How do you build an elementalist?

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Alright, full disclosure before anyone makes fun of me, obviously I'm not a main elementalist. I'm primarily a mesmer but I do have one of every profession because I believe in at least knowing how to do everything competantly. And I do have an elementalist, level 80, Tempest, Weaver, and Catalyst fully unlocked. I'm still not very good at it, but I've gotten that far at least. But there's something I really struggle with.

So as a mesmer I actually have five builds. I have my base mesmer build, which is what I play with 90% of the time. I have a chronomancer build, a mirage build, a virtuoso build, and an invisibility build which is just all the invisibility skills thrown together. But Elementalist is a bit different. Of course you have your elementalist build, right? And your Tempest build, and your Weaver build, and your Catalyst build....but there's more than that. Because an elementalist doesn't just pick up a dagger or a sword or a scepter and go to town. THey have fire AND water AND lightning AND earth, and each one of them has its own specialization trait line. Meaning that my mesmer has a total of 5 builds, but an elementalist? That's, like....base + specs x elements....16 different builds. You can't even buy that many build slots.

So how do you build an elementalist? Not a power DPS elementalist, or a condi roamer weaver or whatever, but just a generalist, good, all-around elementalist?

[Downstate.4697]

Celestial stats

[SleepyBat.9034]

17 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Alright, full disclosure before anyone makes fun of me, obviously I'm not a main elementalist. I'm primarily a mesmer but I do have one of every profession because I believe in at least knowing how to do everything competantly. And I do have an elementalist, level 80, Tempest, Weaver, and Catalyst fully unlocked. I'm still not very good at it, but I've gotten that far at least. But there's something I really struggle with.

So as a mesmer I actually have five builds. I have my base mesmer build, which is what I play with 90% of the time. I have a chronomancer build, a mirage build, a virtuoso build, and an invisibility build which is just all the invisibility skills thrown together. But Elementalist is a bit different. Of course you have your elementalist build, right? And your Tempest build, and your Weaver build, and your Catalyst build....but there's more than that. Because an elementalist doesn't just pick up a dagger or a sword or a scepter and go to town. THey have fire AND water AND lightning AND earth, and each one of them has its own specialization trait line. Meaning that my mesmer has a total of 5 builds, but an elementalist? That's, like....base + specs x elements....16 different builds. You can't even buy that many build slots.

So how do you build an elementalist? Not a power DPS elementalist, or a condi roamer weaver or whatever, but just a generalist, good, all-around elementalist?

What game modes are you trying to make a build for?

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Just now, SleepyBat.9034 said:

What game modes are you trying to make a build for?

Almost exclusively PvE. I never PvP and every once in a while I log into WvW to remind myself why I don't play that either (It usually just takes a gang of 4 warclaws mauling me on the road and I learn my lesson). What I'm really trying to ask here is I have 4 elements to use and only 3 trait slots, 2 if I'm using a spec. How is anyone supposed to build a universal kind of elementalist like that? Or am I missing the point and they actually DON'T want you to use all your element rotations?

And something I forgot to add above, I am actually a GW1 veteran. Again, I was primarily a mesmer but I did have an elementalist and I do remember spending hours in town working on builds. The fire build for when I was in the shiverpeaks, the air build for when I was in Maguuma fighting Mantle, the Water build when I was in the Ring of Fire. But that was GW1. You couldn't switch your elements, or in that case skills, once you left town. GW2 is different though. They....SUPPOSEDLY....want you to be a generalist, but I don't get how that works even 11 years on.

[MarzAttakz.9608]

There isn't a universal build, apart from Celestial to some degree. If it's just open world then look at Lord Hizen's updated one.

And it isn't about attunements specifically because they follow the same general theme, as do the traits for those elements.

First start with which weapons you feel work best for you, then build around that.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The greatest number of builds I have are on Elementalist.  It is hard for me to pick just one since I change things around quite frequently, all depending on what I want to do.  Even then, I don't adhere to a strict trait setup, and I change my traits around depending on what I want to accomplish.  If I were to recommend any generalist builds, I'd go with something like this.

