to survive.

2-The class relies on being as fast as possible on rotating, but wise. Something you will experience with the class is that you can channel an ability while in Fire and attune to Air during channeling time without cancelling the skill, this should be 100% taken to your advantage (except Overloads, they get cancelled).

3- Burning Retreat forwards, mentioned.

4- Also, you will need to read the trait lines to understand your damage modifiers, such that Fire attunement holds most damage, Air is 2nd, this means, you want to use your damage mostly attuned to these. It's a bit harder on Weaver to get used to the modifiers, but it takes time.

5- You need to learn your combo fields. Blasting Fire fields grants might, blasting water fields grants good AoE healing, blasting Ice fields grants AoE damage reduction for allies. Leaping in Fire fields grants Fire Aura, leaping in Water field grants self healing, leaping in Ice field grants self damage reduction. Fields may seem not that much of importance, but on Ele, they are actually important to generate boons and increase sustain.

6- Once/If you're done with core, I would recommend Tempest first as it's easier to get started on e-specs, than Weaver. Weaver will require muscle memory though and lots of attunement swapping, lots of them, but the idea of dual attuning and fast gameplay is fun.

So for utilities u are saying that firstly use glyphs and then...? And what with that builds that you send above? Experiment or using something specific for effectiveness? And what about sigils and runes. Scholars for power dps? And what for weapons?

@jackowskig.3905 said:

@Auburner.6945 said:

1) Open World and Core:

A. D/D Elementalist Fire-Air-Arcane for damage, or Fire-Water-Arcane if you're struggling to survive. The stats are Berserker's stats, but if you feel that you want to play around Water line/attunements a lot, then you can add in some Healing Power, best stat for this would be Marshal (heal and damage) and Knight/Soldier (defense and hp), but for OW, anything but Berserk is a bit wasted in my opinion if in excess. The build gets better the faster you are on using D/D and it provides lots of fun and good damage burst. It relies on being good at reacting to incoming damage or chances to hit hard. You can replace the off-hand dagger for a focus if you need some utility and defense.

B. Staff, also Fire-Air-Arcane, or Fire-Water-Arcane. This build is great for metas as some bosses can burst you down if you're not familiar with dagger. It provides lots of AoEs, utility and good CC while dropping great damage with Meteor Shower. If you're familiar enough with the weapon and the tricks, you can play it in OW except vs Champions as it's slow for their burst potential. One of the tricks that each Staff Ele player must learn imo is how to Burning Retreat forwards, this can be achieved by checking the hotkeys for the About Face option and assigning a key for it, you hold onto mouse left click, then press About Face button and immediately afterwards use Burning Retreat, it will take some time to learn, but it's great for making gaps or closing them.

2) Open World with E-Specs:

A. Sc/Wh or D/Wh Tempest Fire-Air or Air-Arcane: it's to be the best OW Ele build, it provides great AoE damage with Air Overload, which is spammable thanks to Fresh Air trait in Air line. Warhorn provides utility, CC and combo fields with some damage. You can also generate Might from Fire Overload, cleanse from Water Overload, or gain Stability from Earth Overload. You most likely run full Berserker, but if you want to add in some Knight or Soldier pieces for surviving, it's totally fine.

B. If you love to play as a support, you can play Water-Arcane Tempest: Great burst heals with many boons thanks to Aura traits and Tempest line. You can play Magi/Harrier/Misntrel (never run minstrel in raids though) mix. Since these stats are hard to come by, you can try adding in healing power till reaching ~800-900 and then complete with either damaging stats or more HP and Def, or Concentration for dungeons and fractals.

All of these 4 builds are great for OW and ok in dungeons as long as you don't face elitists (don't know why), then you will only have Tempest builds only wanted by such groups. For fractals, of these 4, you will most likely run Tempest builds as DPS or boon healer, but Weaver is better for DPS. For raids, better check snowcrows.com

If you found Weaver to be more fun in OW, you can surely play it, but keep in mind that it's really squishy, but the damage is great.

3) Meta/Expected instances (fractals/raids) group builds:

Better check snowcrows.com for builds and rotations.

Leveling:

Alright, now it's time for leveling. After you pick either D/D, D/F or Staff, you will need to know which lines to spend Hero Points on. Glyphs are the best utilities for starting, reason: AI to tank for you on elite skill, Burst heal, and Glyph of Storms that provides either great damage or 10s of Blind when surrounded by many mobs or lethal hits are expected. For the trait lines, choose either Arcane if you want sustain on early levels, or Fire if you want damage, but keep in mind that Fire provides no defense at all while Arcane is an all-round line for the class. You can then unlock Water or Air, depends on your taste of more damage or more sustain. Earth line is leveled last as it's sadly the most worthless of them.

Tips:

1- When playing Ele, you want to prevent hits as much as possible, as your defense is mostly active defense, meaning, you'll need to use the evades, kiting and utilities to survive.

2-The class relies on being as fast as possible on rotating, but wise. Something you will experience with the class is that you can channel an ability while in Fire and attune to Air during channeling time without cancelling the skill, this should be 100% taken to your advantage (except Overloads, they get cancelled).

3- Burning Retreat forwards, mentioned.

4- Also, you will need to read the trait lines to understand your damage modifiers, such that Fire attunement holds most damage, Air is 2nd, this means, you want to use your damage mostly attuned to these. It's a bit harder on Weaver to get used to the modifiers, but it takes time.

5- You need to learn your combo fields. Blasting Fire fields grants might, blasting water fields grants good AoE healing, blasting Ice fields grants AoE damage reduction for allies. Leaping in Fire fields grants Fire Aura, leaping in Water field grants self healing, leaping in Ice field grants self damage reduction. Fields may seem not that much of importance, but on Ele, they are actually important to generate boons and increase sustain.

6- Once/If you're done with core, I would recommend Tempest first as it's easier to get started on e-specs, than Weaver. Weaver will require muscle memory though and lots of attunement swapping, lots of them, but the idea of dual attuning and fast gameplay is fun.

Well, Glyphs are all good except one of them so getting them all is great. For others, you will make picks. Signets: Fire is only needed, maybe Air if no mounts. Arcane: Arcane Shield is only needed. Cantrips: Lightning Flash, Mist Form and maybe Armor of Earth. Conjures: Lightning Hammer and Fiery Greatsword, but I would leave conjures till after the ones mentioned above.

For the OW and dungeon builds, these are the most used ones and are mostly on full Berseker stats, however, you can add in some pieces for surviving if needed, or you go the aforementioned stats for Healing.

@Lillbryschan.3281 said:Or that! @Auburner.6945s post! Very well written! :)

Thank you :D