It's condi scepter weaver.  If you don't have SotO, go with the Focus instead of the warhorn.  At first glance, this build is a pure condi damage build.  But, there are a few key factors that make it worthwhile.  First, it is capable of doing nearly full damage at a distance.  The only exception is Primordial Stance, which can be swapped out for Glyph of Elemental Power if you want more ranged DPS.  Second is that it has several defensive utilities baked into the rotation, via Glyph of Storms and the Earth off-hand skills.  It comes with projectile reflections and pulsing blind fields.  Finally, the build has several non-trivial conditions and boons in it's repertoire, inflicting weakness, blind, vulnerability while granting itself and allies might, fury, protection, vigor, and resistance.

I recommend this one over a lot of the celestial builds, because this one can be used quite safely in most content.  Celestial builds can mess with enemy aggro and frequently force melee distance to do their damage.  In spite of being a condi build, scepter weaver still packs quite the punch, strike damage wise, and can melt enemies very quickly.  The only caveat to the build is that it has poor self-healing relative to other ele builds.  

[soulknight.9620]

1. Pick whatever role you want to fulfill.

2. Get a build that corresponds with that role.

3. Push 25+skill in 10 secs to get mediocre results.

4. Open youtube, find a "hello darkness my old friend" song. 

5. Loose all hope and will to live as an ele. 

6. Roll a different class and have fun. 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

16 hours ago, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

There isn't a universal build, apart from Celestial to some degree. If it's just open world then look at Lord Hizen's updated one.

And it isn't about attunements specifically because they follow the same general theme, as do the traits for those elements.

First start with which weapons you feel work best for you, then build around that.

That's....kinda what I was afraid of. Like I said, I played a little ele back in GW1. Only problem is that I was never good at the whole "Run in First and Die" thing since part of being an elementalist was also being Leroy Jenkins. But I did spend time working on builds there and when they introduced the ele in GW2 and the ability to change your attunement it really seemed like they wanted you to be a generalist/universalist. And then in PoF they added the Weaver, which REALLY wants you to use all your attunements. It just seems weird that they seem to have tried to make it so you use all of them, but force you to just pick your favorite one. At least that's what it feels like.

3 hours ago, soulknight.9620 said:

4. Open youtube, find a "hello darkness my old friend" song. 

That's the Sound of Silence, originally by Simon and Garfunkel. I purrfer the Disturbed cover though.

8 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Build stuff

Okay. You have a lot of good stuff there. And when it comes to looking up builds I actually use...hold on...Metabattle when I look up builds. The problem I have with yours as I do with theirs as well is that every build is really built to do, like, one thing. WHich is fine. My ranger is a really good beast master. My mesmer is a condi-staff nightmare. My guardian....I'm still not sure what exactly guardians....do....but here's my point. Even your build is a fire/Earth/Weaver build. Which I'm sure is fine! But what about water? What about air? As I said above, I feel like I was sold an elementalist that's supposed to be like all my GW1 builds rolled into a single character that just doesn't work as advertised. And is that me? Am I wrong here? Are they wrong here? This is why I need help from other ele's.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

the traitlines have never necessarily corresponded to “maining” the respective elements

you can still hit a burning foe for increased damage in water/air/earth

soothing mist continues to tick outside of water

the 10% dmg reduction from geomancers defense is effective regardless of current attunement

if you cycle through the attunements and use all of the 20 skills at your disposal intelligently, all traitlines will have a use - although some will be more useful than others depending on how you play/what youd like to focus on

i will say that the avg %time spent between attunements is already lopsided though since fire is always the main damage attunement, water is usually irrelevant until youre dying and air & earth are heavily situational and not useful staying in

[peperoncino.2516]

3 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

And then in PoF they added the Weaver, which REALLY wants you to use all your attunements.

sure... well, as long as pvp is the only concern that is.

ever noticed how weavers only gm trait that has any damage buff tied to it also requires you to attune into a single element? procs exactly for 8 seconds, too! so, due to how weavers attunes work, with across the board cooldown of 4 secs on all attunes instead of a cooldown happening on leaving an attunement, you will have just enough time if you are only dual attuning between two elements. perfectly engineered by anet to discourage diversity of how you play xD

ig weave self exists, so you can live the fantasy for 20 seconds every minute and a half or so. great traitline btw.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

6 minutes ago, peperoncino.2516 said:

sure... well, as long as pvp is the only concern that is.

ever noticed how weavers only gm trait that has any damage buff tied to it also requires you to attune into a single element? procs exactly for 8 seconds, too! so, due to how weavers attunes work, with across the board cooldown of 4 secs on all attunes instead of a cooldown happening on leaving an attunement, you will have just enough time if you are only dual attuning between two elements. perfectly engineered by anet to discourage diversity of how you play xD

ig weave self exists, so you can live the fantasy for 20 seconds every minute and a half or so. great traitline btw.

You might not expect an answer, but you get one whether you like it or not.

Okay, to be fair, I don't pvp, so whatever considerations are there can just get right now. Which given the way you phrased it, they probably didn't matter anyway. That being said...no, I didn't really notice. I know the elite wanted you to tap each attunement for....something. I don't actually remember now what it does. But primarily I meant all the dual attacks. 4 elements, 6 dual attacks to play with, encouraging you to swap attunements and really mix and match (or so I thought). But on your note, I guess that's also kinda the Catalysts bag, because they have the whole Hammer 3, whatever it's called, which wants you to literally hammer through all the elements and then....uh, I forgot that one too.

But yeah, I get what you're saying. It really doesn't feel like they encourage you to use all of them.

 

51 minutes ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

i will say that the avg %time spent between attunements is already lopsided though since fire is always the main damage attunement, water is usually irrelevant until youre dying and air & earth are heavily situational and not useful staying in

That's kind what I've noticed and I'm....disappointed, I guess. It feels like Fire = Damage, Water = Healing, Air = Speed, Earth = ...I'm not exactly sure WHAT Earth is for, honestly. Which I find disappointing. I know I probably shouldn't be comparing it to GW1 (which was clearly superior) but none of the elements there seemed so pidgeon-holed. Maybe that's the mistake I keep making when I look at the elementalist is assuming that all the elements are created equal and equally useful.

[Gendalfs.7521]

If only elementalist could weapon swap to staff it could become one man army, but as it goes now, you focus on one role and have other elements to assist you in hard times. Im not Tempest main, but I play fire wizard camping fire and only switching elements when theres need for extra heal or protection.

[peperoncino.2516]

31 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

encouraging you to swap attunements and really mix and match (or so I thought)

yep, exactly the opposite. in fact, it boils down to just having another good skill "in-between" of what would be your two best attunements for the selected weapon. 

39 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I guess that's also kinda the Catalysts bag, because they have the whole Hammer 3

not only hammer, its whole jade sphere energy mechanic - you wont generate any energy for ~4secs after casting a sphere (never mentioned in the game btw). that, and because each attunements jade sphere has its own cd, you are encouraged to cast different spheres in quick succession out of each attunement, so you are locked out of generating energy for less time.

27 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

You might not expect an answer, but you get one whether you like it or not.

im not usually like that.. is that a tad too edgy? on second thought, it really might be... x_x

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

5 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Okay. You have a lot of good stuff there. And when it comes to looking up builds I actually use...hold on...Metabattle when I look up builds. The problem I have with yours as I do with theirs as well is that every build is really built to do, like, one thing. WHich is fine. My ranger is a really good beast master. My mesmer is a condi-staff nightmare. My guardian....I'm still not sure what exactly guardians....do....but here's my point. Even your build is a fire/Earth/Weaver build. Which I'm sure is fine! But what about water? What about air? As I said above, I feel like I was sold an elementalist that's supposed to be like all my GW1 builds rolled into a single character that just doesn't work as advertised. And is that me? Am I wrong here? Are they wrong here? This is why I need help from other ele's.

If you're looking for a build that uses all attunements, it is Catalyst.  It is difficult to recommend a specific build, though, because of that same issue: catalyst does everything.  It can use every trait line, and it has many goals it can accomplish.  You can run Fire/Arcane with a concentration sigil and run a boon build with full Berserker gear.  You can run Fire/Air for pure power DPS.  You can run Fire/Water or Air/Water to have greater self recovery and aura share.  I'm assuming you've already rejected the snowcrows and metabattle builds, so if you want an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink build, I'd go with something like this.

It isn't going to win any awards, but in general usage it is going to be quite good.  The water and arcane lines give you plenty of self-sustain.  The build has enough boon duration to run as a support, in spite of wearing full berserker gear.  This thing is going to vomit out a lot of boons to anyone standing nearby.  Hammer is capable of doing decent damage in all attunements.  As always, glyph of storms is a must have for how versatile it is.  You can use Elemental Celerity as a grab bag, ether gaining lost momentum, doubling up CC while in Air, or as an emergency button for Arcane Shield and to double Crashing Font for twice as much healing.  The Augments are there mostly to increase damage, and can be changed out for different utilities. 

There's only two real drawbacks, aside from the lower damage.  The first is that hammer can be quite unrelenting to play, requiring a lot of key presses to work effectively.  The second is that, while technically the weapon has mixed ranges, in any practical sense this is a melee build.  Sandstorm and the self-healing is there to alleviate pressure, but it is still quite possible to get completely clobbered during a fight.  

[luigrein.8514]

9 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

 That's kind what I've noticed and I'm....disappointed, I guess. It feels like Fire = Damage, Water = Healing, Air = Speed, Earth = ...I'm not exactly sure WHAT Earth is for, honestly. Which I find disappointing. I know I probably shouldn't be comparing it to GW1 (which was clearly superior) but none of the elements there seemed so pidgeon-holed. Maybe that's the mistake I keep making when I look at the elementalist is assuming that all the elements are created equal and equally useful.

I generally explain ele as: Each attunement is good at two things. Fire= power damage and condi damage, air = power damage and cc, earth = condi damage and defensive utility, water = healing and utility. Depending on what your build is trying to do, your probably going to be leaning heavy on 2 elements and the others will sorta just be there. With the caveat that this is a trend rather than an ironclad rule.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

8 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

There's only two real drawbacks, aside from the lower damage.  The first is that hammer can be quite unrelenting to play, requiring a lot of key presses to work effectively.  The second is that, while technically the weapon has mixed ranges, in any practical sense this is a melee build.  Sandstorm and the self-healing is there to alleviate pressure, but it is still quite possible to get completely clobbered during a fight.  

I still think that hammer should be mixed from melee to 900... the current mixed range up to 600 is just duel dagger 2.0

[ShadowKatt.6740]

8 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

I still think that hammer should be mixed from melee to 900... the current mixed range up to 600 is just duel dagger 2.0

That's actually something that bothers me. Maybe it's just me but I want my melee weapons to be melee weapons. I want my ranged weapons to be ranged weapons. THis half-range kitten just feels like an excuse for them to nerf the damage because, well, you can hit them from two paces away. But if I was two paces away I have OTHER things to use instead, or I'd be using a ranged weapon anyway.

Is this their way of trying to compensate because Ele's don't have weapon swap? Just give you one weapon at mid range that more or less just kinda sucks at either range?

[Chyro.1462]

If you want a robust allrounder that is good for open world / story, I'd recommend a fire/arcane/tempest in celestial gear.

Arcane gives you boons while swapping to elements, which encourages going through all elements even if only shortly to gain boons. Also reduces the attunement cooldown. Fire is the best offensive traitline. Tempest cause its easier to play than the other two, and overloads encourage swapping elements - also quite robust if you keep up boons and use celestial gear, cause increased dmg reduction from protection due to a tempest minor trait.

In the tempest traits, first row is usually always the bottom one - aura when finishing overload. In the middle row you can take top for more damage whenever you proc an aura (on overload, some shouts, or weapon aura skills, or combos). Alternatively the middle trait for swiftness + stability whenever you start an overload. Great if you often get your overloads interrupted and wnat to ignore enemy CC (and swiftness always feels nice to have). Mid bottom trait would be more of a support or sustain option, giving vigor and regen through auras. For the cap-stone trait, top one is a huge dmg boost whenever you finish a overload. Middle one if you like having alac up (cd reduction). Bottom one if you want tons of healing/sustain.

In Fire its generally top-top-top for damage. You can run middle one in middle if you want more condi cleanse (again on auras).

For Arcane I'd recommend top-bottom for the first two rows, then in the third its either mid for more condi dmg (must take 'arcane power' as utility then, best with lesser elementals to apply the arcane power buff to multiple allies if not in a group - else its not really worth it) or bottom for more direct damage per boon on you. The top option is a versatile option that causes elemental effects at the end of your dodge roll, but can be hard to use optimally. In the middle row, the bottom option works great with the greater elemental elite - cause it can proc on the elemental's command skill too (so can get a lesser arcane shield every 20sec though may not line up if using the elemental's command on cooldown. is great defensive utlity either way though, and can protect your overloads from being interrupted). I also like the top trait in middle, lets you revive others quickly - more of a support option thou.

Dunno if that's the kind of build you're looking for. You'd be mostly swapping between fire and earth to keep overloads going, maybe also air since you can do some direct dmg too with cele gear (build is better at condi damage thou). Can go in water whenever you have need of sustain and healing. For the weapon would be either scepter-warhorn (more range) or dagger warhorn (more mobility), though can play with any weapons you like. Open world doesn't require a super optimized build, anything can work and having something well rounded often functions better than some glass canon build.

[zeyeti.8347]

First of all , buy a pillow so at least you can get comfortable when you are down.

And if you want to deal ludicrous damage buy 2-3 extra mouses and keyboard cause you gonna ruin them.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I usually start with Fire / Arcane as traitlanes, then add Reaper or Mechanist.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

21 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

That's actually something that bothers me. Maybe it's just me but I want my melee weapons to be melee weapons. I want my ranged weapons to be ranged weapons. THis half-range kitten just feels like an excuse for them to nerf the damage because, well, you can hit them from two paces away. But if I was two paces away I have OTHER things to use instead, or I'd be using a ranged weapon anyway.

Is this their way of trying to compensate because Ele's don't have weapon swap? Just give you one weapon at mid range that more or less just kinda sucks at either range?

i really don't know what they were thinking... with the following weapons:

staff: 1200 range support (with fire as DPS, everything else is support/ control)

scepter: 900 range condi DPS

dagger: 0-600 range DPS

Dagger oh: 0-600 range DPS / support

focus: 1200 range support

warhorn: 900 range DPS/ support

sword: melee DPS

Hammer: 0-600 range DPS: dagger + dagger 2.0

pistol: (usually 900 range DPS): Scepter 2.0

Notice how there's still no 1200 range DPS weapon. and way too many 600 range weapons. My elementalist lacks the ranged nuke / artillery build (sorry, meteor shower doesn't count as an entire build.)

i'm still miffed at how ANET describes elementalist as range class, but then they focus on melee specs for it : Master Minor traits are 3 out of 4 melee in the fire/water/air/earth lines... Tempest overloads are melee, Shouts are practically melee. Stances and Augments are melee, Hammer and Sword are basically melee.3 out of the 5 cojures are melee. FGS is 600 range, icebow is 900 range. i'm with all the folks wanting a 1200-1500 longbow designed for ranged DPS (not mainly support / control like staff).. i actually fleshed out a nice longbow with GW1 elemental arrows / javelins (longbow could be used as a staff for javelins and obsidian spells from GW1) and some blockhate (some arrows would explode if blocked doing minor condition damage up to high AoE depending on skill position / strength)

[Panda.1967]

On 10/4/2023 at 10:41 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

but there's more than that. Because an elementalist doesn't just pick up a dagger or a sword or a scepter and go to town. THey have fire AND water AND lightning AND earth, and each one of them has its own specialization trait line. Meaning that my mesmer has a total of 5 builds, but an elementalist? That's, like....base + specs x elements....16 different builds. You can't even buy that many build slots.

Elementalist doesn’t run that many builds… you use all 4 elements in any build… though some builds will favor 1 or 2 elements more than the others… you have to learn to play the Attunement swap piano when playing Elementalist.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

I forgot to actually add some input to builds:

i found that the most basic open world build to play as an elementalist is Fire/ Air/ Tempest (mostly damage traits, including Pyromancer's Puissance for easy might generation while solo-ing) using marauders / bersekers gear (half and half mix works for me... gives me enough vitality to not die from an enemy's mean look), weapon: either staff (all ranged, fire damage, CC to help kite on all the other attunements) or scepter (ranged)+ dagger (point blank AoE range, from GW1 jargon), and glyphs for heal , all 3 utility slots and elite. (glyphs give minions that can keep aggro off you and add some damage) Tempest elite trait-line will give you overloads for melee damage, and stunbreaks, and buffs. and the water overload is a nice extra heal when needed.

this is NOT a t4 fractal build or a raid build, but something more forgiving that you can learn elementalist with (due to minions and overloads), trying out new weapons as you get used to the old ones, as you get more comfortable with the attunement swapping. (you'll probabl;y stick with fire for your DPS and use the others if you need for healing (water) or CC (you'll learn what does what eventually)

this is also based on offense, as i personally found that doing more damage quickly made things easier for me. taking arcane instead of air reduces damage, but does add more survivability. Also, Elementalist is a profession that can actually utilize celestial stat gear (as was also mentioned by others) because it does both power and condition damage, provides  offensive and defensive boons, and also the stats themselves give more vitality and toughness... but it will take longer to kill veteran/ elite mobs... and especially champions if you advanced enough to be able to take them on.

[Panda.1967]

I have 3 elementalists…

A Tempest running Scpeter/Warhorn with Arcane/Water specs… mainly built for healing, but does solo OW content fairly decently…

A Weaver running Sword who I keep switching between Focus & Dagger for offhand, she’s spec’d Fire/Air… she pulls damage but she is glass… 

& A Catalyst running Earth/Arcane currently using Hammer but I plan to use Pistol on her when the update hits… I’m still experimenting with her build… I know Earth spec is suboptimal for any elementalist… but I want all my elementalists to feel unique from eachother already have a heal/support and a glass cannon DPS… so I’m experimenting with a CC/Tank build…

Edited October 11, 2023 by Panda.1967

[ShadowKatt.6740]

So I've spent some time playing around with my ele, worrying less about the build and more about just...doing. I'm absolutely a staff ele. In particular I'm enjoying being a classic nuker with Lava Font, Firestorm, and Meteor Shower, just like back in GW1 BUT I am getting better at rotating through my elements with Ice Spike, Frozen Ground, Eruption, and Unsteady Ground. I'm running Fire and Arcane and that seems to be working well...but now I have a problem. The unanswerable question:

Tempest? Weaver? Or Catalyst?

It's hard to pick. I'm not sure I entirely understand the Catalyst or what it's supposed to do. But I do know that the Tempest is a better nuker with its PBAOE, but I'm also a fan of the dual attacks, mixing and matching as a Weaver. And...yeah, still don't get the Catalyst, but Jade Spheres are okay? I guess? I don't understand the point. But I want your opinions.